Eysin: The Giggling Curtain | Ch. 16 - 15FPS Elevator to Hell (Hold the Handrail, Sinners)
Eysin and Jarre-Pierre open a nightclub on Sampo's cargo elevator, hosted by DJ Riot. Let's dance! Titan spider springs, red ricochet sings! Conga lines and the fall of a hulked-up vedantic blobfish.
The zip-line trunk crawls down the cable like an arthritic spider, pipes dripping black tar-blood, fuchsia mushrooms throbbing in the walls like infected lungs. Dragonfly husks—dinner-plate size—twitch in the updraft. The air tastes of fermented promises and old battery acid.
Valen refused the gut-tube. “I am not arriving like cargo.”
Imogen backed her for “insurance reasons.”
Clarissa’s voice had crackled over comms, dry as old bone: “Congratulations, princess. Your dignity just saved our skin. Someone laced the fast pipes with acid traps.”
Eysin and Alexander touch down first.
Imogen is already waiting, boots wide, tossing anise ice-tea bottles like sidearms.
She turns and takes a bow, “well, if it isn’t Alexander the Overinformed Cabbage.”
Alexander sweeps the deepest, most sarcastic bow in recorded history. “If it isn’t Imogen and her Boredom Fighters.”
Daegan drops from above in perfect silence, testing levitation like someone checking if the floor still hates him. He pushes Eysin’s reaching hand away from a bottle, takes both, pockets one before Alexander can react, then tosses the other to her. Flips Alexander off:
“Fat Fingers!” he says, flashing east-side, west-side signs.
Alexander grins despite himself. “Relic.”
Perched on a crate, legs swinging, sits the girl.
Alexander points. “Pond, you shouldn’t be—”
“I’m Lily, actually.”
Everyone groans. She’s been rotating names every turn like a cursed radio station. She grins like a cat that just ate God.
“Wew, your zerks look scary!” Lily’s eyes flick to Gen and Daegan. “Did you train a lot?”
Gen hands her a bottle without looking. “Zerks don’t level from training. They level from almost dying and choosing to live anyway. Stay in the game long enough, you get scary. Now stay close if you want to keep choosing life, okay?”
Cassius bounces in, head whipping around like he’s expecting an ambush from his own shadow.
“I’ve counted everyone. We’re ready.”
“Great,” Alexander mutters. “One more lunatic to carry. Someone else needs to count.”
Cassius drops to his hands and starts air-cycling his legs like an upside-down drunk bicyclist. “They didn’t tell me what was in that stuff!”
Eysin and Daegan clink bottles. The anise tastes like childhood snow and gun oil. Refreshed.
They reach the transfer level. Seven elevator choices gape like open mouths.
Eysin spots the sideways chain-cable leading back toward Vegas-B. “That’s our way out. We could take Lily—”
Valen’s growl cuts across comms. “No. We’re going to my ship. We take her back later.”
Clarissa: “Elevator’s ready. Expect company.”
Everyone zerks up.
The cargo platform drops like a stone in a bad mood. Cables whine. Eight sectors yawn around them—mechanical throat ready to swallow crews.
Alexander rubs the red ball on his left arm, eyes scanning.
Valen appears at his side—crimson dress interlaced with zerk, cutting through the incoming chaos like a warning flag. Orange-blossom trails like a dare.
Her gaze drops to his swollen lip. “What happened to your… mouth?”
Alexander meets her eyes—honest for once, performance stripped away.
“Your scent at the meeting made me stupid. I took it out on the wrong girl.”
Valen’s face flickers—sharp, soft, dangerous again.
“Next time,” she says, “take it out on the right one.”
Eysin’s third ring coils into a snake. Tail rattles.
She glances at the crack in the outer wall—sea and sky still light outside.
Then she plants her feet dead center. Eyes shut.
She drops to one knee, shrinking her profile. Something in the dark is already tracking them.
A low tribal drum begins in everyone’s skull. Shamanic. Primal.
