[ prp ] Important Meetings ( Merric & Lys & Ros )

[kuropeco]

He was exhausted.

It felt like an entire year had passed since the Sahara. Merric thought he'd aged about ten years, certainly, with all the stress that had been dumped on them all. It didn't help that he'd ruined one of his best pairs of slacks, or that he'd gotten sand in places there should never have been sand.

But, well, he was alive. That was certainly something, he supposed, albeit grudgingly, because he still wasn't sure he believed in this whole scenario in the first place.

He went to find the two like minded other men he'd met, Merric dressed as neatly as possible out of personal habit. They'd mentioned they were both in Life as well, so perhaps the Life labs was a good place to start..?

Merric poked his head in, frowning around.

Baneful

Toshihiko Two

 

[Baneful]

Lysander had been severely roughed up in the sahara, and after it all he was more than just physically shaken up. His entire perception of the island had seen rattled and it was now harder than it had ever been to tell himself that it was all just a big set up provided for his entertainment. No one would do something so dangerous commercially. It would be for one thing just asking for an enormous lawsuit.

Today he wasn't wearing his usual multiple layers of suit, there was no drycleaner on the island and he'd decided to reserve his favourite clothes for times when there wasn't any risk of him getting thrown around again. Instead he was dressed in a very tidy pair of black jeans with a body hugging black tank top and his hunter jacket. He was still tidy but not quite formal.

He was very staunchly doing no work at all in the labs, but instead watching Roswell cleaning out the cages belonging to the small animals kept there while petting what seemed like a very tiny horse.

 

[Toshihiko Two]

Roswell was a personal assistant, not a janitor, but his job had most certainly entailed a little bit of everything over the years, from booking vacations, party planning, child care, and occasionally picking up after Lysander.

He, too, had dressed down, less than keen on getting the strangely shaped mystical creature refuse on anything he valued.

Regardless, Roswell was wearing elbow-length dishwashing gloves and scrubbing diligently at one of the glass tanks.

He reddened a little at Merric's arrival, but the task was nothing to be embarrassed about. It was the organization's job for the lower ranks. He had a job. He worked for a high-powered executive in a successful business.

"Mr. Cassell," Roswell acknowledged, "We were discussing our situation, and the possibility of the existence of-" he scrubbed harder, hating to say it, "magic."  

[kuropeco]

Roswell received a curious glance, mostly because of the tiny horse, less so over the fact that he was wearing dishwashing gloves and cleaning out the tiny horse's cage. He had never seen something so - small. It seemed impossibly little, and yet -

"Oh, that isn't...a statue," said Merric, a little lamely, after a second more of observing this peculiar interaction. "I thought - that's bizarre."

He almost said one of the most bizarre things he'd ever seen, except the past few days nullified that statement. Merric's gaze flickered over to Lysander, brooding a short distance away.

"...ah. Yes." Merric winced a little. "Magic. That's...a terrible term. Come to any conclusions yet?"  

[Baneful]

The small horse who Lysander had named Sir Fauntleroy was now being fed fear candies by the tall man and generally being petted and spoiled. He was not helping Roswell because that's what Ros was paid for.

"I think it's real." he said. "I mean, I always thought it was you know, before. I'm a white witch." And this was said matter of factly. "But magick and magic are different. I'm mostly upset about it being...more and more likely that this isn't all staged for us but that it might be real."

He snorted. "Even if it is, I want out. My family will sue these kidnappers into the ground."

 

[Toshihiko Two]

"Brain-washing," Roswell pronounced evenly while scrubbing, "Drugs. Some kind of simulation, we've been over it all. But I don't feel drugged. I just don't believe in supernatural nonsense, or don't want to believe in it," he took out the rag he was using, pointing it accusingly at Sir Fauntleroy, "But I am quickly running out of plausible explanations. So if you have any ideas, I'd be very glad to hear them. If we are dealing with magic, my assigned partner is a demon, and I very much doubt it's the white variety."

He went back to scrubbing.

"But we aren't, because we can't be."  

[kuropeco]

Merric just watched the tiny horse with a mixture of fascination and curiosity. It took him a moment to realize that Lysander was talking, and another moment to determine that Lysander had said magick and magic, not magic and magic.

"I was hoping we would be in some sort of...test," said Merric gloomily. "You know. A hazing of some sort, but that's growing less and less likely as well."

He liked even less the idea of brain washing, Merric's eyes flickering over to Roswell. "I don't have any moments where I feel drugged, either," he said, mulling this over. "No blackouts, no strange fuzziness. I feel perfectly as I was, minus the - assigned partner and the whole..." He waved a hand, "goings on of the other day."

He did not have an explanation. That was also irritating. Merric exhaled a breath that he hadn't realized he'd been holding and felt like he'd been holding for years at this point.

"Maybe...it's all real," he muttered, sounding thoroughly put out about this. "I don't want it to be. I don't care for the supernatural, either, but I can't think of anything other than what evidence has already been put in front of us."  

