Verity’s Sunday evening odd encounter(Verity)
Date: 2025-06-22 20:37
(Verity’s Sunday evening odd encounter(Verity):Verity)
[Sun Jun 22 2025]
At the St. Germaine Estate, Bayview
It is dusk/span, about 84F(28C) degrees, and there are clear skies. The mist is heaviest At Plymouth and Washington/span
(Your target discovers a cursed object in a thrift shop or estate sale that begins warping reality around them in increasingly dangerous ways. They must figure out the object’s history and either break the curse or find someone willing to take it off their hands before it consumes them.)
“Nice. Lemme see it,” Verity insists upon Preston, giving Horse a nod of acknowledgment. She and Horse seem to have some mutual understanding. Then, she holds her hand out expectantly. “Did she give you like a fifty or something? Or was it through five tens? Ten fives?” she’s gotta know. After she passes Horse’s flank, the equine neighs and rears up for no outward reason, something dropping from its mouth, landing heavily on the sidewalk behind her and in front of Preston. Without warning, Horse disappears, and Verity and Preston find themselves entirely somewhere else, their surroundings shifting in a blur, like reality heaved.
“You want to see it?” Preston shrugs, and pulls out two crisp fifty dollar bills. “It’s fifties,” Preston explains, showing them. Fresh. Clean. Renewable money. Pure and simple cash money. Preston watches Verity walk past, eyes following her. And then he’s frowning at Horse, his horse, when it rears and something drops from his mouth. “He-” the words never make it out fully, Horse is gone and him and Verity are somewhere else. “Shit, where..?”
“Wait. A hundred dollars?” Verity balks, taking a step back, refusing to believe Preston earns more money than her. It’s not supposed to work like that. “How’d you-” Before she can even start refusing to see the money out of her own disbelief, their surroundings change before her and she whirls around in complete confusion. “Horse?” Verity asks, looking here and there, making a noise of confusion. It quickly dawns on her that they’re no longer in front of her business. Where Horse the horse was, only a small, fist-sized box with intricate detailing across its edges remains. “Does your horse normally do this?” she asks Preston, taking a few wary steps backwards, placing Preston in front of here where the darkness looms.
“No,” Preston admits to Verity from over his shoulder. Squaring his stance, at nothing? There’s a box. What’s a box gonna do? But still, Horse has disappeared, and left a box. “I have never seen this before,” Preston mentions, taking just a step back, hand going to a sheathe in his utility belt pocket – like he’s looking for a weapon. “Another random box?” Preston wonders, eyes narrowing downwards. “Do you think this one might be a bomb?”
“You think that horse might be a sleeper agent or something?” Verity asks, finding her new perspective completely blocked by Preston’s mass and height. She stands on the very tips of her toes, but it doesn’t quite allow her to peek over his shoulder. “How many boxes do you normally run into in a week?” she asks, taking one step back, having become Preston’s shadow.
Even from within the dark room they’ve found themselves in, the small, octagonal box appears to glint and shine, a small beacon within the gloom. Around them, the shadows seem to shift and stir, and during the interim of silence that gives way whenever she or Preston stop talking, they might even hear soft, sibilant whispers caressing their ears. Sounding so close, yet so far all at once. “Doesn’t look like one,” she says, poking Preston’s back, silently urging him to check it out.
“There is no way Horse is a sleeper agent,” Preston replies rather quickly, perhaps unsure of himself at that fact. Maybe stating it for his idea assurances. “I don’t come across many boxes,” the man admits now, unsheathing a knife from his utility belt. “This is the second one? We had the one at Puff Puff, that we thought was a bomb, and now..” Preston points the knife towards the box. “This one.”
Right, well, Preston better get to it, for some reason, perhaps the woman poking Preston’s back as him going forward toward that box, knife held at the ready. Squatting down, he runs his knife over the top of that box, poking it.
