Home 24: A house in this market?

[billtodamax]

Nigel's House

Nigel rolls his eyes as he hears Larry. He was definitely going to have to call child protective services. This was well beyond his ability to sort out.

Ok Larry well you can come around the front door and we can talk there. Hey wait the gate out back was definitely locked. ...Did you vault my friggin' fence? Jesus Christ Larry. Get out of my backyard before I call the cops. Nigel shakes his head and leaves Larry at the door, before heading back into the living room.

Do either of you know a "Larry"? Says his kid's missing. Nigel looks at the baby sitter and tries to keep the frown off of his face.

[Chaotic Bob]

[Nigel's House]

Nigel comes back into the front room just in time!

The two kids are staring at him with wide eyes, this time with a mixture of confusion added onto the fear. Clearly they do recognize the name, and the voice.
"That's his dad, but..."
Something about that doesn't really seem right to her.

But perhaps more importantly here, for Larry, is that his front door is glowing a very pale sort of gray, with just a tinge of pink along the edges.
And it's wide open.

Standing in the door-frame, flipping what looks like a large and narrow shark-tooth in her hand, there is now a black-haired woman in sweat clothes, with a pair of little cat ears sticking out of the top of her head. At one point, those clothes were evidently gray, but they seem to be torn in places, and matted enough blood to look slimy.
Her lips are pursed into a whistling sort of position, though no noises are coming from her lips.

No noises are coming from the front door at all, actually.

That shark tooth is being sent down towards the still-retreating-and-oblivious babysitter's back.

[billtodamax]

Nigel's House

Nigel's eyes widen at the sight of the woman.

MOVE! He yells at the babysitter, before drawing a slim black pistol with a bulbous cylinder embeded in the top. He fires off a pair of syringes at the thing in the door, and if they connect a powerful numbing agent will spread throughout targeted areas, quickly shutting down muscles.

Y'know, if this thing has muscles.

[Chaotic Bob]

[Nigel's House]

The babysitter really doesn't waste time on that command, already running hard on adrenaline as it is.
Although, unfortunately, in her startled leap to the side (dragging the boy like a sad sack of potatoes), she does squeeze the trigger on the gun and send a bullet off somewhere else in the room.

Hopefully it doesn't hit anything particularly important.

Not bothering to move out of the way, the intruder takes both of the syringes fairly squarely to the chest.
It does bring a frown to her face, ruining whatever silent whistling tune she was going through, as she subsequently sags backwards.
Lips form the general shape of the word "ugh" and she begins vibrating like someone in the midst of a seizure. At some point during this, the syringes pop right back out.

And then something heavy BANGS against the back door again.
"I am looking for my son!"
That voice doesn't sound like gruff Larry from the down the street much anymore. Sounds a lot like what would happen if a tape of Larry's voice tried to play its way through a microwave.

[billtodamax]

Nigel's House

Nigel frowns, emptying the rest of the clip (4 more syringes) into the thing's torso.

Kitchen! Now! He calls to the girl, ejecting the spent cylinder from his syringe gun. His eye lights up again, this time trying to assess the health of the monster in his living room, as he withdraws a spray bottle from his bag, returning the unloaded syringe gun. He squeezes the trigger, and a stream of brown liquid briefly emerges from the nozzle before bursting into flames and soaring toward the woman.

Maaaaan. He just got this house.

[Chaotic Bob]

[Nigel's House]

"-ater, Little Light."
The silence on the front area breaks down, halfway through the woman saying something. She falls backwards this time, with the syringes and the door promptly closes itself as she goes.
This technically happens before he breaks out the fire, in case he doesn't want to set his door on fire for no reason.

By the time Nigel is halfway through the word "kitchen", the kids are already fleeing in that direction, just in time for another BANG against the back-door.
There's the sound of crunching wood, as something roughly the size of a bear rams the door inwards, fragments of wood streaming wisps of some sort of pink gas. Doors don't usually break apart into weird, mushy chunks like that, but apparently they do today.

