[ SESSION TWO, HASSHIN! ] [ When last we left our merry band, they wandered through the backlot of sets from "Aladdin", then skipped across Epcott's Arabian exhibit to the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ride. No, really. ] ( It's a world of laughter, a world of tears. ) ( If we end up in "It's a Small World", everybody dies. ) [ It's been one full day already riding in this submarine with only Eroles and Dru (and each other) for company, but things could be worse. There's more than enough food and the beds are comfy. How do you know this? You've been sleeping like rocks. The morning of the second day greets you with yet more water seen through the portholes, and a breakfast of bagels and juice in the 'parlor' cabin. ] ( DUFF BEER FOR ME! DUFF BEER FOR YOU! I'LL HAVE A DUFF! YOU HAVE ONE, TOO! ) ( Hey, Mitch. Drink the water! ) (Biiru!) [ Dru is presumably in the cockpit making sure you don't hit any whales or anything. Eroles is asleep in a chair. ] [ And: Go! ] * Lilith tears into her breakfast with all the enthusiasm of Bill Maher at the GOP national convention. Read: not much. * Mitch is eating slowly, but with gusto. "This place we're headed must be far out to sea..." * Anne tears into her breakfast with all the enthusiasm of someone who is hungry. Bagels. Interesting. I wouldn't have expected Cairo Lite to have had a big Jewish deli culture going on. Perhaps they are not Bagels, but a very similar delicious treat of a different name. Labels? Rumor has it that they're originally Austrian, and then spread throughout Eastern Europe...so I suppose they could have spread to the Middle East and northern Africa fairly quickly. ( They are indeed delicious, if you like that sort of thing. It's as if you stopped by the Little Mermaid version of a Big APple Bagels drive through. ) * Lilith just blinks at Mitch a few times, then shakes her head and drinks more juice. (JUICE. XD) ( Mitch is kidnapped by Hyakotons. ) (wah.) Eroles groans a bit and sits up, rubbing his head. "I don't know who the 'Jewish' are. They are called bagels, and I found them on a... trip I took. I brought back a baker with me when I returned to the city." A trip to, say, Queens? Geez, this is like a bad fantasy novel. Many things are... Or a bad drug trip. Eroles raises an eyebrow, then shrugs and pours himself a cup of juice. "I've never been to 'Queens' either. Is it anything like 'Jew'?" He takes a sip. "In any event... I'm betting you have a lot of questions." Just a couple hundred. You could say that, yes. * Lilith rubs the bridge of her nose, idly wishes for a cigarette, and nods. "Well, the Mirror will probably have more answers than I will, but..." the man takes another sip of juice and a bite of bagel. "I'll try to answer what I can." Okay. What the hellis the Mirror? Why are we here, when can we go home, and exactly how insane are all you people? With a frown in Lilith's general direction, Eroles sets down his cup. "I don't know why you're here, when you can go home, and I think insanity is a matter of perspective." He sighs. "As for what the Mirror is... there are four 'pillars', if you want to call them that. They maintain a sort of balance for the world. One of them, aspected to water, is the 'Aqua Mirror'." So... you want to find it, take out of the water, and throw everything out of balance? ( Yeah, but then we free ExDeath, and bad stuff happens! ) Eroles shakes his head. "I don't even know what physical form it takes. I've only ever encountered one other 'pillar', the Terra Gospel... and that was an entire forest grove, not a book. It's not something you could 'take'." U..huh. * Lilith shrugs. "Then why look for it if you can't do anything with the mirror?" He grins a bit and sips his juice. "That's my business. Let's just say, like, you, I have a question for it. Supposedly all the pillars contain lost wisdom and the ability to see through time and space." I have a feeling this isn't going to end well. Lookin' for something to replace those cards of yours? Oh, so you're after power. Okay. Where are we right now? Do you have a map or anything? For the first time since you met him, likely, Eroles frowns, glancing at Lilith. "Lemme give you some advice. You have to trust yourself before you can trust other people." He looks between Mitch and Anne for a minute, then sighs and stands up. "Alright. Not that I expect you'd trust me, I guess, so I'll make a goodwill gesture." I'm the only person I do trust, sweetheart. I