multiversallogs | the little one stops to shut the gate

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the little one stops to shut the gate :: [OPEN]

Who: A whole lot of ants and YOU!
What: Exploring houses overrun by giant ants! Interacting with ants!
Where: Three specific ant hive houses have cropped up in Baedal.
When: The ants become visible late Sukkardi, so any time after Shundi will do.
Notes: To organize expeditions into the ant hives and to see what your characters will find there, please see the OOC post. NPCs, general GMing, and mod guidance are all available upon request.
Warnings: Bugs! Possible horror. Will update as needed.

When the ants come out of the ground it happens very quietly and it happens at night. Baedal wakes up to chitinous sound of insect labour. At first there is some panic - memories of strange creatures emerging from below to attack the city fresh in everyone's mind - but it is soon evident that the ants, while curious, pose no immediate threat to the City. They seem content to work and live inside the houses they have occupied; houses no one has noticed or cared about for years.

Soon, the ant-occupied houses begin to change. The ants are building something on the rooftops, something like towers, stretching towards the heavens. Birds that fly too close to the buildings quickly disappear.

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After the ant fails to engage her in conversation, Integra goes to the far wall where the worker trail is climbing up and out the a broken window, the only one in the room. She shoves asewing desk against the wall, then stands on it and leans out, pale hair dangerously close to luring a gerbil-sized attache.

She stays quiet, peering upwards, listening. There's nothing but the faint crunch-hum of the ants, and that strikes her as odd. Sobek Croix is not a metropolis; there should be other animals about. Birdsong, at least.

"What did the spiders do?"

"They ate." The words don't exactly detract from the eeriness of the situation, but Boromir is busy looking behind the sales counter at some dusty boxes. "Elves, men, orcs. Anything, really. They were said to be descended from a creature of great evil with an insatiable hunger, which I suspect mated with some lesser horror and they were the result. They dwell in the forest of Mirkwood and the mountains that separate Gondor from Mordor. Fortunately they could be killed by the usual means -blades, arrows- and they had a particular aversion to light or fire."

By this point he's opened up one of the boxes, to reveal several candles. "Speaking of which," he says, holding one up.

"Your homeland is not one to do things by halves," she reflects, pulling herself back inside and navigating around some curious ants. A few stopped to wiggle their appendages at her on the outside, and while she's not frightened of them, the idea of being crawled on still offers little appeal. They don't seem bloodthirsty, but then again, perhaps they've just not realized humans bleed yet.

Integra looks a slight bit puzzled for a moment when Boromir brandishes a candle, but then remembers not everyone has such keen night vision. (Even with her glasses, she's just used to it.) Oh, right. Stepping back over to him, she takes her lighter out of her pocket and ignites the candle he's holding.

Jones purses her lips. "I suppose that's true," she says. "I suppose if the city chooses who ends up here, then it might just—but no, I know someone was brought here with his young daughter. I'd peg her at maybe between five and seven." A frown comes to her face. "I don't know why precisely a city with such a heavily adult population would have stories like that. Those stories are made up for children..." Curious. And slightly distressing.

She glances at what she's got in her own hand. "Induce and Justify..." Oh, that's familiar. She's seen those in the Militia office. The gist has been briefly explained to her—a cult that tries to convince people to go out into the fog in hopes of going home. Of course, she's certain that the Militia position isn't the whole truth, but the literature speaks for itself and it's more or less common knowledge that going into the fog is best described as suicide.

The important part, though, is that there's something going on here that's bigger than the ants. She's got a feeling.

"Hey—I'm going to put out a CiD call real quick. You can keep looking through the papers..."

Hey, I don't know if anyone else has... been in the houses infested by ants, but I'd be... interested to hear what you found. Just in case there's... a pattern, or similarities... or something.

[She's broadcasting from a room that is not occupied by ants, although she is indoors, and looks slightly worried. One might see Cassandra wander through the frame behind her.]

"Of course," Cassandra said, as though it were a simple matter.

Nothing was simple. What could Jones possibly have to say to the network? Well, she could only hope that whatever it was, she would say it out loud.

Half-heartedly, she sifted through the papers. It all seemed overly...zealous, to her. Yes. That was the word. And really, Cassandra had little patience for such. Which made her hate the ants all the more.

[this call happens.]

She shuts it off afterward, and turns to Cassandra. "Anything interesting? I suppose if there isn't we could try the other doors..." There's a note of uncertainty to her voice that wasn't there before—she doesn't know what they'll find in the rest of this section, and the not knowing worries her. Maybe talking about something else for a bit will settle her nerves. "God, this is so strange. I suppose of all the things I could say about home, at least it doesn't have giant ants. Where's home for you?"

"It's all the same," Cassandra said, tossing the papers behind her and listening to them flutter to the ground. It was amazing how much paper could sound like a crow's wing.

She leaned over to pick up another handful when Jones asked her about home. They had been so wrapped up in the whole ant matter that it was only then that Cassandra realized they had not yet played her favorite game: See if they recognize her from mythology. She didn't have the best read on Jones, so she couldn't really guess.

"A city to the west of Persia," she said absently. "It was called Troy."

Persia... where was that again? That was sort of over by Africa, wasn't it? Maybe Mediterranean, then. "Gosh, that's quite a ways. From Chicago, anyway, I suppose. I guess everything is a long way from here." More papers; some look like they're in a sort of code. The Militia is definitely going to want to hear about this. She stands.

"Maybe we should check the other rooms...?" She's not easily spooked, but she's getting the feeling that she'd prefer not to stay here much longer than she absolutely has to. Papers they can bring along, if they need to. Toward that end, she stuffs a sheaf of them in her bag.

