Scene #7231: Blind Eye Detective Agency: Case #3

Owner	Pose
Ein	New Lamp City has changed. Not for the better. Before, there had been a strangely yellow 'sun' high in the sky, even in the land of perpetual foggy night. Akin to a golden-bright moon, it had colored the sky in hues of purple and cloud-scattered silver. In the distance, the massive jewel of could be seen of Afterus was a light all of its own. No longer. The lamplight, the golden moon, had gone out. The skies darkened with a thick, irritant cloud of obfuscation like an odorless pyre. Streetlights gutter and flicker, though the vista on the 'ground' has changed. You are all here, present and arranged 'out for a drive' in a dark and viscous sea. Within the bright red ROYCE that floats on overinflated tyres, Raphael mans the wheel - driving casual, with Stephen Strange riding shotgun. In the back, Arthur leans an elbow out the side and lets lazy ripples of smoke work through his hair like an extra cool person in an extra cool hollywood movie, while Roxas appears to be taking a nap. Lilian sits upon the back of the hood, legs crossed and settled into the 'middle seat' - the perfect position for a beach bunny in a 'summer fun' picture to pose daringly as the party cruised around. A picture of fun, of summery excess. A period piece. But the period comes at the end of the wrong sentence. The tops of buildings and the gooseneck of streetlamps sit above the surface of the inky ocean, with legions of black shapes swimming or simply walking around 'underwater'. Rising like sunken ruins all around are bits of mural above the surface - the mural of the journey of the children. In the distance seems to be some ROBED FIGURES having a barbequeue on top of a roof. On the back of the ROYCE, Glasses draws slips of paper with Hello! You forgot to do a case! Please come back and help, Thanks! that are pre-signed with garbage characters and tossses them into the ink-lake. He doesn't seem to notice anyone else.
Doctor Strange	There isn't much summer fun in the passenger seat. Strange's brow is furrowed thoughtfully as the shadows of those buildings pass over the car. In the distance, he spots the ROBED FIGURES having a barbecue. "Hey, Arthur," says Strange, looking over his shoulder. What can you tell me about these guys? Upon 'these guys' a tiny, illusory replica of the robed figures, recreated to the best of Strange's ability, appears in Arthur's field of vision. "Friends... foes... something else?" The illusory figures fade with a flick of his wrist. Strange begins tracing a spell, his fingers taking up where his arms would otherwise elbow Raphael or the window. In the air above the BARBECUE, a sigil burns. A line. It opens into an oval, within which a circle burns. A stylized eye, to watch the BARBECUE and listen in.
Ein	* WHO'RE THOSE ASSHOLES? You can distantly see that the robed individuals appear to have a long red snout and a trashcan jaw. They appear to be vibrating at the edge of the water with distress, staring off at the sky with :V faces but literally, cooking hot dogs, or eating hot dogs. The hot dog scent smells pretty good. Relish is involved.
Roxas	Roxas is... Sleeping in the back seat. He has his hood up and pulled tightly shut to completely cover his face. His rest is uncomfortable and half-aware, because it is impossible to truly conk out in most vehicles. Instead, one is merely subjected to half-sleep half-waking, drifting through barely-imagined visions while being on the constant alert for... well, nothing. If you're sleeping in a vehicle, you're Just Waiting. It turns out, Roxas was waiting to smell hot dogs. He stirs awake, keeping his arms as politely to himself as possible as he stretches awake within the confines of his seat, turning his head to look towards Lilian. Dreamily, he wonders, "Are we there?" A pause. "Um, also..." "Where would 'there' be?"
Arthur Lowell	>Arthur: Stop being the other guy Arthur stops being the other guy. While Light is the aspect most associated with water, Arthur's own planet was an ocean planet and he spent his fair share of time in the water. He looks on towards the robed figures, pressing parts of his face together in a sort of contemplation. >Arthur: Explain "Consorts get all robe-ish sometimes." He says. There's something inarticulably off about how he's speaking, but it's hard to say. It doesn't even sound serious, it just sounds... weird. "Consorts get religion pretty quick. For Heroes, usually. Dunno what they have religion for. Maybe they caught it 'cause the sun's out." Weird. Arthur worries about that eclipse-like phenomenon. He decides to try to understand the current status of the sky, which is to say, he directs his magical analytics towards OUTER SPACE in general, to get a feel for why the sun's gone. >Arthur: Be there "We're not there yet." Arthur says. "I don't... think so. Not where we need to be, I mean. We gotta go to the Seventh Gate for that, and I don't think we're going there right now." Are we?