“How are you so sure?” Verity is skeptical, gritting her teeth and peeking between Preston’s arm, studying that strange box left a few steps away from the pair. “Tell me you brought your sword or something,” Verity pleads hopefully, studying the knife that Preston unsheathes, instantly turning into some size queen. She doesn’t think a knife’s gonna cut it for their situation, and she’s fumbling around inside of her small handbag, pulling out that revolver Preston kindly added a scope to earlier in the day. “I only have this. My axe is back home,” she complains, moving when Preston does, looming over him after he starts inspecting the box with the knife.
A poke does nothing at first. Then the mildewy walls and rotted wood flooring flares – for a split-second they stand in a ballroom reminiscent of a Victorian era ball. It’s far too brief, and then reality snaps and changes, returning them to the dismal estate they were before. But this time, the box flips open at its lid, and music starts to play.
The melody is strange. Faint and deliberate, too slow to convey joy, yet too elegant to be mourning. Each of the notes feels older than the one before, as if the music was being played in reverse. The room seems to still – the whispers don’t go silent, but feel as if something is holding its breath instead.
“I’m not sure,” Preston admits, but with a reluctance. It sounds like he wants to be sure, but now, well, after this situation he might have to realize that Horse could be a sleeper agent of some sort. Dropping him off here, and turning into a box? Disappearing? Is Horse the box? No, horse’s can’t play music, so that’s out of the realm of possibility. “Yeah, my pack,” Preston nods, hoping to sate the concerns of Verity, and her lack of respect for his tiny knife. He can use it just as well as a longer sword. “My rifles in there too, I’m always packing.”
As the walls and floor flare, Preston blinks, shaking his head a bit. “Did you see that?” The man asks over his shoulder, eyes locked downwards on the now opened box. “You can hear that too right? This music?” His voice dropping quietly, like he doesn’t want to disturb the place, or ruin the music.
“I can always depend on you to pack something t…” Verity’s voice fades before she can make a quip likely at Preston’s expense. Her presence just seems to ebb and wane, and the hand that was pressed against his back simply seems to cease to exist some seconds into the soothing, gentle melody. There’s something off about it, and when Preston looks over his shoulder, no one is there. The pace of the song clicking from the music box increases, turning more haptic, erratic, excited. Where one voice evaporates, another replaces it, moody, sullen, but hopeful, smooth like wine. Before Preston
“Andre?”
“Verity?” Preston asks, looking up from the box, and around, head tilting towards the new voice. Nope, there’s nobody there, at least not that Preston can see. “Where did…” there’s a bit of worried expression on his face, his good friend and landlord has just disappeared before his eyes. That’ll be real bad for sleeping arrangements in the future. The man stands upright, tryinbg to put some distance from him and the box with his height.
“Hello?” he calls out. “Who are you?”
Like a mood that swings, the area about Preston shifts once more, this time in a small study. From there, when Preston shifts to regard his attention to a voice, he sees a woman who stands at the edge of the candlelight, close by, only a few paces from Preston. Her stately features above all are illuminated, where everything else is dimmed and blurry. The woman might even seem familiar, like the one that just seemed to have phase out of existence, but her eyes lack colour, too dull and sullen. Her gown is a sweeping tailor’s dream of violet silk, trimmed in black lace fine enough it might look like spiderweb, maybe even be spun out of it. Dark hair is pinned in old coils, and a lace choker clings to her throat, adorned with a red brooch.
Preston changes too. His garb. he’s dressed in armour – a breastplate, a tunic underneath it, and a rapier at his hip. A low chuckle comes to be in response to his question. “Andre. Don’t be like that. You know who I am,” the woman chides, holding both her hands out with an expectant gleam in her eyes – both hands waiting to be taken. There is one constant in this space: the music that chimes from the music box between Preston and the apparition.
