Inside 71: All I Want For Thanksmas Is You

[Deathkeeper]

Docks

”Look, Snap. I literally can’t abandon this quest or I get cursed forever, so work with me here. This is a boogie that likes to spread poison to food supplies and livestock along with eating fear and people. This is all I have to work with. We have evidence it’s been here, and there’s plenty of the things it likes to corrupt around here. We could ask the locals.”
Sphinx goes to see if there’s any people around who might be able to tell her about gross mushrooms popping up.
...
And maybe sell her a fish. She gained quite a bit of weight recently. Her Lion stomach is empty.
OR the trail she saw from Arkham Street. That should be from the North...

[5a Violista]

[In the Painting]

So the jewelry-thief isn't Arthur.
Well...
it'd be weird if it were.
Should she confront the thief?

...
No.
If she tries that, they might try to kill her to keep her silent. And that's exactly what she's been wanting to avoid.
Besides, if Arthur notices that she's not in her bed, she could use this as an excuse for why. She heard someone opening the door and hid under the bed.
And he's the one who took off the necklace, and she left it out in the open on the vanity. The necklace will be missing, corroborating her story when she tells it to Arthur tomorrow, and then he could...
...
. . .
Wait.
This'll all be over at sunrise. Spirit-Yssa will be back in her body, June will be back in hers, and since the necklace is in front of the vanity mirror, Yssa might even be seeing who has been taking them. Mirror-spirits don't need to sleep, right?

As the thief gets to the vanity, June moves a little bit closer, and squints, to see if she can see who it is. Or, at the very least, narrow down who it is.
As she moves closer, though, her ring clinks against the bedframe.
June freezes and holds her breath, hoping the thief just thinks it was a sound caused by restless sleep.

[Shadowcaller]

"We do exactly what we say." Which is hardly ever what you think they said.
"That's acceptable. But why do you care about warning the fey? It's j-"
Yone tries to shift slightly under the nets to look at where the chariot should be.
"Your minions didn't do something with it, did they?"

"Err... 'tis not impossible." The imp lord admits as he continues to stare out over yonder.

"Hey! Did anyone drive off with the chariot!" He calls out to the imps currently lazing about around Yone.

"The what?" A question which seem to be the general sentiment among the impy minions.

"The wheeled vehicle, the thing with the freaking round-spinny-things!" He gestures frustratedly at the spot the chariot once were.

"Oh yeah! Some of the lads took off with it. They went towards wet-side!" It gestures in the direction of the harbor.

The imp lord makes a distinct grumbling sound as he faceplants. "You imp-beciles! Get that chariot back right this moment or I'm gonna sack the lot of you!"

Knowing better than to argue, the imps starts to fly off to fetch the chariot wherever it went while the imp lord turns back to address the fey. "Now where were we?" He looks down on his notes. "Ah, yes. The reason I care about you marauders is that the incoming attack is going to greatly disrupt your natural habitat. Not to mention the backlash it's going to create. The weapons employed against you are highly unpredictable and will besides collateral damage also possibly empower the very fey they were meant to destroy. Either way this would cause you all to change so much that all my previous research into your species with be worthless. It's a disaster waiting to happen."

[bc56]

Dread Castle

"What? No, you're a devil impersonating me! I just came in here to look around and you opened the door." Rose seems confused. "We can work together to find Sekhmet, but don't try anything."

In the Painting

The intruder is a man judging by build, but further details are hard to deduce. When June makes noise, he whirls around, but seeing no movement, decides it was nothing. He picks up the necklace off the vanity and pockets it.

[Rebonack]

[Docks]

Following the trail of dusty, musty footprints that Sphinx found back at Arkham street would probably be a reasonable place to start. The waterfront of Inside is after all pretty big.

Snapdragon frowns a bit at Sphinx' snappy reply. "Woah woah, cursed forever? I think I might have missed something here what's going on now?"

She has no idea what a Sphinx of Black Quartz is, aside from it apparently being a statue of some kind?

As far as gross mushrooms go? Coming up mostly blank here. "Sorry miss, can't say I've seen anything that sounds like that," one fisherman replies. "But if you're after fish I've got some nice red snapper that I hauled in last night."

