nozombiesallowed | spin the wheel [arcane au]

[ It had begun as it typically did with Bruno: a vision, a worry, and the little seer vanishing without a word for a few days to investigate it somewhere in the depths of Zaun. He knows it isn't something he should keep doing, but he does it anyway; if Silco can continuously forgive Jinx for worse transgressions, why not him...?

However, Silco more likely had a bigger problem with what he asked when he finally reappeared at The Last Drop. He needed someone to drill through a particular thick chunk of rock, claiming there was something on the other side that would inevitably be a danger to the undercity. That something would turn out to be the depths of the Hexgate structure, buried so far under Piltover, right next to the far reaches of Zaun, all of this time.

Bruno is less surprised than Silco and whatever goons he let Bruno borrow to do the digging, though he hadn't been entirely certain as to what it was. His visions had been unclear, obscured by other magics. Now, he realizes, it was the arcane energies of Hextech... or... was it something else? Something rawer?

Arcane corruption has already corroded the metal walkways. It's begun creeping up the walls, slowly devouring the once pristine stylings of Piltover's aesthetics and Bruno? Bruno peers down at it all from the hole through the stone they've created, his brow furrowed, lips pursed into a thoughtful frown. ]

That seems... huh. That's wrong. None of this feels like actual Hextech. Not anymore.

[ What does that even mean, Bruno? Come on, break it down for the less magical folks here. ]

Like, the energy's all wrong?

[ Oh how Piltover's transgressions continue to pile up. At first, he'd simply waved off one of the muscled hires towards Bruno with a nod, and he'd intended to just leave it at that, but something... nagged at the back of his mind. The possibility of something going wrong had kept him from just letting the musclebound goons go with him without any escort. He remembered the few other times things like that had happened, and it made him decide to go with.

Creeping into the fissure where he'd already gotten down into, Silco's feet are too practiced and familiar, scaling down, down, down into it. His fingers grip into outcroppings when they descended, more sure than even the gang members coming with them. When they arrived, he's breathing heavily — that doesn't seem to stop when they finally drilled through the surface, his single eye blinked rapidly after the dark of the fissures, after — ]

What is it then?

[ He leaned down, trying to peer in past him. ]

And why is it here? They didn't clear this through me.

[ Okay, so. Pissed? Pissed. He hisses it out through clenched teeth and a snap of his consonants that says that he's not happy. ]

[ Climbing had been a simple enough feat for Bruno, though if he hadn't brought a rebreather along, he'd have ended up here breathing as heavily as Silco. As it goes, he did bring it because he isn't a total idiot. He isn't a native of Zaun. There will always be layers of the city he'll have trouble with.

Though once they breached the room through the fissure's stone wall, he'll have taken it off, letting it dangle about his neck like a wildly oversized steampunk pendant. The air in here is fine. The air in here, he imagines, is being piped down specifically from— ]

Very bottom of the Hexgate tower like this? They must have needed to bury this thing deep. There's so much energy built up in this room. If it... er.

[ Uh, well. The glance he throws at Silco is a nervous one, short and quick. Maybe he ought not to go into details like that. Silco's already mad. ]

A-anyway. [ Cough, right. ] It's magic.

[ He stoops down to slide over the edge of the hole they've drilled into the place, dropping down to land on one of the walkways instead. It's a bold move, in his opinion, since he doesn't know what will and what won't cause a reaction. Being the closest thing to an actual mage here, he can feel the power flow through the engine at the heart of the room.

It's tense. Wound tight and rattling at its cage.

But stepping foot on the walk elicits no reaction just yet. ]

Or the arcane. Whatever you want to call it. It's all one and the same. It's... [ He looks up from the arcane-corroded metal and off towards the center. ] Upset?

That makes two of us.

[ He said it snidely, dropping down with all the grace of someone who's lived among the fissures all his life; though his feet land hard on solid ground. Down here, it's cold, and he can see his breath in the air. He could guess that it's to house something that needs to be kept from overheating. Jinx had explained something like this once to him, about why she needed some coolant or the other -- he would have bought it for her anyway but... Well. Sometimes the girl just wanted to talk, and he had always indulged her. ]

Does it remind you of anything?

