Cave Slickers: The Legend of Holly-Eyes Gold [FINISHED!]

[3kul]

((Man, it has been AGES since I last tried starting up an RP, but I lately thought of an interesting story so here goes nothing...))

It had been months since anybody had last seen or heard from HollowEyes or Little Sister, both of whom seemed to have disappeared without a trace. Some may consider this to be a good thing (jerks ), but to the Council this was the inconceivable loss of the Second-in-Command... and his sister, who wasn't quite so important or even very loyal.

Of course, it was quite some time before anybody could even be bothered to actually look for the pair of Parasitians. Questions such as 'has anybody thought to look for HollowEyes yet?' were usually dismissed with something along the lines of 'not right now, my favourite show is on' or a witty retort about the possibility that the Second-in-Command was spending the night with the questioner's mother.

Eventually though, something had to be done. The paperwork that the serious charm-user had so often taken care of was beginning to pile up, or at least, it should have been, but instead Addman was mysteriously putting on quite a bit of weight for what he claimed were unrelated reasons. The headmaster had gotten cockier than ever now that there was no chance of the SiC murdering him... Not that the chances had ever been too high with HollowEyes, but the possibility had at least been there (to the overimaginitive ). People were also feeling pretty bored, so going through all of HollowEyes' stuff with the excuse of searching for him seemed like something that might be kind of interesting to some people.

A lengthy and incredibly invasive search into HollowEyes personal belongings yielded no answers (though when he came back the Parasitian would find that he didn't have nearly so many possessions as what he'd left behind), but after several hours of fruitless searching somebody finally looked up and spotted the massive message left behind in the SiC's own blood on the ceiling of his office.

DON'T LOOK FOR ME

It was short and not terribly sweet, and would be a real pain to clean up thanks to the lengthy postscript:

P.S.: HAD TO USE BLOOD ON CEILING BECAUSE GHOST-WHO-EATS-PAPER ATE ALL MY POST-IT NOTES. COULDN'T FIND CORNELIUS AND WAS IN A BIT OF A HURRY SO I HAD TO USE MINE, HOPEFULLY IT DOESN'T STAIN. WILL CLEAN WHEN I GET BACK, UNLESS I DON'T, WHICH MIGHT BE THE CASE. I DOUBT ANYBODY WILL REALLY WANT TO CLEAN THIS UP IF I DON'T, SO YOU COULD ALWAYS PAINT OVER IT I GUESS? I DON'T REALLY KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO GET PARASITIAN BLOOD OFF OF ~~~

It kind of trailed off there, probably because of the the massive blood loss that the stupidly long message would have caused. In any case, it was quite clear that the Council needed to go looking for HollowEyes, because he wasn't the boss of them! Telling people not to do something is basically just you asking them to do something, right? Well, that's what the inventor of all those 'do not touch' warnings had in mind, so it must have been how HollowEyes was thinking.

Unfortunately for anybody who tried to find him, HollowEyes hadn't left any clues as to his whereabouts (it was almost as if he didn't even want to be found!), and people quickly grew bored of the search. It was much easier to make a new HollowEyes out of a fan duct-taped to a broom, and the broom-fan was much more refreshing in the summer than the SiC had ever been.

So another month or so passed with no sign of HollowEyes or Little Sister, and just when it was beginning to look like nobody could ever find the motivation to look for either one of them a rather interesting rumour began to circle amongst the grunts.

"Did you hear about HollowEyes?" "Yeah, word is he found a massive fortune." "Stole it all for himself so he could live like a king in some place nicer than this dump." "Nah, I heard he used it to turn himself into a robot made of solid gold, and that he now calls himself Big Money. That's not even a real name, you kno-" "Pssh, show's what you know! I heard that he hid it all here in the Cave, for no apparent reason!"

