[log] Noisy Black, Part One [closed]

[snowblindmods]

Characters: anyone who signed up for the Noisy Black event
Location: an office building
Date: Morning and Day 260
Summary: You wake up in a room.
Warnings: nothing of note for this part, please note any specific things that happen in the comment sections of your posts

Sinners Top Level
Converted Top Level

Comments

[godsspeed]

[ Waking up in an unexpected place is made all the more jarring by the fact that Castiel hadn't expected to be the one to wake up at all. Jimmy is still there, fortunately, resting in a half-dormant state, but it seems he's in control once again, even as he tries experimentally to relinquish it once again. ]

I'm sorry, Jimmy. [ It's said quietly, as Castiel gets to his feet and rolls his shoulders, flexing his hands to get accustomed to having a physical form again. He turns in place, slowly, looking around the room. A prison?

He approaches the bars and tries to get the nearest person's attention. His voice is low and almost growling, entirely unlike Jimmy's had been. ]

What happened? Have we been captured?

[termineur]

Yeah, we're captured.

[ Sylar's across the way, and he gives Castiel a sad little wave. ]

This happens sometimes, where we wake up somewhere different. But usually it happens to the whole town. Guess we just got lucky.

[godsspeed]

[ This isn't a man he's seen before, but he recognizes the voice, at least. Gabriel. ]

What usually happens after? This seems... pleasant, almost. I don't trust it. [ He reaches out and braces himself against the bars, bringing the whole of his strength to bear against them. They don't budge in the slightest, and he narrows his eyes at them. Were he feeling more himself, he could tear these from their fixings and toss them aside like they were nothing. ]

[termineur]

Well, they've all been different. Once people were kidnapped to go fix some stuff underground. I wasn't here for that one, but it sounded pretty awful. There was when we were all stuck in a series of white- blank, really- rooms.

But this? Yeah, I'm pretty sure this is the best it's gonna be, until we get out of here. We've been thinking maybe torture.

[godsspeed]

Experimentation or use as raw materials seems likely as well. Any would explain why we've been... cleaned. It's preparation for something.

[termineur]

[ He visibly, dramatically shivers. ] Eeaugh. Way to make me feel better. But- yeah, experimentation is pretty close to torture sometimes. Never been used as a raw material before.

I'm just gonna cross my fingers that it's neither of those.

[godsspeed]

Sorry.

It seems like there's little to do other than wait and see. Whoever constructed these cells was... not skilled, but thorough. [ He grabs onto the bars and rattles them again for emphasis. They barely even budge. ] If there is a way to escape, it won't be through brute force.

[termineur]

Very thorough.

[ He nods at the bars, frowning. ]

Yeah, we're going to have to work with whoever comes this way. Hopefully we will have someone come this way eventually. We seem too clean for them to leave us to starve.

[godsspeed]

And hopefully they'll be more agreeable than the cloaked figures. [ He pauses, a thought occurring to him. ] Or those of us who played the role of cultists in the visions. Do you think that's where the others have gone?

[termineur]

[ The look Sylar gives Castiel is half-scowl, half-pout. ]

I really hope not. Then they'd outnumber us by- well, a lot.

[godsspeed]

Yes. And even if it weren't an issue of numbers, I'd rather not have to fight any of them.

With any luck the others are just. Elsewhere. Uninvolved in whatever's happening here.

[termineur]

Yeah. [ Sigh. ] I hope so.

I LOST THE NOTIF FOR THIS WHOOPS

[godsspeed]

[ Castiel just goes quiet at this and stays that way for a long while, unsure of what else there is to say. He circles his cell a few more times, striking the walls and pulling at anything that looks like a potential weak point to no avail. Finally, he speaks again. ]

How do you think we were transported here? No matter where this building is, some of us would have been more than a week away, if traveling on foot overground, much less while carrying an unconscious passenger.

[mrcreamsicles]

[Davesprite hears more than sees Castiel, but he can tell the difference in tone well enough to make the guess that it is him.]

'Sup, Cas? Say hi to Jimmy for me.

