[Nexus] HT's plots

[The Bushranger]

Yellow Road

Meanwhile, Becky...
...leans against the side of the truck, arms crossed, one combat boot over the other...
...and yawns.

"Is he there yet?"

[happyturtle]

Yellow Road / Operation Hypnohottie

It is not hard at all to convince Gus that he wants to see Vasquez naked. Let's call that one an automatic success.

As for the rest, since nobody's checking to see how well it worked, then we won't find out yet, will we?

Gus groans and mumbles, "Don't be mad, Jake." He doesn't seem to be coming to full consciousness.

Coffin Hunting

"Don't walk on the rugs, and don't touch anything," Vino warns. Then to Astrana, "I don't know how well illusions will work on the undead. But if you can make him look like Rot, do so."

[Lost_Deep]

Yellow Road

Maniac looks on as this is happening. Ohh, boy. He moves over to Becky.

"So... time is money, and this whole thing is taking a bit of my time, and OF COURSE, Remnant must never hear about this, because it never happened. I was to busy doing a... Lucrative Assignment... at the time... right?"

...

"Pay me."

[The Bushranger]

Yellow Road

Becky shrugs, and from the shadows produces a small sack, which she opens, unlacing its mouth, then will empty it into Maniac's hands.

Diamonds come tumbling out.
Each a smoky color, almost as it shadows were swirling inside them.
"These enough?"

[Gullara]

[Coffin Hunting]

Durin stops and slowly turns around. "It might be too late for that, but you can try." He steps closer to her, not being able to help his rather fearsome appearance right now. He has enough control to not kill her, so there's that.

[Yellow Road - Operation Hypnohottie]

"Moff whips out a camera and snaps a couple pictures of Gus. "Alright, so maybe that worked. Now we just make it look like we robbed him. Someone empty his pockets, I'll get his clothes." And Moff tries to start striping Gus down. >.>

[Slii Arhem]

Yellow Road

Rocid decides to ignore the Moff stripfest for now. He'll whap Gus one more time with a telekinetic punch to give him an artful black eye. "That ought to do it. Now take us out of here before I lose whats left of my ectoplasm."

This will have to do. Even though it's likely to fail in hilarious ways when they let Gus go, at least it has gone better so far than any of AMEN's other recent schemes.

"We should get back to Magtok too, let him know everything's looking good on the hypnohottie front."

[happyturtle]

Yellow Road

Moff starts to undress Gus, but this is making Gus start to wake up and struggle. "Hey, hands off..." he mumbles, trying to smack Moff's hands away.

[Gullara]

[Yellow Road]

"Oi, don't you know what a robbery is? Because that's what this is. Definitely." Moff tries to rap Gus on the side of the head rather hard. Just to stun him for a bit longer.

[happyturtle]

Yellow Road

Gus isn't having that. He puts his arm up to block the blow to the head. "What kind of thieves steal used clothes? Go shoplifting at Arcane Threads if you're that hard up." He pulls out his wallet and tosses it to Moff. "That's all you're getting, or I'll piss my pants before you can get them off of me."

The wallet is full. Gus doesn't have a job, but Jake feels responsible for him and is afraid he'd do stupidly dangerous things for money if he didn't have enough to spend. Jake would be correct in that assessment.

[Shadowcaller]

Coffin Hunting

"Great, hold one..." Astrana replies before aiming the staff towards Durin, still looking somewhat nervous near the drowpire.

Suddenly darkness will swirls around Durin. When it passes, he have taken on the guise of Rot. Or well, he would have if Rot was slightly younger and better looking. If Vino or Durin looked hard enough they might see a hint of Valente in his appearance. It's a rather subtle change though so it might still fool people.

"Ha! It worked!" Astrana exclaims with satisfaction. "I had only seen him once before so I'm surprised I got things so exact."

[Lost_Deep]

Yellow Road

Maniac accepts the diamonds, and puts them away somewhere.

But not before shaking one a lot. Is that smoke in there, or...

"So, anything I can do to help at this point? Also, how do I get out of here?"

[The Bushranger]

Yellow Road

The shadows in the diamond swirl!

"Don't mind him. He's a perv. You aren't my type," Becky tells Gus, before looking back at Maniac. "The same way the rest of us are - when Moffett there portals us outa this Eschercraftian nightmare realm."

