open | oh it's a mad, mad world, i'm drowning in

[bravelyrunsaway]

WHO: Anyone wanting to find lamp oil, other oils, and the Remembrance's new hideout.
WHEN: After the TDM event! Before the next game event.
WHERE: In the Mouse House.
WHAT: In the spirit of adventurers the worlds wide, people go hunting for more lamp oil, only to find... dark water barrels, and the Remembrance's attempts to establish itself again.
WARNINGS: They're trying to make those womb walls again at the base; there's a potential at all times for violence; language potentially explicit.

You can find plot information or ask questions here! Keeping it simple, but here's a vague timeline of some possibilities:

• Meeting outside the orphanage and searching through abandoned homes and businesses for lamp oil. Or sneaking into not so abandoned places and making off with some supplies.


• Discovering a series of seemingly abandoned warehouses, and finding a means inside, with light. Much of what's there is junk. Be amazed by what you find.


• In at least one warehouse there's large barrels! Which might be oil! These turn out to be dark water when opened.


• Within minutes of the dark water barrel discovery, members of the Remembrance enter from an underground walkway, and confront the people by the barrels. Playact as part of the movement ("wake up!"), or else prepare to run.


• If you played like you were part of the movement, be drafted into helping cart the black water barrels to the new safe-house, where it's apparent the black water's being used to recreate the womb walls of the former Remembrance headquarters. Or you might be tasked with chasing after one of your fellows who failed their acting chops.


• If you failed to play along with the Remembrance, run, run, as fast as you can, and try not to get lost in the warren of paths. Or end up meeting a Rodent Of Unusual Size, which may or may not be wearing a paper crown.


• Find a way back to the orphanage with whatever spoils of the day you managed to keep your hands on. Share information. The Remembrance is rebuilding, just as weird womb wally as before.

Comments

licyn mansbane

[bravelyrunsaway]

Choose your starting poison, and I'll write us the lead in:

1. His nose catching the scent of lamp oil, or cooking oil. Breaking and entering an abandoned house.


2. Finding a way into the warehouse; he's located a window with promisingly broken boarding. Let him spot you as you stand on his shoulders to pry the board free!


3. Staring down into the dark water as the Remembrance members arrive, let's act the part.


4. Only once we see what they're up to, let's get out as soon as we can. While being continuously interrupted with gofor tasks.

[reparo]

[ Do you want to give me a starter for 1 or should I go? ]

slams in with...

[bravelyrunsaway]

( He pauses, then lifts up his hand to gesture Hermione over, jerking his chin toward the boarded up, squat dwelling to their left. )

Got a feeling on this one. Any moral objections to breaking and entering, love?

[reparo]

[She is wrapped up in the same cloak she's had since Taravast, which has worked in the past to hide her from sight and make her easy to ignore by others, as well as keep her warm; right now, she's hardly invisible in it, despite the dark, but she wishes she could be. It would make this part easier, if she had Harry's Invisibility Cloak.

She takes note of his sniffing, a little knot in her throat as she considers what that might mean overall, but he interrupts her with a question.]

I've come along with you, haven't I? [Not her first B&E, and what does this say about her? If Harry or Ron ever end up here, she'll have to tell them the experience of infiltrating Gringotts has stayed with her, and she might be a bit of a klepto-for-justice. Anyway.]

Let's be smart about it. [Her wand comes out but she hesitates.] Can I put a spell over both of us? It'll make us a little more inconspicuous. I can also undo the lock.

[bravelyrunsaway]

You'll find people change their minds all the time. Morals are somewhat negotiable.

( He gives her a long, considered look, no sign of a smile on his features. He still has no idea of his own walking-magical-energy-leaking existence on that plane, being no one who uses magic, but he does appreciate that he's felt very little skin crawling sensation down here, as opposed to up in Serthica proper. )

Which spell, what limitations, and what duration? Take the lock, no objections there.

( If she can manage that more smoothly, all the better. )

[reparo]

Desperate times shouldn't excuse bad behaviour, but...[She squints at the house number and shrugs.] These people could afford to pay taxes and chose not to, so - Alohamora.

[At least the unlocking spell is quietly whispered, even though the door opens with a creak. She glances at Licyn now, heart in her throat.

Hermione isn't evil, alright? She's not morally corrupt. She's just been taking from those who hoarded wealth, because she knew they wouldn't notice the loss. Except that creepy merchant who collected skulls, he can notice the loss, he deserved that.]

