Agents of the Multiverse

Krepta eyeballed the squirming mass at her feet and tried not to wretch. She wasn’t typically squeamish, particularly considering some of the things she had been forced to call dinner on occasion, but the smell of the… whatever it was currently clogging up the branch of the river that ran through town was absolutely horrible. It lay somewhere between rotten eggs and wet dog, and for someone with a heightened sense of smell, it was… a lot to deal with, to say the least.

Krepta frowned down at the pinkish mass and jabbed at it with a stick she had fetched the treeline. The mass retracted with a wet sound, and she wrinkled her nose, then lifted her gaze to follow the path of the now dry riverbed that stretched away towards Sanctuary. The city needed this water clean and continuously running, not just for daily needs, but it was used to ferry goods and boats back and forth to the coast as well. With the population growing every day, neither Sanctuary or the Omphalos could risk a sudden drop in food supply.

So disgusting or not, Krepta would have to find a way to deal with it, one way or another, and preferably soon.

Krepta sighed, and her breath steamed in the cool morning air as she circled the blockage once more. It was alive, whatever it was, but she didn’t think that it was intelligent. Having come to that conclusion, she had first tried experimentally burning a piece of it, hoping that fire would help the problem. Not only had it not done that, if Krepta had thought the smell had been bad before…

“If you’ve got ideas, I’m game,” she huffed. Krepta didn’t bother turning her head to address the newcomer as the sound of approaching footsteps reached her ears. She had called for backup, a specialist, anything, so she was expecting company anyway. And if it wasn’t one of the Omphalos’s agents, then her guest had better be someone ready to make themselves useful, she thought.

She brushed her hands across her jeans, clearing her palms of debris from the stick, and looked back over the fleshy pink dam to the clear, cool water behind it. The water wasn’t pooling, she noticed, which was interesting.

“Whatever this thing is, it’s thirsty…” she muttered darkly. “And I think it’s growing. Which… isn’t great. Maybe it’s a mutant? We did just have a storm a few days ago. Or I guess it could have slipped through a Rift somewhere. I guess it doesn’t really matter. I just need the damn thing gone. I hope to god there’s not more of them.”

It was considerably difficult to clean one's carcasses without running water. Or at least, that's how Yanfeng felt. He stepped down the incline towards the river at an impatient pace, having left his previous tasks behind. He was not so much miffed as he was worried about what a lack of flowing water could mean for residents of Sanctuary.

Investigation not only led him to Krepta, but the cause of the water depletion. The first thing to hit him was the smell; although he was used to the putrid stench of ectoplasm on many creatures, he stomach lurched nonetheless. Aside from his jaw clamping against the motion his throat wanted to make, he didn't react outwardly. Aside from a concerned scowl, of course.

"So, it likes water. . ." His Shanghainese came through the 'teller' strapped to his ear, translating both ways easily.

He raised a hand to scratch behind a pierced ear. Perhaps he could apply some things he'd learned about chemistry to this situation.

"Maybe there's some rule about osmosis to this creature? The more salt something is exposed to, the harder time it has absorbing water." He raised a hand upwards, gesturing as he spoke. "Like plants, right? If they're put in more salt than their body contains, they might even expel the water."

"Uh--" Krepta half turned, glancing back Yanfeng with a somewhat embarrassingly blank look on her face. It seemed her trainee would be teaching just as much as he would be learning. A good deal of what he had just said had gone straight over Krepta's head. Her own understanding of the world had been gathered in bits and pieces through experience-- which didn't mean she was stupid-- far from it, but...

Well, her more... science oriented education had ended somewhere just around the ninth grade. In the 90s. She could tell you how to track, hunt, and gut a stag, then tan its hide, or what Latin phrases usually meant that something was very, very cursed, or how to properly haggle in the market place, but things like osmosis were a little past her particular wheelhouse.

