Mausoleum of the Living
Jul. 4th, 2024 12:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
madimpossibledreamerHappy July 4th if you celebrate it and if not I hope you have a great day anyway (and that it's still a holiday worth celebrating next year)
Main Points:
Assassin's Creed/The Secret World
Summary: Desmond checks out the clinic and looks for more survivors.
Word Count: 1411
Rating: Teen
Desmond really hadn’t missed the way the fog feels like it’s trying to smother him, but it’s good to know that nothing’s visibly drastically changed since he left, he supposes. There happen to be gold spots here, too, and he hits a couple as he tries to find the clinic with the limited directions he’d been given (guy couldn’t even be bothered to give an address?) before he decides he’s going to do this the easy way and climbs the Town Hall again, glancing around (and waving cheekily to the camera again) before spotting it, there on the street closest to the bay, glowing a dull yellow. The ravens are slightly disturbed by his presence, but they just kind of shuffle away from him and eye him suspiciously. As he performs a textbook Leap of Faith, he wonders idly what kind of ‘congratulations’ message he’ll get from Rebecca this time, and what kind of talisman he’ll get.
It turns out there’s other good news, too. Maybe it’d been the break, clearing his head. Maybe it’s just that he’s gotten better about fighting zombies, thus fewer bites, thus more brain capacity available to work the Calculations. Maybe the fog had been disrupting his ability to use his new powers, just like it interfered with radios and GPS and whatever else, like the Bermuda Triangle effect Shaun had been talking about. Maybe it’s just that he’s getting better with practice. Whatever the case, Desmond finds that he actually can sneak past them, most of the time. He doesn’t always leave them to their own devices; if they’re eating a corpse he doesn’t have identification from, yet, he’ll shoo them away, like carrion-eaters around roadkill, but it’s nice to actually have the option, now.
It had occurred to him the easiest way to ask about Eagle Vision, or rather, the Third Eye in this world. Because he's not supposed to know much about all this supernatural stuff. It’s pretty clear Shaun thinks he’s just asking to double check everything his ‘cult’ had told him, but he humors Desmond anyway, and man it’s pretty weak in this world. They don’t even get colors. The factions had gotten their hands on tech that can enhance it (oddly from a supposedly not-Orochi and not-Illuminati company, though Shaun is very vocally doubtful of this and thinks there's a shell company involved somehow, since alongside being solar charged the battery, which has yet to drain for any of the Templars Shaun knows of, charges via Anima Wells too). It’d be interesting to play around with some point, although he's not in a mood to ask the Dragon about that right now when even just thinking about them makes him mad.
Breaking into places never gets easier, though. Oh, it’s physically a piece of cake. Desmond could probably lockpick a door in his sleep, now. But every empty, abandoned house feels haunted—and for all he knows, it could be.
Instinctively, he triggers Eagle Vision, because there aren’t even windows here to let in the moonlight. Fumbles with his phone to try to find the flashlight option, and when he does...he swallows. There’s signs of what might have been a fight, but no blood. Furniture used to barricade upstairs, but he doesn’t hear or see anything up there, even with Eagle Vision, and zombies do show up red in Eagle Vision, despite not even being alive anymore. Papers strewn everywhere, supplies thrown around, unless—
...Was someone else searching for something in here? He remembers the way padre—Giovanni’s office—had looked, after the Templars had been through. And Bannerman hadn’t even sent him out here, let alone anyone else. Maybe they were just looking for supplies that might be useful for the survivors, but…
Speaking of which, he should probably grab anything he can to help them out. Just because he can heal his own wounds magically doesn’t mean they can, and first aid kits can only go so far. He actually physically flinches when the beam of light runs over the radio, but thankfully, for once it stays blessedly silent. Even if it’s out of batteries, he’s pretty sure that wouldn’t be a problem for John. And it’s probably not likely a radio will be useful to the survivors right now, because signals probably can’t travel that far through the fog even if anyone’s still operating a radio station, and if it is, he can always come back, he supposes.
He needs a password for the computer, though. Something about music, but he doesn’t recognize the name. And he can’t hack it like Rebecca or probably Shaun, so...it’s time to go hunting for clues. At least he’s got Eagle Vision. Maybe if someone was trying to find something in here, they couldn’t find it.
Finally, glass underfoot, there’s a picture, a concert, complete with fireworks, and a hand-scrawled message, something Vivaldi’s ‘Four Seasons’, which is probably the password and—
Whoops. He’d definitely misjudged that relationship. That was definitely a date. Desmond feels a little awkward now, but at least he’d never said anything out loud, so the only one judging him for reading the situation wrong is himself. Given the situation, it probably shouldn’t surprise him that they’re not acting as close, either—they’re all under a lot of stress, and being here in Kingsmouth just kind of sucks. Although he’s not sure that evacuating them all out through Agartha, even if they could go and even if they wouldn’t just end up as prisoners like Jin, would work; he’s not sure they’d agree, and he’s not sure it really would be safer.
