Inside 65: A Very Busy Intersection

[Reinholdt]

Blood Moon
[Bookbinder's Library]

"Ila'kil." Reinholdt repeats, attempting to show patience. "I would presume he just made the same assumption as you about a 'were-cat' given that the chance of any prior encounters with my species is abysmally low."

"Right. Calm the people." Rein takes a few steps forward, then pauses. "You two better go first." The presence of an adorable cat should be calming, but might also have the opposite effect on this night.

[Ionbound]

[Bookbinder's Library]

Illeria nods to the book-drake and says, "Alright. I'll do what I can. You stay out here and make sure none of them get in." With that, she heads into the library.

[Shadowcaller]

[Bookbinder's Library]

"I think I'll rather stay out here and fight. Not good with children, or calming people for that matter." If Illeria and Rein wanted to play babysitters, that was their choice, but her talents lied elsewhere. Though while she could imagine a cat being pretty good at calming the younglings, she couldn't really see Illeria do anything but scare them.

[Artemis97]

[Blood Moon - Bookbinder's Library]

Bartleby returns to fending off the wolves. Most of the canines have figured out to avoid him, but Anika is a new target. Two wolves approach her from opposing angles, circling, looking for an opening.

Inside people are nervously watching the fight on the street. "Are you hurt?" One asks. "Did they get you?" Asks another. "She's fine! They turn right away." Says some know it all. "What about that cat?"

[Reinholdt]

Blood Moon
[Inside Bookbinder's Library]

"Suit yourself," Rein says scurrying further in.

No no no. If Anika stays behind, they can keep an eye on him from two angles. He can't sneak off to the forbidden section like this! Finding the Ark of Eternal Nightmares was the top priority. But it didn't matter. There was an entire crowd just inside, some watching him.

("Never tip your hand until it is dramatically appropriate and even then only tip half.")

Yes. Yes, of course. Calublufiok was right as usual. He knew what was best. No. He was dead. Can't die. Missing. Wrong? The concept was dead and Cal was wrong. Right?

"Cat." Reinholdt repeated, staring at the person who just questioned him. A few moments of awkward pause go by before Rein remembers to elaborate, refocusing on where he was. "Yes, yes. I've always been a cat. I couldn't change into a person even if I wanted to." That's right. He's supposed to calm these people. Once he's earned their trust, he can exploit that to get what he wants. To gain access to the forbidden knowledge.

"We should really all move away from the doors and windows. Our scent may only attract more of them if we linger." Reinholdt looks to Illeria for confirmation and motions with his paws, urging them towards the center of the library.

[Ionbound]

[Blood Moon - Bookbinder's Library]

Illeria nods and says, "And I'm a friend too. We're going to take care of you." She glances down at Rein and says, in response to his idea of moving closer to the center, "I...That sounds like a good idea, but I don't know how this library is laid out. And I don't accidentally want to move into some kind of weird magical containment area."

[Murkus]

Spoiler: Quote

Show

Blood Moon - Landfill

Not every lycantrophe driven mad by the blood moon is is a dangerous predator. In the dark, filthy places of the city dwell unfortunate souls cursed with the shape of rats, buzzards and other scavengers. One of whom is about to become even less fortunate.

Something stirs under the ground of Inside, with the rage, the hunger and the blood spilled across the city. The fear and confusion. This presence had always craved them, but it's only just now that it remembers this. But it doesn't have a shape anymore, and it can't appreciate them. But now, maybe...

Something slithers towards a blood-covered were-rat, squatting in the middle of the landfill. He's exhausted, wounded and under all the rage, terrified. Unthinkingly, the presence reaches out to him. Tendrils of darkness, looking like black branches, rise up and skewer the poor were-rat. Something surges forth through them... the body starts twisting and bulging. An unearthly keen can be heard above the landfill and its surroundings, and the effects of the blood moon may become amplified nearby. They might also extend to normal animals.

