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xp_logsAs Billy wraps his training session with Wanda, Marius and Clarice discover strange things are afoot at the mansion.
There had been neither sound nor feeling of presence to warn him. It had simply appeared, and seemed now to be content hanging in the middle of the hallway.
Waiting. Plotting.
Only one person came to mind that might be able to explicate the inexplicable. Moving slowly so as not to provoke a reaction, Marius slipped his phone from his pocket and raised it to his lips.
"Siri," he said, never once taking his eyes from the apparition, "call Clarice."
"Yo Marius," Clarice picked up the phone after a couple rings, the sound of waves in the background, "What's up?"
"My apologies," said the voice on the other end, "but would you be so kind as to join me in the second floor residence hall? It's an emergency." There was a pause, filled only by the lap of waves, before Marius added, "Possibly."
A portal opened and Clarice stepped through in a flowing maxi dress and a large sunhat, already pulling off her sunglasses and stowing her phone. "Who do I need to kill?" she asked easily. "Or touch for you?"
"Ah, well, about that." Still moving slowly, Marius raised a finger to point at something beyond his purple comrade. "I remember when you bought that most distinctly, but I don't recall this particular feature."
There, floating in the middle of the hall, was a mask. Purported to boost collagen production and reduce inflammation, the device combined the charm of a featureless hockey mask with a hellish red glow that spilled out from every orifice to delight skincare enthusiasts worldwide. It offered seven different settings, a superior battery life, and absolutely no explanations.
"That...was not in the manual," Clarice acknowledged slowly, staring at it. "Do we need it...alive?" Whatever it was. Alive. Animated.
"It's yours, eh? I imagine you can do whatever you like. Although . . . suppose we should at least check." Marius cleared his throat and gave the mask a cautious wave. "Oi there, do you come in peace? Speak now or forever hold yours, et cetera."
The mask simply hovered, glowing.
Then, slowly, it began to rotate.
"I've been here too long," Clarice sighed. opening a few very narrow portals and porting it away. In pieces. "Think I can submit an expense report to Matt so Xavier's can replace it?"
Marius watched as the appliance sliced itself out of existence one piece at a time, its smooth plastic surface parred away like a round of apple.
"Do you want to?"
Events escalate. Marius recruits Kyle in a search for logic, which Gaia and Laura (partially) provide.
Marius pressed his hands against his ears, fighting a losing battle against the cacophonous mash-up of "Ram Ranch," an indeterminate Rush song, and what seemed to be 8-bit MIDI music. He had no way to be sure, but he suspected the noise was being broadcast from every Bluetooth-enabled device in the mansion. The encroaching surveillance state was, of course, an ongoing concern, but never had he had such a salient reminder of such as when the refrigerator started to throb with EDM.
"If this is the music of Youth," he remarked, "then I have at last made the transition to true adulthood. I fail to see even the slightest appeal."
A vinyl record whined past his foot, adding an unwelcome contribution from the B-52s. Marius wrenched the phone from his pocket; the device had apparently decided the performance warranted being broadcast in stereo.
"Et tu, Spotify?" he sighed.
"I think Garrison's Tom Sawyer bandit got us." Kyle was leaned against the hallway wall, stuffing wax earplugs into his ears. "Which. Gar does the story better justice, but short version is the jukebox at Harry's can be queued up with an app." He pushed off the wall once his ears were sufficiently armored, wiping his fingers on his jeans. "Seriously, any idea what the hell?"
"No. Seems harmless enough, no alarms sounding, or whatever the wards are meant to do when we've a breach. But . . . I've seen things, mate. Indescribable things." Marius dropped his phone back in his pocket and jerked his eyebrows at Kyle. "Which is to say that I've no idea what I was looking at, and thus cannot venture a guess. Certainly quite a number of things crawling, however."
"Yeah, all of Terry's hair ties and scarves and scrunchies and like - all her hair stuff? Yeah, made a nest for the hairbrushes. Mine and hers. I'm trying not to like, look at the implications there." Kyle couldn't even say all of that without his shoulders shaking with laughter. "So. Do we want to brave the room with a billion media devices or are we cowards?"
He paused. "Don't answer that, I also want to be a fucking coward, someone's mashing up the tetris music with Tenacious D in there but we're professional fucking superheros or whatever."
"Look at it this way: dangerous though it may be, if this is indeed the epicentre of the aural disturbance, perhaps we can put a stop to it. If we can do the mansion this service, we will not have incurred permanent hearing loss in vain." Marius smoothed back his hair as a minor stalling tactic, then poked his head around the threshold of the Rec Room.
"Oi, everything all right in . . . here?"
Relatively speaking, it probably was. True, the ping-pong table in the corner was moving without the benefit of players, but it seemed more interested in playing against itself than wreaking havoc. Wireless controllers stumped around the room like stunted penguins while their USB cords squirmed sullenly in the multimedia cabinet as the stereos blithely continued to blare.
