#versuswritten

[houndxxunderground]

Continued from Here.

These days down in the Lanes were quiet, and it wasn't somethin' he was complaining about. No plotting, no arguing, no calling for action against Piltover. Everything was just calm and quiet for now.

Glancing up at the hollow metal thunk of the footsteps, Vander raised an eyebrow at the echoing overtone to the man's voice when he answered.

"Someone looking like me, huh?" placing a few more clean glasses onto their shelf, Vander tossed the dishcloth over his right shoulder and thought on that. He wasn't exactly easy to mistake for anyone else.

Looking the and up and down, he offered a shrug of his broad shoulders; the man looked like he was from the city above. He was clean and clothing definitely not from Zaun. "- there's an enforcer almost as big as me, dark hair too. Think he's called Loris, or Larry, or something like that. Could be him you're looking for?"

@versus-written

[proxnotxaxfool]

@versus-written continued from (x)

the academy uniform was as pristine as the granite walls, geometric stitching mimicking the gilded architecture that favoured straight lines and right-angles.

there was nothing organic about piltover - it was manufactured and engineered to every last curb and lamp-post, a stark contrast to the organic alleyways and twisting lanes of zaun.

' i wouldn't say blissfully unaware - but there's definitely a willful ignorance. ' reno murmured, watching the sun dip behind one of the city's taller buildings; out of sight, out of mind, right? everyone in piltover was happy to ignore what went on in the undercity, because so long as it stayed down there, it wasn't their problem.

arching a brow, reno glanced to his left, across to the other man with a lilt of a smirk tugging on the corner of his mouth.

' watching and learning. kinda like you, huh? '

[kunselxsoldier]

"You’d die for the cause, but you won’t fight for one?” - Viktor

The words were almost spat at him and Kunsel was half-ready for Viktor's cane to be thrown at him. The hit never came; the man was more restrained than that.

Looking his ad-hoc smuggling parnter up and down, Kunsel gestured at their surroundings; Piltover was clean, and pristine, and well policed. "- hang on, you don't get to say that."

He wasn't someone that got angry easily, but Kunsel could feel certain buttons being pressed, even though he got the same vibe from the normally-reserved Viktor. "- my parents went to that bridge and stood against Piltover and never came back. I'm a good fighter, a very good fighter, but I can't stand against all the enforcers alone."

The fissures were calling for arms in a ill-timed bid against the over-city. Yes, he would die of mako degredation, shimmer addiction or something else, but not for a pointless stand on a bridge that had already claime so much Zaunite blood.

"Why don't you go have a word with your golden-boy Man of Progress? He's the one ordering the Enforcers to the bridge; the blood is on his hands!"

@versus-written

[hextechanomaly]

You're shaking. is that blood? - from Viktor for Huck

༘⋆｡ cognitive dissonance.

Huck froze as the Herald approached them, as the first of the Healed, they had ended up flawed, with the people with them that day being one hundred percent healed. Unlike the others, Huck still had some minor physical and mental ailments which stemmed from their time as a Shimmer addict. They were still able to sustain cuts and scrapes, and bleed. The Gatekeeper felt ashamed they weren't upholding the Herald's vision to the best of their ability, but with daily newcomers - Viktor's had his hands full.

'Yes Herald it is.' They admitted ashamed at their clumsiness. 'A stumble from earlier on when I was playing a game with the newly healed children. One lad in particular, I think he'll be able to outrun us all.'

The boy in question had been wheelchair-bound before being Healed - his short brunette hair and large sapphire eyes which pierced through to the soul. The others Healed that day didn't have legs as bad.

'Apologises I didn't come to you when it happened.' They added, sheepish.

[kunselxsoldier]

"Find a way to lure him out."

The Last of Us Part II Jackson:

"Lure him out?" He wanted to cringe at his own parroting of Viktor's words, eyes yearning to find some hidden message in the other man's eyes - an answer in those words that he wasn't seeing.

"Viktor, he's going to crush the Lanes." The very man of Progress for the city up above had all but declared war on Zaun. Rumours were rife that he had killed a kid in one of the chem-barons' factories.

The people of the fissures were in uproar; as much of a scourge that the barons were and how much people loathed their use of children, this was an entitled son of Piltover killing a Zaunite child, and there were no Enforcers arresting Talis. If this was the other way around, the enforcers would be kicking in doors in the Lanes.

"He's making weapons with the hex-tech you two developed. This isn't what you wanted for that technology!"

[houndxxunderground]

Bring my muse medicine when they are sick -- Viktor, who failed and stayed in Zaun and works for Silco now, bringing Vander medicine, maybe or maybe not under Silco's orders, when Vander is sick :]

Non-Verbal RP starters:

The illness spread through the Lanes in a matter of weeks, enough to fear-monger among the locals so much that the narrow streets were eerily quiet.

Kids and adults alike were laid low by the wracking coughing fits and the high-fever. It happened every couple of years; a new sickness seeped into the under-city and worked its way through the already-downtrodden people of Zaun. And Piltover never offered any aid.

But Vander was lucky enough to have robust health; able to shake off anything with little effort. Until this latest sickness got a claw into him. Word travelled fast in Zaun and he had already heard rumours coming full-circle about him being ill. Of course the whispered gossip was far more dramatic; he was bedbound, unable to walk or run the bar. On death's door.

Not quite that bad yet.

Hearing the door of the bar open, Vander stood up with an effort; it was supposed to be locked. He gave a groan and felt like all his joints ached, and he was both too hot and cold at the same time with a cough that shook his broad shoulders. The kids were staying at Benzos until he managed to shake off this illness, so he was expecting to see Vi or Claggor in the doorway - guiltily coming back to check on him.

But it wasn't the kids.

"Viktor?" His voice was hoarse and felt like glass shards in his throat. Cringing at the effort, Vander stayed at one end of the bar and nodded at the door. "Not open I'm afraid, half the Lanes are sick."

The younger man limped forward with an understanding nod, and left a small box on the bar counter before retreating back towards the door. Eying the lad, Vander was confused; this was the boy who had studied in Piltover, only to return to the Lanes. Latest whispers he'd heard had it that the academic was working for Silco. And just as that thought occurred, he noticed the handwriting on the small box of pills.

Blisters and Bedrock.

"Viktor ... could you ask him to visit the old mine office? He'll know the place." The dusty place where the note still lay on the table, the pickaxes lying idle against the walls and the coats mildewed from misuse.

@versus-written

[houndxxunderground]

So, where do we go from here? - Viktor

Random Sentence Starters:

That was the very question.

Vander stood among the strange contraptions; liquids bubbling, machines beeping, tomes of notes scrawled in the same handwriting and a clinical metal table in the centre of all this.

It was empty and gave him the shivers to his very bones. There was something about that massive table that made him think it was intended for horrendous things.

Turning around at Viktor's question, he shrugged his shoulders heavily. "Silco said this man knew you, before he moved to Piltover." Being back on speaking terms with his once brother-in-arms was a new sensation of relief that Vander was still trying to come to terms with, let alone the realisation that his estranged friend had a terrifying scientist at his dispense.

"I really don't care what you do with this place Viktor, so long as it doesn't cause pain for any locals." Vander rounded the huge metal table again and again until he had to tear his eyes away from it and look to the poor creature in her tank. Rio. The name was imprinted into a metal plate at the base of her tank.

"But, can anything be done to help this poor creature?" The scientists had experimented on her, or so Silco said, but now she floated suspended in a tank of liquid, eyes blinking every so often. "Or to put her out of her misery?"

@versus-written

[kunselxsoldier]

"you don’t have to do this…"

Blood and Darkness:

'you don't have to do this ...' The soft-spoken man was a familiar face around the University building and tower where the Council met. He was an assisstant to Heimerdinger if Kunsel remembered correctly.

"Shinra work with the enforcers." He kept his voice even as he looked to the scholar; Viktor was the name that came to mind. A man about the same age as him, but frail in health it would seem. "- if the enforcers are being sent to Zaun, so are the Soldiers ... unfortunately."

He didn't try to hide the regret in his tone in the last word, and Kunsel met Viktor's gaze. He was from the undercity too. "If Grayson can talk to Vander, then conflict can be avoided."