Aziraphale

Freedom In The Stars: Deathbound [A Suicide Squad inspired sci-fi adventure] (Closed down)

Henri remained silent as the bleak, uninhabitable landscape rolled by during their drive. Rubbing her neck unconsciously, she couldn't help but think back to the grim site of the headless corpse they had left behind. It's not that she was afraid of death, not even one as horrifically violent as that, but to be forgotten so easily? She grimaced. Reaver's body would remain there now, never buried or burnt, the people who had sent him here would never acknowledge his death and half of the remaining crew had likely already forgotten his face. Henri wouldn't go that way, she refused. She clapped her hands together with renewed determination as they approached the cave.

"Alright!" She called as they disembarked, "Let's get this artifact and get out of here before anyone else dies."

The mouth of the cavern welcomed the group with the pale, bloodless bodies of the scientists which littered the floor. And in the centre, the Artifact waited. Somehow threatening in its silence. Henri approached it cautiously and, seemingly possessed, brought a metallic finger up to stroke one of its faces. As she did, the material seemed to breath, expanding and contracting until cracks appeared and it glowed a bright, hot red.

BANG!!

Henri was flung backwards by the force of the explosion, left on her back staring up at the roof of the cavern. It's great curved windows showing the stars and metallic beams looked suspiciously like the deck of The Gauntlet, the flagship of The Black Stars. The ship she had traveled on as a child.

She felt numb.

"Henri! HENRI!" Someone was calling her name with a desperate kind of fear laced in their voice. Surely none of the crew could sound like that?

"Daddy?" Henri found herself whimpering with the voice of a sixteen year old girl.

A familiar face appeared above her, kind grey eyes set into worn, wrinkled skin. Her father smiled down at her sadly, "I'm here kid. Hang in there."

"What's happening?" She asked groggily. She was just so tired.

"Missiles got through the shields."

"Who-"

"Shh, it doesn't matter. Just try and stay awake for me."

Something's not right here. Something's not right. She thought, trying to lift her head. When she finally does, the first thing she saw was the blood. She wondered how she could have missed it before. It had soaked everything; her clothes, her hair, her skin. It covered her father's shaking hands where he was trying to hold her. Next comes the pain. The left side of her body was burnt, that she was sure of, the skin crackled and hissed in her ears like a pig on a spit. But her left arm and both legs, she's not as sure. The pain is indescribable.

The last thing she can remember is screaming.

Henri expects to come to in the med bay of The Gauntlet but when she open her eyes, drained and disorientated, she is standing in the workshop of Constance instead, another ship belonging to the The Black Stars. This old boat had replaced The Gauntlet after the attack that had taken her arm and legs. Speaking of which.

"Please, daddy." Henri pleaded, pouting a little for effect. She had been begging for better prostheses for weeks now, her childish insistence slowly wearing him down.

"You've had enough enhancements Henrietta." Lars said firmly, although his words lacked any real conviction. He was bent over an old engine part of the ship, hands and face greasy as he attempted to fix it, "You're a teenage girl, not a terrifying cyborg."

"But I could be. You're stifling my development." Henri sighed dramatically, "And, frankly, I think you're being sexist. Right now you say that teenage girls can't become dangerous machines but the next thing you know I'll be expected to do the cooking or-"

Lars chuckled, "I don't think there's any fear of that, I've tasted your cooking. Get out of here kid. We can talk about it later."

His tone was not harsh, in all the year Henri could remember hearing that voice it never had been, but it left no room for more complaint. She blew him a mocking kiss as she left the workshop. As she walked away, deja vu rolled over her weakly like an ebbing wave. I've had that conversation before, haven't I? Walked away like this before?

Henri turned to look back down the hall. Outside of the door, the Artifact hovered in it's menacing silence. Like before, it began to throb and glow as it moved into the workshop towards her father.

No.

"DAD!" She screamed.

But it was too late.

They had told her later that the part Lars Jorison been working on had been unstable, had blown without warning and killed him instantly. An underwhelming and forgettable death. But, despite remembering this, in that moment she could only think to run towards the flames, screaming for her father. Just as the heat began to lick at her, skin and metal heating and warping, the flames died away.

She was back in the cavern, her desperate cries bouncing from its walls.

A R K H E U S

The icy, desolate landscape of Sector 4 rolled by smoothly as the Mag Train hurtled through the wind and sleet. The single mag rail line was the only reliable method of transportation to and from the science institutes unless you wanted to get trapped in a snow storm. Not that Sector 4 was a popular destination anyway. The carriage was almost empty but for a small balding man filling out a crossword puzzle on his holographic wrist computer, the standard security guard normally stationed in each carriage and a young, skittish woman scrolling through the news on her holographic tablet.

Adley Underwood had been dreading making this trip to the Core for weeks. Sector 4 may have been a barren, lonely kind of place but at least it wasn’t hopeless, not like the Core. If it wasn’t the sectors many homeless people creating a feeling of despair then it was the hungry bankers, gang leaders and officials making life worse for those on the streets. Billions of them all piled on top of one another. It was a behavioural sink, Adley thought. Like Calhoun's rat experiments, when space was limited the population would start to turn on one another and deteriorate. The Core was a desperate, narrow existence and, anyone with half a brain knew, it couldn’t go on forever.

The change had already begun, as the Liberata movement grew each day. Adley hesitated to call it a revolution as opposed as it was. Her newsfeed was filled with stories about the latest hacks which, regardless of who actually carried them out, were accredited to the Anon. But for each successful or damaging cyber-attack there were two more stories about raid on a “terrorist” cell by the Watchmen. Amongst the white noise of terrorism and liberation she spotted a headline which read “Will new breakthrough from the Queen Institute mean safety for us all?”. The article gushed over the possibility of soldiers which could harness the power of shards to “make our streets safe again”. There was no mention of how this might be achieved, that information wasn’t available to the public, but there didn’t need to be. The propaganda was blatant.

Adley put the tablet away in disgust. This was why she was currently hurtling at hundreds of miles per hour towards the Core, to demonstrate the progress that had been made with these “incredible” shard-soldiers. Dr Harold Fairfield, her superior and friend, had sent her on this mission, as he’d called it, to provide their generous benefactors with a demonstration on their progress.

“Harry, honestly, I don’t think I’m the right person for this. You know what I’m like,” Adley had pleaded a few weeks before.

“Unfortunately, yes,” Harold said in good nature, his eyes crinkling in the corners “But as my second in command you’re also the most well informed on the research.”

