Whispers of the Past: Episode 1 - "Ghoats"

[Jack Pine]

"Ghosts"

Kowloon/ Azalea company camp/ noon.....

The day was warm and bright, the air clear, and people were about doing whatever tasks may have needed done. Some just enjoying the day for what it was. But not all was calm, not in A particular tent owned by a man to be unnaturally calm even in the worst times.

Whisper frantically packed his belongings into his pack, his tent he preferred to stay in was rather Spartan. He had few items of non-significance, and even fewer of the personal variety. He had finished packing his basic amenities. Ammo, tooth paste, mess kit, clothes, matches, survival supplies, and other hygienic kit.

He looked about at the empty fabric tent, the rather large cloth layer that made the floor, and finally the simple cot that had been the closest thing to a home in years. It was a sad thought, but he needed to do this......He had face the music sooner, or later. He patted his person to make sure he absolutely had everything, but realized he was missing one vital piece.

"Fuck where is it?", he cursed to himself as he searched about for the item.

[Somewhere nearby]
Ty stripped his helmet off after a long mission on the planet his artificial skin over his skull had collected condication from the heat under the power armor. After wiping his brow he lit up a cigarette and took a long drag "Fucking cheapskates, next time they can find their own escort if they pay this shitty." Sighing to himself he flicked away the but of his now finished smoke and put on his helmet for it to pick up a voice threw the listing systems curse "maybe I could get this sucker to pay me if I find whatever he's looking for, running low on smokes anyway" Ty said as he got up and went to the direction of the cursing.

[Back at the tent]
With a large autonomous storage cart floating behind her, Vella-00 approached Whisper's tent fully clad in her combat and travel outfit, a skin-tight and padded combat bodysuit. Her crossbow and AR-15 was mounted on her back with a lock-in holster, while her pistol was holstered directly onto her thigh, along with a pair of grenades and a monomolecular short sword.

All in all, she made for a formidable, yet alluring visage given the manner in which the outfit hugged her feminine form, from top to bottom.

"Whisper." Vella said as she approached the man's tent. "The cart's here." She set her arms akimbo and cocked her hips to the left in a casual manner, before gesturing lightly to the flat-topped cart floating behind her. "Ready to load it up?"

Whisper found the necklace as he heard Vella's voice. His eyebrow raised in confusion before he grabbed his pack, and slung his rifle. Exiting the tent a moment later as he was putting on the necklace. It was a pair of silver wolves that were back to back, a blue crystal flame above the center of the pair.

"Everything I have is in the pack. Your early.", He said as he finished locking the ends of the chain together.

"...and you're not done packing yet, are you?" Vella returned in a smart and lightly sarcastic tone, just as a coy smile came over her features. "By the way, I rented the cart from logistics." Vella said, returning to business just as quickly. The cart floated towards the head of the tent, within Whisper's easy reach. "If we need another one, I can go back and get one for us, but I think we'll be able to fit everything on this one." She continued. "Do you need help packing, big guy?"

"Everything is in the pack. I don't have much.", He answered with a grin as he put the loose necklace under his shirt.

Ty walked over to the group trying not to look threatening but probably failing at that. "So what are you two boaks doing at this hour?" Ty said nonchalantly as he could without sounding like a ass "we're ever your going you could probably use a recon speacilist right, I could give discounts for the lovely lady"

Whisper usually found random strangers suspicious and something about his offer irked him inside.

"Its noon. And we're taking a long trip, whether we need such service remain to be seen.", he said Cooley.

Vella let out a sudden and high-pitched yelp at the surprise arrival. With her hands covering her mouth, the tiny woman turned around, only to find herself grow even more anxious when she saw his imposing, power-armor clad form standing only a few feet behind her. Her voice cracked, and she quickly retreated next to Whisper and wrapped her hands around him in a timid manner. Even so, she managed to at least assume a stable and somewhat authoritative tone of voice.

"Who...who are you?" She asked him in a questioning tone. "How did you hear about this? Are you with the Azalea?" Vella turned to Whisper. "Whisper...did you expect him here?"

"Nope.", Whisper said simply.