Desmond clicks through, reading the notes, and he’s not sure he actually likes this guy, either. Bannerman isn’t Vidic, but there’s a certain distance in the notes, like he doesn’t care about his patients as much as he should, and he just handwaves a guy being sexist when Desmond would definitely have kicked the guy out of the bar.
Still, his notes about the sailors from the Lady Margaret are pretty useful, even if the guy himself didn’t realize at first. They’d been the first to show symptoms, which probably means that yeah, that was ground zero and they were the first infected or whatever. He details the outset of paranoia and violence that didn’t respond to treatment. Apparently he’d started with the first standby, the Minerval brand (which Desmond remembers vaguely from posts by Guy Fawkes suggesting they were behind the Illuminati and wait a minute are they actually named for Minerva?) and when that hadn’t worked turned to Váli imports (which, Shaun had mentioned, were an Orochi branch). Nothing worked, and it was probably shortly before everything went to hell that they started speaking in tongues, because the notes end here, but—
Old Icelandic, huh. Desmond’s going to have to check with Shaun, but that sounds like it could be related to Norse stuff.
He’s going to sign out, but something else catches his eye—notes about a widow whose husband had gone out to help The Lady Margaret as she limped back into dock, only to get attacked and die to infection. Normal infection, not the oily twisty stuff, but even then, with the resources they had even a serious infection should have been fine. Supposedly, she should’ve been out at the B&B where he found the twins, and if she’d been there, she definitely hadn’t been alive, but it’s worth going back to see what he can see.
He finds a voodoo book at a garage sale at one of the houses as he jogs along the road, and since he’s already heading that way, why not? He’s not going to recommend the steps to the survivors, though; it just seems to make the zombies tougher (and makes them grow to be more the size of that infected giant zombie). He might hand it off to Shaun, though. He doesn’t want to just leave it out here as a kind of trap, even if he’s pretty sure nobody else is going to pick up the damn thing.
He also only manages to find the poor woman’s suicide note, and when he goes out to the end of the pier where her corpse is hanging, he’s attacked by what seems to be her ghost. At least he can cut her down and close her eyes and bring her necklace back to add to the growing shrine to the dead in the police station.
Main Points:
Assassin's Creed/The Secret World
Summary: Desmond checks out the clinic and looks for more survivors.
Word Count: 1411
Rating: Teen
Desmond really hadn’t missed the way the fog feels like it’s trying to smother him, but it’s good to know that nothing’s visibly drastically changed since he left, he supposes. There happen to be gold spots here, too, and he hits a couple as he tries to find the clinic with the limited directions he’d been given (guy couldn’t even be bothered to give an address?) before he decides he’s going to do this the easy way and climbs the Town Hall again, glancing around (and waving cheekily to the camera again) before spotting it, there on the street closest to the bay, glowing a dull yellow. The ravens are slightly disturbed by his presence, but they just kind of shuffle away from him and eye him suspiciously. As he performs a textbook Leap of Faith, he wonders idly what kind of ‘congratulations’ message he’ll get from Rebecca this time, and what kind of talisman he’ll get.
It turns out there’s other good news, too. Maybe it’d been the break, clearing his head. Maybe it’s just that he’s gotten better about fighting zombies, thus fewer bites, thus more brain capacity available to work the Calculations. Maybe the fog had been disrupting his ability to use his new powers, just like it interfered with radios and GPS and whatever else, like the Bermuda Triangle effect Shaun had been talking about. Maybe it’s just that he’s getting better with practice. Whatever the case, Desmond finds that he actually can sneak past them, most of the time. He doesn’t always leave them to their own devices; if they’re eating a corpse he doesn’t have identification from, yet, he’ll shoo them away, like carrion-eaters around roadkill, but it’s nice to actually have the option, now.
It had occurred to him the easiest way to ask about Eagle Vision, or rather, the Third Eye in this world. Because he's not supposed to know much about all this supernatural stuff. It’s pretty clear Shaun thinks he’s just asking to double check everything his ‘cult’ had told him, but he humors Desmond anyway, and man it’s pretty weak in this world. They don’t even get colors. The factions had gotten their hands on tech that can enhance it (oddly from a supposedly not-Orochi and not-Illuminati company, though Shaun is very vocally doubtful of this and thinks there's a shell company involved somehow, since alongside being solar charged the battery, which has yet to drain for any of the Templars Shaun knows of, charges via Anima Wells too). It’d be interesting to play around with some point, although he's not in a mood to ask the Dragon about that right now when even just thinking about them makes him mad.