Raphael Cousteau	INLAND EMPIRE: It's wrong. It's all wrong. We have to fix it, Raphael Ambrosius Cousteau. It's up to us. We have to fix it. INTERFACING: The car is relatively easy to drive. This was the car that saved the world once. With you at the helm, it can do it again. +1 MORALE "I feel like I missed something," Raphael says casually, "But I guess that's the point, isn't it. To miss something. To miss everything. I'm still getting used to this whole thing." INLAND EMPIRE: It's home. We're going where we should be, upon the black sea. Just drive. You know where to go. Roxas asks the question, and he manages to find the time to turn around a little. One hand still on the steering wheel. "We are here, which is the problem, because I think we need to go nowhere." It's to both Arthur and Roxas. "I don't know where the Seventh Gate is, and that's probably for the best." There's a squinting of the eye to amplify The Expression, and a one-handed finger gun and a wink. Then another wink. Then a third. But, you know, probably just neurological damage at that point. "I'm working on it."
Lilian Rook	Lilian is, once again, caught wearing her 'indoor dress' that would fit in at an upscale casual social occasion but apparently constitutes housewear. She has, opened with only finger a thumb, a half-sized book opened to a page of couplets and an alchemical mandala. A fountain pen spins atop the point of the index finger of her her other hand, then neatly flips into her grip. She looks up. Her heel taps repetitively against her shin. She sighs. The book snaps shut. She leans back. "More of this" With a snap of her fingers, a ghostly little will-o-wisp light floats up over the moving car, shedding pale radiance enough to at least see and maneuver around the confines of the car. She considers flicking the pen at the back of Strange's head, but then considers it a likely waste of a fancy pen. She puts it away when Roxas wakes up, then suppresses the intrusive urge to say something offputting. "Probably a lack of a place that nobody knows about that you can only get to by a road you can only find if you can't see it. Or something." She lazily points a finger over the edge of the convertible, and this time fires a hissing bullet of fiery energy straight down into the 'lake', not aimed at anything particular, except for perhaps 'the general midst of' the swimming figures, seeing what she can see, or at least seeing what it's all made of. "Ask Raphael." she replies to Arthur. "Better yet, take over for him. Just in case we come across a bridge."
Ein	* Summer Fun In The Passenger Seat? Well, there's a bottle of whiskey in your lap. It is full. The glove box smells strongly of cigars. * Are We There? Glasses looks up. "Nak. Nak nak. Hey, you. You're finally awake!" The crocodile gets up on his stubby legs and walks over to stand on Roxas' shoulders. "You were trying to nak the naknak. Seventh gate? Nakkin' lake?" Glasses climbs over Roxas to try and stand on Arthur's knees. "It's under this nakkin' lake! The a-gen-cy..." The crocodile weeps, windmilling stubbyarms at Arthur for consolation.
Doctor Strange	"Uh huh." He nods. From what he can see through the scry-mark, they're Nakkadiles. That means even if they /were/ foes they'd probably be harmless in that simultaneously comical and sad way. They're probably vibrating because of the lack of the sun. "We'll get there when we don't," says Strange half-seriously to Arthur, Roxas and Lilian. It's probably true, but it's fun to lean on the annoying long-car-ride cliches. "If you want," he says, both responding to the crack about his driving and the lack of being where they're not, "I could grab the wheel. Get a laptop, put that on the center console... crack open a book... deep fry some shrimp in the back seat." At that moment, his body goes limp, his spirit remaining stationary. Everyone in the back seat gains a brief glimpse of his astral form, still in a sitting position, as the car accelerates past and through him. He floats off to the BARBECUE. "Hey guys," says Astral!Strange. He crosses his arms, floating with the same aloof presence he holds in his material form. He is silent for a few seconds. Then... "...whatcha doin'?"
