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Wholly unamused, she swayed backwards as Torashiki was thunderously shoved to the ground in the wake of Gleeford’s medical inconvenience. Even as he faded out from view, Ingrid turned and shielded her face with the atomizer. She could not bear to suffer such indignity. It wasn’t until she heard the click of a lighter that she felt safe in lowering her guard. This time he had something, or rather, he had brought one of those blue screen that had plagued her first few minutes in this perfectly normal city. Quickly trading her perfume bottle for a handkerchief, she covered her nose and mouth at the slightest mention of flu.

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Normally, she wouldn't accept this sort of request from this sort of person, but these happened to be some of the strangest of times. Putting her tinted teashades to the test, she ventured to study the small white text from her safe distance. She hadn’t been alone, as Torashiki chimed in with his half-baked assessment of the sparse text. Having to endure the annoyance of Torashiki's relentless floundering was unacceptable, and now it was getting in the way of what could have been progress. Yes that wasn't the end of it. After struggling to read what little there was it, he turned to her; though it was reasonable to expect some reprisal, she didn’t quite expect it in such an infuriating tone (which seemed to be his natural voice). Ingrid was taken aghast, ‘The nerve of him.’

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Meeting just the barest minimum of eye contact--or whatever amounted to catching a glimpse of his pink, flickering globes--she shot him a look of unbridled indignation. While she wasn't able to work miracles, he was made tolerable to be around if only for fleeting moments. Time and time again, over the course of less than a minute, he continued to test and test her patience. His current misfortune may have been first and foremost Ingrid's fault, but she still believed she was owed a more genuine thanks, and she would’ve gone as far as to demand an apology.

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So long as this rancid young man remained a splintered memory, her beloved scent would be tainted, rendered unusable by her. Realizing it wasn't an appropriate time to air this grievance, she decided to allow it to simmer as a grudge, “Yes yes. You are very welcome.” She dismissed in a tone of flagrant disinterest.

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Gently setting her parasol on the ground, Ingrid thought back to how this all started. Setting her hand forward and visualizing her own blue screen into the fold. Her own stomach churned as she got a full feel as to what was on display, and she wished it all to end very quickly. With a deep groan, she began her journey into exposition for the incapacitated Gleeford, “It says there are still dwindling participants in an beacon lighting event, which I surmise we are supposed to be a part of. This yes or no is asking if we’d like to form a group.” There was some reluctance as she flatly gave a synopsis of the blue box’s content. She hesitated, this whole experience had been absolutely taxing on her. Being forced to deal with such undesirables, and in an oppressively corrupted city of all places.

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Whether they grouped or not, the evening ahead looked relentless. Exchanging her heels for a pair of buckled of ballet flats she had squirreled away in her large purse, she dropped her pain-au-chocolat in the process (unbeknownst to her). Tapping her heel, Ingrid examined the group, taking her parasol back into hand, using it to tap the affirmative, “Good evening, I am Ingrid Karina. You may call me Ms. or Mlle. Karina, may I have your names?"

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"..." Gleeford's head was still riddled with the weird sense of darkness. Doubt? Fear? Anger? It was hard for him to put his finger on it, but self-reflection wasn't really his spiel. Instead, he opted to distract himself with the new information coming in. The gloomy youth was a useless source, but the elegant lady proved far more capable. As he thought, the blue screen was important to the situation at hand. Things were moving along, and the participant number was decreasing. The part that troubled him was the suggestion of grouping up. Should he just go along with this weird dialogue that seemed to have preternatural information on what was going on?

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"What even is that blue thing? It isn't always like, informative. There's weird greetings and faces. At least, there was at first. It typed like a person too. I don't get it." Having pulled on his cigarette until it was naught but filter, Gleeford decided to stand up. He wasn't feeling better, but he was getting used to it. Sitting around definitely wasn't helping. Dusting off his rear, he then proceeded to run his fingers back through his hair. He was just going through the motions of 'straightening' himself up to regain his bearing. He was still a mess, but the illusion helped him feel more normal.

