Other Writing Examples!

Obuzeti · May 31, 2023

As I'm a relative newcomer to RPNation, and my record of posting has been unfortunately scattered across half a dozen sites, Discord, and various email chains, I'm collating a selection of writing examples here for people to take a look at so they have some evidence of my writing chops (which I will link in my sig shortly) - and also, for my own reference in some other matters. Cheers!

I'll be posting the start of each thread in its own post with a smattering of followups to give the atmosphere and feel of the thread. Full thread postings would just be obtuse, but three or four doesn't sound too bad - mods, feel free to stick a finger in my eye if I'm wrong.

Obuzeti · May 31, 2023

I'll start this off with Eigengrau, an old mystery / occult thread of mine with Apollo Wilde, who I remember fondly, even if we annoyed each other horrendously. Here's hoping you found good folk out there.

So this is what the end of your career is going to look like.

The office is a tiny, cramped corner with a dim bulb that the janitor always seems to forget to replace, but it's what you've gotten after years in the force. Even consecutive years of budget raises, trying to get ahead of panicking, furious voters haven't managed to get you anything approaching a real investigator's office, but at least the functional door means your ass isn't getting pinched by every asshole that walks by. It's a tiny achievement, but in the nigh-chavunistic subculture that is criminal justice, that's all you get.

Your boss stares you down, over the papers before you that are spelling out bad things in your immediate future. There's photographs of clean houses - sterilized floors, all the furniture removed and the walls carefully stripped of knickknacks. Their barrenness sets a cold creep down your spine. There's nothing to recover in these places, not even ruins. They've been looted of humanity, and what's left is a life-hull, not even the negative image of who once lived there. It smacks of nothing less than total negation, and the level of antipathy - nihilism - that implies is soul-shaking.

"We don't know anything, and we probably won't until the Unsub slips up," Acting Director James tells you, rubbing at the bridge of his nose with two fingers. The job's already stressing him out, not even two days in. Director Cochran had already resigned over this investigation. "I don't need to tell you about how likely that is - his methods haven't changed in four years. But I need a new brain, a different viewpoint, something, so you're getting transferred. I just thought you should hear it from me instead of through the grapevine."

The Eigengrau murder investigations are a department dead end. There's not much to solve or follow up on, and eventually the public pressure and lack of results, the sepulchral, sterilized homes the investigators see one after another, it all takes too much of a toll. Word around the office is that EG was where Cochran put people that complained too much as a pretext to disciplining them when nothing came up. Course, that turned around and bit him in the end too. These days, getting transferred there is informally called 'going cold', which is pretty much what it does to your career. The apology is nice, but it's a shit sandwich and he knows it.

The combined knowledge of the country's best investigators and crime scene forensics have determined that, periodically, a group of people known to associate together, usually two to three adults from mid-thirties to fifties, will vanish. Their homes will be stripped of personal effects and biological life - not even dust mites and bacteria survive the cleansing process.

That's it.

There's no bodies, no murder weapons, no tracks or trails. The disappearances all happen on the same night, but no one's spotted the precise moment of abduction, or whatever's cleaning out the living spaces. It's gone beyond creepy and into the outright bizarre, and it's spawned more conspiracy theories than the JFK assassination by now. It's been argued about elections and debated on talk shows, and word is there's two movies in the making about it, because fear sells, and life must go on. The forensic profile tentatively marks the Unsub down as a white male, twenty to forty-five years of age, but that's because nearly all serial killers fall within that demographic and everyone knows it by now, even the public. Some asshole on Infowars started calling it a conspiracy, the Eigengrau conspiracy, after the color you see in total darkness, your retina's rod cells firing into the silence trying to make sense of nothing. It fit too well, and the name stuck.

James spreads his hands, his face flat and tired. "Go back and visit the previous addresses. Try and stake out, if you have to, look to see if the Unsub's been visiting. Nelson's been trying to grow plants in the last apartment that got hit, but nothing will so much as put out a leaf. Try something along that angle. I'm spitballing at this point, and to be frank so should you. We're out of good ideas and it's time for stupid ones."

“This is bullshit.” A flat, apathetic tone – closer to a computer’s text to speech than an exclamation of annoyance. Compared to her younger days, some would assume that she was mellowing out. Bullshit, yes – unexpected: not entirely.

She had too much dirt on everyone to be cut free – if she was fired, all she needed to do was make one phone call to the local press. The entire Good Ole Boys club would be upended for sure – especially with how angry everyone was nowadays. And some folks were more partial to their jobs (and inevitable pensions) to risk it. So it’d be easier to shuttle her off to some dead end. They’d gotten rid of her contacts, shuttling the prostitutes and single mothers off on city-paid buses to new opportunities somewhere else.

Where the “somewhere” was mattered less than the fact that it was out of the city.

And that had effectively been the unspoken end of Day Hathaway’s “illustrious” career.

“ ‘Director,’” He added, in a apologetic, conciliatory tone. Bullshit or not, he could have busted her ass for the insubordination. Recalling the fury that lay under the perpetual “resting bitch face,” as the younger officers had put it, he thought against it. He had enough headaches without running the risk of unleashing Hathaway’s much justified fury.

“ ‘Director James’,” she said, her voice a low hiss, “This is bullshit.”

It was still the only appropriate thing to say – among the litany of things she could say about the case. She wasn’t entirely sure that it was a series of murders, let alone done by the same person. But where fact failed, the department had to be “creative” in what meager solution that they presented to an ever ravenous media. Well, whenever it flared up. The only good thing about the case was that people’s memories were short. Disappearances (and non-gory ones at that) were quickly forgotten under fresh horrors of school shootings, murder suicides, full color photos of gore spattered walls leaked to the internet from God knows where.

The sterile rooms presented in front of her were ideal.

Though, lately, it had begun to disturb her that bloody crime scenes didn’t immediately horrify like they used to.

She artfully bit the inside of her cheek to stall the laughter that threatened to spill out when he mentioned “plants.” No one wanted this case. There were betting pools on how long new officers assigned to it would last. The longest so far was a month. There simply wasn’t the time, nor the energy, to create a decent investigation. And so far, the Unsub (which was a ridiculous name in her opinion. Not like her opinion, or intellect, for that matter, really made a difference here) didn’t strike in the same place. There were no obvious tells, no pattern of ‘victims.’ Her personal theory was that it was some sort of cult (because it usually always was), but she hadn’t so much breathed a word of that. A cult in this day and age, post Jonestown, seemed preposterous.

But whatever.

It was a giant, bitter pill to swallow, but after all this time, not unexpected. The irony of it all was how easy it was for them in the end. Even after all of the hell she’d raised.

“I’ll get on it.”

____

The spaces had nothing in common.

They were owned by renters, by buyers, by first time homeowners and those who were selling their old houses to downsize. One lead out of the way. And there wasn’t so much as a speeding ticket between any of them. No “pillars of community” here: just mind-numbingly ordinary people. Normally, cults (and that’s what she was going to stick to, until someone had a better idea. The likelihood of that, well.) went after those who were dissatisfied with life, already somewhat isolated. Whatever thin ties they had, the cult would sever those as well.

Well. That was one minor thing – no families. At least, families with young children. In a sense, that was a smart course of action. All it took was one precious, missing white baby and everyone is up in arms. The age group wasn’t likely to raise eyebrows, either. Again – all it took was one precious, missing blonde white girl in her twenties to stir up a 24/7 news frenzy. But whoever these people were, they weren’t going after the dregs of society, either. Her “girls” on the street were quick to be thankful of that, at least.

Funny; she found herself spending more time with them (the ones that were left, anyway) than in the office, talking to her supposed “peers.” But at least they were thankful – the girls were. For the most part. Some were simply in too deep to get out.

With a long sigh, she closed the last, slim file on her desk. The Joneses – how disgustingly apt. In her dungeon of a corner “office,” it was difficult to tell what time it was. Relying on how much her legs ached was the best way to keep track of time. The digital clock on her desk was more of a fancy paperweight that occasionally played music than an accurate way of telling time. Slipping her feet out of her low heels, she pointed and flexed, mildly distracted by the luminescent blue polish she’d used. It was a startling electric against the café au lait of her skin. Standing, she took a leisurely stretch, arms extended high overhead. At least until she whacked her hand against the bare bulb that provided her with the little light she had. Swearing, she crouched low; looked up. Though the bulb swung wildly on its chain, it was still in tact.

Thank God for small blessings.

Rolling her shoulders back, she looked at the neat files on her desk. Bit her lower lip, tasting the faint traces of lipstick, coffee, and cigarette smoke that lingered there.

Well.

Mom had passed a few years back, her stepfather quickly following. There was no other family – save for, perhaps, her biological father’s. Not like she’d ever heard from him or his family. Ma had liked to idealize it; he’d left because pressure from his family wouldn’t allow for him to commit to a black woman. He was young, white, handsome, and had money: he couldn’t throw it all away on some “coloured wench.” Mom always was too soft hearted for her own good, and Day had long come to terms with her father being a fucking dirt bag. Either way, that had been years ago, back in Kingstown, and before Day’d been born.

She scowled, looking down at her feet again.

No lovers. No career left – if there ever truly was one to begin with. She was within the right “age” bracket. And an outsider, to boot.

It would make sense if she put herself in the Unsub’s path. But how?

The leads were few and far between.

Probationary Agent Nelson - informally known as the Gopher, or whatever degrading moniker one could come up with that wasn't a slur - had submitted his usual drivel on the subject. He was fascinated by the Eigengrau phenomena, had pictures tacked up on his cubicle wall of every scene so far, slightly marred by the fact that they all looked the fucking same and so no one could tell them apart. He liked to request ten to twelve hour stakeouts on the apartments, and the commissioner wouldn't stamp it on account of the fact he was just soaking overtime at this point. On the other hand, he'd put together a mildly useful range of miscellaneous facts about the apartments.

They were never rented back out, or truthfully even remodeled from their barren state. The eerie atmosphere wasn't just a trick of the mind - forensic analysis had picked up a layering just under the surface of the domicile's surface area, which was unnerving enough that it hadn't made it to public release yet. Like geologic strata, a milimeter-thin layer of composite plastic had been inserted - a form of aerogel that insulated the apartment, trapping it at a nigh-chilly thirteen Celsius. The insulation also ran right through ducting and heating, leaving the space muted and stagnant. Suffocation was a real concern thanks to lack of insulation.