The fish in question is indeed quite red. And snappy. And pretty big!

Snapdragon finds the name amusing, judging from her grin.


[Dread Castle]

Rose eyes her twin suspiciously for a few seconds, then sighs again. "Okay, fine. This might be like that stupid mirror we found in the Temple of Thuzad."

If the double shares Rose's memories at all she'll recall the mirror was a magical item (maybe a trap?) discovered by Alexander and his adventuring party years ago that made perfect duplicates of whoever looked into it. Siegfried the paladin assumed it was some kind of evil trick, got into an argument with himself, and ended up punching himself in the nose. Hugo, the party wizard, eventually determined the mirror was just some sort of meditation tool. Face yourself and all that. Anastasia the cleric found it to be a generally enlightening experience and Alexander just thought it was really creepy.

Turning back toward the castle, Rose is going to try to shove the front door open.

"Okay... if you really are me then you know we just want to make sure Sekhmet isn't here. If we can't find her we should probably try to sneak back home since she might have just opened a portal to there because she thought we died."

[Deathkeeper]

[Docks]

"I'm on a quest to free someone who got turned into a cursed sphinx statuette for a super long time. I have a year to succeed or I get cursed too.
Oh! That reminds me, making the promise made me immune to the spores and corruption, but you aren't. So uh, don't breathe around the fungus if we find it. I don't know if you being flora and fauna makes you more or less susceptible." stupid weird gaiads not making sense; this is exactly what Snap is talking about!
Sphinx's eyes go wide at the big fish, but she resists.
"I'm on a quest. But when I'm done I'll be back for you, giant fishie." Sphinx vows with a nod.
"Like I said, I definitely saw a trail ending at Arkham Street, so if we head towards streets that intersect with it we might pick up the trail again." She didn't really say that before, but she's being clear about it now at least?

[Morty]

[Plum Mountain Park - Mercenaries]

"And I'm going to be Klaavi if anyone asks," Olvisin decides, then stops to look at the sign. "That's helpful. We already knew about the name thing and not accepting food is pretty common sense, but not thanking is new. Let's just go in casually and see who we meet."

[Recaiden]

"Err... 'tis not impossible." The imp lord admits as he continues to stare out over yonder.

"Hey! Did anyone drive off with the chariot!" He calls out to the imps currently lazing about around Yone.

"The what?" A question which seem to be the general sentiment among the impy minions.

"The wheeled vehicle, the thing with the freaking round-spinny-things!" He gestures frustratedly at the spot the chariot once were.

"Oh yeah! Some of the lads took off with it. They went towards wet-side!" It gestures in the direction of the harbor.

The imp lord makes a distinct grumbling sound as he faceplants. "You imp-beciles! Get that chariot back right this moment or I'm gonna sack the lot of you!"

Knowing better than to argue, the imps starts to fly off to fetch the chariot wherever it went while the imp lord turns back to address the fey. "Now where were we?" He looks down on his notes. "Ah, yes. The reason I care about you marauders is that the incoming attack is going to greatly disrupt your natural habitat. Not to mention the backlash it's going to create. The weapons employed against you are highly unpredictable and will besides collateral damage also possibly empower the very fey they were meant to destroy. Either way this would cause you all to change so much that all my previous research into your species with be worthless. It's a disaster waiting to happen."

Is it particularly rude to call them impbeciles? What if you are an imp yourself?

Of course. Protect the fey until you're done taking notes on them.
"You know we don't live in our natural habitat anymore." Yone warns. "Also I don't think fey are just one species. Must make your job pretty hard, right?"
That sounds kinda interesting. Weapons empowering and changing their targets? Maybe they should let this happen.
"But it does sound like a huge disruption. Do you know who these attackers are?"

I hope the imps can fly quick, because the chariot is going quite fast. It does have to slow and turn to avoid crashing into buildings, other vehicles, etc. But it is zooming down to 'wetside' at impressive speed still.

[Rebonack]

[Docks]

"Into a statue? Oof. That's WAY worse than anything I've been through. God, that would be awful. Are they still aware and stuff?" Snap asks, looking concerned now. She doesn't want one of her siblings to get turned into a tacky statue! "I'm not sure if I would be immune or not. Faerie magic is weird and makes zero sense."