"You know what? Sure," she said, uttering a huff of a laugh and shaking her head. Krepta stepped back to eye both agent and the slime mass still blocking the river. It was massive compared to the two agents, and the smell alone was daunting. Any solution at this point was a good place to start, and Krepta wasn't too proud to learn new things. Frankly she didn't have a better idea. "Couldn't hurt to try. No shortage of salt either," she added, looking out towards the thin, blue-grey line of the sea in the distance. "Let's see if we can't grab a sledge and haul some of it up from one of the store houses. Nice thinking outside of the box, by the way."

She did grimace a little though, giving the pulsing ooze one last once over before turning away. "Let's hope it works. I'm not looking forward to having to try and hack that stuff out. I'm not even sure if it's alive or not," she told him, already heading over the muddy ground towards town. "How're you settling in anyway, Yanfeng?" she added conversationally. "I know you and yours had a rough go of it getting here. Got everything you need?"

To be fair, Yanfeng didn't expect Krepta to agree so quickly to his idea. He was still learning what kind of person Krepta shaped up to be, though nothing so far gave him the idea that she would be difficult to give ideas. Thus, when she stood and started for the supply buildings, he held a subtle sense of satisfaction upon the way he carried himself. It wasn't exactly pride, but contentment that perhaps this was the solution they were looking for. Then again, he was - almost - always open to being wrong.

"I took a passing interest in chemistry when I was in college," Yanfeng noted, of his explanation. "There's something about science that is always said: that good science is always based on the idea that our assumptions could be wrong. Or, at least, they could be more accurate. Guildmaster Hunt taught me that it's an important concept to apply to the field, too."

Briefly, his gaze trailed aside to the slime-entity.

"I hope it is correct here, too."

He followed to be at Krepta's side once she passed him, the gear he wore making soft clattering noises. He carried on him his hunting spear rather than his gou lian dao,though he was hoping he didn't have to use either. In part because the creature or mass or whatever it was didn't seem aggressive, but mostly because it'd probably be counterproductive. He knew how to fight beings or objects that weren't even alive, but it was a matter of large matter of 'how.' Would the head of his polearm get absorbed? He'd rather than happened to his hunting gear than his weapon. It was hard to find an artisan who specialized in Chinese polearms that were durable against monsters in The Line Between as it was.

For some reason, Yanfeng was unprepared for Krepta's question.

"Well, I mean. . ." He was quiet for a brief few seconds, but he recovered quickly. "I think I have everything I need, yeah. I think-"

He stopped himself for there.

"Well, I'm doing fine," he continued, on a different note than the one he was going to. "Aside from, you know, wishing I could pick the last things I said to people before stuff like the Corruption happened. But I think everyone feels that way when they're separated from their people unexpectedly. Life's just unfair like that."

He canted his head to the side briefly with a lopsided frown. Perhaps it was a half-shrug. Just something he wanted to seem nonchalant about. In an odd way, he seemed used to this prospect.

"I have a support circle, so it's the best I can ask for. I appreciate what everyone's doing for me. Us, actually. I hope I can repay that in good time."

Krepta cracked a small smile as they walked over the muddy ground. He was a serious sort of fellow, wasn't he? She bet he was the type to fold his socks by color.

"Sounds like a good policy to me," Krepta answered, holding back a small chuckle.

Thankfully they weren't too far from one of the warehouses on the outer reaches of Sanctuary's perimeter, where they stored the salt they hauled up from the seawater evaporation ponds near the shore, at least until it could be processed and parceled it out. She listened to him talk as they circled the building, absorbing both what was said and what wasn't. A lot of people took Krepta's skills of observation for granted. With all of those scars and old battle wounds, she looked more brawn than brains sometimes, and she let people believe that of her, because it served her purposes more often than not, but she had a fairly good intuition about people most of the time.

"Stiff upper lip, huh?" Krepta asked, indirectly challenging Yanfeng's declaration of 'fine'. "I hope you'll have a better bedside manner with the refugees than you do yourself. But I guess they should all suck it up too."

There, let him dwell on that thought for a while. Krepta understood wanting to move on and stay strong-- she had a bad habit of it herself-- which is why she knew how dangerous that kind of attitude could be if left unchecked. Not dealing with your emotions after something crazy like losing your entire world and then pretending everything was fine was a recipe for a breakdown. Things didn't exactly get easier from here either. If Yanfeng stayed with the AotM, then eventually there would be losses. It was inevitable, and if he refused to process those to...