"I'm just a local mercanary assassin that was just passing through after a recent job and saw you guys getting ready for a trip and thought you could use a little protection"he said jestering to the rather large sniper rifle on his back

"What are your rates? Do you have any recommendations, papers, or a verified service record?" Vella demanded authoritatively, setting her arms akimbo in an obvious demonstration of skepticism.

"Do we really need him? We took out 30 by ourselves alone, so unless we plan on taking on army, I don't see a need.", Whisper said with a raised eyebrow. Granted he actually expected to confront a small force later, he planned to go that alone. No sense in taking anyone else down with him.

"We almost died...Whisper..." Vella replied, giving Whisper a sharp glare as she spoke. "We're going into fights like that again..." She asserted.

Ty grined under his helmet "sure anything for the lovely lady" he said handing her info on his shadow broker and hundreds of jobs complete with his pay from assinations to guard duty and then removed his helmet showing his sythetic bone skull from the buyer jaw up with a voice box/breathing system on the lower jaw "as for rates first time customers are free to give a good impression"

"Umm...what do you think, Whisper? It sounds quite enticing..." Vella said as she looked over the files the imposing mercenary had handed over. Indeed, he had taken hundreds of jobs, and all of the reviews from his old clients were positively beaming to say the least. After looking through his files, Vella raised her gaze up to his face, but her eyes went wide when she saw the grotesque and cybernetic features that presumably kept him alive.

"Well, you are obviously...very experienced..." Vella continued as her gaze pored over his cybernetics.

There was a piece missing, or, suffice to say, her head simply could not describe the part it needed to fit in the blueprint. It was almost like a headache and had left her pacing about her workshop for the worse part of an hour, only stopping to take a sip from a still cup full of some bitter drink. There was a pain to the thought, an absolute irregularity, in the same sense of a word losing meaning when you say it too much, but these were parts and functions, and suddenly they lacked definitions and uses. She groaned, rolling her shoulders in her work jumpsuit before she strode outside, the mechanical automation in her workshop coming to a dead still as she abandoned it.

Her pacing was interrupted outside, as she found that it was perhaps not the best idea to replace a still noise with active talking and boasting. People walking about and talking and being bothers to the ears. It was impossible to think, rightly difficult to find the right step in the blizzard of sound. She was about to retreat and close up shop for the day and drown her pains with enough alcohol to make a horse senseless, but a voice caught her ear, a familiar one that, unlike the dozens of others, did not cause a cheese grater to copulate with her brain.

Taking a detour to where she heard Vella’s voice, she wasn’t surprised when she found it wasn’t even at Vella’s own place of rest. Instead it was a tent, belonging to Whisper. She disliked the name and would likely call him some variation of ‘Jimmy’ until she came up with something better, she would have done the same with Creature, but Creature seemed to at least roll off the tongue better, and had the active charisma to make few question the authenticity of the name. Her even but slow gait lead her over, to where she found Vella inspecting what she could only describe as an amalgamation of what movies thought a cybernetic villain would look like paired with early 2960’s mercenary biker gangs from late night productions.

“Hey, Vella.” She spoke up as she approached, giving little more than a bored glance to Ty. “You look as well as ever- Though maybe a bit shorter.” She smirked. “What’re you up to here?”

"I'd rather take Jill her as I actually know her, that being said........*sigh* free is hard to turn down. Welcome aboard.", Whisper said after Jill arrived, offering a hand to the man.

Ty shook the man's hand, responding with "Glad to be of service to you."

When Vella shot off, another woman caught his attention, the one who Vella jumped at the waist of. "And who might you be, sweet stuff?"

"Jill!" Vella cried out and ran past Ty and Whisper and immediately threw herself into the torso of the taller woman, who quite unfortunately lacked arms to catch her. Had she been bigger, she might have accidentally brought the poor woman to the ground. Vella wrapped her arms around Jill's waist (which was nearly as high as she could reach) and smiled up at the technician.

"We're going on a..." Vella paused, and for an emphatic moment, the gears seemed to turn in her head before she spoke once more. "Quest." She finished. "We're taking Mr. Womanizer here and well...I think Whisper and I want to take you too!"

