Smile Like You Mean It (A Disco Elysium/Hazbin Hotel Inspired Original Quest)
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They say Hell is where bad people go, and that Home is where you make it, so what does it mean when you make your Home in Hell?
Booker is a capital D Demon. That is one of the few things he remembers after waking in an alley with a static filled hole in his skull and the instinct that he needs to find something that's missing.
And so he sets out in this Hell dimension to piece together who he is and what happened to him. To do so he'll research forbidden knowledge, make demonic deals, and kill whoever gets in his way all with a smile in his face.
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Inspired By: Hazbin Hotel, Disco Elysium, And Project Moon
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This horror Comedy Features:
-An affably evil protagonist. (Just because he's a murderous monster doesn't mean he has to be rude.)
-Who is also insane. (He has several bickering voices in his head and occasionally breaks out into song.)
-An extremely traumatized orphan side-kick. (She's really not paid nearly enough to deal with this.)
-And the magic of friendship. Or Stockholm Syndrome. (It's one of those.)
A/N: This story is a Quest that I started on another site before moving here, I have now finished catching Sufficient Velocity up but here's a link to the Spacebattles Thread for anyone who wants it.
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Smile Like You Mean It
--- ??? ---
The world was on fire, and all he knew was agony as his skull was pierced.
For an eternity the flames continued, eating away and devouring his mind, body, and soul as they left nothing behind. Inflicting a level of pain and agony unending so great that his mind shattered again and again as it tried to futilely piece itself together.
But it was in this state of shattered sanity, that some tangential part of him had looped around through the pain, feeding the rest of his mind into the flames in an attempt to try and salvage some piece of himself, retaining only that which he would never give up even if it meant the death of everything that made him, him.
Those things were far more important to him than any thought in his head, any bit of personality that described his ego, or even all of the power that he'd accumulated over the years.
Which is why the hellfire consumed all of it, everything he was, before they could touch that which was precious to him.
Sadly though, this was not enough to stop the hellfire from eating away at these things that he clung to more in insane instinct than any conscious thought. Dimming recollections of what he was after, what he desired more than life itself, what he'd make his own even if he had to raze all of heaven and hell to the ground to do so.
But still he clung on to what he could, even as all that remained was the knowledge that there was something out there that he desired with all of his being, something that he could acquire if he found it once more.
Something that he knew he would find so long as the desire to do so remained, that longing emptiness that would drive lesser men to the abyss, it would push him to find what he could not even remember any more and he would make it his.
Which is why, as he hit the ground, his consciousness fading into the darkness, his power brought down to that of a lowly worm, his sanity a figment of the imagination, his body broken utterly, and his soul barely a spark of existence…
He couldn't help but smile.
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For Posterities Sake I will be posting the Choices that Questers had on each chapter.
So, which District are we starting in? (Please Choose 2)
Hint: Each district represents both of the Sins that make them up in some way.
[]-Pride
[]-Greed
[]-Lust
[]-Envy
[]-Gluttony
[]-Wrath
[]-Sloth
Abilities
-Fractured Soul: Your mind is fractured and your memories missing for better and worse.
-Sinful Boost: Consume Sin to guarantee a Crit on any Check, and boost Sin Resonance gains.
-Sinner's Song (Lust/Envy) Sing and make causality dance to your tune.
-The Beast (Envy/Gluttony) Hunt them down like the prey they are.
Abilities
-Small Spaces: Gain an advantage when trying to hide or dodge.
-Lockpick: Gain an advantage when Lockpicking things or getting into places she shouldn't.
-Enduring: Durable in a way most aren't. (Increase's Max HP and all gains to it.)
---Important Inventory
Fey Feeling Stopwatch (Equipped)
-Bonded Accessory, Booker Only.
+/-1 To Checks involving Emilia Lafayette: Our feelings are mixed.
-1 Wra??: We burned her world down.
+1 En??: And watched her rise from the ashes.
Chapter 10 (Ira Invidia X, End)
Name: Booker H. Freeman
Rank: E (10/15)- Lesser Sinner
Current Sin: 0
Abilities
-Fractured Soul: Your mind is fractured and your memories missing for better and worse.
-Sinful Boost: Consume Sin to guarantee a Crit on any Check, and boost Sin Resonance gains.
-Sinner's Song (Lust/Envy) Sing and make causality dance to your tune.
-The Beast (Envy/Gluttony) Embrace your hunger and hunt them down like the prey that they are.
-Practitioner: Gain an advantage on matters involving understanding the effects and uses of non-Dark magic. Booker can now use small-scale magic.
Abilities
-Small Spaces: Gain an advantage when trying to hide or dodge.
-Lockpick: Gain an advantage when Lockpicking things or getting into places she shouldn't.
-Enduring: Durable in a way most aren't. (Increase's Max HP and all gains to it.)
---
---Important Inventory
Fey Feeling Stopwatch (Equipped)
-Bonded Accessory, Booker Only.
+/-1 To Checks involving Emilia Lafayette: Our feelings are mixed.
-1 Wra??: We burned her world down.
+1 En??: And watched her rise from the ashes.
Vote Results:
-EnvyxWrath
---
Ira Invidia (I): A Warm Open
--- ??? ---
When an eternity of hellfire finally came to an end he found himself fading in and out of consciousness, the shambles of his mind trying to stitch itself back together.
In these intermittent bouts of darkness and thought he saw a number of things, and thought about an even greater number of things as his body refused to work for him.
The first of these things was the graffiti covered brick wall of whatever filthy gutter he found himself thrown in, his body clearly left to the rats by whatever power thought him dead.
(But I'm not dead… I won't die… until I can do so with a smile…)
It was a powerful thought, and arguably the first real revelation about who he was as an individual.
The second revelation was the fact that it was the only thing he knew about himself, the agony of whatever had left him in this alley having devoured every other thought and memory in his head, save for those that had formed in said alley. (Troubling…)
It was this second revelation that allowed him to realize his third, namely that whatever he'd forgotten was important because of… reasons he wasn't actually all that sure of, beyond a bone deep longing of sorts.
These were quite the big thoughts for what in some ways could be considered a newborn mind, which is likely why the darkness so gracefully dragged him back into slumber so that mind could cook just a little longer.
---
When consciousness next returned he found himself looking up at a young woman bundled up in an oversized coat. Her gracious green eyes glittering out from beneath long brown hair in a mix of compassion and desperation as she regretfully attempted to rob what she thought to be a dead man.
"I'm really sorry about this…" She told him as she dug through his pockets. "I know you've already had a bad day because of the Smiling Man but I… I really need to get out of here…"
(The Smiling Man?) He thought, a sense of familiarity coming from the title. One that filled him with an odd mix of satisfaction, admiration, boredom, hatred, and perhaps most curiously hunger…
For the first time since arriving in this alley, who knows how long ago, he found his fingers twitching, wishing to reach out and…
He wasn't quite sure but part of him wanted the girl to flee (protect your innocence…) While another part wanted her to stay (don't leave me alone!) And yet another wondered (what does your flesh taste like?)
It was a disconcerting set of feelings to say the least.
A sentiment the girl clearly shared if the way she stumbled back with wide eyes meant anything.
"You're waking up?" The girl clearly grimaced, despite how much of her face was covered. "I-I'm sorry." Was her response before running off on her own.
Whether that was rude, smart, kind, or cruel he wasn't sure. His understanding of those concepts… still a little mixed at the moment. (Something is clearly wrong with my head right now…)
A worrying thought, given how his mind was the only thing with any sort of power at the moment as he was just gaining the ability to move his fingers.
Thankfully, the darkness decided to force upon him another comforting map before he could become too distressed by that point.
---
Once more his mind struggled free of the comforting embrace of nothingness, the empty feeling inside of him beginning to gnaw at him in a way it hadn't while he was distracted by that girl from earlier. A gnawing that was quite painful in truth, as he found it wasn't quite limited to the emotional sense of the word. (Need to… need to find a distraction… Something to numb the emptiness…)
Believing this to be quite the brilliant idea he began testing his limbs, finding them to be much closer to working order than they had been during his previous bout of consciousness, for this time he was actually able to use his long limbs to pull himself to a standing -if slightly uncoordinated- position by leaning against the wall he'd been propped up against.
Actually walking proved a… more difficult task than he'd initially assumed, if only because of how his limbs seemed to want him to act like some newborn lamb rather than a fully grown… (human?)
He paused at that, wondering why that thought seemed to be a question rather than a statement of sorts. (I mean, of course I'm a human… aren't I?)
In front of him was a window, the glass dark and dusty due to both the light and disuse, but thankfully seemed to reflect the alley proper.
Meaning when he stepped in front of it he was able to quite clearly see what he believed to be a handsome enough man with short -albeit long for a male- hair, his bangs covering his forehead even if they did nothing to hide his dark eyes. (See a human.)
Sadly the makeshift mirror and the alleyway were both too dark to be too precise with the coloring of anything, but from what he could see of his own scarred skin by rolling his pale sleeves up to a position he was more comfortable with at the moment, he was of a tone that could pass for a tanned white man or a pale black man beneath the paler scarring that littered his arms.
(I wonder which one it is?) He considered his limbs for another moment before taking another glance at his reflection.
Only instead of a somewhat handsome human he found himself staring at a dark brown rabbit man with glowing red eyes and a pair of horns.
A brief inspection behind him proved he was alone. And a second of his cloths proved that he was wearing the same half charred white button up he'd seen on the rabbit man.
Returning his gaze to this new reflection he found himself staring at a now white rabbit with red eyes, dark stitchwork visible all over his fur.
He raised a hand to his cheek, feeling smooth flesh even as his rabbit reflection ran clawed fingers over the stitches on its cheek, the motion pulling the fur slightly, and revealing something hidden beneath the fur.
Rather than being intimidated by this he found himself thinking (interesting) even as a blink of the eye returned the reflection to that of a human.
"So I'm either not actually human or I'm insane…" For some reason he felt completely comfortable with both of those possibilities.
It was as he pulled back from this closer inspection that he realized he had a smile on his face, one that he hadn't even been aware of, one that now that he noticed it filled him with (love/hate/fear/hunger/joy/despair/acceptance).
He blinked, not having expected such an extreme reaction from just noticing the smile.
It was the extremity of this reaction that had him do something that he'd come to realize was the height of foolishness…
Namely…
He tried to stop smiling.
(The pain kept coming, but he'd keep smiling because…)
(Her smile made the pain go away…)
(And it came back when she finally stopped…)
(He smiled, his eyes wide as he realized that monster's smile was the same as his…)
(Despite the whole building burning around him… he couldn't help but smile…)
(Two fingers pressed up against his cheeks, forcing them into the shape of a smile he didn't feel…)
(And so he'd continue to smile because if he didn't… well…)
The Smile Didn't Like That…
Shattering glass and pain snapped him out of it as he found his fist half way through the glass, sending massive cracks through it and fragmenting his reflection into seven very different eyes, before turning into seven reflections of a man who was very clearly shaken in spite of the smile on his face.
"Right… not doing that again…" He chuckled, leaning a little more towards the insanity diagnosis than just a few moments prior.
Pulling his hand free of the glass, he found he'd done quite the number to the poor thing.
He also found his flesh pushing the glass free through no action of his own, the small cuts they left behind quickly stitching themselves shut. (And that's a point in the 'not a human' direction as well…)
"Come on, I think it was over here." A voice called from one end of the alley.
"And I don't get why we're heading towards the broken glass." A second added. "People are breaking into shit all the time."
"Yeah, but around here our people. Meaning either it could be some of our boys who we can a cut for helping or it could be some other fucks thinking they can do something in our territory." The first voice explained with something resembling logic.
(Need to hide.)
(Or charm them.)
(Easier to just kill.)
(Am getting hungry.)
(Could play dead.)
(Bargain maybe.)
(Too many unknowns.)
He stuttered a step, the cacophony of his own thoughts far more disorienting than he'd been expecting as his mind went in more than half a dozen directions at once.
Unfortunately, given how he was still getting used to 'walking' that single stuttered step was enough to send him crashing to the ground.
"Huh, who is this asshole?" One of the voices asked.
"Probably just some junkie drugged out of their mind." The other dismissed him, (how dare he?!)
He blinked, not sure why he was so offended by that when (better they underestimate than over, it'll make things easier.)
"Bet this is the one breaking glass and shit." One of them said, as he felt a kick to his side. "Fuck, man looks like a fucking Smiler…"
Several of his thoughts aligned at once, with the single plan to (kill them both.)
Not even really thinking about it he reached out with one of his hands and pulled on the leg of the man who kicked him with an amount of force that he hadn't expected from himself as scrawny as his reflection had been.
Still it provided him with an opportunity he wasn't quite willing to throw away as it brought his attacker down to his level, where with surprising ease he grabbed the man's throat before ripping it out with a clawed hand.
He felt a burst of something inside of him as he watched the man rapidly bleed out, almost as if the life was leaving the man and instead entering him.
With far more ease than before he managed to climb to his feet, where his (victim's) compatriot punched him across the jaw.
A few moments prior this would've been enough to knock him back to the ground.
Now it just made him growl in rage/hunger/excitement.
Faster than either of them realized he grabbed the man by both his shoulder and his head before burying his teeth, his fangs, into the man's throat and ripping it out.
Once more he felt a burst of something filling him with energy he hadn't had prior, even if the sensation was less noticeable than the first time. (Because you were weaker/emptier/poorer/hungrier.)
He shook his head as another wave of thoughts crashed down on him, and he tossed the man to the side as he tried to steady himself against the brick wall rather than once more falling to the gutter like the two men he'd just killed.
For whatever reason be it that they struck him first, that they were clearly ne'er do wells, or simply because he wasn't human he found he wasn't all that guilty or concerned about the killing bit. In fact some part of him wanted moreof it.
His eyes drifted to another nearby alley window, where he once more saw his reflection.
Only this time he saw a smiling man with a bloody maw full of fangs and a hole filled with flickering static beneath his now parted bangs. The entire visage quite clearly answering the question of 'is he a monster or is he just insane?' (Clearly it's both.)
And he couldn't help but smile at that.
---
You found the girl. Now what will you do with her?
Note: Some choices will resonate with certain classes while repelling others. In such cases the names after the + will grow stronger, while the ones after the - will grow weaker.
-As a base each skill check will consist of me rolling a number of dice based on our current character Rank (Based on Total Class Levels: Lv > 0 = 1, Lv. > 5 = 2, Lv. > 15 = 3, Lv. > 30 = 4, Lv. > 50 = 5, Lv. > 75 = 6, Lv. > 105 = 7.)
-As a Demon our power revolves around Advantages and Disadvantages, with the former granting a Dice and the latter taking one away.
-Additionally, should the total +/- of Advantages and Disadvantages tilt so that one side has a 3 Dice advantage or no Dice at all, then that will be an auto-success/fail.
-Lastly, our success and failure will be tiered based on how far over or under our roll is, with ties being an outright reroll of both in clashes.
-After all of this we gain 1XP to all of our used skills in the rolls.
Example:
-Study the locals.
--They're not on alert so no roll on their end, but on ours we roll 2D6+1=10 for knowledge , 2D6+1=9 for more esoteric observations, and then 2D6+10 for our more predatory observations.
---
-Find the girl.
--For her escaping: She has a Survivor level of 5 so that's 2D6+5 = 12.
--For us: We're Lv. 7 since we have 7 Lv. 1 classes, but we also have advantage due to tracking her down immediately, meaning we're actually rolling 3D6+1 = 12, which would have us reroll for 2D6+5 = 10 vs 3D6+1 = 16. (Note: Added the tie rule after this.)
--The second ???? was a backup roll in case we failed to track her down with ???????? that wouldn't have given us advantage on this next check.
--Due to us finding her on the first try the girl has a double Disadvantage on the Social roll due to both being Guilty for robbing us and the fact we caught her so quickly meaning we auto-auto win the challenge of whether or not she tries to run again since she now has no dice to roll with. (Her Lv. 5 Survivor does give her a perk for negotiations on the next roll depending on your choice though.)
Ira Invidia (II): The First Hunt
--- ??? ---
(G???????: We need to leave.)
His eyes darted around the alley, searching for the source of the voice he'd heard.
(E???: We're not even going to pretend to be sane are we?) A second voice drawled, almost mockingly.
(S????: That would be too much work for too little gain.) An exhausted third pointed out.
Once more he checked all around the alley, but no matter where he looked he couldn't find the source of these voices. At least not until he noticed his fractured reflection staring at him and telling him exactly where the speakers had disappeared as his eyes changed color flickered between several colors.
"Voices in the head…" He huffed in amusement. "What fun!"
(P????: Yes, yes, we're insane. We've already discovered this, but there's more new things to learn! I mean, look! There's something odd about these two… Why aren't you investigating!) A fourth (more sophisticated) voice cried.
Part of him -(the one you should absolutely ignore)- wondered if it was a good idea to heed the words of these voices, but given how they were him in a sense he decided to listen to them in so long as the ideas they voiced were intelligent or beneficial to him at the moment. (Smart man!)
(G???????: No, we need to leave before someone finds us with these bodies.) The first voice growled.
(W????: He has a point, if we don't leave people will seek vengeance.) A fifth agreed. (We aren't in a condition where we can fend off everyone who seeks us.)
(G???????: We need to learn more about our prey before we hunt them down.)
(P????: Oddly reasonable for you two, but I'm always in favor of bettering ourselves. We can learn on the move.)
"So that's three in favor, out of… how many?" He asked.
(L???: There's seven us in total!) A chipper voice answered. (Oh, and you don't have to listen to us if you don't want to!)
(G????: He's right, for once, you should just ignore everyone else and search this lots' pockets. We can't afford to be wasteful in a world like this!) The final voice threw out.
(E???: We also can't afford to be caught until our work is done.)
"That one has a very good point." He admitted before looking down both ends of the alley. "Though I'm not sure which way we should go to avoid attention."
(L???: Ooh, ooh, go the way the girl went!)
(G???????: He's got a point… The men you killed came from the other, if someone sees you walking out covered in blood they might put two and two together.)
(L???: Oh, no, I just wanted to make a new friend!)
"Regardless, it's a good enough direction." He decided before heading in the same direction as the girl, only to pause as he came to a street with more people than he'd been expecting. (Or perhaps not…)
(G???????: No look at them. More than one person is covered in blood or openly carrying a weapon… They're all ready for violence, but look at them… They watch their fellows with fear hidden behind anger… They're merely prey pretending to be prey… How delectable…)
He found himself salivating as he boldly stepped onto the street, his eyes meeting a man who startled at his sudden appearance before putting on a bold facade as if the man wasn't scared.
(G???????: Go ahead… Take a bite… Show everyone here what a real predator looks like!)
He began to open his mouth, feeling his teeth itch as they turned into fangs ready to rip into the meat and-
(P????: Now isn't the time for bestial violence!)
His mouth snapped shut as he shook his head clear and started in the direction opposite the man. "What was that?"
(E???: That is what happens when you lean too hard into one of us. You start to behave the way we would, were we the ones in control.)
"Interesting…" He wasn't sure if that was something to be concerned about or not. (After all, they're already me and they're already in my thoughts, so who could say who is really in control.)
(P????: An interesting philosophical, but right now we should focus on the actual project at hand… Look around and we'll see what we can learn shall we?)
He nodded to himself, before taking a proper look around as he wandered through the streets. All around him were a number of tall buildings made of concrete underlining that he was in a rather dense city of some kind. The architecture all painted various hues of red and black while also being oddly pointy and damaged to the point where the buildings should've been abandoned but for some reason were not.
It was while looking at this that he noticed the blood red sky up above, alongside what appeared to be some kind of runic script. (Is that real, or merely another hallucination?)
(E???: It's real. It's also a spell circuit… Too big to read from here -can't even take a guess at what it does- but it's probably not why the sky is red.)
(P????: Perhaps it's a reaction similar to how water particles normally turn the sky blue… Though that wouldn't answer what particulate is causing the red…)
(G???????: Blood… Can still taste it in the air despite leaving the alley… There's been so much bloodshed it's stained the very air… Not as good as true blood, but still a mouth watering flavor, wouldn't you agree?)
"I do…" He admitted, unable to help but lick his lips.
As his gaze came back down to street level, he found his eyes locking onto an odd insignia of an X of sorts with an additional line capping the end of each that was hanging off of banners here and there, or painted onto the buildings if they lacked said banners. A symbol that he found quite common on those who walked near him, be it stitched into their clothing or tattooed onto their flesh.
(P????: Clearly every person or business here affiliates with whatever organization this represents, but what does the symbol actually mean?)
The answer was staticy feeling in his mind as if he remembered it, less by definition and more with his emotions towards it, emotions that were most clearly defined as (annoyance/disgust/rage.)
He frowned. "Well that wasn't very clear at all…"
Regardless of clarity of definition, he felt like even associating with whatever this symbol represented was sapping at his own intellect, as if whatever it represented was such an extreme form of stupidity that it was somehow contagious.
(W????: The symbol is for idiots and pathetic wretches who'd rather blame the innocent than take responsibility.) An angry voice growled, filling his mind with red.
(P????: Now, now, we need a clear head to think. I'm noticing another oddity on the fellows surrounding us.)
He blinked before taking another subtle look at the people around him, for a moment thinking them no different than an ordinary person before spotting the thing the voice was talking about.
Namely that while the people around him for the most part looked human, almost everyone also had several traits that were distinctly not. The most common of which were claws and fangs, glowing eyes, and in a few instances even horns and tails. (At the very least I shouldn't stand out too much.)
(P????: I'd think not. They're all like us, both human and not… Though with a less clear divide between the two…) The other voice mumbled, piecing together his thoughts for him. (Nice of him to do that.)(You're welcome, still this means that they can't turn off whatever phenomenon causes our transformation…)
(E???: We can only manage that because everything is so shattered in here, and even then only just barely.)
(G???????: Should just cut loose, restraint is pointless. Revel in the Madness of it all.)
"That does sound fun…" He admitted, thinking about loosing his claws and fangs into those near him.
(E???: It may be fun, but it won't see our work get done.)
"A valid argument." He sighed, feeling smaller than a moment before as he felt a sort of longing in his chest for something he couldn't quite name.
(L???: Oh, oh, I've got an idea!) The happiest of his voices shouted.
"Oh, do tell!" He grinned.
(L???: Well, we've got no direction at the moment, right? So why don't we try talking to the people around us, maybe they'll give us some?)
(P????: No. Caring about strangers' opinions is how you end up tied to a worthless organization full of idiots.)
(S???: Though getting someone else to do some of the work for us would be nice.)
"The question is who?" He wondered, taking another look at those around him and finding all of them wanting be it due to either their affiliation with that (annoying/stupid/vile/disgusting) pinwheel or because they were just bland and blended into the scenery.
(L???: Well what about that girl that we woke up to? She seemed nice in a 'desperate street rat trying to survive' kind of way.)
"Well, at the very least she was more interesting than anyone here." He noted with a wry grin, before taking another look around. "But how are we supposed to find her when she's run away and we've moved in a different direction?"
(G???????: Hmm, it's more fun when they run… The fear makes their meat so much sweeter.) That one purred as his stomach growled.
(Are we a cannibal?) He idly wondered, while considering his delight in the taste of blood.
(P????: That would depend on your definition, but… probably.)
(W????: You're not eating her, she's innocent.)
(L???: Yeah! She's going to be a friend not food!)
(G????: Innocent? She stole from us! That's worthy of a death sentence!)
The red voice scoffed. (W???: She stole nothing of value.)
(G????: Nothing of- Everything is of value as long as it's ours!)
"Regardless! None of this explains how we're going to find her." He pointed out as he came to a stop, uncaring for the various eyes on the mad man talking to himself in the middle of the street.
(G???????: Hmm, her scent 's in the air, still fresh enough that the blood and filth of humanity has yet to consume it. The innocence makes it stand out against the rabble.)
He inhaled, but (I can't smell anything…)
(W????: I smell the blood of the innocent and the damned alike, but not the girl.)
(G???????: Grrah, need to feel the beast… let it guide you on the hunt…) The feral one growled as his skin began to feel a little too tight on his bones.
(E???: Dangerous route this one, be careful not to over indulge it lest it consume you.)
(W????: True but the Beast has purpose, value we shouldn't neglect.)
"Alright, the 'beast'-" (It uses a capital B.)"Ah, apologies." He coughed into his hand. "Ahem, the Beast is a valuable tool, but that doesn't tell me how to use it."
(E???: The Beast is a state of mind. Leave it to the unconscious mind, you'll just direct it as the conscious mind.)
(P????: So long as you remain more man than Beast at least.)
Before he could parse that ominous thought, he found himself hunching over as his stomach began to growl, the tightness of his skin growing even worse as his mouth began to water. All around him the world grew brighter, the darkness fading so that he could see through the darkest of shadows as well as the shadows cast by every person he saw.
(G???????: Not the time. Time to hunt!)
His heart began to pound in his chest and he began to move, his eyes taking note of recent scuffs picking apart the ones that were too big and too heavy, before seeing the ones that were smaller than the rest. Small enough to be the (prey/friend/girl) he was after.
Moving in pursuit his calm walk slowly shifted into a spiraling sprint as he sought out his (prey) not caring in the slightest about the people around him or the fact that several flinched away from his bloodstained form and snarling maw, (all that matters is the hunt!)
A trail of something floated through the air, unseen by all but the mad man following it, through back alleys and streets as he barely took notice of the people and things that surrounded him. Details that in a clearer state of mind might've meant something or triggered some sort of response from the voices in his head but currently meant nothing in the face of his growing (hunger.)
Coming into an alley walled off by a chain link fence, he easily leapt over said fence in spite of it being as tall as he was, before finding that the cloud of (scent/emotion/madness) that he'd been following expanded into such a large thing that it consumed his vision.
(She's nearby…)He growled both internally and ex at that thought, not sure whether it was him or the voices making the sound.
His eyes darted around the brickwork alley, taking note of the various filth and debris that littered the ground, the torn up posters depicting odd imagery, and the overflowing dumpsters before falling on a large wooden board lying against the brickwork, too close to really hide anything of import and yet…
(G???????: The rabbit's den is buried, need to dig it out.)
The voices seemed to disagree.
The only places he could see the girl hiding would be inside the dumpster, which while viable in the short term was not somewhere he could see her staying in long enough to cover this entire alley in… (whatever I was tracking.)
"Which leaves you…" He smiled, before grabbing the edge of the board and tossing it aside to find a small alcove in the alley brickwork.
An alcove just big enough for a sleeping bag, a backpack, and a terrified green eyed girl who could be no older than ten and four bundled up in a heavy scarf and jacket.
(G????: There's the thief!)
(G???????: Food!)
He growled, ready to rip into her throat and- (Enough/Enough/Enough!)
The voice's echoing presence was enough to force him to flinch.
(W????: She's a child!)
(L???: Friend not food!Friend not food!!!)
(E???: What would your mother think of this behavior?)
He found himself flinching once more as the voices that weren't all for killing the girl reprimanded him.
(P????: As I said, will you be a savage beast or a proper gentleman?)
(Right…) He inhaled, before exhaling. (Need to be sure of whatever choice I make…)
---
You found the girl. Now what will you do with her?
Note: Some choices will resonate with certain classes while repelling others. In such cases the names after the + will grow stronger, while the ones after the - will grow weaker.
Any Questions -for her- before we do that? (Max 3)
[]-Write Questions In Comments. (+Depends on the questions asked.)
---
Reminder: SLYMI, is under transfer so these choices have been made.
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Ira Invidia (III): Considering Questions And Offers
Ira Invidia (III): Considering Questions And Offers
--- ??? ---
(First and foremost I suppose…)
"Hello, child. It was so terribly rude of you to run off earlier." He greeted, forgoing his own introduction due to not actually having a name to give at the moment. "Now then, I believe you and I could have quite the intriguing conversation… So long as you know not to run this time?"
The young woman shivered, not answering his mostly rhetorical question as she tried to make herself as small as possible.
"Glad to see you agree." He grinned, enjoying the way she squirmed as he looked down on her.
(En??: You're scaring her.)
(Lu??: Don't be a meanie. Give her a smile and assure her you aren't going to hurt her.)
(Gr???: Yet.)
(Glu?????: Heh, fear makes the meat taste so sweet…)
(Sl???: Whatever we're doing, scare her too much and she'll stab you. Street rats are like that.)
(Lu??: If we want to calm her down, we need to start with something simple and non threatening.)
He considered that for a moment, the girl saying absolutely nothing as he considered her, the only sound coming from her being her frightened breathing. "Come now child, aren't you going to introduce yourself?"
The girl audibly swallowed, visibly considering whether or not she should lie to him as her face creased in worry before letting out a quiet, "Lydia…"
"Lydia." He repeated, tasting the name and wondering if the flavor would ignite any memory of his own.
(Pr???: Still can't recall our name, but I can tell you that Lydia means-) "Noble one, or beautiful one… I wonder which your parents meant for you?" He idly asked, dismissing the more boring meaning of 'from Lydia' while not actually expecting an answer to his question.
Not that that stopped him from noticing how the girl flinched at the word 'parents'. (Interesting…)
"Now then… Lydia, while I may not have been or currently be in the rightest of minds, I am aware of the fact that you took something from me." He growled, not quite meaning to as he felt the desire to-
(Gr???: Kill her and just steal it back from her corpse already!)
(Glu????: Eat her while we're at it… She may be more bone than meat, but we haven't had a proper meal in who knows how long.)
(Lu??: Hey, let's at least give her a chance to give them back, please?)
(Well since you said please.) He ignored his more violent thoughts as he leaned down at the waist, taking not of just how much taller than her he was before sticking his hand out and kindly requesting, "May I please have my things back?"
He liked to think that the 'before I take them back' was best left unsaid, and the fact that she cautiously put something in his hand meant that it was rightly heard.
"This, this is all I got… and the, the Sin from stealing it." Lydia promised, her voice soft and fearful as she quickly withdrew her hand, almost as if she were afraid he'd bite the hand off.
(Glu?????: We still could.)
Standing back up, he inspected the object she'd returned to him.