Just in general, really. Can't expect it to be internally consistent in any way shape or form.

The giant fishie does not reply.

It is dead.

And probably delicious.

Anywho!

Back to Arkham Street! The thing on the doorstep is still there. No one wanted to touch it, let alone move it. The black mold is still as repulsive as ever. Snap makes a disgusted face at the heap of decay and keeps her distance. The trails leads off toward the waterfront near Arkham street, which is at least 78% spookier than the docks Sphinx had been investigating previously. You know the sort. Lots of mist. The sound of water lapping against the worm-eaten wooden piers. The unsettling feeling of being watched... Based on the trail, it looks like the victim was standing on the end of the pier mending some nets when he was afflicted.

"Do we know if this creeper only comes out at night?" Snap asks. "There are a lot of boogies that only come out at night."

The nuckelavee DOES seem to be nocturnal, based on what Sphinx had read.

[Deathkeeper]

Docks

"She can only hear things. And she can talk but only for a short time after someone uses a secret command. Which judging from her reaction, no one has previously figured out. So yes. Very bad. Hence I'm on this quest."

But onto the spooky waterfront!
"These things are nocturnal, yeah. Maybe we should find a good hiding spot and wait for dusk? Like I said, I need to rebuke it with its name and douse it with the fresh water. So we have to get kind of close unless you can faerie up a fire hose connected to a pond."
She says that because she's not entirely sure Snap can't do that.

[Rebonack]

[Docks]

"Nah, I'm not good with conjuring stuff up like that. Lambslaural is pretty decent at it but you've got me for today's misadventure," Snap replies. She saunters over to a plastic bucket that happens to be sitting around the docks and-!

Frowns at the stainless steel handle on it.

"Ugh. Iron. Of course it's iron," she grouses before glancing over at her sister. "Hey, you wouldn't mind pulling the metal handle off this thing would you? I don't feel like burning my hands."

Stupid iron weakness.

It's such an absolute pain in the butt.

Just one more faerie thing that makes zero sense.

Why would touching iron cause tissue necrosis? It isn't toxic! Not even a little bit!

[5a Violista]

In the Painting

What should she do?
She just needs him to leave as soon as possible.
Confronting him is an obvious 'no'. If the thief knows that she saw him, then that could also be bad.
Going out from under the bed is, too, because it would put her at risk of being attacked to be silenced.
If she just does nothing, he'll just stay in here for longer, looking for more, which increases the chance that something happens. Plus, this has apparently happened several times now. What if the thief decides it's too risky to do any more and tries to kill her to cover it up and blame bandits? Maybe it's just being so tired finally getting to her, but she needs to spook him out.

Suddenly, Arthur's snoring comes to June's attention again. It had been so constant that she had basically forgotten about it.
Oh!
That's an idea, to scare the thief out.
June squeezes the pillow.
"A-arthur?" she says. She pauses, to let it catch the thief's attention and to let him know that she only thinks Arthur is in the room. "Is that you? I'm over here, so go back to sleep." June holds her breath again, hoping this works.

[Shadowcaller]

Is it particularly rude to call them impbeciles? What if you are an imp yourself?

Of course. Protect the fey until you're done taking notes on them.
"You know we don't live in our natural habitat anymore." Yone warns. "Also I don't think fey are just one species. Must make your job pretty hard, right?"
That sounds kinda interesting. Weapons empowering and changing their targets? Maybe they should let this happen.
"But it does sound like a huge disruption. Do you know who these attackers are?"

I hope the imps can fly quick, because the chariot is going quite fast. It does have to slow and turn to avoid crashing into buildings, other vehicles, etc. But it is zooming down to 'wetside' at impressive speed still.

The imp lord waves his hand dismissively. "Working with science is a hard job, yes. But I'm of course using a more casual term as I don't have one for what fey are yet. I will have to invent a myriad of completely new terms to explain just how much of a mess I need to cover." He lets out a small sigh as she comes with a new question.

