Author Topic: Nobody Expects.... [Open] (Read 1803 times)

Beware Ye Who Enter Here · « **on:** November 30, 2012, 09:44:45 PM »

The beating of blood through bodies was the first thing he felt when he awoke. Before his eyes even flickered open, he could hear the blood rushing through cardiovascular systems. A millisecond after that he saw the bright dots of light in a darkness. Lights pulsing with thoughts and emotions. Countless thoughts, secrets and emotions flooded his mind, invading and taking over. Then he reasserted his control and the whirling torrent of other's lives became simple background noise and finally, blessed silence.

Only then did Isoldr open his physical eyes. He was in a small, sparsely decorated room made of black onyx. There were no lights for he needed none. He stretched out his senses once again and found a man waiting for him beyond the hidden door into his room. He pulled his black hair back into a pony tail and stood up and pressed a small red button on a wall. A refresher unit opened up and he cleansed himself.

After fifteen minutes, Isoldr exited his room dressed in black, blue and red robes with a dietranium visor and his psychically attuned sword at his side. A short, blond man was waiting for him, looking vaguelly nervous. Isoldr tried to probe his mind but, much to his chagrin, found the man was wearing a psychic dampener. Bloody ill-trained ignorant buffoons. He thought.

"What could possibly have happened that you require my skill-set for?" He asked the man impatiently.

"T-there has been cult activity-" The man stammeringly began.
Isoldr shrugged dismissively. "Let the local authorities deal with it."

"This cult activity involved a powerful magical presence and just happened to have left a senator's house in room. They're powerful and secretive." The man said.
"And so you need someone who could rip those secrets out of them." Isoldr finished coldy. "Fine. Where am I to go?"

The short man handed him a datapad with the directions.
"Meet up with the Hand at those coordinates." He said.

Isoldr scoffed. "Those half-witted fools? They're probably the ones who let this get out of control in the first place." With that he walked away to the entrance of the building and expanded his mind's eye and found a hover-taxi driver.

"Land at the east side of the Aljinon building or I will eviscerate your brain like a chainsaw being taken to your flesh."

To his pleasure, the man's mind retracted with fear but he did not question his will. Within twenty minutes, he was off to meet with the Hand.

He landed at the sight of the carnage and walked up to the agents there. As he did so he expanded his consciousness and began to absorb information from each of them without them knowing it.

Beware Ye Who Enter Here · « **Reply #1 on:** December 02, 2012, 12:03:19 PM »

Eventually, he grew tired of sifting around the rubble with his mind, searching for the fragments of consciousness and emotion that people left behind everywhere they went. It was too murky, with all the agents. Frowning under his mask he walked silently up behind one of the agents who looked like they were in charge. With a psychic poke, he tapped her on the shoulder.

"What happened here?" He asked, mustering up the authoritative voice he so often used on underlings.

K2 · « **Reply #2 on:** December 02, 2012, 01:32:31 PM »

The woman was none other than Kauliya, the senior field agent of the Muddywater Division -- Meaning, she'd taken over Yairhoff Haydenn's job after he left some years ago. She dealt with some of the... Less appreciated parts of the Hand -- not nearly as illegal as the operations had been under Yairhoff Haydenn, who, according to now declassified documents, had tortured senate candidate Lustre -- but she still dealt with grey-areas for the Zarethian Hand, and worked closely with the Director.

"That's classified information. Who are you?" she replied, equal authoritarian tone in her own voice as she stared this newcomer in the eye.

Beware Ye Who Enter Here · « **Reply #3 on:** December 02, 2012, 01:46:54 PM »

Isoldr nodded, smirking slightly. He pulled out his seal, a stylized Z with a capitol I inserted horizontally in the diagonal bar. It was the semi-mythical seal of the Zarethian Inquisition, an office that for all the public knew had been gone for a thousand years. Those who were in the know, such as Director Hermitage and certain other high ranking intelligence operatives knew vaguely about the Inquisition's existence. If an inquisitor had appeared publicly it meant things were going badly.

"I am an Inquisitor, my superiors have deemed this case necessary for my intervention." He said flatly.

K2 · « **Reply #4 on:** December 02, 2012, 02:11:08 PM »

Naturally, then, Kauliya was slightly informed -- she knew not, until this moment, the validity of the information, but of course she'd heard -- and investigated -- that the Zarethian Inquisition was still around. Even now, she was sceptical, but she couldn't afford to shut this man out. It was obvious that someone very high in the chain of command wasn't liking how the Hand was handling things. They needed help badly.

"The Assistant Director is missing, believed to be dead. There was a firefight there," she said, nodding her head towards the giant crater which had been a senator's office building only half an hour ago, "The Director was involved, along with a few others. No intelligence on who was behind the attack. It was a group of individuals -- they were wearing strange clothing, but we're working on it. Oh, and..."

She pointed to two Hand agents carrying a cow towards a transport craft, "They were carrying a cow. We think it may have been committed to a cult we've been monitoring lately. There's been a string of disappearances over the last few weeks, and we were putting together a sting operation when this happened. Initial debriefing with the Director and the other agents tells us that it was one hell of a fight, and the Assistant Director dropped down into the crawlspace beneath the building a few moments before the building went up in flames. The Director's team barely made it out in time."

Beware Ye Who Enter Here · « **Reply #5 on:** December 02, 2012, 02:46:50 PM »

"Assistant Director Amy Jacobs?" He asked as he stretched out his mind, trying to find some trail of emotional echoes to follow. As he did such he continued with his conversation.
"Is there any more information about this cult? Anything at all?" He asked, his voice easily concealing the light strain with a casual tone.

UnStellar · « **Reply #6 on:** December 02, 2012, 03:48:58 PM »

OOC: Um... Since when were the cultists carrying a cow?