[Baneful]

Lysander sighed, he wasn't willing to let go of his excuses for where they were or the denial that was keeping him from listening to the persistent voice in his head.

<> she said. <>

He tried to push the voice away, resenting the strange images which always flashed behind his eyes when she spoke. His thoughts always snapped from his current fixation (the tiny horse) to something twisted and other, acid rain and rivers choked with dead fish, a creature that breathed nothing but toxic smoke and gasses and whose hooves burned the earth barren and black.

"It could still be a very clever virtual reality program." he said. "Like in the movies. All of this could have been to make us stop questioning it. I dreamed I was a woman, a horseman. That was something I can't explain but if this was all a game then maybe."

He'd never really played games before all this and didn't think he'd ever be any good at it. He probably wasn't, even now.

"I don't want a partner." he said. "Other than Roz"

 

[Toshihiko Two]

"P-personal assistant," Roswell sputtered, "but...thank you. Sir."

Gil wasn't an unpleasant partner to have. He had a soothing voice, and was always pleasant and genteel. Still, to have another creature, or person, or whatever Gil was with seeming access to all of his most intimate thoughts- was...

Roswell went back to scrubbing.

"A-anyway." He cleared his throat. "So- supposing it is magic, and we are stuck here for the forseeable future," he huffed a sigh, "is there a gameplan? If we run into business like we did in that centipede-infested desert, I'm not sure we'll be as lucky again."  

[kuropeco]

He tried to comprehend all of this. "It would be a lot more explainable if it was a virtual reality program - albeit an expensive one, by the looks of it," Merric said, with a glance around the room. "Which, if it is, would be a waste of expenses, because there's no concrete reason for trapping us here, unless it's to make us go insane."

He didn't want it to be magic. Merric gave Roswell a curious look, wishing, not for the first time, that his own laboratory assistant had also come along with him, but she most definitely had not and it was disappointing. Roswell was certainly extremely loyal to Lysander; Merric's assistant had been silent and broody most of the time, but at least she'd helped.

And she'd managed his schedule. That was important.

The idea of running into another desert made Merric pull out a chair and sit down, crossing one leg over the other and folding his hands together in his lap.

"What about the....weapons we have?" He asked, after a moment's thoughts." I mean...they can be pulled from apparent thin air, which I suppose is another facet of either magic or virtual reality. But we can't just be overwhelmed by them again, which I suppose leads to the question of training as well. I heard someone mention training, to get stronger."

It sounded exhausting.  

[Baneful]

Lysander gave Ros a strange look as if he'd just stated the bleedingly obvious. "Well yes personal assistant, what else could I have meant?" But he didn't dwell on it longer than an instant (about the usual amount of time Lys dwelt on anything at all)

"And my game plan is getting off of this island and back to civilisation, what else is there? Maybe there's an end to this system, maybe we can rebel hard enough they need to let us go as a wash. I am not using that weapon thing again, hitting those centipedes in the desert with it..." he looked at his left hand - he was left handed - and grimaced. "It felt weird." And it had, he'd felt the energy slithering into the sword and into him, felt himself used as a conduit for something he didn't like. It was not something he wanted to repeat in a hurry.

"Other than that, I want to find out more about whatever this place is and how we can game it in our favour. If you'd like Merric I'd like to get a little company together, nothing registered, nothing official but something where we can all work together, back one another up and pool our resources, along with those of like minded individuals. Roswell will handle the message carrying if we need to communicate covertly."

He hugged the horse like it was a stuffed animal and it flailed its little hooves.

"What do you say?"

He carefully sidestepped all mention of training because training really really sounded like work.

 

[Toshihiko Two]

"I think training sounds like an excellent idea," Roswell said sharply about the very thing Lysander hadn't addressed. "For all of us. At whatever constitutes as training for this organisation. That will have to be the first priority, I suppose. I don't mind putting my own time into it."

He wiped that tank clean, moving the bucket of water over to the next available tank.

"I'll back any corporate venture you undertake, sir," Roswell said. "This entire company seems somewhat...disorganized."  

[kuropeco]

"Your plan is similar to my own, then," said Merric, though he was frowning slightly. "My own...uh, whatever it was. Hammer? I don't know - thinking too much on what it was and how it worked gives me a bit of a headache, admittedly."

Mostly because trying to explain it was a continued frustration. Merric gave a nod, a flicker of surprise crossing his face at the suggestion of a company, not because it was a bad idea - it was, emphatically, the opposite - but because it was an offer extended to him in the first place. Lysander was looking at him expectantly and Roswell was still cleaning out one of the cages.

"Yes, I - think that would be an excellent plan, quite honestly. It would give all of us some necessary structure in a place that seems sorely lacking in it, even if that does mean...undertaking training exercises as well."

Merric eyed the little horse again and winced.

"I'm not exactly a training sort of person, either, though, it could be good to do so just to...fit in."

It was sort of a question.