Naturally the last one held the most allure to gossips, and it spread like wildfire throughout the Cave (which spreads fairly quickly if it hits the flammable wall slime, and not so much if it finds the inflammable strain), and even into the Dojo. Soon people were feeling motivated all over again to go searching for HollowEyes, and more importantly, his vast fortune, which he'd promised to whoever finds it (another piece of rumour that had added itself on, Cornelius felt that this might make people more interested in treasure hunting and less interested in brutally murdering him. He was mistaken of course, for most Council members are capable of being equally interested in both.)

The search begins here, in the Corrupted Cave, where you'll probably find some sort of clue or something (otherwise this thread will go nowhere, right?).

((Any immortals who try to cheat will find themselves unable to locate either HollowEyes or Little Sister, for reasons that will become clear later. Anybody's welcome to participate, and the thread can be as silly or as serious as you like (I'm hoping to get a healthy combination of both in), so post away! ))

[Fort]

Fort could only stare at his desk in thought. There were bits of paper labled in crayon with the word "CLUES" on his desk, and these pieces of paper were intricately joined together with thumb-tacks and pieces of string, often to other pieces of paper labeled "CONFEZZIONS" and "STATE-MANTS". He was searching for treasure, treasure supposedly hidden in the cave, and possibly in smoking-jacket form.
"Right," he said to himself, "what do I know so far? Holloweyes left-"
The Headmaster stopped abruptly, not for any dramatic reason, but for the fact he had no more evidence, and when the Headmaster's brain failed to link a chain of events, it didn't peeter off, but rather it stopped abruptly and began to fill the demon's imagination with thoughts of sponge cake.

In short, Fort was the world's worst detective; unless he was searching for Sponge Cake.

"I think the Cantien, requires investigation," he said out-loud to himself, his sponge-cake induced fantisies clearly giving him an early form of dementia, whereby he forgot that the EC Cantien was the last place to find cake that had anything less than the consistency of cement.

Standing up from his desk triumphantly, the Headmaster carefully covered his desk in a large grey cloth, in the hope that when he came back, this clue map wouldn't be eaten by that damn ghost-who-eats-paper.

Slugfoot, the EC's resident cafetiria worker gave the Headmaster a gormless stare. Fort sniffed and poked at the food on display for him - sometimes the food sniffed and poked back!

The Demon grunted and gave Slugfoot one of his more authoritive stares, which made him look rather pleading.

"I'm in the mood for something...Spongey?" he asked, hopefully.

Slugfoot blinked slowly, one eye, then the second, and pointed him in the direction of the freezer room.

Fort sighed, his ravenous hunger for cake was getting him nowhere, and he was now sorely tempted to go for the Cake labeled "Fly's graveyard". It didn't look very fly ridden, and it looked suspiciously like fruit cake to him.

As Fort's eyes grew accustomed to the fluorecent bulbs of the freezer room, he realised there was a bag, or, at least a grey lump in the corner next to the Grit Burgers(TM).

The demon tilted his head and looked tepidly. It looked...spongey on the outside, but it was almost like a body!

Fort approached warily, maybe it really was sponge cake, or a sack full of gold, or a body...hopefully Cornelius's.

[Swix]

The Cave's resident black and red dragon had been sleeping, again. Unfortunately for this particular mythical beast of legend, it wasn't exactly a very restful sleep. In fact he was fairly sure that he'd done far more waking up than actual, proper deep sleeping since he'd gotten back from his own trip, which had started sometime after HollowEyes and Little Sister had left and hadn't ended all that long ago. So he was mildly surprised to find that the occasional, easily forgotten topic of where the Parasitians had gone had suddenly turned into the gossip on everyones lips, with the added rumour of treasure thrown in just as often, if not more so.

