With hindsight, maybe leaving the Cooper farm to do some solo scouting for 'sabre parts wasn't such a bright idea. Clearly Steve had spent too long in the safety of protected Kansas, with monsters and so forth little more than stories on residents' lips.
Well. This town is certainly doing its utmost to make up for that. At present, with horrible... raw, skinned dog... things. Fairly battered and bruised himself, one arm stinging and burning from a set of claws he didn't quite manage to deflect, his jetpack a dead weight hanging from his shoulders (and don't even get him started on the noises the radio's been making), and sure he's never been this scared in his life-- a hospital is about the most welcome sight to meet his eyes for hours.
Steve goes through the doors at a stumbling run, and slams all his weight against them to close them, searching for a lock or a bar or something. Those creatures.
It may amaze you to learn this, but Steve does sometimes get annoyed. This is a lot easier when his nerves are already stretched by fear. Like now, for example.
"We have to try and get that guy out." Superheroics run in the family, apparently. "We can't just leave him stuck in a town full of monsters."
It's open (and bookmarked) to a page with an unusual white flower illustrated on it.
WHITE CLAUDIA Perennial herb found near water. Reaches height of 10 to 15 inches. Oblong leaves, white blossoms. Seeds contain hallucinogen. Ancient records show it was used for religious ceremonies. The hallucinogenic effect was key.
Turning around she looked, she said. "I found what broke."
She's pointing at a red liquid in a jar, crouching to look at it. Picking it up on a side where she's not touching the liquid she brought it near her face.
"S'not blood. Smells..." Jo wrinkled her nose. "Like spices."
Yeah. Fuckin' weird just kept getting fuckin' weirder.
...she has a point there. Steve still isn't happy about it, but he's also not sure it would be prudent right now to start arguing the point.
He's taken to hovering (figuratively, not literally, unfortunately) in the doorway, having taken it upon himself to keep a lookout. She may seem at ease, but he'd have a long way to recover before being merely unsettled.
"What did the book say?" he asks tensely, staring up and down the corridor and just waiting for a burst of static from his jetpack's radio.
When genre-savviness fails through being in entirely the wrong genre, plain old logic has been known to serve in its place, and he'd figured the book might hold a clue as to the way out, or maybe to what's happening. (Hallucinogenic, eh? The claw-marks on his arm certainly don't feel hallucinogenic, but then he's never hallucinated to be able to compare. Well, except for that one time when Val and Marley fought the Illusionator, but that's not quite the same thing.)
He shoots a last glance up and down the corridor, before going to the desk and opening the book. The flower isn't familiar to him, but he still thinks the information -- any information -- might be useful.
"I'm kind of wondering..." says Steve, mainly to himself. His eyes are on the jar of red stuff. But the book's entry is illustrated with one of those very precise botanical drawings, and the seeds are a uniform black. "Nah." After all, to produce a town-wide effect it'd have to be potent in undetectable quantities, and a whole concentrated mass of it would probably have had an immediate effect when she sniffed it.
Don't mind him. Just assume his brain is ticking over until further notice. It's had weirder flights of fancy.
"Are we looking for a map or something?" he asks, following her nervously.
The rooms are, like most of the town, nice. But empty.
Which brings them to the elevator, and Jo pushing the button for it to open without really checking in. Besides what would she say if she was asked that straight?
I'm looking for two little girls, a whole lot of monsters, and a demon? So I can go home.
Ding.
The doors opened and Jo stepped in looking at the buttons. "Well, basement is closest. Pray this one doesn't have a monstrous lizard, too."
"Let's not go there," says Steve, a little plaintively, as the lift slides noisily down its shaft. He hooks his thumbs nervously around the straps of his dead jetpack.
When the door hisses open, revealing the basement corridor, he keeps to the side of the elevator and looks quickly back and forth for any monsters.
Well. This town is certainly doing its utmost to make up for that. At present, with horrible... raw, skinned dog... things. Fairly battered and bruised himself, one arm stinging and burning from a set of claws he didn't quite manage to deflect, his jetpack a dead weight hanging from his shoulders (and don't even get him started on the noises the radio's been making), and sure he's never been this scared in his life-- a hospital is about the most welcome sight to meet his eyes for hours.
Steve goes through the doors at a stumbling run, and slams all his weight against them to close them, searching for a lock or a bar or something. Those creatures.
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The door was flung wide open and the scene before her (them) was a riotous mess. Books and papers were strewn everywhere.
When he shows up, she finally stepping in.
"Try not to touch anything important."
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It may amaze you to learn this, but Steve does sometimes get annoyed. This is a lot easier when his nerves are already stretched by fear. Like now, for example.
"We have to try and get that guy out." Superheroics run in the family, apparently. "We can't just leave him stuck in a town full of monsters."
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Jo's pretty clear in her opinion there.
"And he's got a pistol. He's far better off than you are."
And bitchy at a moment's notice.
She's flipping through the papers and the book on the desk.
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It's open (and bookmarked) to a page with an unusual white flower illustrated on it.
WHITE CLAUDIA
Perennial herb found near water.
Reaches height of 10 to 15 inches.
Oblong leaves, white blossoms.
Seeds contain hallucinogen.
Ancient records show it was used for religious ceremonies.
The hallucinogenic effect was key.
Reply
Turning around she looked, she said. "I found what broke."
She's pointing at a red liquid in a jar, crouching to look at it. Picking it up on a side where she's not touching the liquid she brought it near her face.
"S'not blood. Smells..." Jo wrinkled her nose. "Like spices."
Yeah. Fuckin' weird just kept getting fuckin' weirder.
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He's taken to hovering (figuratively, not literally, unfortunately) in the doorway, having taken it upon himself to keep a lookout. She may seem at ease, but he'd have a long way to recover before being merely unsettled.
"What did the book say?" he asks tensely, staring up and down the corridor and just waiting for a burst of static from his jetpack's radio.
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She looks up, vaguely amused. She might slightly like the questioning.
"You wanted to see it?"
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When genre-savviness fails through being in entirely the wrong genre, plain old logic has been known to serve in its place, and he'd figured the book might hold a clue as to the way out, or maybe to what's happening. (Hallucinogenic, eh? The claw-marks on his arm certainly don't feel hallucinogenic, but then he's never hallucinated to be able to compare. Well, except for that one time when Val and Marley fought the Illusionator, but that's not quite the same thing.)
He shoots a last glance up and down the corridor, before going to the desk and opening the book. The flower isn't familiar to him, but he still thinks the information -- any information -- might be useful.
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The rest of it was rather normal office crap.
"Nothing else here." Jo said, standing in the doorway, with an ironic note of coming? in it.
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Don't mind him. Just assume his brain is ticking over until further notice. It's had weirder flights of fancy.
"Are we looking for a map or something?" he asks, following her nervously.
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The rooms are, like most of the town, nice. But empty.
Which brings them to the elevator, and Jo pushing the button for it to open without really checking in. Besides what would she say if she was asked that straight?
I'm looking for two little girls, a whole lot of monsters, and a demon? So I can go home.
Ding.
The doors opened and Jo stepped in looking at the buttons. "Well, basement is closest. Pray this one doesn't have a monstrous lizard, too."
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"...Was that a joke?"
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When it opens again, there is the lowest level.
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When the door hisses open, revealing the basement corridor, he keeps to the side of the elevator and looks quickly back and forth for any monsters.
What? He's a little paranoid of this place, okay?
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She walks out, with a swagger, and starts checking rooms.
She's beyond hiding. She expects things to attack her. When it happens, she'll deal with it.
"Dead bodies in this one." Jo looks over as if expecting him to report on the other.
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