[PRP] Artifacts 101 (Lucky, Gale, Rep, Mark, Carl)

[Zoobey]

HALLOWEEN - REP

They arrived at what looked like a much better, much more Halloween version of the inside of the house. Above them outside hung a pumpkin sun, bizarrely not making very much light at all as they walked through rows of graveyards and empty cobblestones made of strange skulls.

They came to an arrangement of three doors suspended inside trees, and Alice very carefully knocked on the first door. Doing so made the second door open, and the trudged open and did the same to the second until the third one opened. Her form was painfully solid, perhaps as powerful as the thing in the Arctic base had been. She belonged here.

"The book," she said, and she felt more like a consciousness than just one person, "Use the book, not the shard." A strange, sapping sleepiness was overcoming Rep, and Alice too noticed it. "Goodbye for now!"

Without warning, she physically shoved him into the open portal and when he landed, he would find himself in the outskirts of Deus, by a rather scenic cliffside.

Baneful

 

[kuropeco]

ARCTIC BASE - GALE


He'd made a mistake.

The clanging of the metal pipe in his ears was almost deafening, drowning out the sounds of Gale's own yells of mingled surprise and pain as he fell down it, wishing he were anywhere else - almost anywhere else. Gale collapsed out of the damned thing with a gasp and a stitch in his side, several bruises already beginning to form.

He felt something beneath him - something living - before something - or rather, someone - collided on top of him, effectively knocking the wind out of Gale.

"Ow - "

An attempt was made at pushing Samuel off, Gale's eyes moving around the room as his lungs heaved for air, Gale gasping a little.

"Where - where is this - "

zoobey

 

[Molten Tigrex]

AMAZON BASE

"We're going." Lucky watched Charlotte anxiously through the closing elevator doors, still clutching the jar as if it would explode from even the most cursory jostling. He spent the elevator ride with Carl in silence, trying to make any sense he could out of Charlotte's veiled threat. If she was implying he wasn't any more alive and human than the sentries, then he should be 'disabled' right now too, right? And he definitely wasn't, as far as he could tell.

But if she actually needed their help with this, why bother lying this time?

The nagging question apparently couldn't even wait till they had a secure line. It was the first thing he asked when he found Mark waiting in the empty foyer. "Mark, where do you get the antidotes from?"

"Don't what - ?" It was strangely quiet and dead as they left. Lucky's spiking levels of adrenaline still expected danger around every corner. This was too easy. He followed Mark toward the exit, looking over his shoulders frantically for any sign of the armed guards. But there was no one else here. Including Carl, they would realize a little too late.

"He can't be - he can't be missing! He was right behind me!" Lucky stopped right where he was. He didn't want to admit he hadn't been keeping very careful track of Carl since they left the penthouse. But Carl had definitely been in the elevator. That kid was too quiet. Lucky turned back toward the building, trying his best not to jostle the mystery artifact in the jar with every frantic movement. "No no no Mark what do we do, Rep and Gale are going to kill me -"

zoobey

 

[WE ARE HALLOWEEN]

ARCTIC BASE - GALE

"Hell if I know," Samuel was already looking around, just gently prodding one of the vines of a pod with his runic weapon. The vines recoiled slightly-

- And then the pod opened with a horrific churning noise as a body fell out-

-Missing the top half of its head entirely, a structure of a skull and brains forming made entirely out of writhing green roots.

"No thanks", Sam said flatly, using the tip of his gun barrel to shove the thing back into the pod. "No thanks to all of this. Where are you Rep do you copy us?"

Silence.

And then more pods began to open, this time with complete humans. They didn't look the same at all, a mixture of different facial features that made them quite genuine, and they all wore the same grey clothes, that wove around them rapidly.

INTRUDERS.

