Serious Plots 6: Srs bsns

[Cola]

((I'm down. I don't mind proactive posters. I tend to prefer that than the other way around.))

[Arid Town]

"Oh sorry, a lot going through my mind. I'm Cait." Cait Hastings according to her insurance and drivers license. But Cait tends to go through last names rather quickly.

[Dale's House]

Cait looks over Dale's house and decides to keep any comments that pop into her mind firmly there, and away from her mouth. Besides she has stayed in much worse places than this; much nicer places to though.

"Yeah OK thanks." She says and she will wander around a bit trying to get familiar with the lay out. A thought crosses her mind. Dale had shown some pretty powerful magic, and it didn't necessarily come in a pretty package. Maybe something else around here was enchanted in odd ways.

So when he goes off to make food she mumbles a few quick words and holds up her hands like she is getting ready to shoot a movie. Looking through the box her thumbs and pointer fingers are making and looks for anything laying around that is magically enchanted.

[Dale's House]

The house's layout doesn't have any hallways. The front door directly leads into the living room, which is seamlessly connected with the dining area and kitchen. It's actually quite cozy in here, with carpet flooring, a great, comfy couch, upholstered armchairs, and various paintings, posters and animal trophies on the paneled walls. There's a large flatscreen TV with a multi-medium recorder and a PlayStation 6 connected to it.
From here, all other rooms are accessible: Dale's bedroom, the guest room, some sort of workroom, the bathroom, the laundry, and the massively cluttered garage. If the bed in Dale's room is any indication, he lives alone.

The strongest magical signature belongs to a whole bunch of colourful, thumb-sized plastic bottles sitting on a shelf. They're mass-produced mana potions. Other than that, very faint traces of magic can be found in pretty much any piece machinery all over the house, as well as on the kitchen surfaces, sinks, shower, and toilet. Should Cait use any of them, she'll notice that not the tiniest droplet of water will stick to them. Also, there's a machine in the workroom that looks kinda like a scientific microscope. Scattered around it on the table are various pieces of metal, stone and other materials, each with very faint traces of magic. One brick floats weightlessly above the others, yet on touch feels insanely heavy. A steel screw seems to glow, but actually, it just reflects 200% of incoming light. There's also a magnetic log of wood and a blue, translucent crystal labeled as "oxygen" that magnetically sticks to the wood.

Other than that, there's a lot of shelves in the workroom, holding a lot of literature. Textbooks about basic and advanced physics, nuclear chemistry, Sumerian language, and spellcasting. Scientific papers, handwritten notes, encyclopedias, magazines about cars and outdoor activities, erotic magazines, adventure novels, and some cookery books.

[Deathkeeper]

Plants are not in the nature of this place. This is an ending, a default, nothingness. It is not for things to grow. But there are cracks, literally, and metaphorically. Between the paving stones, mosses and lichens creep. Further into the city, she can sense potted plants standing in windows, and a couple of motile plant-people walking the streets. Further still there's a sort of park. It's also a performance hall and a torture chamber. But it's definitely a park, even if most would not wish to see what flowers bloom there.

The statue-guard reaches over and sets a portcullis to falling, itself and Willow on the outside. Then it lowers its weapon and charges, point aimed at the cowgirl's heart.

A Harrowing

Willow reaches out with her mind, bidding the lichens to reach out and snatch at the guard's feet, to root him in place. This way she can pepper his face with piercing arrows of air with her air-bow. If she can't root it her only means of dodging will be to run.

[Recaiden]

The little green things flourish impossibly strong and quickly, holding the guard in place.

The rain of arrows, well, they work about as well as you'd expect. Which is to say that just like normal arrows, they crumple and bounce off of his stone skin, barely leaving a scratch.

With one hand, the construct starts tearing its feet free of the entangling mosses. They really need to do a better job cleansing this place of all life.

[Deathkeeper]

A Harrowing

Willow grimaces, and pulls back on her bow. With a little more pull, more force, she unleashes more arrows. With extra power, maybe she can at least punch a small hole in stone.

