Skyside 6: Return of the Cheddar

[bc56]

Jade seems rather confused now. Fly? She can't fly! She's not a bird. She will, however, climb the ladder and shoo the ravens away. Are there grey-white feathers mixed into her hair? She doesn't seem to notice, or care. There's a couple small ones on her arms too. But she's focused on the birds in her way of figuring out what's going on here and getting snacks.

[Rebonack]

[Bird's the Word]

Can't fly? But... Gulls can fly! Is there something wrong with her?

If there is something wrong with her she should probably figure that out.

Jade is, like, the smartest gull ever. She makes armor so tough that even the fastest falcons couldn't explode her and eat her. Figuring out why she can't fly and then making it so that she CAN should be easy, right?

Definitely.

But first she needs to figure out what was going on with that weird gross raven guy. What was his deal, anyway? He was part bird and part human? What would do something like that to a bird?

Probably some kind of magic. Or maybe some really slick mad science. Either way, into the silo! The ravens shout at her a whole bunch because of course they do. HEY! HEY YOU! WE HATE YOU GIANT GULL! they yell. Man, ravens are just the worst.

Jade slips into the hatch and lands on a walkway overlooking the dark interior of the silo. There's a ladder leading down into the gloom and from the layer of bricks filling in the inside of the silo it's pretty clear that the LOWER door is blocked off. This is, definitely, the entrance to a villain's lair. Who knows what kind of treats might be hidden down there. She can't see anything, though. Good thing all her super gull science knowledge let her make amazing things that light up other things. Like to see a raven pull THAT off!

[bc56]

But I'm not a gull. I'm a human. Jade thinks, but she has to look down at herself to be sure... And she sees her feathers, gradually thickening spots of whitish plumage on her arms. "Holy fwaaak!" She exclaims, "I'm turning into a bird! Did I just squak?" Now it's more imperative than ever that she find the cause of this before she's fully gone. And apparently, this effect is contagious. She changes into her armor quickly, prickling with discomfort where it touches her feathers, and opens the lower hatch.

[Rebonack]

[Bird's the Word]

Jade is turning into a bird?

Is that right?

Is she sure she isn't a bird changing back from a human?

That might be possible.

Regardless, Jade climbs down the ladder to the ground level of the silo, where she'll find a fairly well hidden (but apparently not well hidden ENOUGH) hatch that leads into the lab proper.

The lab in question isn't that large. And it seems more like... a study, maybe? A desk. Old looking books. And several heavy lead boxes on a shelf, each designed to slot into some kind of machine and slide open. Though there doesn't appear to be any machine to slot them into. There are some diagrams nearby, displaying some sort of...

Power generator, it looks like?

Whatever the lead boxes are, it appears to be fuel for the machine. Or at least containers for the fuel. There's a rather frightening, intimidating looking spiky symbol stamped onto the side of the led boxes in black and red. It isn't at all obvious what the symbol means, but it looks threatening.

There's writing on the diagram, but it's some ancient dialect that Jade hasn't ever seen before. Thankfully, however, there are also sticky notes in writing she CAN understand! Something about unlimited power. Speculation on how the reactor works. Noting potential hazards of the fuel. There are several books open on the desk nearby. A journal, a large, crumbling tome, and...

A birding magazine?

Huh.

Maybe this is the place?

[bc56]

Someone was researching mystical power sources... And birds? Jade flips absently through the magazine with a finger wingtip, looking for clues to her condition. She doesn't think she'll have much success. She's not going to look in the boxes though. The notes she has found definitely say that opening those is dangerous. There won't be any tasty trash in... Augh, she's doing it again! I am NOT a BIRD! She inwardly screams at herself, but she seems less convinced of the fact than she was a moment ago.