All the pod people turned to face the two new arrivals.

kuropeco

 

[WE ARE HALLOWEEN]

AMAZON BASE - LUCKY

"Holy crap," Mark echoed, "they are going to kill you." It was amazing how quickly the Death assistant could shrug off any responsibility. "Oh well, the good news is we didn't die." In the current timeline of things, this made sense in his head.

"Wait, the portal- we gotta run!" He didn't wait for Lucky to follow before scrambling outside, leaving a very messy wake of broken foliage to follow. If Lucky turned around just so, he could see the elevator open again-

-With Carl's unconscious body still inside.

Molten Tigrex

 

[kuropeco]

ARCTIC BASE - GALE


He was slowly getting his breath back, Gale climbing to his feet, a hand pressed to his chest. The runic dagger was still clenched tightly in his hand, fingers wrapped around it, thank goodness; he'd spent a lot of time and effort customizing it, after all, and he needed the protection now.

He leapt backwards as the pod swung open, heart hammering in his chest.

"What the - "

Gale stumbled back, teeth gritted, the dagger raised protectively in front of him.

"Samuel - " he said. " - we should - do something - "

zoobey

 

[Molten Tigrex]

AMAZON BASE

"Not helping." Lucky turned around one more time, trying to scan for any sign of what might have happened. And stopped, back to the exit. Well, Lucky had been half-right - Carl had definitely been there in the elevator. He'd just never left... what had happened to him?

"Mark, he's -" Lucky was answered with the sound of crackling leaves and branches from the hasty path Mark was forging into the jungle. Mark was making the smart decision to just get the hell out of there.

Lucky sighed loudly, adjusted his grip on the jar, and ran back toward the elevator. That meant he had to make the stupid one.

As much as he really had been the first to admit he didn't want Caelius back as a person, the Death lead played a very important role in their bizarre, multi-world ecosystem. And he'd never admit it aloud, but he almost felt bad for Carl. At least the facility was empty, and quiet. Maybe there was still time.

zoobey

 

[Zoobey]

ARCTIC BASE - GALE

"I'm working on it", Samuel fired about two shots before he paused, and then shouted something that sounded an awfully lot like "WATCH OUT GALE-"

- As something latched onto Gale from behind, and sucked him into a pod.

Vaguely, Gale could hear pounding, as if someone was trying to tear against the strange half-metallic half-organic surface. Vaguely he could see from the glass as more and more vines covered the lid-

- And very strongly he could feel himself sinking deeper and deeper into an abyss, even the nausea peeling away until all he saw around him were branches going all directions. He could see it now, he could see he was just a minuscule part of them, the tips of each branch filled with memories, with individual consciousness feeding into the tree. He could see that one of the branch tips was empty, and that was where he belonged.

Kuropeco

Roll 1d6. That's the amount of memories (of people, places, things, specific events, big or small that's up to you) that the tree absorbs from Gale during this event. RP them out accordingly).

 

[Zoobey]

AMAZON BASE - LUCKY

The elevator door was going nowhere, though it would hilariously close every 30 seconds for absolutely no reason before opening again, perpetually stuck at the lobby. It would have probably saved Lucky another trip back here for absolutely no reason, though it seemed Charlotte visited him a lot more than he ever visited her; maybe this was a dominance thing.

It was also possible that such speculation was left better for the future - thankfully being shorter than Lucky also meant Carl was very easy to drag in any way possible, though he was so unconscious it was kind of difficult to tell if he actually was passed out or dead.

In another alternate universe was a world where Mark was division leader and everything was on fire.

In this current one, Mark, currently proxy division leader, was making weird "Dude," noises at Lucky followed by, "The things I do for you after you threatened to unfollow me on Twitter."

Molten Tigrex

 

[Molten Tigrex]

Lucky was surprised to find the elevator still waiting on the floor by the time he made it there - even if every time the doors closed it sent a shock of fear through him. He crouched in the elevator, not even looking for vital signs so much as debating how bad of a time Carl was going to have if Lucky dragged him out of there and through the jungle by the leg.

