Re: The Workings of the Mad (Tiffanian and Shrike)
Zahra trudged up the stairs after Verja, none too enthusiastic about it. They ended up back at the lab where they had tested Huldah yesterday, and he quickly moved to one of the consoles of that crazy machine and began to tap away at it. Almost immediately her ears flattened against her head as he powered the damned thing up cheerfully, a loud buzz filling her ears as the old mage babbled about the machine being a teleporter in addition to something that could mess around with the configuration of a person’s brain… and also an oven? And a time machine? What the fuck was he even talking about? You could cook food in that thing? Why would you even? She shook her head, trying to shake the thoughts out. She had to keep telling herself not to do that, not to think about his madness. "Wot’re ya talkin’bout?" she grumbled quietly, not sure if she even believed in teleportation. At least, not any that came from some sort of multitasking machine.
Still, she would watch the crazy old cat working on the thing, humming to himself… sometimes singing in a way that certainly offended her musical sensibilities, but somehow seemed to excite Sacrimony, making the dog-cyborg bark along as if singing backup. It made the archer twitch, standing back some ways and mumbling under her breath. This guy… Verja was going to drive her as crazy as he was if she stuck around him too long. The mention of “coordinates” worried her. What the fuck was a coordinate!? How was it relevant? He hit a button and the machine picked up its noise until it was almost more than what Zahra could stand, though it suddenly went utterly silent, leaving a bit of a ringing in her ears… and something opened up in the air above it, making her nearly jump out of her fur, her tail bushing up. What was that…? No really, what was that? He said it was a portal, though she wasn’t sure she trusted him about it.
When he asked if she was ready the archer began to check her armor, making sure the straps were set and tightened properly, and then dug into her equipment to sling her quiver over her shoulders, collecting her bow and gripping it tightly in hand. "Guess I am" she said, nodding to Huldah, okay with letting her go first… after all, if something went wrong and there was opposition right on the other side of this portal the hulking Gemini would be better able to deal with it than Zahra. She would follow along behind fairly quickly, though she was half convinced that this crazy thing was just going to rip them apart… or shoot them back in time or some other such nonsense. What a thing to do, putting her life in the hands of that crazy old cat…