Welcome to Death

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"Hmm..." Matthew put a hand up to his chin thoughtfully as he looked the riddle over. "Black when you buy it, red when you use it, and gray when you throw it away... Is it maybe some kind of food or something? But what food is like that? Maybe it's something else... Ummm... Well, what do you guys think?"

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Roderick shuddered a little, looking away from the corpse as Zephyr stepped out of the fountain. "Then I don't know what we're supposed to do," he sighed. "Except, to try and figure out his next move and try to get there before him. Sort of, put ourselves in his shoes, like you said. So, um, what do we know about this guy? He kills prostitutes, and... he likes riddles. Let's see... Maybe we should go back to that alley and talk to... those girls, again. They might be able to at least tell us a bit more about him. And if not..." He sighed a little. "I mean, they could tell us other places he might go."

 

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If they were going to figure out where then asking the...um...girls from before might not be such a bad idea. Though Zephyr kinda had a bad feeling regarding what could happened. Least regarding one of them. However it could be beneficial to keep that in mind if they couldn't find something else here. "That could work, bu there might be something else we're missing here. Maybe we could try to lure him out somehow. Assuming the girls from earlier can't tell us anything." Zephyr suggested.

 

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Mikio saw the riddle and listened to Matthew's point of view on it. He looked down and fiddled with his chained necklace, his voice low and quiet. "Um... it could be charcoal..." He cleared his throat, keeping his head down as he spoke. He wasn't very confident with himself, but it seemed logical to him. "It's black when you buy it, you light it on fire it turns red... and when you clean out the fireplace, all that's left is grey dust."

 

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Hannah was quiet for a moment as she listened to the others but she had a smile on her face. She did actually quite like riddles. Upon hearing Mikio's answer, she nodded, "I agree, my first thought when I heard the riddle was coal but I thought that burnt coal was possibly more white. I think your answer was more specific and probably better, so maybe we should go with that?" She asked the others in a calm tone, making sure everyone was happy. She was surprised by the appearance of this riddle, not that she was complaining, she had just expected the mission to be more about stealth and fighting than problem solving.

 

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Matthew sighed, looking down both corridors. "Well, we've already said we don't want to split up," he said. "So which way should we go? Left or right... I think perhaps we should go left. If this thing turns out to be some sort of maze, I heard that you should always choose one option, and then always take that option unless it leads to a dead end. So we should always take a left turn, so we don't get as lost. I think. I might be confusing that with something else, though..."

 

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"Oh, okay," Roderick said, glancing around again. "I just can't think of anything else to do. Luring him out seems like a good idea... How do we do that, though? He knows we're onto him, and he knows we're close behind him... I guess, let's just go back and see if that girl can help us out."

They hailed another cab, driving back to the London Eye and walking back over to the alley, looking for the girl they'd talked to earlier.

Finally spotting her, Roderick felt himself blush, shoving his hands back into his pockets and taking a deep breath before walking over to her. "Um, hello..." He muttered. "We, uh... We got another riddle, but we're having trouble figuring it out." He handed her the paper. "I thought it might have something to do with shoes or trash or something, but that didn't pan out. It mentions like, failures belonging somewhere? I don't know what that means, though..."

Ugh, he was doing a bad job of explaining this.

 

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Having officially back tracked back to the alley in search of the girls from earlier. Ideally they would have some form of insight to the riddle that they had either not thought of themselves or managed to miss. That's also what Zephyr was doing in his head, rethinking the riddle and trying to see if there was another way to interpret it. This was one of the things that he hated about riddles, there's various different ways that they could be taken and yet there was only one answer among those various ways.

 

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They may not have been able to get an answer from the girls, Zephyr had come up with an idea on where to go for the riddle. Once they weren't given an answer from the girls, he walked over to Roderick. "I think I may know where we need to go." Of course he had his doubts about his idea, but it was better than doing nothing. They were still on the trail of a serial killer after all!

This time it was Zephyr's turn to hail a cab, this one driving them to the dump.

Paying the driving and exiting the cab, Zephyr started too look around. It was his idea that had lead them here and now that they were, he had no idea just what it was that they were supposed to be looking for here.

 

Chaol was not happy with the maze. He'd remained quiet when presented with the riddle (he kinda sucked at them), and mazes were almost as terrifying of an ordeal. Chaol Arroway was most certainly not a puzzle-solver. He was more of a hands on sort of person, taking a practical approach to things and getting them done in the most efficient manner, which is why Matthew's idea sounded like a fantastic one. "Sounds like a good idea to me. It beats just randomly running around, anyway. I say we give it a shot" the assassin said, giving his two cents.