"Well, of course! Though I'm not sure I'd use the word 'attacker', it's more that they're going to release... highly dangerous beings within the city. Beings that by their very nature I shouldn't talk about as the best defense you got is simply ignoring them. Knowing things of this nature is going to eat up your brain from the inside, or whatever you fey have in its stead. The reason this attack is so haphazard is that even the forces employing these things don't want to know anything about them. I mean, the effect they have on fey isn't thoroughly documented but as they mess up mortals minds they should in theory do stuff to you too. Experiments suggest that they mess up your concept, but I'm not quite sure what that entails yet." The imp lord gestures towards Yone. "But if you don't give out this warning, I might learn that soon."

[Recaiden]

Yone doesn't say anything bout the nature of the dangerous entities because apparently knowing about them is bad. Thinking about them probably won't help.
"So it's soon. Look, I agreed to bring one of your imps with me potentially, but I can't warn anyone with all these nets holding me...in place."
"Shouldn't we also warn the mortals, if they mess up peoples' minds?"
Most of these fey don't have a terribly high regard for mortals, but Yone was a mortal not too long ago. It really seems to her like normal people should get a chance too.

[bc56]

Dread Castle

The Roses open the doorway and find a long, narrow hall. Heavy iron doors line the walls, and moaning and screaming echo from within. Rose tries to peer into one of the tiny barred windows on the door. "Oh no! Can we help them?" She starts prying at the door in an attempt to force it open.

[Rebonack]

[Dread Castle]

Rose winces at the sound of torment and terror she she cautiously steps into the castle proper. "Oh Fate this is terrible... I'm not sure, maybe? The spider said eating the souls makes is so they aren't suffering anymore but... I don't think they're really aware of anything anymore, either? They just keep ranting at me and telling me to do mean things. Neither of those are really good things. We need to find a way to help them so they're aware AND not being tormented AND help them learn that being kind is better than being a meany."

Fortunate for Rose that she still has the name Buttercup to wrap herself in. It's like a warm blanket against the chill of meanness.

"We have to at least try," Rose concludes as she heads to one of the doors and tries yanking it open. "I know these people were all bad, but even bad people deserve another chance."

IS there way to make these lost souls realize the there's a better way?

Or are they forever trapped in the awful mindset they had in life?

Rose isn't sure. But she bound herself to help them. She swore it.

"C'mon, door, work with me here," she mutters. If she can't force it open she'll try pounding on the door with a fist. "Can you hear me in there? We're going to get yo out, okay?"

Man.

Rose must be a real sight for anyone watching, huh?

A chronically nice devil. What the hell is wrong with her?

[Deathkeeper]

[Docks]

"Nah, I'm not good with conjuring stuff up like that. Lambslaural is pretty decent at it but you've got me for today's misadventure," Snap replies. She saunters over to a plastic bucket that happens to be sitting around the docks and-!

Frowns at the stainless steel handle on it.

"Ugh. Iron. Of course it's iron," she grouses before glancing over at her sister. "Hey, you wouldn't mind pulling the metal handle off this thing would you? I don't feel like burning my hands."

Stupid iron weakness.

It's such an absolute pain in the butt.

Just one more faerie thing that makes zero sense.

Why would touching iron cause tissue necrosis? It isn't toxic! Not even a little bit!

Docks

You know what makes just as little sense as faeries?
A stainless steel handle attached to a cheap plastic bucket. Why?
"Sorry, I should have emphasized that more when we met up. Lambslaurel could have made us a wooden one on the spot." She hasn't seen LL use her magic, but Snap has assured her that she's a wiz at it.
Sphinx begins the incredibly frustrating task of holding the bucket down with one paw and ripping the handle off with the other. It's not hard, just really annoying because it'd be easy if she had thumbs. Honestly, this whole body would be much more enjoyable if she could just grasp things in it. At least in practical terms.

[bc56]

Dread Castle

When Rose starts making noise, a voice comes from down the hall. "Rose? Is that you?" It sounds like Sekhmet! "Hold on Sekhmet! I'm going to get this person out first!" Between the two Roses equipped with supernatural strength, it's easy to pry the door open and find a soul trapped in the cell, chained to the wall and flayed of all their skin. Rose heads in, her lower mouth opening and and lava tongue licking her lips in anticipation.

