The Last Oddetsey

[kodster]

Eudial blinked rather rapidly and carefully removed the bloody blade from the casket. She clearly felt the weapon exuding copious amounts of holy energy... so much so that it was irritating her skin... a lot. Wait, why a holy weapon? She was evil! Was this going to be like a double-edged sword, so to speak? Quickly she sheathed it to her black beltline and tried really hard to ignore her heavily itching wrists now, pocketing the other objects as well.

"I feel... weird," said Eudial lamely. Then she went on, more loudly, "But whatever. I see we have a time to go by, now. This cannot be just a coincidence." She looked at Gaunt and the others.

[NWOWWE]

Gaunt removed the basic supplies from chest. Some currency! That could come in handy if they were able to find some kine of shop or barter location. He had the bargaining skills Arab traders could only dream of after all. The communicator was a nice little tidbit. The watch now. It was counting down to to a specific times. Countdowns. So now they were on some kind of time limit.

Then he saw the waistcoat. It seemed a bit underwhelming at first, but he put it on all the same. Instantly even the slightly chilled room felt perfectly temperate. He removed the coat. The temperature went back to normal. He put it back on again. Perfect. Well now. Then he looked in the pockets. There was a collapsible harpoon. A fairly rudimentary weapon, but it was better than not having anything at all to defend himself with anymore. There were also some small marble like objects in another pocket. A swirling smoke was within them. Smoke bombs. Again fairly useful for someone like him who didn't favor fighting.

He turned and saw Eudial fidgeting uncomfortably with a bloody knife. There seemed to be a sense of goodness that was radiating from it that was slightly irritating Gaunt even from a distance. As useful as a knife could be (especially a powerful one) he didn't want any part of that blade.

"So, a countdown now?" Gaunt said. "It's more than we new even seconds ago, but I'm not sure I'm relieved that we still don't know what it's for. I'll welcome the supplies though. I've been thinking about buying a new coat for years."

[NFX]

"You got a coat?" Twitch asked Leland, lifting his head out of the casket. The macaw was now sporting a bone white helmet that looked as if it had been tailor-made for him. There were gaps for his eyes and his beak, but everything else was covered. His question, though, was slightly muffled, as he had elected to pick up the communicator with his beak.

Okay, not having hands was now a real pain. The magnet and cassette were fine, the helmet he could wear, and the watch seemed like it might fit loosely around the leg that didn't have the tag on it. But holding the communicator in his mouth made it almost comedically redundant, and then there was what he imagined was currency. Being a bird, he didn't really have any manner of carrying it around. "Has anybody got a bag or something?" he inquired, placing the communicator on the ground in front of him.

[playzooki]

playzooki decided to go eenie meenie minie mo bla bla bla and chose the rock musician thingy, and opened it,

[steven_mcg]

"Well, the Grand Cathedral is the other side of the city... but the trains haven't been running since they diverted the power into the shields so you'll have to find your own way there. Also....errrrr....."

Not a problem. I have an excellent sense of direction - or I will do once I cobble a GPS together from all this rubbish! You couldn't possibly write down some directions, my good crispy kangaroo chum? I wouldn't mind taking in the old place on our way out of town.

"Well we had some strange deliveries the other week, we are only a small church but we were told to house some relics until someone came to get them, and that it'd be obvious who they are for. There is one for you Almighty Vengeance in the room to the back of the church, that seems to be operated by some sort of elaborate scanning and such, and there were 16 boxes and nine keys - of which you may have one each, apparently the key will be destroyed when you open the box of your choice."

Ooh, tributes. How very generous. You won't mind, will you? K, thanks, bye.

Vengeance's room appears to a polished metal sphere hovering at waist high and with markings to place hands upon it.

(Well, this is anticlimactic. And more than a little suspect.)

(I know there are gloves in my suit jacket, but I'm not entirely sure how well they'd hold up against 50,000v of surprise electrical feedback. No, I think I'll let my little robot friend scan the bugger - it should only take a few minutes to upgrade him for just that - and make sure it's not a big, shiny trap before I lay hands on it. If he gives the all-clear, though, I'll go right ahead and rip that thing open like a Kinder egg!)

[majinb]

Guided by her angelic plight, still a little bit shaken by the recent events that took place on the mountain, Aurelia is drawn to the nearest church. She was pleased to see the same was somehow true for most of her fellow adventurers.

