NARRATOR – At last safe from the threat of suffocation, you remove the oxygen mask, its alarm having gone silent almost as soon as the air started rushing into your room. You hold the mask in your hands as you ponder its fate. The device has already saved your life, but is it still useful?
INTERFACING (SKILL CHECK 4/6: 3 = PASSED) – Keep it, this model will automatically refill itself when inside of oxygenated environments – like this one here. You should be able to hang it on your belt.
NARRATOR – Using a clasp on the back of the respirator’s straps, you clip it to your side. A sense of reassurance passes over you. Now if you should find yourself once more in a dangerous location, the mask can be quickly and easily equipped. A great comfort after your less-than-pleasant wakeup.
Giving the visor a pat, you look back about your surroundings. To your left, three rooms down, is a red and yellow ice machine in the middle of a split in the hallway. On the right, five rooms down, is a rather shapely blonde woman standing in front of an elevator.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY (SKILL CHECK 2/4: 2 = PASSED) – Eeuaahhh! You see her?! You see those thighs?! That bosom?! Those feet?! You know what we should do?
VOLITION – No. I know what you are thinking. NO.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY – What? I was only going to say that we should talk to those! I-I mean- her.
VOLITION – Don’t you try and pull some kind of a fast one on us! We all know what you’d have us ‘talk to her’ about.
SUGGESTION – It is rather obvious.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY – But he could ask her where we are!
LOGIC – That would be prudent.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY – And if, in the process, we could say… take a closer gander at her… womanly proportions, then what’s the harm in that?
LOGIC – That would be less prudent…
ELECTROCHEMISTRY – And then maybe-
VOLITION – Listen to me. You are in no state be around a woman, much less hit on one.
COMPOSURE – It would be cruel to subject anyone to you in this state. And that’s not to mention how she’ll probably run at first smell. You reek of alcohol.
NARRATOR – On a sudden, perhaps foolish impulse, you rub your hand against the crotch of your trousers and bring it to your nose. You find that the stench of liquor nearly covers the body odor and rancid grease, but not quite.
SUGGESTION – Eh, you could still pull off a yes. I believe in you.
YOU – I… uh…
ELECTROCHEMISTRY – Oh, come on, don’t listen to the Nerd or the Buzzkill. Listen to me! Your awesome, fun-loving friend.
NARRATOR – Your eyes flick back to the woman just as she enters the elevator. Butterflies flit about in your stomach just from the sight of her. To your memory, she is the most beautiful woman you have ever seen.
RHETORIC – Well, to your memory she’s also the only woman you’ve ever seen.
NARRATOR – You could still make it before the doors close. But… something feels wrong of the idea of talking to her or even really moving any closer. You turn the other way, walking towards the ice machine. It seems much more interesting all of a sudden.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY – What? You’re seriously going to listen to those losers? I thought you were cool. Guess I was wrong.
-1 MORALE
NARRATOR – You push the voice from your mind as you plod your way to the ice machine. For some reason, the butterflies within you have not gone away, instead seeming to have only intensified in their wingbeats. It is beginning to make you nauseous.
To take your mind off it, you examine the obelisk of frost before you. Its mighty hull is coated in a layer of red paint and small yellow stars, almost as if someone had cut a piece out of a sunset sky.
INLAND EMPIRE (SKILL CHECK 1/7: 1 = PASSED) – Almost as if?
CONCEPTUALIZATION (SKILL CHECK 5/7: 5 = PASSED) – Almost as if?
LOGIC – Come on now, you can’t actually take a ‘piece’ of the sky. The idea is physically ludicrous. And that’s not to mention somehow putting it on an ice dispenser.
YOU – But… why would someone paint an ice machine like this? Wouldn’t blue or white or something like that be more appropriate?
CONCEPTUALIZATION – Haven’t you ever heard of a little thing called irony? The ice machine is cold by its very nature, and yet it has chosen to wreathe itself in such warm colors! It is clearly a scathing critique of the carnivular concepts imposed by Jeirm Loftstadefer on Reclamation-era Luovilian architecture. The United Provinces of Yuuim, in particular.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA (SKILL CHECK ?????) – That… I don’t think any of that exists…
NARRATOR – A sudden bout of dry heaving interrupts the line of thought. A dull pain is echoing through your abdomen. There were never any butterflies in your stomach, you realize, but instead angry wasps stretching and pulling the organ taut as if it were an egg or cocoon.
You lean against the ice machine, overwhelming nausea rising through your throat.
HALF LIGHT – It’s the ice machine! It isn’t natural. It was sent here to assassinate you.
INLAND EMPIRE – Indeed, this is no ordinary ice maker. This obelisk of frost is Icagamor; the ancient regent of all winters! And it is here for you.
ENDURANCE – I am sorry bröther. But this must be done.
HALF LIGHT – T-t-traitor! Turncoat! How could you?!
ELECTROCHEMISTRY – Now don’t you wish we’d gone the other way?
VOLITION – Will you all calm down! We are not dying. He is just sick.
NARRATOR – The voices shout and howl within your mind, some at you, and others at their own. But you hear it all the same. Eventually the individual noises begin melding and morphing into an indecipherable screed of chaotic uproar, much like no singular conversation is quite discernable within a cafeteria. The pandemonic clamor presses down heavily upon your fragile psyche, until at last, all go silent as the sound of retching and splattering liquid fills your ears.
