Better Run Run Run Away... | Closed

[justoscar]

Who: Oscar Pine, Dipper and Ford Pines + CR-- and a SPECIAL GUEST
What: Oscar broke into a locked study and stole some questionable items. The Fallout is Insane.
When: Early April, right after Ianthe's post
Where: The Pines Residence (The Bone Fortress)

Content Warnings: theft, endangerment of minors, (temporary) dismemberment, written reference to blood, etc.




[Somewhere, on the other side of town, was a couple of teenage boys completely missing the warning on the network about Certain Wards and their Effects. Instead, they were deep in concentration over their attempted ward-breaking-- and Oscar, lips pressed together in worry, felt compelled to hurry.

What had started as an innocent curiosity had turned into something more once Oscar realized he could break the lock at the birthday party Kaworu had thrown for Paul a few days before. A nervous escapade and a bad trip later had further cemented what Oscar felt in his gut about the party's host. Although the man had a placid smile and an off the cuff demeanor, something about the man made his skin crawl and his stomach churn like dozens of snakes huddled in a ball for the winter. No matter how hard he tried, he just couldn't shake the look in the man's eyes.

Instead of the man who was cryptically called Teacher, Oscar saw only Salem.

He had run to Dipper's immediately upon coming to his senses again, having faith that his boyfriend and partner would have a better idea of how to break this kind of magic than Oscar did.

This Teacher couldn't possibly be worse than Bill Cipher.

(There was a plant that had come along as well... but the plant was innocent. He would get it proper nourishment later.)]

Comments

[ghostharasser]

[Dipper was both extremely impressed and extremely concerned with the bounty Oscar came crashing into the Bone Fortress with. There is nothing more attractive then hearing his boyfriend had broken into someone's secret collection of dubiously cursed magical artifacts and gotten away with the loot. In fact, if the severity of the situation hadn't still been hanging over them, he might have said something embarrassing like Oscar, kiss me right now. He didn't, but he sure thought it really hard.]


[Instead, they go right to work, figuring out the ward on the thing. Oscar had also been smart about not touching it directly, pleased that some of the magical mumbo-jumbo his family is always nattering off about rubbed off on him.]

I'm gonna go get my eyepatch. I think it'll give us a better idea of what we're looking at. I can read some residual emotions off of it, but unless I touch it barehanded, I can't get too much of a glimpse into it's nature.

[Which he will not do unless they know for sure its safe.]

The eyepatch should tell us a lot more about what's going on.

[justoscar]

--I'll touch it first.

[Oscar cut in, a little more forcefully than normal. He trusted Dipper to the utmost, especially with matters of this nature, but he still had one advantage here that Dipper didn't.]

My Aura should keep everything clear if there's a problem. It might break, but that's still enough to stop a bullet.

[It wasn't often that he discussed the incident with Ironwood, and he didn't do so lightly. The fact was that he needed a good explanation of what his Aura was capable of-- not Qrow's, and not Ruby's. Though he still felt tense and off center from that rager and the substances he had injested while under that roof, he felt certain in his judgements on this matter.

Besides...]

Even if we're wrong, I don't think I could forgive myself if you got hurt over all this. He's not either of our problems-- I don't even really know what I was thinking.

Things were just suspicious, and I was nervous.

[ghostharasser]

[Dipper wanted to argue with that, but if anyone could test touching it, Oscar with his aura was their best bet. Probably. He makes an uncertain, but resigned sound at that, crossing his arms.]

Okay, but let me look at it with the eyepatch first, then you can touch it. No aura is going to help if touching it somehow activates a portal into a hell-dimension or something stupid like that.

[He moves towards the stairs. They're probably in the kitchen and this thing is laid out on their kitchen table next to Robert's basket of snacks. That seems appropriate.]

When I come back, you should tell me more about this ...party? You went to?

[justoscar]

...I wish I could say that you're being dramatic, but you're probably right in this case.

[He shrugged and stepped aside, trusting Dipper's judgement. Oscar wanted Dipper's analysis anyway-- from every angle, including whatever tells he could pick up from his aura-sensing eyepatch.

