psychoshenanigans | GRATIA // PSL

Entry tags:

GRATIA // PSL

So, here's what Irahl knows.

He's alone in a dark, cold cave. He has most, if not all, of his gear. No one is guarding his location. As he heads away from the spot where he came to consciousness, no one tries to stop him, and no one gets in his way. The few people he finds down there seem human, and not about to approach the nearly-seven-foot man that comes stalking out of the lower tunnels. Honestly, everyone here seems a surprised and a little astonished about his... Entire scene.

There is a way up. It's a maze of twisting corridors and confusing passageways, half of which feel too small for him. It's bigger and bigger groups of people, some of which scatter like schools of fish, and some of which have to be pushed through to get anywhere. It's climbing up into streets lit with dingy lights, graffiti-covered hallways, warehouses, weird holes in stone walls that may or may not be windows. It's alarm bells, it's people yelling at each other down the street. It's just an absurd number of stairs. A couple of people make an attempt to stop him somewhere, and it goes poorly for them.

Elsewhere, events are being set in motion where Irahl cannot see. But he's on his way out.

Eventually, more people try to stop him. At the end of another long stretch of Underground city, a group of official-looking folks are putting a real effort into blocking off the obvious exit, and some of them have weapons.

Down a side alley, into another tunnel, and then the space opens up into a... Plaza, of some sort? The floor is made of stone. The buildings surrounding it are made of stone and are hard to distinguish from one another. At at least the ceiling (also made of stone) is a lot higher than before. Cavernous. There's some kind of sculpture in the middle of it, some impressive feat of geometric stonework that gives the illusion of defying gravity despite weighing literal tons.

This is where someone finally catches him. Sounds have been echoing unhelpfully down every passageway, making it hard to tell if people are coming or going - but this series of quick footsteps comes from an upward direction before someone hits the ground about five feet in front of Irahl.

His clothes are different. His hair is better-kept. Maybe if the situation wasn't quite so tense, there'd be time to see the ways in which his face is different, the way his eyes don't have quite as vicious and sharp a gleam as they used to. But whatever Irahl can take in of him, there is Robin, having hopped down from a rooftop to put himself between him and the exit again.

"...Holy shit."

Kind of weird that he looks absolutely shocked to see the person in front of him, though.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Vincent crosses his arms and listens carefully from where he's standing just a few feet away. He'd been planning to jump in and try to navigate the situation... But in all honesty, he's only every half-sure of what Kneecap is saying, and Irahl seems ready and willing to take his boundaries into his own hands. Irahl can probably handle this just as well as he could.

Kneecap, not one for being shy, gets right up in front of Irahl and looks up at him as if they were the same height. And then he looks at the rifle over his shoulder, tilting his body to try and see around the giant man.

"I know it's a gun--" He explains, unable to keep the excitement and curiosity out of his scratchy voice, "Big caliber. Bolt-action. No flags, no saws, clean build, oh--!"

The answer suddenly occurs to him and he takes a couple of steps back, eyes going wide again. He shakes a finger in Irahl's direction in clearly-impressed and delighted recognition.

"You a long-shot?" He asks.

"...S'that a sniper?" Vincent asks back, because he doesn't know.

"Sniper, sniper--" Kneecap repeats a couple of times, searching his memory, before nodding sharply and grinning, "Yes, yes, yes, that's what's written on the invoices. Long-distance shots. Holds really still."

Edited 2024-09-07 22:24 (UTC)

It's a good thing that Irahl's got half of his face obscured behind a scarf, because he does crack a small smirk between the fact that he seems to have properly impressed his opponent, and the fact that the guy gives him back a couple steps of space. Even if it's only temporary, it's an important sign.

"Very long distance," he elaborates. "Best in my city. Heard you can secure us somewhere for target practice."

Maybe if this guy gets excited about seeing a 'long-shot' in action, he'll be able to find them a place with enough distance to show off a little. Irahl wouldn't hate that.

