Thread #300009

"I cant believe Archie is fucking dead"

Hoover kneels down and examines the gore closely. He doesn't seem adverse to touching it.
"I will tell you everything. You might want to take seats."
He gestures to the ground, clearly asking everyone to take a seat. The floor, however, is mostly covered in gore. It wouldn't be possible to take a seat without getting blood on yuor clothes.

"Uh, sir. Perhaps we could move to another room in that case?"

Thomas checks Archie's old chair for gote
gore

The chair is actually free of gore, much like the desk.

Hoover stands up. "Yes, I suppose this must be uncomfortable for you. Let's move downstairs to the parlor."
He quickly leaves the room and can be heard walking down the steps.

Without any delay I hightail it out of the room and follow him down into the parlor.

Thomas disregards the clean chair and follows

Hoover is sitting at a table in the parlor. There are several chairs surrounding. They are pretty clean. Everything still smells like gore.

Thomas checks the surroundings for some Febreze

Breathing as little as I can through my nose, I take a seat.

Febreze didn't exist until 1996 and thus Thomas does not find any, but he is quite ahead of his time and perhaps may have a lucrative business if he survives.

"Perhaps we should air the place out."

>>300087
Thomas makes a note in one of his many, many journals, then opens a window at VV's behest.
"We're far enough away that the smell wouldnt bother anyone else I'd think?"

Hoover nods and strokes his chin.
He gets a little blood on his chin when he does so but doesn't seem to notice or mind.

"Are you three aware of the relationship between Archibald and I?"

"You're his mentor I think it was? I might be misremembering it happens to me from time to time."

"It is hard to imagine that you were very close, as this event has not affected you much."

"Colleagues, of a sort?"

He smiles at VV, then turns to Felicity. "Of a sort."
He clears his throat. "Long ago, Archibald and I, along with my former vice president, Curtis, met through an organization. This may sound odd, but this organization was dedicated to discovering the truth of this world. What is reality? Where did it come from? Is reality real? These are the kinds of questions we sought to answer. We found that the natives of this country had a multitude of legends and mythologies which related to these questions about the nature of the Cosmos." He looks excited, and his voice carries a tinge of madness. "It was a mentor of ours that revealed to us the power that the truth provided. You've seen those powers firsthand, I can see it in your eyes. Magnificent, isn't it?" He smiles and laughs to himself. "We worked hard to learn everything we could from the tomes we had. Curtis, in particular, was quite gifted at it. He was a Native himself, and had an affinity for it. He learned quickly, far more quickly than any /// either Archibald or I. We eventually learned that he planned to use those powers to destroy everything. He wants to start again, in an America ruled by the Natives. Archibald and I were determined to stop him and so we burned all of the tomes the three of us had. Curtis was infuriated and cursed Archibald. Since then, we've been working tirelessly - not only to find a cure for the curse, but also to keep the tomes out of Curtis' hands." He clenches his fist tightly and stares around at the group.

Thomas begins wiggling excitedly.

Wiggling intensifies

"Hmm, we've been trying to nab those tomes for you two up until now... what should we do now that dear Archie is um, no more? Try to punch Curtis? Look for more tomes?"

An update: Thomas stopped wiggling

"I see, sir. Has your mission to keep the tomes from Curtis gone in your favour, or has it been unsuccessful?

"Hmm, wait, what if we just all left America?"

He slams his fist on the table. "And relinquish this great nation to savages? Never.
"

>>300110
"It was successful... until now. Curtis has likely reclaimed all the tomes."

Thomas shrugs "Just a thought."

"Any chance Archie would have hidden some of the tomes away?
"

"I feel no tomes here."

"Wow you can feel them? I'm healous."

"So then, sir, with Curtis having all the books, what do you plan to do now?"

"How does Curtis intend to do all this? How long will it take him?"

"Maybe he's going to try and summon something like snek. Or worse."

"He wishes to call forth a god. As for how long it will take, I know not. One of the books was destroyed, so he may need to replace it. And as for what I plan to do now? I should hope that you three will be willing to help defeat Curtis."

"Do we have any time to prepare? I might want to head up and make more explosions for this."

"It will take time to find Curtis' location."

Thomas gives a nod. Also clearly Thomas is on-board.

"If he is that much of a threat, why don't you just drop bombs on his house once you find him? You're some sort of leader in this nation, aren't you?"

"I sometimes forget to keep up with the times but Hoover is an ex-president at this time?"