When he saw that she wasn’t convinced he had placed a hand on her shoulder, sighing, “My dear girl, you are the only one I trust to not give the game away and pick up the new blood samples from our friends.”

So she had packed a bag, left a note to a friendly botanist named Mark to “please change the feed in my beehive” in greenhouse 12 whilst she was away, put on prototype #356 and boarded the Mag Train. Some hours later and she was watching the 800 foot high wall that separated Sector 4 and the Core growing rapidly on the horizon, swallowing up the sky. And me next,,Adley thinks as the wall opens its gaping maw and eats the train.

In the innards of the beast, the checkpoint, Watchmen boarded the train to check each passenger’s identification card and their approved inventory. Adley’s inventory consisted of the prototype shield Dr Fairfield had insisted she take for protection, a tank full of Haematestra infected fish and a number of compounds required for the demonstration. If it was possible for a Watchman to look incredulous in that full body armour, then the Watchman checking Adley’s inventory certainly did. Still, she was allowed through after a cursory check.

When the train began to move again, she felt her hands begin to quiver and shake. She wasn’t frightened, exactly, but nervous? Yes, definitely. And full of energy she didn’t know how to expend. She pulled out a cigarette.

“No smoking on the train,” the carriage guard announced in a gruff, superior tone. A failed Watchman, probably.

She tapped the cigarette against her lip once, twice, before putting it away again. Her fingers thrummed against the table instead, fast and repetitive. The other passenger coughed pointedly.

“Fine. It’s fine.” She muttered and sank back into her seat, eyes drifting closed. It wouldn’t be long before they arrived anyway.

-------------

Not much later, an expensive company owned hovercraft picked her up at The Station to carry her through the district. Adley didn’t gaze out of the window as they went, she could imagine well enough. The tall, teetering houses pressed close together and the millions upon millions of people scurrying through. Adley didn't even notice the hovercraft arrive. The door opened and a woman with a sickly sweet smile and aggressively cheerful attitude appeared, “Dr Underwood, thank you for coming. I’m Lavinia Price from DigiCorps HR team, I’ll be helping you today.”

Lavinia Price led Adley into a sleek, reflected skyscraper. In a room on the twenty-third floor, with a view overlooking the more pleasant side of the Core rather than the slums to the south, four men sat on one side of an oval table. Thre of the mean were almost identical, not in looks, but their stoic faces, rigid posture and overall pragmatic air. Cookie cutter business reps. The third was an older, portly man with a receding hair line and round, red face. He looked flustered and continuously dabbed his sweaty forehead with an embroidered handkerchief. He’s from the government then.

“Everyone, this is Dr Adley Underwood from Harold’s lab over at the Queen Instititue,” Miss Price said brighly, “Dr Underwood, this is the Syndustries rep, Jack Credence, the DigiCorp rep-“

“I don’t care.” She interrupted then, remembering what Harry had said about tact, added, “I mean, it isn’t necessary to introduce everyone. This will only be quick.”

She set down the tank of fish in front of the panel.

“These zebrafish were infected with the purified strain of Haematestra three months ago.”

She paused for effect, expecting gasps of shock and awe but their faces remained blank.

“Did anyone read the pre-information packet? It was only two pages long.”

Lavinia Price tried to save face, spluttering, “Of course Miss Underwood-“

“Dr Underwood. So you should know that fish infected with Haematestra have a life expectancy of approximately one month. We’ve slowed the disease progress considerably.”

Pausing again, the panel looked almost impressed this time so Adley ploughed ahead.

“Highthroughput screening on these fish revealed several compounds which could negate the effects of Testran, the molecule which causes the disease that is, and expand the life of the fish. We still need to make some adjustments to dosage and concentration to see if the effects can last longer but right now it seems that multiple treatments will have to be given over the life of the fish.”

She was pacing the length of the room now, hands gesticulating somewhat wildly as she spoke.

“But what about the power?” One of the business shaped cookies, Jack Credence, chimed in.

“I’m sorry?”

“The enhanced power capabilities the shards are supposed to provide.”

“Animal models aren’t like humans, Mr. Credence, they can’t harness the energy from the shards. That is a conscious process.”

“Why aren’t we testing this on humans then?”, another cookie spoke.

“People who naturally develop shard sickness deteriorate over many years, the process is far too slow to study. We’d need to infect humans with the purified strain for the time frame to even be slightly reasonable.”

Silence fell over the room and Adley immediately knew what every one of them was thinking, Let’s do that then

“Ahem, well, we can’t do that of course,” The round government official finally grumbled, “The media would have a field day.”

“They don’t have to know.” Credence said, malicious intent creeping into his voice.

“We’re legally obliged to release the nature of our experiments to the public.” Adley said, simply, “Now, shall I continue?”

----------

The meeting took longer than Adley anticipated, each representative doing their best to top the other with the most repulsive, hazardous suggestions if it meant saving money and speeding the project along. Jack Credence from Syndustries was the worst of the lot, genuine malevolence laced in his every word. At the end he had slipped her his number with an arrogant grin. Cretin. Cretin Credence. Corrupt cretin Credence., Adley repeated to herself like a mantra as she left the building, trying to calm down.

It was time for the next part of her “mission”. The part that was actually worth a damn.

She assessed her transport options. The only other time she had used the personal mag rail Adley had felt so dizzy and nauseous that she’d sworn never to board the nightmarish transportation system again. She hailed a cab instead and loaded the fish into the trunk. The inside was… not totally repulsive but Adley made sure to perch carefully at the edge of the seat and not touch anything all the same. She told the driver the address of her next meeting elsewhere in the Station District and he sped away.

On the journey, she pulled out her tablet to check her messages.

Message from “May Underwood”:
“Hello Addie, sweetie.” Said the soft, hopeful voice of Adley’s mother, “I hope you’re having a wonderful time in The Core! I hear there is so much to do there. Your brother says hello. It’s been such a long time since you last visited, maybe you could stop by now that you’re so close? Anyway, I won’t keep you! Lots of love.”

Adley deleted the message quickly. She’d reply later, if she remembered. She didn’t know how to interact with her mother anymore, in fact, she wasn’t sure she ever really did. It had always been her father, who had understood Adley’s… peculiarities and encouraged her studies.

"There's some kind of trouble ahead, a lot of traffic. I'm going to have to take the long way round," The taxi driver said.

"Uh, yeah, that's fine, go for it." Adley's confirmed, distracted.

She typed out a quick message to Harry, informing him that the meeting had gone as well as they thought it might and that she was on her way to the next “meeting”.

Glancing out she caught a group of people running together, a flash of blue following behind. She blinked once, twice to clear the image and they were gone.

