The Welsh Countryside, Turn of the Century, A Bit Later Mid-day
It was not long of a walk before Mina and her companions encountered a path, and that path led to a small in that was not far off a proper country road. It was at this inn that they encountered a certain grizzled old man and a seemingly walking coat and hat.
It was, of course, Mina's league compatriots Allan Quatermain and Rodney Skinner.
Rodney
"You know," Rodney said. "I don't recall inviting the American to this party. Or a dog."
Mina
Mina raised an eyebrow. "Well, they are here, and I hope you will behave yourself," she said.
Nathan
"I'm not holding my breath waiting for that," Nathan mused in a mumble. And then, a little more clearly and with a nod toward the more visible member of the league, he added, "It's a pleasure to meet you again, Mr. Quartermain. Although I must admit, the circumstances leading up to myself and the canine being included in this visit were..."
He waved a hand around vaguely, groping for a word.
"Unforeseen."
Angua
Not one for small talk in her present form, Angua was still trying to size up the situation, with only a small inclination in the back of her brain from her human part that this would be easier if she wasn't wearing her paws. It was a secondary part of her thought process right now, though, if not a third or forth, as she leaned forward slightly, nose going at the air. The encounter was bringing some very...interesting new colours into her scents, that was for sure.
Allan
"Pleasure is mine as well," Quatermain said. "But may I ask you both why you've brought a wolf?"
Rodney
"Haven't we had enough of wolves in our midst?" Rodney snarked. "Or can't you resist, Mina?"
Mina
"Behave," Mina said, as she narrowed her eyes at the space where Rodney's own eyes should have been. "It is the pet of an associate of ours. It came along for the ride, I believe they say."
Nathan
"It's practically tradition," Nathan dryly remarked, idly reaching down with one hand in an attempt to lay his hand between the wolf's ears. It was, so far as he was aware, Angua's pet, after all. Hopefully some friendly human contact would keep her from becoming too anxious in these wildly unfamiliar surroundings.
... Or him, for that matter.
"Since we're here, I suppose I ought to ask if there's any way that we can be put to use." A pause, while he remembered entirely too vividly the state of affairs that London had been left in after his last visit. "Any way that I can be put to use. I'm not about to let anything kill Angua's dog."
Allan
"If that's a dog, then Rodney here is my Aunt Fanny," Allan said. "You're welcome to help us scout around, sir. The disappearances seem centered around this area."
Angua
Yes, friendly human contact that might wind up being very embarrassing should pieces be put together was not exactly what Angua was going to allow. She didn't need another bout of unneccesary face licking to happen again. She moved her head, as subtly as she could, away from the approaching hand. For both their sakes.
She'd even call them even; her rudeness at not being pet in exchange for not biting him in the arse, because if anyone was making sure Angua's dog didn't get killed, it was Angua.
Her gaze drifted up toward the fellow who seemed to have some intelligence in the matter, trying to discern from his scent whether his comments was just the run of the mill wolf distinction, or if there was something more to it. Either way, he had said the word scout, another reason why he had Angua's attention and she blinked once, twice, as if to reset the colours in her nose, and then brought it back down again to find what other ways they could be organized to give her a better hint of what she was scouting for.
Pity she was a wolf right now; were she human, she would have better appreciated the fact that, apparently, disappearance had been occuring when diasspareance was exactly the opposite of her problem right now. Maybe she could disappear herself right back to Fandom.
Mina
"Well it is what, already mid-day?" Mina said, looking about. "We have precious little daylight left if we are to search today." Right down to business. "Is there anyone here that can watch Elsie while we look? An innkeeper surely must be around."
Rodney
"You'd think," Rodney said. "But this whole place is abandoned. Told you it was centered around this area, didn't we?"
Nathan
There was a long, thoughtful pause from Nathan, while he worked on assimilating every bit of information that was flying about around them. There were mental notes like, 'Angua's pet dog is apparently a wolf with a blonde mane,' and 'see, disappearances, I knew this place was bad news' being made, and he was going to cling to them like a lifeline.
"She's followed us this far," Nathan pointed out. "I don't suppose keeping her along will hurt anything." And then, a moment later, "So. Disappearances."
Because that was always good news. Certainly.
Rodney
"Well, it's not just run of the mill disappearances," Rodney said. "I mean, we wouldn't be called in otherwise. Something tells me the dear new M didn't keep Mina in the loop on all the details."
