Multiple Settings Project Guf (CLOSED)

[true force]

Julius​

"What are y-" and suddenly, darkness. He had worked at Tecnet for over 6 years. Today marked the 6th anniversary. His name was Steven Garcia, he married his college sweetheart, and liked the ham and provolone from down the road. He was born into a low-level mage family, and his magic revolved around simply making him a stronger martial artist. What time was it? Was it noon? It must've been, and he felt his feet slip from the edge. Around this time, he would've called his wife and talked his entire break, how he loved her. Everything Steven did was just to spend more time with his wife, the money didn't matter to an extent, he got this job thinking no fool would ever break into a Tecnet owned building. His thoughts drifted to her in the kitchen, the scene was a war morning, the birds were out, and she was knuckle dusting the dishes. He was a bit of a slob, he'd quickly admit this, but he was working to be better. She giggles at him, the smile sets abalze his heart, he's going to make her favorite desert, it's how he met her. He used to work in a restaurant before he graduated. He knew she liked a medium amount of frosting, and took note to put the right amount on at all times. The air starts to pick up around his face, and he feels cold. His vision starts to fade away.
Steven was hailed as a prodigy in his family, he was well trained in all forms of hand to hand. He was handpicked after winning a local tournament in drezzen. Only a fool would bring a weapon or some destructive arcane art inside of the elevator shaft. He only ever lost once, and everyone in the crowd thought it was a robbery, and indeed he took a fall, times fell tough, but he had sleep for dinner that night anyway with a smile, as long as his wife got to eat. Steven Garcia by all accounts was a strong mage, he was well liked by his coworkers, and he was a force to be reckoned among the average mages. For all his prowess though, Steven was only a prodigy in his family. The same cruel fate of the blessing of talent he used to climb over others befell him, and he met his end at the hands of a greater monster. His final thought being taking his wife on that cruise she always wanted to go on, his consciousness slipped into oblivion, before becoming a paste on the bottom of the elevator shaft.

Julius knew this guard was here. He had spent weeks mapping the place out, using any spare funds for floor plans, data leakers and the like. He narrowed down the window of assassination to a joint pr and shareholder meeting. Mage society, the Council, the Church, Law Enforcement, they were all getting fed up with Tecnet's legal loopholes to keep them out. Seems Alexia had enough of dealing with all the stress and wanted to get it all done with in a day. Shareholding is public knowledge anyway. It was 12:30 pm, the meeting was 12:45. Julius estimated they were on the 87th floor of 200. Mega structures weren't uncommon, and he knew they'd only get this one chance here. After this Tecnet was bound to triple security continent wide. There was no way Steven was getting out of this alive, the moment this hit was placed, his fate was sealed. Steven guarded the most accessible and quick way of getting around the building. Julius had seen the blood on his hand anyway, beatings given out as after work stress with his coworkers. This wouldn't weigh hard on his psyche.
Steven moved to enchant his body, slow on the draw though, Julius flicker stepped across the walkway and stabbed through his chest with his hand. Scarlet dripped down his hand, and he let the guard fall to the Earth. there was no need to fire a shot or draw a weapon, his fingers were like knives, if anything it was Tecnet's fault for issuing shittily enchanted body armor. Just before he fell, Julius snagged his chip from under his armpit and tossed it to Zack. Julius looked down on Zack, not his talent, he was more than capable, but he viewed him as a time bomb.
"Sure, we're mopping up trash, but sooner or later someone is gonna want Mr. Rogers dead and he's gonna have a problem with it." He told Morgan this once and was dismissed, but he trusted Morgan with his life, besides, Zack had pulled him out of a nasty situation a few times.
"This lets them walk through their magic sensors without triggering the spells. I've been looking for it over, first trillion-dollar company in history, too cheap to constantly have golems or spouts of fire goi-" PLCK! Julius looked down at the guard, "Oh my, didn't quite stick the landing, or maybe he's a contemporary artist?" Julius flashed a somewhat grin at Zack. "My body doesn't give off energy, so their sensors won't pick me up. In the future we should see if it's possible to make our energy match the buildings, would save us more trouble."

