taxonomites | 063 [location: the workshop (locked-ish for Ettie shenans) ] we had darkened doors

Entry tags:

063 [location: the workshop (locked-ish for Ettie shenans) ] we had darkened doors

Okay maybe something weird is going on, or several unrelated weird things. One being Sherlock's...whatever, no one's reported running into either(?) of him so that mystery remains. Glitch is maintaining his skepticism.

There's also the mystery of Madelyne's creepy gift-giver, which at least has given him a non-Sherlock related excuse to try and keep tabs on her. Friends in need and all that.

Less mysterious but infinitely more tiresome is the aliens' latest art installation, which he is giving all the attention it deserves: none whatsoever. Instead he's at the shop, hunched over a drafting table and working on a design for a remote controlled flying thingy which can maybe give him a better look at/study of the lighthouse beacon.

(Glitch is going to be building unmanned drones, Taxon. Enjoy that thought.)

So yes, there he is, going about his business and contentedly ignoring the crap out of everything. What can possibly go wrong?

OOC: There will be need for intervention at some point since ninja vs. demon is not a fair fight, though I have word from Dien that anybody turning up will make Ettie scamper out of a desire to not be seen. Yep.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

How deeply do inventor-geniuses get buried in their work? Do the tropes of being lost to the outside world hold true? Does the phone ring unheard, the knock at the door go unnoticed?

Relevant questions, because something is on the roof. For something as heavy and dense as it is, it moves lightly; yet all the same there is the occasional scuff of foot against roof. The scratch of claws against the exterior wall. The sound of skylights being opened.

Glitch is, indeed, that sort of inventor-genius. Or rather (as with most things) he used to be that particular sort. Meals? Sleep? There was a time when Ambrose would from time to time forego both. Now though...

It takes a couple random noises to half get his attention, but the skylight hinges' faint protest makes him look up to blink owlishly with a puzzled frown.

Selina? Could be. Maddy? Also could be but illogical. He's curious and just keeps himself from calling out to ask who's there. He does step away from the table, putting his pencil down gently and walking further into the shop. Catwalks, gantries, ladders, beams, dust, light and shadow. Can he see movement? Is he looking in the right direction?

It's funny how the shapes you're used to seeing every single day, the familiar shadows cast by this or that piece of furniture or hanging chain, can suddenly become foreign when you feel that there's someone else around. Or maybe Glitch isn't bothered by his cabinets and toolbenches and the hiding spaces each pose; maybe Glitch knows the shelter of such places too well himself.

Either way, a look around the catwalks reveals-- ...nothing in particular. There is, indeed, a skylight open that wasn't open before-- letting in the sunlight from outside, some fresh air-- but... whoever opened it doesn't seem to be in evidence at the moment.

(That's because the person [the term is used loosely] detoured around to the ground level after opening the skylight, came inside, and is currently lounging at Glitch's worktable, playing with the drone-in-progress as if it were a model plane.)

Should Glitch return to his workbench, he'll probably first hear the sounds of a voice-- a low, raspy, guttural voice-- making, uh, sound effects. Pew pew pew. Rat-tat-tat.

It's a toss-up, really. This place holds many memories, good and bad and in between, so all the features get muddled up together but now he's...focused, or trying to be. Skylight open, can't do that by itself, he strides to stand under it and look harder--

Pew pew pew?

Very, very carefully Glitch heads back the way he came and is presented with...okay. Nuada got the benefit of the doubt, as did Ax, as did Illyria. He's been doing the whole avoiding his tablet thing so maybe he missed another newbie and maybe they got sent his way (they all do, eventually), so maybe manners are in order.

He coughs politely. "Can I help you?"

Yep, someone yellow, and fugly, and horned, playing Red Baron with your delicate piece of genius.

The-- thing (demon or gargoyle or alien or whatever he is)-- turns to look in Glitch's direction, brows (okay more like horny brow ridges, whatever) arched, momentarily pausing his play with the toy. There is, yes, a prisoner-standard Taxon bracelet on one wrist.

"Ah, there's a question for the ages!
"But I think the answer's sadly negatory.
"After all, could you break cages
"Then you'd not be here in Purgatory."

The creature looks briefly pensive, shrugs, grins broadly, and resumes 'play'.

This includes crying out, "Captain, we're hit!!" and causing the drone in his hand to burst into flame, which he then idly chucks Glitch's direction.

"Going down."

Edited 2013-05-04 20:16 (UTC)

Rhymes. Munchkins rhymed but this is no munchkin, not by a long shot and Glitch tries parsing a reply as best he can.

