Steampunk

[Chloriosus]

(This is a private role play between me and Wingfeather if you are not one of those people I ask that you do not post)

A Steampunk roleplay.



The acidic green light from the dim streetlights cast erie shadows on the greasy and narrow streets, some of the toxic glare reverting back into the air and mingling with the dim and dusty smudge light of the night. Except for the occasional debris, greasy puddles, or holes in the street, the ways seemed as dead as the metal that gleamed melancholy off of almost everything in sight, even the air reminded of it. Far these roads lead, crossing and recrossing, confusing many who dared travel by it at this hour. However, a while aways off from the center of the city, the more low down places, a quite different aura than the dead silenced one reigned. 

[wingfeather]

Conan raced beside Jevo it had been more difficult than normal for them to escape their rooms that night. No one was allowed out after curfew, and did these boys know that? Yes, they most definitely did, but they didn’t care. Though the narrow alley ways were mostly straight and clear, aside from a few discarded acid crusted cogs and leaked oil from long ago busted pipes. The creak of metal wheels and cogs echoed in their ears and mostly drowned out the sound of their footfalls, but one could never be too careful, Conan kept finding himself give furtive glances over his shoulder. There business was one of danger. Suddenly it began to rain, but not water, acid started falling from the sky in thick sizzling globs, “we have gots to find a place to wait this out,” he told Jevo as quietly as his normally boisterous voice could manage. He winced and gritted his teeth as one of the scalding drops fell on his hand, that’s honing to leave a mark, he thought have grimly but half hoping that the scar would at least be worth the pain.

[Chloriosus]

Jevo didn't respond to his friends remarks but grimly increased his already firm grasp on the gizmos he had crammed into his left pocket as one of the toxic and sour triplets burned a tiny hole in his right pocket, reaching the metal of his wrist and leaving a corroded spot. He hurriedly glanced about the desolate streets looking for a safe and sheltered place to hide from the rapidly thickening downfall of acid, which after reaching the ground and staining it to an even more unearthly color left a sickening stench where it collided with the grease. A small ways off there was a shadowy awning which could possibly shelter them for a little while. However, there was no telling how long this acid storm would last, and for an interesting change in the grim mood he spied a drainage way on the side of the street, draining the liquid that ran down the streets and connecting to the large and ever more run down sewer pipes. "If we make a fast run, we can make it into the drainage pipes. We're not that far off anymore.", he rasped in a whispered tone, glancing worriedly about to see if anyone had noticed the rain and peeked out of their dwelling just to spy them. If the happened, there would be more than great trouble awaiting them, worse even than standing in the pouring acid for even as long as a minute.

[wingfeather]

Conan felt the buzzing of Javo’s voice in his ears and quickly comprehended what he was saying. He keen white eyes soon saw the drainage Jevo was indicating. “That would be a good idea,” he responded hunching as the pelting became stronger, he was lucky that the leather jacket he had on was acid treated, but the unfortunate part about it was the he wasn’t. Another drop hit him at the back of the neck singeing some of his hair. After reaching the drainage he grabbed one end and began heaving to get the heavy metal circle off the ground, he motioned with some annoyance for Jevo to take the other end and help him.

[Chloriosus]

Reluctantly loosening his grasp on the miscellaneous small gadgets and tools in his pocket, Jevo squatted down, glad that his hat kept most of the acid off his head yet hissing angrily when another one of those drops hit him on a small unguarded spot where his left wrist was exposed, and another one eatening itself into his neck. His adrenaline and anger fueled by these stinging, throbbing droplets, he and Conan quickly pried the somewhat sticky lid off, exposing an almost totally black expanse below them where the subtle gushing of liquid sloshing through pipes could be heard, the acidic content ever eating itself into anything alive or dead it could find. "There." he said under his breath, nimbly slipping into the blackness. Once ones eyes adjusted to the uncommon inkiness, it was noticeable that the acid even glowed slightly green, a ghostly color, mingling with parts of gray and black grease. Pressing his body tightly against the pipe, he waited for Conan to come down, reaching out his right hand to help put the lid back on.

[wingfeather]

Conan jumped down into the palely lit darkness. He hopped up onto Jevo’s broader shoulders and reached up to help and close the metal circle. He jumped down quickly, splashing some acid when his feet his the ground. “Alright Jevo, here we are, the pathways of the law breakers,” Conan said, his voice echoed down the long passage and seemed to reverberate back to him. “We haven’t been here much, I don’t remember the way all to well but I’m sure we’ll get through… someway or sometime,” he said cheerfully, “you still got those gadgets with you right?”