Dù-dug, dù-dug, dù-dug, dù-dug…
The shaft lights up like someone cranked the saturation to eleven.
NSS: Ready → NSS: Full Sync
(The text blinks in unorthodox Comic Sans, English)
Alexander tilts his head. Something washes over him—warm, absurd, ecstatic.
His NSS flickers.
Eyes widen in pure, delighted comprehension.
He throws his head back and blasts across every open channel, voice cracking with glee:
“Oh my gooooaaaad—I’m inside all of you at once!”
A beat of stunned silence on comms.
Then he snaps back to business, pointing like a conductor gone feral:
“Jarre-Pierre—shield the witch! No one touches her while she’s locked or we lose that lovely-lovely connection. Cassius—get the big guy, cast the juice!” And then velvet, “I’ve got eyes on a potential shooter.”
Hunters spill from tunnels—Guild armor, grapples biting steel.
“What big guy?” Cassius slips off the elevator, on the wall, and just as he asks—he sees a big guy knock out Daegan with something magical, yoinks him over the shoulder, and gets on the wall to climb back up. “Ouhh, he’s fast! Aite, I’m on it.”
Another lasso whips out, snatches Lily. She screams—perfect GPS.
Clarissa and Dragon bolt after her, fifty meters up, straight into a tunnel.
Clarissa gets shoved, tumbles back into nothing.
Eysin straightens her back. A satisfying crack echoes through the hall.
“Hah-haa!”
An empty crate morphs into a striped laundry vat to catch Clarissa’s fall—grinning face painted on the side like it’s enjoying this way too much. Clarissa hits it with a cartoon SPLOOSH, suds exploding everywhere. She comes up spitting bubbles, furious and fabulous.
Jarre-Pierre drops into torpor right beside Eysin with a soft, fond gackle. Some kind of handcraft smoke dangling and burning at his lips.
“Avec plaisir, sœurette.”
As he lifts his Kaestus, a Diamond Dome blooms around them with faint espresso foam shimmer.
Eysin recognizes that smoke. Good old Monk’s Autumn Blend.
Eysin’s Alephira beams punch straight through the glinting dome above them, turning the shield into a spinning disco prism while projecting a low-res translation for herself and Jarre to look through.
Outside: glitter beams strobe across the shaft, disco bass drops thumping in perfect sync with the combat-percussion-jazz. One hunter actually pauses to shield his eyes like he walked into the wrong club.
Eysin glances at Jarre-Pierre, eyes dancing.
“Your shield’s got rhythm!”
Jarre-Pierre exhales smoke toward the ceiling, voice low, amused:
“Everything has rhythm if you listen, petite. Even the end of the world.”
The dome holds. The beams dance.
“What the hell was in that chocolate?” Eysin suspects she might still be under the influence.
“Ah, la spéciale de Tessa. Dans la rue, ça s’appelle le Programme de Fertilité de Vegas-B. Donc c’est pour ça, la nuit dernière…”
“Come, Pierre—Let’s dance!”
The fight rages on.
Cassius rockets upward, magnetic bounds, beast-monk style, mushroom bravery at eleven.
Raynar runs vertical beside him, Terror pipes shrieking cover.
Sylrissa whips through the air, rope-darts flashing silver arcs.
May kneels at the edge—calm, professional—hard-light beams lancing out, severing grapples, keeping hunters from rappelling straight onto the deck.
Alexander is losing it on the far side, scratching his arm until skin peels in doughy strips.
“Stalin-this, Stalin-that! My mother’s going to kill me!”
He rolls the imaginary dough, voice cracking into a child’s wail. “She’ll say I should have stayed in the library, should have married the nice archivist’s daughter—”
“Shut up, Alexander,” Sylrissa howls over whip-cracks. “We’re all getting killed today. Pick a better last-words track.”
He laughs too loud. Then sobs once.
The bass is still blowing him away.
