nysalogs | Closed Log: A Blessed Entourage

Entry tags:

Closed Log: A Blessed Entourage

Who: Zer0 (

fuelthefire)
What: Quest: A Blessed Entourage
When: Early January
Where: The road between Olympia and Wyver
Warning(s): This log rated "A" for "Assholes". Alternatively: Violence, some strong language, and the unsettling ramblings of a madman

What had sounded like a hugely boring escort mission with some small promise of interest (Maybe an ambush?) had, so far, turned out to be a hugely boring escort mission without one single ambush. The noble's bodyguard and young servant, the prime suspects fingered by the Olympian Temples as potential ambush instigators, had turned out to be two incredibly okay people who Krieg and Zer0 both rather liked. And, also, unless one of them was a very good actor, completely innocent of the crime of organizing an ambush against their employer.

Krieg and Zer0 knew. They'd straight up asked.

The attitude and behavior of Lord Fancy Pants of Stick-Up-His-Assington thus far had been far more suspicious than anything said or done by their traveling companions, although admittedly both Krieg and Zer0 were inclined toward suspicion of rich assholes - It was practically ingrained after dealing with all of Handsome Jack's bullshit on Pandora. And while this particular rich asshole isn't actually anywhere close to being in Jack's league of guilded douchebaggery, he's still bad enough the assassin and the psycho have passed some time sharing half-baked ideas for separating him from his vital organs between themselves.

Frustrated, bored, and frankly more than a little irritated by the lack of fighting practically promised by the Temple when they'd agreed to take on this job, Krieg is ecstatic that the plan they've devised to get to the bottom of this whole "fake death threat" thing involve's fighting Zer0.

Well. Zer0's decoy.

Which isn't quite as good as actually fighting the assassin (actually, it's not as good at all), but he'll take what he can get at this point. While Zer0's busy being a sneaky ninja, it's Krieg's job to be the Loud Distracting Meat Man, which is a job he is very good at.

"I CAN'T WAIT TO TASTE YOUR LUNGS!"

It's time to pretend to beat up a hologram.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Seeing as the hologram is 100% a hologram, it does not engage in smack talk with Krieg. It does, however, do one of those 'come at me bro' chest thumps before standing at the ready to receive some combat. Some totally real, no bullshit at all combat between a beefman and a totally-not-a-hologram ninja.

No, it's all fake, and it's time to see how good of an actor Krieg is. The hologram seems to have some sort of programmed move set involving swordplay and fancy footwork. It can't really do much as far as reacting to Krieg's movements go, but it does look pretty damn cool. Just try not to step into the hologram because that might look like some weirdass wizardry.

Meanwhile, Zer0's camped out on top of the Fancyboy's fancywagon, invisibility activated and damn part of him would rather actually be down there sparring with Krieg. At the same time though, the whole ~mystery~ thing was at least kind of interesting. Victory fights could happen after this shit was solved. Maybe that ambush they'd been promised would finally happen? Good times.

It probably won't take long before the rowdy, dirty boy show attracts the attention of Lord Fancypants aka Vanderhorn or whatever his name was. Zer0 hopes it won't take long, at least. He's already bored.

The thing about Zer0's decoy is, Krieg has seen it do its little decoy dance at least a thousand times. In some cases that sentence could be read as hyperbolic, but in this one, it's probably underestimating. The psycho and the assassin have been murder buddies for a long time, and they've done a lot of murder together. Even though Krieg hasn't stood still and watched the decoy every time Zer0's deployed it, he's still seen it enough that he knows its moves.

So when the hologram begins to dance, Krieg dances with it, punching at its head and whiffing it just as it ducks down -

"Open your veins!"

- striking up with his axe just as it slides to one side and hitting nothing -

"I'll slice off your eyelids!!"

kicking at its legs just moments before it sidesteps -

"I'LL SHOW YOU WHAT A REAL BADASS IS!"

He's not an elegant brawler by any means, but he knows his stuff, and he knows it well enough to make a pretty convincing show of looking like he's getting his ass handed to him by a noodle ninja who isn't even bothering to counter-attack.

And would you look at that, his shouting has attracted the attention of Lord Fancy Pants himself. The man appears from his solitary rest, visibly repulsed and yet clearly curious about the commotion.