"Grab those baskets over there, will ya?" She said. She nodded to a pair of large wide mouthed baskets resting just inside the doors to the worn old wooden building. They were tied on either side of a long, flexible looking pole, meant to be carried across one's shoulders, and they still had a healthy amount of salt resting in them. "You think that'll be enough, Mr. Science Guy?" she asked.

Krepta's retort put Yanfeng's jump straight to acceptance without processing other forms of grief on display. As indicated by the way his face turned downwards and his brows furrowed, he did not like that very much. Still, it felt inappropriate to bark back. Roy would probably say the same thing as Krepta. Would he leave one of his best friends in the dust?

Unfortunately for Krepta, Yanfeng had a distorted sense of how support worked. He wouldn't break - or so he thought - but he wouldn't allow himself to bend either. He'd even seen Connor grieve, perhaps without tears, but there was some layer of discomfort to that. It wasn't that others around him couldn't struggle. It was rather his inherent need to be the one for people to lean on. But perhaps it was just a want. Not that Yanfeng could tell.

All of his friends were crumbling. That hurt just as bad a the loss. He couldn't erase the sight of one of his friends' tear-stained face out of his head. Her emotions had run strong and hot, like she had an old scar reopened. He hadn't even seen her like that before and it ate up every piece of him.

Yanfeng stopped in his tracks within the storehouse, staring down the salt baskets. His expression had relaxed now, but he himself had not. His feet were planted in the ground, feeling heavy to the point he felt like he could take root there.

"That's not- . . ." He either couldn't or decided not to defend himself. ". . . No. I get what you mean."

Finding footing outside of his spot, Yanfeng lumbered over to the pole to pick it up. Somehow, the weight in his shoulders felt like it was already there. She was right. Not only that, but in a way, the Guildmaster had chided him for the same thing, too.

"I had a teammate suggest I go to a counselor," he admitted. He would have held no pride in it if she hadn't said she'd done it before. "I guess I'm just not. . . ready."

The last word was spoken with uncertainty.

He glanced sideways to each baskets at his sides, where he saw the salt was piled, but not to the point of spilling. This had to be more than what was in the ooze's body.

"Yeah. . . I think this is good. Maybe it'll work like salt on a snail."

Uh-huh. There it was.

Krepta let Yanfeng have his peace for a moment as they worked. To his credit he hadn't gotten angry at her words-- not outwardly at least. Most people couldn't handle the truth being thrown in their face like that. It hurt too much, and Krepta was a hammer, not a scalpel. She was well aware of that fact. She also knew that sometimes you just needed to lick your wounds a little in private, so she left him to it as she gathered up a set of her own baskets. He'd talk when and if he wanted to.

And eventually he did.

Krepta's tone was gentler when she responded again, the side long glance she cast him a sympathetic one.

"Hey, I get it, trust me," she said softly. "You think this grizzled mug hasn't seen its fair share of tragedies? I'm the worst hypocrite you'll ever meet when it comes to this stuff, but--- take it from someone who's trying to learn to do better. Go when you're ready, but go, okay? It won't make what you're carrying any lighter--" Krepta paused to heft the pole bearing the salt baskets across her shoulders, then stood with a grunt before continuing.

"--But it'll help teach you how to get strong enough, so that maybe one day, it won't feel quite so heavy."

Leaving the matter at that, Krepta walked back out of the warehouse, lingering just outside of it to squint upwards towards the sun. How long had she been out here today already? It had to be getting close to lunch time. Krepta's stomach agreed noisily, but she shrugged it off and started back in the direction of the river. Food would just have to wait.

"You know, I almost feel bad for the poor bastard," she said, nodding to the slime as they approached. "I can never tell what's sentient and what's not out here sometimes, or exactly what feels pain... I hope it'll be quick. Death by salt seems like a shitty way to go, but it's the city or Sticky McGrabby over here, and it picked the wrong river to block, I guess. You ready in case it decides to fight back?" she asked, glancing back at Yanfeng.

