"Ain't ever met a person named Asba," Pouch muses as the rest chat and theorize.
He reaches out and runs his fingers over the thick moss on the walls. It frosts over under his touch, then grows fuller. "Little Sister told me El's gone, like the rest of the brood. Never said anything about a 'between'." A pause. Pouch lifts his chin, looks a bit like a cat sniffing the air. "Weeds ain't gone, though. They're still down here."
From just below Pouch's shoulder, Viola chimes in. At first, she speaks softly, really just to the obsidian, star flecked boy. "I don't know how much you know about us but sometimes, after death, we come back as ghosts. Like Lionel's—El's—father, Mr. Qualls," she explains in the flat affect of an academic, "We've seen El on campus and he communicates with us through the computers, sometimes. And perhaps other ways..." she trails off, thinking of the mysterious bags of candy from the Valentine's Day dance.
Her voice grows louder alongside her confidence. She rarely trusts her own knowledge but she knows ghosts. "He's still here but he isn't behaving like a spirit. At least, not by our classifications."
Turning her shoulders, Viola squeezes past the magimagicicada though she gets the distinct impression that space operates a little differently around him. "The man who makes the weeds is still don't here, too," she reminds the group. That's what Lionel Qualls had told her. Well, technically, he told Aris but Viola considers them to be sort of one and the same. The light that casts her shadow.
"And we're here to face him." In case anyone had just thought this was a casual exploration.
Thank god this is still a suicide mission. Mary Grace was getting a little worried folks were about to get all self-preservation happy on her, and at four shots deep, Mary Grace O'Malley ain't here for her health.
"Anything to stop the Bob Dylan," she mutters, running her fingers along the lichen-covered walls as she walks. She takes a few pictures, but it all looks the same. Lichen and gray and flickering lights followed by lichen and gray and more flickering lights. Like a nightmare about working in an office. "Hope you ain't down here to sacrifice us to get the rest of the album." She raises an eyebrow at Pouch. She's razzing him, but she's also kind of serious. Don't sacrifice them for the rest of the album. You can just buy that on WizAmazon.
"Asbestos," Lionel quietly clarifies, seeing as nobody else seems like they're going to. "It's an insulator. And," he glances around, "this place could be old enough to still have it. If things are cold, they stay cold. If they're hot, they stay hot." Which, could be useful, given the weaknesses and preferences of the vines. "It's also toxic," he adds. "Though it's probably not our main concern."
"It's a naturally occurring silicate mineral that has to be mined," Trudy puts in, apropos of nothing, just to make sure she still seems like the smartest person here.
"So, Pouch," she says, pushing her way closer to the iridescent boy. "What are your goals here? To face 'him'? I'm here on a mission of discovery, primarily."
Edited 2020-05-16 18:46 (UTC)
Re: ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
"I know ghosts," Pouch puts in hastily, evidently not wanting to seem like a total yokel. He watches Viola slip ahead curiously. "Used to be more of 'em around. Like Miss Yalldive. She was a hoot."
He hums, reaching up to bat at one of the dangling fluorescent lights, looking as much like a teenager as the rest of them. The light creaks noisily when it moves, echoing down the long hall. "Asbestos! That what yinz call it? I got — had — a brother that was asbestos. And, y'know, if I'm bein' honest," he turns to Mary Grace with a grin, "More of a Blondie fella."
Pouch drapes an arm over Trudy as she draws nearer, pulling her in. "Let's say same as you. Surveying. If I'm lucky, finding something I lost. If I'm real lucky, closing a door I didn't mean to open."
Down the hall, the echoing of that one swinging light continues.
Trudy's shoulders tense up at the unexpected familiar contact that she wasn't prepared for. "You had a brother that was asbestos? Like, made of—" That thought comes to a screeching halt. "So you hear that? Someone ahead?"
Getting a wand ready is probably the smartest thing to do, but Audrey doesn't. She doesn't hear the voice that she did before. (The voice of the weed-man, or the voice of the lost boy? She still hasn't figured out, but maybe she will. Maybe in a few minutes.)
In any case, she pauses, too.
"Hello?" She calls out to no one, ill advised as perhaps that is.
Edited 2020-05-16 19:51 (UTC)
Re: ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
And then they start up again, coming closer this time instead of moving away.
Click, click, click, and they stop once more.
At the dimmest, furthest point at the far end of the hall stands a young man, tall and thin, bathed in shadow. He beckons, then takes one backward step and disappears in shadow.