“God, this is so annoying. Sure! Ravannaaaaahhh—Let’s dance!”
The laugh dies. Eyes clear. Focus snaps in like a magazine sliding home.
He spins the red ball once—casual, almost lazy—and chucks it at a random pipe overhead.
It ricochets—ping-pong-ping—nails a hunter square in the helmet right behind Sylrissa.
The guy yelps “ARGH!” loud enough to rattle teeth.
The ricochet jolts him sideways—perfectly into her line.
Body slumps.
Sylrissa startles at the timing, reflex-kicks backward. Heel connects.
Dead-weight flies, crashes into four buddies lined up like bowling pins.
All five sail off the platform—“eeeeeeeeeeee!”—vanishing down the shaft in a flailing conga line.
Sylrissa snarls, “What’s up with these… Odds? What’s going on here?”
Sylrissa glances back at Alexander, flips him the most theatrical middle finger in history, complete with twirl.
He snips finger pistols at her before the ball returns, “that’s how it’s done, baby Seals.”
Meanwhile: Imogen is finished charging herself up.
Charging herself up to what?—you ask.
The music shifts—synths slam in and the disco turns to killer beats, neon, blood, and screaming.
From her already scaring looking full Zerker Knight Silver-white overlay - layers of chrome bloom—liquid metal crawling, consuming, building brutal simplicity. Polygons snap into place: sharp edges, smooth curves, no texture, pure geometric threat.
She becomes the Titan—sleek four-legged sphere, ’90s render-farm menace.
Platform creaks under new weight.
Jarre-Pierre exhales smoke, voice low and amused, cigarette dragging slow:
“Oh là là… regardez-moi cette furie géométrique. Huff. Magnifique.”
She coils.
Red aura ignites—crimson halos pulsing like war paint on a statue.
Launches.
The jump hits like a detonation. Cables scream. Elevator lurches.
Imogen blasts upward—world glitches into PlayStation-1 horror.
Choppy frames. Low-poly geometry stuttering through space.
Silver sphere teleporting between positions, red aura smearing trails, pursuit too fast for the engine to handle.
Up top, the other captor slides into a tunnel—Daegan limp over his shoulder.
Cassius’s head pops up like deranged whack-a-mole.
He fumbles his staff—the hook extends, extends, extends—impossibly long candy-cane shepherd’s crook wobbling skyward.
“Come on—”
Eysin extends her naginata and makes a quick cut on the shield’s screen—glitches Cassius’ strange choice of weapon.
Hook teleports perfectly ahead of the captor’s foot.
The odds are absurd: trips them anyway.
Captor slams down with 8bit percussion sounds. Skinny Daegan tumbles free.
Cassius approaches like a freight train with a laugh track—HA HA HA HA—eyes wild, needle drawn, Deranged Divine Judgment!
Captor SCREAMS!
Cassius punches the Vialence home—through armor, cloth, flesh.
Yank.
Daegan’s eyes snap open.
He swells—dark wrathful blue, roaring like a storm-god remembering he’s late.
The captor bolts—pure panic.
Recoil of said bolt is nuclear enough to yeet Giant Daegan back into open air.
Big blue blobfish swishes past—Raynar’s Terror pipes SHRIIIEK—cathedral panic.
Eyes pop cartoon-wide. Guitar amp wall-mic feedback loop intensifies.Everyone screaming—
Daegan falls through the air.
Fast.
Screaming high-pitched, almost ladylike—
“AAAAAAAaaaaaa—levitate-levitaaaaaaate!”
Magnetics kick in almost too late.
He slows. Hovers dramatic inches above deck, chest heaving…
Then gravity remembers who’s boss.
SLAM.
Platform buckles. Metal shrieks. Cables fray. Snnnap!
Everyone staggers.
But it holds!
Hurray!
Alexander kicks a pebble at the blue heap.
Clink.
“Still alive? We might need him later.”
Sniper shot cracks—bullet screaming straight for Valen’s head.