Glancing down at himself, Preston seems surprised. Eyes blink, slowly, and his head shakes in confusion. Inhaling, and exhaling, he steadies his breath, focusing his attentions around the room first. The study, books, the desk, whatever else might be in here. The woman is the last thing he focuses on, eyes squinting just a bit. Some recognition creeping into his face, acknowledgement that she might be familiar. “Ver-” he pauses, “Maybe I do, my Lady.” A little bow, and he steps forward taking those hands. “But you’ll have to forgive this knight and his.. forgetfulness.” Eyes search her face for anything, “It’s just that when I lay eyes on you, you steal my thoughts away with your beauty.” It’s probably the right thing to say, the man is very lost. Compliments work! Everyone loves compliments.
The woman that seems strangely familiar tilts her head at the near utterance of another’s name. “Maybe you do?” she repeats back at him, the lustre of hope in her gloomy eyes fading. She’s quiet, holding her wrist with the opposite hand, fingers digging into the pale flesh, harsh enough to draw what looks like blood. “You always do this to me, Andre,” she sighs, closing the distance to Preston without making a sound. The ballroom gown she wears hides her legs, her feet, so when she moves in such a soundless waltz, she may as well be gliding towards him. “Please,” she begs him, lowering her gaze, yet reaching for Preston’s gauntleted hands. “…do you still love me? Even if.” She dare not finish whatever thoughts are troubling her so. “Tell me who I am to you,” she holds to him with a shaking voice, grasping at any trace of hope she can: Preston. The music’s chimes start to slow again, and the whispers utter in a soft hiss:
“…ady.” “Elen…” “Vire..e.”
Preston watches the mysterious woman glide close, keeping his expression as neutral as it can be, except allowing just a faint smile, hoping it’ll help to dissuade the woman from realizing he really has no idea who she is. It’s an act, a mask that he tries to put on, though, he might not be the best of actor’s of all time. His confusion is more than likely evident, trying to grasp at anything in the room. Head tilting idly towards the side, straining his ears to catch those hissed. “My Lady, Elene,” Preston ventures, throwing up a grin, that looks teasing. A guess? “Of course, My Lady. I still love you.”
“You’re my life, my world, my Lady. You are who I fight for.”
What hope still burned in the glimmer of the woman’s eyes fades when her expression drops, suddenly aghast. She breathes out a soft sound and shies away from Preston as if struck. “I knew it was too good to be true. You truly have forsaken me, and have merely come to tread upon what remains of my heart,” she sobs. “I truly did love you, Andre. But I cannot stand this farce any longer. To toy with me so after abandoning me?” She scoffs, her expression darkening. “This was your one chance.” The colour about her disappears. She floats, becoming a wraith with red eyes, holding her hand out to at her side, the fingers start to redden, veins warping and shifting a jagged blade forming made of shards of hatred. The whispers are gone, replaced by a woman’s sobbing, familiar. Belonging to one that had just faded into obscurity. The box twists on the ground, the music’s charming, whimsical allure turning into a screech that threatens to drown out noise, yet everything around Preston remains crystal clear. There’s no more blurred haze, forming back to the dreary estate Preston found himself in with Verity. The crying grows louder.
“My name is Lady Elen Virelle. And I will no longer let you tread upon my honour any longer, Sir Andre Lysvalt. You, or I will die today.”
A wraithlike marionette clambers out of the music box, stilted in its movements, moving erratically, hinged blades for its arms rearing like wings – yet no sounds come to be from it. It only has deadly intent for Preston and Verity.
“…is that?” Verity asks, shaking Preston’s shoulder from behind, pointing at a wraithlike marionette. It’s like time only froze for Preston, and Verity has been panicking for a minute or two wondering what a wraithlike marionette is doing. “It just climbed out of…”
As Lady Elen Virelle shifts into the Wraith of Hatred, Preston dance back. Words seem to be gone. “My Lady,” Preston breathes out, “I don’t know what to say.” Still he’s attempting to sway her to his side. Hoping she becomes a Specter of Love instead. “I apologize,” another step back, hand going to the sword at his waist. “It was merely a jest, I have never intended to abandon you.”
