ic Double Dutch

[Thevshi]

Velocity took a brief (a VERY brief) moment to take in the scene of Rutte speaking with another exact copy of the Duke.  She knew she should not be surprised by this, but still was a little bit.  Luckily, a little bit of surprise for her was barely noticeable to most.       

 

"That's fine."  The speedster responded back to the Duke.  "I won't be taking you for just a harmless old dullard anymore either."

 

And with that, she stopped vibrating her body, making herself solid once more, as she covered the distance between herself and the two men in the blink of an eye.

 

*CRACK*   *CRACK*

 

Her fist shot out twice, faster than most could see, breaking the sound barrier each time, as she landed a solid hits on both Rutte and this copy/duplicate/whatever of the Duke.  Both men were knocked off their feet, flying back to slam into the opposite walls of the hallway before crumpling on the floor unconscious.

 

And then almost instantly, Velocity was back by the door to the cellar, pulling aside the bolt to unlock the door.

[Supercape]

GM

 

The door creaked open - rather painfully slowly, and with a painful creak. 

 

Down in the basement, Grimalkin was searching for cracks. Of which, it must be said, there were plenty. The cellar, like the equipment, and like the castle, might have been glorious and wonderful, but it was also somewhat haphazard and chaotic. Just like the sparking power cables strewn across the floor in a jumble, the bricks and mortar of the building were riddled with cracks and holes. Grimalkin actually felt a slight breeze from some of them. 

 

As Velocity opened the door, there were actually a few cheers of relief from the Dukes staff. 

 

"Oh thank the fates! Please, let me out of here! I resign!"

[Heritage]

Pixie Grim flew over to Velocity and hovered in front of her face. "Great work, Vel! That's a pretty good-" She stopped abruptly when she noticed the other Duke. "Waitaminute, what's he doing there!" The tiny fae zipped over to the speedster's two unconscious victims and flitted from one to the other. "Two Dukes, huh? Well that's pretty frickin' bizarre! C'mon, let's tie them all up!"

 

She returned to her normal size, and then gestured to the rest of the servants. "Can you folks please help us move them to the couches?" She gestured, and a huge spool of what looked like nautical hemp rope appeared back in the lab. "There you go, Vel; ought to be enough for you to hog-tie them!"

[Thevshi]

Velocity glanced over her shoulder at the unconscious Duke and butler as Grimalkin saw and commented on them, something that was really unnecessary thanks to her goggles, but still habit.  "Not exactly sure what is up with the copy.  Maybe a duplicate of some kind?  I think we are likely to find out.  So keep an eye out for any more showing up."

 

Once the two unconscious men had been moved down into the cellar and Grimalkin had provided a rope, Velocity had them both bound in the blink of an eye.  She then took a moment to check on Robert before considering what their next move should be.

 

"So, shall we get the staff clear of the castle," she indicated the maids and others in the room that now only wanted to leave the Duke's employment, "and then start looking around to get a better idea what might be going on?"

[Heritage]

Grim nodded as she surveyed the many frightened household servants in the cellar. "Yeah. let's do that." She cleared her throat and then addressed the room. "Okay, attention everyone! For your own safety, I think it's best if you get the hell out of this house; clearly, there's something very wrong with one or both of your Dukes, and though it is a bit of a cliche, sometimes the butler actually DID do it. My advice would be to head right outside, contact the local authorities, and stay far away from the building. Thank you."

 

The petite crimefighter turned back to her current partner. "Well I can fly and you can run like the wind, so between the two of us, it shouldn't take too long to the search the place, right?" She shrunk back down to pixie form and hovered in the air. "Where you wanna start?"

[Supercape]

GM

 

The staff needed little encouragement and less direction. It appeared on Rutte had any loyalty to his employer, if even he did. They scrabbled out of the cellar as quickly as the sparking power cords on the floor would let them. It was perhaps fortunate that nobody got electrocuted on the way out. 

 

There was, again, a subtle surge of power. Lights blinked, cables fizzed, and dials turned whenever Velocity was in the room. 

 

Robert was waking up. He still looked half asleep, his eyelids heavy and his mouth yawning like a machine gun. He mumbled instead of spoke. 

