Approach the woman and whisper to her: "Help me...."
If the woman responds and is willing to help me, say the following:
"The name's Arnie. What's your name, miss'? Do ya know where I can grab a beer? I can trade ya sumthin real useful if ya get me a beer."
If the woman provides me with a beer, then give her the snake canister and say: "Thanks, miss'. This can help ya with your problems. Drink it and not nobody will mistreat you ever again."
You creep up to the woman and whisper almost imperceptibly for help, a thousand mouths making a thousand sounds that coalesce into a single message just on the edge of hearing, just enough to get her attention - she turns her head, startled despite your subtlety, and looks your way as she continues to walk, her eyes seeing right through you... but not through your possessions, all trailing along in a line within your sphere of influence. She freezes at the sight.
"Wh... what the fuck do you want?" she asks quietly, then thinks for a second. "Who the hell is this? Tell me!" she then says much louder before you can reply. This is a question you are well-prepared to answer - moving closer, you introduce yourself and state your need. The woman listens with a mixture of horror and resignation, seemingly not having it in her to run much further tonight than she already has.
"A... a beer?" she says, looking confused. "You want... I... I can get you a beer, if you... just let me go, okay? Anything you want, yeah? There... there ought to be a store here someplace, yeah? So... if we just walk over there? Yeah?"
Lacie let out a long deep sigh, this was just what she needed now. For a moment she hesitated, looking around her messy apartment and then down at her body once again. She wasn't sure for how long she could hide it, but if she had any choice in the matter she did not want him to be the first one to find out. The thief took a step backwards and finally spoke,
"It's not a good time, come back later." she knew he wouldn't accept this lame response but she needed time to think as she backed slowly into the room.
"Oh, I'm sure it isn't," Mr. Dewey says as you start to back away. "You looked under the weather when you came in this morning, is all, and I thought I'd check on whether you're all right. A mighty neighborly visit."
As you make your way back along the hallway, the knock is repeated. Mr. Dewey says something else, but it's a little hard to make out precisely what that might be.
Yvone started, with her mother, the long walk home.
"So, were you worried about me?
"Of course I did! You may make feel like killing you sometimes, but you'll always be my baby.
"Mom!"
"Ha! But honestly, Yvonne, I will always love you. You're my baby. My daughter."
You follow the roots, the streetlights sharpening your senses, letting you gauge the patterns in the streets so well you hardly even need to think as you proceed home along a path you have never taken before along the neighborhood market where stands filled with prodigious vegetation and all manner of mind-altering substances await - you are, of course, not particularly interested. At this point you are not even speaking with your mother - the two of you merely proceed home, the peace settling well in the back of your mind.
However, as your mind carries you home in a perfectly intuitive, unthinking fashion, you do notice many things in town. A mystifying artistic statement or perhaps merely an abandoned car catches your eye, and you imagine it working again, flying even, slicing through a building as if it were air... you'd need some work for it, you think, but... mm, there's a power line - if only you could get a powerful enough transmitter to hook it up to, why... and there's a transformer box. A number of interesting designs spring to mind for that. A versatile thing, certainly. Your heart starts to race again as a light red scent hits your nostrils, an echo from before. Gets one in a certain mood, to be sure. The peace starts to recede, your fingers begin to fidget, performing delicate movements as they reenact programmed motions that you do not think you've ever done before.
As you get to your room back home, you can see them everywhere. A million ways to make all things sharp and animate, pack them with little strands of atomic sharpness ready to snap at command. As you cross the doorstep, an idea for a motion sensor comes to you, perhaps coupled with a fingerprint scanner outside - combine the two, and if someone you do not want here tries to come in, well... this would certainly be a persuasive argument for keeping them out. Your clothes start to feel insufficient - your feather boa seems so useless now, so lacking in anything to help you defend yourself - had the boy in the school not been as high as you were, or resistant, you would not have had time to do what you did with your phone. But the boa's not the only place you could put something in, perhaps a bracelet would do just as well... hm, why not do both, in fact? It will take a trip to an electronics store, certainly - a trip that would take you outside of Edtown. And since that's pretty far off, while you're there you could get some other things to secure secure your room as well as your person...
