echoalien:

“No shit I look like shit, its not like the Foundation is a fucking Spa or something, they take care of very specific basic needs to keep you alive, and thats it really…”

Echo seems very slightly surprised as she starts getting drug along, and she lightly attempts to fight against the coils, not really desiring to have the ink snake attempt to provide any kind of care considering the handful of tubes and weird attachments still connected to her body that may otherwise cause problems if removed improperly.

“Let go of me, I need to be cleaned up but I don’t think you can provide all the proper care i need for this particular situation, its not just visible appearance…”

“You stink. So it is bathtime. NOW!”

Going by the sound of that Echo had lost absolutely every right to negotiate. One could wonder what she had meant with “stink” since there was nothing that unusual about Echo’s smell right now, but a snake-like being could probably pick up things a “normal” being could not.

Since her last visit months ago the bathroom had changed quite a lot. The small bathtub was gone and instead there was a large niche carved into the wall, numerous holes indicating that if one would stand in the middle of it, they would be sprayed with water from all directions.

That in itself wouldn’t be so weird, if it was not for the fact that the whole thing seemed capable of rotating and was lockable from the outside. Generally, the design could remember someone of a washing machine…

echoalien:

The shifter stares, somewhat disturbed by the situation considering she didn’t expect such a ‘primitive’ reaction, and is further uneasy as her shifting was completely out of reach right now due to the large amount of drugs the Foundation had injected her with to keep her shut down, which in turn made her highly vulnerable.

“Is this how you always react in a situation that leaves you like that? Instinctive, dumb-bookworm behavior from your past? I thought you were against that behavior, would you have eaten a book in this situation too?”

The Writeress just stares at her, apparently wondering if maybe not eating her had been the wrong choice after all. Then her expression chages from somewhat hungry to confused, as if she had no clue now what to do in such a situation. She takes a closer look at Echo before coming to a rather simple conclusion:

“You look like shit.”

Which, given that the spirit might see a bit more than just the physical signs of the Foundation’s capture, might be the understatement of the century. Without releasing her from the coils, the lamia slithers towards the bathroom, determined to not let someone this un-groomed roam her prized library.

echoalien:

Echo was slow to react to this at first, not really expecting it, and then contemplating weather or not she should attempt to interact.

A few moments later, and she drops down gently onto the floor, and then wanders over cautiously, slightly suspicious, and uneasy, but soon gently tugs on the Writeress’ tail, trying to get a response.

“Are you okay?… I know you cant die, but you can still suffer physically, and I dont want to leave you like this…”

As it turns out, when you are technically not “alive” it gives you a special advantage on “playing dead” - or at least that’s what the Writeress would have claimed was what happened.

Actually, she just woke up again the moment Echo came close to her, and from there on it was all pure instinct: with one fluid motion she coils her snake-like body around Echo, her jaw unhinging in an unnatural fashion, ready to devour any sort of prey that had wandered into her domain. 

From here on Echo got a perfect view of the spirit’s mouth - or mostly the worrysome amount of point ink-black fangs that had formed inside. The stench of old paper and forgotten stories rises from the Writeress’ maw, and she only stopped when her fangs were almost touching Echo’s face.

“Oh. It’s you.”, she mumbles as her higher brain functions had caught up with the situation - not exactly an easy task when one does not have a brain.

With a somewhat embarassed expression she uses her hand to push her jaw back into place, but she does not release the coils that kept the shapeshifter immobilized.

echoalien:

There was little to no hesitation as the spell wore off, Echo immediately and quickly sprinting to the nearest bookshelf, the clicking of her clawed feet tapping as they made contact with the floor. She climbs up to the top of it, and hides up there briefly, peeking over to watch for a moment before realizing how dead these androids were, and then she observes the Writeress quietly, not sure what would happen now that she was the only object left to deal with, and that she apparently had broken a ‘no running’ rule when previously she had run through here before without issue, making her uneasy as to what the Writeress would do with her…

It turns out that she had not to worry much about whatever the Writeress could do to her - after all it is very hard for a person to do something when they hit the floor face-first with a somewhat nasty sounding “PFOMP”.

Apparently her terrifying display of authority has left her quite drained to the point that she had passed out while standing.

echoalien:

Echo expresses surprise, though being trapped like that is the last thing on her mind.

“Destroy them! Destroy the androids! I don’t want them to try to track me down again and then attempt to capture you too, this isn’t your problem, and I don’t want you getting wrapped up in it! Also, let go of me please…. I wouldn’t be running if I wasn’t immediately threatened with the risk of being captured again…”

She seems to be relatively stressed out, and serious about the whole thing.

The lamia completly ignores her as she turns her attention towards the androids.

“I must almost thank you for your rudeness, servants of the Word Defilers. You know, I am horrible at magic, but there are certain… rules in how the world works. By entering through a broken door without knocking, you lowered yourself from being a guest to a mere intruder. And since I have caught you, you now belong to me. It makes it even easier that you are things - because with the things you own you can do whatever you want…”

A sadistic smile flashes over her face as she choses her next words, speaking them out slowly, enjoying this moment to the fullest.

“Any last words? No? Then Perish!”

At first nothing happens, then from the points where one might suspect the auditive sensors, the bots start to disintegrate into what appears to be nothiness - although it was more the spirit’s command working on a sub-molecular level, tearing their material forms apart atom by atom.

“And if one of you makes it back from oblivion somehow, tell your masters to stop censoring out the documents. It really ruins the taste.”

She takes her sweet time watching the process, not even noticing that the command freezing Echo’s movements was slowly wearing off now that she was no longer in the focus of her attention.

There had been many annoying things today, and even with Echo being the self-proclaimed avatar of annoyingness that drove even nightmare demons insane, this was not what finally made the librarian snap.

At first there had been a quarrel in the romance section, the usual shipping wars, except this time it ended in a broken book-spine that had to be tended to. Then the Void had started leaking in like the sleazy bum that it was and demanded attention, even if the lamia had absolutely no nerve for cataclysmic events threatening the fabric of reality and shoved it back into the nothiness with a broom. 

To make things worse there had been countless visitors and messages of people and non-people trying to demand things - mostly valuables, and an interdimensional frisbee that somehow ended up in the library. A splort-colored one with a grixik-pattern on it. Basic 6th dimension design, really. But the books had found a liking on it, and so the lamia had abolutely zero intention of giving it back. 

All that had piled up, and now it was only a tiny thing that set it off in an distarous unleash of pure power. Not magic, or even hieromancy or other weird law-magic. The spirit was the absolute sovereign of this place, the very top of the transdimensional food-chain, and especially here inside its nest it’s word was absolute.

“NO RUNNING BETWEEN THE SHELVES!”

Every single object in a five mile radius froze completly solid in place - even when it was mid-air.

@echoalien

• Atheris squamigera, common names:  green bush viper, variable bush viper, leaf viper and others, is a venomous viper species that can be found in West and central Africa: Ivory Coast and Ghana, eastward through southern Nigeria to Cameroon, southern Central African Republic, Gabon, Congo, DR Congo, northern Angola, Uganda, Tanzania (Rumanika Game Reserve), western Kenya and Bioko Island. . No subspecies are currently recognized. It’s truly a miraculously beautiful snake. 
• Habitat preference: Found mostly in rain forest. Said to prefer relatively low and thick, flowering bushes.
• Venom: Bites from this particular species have resulted in at least one report of severe hematological complications as well as two deaths.