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 Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 8:37 am
Harrison waited for Rep back at the Lighthouse. It was a miracle there wasn't a groove in the railings from where he'd been leaning against them the past three days.
While he waited, he and B0nez examined the silver spyglass they'd picked up from the inside of the volcano. He collapsed and reopened it. The overall body of the thing looked sorta like a fish.
He should have gone for something gold, but none of the items he saw were as decked out in jewels as he would have liked. He thumbed at the etchings on the side. He wasn't going to let it go for under 50k, he promised himself.
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Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 8:57 am
Rep's cloak was still slightly smoking as he portalled back to the lighthouse, treasure firmly gripped in his hand. "I ******** did it!" He held up the tiny vial. It was small but even in the lighthouse's shabby lightning it sparkled like the sun caught on the ocean's surface.
"You weren't ******** kidding about it being a volcano. I'm ******** lucky my shoes didn't melt." He did a pirouette of sorts, just to make sure he wasn't on fire before wandering over to Harrison. "I just grabbed what I could and ran for it."
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Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 9:26 am
Harrison grinned big at the news, coming over to see what Rep had got.
"Haha. Not the first time you been hot. ...Is it a diamond?" he asked. If so, it was a huge hunk of rock- and glittered more than anything he'd ever seen.
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Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 9:31 am
Rep finally got a chance to look at what he was holding. "I dunno man. It like." He flicked it with a finger, it didn't sound like it was solid. "I don't know, maybe its a diamond." He held it up and peered into it, there was fluid contained within it. "I think its got stuff in it. Like a little bottle."
He was impressed with the intricate designs etched impossibly small into the surface. "It looks ******** expensive."
And yet despite it all, he was suddenly very loathe to have it valued.
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Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 9:56 am
"Bet that stuff inside's real expensive." Harrison collapsed the spyglass again.
"They're supposed to have magic powers, right? And you said these'd be like, in different classes." He felt a certain reluctance creep over how pleased he was. "Guess we better check with Life. In case they're radioactive or got a soul-sucking curse put on 'em."
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Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 10:03 am
"Aye we should." He eyed the vial again. "But like, we should maybe like, make sure we get them back. I mean, we want to hand them over on our own terms right?" He closed his hand on it possessively. "I don't trust techs much."
He frowned. "Besides. If they have like. Magic powers and s**t. Aren't we entitled to those? I mean we are the ones who fought our way through like, knee deep monsters and mazes and s**t."
It was like he was trying to convince himself at the same time. "Can't see why we wouldn't be."
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Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 10:19 am
"Papertrail's the only way to keep track of things around here. We'll get a receipt."
It wasn't very crafty, but it wasn't like Harrison had any weight to throw around-
"Guess if there are any problems, Clarice wouldn't let them steal our s**t. Uh. Probably." If she wasn't still mad about the office. He looked down at the spyglass, flustered. "Or maybe Sunny'd let them have an earful." Or let him have an earful for adventuring when he was supposed to be watching the training fields.
"We just gotta take our chances," Harrison said, finally.
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Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 10:24 am
"And Dwight. Who ******** loves me, and would probably be only too happy to lose some important documents that end up with me getting no credit and no item." Sometimes making enemies everywhere was kind of inconvenient. "You should, or we should, go speak to Clarice sometime. Maybe figure out if she is actually like, pissed off about the office."
He shrugged. "But aye I think we are stuck just chancing it. As long as we don't mention how like, hard they were to come by or how valuable they might be, we might slide under the radar. I've not heard many other people like, looking for the artifacts and s**t yet."
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Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 11:47 am
"Yeah. I oughta," Harrison acknowledged, pocketing the item protectively.
"Just so long as they don't like...melt it down or some s**t. They said they got archives for them, but I dunno what good it is to take a bunch of notes if they don't ever get used. I'm not gonna take...less than 100k for it. I mean, it's probably the only one, and like you said it was protected by a maze and a ******** volcano."
Maybe 150k.
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Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 11:53 am
"I dunno if I want money for it. I kind of just want to keep it. I'm not Life but I dunno, maybe I can study it myself. Like document the s**t it does myself." There was something about the little vial that just begged to be protected from everyone else. Something precious about it.
"Cause yeah, like you say, one of a kind. I mean, I doubt the titans are coming back any time soon so they won't be making more s**t or leaving it around."
He rolled the vial in his fingers.
"Priceless."
