what in the longdark spitting-pit is that

[inourhead]

This was a bad idea this was a bad idea this was a bad idea.

Holly runs as fast as she can but the demon's faster. She has no idea where Lightning's gotten to; maybe he found a tree to climb. She on the other hand has been diverted into a treeless hill and she's careening down a slope, trying very hard not to trip.

And the demon's gaining on her.

She's never seen anything like it and neither has Crystal; maybe Book knows what it is but Book's asleep. It's mostly mouth - it looks like a cross between a floorlength mirror of a mouth and a snake to propel the mouth along.

And Holly's not fast enough.

The mouth catches her.





But it doesn't hurt.

Where are we?

----


with Minus (kappa)

with Mark (kappa)

with Max (Benedict)

in Terraria (kappa)

with Emma (Marri)

with Erin (Rockeye)

Comments

[characterquarry]

"Who gets better reactions is not always consistent, it's a trend not a law, but all else being equal that would be best."

[inourhead]

"I guess I'll try it."

[characterquarry]

"I'll want to write your name and how many of what kind of wishes you get, for our records. Is that alright, Crystal?"

[inourhead]

"Okay."

[characterquarry]

She takes out a little notebook. "It's this way."

In the center of the garden is a tall building made of white stone. Taking up most of the floor space inside it is a pool of perfectly flat water barely one inch deep. The bottom of the pool is floored with colorful reflective glass tiles that glint in the sunlight, and it gets slightly deeper towards the middle.

"It's traditional to walk to the middle barefoot, then back out, but any skin contact will do. You get wishes, or don't, at the moment you are no longer touching the water."

[inourhead]

Crystal looks at her shoes - actually, everything she's wearing looks like it's had better days, including the mice in a cage at the bottom of their backpack, most of which are dead - and rather than fumble with the laces she bends down and puts her hand in, palm down - then picks it up again.

[characterquarry]

When she touches the water, it does not ripple or splash in the slightest, though her hand comes away wet.

There is a distinct sense of being watched that persists for several seconds after her hand leaves the water. Then it stops as suddenly as it began. Eight little colorful dots and one slightly larger circle of color, all glowing softly, appear on her left arm. They can be used in a way that is obvious and intuitive to Crystal, but not Holly. If they switch, the dots vanish and reappear when Crystal is back in front.

"Eight Favors and one Gift. Above average, but not ridiculously so. Congratulations, you have wishes."

[inourhead]

"What's the average?" asks Crystal, after switching back in; Holly came forward to see if she got anything.

[characterquarry]

"Nine 'points,' where a Favor is one point and a Gift is five. I'm not sure what method they used to decide a Gift is worth five Favors, though. Oh, and a Boon is fifteen. That's the three sizes: Favor, Gift, Boon, and each larger one can do bigger, more impressive wishes."

[inourhead]

Holly touches the water curiously.

[characterquarry]

That feeling of being watched is back again. When her hand comes away, she gets seven Favors and no Gifts.

"Holly, seven favors. Part of my job is to give advice on how to use your wishes, if you would like."

[inourhead]

"Sure, what can they do?"

[characterquarry]

Erin has a long list. Wishes are good at giving people knowledge, abilities, talent, and powers. She has excellent vision and knowledge of cooking from a Favor, a subtle and vague sense-of-magic from a Gift, and the ability to speak any language from a Boon, as examples. Some examples of other peoples' powers are flight, healing, extra-sensory perception, supernatural strength and coordination and balance, telekinesis...

Wishes are also good at finding things, from finding the lost treasure of King Yu, to finding the answer to a challenging intellectual problem, to finding someone you could have a happy relationship with.

[inourhead]

At that last suggestion, Holly snorts.

[characterquarry]

Erin looks confused for a moment, then giggles. "I'd imagine wishes would be good at finding someone you could happily cohabitate with, too. I've never tested such a thing, for obvious reasons."

[inourhead]

"That wasn't why I laughed. But speaking of finding people, um, before we got eaten we were with our brother and his cohabitor. And we don't know what happened to them."

[characterquarry]

"Oh... Hm. Favors can usually do single teleportations of something or someone, but you have to know where it is and where it ought to go. I think a Favor might be able to tell you where they are, but wishing for information usually results in a sort of... Dream sequence. We have special rooms set aside for it, but you might not need them."

[inourhead]

"And we're from really far away," Holly reminds her. "Would Favors get us home? Or them here?"

[characterquarry]

"It's unprecedented. You'd have to try it. If you make a wish that's too big, sometimes it does part of the wish, sometimes it does nothing, but the wish is used up any which way."

[inourhead]

"...There's really no way Book and Lightning both would get zero Favors, though, right? So that's more wishes to go around, if we got them here."

[inourhead]

"- But it would be bad if it partly brought them here. What if it just put Book back in with us, then what? He'd have to move out again, I don't know what would happen to Lightning!"

[characterquarry]

"I would like to state for the record that it may not be the best idea to teleport someone without their knowledge or permission, unless they're in danger or something. I'm older than I look, by the way, I've seen thousands of wishes and my intuition is saying that if a Favor couldn't do it completely, it would most likely do nothing."

[inourhead]

"...We were all in the wilderness being chased by demons," says Crystal. "And low on mice. They may have been eaten too, maybe to someplace less safe than here."

[characterquarry]

"You should still wish to see where they are and what they're doing before wishing them here."

[inourhead]

"In case they're, what, in another world with more convenient extra magic about to transport us there?"