Fitting perfectly in his long fingered hand was a silver pocket watch with two rabbits chasing each other on the cover, one with antlers and one without. A number of chains circled and connected the two in an intricate knot that would bind them together forever even as they were both slowly choked to death by the bond.
His thumb traced the chains as he felt a set of emotions he couldn't quite name.
(Glu?????: Longing…)
(Wr???: Guilt…)
(En??: Regret…)
(Lu??: Love…)
(Sl???: Peace…)
(Pr???: Acceptance…)
(Gr???: Satisfaction.)
More on reflex than anything else, bloodstained fingers gripped the lid of the watch. His index and middle finger pressing down before pulling up and snapping the watch open to reveal the engraving hidden on the other side of its cover
Booker H. Freeman.
You are both the second worst and the
second greatest thing to ever happen to me.
I will always hate and admire you,
Emilia Lafayette.
The watch snapped shut once more, the storm of emotions inside of him far wilder than anything he'd felt in the short time since his awakening. With emotions so complicated that he found himself desperate for anything else to think about.
A shifting brought his attention back to the young woman in front of him, looking like she wasn't sure if she should flee while he was distracted or stay still in case it angered him once more.
"Thank you, my dear." He told the girl with no small amount of honesty as he slipped the watch into one of his pockets for now, deciding to deal with those feelings when he was alone and knew more about his situation.
(Lu??: Oh, oh, introduce yourself!)
"Ah, yes! It occurs to me that I've yet to introduce myself, Booker H. Freeman at your service." He informed her as he bowed with both a smile and a theatrical flourish of his hand.
While it wasn't overly apparent, he could tell by the slight relaxing of the girl's shoulders that this introduction had done something for her nerves even if he wasn't quite sure what.
"Now that we've put this unfortunate business behind us, perhaps you can help me with another issue plaguing my person?" He asked, taking a step back so that he wasn't quite looming over the girl any more.
Lydia watched him cautiously, her eyes darting around a bit as she climbed to her feet. "What, what exactly do you need help with?"
"Well as embarrassing as it is to admit, I'm currently missing a few… memories involving the where, why, and hows of how I found myself in that alley earlier." He explained, keeping the fact that he'd forgotten far more than that to himself.
The girl stared at his face for a moment, more specifically his mouth before asking him if, "Can you, uh, stop smiling?"
"I'd rather not." He confessed, some instinct telling him that to do so was a terrible mistake.
"Then you, uh, you might be a victim of the Smiling Man?" Lydia offered, looking uncomfortable.
He tilted his head. "You mentioned him before, and those ruffians you fled from called me a Smiler I believe?"
"Yeah, the Smiling Man is a, a Demon that runs around these parts feeding on people and leaving them as little more than smiling husks." Lydia explained with a shiver. "Though I haven't heard of any of his victims being able to talk once he's done with them."
(Pr???: The question is whether that's because you're the exception or the cause? The fact that you don't doubt her when she calls him a Demon could be a point in either direction.)
(En??: The Beast makes it pretty clear which direction we should be leaning.)
(Glu?????: Smiles are nice, but they don't matter nearly as much as the hunt, the kill, or the feast.)
"Hmm…" Taking all of that into account, he decided it was best to point out that, "If none of the Smiling Man's other victims can talk, then there's no telling if he's responsible for my memory loss or merely someone who exploited said memory loss."
"On the uh, bright side, if you're walking around you should get your memories back once you're done healing." Lydia offered with a wry grin of her own.
(Lu??: Aw, she's trying to give us hope. How cute!)
(Sl???: People like us don't deserve hope.)
(En??: Everyone deserves hope. The good to get them through the day, and the wicked to make their suffering all the greater.)
(Sl???: Show her your bullet hole. Street rats are made of stern stuff. Might be able to point us towards a back alley doc to get it fixed.)
"A valid point." He nodded, before parting his hair over the hole in his skull. "Though I'm not sure how long this'll take to heal."
Lydia grimaced, but didn't flinch away as would normally be expected of a child her age. (Told you.) "Yeah, that's, uh, that looks like you're still under something… surprised you're walking around with that… Especially after the Smiling Man got to you."
"So the two aren't connected then?" He asked, letting his hair fall since it clearly made the thus far helpful child uncomfortable.
"Not as far as I know, but… I don't normally go looking for Smilers." Lydia admitted, looking away as she guiltily brought up the point about robbing his incapacitated corpse.
(Gr???: Still say we should gut her for that.)
(Priorities.) He told himself, before asking the girl if, "Given my little… problem here, I don't suppose you know where I can find someone nearby to mend this injury of mine?"
"Uh, no…" Lydia frowned, causing his eye to twitch once more. "Healers aren't common around here… And I haven't really left Ira Invidia since my… dad brought me here."
"Now, now. No need to frown just because you can't help me child. You've been plenty of help as you are." He assured Lydia, getting a weak smile out of the girl. (Better… shame we'll have to end it.) "In fact, as helpful as you've been I can't help but be curious as to why you felt the need to steal from me during my incapacitated state?"
That got a flinch out of the girl as she refused to meet his eye, instead rubbing at her wrists as she looked at the ground. "Sorry… It's just… I, I don't want to be here."
"Oh, am I such terrible company?" He grinned, knowing that wasn't what she meant but not having the context behind what she actually meant.
Unexpectedly, the girl glared at him for a moment, "That's not-!" before flinching once more. "Sorry… I meant, Ira Invidia… I'm not, I'm only here because my dad dragged me here… I don't believe in that stuff." Lydia tried to explain as she gestured towards a poster with that windmill insignia or the one beside it bearing before more quietly confessing that, "I'm not a nazi…"
The girl flinched once more at that confession as if she was expecting him to physically lash out at her, only to relax near completely when he didn't. (Interesting…)
(Pr???: Based on context, Nazi is likely the name of those represented by that idiotic windmill.)
(Wr???: They've also hurt her. She's more scared of them than of a strange man covered in blood cornering her in an alley.)
(Gl?????: Insulting. We're clearly more intimidating than those maggot filled wretches.)
"Quite right." He smiled, more to himself than anything though by Lydia's grateful smile she seemed to think he was encouraging her.
(Sl???: Let her think what she wants as long as it keeps her loyal.)
"Any, uh, anyway you need a lot of Sin to buy your way out of Ira Invidia." Lydia continued to elaborate. "It's cheaper because I'm still young but if I can't get the Sin in another year or two… It might as well be impossible after that."
"I see… So I'm guessing my exit from this place will be 'impossible' as you put it." He guessed with a tilt of his head, fairly certain that just because something was impossible to the girl didn't mean it was impossible for him.
(Pr???: It really doesn't.)
"Maybe?" Lydia grimaced once more. (That's such an annoying habit…) "Um, you're uh, you're not from Ira Invidia, right? I mean I don't think you are but…"
"No I'm not." He answered, fairly certain that if he was he'd have killed more people and burned down any building clinging to those annoying symbols.
(Wr???: We'd have burned them all alive.)
(En??: Needless to say, you're not here because you live here.)
(Glu?????: Though this wouldn't make the worst hunting ground with all the prey wandering about.)
Lydia smiled, (looking much better) as she told him, "Then you should be able to buy your way over the wall… I think…"
"But we'll need a decent amount of… Sin," He was assuming that was the local currency based on what she'd said, "to get anything done."
"Uh, we?" Lydia asked, looking like she was once more ready to flee. An extreme shift from her previous countenance to say the least. (I wonder why?)
(Sl???: She's scared we're going to take the Sin she's saved up already. Losing what little they have is the greatest fear of all street rats.)
(Gr???: An option for quick funds, but probably not the most profitable in the long term. As much information as she's given it might be better to make her work off that debt of hers.)
(Pr???: Yes, a source of information would be invaluable given the current lack of memories.)
"Look, you uh, you seem like a nice enough guy but there is no us… I, I felt bad for stealing your watch, that's the only reason I'm helping you now." Lydia lied, not bringing up her blatant fear of him after how easily he'd tracked her down. "And as is, I'm thinking we're just about even on that."
(Gr???: Regardless, she's not going to go anywhere with you unless you can offer her something she wants. Only idiots work for free after all.)
(The question is what to offer her?)
(Lu??: Ooh, ooh! We can offer to be her best friend forever!)
(Wr???: She's hurt and scared. The honorable thing would be to aid her.)
(En??: Or we can teach her how to help herself. Give her the power to fight her own battles without us.)
(Glu?????: Hmm, rats are predators to some creatures. Might be entertaining to teach her she doesn't have to be a scavenger.)
(Sl???: Both of those options are too much work. All we need to do is take her with us when we leave and she'll be ours for no extra work.)
(Pr???: Yes, she'll merely be a tool to our goals. No need to become too invested in her.)
(Lu??: Or, we can become super invested and work our magic a bit.)
(Gr???: Doubt she'd say no if we do that, but the question is if it's worth the price.)
(What do you mean?)
(En??: You've got more tricks than just the Beast, if you want you can draw on them but you'll need to be careful lest they turn you into a slave to your own power.)
(Lu??: Oh, don't scare him like that. This is just us giving our offer a little more razzle dazzle to get her to say yes.)
(En??: Addiction is always a slippery slope with consequences we can't see.)
(Glu????: Better to indulge while you can, rather than waste your life on regrets.)
(Pr???: Philosophies aside, you need to make a decision. You might think faster than most but time is still passing for the girl.)
His mind snapped into focus as he looked at Lydia as the girl began to creep away from him.
(Gr???: Don't let her run.)
"Stop." He said, causing the girl to freeze in place as he offered her a hand and a smile full of teeth. "Tell me child, how would you like to make a deal?"
---
-In hell Sin is both currency and power, with many uses for both. There a number of ways to gather Sin and even more ways to spend it.
-One such way is the Sinful Boost, where we use Sin to guarantee that we'll hit the maximum success, at the cost of consuming however much Sin we need to reach that level after our base Roll. As an added bonus however we'll also gain double XP for any choice we use Sinful Boost on. (Tempting no?)
-Now, currently our Sin is based on those two kills earlier. Those two were E Rank lesser Enemies, meaning they were each worth (2D6) so at ((2D6=10) + (2D6=8)) = 18 Sin.
Our actual goal for this check will depend on what we offer her, one has a goal of 5/10, one 8/16, and one 10/20
[]-Offer Friendship. (Lu??/Wr???)
[]-Offer Power. (En??/Glu?????)
[]-Offer Freedom. (Sl???/Pr???)
[]-Sinful Boost.
[]-No Boost.
---
Reminder SLYMI is still under site-transfer, so this choice has been made.
A/N: This is going to be the one where either I lose you or keep you as a reader. (I do like to experiment with my writing.)
--- Ira Invidia (IV): Start Of A Metamorphosis
--- Booker H. Freeman ---
Lydia stared up at him, her caution and fear plan for all the world to see, "Do… do I have a choice?"
His eyes widened in shock that she would think him so ungentlemanly, before putting on an amicable smile to reassure/disarm her. "Why of course you do! You're free to leave whenever you want, all I ask is… that you hear my offer before you do."
(Gre??: We're not really going to let her go with her debt unpaid are we?)
(Of course we would, it'd be rude to hold a young maiden captive!)
(Slo??: Besides we lack the resources to hold her captive.)
(That too.)
Lydia gave him another once over, her eyes darting to each side as she searched for a way to escape before she eventually swallowed and asked, "What offer?"
He straightened out his clothes to try and make himself a little more presentable, a means of stalling for a moment as he in turn asked himself, (How do I do this… razzle dazzle, as it were?)
(En??: We'll take care of the actual ritual here, all you'll have to do is direct it and keep it going. If you stop too early we'll face both a backlash and be unable to start it up again without an even greater cost.)
(Gre??: Which'll make this investment a little too expensive, for multiple reasons.)
(And again, how do I start this… ritual?) He wondered, not quite sure what he was working with yet but willing to trust the voices for the moment.
(Lu??: With style of course! Snap your fingers twice and then just follow the flow!)
(En??: There's a lot more to it than that but… we can talk about that later.)
"Well?" Lydia frowned with an impatience born more from anxiety than anything else.
Giving his audience a smile, he raised one hand into the air as if it were a centuries old habit and told her, "How about a little… demonstration of what I can offer you?" before snapping twice and feeling an immediate shift in the ether around them.
Something that the girl clearly felt too given the way she was looking around. "W-what are you doing? What's that sound?"
He tilted his head and raised an ear before noticing that there was in fact a jazz sort of tune slowly building. (I'm curious about that too…)
(Pri??: Our power is vibrating the air molecules around us, thus generating a sound indistinguishable from music.)
(Lu??: The real fun is how the song changes based on what we're doing!)
(En??: Speaking of, you really should start directing the power before it slips us.)
(How?)
(Lu??: By singing of course!)
He blinked, drawing a blank at that even as the magical music began to build in power.
(En??: You've got five seconds to start singing before we explode.)
It was at this moment that he also realized that the young Lydia had pulled a knife on him, her hands shaking with clear fear at what she could feel coming from the air around her.
"Now, now, there's no need for that, my dear. I assure you that with this offer there is nothing to fear." He promised, feeling the power around him shift as he wagged a finger through the air before pushing aside the blade. "I'm aware that your situation here is rather quite severe, but don't worry because I'm here to make all your problems disappear!"
"And how do I know you're sincere?" Lydia asked in song before blinking and gaining a panicked look. "Wait, why am I singing?"
"Don't be irate for it won't be too long, just while we're clinging to the power of the song" He assured her as the music dimmed. "But let's reinstate the actual point, because I'd hate to disappoint."
"Now then," he coughed into his hand as he led her from the alley as the song once more began its rally. "From where I stand, you seem to be in dire need of a friend. An ally upon whom you can depend to help you ascend from this pit full of those who do nothing but offend."
In front of them a group of men covered in those windmills walked down the street with weapons in their hands so as to force all who crossed them to meet their demands.
Lydia pulled away from him. "Don't condescend, I don't need you to protect me from them… This offer of yours you can just rescind!"
(Slo??: Look at the way she trembles, she's clearly lying.)
(Lu??: Right, everyone needs a friend, we just need to keep trying!)
(En??: No, she resembles someone pretending they don't spend their nights crying in fear of the creatures lurking near.)
He grit his teeth at this new insight. "Quite right, I didn't mean to slight. I can see that all you need from me is someone to help set you free from the world that brings you so much fright."
"I don't need anything from you!" Lydia growled, beginning to march to their right.
"Perhaps that's true." He confessed, as he moved to pursue her down the street. "But allow me to offer you another view in case we never meet again?"
Lydia simply ignored him, his power dimming as she continued to walk.
(Gre??: You're losing her, we need something that won't make her balk. Hold on…)
"Hey you!" A voice squawked, drawing their attention to one of the men from before. "I know you!"
(Ugh, what a chore…) He growled through his smile. "That's clearly untrue, just looking at you I can tell that down to your core you're something to abhor."
"Not you!" The man snarled, before pointing at Lydia. "Her, I know her…"
The girl squeaked, trying to make herself small as the men's friends turned their attention towards the pair.
(Gre??: Perhaps this is how we'll ensnare…)
"From her reaction I can infer that you're but a source of despair. So kindly leave." He told the man, hoping to repair his standing with Lydia.
The man gave him a disgusted look. "The fuck are you talking like that for? Doesn't matter, you can go ahead and scatter she's what I'm after."
(Wra??: Which is why we should send him to the hereafter.)
Lydia flinched away as the man unswayed reached for her, though not as if to attack.
Regardless and without a thought, his hand shot to the man's wrist before pulling it back.
"You know Lydia, I just realized what it is you really need to be freed." He grinned through a smile full of fangs as the man began to grimace and the child stared on as if in a trance, one borne of fear, awe, and most importantly envie.
Now with something he could levy, the music began to advance once more as he felt his power re enhance with this brand new chance to seal this deal.
"Right now, my dear, you're so filled with fear." He sighed as he stomped the man's knee and forced him to kneel. "But don't worry, with me here we'll make this fear disappear like this easy kill here."
He grabbed the man's throat and tore it out in a single swipe, uncaring of the many witnesses that may gripe.
"What did you just do?" Lydia gasped.
"Something that you could do too." He laughed, before turning towards the crowd rushing towards them, taking longer than they should've thanks to the curse of the current verse.
"Right now my dear you're filled with fear, but don't you worry with me here, will make all that fear just disappear." He promised with a smile as he felt the power flow. "You see, I'm a dangerous foe, while you are a defenseless little doe, but don't you worry and don't you woe because I can tell this is the start of something great! Oh, I can't wait!"
"Wait? For what?" Lydia frowned, looking between him and the men in the distance. "What's happening?"
"The start of your metamorphosis my dear!" He grinned, taking the girl's hand in his and giving her a spin. "The way you are is such a sin, that in order for you to win we really must begin!"
"Begin what?!"
"Your metamorphosis!" He answered once more as he let the first man come to fore. "You see you can be dangerous, but you need to change for this!"
The man swung on him but he easily danced around the strike, and kicked the man's knee out like he had with the first.
Moving on instinct he swiped Lydia's knife from where she hid it before putting it in her hands. "Now, you've a knife. Tell me, can you use it? Or will you recuse it for the rest of your life?"
"I-I'm not going to kill him!" The girl told him, backing away until her back hit a store front.
He shook his head and gave her an affronted smile. "Not with that attitude you won't!" Which is why he killed the man for her and began pushing more power into his magic.
Dropping into a crouch so that he was eye level with Lydia he asked, "Tell me child, aren't you tired of being afraid? Don't you want that terror to end? To do this you must learn to defend!"
"You're insane…" The girl (finally) realized.
"True, but not the point." He reminded her, before standing back up. "Allow me to appoint myself as your mentor, your tutor on how to deal with your tormentors! Like these two!"
Lydia looked down at the two men on the ground before turning to the crowd of men who had stopped trying to get closer, but were talking amongst themselves while glaring their way. Eventually the girl's eyes drifted to one of the larger windmills on a building near them, the same one that marked most of the buildings around them, before finally meeting his eyes with a determined look.
"What do I have to do?"
He couldn't help but smile, as the music suggested he started up the chorus.
"Right now my dear you're filled with fear, but don't you worry with me here, will make all that fear just disappear. You see, I'm a dangerous foe, while you are a defenseless little doe, but don't you worry and don't you woe because I can tell this is the start of something great! Oh I can't wait!" He laughed, while searching the bodies of the two he'd killed. "This is the start of your metamorphosis!"
He gave Lydia a meaningful look, as he briefly paused and let his magic begin to bubble beneath the surface.
Lydia licked her lips before swallowing and admitting that, "The way I am is such a sin, that in order to win we really must begin!" allowing his magic to wrap around her and sink its hooks in.
"Yes! This is the start of your metamorphosis! You can be dangerous but you need to change for this!" He felt his magic twitch before finding an old flintlock on one of the bodies. "Ooh, a gun, what fun! Here you take it!"
"W-what am I supposed to do with it?" Lydia asked as she fumbled the gun between her hands.
He rolled his eyes, before swiping the gun back and pointing it at the various windmill wearing men. "You take it and you go bang, bang with it!"
One of the men dropped to the ground, as the rest jumped at the sudden sound, before returning their attention to him and the girl that was now holding the gun again. "Your turn! I'm sure you'll get the hang of it!"
Lydia held the gun up and shook her head. "I-I can't!"
He gave her a kind smile and a pat on her shoulder. "It's fine, you can learn. After all, this is just the start of your metamorphosis!"
"Are you sure I can be dangerous?" Lydia frowned up at him, not noticing how he was letting the thugs rush towards them.
The first man reached him with a bat full of nails raised, and he caught the bat before ripping it away and slamming the nails into the hooligan's face.
"Right now my dear you're filled with fear, but don't you worry with me here, will make all that fear just disappear."
Another man tried to get Lydia before having the hooligan's back broken by the bat.
"You see, I'm a dangerous foe, while you are a defenseless little doe, but don't you worry and don't you woe because I can tell this is the start of something great!"
The third stumbled back in his tracks after seeing how quickly his friends were dispatched by the smiling mad man and swiftly deciding to try running instead.
"Oh I can't wait!" He laughed, before swinging the bat and removing the man's head. "This is just the start of your metamorphosis!"
He gave Lydia a confident smile, only to find the poor girl staring down at the ground with a frown. "The way I am is such a sin, even if we begin, could I possibly win… I-I don't think I can be dangerous…"
He gave Lydia a confident smile before noticing what was behind her. "Hmm, I have an idea for this problem's panacea!"
With a quick step and a swing he broke the window open, an act that surprisingly required a decent amount of magic, before stepping over the broken glass and grabbing a bottle of alcohol and some cloth.
"This is merely the start of your metamorphosis my dear, there's no need to fear. I think you just need to change your mindset for this." He explained as he lit the cloth. "Perhaps some fire will inspire you to be a little more dangerous? If you can't kill yet, perhaps you can burn this?" He pointed to one of the windmill banners. "I doubt it's something you'll regret."
Lydia stared at the offered incendiary before taking it from him with shaky hands, and glaring up at the windmill. "I hate everything that swastika stands for, I… I want to burn it and so much more…"
"Then do it." He encouraged the girl, before reaching down and pulling up a bag of marshmallows. "We can roast smores as the fire roars!"
"Right now I'm filled with fear, but I won't worry with you here, we'll make all that fear just disappear." The scared girl promised herself. "I see, you're a dangerous foe, while I'm… I'm a defenseless little doe, but… I'm not going to worry or woe because… Because I can tell this is the start of something great!" Lydia smiled a grin full of fangs before laughing as she threw the incendiary. "Oh, I can't wait!"
He felt his magic twist propelling the bottle further than it should've gone before smashing into the banner and setting it on fire.
"This is the start of my metamorphosis!" Lydia grinned at him as she took his hand and he gave her a spin. "The way I was was such a sin, and now that we've begun my battle will be won!"
"This is the start of your metamorphosis!" He agreed as they continued to twirl to the music his magic produced.
"I can be dangerous, I just need to change for this. I won't be filled with fear, with you here, we'll make all that fear disappear. I won't be a defenseless little doe, I'll become their most dangerous foe, I'll become the source of their worries and woes!" Lydia sang as she spun. "This is the start of something great!"
"Oh, I can't wait to see how dangerous you become." He told her as they both stared up at the fire while surrounded by the bodies of the people he killed, he couldn't help but smile. "After all, this is but the start of your metamorphosis, my dear!"
---
A/N: First, this one was technically something we should've gotten last chapter, but I kind of want to limit it to one Tutorial per chapter.
-Occasionally, we'll come across items of power that the different members of our Cadre can equip changing some of their stats.
-As a base each member of our Cadre has three gear Slots for: 1 Offensive, 1 Defensive, and 1 Accessory. These numbers can be raised through different Perks available to different characters through their Classes.
-Lastly, we can trade out all of our equipped items in between events or a single slot type upon acquiring a new piece of equipment.
New Item:
Fey Feeling Stopwatch
-Bonded Accessory, Booker Only.
+/-1 To Checks involving Emilia Lafayette: Our feelings are mixed.
-1 Wra??: We burned her world down.
+1 En??: And watched her rise from the ashes.
[]-Equip the Fey Feeling Stopwatch. (Net: +1 En??, -1 Wr???)
[]-Don't equip it. (Net: No change.)
What do we do now? (Pick 2)
[]- Get to looting. (Gre??, +Loot)
[]- Keep on rioting. (Wra??/Glut????)
[]- Look for somewhere to lay low. (En??/Slo??)
Are there any questions you have for Lydia?
[]-Write-In.
---
Reminder, SLYMI is currently under site transfer. This choice has been made.
"So… what was the deal with all of that singing?" Lydia asked as she squished a half melted marshmallow between two graham crackers.
"What, you didn't like my singing?" He couldn't help but wonder with a smirk before plopping his own smore into his mouth. "I quite liked your little verse myself."
"That's not what I meant." Lydia scoffed, before stuffing her own treat into her mouth with a touch of color to her cheeks that was from neither the fire nor the blood of the bodies that littered the street around them.
(Lust: She's embarrassed, but she really does have a nice voice. Bit unrefined but we can work on that.)
"I'm aware." He admitted, before explaining that. "It was a ritual of sorts, that allowed for… an alternative use of the power I had on hand."
Lydia considered that for a moment before swallowing her snack. "Okay… I get what you're saying, but… you started using it on me before those guys started causing trouble."
(Greed: Good thing too, otherwise we wouldn't have gotten our claws in her.)
(Hmm, is the magic that invasive?) He wondered.
(Envy: It's more the idiot's domain than mine, but the Sinner's Song is a means of manipulating casualty in our favor. The more we need to do so the more power it costs.)
(Lust: Don't worry, the song can't force people to do things they don't want to. In fact if people sing along they can even use it to nudge things in their own favor!)
He couldn't decide whether that soothed or troubled his thoughts on the matter.
(Greed: The fact that it costs us something for something that might not even get us anything makes it a fool's deal.)
(Sloth: Then again, empowering our allies will make it so that we don't have to do as much work ourselves.)
(Envy: Be it this or the beast, power always has a price.)
(Lust: At least my way we can make friends.)
(Valid points. Valid points.)
(Pride: In case you've forgotten, the girl is still waiting on an answer.)
He blinked before turning his attention back towards Lydia. "Ah, apologies, my dear. During our initial debate, you were quite reluctant to hear me out so I began my… song so as to prevent you from exiting before my offer could be made."
Lydia frowned. "So you used a slaver effect on me?"
"NevER." He snarled, ready to rip impudent whelp's throat out for suggesting that-
(Wrath: That's not what she meant.)
He felt his rage immediately evaporate as he caught sight of the terrified girl in front of him, before coughing into his hand. "Ah, apologies, my dear… I have issues with…"
(Lust: A lack of consent.)
(Gluttony: Kleptoparasites.)
(Greed: Theft of person.)
(Sloth: Forced labor.)
(Wrath: Strawman beatings.)
(Envy: Enforced misery.)
(Pride: Stunted potential.)
"All of that…" He summarized, a bit surprised by the strength of these varied reactions but far more curious about what those reactions said about him.
(Envy: We may be a mad monster…)
(Pride: But we've standards thank you!)
"I… I think I get it… I mean if someone called me a nazi…" Lydia grit her teeth as she glared at one of the nearby corpses before shaking her head.
The young woman reached for another marshmallow to console herself of whatever thoughts were in her head before finding the bag empty. "We're out…"
(Lust: Aww…)
"I suppose that means it's time to get to work." He nodded as he began examining their surroundings.
(Sloth: Aww…)
"What did you have in mind?" Lydia asked, doing the same as she tossed the bag into the fire. "Looting the bodies?"
(Greed: Yes.)
"Hmm, tempting." He admitted, eyeing the various fallen 'nazis' he'd killed during his little song.
(Sloth: No, we need to move.)
He paused. (Why?)
(Sloth: People like this, they find safety in numbers. If their friends show up, they'll keep showing up until we're dead.)
(Greed: A sunk cost fallacy that'll leave them dead and us broke. If we're lucky.)
(Wrath: Unless we slaughter them all. With the way the girl acts around them, I'm sure they deserve it.)
(Envy: We were only so dangerous due to the song. If more people show up we'd have to actually fight them at a disadvantage.)
(Gluttony: They'd be lambs to the slaughter if you gave into the HuNgeR…)
(Envy: Hmm, we've enough sin to do it but… I'm not sure it'd be worth the cost… Then again, none of us are in charge here are we?)
No they weren't.
As insane as he seemed to be he was still cognizant enough to make his own choices, which is why he decided that, "It's best if we find somewhere to lay low for now. We've been here for a while and the last thing we need is for one of their friends to find us."
"Couldn't you just kill them like you did these guys?" Lydia frowned, looking quite ugly as she did so.
(Lust: Ah, she thinks we're stronger than we are!)
(Sloth: We need to keep her thinking that. Turn it around, make it about her rather than us.)
He nodded more to himself than to her question. "I could but the real question is if they'll be smart enough to bring reinforcements after seeing us surrounded by the dead. While I could handle a decent number of them, at a certain point their numbers may overwhelm my ability to protect both of us, and I prefer an outcome we're both in favor of."
"R-right." Lydia nodded back, looking at their surroundings with a little more caution.
(Sloth: Good it'll keep her alive.)
"I don't suppose you've somewhere we can properly reconvene and discuss how we're leaving this city? I'm sadly not very familiar with this locale at the moment." He confessed, as he took in their surroundings with some distaste. "Preferably somewhere without that… insignia you burned."
"Good luck with that, just about everyone here is a racist asshole." Lydia warned him as she rubbed her shoulders. "I… I had my alley nook, but… it barely fit me let alone someone as tall as you."
(Pride: And we've yet to fall so far as sleeping next to the trash.)
(Envy: But we have fallen low enough to not be picky.)
(Greed: Doesn't matter where we stay so long as it's ours.)
(Sloth: Preferably a place we won't have to work to maintain.)
"There might be some abandoned buildings or something nearby." Lydia offered anxiously as his silence dragged on. "People tend to avoid refilling wherever the Smiling Man is roaming until he's moved on."
"A fantastic idea!" He assured the girl with a smile. "Barring my own situation, I don't suppose you know where he was most recently active?"
"I… I might, but…" Lydia shook her head. "Nevermind."
"But…" He prodded with an encouraging grin.
"But it might be dangerous… or at least it would be for me." The young woman admitted. "From what I've seen you should be safe."
"I should be." He agreed, giving the girl a smile. (Especially if I am in fact the Smiling Man brought low.) "Why don't you lead the way, my dear?"
"R-right." Lydia nodded as she took one more look around them before setting off. "It should be over this way."
He easily followed the young woman, finding that thanks to their height difference his long stride allowed him to keep up with her jog while maintaining a brisk walk.
After several minutes of wandering through the streets Lydia slowed her pace with a(n ugly) grimace on her face. "Yeah, we're in the right area now…"
"Oh, how can you tell?" He wondered, unable to really tell this area apart from any of the previous ones.
(Envy: I can feel it… The shadows are deeper here than elsewhere.)
(Pride: That could just be the passage of time and the setting of the sun.)
