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]

"Eh, we tore our hair out over that for a bit- the world she's from, it's... weird, it doesn't have days, or anything we could compare to tell time by."

Max thinks for a moment. Trevor, meanwhile, nervously mutters something about tenses and specifiers, and goes to grab a book from a shelf.

"I didn't... I didn't call the residence people, no. I can't really pay for university housing on a teacher's salary..."

Trevor scoffs. "What, are you serious? She's magic, just go win the Randi Prize or whatever. You mean to tell me you can't think of a way to make money off a wizard?"

"...the Randy what?"

[inourhead]

"If he wins the Randi prize with her then isn't that her money? I suppose it could go to pay for a dorm for her anyway," says Victoria. "Oh, it's a standing million dollar offer by James Randi for anybody who proves magic."

Sohng, meanwhile, has figured out that these new people want to learn Nlaaki, and starts helpfully writing out a glossary with various numbers of dots and simple drawings.

[unblinkered]

"Million- well! Well! I mean... yes, that's a good idea, that's a really good... if I can..."

Max is not a cartoon character, and so his eyes do not literally transform into dollar signs, but they are making a good effort. He opens his laptop bag- he's going to see how expidiently these million dollars can be arranged.

Trevor leans over and watches as Sohng compiles her glossary, consulting his transcribed alphabet. He attempts to pronounce some of the phrases near the dots.

[inourhead]

Sohng gently corrects him when he gets things wrong.

"Base eight!" realizes Victoria after Sohng has written fourteen lines.

[unblinkered]

"No, that's not- wait, is that- oh. Yeah. Base eight. You were..." Trevor doesn't say "right" out loud.

Max, meanwhile, has discovered that applicants must be at least 18 years of age, and that there is an application process of unspecified duration. He frowns. It's still worth doing, but it won't solve the immediate problem of not having a place to put her tonight.

...he's not going to have to let an insomniac little girl have the run of his apartment at night, is he?

[inourhead]

Sohng stops writing numbers when she has gotten to thirty-two, and then starts writing a glossary of other things, getting Victoria to write down words she has learned in English next to Sohng's own transliterations and translations. "Yes" and "no" and "person" and "sun" and "rain" and so on.

[unblinkered]

Max sends the Randi application to his home printer... which, as it happens, isn't on. So that'll take a minute or two longer, when he gets back, hopefully without Sohng in tow.

He shoots off an email to Liu- asking if there are any expensive materials in their budget that they could directly obtain funds by having multiplied or whatever for free.

And he asks the two linguists "Do either of you have space at home to keep her for the night?"

[inourhead]

"At home?" says Victoria. "I don't know, I'd have to ask my girlfriend... and my girlfriend hates mice."

[unblinkered]

"Home? I live out of my car. I'm a grad student in linguistics, and-" Trevor glances at Victoria. "-and that's, a valuable profession, and, scholarships, and, my own godda- darn personal finances aren't on trial, so..."

Max's brief hopeful expression is gone.

This is magic. There is a wizard from another dimension who is breaking several... general rules of chemistry and information theory, if not necessarily laws of physics, and his concern is where she is going to stay for the night. It's been almost twelve hours, and the world has not been turned upside-down.

Just a little too personally frustrating to be relieving.

[inourhead]

"I mean, I can ask my girlfriend, but she really hates mice, and we'd be putting the poor kid on the couch anyway. I'd call Residence Life if I were you."

[unblinkered]

"She... doesn't sleep, actually. It's a magic thing she does, with the mice, she makes them sleep instead of her. I'll... call the residence people, but I don't know if I can haggle them down to 'free'."

He googles the Residence Life page and dials the main number.

[inourhead]

"Residence Life office, how can I help you?" says someone on the other end of the phone.

[unblinkered]

"Hi, um... look, I'm... I have sort of an emergency, kind of, I have someone here, a..."

It... probably wouldn't be false to call her a student. She has been studying things, he decides.

"A student, sort of, who... needs a place to stay, and... has a complicated situation."

[inourhead]

"What's the student's name and situation, please?"

[unblinkered]

"Uh- she won't... be in your records, she's... we've... she's affiliated with..."

He's... going to have to lie about what he knows, since he can't have her demonstrate her magic over the phone. ...Probably.

"Basically... she- her name's Song- or, Pyay, maybe- she doesn't speak English, she's... lost, doesn't have anyone to contact or anywhere to go. We're kind of figuring out what happened, and how to help her, there are people here at the university who can, uh, vouch for her? There's gotta be- someone I can talk to, or something you can do, for..."

[inourhead]

"Sir, I don't see how this is a matter for Residence Life, if she isn't a student."

"What're they saying?" wonders Victoria.

[unblinkered]

"Not a student. So, it's none of their business. Pretty much what I expected."

To the phone: "Right, but- she will be a student, shortly, or- there's... she's important to the university, because..."

He's blanking. He keeps getting distracted by the absurdity of having to navigate all these layers of bureaucracy when magic is involved.

[inourhead]

"Give me the phone," says Victoria.

[unblinkered]

Max doesn't argue. He's got no problems with letting someone else handle this.

[inourhead]

"Hi," Victoria says. "He was a little confused - look, I'm a student, and the girl who needs a place to stay is my research subject. She doesn't speak English, which is why we're calling on her behalf. Can we treat her like an exchange student, or something?" Pause, pause, "Mmhm, hmm - yeah, I understand - I don't have a grant, but - nnnnot exactly. Look, do you not have any empty rooms, going spare...? Mmhm. ...Pet policy? Rats. No, no, I don't mean she has rats. It's mice. No, I understand. Ah-huh."

Victoria groans and hangs up. "No good. Maybe we should ask the professors or something. But they'll steal her."

[unblinkered]

Max sighs.

"So... see, she doesn't sleep, so she doesn't necessarily need a place of her own, as long as it's safe- if there's a library nearby that's open 24 hours, she could just stay there overnight- but she does need food, is the-"

And then he remembers.

"...she might not need... the first thing she did with magic, was... turn an apple core into like, a big peanut, somehow. She might be able to make her own food, but... I don't know what the limits on her power are. So I brought her to the physicists- but then I-"... was told by Gloria, but... "-realized, it'd be easier to just ask her, if I brought her to... you."

[inourhead]

"...turned an apple core into a peanut," says Victoria. She looks through the glossary that Sohng has been writing; neither "apple" nor "peanut" appears yet. "I don't know about just leaving her in a library. She seems pretty placid, but if somebody asks her what she's doing there she can't answer them, not yet, I'm impressed with how much she's already learned but she's not going to be able to handle being quizzed by a security guard in the next few hours. Which might not be such a problem if she weren't black, but, well."

[unblinkered]

"...I'd considered... that's why I didn't want to just let her out on the street, I thought... hm. Library, even... different standards of safe..."

Max had thought to himself, earlier, that since she didn't need to sleep, he could just let her do her own thing at night, but... he'd thought that, as a young black woman who didn't speak English, letting her out on the streets in the dark would not be the safest thing to do. He had to take care of her directly, because of that.

He briefly considers the idea that his consideration of her race ended the instant it stopped being useful as a justification for controlling her... and then does away with that consideration, judging it unpleasant.

[inourhead]

"I suppose we could give her a note to show to anyone who bothers her? 'I don't speak English and am waiting here for my friends from the university'. With phone numbers. But first we'd need to be able to tell her to stay put overnight. Trevor, does your watch have a second hand...?"

[unblinkered]

Trevor checks his wrist. "Yeah, it does. What's that got to do with anything? We going to teach her time?"

Max retrieves his phone.