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

[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... ]

[rationalizes]

[ in the most unlikely and bizarre sequence of events ever, gar is so surprised by the sudden onrushing monster coupled with the sound of mark's gun clattering to the ground that as she turns to look in the direction of the sound, she accidentally pulls her weapon that way as well and... shoots mark. (6 dmg) ] Oh! Oh I'm so sorry!

[ meanwhile the girl in the lab coat shoves past dawn, apparently not about to be pushed out any exit while her rescuers are failing so hardcore, and swings the rack at the creature again... this time striking in the back (dmg 2).

"The dead should stay dead!" she growls through gritted teeth with an impressive lack of fear. ]

[notaroundme]

[Oh wow that zombie is literally right in her face, as she barely manages to get out of the way of it's attack. She tries to back up and get a shot off, but she pulls the trigger way too early and shoots a round of into the ceiling (atk 5).]

[isisagent]

Elena! Jesus! Who taught you how to shoot? Rafael?!

[Archer drops his guns and goes in hand-to-hand with his supreme Krav Maga fighting style, attempting to slide one in Mark's direction as he charges the stupid Imhotep monster - (the Irony of which does not escape me, given the Mark & Gar icons.)]

[When he gets close enough, he punches with an attack roll of 18, for 9 damage (Penetration! 4+1+4 Archer's Krav Maga is nothing to be fucked with.)]

[rationalizes]

[ he punches right into its sloshy side, which... do not feel right. gross. it cranks around to glare at him and then swipes at his face, which he can easily duck away from (atk 10) ]

[watcherjunior]

[ As she's pushed aside, Dawn rolls her eyes and mutters. Okay, so that's what she gets for trying to help. But the shove isn't so hard that she falls and instead, she draws her gun and fires at the monster (atk nat 20 woohoo).

She's been getting a bit lucky with these shots. ]

END INIT, you may tag willy nilly once more

[nosdacariad]

[ dawn's shot splatters the creature's brain, and so both archer and the girl get covered in mushy bit of head and blood. yay.

mark puts up an arm to shield himself as best as possible, and luckily the spray barely reaches him and gar and dawn. there's a beat, and then he looks at the body as it slumps to the floor. ] Anyone know what the hell that was all about?

[watcherjunior]

[ Dawn's frozen in a bit of shock. She certainly wasn't expecting that. Her arm still extended, her gun still aimed at where the skin feaster had been, she gapes.

After a long pause, she blinks hard and shakes her head. ] Aside from super gross and weird? I'd like to know, too.

[rationalizes]

They call them... skin feasters. [ gar can barely get out the word, obviously disgusted by the very idea of the thing. ] Undead creatures who usually perish in... in fires that destroy the epidermis. They rise and... consume the skin of living creatures which a-allows them to regrow a... a new skin of their own, although they don't last long... [ she curbs her ramble, looking to the girl. ] Are you alright?



[ she turns a wide eyed stare towards them, the rack clattering to the ground. Finally, she says in shocked disbelief: ] ... It ate Greg.

[notaroundme]

[Elena edges closer to Mark, speaking quietly. The girl looks freaked out, but not hurt, so that's something.

Greg clearly hadn't been so lucky.]

Do you think she's going to call the cops on us?

[Because that's the last thing they need. She doesn't want to leave this girl like this, but she also doesn't want them all to get caught for breaking and entering.

She also wants a shower...]

[nosdacariad]

Maybe we can avoid that... [ he clears his throat ] I'm, uh, sorry about your friend, [ he looks at her name tag ] Penny.

[ penny spins around to finally really look at the lot of them and shakes her head, absently correcting him. ] Boss. He was my boss. I'm... I'm just an intern here.

[watcherjunior]

Sorry about your boss, then. [ She tries to sound as sincere as possible. Her mind is running along the same track as Elena -- getting arrested would be very very bad right now. Best way to avoid it, in Dawn's mind? Act like you belong there. ] Were you and he the only ones here?

[rationalizes]

[ the girl nods, touching a hand to her temple. "Yeah. Can I just say, this shit is not worth the college credit."

gar looks disconcertingly towards the body, then back to the girl. ] We're terribly sorry. We heard your scream, and thought-- well, I only wish we could have gotten here sooner.

[ penny shakes her head. "No, don't guilt yourselves, I would have been dead if you guys hadn't shown up. Who are you people?" ]

[notaroundme]

We were just passing by on our way home and we heard the commotion. I'm just glad we got to you in time.

[Bluff 22]