It might be two weird experiences for Verity, seeing Preston talking to this thing, in what sounds like his best old medieval impression, talking like a knight and now the wraithlike marionette. The sound of Verity’s voice has him snapping back to reality. “Yeah, it is,” Preston mentions. “I.. uh, think I fucked up.” Drawing his rapier, Preston holds it aloft. “My Lady, Elen,” Preston proclaims, trying once more. “Listen, think, feel, you remember the song? We can have a dance to this. I still remember your smile, the scent of you. Do not forsake that, My Lady.” As he says this though, he backs up a little, taking a ready stance in front of Verity.
Lady Elen is gone – only the fragment of her essence spawned from the music box, the tune it produces a discordant cacophony, recounting the Lament of Virelle. “Who the hell are you talking to?” Verity needs to know, fumbling for her revolver. She points it at a wraithlike marionette and takes a few steps back as it lurches forward.
scrambles away with a squeak, firing a shot that goes wide – too wide to be anything substantial. But it’s the thought that counts. “Keep that thing away from me,” she whines, trying to gain distance.
Preston grunts as the marionette charges at him. “To her,” Preston calls back to Verity. “I.. yeah, I’ll explain later, just fight!”
Verity says “Don’t die, Preston.“
“Trying not to,” Preston calls back, backing away after his testing strike. “We need to teach you how to bandage things,” Preston mentions, off-handedly, dodging the next strike of claws. “I’ll teach you. This is.. very important.”
Preston steps forward, thrusting at the warith – hitting her right where the ‘heart’ would be, if it was to have a heart. “I..” Preston glances down at the discarded body of it. “It’s not your fault,” he murmurs, kneeling down now. “I’m sorry, Lady Elen Virelle.”
“Is it dead?” Verity asks as Preston delivers the final blow that shatters the marionette. It explodes into a million pieces, but when it was a solid construct before, it is now ephemeral. It completely phases out, leaving the box in its wake. It snaps shut and the glow it once retained in the darkness fades. In a blink of an eye, Preston and Verity find themselves back in a different reality. One that they belong. The familiar sound of the boroughs sounds outside of the building. “Who is Lady Elen?” she asks Preston, staring at the space where there was once a glassy marionette. “Was that your date?”
Despite the fact Preston didn’t exist in that reality for long, there’s an almost reverent way that he touches that box – fingers brushing atop for it, before standing up. “There was..” Preston glances around, realizing he’s back on solid ground, the boroughs and the sounds of New Haven, the smells all hitting his senses. “You didn’t see that?” Preston runs a hand through his hair, then re-sheathes his rapier. “She turned into a wraith. There was a lady, she looked a little like you.” Gesturing towards the box, “I was transported, I think, or reality shifted around me. I was a knight named Andre, and I think I somehow shunned her.. She turned.” Preston breathes out. “I’ve never met her before in my life though.”
Unwittingly, Preston and Verity stumbled upon a music box, ornate, dust cloaked, its tune faintly echoing a womans lament turned curse. The melody seeped into the walls, low and sorrowful, as if the very air held its breath to listen. The moment the lid creaked open, something was unearthed, and Preston was its fixation. A fledgling curse was broken after a fragment of Lady Elen’s manifestation caused the reality around the pair to warp. With the influence seemingly gone, the air before Verity and Preston calms. The whispers are gone, and the music that twisted in their vicinity with it. Verity listens, clutching at her revolver with sweaty palms, and nods once. “Weird,” is her assessment for what Preston tells her. “Let’s get outta here,” she suggests, making a face. “This place is giving me the willies. We gotta find Horse, right?”
“Yeah..” Preston replies, stepping away from that cursed box, backing up. Eyes still searching, just in case. It’s like he’s a human shield to Verity, the fixation was on him but Verity was there to help. “Let’s go. We’ll find Horse, I might need to have a stern talking to him after this. I hope he’s not a sleeper agent. I don’t want to get a new horse.”
