[IC] TFW Chapter 1: Sloth

[Shamitako]

Merlin

 

After moving in silence for a while, Merlin felt rather safe. Doesn't seem like there's going to be any resistance." she said, "If I had to guess, the infirmary will be near the staff lodging. And I don't see much to suggest this is where they sleep." They didn't have access to a map of any kind, so they were searching blindly. One side of the hall had been partially destroyed, opening up to rooms filled with severe damage. She assumed that was Ansuz's doing. Just past the destroyed rooms was an office room with several desks partitioned off from one another. Just inside the entrance was a transporter as well as a smaller desk with a data terminal on it. Merlin hooked her HUD up to the terminal. As she suspected, it was a log. It seemed it was used to track when subjects were performing testing in the "zero gravity chamber." Unfortunately, it made no mention beyond ins and outs. Merlin tried keying up the teleporter. Surprisingly, it had no form of protection whatsoever. Only problem was that there was no destination list, you had to input a chosen destination manually. She tried "infirmary," "emergency room," and "medicine storage." To no avail. She sighed and turned to Bartek. "If we can figure out the right place to transport to then we can go straight to the infirmary from here." She explained, "So we can get there quickly but we still need a map. Check those cubicles, see if they have computers with maps. I'll go check across the hall, see if there's anything useful there."

 

(OOC: For the sake of speed, go ahead and find a map on one of the computers)

[Strider]

"Okay. . ." Sense shrugged. "I'd personally prefer you not being crazy? Why is it unfortunate? Either you're sane, pretending to be crazy, which means you'll be underestimated by enemies, though it might be annoying, or you're actually insane, which I feel is far worse." Sense led the way up the hall, opening doors carefully, before checking to see if the rooms contained their comrade. He didn't see anything, no runes, nor friends, just some offices, a gym, and a few other odd rooms. They were coming up on the crater in the middle of the building now. "What did you want to do with the runes? And. . . we need to figure out how to get across this. I can't teleport yet, and I'm not strong enough to lift myself telekinetically, I don't think. If you make a rope, and I can probably tie it off from a distance. . ."

[Raindrop Valkyrie]

Anemone

Anemone had closed her eyes for the meantime as Feardorka, or whatever his name was again, worked. Pretending to be asleep she awaited when he finally left. As he announced his departure, she shifted her head a little so that she could see Charity. "Hey, Charity. You've been awfully quiet, you doing alright?"

[Shamitako]

Charity

 

Charity raised her head to look at Anemone. Her eyes were bloodshot and her dark cheeks glistened with tears. "I'm okay." She lied. She was a bad liar under the best circumstances, in these conditions there was no hope Anemone would believe her. But she couldn't bear to speak the truth of how she felt. After what she had done, such an obvious lie barely even felt like a sin.

[Raindrop Valkyrie]

Anemone

"Hmmm, l know your lying. Your face tells me as much. That and l know you probably blame yourself for Gypsy's death. Many would see it that way, your actions leading to it. However, what happened you could not have known the outcome of." Anemone shifted herself looking over the girl. She didn't really know much about her, she was dressed as a nun, Anemone presuming she was much the religious type. lf she knew anything, she knew she'd blame herself before anyone else. Her reddened eyes, and tear soaked cheeks, they gave it all away. 

"Ansuz... is manipulative. He played at something in you. Your humanity. l can't ever say those events for good but l can say they prove you aren't soulless... and l can say you probably aren't the only one that would've succumb to such. l felt the urge myself. That's Ansuz's game. l doubt any of this is helping... cause l'm terrible at this. But, understand that what happened was because your human. We make mistakes, we pass judgement incorrectly sometimes. And sometimes we aren't the ones that pay the price for it. That's life. Anyway, l don't know how the others will respond to you once they have the time to think on it. To process what has happened. But, l know that l don't think your a bad person. Your still here to learn from this, so do so." Anemone paused for a moment, she seemed to be thinking about something rather hard.

"Not for Gypsy's sake though, not for anyone else's. For your own."

[Empiricist]

Exile - Atrium Crater

 

Exile peers over the edge of the crater, a safe distance away from the precipice of course, gaze and focus haphazardly jumping across everything before her, and a few things that were not. "Figure stuff out of course~! See that crater? One rune did that. None of us found it in time, and I was even looking for it and everything! Careful as we are, we've set some off, and now Ansuz won't be playing games, he'll be going for our throats. Can't take that risk now. We need a better way to find them, or jam them. Something cheap and easy, like a liquid or a vapour or something, spray and forget. Otherwise it's going to be slow, too risky, and someone else, someone else could die... Also I wanna mess with their conduits and stuff, see if I can't disconnect or modify them! That's more for funsies~"

 

She begins estimating the the distance of the crater, trying to figure out whether she had enough power to bridge the gap be it with an actual bridge or a rope, and whether or not she could teleport across. "Betcha we could cut our way through a buncha rooms and circle around this. Or circle around the whole facility and take the Mega Star Cannon entry point!"

