Don't Take Your Guns to Town | Day 15 - All Day | Multiple Places | Open

[subtleserenity]

It's time to do something constructive. All she's done for the past few days is destroy. Furniture, tapestries, books... the record player. Everywhere she looks, there is the sign of an unchecked rage. These might be people, and she'd helped to kill them before they even woke in the vain hope that it would somehow undermine Mason. A chair is not a house. And the people she'd threatened, yelled at, frightened, they hadn't deserved any of that either. Time to make amends.

Trinity had mentioned searching in the Grand Hall where the doors went on seemingly forever. Angel had thought perhaps they could check for a study. After learning about those notes the twins had gone through, and finding the burning bullet they need to know more. Much more than might be contained in just the secret Hearth Room. It will likely require more searchers than the last round... and hopefully it would not lead to more memories of being the Keeper's rifle. However useful that had been, it made remembering who she should be all the harder.

Scenario A (For those whom Brimstone menaced or otherwise wronged during the flowers plot)
There are those who need an apology before they can be enlisted. She knows they're likely to be frightened of her or angry. Or both. When she sights one of them, she approaches with caution. Her gun is secure in her holster and she has no intention of removing it as she holds her hands up in a placating gesture. She's not very good with apologies, but she tries.

"Those flowers turned my head somethin' powerful. Didn't mean none of the things I said to you. Name's Brimstone. If there's somethin' I can do to make it right between us, go on and tell me. More interested in allies than enemies, place like this."

Scenario B (For current allies and non-enemy acquaintances)
Then there are those who have not been wronged, or at least not so horribly as others. They are allies or acquaintances she's acquired in dreams and in the waking world. For these she attempts a bit of humor. It might smooth over her own rough edges after been sheered to something raw and wild with those flowers.

"Lookin' to cause trouble that don't involve shootin' the house up. You interested in helpin'? Got a notion at least some of those doors in the Great Hall open if you keep at it long enough."

Scenario C (For those Brimstone has not yet met or might consider enemies)
A beggar can't be a chooser, and there are at least hundreds of doors in the Grand Hall, if not thousands. Brimstone knows the only sensible option is to approach others in the house. There are new faces she's been passing in the halls, seen wandering the Library. There's a chance they may be interested in helping and simply asking the first time had proven there were more than a handful of folk interested in doing something constructive.

She approaches them with a thought that some of them might have come across keys or other helpful items in their scavenging of the house. "Lookin' to trade information and favors if you got a minute to spare. Keeper's got enough secrets in this house to have us lookin' a lifetime or two, but I reckon folks been findin' bits and pieces enough to start askin' the right questions. Few of us mean to find the answers if you're interested in helpin'."

Comments

[subtleserenity]

Brimstone inclines her head in thanks. "You got any skills good for searchin' or lock-pickin'?" The girl doesn't look particularly well-formed for attempting to brute-force her way through a locked door.

"Name's Brimstone, by the by? You got somethin' you're called, yet?"

[fuzzyduck]

Brute force is a field the girl excels in, in the sense that her strength could, in many cases, surpass the need to do any lock-picking whatsoever. Actual picking of locks, though? Not so much, she thinks. "I got a good sense of smell, if ya think that might help. Or, hell, I could just tackle doors open."

She grumbles. 'Tongues' isn't a name she's fond of, and she certainly hopes that girl from the lake won't take to calling her 'Whatever'.

"Nnnah. Nice to meet ya though."

[subtleserenity]

Pint-sized, but a powerhouse. Brimstone reevaluates the girl in her head, marking her a bit higher than before. The heightened sense of smell is an interesting thought, as well.

"Might call you Copper, if that's all right," Brimstone says, gaze tracking to the red hair atop the girl's head. "'Least to keep you stuck up here." She taps a finger to her temple with a metallic ting. "That nose of yours any good at sniffin' out unfamiliar bodies? Had a thought we might go lookin' for Mason behind those doors, the part of him that ain't the house."

[fuzzyduck]

"Copper, huh? Alright, I'm fine with that." It may not be a real name, but at least it sounds less embarrassing than Tongues.

Brimstone's question is a good one - which is to say, she's not sure how to answer it. In theory, it sounds about right, and it would be perfectly logical for a guard dog to be good at that, but in practice, over the past two weeks, she has been aggressive to people around the house for no good reason. Though maybe that's more of a personality problem than an olfactory one.

"... I can probably tell when someone's from outside the house."

Would that really help, though?

[subtleserenity]

"You think so?" Brimstone blinks a few times as she considers this. There's the bird woman in the secret room within the Hearth Room. They might be able to find out if she's actually from outside the house. "How long do you think that scent might last? Got somethin' you might be able to check if it ain't too long."

It's a long shot. Even if Copper does manage to catch the scent of something from outside, it's a slim chance her nose is good enough to then track the spirit of that thing. The rifle's seen stranger things in this house, though.

[fuzzyduck]

"Hard to day. Shit lasts longer if there's nothin' else muddlin' it up, like... someone who hasn't showered in weeks walkin' in and gettin' their awful stench all over the place."

Which is, thankfully, a hypothetical scenario. She hopes.

[subtleserenity]

"Girl I'm thinkin' of's been frozen in time," Brimstone replies, tapping her lips thoughtfully. "Or somethin' like that. We ain't quite sure what's goin' on there, but it ain't nothin' natural. You got a minute to come to the Hearth Room?"

[fuzzyduck]

Copper gives her an odd look. Nothing natural? That's probably about right.

"Eh, got nothin' better to do."

[subtleserenity]

Brimstone nods briefly before turning and leading Copper to the Hearth Room. Once in, she goes to the gears on the walls and begins punching buttons to open the secret room they'd found. It's been picked of the choicest loot already, but there is a very dead bird woman lying on the table in the middle of the room. Her blood is green and looks fresh. There is a large hole in her chest, and a smaller one in her shoulder where Angel had stabbed her in a fit of pique during the flowers.

"She's looked like that since we found this place," the rifle explains with a half-shrug.

so if I want to do this right I should reply to that thread there huh (excuse the silly question ;;)

[fuzzyduck]

As it happens, she has wandered in here before, when someone else accidentally left the door open. Something seems different, though - but what?

"Y'know, I ain't fond of sniffin' corpses."

No, it's not silly! Probably need to just ping a mod to reply to something like that here.

[subtleserenity]

"Might not be one," Brimstone points out. She's not one to hide information that might be incredibly relevant to the lives of her allies, and Copper's acting like one for the moment. "Keeper was doin' some kinda experiments in here, pickin' apart souls. Might be a way to bring her back. Couple of folks that went through his notes said they found some interestin' things. Might be her soul's out wanderin' without the rest of her.

"Don't know if you can track that maybe."

[fuzzyduck]

She crosses her arms. Yeah, she doesn't know either. "My nose ain't magic, just sharp. Hell, do souls even HAVE a smell?"

Regardless, instead of waiting for a reply, she shrugs, kneels down by the body and takes a big whiff.

I pinged Quix about your search request, so hopefully that should be gotten to soon.

[subtleserenity]

Brimstone raises one hand. "Never thought you could pull 'em apart. Things I seen here, don't seem much of a stretch there'd be magic that strange. Don't hurt nothin' to try, and maybe you're more talented than you know."

The gun's smile is slightly challenging, though she has no real intention of getting Copper to try harder. She has no idea how the girl's powers work and just waits to see if there's any result.