“Of course. That.” Headcase looks up to the ceiling, clearly a bit overwhelmed at the prospect of speaking with an honest-to-Primus quintesson.
“I’ve been wondering if I should tell anyone, to be honest,” he confesses. “Wherever there are quintessons, interstellar war has always been soon to follow. But you’ve been around for ages, and nothing’s happened. I can only assume that if you were the precursor to a new invasion, it’d have happened already.”
“You’re still sober after a glass of Gorlam Red?” Maccadam asks, his tone a mixture of awe and perhaps stark terror. “Friend, if you’re speaking the truth, I’ve got no idea that could be possible. Rampart of Bellator thought she could guzzle a mug of the stuff, and it put her in stasis lock for three days.”
Strangely, once the two took sight of the human and focused their attention on him, he was no longer anywhere to be seen. It was as if he’d disappeared into thin air…
“Well yeah,but i’m not sure. If those memories are right… i’ve killed alot of people,and im not sure if people would be comfortable knowing a genocidal half quintesson was among them.”
Disappointing. At any rate, this Maccadam’s place wasn’t half bad, and it had quite the diverse crowd. Barrage thought he might stick around and see if anything fun would happen.
“Where’d he go?” Stonefist muttered bluntly. Aralysa did a double take, but reluctantly tore herself from the chronicles. She knew she had seen something. Stonefist grunted in irritation, and activated the sonar devices in his rocky armor to make sure he wasn’t just a hologram.
“Well,” He sighed wearily, “I’ve only got myself to blame for that. Lovely place you have here, although I hope you’re not offended if I don’t return, much as I’d like to. This,” He lifted the glass and glared angrily at the bottom of it, “Was my last respite - only thing I had left.”
Setting it down gingerly, he turned to go. “Now the whole world’s upside-down.”
Two seconds later, the whole world was upside-down. Conjoint blinked repeatedly, eyeing his perspective curiously since the floor was now the ceiling, and his head was against it.
“Must’ve slipped on something.” He murmured. The moment he struggled back onto his rear, he placed one foot to get up and was again tasting the dust of Iacon tracked in by the many visitors.
Snowblind leans against the counter, watching Conjoint tumble with no shortage of confusion. She had no idea what was going on there. She leans forward to offer her hand, only for the bartender to beat her to it. Instead, she leans against the counter, once again content to let things play out in front of her.
Maccadam offers a hand to help Conjoint onto his feet. “Maybe the Gorlam Red took a bit more out of you than you thought?” he says.
Stonefist’s sonar reveals nothing out of the ordinary. Perhaps what they’d seen was merely a trick of the light…
“We don’t know for certain if what we saw was real, remember,” Headcase reminds Kitai. “Our session ended rather abruptly before we could dig any further. I wouldn’t go calling yourself a killer just yet.”
Machina made her way into the building, her direction drifting to the older sections of the Hall, looking for where the history of the Stagnation ended.
Argyros Asrar woke, finding himself near the statue of Asrar. He took off for the space ports, hoping that perhaps there was a slim chance that his father might be there.
Jade Dragon founds himself wandering the cybertronian streets, looking for a place to hone his practices.
Windstripe could be found near the edge of Iaxon. He was simply walking letting his thoughts wander with his feet.
“Absolute nonsense.” Conjoint said from between his legs, struggling to right himself enough to actually pinpoint Maccadam’s hand. “I’ve been drunk enough to- well, do things that weren’t exactly legal, but that’s been years.” Yes, four years. “I think I’d know if- WHOA!”
Conjoint had almost gotten completely standing before his knees buckled and he did a five-second dance with one hand planted on Maccadam’s, trying desperately to not actually use the owner’s hand for leverage. That’d be just plain weird, and if there’s one thing Conjoint didn’t want as he struggled to maintain the slightest sense of balance, finally resorting to throwing his upper half on the seat he had just left to keep himself somewhat grounded, it was to appear weird to people.