Somewhere around the the creature's chest is the lower half of a human head, still speaking the word "SON" over and over again, and the rest looks like what would happen if you skinned a gorilla and a bear, slapping their heads and arms onto the frame of an enormous, ugly purple spider.

This abomination against biology wastes absolutely no momentum from its door shattering, charging deeper into the house and presumably directly towards Nigel.

[billtodamax]

Nigel's House

Nigel has enough trigger discipline not to set his front hallway on fire, turning away from the now presumably perfectly safe front of his house to deal with the... bear gorilla spider. Y'know he was having a really nice night up until now.

He lets loose the stream of fire toward the charging monster, before diving aside. He pulls a small black object out of his bag, flicking a switch on out and dropping it into the room, where it will start to spew out a dark blue smoke that's laced with a potent neurotoxin - and also does a pretty great job of making it basically impossible to see inside the room.

[Chaotic Bob]

[Nigel's House]

Almost the instant the fire springs into being, there is a nearly glass-shattering scream of a roar from the monster, that only intensifies as it splashes against the front of it.
One would be hard pressed to hear an explosion over the hideous noise, which is probably good. Then Nigel doesn't have to hear the sound of it crashing directly into his wall, cracking the wood, and flinging flaming bits of its flesh in every direction.

Then toxic gas fills the room!
This has far less of an effect than Nigel would probably want, as it seems to neither hinder the monster's movements nor its vision. Or, perhaps it does hinder its vision, and it simply has some other means of perceiving the world around it?

Either way, still screeching and on fire, there's a jerk from part of its lower body tearing itself open as a pair of talon-tiped tentacles shoot across the room towards Nigel. They would like very much to bury themselves inside of him.


Off in the kitchen!
The babysitter is going right back to aggressively bottling up all of her terror, hoisting the boy back into her arms (tucking that pistol into the crook of one arm) and leading him off on a route to the back door that bypasses the monster and Nigel's nerve agent.
"Cover your ears, we're okay, we're okay..."
No one can hear what she's saying, but the boy is already covering his ears anyway.

[billtodamax]

Nigel - mostly blind himself, and hurriedly pulling a mask attached to an oxygen tank over his head - is easily caught by the talons, falling to the floor as they spear through his leg, tearing his high quality and very expensive pajamas.

Oh and his flesh too.

Nigel screams into his mask as he sprays more of the fire liquid around at where he thinks the tentacles would be. He's casting a wide net to try and make sure he gets fire on some of it.

[Chaotic Bob]

[Nigel's House]

Well. This isn't a very ideal situation for Nigel, is it?

At least the location of the tentacles is pretty easy to guestimate, even through the haze of agony. Just follow the pain in his leg outwards!
For a moment, the monster jerks the tentacles in what is clearly an effort to pull Nigel closer to it, but at some point the fire seems to belay that plan and there's suddenly a lot of slack in the line, so to speak.

It seems the fire somehow resulted in the tentacles completely disconnecting from the main body! Did they burn off? Were they let go? Couldn't really say, with all the obscuring nerve gas in the room.
But what we can definitely say, and that Nigel will feel immediately is that the tentacles keep on squirming and writhing, trying to dig deeper into his leg.


Off by the exit, the babysitter actually pauses by the door to look back into the house with more than a little guilt on her face.
A good man was going to die because she ran to him for help. How is that right?
But still, she runs out the door.

[billtodamax]

Nigel's House

Nigel reaches down to his legs to try and get a hold on the tentacles and wrench them out of his leg. Whatever they were doing, he did not want them to do. He blindly shoots off more fire into the room on the principle that whatever the abomination disliked it was probably good to have more of it around.

The tentacles will find Nigel's leg soft and pliable and leg like. What do you want from me? It's a leg.

The babysitter will find herself in a fenced off garden with a door leading out onto a backstreet where the garbage cans get collected. The door is locked but it's fairly simple to unlock it from this side and escape. Try not to let this event haunt you forever!

[Chaotic Bob]

[Nigel's On Fire House?]

Somewhere across the room, through all the gas and flames, there's the sounds of a rampaging monstrosity of a beast flailing around slamming into things.
But not coming over to eat Nigel!
So that fire thing must be working out pretty well.