In the end, the were-rat stands taller. His skull has been stripped of flesh, and his eyes are now orbs of pure black. What looks like a pair of wings extends from his back, but they're just shells of black, dead wood. His feet end in what look like hooves, but they're likewise black wood. A second pair of arms rises above the were-rat's normal ones, from the same material as wings and legs. The entire body seems stretched, pulled upwards. The resulting nightmarish creature takes a few uneasy steps.

"I... who am I? I remember..."

It leaves the landfill and steps out into the city. The fear and confusion now come to him like a sweet scent and joyous music. Everyone nearby will likely feel a dreadful and oppressive presence, tamed by the being's lack of memory.

Curious, mindless, impetuous, a huge white stag comes a'snuffling. His pale, shimmering flanks are etched with curlicues of frosty blue, and when he exhales it creates a gust of visible vapor. He's as tall at the shoulder as a man's head, and quiet hefty, so perhaps his courage is well founded. Still, though, the sight of that unnatural thing gives him some sort of pause.

He stands very still, almost glowing in the moonlight, hide tinged red. Perhaps at a nearby corner or atop a small hill in the streets.

[Zefir]

"I see," Veya replies as her eyes look to the large doors. Her pace increases slightly in her eagerness to see the inside of the great library.
The moment she'd set her foot inside her eyes would gaze all around before looking back to Mia, "we could spend days here," she speaks in a slightly fascinated tone, nearly forgetting the tasks at hand that immediately cause her to refocus. "Do you know where we should begin?"

[The library]

"No, but I know who to ask." Mia says. She then rings a bell to call for a librarian.
A very small disk hovers down from above. And on it is a small green stuff animal. It's only 4 inch long and toztally Green. His little paws are cute, but appear to shot to be of use.
"Can I help you." the creature asks and his voice appears loud and clear as if a man stands next to them. Mia will let Veya speak since she knows what books they look for.

[Shadowcaller]

[Blood Moon - Bookbinder's Library]

"Really, you're going after me? Well, come and get me then you mangy fleabags!" Anika exclaims as she suddenly turns into a large bear. This is not any bear however, as its "fur" appears to be made out of stone.
The bear roars loudly and charges towards the closest werewolf and attempts to maul it.
If the werewolves attempts to bite her, they will find that her fur is as tough as it looks, it is like trying to bite through a mountain.

[Morty]

Blood Moon - Landfill

The strange rat-creature comes out of the garbage heap, filthy and bloodied. It doesn't walk like a rat, though. It makes long strides on its twisted legs, and surveys everything around it with a purpose.

When it spots a large stag, that's not just a stag, it stops and reaches out to it with a mind full of old hate and malice. It sizes the animal up, judging how easy it would be to devour. It has much strength to regain.

[Recaiden]

[Blood Moon]

[Near the Park]

Raril takes a few steps back from the big creatures in the park. They had guns. Guns were bad. And those guns were bigger than anyone had any real right to carry.

"We should run. All of us." He growls out in canine.

The young wolf from the other pack looks like he wants to try to bite the hooded figure, but the older wolf steps in front of him. The others pace behind them, could they take on such large creatures?

One the one hand, Raril is probably being needlessly cautious. On the other hand, maybe he knows something. Those things are big. Really big.
Nadas follows the instructions, suppresses his desire to bite the hooded figure, and runs.

[Dackjaw Caught]

Jack holds her head steady for Honeysuckle's patting, possibly holding it too steady- birds have difficulty moving their eyes, so in order to get a steady view, they are capable of holding their head very steady indeed.

Unfortunately, jackdaws are corvids, not songbirds. The noises they make are not always very musical- but as intelligent, social birds, they are also accomplished mimics. One near my house sounds like a mobile phone ringtone.

Maybe Jack can be something like a parrot. Anyway, her captor knows little about birds, and just carries her away. The jackdaw probably won't get a chance to escape until she's been taken inside a grand manor and brought to a birdcage - but there'll be a moment between when she's released and when the cage door closes.