Furnace blew a particularly large and dark cloud of smoke at the next pair of grunts to walk past him talking far too loudly, watching them with a satisfied look in his infernal red eyes as they coughed and quickly hurried off. He was in no mood to go looking for an adventure after the last one, even if it did have treasure involved.
_____________________________________________________________
Fade, for her part, didn't see the point. Not the point of HollowEyes leaving a message, that was quite short and to the point up until the postscript. What Fade didn't see the point of was all the gossip that had suddenly taken hold. What was worse was that it all seemed to be based on unfounded rumours from an unknown source, and they got bigger and more fantastic the more she heard them. So Fade had done exactly what the Parasitian had asked, she hadn't looked for him.

Today the only thing Fade was hunting was Cornelius.
_____________________________________________________________
Evil Swix, on the other hand, had taken both a great delight in the rumours and a keen interest in where the treasure was supposed to be. The just over five foot tall, black dress clad woman with the hair that somehow managed to have all the hair colours you could think of and yet still managed to look drab was rummaging around in the SiC's office.

The only thing the rumours said was that the treasure was somewhere in the Cave, or was that it might be? So she had decided to have another look around his office a second time whilst there was no-one there. Of course there wasn't all that much chance that he'd left some clue in here, or that the last 'search' by the EC hadn't taken something of interest, but right now she was bored and her 'other half' was annoying her (that was about usual, but it was getting more so recently since her 'good half' had gotten wind of what was going on and had been demanding to know why several objects with the initials 'H.E.' had turned up in their room. They clearly hadn't been all that well hidden at the time since the goody-goody had been locked in a small cage. She'd been gagged and transferred to the larger one above the crocodile pit shortly after and was still there now). There wasn't even anything on ECTV that she wanted to watch. So she resorted to one of her favourite pastimes-rummaging through other peoples things when they weren't there.

((OOC: I'm going to be playing Evil Swix, the others are there only on the possible occasion of getting bumped into later. Mostly I wanted to clear up why Fade and Furnace won't be taking part ))

[3kul]

((People are posting in here, hooray! Sorry for the late response to your post Fort, I'll be more attentative from now on.))

Fort's guess was more or less on the money, there was a body inside the bag, and it just so happened to be Cornelius'. The way he had been killed however was pretty unusual... Well, unusual in that it was a first for Cornelius - he'd been shoved into a bag of Mulapoco, the favourite squirming snack of Parasitians, and the wriggling tentacles had burrowed into his body to make a nest of it.

Neither HollowEyes nor Little Sister nor any other Parasitian had ever realized it, but Mulapoco was actually the kind of organism that burrowed into other things and destroyed them from the inside out. In this case it was Cornelius, but the best known case of this would be their home planet. It is chiefly for this reason that most nearby races leave the Parasitian Homeworld alone... That, and the fact that it's filled with psychopathic predators who consider just about anything that moves to be food is also quite off-putting.

Unfortunately for the Parasitian race, none of their own would ever figure this out until it was much too late (ie: they were all floating about in space, wondering where the hell their planet had gone), for most intellectual pursuits are deeply discouraged over there. A select few may escape this fate, in ways like HollowEyes and Little Sister had, but like the two infamous Parasitian twins they would ultimately set an incredibly poor example for the species, and Parasitians as a race would not be missed by very many people.

But enough about HollowEyes' doomed race, that's not really what's important right now. What is important is that there's a not stuck in Cornelius' eye socket. It's written in blood once more, but one gets the feeling that this is Cornie's blood.

DON'T LOOK FOR ME MEANS DON'T LOOK FOR ME CORNELIUS, DID YOU EVEN READ THE NOTE IN MY OFFICE? NOW I'VE HAD TO GO AND PICK A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT PLACE... THIS ONE'S GOT HEAPS OF TRAPS AND GUARDS SO DON'T GO LOOKING FOR ME AGAIN (IN HINDSIGHT, I GUESS THE LAST PLACE WAS PRETTY EASY TO FIND). THANKS FOR THE BLOOD THOUGH, IT WILL BE A BIG HELP FOR FUTURE NOTES IF I NEED TO MAKE THEM.

