tampered | (no subject)

(no subject)

[The Underground has shifted.

The Underground has rearranged itself and has made way for a new chamber: dark and humid as any cave or grave or hollow, with walls alive with electric colors of paint in sour greens and jarring yellows and shrieking reds and all other piercing colors offensive to nature and splashed or shattered or stabbed onto the walls at angles and fractured points. Look carefully among those corners and jagged letters, and see words that may yet be familiar--words of poets and philosophers alike.

Come, Seeker, and pass through the narrow door, under the low lintel, and see what shelters in this cleft of concrete and heaved-up Underground, who has decked a chamber in broken glass and broken pipes, who lights the perpetual Underground night with flickering fluorescence and with sparks.

They are nimble, yet they are made of iron. They are mechanical, yet they are oiled in blood. They will hear and answer five questions from you and they would ask and hear five answers from you alike.

Mind their riddles and mind their claws (for their claws are words as much as they are iron).

A ward will bar the way, Intruder, if more than one should dare to enter at a time. The way is shut to you. And you shall neither see nor hear nor understand that which transpires between the Seeker and the Sphinxes.

Who Seeks?]

[ooc: For those players who volunteered their characters for an "interview" here, here is a log where your character can speak to the sphinxes. Feel free to do it in long form or action tags, as you please. But be prepared: the sphinxes can be merciless--! Good luck...]

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Reid doesn't venture into the Underground often but with everything that's been going on, he decided it was something he had to see for himself. He makes his way through the door, gun drawn and bullet proof vest on. He holds it the way Hotch and the FBI trained him to but his hand shakes almost imperceptibly despite the fact he's shot two men on duty.

He swallows hard, heart hammering as he steps down the stairs into the room, mechanical creatures swarming about. He takes stock, filtering through the graffiti and words, cataloging the familiar and making connections with them. He takes note of the unfamiliar, committing them to memory provided he makes it out of here. His gun relaxes a little then all together as he holsters it but he doesn't snap the holster shut.

No worries, he's not that quick a draw but then his gun has never been his best weapon anyway.

[ooc: If this isn't the format or giving you guys what you need, let me know and I'll be happy to redo!]

A creature draws still.

It speaks:

"γνῶθι σεαυτόν."

Know thyself.

Reid furrows his brow, taking a moment to answer the creature. He glances over his shoulder behind him and then back at the creature.

"I'm fairly certain I do. Although most philosophers would argue that we can't entirely know ourselves as we're changing all of the time not to mention there's an aspect of one's self that one can't see. We rely on others and their perspectives."

[Those colors are amazing to Terezi, and she hesitates outside, sniffing audibly. Berries and cinnamons and sharp, tangy fruits are what she intreprets them as, and she grins.]

Delicious.

[That guard in front of the door is more than a little intriguing to her, and so she immediately approaches. Investigation is obviously needed!]

Are we allowed in?

[ooc; Ummm, Karkat is with her, if that's okay! So I guess the order can be Terezi, Ward, Karkat for the first few tags?]

If you come in.

"πάντα χωρεῖ καὶ οὐδὲν μένει καὶ δὶς ἐς τὸν αὐτὸν ποταμὸν οὐκ ἂν ἐμβαίης," it answers: All things move and nothing remains still, and you cannot step twice into the same stream.

Clicking gears, rusty springs creak.

"You are come here."

[ all the colors are a fucking eyesore to Karkat. too much like all the blood painting the walls of the lab he had been oh so reminded of before coming back to the city. he has no idea why he's even agreed to come along - oh wait. he does know. because he's not about to lose another teammate, especially Terezi.

so what does a leader troll do that really doesn't want to be around this place? fold his arms over his chest and grump. ]

This is so goddamn stupid...

[Terezi just ignores Karkat's bitching, as usual.]

Okay. Let's go, then.

[She grabs Karkat's wrist and attempts to drag him after her.]

[ooc; That's cool! Thanks!]

That gives him pause as well, carefully considering the situation. "You can't go back in the past and correct mistakes. Regardless of how much you'd like to."

He thinks he's keeping up until the last bit and then he's a little panicked. It sounds like a trap. He swallows hard, hand flitting to his gun before he rubs his eyes. "I was looking for some answers or at least enough information to ask the right questions."