The room was also occupied.
Pink hair could be seen floating above its owner, who sat in a meditative position watching the objects around her with a gleeful expression. Gaia seemed more... colorful than she had in ages. More alive. Her aura hummed along to the tune of the chaos.
Laura was leaning back in a chair, noise canceling headphones on, sunglasses on, and a pringles chip can nestled in her arms and her other hand digging into the can for more. She was watching the playerless ping-pong table. She looked over at Marius and Kyle and held out her chip can toward Kyle, she offered her precious chips to him.
Kyle watched the can carefully, put a finger in the open tube, and then reared back when it tried to snap close around the digit. He was faster, but not by much. "Fucking knew it." He took the entire can off Laura's hands and shook out a handful of the crisps. "Nothing besides the Pringles can attack either of you?"
"Er, you wouldn't happen to know what's going on by any chance, would you?" Marius asked. His own attention was on Gaia. Not merely because he still carried the vivid memory of the effect her unorthodox arrival had had on the chapel, but because the girl was wearing what, on her, was an expression of absolute delight -- which was to say her mouth muscles were slanted ever so slightly away from a flat line. Unspoken was the second question: And are you doing it?
Gaia's mildly eerie grin only increased with the implication. It was good to know she still held infamy for her entrance into this world. "I believe it is one of the newcomers. The one who consorts with the witch. His emotions can be felt even from here." Unspoken on her end was: I'm amused you think I would execute such a stunt with so little control.
Laura could help but giggle at the can chip. She showed Kyle how to coax it to give it the chips inside. "The one whose brother is super fast." She tilted her sunglasses down and kicked up her feet as if all of this was just a normal day at the mansion.
"Billiam?" Kyle said, automatically, then winced a little. Wondered if this version got called that sometimes. "Kaplan. Billy. Yeah, that one." He scratched his head. "He's consorting with who? Isn't he gay? Is this a magic sex thing?"
"That's a bit narrow-minded of you, Kyle. We've some very attractive witches here. It's only natural for a lad to experiment. Though as it happens most of them appear to be otherwise engaged . . ." Marius gave Gaia a final, dubious look before turning back to his friend. "Well, at least we have confirmation of the source. I suppose we should alert a responsible party." He scoured his mind for who this might be before his face fell with unwelcome realisation. Above them, a light fixture began to unscrew itself.
"Bugger. That's us, isn't it."
There had been neither sound nor feeling of presence to warn him. It had simply appeared, and seemed now to be content hanging in the middle of the hallway.
Waiting. Plotting.
Only one person came to mind that might be able to explicate the inexplicable. Moving slowly so as not to provoke a reaction, Marius slipped his phone from his pocket and raised it to his lips.
"Siri," he said, never once taking his eyes from the apparition, "call Clarice."
"Yo Marius," Clarice picked up the phone after a couple rings, the sound of waves in the background, "What's up?"
"My apologies," said the voice on the other end, "but would you be so kind as to join me in the second floor residence hall? It's an emergency." There was a pause, filled only by the lap of waves, before Marius added, "Possibly."
A portal opened and Clarice stepped through in a flowing maxi dress and a large sunhat, already pulling off her sunglasses and stowing her phone. "Who do I need to kill?" she asked easily. "Or touch for you?"
"Ah, well, about that." Still moving slowly, Marius raised a finger to point at something beyond his purple comrade. "I remember when you bought that most distinctly, but I don't recall this particular feature."
There, floating in the middle of the hall, was a mask. Purported to boost collagen production and reduce inflammation, the device combined the charm of a featureless hockey mask with a hellish red glow that spilled out from every orifice to delight skincare enthusiasts worldwide. It offered seven different settings, a superior battery life, and absolutely no explanations.
"That...was not in the manual," Clarice acknowledged slowly, staring at it. "Do we need it...alive?" Whatever it was. Alive. Animated.
"It's yours, eh? I imagine you can do whatever you like. Although . . . suppose we should at least check." Marius cleared his throat and gave the mask a cautious wave. "Oi there, do you come in peace? Speak now or forever hold yours, et cetera."
The mask simply hovered, glowing.
Then, slowly, it began to rotate.
"I've been here too long," Clarice sighed. opening a few very narrow portals and porting it away. In pieces. "Think I can submit an expense report to Matt so Xavier's can replace it?"
Marius watched as the appliance sliced itself out of existence one piece at a time, its smooth plastic surface parred away like a round of apple.
"Do you want to?"
Events escalate. Marius recruits Kyle in a search for logic, which Gaia and Laura (partially) provide.