Perhaps as a related note, natural microflora and fauna never repopulated the apartment either, but with a minimum of oxygen able to make it through the door and window cracks, that wasn't terribly outlandish either.

Additionally, through windows and doors were never damaged during the disappearances, in the earliest cases there were strain marks in the outer wall and doorway where the wood and drywall had flexed outward from pressure - but there's no striations in the paint on the outer wall where the stress would have caused cracks or fissures.

Lastly, plants weren't growing there. Thanks for that one, Nelson.

Well, if that wasn't working, a visit to Coordinating Agent Deckard might be worthwhile - he was intelligent enough to avoid going cold, but he'd handled several related issues cropping up along with the Eigengrau sequence - mostly the missing persons reports. Grey haired and shaggy, he wasn't going anywhere fast, much less out the door - no one's favorite, and no one's last choice. A quintessential government employee, just picking up his checks, with the tiniest crag of morality pushing him into doing a decent job at the things he'd let himself get assigned to.

That's the last of the resources in the office, since the constant turnover recycled agents who actually knew anything about Eigengrau out the door at a fantastic rate. Of course, there was an apartment vacated by the phenomena not even six blocks from the main office, in the Saint Jules apartment complex on Broad. It might be worth going there directly to see the scene for itself and not through a Polaroid.

There was also calling the friends and family of the vanished, but that was invariably, deeply unpleasant.

Between a rock and a hard place.

Staring down at her distorted reflection in her coffee, she contemplated her options.

Nelson was bughouse crazy - the worst kind of fanboy. Get him talking about the case, and he’d be likely to never stop. Far more fascinated with the particulars, he forgot that actual humans were involved.

One down.

That, at least, had helped her figure out what she DIDN’T need to know. At this point, the “crime scenes” were keeping their secrets tight.

Deckard might be a good source - for that thin bit of whatever chugged through his veins that kept him just this side of human. What she’d want to know now was more about the people involved - and the idea of calling an already overtaxed family member wasn’t ideal. They’d been pumped for information six ways from Sunday, and the only thing that any of them had in common was how consistent their ignorance was.

She let out a long sigh.

Deckard’s desk, then to the scene that wasn’t far from here. Not so much to take a look - but to potentially set up shop.

Having a conversation with Deckard is like watching a human turn into bread mold in real-time. There's always a second that he pauses after you speak, considering; he interrupts people by accident all the time because of that speech hiccup. Papers cover his desk in orderly piles, but there isn't even a name tag to let people know it's his desk; the personality's been bleached out. He has greyed hair, creases at his eyes and lips, and his enthusiasm's passed on from this mortal plane long ago. Scuttlebutt has it a dozen years ago he'd taken a round in the hip that had put the fear of Jesus in him, and he'd done everything possible since to stay at a desk. True enough, the sight of him standing is so rare as to draw attention. Everyone just remembers the grey mop behind the desk. Still, if you want to game the system, Deckard's made a whole lifestyle out of being bureaucratic glue.

He doesn't look up as you slide in through the door to his office - a cushy place, appropriated from the Internal Affairs agent that'd been fired because he wasn't firing enough people for not fixing the disappearances. It's not a power game, like Director James would play, forcing you to ask him in his seat of power; Deckard just legitimately doesn't give a fuck. It takes him a moment to notice you, and then he glances up, eyes half-lidded from apathy and probably exhaustion. He never seems to leave this place.

"Agent Hathaway," he says, bland. "You need something?"

Two points in his favor, at least: he's never forgotten your title, and he doesn't fuck around with you deliberately. It doesn't make up for having the personality and ambition of oatmeal, but he's professionally tolerable, at least.

A quick scan around his office reveals a double-wide spread of reorganizational notes, internal memos, and what looks like four versions of a progress report with names substituted into them. He may have taken over the old IA agent's job, in which case no one is ever going to get fired so that Deckard can use that to blackmail whoever he needs to keep his little corner office. His fort is impregnable now.

Obuzeti · May 31, 2023

This one was written with Bluebird. She's the best. I leave no qualifiers on that statement.

It's Beaumont who figures out who they're bound to, usually, but Raim always gets the first tinge of their presence, like prickly cold sunshine on his back. He's always thought it's an effect like synesthesia, the brain attempting to interpret inputs that it doesn't have the wiring for. He's used to the sensation showing up periodically, but this time it's so immediate and intense that the hairs on the back of his neck and his forearms stand up. It's someone who wants to be, viscerally, face pressed to the other side of the glass. Raim cringes and leans against the push-bar of his grocery cart.

"You alright?" Beaumont says, carrying over a brief selection of fruit. It's expensive, especially at this grocery store - one of those earth food places that costs more than he's comfortable with, but the food is reliably of good quality, no bad bruises or ruined fruit, and less preservatives that give him headaches and a plastic aftertaste - so it's just a banana bunch, some grapes, and a batch of clementines. A twelve-year-old, boredly wandering down the aisle, starts and jumps back, staring at the fruit as his friend sets them down. "Look like a goose walked over your grave."

"Somebody the next aisle over has a strong passenger," Raim replies with a twist of his lips. "Angry baby times are ahead."

"Isn't that the wine aisle?" Beaumont inquires.

There's a clatter of plastic as something rebounds off a shelf, propelled at uncomfortable speeds. The pinpricks of sunlight burn bright on his face for a second and Raim grimaces, ducking back from the phantom heat. "No, household goods. Though I'd understand if this drove somebody to drink."

He rattles his fingers over the handlebar of the grocery cart for a moment, indecisive, and then starts pushing it down towards the end of the aisle. "I'm going to go see if I can calm it down. Shouldn't be a minute."

Beaumont hums, noncommittal, but falls in behind Raim, grabbing a set of grapes off the misted display wall as he goes. The twelve-year-old creeps behind them, eyes fixed on the bunch as he sets it in the cart.

Raim turns the corner and takes in the scene with a faint frown. There's dishsoap in a puddle about a third of the way down the aisle, and a woman standing with her cart looking upset. He takes in himself - blue jeans, flannel shirt, morning hair - but it's the grocery store and no one comes here with an excess of dignity, and it's not like this is at the office anyways. He rolls forward, head bent against the invisible brightness he can feel on his skin, and says, "Hey, take it easy."

Not to the woman - to the presence attached to her, the prickling sunshine. It's not coherent enough to have a body or an identity, yet, but he can feel it concentrating, and he manages to catch a bottle of detergent before it can come off the shelf. There's an omnipresent rattle as movement surges down the aisle, unsettling the squeeze-bottles, though the heavier containers remain unmoved. The handle is warm like it's been left out in the sun, and Raim closes his eyes and lets his fingers curl around something that's not quite there, delicate and under his palm, like -

- the fingers of a woman. No ring. Paint-splotched, callused from work with easel and brush.

"You'll see all the colors you want, soon," he assures, and the presence soothes a little to the sound of his voice. The uneasy stir in the air settles, like a long exhale on the back of his neck, and Raim grins a little at a curl of amusement that pokes at him, like a distant promise. He opens his eyes, and stares at the other woman in the aisle. Blinks, comes back to himself.

He's still just standing in the aisle, awkward, and there's dishsoap soaking into his tennis sneakers. Too tall, brown haired and fresh out of long-limbed gangliness, glasses perched awkwardly on his nose in front of bright blues. There's something of a lemur in the way Raim walks - graceful in the way he moves around himself, effortless in the oddest positions and stretches. Comfortable in himself, but not with others.

"Sorry, you just looked like you were having trouble," he says, uneasily, and steps back out of the spreading puddle. His shoes slap wetly on the tile, drawing a grimace out of him. "Heard it from the next aisle over. She should behave for a little bit now."

Beaumont, behind him, adds some paper towels and Gain to their cart. The kid that's been stalking them from behind gapes at the purple detergent as it soars over her head and parks itself in their cart. He chuckles at the awestruck look on the tyke's face, as she stares.

Olivia is only a few steps into the household goods aisle, before she feels it. That all too familiar tremor in the air, that causes the hair at the back of her neck to stand on end.

No. No, no, no…please. Not here. Not now.

She tries to remind herself to take slow, deep breaths, before the migraine stops her dead in her tracks. Lightning shooting up her spine, and into her skull leaving a line of fire in its wake. Olivia winces, as she taps her smartwatch - initiating a stopwatch count. Her hands hold the push-bar of her cart in a white knuckle grip, while her vision tunnels and blurs.

This isn’t the first time an episode like this has happened to her. It is, however, the first time in public.

A bottle of dish soap tumbles off the shelf with aggressive speed, and cracks open upon hitting the ground. Blue liquid escaping across the tiles. At least it’s not glass, this time.

Dread pools in her soul as she notices the figure of someone rounding the corner and coming down the aisle.

Olivia is there, but not quite. She likens the experience to sleep paralysis, but during waking hours, plus extra factors. “Extra factors” being anything from lights flickering or burning out, electronics acting up and/or crashing, or the latest flavor of the month: inanimate objects flying across the room.

Time seems to warp and slow, while her body refuses to move. The sound of her shallow breathing, and the pounding of her heart, merge with the deafening white noise that’s drowning all else.

On the outside, she imagines she looks somewhat normal; albeit frozen in place. Standing in the middle of the aisle, holding her cart, looking ahead. Inside, she’s a panicking mess, trying to regain control of her body.

It was only a matter of time before other items in the aisle were going to move on their own accord…

In the midst of everything, she realizes that the person before her is speaking. She hears their gentle tone, but can barely discern the words over the static that makes their voice sound more distant than the few yards they actually are.

Olivia knows that all she can do is wait things out. She anticipates the clattering sounds of more fallen bottles and canisters. Sounds, that typically marked the end of the paralytic spell she was in.

Sounds, that this time around, never end up happening.