Arthur Lowell	>Arthur: Ask the man about the Critic's Cure >Arthur: ### ### ### NO WISDOM ABOUT ANY CURE. IGNORE ###. Arthur looks at Raphael and seems like he has a hard time understanding him. There's a bit of unspoken internal conflict. He eventually seems to settle on an internal compromise: "Hey, if you meet a Critic sometime soon, do me a solid and help me figure out if her solution is good. I'll owe you big." That has a sense of secrecy to it, like finding out more would be tremendously difficult. >==> Lilian is also here. Arthur gestures vaguely and helplessly. "I never got my license. The DMV got blown up before my sixteenth." He makes a gesture that somehow perfectly physically embodies the eleven-characters "¯\_('-')_/¯"
Roxas	"Oh." Roxas says, in response to NOT BEING THERE. He pauses, and looks towards Glasses. "W...hy is it under the lake?" He wonders, confusedly. To Arthur's assertion about the APOCALYPTIC ANNIHILATION OF THE DMV, he chimes in, "Oh, it's okay. A tenth of all DMVs are secretly run by faeries. It's better to risk the police."
Arthur Lowell	>Arthur: Hug the damn crocodile Arthur consoles the crocodile. But, like, in a cool way. "It's okay, little dude. Shit floods bad sometimes on LOSAF. We know how to clean it up." Pat pat. "It'll sort out. You know what happened to the sun?"
Arthur Lowell	>Arthur: Take the wheel wait no don't do that Arthur shakes his head at Roxas. "I think void-talker got this on lock." He says, bouncing his head up and down in a rhythmic nod that seems a byproduct of no thought whatsoever. "But we gotta find where to dive. I haven't done diving in a long-ass time, and we might need gear for that. Or, like, magic. I can survive in vacuum, not the opposite of vacuum." He peeks over the edge to watch Lilian's magic scout the depths.
Raphael Cousteau	RHETORIC: Hold up, what's a Critic? Ask that right now. SUGGESTION: The question doesn't have an answer. Not one we're going to get. Don't waste your time. ENDURANCE: I don't like this crap. Questions that don't have answers? What kinda bunk is that?! INLAND EMPIRE: The kind of bunk we're sailing on, right now. LOGIC: Actually, we're sailing on water. Raphael rubs his head a little, looking down into the depths. "So, I should probably clarify, I do actually need to breathe to live. Sometimes people think I'm undead, and that isn't actually true."
Arthur Lowell	>==> "I don't, but diving will still fuck with me on account of you can't choke in space in a dream, but you can drown." Arthur says. Is that... how that works? "I'll alchemize something if we need it. Don't think we will though. Nyx's lair shouldn't be possible to make /totally/ inaccessible." He peers around. Any conspicuously airtight buildings with complex basements, maybe? That might be what they're looking for.
Ein	* Shoot Magic Missile at the Darkness Lilian shoots bursts of fire into the inky lake, the energy lighting up the contents, to reveal-- Underlings. Black-bodied sorts in a motley of uniforms. Imps swim in the middle reaches with clownish hats and long jackets. Stout ogres tromp around at the bottom of the viscous 'water', and larger entities slither and lurk at the edge of the light. Large-mouthed snakes with yellowed eyes stare up, following the light before it gutters out. * Alright, Sick, That's Awful, Here There Be Assholes, Cool, What Else You Got? With a little bit of fiddling, the car can be started in earnest rather than drifting, and with a step on the gas... SHAKES pops out of the trunk, settles his stubby feet into the water, and starts paddling. This is, unsurprisingly, enough to get the ROYCE to a relaxed cruising speed towards the island of robed sorts. * SPEEDRUN THE ROBED IDIOTS Doctor Strange appears among the robed locals! Those not vibrating with anxiety turn to face him. A hot dog with cheese and relish and bits of bacon is held up reverently to the GHOST. "Wise nakster, ancient ghost, help us!" The vibrating nakkadiles, all as one (though their voices are a chorus of stupidity), speak: "The mural is gone!" There's bits of mural visible in the larger buildings forming islands all around, but the vast majority appears to be under the lake of watery ink. * Roll Up To The Club? With the helps of Shakes' vibrational 'naknaknaknak' power to motor the car to the hotdog island, the rest of the party arrives.
Ein	* HUG THE CROCODILE Glasses will remember that. * Do you hear that? You don't hear the sound of a leaky faucet, the sound of a raingutter choked with mud, a dripping sink into a ploinking basin of water. You hear none of it, because the sound lacks all of those characters. You hear The Opposite Of Leaking. * Follow the sound? I don't know what you're talking about.