Vella was, as always, a welcome sight, in her own way a ray of sunshine that infectiously made you smile even when you didn’t want to. Not that Jill would ever admit to the absolute joy that was Vella’s personality of course, it would cheapen the jokes she could make instead. Though she didn’t exactly have the arms to hug her in response, she did lower herself somewhat to give an odd squeeze with her stubs, though unspoken its purpose as a hug was quite clear, she wasn’t one to pretend her stubs didn’t exist just because there was no fingers or elbows sticking out of them.

However much she wished to joke around more with Vella, she could hardly help herself as she glanced over at Ty, and his oh so charming words, ones she could never call endearing. Jill herself wasn’t exactly a beauty queen, a matured look upon her face with an odd skin tone, messy hair and the absolute lack of arms, her stubs ending before her elbows by a good amount, but that? That was a prime target, especially with his choice of words.

“Well I’d give you a nasty look but it looks like you’ve got plenty to spare. Jill, as she said.” She responded with a vulgar air of confidence. “Aside from that, where’s this quest going?”

"I'm going home, got some things I need to sort out. Wouldn't hurt to have another familiar face along for the ride. We need to go find a miss Dante, She has info on an individual I need. Supposedly this person is somewhere in the city, and I hired her to find them. Where we got in between our destination and here is anyone's guess." Whisper said with a slight grin, honestly happy at the prospect of someone else he at least knew. He hadn't actually said where home was, but then again he hadn't really been there long enough to ever fully qualify as home. He had tried to block most of those memories.

Ty chuckled at Jill's remark, "Nice and feisty, perfect." Looking at her stubs he typed a few things in on a data pad

"Well, regardless of the point of this meet I'm stuck with you till the job is over. But hey if we can wait about five minutes I got a speedball from some old friends dropping a gift here for 'Look ma. no hands,' Here"

A tall man by the name of Theodore Ratner strolled over to the group, his eyes scanning around in search of a possible lead on who he was looking for. He came from the Neserwin house, a man of magic in search of who he was suppose to find. Being a magic healer for a living, there was no doubt that he would be called by someone eventually. "Excuse me, am I in the right place? My name's Theo, I'm a healer, and kinda lookin' for somebody?"

"Oh me oh my! Another one!" Vella spoke in a cheerful tone when the tall healer approached the group, her hands covering her mouth in a pleasantly surprised manner. "Theo? Hmm...we could certainly use a doctor, as much as we could use a technician..." Vella said as she directed a wink to the short-haired engineer and wrapped her arms even tighter around the taller womans hips. Had it not been for the curves her skin-tight bodysuit displayed in a quite thorughly scandalous manner, the tiny purple-skinned woman would have almost looked like a child on her mother's hip.

Jill could not claim in any sense that she was enthused by the responses of Ty, particular that in which he claimed to be getting something for her. Vella specifically would feel her tense slightly, and her typically smug look faded somewhat to a look more jaded and guarded. She didn’t know Ty, and so far she couldn’t say that she liked him. He rubbed her the wrong way, but perhaps she was simply reading him wrong, as much as she hated the idea that she was in the wrong. “It’s a bit early for gifts, Frankenstein.” She responded in a colder tone after a moment.

Her gaze then turned to the new arrival, the healer, specifically, an odd term to use. Typically people called themselves medics or doctors, healer seemed like such an odd term to use, but then again she called herself a great many things depending on what fit her wants better. “Well, who are you looking for?”

"Well friend I can't much answer without a name.", Whisper said to Theo before turning back to Th.

"I agree with Jill, we've not been ones to accept gifts from strangers. Any ill intentions will be rewarded with appropriate responses. Remember that.", He said in a serious tone that made it quite clear that those rewards would be dire.

Ty nodded "I understand that ma'am and it's not much of a gift but more of a tool to assist you" ty said as a box dropped safely from the sky as a ship passed quickly overhead "huh they must have been in the area::too" walking over he picks up the box and removed two retrofit arms similar in style to Ty's power armor arms and then pulled out a jar with a brain in formaldehyde "aww and they sent lunch"

"I don't remember being hired to work at a costume party." Yet another voice chimed in, "Inspector Gadget, that one chick from that movie about aliens, a... candy- er." The owner of the voice, an abnormally tall redheaded woman, tapped at her chin when her attempt at a joke got stumped at Vella, "You get the point. Which one of you is Whisper? I'm going to go with the Goose impersenator over there, maybe?" She limply motioned towards Whisper.

