The Workings of the Mad (Tiffanian and Shrike)

[Tiffanian]

Re: The Workings of the Mad (Tiffanian and Shrike)

"Don't like it" Zahra muttered, her ears flattening, though she didn't make too much of a fuss and she wouldn't. She could understand the necessity of it in theory, and why the old cat wanted the test done in a controlled circumstance... but that didn't mean she wanted it to happen. These blasted aliens...

 

[Shrike7]

Re: The Workings of the Mad (Tiffanian and Shrike)

Huldah grinned at Sacrimony's antics, the last food on her plate forgotten in favour of patting and rubbing the half-canine happily. "Isn't it a good thing there are no more outside?" She asked idly, only catching half of the felines' conversation.

 

[Tassadar]

Re: The Workings of the Mad (Tiffanian and Shrike)

Spoiler

Zahra: HP = 60, PP = 44, EP = 41, Status = Fine

Huldah: HP = 72, PP = 40, EP = 40, Status = Fine

"Yeah, well.... I'm not giving you free room and board to like it!" Verja replied, ignoring Huldah's query momentarily. "If I have managed to produce a working disruption process for the control process, we can leave the greater aliens fighting all on their own. Think of how much easier it would be to deal with the floating ones if they DIDN'T have a horde of minions to sift through first!"

Sacrimony would pant happily as Huldah petted his head in the meantime, nuzzling into her touch affectionately.

 

[Tiffanian]

Re: The Workings of the Mad (Tiffanian and Shrike)

Zahra grumbled quietly, listening to the old cat talk about the possibilities opened up by his method. She was, of course, skeptical. "Wouldn' really wanna fite 'em 'en ev'n" she said quietly, not trusting getting into a fight with the magical creatures. "People die if 'ey turn up, minions or no." Of course, the equation would be much more in their favor if it were ONLY those creatures... but it would still likely be tremendously difficult. The greatest hope would be that severing their control over their subordinates would discourage the aliens enough that they would just leave. It somehow didn't seem likely.

 

[Tassadar]

Re: The Workings of the Mad (Tiffanian and Shrike)

Spoiler

Zahra: HP = 60, PP = 44, EP = 41, Status = Fine

Huldah: HP = 72, PP = 40, EP = 40, Status = Fine

"Yeah, well.... If we're talking about wants, I'm pretty sure the big wish would be for them to have never shown up in the first place," Verja replied dismissively in response to Zahra's complaint, "unfortunately, we have to live with the reality of the situation. So... How willing are you two to help me really? Will I be fielding griping like this all the time, or just some of the time?"

 

[Tiffanian]

Re: The Workings of the Mad (Tiffanian and Shrike)

Zahra grumbled a little bit, but what the old mage said was true enough. "I’ll gripe if I wanna" she said quietly, which was also true enough. There was plenty to gripe about, after all. "But I’ll ‘elp. Not any better options, nuttin’ else ta do."

 

[Shrike7]

Re: The Workings of the Mad (Tiffanian and Shrike)

"We'll help." Huldah interjected, speaking up a little louder after her last few comments went ignored. "It's the right thing to do, if you think it will help stop all this for good."

 

[Tassadar]

Re: The Workings of the Mad (Tiffanian and Shrike)

Spoiler

Zahra: HP = 60, PP = 44, EP = 41, Status = Fine

Huldah: HP = 72, PP = 40, EP = 40, Status = Fine

"That's the spirit!" Verja replied, beaming at Huldah. The old cat then turned a comically fierce glare upon Zahra and, in a scolding tone, said; "You could do to take a few lessons from her! Your attitude doesn't help anyone!" Clapping his hands together and grinning again, he spun on his heel and pointed both index fingers into the air, "now, come along! Both of you! To my teleporter! You too Sacrimony!" He started towards the stairs leading to the room where he'd done his experiment on Huldah the day before, "I'm already packed and ready, so you two had better be too!" The mechanical dog rushed from Huldah's side, only hesitating for a moment before parting from the gemini's side, and she and Zahra were left to follow in Verja's wake at whatever pace they liked.

 

[Tiffanian]

Re: The Workings of the Mad (Tiffanian and Shrike)

Zahra’s ears were practically pinned against the top of her head, and she almost growled a little bit at the old mage when he scolded her. She managed not to, though, only mumbling something quietly under her breath. The way he seemed to just switch moods so quickly and without much provocation was starting to really annoy her. She followed along after him wordlessly when he told her and Huldah to, towards the teleporter. Teleporter? Was such a thing even possible? The archer felt like they were being experimented on already. "We gonna need beddin’?" she asked when he mentioned packing. "Got ever’tin’ ‘sides ‘at ready. ‘at wouldn’ take long."