The cab dropped Adley off at moderately pleasant restaurant. Within, the lighting was low and the air was filled with soft conspiratorial murmurs as if every person there had a hidden agenda. One man sat at the bar alone.

His real name was Jonathan Tuck, not that Adley would ever know this, but he was known within the organisation was Friar. Named after the man in some ancient story about a band of heroes from long before the Ark. Friar had the look of a man who had never even had time to contemplate sleep. His hair was long, black and unkempt, his pale eyes were sunken deep his skill and, Adley couldn’t help but note, he was certainly anaemic. All that really mattered was the red scarf wrapped around his throat. The sign Adley had been told to look for. Honestly, she thought it was terribly melodramatic but they had insisted on this clandestine council.

“Friar?”She asked, perching on the stool beside him.

“Yes. Hello Dr Underwood.”

They didn’t shake hands.

Friar cut straight to chase, “I don’t have the samples.”

“What do you mean you don’t have them?” Adley’s voice spiked, drawing a few eyes.

“Quiet will you.” Friar hissed, his watery eyes darting around, “The Liberata has taken note of your hard work and your frustration. There is only so much we can achieve by delivering you blood samples and testing the cures you send to us on infected shard junkies.”

Adley pressed her lips together tightly, remaining silent. The lab had been pleading for more from the Liberata for the past year.

Friar’s voice dropped so low that Adley had to lean in to hear, “We believe we can have miners in the later stages of shard sickness snuck into the Queen Institute using the Mag Train. You’ll finally be able to test and monitor the cure in real time. We’ve hired a small facility in the new complex under a fake branch of the government’s biological research department. We’ve spent months creating it, making sure it wouldn’t be noticed.”

“How are you getting hold of these men?”

“It doesn’t matter- if we didn’t liberate them, they’d only die under government “protection”.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?”

“If we were discovered, we didn’t want anyone in Fairfield’s lab to be implicated. You know what the Watchmen can do."

Adley nodded grimly. Before what they were doing had been dangerous, but this could get the entire lab killed. She grabbed her tablet, set on contacting Harry there and then and seeing what he thought of the plan but when she tried the screen only blinked uselessly at her with "no connection available".

Friar shook his head, "This building is a blackout zone, no comms devices work within. It's why we use it. It would be too risky to send him the details anyway. It's your decision."

They lapsed into silence then and the bartender, another agent it seemed, brought over two drinks. After wiping the rim of the glass with a tissue, Adley sipped at it for a while.

“Okay” she finally agreed, ” It’s the only way we can move forward. What do I have to do?”

“We’re behind schedule. We had expected to send you back tomorrow night but there have been delays. You’ll have to remain in the city for a while longer whilst we finish. When we’re done, we’ll let you know through one of our messengers.” He explained, vague on any real details.

Adley understood the need for his ambiguity, to protect her and the lab, but it made her feel like a pawn. She was part of a rebellion she barely understood. Her fingers began to thrum on the bar top in frustration. Friar watched them for a moment.

“Don’t worry, Adley.” He said with a stiff, unused kind of sympathy, “You know the contact in question. A friend of yours I believe? Annelle Caldera?”

With the business wrapped up, Friar told Adley he was to take her to temporary accommodation. Outside of the restaurant, a stagnant silence had fallen over the street. No people milling about, no cars or hovercrafts or bikes rushing by. They walked for a while with only their footsteps for company.

"Is it normally this quiet out here?" Adley inquired in hushed tones, a fear creeping over her.

"No." Friar returned, "We should probably-"

Clink. Clink. Scrrrtch. Sccrrrrttttccch.

Before they had time to contemplate the noise, a grotesque blue body threw itself from the closest alleyway, it's hideous mouth gaping. It seemed to lock onto them, the only people in the street, and lurch forward with a shriek.

Friar drew a gun from his jacket and called out, "Hey there, calm down."

"I don't think it's going to listen to reason." Adley said in a rush of breath.

"I think you're right."

Friar began to shoot indiscriminately, hitting the beast repeatedly in the chest. But it was too late, it's momentum and raw, furious hunger propelled it forward until jagged teeth were embedded in Friar's neck. Both of them fell to the floor in tangle of limbs and spray of blood. Before Adley could consider pulling the creature from Friar, another two had appeared in the street.

From beneath the mass Adley could here Friar calling weakly, "Just run!"

So she did. Adley had been called many things in her life but none of them had been "brave". She reached the restaurant doors on shaky legs and pulled only to find them locked.

"Please let me in! There's something out here!" She cried, rattling the doors, but there was no response. She stumbled back into the middle of the desserted street and stood for a moment, frozen in panic.

Somewhere close by, a speaker began to announce, "STAY INDOORS. THE SITUATION IS UNDER CONTROL."

And beneath the warning call, the shrieks of the monsters began to grow.

Aziraphale's Evil Lair

Theoretics on Shard Sickness

Name: Haematestra

Symptoms: Early symptoms include fatigue and weariness, dizziness or nausea. As the disease progresses symptoms include bleeding from the eyes, nose, mouth, ears, intense migraines, hematidrosis (bleeding from the pores), etc. Throughout the course of the disease shards will grow from the sufferers body, small and often unnoticeable at first (like cancerous moles), growing into obvious and irritating/painful shards.

Clinical Manifestations: Increased blood pressure, blood vessel rupture, increased cranial pressure, infarcts.

Cause of death: Cardiac or brain failure.

Life expectancy: 1-2 years. This is reduced to 6-8 months for Pyskers; the disease course progresses more aggressively as they "use" the shards in their body.

Cause: Similar to lead poising, results from a chronic exposure to shards in the air/water/food etc.

Physiological/molecular cause: The shards, once infecting the body, being to release a large molecular weight protein known as Testran which enters red blood cells and binds to hemoglobin, preventing the binding of oxygen and causing the red blood cells to become an abnormal shape (this is due to lipid reassembly in the cell membrane, the reasons this occurs are currently unknown). Oxygen has a higher affinity for hemoglobin than Testran so it is only at very high concentrations that oxygen will no longer be carried. Early in the disease course, when concentrations are lower, only slightly less oxygen is carried causing headaches and dizziness as the brain receives less oxygen. There is also a gradual increase in blood pressure as the heart becomes more active to try and meet the oxygen demand.