[Chloriosus]

The rising acidic fumes caused Jevo's eyes to turn red and itch, and he rubbed his eyes over his sleeve, irritating them even more. With a gritting of his teeth he gave up trying to rid his eyes of the acid. In response to Conan's question, he pulled his hand out his pocket, the small little metallic pieces giving off a faintish acidic glow. He scrutinized them to make sure they were in the same condition they had been in earlier, and counted them in his head. Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen-----, twenty pieces. He stiffened and bit his tongue. No, this was wrong, there were supposed to be twenty-one. He checked his pocket again, with the same null results. Almost frantically, he pulled his right hand out of its pocket, his taught facial expression relaxing slightly as the faint glimmer caught on the bronze part of the metal. The last piece, a small cog had somehow managed to get stuck to one of the mechanism screws, which were magnetic. He pulled it off with some annoyance, putting back into his pocket along with the rest of the things. "I got all of them.", he whispered, drawing together as Conan made the splashing sound in the acid. "I know we haven't been here in a while, but I'm pretty sure we have to go against the current." He peered down at the sloshing liquid to catch witch direction it went. It was hard to tell, because it was so liquid and had practically no surface tension. After a few seconds he made out its direction. "That way.", he said, breathing out, and beginning the perilous quest of walking ALONG the acid, and not ending up In it.

[wingfeather]

“Good,” Conan answered, “don’t you lose them,” he said sending back a look. “You’re probably right,” he said walking along with Jevo, “besides it just feels right, and that has meaning.” Conan had a difficult time keeping his voice low as it was naturally loud and he had a difficult time deciphering its volume, since it was coming from him his artificial ears could not accurately convey the sound with just vibrations. “Also keep your voice down, your liable to get us caught and sent you know wheres,” he scolded.

[Chloriosus]

At these words, more of Jevo's annoyance resurfaced. "You are at least-". His sentence was suddenly broken as he froze up, his facial expressions blanking and his left hand tightening their grip on the tools. It was a low shuffling sound, mingling eerily with the subtle yet fritchy sounds of the toxins traveling down in canals. After a few moments of suspenseful silence a low coughing was heard, then the sound of shuffled footsteps again. Jevo quietly turned his head around, soundlessly mouthing word that sparked terror and anguish in the deepest down center of even the most fearless: "Sefratcho" Wether or not those feared people were really waiting in the tunnel, waylaying unfortunates to use as examples for others, but it was definitely not worth the risk. However, his brow creased as he heard the cough. Sefratcho didn't do that. Whoever it was appeared to have heard them too, for the noise suddenly stopped, and more silence rained, lying heavily like a thick sheet of cast iron.

[wingfeather]

Conan caught the vibrations through his hearing devises but could not decipher them, he saw the mouthed word Jevo threw him and paled slightly, the sefratcha were the few he was actually in fear of. Then the sound waves caused by the cough traveled down the passage, he could translate what that was. Conan relaxed slightly, that was not a thing the sefratchas would do, ''do you think we should risk it,'' he asked, he did in fact know that his voice could get loud and he couldn't exactly tell when, he just liked arguing, anyways the words came out as the other extreme, they were hardly audible, but the echos magnified his voice to be loud enough for Jevo to hear.

[Chloriosus]

Jevo pressed his lips together and thought that over, listening to see if any more sounds were emitted. It was unlikely for it to be a Sefratcho, since they never carried any kind of sickness. Rather, the sight of their grotesque somehow distinguishable figure and phsychopathic grins were reliable for at least half of the existing sicknesses. He clenched his fist and nodded, turning his head to face Conan and mouthing the words, "One, two, three..." He swiftly bolted around the corner, slipping on the wet slanted floor and barely keeping himself from landing in the oddly glowing acid. The unceremonious sound of his boots splashing slightly in the acid and his swift bolting earns a gasp and then a succession of coughing from the stranger, now distinguishable as a hunched over figure, back leaned against the slanted wal on the other side of the stream of acidl. Jevo recognized it as an essik, one of the people that inhabited the back streets, the sewage and drainage pipes, and were the most despised outcasts of them all. They had been in contact with and exposed to so many acidic levels that their skin turned green, sickly green as the toxic acid that discolored it. Their hair was an unnatural, coarse white, and a metallic substance constantly emitted Fromm their pores, hardening instantly, and unless they cracked their joints or stretched their skin every few minutes, they would stay there, frozen up, no chance of ever being saved from that position in which they were incrusted, for their skin corroded metal and burned skin. This one sat there, hunched over hopelessly staring warily at the two boys, scrutinizing them whilst not giving eye contact. Jevo eyed him similarly, something about this essik looked familiar... All of a sudden, the tension broke as Jevo recognized him. "Glapis!", he rejoiced, taking care to keep his excitedness in check by lowering his voice. The essik rose to his feet, giving his rms a twist to clear them fro the already hardening metallic substance, breaking its smooth surface with a crackling shattering sound. He wasn't old, looked about thirteen years, but he was Conan and Jevo's best friend. "Comrades!", he exclaimed, his scrathing voice cracking almost as violently as the hardened liquid on his palid green skin.

