Somewhere in the Uinta Mountains...
Quence and Steve scurried down the mountain side as quietly as they could. Quence couldn't help but why the Case-Manager had sent a Class 3 Imagineer from R&D with him. It made no sense, really. He was still in the service of the Animator, and he knew the Case-Manager through family connections, so he wasn't about to rock the boat. He would've thought about it more, but the kid was coming down the mountain side above him. "Hey, kid, watch where you're stepping!" He whispered in what he though was a quiet and fierce way befitting a Para-Litigator such as himself.
"Sorry, Mr. Quence sir." Steve's cracking, pre-pubescent voice rang across the valley. For a little guy, he was loud.
"Shut the Duck up! Come on! We're King's men for crying out loud!" Quence was certain that if there were any marauders or violent creatures in the valley, they knew where dinner was.
"Sorry, Mr. Quence, sir!" Even whispering, Steve's voice continued to fine several differ pitches to flutter between. Quence didn't bother to hide his cringing in the dark.
"Just be quiet! I don't even know why they sent you! You'll be lucky if we aren't dead before moon-high. Stop moving for a second and above all, be quiet!" In the silence that followed, Quence reached down to his hip to feel for his Desert Eagle, and then a little farther back to feel the triple barrel of the shotgun across his back. Once he was certain there was no movement bellow, he began to make his way down again, letting Steve decide on his own whether to come or not. After crawling around a particularly large and thorny shrub, Quence heard Steve begin to mutter to himself, which somehow lacked many of the pitch changes he otherwise had.
"Why am I out here? I don't belong here. I belong back at the Vault, with my friends! I could be defeating the dark wizard Elgroz right with my Forsaken Scythe, but nooooo!" That last sylable came out louder than Steve intended. Quence stiffened immediately, but soon began scrambling when he heard the patter of rocks.
"Steve, you fool! Get moving! Its an avalanche! The outcrop down below! Now!" Almost immediately, Steve began to wail, which Quence though was probably making things worse. They were moving fast and loud now, since whatever was coming down above was louder. Quence could feel the smaller pebbles begin to rain down on him. They didn't hurt until they started getting bigger. Quence heard a larger rock coming towards him, and then felt it sweep under his legs, causing him to fall. Before Quence hit the ground though, he felt Steve grab him. Steve didn't stop, however, and began to drag Quence along. Quickly, Quence righted himself and Steve let go of him. Suddenly, they were under the outcropping, crouching as far under as they squeeze. They both had their cloaks over their heads to ward off the smaller rocks that bounced in. Soon enough, the rocks moved on, and sooner still, the valley was silent again. Steve had stopped wailing when Quence had fallen. He though something was wrong, though. It was brighter than it should be, even for moon-high. He straightened his cloak in peak out. What Quence saw made him stop. "S-steve! Take a look at this." He didn't bother whispering. Something told him it wouldn't make a difference. Steve scrambled to stand next to Quence, and fought with his cloak for several seconds. He looked sheepishly at Quence, still oblivious to what was in the sky. A second later, though, he was looking at the sky.
"Huh... That's weird. Do you think I broke it?" Steve seemed less dumbfounded than unconcerned.
"Weird? Weird! Weird is talking to yourself! Weird is not having caring about a giant blue screen in the sky! Do you know what this means? Do you know what we have to do?!? Why are you just sitting there?" Quence had dropped all pretense of civility. He was just a Para-Litigator. He did stuff because people told him to, and he did it well. He was a simple man, who merely want to live, and maybe fight for the Animator.
"We wait." While Quence had been talking, Steve had been looking for the softest looking rock he could find. He haddn't found any, so he just sat back under the outcropping. And despite his cracking voice, Quence found the authority with which Steve spoke with comforting. "We wait." Quence stood there for a moment, breathing heavily. Then he sat down next to Steve.
"What happens now?"
"We wait here until someone reboots the universe. Someone is bound to do it eventually. Then they'll load the last autosave, and then things should be normal again." They sat quietly for a while. Soon though, Steve spoke again. "Hey, do you want to hear about the time my fellowship killed the Ravenous Gnorack and saved the people of Woadwood from their demise?"
"... ... why not?"
OCC: We'll wait, EQ.