8th Trick - VOICE/TEXT/VIDEO FEED (Day of the Dead Guy)

[vengefulshades]

[At 8:45 PM on November 3rd, this message is broadcast to all Import devices. The video shows a flickering feed of security cameras in some swanky lounge. As the camera shifts, six people can be seen in and around the lounge, in various emotional states:

- Abigail Hobbs
- Annie Leonhart
- Kate Kane
- Siegmund Heissenrech
- Anna
- Rampage

Finally, the voice of The Manipulator comes over the line.]

Attention, all Import citizens of Heropa. This is The Manipulator speaking.

Here, you can see there are currently seven people in the top floor lounge of The Lift in downtown Heropa. Six of them are innocents. Six lives. Six hostages who may be dead by tomorrow morning.

Unless one of you has the guts to save them.

[The camera feed flicks around appropriately to show the security system, the room's entrances and exits, and whatever else he talks about.]

Let's break it down nice and simple.

The lounge is secured by an alarm, doors and windows-- one that you won't be able to turn off without my knowledge or my help. If it goes off, the hostages will die. If anyone attempts to enter or leave the lounge, the hostages will die. If anyone sets foot on the 15th floor of this building without my express say-so, the hostages will die.

But you don't need to sit around and accept this loss of life. You can stop it. Only one person needs to die tonight to end this.

The seventh person. Me.

[And now the camera flickers to show a brief glimpse of a silhouetted person- someone in plain clothes, wearing a black mask over his face.]

One of you so-called heroes has fifteen minutes to get to the rooftop of this building. There, your only task is a simple one... you're going to kill me. Get rid of me permanently. End this hell of an existence of mine once and for all.

No mercy. No tricks. Just you and me and your powers, and the death that I was denied ten years ago.

[The shot goes back to the lounge and the hostages within.]

If your powers don't work on me, I'll understand. Nothing else has worked so far. And I'm really not unreasonable. We'll just have to try someone else. Every hour. On the hour.

And if some hour passes and nobody shows up to take me on, then one hostage dies. You've got six whole tries to figure this out before we run out of hostages.

But remember. I don't need to kill anyone. Nobody innocent needs to suffer tonight. Only one person needs to die to put an end to this.

So come get me.

[And the feed ends.]

((ooc: All replies will come from "The Manipulator," not "Yomiel."))

Comments

video;

[infomodder]

[It takes him a moment to get composed enough to show himself on the video feed, in what looks to be an employee's lounge, bereft of the stupid fishing hat he generally wears. His name tag's still on, even.]

Would you be open to swapping out one of your hostages?

[Somebody might be willing to take the place of a specific somebody else. He likes Annie, no doubt about it, but nobody comes close to Abigail Hobbs. If he can just get her out, that's really all that matters.]

[vengefulshades]

Mmmm... nah. Too much trouble for me.

Is it someone you care about?

[infomodder]

Why else would anyone volunteer to swap places?

[Other than maybe being some big damn hero trying to get recognition or maybe having their issues with immortality and wanting front row tickets to the show, which is definitely not the case here. It's not heroism. It's a failure who's trying to not make that failure an eternal thing.]

[vengefulshades]

Because you're a plant from the cops.

But even if you're not, I don't care. If you care so much about them, see to it my demands are met.

[infomodder]

[a plant from the cops also not his thing. It's actually laughable, but there's no laughing. There's also apparently no dealing with this one in ways he might be able to with a...well, boring human serial killer fuckhead.]

Seems like an easier said than done, when you put it like that.

[Can he drown? Because that's about as much as Will's stupid powers could be of any use with and even then uh.

Probably not useful at all.]

[vengefulshades]

It is. But I'm being perfectly reasonable. I asked for tries, not successes.

If someone does succeed, then no harm done. It's easy.

[infomodder]

[Sir you have some problems, were you aware.]

You claim to have already tried methods that generally work. [The Manipulator has a difficult unlife, is what Will's gathered.] Have you thought of personally asking someone with powers that might work without doing...this? Maybe Lunatic.

[Maybe be polite. Maybe being polite gets people places.]

video;

[proteus]

What?!

permathat

[infomodder]

[Down, girl. Down.]

What are you whatting?

[proteus]

[ Shakes the crate and ruins the floor. ]

What are you doing? Who does this fucker have that you're even considering this horseshit deal?

[infomodder]

[Cleans up after and stares at with love.]

I'm doing the only thing I can. [How does drown ghost.] And I'm not telling because he's already said he's not open to the idea.

[proteus]

Who's Abigail, Will?

[ Shot in the dark but she remembers that name from a conversation with Emma. ]

[vengefulshades]

Relax. I'm not stupid enough to fall for a stupid scheme like whatever he's planning.

[proteus]

[ POINTS. ] You sit the fuck down!

[vengefulshades]

Make me.

[proteus]

Don't interrupt me. I don't give a fuck about your existential hissy fit, jackass.

[ Fussed up Gangrels are a bit stupid. ]

text;

[lurings]

I'm fine.

text;

[infomodder]

[That's like the most terrible thing to say, Abigail, and it's like totally double more terrible that Will doesn't doubt this is actually not that bad for her (yet) and that

this is really just terrible]

I'd like it to stay that way.

text;

[lurings]

And I'd like you to stay fine so don't be a dumb cow.

[infomodder]

[Rude.]

I won't be a dumb cow.

[So he's not drinking tonight, essentially.]

[lurings]

Thank you.

Make sure no one else is dumb either.

I'll be fine.

[ naw, she'll probably be dead. ]

text; hijacks this

[altercate]

Since when is being a hostage "fine"

text;

[lurings]

[ since she spent three months in a basement...? ]

I'm not dead.

text;

[altercate]

That's a terrible baseline.

[ says the pot to the kettle. ]

text;

[lurings]

[ if only he could see this face. ]

Not where I come from.