Online RP Thread - For those still on Skye

Archive 33AR
#21

It’s around the time of the discussion surrounding the crop thefts that #23 gets an emergency communique from the skeleton radio relaying crew at the AoAN base near Hanover. He’s not forthcoming about what exactly is happening, but does say as he gathers his equipment harness, gun and odd single-edged sword that contact’s been lost with one of the remaining human settlements on the French coastline. He and one of the radio operators have departed on one of the smaller IronHawk class turbofan-propelled zepplins within the hour, spearing southward at the vessel’s highest speed to meet other forces on-site.

The initial rumours about Rochefort get to Hanover with the next day’s post, preceding #23’s return by a good eighteen hours. The IronHawk docks in the late hours of the night and #23 brings several soldiers with him when disembarking, none of them say anything initially but the thousand-yard-stares the humans all sport gel with the stories that’ve circulated all day.

“Naval base just outside the town didn’t report in the night before yesterday.” #23 explains “demon activity in the wastes near the coast has been down for literally years so they just sent a scout kite with some replacement radio parts, half the transmitters this end of the continent are barely working anyway, right? Except the kite came back in double flight time plus ten minutes, said that bits of the town were burning, no sign of life-human or demonic, so they figured they’d best send those more adept in sword and gunplay to investigate on the ground.”

#23 pauses to inject a dose of opiate-nutrient maintenance cocktail into his neck before continuing.

"Population of nearly twenty thousand, and sometime between the morning and evening check-ins, every single one of them died. Now, that’d be an impressive bout of mass-murdering on the demons’ part, except demons don’t usually bother going past their own claws and teeth or maybe an essence weapon if they’re feeling Urbane and civilized. No, the bodies we found were shot, stabbed and chopped up rather vindictively in many cases, no claw wounds or bites. Well, no demon claw wounds or bites, plenty of human ones, and the weapons that had done the other damage were usually right there in the hands of the nearest other corpse…

The physical evidence we found was pretty clear: They perpetuated that massacre upon each other, sometime around lunch-we think, based on the set tables and half-eaten food-just all went for the nearest weapon and set into whoever they saw first, with their bare hands and teeth if there was nothing deadlier at hand. Some of them had clearly been alive for a lot of the dismemberment…“
His tone hardens into irritation and mild anger-probably as worked up as you’ve seen him
"We don’t even do that to get information from captive cultists in India, and we definitely don’t savour it like that… wanton slaughter without meaning or objective is… unnecessary, wasteful.”

#23 gets up from the table and turns to leave the Taverna
"I need to make a proper report for relay to Gibraltar Command and brief the next ground team on what to expect, please excuse me."

#22

#74 hears the news about Rochefort and wishes she was more surprised. She’ll ask #23 about it when she sees him next. They were supposed to meet at the taverna, but a sheep went missing and she spent about half an hour trying to get the damn thing out a of ditch. Irritable and reeking strongly of dirty wool, she stalks her way to the taverna. On her way there, she stops off by the ablutions block to scrub the sheep dung out of her clothes. Alyce Barker is whispering to Mrs. Montcrieff; not unusual, as they are both washerwomen and live up to the old saying. They look at her while she washes her jacket.

"Everything alright, ladies?"
They look at each other.
"I told you, if you ignore Ms. North she stops going on after a while."
More silence.
“She’s under serious protection. I don’t have anything to do with it and I don’t know why.”
“She must be someone important,” says Alyce.
“Probably. She is pregnant.”
“Ah, pled her belly, then.”
“I don’t think Ms. North has pleaded for anything in her entire life.”
“Gypsy babies are right pretty,though.”
“Babies all look the same to me.”
“Well,” says Mrs. Montcrieff, “I suppose they would.”

They are quiet for a moment, and then Alyce says,

“So you’ll be off again then.”
“Um,” says #74. “Will I?”
“It’s a pity you won’t get to see much of your wee lass or your man much.”
"#23’s not my man, Mrs. M."
“Well, your friend, then. It would break my heart to leave someone as sweet as your wee lass on her own so suddenly. I’d be upset. I’d complain.”
"Not much point in complaining, Mrs. Barker. Where am I going?"
Alyce looks at her.
“Scarlet fever. In Bracadale.”
#74 rubs her face. The death toll is already up to about forty; at this point, it’s mostly children and the elderly who are succumbing, like the cholera outbreak back in India. It doesn’t sound like much but if it spreads to more populated areas…there are few children as it is. But she rallies. There is work to do, after all. She goes to find kerosene.