Maisy also doesn't draw her wand. DADA has never been her specialty anyway, and she has enough faith in her classmates to defend her from... whatever's happening. To be clear: she does not like whatever's happening, she just doesn't feel in acute danger, like she did when she saw the spider-woman-thing by the lake.
Still, there's some sense of creeping dread, especially as she spots the shadowy figure at the end of the hallway. She also takes a few steps back, tugging on Audrey's sleeve as she goes. Maybe one of her brave, good-at-doing spells classmates will go first.
Eddy tenses at the soft commotion, and moves forward as Lionel drifts back, assuming a defensive position alongside the front of the group. No searching for his wand is necessary as he pulls his hand out of his hoodie pocket.
Eddy's not especially brave or good at doing spells, but here he is anyway, tense and ready to pursue if someone decides to quickly break from the group.
"Guess we're going his way," he says, continuing forward. Not like there's a whole lot of other options here.
Viola steps up alongside Eddy and places the palm of her left hand gently but firmly against his chest. There is no doubt that they will continue toward the beckoning boy but before they rush ahead, she hopes to gather any shred of information available about what's waiting for them in the shadows. Lionel Qualls can appear among patronuses. The darkest, most evil things on this earth cannot.
She's not sure if it will work. While Viola is smart and capable with a wand so in tune with her that it almost speaks, she isn't prone to jubilation. When she raises her wand, she has in her mind a vague, soft memory of laughter and music. A melody coming together on an acoustic guitar. Companionship and camaraderie. Feeling understood. It's the best that she can muster on short notice.
"Expecto patronum," she casts down the hallway.
Edited (Leave it up to the mods whether it works or not. She has cast a corporeal black bird patronus in the past but shrug emoji. Hard magic. ) 2020-05-16 20:47 (UTC)
White light explodes from the end of Viola's wand, a cloud coalescing into a tiny bird that flaps its wings twice to gain speed as it shoots down the narrow hall. The glowing mist left in its wake hangs like stardust in the air, light that the moss clinging to the walls seems to breathe in, growing lush and green in its wake.
The more distance the bird puts between itself and its caller, the more the space between them seems to ripple like hot air.
The students watch as the little patronus rocket up the strangely shifting hall casting light as it goes. There is no boy in the hall, now, but a short ways off, the moss gives way to bare walls etched with glyphs, and then, a few paces past that, the end: a darkened doorway. Open.
"Wouldja look at that," Mary Grace says, her phone camera flashing away. She's only in Dueling & Wandwork to make Presley Mondragon's life harder, and she can't cast a patronus, but she holds the grip of her wand a little tighter as she tries to remember maybe just one thing Presley had been annoyed she didn't know in the past.
She raises an eyebrow at Pouch. "That your door, my bug?"
Having released Trudy when she'd jolted, Pouch is now moving freely to the front of the group. "Old magic," he mumbles fondly, mostly to himself, and then glances at Mary Grace. "Y'know, pretty sure that's not my door, but the last time I was down here there weren't quite so many glyphs."
Lionel trades his wand for his flashlight again, and with a small sigh, works his way back to the front of the group. He stops before the bare wall. "More locking glyphs," he says, leaning closer. "More complex than the ones earlier."
He looks at the dark, open door a little further down the the path. "Do we uh--" he turns back to the others, "Do we have a plan?"
Audrey has linked her arm with Maisy's, or tried, anyway, because she can't do a Patronus, either. All she can do is blink in awe at the aftermath of one, and it's beautiful. But they aren't down here for beauty. And Audrey remembers something. "When I was here...Halloween. There was a charcoal rubbing of the glyph. I took it. Mr. Stirling..I asked him about it. He said it was complicated. Part of something bigger. Locking charms...and an atmospheric charm."
It really hadn't occurred to her, before, to make this very public knowledge. It had felt like a dead end before. But now, it's...maybe something. Pieces are falling into place.
"I'll go check it out," Armani volunteers without hesitation, curiosity winning out over caution. If this doesn't kill him, Chanel might when she watches the recording on his phone. Armani hops forward with one long, springy step to avoid anyone who might try to hold him back, and approaches the open door.
Beneath Armani's feet is a broken and splintered door, and the moment he approaches the dark opening, he's blasted by the stiflingly hot air from the room beyond. Atmospheric charms, Audrey had said, keeping the tunnel cool — or perhaps, once upon a time, icy cold.
A deafening, lonely silence permeates. The nearer he gets, the more his eyes take in subtle details of the room beyond. Poured cement walls and floor, shelves and old cardboard boxes, a pinball machine. It looks just like where they'd come from, before. The only difference, really, is that familiar vines climb up the walls and hang from the ceiling.
