002 || Really Destitute Vacation

[reddeadvirtuoso]

Characters: Jade Strider, and anyone she is likely to bother. Which is everyone.
Setting: The Cafeteria, the Music Room and the Morgue during the day, and nondescript vague locations at night.
Format: Started in action, but it doesn't make a difference to me. Whatever suits your fancy!
Summary: Now that all that shadow, body-swap and no food nonsense is out of the way, Jade's going back to exploring the Tower, and actually trying to shoot her gun. And actually getting into a lot of stupid trouble again. It's the perfect time to yell at her!
Warnings: Jade being stupid, getting stuck in the morgue, the tower at nighttime, gratuitous Beatles jams


[Cafeteria - Floor One]
[Jade was not a hunter, nor a gatherer. The last week of September was pretty difficult for a 13 year old that couldn't quite fend for herself and refused to admit she was having any problems. Thankfully it was only a week, and once October hit, there was food! Which meant she was currently helping herself to a big old breakfast of pumpkin...stuff, in the cafeteria. There was plenty on the table, so there was probably enough for someone else if they wanted something, while she gorged her face.]


[Morgue - Floor 26]
[There was nothing that suspicious here. Though that...might have, been the most suspicious part. Jade was a small kid, and she was stupidly curious and adventurous (it happened when one of your ecto-fathers was a hardened island explorer), so she was in the process of exploring eeeevery little bit of the tower. Which had apparently included the body drawers.

So someone might have come around, rather spotting a small, red-clad child crawling into one of the drawers, or they might hear some banging from one of the closed ones if someone gets close by....]


[Music Room]
[She hadn't gotten to bring her own guitar to the tower, so the music room was where Jade was usually found, aside from the media room. You'd practicaly think she'd moved in there at least; she was currently seated on the seat of the grand organ, with another stool pulled up to use as a foot rest as she used the organ as a back rest and was currently playing the intro from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart Club Band, and other such Beatles classics.

Come on, what did you really expect.]


[Anywhere in the Tower, Nighttime]
[There was normal exploration, saved for the daytime, and there was working on the fact that Jade had such bad aim it was bullshit. It was probably really stupid to be out at night, but that's where she was anywhere around the Tower, with her rifle in hand and attacking any monsters that creeped by. It was much easier to find them at night after all, and they put up more of a fight.

This is probably a really dumb idea. The weird part was, she was even still wearing her shades when it wasn't complete and total darkness-- they were prescription sunglasses after all. If it was absolutely darkness though, then it didn't really matter, and she might have had them propped up on the top of her head, giving you a glimpse of her weirdly red eyes.]


[Room 1-20 - Locked to England]

[Jade had a fashion sense enough not to wear her stupid God Tier PJs, so she was certainly bothered by the fact that her scarf was still a tattered (though not bloody at least) mess since Sburb.

She had to go back in the network and find the guy who she had asked to fix it, but she did track down his name, and found his name on one of the dorm rooms. Instead of actually wearing the scarf for now, she held it in one hand and knocked on his door with the other, hoping he and only he was around 'cause damn this was gonna be kind of embarrassing.]

Comments

[reddeadvirtuoso]

How the fuck do you swing a chainsaw with your hips?

[Like. Don't you use it with your arms. Come on. What.]

So you had to double as a janitor?

[chronomancer]

No, like. When you swing it? There's this weird hip wiggly thing Kan explained to me but I never got right.

[He shrugs again.]

Mostly I had to wash her clothes. She got angry with me whenever I got guts and stuff on them.

[reddeadvirtuoso]

[Jade planted her fists on her hips and looked down, but all in all decided that that was stupid and didn't make any sense.] Fine, but I'm just imagining some girly-ass lumberjacks swinging their hips while they cut down the forest.

People tend to get pretty pissy when you spill guts everywhere you know. I don't know if trolls like it as decor, but most people just think it stinks up the place.

[chronomancer]

...I'm pretty sure Kan's more used to cutting down things that bleed, than trees.

[Eridan snorts at the last bit, remembering the less savory side of his zombie hunting stunts.]

Oh, tell me about it. You have any idea how hard it is to get brain matter out of fabric?

[reddeadvirtuoso]

Trees bleed. They have feelings too. You of all people should know that. [Firm nod of affirmation!!]

Actually I have no actual idea, but you probably legitimately know, huh? [She chuckled.] So I'm guessing laundry days in the desert were super fucking awesome.

[chronomancer]

...let's just. Not talk. About shrubbery and stuff.

[He shakes his head, instead snorting at her words.]

You could say that. I still wonder what the fuck was past me thinking about when he decided to settle there.

[reddeadvirtuoso]

Fine, I'll wait to give you my five hour dissertation of the effect on varying filters of sunlight on each individual position of a leaf.

[She adjusted her glasses there as if she were totally an academic, and not just some dork wearing sunglasses.]

Maybe past you wanted to research the native zombie fauna. Or he just really hated your guts.