[Earl of Purple]

Cawdack Jaught

Jack will react very quickly when put in the cage, making the most of flying out of the cage and heading towards the nearest open window, taking evasive action if needed- though jackdaws aren't the most agile of birds, they aren't clumsy fliers either. She's just as smart now as she is when she's human-shaped, though were she able to shift forms right now she'd switch briefly so she has the mass and velocity to smash a window and escape through the broken glass.

Jack briefly considers leaving a present for Honeysuckle, but decides not to be petty and small-minded, and she doesn't need the toilet anyway.

[ThePhantom]

Blood Moon
Near the Park

As the first werewolf runs, the catwalks open fire, aiming ahead of the wolves to try to keep them where the figure wants them. The figure seems not to react much, at least in a form that would be noticed in scent. It just seems to be studying them as it gets closer, one hand reaching inside its cloak.

"Do not fear, I come with a gift, for the right one. And it looks like you are the right one, Raril."

[Murkus]

Blood Moon - Landfill

The strange rat-creature comes out of the garbage heap, filthy and bloodied. It doesn't walk like a rat, though. It makes long strides on its twisted legs, and surveys everything around it with a purpose.

When it spots a large stag, that's not just a stag, it stops and reaches out to it with a mind full of old hate and malice. It sizes the animal up, judging how easy it would be to devour. It has much strength to regain.

[Blood Moon] - Landfill

A far dumber creature than the rat-fiend could tell it would not be easy. The stag is massive, and ripples with muscle as he trots a couple of steps forward and to the side of the landfill. He lowers his face, showing the rat-creature nothing but the wall of white thorns that crown him and the top of his skull, making the deer appear like a different animal altogether. Alien, almost. His hoof scuffs the asphalt and sends a couple chips of it flying as he shakes his heavy head ominously.

[Lazorath]

[The library]

"No, but I know who to ask." Mia says. She then rings a bell to call for a librarian.
A very small disk hovers down from above. And on it is a small green stuff animal. It's only 4 inch long and toztally Green. His little paws are cute, but appear to shot to be of use.
"Can I help you." the creature asks and his voice appears loud and clear as if a man stands next to them. Mia will let Veya speak since she knows what books they look for.

[The library]

"Hello," Veya smiles as her eyes light up in excitement at the adorable green creature, "we're looking for books on beasts within Nexus that contain power cores which can be used as a power source. The core would have to be fairly powerful so the beasts we're looking for would likely be older, possibly even ancient," Veya describes whilst occasionally looking to Mia in case she missed something.

[Morty]

[Blood Moon] - Landfill

The rat-fiend backs away, slowly. Its wings spread out and its claws stuff the ground.

"What humiliation... I don't remember who I was, but I remember never backing down from oversized game."

[Murkus]

[Blood Moon] - Landfill

The rat-fiend backs away, slowly. Its wings spread out and its claws stuff the ground.

"What humiliation... I don't remember who I was, but I remember never backing down from oversized game."

[Blood Moon] - Landfill

It seems it's understood him! The stag charges, hooves trampling over the asphalt and cracking it where they fall. A wall of white knives rushes headlong at the abomination.

[Morty]

[Blood Moon] - Landfill

The rat-thing drops to all fours, spreading its wings wide. It skitters sideways, dodging the wall of knives and the incoming deer with the grace of a craven survivor. Then its wings beat, and three sharp spikes fly, aimed at the deer's flank.

[UncleWolf]

Prospero is so dumbfounded that he's moved, and Nora makes it to where Fetty lies.

And he's stepped on! This would be quite invigorating if it weren't so scary. He makes a little 'ouhf' noise and stares up... at her. Though maybe not at her face, like she might want. "Uhh..." He blinks those big blue eyes. "Who are you? Did you eat Nora or something?"

