@Shadow Dragon

"I call you demon-dealer because your vampire, and vampires were made by a mortal dealing with demons. You may have killed elders, but when all this is sorted, I would collect their possessions as well as their powers." and he walked up to dog.

@Gentlemanvaultboy

"What exactly are you, Jackel? Your essence, your soul, is...tampered. Are you the result of necromancy?" he said from behind.

@Strong Potato

"But I told you my name." Dog said as he stoop to pick up the scrap of paper Mikkish had dropped and read it while walking. "I told you my name when we met."

@Dealdric
"I told ya, it's Dog." He looked down at himself. "As for necromancy, maybe? I think it's called mad science we're I'm from. They grew me in a tube. Or they put me in a tube and I came out like this...they never tell us anything about how we're made."

Dof was beginning to cotton on to the fact that whatever was happening down here was something...else. Weirder that some kind of weapons test. These guys, well, it was getting pretty clear that they weren't other experiments from other labs. He didn't even think they lived on the same planet. "Oh man, you guys don't think we've been abducted by aliens do you?"

@Dealdric@Shadow Dragon@Strong Potato@Gentlemanvaultboy

"I'm pretty sure Maniacles Corporation did this. They always do shit like this." Mikkish declared with certainty.

Since they had arrived on this floor, their superpowers, weapons, and bloodlust combined took out the masses of zombies. Thats not to say they got rid of all of them, but the ones that remained were either stumbling around in some corner, or amassed in a random, unimportant area. No longer were the hordes too thick to safely move through, but instead a coat of maggot infested viscera carpeted the floor.

Gore and death was nothing new to Mikkish, and neither were macabre horrors. What bothered him was how much of it there now was. He cringed.

Eventually, they made their was to a Macy's, which was interesting because if this was some prison or experiment, people actually took the time to open a store and stock it with all this clothing. A few zombies did linger around here, but more importantly, Mikkish spotted a man in what looked like a cop uniform running into the back. Funny, now it was him chasing the cops down.

"Hey!" Mikkish called, but then something even more strange happened. The back wall...opened to what looked like...another elevator. The cop got in and the elevator then left.

"Hey! Hey hey hey!" Dog shouted, sprinting to the back of the store and reaching the elevator just as the door shut. "Hey!" he continued, pounding futilely on the back wall. He sadly scraped his hands down the wall and turned around. "Sorry, he got away." He sad, rubbing his head. He suddenly sniffed and looked back over at his gore stained wrist. Angrily and ripped off his shirt and threw it on the floor. If he'd been able to smell properly in all this death and muck they would have found that guy sooner. He grabbed another shirt of similar size and color off one of the racks and slipped it on.

Vinashy fingers a shirt. "This material offers no protection. What is it's purpose?" He turns, and taps Dogs shirt experimentally, his claw easily poking a small hole in the fabric. As he pokes Dog, his eyes and cloak glow, and an overpowering stench of blood hits Dog like a hammer.

Zanni looks around and picks up an XXL shirt. After putting it on, he notices that it contains some text. He walks up to Vinashy to answer his question.

"To maybe taunt some people", Zanni says. (@Shadow Dragon)

On his shirt is written 'I am with idiot', with a big green arrow pointing towards Vinashy.

"Or maybe to look a little bit more fabulous. Also, my bad if I didn't get your name from the first meeting. Kinda a lot happened until now." (@Gentlemanvaultboy)

He grins, and steps out of the way so the arrow now points at Slaen. "I like that shirt. Not enough to get one myself, but it's humorous. And true. Are there any places where we can get real armor? That really would be helpful."

@Strong Potato@Shadow Dragon@Gentlemanvaultboy@MikkishtheLeprechaun

Slaen simply looked confused. "Why chase the man in blue? No matter, he's gone now." He went to dog and the undead. "It's cloth, not meant for protection, just decency. And Dog's shirt is right, he is with stupid, he he. But what in the nine realms is a 'Alien'?"

Dog can't help but cover his nose as the stench almost overwhelms him. Why were so many of these guys so rank? "I think the only armor you'd find around this place is football pads. Hey, that's not a bad Idea actually. Couldn't hurt at least."

"And an alien is a thing that comes down from the sky in a flying saucer to take people and do weird stuff like this. And other bad stuff. Like, they cut up cows and make crop circles and things. I think it's as good an explanation as any. Because, no offence guy," he calls over to Mikkish. "But Maniacles isn't a company I've ever heard of, and if they were big enough to pull something like this off I'd have had to fight something they made or kidnap someone who works for them at some point. Or at least heard my pals talk about doing something like that..."

"Who or what ever did this is obviously bigger them anything we know about. Tell me about this "Maniacles". What do they do?"