#23

Rochefort, you gather, wasn’t the first. What you overhear from the radio officers when they come to camp to eat indicates that several human settlements in Central America have fallen to the same… insanity in the past year. It was thought to be specific to the area and the work of cult thinking. Huitzilopochtli and Tezcatlipoca are, after all, partial to demanding elaborate mass human sacrifices from their followers. It was disturbing that large segments of several large towns’ populations had apparently been cultists for some time without it being discovered, but it seemed merely a region-specific variety of the atrocities perpetuated constantly by the deluded in service to their ‘gods’. Except now it seems that whatever this is isn’t just a local flavour of cult activity, the Feather-Adorned Man and Smoking Jaguar aren’t known for holidaying on the west coast of France.

Apparently, though, Rochefort won’t be the last. Because two of the radio officers came running into camp this morning (something about Torshavn in the Faroe Islands to the north), and now one of them and #023 are striding for the Aerodock Tower at that emergency-but-not-wearing-oneself-out-by-running pace that everyone’s familiar with. The IronHawk coming in to get them looks loaded with troops, unlike last time.

There’s a chill in the air that the sun can’t quite seem to get rid of…

#24

Something nearby is on fire.

This is what wakes him up. Not the pain in his leg that is growing sharper; not the sound in his ears that is becoming less muffled. Instead, he can feel the heat from the fire on his side, and there is acrid smoke blowing across his face. There is wind, so he must be outside. When he opens his eyes, he can only see grey shadows and grey smoke against a lighter grey background. He sits up, and a vague darkness that must be the ground swings into view. He puts his hand down to his leg and it comes back wet, but the smoke is blowing in his face, so he can’t see what it is. As he sits up, something grinds painfully in his shoulder.

He pushes the twisted metal grating off his feet and tries to stand up, but his left leg refuses to support him and he sits back down, hard. The sound is becoming clearer, now: it sounds like someone crying. He tries to stand again, putting all his weight on his right leg, and succeeds. He limps through the wreckage. It clearly used to be an airship. The wreckage is mostly burning, still - there are three bodies, mostly hidden by a heap of shattered wooden detailing. He finds a bottle of rum and dusts the blood and ashes off it. When he takes a swig, the pain in his shoulder numbs slightly. A second mouthful eases the pain in his leg, but he can now see that his hands are covered in blood. In fact, he’s leaving a trail of it through the wreckage, seeping through a tear in the leg of his trousers.

He sits down on a half-destroyed table, facing away from the ruins of the airship, and tries to ignore the man slumped just behind him. The man is missing an arm, and perhaps a third of his head. He ponders that he is lucky to be alive, but he can’t figure out where he is. The horizon starts coming into view, and there, rising over the ruined buildings, is half a basilica he recognises. That is St. Paul’s, he thinks. I know that. So that to my right is the Thames, and I am in St. James’s Green. He reaches to his shoulder and his hand lights on something hard sticking out of it. He closes his fingers around it and pulls, and a shard of metal the size of a chicken bone comes away. The pain returns, and he grimaces, swigging desperately at the rum.

It is at this point that he realises he doesn’t remember who he is. He knows London, yes, but he doesn’t recall who it is that knows London. There is a medic bag slung over his good shoulder. He opens it and starts pulling out shards of broken bottles, torn papers, the remains of a map (Skye, he thinks). The glass is sticking in his fingers, and occasionally he stops and pulls these splinters out. He finds a notebook and fumblingly starts to read it, smearing blood on the pages. His memories are there, swimming through his brain hazily, like people moving being fogged glass. Occasionally a hand comes to the window and clears the condensation, revealing a face. Amadeus. He knows this man; knows that this is someone else rather than him. He loves this man, but Amadeus is probably dead. He frantically turns to glance at the bodies he can see. None of them are Amadeus. So, he is probably dead somewhere else. Ireland. He opens his mouth and hesitantly says “Amadeus. My love, you are dead.” His voice is accented, and Irish, so yes. Ireland. He is getting lightheaded, now: the pain is too strong.

The gash in his leg is long and deep, and it is oozing dark blood. He turns and tears a long strip of fabric from the corpse of the man behind him. The pain is intense, and the wound seeps more blood every time he yanks the binding tighter. eventually, the blood no longer stains the binding, but he will have to find someone to look at it. The shoulder is easier to wrap. He takes another drink, and washes the blood from his hands with a few splashes of the bottle. He keeps reading the notebook. Incantations, diagrams. Another swipe at the fogged window. Callum. Yes, he loves Amadeus (had loved, he should think) but there is also Callum. France. Letters he could not respond to. He was leaving Callum’s side when this happened, he imagines. More names. Leo, another man. Respect. Admiration. Sadness, searching for someone. Heartbreak and brides. He keeps reading.

