The Lost City

"But I might reveal things," Kartiel said, his words slurring together as he spoke. Maahes watched the whole exchange between Bo and Kartiel with increasing confusion on his face. How much had Kartiel drunk? And why had he let himself get so intoxicated? "I've already revealed too much today. If I say anymore, I-I might compromise my plan and I'm too close to it risk losing all my progress-"

He went to turn around, likely to leave, but his legs suddenly gave out from beneath him. Maahes winced when he heard the loud crashing sound and the steady stream of swears that followed it.

Bo let out an "oop" when Kartiel dropped to the ground, and hurriedly dropped to his knees to meet him there. He put a hand on Kartiel's back and tried to steady the drunken wraith-bodied god.

"Okay. Look. You're very drunk, and you're still healing, and I'm not going to leave you on the floor. I'm not gonna force you to share any secrets or anything, I'm just going to trust that you'll get us home back to our own bodies eventually, but hopefully soon. That's all we can do, really. So I'm going to pick you up, okay? Not gonna leave ya here on the floor in the middle of the hall."

Kartiel didn't object to Bo picking him up - if anything, the expression on his face indicated that he was grateful for the offer - but he did protest the what Bo said about them returning to their original bodies. He went from looking grateful to looking sad, and Nadira wasn't quite sure how she felt about seeing their captor look so downcast.

"I can't send you back yet," he said, hiccuping. "I want to, but I told him I'd do the trial for more than a few hours, and that even the wraith wouldn't make me stop the trial. But-but I didn't think they'd show up. So I was just acting. I'm good at that, you know."

Bo carefully picked Kartiel up and cradled him in his arms. He was glad that the body Kartiel grew for him was just as strong. For a moment, he imagined his clone form strapped to a treadmill or something so that it could build muscle, but he shook his head. That would be silly. Science could do that.

He looked down closely at Kartiel, sighing quietly.

Kartiel was working for someone and had apparently been acting the whole time. It wasn't much of a surprise.

"I believe it," Bo said, turning to the others with their drunken captor in his arms. "I think it's been a few hours, but if you have to wait a few more, so you don't get in trouble or whatever, I think we'll be okay. As long as we get back is all. It's nice to know the wraith weren't planned though," he said with a small smile. "It's nice to know we were all in the same boat. Even if it was scary."

Raiden silently watched the two drunks interact with an air of detachment. Being drunk looked fun, but he was never going to try it. He sipped on his new juice box, spacing out a bit.

Codix carefully listened to the exchange going on between Bo and Kartiel; he was astonished by how much Kartiel was revealing to them, even though he was clearly intoxicated. He had seemed so careful before, each word carefully chosen before the next. Even when he had grown angry and irritated with their actions, he had never faltered as much as he did now.

Codix wasn't sure how he felt about Kartiel's new, brutal honesty. It had been so easy dealing with him earlier - he had seemed like the cartoon caricature of a villain. He was still undoubtedly a villain, but had become more realistic of one thanks to being drunk.

"I'd never want to plan something like the wraiths," Kartiel said from his spot in Bo's arms. "They could have killed you. I wouldn't want that. Not again - they always end up dying, and there's nothing I can do to stop it."

Annnd there was the old Kartiel again, getting upset over his past failed experiments.

Aegeas tilted his head to the side, staring out across the floor. "He likes guys," Aegeas said. "I don't like guys...as much. So we've, we've been tryin' ta find partners for that stuff, and we have, but, uh." He felt his eyelids being weighed down, but he wasn't about to go to sleep now. "Yeah, I pushed 'im into findin' someone for 'im, but it'd be kinda nice ta have him all ta myself."

Bo was very tempted to pull more information out of Kartiel. He was, after all, sharing very freely, but something felt wrong about taking advantage of him when he was drunk to get information. At the very least, it was comforting to know that Kartiel had a heart and didn't want them to die. He was starting to feel presumptuous for assuming otherwise, just because of the bizarreness of their situation, and how much Kartiel had apparently played up the act of being the cold, calculating type of villain (that was, until things apparently didn't go according to plan with the wraiths).

"I know what that can feel like, uh... feeling like you don't have control. Helpless, in a way. Trapped 'cause uh, of people breathing down your neck. If I'm hearing you right it sounds like these experiments maybe... weren't all your idea." What he meant to say, was Kartiel was beginning to look more and more like a victim than a villain, but he wasn't 100% sure yet. He could tell that with Kartiel being as drunk as he was, that his honesty was free of manipulation, even if he was trying to hold back to some degree. But, well, he wasn't so eager to sympathize with his captor - or at least, he didn't want to be. But somehow he found himself doing so.

"We've all done things we regret," he said softly, starting to walk in the direction of the library, and giving a nod of his head to the others for them to walk with him as he carried Kartiel. "I know I've done a lot I'm not proud of."

Codix, Nadira and Maahes all fell into step behind Bo and Kartiel, each trying their best to overhear the conversation. None wanted to interrupt; Bo seemed to have the situation under the control. But, as Codix had noted before, Kartiel clearly didn't. He was so intoxicated that he was revealing things that he would have never mentioned when sober, and that astonished all three of them. How could someone who had calculated so much fall to calculate what would happen if he had too much to drink?

"No, the experiments were all my idea," Kartiel suddenly corrected, his words slurring even more as he spoke. "I spent hours slaving over my plans for this one in particular, and weeks with some of the other more elaborate ones - it's not easy being a villain."

Bo hummed with a subdued curiosity and nodded his head.

"I can imagine so," he commented softly. "Is it... something you enjoy, then? Being a villain?"

I let out a long exhale.

"Heh, you werrre, you're right. I am thhhhoroughly unequipped to comment on that. Its'h affairsh I know, not relay....relationshipsh. I don't know, have you talked to him, about it?

Jusht hit me, if I'm getting too pershonal."

Kartiel furrowed his brow in what was probably confusion. "I don't know," he said, still deep in thought. "I didn't choose to be one, but I don't think anyone really does. And while it is hard, there are some...benefits to it. I guess it isn't as bad as it could be when I'm allowed to do things that would have been the things of fairy tales."

"I dunno," Aegeas said. "It's better than it could be, and he doesn't need ta know. He worries 'bout me a lot 'lready."

I nodded. "Ah, yesh. If he doeshn't need to know, he doeshn't need to know. That'sh how we hold it together.

You know, becaush y' don't want to worry him, of courshe. That'sh the only reashon why." I clarified, a bit too hastily.

Bo flicked a glance back at Maahes, then Codix and Nadira. He figured they were listening in, probably just as interested as he was in everything Kartiel was saying. It was still peculiar that after apparently all of that being an act, Kartiel had gotten drunk and dropped the mask, but it did sound like Kartiel was in some sort of weird situation. For one, he hadn't planned on the wraith showing up. Second, he was saying that he didn't choose to be a villain, which made it sound like - even if he was one - there was probably some kind of situation forcing him into it for his own survival and well-being, or someone else's. Or something. In any case, it sounded like Kartiel was being manipulated to some degree, even if he did all of the experiments by his own volition.

"Like take people out of their realities and make clones and stuff," Bo said, speaking in a neutral, conversational tone.

"So uh... we're not the first group that you've done stuff like this to, then. Right?"