Raphael Cousteau	[:::][.] PERCEPTION: Hold on. I think I didn't hear something. LOGIC: Should I even bother, or-- PERCEPTION: It's not that I didn't hear it. It's that-- LOGIC: No. I'm not dealing with this today. ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Sure, I'll field this one. Turn on the radio. It's too quiet for you to hear the not-noise. You'll hear the not-noise if you have noise to subtract it from. Raphael considers, for a moment, and then turns the radio to whatever station emits static. And then he listens for the noise inversely pressing itself upon the static, to figure out what it is he's not hearing that isn't a sound.
Roxas	Roxas tugs his hood down and wrinkles his nose in disgust at the radio station being played. He shakes his head, "I hate this station. It's the only signal we can get at home if we don't steal cable from another dimension. Which... we do, but it still sucks."
Arthur Lowell	>==> "These guys are Underlings so they're not super horrible, but they're not easy." Arthur says, leaning back onto the seat and grimacing. "And I can't field any heavy hits with the darkness, it'll be impossible to not hit something important." He scratches the side of his head. Then he hears what's happening over there at the barbecue. He hears -- or doesn't hear -- an important sound. >Arthur: Interrogate crocodiles for culprit's identity He immediately hops the side, going weightless and then drifing straight for the group. "Wait, the murals, this flood-- Did the flood wash away all the murals?" He seems distressed that even more parts of that artist's work are gone. "Hey! Who did that? Was it the Critic?" His teeth grit and his eyes widen in a frantic sort of full-body posture. Not only does this keep them from getting to Nyx's lair, but if this Critic is going to be wiping away work the artist did...!
Doctor Strange	He doesn't bother correcting them when they say he's a ghost. If you stopped to correct everything a Nakkadile says or does, you'd... well, you'd probably be someone interfacing with the game in good faith. And if there's one thing he knows about this game, it's that you generally just don't do that. Unless you're a rube. He's not a rube. "Alright, one second," he says. "Hold that hot dog there." Strange disappears through a veil of broken reality-shards, reappearing in the path of the car so that his astral form falls back into his body. The previously sleeping sorcerer awakens, reaches his hand through a portal, and snags the hot dog, passing it to Roxas in the back seat. He also passes a few napkins, pulled from the Sanctum. Strange opens the Eye and peers into a possible future wherein the mural is restored, to get an idea of the size of it, just so he knows where to put everything. When he's done, he returns, in astral form, to the Nakkadiles. "Thanks," he says. "Now, hold tight. This'll take a minute." He begins raising great pilings of cement from the depths below, raising the stained mural above the inky darkness. Since the Eye is on his person and he doesn't feel like going back to get it, he tries a non-temporal repair spell instead.
Ein	Tune In Raphael turns on the radio, dodging a 3 sequential stations of lounge sax and piano to find the far, far end of the tranciever. KRRRRRRRRRR-- goes the radio, and the white noise fills the air. The sound is odd, but stranger still is 'the odd sound'. There's a theory about the platonic idea of a thing. You know it when you see it, but you cannot create an explicit definition of it: Exhaustively complete positive trait affirmations cannot hope to define 'trash can'. Is it plastic? Metal? Loose? Hard? Topped? Hinge? Mechanical? Circular? Spherical? Being positively exhaustive is impossible. You can, however, negatively define something via exhausting all possible options. This is, normally, ludicrous. This is why the sound, when lingered on, takes so long to process. The headache-inducing focus on what you're not hearing by process of elimination. The silent points in space, the ones that are Not Leaking. The ones that are Lacking.
Lilian Rook	"Mmmm." Lilian makes a sound that is almost the one that spreads like absolute wildfire amongst the Paladins, but it's the kind that's only really pretending to be thoughtful to provide a polite pause before saying anything. She's lazily staring over the edge of the car. "Well, that doesn't quite seem to be water in the most literal of terms, but close enough that I imagine it can't be too malign for short dips. I only wish I knew whether those black minion things can normally breathe underwater, to tell straight away if it's one of those dreamy sorts of things, or a dam breached somewhere." "Or a wave came rolling in." She yoinks the back of Arthur's collar, three shades short of holding him down. "Alright. I've had enough. If you're going to keep going on about the Critic, you have to share who they are and why we care. You've been dodgy as hell about anything at all when it comes to this, nebulously termed, 'art'." Lilian also holds out her other arm, extended like a falconer. An ominous black crow seemingly coalesces out of the darkness to flutter and perch atop it. She glances at one of the exposed mural tips, then looks down from there, shifting her arm to stir the eerily silent bird into flight. She's aimed it to scout directly over the site, where one can clearly see straight down through water, performing the noble function of a quadrotor drone so she can tell if the murals are gone gone, or merely inaccessible, or blacked out, or something.
