Serious Plots 5: No lulz.

[Aric Kale]

Wizard's Field

Jerlynfran sees the discordance beginning to rise and decides to put a stop to it here and now.

The Brown wizard speaks gently, but his voice is surprisingly powerful.
Cleosopha, Haldavyr, and Aeturnius, we are the Stormguard, Eliminators of Evil Magic, nyor, Defenders of the Weak, and we are going to be looked upon as a beacon of hope and wisdom.

Yes, we are going to build a tower with magic. A tower to last through the ages.
You will not be required to call it anything beyond "The Tower," or "Home."

Suscipio, there is more to you than meets the golden eye, I would think, eh?
I apologize for any offense we have caused you...
Cleosopha, we are a group of old fuddy-duddies, hmm? We will need your young mind if we are to stay relevant.
Nyor!
Exactly what I was thinking...
Haldavyr, leader of our Order, I know your love of tradition, and I will do my best to uphold it where it serves a purpose.
Do not force beliefs on others. It never ends well...

Nyor?

Ah yes, The Tower.

It will be constructed entirely from magic, using what we have at our disposal.
I will create the outside of the tower with all of its white stone.
Haldavyr will use his influence over metal and fire to seal the stones with ore and provide lasting light sources for the interior.
Aeturnius, or however it's said, you can use your influence over time to speed the process, no?
Or slow the aging of The Tower? Hmm?
Cleosopha, your talents focus around Nature and Song, eh?
How would you like to help?

[Rebonack]

[Somewhere Awful - Will]

Removing the tire iron from the tire is pretty darn trivial. Tire irons wouldn't be very useful if you couldn't take them off, now would they?

Then comes the opening of the cupboards three! The first is full of mugs. Go figure. Most of the mugs are the featurless white sort, though one of them has a picture of a sad clown on the side. The clown looks down at Will with its woeful, painted on eyes. The second holds a coffee making machine in the process of brewing a pitcher of... that isn't coffee. It's what coffee would be if it was made using diseased phlegm instead of water.

Eeww...

The third cabinet is full of lies.

No.

Really.

There are sticky notes all over the inside with things like 'the Sun revolves around the Earth' and 'Nickleback is a pretty okay band' written on them. There's also a half-used pad of yellow sticky notes and a sharpie.

What does he do?

[Somewhere Awful - Tanya]

Sharps gives a little nod and begins inching his tail toward Tanya's outstretch arm when suddenly-!

"N-no. We shouldn't do this. I mean, n-not without disinfecting my needle first. I've stuck it in some... umm... gross stuff before. We don't want you to get blood poisoning," he says, quickly sheathing the needle. That may or may not have been an excuse. A good excuse, but still an excuse. "And... not to pry... But you never told me your name. I was just thinking, what if you forget it like I forgot mine? Maybe if you tell me I'll be able to remember it for you?"

Or maybe something terrible will happen due to giving her name away.

"I'm Sharps. Or... at least that's what it says on my medical sheet. I'm pretty sure that wasn't my name before."

[Deathkeeper]

Somewhere Awful- Will

Will slams the second cabinet closed the second he sees it. The first warrants a look at the unique mug, simply because it's out of place. The last will have the paper and pens taken. Will doesn't have anywhere to put the pad, but he can probably stick the pen behind his ear. Never know when stuff like that comes in handy.

[Rebonack]

[Somewhere Awful - Will]

The sad clown mug is pilfered!

On the bottom of the mug is a complex pattern of raised squares that looks suspiciously like a QR code. Huh... wonder what that's for? Too bad Will's cellphone isn't on him. Not that it would get any reception on the edge of Deepest Slumber.

Will acquires ONE (1) SHARPIE! Will acquires TWO HUNDRED TWENTY FIVE (225) STICKY NOTES!

What does he do?

