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's uncertain for a minute about what she's alarmed by- and then notices, and points to the distant city. "Skyscrapers."

He walks up to the automatic doors, signalling her to follow.

[inourhead]

She follows along reasonably docilely.

The pet shop employee who greets them is kind of alarmed by the bag on her back.

"Is that a backpack with mice in it? What?"

[unblinkered]

"It's... a long story. That involves her being a wizard. She did some wizard stuff to the mice too much, or something, and a bunch died, and now she needs new mice to do wizard things to. D'you guys sell live feeder mice?"

[inourhead]

"Are you off your meds?" the clerk asks.

[unblinkered]

He sighs.

"Yeah, I'm off my meds. I'm a crazy person. D'you have live feeder mice or not?"

He picks a rubber chew toy and a rawhide bone off the rack next to the counter, and hands them to Pyay with the accompanying shaking gesture.

[inourhead]

Pyay takes them, and looks at them, and then puts them back, apparently disinterested in performing magic on them.

"I... yeah... how many do you need?"

[unblinkered]

He shoots her an annoyed look. "...Pyay, mice. How many mice? One, two, three, four...?"

[inourhead]

Pyay peers into her cage. "Eight," she concludes.

[unblinkered]

"Eight," he tells the clerk. "Eight mice, for crazy wizard purposes."

[inourhead]

"Yyyyyeah, I'll have that for you in just a second."

The guy runs off and comes back with a little plastic box with eight live white mice in it. "Eleven ninety-five."

[unblinkered]

Max hands over his credit card, and hands Pyay the box of mice.

"...Jerk." he mutters, when they're out of earshot. "Even if I was off some kind of meds... kids've got no respect."

[inourhead]

When they are outside of the store, Pyay pauses to remove the dead mice from her cage. She then picks up very small pieces of grit from the ground near the decorative shrubbery outside the storefront, and puts down larger pieces of grit and smaller dead mice. She puts her new mice in with the remaining live ones from her initial supply. One of them immediately falls asleep. Holding the last of the new mice, she extends her hand in Max's direction. "You?" she asks politely.

[unblinkered]

Max watches the... what was it, mweelsrow, with interest. She can just... size? With the other things, he could have imagined... something changing color, something changing texture, something siphoning ATP... but those were bits of rock. The things-inside-rocks don't have anything in common with things-inside-mice...

But he's not especially shocked, which surprises him enough to make up for itself. He should be seeing this as a paradigm shift, a new wrinkle in his ideas about how her magic works, but... perhaps...

And then she offers him a mouse.

"Me? You can... mweelsrow my sleep to mouse?"

[inourhead]

"Yes."

[unblinkered]

He's not sure whether... would it even be safe? Does swapping things rely on detailed knowledge of what the things are made of? If Earth human biology is different from Nloggy biology... could something go wrong?

Max can't think of how to ask those questions, and elects to have them answered directly.

"OK," he says, slowly. "Uh, OK means yes."

[inourhead]

"Words, words," she mutters, and she touches his hand, and puts his tirendess in the mouse and then puts the mouse away to sleep it off.

[unblinkered]

...It's a bizarre feeling. It's not like drinking coffee- almost the opposite, and a lot faster. He doesn't feel more energized, mentally, but rather his whole body suddenly feels the way it does when he gets out of bed. He hadn't realized there was even a noticeable difference- the change, after all, is normally gradual. He jumps, and then moves around experimentally.

[inourhead]

Pyay laughs at him.

[unblinkered]

Everything seems to be fine- there's parts of his brain trying to figure out what just happened, and there's parts of his brain trying to tell the other parts that they know what just happened, and they're having trouble communicating, but otherwise there are no adverse effects.

He walks to the car, and...

...isn't sure where to go from here, actually.

[inourhead]

She follows him, apparently convinced that he does know where to go from here. "What?" she inquires.

[unblinkered]

So...

He could call up Gloria and see if she's figured something out.

Or... he could drive her down to Rutgers-Newark's physics department, get their people started on figuring her out. 'In addition to, if not instead of'... that's what Gloria said, right?

He sits in the driver's seat. "We go school- not Gloria school. Person try... send? Send Pyay Nloggy."

[inourhead]

She blinks at him, then either gives up on understanding or figures out enough of what he said to get along with, and gets in the car.

[unblinkered]

He gets on the road. He makes sure his phone is on- it's been a while, Gloria might call at any time. Though... he doesn't know how long it takes to explain this kind of situation to child services.

Speaking of child services... oh, hell. Seatbelts. He stops and pulls over.

"Pyay- need 'seatbelt'. Seatbelt safe." He points out the seatbelt and plug thing, then demonstrates his own seatbelt.

[inourhead]

"Seatbelt what?"

Apparently she doesn't know that word.

[unblinkered]

"Seatbelt-" he reaches back, pulls out the seatbelt on the seat next to her, and points to it. Then plugs it in, unplugs it with the button- to make sure she doesn't think it's some sort of... trap, or restraint- and then points out her seatbelt again. "Seatbelt."