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

[inourhead]

"No. Less than usual people, even. I'm Holly and my cohabitor is Crystal and we are never quite totally asleep like other people, just faded back. How do you sleep?"

Both words are translated as "sleep" in the summary, but they're different in Nlaaki; the footnotes indicate that the first means something more like "unconscious" and the second is more like "dreaming".

[eversomuchfun]

"Once a day or so, when I am tired, I become unconscious and dream for several hours. I can't say I've ever encountered any significant problems with this approach. How do you sleep?"

[inourhead]

"We don't anymore. Aaaand your soul hasn't been eaten by a klaon?"

(Klaon, footnotes the book helpfully, is an insubstantial soul-eating demon that preys on the sleeping.)

[eversomuchfun]

"My soul has not been eaten by a klaon. Other unpleasant things have happened to it, but they didn't have anything to do with sleeping, and more importantly there are six or seven billion people living on this planet and sleeping regularly and as far as I know none of their souls have ever been eaten by a klaon."

[inourhead]

Holly scrutinizes the footnote for "planet".

"I have," she says, "no idea whatsoever where I am."

[eversomuchfun]

"Well, I could say 'on Earth', but I don't think that would clarify much."

[inourhead]

"Not at all. So the circle in the - sky - isn't the sinkhole?"

[eversomuchfun]

"The circle in the sky is the moon. What's the sinkhole?"

[inourhead]

"Where I'm from there isn't a 'planet', it's just flat, and in the middle of all the flat, a hole opened up to Hell and demons came out of it. Klaonso and other kinds."

[eversomuchfun]

"I see. That sounds oddly familiar," he says. "But in the local case, the hole to Hell spends most of its time closed and not emitting any demons. And there are a vast number of other sources of demons, none of which could accurately be described as a 'sinkhole' as far as I know."

[inourhead]

"Sometimes demons come up if there's a big earthquake, we heard... But the planet thing is definitely not how it is at home."

[eversomuchfun]

"Yes. There are some worlds that could be described as 'just flat', but this isn't one of them. I was right, you are interesting."

[inourhead]

"Do you know how I can get home? I don't even know if the demon got Lightning. That's our brother's cohabitor."

[eversomuchfun]

"I don't know how you can get home. But I'm reasonably certain there is a way, and the only tricky part will be finding it. And avoiding demons who might eat you in the meantime. There are rather a lot of them, especially around here, but at least the vast majority are straightforwardly corporeal."

[inourhead]

"Not all of them?"

[eversomuchfun]

"I would hesitate to say anything at all for certain about the category of demons as a whole; there are too many kinds to keep track of. But all of the common kinds that eat people do it using fangs and so on, not sleep-based magic or anything similar."

[inourhead]

"Okay. I still wouldn't like to meet one, but." She shrugs.

[eversomuchfun]

He snorts.

[inourhead]

"What, do you have friendly demons here we should like to meet?"

[eversomuchfun]

"In a manner of speaking, yes. You remember I told you something unpleasant happened to my soul? I'm a vampire."

[inourhead]

She reads the footnote.

"Don't bite us," she advises. "I'm good at magic."

[eversomuchfun]

"I wasn't planning on it."

[inourhead]

"Good."

[eversomuchfun]

"And what sort of magic are you good at?"

[inourhead]

"Besides demon stuff there's only the one kind where I'm from. Well, two if you count swaps and transfers as different but they aren't very. Um -" She turns up the hem of her jacket; there are a bunch of different-colored little squares of fabric sewn there. She pinches a blue one and her jacket and the swatch exchange colors. "That's a basic one, Crystal could have done that too."