2010-10-07: Two Robs And A Blacksmith

Players:

David_icon.jpg Mike_icon.jpg Robyn_icon.jpg Robin_icon.jpg Connor_icon.jpg

Summary: Robin and Blank find the group of Robyn, Mike, David, and Connor, and a rabbit is murdered.

Date: October 7, 2010

Log Title: Two Robs And A Blacksmith

Rating: PG


Tegu-Haaz - Salem Town Square

The very epicenter of Salem Town Square is wooden structure called, The Gallows. A noose swings in the breeze casting shadows along the wooded structure and town center. Gas lamps line the streets in between the buildings that serve as shops and homes. There is a well off to the side, which serves as the town's main source of water. Four streets meet in the center of Salem Town Square, one road leads to The Moors, another up a dark hill, the third to the lake and the last onto farms that have long been over grown. During the day the town seems fairly quiet, shop signs blowing in the breeze, the smell of the water sweeping across the moors and the deserted buildings dark and desolate. At night the lamps come to life and flicker giving shadows a sense of life. Occasionally voices and lights can be heard coming from one of the buildings but once inspected it's always vacant.


Having been in the Slaughtered Lamb, David dressed in a shredded black trenchcoat and nearly ripped apart sweats and black t-shirt, The African American mutant, hiccups. He may have had a drink or two and notes Robin walking around. After this morning, he is hestitant to be near the students. He sighs and whispers Kisha's name and then shakes his head and goes back into the Lamb to get some water to throw on his face and wake him up.

Coming out of one of the houses wearing an over sided white button down shirt, a pair of black slacks and an over sized black jacket, is Robyn. After he injured he leg and ruined his shirt earlier he's gone looking for some new clothes, preferably in something of a black colour. He limps a bit into the town square holding a bundle of something in his arms. He's actually even found a nifty bowler hat to wear which now sits on his head. He sees David and waves at him as it's showing that Robyn's as bad as others with not sticking around the farm. Then out of the corner of his eye he spots blink and smiles. "Blank….Robin!"

Given the need for people to not go out alone, when Robyn went clothes-hunting, it was only natural that Connor went with. Since the arrival of Emma Frost at the farmhouse, the tension the young man has been carrying seems to have vanished somewhat, leaving him with that normal sense of alertness the young man has about him. Stepping out after several moments and smirking at the bowler that his friend has on, his eyes do go up in surprise as he notes the presence of the other Robin.

Mike, Robot Kid, has also been in the Slaughtered Lamb, although his drink or five had much less of a drunkening effect, and for fun he's been running everything in his memory about alcohol that he can remember, from hard storage to random access where David can find it. Cruel? Sure, he's a teenager.
He waves to Robin, and Blank, and Robyn. "Limping. What'd you do?" He gestures back at the Slaughtered Lamb, "My Robot Brain Needed Alcohol." Apparently pure diesel isn't good for a steady diet, but it's ok if he runs on alcohol between fuelings. Too bad he hasn't found whale oil or kerosene, those'd work much better.

"Oh, thank goodness," says Robin, letting out a sigh of relief. "I'm not alone here? I thought I had finally snapped." She smiles and approaches Robyn, commenting, "Nice hat!" Blank even gives a mock tip of the hat to him at Robin speaks. "I'm assuming you guys have no idea what's going on, either. It might be a shared nightmare or something, from a supervillain, but that's all I've come up with. This place seems nightmarish." She crosses her arms and says, "But it's so good to see other people!"

Clearing his head as much as he can and smirking to Mike for the alcohol lecture. David makes his way out of the Lamb again and sees all the students chatting. He exhales and makes way towards them, "Hello all." He mets this group except for Robin with the i. He nods to her, "David. I help out at the school….or I did…anyway." He looks to Robyn, "Hosea cleans you up pretty well. How was the bath he gave you?" He nods to Connor.

Robyn tips his hat at Robin and smiles. "I'm glad to see you Robin, more that you're safe than here but I needed new clothes." He admits as goes to give her a hug. "Limping…I got my leg cut by the giant pumpkin that ate Kisha." He says with a sigh. "She's…gone. I disappeared or something." He doesn't really want to say dead but she isn't anywhere to be found. "Hi David and no…I did it myself. I don't need Hosea to bath me." He says feeling weird about that thought and it shows on his face.