@Dealdric

Mikkish looked to Slaen "We're chasing him because he might know something about whats going on. In fact, he might have been running for just that reason; because he knew we were coming."

When he heard both Dog and Vinashy speak, however, a sense of dread washed over him, which took him a minute to process.

"Maniacles? Come on, everybody knows about them..." He thought back to what he learned at the Academy, about different scenarios playing out in different universes. He had never actually believed it when he was told about it.

"I think you're right. Way bigger than Maniacles. Maniacles is a mercenary company that rules the world, so how none of you seem to know about them baffles me. Though this could have something to do with a spell that went wrong at the Academy. Regardless, we need real answers and not just theories."

But while everyone spoke, They stalked the racks...



From the corner of his eye, Mikkish noticed one.

"I think we are in for another part." He said, raising his fists and buffing his strength and speed again.

Dog's eyes darted around the room when he saw Mikkish enter into a fighting stance, catching a hint of chitinous hide and a long wicked tail slink behind one of the racks, out of sight. Dog slowly edged his way away from the racks toward the rest of the group. He hadn't been able to smell them either over the musk of the unread that filled this enclosed space.

"I hope the next floor isn't this rotten." He said quietly, tensing himself to avoid an attack from any direction. He might not be able to smell, but he could still listen. Now that he'd opened his ears to it he could hear the slow pad of footfalls, the rustling of fabric as they brushed up against it. How many? How many was this? There was one, he knew. He could hear it, creeping around riiiiiight over...there!

Vinashy had the rocket launcher. "Hey." Dog said, voice steady so as not to alert the new monsters. He pointed where he thought one of the things was creeping around. "Shoot there." @Shadow Dragon

@Gentlemanvaultboy@MikkishtheLeprechaun@Shadow Dragon@Strong Potato

Slaen saw what was happening and sensed something...abominable. His helmet summoned back and he grabbed his axe. "I care not who brought me here, simply that I have their head!" He heard a whisper. "Snowflake" and threw his axe up into the rafters, straight at the beast's head. "And if anyone calls me snowflake like he did, I'll gut you like the world serpent!"

He hefts the rocket launcher, and sends a screaming rocket straight at one of the creatures. The rocket explodes against the monsters chest, cracking the shell like plating. He checks the barrel, and hisses. "Only got a few more of these things. Try sitcking sharp things in the holes in their plating. That should probably kill them." He pulls the hammer, and aims the launcher again.

Zanni hides behind Slaen and starts thinking of a plan.

"What would be the best course of action?", he asks himself.

He peeks over the shoulder of Slaen and sees the impact of the rocket and the shockwave following right after.

"He dead?"

"Did it stop moving?" The robot's legs lay smoking on the ground. "Then it's dead. Duck." He sends another rocket flying over Dogs head, straight at the robots, causing a explosion that leaves a crater in the wall and floor.

@Shadow Dragon@Strong Potato@Gentlemanvaultboy@MikkishtheLeprechaun

The beast hit the floor, and the axe returned to Slaen. "The head seems to be weaker than the rest, but they're tricky blighters. Jester, perhaps eating their heads whole? Or would that give you indigestion?" Slaen smirked widely underneath his helm.

@Strong Potato

"The best course of action is pretty obvious here" Mikkish said to Zanii. Having seen how easily the one was taken out, Mikkish assumed this would be a piece of cake. And where there was one abnormal powerful thing, there was always another.

The rocket Vinashy sent flying had hit...the ground and mutilated a few zombies. The other monster was nowhere in sight. It didn't take long for Mikkish to notice it though. He shot himself, much like the rocket. No, not like the rocket, FASTER than the rocket, at the monster and punched lightning fast at the end of his time warpingly fast run. Alas...when he reached his destination, his fist hit only air. The creature had dodged.

Mikkish looked around. It was nowhere in sight. Thats when a bladed tail ejected from the ground and stabbed at Vinashy, then retreated into the ground. All this in less than a couple seconds.

"That creature is faster than a chicken on a junebug. Everybody stay clear of the ground! Mikkish, are you ok?" (@MikkishtheLeprechaun)

Zanni jumps up from the shoulders of Slaen and grabs one of the lamps. Fortunately, all of the fluorescent tubes stay in place as Zanni now hangs from the ceiling.

"If we freeze the ground, the creature cannot attack us anymore. Slaen, can you do this?" (@Dealdric)

@Strong Potato@MikkishtheLeprechaun@Shadow Dragon@Gentlemanvaultboy

"It'll be my bloody pleasure! Clear the ground!" and he raised his axe to bring a mighty swing to the ground. "By Lady Hel's will, Freeze!" and he slammed the ground, his axe, hands and feet glowing blue, ice spreading rapidly around him.