[Seems nicer to give the greeting first. Because, well, this sucks ass.]

Seems like we got grabbed and taken here overnight. Wouldn't be the first time I woke up somewhere weird. Looks like an office building, though? A pretty obviously modified one.

[godsspeed]

I will. [ He'll try. ] They've gone to great lengths to convert these from offices into holding cells. Offices don't normally have this much plumbing, do they?

[ That would be more effort than installing the bars, he's fairly sure. He doesn't know much about workspace planning, but he has been in a few office buildings in his extremely long life. ]

Why go to all that effort instead of using the police station or hospital? There must be something of importance near here.

[mrcreamsicles]

Can't say I've been in many offices, but unless OSHA mandates toilets for your paperwork prison, I'm going to say no.

[This is a joke.]

If I had to make a guess, I'd say cult shit. They made that makeshift church-looking building in another office place. It really seemed like the town was divided up at some point, you know? All this graffiti and whatever didn't show up so much until people got east, and there's that rubble in the middle of the museum that people had to dig through before anyone could get to the other side.

[godsspeed]

They're also the only remaining faction with any real presence here, at least that we know of.

[ Castiel tries the bars again as he talks, jamming his shoulder against a flimsy-looking patch and trying to pry it loose. He's predictably unsuccessful. ]

Worrying, given that we know by now how they favor ritual mortification of the flesh and use of human remains to decorate their places of worship.

cw: torture mention

[mrcreamsicles]

... I've been trying not to think about that.

[The cult's proclivities for punishment. He's reminded now particularly of the whip wounds across House's back, and of the begging the house with manacles put in his ears, and squeezes his eyes shut against it. It takes him a moment to speak up again.]

Andromeda and Winter still have something. Andromeda's given me SD cards twice, and there's other stuff related to her that's happened in a way that I don't know why else it would come up if she doesn't have something left in the system. And Winter—I don't think her last post would have disappeared the way it did if not for somebody being against her interference. She's helped us other ways, too. She made our private messages actually private from the Admin. And we know the cult didn't like them.

[godsspeed]

True. But their reach seems to be far more limited. The cultists have... something like manpower, and if they are not working directly through the Admin, they at least seem to be able to exploit her systems.

[mrcreamsicles]

Yeah.

[He swallows.]

Whoever interrupted Winter had some kind of control over things. Not sure it's someone in the Admin's faction, though, since we lost communication with her after that. Winter said there was someone with some kind of business type network connection?

[He shrugs. He doesn't know the ins and outs of it.]

[godsspeed]

The cloaked figures were also able to disengage the locks on the doors to come and go as they pleased, and were taking advantage of the paralysis effect that I've been assuming is the Admin's work. At this point I doubt they're allied, but...

[ He frowns, rattling the bars again, this time closer to the hinges in order to search for any points of weakness. ]

I don't like the idea of having two groups to work against rather than just the one.

[mrcreamsicles]

[Davesprite shifts his stance carefully.]

I don't like it either. I can't expect this place not to be complicated after everything else we've been up against, though.

[godsspeed]

True. Nothing can ever be simple.

[ It's a lesson one would think he'd have learned by now, but somehow these things surprise him every time. ]

How are you, though? Your crow half is gone. Or is it just dormant?

[mrcreamsicles]

[He looks aside entirely now.]

I died last night. An anomaly got Karkat, knocked out me and Meow Mix in the process, and we didn't wake up until after lockdown.

[His arms stiffen, caught in an impulse to shrug broadly, but he'd probably lose his balance if he tried.]

I'm not sure... where the crow is right now. It was a living thing, you know? Maybe it's locked away so deep I can't feel it. I mean, I really don't at all right now, but I don't know if they could have just removed that from me. If it's going to come back, it has to be somewhere.

[godsspeed]

Condolences. That can't have been pleasant. At least the three of you are all here, however small a blessing that may prove to be.

[ It means they're all alive, at least. ]

Nothing can disappear entirely. Especially not a soul. I'd guess that it's been hidden away somewhere within you.