Also your house is looking a little burny, Nigel.

The tentacles are grabbed! They feel a lot like giant gross worms, texture-wise. So getting a firm grip on them really isn't the easiest thing in the world, but certainly doable.
Definitely resisting being pulled out though. And all the skin they're coming in contact with is going to burn a bit, like grabbing something corrosively acidic.
If he can find a way to get a pretty good grip, and still has a decent amount of arm strength in him, they can still be ripped out though. Probably going to hurt like hell though and those talons probably aren't going to be gentle on the way out.


Again the babysitter hesitates, some recent and dark memory replaying itself in her mind.
She looks down at the boy in her arms, then at the scenery around her, paying close attention to the shadows. Not seeing any monsters, or hearing any beyond the one burning to death inside, she makes a decision she's hoping she really isn't going to regret.

Several seconds later, by the time Nigel has won or lost to the tentacles, she's scurrying back in through the front door, pulling the front of her shirt over her mouth and nose.
She's going to try to find her unfortunate savior, so she can drag him out of the room. Or help him limp out of the room.
Or run screaming into the night because he's dead.

Sort of depends.

[billtodamax]

Nigel's House

Lucky one of Nigel's hands is a robot hand! It manages the grip strength his other hand doesn't and wrenches the tentacles out of his leg, drawing forth several more swears from Nigel. He pulls a syringe from his belt and jams it quickly into his leg. The stimulant/coagulant does its work, slowing the bleeding enough for Nigel to maintain consciousness as he drags himself back toward the kitchen.

That's where the baby sitter will find him! She'll start feeling woozy very quickly when she starts breathing in the smoke. Help, please. He'll manage to say through his mask.

Good luck!

[Chaotic Bob]

[Nigel's House]

Well, if Nigel has made it all the way to the kitchen, then hopefully the babysitter's meager breath-holding abilities can last until she finds him!
She looks around for a moment, gives him a nod, then leaves again to take another breath.

Then she'll come back to help him out of the building. She's not a particularly beefy girl, but if she can haul around a young boy, she can at least get Nigel out of the house.
"I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry, we're almost out, I'm sorry..."
She babbles a lot in the process. Repeating herself while under duress seems to be a thing here.

Meanwhile, in the other room!
Fire. Probably more of it than there really should be.
Also lots of loud screeching and screaming! Though that seems to be quieting down a little bit, as the fire continues to do its cleansing work.

[billtodamax]

Nigel's House

Nigel will let her drag him out of his house, but waves her to sit down when they get outside.

Here, here take this. He fumbles a bottle of pills out of his belt, passing it over to her. Just one. He starts apply a pair of patches to his leg, swearing as make contact. A roll of bandages is produced, as is a small medscanner that he passes over his leg. It's much more accurate than the one embedded in his eye, and will pick up basically anything wrong with the scanned area.

By the time Intersection (presumably) shows up, the stimulant will have worn off, and Nigel will have fallen asleep in his vegetable patch.

As for the pills, the babysitter will find they mostly counteract the neurotoxin she had breathed in. They'll also make it harder for her to fall asleep tonight but that's just a little side effect.

Trick or Treating

The pair of dwarves will likely spend some time interrogating any of the adults in the building about magic books, but once they are satisfied they will be THRILLED to be escorted home by (presumably) a giant dragon. Olon will have to be told to sit down no less than three times on the way back.

[Rebonack]

[Nigel's House]

Hey, you know what setting houses on fire does?

Gets lots of attention, that's what.

Especially when those houses are packed really close together where collateral damage is a very real danger. No one likes spreading flames consuming all their belongings.

Which is why a flight of Intersection pegasi armed with tiny black cartoon-y looking clouds are showing up all of a sudden, giving those tiny little clouds firm kicks and sending torrents of rain spraying all over the blaze! Given how quick on the wing pegasi are, they're able to get to blazes like this rather quickly! Other first responders are likely close behind.

Spotting the injured folks in the vegetable garden, one of the Intersection officers descends to the ground, checking for any immediately life-threatening injuries. "Is anyone still inside?" she asks, her voice firm. A little name badge she's wearing reads 'Stern Sleet'.

