Poke it With a Stick | Day 9 | Afternoon [OPEN]

[seerchlight]

[Scenario A: for Aradia]

As soon as Lights has finished fashioning some sort of belt to hang mysterious treasure pouch (containing one particular eye shaped jewel) he goes off in search of one girl he knows for a fact will be very excited to hear about these kinds of discoveries.

He's not entirely sure why he feels the need to show off, or to impress her, but he ends up settling on the fact that life has been fairly boring as of late, and if they are going to find a room full of mysterious treasure he may as well invite the changeling with a noted preoccupation with such things. Also, he kind of likes appearing to know things that other people don't - so it's best to get this out of the way before news of the secret rooms gets blown wide.

So as soon as he finds the glass fairy girl, he is quick to approach her with the most tempting of inquiries:

"Hey. Wanna see a dead body?"

[Scenario B: OPEN]

Okay, so there is definitely one more corpse in this room than he remembers there being. Most importantly, the second corpse looks distinctly like Huo from the search party.

The bird woman they found on the table initially is still lying there, her chest covered in the same shimmering green blood. But now there is also Huo on the floor, with a spilled bottle at their side. They definitely seems pretty damn dead. He checked and everything.

With the initial hysteria passed, Lights is mostly trying to decide what to do. He's not heartbroken exactly, but he's unnerved. How do you deal with a corpse around here?

Meanwhile, the secret entrance to the Hearth Room is just hanging open, allowing any passerby to observe this predicament.

[Scenario C: OPEN]

A little bit later, Lights is buzzing around the rest of the house looking for a friend of his. He figures she should know that the fucking page is dead, after all. He floats here and there, occasionally calling her 'name.'

"Hey - uh...Brimstone? Something has kind of come up that you should probably take a look at. Kind of a big deal, here."

Comments

SCENARIO B!!

[peafowl]

The twins are out exploring and seeing the secret entrance, they can't help themselves and peer in to investigate.

Upon seeing the corpses, they both squawk in alarm and, true to their rubbernecker nature, come into the secret Hearth Room to investigate further.

[seerchlight]

Lights isn't surprised when they approach. Instead he just looks up with a grim expression, crossing his arms in front of him matter-of-factly.

"Yeah, so. Huo's dead," he says.

[peafowl]

"Fuck," says the pink twin and approaches the corpse. She experimentally prods it. The blue twin stays behind, closer to Lights and merely gapes.

"Of what?" he says. "Not ... not anything contagious, right?"

[seerchlight]

Lights narrows his eyes, purely for aesthetic effect. After all, his eyes are the only part of him he can't see out of.

"I dunno. They're probably dead of whatever was in that," he says, pointing out the bottle in her hand, its contents spilt across the floor.

[peafowl]

The pink peacock narrows her eyes at the bottle, then picks it up and is about to sniff it when her twin shrieks and leaps forward. He seizes her wrist and squeezes it until she lets go of the bottle.

"Are you insane?!" the blue peacock whimpers. "Oh yes, let me sniff the bottle of poison someone died from."

He lets go of his twin and turns to Lights, suddenly relatively composed.

"What about the other corpse, darling?" he says. "And, ah. Were they just ... locked up in here?"

[seerchlight]

That corpse? Oh, that corpse he's pretty much at peace with. Pretty much a part of the scenery.

"Oh...yeah, that one was always here as far as we can tell. We figured out the entrance to this place a few days ago and she was still right the fuck there. Probably a downed messenger or something."

[peafowl]

The twins tilt their heads, in unison but in different directions. Thankfully, they tilt away from each other and avoid cracking their skulls together.

"So the Keeper just ... keeps dead servant around," the pink peacock says. "In secret rooms. Gross."

The blue peacock approaches the corpse of the probable-messenger and gently prods it with one long finger.

"Stiff as a board," he mutters. "She hasn't decayed much at all, though, which is a little, ah, odd."

A OBV

[hourglassfigure]

He finds her looking kind of distracted and offput, sort of hanging midair and trying to shake all the sand into her heel from out of her individual toes, but when he poses that question Satandir perks up immediately.

"A corpse?" Her eyes and mouth go round in surprise. For a moment it looks like she might be distressed by that proposition.

Then she beams.

"Do I ever!"

[seerchlight]

He grins, pleased with the reaction. The girl is weird as fuck but at least its in a way he knows how to cater to. He jerks his thumb in the direction of the Hearth Room.

"We found this secret room a few days ago and there was this dead chick in it, and a bunch of other weird crap. Spell books and everything."