"Gaaaah.....when will this ever end? Too many choices, too many mummies, too much sand. It's enough to give a girl stress wrinkles" Dana complained, before turning into her human form once more (she was getting very good at swapping between them so casually) and jabbing a finger towards the ceiling. "If you're watching, lord death, then you'd better have a whole buttload of ice creams ready for us when we get back. If you could make them the same flavour of those souls that would be nice too, but no biggie if you can't. Oh, oh make them chocolate with only the finest sprinkles. You got that? Awesome, thanks, will make a fine-ass death scythe one day to make it up to you" she called out, before glancing down the paths they were presented with. Shrugging her shoulders, and knowing Zoey wouldn't be able to actually see that, she started walking to their left. "This way to the kishin soul, I can feel it in my bones, and my nose can smell it. It reeks of old people down here, did you know that?" ​

 

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Roderick transformed immediately, turning into the bright, silver katana he called his weapon form, trusting that his partner would catch him.

"Are you ready for this?" He called, focusing on Jack the Ripper and feeling a rush of excitement now that he was finally about to fight his first fight. "I'll try to help keep an eye on him and see if I can figure out his attack patterns or weaknesses."

 

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Zoey scratched her head when she listened to her partner rant. She wondered what Lord Death would think if he was actually watching them and listening to what Dana was spouting off. At the rate they were going and how they were handling this mission, Zoey didn't think they would be treated to ice cream. Maybe they really did go into this too quickly. But she wasn't going to be the one to drag her partner down at this rate. What was done was done, and they were nothing to go back and change it. They were going to have to make due for what they had.

A giggle finally escaped from her and she covered her mouth to stifle it. "Chocolate with sprinkles? Heh. I don't think he has the power to make them taste a certain way. They just are what they are or what your mind wills them to be."

There was that pessimistic side trying to come out.

Zoey forced a smile and shrugged her shoulder. "Okay, left it is," she said, touching the wall as she walked. "Should we just stay left and see where it goes?"

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"A-agreed," Mikio said to Matthew's and Chaol's words. Seeing that no one else had really moved, he began to carefully move his way to the left as planned. They were going to walk ahead of him, right? He couldn't be the one to lead the group, that would just be too awkward and weird. Even though he seemed like he could be in authority because of his height, he felt too shy to actually be parading around this place. Strange though, the last thing he was expecting from this was a maze. Hopefully it wasn't like that scientist's idea of putting a cat in a box and... what exactly happened again with that? His mind was wandering again.​

 

"Yeah, may as well see it through. Maybe we'll find some treasure at the end of this, mummies have treasure by them I'm sure of it. I call dibs on any rubies or bracelets" the weapon said excitedly. Diamonds may have been a girl's best friend, but Dana had a small fascination with bracelets. It probably stemmed from the fact her parents often encouraged it by getting her some of them, but who knew? It was just one of the many quirks and oddities that made Dana Knightfall, well, Dana Knightfall. And she loved it.​

 

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Now being face to face with Jack the ripper, Zephyr was disgusted not so much by the fact that he had just eaten a soul of yet another person that he probably killed, but the fact that he was standing in front of someone that could kill so easily, with no second though. That was what disgusted him and the fight was about to begin. Zephyr quickly caught Roderick's weapon form and avoided the initial attack from Jack the Ripper. "Then leave the fighting to me." With one quick adjustment of his footing, Zephyr stepped forward and slashed at the killer.

@KHGrl15 pooooooooooost

 

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"Right," Roderick said, focusing on Jack the Ripper as the man rushed at them, side-stepping Zephyr and taking a swipe at him from behind, with his large claws.

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"So, another fork in the road," Matthew noted, looking around. "Left again?" He walked a little ways down the left path. "Hopefully we're going the right way," he noted. "At least we probably won't get lost very easily. Unless this is some sort of magic maze that shifts while you're in it. That would be difficult. Though, I think that if Bonnie and Clyde were predisposed to magical exploits, it would have said so in the mission. So, it's probably not magic. That would be kind cool, though, if it were," he smiled a little, looking around at the walls. "Not very good for our mission, but still pretty cool. Magic mazes would be fun if they weren't dangerous, I bet."

 

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Jack the ripper was fast, there was no denying that, but his movements were still within his capabilities to read. As he side stepped to get past them, Zephyr spun on his heel to avoid having his back facing him. Once moved out of the line of the attack, Zephyr proceeded to block the attack with his weapon. That maneuver was followed by Zephyr quickly pushing the claw away to quickly go in for an attack of his own, a slash aimed for Jack the Ripper's chest.

 

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Roderick felt a surge of exhilaration as Zephyr used him to fight Jack the Ripper. As his first fight, this was going well, and having his blade clash against the claws was... pretty fun, actually.

Zephyr's hit landed, and the man let out a slight yell of pain and anger as he staggered back, clutching at the wound. He looked down at it and then back up at Zephyr, gritting his teeth.

"DIE!" He yelled, slashing with the claws on his right hand and immediately following with his left, before grabbing for Zephyr's arm to try and pull him closer, pulling his other arm back as if he were going to head straight for Zephyr's face.

"Look out," Roderick called instinctively, though he trusted the older boy to have seen it as well...