Silly Plots 2: Electric Boogaloo

[Morty]

[Elephant Rock]

Iknika edges backwards slowly, and pulls on Isaac's tail. She did encourage him, but this situation feels ridiculous on several levels.

[Deathkeeper]

[Elephant Rock]

Isaac yelps a bit, which quickly becomes a much louder noise as he jumps in size. He turns, awkwardly looking at Iknika, and sits down on the edge of the pool. Without his shirt it's more obvious that his hide is slightly hairy, though it's hard to say with his hair being so light in color.
"See? No big deal, right?" he says, trying to recover this situation into being more fun again.

[Morty]

[Elephant Rock]

Iknika grins, her ears perking up.

"Of course not! You shouldn't be so bashful about your elephant form. I'm going to go change and be right back."

Provided she can find a changing room easily, she returns after a moment, wearing the swimsuit she'd got.

[Deathkeeper]

[Elephant Rock]

"Sorry, I'm just kind of...people treat me differently, so sometimes I do the same to myself." he explains. He does seem happy to see her changed.
"You look really great. Uh, just making sure, you're a good swimmer, right? The water's pretty deep."

[Morty]

[Elephant Rock]

"I'm... okay, I guess," Iknika admits. She saunters up to the edge of the pool... well, she tries to saunter. She doesn't quite have the technique or the attitude down. She then goes to carefully slip into the water.

[Deathkeeper]

[Elephant Rock]

Isaac chuckles and takes a few steps back before leaping like an enormous flying missile to land beside Iknika, likely causing an enormous wave capable of flooding the entire-
He lands gracelessly but firmly on top of the water as if it were solid. He winks at the goblin. "Gotcha." he says, before his invisible disk dissipates and sinks with a plop into the pool.

[Morty]

[Elephant Rock]

Iknika can't hide the panicked look on her face as she expects to be swept underwater by a massive wave... but then it doesn't happen and she just breaks into a fit of giggles.

"You really had me going there for a second."

She splashes around idly, getting closer to him.

[Deathkeeper]

[Elephant Rock]

Isaac reaches out a huge hand and tries to pull Iknika closer to him. He isn't having any trouble swimming it seems. Or is he cheating?
"So, would you say that today was pretty good for you?" he asks.

[Morty]

[Elephant Rock]

Iknika is pulled close and pokes Isaac in the chest playfully.

"Yep. Very good," she says. "I might need to think about how to repay you for all this."

[Deathkeeper]

[Elephant Rock]

"Oh, you don't need to worry about that too much. Not everyone knows where to find secret towns." Isaac assures Iknika, drifting back and forth in the water. It's quite warm. As is Isaac.
"Was there anywhere you've always wanted me to see?"

[FireFox]

[A Safehouse]

The nondescript man who had driven her here in a nondescript car helps carry her luggage up to the front door of the nondescript cottage by a reluctantly picturesque stretch of private beach suffering the cold ocean. He entrusts her and her luggage to a nondescript woman wearing nondescript business casual who carries a semi-automatic shotgun with all the descript filed off, then goes to take the sedan back to where the temporarily separated GPS unit insists it's been all day. The woman, pointedly not looking directly at her, takes her luggage to the bedroom it'll be staying in and shows her where the bathroom, the kitchen, and the panic buttons are before escorting her into the dining room. A man has occupied half of the large wooden table and raised a wall with his laptop and briefcase to keep his paperwork from fleeing to the other half in hope for a less oppressed life. He looks like an ordinary human male in his mid to late twenties, with light brown hair and blue eyes. He wears the austere black suit befitting of a senior manager in the trade, but his tie stands out with a very colorful complex geometric pattern. He pushes his chair back and gets to his feet as she enters the room, stepping around the table to shake her hand. He holds on to her hand a bit too long to be comfortable and he stares at her from top to bottom and back up again in a rather methodical way, but he's just taking her measure very thoroughly. She was advised by her own people that he's an empath. "Welcome, I'm Chief Khan. I was given a codename for you, of course, nobody here needs to know who you really are or where you come from and certainly not what it is you do when your services aren't being loaned out. Yet I was wondering if there was, perhaps, a normal name you would wish to be addressed by over the duration of our association. It'd be a bit awkward to keep saying, 'How are you feeling, RED LEDGER?' and 'RED LEDGER, would you kindly leave one alive for questioning?', wouldn't you agree?"