The exact combination of words Irahl chose to use there work magic on Kneecap. Part of it has to do with the possibility of seeing a clean-made functioning sniper rifle in action, but a significant chunk of it is hearing the words 'best in my city', which conveys a bunch of meaning in very little space.

He seems almost... Reverent, for a moment. He's at least captivated enough by it all that he holds still for a moment or two.

"Yeah, I... I can take you wherever you want to go!" He becomes animated again as he starts getting ideas, "I can take you to the derby! Lots of room for tossing scrap. And I can bring the lads 'round... Or not, if you'd rather have the place quiet!"

Suffice to say, with all his enthusiastic gesturing and hand-waving accompanying this, he's very excited by the prospect and will probably to just about anything Irahl asks, if he can.

"Just let me watch. I can be quiet. Like a ghost. Won't even know I'm there."

"I like quiet."

Finally, he moves. He finally straightens up and shifts away from the wall, signaling that an agreement has been made and he's ready to follow wherever this little maniac is going to lead.

"Besides, you can't appreciate the suppressor if there's too much noise," which is not exactly true, especially in an enclosed space like a cave, but he's going to try for anything to keep a pack of scavengers away.

He's also kind of hoping that the allure of potentially having sole access to Irahl's toys will be enough to keep him from calling in a crowd.

"Choice," Kneecap says, seemingly an expression of excitement, "Oh, having a real professional around, this is gonna be legendary!"

With a gremlin-like laugh, the guy spins back around and quickly gets moving, scuttling over to the drain grate to pull it all the way off of the exit. Sure enough, there's a maintenance ladder that leads down to the bottom of what looks like a holding tank. He gestures them both over, and calls specifically for the one who can't see.

"Come on Vincent, you know the way. Close the grate over you, will you?"

With a shrug, Vincent gestures for Irahl to go first, so that he can... Close the grate after them, he supposes.

"Welcome to the Fourth Level," he says dryly.

Edited (UNACCEPTABLE) 2024-09-08 02:11 (UTC)

Irahl is not exactly thrilled to be climbing down a ladder into anything that looks remotely enclosed, but he's trying to be a good sport about it. He distracts himself by answering Vincent with a short chuckle under his breath, just loud enough for his friend with the two fully-functioning eardrums to hear (as he assumes the scavenger has probably made some poor machinery-or-weapon-related decisions that has left their hearing less acute than Vincent's).

"Friendly."

That's his entire summary of both the level and the one inhabitant he has met so far, before he takes a small breath and begins descending the ladder to follow their friend.

"Very friendly," says Vincent in some kind of agreement, before he makes to follow Irahl down the ladder and into the depths of the level that most people in Skeleton City spend their whole lives never setting foot in.

The bottom of the tank has a great big, rusted-out hole in it, which Kneecap heads through without hesitation. On the other side is a... Well, it's a lot more open than the tank had been, another one of those massive underground caverns that this place apparently has in abundance. However, this one is filled almost wall-to-wall with building-sized piles of junk that have been shored-up, dug into, and built off of. There aren't a lot of people around, and the ones that are disappear pretty quickly after being spotted, but... Wow, it's...

The smell is... Well, not as rotten as one would imagine, but there's a pervasive, acidic smell that lingers in the nostrils. A slightly caustic sourness that most humans instinctually know can't be good for them, even if they can't explain or imagine how. Everything here has been stripped and dug through thousands of times over, so there's almost nothing identifiable--let alone of any value--left in these massive piles. Something of slight interest are holes in the ceiling of the cavern where light shines through from above, creating both a dim ambient light and the feeling that the "normal" human world is suddenly very far away.

Completely unbothered by all of this, Kneecap reaches into one of his pants pockets, pulls out what looks suspiciously like a glowstick, and deftly cracks it to get the chemicals going. It gives of a strong yellowish-green glow, much brighter than the little charms the people above carry around. He hangs it off something at his waist (and hopefully not something in his waist) before leading both men down a wide path that's been kept clear between two large piles of discarded refuse.