The hold on her body slowly ebbs away, as she hones in on the soothing cadence of a man’s voice. It’s cutting through the incessant hum, and now she’s focusing on it like a damn life line…

It happens in a matter of seconds. Olivia’s senses come back to her in a fast and sudden rush. Her body instinctively takes several deep and shuddering breaths, as if she was underwater a touch too long, and was finally able to break the surface. It takes a moment for her to release the death grip on her cart, and somehow remember to tap her watch again. Dipping her head, she closes her eyes; gathering herself.

“Sorry, you just looked like you were having trouble. Heard it from the next aisle over. She should behave for a little bit now.”

Olivia blinks her eyes open, and looks up to stare at a very tall man back-stepping from a puddle of dishsoap. Her blue-grey eyes, behind clear frames, taking in the scene before her. She doesn’t know quite what to say, or even how to react.

So, she laughs. And, it’s a nervous and almost awkward sound that’s quite honestly, on the verge of tears. Trouble. God, if he only knew. “Yeah,” her voice cracks before she continues, “I actually kind of was. Thank you…” she trails off, trying to find her next words.

Yes, thank you for somehow saving me from this weird paralytic state I’ve been intermittently experiencing, ever since I moved to this place.

That, would go over, just swimmingly.

Olivia sighs and threads her fingers through her hair; lazy waves of light and dark caramel that frame her face in an angled bob. She’s wearing an oversized sweater that hangs off one of her shoulders, and jeans that hug her legs like a second skin. She’s dressed for comfort, not to impress, and at the moment feels like hell.

“I, uhm…” she trails again, as she checks her watch. :53 seconds. The duration of the episode. Not the longest she has experienced, but definitely one of the most intense. Then, a detail finally registers in her mind.

Her focus snaps back to his face, “You said, she? She should behave? Who…” she glances about the expanse of the aisle they occupied, before continuing, “who are you referring to?” She starts closing the distance between them, just as another movement distracts her. “Do you actually know—“ Olivia cuts off her own words as she watches paper towels and detergent seemingly float into the man’s cart. Her brows knit in thought, while she continues to absentmindedly walk towards him; completely forgetting about the spilled dishsoap all over the floor.

“What is hap—“ This time, her words are cut off by her sudden loss in balance. Her canvas shoes, no match for the soap-slicked floor, cause her to slide across the tile and barrel into the stranger she’s just crossed paths with. Olivia is a flurry of limbs as she tries to regain her balance, and out of desperation, ends up grabbing his flannel sleeve.

Raim raises his hands in self-defense and grimaces - then spots the soap a moment before the lady walks into it, and drops an aborted half-syllable as he lunges awkwardly forward to catch her mid-fall. Beaumont takes a quick step forward and snags his partner's other shoulder, and it's only his support that kept the both of them from falling. The thinner man laughs, a little awkward, and nods up at his compatriot. "Thanks for the catch," he says, and waddles himself and Sophie off the dishsoap with a minimum of dignity.

Beaumont doesn't respond verbally. He just flicks up an eyebrow, lets them both get steadied, and then walks off to go mess with the kid following them some more.

Raim, on the other hand, is stuck with the fact that he very obviously stopped falling when he hadn't had his feet under him, and this is a woman already clearly determined to get answers. He has them, granted, but this wasn't the kind of thing he'd bargained for at the grocery store. He closes his eyes and takes a calming breath, then smiles at Sophie. It's a little strained, but he suspects that's in good company. "You've got a hlessi forming. It's - look, walk with me a second, I should at least let an employee know there's a spill out here."

He heads for the end of the aisle, his shoes wetly slopping across the tile. "She - yes, it's a she - is trying to synthesize with you. Unfortunately, it's a turbulent process, and adrenaline kind of shunts her aside. The result of which, you've seen."

Raim gives his impromptu student a wry smile. The off-the-shoulder sweater she's wearing has become disheveled, and there's a long, clean arc of neck and collarbone that he immediately glances away from on reflex. That's a lot more skin than he sees on a regular basis, being a bachelor postgraduate wading his way through debt. His mouth moves before he can think about it, technical babble saving the day again. "The adrenaline taints the melding process, and the guest almost invariably starts throwing things in response - they haven't got conscious processes yet, so they can't really talk themselves down from fight-or-flight, they just go right off into tantrums. Try to stay calm, maintain your blood pressure at lower levels. It helps a lot, whichever way you decide to go."

There's a lot of bad knowledge out there, these days. All those far-winger disformation videos and campaigns, the church rhetoric, none of it's accurate, but getting the news out past the periodicals and scientific journals has been an exercise in futility. Raim knows what it's like to be one of the recycling hawks, now - no one takes you seriously, even if there's no one that knows the topic better than you.

At the other end of the aisle, a feather duster floats off the rack it'd been hanging on. It traces a long, slow circle as Beaumont flourishes the thing, then flips it over on end and offers the handle to the little girl. She takes it, open-mouthed and bewildered, and Beaumont flicks the other end with his hand, bouncing it up.

The girl shrieks with laughter and dances back half a step, dropping the duster. "Where are - who are you?" she asks, clear curiosity shining in her eyes.

Beaumont cracks a smile, but doesn't answer, because she'd never hear. Instead, he steps on the other end of the duster and flips it up for him to catch, then sketches a bow to the young girl, using the duster to elaborate so she can get some idea of the motion.

You’ve got a hlessi forming.”

Olivia’s current expression shifts from one of deep concentration to perplexed thought and back again. Her brows furrow as she takes in the details of what happened, and connects them with what the man before her is explaining.

Hlessi.

It’s a concept that had come up several times, during her own search for answers. And every time she saw the theory present itself, she disregarded it. There was no scientific research to back it up. No extensive studies. No recorded methodology. It was a black hole of smoke and mirrors.

Or was it?

“You seem to be rather knowledgeable on the subject,” the tone of her voice borders on skepticism and distrust. But when she glances down the aisle, she can’t deny what she sees, or what she felt from earlier. “Are you…bonded with one of these,” she carefully pauses to mimic his pronunciation of the term, "hleesi?”

She watches the feather duster dance in front of the child, and interestingly enough, it’s the little girl’s laughter and unadulterated delight, that somehow reminds her of social norms.

Olivia worries her lower lip for a second, then sighs at her own self-awareness. “You know what? I’m sorry,” she genuinely meets his eyes for the first time, and returns a wry smile of her own. “I probably came off sharper than I intended, and that was rude as hell of me to ask you, outright like that. Especially after helping me.”

At 5’5,” she’s considered average height, but as she takes in the stature of her new acquaintance, she realizes that even in her tallest heels, he would still be another head and shoulders taller. Maybe more, still.

Her thumb and index finger find their way under her glasses, and pinch the bridge of her nose. A light dusting of freckles dance beneath her fingertips, when she does so. It’s an act that provides both a modicum of relief and just a little space to deal with her chagrin.

“Not that it’s an excuse, but I actually came in to pick up some coffee. Helluva way to start the day, right?” she asks with a bit of a laugh. “I’m Olivia, by the way. Olivia Driscoll,” she extends her hand towards him. “I just moved here, a couple months ago, and I’ve been trying to figure out a couple things. As you’ve seen.”

"I did my doctorate on the subject," Raim says, rather wry. "I would hope that all the education did not fall to the wayside. And yes, my partner's named Beaumont Fletcher."

There's a whole set of careful terminology around hlessi; it's a role that English doesn't have good nouns for. The closest, due to its generality, is partner, or guest. Outright referring to them as ghosts or spirits tends to backfire when the religious crowd gets involved, so academia has shied away from that.

She apologizes, then, and the self-awareness takes some of the fraught tension out of his shoulders; for a moment, it'd felt like he'd walked into an accidental confrontation with a fundamentalist, and thought he'd fucked up. That would have ruined his entire day. Instead, what he abruptly notices when she palms her own face is that she's cute, in a demure kind of way, and very short, both things that fit right into his strike zone. Outright sexiness he's always deflected or ignored, but this is subtle enough to keep knocking him off balance when he's not paying attention.

"Ah - " he says, blinking and takes her hand. It's smooth and soft. "Raim Bexley, at your service. And, to be honest, I get it. That's probably one of the worst episode's I've seen, it's probably terrifying to experience. But for what it's worth, she can't and never will hurt you. Think of it like a baby crying. It's someone that doesn't know what they're doing and want help."

He's professionally babbling, which is usually a safe defense. Beaumont starts snickering from down the aisle, where he finally hands over the feather duster and starts back towards where his host is standing. "Christ, Raim."

Raim's eyes flick that way, but otherwise doesn't respond. That's a lot to pile onto someone that had no idea what was happening, so he just lifts a finger towards Beaumont, begging for patience, and says with some gentleness, "If you only just moved, there was probably someone lingering around the apartment that is trying to tie to you. Might be worth asking nearby residents who lived there, before you."

It's one of those things that doesn't have a lot of documented data, but the more recently a hlessi has passed, the more startling the symptoms of its manifestations tend to be. The older ones settle down some and are gentler, but - since they're all unconscious at that point, as he's found in interviews, how would any of them know the difference?

It's mysterious.

Olivia’s smile is warm when she nods in recognition, “Ah, so a student of exopsychology?” She at least gleaned that, from her brief skims on the subject of hlessi. The young woman ponders a moment, before testing the single syllable on her palate. “Raim, is it?” she asks, her head tilting ever so slightly. “I don’t think I’ve heard that name before. Though I suppose I should be addressing you as Dr. Bexley?”

The warmth of his hand lingers on hers as she releases from their handshake. She hooks her thumbs into her belt loops, giving her hands something to do, while she stands before him.

It’s his eyes that she notices, while he speaks - they’re brighter than her own. Like the summer sky on a clear day. The gentleness of his voice complements his presence, which she finds calming and full of reassurance. Olivia is quietly impressed with how grounded he is, in the delivery of his knowledge; with morning hair and all...she finds that part the most charming.

When Raim gestures, “wait a moment,” she can’t help but look in that direction. Apparently, his partner, Beaumont, was there. Somewhere. Olivia narrows her eyes, in an effort to catch a glimpse of something more than what her brain is allowing to interpret. But, all she sees is the little girl holding the feather duster with joyous wonder, in an otherwise empty grocery aisle.

She hopes like hell she isn’t falling for some elaborate con-act.

