[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

[absentconstellation]

They know the risk they take. Very few fail the Ordeal. The teachers know the signs, and poor candidates can be discouraged. Those who make it to the Ordeal despite that...

Better that they perish before they have the chance to cost countless innocent lives perverting the power and responsibility of a knight of the realm.

[ He says it so matter-of-factly, with just a hint of an edge. He's seen the harm that knights can do when their privilege is abused. ]

[mrcreamsicles]

[His jaw tightens. He says it so easily, but the idea still grates at him. A challenge nobody knows before they take it, with risks like that, and the assumption that whoever fails must be a danger waiting to happen. How does he know? How is he supposed to trust something like that when he won't even say what the Ordeal is?]

[He nudges the Cat carefully but firmly off his lap, then rises upright.]

I'm going to go have another look around.

[absentconstellation]

[ The Cat gets up, making a very discontented sound. He was finally comfortable, too. ]

Very well.

[mrcreamsicles]

[He goes, leaving his things where they are, because he at least trusts the Cat not to mess with them or take anything. He drifts around the current floor, heads on up the stairs, drifts around the top one. He does look for whatever might be useful, but his mind is stuck the whole time on what the Cat told him.]

[It doesn't seem fair that something that neatly structured would have its own secret mind game at the end. Survive silent and impassive, or else suffer potential death. How is that right? How do they know whoever fails is as bad as they say? He stairs at the arrows to the skybridges there on the top floor, and it's a good while before he comes back down to find the Cat again.]

Yo, Friskies?

[He'll check by his stuff, but he doesn't know if the Cat has scooted off elsewhere by now.]

[absentconstellation]

[ He did actually end up taking a nap. Complain as he might, it isn't hard for him to find a place to get comfortable.

He yawns and opens his eyes. ]

Yes?

[mrcreamsicles]

[Davesprite settles himself down on the floor beside him, sat against a curl of his tail.]

How do you know the people who fail the Ordeal are actually that bad? Is there some magic mind-reading process involved?

[absentconstellation]

[ Now that he's awake, that tail starts to flick some, smacking Davesprite gently. ]

There is, for the Chamber. Often the evidence is not so discreet. The last failure I recall, it was discovered that the squire was in the habit of torturing small animals.

[mrcreamsicles]

[There's what he needed to hear. He lets out a slow, deep exhale, his hand settles over his face, and he takes a pause to let it settle in. It was going to keep bothering him without an answer. The soft slap of the Cat's tail grounds him.]

Okay. Fucked up of that dude, but that's... better than it could be. As a kind of test.

[He puts his hand down.]

You want to go back to telling me about Alanna?

[absentconstellation]

[ The Cat sniffs it, considering. ]

As you like.

Duke Roger of Conte was next in line for the throne after Prince Jonathan. He conspired to kill the king, queen and prince slowly, over the course of years, so that their deaths might appear natural and he could take the throne without question. He was a powerful mage, and arranged it so that anyone in a position to suspect him would find they were simply not inclined to think of it for very long.

During her Ordeal, Alanna broke through this spell. After she was knighted she broke into his rooms and found evidence of his crime, which she then presented to the court. Roger demanded trial by combat, and Alanna killed him.

[mrcreamsicles]

[Shockingly, his weird bird hand smells like a weird bird hand. He takes the sniffing as cue to scritch at his scruff and shoulder area, but his fingers still at the end there.]

So you got fucked up political shenanigans too. Kinda glad that wasn't part of my role. Plus, gotta say, trial by combat sounds pretty flawed as a concept. It worked out there, but what if you get an actual criminal who just kills his accuser every time?

... What part did you have in everything, though? You said you joined her when she was still a squire.

[absentconstellation]

Trial by combat must be approved by the king, and is a privilege given only to the nobility.

[ Which has its own issues, but baby steps. Baby steps. ]

I am not permitted to interfere in major events, but otherwise I am free to do as I like. I watched over her, gave her advice, and helped her when she needed it.

[mrcreamsicles]

[He looks skeptical still, in his restrained way, but doesn't push it further. He winds up leaning on his hand again.]

Is that what you're trying to do here, with us? Or does the part where the admin up and yanked your fluffy ass to Alaska negate that premise? You seem like you do whatever you want a lot of the time, but it's honestly kind of hard to imagine how the whole literal constellation turned into a feline thing works out for goal or directives. How does finding the warmest lap to sit on measure against advising teens on their life problems? It sounds like something that would get boring after enough centuries.

[absentconstellation]

I did not turn into a feline. I have always been a feline, and I will always be a feline.

[ That would be like getting bored of breathing. ]

[mrcreamsicles]

[Davesprite shrugs his shoulders at him.]

My point stands, Meow Mix. I don't know how the immortal star cat mind works. All I can do is observe from the outside and wonder what your constellation looks like.

[absentconstellation]

It looks like a cat, naturally.

[ But he knows that's not the point of the question. ]

If I tire of it I'll be sure to let you know.

[mrcreamsicles]

Smartass.

[He gently flicks the end of his tail. For a moment or so after he sits quietly, looking at nothing in particular, but there is one particular question that's been on his mind since yesterday.]

So... How did you deal with the anomaly version?

[absentconstellation]

Rather easily. She was a great deal smaller than me.

[mrcreamsicles]

[If there's supposed to be any humor in that, it falls flat. Even if there isn't, it's such a short answer as to come across almost dismissive.]

That's not what I meant, and you know it.

[absentconstellation]

Then perhaps you should say what you mean.

[ He wants to dismiss this line of questioning anyway, but he won't lie about it outright. He can't. ]

[mrcreamsicles]

How did you deal with it emotionally? She looked like Alanna, didn't she?

[He'd said before something about it, but he hadn't had the time to ask then, and he wants more detail.]

[absentconstellation]

Hmph.

[ It wasn't easy, by any means. But he could pretend that it was. ]

The real Alanna would have been far more upset about the cold than any missing "light".

[mrcreamsicles]

[His arms fold.]

You say that like this place doesn't mess with people's minds on the regular.

[absentconstellation]

And why should she have been real, and none of the others? Should I have believed that the rules of this place had changed, so suddenly and so drastically?

It is foolish to think that I could have made any other choice.

[ Foolish for the Cat to think, not foolish for Davesprite. But it doesn't suit him to clarify. ]

[mrcreamsicles]

And how do we know the others aren't? We got turned into monsters just like they usually do. You think being a stitched-together nightmare puppet is on my usual roster?

[absentconstellation]

If they are, it does not matter. There is no saving them, Davesprite.