"Indeed. I'm not the president anymore, and though I loathe to admit it, I have little popularity with the leaders of this nation anymore."

"Besides, dropping bombs on Curtis is basically what I want to do anyway. It's just a little more personal this way."

"One other matter of course, sir, concerning Hamlin. With his, erm, passing, we are without a benefactor anymore. Leaving aside matters of righteousness, this whole situation is quite demanding on us. Can we be assured compensation for our trouble even with Hamlin no longer being here?

"For saving the great nation of America and concealing the existence of these truths from her people, you will be compensated." He nods.

"Does the organixation you and Archie and so were a part of still exist?"

"No. Most of its former members have been killed by Curtis."

"Fiddlesticks. Curtis is just a blight on all things I could enjoy. I'll be sure to reduce him to less than ashes."

"Well if it finally means being able to wash my hands of this all once it's over, I suppose I can get on board. How long do you think you need to figure where Curtis is keeping to?"

"Assuming Archibald has the materials around his home for a location ritual, I should be able to locate Curtis in several hours."

also i totally forgot to include sicily here assume she's been listening in and is also down to help

"Will you be attending our banquet of destruction, VV?"

"I don't see as I have a choice?"

"I mean theorhetically you could flee home? Unlike us you don't live in the free-est land in earth."

"I would likely need something of a better reason to convince my family to flee the country. I don't believe the current circumstances make for a very credible story."

"You could always show them the mess upstairs."

Thomas begins thinking about whether or not he just said something insensitive.

"If everyone is willing, then I will begin the location spell. I will let you know what there is /// where Curtis is once I know. In the meantime, I suggest you prepare."

Thomas claps his hands and rushes himself upstairs to the lab that is unfortunately close to Archie's office.

I wave my hand wearily, getting up from the table. "I'll be around."

The lab smells terribly like gore.

Thomas uses the stench of gore to fuel himself into a concocting frenzy

A scratching sound can be heard from Archie's office.
It's clear, however, that Hoover was not in there.

Thomas jumps in his skin, and sets the test tubes down.
He then sighs, steels himself, and tries to take a sneaky look at the nearby office.

Having heard the sound, I also find my way back to the office.

It seems that Samuel's body is no longer there.

"Now where has that man scurried off to this time," I murmur to myself.
I step back into the room.

All of the pieces of gore seem to be missing, though there is still blood covering everything.

"... Huuhhh..." Thomas notices boss. "Say, you dont suppose we had a secret cleaning crew, do you?"

"Probably not...You know, in the heat of the moment, we never did check Hamlin's hidden room here."
Handgun on hand, I go over to the bust of Hoover and turn the head in the manner that opened the room before.

"You know, I thought about that and totally forgot youre right."

The wall opens up. It seems all of the gore has been moved into that room. It's all mashed together into some kind of throbbing ball of meat.

"That certianly does not look good. I suspected that something like this might happen! We should burn it."

"I don't really want to even remotely touch that...stuff.
And how are we to burn it without torching the whole mansion if it's in this room?"

"We can douse the flame once this mass if burned up. This is certainly the sort of thing one should burn!"

"Hello, Samuel? You in there?"

It throbs especially hard when Thomas talks to it.

"I dont suppose there's any chance you can communicate in that sort of form can you? Maybe, and I cant stress that you should do so carefully, but if you could position some of your gore in like letter patterns and, urgh, scoop that back into yourself?@

Thomas shivers a little.

It throbs and moves forward slightly.

Thomas is going to sense danger #d6 (3)

It doesn't seem that dangerous to Thomas.

(Sense danger #d6 (5))

Felicity feels like this throbbing mass of gore is probably extremely dangerous.

I grab Thomas by the shoulder and yank him back. "Hold on, you. Just because you think its talking back doesn't make it safe."

"I think burning this is certainly the best course of action."

"Well you and I both know you're the better judge of character between us."

"Oh, and thanks."

It gurgles.

I look around the room. "What would we even have to burn it with? We could just shut it up in here again and let Hoover deal with it."

"We could always borrow a rag and some booze and burn it that way. Would make a downright mess of this room though."

It gurgles out the word "Help..." in Archie's voice, though distorted.

"Surely there are matches here somewhere."
VV goes into the office to look for matches and something to burn.

Thomas looks at the ball of gore... apprehensively yeah that.

"Say, Boss, I dont suppose you can uh 'assess the honesty' of that help cry just now, could you?"

