What's In A Name?

[grantuseyes]

Micolash sits cross-legged on a table. Strewn all around him are ink pots (some overturned and spilled), parchment paper (in stacks and scattered alike), pens and nibs and a few sticks of charcoal. His fingers are stained with ink and there are a few splotches somehow on his face and on his pinstripe trousers, along with a dark handprint on the metal collar of his cage. The side of his left hand, the one he's currently holding a pen with, is smudged even worse with black.

There are discarded drawings all around him, some that look like false starts on some manner of monsters. Some are just pages crammed with drawings of eyes, or scrawls repeating phrases or rambling prose. Some are crumpled up into paper wads or have half-hearted attempts at scratching out or erasing the contents.

The parchment Micolash currently has in front of him is being scrutinized by the scholar. Looking over his handiwork and trying to determine if it passes whatever muster he's going for. It's certainly a drawing of SOMETHING.

Whatever verdict he's pondering, it doesn't prevent Micolash from looking up and addressing whatever person is wandering close to his work station.

"What does your name mean? Do you know? Do you care?"

Comments

[grantuseyes]

Micolash is riveted with the description, his palms pressed together and eyes wide. Kinner's barely finished before the caged scholar makes a giddy, shrill giggle. The heels of his untied shoes thump a few times on the table as he kicks in further excitement! He's acting like someone just described a darling anecdote about a favourite animal.

He leans forward after the little fit of happiness, eyes sparkling with delight. "How many eyes did it have! And blue tentacles? My heavens! What an encounter! What a discovery! How lucky you are, to have known becoming a part of it! Why, for all you know, your blood and eyes still persist in the Waking, still made to be the flesh of this unknown visitor! Marvelous."

[outpostcook]

"It had three red eyes," Kinner says, describing what he saw as best he could. "The rest of it was blue. It had tentacles for arms, tendrils on what must've been a head, and smaller tentacles for fingers. We...we think it had telepathic abilities. It could, ah, read minds. Dunno what it got out of me. Connant was probably a better meal as far as knowledge meant."

Kinner manages a twisted smile. "I was just the camp's cook. Figure it took me because I worked with food - infecting me would help it get to everyone else hat much quicker. Looking at it from your point of view, assuming you're a scientist, I can understand why Blair wanted to study it. Still think it was damn stupid and put everyone in danger, but I can understand."

[grantuseyes]

"Oh pish posh! The studies that pose a danger are the ones most worthwhile to pursue," he chides with a dismissive wave of his hand. "And I agree wholeheartedly with your Professor Blair, it should have absolutely been a subject of research! Ahh! I cannot bear it; quickly, quickly!"

Micolash slaps a couple of pieces of paper and a pen in front of Kinner, then flops down to lie on his stomach with his hands propped underneath his chin/collar. His legs, bent at the knee, kick in the air with childish excitement. Eagerly watching as he says, "Draw it! Draw your 'Thing', would you please? Three eyes? Tentacles? Thought manipulation? Oh, sorry are those with not enough eyes to see! To know!" He giggles and then taps the paper urgently again with a smudged fingertip. "Hurry, I simply cannot wait!"

He's more like an excitable kid than a middle-aged scholar right now.

[outpostcook]

"Blair thought he made the wrong choice, in the end. For what that's worth." There's a nervous gulp as Kinner puts pen to paper. "I'll give it a try. It's hard to draw - it didn't really stay fixed in one form for very long. Always changing. The only time we saw it in its true form is when it got caught, or if it was the last thing you'd ever see."

Kinner was lucky - or unlucky - enough to get a good look at the Thing in its true form as it ensnared him, and the more he thinks about it the clearer the memory gets. The cook remembers the wet feeling of its skin, the red eyes glowing with hunger and malice, the creature mentally grabbing his brain and ordering him, commanding him, not to struggle or run, Kinner's own brain helpless to refuse. It wasn't a pleasant feeling.

He draws...something on the paper, something amorphous, with long tentacles, what might have been teeth, writhing, snakelike tendrils on its head, and blazing red eyes. Its skin almost seemed to bubble on the paper, with some patches of gray fur, as if the creature was moving between forms.

[grantuseyes]

Micolash watches transfixed every line that's put to paper. He's sorry he cannot lean in even closer to see, or else he'd risk hitting this fine gentleman with his cage. Nothing ruins a drawing like blunt force trauma.

When it's finished, Micolash is dead silent. He's even holding his breath. Spidery fingers reach out to delicately turn the drawing to better face him, to see it closer and rightside up. After several silent seconds of studying it, he gasps. Loudly.

Suddenly, the scholar clasps his hands tight together in front of him and, eyes closed, whispers what sounds to be most likely prayer. "Maledictus; donum libas; inficimur; maledictus bestia. Maledictus; Mater do si donas. Inficimur; argentum aquae in tenebris..." In latin, apparently.

Eyes opened and hands as well, he is swift to look over the drawing once more. Except now he's armed with a pen of his own. He keeps whispering to himself as he starts to rapidly write out notes, scribbles of symbols, specific parts of the Thing circled, bracketed, arrows that point to strange words. Augur. Ebrietas. Emissary. Kos/m. Curse of the Blood. Celestial. Ihyll.

