Quoted By:
"Vincent. How much do you know about Class 7 entities?" His voice is low and serious, as if the two of you are in an active warzone.
"Jack and shit. Remember? Level 0 researcher here?"
"Alright." Edward tightly clenches his jaw. "Ghosts. They're ghosts, basically. ARC wants us to use fancy labels and Hebrew letters and crap like that, but they're just ghosts."
"Look around for anything anomalous; report anything you find to me. Keep your head on a swivel."
"Any precautions?" You keep your voice low, not wanting to disturb whatever anomaly is in here.
"Class 7s usually interfere with electronics. If you're in danger, look out for one of your gizmos going apeshit."
Duly noted. You and Edward slowly approach the pile of discarded documents on the floor. You're less interested in the documents themselves and more in what they're covered in.
You carefully equip some PPE gloves. Edward nervously glances around the room while you're busy examining the sample. You would tell him to calm down, but you can't lie; you're pretty nervous yourself.
You pick up one of the drenched documents. A wave of disgust washes over you as your nose picks up the aroma radiating from the sludge. It's a foul, acrid blend of wet dog smell and dank swamp muck. It reminds you of a dog you used to have back when you were a child.
You wonder what ever happened to Roxy.
Whatever, that's not important. What is important is what the sludge is doing to the paper.
>1 SUCCESS!
At first, you thought the paper was illegible because, duh, the paper was completely soaked in gunk. That's the issue, though; the paper hasn't degraded or changed at all. It feels like a fresh piece of paper right out of the printer.
You can feel the gunk through your gloves, but it's also not there at the same time. Your brain knows that there's clear, goo-like sludge on the paper. Your gloved hands know that they're covered in sludge. Your nose still registers the horrible smell the sludge has.
You know it's there, but it's also not there. It's like you're reading a book describing the sludge, and your brain is imagining what it's supposed to feel/smell like. You close your eyes...
And you can't feel the slime anymore. You open your eyes, and the sensations come rushing back. Odd. What's odder is what the sludge does to the paper. Large sentences of the writing on it have been redacted, but not like how ARC redacts stuff, which would be large black bars covering the words.
No, there are just massive gaps in the document where words should be, but they're not, like someone liberally soaked the page in whiteout.
A sudden sharp pain shoots across the palms of your hands. You throw the document away, and you quickly check your hands. The sludge ate right through your PPE gloves, and now, they're burning the skin on your palms.
>PHYSICAL HEALTH now at <span class="mu-g">DOING GOOD?</span>
You quickly remove the gloves before wiping the gunk off on the old, blood-stained lab coat you keep in your satchel.