[Rebonack]

[Bird's the Word]

As soon as Jade shouts 'bird' in her mind she'll likely be met with the incredibly jarring sensation of her whole respiratory system rearranging itself all at once. She wouldn't be breathing in and out anymore. Instead air is constantly flowering down, through her lungs and respiratory pouches, and back out again. It's like... breathing in and out at the same time, all the time, forever. A continuous flow of fresh air. It also means that if she felt like making gull noises she wouldn't ever run out of breath.

More importantly, it means she could cram a whole, large fish down her throat and still be able to breath just fine.

The magazine is pretty normal as far as magazines about birds go.

But there are more sticky notes on several entries. One of the notes is on gulls (wow, he looks really cute!). Another on pigeons. Another on crows, on ravens. And several others, too. One note has writing on it.

All the associated avian forms appear to correspond with what humans would consider 'trash birds'. Birds that feed on the trappings and refuse of human society. What does this have to do with the entity? Sacred animals perhaps?

That still leaves the journal and the tome and wait is that a mini-fridge? There might be food in it.

[bc56]

"Squaaaaaawk" Jade cries out in alarm at the very alien sensation. Focus, she needs to focus. There's a curse turning her into a seagull. She's got to solve this before she ends up too much of a bird to care... Ooh, food! She stops what she's doing to raid the minifridge. She's so hungry right now, she could eat anything.

[Rebonack]

[Bird is the Word]

Inside the mini-fridge is a bounty of snacks! There are several little single serving yogurt cups, a tuna sandwich wrapped in plastic, a half eaten take-out box of fried rice, and a plastic container marked SAMPLE: DO NOT EAT. There are also several cans of soda and one bottle of cheap beer.

Everything in here looks delicious.

Maybe even the sample?

But it says on there not to eat it.

What the heck is in there, anyway?

Maybe it's something important?

Either way that tuna sandwich looks REALLY tempting.

[bc56]

Jade removes her helmet, squawks in triumph, grabs the sandwich, unwraps it, and chokes it down in only a couple bites. That was really good. She pokes around the other things in there and spots the sample. She pulls it out and examines it. A sample of what? Probably whatever is in those boxes, which means it's dangerous. She'll be very, very careful with it. She doesn't want to be suddenly struck by an explosion of birdness. She's already much more of a bird than is probably safe. Stop being a bird. Be a scientist. Stop being a bird. Be a scientist, she mentally repeats to herself.

[Rebonack]

[Bird's the Word]

Wow that tuna sandwich was great. Jade's inner gull will probably be less annoying for a little while at least.

The specimen container is examined!

...it's a pigeon's foot.

Little pink pigeon foot.

Why is there a pigeon foot in a specimen container?

What has that got to do with anything?

Obviously whatever is going on has something to do with birds. Birds and power generation? Somehow?

There has GOT to be something about it in one of the other books. Jade still has the journal and the tome to poke at. Both of those books are open on the desk. Or she could try opening one of those hazard containers. But if there's anything inside them that is almost without question a bad plan.

[bc56]

Huh. A bird's foot. That's weird, but maybe not notable? Jade puts it back in the fridge, and with a longing glance at the other foodstuffs, turns back to the desk. If she can't learn from the magazine and the food, she can definitely learn from the journal. What was the researcher up to, before he got turned into a bird? Maybe his notes have some information about a cure. That might be too much to ask though. She doesn't want to turn the rest of the way into a bird... She's interrupted by a sickening crack as her left leg's bone structure suddenly rearranges itself. She makes a couple panicked gull noises and starts removing her armor as quickly as possible. It would be very painful to be still in the suit if she continues to be reshaped. She grimaces as she sees her leg, now jointed like a bird's. Her toes are splaying uncannily apart, and a coating of yellow scales is crawling across the limb. She hobbles on mismatched legs the rest of the way to the desk and grabs the journal. She needs an answer, fast.

[Earl of Purple]

Bird's the Word

Striding purposefully along is a tall woman, in her twenties. She's got black hair, green eyes and pale skin, and she's wearing a lamellar coat that hangs to her knees. She's carrying an electrified prod as long as a spear and there's a rucksack slung on her back. She's here looking for someone; a girl that slipped her chains whilst being transported to the Guild's assessment centre.