In the Painting

"It's me, it's all right. I thought I heard something." That's not Arthur's voice, but the intruder hopes it will pass well enough to the sleepy Yssa. The thief steals over towards the door, carefully. But he pauses before opening it. He seems to be deciding something.

[Rebonack]

[Dread Castle]

Rose glances between the sound of Sekhmet's voice and the poor, injured person chained to the wall. She catches that look the other Rose is giving the prisoner, too. "Hey hey hey, remember? Eating the lost souls willy-nilly is a bad idea," Rose warns her double. "We aren't sure how to help them yet and too many of them telling us to be mean might get overwhelming. We have to pace ourselves, right?"

As she speaks she feels a tinge of hunger and avarice, her own soul-devouring maw salivating at the thought of her consuming another. A few drips of molten fluid plop to the floor as she licks her teeth.

"No! Bad!"

Rose swats herself on the... nose?

Belly?

Ugh this is so weird.

"You help them down, okay? Get them out of those chains. I'm going to make sure Sekhmet is alright. Don't eat the prisoner," Rose admonishes her twin. "Find out who they are and why they're here."

Turning, Rose prances off down the hallway toward Sekhmet's voice. "I'm coming, Sekhmet, hang on!"


[Docks]

It's one of those thing wire handles. The sort that usually have another little plastic thing in the middle to hold onto. The plastic bit probably broke off at some point.

With a great deal of struggle, Sphinx manages to wrestle the bit of metal off the bucket! Hooray! Snap stoops down to claim her prize.

"Okay. We got a bucket. Now we need to wait for it to get dark," Snapdragon concludes, glancing around the docks as if expecting some horrific boogie to surface from the bay at any moment. "Soooo... what do we do until dark?"

It's about five PM or so, so our heroes have an hour or so before it gets well and truly dark out. How shall they pass the time?

[5a Violista]

[In the Painting]

Okay.
Looks like he's leaving. That's good.
Relief.

Seeing that guy pause, she starts to wonder: is he waiting for her to respond?
She. . .probably should, shouldn't she?
She muffles her voice against the pillow. "Okay. Come back soon."
After turning her head off of it, she adds, "You can come back to bed instead of the floor, you know."

She bites her lip and waits, hoping the person just quickly leaves.

[Deathkeeper]

Docks

”Well, the book said it has to be FRESH water. So seawater probably won’t work. But we can go find water from any of the water sources...well, anywhere besides here.”
So that will probably kill some time: moving to one of the areas adjacent to the Arkham Docks and getting a fresh bucket of water. Snap might not be good with gaiad magic but maybe she can at least find some water for them. There’s a little park with a pond nearby where Arkham Street intersects with Hodgepodge Street. Getting some water doesn’t prove a problem.
But that does leave them back at the docks with another half-hour to kill.
”We can pass the time with some riddles?” she offers sheepishly.

[bc56]

Dread Castle

Rose runs! She reaches the end of the hall, and following Sekhmet's voice, turns a corner. There the fiendish princess is, trapped in a cell, albeit a larger one than usual. "Rose! You're alive!" Sekhmet is chained in place, but hope floods across her features. "Hurry! Get me out of here before the guards come back!"

In the Painting

"No thank you." The thief creeps out of the room. June and the sleeping Arthur are the only ones there now. But it may not be time to relax yet.

[Rebonack]

[Dread Castle]

That Rose duplicate had better not be eating that lost soul while Rose is busy saving Sekhmet!

She would be really really irritated about that.

The infernal gaiad begins moving into the room, glancing about to check for any obvious traps or ambushes.

"Do you still have the magic belt we took?" Rose asks as she moves closer to the apparent princess.

Of course they didn't take a magical belt. Rose knows that. But if this IS some sort of trick or trap, Rose is pretty sure 'Sekhmet' wouldn't know that this is a ruse. If she confirms that she stills has the belt (or says the guards took it) then Rose will know this is a trick!

Hopefully whoever is sovereign over this castle isn't able to just pull Rose's memories out of her head to create tricks and traps.

That would be mean AND cheaty!


[Docks]

Snap doesn't exactly have any special magical water finding powers.