Mina
Mina's expression soured. "What details did he omit?"
Allan
"The woods not far from here are the ones where you encountered Dr. Moreau's base," Allan stated. He had stepped away for a moment, and had a rifle in his hands, which he held out to Nathan. "You'll need this. Just in case."
Nathan
Nathan was very pleased. You could tell how very pleased he was by how he looked as though he was trying to kill the people surrounding him with the powers of his mind.
It was not working well, so he settled for just taking the gun and holding it at his side. It wasn't a sword, but he had his doubts that they would be able to just dig up a katana out of thin air for him, should he ask.
"Just in case," he echoed. Thrilled. Really. "And what do you suppose the odds are that we'll find out the disappearances have something to do with a bear in a red sweater?"
And a yellow scarf, Nathan. Don't forget the yellow scarf.
Angua
Part of Angua's brain considered following the conversation, but another part of it was easy to completely dismiss it. Because Mina was a complete twit, and because right now, she found her nose to be more useful than her ears.
Case in point: she'd begun sniffing around the parimeter of where they were, sorting out all the different smells and what they were, how they might fit into the landscape as something that was old and permanent or had been there a very long time, to the spectrum of supernatural radiating from the group themselves, to one that had a distinctively sharp green sting to it, as well as something fresh and new and definitely not natural to the other smells.
Even better, she could now see where more of that scent had headed.
Every hair on her spine stood up as she straightened stiffly, eyes piercing into the woods, and she barked, a few sharp, staccato, attention getting barks with her noise pointed in at least one of ways.
Call her crazy, but if they were looking for something, her best bet would be that-a-way.
Allan
"Looks like the wolf has found something," Quatermain said. "Nathan, Rodney, you follow the animal to wherever it heads. Mina and I will circle around, see if there's anything we can spot. I'd recommend you strip down for this, Mr. Skinner. If you'll pardon my vernacular, Mrs Harker."
Rodney
"Ah, that's why I don't get to stick with Mina," Skinner joked. "Don't want the naked man around your darl--"
Mina
"Mr. Skinner, may I remind you that I can hear you," Mina snapped. "I believe that plan sounds agreeable, Allan."
Nathan
Excellent. Nathan couldn't think of a way he'd rather spend his day than following around Angua's pet wolf in the company of the distinguished Mr. Rodney Skinner.
Possibly root canal. That seemed preferable.
"Fine, we'll follow Elsie," he said, scowling toward the doorway. "But somebody better give me something to re-load with. I'm not about to take any chances after the last time I was here."
Rodney
Rodney was already sans his hat and coat, leaving only a seemingly disembodied voice. And a scent, of course.
"I'll jump ahead. You can leave the bloody animal tracking to yourself," he said, going to scout in his own way. "Ta-ta!"
Allan
Allan grumbled himself. "I'll give you extra ammunition, of course," he said, fetching it and handing it to Nathan.
Mina
"You'll be fine," Mina insisted. "Rodney may be a scoundrel, but he is a man of his word. He is merely scouting ahead."
Angua
Thank gods it was her nose that picked up things others couldn't, and not her eyes. And thank gods she got the smart one in her group. Angua waited a little impatiently for everyone to prepare themselves, feeling too much excitement for a hunt, and then she gave another bark to let them know they'd pissed around enough, because she was heading toward the scent, nose to the ground, and moving swiftly. Not running, but the scent was foremost in her nose right now, giving her an easy trail to follow.
Nathan
Algren sighed a little at the bark, pocketing the ammunition and giving a small nod to Mina before turning to follow the canine, as quickly as he could manage. There were old aches that still tended to protest when he went any faster than an average walk, after all. But protest was little more than that, and he could easily focus past that once he took into consideration the fact that people had been vanishing.
"If we survive this," he muttered, possibly to 'Elsie,' possibly to nobody in particular, "I'm going to march into the Portalocity headquarters myself, pick up whoever is in charge of scheduling their damn portals, and shake them."
Right, Nathan. You do that.
It was a short distance, but a distance nonetheless from the inn that there was a farm on the edge of the woods.
The smell of death wafted out of the area. So much so that even Algren could probably pick up on it. And was that something moving amongst the trees?
Angua
And there Angua stopped, stock stiff, hackles raised and eyes staring straight ahead at what she saw.