(Envy: No. There's something here. A lingering darkness… It feels like home.)
Rather than pointing any of this out Lydia gestured to the ground where a number of bloodstains streaked off into an alley. An alley that upon closer inspection was filled with a pile of dead bodies.
(Sloth: Corpses swept to the side because it was easier than stepping around them. Human apathy at its finest.)
(Wrath: To be fair, dishonorable curs like them deserve little better.)
"People may kill each other left and right down here but… you only see piles like that where the Smiling Man has been." The young woman explained with a shiver. "If we keep moving we'll probably see some more in the other alleys."
"And how do you know it isn't simply a little bit of street violence like our own little slaughter this morning?" He asked her, wondering if the bodies they'd left littering the street would be swept into a pile like this.
"Because when someone kills you it only takes like a day to wake back up but when the Smiling Man kills you… you stay dead for a lot longer than that." Lydia elaborated before shaking her head as she started once more. "Better than being left a Smiler I guess."
"Quite." He agreed more to add a somber silence to the conversation as he instead asked the voices in his head, (Did she just say people wake back up after dying?)
(Pride: She did. Curious… Especially since she mentioned it as if it were common knowledge, almost.
(Envy: Maybe that's what the circle in the sky is doing? Bringing people back to life?)
(Gluttony: A hunt eternal. A buffet unending… How delectable.)
(Greed: No meal is free, there's a price we're not seeing.)
(Envy: If that's the case the shadows could be something suppressing the effect? Putting the payment on pause?)
(Wrath: A pause to the cycle of violence. Tch, a mercy they don't deserve.)
(Sloth: Unless it's tactical. Dead hands aren't working hands.)
(Pride: There's too little information for a proper hypothesis.)
"Okay, this should be far enough." Lydia noted, drawing him from his thoughts as he found himself looking at a hotel of sorts composed of red brickwork and gray cement in a style that lacked much in the way of flash.
"Hmm, yes, I do believe this will do quite nicely for our purposes." He grinned in agreement as they stepped into the lobby and found it empty of both patrons and staff alike. "Though I will admit I didn't quite believe you about them abandoning the area on this scale."
"Y-yeah, like I said, everyone is scared of ending up in a body pile. I've never had it happen to me but I've heard plenty of horror stories about people having to climb out from the bottom." Lydia nodded as she ran behind the counter and began searching through everything.
He rang the hotel bell before asking her if she, "Found anything of value, my dear?"
"Register is open and empty so someone already got the stacks of sin, and the place is old school… but it looks like whoever was staying here ran with the keys." Lydia gave an unseemly frown in frustration as she continued searching.
He wasn't entirely sure what she meant by 'old school' (whatever that is) but he wasn't overly worried, knowing they could simply break down a door or two if it came down to it.
"Wait… Found some!" Lydia cried in triumph as she held up a pair of keys.
"Very good." He applauded with a grin since the girl seemed to deem this some kind of achievement even if he didn't quite see it himself.
(Sloth: Encouragements keep the minions working so you don't have to.)
(Lust: It's also the friendly thing to do!)
With a theatrical half bow he gestured towards the nearby stairs. "Shall we find our rooms, my dear?"
"Uh, yeah…" Lydia nodded, looking a little off put for some reason he couldn't quite decipher.
Instead of moving towards the stairs Lydia instead moved towards a set of handless double doors and pressed a button on the wall, causing them to open what he believed to be an elevator.
He couldn't help but blink as he followed her before watching as she pressed another button causing the elevator to begin moving before stopping and opening on another floor after a few moments. "Ha, quite the little elevator operator aren't you?"
Lydia gave him a confused frown, but didn't let whatever was bugging her keep her from stepping into the hotel hall and looking for their room.
Once it was found Lydia seemed to pause before glancing his way with something a little nervous as she opened the door.
With the door open he could almost understand her nervousness. "Hmm, not the greatest of accommodations…"
The room itself was serviceable with a bed big enough for two, a small table and chair, balcony, and some glass box on the wall. Off to the side was a doorless lavatory with what he believed to be a shower off to the side. (Perfectly fine for a gentleman on his own, but definitely not for a young woman on the road.)
"I don't know… it's definitely nicer than the alleys I usually crash in." Lydia argued, sounding a bit depressed as she did so before giving an (ugly) frown at the photo on the wall of a parade surrounded by banners of that (idiotic) windmill he'd been seeing everywhere. A photo that Lydia promptly grabbed and threw out over the building.
An act that left her with a beautiful grin on her face, at least until she saw the newly revealed bloodstain on the wall. "Though I'm not sure if it's much safer honestly."
"Don't worry if anything causes us trouble, I'll… deal with it." He promised unable to hold back a smile full of teeth. "For now we should get some rest. We've a big day tomorrow after all!"
"Working on getting out of Ira Invidia, right?" The girl checked once more, an almost desperate edge to her voice as she held onto the edge of her jacket.
"That was our deal I believe." He chuckled, amused by her paranoia and the fact it would likely grow worse until he delivered on extracting them from this city.
"R-right… this is for getting out of Ira Invidia…" Lydia told herself once more as she removed her jacket with a resigned look.
"Quite right." He nodded, before spotting a magazine with a woman wearing far too little clothing on the cover and a fake smile.
(Lust: Eww, gross.)
He glanced at the young lady's way before subtly throwing out the magazine and hoping she hadn't seen such deplorable material.
(Lust: I don't get why people like that stuff.)
(Gluttony: There's no artistry to it. No emotion to revel in.)
(Lust: Yeah… Sex is boring.)
"So… how are we doing this?" Lydia asked him, fiddling with the hem of her shirt as she stood there looking deeply uncomfortable with his silence.
"Ah, well, I suppose I'll sleep in the chair while you take the bed." He answered with a terse grin as he realized just how uncomfortable these chairs looked.
Lydia blinked before turning to him. "Wait, you're not…" She made a gesture towards the bed.
"What? No, no, no." He wagged his finger at her. "It would be truly improper for a young lady such as yourself to share a bed with a non-relative. As is, we're already pushing the boundaries of decorum by sharing a room, but needs must given our current situation."
Truthfully, he was still considering breaking down a door but if he could sleep in a room with a lock then that would be far safer for both of them.
"Oh…" Lydia said, looking stunned for some reason. (Why, it's almost as if she's never met a proper gentleman!)
(Wrath: Given what we've seen, that's fully possible.)
(Pride: Something we'll have to rectify!)
"Um, uh, if… if you want I… I grabbed a second set of keys for af… nevermind." Lydia half way explained, refusing to meet his eyes as she held the keys out.
(Why didn't she mention this before?)
(Envy: You don't want to know.)
(Sloth: You really don't.)
"Al-right." He accepted the keys, deciding to let it go as he checked the room number before realizing, (Ah, this is on a completely different floor. That's why she didn't share them, she was worried about us being too far from each other!)
"Yeah, just… just get out of here so I can, uh, bathroom!" Lydia shouted in embarrassment.
"Oh, of course." He nodded, not wanting to be anywhere near any of that.
He quickly departed, not feeling an ounce of offense when Lydia promptly slammed the door behind him.
Deciding to completely ignore the matter, and not trusting himself to operate the elevator, he made his way to the stairs before locating his room. All while either ignoring the various stains on the walls and carpet or admiring the ones he was fairly certain were comprised of blood.
(Pride: That one was… three gunshots. First one merely clipped and the last was to make sure.)
(Sloth: Ugh, headshot would've been less work.)
(Gluttony: Claws on that one. Tackled them to the ground and ripped them apart.)
(Envy: Hmm, looks like someone was crucified there.)
(Wrath: No, they just impaled them. Crucifixion requires the entire pose.)
(Lust: The splatter makes such a pretty color…)
(Greed: Cheaper than paying for paint I guess.)
Eventually he did locate his room and found it to be basically the same as the one he'd left Lydia with. More so once he removed the painting and yet another one of those magazines of ill repute. (Well, at least if I ignore the lack of bloodstain.)
(Lust: I wonder if she'll trade rooms with us?)
(No, no. Let's leave her the good room. She's clearly had a rough time of it and deserves it.)
(Lust: When you're right, you're right.)
(Pride: Of course.)
After a moment of simply standing there, he realized that this was quite possibly the first time he'd found himself both alone and without a goal of some sort since first waking up.
With nothing to do but take in the world around him, he stepped out onto the hotel balcony and took a deep breath of that bloodstained air as he took in the city in front of him.
A place with blood red skies, crumbling buildings, where bodies seemed to litter the streets, and the smoke of burning flames seemed to dance their way into the air much like the sound of screams and gunshots echoing all around.
To most people all of this would scream of something nightmarish, but him, he couldn't help but smile as he looked out at this city full of opportunity and said, "Laissez le bon temps rouler."
---
A/N: Since this was chapter 5 here is the character sheet telling you where Booker and Lydia are right now.
--- Name: Booker H. Freeman
Rank: E (8/15)- Lesser Sinner
Current Sin: 7
Abilities
-Fractured Soul: Your mind is fractured and your memories missing for better and worse.
-Sinful Boost: Consume Sin to guarantee a Crit on any Check, and boost Sin Resonance gains.
-Sinner's Song (Lust/Envy) Sing and make causality dance to your tune.
-The Beast (Envy/Gluttony) Hunt them down like the prey they are.
Abilities
-Small Spaces: Gain an advantage when trying to hide or dodge.
-Lockpick: Gain an advantage when Lockpicking things or getting into places she shouldn't.
-Enduring: Durable in a way most aren't. (Increase's Max HP and all gains to it.)
---Important Inventory
Fey Feeling Stopwatch (Equipped)
-Bonded Accessory, Booker Only.
+/-1 To Checks involving Emilia Lafayette: Our feelings are mixed.
-1 Wra??: We burned her world down.
+1 En??: And watched her rise from the ashes.
---
A/N: And since they leveled up Envy they had choice of selecting one of these memories to unlock a new perk or effect.
[]- A Child's Aspirations
[]- A Balancing of Fates
[]- A Spiteful Endurance
[]- A Victim Inspired
--- Reminder SLYMI is being added to SV, so this choice has been made.
He woke up slowly to the sound of someone humming a faint little tune that he couldn't help but love and even if he couldn't remember the name or words of it, he knew that he always would love it.
As tired eyes opened he found himself staring up at a wooden ceiling covered in little hanging trinkets that glittered and glowed in the air, like his own personal collection of stars.
Sitting up he pushed off a number of blankets spun with love and care over a years time, before sitting up and looking around the relatively small wooden cabin he lived in. With another bed opposite the one he slept in and a table with three chairs between them and a small kitchen and fireplace in the back away from the front door that never closed quite right.
It was in the kitchen that he watched a beautiful dark skinned woman flutter about. Her long curling hair held back by a cloth with several flowers tucked into it and a smile on her face as she continued to hum that comforting song of hers.
He was content to simply watch her work as he childishly swung his legs by the edge of the bed, his little legs unable to meet the ground just yet, as he tried to hum along to her song.
This off-note humming was what finally drew the woman's attention to him, causing her smile to grow from a passive contentness to a far more active joy. "Booker, you finally awake sleepyhead?"
"Mm-hmm." He nodded, before letting loose a yawn.
The woman gave him an amused huff, before shaking her head with that beautiful smile of hers. "Come on now, you were only allowed to sleep in because it's your birthday. If grandad comes back from catching rabbits for supper, then you know how cranky he'll get. Now go on and get dressed, today's a big day after all!"
"Yes, mama!" He smiled back before climbing out of bed and picking up his clothes from the day before -his only clothes- and putting them on.
"Do you need any help with your breeches?" His mama asked.
"No, I'm a big boy!" His grandad had made sure to tell him that when teaching him how to put on pants, and he didn't want to disappoint his grandad.
This desire did little to help him with the buttons on his overalls.
"Come on, don't be stubborn like your grandad." His mama told him as she picked him up and sat him on the bed before fixing his buttons and rolling up his pants legs since he was still a bit too small for them. But his mama and grandad assured him he'd grow into them when he got even bigger like them! He would…
"There we go." His mama nodded once his clothes were straightened out before tilting her head as she looked at him. "Wait, you're missing something…"
He blinked in confusion before looking down at his clothes and seeing everything they'd given him. "What am I missing mama?"
"Why a smile baby boy!" His mama grinned while pushing the corners of his cheeks up.
"Mama!" He laughed.
"You can forget your shirt or your shoes but you should never forget your smile Booker!" His mama told him as she lead him over to the kitchen table before helping him into a chair and taking the seat next to him. "Now then tell me, sweetie, do you remember how old you are today?"
He excitedly raised all the fingers on one of his hands. "I'm five!"
"Yes, you are!" His mama laughed, with a clap. "Keep that up and you'll be even better at your numbers than me or your grandad!"
He couldn't help but giggle when she poked his belly.
"Now since today is your birthday that means you get something special today." His mama whispered.
"What do I get?" He asked excitedly.
"Today you get birthday magic." His mama answered, wiggling her fingers and letting fireflies loose into the air.
"What's birthday magic?" He wondered innocently.
"Birthday magic is a very special kind of magic for little boys on their birthday. Special magic that can be used to make any wish you can think up come true!" His mama explained with a light tap to his nose.
"Any wish?" He blinked with no small amount of awe.
"Any wish." His mama confirmed with a nod.
"Wow!" He said.
His mama chuckled. "Wow indeed-y, but you've got to tell me your wish so that I can make it happen."
"Mmm…" He thought about this, wondering what he could wish for. After all this was a big decision and he couldn't let it go to waste…
"I wish… to know how to use birthday magic!" He eventually decided.
Now it was his mama's turn to blink. "Oh? You… want to learn birthday magic?"
"Yeah." He nodded. "That way I can use it to make you and grandad happy on your birthdays by giving you wishes!"
"Aw, baby…" His mama wrapped him in a hug and held him close. "Everyday with you I'm getting my every wish come true."
"Really?"
"Really, really." His mama nodded.
"Then… I still need to learn it to make grandad happy instead of grumpy." He figured.
His mama let out a laugh. "I'm sure he'd love that, but… you're still a little little to be learning any kind of magic, baby."
"Oh…" He frowned in disappointment.
"But!" His mama cut in. "When you're bigger, if you still want to learn, we'll see if we can't teach you the same magic my mama taught me. Alright? Then you can make everyone's wishes come true."
"You promise?"
His mama cupped his cheek with a gentle smile. "I promise, my beautiful baby boy. You're going to make everyone as happy as you make me every single day."
--- A/N: Can you believe he's going to grow up to be a monster?
A/N: Okay, with that I think we've covered enough of Smile Like You Mean It to give people a broad idea of what this quest is going to be like. So if anyone does not want to wait for me to slowly roll chapters out over the next two weeks to drum up readers, here is that link to the SB thread again with the remaining chapters. (I'll be starting the 3rd Season with the new year.)
Feel free to let me know what you think of the story thus far, and as always thank you to my patreons supporting the Deviant's Masquerade setting.
-New Perk: Practitioner: Gain an advantage on matters involving understanding the effects and uses of non-Dark magic. Booker can now use small-scale magic.
--Warning: This Perk does not unlock Enchanting, Summoning, or combat magic, but does unlock the potential for them going forward.
--- Ira Invidia (VI): A Start To Many Things
--- Booker H. Freeman, Present ---
He shot awake, a cold sweat soaking his skin as his heart pounded away in a desperate bid to escape his rib cage.
A reaction in complete contrast to the dream -(No, the memory)- he'd awoken from.
He… he could remember his mother…
The memories were filled with massive gaps, and aside from that one memory everything else was caked in static and darkness so thick that it might as well be a part of the blackest abyss.
"Why can't I remember?" He growled through a smile full of fangs.
It had been one thing when he had no memories to recall whatsoever, but to only have that one core memory? It made the absence of the rest far too prominent to ignore. Especially given how he could feel the whispering recollection of other memories, things that he both did and did not know, memories just barely out of his reach.
(Envy: After what was done to you? The fact that you've regained any memories is a miracle in itself.)
"What was done to me?" He asked with a tense grin, the closest to a frown he could manage without triggering that terrible flood of insanity.
(Pride: Something extraordinary!)
(Envy: The worst thing possible…)
(Wrath: What we deserved.)
(Greed: What we were owed.)
(Lust: A story deserving of song!)
(Gluttony: The end and the beginning.)
(Sloth: None of us actually know.)
He couldn't help but let loose a derisive huff at that last thought.
"What do you know?" He scoffed, his thoughts drifting to his only memory of his mother, one strong enough that he knew he'd never forg- (...)
(Pride: That was a core memory. The foundation of an individual's personality. An anchor to the very essence of their being.)
(Envy: It was a part of me of you… You dug it up from where I buried it…)
"Why would you bury it? Bury her." He wondered in disgust, his eyes drifting towards the glass box on the wall where his faint reflection refused to meet his eyes.
(Envy: I… I don't remember…)
There was a shame to the voice's words that made it impossible to tell whether this was truth or lie, merely that it was all he was going to be given on the matter.
"Do the rest of you have my memories buried as well?" He growled at his reflection.
(Pride: Knowledge should be shared!)
(Gluttony: …)
(Lust: I would never!)
(Wrath: Those thoughts hurt…)
(Greed: They're ours!)
(Sloth: Probably.)
With a snarl he slammed his fist into the glass box, shattering his shifting reflection in a dense webs of cracks as his knuckles were ripped open by the broken glass.
He stood there for a moment with his fist still embedded in the glass huffing to himself, as he tried to process what he'd learned about his memories being buried within himself.
Eventually, he removed his hand from the glass and proceeded to straighten out his clothes, because (my memories are there, I just need to figure out how to reclaim them…)
All in all, it wasn't something worth getting so worked up over. (Not when I now have some direction going forward.)
(Lust: Feeling better now?)
"Quite." He nodded to himself, before considering the shattered glass next to him and faintly remembering one of the first 'lessons' his dearest mother had given him.
Pulling on something within him, he snapped his fingers and directed that something towards the broken glass.
After a moment the web of fractures began to slowly shrink as the glass sealed itself good as new. With not a single crack to be felt as he ran his finger over the newly smoothened surface.
He couldn't help but smirk at this new tool provided to him by his mother, one that would inevitably make things significantly easier for him in this place.
(Envy: Even if I can only recall the basics right now…)
As he stepped into the hallway he started making his way towards Lydia's room, sure that the young lady was bound to be up and about by now. (I mean the sun is nearly risen after all!)
(Sloth: Ugh, let her and you sleep. Please?)
"And waste the whole day? I think not!" He scoffed.
(Lust: Ooh, how about we make her breakfast in bed then!)
"Oh, now that is a splendid idea!"
---
The hotel's kitchen, while perhaps not the most splendidly stocked with the freshest ingredients, was however stocked with enough that he was able to put something together using the memories that his dearest mother had left him given the power hidden within 'the magic of cooking'. Something he quite enjoyed as he hummed the tune that followed his mother everywhere.
(Gluttony: You're not alone.)
His ear twitched, before he caught sight of young Lydia cautiously making her way into the kitchen.
"Ah, you're just in time for breakfast my dear!" He smiled, setting another plate loaded down with food on the counter. "I'm unaware of your preferences so I've just made a little bit of everything."
Lydia licked her lips with a clear hunger as she looked at the food on the counter, before repeating. "A little bit of everything?"
"Well, everything they have here at least. Feel free to help yourself." Before the last word left his mouth, Lydia had already begun doing just that, tearing into her food as if it were the dust bowl.
(Sloth: Heh, street rat's hungry.)
(Gluttony: Hunger is one of the great motivators.)
He shrugged and simply wrapped up what he'd left cooking before joining her, if with a touch less enthusiasm while always leaving the last bites for the hungering child.
After a moment, when Lydia's eating had finally begun to slow he noticed her eyes flickering towards him with an unspoken curiosity.
(Pride: And curiosity is always a good thing.)
"Yes, my dear?" He prodded, when she didn't voice her questions of her own free will.
"Oh, um," Lydia seemingly winced to herself at having been caught staring. "We, uh, we're going to start working on getting out of here today… right?"
"Yes." He confirmed. "That said, I would enjoy having a little more information to work with about our situation."
Lydia blinked. "Uh, what kind of information?"
"For one, how much Sin will a ticket out of this place cost us?" He wondered. "I'm aware mine will be more than yours, but that doesn't do us much without hard numbers to work towards."
"I… don't know for sure." Lydia confessed with a rather ugly grimace. "The most annoying part about Sin is how it weighs differently for different people doing different things."
(Greed: That's the difference between classes speaking. Money is worth less to the rich because they've got more than enough to buy and sell a soul.)
"Some people can gather it so easily, but when I do the same things I… I get nothing from it." Lydia grumbled, playing with her food before her expression brightened as she looked his way. "Maybe… Have you figured out why it works differently for different people?"
(Pride: The observer effect?)
(Greed: Financing skills?)
(Sloth: The law is rigged?)
He got the distinct feeling none of those were the answers the child was looking for so instead said, "Don't worry about that, I'll be able to sort that out easily enough should we take that route. I simply wish to know if your way is the only means of securing our passage out of the city?"
"As far as I know, yeah." Lydia shrugged.
"Yes, well, you'll find my dear that I have few more means at my disposal than you." He reminded her, while using his magic to move the leftover food from their plates and into containers to take with them.
(Gluttony: Need to eat whatever you can whenever you can…)
Despite being a mere parlor trick compared to the secrets that he knew were out there, Lydia stared in awe as if it were some fantastical feat.
"Right… You've got magic…" Lydia remembered. "That song wasn't just you being…" She trailed off with a wince.
"Crazy?" He finished, before leaning forward as he pinched two fingers together. "I should probably warn you that I am in fact just a little crazy."
(Envy: Just a little?)
(Pride: We're an eccentric genius is all.)
Unaware of this little aside, Lydia gave him a beautiful little smile as she accepted one of the leftover containers.
"Well… If you want to see what you're working against, then I guess you should probably see this side of the Wall." Lydia told him as she packed the food away in her backpack.
"The Wall?" He repeated curiously.
"Well, I mean, I guess it's 'The Wall-s'." Lydia corrected herself.
---
"Ah, the walls." He acknowledged looking up at the two large structures that went off as far as the eye could see in either direction, seemingly encircling this entire city.
One wall was a massive concrete structure far larger than any of the nearby buildings, and possibly larger than any building within Ira Invidia with a handful of metal windows, firearms, and spotlights.
All of which was aimed down towards a much smaller and less intimidating wooden wall and fence that looked like it could be blown over by whatever wind the larger wall wasn't shielding it from.
"Yeah, the walls." Lydia nodded in agreement. "Everyone can see the big one but I guess it makes sense that people on the outside don't know about the smaller one."
"And… what is the point of the smaller one?" He found himself asking with no small amount of curiosity.
"From what I've heard on the streets? The smaller wall was made because a bunch of racist idiots thought they could keep out the 'immigrants' or some garbage like that. They won't admit it but I think this is as good as it ever got." Lydia explained before lightly kicking one of the smaller wall's supports and causing it to collapse alongside a small section of this lesser wall.
They were both silent for a moment before he gestured towards the much more impressive wall. "I don't suppose you know how the larger wall came to be?"
"Uh, those 'immigrants' -which, ya know, were everyone outside of Ira Invidia- saw the wall meant to keep them out and decided to build a better wall to keep everyone in Ira Invidia." Lydia shrugged with a shake of her head. "Which basically turned Ira Invidia into its own prison while reminding the nazi's that they were the minority down here."
"How delightfully petty." He smiled.
"Yeah, I'd be laughing about it if it wasn't screwing me over." Lydia agreed, "So any ideas?"
"Hmm, give me a moment to think." He requested as he began looking the wall over. (The larger one of course. (Not the sad pathetic one made by clearly inferior nazi engineering.))
(Pride: I… can not see any integrities from here.)
(Envy: Yeah, and I can definitely feel a barrier or something.)
(Lust: That means it's technically three walls! That's like fifty percent more wall! Oh, Lydia is going to be so discouraged!)
(Sloth: We could just, not tell her.)
(None of that matters at the moment.) What did matter was the fact that Lydia was looking at him expectantly, if with a tint of worry. (We need to figure out how to get past this.)
(Greed: Much as I hate to admit it. We might need to just buy the tickets and get out.)
(You're suggesting we give something up?)
(Greed: We're not giving anything up. Like any smart capitalist we're simply trading something of lesser value for something of greater value. Namely our money for our freedom.)
(Sloth: If we weren't broke, that would be the easiest method.)
(A valid point on both counts.) He had to admit.
(Wrath: We could simply fight your way out?)
(Sloth: Better yet, make these 'nazis' Lydia despises do it for us. That way we don't have to work at all.)
(I'm sure Lydia is street smart enough to know someone we can send to their deaths in our place… Barring her of course.)
(Pride: Alternatively, we could try side-stepping conflict altogether by taking a more thorough look at this wall. If we walk it we might find something we're missing.)
(Envy: While we're at it we might as well inspect the barrier for any weaknesses as well.)
That did sound like the least dangerous method, though it felt like the one that would have the least… wiggle room for him to take advantage of as well.
(Lust: Ooh, ooh! Can't we simply talk to the guards? Explain that us being here is a mistake? That Lydia is just an innocent child? I'm sure they'll let us out if we're polite enough.)
(All: …)
(Greed: You're an idiot and you're going to get us killed.)
(Lust: You don't know that. I mean strangers are just friends you haven't met yet!)
He was pulled from his thoughts by Lydia tugging on his shirt. "Uh, Booker, I should probably warn you that if we're this close to the wall when they do their security check, they're probably going to shoot at us." The young maiden warned him.
"Ah, in that case we should[Scene Choice]
---
How shall we continue?
[]-leave to find a source of Sin to use. (Greed/Sloth)
[]-find someone to send to the slaughter. (Wrath/Sloth)
[]-start moving to inspect the wall. (Pride/Envy)
[]-find the main gate to talk to the guards. (Lust)
Reminder I'm still transferring chapters, so no choices yet.
Ira Invidia (VII): The Wall Attempts Murder (Twice)
Ira Invidia (VII): The Wall Attempts Murder (Twice)
--- Booker H. Freeman ---
(Gluttony: Duck.)
"Duck?" He blinked, tilting his head to the side just as a loud bang tore through the air and something cut along his cheek.
"Shit, run!" Lydia yelled, tugging at his arm and dragging him away from the walls as another bang tore through the air and he felt something piercing through his arm.
(Gluttony: Running is good too.)
With a growl he sprinted after Lydia as she ducked into a nearby alley, one with a number of holes right along the edge of its opening.
"This… this should be far enough." His ward informed him with a slight pant. "They tend to stop firing once you get moving."
"And why did they shoot me?!" He growled, shifting the cloth of his shirt to see how bad the injury was.
(Sloth: Looks like a through and through.)
"Because Ira Invidia is one massive prison?" Lydia scoffed, before giving his arm a worried glance. "Are you going to be okay?"
He considered the bleeding hole once more, and took note of how it wasn't actually bleeding.
(Wrath: It won't stop our work.)
(Gluttony: It'll just make us hungrier for the kill.)
Taking a calming breath he gave the child a reassuring smile. "I'll be fine. Doesn't even hurt."
(Envy: It does. You've just had worse.)
(Gluttony: The pain means we're still alive.)
It seemed to work as Lydia gained a relieved sort of look. "Good."
"Now then." He coughed, in an attempt to regain some of his previous decorum. "While a little late, I don't suppose you know much about the Walls' defenses?"
"I know they've got guns and guards." Lydia shrugged, before adding that. "Most people just need them to kill you once to learn to stay away."
"Experience?" He wondered.
His companion refused to meet his eyes as she answered, "Not mine."
(Sloth: Good, she knows to let others make mistakes for her.)
(Pride: The ability to learn is such a dreadfully rare skill.)
(Speaking of…) "If we want to overcome the wall then we'll need to study it a bit more." He told Lydia as he started down the side of the alley opposite the way they'd entered.
"Is… is that a good idea?" Lydia asked with one of her hideous frowns as she caught up to him. "I mean, they just shot you."
"True." He conceded, because facts were facts. "But I sincerely doubt two lurkers who fled are enough to send them on high alert. Still we won't be getting as close as we were, we'll simply follow along at a distance to see if we can't find an advantage of sorts to make use of."
"Uh, I don't… think that'll work the way you think it will." Lydia confessed.
(Sloth: She knows something. Ask her what.)
"Oh?" He smiled, even as the girl shrunk away. "Do tell."
"Everyone who wants out tries walking the wall. It was… It was one of my first attempts at getting out of here. I loaded my backpack with enough supplies to last a week or two on the outside and walked the wall for something other than the main gate." Lydia explained. "I mean, it's not like they could wall up the entire city, r-right? There had to be a hole or a weak part of the fence I could find my way through."
"Given the way you're talking…" He found the edges of his smile drooping, even if they remained in the shape of a grin.
"I ran out of supplies without even lapping the city, and I'd spent every day just walking for two weeks straight." Lydia grimaced.
(Pride: Given the average human walking speed, even if she only walked for three hours a day, that's still a perimeter of eight-four miles… If she actually spent all of her time walking then, that would easily swell to over three hundred miles most likely more…)
(Sloth: I will go on strike if you attempt to walk that far.)
"That's… troubling." He admitted as he slowed to a stop.
"Yeah, the weirdest part of it is that when I finally gave up and started back home? It didn't even take me an hour to get home." Lydia chuckled mirthlessly. "Almost like this place was taunting me about how pointless it all was."
"Very troubling." He corrected himself, as his eyes drifted to the greater wall.
(Pride: It also sounds… impossible, from a purely logistical perspective.)
(Envy: Not if we're throwing magic in.)
He found his eyes drifting higher to the massive magic circle in the sky.
(Pride: You're right. Is this an effect of the barrier or the spell circuit, perhaps? When Lydia brought us to the wall from the hotel, that didn't even take an entire hour. I'd dismissed it due to our unfamiliarity with the region but… does all travel simply take an hour?)
(Envy: Spatial compression is… dangerous but possible. On a smaller scale than a city… then again that circuit is covering a lot more than this city…)
(Pride: Oh, so many delightful questions to ask… But we're going to need more data to figure the answers out.)
