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

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

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.

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Click. Click. Click. Click.

The Nightcap's heels had a pleasing sound on wet, puddle-ridden concrete, tickling its ears and giving yet another reason to giggle through thin-grinning lips. The rain, too, was a pleasant sensation, causing involuntary shudders against the chill. Suffering for the woman, euphoria for the monster.

It was easy to get lost in the simplest of sensations like that, the Nightcap found; where did time go when there was some new touch, new smell, new taste? Did living things truly neglect such wonders, day by day? How frustrating. Did they not know the privilege of simply having been made, without a say in the matter? Not so for the Nightcap, no. No...

Certainly not so.

The street it click-clicked loudly down was empty at that late hour, and the monster had once again surrendered to the glorious smell and feel of rain, of chilly, wet clothes against the skin, and the taste of something faintly foul in the water.

The Nightcap grunted, pushing its loot into a more compact pile against the wall. It was a fair bit of real estate, as far as it was concerned: a small bit of square footage for some honest, modest living.

It took care of that right away: man and man and woman and child had not been much of a challenge to subdue, and truly found their real value in their new roles as makeshift models – massacred mannequins sporting the goods the Nightcap ultimately decided not to wear itself. Such a process lasted hours, given how quickly its attention flitted and fluttered to the nearest glinting bauble or strange-smelling shape in its reach.

It was very hard to think outside of its own interest, yet it tried. It tried...

Which of these things will please him? My prize...

The rummaging went on, ignorant of the world just outside the broken door.

The Nightcap breathed in deep, fighting against a sticky, thick feeling in its lungs; it was poor keeper of Darkov health. Regina Darkov's face, arms, and hands already wore the long-living scourge of too much of a hunter's work afield, though the killing those hands had brought was not for the bettering of mankind's chances anymore. Not while the beast clung fiercely to her skull and bored a little further into her brain, hungrily soaking up all sense of sense, outward and inward.

"Oh..."

Wait. I smell. I smellll...

The skin on the back of Regina's neck began to prickle with the telltale sign.

Some foul presence...

From its perch atop a forgotten second floor in some forgotten building, it fidgeted, crouching out the sill and searching, sniffing, squinting.

It had taken days for the Nightcap to get it right. A number of encounters, scuffles, and, well...you know. Shiny, interesting things had gotten well in the way of its actual goals. Door. Prize. Game. Win. It was hard to keep track, and harder still to plan ahead. The Nightcap was still but a few months alive, still finding its comforts and habits...and habitually falling out of them for new ones, as a child would with an array of eccentric, attention-grabbing toys.

There were a lot of toys in Exsilium. Shiny things. Interesting clothes. Horrible smells and astounding tastes. And lots of--

No.

Stop.

Pay attention.

The Nightcap stiffened, standing straight and still in the room it had broken into. It was...

Boring.

This is boring.

Wait. No.

Think of the door. The medallion...

Right. There was a reason to be here, a reason to-- ooh. What was that?

It can go without saying the Nightcap spent a good forty minutes rummaging in through the apartment two dead guys and a born-again Darkov called a bit of home. Thoroughly pleased with itself and touting a noisy, rattling bag of assorted items, the Nightcap was practically skipping down the street, banking sharply away from the main streets out of the hold. It knew a little of how to be discreet.

Kind of.

The clinking and jingling in the back was so amusing, though, it couldn't help but be a little giddy!

My, but this man was noisy. And fat. The Nightcap snorted, sitting up and holding the his arm in place while the rest of him shuddered and tried to flail, pinned on the ground beneath it. Legs straddled his waist where he lay on his side, face pressed against the ground, muffling his obnoxious wailing.

"You're going to upset all the neighbors," the Nightcap uttered dimly, tiredly from under all that noise. It sighed, holding up the broken eyeglasses it had snatched off his face, tilting them in the dim light of his bedroom. Cracked, but still gleaming. Lovely.

But not enough.

It took another slow look around the bedroom, surveying the upturned furniture, the torn bedding, the broken, half-opened window it had burst through from the roof across the alley...

If I were to trade my door to that other side, would any of this be worth giving it up?

Hardly.

The Nightcap sighed again, then grew aware of the man struggling beneath it once more. Irritated, it conjured a needle, twirled it into its fist, and sent it sailing down into and around his ear.

"DO! Shut! UP!" it yelled over his shrieking.

"Late. Laaaate."

He is late.

The Nightcap was practically itching with impatience, well on edge from days and days of...activity. And beatings. And now, finally reaching the peak of all that, finally within grasp of that medallion. Martin's. Little brother. So very close.

But he was late. Late!

Fingers curled too tightly around the handles of the overstuffed bag dangling before it. Smelling, soaked through with...something probably best left not known. Heavy. Gifts. Prizes. Prizes in exchange for a real prize.

"Late."

Catsovi had picked a crumbling, abandoned building out at the edge of the city to meet -- and he hated it here already, because he could see the very tiny, very faint silhouette of the misery wheeling out on the horizon, fading in and out of the fog and the rain, aimless and useless and absolutely revolting, even from afar. The very knowledge that every step was taking him a little closer towards it was enough to set Cat on edge.

