Ustuck: Get Recruited by Troll Mafia [Closed RP]

You look around. It's getting late and this is... not a great part of town. You and your moirail stick out like a sore touchstub. The thought of just asking random trolls questions doesn't sit very well with you. But, you're on a mission and you've got to do something.

"Um, maybe we could look around the bars and warehouses near the treeline for a start? Since Vansee said that's where he saw the suspicious trolls..."

 

"Makes sense."

Maybe you aren't very familiar with this area, but you sure as hell know how to find a bunch of trees. You navigate there, trying to stick to what appear to be main roads. It takes a while, but soon you can see the trees of a local park, or something. It's wildly unkept, with bushes and foliage crowding the edges of the sidewalk, which is cracked and fissured. The buildings on this block aren't as busy as the ones nearer the city, but there's still a fair amount of traffic. You can only see one bar, who's sign proudly declares itself to be "Hootbeasts."

 

You sigh. So much for not talking to random trolls. There doesn't seem to be anything else you can do, though, so you start to make your way to "Hootbeasts." You tell Iglora, "Maybe someone in the bar knows something."

Before you go in the door, you suddenly start feeling really anxious. You look around, wondering what made your instincts act up like this, because while you were a little nervous before, now you feel more like a need to leave, and quickly. When you look over at the overgrown park, you see a group of trolls, about five or six of them, hauling something in a large sack. When you look closer you notice that that something thrashing around. No one else seems to notice these trolls, but to be fair, they are at the very edge of the park and you kind of have to squint to see them.

You gesture to Iglora to follow you, and you take off after the trolls who are already disappearing into the woods. You don't actually run because you don't want to raise suspicions, but you walk very, very quickly and with purpose. Thankfully most of the trolls who are going about their business decide to get out of your way.

 

You're all for talking about people at Hootbeasts - not really at all, actually, it seems like an uncomfortable place - but you bet there's some interesting characters there. You let Kezria lead you and activate the map app in your computer glasses, dropping a pin for its location on your research map.

Then, suddenly, Kezria stops, then detours purposefully across the street. You stumble, then hurry after her, dismissing the app crowding your vision. You jog a couple steps to catch up with your moirail. "What's going on?"

 

"I think I saw the lususknappers!" You whisper. Hmm, You guess they could be good ol' fashion trollknappers... "I mean, I saw some trolls dragging something in a sack. Seems like safe a bet as any. They disappeared in to the woods.... there!" You point at a group of trees, completely indistinguishable from the rest. Now that you're at the park away from most of the other trolls, you break into a run, hoping to catch up to them, and hoping that you have the right direction.

"Come on! We might be able to catch them!"

 

"Oh!" You start running, as well, pulling ahead of Kezria easily. You reach the copse she had pointed out before her, so you start looking around, checking the trees for broken branches and disturbed undergrowth. It isn't hard for you to find where the shady group of trolls had gone - it looks like a horned boar crashed through the brush.

"They went this way," you tell Kezria when she catches up not a moment later. You grab her hand and pull her into the trees with you.

 

"No fair," you huff. "Your legs are longer" You try to catch your breath as she drags you through the trees. Even you can tell which way the trolls have gone. It doesn't seem like they tried to hide their tracks at all. You do your best not to trip over tree roots and such as you two follow the path through the forest. Thankfully, that weird anxious feeling you had before seems to be gone now.

After a while, you tug on Iglora's arm to slow down. "Are we going to catch them, or just follow them? If the latter, then we probably should keep our distance. Also, it's starting to get late, we said we would meet up with Keeler and Lukasz soon." You don't think Lukasz would mind if you were late, if it meant getting closer to the people who took his lusus.

 

You pause. "I think we should just follow them. We want to know where they're going. How long do we have until sunrise?"

 

"Uh, probably another tilt or so? Not very long. Maybe we should just head back. They left a pretty obvious trail for us to follow. And I for one do not want to be caught out after sunrise."

 

You look at your moirail, then back at the forest. You're suddenly flooded with anger again. You might be close to those assholes who tried to take your lusus, who broke into your home. Part of you is absolutely convinced that, if you keep going, you can find where they're hiding. It's tempting to shake Kezria off and head deeper into the woods.

But. Kezria's grabbing your arm. You can't let her go back alone; it isn't safe here.

You sigh. "Yeah. Okay, let's go."

 

"We'll be back soon," you promise. "First thing in the evening."

You head back through the woods, and then the city, with Iglora at your side. Except for the bars, it's less busy than when you first came through. It's uneventful and no one bothers you as you make your way back to the spot where you said you'd meet up with Keeler and Lukasz.

But when you show up, they're not there yet. So, you decide to troll Keeler, since you don't have Lukasz's troll handle.

faithfulIntellect [FI] began trolling autonomousIcarus [AI]

FI: (Hey, Keeler!) (where are you guys?)
FI: (It's almost sunrise.)
FI: (We should meet back up to compare notes.)
FI: (Iglora and I have a lead that we think will lead us to the lususnappers.)
FI: {So hurry up!} =P

 

>Keeler: Answer message.