"What are you going on about?"

"That thing just said help and I want to know if I should uh, believe it."

"Save... me..." it gurgles out as it throbs and slowly moves towards the team.

VV hums in the other room as she searches for matches.

"Would you trust a parrot because its saying "save me" to you?
I take a few more steps back, so that I'm properly out of the secret room and back in the office.

archie's face emerges on the side of the ball of meat, though it lacks skin and its eye sockets are empty.

"Ok, even I'm uncomfortable now."
Thomas heads out with Felicity.

balls of meat slowly form in the eye sockets, creating what appears to be eyes out of flesh.
"Help... me..."

Thomas is visibly conflicted
"How would we help you two anyway without one of Curtis' tomes or something. Do you think you could wait patiently until we get back?"

It screams so loudly that everyone hears it. It's a blood-curdling shriek that shakes the windows.

"ALRIGHT FINE NOPE"
thomas slams the doir

"Okay conversation over." I grab the bust and turn the head back to the way it was.

"Are we all on board with burning it now?"

The door slams shut. The meat begins creeping through the bottom of the door as if it were liquid and the face reforms on the side with everyone on it. It shrieks again.

"I had given up on understanding Archie an hour or so ago. Yes, burn-BURN IT" Thomas yells attempting to talk over the shriek.

#3d6 (2, 1, 5 = 8)
#3d6 (3, 4, 2 = 9)
arms begin to sprout from the head as the rest of the ball slowly makes it way under the door towards them.

"Thomas is there anything in your bag that BURNS THINGS."

"Under most conditions, sometimes?"
Thomas moves back from the door while rifling through his bag.
Consuming one preparedness point,
#d6+1 (6 + 1 = 7)
"YOU KNOW IT!"

Thomas retireves a previously discusses molotov.
"Oh i had one already. VV you got a light?"

#d6 (1)
it prepares itself to strike

"Wait, you want to burn it with that? Maybe you should go back to trying to reason with it!"

"It yelled at me."

It shrieks again.

"VV do you have your things"

#d6 (5)
one of its new arms shoots out towards thomas' hand, attempting to grab the molotov

thomas can try to resist with an athletics or scuffling roll

VV dashes out of the office. "I'm not going to give you matches if you're going to burn the mansion down with them! Just lock it in the office!"

"Alright I'll whoa!!"
Thomas tries to duck with athletics
#d6 (4)

It pulls the molotov from Thomas' hand. Archie's mouth opens and it drops the molotov into its mouth. It shrieks again. Its entire body is now on the side with the team and it seems to be forming legs.

"VV I blame you for this one."
Thomas flees the room and motions for others to do the same.

I dash out of the office and firmly close the door behind me.

Thomas, knowing this wont stop the ball, goes into the lab and grabs his tools and semi completed bombs.
"VV why would you even care we arent coming back here probably."

"I am NOT going to let you burn the mansion down! You're certifiably insane if you think throwing something like that in a home is not going to end badly for everyone!"

It breaks through the door. It now has legs and looks kind of swole.

"BEEEEEANS"

It shrieks, "BEEEEEAANS"

"I would imagine we can't burn the mansion down until after Hoover's figured out where Curtis is, at the least."

"Oh its learning. If only we could teach it how to be good."

#2d6 (3, 6 = 9)
It puts its hands on the ceiling, pulls itself up, and begins crawling along the ceiling towards the team, shrieking all the while. "BEEEEEEEEEANS. HEEEEEEELP!"

"What do we do? Should we run and check on Hoover?"

"Where did he even go off to?"

[He's in a room near the parlor on the first floor, which i neglected to mention]

"Oh, right. Thomas, Miss Vane, keep this thing busy, I'm going to see if Hoover's not tied up."
I turn on my heel and dash towards the first floor.

"HHUUUUUUUUH????"

Thomas looks up at the meatball in horror and tries to think of a plan.

It looks like it's going to go after Felicity if not distracted.

Thomas begins flailing his arms. "BEEEEEEEEANNS"

"Go get it some beans. Maybe that will help."

"Actually, on second thought, you stay here and try not to get eaten. I'll go to the pantry to look for beans."
VV starts towards the pantry to look around to see if she can find beans.

Thomas cries to himself inside.

VV finds beans in the pantry.

Taking the steps two at a time I land with a thud on the first floor, continuing to Hoover's room.

Felicity easily finds Hoover, who is surrounded by strange writings on the floor clearly written in blood. he seems focused.