Julius pointed up and swooshed his finger in a slight circle, "The elevator is above us; Morgan went with Lyliana and the meeting is on the 150th floor. We have approximately 15 minutes. Morgan opted you and me blow this fucking thing off the rails and send it crashing so A: no one can get up it, and B: it's really fucking loud and masks the shitshow were probably gonna get in. Now, if you ask me they're probably just gonna teleport to our sorry asses, but I'm not the boss so what the fuck do I know," Julius flicked his hand behind his shoulder and started climbing up the ladder, "This one is weird too, the dude wants the body, so don't fucking incinerate him if you can help it." Julius had his doubts about this, previously they waited till the target was alone, but this guy was simply not leaving the building, a cold doubt came through his stomach, while the plipping of his blood-soaked hand against the ladder became a white noise.

Alexia Voldori​

Alexia Voldori, 27, single, ruthless. It was 12:30, for weeks he's had a massive headache, being the groomed heir to an empire. For weeks he has felt as though someone has been driving a sword directly through his skull. The stress of running the world's first trillion-dollar company will do that to you. He paces the room, his skills as a mage are rather refined, but his skill as a businessman is second to none. He firmly believes he could shake the hand of God and get him to take a bad deal. Today is the day, today he can, for at least a few months, get the pressure of an entire society off. Left right and center the council, detectives and church have been trying to get into his business, he feels as though his veneer is about to crack. His assistant comes to let him know who is in attendance. Her name is Amber, she's a few inches shorter and her hair glows golden, a small "cybernetic" implant. Beneath her robotic interior she is hopelessly in love with her, he gave her all the techware she needed to recover from a car accident. He genuinely likes how orderly she is but feels little else in return. He's aware of her crush, it strokes his ego. Once, in a daydream, he saw himself wed to her, in a small home with 2 kids, pizza every Friday, passion of the flesh twice a week. He was oddly happy but crushed the thought as the numbers of an industrial machine cranked through his head like clockwork.

"Sir, the shareholders are here. Our markets are up 30-"
"That's not what I'm concerned with. Don't fuck with me, who's in the room I need to know of?" Amber reshuffles her notes, her fingers glide over the papers like a seamstress. It's in these little moments time slows down for him. In these moments his head roars and he starts to sweat. He knows he will have to bullshit, he knows he's good at it, and in a roundabout way the pain brings him the satisfaction of knowing he's about to get out of this. He is about to give another open disclosure or pure malarkey with a shit eating grin. Amber starts to read off the names, as well as anyone else who was invited today for any other special reasons, in this moment everything comes to a stop, and the young man plans his mode of attack.
The Treaty? He's technically not violated anything; lobbying politicians doesn't mean being one.
The church? Last he checked; he's given hundreds of millions to the poor.
Law enforcement? He can worm his way through any loophole possible.
Today is Alexia Voldori's fortissimo of Machiavellian scheming.

 

[Monologion]

Father Flemming hummed the first few bars of "Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott" as the over-engineered elevator rapidly rose into the sky. He hated these things. He hated when work took him out of New Versailles. But Archbishop Philippe had been absolutely insistent. The old French prelate of New Versailles, 71 and aging rapidly, had called him on his mobile a week ago- interrupting his beloved choir's rehearsal time. When Flemming had suggested that the Nuncio be contacted instead, or perhaps the diocesan chancellor (they knew of magic too, why not them?) he was shut down with one phrase from his nominal Prelate. "Père, tu obéiras." Now, Flemming was not a diocesan priest, he had every right to refuse, and his Excellency couldn't really invoke his vow of obedience- but should he have refused it would run the risk of damaging the reputation of the Oblates and the province as a whole. This was his first term as Provincial, after all, and he couldn't ruin his image so early. Yes, he wanted to do literally anything else than attend some stuffy old meeting of duplicitous Tecnet charlatans dead-set on lying to his face, but what could he do but follow his orders?