 

[Shrike7]

Re: The Workings of the Mad (Tiffanian and Shrike)

"Wouldn't be the first time we slept out in the desert with nothing, I suppose. Remember before we found those supplies hidden away in that basement, Zahra?" Huldah commented, smiling gently as she followed along as well.

 

[Tassadar]

Re: The Workings of the Mad (Tiffanian and Shrike)

Spoiler

Zahra: HP = 60, PP = 44, EP = 41, Status = Fine

Huldah: HP = 72, PP = 40, EP = 40, Status = Fine

"Uhhhhhh....." the old cat said at Zahra's provocation, suddenly slightly nervous. "You know, that might not be a bad idea. Just in case, you know? I haven't really.... Tested the gate function too thoroughly in the last ten years. Give or take. Why don't you two go pack?" And with that, he turned on his heal and hurried away, going upstairs and leaving Zahra and Huldah to themselves, the former slave left to reply as she wished to the gemini's reminiscence about earlier times when things hadn't been so.... Strange.

Verja was back downstairs in distressing haste, however, a large pack on his back and Zahra and Huldah's things all packed up as well, before either of them could even make it to the stairs. "There! That's more like it! Now, what was this about hidden supplies? Stories are always good when going on a journey!"

 

[Tiffanian]

Re: The Workings of the Mad (Tiffanian and Shrike)

Hadn’t tested the gate… in a decade? Zahra’s face twitched. What a bizarre man Verja was. When he left she turned to Huldah and shrugged a bit, replying "Yea, sleepin’ inna desert ain’t s’bad, but still dun wanna. Sand gets all inna fur." She started to move towards the stairs, but before she had even gotten there the old cat was back down with them, a pretty huge backpack of his things and then their packed up belongings in his hands. How had he gotten all that ready so fast? She didn’t really bother thinking much about it though, it probably wouldn’t pay to do so where this crazy old mage was concerned anyway.

As for the story, the archer scratched the back of her head a bit. "Ehhh… ‘snot a great story or nuttin’" she said quietly, "but I guess I’ll tell’t. Wasn’t long affer tha aliens came, an’ we didn’ really know much ‘bout ‘em. Was wit’a group a Sukuta an’ Anudorans. We was sleepin’, an’ somea dem lizardy invisible ones attacked. We ‘ad ta get out, quick, didn’ take nuttin’ we weren’t awready ‘oldin’. Tink all a dem guys got killed." The last bit was so casually said, a sad reminder of desperate the times had gotten. "We were onna run fer a long time. Weeks. No food, no water. ‘is was back ‘fore we ‘ad supply posts inna east. We slep out inna open, scrounged wot we could, ‘adda fite a few times an’ jus’ barely got away. Fin’ly we got to a tiny li’l village, ‘ad ta ‘ide froma ‘orde a aliens inna basement of a big ‘ouse. Mos’ ever’ting ‘ad been looted awready, but notta basement, an’ ‘ese tents an’ bedrolls were down ‘ere, an’ a lotta food an’ sum waterjugs." The catgirl grinned ear to ear as she remembered that. "Et till I jus’ ‘bout burst. Was starvin’. Ain’t nuttin ever tasted better’n ‘at cold canned shit. Dem aliens passed, an’ we lef’ ‘at village an’ went east, foun’ a diff’rent group ta fite wit. An’ ‘at’s ‘ow we got our stuff."

 

[Tassadar]

Re: The Workings of the Mad (Tiffanian and Shrike)

Spoiler

Zahra: HP = 60, PP = 44, EP = 41, Status = Fine

Huldah: HP = 72, PP = 40, EP = 40, Status = Fine

Despite the grim nature of Zahra's tale regarding the particular misadventure that Huldah had brought up, Verja listened with a wide grin, rather like a schoolboy listening to a new story. "That.... Sounds.... Absolutely horrible!" he declared, his wide smirk and the tone in which he'd spoke both in complete contrast to what he'd said.

 

[Tiffanian]

Re: The Workings of the Mad (Tiffanian and Shrike)

Zahra’s ears flattened a bit at Verja’s reaction, the weird contrast between what he said, how awful the story had been, and how happy he seemed to be while saying it. What a crazy old man. "Now wotsis ‘bouta gate?" she asked, somewhat confused about the concept. She didn’t want to really think of all the crazy machines he had tucked away in this tower.