[ It's cautious, what he asks. One time, they had glimpsed something unknowable, and large. It had been terrifying, but silco hadn't been the one scarred by the experience. Not like the seer had.]

I suppose this is yet another thing to bring up next time I hear from the council.

[ More emphatic consonants. He drug his finger along a frosted wall, but didn't touch the corrosion. Who knew where it had been?]

[ Did it remind him of...? Ah. That. Bruno grimaced, although the expression was short-lived. Thankfully, it did not. If it had, there would have been much more commotion upon breaching the chamber: terror, panic, likely turning tail and running away. It would have been rather shameful, so Bruno was deeply grateful that wasn't the case. ]

No. Uh, no, definitely no, that's. [ Though thinking of it still made him stumble through his words worse than usual. ] It's. It's not. This is.

[ He gestured towards the center. ]

It's... it's natural. I mean. H-hextech uses energy native to Runterra. Think of it that way. The. The other is. It's from outside.

[ No comment from Bruno regarding the council. He could only trust that Silco would spin up a believable story of what led them to this discovery. ]

Hm.

[ He says, voicing a lot of thoughts in a single word. It's... not quite displeased, not quite happy. Somewhere in between. He doesn't enjoy the thought of that being from the outside, any more than he enjoys Hextech infecting something within his city. It looked contained, but...

He knew better than anyone. The rot would infect, it always found a way to spread beyond containment.

His eyes wound around, though he's closing in on it. Annoyed, even now. Not at Bruno, but at the Council, doing something like this yet again.

How long until it infected them. ]

How long until this spreads? I assume you saw something? Is it dangerous? [ A beat. ] More dangerous than anything else we deal with?

What am I, a mage? I have no idea. This... all. [ Wide gesture, meaning all of this down here again. ] It's like trying to see through, uh, static. It's why I had to come down here personally.

[ Which for sure made no sense to any of the additional crew Silco had tapped for the job, but so long as he avoided words like "vision" and "oracle" and that crap, they could be left guessing. ]

Come on. Let's go say hello to our angry friend in the middle.

[ That said, he turned to continue up the catwalk toward the corruption's source. It was not a safe tactic. However, it was also the only one. ]

[ Well, they weren't important here anyway, and most of them seemed to be crowded around the hole, trying very hard (for a bunch of musclebound goons) to look as small and as non-assuming as possible. That is, until Silco gestured with annoyance at the log of them. As if to say: get out here you cowards, before he turned to follow Bruno deeper in. He didn't expect them to go too deep, but...

Well. ]

Angry friend in the middle?

[ He asked, narrowing one eye, catching up to him with a few quick steps. He still avoided any patches of this...stuff on the ground.

He'd ask if this was safe but... well. He knew it wasn't. ]

I hope you have an idea, here.

[ he said, his eyes tipping upward to look at all of... this.

Did it really go all the way to the surface? ]

[ Yes, it did. Aaall the way up.

Even with Silco bidding them to get down on the catwalk as well, there was still some hesitance until enough of them realized how it looked that the little guy (Bruno, not Silco, in this case) was seemingly the fearless one here, and they were not. That has them clambering down soon enough.

Not that they would get far before things began happening. ]

I know it isn't gonna kill us. That's about it.

[ A real verbal shrug there. After all, there are much worse things than death. The room began to react after a few more steps closer to the Hextech engine. The air twitched, glitching visually, and then, where there was once simply the machine, the organic structure of... what? Bruno had no word for it. It was a shape, its substance similar to the rainbow of the oil-slick-hued corruption subsuming the catwalks and walls of the room, stretched taught and full of holes.

Behind them, the goons just... stop. They stopped moving, all caught in motion, frozen in time. Only Silco and Bruno, the two closer to the entity, remained free to move. That has Bruno giving a jump. ]

O-oh! I... I didn't think you'd just. Just pop up like that. [ He did take a nervous step back. It was a tiny one, but he did. ] H-hello?