"Redemptio risa se; exciet, exciet. Flebatur a salis..." His feverish notes are now spreading to other papers, writing out calculations using arcane symbols, fragments of thoughts or ideas, theories, uncertainties, comparisons. Drawings of eyes always result when his pen stalls due to giving the drawing a fresh look.

Micolash seems to be completely absorbed in his manic onset of studying.

"Sanguine! Sanguine...!"

[outpostcook]

"Uh...thanks?"

Kinner's pretty sure this stranger is worshipping the Thing. Or something like that. He's very confused, to be honest. The Thing isn't a god, or whatever Micolash thought it was. It was a creature. Incredibly dangerous and very powerful, but a mortal creature like any other, able to be hurt and killed. It wasn't even that good a picture of it, if he'd been asked. But Micolash seems utterly taken with it, which is either creepy, flattering, or both.

Kinner's kind of unsettled, to be honest. Even with the Anti-Violence Field in place, he almost starts to worry that the stranger would summon the Thing itself here and the alien would devour them both. He stays, but the urge to run is getting stronger and stronger. Kinner's curiosity is clashing with his survival instinct.

What is Ebrietas? Is it a creature this stranger thinks is relatd to the Thing, or his world's Thing-equivalent, like the pink Thing in Palmer's and the blue Thing in Kinner's own? How many Things are there in the universe, assimilating and spreading?

Unfortunately for Kinner, he doesn't know the smallest bit of Latin, so what's being said confuses him more than anything else. All he knows is that Micolash is really, really taken with the Thing for some reason. He doesn't really think too hard about why.

Even Blair hadn't acted like this. He'd wanted to study the Thing and then wanted to destroy it on seeing how dangerous it was, at any cost. But he could understand - if the Thing hadn't been so evil, or so hungry, Kinner (maybe, just maybe) wouldn't have minded getting a closer look himself.

"I'm guessing you like the picture?"

[grantuseyes]

It’s as though he forgot another person was even there at all. Completely absorbed in his feverish writings and bizarre calculations. When Kinner speaks up, Micolash’s head snaps up with a sharp gasp, like a man shook awake. His eyes are unfocused, bleary. “Ahh, Kos! Or some say Kosm…” The words drip out of him in a sleepwalker’s drone, low and thick in his throat. A uneasy smile spreads slowly across his face. “Do you hear our prayers…?”

One moment, Micolash was staring vacant through Kinner. The next, they snap back into focus and lock onto the other man’s eyes. The cage surges closer and so do the pale blue eyes behind it.

His bony hands snatch forward with unsettling speed, intent on trying to grab ahold of Kinner’s lapels or shirtfront. He’ll attempt to grab most anything, really, just to try and yank him close. Regardless of his results, Micolash continues to fix Kinner with a broad grin and unblinking stare.

“How. Positively. Thrilling.”

His words are low and languid and his smile is nauseating. His hollow eyes dance with frenzied delight.

“You poor, blind thing. Not enough eyes on the inside to see, to know. But fear not, my friend; I will tell you! Of the cosmic wonder you have stumbled your sad, witless way into…!”

The hanging sleeves of his scholar’s regalia begin to rustle unsettlingly. Blue, segmented tentacles lazily creep from within them. Slithering down to wrap around the table under him. Reaching in attempts to coil around Kinner’s arms.

“You have communed with the flesh of a GOD…It is part of you…! Are you not joyous? Are you not thrilled!?”

Tentacles are snaking up the bars of his cage as he continues to stare, manic and unblinking, at his hapless conversation partner.

[outpostcook]

"Uh...sir, with all due respect, I think this isn't a good idea..." Kinner steps back, now positively terrified, but he's unable to run. He may be wrong, but he worries Micolash is trying to summon the Thing. He only narrowly dodges the grab and slips, getting a glimpse of the tentacles as he gets to his feet. He gives a startled cry.

It can't be a coincidence that the tentacles he sees emerging are blue, the same color as the Thing's tentacles. Besides which, Kinner's pretty sure that the Thing which attacked his team wasn't the only Thing in the universe. There had to be more of them. The Thing knew who he was, the tentacles were coiling to grab him. They'd tasted Kinner before, been him, and God only knew if they liked the taste...

Kinner definitely isn't about to give the Thing a second helping of cook if he can help it. Why is the stranger sprouting tentacles? Is he a Thing? But Things didn't talk once they were exposed, so what's going on?

If Micolash is willing to try and summon the creature, Kinner's not going to sit idly by. He desperately scans the area for a weapon, something he can use to fend the monster off if it manifests fully. He's not going to be assimilated without a fight this time.

No! No, I am not thrilled! You, maybe, but leave me out of this!

Kinner doesn't like the look of those tentacles at all. Maybe it's not the Thing that's being summoned by Micolash's chanting, or where the tentacles came from, but Kinner's not exactly in the mood to find out. He doesn't like the feeling of what's going on here in general.

"Look, the Thing's dangerous! I know you think it's some sort of god, and I don't know what it is, but it'll eat you!"

