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 Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2011 8:48 pm
Christof's muscles were still convulsing spazmatically, but his mind was whirling. Maybe it was the project this close to launching. Maybe it was the millions of watts that had just been sent through him. What ever it was, he felt exhilarated!
After several moments of staring at the formed Lepus on the table... Master Malodore's stitches were so wonderfully small and straight, the seams aligning perfectly... he had even made due with the fabric skin-grafts he had had to insist on, due to Scruff's delinquent assistance... he became aware that Calder was speaking to him.
One eye swiveled up to him and then down to the paper, followed soon after by the other and he took an extra moment to get them to focus. Why? The answer seemed obvious.
Never to die again.
That written, he rose unsteadily to his feet, hands trembling, palms sweating- and not because of the lightening.
It was time to Pull the Switch.
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Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2011 8:56 pm
"For patchworks, or so I understand, a jolt of electricity and FEAR can bring life... it's a very classic tale in the annals of mad science, or so I understand," Malodore said, helpfully, embracing its newfound role as The Explainer of Things. It had to admit, also, that it was starting to get excited as well. Would this work, or would its beautiful little lepus get fried?
The plague doctor stepped back. "Va bene. My part in this is completed, I think."
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Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2011 9:21 pm
Calder read the note several times, long after Christof left and then slowly took the now vacant seat. It was....not something he felt right reading. It was strange to consider a undead would be afraid of dying, but there were permanent ways to get rid of everything. Still, it struck a chord with him.
He chewed his lip, watching as everyone else moved to get ready. Calder's hand held the note, fingers curling into the paper, as he looked at the limp body newly sewed together on the table.
Should he feel excited or...troubled by what was going on? He wasn't a scientist. That much was true, and probably missed out on whatever pride and curiosity that came with the expectation of a experiment being tested. However, a dead lepus was a dead lepus, and cheating death was something that was as old as time and held heavy consequences. He also wasn't a member of the undead and probably felt no fault in creating other creatures that, in their own way, cheated death. Why was he unsettled by this? He would see, to some extent, how Christof was created. This would be a miniature recreation of Christof's own beginning. So, to him, it was natural. For Calder.......well, it was best not to address that now and ruin the energy that was not only sparking outside, but shared with the other boils.
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Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2011 9:26 pm
Barth, predictably, found his way back to the couch, as if all the room-traversing and wire-checking had wiped him out. He had addressed the refrigerator in fairly short order (especially for him) but he was working under Contract, and while capable of a pace that was merely slow instead of slowest, he tried to avoid doing it because of the inevitable crashes that came afterwards.
"...Anything else?"
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Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2011 9:43 pm
The hunchback slowly went over the work, both the lepus, it's combination wtih Barth's mechanical, and the state of the refrigerator. Every moment was like an opiate, and he felt like he was floating as he carefully attached the alligator clips to the proper spots on the "cap" before standing back with a beaming, if still twitching, expression.
Finally he remembered to carefully pat his still statically charged hair down a bit more presentably.
Lightening boomed over head.
He moved to the main switch- a necessary part of any proper act of Mad Science- his hands trembling over it before glancing back to Barth and Malodore with a look of worried expectancy. It was the Master who made the call. But he had two Masters here... which one would make the command?
As though to hurry things along a bit, he looked to Barth before signing, 'should-I-pull-switch-now-Master'.
His heart was racing.
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Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2011 9:50 pm
Malodore's lenses glittered in the light. "Facciamolo," it breathed, leaning forward slightly. Waiting. Ready.
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Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2011 9:52 pm
Barth knew the phrase Christof was looking for.
And even with the air crackling with a certain kind of anticipation...
He very specifically did not give it to him.
"It is my personal opinion," Barth said, "that that particular order should be reserved for the project's head. There are plenty of tongues left in the fridge. If you wanted to put one in for it."
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Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2011 10:00 pm
Christof blinked, brows knit as he tried to process what Barth had said. Project head... well... he... well, yes, it had been his idea but... he wobbled in place,s taring at the Sloth for far too long before timidly looking to the fridge he stood beside before opening it one last time and removing the jar of pickled tongue snacks.
It would only be for a minute... and... and this was a special occasion, wasn't it? He glanced to Malodore a moment and then to the confused face of Calder before turning his back politely and slipping the spare needle from where he kept it tucked in his sleeve and his pocket knife.
When he straightened again, making sure the fridge was properly shut, his attention was directly locked on the kelpi. "Mithter Calder, if you would," He managed, flushing at the sound of his own voice. At least most of the twitch was gone. He didn't wait for Calder to respond, reaching to practically drag him beside the device and stood back, chest puffed proudly as he prepared for it. "Pull the thwitch!"
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Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2011 10:12 pm
While he was conflicted on the ideas shared by the scientist and himself, he was at least able to stand and watch. That alone gave him a sense of comfort. As an onlooker, he could observe and see what all the hullaballoo was about and yet not get too involved. This again made him confused. Part of him really wanted to be involved. Part of this strange group that he clearly wasn’t a part of. While everyone else held a excitement (or what qualified as excitement for the demon now plopping himself on the couch), Calder was conflicted if this, by his own kelpie nature, was the correct place. There were reasons you didn’t keep members of his clan as scientists. He once brushed up against this with Malodore when he visited him to retrieve his leeches. Yet, he so desperately wanted to be part of the gang. He never had a gang before. He was here, after all, to make friends. Was it right that he did unnatural things with these friends?
