Day 54: Recreational Field

[mustbethesuit]

And thus concluded a perfect start to a perfect day. Making him explode from every facial orifice was a totally justified response to Peter not doing anything at all.

The nurses' hearts had defrosted just enough to permit them a change of clothes and a desperately needed wipe down. Nurse Joyce - Rachel had been apologizing the whole way back to

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[unheroed]

"I wouldn't call it a party," Harvey grunted. "Most of the time it was just a bunch of idiots throwing food around." He knew that he might have gotten dragged into the whole thing if the wrong person had nailed him with something at the wrong time, but he'd managed to get out of the mess without getting anything on him, so that was one blessing.

So this stranger had just gotten into an argument about a name and that had been enough to earn some laps around the field, huh? Well, Harvey wasn't too shocked about that. Military men were known for being strict and unreasonable, so they were fitting that image -- along with the image of being completely ruthless, but that was neither here nor there.

Though speaking of ridiculous names, he'd just been offered one. He stared at the man's hand (not the hook) for a second and then looked him right in the face, confused. "That's not ridiculous?" And had he really just called himself a pirate? Well, that gave some more context to the hook, but...

To think he'd had the idea that this guy might actually be relatively normal. Harvey didn't even try to hold back a sigh.

[sheepwood]

The way Bandage Faced Patient was talking, it sounded more like a food fight at breakfast had been punished with more force than was necessary. Either these new orderlies weren't with the rehabilitation program, or they knew said rehabilitation was a sham and had no problem torturing patients in broad daylight. Or maybe they were always that over the top. If that was how they dealt with a few unruly prisoners, he'd hate to see their treatment of someone who actually had a few crimes under their belt.

"Of course not!" Guybrush insisted with 100% sincerity. This wasn't the first time his introduction had been returned with an incredulous look, a sigh, or both in succession. "Not as ridiculous as Bobbin Threadbare or Mancomb Seepgood. Guybrush is a sophisticated name known throughout the Caribbean! Well, it used to be. These days, I try to pretend I didn't write that trilogy about where, how, and why I blew up my nemesis."

He paused for a second before continuing, his hand still offered to the air. "I missed the morning announcements. Do you know who these guys are, Mr...?"

[unheroed]

Well, yeah, when compared to names like those, Guybrush Threepwood sounded totally normal. But it was all relative, wasn't it? Still, this didn't seem like the sort of thing that was worth arguing, especially since the stranger seemed to have some sort of weird attachment to his name. As for Harvey, he still didn't know if he wanted to cling to his own name or give it up for a different one. It was hard to make that sort of decision in a place like this, anyway.

He really had no idea what the other man was babbling on about, but it seemed clear that he thought he was from a time when pirates were all the rage on the Caribbean seas. It was a bit difficult to even keep a straight face when he knew that, but...

Right, the hand. Harvey took it because Guybrush was refusing to pull it back, giving it a brief yet firm shake. "It's Harvey Dent. And they didn't tell us too much, to be honest." He just had to try and forget that he was talking with a self-proclaimed pirate. Easy, right? "The head doctor just told us not to ask the nurses about it because they didn't know much anyway. And there's still no telling what that Eagle thing is." What, or who. There were a lot of possibilities, but they were being kept in the dark for the moment.

"But yeah, where they're from and why they're here is still up in the air. It would have been nice if they'd explained a few things before trying to gas all of us." Even if Harvey had dodged that bullet, it still bothered him.

[sheepwood]

Eagle thing? Guybrush vaguely recalled one of the announcements from the previous night mentioning an eagle, but in the whirlwind of emotions stemming from his wife being missing, his nemesis also being missing, and the thought of them being missing together, everything Landel had said had slipped his mind. Okay, ignoring important dialogue was bad for puzzle-solving, but he thought he had a pretty good excuse that time.

No more excuses! Elaine was gone, LeChuck was just as gone, and he wasn't getting anywhere without information. The nurse never answered any of his questions, and Darkly Clad Official #1 had ignored him, so both of them were off the list of people to question. Only every other nurse and guard to go. Or he could just wait until nightfall and go snooping. The find-a-nurse-and-get-answers-from-her-the-hard-way plan hadn't gone over so well, even with the unstoppable duo of Mighty Pirate™ and Mighty Pirate Hunter™.