[Deathkeeper]

Somewhere Awful- Will

Will frowns. He can't really do much with these things, not without much to carry them. And right now there's nothing to grab and turn into a bag. So for now the mug and the pad get hidden under his bed, and Will goes toward that curtain, hefting the tire iron.

[Rebonack]

[Somewhere Awful - Will]

Will hides his loot under his bed, steels himself for what is to come, and pulls back the curtain.

There are no wizards behind the curtain.

Instead? There's a twisting hallway with more padded scenes trawled from a madman's nightmares on it illuminated by softly humming florescent lights. After a few bends Will discovers a door facing to the west. It's one of those metal doors with a horizontal push-bar in it, the sort that you might find in schools or... well... hospitals.

And above the door?

An EXIT sign glowing with soft green light.

What does he do?

[Deathkeeper]

Somewhere Awful- Will

Will narrows his eyes. This is too easy, and what kind of hospital room leads straight to the exit? Oh, whatever, it's worth a shot. Albeit hesitantly, Will heads over to the door and slowly pushes it, peering inside.

[Rebonack]

[Somewhere Awful - Will]

Will opens the door, causing flickering white light to come flooding into the hallway from outside along with a sound like a cross between a heavy rain and the roar of the ocean. On the other side of the door there's a little balcony sticking out about five feet, surrounded with a guard rail made of steel pipe that's pockmarked with rust. And beyond the rail? A chaotically clashing expanse of what looks like television static, a flickering, grainy image of infinitely innumerable black dots jumbled in an incomprehensible dance on a featureless white canvass.

Looking at it hurts.

Not in the 'oh gods it's melting my brain!' sort of hurts.

No, more like the very mundane 'looking at snow on a sunny day' kind of hurts.

Should Will peer over the balcony he will be able to tell that the outside walls of the hospital extend above and below him perhaps fifteen feet in both directions, but aside from that?

Just endless noise.

[Deathkeeper]

Somewhere Awful

Will squints his eyes and pulls the door shut. "The hell was that?" he mutters.
Maybe he has to hold up the mug and get the code scanned by the magical light? He thinks with a chuckle. No, that's stupid, although probably worth a shot if he isn't on a time limit. Walking through the hall, Will continues down, hoping he'll find something more pleasant at the end.
He doubts it.

[Rebonack]

[Somewhere Awful - Will]

As soon as the door is closed the sound of white noise is lost behind the barrier, plunging the hall once again into the relative silence of buzzing florescent strip lighting. Will's vision is still a little fuzzy even after closing the door and it is quite likely he'll be able to see a slowly fading pattern of static when he closes his eyes. But, given a few minutes, that too with fade.

At the end of the hall Will finds a wall.

The dead end sort of wall, as it happens.

However, not all hope is lost!

The wall has a huge sad clown face painted on it in all its morose glory. The nose of the clown has a depression in it, a depression that looks like the bottom of his clown mug would fit into perfectly.

What does he do?

[Deathkeeper]

Somewhere Awful- Will

Will smiles. Not exactly the most normal key, but at least it makes sense in a weird way. Will will (heh) run back to the room and fetch the mug so he can try using it as a key for that depression.

[Rebonack]

[Somewhere Awful - Will]

Will inserts the key/mug into the clown nose, causing a low *CLUNK!* followed by the clown-wall splitting in half down the middle and sliding into either side of the hallway. It also sneezes the mug back out. Thankfully the thing is made of some sort of hardy material that certainly won't break on the padded floor.

On the other side of the wall?

Another hospital room much like the one Will had woken up in, though with several important differences.

First?

There's a large wall open on the west side (which he just walked through).

Second?

There's a huge lever with a sad clown head on the top sticking out of the floor near the secret door.

Third? Someone has constructed a pyramid out of cans of creamed corn.

Fourth? To the south is another medical curtain leading to who knows where. The sound of smooth jazz is coming from behind it.

