[Video] [Locked to New Hires only] [TW for Punishment in the linked log.]

[bringinghopewithme]

Stacia, Armstrong, I need to see both of you in person. On the double. Five minutes ago. Anyone else with a real good sense of smell, you come see me too.

[On the camera, underneath his oak tree in the garden, Bunny has a little bit of that dead-eyed stare that comes from being reminded how thoroughly shackled they all are to the most banal form of evil. Mostly, this is just businesslike, direct. Calmly urgent, after his furious meltdown in the Executive wing got him nowhere good.]

Everyone else: Sam and Dan and I tracked what attacked Tenten and Setsuna into the Executive wing. I smelled it there recently before the suits caught us and kicked us out.

[There's no real reason to bring up their Punishment. It happened, it hurt, he hates that he dragged Dan and Sam into it, but they all knew it was likely to happen. And if anything they learned can help prevent any further damage to the kids, it'll have absolutely been worth it.]

I couldn't identify the species, but it's supernatural, and old. Older than me. Some variety of predator. Given we tracked it into areas we're not allowed to go, and it spent a lot of time wandering around there all leisurely, it either looks enough like a suit that they gave it a pass, or it can walk through walls. If I had money, I'd put it on walking through walls. I'm not ruling out both, though.

But don't worry. Jorgmund's bringing in - [he scoffs, and rolls his eyes hugely] dogs to finish tracking it.

I'm still racking my brains to see if any memory of what it could be falls out, but if any of that rings any bells for all you, I'm all ears.

Comments

[hot_dad]

All I'm coming up with is something undead, but I'm pretty sure you'd have mentioned already if it reeked of death.

[He frowns at the screen.]

So they don't intend to even let us properly hunt this thing down? We're just supposed to sit on our hands and hope no one else gets mangled?

[If they won't even let Bunny sniff it out, he doesn't imagine they'll let him have his sigils on the Rig long enough to prepare a spell that might help in tracking it. Fuck.]

[bringinghopewithme]

Nah. Smelled living. Didn't smell of sulphur either. Sam tells me that signifies a demon where he's from.

[He has a little more of that deadpan, dead-eyed anger in response to Rune's frown.] According to their rules, yeah, we are.

Which is to say, if you need someone to watch your back while breaking their rules again - I need maybe another hour to quit twitching from the shock collar, but after that, I got you.

[hot_dad]

...They seriously shocked the Easter Bunny?

[He doesn't even celebrate Easter and he's offended.]

[bringinghopewithme]

Twice.

[Not that limiting it to one would have been particularly redemptive. Bunny twitches again slightly as he rolls his eyes.]

[hot_dad]

[He lets out a slow breath, incredulous. Goddamn. Well then...]

Damn. I'd happily break some rules to deal with this, but unfortunately all my best tricks depend on tools Jorgmund has locked away. Unless we can get at those somehow, I'm pretty limited in what I can do.

[He's used to having to work with the bare minimum and it's made him resourceful, but this is frankly excessive.]

[bringinghopewithme]

What kind of tools? I stole some handtools a while back.

[That reminds him. He should make a post about it for the new people.]

[hot_dad]

[Sigh.]

Magic tools. Unless someone made a sigil in the form of a screwdriver, I don't think I'll get much out of those.

[bringinghopewithme]

More's the pity.

Might be we should talk shop around sigils sometime though. They took a lot of my memories when I got here, but they keep poppin' back since we all got caught up in each others'.

[hot_dad]

And there's something in those memories that's relevant?

[bringinghopewithme]

Maybe. I learned a lot of tricks over the ages.

If nothing else, I'd rather know what you can do than not know. Since we're all in this together.

[hot_dad]

We'll put that on the backburner for now.

[He's not too optimistic, given the art of sigil-making has been lost for centuries where he came from, and he doubts anyone happens to have potent magical objects worth upwards of tens of thousands of dollars just lying around. But he's talking to the goddamn Easter Bunny so at this point, he's open to anything.]

[xrater]

Have you considered seeing if there's anything in Collections that you can use?

[hot_dad]

Haven't checked. Do they let us just take anything we want out of there?

[He's not looking to get shocked to death for trying.]

[xrater]

Some can, some can't. You can see the tags on the ones they don't want taken out. Returning them is, obviously preferable.

You ought to give Collections a look. Even if it's useless for this crisis, there are interesting things in there.

[hot_dad]

Maybe once this crisis is over. I've seen too many horror movies to go wandering alone poking through mysterious objects. That sounds like a good way to get your heart ripped out.

[hallelujahjunction]

Might be good time for an information campaign? We can protect our own and maybe politely alert the folks who ain't in the brass here that they need to be keeping an eye out. It's just a shame that we don't have any better advice about something coming to kill them than just "don't get killed please."

[Dan uses airquotes there.]

[hot_dad]

We might not have advice, but we do have numbers. We can at least make sure no one goes anywhere alone. Get everyone to move in groups, camp out all together in a lounge if we can.

[hallelujahjunction]

Fair point, knowing there's a threat is better than knowing their isn't, even if there ain't a ton you can do about it. [fingergun]

[hot_dad]

Like hell there isn't a ton we can do about it. If we stick together then we can at least look out for each other. Any of the Jorgmund staff, well... If they're not going to let let us help, then they're on their own.

[Dryly, he shoots a single fingergun right back.]

[hallelujahjunction]

That's not what I meant - we can protect us, and God knows we will, but I was talking about all the folks outside the Hires, the Suits and their families and everyone else on this piece of shit megatruck. We got little choice but to leave their safety in their own hands.

But you're right, I shouldn't sound so fatalistic. [Dan's an optimist, really! The electrocution probably just scrambled his noodle a little.]