| Logs |
2002 September 29
| Idlewild |
| Realms |
Retired
| Reality Fault |
General Info
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| Realms: Idlewild Logs |
September 29
Sep 29 20002Lotte, Steven, Soleil and Aiden are gathered around the lever Lotte has discovered in a chest's false bottom, thanks to Aiden's eyesight. Steven holds a pair of bronze-colored chainmail mitts and Aiden has a sword that may or may not prove effective against the small but acidic gelatinous cube waiting behind the underground room's closed wooden door. Aiden has a slight burn and a tattered shirtfront, but otherwise everyone is unharmed... and curious what the lever might do, when pulled.
Aiden looks around at everyone else. C'mon. Someone's gotta pull it. No volunteers? Okay. I'll do it. He pulls the lever.
Lotte cringes as she watches Aiden yank the lever.
Steven goes between watching the door, and watching Aiden worriedly, pulling on the chainmail mitts.
The lever pulls smoothly, without a sound, as if well-oiled. A section of wall detaches, the chest apparently attached to this new "door," and swings silently outward, revealing... a 4x4 foot square of darkness. Everyone can see a little ways in from the glow-fungus in the room, but there are no lights inside that you can see.
Aiden walks over to the open side of the door and crouches down with his back to the wall.. He turns his upper body slightly, so that he can listen.
Steven blinks as the doorway opens, he looks to the others. "It's got to be better than being devoured by the Blob out there."
Lotte breathes a sigh of relief as the door opens, then looks worriedly into the darkness behind the door.
Aiden looks up at Lotte and Steven. "Nothing in there but our echoes."
Lotte thinks for a moment, then scrapes some fungus off the wall and holds it in her palm. She hums softly under her breath as she holds her palm out towards the door.
Steven nods, and takes a quiet breath. "Okay. Have we got anything to shed any light in there? If we can see there, then I'd rather go through there then face Hydrochloric Jell-o out there."
A ball of greenish-yellow light forms in the air above Lotte's hand, growing to about a foot in diameter. Instead of hanging there neatly, it quivers slightly and seems to have a little substance, like a floating water-balloon.
Aiden grins, "That works."
Steven blinks to Lotte. "Uh... wow. That's impressive!"
Steven leans close to the ball of light quizziacly, studying it briefly.
Lotte tries to hide her surprise behind a stoic "I know what I'm doing" expression, but fails. She drops her hand down to her side, but the ball of light still hangs in mid air. She takes a wary step towards the door. "Well, do you guys want to go in?"
Aiden nods and stands up.
Steven's face is reflected somewhat gelatinously by the ball of fungus-inspired light. The reflection ripples a little.
Aiden steps into the darkened room, feeling to his side for the wall..
Steven blinks, then looks to Lotte and nods, "Yeah, let's...." He follows in along behind Aiden, flexing his hands a little to see what the chainmail mitts feel like around his hands.
Lotte steps through the door into the room and tries to send the ball around the room. Three feet away from her, it stops and bobbles, apparently not able to go further. She keeps the ball about two feet from her as she walks past Aiden further into the room.
Lotte's light reveals the room to be little bigger than the room everyone was just in, but it's rounded rather than squared. Although the floating light refuses to go too far from Lotte, it casts sufficient glow for everyone to see, with their better-than-human eyesight.
Steven looks around the room, frowning. "Another dead end...," he mutters.
Lotte slowly studies the room, her eyes flickering over a pull-ring on the floor. She kneels down and finds a wooden door in the floor of the room. "Look Steven!"
Steven blinks, and turns. "Whoa! Okay, that's a relief. Gah, I must be going blind or something. He kneels down beside it. "Er... by the way, Lotte," he says sheepishly. "You were right."
Aiden has also noticed, and is eyeing it with curiousity. Soleil slinks along beside him, looking perturbed and sniffing constantly.
Lotte says, "Right about what?"
Steven looks mildly uncomfortable. "The ring. Too much happened earlier to say anything bout it, but... you're right, I shouldn't have put on that ring."
Aiden looks at Lotte, "You want to get this one, or shall I?"
Lotte says, "I don't know if I could open that if I tried, Aiden."
Aiden looks over at Steven. "What ring? The One Ring? Your feet aren't furry enough for that, dude."
Lotte turns to Steven. "Why? What happened? What does it do?"
Aiden leans over and grabs the ring in the trap door. "Here goes nothing." He pulls it.