Connor rolls his eyes, "The less time I get around Hosea, the better off I'll feel too… something about him always comes off as… I dunno…" Shaking his head, and turning to do a lookout check, the tale of the giant pumpkin having set him somewhat on edge, "So… you've been allright so far? We've got a base set up at a farmhouse outside of town… boiled water, hot soup and other stuff…" That done, he takes a couple more breaths, and then shakes his head, "I still say the hat looks silly… but hey, it's your fashion sense, and not mine."

Giant. Pumpkin. "Why am I the last to know about these things?" Mike says out loud. "Connor, are you the font of all knowledge at the moment? Cause if so, you should explain the how-we-got-here too. Otherwise, I can play back my log."
He seems pretty laid back about Kisha's death-or-disappearance, but then he's not known for being tremendously expressive as a robot. He does sit down and seems to be thinking about something.
(He's still wearing his Barnes uniform, but he's added a scarf, some sort of coarse homespun burlap, that he can pull up to be a hood if he needs to.)

Robin does hug Robyn in return. When she pulls away, though, she says with a small frown, "Well, if we are in a nightmare… she might have just woke up. We can't assume too much… I hope she's okay." This is said pretty sincerely, before she introdues herself to David, "Robin Keen. I'm a student." For the rest of the group, she tells her tale, "I woke up a couple days ago in one of the houses. I've been sending out Blank to get me supplies, 'cause I didn't want to go out for awhile there. I also found some food in a couple other houses, but I've been just kind've scraping along." She rolls her eyes (well, eye) and says, "My weight was just on the upswing, too."

Smiling as much as he can in this hellhole, David offers Robin a sincere welcome, "I graduated from the school a few years and am back to help out, I guess." He then turns to Mike, "Yes, we were attacked by a giant pumpkin that ate Kisha." While he was the pillar of hope and happiness, this has clearly gotten to him.

Robyn nods down to his bundle. "That's what I found here, some food in the house I got the clothes from. And I like my hat Connor, but if you can find a better one, I'll wear it." He says with a shrug. "You're the last to know Mike cause you were in your shut down, recharge mode when we came back to the house." He then shakes his head to Robin. "Not really, just that we're here and that the pumpkins are evil. I'm not joking guys, don't touch the pumpkins."

Connor shakes his head and looks down at his hands a moment, "The only person who's really better in the know here apparently is James… or whoever he is who's saying he's James. We all appeared here over the weekend sometime, between Saturday and Sunday." Taking a breath before he resumes, "There's about a dozen students, Miss Frost, Mister Summers, Mister Gilpatrick, Mister Alleyne here. We also have a SHIELD agent by the made of Slide asleep in one of the back rooms attempting to conserve power on his suit." Another look around, and then Robin is given a smile that seems a bit tight but genuine, "Everyone's been warned since what happened… but we're still in the dark as to WHY we're here, and who's playing this macabre game on us. There might be some clues up at the asylum, but… well… none of us I know of have done any exploration of it… yet."

Pumpkins are evil. Lovely. Mike has a computer brain, and unlike Hosea, bless his soul, a fairly detailed and sophisticated theological library in his memory, the inevitable result of having two priests for parents. Since the Inferno event he's learned a lot more about how his computer-brain works, and how to use it more effectively. He can run two, perhaps three, threads of consciousness at once, and one of them has been dedicated to praying about this mess. He hadn't added Kisha to the list yet, that omission is corrected, she's added along with the others. It doesn't seem like much but to Mike, it's once again as much as he CAN do.
Keep them safe, save us from evil, give us what we need to survive without hurting others. And then the list of names. Then, over again. He knows, or trusts, that the right One will hear, and whether or not anyone else does, isn't as important.

In other words, for all intents and purposes, Mike sits looking morosely at the ground.

"I don't think I'd want to explore that place," says Robin to Connor, frowning. She gestures towards Blank and says, "I sent Blank close to there, and it seems kind of scary." She shrugs and sighs, taking out her cellphone to look at its now dead screen. "Skyler's gonna have a tought time calling…" she comments, before sighing, "And the pumpkins are evil? Okay. Ummm, weird, but not /the weirdest/, you know?"

Shaking his head to himself,"Some of us have explored it already and the staff are making plans to figure out how to best approach the asylum. With James and Jinx there though…" He takes a seat on the step by the Slaughtered Lamb. "Oh, if any of you are feeling claustrophobic in the farmhouse, Mr. Gilpatrick did a great job cleaning the tavern out." He suddenly stands up,"Has anyone checked the blacksmith shop since Kisha was….She is not here now?"