[Shamitako]

Charity

 

Charity squeaked out a choked sob. She tried to stop it, but once one came out it was followed by several more. "I didn't want anyone to die." She cried, "Merlin, she looked so hurt. She didn't want to kill Ansuz. And he looked so helpless..." Tears rolled over her cheeks, dripping off of them to soak her chest. "I didn't mean for it to turn out like this. For so many people to be hurt because of me."

[Sutoratosu]

On 8/13/2017 at 5:22 PM, KosherKoneko said:

Genie

 

Tallow nodded. "Okay." He agreed.

Now that the issue with Tallow was resolved, Genie had a chance to talk again. "I was checking something while you were busy and it seems like three children aside from Tallow were left in the facility but not placed in the bank."

"Which ones?" Blink asked, "Any chance we can get them without another big ordeal?"

"D3112, I234, and... D279." She seemed pensive with the last.

"And the chance of an ordeal?"

"Flower is a jerk but he'll be easy enough to deal with. I just don't know where he is. I234 is probably in a pod, she just has a special room." She paused, "And Caliber is Tallow's sister. According to the log she was never returned. She was in the infirmary when the evacuation started, so they probably sedated her and locked her in. I wouldn't want to be the one to let her out."

((I legit missed that this response had been made for a few days.... sorry))

Cheryn

"Alright, well it wasn't like we weren't gonna have to search for anyone anyway..." Cheryn replied, not... terribly concerned abou trouble. She had learned shielding, wards, and a couple illusions for a reason afterall, and besides... hopefully if she'd been sedated, it would take a while before the grogginess fully wore off, and they could try to smooth things over before it did. She thought for a moment, looking back to the pods in the room they still stood in, before turning to Blink "So what do you think, you want to go find the 3 stragglers and then come back here to get the rest of the kids out, or do it in the reverse order?"

[Shamitako]

Blink

 

"Well, we already woke some in here." Blink pointed out, "But the longer we wait on the others, the harder it will be to find them."

"P011 won't be going anywhere." Genie reminded her.

"Right, but the other two could potentially be moving about." Blink paused, listening for a moment. "Actually, wait, there hasn't been any fighting for a while. We should contact Merlin, maybe the rest of the gang can search while we get these kids outta here."

[Sutoratosu]

Cheryn

 

"Alright, let me see what I can do...." She closed her eyes for a moment, gathering her concentration as she prepared to send the signal- it had been easy to hail Blink earlier, she'd been in the same room just meters away afterall. Trying to shoot a broadcast to someone who was watcher knows where within the facility though... well, she honed her intent as best she could, focusing her thoughts on the elder mage, where ever she might be:

 

"Hey, Merlin... you there? We found Tallow, and some of the other kids too..."

 

 

[Raindrop Valkyrie]

Anemone

"Yes. l know that. lf you knew what would've come of that action l am sure you'd not take it again. Why l won't be after your head. You're still a good person Charity, you're still who you were before. You can't change what happened but you can continue to live your life. You didn't know what would happen." Anemone tried to pick herself up, but found it difficult with only a single arm and further, felt like the world was about to fall away underneath her once she moved. She decided against it then and sunk back into Forge's lap.

"l know this doesn't make this any easier or any better. But Gypsy just as well with what he did. That was a calculated risk. l just wish he'd have let me die instead. No one would be upset if l were gone. No one would have to cry."

[Yours Truly]

Feardorcha had quietly followed after Sense and Exile, and he spent most of the trip obsessively checking the area around the group to look for any extremely hard to find rune traps that Anzus may have randomly strewn around the place. After arriving at the crater Feardorcha would shut off his deflection spells before he started to examine the area around the crater to try and find out more about where they were going, and to try and look for any clues that would help them find out where Bear ran off to. "What was Bear doing the last time you saw him?"

[Strider]

Sense jumped at the man's voice, as he hadn't known that Feardorcha was following them. "Jeez! I don't know, I think he was trying to decrease the power of the explosion or something. He might be in the rubble somewhere around here. I don't think he'd go down from something like this. . . Anyway, I think cutting through is out of the question. I don't have that kind of power, and there's probably some sort of method of preventing breeches, since this is--was a scientific facility. Going around might work, but it'd take a while, and might be a problem if Cheryn isn't in that hallway. Finding a way across would probably be better since it might let Feardorcha do some searching. Circling around would be fine as a back-up plan, if we can't figure anything out." Sense stared down into the crater, trying to see if there might be a way down through the rubble, and then back up again, or basically how deep the crater was, and whether handholds were scarce.