Songs, drawings. Amadeus, Esther, Jasper, Leo again, Moss, Jack. Violets and killers. A woman with a scar on her face and eyes that seem to understand him. Drinking in a pub on the Welsh border with a physicist. A name: his name, he is sure. Zek. Water, cages, Orpha, bullets. Sadness. Grief. Amadeus. So much about Amadeus. His heart is heaving now, thinking about a man who is dead, and a man named Zek grieving for him. He is racked with sobs, and his heart thuds hollowly in his chest.

Darkness is falling on London, or perhaps just on him. Whoever else was crying has silenced; perhaps they too are dead. Perhaps all of them are dead, #74 and Dahlia and Lily and Lewy, wherever they are. The true tragedy is that he is not dead too. He is the last one alive, Zek thinks, and he weeps like a sorry child, howls like a terrified animal, alone in the ruins of London.

#25

Sarah sat just outside the quarantine zone, chewing on a mouthful of her rations. Nearby a fire crackled warmly against the autumn chill and some guards chatted quietly. It was peaceful, pleasant even. Some people complained about the food, but it wasn’t that bad, the taste was almost non-existent and it was so chewy you felt like you had been eating for ages. Not, admittedly, that you had been eating a lot - the hunger was still there, but at least you tricked your stomach into thinking you were doing something about it. Sarah swallowed and yawned.

Suddenly there was a shout from the guards, and a calm reply in return from a familiar voice. Sarah reached beneath her seat and pulled on some gloves, then stood up and stretched before picking up a large bucket of lye and a neatly folded uniform.

A pretty miserable looking #74 stood waiting at the boundary. Sarah handed her the bucket, which came complete with scrubbing brush.

“Thank you.” Said #74 and moved behind a wall. A few moments later Sarah collected #74’s discarded clothes, and, while handling them very carefully, threw them onto the cheerful fire. Her gloves followed suit. The guards went back to chattering, but now they were alert, nervous. Sarah eyed them cynically, clearly they were terrible at identifying danger.

“May I have my clothes please?” asked #74 after a while. Sarah passed her the neatly folded uniform.

“So how was it?” she asked “Getting worse?”

“Yes.” said #74 shortly.

“How many are still alive in there?”

“I’ll make my report to the camp captain.” #74 replied.

Sarah yawned again “Alright. Back to camp then.”

#74 walked out from behind cover, adjusting her cuffs. The guard’s eye’s followed the homunculus warily, one even made a sign against evil while she wasn’t looking. Sarah rolled her eyes in exasperation.

Sarah and #74 way their way back to camp mostly in silence. Night was falling, and it was easier to hear some threats coming than it was to see them. Sarah, for example, already had a decent backpack full of scrap metal taken from the zombie cyborgs she had encountered that day. It was worth a few onions for the bounty at least.

“Thank you for coming with me” #74 said suddenly. “It means a to have a friend as a watcher.”

Sarah shrugged “I get to spend my days making sure that someone who never breaks the rules doesn’t break the rules.” She smiled down at #74 through the lowering gloom. #74’s face was cracked and red from chemical burns, her scar for once barely noticeable compared to the rest of her skin. “It’s the easiest job on the island.”

#26

Though nothing’s happened to cause it -no news of any mass killing of cultists has reached the island, after all, no slaughter of a demon prince, no victories for the side of humanity that doesn’t worship its opressors- Esther’s sadistic glee at making Skye’s populace uncomfortable is, without fanfare, gone. Just yesterday she was reprimanded for standing too near a refugee (an old man who shouts badly-pronounced Latin blessings whenever he’s within five meters of her) who was clutching protectively at his bread ration and saying, thoughtfully: “I wonder if that’s the loaf I put strychnine in?” Now…

Donald is sixteen. Not a bad boy, really, but always a follower, always wanting to please, to prove himself to his friends. When someone suggests asking the cultist whore what’s happened, he volunteers.

He catches her when she’s wandering through the Taverna, back from the pump outside where she’d been assigned dishwashing duty (even cultist scum can’t cause much trouble while she’s washing dishes, after all, as long as she’s not allowed to touch any knives). Her eyes are red, her cheeks puffy. One hand on her stomach, the other clutching her pocket watch. Everything about her demeanor expresses an absolute lack of interest in engaging with her fellow human beings, not even to take joy in tormenting them.

“Hey, cultist? What’s happened? Y’ain’t cryin’, is ya? Didn’t fink you was 'uman enough to cry, anymore, cultist.”

Without looking at him, without preamble, she reaches out and shoves him -Not hard, but it’s unexpected enough that he falls to the ground and by the time his friends have recovered from their own surprise she’s disappeared behind the curtain into the back of the Taverna.