Flemming finished humming the first verse of the childhood hymn as the elevator doors slid open, and he was immediately met with the exuberant smile of a Tecnet representative who would walk him to the conference room. She was short and had what looked like artificial heterochromia- probably an implant of some sort. Her gleeful grin would have been contagious if Flemming wasn't so unenthused. "Bonsoir, mon Père! La salle de conférence est exactement comme ça." She acclaimed proudly, as if impressed by her own French. Flemming was shocked they had the decency to provide him with a translator. Perhaps they thought that a diocesan representative would be sent instead of an Oblate, since French wasn't even his native tongue... "It's quite alright, madam, my English is good enough." Flemming replied, keeping his tone civil, but guarded. He didn't want his lack of enthusiasm for the whole affair to be so easily divulged. She nodded, her expression faltering. She seemed disappointed she had lost out on an opportunity to practice her language skills more. "Very well... All the same, follow me to the conference room. It isn't far."

The two began their short walk together, Flemming keeping an even pace behind the woman. He looked around at the hallways- all an ugly techno-minimalism that Flemming detested. Drezzen as a whole was coated in this aesthetic- probably the Voldori family's preference. One of many reasons he kept to New Versailles. Eventually, the two approached a large set of solid black doors, at least eight feet tall with sleek stainless steel looking handles. The woman grasped the right door tightly, before swinging it open and gesturing Flemming to enter. Flemming tightened his Cincture, made one last adjustment to his Roman Collar, and fixed his hair before nodding and striding inside. It was a massive conference room. Even Flemming was impressed. It was filled with people, too. The press were here, of course, along with local politicians from the city, some from other places on Rodinia, the American ambassador, local law enforcement... all the expected parties. And yet, there were some not-so-expected... at least, they would have been unexpected at best and unknown at worst to any priest who wasn't an Oblate of the Five Wounds. Members of important mage families, an ambassador from the Council of Solomon, magic detectives, they were all here too. Suddenly, Flemming felt very small, and very alone. As the woman guided him to his seat, he founded himself wishing that he had just told the Archbishop to ask the Nuncio.

 

[Bush]

"Jesus Christ," Zack muttered to himself as he wateched the guard splatter all over the bottom of the elevator shaft. He still wasn't used to the bloodshed and gore that came from this job, although he knew (or rather believed in) that, in order to rid the streets of criminals, he would have to take lives. There were no bigger criminals than Tecent themselves; taking advantage of their position of power to control the fate of the entire world. No one organaztion should ever have that power, Zack usually thought to himself, reminding him of his greatest enemy The Underground Pillar, who wished to take Tecnet's place. If only I could get my hands on Angelica Pierce, he thought to himself, unaware that she was currently in the building as well.

Angelica Pierce; leader of The Underground Pillar and a name that commands a presence in the criminal underworld. Here at the Tecent shareholders' meeting, however, she was Angelica Pierce; CEO of New World Shopping. The legittimate side of her life was always so boring and annoying. She had to pretend to walk around, listen, and care to what the other people around her were saying. Other business owners, shareholders, law enforcement, the damn Church...they would all approach her and talk to her about business and economics. All Angelica could do is put on a happy face and wait for the perfect time to strike. Putting on such a performance can be draining for long but Angelica was willing to tolerate it if she could get her hands on the location of the next Tecent supply drop.

Zack was not amused by Julius' sacrastic remarks in regard to the person they just murdered. A true hero doesn't take pleasure in death, he thought to himself. After storing the chip in his right arm, Zack got to work creating a large fireball with his hands. "Relax, I'm not gonna incinerate the guy," Zack told Julius. "I learned my lesson the hard way about controlling my flames." Zack proceeded to look over his arms and legs, for they were completely metallic and a showcase of the consequences of Zack's actions. Zack frowned at them before trying to make himself smile. "I guess my new limbs are cool, though. Do you think Lyli likes them? I bet she's secretly jealous of them..not that I want to make her jealous or upset or anything." Zack realized he was getting off track. "We do have a plan to get out of the elevator shaft before I blow it up, right?"

Angelica decided to take a seat and wait for the sharehoder's meeting to begin. Just a couple hours and access to the remote office will be mine, Angelica thought to herself. She hoped the Baron was getting into position while all this corporate nonsense is going down. Just then, a woman and a priest proceeded to sit down next to her, waiting for the meeting to begin. Of all the people who could sit next to me, it's a goodie-two shoes boyscout and his bitch, Angelica said to herself. God, if you're there and real, don't make this disciple of yours talk to me.

