tampered | Log; Complete

Log; Complete

When; Sept. 3 (after midnight)
Rating; PG-13/R?
Characters; The Corinthian (

noh_dancer)
Summary; Just barely arrived and already The City is toying with him, until chance should dictate he cross paths with the dreaming woman.
Log;

"Come here you little beast."

The Corinthian clawed at the wall. Upon first glance it might have seemed like the man was insane, scraping his nails across concrete out of anger, or maybe he was trying to brush some pesky illusions away. A closer inspection would reveal he was attacking one smaller but far quicker than he. Whatever it was it darted low and left, narrowly escaping the nightmare's clutches.

"I promise it won't hurt," he hissed at his prey. Even sightless he managed to deftly maneuver the butterfly knife.

The mongrel backed against a dumpster, its shaggy tail tucked under itself. It whimpered at the would be dog catcher but the blond heard no heart wrenching canine plea for its life, all he heard was the animal giving away its position. He slashed at the metal side, causing the dog to scramble between the heavy wheels. The Corinthian quickly brought his heavy boot down on a grey tail before it could escape. The dog yelped sharply.

"Gotcha!!"

Not but moments later The Corinthian reemerged with a pair of sticky spheres in his hand, his clothing remained virtually bloodless. He pocketed his knife then removed his glasses. This was something he swore to seldom do, but this situation called for desperate measures. He pulled the red strings of meat aside and fit both brown eyes into his little mouths. His tongues rolled them into place as his teeth preciously prepared them for consumption. He stopped their gnashing edges before they could break the soft white layer. It hurt but it would do.

The nightmare looked through them, his eyes.

"........ .... Motherfucker."

It was like looking through the 1939 Du Mont in Lucien's library.

Whoever had done this to him would pay dearly. No good deed, prank or not, goes unrewarded after all. He propped his sunglasses back on and stalked out of the service street.

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Scarab sighed in frustration and looked up at the now completly unfamiliar buildings.

Well Shit.

At first she had elected to stay in Frederick's apartement, and ride out the curse day in relative safety, but after about an hour of rising tension, and no ability to communicate to figure out what was wrong, she had packed a notebook, pens, and her laptop and taken off.

She had started off with the intention to head to the library to do a little research on the Pyramid Head to see if it was a native to the city or from a nother world altogether, and maybe, if she got lucky, to find out possible weaknesses.

Predictably she couldn't keep focused on simply arriving at the library when thoughts of Frederick, and the possibility of running into old pointy head kept crowding in.
She was already nervous, and had armed herself to the best of her ability:
Bowie knife tucked into her sturdy new boots, a honyaki in the waistband at the small of her back, and the needles that did double duty as hair ornaments, and hidden weapons.
Granted, a high powered rifle hadn't even slowed the thing down on thier last encounter, but it was comforting to be at least somewhat armed.

Now, here she was wandering the streets alone and completly lost.

Brilliant..might as well put a big sign on your back that says "jump me".

Pausing agian on a street corner she shifted her bag around, took a deep breath, and tried to clear her mind of everything but getting to the library.

If thoughts were the guiding light in this city then The Corinthian would be wandering for a little more than a while, with that ticking between his temples. Every movement of the clock signaled a pulse, a breath, he almost felt it was tied to his life and that alone disturbed him. Only the Dream King could leave him in pieces, if the white ghost fancied to do so, and he didn't believe Dan--... Dream would do that to him.

If he did inspire stories of the bogeyman like Jan said, he probably should be in more fitting attire, but The Corinthian was a dark mirror of 6ft tall with white blond hair, dressed in grey-blue jeans, a white tank top, and a leather jacket. He still looked like a ladykiller, in every deeply violent meaning of the word, but he didn't jump her. He only had the eyes of a dog, not its smell or sixth sense (though he did have a sixth sense of his own). When he turned that corner, practically walking into Scarab at a casual pace, the jolt proved to be a surprise.

"Eck," he sounded, pace interrupted. The sunglasses masking his unusual eyes, and his most recent crime, dropped off one ear which he tried to correct immediately while identifying the other person.

carab whirled, and let her bag drop while using her good hand to grasp the blade hidden under her shirt. She even got a couple inches of steel out before she realized whoever had run into her wasn't trying to mug her.