You look at your hands and notice a slight tremor. Inhaling, you bring the idea of the door trap to the front of your mind, imagining with incredible precision the number of steps required to render your home impossible to violate, and you see your hands become completely steady, fingers flexing in preparation for the work to be done. You suddenly feel incredibly dangerous, the sensation of deadly power mounting in your mind.
Kyle takes off the mask and turns to his family.
"This has been a hell of a day. Let's go home."
with a collective nod from the rest of his family, the group heads for the car and gets ready to leave.
It's a bit awkward, driving your car in a bear suit like you are, but you manage to get into the car and get the hell out of here and back home - the drive is fortunately uneventful. You're not sure who exactly would dare interfere with you at this point. The Churchboys weren't exactly an influential bunch, to the point where you wonder why somebody would even screw you over in favor of them. The things these fucking people do in the business. Maybe would have been better to kill each and every one of them, now that you think about it. Not that you'd expect Tubby of all people to try and take revenge on you later.
Nevertheless, they do know where you live, considering how they kidnapped your family and all. And your contact was probably the one who told them. This has all the makings of a very uncomfortable situation to come, since you're not exactly sure who else you need to kill to make all this go away, if anyone. Admittedly, being a parahuman, not that you've given it much thought, opens up a lot of new options that your average beardy drug courier didn't have, such as just plain wasting everyone who's ever known you in the business and starting fresh, though that's probably not Plan A in any case given that you would say only
most of them are assholes who would have it coming.
In any case, you get home. Sweet home. Wonder if you'll have to move now. Such a shame - you've got a nice home, don't you?
Vel hums quietly. Sound with a tempo often helping him think and focus. He attempts to reach out. Attempts to snag a kernel without leaving the basement.
You hum and feel your voice reach out, bouncing off the walls and filling the room, finding nothing. You try to push your way out of the basement, but it simply does not appear to work. Nothing for you to catch in this fashion, you would say. Which means, of course, that you might need to climb up those damn stairs again. What an inconvenient diversion this is turning out to be.
Alex would quietly think. Out of curiosity, he would try to adjust his mother's flame, like he did to his dad. Maybe that's what he did? If he couldn't, he would just check on a credit scam he set up. He could earn enough money easily as a white hat, but quick cash was useful. Especially for getting that Napalm.
You stare into your mother's eyes, kindling the ember in her brain, watching it slowly build up a light pulse as she looks back at you in puzzlement. She starts to blink as the light within grows and glows, and starts to squint at you a little.
"What?" she asks after a moment. "What? It was a reasonable question. He does seem a little strange, right?" she turns to look at him. "It's unlike him to be this way. George, are you all right?"
"I feel wonderful!" your dad replies. "Haven't felt this way since... well, ever!"
"You've caught something," she says decisively. "There's no other explanation. So off to bed with you!"
"Since when is feeling great a disease?" dad shoots back defensively.
"With you it's impossible to know, really," your mother says. "When's the last time you felt great, anyway?"
Your dad thinks for a second.
"2005, I'd say. Maybe 2007 qualifies as well. So I do see your point," he muses. "But... hm. Maybe it
is some kind of brain disease?"
"Maybe it's a stroke," your mom adds.
"Maybe I have only minutes to live! Or maybe an hour! Possibly not more than that, though," he nods along. "I may very well not see tomorrow!"
Your mother leans against the table, looking thoughtful. "Today, you mean?"
"No, tomorrow! I think today is already here, Linda. I can see it just fine," he says, looking out the window. It's dark out. "Well, maybe not. But the point stands! I'm going to die!"
"That
is concerning, yes," your mother nods along. "We should call an ambulance, maybe?"
"Oh, no need. They can pick me up later when I'm dead," your dad explains. "There is no time to waste! We must get my affairs in order! First off, I've never loved you, Linda," he says, walking up to your mother and taking her hand. "You were a rebound that got seriously out of hand."