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Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 2:27 pm
"I wouldn't drink it until you know what what it does, anyhow," Harrison said.
He smiled wryly, "And, uh. I had a good time. Maybe soon they'll start letting us out for an actual vacation." He started down the long flight of lighthouse stairs towards the labs.
He'd been recharging his Runic Bandaids there, but this time they were coming back with something substantial. He wasn't sure exactly who they should talk to, so he stopped at the desk, trying to look casual.
"We got a couple of Artifacts," he said.
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Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 5:53 pm
Drinking the vial hadn't even occurred to Rep until Harrison mentioned it, once he did however it became absolutely all that he could think about, eyeing the liquid inside intently, slowly rotating it and watching the contents slosh around merrily. The only thing that broke his intent fixation on it was the comment before he left, looking up at Harrison with a brief but genuine smile. "I had fun too." It had been hard work, but the difficulty of the task hadn't mattered, only the company throughout.
He followed down the stairs, returning his attention to the vial once again. He hoped it wasn't some sort of dud, just a vial of ceremonial water or something else that proved ultimately of no value. Even if it was worthless to the facility, he found himself wanting to keep it anyway, it was pretty, tiny and intricate, a work of craftsmanship far out of the reach of his clumsy hands.
Hovering behind Harrison with a nod was almost second nature to Rep sometimes and he did it almost without thinking. What he said.
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Posted: Fri Nov 09, 2012 9:16 am
"Floor above us. Department A," the tech told them, not looking up from her keyboard.
"...Got it," Harrison said. Most of the life labs looked the same, almost bland right up until and experiment went wrong and flaming volunteer test subjects came barreling down the hallway.
If it weren't for the signs, Harrison wouldn't even know they changed floors. He repeated the statement for the next tech, "We got a couple of artifacts?" and he seemed only marginally more interested.
"Oh, sure," he said, "Lemme scan them."
Harrison gave Rep a look, then fished out the spyglass, putting it on the desk.
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Posted: Fri Nov 09, 2012 9:29 am
Rep hated the life labs. It was out of his element, lined with PCs he had no access to, teasing him forever with their interesting looking programs, even the experiments looked deceptively fun, for all their burning mayhem. Maybe one day he would stop being so tempted by it all, and then he could let the hatred for the place subside.
As the tech requested the items, he offered his own grudgingly.
It didn't take long for the guy to scan them up into the system. Rep could only look a little more dismal as the guy's eyes lit up, it never boded well when a tech looked pleased with anything. "Oh right, well. I can convert them for use. Make them runics. That's what you want, right?" It was Rep's turn to light up at the prospect. They got to keep them?
"But it'll cost you. Depending on what you had in mind?" Rep blanked for a few moments, eyeing the thing. It would..maybe look pretty sweet in his ear. He shrugged. "Earring or something." The man raised a brow. "I'll do it for three hundred"
Harrison got an immediate imploring look that pleaded for a loan and said without a single word. I'm good for it you know I am.
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Posted: Fri Nov 09, 2012 10:15 am
Unlike Rep, Harrison didn't incur any damage costs from wrecking property. He did odd jobs for earning, and squirreled away his paycheck, eating at the cafeteria instead of using the vending machines, wearing standard issue clothes supplied by the facility when there was any possibility of damaging them. He didn't drink coffee, used cheap shampoo, and didn't own any luxury items except a 20 dollar earring and his baseball glove. He lived cheaply.
He'd also got a hefty chunk of money from the near-30 minipets he'd rounded up at the festival. He had goals, and the nest egg he'd saved up so far wasn't near enough to cover them.
Parting with any amount of money was physically painful.
At the look from Rep, he got out his wallet, giving the tech a pointed scowl.
"I'll cover both of them." He eyed the spyglass. "Binoculars," he decided.
"No problem," he said, "we've got this box of Fisher Price -"
"Military grade," Harrison said flatly, leafing through bills. The idea of somebody melting it down and shoving the lens into a hunk of plastic grated on him. On the way over he had upped the price- 500k, 1M, 2M, but no matter how far up he went, nothing seemed like the right price to give up the item he'd rescued from thousands of lonely, abandoned years underground. It twisted him up something awful that he was going to end up paying the organization for it, didn't seem right, but the idea of parting with the item was worse than the wrenches he felt as he pulled each hundred from his wallet. "Waterproof. Day and Night." He put the three hundred, plus an extra thousand on the table.
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