"We've got to go 'round the bend," Kneecap explains, entirely for Irahl's benefit, pointing to somewhere past one of the mounds, "My crew hangs out under the chutes, so we got to head a little ways past that. Ever been on Fourth before?"

Edited 2024-09-08 03:03 (UTC)

While Irahl is no stranger to wreckage and rubble of the conventional sort, and had more recently spent time in some other pretty abysmal salvaged tunnels, (plus the stint in rusted-out hulls in space,) this place is something else. It's only the impulse to keep a constant eye out for threats that prevents him from diverting his attention to root around in his gear bag for his mask.

He's still planning on retrieving it whenever they do stop though, because that thing has a built-in breathing filter that seems pretty key down here. Especially if he doesn't want to cough while aiming an extremely sensitive rifle.

All of his hesitations and discomforts are kept thoroughly hidden, of course. So, he's pretty quick to respond when there's a question sent his way.

"Briefly. Once."

And that's all he says on the matter.

"Hah, more than most upperlanders," grins Kneecap, "Thin-skins too nervous about coming through."

"Yeah, most thin-skins ain't a fan of bein' poisoned all the time," Vincent comments. He's not really reacting to the smell either, aside from a frown that seems to have settled semi-permanently on his face. In response, Kneecap just laughs.

"Small price! For no rigs? No circuits? Not worth it."

Vincent huffs a little, but isn't about to get into an ideological discussion with Kneecap. Besides, their guide is soon busy with leading them up one of those piles of trash instead of alongside it. It's a surprisingly stable climb, with plenty of well-worn footholds smashed down into the sloping hill over time, though Kneecap seems to be foregoing these so that his new friends can use them. Kneecap prefers to scrabble over the slopes and send small drifts of garbage sliding like chunky sand on a dune behind him.

If Irahl thought Vincent's neighborhood was eerie, this place is on a whole other level. Before long they're passing through a bizarre, post-apocalyptic wonderland. Gently-rolling hills of garbage are interspersed with the bones of ancient broken buildings, which in-turn have been decorated for hundreds of years with shiny, colorful garbage. Groups of strange and oddly-shaped people buzz around near these buildings, on and under scaffolding where big machines are clearly being built under large synthetic lights.

In the distance, strange and mutated wildlife roams in small herds. Pools of strangely-colored and often glowing liquids seem to have formed in natural dips in the terrain, and around many of them, unnaturally large flora seems to have sprouted. Weird, twisting, thorny vines. Flowers with dayglo orange and yellow blooms. Various fungi, especially near the stone walls, that have grown so large that they're honestly a little hard to comprehend as being real.

Kneecap hums a little tune to himself as he travels, only occasionally checking to make sure his new friends are following. Eventually, they reach a cobbled-together wire fence that houses a large, open crater that has been flattened down by years' worth of what are unmistakably tire tracks. In this stadium-sized space, there are dozens of ramps, hoops, and other car-sized obstacles scattered haphazardly around, including what might actually be some wrecked vehicles.

"How's this? The Derby. Good place for practice. Lots of space."

Kneecap spreads his arms proudly, and waits to hear if this is acceptable.

Of all of the places that Irahl has been and things that he has been through--including drifting through space--this is easily one of the most surreal. It's hard to absorb it all as reality, but with him not being a particularly imaginative person, it's hard to compare it to even the most fanciful things that have ever passed through his mind. Even the rare times that he dreams at night don't come close to this.

One benefit to being so blindsided with this amount of strangeness is that there isn't much room left to be paranoid in. It's hard to feel the need to remain ever-watchful for danger when it's hard to process what anything is, dangerous or otherwise.

Finally laying eyes on the Derby is something of a relief. He can at least tell what he's looking at, there.

So, he takes a moment to look out and survey the space, really appreciating all of the things that make sense about it, before nodding.