[ A pause followed his uncertain greeting. Soon after, a thrum of a sort reverberated around the chamber as if in answer. Was it truly aware of them? Whatever this was? ]

[ That isn't reassuring.

Neither was the way the air just... twitched. Like he's caught in a shimmer-high, like everything is too slow and too fast all at once. He tipped to look back, and they were suspended.

He looked back to the thing, Bruno trying to talk to it? Of course he was, soft hearted fool. He scoffed — only for the thing to thrum through the chamber. Everything seemed to hang, everything felt too long, too short. Things felt wrong, and his eyes darted between it, and Bruno, and then back to it. ]

Is it sentient?

[ He asked, because it seemed to be in control of all of this? Could it be?

Should they dispose of it? Could they? Should he go get Jinx to take care of this? He'd be happy to blow the whole structure — though it might take an entire part of Zaun with it, so perhaps it's best if they don't yet. His jaw clenched, and he clasped his hands behind his back. It's too slow, everything feels too slow. Too fast. ]

What should we do with it?

[ Nearly like a shimmer trip was the best way to describe it. Bruno always did wonder how Singed had come across the formula for it. All science? Really? Seemed unlikely to him, especially when Hextech was also considered a science. ]

Man, if I could answer any of those questions...

[ Being an oracle was never as useful as one might suspect. ]

I think it's aware enough to try and communicate, but did it mean to draw us here or someone else?

[ Bruno can't even imagine what they could do to help something that was a part of or even was the power source of Piltover's gate. He moved another two steps closer and tentatively reached out towards it, wondering if contact might make communication easier. ]

Who else could it possibly be trying to draw?

[ It wasn't like Bruno was a well-known seer in Zaun, even, thanks to Silco's very meticulous methods of keeping secrets. Unless Bruon had intercepted whatever it was doing thanks to his ability. If that's the case, was it trying to reach anyone at all? Or had it been simply doing something, not trying to reach anyone or anything at all. ]

It could be that it's random.

[ His hands were very pointedly behind his back.

Though, his tone makes it clear that he thinks it's a bad idea when he says: ] Are you sure you should touch it?

[ Bruno stopped short of actually touching the entity. Look, Silco was right. Touching strange arcane beings you know nothing about seemed bad, right? ]

...yyyeah, maybe we, uh. Maybe we should tell the folks up top about this. I mean, it's their mess?

[ Though it seemed anti-climactic. If he had only had a vision of this for the sake of opening a complaint Piltover, he was going to be questioning his gift for some time going forward.

Oh well.

He turned away from it after another second of observing the thing. When he moved to walk back towards the other man, however, that was when the world around them glitched again, this time worse than before. Not only the air, but they do, too. Silco will see Bruno's entire form flicker, and Bruno will seem the same. It wasn't without a physical sensation, either, not painful, but disorienting and akin to getting the wind knocked out of you.

Understandably, Bruno quickly collapsed, landing on his hands and knees on the catwalk with a shocked gasp. There wouldn't be a chance to get up and run for it, either. The glitching didn't pass this time. It lingered, growing worse the longer they stood there in the spot the entity had frozen in time and space. ]

Well they can solve their own problem for onc ——

[ He doesn't get the chance to finish his sentence. Everything gets. Odder. Bruno seems to flicker, like spikes and forms, things going haywire.

He feels it too, the way he seems to both contort and stretch out, a sensation that feels nauseating and like he's trying to pass through an old mine where the air was cloying and choking. He doesn't move, doesn't collapse, but Bruno does and there's a long moment where he considers running anyway, his eyes at the thing, wide and fearful, before his brain decides long before he does that he has to get both of them out of here.

What if it used his ability?

Silco takes one step forward before another wave hit, harder this time, and he to seemed to collapse — or split in two? His head felt like it was splitting open, and he reached up to clench at his hair, teeth gritted while the sensation passed. It didn't hurt, but it still felt wrong and sharp and the glitch happened, like he was being ripped into two, and it was ——

How were they going to get out of this? ]

[ The answer to that was the most simple of all: they weren't.

