(voice)

[hexrot]

—This is Jayce Talis. [ that's not going to mean anything, to anyone. this man's voice is rasping, dragging, in between sounded exhausted, heavy and ill. ] I'm a scientist. I researched . . . The Arcane, with my . . . With my partner, Viktor— most of my life.

[ frequent pauses are a must. he almost feels out of breath if he doesn't, and that puffs through the radio, ragged and sluggish. ]

All of us— seem to have a symbol. A rune, on our bodies. If you've been to the Shrine, then I'm sure . . . You have something else, now. Maybe a message. Please, if you could show it to me. I'll be . . . [ another hushed pause, ] Outside the Common Room. There's a truck, with . . . Butterflies, [ the irony in his voice is dry. ] That's— Where I'll be.

If it helps get us anywhere, I . . . Need, to crack it, I . . . [ i promised, he mutters, before swiftly adding, through a strain that's tight in his throat: ] That's all.

(action/flavor)

[ jayce is rebounding hard on his magic sepsis as his first symptom to becoming undead! so he is not visibly well for anyone who wants to come see him, but he is trying deathly hard with the symbols and trying to fight the clock with obsession. the iridescent pick up near one of the camp lights is a mess of papers in the front seats as much as the flatbed behind it, spread out and held in place with pebbles or stones, littered with those very symbols as well as formulas he's trying to link and complete like a map.

it's what keeps him from giving into sleep. ]

Comments

> action

[thelastb1]

[That's not the least reassuring thing that Jayce could say, but it's also not the most. He deliberates for some time further, listening through the other radio communcations.

Eventually he decides to show up, but not without bringing the blaster pistol he arrived with (which, he's discovered, has not been loaded the entire time he's been here, making it functionally useless, but still perhaps threatening enough to deter violence if it comes to it), as well as a spatula.

He approaches Jayce's truck cautiously, stopping a bit more than 20 feet away from it. By way of announcing himself, he only says] I got this when I showed up. [He uses his spatula to point at a large symbol in the middle of his chest, indicating that he belongs to the Swarm family of monsters.]

[hexrot]

[ it's . . . pretty far, but jayce is stirred from his work by it anyway. he squints in the dark, finding it hard to see with clarity, but he can at least make out some landmarks from the symbol's general form. ]

I think I might've, [ beat, ] seen one similar.

[ his mercury hammer is against the open cargo bed he's sitting on. it's incredibly heavy, and may only lessen with the chime of a hexgem— currently the one in his wrist. but he's not about to attack anybody, even if he's triggered. he'd barely be able to pick up the hammer himself, anyway. too weak. too frail, his pallor sickly and his fingers trying to write against the clock. ]

—Mine's this one. [ because he sees this robotic figure, voice familiar in its distrust, he decides it might be a good idea to show something in turn. he holds a paper with the undead symbol on it up, and places it next to him once his shakiness begins to tremble the sheet with it. ] My leg.

[ which is clothed and braced, metal rods and leather wrapped tightly around it to give it more structural strength. ]

[thelastb1]

[Roger does take notice of the hammer. There is something about it that makes him uneasy. It's not something improvised, nor something simple like a rifle or a sword. There is a kind of personal style that makes it seem like whoever wields this weapon is particularly proficient with it.

Still, the gesture of showing his own sigil is one that Roger appreciates, even if the sigil itself may look somewhat frightening.

Of course, he knows that the man sounded ill over the radio, that he looks ill and weak now. He is worried for this stranger, but not so much that he's willing to risk having been right about his wariness.]

Good. Good luck then, on what you're working on. And, uh, get well soon?

[hexrot]

[ he's almost thinking that maybe something he should be doing was actually finding a cure for him, but— jayce wasn't about to be stupid with himself again. those kinds of advancements would take years to find a drop of success. they'd already tried it was with a very human illness. magic rot wasn't going to be any easier.

the fact of the matter was that he was dying, he would die, and the least that he could do was contribute with the starting point of returning them home rather than depending on this nirvana so blindly. he's guarded, in that regard.

jayce doesn't look at the construct; he blinks the sting in his eyes away the best he could, and nods with his head down. ]

Thank you.

[ the fact that he wouldn't get better was better left unsaid. ]