The abnormally shaped red blood cells will eventually lead to a vaso-occlusive crisis in which red blood cells occlude capillaries and prevent blood flow. Initially this will lead to a reduced blood flow, further preventing the delivery of oxygen to tissues - increasing migraines and blood pressure. As the disease progresses and more abnormally shaped red blood cells occur, weaker capillaries and arteries can rupture leading to the later symptoms observed (blood from the nose and ears). This can include an intracerebral hemorrhage (blood vessel rupturing within the cerebral cortex) which could cause vomiting, seizures, loss of consciousness and muscle weakness. Death will ultimately result from either a serious intracerebral hemorrhage or brain/myocardial infarction (lack of blood/oxygen reaching the tissue and causing cell death).

Notes:

• The shard itself is not actually known to seriously harm the body, it simply uses the host to grow, making use of waste products such as ammonia and CO2 in the blood. It is the shard's own waste produce, "Testran" that causes the problem. Without Testran you might just expect to see a shard infected individual to have minor kidney problems as ammonia is part of the complicated balance of ion exchange in the kidneys.
• You can cause "acute" Hematestra by injecting molecules from shards directly into blood stream. So far only done in mice and fish. Unknown to public. Syndustries and DigiCorp see potential in this but the government (correctly, for once) has refused to allow them access.
• Most of this information is unknown to the general public besides symptoms and cause.

The cure so far:

• Surgical intervention: Surgical removal of shards has been shown to slow the progress of the disease in mice but the procedure is often riskier than the time afforded to the animal. Similar metastatic cancer, it is impossible to remove all of the small remaining shard fragments through surgery alone.
• Immunotherapy: One of the major issues which face the body infected with shards is that, for unknown reasons, it does not recognise it as a foreign entity and so does not launch an immune response. Artificial immune responses launched against the shards have seen some success in breaking down the shards completely but the trials are still in early days.
• Negating the effect of Testran: In theory, a drug that could destroy Testra or remove it from the blood would prevent the sequence of events leading to sickness. However, it would also leave the shards in the body to be used at will by the infected- i.e. a shard-soilder. The Fairfield lab is working on this, as they are contractually obliged to do, but they are also being deliberately slow in the process. As it happens, although there are several drugs which have been found to remove Testran in highthroughput screenings on zebrfish, these drugs are toxic/harmful in different ways to mammals and ultimately lead to the death of the subject anyway.

Sum up your week in roleplaying in just 3 words

Science bitch

(Third not needed)

A R K H E U S

Arkheaus Identification Card

Bureau of Public Citizen Management

Name: Adley Underwood

Aliases: Dr Underwood

Gender: Female

Age: 25

Job Title: Research Associate in Bioengineering and Pysker studies.

Extended Description

Height: 5'7"

Weight: 120 pounds give or take

Hair Color: Redish brown

Eye Color: Blue

Skin Color: Needs a tan.

Scars:n/a

Tattoos:n/a

Modifications: n/a

Cybernetics: n/a

Other:

• Adley is obsessively clean. Most scientists who work with shards have an above average level of cleanliness to avoid shard sickness but Adley tends to takes it to an extreme.

Appearance

Adley doesn't put a terrible amount of effort into her appearance sticking to jeans or shorts and t-shirts or white button up shirts, topped off with an old brown jacket. Often it won't matter what she's wearing because it will be covered by a long white lab coat which has become a bit of a statement piece to her, adorned with pens, syringes, clips and whatever else she might find in the lab. Despite her state of dress she is a pretty girl, not that she knows or particularly cares. Her hair is kept back most of the time in a messy ponytail and her build is lanky, to put it kindly. Days and nights in the lab without much thought to sustaining your self will eat away at a person's muscle and weight.

Job Description

Adley works as a research associate under the primary investigator (one Dr Fairfield) in a bioengineering laboratory which is funded to work on augmenting humans with core shards without developing "shard sickness". Scientific research is expensive but, due to the nature of the work, funding comes in millions from Syndustries and DigiCorp in cooperation with the governmnt who hope to develop powerful shard-soldiers. However, Adley, and everyone else in Fairfield's lab, are not truly interested in developing what would only be a destructive and dangerous force. It is fortunate then that the Liberata also provide illicit funding towards curing Haematesta and removing the abilities of Pyskers altogether. The lab see this as a just cause, especially when helping the miners who develop the disease seems of little interest to the government and industry. Of course, to satisfy their official benefactors, the original goal must also be worked towards.

Biography

In the control centre of Sector Two, Nubbikham, life is pleasant enough. No one is particularly rich, middle managers and labourers, but most are comfortable. Aldos Underwood was a simple but happy kind of man with a pretty young wife, May Underwood, and two children; a daughter called Adley and a Son called Aldos Jr. (Aldos Sr. had an odd sense of humour and his children's names were part of that, he'd freely admit). That eldest girl, their neighbors said, was a bit of an odd one, nervous and restless as she was but all-in-all, they seemed like the perfect, hardworking, Ark family.

Aldos laboured in Nubbikham's small mines, freeing shards. The work was not easy but the miners were compensated handsomely for their effort allowing May to stay at home with the children. However, the shard-mines hold much greater danger than simply collapse. The shard sickness was an uncommon but ever present threat to the hardworking men of the mines. A creeping sickness that would start something like the flu, with fatigue and nausea and progress to something all together more horrific. Of course, most never saw a miner get to that stage before they mysteriously vanished. One day, when Adley was 15 and Aldos Jr was 13, that's exactly what their father did. For weeks now he had come home more weary and ill than the day before, unable to eat or sleep. And then, one evening he simply did not come home at all. They didn't question it, no one ever did. To question it surely meant they'd also go missing themselves.

May, now the soul provider of her family, had to take what little work she could and soon became a Seeder, sowing fields for very little pay. Life became hard for the Underwood's but they persevered. Aldos Jr.'s playful youth was lost to a serious young man who felt the burden of his family's safety well being fell to him. Adley, ever a bright girl, threw herself deeper into her studies where she was soon scouted by Nubbikham's minor laboratories for an apprenticeship where she learnt more about the genetically modified seeds which kept Sector Two's plains fertile and designing new "seeding guns" to more efficiently distribute them.

Much to May and Aldey's dismay, as soon as he was 18 years old, Aldos Jr was recruited to the shard mines, feeling it was the only way to provide for his struggling family. The mines had been recruiting more and more frequently as the shard sickness became more prevalent, a consequence of the mines becoming deeper and the demand from the Core becoming greater. It seemed Nubbikham's population shrunk by the day. But any concern from Sector Two was brushed aside by the central government, safe and content in The Core. Adley could see only one thing for it, to cure the sickness herself. It was a bold, unrealistic dream but, well, Adley was an unrealistic kind of person.