Bruno struggled to get back to his feet. All it did was split him further into multiple versions of himself, all trying, failing, succeeding, all of it happening simultaneously, every possibility colliding in a single instant. In this, Silco's fear that it might use Bruno's gift wouldn't be all that unbelievable. Hextech was spawned from a simple acceleration rune - speed, movement, travel, going forward, seeing forward. It was not entirely unrelated to, say, being able to look into the future...

However, in this case, it would be the 'travel' portion they would be suffering through.

Bruno managed to lift his head enough to look at Silco, similarly terrified. A hand raised, stretched out towards him, mouth forming words that would never be heard, and then it would be months before the two meet again. Time and space collapses, dragging them away from where they once were.

One moment in their own universe, the next? Silco will find himself taking the place of, well, himself, with no sign of the smaller, mousier man he had been with anywhere in a new and strange Zaun. ]

[ It sears something in him. In his soul, in his mind, like static that rushes around him, around him it feels like he's stretching across possibility, like each and every possible change, every choice, it seems stretched out before him. Ones where he didn't meet Bruno, ones where he died, ones where he'd — read something —

It's all a mesh, a mixed up, jumbled slide of possibilities and ends and beginnings and he can't comprehend a second of it, because it keeps going. And going. And going and it's all over with and before he even realizes it he —

Jolts awake with a too-loud gasp and a rapidly blinking eye and the soft tick-tick-tick of a deskside clock. He'd been staring at — his eyes — eye can't focus. He can't — he can't —

He grabs the nearest rubbish bin and deposits what should be the rest of his lunch — he hadn't eaten lunch — into it. Breathing heavy, still half-delirious and his eyes looking around in a strange room he only half-recognized and hasn't truly seen anything in. When he does —

His eyes see signs of life and living. Of stacks of ledgers and his characteristic scrawl. Letters, plans, letters to council members, all things he could expect.

What makes him shoot to the other end of the room, throwing whatever is in his hand — a pen — back, and he's at the back of the room. His breathing is picking up. Faster, faster, faster. Shuddering out. He looks like an animal trapped in a cage, feet askew on the ground, kicking out as he tries to put together the fact that he's suddenly found himself in a very, very different life. ]

[ If Silco thought he was surprised, Vander wouldn't be able to claim any different. He sat causally on the office couch, flipping through his own paperwork, though for the bar rather than for the whole city of Zaun - what needed to be restocked, who opened what tabs, what random objects needed a fix here or there. Silco going from a peaceful nap to that had him on his feet, his papers fluttering to the floor from his rough hands. ]

Whoa! Hey, what's the matter?

[ It wasn't as though he'd never seen a look like that on Silco's face, but not for a very long time. The bright side was he wouldn't approach right away. The less bright side — perhaps, from Silco's perspective — was the honest look of concern from the man Silco had worked so hard to get rid of in his own timeline. ]

You have a nightmare or something?

[ Outside the office, the sounds, too, vastly differ from what Silco may be used to. No heavy beat of music, no yelling, distant brawls. Instead, birds, real birds, singing somewhere. Wind, the rustle of leaves on a tree, distant laughter. Different, too different, unfamiliarly so. ]

[ His breaths are coming faster. Faster. Faster.

He tried to reach up and run hands through his hair, reclaim some semblance of control, but his ears aren't lying to him. His eyes tip toward the offender in the room. Breaths coming faster. Faster. He was not the type prone to attacks of any sort — not like Jinx — but he could feel it now. Something was wrong, something was so wrong.

Oh, Vander being in the same room with him was only the first offense. The look in his eye the — casual way he addressed him.

No, that was just the first sign.

The club wasn't open, there was no tell-tale sound of explosions somewhere down below, there was no... anything. Nothing.

Peaceful.

It felt like oil on a duck's back. Wrong.