She didn't know what she was smelling right now; all she knew was that she did not like it one bit. And her eyes were incredibly sharp, as well, so her attention then shifted immediately toward the moment she'd caught. She chuffed a slight sigh, realizing she had to leave it to faith that Algren didn't go and do something stupid, which was fairly ironic, since she was the one who was darting forward.
Nathan
Aaaand there went the wonder dog.
"Hey!" And, while Nathan wasn't in any hurry to let Angua's pet wolf get herself dragged off by whatever the mystery monster of the day was, he knew that smell, and found himself equally unwilling to get himself killed. He would have felt safer with a sword at his hip than he did with this rifle in his hand, he realized. He could kill three attackers with a sword in the time that it took for him to aim, fire, and then ready another shot.
And so, while he did follow, it was at the same pace he'd been keeping. Slow, deliberate, trying to keep an eye out for whatever it was that Elsie had seen that he'd missed. And hoping that whatever it was, it wasn't bulletproof.
In the distance, there was a barn, and a man who seemed to be approaching it.
And from the woods beside the barn, a great plant thing, its head open like a stalk, spat out a long coiled stinger of some sort, which caught the man right in the head. He fell without a sound, and the plant began to move. It headed into the barn, and dragged its prey with it.
Angua
Angua didn't need a sound. She stopped her charge just as quickly and suddenly as she had started, attention snapping toward the barn, and facing a dilemma. The problem with teaming with humans was that they couldn't just tell as another wolf could. Should she bark? Or would that just alert the creature to other potential victims? She'd turned her head just in time to see the man being dragged in, and she bolted now for another side of the barn. And she started scratching at the ground, trying to dig in. If she could just get enough cleared away, and could squeeze through and see what was happening, what that thing was...
...if she even wanted to see....
And with what she could see, was there were several of the things. Great stalk plants, taller than a man, all camped around a hideous compost pile of rotting flesh. The most recent victim lay on top of the pile, blinking. He was alive, still, but seemingly utterly paralyzed. Foam bubbled from his mouth, marking that his state of life was not to get any better.
It was not a pleasant sight. And it definitely wasn't a pleasant smell.
[ooc: Warning for Fictional Death and Evil Plants. NFI, NFB, OOC Welcome. Preplayed again with the supertastic colourfulscents and shiroi_tiger
It was, of course, Mina's league compatriots Allan Quatermain and Rodney Skinner.
Rodney
"You know," Rodney said. "I don't recall inviting the American to this party. Or a dog."
Mina
Mina raised an eyebrow. "Well, they are here, and I hope you will behave yourself," she said.
Nathan
"I'm not holding my breath waiting for that," Nathan mused in a mumble. And then, a little more clearly and with a nod toward the more visible member of the league, he added, "It's a pleasure to meet you again, Mr. Quartermain. Although I must admit, the circumstances leading up to myself and the canine being included in this visit were..."
He waved a hand around vaguely, groping for a word.
"Unforeseen."
Angua
Not one for small talk in her present form, Angua was still trying to size up the situation, with only a small inclination in the back of her brain from her human part that this would be easier if she wasn't wearing her paws. It was a secondary part of her thought process right now, though, if not a third or forth, as she leaned forward slightly, nose going at the air. The encounter was bringing some very...interesting new colours into her scents, that was for sure.
Allan
"Pleasure is mine as well," Quatermain said. "But may I ask you both why you've brought a wolf?"
Rodney
"Haven't we had enough of wolves in our midst?" Rodney snarked. "Or can't you resist, Mina?"
Mina
"Behave," Mina said, as she narrowed her eyes at the space where Rodney's own eyes should have been. "It is the pet of an associate of ours. It came along for the ride, I believe they say."
Nathan
"It's practically tradition," Nathan dryly remarked, idly reaching down with one hand in an attempt to lay his hand between the wolf's ears. It was, so far as he was aware, Angua's pet, after all. Hopefully some friendly human contact would keep her from becoming too anxious in these wildly unfamiliar surroundings.
... Or him, for that matter.
"Since we're here, I suppose I ought to ask if there's any way that we can be put to use." A pause, while he remembered entirely too vividly the state of affairs that London had been left in after his last visit. "Any way that I can be put to use. I'm not about to let anything kill Angua's dog."