The girl she's looking for appears a couple years older, a half-elf with skin the colour of polished oak, brown hair and deep green eyes. She's wearing a pair of dirty cargo pants and a yellow t-shirt, and still has a steel shackle about her left ankle. She's currently hiding in an alleyway, looking for a way to escape.

[Rebonack]

[Bird is the Word]
Jade

Oh hey bird foot.

Jade can use magic to reshape her armor, right?

Or does that not cover being a bird?

It'll be kind of a pain if it doesn't.

Anywho!

The journal.

Where is Jade going to start? Beginning? Middle? End?

Because it is a pretty big journal, all things considered.


[Bird is the Word]
Slave and Slaver

One the hunter. One the prey.

As the hunter pushes her way through the crowd she might notice something very strange. Every now and again someone has feathers sticking out of their hair. Like a bird. Huh. Maybe it's some new fashion fad? Either way, that slave doesn't look like she's around anywhere nearby. Does the guild have any contracts with local businesses to help capture fugitives? If so, that could be potentially helpful.

Meanwhile!

There's a loud THUMP on top of a dumpster in the alley as... a bird? Or a human? It has wings like a bird, white and black feathers. And a naked black head with a long down-curved beak. But its legs are like a human's. It looks all twisted and wrong, a incoherent mishmash of parts. The distressing birdperson begins rooting through the dumpster with its long beak, apparently oblivious or disinterested in the woman.

[Hattish Thing]

[Trader Bust]

The goblin seems excited about the task at hand.

A spaceship, a real spaceship - she'd be going off into space! A new experience for her.

Plus, she'd be robbing people up there, probably. That was the plan, right? Robbery, not sabotage? Unless that was also a thing? This big tall lady seemed pretty into killing stuff, so who's to say. "Sae, muckle lassie, ur we aff tae be crashing th' ship?" she asks with a raised brow. That sounded really fun, but also kind of scary. Were there, like, escape pods?

Fancy future words always made her smile. Mud people worked so hard in spite of their innate mediocrity.

Must be absolutely exhausting.

---

[Olympian Extractions - Factory Floor]

The foreman just chuckles at Calm Reed.

"Ha, you'd think so!" she exclaims. "But really, these people ain't the sort to reach very far."

She leans back in her chair before continuing. "The city's a dangerous place, folk are just happy that they ain't getting pulled off the streets or gunned down by lunatics." She chews on her cigar. "You ain't from 'round here, so I'll chalk it up to simply not knowing better, honey - but frankly, the illusion of advancement is more than these people could ever hope for outside these walls."

Then she address Carlie. "Ha, how should I know?" she sneers. "Wallowing in whatever deep dark hole we haven't bombed out just yet, likely."

"You want my advice? Go after the artists." She shrugs.

---

[Groundtown - Club]

The shadowy sprawl beneath the city above can only be described as destitute.

Crumbling cement buildings rise out of the cracked sidewalk like the jagged, gap-toothed grin of a skeleton.

The only splash of color in the grime comes from lurid graffiti painted upon the walls. From every covered doorway originates the dejected stares of men and women in cardboard sleeping bags and makeshift lodgings. From upper windows flows the boom of sub-culture music. Miserable throngs of people wander the streets looking for work, their wretched bodies as thin as pins, their cheekbones jutting out through pallid skin.

Solstice's doll will lead her to the farthest end of town. In the distance, lights bleed out from a large building.

[bc56]

Jade can use magic to reshape her armor. But she's not sure what the limit on that change is. And it's not as reliable when she's not transforming herself. So she strips down to her underclothes. Those will be easier to reshape with her body. She flips to the middle of the journal, using her left hand, because her right is starting to fuse together. Judging by the way it's also elongating, it might be turning into a wing. She jumps slightly as the first tail feathers begin to poke out of her backside. I need to figure out how to stop myself from becoming a bird, and fast. If I caught it from that guy, everyone who encountered him must be turning into birds too. I need a cure. A cure for bird.