(Meaning…) "I need to get closer to the wall." He realized before redirecting his path once more towards the object of his current fascination.
"What? Why?!" Lydia stumbled as she raced to cut him off. "They just shot you!"
"There's a barrier of some kind connected to the wall. I need to get closer to figure out what it's doing." He explained as he walked around her. "I was willing to leave it be for a more mundane study, but given how fruitless that appears to be, I'll have to take a more direct approach to figure out how much of a hindrance it will be."
Lydia glanced between him and the greater wall before groaning. "Of course the super wall has magic… Oh… fine! But we're going to have to be careful. I can't afford the cost of dying here."
(Greed: We really can't. Time, Sin, or whatever else, dying now would be too expensive.)
(Pride: Which is why we'll just be doing a quick inspection.)
(Envy: Even remembering the basics I doubt we could manage much more than that.)
Reaching out with what he could recall of his magical senses, a sensation that left him feeling a metaphysical weight upon him as a faint symphony of sound began to play around him. Discordant orchestra of a thousand competing musicians, with one nearby song playing loud enough to overwhelm everything else. The sound of the wall itself.
He could piece parts of the song together and their meaning, but it was as if he could only recognize half of the instruments playing through the air. The others weaving and blending in such a way that he knew he'd be wrong if he attempted to name them.
"Uh, Booker?" Lydia asked, tugging at his shirt once more.
"Give me a moment, I've almost got it…" He assured her, his ears twitching as he grew ever closer to the wall.
(Lust: Oh, I am loving this sound!)
(Pride: A whole spectrum of existence just beneath the surface…)
(Sloth: It's a pretty sound but not much more.)
(Greed: Agreed.)
(Gluttony: Do you smell that?)
(Wrath: She would've liked it…)
(Envy: Working on it just let me adjust the sound a bit and focus things…)
"Booker!" Lydia yelled, her tugging coming quite close to an attempt at ripping his arm out of socket.
The symphony of sounds began to narrow down, still largely indecipherable in purpose and power but as all sounds outside of the wall fell apart he found that there were two other songs playing off of the wall's tune.
"Got it!" He smiled as he allowed the child to pull him away from the wall.
A sudden sweltering heat had him freeze in place before slowly turning back to the wall, where in an escalation of firepower a wall of flame was pouring out of the greater wall.
"Oh, my!" He couldn't help but exclaim even as he followed Lydia.
(Envy: Well that explains why there wasn't a smaller wall here.)
(Pride: I wonder how many weapons are built into this wall?)
"Shit!" Lydia cursed, continuing to drag him along in spite of their current safety. "I-I thought those were just… just a rumor!"
"Well, apparently not." He noted watching the flames dim until he could just barely make out the small holes in the wall that they had erupted from.
"Right, no more messing with the wall." Lydia decided with a shake of her head. "That's twice now you've nearly died."
"I know!" He laughed, taking the hand the young maiden was dragging him by and using it to give her a twirl. "Isn't it exciting?"
(Gluttony: It is.)
(Sloth: It isn't.)
Lydia stumbled out of her spin before taking a deep breath and slowly letting it out.
(Lust: I don't think she's happy with us…)
After a moment she tersely asked him, "What… what did you find out? I mean, you had to figure something out, after all of that, right?"
"Yes, I've discovered two separate songs, I mean, spells playing off of the barrier." He explained, still able to hear the songs in the air despite Lydia's insistence on putting distance between them and the wall. "The first one is… the same as the wall, just in the opposite direction."
Lydia frowned quite grotesquely. "You mean… like the other side of the wall?"
"No, no… If it were the wall I'd hear it from all directions if it truly encircles the city. The fact that I'm only hearing it from one direction means it's something else…" He explained, subtly directing his companion in that direction because…
(Envy: It's either the same spell or a connection to its system.)
(Pride: Something worth investigating either way.)
"And the… other spell?" Lydia asked, beginning to follow him now.
"That one is… interesting…" He smiled almost wistfully. "It's… familiar in a way that I can't quite place…"
"Is… is that a good thing?" His companion wondered.
"I have no idea!" He admitted with a laugh. "What I do know is that in this sort of situation, interesting means opportunity!"
(Greed: And opportunity means profit.)
(Envy: Or ruin.)
(Pride: Don't be such a downer. Where's your sense of curiosity?)
(Envy: Focused on the thing we know is connected to our escape.)
(Pride: Valid point.)
"So, which are we going to look at?"
"Hmm?" He blinked, drawn out of his thoughts. "Pardon?"
Lydia let out a huff, before repeating herself. "Which of these 'spells' are we going to look for?"
"Do you have a preference?" He wondered, if only to be polite.
His companion shook her head. "No. I mean, they're both connected to the wall, right?"
"They are." He confirmed, mentally dissecting the songs. "The first makes sense as a focal point for the magic to take effect, an anchor for the spell work within the area of its barrier. The second though… that one is interesting because it isn't a part of the main spellwork despite making use of it." Or that's what he could piece together from the bits of magical theory he could remember as of that morning.
"Right." Lydia nodded back, seemingly considering his words. "In that case, one of them is probably part of the actual… prison system, while the other is probably… a backdoor someone built into it."
"An apt summary." He believed.
"Then it doesn't matter which we go for, just so long as it gets me closer to getting out of this hell hole." Lydia admitted, looking a little antsy as her eyes drifted around them. "So just pick whichever one you think will make that easier for us."
(Pride: Honestly, there's no telling which that is until we get to it.)
(Greed: Nah, that backdoor you're talking about. It screams of a smuggler's tunnel, and whoever owns that might be willing to do more profitable business than the guys running the wall.)
(Wrath: It would also be illegal by whatever laws this place has.)
(Greed: Do we actually care?)
(Not particularly.)
(Wrath: I meant, in the sense of later problems. When the one who wrote the laws comes looking.)
(Sloth: That only matters if we're caught.)
(Greed: And a bribe or two is just the cost of doing business if we are.)
(Envy: Actually, discretion might be the better part of valor here.)
(Pride: Either way, I'm sure we'll get enough answers to sate our curiosity for the moment.)
"So, uh, just to fill the silence… where are we going?" Lydia asked him, having silent followed him for the last few minutes as he made he followed the song most probably leading to [Scene Choice]
---
Which song will you be looking for?
[]-The anchor controlling the wall. (Envy/Wrath)
[]-The backdoor built into the wall. (Greed/Sloth)
Ira Invidia (VIII): A Threat, A Mystery, And The Conflict They Bring
Ira Invidia (VIII): A Threat, A Mystery, And The Conflict They Bring
--- Booker H. Freeman ---
"This… is not one of the better neighborhoods around here…" Lydia warned him as they continued to follow the spellwork that did not sound like it belonged to the rest of the Wall's magic.
"Really? I legitimately couldn't tell." He confessed, their half destroyed surroundings barely looking different from the rest of the city they'd been walking through for the last hour. "If anything it seems like there's less fire than everywhere else."
"Yeah that's kind of my point…" Lydia grimaced as she cautiously watched their surroundings. "Everywhere else I've been has either been freshly repaired or in the middle of being torn down. This place though…"
(Sloth: These are slums… The kind gutter rats should be swarming but…)
(Pride: The cars on the street and the televisions on display are all long since broken…)
(Greed: Abandoned when a neighborhood like this should've stripped them for parts.)
(Gluttony: The scent of rot is in every breath…)
(Envy: And the shadows grow darker with every step we take…)
(Lust: There aren't any friends to be made here…)
(Wrath: Anyone here is long since dead.)
"I… see what you mean." He admitted, taking in everything the voices told him as he took in the disrepair, and more importantly how old all of it was. "This district has been outright abandoned compared to the rest."
"Yeah…" Lydia nodded. "And given how we're all crammed in here… That's not normal."
"Which makes me wonder about the state of whatever we'll find at the end of this spell song." He smiled almost maniacally as he thought about how interesting all of this was, before pausing as he found something that was… "Well, that's mildly concerning."
"What is?" Lydia hideously frowned as she followed his gaze only to freeze at the sight before them. "What the fuck!?"
"Language my dear." He chided as he stepped up to the corpse in front of them. "Hmm, I'm guessing based on your reaction this isn't a common sight around these parts?"
"No, I… Dead bodies are everywh-Why hasn't he regenerated?!" The young woman panicked.
"Hmm…" He considered that for a moment as he gave the body a proper once over.
(Pride: The body in front of us is male going off of the shape of the shoulders and hips. Cause of death is, quite obviously, whatever is latched onto the face. And from what I can tell the body is… Odd.)
(Going by Lydia's reactions I devised as much.) He thought as he gave into the voice's prodding and lifted one of the body's limbs before letting it fall.
(Pride: Quite, but I'm talking about the fact that the body is suffering advanced decomposition in some places and yet rigor mortis hasn't even set in on the rest… Which isn't how the process works…)
(Gluttony: Meat is spoiled and fresh? Will make you sick if you eat it.)
(Well, that goes without saying.) He huffed with a touch of amusement.
(Envy: There's magic here. There has to be if the rot is fighting whatever is healing people but… I can't tell what it's actually doing… It's at least partially connected to the magic coming from the circle in the sky but… I don't know.)
(Wrath: The nail…)
(The nail?) His brow furrowed, as he moved his curiosities onto the black metal device that was latched onto the body's face.
At first glance the object looked to be a black metal plate large enough to obscure the man's face, but when he examined the side of the plate he found that much like he'd assumed the other side of the object was impaled through the man's face.
What was more interesting however was the fact that (he's smiling.)
(Lust: Ah, he died with a smile on his face! Heh-heh, what a way to go!)
(Sloth: Probably best not to point that out to the girl.)
He ran a thumb over the edge of his own smile and couldn't help but agree.
"Did you find something?" Lydia asked him, looking distinctly uncomfortable.
"Possibly…" He admitted, before moving to grip the nail and- "Grah!" -promptly pulling his hand away as it was struck by violently violet light.
"Booker!" Lydia cried.
"I'm fine!" He growled, shaking his hand out as he hid it from her.
(Pride: Hmm, phalanges are visible.)
(Gluttony: The flesh is burned but mending.)
(Greed: But fixing things like this is starting to cost us. So don't waste what we've got.)
(Pride: Oh, and our bones are sharper than a human's.)
He forced himself to take a calming breath as he felt a sliver of his power drain just before watching his flesh begin to creep up the bone.
"How… how bad is it?" Lydia frowned with a disgusting amount of concern.
"Nothing worth frowning over." He assured her with a smile as he showed off his freshly healed hand before cautiously glancing back at the corpse. "That said, I wouldn't touch that metal if I were you."
"Wasn't planning on it." The poor girl grimaced, before gesturing towards the body. "Do you… do you at least know what caused… this? This guy's been dead for… a lot longer than people here stay dead for…"
"Magic. I'm not sure what type of magic per say, but I can tell that the nail is the anchor for this effect whatever it may be." He answered, before straightening himself out and once more listening for a particular spell song. "Though unfortunately, while I would love to indulge my curiosity on this matter further, we were already on the hunt for a separate bit of spellwork. One a little more pressing to our personal goals."
"R-right…" Lydia nodded, moving to follow as he left this particular mystery for another day. "But let's be quick, I'd rather not spend more time around… this than I have to."
(Envy: That's going to be a bit of a problem…)
"Oh, my…" He couldn't help but utter as he found himself stunned by the street in front of him, where dozens if not hundreds more corpses waited nailed to the walls around them.
"What the fuck…" His companion gasped as she took in the horrific scene before them.
He didn't bother chastising her language this time, for he felt regardless of crassness it did at least mildly fit the moment.
(Gluttony: The source of the rot…)
"I-I think I'm going to be sick…" Lydia groaned.
He also wasn't going to judge her for that, as it was an equally fitting response for someone unused to corpses. (Which leaves me wondering why I'm not-)
(Gluttony: Do you really need to ask that?)
(Point.) He conceded to himself as Lydia emptied her stomach nearby.
(Sloth: This many corpses left on display like this? Someone is leaving a message.)
(Pride: The question is what is the message?)
(Sloth: Stay away.)
(Lust: It's not the nicest message…)
(Envy: No it's not… We sure we want to keep going this way?)
He considered that question for a moment.
(Sloth: Yeah, no. I'm not walking all the way back to the wall if I don't have to.)
(Greed: We've already come this far, and if someone is going to these lengths to keep something hidden then it must be quite the treasure.)
(Pride: Or at the very least quite the secret.)
(Wrath: We can't ignore a threat like this.)
(Gluttony: People run from us, not the other way around.)
(Envy: Right… Of course no one objects to this… Fine, let's go. What do I care…)
(Lust: Uh, before that we should probably check on Lydia?)
He paused, before glancing towards the girl in question as she stood hands on her knees gasping to the side. "Are you alright to continue, child?"
"Continue?" Lydia coughed, turning to him with wide eyes. "You want to continue through… this shit?!"
His smile softened. "I'll admit, it's probably not the wisest idea but…"
(Envy: The source of the spell is in that building at the end of the street.)
He blinked, before pointing at said building with a wide grin. "Our goal is right there."
"In the… In the building with bodies… mounted all around it?" Lydia checked with no small amount of reluctance.
He took another look at the building. "Ah, yes. It would appear so…" (There is a notably greater number of bodies in that direction…)
(Envy: Meaning the bodies and the building are probably linked…)
(Pride: A probable correlation.)
(Envy: I'm going to check something…)
(Sloth: Careful. The girl is looking ready to bolt.)
(Lust: She's scared… We should comfort her!)
"Don't worry my dear. Remember there's nothing for you to be afraid of while I'm near." He assured his young companion.
Lydia gave him a look before shaking her head. "Look, I don't care how strong you are, you can not tell me going into the middle of this shit is a good idea!"
"Well, I did concede that it isn't." He reminded her, before tilting his head. "Would you prefer to wait here while I go and inspect that building by myself?"
Lydia looked at him as if he were crazy (which, fair.) "You want me to stay here? By myself?"
"No. I was asking if that was what you would prefer, my dear." He was sure to clarify. "Given how deserted this district is I have no doubt you can handle yourself for however long it takes me to find what we're looking for. I have no intention of forcing you to do something you do not wish to here."
"And what if I, what if I wanted to go do… anything other than dealing with this creepy Vlad the Impaler shit?!" Lydia asked him.
"Then I would-" (Envy: Wait.)
He paused what he was saying a symphony of music washed over him, though unlike the chaotic cacophony of before virtually every song he could hear was in some way playing off of every other song he could hear.
(Envy: I just checked the spell work on these nails again. I still can't make heads or tails of them, but all of them are leading to the same anchor point as the spell from the wall.)
(Pride: So the two are connected.)
(Envy: Yeah, and it's making all of this spell work look really familiar… A little more and I might be able to tell you what it all means.)
(Pride: Ah, answers are at hand!)
(Lust: But wait, wouldn't that mean leaving Lydia behind?)
(Ah, I doubt she would appreciate that.)
(Pride: An unfortunate price, yes… but a necessary one if we are to unravel this mystery!)
(Greed: It also means we won't have to split any profits with her.)
(Sloth: Or it means we'll have to remind her that we're not her minion, she's ours.)
(Lust: That sounds mean…)
(Envy: In case you've forgotten we're not a good person…)
(Wrath:…)
(Lust: Just because we're not a good person doesn't mean we have to be mean…)
"Well?! Then you would what?!" Lydia practically growled, dragging him from his thoughts as she pressed him for an answer.
---
Thank You
-James Walsh
-Rush99999
-Kcx1
And how do you answer?
[]-I would assist you as best I can, as promised. (+Lust, +Envy, -Pride, -Greed)
[]-I would meet you back at the hotel. (+Pride, +Greed, -Lust)
[]-I would remind you that I am helping you. (+Pride, +Greed, +Sloth, -Lust, -Wrath)
---
Reminder, still catching up.
He watched the shaking young woman in front of him for a moment before assuring her that, "I would assist you as best I can, as promised. If that means changing our current endeavor then so be it."
(Lust: Yay!)
(Pride: Foolish.)
(Envy:…)
(Greed: Gah, should've ditched her and pocketed the profits for ourselves.)
(Sloth: Well, at least the help will be happy I suppose…)
Lydia stared at him for a moment as if shocked by what he'd said. "You… you really mean that?"
"Of course." He may've been a monster, but he was a monster of his word. And, "I told you I would help you, and so I shall."
With that established he started back the way they'd come from, before after several steps realizing, (Gluttony: She's not following.)
He turned back to where Lydia was still standing, her eyes on the ground and her face scrunched up in a rather distasteful expression. "Lydia?"
The young woman continued to stand there for another moment before violently running her hands through her hair. "Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!"
"Pardon?" He asked, taken aback by this outburst.
"I am so going to regret this…" Lydia whined, before looking at him with a resigned expression. "Fine. Let's check out the stupid death building."
"Are… you sure?" He felt the need to check.
"No, but… Just, let's get moving before I change my mind." Lydia grumbled as she started marching off without him.
(What was that all about?) He couldn't help but wonder as he used his longer legs to catch up to his companion.
(Pride: I have no idea…)
(Lust: We just proved we're a good friend!)
(Sloth: Loyalty begets loyalty?)
(Envy:…)
(Gluttony: Can we find something to kill now?)
(Greed: Or someone to rob?)
Once he'd caught up to her, Lydia warned him that, "Since this is your idea if something tries to kill us in here I'm running while it tries to eat you." as her eyes drifted between the various corpses around them.
"That's fair." He smiled, before stepping forward and opening the door to their goal for her. "Ladies first."
"And survivors last." Lydia scoffed.
(Lust: Ooh, she's sassy when she's scared.)
"Unless the monster is behind us." He pointed out, enjoying the way she became twitchy, her eyes darting around the corpse filled street.
"I fucking hate this…" The young maiden groaned before forcing herself past the door's threshold. "There happy?!"
"Amused is more appropriate." He thought as he stepped inside, sure to close the door behind him.
The room itself was large, but relatively empty with an elevator in front of them and a set of stairs leading upwards. Along the walls were a number of torn and faded posters and paintings, a number notably looking like they'd been ripped to shreds by something with claws strong enough to dig through concrete.
(Wrath: As they deserve showing off such a wretched ideology…)
"Fuck it's dark in here… give me a minute…" Lydia told him as she began rummaging through her bag.
"Take your time, I can see well enough." He assured her as he took note of the dark stains on the ground leading from the door to the elevator.
(Gluttony: Something's bringing its prey home to eat.)
"Of course you can." His companion grumbled before pulling out a flashlight and using it to cut a path of light through the darkness. "Oh, fun… This place is even more murdery than I thought."
"I know, isn't it delightful." He laughed, starting towards the elevator that he could now see was missing its guard gate.
"Uh, why don't we uh, check out the stairs before getting in the Hellevator?" Lydia suggested, her light locked onto what was very clearly dried blood in front of the elevator.
(Pride: Hmm, this elevator has been refurbished. Look at the control panel, it's been gutted and rewired to this lever for some reason.)
"Come now, this is clearly a path straight to our goal." He told her as he grabbed the lever next to the elevator and pulled it.
"And what is our goal exactly?" Lydia asked, her light moved around the walls. "Because everything I'm seeing is saying this is where you go to get murdered."
"Don't worry, I'll kill anything that tries and kills us." He promised as the elevator proper came into view and the lever snapped back into place. "I'll even make sure it suffers before it knows the mercy of the pale lady."
"Yeah… No." Lydia decided, immediately turning to the stairs as she caught sight of the elevator completely covered in bloodstains from the waist down.
(Envy: You do know if you leave her alone she probably is going to get murdered in here, right?)
(Sloth: Minions are supposed to give us less work not more…)
Unable to help but roll his eyes, he followed after the delicate maiden who apparently couldn't handle a bit of blood before wincing as she briefly flashed her light at him.
"You, uh, you didn't say what we're looking for…" Lydia reminded him, her voice a touch softer as her light leapt away from him.
"Something magical." He assured her, before clarifying that, "With all of those bodies out there there should be a Spell Anchor of some sort in here that will connect them to the Wall. I'm hoping that anchor will be a smugglers tunnel of some kind that we can use to escape this city."
"Okay, okay, that… that makes sense." Lydia nodded, her flashlight darting between several offices full of broken furniture. "Can you… do that thing you used to track the magic here?"
He listened to the world around him before-
(Lust: Okay, I like music but that's too loud!)
(Gluttony: Skree!)
(Envy: There's too much spell work here!)
-wincing at the deafening sound, and shaking his head. "No, there's too much magic here. The Spell Songs are too similar to sort through."
"Spell Songs…" Lydia repeated as they continued their search. "So, uh, magic is music?"
(Sloth: She's asking because she's scared and hoping you'll distract her.)
"If unleashed upon the air, it will vibrate and generate sound often indistinguishable from music." He confirmed before noticing a few dark streaks on the floor. "That said, humans aren't built with an inherent sense for magic so if one attempts to observe it they'll often receive a state of synesthesia as their mind tries to process it."
(Envy: We just hear it more than anything else because…)
(Lust: Music is its own magic!)
(Envy: Sure, let's go with that…)
(Gluttony: Don't forget you can still see, taste, smell, and feel the world around you. If you quit ignoring what Nature gave you you'd be able to see a world beyond magic and music.)
"Uh, Booker… is that what you're looking for?" Lydia asked, her light shining past him and into an office ahead of him where he could vaguely make out something written on the wall.
"Possibly…" He answered as he made his way closer to what seemed to be a pair of circles with a star in the center, runic script written around the circle with a more complex piece in the center of the circle.
(Gluttony: It's written in blood. Both old and new.)
(Yes, but what does it mean?) He knew it was a Spell Circle but beyond that…
(Envy: It's a beacon relay. It doesn't tell us what the spells are doing but this is likely a focal point connecting all of the corpses outside to something in here… There should be another one of these somewhere, or a few of them, with the core of the spell being at the end of the chain.)
"Shine your light around we need to find another one of these and then follow it back to the source." He told Lydia as he backed away from the Wall before taking a look around the floor they were on. "Wait, up there. Above the elevator."
Lydia shined her light where he said and revealed another Circle drawn, this one ever so faintly glowing in the light.
"Fuck…" His companion cursed. "We're getting in the Hellevator aren't we?"
"It would seem so." He nodded, crossing his hands behind his back as he started towards the elevator, only to pause as he found a pile of desks in the way. "Though it seems this floor is blocked for some reason…"
"Great… Maybe that's a sign that we shouldn't get in the elevator?" Lydia weakly suggested.
He gave her a smile and a pat upon the head as he passed her by. "Now, now dear. You'll never gain anything if you aren't willing to take any risks."
"I'm willing to take risks if they won't kill me." Lydia argued quietly as she followed him down the stairs and into the elevator, or rather she stopped just outside of it.
He tilted his head as he watched her staring at the elevator with no small amount of fear. "How many times must I remind you dear… There's nothing to fear so long as I am near."
Lydia closed her eyes before quickly marching into the elevator without opening them. "Just… tell me when we get off this thing."
He gave her a soft smile even though she couldn't see it before gripping the elevator's control lever and asking, "Up or down?"
"I don't know and I don't care. I just want this over with." His companion told him tersely with her arms crossed over her chest and her eyes firmly shut.
(Pride: Wait. There's a lock on it. The lever won't go further up than this unless it's removed and this mechanism will require a tool of some kind.)
(I see…) "Then given how this is a place full of secrets… Let's search the basement first." He decided.
"Yeah, the murder basement where they bury the bodies of their victims, heh." Lydia joked, sounding more than a little stressed at the moment.
"Oh, please. The basement is a terrible place to bury bodies. That's just asking to be caught while also limiting the capacity of your home with each kill." He scoffed as he pushed the lever causing the elevator to begin moving just before spikes erupted from the lever ripping his hand to shreds.
"What was that?!" Lydia cried, her eyes snapping open as her flashlight nearly blinded him.
(Sloth: She's on the verge of running.)
(Envy: To be fair I think anyone would right now…)
"Nothing worth worrying about." He assured her hiding both his hand and the lever from her view. (Why is it always my hands!?)
(Gluttony: They're half the reason humans are on top of the food chain.)
(Pride: Whoever built this also designed it to mangle one's hands once used so as to prevent it from being used twice.)
(Gluttony: Which means this is someone's hunting grounds.)
(Lust: Ooh, Lydia was right! This is a murder basement!)
"Lovely." He sighed as they were bathed in a crimson light from above.
"Okay, I've officially hit my 'we need to run' point!" Lydia told him. "Turn the lever and get us the fuck out of here!"
"Ah… there's a slight problem with that…" He confessed, just a touch bashfully.
"Booker… Why is the control lever spiked?" Lydia asked. "And why is it dripping blood?!"
"Ha-ha, well, you see that is something of a comical story." He chuckled, knowing full well that his companion would probably disagree with that assessment.
Which is why he found himself quite grateful that this was the moment the elevator opened to reveal a concrete hallway with another relay circle.
"Oh, would you look at that, we're going the right way!" He smiled, stepping out of the elevator and looking to either side, finding each way to be bathed in faint crimson lights every few steps.
"Booker!" Lydia called in a panicked voice.
(Sloth: Ignore her, there's no winning this.)
"Might as well keep that winning streak going." He told his companion as he started down the right path, his eyes drifting towards the crimson lighting.
(Pride: Emergency lighting. I suppose if the elevator is active then it makes sense these are too, but look at the way they're installed… They've been added in just like the elevator lever.)
"Shit, shit, shit!" Lydia cursed as she chased after him, refusing to be alone in this situation. "Oh, I knew coming in here was a bad idea! Why did I let you talk me into this?!"
"You didn't?" He reminded her with a confused brow. "I was fully set to change our plans for your sake and then you changed your mind about coming in here."
"Shut up! I'm only here because of you!" Lydia snapped with a (hideous) scowl as her eyes darted around and behind them, her breath coming out in short huffs as they made their way through the labyrinthian halls.
(Sloth: Just let her have this.)
(Envy: It is our fault she's here…)
(Gluttony: Wait… To our left.)
He paused as he caught sight of a door, hidden by shadows as the crimson light in this section of the hall proved itself broken. "Hold on a moment."
"Oh, what is it now?" Lydia groaned as she turned her flashlight on him.
The door opened with little fuss and as he stepped inside he switched the lights on with ease, revealing a rather mundane work room in perfectly normal lighting. Along the walls were several lockers lined up next to what appeared to be a restroom with a torn up couch and a small table on the other side of it. Across from these was a large machine with a number of glass panes climbing up the wall showing off images from across the building.
What made this room truly interesting however was the large Spell Circle drawn onto the ground, with a large nail driven into each of the star's five points, and and several more circling it to contain the bright crimson glow even as the rampant magic caused the air above the circle to flicker black and white.
"I believe this is what we've been looking for." He smiled as he walked up to the circle, never quite crossing its threshold.
(Envy: So much power and yet we couldn't sense it… All of the relays, they're designed to hide this. Flood the building in enough power that this is buried.)
(Greed: Meaning that whatever this is it has to be valuable, right?)
(Envy: In the right hands, very.)
"O-okay… I, I haven't seen anything like this before." Lydia admitted, her fear slowly being consumed by awe as she stared at the spell work in front of her. "What is this?"
His eyes roamed the runic script of the circle to try and translate it.
(Envy: Alright, this one is significantly easier to understand than everything else, it's-)
"A battery." He answered, finishing his otherself's thought. "One containing… quite a large amount of power."
Lydia licked her lips, her eyes darting between him and the static in the air. "Can you… can you use it?"
"If I can find the control point." He grinned as he walked around the circle, only to have his cheeks begin to twitch because, "It's not here."
"What?" Lydia frowned, and as much as he hated it he couldn't blame her.
"The control point. It's not here." He growled, the teeth of his smile grinding together.
"Where, where is it then?" His companion asked, looking somewhere between confused and frustrated.
(Envy: It can't be far. The further you get the less stable it would become, even with the relays expanding that distance.)
(Pride: Then it's most likely in the building somewhere. Check the cameras.)
(Where?)
(Pride: The wall of windows!)
Listening to his inner voice he made his way to the machine covered in glass and let his eyes drift between all of the windows, finding his teeth clenching tighter and tighter as he found nothing. "Where is it?"
(Sloth: The broken one.)
His eyes snapped to the only camera that was shattered. (But where does it lead?)
"Booker," Lydia called. "There's another circle above you."
He looked up and found another relay before realizing, "Up."
"Up?" Lydia repeated as he started towards the door.
"The battery is down here but the control is at the top of the building." He explained. "We'll need to adjust the lever on the elevator but if I can get the control then-"
A grumbling growl echoed down the hall just as he crossed the threshold to the room, seemingly causing the building itself to shake.
"That… sounds like a problem." He admitted, before turning back to Lydia to find her looking the cameras over with a pale face.
"Oh, no. No, no, no!" Lydia cried as she backed away from the machine.
"What's wrong?" He asked, catching her with a hand on her back before she could fall.
Lydia raised a shaking finger towards the screen as she tried and failed to answer, "It's… it's… it's…"
His eyes quickly began to roam the glass panes in search of what had frightened her so badly. Eventually he found a massive shape moving across one of the cameras, before moving onto the next.
The creature on the camera could in no way be described as human, the monster crawling through the hall that just barely fit it as its claws scraped deep grooves into the walls to drag itself along them.
While he couldn't make out much about the beast from the way it moved between the cameras, he was able to make out one detail that he'd have to be blind to miss.
Across the monster's face was a visage of sharp fangs, each as long and dangerous as any knife, stretched out and arranged in a twisted shape that could only be called a-
"It's the Smiling Man…"
(What?)
---
Thank You
-James Walsh
-Rush99999
-Kcx1
What should we do?
[]-Run, find the exit before the monster finds us. (+Sloth, -Gluttony)
[]-Try to use the circle without a control circle. (+Envy)
[]-Take one of the nails and fight the monster with it. (+Wrath)
[]-Fight the monster with claw, fang, and hunger. (+Gluttony)
[]-Try to build a trap to hinder the beast. (+Pride)
Sinful Boost? (You've -oof- 4 Sin left. (We spent some everytime we failed a check and got injured.) (Honestly, I'm cutting you some slack because it should be less.)))
