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Post by Stage on Sept 20, 2019 3:59:11 GMT
Before the last of the rubble stopped falling, Malicious landed heavily- or as heavily as such a tiny creature could- before Saipa. She was splattered by the creature's blood, her dark eye nearly lost in it.
"See?" she wheezed in her ragged, hoarse voice. "Dead. Now guide. Up your tower we go."
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Post by Executus Gira on Sept 20, 2019 4:32:48 GMT
Saipa had to shield her eyes from the rubble. When she could see, the creature was indeed laying still in a pool of its own blood. The front half of its head had impacted the ground first, and had been crumpled like an accordion, with bits of bone sticking out. The head itself was also twisted in an unnatural angle, and one of its arms was snapped in half.
"Amazing..." She mouthed to herself. For as otherworldly and unnatural as these creatures were, they definitely were shockingly fragile. For Malicious's plan to have worked so well was a miracle in and of itself.
"Not up." She finally said, as she made her way toward the entrance. "Down. It's the labs in the basement where there's been activity and power.When we get inside, there should be an elevator that has power running through it."
She made her way to the door, and grabbed it. She yanked back and managed to pry the frozen door open...
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Post by Stage on Sept 21, 2019 7:21:29 GMT
Springing over Saipa with a clap of her heavy wings, Malicious assisted her push the rigid, groaning door fully open. She was startling strong for her size. Even if she were an adult man, she would be strong.
The gaunt girl hopped into the tower before Saipa, but waited for her to begin leading, tail impatiently slapping the floor.
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Post by Executus Gira on Sept 22, 2019 4:53:59 GMT
What greeted the pair was the ruins of a restaurant. The chairs and seats that lined the tables were frozen over, as were the walls and decorations that once were featured so prominently. What they looked like was impossible to determine, as the ice that covered them was so thick. Yet, there was something else in this room, something that Saipa noticed as she slithered in.
The floor was wet and slick.
Her eyes shifted to an elevator door that was open near the back of the restaurant, where the ice was instead a large pool of water, and mold had started to grow. She moved over, and sure enough, it was much warmer at the entrance. She moved in, though she hesitated when she heard the elevator groan beneath her weight.
"The lowest floor. That's our destination." She told Malicious as she pressed the down button on the elevator, while making sure there was enough room for the gaunt girl.
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Post by Stage on Sept 23, 2019 7:09:17 GMT
Malicious took up little room in the back corner of the elevator, where she clak-clak-claked after shouldering past Saipa. Even when she let her wings hang limp, sucking in the warmth of the air, there was plenty of room such was her size.
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Post by Executus Gira on Oct 9, 2019 1:54:50 GMT
The elevator's descent down was short and brief, yet it felt like an eternity for Saipa. What exactly was down in the labs that turned the power on? Was it friendly... or something else entirely?
Her answer came as the doors to the elevator opened. Sure enough, the air in the lowest floor was warm and humid, much more than at the entrance or outside. It felt nearly tropical to her as she slithered out of the elevator, and the temperature felt good to her.
The actual state of the lowest floor, however, was anything but. Many of the lights that had hung from the ceiling were shattered, and only a few flickered on. Moss and mold covered many of the once pristine white walls, and water dripped through the ceiling onto the floor. It was a long wide hallway they were in, and lining the walls were the broken remnants of several large machines built like oversized upper halves of humans. A wire dangled from the ceiling, electrical sparks surging from its end, and along the ground were the skeletons of several dead people, no doubt workers on these machines.
"I guess the Golems never took off." Saipa mused to herself as she looked around the area. One of the holding compartments was empty, and there was no mold or moss in that area. Stranger still, she could see one of the doors halfway down the hall was slightly open, while the rest were either closed or shattered...
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Post by Stage on Oct 27, 2019 1:59:29 GMT
Bits of damp moss began to teeter down towards Saipa like marine rain, and a voice, small and low, echoed down to her. "What are those?"
Malicious had crawled from the elevator onto the ceiling, her long, claw-like nails easily finding hold in the ruined paneling. Her wild head of hair was tilted towards the nearest Golem.
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Post by Executus Gira on Oct 27, 2019 2:07:17 GMT
"Golems. Machines the ruler of this place designed to keep this city safe." Saipa answered her. She made sure to slither out of the way of the falling moss.
"In the last days of this city, many calamities began to plague it. Giant monsters, rat invasions, meteors, all problems the local military forces couldn't handle. People became frustrated and demanded an answer, and the ruler presented them with these, though the real reason wasn't just to protect the people, but to scour the undercity and purge it of the homeless, the weak and the fragile, all in search of certain criminals the ruler wanted dead. However, it seems these machines, these golems, never were finalized before... this whole city died and froze over."
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Post by Stage on Oct 27, 2019 2:10:46 GMT
"They were made to kill," the girl summarized bluntly, though her tone did not indicate judgement. She 'sat,' resting her haunches against the ceiling and her knees against her chest. Her pale tail hung limp. "So was I."
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Post by Executus Gira on Oct 27, 2019 2:23:13 GMT
"Yes, but there's a difference. You ultimately can choose who and what you want to kill. These machines have no such will. they are not living creatures, and just as a violin or flute only creates the sounds the musician using it desires, so too do these do only what the people controlling them want. Freed of the orders of those who made you, you can still choose what you want, do what you want, and live as you want. These machines have no such luck."
Even as she said that, she realized she was merely speculating on how the Golems operated. She had only heard of them from rumors of guests and from the television broadcast that announced the purge. Were they operated by AI and followed specific parameters, or operated by a living person. If the former, then perhaps if they had been activated, they might still be operating within the city... Perhaps that was what happened to the missing one.