“What in the world?” He looked with reproach at his legs; how dare they pull a stunt like this!
“That’s odd.” Stonefist commented quietly. He was sure he had seen something; his optics were in good enough condition. Who - or what - was the strange man? Sighing, the rocky bot went back to where Aralysa was standing. She, too, was staring at the spot where the apparition had been. He shook his head.
“Nothing.” Stonefist replied. “Could’ve been a trick of the light.”
“Oh.” was Aralysa’s response, clearly disappointed that Stonefist’s scan had revealed no trace of the mystery man.
“No shame in it, friend,” Maccadam says to Conjoint. “Maybe you should sit a while longer.”
One of the Hall’s staff took notice of the two, and stopped by to check in with them.
“Good morning!” he greets them. “Is there anything I could help you two with?”
Inside the tower, clerks went about on various tasks- some were hard at work behind desks, while others escorted visitors to the lower floors. Machina could ask any one of these people for assistance. There were also holographic signs that could direct her to where Stagnation-era relics were kept.
At Iacon’s spaceport, Argyros Asrar sees a plethora of starships from a great many worlds. There are civilian transports from each of the cybertronian colonies, and diplomatic shuttles from Earth and Avalon Prime.
“‘Want to’, what?” Headcase asks. “Continue the procedure? I suppose we could, if you’re up to it.”
Machina followed the holographic signs, wishing to not be a disturbance to anyone. Despite her expectations she began to feel something well up inside her. It was a feeling she couldn’t descibe, but this place felt like that of a home to her. She knew it wasn’t, but the atmosphere was undeniably like so. She stood for a moment staring at the holographic sign before making her way to the Stagnation-era exhibits.
the predacon immediately searched for any ships heading to Eukaris. He frantically called out for his father, both using the name of Asrar and the word ‘father’. The predacon was met with no success beyond began to felt like a search in vain.
“Well there is one thing. Me and Aralysa here,” Stonefist said, gesturing to the female transformer, “saw what looked to be a human man in a black suit around this area.” He gestured vaguely at where the strange visitor had disappeared. Aralysa moved over to where Stonefist was conversing with the bot.
“That’s not even the strangest part. As soon as we got a good look at him, he vanished! Stonefist here did a sonar scan, but couldn’t find anything.” she replied. “Maybe you guys should look into this.”
“Now that’s enough.” Conjoint frowned up at Maccadam. “I assure you, sir, I am in full possession of my faculties, and am not in the slightest capacity intoxicated.”
Careful, Conjoint. He owns the place. And he seems inclined to believe your legs over you.
“I was certain as to the cause for this… Inability,” He once again glared sharply at his lower limbs, testing the servos once more to see if they had yet regained their strength, “but now I am at a complete and total loss. It makes absolutely no sense for me to-”
“Oh.” His eyes lost their fury as he looked down not on his own legs, but those of some poor soul who had died over four years ago. “Oh.”
“Well, fortunately for you, you’ve happened to catch me in an open spot in my schedule,” Headcase says. “Very well; let us continue.”
The Epoch of Stagnation had little of note to leave behind- not as much as the other eras of cybertronian history, anyway. There are only a few relics on display: ruined pieces of Dire Wraith technology, a broken Primax Blade from the Simfur Temple on Caelum, and other assorted odds and ends. Most of the data that Machina would find from this time period would be mundane things like shipping manifests or census reports. It wasn’t until the aforementioned Dire Wraith attack that things would start to get interesting.
The clerk is certainly concerned to hear tale of mysterious vanishing people roaming about.
“Is there anything else you can tell me about this person?” he asks. “Did he have a weapon, or any strange devices on him, or-… hold on, do either of you hear that noise?”
“Gorlam Red hits everyone a little differently,” Maccadam assures Conjoint, not quite understanding what was truly causing the junkion’s malfunction. “Maybe I should start making people sign a waiver first, or something…”
There was a eukarian shuttle docked nearby, likely for the ambassador from the colony, but Asrar was not to be found here, either.