Sir Jacob Frye (brassknuckles) wrote in valloic, @ 2020-10-08 11:33:00 |
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Entry tags: | !: action/thread/log, assassin's creed: evie frye, assassin's creed: jacob frye |
He’d learn about the hotel’s power firsthand soon enough, unfortunately.
“So tell me again. Did you see anything that might lead us to an artifact?” From what he’d heard, there’d been more than a few run-ins with the dark magic here, but he still swaggered up to the building like he didn’t have a care in the world. The inside of the lobby was ugly as sin but seemed innocent enough. “Anyone lurking nearly out of sight with a hand behind their back, that sort of thing?”
Evie was slightly more cautious, but right at his heels. She’d seen it first-hand, but still had very little idea of what to expect, given the experience had left them a little rattled. Still, it was worth investigating, especially from someone who had already seen it and not been affected the same as another had.
She’d hoped with warning and preparation, that Jacob would have the same experience. Investigating was something they excelled at, but the whole experience left her wary. It’d been difficult to focus on much at all, the space itself working against her when she visited the first time. She didn’t expect it would be much different now. “No, but Thurvishar was hearing voices. I don’t know if they were voices from his past, or ones conjured up by this place. It wouldn’t be the first time an artifact has done that to someone.”
“No it certainly wouldn’t,” Jacob frowned. He paused at the entrance, not entirely reckless, and looked inside with his eagle vision. Nothing dangerous drew his eye. “Sounds a bit like the apple. Maybe we should’ve brought il signore Auditore,” he said in a mockingly posh voice.
To be fair, he respected Ezio and Leonardo. As far as Brotherhood leaders and their brilliant counterparts went, they were an exceptional set. But that’s why they were so bloody annoying too. Ezio doing well at fight club hadn’t endeared him to Jacob, but mostly Jacob joked to see if it would get a rise out of Evie. His smirk died, though, as the hotel interior beckoned in an eerie way.
Jacob scowled and took a few steps inside. There was a familiar scent here. He couldn’t place it just yet.
Evie had warned Jacob, thoroughly. She had done a little research, talked to Dan, and compiled knowledge. Went into this as informed as she could, despite the warnings. Because really, when had they ever been one to heed warnings when it seemed as if something more was going on than the entire picture.
And who better than someone who had already experienced it and walked away? Jacob was a worry, but not for the same reasons he usually was. A worry for him. Though she hoped knowledge would help him there, as well. She still followed behind, a little more warily than she would have normally. “With all due respect to Mentor Auditore, we would likely be taking a back seat to knowledge if it is an Apple.” She smirked at his back. “And given what happened with theirs, I’m a little wary.”
As she stepped inside, she made a little noise. This place was no less eerie than it had been with Thurvishar. “We didn’t get very far in before Thurvishar attacked me,” Evie warned.
“You could’ve just said bah who needs them, Evie,” Jacob joked. “You might not want immortality, but I’m not sure I’d be against it.” As lightweight as his tone was, his words felt strangely heavy, like they didn’t carry very far in this strange place. He frowned and moved a little more cautiously down the hall. His head stayed cocked a little to the side. Besides the ambient hum of electricity and the sound of air pumping through the vents overhead, there weren't any suspicious sounds at first.
Until a crackling started, anyway. The familiar scent intensified and Jacob felt his breath catch despite himself. “Do you smell that? It smells like--”
A door opened down the hall and the distant sound of people talking and shouting filtered to them. He picked up speed, glancing quickly over his shoulder at her then back ahead. Eagle vision showed a half-dozen auras, maybe more, deeper into the room. “Are you getting this?”
Oh, fuck.
Evie sighed heavily, catching Jacob’s look distinctly. The hotel still just looked like a hotel to her, whole and ugly as it was, but empty. Her eagle vision showed her nothing but Jacob, and him hurrying away from her made Evie speed up with less grace than normal, wanting to keep him safe, if she could. “Jacob. We’re here for a task, remember? Piece of Eden.” She was still a few steps behind him, and picked it up, jogging a few steps to reach him. “I’m not getting anything, we discussed this. It could be tricking you.”