At least she hopes so because that's kind of the only thing she can do at the moment. Blasted unliving things.

[Recaiden]

Not being very creative here, are you Willow?

Nevertheless, with all her strength, she manages to loose an arrow that cracks the stone face of the guardian. It's hard to tell how hurt the construct is, but it pauses in its efforts to free itself, lifting a hand to inspect the shattered ridges of its head.

From behind the wall, a roaring sounds rises. Fire, leaping from spire to spire, house to house. The bell over this gate starts up again, ringing and ringing. In the highest pinnacle of the city, a light flares on, looking down at this commotion. The goddess is being pretty distracting, but perhaps she could do more if she somehow opened the portcullis or got over the wall.

[McBish]

[Dale's House]

The house's layout doesn't have any hallways. The front door directly leads into the living room, which is seamlessly connected with the dining area and kitchen. It's actually quite cozy in here, with carpet flooring, a great, comfy couch, upholstered armchairs, and various paintings, posters and animal trophies on the paneled walls. There's a large flatscreen TV with a multi-medium recorder and a PlayStation 6 connected to it.
From here, all other rooms are accessible: Dale's bedroom, the guest room, some sort of workroom, the bathroom, the laundry, and the massively cluttered garage. If the bed in Dale's room is any indication, he lives alone.

The strongest magical signature belongs to a whole bunch of colourful, thumb-sized plastic bottles sitting on a shelf. They're mass-produced mana potions. Other than that, very faint traces of magic can be found in pretty much any piece machinery all over the house, as well as on the kitchen surfaces, sinks, shower, and toilet. Should Cait use any of them, she'll notice that not the tiniest droplet of water will stick to them. Also, there's a machine in the workroom that looks kinda like a scientific microscope. Scattered around it on the table are various pieces of metal, stone and other materials, each with very faint traces of magic. One brick floats weightlessly above the others, yet on touch feels insanely heavy. A steel screw seems to glow, but actually, it just reflects 200% of incoming light. There's also a magnetic log of wood and a blue, translucent crystal labeled as "oxygen" that magnetically sticks to the wood.

Other than that, there's a lot of shelves in the workroom, holding a lot of literature. Textbooks about basic and advanced physics, nuclear chemistry, Sumerian language, and spellcasting. Scientific papers, handwritten notes, encyclopedias, magazines about cars and outdoor activities, erotic magazines, adventure novels, and some cookery books.

((That vacation snuck up on me. Sorry for the wait.))

[Dale's House]

Cait had planned on snooping around to find out more about Dale. But she is immediately distracted by the workroom. The bottle of rum Dale had provided in her hand she looks through his work. The metals and odd materials are briefly examined. The books keep her attention. Especially the high level physics books. She checks finding a few familiar titles, and more then a few she hasn't seen before. She chuckles finding the erotic magazines in the midst. But she pulls out a couple of books, checking the edition number and publication date. She then briefly scans the table of contents. She takes a seat with the books and the rum and waits for Dale to be done cooking.

[Cola]

((I know, right? You go to bed like always, and boom, you wake up in a Swiss seaside hotel.))

[Dale's House]

Almost all of the physics books are written in English and were published between 1960 and 2010 A.D. , or "pretty recently" in whatever calendar the Nexus uses. They cover a very wide range of subjects, like the laws of motion, behaviour of electromagnetic radiation, quantum theory, and molecular physics. A few books stick out, though. For example, what appears to be a school textbook written entirely in Sumerian, or a thick tome published in 2746 A.D. characterising various types of exotic matter.

"Ay Cait! Come get some!", Dale calls after about 30 minutes spent in the kitchen. Plates and cutlery clatter, and the smell of roasted meat wafts into the workroom.
It's Salisbury steak, roasted vegetables, and plenty of gravy. "If ya wanna down that with somethin' other than rum, stuff 's in the fridge." , he says while cracking open a chilled can of beer - of course.
Despite looking very ordinary, the food tastes amazing, especially the gravy.

