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

[unblinkered]

He grumbles something and adds some more detail to the drawing- the big black spot from the map, some continents to match the globe, and... maybe it's the arrow? Wherever she's from doesn't use that shape to indicate direction? Or maybe she just assumed he was pointing out the obvious- how do you get across the concept of "how?" without words? He might have to use other words.

He draws another stick Pyay at the end of the arrow, then points to the first Pyay with his pencil. "Pyay Kweengow..." he traces the arrow to the other Pyay, "then Pyay Earth?"

[inourhead]

She spreads her hands. "Tlaa?"

[unblinkered]

What's she- is she? That's it. "You can't not know!! You-"

Or, wait, maybe that was an explanation. Just, a brief and vague one, asking for more information from him? He could...

"...I draw Earth." He flips the paper over and draws a crude globe. "I draw Pyay." He adds a- not a stick figure this time, a more detailed rendering. His sense of proportion is all wrong, but it's recognizable.

He hands the paper and pencil to Pyay. "Pyay draw 'tlaa'?"

[inourhead]

She makes a dubious face, but makes a drawing of - a monster. A snake with a big eyeless face. Chasing a stick figure Pyay.

[unblinkered]

What's...

This connects even less to the whole materializing/no English/mice/flat world situation.

Ohhhhhh. She's crazy. She's- no, wait, the appearing, that's not a thing that her being some escaped mental patient would explain. That's not a thing anything explains. There's got to be connections, between something, and something else, anything else... the tlaa is a snake, snakes eat mice, what is with the mice...

He points at the mouse cage. "...Mice?"

[inourhead]

She looks at her mice. "Mais," she repeats obligingly, and she writes this down.

[unblinkered]

"Yeah, mice, I mean- why do you have- don't understand English, never-"

He is interrupted by a humming noise. It's 6:45- the hallway lights click on in unison, and the air conditioning turns on. Various quiet whirrs and hums sound from all directions.

The front doors downstairs ought to be open, now. It'll be a while yet until things start, but they could be interrupted at any time. He's going to have to find a way to accelerate this, or else cut class to deal with this mystery girl.

[inourhead]

She startles when the lights and air conditioning change.

[unblinkered]

Hm?

He points up at the fluorescent lights in the ceiling. "Light."

[inourhead]

"Lait." She transliterates this.

[unblinkered]

Light. Lights. Those aren't useful, those aren't going to get her to explain... get her to explain what? This is the wrong strategy- it's become clear that one of three things is happening: One, she doesn't know how she got there. Two, she knows, but is making up some story about a snake monster because the truth is shady. Or three- and it's a subset of two, actually, more a 2.5- she can in fact speak English, and this entire thing is a ruse to distract him from something else. Some accomplices...

"Do you have any frie-" No, not words, drawings.

He takes her drawing of the "tlaa" and adds a few more stick figures running away alongside her. Were there others with her?

[inourhead]

She crosses out his stick figures but draws one of her own, a taller, blonder stick figure, farther away from the snake with the door-sized face. "Praip ruum Fwaysyee."

[unblinkered]

"And... is he here?" And then he remembers words, again- how does he keep forgetting this, moment to moment?- and lays this stick figure's drawing on top of the piece of paper with Earth on it, and draws an arrow between "Praip room fwaysee" and Earth, to match the arrow he used to ask how she got here. He traces the movement of the arrow with his finger a few times, to emphasize the movement.

[inourhead]

She gestures around the room. It is empty of tall blonde boys.

[unblinkered]

Right, of course he's not present with her, but... the question is... first step is identify the information he wants from her, then he identifies the information he needs to give her for her to answer, and then he attacks the communication problem itself.

So... he wants to know if she has a co-conspirator who could have helped her make that appearance. She's confirmed that someone else was involved. (The idea that she was literally teleported here from another world by a snake monster being clearly a lie or insanity, he must identify how this person helped or manipulated her into faking sudden teleportation.)

So... he wants to find out where this person is, in hopes that they'll be more knowledgeable or at least more cooperative. Her gesture implies that they couldn't be here, as they're not immediately here in the room. The information she needs... is that this person's lack of immediate presence doesn't imply a lack of involvement- they could be hiding, or not personally present for the trick.

That's a complicated sentiment... he needs to explain "imply", and "involvement" and various vague ideas that can't be drawn on paper.

