ic The Meadows Of Plenty

[Supercape]

Lament

 

Luther had never even seen a demon before, let alone fought one. Unless this was one big trick, of course. Never believe anything totally, for you will be totally wrong.

 

This was a high stakes gamble - the Void have him an entropic power, but what would that power make of demons?

 

He climbed in the car.

 

Surely a knife or a gun would soon be pressed to his gut, or his skull. Would they say some parting words, or would they just fire? 

 

"Does Joy rob people of their senses?" smiled Luther. "It hasn't mine, sir. I want a steady stream of Joy, and I won't get that in prison. Well, maybe one day you guys will expand your market there, too. But not soon."

 

"But why don't you take it?"

[Poncho]

(GM Post)

 

No one seemed interested in putting Eric out of his misery. They drove him and Zander over to the terminal, and then they got out. The terminal guards didn't check them, they opened a back door, and they were in LAX, one of the most well known airports in the world. Even late at night, there were people everywhere. And there was a bar that Xander casually wandered into and sat down, having a nice chat with the bartender. The guards followed, posting up at the entrance to the bar and making it clear it wasn't available for use as long as Xander was in it.

 

"It's not supposed to rob you of your senses, but it's supposed to make you not so concerned about the little things. A Joyhead would be cheerful to go get a drink, not concerned with the little things like not having a passport, or asking about how such and such is going to be transferred. It should be go with the flow. Maybe you're resistant." he mumbled.

 

"As for me. I can't get high off Joy. I have anhedonia. And demon blood." he said, left hand right hand. "Never really got the feeling of enjoyment. Still don't, really. The blessing of having one of his kin as father, or mother, not sure which. I have a little bit of the power and all of the downsides. He doesn't really get joy either. Not like it's poison to him or anything, but he can't enjoy anything. It's why they're all like that. They don't know how to have fun, they can't feel pleasure or enjoyment. What's there to do but suffer."

[Supercape]

Lament

 

"That's bleak," said Luther, lost in thought. "I mean, I'm no psychiatrist, but that's depression, isn't it? Can you not get treated?"

 

Luther wasn't a psychiatrist, or psychologist, but since bonding with the Void, he had done a little lay reading on the science of mood. He didn't understand the fancy papers and brain imaging, but he knew a bit about anhedonia - the lack of joy associated with depression. 

 

"I mean, how do you or... him... have the energy to do anything? What's the point? Share the misery? Rage? Fury?"

 

He caught sight of the glinting bottles of booze at the bar. "Or just try and make it hurt less?"

[Poncho]

(GM Post)

 

"It depends. For some of them, it's about being near those strong emotions. The biggest highs and the hardest falls; that at least lets them pretend to have something when they watch them, like they're surprisingly empathetic. Others only get emotions through others more directly. Taking them away, things like that." He shrugged and drank. "Some of them are definitely straight up monsters; the kind that can't be happy, so no one else gets to be either."

 

"For me, I get it when I carry out a job. I can at least feel success, failure, that sort of stuff. It's not pure happiness, but it's what I get."

 

[Supercape]

Lament

 

"Taking emotions away? Sounds terrible..." said Luther, acutely aware of the void in his guts. 

 

He couldn't help but think of sympathy for the devil, by the rolling stones. He even't started tapping his foot, humming it aloud. 

 

"Pardon me for asking, but you see you are the first demon I met," he said with a polite bow. "And I am... intrigued. Man don't get to do this very often. I may never again."

 

He cracked his knuckles. "It sounds like you are happy slave. You get told to do something, you do it, gives you an echo of happiness?"

 

It was provocative, but then this was a provoking time, a provoking place. Luther was very interested, and knew that sooner or later something violent would manifest. So why not ask?

 

[Poncho]

(GM Post)

 

"I'm not a demon." he corrected. "If I was a demon, I'd be more than a part time drug dealer scraping under a real Demon from the Goteia. I'm a cast off little piece of a demon, without much to my own." he, again, didn't seem upset, just a statement of fact; it seemed the only thing he really could get was mad, given what was his likely outburst at the convention center.

 

"As for being a slave. Well. Most people are slaves, Eric. Slaves to their bosses. Slaves to their nations. Slaves to their obligations, their jobs, their religions, their families. Life isn't freedom, your life isn't yours, your freedom isn't yours, your existence is only validated by how much time others take away from you doing what you want. Those moments where you think you're alone, where you're relaxing, where you have no obligations? Those moments only exist because every other moment of your life is owned by another; they'd be nothing if they weren't contested by the weight of your obligations."

 

He laughed, shaking his head.

 

"So yeah, maybe I'm a slave. But so is everyone else."

[Supercape]

Lament

 

"Not a demon, eh? But perhaps not entirely, you know, human?"

 

"Mmmm. Slavery. Well, maybe its a relative concept," said Luther, although in his heart he had pretty clear ideas of what slavery was. Chains featured quite heavily in his image. "Like freedom. Nobodies really completely free, are they?"

 

"But.."

 

He paused. 

 

"Doesn't mean we might want more freedom. Yearn for it. Grab a pair of sunglasses, a gas guzzlin' motorcycle, and ride into the sunset like a cowboy? I even heard of some superhero demon doing just that down South."

 

"Look, I'm jus' saying seems you are in a bit of a rut. Can I get you out of it?"

Edited Friday at 11:52 PM by Supercape

[Poncho]

(GM Post)

 

Zander sighed and took a drink. He mulled it over, rolling the glass around by using his wrist to watch the liquor swirl in a vortex. He was quiet again, thinking. Pondering.