[]-Yes.
[]-No.
---
Reminder, still playing catch up to the other sites.
As his eyes watched the monster creeping ever closer across the cameras, he found that he had only a single thought in his mind. (I thought we were the Smiling Man?)
(Pride: That was our working hypothesis…)
(Envy: One that looks like it's wrong.)
(Sloth: So wait, wait… We're stuck smiling because of this guy, rather than ourselves?)
(Greed: And more importantly he's why we woke up broke in a back alley!)
(Lust: That wasn't nice of him…)
(Wrath: No. It wasn't.)
(Gluttony: Why don't we show him who the true apex predator is.)
He couldn't help but smile at that thought.
(Sloth: Wait, didn't he stomp us the last time we fought him?)
(Pride: We may have lost, but I would like to believe that we gave as good as we got at the very minimum.)
(Sloth: So good we ended up left for dead in an alley.)
He ground his teeth at that, because as much as he hated to admit it, if the Smiling Man was the one responsible for his current state of affairs, then in all likelihood he had lost while at the top of his game.
(Sloth: Then you get why we need to run now, right?)
(Gluttony: CoWaRD!)
(Wrath: I dislike agreeing with beast but to retreat now would be dishonorable.)
(Sloth: Better dishonorable than dead.)
(Pride: Have you no pride man?)
(Sloth: No, that's your job.)
He inhaled before exhaling as he decided. "We won't be running from this."
"W-what?" Lydia asked, her voice sounding hollow.
(Sloth: Fine, get us killed. I'm going to go take a nap. Die in my sleep or whatever…)
(Wrath: Good choice.)
"Now the question is what will we be doing?"
"Why, why aren't we running?" Lydia frowned with her worrying frequency.
"Several reasons." He answered, not sure if he could properly summarize the… sinful desire that had begun to build within him.
"Oh my god…" Lydia let out a rather pathetic sounding laugh as she fell to her knees. "I'm going to die because you're on a vengeance kick… I should've known this was all too good to be true… Some stranger coming to fix all my problems… I should've known better…"
(Lust: Oh… We shouldn't force her to stay with us…)
(Envy: Tell her to run. We've dragged her along long enough…)
(Wrath: It would be the honorable thing to do.)
He considered that for a moment before looking around the room. (Given our previous loss, how can we turn this fight to our advantage?)
(Pride: Well, it's obvious we'll be going into this at a disadvantage. And evidence says we'll lose if we fight the Smiling Man head on, meaning it would be best to set a trap of some kind and attack him from there.)
(A good idea in theory, but…) His eyes darted around the room finding it sparsely supplied. (I doubt we have the materials necessary to make that particular idea work.)
(Pride: I'm sure we could come up with a creative solution.)
He wasn't as sure, and given how the cameras showed the Beast making its way down the elevator shaft he also wasn't sure he had the time to assemble a proper trap.
(Envy: Well, what we do have on hand is a large power source right there and while I can't control it without its spell anchor, it shouldn't be too hard to just dump it all in the Smiling Man's face.)
(Greed: Meaning we would've gone through all of this for nothing.)
(Wrath: Except for our pound of flesh.)
(Gluttony: And a gallon of blood in interest.)
(Greed: … Point.)
He ran his hand through the air above the circle of blood, feeling a faint static along his fingers as he touched the edge of the contained magic. (And how safe would this method be? From what I recall unleashing raw power, so much greater than our own, isn't exactly a safe practice.)
(Envy: Between blowing up the building and a fight with something that likely sees us as food… I'd take the magical explosion.)
(Let's just put a pin in that for now.) He felt he was a risk taker, but not in so much as to be willing to set off an explosive while he might be in the blast radius.
Though he'd still do it in spite if there truly was no other way.
(Envy: Well, you're not leaving us many options…)
(Lust: Oh, you think Lydia has any ideas?)
(Given how she seems to be in the middle of a panic attack I believe… not.) He grinned through his grimace as he watched the near lifeless girl stare off into space.
(Gluttony: If we're going to show this knock off its place on the food chain, then all we need is claw and fang.)
(Pride: That is… several different kinds of foolish. Especially given how we've already established we lost our previous conflict with this Smiling Man.)
(What if we were to use our Sin in a manner similar to the Sinner's Song?) He wondered as he began to hum in thought as a glance towards the cameras revealed his foe had finally entered the basement alongside them.
(Lust: Nope. Not going to work here. I am not feeling it. The Smiling Man's song would overwrite anything we try to do here.)
(Envy: That's probably the power from this thing mudding the air.)
(Wrath: If we're to duel this monster then take one of those nails in hand. We do not want to face a foe like this unarmed.)
(Envy: And the nails seem to be helping contain the power here. Removing one might be little better than my own idea.)
(Gluttony: Meaning we get to do this the fun way, and feel its BlOoD oN oUR hANdS!)
The idea left him feeling giddy, an odd sort of hunger began to fill his stomach as his teeth began to itch and his fingers began to burn.
(Sloth: Don't forget the minion.)
(Lust: Weren't you going to sleep?)
(Sloth: Shut up.)
As once more made his way towards the door, he found himself pausing as he took one last glance at his currently lifeless companion.
"Lydia." He called, causing her eyes to drift his way. "Given the lack of options, I'm going to fight this Smiling Man head on. If you see an opportunity, take it and do not regret your decision."
What that opportunity was, and what she'd decide to do with it he had no idea whatsoever. (But she's a resourceful young woman. I'm sure she'll figure something out.)
The moment he stepped out into the crimson lit halls, that hunger in him began to grow painful as he found himself stumbling against the wall, his heart pounding against his rib cage in search of escape. His bones began to ache, feeling far bigger than his flesh could contain, pulling his own skin taught as every step down the hall became longer, more lopsided, more… feral.
(Gluttony: Don't fight. Give in. Let the Beast take over.)
His tongue darted out across a grin full of fangs, tasting the air. The blood, the sweat, the rot, and most importantly the fear and hate in the air as he began to track his quarry through the dark labyrinth, as he himself was hunted by his would-be prey.
(Gluttony: Wait… Listen!)
A frantic sort of scraping in front of him had him pausing, before instinct had him darting into a small alcove, hidden away in the darkest corners where the crimson lights refused to touch.
There he stood inhumanly still, not even breathing as he stared unblinkingly at the corner ahead of him… watching… waiting… hunting…
Eventually five fingers slowly wrapped themselves around the corner, each ending in a knife-like claw so well used that the very flesh around them was stained red by blood as they left crimson streaks in the concrete they cut through.
The hand pulled against the corner and from around it a smile crept forward, dark shadows that could only be blood covered its gator-like teeth, all held in place by pitch black gums as rotted as its soul. This (horrific/disgusting/wretched)smile took up most of its host's pale scar covered face, leaving little space for two unblinking red eyes only visible through a mop of shaggy untamed hair due to their unholy glow.
As the Smiling Man came into view, its corpse took up most of the hall, its hunched back scraping against the ceiling as it crawled forward on its hands and knees like a rabid beast to be put down. Its torso was covered in a dark crimson suit, one that had likely once been an entirely different color before decades of bloodstains had ruined the craftsmanship that had gone into it. Around this suit were iron chains shaking and bound, a number of locks hanging from them as they did seemingly little to keep the beast contained or controlled.
Closer to his little alcove the monster crept, far slower than it had when moving across the cameras, almost as if it sensed his presence lurking there in the dark.
Still he did not move.
The Smiling Man inhaled, sniffing the air in search of its prey's scent as it grew closer to his corner placing its claws to either side of his burrow pinning him in if it truly knew he was here.
Still he did not breathe.
The monster began to open its massive maw revealing more than a single row of teeth as it stretched large enough to consume him in a single bite, a serpentine tongue darting between it all.
Still he did not fear.
A sound rattled down the hall and the monster's gaze snapped towards, (Lydia making her escape.)
Not that mattered after all… as he was… He could only hunger…
His teeth dug into the Smiling Man's throat, fully intent on ripping it out and filling the gnawing all consuming hunger.
The Smiling Man did not screech at this, instead grabbing him with claws that dug into his flesh before ripping him off and flinging him down the hall.
He swallowed the (delicious) copper tang before he even hit the ground and rolled twice in the time it took his claws to catch the ground and bleed his momentum.
From half a hall away, these beasts stared each other down with mirrored glowing rabid red gazes that glared into each other with nothing but a mutual hate… and hunger to devour the other.
They both shot forth with little regard for any threat the other may pose, their only desire to see the other dead and devoured.
The Smiling Man swung first its massive claw rending gashes in the wall, the dust trailing behind it as he ducked beneath the deadly swing that whistled above him and instead drove his own hand into the monster's stomach.
Only to find his claws finding no purchase as they scraped uselessly along the Smiling Man's coat, leaving little more than bruises if he was lucky.
Unfortunately, as he realized the coat was coming closer he wasn't what one would consider lucky. The Smiling Man seeking to crush him beneath its massive weight.
Reacting swiftly, he grabbed onto the (Chains That Bind) the beast and used them to pull himself out of danger by both climbing up and leaping away from the Smiling Man's body.
Not that this stopped him from being slammed into the ground as the creature's shoulder trapped his legs, smashing them between bone and concrete breaking them alongside the floor.
As the Smiling Man began to pick itself off the ground, he clung onto its chains as his flesh and bone were stitched back together. Thus allowing him to pull himself onto the creature's shoulder where he pulled an arm back and drove his claws into one of the beast's eyes.
The scream that tore itself from the Smiling Man's throat shattered his ear drums as they erupted into a piercing pain.
While he was stunned by this the Smiling Man grabbed onto him and slammed him into the ground over and over in a series of dazing blows that his mind fading in and out of consciousness. His power just barely keeping him conscious.
(Pride: I knew this was a bad idea…) One of the voices noted through the haze in his mind as the Smiling Man lifted him off the ground once more.
Spots flooded his vision as he struggled to focus, his concussed mind just barely putting together the fact that the Smiling Man was raising him over its open maw, preparing to devour him whole.
(Sloth: Should've run while we could've.)
(Wrath: Or at the very least grabbed a weapon…)
(Envy: Come on, I know you've got more than this!)
That… didn't sound like it was directed at him…
(Gluttony: Grr-ah! Rip aNd TeaRrr!)
His eyes shot open as the hunger in his stomach became a thousand knives stabbing through him, the hollowness demanding he eat whatever he could reach!
In depraved instinct his hand shot forward grabbing the Smiling Man's tongue and tearing into it with his teeth.
The gaping maw that had been about to devour him snapped shut biting off the creature's tongue as he and it were flung away from his screaming adversary.
Not that any of that mattered as his teeth continued to dig into and devour the only meat within his reach.
But it was not enough… (It will never be enough!)
His eyes shot to the Smiling Man as it roared at him, and all he could see was the meat moving in front of him. (I wAnT It tO sqUIrM iN mY teETh!)
On all four he shot forth, his claws scraping at the ground as it cracked beneath every step.
The Smiling Man swung its claws at him, and leapt over them, clinging onto the wall as he dug his claws into it.
A massive fist moved to squish him in a backhand the size of his body, only to be used as a platform to crawl his way ever closer to his food. "HuNgRy!!!"
His teeth dug into the Smiling Man as it toppled backwards, uncaring for the bits of the creature's coat that he had to tear through to do so. And all the while the creature that sought to eat him swiped at him, desperate to rid itself of the thing slowly eating it alive only to tear into its own flesh as it tried to stop him from finishing his meal.
With each failed strike, and each chunk of flesh devoured, the Smiling Man slowly realized that rather than being a predator on the hunt. That in truth… it was little more than prey to be devoured.
It was with this revelation came desperation, and with desperation, progress.
The Smiling Man rolled itself off of its toppled back, no longer caring to fend off his relentlessly hungering assault and instead tried to flee while slamming itself against the walls in the hopes of trying and failing to get him off of it.
As the terrified creature continued to run, flame erupted in front of it with the familiar sound of broken glass.
Rearing back in fright the Smiling Man left itself open for another molotov cocktail to strike it across the chest.
Not that any of this mattered to him as his endless hunger demanded that he continue to devour his now cooking prey, uncaring for the danger the flames may pose to him in his own desperation to sate this never ending hunger.
Fending off the flames, the Smiling Man once more toppled backwards, and in a twisted mix of instinct and reflex he leapt away from the creature as it fell, pausing his meal to keep from being crushed.
Shaking himself off he gazed down at his fallen prey, before slowly stalking forward. Fully intent on finishing his meal and devouring the entirety of the burning beast as he continued to feed the black hole in his stomach.
Only his prey still lived.
Desperately the Smiling Man lunged its mouth opening wide to try and devour him in an action so sudden, he kicked off the ground to avoid this fatal blow only to have his blood-caked shoes slip on the debris riddled floor.
With a grin larger than ever the Smiling Man's teeth snapped shut, cleanly severing his arm off.
Instinctively he pulled on the same power he had every time he'd been injured this day, only to find nothing there to grasp, his arm refusing to regenerate.
(Gluttony: I… I've got nothing…)
A loud gulping drew his attention back to the Smiling Man as it began to pick itself off the ground, the flames that had been eating it alongside him slowly being snuffed out by the creature's own healing factor used his arm for fuel.
As he sat there, blood poured from his missing limb as the roles of predator and prey once more found themselves switched.
The Smiling Man looked down on him as it stood over its fallen prey, ready to return everything done to it ten times over as it devoured its pound of flesh straight out of his hide.
What neither of them accounted for however, was the third member of this fight.
"Yaahhh!" With a yell that echoed off of the halls Lydia ran forth and drove her knife into the Smiling Man's back, doing much as he had and clinging to the creature's chains as she drove her blade in over and over again. "Booker!"
Snapping out of it, he forced himself back onto his feet as the Smiling Man swung around trying to reach yet another welp clinging to it.
And with only one arm to him, he rushed forward with just as much determination as his young companion, using one of the creature's legs to climb up its body before driving his claws straight into the Smiling Man's throat.
The creature's eyes immediately locked onto him with a rumbling growl, completely forgetting about Lydia as it moved to smash him between its hands. Thus leaving it open for the young girl to drive her knife into its neck from the opposite side of him.
Slowly, the Smiling Man's growl began to fade much like the crimson glow of its eyes.
"Is… Is it dead?" Lydia eventually dared to ask, her shaky voice echoing in the now deathly silent hall.
He swallowed, his head growing foggy as the adrenaline slowly faded. "I… I believe so…"
Lydia stared at him, her eyes blinking uncomprehendingly, "We… we killed the Smiling Man…"
He gave her a soft smile as he felt his once taut muscles begin to go limp. "I… I believe we have…"
The young woman's eyes went wide before she grew a beautifully manic smile. "Holy shit… We killed the Smiling Man!!!"
Sadly… he could not join her celebrations…
"..."
"We killed the fucking Smiling Man!"
As blood loss claimed him…
"..."
"Booker?"
---
Thank You
-James Walsh
-Rush99999
-Kcx1
For Leveling Up Your Sin Resonance, Please Choose One Memory For Each Sin
Sloth
[]- Overworked
[]- Street Rats
[]- To Drink Alone
[]- The Red-Eyed Rabbits
Gluttony
[]- Rabbit Stew
[]- To Hunger Justice
[]- Prey At Night
[]- Of Monsters And Men
---
Reminder we're still playing catch up right now.
"Alright, now I set some snares around here a few days ago so by now we should be able to find a few of them rabbits you're so fond of easily enough." His grandad assured him, the old man's gaze looking around the forest with no small amount of caution. "But there are a number of critters out here that'll happily make rabbit stew out of you boy, so you'll wanna be quiet around here boy less you stir up trouble we don't need."
"Yes, grandad." He nodded, his eight year old legs straining to keep up with the older man's longer limbs while also avoiding the various plants getting in his way.
"Oh, and watch your step, we're getting close to the swamps and I don't need you getting stuck in the muck boy." His grandad added, kicking at some of said muck.
"Yes, grandad." He nodded once more, knowing that it was easier to go along with the old grump than to point out that he played in these forests enough to know how to handle himself even if he wasn't as big as the older man. (That would just make grandad angry…)
The older man didn't say much else after that, his grandfather rarely one for words if they weren't towards Booker's mama who his grandad could spend all day talking to. (Unlike me…)
He shook his head at that thought. (No. Grandad is taking me hunting for rabbits. That means he wants to be around me, he's just… rough like mama says, and mama is never wrong!)
With a bit more pep to his step he continued to silently follow after his grandad, until the older man came to a stop. "You hear that boy?"
He tilted his head and listened to the sounds around them, sorting through the sounds he was so used to hearing in the forest before eventually noticing a squeaking sound of some kind underneath it all. "The squeaking?"
"Yeah, the squeaking. That's a rabbit." His grandad explained, before telling him, "Keep up boy." and heading towards the sound.
He'd never actually heard a rabbit before, sure he'd seen a few from a distance while playing in the forest, but they always ran from him before he could get close enough to catch them. (But this one's being loud rather than sneaking around.)
That was going to make catching them so much easier!
Only… as he got closer he slowly realized that the squeaking wasn't so much squeaking as it was… screaming…
When he actually caught sight of the little rabbit with a wire wrapped around its throat, and sounding like it was in no small amount of pain, he couldn't help but grimace.
"Does… does this happen a lot?" He frowned, wincing from how much the rabbit's screaming… hurt, and how painful it
"Sometimes." His grandad shrugged before crouching down to inspect the snare. "Usually they're already done struggling by the time I find 'em, but this one seems to have knocked the snare too low when it caught him."
The older man paused after pulling out a knife, his gaze falling on Booker for a moment. "You know what, this'll be a good lesson for you. Come here."
"What lesson?" He asked, unable to keep his eyes off the panicking rabbit even as he got closer to his grandfather.
"If you're old enough to hunt, then you're old enough to kill what you hunt." His grandad told him as he put the knife into Booker's hand.
His eyes slowly drifted between the knife, the rabbit, and his grandfather. "You… you want me to kill it?"
"Well, do you want rabbit stew tonight?" The older man asked. "Because we need that rabbit there if you do."
He looked back down at the knife in his hands before once more looking at the frightened rabbit trying to run from him just like he tried to run from the other kids in town. "Can't… can't we let him go? I… I'm okay not eating…" He swallowed. "rabbit stew…"
For a moment he thought he'd said something to upset the older man as his grandfather frowned down at him, before his grandad's leathery skin softened and he crouched down. "Boy, this ain't exactly a nice lesson, but it's one every young man needs to learn. Sometimes if you want to eat, you're going to have to eat something else."
"But I… I don't want to eat…" He admitted, feeling his eyes start to water.
"Hmm, and what about your mama?" His grandad frowned, like he did whenever Booker cried. "Do you want her to be able to eat? Remember, she likes rabbit stew just as much as you. Or do you want her to go hungry?"
He wiped at his eyes as the tears grew worse. "I… I don't want mama to… to go hungry…"
"Then stop your crying, and do what you've got to do." His grandfather growled before grabbing his hand and the knife and putting it to the rabbit's throat without killing it. "Remember this boy, a hunter's job is to kill so people don't go hungry. If you want to be a hunter then you need to man up and kill this rabbit so your mama doesn't go hungry!"
He fought to breathe before underneath his grandad's glare, he closed his eyes and pushed the knife forward, unable to watch as the rabbit continued to struggle before slowly going still.
"Good job boy." His grandfather nodded with approval as he stood up.
(It… it doesn't feel like I did a good job…) He thought feeling hollow as he looked down at the blood on his hands.
Later that night, when his mama had cooked the rabbit into a stew, he couldn't help but stare at his food with no appetite.
"What's wrong baby?" His mama asked him in concern. "Aren't you hungry?"
He found his eyes drifting towards his grandfather watching him, before remembering the older man's words and asking his mama, "Do… do you like rabbit stew mama?"
"Of course." His mama assured him with a beautiful smile before taking a bite of her own food and swallowing. "And it tastes even better knowing my little hunter brought it to me."
He nodded, once more staring down at his food before taking his spoon and eating the rabbit stew.
---
-New Gluttony Tag: Hunter
-New Perk: Eat or Be Eaten: While below a certain amount of health, if Booker performs a Fatal Takedown he'll restore an amount of health based on that unit's Rank.
The face of a white rabbit with red eyes grinned at him from the car's window as he made himself presentable to his coming audience, just like he had for every other audience before this.
Stitchwork crissed and crossed all over the rabbit's face, making it look like an elaborate mask to anyone who saw it, a mask made from the dozen's of rabbits he killed over the years. (Then again that isn't too far from the truth.) Even if it was technically his real face.
Off to the side a dark figure with glowing red eyes waited for him, as he straightened his duster out and put a cigar to his lips before snapping his fingers.
The dark figure lit a match and with it his cigar, before stepping back and acting as the muscle he'd been brought along for.
He took a long drag of the cigar, hoping that this new brand would offer him something that all the brands he'd grown bored of couldn't, only to find it lacking. (Let's get this over with…)
Turning on his heel, he started walking along the wooden boards of the docks, illuminated by the occasional lamp hanging several feet above opposite from the dark river rushing several below him.
When he got to the warehouse he snapped his fingers again and his muscle stepped forward before gripping the metal door and dragging it open with a single hand.
"Oi, the boss is here!" A young voice called, making the smile on his face a little more genuine as he made his way inside.
A young boy of maybe fourteen ran up to him, wearing a button up white shirt, suspenders, a paper boy cap, and most notably a black leather rabbit mask with red eyed lens that the boy had spent far too much on to fit in.
"Me and the boys found the guy boss!" The boy audibly smiled up at him.
"Good job, lad." He smiled at the young man, knowing that while the boy had 'led' this little task, it was 'the boys' who did the heavy lifting.
Walking past a number of figures shrouded in darkness save for their glowing red eyes he made his way to the center of the warehouse where he found a man sitting unconscious and looking more than a little roughed up beneath the single light hanging from the ceiling.
"This the guy?" He asked redundantly, already knowing the answer. (But the performance must go on… No matter how many times…)
"Yeah, boss. Took us a minute to track him down, but once they saw the rabbit mask everyone knew to answer all our questions." The boy assured him while looking quite proud of himself.
"As it should be." He nodded, having long since cultivated his reputation within his territory. The fact that the kid could borrow it was just an extra benefit, he was happy to allow the lad to indulge.
He snapped his fingers and said. "Wake him up."
One of the figures stepped into the light, revealing a muscular man in white and suspenders wearing what appeared to be a black rabbit with red eyes over his head, before punching the bound man in the stomach and holding it there for the second it took the lack of breathing to wake the man up.
The man in the chair started coughing as consciousness returned, unaware of the rabbit man who with his orders done stepped back into the darkness where they belonged, red eyes the only thing still visible.
"So, you're the man who thought he could break my rules in my territory!" He smiled with no small amount of false cheer as he stamped out his (boring) cigar under heel.
"Wha- Who, who are you?" The figure asked, still clearly concussed from where 'the boys' had roughed him up.
"Oh, I thought my award winning smile made me quite well known around these parts." He admitted, pinching his chin as he stepped into the light like he'd done (a thousand times before…)
The man's eyes widened in recognition. "You're the Red-Eyed Rabbit…"
"Well, that's one of my many titles." He admitted beginning to pace and deciding he just didn't feel like listing them all out today. "But they're not important right now! No… what's important is you broke my rules!"
His yell echoed throughout the warehouse, before he straightened himself out easily enough because while he was upset, he wasn't 'no survivors' upset, and the man in front of him very likely was too unimportant to ever push him to that point. (Just like everyone else before him…)
"W-what? You can't be upset about this! I mean you're a Dealmaker!" The man (pointlessly) tried to defend.
"True, but my deals are entered willingly while knowing the price." He pointed out. "And none of them are as… indefinite as your own form of… employment." He spat out that word that did not fit the situation at all.
"W-why do you care about a few worthless Sinners, they're nobody important!" The man yelled.
"Nobody important…" He repeated with no small amount of distaste, before catching sight of the boy watching him and deciding that a… correction was in order as he slipped a fang filled smile onto his face. "Did you know everybody who lives in this district knows me? That I have talked with everyone here to make sure that they deserve to be under my power. And I've decided that each and every last one of them, does for one reason or another. Which is why it should go without saying that each and every last one of them is important, because they're my PEOPLE!"
The entire warehouse was flooded in his power as everyone was reminded of why the Rabid Red-Eyed Rabbit was so feared, before he pulled it all back in with an inhalation and let none of it out as he exhaled.
"But given how that apparently needed to be said, I'll also go ahead and tell you that you need to be punished for breaking my rules, and what that punishment would entail." He concluded, being sure to note how the boy was watching him in awe apparent even with that mask.
"So what, you're going to kill me?" The man asked, looking nervous but unafraid.
"No. In a place like this where death is… ephemeral, I've come up with a special punishment for people like you." He confessed, as on cue his men brought out a couple of cement blocks.
"You're going to drown me?" The man frowned hideously in confusion. "That's it?"
"That's it?" He chuckled. "You know on earth, dying is considered a peaceful way to go, but that is of course ignoring the way your lungs slowly burn for oxygen, the biting cold eating away at your limbs, and the choking of water with every breath that brings you closer to death."
"And the best part?" He leaned forward with a whisper and a grin. "It kills you slow enough that this place heals you just as fast so none of that ever ends. I wonder how long you'll drown for before the rope snaps? Days, months, years, decades?"
Now his victim looked suitably scared.
"You-you can't do this!" His victim pointlessly cried.
"Oh, I can, but I'm not going to be the one doing it." He admitted, before snapping his fingers. "That's what this lot is here for."
From the shadows dozen of men with black rabbits for heads stepped into the light each of them grabbing onto the bound man before dragging him off for a suitable punishment.
And so with the knowledge his victim knew exactly who was responsible for this he turned to the boy. "You handle this."
The lad gave him a salute and a cry of "On it boss!" before rushing to make sure the man was properly executed.
Once alone in the warehouse, the rabbit he brought with him offered another cigar and he couldn't help but sigh as he accepted it. "How many times do we have to go through this song and dance I wonder?"
---
-New Tag: Boss
-New Ability: You Handle This
--Damage Type: Ally-Buff
--AP Eater: This ability consumes all remaining AP for this unit.
--Hurry Up: Push an Ally unit up the Turn list based on AP consumed by this ability.
--Boss's Orders: The ally this is cast on has their Morale raised based on AP consumed by this ability.
Thank You
-James Walsh
-Rush99999
-Kcx1
Ira Invidia: The Runaway And The Rabbit (End of Season 1)
Once more she found her tired eyes shifting between the various screens in front of her, desperate to keep another surprise like the Smiling Man from showing up while they were in such a state.
As was she wasn't entirely sure they were safe from the Smiling Man given how no one seemed to stay dead in this hell hole. (Which is probably a good thing right now…)
She glanced at an unconscious booker laying on the security room couch, his long limbs half off after she'd fought to get him onto it in spite of his dead weight.
The fact that he was simply dead from blood loss had her hoping that he'd heal fast, or at least faster than whatever was going on with the Smiling Man. (Never seen that happen to someone's corpse before… maybe a side effect of whatever he did to those people on the streets?)
It would make sense that stopping other people from resurrecting would slow his own, (I'm just hoping Booker isn't affected by whatever caused that…)
Just to check she made her way over to him and checked his severed arm with a grimace as she pointedly ignored the smile still on his face. Creeping black tendrils of something crawled all over the injury, assuring her that something was happening even if she'd never seen any injury heal like this.
(Maybe it's a side effect of his magic?) She'd known magic was real, this place being ten different kinds of proof, but she'd only seen a handful of people able to use it and none quite in the way that Booker did. Be it his more casual displays or that whole musical performance he'd put on to convince her to sign on with him, there was a certain showmanship to him that she hadn't seen in the few gangers throwing around fire on the streets.
And as much as he was grating on her -something about his personality and presence, just… wrong- Booker was still doing more for her than anyone else she'd met down here having dealt with the men that he sent after her, helped her find her spine again, possibly an exit out of this hell hole, and to top it all off he fought the Smiling Man so that she could escape.
(All of which he did without asking for anything in return…) She thought, remembering how she'd expected things to play out at the hotel. (I… I can't believe I was that desperate…)
She knew she was the last few months having eaten away at the will that helped her run away but… (That doesn't make it any better to admit…)
"Really now that is not a face to wake up to…" A pained voice groaned.
"Booker!" She smiled with no small amount of relief.
"And that is a significantly better one." Booker told her as he tried to sit up with a grin that looked more like a grimace. "You've pretty smile dear, you really use it more."
"How're you feeling?" She asked, before explaining that, "I couldn't tell if the Smiling Man's magic had stopped your healing or not."
Booker's cheek twitched as he looked at his missing limb for a moment. "Well… as disarming as it may be, this shouldn't be too problematic. My arm is healing, just… slower than I am used to."
"Is it permanent?" She frowned, because despite not knowing how good his healing was she knew he'd walked off more than one injury that would've put her down for the night.
The older man slowed for a moment in thought, something she'd noticed he seemed prone to. "Mm, I don't believe so… Even if it does not wear off on its own I should have… means of undoing whatever curse was left upon my person." Booker paused with a wry grin. "Well, once we're out of here at least."
"That's good…" She sighed in relief, unsure of what she'd have done otherwise. "Do you think you're good to get moving or…?"
"I should be." Booker nodded as he sat up before glancing at the static filled space that was half the reason she couldn't sleep through her own adrenaline crash, or rather at the camera screens on the other side of it. "Is it safe to leave, or is our foe on the mend as well?"
"It's… it should be safe?" She guessed, her face scrunching up as she remembered the ending of their fight. "The Smiling Man, a bit after you passed out his body it… burned away?"
"Burned away?" Booker repeated skeptically.
"Y-yeah, he, like, turned into cinder and ash until his body was just… gone." She explained, still more than a little confused by it all. "Since we didn't even get any Sin out of it, I figured it was a magic thing or something and have been watching the cameras to see if he's still here… but uh, I haven't actually seen anything, so… I don't know."