Fetty's Place

"...no. I'm wrong. You couldn't have done this. You've gotta be too dumb since you can't take this seriously." Nora says with a groan, reaching up to cover her face with a hand before stepping off of the man to go flop onto the couch with a long and pitiful groan. "Look. All I know is that after last night, I wake up to take my regret-filled walk of shame and find this staring back at me in the mirror." She explains, gesturing at herself as the jagged green lines on her body start fading into softer blue ones that curve in waves.

Another sigh and she raises a hand in front of her and makes it glow white. "Status." She states as scrawling runes form in front of her and begin flying past. She looks puzzled at it before sighing and swiping it all away. "Nothing infectious. In fact, I'm fit as a fiddle. Better even. But that doesn't explains WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!!" She shouts at the pair.

[TechnoScrabble]

Natural History Museum

It's amazing how quickly things get buried under more recent events in the Nexus. Museums in Inside are a gambling business like commodities might be elsewhere, a thrive-or-die competition to see who can get the best stories of the biggest events, the most dazzling remnants of the myriad battles and disasters of the Nexus. It's no surprise a museum celebrating such mundane things as 'The Evolution of Fish' might struggle, and so easily and unnoticably collapse after a disaster of its own. A few grisly, unsolved murders in your exhibits, and the next thing you know you've gone under.

And just like the salmon in those exhibits, the beasts responsible returned to their birthplace to start again. They failed, too, the dessicated remains of their eggs and their corpses now scattered among petrified and taxidermied fish or wire-wound bones, old, moth-eaten cloth and decaying fabrics fallen over them. Dust and the wear of ages turned their glossy carapaces into rough, dull things, but all the life has not left them yet. Somewhere in the museum, trapped in its own home, something calls out to anyone who will listen. Something predatory. Something just intelligent enough to understand anger.

Something just intelligent enough to understand death.

Something just intelligent enough to be afraid.

[Recaiden]

Someone calling out, is it?
In an area we remembered as being uninhabited.
Interesting.

Dispatch a scout. Above ground.

So it is that a little while later, an alien half-demon monster, (somewhere between a warthog, a praying mantis, a sugar glider, and a cockroach) comes scampering up to the museum and leaps through a window. Was it an open window? Well it is now.

[TechnoScrabble]

Open? No. It was wide, and dusty, and the glass milky from all the funk that had gathered on it over the years, but now it is shattered, plate glass scattering the inside floor in large, jagged chunks between rent bars of aluminum and plastic. The kicked up dust chokes the air, and a few small vermin scatter. Notably, only arthropods count among the number, anything with an internal skeleton or warm blood having long since vacated the building.

The exhibit closest to the window is a collection of unique stones and gems, unpolished crystals and stones counted among great hunks of rock cut cleanly through to show the layers and fossils and quirks inside them. When the museum closed down, the donated bits of jewelry and truely worthwhile gems were sent back to their owners or creditors, and the first two aisles of the winding maze of glass-paned cases have been shattered or pried open and picked clean of anything a pawn shop might have taken. Further inside, though, while the glass might be scratched or broken in places, and rocks scattered about the floor, nothing has been taken from its place. Bits of crusty, flaking, long-dried blood stain the edges of the glass alongside a dry and dessicated mess that almost blends in with the stains or the dark tile floor. Once black or a dark grey, it has faded to a pinkish-white colour, almost seeming fleshy but for its dry and ridge-lined appearance. A closer semblance might be found in a stone spiderweb, or unkilned clay.

More and more of the coating lines the exhibit the further it goes into the museum, eventually covering the cases and shelves and the rocks beneath, then the ceiling and floor. In some places, it's thick, and a darker red or black in colour. In others, it has worn thin and ragged, or away entirely, only stringy ribbons of the stuff hanging where holes have been torn open. Every minute or so, a breeze blows in or out, dry and rattling, with a smell like brimstone and sterile, metallic tools. A doctor's office from hell. It's a slight difference, but the rush and rate of the wind grows faster as the strange creature dives deeper into the museum, the presence reaching out to it with an animal mix of fear and curiosity, and a touch of hope.

