[???] Enthralled (various)

[Smerdle]

Theodore looked truly interested for the first time since they'd arrived, his eyebrows lifting slightly at Erin's display. But there was no time for congratulations or praise, not when there were three new people to glower at.

"Trapped by a door?" he asked. "'Cause we've apparently got Inspector Gadget here to take care of anything like that." Maybe there was time for a little praise after all, but only if it was backhanded.

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cibarium

toogay

AMItotic

a-disgruntled-dragon

 

[shibrogane]

"There's no need to be rude," said Melany, "She did a pretty complex piece of magic there, whether you want to acknowledge it or not, Mr. Grumpy. And no. They're trapped by a brain-stealing worm, who was going to steal your brains too, so maybe you should think about that before grumping off into the sunset, okay?"

Smerdle

 

[Smerdle]

"Yeah, okay, all right," Theo muttered, crossing his arms and going silent again as he looked to his feet for further guidance. He was thinking now, just as the girl had suggested, and he quickly came to the conclusion that he didn't like the idea of brain-stealing worms any more than hamsters bent on destroying the world or men without faces inviting him to the movies. Of course he was going to help the ones who were trapped. That didn't mean he had to be excited about it.

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shibrogane

a-disgruntled-dragon

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

Hart watched the people carefully. She was really only here for the Lady, and didn't care too much about the people who emerged. Well, the people and one animal - must be a were, she thought dryly. Surely, the brain worms wouldn't bother with a standard animals and they did always go about in animal form at random. Hart pushed her silver headband back into place. It was strange to look down and see her own wizened hands, but there had been no point in masquerading as Temperance here. Plus, it had been strange to see such pale skin all the time - just another reminder of who she wasn't and could not be.

"Are there more people secreted away aside from the four most prominently missing?" She asked. Hart wondered if Silk hated her to send her here. Maybe. She enjoyed any chance to be near and useful to Lady Melany, but Silk herself had said fetches were more susceptible to the worm. And lo and behold, who was the only fetch here? Herself.

Actually, she needed to know. She turned to Melany and spoke sotto voce. "My Lady, do you suppose Silk dislikes me?" She would never have asked Melany as the Spinel Lady, but this version seemed more approachable, younger.

clbarium

shlbrogane

smerdIe

a-disgruntledIeragon

 

[cibarium]

"They're easier to deal with than Yeerks," said Julian helpfully. "The reason you're here is because of this weirdo called Ixodi who thinks you can get super powerful if you just have enough blood. It uses veilworms to mind control people so it can feed off of them and probably do weird experiments." He frowned while looking between the members of the basement crew. "Or it brought you here to do the weird experiments on. So you're welcome for saving you from getting brutally dissected by a tick monster."

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smerdl

toog

a_disgruntled_drag

amitot

 

[AMItotic]

Lily was patient as the door opened, waiting behind the threshold as everyone stepped through. She nodded her head once at Julian, then looked curiously beyond at the others present. She snaked her way between sets of legs and into an empty space in the hallway behind the group where she had room to change back into a body that had a voice.

"That's pretty metal," Lily commented dryly, rolling her head from one shoulder to the other. "I'm a big fan of keeping my insides on the inside, so, uhh...thanks for that, I guess." Idly she rubbed at her wrists, glancing down the hallway where there was presumably a brutally dissecting tick monster.

"So how do we fight the yeerk thing?" She asked the rescue gang, biting her lip. "If I'd have known this was going down, I would have brought some bug spray or whatever."

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cibarium

smerdle

toogay

a-disgruntled-dragon

The Semblance of Unity

shibrogane

 

[Smerdle]

Despite the danger they were in, Theo had just one question.

What in the hell was a yeerk?

He didn't ask, mostly because everyone else seemed to know what one was, but it also wasn't terribly hard to keep up with the conversation minus any helpful footnotes, so he let it go.  

[cibarium]

Julian's fetch had turned out to be well-read enough on this specific subject for him to be able to fill in where his unwitting volunteers would fit as far as the rescue plan went. "Veilworm outbreaks aren't supposed to really happen, from what I know. They can be removed if you have the know-how or," he glanced to Melany, "innate talent for it. But a living human host won't be willing at this stage. You'll have to convince them to come down here."