And Catsovi was still sick, to boot.

So Cat arrived at the meeting spot already in a foul mood, shivering, scowling.

"You're early," Cat snapped, in response to the Nightcap's muttering. He swept past it, kicked at a broken-down chair sitting in the middle of the room, hooked an ankle around one of its leg, and dragged it around to sit upon.

That done, he crossed his legs and folded his hands and looked directly at the Nightcap. His eyes flicked briefly to its bag.

"What do you have?"

Syllona walked down the hall of the dusty place, done for the day with practicing. It was nearly dark out, after all! She'd been just about to hurry off through the living room and out the front door when there was the shuffle and clatter of... Something Moving in there. To her own credit, she didn't cry out, though that's owed a great deal to shock. Behind the door she peeks one wide, blinking eye out to see, taking in the scene there, trying to make quick and puzzled sense of it. Who? Why?

Corpses, strange things all over the floor, this woman crouched over them... Adrenaline spikes and her heart screams for her to move now, leave, run for it but for just a few seconds more she hesitates. Hesitation in the form of morbid curiosity-- A murderer for sure, but what were they doing? Were they... were they...playing with the bodies? Like dolls?

The book, hugged close in her arms, was still warm with magic in that strange way it always was when she had practiced for long. Syllona squeezed it, pressed it tightly to her chest and breathed. Could she make it, maybe, if she ran past?

There's no sound of being followed, no human-made shadow lurking along after the woman alone on the street. No, no human shadow at all, but several smaller ones. A handful of large black cats with bright green eyes, luminous in the night, move through the darkness after the creature who's wandered into their new territory.

Their?

No, her. Only one. Many bodies, but a single mind behind them all, issuing simple instructions to follow. There's no animal instinct behind it, though. The smell of the Nightcap strikes Mallory as... off... but why, she can't decide. There's no residual uneasiness for her to fall back on, to tell her the woman she stalks is dangerous. Right now, all she sees is an easy scare and therefore an easy meal, alone in an abandoned street, and so she makes her move.

One of the cat bodies slide from one shadow to another, one ahead of the Nightcap. There, it wanders out into its path up ahead, somewhere visible, stopping there to squint in that bored way cats have about them at her. Bait, for now. The remaining cats begin closing in on one another, to form a group still well behind.

"Trinkets."

There was a loose definition of trinkets at play here: After circling the chair Catsovi had settled in, the Nightcap extended the bag toward him and unceremoniously let it go, letting it drop heavily at his feet. There were various sounds upon impact, and none of it light.

Watches. Necklaces. Bracelets. A shoe with a colorful set of laces. Eyes – green, blue, hazel. Teeth – a crocodile's, a child's, a cat's. Fur. Pages from books with interesting or odd images on them, torn from travel. Silverware. Orange rinds.

It was like a voodoo flea market in a bag. And it stank.

Little beasts without the stink of Olvoski rot. Whether they were even there was a good question to ask, despite the dramatic differences Exsilium posed to the monster and Regina Darkov's own expertise.

There is a lingering notion, however, of something near. Something that could pose a threat. The Nightcap was aware, yet not rattled or compelled to understand so quickly. Much of that had to do with the new shape in front of it, sitting and eying it.

The Nightcap stopped, arms slack at its sides, head tilting slowly to one side.

Small. Fur...

Little girl, is that you?

What was warm to Syllona was a rancid odor to the Nightcap, and much more prominent in its sudden arrival than the smells that came with the death in the room.

There is a long stretch of wicked silence, with the Nightcap holding in the breath that had alerted it to something new. The spoon it had lifted was held dangling, pinched between finger and thumb, and was the chime sounding the end of that quiet. It fell and clinked loudly against the pile of metal and cloth on the floor.

Without words, without warning, the hand that had held that spoon was flung around, sending needles sailing in Syllona's direction, lining the door frame she had appeared by.

THUNKTHUNKTHUNK.

Now she cries out, a short, squeal of a scream that cuts into gasping as the door is SLAMMED shut. And not even a hair of a second is wasted after that in her flight to escape. Her feet bolt down the hall, but Syllona knows to think quickly, twisting and pushing knobs of the closet and kitchen door open as she passes by, letting them swing inward. Distractions, obstacles. Anything to buy seconds of time.

But the third door was already open, and she thanks her lucky stars, sliding her sandles hard into the flooring so she doesn't lose balance on the turn. It's someone's old study, cluttered, and dusty. There's the desk, and piles of books for good hiding, but its all too much paper, too much potential noise. The last option is the armchair, and she crouches low behind it, pressed close to cobwebs and things with one hand cupping her strained and rapid breathes.

No... oh no, how would she reach the door out now?

A stop was exactly what Mallory had wanted. Behind the woman, the remaining cats converged and pressed themselves against one another, their little bodies losing individual shapes to briefly become a single growing mass of black fur.