With this rather gruesome warning in hand, would Fort continue searching for HollowEyes and/or his fabulous wealth, or would he abandon the hunt here and now? Surely the same treatment that Cornelius received wouldn't be extended to the Headmaster, would it?

----------------------------------------------------

Evil Swix found that she didn't have much luck in HollowEyes' office. Everywhere that the SiC could keep anything had been thoroughly rummaged through, and all the best stuff had been taken.

But whilst the initial 'searchers' were really only interesting in looting, Evil Swix was chiefly interested in clues leading to HollowEyes' location and (perhaps more importantly) the location of his treasures, so instead of stopping to check out each interesting thing (not that there was much to check out, as all the interesting stuff was gone too), she checked some of the more secretive places.

The garbage bin gave her nothing, as any and all notes would have been eaten by that pesky ghost-who-eats-paper, and anything else was just garbage. Nothing left hanging on his walls to conceal any secret safes, which ruled that rather classic hiding place out. His desk drawers had been cleaned out... Bloody hell, surely there had to be some kind of clues in here! Where else could people look?

It was whilst she was searching under his desk that Evil Swix found her first clue however, and it came from looking up - on the underside of his desk were a number of scratchy drawings and notes carved into the wood. They looked like they'd been made on the spot, as there were many mistakes that had been crossed out, but most importantly was the fact that this was something that HollowEyes had been unable to take with him, for his desk was bolted to the floor. If anything in here was to give anybody a clue, this would have to be it.

Upon closer observation, the scrawlings seemed to make very little sense. One of them appeared to be a tunnel or a tube or a cannon of some variety (ultimately it looks like a cylinder and not much else), with a note 'how much is too much?' underneath it, then there were a multitude of terms such as 'charms - mass spirit drainage?' and 'ruby dagger - soul incineration?' (these two were the only legible ones), all of which were crossed out. Underneath them there was no conclusion, but a rather irritated question: 'how does it WORK?!'. The whole thing was crossed out rather lazily, with a small note at the bottom 'Disregard' and dated just before HollowEyes disappeared.

All in all this didn't seem very useful to know, but at the very least it meant that HollowEyes may have left some clues behind, which was a lot better than none at all.

((I plan on making future clues a little harder to find, but for now whilst I've only got two people posting I'd like to try and keep this going at an interesting pace . Apologies to both of you for any powerplaying on my part, but as you can see it's somewhat necessary.))

[Zerrer]

((Is it okay if I join this, although I have no characters in the EC?))

[Cirrial]

[3kul]

[Cirrial]

501 had been many places in the past few many weeks. As far as he can remember, anyway. His memories of the past few weeks are addled, blurred, and just a little troubled, much as he felt right now. Whatever he'd had to drink last night clearly was a little too strong. Or perhaps just not strong enough.

While wandering in a threateningly gloomy forest, pondering on whether that last thought even made sense, and how he could even drink something while having no digestive system or even a beak that could open, he trips over a tree root and starts flailing forwards.

His movement is so clumsy it turns into a graceful, almost poetic sequence of trips, stumbles, rolls and failed grasps at the trees of the Black Forest. This improvised anti-parkour sends him flying in a straight line. "Nonono no NO ack no ow ow wait no I think I've got it no ack aaaaaahhhhh-"

He dives to the ground and rolls, and jumps to his feet, staring in bewilderment at the entrance to a cave he never quite remembered ever being there.

He starts to walk in bemusedly, brushing some of the larger clumps of dirt off his scratched and dusty metal limbs, the blue forcefield around his torso swirling a little less violently than a few seconds ago.

[3kul]

"Hey! You can't just walk in here!"

If 501 thought that this rather aggressive and intimidating voice was talking to him, he'd be wrong - the grunt at the Cave's entrance was having problems with a number of other guests.