[Recaiden]

The scout waits for the dust to settle, though it didn't need to. And the boneless vermin are too unimportant even to chase after.

Crystals are of some interest, and it peers as the abandoned displays as it slinks through the old museum. Shiny, solid, intricate. But these, you know what these are? They're junk.

Blood though, faint and faded thought it might be after all this time, that's always something to take notice of. Did this come from the builders of this place - its favored prey, or was it just unlucky food-creatures? This tracery, spiderwebs. They know spiders, but this isn't quite right. This is like a worker's mesh. The scout follows the webbing back where it's dark and bloody and new, towards the wind, the breath.

[TechnoScrabble]

The smell grows stronger the deeper in the scout goes, as would be expected. It drifts through the air, thicker on the breezes but rolling off the fresher-a very, very relative term given the decay of the material-'webbing' on the walls as well. Exhibits of bones have been pulled down, scattered bits of false bone shattered and ignored, the real stuff gnawed on or missing, the wire frames that held them together twisted and rent across the floor. Taxidermied animals are torn down, looking like they were chewed on briefly then discarded, whatever worried them having decided it didn't like the meal. The foam and plastic fake ones are untouched, except where the wear of time has torn them from their mounts and left them scattered carelessly across the floor, sticking out here and there from the coating that grows thicker and thicker, until it covers the man-made structures almost entirely, its strange designs twisting across it. It seems mechanical and organic at the same time, the ridges and whorls and pits resembling old sci-fi depictions of biotechnology, or like complex machines coated in dried out meat. A thin fog fills the air, and the smell of old rot, the stink soaked into every surface.

The soundless voice echoes off the walls, where shattered bones lay stuck to the walls, ribcages coated in mesh shattered outward, the remainder of their skeletons coated in yet more webbing or lying discarded on the floor. In front of each coffin-like dent in the walls of the tunnels, a smaller crater lies in the floor, some sporting ragged bits of thinner material, like burst zits. One such crater has not yet burst, but sank in on itself, a deflated leather ball hung over a broken frame like a long-fingered hand reaching up from inside it. The site of it fills the voice calling to the scout with sorrow, a mother having lost too many children to bear seeing the death of another. Desperate, hungry, but knowing death is near, it beckons the scout just a bit closer, to the final chamber at the end of the tunnel...

[Recaiden]

The scout takes its time wading through the decrepit preserved fish. The ocean was never their domain, and it is interesting to see what designs the mad hand of nature came up with for living within it. Or at least, the scout is told that it's interesting. Personally it would prefer to gnaw on their skins and see if any flavor is left. But no, it is instructed to study for a while, only going deeper when everything is well-accounted for and scribed into memory.

Ah. Here are the bones.
A memory comes back to the scout. Not its own memory, but one of old kin. Bodies that couldn't be taken whole ripped apart from inside. Sharp little ones, even smaller than it, tearing out of tanks and walkers. Have they found some of their own? But no, that sorrowful voice; what could ever hurt them so much?
It races down to the end of the tunnel.

[TechnoScrabble]

The tunnel dips down, into the loading area at the back of the warehouse, its doors long since sealed over with mesh, and the single truck present turned into another nesting hall. No light enters here, filtered out by the maze in the museum, but the voice guides the scout-creature as best it can, sounding weak and pained, though it tries to hide its suffering. Another turn goes deeper down, into the basement of the museum, once maintained by an HVAC and perfectly arranged to sustain old and fragile things for decades, its various little storage areas and studies have been long since ruined, overgrown and filled with the damp fog, heated by all the earth below ir and sun-warmed concrete and blacktop above. The central portion of the floor has been burrowd out, allowing a tall, arched structure to be built in the middle of the dried out webbing, here clearly decayed but patched in places by some desperate hand. The ceiling is vaulted in the center, nine spindles of reeking web reaching out from its upper and lower points. Some of the arches have collapsed, but they hang loosely from something that barely stirs in the middle, restrained just above the ground in a cocoon of its own make.