Marius pressed his hands against his ears, fighting a losing battle against the cacophonous mash-up of "Ram Ranch," an indeterminate Rush song, and what seemed to be 8-bit MIDI music. He had no way to be sure, but he suspected the noise was being broadcast from every Bluetooth-enabled device in the mansion. The encroaching surveillance state was, of course, an ongoing concern, but never had he had such a salient reminder of such as when the refrigerator started to throb with EDM.
"If this is the music of Youth," he remarked, "then I have at last made the transition to true adulthood. I fail to see even the slightest appeal."
A vinyl record whined past his foot, adding an unwelcome contribution from the B-52s. Marius wrenched the phone from his pocket; the device had apparently decided the performance warranted being broadcast in stereo.
"Et tu, Spotify?" he sighed.
"I think Garrison's Tom Sawyer bandit got us." Kyle was leaned against the hallway wall, stuffing wax earplugs into his ears. "Which. Gar does the story better justice, but short version is the jukebox at Harry's can be queued up with an app." He pushed off the wall once his ears were sufficiently armored, wiping his fingers on his jeans. "Seriously, any idea what the hell?"
"No. Seems harmless enough, no alarms sounding, or whatever the wards are meant to do when we've a breach. But . . . I've seen things, mate. Indescribable things." Marius dropped his phone back in his pocket and jerked his eyebrows at Kyle. "Which is to say that I've no idea what I was looking at, and thus cannot venture a guess. Certainly quite a number of things crawling, however."
"Yeah, all of Terry's hair ties and scarves and scrunchies and like - all her hair stuff? Yeah, made a nest for the hairbrushes. Mine and hers. I'm trying not to like, look at the implications there." Kyle couldn't even say all of that without his shoulders shaking with laughter. "So. Do we want to brave the room with a billion media devices or are we cowards?"
He paused. "Don't answer that, I also want to be a fucking coward, someone's mashing up the tetris music with Tenacious D in there but we're professional fucking superheros or whatever."
"Look at it this way: dangerous though it may be, if this is indeed the epicentre of the aural disturbance, perhaps we can put a stop to it. If we can do the mansion this service, we will not have incurred permanent hearing loss in vain." Marius smoothed back his hair as a minor stalling tactic, then poked his head around the threshold of the Rec Room.
"Oi, everything all right in . . . here?"
Relatively speaking, it probably was. True, the ping-pong table in the corner was moving without the benefit of players, but it seemed more interested in playing against itself than wreaking havoc. Wireless controllers stumped around the room like stunted penguins while their USB cords squirmed sullenly in the multimedia cabinet as the stereos blithely continued to blare.
The room was also occupied.
Pink hair could be seen floating above its owner, who sat in a meditative position watching the objects around her with a gleeful expression. Gaia seemed more... colorful than she had in ages. More alive. Her aura hummed along to the tune of the chaos.
Laura was leaning back in a chair, noise canceling headphones on, sunglasses on, and a pringles chip can nestled in her arms and her other hand digging into the can for more. She was watching the playerless ping-pong table. She looked over at Marius and Kyle and held out her chip can toward Kyle, she offered her precious chips to him.
Kyle watched the can carefully, put a finger in the open tube, and then reared back when it tried to snap close around the digit. He was faster, but not by much. "Fucking knew it." He took the entire can off Laura's hands and shook out a handful of the crisps. "Nothing besides the Pringles can attack either of you?"
"Er, you wouldn't happen to know what's going on by any chance, would you?" Marius asked. His own attention was on Gaia. Not merely because he still carried the vivid memory of the effect her unorthodox arrival had had on the chapel, but because the girl was wearing what, on her, was an expression of absolute delight -- which was to say her mouth muscles were slanted ever so slightly away from a flat line. Unspoken was the second question: And are you doing it?
Gaia's mildly eerie grin only increased with the implication. It was good to know she still held infamy for her entrance into this world. "I believe it is one of the newcomers. The one who consorts with the witch. His emotions can be felt even from here." Unspoken on her end was: I'm amused you think I would execute such a stunt with so little control.
Laura could help but giggle at the can chip. She showed Kyle how to coax it to give it the chips inside. "The one whose brother is super fast." She tilted her sunglasses down and kicked up her feet as if all of this was just a normal day at the mansion.
"Billiam?" Kyle said, automatically, then winced a little. Wondered if this version got called that sometimes. "Kaplan. Billy. Yeah, that one." He scratched his head. "He's consorting with who? Isn't he gay? Is this a magic sex thing?"
"That's a bit narrow-minded of you, Kyle. We've some very attractive witches here. It's only natural for a lad to experiment. Though as it happens most of them appear to be otherwise engaged . . ." Marius gave Gaia a final, dubious look before turning back to his friend. "Well, at least we have confirmation of the source. I suppose we should alert a responsible party." He scoured his mind for who this might be before his face fell with unwelcome realisation. Above them, a light fixture began to unscrew itself.
"Bugger. That's us, isn't it."