At 20, she sat the Scientific Aptitude Test and passed with ease. She was soon sent to Sector Five to intern under the remarkable weapons engineers at the King Institute due to her knowledge of seed distribution machinery (and, she suspected, that there were very few openings available at the time). She learnt a lot in her year there and made excellent connections but it was not her goal to design weaponry for the government- in fact she could think of few things more distasteful. Thankfully, her request to be moved to the bioengineering laboratories at the Queen Institute was soon fulfilled and she was sent on with recommendations attesting to her keen, inquisitive and imaginative mind if her somewhat colourful character. For the past four years she has worked under the ageing Dr Fairfield, earning her doctorate and becoming part of illicit, "rogue" science in an attempt to cure shard sickness and Psykers (see Job Description).

It should be noted that, although most in Fairfield's lab felt uneasy about the work they were carrying out, it was not until Adley's arrival and her passion for the cause that pushed Fairfield to work directly with the Liberata.

Inventory

Weapons:

• Sweet delicious science
• Adley, by nature, is fairly passive and would rather not harm anyone.

Armor: n/a
Gadgets:

• Prototype #356: Originally designed as a method of riot control, this dual action prototype shield and directed energy weapon is powered by black shards and worn on the forearm of the user. When stationary it can produce a dome shaped kinetic particle shield which can fit the user and, on average, one other (height: 3 feet, diameter: 4 feet ). It can sustain most impact from armaments for approximately two minutes. The second feature is a "Blackout Wave" which produces a shockwave that can disturb and shut down all shard energy dependent devices (including "living" beings) for a short amount of time within an adjustable area. This can be for 10 seconds at 50 yards, for 4 uses, or for 40 seconds at 200 yards for one (or any adjustment between) before the shard is used up, rendering the device unusable. However, as the shield is also powered by the same shard the uses of the blackout wave become reduced depending on the amount and duration of shield use.

Key Items:

• Basically special quest items you get from me, and I won't always tell you what they do. - Please give me special things Eso.

Miscellaneous: Cigarettes, a stopwatch, a lot of pens that don't seem to work, a Gilson pipette, a pair of calipers, a whole bunch of falcon tubes in different sizes and at least 5 pairs of new and used gloves that definitely shouldn't be in there.

Proficiencies:

• Is anyone here a doctor?!: Due to the nature of her work Adley has an excellent understanding of human anatomy and disease. Whilst not a medical professional, she could act in the place of one.
• Part time weapon smith: Whilst she would never claim to be any sort of expert, her time at the King Institute means Adley has a decent understanding of handling and fixing weaponry.
• Shrewd: Adley has a discerning eye for the workings of people (ironic, considering she can scarcely behave like one herself), their wants and desires, their lies and truths.
• Active imagination: It's important that scientists can look at things in new ways and come up with innovative solutions. Adley's vibrant imagination helps her think on her feet. This may just extend to survival situations.

Limitations:

• Cowardly Lion: In a physical fight, Adley would scarcely hold her own, both too frightened and too untrained to try.
• Overstimulated: Adley is a jittery, nervous mess. She startles easily, paces constantly and puts people on edge. She claims this is why she smokes.
• No filter: Now, she's not deliberately rude or unkind but Adley will often simply say what is in front of her, the things that other people tiptoe around. It's gotten her into trouble more than once.
• Wicked imagination: When you're already a highly strung individual, it's not helpful to have the world fill with colour and images you can't seem to control. Adley can become distracted, nervous, or even frightened by what her mind conjures.

Likes:

• Beekeeping: some people believe the key to eternal life is in the Royal Jelly made to create Queen bees. Adley just likes bees. Unsurprisingly, it is difficult to keep bees in a frozen wasteland but the botanists at the Queen institute allow her to keep a small hive in one of their greenhouses.
• Smoking: Yes, she see's the irony. No, she won't stop. She believes it calms her slightly.

Dislikes:

• Disorder i.e. mess, crowded places, excessively colourful places, loud places
• Big, faceless industry and the government.

Important People:

• Mother: May Underwood (a Seeder)
• Brother: Aldos Underwood Jr (a shard miner)
• Dr Harold Fairfield, Adley's boss and friend.

Character Relationships

Annelle Caldera

Adley and Anne met during Adley's first year at the King Institute when Anne was called in to run maintenance on essential machinery at the weapon's manufacturer facility. Outside, in the biting wind and snow, the two young women smoked together for the first time. Adley appreciated Anne's candid, unreserved nature and, during the time Anne was there, it became clear to Adley that they shared similar values concerning the corrupt Arkheaus government. It was Anne who first connected Adley and her laboratory at the Queen Institute to the Liberata and helps to maintain communication between the two groups to this day, delivering messages too risky to send via electronic communications and packages containing things such as blood from shard infected miners. Anne is frequently sent to Sector 4 to set up equipment in Adley's lab such as cryo-preservation tanks, flow cytometers and automated pipette machines and if things mysteriously break on occasion, Anne is sent to repair them. Over the past few years, what started as a common interest and cause grew into a genuine friendship between the two.

A R K H E U S

Behold! A character!

Dr Adley Underwood. Scientist and general mess

Arkheaus Identification Card

Bureau of Public Citizen Management

Name: Adley Underwood

Aliases: Dr Underwood

Gender: Female

Age: 25

Job Title: Research Associate in Bioengineering and Pysker studies.

Extended Description

Height: 5'7"

Weight: 120 pounds give or take

Hair Color: Redish brown

Eye Color: Blue

Skin Color: Needs a tan.

Scars:n/a

Tattoos:n/a

Modifications: n/a

Cybernetics: n/a

Other:

• Adley is obsessively clean. Most scientists who work with shards have an above average level of cleanliness to avoid shard sickness but Adley tends to takes it to an extreme.

Appearance

Adley doesn't put a terrible amount of effort into her appearance sticking to jeans or shorts and t-shirts or white button up shirts, topped off with an old brown jacket. Often it won't matter what she's wearing because it will be covered by a long white lab coat which has become a bit of a statement piece to her, adorned with pens, syringes, clips and whatever else she might find in the lab. Despite her state of dress she is a pretty girl, not that she knows or particularly cares. Her hair is kept back most of the time in a messy ponytail and her build is lanky, to put it kindly. Days and nights in the lab without much thought to sustaining your self will eat away at a person's muscle and weight.