Cassandra smiled a genuine smile. She was pleased that Jones wasn't jumping down her throat with a million questions about if she was that Cassandra. It was refreshing and it immediately made her just a bit more favorably inclined toward her.

She still felt useless, but at least she was a little less depressed about it.

"All right," she said.

"That's better," he says, as his eyes adjusted to the dim light. Luckily he was wearing his leather gloves, detail of the White Tree sticking over his sleeves, and didn't need to worry about any heat or melting wax. He looks over to Integra and where she had been. "See anything interesting?"

She almost doesn't even bother to look, so sure she is of her vision in the dark, but in the process of glancing back as she moves to put her lighter away - pardon.

Integra glances at Boromir, then back at the newly visible door. A beat, and she reaches out and snuffs the flame between gloved fingertips, then looks back.

Nothing.

"I suppose I should ask if we're having the same hallucination," she says, still staring at the space that is no longer a door and holding her lighter. She flicks it on, to no change.

Unlike other, possibly smarter people, Remy has no qualms with wandering right up to the ants and disrupting their trails. He picks one up, even, though it doesn't do anything but fuss at him, so he puts it back down. This is, compared to a lot of things he's seen in life, not actually all that weird - all the same, he'd probably be taking it more seriously if he wasn't so peeved at being abducted into this damn dimension.

"Weird nobody looted the place," he observes, immediately eying the paintings.

"Not really." Ilde's knife is unsheathed again, in her hand, but it's to save time later - not because she sees a reason to use it right now. Her expression has returned to that habitual blankness, and it doesn't change as she picks up a crow pearl, considers it, and then drops it into the bag against her hip. "There are still repairs on some of the damage from the last time we had new friends. People need a month or two more before stupid kicks back in."

"That's... some impressively slow-acting stupid, actually," he says, sounding amused. A whole month or two, really? That's incredible, in his book. What nice people. He's looking at the paintings, now. "This is all kinda weird."

That was definitely not what he meant in regards to his previous question. He manages to get a quick glance at the door before the light goes out, before managing, "...I've seen something like that before."

He walks over to where the door was, peering at the wall in the darkness. "Before I came here. We were travelling and had to cut through the Mines of Moria." There's something telling in the way he says the name -he's not exactly the kind of person who is easily shaken, but Balrogs will do that to a person. And the apparent loss of a friend. He moves on, "The doorway was some sort of elven magic. It could only be seen when the moon was out in full."

A subtle frown is developing as she picks her way through the place, but she says, "We're in Stepford, Oz. Everything is weird. Including the stupid."

"Magicked doorways are for protection," she says, her voice muted but steady - not comforting, but distinctly calm. "It's a matter of sorting what's being protected." What's in or out. She presses a hand to the wall, then turns and lights the candle again (assuming Boromir is being cooperative).

When she doesn't see it again right away, she holds the lighter back up to the candle and - huh. "Can you see it constantly?"

"That is the creepiest thing I have ever heard," he declares animatedly, shuddering a bit and giving Ilde a scandalized look over her shoulder. "Don't wish that on nobody, that ain't nice - oh for." He swears in French, and does a little dance-in-place around some wandering ants. "You don't got the deed, little friends, we're allowed to party crash."

Or if such doorways protect whoever is inside, or if they're protecting the outside from whatever lurks in the deeps. It's not something Boromir voices and, quite frankly, not something he really wants to talk about, so he stays silent on the subject.

He continues to hold the candle once Integra has lit it, and observes the wall once more. "It's hard to tell. I'm not sure if it's just my eyes playing tricks on me."

She makes a thoughtful noise, and looks at the ants for a bit. So there's a hidden door that can only be seen in the light of the candle-flame; just her lighter's not cutting it. She walks back and snags another of the candles, lights it, holds it out - and she can see it steadily now. It's a little disorienting, but she knows it's just her mind not liking the sudden change of perception. Another few candles go in her jacket pocket.

Near the door again, she glances at Boromir, lit candle in one hand, CiD in the other. She doesn't say it, but if he'd like to go wait outside, she's not going to whine at him to accompany her in the face of being unsettled in a deep way by magic doors.

Judging by the tightening of Ilde's jaw, she hasn't forgotten the recent attack any more than those she thinks of as 'the locals'; her fingers flex on the handle as she jerks back a step, both irritated and progressively more inclined to stab the things that irritate her. Is that even going to work on an ant? Fuck.

-well, she'll have the opportunity to find out, she's backing up into one of their big sisters. The inability to hear movement behind her is a problem.

As if. Integra could be marching into the Void to go taunt Morgoth himself, and Boromir would still be there, helpfully translating the insults into Quenya. He stands there resolute and glances back at her, giving a little nod. Although he may have brought his sword up partially out of its sheath with his free hand. That's only practical, as far as he's concerned.

Good man.

Integra makes a brief missive through her CiD to the Hellsing channel, informing the central command that they're off to do this - in the event they never return or become trapped, it's prudent someone know where they are - and then puts the device away and reaches out to open the door.

Inside, there's a room not unlike the one they're already in; abandoned, unkempt, though ant-free. She steps inside and looks around, slow and careful. "I can't even see any spellmarks," she observes. No engraved words, no chalk or blood marks. She holds the handle up to the doorframe, checking closer.

He catches her reaction, and notes to himself that perhaps sudden movements and loud noises around this one are not the best avenue to take, no matter how prone he is to dramatics. So he turns to face her in a much calmer manner, and then... tilts his head. "Idle," he says, firm, and stretches out a hand to illustrate. "Stop walking."

Too late?

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the little one stops to shut the gate :: [OPEN]

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A CiD call [video | open]

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