One.

"Asking the right questions will lead to the right answers."

It's...licking a paw(? it's more at jointed armor) with a tongue (more like a piece of tire tread).

"If you ask, I will ask. If you answer, I will answer. This is the rule."

Of course answers wouldn't come free. Nothing does here. He takes his time, walks in a bit of a circle as he examines the snippets of literature on the walls.

"The City seems to have a hierarchy. Can you tell me the order of it? Starting at the top and working downward." He's hoping to figure out who orders the deities. If anyone at all.

There's some Basho over in the corner, if one looks carefully.

The sphinx fixes him with a careful gaze, ignoring the Basho over in the corner, looking at something else carefully.

"You know hierarchies. Isn't your mother above you?"

[ aaand Karkat is noticing that. what the fuck? no, seriously. just what the hell is inside of there?

his attention turns back to Terezi. just one? cue one sneering and NOT HAPPY Karkat.]

Is there some fucking rule or whatever? What the shit, man... Is this some kind of goddamn line to get in to see what freakish creature is behind the theatrical curtain?

If you think for one fucking moment that I'm stepping in there by my self, then you've got another coming. And don't you even entertain the notion that you'll just go in instead, Pyrope!

[Blah blah blah, Karkat! This close, the scent of blood floods her nose, and though she can't see the thing, she can hear the gentle clink of metal on metal. She pauses.]

What is this? A game? A trap?

[ another creature slinks by the second, licking that same metallic paw with faint interest. ]

Two plus six, divide by four, add five, and five, and five, take thirteen, plus seven, take ten, multiply by nothing, add three, take two, makes... makes...

[ The mumbling ceases, the sphinx staring at its visitors absently ]

Makes...

The second creatures weaves around the first, its metal tail curling and uncurling on the floor. It seems to ignore their visitor for now, more intent on capturing its sibling in an awkward embrace.

"Above, or beneath?"

One.

[Yet another comes dropping from above as a cat does. More metal and gears whirring or perhaps it could be a purr.]

One enters the same leaves.

The same?

[A motion that begins as a nod turns into a nuzzle as it brushes past the first of it's kin and then the second. The gnashing sound of metal makes the motion less sweet.]

The same. The one.

[A clawed paw motions at Terezi.]

[ There is a point when a man becomes too curious for his nature. Being that, by default, a nature of survival, a nature of bests rather than intent. There's a certain amount of lack of sustainability, and it's the teetered balance that brings Eames to the Underground in the first place, pad along the dark interjected by the swatches of bright color, because change of their enviornment is notable change and while maybe it'd usually be Arthur, the point, working these grounds the point is that, well, Arthur can't see and Ariadne can't defend herself, so he doesn't notify either of them beyond going out for a pint, and comes here instead. Walks past that narrow door, steps under the low lintel.

He knows blood when he sees it. He knows, too, a lack of balance between curiousity and nature just inasmuch as he knows logic versus fallacy, what is real and what isn't and this, for the twisted ways that they move, or due to it rather, is not what he's overly concerned with - but instead beyond that. The grit of it.

All of this doesn't just develop on its own for nothing at all. Everything matters. ]

[These creatures called man also have a saying about the creatures called felines.]

Enter as you will. Seeking but to what end?

[First comes the word and then a creature walking on four limbs.]

I see you lot have redecorated the place.

[ He moves a hand about, gesturing to their surroundings even though he doesn't pull his eyes away. He makes no notion, further, to answer what it is he does seek (because that much should be obvious, doesn't it, really), far more interested in scoping out how exactly these mechanisms have taken to working. Their creation should immediately suggest something violent, sinister, but Eames doesn't feel just quite that, despite the blood, despite the sharpness of the way they're jutted in every direction.

Some, when given the chance, are easier with their overexplanation than others. ]

It is as it must, as it is meant to be.

[Creaking parts move together with surprisingly fluid motion. This creature of creatures sits now head tilting from one side to the other.]

Are we to talk of visages?

[ The other slides near, rubbing its cheek against the wall, then the floor beneath, as if trying to rid itself of marks of ownership. ]

I'm sick of talk.

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