Oh.

By the by.

Stern Sleet was one of the ponies present for Down Feather's arrival. So if she hears any awful, inequine shrieking coming from inside the house, there's a pretty solid chance she might have some flashbacks to the super fun evening of watching Red get punched in the face.

[Lord Magtok]

Ithuriel's Demiplane

Spoiler

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[Ithuriel's Demiplane]

"You know, I've never actually done the long term committed relationship thing. Turns out being a vampire doesn't really work well for making friends, let alone getting close to someone." It's a lonely life when you're a bloodsucking monster. "Maybe that's why I'm being a bit fast? This is all kind of new to me. The last time I had someone by my side for any length of time, I was a feral demon who had the mental capacity to categorise things as "eat", "****" or "ignore" and that was about it."

Wait, did she ever explain the demon episode to Ambriel? That's a whole can of worms just waiting to be opened right there. Oh well.

"So yes, of course I want us to be a thing." Better not to ramble for too long when poor Ambriel is being a little insecure. "I don't really know how being a thing works, I guess, but having you at my side feels...right."

"We'll figure it out as we go along. One quick question, though. Are there any demon kids I should watch out for? I'm not trying to be judgey or anything, gods know my past lives have had some questionable decisions and scary offspring, just need to know if anyone's going to make a dramatic return from your past and call you 'mom,' preferably before they start knocking on the door and asking what the hell I'm doing here," Ambriel explains, all-too-familiar with how these things work in the Nexus to let that little possibility go ignored. Wouldn't be the first time a Magtok has been in a weird quasi-stepdad sort of situation, probably won't be the last, and knowing about it in advance can at least soften the impact a little when the dramatic revelation dramatically reveals itself.

Oh, and once breakfast is over, we should probably start figuring out how to get out of bed and get dressed. Shouldn't be too complicated, right? I mean, worst case scenario, we can just hover along and pretend we're doing that for fun, and not because our legs are completely useless and dead.

[Deathkeeper]

[Countryside]

Koshal gets a pair of handcuffs from Faye, who got them from the horse’s pack. Cuffing the weird guy, Koshal can then begin the process of extracting his mail from the gremlin man thing person. Honestly he isn’t sure if he wants the pants back. He has spares. But he needs his armor and padding!

[Chaotic Bob]

[Nigel's House]

Depending on how immediately the ponies show up relative to how quickly Nigel passes out, the babysitter probably isn't found next to him.
She's over there by his garbage cans, where the dark-haired boy was hiding until she returned. Unfortunately, they'll most definitely show up before she can book it, but she doesn't seem too unhappy about that.
More protection.

One of those pills was definitely taken, which is trusting of her, and then the pill bottle is awkwardly tucked into the waistline of her pants, along with that gun that Nigel gave her.
Someone should probably teach her about gun safety. Probably every lesson of it short of "don't stare down the barrel."

Pulling the boy behind her as Stern drops down, the babysitter gives a sort of awkward answer to the question.
"Um."
Because their is still a rather unholy din coming from the building, although it is considerably quieter than it was earlier. Monster must finally be burning down.

That little detail aside though, she does look really relieved to see an Intersection presence here. In an ideal world, she would have run to one of their stations instead of poor Nigel's place, but didn't think she would make it.
So relieved that her body decides that adrenaline time is over with and she slumps down to the ground in an exhausted heap!

And cries. A lot.

This has an unfortunate run-on effect with the little boy joining in.

[Rebonack]

[Nigel's House]

It'll probably be a few minutes before actual paramedics arrive, but in the mean time another pegasus lands and will begin providing some basic first aid for Nigel's leg.

At the screeching, eyes turn toward the still mostly burning house.

Stern frowns. "Throne... sounds like gribblies. I hope that isn't what I think it is."

It is, Stern.

It totally is.

"Eyes open and ears on a swivel, everypony!" Stern calls out. "We might still have hostiles lurking about. If things look bad grab someone groundbound and get UP. Do not engage until we have backup."

Oh.