 

[calamityone]

Nosk

​

Aiden Graham, that was the name of the man Nosk selected as a host, Nosk recalled the look upon his face when he approached him, a look of utter desperation and despair, how pathetic. Nosk had to restrain a laugh just picturing it now, his eyes wandered around the meeting room, noting the cheapness of the furniture and the lack of anything interesting to look at. An unusual choice for a host, Indeed Nosk tended to prefer mages with even a little talent, not this worthless trash such as Aiden. However, Aiden had one thing that most mages lack: Influence and relations with That Man, Alexia. Nosk smirked at the various ideas that flowed through his head if he just had a host such as that. As of now though Nosk has to play the role of this worthless mage, like a viper hiding in the brush he simply had to wait for the right moment to strike his desired prey. Nosk leaned back in the chair he had been sitting in, he had been waiting within this room for the arrival of Tecnet's CEO for around forty minutes now. The arrival of every figure that wasn't Alexia providing Nosk with another slight irritation, in fact this room was getting far too crowded, far too boring for Nosk's tastes.

Aiden was set to be seated across from that woman, Angelica and some priest he hadn't bothered to remember the name of, it doesn't really matter this man Aiden wouldn't have any interest in either party it was best if he continued to stay unnoticed. Ah, how truly dull this is. If this goes on any longer I may just have to massacre everyone in this room Nosk thought to himself smiling, confident that he could make that passing thought a reality. These thoughts are interrupted once again with the arrival of more people, none of which are the one he desires. He sighs loudly "What a boring game this is becoming."

Morgan

​

Morgan exhaled a small cloud of smoke before flicking the stub of his cigarette near the exit of the Tecnet Drezzen Branch Office Building, he sighed at the amount of effort this job would take making his way through the doors to the lobby, the lobby was quite dull it lacked any real decoration aside from minimalist "art" decorating the walls and even then they were a variety of dull grey colors. Metal detectors immediately sprung to life making a shrill beeping noise that echoed as he entered the lobby. Morgan scanned the room looking over each of the security guards panicking at the detector's alarm. Did they not expect someone to just walk in? Ignoring the shouts of security Morgan made his way towards the row of elevators looking each of them over, one of the security guards seemingly recognized him and yelled some panicked comment into his walkie talkie. Morgan appeared unconcerned, he noted a mess leaking out of one of the elevator doors, opting to skip over that one he pressed the button for the fifth in the row. He calmly watched the number above the door tick down from floor 87 while the two guards barked orders at him, not daring to approach after recognizing just who decided to walk in today.

Morgan ran a hand through his hair before checking his watch: 12:30 he sighed loudly and continued to wait for his elevator to arrive. Lyliana should be catching up soon otherwise Morgan may have to make this distraction much more convincing. Morgan placed another cigarette in his mouth before retrieving his silver lighter from his coat pocket, igniting it. "Would you mind stop yelling already, I get it. Its giving me a headache." He glances at the two security guards who once again, despite Morgan's request yell into their walkie talkie rather than act. This was going to be a long day.

 

[Avi2023]

The boss was on the 150th floor. Baron was a few floors above, tucked away in an empty office cubical with two afflicted by his side; one was a Tecnet security guard, the other was some sort of desk jockey. One other afflicted, also a prior security guard, stood by the door with the simple order to stop anyone who entered. They were fresh, made only a few days ago for this very occasion, so the growths had barely began to peek out from their shirt collars. Next to Baron was a trembling human sitting at the data relay, one of Tecent's employees. They were busy uploading the most recent Tecent survey reports and supply scheduling to Baron's data block, an outdated but reliable thing he had acquired years ago. All of this 'tech' was above Barons understanding, beyond how to get the job done. He supposed that was how he delt with 'magic' as well, only doing what came naturally, not wishing to go much further than that.

Today's meeting was what gave them the opportunity to make a move like this. Plenty of time to plan. To infiltrate the building beforehand. Find a puppet who had access to the data Angelica wanted. Even having people avoid this office block just from Baron putting up a janitorial sign on the door. A bit too simple, to be honest. Baron felt his muscles tense as he waited for the other shoe to drop.