She could only imagine what it was showing him. So much of their London escapades had been apart, separated by pride or circumstance, but he’d seen a lot that she only heard of from her end of things. Evie reached out to touch his arm, lightly. “Jacob.”
“Well if that’s the case, it’s not much of a trick,” Jacob complained. He very much hated the idea that he was getting the wool pulled over his eyes. “And anyway, we might as well see where it leads.” It probably wasn’t the first time he’d said such a thing before stepping through a doorway that led to awful things. But it was the first time he’d stepped through a doorway to an empty room after very clearly seeing people inside.
It was some kind of large dining room. Maybe a restaurant. But there wasn’t anything but tables and shadows.
“That was anticlimactic, I have to say.” He turned to head back towards Evie only to suddenly find himself facing a wall of flames, licking up along the walls around the door and crawling across the floor towards him. The roar of the fire was impossible not to hear now, and the smell. Jacob stumbled backwards, cursing and tripping over his own feet. He could feel the heat, the itch in his lungs to cough. He shouted through it. "Evie!"
On Evie’s end, the door was slammed and they were separated. Evie’s heart rate climbed, with Jacob now trapped, away from her. She pulled on the doorknob, but nothing happened. “Jacob!” She yelled back, hearing him clearly, but unable to do anything about it and frustrated.
Reaching into her braid she pulled out a hair pin and knelt down. “Hang on, I’ll see if I can pick the lock!” Failing that, she could probably kick it down. Perhaps. The hotel might have been fucking with them at this point, but Evie wasn’t about to let it keep them apart. Locks were easy back home, but that was a century ago and these days things were a little more complex. And annoying.
So it wasn’t shocking when her pin broke, but she did swear loudly. “Damn it. Jacob? Are you still there? Talk to me.”
It was the theater all over again only his sister hadn’t been there. He knew – logically – this was how this place worked. At least, he’d heard enough to understand it played on fears. But all he could think in the moment was that he could feel the heat on his face and the sting on his hands when he shoved a burning table aside one with one hand and reached for the doorknob with the other. He hissed and stumbled back again, patting out a few small flames on his jacket.
The fire flared bigger, greedily covering the door.
“I’m here,” he called back, coughing. “I can’t get through the door. You really can’t see all this bloody fire?” It baffled him that anything could seem so real and only be in his head. His hands hurt. His jacket was visibly singed. “Don’t suppose there’s a—“ His coughing grew worse. “—A villain lurking around a corner out there? Stab him for me if you see him, yeah?”
She didn’t see smoke or flames from her side, but she heard Jacob’s cough, and knew had to feel real. She’d remembered the look on Thurvishar’s face, how he felt the pain, and was clearly affected by it. The idea that Jacob might very well be injured by this place from what he saw was terrifying in itself.
Even if she was sure there was no one behind her or around a corner, Evie glanced, just for him. “There’s no one. Roth isn’t here, Jacob. Come on,” The last part was muttered at the door, anger lacing each word as she yanked on the knob when her second pin didn’t work. She let her head drop to the door for a second, listening and waiting. “Keep talking to me. Remember-- It’s just this place. Whatever this is. Jacob.”
In a last ditch effort, she stood again and took one step back, braced herself, and shoved her boot at the edge of the door, where it was supposedly weakest. It didn’t give, and only served to make Evie swear again, in pain.
The mention of Roth pinched Jacob’s face into a grimace. He wasn’t afraid of Maxwell Roth. He refused to be haunted by him. Thankfully, he didn’t see or hear him on this side either, but he did see the fire pressing in from all sides. It sparked again, catching at the bottom of his trousers. He patted the flames out quickly.
He needed to focus on his sister’s voice. “Yes, well, this place is on fire,” he complained petulantly.
