Episode 8, Part 3
"Rust in the Pipes"
You gently pull a chair out and sit in front of the computer you accidentally… activated. You're not sure if that is really the right word for what just happened. Regardless, this computer also has a little sphere device, though no lights are visible on the thing. Reaching up behind it you
consider breaking it, then think.
This course is foolish. Even without this it can likely sense me through some other mechanism I don't understand. I will use it then. You let go.
It would be good for me to gain more… understanding of this being.
A plan begins to come together as your eyes slide over the desk and you grab the strange little oval and start experimenting with gentle movements.
Why is this thing called a 'mouse' in the encyclopedia? The thought is an idle nuisance, quickly consumed. It doesn't take more than a moment after that for you to figure out the little moving arrow on the screen is linked to what you are doing with the 'mouse'.
You hunch forward, frowning and letting your hair hang messily as you fiddle with the device. It is easy to sense the trace leaping back more and more frequently to this computer and it is easy to slip into a false posture. Scanning along the images on the screen you find them to all labeled simply.
Class Syllabus. E-mail. Programming Tool. Gradebook. School Instant Messenger.
Ah. Something straightforward.
You move the arrow over that last image,
a warped flower with seven green petals and a single red petal, and press the first button on the oval. It is awkward to use this 'mouse'. You don't understand the design behind this thing at all, it doesn't sit in your hand sensibly. While you are musing on forcing a human to tell you how this is supposed to work, something comes up on the screen. A little box with another box at the bottom with 'Message' written in it and a blinking vertical black bar.
You look down at the board with all the letters and numbers on it which your encyclopedia called a 'keyboard'.
Are they deliberately cryptic for their own amusement? You tilt left a bit before carefully prodding the keys a finger at a time. The message box quickly fills up with gibberish.
Hmm. How odd. Why did they do this? You blink at the screen.
Ah. Hmm. This
is perfect. I can lure the thing in with sweet nothings.
You can craft a lie for it to drink up like the crude thing it is, a fresh and vulnerable target. To that end memories of a very sad and pathetic prisoner girl come to you. A wonderful little Amy.
The presence is now very close, lingering in the room.
Good.
You start worrying at your bottom lip. You search the letter board, looking for a 'clear', 'erase'...
Ah, delete. Pressing it clears the message box. Carefully plucking out your message a finger press at a time you begin your deception in ernest.
Guest: I I what am I doing? You shake your head and delete that message. A part of you is amused at this. You "start" again.
Guest: I know there isn't anyone there. Why would there be? But i have to do something.
I can't take it anymore. Maybe. Maybe it can be better if I just.
Okay so. There is this horrible horrible pure awful harlot who has gotten her clique to harrass me. No one notices. I'm not even sure anyone doing it actually cares.
They steal from me, call me an idiot, make me look stupid, and worst of all insult my mother by calling the way I dress "horribly uninspired and just trash".
You move the little arrow with the 'mouse' and click the send button sitting near the message box. Your furrowed eyebrows when it doesn't send are a little more real than everything else you've been doing.
Taking a moment you send it in chunks and
that works. Then you continue, complaining to nothing with digital lies.
Guest: They've insulted me since the school year started! It's gotten to the point that I can't walk the halls without worrying about someone randomly doing something horrible.
Guest: It doesn't help everything else
is going wrong in my life too. New town, new life! Yeah right.
You slump, raising your hands to your face, whose presence you can feel humming in this computer. Shortly a message pops up. From a Malcolm.
MalcolmNumber9: Good Lord. What's wrong with them? That isn't right!
You look up at the
ping the computer makes when the message pops up, lowering your hands. The expression you're using brightens, slightly. You felt the trace change, flexing, as this message was created.
Guest: What? There's someone here?
Panic flutters across your face, while you internally smile.
Guest: Who are you!?
MalcolmNumber9: My name is Malcolm, I'm a senior.
You can feel the crude manipulations of the demon reaching through the screen. The scowl on your face relaxes into a faint frown, which is trying to kick up into a smile.
Guest: I'm Amy, a freshman.
MalcolmNumber9: You're new to Sunnydale you said.
You nod and respond.
Guest: yeah. It's been pretty terrible. It's just me and my uncle. You sniff again. That cloying scent you associate with the demon intensifies.
MalcolmNumber9: Ah I get it. My aunt always told me that talking helps. I'm willing to listen if you want to share? And help.
Guest: please.
You take a moment, "thinking" over your response.
Guest: Her name is Buffy. Her and Xander and Willow and the head librarian. Without even seeming to notice
they are making my life awful. They never seem to care about what they're saying to me.
Laying a little trap for the demon and the Slayer is so amusing to parts of you.
Guest: It's like I don't exist to them as a person. I'm just a thing.
MalcolmNumber9: Oh god that's horrible. I've heard of Buffy, cause she's on the cheerleading squad but I never realized something like this was going on. I'm sorry.
You sniff sadly again. It really amazes you how this creature is so simplistic in its methods. Using raw pandering and sympathy, with no subtle challenges to the worldview of the person. Just direct implication that they are worthless without them. A part of you is curious how such a thing could exist when something like yourself does.