She just went to the nearest fish and chips place and asked if they would fill up her bucket for her and they were nice enough to oblige.

Problem solved!

"Haha, oh wow, I'm terrible at riddles," Snapdragon laughs as she settles down to begin their steak-out. "You're probably going to totally beat me at this. Umm... What are the fruit and vegetable that have the most in common with feet?"

Wow that's really terrible.

[Deathkeeper]

Docks

"Tomatoes and Potatoes." Sphinx says immediately.
She's Sphinx, of course she gets a kids' joke.
"My turn! My turn!" she says excitedly.
"If you ask how I am I would tell you I'm fine
and perfection is hard but I'm good with a line

show me paper and there's lots I can do
as long as it's in red, green, black or blue
What am I?"

[bc56]

Dread Castle

"What belt?" Sekhmet answers, confused. "Just help me!" She twists around to show Rose a row of whip wounds along her back. "Please, Rose!"

[5a Violista]

[In the Painting]

Oh, good.
Relief.
No fighting, no 'trying to silence her', and it seems she managed to end that encounter safely. He left, and she gained an excuse in case Arthur wakes up early for why she's not on the bed anymore. And Arthur's still asleep.

June breathes out, and holds that pillow tighter.
She then yawns - for real this time - and scoots back farther under the bed.
Only...who-knows-how-many-hours left to stay awake.

[Rebonack]

[Docks]

"Ah, you probably heard that one before," Snapdragon says dismissively.

No, Snap.

She just knows all the riddles.

ALL OF THEM!

Then a riddle back. Snap rubs the back of her head, pondering this one.

"Umm... a ruler, maybe? Those are good for making perfectly straight lines."

She's pretty sure it's probably something WAY more tricky than that. What about the colors, though? What's that got to do with anything?


[Dread Castle]

Rose breaths and sigh of relief and hurries over, doing her best to unlock or otherwise break the chains.

"I think this castle might be able to make duplicates of people. It already made one of me," she says as she works at the chains. "Dunno WHY it does that but it does. I asked that question since I wanted to make sure you're really you since there wasn't any magic belt. If you were a fake you probably would have lied about it."

See?

Rose is very clever.

"Okay, what about the crown, though? Did the devils here take it or is still around somewhere?" Rose inquires. "Do you think you'll be able to make a portal back to Inside soon?"

She sure hopes so.

[Deathkeeper]

Docks

Sphinx feels a very strange sensation as Snap gets the riddle wrong.
”Nope! Sorry, Snap. This is for science.”
Sphinx tries to see if Lydia was right and now that Snap has failed her riddle she can manipulate her. In this case, just to put the bucket down and spin around twice in a circle. Since she can’t imagine Snap doing that without prompting.
Okay maybe she can. But not right now, without a snappy joke about it.

[bc56]

Dread Castle

"That's strange. Why would it do that?" Rose frees Sekhmet easily. The fiend princess stands gratefully. But when Rose turns around to leave, she'll find that there's no door in that wall anymore. There aren't any visible exits to this room at all. "Oh no! You're too late!" Sekhmet gives an evil grin and the walls begin closing in on the both of them, the room rapidly shrinking around them.

In the Painting

The night passes uneventfully, and at the crack of dawn, June feels the sensations of Yssa's body fade away. She comes to in her own body, holding the painting. Yssa is standing in front of her, her body faintly transparent. "Thank you. Now I can rest in peace..." And she fades into nothing. The painting is still there, but it has lost its supernatural realism. It looks like an ordinary painting now.

[5a Violista]

(No Longer) In the Painting

June is exhausted.
She looks at Yssa.
And (holding the painting in one hand) she brushes her own hair back...Oh. It's short again. Glances down, and...oh. Basically flat again. Not going to lie, she started to get used to that. "Honestly, kind-of disappointed I couldn't save you," she says to the ghost.
But...she's never been able to bring back to life any of the other spirits she's seen. It's just not a power that she has. "...Bye."

She looks at the painting again.
Wait, she needs to get it out of this light rain still.
Rather than finishing her jog, she runs back to her place, to put the painting somewhere dry and finally flop into bed and sleep. It's already daybreak.

It's been way too long of a day.