"Yes that's me. You got the info?", Whisper said ignoring the joke.

"If by got you mean recieved, yes. If you meant do I currently have it on me in my possession right this second- also yes."

[Meanwhile, in space]

Kyle was piloting his ship around the Star System of Kowloon. Everything was routine for him, he set the fighter to auto-pilot. Grabbing out a candy bar and removing his Carbyne Helmet to eat it, when his AI, Diamond asked him, "So... Would you remind me why we're here again Azazel?" She asked him from his helmet.

Kyle finished eating his bar then put his helmet back on, "Because I want to explore. Humans don't live as long as other... species of organisms. So I have to do everything I want while I'm young or else I'll never get anything accomplished." He told her checking his fighter's systems, when he ran across an issue. The wires were faulty and needed to be replaced. " *Sigh* Looks like I more problems with this old ship." Kyle said opening up the pannel.

As he went to fix the ship, his fighter entered orbit of the planet and his warning systems went haywire. Knowing that he can't do anything, He quickly grabbed all of his equipment and ejected 200 meters above the woods below. Where his fighter would crash and create a huge explosion, disintigrating everything in a 30 meter radius.

Kyle pulled on the parachute and floated down, over a road. "Damn it! That was the ship I got from Mom and Dad... Crap, I have to go find it after I land..." He told himself pissed off. When he landed he started walking down the road after detaching the parachute.

Vella released herself from Jill's embrace with a somewhat quizzical expression marking her soft features. However, when she saw the mercenary's "gift" to Jill, she directed that same expression to him, along with a single raised eyebrow. From what she could tell, his gift didn't seem to be malicious or selfish in intent, but rather, tone deaf. Yet, upon seeing the brain-in-a-jar, Vella covered her mouth with both hands and made a harsh and dry gagging noise, along with a disturbingly shrill scream.

"EEEEeeeek! Please don't tell me that is what I THINK it is!" She screamed, as she wrapped her arms around Jill's hips like a little girl.

It was only the sound of an errant explosion in the distance, which was loud enough to draw her attention away from the creepy armored man who seemed so intent upon scaring everyone in the vicinity.

"Someone carry me please...I'm exhausted already..." Vella murmured softly.

Honestly Jill saw it coming a mile away, like a tall brick wall in the middle of the freeway, paired with flashing red lights and sirens that shouted ‘DANGER: BRICK WALL IN ROAD’ several miles in advance. Yet, despite all the warnings she drove forward and let herself hit the wall because it was the polite thing to do, but it seemed she was the only one between Ty and her who had even considered going the polite route. A question, hell, so much as an observation would have sufficed with no more than a momentary explanation on her end but no such time was taken.

He had looked upon her and saw her flaws, and had decided in that moment that clearly she was incapable of fixing them herself, that she was something to be fixed, a damsel in distress or some other cheesy and equally frustrating act. She could feel a bubbling rage building in her gut as he so proudly presented the arms as if he were doing her a favor, the detachment of Vella from her waist did little to ease her rising temper. She liked to think that she took her problems in stride, making herself the butt of jokes as much as anyone else she talked to, she was flawed and she embraced it, but this? This overstepped bounds, many bounds, far too many, especially by someone she had just met.

Her mood showed on her face, and it was rightly overtaken by a mixture of annoyance and frustration, and in that moment she truly regretted coming to see Vella, as much as she liked the girl. She took a deep breath, as if to shout, before releasing it in a pent-up sigh. “If I needed arms, I would be perfectly capable of making them myself, and that’s assuming that they’d even work. I’m an engineer, Iron-Lung, and I doubt your local garage shop has a set that works for me. Believe me, I’ve tried a lot.” Her voice seeped with a rising malice, something that Vella and Whisper would note was quite unlike her. “I’d recommend we sell the scrap-arms and buy a better merc.” She concluded as she turned her cold gaze to Whisper, ignoring the blast and the brains that drew others attention

Whisper's jaw ticked slightly as things progressed, his eyes drawn by the explosion for a brief moment. The brain disturbed him for a number of reasons, and the man's ignorant inconsiderateness was made clear by Jill's anger.