His attention was taking by the familiar slur of Christof who was beaming down at him, addressing him, which Calder was relieved for, not as Master anything, but Mister. Not great, but better than when he was first addressed. Confused as to why he was even being talked to as he had NO idea what was going on, he was then dragged to a very large switch which Christof presented to him. THE switch. A oversized cousin of a light switch, though this would turn on more than a light bulb.
Swallowing, he looked at the Igor. He seemed so happy and being here clearly meant a lot to him. These were the people important to him. Malodore. Barth. If he……..didn’t pull it, would he not be his friend?
“Um….” He looked at the switch, a flickering memory passing by. A time when he was just a little colt and bringing a dead leech to his mother to ask if he could be fixed and what she had said to him.
He reached up, breathing deep. This isn’t natural. You could get in trouble. But now that his hand was here, with eyes upon him, he didn’t want to disappoint.
He liked having friends.
Calder flipped the switch.
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Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2011 10:18 pm
The lightening struck. The switch had been flipped. Sparks and electricity arched between Barth's careful instruments, through the refrigerator with a sound like a bottled explosion and the Lepus's back suddenly arched on the table-
And then darkness.
Apparently, the demon dorms were not equipped for this sort of experimentation, and somewhere a fuse or ten had been broken.
Everything was silent. "Did... did it work?" Christof's voice hesitantly rose up in the darkness, and he grunted as he bumped into a table on his way to the bathroom. He knew Barth kept ridiculous scented votive candles in his bathroom. "And er... doeth anyone have a match?"
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Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2011 10:23 pm
Malodore's heart swelled as it realized what Barth was doing - and what Christof, by turns, was doing as well. Yes, they were all friends, Brothers (... or whatever) in Science, and-
Fzzzzt!
The plague doctor blinked against the afterimage of lightning... and saw only total darkness behind the searing white cracks temporarily burned into its vision. "Ah... I... believe I would need to see to assess..." It wasn't going to go feeling after the lepus, not when there could still be electricity flowing through it! That kind of a jolt would be most unpleasant... and likely to arc, given the plague doctor's metal bits.
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Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2011 10:32 pm
Look at them.
Just look at them.
And she had been. For several minutes, in fact.
Such a commotion, over the project they were all hunched over, working in tandem to create something brilliant. So much commotion, in fact, that Riley had managed to stand in the shadows, arms crossed, eyes slit so thin they were hardly visible, for quite some time.
And they were doing science.
All of them.
Without her.
They were cheating on her.
She could tell the lights had blown out, by the way everything suddenly turned blue in her sight. They all scrambled in the darkness, and she watched their movements become erratic with blindness.
She also watched something else rather interesting occur, and chose this moment to push herself off the wall and walk, silently, through the group.
As she passed Malodore, her expression softened in sadness. Et tu.
As she walked dangerously close to Calder, her tentacles itched to reach out and end him now, while no one was watching. Had they replaced her with this.. this.. her claws tensed inches from his throat, ready to rip it out.
She paused in front of Christof, her face inches from his own as he swiveled in the darkness. He, perhaps, could have even heard the air leave her tentacles in a sigh.
Then she hopped on the table, where the creation they had just worked on no longer lay, and crossed her legs. When the lights returned, they would be in for a vicious surprise.
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Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2011 10:49 pm
The light flashed and completely blinded him. It was one thing to see in light, but through a blast of it in your eyes and they really hurt like Jack! Next time he might not look directly at whatever they were Bar-B-Queing. Luckily, the darkness provided some relief. A few flashes of light once or twice flickered into Barth’s dorm, but most everyone could see nothing. That was, until Calder regained his own vision. As a creature that both had to swim under water in murky rivers and swamps and also sprint at high speed at night, he could see in the darkness.
This probably was not something Riley accounted for. It was only with luck that the mindflayer was already gone from nearly strangling him, but again, an animal had a sense of smell and he knew Riley’s scent.
Surprised, he looked up and watched as his night vision focused to see Riley sitting upon the table. “OH YA CUN!” He cried, his voice almost strange in its heavy Scottish accent, and grabbed the closet thing which just so happened to be an ornate lamp. In a moment of shock and panic, he threw it at the ghoul.
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Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2011 10:55 pm
The crack of electricity and extinguished lights did not translate to safe and smoothly carried out procedure.
He had checked the wiring. Pretty thoroughly. Sort of thoroughly. It was together, anyway. There wasn't anything disconnected (that he had seen) but the amount of electricity must have been...in the gigawatts.
He ignored the crashing around and safe from his position on the sofa, dictated, "Lighter's in the bathroom drawer."
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Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2011 11:01 pm
Christof hurried to scramble for it, groping blindly before lighting a candle. The scent of Death on the Beach soon filled the room, but he gathered an armful of more candles, juggling them to light a second as he hurried out of the bathroom back into the main room.
Light flickered off of shifting tentacles and glowing white eyes. That was not the Lepus. The candles clattered to the ground, the second lit one nearly setting the carpet on fire before he found his voice, cracking anxiously, "M-mithtreth!"
What... when... how...?? When had she... his mind was reeling again and he suddenly felt himself wishing he was back up on the roof, even as another clap of lightening sent white light and black shadows dancing across the room. "Er... itth.... itth not w-what it lookth like!" He managed frantically, panic bubbling up to meet the vinegar taste of the pickled tongue in his mouth.
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