 

[Shrike7]

Re: The Workings of the Mad (Tiffanian and Shrike)

"Like the gate outside, I think. I remember him saying he used it to get supplies during the time the aliens were all outside, right? Somewhere underground, I bet." Huldah added on, nodding sagely.

 

[Tassadar]

Re: The Workings of the Mad (Tiffanian and Shrike)

Spoiler

Zahra: HP = 60, PP = 44, EP = 41, Status = Fine

Huldah: HP = 72, PP = 40, EP = 40, Status = Fine

"Oh! Right! Uhhh.... No! No, not a physical gate! And we needn't even go all the way downstairs!" Verja replied brightly before spinning on his heel and marching down. They were back in the lab where the crazy old cat had performed his experiment on Huldah only the day before in short order, and he started fiddling with the machine again. "You didn't think that messing about with people's heads was all that this huge machine did, did you!" he exclaimed brightly as a loud buzzing noise, like static crackling but louder and higher suddenly filled the room.

"It's also a teleporter! And an oven! I even made it into a time machine, though I never really tested that. Well! Not... Successfully.... Anyway!" He mucked about on the controls for the better part of ten minutes, humming quietly to himself and occasionally breaking out into off-tune songs that always seemed to make Sacrimony start barking along. "Eureka!" he announced suddenly, breaking off mid-verse from a tawdry pirate ballad being sung in seemingly fluent Crolian, "coordinates locked in and ready to go!"

He slammed a hand on button and the machine began to whir loudly, its volume picking up steadily until it was almost deafening before with a crackle it went silent and a shimmer tear opened up in the air at the center of the machine. "There we go! One portal, straight to the city formerly known as Tyre-Kloth-Shen! Now known as.... Well, nothing really. Or I guess the same thing. They can't all be called Xidior!" he exclaimed brightly at first only for his ensthusiasm to gradually taper off, though once he'd finished he would grin and clap his hands. "So! Ready?"

 

[Shrike7]

Re: The Workings of the Mad (Tiffanian and Shrike)

Huldah glanced at the apparent teleporter, then over to her companion, giving Zahra a reassuring smile. "I'll go first, just in case." She said, glancing over at the older su-ku-ta to make sure, then walked into the portal, hands ready on her massive club, just in case.

 

[Tiffanian]

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…

 

[Tassadar]

Re: The Workings of the Mad (Tiffanian and Shrike)

Spoiler

Zahra: HP = 60, PP = 44, EP = 41, Status = Fine

Huldah: HP = 72, PP = 40, EP = 40, Status = Fine

Huldah would lead the way into the machine while Verja knelt down and spoke in quiet tones to Sacrimony, the mechanical dog sitting patiently at his feet while he spoke. Then he rose, and followed Zahra towards the portal.

One by one they stepped through the portal, leaving Sacrimony and the man's workshop behind. And then, one by one they appeared on the bottom side of a high dune, a crackling pop signalling their arrival. Huldah appeared first, her head buzzing and her limbs feeling like jello, but Zahra soon popped in right beside her, both of them left queasy. It would be hard to keep their feet, but when Verja popped in next to them he seemed entirely unhindered and unbothered by the teleportation. There was no sign of their destination, however, with their surroundings being little more than an expansive desert, the sun pounding down on them and waves of heating rising up from the sand beneath their feet.

 

[Tiffanian]

Re: The Workings of the Mad (Tiffanian and Shrike)

Zahra walked through the portal right after Huldah had, and in an instant found herself standing with the hulking Gemini at the bottom of a long, tall sand dune. There was a strange popping sound the likes of which she had never heard before, and a ringing in her ears that persisted afterwards. Her tail was as fluffy and bushy as it had ever been, stiff into the air behind her as she felt her legs wobble beneath her, her knees almost buckling… there was a sick feeling in the pit of her gut, an urge to vomit up all of the food she had just filled herself with, though she managed to suppress it thankfully. When Verja came along behind them with another pop he didn’t seem to be feeling any of those effects, however, his usual chipper self. Of course, there was a problem here, or at least it seemed like there was… unless their destination was visible from the crest of the dune they were beneath they had come in off target, and in the middle of the vast Anudorian desert landmarks were hard to come by. The archer had become pretty good at finding her way through it over the years, but the teleportation had definitely thrown off any sense of direction she might have had, so they were more or less dependent on the crazy old mage now… She grumbled quietly as she tried to regain her sense of balance, holding her stomach as she looked to Verja for guidance.