"I see…" Booker admitted as he began to stare off into space once more before telling her, "Concerning, but ultimately not something we can do anything about at the moment." as he stood up. "What we can do however is see if we can't get that elevator working again."
"Right." She nodded, not wanting to think about what they'd do if they couldn't get it working. (There's got to be stairs or something out of here somewhere…)
Apparently not one to take it slow Booker immediately set off and she found herself rushing to grab her backpack and follow after him. A little less scared of the blood red halls now that she was no longer alone.
The basement tunnels were still as much a maze as before, but Booker apparently found them easy enough to navigate as he moved with purpose and confidence that she knew her own half hunched form was lacking. Or rather he was moving with purpose and confidence until he came to a part of a tunnel that was covered in claw marks, shattered concrete, and bloodstains.
Booker seemed to take all of this in for a moment, before letting his hands drift across some claw marks on the wall that were far too small for the Smiling Man. "Out of curiosity… how much of my fight with the Smiling Man did you see?"
"Um…" She frowned as she tried to remember. "I saw you start fighting him on the cameras and then left the security room… By the time I circled around you seemed to have him on the ropes… didn't think I'd ever see him run like that."
"And that would be when you started throwing your fire bottles at him." Booker nodded as he continued down the hall once more with his remaining hand crossed behind his back. "Thank you for that, and the… distraction when he managed to… deceive me into letting my guard down."
"It's no problem." She told him, unable to meet his eyes as she hid the fact that before seeing the Smiling Man on the run she'd fully intended on abandoning Booker for the safety of escape. (Because I deserve to be here after all…)
Wanting a change of topic she decided to ask Booker, "What was up with the uh, rabbit thing?"
"The… rabbit thing?" Booker repeated, his voice … off, even if she couldn't figure out how.
"Uh, yeah… I didn't see it too well with the lights and fire, but until the Smiling Man… got you, you were looking like a white rabbit… man thing." She tried to explain, because while it was a rabbit she was pretty sure it was a rabbit with fangs. (Maybe he's the Rabbit of Caerbannog?)
"Ah, that rabbit thing." Booker grinned, sounding relieved.
(There's more than one rabbit thing?) She blinked, as Booker seemed to think about how best to answer her.
"I'm sure that you've noticed more than a few of our compatriots have certain… animalistic qualities." Booker began, his already sharp teeth looking even more predatory.
"Yeah, the uh, fangs and claws," (fur spread across his flesh as he grabbed her by the throat.) "And other things…" She swallowed, pushing that memory back down as she just now realized the similarities between that and what had happened to Booker.
"Quite." Booker confirmed his teeth returning to normal as he raised his good hand for her to see. "Well, I am capable of… controlling the growth of those qualities." The tips of Booker's fingers turned into claws before turning back to normal. "The state you saw me in takes more effort but also grants me far greater abilities in exchange."
"So… that means you know what's making people change?" She realized with a touch of excitement. "No one has been able to figure out what is causing it!" She'd always been afraid this place was going to eat away what made her human but (if Booker knows how to control it…)
"Hmm, well the base transformation is caused by…" Booker paused, tilting his head to the side, probably figuring out how best to explain magic to her. "Well, there's a few ways to cause it, mutation being quite common with exposure to certain… dangerous types of magic. I'll admit I'm not sure if it's caused by the ambient magic, the spell circle in the sky, or just natural talent."
"But… is that something someone can learn?" She asked, not sure whether she wanted to know how to stop the transformation or… cause it.
"Of course, you'll find with magic on hand virtually anything is possible." Booker laughed, his mouth opening further than a normal person. Something she wasn't sure whether it was the Smiling Man's fault or just a natural part of the man.
Before she could ask another question Booker let out an, "Ah, it seems we've reached our destination!"
She glanced at the elevator, unsure whether she should be relieved or disappointed by its presence.
Just like before Booker walked into the elevator completely uncaring for the blood and gore that covered it. (Then again, I guess we did kill the Smiling Man so… this is nothing by comparison.)
Which is why she was able to step into it without her previous worries, and had her eyes open to watch as Booker examined the lock on the lever that controlled the elevator. Though she still pointedly avoided looking at the spike covered handle of the lever.
"Uh, if we need a key I've got a couple things we can maybe use." She told him starting to pull her backpack off as she tried to look at the device holding the lever in place only to frown when she caught sight of it.
Instead of an actual key slot for her to try and work open, there was some kind of empty cylinder hanging off the side, almost as if there was a second lever required to open the first.
Booker tried pushing and pulling the empty cylinder for a moment before letting out a growl of frustration. "We need something to push it down with, that we can then use to pull it out, and slide it to the side. I'd use my magic but there are too many moving parts to manage."
She looked at the whole thing for a moment before reaching into her backpack and pulling out her flashlight, a heavy duty thing she'd stolen from some hardware store months ago, and shined it down on to try and get a better look at the lock.
"Brilliant!" Booker cheered before she could even flicker it on as he swiped her flashlight and proceeded to stick it into the lock. "The fit is a bit off, but I think with a. Bit. Of. Elbow. Grease. It. Will. Ah-ha!"
The lock snapped open and when it did the elevator lever promptly shot to the otherside without them touching it, causing the whole elevator to shutter as it started to move upwards.
"Ha, well done, my dear!" Booker smiled at her as he pried her flashlight loose.
"Uh, no problem." She wryly grinned back as she accepted her -now slightly bent metal- flashlight. (How much force would that take? I mean, I could use this thing as a club if I had to!)
Deciding it wasn't worth thinking about -at least once she confirmed she could still turn it on- she slid the flashlight back into her backpack before noticing the first floor pass them by.
"Uh, where is this taking us?" She frowned, as she tried to remember everything Booker had said before the Smiling Man showed up.
"My guess is the top floor." Booker answered. "Hopefully, we'll be able to find the controls for all of that power building in the basement."
"And we should be able to use that to get out of Ira Invidia, right?" She was willing to stick with Booker even if there were a few more steps after this but (I really want out of this place.)
"We should be able to do a lot with that kind of power." Booker smiled almost manically. "Escape is but the minimum on that list."
"Good." She nodded, forcing herself to ignore the wrongness once more, since she was fairly certain that none of it was directed at her.
Not that that kept her from letting the elevator lapse into silence until it finally began to slow down. When it did come to a stop she found herself looking out into a room far nicer than any she'd seen in this life or the last.
The floor was a clean and soft carpet, the windows had silk curtains framing a balcony that stared out upon the rest of Ira Invidia. Along one wall was a fully stocked bar filled with a number of glasses and bottles, and along another was a fireplace of all things burning away without a care as it warmed the armchair in front of it. Opposite the fireplace was a large bed with bookshelves to either side of it. All of this was done in a mix of red and black tones that somehow blended into something semi-comforting rather than the feelings those colors usually invoked in her.
She couldn't help but spin as she took all of this in. "This is amazing!"
"Is it?" Booker smirked, before his eyes softened as he made his way towards the fireplace and the portrait that hung above it.
"Booker?" She frowned, as she wandered over to see what had him so enraptured.l
The portrait itself was of a pale woman with white hair and red eyes sitting in a silver suit with black undertones and a red tie. Across her lap lay a golden violin and next to her chair was a tall thin man standing in a red and black suit and a face that looked like someone had started stabbing the painting and didn't stop until the man's face was gone.
"Who do you think she was?" She wondered.
"I… don't know." Booker admitted as he played with his watch before letting out a bitter chuckle. "Perhaps we're looking at one of the few people to love the Smiling Man…"
She couldn't help but grimace at that. "Then we probably don't want to run into her."
"Heh, probably not." Booker agreed, before shaking his head. "Regardless, we came here for a reason beyond basking in opulence and artistry."
"Right, the control thing… Any idea where that'd be?" She asked, looking around the room.
"Hmm, the ceiling." Booker answered after a moment as he pointed to the ceiling that would take four of her to touch.
"Oh, just like in the basement." She realized as she saw the large star filled circle drawn in what she was ninety-percent sure was dried blood.
"Just like in the basement." Booker confirmed as he moved to stand directly under it. "Now let's see here…"
The magic user closed his eyes and tilted his head, likely listening for the 'Spell Song' he'd mentioned several times before as he moved his hands through the air as if conducting some unseen orchestra. (I kind of wish I could hear it… Maybe… Maybe Booker could show me?)
"And… that… is mildly disappointing." Booker admitted as he opened his eyes.
"What is?" She frowned, wondering (what's wrong now?)
"It turns out this spell is even more complicated than I thought, meaning that I can't actually redirect it for as many means as I thought I could." Booker told her looking a little frustrated by this in spite of his smile.
"So… all of this was a waste?" She sighed, feeling a little hollowed out because (of course it was…)
Booker shook a finger through the air. "Not quite. As I said, things are only mildly disappointing and our escape is in sight."
She perked up. "It is?"
"It is." Booker nodded, before several red lights began to swirl in front of him. "It turns out that the Smiling Man did in fact build a backdoor in and out of this city, and while controlling the destination is unfortunately beyond me I can still open the door he made."
"So you can get us out of here?" She smiled.
"I can." Booker smiled as the lights collided into a crimson portal next to him. "Admittedly, I've no idea what's on the other side but…"
"Anywhere is better than this hell hole." She finished for him.
"That is!" Booker laughed, before looking around the room. "Though if we are going into the unknown we should probably raid the Smiling Man's abode for anything of value."
"Y-yeah, right. That's a good idea." She agreed, before glancing at the portal and the city skyline behind it. "Is… is the portal one way?" She found herself asking for some reason.
"No, of course not." Booker scoffed. "Both sides are locked in place allowing the user to come and go as they please, why? Were you thinking of stealing this little apartment for ourselves?"
She glanced at Ira Invidia where he still was running around as if he'd done nothing wrong, before glancing at Booker. The man who casually threw around magic and could transform into something dangerous enough to fight the Smiling Man. (A man who said that power could be learned.)
"No. I'm just thinking of all the things I can do now." She couldn't help but smile.
---
Thank You
-James Walsh
-Rush99999
-Kcx1
-Oenex
District Travel Tutorial/Hints
-Whenever you choose to leave a district you can travel to any district that shares one of that district's Sins. Meaning that since we're in WrathXEnvy, we can move to any district so long as it has one of those Sins.
-Hint 1: The Districts that double a Sin are typically the home to the Ruler of that Sin, and while not immediately hostile should only be entered with Caution.
-Hint 2: As revealed in The Red Eyed Rabbit's memory, Booker has allies out there and territory under his influence. More specifically it is on the border of two other districts so there are 2 Districts out there that will unlock his base.
-Hint 3: I will answer questions about what to expect in each district, but I will be vague referencing more the Sins than the actual districts.
So where are we going? (Pick one of each.)
[A]-Wrath
[A]-Envy
-Pride -Lust -Gluttony -Greed -Sloth
---
Reminder, we're still catching up for season 3.
A/N: This was a small aside that popped up while everyone was debating what Sins choose for the next location. Figure I should add it here since in part this decides what each location is about for better and for worse.
---
-Pride: Isn't simply arrogance, or false platitudes, but the ignoring consequences and the pushing of boundaries, the rejection of a natural order, an embracement of the idea that you know what's best for the world. Those on top here are not on top because of inheritance, they're on top because they refused to be anywhere else. Demanding that the best and settling for nothing less, forming an influence that is a mix of meritocracy, technocracy, and nobility all rolled together for those believing they can thrive in it's cutthroat domain that advances the limits of society regardless of the fallout.
-Greed: Is all about wanting more and making sure no one dares to take what is yours. Empty greed is the desire to simply horde everything you can to the point that your treasure becomes worthless fool's gold, but true greed is to know that treasure is in the eye of the beholder, and that true treasure is something only you can define. Those who thrive in this society are either the thieves willing to risk anything to possess what they covet, or the business men who have learned the key to maximizing profits is to invest and claim the diamonds as they emerge from the mud and blood.
-Lust: Isn't simply the desire for sex, in olden times it was a desire for anything that brought you further from god and in modern times it is often simply loving someone others think you shouldn't. While those within the domain of lust often are more open about things, they're also the ones most willing to accept outsiders and outcasts so long as they're accepted in turn. This has created a society that revolves around love, sex, and the furthering of both without care for what others may think of them a place where love and sex are both freedom and power and the world is a cult of personality.
-Envy: Often defined as sadness at another person's joy, is also to see someone else and aspire for more than what you have now. It is to see someone doing well and cripple them for it, or to surpass them and become more. To commit this sin is to motivate yourself not for yourself, but those around you as you're unable to see yourself. Vengeance, punishment, inspiration, and spite are what thrive in this society where Social Media has given everyone a thousand eyes both on them and on everyone else. Here either you either turn into a self-hating husk or you become better than you are.
-Gluttony: Is once upon a time the polar opposite to Lust, being more about embracing physical desires and consuming whatever you can in this mortal plane without thought of the spiritual. This sin represents the basest instincts, the parts of people that are still animals deep down. If gluttony is involved then something is being consumed by someone, or being cultivated for the day it is inevitably devoured. Those of this Sin see what feels good, what tastes good, and make it theirs reveling in the splendor and feasting upon it all while wearing a mask that hides the animal inside.
-Wrath: is to rage, to choose conflict over compromise, to fight for victory rather than settling for defeat, but these aren't simply the angry warriors, the ruthless rogues or the violent murderers, these are the sports lovers, the gamers, those who rage and riot at the thought of defeat and lash out at anything that may cause it. This is a society for those born to compete, where war, sports, and fun are all the same thing and of course in a world where life and death are cheap what better competition is there than the kind to leave one's body bloody and bruised and their opponent dead on the floor.
-Sloth: Often is seen simply as laziness, a refusal to keep up and act, but is sometimes something that is needed to keep a person from breaking under the physical or mental stresses of the world, even if it may result in an apathetic gloom falling over one's perception of their reality. Those who embody this sin are either those who entertain and heal the wary body and souls of the masses or are those who ignore reality around them, refusing to change, to act, and simply doing as they always have. In this society you're either a drone with no purpose or the one keeping the drones going.
---
"At the very least this sounds like it'll be more fun than the old man's silver city. After all, if you aren't Sinning then you aren't Winning."
-The Morning Star, King of Pride
Avarus Invidia (I): A Whole New World (Season 2 Start)
"How do I look?" He asked his companion as he showed off the red suit he'd stolen from the lavish apartment they were in.
"You uh, you kind of look like the Smiling Man…" Lydia admitted, a wry grin masking the young woman's grimace as she looked away from where his arm had regrown all but his hand, an ailment that what bits of magic he knew were able to minimize. "The one in the portrait, I mean not the, uh, monster one."
"I see…" He couldn't quite hide the way his eyes darted towards the mangled portrait, more specifically the woman of silver and red sitting next to the faceless man.
(Pride: An intelligent woman, a spark of cunning plan even now.)
(Greed: That suit costs a small fortune. That violin, ten times that.)
(Lust: Speaking, of she can probably play such beautiful music on it.)
(Envy: Not that she'd want to play for us after what we've done to her.)
(Gluttony: Look at those eyes, she knows what it means to eat or be eaten.)
(Wrath: That doesn't change how we've hurt her…)
(Sloth: Ugh, let's just avoid her then. Everything else is too much work.)
(I suppose that is all we can do right now.) He sighed at the voices in his head, all of them having some sort of fascination with the painting.
And so he took one last look at himself in the mirror and thinking (the suit really does compliment my darker skin) before adjusting his glasses and giving his reflection one of his ever present smiles. Something that had not gone away when he killed the Smiling Man.
(Greed: Since we killed him, that means we can just take his title for ourselves.)
(Lust: Yeah, every performer needs a moniker to be remembered!)
(Sloth: We already have those.)
(Envy: The Rabid Red-Eyed Rabbit… Wonder what sins we committed to get that?)
(Gluttony: The kind that make your mouth water.)
(Regardless, it's a starting point for figuring out who we are.) He told his amnesiac self, before turning his attention back to Lydia, and taking note of how she was still wearing her clothes from before. "Nothing here catches your fancy?"
"None of the clothes really fit me." Lydia shrugged, as she fiddled with the hem of her hoodie. "Besides I've already stuffed everything of value into my backpack, though I still haven't gotten any Sin."
"Frustrating I'm sure." Her tone made that much more than apparent. "But at the very least all of this is merely a bonus to our actual prize."
"Yeah…" The young woman smiled (adorably) as her green eyes darted towards the swirling red portal nearby. "Still can't believe it's actually happening… I've been dreaming of getting out of Ira Invidia since I got locked in here."
"Well, then I believe we've kept your dream on hold long enough, don't you?" He grinned as he took a half bow to the portal. "Let's make the young lady's dream come true."
(Pride: And guinea pig her for if the portal is actually safe.)
(Envy: It is. There's no security beyond everything we've already dealt with.)
(Sloth: I really hope not…)
Unaware of these thoughts Lydia gave him one last (dazzling) smile before rushing into it, completely uncaring -or just unaware of- the dangers.
He gave it a moment to see if anything bad would happen before stepping through and after feeling a brief but intense heat across his body, found himself in a room very similar to the one he'd just left.
"Did… did we actually go anywhere?" Lydia asked him as she looked around with a (hideous) frown of confusion.
(Pride: The worst kind.)
(Envy: And we did. Turn around.)
Doing just that he watched the portal snap shut as the voice in his head hit the part of the Spell intended to shut the portal down, and promptly saw what it meant.
"I do believe that is a very different skyline." He noted as he stepped out onto the balcony and took in their city surroundings.
Ira Invidia had been a delightful hellscape of ruined and burned out buildings sending smoke into the red skies and partially obscuring the massive spell circle in the sky. A lovely view only marred by those dreadful windmill crosses people decided to leave all over the place.
Wherever they were now was very different, as while the buildings were still very distinctly that of a city they were also significantly taller and virtually unmarred skyscrapers that took up much of his view. Though upon stepping outside and looking up he could see that they were still under the encircled star he'd seen in Ira Invidia's sky, only here the sky behind it was a more greenish hue with violently violet clouds drifting about.
"Ha! We're really outside…" Lydia laughed, her breath stolen by the -in his opinion (lackluster)- view.
"Yes, it seems that this decor is simply the preferred of our deceased host." He explained, before examining the spell circle with what bits of magic he retained outside of the voices in his head.
"Does that mean this place is going to have a murder basement too? Or a death street?" The young woman asked as she peeked down over the balcony's edge before letting out a sigh of relief. "Nope no death street."
"Quite…" He nodded as he began to notice a handful of differences between this circle and the one in Ira Invidia, though he had no idea what they meant on his own.
(Envy: For one there's not going to be a massive power supply stored in the basement. Instead it seems like this circle has a constant connection to the other and is siphoning power from there. We haven't put enough of our mind together for me to tell you much else.)
(Shame…)
Deciding it was best to focus on a more positive note he turned back towards his companion who was taking in the sights with an awed sort of look. "Come now. I'm sure it's a wonderful sight, but don't you desire a closer look at everything?"
"R-right, heh…" Lydia smiled bashfully as she followed him towards the front door, which unlike their previous abode was not an elevator.
Instead they found themselves in what appeared to be an office building of some sorts, numerous all over forming small rooms that were each filled with a phone, desk, chair, and a mechanical box with a screen on it. What all of these little rooms were notably missing however was-
"Where are all the people?" Lydia asked as they made their way through these small rooms. "I mean an office like this should be filled with people right?"
(Gluttony: It's all a deception.)
(Lust: Yeah, dress something up just right and everyone will assume what's here instead of seeing what it really is.)
(Sloth: People are lazy like that.)
"I see, all of this was set up to keep people from investigating deeply enough to find the Smiling Man's room." He said, voicing the realization as much for Lydia as himself.
"Okay, a fake office… Well it's better than covering a building in blood and corpses." Lydia told him.
"Mm, agree to disagree." He decided, as he instead noticed a bit of magic subtly singing through the air around him.
(Lust: It doesn't actually catch the attention. Kind of just blends into the background.)
(Envy: And there is the actual security, it has a perception filter to it. Nothing too invasive but it makes the room look like there's nothing wrong with it.)
(Then how did Lydia notice something was wrong with it?)
(Lust: Because our song is better than this.)
(Envy: We're causing some kind of interference. Slowing how fast it can dig into her. Probably wouldn't work if it was a concentrated push, but for now…)
(Lust: We'll protect our friends.)
(Greed: Because they're ours.)
"Finally, an elevator…" Lydia sighed as they came across a set of silver doors with a medium sized welcome mat in front of it.
"Hold on a moment." He warned, blocking her path as he glared at the welcome mat.
(Envy: And there's the concentrated push.)
"What's wrong?" His companion frowned (disgustingly).
Gently he reached down before flipping the mat over to reveal a spell circle on the underside.
"I'm guessing that's some kind of trap?" Lydia asked, eyeing the mat warily.
(Envy: It is. Easily noticeable however. Wouldn't work on anyone with even a basic sense of magic, and even then it barely does anything.)
(Gluttony: Another distraction.)
(Sloth: A token effort to protect things. With the other spell it'll make people think that's all there is.)
(Gluttony: Leaving them docile as lambs to the slaughter.) His most feral voice growled hungrily, earning a matching one from his stomach in spite of the fact that they'd eaten what rations Lydia had stored in her bag back in the Smiling Man's home while recuperating.
"A subtle thing, but nothing worth worrying over." He was sure.
"Right… let's just get out of here before we find something that is worth worrying about." Lydia suggested as she clicked a button to call the elevator to them.
"Ooh, we're on the thirteenth floor." He realized with a touch of delight.
"Yeah, that feels like where the Smiling Man would be." Lydia scoffed, with a sort of sardonic humor as the doors opened. "Unlucky thirteen."
"I don't know, it's feeling lucky to me." He argued as they stepped into the empty elevator. "I mean, if he was using thirteens then the portal was likely on that floor in Ira Invidia as well. Meaning thirteen led us to both freedom and a brand new adventure, and isn't that lucky, my dear?"
His young companion let out a snort, looking away with an amused grin as she hit the first floor button. "I guess it is."
As they rode the elevator down, he began to inspect his missing hand knowing that it was likely to be needed soon enough.
"How's your hand healing?" Lydia questioned, her face crinkling in concern as she caught sight of the wriggling black tendrils that seemed to make up his insides.
(Sloth: We'll walk it off by nightfall.)
(Gluttony: Faster if we had something to eat… something still moving…)
"Should be healed by day's end." He answered, keeping that second thought in mind for if he found someone that looked particularly tasty.
"That's good." Lydia nodded. "Was scared he cursed you like with whatever he did to those people back in Ira Invidia. Glad we're away from that hell hole."
"As am I." He smiled, just moments before the doors opened to a lobby of some sort where they found a handful of men in suits standing around with small black boxes next to their ears, their features just as warped as those from Ira Invidia.
(Gluttony: More wannabe predators…)
(Pride: They're using some sort of communication device…)
(Greed: Which isn't as important as the fact these are all businessmen. Money makers.)
(Envy: A couple of them are also side-eyeing the kid.)
(Sloth: Dirty street rats stand out in the clean palaces of the rich.)
Of course, if Lydia noticed any of this she ignored it instead running for the front doors with an excited smile and leaving him to chase after her with his long legged walk.
"Booker, look at… everything!" The young girl laughed as she spun on the pavement leading to the building they'd just exited.
"I am." He assured her with an amused grin as his hand shot out and pulled her out of the street just before a car could hit her. "Though I do believe you should be more careful about where you're looking."
"R-right…" Lydia chuckled in embarrassment. "I, uh, yeah… I'll do that."
With her mood brought low, and her smile fading -(something that we can't be having)- he took his own look at their surroundings to try and find something to keep his companion smiling.
"Do you recognize where we are?" Lydia asked him.
"I do not." Which wasn't a surprise given how for all intents and purposes he only really remembered the last three(-ish) days. (I'd be more surprised if I recognized anything.)
"Then how are we going to figure out where we are? Ask someone?" Lydia frowned, (which just will not do!)
(Sloth: Don't bother. That's just asking to get conned.)
(Pride: Besides, it'll be far more interesting to learn on our own.)
(Lust: Yeah! It'll be an adventure!)
"Hmm, how about we have some fun with it and wander for a bit?" He suggested, spreading his arms. "See what our new found freedom has left us to explore?"
Lydia gave him an amused smirk, (which is an improvement!) "Yeah, you know what? Why not?"
"Fantastic!" He cheered before spinning on his heel until he faced a random direction. "Then off to adventure!"
---
Thank You
-James Walsh
-Rush99999
-Kcx1
What ends up catching your attention?
[]-A large building with a large spell circle on the front and people walking in and out with weapons of all kinds.
[]-A neon sign of a ball hopping in and out of a spinning wheel pointed at a building full of lights and sound begging to entertain.
[]-A group of what appeared to be stores and restaurants of all sorts spread out for a poor window shopper, or a smart thief.
---
Reminder, we're still playing catch up to season 3.
"Hey, uh, Booker?" Lydia started, her eyes darting around at the various people walking the same way as them. "Is it me or are there a lot of people with, uh, weapons around here?"
"Well given my claws and your knife, I very much doubt they're all that unique." He chuckled, briefly picturing ripping out the throat of the nearest man and using it to fuel his hand's regeneration.
(Gluttony: There's an alley right there. Drag him in and no one will care if only you walk out. Especially if you've blood on your mouth…)
The way the man shivered in place before picking up the pace left him with an amused smile on his face.
"Yeah, but… are things really so bad that people have to be armed like this?" Lydia asked, her hands gripping at the straps of her backpack.
"Perhaps, but we do live in a dangerous world my dear." The fact that he lived in this world was proof of that.
Lydia's face became marred by the most wretched of frowns. "I-I thought things would be less… violent outside of Ira Invidia…"
Not standing for that frown for even a second he flicked the girl's nose, causing her face to scrunch up as she glared at him.
"Don't forget what I told you… There's nothing to fear as long as I'm near~" He sung lightly, without breaking into a full blown musical number.
"Yeah, this is the start of my metamorphosis." Lydia nodded, not singing her own verse.
"Quite right, my dear." He smiled, before noticing something a little further ahead. "At the very least you don't need to be concerned with people randomly arming themselves. After all, everyone here seems to be going to the same place."
A little further down the street were a set of stairs leading up to a building with a temple like design, a massive spell circle spinning a violent violet above the entryway. Upon these stairs were a number of people coming and going with all sorts of weapons on display.
(Pride: Look at those firearms.)
(Wrath: Those blades are well worn…)
(Lust: Ooh, listen to all of those spell songs in the air!)
"Tell me, would it reassure you to know why all of these people are armed?" He asked his frightened little companion.
Lydia looked ahead at the building for a moment before eventually nodding. "Yeah… yeah, I think it would."
"Then find out you shall!" He declared as he led the way to their destination, moving with a purpose his previous wandering had lacked.
"W-wait up!" Lydia called after him, caught off guard by his sudden acceleration.
(Envy: Wait, that spell circle…)
He slowed as he came to the stairs, his eyes drifting up to the circle on display for anyone to see. (See something interesting?)
(Envy: Something about [Discretion], [Neutrality], and [Binding]... It's too dense to make out the rest without sitting down and hearing the song out.)
(Sloth: I could do with a sit down.)
(Pride: Oh, is your curiosity not piqued by this mystery?)
(Greed: Hmm, something about this place is… familiar…)
(Memory familiar?) He wondered, his interest piqued by that mystery.
(Greed: Gah, can't remember… But my gut says there's a profit to be made here.)
(Envy: There's also a lot of magic being thrown around in there.)
"This place… kind of looks like a bank…" Lydia said as they looked around the room consisting of white marble floors and pillars with several lines filled with armed individuals waiting in line to get to a number of people lined up behind a glass window.
"Perhaps, but a bank that you bring your weapons to?" He asked in amusement, noticing how several people were going to mechanical boxes on the walls before heading down one of several halls lined with doors.
"You're right there's got to be it…" Lydia's eyes narrowed as she took a closer look at things. "Have you been anywhere like this before?"
(Not as far as I can recall.) But he wasn't planning on letting Lydia know he was amnesiac anytime soon.
(Sloth: Minion might start getting ideas…)
"You'd be surprised how many buildings look like this on the inside…" He instead answered. "We'll have to actually get in line if you want to know for sure."
Lydia glanced at the lines for a moment before letting out a sigh. "Well, I guess enough people are doing it without being shot at…"
"Ooh, that would make the bureaucracy more fun wouldn't it!" He chuckled, before moving for a line that was nearly empty, and actually so by the time they made it to the window.
The clerk at the counter was an interesting sight, a red-skinned woman with horns sticking out of her black hairline and with glowing cat eyes visible behind her glasses even if she didn't look their way.
(Pride: Interesting, is this a mid-point of our transformation?)
(Envy: No… This woman was never human to begin with.)
(Lust: But we're still going to treat her like a lady, right?)
(Of course, we may be a murderous cannibal but we're a gentleman of a murderous cannibal!)
After a moment the woman let out a sigh before asking. "Name?"
Seeing no reason not to give it, he answered with a smile, "Booker H. Freeman."
The woman's clawed fingers tapped away at a keyboard before a light from the screen of the mechanical box in front of her caused her eyes to slowly widen before darting him with contracted pupils as she began to shake in place.
"Is there a problem dear?" He asked with what he hoped was a reassuring grin.
Only instead of doing as intended the woman began to hyperventilate before suddenly standing and rushing off with a call of, "I'll bring you my manager!"
His companion gave him a confused look. "Uh, what was that about?"
Uncaring for the numerous eyes on him after that little spectacle he reached through a hole in the window and tilted the screen his way, revealing a rather dashing picture of him with a fang filled grin for the camera.
(Oh, a clue to our identity!) He smiled widely before realizing-
(Pride: None of this is in a language we remember.)
(So close.)
"Uh, what's it say?" Lydia frowned (grotesquely) apparently as illiterate here as he was.
"It appears I am in fact a repeat customer." He told her, pushing the screen back and retrieving his hand. (I've only the one right now after all.)
