Ryslig IC Contact

[terribibble]

WELCOME TO YOUR PRIVATE CHANNEL, FIDDLEFORD HADRON MCGUCKET. FOR SECURE COMMUNICATION, USE 011.23.581.321 *** teslacoils has joined 011.23.581.321 >> teslacoils has posted an AUDIO MESSAGE. If you wish to listen, type LISTEN01. <teslacoils> Lab hours are 10 AM to 6 PM Mon-Wed, 7 PM to 3 AM Thur-Fri, special appointments available. <teslacoils> I am no longer associated with the Fourth God. <teslacoils> But I will answer any questions you might have about him with the honest truth.

<teslacoils> - main username
<novus> <ordo> <seclorum> <fulcrum> - anonymous usernames
<hadron> <thamnophis> <4eyes> - retired usernames
pixel image by CJ Pythonmelon
voice work by Penny knittinggiantbeanies

Comments

[thefuckingbeam]

[That earns a snort of laughter from Eddie, and he shakes his head as he pushes himself upright by the elbow.]

I guess that shows how much I pay attention.

[His hair is messy as usual, and his eyes are a little bloodshot, but otherwise Eddie seems pretty functional. He may have smoked a little extra in preparation for this.]

You ready for some high-stakes puzzle adventuring?

[terribibble]

[Hahha. High-stakes.]

Sure am. Though I ought to warn you, I've played this game before and as far as I can tell I'm awful good at it.

[Sure enough, FHM is top of the leaderboard.]

[thefuckingbeam]

[Eddie scoffs, turning to the cabinet and fiddling with the left-hand joysticks.]

Whatever you say, man. You can't possibly be better than, ah—

[He gestures at the screen.] FHM, there. [Leave him alone he's stoned.]

[terribibble]

[Ahaha oh my god. That probably shouldn't be as funny as it is, but the weed is certainly making it seem hilarious. Fiddleford has a pretty distinctive laugh -- a donkey laugh, some folks'd call it -- and it comes on twice as enthusiastic when he's high.]

Y'know, I'm not gonna tell you why that's funny. You'll see.

[He slithers up beside Eddie. The moment his hand touches the joystick the 'Credits' marker becomes 'Free Play' instead. There are some perks to being higher up in the ranks.]

[thefuckingbeam]

[Eddie rolls his eyes. Nerd humor, probably. He arches an eyebrow at the way the screen dialogue changes.]

Woah. Nice perks.

[He presses the START button on his side and adjusts his stance a little wider, bumping into one of Fiddleford's coils. in the process.]

...Sorry, man.

[terribibble]

S'fine. There's a lotta me to work around. No harm.

[Not to mention that since he's got his tail back he's discovered the more buzzed he is the harder it is to keep track of his coils. If some of them bump into Eddie it's really impossible to tell exactly whose fault it is.

Funny enough, his Tetris skills seem to remain entirely unaffected.]

Y'been alright lately?

[thefuckingbeam]

Heh. You got that right.

[Eddie launches into the game with gusto, careful quick flicks of his wrist on the joystick and calculated taps of the rotate button. It feels good to do something normal that he used to do, a million years ago in New York.]

I've been...okay. Getting along, anyways. That whole thing with the dreams...it really messed with my head, man.

[SPECIFICALLY YOUR DREAM, FIDDLEFORD.]

[terribibble]

How much do you remember?

[He's got most of it, he thinks, but he knows better than to trust his memory of anything anymore. He could be forgetting huge chunks of what he saw.

He didn't forget the noose in AM's mind, unfortunately. Of course that's one of the things that wouldn't go away.]

[thefuckingbeam]

Uh—

[Eddie swears under his breath as he misses a move and causes a small pileup on the screen.]

A lot. Unfortunately. I saw, uh—I saw your house, so that was neat.

[terribibble]

My house.

[A row disappears from his screen. Alright. Just gotta keep that going.]

I remember -- I think. It's all jumbled up, y'know, everythin' that happened. Like dreams usually are.

[thefuckingbeam]

Yeah. Shag carpeting and everything.

[Eddie grunts in mingled victory and distress; he clears a line of blocks, but this conversation is venturing toward thornier territory than he'd hoped.]

I know what you mean. It was fuckin' weird, I'm not gonna lie to you. I think—I met your wife.

[terribibble]

Oh.

[Yeah, this conversation has strayed pretty far into things Fiddleford isn't sure he wants to talk about, but now that they're here they might as well have it out. He's oddly curious, just as much as he is apprehensive.]

Was she -- what did you think of her?

[He doesn't know. He appeared to some of the people in his own mind but not to Eddie, and so he has only the vaguest idea of what Eddie might have seen.]

[thefuckingbeam]

[Nope nope nope he is not about to tell Fiddleford that his wife was a many-eyed Lovecraftian horror. It's simply not a conversation Eddie is interested in having right now. He grits his teeth, clears another then, and then shrugs, trying to remain casual.]

Uh—couldn't tell, honestly. Never saw her face. She seemed quiet.

[terribibble]

Huh. Doesn't sound much like her.

[He plops a piece down just a little too much to the left. Crap. It's fine. He can correct for it.]

She wasn't a shy woman, really. If she thought somethin' you'd know.

[thefuckingbeam]

Huh. [Eddie's concentrated almost furiously on the game now, his grip extraordinarily tight on the joystick.]

That's weird, man. Maybe dream-her was just...different.

[YEAH JUST A LITTLE BIT let's go with that.]

[terribibble]

Can't imagine why she would have been.

[It's not like he erased that much to do with her... he understands why his dream of Ford was how it was. He saw that when he saved Robbie from it, and even if he doesn't remember the whole thing all too clear he has the face burned into his memory like a flashbulb picture. He remembers her voice, too, he remembers because Draco --]

... She wasn't a pterodactyl, was she?

[thefuckingbeam]

[Eddie snorts so hard it actually hurts, shaking his head. God, he wishes she'd been a pterodactyl.]

No, man. She was not a fuckin' dinosaur. She was human-shaped.

[terribibble]

Good. Good, she shoulda been.

[He lapses into quiet for a little bit, shifting blocks and trying to make up for his earlier mistake. There was a thread to the conversation here but it's an unpleasant one and he's fine letting it dangle for just a little bit until--]

I'm sorry. If it wasn't all that nice, bein' in my head. It's not always a nice place.

[thefuckingbeam]

[Eddie wants to tell him. Knows he should, at least, more than any overwhelming desire to discuss the experience. But he just can't bring himself to do it. It'd ruin a perfectly nice time they're having.

He grunts a couple times, punching the button furiously to rotate a long block just in time to fit it neatly into a space, clearing three rows at once.]

Fuck yeah. It's—it's okay. Mine's not, either.