[wingfeather]

Conan followed, pictures of sefratcha and through unsettling ways clouding his mind and taking away his reasoning, never once did hit occur to him at WHY a sefratcha would come into a drainage pipe, it was beneath them, literally. Then once they passed along the acid green pipe Conan's white eyes spotted the essick, he heaved an internal sigh of relief and grinned widely, ''Glapis,'' he said loudly, ''klass, it is a great to see you again. Glapis smiled back revealing a set of very unnaturally white teeth, Glapis advanced toward them, splashing without much care through the small steam of acid that separated them. Conan's brow furrowed, Glapis seemed greener than he was last time they had seen him, but that was what happened when anyone lived long among toxins and such nasty waste as Glapis did. The essick had reached them he kicked off a few last drops of acid from his legs, creaking very loudly as he broke the almost hardened metallic toxin. Conan gave him the traditional greeting of decaders, matching wrist to wrist. Conan resisted wincing as the acid on his essik comrade's skin burned his wrist and left a angry red mark, but Conan didn't care, he liked Glapis a lot and though him quite klass.

[Chloriosus]

Jevo was similarly glad to having run into their friend, whom they used to see quite often. After performing their decaders greeting, Jevo ending up with more corrosion on his arm, he relaxed slightly and actually attempted at starting conversation. “How’s the cogsbane been treating you?”, he asked, eyeing his friends Finnish glowing skin that had decidedly turned more green since the last time they had seen him. The essik let out a raspy laugh that echoed down the tunnels in freakish patterns. “Pretty boring without you guys, since the last time I’ve already created five more friends, sadly, three of them are gone already.” He sighed, giving his wrists a snap and then shuffling his legs about. “Where have you two been sticking about?”, he asked, eyeing the two. “Your arm hasn’t fallen apart yet?”, he asked Jevo jokingly.

[wingfeather]

Conan rolled his eyes, ”as a fact, yes, lots of times,” he looked at Jevo with a grin. “By the way, sorry we haven’t been about lately. The clock master has been keeping an unsettlingly close eye on us, often looking like he wants to us strangled by sefratchas and sent to juvvy for life,” yes this was a rather graphic description but not altogether inaccurate. 


(juvvy: juvenile detention)

[Chloriosus]

Jevo faked annoyance at Conan’s remark on his arm and faked a huff, flexing his fingers testingly. Both he and Glapis dared a nervous laugh at that last remark of Conan’s, even though all three instinctively glanced about the pipe at the mentioning of those dreaded inhumane creatures. Glapis sobered suddenly, dropping his already gravely voice to a horse whisper. “You meant those sefrachik pieces of gulag?”, he asked, trying to restrain a laugh. Again the boys instinctively glanced about themselves before bursting out in laughter louder than the last time,the shadowy echo of it reverberating off the walls,resulting in a weird mixture of sounds. Their laughter began subsiding gradually as they calmed down a bit, suddenly starting back up again. Their faces turned ash gray as it took up a screechy, hysterical tone, echoing down the many passageways finding the farthest corners and making them ring with mocking, rasping laughter, the breaths sounding reminding of squeaking doors and chalk cleaner being forcefully swiped against bronze. The three looked at each other with panick stricken eyes, their breath coming short and catching itself, the pure horror apparent on the faces of those knowing their doom. They couldn’t tell which direction the sound was coming from, the maniacal laughter and the wheezing, squelching sound of forced breathes filling the wasted atmosphere, delivering a choking sensation hardly comparable to that of acid fumes. The three ran, Conan and Jevo taking care to steer clear of the acid, Glapis running clear through the middle of the stream not even thinking to attempt at avoid splashing. They ran, but the laughter never died down, it continued in its haunting tones, following them everywhere. Suddenly, out of the dark way of the pipe a small, ever spreading jagged white crescent appeared, widening, displaying a grin made up of bleached and fanged pointed teeth. More of them appeared as quickly as the first, harrowing and biting itself into the very soul, a pair of mocking and red crazed eyes appearing over every grin, resembling drops of intoxicated blood. The three stoppped in their tracks, freezing up, their chest heaving, their mouth and stomach feeling hot, cold and dry as one of the grins was indefinably right in front of them, stepping towards them. The face that bore it was illuminated by th the greenish light, revealing the figure of a tall Seratcho, looking down upon them as if they were the smallest pieces of the most pathetic scrap metal. The scratching, break streaked voice bounced through the concave walls of the pipe, the grin staying and hauntingly tilting itself slightly as the voice hissed,”Where do you hide now, rivachki?