Steven snorts, but can't stifle a laugh at Aiden's comment. He grimaces at the floor trapdoor... carefully considering the word 'trap' in it's descriptor. "It's apparently made from the hair of a succubus," he says, trying to sound casual. "No, I didn't ask what particular hair, and I didn't want to ask. It... is slightly hampering of judgement and will power, while slightly enhancing... uh, appearance and personality. And believe me, I'd rather have it off of me just as soon as possible. But I was told by one of Pelor's that I'll need to find a cleric or something to get rid of it." He blinks at Aiden. "Let me help with that..." he adds, reaching down to assist Aiden.
Aiden gives the trap door a good yank. Then another one. And another. It doesn't open. He drops the ring. "It's.. uh... stuck."
Lotte stares at Steven as he pulls at the door. "So... wait, when did you figure this out?"
Steven, however, has better success. Though wedged tightly, the door pulls completely out like a big wooden tub stopper in an old-fashioned drain... revealing a wealth of things that are shiny in the reflected glow-light.
Steven grimaces, grunting as he pulls the door open. "Uhn! This morning. While I was meditating I met another who worshipped Pelor. She told me about the ring." HE blinks at the way the trapdoor was arranged, looking at the holeplug in his hands. "Well. Not exactly how I'd go about covering a hole.
Aiden peers down inside the hole. "So, when exactly did you put this ring on?"
Lotte moves her ball of light over the hole to get a better look at what's inside. She kneels down and peers into it.
Formerly safely stacked in a wood-plugged holes, Twinkies and Hostess and Sara Lee wrappers shine cheerfully back at everyone who leans closer to the vaguely shiny shapes stacked a few feet below the top of the floor-cache.
Steven sets the trapdoor to the side. "Within the first few minutes of sitting down at the Outside Inn. It was my own stupid... fault... for... for putting it on, what the HELL is that stuff doing in an underground dungeon?!"
Aiden looks up cheerfully at Steven. "Well. If there's a dragon in here, it'll be a slow fat one."
Steven says, "That, or dead from seven types of poisioning, have you read what goes into those things?"
Aiden laughs!
Lotte stares into the hole. "This doesn't make any sense..."
Steven shakes his head, "Either Hostess has been doing cross-dimensional marketing, or we're definitely not the first to cross over from our world...." He doesn't quite glance inquringly over to Sol; there are more important things to worry about first, like finding Lua.
And surprisingly, a plan presents itself What was that phrase from that TV show? Oh, yeah. "I have a cunning plan...."
"No, it doesn't. But maybe... maybe we can feed these things to the Acid-Flavored Dessert Snack out there, and distract it while we get past it?"
Aiden says, "Excellent idea.. Hostess bombs. I love it.." he leans down and grabs a couple of them, and starts passing them up. "Wrappers or no?"
Steven blinks at a sudden, warm glow within, almost... in approval. He smiles quietly, giving a quiet sigh of relief. Thank you, Lord Pelor. "Without. I think that thing might hunt by scent, kind of. WHy deny it the scent of tasty goodness?"
Soleil is simply giving the packages a dubious look.
Aiden's hand sinks into the pile, there's a lot in there. "Ooo. Skittles and M&M's too. We could start a convenience store with all of this stuff."
Steven shakes his head, "How the heck did this stuff get here?"
Lotte eyes had widen at the site of so much junk food. She takes her share of what is passed to her, then turns her back and DEVOURS the stuff like she hasn't eaten in weeks.
Aiden continues passing stuff up, chuckling quietly at the very thought of a hostess bomb.
Lotte turns to face Aiden and Steven, shoving the sticky remains of a Twinkie in her mouth. She looks slightly sick, but extremely happy. "Ughhhhmmmmmm."
Aiden grins at Lotte. "I'm thinking we shouldn't give too much of this stuff to that thing out there. Y'know. We just wanna make it queasy. Maybe we can stuff our pockets and backpacks?"
Steven pauses in gathering up some of the packaged things, and blinks to Lotte. He represses a shudder. "Just don't get on a sugar-rush. I'd hate to think what that little light'll become if you do!" he says, indicating the little globe of light Lotte had created.
The little light jiggles in midair, following Lotte around like a globular, faceless, not-too-bright puppydog.
Aiden starts taking some of the goodies out of their bags to get them ready for throwing.. "We ready?"
Lotte wipes her face with her sleeve. "What are we doing? Why do you think that blob would react with sugar? Doesn't this seem suspicious? Wait, guys... Birch! Do you think this is Birch's stash? I mean, it kind of fits with the appearance."
