Welcome to Death

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After the women had taken the money from Roderick, the duo hailed a cab and gave the driver the name of their destination. The actual ride to the palace wasn't that much of a long one and fortunately they had enough money to cover the cost (We're just going to assume that Roderick paid cause I've made no mention of how much money Zephyr has on hand). "I really hope whatever clue is at the fountain isn't another riddle." Zephyr said, sighing as he exited the cab.

 

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"Aw, but riddles are fun, and we're pretty good at them," Roderick smiled, getting out of the cab and walking over to the fountain. "So, this is the fountain... Now if we only knew what we were looking for. Something in the stone, maybe? Or is the clue supposed to be somewhere nearby?" He walked around the fountain a little, scanning the surrounding area and then examining the fountain in more detail.

 

Chaol frowned slightly as he walked along with the others. Before he'd been fine with the cat following along, even if it could talk, but now that they were attempting to make some actual progress with their mission, it was no longer a welcome distraction. So, the moment Blaire turned into a female, Chaol had a very brief moment where he was caught off guard (and actually blushed), but quickly regained his composure and strolled over to the furry. "'Scuse me miss, but I happen to know of a bit of a stockpile of fish in the area. Better yet, it's guarded by some very playful people, perfect for someone such as yourself. If you would be so kind as to scout ahead of us for anything suspicious, I'd be happy to show you this place. Heck, I'll even stay behind for a day or so after the mission and show you how to really have fun around here, might even toss in a few extra fish for your trouble along the way. Of course, you can't stay too close to us. Wouldn't want the people we're after to get spooked and not want to play with us, now would we?" he propositioned.

Bargaining wasn't Chaol's strong suit, but he'd seen it done enough times to get the general feel of things. He'd known people whom one would swear they had silver tongues, but had never quite picked it up himself in the Dancing Blades. His training had been more along the lines of morality, keeping calm even in the most difficult of situations, and general assassination. Jack of all trades, master of none.



With a glow of pure awesome, Dana changed into her weapon form once more, ready to slay some undead things. "Sure, I could go for some more souls. Did that make me sound weird, Zoey? I think it made me sound a little weird. Good kinda weird though. I rock this weird like no other. I'm hungry, feeeeed meeeeeeee master" young Dana Knightfall said, almost drooling at the thought of the mummies' souls.​

 

Mikio had frozen in place when he heard the familiar voice next to his ear. One glance, and his face went from the normal pale color to completely white as blinding snow. His mouth gapped open in horror, sweat beads began to form on his forehead, and his knees began to shake and quiver as his arms went up and froze in defense.

I KNEW THERE WAS SOMETHING OFF ABOUT ALL OF THIS! He began to skirt away from the provocative cat lady, stiff step by stiff step, still keeping his arms up and his mouth open. Get away, get away from me!!! No stranger, not even his closest friends had gotten so close in his personal space before unnannouced. He nearly gagged at the thought as he scooted away centimeter by centimeter, not even hearing a word his teammate was telling the cat lady.

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Zoey giggled. "I am not your master, silly." She moved around the mummies, swinging Dana in rhythm to an unknown beat to the mummies fighting moves. "I am your meister." She smirked as she stabbed a mummy through the head and kicked another one behind her while yanking Dana away from the creature. "We can be weird together, you and me."

 

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Roderick felt sick again. This body was worse, since it was so... fresh. He snatched the note quickly and took a few steps back, reading it a few times over until he was finally able to focus, and then taking a deep breath, reading it over again.

"Um, okay," he said. "So, they talk a lot about feet," he noticed. "Shoes, tracks, boot... The clue definitely has something to do with feet... He also specifically said to throw this 'in the trash,' whatever that means.... So, maybe there's some kind of boot or something, or maybe a trash can, those are two options..."

He looked around them, carefully not looking back into the fountain, scanning the area to see if there were any random shoes lying around, or if there was a trash can nearby, and even checking for nearby footprints. After all, this body was fresh, so they'd just missed the Ripper by a few minutes. If there was any mud or something, they might be able to simply follow his tracks.

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"H-hey!" Matthew gaped at the weird cat lady, surprised at her sudden transformation and feeling incredibly uncomfortable with her current... outfit. "Get away from him, crazy lady, he doesn't like when people get that close!" He grabbed her wrist, pulling her away from Mikio a little and feeling concern for his partner, who appeared to be having some sort of panic attack. "Mikio, calm down, you're okay, it's just some weird cat!"

 

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"Hmm," Matthew said, looking around the room carefully. "Two doors... Does this mean we might have to split up to cover more ground?"

He walked towards the door on the left, to read the inscription there.

 

Well, Chaol's plan had backfired a little. He hadn't thought the cat lady would've had enough of an attention span to actually remember his promise. Then again, food was food and cats always seemed to like their fish...he really hadn't thought that plan through very well. His mentor would've given him a day's worth of lectures for screwing up like that. He sighed briefly, then squatted down and looked at the cat at eye level. "Truth be told, there was no stockpile, but I didn't lie about knowing some rather playful people. I know quite a few party-goers who I think you'd get along with somewhat well, given they are also obsessed with food. As for the fish, well I'm sure I could buy some for you around here, but it'll have to wait until after we're done. Mission comes first, above all else. Even fish" Chaol stated, before getting up and walking over to the door on the left and looking at the inscription.