Alexander blinks in like a mirage.
Catches the bullet between two fingers. Right in front of her face.
Turns, slow-motion cheeky.
The colourful disco lights are really getting to him.
Sedated in the moment.
“If I die tonight, it’ll have been in the best possible company.”
Drags the bullet and fingers gently across her lower lip as dramatic caress.
Her eyes widen.
He winks.
Her mouth gapes.
She grabs him by the collar, tickles her mouth against his swollen lip, “Don’t die tonight! This duet needs an encore.”
He flicks the bullet—projectile screaming—straight into the sniper’s visor.
“The bloodiest kill in the book,” Alexander bows before Valen, “and it was to save Quiet.”
Higher up, Imogen’s Titan overtakes Dragon and hunter.
Gen-spider rockets past in pursuit — red aura smearing, 15FPS stutter, pure geometric fury.
Perfect timing.
Lily’s eyes flash.
For one glorious fraction of a second her zerk flares a dark rose.
She swells — not giant, just enough: arms thicken, legs bulk, body goes full chibi-hulk mode.
Captor feels the sudden weight shift. “What the—”
Lily twists mid-carry, grabs his belt with one suddenly-meaty hand, and pancakes him face-first into the wall. WHAM-SPLAT.
8-bit crunch sound. Stars circle his helmet like a classic cartoon.
Lily drops lightly to a ledge, back to gremlin size, brushing hands like “job done.”
Gen-spider screeches to a low-poly halt, unfurls then scoops Lily up with one silver segment.
They plummet back.
Sphere unfurls on impact, depositing both.
That final landing proves too much for the SHIEEEEEKing platform. .
Overstrained cables snap—cartoonish twannng.
Platform drops the last three meters in one heartbeat.
The biggest KONG you’e ever heard.
Just once.
Never again.
Everyone crashes in a heap—bodies tumbling, crates rolling, banana peels skidding underfoot with synth bubble sounds for extra absurdity.
Metal clangs. Groans rise. Someone’s foot ends up in someone else’s face.
“I really need to pee now.”
Of the seven doors, one garage door yawns open.
Capricorn waits—dark, inert.
Daegan stops. Closes eyes. Feels it from afar.
“It’s sleeping. Where’s the navigator?”
Clarissa wipes blood off her blade. “With Atlas. They went after the other test subjects.”
Alexander looks at Daegan. Raises an eyebrow.
“Then you’re our best candidate.”
Alexander spins to him, and hands Daegan a golden coin.
“You got me a vohu mana? After all this time?”
Daegan’s suit flares oil-slick black, gadolinium veins glowing like submarine ghosts in love.
“Just take your continue coin and get us the hell out of here.”
Far above, the Sampo Tree twists—metal groaning like something alive.
Lights dim to blood red.
The alarm that rolls down the shafts sounds exactly like a gigantic, dissatisfied horse.
Alexander checks the time, gets a bottle from his backpack.
“Ahh, ginger ale break!”
Imogen gets right up his business, “Hel said the Anomaly peaks between or after two cannon shots from the top.”
So, Alexander enters the Kraken with an open bottle—let’s-get-the-hell-out-of-here in merry union.
A single, naked scrap of lace—the very last surviving fragment, cinnamon-dusted and completely over it—flutters down from the ceiling like a drunk moth that just got religion.
Oh, he’s got that laced with rum, for sure.
And Pierre is secretly hauling some Madeira.
The lace is naked, the windows are gone, and every single one of you is sworn to learn why ships fall in love with their captains.
Next stop: the boys holding a plasma party in squid corpses, trashing china and brace yourselves for a hostile takeover.
Hold the handrail, sinners. The cataclysm just got wet.
Continue reading:
Eysin: The Giggling Curtain | Ch. 17 - The Mirror Sea Grimdark *burp*
The top saucer of the Sampo gleams dull gold under a dead sky—a coin flipped and forgotten. Wind screams across it, sharp enough to shave regrets.