[WindStruck]

Thankfully, as it was suspected, the doll seemed to be leading them somewhere closer.. or at least, in a more manageable direction. This was good because slogging through those horrible sewers was very unappealing and seemed extremely dangerous.

But, unfortunately, the area the trio found themselves in now was quite bleak and destitute. At least it was mostly cement here as opposed to iron and steel.. though the dreary atmosphere and the destitute denizens seemed to suggest a completely different form of peril.

Solstice leads Zee and Jade on quite a trek through the town, seemingly on the farthest end. They approach a large building emanating neon light from various cracks in window coverings and doorways, and obnoxious techno base undulates through the walls like waves tearing apart an ocean cliff, the blaring beat palpable even at this distance.

Solstice points cautiously and whispers, "There."

She'd also like to search the area for something she can scrawl into concrete with. Chalk is always ideal but not with her at the moment. That was in her bag. But even small rocks can do, as they could draw small white (at least usually white) lines into stone as they scraped against it.

[Rebonack]

[Groundtown - Club]

Zee frowns at the thump of the music and the strobe of the lights. While she has no issue with a good party, she's certain this is anything but.

"I'm pretty sure I know what Larza did with the money," she sighs as she heads toward the building. She's planning on scaling one of the walls and peeking in through the windows.

What sort of nonsense is going on in there?

Debauchery, maybe?

Probably.

Likely, even.

This may end up being a pretty bad day for the goblin.


[Bird is the Word]

Straight to the middle of the journal Jade goes.

Thank GOODNESS it isn't written in some sort of cypher.

There's a lot of stuff in here. Something about an ancient extinct civilization and an Entity. The Entity, the monster that was found deep in the earth, was dug up and chopped into pieces. They used it to create power. Unlimited power. They just fed garbage into the machine and energy came out. But there was a problem. Ornithological radiation, the journal calls it. Which sounds like complete nonsense-

-if not for the fact that Jade is in the process of being a seagull.

It spread through the civilization. The Entity was sealed underground in hopes that would placate it and end the curse.

It didn't.

People fled the cities and the contagion spread with them.

The journal details how the contagion spread. By sight. To see those infected by the contagion is to risk being infected.

And by word.

Say it.

Think it.

And it spreads.

Bird is the word.

[bc56]

Jade is speechless. Just thinking the word, 'bird' is dangerous?" She doesn't believe it, but she feels her feathers thickening just at the thought. This triggers a serious negative reaction. Don't think of birds. Don't think of birds don't think of birds don'tthinkofbirds! Of course it doesn't work. And now she's changing much more quickly. She lets out a couple more squawks as her arm that was turning into a wing finishes the process. Scales shoot up her legs. The one that was already birdifying now looks exactly like a seagull's, just human sized. Now she has a sudden urge to preen her plumage. She's completely losing it now. NO! NO! NO! NO! I don't WANT to be a BIRD! This is all pretty counterproductive to that goal.

[Rebonack]

[Bird is the Word]

A gull, Jade.

You're a gull.

What's wrong with being a gull, anyway?

There are way worse things to be.

What if you were a slug instead?

Or worse, a stuck up jerk of a raven?

Everything will be fine. You'll be fine. Just fine and more gull-like. Nothing to worry about. Boy, this is even worse than the gender-bender plague Libra started, isn't it? Maybe this is why Zee dislikes transformy things so much. Causes all sorts of distress.

Hmm...

There's still more to that journal, Jade the Gull. You should probably read some more. Maybe there's a cure? After all, SOME people from that civilization must have survived right? Or... well they all survived. Just as birds. Or weird awful jumbles of bird-parts.