Job Description

Adley works as a research associate under the primary investigator (one Dr Fairfield) in a bioengineering laboratory which is funded to work on augmenting humans with core shards without developing "shard sickness". Scientific research is expensive but, due to the nature of the work, funding comes in millions from Syndustries and DigiCorp in cooperation with the governmnt who hope to develop powerful shard-soldiers. However, Adley, and everyone else in Fairfield's lab, are not truly interested in developing what would only be a destructive and dangerous force. It is fortunate then that the Liberata also provide illicit funding towards curing Haematesta and removing the abilities of Pyskers altogether. The lab see this as a just cause, especially when helping the miners who develop the disease seems of little interest to the government and industry. Of course, to satisfy their official benefactors, the original goal must also be worked towards.

Biography

In the control centre of Sector Two, Nubbikham, life is pleasant enough. No one is particularly rich, middle managers and labourers, but most are comfortable. Aldos Underwood was a simple but happy kind of man with a pretty young wife, May Underwood, and two children; a daughter called Adley and a Son called Aldos Jr. (Aldos Sr. had an odd sense of humour and his children's names were part of that, he'd freely admit). That eldest girl, their neighbors said, was a bit of an odd one, nervous and restless as she was but all-in-all, they seemed like the perfect, hardworking, Ark family.

Aldos laboured in Nubbikham's small mines, freeing shards. The work was not easy but the miners were compensated handsomely for their effort allowing May to stay at home with the children. However, the shard-mines hold much greater danger than simply collapse. The shard sickness was an uncommon but ever present threat to the hardworking men of the mines. A creeping sickness that would start something like the flu, with fatigue and nausea and progress to something all together more horrific. Of course, most never saw a miner get to that stage before they mysteriously vanished. One day, when Adley was 15 and Aldos Jr was 13, that's exactly what their father did. For weeks now he had come home more weary and ill than the day before, unable to eat or sleep. And then, one evening he simply did not come home at all. They didn't question it, no one ever did. To question it surely meant they'd also go missing themselves.

May, now the soul provider of her family, had to take what little work she could and soon became a Seeder, sowing fields for very little pay. Life became hard for the Underwood's but they persevered. Aldos Jr.'s playful youth was lost to a serious young man who felt the burden of his family's safety well being fell to him. Adley, ever a bright girl, threw herself deeper into her studies where she was soon scouted by Nubbikham's minor laboratories for an apprenticeship where she learnt more about the genetically modified seeds which kept Sector Two's plains fertile and designing new "seeding guns" to more efficiently distribute them.

Much to May and Aldey's dismay, as soon as he was 18 years old, Aldos Jr was recruited to the shard mines, feeling it was the only way to provide for his struggling family. The mines had been recruiting more and more frequently as the shard sickness became more prevalent, a consequence of the mines becoming deeper and the demand from the Core becoming greater. It seemed Nubbikham's population shrunk by the day. But any concern from Sector Two was brushed aside by the central government, safe and content in The Core. Adley could see only one thing for it, to cure the sickness herself. It was a bold, unrealistic dream but, well, Adley was an unrealistic kind of person.

At 20, she sat the Scientific Aptitude Test and passed with ease. She was soon sent to Sector Five to intern under the remarkable weapons engineers at the King Institute due to her knowledge of seed distribution machinery (and, she suspected, that there were very few openings available at the time). She learnt a lot in her year there and made excellent connections but it was not her goal to design weaponry for the government- in fact she could think of few things more distasteful. Thankfully, her request to be moved to the bioengineering laboratories at the Queen Institute was soon fulfilled and she was sent on with recommendations attesting to her keen, inquisitive and imaginative mind if her somewhat colourful character. For the past four years she has worked under the ageing Dr Fairfield, earning her doctorate and becoming part of illicit, "rogue" science in an attempt to cure shard sickness and Psykers (see Job Description).

It should be noted that, although most in Fairfield's lab felt uneasy about the work they were carrying out, it was not until Adley's arrival and her passion for the cause that pushed Fairfield to work directly with the Liberata.

Inventory

Weapons:

• Sweet delicious science
• Adley, by nature, is fairly passive and would rather not harm anyone.

Armor: n/a
Gadgets:

• Prototype #356: Originally designed as a method of riot control, this dual action prototype shield and directed energy weapon is powered by black shards and worn on the forearm of the user. When stationary it can produce a dome shaped kinetic particle shield which can fit the user and, on average, one other (height: 3 feet, diameter: 4 feet ). It can sustain most impact from armaments for approximately two minutes. The second feature is a "Blackout Wave" which produces a shockwave that can disturb and shut down all shard energy dependent devices (including "living" beings) for a short amount of time within an adjustable area. This can be for 10 seconds at 50 yards, for 4 uses, or for 40 seconds at 200 yards for one (or any adjustment between) before the shard is used up, rendering the device unusable. However, as the shield is also powered by the same shard the uses of the blackout wave become reduced depending on the amount and duration of shield use.

Key Items:

• Basically special quest items you get from me, and I won't always tell you what they do. - Please give me special things Eso.

Miscellaneous: Cigarettes, a stopwatch, a lot of pens that don't seem to work, a Gilson pipette, a pair of calipers, a whole bunch of falcon tubes in different sizes and at least 5 pairs of new and used gloves that definitely shouldn't be in there.

Proficiencies:

• Is anyone here a doctor?!: Due to the nature of her work Adley has an excellent understanding of human anatomy and disease. Whilst not a medical professional, she could act in the place of one.
• Part time weapon smith: Whilst she would never claim to be any sort of expert, her time at the King Institute means Adley has a decent understanding of handling and fixing weaponry.
• Shrewd: Adley has a discerning eye for the workings of people (ironic, considering she can scarcely behave like one herself), their wants and desires, their lies and truths.
• Active imagination: It's important that scientists can look at things in new ways and come up with innovative solutions. Adley's vibrant imagination helps her think on her feet. This may just extend to survival situations.

Limitations:

• Cowardly Lion: In a physical fight, Adley would scarcely hold her own, both too frightened and too untrained to try.
• Overstimulated: Adley is a jittery, nervous mess. She startles easily, paces constantly and puts people on edge. She claims this is why she smokes.
• No filter: Now, she's not deliberately rude or unkind but Adley will often simply say what is in front of her, the things that other people tiptoe around. It's gotten her into trouble more than once.
• Wicked imagination: When you're already a highly strung individual, it's not helpful to have the world fill with colour and images you can't seem to control. Adley can become distracted, nervous, or even frightened by what her mind conjures.

Likes:

• Beekeeping: some people believe the key to eternal life is in the Royal Jelly made to create Queen bees. Adley just likes bees. Unsurprisingly, it is difficult to keep bees in a frozen wasteland but the botanists at the Queen institute allow her to keep a small hive in one of their greenhouses.
• Smoking: Yes, she see's the irony. No, she won't stop. She believes it calms her slightly.