He scratched idly at his wrist.

"There's a decent chance that for at least one of them, 'convince' will mean 'fight.'"

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toog

smele

AMItic

a-disgntled-dragon

shibrone

the_sblance_of_unity

 

[AMItotic]

"So we gotta grab people who won't be willing to leave, talk them out or knock them out, drag them down here, and then you guys are gonna do some...magic worm removal?" Lily's nose scrunched up, and she crossed her arms. She looked at Julian, then Melany and the strange corpse-person, and then back at Julian, her gaze cautious and critical. After a pause, she let out a low hum of disapproval, shaking her head.

"Yeah, I guess I can do that," Lily sighed, running a hand through her bangs. "Does Mom know you're on some kind of crazy worm hunt?" She wasn't sure what kind of help Eve might have been on such an effort, given that she had no powers currently and was absorbed in her research, but the thought of calling in some pack backup helped make what Lily was about to do easier to swallow. She'd taken people down for their own good once before, what was this but a repeat performance?

Still, Lily frowned as she reached down to tighten the laces in her boots. Of course it would come to fighting.

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cibarium

smerdle

toogay

a-disgruntled-dragon

shibrogane

The Semblance of Unity

 

[Smerdle]

"I can too," Theo added between the animal girl's assurances that she could knock somebody out and her question about... Mom? Were she and this other guy related? Not that it mattered, it was just a curious thing. As far as he knew, none of his immediate relatives could shoot fireballs out of their hands or anything. Which begged the question, why him?  

[cibarium]

Julian scrunched his brow at Lily in a way that communicated the family resemblance before putting the pieces together and saying, "You mean Eve?" His aunt had made references to being the pack mother before, but hadn't realized how literal she was being. "No. I'm sure she'll take it over me getting stabbed by a fetch when I tell her, though."

Looking to Erin and Theo, he continued, "So far my idea is go up in teams of two. And come back down with the thralls in the elevator. Since that person's still not awake," he gestured to Kim, "I can tag along after we've converted the basement for sterile technique and s**t." Julian didn't know what the infection risk was in other ashdown, but he also didn't want to ******** find out. He was already dealing with one magical infection.

"Two of the thralls are named Zac Bantock and Ashton Carver," he said. "If any of you know either of them, that kind of qualifies you to help them out. In addition..."

There was a bluejay perched on his shoulder, though he looked like he would rather be elsewhere.

"We're pretty sure this bird is a warg familiar who wants to help his partner. Someone should take him along."

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toogay

smerdle

AMItotic

a-disgruntled-dragon

shibrogane

the_semblance_of_unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

Lily returned to her human form and Hart gave her a quick double-take, pale eyes widening. It made sense that she'd be here - she'd been so worried over Ashton, of course. There were a few people she did not know and, of course, Julian - who should really know that not every fetch stabbed as a means to their end. Was trading trading a fetch stabbing for a thrall stabbing any better? After a moment, she spoke up.

"I know both Ashton and Zac - neither of them are a warg, though. And I should not leave." Hart tapped her lips thoughtfully, sky blue nails gleaming and chip-free. She was here to be wherever the Lady was, so... For now, she was content to watch Lily out of the corner of her eye. Perhaps something could come of this.

cibarlum

amitotlc

 

[AMItotic]

"Yeah, I guess she's not actually your mom or whatever," Lily shrugged, finishing the double knot on her laces. "She'd want to know either way."

And then Julian was shooting off names, and Lily froze. For once, her expression did change, and she glanced up from her dutiful shoe-tying with a sudden alertness to the way she watched Julian. "Yeah, me too," she nodded, her brows knotted into a look of displeasure as she stood. "Ashton went missing a while ago. A whole group of people did. There was a thing about it in the email group." She ached at the idea of Shun and America and Zac all being kidnapped by some weird tick thing, but it didn't rattle in her bones the way Ashton did, the absence of pack almost as palpable a feeling as its presence.

"America's got a bird," she answered the unspoken question, glancing from Julian to down the hall. She crossed her arms to keep herself from fidgeting, but one of her legs began tapping nevertheless. "Where do we need to go?"

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cibarium

smerdle

a-disgruntled-dragon

toogay

The Semblance of Unity

shibrogane