Skyside 6: Return of the Cheddar

[Earl of Purple]

Silken Whisper

"Well, git yer associate to hurry up." The Luxan turns and walks back to the crowd, raising his Qualta blade and firing an energy blast at the feet of a man who was trying to lead a near-naked girl off. He takes the hint and stays put.

---

"An infection? Ya don't shoot people who're sick for an infection. I don't think I believe you, lassy. Go away an' leave us alone!" Gunfire's hard to mistake.

The girls she's freed thus far are backing away, accompanied by the purple-haired gunslinger that was downstairs. The first girl Zee freed now carries an unusual pistol; a revolver with only two chambers, fed by a magazine in the grip, and the second carries the chainsword and an AEP7 laser pistol. Both girls' guns were pulled out from under the coat worn by the gunslinger, who carries for herself a double-barrelled antique howdah pistol.

[Rebonack]

[Silken Whisper]

"Nah, but they shoot at me sometimes," Zee replies brightly. "My bedside manner is lacking."

Then?

She motions for the freed women and gunslinger to move aside a bit. She doesn't say anything, but the meaning of the gesture is immediately obvious. This guy might start shooting, get out of the line of fire.

"Are you sure you won't open the door? Not even if I say pretty please?"

You never know when saying please might help!

Always worth a shot.

Hopefully it won't end up being worth several blaster shots, though.


[Doom Door]

Without missing a beat the lion's head begins speaking ominously. "I am the thing which no man sees. Mouthless, I bite. Throatless, I howl. Clawless, I scour. What am I?"

It falls motionless again, awaiting an answer.

[bc56]

Doom Door

"Let me think about it," the woman says. She mindlessly adjusts her glasses, takes a quick look around, then looks back to the door. "Is it the wind?"

[Meowmai]

Shanks for the Meowmeries

Fidelia's eyes narrow as she stares into Elizabeth's face, studying motion that flits across it. Her own gaze is cold and flinty, hiding as much as she can manage from showing in her hazel eyes. She doesn't exactly buy this strange lady's explanation, and attempts to unravel just how much of it is fabrication. "And just who did you think I was," she demands, putting a little pressure to emphasize it.

Meowstaken IdentiFies

With only a few inches between her and her mark's face, Elizabeth really should have been able to realise that the woman in front of her was not in fact the Mara she had been trying to find. However, other more pressing things were occupying the catgirl's panicked mind and distracting her from coming to this realisation. Namely, trying to find a lie that wouldn't result in getting beaten further. Or worse.

"I, uh, well... a co-worker. I thought you were a co-worker of mine! That was the first lie that popped into the hacker's head, and she seized the idea and ran with it, the urgency to get out of this situation getting in the way of her ability to think clearly. … Someone called Sasha. They look like you, that's all!"

[Rebonack]

[Doom Door]

"Yes," replies the bronze lion. "A spooky ghost also would have been an acceptable answer."

Then follows a loud clunk of shifting tumblers and the door falls open, revealing a manicured estate of hedge rows, marble patios with fountains, flower beds, and ornate statues. Sunlight shines brightly through the portal, a sharp contrast with the dreary grey drab and artificial lighting of the woman's present surroundings.

From where our hero stands, she has a good view of the entrance to the hedge maze. A deep sense of mystery exudes from it.

Then there are the fountain and bench specked patios. A sense of whimsy dances through the air like glittering drops of water in the wind.

The statue garden also appears to be an option for exploration. An uneasy feeling of unreality hangs heavy over it.

All three paths appear bright and cheerful-

-but they likely all conceal hidden dangers.

[bc56]

Doom Door

The heroine steps through the door and surveys her options. Maybe someone hears her say, "Ooh, this will be fun!" in a childish voice before closing the portal behind her. Most likely, no one sees her form begin to distort and change, moving in thoroughly unsettling ways. She shrinks, losing a lot of height. Her dress becomes frillier and more girlish. Her features lose their adult shape and become the grinning face of a young girl, her glasses nowhere to be seen. Now looking about nine years old, the girl runs happily along the path towards the patio, her sneakers making soft footfalls along the ground.