It’s loud enough by the bar that it’s difficult to be sure, but if you listened carefully, Donald insisted later, you could hear sobbing and the sound of fists against a wall.

#27

TRIGGER WARNING FOR GORE.

The lye had dripped into her eye. The searing, ice-cold burn spelled the end of this particular replacement. Every time she moved her uniform would scratch off areas of skin, exposing raw sinew.

“Just a minute,” she said, and Sarah stopped. #74 pulled out her kit; a vial, and a syringe with a sharp needle. Then she rolled up her sleeve. The skin was bad, here. Hands and arms, in close contact with the infected and the dead, got more lye than anywhere else. From a distance it looked like she was wearing red gloves. One of the guards gagged. Sarah turned to him, eyebrow raised.

“Oh, heck.” The vial had dropped from her fingers, the rawness slippery. Sarah tutted impatiently, picked up the vial, and attached it to the syringe.

“Do you have a tourniquet?” Sarah asked. #74 looked abashed.

“No,” she admitted. “I got called out so quickly that I forgot.”

Sarah turned to one of the guards, and asked for his belt. He handed it over wordlessly.She tied the belt around #74’s arm and tightened it, ignoring the wince of pain this provoked. Then the syringe went into a vein, and the tension in #74’s face abated. Sarah packed up the kit, handed it back to #74, and began walking briskly in the direction of Hanover Camp. The others followed; the guards a little way behind.

The camp, even at this time, was unusally quiet. None of the usual bustle of people. As they draw closer to the camp, #74 can hear the sound of someone crying. Her pulses raises, and she steels herself. The fever has come to Hanover at last. My duty, she mutters, my duty. Like a litany, like a prayer, like a charm against a void that has suddenly opened up under her feet. Sarah puts her hand on her shoulder. A dark shape comes out from one of the tents.

“Lass,” It’s Bill. “Lass, something’s happened.”
“The fever?”
“No, lass. That lad…the Irish boy. The farmer.”
“Zek?”
“I’m sorry.”

She tries to make out his expression, but in the half light it’s getting harder and harder to see. She swallows.
"I have a report to make. About Bracadale."
He takes her in his arms, and holds her for a few minutes. Behind her, Sarah is tapping her foot impatiently. Her face is wet, which is strange, because she’s sure she’s not crying. She pulls back, and there’s a gasp. Her vision is almost completely obscured. Dark shadows under a haze of red.

“Jes-Lord, girl. What have you done to yourself?”

Sarah groans.

“You need to be more careful with that lye. Both eyes? Really?”

She opens her mouth to answer and suddenly her mouth tastes strange; metallic.

“Now then,” Sarah says, almost kind, “let’s get you cleaned up.”

“Should I make my report?”

“I think that can wait.”

The void is there, but she’s walking across it. My duty, she says to herself. She knows that what she learned from Zek, everything her gave her, and everything he meant will be enough to carry her over.

#28

On the way back from doing a little hunting Sarah stopped to read her way through the announcements. They were pinned to the side of the barracks, which were nearly abandoned now with the troops all being deployed in China. She muttered her thoughts out loud to herself, mostly so that people would know she was there. She’d almost gotten stabbed the other day by a jumpy local who hadn’t noticed her until she was right next to him.

“Don’t know him, don’t know him, never met her… Ivy, Ivy, that’s familiar…” Sarah pursed her lips, trying to remember “Oh yes, investigating those pirate cultists a couple of years back. Well that’s a blow for the Bodyguard, she was good at her job” Her eye caught the Royal Mail’s announcement “oh, is that what those idiots were building” she wrinkled her nose in remembered annoyance and ran her eye down the list of names. “Hah! The ugly hat girl.” Sarah glanced around quickly to make sure that #74 was no-where in sight before then allowing herself a sneer. “Told you so, idiot” she said.

Suddenly the sneer wiped from her face and she snapped to attention. After a moment she closed her eyes, listening intently. “Can’t be…” she pressed her ear against the wall of the barracks next to the announcements. She leaned back again “What is…” She unsheathed her sword and headed for the door.

The two radio operators left in the building stared at her as she stalked in. She ignored them, trying to hunt down the source of the noise. Dropping to the ground she pressed her ear to the ground.

“What are you doing in here! Who are you!?” one demanded. Sarah dubbed him Radio Operator A.

“Sarah Mosely. Her Majesties Bodyguard. Now be quiet! You seem to have a demon problem.”

“What?” A asked.

“It’s in your basement, for some reason” Sarah confirmed.

“You mean she left that thing here?!” B exclaimed.