Robyn takes off his hat sits down on the ground. "I dunno, Cloud said soemthing about zombies? I guess something happened before we got here, I don't really know the details." He shakes his head and leafs through the bundle of stuff he's gotten and offers people some vegetables he's gathered. "Yeah, same with Jordan and it'll just give him more fuel as to why Xaiver's is a horrible place." He grumbles a bit. "David, did you have Ms. Frost scan for Kisha?"

Connor pushes his hands into the pockets of the borrowed trousers he has on, and then looks down at the boots, "I don't like being in town here… makes me feel too much like I'm dreaming. The farmhouse is just as bad in some ways, but at least a self-playing chessgame and a perpetual motion rocking chair are at least bearable." Sighing again, he walks past the others to look towards the blacksmith shop, "No one I know's been in there so far… but… she always struck me as the type to keep anything important on her, and not leave it where it could be found."

And of course James and Jinx are at the asylum. Mike adjusts the prayer wheel a bit more. And Zombies. This Is Halloween Town. Skattae!
"Isz therr anythinnn gelz thaat IiIizn't szharrd knolleezzhj?" OH that's pretty horrible robot-voice there. Better try to fix that. "Zzorryy."
He stands and follows Connor. Blacksmith shop might be different from last time he walked past it. Maybe.

Robin jumps back a little in surprise as Mike's voice goes haywire. She's a little bit on edge as it is. "I don't know Kisha very well. She's the… mad scientist? One of them, anyways…" She scratches her head and sighs, "Well, at least it seems like everyone's pretty organized. Though zombies, ummm… I don't know how I feel about zombies."

David shakes, "I've done my own search for her. Mind you, my reach isn't nearly as powerful as Ms. Frost's. But as far as I can tell Kisha is not here. Or there is something keeping my mutant abilities from finding her and just her since I can synch up with all of you." He moves towards the Blacksmith shop. "I'm going to check it out." He picks up a walking stick/spear he made a few days back. "Connor and Mike, come with me." He looks to the others, "Want to come? This may be your only chance to explore?"

Robyn stands back up and nods. "Sure." He says but he doesn't think it'll be his only chance to explore but he doesn't say that outloud. He looks to Robin and offers her a small smile. "Yeah, she's the mad scientist. And I think the image of organization is good. And Mike, I don't think there is much knowledge to be shared." He says as his mind wandering a bit.

Connor shakes his head to Mike, "I've said everything I know in general… unless someone's said something I missed." With that he does fall in step with David, checking both the makeshift weapons at his side, and then opens his pouch and takes out a carpenter's spike and checks it before going back away, "I have flint and steel, there's rope at the blacksmith shop… not that I'm sure we'll need it."

"Thaaat'z why Iimmm." Pause. Focus. "That's why I'm stressing a bit, Robyn," Mike says.
He shrugs at David, as he's taking the lead, because of course it's best to have a leader who's been at the Dutch Courage. A shrug at Connor next, hey, when one is limited to no facial expressions, body language, however limited, is all you get. Could it get worse? Sure it could. "Lead on, MacDuffs."

Leading the group into the blacksmith shop, David jabs his walks stick through the door, "Ok well, nothing alive is in there, since I don't any new skills, but then again, I didn't sense anything from that pumpkin earlier." The door creaks open and he peers in. "Stay behind me everybody." He takes a defensive stance as he walks into the abandoned building.

Robin shrugs. Since everyone's going, and she's been alone for the last couple of days, sure. She has done a bit of exploring, be it vicariously, and isn't really particularly excited about the thought. She hooks her thumbs in the pockets of her jeans and follows after the others. "I've also said everything I know. Not much."

The door opens and into the darkness David walks. "Be ready for anything, but there's probably nothing there." He enters the blacksmith shop. He takes a swipe to the right and left of him with the walking stick and then enters further into the shop. "I think we're good."

"I'll wait outside." Robyn says as he lets the others walk in while he keeps an eye out front for whatever might come. At the same time though he can't help but try to hide a yawn, after all there hasn't been a ton of sleep happening. "So you haven't seen anything strange Robin? Just kind of hanging out?" He asks her to be sure a bit worried about his name twin. "Do we have a way to get light in there?"

Connor answers Robyn's question by taking out one of the nails from his pouch, and infuses it with as much power as he can. As it floats up above the group by about six inches, there's a pale blue-green glow cast over the insides, about as much as a handheld maglite. Winking once to Robyn, he then touches his shoulder on the way past, "Good thinking."