"Ah, well, yeah, getting out's sort of been the great big myster--"

And then there's the...outburst? Flameburst. He has just enough mind to notice that the aerodynamics seem to be working well, even as his body reacts to the movement and to fire by very nearly back-flipping away. "Shi--"

Glitch stamps out the fire, crushing the model in the process but that's really not his priority now. He stares at Etrigan, all notions of politeness gone as he checks his pockets for his tablet.

"Uncalled for," he snaps. "Who are you?"

"Au contraire! Why, stagnation's all but won the war," Etrigan laughs as he twists up onto the table like a monkey.

"So my brand of fun is quite called for.
"I'll get your heart racing--
"Exertion is bracing--
"You've needed someone like me to come through the door!"

The smirking demon holds up.... Glitch's tablet, in a clawed hand, waggling it at him tauntingly before he kicks the worktable's stool Glitch's direction, causing it to erupt in flame as he does so.

His tablet, damn it all, he's become careless and maybe if whoever this is (when did he/it/whatever arrive?) has been picking them up - kick the chair to the left under the other table and there goes his plans for stop focus - Sherlock's claims echo back to him, as do his own tedious theories.

"No, I really don't think I've needed someone to come in and burn down my shop." Glitch edges away from the fire and shoves the panic away, takes a step closer to the demon. He has to get his tablet back, he has to get out of there, he has to find out who this is and what they want. "Foxglove, right?"

A shot in the dark but it might give him a little time.

Etrigan lets loose with a laugh that sounds as much like a coyote's howl as anything. One hand slaps at his thigh, amused as much at Glitch's wary step closer as he is his words.

"Foxglove, foxglove! No, not my name, sweetheart;
"I've darker things than flowers in my head.
"But what's in yours? Gears and cogs and parts?
"Come closer, mourning-dove, and I'll undo that silvered thread."

With that, the monster leaps from the table to close the distance between them.

The endearments, especially that one, are troubling but it's that last line which is most alarming. Nope, and now he's got another priority: keep this thing away from his head. So...recover tablet, put out fire/hope the sprinklers come on soon, run like a stabbed rat. Don't die, basically. What can he do to help that...

Glitch moves, based on the map of the shop in his mind. A sharp right, a leap over a pile of scrap, and he's at the counter where he was working on reorganizing the chemicals cabinet. Mineral acids - chromic nitric sulfuric hydrofluoric etc. - in a neat little shadowbox tray. He thinks of etchings, descaling, conventional uses...and then he takes a deep breath, grabs the box, and hurls it in what he assumes is the direction of Etrigan's face.

Then he charges toward the demon, totally focused on getting the tablet. And then the sprinklers go off.

(The endearments were definitely on purpose.)

Glitch's familiarity with the shop buys him precious seconds-- he knows the layout, the monster must follow. Etrigan leaps from floor to wall with little attention paid to gravity, those claws digging into the wall as if were so much paper. Another leap and he's grinning down at Glitch from the ceiling, where he clings upside-down--

--grinning, in time to catch a faceful of chemicals. Too busy showing off to notice or dodge in time. The acids hiss violently on contact, and Etrigan snarls, a noise more like an animal than anything humanoid. He drops from the ceiling as he claws at his face-- the tablet is visible, sticking out of a pouch from the broad black belt he wears.

The water raining down hisses as well when it touches his skin-- not the hiss of corrosion, but of water heating, boiling away, turning to steam.

(Etrigan you are literally the worst.)

In Glitch's mind, this is going pretty well. Sure the fire's not quiet going out and is indeed spreading a bit but he did hit the monster and it has caused damage, apaprently.

Part of his brain is considering the water and steam and thinking there might be melting going on. Another part doubts he's even close to that lucky. The majority sees the tablet and reaches for it with his left hand, the right swinging in to deliver a (very unsporting) uppercut to the demon's solar plexus.

On a scale of 1 - 10, a) how stupid is this, and b) how close is it to the equivalent of punching a piping hot brick wall?

(He kinda is.)

On a scale of 1-10...... we'll say a seven.

Because ow, yeah, that uppercut rams into the belly of a creature not of this world, not of any 'world' depending on how metaphysical you want to get about it, and it gives not a bit in comparison to what it does to Glitch's hand.

Glitch gets his hand into the metaphorical cookie jar before Etrigan's hand closes around his wrist with a grip like iron. He is touching his tablet, but 'touching' does not equate to 'will be able to pull this out', exactly.