"If you only just moved, there was probably someone lingering around the apartment that is trying to tie to you. Might be worth asking nearby residents who lived there, before you."

Olivia’s eyes go wide as Raim’s words register. Details coming to the forefront of her mind: her apartment building was recently restored and renovated, the rent was too good to pass up, the 2-year lease requirement, and high penalty early termination clause. She blinks and laughs under her breath, “I’m at the Avondale Apartments.” The young woman, let’s that hang in the air for a second, before barreling on.

“By any chance, do you have a card? Are you currently seeing patients?” She follows up quickly, so as not to sound too desperate, “Or do you know someone who you could refer me to?”

Olivia hopes he’s available. For professional reasons, of course.

Raim's smile brightens. It's rare that anyone even recognizes it as a field, much less knows the proper name. He's been called a medium, a mystic, and a hack; exopsychologist is so much better. "Only if we were in a professional setting, Miss Driscoll. I rather doubt the grocery store counts as that."

She links her thumbs into her belt loops - an typically masculine habit, one that only forms when one has worn belt loops consistently, or as a conscious choice to keep the hands busy. On the other hand, the sweater and the - fit - of the jeans indicate comfort in her own body.

Raim's eyes barely flicker as he processes this, and decides to throw her a bone in response. "Beaumont, grab a set of paper towels, will you?" he calls back.

"Putting on a show?" the other man inquires, taking a double roll from the shelf and carrying it over to Raim's cart, depositing it within.

"Olivia needs a counterexample," the doctor replies with a wry smile. Then the woman in question barrels onward into questions, and he can't help but smile in response; she's awkward, but decisive, and he can't help but respect that. A solution has presented itself, and she's moving on it quickly. "Client is a strong word for it," he says, rueful. "I'm in the process of attempting to rent out some office space over on Fullerton Boulevard so I can get set up; it's just taking some time. As for business cards, though -"

He fishes in his pocket for a moment, and comes out with a beat-up leather wallet, then spends another second looking through that before he manages to produce a white business card that he hands over. On it is stenciled:

Dr. Raim Bexley
Exopsychologist
Hlessi Consultations
622 Fullerton Boulevard, Columbia
803-556-1927

"If you want a consultation, I'm glad to comply, given that my business proper is stalled until I'm allowed to set it up," Raim says, a little dry. "It makes me feel useful and such."

"Idiots," Beaumont mutters, and there's actual irritation in his voice - the remainder of guilt. The holdup is because of liability questions, and everyone with a registered hlessi, particularly someone as prominent as a doctor, is subject to them. Being as they're impossible to question and establish histories for without the cooperation of the client, the spirits are a major stumbling point for liability agencies, and both safety deposits and insurance tend to be higher for their hosts. There's no evidence supporting that they cause damage, but it's been stupidly difficult to argue that to insurance providers, who like to argue it as a preexisting condition, with all the associated baggage that term carries.

Obuzeti · May 31, 2023

This last one died in fledging, but I mourn it dearly and would like to pick up the concept at some point. Hail, all you Monster Hunter fans!

It takes a couple hours of sunlight for the chlorophyll to filter enough energy for the mountain to rise. But when it does -

- low over the Ozarks, the rolling hills of mountain-bones ground down to nubs, to river valleys and forested dells, green slopes unending, cast down like jacks in disarray, covered with oak and kudzu, ash and maple. Through this jumble slides a hill in motion, drifting low between the rises, barely visible as just one more rise of green; until you get close enough to see that these trees stand on an island aloft, a wide mound of earth almost two hundred feet wide, studded with trees and flowering plants, the soil held in place by thick twining roots. Beneath the flying mountain is a mouth, a gaping orifice lined with tendrils as long as the trees they pluck branches and limbs from, feeding the fresh greenery into the maw - along with whatever birds, squirrels, and other wildlife might happen to be too close, ground down into a feeding-paste the beast swallows hungrily, endlessly. Its oblong body, like an oversized frilled bladder, floats low over the treetops as it grazes on the forest like a goat would blades of grass. It's difficult to glimpse, but in the early morning light, flickers of gleaming orange glisten against the morning light, reflective of tiny orbs set far back in that crusted, earthy skin.

Yama Kurai: the Floating Peak Dragon, eldest of Elder Dragons, come to rest among the bones of its forebears.

Between the trees on its back are strewn low structures, braced against scales so old the dirt between them has given bloom; a wide, low barn to the left, over a scar crossing long and high over the amorphous beast's maw where the dirt has dragged clean and the scales torn loose to bear slick flesh against the sunlight, only just starting to scab over with kudzu. A watchtower girds the right side, with a long loop of rope crossing under one feeding tendril and the beast's entire body, with a windmill set into the back, barrels set about the back to catch the rain from the clouds they ride through. A vegetable patch grows fitfully, no farmer's touch here but adequate for the purpose; and a smithy huffs smoke up and safely out of the dragon's way, where it won't irritate its delicate nose and cause it to buck the entire arrangement off.

This morn, as the placid mountain feeds its ever-sharp hunger, its occupants are rousing; one, like nothing so much a draconic caterpillar, an orange-and-green morass of thorned scales, highlighted in toxic colors, slumbers in a passive lump towards the Yama's head, out on the fringe where no branches can block its loafing in the sunlight. It appears entirely content to ignore everything else going on. The other, a blue-scaled, winged variant with a craglike horn nearly a third of its own body length, brays annoyance as the saddle settles around its shoulders but holds still nonetheless, attuned to the needs of its herd - the Pyrenean, the Ram-Wyvern, guardian of its chosen flock, recessed, beady eyes flicking about as its deep nostrils huff the new scents of the area, sniffing for wyvern musk and finding none - this is no predator's range, yet.

Below and beside, a salt-haired, tall fella tightens the saddle-straps, steps aside to check his gear - a bandoleer strap of various packs and pockets, gut-strip canteens of various liquids sealed tight, and a monster blade his own size and weight, gleaming and sharp, already mounted onto the Pyrenean's side; he hops onto its back with a grunt, and the wyvern honks in recognition, squaring its stance and flapping out its wings, ready to take off, raring to go.

"Let's see what's going on here, Tupe," he murmurs, whiskey-rough voice easy on his partner's ears, and with a shriek the partners throw themselves off the side of the floating mountain, off to investigate this new territory they've invaded.

It’s the warm, salty breeze and the first few rays of dawn that bring her body back to waking, but she refuses to open her eyes just yet. Tala Makani is far too comfortable snuggled up against her monstie, and she doesn’t need to be home any time soon.

The young rider shifts her body and curls up tighter while she absently reaches for the Bat-Wyvern’s wing. She grasps the edge and pulls it up towards her face; a vain attempt to shield herself from the light insisting to filter through her eyelids. The steady rhythm of the surf below was already drawing her back to her dreams.

When her monstie’s wing snaps away, Tala groans in annoyance and buries her face in soft, white fur and mumbles, “Just a little longer, Loni. We’ll go to the caves for your favorite bugs. . . I promise, later today. . .”

Instead of acquiescing to her rider’s request, the Paolumu chirps in a series of curious clicks and rises to its taloned feet, causing Tala’s head to slide off the wyvern’s body and onto soft grass.

She grunts at the contact with the ground and sighs, knowing something has caught her monstie’s attention; she could hear Loni tread towards the edge of the promontory overlooking the ocean. Tala sits up resignedly and scrubs the sleep out of her eyes, “Alright, alright. What is it?” Whatever it was had better be worth waking up for.

She follows the bat-wyvern to the cliff’s edge, traces Loni’s line of sight, and sees it. Her eyes widen in disbelief, and she scrubs them again to reset her vision.

Down the coast, in the openness of the sky, was a giant landmass somehow floating over the rainforests and. . . eating the trees? Tala keeps the unknown monster in her sight while she scrambles for one of the saddlebags at Loni’s side. Her hands make quick work of the fasteners and she grabs her binoculars for a better look.

Long tendrils were indeed pulling branches and greenery en masse to feed its giant maw while the local endemic life was frantically scurrying and flying away from the enormous creature.

Tala had to warn the village. The monster seemed to be grazing along a concentrated area, but if it continued to head inland who knew what kind of danger it could pose.

Out of the corner of her field of view, she caught movement and followed it with her binoculars. A blue-scaled wyvern diving off the side of the floating landmass.

Mounted by a rider!

So many questions cross her mind. Was this another tribe? Where did they come from? Did they live on this mountainous creature? Are they like us?

Curiosity out-wins potential danger and she mounts her Paolumu. Loni rasps in protest, recognizing her rider’s desire to head towards the aerial behemoth; she thrashes her head and chirps to contest.

“Easy, easy,” Tala consoles with a slow, calming tone and places a steadying hand at the back Loni’s swaying head. “We’ll keep our distance and just ask what they’re doing.” Her other hand ensures the contents of the saddlebag: a ghille mantle, smoke bomb, some jerky, a few potion vials, and an SOS flare - she’d light it as she drew closer to the monster’s location.

“No one knows these forests like we do. If things take a turn, we’ll get out of there right away.”

Another white spot comes up in the sky, and Vaughn clicks his tongue as he spots the furry form of a Paolumu - native to this region, sedentary fliers and omnivores that coast on the river thermals for miles, heading from one orchard to the next, carrying pollen and fruit seeds far and wide. This one, though, has faint bands of brown encircling its pelt, and they aren't the patterns of a crossbreed Nightshade; they're leather straps. He can see the characteristic belly-sling where tribe-riders often store their goods. A warning whicker slides out of Tupe's throat, gutteral and low, as those hot-emerald eyes roll to affix on the newcomer.

Local Riders, then. Best to get it over with. He cracks a copper flare, the hot green bright and viridescent in the open air, and tosses it out as Tupe swings wide around one of the towering oaks to a wide, shallow ford across a stream, the water forced into rippling waves by the power of the wyvern's beating wings. He pats the big beast on the shoulder, drops down, and strides out into the river-gravel, hands planted on his hips, and then raises a hand out to the other Rider, calling them over, even as Tupe snorts and turns to start prying up the shore-rocks for crawdads and stream crabs, agile tongue slithering down into the cracks and gulleys between them. He'd look lazy and indolent to anyone familiar to the breed, but Vaughn can see those mighty throat muscles working as he gulps down gallons of water, pressurizing it in his gullet to be sprayed with bone-shattering force if needed like an old-age water saw. Big ram's got his back.