I'll stay close - if you hear anyone, give me a signal and I can put that unnoticeable spell up. It won't turn us invisible, Licyn, so do be careful.

[bravelyrunsaway]

( quirking an eyebrow, and opting against his thoughts on taxes -- he's been taxed for above the table jobs and all sorts of things despite having no permanent residence, and little applicable use of taxes outside of road maintenance.

also wildly different world contexts, but that he can guess at without needing or caring for specific details. )

How does it sound like you're singing when you breathe that spell?

( more muttered than a directed comment. it's just clear to him there's a cadence to what she says, short as it is. )

So start screaming and run once you've cast it, can do. ( dryly stated, with a sideglance, and then he's taking the lead into the house, moving remarkably quietly through the front entrance. dust is apparent along all walls and heavier in the corners; a lived in place, but not so recently, and not so long ago as to be truly abandoned. hence the lock. someone downsized? cautious? in a den of drug users and giant rodents, it makes sense.

he leads the way towards what resolves into being a long, narrow kitchen, cocking his head to the side as he regards the cabinets, then the pantry door, and another one, which smells damp. )

Time to get to opening things. Doors first or last?

( asked with a glance to his partner in crime. )

[snowcleave]

[ shall we two or three it up? ]

2 that ends up at 3?

[bravelyrunsaway]

( He squints up at the window, turning toward Xie Fei with a brow quirked up, his lips following not long after. There's no ledge, and the window is on a flat surface, boarded incompletely over but intact from what he can see. )

Think if I hold you steady on my shoulders, you can pull those last boards free? Leaves slightly less evidence of who's in or out if glass doesn't end up all over the ground.

( Also, he doesn't feel like dealing with glass. So sue him. It tends to cut up something wicked, leaves blood around, attracts attention, all things he prefers avoiding. )

[snowcleave]

Fine, I can step on you.

[ Because surely he doesn't expect her to sit on his shoulders like a child. Gripping the scabbard of her sword at the middle, she huffs out a determined breath, waiting for her foothold to present itself before she boosts herself up.

She's wobbly, but not so shaky that Fei can't get one side of her sword under the bottom board of the window, using it as a makeshift prybar to get it free. ]

[bravelyrunsaway]

Oh, please.

( Said with a hint of amusement, putting in the innuendo that he knows she's going to ignore. He's rock steady as he holds her up, hands at her ankles to reinforce her when she's prying the board off.

Another application of pressure, and it eeeks free, leaving the board dangling from one side of the window. One more yank, out it goes. )

[snowcleave]

Watch your head. [ The board comes free as she says it, the momentum making her shift side to side, momentarily caught off-kilter. Fei pitches forward, grabbing the board above the one she's wrestled free. ]

Get closer, I can fit and break it open from the other side.

[bravelyrunsaway]

( he doesn't remark so much as grunt and duck his head next to her ankle. hah! she's one big shield in a certain sense. then she's asking for him to get closer, and he eyes the wall with the distaste of a person not fond of rubbing up against strange surfaces.

and so he sighs, but shuffles closer, aiming to keep her footing steady on his shoulders. )

Close enough, or would you prefer we're both kissing stone?

[fushichou]

[pikachu, I choose you 3 going into 4 or however the spirit moves us

also can start if you want me to, I'm flexible, sticks leggy out, etc]

3 and 4 mix giving us...

[bravelyrunsaway]

( Licyn grimaces, nudging against Izumi's side as the Remembrance members direct them to help along with the rest in moving the barrels. There's a trap door down into a cellar that leads out again, and the heavy containers need to be rolled and lowered into the cellar, before they can be further taken away to...

... the searing base, which is not something he looks forward to.

He smiles anyway, expression otherwise flat. )

What I would have given for any of these to be nothing but pure vegetable oil.

( To be something other than this dark water, this black water, this nonsense of horror that spawned the last room with its womb-walls and the sack dolls that were its what, creation? )

Imagine all the fun ways you can use that much cooking oil.

[fushichou]

[Honestly, either they have the best luck or the worst, because how can looking for simple lamp oil land them directly into this town's Big Bad?

...Are they the Big Bad? They're something. Specifics aren't important.

But Kanesada just helps roll this current barrel where directed, not even glancing at Licyn. This is their new job and they need to do it well. Not because they actually want to join these lunatics, but the two of them have eyes. It's just simple espionage. Information-gathering.]

Man...you could fry so much food.

[...Crap, now he's hungry.]

