Chapter 22: When In Rome

[Hilja Kukkanen/Sasha Pisarev]

another roman themed thread for Holy Week.

[Akira 69]

Akira almost jumped as the... "thing" that was Horacio actually made a response, surprised that he could. Someone would consider this as highly insensetive, but Akira was a machine and knew little about sensetivity. "Nyah! I asked you first you..." Akira said either forgetting what he was going to call Horacio or simply choosing not to so as not to offend Ophelia. "Sayanora!" Akira called after Li as she started leaving. Now Akira was still left with the ugly, the pretty girl, and the other meat bag- unless he missed someone.

[Soren Kiersted]

((Back to Momo))

Soren was just getting ready to leave and attend to other matters when he heard a voice behind him. Turning to see who it was, Soren saw that it was Momo of Intelligent Design herself who was addressing him. The only way he had even recognized her was from his sister's rather shallow description; honestly, his sister was so materialistic. Momo merely dressed as was fitting for the work place... not everyone bought and wore designer clothes like his sister...

"Soren Kiersted. Assistant to Ingrid." Soren lied. He knew full well that he wasn't her assistant and if it wasn't his displeasure with dealing with people, he wouldn't even have to lie about his position. For now though he would keep up the illusion that he wasn't the head of Royal Dane Organics. "I'm here to oversee some of Royal Dane's efforts to assist you until everything gets back in order." Soren added mechanically, explaining why he specifically was here. He probably didn't need to add what exactly they were doing, the working teleportation booths were all nearby the bio-domes and so it was obvious what they had been working on.

"I hope you don't mind, but I had some special trees planted. They should soak up all of the excess moisture and also provide your consumers and workers with nutritious fruit." Soren added, actually not caring if she minded or not. As far as he was concerned, every company should already be more considerate of the enviroment instead of recklessly exploiting it's resources.

[Archer Aylmer]

"I think our song should be... "Livin' on a prayer." I can play any of the instruments, but I can't sing. That song is very much out of my range. Incidents have occurred with me singing that song... Which may or may not have resulted... In a 6%. But I am good at everything else so I can play whatever is left over."

I watch the scramble to set up the game and decide who plays what. It's all silly, but, I am pretty confident that we're going to win.

"Radon Awareness Month is in January."

I know many things.

"Um. I don't believe in fixing Amelia. This, I simply cannot agree to. However, it's Bonifaz's property and so, ultimately, his decision... Also we should call our band... Tripple Negative. Like a double negative in grammar, but, tripple... To be witty."

[Calithin Crest]

Eventually the Jester leads us to a snow cone stand. I am absolutely ecstatic and this fact is very aperant on my face. My disposition is decidedly cheerful.

"Max, Bambi... Feel free to get whatever flavored snow cones you want! My treat!"

I direct this primarily at Max and Bambi, since Dinari is not being very helpful and does not deserve snow cones as far as I'm concerned.

"I want a mixed one. I want blueberry and cherry and lemon. Mmmm."

[Eun/Aoi Kiriyama]

"My name is Eun." Eun asnwer to Attis. "And you must be Niilo's friend."

She jump a bit when Attis came out of nowhere. She was going to punch, but stop herself.

"They're seriously passing out the Red Leafs to the 'Cursed'? I could......with you guys.....if that is alright with you...."

[The Flesh Monger]

Flesh slightly grin beofre he lets go Salome. He ask the guard to bring his 'tools'. Guard simply nod before he disappears. After waiting a few minutes, the guard brought back Flesh's 'tools'. Many of the 'tools' are clean, but some of them have stain blood on them.

"What should I start? Maybe I should some modications on your body or I could give you a curse. Which curse you would prefer? Blindness? Boils? Or Hair Loss?" Flesh ask. "Oh...I almost forgot. What is your name?"

[The Red Jester]

"You could be my first toy then, Mr. Dollar..." Pine Eyes says to Dinari.

"Don't say that. Besides, we will get more prisoners in our playhouse so we can torture them all night." Jester says to his puppter before looking at Dinari. "Well, alright then...I could give you and your friends a tour. Oh....I'm Red Jester and his name is Pine Eyes..."

As soon as they're finally at a Snow Cone Stand, Jester watch them for a minute or so. Then without warning, Jester took some snow cones from the vendor and dump them on Dinari and his friends. Jester soon began laughing.

[Yasmin Seyyedi]

Yasmin has been wondering in Helsinki for a few days now. She manage to survive by attacking the people and drink some of the blood. She has to slit their throats because if Yasmin let them live, they might tell that there is a child vampire around in the torn city. She doesn't want to risk it. So, Yasmin is currently hiding in a empty house. She did heard about Holy Week, but wasn't sure if she should go to Rome or not. Then is when she had a debate with herself.

"I would like to go to Rome, but the people might hurt me by stepping over me or something. Then again I can't stay here because I am not sure if any of the socialists are still at here." Yasmin says to herself.

She stay in the empty for a few minutes before exiting the house and walk down the alleyway. Soon enough, she manage to find Charon walking to his house. Yasmin somewhat remembers seeing him when she was with Lucio. She then quickly decide to go to Rome. So, She walk to the nearest Teleportion Booth and head to Rome.

[Bambi Engel]

Bambi feels a little mixed at the fact they were, apparently, going to get a tour of the place. She could make an excuse to leave, but... her curiosity keeps her from doing so. When Dinari introduces himself, she scolds herself for being rude. "Oh! I'm Bambi Engel, employee of Global Bank." Even if the Jester unsettled her, he seemed to be a hard worker. Perhaps he acted a little out there on purpose for his job.

