i said a-MONAAAAY......CHANGES EV-REEEY-THAAaaang....[Closed]

[summertimeblues]

Who: Richie Tozier (summertimeblues) & Red (persistor), Boxer (desistor), Sandra the Unseeing (tutorb), and J.J. Leroy (underwhelms), possibly others
What: Mission stuff!! And a catch-all for January if need be
When: Early January
Where: Olympia, visiting Wyver for the lovely mountains and lakes and the profit they hold
Warning(s): Potty mouths, perhaps dirty humor, maybe a violence...also J.J. is a terrible embarrassment to dw rp and Canada as a whole, I'm threading with him so you don't have to. You're welcome.



Rod and Bexer - Disturbing the Dead

[Not a month ago, Richie would have outright laughed if you told him to hitch up his suspenders and drag his ass out for a tomb raid. The whole thing would have seemed ludicrous. Childish even, searching for buried treasure in taped off ruins. That's the shit you pulled when you were fourteen and bored and you hear a rumor that the old mill's light turns on by itself at the stroke of midnight.

But call him curious. Or suitably bored. Suitably irritated with how daily life in Olympia now means he's serving liquor to men and women who can't shut up about what a pack of ingrates the good folks of Wyver are. That insipid survey that'd been floating around ground his gears further. Though the two situations hardly co-relate, rising dissent versus hunkering around in caves for trinkets, some irrepressible madness was stirring in him. A need to dissent himself, the likes of which he'd abandoned in his early thirties when he cast off the picket signs and weekend marches. Get his head out of the puckered asshole Olympia was becoming and throw a middle finger to the air.

Also, his wages as a barkeep were fair, but he was used to far, far better. This had money involved.

He contacted Red on a whim for company (and for a moment doubted the choice — she was a mute, would that make it harder to navigate together? They'd have their phones but maybe she'd be stuck doing hambones and finger snaps to call his attention if there was a bat nest he might trip into) and she'd responded quick enough that there was nothing more to discuss. The pair were to meet at the mouth of the mountain and make the trip into the crypt together.

Except the pair's more like a trio.]

So I've gotta say, of all the coincidences I could have imagined, I wouldn't have sat you two down on a love seat if you paid me ten dollars to think it over. Don't I look the fool.

["Wally" is human now, the light from the flashlight catching his fleshy ridges and the leather of his jacket, but he's dragging the sword with him. The sword that he lives in, clinking over ancient stone as they pass into the dark world of the dead. The world's most solid hologram, folks, step right up and take a poke yourself! You won't believe your eyes!] I take it that you hitched wagons before all of that. Or you're a Super Freak the likes of which Rick James couldn't conceive. Congratulations Red, I'm impressed.


Sandy Crabs - A Day in the Life

[The second rebellion takes place on a deceptively more forgiving stage. There's no ghosts or trap doors, but there's pitfalls here all the same. This one is bordering on (or in fact, is) illegal. Something a sensible adult wouldn't have done, and he wouldn't have dared as a grown man in California. There was no risk worth taking it for. In Maine, maybe, but the snooping they'd had to do laid firmly outside of the realm of man and institutions. This was legitimate espionage.

Richie's only been here how long, now? Two, edging on three months? He can't decide if this sudden bout of daring is a healthy change or a stupid one.

This time, he enlists what he can only imagine is the perfect accomplice for the job. She's travel-sized, smart, a verified psychic, and easily hidden into small spaces. Hello Sandra, we're very impressed with your resume and we'd like to welcome you on board. Happy to have you on the team.

They slip through security with relative ease. Sandra's got a neat trick there: blind she may be, but unseeing is a damn lie. She confirms or denies the presence of approaching bodies, and only through her cheats does Richie slip through doors and around the right corners until they hit the office they need.]

You oughta do this full time, babe. You're a dab hand at playing dispatch for thieves. [Richie shuts the door behind them with his heel, and gently props the old gal on the sprawling desktop as he takes a quick gander around.] Maybe we can get you some wheels. Motor you around and you can zip in where man may not follow.


