[HH] Bones and Hammers (Sammy & Jordan)

[Miliardo Kason]

The house was showing up more often, it was either accustomed to her presence or she was starting to notice the openings to get inside a bit more. Lately she had found it by following the grey, a tiny wisp of something not entirely right out the corner of her eye. The more you followed the trail the more likely you where to stumble into the hole leading to the greyed out house.

As usual she wandered into it. Trailing down dusty halls checking each room and every odd subspace that the house offered for hunters. It dawned on her that this was a very dangerous game. She didn't have quiet the easy way out like Hunters did with pendants. She would have to back track her path through the house as best she could more often then not having to take a whole new route till it spit her back out.

Sighing she turned about to start her way back only to find the next door she opened was like a mad house of stairs. Standing where she stood, up was more like down. Walking forward along the walkway she reached down or up from her perspective to touch another step.

"Son of a..."  

[prolixity]

About half the time, Haunted House patrol was uneventful. The House itself shifted and changed, though there were a few routes that remained reasonably constant; part of the job was noting and reporting the changes each time. Jordan had noticed that it seemed more likely that he would encounter something or someone if he went into the House expecting to encounter something, which inclined him to suspect that the House could sense that expectation and alter its passageways and spaces to give him a path that would cross that of some other wanderer.

Today he'd gone in hoping irritably that he wouldn't meet anything. The House had provided him with a dead-end where there should have been a door only a few minutes into his route, and from there it had been nothing but collapsed hallways, rooms with single doors, mazes with no exit, and one door had opened onto a chasm that dropped steeply away into a fog-filled void. He'd spent more time backtracking than making progress.

The door he found next opened onto a room he'd seen only a few times. It seemed appropriate that this paradox room should show up on this trip, considering how labyrinthine and difficult the House seemed determined to make itself today. "Not again," he groaned, irritated.  

[Miliardo Kason]

Somewhere a voice echoed in the room. Behind her the door was gone. Ahead was another archway, "s**t." Moving forward she crossed the first bridge into the arch finding herself a few 'floors' down but now right side up, the area she had been now above.

"HEY! Someone out there?" Her voice would bounce around aimlessly as she continued to move forward taking a set of stairs down, spiraling downward aimlessly before finding herself now walking along what was once a wall.

"Crap... uhh are you upside up right now?"  

[prolixity]

"Hello?" Jordan called cautiously. The voice was distorted, the acoustics in this place weird and unhelpful, but it sounded like someone he knew. Another Hunter?

He made his way carefully into the room. Before he started down the staircase that descended from the platform on which he stood, he glanced back, and found that the door through which he had entered was sliding serenely along the wall, off the edge of the platform and out of reach. "Figures," he muttered, and watched it slip into a corner and vanish completely. I guess we're going through here the hard way.

You weren't thinking it would be easy, Ferros commented, a statement rather than a question.

The staircase turned a corner and changed orientation simultaneously; stepping around the edge swapped the local direction of gravity, and Jordan squinted as a short wave of dizziness passed over him. He looked around the room for the person he'd heard, then remembered to look down and up as well, since two axes of search weren't sufficient in this place.

He spared a moment to feel grateful that he'd long since gotten used to how incredibly ******** weird life could be when you were dealing with other worlds. If he'd stepped into this room early on in his career as a Hunter, it would have given him a headache, at least.

"In a relative sense," he called in reply to the other voice. It sounded like it was closer now, and definitely familiar. "I'm the right way up from my point of view."  

[Miliardo Kason]

The hello originated from below, at least right now she confirmed that as below. Even though looking up made he wonder just which way was up the current field of gravity dictated the voice was somewhere below the span she was already walking across.

"I'm going to try something stay still and just uhh keep talking?"

Scooting to an edge of the of the path she took a seat on the edge, her boots dangling off it. IT was then she realized just how far down the room ran, and above how far it went as well. Her stomach shifted slightly. She didn't like that.

"Okay uhhh hopefully I don't go splat from this but...."

She pushed off.

For a moment there was nothing, then the weightless sense of a fall. She tumbled downward two flights of steps before the gravity shifted again, she started to fall to the side which was now the new down. Part way there she passed over another railing before falling towards it, the whole room started to tug her every which way never once slowing the fall.


"AUUUUUUGH!" She howled in shock as the room kept shifting her fall. Eventually she flew sideways into one stairwell slamming against it, bouncing off and rolling down to fall farther down.