[Morty]

[Machine Dump]

Someone is poking around one of Skyside's many garbage dumps for machinery. Olvisin's siblings and colleagues question (loudly and to her face) her habit of trying to scrounge up technology from what humans throw away, but she remains adamant that something of value can be found here. If nothing else, cheap spare parts never hurt anyone. So she pushes a cart with a small engine through the mountains of scrap, on lookout for treasures hidden in the... well, garbage.

[Earl of Purple]

Machine Dump

There's a lot of rubbish here, and a lot of it has been picked over several times. What's left is mostly too rusty, too bent, too small or too fragile to be worth recycling or reusing, but there are some exceptions.

Exceptions like the broken Protectron robot sticking out of a pile nearby, arms missing and lying on its side, legs twitching and kicking the air. Someone else has spotted it, too, and is approaching but they're staring is further away. They're a dark-skinned man with a shaven head, probably human. His left eye is cold and icy blue, the other a deep green, and he wears a dark red boiler suit, the left arm missing and replaced with a dark green cloth, and a leather apron with a selection of tool-loops currently holding a mismatched array of spanners, hammers, screwdrivers and a tin-opener. Dragged behind him is a crude sled made from a sheet of corrugated iron and a length of old nylon rope, piled high with a chunk of motorbike engine, an old CRT television with the screen missing, several metres of rusted chain, the door from a fridge and a plastic bucket filled with old computer mice.

"Stop right there, young lady! I need the biometric scanner for something I am planning, and possibly the left leg articulation as well!" The man's voice is panicked, but his sled is heavy and ungainly so it's likely that Olvisin could get there first and take whatever she wanted.

[Rebonack]

[Doom Door]

For footwear called 'sneakers' they sure aren't very sneaky.

Out onto the grand patio she goes! Thankfully the water slicked marble is full of little pebbles and pockmarks, otherwise it would be rather dangerous to run on. It isn't long before our hero approaches the first of the fountains, a towering sculpture of abstract multi-tiered shapes suggesting the curves and fluting of clam shells. The water spurts from the top, pinking into a lower bowl before cascading down into the great basin at the bottom. The basin is full of strange little coins and baubles with several large colorful fish swimming about. In the bowl several little bright orange birds are busy splashing about. And at the very apex of the fountain, hovering mere inches above the spray, dances a ring of the tiniest pixies no bigger than mosquitoes.

The fountain isn't the only oddity on the patio.

Certainly not!

Off in the distance is what can only be described as a small fortress made completely out of stacked benches and large potted plants. A figure briefly glances over its parapets to peer at Eao before quickly ducking out of sight again.

There's also what appears to be a giant checkerboard nearby, completely with giant stone checkers nearly as wide across as Eao's armspan. As she watches, one of the checkers lifts itself up atop dozens of black, spidery legs and skitters to a nearby diagonal space. Weird.

[bc56]

Doom Door

Ooh, pretty! Eao spends a moment to examine the fountain. What's that down in the water? Did she see someone moving over in that pile of benches? Oh, and the checkers are playing themselves! What does she want to look at first? The little girl decides on the fountain. She's not going to disturb the fairies. She seats herself on the rim of the fountain, and allows her bare feet to dangle into the water. Wait, wasn't she wearing shoes before? Where did they go? Well, she's barefoot now. She peers into the pool to see if there's anything interesting sunken within.

[Morty]

[Machine Dump]

Olvisin is a goblin woman of quite a generous figure, broad-hipped, curvy and heavy-set. She has yellow eyes and light brown hair that she keeps in a bun held together by two pins; her skin is very dark grey. She's dressed in heavy overalls, carrying a backpack and pushing a cart. She does also have a pair of heavy, modified handguns at her hips.