Probably don't think about weird awful jumbles of bird-parts.

[bc56]

Bird is the Word

Jade shakes as her body is wracked with more changes. Most of her hair is gone, replaced with a bunch of grey feathers. Her right wing is fully developed, complete with all the feathers she would need to fly. Her left is getting there. She's starting to lose her only thumb. She'd better hurry. Her legs are bird legs, with webbed feet perfect for swimming. At least they aren't mismatched anymore. She frantically begins flipping through the pages of the journal. She needs that cure before... No, it's too horrible to think about. Focus on the book.

Groundtown Club

"I can get in from above while you two enter from below?" Jade asks/says. She's already activating her rocket boots to leap up to the roof of the club and hopefully find an entrance leading down into it.
She's seen dens of debauchery before. If there are slaves here, which seems likely given the location, she needs to free them. There is no other option on that front.

[WindStruck]

Solstice peers down at Jade's rocket boots activating and takes some steps back. She says, looking up at her, "I, um, suppose so??" That uncertainty in her voice was more than obvious.

Would there even be some kind of entrance up on the roof? What was Jade intending to do? Drop through a glass ceiling like Batman? Not that Solstice knew who Batman was.

She says to Zee, "Do you see anything? .. I.. suppose we shall be going in through this door regardless..."

Maybe now would be a good time for Solstice to try a glamour, but quite frankly she sucked at them. If she was any good at them, she probably would have never had to be embarrassed about losing her clothes in the first place and just made herself some glamoured clothes or something.

Solstice took a deep breath and tried to imagine herself as someone else. She released her hair from her robe and unfurled it. Slowly, her hair seemed to shift to a darker hue. Dark brown, almost black. And her skin turned a shade darker too. Oh, and her eyes! No more cat-like pupils, and a bit slanted.

Well, the resemblance to Solstice was still quite clear, but at least it wasn't obvious at a casual glance...

[Meowmai]

Meowstaken IdentiFies

"Because what happens out in these alleyways, it's not pretty," Fidelia stated frankly. And probably quite obviously. Skyside is certainly a city with a reputation to it, after all. Surely Elizabeth wouldn't be so naive as to not do some digging into the area where her target resided in, right?

"Also I don't mug people anymore. Which is probably the nicest thing people with knives do out here."

[Meowstaken Identifies]

It turned out that in fact, Elizabeth was almost exactly that naive. She had done a little basic research, but her original intention had been to do more once she actually knew her targets home address. And she figured that Skyside couldn't have been as bad as everyone was saying. It all seemed a bit of an exaggeration to her, though perhaps that was a rather stupid assumption.

"Uhhh... you don't mug people... anymore?" Not the most reassuring of statements to hear, if she was honest.

[Rebonack]

[Bird is the Word]

The cure. No. No cure. But, perhaps, a way to stop the spread.

What is the opposite of scavenging through the refuse of civilization to find sustenance?

What's the opposite of a trash bird?

The journal's writer has several ideas, but obviously until recently he had no way to test them.

Could it be to fashion something NEW rather than picking at the work of others?

Could it be to grow and consume something FRESH with your own hands rather than scavenging?

Perhaps both. Perhaps neither. Nearby on the table Jade will spy an amulet made from carefully twisted copper wire. A pretty glass marble lays nearby, obviously meant to be the centerpiece.

But unfinished.

The researcher likely meat to return here and finish the pendant if he was infected by this avian contagion. But it seems he underestimated how quickly it would act. What a pity.

The journal suggest that, perhaps, the malign influence of the Entity could be broken if its foothold in reality where destroyed...

...but that's just idle speculation. The journal hints that the Entity's Tomb is quite near Skyside, the entrance well hidden in a small barrow.

[bc56]

Jade frantically rushes to the incomplete amulet. She just needs to put it back together and then she can stop being a bird! She reaches for it... With her left wing. Oh no! She doesn't have thumbs anymore! She squawks in alarm and desperately tries to use her bird feet to put the marble into the amulet, but they are meant for walking and swimming, not holding things. If this doesn't work, she'll have to confront the thing and seagull thoughts at the same time.