Honestly, this is kind of hilarious to watch and it's taking Zer0 a bit of effort to not laugh at it. It's stealth time, no fun allowed. He is actually kind of impressed by how well Krieg's improv dance off with the decoy is going, though. For a guy that's all about spitting fire and throwing buzzaxes, he's got some sweet moves.

Also Lord Weeniebutt has finally appeared from his weeniewagon, which is great, but it takes him longer than Zer0 would like for him to get his ass out of the doorway. It's kind of understandable, two masked idiots doing a fight might be intimidating to a Weenielord, but come on dude.

Finally the little fuckball moves out of the way, probably with the intention of whining at Krieg and HologramZer0. InvisoZer0 takes the opportunity to slip into the fancywagon. Now all Krieg has to do is buy Zer0 some time to get all up in this dude's business.

Krieg notes when Lord Fancy Pants makes his appearance, but there's really not a whole lot else for him to do than continue what he's already doing. He has to admit, now that he's begun, dancing like this with with Zer0's decoy is actually kind of fun. There's very little "pretend" about anything he's doing, except, of course, he's not actually going to follow up on his various threats, even as he continues to make them.

"Blood blood blood blood BLOOD!!!"

Naturally there is a distinct lack of blood in this particular scenario, which, on reflection is kind of sad, but on further reflection is good, because Zer0's blood...if he has any...is definitely preferable inside his lanky noodle ninja body.

Some accidental fancy footwork sends a couple of small rocks and a clump of dirt in Fancypants' direction, and the weasel man skitters a little further away from the safety of his fancy wagon - ostensibly to avoid any possibility of getting dust on himself.

"What in the world are you savages up to!?"

Krieg merely responds to the man's demand with one of his unhinged, gut-busting laughs even as he continues his energetic charade. Zer0's decoy, of course, says nothing.

Looks like he's still got the guy's attention. Hopefully Zer0 finds what he's looking for quick.

Bad news, buckeroo. Though quick, Zer0's search of the weeniewagon is super thorough, but it doesn't turn up anything helpful. He's a little annoyed by the time he steps back outside, and briefly considers just stabbing the guy and being done with it. He catches himself before he has a chance to drop his decoy and invisibility, noticing that Lord Fancypants has something poking out of one of the fancy pockets of his fancy robe. It looks like a roll of papers, and Zer0 was willing to bet that those papers were exactly the ones he'd been looking for. Figures the little asshole would have them on him.

So, while prince prissypaws whines at Krieg, Zer0 slips on up behind him and plucks that roll of papers out of his pocket before stuffing it into his own. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

Well almost, now he had to let Krieg know, and just speaking up while his decoy was out would probably be a little suspicious. Or completely suspicious. So, time to surprise the fuck out of Krieg! Good times. He waits until Fancypants's view of the decoy is obstructed, probably by Krieg's beefiness and hops into the fight, deactivating the decoy and his invisible assholeness. he mimics the decoy's movements for a moment before changing them up completely and elbows him in the chest. It's less to hurt him and more to say 'hey boi', but he doesn't really hold back either because it's Krieg and he can take it.

Also he flashes him a winky face. ;)

When his holographic opponent makes actual physical contact with him by jabbing him in the chest with a sword elbow, Krieg freezes because what the actual heck!?

...And then Zer0 makes that winky face, which he assumes to mean the decoy dance is over.

That being the case, Krieg immediately drops all pretense of bloodlust and stands up straight, at which point he glares over at Lord Vanderhorn.

"What're you looking at?"

It's definitely a weird way to end a bloodthirsty yell-and-punch session, but it's also 100% in keeping with his usual behavior. He can be distracted into a complete 180 mood change by pretty much anything, and has already demonstrated this unique personality quirk for all of his traveling companions several times so far.

Vanderhorn looks even more affronted than he had while watching and listening to the decoy brawl. He sniffs delicately and sweeps back over to the entry to his weenie wagon. "Absolutely nothing." He probably means it as some kind of scathing insult, but Krieg doesn't give a shit. He watches him retreat into the privacy of his wagon, and stares hard at the entry for several moments more before turning his gaze to Zer0. He doesn't say anything to his friend, but his curiosity is plain. Did he do the heist?

Zer0 says nothing, just flashes a holographic t(^^t) at Lord Fancyballs as he turns to go back to bed. Good riddance.