[McBish]

[Dale's House]

Cait is slow to respond. She emerges from work room carrying a physics book and a couple loose pieces of paper she has been scribbling some notes on with a nub of a pencil she found. "Hey you have a pretty awesome workroom. It looks like you have some cool projects you are working." She sets the books next to her plate and takes a bite. She pauses and looks between her plate and Dale and then takes a few more bites. "And you can cook, you are just full of surprises."

[Cola]

[Dale's House]

Being the uncultured hillbilly he is, Dale didn't wait for Cait to appear before starting to eat his plate. A look of pride briefly spreads across his face when she comments on his culinary skills. "'Course I can cook. Or am I s'posed to jus' eat them bagged snacks an' nasty TV dinner ev'ry day? Not gonna do that, I ain't no caveman." He lets out a beer-induced belch.
"Nah, that room 's jus' a bunch a' books an' that technomagic microscope. The real experiemntin' an' stuff 's bein' done in the creek out back, so I won't wreck ma house again if somethin' be goin' awful. Been workin' on givin' stuff some negative absorption coefficient lately, so they'll be reflectin' more light or sound than they be gettin'. No easy stuff, 'cause the absorption coefficient is the imaginary part of the refractive index, which is a complex number.
Buddy, what's up with those scribbled notes? Yer a nerd or somethin'?" It might be hard to tell if this was meant seriously or as a joke. Probably the latter. Either way, the irony is strong within Dale.

[Deathkeeper]

A Harrowing

Well...that worked, but it doesn't seem to have worked. Willow curses. If Anima hadn't forced her into being her sweet chubby self she could have jumped over the wall. As it stands, she's in no condition to do so. Willow tries to see if the local vines can pull open the portcullis for her while she continues to pelt the construct with air arrows.

[Recaiden]

It wasn't Anima's idea not to have a moon here!

As for the portcullis, the local vines tend towards 'nonexistent', so they're no help. The mosses do their best to push it up, but it's clear they're never going to manage.

Damage to the construct is adding up. But it seems to be getting its wits about it even as it breaks down. It's going to last at least long enough to finish the 'hacking through Willow with its poleaxe' maneuver it's currently attempting.

[McBish]

[Dale's House]

Being the uncultured hillbilly he is, Dale didn't wait for Cait to appear before starting to eat his plate. A look of pride briefly spreads across his face when she comments on his culinary skills. "'Course I can cook. Or am I s'posed to jus' eat them bagged snacks an' nasty TV dinner ev'ry day? Not gonna do that, I ain't no caveman." He lets out a beer-induced belch.
"Nah, that room 's jus' a bunch a' books an' that technomagic microscope. The real experiemntin' an' stuff 's bein' done in the creek out back, so I won't wreck ma house again if somethin' be goin' awful. Been workin' on givin' stuff some negative absorption coefficient lately, so they'll be reflectin' more light or sound than they be gettin'. No easy stuff, 'cause the absorption coefficient is the imaginary part of the refractive index, which is a complex number.
Buddy, what's up with those scribbled notes? Yer a nerd or somethin'?" It might be hard to tell if this was meant seriously or as a joke. Probably the latter. Either way, the irony is strong within Dale.

[Dale's House]

"Nothing wrong with frozen dinners." Cait says defensively. She almost never cooks. "And yes I am a bit of a nerd, math is sort of a hobby of mine. And from the books on your shelf you are a pretty big nerd yourself. Do you do all this for fun or is it part of a job of some sort?

About now the electronics in the house start to act funny turning on and off on their own. Radio dials spin through stations. Lights in the sky flood in through the windows. A saucer floating in the sky hovers over the yard and lowers in a beam of light Dale's truck.