Well, nothing to do but wait, then. He pulls one of those big walnuts out of a pocket, cracks the shell in his bare hands, and pops the chewy center into his mouth as he waits for the stranger to come down, tossing the shelled halves aside.

If nothing else, he needs to at least warn them not to go after Old Yamada; the flying fortress is sedentary and mostly vegetarian, and he's not planning to stay in the area long enough for it to deforest any serious amount of ground, more just to see if the rage-spores have settled this far west, or if they've seen any of the frenzied beasts that have caught them. No Paolumu-rider is gonna be much in a fight, by his reckoning; breed's not got the temperament for a hard scrap. Might as well see if they have any nosy, dangerous predators in the area he might bring down while he's at it.

"Ay, come on down!" he calls, the corner of his mouth hooking into a frown. "Parley! 'r something."

He's not got any weapons on him, the great-blade still sheathed on Tupe's back.

Obuzeti · Jun 5, 2023

These next two come from Ambrosia, another life-long friend of mine, and the warmest heart I've ever known.

The ISV Maolan Bui isn't going to make it.

When the ship had reentered realspace, it had landed on top of a patch of floating hydrogen gas, being blown idly on the solar winds. Unfortunately, a sparking circuit had been exposed to space through an open panel knocked ajar by micrometeorites, and that spark crossed through the hydrogen and ignited it in a furious explosion that had ripped the port bay in half and nearly the entire ship itself. Storage and the garrison were lost immediately as they cracked off the main hull, separated from the fusion plant and doomed without functioning power for their escape pods, if they even survived the explosive decompression that emergency-close bulkheads couldn't save them from. Death came to them, still in cryosleep. That at least was gentle.

Luckily, the fuel lines collected in the aft-side reservoir and had to do a changeover through the central torsion line - which meant that while the ship was still cracked in half, the explosion didn't chain its way all the way through the quarter-mile long ship, and instead halted just short of halfway up its length. Emergency bulkheads sealed off the lost sections and prevented the loss of more atmosphere, but it was a deathblow to the ship, no question. Not least because they'd lost the engines and were now drifting towards a nearby moon.

Forward engineering is situated about three-quarters of the way up the length of the Maolan Bui, which is the only reason that Angstrom wakes up, probably. The explosion splatters him all over the inside of his tank, and he bubbles furiously in confusion for a moment before he deploys into his maintrig and pressurizes it. The bipedal frame stiffens and then begins its shuffling walk down the walkway from his tank. The environmental breach alarm is shrieking at the nearest engineering panel, and he wishes the rig could run so he could get to it faster.

Of course, he doesn't have to be right next to it to see that the entire back half of the ship has faded red, and he froths in panic before he yanks the rig around to the right and heads for the torsion line, where the fuel is condensed and prepared for shipment to the main engine away from the converter. If it or the engines proper had gone off, they and everything within a half-parsec would have been free-floating radicals already. As it stands, the condensor is blaring alarms, and he hits the emergency vent as fast as he can get to the giant red switch, releasing all the concentrated fuel straight out into space with a bang that knocks the ship sideways with a groan of polymer. Angstrom's frame bounces off the wall hard with the jolt, and he trills in fury before setting the walker to trot up the hall towards the evac pods. Then he hears the crack and hiss of the environmental seals failing right before air starts sucking out of the compartment, and he has to blast loose his thruster pack to make it to the next compartment before he gets sucked out into vacuum.

He's in the throat of the ship now, alarms screaming in every direction at the new breach - the bulkheads here don't hermetically seal, which means the entire area is on a time limit as it leaks atmosphere. He bumbles down the central shaft for the closest pod, the entire opposite row already deployed, and only two left on his side. He manages to slam into one and light the startup procedures as he tries to calm down, keurith vibrating frantically. This isn't how he wants to die, dammit. He's getting out of here before it all goes to hell.

The ejection pod is cramped and it takes a moment to fit the walker into the depression there - the fit is tight and inflates to seal around the body, meant to hold the body safe against the jarring impact of reentry or cosmic collision. He taps the engine on and hesitates, glancing at the emergency feed. There's still a few crew signals on board, but they're pretty much fucked, except for one heading his way at high speed.

Greasemonkey Riley Worth was supposed to be sleeping; she’s tucked into her bunk alright, showered and weary after a twelve hour stint-but she had something important to finish, something she’s had to put off for too many days in a row as it was. Sure, she was due back it in six hours-but this letter home wasn’t going to write itself, and it was important to squeeze in at least a little recreation from time to time.

In all fairness however, work was her recreation-she was always the first one to sign up for overtime, and it had little to do with the money.

Riley paused to consider this for a moment-her mother was always urging her to get out, socialize in the mess hall or at the bar-but that just wasn’t her speed. She was happiest alone and working on machinery, repairing broken things with her own two hands, and maintaining things before they could be broken. It’s important work, and not to be neglected.

Still, maybe she wouldn’t mention that the overtime had been voluntar-!

The ship jolts violently; everything unsecured in the small living quarters is thrown to the floor, including its sole occupant-Riley’s bunkmate was currently on shift.

Propping herself up on one hand, the woman has no idea what the hell’s happened-only that it had to be very, very bad, the ship rocking like that. For a moment she’s just frozen there, eyes rooted to the illuminated tube that still projected her flimsy and the careful, neat script of the letter she’d been writing.

The older Worth woman had also lived a life among the stars-and she wouldn’t sit tight in her room, uncertain and terrified on what to do.

Riley snatches it up and turns it off as she scrambles to her feet, a pulse of adrenaline coursing through her as she glanced at the lit panel over the shared desk, caught sight of the cutaway diagram of the ship-and how much of it was red, critically damaged and-

Oh God, whole ship is about to be space dust.

Aquamarine eyes wide and panicky, the young woman turned and fled the room.

She doesn’t see anyone else in the hall. It’s dark and flooded with emergency red lights and blaring alarms, loosened panels to circuitry popped open, the toiletry cart thrown onto its side, bottles and soaps spilling out everywhere. There’s two directions she can flee-and she chooses the one not towards the catastrophic damage and no doubt roaring flames.

She darts through the as of yet unclosed bulkhead door and into the next hall, swiping at her wristlet to pull up her security clearance-bypassing the elevator and the next several hallways to the stairs for the maintenance shaft on her left. The door slides open with a hiss and Riley jambs it that way for anyone else who might-hopefully?-be coming behind her-but maybe they’ve already fled in the minutes she was frozen in place. She did kind of work the graveyard shift though-perhaps they’d all been on duty. Riley can’t decide if that bettered or worsened their chances-depended where they were.

Another shockwave hits, and Riley is briefly in freefall as she’s knocked off the ladder-only an elbow banging, white knuckled catch saves her from dropping nearly two stories. Her hand is a little numb from the blow, but she keeps on going regardless-there’s no time to nurse petty injuries-what was a sore joint to being blown to bits or launched into the cold depths of space?

She drops the last few feet rather than continue scrambling down the rungs, palms sweaty and her heart experiencing rapid palpitations-she could very well die down here. There are two bulkhead doors she has to beat, and if she misses either of them, she’s dead. She might already be dead.

But she can’t be any worse off for trying, right?

Riley sucked in a deep breath to keep from hyperventilating-and sprinted down the tight confines of the service hall and towards, hopefully, her salvation.

~*~

Skidding into the main corridor through a noisily popping maintenance panel, Riley’s never been more afraid in her life. She barely notices her burning lungs or the stitch in her side-can’t notice or acknowledge them, not when things are so dire.

She’s looking for an escape pod, passing sealed space after sealed space where others had already launched off. She’s glad that people have escaped, but darn it, not one pod left?!

Gone gone gone-not gone! There’s an occupied pod with an Orlaith’s exoskeleton inside, and, thank God, one right next door to it. No one was coming through those bulkhead doors even if they were on their way-they’re the last to leave through here.

She’s going to make it.

“What’s happened?” The woman calls from her own pod, starting up the basic procedures with very shaky hands. There's only one Orlaith on board-his name was Angstrom, and they've talked over radio before-but never in person. He worked in maintenence, same as she did. “What caused the explosion?” Her fingers fly over the panel and-critical failure.

“No.” It’s the door. The door won’t seal! Her left hand wraps around the gap and she tries to pry the thing out of there while her right continues to work the panel, flying through diagnostic tools and desperately trying to remember everything she’d ever read about the thing.

She’s been through the safety procedure a hundred times for this ship, for these very pods. In her rising panic, she can’t remember any of it.

It doesn’t work. It’s not going to work.

“No, no, no, no! What is-” She’d done well not to hyperventilate up to this point, but now she’s looking at suffocation and death, real, gaping, horrible death, too young and too learned and too loved to die-but here it was anyway. Her shaking hands curl into fists and Riley drives the one just above the panel, on the verge of a complete breakdown. She can’t get back through the bulkheads, and even if she could-the next bank of pods were just too far away. This had been her one, only chance, and how cruel it was for there to have been hope, only for it to be snatched away.

An empty bank with no escape pods would have been better than this. But it’s time to make her peace-except all she can feel is the instinctive, panicked terror of the end.

A human skids into the far side of the corridor. Angstrom doesn't recognize her at first glance, but the maintenance patch means she's someone he's worked with. The voice makes him think it's Riley, but he's never actually met her; they worked on opposite sides of the station. He normally tended the engines, and he has to clamp down on his panic as he realizes that if he'd been there, he would already dead.

"Don't know! I woke up with half the ship gone!" Angstrom babbles, nerves making his voice warble more than normal. Orlaith always sound a little bit like they're talking through a fan, thanks to their lack of true vocal cords - they can thrum a kind of facsimile, but the more stressed they are, the more distorted the voice. "Engines or a fuel spark or tchuk if I know!"

Then her door jams, and his pulse stutters, staring at Riley as the door to his pod starts to close instead. Her pod's fucked, and there's no more on this part of the ship. The rest of it's been chunked off. She's stuck, and she's going to die.