“After you,” Verity urges, scampering behind Preston and nudging him forward, intent that he leads the way, in case anything that might be lurking outside of the creepy estate they were transported to gets to him first. “That was kinda cool,” she admits, staring at where the wraith appeared.
“Isn’t it usually ladies first?” Preston protests just a tad, but does lead the way, marching off – making sure Verity can keep up. A small pause before he replies. “Cool but, weird,” a shiver runs up his spine now, “I think I’d make a pretty good knight though.”
(Your target stumbles upon a “cleanup crew” disposing of evidence from a supernatural crime – bodies being dissolved in acid, memories being magically erased from witnesses, or reality itself being stitched back together. The crew can’t let your target leave with what they’ve seen, but killing them would create more problems. A tense negotiation ensues where your target must convince them they can be trusted, escape, or survive long enough for help to arrive.)
A heavy sigh can be heard from around ten meters away, obscured by a mask and amplified by a lo-fi radio. Three individuals can be seen by their silhouettes at first. One is facing one of the walls of the alleyway, with a mechanical device of some sorts carried by a handle in their hands. Judging by the way it is carried, it’s quite heavy. And much like a shop vacuum, there seems to be a flexible tube protruding from it with a weird spring at the end. Like all absurd gadgets, it has a green light pulsing from the end, but a close inspection might reveal that the manufacturer merely included green LEDs on this specific make. Whatever it is, the most feminine of the three silhouettes seems to be dragging the spring up and down the bricks of one of the walls, “Really did a number on this one, Sanjay.”
The more masculine of the two lo-fi voices responds as one of the silhouettes turns to the other, “Oh, so it’s -my- fault for putting it on the wrong setting? How was I supposed to know it was an illusion?”
One of the masks makes a crinkly inhaling sound, “I don’t know, maybe because it’s not -real-? And YOU! Stand still… we’re not done yet.”
The third individual can be seen deeper into the alleyway than the other two, and a brief inspection could clearly reveal that it is Gail. She looks rather displeased and out of sorts, fingers tensed slightly as she stands still and inspects her surroundings for an exit, but alas, she’s trapped in this interstitial space.
Laying on the floor seems to be some sort of slain puppet, stilled on the floor in a state of disarray.
She’s in the alleyway but honestly Stelle/span just looks a bit confused. She was just trying to get to the bank. “You euh… have to be kidding me…” she comments to herself, it’s a low drag like something meant for when you see your child stuck at the top of a slide for the tenth time today. A glance at her phone and then a glance at the rest and the blonde woman starts to shuffle closer, calling out, “Let me guess you are euh… Ghostbusters, no? From out of town, no?” Her eyes, ever appraising, dig deep into all three figures.
Eventually Stelle stops perhaps five paces away and stormy blue eyes settle on Gail last with a look beyond a simple twitch of the eyes. “But you, are not. I haven’t euh… seen you in a while.”
The feminine figure’s mask buzzes with the staticky sound of an annoyed groan as they turn to face yet another individual. “Sanjay! Where the fuck is the exclusion field!?” The individual turns to Stelle, gesturing at them with both arms and waggling that bizarre springy device around as she does, casting the newcomer in a green glow, “We’re going to be here all fucking day with these morons! I swear…!” By now, it’s clear that both the feminine and masculine figures are garbed from head to toe in bright yellow plastic uniforms. They seem rather baggy, and across the chests one can just barely make out the words Jule’s Reality Cleanup Detail in black cursive.
The masculine figure hisses through their mask, “Why do -assume- it’s my fault, Gloria? Why is -everything- my fault?” Sluggishly, the male figure steps away from Gail and approaches a small, metallic rectangular prism a few feet away from Stelle, crouching down in front of it, “Oh, I see… I had it set to incude…”
“Un-fucking-real,” the feminine figure chimes in reply.