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"You may call me Mr..." Gleeford was responding to Ingrid with a strange expression. He was wrinkling his nose, and pulling the corners of his mouth up as high as he could to sound hoighty toighty and proper, but he couldn't maintain it.

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"Eh, I'm Gleeford. As far as this grouping junk, I don't like how it's 'watching' us and making suggestions. Makes me want to say no, and tell it to fuck off. It's weird though, giving us a choice. Somehow drops us in the middle of some spooky city, and says something about a beacon boss. No choice in the matter. Now it's playing coy and goin, 'do it if you waaaaant'. I feel like it knows I'd run off, and is trying to tempt me to mess things up. Well jokes on you, blue thing, I say we do form a group, just to spite it." Gleeford had been verbalizing his thoughts, and committed quite the sharp turn near the end. With an indignant frown, Gleeford slammed his finger on the 'yes' prompt on the screen. The next thing he knew, a chime sounded and a beam of light was blaring up into the sky in the distance.

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"...Does that look like a beacon?" Glancing over towards the new information on the blue screen, Gleeford addended his question. "And is the participants dropping good or bad?"

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Elara listened and took in whatever information she could between feeling the cold down to her bones and looking around nervously. There was also a healthy bit of glaring at Gleeford and Torashiki, but she tried not to be too noticeable about that; they would get what's coming to them, whether she tried to make them realize it or not. Still, their insufferable behavior was definitely getting to her, her emotions already raw and reactive. Eel untied the hoodie from around her waist and slung it over her shoulders, the arms going over each side with it draped on her back. It didn't do anything to help with the chills she felt but it would hopefully keep the arms themselves from getting too irreparably stretched out.


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'Gleeford' somehow felt inappropriate and yet sort of perfect for the cheerfully annoying man with the lit cigarette dangling from his mouth. As for 'junk', yeah, that was perfectly apt, and Eel wouldn't 'worry about it'. The man cleaning his face with his own spit was very much the kind of filthy he seemed proud of. Ingrid, on the other hand, had her own way of referring to herself, as poise as the rest of her general countenance. Elara found some of the previous anger fading as she'd heard the other woman's introduction; while they were distinctly different people, this was someone Elara could maybe get along with. Otherwise it'd probably be a miserable day, what with the 'mission' imposed on them.



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Elara found her break in the conversation after 'Junk', and was all-too keen on his glance toward her before following in what seemed to be his trademark morose style of speech. She felt annoyance well up in her again, and met his gaze with her own icy stare. She broke eye contact and, shivering, moving over to the blue pop-up and tapped the acceptance before moving back to her position on the periphery of the group.



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"Elara, but Eel is fine for me too. Probably easier to remember." She went back to shivering there on the street, eyes moving to a point between buildings and noting the beam of light everyone else had been at some point focused on. If there was something to do and a participants number going down, she could only assume people were dying, or leaving, and since the mission didn't seem complete...



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"Maybe they've just fallen in a hole or something..." Her musing was one of attempted self-comfort, because of course purgatory wouldn't be so simple as to eliminate people by *accident*. There were probably Inferno-esque hells for the group to brave before they could be free of all this, and Elara felt more and more ready to do just about anything to get away from all this nonsense. Feeling inactive for too long, she felt a desire to move first, taking a few steps in a direction before stopping and turning her attention back to the group. Elara rubbed at her arms, just as much out of anxiety as it was to warm up her frigid but at least now drying skin. "Do we go hunt for a different beacon, then? Or avoid danger altogether."