[Cola]

[Dale's House]

Dale looks at her as if she had just told him the sun is square. "Well I guess some fellas be capable of chowin' down on anythin', no matter the taste."
"Maths as a hobby? Ya kiddin', right? What's bein' so entertainin' 'bout that?" He seems utterly perplexed by the idea of crunching numbers for fun. "An' am I lookin' like some egghead who's doin' homework for fun? 'Course it's for ma job. I enchant them machines an' stuff for a livin'. Ma sorta magic 's based on changing physical constants and attributes on a defined local scale, 'cause ya don't need much mana to do that. So if I wanna create ma own new spells, or even jus' know what I'm doin', I'm gonna need to read up on that borin' stuff, right?"

All those sudden, haunty occurrences seem to be familiar to Dale. He stops focusing on his plate for a second and listens for the hum of saucer engines. "Them darn illegal aliens be comin' to abduct our cows again? Aw, jus' you wait!" He gets up, drinks one of the gulp-sized mana potions sitting on the shelf, draws his shotgun from his magic vest pocket and storms outside. Only if Cait doesn't stop him, of course.
But the misunderstanding is cleared up as soon as he is reunited with his beloved truck. He puts the gun away, pays up and comes back inside to resume dinner.

[Recaiden]

Sometimes being bad at meditation means you get easily distracted and fail to reach a sense of emptiness and tranquility.

Sometimes being bad at meditation means that instead of ending up at a clear state of mind, you end up somewhere else. Your mind drifts away and you only notice that it's gone anywhere else at all when the doors close behind you. Have you fallen asleep, to end up somewhere feeling so real? Such a thing may have happened to Isaac one day. The boy's been to Faerieland before, right? Perhaps he recognizes the feeling of this place, so similar. Perhaps he realizes that the elephant-themed landscape around him is no coincidence.

[Deathkeeper]

[Veldt 2 Alpha Test Run]

It's not hard for Isaac to tell that he's been dreaming. Namely, last thing he remembers was being sitting on his bed. Also, he's taken the form of his full pale elephant self, with his hammer sitting over his crossed legs. And he's dressed as a monk, as he always is when he finds himself dreaming. He stands up, picking up his hammer, looking around.
"This isn't my Glade..."

[Recaiden]

"And look, there's elephants!"
"That's not elephants."
"Close enough, close enough."

The voices come from up high, an empty patch of air.

Around him, the grass waves, perfectly tall and golden-green. The sun shines down and the air shimmers with the heat; a little faraway moon glints in the sky.

[Deathkeeper]

[Vedlt 2 Alpha Test Run]

"Well, at least my clothes are appropriate for once. Who are you?" he demands of the voices, shielding his eyes from the sun with a hand. Normally the whole monk outfit isn't a very warm thing, half of him being exposed and all, but at least it's warm here.

[Recaiden]

"See, you've caught some sort of real elephant person - I knew this wasn't going to work just like that."
"!!!"

"I am 'A Place for Every Thing and Everything in its Place'." I slip into shape with the words, appearing on an outcropping of rock, tentacles swept back by my sides. I'll grant one thing, this place is responsive. Those rocks weren't there a moment ago."

"'Yone' here." I appear right by the visitor?intruder?guy, not making a fuss or worrying, and take a close look at him. "Are you real?" If he's not, then this really is working, even if a little bit unpredictably.

[Deathkeeper]

[Veldt 2 Alpha Test Run]

"Quite real. Possibly the most real thing here, if you go by the definition of real some fey like to use. Am I being kidnapped? Or are you just trying to do some sort of elephant experiment?" Isaac asks bluntly, dropping the mace's head into the dirt and resting his hands on the butt of the weapon. He thinks it'll be the more non-threatening way to hold such a large bludgeoning instrument.

[Recaiden]

I slump, disappointed, tentacles meeting gingerly in front of me. "Aww, man. So I did mess it up. Or you did. Someone, certainly." Yone's cærulean eyes follow the mace as it falls and flips over to be held resting on the ground.

"We are not those 'some fey', though. If you're from the physical world, that makes you False, not really there, not like we are."