Putting that aside for now you respond.
Guest: It's okay. Not your fault.
Guest: I'm more worried than anything else that they will get worse. Why wouldn't they after all?
Guest: You know?
MalcolmNumber9: Don't worry about that, I'll help you Amy.
You feel a zing of magic try to grab your mind. It fails, and a bright smile shines briefly on your expression. It is interesting to see how young you look in your reflection. Like a girl-child and not a queen.
What foolishness.
Guest: You will? Why, you don't know me.
MalcolmNumber9: I think I know enough from what you've said. You're in a bad spot and I don't like that.
MalcolmNumber9: I'll help you. I can't meet you right now, I'm sick at home right now but I'll get the ball rolling with the staff.
Inside one of your eyebrows rises.
I did not expect that. Well, best take it while faking being 'taken in' by this creature.
Guest: Are you sure? I don't want you to get in trouble because of something they did.
MalcolmNumber9: Yep.
MalcolmNumber9: I'll start with the counsellor and my science teacher.
Guest: Thank you. I. Thank you.
The silence hangs around you for several minutes, and you see the trace flicker here and there again quickly. Now would be a good time to lay a trap for this thing. You feign hesitation and then carefully type out on the keyboard.
Time to play at being weak willed.
Guest: I don't want to go.
The demon leaps back to you.
MalcolmNumber9: you don't have to go. I can still talk, for as long as you need.
Your inner feelings are toothy and mean, so very mean. Your trap is set, and when this 'Malcolm' least expects it 'Amy' will reveal a spine.
Guest: oh. Oh! I. I wanted to ask, is there anywhere fun in this town?
MalcolmNumber9: There's the Bronze and Maple Court. I don't go as often but there are also a few smaller malls sprinkled around the place.
MalcolmNumber9: You'd like the Maple Court. It has tons of shops full of all kinds of cool stuff.
Guest: Really? That's sweet of you.
MalcolmNumber9: Thanks. Where are you from?
You pause. Thinking for a moment, your posture straightening from the frightened hunch that you had been holding.
Guest: Los Angeles. I hated it there too, though it was home.
You pulled that name from another of your encyclopedia.
MalcolmNumber9: Oof. Yeah I can understand that. It was too busy for me the one time I went.
Guest: What do you do for fun?
MalcolmNumber9: well, I'm a reserve quarterback for the football team. Don't worry! I'm not a jock, I'm usually too sick to participate so I have a shield against the typical testosterone stupidity.
Testosterone?
Guest: oh. I read a lot. Boring I know.
MalcolmNumber9: Nah. What are you reading?
You remember from a brief glance over the library shelves some fiction.
Guest: just The Eye of The World. Haven't gotten very far at all. Don't want to talk about because spoilers though. I hate those.
MalcolmNumber9: Fine by me! I haven't gotten to reading Wheel of Time, but I want to. The ideas involved in the premise of a hero who repeatedly reappears in the world are interesting.
You are done with this conversation now. Looking up you feign concern and sudden fear.
Guest: Sorry, I got to go, I think someone's here. Talk to you later?
MalcolmNumber9: Go quick! Yeah we can talk later, just start a chat. I'll notice.
Rising you slip out of sight of the computer, face still contorted nervously. When you get to the door make a play of peeking out and then slipping through, shutting the door behind you.
Now hidden from the being the expression you were holding drops off and freezes into your typical stoicism. Inside however, as you stalk past the bathroom and head for an exit, your emotions are seething. Your fingers are twitching and trying to curl even as you resist.
The buzz of the lights in the ceiling calm you as you hurry through the halls and then find a window pointed north. Behind the school.
Crash! The window breaks under your fist and you slither out with ease after shoving it open. The grass on your feet further calms you.
Hmm. Annie? You look at the trickle and find her in perfect condition, satisfied with something she did.
Good.
It is an easy decision to return to her. The air feels heavier than it did before your conversation with
that thing. You head for the cemetery along a new route, one that curves north and then west-southwest in a tight curl. It seems like the an unknown route in this part of town you are somewhat unfamiliar with and takes you a bit south of Maple Court.
Maybe something will show itself and you can remove it.
There is nothing of particular note at first. Houses and cars and the shadows of people in their homes or sleeping Souls. Their vulnerability does not grab your attention and you recognize no one. Nothing leaps out of the shadows to die on your magic. So, there is nothing of note.
Until you begin to feel something strange in the energies hanging on the air. A constant grind like stone moving very slowly under your hands. It is not something you are familiar with, the shape and feel of it are totally unfamiliar. But what it is
doing to the malevolence around it
is familiar
. From before you arrived here.
The energy is subsuming the malevolence around it, like your own magic did before you were made.
Wait. That thought? You're confused and detour towards the thing.
How… odd.
You aren't sure where it is coming from, which just adds to your confusion. It is constant and ever pervasive, suddenly appearing and then seeming to exist all around you. You aren't aimless however. So you stop, and think, trying to trace out what you were doing when you noticed it.
