shermanlogs

13:35 <Sherman> It's been close to a month since the end of the Zero Zone job, and Sherman's been totally cut off from the world. While he's made the occasional run to the stuffer shack for something that isn't an MRE and water, it's always been under a Physical Mask, and no calls to anyone. Not Jimmy, not LG, not Isa, nor his comrades. Now, the boredom is starting to creep in...
13:36 * Sherman is laying in his apartment, watching one of the trids he put down here for almost the tenth time at this point. No longer paying attention to the sounds coming out of the slightly broken speakers, his mind begins to wander to the experiments he did with the haunting in this place.
13:42 <IterationDrive> The astral in this area is still, as it was before, rather tainted--currently, one of the walls, directly behind the TV, is 'bleeding' in the astral, and as Sherman opens his third eye he could almost swear he can smell rot and decay coming from his bathroom.
13:43 * Sherman sits up. Nothing for it, let's keep going with this. He heads to the bathroom.
13:46 <IterationDrive> The door to sherman's shower stall is closed, but, astrally, it looks like there's... SOMETHING in there. It's concealed and hazy looking, for some reason
13:47 * Sherman stands at the door into the bathroom, and casts a spell he knows has drawn the interest of the ghosts before.
13:48 * Sherman raises his hand, and a small illusion flies around the ceiling of the bathroom.
13:50 <IterationDrive> Something big, and dark, and terrifying starts to crawl out from Sherman's shower stall, a blank cloud of putrid odor and malfeasence. It crawls... or perhaps grows is the better term... up the walls, reaching out with oozing protuberances to the illusion.
13:51 * Sherman maneuvers the illusion slowly out of the thing's reach, drawing it along into a position where Sherman can get a better look at it.
13:55 * Sherman mutters. "I really should have downloaded some Cherokee linguasofts before I tried this."
13:56 <IterationDrive> The blob gets closer, and from what Sherman can see of it, it looks like... the best way to describe it would be old, dried blood, tears, and screaming, angry, silent faces. It continues to reach for the illusion, the protuberances trying to encircle and catch the fragment of mana.
14:00 * Sherman looks at the thing closely. "Massacre site? That's the easy explanation. REALLLY should have gotten those linguasofts. Guess there's nothing for it..."
* Sherman lets the thing catch the illusion, then clears his throat.
<Sherman> "I can see you. Can you hear me?"
14:06 <IterationDrive> The thing... devours the mana that the illusion had, making the spell vanish. It sort of turns, in a way, the ooze reaching out somewhat towards Sherman. It's obviously reacting to his presence, at the very least--and the smell of rot and decay grows stronger.
* Sherman conjures another illusion, preferably to keep the spirit from devouring his own mana in its entirety.
14:08 <IterationDrive> The spirit turns to Sherman's new illusion, and goes to encircle and devour it. Once it does, it shrinks a bit, as if... temporarily sated, the dark shadow slowly returning to the inside of Sherman's shower.
14:09 <Sherman> "Oh, you want mana, do you? Let's try this then..."
14:10 * Sherman puts more force into the spell this time, conjuring a bigger illusion, and seeing if the spirit goes for it.
14:11 <IterationDrive> It reaches out for it, much more of it this time as if it senses bigger 'prey', but also more cautiously than before--perhaps giving Sherman time to try and communicate.
14:12 * Sherman staggers briefly, then recovers. "Do you understand me? I think I know what you are, if you can communicate."
14:13 <Sherman> "You were murdered, weren't you? Slain unjustly. That's why you remain."
14:14 <IterationDrive> The spirit... almost seems to pause for a moment, though it still pursues the illusion. Faces of the long dead, silently screaming, press against the surface of it.
14:15 <Sherman> "Who were your people? Can you tell me the name of your people?"
14:22 <IterationDrive> The spirit shifts for a moment, and a low, dreary, echoy voice enters the room, seemingly coming from all directions at once. "Cher... ooh... keee..."
14:25 * Sherman nods. "I believed this was the case." He lets the illusion get caught. "I'll return in a little bit. Can you remain so I can help you?"
14:28 <IterationDrive> It does not reply, but eats the mana of the illusion and begins to return to the shower stall. It seems, that, at least astrally--it's going to be sticking around.
14:30 * Sherman returns out of the bathroom, closing his special eyes and unpackaging one of the commlinks he picked up before the mission. He puts on a new face, starts it up, and goes for a walk...
14:31 * Sherman leaves his bolthole through the front door, nodding to his Landlord on the way out (if he's there.) he starts up a Cherokee linguasoft download, then inputs a certain number: [To: Isa- Hey, it's Sherman. I'm alive.]
14:33 <IterationDrive> There's a bit of a pause... and then a reply. [From: Isa-Oh my god, are you okay, too? Like, not just alive but are you okay?]
14:34 <Sherman> [To: Isa- Yeah, I'm fine. We finished up about a month ago, I've just been staying low in the mean time. I actually didn't even get scratched, though I overexerted myself a bit on the magic and had to lay down afterwards. Nothing a good nap or three wouldn't fix, though.]
<Sherman> [To: Isa- What have you been up to?]
* Sherman surreptitiously pulls up a few news stories from the day of/after the job to see how much coverage it got, if any.
14:36 <IterationDrive> [From: Isa-Getting ready for the new semester, mostly, and otherwise staying in, just trying to stay safe and in one piece. Worrying about you some.] It... did. Quite a bit. The MCT building half-collapsed, after all, and between the surgical strikes, the rioting, and just a little bit of PR smearing from a couple other megas--though of course none of them outright said who leaked the paydata...
<IterationDrive> MCT's not had a very good time of late, at least in Atlanta.
14:37 <Sherman> [To: Isa- That's good. Not the worrying part, but it's understandable. I'm fine, alive, and I'm pretty sure nobody's coming after me. I'll probably lay low a few more weeks to make sure, but I'll be in touch. Tough courseload this semester?]
14:40 <IterationDrive> [From: Isa-Eh, fairly. It's not, like, the toughest load I've had, but I'm getting ready to graduate next year so I'm finishing off my core, finally, which means I'm taking that chemistry class I've been putting off... and I'm really bad at chemistry. But, I mean, that's what tutors and tutorsofts are for.]
14:41 <Sherman> [To: Isa- Exactly. I'll leave you to it then, I'm not the higher-education type. I'll keep in touch though.]
14:44 <IterationDrive> From: Isa-I'll hold you to that!]
* Sherman closes the window, opening up a new one to his stockbroker, Pythia: [To: Pythia- Hey, it's Sherman. I'm alive, don't send the email.]
14:46 <IterationDrive> [From: Pythia-Uh. Um. Would this be a bad time to tell you that I literally JUST sent it? Like, not even twenty seconds ago?]
14:47 <Sherman> [To: Pythia-......FUCK]
* Sherman closes the window as fast as he can, immediately opening a voice call to his dad at his job, a mid-level bureaucrat for the City of Edmonton. "DADIT'SJOHNNYDELETETHEEMAILIJUSTSENTDON'TREADIT"
14:48 <IterationDrive> After a moment, Sherman gets through... to voicemail.
14:49 <Sherman> "SHITSHITSHIT" He tries a call to his mom, voice as well. "MOM, PLEASE TELL ME YOU'RE THERE. IT'S JOHNNY."
<IterationDrive> Once again, voicemail.
<IterationDrive> ... This is not going to be fun.
14:50 * Sherman throws teh commlink to the ground, before picking it up and trying to explain that the email was sent on accident and they shouldn't pay it any mind. He hangs up, then throws the commlink to the ground again.
14:51 <Sherman> [To: Pythia- It's okay, I'll figure out how to resolve this somehow. Anyway, I'm alive.]
* Sherman grabs his slurpee, pays at the stuffer shack, then settles back in at his bolthole, the Cherokee Language to try to take his mind off of things.