All Night, Hearing Voices

[unrecovered]

Who: Anyone with a talking item and anyone who wants to observe
What: Let's put the talking items together and see what happens!
Where: Traverse Town, Fifth District greenhouse
When: Not long after this
Warnings: Wash is his own warning, as always. Aside from that, ~who knows~

Wash still wasn't sure this was a good idea - far from it, actually. He'd actually be surprised if what they were about to try didn't bring some form of disaster crashing down on them through the glass greenhouse roof. It was about par for the course for the dream world.

He'd kept the blank AI chip in one of his storage compartments for the walk over here. Right now, all he could do was wait for the other pieces to arrive and try not to think about all the ways this could possibly go wrong.

Comments

[hiptobe_eraqus]

Anticlimatic was certainly preferred when it came to effects...but for all the trouble they'd gone to to obtain some of these items, they needed to at least get some important information from them.

And it looked like they'd at least gotten a warning from it...but also left Wash with some bad effects. He wasn't sure if that was a result of the objects themselves, or some...other things he'd gleaned from observation.

"If the voice is someone one of us may recognize but others may not, then it'd be in our best interests to pass it around, once we're sure it's manageable." Eraqus reasoned. He stepped forward and held out a hand towards the Necho Cat that had apparently taken it upon herself to guard them. "If I may."

[unrecovered]

"I'm fine." He was lying. He also wasn't planning on focusing on it. Wash had higher priorities than hashing out personal trauma, especially in public.

"It was familiar," he said, answering Lin's question, "but I couldn't tell you who it was." That in and of itself was troubling, given that he normally had perfect recall. He should have been able to place that voice.

"If anyone else wants to take a listen, be my guest, but I'm not leaving without the pieces I brought in." He was entirely aware that that wasn't too helpful, but it was the truth. Wash had a bad habit of taking responsibility for the things that fucked him over. Plus, one of them belonged to Ziva.

Melody sniffed Eraqus' proffered hand delicately, then raised a paw and pushed his hand away. Nope. She was guarding these things, not anybody else.

"Melody, stop it."

She meowed in protest. But she was helping!

"Don't give me that. Now move."

She huffed, stepping off the pieces and slinking around the other side of her person's legs. She still planned on being ready, though. Just in case.

[lessabrasive]

Lin didn't believe Wash in the slightest when he said he was okay, but she wouldn't call him on it. North was present, however; if anyone might intervene, it would likely be the Freelancer's closest friends.

Melody's antics earned an eyeroll, but at least Wash seemed to have his Spirit well in hand after some scolding.

"Given three brought the voice into greater clarity, it may well take that inevitable fourth to clear up that mystery," Lin said as she folded her arms across her chest. "Still. Who out there would be trying to help us? Certainly not our anonymous spectator." She kept the huff from her voice, but the irritation was clear on her face. "And how is it these fragments they keep sending only reach us after battle?"

[brodakota]

North knew that "fine" and sighed. Still, this wasn't the best place to confront Wash about it, so perhaps once they'd dispersed, he'd pester Wash a bit more.

"This might sound a bit silly, but it's almost like a reward for beating it, kind of like in a boss battle for a video game."

North shrugged.

"But it stands to reason that if we can get the next boss to appear, and beat it, we'll get the next item and the voice will probably get louder."

[hiptobe_eraqus]

Eraqus just continued to hold out his hand, giving the Spirit a patient yet potent stare. He understood protectiveness, but those things did not belong to her, thank you.

Once she hopped off, he took the objects in hand and held them. There came the voice again, and he closed his eyes as he listened to it. It was, indeed, strikingly familiar...but he just couldn't quite place it. He listened through it several times, absorbing the message as best he could.

Aside from the strangeness of hearing a voice in one's head, which was not even the weirdest or most damaging kind of magic he'd ever encountered, the objects didn't seem to be producing any other ill effects. So, that probably meant that Wash himself was reacting badly.

He opened his eyes again and loosened his grip on the objects. "Not much can be gleaned from a message so brief...except the possibility that there is more than one anonymous spectator: one seeking help, and one intent on denying it." He had a feeling if they found out the identity of either one of them, they would soon learn the identity of the other.

In the meanwhile, Chuza had suddenly taken notice of what master was doing, and waddled back over to check on him. She sniffed at the objects in his hand with interest.

[letteropener]

Celestia gently took the objects in turn with her magic, all she needed to 'touch' them, as she'd discovered back in the mansion. She shut her eyes as well, listening to the message a few times before she looked up once more. Anypony was free to take them from her, if they wished.

"I wonder if perhaps the worlds here are asleep because of some conflict between two sides, that we are expected to resolve."

[notquitedracula]

Just like everyone else, Soma took his turn - just not as a bat, as had been his original intent. Voices in his head? Nothing new there. But though they sounded familiar, he couldn't place them, either.

"Where I came from, there's a video game. In it, you collect pages from two books, in which are trapped two people. One of them acts friendly - the other, not so much. In the end, it turns out neither is what you'd call a good person, and you have to rescue instead a third, which turns out to be their father. That's a bit beside the point I'm trying to make though; what I'm trying to say is, we should proceed with caution in listening to anything either of those voices tell us."