He can hear her breathing, faint and rapid, and keys smashing as she tries to hit the diagnostics, but Angstrom can barely remember them himself, they only run them twice a year and the captain's been real slack about actual drill. He barely had the nerve to start the automatic process prompted by the ship's computer, much less do a manual reboot and launch.

The door keeps sliding down, and for a moment, all he can think about is the sound of this woman he doesn't know humming over the com, absentminded, forgetting it's on. Sometimes someone would say something and embarrass her, and she'd go quiet. But sometimes, late at the night cycle, it'd be only the two of them up, late on overtime, and he'd listen to that quiet and tuneless hum.

She's about to die, and he's doing nothing about it. But he can.

He slams forward in the maintrig, pushing its metal leg out. It catches in between the closing hatch and the floor, and crumples a little under the force before it rebounds. Then he bucks the walker forward two steps. "Use mine!" he shouts, tenor warbling in sheer, absolute terror. "Get in here!"

Then he triggers the release valve and Angstrom is propelled out of the back of the maintrig - an ooze, black and thick, that splatters against the back wall of the pod and clings hard, flattening to give Railey as much room as possible.

If she doesn't get in and he has to jettison his pod without his walker, he's as good as killed himself unless he lands in the water, and that cold realization makes his membrane tremble.

"I-I'll figure it out." Riley responds with what little courage she has left to muster, a feeble attempt to reassure her crew mate, a last act. She can't, won't leave him to die in her place.

And then he shocks her by jettisoning out of his walker and back into the working pod. Why would- so there'd be room for both of them.

It's a level of quick, sacrificial thinking she wouldn't have managed in a million years in such a panic-and it snaps her spine straight, another pump of adrenaline.

Riley pops out of her malfunctioning pod and into his, because such a thing was not to be wasted. She twists to press her palm to the touch pad-and the door slams closed, seals.

She's still shaking, breathing in short, shallow gasps.

"You s-shouldn't have d-done that Angstrom." She worries, traces of that long ago stutter touching her words. He's saved her life, but at the cost of his -body-. The idea of that was too immense to entirely handle, not while still on the cusp of a panic attack. Riley swallows, still trembling. Concentrates past the stutter. "B-but thank you."

Riley pushes her way into the escape pod, nearly falling. He gets a flash of a sharp little face, pert nose, and dark hair before she's in and then he doesn't have the light or the angle to see much of anything. It's still more than he's ever seen of Riley before, and the snapshot image burns itself into his brain.

"Aw, tchuk, don't tell me it's a terrible idea, I've already done it," Angstrom moans. The vibration of his warble is tangible - it starts somewhere near the back of Riley's neck, where a faint pulse can be felt pushing circulation through the gelatinous form. To the touch, the Orlaith is warm and rubbery - it deforms around her skin, but there is tangible resistance, and it ripples around her with the frantic pace of Angstrom's nerves. "Prime the pod, let's - "

The Maolan Bui rocks again. The quiet hum of the fusion reactor stutters, and a much deeper, louder siren goes off for a split second before the lights cut and everything goes dark and silent. An instant after that, a circuit breaker throws and the drop pod automatically disengages, the locks keeping it in place failing as designed once power cuts - without power, the pod bay can't launch, so any with occupants are automatically ejected when the power dies.

This all goes through Angstrom's mind in between two beats of keurith, and he screams, startled, as the pod blasts away from the ship on chemical pressure, accelerating towards a nearby planet as the thrusters engage. The slime clamps tight around her shoulders and back where she's shoved into his mass, and it takes a moment for him to calm down enough to let go.

"Okay," Angstrom pants. He's not out of breath, but the sound effect is roughly parallel - with his keurith beating like a snare drum, his voice rocks and ripples, the words coming out distorted. "Okay. Let me get the map up."

Something stirs out of the gelatin at Riley's side, and a psuedopod reaches up the bare foot of space they have in the pod to pod open the emergency feed monitor. The map is labeled Zohar III, and they're heading towards the daylight side of the planet. It's a Biohazard Level II planet, which means the local flora and fauna is highly hostile, but it's technically inhabitable by both their races provided nothing eats you. There's six other pods headed there with them, but that's all. A few others are heading back into empty space and already activating their cryo-seals and their beacons.

That's a fool's bet. They're a year out from civilization. The pod's battery will die long before then.

On the positive side, the map of Zohar III shows a large body of water on the side facing them. It'd be a fine place to land, and Angstrom taps it. "Water would be the best place to land, I think?"

Obuzeti · Jun 5, 2023

Another from Ambrosia, a superhero setting we went deep on; for plot clarity, this actually starts on her response, just so it's understandable, because this snippet comes out near the middle of the storyline.

The neat little rows of houses and prim lawns were reminiscent of 1950's America, built after the war to house the families of servicemen stationed in or out of the former Naval base nearby. A grandfather she had never met served there, as well as her own father long before she was born. Jenna had chattered about that and her parents meeting, about her grandmother once chasing her father out of the house, of that same grandmother's cooking and general loving sassiness, of her passing a few years before.

Of how her parents had abruptly moved from her childhood home to her grandmother's in the Phillipines at her urging.

"I wanted them to be safe." Jenna murmured. "I didn't know how to fully sort out Mindmelt's attack, but I knew he knew who I was and what mattered to me, where they were. And if he was working with Rush-well, her possibly knowing where they were was a heart attack on a stick."

Jenna wasn't wearing her costume. If anything, she looked a bit like she was heading to church-a button down tan colored blouse with little embroidered flowers on the collar was tucked into a dark brown skater's skirt, a bit of flare and swish when she moved. Black tights and brown flats with a bit of a copper sheen to them, a matching copper colored barrette pulling her sleek black hair away from her face on the right side, a pair of sunglasses shading her eyes.

Just a young woman out for a stroll-with a giant of a companion. It was later in the evening however-the twelve hour time difference meant it was past dinner time in the suburb-so they weren't catching much notice.

Jenna felt more than a little nervous. She'd just been here, but it felt like a long time ago-she'd raced here in a hurry from the tower to assure her parents she wasn't dead-and only been able to comfort her mother, barely catching a glimpse of her father disappearing into and staying in the den. Before then, well...she'd been kind of busy. And nervous about the silence. She had called of course, but he hadn't come to the phone. Her mother spoke for both of them and promised he'd 'come around.'

She has no idea if today would go any better than last week as they turned the corner on her grandmother's old road. Hoped so, but was prepared to go home empty handed...again.

But it meant a lot to her Elias had come out.

"Okay." She was steeling herself some as she removed her sunglasses, paused at the end of a short drive. It was a small, simple little house with an open front porch and a flower garden, whimsical little wind chimes and garden gnomes, ceramic cats. It looked comforting, like a grandmother's house should. There was even an old Buick on the cracked pavement of the drive-she's not sure if they were driving that or not.

"Okay. I uh...not going to lie, feeling like I need a game plan to knock on the dang door-that's dumb. That's super dumb." But Jenna didn't move. "My mom'll be happy to see us." Jenna's eyes flicked from the screen door to the lit windows towards the left of the house. "And she'll know what sort of mood Dad's in." She mumbled.

Elias, of course, doesn't dress up. Wherever he goes as a civilian, it's in boots, denim, and a bomber jacket: he probably has like a dozen copies of that exact outfit somewhere in the Coulee. As someone who never really separated his civilian identity from his superhero persona, it's a unique statement: his 'civilian' costume, more or less. The implications aren't great, if you think about them; here, though, it's a towering statement of support, Elias putting on the duds to have Jenna's back.

He claps a hand on her shoulder. "You can beat up a villain," Elias murmurs, "But family, you have to live with. Of course you're nervous. You should be; they matter to you. Just remember that means that your family is worth fighting for, and that this is worth doing."

Elias rolls his shoulders, like he's preparing to pick up something heavy (what would he even consider heavy, anyways?) and ambles up to the door, where he carefully knocks on it twice, then takes a step back to stand beside Jenna, instead of in front of her.

A curtain in the picture window to their right moved slightly-a bare hint of a face there before a woman even tinier than Jenna opened the door wide with a relieved word in Tagalog-and moved for a very tight hug before Jenna even finished her 'Surprise!'.

At first glance Tala Paige didn't look old enough to be the mother of a twenty one year old-an older sister maybe, but definitely not a woman in her late forties. It seemed Jenna's bane of looking younger than she was would later be a boon, much as it often vexed her now.

Closer inspection did reveal a few telltale lines near the corners of the woman's eyes, a wisp or two of grey in the long dark hair braided down her back-and an air of anxious worry about her. Add that to the glance she cast up at Elias-there was a hint of concern there, a protective streak-definitely a mother's appraisal.

Tala was more concerned with proper greetings than mysterious male visitors however. Tala stepped back a moment, her small hands on either of Jenna's slight shoulders. Looking her over as if for damage or...who knew what else before pulling her daughter back in for another tight, clingy hug. "No call, no text-I not even have your coffee!"

"That's why it's a surprise!" Jenna managed in a suspiciously cheery way-someone trying to charm their way out of trouble. She returned the second hug before trying to help wiggle free, her face burning a little. "And I brought-"

"Your friend! Ah-" Tala released Jenna (mostly, she still had a hand on her shoulder) to look up at the much taller hero. Despite her puzzled glance mere moments before, she now smiled brightly at him, a genuine sort of warmth and welcome as she made a sweeping motion to the door. "Come in, come in! Tea?"

The house was neat and homey, but at the same time somewhat...minimalistic. There were old pictures here and there on the walls, sepia toned photos of long passed relatives-and newer school photos of Jenna, or maybe her mother-it was honestly difficult to tell until the former appeared to have gotten braces at some point-that made identification a little easier.

The dining area and the kitchen were connected, old wooden floor boards meeting aging but clean tiles. The stove was gas and older than all of them, a modern, new looking fridge jarring with the aesthetics.

Tala pulled out a chair for Elias and indicated it for him-then busied herself with the aforementioned tea. She sparred a glance through the simple arched hallway that led further into the shallow house-and seemed to move even faster.