 

"What...what happened?" he asked, trying to wake up, trying to sit up, but instead just slumping on the bed in the cellar. 

 

"I was...strawberries...cream...wait..." he said, shaking his head. 

 

"The ticking...it is strange...speeding up...not slowing down..." he said, pressing his fingers to his temples to try and compress his skull and focus his concentration. 

[Thevshi]

Velocity glanced over at Robert's voice, relived to see that he was recovering, or at least starting to.  In a flash of movement, the speedster moved and tied up the other Duke, just to be on the safe side. 

 

"Maybe next time you will listen to me when I am uncertain about something."  She said in a slightly teasing tone.  "The food was drugged, including drugging the Duke himself.  Only, there are at least two version of the Duke running around, possibly more."

 

"I am going to make sure these people get safely clear of the castle, the come back here."  Velocity then added.  "See if you can get an idea if what might be going on with all of...this."  She indicated the various equipment down in the cellar. 

 

She then followed after the servants, quickly getting in front of them to make sure the way out was clear.

[Supercape]

GM

 

A short while later...

 

Grimalkin and Velocity took little time to move the staff out of the Castle. The thing with Castles is, they are big and empty without staff. The spooky factor raised just so slightly in the silence. 

 

Down in the Cellar, Robert was studying the machines with droopy eyes when the terrific twosome returned. 

 

"Its...complicated..." he said, sweeping his arm over all the machines, the cables, and the monolith in the centre. 

 

"And my head feels like a glue factory" he said, shaking it. "Everything stuck together. Whatever else the Duke knows, he sure know's how to cook up a sedative" he said, pressing fingers to eyes to wake him up. 

 

"I think it something to do with speed. Some kind of chronal experiments. Replicating tachyons, that kind of thing...but...if I was feeling more awake maybe I could..."

 

Once again the lights blinked, the dials rose, and the cables fizzed again. 

 

"There...you see it?" he asked. "It activates when you are here, Sweetheart" he said, smiling at Velocity. "And...I can feel it too...like something is feeding off you, and time speeding up again...like a quantum heartbeat with a serious arrhythmia. To small to notice, although I notice it. I always have the ticking in my head since...well, you know..." he said. Whenever he talked about the Stopwatch, there was always a slight pain, a slight emptiness to him. 

 

The Duke snored slightly, and his eyes fluttered open. 

 

"Where am I? What happened?" he asked, yawning. 

[Heritage]

The scientific stuff largely went over Grim's head, which she was scratching pretty vigorously at the moment. "Chronal experiments; as in possibly time travel?" She looked back at the drugged version of the Duke, who was starting to come around. "Maybe the more sinister version of the Duke is from the future, or an alternate timeline?"

 

Robert's grogginess concerned her; Grim knew from personal experience how impaired her brain was when she was groggy. "Can we get him some coffee or tea or espresso or something? Dude's making me sleepy!" Then she called over to the Duke. "We're working on the problem, your Grace! By the way, what kind of experiments were you working on before everything started to slow down?"

Edited September 9, 2014 by Heritage

[Supercape]

GM

 

"Coffee! Sounds excellent!" smiled the duke rubbing his eyes and yawning again. His posture was just slightly less slumped, although he could fall asleep at any moment. 

 

"Rutte! Get me a coffee if you would be so good!" he yelled in an aristocratic commanding voice. 

 

"Hmm? Who tied me up! I am as open minded as the next Duke...but this is not the time or place!" he added before attending to the question posed him. 

 

"My experiments here? Yes, do forgive the disorganisation here" he apologised, referring to the menagerie of dangerous electricals. "I have a creative mind, but not a tidy one, you see" he explained. "These experiments were to try and resolve my little problem" he said. 

 

"See, I think it is a success!" he smiled, indicating at a dial which had risen. He then dropped his head, his smile giving way to a rubbery slumber of facial muscles, punctuated by more snoring. 

[Thevshi]

Velocity was relieved that they managed to get the staff safely away from the castle.  After they returned to the cellar, she listened to what Robert had to say, not exactly sure if she liked the answers, although there seemed to be a lot more, which Robert was apparently not quite in a state to figure out.