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"_{You don't have to call me anything...}"[break][break]

Torashiki was in the process of zoning out, imagining the world where he wouldn't have to put forth a noticeable effort. He hadn't been able to do that for most of his life really so it was more like imagining the only world he could be considered "winning" in. He didn't really pick up on anything the new message from Earth-chan was going on about. He was really only brought out of it when there seemed to be some consensus to action he could be swept up away in. It helped that someone in the group had urgency to spare and did their best to hand it out.[break][break]

"_{Doubt i'll ever figure that out.}" He grumbled as his pace set by Gleeford slowed to a comfortable limp that would have been the best he could manage even if he hadn't been tumbling on pavement all day. While not exactly glacial it was still slow enough that the older man had no issue taking a detour to admire some garbage and stay ahead of Junker the whole time. The promise of work was turning his mood sour, and even further beyond that. His feelings becoming truly acetous as the world around him was less and less of a concern. He had already been sitting around in the worst conditions imaginable, it was incredible that such a life found a way to get worse.[break][break]

Without an ounce of bravery he failed to register any sounds behind him as the more able-bodied and certainly many leagues more active members of the party would increase their lead. All the while whatever he'd been doing to make you feel all shitty only got worse. The loose detritus around the abandoned city trailing no more than ten or so feet behind him in a field of slightly warping colours. He couldn't even manage a sigh in between heavy pants while thinking about the indignity of it all.[break][break]

In any reasonable conclusion of events, with as many sure signs of the apocalypse as giant monoliths and city swallowing sinkholes ought to be, he shouldn't even have to be walking around right now. He shouldn't have to be doing anything or feeling any pain or dealing with annoying touchy grimesters.[break][break]

"Eeeh... What a pain..." Was all he could manage to mutter every now and again between shallow breaths while trodding along.

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Having her priorities in order; Ingrid indeed, knew exactly what Gleedford was getting at. She was far from hopeful, given every way Earth-Chan had failed her thus far, “I would hope so, it’d be some cruel joke if the prize was ‘you get to stay alive’.” She bitterly snapped, taking her own life for granted. Ingrid could hardly stand jokes in the first place, especially practical jokes at her expense. Earth-Chan had overstayed their already brief ‘welcome’ period.
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Any hope of a prize was thrown into a particularly disastrous tailspin. Ingrid had suffered a number of indignities that night; from being transplanted to a ruined New York, to the unbearable totality of Junk's presence. Yet, to be so gravely insulted was perhaps the worst slight of the night (thus far). A nerve had been struck into a toppling of her nervous system, by way of her already fragile sense of patience. To call her boring was a step well past a step too far. A furor crept across her brow, as her once frigid blood dangerously roared into a rapid boil.
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Much of the more deranged minutiae of Earth-Chan’s game slipped away, and Ingrid, focused fully on proving the smug, smiling globe wrong. She wasn’t so blinded by her newfound rage, in fact, she had achieved an unusual clarity, dropping into a when-in-Palmyra era. For now, her parasol would have to do; she had seen enough heavily choreographed duels on stage to partially believe that she had in her to fence if the need came around. It couldn’t be too difficult, a lunge or two, failing that, she had a few solid objects (chiefly, her other perfumes and her heels) left in her purse.
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A mixture of anger at the precariousness of their situation and an overall manner of being receptive to the encroaching stench of tobacco, Ingrid took ‘Jog’ directly to heart--although she had a liberal interpretation of jog. Ingrid’s naturally long stride had already granted her a stable pace with her casual strut, her entering an athletic run propelled her onwards. Slowed only slightly by the drag of her parasol, she was onboard with the rush to the best of her ability. With this challenge still dangling over her head in a fiendish Ciceronian sense, she kept an eye out for anything that may be construed as a beacon, prepared to enter a building. Beginning to break a sweat, the prim and proper Ingrid yearned for the days behind the wheel of her blood money bought Porsche. For the fleetest for moments, she swore she could feel the steering wheel in her flailing fist, and eagle-eyed compatriots may have even saw it.
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Yet, something still bothered her. Ingrid didn't have much interest in video games, outside of disliking the medium based only on the amount of cosplay she constructed for some of her clients. Some of its terminology, was completely lost on her to a suspiciously deliberate degree. A bit embarrassed, she took her eyes off of the road, "What do you think it meant by 'boss'? " She asked, loudly, ahead of the group. It was clearly a critical subject, for it didn't matter how many beacons they activated, if they weren't in the boss's arbitrary defeat circle they were still...
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failures

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