"Watch who you call a young lady. And I didn't see any sign over this dump about its belonging to you, so it's first-come first-served, isn't it?"

[Earl of Purple]

Machine Dump

"Not a young lady, noted. Was trying a compliment. Hopefully I'll remember they don't work. Yes, yes! First come, first served and I saw that shiny copper pipe first. I want it!" There is, in fact, a length of shiny copper pipe nearby, pinning the protectron in place. "I can use it for the barrel of an electromagnetic propulsion device for small steel balls, with some wires, a decent battery or generator setup and possibly my microwave." What happened to the protectron's biometric scanner and left leg?

[Morty]

[Machine Dump]

"Hang on a second. Weren't you just talking about a biometric scanner? And a leg?" Something doesn't add up here. Olvisin is of course aware she doesn't have a lot of high ground to criticize other people sifting through garbage. "And why do you need to electromagnetically propel small balls? Can't you just use a gun?"

[Earl of Purple]

Machine Dump

"Electromagnetic propulsion makes them faster! And it doesn't create a loud noise like a gun does. And I don't have to worry about my workshop exploding whilst I'm asleep. Well, hopefully not as often, anyway." The man nods vigorously as he speaks. "What? Oh! Yes, yes! I was going to build a thing! Using those parts! What was it? It was in my mind moments ago, before the shiny distracted me... Oh, come on, I can build the electromagnetic thing as well, maybe even mounted on the first thing..." He starts muttering and stops to think for a moment.

"Ah, yes! It was a teleportation gun! The biometric scanner would prevent it from accidentally teleporting bits of me and instead teleport whatever I chose as ammunition hopefully to where I wanted it! Yes, perfect, amazing! But what about the leg? I... think it was the same thing with both, but... Oh, it's gone now! It wasn't that important, clearly." He seems a little mad, as though he's constantly getting inspiration and ideas on what to build but lacks the concentration ability to keep at one for a long period of time.

[Rebonack]

[Doom Door]

Dangling toes in fountains is a time-honored tradition.

One of the large colorful fish draws closer to investigate, eyeing Eao's feet. The smaller, less colorful fish are far less standoffish. They come darting in and begin nibbling at the air bubbles clinging to the girl's skin.

It tickles tremendously.

Aside from tickly fish, the fountain also contains a great number of coins. Each of them is wildly different.

Gold, silver, bronze, nickle, copper.

Some of them have round holes. Some of them have square holes. Some of them have no holes at all.

Some are perfect circles. Some of flattened edges. Some are irregular stamps of metal that look like they were pressed by hand instead of being die-cut.

All sorts of coins! Coins from everywhere and everywhen.

Maybe they're people's wishes?

That's why coins are thrown into fountains, isn't it?

[bc56]

Doom Door

"Stop it! That tickles!" Eao laughs. She looks at all the coins in the fountain. She's holding one of her own, hexagonal and made from iron. Now what should she wish for? "I wish... I had some of my memories from before back." She doesn't remember much from when she wasn't a seraph. Brain damage saw to that.

[Morty]

[Machine Dump]

Olvisin stares at the man with blank disbelief. Has he seriously forgotten what he's building? Maybe he never knew to begin with.

"Alright, look. I don't think you should be allowed to fiddle with anything that allows teleportation, but you'll probably find it elsewhere if not here. So how about we make some kind of deal for which of us gets to take something home from this pile?"

[Earl of Purple]

Machine Dump

"Nobody should be allowed to play with teleportation. It's dangerous if it's done wrong. If I built a teleporter, I'd have to calibrate it really carefully in order to not leave my toes behind, or something. What kind of a deal?" The man seems quite interested in this, now, and nearly lets go of his sled. That would potentially be a bad idea, given how easily distracted he seems.

[Hattish Thing]

M.H.

