[log] double meetup bonanza [closed]

[mrcreamsicles]

Characters: Davesprite, Karkat, and the Cat, plus Steph and then Ecks and Castiel
Location: Building 263, then building 254.
Date: Day 246, midday then evening.
Summary: A bird, a crab, and a cat play courier to a super hero and a quilt person. Also, an angel is there.
Warnings: Discussion of/allusion to anomaly murders.

263: A small office building. It's the sort that looks like it should attach to some larger facility, but whatever it might have connected to is long gone. It's two stories: the first contains a small lobby area, a waiting room, and an area for secretaries. Going upstairs reveals a small honeycomb of eerily empty cubicles. There are desks and chairs in each one, but nothing on any desk or placed on any of the cubicle walls. There's one small one-person office in the back that's similarly empty, and two public bathrooms that work, though the water runs cold. On the wall by the desk in the one-person office, a drawing that says "I love you, Daddy!" has been adhered with cat stickers. "ALPHONSE ELRIC, DAY TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY TWO. IF YOU NEED ANY ASSISTANCE, PLEASE CALL @LELRIC." has been written on a wall.

254: This skyscraper is half-ruined: the top of it has clearly collapsed. Still, it's large enough to work as a landmark, what's left seems stable enough, and the doors still work. Going inside reveals a fairly standard-looking lobby. The marble floors were probably pretty once, but are now dusty and cracked. Any signage indicating what this building was for is long-gone, and instead graffiti speaking of the prophet and eye symbols dot the walls.

The elevator shaft and the door to the stairs both open, but there's no elevator car, so it's best to take the stairs. Most of the doors here are ruined, crushed by rubble and debris and impassable, though there wouldn't be anything of use in crushed floors anyway. The top floor, however, is intact, and stepping in reveals what was probably once a floor for offices, though now everything is empty. There is a symbol of the prophet drawn in red paint on the floor by the door, and then a line that can be followed in one of three directions. Each one leads to one of the three skybridges in this building.

Comments

263

[spoileralert]

[ Steph, satisfied to wait for her rendezvous and chart her course from there, has set herself up at one of the desks near the entrance. More specifically, she has laid down on top of the desk on her back, her head all the way upside down over the side and her legs propped up on the wall. ]

What, have you moved on from eggs to cheese omelettes?

[mrcreamsicles]

Oh, what? No.

[He glances up and over, offers a wave, and drifts closer in range.]

I mean omelettes kinda count anyway, right, they're eggs. People keep asking me if I want the eggs to eat and it's like nah, not really, but even if I did, what would I do with them? Nobody's got a fire around here to cook with. No stoves left. I found some kind of pot and hauled it around for a while in case I figured out how to make a fire eventually, but I never did, so I just ditched it in a cupboard somewhere. When's the last time you had a hot meal, Steph? We got the burger place down in the entrance, but I'm pretty sure that's it.

[spoileralert]

[ Steph raises a hand, but it's too much work to figure out how to choreograph a proper wave from this angle. ]

I just mean, eggs and cheese. Omelette.

[ She makes a gesture with both arms that might be perceived as a shrug. ]

Can't remember. But I've got matches and some wood, so I could probably make an omelette work.

[mrcreamsicles]

[Davesprite hmms.]

Yeah, nah, I kinda have to turn it down still. If I had eggs with me I wouldn't want to let them go that easy, you know? If I didn't have the obsession, sure. Fry me up some home-cooked breakfast and I'm down. I ain't even really had home-cooked breakfast save at like those diners that try to play at it, and you know they're only fooling.

Have you found any eggs around?

[spoileralert]

You know I'd tell you if I had.

I mean, I can probably make a fake one if I try hard enough.

[mrcreamsicles]

I've been carrying around an egg-shaped rock. [He shrugs.] I wouldn't say no to another fake.

[He comes over closer now and plunks his ghost butt on the edge of the desk.]

So, like, are you comfortable sitting like that?

[spoileralert]

It's a little hard on my shoulders, but I have to entertain myself somehow.

