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Black Satin Sunrise [Quest] [Done]

Postby Night » 10/05/2017 11:52 PM

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It wasn't that he was having a terrible birthday. Honestly, it was kind of neat - they got to go to a graveyard, which was always a good time. Plus it was Halloween, so he got to see all the little kids walking up and down the street in their costumes. Halloween was the best birthday anyone could have, in Lero's opinion. Not that he was biased.

What wasn't awesome, however, was the fact that they were here for work, which was the worst sort of birthday that anyone could have. He made sure to declare as much to anyone that happened to be listening, which seemed to only consist of Bob and Bob wasn't talking to him at the moment regardless.

"I just want it to be known that you guys are the worst and I hate you!" He shouted after Oliver and Brian, now well ahead of the group and scaling the rickety excuse for a fence. They didn't seem particularly worried about his sudden dislike for them.
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Re: Black Satin Sunrise [Quest]

Postby Night » 10/20/2017 3:34 AM

The moon loomed overhead, casting an eerie glow to the tombstones rising up like jagged teeth from the earth. Inside the fence, Lero climbed his way up onto Bob's back, claiming his poor health when the larger man protested. "What are we doing out here, anyway?"

Bob grunted in response, trying to hike Frankie's legs up under his arms so they were at least not in the way. He swore that the dude had an allergy to the ground.

"Aside from playing the ground is lava, apparently," Brian eyed Lero down over Bob's shoulder. "We're looking for some plants." He gestured towards Oliver, who was bent low over a crumbling gravestone inspecting some wilted looking weeds.

"Plants?!" Frankie's voice echoed strangely off the marble. Jay shushed him. The last thing they needed was to call attention to themselves. The likelihood that they were actually allowed in here in the middle of the night was not particularly high. "Plants?" Lero continued, whispering now. "Why the hell did we come all the way out here in the middle of the night looking for plants? We could have just come during the day. Or, I don't know, looked in Bob's overgrown back yard."
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Re: Black Satin Sunrise [Quest]

Postby Night » 10/20/2017 3:39 AM

Oliver straightened, wiping his hands off on his dark slacks. "They only bloom at night." He pushed past Brian, motioning them further up the path. "And they're kinda rare. I don't even know for sure that they're still here, I just remember seeing them when I was a kid." He peered behind a tombstone, as though the flowers were going to just jump out and scare him and he had to keep watch.

"That doesn't really answer why we need them." Lero pushed his heels in to Bob's side pleasantly, trying to spur him forward. Bob rolled his eyes and reluctantly obeyed. Only because he wanted to - and that's the direction they were going anyway.

"They're supposed to have some sort of power of protection." Jay piped up. He shoved his glasses further up the bridge of his nose. Lero cast a weary eye over him, generally unwilling to trust any information that Jay presented so casually.

"What? I can read too,  ya know." The younger of the two brothers huffed.
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Re: Black Satin Sunrise [Quest]

Postby Night » 10/20/2017 3:46 AM

The flowers, as it turned out, were exceptionally rare. So much so that Frankie was beginning to doubt whether they could be found at all. After over an hour of searching, the most he'd been able to turn up were some unfortunate looking roses that had blown off of one of the newer grave sites. Bob had insisted that he walk for himself half an hour into it, which had taken all of the fun out of searching.

"Are you sure they were here?" Lero pushed his toe into the soft earth of a newly turned burial site and frowned.

"Nope!" Oliver called back pleasantly. His cleric's collar was stained and his white hair looked thoroughly mussed. If they ever managed to leave, they were going to have to rent a hotel room just to get a good shower. Lero returned to looking, not unaware that it was growing ever later. The shadows were twisting around the tombstones. What time was it? Surely they wouldn't be here all night on Halloween. Where was the fun in any of this?
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Re: Black Satin Sunrise [Quest]

Postby Night » 10/21/2017 6:31 PM

After another hour of searching, Lero was thoroughly bored and entirely unamused. He had tried several times to scare Bob by jumping out from behind the tombstones, told Oliver there was a spiderweb in his hair, and threatened to lock Brian in the mausoleum. The group was far too accustomed to his antics and had taken up the general stance of ignoring him entirely. While it meant he didn't have to actively search for this plant-whatever, it also meant that he had run out of other activities to amuse himself. The trick-or-treaters had long since stopped strolling by, and it didn't look like there were any high schoolers daring one another to go into the cemetery. Though that did give him an idea....

"Hey Jay!" Frankie bounced over to him, his seemingly abundant energy still apparent. "Did you know this graveyard is supposedly haunted?" Jay arched his eyebrows at him, disbelieving.

"First of all, no it's not. Second of all, even if it were haunted - Frankie, you remember that we deal with ghosts and spirits as part of our job, right? It's literally what we do for a living. Among other things." Touché. Lero had nothing to argue against that.
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Re: Black Satin Sunrise [Quest]

Postby Night » 10/21/2017 6:37 PM

A sudden yell sent a thrill of excitement through him. Jay sprung up from his position on the ground inspecting the weeds and the pair of them darted off to find the source of the commotion. Frankie held out hope that it was something awesome; zombies, maybe, or vengeful spirits. Hell, he'd even take vampires over this boring night.

Oliver was waving them over to the base of an old, dead-looking tree. Bob and Brian had already gathered, staring down at...