Jenna was her spitting image-her russet toned, bronze skin was a shade or two lighter, her eyes slightly more round-but the shape of her face, her nose, her build, even her hairline-the apple had not fallen far from the tree at all despite the mixed heritage. She was just as slim as her daughter, a little less athletic looking and more waifish-wearing a comfortable pink t shirt and lacy white overalls cut into shorts.

There was even something familiar about the woman's energy...but where Jenna was barely contained, bubbling exuberance, Ms. Paige seemed to be all anxious neurosis with a smothering warmth for good measure.

"So uh, Mom-"

"Like the green tea? The black?" Tala asked Elias from her place in the kitchen, already at work. "Jenna, your friend like lemon cookie?" "Er, I don't know-Elias?"

But Jenna's mind was not on cookies. "Mom, I was really hoping to talk to Dad."

Tala paused mid reach into a cupboard, frowning. Slowly, she returned to her task-finding a platter, finding a package of lemon cookies, napkins...she glanced to the archway again as she brought the platter to the table, retrieved several small tea cups from a china cabinet against the wall.

"Coming home?" Tala inquired quietly, slightly hopeful-but also knowing better.

"Mom." It was clear from her tone that they had talked about this before. Maybe a lot of times before.

The older woman glanced to Elias, then the cookies-opening the package and pouring them onto the fanciful, faded platter. "Not good day today, I don't think."

The teakettle screamed, and Tala hurried back to it. Jenna dejectedly swiped a cookie, sinking into a seat herself. When her mother returned, dutifully doling out tea bags and carefully pouring the hot water into the cups, neither looked at the other.

"But I ask him for you." Tala finally murmured as the last of the cups filled. "Thank you." Tala squeezed her shoulder, returned the tea kettle, and disappeared through the archway, taking a left out of the hall.

Jenna chewed on her cookie, eyes on the archway. "I figure it's a fifty fifty shot, I dunno." She said, looking over her half eaten cookie. It tasted like sand for some reason.

"Ah, no, not good day." Tala was back, looking a mixture of apologetic and alarmed. "We go outside."

Jenna blinked, her disappointed expression shifting to mild confusion, caught off guard . "What?"

"Outside outside, flowers-" She was pulling on Jenna's chair, had one of her hands-was ushering her out the back screen door, chattering away in Tagalog and Jenna responding in kind. Despite the other language, she sounded bewildered and then exasperated.

"Be right back Elias, sorry-" And out they both went.

Silence in the little house, for a moment.

And then a chair groaned in the next room.

//////////////////////////////////////

Ronnie Paige was not at all built like his delicate wife and daughter. Everything Tala was he seemed to be the exact opposite: big, barrel chested with a bit of a 'dad's belly', he looked like a dancing bear compared to her gymnast build, with forearms that, while not quite as strong as his boxing days, still held some muscle mass. His pale skin had a bit of tan, but also a bit of a sunburn across his nose, a ruddy complexion.

He looked his age, maybe even a bit beyond it-thinning reddish blonde hair and a short beard and mustache with more and more grey every time he chanced on a mirror. Muddy hazel eyes were lined and shadowed, nowhere near as expressive as the rest of his family's. No energy to this guy-he was a stabilizing force, not a motivating one.

He exited the hallway and moved straight into the kitchen area, initially ignoring the man attached to the male voice he had heard. He retrieved a can of Coke from the refrigerator, glancing out the little window over the sink, glancing at the garden and his girls.

He pops the can and turns around to take in Elias. Ron did not look happy to see him there. "Ronnie Paige." He introduces flatly, given the chattier members of his family were currently outside.

He's damned tired, but hell if he was taking this lying down.

Elias looks down at the chair with dismay. It was clearly purchased with the members of this family in mind, for normal-sized people, which is already a problem for him. That's not considering how just purely fucking dense Adamant is, more than any human has a right to be, and he doesn't really want to start off meeting Jenna's parents by breaking their furniture. "I'd really hate to ruin a nice chair by sitting in it, missus Paige," he demurs.

He lets the family fret. This is familiar to him, honestly: the conversations not had, the silences that can ruin a family that doesn't know how to fix the gaps in their hearts. Most of the League, the younger members, had faced similar situations, and though it's never easy, precisely, he knows how to walk this path.

Ronnie is like night and day compared to the women of his family, which makes sense. That much neurosis needs a balance, a weight to hold it steady, and even at a glance this is a man solid like bedrock. Elias nods to him, then tries the tea.

It's fucking terrible.

Elias's face twitches at the amount of sugar in the tea, and swallows it carefully. If anything, it makes him worry more; for all that Jenna had brought delicious home cooking that first day of panic when she'd abandoned the Tower, this is the product of nearly panic-attack levels of stress. He bites his lip, sets the cup down, and turns to look at Ronnie.

Then he sighs.

"Mister Paige," he says quietly, "Go outside and hug your daughter. Or if you're not the hugging sort, say something to acknowledge she's here. She needs to know this is still her home, even if you don't agree with her. She needs to know she's still got a family."

It's a hell of a thing to open up with, and not at all what he'd intended to say. But in this room with an angry old man, and his daughter who he's chased out of the house of her youth, intentionally or not - Elias finds he's mostly just tired too, the exhaustion resonating in the air with his bones.

This ain't about him, and though Jenna asked him here to speak, it seems like this family should already know the words to say to close what's opened up between them.

Elias shrugs and doesn't contradict the point, which is a stupid one. You don't have to say anything to make someone unwelcome. Ignoring them will make the same point soon enough.

He doesn't know what to say about the poster though. He tries to take the fame in stride, but it's hard. Less so for Elias than others - his lack of a past meant everything had to run through him, instead of harassing a hometown or a family - but still awkward at times. "She was up in Gary rounding up a set of crooks when I came across her. Clean work, no major injuries, no mishaps. If I had known the Docks would blow up that bad, I never would have taken a rookie up there," Elias admits with a grimace. "You have my word on that. Nergal and Ahasver were a lot more vicious than I've ever given them credit for before."

Elias looks out the window at the two women, at the stress lines on Tala's face and the shadows beneath Jenna's eyes, and then shrugs. "Anger's a lot easier to fight against," he says. "Disappointment sets in like infection. I don't know precisely what the nature of your argument with her is, but it's eaten at her as long as I've known her. I don't like picking fights from second hand sources either. Figured I'd come up here and see what the matter is."

He'd learned enough about picking fights when you didn't know enough from the mess with Cid. Cover your bases, and know your opponent, or get outflanked. At the very least, this man doesn't come off as immediately contemptible, but that statement - that he's not angry - makes Adamant itch under his skin. It sounds like that asshole's logic, though for know he's giving the benefit of the doubt.

Ronnie's expression softens, the man looking away and to his left, the stack of newspapers, the blue book. "I'm not disappointed, either." He amends and for a moment-it was a clear his resolve was not as hardened as it first appeared.

"...I'm concerned." That was an understatement, a softer expression than what he really was, what he wouldn't admit to being-afraid. Ronnie looks...old suddenly. Defeated. He clearly doesn't entirely know what to do, what action to take.

"I aged six years in the six days she was radio silent. Tala was inconsolable...I know that has little to do with you." Except Jenna was apparently now staying with him. His jaw tightens a moment, then relaxes again as he exhales.

"Every parent wants better for their kid than what they had. I gave 25 years to the military, served proudly-but I didn't want that for my daughter. And if the Association is at all structured similarly...I can't see Jenna dutifully following orders, toeing the line. Looks like there's friction there, and being sequestered..." The politics and specifics are beyond him. He leaves it alone.

"I didn't want her in that city in the first place." The overly protective father reveals tiredly. "Her mother definitely didn't. But she'd worked hard to get the grades and the transfer credits, it was her dream school, she wanted to be a lawyer-and I thought, 'This is better than what I had. She's a smart girl. She'll be alright.'"

He pulls the blue covered book onto his lap. "Then she stopped coming home on her off weekends. Her mother fretted, but I knew she was busy with her studies. I figured she had a boyfriend she didn't want me knowing about, something to that effect. In hindsight, her not being excited for a new heroine, one in her own city-I should have probably picked up on that."

He shakes his head.

"I don't entirely understand her powers or how they came about. My daughter is not good at subterfuge, I don't understand how she balanced this secret double life for as long as she did. What I do know is one day I get a call and she's a mess. Bawling her eyes out. My bubbly, silly little girl-downright hysterical and insistent I and her mother get out of town. I had no idea what to think. Gang? Psycho ex? Drugs? Zero."

His jaw tightens again as he remembers that long ago phone call, his feeling of powerlessness miles and miles away from one of two things that mattered to him, the anger at that powerlessness.

"I put my wife on a plane and then I made the nine hour drive to South Bend in seven. She wasn't answering her phone. Campus police tell me she's not in her dorm room. I find out she missed the rest of her classes the day she called me, didn't turn up for work. There's a psychopath running loose in the city, but my daughter works in a coffee shop, not a bank. I didn't think it had anything to do with me or her. I was wrong."

Mistress Rush. Thief. Speedster. Murderer.

"When the news broke, I was in the police station, trying to bully them into opening a missing persons case before the 48 hour window...you have no idea what it was like, learning Velocity's identity alongside all those cops...and that that psychopathic woman was gunning for her." He didn't sleep that night, or the next three-not until the immediate danger was over. Not until she won.

And then he'd flown home to console his wife.

He opens the scrapbook. It wasn't anything pretty-just collected newspaper articles and computer print outs, pictures-he wasn't ignoring Jenna's crime fighting career. He was actively following along with everyone else, maybe even taking some pride in some of her heroics. But-

"I can't condone this lifestyle, her choices. I know how your lot's stories tend to end. " His eyes are locked on a photo of Jenna with that unabashed, pixie grin on her face, her googles on top of her head and that little salute she sometimes gave before speeding off.

His throat is tight and he swallows against it, having already, verbally and non verbally, spilled more than he has to anyone, ever, on his emotional state. He didn't have much in the way of family. He'd joined the military as soon as he'd been able to, hadn't even graduated high school just so he could get the hell out of his home life, his 'family'. His wife and daughter-he wasn't an emotional man, he may not have always expressed it in the best of ways-but they were his world.

