chicago morgue ♔ wash him deep where the tides are turning

[nosdacariad]

♬ bottom of the river - delta rae

WHO || Elena, Archer, Dawn, Gar, Mark.
WHAT || The Knights bust into the morgue to recover microchips that they saw on the bodies of the beings who attacked them backstage at the concert...
WHERE || Chicago, IL
WHEN || July 17th, backdated
HOW || Actionspam

[ After an unfortunate experiment resulted in the mind control chip that the team extracted off a displacer beast in New Orleans winding up... meltified, Gar's been eager to get her hands on another one. And the massive firebreathing Shadowkind behemoths backstage at the concert on the fateful night of Jade's life each had one planted in their necks. Of course, that was hardly the time to go about trying to pry them out, with the entire place swarmed by cops and cameras, so they prudently have waited a bit before making an attempt to go get them from the morgue.

Gar and Mark tell the team to dress all in black and come armed, and they take a car across town to the building in the dead of night. Mark pulls the car up across the road and leans down to look across Gar out the passenger window. The place looks entirely dark except for a few lights on one end, visible through the high glass windows. ]

Looks pretty dead. [ a beat ] ... Get it?

Comments

[nosdacariad]

I see what you did there.

And I'm all up for window scaling. We've got wristwatch lasers, should be easy to get in.

[notaroundme]

[Great, more climbing.]

Window scaling it is. Lead the way, boys.

[rationalizes]

[ as mark and archer head off towards the building, gar stands there hesitating behind, and mumbles under her breath: ] Actually, I'm... mission leader... [ but as they start to get ahead of her, she hurries to catch up ]

[watcherjunior]

Wristwatch... lasers? [ Dawn's been quiet thus far. Sometimes this life just feels too surreal. But she hurries off after Gar. ] You guys have done this before, right? I just ask because I haven't. Really.

[nosdacariad]

What: breaking and entering? Only all the time.

[isisagent]

Uh... [He looks at Dawn, incredulously.] Have you not? He said rhetorically, knowing she already answered.

[He laughs at himself.]

But seriously. I'm like, the top agent at ISIS, and the security here is like amateur hour. I could probably do this in my sleep, which is good, because I'm... actually pretty intoxicated right now...

[rationalizes]

Archer, we may need to have a talk about your drinking habits, before they wind up endangering someone on a mission. [ mark steers them around the corner, where there are some convenient dumpsters they can climb up on to reach the windows ]

[notaroundme]

Seriously, Archer, lay off the booze. Especially when we're going to do stuff like this.

[She stands beside the dumpster, waiting for others to climb first, and keeping an eye out for passerbys (spot 18).]

[isisagent]

Maybe you two should focus on the mission, instead of my amazing capacity to filter alcohol.

Besides, I've never broken into a morgue sober before... Wouldn't want to start today.

[watcherjunior]

No, of course not. Why ruin a totally good streak there?

[ If she uses any more sarcasm with that statement, it would come with its own flashing neon sign. It's very hard right now to suppress the look of 'Did we have to bring him? ]

[isisagent]

[Sarcasm completely missed;]

Right? Also... I'm pretty sure if I was sober for too long, the cumulative hangover would kill me. I think that's how it works.

How's that window coming, Marky Mark?

[nosdacariad]

[ Mark trains the beam of his watch laser into the window, creating a small circle, which he pushes in before reaching through to undo the latch with a satisfying click. He throws them a thumbs up. He opens the window and climbs through (20), jumping down inside and landing without a sound (20 move silently )

[watcherjunior]

[ Well, if no one else is going to follow right away...

Dawn manages to climb up on the dumpster and through the window with... some difficulty (climb 9 oops). Strength-training is probably in her future. But even with the trouble she has, she does it quietly (move silently 18). ]

[notaroundme]

[Elena isn't having much better luck apparently, and it takes her a good long while to climb through the window (climb 9), and she loses her balance on the way through, crashing down onto whatever lays below it (move silently...4)]

[rationalizes]

[ gar's even worse at climbing than the other two girls (climb 6), so she'll probably require a boost from archer. she helplessly leaps up from the dumpster to try to grab the ledge, but she just can't seem to get purchase, and she's making a bit of a racket jumping up and down on the metal lid. ] Oh dear me...

