An Unexpected Surprise

Lens chaotic life had a bit of a twist and turn the weeks after Crozz and ash successfully snuck through her facility; it was almost as though their success gave her a taste of bad luck, which was a first for her ever through the centuries she's gone through. Still, the successful woman had to go on with her fashion events and jammed-packed conferences that followed, she rarely seemed to catch a break, but she lived for the chaos; she thrived in this life though it was draining and all. But for the first time, it seemed like even this was too much for her; she needed a partner in crime and quick. Still, the only one she knew of was… frozen in time kinda… she knew that path, for now, was useless to go through, unfortunately, so she needed another way that allowed her souls to go around without well causing a scene. I mean, who would freak out to see souls wander around the land like nothing? She needed vessels for them, vessels that are small and efficient and above all low maintenance, but what fits that description? The only artifact that allowed this was in her missing flash drive that she swore she had in a safe spot away from the grasps of others. Yet it was missing with no explanation. Hit with that roadblock, she needed another path, one she'll make herself with an old… undesired acquaintance of hers. One who knew about artifacts as well; after all, his last job was guarding inventory, which by the way, was very unsuccessful since she got past him pretty quickly. She knew he was still around but went quite a few centuries ago for some unknown reasons. Those weren't her concerns. All she wanted from him was information of possible artifacts that may lay around here on earth still that can maybe be used to animate inanimate objects or something of that sort. He for sure had to know something since he worked in that department. She knew how to summon him since she had his summoning spell memorized by heart from when she worked with the legion; she knew all of them. Gathering the objects wasn't going to be an issue either. In fact, she had all of them lying around already. Hence, she quickly headed down to her third underground floor, passed the working facility and some other unknown room, and finally, after having to fight her worst enemy, walking for extended amounts of time, she made it to her room full of cryptic and unstable objects. She gathered the objects needed of those, just being a few bones, some black obsidian slab, her ugliest one since she didn't see the need to waste good material on this creature; the minimum would do, and of course the cliche thing, a bucket of blood, we don't talk about where it came from, nobody would like that. Other than that, the creature was of simple taste. The rest of the objects were weird; a cold soda and toxic liquid that in smoke form can be inhaled. Len quickly cleared some space on her floor and began to set the bones in a circle, then put the obsidian slab in the center, followed by the room temperature soda can on the slab. She then proceeded to make a thin line of blood in the circular motion of the bones on the ground, then some lines connected to the slab, and to set everything down in the place, she poured some drops of the toxic liquid into a machine to cause the smoke. As soon as the machine let out some bit of smoke, she began to chant the being's name, but in a forced tone, She really didn't want to do this, but she had no choice. So she began to call out the chant, "Dev I summon thee I call you out to come to my call" soon, the room started to shake and rumble. After some time, the black obsidian began to crack and shine. The blood lines followed until the entire circle was shinning. The smoke in the room started to be sucked in through the obsidian slab, then the soda can sank into it almost as tho the slab wasn't a solid object no more but a circle of liquid. Soon after, the slab cracked, but nothing was in the ring left confused; Len just stood there waiting to maybe see if the summoning took some time or something. After a few seconds of silence, her alarm system went off, the traps were triggered on the top floor. Len wasn't expecting company today; surprised, she quickly ran up to the floor. As she grew closer, she was finally starting to hear a noise; whatever it was, still having traps go off. The closer she got, the clearer the sounds got; she was able to make up a sound that wasn't of traps but of some… man? Yelling in terror. It must be some other knockoff cheap designer trying to come in to steal some new piece to copy it and call it their own. She was surprised, though, that this dude was putting up a fight with the traps heck; if he makes it out of them, she'll even think about making his death fast and quick out of respect. To her surprise, as she reached the top floor, it wasn't a designer but, "ugh! Dev? Why are you on the top floor?" She exclaimed, very frustrated to a dev who was in a pillar holding on for dear life while a saw was under his bottom trying to reach him. "I DON'T KNOW YOU'RE THE ONE WHO CALLED ME HERE JUST TO GET BOMBARDED WITH TRAPS!". Len soon realized that the traps were still trying their hardest to get him, so she turned off the alarm system, and quickly everything went back into hiding in their designated spots. "You can come down now. They won't be getting you anymore; such a baby, I swear. A couple of traps are too much for you? Ever heard of I don't know getting out of the area?" Len exclaimed. "I could have, but I wanted the soda can that was in the middle of the floor. It's my favorite type," Dev said excitedly as he reached for it "ugh, why is it, room temp? It's supposed to be cold. That's why I was summoned up here and not wherever you were. Which, by the way, took you long enough to come to help" Len just snickered and replied with, "I was debating on coming up to help or not. Be lucky I did come