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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"Certainly! I wouldn't dream of depriving you of my expertise." With breaking into houses, naturally. Not with giant ants. He is downright cheerful at the prospect, now that he has company.

He mentally runs through what he has on his person, and its location. He shifts the walking stick to his other hand, and slips the first hand into his pocket, palming something, before following after Mike.

Mike is careful as he ascends what's left of the front porch, just in case the wood is rotten and likely to cave in. What ants can stomp on comfortably might not be safe for humans, after all. It holds, though. The door is ajar and he carefully pushes it open, just in case any ants are on the other side of it... so far so good. The little ant has moved inside and is touching antennae with some of the other ants. He takes a breath and hopes that it's letting them know he has no hostile intentions.

He has a truncheon with a built-in flashlight, hanging from his belt. He removes it, but only to flick on the light as he steps through the doorway.

"Here we go... hopefully they won't think we're doing anything threatening."

He begins glancing around, marking possible avenues of exit and retreat.

Eddie follows Mike through the door, but breaks away from trailing him, once they're inside.

He looks away from the flashlight, when Mike hits the switch, giving his eyes time to adjust to the change in lighting before he begins his own examination of the place, noting his own escape route.

He tests the floor with the walking stick, tap, tap, then cuts ahead of Mike to continue further into the building. It does not take him long at all to become much more intrigued by the interior layout than the ants. From what he saw on the outside, this is not the layout he would have expected, but he would like to confirm the hunch and also see what Mike does or doesn't notice.

With light, quiet steps, he ducks around a corner, then pokes his head back around and motions for Mike, with his light, to follow. He's found a staircase leading up, and the way's sealed off with ant nest.

Mike has the sense that the dimensions and proportions are wrong, too. The ants seem unconcerned about such things, intent upon turning the house into a huge anthill. But... things seem off. The apparent wall between this house and the next seems much closer than it should be, but he sees no sign of a room to explain that. It makes him wish he'd investigated the normal interior of one of these row-houses before coming in here. If he does something like this again, he'll remember to do that.

He makes his way to Eddie's location, and plays the light over the sealed staircase.

"I'd say we need to treat that like a dead end. I don't think these little ladies'd take too kindly to us demolishing their handiwork. Anything about these dimensions seem wrong to you?"

"There may be another stairway up, on the other side of the house, but yes. We wouldn't be doing ourselves any favors by forcing our way up there. The layout is inconsistent. Good." He is pleased with the shared observation, and his tone is only a little patronizing.

He hushes himself, and rests his ear against a wall. He knocks his knuckles in a few spots, and listens for another moment. "Be a dear and go see if there's a pantry or closet or alcove with an entrance in that room." He gestures, then puts his ear back near the wall.

Patronizing isn't a problem, weirdly enough. Mike prefers people underestimate him and forget how potentially dangerous he really is. Be a dear gets a quirked eyebrow and a twitch of a lip, but that's it.

"Will do."

He heads into the room Eddie indicated and frowns, because he knows he walked a longer distance to get into it than he should have, given the placement of one of its walls. How interesting. He begins examining the wall, running his hands over it in search of secret passages. He actually moves the box out of his way before noticing that it's there.

"Now, why would someone leave a whole box of candles here and nothing else?" he asks, partly to himself and partly to alert Eddie that he found something incongruous.

In a way, the comment's just as much of a test as seeing if Mike noticed the layout differences, but it's more subconscious. Along with sizing up someone's intellect comes sizing up how much they'll let him push them around. He would say it's friendly teasing, at least if challenged. It doesn't matter to him if it's offensive or not. The only thing that's important is establishing that he knows what he's doing, here. Do you see this? He's got this down!

He's feeling along this part of the wall, for any sign of a doorway under the wallpaper. There is definitely something over there. The acoustics and layout say so.

"Hmm, someone was thoughtful. And spending time in here after the place was abandoned. I'd like to see." By this, he means he'd like to see the candles and get one to light, because they can cover more area if they can see better. He walks over to Mike and peers into the box. He selects a candle after a moment, as if picking the right one is an important decision.

That'll make for some interesting times, won't it? Eddie is doing a good job at proving to Mike that he knows what he's doing, but might just be getting a false-positive on the whole pushing-around thing. Generally speaking, Mike comes across as a nice guy who'll put up with a lot from people. And so far, they're in a situation where Mike's unlikely to transform into a proverbial Immovable Object, but it's happened before when people thought he was someone they could roll over; a few of those people are even in unmarked graves somewhere in the Hindu Kush. There's little chance that Eddie's in any danger of that, but it makes for an interesting little dance of exploration and deception. While surrounded by ants!

Mike has been examining the candles, too. They seem to be of uniform height and construction, but several have been burned partway down and then put back into the box.

"Looks like whoever used these things didn't need 'em for very long. Just short visits. Need a match?"

He has a partly-used matchbook from one of his MRE packs, and he takes it out of his pocket.

Appearances are good enough for now. This is all way too much fun. Eddie lets the pocket knife he's been holding onto fall back into his pocket, and fishes around for a little box of matches, instead.

He produces this about at the same time Mike does. That's amusing. "Want to let me know what else you're carrying around, or are you content to be mysterious and useful?" He lifts a shoulder to rustle his backpack, which produces a faint sloshing sound from bottles in there. "I brought vinegar, in case I needed to throw off any ants. Not quite as useful for urban exploration. However..." He strikes one of his matches and lights the candle he picked.

And then pauses a moment, because suddenly, there is a door. "My my," he says. "Someone invested in a little light security."

"The usual soldier and medic stuff--" He frowns and tries to follow Eddie's gaze, but all he sees is wall. His flashlight, played over that spot, reveals nothing. "Pun intended?"

He sets the flashlight to the side and lights himself a candle of his own.

"...Oh. Damn, I can think of a lot of people who'd pay big bucks for that trick back home."

"It's all pun and games," Eddie says idly, as Mike lights another candle. He steps forward and examines the newly appeared door, giving it a good look-over before rapping on it, then rattling the handle, tentatively. Once he's satisfied, he stands beside the door and not in front of it, and pulls it open a crack.

"Mm. We'll want to find out how much people pay for this, here. I'd like to know how often I can expect to encounter it."

"Often enough that people can leave boxfuls of them lying around in abandoned houses..." Mike's switched off his flashlight for now and holstered it again, and now he joins Eddie by the door, standing on the other side from him. Which makes them almost look like they're in a cop show, albeit a really really weird one.

As a matter of fact, just in case, Mike pulls his gun and holds it loosely at his side. Not threateningly, but just in case some of the monkeys from the last invasion have been hanging out behind the door.

"Rarely enough that people who hang out in abandoned houses can leave them lying around and call that hidden?" Eddie smirks, but stays up against the wall, waiting for Mike and his gun to decide things are All Clear on the random-things-jumping-out-to-attack front. "I'm going in."

"I get the feeling they left in a hurry when the ladies arrived."

Well, shoot. He wanted to go in first. Ya snooze, ya lose, Mikey!

"Got you covered."

He can't see much into the rooms beyond yet, but he's not picking up any movement. It's a shame he doesn't have the suppressor and laser sighting kit on his handgun right now, but that would give rise to way too many difficult questions.

"The ants aren't giving us any trouble," he says, and slips past the doorway. "So that would have some interesting implications about the ants. Makes it all festive, doesn't it?" His voice becomes singsong and giddy. "Wonder what we'll find!"

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

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