"So you know what this place is then?" Lydia pressed.
(Pride: No idea beyond the Greek architecture.)
(Envy: All sorts of security magic. Too much for me to pick through, and too general to narrow it down.)
(Greed: I know this place falls under my domain, but… Why can't I remember?)
(Envy: Because body boy isn't resonating with you.)
(Pardon?) He felt that was directed at him.
(Envy: It was.)
(Pride: I see… We're all aspects of the same person, but based on the animal and the layabout, we're regaining our memories and powers whenever you behave in line with us.)
(Greed: And this idiot barely listens to me…) The orange thoughts growled.
(Well, if this truly is your domain then I suppose you better advise me well.) He thought, before giving Lydia a grin and telling the girl that, "I think I'm going to leave this a surprise." as he raised a finger to his lips.
"Of course you are…" His companion huffed, before like him waiting to see how all of this was going to play out.
Eventually a short man in a black suit rushed out, looking much like the clerk with his red skin, horns and glasses, but also different given his shorter stature and snow white hair. (Though he looks just as frazzled as the clerk from before…)
"M-Mr. Freeman!" The clerk smiled, though his eyes screamed of panic. "It is such an honor to have you visiting us here at this branch of our fine institution!"
(Greed: Alright, if you're actually going to listen to me… We've an advantage right here. He's clearly scared of us and desperate to keep us happy. Keep both of those in mind if you don't want him to keep you from getting what's yours. Whatever that is.)
"I'm sure it is." He smiled back. "I happened to be in the area and decided to stop in and… check on things."
"O-of course sir!" The manager bowed and groveled, before gesturing towards a door behind the counter. "Why, why don't we take this to a private room worthy of a customer of your highest standing."
(Pride: Does this man have no pride?)
(Gluttony: He does but the scent of fear masks it.)
(Sloth: Pride doesn't mean much when your life is on the line.)
He glanced at Lydia watching them in a curious sort of concern. "And I'm sure my companion can accompany us."
The manager glanced towards Lydia and while his eye twitched as he gave her a once over, he never stopped smiling as he answered, "Of course not sir."
Once on the other side of the counter the manager moved to lead them, his short legs practically running to keep ahead of Booker's long legged gait.
"Seriously, Booker, what's going on?" Lydia whispered next to him.
Having no idea what was actually going on (Greed: Beyond us being in charge) he simply put his finger back to his lips.
After a number of twists and turns through winding halls and a short trip up an elevator, he and Lydia found a room full of lavished furniture of violet and gold with a small bar, and a glass table with a couch to either side of it. At the end of the couches were a pair of those machines from the lobby standing between the furniture and a spell circle carved into the very floor of the room.
"I apologize if this isn't to your usual standards sir, but this is the best that our humble branch has to offer." The manager assured him once more bowing.
(Greed: Apparently he's small time compared to whatever we used to work, that advantage from before is a lot better than I was thinking.)
(Pride: Of course an individual of our caliber would have earned this kind of treatment.)
(Envy: Yeah, and who knows how many people we stepped on to do it…)
(Sloth: No one who didn't deserve it.)
(Wrath: …)
"Mm, this will do." He told the manager after giving the room a slow once over with his hands behind his back..
(Greed: We need to make a power play before we can get down to business, make sure he understands he's on the back foot here.)
(Lust: Ooh, ooh, sit on the couch.) He did. (Now you've got to lounge. Lean back, arms spread over the back, and cross a leg over your knee. Yes, like that! Oh, and don't forget the grin that says 'I am in complete control here'. Good, good… Now we just need a script to put on a proper performance here. Give me the lines and I'll direct!)
(Greed: Alright, here's what you need to say…)
"Lydia, why don't you find yourself a treat? After all, it's free isn't it Mr…?"
"Hemingway." The manager filled in with a tense smile as he kept glancing at Lydia. "And… yes… anything you want will be… comped with all our business today."
(Gluttony: Ha! That sounded so delightfully painful~)
(Greed: That's right, get a taste of the goodlife boys this is how we'll be living with me in charge.)
(Envy: Don't get ahead of yourself. You haven't actually earned any of this yet.)
(Sloth: And I could do a lot of this too… I just don't feel like the work.)
(Greed: Tch… Then I'll just show you what I can make us…)
At the voice's prodding, he went ahead and spoke up, "Speaking of business, I'm sure you'll have no problem telling me which… services this branch of yours has. I understand that it's a little… smaller than what I'm used to but I'm sure you've something that we can work out."
"Of course sir!" Hemingway nodded before rushing over to the machines and picking up a small glass pane from a slot on the front and causing it to be filled with text of all kinds.
(Pride: And -while this is a bad angle- I do believe we can read that script.)
"Now while we may be smaller, we've all the standard functions of our parent company and can, with your permission, easily access your standing accounts with us for inspection." The manager assured him before handing over the tablet as it revealed a small spinning spell circle on it. "And of course for your privacy, your account is locked behind your preferred method of security."
He was sure not to move an inch as he asked himself, (What is our preferred method of security?)
(Gluttony: Blood.)
(Envy: Magic.)
(Lust: Music.)
(Wrath: Feelings.)
(Pride: Secrets.)
(Sloth: Minions.)
(Greed: A key.)
None of that was helpful, because in the face of a spell circle all of those were valid answers. (Might as well try it all then!)
He bit his thumb until the skin broke, the taste of his blood distinctly off from what a normal person should taste like, enough so that it actually soured his ever present hunger.
At the same time he reached out with his magic while humming a tune, one from a sweet memory of childhood, seeing if the song unlocked some missing piece within the tablet.
(That leaves a secret, minions, and a key… Do we have any of those?)
(Sloth: Well, we've got Lydia as a Minion.)
(Pride: Meaning she probably can't open it given how we just met her. And aside from our amnesia I can't think of any secrets… Though given the nature of magic our stopwatch might be the key.)
He paused before reaching into the pocket of his vest and pulling out his stop watch from one Emilia Lafayette. His eyes fell upon the two rabbits on its silver cover -one with horns and one without- before he reflexively popped the cover and read the engraving within, filling his chest with… something he couldn't put into words.
One of these acts did something right, as the glass pane in his hands beeped once before letting out a flash of light and putting a picture of his smiling face on the screen.
A moment later the screen cleared to show a list with each line divided into: Name, Contract Date, Summoning Date, and Anima Account Balance.
"Paranoid much?" Lydia's voice scoffed from behind him, apparently having mistaken all of his actions as putting multiple locks on his things.
(Greed: Which is a good idea. Keeps people from taking what's ours.)
(Lust: Oh, roll with it, roll with it! Don't let them know you're faking it!)
He gave his companion a smile. "You can never be too careful my dear."
"Quite right sir." Hemingway nodded as he adjusted his glasses. "Well now that you're in sir, you can choose to access any of your numerous contracts and our spell circuit will teleport you there. At which point upon completion of your summoning terms we will gather the paid Anima from the Arcane Nexus and convert it into Sin for you to use at your own discretion. We also of course allow you to control the Dimensional Drift with utmost efficiency so that you can access any of your contracts on your time rather than theirs as part of our transaction fee."
(Sloth: Meaning we go out whenever we please and fully rested.)
(Greed: While making ourselves a pretty profit.)
(Lust: And new friends!)
"Yes, that's all well and good… Except there seems to be a problem." He admitted, because while he had no idea how any of this worked he was aware of the fact that this list should not look like this.
"A, a problem?" Hemingway gasped, his smile tense and his eyes panicked. "Sir?"
"Yes…" He drawled before showing the manager his list, or rather the lack of one. "For some reason, there are no accounts listed here."
"Oh no…" Hemingway whispered, briefly losing his smile before putting it back on as he took the tablet and began to fiddle with it. "It, um… It seems that… our small branch is having a bit of… trouble accessing your… main account… I apologize for the inconvenience… but I assure you we will have this problem sorted out before you leave here today."
(Greed: Make him sweat, the more he does the more we'll profit.)
He stared at the supposed manager of this establishment with narrowed eyes and a thin smile. As he slowly stood from the couch and made his way over, he could see the sweat beginning to visibly pour off of the little red man thing.
(Lust: Any more and you'll break him~)
With a put upon sigh, he began to buffer out his nails on his coat. "I suppose for now I'm just going to have to make a new contract to try and keep my time from being wasted." His eyes shot back to the manager's. "Unless that will be a problem too?"
"N-n-no sir!" Hemingway stuttered out, before promptly pulling up something on the screen and letting out a relieved, "Oh thank Lucius…"
The manager showed him a screen with what appeared to be four overlapping boxes of text. "It seems that, using your usual preferences for our more… interesting cases, you have four viable contracts that we will of course be reserving for you so that no one else may take them in between your outings."
"Hmm, let's see how interesting these really are…" He told Hemingway as he began to figure out how to use the screen-
(Pride: Alright, I think I've got it. It's all touch based, and sliding your fingers moves things, holding down opens options, and double clicking confirms.)
-before going over the files that were rather interesting. (Old us had good taste.)
The first file was apparently a short term contract summoning for a good old fashioned game of Murder, Death, Kill. In which a young summoner and their contracted partner would eliminate all of their competition in pursuit of a powerful magical artifact that the summoned would have a certain claim to.
(Greed: There's fine print, while we'd have a claim to it they'll probably only pay us in the Anima all the losers would've gotten. Still valuable as broke as we are but not as good as advertised.)
(Gluttony: But it's a fight and a feast, what more could we ask for?)
(Wrath: Yes, an honorable competition would be a fine way to sharpen our lost skills.)
The next file, while not as fun as a murder game, still had potential. In fact based on this report his summoner actually had the potential of dozens of people, and all that was asked for was him to take on a mentoring role and help them access the dark magics unavailable without otherworldly assistance.
(Envy: Meaning we could learn new magics as well, and keep someone from making our mistakes…)
(Pride: Ooh, an exchange of thoughts and ideas. A collaboration for the advancement of all!)
(Sloth: All while getting us a minion on the mortal plane. Not sure what that's good for but… it's got to be worth something.)
(Greed: Not much, financially speaking.)
The third file was apparently flagged due to his old self having a taste for punishing arrogant summoners. Apparently the person who cast the ritual did so by sacrificing a good thirteen souls in a demonic ritual that would bring forth a Demon capable of offering great power.
(Greed: Payment's good, and the terms are vague enough that as long as we don't kill the guy we can do whatever we want to him.)
(Envy: Including taking a monster in the making off of the board before someone else can make use of them.)
(Wrath: Yes, if you kill you should be prepared to be killed.)
The final one however is one that made him pause, because according to these documents this one was reserved solely to him due to the fact that this summoner was a blood descendant of him. (We have a descendant?)
(Lust: Ooh, family! We have to help the family!)
(Greed: Even if they're a cheapskate paying pennies on the dollar?)
(Wrath: Yes, we've too little family in this world. We must aid them however we can.)
(Envy: It's only fair. Even with what little we remember, family is important.)
(Pride: As weak as we are it might be better to make use of that Dimensional Drift to be summoned at a later date. The last thing we need to do is embarrass ourselves in front of our mortal heir.)
(All valid points…) He admitted to himself as he looked up from the documents.
"Well, sir?" Hemingway inquired, a tense smile fixed in place beneath desperate eyes. "Does anything catch your eye?"
---
Thank You
-James Walsh
-Rush99999
-Kcx1
What ends up catching your attention?
[]-A large building with a large spell circle on the front and people walking in and out with weapons of all kinds.
[]-A neon sign of a ball hopping in and out of a spinning wheel pointed at a building full of lights and sound begging to entertain.
[]-A group of what appeared to be stores and restaurants of all sorts spread out for a poor window shopper, or a smart thief.
---
Reminder, we're still playing catch up.
Avarus Invidia (III): Demon Summoning And Other Dark Rituals
Avarus Invidia (III): Demon Summoning And Other Dark Rituals
--- Booker H. Freeman ---
"Hmm…"
While the Death Game could be fun, regardless of whether or not death was temporary he would only enter if he knew he could win.
(Envy: Which we might not as reduced as we are.)
A similar reasoning prevented him from either aiding his descendant or taking on a student under the current circumstances, and thus "While there are some intriguing options, I think I'll go with the summoner with the sacrifices." He told Hemingway as he handed the glass device back. "That seems like the one most fitting for my current purposes." (After all, I don't think I've killed anyone today.)
"Of course sir." The red manager bowed with a smile before moving back to the machine. After a moment the spell circuit on the ground began to glow with a violet light. "There you are sir. I hope you have a profitable summoning."
"I'm sure I will." He smiled back as Hemingway turned to leave.
(Greed: Don't let him forget what we're owed.)
"Just as I'm sure you'll have my things sorted by the time I get back." He added with narrowed eyes before the manager could leave.
"O-of course sir." Hemingway squeaked, both visibly shaking and sweating in fear.
"Good~" He grinned with a mouth full of fangs.
(Lust: Oh, and don't forget about Lydia!)
He turned towards his companion with a much more genial smile, "Is there anything you'd like while he's out, my dear?"
"Uh," Lydia blinked, put on the spot, her eyes darting between him and the cowering Hemingway. "Do… do you have any ice cream? Or pizza?"
"Oh, that does sound lovely." He chuckled, not actually knowing what pizza was, but recognizing ice cream as a frozen treat. "Doesn't it, Hemingway?"
"Y-yes sir." The manager nodded.
"Then go get the girl her treats." He ordered with a nod towards the door.
"R-right away sir!" Hemingway shouted before fleeing, allowing the doors to slam shut behind him.
The room was silent beyond the sparking of the spell circle in the center of the room as he watched Lydia fiddle with some drink she'd pulled from the ice box.
"So, uh, you… you're really some kind of big shot around here, huh?" The young woman eventually asked.
(Pride: Of course we are.)
(Greed: It's what we're owed.)
(Sloth: We've put in more than enough work for it.)
(Envy: And paid plenty of blood that isn't ours…)
"Hm, it would appear so wouldn't it." He smiled with a wry grin, having just realized what she had. "Though as he said, I haven't been to this particular branch before."
"Branch of what?" Lydia pressed, her eyes locked onto him. "I mean, you were talking about accounts and turning… Anima into Sin?"
"Ah, yes… well…" He tapped his chin, trying to piece together the memories of magical theory he'd just regained a few days prior. "Have you ever heard of Demon Summoning or the similar?"
"Yeah…" Lydia glanced at the circle and then him. "You're the Demon someone is summoning?"
"Well, what else would I be?" He wondered with a touch of amusement, after all, (The fact that I'm a Demon might be the first thing I remembered about myself.)
(Envy: Well, that and the insanity.)
(That too.)
Lydia's eyes were locked onto the circle with an intense gaze. "So… that circle, it'll take you back to… back to earth?"
(Lust: She's desperate for a way home… Her real home…)
(Envy: You're going to have to break her heart…)
(Sloth: Better to rip the bandage off now…)
(Gluttony: The pain will make her stronger…)
(Greed: A fair trade in this world.)
"For a time." He sighed, his own eyes drifting towards the circle. "The summoner uses magic to call forth an entity -not always a Demon- to help them in exchange for Anima, life, magic, power, money, favors… The payment varies, but the moment the magic spent on the summoned entity will return from where they came from."
(Envy: There are ways to extend that stay but…)
(Greed: There's a price on that time and…)
(Gluttony: Death hungers for what's hers.)
(How delightfully ominous…) He smiled to himself.
"So even if I could go back I couldn't…" Lydia trailed off with a dreadful frown before shaking her head and giving him a determined look. "That doesn't matter. What do I have to do to go back, just for a day?"
(Pride: Intelligence and drive.)
(Greed: Lots of money.)
(Lust: Friends don't hurt.)
(Envy: Magic doesn't hurt…)
(Gluttony: Savagery and dignity.)
(Wrath: Strength of will.)
(Sloth: Minions to do the work for you.)
"Well… I suppose you'd have to have a certain level of… ability that someone would want to summon you for whatever reason they may have for your talents." He summarized his scattered thoughts, before waving a hand at the lavish room around them. "At that point you register with this lot and they middleman the whole affair for you, collecting service fees for successful contracts and similar. Though you will have to work your way up to all of this."
He was sure there was significantly more to it than just that, -(Envy: There is.)- but given how he was working off largely theoretical magical knowledge and his own observations since arriving, that was the best he could offer his young companion at this time.
Lydia nodded as she licked her lips in thought before giving him another look. "And what do people summon you for? What are your 'talents'?"
"Why, my dear, haven't you figured that out yet?" He smiled with a mouth full of fangs before letting out an amused huff as he thought about the contracts he'd seen. "People summon me when they want the power to do something they can't."
(Envy: Defining pretty much every summon there is.)
(Lust: Shh, you're ruining the dramatic flair!)
His young companion looked like she was about to ask something else, when the doors opened and another of the horned folk -neither the clerk from earlier nor Hemingway- walked in with their head bowed and a bucket of ice cream and a large square box of something else in their hands. "N-neopolitan and p-pepperoni!"
"Uh, thanks?" The moment Lydia accepted the box, the deliverer promptly fled without another word. (How rude.) "That was… fast."
"Really? I've never ordered pizza before." He confessed as Lydia set the ice cream on the counter.
"Yeah… I didn't even know there was pizza down here." Lydia admitted herself with a perplexed look before opening the box and peeking inside. "And it looks like normal pizza…"
"Well, I'll just have to try some. After all, I do so enjoy eating." He smiled, feeling that gnawing ache in his belly as his mouth began to water at the smell of the pizza.
(Gluttony: Maybe it'll go well with the aftertaste of our summoner's flesh~)
"Heh, why, my stomach practically has a mind of its own!" He laughed.
"Uh, yeah…" His companion nodded with a (beautifully) wry grin as she set the box on the counter. "There's plenty here for both of us."
"And you should be sure to eat your fill. It'll give you something to do while I work up my own appetite." He told her as turned towards the spell circle while adjusting his attire. (I have to make a proper first impression.)
He paused before glancing down at his hand and noting that while his skin wasn't exactly skin yet, the black tendrils had loosely formed the shape of a hand and did have skin up to his wrist. (Almost but not quite. Still…)
"It's time to make some Sin and leave some smiles!" He grinned as he stepped into the center of the circle and immediately heard a spell song begin to thrum through the air.
The violently violet glow of the spell circle grew brighter as the shadows grew darker, the electricity dancing along its surface draining the light with crackling glee. Its power building as the light of the circle beneath him seemed to spin faster and faster, the song bound to it growing to an ever higher crescendo before in a flash of light he felt a wave of heat wash over him.
When the heat cooled he realized he was in a place significantly different from where he'd just been, and in a state that while familiar was unintended.
Crossing his stitched furred hands behind his back he took a gander around the room with crimson eyes, taking in the dark chamber lit by candles, and the spell circle beneath him that was written in blood, and the fact that said bloody circle branched off towards twelve metal coffins of some kind, each propped up with chains hanging down from the ceiling.
(Envy: There's power in them. The dark kind.)
(Greed: That would be our payment.)
(Pride: A payment contained by coffins made of… a composite of iron and silver? Wait, there's also… salt on the ground?)
(Envy: Salt works as a purifying agent, and can lock the borders between physical and spiritual. The unrefined iron tends to burn anything unnatural to the world. And silver works as a magical conductor. Can't tell what's in them, but they're giving off a lot of power.)
His stomach growled and his mouth watered just from the feel of what was in those coffins.
(Gluttony: Making me… HuNgRy…)
(Lust: Don't forget. We're not alone in here…)
With an act of will his eyes moved from the coffins and to his would be summoner, a pale sickly man roughly in his thirties with dark brown hair and a light beard laid before him wearing a white button up shirt, vest, and glasses. Attire not too dissimilar to his own upon his awakening in the alley Lydia found him. (Though there is one very important difference between us, I believe.)
Namely that while he had survived the attempt on his life, this man had not.
(Pride: A clean incision if a bit rough through the back. Piercing both the kidney and liver at the very least. With the blade removed he'd fall unconscious within seconds, and be dead within minutes.)
(Gluttony: Heh, good instincts.)
(Envy: And both our dark practitioner, and our thirteenth sacrifice. I wonder if he even realizes what he's done…)
(Wrath: What needed to be done.)
Booker looked up from the dead man and at the boy -roughly Lydia's age- who in spite of the tears running down his face, protectively held onto an unconscious blonde girl with one hand while using the other to point a bloody blade at the Demon in front of him, at him!
Seeing this, he found that he couldn't help but smile. "My, my, now isn't this interesting?"
---
Thank You
-James Walsh
-Rush99999
-Kcx1
You've a dead body, an unconscious child, an armed child, and twelve coffins full of power. What do you do?
[]-Write-In. (XP based on actions. All suggestions will be considered. Pleasantries like names are automatic.)
---
Reminder, we're still playing catch up.
First Infernal Contract: Bugsby, The Dark Apprentice (I)New
+Lust Resonance Up. [Upgrade Pending]
A/N: Sorry about disappearing for a few days there, holidays you know.
---
First Infernal Contract: Bugsby, The Dark Apprentice (I)
--- Booker H. Freeman ---
"Wh-who are you?!" The pale boy stuttered out, the knife in his hand shaking almost as much as he was.
Booker considered this for a moment, wondering, (how best to proceed?)
(Greed: Since the boy did the final kill, he's technically our summoner.)
(Lust: Meaning we should play nice with him!)
(Gluttony: Even after he stole our kill? Our meal?)
(Lust: Yes! Besides, can't you still eat him?)
(Gluttony: It wouldn't be the same…)
(Wrath: Regardless, he meant us no ill will with this…)
(Greed: And none of this matters, we're getting paid either way.)
(In that case, there's no reason to be rude.) He smiled, before taking a half bow with a hand to his chest. "My name is Booker H. Freeman, The Rabid Red-Eyed Rabbit, and you my boy seemed to have done me something of a service."
"A, a service?" The boy asked, his brown eyes darting towards the nearest coffin with a look of guilt and regret.
(Envy: He knows what was done to make those coffins…)
(Lust: Aw, you should reassure him that that's not what we mean!)
"No, no, my boy. That's not what I meant." He chuckled, before looking down at the corpse before him. "I meant the spineless sorcerer who didn't understand that making a sacrifice, does not mean what he thinks it does."
(Envy: To sacrifice you must give up something you value.)
(Wrath: Or do something you do not wish to for another's sake.)
(Gluttony: This man enjoyed the slaughter as much as we would've~)
(Greed: Payout would've been bigger for us if he followed the rules. Speaking of rules, they say we've still got to fulfill our end of the deal to get paid.)
(And given how killing the boy is a waste, what exactly were the terms of this deal? A vague offer of power I believe?)
(Greed: Wording is vaguely along the lines of 'Granting power negotiable upon summoning based on the entity in question'. If we leave early, we forfeit our payment back to the summoner. However, there were no real protections on the summoner's part beyond an inability to kill. In which case payment will be fully forfeited on our part.)
(Pride: Meaning we could've fulfilled our end by giving him the power of wisdom.)
(Sloth: More accurately the wisdom not to summon a Demon.)
(Gluttony: A few bites could've gotten the point across.)
He let out a dark chuckle at that thought, causing the boy to jump and drawing his attention back to his audience. "But imagine my surprise when I find my work has already been completed more thoroughly than I could've managed under my current restrictions!" He tapped his lips before giving the boy a smile full of fangs. "I suppose this means I owe you a favor, my boy."
The boy flinched, before looking down at the man he'd killed. "Can you… can you save him?"
He couldn't help but blink in surprise at that. "You want me to help him? Whyever would you want that after going through the trouble of killing him?!"
The boy flinched once more, unable to meet his eyes as he stumbled over his words, holding the girl ever closer. "I… I didn't mean to… I just… I just didn't… I didn't want him to… I-I had to stop him…"
(Wrath: He did it for her… To protect her.)
(Lust: Oh! Is this a love story? A dark apprentice falling in love with his mentor's next victim, only to save her at the cost of betraying all he's ever known?!)
(Envy: You're an idiot… and they're too young for those kinds of thoughts.)
(Lust: Ho! Their first love perhaps?!)
(Envy: Just ignore him… and tell the kid the truth.)
(Wrath: There's blood on his hands now. He can't wash that away.)
"Hmm, well sadly, bringing back the dead is beyond my many abilities." He sighed with a sad smile as he interrupted the still rambling lad.
"Oh…" The boy whispered, his voice hollow as he stared down at the corpse in front of him, his hold on the girl becoming tighter the longer he did so.
(Envy: There's a thought.)
He stepped outside of the summoning circle and towards the boy. "While I may not be able to help you with him, perhaps I can help you with your friend there?"
The boy blinked beneath brown hair, his eyes slowly drifting from the dead man on the floor to the living girl in his arms. "R-right, I… I need to… I need to get her back to her family…"
(Greed: You need him to ask for something from you specifically.)
He tilted his head and watched with narrowed eyes as the boy struggled to stand with the girl he could barely lift.
(Greed: And there's your in.)
With a smile he bowed down and offered his arms to the wary child. "You look like you're having trouble lifting her, would you like me to lend you my strength until your task is complete?"
The boy stopped, before glancing up at him with wide eyes. "You, you're a demon…"
"True, but irrelevant." He nodded. "What is relevant however, is that I must assist whomever summoned me. Which currently is you, my boy."
"You… you can't trust Demons." The boy told Booker, while doing what he could to drag the still unconscious girl away.
"Except, when they're bound by a deal." He pointed out. "And our deal clearly states that I cannot kill you."
The boy's eyes narrowed as he pulled the girl close with a (grotesque) frown. "You can't kill me?"
(Sharp.) He grinned, because there really wasn't anything keeping him from killing-
(Greed: Actually, remember when I said an inability to kill? That wasn't limited to just the summoner.)
(Wrath: He was protecting the boy.)
(Envy: Or just putting down a basic protection.)
(Sloth: Either way, kid should know…)
"I can't kill anyone while I'm here." He confessed, doing his best to contain what irritation he could.
(Gluttony: Killing a man has been a human right since Cain and Abel!)
(Envy: We aren't exactly human though.)
(Gluttony: Carnivores have had the right even longer!)
In contrast to his feelings on the matter, the boy looked somewhat relieved as he gave the corpse another guilty look. "Of course he wouldn't be that stupid…"
Seeming to trust his dead mentor more than he did Booker, the boy finally relented and told him, "You can carry her but I want you to stay nearby."
"Of course." He smiled as he picked the girl up with far less trouble than the boy had had. "Now then, why don't you lead the way?"
The boy gave him another glance before nodding and making his way up a set of nearby stairs.
Following after, he soon found himself in a workshop of some sort filled with a number of what appeared to be metal skeletons lining the walls in various states of dress, and more of those screens like the kind he'd seen while in the basement of the Smiling Man's home in Ira Invidia.
(Pride: So much interesting technology… Do you think we can sneak any of this back home with us?)
(We'll see…) He thought, drawing his eyes away from the numerous tools that he could not name lining a table and back to the boy in front of him.
(Lust: Aren't you getting tired of calling him 'the boy'?)
(A little.) He admitted. "Tell me boy, what is your name?"
The boy paused at a door. "My name… why do you need my name?"
"For civil conversation?" He offered as way of a confused answer. "Unless you wish for me to simply refer to you as 'boy'?"
The boy's eyes drifted around the room, before settling on one of the skeletons wrapped in brown fur of some kind. "Bugsby… you can call me Bugsby."
(Greed: He's lying.)
(Envy: Names have power.)
(Sloth: At least if they're the right names to the right people.)
Deciding it wasn't going to hinder him in any way since the boy's name meant nothing in his hands, he allowed this alias with no protest. "Well then Bugsby. If you don't mind me asking, where exactly are we taking this girl?"
Bugsby was quiet for a moment, his hand on the door. "Back to her family and… away from all of this."
With that said the boy pushed the door open and held it open as Booker stepped out into a parking lot behind a building and caged in by a chain link fence. The night sky above, while filled with a number of dark clouds, also possessed a clear view of a nearly full moon looking down on them.
A chill swept through the air and Bugsy pulled his coat closer.
"Come on… It's just a few blocks away, try not to draw attention…" The boy looked at him before looking away. "We're so lucky it's Halloween."
"Is it?" He smiled as he followed after. "I wonder if there's a mass in the cimetière? Or a party in the speakeasies."
While he couldn't remember the holiday proper, he knew it was a day-
(Envy: -to respect the dead.)
(Lust: And party like you're dying!)
"Probably?" Bugsby (hideously) frowned in confusion. "It doesn't matter though."
"It matters if you intend to live and laugh, my boy!" He chuckled, a faint sway to his hips as he remembered a tune that would make any Baron dance.
"Yeah, those aren't big things in my family." Bugsby scoffed, as they started walking through streets filled with decorations.
(Envy: Ominous…)
"Oh, and what does that mean?" He wondered, sure that the events that led to the interesting scene in that basement were just as if not more interesting.
"It means they're all dead, because I… because I didn't stop him in time!" Bugsby spat, more at himself than Booker. "I knew something weird was going on and I-I did nothing until… until everyone else was… I did nothing…"
(Pride: So he wasn't the ritualist's apprentice, but rather one of his victims.)
(Gluttony: The boy is a survivor. The last man standing.)
(Lust: He's also all alone…)
(Sloth: There are different kinds of 'alone'. Which is he?)
"You truly have no one?" He asked, not quite empathizing with the boy given how in all his memories he'd never been alone, and not quite sympathizing given his lack of pity for a stranger but still feeling something.
Bugsby was quiet for a moment, his unspoken answer clearly eating at the lad. "Maybe, maybe a friend of… a friend of my father's but… I don't know…"
The boy looked back at him, or rather at the girl in his arms before sighing. "All I know is that she's got a family still and I need to get her back to it."
"I see…" He nodded in understanding, his eyes drifting to a number of children wearing costumes of all sorts, their parents trailing a short distance behind. Something that the boy in front of him would never experience again.
His eyes stayed on the parents for a moment longer as he wondered, (have I ever experienced that?)
