Exsilium?

[gordonowesmeabeer]

-1-

[After all that intense action, it's time for all the working/fighting stiffs to unwinding at the local watering hole. Barney has a pint of beer in front of him as has leans tiredly on the bar.]

I tell ya, this whole place is going to hell in a handbasket. All I can do some days to just get out of bed.

Heh, of course, that was when we still had beds.

-2-

[You just knocked over something noisy while sneaking through a war zone. The sound of artillery fire can suddenly be heard, and it's probably your fault.]

Ah hell, that did it. INCOMING!

-3-

[You're just doing something totally ordinary with Barney when he freezes and glances behind him in alarm. There's nothing behind him.]

Did you hear a cat just now? I SWEAR that thing is haunting me.

Comments

-3-

[trustycrowbar]

[Gordon rolls his eyes where he's adjusting some doohicky, and mumbles very patiently. Oh, "doohicky" is a scientific term, right?]

Barney, no matter what Schrodinger had to say on the subject, I can assure you that that cat is completely dead and not haunting you.

[gordonowesmeabeer]

Easy for you to say. You weren't there. It LOOKED at me right before everything went wrong.

[trustycrowbar]

No, you're right, I wasn't there...

[Fiddle, fiddle...]

But being haunted by a vengeful feline spirit is a little too far-fetched for me..

[gordonowesmeabeer]

Weren't you talking about fighting some kind of giant alien space baby in the middle of the multiverse or something? How can you still think anything is far-fetched?

[trustycrowbar]

...

[Touche.]

And if I can kill THAT, then I think you can win out over a spectral cat. Here, do me a favor and read out the numbers on that monitor over there. Left-hand column.

[gordonowesmeabeer]

Yeah that's what I thought.

[He looks at the monitor]

44.9, 44.9, 44.9...

It's 44.9 all the way down. Is it supposed to do that?

[trustycrowbar]

[He furrows his brow and finally looks up.]

No... ngh, dammit, there must be a connection unplugged somewhere in the rig.

["The rig," for the record, consists of a discarded mainframe, two microwave ovens turned inside-out, three cracked computer monitors, a ton of snaking wires and some biarre green goo in a beaker.]

[gordonowesmeabeer]

Hey what is this thing, anyway?

[trustycrowbar]

A rig to analyze the spectral conductive flux of this... slime stuff I found near that necromancer's cavern, when the place got overrun by ghouls last time.

[gordonowesmeabeer]

Did you just use the word "necromancer" in a serious sentence?

[trustycrowbar]

Yes I did, Barney. There are a number of Transports here that are already living-impaired so the notion isn't as far-fetched as one would think.

[He's out of his seat now, adjusting wires, unplugging and replugging connections, popping a cartridge out of one of the microwaves, blowing on it, popping it back in...]

[gordonowesmeabeer]

The sad thing is, this barely makes my top ten list of weirdest things that have happened to me.

[But he's handling his pulse rifle a little more cautiously now.]

...There aren't gonna be any zombies around here, are there? I've had enough zombies to last a lifetime.

[trustycrowbar]

Well... not the kind we had. I have yet to see a single headhumper around here, thank god. Here we're talking the honest-to-god rise-and-do-my-bidding kinds. Which is what THIS is all about.

[He gestures to the green slime again. It burps.]

If I can figure out an easy way to dissassociate this stuff, then we would be halfway to a ray that can just "turn them off" and spare us the trouble of blowing their heads off.

[gordonowesmeabeer]

Thank god for small favors. Though honestly if those guys started showing up, I'd welcome them. Sic The Combine on those United Earth guys and stand back and watch the fireworks.

[trustycrowbar]

Hm... Solve all our problems at once, wouldn't it? [A chuckle while poking cords.]

I wish. Unfortunately we can't exactly call them up and let them know their resources are being stolen. Information is totally destroyed leaving this plane. At least, at our current technology level...