Raphael Cousteau	[:::][.] PAIN TOLERANCE: Not a bad headache. It's got hangover tones to it, with brain-freeze aftertaste, with a delicious sleep deprivation finish. I don't think it's as good as that light bulb from that morning, but nothing ever -is-. It is the golden standard, by which I must measure all future headaches. All in all, six out of ten. Continue on. Weathering the pain, and part of his brain savouring it like a fine masochism sommelier, he listens through the static. "...Okay. I...I /think/ where we want to be is wherever the sound isn't, the most. I think that's right. So while Strange, uh, does whatever it is he's doing, I'm going to steer around and find where the lack of sound is." Lilian is, apparently, heading dangerously towards hate makeouts with Arthur. He's choosing not to think about that. ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Trying to figure out what would help you hear worse in order to hear the Lacking better. I'll get back to you.
Ein	* Where's the Critic? The robed nakkadile is relieved of his amazing offered hot dog. It's still hot! The Nakkadiles seem to vibrate a bit. "She was here. She took things, and left. The holy mural of history, naknaknak..." * What Lies Underneath The Waves? I'll Show You Strange opens the Eye of Agamotto, peering into a future where the mural is complete. His vision is zoomed like an aerial drone viewing a sand mandala on the ground - a 'sand mandala' impossibly permanent that spreads across a massive swath of a cityscape. The Eye of Agamotto yawns wide, beholding, staring into the reality of this future: For to see it in its full complexity is to taste a visual representation of the entire history, the entire condensation of time of an entire world. With, of course, a bunch of boring skipped stuff in the middle. When he 'raises' the mural from the depths, it rises like outlined terrain, a ghost of color and contour, clipping up like a cloth drape being brought skyward. Undamaged, there is still points'holding down' the rise of the color-skeleton of art: One point, on the opposite side of a building, is also where Raphael begins to guide the Royce over to - it's just down the block (such as it is). This is where it all helps, all comes together. Lilian's little Crow'drotor hovering over the surface of the water gives her a bird's eye view of the ink-dripping art as it raises, the futile attempts at Ogres and Imps at being pulled skyward by it, and the lightningbolt of eye-scalding white sitting on a very real broom with a grey placed on the haft and a bristly, witch-y quality. <WHY ARE YOU BACK, GOD OF SPACE?> screeches the whiteningbolt vaguely in the shape of a person on the broom. <THIS WORLD FINDS> static <GONE AND FORGOTTEN>. The broom-riding 'figure' swoops overhead ominously.
Raphael Cousteau	HALF-LIGHT: DANGER. INCREDIBLE, UNCEASING DANGER. YOU ARE IN SERIOUS, LIFETHREATENING DANGER. GET OUT OF HERE. PAIN TOLERANCE: Oh, that's a nice burn to the eyeballs. Stare at her more! Do it! It's probably not permanent eye damage! INLAND EMPIRE: This. You came here to help end this. I know it. That being is Very Here, which makes her the problem. She's the most here thing. I don't know what you do about this yet, but this is it. Figure this out, and you crack 'the case'. > The 'case'? INLAND EMPIRE: The only one that matters in this entire city. Raphael stops the ROYCE. He looks to his gun. His fist. Taps his head a couple times, and considers. How does one deal with a threat one knows nothing ab-- Oh.