Jimmy Johns Leeroy - Preaching in the Material World

[After all that recklessness, he's ready for something a little more sedate. A trip to the country, so to speak. Luckily there's an option to earn some money there too, and as much as he misses swimming daily in pools or long California beaches, he can only shudder remembering that horking motherfucker that tried to bite his face off on the boat trip in. The lakes might be inland, but even so? No thanks.

He opts to get quartz from the Edrathe Ruins instead. Sets off early in the day so he has a bit of time to see the sights as well, admiring the graceful lines of ancient monuments and having a quick lunch on a snowy knoll. The weather has been downright amicable, even if there's no melt. While the sun is still high and he has plenty of hours to make it back to town, he treks into the dark.

It's some time before he comes across what he needs. He's careful to chart his way through the cave. While not labyrinthe, it's dim and deep enough that he feels caution is necessary. Richie hums, wedging the light between his shoulder and cheek as he pries the crystals off the wall.

There's a splashing sound from further ahead.

He freezes. Whips the light around with a hunchback's pirouette. His hands are still on his knapsack and the rocks so he has to tuck them away before fetching the light proper. Richie waves the light this way and that, but only sees the esophagus of bedrock stretching longer and longer down. How deep does this go?

What's splashing around in the dark down there?

For once, he opts to stay silent. He's alone out here, he's sure of it...]


((if you want to do something in our fair month of January, please feel free to shoot me a PM on this journal! Happy to throw up closed starters anytime.))

Comments

:wave:

[persistor]

[ So maybe this is the dread that they experienced when she jumped over a fucking chasm.

Or maybe this is closer to his sudden dashing ( yet horrifying ) rescue by the Empty Set. She recognizes the movements, almost too vividly, of a broad back moving almost too far before —

A bright light, a loud noise, and Red nearly getting knocked over from the sheer force of it all. The only different now is that when her vision returns, she's still stuck in a tiny crypt, and her dress isn't torn, and Boxer's nowhere to be seen. Poof, gone, with nothing to attempt to bring him back with. Trace still stuck inside the Transistor, which has long since clattered to the ground as she almost blankly watches Richie scramble after it.

And then everything hits, all at once. Like the last time, dread paves the way for fury, and she's recklessly running after Richie before she can even think about how much of a bad idea that might be. Jaw tense, hands curling up into fists. She's heard Richie, but she doesn't have an answer either.

But she's by his ( their— ) side in seconds. Barely stopping to pause or think before she grabs the Transistor by the handle, because there's no other way to answer any of her ( their— ) questions unless she finds out for herself. The more rational side of her's got a hunch as to what might have happened, maybe, possibly —

No shock. That's good, at least ( the realization comes later, why Boxer may have done what he had just done. Stupid. ). And the HUD flashes in front of her eyes as it does, with a grayed out function in the corner speaking to Boxer's current status and the static-y, but the >
come close the same place it had been. Small, but definite hopes that things will be alright. With a few hurdles, given the state of the sword, but ... they've been through worse, before.

Her eyes don't leave the Transistor ( the handle now half-resting against her leg, while she bravely, recklessly, dusts the worst of it off the face of the blade with the back of her hand. It's kind of gross, tbh ), but she does answer Richie. A small dip of her chin, then a second. He should be alright. He's still in there.

( He better be. ) ]

:ghost:

[desistor]

[How about that taste of your own protag medicine, Red.

There's an alarmingly long stretch of silence from the Transistor, as Red and Richie dodge the rest of the trap and save him from clattering all the way down the stairs to boot. And at first, there's nothing. The red lens in the center of the Transistor dims, flickers, sparks alarmingly, on occasion.

Then, the light in the blade flashes in a more encouraging way. And they'll hear a groan. Familiar. But crackly and distant, like a radio with a bad connection.]