"Vella, you can ride on my back if you need to.", he said placing his pack and rifle on the grav cart before turning back to Ty, "You've clearly made a very bad judgement mister Sibo. I believe an apology is in order to the lady. But she has a point, those arms could be sold for funds. Those which we'll need to purchase a ship I know we can get. We're going to need for the long road ahead. I would also advise keeping your eating practices, and any other of the sort private in the future. Unease, and anxiety can be as lethal as any poison."

Ty nodded "i uunderstun forgive my rudness sometime I forget I can't talk and my thoughts are just projected via psionics much like my body the arms were to reacht to it's owners brainwaves to operate"

Ty pulled out a cigarette and put it into the slot on his mouth a lit it before began smoking "I never chose to be this way and it it were my dicision id end my life here and now but I keep living so no one has to be like me"

Creature stood off watching the exchanged between Jill, and some strange man. The tents, and activity of Azalea camp had a way of calming him, but not today. He stood there thoroughly nervous at what he was attempting to do. He looked down at his prosthetic hand. The metallic talon like fingers were wrapped around a bundle of freshly picked carson roses.

Gol had taken to growing the things, and prior to Creature opting to do his little mission, he had gone to her rose garden and picked every last one of the little bastards. “Eh. Fuck em. Let's do this.” He rasped as he then, stood up straight, and faked confidence. Creature swaggered across the filthy camp, with his tail flicking nervously behind him.

As Ty finished his statement, Creature stepped directly in front of the man obscuring Jill’s view of him. “Hey uh.” Creature rasped, looking down at the woman. “I uh…” He then presented the bundle of roses(There were 47 of them, they look like they were snipped with claws) with his prosthetic hand. “I was uh…you wanna go out on a date with me jill?”

Kyle continued to walk down the road checking all of his equipment, “IGR... IGP... Supernova... Armor, helmet, backpack, extra ammo, side cash... Yup I’ve Got everything I need.” As he confirmed that he had all of the equipment on him, his visor displayed heads up and targeted a small camp that was in front of him.

“Unknown Encampment Detected Azazel.” Diamond told Kyle as he approached the camp casually in his full black Carbyne Suit and helmet with navy Blue tinted visor. His IGR slung over his shoulder and IGP in his right hip. He then activated the voice manipulation feature on his helmet to distort his voice. “This is going to be interesting... oh that’s um... that thing is disgusting.” He said as he zoomed in on Ty then zoomed back out. Entering the camp.

"Ohhh wait, really?!" Vella replied to Whisper in a pleasantly surprised tone. "Oh, well...please and thank you Mr. Whisper! You are too kind, as always!" Vella gave Whisper a vibrant smile, along with a wink before strapping most of the gear carried on her person onto the grav-cart drone, only keeping a small pistol and crossbow on herself. She was at least one-hundred pounds with a standard carrying load, and she didn't want to make herself too heavy for Whisper to bear.

After shedding her gear, with a single vertical leap, Vella jumped up to Whisper's back, and let his hands grip her thighs before he pulled her up to his shoulders.

"Ahh, my legs already feel better..." She said with a relieved sounding sigh.
With her new view, Vella could see everyone in the camp better, including Sir Creature. After taking a deep inhaltion of breath, she made herself known to the perpetually-drunk knight commander with an exaggerated wave.

"Hello, Sir Creature!"

Jill could only roll her eyes at Ty’s excuses, and she was surprised that even he seemed to fall back onto the excuse of being the real victim of the situation. He didn’t mean to say it? Bullshit, she could hardly believe that he pulled out a datapad and purchased a pair of arms for her without a single thought of why it may be a bad idea going through his head, when both Jill and Whisper had warned him against it. “I don’t give a damn how it works, I can promise you it won’t work on me. Going all ‘woe is me’ won’t make it right either. I’m not a broken toy for you to fix.” She practically spat at him. It was apparent on her face that she had quite a bit more scorn to bring to words, but it was interrupted with the sudden appearance of someone else.

