2020.05.13 Floyd-Vignette The Forge

Setting

Fenced Ruin - Workshop(#19489RaU)

        Beyond the doors you find youself in what must have been the kitchens. It is larger than average, suggesting the house had a touch of wealth to it. The opposing wall runs a countertop from one end to another. Apart from these observances the kitchen is gutted. Where a sink might have been, a touch out of place given the style and decor of the house, is now just an empty hole. The same occurs to an area in the far corner of the kitchen: A rusted square outline of what was obviously a refrigerator save there is no appliance anymore. Pipes stick out of the walls and loose wiring sticking out where the sink used to be.
Rust spots, outlines of old appliances and furnishings all linger here but nothing left remains.
A door to the far right leads into a walk-in pantry. Near where the refrigerator used to be is a dumbwaiter.

****************************** Shadowlands ***********************************

This area has been reinforced and refurnished to serve the needs of one of the Artificers. Relic scrap metal has been used as rebar to reinforce the walls, the doors and the structure of the room. On the floor is the deathstain of bloodtrails that go from the rusted square floor in the center of the room toward the pantry with blood splatter on the walls and countertop that can never be removed. Where the sink used to be, gutted out and now a hole in the middle of the counter, is a dark metal cylinder that reminds one of an old wood-burning stove with a long table that ends in the middle of the room connected to it. The top is covered by a lid made of the same material that can be raised and lowered using a nearby handcrank. Rusty nails are driven into the wall and hang all manner of craftsman tools, all relics: pliers, clamps and small knives to name a few. There are several molds placed on the countertop of varying shapes and sizes.
The pantry has no floor here, instead a green-carbonated submarine hatch has been bolted to the floor. Opening leads to a staircase that descends under the house.

                           - - +views present - -                            

******************************************************************************

Obvious Exits:
 Main Room <MR>  

Scene

The workshop is quiet, save for the chained wraith on the forge-mount. It grasps and writhes, both pleading and hissing. "Release me! I'm not a Spectre, I swear!" The ghost pulls at it's links, teeth gritting so hard a Quick would be cracking them. "Please! Let me go!"

Floyd is next to the forge, putting on a relic welding mask and apron. "Says you. Why else would you be running around with two shades who up and abandoned you, AFTER you tried to jump me running away to their little Nihil?" He sets his hammer on the counter top and pulls a necklace from his neck over his head. He hangs it on a peg near the forge - a piece of reedtwine, with a coin glittering in the flamelight. He approaches the wraith and leans down and stares him in the eyes. "Go on. Try. I know how to find you lot."

The spectre tries, desperately, to jerk it's head toward Floyd with eyes glittering with dark malice. "What do you think you're gonna do? What do you think ANY of you can do? We run this place! We run this city! We run this whole fucking Necropolis! Stygia is dead! Charon is dead! Your stupid little overlords? Dead!" He spits. "I know what you want! I know what you want more than you do!" He sneers, dark eyes glittering. "Come with us! Leave Prospect. Ignore your orders! Fuck these people! They'll just ditch you again! Burn you like they do all the otehrs. It's what they do! Not us. Not Oblivion." He smiles, almost ecstatic.

<THE SHADOW> "Don't listen to him! He's just trying to control you! Like all the others! Not here...not here. WE run this place. Show him! Show him who has the power here!"

Floyd flicks his helmet down and stands up, turning to the handcrank on the wall and cranking it. The creaking sound of metal on metal grates across the workshop as the lid covering the soulfire crystals lifts, exposing black whisps of soulfire that raises the temperature of the underworld several degrees to the point that even Floyd feels the heat, just standing next to it. "Like the Big O is any better than everyone else." He takes his tongs and prepares his quarry, the Doppleganger getting slid next to the heat of the forge. "At least Stygia had pension. The Big O just has monsters."

The Doppleganger's attitude immediately changes after the jerking sensation and getting pressed next to the crystals. "WAIT! Wait! What do you want, huh?" He jerks and rattles in his restraints. "WHAT DO YOU WANT? I can give you anything. /We/ can give you anything. You want prestige? Passion, emotion, grandeur? We can give it to you. Just.. Just let me go! I will give you whatever you want!"

<THE SHADOW> "Tell him what we want Trevor. Tell him what he will be for us. Tell him what our power lets us make him." The Shadow practically shudders in anticipation.

Floyd clips the tongs together and uses them to grasp the Doppleganger's head like a vice. He opens the vent to the forge and slides the Doppleganger's head under the soulfire crystals. The Doppleganger SCREAMS, a high-pitched tenor of pain that reverberates across it's corpus. Floyd too is feeling the heat so close to the forge, his own corpus going from it's sickening blue pale hue to a slowly glowing red-orange. "I want chainmail." He pokes inside the forge with his tongs, and after a few minutes slides the slab out. The Doppleganger's head is molten, eyes bubbling and draining as it's face is melted away into raw corpus. Sliding the slab into place, and locking it overtop of his anvil, he takes up his hammer and with gritted teeth brings the hammer down on the molten corpus. The strike makes the Doppleganger, gurgling, spasm sharply on the slab as he begins the process of molding it to his design. The Shadow cackling all the while. Both of them under that welder's mask, are smiling.

<---======##====================[ Dark Passion ]=====================##======--->
Floyd rolls 3  (3 dice) vs 6 for 0 successes.
1 5 7
<-------------=============++++++++++++++++++++++++=============------------->