Then he turns to Krieg and gives him a simple nod. Of course he did the heist, he's no amateur. He heisted the fuck out of these papers, and now it was time for the two of them to get to the bottom of this Scooby Doo mystery. Maybe not right outside the dude's wagon, though. Zer0 motions to Krieg to follow him to somewhere a little more private. Which is probably just behind a tree or something because honestly they probably aren't too worried about this little shit finding out what they're up to because he's the lord of all weenies.

"All right, let's see what we've got." Time to whip those papers out. He passes a couple to Krieg so that the two of them can look over this shit together. Maybe they should have done this closer to the fire since it's kind of the middle of the night and it's dark as balls out, but on the plus side, Zer0's helmet totally lights up with a ". . ." and shit while he reads so. It kinda works.

He half expects Krieg to eat the papers.

He follows Zer0, takes the papers that are handed to him, squints briefly at them, and then looks back to Zer0. It's dark as balls and he can't see a damn thing. Maybe Zer0 has some magical ninja cyborg eyes under that dark faceplate, but Krieg's only got regular people eyes, and he keeps one of them covered because what even is Pandoran psycho fashion. He could probably do his human torch schtick to get some light, but that runs the chance of catching the papers on fire, and he's pretty sure they don't want to burn the papers before they can see what's written on them.

"What's yours say?"

Seriously Krieg why would you deliberately rob yourself of depth perception when you fight dangerous shit for a living? Questionable fashion choices indeed.

Whatever Zer0's eyeballs are made of, he doesn't seem to be having any trouble reading his papers. It does take him a few minutes of flipping through them and rereading them before he discovers anything of interest, since honestly the only things written on them are boring lists and bullshit. Nothing that would actually help them solve this thing, but there is one thing about them that he notices.

"Nothing important, / But I know this handwriting. / Same as the warning."

He's pretty sure Krieg had seen the anonymous message before this whole trip thing, weather or not he'd actually been paying attention is another story. It's Krieg. He's going to maybe be a little less vague real quick since the whole haiku thing isn't really the best way to relay important information sometimes.

"Which means we just found our traitor. He may be targeting one of the others."

He doesn't actually sound particularly bothered by this. Just another day in the life of a Vault Hunter, right?

Poor depth perception makes for an exciting challenge, okay? Jeez!!

Krieg narrows his eyes when Zer0 speaks, and tilts his head to one side in a thoughtful manner as he processes this. Even to Krieg, that doesn't make any sense. Vanderhorn's a rich asshole. If he wants to get rid of one or both of his servants, surely there's an easier and less convoluted way to do it than...whatever this is.

He fidgets a bit and stares back down at the paper in his hands. It's unsurprisingly still too dark for him to see the writing. He squints and grumbles quietly for a moment or so, long enough for the voice in his head to chime in,

Targeting or setting up. What's this guy's deal?

Then he grunts, and looks back up at Zer0.

"Why?"

Like the assassin, he's not overly bothered by this revelation. He does, however, have enough of an interest in their companions - the kid, especially - that he'd prefer it if neither of them died.

Especially not at the whim of such an asshole.

Zer0's kind of in the same boat. He doesn't super care, but the kid seems pretty cool and the bodyguard is entertaining after she's had a few drinks. Zer0's never really considered himself to be one of the "good guys", but he does have at least something of a moral compass, and making sure their new buddies don't end up super dead after all this is kind of a big deal.

Plus it's the first exciting thing to happen this whole trip, and Zer0 is so down for some shenanigans.

"Not sure about that. / I suppose we could just ask, / Then maybe kill him."

Because fuck that guy.

Actually wait. Zer0 pauses for a second and then crosses his arms, tilting his head back slightly in that 'ahh I've just realized a thing' sort of way.

"Well, maybe not kill him. Then we wouldn't get paid."

"Mngh. We could get paid, then kill him." They just have to get the guy to Wyver, right? Nothing was said about continuing to ensure his safety after that. They had talked about proposing that to the man's employees when they'd informed them of the conspiracy in the first place. They'd never actually got that far in their talks, though, because the kid and the bodyguard had both seemed genuinely surprised by the accusation that one of them was conspiring against their shitty employer. The kid had even offered to help them swipe Vanderhorn's papers to see if that might help figure out where the note from the Temple warning of an ambush had come from in the first place.