His train of thought was interrupted by the employee saying something in a stuttering voice, placing his hands on the armrests of his chair trying to get up. His eyes darted from Baron's mask, to the modded rifle slung over his shoulder, to the stalk still Tecent members. "T-thats all I can do. Any... anything else h-has a security cl- I dont have it. C-can I-" his words were stopped by Baron placing a gloved hand on his scrawny iron pressed shoulder, slowly pushing slacks back down into his chair. The man didnt blink. Didnt breathe as he and Baron locked eyes. Baron kept his hand there, gripping the mans shoulder while he leaned forward, using his free hand to twist one of the valves on the side of his mask, releasing a soft hissing sound and a pink cloud that couldnt be seen by the naked eye. The man coughed, his eyes watering as Baron turned him a little in his seat so he could face him properly.

"Keep your voice down."

Barons voice punctured the man's psyche with a hollow tone. Almost as if he was disinterested. Taking a moment to make sure the message settled, he flicked his hand towards the armed afflicted next to him, ordering them to shoot the employee should he move from the desk. The afflicted jerked into position, pointing their Tecent pistol at the employees temple. Baron kept the man still for one second longer. "Dont move," he warned, Baron's voice echoing in the employee's mind just as he released his grip on the man. Satisfied with the jerking nod that the man was able to manage as an answer, Baron nodded in return and walked over to a different cubicle with the desk jockey afflicted.

Focusing, he reached out to Angelica's connection. He had dusted her with enough spores to maintain a telepathic link for about an hour. They were getting towards forty minutes since then. After that, they would have to rely on burner tech to communicate. "Mam, the data will be successfully transferred in seventy four minutes. I am making physical copies now," Baron said subtly in Angelica's mind, affirming, as he had the afflicted man the office printer.

 

[B E A R]

lylianna noelle leon

T

he sound of an alarm sounding, ringing within a very particular female's ears -- it was echoing through her skull, a soft groan escaped through the onyx haired female. dreading for the wake up call by the phone alarm, a lazy arm reaching out and smacking around the wooden table to locate said phone. lifting up her head, finally peeking through her long ebony lashes -- revealing a pair of aquamarine eyes. " i guess its time for work.. " her name was lylianna, a member of the crimson hand -- also infamous for not being able to use proper facial expressions during specific times..

she was supposed to be meeting up with morgan, leader of the crimson hand at... 12:30 it seems like and that is when she had just woken up. the young female was actually asleep at a local cafe, not too far from the tecnet headquarters but far enough to not actually see or hear anything that could be happening right now at the tallest building in the city!

as she had left the cafe's door, finding herself hiding away from the public's eyes in an alleyway, lylianna seemingly just vanished within seconds. the female seems to have just fallen right into the shadows and disappearing from the public's eye, of course, nobody has seen her.
by the time lylianna had reappeared, it seems like she had slowly emerged from morgan's shadows -- as if she was a creature of the shadows. the alarm blaring, echoing throughout the large empty lobby. two guards exclaiming into their communication devices. lylianna turns over to the metal detectors, lifting her left hand and flicking to the side -- five thin wires, looking as if it came from her finger tips, stretches out relatively quickly and wrapped around the machines that sounded loudly; tossed and removed from their places, thrown across the lobby with ease and breaking into pieces, stopping the alarms.

narrowing her eyes towards the security guards this time, they were loud, really loud and she also did not enjoy it especially since she just woke up. " you guys are way too loud.. just like my alarm. " her stoic expression never seems to have changed, but her eyes was dark like poison as she stared at the guards -- lifting her pointer and middle finger together, flinging to the right this time. the same wires from before but this time from her right hand, slithered out in a impeccable speed, removing the heads clean off without the blood splatter mess. as soon as the lobby had fallen silent, lylianna was now spotted yawning and giving herself a good stretch of her arms right above her head. " i was having a nice sleep.. am i late? " finally turning her head back to her boss, the ebony haired female stared at him with a relatively blank expression, just blinking her bright colored eyes as if she was a child looking for the next instruction.

