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

[baedalites.livejournal.com]

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.

Comments

[cassie_of_troy]

"Well," she said, "you just walked out of the building and looked at it and then you walked back. I can only assume that it was magic. Or else you're insane, I suppose. But I highly doubt that. I'm the only person here with a reputation for being a lunatic in this city."

When Cassandra was honest, she was brutally honest. And that generally cost her a lot of friendship and social collateral. But she liked to think that it allowed her to maintain some dignity.

"I used to be able to perceive auras on people. And all it took was looking at them." Cassandra shrugged. "Or maybe I'm round the bend. All things are possible."

[wandandsickle]

Right, that's fair. Strictly speaking, it sounds like Cassandra here's a bit of a Sleepwalker, maybe, or was. Perhaps she came close to Awakening but failed—a sad fate, really. To so nearly touch the stars, only to have your wings torn from you...

"It was really more... taking measurements," Jones explains. "Although there was a little bit more to it, you're right. I have a bit of a sense for... well, I think there's something hidden in here. And I'm not sure what a sewing machine repair shop would need hidden rooms or storage space for."

[cassie_of_troy]

"All right," Cassandra said. She had no problem accepting Jones, taking her at her word. She valued honesty. There was no way to know for sure that Jones was telling the truth, but Cassandra certainly had no evidence to the contrary right now. "Then if there's something hidden, do you think it's possible the ants were sent as an aggressive attack?" she asked.

[wandandsickle]

"Haven't the slightest," Jones says, lightly. "Suppose we can put that on our list of things to find out." She moves slowly around the perimeter of the room now, taking great care with her steps. If they're going to investigate properly, they're going to have to go further than a few meters from the doorway.

The counter seems like the logical place to start. Thankfully, the ants haven't built on top of it yet (although it certainly seems like they're working on it, and they've gotten around the back), so Jones is able to hop up on top to get a better look at what's behind it. "Over here."

[cassie_of_troy]

Cassandra followed. She knew better than to question someone with power.

But that didn't mean she didn't have questions.

"Is your Chicago a place where magic is common?" she asked. "Or uncommon? Where I grew up, it was rather natural. But you seemed quite surprised when I asked. As if you weren't accustomed to being asked something like that."

Oh yes, Cassandra was good at observing people.

[wandandsickle]

"Ah, that's lucky," says Jones. She's shuffling through some papers on the counter at the same time; mostly invoices and such. Nothing interesting. Then again, she wouldn't really expect the interesting stuff to be here. "Where I live, magic's uncommon, and, worse—policed. Bunch of nutters who think they're serving men-turned-gods who think that no one else should have the Knowledge Supernal. So we don't usually talk about it to people who aren't already in on the secret, so to speak."

Nothing much else here except a bunch of bobbins and a few partially-burnt candles. Actually, thinking about it, she's used up her seance candles, hasn't she?Seems like a good enough opportunity to replace them. Jones picks one up and—

—startles almost enough to topple off the counter backwards, though manages to retain her balance.

[cassie_of_troy]

Instinctively, Cassandra reached out, grabbing Jones' shoulders to make sure she was steady. It was actually a bit of an unusual gesture for Cassandra. She hated making physical contact, most of the time. But at least she had initiated this one.

"What is it?" she hissed, looking around and seeing, of course, nothing.

[wandandsickle]

"Thanks," Jones murmurs. "I was just a little—the door, don't you see it? It just appeared."

[cassie_of_troy]

Well, that sounded like a rather foolish question. If she could see the door, she probably wouldn't have asked what it was that had started Jones. But Cassandra really had to learn to hold her tongue, or at the very least, refrain from abusing sarcasm. "Show me," she said instead.

Vaguely, she was starting to wonder if she was entirely unnecessary in this particular endeavor.

[wandandsickle]

"I mean, it's there..." She can't see it? Maybe it's only visible from a certain angle? Now that she can see it, she figures it was probably warded in some way, but what's the trigger—

Hm.

She puts the candle down. The door disappears from her sight. She picks it back up again; the door reappears.

There's a couple more candles around; why they'd be at the counter is anyone's guess, although it seems to suggest something a little more complicated going on here. She hands one to Cassandra. "Here."

[cassie_of_troy]

Cassandra took the candle. Looking down, she was astonished to see a door appear out of nowhere. "Curious," she said quietly, turning her head this way and that to determine how she might have missed it before.

[wandandsickle]

"It's certainly unusual. I'm not sure what a shop for sewing machines would need to hide under that kind of protection..."