With the rise of her heartbeat that matched her anger, she was oblivious to the approach of Creature until he had stepped in front of Frakenbrains, and she had to catch her tongue before another insult lashed itself at the unfortunate hulk of a Gartagen. She listened to his sudden proposal with a red face, more notably from anger than an actual blush, in fact the proposal seemed to not phase Jill in the slightest. Seconds passed with no response, and she shook her head with a sudden look of amusement as she glanced upon the flowers. “Well, as always Creature you have the timing of a bloody brain aneurysm.” She admitted with a half-chuckle half-sigh.

“Fine, sure, and-” She paused as she stared at the flowers. “You’re going to be holding on to those for a while.”

Looked out in the distance and quickly put his helmet back on securing and tapping a few things on his helmet to change his voice a blind woman in her late 20's walked over to the group saluted ty "hey Dad who are these guys"

Ty shrugs "just some people I thought I'd assist"
Ty's voice sounded more normal and not at all assisted by robotics when he talked turning to Jill he picked up the arms "my apologies miss I'll try to be kind next time"
Ty looked at the woman "so Sonia, what brings you out here"

Sonia chuckled "I just woke up refreshed like I'd been sleeping a long time and thought I'd follow up with you about the battle"

Ty nodded "yes we'll talk about it later if you head to my pack over there there should be some smokes for you"

Sonia nodded and headed off ty looked back to Jill "please for her sake don't mention how I look or what year it is"

Creature looked about as he heard a small voice greet him. The diminuitive Vella unfortunetly fell absent from his one eyed gaze. "I'm a lord now! Its Lord Creature! Also, Hello person I can't fucking see!" he said half yelling back to Vella sounding rather cheerful.

He then turned back to Jill who, naturally struck him with her biting wit. "Uh well, I'm a bit more fun than a Brain Anurysm. Also I probably won't kill you. Killing people sucks." He grumbled.

It then dawned on Creature that he had not thought this 'asking Jill out on a date' scheme out as well as he usually did. Well, now that he thought about thinking things through, it occured to him that he rarely ever thought too deeply into things. Though for him things often tended to work it self out, or Creature simply dryhumped the situation into submission. "Fuck yes! She said yes!" Creature exclaimed his raspy voice growing loud with excitment seemingly cutting off Ty and his apologies.

"Sorry about the timing. I just figured you were off duty, and I uh...saw you standing here talking to these weirdos in the middle of the tents, I figgered now was the best time." Creature said pulling the flowers back and handing them off to his tail. The blue skinned prehensile tail curled around the roses, and held them in a bundle, but it freed up Creature's hands. WHich as he spoke he often set his hands to flourishing about and moving with each word.

The prosthetic hand snapped forward into a point at Jill. "You are blushing. That isn't because of me. Are you okay?" Creature said tilting his head, but at an angle that let him eye up Ty who had walked away. "Also...I don't recognize any of these people....."

Whisper shook his head, the current situation starting to seem like something out of a bad comic. "We really need to get going. Miss Dantes, the address of the man with our info if you would please."

The man drew his vision else where, the procession having left him mildly annoyed. But...His eye caught site of something that should not have been there. Something so out of place it was bizarre. Two tent rows over amongst the roaming people sat a wolf. A white wolf....and it was staring at him.

But he was the only one who could see it. Those by it acting like nothing was there. Vella would feel him go rigid still from the sight.

Kyle walked up to the group and looked At each of them, his face covered by his helmet. “Wow, I must be the luckiest guy on Earth to find people who aren’t too primitive to understand what I’m talking about!” He spoke with a very morphed and augmented voice that sounded like a domented child.

He rubbed the back of his neck, “Sorry about the thermonuclear detonation back there in the woods. Hope no one was nearby, or else they’re atomized like Heroshima.“ He took a slight pause then jumping back up, still in a peppy mood, “Anyhow! I’m Azaze! NICE TO MEETCHA!!!”

