Glayp'neir (Arc 1)

Surely not happy with having a feel of lacking authority, he has no other choice and proceeds to silently nod. He peeks in again, holding open the door for the other two, so they can pass into the hall.

"They're both gone... The snobbish man and Janette, she went off to someplace and he went into the room seeing red smoke coming out from it. Seems like thier cover is blown with him noticing something being wrong in there. I got your back."

He looks to the side a bit, not too fond with the fact of being the tail of the group, like usual. Maybe it's a good thing after all, even though he refuses to admit that so far. He's not a good use to anyone when it comes to this so he will have to try and just deal with it.

With Jacks help, he gets on his feet. The shock really did a number on him. When the moment the voice starts talking to the two of them, he starts looking around for where it is coming from. When he finds the speaker, he listens to what it has to say. When he sees the man walk in front of the control panel he is shocked at what he sees. Its the man that he spoke to before they started this whole adventure. Why is this man here? He walks over to the glass door.

"Who are you? You came into my tent two days ago looking for a person with red eyes. Why are you here? Are you the man that has been kidnapping people? What are you up too?!"

"I wouldn't bother asking him that, doctor. He might not realize it, but the only thing he has control over is how much information about himself he's willing to divulge, and one can assume that is very little. As for you, I'm guessing your mommy never told you. When kidnap all the kids on the playground and suck the souls out of them, that's when your toys get confiscated."

As he says those words, he cuts the last wire and pulls out his gun.

"I can only assume that that is plexiglass your standing behind. A normal weapon wouldn't even make a scratch against it. You may thank my brother for making sure that this is anything but a normal weapon."

Jack shoots. Suddenly a sharp sound pains Atrium and Jack alike as the bullet ricochets of the glass, the sound of which echoing loudly through the small tiled room. As they recover their blurry vision and manage to keep their balance despite the subsiding dizzying pain Jack notices the bullet left the glass mostly unharmed save for a crack in it where the bullet initially landed. Luckily so are the doctor and and the clockmaker. A metal sheet however, from the protection of the sphere, seems to have been blown off and lodged itself through the door, creating a crack in it wide enough for a weapon or metal piece to fit through and possibly bend the door open if strong enough. The metal piece has traveled even further, finding itself stuck inside one of the glass tanks, its liquid trickling out bit by bit at a slow pace.

The man at the console laughs. "You think that little toy of yours will do you any good in a magically sealed off area? You must be some sort of dimwit, right?" he says and presses another button. Heavy protective sheets close down the glass on his end and on their end, blocking out their view from both rooms. With a flicker of the lights, the power of the room then goes off. The door emitting sparks and the only thing illuminating the place being the cracked open protective sheets with the sphere inside. Though too far down to reach. It gives off a mediocre lighting, just enough for Jack and Atrium to see what's infront of them. Then the sound of the speakers cuts out, leaving them with the assumption that the man has left the console, but is perhaps still in that control room.

Airgetlam spies Jian's lack of satisfaction in his face, and decides instead on a formation change before they breach.

"Sharpe, how about we put Jian in the center, so he can assist us both when necessary? I feel like maybe putting him behind us will spike his nerves. You should let me take the back." She says, loading a variety of bolts, with a Normal bolt, an incendiary, and one of her unused-thus-far Caustic bolts, which release a sort of corrosive acid upon the target. She only uses it for extremely thick obstacles instead of people, but with this castle, you never know.

"So what do you say, Swordsman?"

Sharpe ponders Airgetlam's formation proposal and nods in agreement.

"Yeah, that's smarter. We're likely to see trouble in front of us, and I'd like to have someone good at CQB rather than range, no offense intended."

He breathes in, looking at his pistol and sword one last time, them back to the two of them.

"Alright, on the count of three, we breach."

A second or two goes by.

"Three..."

"Two..."

"One."

"Breach!"

He kicks in the door and powers into the hallway, sweeping his pistol back and forth, keeping his katana poised to cleave into something. He stops, checking both of his corners, then waves the other two in and he proceeds down the corridor.

"Men of Teyness, do you want to live forever?" He says under his breath. He always says it before heading into the meat grinder.

Jian just looks away when Air mentiones the fact of him not being too satisfied with this, silently readying up to be in the middle of the two, ready to cover both when required. He looks into his blade, letting his face reflect in it.

"You did it back then... You are doing it again... Just that you are not here", he mumbles to himself, letting the blade reflect in the light a bit thereafter. Sharpe then announces that he'll count down to storm in, which then breaks the train of though of Jian, being ready aswell.

...

The countdown ends, and he runs in right after Sharpe, who shortly after says some phrase which is pretty cryptic to Jian. He looks back seeing Air behind him, following close. He looks forward, silently nodding, then flipping his dagger around.

