END GAME: THE COUNTDOWN STARTS

[sailmods]

[the prisoners wake up on cold, hard floors.

the lights are bright, glaring, a sterile cell with sterile bars facing a sterile hall. the prisoners with you, across from you, and no one else. no rocking of a ship in waves, nothing. just the prisoner and their prison.

time passes, one assumes. the rhythmic click of Friday’s heels down the hall. it’s almost like the ticking of a clock.]

Comments

[takethatnature]

Wilson forfeits the push-up competition.

[neverleave]

[It's just as well that Steve stopped shouting. Natsuno would've been content to stay quiet while his roommate converses with Ruby, but she addresses him with a pointed question. He supposes it's expected - Ruby must've been of the first to hear from Darcy about of Clarke's involvements, and everyone knows how close she and Natsuno are.]

Yeah, I did.

[His voice is calm, collected. The timing surprised him, and he didn't know for certain what the string would do, but that hardly matters. He knew enough, and he stands by his friend. He will not shy away from the consequences.]

[neverleave]

Yeah, Malin made the captain block our powers.

[He can still see and smell better than a human would, but his super strength is gone, as did his sun magic. Two puncture wounds on his wrist are proof that his regeneration is gone as well.]

It might be dangerous out there. Would you... I mean, all of you. Would you be okay if the part that's following Friday got hurt?

[What if he gets stomped on?]

[yournewsidekick]

"Yeah," she says. "Deal."

Nimona leans against the bars. The flicker of confidence gutters and winks out. She can feel her eyes welling up again; it's easier to ignore than the can't-shift ache, but it still feels miserable. Because what if they're both wrong and they can't get out of here?

This body isn't the right shape for anything she's feeling. There's no other way to let it out but start weeping again.

[lovethyneighb_or]

Mulcahy grimaces.

"Christianity is... inherently apocalyptic in some sense, it's true. It's a rather complex topic, one that I could truly speak for hours on, but the point is that I don't believe it's any of our right to try and hurry it along. Some unfortunately disagree with me, especially the Evangelists. I'm... sorry their wish came true in your world, but I assure you, I'll offer the Lord some very fervent prayers for, er. Not dying."

[angrycrabnoises]

Karkat’s eyes widen and he grips the bars. “SIFFLEUR WHAT THE FUCK? HOW’D YOU GET OUT?”

He doesn’t comment on Nepeta, but he is definitely relieved by that information. Siffleur is right about the worrying.

Archive Storage Heist (with Victor)

[teethoftherisk]

All his life, he's heard people use the term 'herding cats' to describe the difficulty of organizing things. He will now personally be adding 'organizing ants' to that list as he works on getting the bulk of Victor to come with him to the end of the hallway.

He comes to a stop outside of the storage room, waiting as lines and lines of Victor approach him. It's clear to Siffleur that he has to be direct and thoughtful about his requests to Victor.

Siffleur starts with the item they can both see. "I need you to knock the pitchfork down and bring it here."

It's a long slow process. But thankfully, you add enough ants pushing on anything and you can get what you want. The pitchfork falls and with some careful instruction from Siffleur, they bring it to him shaft-first, fitting it through the bars as much as they can.

While Victor gets the boxes on the shelves, Siffleur carefully grips the trident in his paws and starts turning it until it's sideways and he can drag it through the bars, the first of their treasures recovered.

He worries some when the boxes inevitably fall to the ground, tensed and waiting for the sound of something shattering. But Flan and April have done good work, and inside everything is wrapped and padded, braced for accidental falls.

Victor works his best to unwrap the items and bring them to Siffleur, until they have three glass containers with liquids, a gun, and the pitchfork.

"Good job." He tells Victor, and with the little voices cheering him on. And the timing is just right, because something heavy hits the bars and Siffleur jumps straight up in the air, hitting the ceiling.

[redlightgreenlight]

She agrees with Siffleur that Friday deserves to be her own person.

"You make a fair point with Jenny, but that just means we can count on her selfishness. Is Malin the one she gambled her ship away to?"

Because the goddess may decide she wants it and her brothers back. Though Valdis suspects she lost them in her attempt to get it, since she got them from the Captain before leaving the Eterna.

"She may see us as a way to get everything back."

They just have to contact her.

[redlightgreenlight]

"Well, I'm baseline human at the moment, so I won't be any help getting us out."

[fonomena]

"He quite approves of 'munch', a good choice," Jade relays back to Aiden, with an affectation not dissimilar to somebody commentating on a mediocre but mildly interesting sort of sports match. "Apparently this is to be a sonnet, for someone named Flan, about..."

What is a Taco Bell, anyway? Or so Jade nearly asks, but then Pratt's beating him to the punch with a series of rambling context clues that offer a very approximate sort of illumination. There are multiple terms that seem to refer to foods--and one of them actually stands out, in the way it tugs upon a memory that feels as if it had happened in another life by now. Nacho fries. Yes, it had been one of the ship's earlier excursions, out to a desert; before the zombies, there had been...

"Oh, this is about some sort of diner with a bell in it? Thus the reason it's called 'Taco Bell'?" How Pratt could be managing to think about a hypothetical diner in the middle of all this is...well no, actually, Jade supposes it isn't really so surprising. Yet again, if it's a matter of passing the time...sure. Why not. "He needs some elaborate phrasing about 'running for the border' now," he supplements to Aiden once more. "The subject matter remains unfamiliar to me, unfortunately, so I'm not sure what to contribute there. ...I assume a 'baha blast' isn't some sort of arte, but it certainly sounds like one."

If nothing else, this actually does seem to be reigniting Jade's own sardonic humor somewhat. Morale win...??