When Calithin offers to get Max and her snow cones, she feels a little less uneasy. She probably had nothing to worry about, after all. Come to think of it, she doesn't think she'd ever had a snow cone either. She listens to the flavors Calithin orders and makes her choice out of those three. "Cherry would be lovely for me, Calithin. Thank you."

She likes cherries, so a cherry snow cone should taste nice to her. Jester than introduces himself and his puppet, whom she reassures herself is simply Jester making his puppet talk. As she's calming her paranoia, Jester does something that even her paranoia hadn't thought of- dumping snow cones on them. She opens and closes her mouth, at a loss of words.

She squeaks in both surprise and the sudden feeling of the ice on her skin. The ice and syrup drip down her hair and clothes, staining her glasses. "Oh no!" She exclaims, pulling her glasses off to try to clean them on the dry spots left on her suit. After doing her best, she wipes as much as she can from her face and the front of her hair to keep her glasses from getting dirty again.

Placing her glasses back on, she finds the world has a red tint to it from the cherry syrup. She really hoped she wouldn't have to buy new glasses. Things are a little blurry, but she can see much better with stained glasses than with no glasses. She pulls her jacket off, shaking it out. As she begins brushing the ice and syrup from her clothes the best she can, her usual attitude slips a little.

"Look at my suit! What if it stains? Do you know how much dry cleaning costs? Not to mention glasses!" Her eyes snap on Jester, an actual glare of throwing daggers. Her perfectionism included appearance, what in the world would Annette say if she saw her? She could be fired! The stress of giving a speech and then this creepy carnival had run her nerves a little too much.

[Émilie LaFramboise]

"That's wonderful. Yes please, thank you." Émilie replies and nods before taking the water bottle. She only drinks a little, since she wanted him to still have plenty for tomorrow. She was a nymph, after all, and not drinking for a while wasn't much of a problem. "Camping sounds wonderful! I love the forest." A part of her worries a bit about Vivien, she didn't want her adopted mother to be worried sick over her. She decides she'll try to do something especially nice for Vivien when she returns.

Vivien put up with a lot from her, after all. Émilie could be a little more appreciative... Hearing the owl, she trains her eyes on the direction the noise had come from. She hadn't heard the call of an owl in quite a while, herself. "I'm sure a lot of them, like many other animals, have died off due to the state of the world. It's reassuring to know some they're still striving to survive." She says solemnly but with a bit of hope.

She turns her eyes back to Kasper as he finishes the bit about owls being omens. "Huh, I didn't know that." She replies, reflecting on the information. It was always wonderful to learn new things. "I don't think I believe in omens, either. I love all of nature, including owls, so it'd be a shame to think of them as omens of death. Besides, the forest likes us." She couldn't directly speak with nature like she'd read that some nymphs could, but she got certain feelings sometimes.

"Err, I mean, we care about the forest and I'm sure that comes off to the forest in some way." She adds, realizing her previous statement may come off as rather strange. She didn't wish him to think of her as weird or freaky.

[Dinari Dollar]

Dinari isn't too upset about getting sno cone on him. He had a blue raspberry flavored one, which has stained his shirt, but, he can always just buy a new one. In fact, maybe he will buy a Holy week souvenir tee shirt as he leaves the carnival.

Dinari walks up to Pine Eyes and knocks on his head. It makes a thunking noise, which makes Dinari laugh. "What a great little toy. Creepy looking, but I bet kids would love it. I can just imagine children kissing their Pine Eyes doll each night before bedtime. Do you think All Mart can copy the design?" Dinari asks.

[Salome Weil]

"My name is Salome...who are you.." I ask the intimidating torturer. I don't answer about the body modifications or the plague choices, since none of them sound very good at all and I am not going to pick from among some unpleasant options. He will just have to decide.

I think of the fairy Asphodel and wonder where she is. I wonder if she was able to find me any help or if she too was captured and put into the Temple of Terror. These ideas cause me to despair. I wonder if I will ever make it home to France. By now, work must know I am missing. I have probably been fired.

[Momo Kurokawa]

"I don't mind. I have no problems with the company you work for. I am happy to have any help I can get here. People seem to think that I got what I deserved, but, this is excessive..." Momo states to the elf. She isn't intimidated by him or his company, so she feels more accepting of his presense there. Royal Dane Organics is a small company without the interest or wherewithal to take on Intelligent Design. As for her company, nothing created by RDO is of much interest to her company, nor is there much to be gained by taking over Denmark. In her eyes, it simply isn't a world player.
"Those trees you have created....they aren't native to..here, obviously, so if they spread to parts of the country that were not effected, they won't cause problems for native species, will they?" She asks with curiousity. She is concerned with that because regular birch trees could not compete with red leaf birches created by Genetech, so many natural birches died off.

[Bonifaz Artz-Lehrer]

(moving things along)

The socialists and nihilists play Rock Band against each other, and the nihilists lose. Bonifaz blames this on Heikki, who did an awful job on the drums.
Amelia also did pretty awful on songs that she sang. Sometimes she just stood there. Bonifaz doesn't care though, since at least it means they can move on to more important matters. Whne the game is done, Bonifaz shows the socialists to rooms they can sleep in and sends them off to bed. With them out of the picture, he returns to Heikki and Archer.

"Alright Heikki, give us the flu spray..." Bonifaz demands. Heikki complies and Bonifaz inhales the flu vaccine. He hands the spray to Archer. Heikki won't be taking it since he is supposed to infect the socialists.

"Archer, your job is to convince Frieda to take the spray without letting her in on our plans. Or ...you could choose not to, and she will get sick as well. You can decide. I would...but she doesn't trust me."