Suddenly, a soft whirring fills the room as the masculine figure flips a switch on the box, standing up afterward. “That should cover it.” Pointing to Stelle with a yellow-fingered glove, they nod, “Step closer and hold your arms above your head. We’re uhh…” The masculine figure peers at the feminine one for a moment and then back to Stelle, “Yes, we’re ghost busters and I’m afraid you’ve been… ahem… infected with a ghost. We’ll need to perform a full… busting on you.”
The feminine figure’s microphone crackles, “Jesus Christ, Sanjay…”
Gail/span peers between the two figures in yellow and then over to Stelle. Suddenly, her expression turns to a warm smirk as she quirks a brow in return. Without speaking, she flits her gaze between Stelle and the empty space behind her, eyes widening with urgency. As the whirring fills the room, she winces slightly and then finally sighs, seeming resigned. Clearing her throat, she speaks up in her faint voice as loudly as she can manage, “Good evening, Stelle… perhaps you can explain to these two… that neither you nor I saw any…” She peers at the figures suspiciously, “…ghosts…”
Stelle frowns a bit as the device is cast upon her and although she clocks the movement of Gail’s eyes she doesn’t seem nearly as concerned when nothing untoward happens. “Yes euh… I certainly haven’t felt or seen any ghosts and…” she starts to respond, eyes directly into the masked figures’ visors, drifting between each as she delivers the next phrase in a flatness only the dead could rival, “I do not need anybody… busting on me. Thank you.”
She drifts over to Gail after a moments pause, now it’s two on two and Stelle prefers these odds, plus it gives her a chance to turn sideways and look back from whence she came. “Not that I usually see them, no? Euh…” Stelle responds but then a quick aside to Gail when Stelle adds in a stage whisper, easily heard by all, “Do you euh… think /they/ know what they are doing?”
The feminine figure, allegedly ‘Gloria’ has turned to the nearby wall and pointed their springy gadget at it again. A deep, bellowing noise progresses in pitch to a shrill beep before it exhausts air twice. Notably, the spot the green glow had been pointed at was a… bizarre tear in perception. Instead of brick, it appeared to be the corner of a flat-top grill with a burger tantalizingly sizzling atop it. At least, it seemed to be so before that springy device zorped the illusory shard away into nothingness.
As Stelle approaches Gail, who lies beyond the two busy bodies, the masculine figure, allegedly ‘Sanjay’ nods along, “Busting the ghost, not you, ma’am, I assure you. Now please, stop right- hey, you really don’t need to walk that far and-” Their microphone feed terminates in a sigh as Stelle reaches her destination, and Sanjay’s plasticky mask turns to face Gloria’s, “You see, Gloria? This is why I need an atomic neutralizer too. They just walk past me!”
“Just bust their ‘ghosts’ already, Sanjay. I’m so fucking done with this place.” Gloria replies in a less-than-chipper tone, pointing her spring device at another spot on the floor, which seems to mistakenly be a marble countertop with a bowl of raspberries atop. Just as the flat-top grill was, the perceptual error mists out of existence as the green glow is pointed at it, and the device exhausts air twice again.
Sanjay, meanwhile, seems to have pulled a hand-sized and pill-shaped metal object out of a nearby pack and has begun to pry the upper and lower sections apart. It seems to be extending into a metal tripod of sorts, with a hemispherical camera atop. “Alright, ladies, I’m going to need you two to look directly into this device, okay? Even if you haven’t seen any ghosts, I promise you, this Buster 5000 right over here will clean them right up!”
Another groan sounds from Gloria’s crackly microphone.