Idly, he did reach for a snack, because they were in the kitchen. Only the best decisions for a pair of junior paranormal detectives...]

Sure, what did you wanna know? It's probably good Mabel wasn't there, the brownies were spiked with something weird. They called it... Spice?

[He shuddered, remembering his hazy and somewhat traumatic trip into the depths of his unconsciousness.]

Whatever it was, I didn't think I'd ever get to talk to any of the guys who came before Ozpin.

[ghostharasser]

I'm definitely right.

[And he was confident about that. If there was anything to be confident about here it was this places propensity to make stupid stuff happen.]

[Dipper is only gone a minute as he grabs the eyepatch from the nightstand near his bed. He comes back down, strapping it on. It's probably the first time Oscar has seen him with it since they left the Dream.]

Spiked? Wait like ...

[Dipper almost misses those implications, because he was staring right at the bone. He looks up in startled alarm.]

Hold on, were you drugged?

[justoscar]

After I took it....?

[He grinned awkwardly-- that cheeky little embarrassed smile of someone who knows they fucked up somewhere along the line but ultimately bore no regrets.

(yet.)]

Everyone started getting wasted on alcohol and that Spice. I was trying to not have any. After seeing what happened with Uncle Qrow... I'm not even going there.

I thought the brownies were safe.

[A beat.]

Honestly, I should have known better.

1/2

[ghostharasser]

[Gonna. Gonna try and fail to not look like the thought of Oscar getting hecked up on brownies was not immediately sky-rocketing Dipper's anxiety. He didn't know about this party?? What if something had happened???]

[Well. Something had happened, actually, and that is what they were grappling with right now so maybe that point was moot. Dipper takes a deep breath to try and even his nerves out.]

[ghostharasser]

Okay, lets see what we have here.

[And now it is time to look at this thing properly. It takes a moment for his vision to adjust to the eyepatch again, which is a little like putting on glasses that were slightly off. Soon enough, plenty of things jump out at him, like colors and smoke billowing off from several points of interest.]

[There's a lot going on with this thing.]

Dude. Dude, who did steal this from again? This is some crazy dark magic.

[justoscar]

[It's been a while since Oscar had seen Dipper wear the eyepatch-- and a while since he had seen Dipper look so concerned. He didn't need his paleblood sense to know this, and as it stood the anxiety all but rolled off of Dipper in waves that Oscar felt in his bones.]

Some creepy guy who calls himself a necromancer. The people in his house all call him some variation of 'teacher'-- and he's got black eyes.

[Like Salem.

The last part was unspoken, but he knew Dipper would get the implications. He had certainly shown Dipper enough of his memories-- and the affairs of last Spring were still fairly fresh for all of them. Even though Salem had met some manner of peace in Deerington... the one in Remnant still raged on.

Oscar tore his gaze away from the other boy, focusing instead on the delicate bone he had still sitting on the handkerchief he had been carrying it in since he left the Study. It was amazing how such an innocuous looking item could spark such worry and terror.]

...There's a guy living there who I know is smart enough to see the... uh, difficult things about that necromancer. Even without the eyes, there's all these skeletons all over the place, and there's something fake about him.

I don't wanna make judgements. Necromancy might be normal to some people, but I wanted to be sure, so that guy doesn't get himself and our shared friends in trouble.

[ghostharasser]

[Dipper would agree that necromancy, which has a rough reputation, probably isn't inherently evil. He knows that things that come off sketchy aren't always what they're made out to be, and he can think of uses for a magic that gets its power from the idea of life and death.]

[That said, it seems like to him, that kind of power should be wielded with responsibility, and he wondered if that's the case with this weird guy. Also, his description kind of reminds him of something. Didn't Ford play DD&MD with a guy that fit that description? Questions for later.]

[Dipper nods and looks at the artifact again, focusing on it to try and get a better read. He's able to glean a lot of interesting stuff but the more he focuses the more- oh. OH.]

[Dipper takes a step back suddenly, yanking off the eye-patch and wincing, holding his head.]