Through an alley, across the road, then west past three houses to that one right behind me with the red roof. And I felt it when I passed… the front gate of the house.
From that you trace out a rough circle in your head. When you look up you find yourself looking down the alley. At a church steeple.
You blink. The image of another church, not
your church, but a royal church nonetheless is persistent. You can't get rid of it, and so leave it sitting in the back of your head with it's two towers and taller steeple with a gargoyle at its peak. Which is nothing like the simpler and shorter peak and cross you see right now.
You walk towards it, your seeming clenched tight around you.
The sidewalk is cool beneath your feet, the grass wet with dew. Crossing the road, you get to the corner where the street turns around another house and look down the street at the church. It has a light standing alone in front of it, barely illuminating the door, though the steeple is lit from within.
It doesn't take you long to reach the front path leading up to its double doors of oak. They're carved with an image of a woman in prayer. You can see a Soul inside the building and you are certain it is the source of this strange energy.
Who is this?
The Soul approaches the doors as you watch and the door on your right creaks open to reveal an older man, carrying a sack in one hand. He is clothed in a cassock and priest's collar, his shoes shiny black leather. He has brown hair and a simple beard, his face lined with the beginning of age. The way he carries himself speaks of it more than his face.
Why does his Soul feel that old? You can't get a good grip on the weight which settles on you when he looks up and meets your gaze, becoming curious but not surprised. The grinding fills your ears and rattles your skull like a child's toy.
"Hello. May I assist you?" He asks, his voice the only sound around you.
May I assist
you? I don't need his help. You frown.
"No." You say, tone flat. Turning, you walk away from the pastor. The strange, odd pastor who somehow feels wiser than you. You ignore whatever he says to your back.
It doesn't take you very long after that to reach the cemetery, and you can hear a commotion heading towards the front gate.
You can see the scholar's little car sitting near it. Inside the cemetery you can hear hollering and running feet as the Slayer, your Knight and the scholar chase after something.
Ah.
It is simple to ready a Soul Arrow and wait. Shortly thereafter the voices resolve into clarity.
"...you got another shot Annie? He's getting away!" That's the Slayer, sounding energized.
"No, didn't have a chance before he popped up!" Annie, sounding frustrated. That is displeasing to you.
This brief exchange is undercut by a constant, "No no no no no no!" from a simpering man's voice. The vampire presumably.
And your presumption is proven true a second later as a older teen vampire in ratty t-shirt and jeans pops out of the gate and turns to flee. He gets the chance to see your glowing hand rise in the corner of his eye before
Zhew!
Your shot blows his head off.
Screee!
You are no longer displeased.
Annie jogs out a second later and turns to you with a smile. She jogs up, reaching you as the Slayer also emerges. Looking at her you ask a question.
"How did it do?" Your eyebrow is quirked and your head tilted to the right. You can smell a strong scent of lightning lingering around your Knight and the right side of her face is a bit red and her hair frizzy.
"Wonderfully! It makes them die very prettily." She blurts out quietly, bouncing on her toes like an eager dog. You nod.
"Good. Tell me more when we get home." You say to her as you turn to the Warrior.
"Did it go well Buffy?" You ask her.
She smiles, though you catch a flicker of disappointment, there and gone again in her eyes.
"Yeah it went awesome. Whatever that thing is it is
amazing at its job. You wouldn't happen to know where I could get one?" That last bit is somewhat joking.
You shake your head. "Sadly I am pretty sure it is unique, sorry." Shaking your head you wave to Giles as he emerges, huffing and puffing. He returns your wave before bending over and trying to recover.
"Did whatever you were doing go well?" The Slayer asks you. You have to stop yourself from striking the foolish girl, your left hand twitching behind you. You smile.
"It went great actually." Which is at least partly true, baring the end. You shake your head. "A problem should be nipped in the bud." Your posture is one designed to ward off questions however, tight shoulders and slightly turned aside.
Buffy just nods, apparently trusting you enough to believe you. Giles walks up to your little group, glancing at Annie where she is hanging near your shoulder and then looking at you.
"It is nice to see you tonight Miss Latria." He sighs and rubs his shoulder, "Though I think you caught us when we were wrapping up unfortunately."
You wave a hand, dispelling his concern. "We can work together later. Perhaps this Friday?" Your tone is light and sweet.
Giles and the Warrior exchange looks, then the girl shrugs and says, "Fine with me." Giles looks over.
"I think that will work, good night Miss Latria, Miss Annie." He says as he nods to you, and shaking your hands. Buffy waves as she backs up, a little hop in her step.
"Bye ladies! See you Friday!" Her voice is chipper. Then they both turn away and head to the car and putter away into the distance.
You relax slightly, and look over to your companion.
"Let's go home Annie." Your voice is quiet, subdued.
What do you decide to do, later?
[] Get Annie to help you figure out how to trap or track 'Malcolm'.
[] Help Annie figure out more about her arm.
[] You wish to know how useful Willow is. Test her by asking her to help you with 'Malcolm'.
Hurray! Update for everyone! Thanks for reading Latria Venting today.
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