WEEK TWO: mettle for metal; a bag of eyes for a prize

[theparasite]

Date & Time: 6/10 -> 6/16
Location: all over
Characters: Nightcap, various
Summary: a scavenger hunt with little sense and less sanity
Warnings: VIOLENCE GUARANTEED



Door, door, door. Fresh door.

Whose head was hacked to offer me a door?

Again and again it posed the question to the women inside, peeking from the cracked and creaking walls of the mind into a world that was not her home. That much was established; the stink of the place too much for any well-to-do Olvoski settlement. Too many beeps and buzzes and bright, stunning lights in the dark to be the world steeled against an onslaught of beasts.

Things like the Nightcap once was. Things like the Nightcap had become, and was still becoming.

And you, too, darling. Wake up! Come and see. We're playing a game. A game to win the door.



A game to win the door. There was now a purpose behind the pillaged, pulverized bodies the Nightcap left carelessly in its passing. Eyes, teeth, jewelry, colorful trinkets and curios just curious enough to be worth taking were collected, inspected, offered...and thrown away. Little piles built up, hoarded like a dragon's den of treasures, and then hastily abandoned to the next prize.

It had to compensate, after all: Some of the targets it had been told to pursue were simply...awful. A city of monsters. Stinking, reeking monsters.

You just watch, brothers and sisters. I'll win.

Comments

6/15: stockpile [SHARPE]

[theparasite]

The Nightcap turned the bag upside down, letting its contents spill and scatter across the concrete, bouncing off cold limbs sprawled in the way. A better mugger knew to leave the scene before taking inventory, but the hat-shaped monster didn't know any better. Why should it? It had very few consequences in the past, in Olvoski.

Here, though, was a different story developing. Yet like most creatures of habit, its behavior was hard to shake, even with the little shocks and jolts along the way.

It made the looting all the more a thrill, actually. It–

Oooh. This one is shiny.

[sharpe]

Sharpe was walking through the streets, down the alleys to try to find if there were people who needed help. Most of those he had tried helping were natives; he hadn't met many Transports around, and he figured that most of them knew how call someone to help them to get to the Clinic or the hospital if they needed it. There was that communicator, after all.

His thoughts and concentration was suddenly broken by the sound of things clinking onto the floor. He could recognise the sound of someone looting easily enough. He dove for the corner of the walls, hiding himself as he crawled towards the noise.

When he saw the creature, he paused. He had gotten used to strange looks around here, but there was an air of menace around this thing that had Sharpe raising his rifle almost immediately.

Without even thinking about it, he aimed and shot at the thing.

[theparasite]

All the Nightcap had for warning was the scuffling stop of feet and the rustling that came with a raised rifle. It dropped to a crouch and – screamed, screamed so loud at the sound of the shot going off, echoing off the alley walls. So loud!

Incensed by the sound and the scent of gunpowder, the Nightcap spun around as it worse, needles flying forward with the motion. Rude! Offensive! Sneaky! Something needed to be stuck like a pig.

Coins clinking underfoot, it moved, lightly on tiptoe, darting side to side before lunging forward, fresh needles in its knuckles thrust ahead toward its assailant, all the while shrieking and giggling madly.

[sharpe]

Christ, the scream was an eerie one. Sharpe had heard many screams in his entire life - men dying, women screaming their heads off as they were violated or their children murdered and homes looted, or little kids tortured by soldiers - but those were all human and nothing like this creature in front of him.

He didn't have much time to be taken aback. The needles flew towards him and Sharpe's eyes widened as he dove for the side of the walls, rolling away immediately. There were still two more shots left, and as he saw the creature - yep, definitely inhuman - leaping towards him, he fired again, and again.

Then he swung his rifle back onto his shoulder, grabbed his cavalry sword, and threw himself forward, sweeping the blade from side to side. Trying to take off, if not a head, then at least a couple of hands or fingers.

[theparasite]

The blade was caught, shakily, by a countering swipe of bone and metal thinned and sharpened, protruding from the Nightcap's knuckles. It had to bear down with as much weight as it could muster to slowly push the blade down, to lean in and peer at its attacker.

Every breath stank of neglect and rotten things.

"You're very rude," it hissed, eyes growing large. "Oh. So rude..."

[sharpe]

The blade bent down just enough for Sharpe to catch hold of his assailant's face- and his breath. He hissed out an exhale, his lips drawing back to bare them - an old soldier's instinct, in which any fear was automatically changed to anger and a willingness to attack.

He leaped backwards, giving one more glance towards the thing, and turned his back. He ran down the alley, sheathing his sword before he grabbed his rifle. Reloaded once. He ran zigzag, trying to not get caught, and when the safety slammed in, he turned around and fired. Again.

"I'd show you rude, you damned thing!" he roared. Not just for an outlet for his pounding heart, no - he was listening to the echoes of the walls, the break in the constant pouring rain.

[theparasite]

The Nightcap reeled forward, freed from the effort of having to bear down on that sword, and let him run off a ways. Shaking its arms out, curling and uncurling its fingers until the bones cracked in a pleasing way, it conjured fresh needles, letting them tilt and fall into place between its fingers, ready to be thrown.

It yelped and giggled at the shot, twitching away from the spark it caused bouncing off brick just at its side.

"Are you trying to hurt me!" it yelled, relishing in the echo, trying to sound louder than the shot. "Are you trying to scare me?! How mean!"

[sharpe]

Sharpe was used to noise; used to noises in battle. The French and their damned chant - Vive l'empereur! Vive l'empereur! - over and over until he was sicked of those two words and sick of them. There were times when Sharpe shot at the French just to get them to shut the hell up, and now he found it again - the sharp, slick feeling inside him, the urge to kill, to destroy, not because he was in danger but because this damned creature was just too fucking annoying to leave alive.

That and the fact that the racket the thing was making was helping Sharpe track him down.

He fired once, twice, into the darkness, and his fingers clenched down on the trigger- and he was entirely too shocked when his gun fired again, the butt slamming into his shoulder. He was aiming the best he could, trying to predict the thing's trajectory.

"I'm trying ta kill you, you damned bastard," he growled under his breath. Another click of the trigger revealed that the rifle was empty again, and Sharpe swore underneath his breath as he reloaded once. Ten seconds it would take, and his eyes were scanning the alleyway again.

[theparasite]

"Ha ha ha!"

Each sound was drawn out at a different pitch as the Nightcap relished the echo. The dark was nothing, really, even with how poor Regina's eyes had gotten with her conjuring scourge. While he fumbled, the Nightcap climbed, its heavy landings on metal and concrete almost as loud as the laughter it was mingling with.

High ground – it was one of the cores of the girl's training.

A windowsill served as a decent perch, and from there the Nightcap sat and flicked needle after needle in Sharpe's direction.