[ElfCollaborator]

Bartek

Bartek decides, after a moment of hesitation, to search the computers. He sighs as he does so, struggling to fit his rather large body into the cubicles.

"Computer is made for smaller man. Bartek is not small man. I not understand why they don't use paper maps. Is so much easier to use."

After a few minutes of struggling to type due to hitting two or more keys with one finger, let alone knowing how to use a computer, Bartek eventually locates a map of the facility. Giving himself a mental pat on the back, he calls out to Merlin.

"Merlin! Bartek has found map on tiny man computer! Maybe you could use for teleporter, yes?"

Edited August 18, 2017 by ElfCollaborator

[Shamitako]

Merlin

 

Merlin was distracted from searching through a pile of sports equipment by Cheryn's message. It wasn't entirely clear, but Merlin got the jist of it. She couldn't handle a response herself so she piggybacked on Cheryn's signal, making sure to keep the message concise so as much got through as possible. "Two wounded. Looking infirmary. Stay. Send location Sense." She sent. She couldn't be sure Sense would be in the pair looking for Cheryn, but she didn't have time to list anyone else.

 

Shortly after she finished with Cheryn, Bartek called. She quickly returned to the office room. "Good work." she said as she downloaded the map to her HUD, "Now let's stop wasting time." There was a room labelled "infirmary" but it had no teleporter. However, as Merlin had suspected, it was very close to the staff barracks, which did have them. She keyed in Barracks 2, the transporter taking her and Bartek across the facility towards the infirmary and the promise of medicine.

 

Charity

 

"But what if I would do it again?" Charity asked quietly, "Ansuz is a bad person but... he's also a confused child. I don't know how I'll live with myself now that Gypsy is dead because of me. But how could I live knowing I could have saved the life of a child, even- no, especially one as broken as that?" She broke down into tears again. Even knowing her choice would still result in a life being extinguished, if she had to relive that moment, Charity wasn't sure she could bring herself to let Merlin kill Ansuz. It hurt that Gypsy was gone. But the pain Merlin would feel from ending the life of the one she cherished most with her own hand would have been this a thousandfold. With Charity's own apprehension over whether Ansuz deserved to die added into the mix, there was simply no way she could let Ansuz die like that. Perhaps it was a selfish decision and perhaps it was simply wrong. She didn't care anymore. This pain was already too much to bear, she couldn't bear worse.

[Sutoratosu]

Cheryn

"Apparently whatever was going on out there, I guess it's over now" Cheryn relayed, turning back to blink, "She said there were a few people wounded and that they were looking for the infirmary.... so I guess they'll find Tallow's sister on their own. Said to stay put too, signal one of the others, so I guess sooner or later, someone will be here." with that said, she closed her eyes again and once more concentrated...

 

Sense... sense... sense... the name ringed a bell... oh right. He had been the other dude who'd taken training in telepathy, right? From what she recalled, he had seemed to be more serious about it than her... 

 

but wait, why wouldn't she have told her to relay Gypsy instead? Well, maybe he was one of the wounded. wasn't really the time to sweat the small details. Repeating much the same process as she had to hail merlin, she sent out a message to the guy....

 

(( @Strider ))

"Hey, uh... Sense, you hearing this? This is Cheryn. Look, Me, Blink, and few of the kids held here are in a room called the 'Child Bank'. You can get there by going through the teleporter in one of the storage rooms labeled 'Dried Food' or whatever, off of one of the halls. Look for a map on a terminal or something if you guys can't find it."

[Shamitako]

Merlin

 

Merlin wasted no time, sprinting as fast as she could from the barracks to the infirmary. She tried the door but it wouldn't budge. She was too close now to be stopped by a mere plate of metal. She peered through the small window embedded in the door to ensure no one was inside to be injured. Spying a clear coast, she stepped back. Her arm raised up, light glowing within her extended palm. The door flew from its hinges.

 

Blink

 

Blink noticed Genie mumbling apprehensively at the mention of the infirmary and Tallow's sister. "What's wrong?" She asked.

"I told you, I wouldn't want to let Caliber out." Genie replied.

"That's you. Merlin's the one doing it. And she's one tough old hag." Blink assured her.

"Caliber is extremely volatile. She possesses a powerful and versatile special ability and she's learned in a very short time to make full use of her talent. And she has the element of surprise."

