I start eating it
yknow I’m glad you didn’t see the signups in time
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I’ll make sure I’m there for the next sign ups.
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No you don’t. This is a PG-13 railroad.
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Dangit I want my money back
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You say as I stuff a man into a closet going into express detail about the harm done to his anatomy
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…
that’s different!
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He’s not wrong, my name is pretty stupid.
Ooh, am I a computer guru?
I am okay with this.
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I mean, waste not, want not.
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why? just why?
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Chapter 8
–
Well, things were a lot more quiet now that a dead body had been discovered. You should definitely find dead bodies more often.
Krelikan was being insanely patient as Pakari attempted and reattempted to hook up Bird’s body camera feed to his projector while Cordax stared at every little gear and gizmo in Krelikan’s head, gawking at the absurd level of complexity put forth to construct him. Granted, he was pretty complex, but you really wished the party could walk while they did this, because you’ve been standing in the one hallway leading to the observation deck for half an hour and Pakari still hadn’t broken the system lock on the bodycam.
“I once again offer to just fly inside it and manually override it.” Wild grumbled, having entertained himself by flying around several people’s eyes to irritate them. “We don’t have all day.”
Pakari sighed a sigh of suppressed agitation. “I’m going as fast as I can, Wild, but the last security camera you tried to override security controls on you wiped the data of in the process. Knowing what happened to Bird is essential here; we can’t take any chances with this one- HEY!”
With surprisingly dexterity for the size of your hands, you swiped the camera from Pakari’s fingers, slammed it into the exposed port which had formally been Krelikan’s eye, then activated a manual override of the visual projector on the also exposed back of his head. “Shut up, I’ve got this.”
Pakari was about to lay a serious beatdown on you and your stupid glowing head when the projector lit up. You forced Krelikan to face the opposite wall as you punched in the security code for the bodycam, and a replay of the most recent video data began playing.
“How on earth?” Pakari stammered, looking between you and Wild. You, of course, didn’t honor that question at the moment, because the footage was too pressing.
From the perspective of the midsection of a rather tall person, you saw footage of the factory grounds, the inside of the main lobby, and the hallway you were now walking down. You also saw the observation deck, the gigantic gears and drive shafts all in pristine condition, and a couple other areas unfamiliar to the rest of the party. Present in the footage was a sleek, tall humanoid of a very alien nature, coated in metallic skin and coupled with jade decorative armor, and often alongside him was a large and rather ornate cabinet, locked securely and overlayed around the edges with steel. Now and then there was a glimpse of someone wearing a gas mask proceeding ahead of the party, a sight which prompted you to elbow Pakari. “I thought you told me about everyone present for this operation. Who is that?”
“I don’t know.” Pakari responded, glaring up at you. “How did you get the camera to work?”
“I…” You turned away slightly. “I used to work at Stanford doing security. Means I wasn’t on any of the billing paperwork, which means they didn’t legally have to pay me, which is what ended up happening. I memorized all the security info I could before I left. If that code hadn’t worked I had a couple others I could try, but that seemed like the likeliest one.”
“Why didn’t you just say that in the first place instead of waiting half an hour?” Pakari spat.
“I dodn’t exactly want to let everyone know I was stupid enough to accept a security job without securing a paycheck.” You grumbled back. “However, I guess I was wrong about you being capable enough to handle it.”
“Stop. This is the last time I’m going to warn you.” Pakari was getting seriously fed up with your attitude towards him. “Any more of this kind of nonsense and you’ll be going back to the train in a stretcher. Do you understand? This isn’t a buddy cop film, this a rescue mission and if you aren’t willing to take that seriously then you don’t deserve to be here.”
As a bit of a saving grace there suddenly came a violent flash of lights from the projection and the rest of the group recoiled in horror. One of the gears had flown through the air and smashed through the observation deck window, pretty much totaling the observation deck in the process. The cabinet-like object plummeted through a newly-formed hole in the floor and the visible party raced back towards the entrance, tripping over something that looked vaguely like a kid-size winter coat. At the entrance the ventilation duct above started being punched from the inside, as if something was desperately trying to break free. Then, just as the duct exploded, you…
…Turned off the projection as quietly as you could.
“Is that it?” Cordax said after a moment of silence. You furiously toyed with settings on Krelikan’s exposed skull that did absolutely nothing and then angrily took the camera out of his eye. “Yes, that’s it.” You growled, glaring at the camera in contempt. “We were so close to solving one mystery, but here we are with a hundred more.”
“At least we know the observation deck is damaged.” Cordax mused, rubbing his chin. “I wonder… The last group was sent a month in advance, right? If Bird’s only been dead for three days, why did it take him a month to get to the front door?”
“Maybe it didn’t.” Krelikan said as his headplate was replaced by Pakari. “Maybe the first portion we witnessed was them arriving, then a jump in time.”
“No.” Pakari mused, leaning against the wall. “Stanford bodycams only reserve the previous twenty-four hours of footage. Somehow they took a month to get to the front door. If they didn’t, the whole building would stink with rot from Bird’s body.” He glanced at the party. “Only thing we can do is move on.”
Pushing himself up off the wall, he proceeded towards the observation deck, followed closely by Krelikan, and then Wild, who immediately went into a tirade about stupidly huge factory tours that serve no purpose. Cordax waited for a moment or two to move before being shooed along by a wave of your hand. Racie had taken to facing the opposite direction and staring down at her phone.
Racie was, in more aspects than one, alone.
“Are you coming?” You hazarded, approaching behind her without getting too close.
“There’s no point.” She sighed. “With Bird dead there’s no need for me to track him, so I’m completely useless. I know everyone here is really hardened to death and stuff like that, but, like, I still feel horrible that we weren’t quick enough to save him. He only died three days ago, that’s… We could have been here by then.”
“So I’m going back to the train.” She wiped a hand across her cheek, seemingly to remove a tear, although you couldn’t tell from your position. “Tell them I’ll be waiting there so nobody else has to die by my inaction.”
You sighed deeply, extending one hand to hover over the back of her head, gauging the exact position necessary. “I will.”
Bringing your fingers close, you applied only the minimal amount of pressure on her temples to cause them to fracture. She dropped out of your grip instantly, collapsing onto the floor, internal bleeding causing severe damage to the brain which would inevitably lead to swift - and unconscious - death.
One down. You stalked back down the hallway towards the observation deck. Who knows how many more to go.
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my topic so I can doublepost 
about an hour each, depending
like this last chapter took maybe 1:15 but it was extra long, shorter chapters maybe 45 minutes
honestly I’m super slow
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grasping at straws here.
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Dear Mata Nui…Mr Monopoly is gonna murder everyone?!
Very gripping, keep it up, can’t wait for that ‘ornate cabinet’ to be found.
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well I have been known to have a strange obsession with murdering ants
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I’m actually quite shocked at how eerily similar my personality in this is to my first D&D character.
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pfffft imagine not being the DM
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pfffft imagine playing DnD
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