He couldn't protect Jenna from the shark infested waters she seemed dead set on wading in. He couldn't stop her directly, either. And he definitely couldn't sit on the side lines waving and smiling as she put her life in danger.

This was his baby. His baby.

I know how your lot's stories tend to end.

Elias's vision goes white under an actinic, unearthly surge of rage that prickles his skin and numbs his head. He tries to smile through it. Has no idea what it looked like from outside, as he rolls his jaw and glances aside, eyes too wide and staring. Whatever issues he has with this man are insignificant compared to the stretch of his own self-control and he spends a moment patching that in utter silence.

It's not their fault. It's not their fault.

Ten years alone, his friends and family buried to save the fucking world, so people can look him in the eye and tell him they know how their - our - stories tended to end. Adamant wants to scream, and smothers it under the numbness of a decade and slides back to that easy smile. Victory was never so bitter.

But the easy smile isn't right either. Nothing is easy here. It's about struggle, and prices, and the goodness you will allow yourself to do, and reach for. Elias knows goodness by the sharpness of the edges you must grasp to have it. Compassion, and justice, and fairness do not exist in the vacuum. Make it yourself, or know it not.

The easy smile slips off. The core opens. Elias looks at this other man and feels nothing.

"No one can hide her now," he says, the words naked and terrible in their straightforwardness. "If I had known her before she took them on, I might have counseled her otherwise myself. This isn't an easy life - I know this. Choices have been made though. She has no secret identity, and she cannot protect you like she wishes. She defied Paul Marrane, and there is no thing on this Earth that matches his cruelty, though I grant him no other honors."

"She cannot retreat, not from the enemies she has made, and now she must move forward. Become stronger, smarter, quicker - gather allies - bring down those she opposes. Where she is heading - where I stand - the law means nothing. The law changes. The enforcers changes. The papers that define it change. Only strength remains and that is what has molded our world."

Rahab. The Atlantic Powers Act. Caliban.

What Elias says isn't comforting, but there is no lullaby to make these dreams go away. Better to know, he hears Marie's voice in his ears like a whisper, and he agrees. "I can't make her come home," the veteran hero says, "and I wouldn't make her stay. What I can do is make a stand. Declare a challenge, and draw their anger, their spite. Break the wave upon my back."

He rolls his shoulders in a shitty shrug. "If she is anything like Laura - the last woman to wear that uniform - she will try to do the same. I just don't want her to have to do that alone. Whatever choices she makes, she shouldn't be alone."

Elias doesn't know if what he's saying is the one that will help Jenna's argument, or whatever reason he was brought here - but he can feel this man's heart as clearly as his own, immersed by empathy, and all he can do is give the answers he now knows by heart. It's a bitter truth, but it's better to know.

Obuzeti · Jun 5, 2023

Yet another with Ambrosia, this one set in the New Vegas setting of Fallout. In media res, so take heed.

The Sierra Madre turns out to be a cliffside casino, set well above a dingy sprawl of a town on the desert floor below. The entire area is coated in a muck of reddish-brown fog that just tastes disgusting even at a distance, and the sunlight is filtered down to a muddy light even at midday. Moray peers at the place through his spyglass and glances over at Kara from their scouting perch, about a half-klick away from the place proper.

"You're right," he says. "It's a shithole."

There's no sign of the fog freaks she mentioned, but if his luck holds they're indoors and in the cramped streets he can see winding through the villa, especially the shanty district to the left. Worse, if the air quality is that bad from the fog, the water is definitely just as bad, given that the fog has enough mass to sink to the ground. He glances dubiously at their canteens, and then at Hrolf, who is staring, restless, at the giant graveyard ahead at them.

"Where should we start?" he says. "Casino proper probably has whatever the Big Wig wants, but if he could just walk in there, he wouldn't be going through all the trouble."

Kara had her binoculars out again, peering at the same thing he was through the good and the cracked right lens. “Yep. And that’s exactly why I told Devon to fuck off-cheap bastard couldn't have paid me near enough to go in there.”

She lowers the binoculars and reaches into a pocket, producing another crappy map, this one on nicer, less worn paper than the one he’s seen before. She steps closer to let him see it better. It definitely wasn’t to scale, but there was some kind of reasoning to it-a building was marked with a clear medical cross, x’s seeming to indicate and count off surrounding dwellings, Kara having counted buildings rather than feet or anything of the sort. There were also little up arrows on some of the x's for some reason-roof symbols? It looked like she had mostly been in the western part of the little villa, and only along a set route. “I climbed over the wall here-” She taps the map near the medical symbol, draws her finger towards the west. “Moved along the roof on these two buildings to avoid the denser areas of fog. Climbed down and kinda went this way, then had to duck fog weirdos, got pressed along this way-”

She's turning the map as she says this, mentally remembering the twists and turns, visualizing. "This was where I camped out for two of the nights, but I was running low on supplies and knew I had to start heading back."

"I eventually finished out here." She finally taps a circle just above a gate looking symbol. “This is the fountain with the ghost lady. I left that way. Pretty sure I wasn't spotted whole time I was there. Least, nothing tried to engage with me.” A shrug.

“But anyway, that red fog is some caustic shit, and it looks thickest leading back towards the casino. There’s some kind of ventilation system throughout the villa but it’s not working-I fixed one of the fans and that let me move through an area to get to the fountain. So we are probably going to have to work at that first before we can move on the Casino."

That and look for evidence of Vanessa or her brother. Kara honestly doubted he would have made it out here though. It'd stood around mostly undiscovered for this long, after all.

Moray nods grimly. "Medical first. Anyone that's alive in there probably headed there first - if there's empty cabinets, shit like that, it's a good sign someone with reason is alive and kicking. We make it there, I'll block off the lower level and set up a ladder system with some pitons to that rooftop so that we have a guaranteed exit and a fallback position if everything goes to shit. We hit ventilation to open up our ability to move, and then press for the Casino proper."

He slides his spyglass closed and starts trotting for the wall Kara had indicated. That tool goes in one pocket, and out of another comes a metal cylinder, which Moray fidgets with for a moment and then slides out into a rod, which he fills with a second cylinder to reinforce the hollow structure. Then he uses a curious catch on the end to affix his khukuri to it, producing a makeshift-looking spear that he holds underhand, that heavy, wicked-looking blade hung down and gleaming. A third cylinder secures the connection like a shackle, and what had been a juryrigged mess starts looking like an ugly, proven weapon of war, thick and metal.

"You lead and scout," he says with a jerk of his head. "You see a fog freak by itself, maybe two, signal me - I can take a yao guai leg off with this thing, and quietly. I don't know if they react to gunfire, but let's not test it unless we have to. Might be able to lure them off and kill them too. But first, let's get that medical building secured before we do any intentional provoking."

His mind is solidly on the mission now. He has a competent VIP, a hostile area and a force occupying it, and an objective that lies beyond. Everything is numbers or waiting to become so - the universe resolved into clear lines that he can follow.

“You’ll have to stay out here Hrolf.” Kara was saying to the big dog, distracted per usual. “I don’t think the fog guys would make for good eating anyway.” She gave him a piece of jerky, resisting the urge to try and pet him. Patience!

Man she wishes she had more of that.

“Yeah, alright. That sounds solid to me.” His weapon looked lethal as hell. The fuck else did he have on him?

Kara frowned while pulling her hair back, her attention turning to his boots as she looped one elastic around a short, bright red bun at the base of her skull. Mostly, how much bigger they were than hers. “Ya gonna be able to climb this?” She says with a gesture to the wall, looping the second bun to match the first, both half hidden by the fur collar of her jacket.

There were pretty slim pickings of handholds and toeholds, if she remembered right. She’s been scaling buildings since she was a kid, but she’d always had the benefit of being light weight with small hands and feet. Two things Moray did not have. “Otherwise, I got a rope. I’m sure there’s something I can tie it to, over there.” She considers. “That’d actually be a faster idea-I throw down one end, you hold onto for me to scale down the other side easy, and then I’ll fix it and give three sharp tugs when it’s secure for you to climb up this side.”

She stepped up to the wall, fingers already lightly dusted with a bit of chalk. She carried a small bag of it around for that purpose. “The fun part.” She says cheerfully, finding the first handhold. There was a wiry strength in that petite form of hers, a surety of movement that made watching Kara climb the wall something of a study. She made short work of it too.

Crouched at the top Kara fixed the rebreather over her nose and mouth, peering over the other side before flashing him a thumbs up. Out of her backpack comes a long coil of rope, some sort of sleek, strong space-age fibers. She tossed one end down and, once he had it-would make quick work of the other side. She just plumb didn’t weigh that much.

The three quick tugs came not long after.

~*~

Kara had tied the rope tightly to support beam for an upper balcony, was keeping watch while her companion made his way over. She doesn't want either of them getting caught by surprise for damned sure.

Hrolf lopes off, no more interested in checking out the Sierra than he is anyplace else with even the slightest hint of danger. Moray watches him go with a sneer while securing the rope for Kara, and then climbs it himself - it creaks but doesn't give at all. Strong stuff. He drops on the other side with a faint clatter and crouches beside Kara. His rebreather clicks onto his face, and he glances about to get his first full glimpse of the interior of the Sierra Madre.

He was right. It's a shithole.

Rust-red fog hangs dense in the streets, and it looks to have corroded everything; the brickwork, the buildings, even the wood looks burnt and faded, peeling away from below, where the fog billows up from. Visibility is shit, he can see maybe forty feet before everything starts to blur into muddy redness. He can already see one shambling form at the other end of the street from where they're situated; it moves in gasping jerks, like a fish suffocating, as it slams into and bounces off the pillars that support a veranda of some kind of restaurant. It's uncomfortable as fuck to watch, but on the upside the periodic scratchy impact of it bludgeoning itself with the masonwork has covered their entrance nicely.

They're on the second level, which means there could be more of them beneath, but they're not stealthy at all; Moray doubts it. He taps Kara's shoulder and jerks his head in the direction of a large sign with a cross on it, visible because it punches high above the fog. An easy landmark, and a good place to start.

He's not as agile as Kara is, so as he starts to climb onto the rooftop, he moves gingerly; he doesn't even need to fall to fuck things up. A rooftile cracking under his feet from the weight would be as loud as a gunshot.

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