genessia | Addled in Attleton [closed- if you want in pplurk me and we can work something out]

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Addled in Attleton [closed- if you want in pplurk me and we can work something out]

Who: A bunch of losers
What: Go looking for a bounty
When: Mid-week
Where: Attleton
Warnings: language, violence, stupidity, etc

*~*~*~*~*~*

So Attleton wasn't Namur's first choice of places to visit, especially with all the weird shit going down- but a four star bounty??? Let's just say there were beli signs in his eyes until he remembered that beli isn't a thing here and they changed to red bill signs- whatever that is.

He'd intended to just hang out with Ace a bit, but when Bartolomeo and then Ted crashed the party- well, Namur figured shit's always more fun if you're getting into it with friends anyway, so what the hell. So that's how they all ended up in this upper-middle class house in the upper-middle class section of suburbia, also known as Attleton. There's no dead body to see- the woman had been carefully inspected and taken away to wherever the hell the Good Neighbors of the Neighborhood Watch decided to drag her off to, but Namur could still smell her demise, and the idea was that maybe if they were there, they could find something someone else had missed. He was finding it hard to pick up a specific trail, though. It had been the man's home, after all, so his scent was all over it. But after awhile he started noticing patterns. Rooms with her scent more than his; rooms with his scent more than hers. He decided to search the rooms that were mostly Alfred's first, just to see the physical locations he spent his time occupying. One of them was weird. Namur could follow the trail right up to a wall. Not like, a little bit back from the wall like someone standing in front of it, nor was his scent on the wall. Just right up to it, as if the wall weren't even there. But when Namur touched it, of course it was there, solid as any of the other walls in the house- which is to say, in his estimation, not very. He could throw a man through ten of these walls stacked side by side without much effort, they were so hollow and flimsy, but that wasn't the point.

"Oi! Get yer asses in here an' take a look at this, aye?"

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He would but he is currently parked on the coffee table sound asleep. He had been doing something, honestly! Just that his body decided it wanted to do something else.

Bartolomeo was slouching around the living room, a little nonplussed by Ace but by now he'd seen the nap attack enough to know that it was nothing serious.

"Eh? Look at what?"

He was only along for the money...okay, no, he was 50% into the money, 50% into showing off around Ace-sama.

Ted briefly wondered if it wasn't a blessing in disguise if Ace was as involved as little as possible.

Not that Ted's any ace detective himself; most of the time he stumbled into these bounties through word of mouth, being fond of words and mouths himself. He's suited up, natch, which meant the invisibility cloak. Catching killers was his raison d'etre at the moment, as the soul-saving thing didn't work out as well as he'd hoped. He's already in the room with Namur, mainly so he can watch him work and maybe learn a thing or two.

He...really couldn't. It was kind of adorable watching the big lug sniff around though, so that's worth the price of admission. Out of sight but not of mind, Ted spoke as if in the aether.

"No donkeys, I'm afraid. What did you want to show me?" Because if Namur's asking him to actually notice fine details, he's barking up the wrong tree.

Edited 2016-09-24 03:16 (UTC)

Namur pushed his fingers against the wall again, trying to listen for some kind of hidden door or something.

"Uh well. Maybe not look at it, but listen. Been smellin' 'round where this guy liked t' be, aye? An' his scent goes right up t' this wall, but it ain't on the wall an' it ain't like he's standin' back from it or whatever. 'S like he's got a trail jus' goes straight through, but far as I can tell there ain't no hidden door or nothin'. So look 'round the room, see if y' find anythin'... I'unno. Weird. Maybe an extra lightswitch or a key or some shit, a'ight?"

He wakes up with a snort and peels his cheek off the coffee table. With a yawn he blinks and rubs his eyes before heading to the kitchen and scratching his butt and checking the fridge.

"Yo, Nam-man! Bart-face! Want steak?"

"Oh, like a secret contraption!" He trot to the area. "That old cliche, eh? According to the rules of detective fiction, you're only allowed to have one of those. Any more and you become terribly hackneyed. Hey, I've got just the one who's good at looking through walls." Out comes his favorite mischief-maker, Gengar the ghost. He's taking a long, lustful look at the large shadow Namur's casting. He could have all kinds of fun with that.

