Grand Battle S3G1! (Round Four: City of the Dead)

Tor paced what he'd resorted to calling a bunker, because the alternative was cell, and that probably would've been offensive terminology for the ghosts, geists, and other disembodied. He tried not to think about Tengeri, tried not to think of her having a nice chat with a ghost or whatever while he was told to sit in this corner and think about what he'd done, like a sentrali child.

It was easy, actually, to not think about that. Because according to Tengeri, Velobo was dead. The Gauntlet, and the NSC's trace - left in Alex's world if they were lucky, repurposed as a trap by the Fool if not. The Leviath had accepted a small trace of her own for this very situation, though she couldn't activate it on her end. Too much risk the Fool might object.

Jetsam, since Tor had asked, had whereabouts unknown. Tengeri said it a little too neutrally, and Tor had bitten back a tirade and resigned himself to being escorted to a cell. Bunker. Whatever.

There were footsteps outside his cell (if Tor were down here more voluntarily, he might've wondered why a university had a single underground, fireproofed bunker), metal surfaces obfuscating the exact number. More than two, at least.

They stopped a bit further up the hall, then tk-tk, against the door. A skeleton? Another haunted machine? "Kajan." He didn't recognise the voice. "It's me. The guards won't let me in until you're against the back wall."

Tor complied; a couple more feet clack-thunked to the door, pushing it open. A cloaked skeleton strode in, intoning, "leave us." Tor stared at the onyx ring, dangling from Jetsam's clavicle upon a silver chain.

"You were right," spoke the lich, after an age. Its face was still pointed in Tor's direction, but that hal still roiled and recoiled like two pain-distracted halves of a severed snake. "About the battle."

Internal alarm bells. "Jetsam, what did you-"

Fear. Before Tor could react, the lich's fingers were around his throat, pinning him against the wall. Jetsam was shaking at the joints, like whatever magic was holding his bones in the right places was straining. "ＹＯＵ- ＹＯＵ　ＴＨＩＮＫ　Ｉ-" Jetsam tried to draw a shuddering breath, and his skull region emitted some kind of ominous beyond-the-grave rattling instead.

"Ngh!"

Tor, to his credit, at least attempted to shove Jetsam off before combusting. A ceiling sprinkler kicked in with an initial sprffff of dust from a bygone era, by which point the Telpori-hotspot had already mostly risen out of the sprinkler's arc.

Tor landed with a splash, and a fair bit of steam. Jetsam had backed off, one sooted hand grasping the ring and the other clenching, unclenching, clenching, unclenching. The burned parts of his cloak trickled off him as grayish water.

"I don't know what happened," Tor began, fruitlessly trying to shake off water, "and I shouldn't make assumptions. I never saw you last round, and all I heard was that Velobo went to rescue you." Clench. Unclench. Lower. "Will you tell me what happened to you?"

"You first."

"You-" exhale. Building trust. "No. No, that's fine. Me, I ran into a group of heroes, I suppose I'd call them, from a book or a game or something. I tagged along with them, they were off to defeat that woman controlling the castle-"

"Midday."

"Yes, her. Ran into Huebert-"

"What about the squid?" Jetsam demanded.

Tor shook his head. "Haven't seen TinTen since the Battlefield, either. Anyway, we ran into trouble, and Alex - the group's leader - she was killed. Then, the NSC showed up."

Jetsam's voice dropped an additional ominous octave, though mostly-involuntarily. He was a bit hard to hear over the persistent hiss of the sprinkler. "The what? Were they the ones with the portal?"

"From Tengeri's world, yes. Scientists and the like. They... meant well." Tor struggled to not pull a face. "Velobo set off to find you with some of their men. Myself and Huebert, we went looking for Alex's killer. We-" Tor had to pause here, flick water off his hands to avoid making a fist, chastising himself for assuming that Jetsam would scream hypocrisy, pointing fingers when he had blood on his hands.

"Did you kill him?" No accusation, though not much of anything else like curiosity or emotions of the living. Jetsam shook his head, eye sockets sloshing a bit, managed the second time to make his voice sound marginally gentler. "Kajan, did you kill him?"

"Yeah. We did." Jetsam said nothing. "Look, it was messed up, he was twice her rettal size and struck her down while her back was turned-"

"ＩＴ’Ｓ　ＦＩＮＥ－" shrieked Jetsam. The Telpori-Hal started. "ＦＵＣＫ，　ＤＡＭＮＩＴ－" he did the rattling thing again "-volume control. Still working on it." Jetsam sulked hands over mouth, inasmuch as a necromantic horror standing in the rain could. Tor would've laughed, except for that dangling question.

He instead repeated back: "It's fine. What happened to you?"

Jetsam, still making that futile muffling gesture, glanced about the bare room for a possible distraction, before conceding. "Found myself as some kind of dragon. Ran into Velobo, we stumbled into Midday's quarters and found Scofflaw. Killed him, but nothing happened."

