Amara/Halt's first order of business had been to strip her/his old body naked and wear the armour that he had been wearing. Carter had understandably looked away at that, unwilling to see Halt's — old Halt's — unmentionables. Amara/Halt seemed to find this all immensely amusing.
"Not into men, then?" She/He questioned, raising a fiery eyebrow.
"Fuck off," he immediately answered, more by instinct than anything else. "What the hell am I to do here again, exactly?"
"Interrogate me, clearly. I thought you were done with stupid questions?"
"I'm not even going to start on how much I hate you for that, but — Any information I can extract from you, you now already possess. I don't know how your whole body hijacking thing works out, but that sounds really, really arbitrary."
Amara/Halt raised an eyebrow at that, strapping the last shoulder pad to her own shoulders with a hand—
Click!
And Carter soon found himself staring down the barrel of a rifle, held tightly by the other hand. Amara/Halt made it look shockingly casual, a fact that really didn't bode well for him.
"Confidence is never a bad thing, but it would do well for you to know your place." She spoke as if talking of the weather, with an airy tone and an easy smile. "Know only that I don't have access to their memories, but I can make them answer in my stead… and take away to be deceitful whilst doing it. I can't, however, question myself."
There were many problems with that statement, but the rifle pointed at his head remained the bigger one, so Carter swallowed his many, many questions and tried to think of a way out of this situation.
By definition, this person — whomever they were — had no need to keep him alive after this. He had been operating under the assumption that they really had been the police captain, but at this point he found that increasingly unlikely; it was just as likely that they'd hijacked the Captain's body also, then went along with his pre-existing plans out of sheer convenience, spinning a tale as he went along.
"You didn't tell me what you want to know," he said slowly, trying to buy time.
"Ask for her name, age and intentions first." Came the casual answer.
"Right," he said slowly, eyes flicking around slightly. The room was small, but not too small — he could probably manage a single dodge within its diameter, standing in the center line as he was. Then, his best bet was trying to run out of the room and leading into the main room, though whatever came after he didn't know. "What is your name?"
"Amara Greenfield," came the immediate reply. Carter immediately noted that it was said in a softer, slightly slurred voice, with a pinch of an accent to it that hadn't been there before. Then, her 'normal' voice came back. "Good. Now, age and intentions."
Well, this was bad.
He had to keep her busy somehow while he planned out an escape method.
"How old are you, and what are your immediate intentions?"
He phrased that very, very deliberately to give her the chance to answer vaguely, thus necessitating him to make more questions, and therefore giving him more time to think. As far as he could tell, and that wasn't much at all, the woman was forced to be truthful in her answers - therefore, he was making something of a bet on the limits of such truthfulness. A normal person would interpret that question as "What's the next step in your plans", but under truth serum (kind of), one might find themselves stating their immediate most pressing concerns - a la, 'I need to pee' or 'Get changed.'
"I am 6 years old. I must dry myself before contacting my grandmother." Again, she spoke slowly and somewhat demurely.
- Well, the bet didn't pay off.
"What is your Grandmother's name?"
He tried, eyes darting across the room.
"Lilac Greenfield," came the immediate answer.
Okay, that rang some bells in his mind, like a name he was vaguely aware of but couldn't quite put his finger on the why. A name to research later, should he live to tell the tale of this unfortunate meeting.
Ding!
[QUEST! "And for the bold, and for the wise" ]
[A sprinkle of coincidental information can very well trace the line between freedom and death. Scour the earth for information on this "Lilac Greenfield'', her Granddaughter, Amara, and whatever connection they may have to this hellhole you call home.]
[Objective: Find out more about the Greenfields. (0/1)]
[Objective: ???]
[Objective: ???]
[Reward: ???]
He waved that aside for later thought with a frown.
"How were you planning on contacting her?" He asked, eyes intent.
"I was to contact her associate in the place called The Rift. A noble, apparently. Deals in smuggling. I don't know his name, but he would smuggle me out after I acquired what I needed."
"That being?"
"Information," Amara replied quite quickly. Though Carter could tell it was her who spoke and not the person he had taken to calling Halt, there was an edge to it that had previously been missing, and though it was a small thing at first, his instincts told him it wouldn't be for long.
Curiosity, however, was a fatal flaw.
"Information on what?"
"Morpheus."
"As a whole?"
"No," she replied, eyes slightly glazing over. Then - She moaned in pain. "Something in particular."
She was in very clear pain, Carter noted, with beads of sweat forming in her forehead and her expression curled into one of poorly concealed agony. After a few moments, she clutched at her head with the arm that wasn't holding the gun, lips pursing.
He didn't like it at all. But she still had a hand on the rifle.
"What, exactly, were you looking into?"
"I — Can't' tell you that." It looked like saying that physically hurt her.
"Sure you can," Carter pressed on, noting that her eyes looked more and more uncertain. A small flash of purple in her eyes attracted his gaze for a moment. "What were you looking into?"
"Stop!" She insisted. "Stop," She commanded in the tone he had learned to associate with Halt's dominion.
Carter didn't stop.
"What were you looking into?" He repeated.
"Aster Morpheus, the Founder's Successor, whose Grandmother had heard was using Morpheus' Power to do — Something." Another groan of intense pain. Her feet wobbled — Then her eyes focused. "You're too curious for your own good."
Her hand twitched. Carter's eyes widened.
" < Chromatic Orb > !" He desperately cast, feeling his MP drain out of his body through his hands. The burst of energy was initially tinted in something akin to a rainbow assortment of colours, slowly bleeding into the harsh white of lightning he commanded it to. It exploded from his suddenly-extended palms with something of a boom, travelling fast towards the woman's chest.
— She pressed the trigger. Click, bang, pain.
[ Critical Hit! ]
[ 'Missing Heart' condition inflicted! ]
[ Carter: 0/250]
His own skill contacted - there was a flash of purple as something left the woman called Amara and travelled outwards, past him and through the door behind. He wasn't quite paying attention.
He looked down.
There was a hole where his chest should be.
"Oh," he muttered. "So that's how HP works."
He didn't say much after that.