Eddy makes an exasperated sound when Armani predictably breaks away, and he follows closely at his heels. It's the direction he was going in anyway, but, "stay together," he says as he catches Armani's shoulder.
Hot air blasts his face unexpectedly, drawing his attention. The scene beyond the doorway looks far more familiar to his memory. Intense heat. Vines. Cement. He inhales instinctively, recalling how the smoke had filled his lungs.
"There it is!" Pouch chimes in, and beneath that chipper tone there's a taut urgency. He's moving, a cool breeze past Eddy and Lionel, a chill at Armani's elbow.
He jumps up and slaps the doorway as he passes through, which is probably a fairly familiar gesture, though when Pouch does it, frost explodes from his fingertips, spills like water over the surface, filling every glyph and spreading to the hanging vines beyond. They turn brittle, heavy, crack and fall to the ground as he passes them.
Steam wafts off of Pouch's iridescent form as he steps into the room, just a few paces and then he stops. He bends over to examine something on the floor. After a moment, he makes a soft, dejected sound. "This is as far as they got with my heart?"
Mary Grace steps up next to Pouch, camera out and recording. Honestly, she isn't sure how much of this is even gonna turn out. Regular ass magic and technology get a little funky plenty of the time. Who knows what old bug magic would do. But she's getting a WizPulitzer for this if it fucking kills her.
"Did you just say your heart?" she asks, stepping to his side and zooming in on whatever he's looking at. "That sure as hell sounds like a good omen."
Standing up straight again, Mary Grace takes another few steps into the basement. She moves to the pinball machine that is, regrettably, not Snoop Crupp-themed, and twists one of the handles.
Edited (wait i forgot the last dumb part) 2020-05-16 23:26 (UTC)
Apparently 'stay together' doesn't apply to party bugs.
There is no smoke and the room, once Pouch destroys the vines, seems to be a mundane, if very hot, storage room. Eddy releases Armani's shoulder, grimaces apologetically, and steps inside.
Judging by Mary Grace's reaction, the immediate grotesque imagery Eddy's mind conjures up when Pouch mentions his heart is not wholly accurate. Hopefully. "Another metaphor?"
It does appear to be nothing more than a basement. Uncomfortably hot except immediately around Pouch, full of dust and a rather offensive rotten egg smell, but, apparently, just a basement.
Except for that thing that has Pouch's attention.
"I mean, my heart don't look like yours, but they used it for this," Pouch says, gesturing with an open palm at the floor. Or, rather, the lack of floor.
A large sinkhole fills the center of the room, its edges jagged, vaguely reminiscent of a jack-o-lantern mouth. The floor surrounding it is etched with more glyphs, these ones different than the rest, even more complicated.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
themurderbird) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
peckenpaugh2020-05-15 01:28 pm
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
He reaches out and runs his fingers over the thick moss on the walls. It frosts over under his touch, then grows fuller. "Little Sister told me El's gone, like the rest of the brood. Never said anything about a 'between'." A pause. Pouch lifts his chin, looks a bit like a cat sniffing the air. "Weeds ain't gone, though. They're still down here."
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
Her voice grows louder alongside her confidence. She rarely trusts her own knowledge but she knows ghosts. "He's still here but he isn't behaving like a spirit. At least, not by our classifications."
Turning her shoulders, Viola squeezes past the magimagicicada though she gets the distinct impression that space operates a little differently around him. "The man who makes the weeds is still don't here, too," she reminds the group. That's what Lionel Qualls had told her. Well, technically, he told Aris but Viola considers them to be sort of one and the same. The light that casts her shadow.
"And we're here to face him." In case anyone had just thought this was a casual exploration.
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
"Anything to stop the Bob Dylan," she mutters, running her fingers along the lichen-covered walls as she walks. She takes a few pictures, but it all looks the same. Lichen and gray and flickering lights followed by lichen and gray and more flickering lights. Like a nightmare about working in an office. "Hope you ain't down here to sacrifice us to get the rest of the album." She raises an eyebrow at Pouch. She's razzing him, but she's also kind of serious. Don't sacrifice them for the rest of the album. You can just buy that on WizAmazon.
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
Mary Grace just mentioned 'sacrifice' after all.
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
"So, Pouch," she says, pushing her way closer to the iridescent boy. "What are your goals here? To face 'him'? I'm here on a mission of discovery, primarily."
Re: ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
He hums, reaching up to bat at one of the dangling fluorescent lights, looking as much like a teenager as the rest of them. The light creaks noisily when it moves, echoing down the long hall. "Asbestos! That what yinz call it? I got — had — a brother that was asbestos. And, y'know, if I'm bein' honest," he turns to Mary Grace with a grin, "More of a Blondie fella."