[A Safe House]

He may not have any idea how he came to be here, but he's standing on the front porch of a two-story cabin now and it's best he come to terms with that fact as quickly as he can in order to move on. The surrounding primeval forest is dark and foreboding while the cabin looks familiar, with the warm light pouring out the window and the smell of divinity. The door is suddenly opened from the inside before he can knock, or turn and flee, and a short butler bows in greeting. "Please, come in. The Saviour is waiting in the sitting room. May I take your coat?" The butler is actually a pale teenage girl wearing an intricate uniform straight out of the 19th century and way too much black eyeshadow from the goth fashion of the 21st. She wasn't here five years ago, but a lot has changed since then.

[Reinholdt]

[A Safe House]

Reinholdt recognizes the forest before he recognizes the cabin, having grown accustomed to taking note of natural features. It's vital for an adventurer to know the difference between the North Forest, the Enchanted Forest, and the Weald. It's also usually vital for an adventurer to know how they got there. This must be one of Hadrian's dreams.

In which case Rein really shouldn't bother worrying about it. He doesn't know how Hadrian learned of the details of the Huntress and the Saviour, but he can play along. Clearly it's not a perfect representation with the butler and all.

"Sure, why not? Thank you." Reinholdt says, sliding off his leather jacket and handing it to the female butler while he steps inside. Flicking out a jasmine flower from nowhere, he heads to the sitting room to offer it to the dream goddess inside.

[FireFox]

[A Safe House]

The butler takes his jacket and hangs it up in the entryway, then follows him into the adjacent room to stand silently behind his back.

Reinholdt! I'm delighted you accepted my invitation. Soteira rises from her seat by the fire and steps forward to embrace him. She smiles honestly to see him, smugly at the idea he was invited and not abducted, and happily at the flower. The winged death goddess is wearing a backless white sundress and is going barefoot in her home. The living room looks much the same, the same old trophies and no new ones, but her presence seems to push back the darkness and the gloom. She takes a deep breath to inhale the jasmine scent and casually gestures to the deceased soul she's got playing servant. Can she get you anything to drink?

[Reinholdt]

[A Safe House]

"I did? I mean, yes, I did." Of course Reinholdt's dream self accepted whatever invitation it was that got him here. He hugs Soteira back warmly after giving her the flower and gives her a smile. "Let's see. I don't suppose you have any ambrosia to spare? I've always wanted to know the taste of what goddesses drink." So refined a choice. "I guess rum if you don't have any of that." Nevermind.

Rein takes a seat on the couch, laying his arm along the back. "You're looking particularly splendid tonight So. No detail left unpolished. What did you call me out here to do?"

[Beans]

[A Safehouse]

She spends the whole car ride competing with everything else in nondescriptivity. It's only when she gets inside that she drops that, and a reasonable person might suddenly wonder why she seemed so unmemorable before. She is, after all, a fox-eared lady with a tail voluminous enough to require zoning paperwork, and goldeny-blonde besides. Her clothes tend toward neat and blue.

She smiles politely at the man corralling his papers. He can tell she's calm and at least content being here---a sense that this is a welcome change from some other state or environment. " 'Coma' would be fine, thank you. Not that RED LEDGER is entirely without its own merits." She carries no weapons, hidden or otherwise. Well, certainly nothing approaching the conventional. "How shall we proceed, then?"

[Morty]

[Elephant Rock]

"I've seen your place and the secret elephant town, so I feel like I should show you Underside," Iknika says, floating idly in the water. "My home cave and all the other stuff."

[FireFox]

[A Safe House]

"Rum for us both, then." Soteira watches the butler bow and back out of the room, then turns her gaze to Reinholdt. She sits back in her chair and studies him like she's forgotten what she summoned him for, but can think of a few new ideas. "Thank you, Rein. I have a job for you. A party of adventurers needs the help of an experienced treasure hunter to get through some sort of dungeon or gauntlet of trials. Well, no, I think they'd actually be just fine on their own, which means you'd provide an excellent challenge by screwing everything up. Think of it as teaching an impromptu class on teamwork and problem solving skills. It'd be like an undercover double agent sort of job, only you're disguised as yourself and acting as you usually do!