"Sorry, I feel like I keep getting here late." Wazu said, half stumbling out of the woods... and then checking his datapad... then half-unrolling the scroll in his other hand... then turning that scroll over. "I am a bit lost I think... "

He looked over at creature, then back at his datapad.

"I think my teleport has taken me to the wrong individual... it should have brought me to the other one? I am still not familiar with this realm's magic system yet." The man himself had on a backpack, and a simple tank top with tan pants and a boonie hat. It certainly looked like he had hiked there recently though his shoes were still in good condition.

Ivy tapped at her chin, clearly doing her damnedest to ignore all the ruckus. She was used to dealing with odd groups and shady employers- but things were getting just plain rediculous, "1527 Stiles Street, I really suggest we do get a move on before more people start showing up with flowers or explosions ."

The redhead pinched at the bridge of her nose, "This isn't the sort of case where more equates to merrier." She reminded Whisper.

With an infectious energy in her motions, Vella lept off of Whisper's shoulders and brushed the dust off of her bodysuit with two hands. "Aww...that' soooo romantic..." Vella said as she approached Creature. "But...if you don't want those flowers...can I have them?" The tiny statured purple-skinned woman spoke, looking up to Creature and Jill as if she were a third wheel in an odd date.

Jill went out to walk to clear her head, and when she approached Vella there couldn't have been more than four people present, including Jill herself. Not only had it expanded beyond any reasonable measure with little reason, but they seemed to have picked up quite a few stray vagabonds, including one who appeared to be so overjoyed to join the party that he turned his personal ship into a bunker buster to arrive. "Vella, as always you've been an absolute treasure to talk with." She started as she began to turn away.

"But I'm going to bolt before security comes to find out what all the ruckus is about. Creature, she can have the flowers, I'd probably kill them accidentally within the hour anyway." She concluded as she meandered back to her workshop.

Creature looked on at the chaos of the situation. The fact all of these new comers were not getting their heads kicked in by the usually pretty bored guards of Azalea suggested that the bulk of the fighting men and women were busy on the front lines. All they really had in camp was him self, a bunch of the pages, wounded and support staff like Jill.

Creature hesitated. It kind of bothered him that the roses were so easily tossed aside. He had seen them given to numerous human women in the Holomovies, yet Jill seemed disinterested. Plus he had totally fucked up Gol's Garden to take them. "Yea sure." Creature said handing the bundle of 47 roses to Vella.

"I don't think security is around, everybody is off on the front lines getting their asses kicked by shit throwing Atraxians. But I have a shuttle that can take us to a nice resturant on the other side of the planet!" He said tailing Jill back to her workshop. <Creature exits stage left>

Whisper had been distracted from the wolf by the anti-climactic date offer. When he turned back it was gone.

"We really need to get going guys, I don't like wandering the city at night. Thank you Miss Dantes, here's the payment as promised.", He said walking over to Ivy, handing a roll of cash from his jacket. With that he lead the party into the city. After a while they came upon a rather odd antique shop of some sort.

The building was a mishmash of archaic wood, and patch worked tech, runes faintly glowed around the door frame. The interior was no different as Whisper opened the front door and stepped inside.

There was an odd itch his body felt as he passed through the door's threshold. Odds and ends littered the shop, trinkets and devices, a few appearing as nothing more than household items. A old elderly man sat behind the desk, looking rather aged in his years. Despite his harmless appearance, He gave off an unsettling aura as if he had stepped in the cosmic dog shit that was bad karma.

"Hey, this Kelsoe's emporium of oddities? I heard you might have something I'm looking for.", Whisper said announcing the group's presence.

"Oh my, you young kids and your loud noises. Whether I have what yee seek is yet to be seen. You need to be a damn sight more specific."

"I'm looking for a ring with this emblem.", He replied before approaching the counter and handing over his necklace. The old man beginning to look it over as closely as his aged sight would allow.

Ty looked out towards the distance shaking his head "Another day on the job" Siona walked over to Kyle "So what brings you out here?"

A 14 year old boy in tattered clothes and a parka walked over neer we're wisper sees the wolf he looks like he's been through the ringer and Carry's a akm on his back
Rohan looks at the group "which one is wisper" he asked to the wolf though to everyone else seems like he's talking to himself.