"Mark, for the last time, I'll make it up to you as soon as we get back --" He was already trying to pull Carl out of there as fast as he could, which was not at all fast. Maybe he should have given Mark the jar before he doubled back - dragging a body with one hand was not the most efficient way to rescue anyone. How did everyone else make this look easy? "Wait, what are you doing?"

zoobey

 

[Zoobey]

AMAZON BASE

"To Medieval Times and then Disneyland, where the heck does it look like I'm going?" Mark yelled through the headset, "I'm going to the portal before it closes up."

There was a long awkward pause as the Death assistant just waited and then came the long rant. "Why the heck did we even have to go here I mean Charlotte could have just come to us and that seriously would have achieved the same thing, I mean like, she could have just been like oops, accidentally dropped something, this seriously makes no sense, I don't even want to know what you two were doing up there in front of a minor, no, don't tell me, don't want to know, this is way worse than having to explain the whole larping thing to you from last time, speaking off, did you ever even create an RP profile for your character because your name still has a character on the reserved list and I'd rather take it off and give it to me... err a friend and do you even know how to RP in the first place because I'm pretty sure you just copied and pasted your TiM profile from Mimsy, who is probably a way better RPEr than you, not that I want to OTP with her or anything but-"

This would go on and on until Lucky finally arrived at the portal.

Molten Tigrex

 

[Molten Tigrex]

Fifteen minutes of Mark's inner monologue later, Lucky arrived at the portal, completely sweaty and dragging Carl's unconscious body by one leg. Carl's hair and clothes, and by extension Gale's nice trainee coat, were now very well acquainted with jungle dirt, leaves, and a variety of exotic bugs with too many legs.

"Well," he wheezed. Carl's leg was unceremoniously dropped and Lucky collapsed beside him. in an upright heap. The object in the jar seemed to be relatively safe, as Lucky too the time to check for any damage, cracks, or other signs of their imminent death. He looked back up at Mark. "Did it close?"

All in all, this had been the least murderous encounter with Charlotte yet.

zoobey

 

[Zoobey]

Mark was beginning to wonder why Lucky was just dragging around a dead body like that but he decided it wasn't really his call if Lucky got super attached to Caelius for some reason. He did have a ship name and all that planned for them so the thought wasn't that crazy, though, was that ship ***** now?

"The portal's still here," he said flippantly, and then paused in sudden realization. "The portal is still here. It was supposed to close like fifteen minutes ago. How?"

Someone who's name began with C and wasn't Caroline and was incidentally being dragged by Lucky was going to need a very long shower and possibly a new coat (again).

Molten Tigrex

 

[Molten Tigrex]

"What? Are you sure?" Lucky stared at the portal. It didn't look strange to him. But it had also been unguarded the entire time Mark had been making his way to and from Charlotte's compound. "Maybe - maybe you just forgot to set off that failsafe before we left."

Lucky looked over his shoulder in the direction they'd come from.

"I don't like the idea of staying here much longer. I don't even know what happened to him. He's - he's not dead, is he?" Lucky gestured to Carl, who was clearly in no state to tell them, either. He tried to stand up again, scattering some curious beetles back to the dirt. "The portal... do you think it's... safe?"

zoobey

 

[Zoobey]

LIGHTHOUSE - LUCKY

"Only one way to find out," said Mark, and then casually pushed Lucky in the portal, child attachment and all.

"Cool," said the Death assistant, who stepped in about five seconds later back into the lighthouse, "it is safe. Huh." He examined the portal for a few minutes longer before closing it on his computer screen. "Must be a bug of some sort, I'll have it looked at later."

As Mark closed the portal, he wouldn't notice strange green roots digging themselves underneath the lighthouse, extending right beneath sand and dirt in a obvious ripple effect, which which incidentally cause quite a large island-wide effect later. He gave Lucky a thumbs up. "At least the placebo worked."

It was to be noted Lucky's underage attachment was still unconscious.

Molten Tigrex