[teethoftherisk]

"The Captain is an idiot and if we escape, he owes Friday her freedom at all costs." He doesn't linger anymore on this. Ava's right - they have to be quick before Malin catches on.

"The doors don't have anything on them. I can't tell if they can be pushed open, or if we'll need to do something else to get through them." He sighs a little, but there's one bright spot. "At least they aren't round doorknobs. Those are difficult to open with paws."

[teethoftherisk]

"Friday made my bars weaker than they were, so I could bend them and get out. I'm spreading information between people." He debates, then decides that yes, this is the time to say something before it's too late. "When you and Nepeta had your dates, did you decide how you felt about her?"

[teethoftherisk]

"The others said that she had lost her ship in a game. It makes sense that it would be to Malin." Valdis' thinking assures him some. Though he doesn't know if they can trust Jenny to have Friday's best interests in mind, she will have her own interests - and Malin doesn't seem like the type to make fair deals. Freeing them means she gets her ship back, so she's worth risking an alliance with.

"We'll have to try then. I hope she is better than I think she is." He glances back and forth between the two doors, one near and one far. "There's archive storage near the back. I'm going to try get items out of it before I go through a door. I would rather have someone smarter coming with me."

[fonomena]

Well, nearly dying in the process wouldn't be ideal, though I suppose we shouldn't rule it out... [It's not a terribly encouraging report, over there, but then again it's not as if Jade had been expecting somebody to leap up with a tale of flawless success either. Otherwise such a person would already be trying to form a plan of action for this particular escape, probably. Ah well...] Perhaps it's reassuring to you, at least, that it doesn't look like any of us are getting any chairs to be strapped into particularly soon. That aside, we may very well need to kill our way out when the time comes here too--so at least you're already quite versed on that front!

[The cheery note on that last bit isn't even attempting to be genuine, and wanes pretty much as quickly as it came with the sigh pressed out afterwards. Jade braces himself against the bars, craning his head and trying to see if he can get any sort of angle that would allow for seeing just a bit further down the hall into the other cells...no real luck there, though...]

...Not quite sure if this is better or worse than that stone waiting room in the dream was, that time ago. You know, deputy, we really must stop meeting like this...

[sailmods]

[the bars are unaffected.]

[redlightgreenlight]

"Jenny doesn't need to be better, she just needs to help us escape."

If Valdis has learned anything of people over the years, it's that they can be trusted to act according to their nature. Friday cared for them once and they broke her, but she still cared for Siffleur and helped him despite whatever orders she was given. Clearly she was not ordered to stop them from escaping and has some wiggle room in her decisions. The fact her timely patrolling has stopped may mean she's taking her chance that they can free her by turning a blind eye.

If they can get Jenny and the Erda on their side, they just might be able to do this. Though they still need to get out.

"If you can get me out, I will go with you, but there are others who may also be good choices, so grab whoever is easiest to rescue."

[fonomena]

- Jade is glad to hear that Fio is okay. He'd like her to know that he's fine as well. Since she's recommending it, maybe he'll have a good cry after all! (He doesn't, of course, but maybe it's the thought that counts...)

- There is also thanks for sharing the letter. It sounds like either the Captain or Sparkles may not be under complete control after all; this is promising news. Apparently anyone who can get free will be able to enter the bridge, if they can reach it. Our lovely museum curator is probably within. Surely there will be some form of security out there, though...

[hate_gettin_older]

Hearing a story like this as a kid, he would have tried to prove how smart he was by guessing. Something good he didn't want to share; something bad he didn't want her to know. Maybe both.

Here and now, though he has a suspicion, he doesn't want to voice it.

"No, what?"

[ossie_oswald]

"The other wives," he leans in a little, to impart the gravity of her discovery.

"Each of them on a hook, with a basin of blood at their feet, overflowing. She screamed, and in her panic, dropped the key. She knew that Bluebeard would know by the blood on the key that she had disobeyed, so she tried to clean it off, but the key- it bled, beyond the smear of blood from where she dropped it."

Lowers his voice just a little, "and who then would walk back in the front door, than Bluebeard himself, back early from his trip?"

[littlefairytale]

Ruby shrugs lightly, gesturing broadly at herself. "So am I." Beat. "Actually I'm worse than baseline, heh, without my eyepatch. B-But my point is, almost everyone is right now. Special abilities aren't going to be what gets us out of here. If having no abilities makes you no help, then no one is any help. But we all have our brains, right? We just... have to find the best way to put them together."

[redlightgreenlight]

Valdis smiles and shakes her head.

"Yeah, no time to mope. We can figure it out if we work together. After all, not everyone on the ship is baseline human. Victor is evidence of that."

Maximillian too. There's also Bastion. None of them even have a human form.

"Someone is going to have an idea."

[littlefairytale]

Hey that actually worked better than she thought it would. "Exactly! And once things start falling, it'll be like, uh— dominoes." She mimes helpfully. "Falling. Like dominoes."

[hate_gettin_older]

His hand tightens on the bar, despite himself.

Either Bluebeard kills the girl or someone else shows up and saves her, or she somehow finds a way to fight him. He doesn't see another way for this to end, unless -- those other wives, on hooks and bleeding, are they still alive? Could they be saved, could they fight?

It's harder to keep from guessing aloud this time, but he makes himself say "What did she do?"

[redlightgreenlight]

"Hell hath no fury like an angry mob of prisoners with a singular goal."

[sabigoe]

...Of course. I won't give up on Sparkles. [ As she always says.

Bashfully, she gives the floor a light kick. ]

Nothing's really wrong. [ Except.. the obvious. Being imprisoned and all! ] I just wish... I could fight for once too, to protect everyone. I got some powers, but now they're all gone.