[[Psst! Hey you! If you are here without context, go vote for the Well in the MCYT Prisons Contest!]] (and also for the Ghost's Vault, too)
“You tubed which Lying!?” Avid’s patron sputters.
Avid winces at the loud feedback screech accompanying their outburst, resisting the urge to clap his hands over his ears – instead, he looks directly over towards the most recently occupied tube, giving its new resident a quick once-over for identifying features. Fox ears, kind of runny mascara (the tube isn’t doing it any favors), raven wings, big floppy hat with a wide brim and a pointy tip.
He snaps his fingers. “Witch Lying! Yeah, that’s the one.”
“You,” the Nameless King says, and then mutters something completely unintelligible. “Avid. You have priorities. You are supposed to stop people from falling into the Void. This sort of diversion is–”
“I thought of that, actually!” Avid says brightly, leaning back against the stasis chamber. “Actually, they were like, a pretty high priority target once I realized I had access to other worlds through this whole… prison bracket… thingy.”
“I’m still not sure how that works, to be honest,” the Nameless King sighs.
“It’s really not that complicated! See, the other Avid is busy being possessed by some weird dark entity called the Old One or whatever, who I assume is like a rival of yours so I’m not going to linger on that because I certainly wouldn’t want to be asked about my exes, but anyway – he’s busy, I’m not –”
“–You have a job–”
“– and so I figured, what the heck, might as well just kinda sneak in there and see if there’s anyone that’s being particularly unsafe! And hoo boy, buddy, you are gonna be glad I did that.”
A pause, then more discontented grumbling from the other side of the line. “You had better have a good reason for taking your eyes off our biggest issues. Marmalade’s still at large, and that Fool could be–”
Avid snickers, rapping his knuckles against the tube despite the sign he’d put up next to it clearly reading DO NOT TAP ON GLASS. “Okay, so here’s the deal. It turns out this sucker right here, the Witch, they’re like – immortal immortal.”
“Most people are somewhat immortal. Respawn exists.”
“Yeah, I don’t think they’ve taken a respawn in a couple centuries,” Avid says, stretching and moving over to the readout of the tubed figure’s genetics chart. “From an old modded generation – they’ve got some sort of immortality machine somewhere. Couldn’t figure out how to disable that but I did my research and, oh boy, you are gonna be glad to hear about this one.”
“Again. This had better be good.”
“Man, you are tetchy today.” Avid sighs. “I’ll make it quick. Immortality machine runs on death protection poppets. Death protection poppets block void damage. Void deals void damage. People go into Limbo if the Void can’t kill ‘em. You want people not in Limbo. Ergo, pickled Witch in the Woods.”
A long silence.
“Did I oversimplify?”
“No.” They sigh deeply. “Frankly, I’m stunned that you managed to create and follow a totally logical train of thought to completion. If what you’re saying is true, you actually have saved us both a great deal of hassle.”
“Aw. That’s sweet of you.” Avid leans back against the tube again, grinning.
“Don’t get used to it. But… well done.”
Avid grins widely, almost to the point where he has to cover his own face to hide how much he’s smiling. He’s done a good job! He did it! He’s getting a good grade in tubing people, something both normal to want and possible to achieve!
“I asked you a question, Avid,” the Nameless King says. Oops.
“Yep! Definitely heard you the first time, but, could you maybe just… rephrase that in full for a reason that is totally unrelated to me not hearing you?”
A long-suffering sigh. “I asked how you got them in the first place. Didn’t you lose the last round?”
“Eheh.” Avid’s grin turns almost uncharacteristically nasty. “See, that’s the thing. I did. I’ve been picking off the losers for the most part, so everyone’s been worrying about little ol’ me. I mean, who would even bother going after the immortal that won this round? If anything, they’re a suspect.” He waves one hand. “It’ll take people a little while to realize anything’s up – in fact, I can probably pick off a few more people in the quarterfinals before anyone figures out that the Witch is missing.”
“Make your pitch,” Avid’s patron says. “Quickly.”
“You got it.” Avid rummages in his inventory and pulls out a hand-drawn map of the upcoming tournament and a ballpoint pen that was probably Trog’s before they got tubed. He clicks it a few times, tapping it against his chin. “So, this round the Well looks like it might get bodied. Last round got something like a thousand votes – really close call, this place called the Desert versus these things called ‘where is’ blogs.”
“Please tell me you didn’t take out Ross,” the Nameless King says. “I don’t have the time or resources to deal with the Red Sun, and neither do you.”
“I may be dumb,” Avid says, “but I’m not stupid. I didn’t mess with that round. It was too high-profile, and keeping the Desert guys at large means they’re another prime suspect for the disappearances. Which brings me to the winners of that round.”
“Which was…?”
“The where is blogs. Apparently they put people in situations and it’s very popular. But, if they win, I’m thinking I could call in a little request for their next location.”
“Hm.” Avid gets the distinct sensation that the Nameless King is tapping their fingers against something. “Yes, that could work. If they let their guard down after winning like the Witch did, you could sweep in and get a lot of people at the same time – define where they are, as it were.”
Avid twirls the pen around his fingers a couple times before scribbling something down in the margins of his notes. “See, this is why we make such a good team! That is exactly what I was thinking we could do.”
“Excellent. Then make sure they win the next round – and don’t let me down.”
Avid nods, and then realizes that his patron can’t see him doing that, and then decides that he doesn’t really have anything to add. Awkward silence fills the air for several seconds.
“One more thing,” the Nameless King finally says. “You said you were picking off the losers, didn’t you?” Their voice is dryly annoyed again – so much for being happy with Avid’s job performance. “I would love to hear who else you’ve wasted our time on.”
“Not a waste of time!” Avid says brightly, hopping over the top floor railing and down to a lower floor. “So, there’s this really cute version of Viking that I would, just, love to talk with over drinks sometime, seems like a really fun dude, has this beautiful vault –”
“Avid. Focus.”
“Uh. Right. Probably won’t be able to talk to him face-to-face unless he gets into the finals, so I’m gonna have to work really hard to see if I can–”
“Avid.”
“Sorry, sorry!” Avid waves a hand as he checks over the occupant of the next tube. “Anyway, the guy he beat was really distracted and kind of stormed off muttering about how people should’ve had new perspectives or something? He was alone, so I bopped him over the head and tossed him in a stasis chamber.”
Avid looks over the catboy in the tube appraisingly. He’s wearing all-black with green and yellow highlights – he kind of looks like an emo version of Viking, if Viking actually wore hoodies. And had brown hair. And didn’t really look like Viking other than the heterochromia. “I don’t know his name, but apparently he’s Canadian? Whatever that means, I don’t think Canada canonically exists in–”
“You’re not serious.”
“I am! We cannot confirm Canada to be like, a canonically existing thing, that’ll break suspension of disbelief! Or at least that’s probably what Anathra would say.”
“I don’t care about the relative canonicity of Canada. You’re telling me you captured Kenadian? The person known for breaking into and out of places faster than anyone else? The prison escapist?”
“Ohhh,” Avid says. “He’s not Canadian, his name’s Kenadian. You know what, that makes so much more sense.”
