Larry, supposing that there's not much more that needs to be said, invites Cal to move as soon as he feels like it.
"Let's go, dude. Haven't got all day to hang around in Hell.""Truer words have never been spoken, bro," says Cal, still glowing quite intensely, and together the two leave the ruined office of Finch, leaving the van behind as they move out into a hallway with a conspicuous floral wallpaper and a gray floor, one that stretches out into the far distance, with a great many slightly widened 4-way intersections along the way. Doors of varying quality are placed regularly along the walls, plus a soda machine or two along the way. Shadows move across the hall and down it regularly, their eyes largely some shade of green, although not exclusively so - a few yellow-eyed shadows as well as a single cyan-eyed one are visible along the length of the passage.
"Cripes, it's going to take forever to get anywhere. Screw it, take my hand," says Cal, extending a palm toward Larry. Larry, seeing no reason not to, grabs it, and instantly feels like this may not have been a good idea, as in a single moment he feels like he has been stretched across the length of about five miles, the next moment entailing his body snapping across that length rather uncomfortably, going through the seemingly infinite hallways of this office complex, ten floors down a rather large elevator shaft, spending about a second in a massive thoroughfare, through several places that look like access tunnels, then finally coming to a stop at what may or may not be their destination.
Where they find themselves now is clearly a lounge of some sort - it's reasonably spacious (at least horizontally speaking - the ceiling is only about two meters high), filled with couches and coffee tables, on each of which sit no less that three and no more than eight shadows with eyes of orange or yellow. The tables are all filled with what look like mugs in various states of dirtiness. The place itself, abuzz with conversation, immediately quiets as the two appear. All eyes are on Cal and Larry, and they are about to start feeling a tad uncomfortable, but the public at large then seems to realize that they're not nearly interesting enough to warrant any form of gawking, and then mostly return to their chatting. Some still gawk, granted, but they seem like an unpleasant lot, Larry decides. Meanwhile, the blue-eyed shadows skipping about the place and ensuring a steady flow of full mugs to the tables and empty mugs to regularly-spaced pillars with what look like dumbwaiters installed in them do not seem to have noticed the arrivals in any significant way.
"Right, then. Larry, you know anything about real estate? I'm thinking maybe I should let you take the initiative here."* * * * *
John is mildly disappointed at the way it seems that no maiming shall be taking place today, making sure the safety's still on for his revolver. Noticing that it doesn't actually have a safety, John is a tad disquieted. Guess he'll just have to try to not cock it by accident. Hm.
"Would you like to go first, Tracey?" he asks.
"No way, man. You're the one with the experience, you go first. I'll be, uh, taking notes," Tracey says, taking a step away from him and the others as if to further affirm the desire to be second in line. John shrugs and decides to get this over with as quickly as possible, and takes up a fighting position along with Stan twenty paces from one another in the backyard of the house, beyond which there is only a sparsely wooded area with no other potential witnesses.
"Okay, you've got one minute to prepare, starting... now," says Pilton, acting as arbiter of the duel. At his signal, Stan immediately works some sort of magic, and in his hand a shape very reminiscent of a longsword begins to form. Pilton stands with his back against the house's back door, and Tracey has sat down right next to him, watching with a very thoughtful expression.
* * * * *
Dave has little to lose now aside from his very existence, and thus he tries to scream out his urgent need to all who may listen.
~GIVE ME ENERGY. I NEED IT TO LIVE!~Sadly, his psychic voice is of insufficient audibility, his presence too weak and growing weaker still, diffusing into the fabric of the denture plane. He screams for help for as long as he can, past the point where he can recall his name, remember the face of his mother or understand the words of his spells, and with a final inarticulate shriek, Dave fades out entirely, with only Charles even vaguely noticing as the world becomes one unfortunate schlub poorer. Solemnly hanging his head low, Charles holds a moment of silence in Dave's memory before letting his resolve to be the best sequel to his former owner that he possibly can be take hold.
He turns to the Denture God, the mass of spiraling rows of teeth looking slightly quizzical, calling out for Dave periodically before giving the divine equivalent of a shrug and continuing on. It does not even appear to know what has just transpired. With a loud squeal, Charles petitions for the god's attention, which it readily provides. It is from this point that discussions of the future may begin, and it is quite the future that Charles intends to secure for himself, no doubt.
Dave is completely and utterly dead, killed by overload of elemental divine power.* * * * *
With a trip to the store seeming like a reasonable enough task for even him not to cock up beyond all repair,
THE DUNKER beckons the lawyer woman to follow him on his quest after quickly ascertaining that the store in question seems to be located just off Import Avenue right behind a steak house, the giant fork atop which is apparently rather difficult to miss.
"We'll go there'll then. Come, lawyer person!" he says with a healthy sense of drama, and the lawyer-woman gets up calmly and follows without another word at a brisk pace, seemingly quite eager to keep the fellow out of any trouble. Together they descend the stairs and get right out of the factory, then locate the giant fork, which is indeed clearly visible from the street if one looks carefully enough, and then proceed in that direction, saying nothing to each other. The lawyer-babe appears to have an interesting habit of shooting glances all about, presumably looking for trouble along the way. One wonders if she does that all the time, or she has simply heard something of THE DUNKER's exploits thus far.