Great. That tells us literally nothing. This cagey **** doesn't even have a real name, just a pair of letters. Of course, that just means Magtok is even more convinced that the 'boss boss' must be some Greek god. Why else would he be so secretive about his own identity, right? Definitely a deity of some sort. Thanatos, perhaps? This whole district seems designed to kill people, right? Certainly not Hades, though. M.H. doesn't seem anywhere near gloomy and moody enough for Hades to be the logical choice.

"Listen, if anyone asks, the delays are my fault," he insists, as his cold chrome fingers cling tightly to the shuttle's interior, more than a little unsettled by their abrupt lurch forward. This sweaty, nervous corporate drone clearly has enough to worry about without getting in trouble for falling behind schedule, and we probably could've saved time by being more diplomatic at the gate, right? "Magtok, that's me, got caught in some traffic before he got to Thunderhead. Another skytaxi broke down and crashed in the middle of the road, so I had to take another route. I'll explain that to anyone who needs to hear it," he offers, even if he's almost certain it's a complete waste of time to be making promises like that. A place as ugly and awful as this has to be actively trying to be this bad, right? Management isn't going to let an outsider take the blame when they have footsoldiers like this sweaty wretch to step on instead.

Mr. Schmidt chuckles nervously in response to the cyborg's offer. "Well, that's real nice of you, Mister. Afraid it'd do me no good, though!" There's a pained smile there as he continues to drive the shuttle forward. "Ms. Meggie don't like excuses, nor delays. Best to just... weather the storm, as it were. Else she'll feed you your fingers. Just a word of warning." He sniffs loudly before reaching a hand up to listen his tie slightly. "Not that it'll matter much to you! From what I've heard, your business here goes right over the foremen, all three of 'em. The man sighs before pulling his fraying, double-breasted suitcoat tighter around him. "You're a lucky man, I'd say. Please, don't mention any of this to anybody. I'm not sure why I said anything at all."

He breathes in shakily before properly introducing himself. "I'm Schmidt, by the by. Just an assistant, so you won't need to remember that or anything. Just didn't want to be rude." After several moments, the slow-moving shuttle winds around the back of the enormous, multi-structured factory before coming to a sudden stop before what appears to be a loading dock. The air is thick with black dust, and all around the dock, coal-smeared workers load truckloads of coal into dented carts. There's not a smile to be seen. As the shuttle engine winds down, Mr. Schmidt glances back towards Magtok. "Well, right this way, mister."

Mr. Schmidt exits the shuttle before gesturing towards the cyborg to follow him up a rickety flight of stairs.

[Company Town]

"Yes, it was a simple enough situation," Calm Reed says, looking down at the clerk. "Two men were savagely beating him, one with a club. They might have killed him if we had not stepped in."

[Company Town]

Carlie starts filling out the paperwork.

"A bunch of guys were attacking him," she says to give off the gist of the situation.

She gestures at Calm Reed. "She'll be better at explaining it." Since Calm Reed got closer to the situation.

The clerk sighs deeply towards the two women before nodding curtly. "I understand. We'll do what we can for him, but no promises. You two would do well to stay out of trouble, you hear? This is the sort of thing that happens when you go sticking your nose too far into other people's business."

"If you ain't with the company, you're not welcome here."

[Rebonack]

[Doom Door]

The fish don't stop.

They continue nibbling mercilessly.

What horrible creatures.

But then?

A coin is tossed!

It lands in the water with a soft *plink!*

And then!

...
....
.....

Nothing happens.

How would you be able to tell that memories came back, anyway?

Wouldn't it just feel like remembering anything else that you hadn't thought about for a while? Things that weren't lost, but rather weren't considered?

Maybe if she were to focus on something specific...

[bc56]

Doom Door

Eao does concentrate. Maybe if she focuses on what the robots plans were. She was privy to at least part of them before the brain damage and seraphication, but she doesn't remember any more. She tosses another coin, perfectly identical to the first in, just in case she needs a second wish to get this.

[5a Violista]

[Company Town]

"Okay," Carlie says. She nods, to show that she understood the clerk.