Ugh. Ow.

[It's not that it hurts, exactly. But...it's not that it doesn't. The whole thing is swimmy and distant, after he's done blacking out. Buzzing uncomfortably in his teeth, in what ought to be the space behind his eyes. The very air around him. But it's also...gone, done. There is no space between his eyes, no eyes for him to close, no air for him to breathe or teeth for him to grit while he tries to ground himself again.

But he does, anyway, sort of. In that quiet empty space where he's always been, in here. That sounds like calm nothing and smells like grass and Country air. He feels less out there and more in here, as is usual, when the function overloads and kicks him back. But it isn't usually half this disorienting. This time...it's like... Like something is keeping him from grounding himself in the grass beneath him, or bridging the distance between himself and Red the way he still ought to be able.

But he tries. A little clearer on the static front, but a lot like gathering the wits to speak is a matter of grand concentration—]

Hi. How'd you guys— [He trails off, for a beat. As he realizes belatedly where they are. Were. Ended up. And why.] ...Oh.

[A beat. Carefully—]

Maybe lets not...go down. That way.

[He's got a bad feeling.]

[summertimeblues]

[Red's giving him the double nod. She's not tearing up neither, so Richie just holds his breath and regards the sword with cautious awe. How can she tell?

Whatever the secret was, his time to learn it has evaporated. There's that tinny reverberation, shaking up grunts of pain with metallic twang.]

Jesus. [He watches, expectant. The man doesn't materialize. Looks like the lightning bolts had sapped the juice from him, in more ways than one. He sounds like he's taken a swing of the ash-handle to the forehead, far off and ready to doze.]

Shit, you think so? [Richie laughs, but it's hardly in derision. It's all the tension seeping out, pure gratitude.] If either of us tried to walk through the ring of fire we'd be swapping forms from human to ghost! Fuck, you scared me.

[He trails off, frowning. He shoots Red a look, grave and apprehensive.] Look, maybe this was a real cock-up from the get go. If we take another bad step it could be curtains for us. I'm...I'm all good to turn back if you are. I'm sorry about this, I shouldn't have dragged you in. It was a stupid idea to start with. Don't know what I was thinking.

[persistor]

[ His attempt at humor — then, Richie's — passes by without pulling a reaction from her. It's a cycle, almost; getting used to a state of normalcy until something comes by and fucks it all up, one more time. A sharp reminder that no, they aren't just severely under-qualified individuals trying to rob a tomb, they're two under-qualified individuals and a guy who's now a sword. You'd think she'd get used to it by now, but the way her heartbeat spikes just proves that she isn't.

The grip on the sword tightens, along with her jaw. The fury working through her system until she decides not now, not here, and pretends nothing happened at all.

So she stands up again, taking a familiar stance with the tip of the sword resting on the ground. The stubborn, angry part of her refuses to turn back, not after all of this. But maybe it's a little more sensible to, at least for Richie's sake than anything else—

Except before she can decide one way or the other, there's a sudden crash from behind her. Nearly deafening and definitely disturbing the fine layer of dust that's settled over the catacomb. But once all of that settles, their way back has been shut closed by some kind of wall.

Well, there goes that idea. She doesn't seem too upset about it, and instead cants her way forward. That's the only choice they have, now. There's a brief pause, a glance spared at the sword in her hand, before she begins walking forward once more. ]

[desistor]

[As the crashing noise fades to a crumbling echo—]

Locked us in... [Distantly, he knows he ought to find that pretty alarming. But Richie was talking at him, and Red is starting them down into the fog in the distance, and it gets pretty hard to hold onto the thought, now that everything is moving and the air is buzzing around him, through him.]

Y'know, you— [Accusingly, almost. In Richie's direction, for not much more reason then because he's in his line of sight. Continuing off in an uncharacteristic ramble.] You remind me...of somebody. That loudmouth Tennegan. You remember him, Red? That guy. Sometimes....