[A Safehouse]

Chief Khan politely holds out Coma's chair for her and retakes his seat before replying. "My Agency wishes to employ you as an official asset in an operation we're putting together on short notice. For reasons I'll get to in a moment, as well as the fact I don't mind admitting to you that my Station here is comparatively unstaffed, we have no agents or even normal contractors available for this op. We have a... how shall I put it... semiconscious potential asset who works for a friend of a friend in mind to lead this operation. We, the Agency, are fairly confident in this person's ability to accomplish the main objectives easily." He smiles across the table at her, eyes shining with a self-satisfied sort of cleverness one feels the most when one manages to overcomplicate a simple thing. He continues speaking with a wry tone. "But we are not generally disposed to fulfilling one or two objectives when we can poach a whole flock of goals with a single stone. We intend on testing everyone and everything involved, then writing up everything we learn. Intelligence reports that will support analyses that will create leads that will generate more intelligence reports and maybe someday somebody will do something useful with one of them. I'll give you a little hint: your test is about how will you accomplish these secondary objectives without drawing undue attention on yourself. If you pass... well, we have a lot of work here in the Nexus and could always use a good asset. There are even holes in my staff roster that cry out for new agents to fill them."
It's a snap judgment he's making based on the little bit he was able to glean empathically. He fills his pitch with official, even bureaucratic terminology and then baits the hook with the possibility of staying here after the mission. If she doesn't like where she's been and is happy to be here, she might work harder to stay. The Chief is very adept at figuring out which buttons to push and levers to pull to get people to do what he wants them to do, a skill that has been forged by his natural psychic talent and honed by years experience of running agents and assets in the field. The downside is that he has mostly dealt with humans and is less effective at reading and convincing other species.

[Reinholdt]

[A Safe House]

That... took a weird turn. Hadrian's dreams were getting more intricate. It was more dream like in a way Reinholdt supposes. But still, Soteira didn't even accept his couch invitation and snuggle up to him before requesting some treasure hunting sabotage. He was really looking forward to Ambrosia too. That's going to have to be next on his to steal list. He's sure stealing and drinking wine only designed for gods will have no negative consequences.

"So, uh, you aren't in desperate need of a back rub or for me to knead any sore and sensitive areas?" Reinholdt purposefully tries not to be offended that Hadrian's version of So thinks he actively screws things up intentionally. He might not act the way people expect and this often has unforeseen consequences, but he'd never purposefully hurt anyone.

Except for all the times he has. And this time too he supposes if his entire goal is training sabotage.
...
Rein's going to need that rum sooner than later. He's not drunk enough to face his inadequacies.

"Sure I suppose. Anyone I know?"

[Deathkeeper]

[Elephant Rock]

"I've seen your place and the secret elephant town, so I feel like I should show you Underside," Iknika says, floating idly in the water. "My home cave and all the other stuff."

[Elephant Rock]

"That sounds nice. Will your parents be ok meeting me and everything? No problems with human dates?" he asks her. Because well, they went to a place together, had a meal, and kissed. Isaac is pretty sure he can call them dates at this point.

[Beans]

[A Safehouse]

Coma is indeed hooked. She also knows he knows she's hooked, and as such doesn't bother making a big show of hiding it. Hiding something you know people can see is awfully suspicious and makes otherwise innocuous things seem less so. Instead, she just smiles back. "That sounds very agreeable, I think. I'm very used to trying to get things done without being obvious about it." Though mostly because being visibly engaged in something useful generally warranted familial pestering. "What, essentially, is the nature of this primary operation?"

[Morty]

[Elephant Rock]

Iknika blushes a very deep shade of grey.

"Well, uh... I don't think they... they're really stuck up. And me training as a knight already has them... they're not happy. But we'll figure it out."

[Rebonack]

[Museum of Anthropology]

School field trips.