Maybe that was the problem, in and of itself. Yanfeng thought he had the strength to deal with loss, but not of a number so great. Not of literally everyone he knew, including the rest of his Guild. Not of people he left on ambiguous terms with.

"Okay." He relented, but it was spoken softly and with distance. The reflection that should appear in his voice might not have been there. "I'll do it soon, but I'll try to do it when it. . . feels right, I guess."

'Soon' was ambiguous enough to allow for stalling. To Yanfeng, 'soon' usually meant 'right now.' But currently, it didn't mean such a thing. The time that flew in Sanctuary and the Omphalos both seemed slower. Days dragged on. A week felt like a really long time right about now. Was it because of the loss? Or a genuine difference in world timezones? He wasn't exactly sure. Though, it was evident enough that he wanted to speak about something, if not his own feelings.

Still, the worst part of it all was that Yanfeng would likely never feel right about it. He had people to look after himself. However, there was a difference in that as well now. He had other people who could help him, and not just Guild officials. Maybe that meant he could consider help. Even the Guild felt lonely by itself, but now there were whole multiverses of people looking out for one another. At least the people here didn't treat the Exorcists' Guild like an antagonist or something impure.

Desiring to conclude on that aspect - or perhaps to just leave that within his own thoughts for now - Yanfeng glanced briefly in Krepta's direction to speak, but didn't meet her eyes.

"Thank you," he said, sounding genuine in spite of it all.

Then, the slime that was blocking the river came into view. Yanfeng's expression hardened, but somehow still became one of pity. He lowered himself once they'd reached their destination to drop off the pole, leaving room so that he could grab a bucket of salt when required.

"I am," he confirmed, sounding ready to add a 'but' to that. "I think it's hard to tell if it's even truly alive, sentient or not. But living or construct, I. . . also feel it's hard to destroy something that might be, you know. Just trying to survive."

A sigh escaped him.

"But I'm prepared if the salt doesn't work."

Part of him deeply wished there would have been a quicker way than salt, but this didn't seem like the kind of creature that would go quickly in any case. Likely not without getting a lot of stuff everywhere.

Krepta grunted. She had learned in her travels that 'alive' was a fairly broad spectrum, and that appearances could be deceiving. But the people in the city that the slime was starving of water were also alive, and they had been there first. Krepta liked to think she wasn't cruel, but she was pragmatic when the situation called for it.

"Well, guess it should have thought about that before it decided to suck up the entire water supply," she sighed, crossing over to stand by the pulsating mass. God, it still stank. Hopefully it wouldn't smell even worse when it 'died'. She lingered there for a moment, frowning down over her victim as if uncertain, then took the plunge and tipped the salty contents of one of the baskets directly into the side of the goop.

At first nothing happened. Frowning a bit, Krepta shifted her weight and began to pour the contents of her second basket into it too, but she hadn't gotten halfway done when the thing just sort of... shivered all over, then began to pulse.

Krepta frowned, backing away some, her expression wary. Was... was it starting to grow?!

"...Yanfeng," she said, her tone a warning.

"Shit-"

With the pole carrying the salt on the ground, Yanfeng reached behind himself to swing his hunting spear into action. Not that it would do much, given that the blob was already so large and getting larger. He didn't have much of a proper weapon, but he could still use the Arts. Although, did this thing burn? He couldn't recall if Krepta had mentioned trying to burn it before. Probably not a good idea- if anything, he didn't want to make things worse in the case that fire didn't help either, especially for a sludge-like being already filled with water. He was proactive, but he was stuck with what angle to take with this.

Might as well default to a raw destructive force. The Dark Arts, a negatively-charged magic of a Primordial Element, swallowed up almost anything. Still, he had no access to the plane that most Dreamers called 'the Void' and what ghosts called 'the Weeping Dark.' He couldn't make it disappear, perhaps he could try to carve off chunks somehow.