How about...

He gestures around at the school building, and draws a small circle on a fresh sheet of paper. He then draws a large outline of the US around that circle, and puts several additional circles on the map nearby. He puts stick figures for himself and Pyay in the first circle, and stick figure for the accomplice in another circle. And then... a parallelogram with a black spot for Kweengow, with another circle. And a snake in that circle, and then two arrows- one pointing from the snake to the school circle, and another to the accomplice's circle.

He stares at his handiwork in disgust- there's got to be a thousand ways she could misinterpret this- but hands her the drawing anyway.

[inourhead]

She seems pretty bewildered. She looks at it for a while, then starts a new drawing: snake monster, herself, tall blond stick figure. Solid arrow from snake monster to herself; arrow from herself to a doodle of the United States. Dotted arrow from snake monster to blond stick figure, and a much more sparsely dotted arrow from the blond stick figure to an empty, blank circle.

[unblinkered]

So... she... doesn't know if the snake monster got him? But if it did, she doesn't know where he'd end up?

So, okay, most likely she is in on whatever this is, considering how unhelpful that was. She has no idea where her accomplice is, or where they would be under whatever circumstances? If she'd been being manipulated, she'd have some idea of what was going on.

Max has had enough of this. He's going to take her down to Gloria's classroom, and stick her with the English as a Second Language kids, and tell security about some trespasser talking in gibberish. Too old to be a student sneaking in to change their grades, but... he'll let them figure it out.
...except she materialized out of thin air. That'll eat him up all day if he lets it go unanswered.

"Y'know, if you're just making up this don't-speak-English crap to distract me, you're being a real jackass."

(If she can't understand him, the language won't matter, and if she can, she deserves it.)

[inourhead]

She looks at him blankly.

Then she draws an arrow from the end of her own chain-of-travel, to another empty circle.

[unblinkered]

If empty-circle means... doesn't know where something goes... she's asking "where am I going to go now?"

He draws a circle right next to a circle containing them, with a shorter, wider stick figure with curly hair for the English teacher, and draws an arrow between them. He walks a ways down the hall and opens a door to a staircase, making a beckoning motion.

Does she even have the same general sign language? Would she understand shaking her head for no and nodding for- oh, as if it matters, she's probably faking it anyway.

[inourhead]

She follows him, anyway.

[unblinkered]

He leads her downstairs and into a classroom on the ground floor. It's full of early reader books and translation dictionaries- she might be able to find one with her language in it somewhere, although whatever... probably African thing she's speaking, if it isn't fake gibberish, is unlikely to be represented here.

There's a picture of Gloria with her class- he shows it to her and points to the stick figure drawing he made previously.

But how to explain that she teaches language...?

He points at her papers with the columns of translations- pointing rapidly between pairs of words, and at the picture. "Gloria... teach... English."

[inourhead]

The sentence makes no apparent impact whatever, but the girl does sift through the books available - and finds none that she decides to pull off the shelf or that match the lettering she's been using in her notes.

Her stomach grumbles. She rubs her tummy and looks at him inquisitively.

[unblinkered]

Oh, butts... he doesn't have anything on him, except... he could get... the cafeteria would... not even be open, if he grabbed something from there he could get in trouble...

He goes through his pockets. There is... an apple core in a ziploc bag he forget to throw away, rapidly going brown... half of a chip... he sets this aside on the desk and starts looking through his bag. It's a mess in there, there must be a granola bar he forgot about, or something...

[inourhead]

She looks through her bag, too. She produces what looks like a single deshelled peanut.

She picks up his apple core.

There is a series of abrupt transitions, and then she is holding what for all the world looks and smells like an apple-core-shaped peanut and a peanut-shaped bit of browned apple.

She puts the bit of browned apple in with the mice, and breaks off the "stem" of her peanut and gives that to the mice too, and bites off a nubbin of peanut and puts it in her bag, and then eats the rest of it, nibble nibble.

[unblinkered]

Mice. Teleporting. Language. Snakes. These are all things he has abruptly stopped thinking about. He has instead started thinking about the impossible thing she just did.

"WHAT DID YOU JUST DO?!"

He lunges for- no, she's eaten it, he- the mice are eating- he- frantically points at the mice eating the thing, and her mouth, and the...

What?