ROCK 16: Human

''This article is about the Eidolon Playtest episode. For the Eidolon, see Human.'' 

 "'My hands are cold, and I'm on my knees searching for the answer...' -Human, by The Killers"

Human is the sixteenth episode of Eidolon ROCK and the thirty-third episode of Eidolon Playtest Season 1. It covers the Alta Drive Jawbreakers as they try to free Virginia Valentine from the control of Michael-Valentine.

Eidolon Battle
Harvey D. Godlove beams Virginia Valentine in the head with Here It Goes Again and takes off down the gangplank. Virginia drops the metal button and Fortune Teller pops out. Its wood is rotting and the briefcase of Eidolon drug falls out from the bottom compartment.

Behind Harvey, Saturday and Sunday burst through the door to the Neutral Milk Hotel and shout that they're not allowed to fight. Harvey shouts at them to go grab Cecilia Citadel and bring her inside, as she's injured. They run off towards Cecilia's unconscious body. Virginia picks up the briefcase and runs towards the Bass Pro Pyramid. Chili catches up and runs with her. Harvey and Chris Masters chase after Virginia.

Chris tries to vanish the entire Pyramid into the metal button with Ironspy before Virginia gets there, but fails. Virginia rushes inside and closes the door just after Chili manages to slip in with her. Harvey shatters the door with Here It Goes Again, but Virginia reforms it as thick reinforced stained glass. Inside the Pyramid is a horde of Humans that all have faces that seem related to Virginia. Virginia instinctively knows they will follow her command, and that she needs to get down to the 'secret basement'. The key to the basement is up in Steven Percival's penthouse.

Harvey and Chris have reached the reinforced glass, and Harvey is desperately punching it. Virginia and Chili take the shattered glass elevator up to the penthouse. Chris smashes open a window near the door with Ironspy, but Humans start rushing towards the hole. Virginia shouts down from the elevator instructing the Humans to stand still. They freeze in place, and Chris and Harvey delicately step around them.

At the penthouse, Virginia finds Steven Percival's corpse, and a broken chandelier and window from where Chris and Harvey escaped in ROCK #15. She seals up the hole and finds the small elevator key in a desk in the living room. Chili pees on the assassin's corpse.

Virginia and Chili take the elevator down. On the way, Virginia tries to make peace with Harvey and Chris. Chris wants to cooperate, but Harvey doesn't want to risk losing the briefcase as otherwise he can't stop the clock on his chest. As the elevator reaches the ground, a section of the floor opens up for the shaft to continue onwards. Harvey dives in underneath the elevator, catching himself on the cable before he plummets to the ground. Chris hops on top of the elevator and jumps inside it.

Harvey climbs down to the door to the secret basement. About 10 feet below him are a handful of injured Humans staring at him. The elevator keeps descending, threatening to crush Harvey, so Virginia presses the emergency stop button. Virginia is compelled to resume the elevator, but Chris shorts the panel with Ironspy to keep the emergency stop engaged. By this point, Harvey has managed to pull the door to the secret basement open and squeezed underneath the elevator.

The secret basement is small, dark room with a floodlight lighting up a machine in the center. The machine is strange and large, with big tubes running up into the ceiling. Twenty Humans are standing in a circle around the machine. The moment Harvey steps inside the lit portion near the machine, the Humans all start screaming. Harvey steps back, and breaks the floodlight with Here It Goes Again. The room goes completely dark, and the Humans resume screaming and tackle him to the ground while clawing at him.

Chris forces the doors open from the elevator, and Virginia commands the Humans again to stop. Seeing the machine, Virginia knows she needs to inject each vial of Eidolon drug inside. Ironspy sneaks past the Humans, but the moment she enters the machine some of them break off from Harvey and rush at Chris. Harvey throws Here It Goes Again around the room, knocking all the Humans back but they soon resume their rush. Chili destabilizes some of the Humans allowing Chris to dodge past and reach Harvey, but now all three of them are in the midst.

Virginia focuses in on herself and reverts all the Humans in the room into small glass figurines that fall over and shatter. Lady Luck appears, draped over a baby grand piano with a small candelabra behind her lighting up the room. Lady Luck says she wouldn't be thrilled if Virginia injected all the Eidolon into the machine, but would find a way to work around it. Chili gets angry with her for manipulating them and knowing about Virginia this whole time. Harvey tries to negotiate to lose his pinball skills in exchange for losing the clock, but Lady Luck needs a consequence drastic enough that Virginia and the others are incentivized to help him.