Fifth? There's some kind of smallish, fuzzy, adorable looking vaguely bird/snake/weasel shaped creature sitting on the bed. Its velvety black fur is swirled with spirals of deep indigo blue and its long tail is curled tight around its feet. It has a pair of furry wings that couldn't possibly be useful for flying, but plenty good for flaring aggressively. Also? It has two heads, a smaller one on the end of a snakey neck and the other on a much shorter weasely neck. The larger head has a long, narrow skull mask over its face with blue paw prints over the eye holes. The smaller head sports a bird-like mask with a much more hooked beak and blue claw marks over the eyes.

The snakey head slithers up along side the other and begins whispering into his large, round ears. A few moments later the creature growls. "Who are you! What are you doing here!" he demands in a masculine, though rather small, voice as he leaps in front of his can pyramid. "You can't take my cans! I won't let you!"

What does he do?

[Deathkeeper]

Somewhere Awful- Will

Will smiles and picks up the mug with his free hand. Progress!
And then moves into another room. Huh? Are all the patient's rooms chained like this? And what the heck is that thing? It's kind of cute, but really, really weird. Skull masks? Is it some kind of spirit thing? That sounds vaguely familiar.
"I don't want any of your cans." he says, trying to look non-threatening.
"I just want out of here. Does that door over there lead anywhere?" he asks gently.

[Rebonack]

[Somewhere Awful - Will]

Some of the rooms are certainly chained like this.

Others?

Others are not.

The layout of the Hospital really doesn't make any sense.

"Maybe. Maybe not!" the creature growls back, its snake-y head hissing loudly at Will. "Why should I tell you?"

Well.

This thing sure isn't very sociable, is it?

What does he do?

[Deathkeeper]

Somewhere Awful- Will

Will flinches, but doesn't back down just from that.
"Because if you do, I'll probably just keep walking, and I won't bother you again unless it ends up being a dead end?" he says, unaware of the possible irony of that statement.

[Rebonack]

[Somewhere Awful - Will]

Gotta look out for those dead ends.

"Fine!" the paranoid faerie finally huffs. "I'll tell you. Just promise you won't touch my cans!"

And then, assuming Will promises...

"It's this creepy bathroom with stand-up showers and stuff. I swear the nurses are putting something in the water. Probably something to turn us all into hideous monsters like you," the creature growls. "There's another door in there, but it's locked. I've listened to it before and it sounds like there are some nurses on the other side plotting."

That sounds pretty paranoid.

But the creature is a paranoia disorder. What would you expect?

What does he do?

[Deathkeeper]

Somewhere Awful- Will

Will smiles and makes his oath. After the information is given, he gives as genial a look as he can muster.
"Thanks. I'll go check it out. If I don't come back, I found a way out or I died." he says, making his way to that door before stopping.
"Oh hey, that big lever doesn't do anything special, does it?" he asks.

[Rebonack]

[Somewhere Awful - Will]

"I already told you too much you... whatever you are! Some kind of disgusting skin-monster stuffed full of organs! Get out of my room before I catch multiple tissue layers from you!" the strange creature hisses.

Sounds like he's done being helpful.

Beyond the medical curtain (which happens to be pretty similar to a shower curtain, as it happens) is a bathroom.

It's one of those large, relatively open bathrooms with a concrete floor, floor drains, and brownish block walls. Within are eight toilet stalls, awful rusted steel things that were probably painted at some point. Just looking at them might make Will want to get a tetanus shot and a disgusting septic scent is wafting out of one of them. There are also four sinks, each of them with a green topped and a blue topped handle. Near each sink is a dispenser for infectant hand desanitizer. And, of course, there are the shower stalls. One of them is pouring out scalding hot blood, filling the air with a heavy metallic scent. Another is spraying out clear mucus, watery enough to flow but sticky enough to be disgusting. The other two are dispensing completely normal water.

Okay. One of them is dispensing normal water

The other is dispensing super-cooled water that freezes as soon as it hits the floor.