"Well I'll be damned. They actually do exist." Jay elbowed him in the side, leaving Lero to rub at his ribs and pout. "What?! I thought that you guys were just making it up to ruin my birthday."

It was Brian's turn to look hurt. "We aren't out here trying to ruin your birthday, Frankie. We're out here for work. Maybe if you stop complaining about it we'll take you out to eat after." Lero felt vaguely like a child that was being bribed into silence. He wasn't sure how to feel about that. Also, where the hell were they going to go out to eat in the middle of the night? A glance at his phone told him it was past three in the morning. They had been searching through the dirt for hours and it wasn't even his birthday anymore.
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Re: Black Satin Sunrise [Quest]

Postby Night » 10/21/2017 6:48 PM

"This is the worst Halloween ever. Why couldn't we have done this some other time?" Lero was knelt down with the stupid, tiny pair of scissors that Oliver had shoved at him to clip off the minuscule blooms. "It's not like they're going anywhere. Flowers don't just get up and walk away." So he may have been sulking. It wasn't as though he didn't have just cause. They had taken the best day of the year and turned it into a snooze fest. They hadn't even jumped when he tried to scare them or stopped to listen to his spooky stories.

"They only bloom one night a year." Jay's glasses were sliding down his nose, making him look bookish and old.

"You said they bloomed at night. You didn't say anything about one night a year." Frankie was ninety percent sure that they were just making things up to keep him compliant. It wouldn't be the first time; the only reason he was in this business in the first place was because Jay had convinced him it was what they needed to do. The faint fizzling of boredom was beginning to fade into tired sluggishness that pulled at his eyes. He snipped at another flower, accidentally slicing it in half and rendering it useless.
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Re: Black Satin Sunrise [Quest]

Postby Night » 10/21/2017 8:57 PM

The tiny scissors made his hands cramp up. Frankie leaned back against the trunk of the tree and gazed out at the cemetery stretching around them. The first hints of morning were making themselves known, the fog beginning to roll in. It sent a chill up through him. Between the moisture and the cool air, the autumn mornings weren't precisely the best for sitting outside. Still, he was quite tired. It wouldn't take much to drift off to sleep...

Jay nudged Oliver's elbow, nodding towards Frankie propped against the tree. "I think he's fallen asleep." Oliver shrugged. If Lero was asleep it would only make their current endeavors easier. They had a ridiculous amount of blooms to collect if they wanted to get any use out of them and Frankie's constant complaining didn't make it easy to concentrate. In a way, Oliver was somewhat relieved. He was kind of tired of Lero trying to scare him every time they passed by a particularly large statue or gravestone. Oliver had become a little jumpy since their latest adventure.

Brian yawned widely, pushing a handful of flowers into the bag Bob was holding open. "I take it back. We're not going out to eat, we're renting a hotel and sleeping all day as soon as we're done here."
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Re: Black Satin Sunrise [Quest]

Postby Night » 10/21/2017 9:05 PM

They shook him awake some time later. The sun was touching against the hills, casting long shadows that reached out like hands from the tombstones. "Did we really stay here all night?" Frankie tried to rub the sleep out of his eyes. Bob nodded and offered him a hand up.

The plants were picked clean of flowers and what few buds remaining closed up against the light. Jay held up a plastic bag full of blooms for him to inspect and Lero peered into it, bleary eyed. "You guys seriously stayed up to harvest all of that? How many of these things do we need?"

A feeling of dread welled up inside of him. "Please tell me we don't have to go and find more somewhere." Oliver laughed at his expression of panic.

"No, this should be more than plenty. We just went ahead and gathered what we could so that we wouldn't have to come back any time soon." It's not like they could make this an every day venture. Lero would have a conniption, and besides - they really did only bloom on Halloween night.

Frankie sighed, very obviously relieved. He worked to stretch his stiff shoulders as he stood. "Still. I can't believe we stayed in the graveyard all night."
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Re: Black Satin Sunrise [Quest]

Postby Night » 10/21/2017 9:22 PM

They began packing up their things, shoving shears and gloves into a duffel bag that Oliver had drug out of the van. Why he'd had those things was anyone's best guess. Brian grabbed it and began the slow procession back to their vehicle. Jay followed after Oliver, falling into a sluggishly trudging single file line. People were going to think they were a funeral procession. Lero peered down the hill and mourned the fact that the walk was so far.

He was about to begin his decent when Bob scooped him up. "Come on then." Lero was shocked. Bob had never offered to carry him anywhere - normally he had to be begged and pleaded. At the very least he needed be snuck up on. His expression must have conveyed his thoughts because Bob rolled his eyes at him.

"Don't look at me like that. You're cute when you're tired, and honestly I didn't want to listen to you complain the whole way down the hill." Lero was willing to take any excuse that Bob wanted to make up if it meant he didn't have to walk. They trudged their way down the hill to the van, where Bob unceremoniously dropped him in the front seat.

"I get to ride in the front?" Even in his half-awake state he knew well enough to be excited. Bob was normally very protective over his space.

"Mhm. Just until we get to the hotel. Don't go getting any crazy ideas in your head that this is permanent." Lero wasn't looking a gift horse in the mouth. Perhaps their night in the graveyard hadn't been completely for nothing.  Brian started the engine and pulled out of the parking lot, bidding a long over due farewell to the cemetery.
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