"Should work."

The answer gets another emphatic laugh out of Kneecap. They rock back and forth on their bare heels, stuffing their hands back in their pockets to keep from just... Sort of just trying to grab stuff on Irahl's person.

"What first? Potshots? Scrap toss?"

"Ey, Kneecap," Vincent steps over to divert the guy's attention, "How 'bout you go make sure no one's hidin' behind anything, so I don't accidentally chop a guy in half."

"Bladework?" Kneecap asks, his focus twitching to Vincent, "Did you get a new one?"

"No," Vincent specifies, shaking his head, "Just... The same old one."

"Oh." Kneecap looks a little disappointed by this, his shoulders falling, "Boring. Seen it. Can't believe you've had the same loadout for ten storms."

Vincent shrugs, not sure what to tell him aside from, "...It's a good sword."

"Right, well," Kneecap doesn't sound convinced, but he dances back a couple steps and then jogs towards the opening in the mixed-wire fence. He calls back to the two of them over his shoulder as he goes, "I'll clear the rats off, don't worry!"

"Great, thanks," Vincent calls after him... Before turning to Irahl and saying at a lower conversational tone, "...I hope that means he's actually gonna check for guys."

"With that slang, who knows. Could be be running off to take a bath for all we know."

It's a joke. While it might make sense with the phrase uttered, if there's one thing that Kneecap doesn't seem like the type for, it's frequent bathing.

Assuming that the track is indeed being checked-over for them to go play in, Irahl also heads toward the break in the fence, but at a much more unhurried pace. Capitalizing on the break from their escort, he glances sidelong at Vincent.

"...Do I want to know what kind of 'storms' are down here?"

The joke gets a quiet little laugh out of Vincent, so it works well enough.

He follows along slowly as well, his shoes crunching gently against packed-down ground underneath him. At the question, he has to give another shrug.

"Honestly... I dunno what he's talkin' about. There ain't storms down here that I know of. I think it's just another word for months or somethin'."

It is not another word for months, but Vincent doesn't know that, and may never ask the questions to learn anything different.

"All I know is they got stuff for junkin' down here. Head towards the nearest metal-lookin' thing, would ya?"

At least with ground this crunchy, Vincent will be able to follow easily as Irahl heads out onto the track. Though, he does have to mentally laugh to himself at Vincent's exact instructions, as--to his knowledge--virtually everything around him, including the 'gravel' under their feet, seems to be made of metal.

But no, he forgoes being a smartass by obediently heading toward the nearest thing that seems roughly vehicle-sized... and he absolutely does sling his gear bag around in the meantime, so he can rifle around for his mask and visor. He can't imagine that anything kicked up from either the track itself or whatever ancient wrecks they're going to destroy will feel great on already-irritated lungs.

Vincent has never asked what the ground is made of and, frankly, is afraid to ask. So maybe it's a good thing that Irahl foregoes being a smartass and leads them on.

Visibility in this area is pretty good, save for the spots behind weird man-made obstacles that have been dragged in; Kneecap can be seen bullying a couple of other dirty, scrabbly guys that were tinkering with something underneath a rusted-out wreck on the other side of the arena. It's a little hard to hear, but he does seem to get them to scamper.

Upon approaching the nearest vehicle-sized chunk of metal, Irahl can see that it... Technically has car parts on it, but it's got more of a dune buggy frame and the exterior has a lot more scrap metal and what looks like some kind of a buzzsaw arm dangling limply off of the side. The saw itself is bent all to hell, probably because of whatever happened to flip the entire vehicle sideways.

"I'll go first," Vincent says, mood lightening a little now that they've made the trip and Kneecap's preoccupied elsewhere, "Figure mine's not so involved an' all."

With his mask and visor in place, Irahl feels slightly more bolstered against both the irritants and the weirdness of this place. He does one curious circle around the mess of a vehicle before beginning to step back and give Vincent ample room to work.