"Gengar, snoop around a bit and see if you see anything fishy." He would. Mostly looking for things to eat in the raided fridge. Spicy food only, please. Ted, meanwhile, is fumbling around and looking for...something. Something significant.

Nothing takes. "Darn. Suppose he would've hid whatever you're talking about reasonably well; perhaps some high-tech, voice-activated pass--oh!" He leaned against a wall to ruminate, and his back hit juuust the right spot to make the magic happen.

Edited 2016-09-24 03:38 (UTC)

Keep lusting, ghostie, Namur don't swing that way, either. There's a quiet pop in the air, and suddenly instead of a wall, there's a stairwell leading underground.

"Better make them steaks t' go, Grill Pit! Schoolie boy here found the escape route! C'mon!"

The noise in the other room finally got Bartolomeo's attention away from puppy-dogging at Ace's heels. He smacked Ace in the shoulder and headed off. "Forget about it, we'll eat when we're done with this. Oi! Wait for us!"

Underground tunnels, huh? Now this is a party.

Forget about it? No way! He doesn't care about secret tunnels. This stuff is right here now. Though he does hurry. He finds a picnic basket on top of a cabinet and fills it with some ice and steak and beers and some fruit or two and is questing about for crackers when

...he notices...

and steps back.

It's dim in here but... it's a nice kitchen. Clean and well kept. There are lace curtains in the windows moving on a faint breeze. A cup holding all kinds of cooking utensils with a pink ribbon around it and...

A picture.

Ace picks it up. There's three women there that don't look much older than him. Smiling and laughing and holding on to one another. He doesn't know which is the murdered one but he can't help but wonder if her friends...or sisters miss her. If they're crying right now.

He carefully straightens the mess he made but takes the food in testament to things made by her hands. The picture he takes as well because that's important and then, at the entrance of the kitchen, bows deeply.

"Thank you for your hospitality, ma'am."

Then jogs to catch up with the others and hopefully they haven't left without him.

Edited (ahh boo boo you wanna pikanik basket?) 2016-09-24 04:06 (UTC)

Aww. Too bad Ted wasn't present; that might be the nearest he ever sees to a pirate saying grace.

He's flattered at the near-compliment, though it's clear he finds their subtlety wanting. "I don't think they heard you on Mars." Did they ever establish marching order, like a proper party? Oh well, Ted's totally going in first. He always wants to be first. Lord have mercy.

Edited 2016-09-24 04:09 (UTC)

Ted will be followed- and likely run into a few times- by Namur. Just because he can feel and smell and taste him there doesn't mean he knows exactly where Ted's personal boundaries, or his person, specifically is. Just don't come to a sudden or abrupt halt.

The tunnel slopes downward, moving through areas that they know ought to be other parts of the house. But instead, it's like they're in a cave, already underground, possibly underneath miles of earth. As they walk further away from the entrance, the light grows dimmer, until it fades completely. It's a perfect blackout. Hope no one's afraid of the dark.

Bartolomeo isn't last in line but he is toward the back, slouching along like he's not sure what he's doing there but also keeping an eye on Ace (so to speak) as they go. For once he's not running his mouth or anything, so at least the journey is more or less blissfully quiet.

"Ah cool, magical hall." He pops a beer and hands one back to Barty and then one up to Namur before slurping his own. "So what's this for? Where does it go? Why does some guy have a magical hall anyway?"

Ted took Namur's bumps as passive-aggressive ways of telling him to pick up the pace. "All right, all right, just getting something." He snapped a chemical twig, and attacked the darkness. Light! Glorious, Nova City Everlight (tm) to be precise. That ought to brighten things considerably.

"I know you're pirates, but is drinking on the job wise?" That's why Ted's here, right? Moral compass?"

And now he's suggested the arcane.

"Goodness I hope he's not a magician. Thought we'd avoid that in Attleton. What makes you suspect sorcery?"