Rather conspicuously, there isn't a single mirror in the bathroom. Also conspicuously, smooth jazz is being played over unseen speakers.

And most conspicuously is the basketball sized floating morula feeding on the blood from the shower, utterly oblivious to the skin-burning heat. The thing looks like a cluster of reddish cells surrounded by an amniotic sac with a fanged placenta on the bottom. If Will is at all familiar with Metroid, the creature looks distressingly similar to the namesake alien.

What does he do?

[Deathkeeper]

Somewhere Awful- Will

Unfortunately, Will is, and it isn't helping the situation one bit. Why couldn't all of his monsters have been cute and fuzzy?
Will looks frantically around the room, checking some of the toilet stalls if he needs to, trying to find the locked door that the monster mentioned or another clown-door. All very, very quietly to avoid alerting the monster.

[Rebonack]

[Somewhere Awful - Will]

The first toilet stall Will checks?

It looks like whoever was in there probably didn't survive the process, which easily explains the awful septic smell. And the disgusting heaps of manure appear to be moving. Hopefully Will decides that he doesn't want to search very carefully in there. Because seriously. Eeww.

The stalls range from filthy to sparkling clean, in order. Which is... weird to say the least. A simple cursory glance doesn't reveal too much in each one. A toilet, a toilet paper dispenser, and bathroom stall graffiti. The cleanest stall, the large handicapped one as it happens, has another door built into it on the inside. It's a pretty sizable door, a huge brass contrivance that looks more like some sort of eldritch puzzle box than a simple door. Should Will try to open the thing he'll find that it's firmly locked.

As for the floating morula?

Well.

It is more interested in sucking up that blood.

It isn't paying any attention to Will for the time being.

What does he do?

[Deathkeeper]

Somewhere Awful- Will

Good, that means it'll be too full to mess with Will!
The boy gives as detailed an inspection as he can on the door. Anything that looks like an indentation? Anything that slides? And bolts that a tire iron could twist? Heck, he even gives a very quiet knock on the thing. This is his only lead so far, he needs this thing open!

[Fenric]

[Oryza Biological Products]

<Tavlii>

Follow follow follow! The food is nice (food is very important!) but what's really of interest are any other people in the cafeteria; what are they, are they even perceptible?

Are there particular predators of foxes? Do they also give worship to Inari for their food source? Curious idea. Probably not on most worlds, but it could be. And no actual meat used? "Synthetic meat for price, or uniformity, or ideology, or some other reason?"
Tavlii goes and enters the line of foods, taking at the least some rice, and something red-marked, and some other foods at random.
Technically she doesn't need to eat meat, but it simplifies things and she's accustomed to it.

<Caravan>

Caravan, for her part, recognizes a startlingly large amount of the items here, and serves herself a heaping helping including at least one item where one must wonder how she knows about it at all, much less be familiar with it.

Caravan is curious, but Tavlii spoke her thoughts well, and lets Inari speak without interruption.

Inari looks at the counter

It is mostly a matter of practicality: raising sub-dimensional creatures with full projections here is not the most trivial task. The nursery building you visited earlier takes a good deal of energy to maintain which increases for each creature living there, and so it simply is not feasible for food production.

I do not raise six-dimensional food animals on principle: given our technology it is completely unnecessary.

[Rebonack]

[Somewhere Awful - Will]

There aren't any bolts, but there is a section that slides to the side, revealing a square recess in the surface of the door with an old fashioned looking key-hole in it, the sort of key hole you would expect to find on some dungeon door or some such nonsense.

Not that this is a video game dungeon door.

This is all very real and very serious!

Normal logic dictates that the nurses probably have the key and Will is stuck.

Video game logic dictates that the key is probably hidden somewhere nearby for Will to find.

Which set of logic is going to win out?

What does he do?