"Finally going to show off that sword you keep lying about?"

The way his mask filters his voice makes it slightly harder to hear the smirk within it, but it's still there. He's honestly really hoping that none of what Vincent has said about his weapon has been exaggerated, because he's pretty excited to see the thing cut through as much metal as Vincent has claimed.

He would love to get some mental revenge on the wall that they'd had to use a treadmill and their own battered hands to open.

Honestly, making a circle around the vehicle isn't a terrible idea. Most of the important (and volatile) parts have been stripped, but who's to say someone hadn't armed this thing with a mine... Or some kind of a retracting chainsaw. As it is, no mines or chainsaws are immediately apparent here.

"Yeah," Vincent agrees, "Gonna be real funny when it just kinda bounces off the side..."

He's fairly confident that he can pull this off, but he wants to keep expectations low in case he's wrong. It's a self-defense mechanism. Vincent slings his sword case around, unzips the top, unsheathes his sword.

"Can't have all this talk for nothing, though, so..."

There's far more room here than there was in Vincent's tiny apartment. He can swing the massive weapon around freely, which highlights just how strong he is. A normal person would barely be able to lift it, let alone maintain control of it's momentum.

He takes a stance in front of the metal wreckage, planting his feet in a very particular way, sword held blade-up, hilt near his chest. He looks like he's focusing very seriously for a second or two... Before he breaks the mood by cracking a smile and bothering his friend.

"Hey, how wide do you think this thing is?" He kicks at the side of it, which makes a sort-of-hollow metallic sound.

Irahl hasn't gotten to see much real bladework over the years, as it's usually more of a novelty in his line of work than a person's main line of offense, so the real demonstration hasn't truly begun before Irahl already finds himself a little impressed. Seeing Vincent heft the weapon around in the little apartment had been something, but yeah... out here where Vincent has all the room he could want is already much better.

He's in the in middle of watching the transformation before him and wondering what the other man looks like when putting his skills to use in actual combat, when Vincent suddenly turns into a dork again.

Irahl snorts.

"About as wide as you'd claimed that thing could cut through at once, so... no pressure."

Vincent laughs, but it's because he immediately regrets asking.

"Fuck, seriously? Shit, then I really better not fuck this up..."

Okay, okay. Now that he knows, he plants his foot back on the ground, slides his boot over the pulverized gravel until he finds the right spot, and he rights his sword again. The easy smile slips as he begins to focus. It's not clear where his attention is going, but it's similar to how he looks when he's listening very carefully for something.

At first, very little happens. Vincent breathes very slowly, the sword remains very still. But something around him starts to change, some kind of atmospheric pressure, building to a sliver of magic manifesting in the sword. It feels like a carefully-held breath, waiting for just the right moment.

Then, very suddenly, the air around the blade warps and Vincent slices down with it in the same second, cleaving cleanly through the remains of this car and part of the way into the compacted ground below it. The metal is left white-hot from the contact. The sword appears unchanged as Vincent hefts it back up to balance it on his shoulder.

"So?" He grins, "How's it look?"

Impressive as this is... He only cut most of the way through the car. He came a few inches short from cutting it clean in half.

Irahl has never been impressed with magic.

He's seen plenty of it, but the mage units employed by the city are regulated and augmented with technology to the point of sterility, and magic outside of that is even more restricted. Generally speaking, magic in the city is both violent and watered-down, and is a far cry from the stories of what mages had capable of back when the world had been more balanced.

This isn't anything like that, nor is it like the draconic magic that sets his teeth on edge.

Back when Vicent had first told him about his sword and what it's supposedly capable of, he'd try to imagine what those claims would even look like in person. What he'd pictured had been much more akin to just a ludicrously-sharp sword, and not some magic-laced thing that seemed to cauterize its target in half.