Judging from the chanting, this scholar considered it an honor to be assimilated by such a being. Kinner doesn't share the sentiment.

"Do you know what it is?" Kinner finally asks, as loudly as he could. "I'm sorry, but I don't understand a word you're saying!"

[circadiandrumsolo]

It's the shouting that attracts Alex's attention, first, and he stops to peer at what's going on. He's worried enough at Kinner's reaction, but when he sees tentacles slithering out and reaching for the other man, the little fellow takes a few breaths, screws his courage to its sticking place, and runs forward, reaching into the bag he wears slung crossbody.

What he whips out is, apparently, a disc on a cord, like some kind of weaponised metal yo-yo. The disc is iron, covered with, among other things, a substance called aglaophotis, and engraved with multiple variations on the Elder Sign.

"Y'nhai!" he shouts. "W'ganath Nodens anunag'lth!" The disc glows blue and he snaps it outward on its cord toward Micolash in a wide arc with a brilliant blue roostertail of light.

[grantuseyes]

“Grant us eyes, grant us eyes! Plant eyes on our brains to cleanse our beastly idiocy…”

Micolash drones further prayers, still leering with a rictus grin and wild blue eyes, still leaning forward from his kneeling spot on the table. Clutching the edge of it with his actual hands while the tentacles continue to unfurl and slither along the surfaces like sickening, invasive vines. Several continue to reach and grasp towards Kinner, now with more speed, more urgency, more excitement. The man is slippery, but Micolash is quick. Just a little effort is all that's needed here…

The interloper swinging an object towards him is enough to make Micolash rear back with unlikely agility, despite the cage, despite his mania making his movements look as drunken as his words sound. Still smiling, eyes glittering with confusion and delight at once. “A trick weapon! I just knew-“

But Micolash’s words are cut short when the scent of aglaophotis hits him. At the exact same moment, his skull practically vibrates with the sharp, solitary, bell-like clang it causes in his brain matter. He winces once. And then again, with a short cry of unexpected alarm when his head jerks violently enough to one side to bang his temple into the bars of his cage. The same side that strikes rusted metal erupts briefly with a small flash, blue sparkles, a streak of glowing white that leaves behind smoke dripping like slime before it vanishes.

In the exact same instant as that flash from Micolash’s temple, all of the tentacles either retract or simply fall off, puffing into more slimy smoke once they hit the floor.

Micolash himself looks startled. Then turns his head to look in the direction that white streak went.

“Oh no!”

It’s like he forgot he was even menacing anyone to begin with, and was menaced in turn. The scholar clambers off of the table and is already chasing after that shimmering glow with a wobbly gait.

“Come back, oh, do come back! There is nothing to fear!”

He calls after whatever the hell presumably zipped out from his skull as he totters further and faster away. Like an owner chasing after a spooked and fleeing pet.

[outpostcook]

"Look, you're gonna get us both killed! I'm begging you, whoever you are, please stop!"

Kinner doesn't notice the new arrival immediately, still desperately trying to avoid the tentacles. He doesn't know if they're Thing-tendrils or not, but knowing what he does about the Thing he's not going to take any chances on letting one touch him.

With a sense of mounting horror, he realizes that the stranger wants to be infected by the Thing, and doesn't seem to care what happens to Kinner in the process.

He hears more strange words, though they're not in the chanting stranger's voice, and they draw his attention long enough for Kinner to make it to the far wall, still gaping and terrified. He shuts his eyes, half expecting to feel tentacles wrapping around him and merging with his flesh again, consuming him, becoming him...

He opens an eye a crack, noticing he is, in fact, still alive and tentacle-free.

What's going on here? What did the strange weapon do to Kinner's attacker? The cage-headed man's clearly still alive, but he seems to no longer be interested in terrorizing Kinner. He ought to leave right now, but somebody had saved him.

Kinner's relieved to see the tentacles disappear, though he still avoids touching the slime as he staggers to his feet. He's tired and more that a little scared, judging from his wheezing breaths and quick heartbeat, but he's all right. The stranger's gone. The small cook wipes sweat from his eyebrow, relieved and turning to the person who rescued him.

"Thank you. My name's Joseph Kinner, formerly of the Secondary Magnetic Expedition. I - I don't think we've met." He offers a hand to the newcomer. "Pleasure to meet you."

[circadiandrumsolo]

"Alex Mason. Miskatonic University," the other answers a little distractedly, not to mention breathlessly, staring after Micolash's fleeing form. He blinks and looks at Kinner, then shaking his hand.

He's a young fellow--most likely a student at said University. "We haven't met, no. I'm kinda new here." He winds the cord round the disc before placing it back in his satchel.

"What was that?"

[outpostcook]

"Honestly? I don' know. He didn't give me a name, but he was weird." Kinner shrugs, giving the best answer he can think of. "Didn't answer any of my questions, either."

Kinner guessed the newcomer was young, and he's impressed. He wonders...

"The reason he was interested in me? I was attacked by a monster during my expedition. It killed me, but it was a shapeshifter - it could steal the memories and the bodies of the people it ate. That guy seemed to think that made me special in some way."