[His tone weaves dizzily from unfocused accusation to wistfully fond to quietly pensive, as he goes. Words carefully chosen with all the earnest deliberation of a drunk leaning too far over the table and taking himself very seriously.]

Sometimes I wonder. If he's still in here. Somewhere. Or if he's just...sleeping. Like...maybe they got him out. And he's up there, with everybody else. [A beat, then—] Like they did for Sybil.

[And Royce, but he doesn't know that. (Can't, until someone sees fit to fill him in.) Out in those pods and whole again. Like they could do for Sybil and for Royce but not for him. He can see Red up there, and Richie, but mostly he sees her, because she is carrying the Transistor and there's a sharpness in her spine and a hard set in her jaw and she's the only thing he really has left to hold onto. He's here and she's there, and there's something wrong but he's still with her so it could be worse. (It could be so much worse. But sometimes she is so far away.)

He continues, like a sigh.]

...Sure would be nice to know. About that.

[Then, barely a heartbeat later—]

Hey, where we going?

[summertimeblues]

[Forget ghosts, only the god of spite could be haunting this crypt. His Greek mythos catalogs were was scattered and sparse (could ask Diana about it, if he was so inclined) but surely such a thing existed. Richie stares at the slammed door with a beleaguered look of dismay. It's not as bad as the house on Neibolt, he reminds himself. Traps are physical, they can be dodged, they can be outwitted. They're a man down but Wally's not out of the game yet, just dazing and lazing in that sword. And if Red could pull any more tricks with it, they might just see this fool's errand through.

Richie clucks his tongue as he rises, bringing up the rear behind their fearless leader.]

If that was the only exit and the door stays shut, you have full permission to strangle me.

[It would be his fault after all. Idiot decision this was, and shit way to spend the weekend.

If they had any worries about the gloom and silence bearing down too strong, they ought to pack them up for night. Outside of zapping away the human projection, the lightning leaves Wally as tipsy as the final lap of a six pint race. Richie's shutting up for once and letting someone else do the blathering.

He gives Red a look and mouths with a wry twist, "Tennegan?" Whoever he was, the guy better be sharp. He'll take loudmouth but he refuses the mantle of dullard. Then the rambles go on, and things get curiouser and curiouser. Richie's stare slides from Red to that glowing blade, a fine furrow drawing between his brows.

Wally — or whoever he'd really been beforehand — had died on that sword, and that thing beeped and booped and suctioned whatever it could of the former man into itself. What lived inside was either a digital estimation of a human being or an immortal soul. Both equally stupid assumptions and yet one or both were true. Dragging it through the snow after the gala had gotten Richie wondering if that was a universal fate. Should he slip and take a bad cut, would it suck him up just the same?

From the sounds of this, the answer was yes. Call it paranoia or call it a hunch, but the way the man phrases it has him wondering if Tennegan's not the only one who "got out."]

To the center of the Earth. [He replies thoughtlessly. He keeps his flashlight steady ahead, but he's fishing through his pockets for his phone.] Gotta find us that Cave of Wonders. You ever hear that story? Scheherazade and the Thousand and One Nights? There's gonna be a room topped from floor to ceiling with gold and there's gonna be a magic lamp in there that grants wishes. As long as we don't fuck it up we each get one, so you best get to thinking.

[He really shouldn't pry. Red's a friend. He'd like to count Wally as one too, and their business is their business. It's convoluted, whatever it was, and maybe it doesn't matter here and now.

His fingers have already swiped the phone on though, and he taps the message with a growing sense of dread. Red's phone will buzz.]

Just how many people are supposed to be in there?

[How many guts spilled, how many throats cut. How many lives ended, and for what purpose? Was it to steal their souls?]

[persistor]

[ Stop being passive aggressive in your brackets Boxer, she's not telling you about Royce.