They are a thing of glory, are they not? A break from the routine. A chance to really learn something new. An opportunity to not listen to droning lectures. Or, well, maybe the droning lecture thing was still going to happen. But in her experience, Michelle has found that the people who lead museum tours at least try to act enthusiastic about it. Especially around teens. Just trying to coax them out of theirs shells, y'know? Spark some measure of interest. You never know when you might inspire the next generation of archeologists!

Or something like that.

"And remember, no fiddling with your phones while on the tour," Mrs. Beatrix calls out as the students file toward the museum entrance. "There WILL be a test on this material, so you need to pay attention."

Michelle has already stowed hers, but she can practically feel Rachael and her clique rolling their eyes as they do no such thing. Of course they wouldn't care about education. And she doesn't feel particularly slighted about being excluded all the time. Of course not. That would be silly. She has her own friends! Friend. Who's also her brother. Which isn't lame at all. Not even a little bit.

The tour begins moving, a surging herd of adolescent adolescent energy that can't help but snicker when the tour-guide begins talking about Homo erectus. Michelle studiously keeps to her notes, straying toward the back of the group if only to avoid having people pestering her from behind. She pauses at a particularly interesting display case featuring a variety of stone tools. She'll just sketch a few of them real quick. They probably won't fall too far behind, right?

[Deathkeeper]

[Elephant Rock]

Isaac nods, poking Iknika playfully with the end of his trunk.
"Yeah, we will."

~fin~

[Museum of Anthropology]

School field trips.

Hey, don't think Michel doesn't like them just because he'd rather be out on the soccer field. Or baseball, he'd take either one. He likes getting out and walking and not being cramped into a little desk. He doesn't mind putting his phone away, because he has other things to eye anyway. Rachael is very attractive, even if Michel can tell that she has about a year and a half to develop a few brain cells or the prom will be the highlight of her life. That doesn't mean he wouldn't mind taking her out some time. Or just admiring the outfit she picked out for this.

But he should stay away from girls like that. Because girls like that pick on his sister, and defending her is the only reason he's liked and not adored. So he subconsciously drifts to the back with her despite obscuring the nice view because he has to make sure nothing happens to Michelle. And while he's doing that, he can eye these silly ancient fertility idols. These are totally lewd! Not appropriate for kids. Funny though.

[Rebonack]

[Museum of Anthropology]

"Can you imagine using one those?" Michelle asks as she finishes up her sketch of the obsidian spear point. "That's way too heavy to throw very well. You would probably have to-" she makes a few stabbing motions at the nearby reproduction of a European cave lion. "I guess we can thank modern technology for phones and not being mauled by lions. To think... it all started with a few sharp rocks..."

She smiles at that. It's fun to think about, what it would be like living then. More physical, no doubt. She isn't sure how well she would do in that sort of environment. Mom was always trying to get her at least somewhat interested in athletics, but... Well! If nothing else, most stuff hadn't been discovered yet! Imagine just how many things were totally new back then? Michelle glances up from her little revery and-

-frowns.

"Huh? Where did the tour go?" she wonders aloud. "Weren't they all right there a second ago?"

She's sure they were. They were just right over there looking at the reproductions of the Lascaux cave drawings.

Maybe they could just... jog a little bit?

Catch up?

They couldn't have possibly gone far. She glances over at Michel to see what he thinks.

[Deathkeeper]

[Museum of Anthropology]

Michel blinks, turning back to his sister. "You're looking at spears and the first thing that comes to mind is being mauled by lions? Don't be such a girl, Michelle. Besides, lions are cool. "

But it's true, the tour has disappeared.

"They probably just left and went into the ancient civilizations section. Come on." he says, taking her hand and leading her in that way. It was the direction the tour was going in five seconds ago, after all. And he knows the exact pace that she can keep up with from experience.

[Rebonack]

[Museum of Anthropology]

"I'm about eighty five percent certain that any combination of me and lion would result in a mauling," Michelle shoots back, half joking. It's probably a pretty lame joke. God, she's so lame.

She glances down the hall and shivers slightly.

"Yeah, of course, let's go."

Of course they just went to the ancient civilization section.