 

"...Alright Eric. What are you suggesting?" He finally asked. He cut his eyes at Luther, smoldering red orbs that seemed to be trying to drive daggers into his flesh. "Stop bouncing around, stop casting line. You've got the fish on the hool, reel me in. What's the net." He asked. "And don't jerk me around. Give it to to me straight."

[Supercape]

Lament

 

"On the hook? Sounds like another chain to me, but I catch your drift. Just... I'm not a fisherman, eh? I don't eat fish. Never like the taste..."

 

He cracked his knuckles. 

 

"Truth is, I'm not a good man, but I'm not a bad man either. All I am is a free man. I don't play by nobodies rules, you get me? Sounds like you don't either, or at least you don't want to."

 

"So what do you want? honestly? Me, it seems you in a vice, and Ronove is turning the screw. Walls closing in kinda deal. So what about I help you out of the vice?"
 

"Now, you probably thinking that I'm just a two bit hustler. How do I help you out of your rut? Well, I help you by taking down Ronove. That man got too big for his boots, in my opinion. And how am I going to do that, you ask?"
 

In a flash, Luthers face was engorged in shadow, his eyes hollow and black, endless pits of despair and melancholia. 

 

"Because I'm not just a two bit hustler. I am the Lord of Lamentations! The Sultan of Sorrow, the Duke of Despair, the Marquis of Melancholia!"

Edited Saturday at 04:48 PM by Supercape

[Poncho]

(GM Post)

 

Zander looked at him.

 

Silence echoed through the little bar. 

 

Anyone who tried to peek into what was going on in the little bar in LAX was quicky sent away by the guards flashing steel. 

 

Zander thought about it.

 

The guards discussed something quietly.

 

"...Alright." Zander finally said. "Let's take out Ronove, me and you. Maybe that will get me out of the rut. Or maybe I'll get to ascend into a full demon. Let's give it a shot, I got nothing to lose." He smiled. "I'm hoping that's more than a party trick."

 

"What's the plan, Lament?" 

[Supercape]

Lament

 

"Right on!" said Luther, giving the man a grin. 

 

The eerie shadows fell from his face. 

 

"And its not just a party trick. Think of that like the tip of an iceberg, if you catch my drift. Now, if we are going to take out your boss, well, we gotta know the where and the how. I never run from a fight, but I like to stack the dice in my favour. Its like any good soldier; a brave coward. Brave, cos they fight, coward, cos they do everything they can to stack the deck. Right?"

 

"What do you know about him? He don't look like the guy who melts at the sight of a bottle of holy water. Whats his achilles heel?"

[Poncho]

(GM Post)

 

"I..." he frowned at Lament. "I figured you had an idea. It's not like my boss goes around telling me his weaknesses." Zander said in concern, having already thrown his hat in with Luther and realizing he couldn't go back on it, and finding out The Duke was just winging it made him wary.

 

"Okay, well..." he swore. "...It man, I hoped you had an idea. Okay. Well, the way I see it, he was sort of lying to you. I think the Joy is what kept him locked down under the city. It was when the wells started getting too deep and siphoning the Joy is when he got out. I think he sells the stuff to keep it from building up and trapping him down back below." He explained, concerned.

 

"I don't know if it's true or not, but that's my best guess; bring the Joy back, break the oil wells to avoid the Joy being siphoned off his seal, then shove him back down into the pit and hope he doesn't come back up."

[Supercape]

Lament

 

"Oh I have ideas. Plenty of them. It's just that the more I know, the better my ideas get!"

 

Luther mulled over the information Zander had given him. Joy was the cork in the bottle - if this was true, could joy put the demon back in the cage? In which case, Lament was the worst hero in the universe. But maybe Luther LeGrasse could do the job?

 

"Right, right. So we can lock him up again. Look, we can find joy a hundred ways. Maybe rig some slot machines in Vegas? Maybe put on a charity concert. But the big issue is - if we can get the prison working again, how do we get the prisoner back in the cell? Will he just float there magically, or does he need to be strongarmed?

[Poncho]

(GM Post)

 

"I'm pretty sure he has to go back in the pit. I don't know why he sticks around the place that he can also be shoved back into, but maybe I don't understand how demons and magical seals work; maybe he can't get too far away until it's fully broken." Zander frowned, running his fingers around the rim of his glass.

 

"So...what do we do? How do we get him back in the pit, and seal him up down there? You don't happen to secretly be like, a member of the Freedom League or something, do you? Maybe Velocity or Gaian Knight could put down a half-awake demoon before he gets all the way woken up and starts causing havoc. We're trying to patch a hole in the bucket and then fill it back up to full, and get the Spider that was in the bucket back in it. And we're just two people and a few gangbangers, so I'm not exactly liking our chances."

 

He looked behind him in the mirror above the bar at the guards shadowing the entrance to the bar.

 

"And that's assuming everyone likes me more than the current boss, and I think we both know that's very unlikely.  So uh...yeah. Really hoping you canc put together an idea. Not opposed to rigging some slot machines or whatever, but how are we going to do that and get him in the hole at the same time. And turn off those wells in the building, because if we don't they're just going to pump the Joy back out and leave him free to crawl back up."

[Supercape]

Lament

 

"Ayah, I don't think the Freedom Leauge would have me," said Luther. "I have certain - problems. And to be honest I am not sure I would have them. All of em got sticks up their backsides, only difference between them is the length. If it comes to handlin' demons I heard of one one crazy chick down south. But I don't have her number."

 

He shrugged. 

 

"But I can suck out the juice of any man, and demon too..."

 

I hope...

 

"Just need some strapping man to carry the body. You look like you got the strength, right?"

 

He tapped his finger, raised his eye brows, pondering. 

 

"Would your boss come to an improptu show? Does he seek out natural joy? If we do that, we can trick him."