Re: Petty Squabble [ROUND 1] [Fort Ayers, New Atlantis]
05-20-2011, 06:37 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by Een.
The impressionistic compositions of Claude Debussy filled what would have otherwise been a very awkward silence following the query posed to Nancy. She felt she had handled her current situation fairly reasonably so far. It had already been far too much excitement for an entire lifetime, let alone one day! And now she just saw a man reduced to spacedust by another man with a giant dice for a head. Was that even possible to contextualize? Nancy didn’t really think so.
She supposed she’d have to try, though. Alright, so maybe she wasn’t daydreaming, but this was definitely the weird sort of thing she’d come up with if she was. Maybe, somehow, she’d wandered into the daydream of someone else? That Charlatan fella? Someone she hadn’t met yet? It didn’t seem any less plausible than giant metal men and folks with dice for a head. She supposed for now that explanation would have to do until she stumbled onto a better one. She would definitely need a better one at some point, though, because her solution to the question of where she was left her with an even bigger problem: if this was someone else's daydream, just how was she supposed to get them to wake up? Yikes. Better save thinking on that one for later.
Okay, so, someone else was currently dreaming about a guy with a dice for a head. Right. Glad that was all taken care of then. That still didn’t change the fact that he had blood all over his weird circular bread knife hand, and that he had just turned her ex-captor into a pile of cheap cigar ashes. Instinct told Nancy to be frightened, but now that she thought about it, should she really be so terrified? After all, Nancy had been five hundred percent sure the soldier planned on shooting her or something else really inappropriate like that. Technically dice man had just rescued her! Like a hero or something! Gosh. That was pretty exciting actually, though the knightly chivalry of the moment was slightly ruined by the fact that he had just asked about breadbaskets. Why the heck did he want to know about breadbaskets? Did he collect them or something? This was some kind of crazy warzone, Nancy didn’t have time for breadbaskets!
Six, meanwhile, was also attempting to make sense of the situation in his own way. It was clear what his relationship toward anyone marked as a “contestant” should be, but no one else seemed to appreciate this. Had anyone answered his questions since he arrived? Even the simplest, most mundane ones had gone ignored. It was, very slowly, becoming apparent to him that the programming he was meant to rely on it did not account for this situation. It was as though everyone else around Six was running on an entirely separate set of rules and no one had bothered to tell him about it.
This contestant didn’t seem to be any better. Instead of answering his question she merely stared, eyes wide and unblinking. She really couldn’t just do that forever. Silence was just as incorrect as a wrong answer.
“Sweet Kansas cherries!” Nancy exclaimed suddenly, finally vocalizing her dissatisfaction with his apparent interest in breadbaskets, “I guess it’s real great that you’re keen on breadbaskets and all but I don’t really think—”
Now this was more like it. “KANSAS. CORRECT.”
“That this is the time! I mean, look, you seem like a real swell bird—”
“Question 09: Which month in the Gregorian Calendars is known for having a ruby as a birthstone?”
“And I’d love to bump gums with you ‘til next July and make this a real trip for biscuits—”
“JULY. CORRECT.”
“But I don’t think that guy was some one time button man!”
“Question 10: What language has the unique classification of West Low Franconian?”
“Don’t you get it? We’re in real dutch here—”
“DUTCH. CORRECT.”
“And sure, no dame likes anklin’ around with a roscoe stuck in her back and I really appreciate you bumpin’ him off like that, but—”
“Question 11: How many celestial bodies orbiting the sun are considered to be planets?”
“Trust me, we’re not gonna be hittin’ on all eight—”
“EIGHT. CORRECT.”
“When his pals show up and find him turned into…space dust! Are you even listenin’ to me? Look I know you got rats and mice for a head there but try and pipe this!”
Had Nancy’s otherworldly fortune caused her 20’s vernacular to inadvertently answer every question correctly, or had that fortune forced Six’s questions to be ones that she would inevitably get right? There was no way to be sure. Nancy’s good luck worked in ways that she did not understand. It very quietly and subtly warped the world around her in order to bend the odds in her favor. Its influence was gentle and small, but the impact was always the same: Nancy could simply do no wrong.
Regardless of Nancy’s luck, Six was certainly listening, but not really to the strange, dialect-ridden ramblings of the young police secretary. It was hard to pick out her answers from the giant mess that made up her day-to-day speech, but he was managing. And sure, maybe her way of talking was a bit… unconventional, but it was certainly better than what Six had dealt with earlier. You couldn’t run a show with uncooperative men in uniforms. Sure, the slaughter that had followed their unwillingness to answer his questions might have made for some good ratings, but Six was programmed to ask questions, and he was not very pleased when they all went unanswered.
Nancy, however, understood how it all worked. Or at least… it seemed like she did. The Charlatan had named her as a contestant, so she ought to anyway. And if she was a contestant, then it was Six’s job to ask her questions. The setting may have been a bit unusual and there was still a quiet nagging in the back of Six’s mind that spoke to the inherent irregularity of it all, but there was no need to overcomplicate things. He knew what he was supposed to do, and so he was going to do it.
“Question 12: What is the—”
Six paused and turned as the vaporized soldier’s aforementioned “pals” suddenly decided to make an entrance. A small group of them were heading past the door on their way outside when they noticed two individuals who very, very obviously did not belong. They stood still for a few moments, taking the situation in, but it didn’t last. They were professionals, and they knew how to handle unfamiliar intruders. Without warning they slipped into a loose formation and leveled their weapons at Six and Nancy.
Six had been optimistic about stumbling onto contestants thus far, but even he could tell that these men did not look interested in answering questions.
The impressionistic compositions of Claude Debussy filled what would have otherwise been a very awkward silence following the query posed to Nancy. She felt she had handled her current situation fairly reasonably so far. It had already been far too much excitement for an entire lifetime, let alone one day! And now she just saw a man reduced to spacedust by another man with a giant dice for a head. Was that even possible to contextualize? Nancy didn’t really think so.
She supposed she’d have to try, though. Alright, so maybe she wasn’t daydreaming, but this was definitely the weird sort of thing she’d come up with if she was. Maybe, somehow, she’d wandered into the daydream of someone else? That Charlatan fella? Someone she hadn’t met yet? It didn’t seem any less plausible than giant metal men and folks with dice for a head. She supposed for now that explanation would have to do until she stumbled onto a better one. She would definitely need a better one at some point, though, because her solution to the question of where she was left her with an even bigger problem: if this was someone else's daydream, just how was she supposed to get them to wake up? Yikes. Better save thinking on that one for later.
Okay, so, someone else was currently dreaming about a guy with a dice for a head. Right. Glad that was all taken care of then. That still didn’t change the fact that he had blood all over his weird circular bread knife hand, and that he had just turned her ex-captor into a pile of cheap cigar ashes. Instinct told Nancy to be frightened, but now that she thought about it, should she really be so terrified? After all, Nancy had been five hundred percent sure the soldier planned on shooting her or something else really inappropriate like that. Technically dice man had just rescued her! Like a hero or something! Gosh. That was pretty exciting actually, though the knightly chivalry of the moment was slightly ruined by the fact that he had just asked about breadbaskets. Why the heck did he want to know about breadbaskets? Did he collect them or something? This was some kind of crazy warzone, Nancy didn’t have time for breadbaskets!
Six, meanwhile, was also attempting to make sense of the situation in his own way. It was clear what his relationship toward anyone marked as a “contestant” should be, but no one else seemed to appreciate this. Had anyone answered his questions since he arrived? Even the simplest, most mundane ones had gone ignored. It was, very slowly, becoming apparent to him that the programming he was meant to rely on it did not account for this situation. It was as though everyone else around Six was running on an entirely separate set of rules and no one had bothered to tell him about it.
This contestant didn’t seem to be any better. Instead of answering his question she merely stared, eyes wide and unblinking. She really couldn’t just do that forever. Silence was just as incorrect as a wrong answer.
“Sweet Kansas cherries!” Nancy exclaimed suddenly, finally vocalizing her dissatisfaction with his apparent interest in breadbaskets, “I guess it’s real great that you’re keen on breadbaskets and all but I don’t really think—”
Now this was more like it. “KANSAS. CORRECT.”
“That this is the time! I mean, look, you seem like a real swell bird—”
“Question 09: Which month in the Gregorian Calendars is known for having a ruby as a birthstone?”
“And I’d love to bump gums with you ‘til next July and make this a real trip for biscuits—”
“JULY. CORRECT.”
“But I don’t think that guy was some one time button man!”
“Question 10: What language has the unique classification of West Low Franconian?”
“Don’t you get it? We’re in real dutch here—”
“DUTCH. CORRECT.”
“And sure, no dame likes anklin’ around with a roscoe stuck in her back and I really appreciate you bumpin’ him off like that, but—”
“Question 11: How many celestial bodies orbiting the sun are considered to be planets?”
“Trust me, we’re not gonna be hittin’ on all eight—”
“EIGHT. CORRECT.”
“When his pals show up and find him turned into…space dust! Are you even listenin’ to me? Look I know you got rats and mice for a head there but try and pipe this!”
Had Nancy’s otherworldly fortune caused her 20’s vernacular to inadvertently answer every question correctly, or had that fortune forced Six’s questions to be ones that she would inevitably get right? There was no way to be sure. Nancy’s good luck worked in ways that she did not understand. It very quietly and subtly warped the world around her in order to bend the odds in her favor. Its influence was gentle and small, but the impact was always the same: Nancy could simply do no wrong.
Regardless of Nancy’s luck, Six was certainly listening, but not really to the strange, dialect-ridden ramblings of the young police secretary. It was hard to pick out her answers from the giant mess that made up her day-to-day speech, but he was managing. And sure, maybe her way of talking was a bit… unconventional, but it was certainly better than what Six had dealt with earlier. You couldn’t run a show with uncooperative men in uniforms. Sure, the slaughter that had followed their unwillingness to answer his questions might have made for some good ratings, but Six was programmed to ask questions, and he was not very pleased when they all went unanswered.
Nancy, however, understood how it all worked. Or at least… it seemed like she did. The Charlatan had named her as a contestant, so she ought to anyway. And if she was a contestant, then it was Six’s job to ask her questions. The setting may have been a bit unusual and there was still a quiet nagging in the back of Six’s mind that spoke to the inherent irregularity of it all, but there was no need to overcomplicate things. He knew what he was supposed to do, and so he was going to do it.
“Question 12: What is the—”
Six paused and turned as the vaporized soldier’s aforementioned “pals” suddenly decided to make an entrance. A small group of them were heading past the door on their way outside when they noticed two individuals who very, very obviously did not belong. They stood still for a few moments, taking the situation in, but it didn’t last. They were professionals, and they knew how to handle unfamiliar intruders. Without warning they slipped into a loose formation and leveled their weapons at Six and Nancy.
Six had been optimistic about stumbling onto contestants thus far, but even he could tell that these men did not look interested in answering questions.