 

"I am not sure if we want him fully awake at the moment."  The speedster replied to Grim as she mentioned getting the drugged Duke some coffee to help wake him up.  "At least not until we have a better idea why there are two of him running around."  Before he went back to sleep, that particular version of the Duke did little to help clear up what was going on.

 

"So, should I stay out of the room then?"  Velocity asked, as the dials continued to show spikes in activity, apparently triggered by her presence. 

[Supercape]

GM

 

"Beats me" answered Robert, scratching his head and yawning. 

 

"Although I good cup of coffee would certainly help get my brain moving. I'm normally pretty good at temporal quantum mechanics. Did my PhD in it, actually. Old Professor 'Crazy Pipe' Pendleton-Smythe would have a few stiff words for me today, I'm sure" he finished stifling yet another yawn. 

 

"The spikes are there whenever you are here" he explained. "Its subtle, but its as if something is siphoning off your potential energy. Whatever the Duke, or Dukes, is..or are...up to, I have to hand it to him. This stuff is crazy genius. And its working. Its counteracting the slowing down around him, and the castle. I could even say its slightly speeding up time?" he pondered, still drugged. 

 

"Damn I need some coffee, then we can see about doing some more tests..."

[Heritage]

Grim shook her head in confusion; apparently she'd used a poor choice of words. "No, I meant-" Then she chuckled. "Y'know what, don't worry about it; I'll take care of it."

 

In a flash she shrank down and and took to the air in a quest for coffee, following her sensitive nose; it took her a while, but she finally found the kitchen and all the tools she needed. She took her time, as Grim took her coffee very seriously...or at least she did before she drowned it with sugar and cream. Soon she had a tea tray bearing a fresh pot of coffee, a bowl of sugar cubes and a small pitcher of cream, as well as cups, saucers, spoons and folded linen napkins. The Jewish mother in her was deeply satisfied with her work, but then a thought hit as she looked back down the long hallway.

 

"Waitaminute; how the hell am I gonna fly all this crap back?"

Edited September 10, 2014 by Heritage

[Supercape]

GM

 

"Ah sweet pixie! I did not know you could be such a butterfly! But of course, it makes perfect sense!"

 

A third Duke stood by the entrance to the Kitchen. Holding a Crossbow in his hands, casually. His clothes were similar - regal, purple, and grand, but not the same. His features had not changed a jot, though. The same cheerful smile, waxed sideburns, and rotund belly. But for all his girth, he had moved with great quietness and stealth. 

 

"How could you tie me up, my dear. Most ungracious of you. I don't know if I can forgive such uncouth transgression!" he sighed, casually gazing around the Kitchen and away from Grimalkin. His crossbow waved lazily in the air. 

 

And then, in a flash, slammed down to his palm and fired. The Crossbow bolt whizzed through the air and embedded itself in the wall behind. Grimalkin caught the whiff of some exotic chemical on the bolts tip. 

[Heritage]

Grim leaped in shock at the sudden arrival of this new, additional Duke; whatever was going wrong in this castle, it was doing so on a grand scale.

Jeez, how many versions of this clown are there?

His demeanor was casual, but the changeling detected a cold and calculating undertone beneath the surface, and she knew a line of patter when she heard one. And a good thing, too; she was able to twist out of the way when the bolt whizzed past, a bolt that also smelled of drugs or poison.

"You know what, your Grace? You are really starting to make me not like Dutch people, and I'm pretty sure that's like a hate crime or something!" She danced around a bit, balanced on the balls of her feet as her eyes never left her pudgy adversary; suddenly she flung a hand out as she attempted to trap the Duke inside a large wooden crate, with a few small air holes drilled in, of course.

Edited November 27, 2014 by Heritage

[Supercape]

GM

 

The Duke didn't know what hit him. Nothing hit him, physically, but a wooden Crate assembling itself around him in the blink of an eye hit him psychologically. 

 

His voice was muffled now, coming through wood and the few small air holes. 