Jeez!

[cryptograms]

[ Ford has his nephew's boyfriend bleeding - possibly to death - in his kitchen, a huge puddle of hallucination-inducing Paleblood on the floor, and an extremely stressed out nephew to contend with.

Fortunately, Ford has been given plenty of opportunities to practice maintaining his cool under pressure; as much as he likes Oscar, Oscar isn't family, and thus his imminent death isn't enough to break Ford's grip on his cool. Equally fortunate is that between what he saw on the network post and what he's managed to get out of Oscar, it's not hard to figure out what happened.

Ford's never been more glad that Castor can serve as a phone without him having to touch her to open up the line. Thus, John will receive a single-sentence voice message, one in which Ford's words and clipped and his tone is tight with aggravation. ]

Sascha, did you set a hand-melting ward on something in your study?

[necrolord]

[ This is funny for several reasons. The first is that he's just seen the post hit the network, so the timing really is impeccable; the second is that he's often been addressed in this wound-tight tone of chill-over-panic, but never as Sasha.

The Emperor picks up the call. In quite a reasonable tone, he says: ]

Possibly a few somethings.

[ And, murmured so softly it is perhaps meant as an aside: ]

I suppose it would be unkind to ask whether you... need a hand.

1/2

[cryptograms]

[ Really? Really? ]

[cryptograms]

[ Ford grinds his teeth and, miraculously, reins in his temper. He does in fact know a little bit about negotiation, and especially negotiation with non-humans - which he has just tidily classed Sasha as, because if his eyes, power, and aversion to sharing his real name haven't managed to seal the deal his stupid sense of humor just did.

Ford normally likes Sasha well enough to at least acknowledge his jokes, but this time he skips right past it to the point that matter, his tone still all business. ]

Someone on the network said you could fix it. Is that true?

[necrolord]

[ He gently marvels, and gently despairs, that anyone might question his ability— not willingness, but ability— to mend a lost hand. If only Augustine were in the room to hear this conversation...

But Augustine isn't, and it wouldn't be a simple joke, anyway. Not with Sasha hanging in the air. Ianthe might take it a bit personally, and Harrow would be more likely to take affront than see the humor; he concedes that only he might find a situation funny, as he does about twenty times a day in Trench.

His tone remains patient, as though he's being wrangled into an understandable chore. ]

Readily, yes.

[cryptograms]

[ Unfortunately, Ford doesn't know that much about negotiating. The idea that maybe he shouldn't be questioning Jod's skill in the are doesn't even occur to him. ]

Good. An acquaintance of mine triggered one of them and he needs assistance.

Where are you?

[necrolord]

[ A lot of assumptions are being made here regarding his willingness to heal a thief. It is, again, at least a little funny; a hundred high priests would faint at the presumption. But he had set the wards in full expectation of this moment: perhaps it's a gift to Paul that it's happening now, and not in the midst of Pin the Tooth on the Sandworm. ]

At the house. You're welcome to bring him here if he's inclined to make the trip.

[ This is, again, said with the cadence of one giving driving directions. ]

I'll have someone receive you at the gate. In the meantime, do mind the blood loss.

Extreme Backtags -- The Boy and the God

[justoscar]

[Something was wrong.

Oscar panicked as he floated in the space between wakefulness and dreams-- between life and death. Something had happened in the midst of the chaos of him falling into his teenage impulse to break rules and touch things he shouldn't... because he touched something he shouldn't.

Only Dipper could see him, and the two of them had been frantically babbling, shouting, and flailing together to what was probably Ford's growing terror. He felt light-headed and disoriented from both the blood loss and the heady, cloying scent of his own paleblood splattered over their clothes. He was annoyed, frustrated, at a loss for words--

And he couldn't get back into his body.

Panic struck him. For the nth time over the last year, Oscar worried over his choices. The collapsing dream had pushed them all to the edge. While he stood by his decision to try to release the Sodders, he had never once thought about the long standing consequences of breaking his own egg.