Dislikes:

• Disorder i.e. mess, crowded places, excessively colourful places, loud places
• Big, faceless industry and the government.

Important People:

• Mother: May Underwood (a Seeder)
• Brother: Aldos Underwood Jr (a shard miner)
• Dr Harold Fairfield, Adley's boss and friend.

Character Relationships

Annelle Caldera

Adley and Anne met during Adley's first year at the King Institute when Anne was called in to run maintenance on essential machinery at the weapon's manufacturer facility. Outside, in the biting wind and snow, the two young women smoked together for the first time. Adley appreciated Anne's candid, unreserved nature and, during the time Anne was there, it became clear to Adley that they shared similar values concerning the corrupt Arkheaus government. It was Anne who first connected Adley and her laboratory at the Queen Institute to the Liberata and helps to maintain communication between the two groups to this day, delivering messages too risky to send via electronic communications and packages containing things such as blood from shard infected miners. Anne is frequently sent to Sector 4 to set up equipment in Adley's lab such as cryo-preservation tanks, flow cytometers and automated pipette machines and if things mysteriously break on occasion, Anne is sent to repair them. Over the past few years, what started as a common interest and cause grew into a genuine friendship between the two.

🅰🆁🅺🅷🅴🆄🆂

I'm in. Of course.

I encourage other people to join because this world is beautiful and detailed.

Aziraphale's Evil Lair

Arkheaus Identification Card

Bureau of Public Citizen Management

Name: Adley Underwood

Aliases: Dr Underwood

Gender: Female

Age: 25

Job Title: Research Associate in Bioengineering and Pysker studies.

Extended Description

Height: 5'7"

Weight: 120 pounds give or take

Hair Color: Redish brown

Eye Color: Blue

Skin Color: Needs a tan.

Scars:n/a

Tattoos:n/a

Modifications: n/a

Cybernetics: n/a

Other:

• Adley is obsessively clean. Most scientists who work with shards have an above average level of cleanliness to avoid shard sickness but Adley tends to takes it to an extreme.

Appearance

Adley doesn't put a terrible amount of effort into her appearance sticking to jeans or shorts and t-shirts or white button up shirts, topped off with an old brown jacket. Often it won't matter what she's wearing because it will be covered by a long white lab coat which has become a bit of a statement piece to her, adorned with pens, syringes, clips and whatever else she might find in the lab. Despite her state of dress she is a pretty girl, not that she knows or particularly cares. Her hair is kept back most of the time in a messy ponytail and her build is lanky, to put it kindly. Days and nights in the lab without much thought to sustaining your self will eat away at a person's muscle and weight.

Job Description

Adley works as a research associate under the primary investigator (one Dr Fairfield) in a bioengineering laboratory which is funded to work on augmenting humans with core shards without developing "shard sickness". Scientific research is expensive but, due to the nature of the work, funding comes in millions from Syndustries and DigiCorp in cooperation with the governmnt who hope to develop powerful shard-soldiers. However, Adley, and everyone else in Fairfield's lab, are not truly interested in developing what would only be a destructive and dangerous force. It is fortunate then that the Liberata also provide illicit funding towards curing Haematesta and removing the abilities of Pyskers altogether. The lab see this as a just cause, especially when helping the miners who develop the disease seems of little interest to the government and industry. Of course, to satisfy their official benefactors, the original goal must also be worked towards.

Biography

In the control centre of Sector Two, Nubbikham, life is pleasant enough. No one is particularly rich, middle managers and labourers, but most are comfortable. Aldos Underwood was a simple but happy kind of man with a pretty young wife, May Underwood, and two children; a daughter called Adley and a Son called Aldos Jr. (Aldos Sr. had an odd sense of humour and his children's names were part of that, he'd freely admit). That eldest girl, their neighbors said, was a bit of an odd one, nervous and restless as she was but all-in-all, they seemed like the perfect, hardworking, Ark family.

Aldos laboured in Nubbikham's small mines, freeing shards. The work was not easy but the miners were compensated handsomely for their effort allowing May to stay at home with the children. However, the shard-mines hold much greater danger than simply collapse. The shard sickness was an uncommon but ever present threat to the hardworking men of the mines. A creeping sickness that would start something like the flu, with fatigue and nausea and progress to something all together more horrific. Of course, most never saw a miner get to that stage before they mysteriously vanished. One day, when Adley was 15 and Aldos Jr was 13, that's exactly what their father did. For weeks now he had come home more weary and ill than the day before, unable to eat or sleep. And then, one evening he simply did not come home at all. They didn't question it, no one ever did. To question it surely meant they'd also go missing themselves.

May, now the soul provider of her family, had to take what little work she could and soon became a Seeder, sowing fields for very little pay. Life became hard for the Underwood's but they persevered. Aldos Jr.'s playful youth was lost to a serious young man who felt the burden of his family's safety well being fell to him. Adley, ever a bright girl, threw herself deeper into her studies where she was soon scouted by Nubbikham's minor laboratories for an apprenticeship where she learnt more about the genetically modified seeds which kept Sector Two's plains fertile and designing new "seeding guns" to more efficiently distribute them.

Much to May and Aldey's dismay, as soon as he was 18 years old, Aldos Jr was recruited to the shard mines, feeling it was the only way to provide for his struggling family. The mines had been recruiting more and more frequently as the shard sickness became more prevalent, a consequence of the mines becoming deeper and the demand from the Core becoming greater. It seemed Nubbikham's population shrunk by the day. But any concern from Sector Two was brushed aside by the central government, safe and content in The Core. Adley could see only one thing for it, to cure the sickness herself. It was a bold, unrealistic dream but, well, Adley was an unrealistic kind of person.

At 20, she sat the Scientific Aptitude Test and passed with ease. She was soon sent to Sector Five to intern under the remarkable weapons engineers at the King Institute due to her knowledge of seed distribution machinery (and, she suspected, that there were very few openings available at the time). She learnt a lot in her year there and made excellent connections but it was not her goal to design weaponry for the government- in fact she could think of few things more distasteful. Thankfully, her request to be moved to the bioengineering laboratories at the Queen Institute was soon fulfilled and she was sent on with recommendations attesting to her keen, inquisitive and imaginative mind if her somewhat colourful character. For the past four years she has worked under the ageing Dr Fairfield, earning her doctorate and becoming part of illicit, "rogue" science in an attempt to cure shard sickness and Psykers (see Job Description).

