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.
Viola whips around and the cardboard box she'd been rummaging through falls to her feet, scattering papers across the sticky cement floor. She knows that voice. This was the last place that she—no, Mr. Crockett—had ever heard that voice. "You shouldn't have come here," she blurts out, surprising herself.
Lionel (Lovelace) slowly inches around the perimeter of the group toward Mary Grace, ostensibly to examine the pinball machine as he had back at their home bowling alley basement. But when he arrives at this destination, he sneakily reaches out a hand and tries to touch Lionel (Qualls).
Lionel Qualls lets his chin dip, clicks his tongue and shakes his head.
"Nah, I did what I had to," he says, still confident in his choice after all these years it seems. "But this is it, right?"
He shifts, lifting his head and letting it tip to the side. His arm slides across the glass, closer to Lionel Lovelace's reach. "Y'all brought the last keys, now I—"
Edited 2020-05-17 00:37 (UTC)
Re: ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
One second to the next, it's hard to tell what happens. A sharp metallic crack, like windchimes hitting a stone floor. Then a white light, frigidly cold. A zing. A crash.
Lionel Qualls leaps out of the way as a missile of ice passes right through the spot he'd just been standing. It shatters against a shelf, knocking it over, causing more chaos.
"Weeds!" Pouch roars, wings unfurled and flapping fast. All of that good nature shed, replaced with icy fury that seems to radiate out into the air. It's an old and angry hurt that hangs on every surface, grief and unspeakable rage.
Mary Grace throws herself backwards, away from the pinball machine and the ?ghost? boy under attack. Her phone flies out of her hand and her purse is half open, but all she's concerned about is her wand. She holds it in front of her, steady, breathing hard.
Oh, did he mean to leave the safety of Eddy's side? That was totally an accident! Once ice starts flying, he squeaks and clutches onto Eddy's hoodie, skittering around to hide behind his roommate and peeking out from his side with his phone still held out to record. Can't miss this!!
Lionel, the wallflower, surprises himself and does something either heroic or very very dumb. He steps in between LQ and Pouch, his body -- and his wand -- facing the magimigicicada.
He wants to give Lionel Qualls a chance to answer Audrey's question.
"I've been down here for thirty years," the mysterious L.Q. laments as he steps up behind Lionel Lovelace. "Watching. Waiting. Listening."
Another loud noise. And light this time. The pinball machine comes to life, bright reds and golds: the words DYLAN & THE DEAD illuminated across the top. The Man in Me starts playing tinny static sound from the old pinball machine's speakers.
"Starving." The mysterious L.Q. stretches, looming tall, tall, taller over Lionel Lovelace. His voice turns thin, reedy, "You gave me a glimpse and tried to shut the door," The mysterious L.Q. is no boy at all, and as he wraps a long vine around Lionel's midsection, his voice changes one more, split and cracked, broken words. Sounds from different voices strung together, spliced like a badly made deepfake. "But I could still peek through. They foundinfinity. They embraced it. And infinity embraced them, too. Whether they wanted it or not."
Tight, tight, tighter the vines around Lionel squeeze.
"Ah...shit hell, man," Pouch groans before he lunges, grabbing a handful of the vines wrapped around Lionel and pulling.
Ice freezes the vines, but just in the front, stopping before Lionel, himself, is chilled. Brittle now, the strange plant shatters easily and with Lionel Lovelace out of the way, the thick tangle of vines behind him descends upon the magimagicicada.
Pouch thrashes and fights, spitting ice and frost and snow in every direction as the vines fall over him in relentless waves.
"Now," says the formless writhing thing that was the mysterious L.Q. in a voice like metal scraping against stone, "The keys, please."
Will Armani ever learn to use his wand and those spells he'd been practicing? Maybe one day. But this time, he reaches into his pocket with his wand hand for the vellum sigil Rex had gifted him.
"May no weeds grow in my garden," he recites, coming out from his hiding spot from behind Eddy to bring the protective sigil closer to the vines binding Pouch.
![[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 ⛓️)
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 ⛓️)
Lionel Qualls, looking very solid, now leans on the pinball machine beside Mary Grace.
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
Shouldn't have come down here. Thirty years ago.
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
What? He's gotta know.
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
"Nah, I did what I had to," he says, still confident in his choice after all these years it seems. "But this is it, right?"
He shifts, lifting his head and letting it tip to the side. His arm slides across the glass, closer to Lionel Lovelace's reach. "Y'all brought the last keys, now I—"
Re: ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
Lionel Qualls leaps out of the way as a missile of ice passes right through the spot he'd just been standing. It shatters against a shelf, knocking it over, causing more chaos.
"Weeds!" Pouch roars, wings unfurled and flapping fast. All of that good nature shed, replaced with icy fury that seems to radiate out into the air. It's an old and angry hurt that hangs on every surface, grief and unspeakable rage.
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
Audrey doesn't need more confirmation.
She does need something else.
"...Some things need to be sealed. Tell us what happened. What really happened."
Her voice is still soft, calm, but insistent. "Now."
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
He wants to give Lionel Qualls a chance to answer Audrey's question.
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
Another loud noise. And light this time. The pinball machine comes to life, bright reds and golds: the words DYLAN & THE DEAD illuminated across the top. The Man in Me starts playing tinny static sound from the old pinball machine's speakers.
"Starving." The mysterious L.Q. stretches, looming tall, tall, taller over Lionel Lovelace. His voice turns thin, reedy, "You gave me a glimpse and tried to shut the door," The mysterious L.Q. is no boy at all, and as he wraps a long vine around Lionel's midsection, his voice changes one more, split and cracked, broken words. Sounds from different voices strung together, spliced like a badly made deepfake. "But I could still peek through. They found infinity. They embraced it. And infinity embraced them, too. Whether they wanted it or not."
Tight, tight, tighter the vines around Lionel squeeze.
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
Ice freezes the vines, but just in the front, stopping before Lionel, himself, is chilled. Brittle now, the strange plant shatters easily and with Lionel Lovelace out of the way, the thick tangle of vines behind him descends upon the magimagicicada.
Pouch thrashes and fights, spitting ice and frost and snow in every direction as the vines fall over him in relentless waves.
"Now," says the formless writhing thing that was the mysterious L.Q. in a voice like metal scraping against stone, "The keys, please."
ELFLOCK LANES: Down the hatch! (Open to all ⛓️)
"May no weeds grow in my garden," he recites, coming out from his hiding spot from behind Eddy to bring the protective sigil closer to the vines binding Pouch.
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