" Christ...You shouldn't sneak up on people like that."

Her eyebrows shot up at the flash of...well teeth where eyelids should have been-

... Never boring here, is it?

-and squinted up a little at the taller man.

"Alex Corinth, right?

Hey! Her speech was only a little slurred. That was something at least?

Feeling a little better about being able to talk nominally well, she bent to retrieve her fallen bag, then straightened to brush off the black vinyl of her pants.
She shouldered the bag, and straightened the oversized man's shirt so it wouldn't bunch up with the fitted matching white tank top, and first offerred her three-fingered right hand out of habit.

Wincing, she switched hastily to her undamaged left hand and gave an apologetic smirk.

((OOC: Sorry for repost ^^;; ))

It would have been a sight to see them pit blade against blade, and also an impulsive and potentially dangerous move for both. Fortunately he didn't draw his own steel, what five inches he had of it compared to her arsenal. For a brief moment he thought that he should, if only to take the eyes of a human being, but he managed to suppress these thoughts.

"Hardly trying," he said coolly. It seemed ironic that he should be accused of something he did often in the rare instance when he wasn't doing it.

Although he didn't recognize her by sight she knew his human name, that proved this wasn't a coincidence... was it?

"You must be Scarab," said The Corinthian, his voice touched by darkness like the remaining drops of bourbon at the bottom of a glass.

For a woman unfazed by teeth eyes she seemed overly concerned about her disfigured hand, he thought to himself, having recognized the missing digits. Nevertheless he accepted the gesture and gave her hand a firm shake.

((OOC: no problem, it's all good >D))

"Thats me." she affirmed after they shook.

Her speech was slightly slurred due to the curse robbing her of her sense of taste, and numbing her entire mouth to boot.

Unconsciously she shook the sleeve of her over shirt down to cover her mangled hand while giving him a once over.
The discomfort she felt at displaying her maimed hand had everything to do with the paranoia that people would see it and take it as weakness. A little silly, really, since not many would know right off that she was right handed, and had only recently lost the use of said appendage.

"Hardly trying"

Oh, it seems Corinth fancied himself a hardcase. Well, that was fine by her, and didn't change her attitude with him, but mentally made her smile. She was just as comfortable with a knife fight as a street corner conversation

What's a little bloodshed between friends, afterall?

His 'eyes' were not the wierdest, or even the most unsettling thing she had seen in this place. Not by a long shot...and if Corinth had any brains he would realize he wasn't the big fish in the pond anymore.

"Are you lost too, or just out catching the sights?". Yes the pun was probably in bad taste, but she had always been a bit too much of a smart ass for her own good.

Now that was a sense to grieve over, fortunately he hadn't lost his ability to taste, or to speak indirectly because of it. Scarab spoke well enough for his ears though, and he attributed any of her speech impediments to... her having speech impediments! It hadn't occurred to him yet that The City was playing its trick on all its denizens.

"Well met, then," he nodded and released her hand. So far it didn't seem like he was going to provoke her into open bloodletting.

The nightmare reset his glasses properly. The subtle twitch in his expression over her well-timed pun was likely visible to her too. "I'm taking the scenic route to this library, sure," stated the nightmare in a cool tone. There was no reason for him to combat such a perfect barb.

"But is it this way," he gestured in the direction in which he'd started, "or that way?" He gestured in the direction he presumed Scarab was taking with barely a hint of a smirk.

She grinned up at him for not being a sensitive boy.

The way this man carried himself, like a predatory cat, marked him out as someone like her.
A killer...and a good one.

This only reinforced her cordial demeanor. Most people took her at face value, and equated her general affability with a squeamish attitude towards bloodshed.
It made them not only underestimate her, but also see her as less of a threat.

This image was one she spent a great deal of time and effort cultivating. Once it had been difficult mimicking the emotions and reactions of women with the personalities she wished to portray, but after a while it became easier to keep up the mask, and hide her sociopathic tendancies.

" Well, the truth is we could walk for days in any direction, but as long as we aren't thinking about where we want to go, we'll never get there. "

She shrugged with a bit of resignation.