"Really? I don't think I've ever loved you either, George," your mother replies in a curious voice. "I mean, I did say I did, but I don't think I really meant it, now that you mention it. I think I just failed to find any good reason to break up before you proposed, so I just went along with it."
"Oh?" your father intones curiously, and your mother shrugs.
"Though you did have a certain charm, of course. And you did meet certain standards of mine even if I failed to find any sort of soulful bond with you. And you looked
very good in a tuxedo, too," she continues.
"That I did. Though you could really fill out a dress in your own right, of course," your dad muses, starting to smile again as he looks at your mother. "And still can, I might add. I mean, sure, the emotions aren't really there, but at least you happened to retain your good looks. I sometimes look at other senators' wives and shudder, truthfully."
"Aw, George. You're still kinda handsome, too, for what it's worth," she says. "At least you won't die shriveled and ancient like me."
"Oh, it's all right, Linda. You have a good 15 years of seducing starry-eyed interns in you! Don't let any of them go to waste on my account!" your dad says encouragingly.
"What a flatterer you are. I'm starting to see why I keep you around! Come here, you!" your mom says, getting up from the table as she shares an uncomfortably long kiss with your dad. You think they've entirely forgotten about you at this point.
"What even is 'it'?" ask's steven somewhat concerned now that theres some kind of B-grade horror movie monster likely feedng off of corpses in the basement.
"This is yet another exceptionally good reason as to why you should never follow an armed man to his unlit basement."
"Fuck it, lets just get this over with."
With a few muttered curses Steven slowly descends the stairs until he is standin in the middle of the room.
Eager to leave as soon as possible he carefully, and quickly fires a series of tightly focused shockwaves around the room at whatever he suspects to be a corpse, making sure to fire unfocused but equally powrful shockwaves out behind him to brace him against the recoil.
"Hard to say," Z tells you when you ask about the monster. You step into the basement, walking forward. You don't hear anything, and you can only barely see anything. You focus your eyes on one particular corner, where you think you might have seen something move. Perhaps you ought to-
-the door closes, plunging the room into total darkness. Shit. You think you hear something moving toward you. Well, gonna have to do this by ear. You focus the blast one way, and are lifted off your feet as a shockwave roars into the room, the sound of bending and twisting metal furniture mingling with squelching sounds. You fire off a shockwave behind you, sending you flying toward the exploded direction - you pick up a little rotation, and in the dark start to lose your direction as you continue to fire off more explosions. You smash into a wall painfully after less than 10 seconds, but continue exploding resolutely once per second for about a minute more, then pause for a moment to evaluate the change in the situation. Something around your foot twitches lightly.
After about a minute more of unfocused exploding you think you've done it. Nothing's moving as far as you can tell, and no sound can be heard within the room. And the air now has a nice tinge of ozone to it to offset the way the rest of the scents available make you want to vomit profusely.
It's still completely dark in here. And you think you got turned around a little while you were blowing the place up.
Rachel looks around. "Dad? Where are you? Where am I? What happened to me?"
Your dad is silent for a moment. You hear him breathing and muttering vaguely before he returns to normal speech.
"You're... you're in a lab, Rachel... we... I saved you! But now... you have to run! They're about to break through... there's not much time left. Rachel, you must-"
There is a sudden, rapid burst of ear-piercing white noise, over almost as soon as it began. When it's subsided, you hear a voice. It's not a human voice - it has the sound of a text-to-speech program with the pitch turned all the way down, carrying little signs of understanding or humanity.
"
CONNECTION REESTABLISHED," it booms from an unclear source. "
UNKNOWN SUBJECT: IDENTIFY YOURSELF. YOU ARE NOT LOGGED. IDENTIFY YOURSELF. THE ELDER EYE SEES ALL."
The light in the hallway you are occupying flickers three times in a regular fashion.
"
REPEAT, UNIDENTIFIED SUBJECT: IDENTIFY YOURSELF. THE ELDER EYE SEES ALL."
Author
Topic: Come On Down To Edwardstown: A Worm-Inspired RP (9/9) (Read 17124 times)