Where else would they have gone?

Tour groups don't just vanish. This is obviously the rational explanation.

She jogs along with her sibling, doing a decent job of keeping up. She isn't that pathetic.

Before long they're in the ancient civilization wing and-

-still no one.

It all looks really impressive, though. A few old statues standing here and there. Artifacts just out in the open to observe. Not a hint of display cases. Stone ceiling and floors. With those pillars and brazers burning oil this place looks more like an authentic temple than a museum! Which... is weird.

That's weird, isn't it?

"Something about this doesn't seem quite right..." Michelle mutters. "Where is everyone?"

[Deathkeeper]

[The Museum of Anthropology]

Michel saunters around, examining the painted pots. Heracles slaying the nemean lion! Perseus slaying Medusa! Chiron surreptitiously attending a party!
"They probably had to hurry through quickly before Rachael got bored. These people sure didn't like wearing clothes, did they?" he asks with a chuckle. And statues of gods, women, satyrs and nymphs. Bathing nymphs. "Nice."

"If we've already lost 'em, how about we look around? Come on, I know you're super into this. We can afford to do things your way." he says sympathetically.

[Rebonack]

[The Museum of Anthropology]

Michelle heaves a sigh. "Yeah... I guess you're right. It wouldn't hurt to look around. This stuff IS really cool," she says, pausing at a massive marble statue of Zeus complete with an alter in front of it. She can't imagine why anyone would want to just blow through this room. It feels way less like a museum and way more like they're actually there. "The Greeks idealized the human form. That's why they did all their athletics in the buff."

A pause.

Just long enough to give Michell time to take in a breath to begin talking.

"No I don't think they should bring that back. Especially not for beach volley-ball," she pre-emptively snarks.

With wandering eyes, she begins pacing the hall. Pottery depicting the deeds of heroes. Statues of the gods. Every one of them has a story to tell. And the detail on each is... breath-taking. To say the least.

"These HAVE to be reproductions," Michelle muses. "Look," she reaches out, brushing the marble wing of a sphinx statue depicting the confrontation between the monster and Oedipus at the gates of Thebes. "They don't have ANYTHING protecting them. And none of the extremities are broken off. Maybe that's why there aren't any display cases or cordons or anything? They wanted a display that people could touch? Something you can really get into?" she reasons. That makes sense, right? There's got to be a reason why this place is set up to look like an actual Greek temple, complete with an absence of artificial lighting.

Yeah.

That has GOT to be it.

Idly, Michelle scratches at her shoulder-blade. It's kind of itchy all of a sudden.

[Deathkeeper]

[Museum of Anthropology]

"Aw, but beach volley ball is the best part!" he wails mockingly. "You're right though it would probably be very uncomfortable for those women." And making women uncomfortable isn't okay!
That's what they have statues for.
Michel mockingly places his hand up and down on the shapely lower back of a beautiful goddess. "I dunno, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't want me doing this." he says, waggling his eyebrows at his sister.

[Rebonack]

[Museum of Anthropology]

"The jumping up and down, that would just be... ugh..." Michelle shudders even thinking about that. All that flopping would be murder.

Then the less than respectful touching catches her attention. She rolls her eyes at her brother. "No, they probably wouldn't. You know what the Greek goddesses did to guys who disrespected them, don't you? It usually wasn't pretty. Artemis turned a guy into a stag and loosed her hunting hounds on him for spying on her naked."

A pause as she considers some of the statues and images.

"Though considering how some of them dress, I can see how that would be sending mixed signals..."

Oh well, probably doesn't matter that much.

She moves on to an elaborate fresco depicting the saga of Hades and Persephone.

"Mouthless I howl, toothless I bite, even the day flees at my sight. What am I?" Michelle mutters to no one in particular. She blinks at that, the words having come to her unbidden.

Her shoulders are really starting to itch, now! And why are her shoes feeling tight all of a sudden? Something... something really wrong is happening here.

"Come on, let's get out of here, this place is really starting to give me the creeps," Michelle says, turning back toward her brother. If he's observant, he might notice that her eyes look like they're ringed with black makeup. Certainly weren't before.