Well.

That's probably a good plan.

In the mean time Stern moves along side the weeping girl and sort of... pets her. With a wing.

"Hey, uh, it's okay? You're safe now."

Stern isn't very good at this.

[Recaiden]

Koshal retrieves his armor! Now that he has that and his sword, he's a proper squire again!

Another dilemma lies before him though: What is he going to do with a handcuffed gremlin?
(The gremlin is going to try to roll away into the woods, fairly pathetically.)

[billtodamax]

Nigel's House

As soon as they start messing with Nigel's leg he'll be roused by the pain and start unhelpfully slapping away any sort of medical care. Hey, quit it, I already did that it's fine. He says groggily. If the pegasus is persistent enough they'll find a really nasty looking wound that's already begun sealing shut, flesh regenerating much quicker than it realistically should be able to.

Here, be useful, help me up so I can go see if any of my alcohol survived. He says after a moment, trying to convince the pegasus to let him go back inside his house to look for his liquor collection. Nigel that building is not safe.

[Chaotic Bob]

[Nigel's House]

Being air-bound on their way in, the various ponies would be very aware that a couple blocks away, another house is in the later stages of being on fire.
In that it is very on fire. No unholy screeches from that one though!

Which are more or less done at Nigel's, now.
Monster seems to burn up pretty quick, when trapped in a big blaze.

Fortunately for Stern's subordinates, nothing else seems to be jumping out at anyone or screaming "rawr, I'm a scary monster!" so they might actually be safe.

The babysitter continues to openly weep under the patting weep, in that complicated post-trauma sort of crying that some people seem to do. All that pent up stress finally breaking down and out of the body.
It's the boy who recovers first, though tears are still trickling from his eyes when he looks up at the pony.
"Are you going to save mom and dad, too?"

[Gnrlshrimp]

[Ithuriel's Demiplane]

"Oh. Oh, no no no, that's definitely not something you have to worry about. Vampires are infertile. Any chance I ever had of having kids died when, well, when I died. Doesn't matter what I became afterwards." Kind of an awkward way to put it, but it's the truth. "Oh, but back when I was a vampire I did once save a little girl and ended up adopting her. I- I guess it'd be dramatic if she suddenly came out of deadtime and I-" Ithuriel winces, her voice straining slightly. It'd been such a long time ago, that, but it still hurt to know that someone she cared about was stuck in deadtime like that.

Could be worse. She's not the only victim of deadtime in the room.

"But th-that's...that's it. And I don't think she's ever coming back. She wouldn't recognise me now anyway."

[Rebonack]

[Nigel's House]

"Sir, please lay down and wait for the paramedics to arrive," the completely unhelpful Intersection office replies to Nigel, moving to put some light pressure on him with one wing. He could shrug it off without much trouble, but the pegasus is betting on him being too exhausted to do so.

As for Stern Sleet, her look is steely. "We'll do our best, kiddo. We'll do our best."

This is one of the nastiest parts of being a first responder.

Having to answer questions like this.

The only thing worse is dealing with delirious parents who have lost their children.

Meanwhile!

A second group of pegasus are headed for the other burning house, ready to employ much the same strategy. They aren't equipped with gear for braving the fire, that's what the folks in the actual fire truck are for. The pegasus team is just to keep the blaze contained and maybe put it out if it isn't too bad.

[billtodamax]

Nigel's House

While he certainly doesn't seem happy about complying with the pegasus, he's still going to do it. Don't give me any of the standard painkillers they'll react badly with what I already took tonight. She'll be fine as long as you don't try treating her for ringworm. Nigel says, more to make him feel useful than anything. He'll have to entertain himself by yelling at the paramedics when they arrive.

[Chaotic Bob]

[Nigel's House]

The babysitter has a darker opinion of that question, leading her to pull the boy into a tight hug.
Probably easy enough to read into that, for Stern.

But for the moment, these two aren't going to be much more help.


The other house seems to be the sight of a doomed community effort to either save the house, or save their own houses.
One neighbor, an elderly elf woman, has pulled a garden house across the street to start spraying it in the general direction of the house. A few more neighbors have been bringing over buckets of water, which a young kobold in his nightwear seems to be levitating out and flinging at the house.