[Earl of Purple]

Bird's the Word Predator and Prey

Alecto isn't looking much at the people, just confirming they aren't the person she's looking for and moving to the next. The feathers are noticed, but she doesn't think much about them, beyond a brief examination of any particularly attractive plumage and wondering the possible price that person might go for, should they find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. She is going to stop someone and ask them if they've seen the half-elf.

The half-elf jumps at the sound of the arrival, and gawks at the bird-person. She glances back to the mouth of the alley, but most of their attention is upon the dumpster diving ibis. She's going to approach, get a good look, as she wonders how and why somebody merged person with bird like that.

Trader Bust Shuttle Crew

The shuttle's quite bulky and inelegant, the grey paint scorched from re-entry and scarred from poor maintenance. There's a hatch in the side, currently open, and awaiting there is the ship's enginseer and... well, it seems she's recruited a crew to help fly it. There's four people, all human or acceptably adjacent. A woman wearing an orange space-suit with the round helmet off, holding a cosmonaut survival gun. A man three metres tall wearing a tailored black voidsuit under a powered frame enabling him to work in a gravity field this strong. A ratling wearing a bomber jacket and a pair of navy combat trousers, with a sniper rifle slung over her back. Finally, somebody wearing what looks like a brown diving-suit, of brass and heavy canvas.

Zee

Is Zee going straight to Groundtown, or will she lurk near the official shuttle docks taking people to and from Groundtown first? There's other ways down, usually cheaper but not guaranteed as safe.

[Morty]

[Olympian Extractions - Factory Floor]

Calm Reed stares down the forewoman with a glare of silent, cold distaste. Here is someone given a scrap of power and doing all she can do abuse it. Disgraceful.

"Artists. Known troublemakers, those," she says with wry sarcasm. "But we can follow this thread."

[Rebonack]

[Bird is the Word]
Jade

Picking up a marble with a seagull foot is pretty close to impossible.

Maybe Jade could pick it up in her mouth?

Too bad she doesn't have a beak.

Picking up things with a beak is WAY easier.

Even if Jades DOES manage to fit the marble into the pendant it won't help her. She didn't make the pendant. Now, if she went back to her own base and completed one of her OWN projects? THAT would help.

But maybe she hasn't realized that.

Maybe she's too frantic trying to suppress bird thought.


[Bird is the Word]
Predator and Prey

There IS someone with iridescent pigeon style plumage around the back of their neck. That probably counts as attractive.

A passerby, a short, squat fellow with a mostly bald head an a robotic left leg pauses when question. "Mm? What did she look like?" he'll ask. Should he receive a more precise description he'll raise one hand as if getting ready to point in a direction-

-then hold his palm open.

"Yeah. Saw someone like that. What's it worth to you?"

Ah Skyside.

Never change.

Meanwhile!

The strange ibis man looks at the woman as she approaches, tilting his head to the side in a very bird-like fashion.

"You," the bird person somehow manages to croak. "You like... birds?"

That's...

A really foreboding question to ask.

"Birds birds birds!" he squawks, making a ruckus now. He hobbles awkwardly off the dumpster, flopping onto the ground and begins shuffling toward her. "Do you like birds!?"


[Trader Bust]

Zee is planning on keeping an eye on both the cable cars and the shuttles. The cable cars are FAR more harrowing but certainly cheaper. That's what Zee has used when coming to-

Hehe.

Wow.

This is her first time up in Skyside but she's also been there lots of times since. Man, continuity gets really strange in these slow moving temporal threads, doesn't it?

Zee's left giggling at the strangeness of the cosmos' fabric as she paces the docks. Most of the cable cars come up just one one side of the city. That means keeping an eye on the cable cars is pretty easy. The shuttles run on schedules, so she just needs to be around when they're boarding. Hopefully she can keep an eye on both. Thankfully she's absolutely inanely big and she can move pretty quickly perpendicular to reality.