Gail/span looks relieved when Stelle approaches her, slowly taking a half-pace forward just behind the other woman and leaning in a bit to listen to that whisper with a skeptical lid of her eyes as she slowly analyzes the other two. Clearing her throat, she speaks in her breathy tone, curt and serious, “I believe they’re bankin’ on the idea that we -don’t- know what they’re doin’…” Biting down gently on her tongue, she draws a deep breath in through her nose and leans closer, averting her eyes from the device that Sanjay refers to, “These two’re tryin’ to make this out like nothin’ ever happen’d here.” She nods her head at the deactivated marionette on the floor with a frown, “That thing’d come after me just ten minutes before you arrived ‘n nearly came apart at the seams all on its own…”
A frown drifts over Stelle’s face when the raspberries disappear but it looks like she’s piecing things together now. “Again euh… I do not know about this whole busting thing, no?” Stelle replies, not impressed by the concept of being busted and equally averting her eyes from the device. She clearly doesn’t feel like busting a move. Quickly, her eyes drop towards the marionette instead. “That thing? I think I could have popped that thing apart with my bare hands, no?” Stelle replies, frowning at the marionette’s prone form, “I don’t suppose you feel like being busted either. Do you have any other ideas for an exit?” A pause, “Actually, do /you two/ have a better idea for an exit? If your first device did not work I am assuming I am not very bustable to begin with, no?”
Both of the individuals in yellow hazmat suits turn their heads to regard Stelle for a moment and then look back to each other. Sanjay’s mask turns to face Stelle and he gesticulates at her very plainly, “No, I assure you. There’s lots of ghost activity happening right on you. You’ll be allowed to leave as soon as we clear you of any… ectoplasmic influence. Please. Look into the camera, sweetie.” Gloved fingers heavily tap down on the device on the tripod, like it were their favorite pet.
A small whine emits from the tripod with a glimmering light emitting from it, like that of a projector. 83It lulls the eye89s, as though dem95anding a viewer.
Another double cough emits from Gloria’s slinky-headed vacuum as she finishes cleaning another anomaly from the environs. Her speaker volume lowers as she mutters, “Did you just call her sweetie?”
Gail/b>/spanGail nods her head in the direction of the metallic box creating the ‘exclusion field’.
Stelle looks at the box, looks at Gail then Sanjay then Gloria and says, “I have a feeling they will not appreciate this euh… turning off, no? Euh…” She starts another sentence but her eyes catch the light when her gaze begins to drift to the box again, her everlasting appraisal causing her eyes to wander lazily into its beam while she adds in a side note to Gail, “I do not… Euh… If it is excluding things then perhaps it is also including things we would rather not have excluded back out, no?”
The device seems almost excited as Stelle’s gaze wanders into its alluring pull and the whining it produces seems to accelerate to a higher pitch. 25The colors are pretty, so prett24y that it’s hard to consider lo30oking away from them. It’s as th94ough it projects a kaleidoscope95 onto the retina and immerses th89e viewer in an infinite chamber19 of mirrors so vast that the ev18ents of recent reality seem rath29er… dull and unimportant, dri93fting away like steam from the s59pout of a kettle and dispersing83 without any chance of recovery.
Gail/i/i>Sanjay seems to clear their throat, elevating the volume of the speakers on their mask and projecting, “Please step away from the light, you’re interfering with the ghost busting process!”
Gloria has moved to another location now, and the springy device seems to be pointed at the marionette itself, beginning to eliminate it from existence with that distinct sound on their vacuum.
As Gail turns her head with a scowl to Sanjay, mouth open and ready to launch a retort, her gaze wanders into that sparkling light, and now she instead begins to peer into its wondrous sparkles with a slightly agape look – absent of any and all intelligence.
Stelle blinks her eyes and shakes her head clear when her vision is obstructed. A close one no doubt and without delay now Stelle grasps Gail from behind and drags her sideways away from the light and towards the metallic box. “Euh… Right, okay… Enough of the.. ” Stelle comments before she says to nobody and everybody in particular, “I hope you do not mind, no? It looks like you are mostly done so I will euh… be turning this off now and finishing my walk to the bank, yes?” Far from crude Stelle looks down at the box, an off switch, perhaps? Switch include to exclude? Turn it over on its side? She isn’t quite sure but she uses Gail almost as a shield while she looks the box over at least until Gail has recovered enough to focus herself.