It was an attempt to break his own ties with the Gods and buy his freedom. Could he have damaged something in the process? Had he, in his own selfishness, done more than just cripple his access to Remnant's magic and do irreparable harm to his soul?

He wasn't ready to die. He wasn't ready he wasn't ready he wasn't ready he wasn't--

He wasn't alone.

Not unlike how he had been perceived Fox in the Dream, he once more felt perceived. A chill raked its way through his non-existent nerves and plummeted to the depths of his soul. All at once he was aware of being watched...

And turned to face those black, bottomless eyes that seemed to gleam with the rage of newborn stars from a myriad ago.]

[necrolord]

Look, I don't want to interrupt, [ says God to the empty air and the ghost in it, ] but we are working on a solution over here, if you could just sit tight.

[ He is most interested in maintaining the tenuous peace with Ford, at the moment, and never mind the boy who looks about ready to tear this whole mansion down. The stump of a hand stopped bleeding the moment they crossed the property line; gesture of good faith. ]

[justoscar]

[What was--

Oscar froze. All at once he was nothing but a spec trying to hide the multitudes behind him. He felt like he was being observed by Jinn in her infinite knowledge... Or by Salem with her infinite knowledge of him.


Frantic, he cast a look at Dipper, cast a look at his empty body, and blindly groped out into the ether for the familiar anchor the was Ozpin. His incorporeal fingers touched nothing; only the abyss was within reach.

The abyss, and Fear.

Oscar couldn't draw the line between Dipper's outraged panic and his own invisible wounds. The gossamer edge of Salem's voice and the sweetness in the abyssal depths of her eyes had changed to primal violence with the swiftness of a summer sky fracturing into a storm. At one turn she was soft and kindly, the next a cool steel of that defined a goddess-queen-- and the next the embodiment of desolation incarnate.

Oscar Pine held fast to rationality.

It was all he had. With eyes as wide as the skies above his home he found enough of his voice to make form a single cracked syllable: ]

Why?

[necrolord]

[ He looks, admittedly, a little bewildered by this. ]

Why am I correcting the damage? [ he asks, with utter patience. ] Or why take the hand? That was a pretty standard ward, sorry to say. I'll admit I didn't think anyone would swipe something and take it way off the property; sorry for the hike.

[justoscar]

'Why' everything.

[He clarified, emboldened now that he had his voice.]

Why have an item like that practically in the open? Why go this far? Why playing nice when some of these bones are too small to be from an adult? Why do you have a bone from a Pthumerian?

[He may have been a spec-- but there was something else at stake now. As much as he tried to be open about his circumstances, who he told was his choice alone.

If he kept the attention on himself, maybe the collective souls of those that came before him-- including Ozpin-- would be ignored. ]

[necrolord]

You might've missed the locked door, the skeleton guards, and the two layers of nonlethal warding.

[ The guards were, to be fair, occupied with the upstairs— because upstairs is where he keeps the lethal warding. But the vibe seemed pretty clear. ]

The Pthumerian bone is from the Archives, and so are most of the rest. I'm not running a secret Sleeper butchery... [ He tips his head in consideration. ] If we're auditing all my sources, most of the skeletons came from those who did. I'm not graverobbing willy-nilly.

[justoscar]

There was only flimsy door. The lock wasn't even good. I could have kicked it down.

[You know, if he had two legs.

Somehow he suspected that this man knew that, too.

But Oscar Pine saw the point. He had broken in-- but this entire affair just felt wrong. It was too easy. This man-- hadn't Ford called him Sasha-- was too calm, too laid back.]

But why do you want this at all? What are you trying to do?

[Keep talking-- keep talking. He wasn't ready to die, but he wasn't ready to just give himself and the secrets etched in the shadow of his soul up for this man, either. ]

[necrolord]

Do you normally accept a party invite and start kicking down locked doors? I'll have to revise my guest list, if that's considered the polite standard.

[ Seriously, the nerve of this kid. He blows out a sigh. ]

I think the local term is 'Arcane Scholar.' We're trying to sort out how it all interconnects.