What few memories he'd managed to regain had focused either on his childhood in the country or his time as the leader of the Rabid Red-Eyed Rabbits gang. The fact that he had a descendant told him he must've had children or at least a child at some point, but… (I can't remember…)
(Envy: A family…)
(Pride: Their names…)
(Lust: Their love…)
(Gluttony: Their life…)
(Wrath: Their warmth…)
(Sloth: Their laughter…)
(Greed: We have nothing…)
Maybe he did know something about loneliness after all.
Feeling his smile begin to droop he forced his smile back to peak cheeks and turned his attention back to the nearest distraction at hand. "Given the situation at hand, I can't help but wonder how you got into that basement?"
Bugsby was quiet for a moment, a long one in which Booker thought he wouldn't answer, before finally saying, "He let me in… Taught me things I didn't understand… He thought I was like him… Heh, and I guess he was right since I… since I killed him, heh…" The boy's laugh was hollow in a way no laugh should be.
(Pride: So he is the summoner's apprentice then?)
(Wrath: Difficult to say.)
(Lust: The feelings are fresh. This kind of stuff takes time to heal.)
(Sloth: If it ever does.)
(Envy: And if he ever forgives himself.)
"This is the place." Bugsby told him after a moment, the pair of them standing in front of a house covered in decorations of all sorts in spite of all the lights being off. "Leave her on the porch, in front of the door."
"Very well." He nodded, before making his way up the cement path as Bugsby stayed by his side.
Once he set the girl on the ground, Bugsby stared at the door for a moment before raising a hand and banging his fist on the door with enough force to wake the neighborhood. An act he repeated until some of the lights inside began to turn on.
"Alright, we need to go before anyone sees us here." The boy told him, taking off in a sprint.
"Oh, you don't intend to take credit for your good deeds?" He wondered, as he easily followed after with his long legged gait. "I mean why run when you saved the girl's life?"
"Because I'm the reason he even managed to catch her." Bugsby answered as he slid into a hiding spot and turned to watch the house behind them.
Following suit, they both watched as a dark haired man and a blonde woman step out of the house, the pair breaking down into tears upon finding the girl -their daughter- unconscious on the ground, before slowly panicking as she didn't wake.
"Alright, from here her parents will take her to the hospital and they'll take care of the drug… he used on her." Bugsby assured him, only stepping into the open once the couple had run back inside. "All that's left is to… clean things up in the basement…" The boy looked his way with eyes so very tired for one his age. "Can you… can you help with that?"
(Pride: We could melt it with some household chemicals.)
(Greed: Or sell it on the black market.)
(Lust: Ooh, we could frame it as an accident!)
(Envy: Magic can do a lot with a bit of time.)
(Gluttony: I'm still hungry. Let's just eat the thing.)
(Wrath: Fire tends to work when there's a lot of evidence.)
(Sloth: Easiest way is to just take it and dump it somewhere.)
"I do believe that's within my skill set." He grinned.
---
Thank You
-James Walsh
-Rush99999
-Kcx1
How do we handle the dead body?
[]- Destroy it. (+Pride)
[]-Sell it. (+Greed)
[]-Fake it. (+Lust)
[]-Magic it. (+Envy)
[]-Eat it. (+Gluttony)
[]-Burn it. (+Wrath)
[]-Dump it. (Sloth)
---
Reminder, we're still playing catch up.
Infernal Contract: Bugsby, The Dark Apprentice (II)New
Infernal Contract: Bugsby, The Dark Apprentice (II)
--- Booker H. Freeman ---
Returning to the scene of his young summoner's crime was a quiet affair, the boy clearly not wanting to do this but feeling like he had to.
(Wrath: It's something we can respect.)
(Pride: After all, if something needs doing then someone needs to do it.)
Still, this return trip allowed him to actually see the public front of the building they were working out of, and as he saw the sign with some kind of delightfully smiling bear mascot he couldn't help ask, "Bugsby's Arcade And Biz?"
Bugsby the boy, grimaced and told him to "Shut up." before heading towards the back entrance.
He merely followed with an amused grin as they re-entered the workshop full of machinery he could not recognize. Be it due to his lacking memories or just not having seen them before, he didn't know.
(Pride: It's hard to tell, but I can tell it's all more advanced than anything we saw in Ira Invidia at the very least.)
"So… what now?" The boy asked him, looking clearly overwhelmed as he took everything in, his eyes never quite reaching the stairs leading towards the corpse he'd made.
(Gluttony: He reeks of fear.)
(Envy: Can you really blame him?)
(Lust: He's just a kid and he's been through so much…)
(Sloth: Kids can grow up fast…)
He gave the boy as comforting a grin as he could manage. "Well, that depends on a few factors given the… nature and circumstances of my arrival."
Bugsby narrowed his eyes. "What kind of factors?"
"Well, given how -if I'm understanding things correctly- you were the man's apprentice, then you have a certain claim to everything in this workshop and an even greater one to the things in the ritual room." He explained.
(Greed: Especially since you keep what you kill in this world.)
The boy was quiet for a moment as he finally looked at the stairs into the abyss before swallowing, and asking, "Meaning I can set them free?"
He paused at that question, before asking his own. "Set who free, my boy?"
Bugsby's eyes darted towards him nervously, before looking away. "Do… do Demons eat souls?"
He couldn't help but tilt his head at that question, finding himself curious given what little he knew about Demons himself. (Well?)
(Envy: The soul is… ephemeral? It… can be anchored but not touched… I think? Um, Death deities definitely don't like people messing with them directly.)
(Gluttony: We could try eating but… Flesh and blood taste sweeter…)
That was the most unsure his more mystic voice had been thus far, and the most reluctant to eat someone the feral one had ever been. (Which likely means,) "It's possible, but not the wisest idea…"
"Okay, okay…" Bugsby nodded, looking like something inside him was beginning to firm before he took a look around the room. "I… I don't care about what happens with all of this junk. We can sell it for all I care, but the stuff in the basement…"
Rather than continuing his thought the boy started making his way down the stairs, leaving Booker to once more follow the lad if he wanted to get anything done tonight.
(Sloth: Getting tired of following… Didn't you say that all we had to do was help get the girl home? Haven't we done our half of things?)
(Greed: You forgot our deal is 'Granting power negotiable upon summoning based on the entity in question.' When the guy in the driver's seat agreed to help dispose of the body that got added to our contract terms.)
(Sloth: And you didn't stop him?!)
(Greed: I'm not scared to earn what's mine.) His greediest voice scoffed. (So long as everyone gets paid I'm not going to stop anyone from doing anything they want.)
(Hmm…) He'd need to be careful about agreeing to anything else as long as he was bound by that particular clause.
Stepping into the basement proper, he found Bugsby looking down at the corpse of his former mentor with a mixed expression. When the boy finally noticed Booker's presence he said, "We… we need to seal the body in one of these coffins…"
His brow furrowed. "Might I ask why?"
"Because Da- Because he was a necromancer, and… and I don't doubt he's got some way of coming back." Bugsby explained with a frustrated look. "Sealing his… his body in the coffin means he, it means it won't be as easy for him to come back. Is… is that something you can do?"
(Envy: Maybe… Given what little I can piece together, the theory at least makes sense. If the coffins were built to keep something in, then they can just as easily keep something out.)
(Is there anything we need to do that?)
(Greed: Another coffin for one, otherwise we'll be throwing away a decent cut of our pay.)
(Pride: And I doubt bathing a necromancer's corpse in power will work out for us.)
(Envy: It won't. Which is why we're also going to need more salt to form a new circle.)
(Anything else?)
(Envy: Other than keeping people away from the body? I don't think so.)
"I'll need an unused coffin and a fair amount of salt." He summarized as he took another look around the room before finding a couple of coffins stacked in a dark corner and making his way over. "These should do for the first part, but I'll still require salt."
Bugsby nodded. "Right, um, the kitchen should have salt."
"I'll arrange things while you find it." He told the boy as he tried to pick the coffin up, only to find it significantly heavier than he'd been expecting.
(Pride: You're going to have to use the chains and pulleys above you.)
He looked up before finding a series of tracks hanging from the ceiling like a meat locker. Tracing these tracks with his eyes he found a chain and clamp dangling near a switchboard of some kind on the wall.
With a bit of trial and error he was eventually able to move the chain around the room and secure it to the coffin, before using the switchboard to get it into the center of the room. Once there he proceeded to undo a number of switches and latches on the coffin to open the coffin, before turning his attention to the corpse in the room.
(Gluttony: Wait.)
He paused, his hands inches from the body.
(Gluttony: You feel that?)
(Lust: Feel what?)
His stomach began to growl.
(Gluttony: You're hungry.)
He was.
(Envy: Really? You're doing this now?)
(Gluttony: Ignore them. You're talking to me right now.)
He saw no reason not to.
(Pride: I see several.)
(Gluttony: Look, you've got meat right in front of you, don't you?)
He did.
(Gluttony: Surely no one will notice if you take just a nibble.)
He licked his lips as his mouth began to water. "Surely…"
(Gluttony: After all, it's just a nibble.)
"It's just a nibble…" He agreed, as his mouth slowly opened wider than any human could manage.
(Gluttony: That's right, so go ahead and dig in.)
The flavor was odd, at least compared to what he'd tasted during his time in Ira Invidia. Oh, it still had the sweet taste of copper, but at the same time it almost seemed to… lack something that his previous meals had had. A certain something that always did to refill the well of power within his stomach, the one that had allowed him to heal the many many injuries he'd received during his time in Ira Invidia.
Instead the meat held a different flavor, a different power that while not quite as potent as what he'd grown used to still held something… less filling in his belly. A problem easily resolved by continuing to eat.
(Gluttony: What was that?)
He froze, his ears twitching as he heard something nearby, not close enough to witness his fiendish frenzy, but still close enough to become one if he wasn't careful.
(Gluttony: Clean up. Meal time is over. We can't be caught now.)
Moving with a swiftness, he easily picked up the body and shoved it in the metal coffin, the corpse tilting lopsidedly as it was now missing a kidney and one of its legs, bone and all.
(Gluttony: Your face.)
His tongue shot out and instinctively lapped at every drop on his face as he slammed the coffin shut and sealed it tight, hiding away his latest crime just as young Bugsby entered the room with a large bag in his hands. "Will this do?"
"Yes, I believe it will." He smiled at the lad as he accepted the bag, before slowly pouring it out in a circle around the new coffin. "So long as no one opens the coffin, then there should be nothing to worry about."
(Envy: For him or for us.)
(Gluttony: Does it really matter?)
"Right." Bugsby nodded, his eyes never leaving a small glass pane in the coffin allowing his mentor's face to be seen. "This basement can be sealed so… So they shouldn't find him any time soon. There's just one thing left before… before lock this place away for good."
"And that is?" He inquired upon noticing the boy had turned his attention to the Demon.
"The… the souls in the coffins…" Bugsby answered plainly.
He blinked for a moment, his mind suddenly racing as he glanced towards the coffins full of power, (full of souls…)
(Envy: That explains why they're border is bound so tightly. To force the souls to remain anchored instead of letting them move on. That's… dangerous.)
(Dangerous how?)
(Envy: I… I'm not sure. I know I should know. I know that souls are part of my domain but I… I just can't remember.)
(Wonderful…) He smiled tersely, as he turned his attention back to Bugsby. "And pray tell what do you want to do with my payment?"
He wasn't actually sure what he could do with souls, but he saw no reason to let the boy know that.
"I… I want to make a deal." The young Bugsby stuttered out. "A different one from the one that brought you here."
"Hmm, I'm curious as to what you think you have to offer that has more value than a good dozen souls." He admitted, crossing his hands behind his back as he looked down on the boy, more because he liked watching the young man squirm than any actual opinion.
"I… I…" Bugsby stuttered, before taking a deep breath and giving Booker a determined look. "I want to take their place."
"You want to take their place?" He repeated with just a touch of surprise.
The boy nodded. "Y-yeah. You're a Demon, you, you can't get to the mortal world without a summoner, and, and… the old man, he, he taught me some things about Necromancy and other magic. And my family owns… a business that'll go to me since I'm the last one alive."
"An interesting proposal…" He confessed as he tapped his clawed fingers on his teeth. (Thoughts?)
(Sloth: A mortal minion could be valuable. Though as young as he is we'll have to work on building him up a bit more.)
(Greed: If the runt's being honest he'll be worth a decent amount in the future. Question is if he's worth the cost given how 'money today is worth more than money tomorrow'.)
(Envy: We don't really have any means of containing a soul. In fact, while setting them free might cost a lot of the power in the coffin, we should be able to keep anything they've left by being trapped for so long.)
(Greed: And how much is that?)
(Envy: Anywhere from a fourth to half? I'm working with only half the book right now.)
(Pride: Problem to be sure…)
(Greed: Still at the very least that means we won't be working broke anymore… In the end you're the one making the choice. We'll profit one way or the other here, it's just a matter of which you think is more valuable. Money today or more money tomorrow.)
He gave Bugsby a considering look, measuring his actual worth here before coming to a decision.
---
Thank You
-James Walsh
-Rush99999
-Kcx1
-Oenex
Patreon Choice:
[]-Make a new Deal with the boy.
[]-Reject the new Deal and keep the old.
---
Reminder we're still playing catch up.
Infernal Contract: Bugsby, The Dark Apprentice (III)New
Infernal Contract: Bugsby, The Dark Apprentice (III)
--- Booker H. Freeman ---
"You know what? Why not?" He laughed, appreciating the boy's gumption. "One permanent contract between you and I, and I'll set all of these souls free." He agreed, offering his hand and a smile full of fangs.
The boy Bugsby, swallowed clearly sensing the weight of what he was about to do. A hesitation that lasted for but a moment before the boy slapped his hand against Booker's.
(Greed: Alrighty then, let's do this!)
Power -one so very different and yet so similar to his omnipresent hunger- surged out from within his core, crawling down long limbs, and into the palm of his hand where he grasped the (foolishly) heroic boy's.
Busby's face twisted as the power creeped into the boy's flesh, slowly signing their dark pact as the power accumulated on the back of the boy's hand.
(Greed: Watch close now…)
He twisted the boy's hand so that he could watch with dark fascination as black and red lightning danced upon the boy's skin, his power creeping into the Bugsby's flesh and slowly signing their dark pact in the blackest of inks as a pair of rabbits one with antlers and one without formed on the back of the boy's hand. (The same emblem on my watch…)
(Pride: Our emblem.)
As the flow of power came to an end he let go of Bugsby's hand with a grin, clearly able to feel a connection between his power and the boy. A connection that while but a trickle, he could tell was slowly feeding into his own power once more.
(Greed: This'll do nicely~)
(Envy: He has no idea what he's signed on for…)
(Lust: A new friend!)
(Sloth: A new minion.)
Bugsby rubbed at his hand, before giving a (hideous) grimace upon catching sight of the mark on the back of it.
"Come now my boy, put on a smile!" He told the lad with a maddening grin. "After all, it's not every day that you save a dozen souls from a delightfully demented demon!"
(Envy: Not that we could've really done much with them.)
(Wrath: Better to leave such things to their natural cycle.)
"Speaking of…" He turned towards the nearest coffin not harboring a deceased necromancer. (How do I free these without letting all of their power loose?)
(Envy: Just open the coffin and break the salt line. In that order if you want to siphon as much power as you can.)
Keeping that in mind, he stepped up to the coffin and began undoing its latches in reverse order of how he'd done the necromancer's prison.
Upon cracking the coffin open a smidge he was flooded with a warm light that, (Honestly, that kind of burns…) He grinned through grit teeth.
(Wrath: This soul truly was innocent.)
(Envy: And that innocence is why it burns.)
(Gluttony: It's not ripe enough…)
(Greed: Are we at least getting something out of this?)
(Envy: Something, but not a lot… The heat is rising though. So we might want to break the circle before it becomes too much.)
He slid his foot back and broke the salt circle, allowing the warmth to rush past him like a hot summer breeze, and allowing him in turn to regain his sense from such an odd experience.
(Do we have any idea what caused that?) He wondered, as he used the coffin lid to maintain his balance while he shook his head clear.
(Envy: Given our own… Demonic nature, and our use of Sin, it's possible that a true innocence is… an anathema of sorts… maybe?)
(Pride: You sound unsure of your hypothesis.)
(Envy: I reiterate that I'm working with only half the book.)
(Yes, but how could a soul be so innocent?) What little he could remember of humanity, said that wasn't normally possible. Even ones as young as Bugsby and Lydia lacked this much innocence.
(Wrath: Suffering brings refinement…)
(Gluttony: Or corruption.)
(Meaning?) He stepped away from the coffin, allowing it to open. (Oh…)
Inside the steel tomb was a body, one old, decayed, and so very small…
His eyes drifted to the other eleven coffins as his mouth began to twitch, before falling on the last one in the center of the circle where he could just make out the deceased necromancer's face behind the glass.
(Wrath: He didn't suffer nearly enough.)
(No. He did not.)
(Sloth: Nothing we can do about it right now.)
(Envy: Beyond letting the rest free.) A task he wasted no time in completing fully aware of the fact that Bugsby's eyes were on him the entire time he spent opening the coffins and breaking the circles.
Something that became more apparent the longer he took, until with a grin strained from the constant burning exposure to innocence he found himself turning towards Bugsby. Only to freeze as he caught sight of the pale lady with midnight black hair and dark clothes lined with silver standing behind the boy.
His heart pounded within his chest, the organ desperate to escape the bones that caged it as his mouth somehow went dry and watered at the same time as he stared at the (beautiful/terrifying/amazing/wretched/delightful) woman in front of him, his every instinct assuring him that she was in no way whatsoever human.
"Who… who are you?" He asked, his question making the pale lady's smile grow.
Bugsby followed his gaze before looking back at him with a look of confusion. "Who is who?"
The pale lady disappeared from behind the boy before suddenly reappearing in front of Booker and forcing him to take a step back. Pinning him against the necromancer's coffin as she put two fingers to his torso.
"I'm not going to lie, I wasn't expecting to see you tonight." The woman told him, her voice feeling him with (fear/awe/hate/love) as she walked her fingers up his torso. An effect that made his heartbeat all the more apparent with each step, even more so as they went up his throat. "You know, usually I take issue when people cheat me but…"
The pale lady stared into his eyes and he could feel something inside of him writhing under her gaze, her smile taking on a (fascinating/horrifying/loving) edge. "You broke in such a beautiful way, I can't wait to see what you become after stagnating for so long."
"W-what?" He stuttered out with a nervousness he hadn't once felt since awakening in that alley.
The pale lady pulled his chin down until their lips were mere inches apart. "It'll make it all the greater when I finally make you mine again."
He blinked and the woman was gone, leaving him with wide eyes, a pounding heart, and a manic grin as he tried to gather himself. "Who… who was that?!"
(Pride: The keeper of all secrets…)
(Greed: A collector of the finest things…)
(Lust: A friend who'll always be there in the end…)
(Envy: The one to accept you no matter your sins…)
(Gluttony: A connoisseur who puts our hunger to shame…)
(Wrath: The only true fairness in this world or the next…)
(Sloth: Where wary souls can finally lay their heads to rest…)
"Death…" He realized breathlessly. "But why was she here? Now?!"
"Who?" A voice asked.
His eyes snapped to Bugsby, watching him with an odd mix of fear, concern, and confusion as the boy reminded him that he was not alone with himself.
"Who was here?" Bugsby repeated.
He wasn't entirely sure how to answer that question, especially as flustered as he currently was and the fact that it was clear the boy hadn't seen what he had.
"That doesn't matter." He smiled at the boy, fully aware it was even more crazed than his usual one. "What does matter however is that I believe I have now fulfilled my end of our little bargain… Unless you've more coffins stored away somewhere?"
"I hope not…" Bugsby practically whimpered.
(So do I…) He wasn't really up for continuing to burn himself alive at the moment.
A solemn sort of silence fell over both of them, the Demon and Practitioner both unsure of how to feel about recent events. At least until the Practitioner broke the silence.
"So… what now?"
He blinked before considering the question. (Is… is there anything else to do here?)
(Greed: Nope. Our deal is binding, and we've fulfilled our end of it already. We've also got a decent amount of… something to take back with us.)
(Envy: It's Anima, a form of life energy. Most mortal magic -or the safe ones at least- use it.)
"Well, I do believe I've accomplished everything I've set out to do for now." He admitted, seeing no other reason to stick around. "Unless there's something else you wish to ask of me?"
"No I meant… What, what do I do now?" The boy asked while raising the emblem on the back of his hand. "What does this mean?"
(Greed: It means he can summon us whenever he wants to make a deal, or whenever we feel like collecting on one of his debts. Though that investment will take time to mature.)
(Pride: Perhaps that Dimensional Drift phenomenon will aid us with speeding that up a bit.)
(Lust: Ooh, ooh, or we can take him back with us so Lydia has a friend!)
(Envy: Which would mean uprooting him and taking him from everything he knows when he's already in a bad spot.)
(Lust: Oh, that would be bad wouldn't it?)
(Greed: Not just because it means we'd probably be tossing away half his value.)
(Sloth: Yeah, he's more useful as a mortal minion than one back home. Here he can do work that we can't. Maybe even make things easier for future deals.)
(In that case…) "It would be best for you to return to your normal life for now. Should you wish to make another lesser deal you can now call me whenever you please, though I may pop in to see how things are progressing should the mood strike me." He explained to the lad.
(Lust: Oh, you really should not have said it that way…)
(Sloth: This is going to be a pain…)
(What do you mean?)
"Return to my normal life?" Bugsby repeated as the boy began to shake. "How am I supposed to go back to my normal life when there's nothing left of it?! I mean, my family's dead and I'm, I'm the one to blame! Me! I could've stopped this but I didn't and now! I'm a murderer now, no better than-than, him!" The boy glared at the coffin next to Booker before turning it onto him. "And to top it all off I'm now bound to you, a Demon who was happy to eat the souls of a bunch of kids I helped gather! So tell me, how the fuck am I supposed to go back to a normal life now?!"
(Ah…) "Perhaps there was a better way to have phrased that." He admitted, as he ran a hand through his hair, not quite sure how he was supposed to handle the crying child in front of him.
(Pride: He needs a purpose. A direction to keep him moving towards. Without one, he'll continue to blame himself and never work through these issues.)
(Envy:…)
(Sloth:…)
(Wrath:…)
(Alright, but… what kind of purpose?)
(Lust: Oh! He could make some friends to help make the hard times better! That way he doesn't sit alone thinking about all the thoughts that make him want to cry when no one is looking!)
(Wrath: Given what he did tonight. Perhaps a form of penance will sate him. We could show him how to properly deal with those that dare to harm the innocent.)
(Gluttony: Yes, we'll show him how to hunt down the monsters as the prey they are.)
(Pride: That's perhaps a bit much for one so young. Why not start him off with something more intellectual such as learning to use the workshop above to build something from the pain?)
(Envy: If we're going to be teaching him things… Maybe teaching him magic -the lighter things- will help him handle all of this. Show him there's still something good beyond the darkness.)
(Good ideas all around.) He wanted to suggest all of them, but-
(Sloth: Kid can only split himself so thin before he overworks himself and breaks. If he tried to do more than one, maybe two, of these he'd end up doing more harm than good.)
He turned his attention back to the lad who had spent the last few moments sobbing awkwardly, before suggesting that the boy try [Scene Choice]
---
Thank You
-James Walsh
-Rush99999
-Kcx1
Patreon Choice:
What should we have Bugsby focus on between visits? (Choose his Class basically.)
[]-Making friends. (+Lust)
[]-Hunting monsters. (+Wrath, +Gluttony)
[]-Building things. (+Pride)
[]-Studying magic. (+Envy)
Tie Penalty. (Hybrid Class but -Sloth)
Infernal Contract: Bugsby, The Dark Apprentice (IV)New
Infernal Contract: Bugsby, The Dark Apprentice (IV)
--- Booker H. Freeman ---
"You need a purpose." He told the boy.
"W-what?" Bugsby blinked through his ugly tears.
"You need a purpose, something to throw yourself into while you try and sort out all of these… messy emotions." He attempted to explain. "Which is why I shall be tutoring you on anything and everything that may help you find that purpose you require!"
(Sloth: I just want to say, I'm against this plan.)
(Pride: Yes, well your opinion is noted and dismissed as unimportant.)
"Tutor me?" Bugsby repeated in confusion.
"Quite right!" He smiled, as he began leading the boy away from the basement filled with the dead. "As I said, with that contract you can summon me whenever you require but to help you divert these negative emotions into something constructive with free lessons!"
(Greed: Up-up!)
(That will increase your overall worth to us in the future.) He mentally added with a roll of his eyes.
"Yes! Why, there are all sorts of things I could teach a strapping young lad such as yourself!" He assured the boy as they exited the stairwell into the building workshop. "Might, magic, technology, manipulation, and more!"
"And how is any of that supposed to help me?" Bugsby glared at him.
"Well, for one it'll teach you how to actually intimidate someone." He noted, unimpressed with the boy.
(Lust: Yeah, like how we just lean forward a bit and flash our eyes red as we look down on him. Nothing too aggressive, we just need some implication of violence.)
(Gluttony: A reminder of the fact that they're just food to be eaten.)
(Wrath: Or about the pain they must suffer to balance the scales.)
(Envy: Bit of darkening shadows won't hurt.)
Bugsby whimpered, and he blinked before patting the boy's head with a large smile. "Oh, don't worry you'll get the hang of it eventually! And if that isn't a skill you want to learn why you could still do all sorts of things with my teachings! You could become a powerful warlock, a genius inventor, the star of the show, a punisher of the wicked!"
"Punisher of the wicked?" The boy repeated, before shaking his head. "W-why would I want to do something like that?!"
He tilted his head in his own confusion. "Because there are monsters in this world who deserve to be eaten by bigger monsters?" (Isn't that obvious.)
(Gluttony: The food chain is only natural.)
(Wrath: And all monsters shall burn in the end.)
(Envy: Karma is a thing.)
(Sloth: And when it isn't, well… The extra work is just another reason to hate them.)
(Pride: Now, now. The lad is young. Uneducated. We can't blame him for being the very thing we're trying to fix. That would be dreadfully unfair of us.)
(True.) If the boy failed to meet his standards after being educated that would be an entirely different thing. "Regardless, it's just an option. Not one you need to take. After all, I will not be taking away your freedom of choice my boy, I'm merely offering you the power to realize whatever potential you desire."
"And if I don't want anything to do with you or… any of this?!" Bugsby practically growled as he gestured to the room around them. "Da- He convinced me that all of this was fun and games. That we were having fun and learning new things together not, not all that shit in the basement! How are you any different?!"
(Greed: He's been burned on a deal like this. He doesn't trust it. Doesn't realize we can't actually break our end of the deal without penalty.)
(Lust: Oh, oh! That's our in.)
He gave the boy a soft smile. "I'm different because I cannot break the terms of our deal. Whatsmore, should I ever break my end of our little agreement then that mark on your hand will fade into nothingness."
(Greed: We've a lot more wiggle room than that since we did free those souls. Honestly, that mark is going nowhere unless we specifically stake it in a future deal.)
(Ah, good to know!)
(Greed: You're not stupid enough to let the kid know that right?)
(Of course not!) He was almost offended a part of him thought he was.
While he had these thoughts, Bugsby stared at the emblem on his hand and licked his lips, before shaking his head and turning back towards the exit. "I… I can't deal with this right now…"
"That's fine, I've all the time in the world my boy." He smiled.
Rather than being reassured Bugsby merely gave him another glare before the boy's eyes darted towards the basement. "There's a handle near the roof, I can't reach it… Pull it down so no one can find the basement…"
He narrowed his eyes at the order, before glancing up and finding the lever. At which point he also noticed something else.
(Envy: There's magic coming from it.)
Letting his curiosity get the best of him, he gripped the handle and pulled the door down, ceiling the basement behind a wall painted to match the brickwork of the rest of the room.
In the dark one wouldn't be able to see the difference, but in the light anyone could tell there was a difference between the two.
(Envy: Or they would if it wasn't for the magic working as a perception filter. A lot like the one at the Smiling Man's building. It's not working on us, but it would be enough to keep anyone mundane from finding the basement without knowing it was there.)
(Sloth: Making sure no one will find where the bodies are buried.)
(Interesting, and handy!) He had to admit as he made a note to find such a useful spell for himself.
(Envy: We probably know our own version, we just can't remember it.)
He heard the sound of the door opening and felt his eye twitch as his smile grew tense, before following the boy back into the night.
Once he caught site of his wayward contractor he reached out and grabbed Bugsby with his magic, the threads of power rapidly fraying as the boy struggled in place.
(Envy: We don't have that much power without burning Sin… Not yet anyways.)
(Lust: We'll have to be careful if we want to maintain our role as a powerful Demon.)
Keeping all of that in mind, he used his long legs to quickly walk in front of the boy while doing his best to make it look like he was moving at a languid pace. "Now, now, where are you going, my boy? We still have so much to discuss!"
"I told you I'm not-" Bugsby gave him a pained grimace. "I can't deal with this… Not tonight…"
(Envy: He has been through a lot tonight…)
(Wrath: The first kill is the hardest.)
(Lust: Especially if the Necromancer was his friend… who was trying to kill his other friend.)
(Sloth: I told you the kid is overworked.)
The boy looked at the emblem on his head before meeting Booker's eye. "If you're serious about not taking away my… my freedom of choice with this thing then just… leave me alone… For tonight at least… Please…"
He considered the boy in front of him, one who had very well gone through hell this evening.
(Sloth: If you keep pushing him he's going to snap.)
(Wrath: People in pain are the first to lash out.)
(Envy: And the ones to hold the longest grudges.)
Deciding that for the sake of his future contract, he should withdraw for the moment he began to pull on the power that had been tugging at his core since completing his initial contract.
"If that's your wish then so be it." He nodded as he bowed with a hand across his chest. "I'll be waiting when you're ready to talk." He looked up to meet his contractor's eyes. "Just don't take too long, my boy."
With that said he felt a wave of heat wash over him once more as he was dragged back to his own hell so different from the boy's. Namely in the fact that while he boy's left him pained and alone, his own returned him to his young companion with a smile on his face.