"Trust me, Merlin's the one who'll be doing the surprising." Blink smirked, "She's no slouch with witchery. But more than that, I'm pretty convinced she's stuffed with a metric fucking truckload of 24 karat luck. She won't let that kid scratch her."

"I'll have to take your word for it I guess." Genie didn't sound convinced. She didn't have to. Merlin would be fine regardless of how the young scientist felt.

 

Merlin

Spoiler

 

 

Merlin peeled the door off. It clattered to the floor. There was a large hole smoking in its center. She didn't have to question the cause as a blast of glowing red energy tore through the air towards her. Merlin clutched her hat tightly as she dove under it, somersaulting gracelessly through the doorway and barely managing to regain her footing when the manuever completed. A third shot was already on the way to her head. She just barely managed to teleport a nudge to the side, allowing the attack to pass by her, whipping up a powerful air current millimeters from her ear. Half a breath later Merlin released a counter-attack in the form of three orbs of electricity aimed at the bed behind which her attacker had taken cover. Her foe popped up and countered with three shots of their own, each colliding with one of Merlin's and causing a small explosion of energy. Merlin observed that the opposing fire pierced into her attack but didn't pass through entirely, meaning that they were similar enough in power to cancel each other out. This fight would not be decided by firepower, but by speed and wit.

 

Merlin's foe rose up to attack, granting Merlin her first decent look at her attacker. It was a young woman in a labcoat, and from the looks of things nothing else. Possibly an experiment subject then. She had jagged grey hair with a prominent streak of red through bangs that covered one of her eyes. The uncovered eye glowed red and was focused angrily on Merlin. The teen had shaped her fingers to form a sort of gun, middle and index fingers extended while the other three curled back to her palms. Both of these guns were held at arms length, palms down, and pointed at Merlin. Red energy glowed against the young woman's fingertips, instantly converting into the shape of a bullet and firing off. This repeated twice for each hand before she ducked back behind cover. Merlin countered each shot with a different element to see if any were somehow more effective, each yielded the same energy explosion the electrical ones had.

 

"You're pretty good." A rough but fairly high-pitched female voice said. It almost certainly belonged to the rebel behind the bed.

"I am known for my skills as a mage." Merlin replied, "You're not bad yourself."

"I'm Ballista, most people know me as D279: Caliber. You?"

"Mackenzie Cloud, call me Merlin. Any chance we've bonded and become friends now?"

Merlin's reply was Caliber standing up and launching a magic missile that had formed next to her arm. "Guess not." Merlin grumbled as she peppered it with water blasts, causing it to explode in a bright red flash that filled the room. When the light cleared a barrage of energy bullets streamed towards Merlin, who countered with a storm of fireballs.

 

The bullets kept coming, and Merlin found she was only just barely able to keep pace with the onslaught. She looked Caliber directly in the eye and pushed as hard as she could to match the girl's speed. Caliber's eye seemed to emit a red pulse. Merlin didn't know exactly what it did, but she knew it couldn't be good. She had no way to know what was coming and couldn't take any energy away from her fireball defense to cast a barrier. Suddenly she felt two bursts of pain, one in her stomach and one in her left breast. She doubled over in shock. Caliber dashed for the door but as she passed Merlin, the mage raised her arm and waved her hand next to Caliber's ear. Caliber lost her balance and felt to the floor. She moaned a few times while her head cleared. And when it did she felt the crackling static feel of electricity against her neck. "How'd you do that?" She asked.

"A magician never reveals her secrets." Merlin answered, "And, uh, I forgot to mention it since I was having so much fun, but actually I'm here to rescue you."

"I don't need rescuing from an exhibitionist."

"Hey! These are my nice clothes!"

 

After tying Caliber up to prevent her from escaping, Merlin immediately began scouring through the infirmary's medicine storage for anything useful.

[Raindrop Valkyrie]

Anemone

"Some are beyond saving Charity. As cliche as it is... you can't save everyone. Ansuz is beyond that. To be corrupted to that level, one must be in part willing. But more importantly, if there was a better way Merlin would've found it a long time ago." Anemone wasn't really sure this was any effective. Why she didn't like religious types... They always blamed themselves for everything and further held themselves so high that that can never live up to their own expectations. A dangerous combination. 