And Malicious... What kind of twisted monster would mold life into an organism just to kill those they didn't like? A few names sprung to mind, but they didn't match what Malicious had mentioned earlier. Still, she felt sorry for the girl... to be robbed of a normal life and instead just become a bioweapon...
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Post by Stage on Oct 27, 2019 2:34:50 GMT
"No!" Malicious barked with sudden, sharp vitriol. Saipa could feel the eyes of the girl burn into her scalp, like molten lead. "I was made to kill Lycaon. So I will."
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Post by Executus Gira on Oct 27, 2019 3:29:51 GMT
Malicious's sudden shout caught Saipa completely off guard. She hadn't been expecting such a strong negative response. If she was so dead set on killing this Lycaeon...
"W-what exactly is a Lycaeon?" She nervously asked. "You mentioned the name before, but just what is it?"
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Post by Stage on Oct 27, 2019 4:28:33 GMT
There was a soft whump! as Malicious dropped from the roof and landed before Saipa, her wings billowed wide, as if to make herself look bigger. The half-dragon could not see the girl's bronzy eyes in the dimness of the ruined bottom floor.
"A monster," she hissed. "Neither human or animal. Like you. Like me. They made me from her. The rest too, but I was first. The first to live. And they made me to get more of her."
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Post by Executus Gira on Oct 31, 2019 0:16:02 GMT
"O-oh..." Saipa muttered. She slithered back a few feet to give Malicious some space. She knew she was in no position to try and argue with her, especially when she knew so little of what was actually going on, or what Malicious was actually capable of doing. Still, only existing to hunt down and kill one creature...
"A-and what afterwards? If you find this Lycaeon and bring her back to the people who made you... what after then? Await their orders on what next, if they still have use for you?"
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Post by Stage on Oct 31, 2019 0:20:08 GMT
Malicious's tail slapped the floor dismissively. She turned away from Saipa with a click of her tongue. "The people who made me died. And I escaped them before they did. Killed some. The rest followed. They have no more control over me."
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Post by Executus Gira on Oct 31, 2019 0:29:55 GMT
"O-oh." Saipa repeated. "I... did not know." Now she felt even more concerned. Was this something genetically interwoven into her, an instinct she could not fight against? Or was this merely her way of ensuring some semblance of meaning for her life?
Perhaps it was for the best if the topic in question was dropped. At this rate, the last thing she needed was friction to start, and for Malicious to find a reason to kill her like earlier.
"That door up ahead, the open one... If what I was told of this place is true, then..." She began to slither toward the open door. Her serpentine frame pushed the bones of the dead to the wayside. Her eyes however kept looking over at the broken and shattered doors. There was nothing but darkness in those rooms, so she assumed there was no power over there, but up ahead...
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Post by Stage on Oct 31, 2019 0:32:55 GMT
Saipa heard the leathery flutter of Malicious's wings, and a scant weight pressed down on her coils: the girl was now riding the latter portion of her serpentine body.
"What?" she asked impatiently.
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Post by Executus Gira on Oct 31, 2019 0:59:54 GMT
Though Malicious's presence on her back wasn't something Saipa had expected, she pretended to ignore that fact.
"These labs are... or rather were, connected to other parts of the city thanks to a subterranean train system, leading to places like the outer city walls and the prison. Prisoners were taken to these labs for experimentation and punishment from the scientists and their overseers, and some of the experiements performed were highly unethical, and done in the name of 'preserving the peace of the city'. Really, it was just an excuse to make people suffer for sick amusement."
She slithered through the doorway and rounded the corner. There was another door open right to her side, and a long passsageway straight ahead. Curiosity overtaking her, Saipa looked into the adjacent room.
The room in question was a large one, and in pristine condition. No moss, no decayed walls or ceiling, nothing. A large tube to the side was filled with blackish fluid and some large shape floated within, but Saipa's main interest was instead on the ground before the tube. There were two skeletons several meters away from each other, one much larger than the other but with relatively thinner and longer bones instead of the short and stout ones on the smaller figure. The smaller body had ratted out clothes over it, like those of a friar, while the larger body still had traces of hair, long golden hair that ended in pink tips. But most interesting of all, most of the bones on the tall skeleton were broken and shattered. Even the skull was nothing but a few shards and dust, with the hair bits resting on that. The shorter one, however, was in a natural untouched state, like the rest of the skeletons when they had entered the lab.
Wait. These bodies... those clothes and that hair... She recognized who these were. She shook her head, and a light chuckle escaped from her mouth.
"Well I'll be damned. Guess T.J is never going to see her biggest fan after all." She muttered to herself.
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Post by Stage on Oct 31, 2019 22:45:13 GMT
Malicious fluttered off Saipa's coils just as quickly as she landed upon them. While the half-dragon examined the human remains, she clik-click-clak'd towards the fluid-filled tube, the reflection of her eyes pitch black pits in its dark surface...
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Post by Executus Gira on Oct 31, 2019 23:00:34 GMT
The chimera's gaze was returned by a large eye, as big as she was, materializing from the depths of the dark liquid. Three other eyes peered out, and with them a towering fiend, not unsimilar to the abominations outside. The lower body was serpentine and the upper half roughly human like Saipa, but unlike Saipa, the base of the serpent half had two muscular arms extend out, and two other smaller arms from its shoulders just below its head. Instead of a face, it was only those eyes on the side of its cavernous razor filled maw. It hovered in the fluid, yet slight twitches of the fingers and of the lower jaw could be seen.
Whatever this was, it was still alive.
"Did you find any- WHAT IS THAT?!" Saipa screamed as she finally took notice of the abomination within the tube. She backed away from it, yet there was no reaction from within, save one eye shifting from Malicious to look at her, one large unblinking orange eye...
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