[isisagent]

That is just... classic Jeanne. [Archer sighs.]
Here we go again.

[Archer gets up on the dumpters, and with a Strength check of 22, he unceremoniously lifts Gar up and pushes her through the window, probably dropping her on Elena, before pulling himself up with a climb of 17. Who knew I'd ever actually use ranks in climb, ever? Though, move silently of only 11. He stomps down on the ground inside, and belches. He's drunk, ok?]

There. God. Now... which way? [He scans the area.] You guys mapped this place out, right?

[nosdacariad]

[ inside, mark catches hold of elena before she can face plant (ref 20), and pulls her aside to give the others room to land. as gar pales a bit at archer's question, obviously about to admit she didn't get that info, mark nods down the hall to the right. ] I did. It's this wa--

[ he's cut off by a woman's high pitched scream of horror issuing from that direction, however ]

[notaroundme]

[Elena's breath whooshes out of her, her heart hammering in her chest.]

Th-thanks.

[Wow that's super embarrassing.

Though that's interrupted by a woman's scream, and Elena being Elena, she just...dashes off in the direction of the noise, drawing her gun as she goes.]

[watcherjunior]

[ Dawn has that same instinct, hearing the scream. Just as the fine hairs on the back of her neck stand on end, she reaches for her gun. She follows on Elena's heels while trying to keep her eyes open for any sort of trouble that could potentially ambush them (spot 23). ]

[rationalizes]

[ gar goes running that way as well, and as they round into the morgue, they're greeted by a bizarre and horrific sight. a body is slumped across the gurney in the middle of the room, but not neatly arranged as if for some medical purpose. instead, it seems as if someone fell over it as they expired... and bloody smears obscure patches of them where their skin is missing entirely. a nude man stands over him, hands smeared in blood from where he was apparently tearing the flesh away.

the source of the scream is a young woman in a white lab coat, who has apparently gotten over her original sense of fright enough to grab a rack where medical charts were hanging, and swing it at the back of the naked man. however, it turns with surprising quickness, and they can see its face - caked with blood, and half that of a man, half that of sinew, muscle, and uncovered bone, which is slowly disappearing as it chews on a piece of corpse. it ducks beneath the rack with an angry hiss. ]

[notaroundme]

[(Init nat 20) Elena sure isn't screwing around. Her first reaction is to get that woman to safety, and her second reaction is to do so by trying to kill the thing that is so intent on attacking her.

She levels the gun, and fires off three shots in quick succession (heroic surge, atks 20 total, 12, and 17. Dmg 8, miss, Dmg 11)]

Get away from her!

[Well, that's one way to get his attention.]

[isisagent]

[Archer walks along, looking a bit uninterested, letting out a sigh.]

Great. More bullshit monsters. One hell of a place you've got here guys.

[Archer quick draws his pistols and fires a shot with each. ATK 16 (4 Damage) and ATK 13 (7 Damage) IDK whether they hit, not sure what it's AC is, and whether those racks give it cover.]

And you wonder why I wanted to be drunk for this!

[rationalizes]

[ the shots that connect break through the skin and... cause chunks of it to fall to the ground where they impact. it's gross as fuck. it growls as it turns to elena, since she seems to be the bigger threat (yeah, archer, eat that), and charges at her, raking its fingers towards her face. she narrowly can avoid its touch (atk 15), but it's sure all up in her face now. ]

[watcherjunior]

[ Dawn's initially frozen in shock -- the sight is seriously disgusting and while she was prepared for dead bodies she isn't prepped for dead bodies and monster.

Scratch that. Dead-body-eating monster. Ugh.

But the woman, the civilian, definitely needs to be put out of harm's way. While that thing goes after Elena, she moves to the woman in the lab coat, looking to see if there's an exit on the other side of the room she can push her out of. ]

1/-

[nosdacariad]

[ yeah that thing is pretty damn horrific, and mark raises his gun so quickly that his grip slips and the weapon goes sliding across the floor, hitting the monster right in the foot. woopsie... ]