Breaking into places never gets easier, though. Oh, it’s physically a piece of cake. Desmond could probably lockpick a door in his sleep, now. But every empty, abandoned house feels haunted—and for all he knows, it could be.
Instinctively, he triggers Eagle Vision, because there aren’t even windows here to let in the moonlight. Fumbles with his phone to try to find the flashlight option, and when he does...he swallows. There’s signs of what might have been a fight, but no blood. Furniture used to barricade upstairs, but he doesn’t hear or see anything up there, even with Eagle Vision, and zombies do show up red in Eagle Vision, despite not even being alive anymore. Papers strewn everywhere, supplies thrown around, unless—
...Was someone else searching for something in here? He remembers the way padre—Giovanni’s office—had looked, after the Templars had been through. And Bannerman hadn’t even sent him out here, let alone anyone else. Maybe they were just looking for supplies that might be useful for the survivors, but…
Speaking of which, he should probably grab anything he can to help them out. Just because he can heal his own wounds magically doesn’t mean they can, and first aid kits can only go so far. He actually physically flinches when the beam of light runs over the radio, but thankfully, for once it stays blessedly silent. Even if it’s out of batteries, he’s pretty sure that wouldn’t be a problem for John. And it’s probably not likely a radio will be useful to the survivors right now, because signals probably can’t travel that far through the fog even if anyone’s still operating a radio station, and if it is, he can always come back, he supposes.
He needs a password for the computer, though. Something about music, but he doesn’t recognize the name. And he can’t hack it like Rebecca or probably Shaun, so...it’s time to go hunting for clues. At least he’s got Eagle Vision. Maybe if someone was trying to find something in here, they couldn’t find it.
Finally, glass underfoot, there’s a picture, a concert, complete with fireworks, and a hand-scrawled message, something Vivaldi’s ‘Four Seasons’, which is probably the password and—
Whoops. He’d definitely misjudged that relationship. That was definitely a date. Desmond feels a little awkward now, but at least he’d never said anything out loud, so the only one judging him for reading the situation wrong is himself. Given the situation, it probably shouldn’t surprise him that they’re not acting as close, either—they’re all under a lot of stress, and being here in Kingsmouth just kind of sucks. Although he’s not sure that evacuating them all out through Agartha, even if they could go and even if they wouldn’t just end up as prisoners like Jin, would work; he’s not sure they’d agree, and he’s not sure it really would be safer.
Desmond clicks through, reading the notes, and he’s not sure he actually likes this guy, either. Bannerman isn’t Vidic, but there’s a certain distance in the notes, like he doesn’t care about his patients as much as he should, and he just handwaves a guy being sexist when Desmond would definitely have kicked the guy out of the bar.
Still, his notes about the sailors from the Lady Margaret are pretty useful, even if the guy himself didn’t realize at first. They’d been the first to show symptoms, which probably means that yeah, that was ground zero and they were the first infected or whatever. He details the outset of paranoia and violence that didn’t respond to treatment. Apparently he’d started with the first standby, the Minerval brand (which Desmond remembers vaguely from posts by Guy Fawkes suggesting they were behind the Illuminati and wait a minute are they actually named for Minerva?) and when that hadn’t worked turned to Váli imports (which, Shaun had mentioned, were an Orochi branch). Nothing worked, and it was probably shortly before everything went to hell that they started speaking in tongues, because the notes end here, but—
Old Icelandic, huh. Desmond’s going to have to check with Shaun, but that sounds like it could be related to Norse stuff.
He’s going to sign out, but something else catches his eye—notes about a widow whose husband had gone out to help The Lady Margaret as she limped back into dock, only to get attacked and die to infection. Normal infection, not the oily twisty stuff, but even then, with the resources they had even a serious infection should have been fine. Supposedly, she should’ve been out at the B&B where he found the twins, and if she’d been there, she definitely hadn’t been alive, but it’s worth going back to see what he can see.
He finds a voodoo book at a garage sale at one of the houses as he jogs along the road, and since he’s already heading that way, why not? He’s not going to recommend the steps to the survivors, though; it just seems to make the zombies tougher (and makes them grow to be more the size of that infected giant zombie). He might hand it off to Shaun, though. He doesn’t want to just leave it out here as a kind of trap, even if he’s pretty sure nobody else is going to pick up the damn thing.
He also only manages to find the poor woman’s suicide note, and when he goes out to the end of the pier where her corpse is hanging, he’s attacked by what seems to be her ghost. At least he can cut her down and close her eyes and bring her necklace back to add to the growing shrine to the dead in the police station.