Dr. Atrium looks around in the dark. He with the help of the sparks, he can see the hole that was make in the door. He pulls out what is left of is giant scalpel and puts it into the hole. He calls out for Jack and with the of them, they are able to open the door. He leaves the now bent and useless weapon where it falls. The door they opened isn't the door that the man was behind. They run through the hall and jump over the small puddle that the tank was making. They walk out of the door and slam it behind them. He pants a bit and looks around.

"Well, I think we are safe for now Jack. Though I have no idea where we are now..."

He looks around, they seem to be in a giant room. He would think that they are in the dinning hall again but there isn't anything in this room. When they walk around a bit, the lights sudden turn on bright and Doc covers his eyes. He looks around and sees that this room seems to be a training room. There is a ring that has been made on the floor and Jack and him are in the middle of it.

"Well well well, isn't all this quite peculiar. Don't worry about a thing doctor. That crystal only had a finite amount of power. Otherwise, it wouldn't need to drain energy from those people. It will run dry eventually. In the meantime, we must find those chamber and free anyone who has survived."

Sharpe, Jian and Air close in to the glass door. Spotting a man on the other side standing infront of a console with his back turned. He's clearly occupied and doesn't seem to notice the small group approaching as he fiddles around with the console. A screen to his side turns on, revealing the room ahead of him with the many tubes of people stacked ontop and beside each other in blocks. He turns to the screen and leans in close, trying to spy for any movement. Nothing. It's too dark to properly make out anything. He turns his attention back to the console and fiddles around with it once more.

Sharpe moves close to the door, leaning against its frame to conceal himself. Jian crouches over at the other side, trying to stay low while Air sticks to the shadows, keeping herself hidden aswell. Sharpe looks over to Air, then at the man infront of them. He gives Air a head motion to go in and stay quiet. He slides open the door, it moves smooth and is unobstructed, making not a single noise as it gracefully  open...

Airgetlam slowly points her crossbow as she puts one careful step infront of herself. The man doesn't seem to notice, fixated on the console. Air takes another careful step, making sure to make as little noise as possible. She brings her crossbow up as she takes one final step up close to the man-
Suddenly with great speed, he falls to the ground and spins in a half circle. Caught unaware, Air is knocked off her feet and falls down onto the metal floor. The man jumps back, sneering as she hits a button on the console with his fist. The doors make a satisfying beep, signaling their unlocking and the door behind him slides open.

He runs out of the room and into the darkness of the next. Air gets up rather quickly and pulls up to the door, listening for his footsteps as they echo down the place. She sweeps around the corner, holding her crossbow up, but no one is in sight. Sharpe quickly makes his way into the room, looking at the screen. The man is running across to another door, that is already open, past a corroded hole in the ground.

"Shit!" Airgetlam exclaims and she runs after the man. She takes out the normal bolt in her crossbow and attempts to slide in one of the sleeper bolts, but it's taking her longer than usual to slide in. The man is extremely fast and so she runs faster, trying to push her legs to near their limit.

"Stop or I'll shoot, and you don't want to know what I'm packing!" She yells, but the man is obviously not going to stop.

She absolves to use the sleeper bolt on the man and proceeds to keep running, increasing her leg's power, and she brings her crossbow up to bear, with the stock bouncing against her shoulder. She'll have to be really lucky to make this shot.

Airgetlam pulls the trigger and releases the bolt, the syringe-round jetting over to hopefully connect with it's target.

Sharpe watches the man run on the screen and wastes no time in scanning for his own way across the room. It looks like there appears to be bodies in them. He shivers, but for now, it isn't important. They need to catch that man.

Sharpe runs out and jumps down onto the flooring and he holsters his pistol, leaving only his sword out. He grabs it with too hands and holds it angled back, running as fast as he can, weaving in and out of the spaces between the vats. He tries to move parallel to Airgetlam and soon finds himself at about her distance from the man. He watches her slot a bolt and he puts out his hand.

"Wait, Air, we need him alive!" She can't hear him, she's too focused. It was at that moment, Sharpe saw the glimmer of the bolt and figured out it was one of her ammunition sub-types. She's running though, so he doesn't know if she'll be able to hit the mark. He runs with all his speed, until he's at the point in his rush where his only focus is the man, and gets as close to the man as possibly while still being out of Air's shot trajectory. He doesn't want to get hit with whatever the bolt's got. He prepares to jump at the guy just in case however.

Jian tries to get up as fast as he can, he trips though, smashing into the ground, with the dagger cutting into his arm.