What message? You don't see any message. Perhaps you might if you had your eyescreen, but noooo, Lukasz has decided for no particular reason that you are not to be allowed to wear your eyescreen, and has physically removed it from your face.

No amount of persuasion has been enough to get him to give it back and your attempts to physically reach for it have been thwarted. Curse your short limbs! Curse Lukasz and his oddly large reach! Perhaps you miscalculated his actual height, what with the slouching and the hoodie, and his very small and shrinking demeanor?

Well, either way, he has your eyescreen and that will not do.

>Keeler: Use your psionics.

Ow. That could have gone better. Now Lukasz still has your eyescreen and all you have to show for it is a headache. This is not fair. At all.

 

> Lukasz: Resist urge to injure patient further.

You resist the urge, but Keeler is certainly not making things easy on you. She seems about as attached to her eyescreen as you are to your hood, and while ordinarily you wouldn't try to separate someone from their security swaddle cloth you're pretty sure it's a bad idea for someone with a concussion to strain their gander bulbs trying to check their Trollian on a tiny glowing square.

Granted, you're not exactly a medic. Papillona is usually the one patching you up rather than the other way around, but you've watched her enough to at least give it a go. You toss the eyescreen out of range of Keeler's flailing so you can use both hands to wrap the bandage around the wound.

Finally, the golden blood is out of sight and you sigh. This night is just going beautifully. You almost hate to ask, but, "Did you at least get a good look at her? I mean--don't push yourself if your thinkpan starts hurting, okay? But if it doesn't mess up your head too bad..." You have no idea if Kezria and Iglora will find anything of use. If this is your only lead, you need to make the most of it.

 

You only sulk a little bit as Lukasz throws away your eyescreen, but you let him bandage your head for his peace of mind, despite its lack of necessity, and you perk up a bit once he finishes.

"I definitely woold bee able to recognize her face if I saw it again, and I could probably draw out her symbol for you? I'm not very good at drawing though. We talked a little, but she didn't really answer my questions. It was really confusing, she was complaining about not having painkillers and griping about what your lusus did to her and then saying horrible lies about Ascension."

You think that was probably all the really important stuff she told you. You didn't think to record the conversation with your eyescreen, which probably would have been a good idea, but you were kind of distracted at the time.

 

So, basically nothing. Although the fact that Keeler got her sign could be helpful, you hadn't got that good a look at it before.

That said, "What my lusus did to her? What about what she did to my lusus?" you ask. "Papillona had been bleeding all over the floor when they took her, they must have hurt her bad. She was defending herself. Not to mention whatever it is they're doing to her now. My lusus could be dead, and she's complaining about losing an arm?!"

 

You frown, trying to remember exactly what she said.

"I thiiink your lusus is probably alive? She said something about a butterfly tearing off her arm, which I thought was your lusus, but then she was saying it was a female troll's so she was probably just confused? Blood loss and all that. Because really, how many lusii can one troll kidnap anyway? Especially with one arm. She did say something about what your lusus did, which sounded like she's probably still alive and causing trouble, which is good, yeah?"

You really hope this makes him feel better. All that freaking out probably isn't good for the poor guy.

 

You again resist the urge to further injure your patient, though you cannot resist the urge to bury your face in your palm.

"I--yes, Papillona is a butterfly, and are you sure she wasn't just talking about the arm when she said my lusus did something?" you ask, because honestly having someone tear off your arm is probably the sort of thing a person might hold a grudge over. Not that you'd know, having never lost an arm before, but it seems kind of likely. Much as you'd like to believe that conversation is proof your lusus is still alive and all, you think the brownblood might be missing more limbs if that were the case. And oh, that's a bad thought.

You scratch the back of your neck through the hood. "She probably saw me without the hood sometime she was scoping out the respiteblock. My hair's long in the back, it makes me look kind of girly." And uggggggggh, but yeah it does not surprise you in the slightest she would think that, considering. Just deflect and hope Keeler moves on.

 

"Uh..." Now that you think about it, you're less sure then ever what exactly she was talking about when she said that.

"No. No, I'm not really sure," you admit. "I tried to question her more about it but she started saying all sorts of awful things about Ascension and the caste system and then she hit me."

Thinking about it makes you want to throw another stand at her, but sadly neither she nor the stand are around.

 

Awful things? Wait, was the brownblood trying to bully Keeler about her caste? You can certainly understand why she looks so upset. Being reminded that there will always be those who see you as nothing more than a blood color and caste role will do that to you.

"Hey, you know you don't have to listen to her, right?" you say. "You can be anything you want to be." It's the sort of thing you wish someone had said to you so many sweeps ago. It could have saved you a lot of trouble.

 

You sigh. You know that she was probably just trying to rile you up so she could escape, but it does make you feel a bit better to have some confirmation on this. It's hard being a young troll in training to be a spaceship. It's hard, but at least someone else understands.

"I know. It's just... I don't understand how she could just be so wrong. And rude, too! She said they could find a use for my psionics, and then called me feeble-minded and..."

Getting worked up about it is probably counterproductive to calming down and remembering what else she might have said about Lukasz' lusus, but it was hard enough to not take her comments personally when you were being hit with a nunchuck, and now you don't even have that excuse.