She sweeps a glance across the counter for anything else of interest; she doesn't see much, other than invoices.

They say curiosity killed that cat. Hopefully, if death can be reversed in strange places such as these, then satisfaction will bring it back. She carefully dodges the ants' constructions (which are, really, not bad for not having opposable thumbs), and turns the handle on the door.

[cassie_of_troy]

So they were venturing through, then? Well, all right. Cassandra propped the plank of wood on her shoulder and moved to stand behind Jones' shoulder. Perhaps, she mused, Jones would prefer to go it alone. Certainly, Cassandra had nothing useful to contribute to this little venture. But she wouldn't even entertain the notion of being left behind.

"I suppose the most obvious answer is that the shop was part of some act," she said. "One that wasn't important enough to keep up, perhaps."

She frowned. Oh, it was obvious, all right. But Cassandra didn't like obvious answers. They were too easy. The Pythia of Delphi never gave straightforward answers. She made pilgrims work for it. And Cassandra was working to find something now.

[wandandsickle]

Something occurs to Jones: "Say, you'd been here before, hadn't you? Or maybe I'm just assuming so, but still—did you know the people who worked here? Did you notice anything suspicious?" She shrugs. "I mean, I know next to nothing about most of the city, so..."

She opens the door.

[cassie_of_troy]

Cassandra shrugged slightly. "I've visited once or twice. I work for a tailor shop down the road. They've sent me here once or twice to repair the equipment, but I haven't had much interaction with these people beyond that." She paused. "Frankly, I never paid much attention to their work. I prefer sewing with my hands."

Spinning her own thread too, for that matter. Cassandra did not care for the pre-fabricated silks and threads that they used in the shop. Something about it was just too...uniform. It didn't look like the clothing was made by people at all.

"What do you see?" she asked.

[wandandsickle]

It's a medium-sized room, although there are doors on the opposite wall and the one to the left, which suggest that there's more to this. In the room is a desk and a table, both strewn with papers, some of which have fallen to the floor. On a chair lies an open book. There are no sewing machines in sight—or ants, actually.

"Nothing particularly strange," says Jones, slowly. "I'm not sure I like this. Although it's nice not having to step over ants in here. I've been hearing they get a bit nasty if you step on them."

[cassie_of_troy]

"Legend tells of a great warrior named Achilles," she said. "He had a great army of men, so fiercely devoted to one another that if you harmed one of them, you harmed them all. The stories say that they were all once ants, that the gods turned them into men in order to serve Achilles' father, Peleus." She glanced back at the ants. "I have no doubt that if you upset one of them, you upset them all."

She turned to examine the room. "You're right. There's nothing particularly strange. Which, I suppose, makes it stranger." Cassandra looked at Jones. "So what happens next?"

[wandandsickle]

Jones is already shuffling through some of the papers on the table—they have words on them, how could she not. Something—looks like a fairy tale, the way it's written; something about a baker. Normally, she'd not take much notice of it, but her recent dealings with things out of fairy stories makes her more than a little suspicious of the stories themselves. Particularly in locations that are already suspicious. She hands the paper to Cassandra. "Can you make any sense of this? It's not a story I'm familiar with..."

Something else, though, has already caught her eye—a list of names and very familiar-looking numbers. CiD numbers, judging by the format. Oddly, some of them look familiar, although she doesn't know any of the names...

[cassie_of_troy]

Cassandra took the paper, eying Jones as she flitted from place to place like a mayfly. The woman did not have the most firm of attention spans, but Cassandra supposed, if she knew anything about any of this, perhaps she'd be just as eager and curious.

She felt so useless!

Sighing softly, she looked down at the paper.

[What am I seeing here?]

[wandandsickle]

[It tells the story of the local urban legend, the Baker. I understand it's a bit like Jack the Ripper sort of thing.]

Jones, meanwhile, sets down in one of the chairs to read through some of the things she's collected. This just gets stranger and stranger.

[cassie_of_troy]

Quietly, Cassandra read the story. A slight man who stole children away? There was one of those in almost every civilization she had known of. The Greeks alone had several.

"It seems common enough," Cassandra muttered. "Like flood stories or legends about people who are one way by day and another by night." She frowned slightly. "I haven't seen many children around Baedal, have you?"

[wandandsickle]

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..."

[cassie_of_troy]

"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.

[wandandsickle]

[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?"

[cassie_of_troy]

"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."