"Shit I'unno, Schoolie T, the fact that we're walkin' sideways through an underground tunnel where there oughta be more house?" Namur chuckles. " 'Sides, they sell 'em in Fayren, if y' know the right people t' ask. Most a 'em won't admit it though. Shit's made for non-magical dunces like ourselves an' some people consider it a crime 'gainst magic t' make 'em. But a sorcerer's gotta eat an' pay bills jus' like the rest a us, so if y' got the money, an' the right friends, an'... probly a good chunk a blackmail, y' can get a magic underground tunnel in yer study. Sheheheh!"

It won't be long until they notice the ground gently sloping upward, even if there's no apparent light at the end of the tunnel. In fact, it's a dead end. What a bummer.

Dude, whatever else happens in this tunnel today, Bartolomeo is already golden. He's got a beer and cool pals, what better? He sips at his beer as they walk, listening to Namur's explanation, and then keeps going right up to the dead end blockage, like he's going to inspect it. But what does he know?

"Well that's bullshit. Unless it's a decoy, eh?" He pokes at the facade, trying to brush away dirt in the hopes that there would be some kind of panel, keyhole, or whatnot to open a trap door.

Ace nods like he follows but he really doesn't exactly. It's a magical tunnel and something something Feyren. He sips his beer and stares at the dead end and then shrugs, casually lighting his hand on fire and coming just close enough to not quite singe Ted's neck hairs.

"Want me to try and punch it open?"

He snorted. "Crime against magic? As if sorcery were sacred!" That put him in just the right mood to want to burn this whole thing down.

"By all means." Ted will just scoot invisibly out of the way of the fireworks.

Namur shrugs. "In some worlds it is, eh?" He flicks the vaguely Ted's head height area where he thinks Ted might be standing. "Find anythin' Barty? Or's Ace gonna get a chance t' probly cave us in?"

The light helps, actually. "Let's see...no...wait. Yes!"

While groping around, he finds something under a tangle of roots - a metal ring, which at first feels like it's tied to one of the roots but nope. He yanks on it and the wall before them slides out of the way, showering them all with loose dirt.

Bartolomeo is so pleased with himself that he taps his beer can against Ace's in triumph. "See? If you wanna get past a barrier you let the barrier guy do it. No offense, Ace-sama, I kinda wanted to see the Fire Fist up close. Maybe later."

"Great job!" He'll join you on that celebratory clink of beer cans and just grin. "Don't worry you'll see it one day, rookie." Ace fortunately remembers to douse his flames before ruffling Barty's hair, even if he has to climb on Namur's back to do it right-- and since he's there he'll just kind of stay there for the time being, picnic basket bumping lightly on the Fishman's dorsal.

"So now what? It's still pretty dark to me. Did we go to night time somehow?" Though that seems wrong. Ace squints a little and rubs his eye with the heel of his hand. "Man..."

On the off chance Ted ever has to bring these guys in, he's taking careful notes of whatever people say about their superpowers. Always have a plan to kill everyone you meet...er, uh, be prepared!

"Barriers? What do you mean, Bart?" Up the path, leading to...drumroll

The city proper. "It, ah, appears our man could be in considerably more places than we thought." Damn. It didn't make much sense, now that Ted thought about it, but he was hoping they'd find him holed up in some bunker for weeks on end while waiting for things to blow over. Now that they've the whole of Attleton to comb over, well, so much for their lead.

But as Ted took a look around, he noticed that they were in the stock room of some gaming store, like the one Yugi had. Boxes of games with fantastic pretensions, miniatures, and so on. "Why on Earth would a place like this have an arcane throughway to a killer's basement? This rabbit hole is going very deep..."

Namur shifts Ace a little, getting him into a more comfortable position for being carried.

"Y' doin' okay, bro?"

At that moment, one of the store's employees bustles in on some errand or other and stops nearly dead in his tracks, eyes wide.

"Whoa man, how'd you guys get in here?" he asked, then paled. "Are you robbing us?"

Bartolomeo heard Ace's comment and looked his way, frowning a little, but then everything sort of happened at once. The stockboy seemed more important than taking care of each other right then, and Barty turned easily toward him. There was a 50% chance of him being a complete asshole, here.