She joined her party full of good intentions, but her eyes immediately wandered off towards the keys and the caskets. She had intended to inform everyone of what happened on the mountain. She had intended to ask what happened to the rocky one, and what happened to the rest of them since they had split up. She intended about the Old Worlds Club, the Void Archon, the seemingly masked chanting-yet-not-chanting creatures. She had intended what was up with the dead cat outside, the pantless ducks, the statues. She had intended to ask the party if they had considered the villainous Professor Vengeance's doubtful motivations...

... well she couldn't let that one pass...

"Have you considered the villainous Professor Vengeance's doubtful motivations?"

Her eyes gazed upon the keys and the caskets again...

"I'll take the French one!"

[alex_holt]

Playzooki extracts a jacket from the casket, and immediately all eyes in the room are upon him as the thing he pulls out the most sequinned object that has been produced in the multiverse. Even the sequins on the sequins have sequins. A note that falls out of it suggests that it is designed to be bullet proof, fire proof and stabbing weapon resistant, which is kind of necessary in that it makes the wearer the complete centre of attention in a room, in any context at all, be it romantic or target for assassination. It also has several pockets which still smell of the residue of illicit substances.

The door shuts behind Vengeance giving him complete privacy.

Arriving suddenly out of nowhere, Aurelia quickly is drawn to the casket of Maurice Francois, and on opening it up he finds a bizarre artifact - a ten seater collapsible bicycle where all the internal tubing seems to be filled with some ancient and particularly potent wine. A stopper on the handlebar seems to be how you extract this ludicrous vintage.

Professor Vengeance successfully modifies his little butlerbot and the robot detects no immediate threats from the sphere. He hesitantly places his hands on it and suddenly the sphere doesn't feel quite so solid - it flows in liquid metal form around and onto Vengeances hands before forming into a particularly dapper pocketwatch. A quick test reveals this to be thoughtsteel - a superhard metal that morphs into whatever shape the owner requires of it. However, from the middle of this sphere drops a tiny glowing object which hits the floor and begins to project up a hologram. One unmistakably of the face of a very elderly Professor Reginald Fortescue Vengeance (Esq.)

"So... you took your time..."

[alex_holt]

Sprondinkle cringes "Why would you want to know about him? He's ancient history, hasn't been seen in thousands of years. A reeeeal nasty piece of work, would be saving the world one minute and trying to take it over the next, wouldn't catch me going anywhere the likes of that guy!"

As for map... perhaps I can interest you in a geolocational earwig? It's the last one I have left, very rare and hard to get hold of these days - will let you have perfect knowledge of where you are at all times!"

[alex_holt]

"Well yes that goes without saying - I wouldn't trust ghostly spectral old me if I appeared out of the blue - which is why I quickly point out two things before I fail to answer your barrage of questions. Firstly, I'm not actually you - I'm one of those mental imprint thingies - you know - Jor-El in the Fortress of Solitude deals. Secondly, I'm actually a younger you. Yes. The Face. I know. You've been to this universe before. Twice! Fortunately for you escaping it was a whole Narnia type deal - get out and de-ages you, though apparently it may cause severe permanent damage to most of the memories between getting here and getting out. Apparently you must have thought it worth the risk, though bugger me if I know why, you didn't see fit to copy me that completely.

Anyway, according to my computers you've got the deliveries - took a bit to wrangle those to here, it should have included some special watches - they are counting down to the point where the forces outside the shield will break through and begin the chain reaction that will destroy the multiverse. Not something I'm thrilled by even if I am only a simulation. I don't know what exactly is going on, but the readings suggest that thing up there has the same energy signature Doomforall's void staff. It's probably his fault somehow. On the plus side, if you save the multiverse from him, that is both a win over him and probably will net you loads of people signing fealty to you!".

[andrewj]

Cleo was still distressed by the levitating cat from earlier, but she seemed more relaxed by Aurelia's presence.

"I was worried about you... Where did you go? Where's Caspasian?"

Cleo remained intrigued about the telepathic message and the psychic wave she had felt and wondered if the Cucumberoo could help.

"What else can you tell me about the measures in place to stop widespread panic?"

She then picked up one of the keys in her mouth and scanned the remaining metal caskets. Something seemed appealing about the strange catfish-like creature, so she awkwardly began to open that box.