"Listen up chunky beef styles, like we said before: we gots a delivery to make." A group of slovenly dressed Psycotopian youths seemed to be trying to convince the guard to let them through, and failing at it. "And like I said before, nobody but Council members are allowed into the Cave!"

"The Masters of Jamboxing make personal deliveries to their number one fan, yo. Nothin' less for the very best." "We gots permission foo', let us in or we may have to do somethin' you'll regret!" The grunt ignored their rather uninspired threats and snatched the piece of paper from them, spending a minute or so examining it. His jaw dropped slightly, and his eyes were unable to believe what they were reading. It just seemed so unlikely! "That's who your number one fan is? Really?" "Straight up, rumble jumble. We friends on MySpace an' everythin'. You lettin' us in or what?"

The guard seemed to think hard on this one, and instead of answering their question asked his own. Leaning in close, he spoke to them in a loud whisper (thus entirely defeating the purpose of his whispering in the first place). "You, uh... You know where he is?" The trio looked at each other, unsure why they were being asked a question like this. "'Course we do!" "Yeah, he lives here - the Corrupted Cave, right?" "And don't go tryin' to tell us this ain't the Cavey, table gravy, 'coz we got special directions and maps and everythin'." The guard sighed, perhaps hoping for a different answer. "Look, the guy who sent you isn't here right now, so I can't let you in. Orders from the top."

The youths clearly weren't satisfied with the answer to their question either, and though the guard was probably as tall as all three of them combined and bulkier than a pregnant gorrila, one of them wasn't afraid to show it. "Okay chumba wumba, you asked for it. I hope you ready, coz this hoedown's about to be a throw down." He was pretty riled up, and obviously too stupid to realize that he didn't stand a chance against this opponent. His friends quickly grabbed his shoulder before he could do anything too action-packed though, quickly trying to talk him out of his apparent suicide attempt. "Dude, no! He's huge!" "And your Mom will totally ground you if you get into a fight!"

The angry youth quickly calmed down as the reality of the situation sank in, which was just as well as the guard could have easily snapped the scrawny teen like a twig (EC grunts can take a specialty course for that, and this particular grunt had graduated top of his class). "You lucky crispity crunch, mah bromies are tellin' me to spare you." "Yeah, we'll bounce for now, but we'll be back again later... You know, coz that's how bouncin' works an' all." "You tell our number one fan we was here, chumba wumba. You don't, and we tell him to fire your sorry bee-hind!" "On the rewind!"

The youths begin to walk out of the cave in a most bizarre manner (some kind of mixture of head-bopping and tap-dancing), though they find that 501 is blocking their way. "Who're you? Some kinda metal wonderman?" "More like metal blunderman!" "Oh snap!" The youths are all high-fiving each other for their lame joke, but they don't appear to mean you any physical harm.

The grunt who was meant to be guarding the doorway on the other hand is much more likely to mean you phsyical harm, and thanks to the noisy teens he's noticed 501. "Hey! Like I told these punk kids, no non-EC members allowed into the Cave! I don't recognize you pal, why don't you just turn around and leave without giving me any trouble?"

The grunt looks like a real powerhouse, and it doesn't seem like he plans on letting 501 through... Though he does appear to be a little more intimidated by the Corvian-Automated-Mechanoid than he was by the possibly drugged-out teenagers.

Said teens are still bopping about 501 and making rude (and totally baseless) comments about how fat his momma must be. They look like they couldn't fight their way out of a paper bag, and would be very easy to kill if 501 was the sort to take offense to their behaviour.

[Cirrial]

501 stands still and stares blankly ahead for a few minutes, watching the teens fail impressively at trying to enter the Cave. He then shakes his head a few times, perplexed by a faint rattling noise. He reaches for the plug in the back of his head, pulls it out, and tilts his head back. A small metal screw and nut fall out of the back of his head and to the floor. That... that, uh, I hope that wasn't important. He pretends not to notice and nonchalantly stomps the debris into the dirt, scratching at the floor like a chicken.