 

"Creature! What spellcraft is this? Hmmm. I am no sorcerer or occultist, pixie, but I can see this with my own eyes. Touch it with my own hands. Wonderful! Wonderful!" he said, in an almost sing song voice. 

 

"I would not have you hate my Homeland, pixie. It is a place of richness and serenity. If you must hate, hate me! I do what I must to survive, and whilst I know this is selfish, I would not be cruel or hateful in this. Whilst you stand in my way, you are marvellous, and I will marvel at you, for my capacity to relish and behold is what drives me to live so furiously!" he said, as an eye appeared in one of the hold. 

 

"I behold you! So now, Pixie, what will you do? And why will you do it? I need the speed of your friend. Not much, but then, as you can see from my waistline, I have a tendency to take more than I need!"

[Thevshi]

While Grim was off to get some coffee, Velocity was left to keep an eye on the two unconscious Dukes and butler, which still left her plenty of time to consider what they had learned so far and what was going on inside this cellar. 

 

"You know..." she began, addressing Robert who was still managing to remain awake as he tried to fight through the fog caused by the drugged food, "it seems pretty clear this apparatus is somehow drawing power from me, but what exactly it is doing with it is the question."  She glanced back at the two unconscious Dukes as she continued.  "We have two copies of the Duke, and from what the staff was saying, he had the ability to be in even more places at once, all around the world.  Perhaps some sort of psychic projection, given substance?"

 

The speedster let out a small sigh.  "I hope Grim is able to hurry back, I need you to help figure out this stuff," she waved at the machinery in the room, "and if it is safe to break any of it or otherwise shut it down."

[Heritage]

Grim folded her arms in annoyance as she stood on tiptoe to stare down the Duke through the hole. "Just be happy I don't run a garden hose in there and flush you out! You are a sick, selfish jerk who puts poison on crossbow bolts and sneaks up on people while they make their friends coffee; in other words, the lowest of the low!"

 

She took a deep breath to regain her composure, then turned her attention back to her coffee delivery system; as she worked, she continued to speak to the captive Duke. "So how many more of you are there, or do you even know?" She conjured up a sort of harness she could slip under the silver tea tray that should allow her to safely fly her burden back to Velocity and her...boyfriend? Husband? No way they were just friends.

[Supercape]

GM

 

The sound was muffled, but of course Grimalkin was easily able to look "inside" the crate. The crate was, after all, her, in a fashion. 

 

The Duke was pacing up and down, and inspecting both his crossbow and his bolt. And, again, stroking his sideburns. 

 

"There is only one of me, my dear. Of that I am fairly certain. If there were more of me, I would be most displeased! After all, we are all individual pretty snowflakes, are we not? I consider myself an exceptionally rich and sparkly snowflake, yes I do. And I would imagine you consider yourself so, too. In most cases I would put that down to the won'drously deluded self centred nature of man, who perceives the universe as his skin. But I dare say in the case of you and me, our little snowflakes are particularly floral, no?" he chuckled to himself. 

 

"Be seeing you later!" he finished, before collapsing in a heap, fast asleep. 

[Heritage]

"I am really beginning to hate this guy..." Grim dropped down into a crouch and eyed the crate critically; as quickly as she could, she dispelled the crate, snatched the crossbow and recreated the crate around the Duke. "Hmm. I need to figure out a better way to do that." She quickly traced a circle on the floor, which opened a hole in to the Vault, where she chucked the crossbow for safe keeping; a pinch of her fingers shut it again, and she dusted off her hands as she rose.

 

"Okay, back to business!" With a whoosh of air, she shrunk back down into her Pixie form and flew back up to the counter-top, where she carefully picked up the ends of her bizarre coffee harness and hoisted the whole mess into the air. She wasn't as strong as she used to be in this form - she somehow lost her tiny strength over the years with all the changes she went through - but a lightly-laden tea tray was not beyond her capabilities.

 

- - -

 

"Hot stuff, comin' through!" Grim swooped back into the cellar with a loud thrum of her wings, the tea tray in its harness swinging wildly from side to side, but she never spilled a drop. She gently lowered it to a table next to Robert, and then collapsed dramatically next to it. "Whew, talk about a workout! By the way, I found another Duke in the kitchen; I left him asleep in a crate."