Allan
"If that's a dog, then Rodney here is my Aunt Fanny," Allan said. "You're welcome to help us scout around, sir. The disappearances seem centered around this area."
Angua
Yes, friendly human contact that might wind up being very embarrassing should pieces be put together was not exactly what Angua was going to allow. She didn't need another bout of unneccesary face licking to happen again. She moved her head, as subtly as she could, away from the approaching hand. For both their sakes.
She'd even call them even; her rudeness at not being pet in exchange for not biting him in the arse, because if anyone was making sure Angua's dog didn't get killed, it was Angua.
Her gaze drifted up toward the fellow who seemed to have some intelligence in the matter, trying to discern from his scent whether his comments was just the run of the mill wolf distinction, or if there was something more to it. Either way, he had said the word scout, another reason why he had Angua's attention and she blinked once, twice, as if to reset the colours in her nose, and then brought it back down again to find what other ways they could be organized to give her a better hint of what she was scouting for.
Pity she was a wolf right now; were she human, she would have better appreciated the fact that, apparently, disappearance had been occuring when diasspareance was exactly the opposite of her problem right now. Maybe she could disappear herself right back to Fandom.
Mina
"Well it is what, already mid-day?" Mina said, looking about. "We have precious little daylight left if we are to search today." Right down to business. "Is there anyone here that can watch Elsie while we look? An innkeeper surely must be around."
Rodney
"You'd think," Rodney said. "But this whole place is abandoned. Told you it was centered around this area, didn't we?"
Nathan
There was a long, thoughtful pause from Nathan, while he worked on assimilating every bit of information that was flying about around them. There were mental notes like, 'Angua's pet dog is apparently a wolf with a blonde mane,' and 'see, disappearances, I knew this place was bad news' being made, and he was going to cling to them like a lifeline.
"She's followed us this far," Nathan pointed out. "I don't suppose keeping her along will hurt anything." And then, a moment later, "So. Disappearances."
Because that was always good news. Certainly.
Rodney
"Well, it's not just run of the mill disappearances," Rodney said. "I mean, we wouldn't be called in otherwise. Something tells me the dear new M didn't keep Mina in the loop on all the details."
Mina
Mina's expression soured. "What details did he omit?"
Allan
"The woods not far from here are the ones where you encountered Dr. Moreau's base," Allan stated. He had stepped away for a moment, and had a rifle in his hands, which he held out to Nathan. "You'll need this. Just in case."
Nathan
Nathan was very pleased. You could tell how very pleased he was by how he looked as though he was trying to kill the people surrounding him with the powers of his mind.
It was not working well, so he settled for just taking the gun and holding it at his side. It wasn't a sword, but he had his doubts that they would be able to just dig up a katana out of thin air for him, should he ask.
"Just in case," he echoed. Thrilled. Really. "And what do you suppose the odds are that we'll find out the disappearances have something to do with a bear in a red sweater?"
And a yellow scarf, Nathan. Don't forget the yellow scarf.
Angua
Part of Angua's brain considered following the conversation, but another part of it was easy to completely dismiss it. Because Mina was a complete twit, and because right now, she found her nose to be more useful than her ears.
Case in point: she'd begun sniffing around the parimeter of where they were, sorting out all the different smells and what they were, how they might fit into the landscape as something that was old and permanent or had been there a very long time, to the spectrum of supernatural radiating from the group themselves, to one that had a distinctively sharp green sting to it, as well as something fresh and new and definitely not natural to the other smells.
Even better, she could now see where more of that scent had headed.
Every hair on her spine stood up as she straightened stiffly, eyes piercing into the woods, and she barked, a few sharp, staccato, attention getting barks with her noise pointed in at least one of ways.
Call her crazy, but if they were looking for something, her best bet would be that-a-way.
Allan
"Looks like the wolf has found something," Quatermain said. "Nathan, Rodney, you follow the animal to wherever it heads. Mina and I will circle around, see if there's anything we can spot. I'd recommend you strip down for this, Mr. Skinner. If you'll pardon my vernacular, Mrs Harker."
Rodney
"Ah, that's why I don't get to stick with Mina," Skinner joked. "Don't want the naked man around your darl--"
Mina
"Mr. Skinner, may I remind you that I can hear you," Mina snapped. "I believe that plan sounds agreeable, Allan."
Nathan
Excellent. Nathan couldn't think of a way he'd rather spend his day than following around Angua's pet wolf in the company of the distinguished Mr. Rodney Skinner.