You stand keeled over, bile spewing from your mouth onto a fast-growing pile of orange-brown liquid intermingling with the shag carpet. You sway on your feet and would almost assuredly have toppled over into the sick fluid, if not for your hand desperately clinging to the nearby ice machine’s dispensation lever.
Fetid air is exhaled as you attempt to breath in-between the bouts of vomiting. It is an awful sensation – the bile rising from your gullet. Feels as though you’re being choked. Still though, the last time this happened was far, far worse in every way imaginable. Finally, the sickness abates, and you stand tall once more, if supported quite heavily by the ice dispenser.
ENDURANCE – See? Sometimes it’s just better to get the toxins out. Even if the process is unpleasant.
YOU – Toxins?
ELECTROCHEMISTRY – Hmm… I suppose it is possible that the water may not have been entirely safe to drink.
PERCEPTION – I told you.
INLAND EMPIRE – Everyone knows tap water is poisonous. Has been for centuries now.
NARRATOR – At least this time you weren’t wearing your respirator.
The thought turns your attention to your mouth, and the foul substance coating its interior. Thinking quickly, you turn to the ice machine and push on its lever. Churning emanates from the inner workings of the dispenser, and after a second, three ice cubes are dropped into your awaiting hand.
Two are used to ‘rinse’ your mouth – swirled along teeth and gums by your tongue as they slowly thaw. The melted water is then spat out, carrying the foulness along with it. The last cube you’ll use to ‘drink’ after you’re sure your mouth is clean. Though, that’s still a ways off. And for now, it simply cools your hand.
Until then you suppose you’ll head back to the elevator. This whole building seems absolutely horrid, and you would like to leave it as soon as humanly possible.
PERCEPTION (SKILL CHECK 4/8: 1 = PASSED) – A slight creaking noise reverberates in the air around you. Sir, there is a door being opened – behind you to your right.
NARRATOR – You glance over your shoulder, curiosity settling over your mangled features. Your eyes search for a moment before landing on the door to Room One-Thirty. It’s been cracked open barely a few centimeters. Just enough for someone to peek through. They don’t have any peepholes here, you realize.
The voyeur notices your attention upon him, and decides to pull the door fully open – casually dropping his secrecy so that he may draw near.
HALF LIGHT – That’s not exactly what I would have done if some junkie maniac puked next to my room.
NARRATOR – Your eyes lock onto the man striding out of Room One-Thirty. And, of all facts of the man’s appearance – dark purple hair, ash-white skin, blue casual clothes strained against lithe muscles – one feature, and only one, truly registers in your mind.
The deep, gnarled scar stretched jaggedly across an otherwise-flawless visage, splitting it in two.
CONCEPTUALIZATION – Holy [Belgium]… It is as if a chainsaw blade was slammed down his face – repeatedly – and the resulting wounds haphazardly closed with rusted staples… He doesn’t even have both nostrils anymore…
NARRATOR – In spite of the man’s grievous and certainly painful manglement, he has a broad grin plastered upon his face. It is almost that of an old friend meeting you for the first time in years…
DRAMA (SKILL CHECK 5/12: 4 = PASSED) – And yet, Sire, you cannot help but be off-put in response. For, you realize, the comradery of this man’s expression does not reach his eyes. In its stead is bitterness.
NARRATOR – He seems… dangerous in some way.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT (SKILL CHECK ?????) – Don’t let any of it fool you. This man knows nothing of combat. He would fall easily with a few well-placed strikes. Those are the type of glamour muscles you get from a gymnasium, not actual work.
HALF LIGHT – Yeah, and he probably got that scar from tripping on the stairs as well.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT – Oh don’t be so snide with me. I know real warriors when I see them. This wimp isn’t one.
EMPATHY – Besides, it’s awfully rude to assume that someone is dangerous just because they have a massive scar on their face. How do we know it wasn’t caused by some horrid industrial accident?
NARRATOR – The man, unaware of your internal conversing, lays a calloused hand on your shoulder – his countenance morphing into a worried expression as his eyes set upon the vomit puddle. “You okay, Tective?” The voice that pours from his throat is smooth as margarine and at the same time sharp like a dry cheese – parmesan, let’s say. It’s quite soothing to your hungover mind regardless.
But still, you have no interest in a conversation at this moment. Your tired eyes meet his as a response rises from your Broca area.
YOU – “I’m fine.”
NARRATOR – You spit out a glob of diluted puke, accidentally an ice cube as well, and practically shove your way out of the man’s grasp. “Tective?” No heed is paid to the man’s call. You’re done with this. All of it.
PERCEPTION (SKILL CHECK 4/8: 1 = PASSED) – “Drunkard…” The man believes himself to be outside of your earshot, but you, Sir, hear the mutter, and the scorn carried with it, clear as the skyview from these altitudes. There is a pause, as he presumably glares at the stinking puddle left so close to his room. He sighs and turns walking back through the door, muffled footsteps preceding a cautious thump and click as it closes behind him.
EMPATHY – He wanted to make certain that he wouldn’t slam it.
DRAMA – Well, the man certainly sounded calmer as you were face to face, Sire.
YOU – Guess he’s nonconfrontational or something…