His face went through a journey of abject fear, to dismay, to fury to something that was a little closer to the truth — panic. Plastered against the wall, his fingers looked for a knife, a — anything? — that he could use, and finding none of it, he's started stepping along the walls, on the opposite side of the room from the man he'd killed — and the man who tried to kill him in turn — eyes darting, looking for an exit. He found it, and started moving. ]

I — I —

[ He felt sick again. His heart thudded in his chest, his hand found the knob, and he twisted it. He's aiming to move, get out of here. His feet are uncoordinated on the ground as he's trying to get out, get out, get out —

But get out to where? He starts backing out of the door, he can't — can't show him his back. ]

Edited 2024-12-09 03:04 (UTC)

[ Vander can only watch with growing concern and confusion. He won't try and chase the wiry man down, though. Whatever has him spooked, scaring him further wouldn't help. All he can do is raise both hands to show they're empty and try to comfort the panicky man as soothingly as possible. ]

Silco, it's okay. Everything's fine. I don't know what's got you all riled up, but please, you have to calm down.

[ But Silco will find himself free to make his run for it. Out of the office and into the bar will only reveal even more of what's wrong: sunlight, clean air, bright and cheery colors. A variety of people: some unfamiliar, others nearly but not quite - people he knows should be dead, or dying, or sick and bitter. There's none of that in this Zaun, not anymore. Silco stumbling out there wouldn't elicit suspicion or nasty looks, nor would it fear of who he is, but more concern, confusion, more of the same, as though he was someone that people cared about. ]

[ It's wrong. It's all wrong. It's wrong it's wrong it's wrong. Where's the soul? Where's the violence and the neon? Where's the dark alleyways and sharp edges? He steps out into the street, his eyes wide, searching. Each face is... different — some are similar enough — but the thing that strikes him most of all is that they look at him like a person.

Not a monolith. Not the artifice he's created to make people fear and respect him. This is something different. It settled over his shoulders like a weight that felt too-heavy and awkward. It wasn't respect. It was...

Care.

It made him nauseous, seeing his people this... different. Weak.

The sun felt too-bright on his stressed mind, and he started to scramble, looking around, starting to scramble out of the main thoroughfare. He heard Vander — Vander — calling after him — him? — the ghost from the past like a haunting that he wanted to turn away from as quickly as he could.

His breaths came faster, as he started running — he didn't feel as taxed — but he knew this place better than most. He needed to — deep in the fissures, maybe? What about the old apartment he'd put Bruno up in? no, this wasn't going to work. He needed — he needed —

He needed to be Safe.

He slipped toward the Wharf, where his old property was. Maybe the old cannery would be abandoned? Maybe he'd find some hints there? He needed — he needed time... he needed to figure out what was going on because his brain kept thinking of the individual pieces, and he kept catching on them.

He felt very real confusion for the first time in...decades. ]

[ While his flight to the Wharf took him through more of the transformed Zaun, the cannery itself would be a sore sight for that eye. It wasn't even a blown-out ruin, still in one abandoned and rusty piece. Here, the undercity's renewal had not yet reached, discounting the overgrown vines that had inevitably crept up the walls and windows of the place.

A good a place as any to gather his wits, assuming he could find a way to worm his way in. It truly had been left to rot; locked up, boarded up, and covered in graffiti. It would seem wherever Silco is now, he hadn't used this place as any kind of base. ]

[ It's at least familiar. Untouched. A place that he'd thought he could just get to and disappear. Nobody came by there anymore in Zaun itself. It has a lot of side-effects from that much shimmer going up in smoke. Now? Here? It looks... overgrown, rotted, just abandoned. But also, nobody was here. People were too content, too happy. There were no lingering addicts trying to scrape threads of shimmer from the ravines, nobody hanging around to see if they could find another poor soul to jump.

No.

It was just him. All alone.

He didn't know what to do. He was still trying to get his brain to catch up to what he'd seen.

Sure, Silco was a smart guy, a planner and plenty good with books and numbers and grand vision and plans. That was all well and good. But what did it mean that he couldn't put it together? That he couldn't figure out what was happening. His brain kept catching on the facts. On the little things. Vander was Alive, and had apparently been worried about him. They'd been in the same space, not trying to kill one another which hadn't happened before the less terse days leading up to the Day of Ash.