[Thevshi]

Velocity glanced over at Grim returned to the cellar with the tray of coffee (an unnecessary movement thanks to her goggles, but a reflex the speedster still followed when there was no reason not to let someone know you saw them).  "Another Duke?  That is not really too surprising."  She replied.  "After all, the other staff did mention that he seemed to be in multiple places at once, even all over the world."

 

"It is also pretty clear that this equipment is drawing power somehow from me, but what it is doing with that power is not as clear."  Velocity then added.  "It could have something to do with how there are multiple Dukes popping up all over the place.  Hopefully Robert will have more insight once he clears his head."    

[Supercape]

GM

 

One strong coffee later...

 

Robert was yawning less, anyway. 

 

"That is the strongest, most bitter coffee I have ever tasted in my life, Grimalkin" he said wiping it off his numb lips. His coordination seemed pretty shot. "And right now, its just what I needed, even if it tasted ghastly"

 

His eyes seemed to focus a bit better as he studied the equipment. 

 

"Well, I'm a theoretical physicist, not an engineer. I can tell you pretty much what Velocity has said. These equipment is siphoning off quantum potential energy, and countering some observational dimensional curvature. If you look at it in strictly four dimensional terms, anyway. If you look at it in M-brane perspective then..."

 

His eyes crossed for a fraction of a second. 

 

"then you need me with a computer and a clearer head to the do the maths" he sighed. "As for all this equipment? its a wonder we haven't all eletrocuted ourselves. Do mind where you step, by the way" he added as another shower of sparks came from a floor cable. 

 

"But it looks like it is storing all the quantum event potentials in that..." he said, pointing to the monolith in the centre of the room, which had cables coming to and fro like a drunken spider web. 

 

"And somehow, the slowing effect is being countered. More than countered, maybe..."

[Heritage]

After catching her breath, the tiny pixie sat with her legs dangling off the table listening to Robert speak; then there was a pfft and Grim returned to normal size. "So these various Dukes do not seem to be aware of each other. The one I boxed up said he needed your speed, while the one who brought us on was only aware of things slowing down." She locked her fingers together and started to pull back and forth. "It sounds like he's his own worst enemy, robbing Peter to pay Paul, or really Peter robbing Peter to pay back a different Peter. Or something. Maybe."

 

Grim bounced off the table onto her feet, and swung her arms back and forth. "Alright, I did the coffee run, but I need to do something else. Ooh, should I go look for, like, mad scientist lab notes? And a Dutch person to translate them?"

[Thevshi]

Velocity listened as Robert confirmed what she had stated, going well beyond what she had been able to covey in the description as well, but then, this was Robert's area of expertise.  When Grim spoke up about searching for notes or the like, the speedster grinned.

 

"I was just thinking the same thing myself.  But might be best if I go take a look.  Searching the entire castle could take some time, but not for me."  She replied.  "I should only be a short while."

And with that she was gone in a blur of yellow. 

 

As Velocity had stated, searching the building was not a difficult proposition for her, even when she was carefully searching.  About ten seconds after she had left the cellar, she found a locked drawer on the nightstand in the master bedroom, an obvious place for a journal or the like.  A few supersonic punches later the draw was smashed open and she had the journal in hand.

 

Seconds later she was back in the cellar.  "Well, found a journal.  Now we shall see if we can read it."

 

 

 

 

 

[Supercape]

GM

 

The Journal was a leatherbound masterpiece, ornately crafted, smooth and creased at the same time, a tactile and visual feast. It even smelled rich and ancient. One could only guess at its age, or read the "1942" on its back cover. 

 

That in itself was interesting. Because even back in 1942, the Duke had made entries. He certainly didn't look seventy or more. At a guess, a solid forty. 

 

The entries were sparse, one a year on average, of varying length, and elegant handwriting. 

 

All of it in Dutch, and incomprehensible to either Grimalkin, Velocity or, for that matter, Robert. 

 

A few diagrams and numbers were in the Journal. If one had to speculate, there was an annotation on "time", with slowly decreasing decimal fractions of some variable.