Skulduggery Pleasant (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
skeletonenigma) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
tushanshu2014-03-18 08:45 am
skeletonenigma) wrote in tushanshu2014-03-18 08:45 am
001 | Video
[To be honest, he would have preferred text, but this is a perfect opportunity to test out the console. The keyboard is self-explanatory. The video function isn't. One of the kedan had offered to show Skulduggery how it worked, but he’d politely declined. He didn’t particularly feel like being saddled with a guide for the entirety of his time here.]
Ah, there we go. Excellent.
[This does, of course, mean that he can now be seen. He was a little concerned about that when all of this was first being explained to him, but then he saw someone walking around in the city with blue skin and two heads. He’s rather less concerned now.
... He doesn't really have anything to ask, though, now that he’s thinking about it.]
Thank you. Carry on.
[Yes, that was a skull talking just then, Irish accent and moving jaw and all. Why do you ask?]
Ah, there we go. Excellent.
[This does, of course, mean that he can now be seen. He was a little concerned about that when all of this was first being explained to him, but then he saw someone walking around in the city with blue skin and two heads. He’s rather less concerned now.
... He doesn't really have anything to ask, though, now that he’s thinking about it.]
Thank you. Carry on.
[Yes, that was a skull talking just then, Irish accent and moving jaw and all. Why do you ask?]
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MANDARIN DISTRUSTS SKELETON.]
You must be new here.
[NAILED IT. GOD. YOU'RE SO GOOD AT THIS.]
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Which means you're not. Are you alright? You were looking a little faint just then.
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By now, Gene's managed to compose himself, looking almost disinterested and aloof and cool, a look he's had years to perfect. But congrats, Skul, you did get him to break his poker face. You may select any prize from the lower tier.]
I'm fine. [He stresses that just a little too much to be as aloof as he seems - it's clear he's a proud person. Don't push the subject.] I've been here almost eight months. I would have noticed someone as, ah, distinctive as you walking around.
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Ah. You mean because I'm a living skeleton.
[He says it completely matter-of-factly, like the fact should have been obvious from the beginning, but it isn't patronising. Far from it, his tone's just far enough from sympathy not to sound like sympathy. He knows how to handle people who don't like being rattled.]
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[Though a master manipulator himself, Gene is not too good at telling when people are manipulating him. It's partially because he thinks he's invincible, and partially because he's a teenage boy with an ego the size of a small gas giant.]
Welcome, I guess.
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Thank you. I don't suppose you have any tips, or any knowledge past what the kedan introduce themselves to you with? [Now he sounds amused.] Or am I still a little too unnerving for you?
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And hey! Hey. Gene smiles, though he's angry at himself for showing his trepidation in the first place.]
I suppose they gave you a basic rundown of why the esteemed Emperor has summoned us all here? Ancient unknowable evil force threatening to destroy the world, that whole scene?
[He has to establish what Skul knows first, otherwise the subsequent knowledge bombs will make literally zero sense.]
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[He's suspicious, yes, but not so much that he'll refuse to help. If anyone knows the power in names, after all, it's Skulduggery.]
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Thing is, if there's a trick to it, nobody's been able to tell how. Sometimes - if you are incredibly unlucky...or lucky, depending how you look at it - you disappear. Sometimes people come back. Most of the time, they don't.
[Gene shrugs, trying not to show how much that last part's bothering him. He's dealing with Loki's disappearance the way he deals with most interpersonal problems: by completely ignoring the emotions involved.] For better or worse, it looks like we're stuck here.
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Is there any pattern to them? Location, state of mind, acquired knowledge?
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[He remembers what Costigan had said.] We did lose several people shortly after the Emperor was murdered. It's plausible that was related.
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[If you ask Gene, Eshai had done a piss-poor job of screening the people she'd brought in. Not him, of course. He was the obvious choice. But...really? That cannibal?]
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Her killer worked as a therapist.
[Not to speak ill of the dead - okay, totally to speak ill of the dead - but what the hell, Eshai? If you're going to get yourself killed, at least go in proper battle, not murdered in your chambers like someone who'd gotten too comfortable with their life.]
He was also responsible for a string of serial murders around Keeliai. Just goes to show that even our gracious hosts aren't infallible.
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[The kedan weren't big on explaining consequences, but Skulduggery can't imagine an infraction like that going unpunished.]
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I think they also worked something so he couldn't come back from it. If I didn't disapprove of the method of it, I'd call him a lucky bastard for getting himself out of here permanently.
[Does someone want to go home? Someone wants to go home.]
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You liked the previous Emperor, then? I was under the impression you would view her as more of a captor than anything else.
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[Even if she did remind him in some weird way of his mother.]
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[Mental powers and abilities don't have any effect on Skulduggery. It puts him in the unique position of being able to assess others from an objective viewpoint. It certainly wouldn't surprise him if there was a low-level magical field on the turtle urging everybody to trust the turtle's ruler, no matter what.]
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Ask any ten people about the Emperor and you'll get twelve opinions. Some of us were more broken up than others. Some people were cracking jokes and openly expressing their contempt. Depended on the person, really.
[Sorry, Skul, no weird magic shit here. Good thinking, though.]
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And the current Emperor?
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[Of course Gene's planning on messing with him. Like duh.]
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