Aiden smirks, "If this is Bit-- Birch's stash, I'd rather see it in the slime than anywhere else."
Soleil reaches up and snitches a Twinkie from Aiden's pocket.
Steven nods, also divesting some of the awful snacks of their wrappers. He pauses, blinking and looking up to Lotte. "Birch's stash?" he asks. "Man, I hope not. I'd like to think we're in a world where she doesn't have enough clout to keep an underground fortress, and a mobile glob of semi-sentient acid to guard her stash of junk food...."
Aiden looks at Sol. "Don't look at me if you get gassy, okay? Just remember that I didn't hand that to you." He winks at him.
Lotte says, "But it kind of makes sense... teenybopper, candy, evil acidic blobs..."
The elf-dog dances away with his loot, and proceeds to rip off the wrapping with his frontpaws and teeth, devouring it neatly...
Steven says, "It does, which scares me. I'm starting to worry about how much intercourse there is between all these planes and dimensions and such."
Aiden ducks his head as soon as Steven says that and starts unwrapping twinkies.
Lotte surveys the room, suddenly very afraid she will see Birch emerging from the other room.
Steven glances over to Sol, and blinks. "Uh... Sol... Sol...? Crap... I think sugar is really, really bad for elf-dogs, Aiden, he looks like he just took a hit of coke."
Aiden looks over at Sol. "I'm sure he'll be okay.."
Soleil looks very, very alert... wired... happy... blissful... jittery...
The other room's door remains closed, and Birch the evil step-sibling does not emerge.
Aiden frowns. "Sol? Are you okay? There was a lot of sugar in that..."
Steven blinks, watching Sol carefully. "Man, I'm going to hate seeing him come down." He looks to Aiden. "I think I've got enough to put that blob out there into the same condition Sol's in."
Aiden gathers up the twinkies he's unwrapped. "Well.. Let's get going here."
Steven nods, and has an armful of the stuff, ready to chuck them, one at a time or in twos, at the beastie.
Lotte grabs a handful of goodies and begins to unwrap them.
Lotte finishes unwrapping her ammo and waits for someone else to go back to the other room first.
Aiden is just about to stand up with an armload of twinkies when Sol bounds! over to lick his face. Looks like the sugar might have put his judgement off a little bit and he's quite a bit rougher than he would have been. Somehow, Aiden manages to get out of the way, but Sol is obviously wired.
Steven heads into the other room, approaching the doorway. He blinks as he hears the commotion.
Aiden sidesteps from Sol. "Calm down, Sol.. We don't need you leaping into that thing out there.." He walks into the other room.
Oblivious to his condition, Soleil bounds into the main room after Steven and Aiden.
Lotte follows the group, lagging behind but ready to react.
Steven frowns slightly. "Sol... you know that you're higher than a kite right now, don't you?"
The group is once more complete, gathered and armed with processed, chemically preserved sugar.
Soleil barks, once. It echoes loudly in the small stone room.
Steven blinks, then looks to Aiden. "Was it one bark for yes, two barks for no? or the other way around?"
Aiden grins, "I think it was a yes. It should have been a yes."
Steven nods slowly, "Well, I hope so...." He looks to the doorway. "I'm ready to feed this thing..."
Aiden nods. He walks up to the door.. "I'll open and get out of the way. You throw.. and I'll circle around to throw too. Right?"
Lotte nods and stands ready.
Steven nods, "SOunds like a plan." He prepares to hurl his portion of the stash at the blob.
Aiden throws the door open, and moves out of the way so that the others can throw as he circles back into position.
Lotte launches a twinkie at the doorway, not even pausing to see what is beyond the door.
SPLUT! says the Twinkie, as it hits the patiently waiting blue-tinged cube. The cube ripples indignantly and moves forward, though not at lightning speed, into the room.
Aiden starts throwing twinkies as soon as he's in position to do so..
Steven lobs the snack pseudo-foods at the creature as the door opens, not stopping, only backing up when the thing enters the room.
Lotte hurls the rest of her stash at the evil cube, hoping it will do some damage.
The Twinkie-covered thing slurps softly to a stop after ot clears the doorway, and the Twinkies begin to absorb into its gelid, translucent body. It takes a swipe at Steven.
Steven erps! and tries to dash backwards.
Lotte stifles a panicky scream as she realizes that the sugar-foods had no effect.