"Further, Gypsy's blood isn't on your hands. l don't really care about the whole "indirectly my actions caused it..." horseshit. You did not kill him. Ansuz did. Gypsy is dead because of Ansuz. Ansuz CHOOSE to kill them in choosing to take another life. l'll only say this once. l'm not your enemy Charity. However, l cannot abide someone who cannot trust us in times of need. Nor can l afford to, nor can any of us. lf you cannot do that which you set out to do, if you cannot in that moment put your faith in your allies... you aren't our ally. Unwavering faith without question is terrible. That is just as bad if not worse. So don't misunderstand me. But you now understand what we are dealing with. Someone willing to kill over a sick twisted revenge fantasy. Someone so utterly consumed by darkness they are barely have humanity left. The very thing l'm sure whatever faith you believe in holds in utter contempt. Ansuz stopped being a child. You can no longer treat them as such. They are beyond redemption. Redemption doesn't not exist for those that consort with demons of the mind. You should understand that better than anyone else. That there is nothing you can fix. There is nothing you can save. The longer Ansuz exists in this world, the more pain they will cause. People will die. People will suffer... until Ansuz no longer walks this world. l don't fully understand the extent of this but... the longer they exist, the more it'll hurt for Merlin too. The longer this goes on, it'll fester and rot in her soul. The longer this goes on the more this will hurt her. Whoever Ansuz was before... That's not who he is anymore, and whoever that was isn't coming back. Merlin l'm sure understands this. You must as well, you must for your own sake. But, l can't make you. Understand, the others may see you as a traitor. Frankly, l cannot say they are wrong. But l cannot condemn you, in good faith, for doing what you had believed was right. However, l can and l will if you refuse to learn from your mistake. Now... l'm finished." Anemone quickly shut her eyes after she finished speaking to indeed indicate she was finished.

"Dying would've been so much easier... alas, l've still much to do in this world. Prefer it that way. Easy never was my style." she thought to herself.

[Strider]

"In the hall you first came in through? Anyway, got it. Will be there soon."

"Come on Exile. We need to find a map, then find a room labeled dry storage. From what it sounds like, it's probably down the hall Merlin and the others dirst came in." Sense stepped briskly down the hall till he came to an office. Inside there was a small computer, on which Sense quickly found a map of the facility. A little bit of zooming in, and the Dry Food room was apparent. "There's a teleporter in here actually." Sense went to the corner of the room, and stepped onto the platform, setting off to the Child Bank. ((OOC, I'll see what Emp posts before arriving))

Edited August 19, 2017 by Strider

[Shamitako]

Charity

 

Charity said nothing more herself. She couldn't agree with Anemone. Regardless of the things he had done, Charity simply couldn't stop seeing Ansuz as a broken child. And she was fairly certain Merlin still saw him as one too. Charity wasn't privy to the details of Merlin's relationship with the boy, but it wasn't hard for anyone to see that the eccentric mage treated him as her child. With how unknown Ansuz's background was, it wasn't entirely out of the question for Merlin to actually be his biological mother. What fate could be more cruel for a mother than to kill her own child? No matter how Charity tried, she could neither convince herself that Ansuz deserved death nor that Merlin was making a wise choice in his execution.

[Empiricist]

Exile - Teleporter Room

 

A curt nod and Exile follows, the illusionist's mind elsewhere, not that to say such was to say much of course. A cursory glance over the facility map, a quick inspection of the teleporters, no dice. No obvious vulnerabilities right now, nothing jumping out just yet. Well, wouldn't be fun if it weren't a challenge, right~? Still if that crater was anything to go by, area denial wasn't an issue this group was deficient in, and with interspersed and she could only presume, normally heavily fortified teleporter relays, they'd likely be able to blast their own facilities to create chokepoints as needed, not a nice prospect, especially not when the gloves are off as they would be now. They really needed to ask Merlin more about Ansuz and this group, get all the facts and pieces in place.

[Strider]

After the brief nothingness of the transport, and the immediate change of surroundings, Sense appeared on the teleporter in the Child Bank. He gave a wuick glance around the room: pods, Cheryn, some other older people, and the kids.

"Merlin wanted us to locate you. Need help with something since you called? Or did you know we were looking for you? And who are these people?"

 

((Short post b/c I'm in a rush))

[Empiricist]

Exile

 

 "Hiyee~! Gypsy's dead. Ice and Anemone are wounded. Ansuz was critically wounded but evacc'd before we could finish him off. What's new on your end? Have you decided to settle down and raise a family? Who's the father?" She pauses for a moment, another loading icon appearing above her head. "Also! Ansuz's mech appears to be an energy cannon with overwhelming power which can be amplified using these lens thingies! Low rate of fire, seems to lock before firing giving a chance to dodge (I'm expecting they'll try and fix that) doesn't seem to have too much in the way of mobility and defenses, but he did repel an attack using some kind of rune. Figured you'd wanna know."