Chapter 2: My Brother's Keeper

Iris brings out a few cups of soicaff. She place the first in front of Checkmate then another in front of Greer. She heads back to the kitchen and retrieves a third cup, then looks directly at Lu. "This one is for you" She says placing it on a small side table next to Lu. She then leans back against the wall. The room feeling crowded with four people.

"I don't know where Ray is. He came by, just like you all, and he was looking for Geri. I told him Geri was looking for a cure for the infection." She rubs her arms as if she was cold. "You see. We wanted to be a part of this world." She points to Lu as she says so. "We see dragons and elves and magic. But we just live in shitty apartments, living normal lives, working shitty jobs. It fraggin' sucks." She goes back into the kitchen and she is holding a carving knife. "So we started looking for a way to get magic. We thought vampires would be cool. But we couldn't find any. But we did find a ghoul bar called the Red Eye." Her arms fall to the side and the knife seems forgotten in her hand. "Geri spent more time there than me. At first we just felt alive hanging out. Ghouls are a really misunderstood community, ya know. And it was scary... but cool scary. Well finally we decided to take the plunge. Geri met up with a ghoul chummer named Roy. Roy refused to bite us. Said it was a curse. But we insisted. So he bit us. Geri got sick pretty quick. I seemed to not get sick at all. This kind of created a problem between us. Geri went through a lot of pain. He disappeared for awhile. But then I get a call from him in the middle of the night saying he thinks he found a doctor that could get him a cure. I got real excited. He said he didn't know the name of the doctor but Roy was gonna put him in touch." She shakes her head. "I never heard from Geri again. All I heard from was Ray. I told him what I am telling you. Ray went to find Roy. Now it seems Ray is missing. This fraggin' world sucks man. She coughs violently. "Cuz, you see, now I am sick. Seems the fraggin' disease has finally hit me. I can't eat anymore. And, I can see drek that I could see before, magic drek, like that guy." She points again to Lu. "But it hurts so fraggin' bad."

Wyvern's baby monitor ticks the number 6. The paperclip security guard pulls out a flashlight and begins looking around. The beam of light weeps back and forth. It lands on the security camera and the paperclip pauses. It begins to inspect the security camera. It then raises its head and an animated siren pops up from its head. The red light begins flashing. Tampering with copyright code or equipment is against the law of the iHouse justidiction! Submit yourself to the authorities at once. the paperclip then launches itself at Wyvern's avatar.

The paperclip pulls out two paint guns. Plop! Plop! Plop! Three large balls of brightly colored paint sail toward Wyvern. Iris nods to Lu as a welcome. She responds to Checkmate. "Yeah, I can describe him, but it is easier I just show you a pic." She puts the knife down on a sidetable and pulls out her comm. She flips through some files then flicks a pic in AR over to you all. The pick shows Iris, Geri and Roy all sitting on a curb taking a selfie. Iris and Geri are smiling but Roy has a slight frown on his face. Roy has dark black hair but it looks like it is falling out. His face has nasty lesions on it and his nose has degraded to the point where it looks sunk into his face. His eyes have sunk deep into the sockets, the eyes are bloodshot and the iris and pupils are shrunken. He is thin and lanky and he is wearing a denim jacket with black sharpie tags on them. His fingers have long claw like nails painted bright purple.

Iris then looks to the ground uncomfortably. She starts to hold her stomach. "I need you guys to leave... I am really not feeling well."

Wyvern easily dodges the paperclip's attempts to brute force mark her. The paperclip grimaces a cartoony grimace.

Iris quickly opens the door and lets Lu and Checkmate out. As soon as they are in the hallway she slams the door shut. From behind the door you hear her yell, "Leave now!!!"