" can't i just.. bring us up there instead of waiting for the elevators or do we have to do things the old fashioned way? " observing at the fact the elevator was being called down from a relatively high number, lylianna squints at the number as it was decreasing. she much rather travel through the shadows, as it was a lot quicker and less of a hassle.

MOOD

a bit groggy

OUTFIT

here

LOCATION

tecnet headquarters

INTERACTION

morgan

coded by xayah.ღ

 

[lunar_moth]

⁺˚⋆｡°✩ ENDYMION ✩°｡⋆˚⁺
Mid-morning, inner city
​

“♩ Fat baby frog, eating baby bugs, she’s got an ugly mug but she likes a squishy hug—!♩”

A young man sits in the back seat of a cab, bobbing from side to side while he rhythmically pats the lump tucked under his shirt collar like it’s a baby’s bottom. He’s not even close to following along with the melody of the song playing over the radio but the toad tucked against his breastbone doesn’t seem to mind. Every so often she warbles back at him in response.

The taxi driver’s long since shut the privacy partition between them. Endymion kind of forgot he was even there. Hey, not his fault — the driver made it very clear he was not interested in chatting, and only gave Endymion (and his toad) a long-suffering look before waving them both into the backseat.

Speaking of…

The driver flicks open the privacy curtain with one hand. He peers warily at Endymion through the rearview mirror.

“…What kind of business does a fellow like you have in this part of town?” he asks. It’s a fair question. The further uptown into Drezzen you get, the more his bedazzled robes stand out against its sterile cybernetic backdrop. And Endymion doesn’t exactly behave like the pinnacle of corporate professionalism either.

Endymion pauses mid-sway. Beryl croaks in protest from under his shirt. From the way she’s tucked up and secured against him, it kind of looks like he’s a particularly well-endowed woman.

“Believe it or not, I’m, uh, actually a pretty accomplished mage, you know. I was invited to participate in a conference at the Tecnet building today,” Endymion explains. It’s not a lie, as long as it counts for Endymion to have invited himself. He can tell a corrupt authority figure when he smells one— and to him, if you want something done right, you’ve gotta do it yourself. What better way to expose the truth of the Tecnet corp’s existence than to crawl into its grimy belly himself?

The driver harrumphs. “You don’t say. You dress pretty humble for the corpo type. Not in the mood to ride your private jet plane there either, I guess?”

“A private jch—!” Endymion splutters out. “Haha! No, not today my friend. Today I stand among the… uh, common people.” He winces. “Haha. Aha.”

If only! Surely the driver was joking; were the kinds of people that worked here really that well off? Endymion could only imagine that kind of wealth! He supposes it is a trillion-dollar conglomerate, after all…. Perhaps if he stayed on his best behaviour a rich benefactor might take a liking to him and—! No, no. Focus.

Alas, his job here today is merely to blend into a crowd of such effortlessly wealthy mages and pretend that he’s one of them, long enough at least to get some good pictures and maybe even record their CEO admitting to a crime or two if he’s lucky.

The taxi pulls to a stop. Just outside his window, Endymion locks eyes with the Tecnet building and can already tell it’s going to be a long, long day.

…​

However, breaking and entering seems to go far more smoothly than expected!

There are no guards around when he enters the lobby; perhaps there’s been an issue within the chain of command and nobody assigned workers to this floor. Or maybe they’re all busy napping on the job. Endymion could hardly blame them if that were so. Hell, he was still a bit tempted to ditch the meeting and sleep away the day under a tree somewhere instead!

Unfortunately the pursuit of justice held him accountable.

He waits while the elevator takes a round and comes back. There’s technically two available, but the one is in dire need of a wipe-down, if he’s being quite polite. Perhaps a hungover businessman emptied his breakfast in there. Whatever it is, it’s none of his business, other than that it’s beginning to stink and he wants nothing to do with it.

150. He keys it in with barely trembling fingers. The nerves are beginning to get to him now; Endymion’s never been good with crowds, or even people in general. How had he ever thought this would be a good idea?

Beryl must feel his heart rate increase because she stirs against his chest and gives another little croak. He gently places his hand over the lump of her. Right. They’re not here to fight; only to get information, and get out. The public had a right to know the truth about everything going on inside, and he was going to bring it to them.