[hourglassfigure]

Wow, this just gets BETTER AND BETTER.

"A secret room? Wow, I've been trying to find one of those for days!" She may be a little jealous, but not enough not to be excited. "Lead the way, Alive Guy!"

[seerchlight]

The name catches him off guard, but only for a moment. He starts floating in the appropriate direction even as he chooses to start debating about it.

"Okay, look, that name isn't bad but I think it could use some improvements, to be quite honest."

[hourglassfigure]

She grins at him. "Hey, you're the one who came up with it. Don't blame me for your unimaginativeness!"

[seerchlight]

"I know, but while I am very in favour of a title that accurately reflects my super alive vital status, I think that I could do better here," he says, raising his hands. "Something more subtle, but with the necessary gravity. Something like...I don't know...Pimpmaster Livingston."

Scenario C

[subtleserenity]

Brimstone is in the library, trying to puzzle out book she'd taken from the Keeper's chamber now that the vines are mostly taken care of, and she's sorted out their base in the bookshelves. The words in the book make sense, but the way they're run together leave her feeling incompetent. She doesn't understand the concepts, and it's frustrating... like most everything in the Keeper's house.

Her ears perk up when she hears Lights. She's sat in one of the comfortable chairs dotting the main walk - one she's dragged to the wall and turned out so that she has a clear view of anyone who might be coming. Some might call it paranoia. Brimstone likes to think of it as a necessary precaution.

She closes the book in her hands and tucks it under one arm as she stands to meet the searchlight. At his insistence that it's 'kind of a big deal,' she steps forward toward him, not wasting time with questioning him. She trusts his judgment that it's important. "Let's head out, then." Her eyes are searching for a moment, but he, at least, does not seem to be hurt or in any immediate danger.

[seerchlight]

He seems a little on edge, but not in as great emotional turmoil as he could be. He doesn't waste any time, either, floating back in the direction he came as she starts to follow.

"I think Huo is dead," he explains, uneasily. Rather, he knows they are dead, but it seems gentler to introduce uncertainty.

[subtleserenity]

She doesn't stop, but there's the slightest pause in her stride before she clenches her hands into fists and carries on. A comrade down isn't anything that's new to her. She doesn't think it should be given her first memory. That doesn't make the news of the page's passing any less troubling.

"How?" It seems unlike Mason should try to kill a servant with his apparent devotion to keeping to the letter of the Keeper's order to mind them. She notes that they're headed on a familiar route, and it clicks. "You know what he went after in that secret room, Lights?"

[seerchlight]

His frown deepens. So, she's already figured it out. That somehow makes it more depressing. He swears, inwardly, his pace slowing a little.

"I don't know, but it looked like he had a bottle in his hand. It was spilled so...I think he might have drank it? Fuck if I know why..."

[subtleserenity]

Brimstone closes her eyes and sighs. She'd thought Huo had more sense than that considering everything else they'd found. Or had someone forced it on him? She'd like to think that's it rather than the page filling his mouth with strange things on a whim.

"You see anyone else take bottles when we were lookin' around?" Better they be warned in case they had any foolish notions in their heads.

[seerchlight]

"The hydra did," he says. "There's only thirteen bottles left after this clusterfuck, but at least I'm pretty sure she hasn't killed herself with them yet."

B

[fuzzyduck]

Seeing an unfamiliar entrance, the dog girl decides to find out where it leads and also why it's suddenly open. That is how she comes across the bee guy from the dream and, more importantly, two dead bodies. Oh.

"Holy shit!" She brings her heads to her hand. "Did you do this?!"

Re: B

[seerchlight]

"Are you a moron?" Lights snaps, that accusation combined with preexisting stress just pissing him right off. "I literally just got here!"

[fuzzyduck]

"Well--" How was she supposed to know that? On second thought, why should she believe it? "Prove it!"

The name-calling certainly doesn't help her settle down, either; she has adopted a decidedly offensive stance, ready to pounce at Lights.

[seerchlight]

That does make him a bit wary, and he pulls back, at least trusting that he'll know if he needs to run in advance.

"The bird lady has been here for days already, you can ask anybody. As for Huo, there sure as fuck doesn't seem to be any killing wounds on that body, now does there?"

[fuzzyduck]

"Oh." There are no wounds, are there?

She relaxes. "The hell happened here, then?"

[seerchlight]

He points at the bottle in the body's hand. The one spilled across the floor.

"I'm pretty sure drinking that shit has something to do with it."