" Crazy-ass curses, shifting buildings, lots of kids with bizarre hair colors, and the end of the world. Welcome to The City"

In all his life few would ever have called him sensitive. He felt no need to practice more sensitivity than necessary, he had enough to carry on. To him Scarab didn't appear like the type to take sensitivity seriously, at least not the kind most mortals doled out like candy, eager to please rather than empathize.

On a most superficial level her vinyl pants felt like a give away. Her demeanor was too careful for it to be a fashion statement, and for the record he had no underlying motive to openly stare at their smooth surface.

"You mean if we were to keep walking we could arrive at the same place," asked The Corinthian, almost amused by the thought. On the other hand they could keep walking and never meet again, given the nature of The City. "Yeah, thanks, I've gotten my fair share of the welcome wagon," he nodded with a rub to the back of his neck.

"Are you on your way there," he presumed, considering their conversation earlier.

"Ya, I was." she replied, looking around at the unfamiliar buildings.

"And yes, we could end up in the same place, but I would rather get there than spend the day wandering around." And just asking for something to turn up and impale me agian. She mentally added.

Standing on the street corner also wasn't getting them where they needed to go, so she stepped off into the street, and started walking.

" We can try getting there together if you like?" Scarab asked, while turning to walk backwards in case Alex wanted to keep up thier meet-and-greet.

" It might help that we both want to get to the same place."

He had the same desire to not wander aimlessly, at least not here in this foreign place. Had he the ability to read thoughts he might wonder what in hell was this creature people discussed in small whispers off the corner of their lips. The beast with the pointy head, the skin flayer. Within the few hours he'd arrived here the nightmare had met a homeless derelict, a cannibal that reached his knees, and the ghost of a recently deceased college boy. When the boy resurrected himself he found his cellphone and laptop missing.

"I'm coming with you," he declared without shame, though whether he liked it or not was something else entirely. The Corinthian just nodded once to the backwards-walking woman. "Yeah, that sounds like a plan," he conceded.

"You mentioned the end of the world, tell me what's that about," requested the white-blond. He tucked his hands into his jacket pockets as they walked an invisible path to this library.

Turning back to walk correctly, she fell into step easily with him, despite his longer legs.

"Ah, the sixty-four thousand dollar question" she commented, while trying to keep the image of the library firmly at the forefront of her mind.

" Basically we are all here as emotional food for this city. I don't know if you've seen the carousel yet, but apparently it's not only the center of the city, but also the only piece of this giant machine that's visible above ground. That ticking I know you can hear is the ticking of the clock.
Actually the ones you want to ask about this stuff is a guy who wears a mask all the time. V I think he calls himself?
Anyway, he seems to be the one who knows the most about this stuff."

Shrugging agian, she continued.

" I know these curses are supposed to keep us in all kinds of different emotional states. The city likes variety in it's meals I suppose. It's why you'll hear about people being blind, or deaf, or talking funny today"
Scarab gave him a rueful look at explaining her speech impediment.

" As far as curses go, this one is pretty mild. A couple days after I got here everyone could hear the thoughts of everyone else. I've head of others that range from horrific to ridiculous, too."

He imagined a great hall with shelves that reached the high vaulted ceilings, stained glass and mosaic floors, rows of desks for dreamers to read and write their stories. He imagined the library in the Dream King's castle, the vast amount of books all tended to by one rake-thin man with glasses and pointy ears. Hopefully the fact that he'd never seen this library before wouldn't affect his vision of it and how it would materialize before them.

"I did see the carousel. So The City is a machine that feeds on emotions," the severity of the situation couldn't eclipse the irony of it. He ran his fingers through his short hair. "V," he repeated the name, committing it to memory.

"That explains it, I lost my vision earlier too, but I got it back," said The Corinthian in a matter-of-fact manner. He couldn't recall what kind of emotion the clockwork mechanism drank from that experience, aside from frustration.

"Are there people who run this place," he asked her. Any demi-gods, secret society members? Hell he thought it might have been a few trickster dieties, playing one last joke on the dreaming before the world failed to even remember their names.

Scarab turned down a side street because it felt right to do so, and usually that meant one was on the right track to where they wanted to go.

"Ya, there are 'gods'. At least thats what everyone calls them, but if you ask me they aren't gods with a capital 'G' at all.

Kaen is the one to watch out for. He says he is the embodiement of all the hate, anger, jealousy, and pain from everything living in the city. I suppose it makes a bent kind of sense..."