Steven does not dodge the swipe quickly enough, and a burning sensation accompanies the smack on his right thigh. Cloth starts to smoke where the blow landed.
Steven gives a strangled scream of pain as the thing slaps him with it's pseudopod. He struggles to roll away from the creature, trying to alternatively rip the smoking clothing off and to avoid touching it.
Aiden runs over to Steven.. He pulls his sleeve down over his hand, bunching it up in his fist. "Let me help."
Steven grits his teeth, sweat glistening on his brow. "God damn that stings like a sonufabitch!" he grates out. He tries to hold still for Aiden, looking around him at the cube, trying to glean what the hell it's doing now.
The cube reaches for Aiden, but misses. The Twinkies have sunk about halfway into it now, and are still being absorbed.
Aiden tries to get the stuff off Steven's skin. "I know.. It still stings."
Sluggish, the cube jiggles toward Lotte.
Lotte stands frozen in terror. "Guys, what do I do? What do I do?"
Aiden says, "Put it to sleep!"
Steven gurrghs, "Throw more of that crap at it! Uh, the snacks, I mean!" Same thing....
Lotte flinches as the pseudopod smacks her, then comes to life. She feels slightly bruised, though not in much pain. In one swift movement she pulls her pinch of sand out and sprinkles it into her palm, her wavering voice humming some semblance of a lullabye.
Steven pants as Aiden gets most of the horrific stuff off of him. "Th-thanks," he gasps out. " Come on," he adds, pulling himself up. "It's going after Lotte. Damn, I'd have thought it'd get sluggish with all that sugar in it, maybe it's getting wired instead!"
Aiden stands up and comes to Lotte's side. He pulls out his sword..
The cube quivers to a halt as Lotte hums her magic, the Twinkies almost entirely absorbed now. It does not reach to strike.
Lotte whispers hoarsely, "Kill it, Aiden. Just kill it."
Aiden nods at Lotte. He walks up to the creature and pulls the sword up over his head. He waits to ensure it's not going to move. When satified, he brings the sword slashing down into it.
Aiden's slice cuts the gelatinous cube very neatly in half. It smacks loudly onto the floor, and jiggles in place but does not move to attack or flee... just jiggles. In the center of each slice is embedded half of a red dog collar with a tag, formerly concealed by the creature's tinted flesh.
Aiden says, "Oh, fuck."
Steven blinks, pulling himself up. "What... what is it?
Lotte says, "Steven, can I have your gloves?"
Aiden tries to pry the half of the collar that has a tag out with the tip of his sword.
Steven blinks, and nods, pulling them off and passing them to Lotte.
Steven swallows. "It... it isn't...?"
The effort succeeds, and the glistening, wet half of collar lies limply on the tip of Aiden's sword.
Aiden says grimly, "It better fucking not be."
Aiden drops it on a clean section of the ground then kneels down to look at the tag, which, with any luck, landed the right way up.
Lotte puts the gloves on and picks the piece of collar up, trying to read the tag.
Lotte mutters, "Elvis. Who is Elvis?"
Aiden breathes a sigh of relief. "Musician. So that's where he went."
Steven blinks, and lets out a breath. "It's not Lua, then."
Aiden walks over to Sol and sits down next to him, petting his side. "Sol?"
Sol whimpers very softly, shivering.
Steven blinks, looking at Sol. "Sol? What's wrong...?" He goes over to the previously-frisky elf-dog.
Aiden looks concerned. "I don't know what's wrong with him.."
Lotte says, "Sol, do you know who Elvis is?"
The elf-dog whines faintly and continues shivering, lying on the stone floor.
Aiden continues petting Sol's side, looking more and more worried by the moment.
Steven frowns, going over to Sol and kneeling beside him, checking him for any splatters of acid from the gel-cube.
Aiden blinks and looks up at the door. "I think I'm going crazy," he says and stands up. He looks out into the hallway.
Steven blinks, and looks over quickly at the doorway.
Steven frowns as he glancess back to Sol... and realizes that he just touched a spot of acid-splatter but didnt' get hurt, he looks to SOl, then quickly glances at what Aiden was looking at.
The hallway is empty, but now everyone can hear the deep, gravelly voice singing what sounds an awful lot like ska.
Lotte whispers, "What the heck is that?"
Steven frowns. "I'd almost say it's the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, but that'd be a stretch even for a place where we just found a bunch of twinkies...."
Lotte covers her ears. "Stop the world, I want to get off."
