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

[eversomuchfun]

He leads her past a succession of other mystifying sights. There don't seem to be many people out and about; either they are all tucked away in buildings at this time, or the buildings are abandoned or built for some inexplicable hellish purpose and her pale companion is the only other person around.

After a short walk, they arrive at a somewhat larger and more isolated building than most of the ones they have passed so far. He leads her up to a small side door, opens it, and goes in. The interior is lit mostly by circle-light coming in the windows, but the pale boy doesn't seem to have any trouble navigating by it. Off they traipse, through bizarrely decorated corridors, to fetch up at last in a room containing a lot of shelves with books on them.

There is a table in the middle of the curve formed by the steps that lead up to the shelves, and a lamp on the table with a green glass shade; the boy turns on the lamp and then ducks behind a counter to rummage in the piles of books there. Shortly, he returns with a massive leather-bound volume, plonks it on the table under the light of the lamp, and opens it. All of the pages seem to be blank. He pulls up a chair and sits with his hand touching one edge of the book's cover, then gestures between Holly, the chair beside him, and the opposite edge.

[inourhead]

Holly is surprised and confused by the lamp, but seems to recognize books. And chairs. She sits. And peers at the book.

[eversomuchfun]

The boy says something. Words appear along the top of the left page, in an unfamiliar incomprehensible language. He takes his hand away from the left edge of the book. The words vanish. He puts his hand back, and points to it, and points to Holly's hand, and points to the right edge of the book.

[inourhead]

Weird.

But she touches the book.

[eversomuchfun]

He speaks again. The book transcribes him - and adds a phonetic transcription in Nlaaki, and a deconstruction of the meanings of the words he used, and a summary translation into Nlaaki:

"And now that we've got the translation thing sorted, where did you come from, and how did you get from there to here?"

[inourhead]

"A weird demon ate us. I don't know what kind it was. Or if it's going to get our brother and his cohabitor next or what will happen if it does. Next thing we knew we were where you found us. How does this book work? Where are we?"

[eversomuchfun]

"The book works by magic. You're in Sunnydale. In a library largely devoted to the study of weird demons, in fact, although I've never heard of one that eats people from one place to another. What's a cohabitor?"

[inourhead]

"I've never heard of one that does it either but our brother's the one who studies things like that. Why wouldn't the book translate 'cohabitor'? Cohabitor is the person who lives with you."

[eversomuchfun]

"The book is translating the word you're using into a word in English," he points this out in the transcriptions, "but that doesn't tell me what you mean by it. I don't think it's a concept I'm familiar with. If I heard the word 'cohabitor' from someone who hadn't just appeared out of nowhere by magic, I would expect it to mean 'roommate'."

[inourhead]

"...Are you alone in there?" she asks.

[eversomuchfun]

"...Yes. Yes I am. And you aren't, I take it?"

[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."