Pouch drapes an arm over Trudy as she draws nearer, pulling her in. "Let's say same as you. Surveying. If I'm lucky, finding something I lost. If I'm real lucky, closing a door I didn't mean to open."
Down the hall, the echoing of that one swinging light continues.
Creak, creak, creak. Tap, tap, tap. Scuff, scuff, scuff.
Not a swinging light, now, but footsteps, as though something ahead of them is walking, too.
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
In any case, she pauses, too.
"Hello?" She calls out to no one, ill advised as perhaps that is.
Re: ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
Silence.
And then they start up again, coming closer this time instead of moving away.
Click, click, click, and they stop once more.
At the dimmest, furthest point at the far end of the hall stands a young man, tall and thin, bathed in shadow. He beckons, then takes one backward step and disappears in shadow.
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
Still, there's some sense of creeping dread, especially as she spots the shadowy figure at the end of the hallway. She also takes a few steps back, tugging on Audrey's sleeve as she goes. Maybe one of her brave, good-at-doing spells classmates will go first.
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
Eddy's not especially brave or good at doing spells, but here he is anyway, tense and ready to pursue if someone decides to quickly break from the group.
"Guess we're going his way," he says, continuing forward. Not like there's a whole lot of other options here.
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
She's not sure if it will work. While Viola is smart and capable with a wand so in tune with her that it almost speaks, she isn't prone to jubilation. When she raises her wand, she has in her mind a vague, soft memory of laughter and music. A melody coming together on an acoustic guitar. Companionship and camaraderie. Feeling understood. It's the best that she can muster on short notice.
"Expecto patronum," she casts down the hallway.
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
The more distance the bird puts between itself and its caller, the more the space between them seems to ripple like hot air.
The students watch as the little patronus rocket up the strangely shifting hall casting light as it goes. There is no boy in the hall, now, but a short ways off, the moss gives way to bare walls etched with glyphs, and then, a few paces past that, the end: a darkened doorway. Open.
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
She raises an eyebrow at Pouch. "That your door, my bug?"
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
He looks at the dark, open door a little further down the the path. "Do we uh--" he turns back to the others, "Do we have a plan?"
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
It really hadn't occurred to her, before, to make this very public knowledge. It had felt like a dead end before. But now, it's...maybe something. Pieces are falling into place.
"And I think...is the plan just. To walk in?"
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
A deafening, lonely silence permeates. The nearer he gets, the more his eyes take in subtle details of the room beyond. Poured cement walls and floor, shelves and old cardboard boxes, a pinball machine. It looks just like where they'd come from, before. The only difference, really, is that familiar vines climb up the walls and hang from the ceiling.
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
Hot air blasts his face unexpectedly, drawing his attention. The scene beyond the doorway looks far more familiar to his memory. Intense heat. Vines. Cement. He inhales instinctively, recalling how the smoke had filled his lungs.
"Shit."
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
He jumps up and slaps the doorway as he passes through, which is probably a fairly familiar gesture, though when Pouch does it, frost explodes from his fingertips, spills like water over the surface, filling every glyph and spreading to the hanging vines beyond. They turn brittle, heavy, crack and fall to the ground as he passes them.
Steam wafts off of Pouch's iridescent form as he steps into the room, just a few paces and then he stops. He bends over to examine something on the floor. After a moment, he makes a soft, dejected sound. "This is as far as they got with my heart?"
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
"Did you just say your heart?" she asks, stepping to his side and zooming in on whatever he's looking at. "That sure as hell sounds like a good omen."
Standing up straight again, Mary Grace takes another few steps into the basement. She moves to the pinball machine that is, regrettably, not Snoop Crupp-themed, and twists one of the handles.
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
There is no smoke and the room, once Pouch destroys the vines, seems to be a mundane, if very hot, storage room. Eddy releases Armani's shoulder, grimaces apologetically, and steps inside.
Judging by Mary Grace's reaction, the immediate grotesque imagery Eddy's mind conjures up when Pouch mentions his heart is not wholly accurate. Hopefully. "Another metaphor?"
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
Except for that thing that has Pouch's attention.
"I mean, my heart don't look like yours, but they used it for this," Pouch says, gesturing with an open palm at the floor. Or, rather, the lack of floor.
A large sinkhole fills the center of the room, its edges jagged, vaguely reminiscent of a jack-o-lantern mouth. The floor surrounding it is etched with more glyphs, these ones different than the rest, even more complicated.
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
Re: ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch & back, again