"Whaaaat? C'mon, man, that's so uncreative. Who'd want this shit anyway? Can't even fence it." He tipped a row of boxes off a shelf with his hand, letting them crash to the floor. He passed through the others in his party and strolled up to the stockboy, leaning down so he could really get nose-to-nose with him (which is very hard to do when you're seven+ feet tall). "You folks in this grubby little town seem to think monsters are the worst things ever, but how're you gonna survive if your store burns down, or the roof falls in, or - perish the thought! - some hoodlums break in and actually steal your shit. Who cares about a vampire when your business is in shambles and the rent's due, right? C'mere, let's talk about keepin' your shop safe..."

Excuse him a moment, guys, he's going to put this store under the Barto Club's protection. Expensively.

"I'm fine. It's just dark in here." He blinked again and shook his head. "Why wouldn't he have a tunnel?" This to Ted. "But if he has one that means he's hiding something big. He needs to get away fast and needs to be secret about it." Ace liked him less than he had before.

He frowned as Barty flipped boxes off the shelf like a common thug and then went nose to nose with the poor shop keeper's kid. Of course he'd known Barty was a thug but he'd thought anyone following Lu would be slightly higher class than that. He hopped from Namur's back, handing him the basket. He'd rather be on his nakama then not because something weird was going on with him but this was important.

"Oi, Barty, cut it out. We're not here to press them for information like that." He fumbled for the boxes and threw them back on the shelf, then elbowed Barty out of the way and not gently before looking down at the kid, blinking.

"Sorry about that. He's a thug. But do you know anything about the magic tunnel or the... the guy who had a wife like this?" And he showed the shop boy the picture.

"Suppose it takes criminals to know them." Oh, what a dig! He said it jokingly enough.

"Still, if our man is what I think--unreal, that is--how he has access to the arcane is a mystery in and of itself. Attleton doesn't have such things, so he'd need one of us--the real--to supply it to him. Or else these unadorned are more resourceful than we thought. And why here, of all places? Would that make him some sort of..."

Ted tried to think of a polite term for "super-nerd."

"...gaming...hobbyist? Suppose that might explain his meddling in the occult." You were right all along, Jack Chick. D&D really does make you evil!

He's a little jealous. He'd have to add "piggy-back on Namur and/or ride him like a dolphin" to his bucket list. That gave way to alarm once he saw Barty's rough and possibly insane treatment of their latest suspect. Witness? The terminology escaped him. Just what city did he think they were in?

Thankfully Ace, of all people, surprisingly turned things peaceful. Huh. The morality of these pirates is hard to track. He'd have to make a list, Namur, then Ace, then this Bart psycho. Marco probably being second-last.

He heard some excited people in the other room. "I cast 'magic missile'!"

-"Why would you cast 'magic missile'? There's nothing to attack here."

"I...I attack the darkness!"

*mocking laughter*

That sounded terribly interesting. But he fears for the poor clerk's life if these pirates have their way. For now he'd keep quiet and remain in the role of group conscience.

The stockboy remained frozen in place as Barty trashed the place, then Ace began to clean up, his mouth slack, but his eyes darting worriedly back and forth between the two, and then over to the actual monster they'd brought with them.

"Uhhh," he responded, quite cleverly. The photograph helped him out of his stupor. His whole body seemed to shake for a moment, and then he was lucid again. "I never really met Professor Bay's wife, but I heard she was really hot. He owns the store here, but we haven't seen him in awhile and it's weird cuz he usually comes in to do replenishment orders. I-Is he okay? Did something happen?"

Man, Ace, why you gotta harsh a guy's plans like that! Barty huffed and slouched off with his hands in his pockets. He hadn't missed Ace's comment about the dark, but it wasn't pressing at the moment. At least the good-cop-bad-cop routine worked, and they got...something?

"Geez, your boss goes missing and you don't even think to check on him? Dumbass." That's all he has to say, really.

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Addled in Attleton [closed- if you want in pplurk me and we can work something out]

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