...though...

That feeling of formless dread people get whenever Yezekiel is lurking just beyond the veil of sight will probably leave the folks near the shuttles and cable cars really restless.

[bc56]

No no no no no! Without opposable thumbs, Jade can't manage to do much of anything. She probably can't even finish her own projects, even if she knew she needed to. As it is, she fails to complete the amulet, and since it's made of thin copper wire, probably squashes it flat in the process. The marble rolls off and drops onto the floor. Ooh, shiny! Wait, no! Bad Jade! She goes back to the book, which is thankfully on the same page. She needs to memorize the location of the tomb and get there before everyone in Skyside is squabbling over food found in trash bins, herself included. She needs to get out of here. She quickly heads for the exit. Hopefully her current lack of thumbs won't make getting out an issue.

[Earl of Purple]

Bird's the Word Predator & Prey

Alecto rolls her eyes when asked for payment, and shrugs her rucksack off. She reaches inside and pulls out a fine silver chain- elf-work, likely- with a crystal suspended from it, a delicate forget-me-know suspended within. She'll give that to the cyborg, without caring about it. And why should she? That's one of the personal effects she confiscated off the half-elf she's hunting between acquisition and escape. "Where'd she go? She's stolen property." Hopefully nobody watching tries to steal anything from her rucksack, now they know there's valuables in there.

"Um, yes. I like birds. Do you know a way out of here? I, uh, need to lie low for a bit." The half-elf backs away slightly from the ibis-man, wishing she hadn't got caught breaking into that shop. They took her knife before they called the Guild to pick her up, and being unarmed in Skyside is rarely a good idea.

[Rebonack]

[Bird's the Word]
Jade

Her current lack of thumbs absolutely makes getting out a problem.

Getting up the stairs and through the secret hatch is easy. Jade can just shove it open, fingers or no fingers. But then she's confronted by something more serious.

A ladder.

A ladder leading up through a fairly enclosed space that Jade will be able to tell that, without a doubt, she wouldn't be able to fly in. She might be able to manage if she was normal gull sized like a wholesome normal gull instead of being a freakishly giant amalgam of gull and human. But this is what she has to work with, isn't it?

She could try hooking her wings through the rungs and climbing the ladder that way.

Or she could try blasting through the bricked up door at the base of the silo.

The former would be arduous and the latter would require finding some way to get her armor to work with her new avian limbs.

What do?


[Bird is the Word]
Hunter and Prey

The cyborg takes the pendant, eyes it greedily, then stuffs it in one of his pockets. He points down the street. "Went that way and ducked down an alley 'bout two blocks. That was five minutes ago. If she's laying low she might still be there."

Oh oh.

Sounds like she's been ratted out.

Hopefully she finds a way to escape quick-

"CAW!" comes an awful throaty crow-call from nearby. It looks like a person over at a scrap dealer just spontaneously grew a crow's beak. Considering how frantically she's flailing around "CAW CAW CAW!"ing while black feathers sprout from her arms and scales grow from her hands this must be a development as recent as it is distressing. Several other market-goers back away from her, looking concerned.

Then there comes the shrill alarm call of a gull. But not from a gull. From a man in the circle watching the crow guy as he arm spontaneously becomes a gull's wing.

At that point someone screams, "IT'S CONTAGIOUS!" and pandemonium follows.

Meanwhile!

"Fly away bird. Fly away bird. Fly away bird," the ibis man says, repeating with the same inflection each time. More like a bird's call than an actual sentence. Then he begins flapping his wings and takes off, landing on a nearby roof. He pecks at a rusty old ladder attached to the building's crumbling facade.

It...

Doesn't look very safe to climb.

From somewhere not too far away, the woman will be able to hear a great deal of shouting.