Vincent's question jostles Irahl out of his enamored staring, and he repeats the slow circle around the vehicle that he'd done before. He's mostly staring in fascination at the cooling and perfectly-cleaved edge of metal... until he stops at a point on the other side of the vehicle directly across from Vincent.

There's the clang of him kicking a bit of intact metal in what should have been the path of the blade.

"Missed a spot."

With that, Vincent's triumph turns to irritated swearing immediately. He even kicks the car a little.

"Fuckin'... Come on, man...!" Making a real show of it, he pretends to look at his sword and says, "You had one job! Slice the thing in half!"

With one more aggravated sigh, he stabs the massive claymore into the ground and leans on the hilt. A fair punishment, he thinks, using this extremely expensive magical weapon to prop his body up. His anger fizzles out.

"Nah, I kinda felt it wasn't gonna be a clean one. Think my timing's off. But it..." He gestures with one arm to the quickly-cooling metal heap in front of him, "But I mean, it did most of the thing, right? Still woulda been real helpful back in that stupid egg ship."

Okay, as ignorant as Irahl is of both swords and magic, he at least knows enough to understand you're not supposed to do that with them. Just more proof that the thing must be enchanted if it's going to withstand the sort of abuse Vincent puts it through.

And as much as Irahl would love to keep teasing Vincent for failing to entirely kill a car, he can't pretend to not be impressed with the fact that Vincent did in fact just nearly kill a car.

"Yeah. Never would have started the treadmill saga." For better or worse. "You hunt with that thing, or just show off against defenseless cars?"

Well, okay, he's still teasing. But, there's a smirking undertone to his voice that leans just a little more toward sounding like he's hoping the answer is yes. He'd like to watch him go kill some abominations with it.

"Rest in peace," Vincent mutters, about the treadmill.

The rest of it gets him to smirk again, though. He at least showed off enough for Irahl to sound a little impressed, which... Irahl's opinion is something he cares very much about, so... That means a lot to him, especially after all these months of talking about it. But he tries not to show that. He's busy looking like a cool guy leaning on his cool sword.

"Yeah, I hunt with it," he replies, "Though what I did there's a little slow for most fights. An' probably overkill for most monsters. For a blind guy, I like to think I ain't half bad at usin' a sword the normal way."

"Couple hunts back home where that would have been a game-changer."

Is he fantasizing a little about what it might have been like to have Vincent on his team instead of some of the ding-dongs he has been stuck with? Maybe. Would have been nice to have someone who could cut clean through a hulking, magical creature's leg instead of just piss it off and cause it to drop a building on the sniper just trying to do his job. And if a building did fall on the sniper, it would have been nice to have someone impossibly strong and wielding an antimatter weapon to help clear the rubble to free him again.

"Weren't too bad with a foam sword. Imagine you're even better with something that has actual weight behind it."

Irahl is just beginning to become aware of all the words he's using. But he's still pretty amped about seeing one of the coolest things in recent memory.

He's just feeling compelled to express a little admiration.

Funny, Vincent normally has no idea what to do with compliments. His usual instincts are to throw them away with self-deprecative sarcasm or deflect focus to the other person's talents instead. But he has such a high opinion of Irahl that he honestly... He kind of loves this. He chuckles around the hilt of his sword.

"I mean, I'd hit a lot harder too."

Likewise, he feels compelled to brag a little. And not even in a joking way. He's... Actually not completely sure what kind of way it is. He's got something right on the tip of his tongue about how he'll start blushing if Irahl doesn't stop, but he doesn't actually want him to stop so he never actually starts saying it.

Which is all the silence a certain scrap rat needs to interrupt, barreling up to Vincent and skidding to a stop that sends shrapnel gravel flying. The guy's entrance was in no way quiet, but Vincent flinches back out of reflex and swears under his breath anyway.

"Circuit's clear! Not a peep." Kneecap has somehow gotten some kind of engine grease on his chin and cheek since the last time they'd been close. He grins widely up at both of them, "You lads done solderin' scrap in half?"

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

no subject