Was this his mind, finally experiencing guilt nearly a decade after he'd seen the man killed? Where was Jinx? He hadn't even seen her? Was she still... was she...

And where the hell was Bruno? He'd winked out nearly before Silco had woken up. Was he trapped here? In this pseudo-fantasy Zaun where there was sunlight and chattering? Like a healthy, thriving community? It was what Vander had always wanted, of course, while Silco wanted the respect of the topsiders and their freedom

He leaned against the wall, and started to slide down it.

His breathing picked up, and he ran a hand through his hair trying to put it all back together.

It didn't lay flat. He tried again. It didn't lay flat.

His breathing picked up.

Why wouldn't it go back to the way it was supposed to be?

Was it his hair he wanted to fix, or everything else?

Where the hell was he?

He leaned over, and threw up again, expelling nothing but liquid and dry-heaves and he felt like his whole world shuddered, like it was all unravelling, before it settled back into place.

For a moment, it felt right, in that half-second. Like there was nothing wrong but him. No, he was the one who was right. This... this was all wrong. ]

[ Wrong, wrong, wrong, but he had it the other way around. He was right the first time. The only wrong thing in this timeline was him, only he didn't know it yet; he didn't have the words for it or the understanding, and Bruno was nowhere to be seen to try and explain or at least commiserate.

But Silco would find out that despite everything else, there was at least one thing that hadn't changed much. ]

What the fuck is your problem now?

[ Sevika still sounded as exasperated and done with him as she ever has, her question drifting in from behind him. Clearly, something had upset Silco, and now she would inevitably have to fix it. ]

If you're going to make me chase your stupid ass down across down every time I need to report back, I swear I'm going to find a new job.

[ No, she wouldn't. She never did. Should Silco turn to look at the familiar figure in the cannery doorway, the only real changes he could note are she has two arms still — no loss, no mechanical one needed — and she's let her hair grow out long enough to put in a messy braid that sits over one shoulder. ]

[ He didn't jump, but after heaving out what was probably the last of his actual guts, he tipped his head, blearily looking up at probably the only familiar face he'd seen in a long, long time.

Sevika.

Her hair is different. Two arms.

But it's Sevika, and she's just as mean as always. There's something to be said for a true Zaunite, and Silco stares at her for a long moment. There's something off in his gaze, maybe. Something feral. Something that isn't quite right. It's like there's a beast curling under his skin and threatening to burst out and forth. He doesn't look cowed, or soft, or content.

He looks like he's ready to fight. Her too, if he has to, but he put his forearms on his knees, refusing to get up. ]

You don't have a smoke, do you?

[ He asked, and it feels almost pathetic. He wanted a cigar, but he had none on him, and he's sitting by this old cannery, thinking about how everything feels wrong, and if he said anything to... literally anyone would they even believe him? Would they mock him?

He feels like his skin is too tight. It's all wrong.

Why is everything so wrong? ]

Give me one, and I'll tell you exactly what the...fuck my problem is.

[ He never swears, in any world, but if anything was going to warrant it. It's this. ]

[ Whatever the deal was, Sevika could tell it was going to be bad. She didn't bother with looking concerned. No, instead? She looks downright suspicious. It wasn't that she thought Silco was incapable of looking that feral — he was, he really was — but it wasn't normal.

Even though her brow furrows in suspicion and her frown deepens, it doesn't stop her from approaching. If Silco was hoping for cigars, he'll have to wait. It's a pack of cheap cigarettes that she fishes out of a pocket, shaking one free of the box and offering it to him. ]

If you want the good stuff, we'll have to head to my garage, but since you look like shit, I figure that isn't happening.

[ Not immediately, anyway. Sure, she could drag him back there if he's too shaky to make the hike. She doesn't want to, though. ]

two old men get stuck in an alternate timeline oh no

ψ(｀∇´)ψ

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https://youtu.be/PCY0aeUx-Ns?si=tSgTo9X73jzcE8VH&t=63

i figure we can both just npc other characters as we need btw o7

poifect Ψ(￣∀￣)Ψ getting him outta there quick anyway

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emeto warning

surprise it's a cameo

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