"uhhhhhh"
Thomas rifles around in his bag for something useless and mundane.

Thomas hurls an umbrella at the ball.
#d6 (5)

VV runs out of with the pantry with the beans and tosses it at the monster.

It is surprised by the onslaught of an umbrella and beans and falls to the ground.

"Hoover. Mr. Hoover, sir. "

"What is it?" Hoover replies, frustratedly.

"The um, remains of Hamlin seem to have become sentient.
Possibly angry. This house is probably not safe for much longer."

"Did you try burning it?"

"Almost. It took our Molotov before we could throw it.

VV points at the beans and yells "beans!"

The beast looks at VV. it's neck extends quickly until it is face to face with VV. "Beans", it whispers.

>>300362
"That's no good. Is it attacking people with fire now?"

"Not yet. Would you have any advice for us that we might stall it so you can finish your objective?"

VV points at the beans on the floor. "Beans."

"Friendship."

The beast puts a hand on VV's cheek. "Beans."

>>300377
Hoover removes a sheet of paper from his pocket and draws shapes on it in blood. "Attach this to the beast."

"I take the page. "Thank you sir, we'll ensure you have the time you need to finish."

Then I run back out of the room and up stairs, back to Miss Vane and Thomas.

VV makes thiiiiiiiiiis face and then runs away.
To somewhere behind Thomas.

"vv i dont think its working"

Thomas gets an ego boost temporarily.

It turns around to face VV who has run. It looks sad. "VEEEEEEE VEEEEEEEE" it shrieks.

>>300389
Felicity arrives just in time to see the beast caressing VV's cheek and VV running.

Thomas breathes a short sigh of relief as he notices Boss arriving on the scene.

"What in God's name have you two been doing this whole time."

"Distracting it like you told us, boss."

"Well then, I guess, good work?" I thumb at the paper Hoover handed me. "I really hope this works, sir."

I slowly approach the pile of flesh.

It turns its head to face Felicity. It screams. "SIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIR!"

"No, Felicity is 'Boss' or 'ma'am'."

I wince under the sound of its screams. "Now calm down, you. You like grabbing things, right? What about this piece of paper?" I wave the page at him, keeping the sigil-side facing myself.

It doesn't grab it. It looks upset.

Thomas folds his arms.

I step closer and closer to the blob of flesh.

It backs up a little.

Thomas is going to sense danger for tackling the blob.
#d6 (6)

I smile, a little smugly, as it backs up.
"Come now, there's nothing dangerous about a little piece of paper. Certainly less dangerous than a Molotov, hm?"

That blob seems insanely dangerous to Thomas.

Thomas nods in agreement with his own thoughts.

Thomas tries to observe the color of the paper.

The beast unhinges its jaw. Very widely.
#d6 (3)

>>300421
it's paper colored

"That paper is clearly marshmallow flavored. You should eat it, it must taste good."

"Is that paper going to fix them? Or something like that?"

"Honestly, I have no clue. It's supposedly a solution from Hoover however."
Then taking a deep breath, I tense up, and leap into a dash forward at the amalgam of flesh.
(Athletics #d6+2 (3 + 2 = 5))

Felicity is successful in her flesh dash

Holding the paper by my palm, I slap it with some force on the surface of the flesh closest to me.

Thomas watches expectantly.

The beast bursts into flames which don't feel particularly hot to Felicity who is close to them, and they don't spread.
They quickly engulf the beast and die out, leaving a shriveled piece of meat. It doesn't move.

"Wow fire really was the answer."

"Though this was a much nicer fire than a Molotov." I prod the shrivelled meat with my foot. "Hopefully this was also the 'help' the thing was constantly begging for too."

Felicity's weird hand tingles a little as she prods the meat.

I rub the thumb and forefinger of my weird hand together, looking between them and the meat.

Then lean down and pick it up.

It feels like beef jerky.

I hold it for a few seconds in my weird hand, turning it over and looking at it.

"We should have just burned them to start. Like I said!"

Thomas gives a look to VV.

Hoover's footsteps echo as he climbs the stairs. "Have you sorted it out?"

"Uh, yes sir. Probably." I hold out the Hamlin jerky. "This is all that remains I believe.

Hoover takes it into his hand, looks it over, and then puts it into his coat pocket.
"I've located Curtis."

<====to=====be=====continued===]
i'll be the roundabout

"Oh good. Then our banquet of death will begin."