"Yeah, we were trying to generate some elephant poppets. Uh, livingish things made out of dream instead of matter. Hmm. Are we kidnapping him?"

"Mmm, hmm. Would anyone care to ransom or rescue you, good monk?" I grin toothily; perhaps he would like to revise how he's holding that mace.

[Deathkeeper]

[Veldt 2 Alpha Test Run]

"That's a good question. Maph'tey would probably want me back but he's pretty sporadic when it comes to help and he might just send something really, really indirect to help. I don't know if Lucas could track me down. And my parents would have nothing you'd want. So no, I'm a fairly useless hostage actually." says the loxodon casually, tapping his fingers on the handle of his ivory mace.

[Recaiden]

"And what do we do with useless hostages?"

"Is it nothing because we're not actually kidnappers?" Yone nods a lot.
"Do you know anything about dreams, useless elephant hostage who never mentioned his name? Maybe we can figure out how to put you back."

[Deathkeeper]

[Veldt 2 Alpha Test Run]

"I'd be a fool to give out my name in circumstances like this. But I know plenty about them. Lucas helped me with lucid dreams and I've entered the Fey a few times through dreams. Not often mind you, but it's happened.
Being friends with fetches will do that." Isaac explains, more than a little troubled by all of this. "Why exactly were you trying to make some sort of magical elephant-diorama?" he asks.

[Recaiden]

I lunge at the elephant-man, neck swinging to bring my teeth to bear on the hand grasping the hammer, hopefully before he can physically do anything. That's how we do things here, right? Say what we do, but not what happens quite yet, whenever anyone else is involved?
Right. And good call, although you can't expect this to work. If he knows not to tell his name he's too much to leave as a bystander or even 'hapless normal person who became involved.'

Not to mention - well - we're not mentioning it.

[Deathkeeper]

[Veldt 2 Alpha Test Run]

Isaac would be very flattered to being referred to as a man. It's much easier to convince people of that when you're almost twice that height.
Still, his reaction is quick and simple. He brings up his forefinger and thumb, and makes a flicking motion as his other hand starts actually hefting his mace. A sharp bolt of force erupts from his hand, invisible, to intercept Yone.
"Smash!"
Really, Isaac? Not even five seconds in? You're incorrigible.

[Recaiden]

Yone is knocked away, tumbling end-over-end. Just as expected, really.

The earth trembles, and the ground beneath the elephant-child erupts upwards, boulders flying up in a spray of stone.

As for Yone, luckily cats always land on their feet. Even weird alien hexapod giraffe cats.
"You'd be a fool to admit you know when you'd be a fool. Anyone who gives such a cold, inhospitable response? Must be our enemy."

[Deathkeeper]

[Veldt 2 Alpha Test Run]

Isaac is sent flying, landing on his rear end with a great many cuts, though there is less blood than you might expect.
"Giving your name to Fey lets then enslave you. Everyone knows that." Isaac groans as he gets to his feet and tries to get some better barriers up.

[Recaiden]

"Ew. Why would we want to enslave you? That's what earthlings do, I promise we would never stoop so low." I muse.
I place my tentacles together in concentration. Twenty-five terracotta soldiers rise up from the plains, sculpture recalling long-gone humans, polearms raised high. In five stars of five, they march out to encircle the unspeakably rude elephant-thing.

"Besides, we're 'fae', with an 'a'. Totally different.

[Deathkeeper]

[Veldt 2 Alpha Test Run]

"In that case, I apologize for misidentifying you. You would be surprised how many Fey, with a y, and far things have tried to strong-arm me into being their minion. You can call me whatever you like and I won't complain." Isaac says, eyeing the soldiers and trying one more time to salvage the situation without having to fight cute cat critters.

[Recaiden]

"And you can make good on that apology by telling us the name you're properly known by."

"Is there something about you that would make a particularly good minion?" I inquire. The terracotta army, well, more of a squadron, really, should have him properly surrounded. The first star readies itself to charge should his answers not be sufficiently deferential.