It's just as frustrating as the last time — the honesty is almost addicting, yet this isn't of his own volition. One wrong move, and he'll pick up on the worst of it ( or miss it completely, which doesn't seem all that attractive either ). Nothing done, and he may still chase himself down the line of saying a bit too much than he's comfortable with.

Especially with someone else around. Or maybe... it's a blessing that he has someone to chat with the second time around ( no matter how unfamiliar he is, regardless of how her pulse picks up at the thought of Richie knowing more than he needs to ). Her lips press to a thin line, weighing her options. Drags the sword in complete silence otherwise, gently dipping her chin to nod ( knowing very well he'd continue without her response; but it'd feel strange not to ). Her free hand gently patting the hilt of the sword, as if that'll change something. A sign of comfort, a reminder of who he's with, or — something. Anything. She's not sure. It takes conscious effort not to tense her shoulders.

She feels her phone buzz. Briefly, she considers ignoring it entirely — which she does, for until they turn a corner. The path winding yet not forked, for the time being. As if they're actually getting somewhere. ( The > come closer. only gets bigger with every step ).

But that — that wouldn't be fair. Her free hand reaches for her phone, and letter by letter— ] None.

[ Which is the most truthful thing she could have said, unfortunately. There's a pause, before another message shows up. ]

It's a long story. Not for here. [ In other words: maybe later. ]

[desistor]

[You're not the boss of him, Red.

Anyway, don't worry, Rich, it's a glowing review, probably. Only Cloudbank's best and brightest rising influential types for the Camerata's plans. And then...there's Boxer, hecking it all up by existing.]

Scheherazade...? [The impressive job he does of mostly not tripping over those syllables is balanced out by the fact that it's one of the only things he really picks up from that whole story. Something about wishes. He hums under his (theoretical) breath.]

The sky looks blue because we want it to. [He says it like he's quoting something. (Someone. Farah Yon-Dale, another one of those best-and-brightest people who isn't supposed to be here.) Then he snorts, dizzily wry, as if at the concept. Besides—] Doesn't even really work that way. Not around here.

[What a world. Though, that apparently reminds him.]

Hey, Red... [Because he does, at least, recognize all this. Has the presence of mind to know that something is wrong. That something in his processing is too slow and too muddy to keep up, or keep track of himself. Or keep her safe. But he tries. He weaves slowly from tipsy to feverish and there and back again, in the time it takes Red and Richie to text under his (metaphorical) nose. Equal parts distracted and exhausted.] You don't...think it's here. Do you? The Spine of the World. Thought we left all that behind in Cloudbank. [A beat. Like he's just remembered something and has to work his way around it.] ...Not that there even is a Cloudbank. Anymore. What d'you think they did...about the Process? Y'think they're all just...

[The downward slope in the path evens out to flat again, like they've reached the bottom of the crypt, and the little >come closer prompt they've been following seems to have steadied out in size. Can't be far. The crypt takes this moment to creak eerily around them, as they come across a set of doors. An odd rumble echoing out through the darkness of them. Hushed, his train of thought reorients on its way to finishing that sentence:]

...ghosts.

[(Didn't they say this place was haunted by things like that? Not that Boxer had any stock to put in it, at the time—)]

cw: suicide mention

[summertimeblues]

[i've never felt more like a third wheel in my life, don't bicker in the brackets you two

Red is about as helpful as he expects. Which, after a chilly few seconds of her not picking up the phone, is not at all. Richie clicks his tongue and rolls his eyes, but when the weigh-in does come he supposes he can't blame her. They don't know each other that well, after all, and some pasts were better left behind you.

He's just...on the outside of something here. He doesn't truly understand either of them, wouldn't get their situation. That's fair shakes. What had happened to Wally was a travesty, and the more time he spends around them the more he's certain that the person the sword had been coming for was little Miss Carrot Top herself. There was a tenderness in the way she clutched at the thing that, if he wasn't projecting his own imaginings, belied a wistfulness that went beyond missing a body. She wore regret in her every motion, in the furtive glances of her eyes.