"This whole place is weird. I feel like there's ghosts, and they were always watching me and sometimes I could kind of hear them," says Robin, frowning as she thinks about it, speaking to Robyn, "But I never know what they're saying. Like a murmurs from a dream." Robin shakes her lantern at Connor because his way is so much better, and she resents him for it. Resents! Well, not really. It's kind of cool. Noticing Robyn's yawn, she says, "Are you tired? Maybe you should show me the way back to your farmhouse, so I can eat something and you can sleep? I'm real hungry."

"Very true Good idea, Robyn and good job, Connor!" As the blacksmith shop is lit, there are no signs of life in the building. Some contraptions such as a mangle and anvil are present, but other than that. It is as dead as the rest of this godforesaken world! David orders, "Fan out everybody and see if you can find anything or maybe I am missing something. And Robyn if you take Robin to the barn, please be careful"

Robyn nods to Robin. "Yeah I haven't slept much and I guess we can head back there." Connor would definitely notice the hint of reluctance in Robyn's voice but it's very faint. "Yeah, some food and rest would be good." He says as he puts the bowler hat on Robin's head with a smile. "Good luck searching but we're gonna head back to the farmhouse. It's a few miles away so it might be best if we head there now." He says as he nods to Robin. "Let's go."

Connor gives a wave to the two, "Good Luck… and maybe you can practice putting it on stylishly on the way." Winking and smiling towards the pair, he turns back towards the others in the room with him, and begins to look around, "I didn't really think about using it in this benign a fashion until I started noticing because it's so dark around here… my eyes were casting light. So… there we go." In otherwords… playing with powers to keep from going stir-crazy. As David goes one direction, he peels off the opposite way, "Place looks fairly well picked over…"

"I can't hear anything. I just know there's something around, and I see things having moved. I can't smell anything significant at the best of times, and neither of my forms of sight can detect anything present, and that includes ana and kata from here. They're all empty to me."
At least Mike kept that unemotional. He nods to the Robs as they head out, and focuses again on the rest of the blacksmith shop, checking for residual warmth from the forge, for any sign of tempering liquid left uncovered, for work in progress. That's something that cannot be done in moments of time, it has to be ongoing. Metal has to be heated and hammered and if it's not, it simply won't shape. Right?

Robin blinks a couple of times as her name-twin puts the hat on her head, but she smiles. She says a short, "Seeya," to the others, even though it's doubtful they're paying much attention. "Alrighty, I guess we're off to the farm!" She makes a gesture to confirm the direction that she needs to go, waiting for Robyn to lead the way before following him away from the town to the strange creepiness of the farmhouse that she's not yet explored, towing Blank along after her.

A noise can be heard from the backroom as it sounds like something falls over. David shakes his head and hurls the walking stick towards the room. There is a loud pained unhuman scream and David enters into the backroom and simply frowns.

Connor immediately goes for one of his blades when the sound comes and he moves up close to David as he throws the stick. Moving to one side of the door, he leaves the other side for Mike as he dampens the light by bringing it down and clasping his hand around it. He motions more with his head towards the inside and Meck, as if signalling an unasked question, one borne from long practice.

Unhuman scream. Not promising at all. Mike doesn't teleport, nor does he grab a blade, but he does almost leap to the door. Looking in, and at the same time, scanning with that radar-like sense that he has for navigation, he is REALLY curious as to whether David just murdered the bellows for the forge, or if there's an undead cow, or what that was.

"Great defensive stances and tactics, boys." David sighs, but no need to worry. Hopping up and over Mike like a human-sized rabbit, David is synched to a rabbit that is dying. Upon entering the room, the boys will see a rabbit pinned to the wall, by David's spear. "I guess I got overzealous" as he walks towards the rabbit to remove the spear in its throat.

Connor slumps a bit against the wall, and puts the blade away as he releases the nail to float back into the air, "Should be… Mike and I used to train together under Doctor McCoy." Relaxing himself a bit he looks down at the rabbit, and then shakes his head, "We're all a little on edge, and I can't think how you're feeling after what happened to Kisha. But seriously… we need to remember to keep as level a head as we can. Even us crazy ones." Chuckling a bit at his own joke before moving over and patting Mike hard on the shoulder, "Miss you, by the way."