Unfortunately, Yanfeng did not have a carving weapon, and he was wary of the idea that it would only create more slimes. He'd have to take the risk and, perhaps literally, the plunge. Conjured out of thin air, a black hand of the Mars Celestial was summoned, a little over one-hundred centimeters from fingertip to wrist, the latter of which was cut off by a circle of runes and the emblem of the planet in the middle. The hand trailed smoke as it dove into the slime; if it didn't manage to crush it or rend it, it would try to press it down.

While trying to keep the slime controlled, Yanfeng stood adjacent to Krepta. He still gripped his spear in one hand, the other extended to command the Martian Limb. The Dark Arts could push things away if it didn't destroy them, so at least he could be somewhat confident his spear wouldn't get stuck if it needed it, flimsy as it was.

But maybe he was wrong to try and apply science to a creature that might have been governed by different rules. Even the Arts had some method of how their own reality worked around them. Wind fed fire, so it was commanded by the Wind Arts. But some things also had little explanation to them. Electricity was apparently a positive-enough force to be commanded under the Light Arts.

No sense in feeling regret now. The only things left to do were to think fast and act fast.

Yeesh, that was a big hand, Krepta thought, stepping back a bit. Yanfeng seemed to have everything under control at least, as much as either of them did, and the walker found herself grateful that this particular trainee had a good head on his shoulders. Maybe in the greater scope of things, he'd be alright. The AotM could certainly use more people like him. Half the time she felt more like she was babysitting than running an agency meant to be--

The massive slime pulsed, drawing her out of her thoughts. It pulsed again, and Krepta frowned, a tickle of trepidation running cold fingers up and down her spine as abruptly the previously translucent, hamburger pink surface of the mess became opaque, clouding over starting from its core. It seemed to be responding to the sudden application of pressure, but not how either of them had expected. Krepta eyes widened slightly as she saw it pulse once more, then shudder all over. It was going to--

"Oh shit!"

She tried to dive, to tackle Yanfeng out of the way in time, but it was too late. With a sound like a wet paper sack popping, the giant slime burst, and a blast of foul smelling goop poured over them in a sickening tidal wave. Krepta pulled her arms over her face, trying to keep the worst of it from getting into her eyes and mouth.

It was over in moments, leaving them both dripping and smelling like overripe fish. Krepta stood there stunned for a moment, trying not to wretch. Then she shook off her sleeves, or attempted to, splattering more of the goop across the ground in front of her. She resolved to burn the entire outfit.

"Nice."

Something in the center of the shallow, gloppy crater where the slime had been caught her attention though. The water was rushing onward again towards town, sloshing into the hole and washing away the remnants of the slime-- she'd have to remember to warn everyone not to drink or bathe in the stuff for a few hours after this. There was something up on one of the rocks though. She squinted at it.

It looked like a cocoon, of sorts, pink and mottled green and slightly translucent, about the size of a dog. Krepta could see something moving restlessly within, just the shadow of wings fluttering. She glanced at Yanfeng.

"You think it's dangerous?" she asked.

Whatever Yanfeng was expecting to happen, for some reason, it wasn't that. The fingers of the Martian Limb simply curled, unwavering despite the blast of gunk that assaulted both himself and Krepta. He cringed with his spear close to his body, both upon seeing Krepta prepare to lunge towards him and the explosion that inevitably followed. He wanted to gasp, but opening his mouth as foul-smelling slime rained in upon them didn't seem like a good idea. Feeling it stick to his bangs and having been smeared across his face, he spat what dirtied his lips onto the ground as he held the spear upright, though he didn't need it for support. Swiftly, the hand was dispelled, fading into nothing more than black and violet fog.

Recovering quickly, his gaze trailed forward at Krepta's question, spotting what could only be considered as some kind of chrysalis. He squinted, lips thinning slightly. Both hands were wrapped around his spear's shaft, but he made no motion to take a defensive stance. Not unless he needed to.

"Depends," came his answer. "If it created the slime or was simply swallowed up by it. It might be possible to contain it until it can be relocated, but I've got to admit, I'm not thrilled about the idea of keeping it. We won't know what happens when that thing hatches, or even beforehand."

It seemed he was even less enthusiastic about killing it, given he hadn't brought up that option. Regardless, it still hung in the air, ever present.