She thought she recognized the street they were on, but wasn't sure, and so didn't mention the change in where they were.

"Yoshito is the other end of the spectrum. He's all sparkles and rainbows, and ridiculousness. He isn't so bad I guess, but he is behind the kissing curse, and that genderswap one.
Which I am very grateful I missed out on.

There's two more that are sort of trainees to Yoshito and Kaen, but I don't know thier names. On the first day I woke up here one of what Kaen refferred to as the 'higher-ups' made an appearence and put out a kind of a survey. A friend of mine, Frederick, actually spoke to it."

Once agian she turned to the right and smiled in recognition of the little shop she and Faye had visited only a few days ago.

" I think we're getting close." She commented, and picked up the pace.

Sure enough, a tall building that more resembled a greek temple than a library came into view.

Just as advertised, it was massive, and covered in ornate statues of various sophist's, writers, and poets both old and new. Some of the statues Scarab recognized. The usual characters of Plato and Da Vinci were standing alongside Stephen Hawking. Others were completly foreign...one even had a tail.

On a whim he felt it right to turn down an upcoming side street. Their simultaneous action seemed a bit strange to The Corinthian but he took it to mean they were on the correct path. On a deeper level he thought it queer that this implied they were both on the same wavelength. Two complete strangers, though clearly she seemed to know him more than he did her.

"The Morningstar may well have sent the capital G here," he mused. Although he had no role in Lucifer's war against Hell and God he did like to keep himself up to date on such events. He even knew the last whereabouts of the laughing magician, but wouldn't seek out a Constantine's help for they always called in their favors.

"Yoshito and Kaen, those names don't sound familiar to me, but I'll keep all that in mind," The Corinthian nodded. He gave a mental shudder over that genderswap curse in particular, a spark of humanity in him.

"It looks like we've found our library."

The man observed a winged statue that stood above the height of the store, and when the library came into full view it was clear this statue was hardly the crowning achievement of the establishment. Among the sophists, scientists, and playwrights, he thought he recognized a few faces themselves, but he didn't even want to begin wondering how they came to be memorialized here. He briefly wondered if the mechanism would break down if all its captured 'souls' stopped believing in its superiority.

"What are you hoping to find here," he asked Scarab thoguhtfully, perhaps hoping to find his own goal in her answer.

She shot him a wary look out of the corner of her eye.

Morningstar?....riiigghtt

"Famialiar with many deities are we?" she asked with a sarcastic edge.

In the same breath, she lost the tone of voice. The guy had teeth for eyelids, after all. Who knows who or what he might know of.

His question made her look away as they climbed the steps.
" Have you heard of something called the Pyramid Head? Or maybe Red Pyramid?" she asked. The affability had gone out of her when talking about that thing. It was an uncomfortable subject, but it was good for her to talk about it.

((OOC: sorry! I passed out ^^;; ))

Morningstar? Right. What was special about the man who'd rebelled in Heaven and abdicated in Hell to warrant such a look? Well, The Corinthian did know better than to ask such a question, so he kept those thoughts to himself. Deities they were, gods even, some relying on mortals to give them life moreso than others. In any case, he gave Scarab a one-shouldered shrug.

"Maybe, it's nothing," he said, but didn't specify if it was nothing that a being like himself should know so many personalities, or nothing in that such associations meant little if one didn't exercise their relationships. The sarcastic edge on the tip of her tongue bothered him none.

"I don't think so," said the nightmare after a moment of consideration. "I've heard of the Red King," he traced the alchemy symbol in the air, forming a triangle with arrows radiating from its bottom, "it's pyramid-like." He offered Scarab a faint smirk as they ascended the long stretch of front steps.

He could tell this creature bothered her by the way it took a little something out of her manner. What was it, he wondered, and did it have anything to do with The City itself, its so called masters.

"What's a Pyramid Head, then," asked The Corinthian, with less humor.

((OOC: It's fine, I put his reply as a comment to the main post, to regain some thread room heh.))

She opened the door, and held it for him to pass through.
True that was traditionally the other way around, but who cares?

"If you haven't seen it yet, hope you never do...

It's some kind of monster. Whether it was always here, or got drawn here from another world is something I'm hoping to find out, but it's...well...sort of a servant to a little girl, who isn't really a little girl."

