[quote=@Holmishire]"I don't know what twisted world you've dragged us into, but a lot of people died to get us here, your man included. So I beg of you, please, just tell us what we need to do to get out of here." Though monotone at first, her words were filled with anger by the time she fell silent.[/quote]
[@Holmishire]
The prone man grasped at Ariett's arm as she dislodged the twisted wrack of ceramic that had been Hiecro from his body. "Hyperion's blessings upon you." He whispered hoarsely, losing his grip in the next moment and turning on his side, supporting himself with one arm. He looked badly shaken - and his features paled as he saw his compatriot's severed head drifting up and away through the air, having bounced lightly off the ground and now left drifting in the distorted gravity. The blood seeping from its stump and that of its former body, rather than forming up into globules, instead seemed to be taking every opportunity to diverge and spread in every direction. A small stream of it splattered itself across the still living man's cheek as he looked on in stunned silence.

[quote=@WiseDragonGirl]"I'm kinda wondering the same thing," he said with a calm voice right after Ariett fell silent, frowning at the bodyless head. "Things went bad pretty much from the beginning and it has been going downhill ever since," he added and he looked at the man in the wheelchair, noticing the eyelid, the drip and the tubes. "Are you the one who called for us?"[/quote]
[quote=@Cruallassar]Kael gets his bearings, looking at the new people...then at Donny. "Don't kill them...him...them any more...let's no one kill anyone. I've seen more people killed in the last hour than in my entire life, let's not try adding to it."[/quote]
The man furrowed his eyebrows and turned back to look at the passengers with a pain expression as he drew in a deep and ragged breath. "I didn't..." He began weakly, his eyes still clouded over with confusion and horror. A brief instant passed, and then a spark flashed across his withered features before he recovered. His frame stiffered as he sat up straighter, his expression hardening somewhat. His eyes were still wide and wild, but he seemed more present than he had been a moment ago.

"I did not bring you here." He said crossly. "You were sent here. This whole mess is your doing. None of this would have happened if you lot just had just left well enough alone." Another brief pause as he motioned to the men on the left with a trembling hand, one of whom began moving to lend assistance to both Ariett and the man she had moved to free. The motion of his arm briefly pulled the fabric of his shirt even further off of his chest, revealing the full extent of his condition. A large swath of silver metal covered the surface of most of his chest, the metal conforming precisely to the haggard contour of his ribcage, and sprouting directly from the center of his sternum was a small starburst-shaped weed of silver, metallic spines. Surrounding it was an elaborate set of etched lines and shapes seemingly carved into the metal's surface, forming a rectangular portrait of linework across his upper chest centered around the flower of metal in the center. Up close, the design was not wholly dissimilar from the kind one might have found on an ornate silver platter. Apart from the jutting silver spines in the center of his chest, the linework was only broken in a few places by surgical tubing that punctured through the surface, most of them filled and thick with deep, carmine blood - weaving back down through the man's shirt, possibly to some unseen filtration device in the wheelchair.

"My name is Aesch. Not my given name you understand, given my line of work. I will make things simple for all of you. You need to go into the university and do what you were sent do do. Then you can all kindly [i]leave[/i]..." The man paused again, his head sagging abruptly mid-speech. The second man to his left bent down and offered him a small handkerchief, which he meekly accepted and used to dab at his wet, red lips hidden within his scraggly beard. The cloth came away thoroughly stained through with blood, which Aesch then tucked away in a small zipper-bag hanging from the side of his wheelchair. Its side was emblazoned with a biohazard symbol, and a glimpse within revealed a multitude of bloodsoaked rags.

"...kindly [i]leave[/i]-" Aesch began again, "and things will settle down again."

"Begging your pardon Platter, but I am going to be leaving now." The pavise knight interrupted. He seemed curiously unperturbed by his partner's gruesome death and by the detritus that had completely coated his armor - though, given it was slowly fading away as though being scoured by some unseen force, perhaps he had good reason not to care. "My debt is paid."

[@Cruallassar]
"It was paid up until you [i]botched[/i] what was supposed to be a simple escort job you oaf." Aesch snarled. "Where in Hades' name is the golem technician? And you-" He turned his gaze towards Kael, though it would have been more accurate to say that he turned his gaze to stare at some distant patch of space behind Kael, whose head incidentally happened to be in the way. "...Who in the world are you? You are not supposed to be here..." His left arm twitched, as if he were about to raise it. The man standing to attention to Aesch's left was giving Kael a bug-eyed look, and his fingers twitched faintly.