The next thing Jordan would see is Sammy tumbling above him, across from him even, before slamming into the same path he was on with a heavy thud.

For the time being she did not move. She was pretty sure something was broken.  

[prolixity]

Motion caught Jordan's attention, and he winced with sympathetic nausea as he spotted a figure in midair that seemed to be trying to fall. Gravity jerked the figure mercilessly in one direction and then another as the room's paradoxical orientations fought to claim it. Jumping off anything in this room seemed to be a bad idea. Could the conflicting forces actually tear a body apart? Jordan didn't want to find out, either personally or through observation.

He stayed where he was until the figure slammed into a flight of steps, bouncing limply in a way that made his bones ache, and then fell with an awful thump onto the path not far away. It went still, and he got a good look at it for the first time.

The zombie who he'd fought, exchanged insults with, hurt. A brief, vivid flash of memory in which he saw her grabbing Ferros, pain crossing her face as her flesh and bone made contact with the weapon. The ring on his finger lit up as Ferros stirred hungrily.

They hesitated then, and Ferros remained a ring as a sheaf of other memories unfolded in their shared recollection, memories in which she'd been a living human, not precisely in his employment but within his sphere of influence, in which she'd proved her worth and, to a degree, her trustworthiness. His other had trusted very few people, but he had considered Samantha reliable. Ferros, likewise, had respected her and not been concerned that she would turn on them. The memories weren't real, but the lives they remembered were no less vivid for all that, and they found themselves reluctant to consider her an immediate threat.

Jordan didn't move to help Sammy up, but neither did he summon Ferros. "Are you all right?" he asked, cautious and alert. If she didn't remember that other world, or if she didn't consider the memories worth negotiating a truce, approaching her would be nothing short of reckless.

He would give her the option, however temporary it might wind up being. Whether she chose to accept that offer would be her decision.  

[Miliardo Kason]

Thankfully a display of if the gravity could rip a moving body apart was not displayed. It seemed that as long as a larger portion o the body ended up in one zone or the other it would tug towards the one ignoring the others influence almost completely.

When she finally came to a stop a few things registered, her left arm was dislocated pretty bad, she couldn't move it. She had broken a few ribs it seemed but that wasn't too much of a bother. Very slowly she pushed herself up into a seat position with her good arm, testing her side with the dead fingers on each rib nodding as she felt a faint ache of the damage. Being dead had its perks. Her shield had absorbed most of the 'true' damage and replaced it with physical breakage that she could hardly register.

Except the arm. She grabbed it snapping it back into place with a sigh before testing movement with it again. It worked. With that done she turned to Jordan. Pausing as she looked at him. The memories where there, mixed with a muddle of her own. He was a body guard, Ferros was a boxer then a hammer. They where cats trapped in a strange place saying terrible things to people. She simply stared for a bit.

"Yeah, I'm good. Your hammers done a better number on me then any flight of stairs."  

[prolixity]

Jordan winced again as Sammy snapped her arm back into place. Did zombies feel pain? Maybe not the same way humans did. Or she might be good at covering what she felt. The echoes of blue memory suggested that that might not be the case, but how much of that carried over? He certainly wasn't the same person as his fragment, though there were traits that carried over.

Her expression as she stared at him suggested that she was experiencing a similar shuffle and shift of memories. Was he relieved? He considered it. Maybe, maybe not. There was still no guarantee that she wouldn't be hostile.

She picked herself up and answered civilly enough. No immediate attack, anyway. "Stairs aren't designed for it," he replied. "They're pretty harmless if you don't fall down them." He studied her thoughtfully. "Have you found an exit?" he asked after a moment. Asking the question would reveal that he was stuck in the room, but he didn't think she'd use it against him. She'd jumped, which suggested that she couldn't navigate the room very well either. Finding a way out would benefit both of them.  

[Miliardo Kason]

She felt pain, but the pain came in degrees. The more FEAR she had, the more she could ignore it. Her faulty nerve endings only worked when the fear was there to fake the stimulation and when the sensation would be too much the fear simply ignored it letting the damage happen and moving closer to the core to protect what really mattered.

Stuffing her hands into her pockets Sammy moved towards Jordan her pose relaxed and hardly threatening other then her natural appearance and faction. "Try falling down them in this place. I think you'd find there a tad bit more dangerous for your kind." She stopped standing a few feet away from him, leaning one one foot head cocked as she watched him.