(Glitch may not register it in this particular, adrenaline-fueled moment, but.... his fingers brush against something else in the pouch, something small and metallic and detailed. Or perhaps he does notice it?)

The demon's eyes are red, glowing slits through the blisters the chemicals have raised on his already-none-too-pretty face.

"What thief? What nerve!-- what does he deserve?
"Perhaps I'll take your head, instead of peek.
"Oh genius, observe; life's not graded on curves
"And your score, I fear, looks bleak."

Edited 2013-05-13 09:15 (UTC)

Inelegant cry of pain? Yes, gods yes, and if Glitch were a bit less concerned about the whole not-dying thing he'd be worrying about possibly having broken something. As that's the case whatever else Etrigan may have in his pocketessesses is not much of a concern, though it does get filed away as having a pokey bit and a rounder bit.

This registers because his fingers are trying desperately to get the tablet to boradcast something, anything, of the situation. The likelyhood of success there is minimal since the damn thing never accidentally turns on when you want it to, and also because he's realized he's made a terrible, terrible mistake and is working himself into a panic as to how badly he needs to escape.

He kicks at Etrigan's shins with one steel-toed boot and heaves the rest of himself backward in an effort to twist away, injured hand flailing back towards the cabinet in the hopes of finding a tool...a weapon. A ball pein hammer.

Does he get a chance to swing back around and smack Ettie's ugly mug with it?

Edited 2013-05-13 17:28 (UTC)

Etrigan grunts through fanged teeth at the blunt impact of the boot against his leg. At least the boot protects Glitch's toes-- but it doesn't seem to much inconvenience the monster, either.

A smirk crawls onto Etrigan's face as he watches the human flail for a weapon. Ah, survival instincts-- so cute.

He makes no move to dodge the arch of the hammer-- he only turns his head to meet it with his open mouth, of all things. There's a dull crack as the head of the hammer hits his jagged fangs, and then his mouth snaps shut around it.

Etrigan bites the hammer head loose of its shaft, turns his head, and deliberately spits out the chunk of metal and splinters of wood.

"That's one, two, three strikes you're out--
"At the old-- ball-- game.
"So squirm if you like-- go on, twist about--
"But darling, it all ends in flame."

The beast opens its maw, and Glitch can see a red glow burning up from where normal people have esophaguses. (esophagi?)

The moment is broken by the sound of a door slamming open, somewhere down in the front room.

"Glitch? Glitch, you in here? Fucking Christ this place looks like a shambles."

The demon snarls-- specifically on the word 'Christ'-- and drops Glitch's wrist as abruptly as he'd seized it to begin with.

Glitch sees, yes, but barely since the brimstone smoke is thickening despite the spray of water (would foam put the fire out? options vs. time vs. materials vs.) and stinging his eyes, lancing into his lungs with each breath--

Flame. Fire. This'll be twice now it's killed him here and still he's fighting, stabbing futiley at the beast with the broken hammer shaft.

Too close and too far away there's the bang of the door and his heart leaps at being saved before dropping since well now they'll both get killed and that will be pretty much the worst possible thing. Only the monster lets him go, and the release of pressure makes his hand spasm so he's not sure he still has the tablet or if it fell on the floor or back into the pouch.

He falls, bad hand curling around bad wrist, and lashes out to try and hook a foot around one of Etrigan's ankles and maybe bring him down or that's the half-thought plan.

"Here!" he calls out, but it ends in a choked cough, followed by "Don't--!" which could mean anything but the intent is Don't come back unless you've got a grenade launcher there's a hostile and also I'm not sure how close that fire is to reaching the gas line.

Get tablet, don't die, don't let Paul die, shut off gas valve, stop monster, put out fire, shift priorities as needed.

Edited 2013-05-14 16:43 (UTC)

Kick goes the headcase; tunk goes his foot around Etrigan's ankles. The power of physics can do many things, but tripping a creature that weighs three-hundred-plus pounds and can crumple steel with its bare hands is, apparently, not one of them-- it's a bit like trying to trip a tree.

The monster pays no attention to the attempt, head swiveled in the direction of the front of the shop, and the voice, teeth bared, eyes gleaming like coals. Considering.

After the space of three frantic heartbeats the demon reaches down, plucks Glitch's tablet back from his numb fingers-- adds insult to injury by giving Glitch a pat on the cheek that scratches three red lines down his skin-- and then whirls with a flutter of his cape and climbs for the skylight.