Arthur Lowell	>Arthur: Explain the Critic "Gah!" Arthur's yanked back! The downside of having a long-ass hood is that anyone can just grab the thing. It has been two eternities and like half a dozen years of subjective time, and only one person has ever /bothered/! "Dammit. It's, uh-- Okay. I don't know /exactly/. They have something to do with my old Player Four. Same aspect, same shit going on. She's helping us, she just doesn't really understand that she is. We have to fix her, but she's..." He rubs his face. "She's dealing with the same shit I am. I think. And she's..." He holds his breath a bit. "She's got something I need. Nothing you gotta worry about." There's something he's leaving out about that. His voice drips with a soft sort of pain and desperation. His tone sounds Wrong. Off, in some fundamental way. Arthur has never been like this. >==> Wait, we weren't done-- Oh. Oh no. Arthur sees a clear, recognizeable broom. His entire body is trembling with a unique brand of stress that he feels deeply and his conscience cannot even bear to mitigate. His breath catches in his throat. For once in his stupidly loud life, Arthur Lowell is completely speechless. There's everything to say and nothing said. Apologies, proclaimations of intent to help, venting of pained anxiety, anything would be better than the silence caught in his throat. Anything. Something. >Arthur: HELLO, OLD FRIEND. >Arthur: I'VE BEEN GONE UNFORGIVABLY LONG. >Arthur: ARE YOU THE BRANCH? >Arthur: OR ARE YOU THE TREE? Arthur's trickling gleaming blood from the ears and nose.
Doctor Strange	Strange arches his brow. What's the hold-up, here? He casts an imperious look down the block towards the blinding white light. What is it? It's on a broom. It's speaking. Quite loudly, in fact. His mind tosses out a few quick and dirty guesses. That's either a creature, a player, or a creature imitating a player. "Do you have... someplace safe to, uh... sit tight for a minute?" he asks the Nakkadiles. If they don't appear to, he'll raise some pilings from the depths of the inky depths, columns of sturdy concrete. From them, he folds space and creates a little shelter for them to pile into. The sleeping Strange in the car awakens once more. He steps out, only to lift off of the ground, hovering to take up a position beside Arthur. 'Something to do with my Player Four.' A ghost, maybe. If not literally a spirit, then something resembling one. Perhaps that static was the name of his Player Four. Strange places a hand on his friend's shoulder. "Whatever this is," says the Sorcerer Supreme, softly, "I think the time for bottling it up has come and gone."
Lilian Rook	Lilian's eyes fix on the broom at the exact same time Arthur sees it. Unlike his, they don't look away. Her pupils contract in the dark. Unnaturally vivid pinpricks of leaf green in the dark. "I see." she says, thoughtfully, to nobody in particular, staring into that unhealthy light. "The player comes unplugged and the completion leaks out the hole. The record comes unplugged and the history leaks out from the hole. The pictures come unplugged and the ink leaks out from the hole. The subject comes unplugged and the lack leaks out from the hole. Put a hole in a net and it has less holes. Yes, that makes sense." Lilian stops talking to herself as if no time had passed at all. Airily, confidently, she brings up her picture files with a gesture, and calls to display a capture of one of the image clues they'd been chasing since the station. A clear photo of a mural. A ginger-haired girl with long curly hair stands on <REDACTED>. There's a sense of frustrated joy. "That, goes there." she says. Lilian draws her finger between the searing light in the vague shape of a girl to the well-defined shape of one on the canvas, and between the pitch blackness in the vague shape of something ridden upon to the well-defined shape of the broom being ridden in reality. The murals are murals in either direction. "I'm sure of it."
Ein	----- Avert From It, The Figure Does Not Exist The Missing Person, the white thunderbolt of a shape, a vagueness of form in shocking, startling with the intensity of her extant nonextance. There is nothing gentle about the rider - it is an offense. A blaspheme. But the figure - the Missing Person atop the broom - isn't what addresses the party. It is the broom, the zag of the bright figure's leg around the floatig broom carrying the same energy of an unmoving bolt of lightning coiled around the trunk and branches of a tree. The eyed broom 'speaks' with a syrupy sweet and dripping voice. "Arthur - why are you here? To hurt yourself? You poor thing. Still, I can't blame you. When you both attain your ultimate selves you'll forever be two halves of the whole. The part that anyone sees, and her the part they forget." The Broom hovers over Strange's built protection for the Nakkadile art-cultists, fixing each member of the party except Arthur with a singular gaze. "There's nothing for any of you here. This effort from all of you is purely to fix a problem in front of you. Isn't this beneath you? Not worth your time? There's no reward at the end. This Land is exactly that: anticlimax. There will be no punchline. Thoroughly pointless as an exercise." "I never even needed her to fly."