The cat ahead of the Nightcap, the one that had stood still for that moment, suddenly took off again. It ran towards the woman, intending to either dash straight through the Nightcap's legs or simply around her, prepared to throw itself straight into the reforming mass.

A reforming mass that had begun taking on a distinct shape again. Still cat-like, with the same burning green eyes set in black fur. Perhaps a panther or some other kind of larger wildcat, with lips curling back from sharp, yellow, crooked teeth into a snarl.

Catsovi's eyes widened, and then he burst out laughing.

"Why, look what the cat dragged in!" he exclaimed, rubbing his hands together. "Everything, it seems. How old are those eyes? How much of this did you pull from the trash?"

He got up to circle the pile, sniffing, not liking the smell at all. He caught one of the torn book pages on the tip of a shoe and, using that as thin protection, nudged at the orange rinds.

He shook his head. Orange rinds. Honestly.

"Are people trash?"

Silly question. The Nightcap's nose turned up at him, feeling a pulse of indignation at such a reaction. It'd worked quite hard! Much of that was stuff it'd love to keep and hoard for itself...much of it was still hidden away somewhere. It would've stayed that way, but Catsovi didn't look quite as thrilled as it had hoped.

"There's more. Lots. Ears. Fresher eyes. Beads. What do you want."

"Hoh..."

The Nightcap slinks after the flurry of frantic sounds, mouth splitting into a grin so wide it hurt. Good hurt.

A mouse, a mouse in my new house... It slunk down the hall, ears picking up those sounds muted by the distance, growing sharper the nearer it crept.

A floorboard groaned, as though it were waiting for the exact moment to mimic a horror film and herald the Nightcap's arrival. The second sound impressing its presence was the long sniff it gave upon poking its head through the threshold.

"Little mooouuuse," it sang through its teeth. "I smell you. Hoh. You reek..."

She truly did. Regina Darkov's skin was prickling.

It was quite the unusual sight! There was little in the Nightcap's experience – little in Regina's – to really compare to it. From watching a cat dart between its legs, under that shredded skirt, to turn and find such a disgusting, shifting mass solidifying before it...chills ran all across Regina's flesh, very attune to the danger that unknown thing posed.

Yet the Nightcap grinned.

"Hoh..."

What a beast. Like a lamyin with fur. Regina had slaughtered many of those. Many.

Needles slid out from her knuckles even as her arms dangled slack.

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 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.

Augmented Reality made the search for UE Agents easier than it might have been otherwise. With his visor down, Raiden bounded from rooftop to rooftop, watching people on the streets. Even walls could not block his vision of their vitals and movements.

...So many were sick. It was tragic, really. And disgusting. In less than two months the United Earth had destroyed a world, killed a man he'd come to respect, and spread a plague that was quickly consuming men, women and children across the island. The hate Raiden felt rising in his belly was so intense it was almost absurd. The United Earth Empire was so horrible it could not be real...

...But it was real. So it could be hated.

He was mulling over these dark thoughts when he saw someone lurching about in the building across the alley from him. Without even a pause for breath, he catapulted himself from his perch and smashed through what was left of the window. The someone was a ...woman? A woman with a maniacal grin who was gleefully shouting at the shrieking man below her.

"STOP!"

Raiden's own voice came out in a bellow that he hoped sounded intimidating.

That was the wrong reaction Mallory had been looking for. She wanted fear; a scream, a panic, a brief chase before she vanished again into the night. This was wrong, all wrong, and only now was she spotting warning signs she could have done with much earlier.

The snarl of the beast vanished, teeth consumed by black lips once more, but only long enough for her to prepare and issue a roar seconds later. Then she prowled a few paces closer, teeth once again bared post-roar. If that wouldn't send a human running...

Could be she picked the wrong human to mess with after all.

The Nightcap hooted with surprise, sitting up and twisting around toward the sound, those of the dying man's blocked out for the moment. It was surprised to find a fresh (warm? that was a lot of plate and armor) body so suddenly blocking the window.

The yell was topped off with a panicky giggle, mouth twitching at both ends as it surveyed...and sniffed.

"Hello!" it cried, nowhere near the force of the demand Raiden himself made, but it was a fair try.

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.

The Darkov girl's body shivered at the sound; it was darn good instinct to fear something that ominous and loud. Yet that was what it was all about, right? Fighting the beasties the humans feared. Noble calling.

The Nightcap laughed, reflecting on that.

"Yes," it murmured, smiling wider. "Yes, let's be noble now. Let's have a few teeth, shall we?"

THWIPPTHWIPPTHWIPP!

One, two, three sets of three flung forward. Long, thin, bone-and-metal needles whizzed through the space between them and sought something soft to stick.

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

6/10: turf [MALLORY BAINES]

6/11: a second game [SYLLONA]

6/12: precious stones worth broken bones [MADOKA]

6/13: the ladder grows a little higher [KOLTIRA]

6/14: a very bad kiss [RAIDEN]

6/16: spoiling [CATSOVI]

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6/15: stockpile [SHARPE]

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