"Way out? Ya'll have those little stone pendants, don't bluff me Jordan, Candace had one too when I spoke to her and I know you're not dumb enough to wander into this place without a back up plan." She rephrased the last part, "Rather I know both you's aren't that dumb."  

[prolixity]

Jordan tensed slightly as Sammy moved towards him, not afraid but wary. But she stopped a few feet away, far enough away that he didn't feel threatened. His other memories said that she'd learned that distance quickly, or rather, her other had. "I think I'll pass," he replied with a dry quirk of a smile.

He shrugged at her question. "I could pendant out," he agreed. "But I haven't finished my route yet. If you don't know, I guess it'll be a question of exploring the place." He gave the dizzying architecture around them a dubious look. "I think I won't try jumping off anything, though."  

[Miliardo Kason]

Sammy was indeed aware of distances, how close to close was for personal space. As well as how close was close enough to keep Ferros from getting a full on strike against her. "Good choice. I don't think you want three broken ribs." She gave her side a slight pat before glancing upwards again as they spoke.

"Well good to know you're still the smart one. As for getting out I came in from somewhere above here. And you came in somewhere.... around here?" She looked back at him again. "Maybe it's somewhere in between which means we need to start heading up for a bit."  

[prolixity]

"That's an experience I'd rather avoid," Jordan agreed. It wouldn't happen unless Ferros's shield broke, but he didn't feel the need to share that knowledge with the zombie, civil conversation or not.

"As good a direction as any," he said. "Look for platforms or areas that look like rooms. I'd guess that's where we're more likely to find doors, judging by the general look of the architecture." He slanted a sour look at the confusion of stairs. "I like Escher as much as the next guy, but being in the middle of one of his paintings is not much fun." He chose a flight of stairs that ran along a nearby wall and started towards it. "Let's try this one."  

[Miliardo Kason]

"You're wise to avoid it." She didn't need to know the specifics of a hunters shield, they where human. Get past the shield they died rather easily after that. She had no intentions of experimenting with it at this time.

Gesturing past Jordan she started to walk by him, heading down the path to the stairs he suggested. "I've seen a few doors on the edges of pathways. Some are just arches, others doors. It's a gamble either way." Her boots thunked away at the floor as she walked. When she reached the wall she leaned back stepping into it shifting perspectives. Purple eyes flickering back to watch Jordan.

"So tell me. Harrison in one piece still since the trip? Rep gave a vague okay, and Candace just gave me a bunch of cold shoulder when I asked."  

[prolixity]

"I don't think the arches are likely to take us back out of the room," Jordan mused. "An actual door is more likely to have something on the other side." He moved to let her pass. She didn't seem inclined to start a fight at the moment. He wouldn't let his guard down, but some of the tension in his posture eased away.

He followed her to the stairs, stepping into the orientation change; again the short wave of dizziness swept over him, leaving him standing on the wall that had become a floor. Would he get used to that if he had to navigate this room for any length of time? Possibly. He didn't really want to find out.

He started up the stairs, keeping one hand on the railing that ran along one side. Sammy got a brief startled look as she asked about Harrison. he hadn't expected that. Then again, she'd liked Harrison in the memories of Blue. Maybe it wasn't such a stretch. "He's fine. It took him a few days to recover, since he was out for so long, but he's all right now." His expression softened just a little as he talked about Harrison.  

[Miliardo Kason]

"No most likely not, but they lead to different paths through this place. One arch might lead to one door so to say." She took the lead without question, unlike Candace and Rep, Jordan seemed less inclined to stab her in the back. Or at least she hoped that was the case.

For Sammy unnatural shifts in the world didn't seem to bother her. Where a hunter was trained to deal with unusual Sammy lived it day to day. Shifting gravity didn't seem to be all that odd if she simply didn't think about it too much. The later of which made her feel dizzy and sick because well, no one likes to dwell on which way is true up for too long.

Sadly she didn't catch the look Jordan gave her as she continued to walk along the stairs hanging out over the abyss below them of twisting pathways. "Good, two out of three I think I can believe that." Her hands tucked into her pockets she continued onward. "I'd hate to think my other self took a bullet to the head for nothing. She generally did want to help you all out regardless of our bad blood here in this world."

Prolixity