It makes him think of Bill sometimes. It's not a true analog — kids wear grief and emotion far differently than adults do, but even when Bill came back all grown up there was something fragile skittering around his words, his movements. It struck Mikey too. Bringing up Stan and his bad bath and knowing that if he hadn't made the call, maybe old Stan the Man wouldn't have seen fit take a slick Gilette down the road and across the street.

His own expression clouds. He leaves the texts alone.

Wally's not done though. Doesn't take the bait, probably couldn't have understood the fairy tale gobbledygook even while sober. It's edging on uncomfortable now. He's clearly not meant to hear this and yet it's right in his ear. How can he help wondering? Hell, he gives a couple shits about the two of them. Why wouldn't he be worried? How callous would it be not to care?

He knows about their sunset pickings. Less so about this spine business. "Spine of the World", sounds like a shitty name for a pack of facists looking to take down James Bond. And Cloudbank has to be a place, but whatever they mean by "Process" is beyond him. Could be a crew just as nasty as what he imagines the Spine is, could be a disease, could be some magical horsecrap beyond the meager capacities of his understanding.

Y'think they're all just ghosts.

He slows again. They're coming up on a doorway. Something about the way Wally intones it puts a tickle in every hair down his neck. Richie turns to look behind them.

He blanches white. Doesn't scream. He watches.

Roughly nine yards at their rear is a shape rendered in shades of mottled grey. Standing inches above the ground, hands poised on the wall to peek around the corner, the spirit man watches back. From this distance his eyes are charcoal holes under the brows.

Without a sound, it raises one arm. Points dead ahead, straight at them. Richie's terror cleaves his chest in two. He turns to look, expecting something more—

(worse)

—another apparition to spook them off. But there is nothing. Richie's head whips back around, and the figure is gone.]

...Well what do you know, the tour guide finally showed up. [He laughs. It's a nervy titter, they can all hear it, and he fights the shakes in his hands by laying them boldly on the door handles.] Think he can point us to the nearest margarita bar? I'm looking for something sweet and slushy after this bullshit, believe you me.

[The door swings open with little more than a grunt and a push.

It seems the spirits want this over and done with too. Inside the room is littered with goodies. A top to bottom affair, all stacked with the precision of chaos reserved for curioso shops in run down neighbourhoods. A magic lamp can't be too far off the mark now.]

...Jackpot?

[persistor]

[ Nah.

One day, maybe, Richie will be privy to all the details — why Red's voiceless, why Boxer's a sword. What the deal is with the cool glowing sword, and why Red seems just as eager to carry it as Boxer usually is. But for now, both of them keep their cards close to their chest — no fault of anyone but theirs, and the story they refuse to tell. She doesn't have time to wonder how much Richie has figured out, not when she briefly shakes her head at Boxer's question. Not here. The Process was sent back to whatever hell they came from. Then the Storm wiped them out.

She slows down by the door, and she looks around at the walls, the ceiling. Almost as if she's waiting for something to ... pop up, and destroy them all ( wouldn't be too far-fetched, anymore ). Except there's nothing of the sort, aside from an eerie silence, and a chill that prickles the back of her neck. Despite her better instincts, she turns —

And comes face to face with the same apparition — except this one looks a lot less like an old man that Richie and much more like a young woman. Hair shockingly white, an extravagant on her head. A soft smile, where the Transistor helpfully tells her > meticulous?. Horror turns into anger in a flash, and her hand twitches to straighten the Transistor up, the function selection nearly instinctive—

Except she sees the apparition disappear, the same time Richie begins talking. The tenseness on her shoulder doesn't quite disappear, not yet, but she lets the words bring her back down. Slowly turn back ( her gaze lingering one last moment ) before she slips into the room.

She pulls out her phone a second time, much more purposeful than ever before. A quick message to Richie. ]

Let's grab it and go.