[ Already she's mentally cataloging her gear, trying to decide how best to create an egg. ]

[mrcreamsicles]

That's sad as hell, Steph. Sit up. I found a shitty monster movie the other day; do you want it? I already watched it with Karkat and Meow Mix.

[Movies aren't exactly thick on the ground here, and she's a friend who's been here since day 1.]

[spoileralert]

A movie?

[ She doesn't sit up, but rolls over so she's laying on her stomach. ]

For real? For really real?

[mrcreamsicles]

With acting so wooden you could build a chair out of it. Hold on.

[He has his backpack on him still since they're not staying long, and with it worn on his front it's easy to just unzip an outer pocket and fish out the collection of SD cards he has. A little sorting through, then he dumps the others back in before handing what must be the right one over to her.]

Here.

[spoileralert]

[ She spins around so her legs are under her again. ]

Holy shit, you're my hero.

[mrcreamsicles]

[Davesprite flashes a grin.]

I'd try to upload it to the public data app, but I figure people might want to keep the actual research-relevant stuff in that one, you know? So enjoy it. Pass it on to somebody good who deserves a break later. Norfinbury's citizenry deserve to see two terribad CGI sea monsters kick the shit out of each other.

[spoileralert]

I wonder if I could figure out how to broadcast it to the network.

[ Probably not. These stupid tablets are essentially useless for anything but communicating. ]

I may upload it anyway. I'm sure it won't take anyone too long to figure out it's not about Norfinbury.

[mrcreamsicles]

[He ends up laughing.]

Hell, go ahead and try it. Tell me if it works. There's another one I found; we haven't watched it yet, but I might put it up if it works for you.

[spoileralert]

If nothing else, I've got hella sea monster entertainment now.

[ She pulls out the book Karkat gave her - "Deep Sea Monster Lawyers Pounding My Butt". ]

[mrcreamsicles]

[He bumps his palm to his face, but he sounds amused still.]

He gave you that? I know whoever had that house had terrible taste, but I can't believe this round we got nothing but gay butt pounding about, like, monsters and abstract concepts.

[spoileralert]

Maybe they realized we were actually reading the stuff and wanted to entertain us?

[mrcreamsicles]

If you want to call it that.

[The sea monster lawyer one does sound hilariously terrible.]

One of them is basically the story of my life, gay porn edition, though, so Karkat's going to help me burn it later.

[spoileralert]

Yeah, that's a pretty common theme of that place. I mean, it's a common theme of everything around here for whatever reason, but porn house in particular.

[ See: Clown and doctor porn. ]

[mrcreamsicles]

There's the other one I found the first time I went there with a bird person in it. Got it slated for the same fate. But if you want to know the weirdest one, it's definitely the fake Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff comic I found down at the library.

[spoileralert]

The what with the who now?

[mrcreamsicles]

Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff. It was my webcomic.

[He opens up his backpack again, and after a moment drags out a comic book, which he holds out for her to peruse if she likes. It's titled differently, but about the adventures of a young man named Jeff and his sweet brother. It's terribly drawn, horribly written, and printed incompetently. Panels are stretched from bad resolutions or into wrong aspect ratios to fit the pages. Errors have effected the colors. One page is in black and white, marked over with glaring SAMPLE watermarks. There are typos, and other pages are out of order, missing, or transposed to the wrong part of the book.]

They copied the techniques but missed the spirit behind them. This thing is soulless, Steph. Nothing but weak ass plagiarism, and Eve didn't have the guts to tell me what's up with it when I asked her.

[spoileralert]

Huh.

[ This is kind of an assault on her eyes, Davesprite. ]

You know, Eve probably doesn't know about it. She's pretty clueless about the finer details of this place.

[mrcreamsicles]

Yeah, see, she could have said so? But I got nothing. I got answers about another thing I asked, but not that.

[He huffs.]

[spoileralert]

Yeah... she does that a lot. At least when I asked about metals she told me she didn't know.

[ Anyway... ]

If you want we can burn those books right now, though. I've got matches.