...

She doesn't leave, though. Or even move: she's acting like she's supposed to be welcome here.

She blinks: "Oh! Um, yeah, we are here on legitimate business. On our way here, we just happened across that guy." They're not sticking their noses where they don't belong, she swears.

[Morty]

[Machine Dump]

Olvisin didn't really have anything specific in mind, she just talked to keep talking.

"You... just said you wanted to build a teleportation gun. Anyway, I don't need anything specific from here, I just don't want to leave empty-handed. So how about we just split this? You take what you want, I take the rest."

[Company Town]

"Yes, we got this impression quite clearly," Calm Reed says in a cool and assured tone of voice. She wasn't about to be intimidate by some thugs with a veneer of legitimacy. "But like she said, we are here to investigate an important matter. People have been going missing."

[Earl of Purple]

Machine Dump

"Did I? Oh! Yes, yes! Of course, the robot's biometric scanner would solve the issue with teleporting parts of the user, and possibly also be replicated to help aim the device! And the leg's articulated knee joint could be used to provide an automated folding stock and possibly help move the weapon as it would naturally be rather large! Oh, truly I am a stunning genius whose technological innovation is utterly unparalleled, and also I am handsome and good looking, and renowned for my modesty." He lights up- not literally- as he speaks and pulls a set of adjustable spanners, a claw hammer, a multitool, a magnetic screwdriver and a scratch-built radio and getting to work.

He'll turn the radio on and crack open the protectron's shell as he works on disconnecting a device that is probably the biometric scanner. Despite his eccentricities and totally blanking what he was planning on building several times in the short time Olvisin has known him, he knows his way around a robot and a set of tools.

[Rebonack]

[Doom Door]

*plink!*

A single plan crystallizes in Eao's mind, filling in the rough edges of memories around it.

The fish continue nibbling.

It still tickles, but something feels wrong.

Should Eao look, there's blood in the water.

The little fish have teeth.

Apparently coins aren't sufficient for a wish.

The fountain also demands blood.

[bc56]

Doom Door

Eao's face freezes in horror. Not at getting eaten by fish, she hasn't noticed that yet, but at the plan she suddenly recalls. It takes her a few seconds before she notices that she's bleeding. With a yelp, she yanks her feet out of the pool and stumbles backwards. Fortunately, she should regenerate from that injury soon.

[Morty]

[Machine Dump]

"Yyyyeah. Modesty. First word that came to my mind when I met you, for sure." Olvisin contrives to sound serious and doesn't quite manage it. As far as handsome goes, who knows what humans think counts for handsome? "But unless there's something else valuable in this robot, you only get one of those. I get the other."

[Earl of Purple]

Machine Dump

"Really? Oh, I always knew it." Olvisin's sarcasm goes totally unnoticed, it seems. "Ah, yes of course! I shall take the biometric scanner, and leave you the legs." He's managed to remove said device, and is gathering his tools. Olvisin might want to remind him about his sled, since currently it seems as though he's going to forget it.

The legs aren't the only valuable things in the robot; its power supply is also in good condition, as is a lot of the wiring. That's how the legs continue to move. But none of that interest this chap, though Olvisin might be more interested. There's enough of the torso and legs that she might even be able to figure out how to repair it or reverse engineer it, if she has the patience.

[Rebonack]

[Doom Door]

The fish, thankfully, don't follow Eao out of the fountain.

That would be kind of scary, wouldn't it?

A bunch of fish with spidery legs in place of fins skittering up over the edge of the fountain and swarming toward her?

Oh.

Wait.

That's exactly what they're doing.

How distressing!

To make matters worse the little dancing pixies begin pointing and laughing at her.

What a bunch of jerks.

[Morty]

[Machine Dump]

Olvisin does fully intend to try to reverse-engineer this technology if she can. For now, she loads it onto her cart.

"Aren't you taking this sled with you?" she asks. This guy seems a few tools short of a full set...