Whereas Nigel's house was only unpleasantly on fire, this particular house is completely on fire. It isn't going to be saved, but folks are trying (futilely) to at least keep it from devouring the surrounding town.
There's a collective cheer at the arrival of more official-looking backup, though no one really stops their work.

[Lord Magtok]

Ithuriel's Demiplane

Spoiler

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[Ithuriel's Demiplane]

"Oh. Oh, no no no, that's definitely not something you have to worry about. Vampires are infertile. Any chance I ever had of having kids died when, well, when I died. Doesn't matter what I became afterwards." Kind of an awkward way to put it, but it's the truth. "Oh, but back when I was a vampire I did once save a little girl and ended up adopting her. I- I guess it'd be dramatic if she suddenly came out of deadtime and I-" Ithuriel winces, her voice straining slightly. It'd been such a long time ago, that, but it still hurt to know that someone she cared about was stuck in deadtime like that.

Could be worse. She's not the only victim of deadtime in the room.

"But th-that's...that's it. And I don't think she's ever coming back. She wouldn't recognise me now anyway."

Doesn't matter what she became afterwards...does that include the whole angel thing? She doesn't look undead these days, so I'd assume her transformation into a holy servant put her reproduction system back in order, but we didn't use protection last night, did we? Well...whatever, she probably knows her own biological processes better than we would. Maybe she's on the pill, or can just magic that sort of thing away. Probability magic could easily do the job, as could a small handful of barrier spells. Heck, maybe she's some rare breed of angel that can't reproduce at all, and merely looks like a regular person with wings, but is actually some embodiment of divine law. Maybe she's older than she looks and has already gone through angel menopause. There's plenty of totally viable explanations, and to ask her about it now, the morning (afternoon?) after dropping the curtain, that would be really rude and demonstrate a fundamental lack of trust, wouldn't it? I'm sure Ithuriel's got all of that under control.

"Well if you're wrong, and anyone you knew from your uglier days does come back, I'm here for you, I promise," Ambriel nods, before he gets started on that whole 'waking up and getting out of bed' thing. One can only lounge about picking at breakfast venison for so long. There's stuff to do, family to show off our new angel girlfriend towards, plans for the conquest of Skyside to advance! Up and at 'em, Ambriel!

[Rebonack]

[Nigel's House - Burnin' Things Down!]

The flames are a bit too intense at the second home to have much hope of putting out the fire with the few clouds the rapid response team brought with them, but they can at least do their best to prevent the fire from spreading. That's a start, if nothing else. The Intersection members get to work, blasting the flames with heavy downpours. Others move to make a parameter around the fire, beating their wings and staving off the strong wind that had been threatening to come up. Everything they can do to stop the flames from devouring more homes.

And it looks like they're doing a pretty good job of keeping things contained!

Hopefully nothing else bursts into flames while they're busy. Three fires at once would be a pain.

Meanwhile!

The first responder helping Nigel quirks and eyebrow at the mention of ringworms.

That's kind of weird, but okay.

Stern will approach Nigel, her expression dour. "Hey. Was the housefire a response to an attack?" she asks. She's pretty sure she knows the answer, based on the awful screeching that has since burned out.

[billtodamax]

Nigel's House

Was... was this a horse?

Hang on, was that rookie doctor a horse too?

You need to get more sleep Nigel.

Uh... Not if you're my insurance agent. He says, peering back at his burning house. Probably not. He was a dwarf last time I saw him. Be patient with him Stern. He's coming down of an adrenaline high. And also a bunch of other fun chems. Yeah, there was this catperson who came into my house then a big... gorilla... bear spider? That doesn't sound right. Did he imagine that part? I think? It came running at me and it didn't care too much about my knock-out gas so I tried setting it on fire. Then it tore up my leg with these weird tendrils. He looks to his hand to see if he's still grabbing them. No, that's right, you dropped them in the house.

It was such a nice whiskey sour. I got the mix just right. He mumbles to himself sadly.