Kyle had muted his helmet while following the group, being 15 feet behind them, keeping his distance, not wanting to cause too much attention to himself. Even though they didn't notice him until Sonia had just walked back to him and talked to him.

He looked at her and cocked his head to the left then unmuted his helmet and turned back on the audio distorter, "As I said like... 30 minutes ago. I crashed and creathed a small thermo nuclear explosion in the woods. You're just the people who I meet first out here on this planet!" He said in a cheery mood, though his voice was distorded and sounded like a young girl this time. "Again, name's Azazel. World class developer of... a lot of crazy fun stuff!"

Ivy leaned over Whisper's shoulder- fortuantely that only required her to move only very so slightly- and quirked an eyebrow. She almost felt bad, her services weren't horribly expensive, but they weren't cheap either and all the kid had had her do was find the dump they were standing in so that he could ask a crazy old man about a ring so that he could potentially charge him up the ass. Granted, if he wanted to pay her to go on a scavenger hunt, so be it.

She narrowed her eyes and examined the necklance from above, as well at the man trying to do the same.
The redhead found herself growing a little more interested in the case at hand.

After placing a single flower in her hair and the rest inside of Whisper's tent, Vella followed the group into the city. Upon reaching the antique shop, Vella strolled casually through the aisles, her eyes taking in the racks of oddities and antiques, which were priced at points that she could not possibly afford. She wondered what it was in here that they needed, and whether it would be worth the cash. They weren't exactly on an unlimited budget, after all.

"Uhh...Whisper..." Vella said as she walked up to the counter and tapped Whisper on the hip. "This place is-" Vella paused upon seeing the elderly shopkeeper from behind the counter. From there, she simply stared at him with an oddly unflinching gaze, as if she were silently judging him in some way, which she probably was.

He's definitely a con-man.

Quite simply, she looked like she wanted to leave as soon as possible.

"Developer?" Wazu asked, finally getting caught up with the group as he jogged up along-side Kyle, "How much do y ou know about the magic of this.... uh... universe? Or if it is magic do they call it realm? I used to be pretty good at this but this place has wholly different rules..."

"I have one item with these markings I think. And it is indeed a ring, wait here as I retrieve it.", The old man said setting the necklace on the counter. He shuffled his way to the back of the store with a huff.

"We'll be in and out, one minute.", Whisper, ...Well whispered to Vella once the man disappeared. He gave a reassuring touch to the shoulder with a slight smile. For a moment he idly looked back towards the party.

As this went on, the boy was lead to the shop by Kiriya, peaking in by pushing the door in slightly. Those inside would see the door crack open but no one there.

"He's the one at the counter with the colorful short woman.", she said stepping back, "I can not enter. These runes block me. The owner of this place must be well trained."

Kyle grabbed his IGP and pointed it directly at Wazu’s Head. “Jesus Banana Christ! You scared the crud out of me Mr.” He then holstered his IGP and shook his head. “The nerve, also. Don’t be speaking of magic around me. It’s not good for your health from what I’ve been told.” Kyle said Joyfull.

Ivy leaned herself up against the counter while they waited for the old man to return, turning her attention to the rest of the poorly cobbled group to make sure they didn't break anything they couldn't afford to replace.

"Hey, Kiddos, maybe don't point weapons at people you aren't totally sure you want to shoot." She reminded the group in the most condescending tone she could manage.

The old man shuffled back in a few minutes later.

"Yes this is what you seek.", He said feebly as he placed the item on the counter.

counter.

Whisper having already collected his necklace picked up the ring, "How much? I'm willing to work out a reasonable price."

"Put it on first."

Whisper does as he's about to haggle more. The ring is silver and bares the same emblem as his necklace. As it reaches its resting point on his finger, a faint shink sound is heard.

"Wha-", is all whisper can manage as the world seems to spin to him as he toppled over. If anyone looked close enough, they would see whatwhat looked like blood being drawn into the ring and mixed with the liquid contents before being injected back in.

Kyle stood silently as nothing much was going on. He still had his hand on his IGP’s grip, but was in a more relaxed stance and didn’t seem to be bothered by much. Besides the man collapshed on the floor in front of him.