It should be noted that, although most in Fairfield's lab felt uneasy about the work they were carrying out, it was not until Adley's arrival and her passion for the cause that pushed Fairfield to work directly with the Liberata.

Inventory

Weapons:

• Sweet delicious science
• Adley, by nature, is fairly passive and would rather not harm anyone.

Armor: n/a
Gadgets:

• Prototype #356: Originally designed as a method of riot control, this dual action prototype shield and directed energy weapon is powered by black shards and worn on the forearm of the user. When stationary it can produce a dome shaped kinetic particle shield which can fit the user and, on average, one other (height: 3 feet, diameter: 4 feet ). It can sustain most impact from armaments for approximately two minutes. The second feature is a "Blackout Wave" which produces a shockwave that can disturb and shut down all shard energy dependent devices (including "living" beings) for a short amount of time within an adjustable area. This can be for 10 seconds at 50 yards, for 4 uses, or for 40 seconds at 200 yards for one (or any adjustment between) before the shard is used up, rendering the device unusable. However, as the shield is also powered by the same shard the uses of the blackout wave become reduced depending on the amount and duration of shield use.

Key Items:

• Basically special quest items you get from me, and I won't always tell you what they do. - Please give me special things Eso.

Miscellaneous: Cigarettes, a stopwatch, a lot of pens that don't seem to work, a Gilson pipette, a pair of calipers, a whole bunch of falcon tubes in different sizes and at least 5 pairs of new and used gloves that definitely shouldn't be in there.

Proficiencies:

• Is anyone here a doctor?!: Due to the nature of her work Adley has an excellent understanding of human anatomy and disease. Whilst not a medical professional, she could act in the place of one.
• Part time weapon smith: Whilst she would never claim to be any sort of expert, her time at the King Institute means Adley has a decent understanding of handling and fixing weaponry.
• Shrewd: Adley has a discerning eye for the workings of people (ironic, considering she can scarcely behave like one herself), their wants and desires, their lies and truths.
• Active imagination: It's important that scientists can look at things in new ways and come up with innovative solutions. Adley's vibrant imagination helps her think on her feet. This may just extend to survival situations.

Limitations:

• Cowardly Lion: In a physical fight, Adley would scarcely hold her own, both too frightened and too untrained to try.
• Overstimulated: Adley is a jittery, nervous mess. She startles easily, paces constantly and puts people on edge. She claims this is why she smokes.
• No filter: Now, she's not deliberately rude or unkind but Adley will often simply say what is in front of her, the things that other people tiptoe around. It's gotten her into trouble more than once.
• Wicked imagination: When you're already a highly strung individual, it's not helpful to have the world fill with colour and images you can't seem to control. Adley can become distracted, nervous, or even frightened by what her mind conjures.

Likes:

• Beekeeping: some people believe the key to eternal life is in the Royal Jelly made to create Queen bees. Adley just likes bees. Unsurprisingly, it is difficult to keep bees in a frozen wasteland but the botanists at the Queen institute allow her to keep a small hive in one of their greenhouses.
• Smoking: Yes, she see's the irony. No, she won't stop. She believes it calms her slightly.

Dislikes:

• Disorder i.e. mess, crowded places, excessively colourful places, loud places
• Big, faceless industry and the government.

Important People:

• Mother: May Underwood (a Seeder)
• Brother: Aldos Underwood Jr (a shard miner)
• Dr Harold Fairfield, Adley's boss and friend.

Character Relationships

Annelle Caldera

Adley and Anne met during Adley's first year at the King Institute when Anne was called in to run maintenance on essential machinery at the weapon's manufacturer facility. Outside, in the biting wind and snow, the two young women smoked together for the first time. Adley appreciated Anne's candid, unreserved nature and, during the time Anne was there, it became clear to Adley that they shared similar values concerning the corrupt Arkheaus government. It was Anne who first connected Adley and her laboratory at the Queen Institute to the Liberata and helps to maintain communication between the two groups to this day, delivering messages too risky to send via electronic communications and packages containing things such as blood from shard infected miners. Anne is frequently sent to Sector 4 to set up equipment in Adley's lab such as cryo-preservation tanks, flow cytometers and automated pipette machines and if things mysteriously break on occasion, Anne is sent to repair them. Over the past few years, what started as a common interest and cause grew into a genuine friendship between the two.

Freedom In The Stars: Deathbound [A Suicide Squad inspired sci-fi adventure] (Closed down)

A shrill whistle echoed down the halls of the base, moments later followed by the sounds of gunfire, alarming Henri.

"So much for stealth. Probably being attacked by the Pyramid of Fatal Death." She said to her companion.

"Everyone back to the main lab now, we need to talk. You probably heard an explosion and gunfire." Callum's voice crackled over the comms device on their wrists.

"We better get a move on..." Henri stalled, realised she'd never been introduced to the explosive Nohvan, "Uh, sorry, what's you're name?"

"Oh, that's right you never heard mine huh," Taka affirmed, crouching once more next to the hole and looking towards either direction in the adjoining hallway, "It's Taka—But everybody just calls me Princess, She replied rather blatantly, as they climbed back through the hole.

Princess? That's... interesting. Henri thought before saying, "Nice to meet you Princess. My name's-"

"Little Henri!" Taka interjected.

The outburst startled a laugh out of Henri, "Yeah. That's me." Back on the ship she was a witch, here she was Little Henri. She was starting to like this.

The pair retraced their path through the long cooridors, Henri with the holopad tucked firmly beneath her arm and Taka rummaging once more in her bag. She procurred another cube, plopped it into her mouth, and offered the bag to Henri who tried her best not to grimace.

"No thanks, I'm watching my blood pressure," She refused.

"Oh sorry, I didn't mean to make it rise," Taka replied offhandedly, putting the treats away.

They entered the main lab just in time to overhear Scarleth, "An unknown artifact in a neighboring cave appears to have been the centerpiece of their research. Have either of you found such an artifact?"

"Did someone say murderous inanimate object?" Henri chimed in, determinedly ignoring their freshly beheaded companion,"You may want to take a look at this." She threw the holopad, video open, to Scarleth.

"Holy Frijoles, looks like he just can't seem to get ahead huh?" Taka commented, glancing towards the body on the floor. The scene sparked a memory, but she ignored it and turned to face Scarleth, looping an arm around Henri's shoulders.

"So did we win yet?"

Freedom In The Stars: Deathbound [A Suicide Squad inspired sci-fi adventure] (Closed down)

@Aziraphale You wanna do another short collab for our characters?

@Esoteric

Definitely! Let me know when you're free.