He casually walks over to the Cave when the guard shouts at him. "Hey! Like I told these punk kids, no non-EC members allowed into the Cave! I don't recognize you pal, why don't you just turn around and leave without giving me any trouble?"

He raises a hand to his beak, makes a mock coughing gesture, and points a claw to the sky as he prepares for an epic and lengthy impromptu speech on the nature of permission, why unauthorised access is sometimes authorised access, and why people made of inflammable material should stay far away from walking plasma generators. He is, however, rudely interrupted in his train of thought by the youths sullying his beloved mother's name.

He stares at them with a quietly irate squint. Or he would, if he had eyelids. Now more alert than a few moments ago, he calmly mutters in that kind of quiet anger that tends to warn of an immediate psychotic episode.

"You do not know what I am, Masters of Boxjamming. I am CAM-501, one of the Upper Echelon of Maratix, and if-"

He pauses, and places a hand beneath his beak in contemplation. "No, no, you're only stupid children. I can forgive this transgression. Go home, kids. I have business here." Do I have business here? Oh, whatever, I do now. "Let's just say... you don't want to get on my bad side." Oh yeah, 501, that's really going to sway their sarcastic sardonic little... Oh forget this, I should just jump over them.

With an incredibly loud and jarring series of clangs, the blades of his wings unfold and position themselves in a fractal and vaguely wing-ish formation. With a needlessly loud clamour and wailing of poorly understood exotic technology, 501 jumps over the teens and in front of the guard, travelling a total distance of a few feet. The wings fold back into the gadget on 501's back, and 501 takes a step up to the guard, waving in an overly friendly manner.

"Hi! You don't recognise me, but I'm a diplomat of a trans-universal corporation-empire called Maratix." Not entirely remembering how an actual official Maratix diplomat would continue, he calls up an automated system to output directly to his voice, in order to deliver an appropriate response.

"I'm here to discuss an alliance - discuss the possibility of an alliance - discuss trade routes - argue why trade routes would be beneficial - argue why trade routes would be a bad idea - argue why trade routes are an outdated concept -question the validity of your statements - question the sanity of your current government - question the sanity of your representatives - despair openly about the current war - discuss the possibility of ending the current war - discuss the possibility of beginning a war - complain furiously about the insults towards our collective progenitors - suggest allying in order to better defend ourselves from the space squids -"

He shuts the system off, shuts his voice off, and silently screams a long stream of keynain expletives. I knew I should have paid for the extra AI! With an audible click, his voice comes back online.

"Uh. But really I'm here to, um, do, er, diplomatty things- diplomatic things, I mean, with your diplomatic guys... rulers? Leaders? I'm here to talk about diplomatic stuff that isn't important for a guard to know or worry about, that's for sure. Trust me!"

He holds out his hand for a good firm trust-inducing handshake, forgetting that his talons look perhaps a little threateningly sharp from a distance any larger than half an inch.

[Swix]

Evil Swix pushed herself out from under the desk disappointedly, well it's not like she was expecting there to be note paper or even any paper at all thanks to the ghost-who-eats-paper, but that seemed somewhat useless.

'Completely useless' she thought as she stood up 'but why would anyone write underneath their desk?'The woman dusted off her black dress, dust had settled after the rai-search of HollowEyes office and now it was all over her clothes. At least she hadn't gotten close enough to the wall that the Wall Slime had gotten onto it again, dust was much easier to handle.

Unsure of what to do next, Evil Swix headed for the centre of gossip in the Cave. Maybe someone had heard something she hadn't recently, or maybe there were more scribblings underneath furniture. Evil Swix headed for the EC's lounge, it'd be less dusty in there anyway, and the TV was always a plus.