[Slii Arhem]

Yellow Road

"Which should be soon. Man, who would have thought MURDER would sink so low as to have to knock over guys for petty change? I swear, us hired riverside assassins sure aren't what we used to be." Rocid says all of this loud enough for Gus to hear, and makes certain that every word is slow, clear and enunciated carefully.

No doubt in his mind who to pin this fiasco on. Hopefully Gus will remember enough through the concussion for the dodge to be effective, but not enough to realise how blatant Cid is being about this.

"Now lets get this guy out of here and back on his feet. We may be lowdown assassin scum, but even we have enough honor not to waste a guy after we got what we came for eh?" Yep, real smooth there Cid.

Now all that's left to do is wait for Moff to teleport them back out. And pray that no one says anything to screw this up.

[Gullara]

[Yellow Road]

"I only got half of what I came for. I wanted to get his cl- Ah, never mind." A disgruntled Moff makes a portal under Gus, Manic, and the truck. All three should end up in the parking lot where they were snagged from to begin with.

If that's successful, Moff turns to the others. "So where're we going?"

[happyturtle]

Yellow Road

To Inside! Bwahahaha! It's a trap!

To Inside!

[The Bushranger]

[Yellow Road]

"I'd assume back to base?" Becky says, looking dangerously bored.
She didn't get to punch anybody in the face! Just in the back of the head! And he was wearing a helmet!

[Slii Arhem]

Yellow Road

Rocid shakes his head... brain... whatever.

"You two go on ahead. Drop me off back in Magmart so I can tell Robotnik what happened. We'll catch up when we can."

[Gullara]

[Yellow Road]

"You got it." A portal appears to toss Rocid back to Mallside, while another two try and swallow up Becky and Moff, taking them back to AMEN.

[The Bushranger]

And off they go! Hurrah!

[Gullara]

[Coffin Hunting]

Durin examines what little of himself he can see. "Good, now let's move on." The drowpire will starts moving toward the stairs again, making a point to stay off the rug like Vino had said. (If that's at all possible, that is.)

[VampireRot]

[Coffin Hunting]

Murder'em all.

Rot continues to press at Durin's mind with the bloodlust and rage.

Once the three adventurers are inside the mansion, the doors slam shut behind them. If they don't step on the rug, nothing happens.

However, once Durin starts climbing the staircase on the left... he'll find that he can't continue. The landing is right there in front of him, but always a good deal of steps away, a gap that never gets smaller. If he continues on the staircase, he'll continue to get no where and will hear a faint chuckling near his ear.

[happyturtle]

Coffin Hunting

Assuming the same problem happens to all three adventurers, Vino will attempt to reach the landing by using a gust of wind to let him fly there.

If it's a Durin only problem, then Vino's probably reached the landing by now and is watching Durin in confusion.

[Shadowcaller]

[Coffin Hunting]

Astrana is walking in the back of the ground, weary of possible threats to her health. She'll likely notice if the stairs never seem to end as well however.

[VampireRot]

[Coffin Hunting]

It is a problem shared by all three of them. The gust of wind Vino flies with seems successful, but once he lands on the ground he'll find that he's somehow still on the staircase. With the landing still only a few meters away. The stairs are still never-ending!

Now the chuckling is much louder and audible.

[Gullara]

[Coffin Hunting]

Oops, forgot this. >.>

Durin stops. He's growing increasingly frustrated. "The other side then." And assuming his companions have no objections, it's down and around to the other staircase for them.

[Shadowcaller]

[Coffin Hunting]

Astrana sigh, this was getting more troublesome then she had expected then your average haunted house.

"Ugh, and I would have suggested looking in the cellar instead. Stupid stairs." Astrana says as she decides to follow Durin's lead.

[happyturtle]

Coffin Hunting

"Is he giving you true memories?" Vino wonders.

[VampireRot]

[Coffin Hunting]

The staircase on the right is not endless, so they will be able to get up to the second story landing that way. However, a barely-visible shade of a man awaits them on the top of the stairs. The ghost is so intangible it is hard to make out any features besides a general fancily-dressed man shape. This is where the dark chuckling seems to be coming from. He does nothing besides stand there ominously.

[Gullara]

[Coffin Hunting]

"We will soon find out." Durin says, and then they ascend the stairs. He hesitates for a moment before the ghost. Well, time to put the diguise to the test. The drowpire tries to walk past the ghost as if he has every right to be here.

[Shadowcaller]

[Coffin Hunting]

Astrana mumbles something and shakes her head and follows after Durin, acting like a confused guest which shouldn't be too hard. She had been an actress once after all.