"You were also in the way, David. I'd have smashed into you if I didn't stop. I'm still a motorcycle, y'know. Also you need a magic helmet."
Mike shrugs as he looks over to Connor. "Yeah, well, we didn't get a chance to do the regular videogame this week. And. Why, one wonders, are ANIMALS not affected by whatever has put the inhabitants and us out of step, and why in that case is James here, or has anyone spoken with him to make sense of what HE senses?" Well, more than one might wonder now that he's considered it. But then it bothers him that it took this long to consider it. Mags would give him no end of grief.

David hmmmns, "Actually, Connor, tell me about what happened with James and Jinx? Robyn told me a little bit about the pumpkin, but what exactly happened?" The staff member asks as he uses the spear to gut the rabbit of its internal organs. "Mike, I guess say a prayer for this too."

Connor pushes his hands into his pockets, and squeezes them into fists, "James… or some guy claiming to be James who has Jinx's trust is staying up at the Asylum. I only found out because Robyn went so long without some mind-energy that he was wandering and practically incoherent. Anyways… Robyn had a pumpkin, and the James-guy suddenly got adamant to get rid of it. So eventually we did. But it's pretty clear he doesn't want to join us, and Jinx is probably staying to try and keep him on an even keel. But he's been here longer than the rest of us apparently, and has seen a few things we haven't. But pumpkins… what next…" He pauses, "Ghosts and witches?" But after waving it off, he concludes, "He also said something about a tree with a door, and an X over the door, whatever that means."

David takes a second to think over everything he has heard. "We should reach out to them. If James has been here for awhile then it shows that we as a staff have failed. We should have been aware if anything was happening to James or if he was missing." He sighs, "Well, I think I will be taking a trip up there soon enough." He finishes gutting the rabbit and lifts it up, "A tree with a door? X over the door?" He shakes his head, "There are so many damned trees here."

Prayer for the rabbit. Right. "Already in there. Thank you rabbit for the gift of your life to sustain ours, and we ask God to accept your spirit in whatever way he does for the animals he loves, Amen."
Future Robot Pope, yeah, but only if the whole ban on Anglicans gets lifted. Mike's engine runs a little rough, and he pulls a small flask from a pouch in his burlap scarf, and sips from it … refueling, this time with a bit more diesel - well, lamp oil - since he's run on wine all day.
"OK, 'some guy that claims to be James' again. What does he look like? And what did Robyn feed on? And how can he have been here longer than we have? My clock sequencer hasn't shown any deviations."

Connor shakes his head as he leans back against the wall, then pushes off and starts walking towards the door slowly, "I really couldn't say, it was murky… and I got closer to Jinx than to him. I think he was slightly tanned skin, and longer hair… but that's really about it. I really wasn't in the mood to make it more of a pissing match than it already was, allright?" The note of bitterness quite obvious in his tone now.

"Well, Connor, you made the right choice and have been making the right choices, moreso than most of the students since we've been here." David offers, "I even let Ms. Frost and Mr. Summers know how impressed I've been by you so far." He looks to Mike, "All of the students are handling this as best as they can."

"James is ethnically Native American like me. Sounds like it might really be him. This is troublesome, since he wasn't able to change to that form, and had some significant issues with that fact. It was used to tempt him when the inferno-Demons invaded, in fact. And I wasn't critical, David, I was curious."
Mike's voice doesn't carry any stress now. In fact it has relatively little inflection or emotion. He notes that his question regarding Robyn's feeding isn't answered, and that's … not helpful at all. Best not pursue it, ask the man himself later.

Connor carries back on at the doorway back outside, the nail still floating close by him, "Robyn's powers-related issues are private because he wants it to be private. I know because I'm his roomie… so sorry if I'm not forthcoming on that. I think he'd rather the respect of you asking him yourself. If you guys don't mind, I'm going to circuit the town and head back. It's getting a little tight in here for me." The entire time his hands have not left his pockets, balled into fists.

Nodding to Connor, "No problem and again good job with everything." David looks at the dead rabbit, "Oh can you bring this back with you?" He holds it out to give to COnnor.

"It's a smithy, but it is a lot messier than it needs to be," Mike agrees, and doesn't answer the assertion of privacy. Survival is not a private thing, Robyn's feeding issue is dangerous if it goes to long, and Connor is being protective, which doesn't make it less foolish. On the other hand, Mike knows how it feels to want that and he's not about to argue about it. He just adds it to the prayer wheel.
"Are you still interested in exploring, David?" His voice is uninflected still. But the answer is "not," and they return to their respective havens.

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