[3kul]

"Hey, we gots business here too, CAM-501." The teens said, stopping with their shenannigans to level with the large mechanoid. "But this guard, he just don't listen to reason yo." The other two teens nodded, adding whatever nonsensical noises meant that they agreed with their friend. "Maybe wait for them to change shifts or something... That's what we be doing, so laters." The teens bopped their way out of the Cave, apparently due to come back as soon as the guard left. It didn't seem very likely that they knew the Cave's security rotations, so it was a safe bet to assume that they'd just guess a good time.

Not really all that interested in the 'children', 501 had decided to focus on the guard instead. After a very repetitive and somewhat longwinded spiel, he concludes that he's hear to discuss diplomatic matters with the leaders. The guard, who was on the verge of falling asleep, suddenly realized that 501 had stopped talking. Having only heard the very last part of what had been said, he felt that it might be important to let this... person through (by which he meant that not letting 501 through might result in him losing his job. He didn't want to seem stupid in front of what could be an important guest (or to be put to sleep again), so he decided not to ask him to repeat his reasons for coming here.

"Our leaders, eh?" He said sternly, flicking through a few blank papers attached to his clipboard to seem important and knowledgable. "Well, there's the Headmaster, Fort... Or the Second-in-Command, HollowEyes. Who did you want to see?"

He felt very clever for throwing HollowEyes' name in there, for if this person was here to see HollowEyes specifically then perhaps he knew where he was, and if he knew where he was then that would put the guard well ahead of the rest of the Cave in the search for the S-i-C's vast fortune.

----------------------------------------------------

Evil Swix found the lounge to be packed as it often was, as it was probably one of the nicest rooms in the Cave that just about anybody had access to. The ever-popular 'What's eating Cornelius?' was on the TV, an EC-produced game show where contestants would try to guess what kind of monster was consuming Cornelius judging by his screams of anguish and various other factors.

"Is it... Uh... Is it some kind of five-headed jaguar?" "Trained falcons! Trained falcons!" "Can I lock in Cyber-pirhanas?"

The numerous grunts watching the show all seemed to be voicing their opinions on just how stupid the contestants where (as well as how hot the hostess was), and unfortunately they seemed to be drowning out the sounds of anybody else here who might be talking about something slightly more important. Everybody became silent however when a loud buzzer symbolized the end of the round. "I'm sorry contestants, but today Cornelius was being consumed by a swarm of flesh-eating lava wasps!"

"Oh man, lava wasps, I knew it! Pay up guys!" The grunts seemed to have their own small betting ring going on around this show, and one of them had done pretty well from it. The others hadn't guessed quite so well, and they begrudgingly forked over their Cornelius Lives to the lucky grunt (the anguished etheral currency used by the EC, for those of you who don't know).

"Coming up next, it's the EC shopping network!" The television excitedly declared. The grunts seemed to have mixed interest in this show, with some of them leaning closer to the large screen and others leaving.

Well, the lounge was the centre of gossip, but nobody seemed to be gossiping about HollowEyes too openly (and most of the grunts now seemed to be focused on badmouthing the shoddy products that the EC shopping network had sold them). Evil Swix will probably need to ask around to find some clues... Or just use her higher rank to make someone else do it.

[Swix]

Evil Swix's attention was briefly rooted to the TV, but that interest was quickly replaced by boredom once the shopping network came up. She'd never really liked those things, and she remembered buying a straightener from there once that had all but burnt her scalp and had burnt her hair off. It turned out useful for torturing people afterwards though, so she'd kept it, and 'straightened' her other half's hair as well to alleviate some of the anger still left over from having to walk around with a hat on.

She could ask one of them to help out, but they might demand a cut if they knew what it was about, and Evil Swix was terrible at sharing. But she didn't fancy looking through all the icky corners again, and she'd have to if she didn't work with anyone. The woman grabbed a grunt who was leaving and mumbling loudly about the products rather roughly by the shoulder.

"I've got a job for you" she said, not waiting for him to speak first "I want you to go and look under and around all the furniture and every hiding spot you can think of, bring me back anything unusual you've found. If you can't bring it back, just tell me what you saw"

"What's in it for me?" the grunt asked, rubbing his sore shoulder. She might outrank him but he may as well get something after that rough treatment.

"Cornelius Lives, as long as you don't tell anyone about why you're doing it" Evil Swix answered after a little thought, she was sure could spare a few if the rumours of treasure turned out to be true.

"How much?" the grunt asked, he'd been one of the ones who'd lost in the previous bet and was eager to get anything handed out for something so seemingly simple.

"Depends how much you bring back" Evil Swix answered, smiling unnervingly at him.

[3kul]

"You got it, Evil Swix." The grunt said, his eyes lit up with greed. He had no idea what you were looking for (though he secretly suspected several things), but that didn't really matter to him. As far as this simple-minded fool was concerned, this would probably be the easiest money he'd ever made.

He quickly made his way around the lounge, checking under chairs, tables, behind the bar, under the pool table (which was leaking as usual), every now and then stopping as he picked something up. He had a bit of trouble getting under the couch as those avidly watching the shopping network were not pleased to have to spend 5 seconds not watching, but eventually he managed to get under there too. By some amazing feat of acrobatics, he even managed to climb all the way up to the ceiling fan to check if anything was on that.

Finally he made his way back over to you, arms heavily laden with all sorts of... Well, garbage really. There were some rather spoiled foodstuffs, a couple of positively ancient dirty magazines that were so badly worn away that only the articles remained (probably why nobody touched them anymore), a couple of old remotes for old TVs...

But if you thought that all you'd get from this was crap, you'd soon be pleasantly surprised, as for whatever reason the grunt had decided to put all of the garbage on top and left the best stuff on the bottom (or maybe he'd just found it in that order?). There was a special edition DVD entitled 'The Evil Council Presents: The Top Ten Achievements of Gardner, The Greatest Man To Ever Live' that promised to be an excellent watch (assuming that the disc was still in the case), a rather risque piece of see-through lingerie with the words 'Sex Demon' emblazoned across the front of it (this caused the grunt to raise his eyebrows at you in curiosity, for he felt quite confident that this is what you'd been looking for), and finally a large struggling beetle clutching a lumpy black orb.

HollowEyes was often associated with beetles, as apart from looking a bit like one himself, one of his more well-known charms invoked energy from the beetle spirit... Well, admittedly this was a bit of a stretch (it could just be a random beetle), but this was probably the best clue that you'd found in the bunch. You had no idea what was with the lumpy black orb that it was holding, as the beetle wasn't letting you get a good enough look at it.

"So, uh... My payment?" The grunt asked, oh-so-casually reminding you of your little deal. Well, if you wanted any of the stuff that he had, paying him was probably the best way to get it, right?

[Cirrial]

501 pauses and thoughtfully drums his head. "Uhhhhhh... ummm... uhhhh..."

Who the five feathers are either of these people?! Well, better play it safe and go to a subordinate.
"I was looking for the Second-in-Command, actually. HollowEyes, eh? Sounds like a charming character. I have matters to discuss with him, her or it."
Note for later: find out reason for name. Keep own eyes unhollowed.

501 dramatically points further into the cave, leaning back in a general "now I mean business" stance. "Matters vital to the very existence of all you know and value! For I have seen the signs..."

He nonchalantly inspects the guard for a name-tag, and gives up. "For I have seen the signs, guard! The signs that mean the END OF ALL THINGS!"

He stops, returns to a normal standing posture, and smacks himself hard on the forehead as his limited knowledge of what Maratix had found about the Evil Council slowly begins to return. "No, no, forget that, that was a movie I saw last night. I'm actually here to retrieve a bull-shaped casket. Which contains my manatee. Right? That's what you guys have, right? I deposited a manatee into a bull-shaped casket." If you slacker investigators made that report up, there will be long, long discussions when I get back to the Marasphere...

"Where can I find my manatee?"