Steven murmurs, "COme on, the Bosstones aren't that bad." He glances again at Sol. "Sol got hit with some acid, but it's not burning him...."
The voice grows deeper and closer, and suddenly a four-foot-high dark grey man strides into the room, recoiling and ceasing his song as he sees the carnage. "Elvis! Awww shit," he says, in that deep, deep voice from his craggily ugly face. He ends up in the doorway, glaring at everyone. "What the fuck, y'all?"
Lotte drops the collar. "That thing is Elvis?"
Steven blinks, and looks at the cube, then at the man. He opens his mouth... then closes it again. "Uh... that was... uh... it's... his name...?" He blinks again. The guy... looks like he's made of stone.
The ugly grey man looks at Lotte. "That thing was Elvis." His glare loses a bit of anger as he gives Lotte a thorough look, then turns to Steven and scowls again-- though it doesn't show, on a face like that. He moves on to eye Aiden. "You, with the sword. You do this?"
Aiden straightens. "Yes. It attacked my friends."
Steven stands, swallowing a little. "It attacked all of us," he provides.
A craggy eyebrow-- or maybe eyebrow-ridge-- grinds upwards. "Looks like y'all invited y'selves on in here. Maybe you deserved to get attacked by a watchdog, you ever think?"
Aiden says, "One of our friends was kidnapped and brought down here. Of course we invited ourselves in. We have to find her."
Lotte opens her mouth to speak, but just nods dumbly instead.
Steven keeps himself ready to move. He doesn't think this will get immediately violent, but he's been taught to expect the unexpected. He takes a quiet breath, holding himself ready, centering and balancing himself.
The short grey man flexes hard, thick arms and cracks his knuckles resoundingly, solid-black eyes narrowed. In a fairly Southern American drawl, he says "I am not impressed by your attitude toward others' property..."
Aiden says, "The sooner we find her, the sooner we're gone."
Steven says, "And we're not impressed by other folks' attitude towards our friends. We don't want to fight you, in fact we'd rather not. But our friend was kidnapped, and we do need to find her."
Lotte cuts in, "Please sir, you have to understand. She was our guide and she disappeared. We were only trying to find her."
The grey stranger eyes the group and says thoughtfully, "Friends, well, that can change things. An' it ain't like that shit wasn't stolen in the first place. It was a pain in the ass, though. Y'all owe me. I'll let you go find your friend, but not til I have your words you'll come back and talk about that favor... and a kiss from the little lady to seal it."
Steven blinks. Something goes off in his mind, a reminder of what that other who also served Pelor said. About how her people had the ability to take... to take the soul or life from someone who touched them, or kissed them. Is he capable of it as well? He racks his brains trying to find anything that might collaborate that suspicion.
Aiden slips his sword back into it's scabbard and glances over his shoulder at Soleil.
Soleil is still lying, panting fast and hard, looking ill.
Aiden walks over to the greyhound, kneeling down beside him. "I wish you could tell me what's wrong, Sol."
Lotte hides her disgust at the grey man's request for a kiss behind a coy smile. "I never kiss on the first date."
The grey man, while waiting for a reply his offer, leans against the doorway and says to Aiden, "Free word of advice-- the high fey don't do too well with the Grey World's taste. You all smell of it, but that one doesn't. He needs a cure." He looks at Lotte. "Hmm. Cheek, then. No lips, no tongue, fairy princess. Cross my rocky heart."
Aiden looks up at the grey man, "How do we cure him?"
The stranger nods to Lotte. "One simple kiss on the terms I gave, and I'll tell you. It's not a high price, for what you need."
Steven winces. Grey World. So that's what we're from. Approrpiate. Damn, shouldn't have let him eat that twinkie. Dammit, I wish I could remember anything more about that conversation...! WOuld others have that same ability as her people did? I don't know, I don't know...! "And her spirit won't be stolen, of course," he says, trying to make it sound wry and joking but watching the stone man for any reaction.
The grey man says, "Absolutely no harm to her, I swear it."
Lotte hesitates, then nods.
The rocky stranger bows solemnly, and steps forward to accept Lotte's peck on the cheek.
Steven nods, just hiding his concernation. I have a really bad feeling about this, about all of this.
Lotte steps closer to the grey man and quickly kisses his cheek.
The grey man smiles, rocky face blooming, and bows to Lotte again, before telling Aiden, "Feed him some of poor old Elvis, there. It'll fix him up shortly. The sugar magic in the Twinkies you fed him cancel out the acid."
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