"You- it's not important. Please continue."

"Midday came in, we tried to fight her and lost. Velobo escaped, she slapped some kind of magic collar on me and made me go hunt down the adventurers." A pause, a glare like he was daring Tor to express sympathy, but the Telpori-Hal bit back whatever he was thinking. "Ran into Velobo instead, he figured a loophole so I could ignore my orders, least while there was nobody to kill. The place was collapsing, so we escaped outside and... fucking, Midday was there, in some kind of argument with the squid, lots of fireballs being tossed around between them. Yeah, him," Jetsam pre-empted, finally staring at Tor through the rain with those twin points of infernal light. "Don't know where he learned magic from, but it was definitely him."

"Krekkad it. Does Huebert know?" Jetsam shrugged, all the-fuck-should-I-care in the glare he gave the captain, who gestured to keep going.

"We fought, I snapped a wing and lost my footing, and that idiot cube jumped after me," crescendoed Jetsam, a gastly wail picking up in involuntary accompaniment. His hal writhed under Tor's gaze, like it was trying in vain to present any uninjured side to him. "They hit him with some kind of... lightning spell. That's all I saw before things shifted again."

Tor, already looking pretty grim under the persistent sprinkler-rain, was positively glowering. He spat a curse word roughly translating to <Bird-Jesus, Take the Wheel and Immolate It>. He had no idea what to say to Jetsam. "Look, we need to tell Tengeri. Huebert, too. Is there any way you can get me out of here?"

Jetsam would've pulled a face, but failing that, he let his pall of death kind of flare up about him. It turned a bit of the water showering him into ichor. Tor was a little too drenched by this point to muster up real irritation. "She's not your enemy, Jetsam. She's trying, and she means well-"

"-Like her science club back home?" retorted Jetsam.

"...Yeah." The lich had, at least, made for the door and rapped at it all skeletal-stacatto, gesturing for Tor to step back a bit. "I trust her."

Jetsam surveyed the Telpori-Hal with an unreadable look. "You trust me," he said, like it was a counter-argument, or at least a mark on Tor's character. The cell opened with a clank and a creak, and Tor tried to shrug nonchalantly as he could. Metal clothes and water weren't a great combination to maintain body heat, peppery metabolism or no.

"Yeah," he said. "I do."

If Jetsam had a response, it got caught up in the guards, who e brushed off as they fretted over his singed and sodden cloak. All three of them kept gesturing to Tor, the lich's silhouette kept periodically flaming up with dark energy, and everyone seemed to reach an agreement shortly after Jetsam roared "ＨＥＥＤ ＴＨＩＳ， ＰＡＬＥ ＳＰＥＣＴＲＥＳ，　ＴＨＩＳ ＭＡＮ ＩＳ ＭＹ ＶＡＳＳＡＬ，　ＨＩＳ ＮＥＥＤＳ ＡＲＥ ＵＮＭＥＴ ＩＮ ＴＨＥＳＥ ＡＣＣＣＯＭＯＤＡＴＩＯＮＳ ＡＮＤ Ｉ ＷＩＬＬ ＢＥ ＣＬＡＩＭＩＮＧ ＨＩＭ，　ＹＥＳ，　ＷＥ ＷＩＬＬ ＣＥＲＴＡＩＮＬＹ ＳＥＥＫ ＡＮ ＡＵＤＩＥＮＣＥ ＷＩＴＨ ＴＨＥ ＬＯＲＤ－ＣＨＡＮＣＥＬＬＯＲ　ＯＲ ＷＨＡＴＥＶＥＲ ＰＯＳＴＨＡＳＴＥ."

The lich turned to Tor, the spark in its eyes a little more eerily... animated. "Come." Tor figured it best to hold off on telling Jetsam to mind the attitude, at least until they'd gotten away from these ghosts.

Jetsam was already striding off. A ghoul at the top of the stairs passed Tor a mercifully clean towel, shrinking from the lich's imperious path. He was slack-jawed at the sight of Tor, though considering ghouls that might not have been awe. He scrubbed his face and hair at least, quickly as he could, then ran to catch up with his "lord" or whatever.

"What was that about?" the captain asked, voice low though nobody was around to hear them.

"Something about this form, they'll mostly do what I tell them," droned Jetsam, before realising the implication and glancing at Tor, who glowered back. The lich at least attempted to assume a general air of guilt, which Tor was starting to understand was a solid effort on his part. In a softer voice, it continued: "We'd best maintain the deception for now, if you'd suffer through it."

"Not like I have much of a choice, do I?"

A noise like knuckles cracking; Jetsam intended it to be a tired chuckle. He winced. "Not until I can get you a pardon or the like. Heard you assaulted a cop, after all."