K2 · « **Reply #7 on:** December 02, 2012, 04:01:40 PM »

OOC: At the beginning of the topic. O.o

K2 · « **Reply #8 on:** December 02, 2012, 04:03:15 PM »

OOC: Oops, an elephant.

K2 · « **Reply #9 on:** December 02, 2012, 04:24:23 PM »

"Even better," she replied, motioning for Isoldr to follow her over to a small hover van, it's back doors open, a laptop waiting for her. Logging in with her Zarethian Hand credentials, she pulled up a file and a video player opened on the smooth government Operating System as footage from the battle with the disciples started to play. She paused it when they started Tainting, reversed it, and played it over again.

"As you can see... These bastards have some crazy abilities. And it's not magic."

Beware Ye Who Enter Here · « **Reply #10 on:** December 02, 2012, 04:31:43 PM »

"Not magic?" Isoldr questioned, his voice curious. Under his mask he raised an eyebrow as the video played over and over again.
"This is... Interesting. There are few things in the universe that can act like magic but aren't. Interesting." He repeated, thoughtful. His mind was still wandering, seeing the emotions and thoughts of people who were no longer there. Then he found something, a small, light trail of emotions that he recognized as belonging to Assistant Director Jacobs, with help from the trace memories in the agent's of the Hand's minds of course.
"I may have found something pertaining to your assistant director." He said, turning around abruptly and walking towards the pile of rubble.

K2 · « **Reply #11 on:** December 02, 2012, 08:51:12 PM »

"Yeah," Kauliya replied, nodding her head as she watched him replay the footage, "I agree."

When he mentioned that he may have found something pertaining to Amy, Kauliya replied, "What?" as she looked behind her shoulder, only to find him gone. Turning around, she looked around, confused, before she saw him walking towards the pile of rubble. Chasing after him, she quickly proclaimed, "You can't go over there! There could still be explosives in the ground!"

Beware Ye Who Enter Here · « **Reply #12 on:** December 02, 2012, 09:22:25 PM »

He quickly scanned the ground and rubble with his mind and found no trace of anything dangerous.
"Fear is likely why you've been losing to these cultists." He admonished. "Do you want to find out what happened with your assistant director or not?" he continued walking briskly through the pile of rubble.

K2 · « **Reply #13 on:** December 02, 2012, 09:52:11 PM »

"Losing?" she asked quietly, taken aback by the unique personality of this man. Deciding to follow him, Kailiya moved forward, a bit surprised about how different this guy was. She suddenly had an urge to learn from this guy, whoever he was. She wanted to know what the Inquisition was about. She wanted to better herself. He was right. The Zarethian Hand was fighting a war against a variety of enemies. They were losing.

Beware Ye Who Enter Here · « **Reply #14 on:** December 02, 2012, 10:06:40 PM »

"I'm glad you see it my way." He said in reply to her thought, though he knew she didn't know he was psychic. He was very pleased with her impression of him, and he wouldn't mind teaching her a few things. He shook himself mentally, and continued walking. "Your assistant director is still alive." He said, following the trails of emotion only visible to him. "She didn't die in the bombing."

K2 · « **Reply #15 on:** December 02, 2012, 10:22:27 PM »

"WHAT!?" she replied, ecstatic, "I have to tell the Director! This is great news!"

Beware Ye Who Enter Here · « **Reply #16 on:** December 02, 2012, 10:34:06 PM »

"Thats the good news." He said grimly. "The bad news is that she was... mentally disturbed. She survived but... SHe may not have survived intact. And thats if shes not at the mercy of these... cultist scum." He said, turning slightly to look at Kauliya. "It may not be best to get your director's hopes up."

K2 · « **Reply #17 on:** December 02, 2012, 10:44:35 PM »

"Oh," she replied, lowering her Galactic Phone as the realization hit her. He was right. She didn't know how he knew this, but if she was still alive, she was hiding from them. Maybe she really was mentally... Insane. And that meant that she had given up her ties to the Zarethians. She wanted them to think she was dead. But why? What could she possibly gain from it? She had to be insane. It had to be the cult members -- they'd gotten to her somehow.

"Right," she replied, "We'll save questions about how you know this for later. We need to find these cultists and take care of them. If there's a chance that they have the Assistant Director, that they're doing something to her, we need to find them at once. I-"
She stopped as a fury of information came over her communicator before looking at Isoldr, alarm in her eyes. "There's been another attack. A tea shop across town."

Beware Ye Who Enter Here · « **Reply #18 on:** December 02, 2012, 10:59:12 PM »

Isoldr read her mind and raced to the nearest Hand hovercar.
"Are you coming or not?" He asked her as he opened up the door, slid in the driver's seat and filled the keyhole with his mind, forming an exact replica of the key required with psychic energy. He started the car and input the coordinates in the nav system.

K2 · « **Reply #19 on:** December 02, 2012, 11:26:56 PM »

A bit taken aback, Kauliya was quick to join Isoldr, jumping in the hovercar. How had he started it!? She didn't know -- she didn't care right now. As the automated personal safety inertia dampeners rose, Kailiya watched as he raced through the streets. She was busily carrying away on her communicator, shouting orders, receiving information. Was this another attack of the Cultists!?

Beware Ye Who Enter Here · « **Reply #20 on:** December 02, 2012, 11:32:36 PM »

He landed the vehicle safely, right next to the building. Surprisingly, it was still intact and wasn't gore and debris strewn about the streets. Isoldr gathered that the attack was ultimately unsuccessful. He grinned under his mask and slid out of the car, walking swiftly towards the building.
(OOC: Transition to the other topic or keep it here?)

K2 · « **Reply #21 on:** December 03, 2012, 09:48:40 AM »

OOC: Other topic is fine.