[chronomancer]

Oh, past-me hating future-or-present-me is always a thing. I'm pretty sure it has always been a thing. It doesn't even need to be stated, really.

[He shakes his head.]

But from what I vaguely remember, zombies were really not part of the plan.

[The plan was that the desert was pretty in the sunlight, glittering pink and orange and yellow. But it's not like he KNOWS that.]

[reddeadvirtuoso]

No one ever expects zombies. That's why they can shamble and moan for five million miles, and they still get you.

[that's basically how every zombie apocalypse movie worked, right]

Though past-you really needs to chill the fuck out.

[chronomancer]

Past-me needs to stop being a moron.

[a snort]

Actually, there are a few things that let you know they're coming. Takes a while to figure it out though, I'll give you that.

[reddeadvirtuoso]

Do they crawl out from under the sand and cause some sort of earth-shifting phenomena as a warning signal?

[That isn't even from any movie so we're pretty sure she has no idea what she's talking about.]

[chronomancer]

Well, yes, they do. But if you can feel the dunes shifting under your feet, then you're probably dead meat anyway.

[Dead serious. Also shrugging.]

From a distance you can see the way the dunes shift and that tells you when they're coming. You can also tell 'cause of the stench. Fuckers stench well and good. And there's also knowing the territory and knowing their hours. Each horde has like an entirely different time frame for some reason. It's weird.

[reddeadvirtuoso]

Maybe some of them don't get paid overtime.

[Nevertheless, the thought of rotting flesh shambling along under the sun got a slight grimace.]

Well, that's one way to kill your appetite, that's for sure.

[chronomancer]

Eh. You get used to it. The whole chewing on something while snipping cliche has some actual truth to it.

[Translation: he eats snack food while killing stinking zombies. Class act, this one.]

[reddeadvirtuoso]

I'm pretty sure that's for random sticks of wheat or cigarettes, not an actual meal.

[Translation: eewwwwww.]

[chronomancer]

I like nuts.

[s h r u g]

And I eat a lot less meat than you'd expect with teeth like these.

[reddeadvirtuoso]

Zombie meat not appetizing? [She's mostly joking really she doesn't want to hear about if you actually eat zombie flesh.]

I thought you guys'd be carnivores or something.

[chronomancer]

Yeah, not really a fan of eating shit that smells that rank.

[He snorts.]

Most trolls are, I guess. There just isn't all that much to hunt in the desert.

[He goes a little quiet.]

And anyway, after meeting Fef she sort of got me into the whole vegetarian thing.

[FEELINGS ALERT, FEELINGS ALERT, PROCEED WITH CAUTION.]

[reddeadvirtuoso]

[Eri don't bring up your ex's jfc]

I didn't even know you could be a vegetarian. Like, are there even plants in the desert? Do you eat cacti?

[casually avoiding mentioning the treehugger for once.]

[chronomancer]

[But his entire life used to revolve around his ex, sob.]

Sometimes, yeah. 's got a lot of water so that's two birds in one stone. The pickle pears are neat, too. Not really sweet but.... juicy? I guess juicy's the best word. The buds make for a nice snack, too. It just depends on finding the right one, and knowing how to pick them apart. There used to be a patch of squash a few hours walk away from my hive, too.

[He chuckles a little fondly.]

I used to do the vegetarian thing more when visiting Fef, though. I mean, she lived somewhere you could actually grow fucking greenery and all.

[reddeadvirtuoso]

Damn, I was just joking. [....]I wanna eat a cactus, that sounds awesome.

[That's...one way to think of it.]

Right, treehugger lives in the forest, right? That's not even anywhere close to the fuckin' desert, how does that work?

[chronomancer]

It's pretty neat.

[Eridan offers her a half smile, then shrugs at the question.]

Walking.

[Did you miss the deadpan? The deadpan is back.]

Lots of walking. I didn't live that deep into the desert, small mercies, but it was still about two days and two nights walking to get to the steep and out of the sand. Not too bad if you can walk in plain sunlight without literally burning to death, but not a lot of people were too keen to visit.

[He snorted.]

The neighbors weren't really friendly, either. So yeah. A few days walk out into actual inhabited land, and then a few more to reach her forest. All in all it wasn't all that bad. And hey, good for supply runs.

[reddeadvirtuoso]

Jesus, that's a hell of a transit just to go visit some hippie for some salad. I don't think I've even been outside Houston before the game started.

[Though if she had to walk days before getting out of the desert, yeeaaah she would probably not leave anyway.]

Though the more and more I hear, the more I'm convinced your world was actually just a zombie apocalypse game.

[chronomancer]

[Eridan shrugs carefully.]

Originally I went out to get supplies. You know ammo for my rifles, clothes, movies. Sometimes food that didn't rot on the way back. After Fef and I... you know. It didn't seem like that big of a detour.

[reddeadvirtuoso]

You sure like to talk about your crazy treehippie chick, don't you?

[Staaaaaring.]

...Yep, sounds like your standard survival horror zombie land. Just don't go to any abandoned malls.