Krieg had deferred to Zer0's judgement on whether or not he felt they were being lied to, because subterfuge was the assassin's thing, not the psycho's, and if anyone knew anything about deceiving and being deceived, it was Zer0.

And now, based on Zer0's examination of the man's closely guarded (until just now) papers, it looks like the bodyguard and the kid had been being truthful. Score one for Zer0's lie-detecting skills. He glances back toward the camp, where the two are still hanging out by the fire.

"But the money's no good if they die."

The order of importance here, at least to Krieg, is keeping their new buddies alive, then getting paid, then maybe having some fun with Vanderhorn's entrails.

Zer0 is kind of a master of deception. It's kind of his whole deal. SO YEAH, good call, Krieg.

Zer0's first priority usually isn't money anyway, so ignoring that in favor of helping their new buddies is no biggie.

"Fair point. Maybe we should fill them in and see where it goes from there."

Krieg knows his strengths, and he knows his friends' strengths. It's why teamwork makes the dream work, buddy!!

"Mngh. Yeah, okay."

It would probably be good to get the others' input, since they sort of have a bigger stake in how this whole thing turns out than Krieg and Zer0 do, what with their actual livelihoods in the balance and all.

With that decided, Krieg turns and heads back to the campfire, expecting Zer0 will follow. When he reaches the fireside, he pats his pockets briefly and withdraws what appears to be a crayon. Implement of destruction in hand, he sits down next to the servant kid, and goes to work on one of the papers he failed to return to Zer0.

He's leaving it up to the assassin to explain what's going down, since of the two of them Zer0's the one that doesn't have some kind of weird, complicated, nipple-centric Tourette's.

Zer0 follows, all right. Zer0 follows and almost reaches to snatch Krieg's paper back. Then he decides that whatever Krieg's about to do with the paper is going to be a hundred times more interesting than what's already on it, so he just lets it go. Have fun drawing dongs or whatever all over it, buckeroo. Like honestly Zer0's probably folding one of the pages he still has into a paper airplane so just go nuts.

But first. Zer0 sits his ass down between the kid and the bodyguard and motions for them to lean in so he can show off their findings while Krieg works on his ART. The meeting of the brain trust + Krieg is underway. Why would Vanderhorn go through this sort of trouble? Is the ambush even a real thing that's totally going to happen? If so, is there a different target for all this shit or is Vanderhorn just being an annoying prick? Also imagine that this is all in haiku.

Zer0 is the best at haikus. What a nerd. Listen to him go. Everything is fairly peaceful for a minute or two while Zer0 composes on-the-spot poetry and Krieg defaces Vanderhorn's household accounts or whatever this paper with all the lists and numbers is, but only a minute or two, because, well, somebody has discovered that his precious papers have gone missing.

Vanderhorn comes slamming out of his cozy little weenie wagon, flinging accusations and demands left and right. His loud, entitled rich person voice instantly raises Krieg's hackles. He's ready to leap up in an instant and relieve the man of his vocal cords, but he holds off just long enough to see what Zer0 does. They've outlined their game, and are aiming for the optimal outcome: Keep their new buddies alive, get paid, then...whatever happens after that. Slicing open the guy's larynx right now will (probably) all but ensure Goal 1, but immediately negates any possibility of achieving Goal 2. Although neither of them have great impulse control, Zer0's is a little better than Krieg's, so he'll see where that takes them.

Zer0 is actually content to let Vanderhorn carry on for a moment. He even leans forward a bit and props his elbows up on his knees, resting his chin in his hands, just watching this clown like it's the best entertainment he's had in months. It's not quite as amusing as Jack's meltdown had been after they'd all killed the Warrior, but it's up there.

He doesn't sit there for too long though, he's sure that Krieg is about ready to hop up and introduce this fool's skull to his buzzaxe. Zer0 kind of wants to prevent that, at least for a little longer, so he stands up to kick this all off. Papers in hand, he strolls on over to Vanderhorn, tosses an arm around his shoulders like this is the most casual interaction ever, and kind of slaps the papers right into Vanderhorn's chest.

Then he flashes an obnoxious smiley emote, because of course he does.

"Hey there, buddy boy, / You dropped your whole shopping list. / How clumsy of you."

The smiley emote actually seems to be growing in size a bit, as if to emphasize just how intense the shiteating grin it's meant to convey would be. It is pretty intense.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Closed Log: A Blessed Entourage

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject