OPEN TO ALL

[skeletonenigma]

Characters: Skulduggery Pleasant and YOU (but specific starters for Captain Amelia, fellow turtle-parents Hawke and Akito, and Monet)
Date: Catch-all for April before the bombings and console crash events
Location: Throughout Keeliai
Situation: Various! These will include futzing with unused consoles, discovering the turtle baby, and also intercepting kedan informants. But Skulduggery’s going to be all over the Shell throughout the month, so feel free to chime in with your own.
Warnings/Rating: None for the moment. Well, there’s some lock-picking.

I usually start with prose, but I’ll adapt to any style. If you want a specific starter, PM me at Amaraq!

Comments

[skeletonenigma]

"I'm sure I do," Skulduggery agreed. There was a certain note of lament in his tone. The suit he was wearing was the only one he had, and now it was dripping with black goo. Unless he could find some equivalent of a dry cleaner's in the city, he no longer had anything to wear.

Well, not until the kedan seamstress he'd met finished his order. But even then, none of the new ones would be Bespoke-tailored. None of them would be bullet-proof, or weather-proof, or fit quite as snugly as Ghastly's suits always seemed to manage.

Skulduggery allowed himself a few more moments of pointless self-pity, and then he knelt down to inspect the goo more closely. It wasn't oil, that much was certain. It wasn't any sort of chemical or fluid he'd ever seen before, in fact. "You don't happen to recognise this, Amelia, do you?"

[loquaciouslyfeline]

"Cheer up, I'm sure it'll come out." Amelia moved back closer to the mess to inspect it, now that the immediate danger of being covered in goo had passed. But on closer inspection, her face set into a frown.

"Unfortunately, I have seen something similar before, and it was far from benign." The slime was eerily reminiscent of the corruption that had afflicted Han, back in the bottle world of Kithika, and her experience there guided her to keep her distance, lest this bile also create monstrosities to fight.

And if it was the same, then Skulduggery needed to know. "I'd step back from it, if I were you. If this... liquid is the same as what I've encountered before, we'll have a bit of a scuffle on our hands in a moment's time."

[skeletonenigma]

"In my experience," said Skulduggery flatly, "no, it doesn't."

Not without so many parts of the suit being replaced that he might as well have ordered a new one to begin with.

Fortunately, Skulduggery's attention was caught less than a moment later. "A scuffle?" He didn't get up, and instead peered closer at the voluminous black goo. "Did the liquid itself attack you?"