Issue 1 Downtime

Having returned to the London penthouse technically owned by a fake personality of Drew's Mel dismisses the red-haired shapeshifter to take care of some loose ends regarding the Henry Hereford persona.

She shrugs off her jacket before walking over to the container Drew had placed on the dining table before leaving. She opens it up and picks up the chunk of Will's clay, lifting it up until it is level with her face. "I know you can hear me."

The small thing made a sound which MAY have been "fuck you".

"How rude. We'll have to teach you some manners." she says, placing the chunk on the table. "Maybe you should start with making yourself more presentable."

The clay sat there, stubbornly.

"I suppose we'll have to do this the hard way then." she says and places her hand over the clay, fingers slightly sinking into it as her mind makes contact with Will's...

"Gnh..." Will grunted, trying to block Mel out.

"Well then, someone has been working on their mental fortitude. Has Sam been teaching you?" she asks as she projects herself into Will's mindscape, her avatar wrapped in a black cloth-shroud that conceals the glint of a thin dagger hiding between it's folds while her visible hand holds a pale mask with a face frozen in a perpetual scream of calamity.

...where she's immediately accosted by two guards, with nasty-looking halberds, standing outside the city gates.

"Turn around now. It isn't too late."

"How martial. Sam must be proud and strenuously denying it." she says, holding up the mask that opens it's mouth wider and wider until it peels itself back from a face emerging from it's mouth, replacing itself with Sam's face. It begins talking in her place. "That's no way to greet your friend, is it?"

The guards looked at each other, uncertain, and then doubled-up their stance. "No entry."

"Nobody is allowed inside?" the mask asks to distract them while the shadow cast by Mel slowly stretches out towards the guards.

"You aren't Her. You don't have her fingerprint," they explained.

"I see, I see." she says while the glint of her dagger reveals itself in her shadow just before it rises up behind the guards. In one fluid motion the shadow draws the dagger across one guard's throat and brings it about, sinking into the other's side. "Then this will have to suffice." she says as her shadow withdraws back into her shroud and she steps over the bodies of the guards.

The second guard tries to block, and maybe even gets a piece of his halberd onto Mel...but down he goes, leaving the gates to the city, the marketplace and the town square wide open, the scent of baked goods and roasted meats drifting through the air.

"How disgustingly quaint." she says as she glides down through the marketplace, looking around to make sense of the organization of the place. Grabbing a random passerby she pulls them to her. "You. Tell me where the archives are. The library. Whatever he rebuilt in it's place."

The organization? It was much more like a crowded street fair than she would remember; a far more egalitarian setup. Lots of bartering and haggling seemed to be going on at the individual stalls, people trading things back and forth.

Still, all roads lead to Rome--or, in this case, the central plaza in front of the old factory, which was still chugging along, if the puffs of occasional multi-colored smoke meant anything.

"The archives, ma'am?" the confused passerby said as Mel grabbed her. "I'm afraid I don't quite follow."

"Nevermind." she sighs. "What a mess. Someone ought to introduce some organization." The factory seemed like the most central structure, so she makes her way towards it. If that's where all the things being sold in the town came from it'd be where the most systemic change could be enacted by utilizing the natural distribution.

That was where everything was being made! Fancy that.

Of course, the giant statue of Sam in the square in front of the factory hadn't been here the last time she checked.

"Now this is interesting. You. Explain." she once again stops the next best person and points at the statue.

"Uh. It's a statue to the Morrigan," he said, looking at her like she was brain dead. "You know, a statue?"

"I am surrounded by idiots. Why. Why is there a statue to the Morrigan in here."

"The Champion needs some token. This is where She fought and defended us."

"The Champion, you say. Very interesting." she says and almost gently runs her hand over one of the feet of the statue. A wisp of her shadow clings to it as she moves on. "Can you tell me more about that?"

Interestingly, a bit of the gold foil of the statue comes off in Mel's hands, revealing the chocolate underneath.

"When Black Air demolished the location, activating their nanoprobes and bombing it, it was She who came and rallied the troops. It was She who gave us the means and the motive to fight back.

We will always fight for Her now."

"She has a habit of doing that sort of thing, doesn't she. I suppose she's deserving of a certain... fervor." she says, recognizing a conviction that would be futile to try and break. Besides, why try to break something when it could be subverted. Some details would need to be changed, but with such a central display, subverting all the mental connections shouldn't be too hard. Just a matter of making sure no one notices the changes until they are done.

"Please, tell me everything you can about Her." she says as her shadow glides underneath the gold coating, spreading through the statue.

"What's there to tell? She's the Morrigan. The Great Queen. She watches over us. Protects us."

"Take me to the part of the factory where this was made." she demands. This mindscape is a nightmare...

"Uh, alright..." he said, shrugging, and in they walked to the factory floor.

"I'm not quite sure why you want to go here," he said, as they passed chocolate smelters and chewing gum chewers and taffy pullers and brownie bakers. "It's just, you know, construction."

I should just tear this all down again. she quietly laments putting up with this... this whimsy.

"Then take me to where it was conceived of. Is there no overseer here?"

"We try to maintain our role as an autonomous collective, but yes, people are in charge of the basic functions..." he said, looking at her oddly. "Why don't you know all this?"

Great, he took a couple pointers from Sam. Gestalt-constructs are so tedious.

"Because I'm new here." she says and drives her hand into his face, wisps of her shadow flowing into him and muting all his colors until he looks washed out. "Now take me to where they drew up the plans for the statue."

"Yes'm..." he said, his eyes turning blank.

They walked up some stairs, down some more, through a hallway that grew and shrank in size, through some doors in the floor and ceiling, down a slide and up a pole, ending up in a drafting room, overlooking the factory floor.

People were scribbling designs, crossing them out, and throwing them away as they tried to design and plot things. They paid no attention to the newcomers.

Melpomene walks through the room, looking at what people are designing and keeping an eye out for people who might be the ones introducing new ideas or judging the finished designs.

"No, no, no, you need more flour if this one's going to hold up!" one of them said, gesturing to what looked like a recipe, attached to a picture of Will with blades for arms.

Another person was carefully measuring out food coloring and examining it, jotting down notes about the reaction on what looked like a script for a play. And so on and so forth.

At the head of the room, a panel of five Wills was stamping things "approved" or "disapproved" as they tasted the concoctions people were coming up with.

"These are shifting concepts." she groans and decides on a change of tactics. "Listen up everyone! I just finished an inspection of the statue outside and I have noticed some irregularities. Who do I talk to in regards to fixing such an important landmark?"

"Irregularities? How so?" one of them asked, standing up.

"There's some structural concerns, nothing major. I just need to see the original plans to make sure it's just settling and not deforming under it's own weight."

"Mmm. Quite," they said, and one person pulled them out.

It sure didn't LOOK like a blueprint, talking about cocoa butter and tempered chocolate and nuts and all kindsa things, but apparently it worked in here.

"Mind if I looked them over back here? Great." she says, not waiting for a response and taking the blueprint/recipe and finding a free space to spread them out on. Of course instead of studying them she simply places her hands on them and with a grey tint that spreads over them changes the specs on who the statue is depicting. She rolls up the blueprints and takes them back to where they had come from. "Everything is in perfect order here, good job everyone and thank you for cooperating with this formality. Now, one last thing on my list of duties, I need to check the original work-order that came in regarding the statue."

"Certainly," they said, and they handed her a scone.

F'n metaphors and shit.