"Next time, dear! I fear we must adjourn
"As token of my esteem, I'll leave you now to burn."

The mouth gapes wide and a gout of brilliant, seething fire erupts to blast the floor and a few more worktables, the heat enough to singe eyebrows from feet away. A mad laugh, the sound of breaking glass, and the creature has vanished through the skylight.

Edited 2013-05-15 20:46 (UTC)

Paul is peering into the smoke, cursing under his breath, drawing the gun he's been carrying the past couple of days since this bullshit about duplicates or whatever. He hears noises from further in, maybe Glitch's voice, clearly things breaking.

Shit. Shit. On the topic of things he wants to do, running into a blazing building filled with god knows what flammable chemicals Glitch may have stored in here is not his idea of a party.

There's an eye-rinse station Glitch has set up near the front door-- thank Christ-- so Paul tugs his shirt up and starts dousing it as quickly as the water stream allows.

"I'm coming in for you! Keep making noise if you can hear me!" he shouts.

Etrigan should find that that's injury to insult to injury, actually. Glitch flinches and rolls away - damn, so much for objective one - then crawls away from the increased fire as best he can. Close to the floor there's a bit less smoke, but he can't escape the sting of embers though fortunately his clothes are too wet to ignite.

Right, Paul, he needs to reply.

"C'n hear you!" he calls. "I-it's gone, got my tab-- gonna find the gas valve." Yeah good luck parsing that.

The fire's not spreading that quickly but it is proving very water resistant. Part of his brain is wondering about the properties and what he can possibly do about it.

It? What the hell is it? Whatever, fire is a verifiable threat, and something about a gas valve-- ohhh yeah, that's a very significant threat, if there's gas somewhere in here--

Paul drags his wetted shirt up over his mouth and nose, drops to his hands and knees where the smoke is thinner, and starts a fast crawl forward towards the sound of Glitch's voice. Which is coincidentally where the glow of fire seems thickest. Motherfuck.

"I'm coming your way-- is this valve close or should we prioritize getting the fuck out?" he says... rather muffled through his shirt.

"Valve!" Which is to say Glitch is prioritizing NOT having literally all of his life's work going up in flames. Again. Good news is his voice is closer so they're likely heading towards each other. "Bot...bottom of the st-"

Muffled hacking here. He's stopped moving for a moment to cover his face with his arm, catching a few slightly-filtered breaths.

"Bottom of th' stairs t' the office, gonna be to your left. Red wheely thing." A pause. Yeah. "Race ya!"

Paul grits his teeth and wonders how much Glitch would fight him if he tried to just drag him out of here. Probably way too much. Fuck, fine, fucking valve it is.

That coughing doesn't sound good. Who knows how much smoke Glitch has inhaled. He grimaces again at the 'race you' thing.

"How about 'oh hell no', just concentrate on getting the fuck out of the smoke, Glitch." Like the OZian needs more brain damage. "I'll-- OW, christ-- find your damn valve--"

And crawl into things in the process, apparently.

Groping ahead, his eyes beginning to water from the smoke, Paul thinks he sees something red and round. "Got it. I think. Tighty-righty or lefty-loosey?"

"Right!" There's even a little hand-painted (by DG) sign, not that one can really see it at the moment.

What one may be able to see is movement along the floor from out of the thickest smoke, flame, and steam. Glitch's waterlogged curls flop around his bloody face, his right forearm is pressed against his nose and mouth, and he's hauling himself along with feet and left elbow.

"I've got to--" He looks around as best he can, thinking frantically of what to save. So much is likely gone already, plans and prototypes and materials...he looks up the stairs towards the office/lounge/sanctuary and shakes his head, knowing it's hopeless but maybe it'll be spared.

"--borrow your tablet, they need to know there's--"

More coughing, re-prioritize: don't die, escape, warn the city. He shakes his head and keeps crawling toward the front of the shop.

"Right." Paul grabs the wheel and yanks, turning it until it doesn't turn anymore. He looks around for Glitch-- sees him getting out of the smoke-- aw fuck, Paul registers blood; in the moment he can't tell how bad it is but there's definitely blood.

"Fucking Christ, c'mon, sport, out, out, no more smoke breathing for you--" Quick ground crawl towards him, and Paul will, if necessary, drag him outside, fumbling for his tablet as he goes.

[And then to here!]

Edited 2013-05-18 10:20 (UTC)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

063 [location: the workshop (locked-ish for Ettie shenans) ] we had darkened doors

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject