Re: The Fearsome Encounter (GBS3G8) [Round 2: Oh Two Oh]
09-18-2012, 09:35 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by Schazer.
The galleries were all atwitter. And a titter. And a squawk or two of derision. Ms. Archer had no damned clue how they'd reconfigured things, but Bal was busy banging his head against what the secretary had tentatively decided was the door to the Onanist Harlot Wizard Cesspit (as she'd so totally-not-furious-that-they'd-pulled-this-stunt-on-her put it).
"KISA," shrieked the AI, struggling to make herself heard over the ever-growing audience of bored birds heckling her goon with 'advice', "LET BAL IN."
Bal (damnable backwater troglodyte) just kind of waved his head around like the dough-brained flail it was arguably built to be. Ms. Archer had, for few better ideas, picked a spot at random, assuming she could convince everyone (the wizards included) that the door was there and by Avery they were going to open it for her. There was no way in hell she was taking this personally, not when she definitely hadn't explicitly claimed that Parliament was hers to run with an iron fist. Wing. Endless supply of giant robotic limbs that descended from the ceiling and tore the limbs off anyone who disagreed with her. You got the picture.
Kisa had not let Bal in. The stilt-witch had made herself scarce, presumably where all the other architect-thinkers had gone and decided their little bolthole was inaccessible with a similar amount of effort to deciding a room was "cosy". Or "imposing". The possibility remained that Witch Matila wasn't actually a turncoat and a little bitch and a traitor and out to ruin Ms. Archer's credibility like that little slimeball Chordeilis, but charitability had proved a rather worthless piece of bundleware even before Avery had got his tendrils in the secretary's business.
She still had the logs from when she'd deleted it off her operating system. The recollection was unpleasant, mostly because Ms. Archer recognised introspection as a sign she was malfunctioning. She blamed Kisa, paced her office, then snatched the intercom off her desk.
"MONTAGUE," Ms. Archer screamed, somehow still managing to sound sexy and dangerous rather than demented and dangerous, "MY OFFICE . NOW."
Montague was a nervous-looking little creature, a village weaver who managed somehow to look even more nervous and littler when the AI went all histrionic on her public service announcement. He was smart enough to know who the real power brokers were, smart enough to negotiate himself a tidy little bit of diplomatic protection under their wing in exchange for the clerical tedium at which he was so skilled, but he wasn't smart enough to realise the diiplomats were maniacs. Safe only in the knowledge that he hadn't pissed off enough wizardtypes to be tossed into Ms. Archer's waiting jaws, he still managed to exude enough misery that his benchmate noticed.
"What's your problem, gorgeous?"
Montague glanced at the cocky little chicken beside him, a complementary shade of silver-white to his canary gold. "Um,"
"Ooh, I get it. You're that poor bastard Montague our fair lady's getting all riled up to audience, aren't you?"
The village weaver had kind of frozen up; the bantam snickered quietly as he ran a sensual beak-tip up Montague's neck. "Don't be shy, now."
Fortunately for Montague, Kittybrewster chose that moment to kick some dude in the face. At least they all got back on topic once the news filtered through from the Dross to the Caucus - the more squeamish didn't appreciate the the topic was "the best way to dispose of a dude with a cassowary's talons stuck in its face", but it was progress. Of a kind.
Then, out of the woodwork, came more bodyguards than you could sick a cassowary onto. Which wasn't all that surprising.
---
Mr. Saturday, meanwhile, was enjoying a spot of strip searching. The twenty-handed thing doing the searching, meanwhile, wasn't, which mostly had to do with the saucy commentary. In Saturday's defence, the whole concept of a police state was too entirely alien to set his alarm bells ringing, and he'd never been frisked on the occasions the sherrif had slung the old him punch-drunk face first into the cells for a night to sober up. His black cheek quietly leached heat out into the metal floor, where the enforcer had none-too-gently shoved it after Saturday had (with a wink) subtly shifted a searching hand further down his waist. The floor smelt faintly of blood. Didn't most metals do that, though, come to think of it?
A second... whatever the hell was sorting through the pockets of his burgundy coat, humming with disapproval at the assorted pistols and ammo. It looked human, but a rather unholy golden light shone through its pores and a robust metal mask was clamped around the lower half of its face. A screen on the mask flickered with sentence fragments no longer than a polysyllabic word, which nobody was bothering to read.
"WHAT. IS THIS. WORTHLESS. ANACH-. RONIST. WEAPONRY. THINK. YOU'RE A. COWBOY OR. SOMETHING. HUH???"
The Conphotorence motioned for its partner to get a better hold of their detainee's various limbs. He (?) then raised Saturday's chin by the goatee, a motion as distasteful as grabbing a squirming rat by the tail. Its eyes were gold like Saturday's, but better-resembled the sun in the way it hurt to stare into them too long. The Baron opted to pay good attention to the words on the mask instead.
"LAST TIME. YOU TRY. CHATTING. UP. SCORPI-. OCORE'S. TASTIEST. BITCH. PARTNER."
The rationale for his warm welcome thus finally made clear, Saturday figured this all a bit pointless. The only real mystery remaining (other than why he was still tolerating this treatment when he could probably kill these dudes without even thinking) was this Scorpi.ocore character, and whether killing his henchmen would bite the Baron in his dual-tone butt faster than screwing up his mission for the other guy. Saturday was really struggling to take this whole competition business or whatever seriously, if only because the coin business implied he was just being fucked with. Not that that was a problem, Saturday was a man who could take it. In more ways than one, paid to mention.
Oh, and also whether old Mask-Chops was confusing charming young courtesans like the dame Saturday had been enjoying a conversation with, with whatever the hells a "bitch partner" was. How could you even get those confused?
Mr. Hands hauled the painted man up with three hands clamped on a shoulder, dragging a worryingly compliant Saturday through a bunch of steel corridors. The Conphotorence stalked ahead, making it clear to the beggars and vagrants and hired muscle that littered the halls messing with it was messing with Scorpiocore. Saturday was content to be hauled along, still not seeing these guys as much of a threat. He was frogmarched through a door, through a bar so dank and smoky even the Conphotoerence's glow couldn't pierce it, out the back, through a cavern he failed to recognise as a cargo hold, and beaten round the head again when they stopped and he asked what the hold-up was.
"Shut your face," growled Mr. Hands.
"WHAT. IN MY. STARS IS. THE. FUCKING. PROBLEM. HERE????"
Mask-Chops wasn't talking (?) to him, instead glaring down a corridor where a commotion was underway. One of his underlings was tossed into view, before an enormous penguin charged out of nowhere and slugged the poor bastard across the face.
A racket-tailed drongo flew out of the doorway, cackling like a maniac and screaming about how Lucy or someone should "just try stop [him] now, you self-righteous fuzzball!"
Saturday idly watched it pinwheel above, before it divebombed out of the sky and perched on his head. Damn, he thought. He'd need a fresh hat, which to the freely intangible and formless was more of a mild inconvenience than an actual problem. The drongo seemed unsympathetic to his plight, and utterly heedless of the many-handed thing still appearing to have a hold on Saturday. It instead hollered back in the direction of the hallway, which had since been cleared of the penguin but was sporting a screaming man with an eagle stuck to his face.
"Oi, dudes! I found that there voodoo fucker! What's my prize!?"
The galleries were all atwitter. And a titter. And a squawk or two of derision. Ms. Archer had no damned clue how they'd reconfigured things, but Bal was busy banging his head against what the secretary had tentatively decided was the door to the Onanist Harlot Wizard Cesspit (as she'd so totally-not-furious-that-they'd-pulled-this-stunt-on-her put it).
"KISA," shrieked the AI, struggling to make herself heard over the ever-growing audience of bored birds heckling her goon with 'advice', "LET BAL IN."
Bal (damnable backwater troglodyte) just kind of waved his head around like the dough-brained flail it was arguably built to be. Ms. Archer had, for few better ideas, picked a spot at random, assuming she could convince everyone (the wizards included) that the door was there and by Avery they were going to open it for her. There was no way in hell she was taking this personally, not when she definitely hadn't explicitly claimed that Parliament was hers to run with an iron fist. Wing. Endless supply of giant robotic limbs that descended from the ceiling and tore the limbs off anyone who disagreed with her. You got the picture.
Kisa had not let Bal in. The stilt-witch had made herself scarce, presumably where all the other architect-thinkers had gone and decided their little bolthole was inaccessible with a similar amount of effort to deciding a room was "cosy". Or "imposing". The possibility remained that Witch Matila wasn't actually a turncoat and a little bitch and a traitor and out to ruin Ms. Archer's credibility like that little slimeball Chordeilis, but charitability had proved a rather worthless piece of bundleware even before Avery had got his tendrils in the secretary's business.
She still had the logs from when she'd deleted it off her operating system. The recollection was unpleasant, mostly because Ms. Archer recognised introspection as a sign she was malfunctioning. She blamed Kisa, paced her office, then snatched the intercom off her desk.
"MONTAGUE," Ms. Archer screamed, somehow still managing to sound sexy and dangerous rather than demented and dangerous, "MY OFFICE . NOW."
Montague was a nervous-looking little creature, a village weaver who managed somehow to look even more nervous and littler when the AI went all histrionic on her public service announcement. He was smart enough to know who the real power brokers were, smart enough to negotiate himself a tidy little bit of diplomatic protection under their wing in exchange for the clerical tedium at which he was so skilled, but he wasn't smart enough to realise the diiplomats were maniacs. Safe only in the knowledge that he hadn't pissed off enough wizardtypes to be tossed into Ms. Archer's waiting jaws, he still managed to exude enough misery that his benchmate noticed.
"What's your problem, gorgeous?"
Montague glanced at the cocky little chicken beside him, a complementary shade of silver-white to his canary gold. "Um,"
"Ooh, I get it. You're that poor bastard Montague our fair lady's getting all riled up to audience, aren't you?"
The village weaver had kind of frozen up; the bantam snickered quietly as he ran a sensual beak-tip up Montague's neck. "Don't be shy, now."
Fortunately for Montague, Kittybrewster chose that moment to kick some dude in the face. At least they all got back on topic once the news filtered through from the Dross to the Caucus - the more squeamish didn't appreciate the the topic was "the best way to dispose of a dude with a cassowary's talons stuck in its face", but it was progress. Of a kind.
Then, out of the woodwork, came more bodyguards than you could sick a cassowary onto. Which wasn't all that surprising.
---
Mr. Saturday, meanwhile, was enjoying a spot of strip searching. The twenty-handed thing doing the searching, meanwhile, wasn't, which mostly had to do with the saucy commentary. In Saturday's defence, the whole concept of a police state was too entirely alien to set his alarm bells ringing, and he'd never been frisked on the occasions the sherrif had slung the old him punch-drunk face first into the cells for a night to sober up. His black cheek quietly leached heat out into the metal floor, where the enforcer had none-too-gently shoved it after Saturday had (with a wink) subtly shifted a searching hand further down his waist. The floor smelt faintly of blood. Didn't most metals do that, though, come to think of it?
A second... whatever the hell was sorting through the pockets of his burgundy coat, humming with disapproval at the assorted pistols and ammo. It looked human, but a rather unholy golden light shone through its pores and a robust metal mask was clamped around the lower half of its face. A screen on the mask flickered with sentence fragments no longer than a polysyllabic word, which nobody was bothering to read.
"WHAT. IS THIS. WORTHLESS. ANACH-. RONIST. WEAPONRY. THINK. YOU'RE A. COWBOY OR. SOMETHING. HUH???"
The Conphotorence motioned for its partner to get a better hold of their detainee's various limbs. He (?) then raised Saturday's chin by the goatee, a motion as distasteful as grabbing a squirming rat by the tail. Its eyes were gold like Saturday's, but better-resembled the sun in the way it hurt to stare into them too long. The Baron opted to pay good attention to the words on the mask instead.
"LAST TIME. YOU TRY. CHATTING. UP. SCORPI-. OCORE'S. TASTIEST. BITCH. PARTNER."
The rationale for his warm welcome thus finally made clear, Saturday figured this all a bit pointless. The only real mystery remaining (other than why he was still tolerating this treatment when he could probably kill these dudes without even thinking) was this Scorpi.ocore character, and whether killing his henchmen would bite the Baron in his dual-tone butt faster than screwing up his mission for the other guy. Saturday was really struggling to take this whole competition business or whatever seriously, if only because the coin business implied he was just being fucked with. Not that that was a problem, Saturday was a man who could take it. In more ways than one, paid to mention.
Oh, and also whether old Mask-Chops was confusing charming young courtesans like the dame Saturday had been enjoying a conversation with, with whatever the hells a "bitch partner" was. How could you even get those confused?
Mr. Hands hauled the painted man up with three hands clamped on a shoulder, dragging a worryingly compliant Saturday through a bunch of steel corridors. The Conphotorence stalked ahead, making it clear to the beggars and vagrants and hired muscle that littered the halls messing with it was messing with Scorpiocore. Saturday was content to be hauled along, still not seeing these guys as much of a threat. He was frogmarched through a door, through a bar so dank and smoky even the Conphotoerence's glow couldn't pierce it, out the back, through a cavern he failed to recognise as a cargo hold, and beaten round the head again when they stopped and he asked what the hold-up was.
"Shut your face," growled Mr. Hands.
"WHAT. IN MY. STARS IS. THE. FUCKING. PROBLEM. HERE????"
Mask-Chops wasn't talking (?) to him, instead glaring down a corridor where a commotion was underway. One of his underlings was tossed into view, before an enormous penguin charged out of nowhere and slugged the poor bastard across the face.
A racket-tailed drongo flew out of the doorway, cackling like a maniac and screaming about how Lucy or someone should "just try stop [him] now, you self-righteous fuzzball!"
Saturday idly watched it pinwheel above, before it divebombed out of the sky and perched on his head. Damn, he thought. He'd need a fresh hat, which to the freely intangible and formless was more of a mild inconvenience than an actual problem. The drongo seemed unsympathetic to his plight, and utterly heedless of the many-handed thing still appearing to have a hold on Saturday. It instead hollered back in the direction of the hallway, which had since been cleared of the penguin but was sporting a screaming man with an eagle stuck to his face.
"Oi, dudes! I found that there voodoo fucker! What's my prize!?"
peace to the unsung peace to the martyrs | i'm johnny rotten appleseed
clouds is shaky love | broke as hell but i got a bunch of ringtones
eyes blood red bruise aubergine | Sue took something now Sue doesn't sleep | saint average, day in the life of
woke up in the noon smelling doom and death | out the house, great outdoors
staying warm in arctic blizzard | that's my battle 'til I get inanimate | still up in the same clothes living like a gameshow
clouds is shaky love | broke as hell but i got a bunch of ringtones
eyes blood red bruise aubergine | Sue took something now Sue doesn't sleep | saint average, day in the life of
woke up in the noon smelling doom and death | out the house, great outdoors
staying warm in arctic blizzard | that's my battle 'til I get inanimate | still up in the same clothes living like a gameshow