[bravelyrunsaway]

( the town's Big Crazy, and stormstruck luck it is to be here now. Licyn stares down the line and into the trap door, and the consuming dark below. one light flickers in its glass: ironically, that at least does run on oil. )

Fry dough, fry bread, fry chicken... fry chicken skins...

( hungry is a great place to be imagining things which are edible, but a terrible place to be abandoned in. the duo in front of them roll their barrel forward, ropes tied on so the lowering can begin. )

[fushichou]

[This was a mistake. He could go for literally anything right now and Licyn isn't helping.

Of course, Kanesada kind of started it. Oops.]

I haven't had good rice in so long. Or hot pot.

[BIG SIGH. But they still have a job to do, so he stops talking long enough to help get their current barrel lowered into the hole.

With that single light, it's hard to see how many barrels they've collected, but he can make out more than a couple.]

Okay! Time for another, yeah?

[Or at least time to pretend to get it and actually get the hell out of town.]

Wrathion!

[blackscales]

Searching abandoned warehouses may not seem, on paper, like Wrathion's style exactly -- but he's gone looking for things in enemy infested buildings enough times in his life. Lamp oil is not usually the goal -- more likely artefacts, evidence, or strange rituals to disrupt. Still, it is at least something to do.

"Tread softly," he murmurs, "I've heard rumours Remembrance is setting up a base in this area. It wouldn't do to surprise them before we're ready."

He was, admittedly, expecting them to be a little more well hidden than they turn out to be.

[fushichou]

Scavenging for scraps or other commodities isn't exactly Kanesada's thing, either, but he knows that in order to survive this world - or any world, really - one has to be adaptable. Would he rather be practicing his swordsmanship or drinking or taking a nap? Absolutely. But this ragtag group in which he's found himself won't necessarily benefit from that. He can be a team player! He's good at working in a team!

So searching for lamp oil, it is. After all, he could be doing way worse things. This will be easy! He nods at his companion's words and nudges open a door of an abandoned building, peering inside at the darkness. "Yeah, well. If we end up just stumbling upon them, then I can't say I'm exactly scared of 'em."

[blackscales]

"Fear isn't the concern," Wrathion offers mildly. "I simply wouldn't want to fall upon their new nest only to startle them out of it. We need to know what they're doing."

He flips a dagger into his hand, scanning the room, then after any lack of initial movement pads in softly. He moves across to a sheet covering some containers and lifts it, begins tapping the barrels to check for any that might contain their prize.

[fushichou]

After Wrathion moves in, Kanesada closes the door behind them, so as not to make it obvious that they're breaking and entering. You know. Just in case. "Okay, fair point." If what he's gathered about this Remembrance movement is correct, then the fact that they've been found out once already but haven't been scared off their own mission means they're liable to be a thorn in anyone else's side. Which also means they really do believe in...whatever it is they believe in. Wonderful.

But in the meantime, they're not here to uncover some wacky cult or whatever, just find some oil to make their lives a little easier. But where would old oil be hiding in a place like this... It's got to be in a solid container, or else that stuff will ooze out all over the place. He moves past Wrathion to some shelves and carefully pokes around for any boxes or buckets that look promising.

[bravelyrunsaway]

"You think they're suffering a chronic lack of lamp oil too?"

It's a murmured response, Licyn quietly moving around to one of the first barrels. A quick glance over determines a nasty gash in the side makes the lingering scent its only prize, and he shifts toward the next one. Raps his knuckles on the side to listen, hearing a thickness behind it heavier than air.

[blackscales]

"They might be causing the shortage, for all we know."

Wrathion prowls the room thoughtfully, uneasy as he inspects the barrels. Everything here has left him with the unpleasant taste of failure in his mouth. The dragons are dead, he doesn't know how to fix it. The people are mannequins, and he doesn't understand the exact pattern of what lead to it. Most of the original citizens are already likely dead. He raps his knuckles against the side of a barrel, frowning as it sounds mostly empty but digging out a knife to check it all the same.

[bravelyrunsaway]

"Burning the oil in an otherwise lightless room every day, they might. Though we did wreck the last one, didn't we?"

Licyn had booked it before that was much of an issue, because unlike half their companions, he prioritises his continued life higher than his curiosity. Of wrecking through a room he just entered.

He moves to the next barrel down, rapping his knuckles and hearing no particular echo: cocking his head, he examines the top, looking to pry it up. Strange how the scent is more whiskey, but not strong enough to be current, so why not smell like the oil?

He has the lid cracked as he hears the dull thump of wood hitting wood, shifting his stance and lifting his gaze to look into the deeper darkness.

"Someone's here."