Out of desperation, Harvey suggests letting Virginia inject the Eidolon into the machine and then just delivering the machine instead, but Lady Luck points out that the tubes will take the Eidolon away. So Harvey throws Here It Goes Again and breaks them all. Virginia is filled with murderous rage, but holds herself back. Chili calms and reassures her, and Chris uses the distraction to quietly take the briefcase of Eidolon from her and hide it inside Chili's collar.

Lady Luck applauds them and reminds them that the Neutral Milk Hotel is still waiting for them. As the Alta Drive Jawbreakers return to the ground floor, their elevator is surrounded by Humans. Virginia cuts a path through the crowd, reverting any who get too close into glass. As they reach the boat, Josh is waiting at the counter. He lets them know Cecilia is in the breakfast nook. Josh also reminds them he warned them about Virginia's 'kind'. Harvey stands up for Virginia.

Josh wants to ban Virginia from the hotel. Virginia takes the others aside, and tells them it seems that Michael-Valentine has no influence over her here. Chili uses Little Lies to persuade Josh that he is mistaken about Virginia. He lets them all on, and they go to check the breakfast nook and find Cecilia taken care of by Sabrina Bryan and Mary. Mary is feeding Cecilia glowing milk, and says she'll be ok by morning.

Chris ducks into the library behind the milk bar to see if he can find anything about battles with Angels or The Estate. Past all the electronic books are a few old paper books, one of which is a musty handbound book written in Cyrillic by an "H V Dracula". Chris takes photos of all the pages with his phone, finding drawings of angels, a too-big-to-be-real house, and various areas inside and around The Estate. Notably, he finds a drawing of a large human heart with tubes not dissimilar to the machine underneath the Bass Pro Pyramid. A scale indicates it is seven meters long.

Josh pops his head over the milk bar and asks what the PlayStation Portables need to eat. Their battery packs had expanded, and so he had mistakenly assumed they were pregnant and thus biological. Chris corrects him, and Josh leaves to dispose of the now-damaged PSPs.

Harvey checks in with Cecilia and attempts to cover for Virginia. Virginia stops him and apologizes. Cecilia says they'll talk about it later when she's recovered more. She sips more of her milk and dismisses them. Harvey then checks in with Sabrina, updating her on their day. Sabrina mentions she's been working on her Eidolon, Houses in Motion. She hasn't bought it back out yet, but she suspects she may have some control over it if its really necessary.

Chris pops over and mentions Dracula's book. Too old to be written by President Dracula. Mary says it was written in 1828. The moment Chris has a thought that the timeline doesn't add up with their Dracula and this one, the thought slips out of his head. The group then discusses Virginia's parentage, how Eidolons get transmitted to a new person, and Lady Luck's intentions with the delivery.

As they talk, Saturday and Sunday return with a cot for Cecilia to sleep in. With Fortune Teller in pieces, moving her would be dangerous. They wish everyone a good night, but Harvey makes his way to the front desk to borrow a deck of playing cards from Josh.

Ending Scene
123 years ago, on a ship bound to England. A man named Renfield is whimpering. He is cooped up in a crate with a man with a deep voice telling him to rest. Renfield is worried that his limbs feel numb and he may suffocate. The deep voice says this is normal, and he no longer needs to breath. In a few hours it will be sunset and they will be able to move and feed. If Renfield stays quiet until then, the deep voice offers, he will be allowed to drink human blood instead of feeding off rats. Soon, the voice continues, they will be in England where they can rest and recuperate before making their way to The United States of America.

Appearances
● Cecilia Citadel // Fortune Teller

● Chili the Fox // Little Lies

● Chris Masters // Ironspy

● Count Dracula

● Harvey D. Godlove // Here It Goes Again

● Hordes of unnamed Humans.

● Joshua-Paul

● Lady Luck // Poker Face

● Mary

● Virginia-Valentine // Only The Good Die Young

● Renfield

● Sabrina Bryan // Houses in Motion

● Saturday and Sunday

Trivia

 * This is the second episode in which Harvey D. Godlove attempts and fails to use Forge of the Heart, a Virtuoso move that would increase the size of his pinball.
 * In ROCK #15, Harvey D. Godlove and Chris Masters destroy the central elevator, and escaped from a different penthouse apartment than Steven Percival's. In this episode, the elevator is broken but functional, and they escaped from Percival's apartment. Upon noticing the error, Luke Varner edited in a quick cut-away during that scene saying it was an honest mistake, and if continuity is important then imagine Ronnui sneezed in a room in The Estate to change history slightly.

Fanart