In any case, the trip is uneventful, and soon THE DUNKER and his lovely escort enter the store. Inside they see what is definitely a very archetypical mom-and-pop operation. Elderly owners working at the register gossiping about something inane, slightly tacky ambiance, a moment of odd looks devoted at new arrivals, hideously overpriced produce from mildly questionable 'local' sources, store music provided by an old radio, that sort of thing. Now, how would one approach a situation like-
"Hello. I'd like some margarine, please," the lawyer-babe says to the man at the register, striding confidently forward with a smile. The man quickly retrieves the single store-available brand, which seems to cost 3 dollars per package, then asks if she needs anything else. She asks for two more packages, which the man readily provides, then pays for it in cash in a very quick and efficient manner, saying thank you as she turns to to leave. She then walks back to THE DUNKER before he has a chance to react, handing him all three packages and ushering him back out of the store.
"So, now we have margarine. Have you any other urgent needs, or shall we return immediately?" she asks offhandedly, already guiding her companion on a return path, seemingly only even bothering to say anything out of elementary politeness.
* * * * *
Eta realizes that there's no real point to haggling when she has a nigh-infinite supply of trade goods, and simply accepts the shade's deal.
"You drive a hard bargain friend. Consider yourself lucky I am in a hurry. It is agreed.""Very good," the shade says, accepting the pair of golden shoes and quickly placing them in a small box behind the counter of its kiosk.
"Now, what will you have?"After a moment of deliberation, Eta decides to go with Yummy Umami water and a Saltmint treat, since of the combinations offered (including such wonderful flavors as Bitter Lipid) these seem to offer the most novelty versus likely grossness. The water comes in a very thin plastic cup with a lid and seems to be lukewarm, while the yeast treat is rather warm and packed in very dry paper with a single opening. Pressing the yeast treat seems to let it come through the opening, sort of like pressing on a balloon. Since this seems like it's meant to eat on the go, Eta proceeds to walk with Caradog, taking a bite of the treat and finding that it does indeed seem to be salty and minty at the same time and in equal measure, which is certainly an odd sensation to feel in one's mouth. Washing it down with a bit of umami water works out nicely, even if Eta's slightly unused to water tasting significantly of glutamate.
"So, is this thing we're doing work related? What is your job down here anyway?" she asks of Caradog as they proceed along the moving walkway train.
"Oh, we're essentially doing debt collection. And by that I mean that you're doing debt collection, since the people we're dealing with would pretty easily recognize me. What you're going to have to do is find a particular dumbass with a debt, make sure it's the dumbass I want by having him admit his name, and from there I'll take over. I'm not actually a debt collector, mind you. This is just a favor someone's cashing in, and I figure you can help me out with it very nicely. Speaking of, here's our exit," Clive explains, leading Eta off the walkway into a nearby station, very similar to the one they entered the walkway with, though with slightly fewer staircases. A sign seems to indicate that they are currently in a place called the "AR Cross Station", though Eta doesn't get to examine the place for too long, as Clive quickly leads her up the leftmost staircase and up into what looks like a multi-level street, with catwalks connected by staircases going for what looks like a hundred stories up and a hundred stories down. The rather large structure is flanked by impossibly tall walls on both sides that converge in the distance both in front of her and behind her, hinting at a rather massive length in total. It's slightly surreal to look upon it all, and thus it's probably a good thing that she doesn't get to, as Clive leads her in a rather exhausting trip up, down, then up again several flights of stairs and across several catwalks, and Eta finds herself practically submerged in the foot traffic - the whole network of catwalks is hard to appreciate due to the seemingly millions of shades wandering through it, largely shades of the blue and purple eyed persuasion, it seems, though a few cyans, teals and an occasional green can be found.
Hell's pretty bad if one doesn't like crowds, it seems. It's also a place where one is in a constant rush to get somewhere, or is it just Clive who's trying to take Eta somewhere at a mildly feverish pace to the point where she quickly loses track of where she's going, where she came from and even how far she seems to have gone. In any case, they manage to land in front of a doorway eventually after she manages to lose track of time as well in a final surge of helplessness.
"Right, we're here. Now, you go in here and look for the Toe Pine Seven block. Might take a while, but make sure to consult the map that's in the lobby. I'll be going off to do something else for the moment. The shithead you're looking for is Zigward Bonzo. He's got purple eyes and he's living on a block of people with purple eyes. You need him to admit his name, and then say my name three times. It's like serving a subpoena. Don't tell him you're here to collect a debt, just come up with some bullshit, you know. Any questions? Make it quick, I shouldn't linger," he says in a rushed manner, pointing at the doorway, which Eta can vaguely perceive as the shades keep streaming past the two of them.
* * * * *
Halesey, struck by inspiration as God points him in the most obvious of directions, tries to cast a potato vortex on the nearby area.
[Halesey's affinity roll: 5+1]
The vortex, unsurprisingly, appears without issue seemingly without heed to Halesey's currently absent (or, rather, vortexed) arms and legs, and Halesey tries to get himself free to swim toward it and out into freedom.
[Halesey's body roll: 6-->1]
He pulls all of his limbs out simultaneously with the minimum necessary number of joint dislocations (that is to say three of them) and tries to set all three of them in place simultaneously for the sake of symmetry - he succeeds, of course, but not without an amount of screaming and flailing that is sufficiently untoward that he feels the need to clear his throat politely for a few moments before proceeding to the vortex he just made, his limbs a little wobbly from the ridiculous abuse he just put them through.
However, he does manage to flop out on the other end, feeling very strange inside as the vortex on his torso goes inside out during the transition. Flopping around like a disfigured fish for a few seconds, he stands up and looks around the place he's in.
Huh. Looks like he's back at that factory where the fat dude who gave him magic resides. Who would've thunk it?
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Topic: The Forgotten Art: Approaching the Nexus (Read 255147 times)