A Rose, Unnaturally

[four_is_death]

The lockpicks slide against each other with a gentle metal-on-metal sheeee, then click solidly into place.

Sophia smiles beneath her mask. "Got it."

Comments

[pythbox]

Sophia's rose retracts all of its stems back down to its original shape and sits tidy and dormant with a single long sharp stem.

[four_is_death]

What.

Okay, that is convenient but it is also not how flowers work.

[four_is_death]

Slab lets the woman up when she seems to be mostly operating on her own again.

[four_is_death]

Rose doggedly tries to figure out why the strange man is in pain, half-remembered first-aid and herbal remedies all tangling together in her brain.

[four_is_death]

Eyes seems to be rather distracted by the fact that Sophia's remaining clothing is full of holes.

[last_one_out]

Well, he's full of thorny rosevines, that can't be helping with the pain situation. Besides that...

A new sense unfolds, bit by bit, exploring the many many things that are wrong with this man. He has numerous old scars from some combination of surgery and torture. His skull contains entirely too many foreign substances - tiny crystal shards, some kind of alchemical concoction. The crystal has also gotten into his blood somehow. He's full of thorny rosevines, but they are actually helping, exerting a steady magical pressure that refuses to allow any of the rest of this bullshit to kill him. Glittering silver tears stream from his glowing silver eyes - that's the crystal at work. The healing-sense advises Rose to leave well enough alone; there's nothing she can do for him right now that his flowery companions aren't already doing.

[greatestgift]

Meanwhile, the girl is now hovering three feet off the ground. She looks really confused about it.

[unmarred]

And the other strange pained man is getting up and making his way over to his brother(?).

[four_is_death]

Okay, that's... acceptable.

... These roses are very definitely not normal. Lights.

[four_is_death]

Meanwhile, the portal winks out, leaving behind a final gift of an unrioe tomato. The experiment surveys the wreckage of the room.

"Well, isn't this a fine mess."

Its metallic voice scratches and pops like an old phonograph record.

[last_one_out]

"What the fuck?" mumbles the one with the glowing and the silver.

[unmarred]

His brother(?) looks at him sharply and asks him something in a strange language.

[last_one_out]

He responds in the same, rubbing his head.

[four_is_death]

Slab looks over at the door. Shouts of alarm are drifting from down the hall.

"No time to figure out what's going on, everybody needs to get moving!"

He looks over at the strange people and beckons. "If you guys don't want to end up like that thing" - he points at the experiment - "then you need to follow us!"

[four_is_death]

The "thing" doesn't look amused, but nods its assent. Its neck cracks, and it lets out a little wheezing sound.

[four_is_death]

Sophia pulls her mask back up and produces a squat, pistol-shaped object from her torn-up coat.

[four_is_death]

Rose looks torn.

"They're hurt, we can't just leave them!"

[four_is_death]

Eyes slides up next to the door and grabs the closest heavy object. (It appears to be a hefty bronze statuette.)

[greatestgift]

The floating girl asks an incomprehensible question.

[last_one_out]

The silver-eyed man answers it, then says in perfectly fluent Victorian, "Sure, lead the way."

[four_is_death]

A metallic wolf bounds through the doorway on four legs, baring razor-sharp teeth: Eyes' swing goes wide over its head as it turns and bears down on the group crouching behind the counter.

[four_is_death]

Sophia levels her device at it, trying to track its movements, but Eyes is in her backstop -

[unmarred]

Thorny vines sprout through the red rose-bearer's hands, forming into the shape of long knives, with which he attacks the wolf as soon as they turn from vine to steel. His speed is positively unnatural.

[last_one_out]

The silver-eyed man produces a frosted bow and glowing arrow by similar means. He looses the arrow and it embeds itself in the wolf's side, melting whatever metal it touches.

(Other rose-bearers who wonder how this happened might find that they, too, can manifest weapons in this way.)

[four_is_death]

The wolf claws its way along the floor a little further, but then the experiment drives a barbed speartip into the side of its head.

"... Well, that's useful." The creature grins.