The mother. The Queen.

She's a beautiful creature, made to spawn and raise such perfect predators. Her body is massive and lithe, an insectile carapace built similarly to the designs on the webbing making up her form, with many powerful, clawed limbs reaching out from it. Her crest, once a magnificent crown, has crumbled around the edges, looking as sad as her faded, flaking red shell. An eyeless face stares at the scout with a mixture of hunger and pleading, and her long, wickedly bladed tail curls protectively around a large, leathery stretch of flesh laying on the floor beneath her, coating three large, ovoid shapes that pulse weakly, like a dying heartbeat. Struggling even to breath, the queen rears her head and hisses at the scout, a half-hearted warning from a beast resigned to its death long ago.

[Recaiden]

No, not theirs. This is not how they look when they decay, this scent is not theirs.

The scout sets itself, in between the arching spindles of web, and growls back at the queen. It's not a terribly imposing sound, all in all. But it makes clear that it can see the queen's weakness, that despite that lovely bladed tail it is willing and able to tear into her and those pulsing egg-things. The scout stares back, eyes burning red.

There's another voice behind it, its attention finally drawn. And it has one clear thing to ask.
What happened?

[TechnoScrabble]

As much as she can, the Queen curols her body around what remains of her eggs, the last of her brood shielded behind faded carapace. Her movement is greatly limited, her age, her cocoon, the crumbling of the structure around her, it has all served to trap her in her own safest place, something that infuriates her to no end.

Intelligent, even brilliant, the Queen still struggles to form words across the bridge between her and the other creature. The concepts, though, the sounds and sights and smells, they play out just fine. Once, she was young and strong, and her daughters were plentiful, bringing fear and death in the night. Each time they went out to hunt, plenty more hosts were brought back, and the hive feasted. Soon enough, they were found, though, and their home attacked, a psychic dampener used to throw the hive into disarray and prevent the Queen from controlling her spawn. They fled or were slain, and though the few guards still in the hive killed the intruders, it was not enough. They remained scattered, unable to communicate, and one by one were hunted down or lost to the outside world, leaving the queen to starve and rot with her last few eggs, the last chance for her hive. Towards the end of the terrible flood of memories, the Queen hisses and shudders weakly, the structure of her own body groaning bluntly.

[Recaiden]

They can tell she's struggling with the words.
The voice responds with the queen's own images, reflected back with a new context laid over them.
The hive feasting and spreading fear: foolish.
The children dampened and out of control: a flicker of sympathy. They have faced such things. Of course, the scout's people made it through; this creature did not.
The queen starving and wasting away: deserved.

The scout takes a step forward, confident.

How can you be of use to us?
Two visions are shown: the queen fighting along whole flocks of scouts; the scout and its sisters tearing apart her corpse to eat.

[TechnoScrabble]

The Queen is weak, and she knows it. Even something spawned of hellfire and the void of space cannot fight effectively when starving and trapped. She won't live long, whether or not she's freed, her body long since having begun the slow spiral into death. Still, though, she refuses to let her hive die. There is something they can do.

Her tail unwinds, slipping under the dried remains of her ovipositor, and lifts the tattered flesh, revealing a small cluster of eggs. Tall, ovular, with ridges along the side resembling twisting spinal columns meeting in a strange crown at the top. Though the ridges are a dark, dusty red colur, almost brown or black, the thinner, veined portions of skin between them are a wet, sheening pink. Within, something can be seen resting, rising and falling slowly, though one stirs as the Queen lifts away the 'veil'.

Take them. Save them. Do not let the hive perish.