"Arrrgh... FUCK!", he simly yells, slamming the fist against the ground. He pushes himself back up, checking his arm. It's bleeding a lot, seems like his leg was more of a burden at this point, considering that it isn't even really healed yet. He pulls off his sweat-jacket and his shirt below it, ripping the shirt apart. He bandages his arm in a careful manner, nodding in a faint smile, then looking around. Well, he's all alone in here, everybody ran away... The atmosphere is very dark and it starts to get to him. He actually falls into a bit of a fear looking around. It's surprisingly silent and he decides to carry on, left behind and slowed down by him being clumsy. He follows the path the others went, in hope that it won't turn into a maze, making him get lost. He leaves the rest of the ripped shirt behind, revealing his skin and the scar below the sweat-jacket which he didn't bother closing.

Dr. Atrium hears some voices coming from where he and Jack just were. The shout sounded a bit like Sharpe but what is he doing...Wait, did he just hear Airgetlam yell stop? That could only mean they are chasing someone. He pulls out two of his scalpels and waits for to see someone. He sees a glint of something fly past his face and he hears it make a clink noise as it sticks to the wall behind him, Air must of tried to shoot who ever they are chasing.

"Jack, get your gun ready!"

He yells at him. After a moment he sees the man that trapped him and Jack running as hard as he can at them. Doc then throws the two scalpels, pulls out two more and throws them as fast as he can. He sees that three of the four has stabbed the man, the fourth one missed and kept going.

This is where the scalpels hit:

"I got him. lets see him try to out run someone now!"

"Bullocks, this was the worse possible time to use up all those matches"

"NO ONE CALLS JACK A DIMWIT AND GETS AWAY WITH IT"

Jack tackled the man. His weight caused the scalpels to dig into the man's flesh.

"Oouf!"

The man goes down as Jack tackles him. As jack looks, the man is lying under him, holding his arms up and giving him a sheepish smile for an expression, almost as if he didn't mind the scalpels or the fact that he was caught.

"Alright alright." He says calmly, "Looks like the rat has a bit of a bite after all, yes?" He continues. "Hey," He says and pauses for a brief moment, lifting his head to see the upside-down image of Air and Sharpe closing in. "I'm a reasonable man, you see? Maybe you'd all like to talk this over. You know, money's not a problem, right? Now, please. If you could kindly lift your heavy self off me, and we can discuss our partnership, sounds good?" His sheepish smile fades slightly. He's not even buying that himself but at this point what is there for him to do. The group circles around him.


Jian wanders about the big room with the vats. He looks at the rather creepy looking sleeping people inside the tanks and wonders if they are even sleeping or merely dead. Surely nothing could survive inside of liquid like that? He stops infront of a tank and stares at a woman inside. Like the rest of them she is in a special kind of skin-tight underwear, obscuring only what's nessecary, leaving the rest of the body exposed. She looks rather unhealthy and thin, as if she'd been starved to death or worse. Jian rests his hand on the glass. It's extremely cold, freezingly so.

The woman suddenly opens her eyes wide, and smacks her palms against the inside of the tube hard. Jian startles and is thrown backwards as the woman inside starts to look around the tank in panic. It doesnt appear like she's able to see properly and she keeps banging on the glass, leading one hand to her neck as if she was in the process of suffocating. Jian gets his act together and slams his good hand against the glass tank, looking around for anything to open with. The extremely muffled terrified screams of the woman driving him scared as he franctically tries to ram his shoulder against the glass with no avail.

Eventually the woman stops resisting and becomes limp, her body simply floating in the tank, her eyes open, but glassed over, her pupils turning foggy.

She's dead.

Airgetlam walks over to the wall where her bolt stuck into the wall. The casing looks cracked but none of the contents are leaking out. She might be able to salvage the bolt at least. She turns and approaches the man on the ground, who is trying to reason with them and has some idiotic smile on his face.

She aims her crossbow down at the mans head and cycles to the caustic bolt.

"Yeah no, no partnerships, nice try. Actually not even, that was a shitty excuse. I commend you on trying to be humorous though."

She steps back a little, she doesn't want him to swipe at her again like he did in the control room. No less, she has her eye trained on him.

"I believe this is a reunion of sorts between you and one of our party members. Jack, stay on the guy for now. Doc, would you like to proceed?"

As he makes his way to where the group is encircling, he notes how average the guy can really seem. He seems to be pinned with scalpels, likely Doc's doing. Sure enough, he and Jack are here, but they look like they've seen quite a bit. Jack's got the guy pinned, and Air's aiming a bolt at the guy's head.

"I'd say you guys got him about covered, I'm going to see where Jian is, I think we left him in the dust." He says, and walks back the way he came and into the room with the vats. He shivers again, and feels an uncomforting in his stomach, but nevertheless goes in anyway. He spies Jian backed away from one of the vats, and proceeds to pat his back and stare at what he's looking at. A woman inside, she looks dead as dead can be.