"We'd keep it away from water and with salt around, that's for sure. But I think it's your call on what we do with it. That's just my suggestion."

Krepta grunted. For once in her life, she'd like not to be the one who had to make the big decisions-- but he was right, of course. She was the higher ranking agent here and the one with more experience on the subject of anomalies and all that. For a moment she considered just squashing the thing and being done with it, but that seemed cruel somehow. It was just a bug-- probably, maybe-- but it hadn't asked to be brought here any more than anyone else had. It felt wrong to punish it for being in the wrong place at the wrong time when all it had really done was block the river up and slime them both.

After a moment Krepta sighed, then slowly approached the thing, stooping to pick up a stick as she did so. She hopped carefully across the rocks that weren't yet submerged to where it was resting, cautious not to slip on the remnants of the slime, and gave it an experimental poke.

The thing inside the cocoon twitched a bit, but otherwise nothing happened. Taking that as a good sign, she tried with just the tip of her pinky finger next. When nothing more exploded, and she wasn't instantly burned or electrocuted or bitten, the scarred Walker huffed a sigh and took off her jacket. It was ruined anyhow, she figured. Carefully, Krepta nudged the whole mess onto it, then wrapped it up. It seemed safer to transport that way, and she wasn't keen on pushing her luck with bare skin, even if the brief contact she had attempted already had seemed safe enough.

Hopping back across to where Yanfeng was, she offered up the bundle, quirking a brow with a slightly wry smile.

"We'll let the science team figure it out," she said. "Seeing as it was you that got us slimed though, you can go ahead and bring it to 'em."

It was bigger than Yanfeng had anticipated when it was brought forward to him. He latched his spear onto his back, but raised his hands almost defensively when the cocoon was presented to him. Krepta's reasoning was somewhat fair, he supposed. It was a combination of his ideas that made it explode, even if he wasn't sure the Martian Limb entirely did anything. Either way, he awkwardly extended his arms to take the swaddled cocoon as though he was being passed a very large baby.

"So, it'll be kept in the lab?" His question came out more like a statement. He figured somewhere more well-guarded than the Stables would suffice. "It may or may not be sapient. Do you think I should help in its examination since zoology is my specialty? I mean-"

His gaze trailed downwards to the mass in his arms, watching the silhouette of furled wings twitch. He didn't sound exactly excited about the prospect. He seemed to be looking at it with a more critical lens, but the prospect that it could be a newly discovered beast - to them - was still interesting to him. Even if it was potentially a parasite.

"At least to help fill in the details. The better we understand it, the better we can stop this from happening again. Though, I don't want to step on any toes. I guess it's probably best to ask the head of the facility, yeah?"

"That," Krepta sighed, wiping her hands off on the sides of her pants (not that it did her much good), "Is between you and the science team," she confirmed.

Personally, outside of hunting, Krepta didn't like to kill things that weren't causing active harm. The worst the little grub had been was an annoyance so far. A really, really gross annoyance, but still. There was always the possibility that it could turn aggressive, particularly when it finally hatched, but what kind of people would they be if they ran around killing things on possibilities alone? The science team could handle it whatever it was, she was confident, and if it turned out to be trouble... well, they'd handle that too.

Maybe it would wind up being useful somehow.

Either way, Krepta was very much done with the whole affair. She wanted a bath, and then when she was done with that, she wanted another bath.

Besides, Yanfeng seemed to like bugs. As much as he was doing the whole nervous-babbling thing, she sensed some excitement there too. It'd be good for him to work a little more closely with some of the more established folks in the labs. Krepta had a feeling he'd fit in well there, and frankly he could use the socialization.

"I'm sure they'll welcome the help," she assured him, gentling her tone a little. "In the meantime, I'm going to go wash this slime off before I wind up smelling like it forever," she added, then she turned and walked away stiffly across the field towards town. She left Yanfeng and the bug to their own devices, trusting that he could find his way back to the Gate easily enough, and hopefully a shower of his own too...

(( Thanks for the game! This seems like a good place to wrap things up. ))