Gail’s chin turns to follow the light when Stelle grips her body and drags her away from in front of it. She murmurs something unintelligible as the last of her breath seems to be escaping her lungs, her diaphragm refusing to expand for another.
Sanjay stands with both hands out in front of theirself, as though Stelle were, herself, an explosive that could detonate at any moment, “Woah! Woah! You’re- hey! No, I do totally mind! You will be letting ghosts escape containment, young lady! There will be big implications for this and… agh…. Gloria! Help me out here!”
Gloria seems completely disinterested in this whole affair, busying themselves with aligning that green glow with each and every little last bit of the marionette on the floor, “Honestly, Sanjay? I just don’t fucking care anymore, this mission has been fucked from the moment you put your name on it. If you can even mindwipe two unarmed girls without my help, then I don’t know what to say.”
Sanjay slowly turns to Gloria, incensed, “Excuse me!? So once again this is -my- fault? How about we talk about the nine hundred pound elephant in the room, which is that you forgot to bring the remote paralytic stabilizers! -Or- that you were ten minutes late to the debriefing room! But nooooo, this is -my- fault. Me, who’s actually trying to solve a containment breach in progress! Do you have any idea what you’re letting walk away from us right now?!” Evidently, Sanjay seems too wrapped up in his diatribe to bother obstructing Stelle from her pursuit – or perhaps he’s too afraid to.
Either way, to Stelle’s inspection, the box seems to be a mess of white and red switches in all orientations. There are a few LED panels with numbers whose meaning cannot be determined from a brief inspection – but there is one notable switch on the right side labeled, ‘MODE’ which is currently set to ‘EXCLUDE’. Go figure.
Gail/span seems to return to consciousness in the middle of her progress toward the metallic box with Stelle, her lungs suddenly filling with air as she gasps for breath and coughs harshly. Wincing, she clears her throat terribly and breathes haggardly, reaffirming her feet on the ground and glancing over her shoulder to the two dressed in hazmat suits as they bicker and argue among themselves, “Hha… where… am I… mh? …Is this… the coffee shop? Where’s my… ‘sspresso…?”
Perhaps Stelle was an explosive that could go off at any moment but there’s little exploding happening here.”No, no, it’s quite alright I’m sure you can shove it all back in the box, no? It will be easy, yes? You are euh… professionals,” Stelle replies, brow furrowing at the complicated contraption before her. She wasn’t made for this sort of thing, truly. Her hand reaches out and she begins to lower, hardly noticing Gail’s switch from practically dead to mostly alive as she comments, “Oh yes, coffee shop.” She keeps her hand on Gail’s clothing kneeling down before the box and flipping the switch before shooting off a peace sign towards the two suited individuals and sprinting towards the end of the alley, Gail more carried than dragged.
As the switch flips from ‘EXCLUDE’ to ‘INCLUDE’, the whirring noise emanating throughout the space seems to disappear and a certain shimmering blocking the alleyway’s entrance seems to fade from existence. Gloria is busy pointing at the backs of Stelle and Gail as they make their way out, doing nothing to halt the two of them, “Those two!? Letting -those two- escape!? Please, they don’t know the first thing about what’s going on here! If there’s anyone creating a containment breach it’s you! Do you have any idea how many fucking names you’ve dropped in the past fifteen minutes? They’re not supposed to know any of that!”
Sanjay raises their voice, “Maybe I wouldn’t -HAVE- to say those things if you bothered to follow the protocol we practiced!”
“Ghostbusters is not a protocol! We did not practice that!”
“Yes, but-” Sanjay gasps audibly as they witness Stelle and Gail make it beyond the field and round the corner, as though being just thirty feet away from the containment zone is tantamount to lost cause, “GLORIAAAAAAAA!”
Gail hobbles along with Stelle attentively, gazing over her shoulder with a furrowed brow and huffing. She clears her throat, speaking in a hushed tone, “I-I’m not sure what was goin’ on there, but… thank you for rescuin’ me…”