Possibly root canal. That seemed preferable.
"Fine, we'll follow Elsie," he said, scowling toward the doorway. "But somebody better give me something to re-load with. I'm not about to take any chances after the last time I was here."
Rodney
Rodney was already sans his hat and coat, leaving only a seemingly disembodied voice. And a scent, of course.
"I'll jump ahead. You can leave the bloody animal tracking to yourself," he said, going to scout in his own way. "Ta-ta!"
Allan
Allan grumbled himself. "I'll give you extra ammunition, of course," he said, fetching it and handing it to Nathan.
Mina
"You'll be fine," Mina insisted. "Rodney may be a scoundrel, but he is a man of his word. He is merely scouting ahead."
Angua
Thank gods it was her nose that picked up things others couldn't, and not her eyes. And thank gods she got the smart one in her group. Angua waited a little impatiently for everyone to prepare themselves, feeling too much excitement for a hunt, and then she gave another bark to let them know they'd pissed around enough, because she was heading toward the scent, nose to the ground, and moving swiftly. Not running, but the scent was foremost in her nose right now, giving her an easy trail to follow.
Nathan
Algren sighed a little at the bark, pocketing the ammunition and giving a small nod to Mina before turning to follow the canine, as quickly as he could manage. There were old aches that still tended to protest when he went any faster than an average walk, after all. But protest was little more than that, and he could easily focus past that once he took into consideration the fact that people had been vanishing.
"If we survive this," he muttered, possibly to 'Elsie,' possibly to nobody in particular, "I'm going to march into the Portalocity headquarters myself, pick up whoever is in charge of scheduling their damn portals, and shake them."
Right, Nathan. You do that.
It was a short distance, but a distance nonetheless from the inn that there was a farm on the edge of the woods.
The smell of death wafted out of the area. So much so that even Algren could probably pick up on it. And was that something moving amongst the trees?
Angua
And there Angua stopped, stock stiff, hackles raised and eyes staring straight ahead at what she saw.
She didn't know what she was smelling right now; all she knew was that she did not like it one bit. And her eyes were incredibly sharp, as well, so her attention then shifted immediately toward the moment she'd caught. She chuffed a slight sigh, realizing she had to leave it to faith that Algren didn't go and do something stupid, which was fairly ironic, since she was the one who was darting forward.
Nathan
Aaaand there went the wonder dog.
"Hey!" And, while Nathan wasn't in any hurry to let Angua's pet wolf get herself dragged off by whatever the mystery monster of the day was, he knew that smell, and found himself equally unwilling to get himself killed. He would have felt safer with a sword at his hip than he did with this rifle in his hand, he realized. He could kill three attackers with a sword in the time that it took for him to aim, fire, and then ready another shot.
And so, while he did follow, it was at the same pace he'd been keeping. Slow, deliberate, trying to keep an eye out for whatever it was that Elsie had seen that he'd missed. And hoping that whatever it was, it wasn't bulletproof.
In the distance, there was a barn, and a man who seemed to be approaching it.
And from the woods beside the barn, a great plant thing, its head open like a stalk, spat out a long coiled stinger of some sort, which caught the man right in the head. He fell without a sound, and the plant began to move. It headed into the barn, and dragged its prey with it.
Angua
Angua didn't need a sound. She stopped her charge just as quickly and suddenly as she had started, attention snapping toward the barn, and facing a dilemma. The problem with teaming with humans was that they couldn't just tell as another wolf could. Should she bark? Or would that just alert the creature to other potential victims? She'd turned her head just in time to see the man being dragged in, and she bolted now for another side of the barn. And she started scratching at the ground, trying to dig in. If she could just get enough cleared away, and could squeeze through and see what was happening, what that thing was...
...if she even wanted to see....
And with what she could see, was there were several of the things. Great stalk plants, taller than a man, all camped around a hideous compost pile of rotting flesh. The most recent victim lay on top of the pile, blinking. He was alive, still, but seemingly utterly paralyzed. Foam bubbled from his mouth, marking that his state of life was not to get any better.
It was not a pleasant sight. And it definitely wasn't a pleasant smell.
[ooc: Warning for Fictional Death and Evil Plants. NFI, NFB, OOC Welcome. Preplayed again with the supertastic colourfulscents and shiroi_tiger