"New date? Looks like she woke up on you or something." There's something definitely uncanny about this whole setup, and he wouldn't honestly be surprised if they found things even worse off. It's what he's expecting, actually.

"Come, we got the guy."

At first Dr. Atrium don't have any idea about that Airgetlam is talking about.

Why would this be a reunion of me and this guy? I have never seen this man outside of when he briefly talked to him back in Recudor. Why would I have anything to say to this man unless....

He walks over to the man and pulls out one of the daggers. He stands over the man glaring at him.

"You are Marcus aren't you?"

His voice is cold as ice and his glare could burn. His speaks calmly and level, his tone not changing.

"I have one question for you. Why did you kill everyone in our guild...our family in Recudor? I will hear you out before I uphold the rules our guild had and kill you"

Jack notices the immense pool of blood forming from the knife, confiscated from the man's flesh. He witnesses the flames of rage forming in the doctor's eye.

"I guess there's not much to do other than use the situation as leverage"

Jack stands up with his foot firmly planted on the heavily wounded man.

"Well let's analyze the situation here. That crystal powering the necromancer you worked for is drained of energy by now and your bleeding out, severely outnumbered. You have lost, and we are giving you 2 choices. Answer his question and free everyone you've kidnapped who is still alive if there is anyone, we will make your end quick. Try anything rash, we will see how much this man can make you hurt"

Marcus raises an eyebrow. "Yes, you could say that is me." he says, not minding the wound.
As Jack talks to him, he tries to suppress a smirk, but then bursts out in hearty laughter, only stopping briefly with a casual "Ow" due to his wounds and then continuing.
"You must be a joker. This is quite golden." he says after he's recovered. "That artifact, you see?" He says with a devilish smile. "It doesn't simply drain of energy once it's cut off by its supply. Simply put on hold- why, It still stands strong within its protective case." He then manages to squeeze out another quick laughter.

"The people you're trying to save, though, yes?" he pauses for a moment, his expression becoming serious yet tauntful. "That thing was the only thing keeping them alive. And you fools have doomed them all." he starts laughing again, seeming to be amused to tears by the outcome of events.

Jian keeps slamming the tube, seeing her struggle inside.

"Damnit, no! No! Fuck! Please! Damnit!! Just break you piece of shit! No!"

His yelling continues for a short while, relentlessly continueing to punch and slam into the tube. The girl's movement stops and she starts to look dead. Jian backs off, looking at the tube... He looks at her inside the tube, realising that she won't move ever again.

"No... No... I simply can't accept this... By all means... DAMNIT!", his fear is majorly increasing during all this and he simply looks for anything that might be a weapon, next to his small dagger. He looks around and the tube he smashed seemed to lose one of it's parts, a metal bar of sorts, not too long, about a meter. He grabs it and looks at the tubes.

"I can't just sit here... watch people die in this place... Held like test-subject or prisoners... AND IF IT'S THE LAST THING I DO!"

A huge yell comes from him as he starts to swing the metal bar against a different tube, he smacks against it relentlessly, in hope it would work out. The more dying he witnesses, the higher the chances that he won't even bother trying to make it out alive himself.

Dr. Atrium kicks him hard on the side where his kidney is. He is not amused by the mans laugher. He smiles when Marcus stops laughing and yelps a little in pain where he kicked him.

"I already knew the people in the tubs were doomed. I am not concerned about them at the moment. Right now I just want to know why you killed the members of Hikari Juken!? ANSWER ME!!!

Doc is breathing heavily as if he just finished running 5 miles with out stopping,he also teeth are bared and he is snarling at Marcus. His back is slightly bent and he is leaning forward as if to pounce. Air can tell that his is no longer in his right mind.

Airgetlam sighs deeply.

"So there were people in those tubes... And they were being siphoned for their energy? And it was too late for them? I see well... What we came here for was not to kill you, Marcus, nor was it to save all these people. They're secondary, but I guess they are also now vital, with the exception of all those people."

"You've really got my friend mad here, so I feel I must ask some things. Of course, I'm still keeping this bolt next to your head. Firstly, why did you come here? Secondly, what were you trying to accomplish? Striking a deal with a demon? You must be without even half a brain, no wonder you got nailed by Doc. The thing'll just betray you."

She looks at Doc and Jack.

"I know you guys are kinda caught off-guard by this, but apparently a Necromancer used to live here, and she struck a deal with a demon, merging with it. She was defeated by a band of adventurers and has basically regained a form. Very definitely possessing Clarent."

She looks back down at Marcus on the floor.

"My third question is are you really afraid of death? I mean really afraid? You have all this wealth and work here, and you're laughing your ass off, but yet I don't see how you can truly be without fear. Unless, you got that sucked out of you."