"You'll have to keep up with me Meister, I've had lotsa practice!" the weapon said, moving her weaponised-body to the side slightly to assist with blocking the next strike. They worked well together, her and her meister. She was quite enjoying being Zoey's partner, and she really could see them helping her become a death scythe. Wouldn't lord death be the happiest ever then? He would have the awesomest, bestest death scythe ever. But first she had to focus on taking down these mummies and helping Zoey out in the battles, which is exactly what she intended to do. "Shame this area's so sandy and dusty, the buildings look pretty cool, but the sand in my netheregions is really ruining it"​

 

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Zephyr sighed upon getting to the fountain and it wasn't because there was another riddle there waiting for them, but the corpse of yet another person. Mixing together what the riddle had said and that was irritating to say the least. As for the riddle itself, what Roderick had said did make sense and he was fully prepared to go with it. But in this rare case Moksha actually had some input on this riddle, little input, but input nonetheless. "Maybe it's referring to where one puts the body." If the last line was referring to the corpse then they needed to find where one would dispose of it.

 

Blake walked around a couple moments after Marek walked out of the room. She watched as Meister and Weapon pairings walked around talking whether about missions they might take or are currently undergoing, or just other random things. After a couple minutes, Blake came across the library and walked inside and found a very quiet place and took out a book that she was currently reading. She sat down and continued to read where she left off in the book. "I wonder when I'll get assigned a meister. Hopefully, a meister will get partnered with me soon but only time will tell huh?" As Blake asked, her attention was off her book and onto her question for a little bit before directing her attention back to her book.

 

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Roderick glanced at the corpse before looking away. "You mean... you mean we should take this? This... corpse?" He shuddered, and then a sick thought came to him. "...What if, the thing about feet... applies to her feet?!" He shook his head. "No, no, that's crazy, it can't mean that, forget it... What are we supposed to do with... her, then, if you think we're supposed to take care of the body? I didn't sign up for this, this isn't what I thought it would be like, I don't- I don't-" He let out a shuddering breath, suddenly panting as he felt a bit dizzy.

 

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That wasn't what he meant by his suggestion, that wasn't what he meant by that at all. "Easy there, I didn't mean that we should start dragging around a dead body around with us." That really would've ended badly for them. He then placed his hand on Roderick shoulder with the hopes of calming him down. "What I meant was what would a killer do in this situation, putting ourselves in their shoes in a sense." Hopefully that explanation would clear up the misunderstanding that had occurred, still it wasn't the easiest thing to ask someone to do. Getting a closer look at the body could help to some extent, thus Zephyr took the first step into the fountain. Roderick might ave been onto something with his shoe hypothesis earlier so he decided to look there first and the corpses high heels.

Now having received his meister parings Kuro began the task of looking for his new partner. Not having any idea what his partner looked would make this a difficult task, but fortunately he was told where to find his partner. The information given led him to the library which he found someone that he presumed to be his partner. A girl, sitting by herself reading a book. "So, you wouldn't happen to be Blake would you?"

 

Blake turned another page in her book as continued to read before someone had disrupted her reading. "So you wouldn't happen to be Blake would you?" The girl looked up to see a boy standing in front of her. Blake stood up as she placed her bookmark in her book and closed it until the next time she would read it. She adjusted her glasses as it had fallen a little before speaking up. "Yes, that would be me. Is there something wrong?" Blake replied to the boy's question. Curious as to why he was looking for her, she awaited for his response.

 

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Zoey sighed out in relief when the mummies had vanished. She ventured back to the where they were last, holding Dana in her hands. "Okay, you're turn to pick," she said.

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Mikio followed after everyone else, silently thanking Matthew and Chaol over and over again for getting rid of the cat-lady... thing. He knew it was too good to be true to be able to talk to a talking cat and being asked for belly rubs. He followed close behind Matthew, avoiding the odd cat-lady and checking out the inscription on the door. ​

 

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Damn, the idea that the shows would have some sort of helpful idea proved to be a waste. There had to be something that they were missing from that riddle that would tell them where Jack the Ripper was. As it was right now, he couldn't think of anything.

Relief was felt upon learning that he had found the right person, certainly saved him a lot of trouble if he had run into the wrong person by mistake. "Just wanted to make sure that I had found the right person as my partner." He nonchalantly said, sitting in an open seat.

 

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Rubbing her arms, Hannah had gone quiet for a bit. Her suggestion to get on with the mission had had mixed success. Everyone had seemed to agree with her but at the same time, she had the bad feeling like she had come across as a spoil sport and no fun. She didn't really want to be seen as the boring serious one. The cat's transformation into a woman had made her further uncomfortable so she'd just quietly drifted to the back of the group, out of the attention. She was happy enough to let the others deal with the cat woman.

That said as they approached the doors with the inscription, Hannah did wander over to take a closer look, "Split up? I'm not sure that's the best of ideas. I think it might work better if we stay together. Anyway, lemme see the inscription, let's work this out"