Sarah frowned “You know why it’s here?”

“It’s probably Fluffy 4, Jake” groaned B “The sergeant’s pet. I thought the sergeant took it with her! Why did she leave it here?” the last word came out as almost a wail. Both of them were now backing away from a certain spot on the floor. Sarah pulled up the rug over it to reveal a trapdoor.

“She has a demon as a pet?”

“Fluffy 1 ate her cat so she used it as a replacement.”

“You’re joking.”

Both of the operators shook their heads.

“And it would have been down there since…?”

“About 4 months ago” one of them ventured.

“And it hasn’t been fed or walked or anything?” Sarah asked flatly.

“We didn’t know it was there.”

“So you have a hungry, trapped demon in your basement.” Sarah rubbed the bridge of her nose and sighed “Just out of curiosity, what did you THINK that howling noise was?”

“The wind…?” the way it was said made it almost a question.

“I see. Is it in a cage down there, or loose?”

Both of the operators stared at her in blank ignorance.

“Wonderful.” Sarah thought of the rabbits in her bag that she’d manage to catch for her dinner and sighed. Then she yanked up the trap-door and peered down into the darkness. The operators leapt back, one crashing into the chair and falling over. Below them the howling was clear for a brief moment before trailing off. The snick snick noise of sharp claws could now be clearly heard from somewhere beneath them. Sarah weighed her options. “Shut the trap door behind me. If you hear me screaming; get help. If you hear nothing for 20 minutes; get help.” and with that she flicked on her torch and jumped down. Operator B slammed the trapdoor down above her.

After a moment Jake said conversationally “You know, Jim, the sound proofing is really good. We probably won’t be able to hear her if she screams.”

“She’s a professional, she knows what she’s doing… right?”

“Right.”

“You would think after the sergeant got possessed by Fluffy 3 she would have gone off on the idea of having a demon pet.” Jake said to break the silence.

Jim shrugged in response.

“Speaking of possession…” Jake’s voice trailed off.

Jim pulled a small glass bottle out of his pocket for Jake to see.

“Good, good.”

Silence fell for a little while. Then the trapdoor lifted and Sarah climbed out. A glass bottle filled with what she guessed to be holy water bounced off of her arm and fell to the floor.

“Ow.” She said conversationally. The word carried over the clearly audible sound of a demon tearing apart a rabbit carcase below. She dropped the trapdoor, cutting off the sound of rending flesh and happy growls.

#29

Sarah crumpled the paper up into a little ball and threw it as hard as she could against the wall. Her superiors had made themselves clear; Lady Tatiana had made her case, and the emphasis on the word “lady” had let Sarah know why she was still here without her weapons.

Nobles, bloody nobles. They didn’t have as much power as they did before the demons leveled the playing field and the city surrounding it, but they still knew where and when to apply the power they still had. Trapping Sarah here without work or weapons was probably the compromise Lady Tatiana had agreed to because she was betting that Sarah, no matter how peaceful the area she was exiled to, would soon get killed without weapons to defend herself. Her superiors had probably agreed because they were betting that Sarah, in a peaceful environment and with her skill at sneaking, would live.

Nice that they had such faith in her.

Sarah snarled in frustrated annoyance. There didn’t even seem to be a blacksmith on the island to fix her sword, and gunsmiths were practically unheard of these days outside the Bodyguard. Not that Sarah had the money to pay them, since her last bonus from a successfully completed mission was being withheld! More noble string pulling at work. Next time Sarah would just leave her to die.

Sarah tried to work out what was wrong with herself. Many would love to be here, on this peaceful, stupidly beautiful isle, with few duties and nothing but the occasional execution of food thieves to remind people that they were close to starving to death. It was good here, why did she feel so… so…

Sarah leapt up and started pacing. Was she… homesick? Couldn’t be, last time she saw her home it was a barren wasteland of ash and fire, hardly the stuff of nostalgia. Lonely? #74 was probably the closest friend she’s had in years. Angry? More annoyed really, she firmly believed she’d live at least long enough to ambush Lady Tatiana one dark night, so this exile was just a temporary inconvenience. She just felt… bored. She was bored. Sarah didn’t think she had every felt bored before in her life. It was unpleasant and heavy and itchy. It made her want to execute one of the thieves with her bare hands just to alleviate the tedium. With her sword broken she couldn’t even hunt cyborgs. Fluffy (who had proven himself the derpiest demon in existence, even if he had shattered her sword) was amusing for a little while, but there was only so much of “holding a dead fox just out of Fluffy’s reach” that a person could play before it got old.

Maybe she could just sleep until something happened.

#30

Shifted to new RP thread.