[Deathkeeper]

Somewhere Awful-Will

Well, yeah, under normal logic Will is stuck. But he has nowhere else to go, so it doesn't hurt to look. Key can't be in the toilet or it'd be a pile of rust. Maybe under it? Or in the toilet paper roller? Or under the sink? Will needs to check everywhere for this darn thing or he's stuck with the paranoid fuzzy thing.

[FireFox]

Vinose Woods

"B-but those plants are-" the younger bandit is interrupted by Ally continuing with her bluff. Whether it was that, or Carrie and her plant-killing, it seems to be too much for him and he bolts off into the trees.

"Stupid kid," the leader says. "Whoever your strongmen are, they better be quick, cause I'm go-" he's interrupted by something less conventional: a lightning bolt to his chest. He falls to his back, unable to move. Carrie and Ally will probably be able to trace that bolt back to Ashley, who looks more shocked than anything else.

"What the - they are mages!" one of the other bandits says. "Let's get 'em, we'll be rich!"

It's at this point that Ashley finds her voice. "Run!"

[Vinose Woods]
Carrie curses, starting to run like hell. There just had to be too many to strangle, didn't there? Were she alone, she'd just fly the hell away, but...
Well.

No time for thinking. Ally backtracks a few steps to grab her backpack and put it on, then it's a full sprint off the trail and into the woods. Away from the other women.

[Rebonack]

[Somewhere Awful - Will]

Hiding the key right next to the door probably wouldn't be the best of hiding places, though looking inside the toilet paper roller is a pretty good idea. There's no key inside, but there is a tiny alabaster statue of Commander Riker, his magnificent beard reproduced in all its manly glory. The sinks really don't have much in the way of under to them. Just a sink attached to the wall with some pipes below it.

Searching the other bathroom stalls doesn't turn up much, aside from the various messages written in there. Those may or may not be important. And apparently someone decided it would be a good idea to stick a corn dog into one of the toilet paper dispensers instead of toilet paper.

So...

Will has poked around most everywhere.

That only leaves the hand dryer machines to search.

...and the shower stalls.

What does he do?

[Deathkeeper]

Somewhere Awful- Will

Will searches the driers, because he does not want to get within ten feet of those stalls. The statue does not seem important, although he does pick it up and set it down on the floor outside the stall in vase he somehow needs it.
And if the stalls are left, he'll creep up as quietly as possible, using the iron to pull the curtain of the water stalls and peer in, being careful to avoid the spray.

[Rebonack]

[Somewhere Awful - Will]

Will pushes the button on the hand dryer, causing it to dispense three strips of perfectly crispy bacon. Aside from the fact that the drying doesn't actually dry anything, it appears to be unremarkable.

...so that just leaves the shower stalls...

One of the stalls spraying water appears to be spraying completely normal water of a comfortable temperature, the sort one could take a shower in without having something awful happen to them. The water doesn't look or smell contaminated. Just clean, warm water. There's no one inside the stall. The second water-spraying stall is blasting out super-cooled water that freezes as soon as it hits the floor. For some reason there's a disembodied, vaguely anthropomorphic giant liver inside of the stall frozen inside a block of ice.

Huh...

So now the blood stall and the mucus stall...

What does he do?

[Deathkeeper]

Somewhere Awful- Will

Will checks the latter first, choking down his gag reflex in the process. Only if that fails will he close that current and gingerly open the last one's. Maybe the Metroid is blind and won't notice him peeking?

[Rebonack]

[Somewhere Awful - Will]

The mucus shower has little more than a huge congealed pile of snot in the middle of the floor.

Gross...

As for the floating morula, it still doesn't appear to be aware of Will's presence. Or at least it has something that it's more interested in at the moment. Should Will peek past the monster he will likely notice that the valve for controlling the flow of blood within the stall looks suspiciously like the handle of a key with the face of a sad clown on the back.

...great.

He's going to have to find some way to steal the thing without peeving the totally-not-a-metroid.

What does he do?