"Well, that explains... not much," Guybrush admitted, ignoring another urge to ask about how his face got so mangled, "but it's good to know anyway. Here's hoping they don't stick around at night. If they're like this during the day, I'd hate to see what they're like lurking in the hallways at night. I've been trying to get a hold of either a nurse or a brainwashed patient for the past two nights to get some answers out of them, but I get the feeling these guys wouldn't talk no matter how many insults were thrown at them."

[unheroed]

For being a possible pirate (or at least thinking that he was one), this Guybrush guy wasn't so bad so far. He hadn't done anything totally obnoxious and he wasn't exactly badgering him with questions, either. He'd asked a few, but had given up when Harvey had made it clear that in the end, he didn't really know much more than Guybrush did. Which was enough to bother him on principle, since he was used to knowing more than most, but...

The guy had a good point about the night, for one thing. Were the soldiers going to warp into some sort of monster, too, or would they just disappear? It seemed like the sort of thing that could go either way, but they wouldn't have to wait too long before they found out. How lucky for them.

Hearing about the man's plan to try and talk to someone at night just caused Harvey to hold back a laugh, though. Was this guy new? He should have known there was no chance in hell of that working. "I don't know as much about the nurses, but you're not going to have any luck with the brainwashed patients. All they're going to want to do is tell you to head back and then attack you." In a whole myriad of ways, at that.

[sheepwood]

Guybrush had expected the standard "Don't Even Try It" answer from any Average Joe to whom he tried to explain the plan. The difference between the two of them was that while Harvey looked more like said Average Joe type, Guybrush was a full-fledged pirate (and Morgan was too, sort of- not enough to be affected by the Pox of LeChuck, but she was capable with a ship and more than capable with a sword and a handful of insults). He had experience in the world of dealing with crazy psychopaths, people with enough powers to build carnivals dedicated to turning tourists into undead soldiers, and those who happened to be both at once. He'd be just fine.

"Is that what happened to your face?" Guybrush asked immediately. Wait, he'd meant to assure Harvey he was an expert at negotiation and puzzle-solving, but it came out completely wrong. Whoops.

[unheroed]

It came out of the man's mouth so suddenly that Harvey was actually legitimately taken aback for a moment. Maybe the guy hadn't meant to say it, or maybe he was really that tactless, but this had to be one of the strangest ways that he'd been asked... Not to mention the phrasing.

If he was a weaker man, he might have winced at that.

Instead, he just frowned and shook his head. "No, it didn't happen here." How many times would he have to explain this? Maybe he should just write it on a piece of paper and tape it to his forehead.

Seeing how Guybrush had been so forward, Harvey really didn't feel guilty about doing the same. So he motioned to the hook and tilted his head. "What about you?"

[sheepwood]

In good news, Harvey didn't seem hugely offended by the probably offensive question. Guybrush guessed he got it a lot. Missing a hand was one thing, but missing half of one's face was a lot more noticeable.

"Didn't happen here either," the pirate answered, waggling his hook a little. Before his kidnapping, he missed Lefty- now that he had possibly the world's most useless prosthetic, he took back all the bad things he'd thought about the hook. At least his first one had been sharp enough to act as a back scratcher.

"It got infected with a pox that can apparently be used to make some immortality juice," he continued, complete with dramatic hand motions representing the pox, "so this crazy doctor hired a Mighty Pirate Hunter™ to come take it from me. I bested her in an exciting sword fight on the deck of my ship, but she got away, taking my hand with her."

The mental image of someone hunting down Harvey and lopping off half his face floated through Guybrush's mind. Ugh. Now that was unpleasant. "Though I'm guessing you're not a pirate, so that's not what happened to you. There don't seem to be many of us here."

[unheroed]

Even though Harvey had asked the question, he hadn't really expected to get a detailed answer, let alone one that sounded so insane. Most people here were careful with their information, probably because it was the one thing that could still be called currency in this place. But Guybrush here was more than happy to spin a full-blown tale for him.

And it was ridiculous. Was this guy one of those pathological liars who just came up with fantastical stories off the top of his head? Considering where they were, it was completely possible. (Still, who could even come up with something like that?)

"...Right, not so much," he said after a pause as he tried to gather his thoughts. But even if this man was insane, Harvey still didn't feel comfortable returning the favor and explaining his own injury in detail. "It was a bit more mundane than that." Being tied up to cans of gas and left up to the whim of a crazy clown wasn't actually that mundane, but compared to immortality juice and pirate hunters? Yeah, it was.

But maybe that's what had caused Guybrush to come up with this bizarre story; maybe he'd lost his hand in a really uninteresting way and he had wanted to make it more important than that. It seemed like the most likely option to Harvey at that moment.