to help -although I wish I didn't now-"Len laughed, seeing Dev's face full of nothing but disappointment. "What do you need anyway? Though we were never to meet again?" "I need a favor, and I know you worked in the artifact inventory," Len said. "Yea, I did. It was the only placement that didn't have many restrictions" "…you do realize that was also a placement that needed your guard at all times, right?" "Eh, I got bored. I needed breaks". Len just rolled her eyes and said, "that's sad, but moving on from that, I need to know if there are any artifacts left around here on earth that are capable of animating things?" "There may be something, but why would I help you?" Dev said puzzled. Len grinned "well, you owe me a favor. I was the only one to give you a weapon at the start of your journey, so it's only fair for you to pay me back now" "I guess so, which by the way the weapon broke almost immediately what's that about?" Dev pointed out "idk maybe you're just not worthy for such weapon it worked perfectly fine for me when I used it on a… poor soul. So this looks like you problem dude. Anyways let's go we got some research to do". Dev said nothing as he was shocked to get told what he had just heard. He just followed with a puzzled look. Hours passed, and most artifacts were either picked up already or weren't used for what she wanted. Len soon grew impatient and angered at the results they were digging up, but that would quickly change as the lights in the room became engulfed in darkness, and the room became cold and darker by the second. Confused yet uneasy, Len grabbed a dagger and assumed a defensive position, ready to go up against whatever was coming. In what seemed like a pulse, everything shook, and light came back, and the coldness Went away too. She turned around, confused to see if Dev was still around, only to find Dev being held in place by some black vine-like things holding his wrists and ankles together. But Dev didn't seem shocked or afraid he had a displeased and frustrated look on his face. Then a thud came from behind Len, which startled her; she jumped back to see what made this sound. There was a human-like thing standing on her work desk. Annoyed but mostly confused, Len asks, "who might you b-""oh, how rude of me. Of course, I need to introduce myself. How could I forget?" Len tilts her head in confusion, still looking at this person. "I'm David. Nice to meet you! I came to check up on Dev. I noticed he disappeared out of nowhere from his place as he was riding around his island then noticed he came back here and wanted to make sure it was going good seeing as he has one more year to go" Len, even more, confused asks "one more year to g-" Dev annoyed marks "one more year that I cannot kill anyone" "EXACTLY!" David says cheerfully. "Great, just what I needed some more disruption that doesn't allow me to get my work done! And not to mention David, you completely ruined the archives I had on the desk that was REALLY important right about now!" David, confused, looks down to see the mess he had made on the desk "oh my! That wasn't something I meant to do. I need to calculate things better, silly me ha-ha. Here allow me to give you something as an apology. Let. Me. Just!" David says as he starts to dig in his pockets only to yield nothing, "I could have sworn I stashed them somewhat- OH WAIT!" David pulls off his hat and begins to shake it vigorously. Len, probably the most confused that she's ever been, just stood there looking intently at Davids hat, waiting to see what the purpose of this was "give it a second, David says. anytime now! come one, don't make me look like a weirdo in front of a new person" finally some results began to show and many little trinkets and Knick knacks started to fall to the ground some breaking and others bouncing around. "Pick whichever things you like. Some stuff is nice and useful, and others are just small things you can use as gags" "…uh, okay…?" "Can I be released now? I'm getting bor-""SHUT UP!" Said Len and David at the same time, cutting him off, "so I can take whatever I want?" Len asked, trying to contain her excitement "uh, how about you take three things" David responded, "do you have anything that can animate previously inanimate objects?" Len asked hopefully "ooh yikes, I, unfortunately, do not have that, but I know someone who does; well, I know a pair who has something of your interest just ran into them a couple of weeks ago, you should have seen the look on their faces when they saw me as the dude they looked for it was super funny" David exclaimed, "wait who has it and where was this?" "Oh, I'm certain you have already run into them at one point after all one of them had a pair of your brand of shoes, and the other carried a flash drive with your logo that was embroidered in jewels around her neck, which by the way nice taste you have I like it a lot" David answered. Len, incapable of passing up a compliment, responded, "oh, why to thank you, I'm glad some can appreciate the val- wait, did you say flash drive!?" Len finally processed what David said. "SHE STOLE MY FLASH DRIVE!??" David just stood there and shrugged, confused on whether or not he was supposed to know this. "MY FLASH DRIVE!?" Yelled Len once again. "Hahahha, wow, guess you had an impeccable vision," snickered Dev seeing this as a win for him which was then followed by a slap and an "ow!" From Dev, "that's not nice!" Stated David. After some time, Len gathered her composure and collected her three gifted items of choice from the pile of objects, then thanked David and let them be on their way. David delighted to finally meet Len in person, said his goodbyes and ripped through the plain air causing a tear in time, and jumped in, dragging a very unamused and bored dev. Len quickly stopped her charade and grew angered once more. What was on her mind? Who knows, but it for sure wasn't going to be pretty…