It was less Evie’s practicality and more her determination and sound of pain that shook him loose. Maybe that was unsurprising.
“Don’t do anything too heroic out there,” he demanded. “I’m…sorting this out.” He stared down the distance between him and the door, now fully engulfed. His pulse hammered. He was a sweaty, sooty mess with skin that stung in a variety of ways and he’d only been in here a few minutes. This place probably could burn him alive inside of his own mind. If he let it. He was determined not to let it. Ignoring the pit of fear in his gut, Jacob ran straight for the door, eyes wide open. He surprised even himself when he slammed right through the door and tumbled out into the hallway.
She’d seen him coming, but just barely. Evie was pushed out of the way with the momentum of the door, Jacob clipping her shoulder lightly enough to push her back. It didn’t last for long, because as soon as he’d stopped, she was pushing forward to him.
And for the first time in all of this, smelled the smoke. She saw him, still singed and soot covered, as if he had just tumbled out of an actual fire, but there was none of it left in his wake. Just on him.
“Jesus,” Evie muttered, and started patting at a part of his coat that was smoldering, putting it out with a gloved hand. “Are you okay? Is it-” Has it passed? “Burns? Insanity? Tell me now, because so help me, I will slap it out of you.” Her arm was still there, close enough to reach up and smack him, but she pulled him in for a relieved hug instead, threat fallen off to the side.
There’d been the smallest bit of doubt in Jacob’s heart, but sheer stubbornness had carried him through, thank God. Still, it took a second for all of his pistons to start firing again. Which was how he found himself squashed into a hug before he even knew it was happening.
He held on a little tighter than he’d admit to later, just until his breathing leveled out.
“If I said I was insane, would that mean I’m not?” he teased weakly. His gaze shot towards the door and he was both surprised and not surprised at all to see it open and an untouched dining area visible beyond. He gave Evie a final squeeze and let go. “I swear it felt so real, Evie. I--” His palms were bright red when he checked. Somehow that was a comfort. Didn’t stop him from jamming them into his pockets, though. “Any chance we can skip the I told you sos?”
The hug had been a comfort to her to the level that she wouldn’t admit, the same as Jacob not owning up to squeezing a little tighter. She huffed out a little laugh at his insanity joke, and when they were separated, she went about the business of brushing him off a little more. She wouldn’t be able to get half of the soot and dirt, but it gave her something to do while she was setting her mind right again.
“We can postpone them,” Evie promised, for now. She was back to being all business with squared shoulders and her cane sword tucked her her elbow. “If it was a Piece of Eden, we would have had to touch it for it to have that strong of an effect on you.” She nodded down at his hands as he tucked them away, “Should we get you back and checked over first, for burns?”
“No, it’s nothing,” he insisted, quickly regaining some of his devil-may-care posture. “I’ve burnt myself worse on the kettle.” That wasn’t true, but it easily could have been and Jacob hoped Evie would let him have this one. He nudged her with a shoulder and started moving for the front lobby.
“We shouldn’t definitely get out of here though. Twice you’ve slipped through this net. I don’t imagine the power here will like that one bit.” While he sounded like he was kidding, all spooky intonation and raised eyebrows, it was equally clear he was taking this threat more seriously now. He took his hands out of his pockets but only so he could palm a throwing dagger. He wouldn’t be able to use it on a nightmare, but it made him feel better damn it.
“Come on. I’ll buy you dinner for watching my back so well.”
Evie wasn’t entirely sure she had slipped the net, with the memory of Jacob being trapped away from her and burning. But she didn’t object out loud, merely made a little affirmative humming noise and nodded. He was right that the place likely wouldn’t appreciate it, and she gave it a look over her shoulder before following him.
One last glance at the place that felt as if it had a grip around the neck of Vallo, eyes everywhere. It was an unsettling feeling, and she did her best to shrug it off and catch up with Jacob. “I’m holding you to that. A proper dinner, too, not just something suspect from the taco truck. That’s a fear in itself.”