She shook her head with a sigh.

" It's hard to explain what it is. I don't really know, and was hoping to find something useful here to help."

The Library was vast inside, and marked with the muted hush that most libraries possess. Towers of books muffling sound until one feels the need to speak softly just to blend with the surroundings.
There wasn't a librarian that she could see, but there was a desk, and a place for one laid out.

Scarab paused and looked around to see if there was anyone close by who could give her directions to whatever passed for city records.
Seeing no one she turned back to The Corinthian.

" I know what it does, though. I've seen that up close and personal."
She held up her maimed hand, then pulled her shirts partially aside to show one of the star-shaped exit wounds where she had been crucified on some rebar. The long ragged scar from the thing's nine foot long blade peeked just barely over her tank top, making promise to be a brutal, and ugly thing from her sternum to navel.

Not one for following tradition himself The Corinthian passed through the doors with a quick nod of thanks to the woman.

"Is that so, this Kaen and Yoshito, they don't know of it," he asked Scarab while studying the lobby. No, he didn't recognize it at all, this wasn't Lucien's place. He couldn't even detect the tiny mice and crickets that often helped the librarian with his work. He couldn't smell the dust, the dreams, he couldn't sense the Dream King.

Remembering that this was a library he glanced aside to her and spoke quietly. "Does it have eyes," the nightmare asked a cool and possibly important question, but his thoughts were sidetracked by the sight of her battlescars.

The mangled hand, the exit wound. One would have thought these were separate incidents, caused by her work, whatever that was, but to learn that the same being had inflicted them and she survived, well he had to raise both eyebrows. Without asking permission The Corinthian reached down as if to brush his fingertips against the star shape, then he decided best not to touch her.

"Big weapon," he said humorlessly. He was trying to suppress the urge to say 'nice work.'

"If I come across anything I'll let you know," he offered to the woman, assuming they might part ways now though he was beginning to reconsider his objective. Was it wrong to want to seek out this Pyramid beast?

" Oh they know about it. Kaen is happier than a pig in shit to have it terrorizing people." She replied bitterly.

Scarab watched that hand closely, wondering whether it was the scar he was more interested in, or the thought of what made the scar.
She wouldn't have minded being touched, as long as it started and stopped with scar tissue examination, but he seemed pretty interested in old pointy head.
If this guy wanted a fight, he should probably consider a better target, in her opinion anyway.

He seemed to think better of touching her, though, so no harm done either way.

" I honestly can't tell what it sees with. It wears a big metal pyramid shaped helmet. From what I saw there are no eyes, but it can still 'see' just fine".

She smirked at the blade comment.

" Ya...and thanks to that sharpened helicopter blade I'm stuck here for the duration" she returned ruefully.
She was walking, and talking after the Pyramid Head's attack, but she by no means survived it.

"Oh, ya. Just a word of warning: if you die here you don't get to leave. Ever.
Same goes for if you arrive here dead."

Scarab let her shirt fall back into place, and regarded the endless rows of books.

" You'll probably want to find yourself a place to stay. No rent, and no need for money here" she said with another shrug.

"Well...it's been fun, Alex. You'll have to tell me how getting out of here goes for you"

Interesting, this Kaen deriving pleasure from the Pyramid Head's terror. It sounded almost too much like a game now.

And he was very interested in what made the scar, though he wished he wasn't and outright denied some of those.... other thoughts. It wasn't so much a fight he craved, rather he wanted to meet something so disturbing and terrible that it made him feel better about his own nature. There was a stirring deep in his body over its destructive ways too.

"Mmhmm," sounded The Corinthian as she described the beast's helmet, the further he would be able to recognize the Pyramid Head.

"Oh?" He thought her comment to mean she wouldn't be able to seek an exit until her internal wounds were healed completely. Scarab's clarification caused him to raise a brow then settle. "I'm sorry for your loss," The Corinthian said in a cool and most serious manner, which could have been mistaken for deadpan.

"I've already got that covered," he nodded again. Mm, she had a rapier wit didn't she? But two could play at that game. "When I do I'll send you a postcard," he gave her the closest thing to a smile for a nightmare.

"See you around, Scarab," he offered his parting.

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