am shocked. * Lilith smiles at Anne and gives her an air kiss. "Although I'm sure you're a lovely person." Eroles returns with a small wooden box, which he opens as he sits down. "Here. One for each of you." [ Inside are three small egg-shaped pieces of amber, resting in velvet. ] * Anne eyes the box as if it contains a live snake. * Mitch looks at them. ( One piece per box, or three pieces in each box? ) What on earth are those? Candy? ( One box, three pieces. ) ( Oh, got it. Misread. ) * Lilith scoops up one of the pieces and bounces it in her palm. * Mitch takes one and examines it. "They're very rare. Pieces of edible amber. You can keep it as a stone if you want, but the best benefit is to eat it." Benefit? Eroles shrugs. "It's different for everyone." * Lilith eyes it again, then tucks her piece down inside her shirt. "I'll stick to the bagels until I see these two eat their amber and not, you know, die." * Anne picks up piece and stares at it. "Mitch, take a bite." ... * Mitch does so, rather hesitantly. "It's always going to be like this, isn't it?" Yes. Suck it up and be the big strong man. I'm a classic girl. I was raised to believe that men take all the risks, and women sit back and laugh. * Lilith raises a glass of juice to Anne and toasts her with it. "Well spoken." * Anne waits to see if Mitch turns into a tree or something. No immediate ill effects... [ It's... a bit like a creme egg, actually. The inside is warm and tastes of maple candy; the outside is like a very mild-tasting chocolate. ] ...this is...not what I expected. Hmm, it's good. [ Eating it gives you same warm feeling that drinking hot tea or coffee does. ] * Mitch finishes it slowly, savoring the taste. * Lilith turns to Anne and waits for her to take the leap of rock candy faith. * Anne watches Mitch for a second, shrugs, and tosses the treat into her mouth. * Anne looks over a Lilith. If I happen to die, snap his neck for me. Will do. Hey, I'd probably be dying too, anyway. [ As Mitch finishes the amber, he gets all tingly for a second. And then a fully realistic image of whatever's currently on his mind appears next to his chair. ] ?! ( I filly expect this to be a nude image of Lilith or Anne. Or perhaps Eroles, if that's his taste. ) * Lilith blinks, and then her eyebrows just start to craaaaawl right up her forehead. Well. That's curious. ( You should tell us what you're thinking, Mitch. o/` ) (o/~ I want to know / What you're thinking / There are some things you can't hide o/~) ...why is there a roast chicken here? [ Not sure. It smells great, though. ] ( ...yeah, James is playing this character. I guess we should be relieved it wasn't a HAWT NAKED FILE SERVER. ) ( Very true. ) (Now, if it were Sei...) (HAWT ELF LUVLUV.) ( "Herring-chan? Exposed before everyone.. but you're supposed to be in my room! ) * Anne reaches over and pokes the chicken. [ It does not get up and squwak. It appears to be quite juicy. ] Hm. ...I was just thinking about that before it showed up. Eroles blinks. "Well, that's the most interesting result I've seen. You can summon roast chicken?" Hm. Think me up a refreshing Coke then. I...don't know. * Mitch concentrates. Think me up a pack of Camels. (...if I also gain the ability to turn chibi, Todd, someone is going to die.) ( You trying to actually summon a refreshing coke? ) (Yup. Why not?) * Mitch blinks suddenly, and slumps in his chair. "T...the colors..." [ The roast chicken distorts a bit, and turns into a can of Coke. The image flickers a bit, as if it were a staticky projection, then solidifies." ( -", +] ) * Mitch sits back up. "Kidding. ...wow, it worked." Neat. * Anne grabs the Coke, or at least attempts to. * Lilith leans back and waits to see what happens to the girl before she pops in her own amber. [ You can indeed hold the can. It feels a little cold. The ingredients and under the logo appear to be in Chinese. ] Your host hmmms thoughtfully, seemingly less bothered by this than you'd expect. "Maybe you can just summon food?" There is a pause. "That IS food in there, right?" * Anne uses it to wash down the candy. Better then food. Caffine. [ There is nothing in the can. Literally. ] Oh, you're probably not familiar with it...it's a popular sugary beverage. * Anne eyes. ".. Or rather, nothing. Curse you Vending Machine Boy, you gyped me." ...nothing? Not unless is the new Air Coke. Strange... Eroles seems pleased with that. "Sugary? Ah, sweets. I liked them better when I was younger." He peers. "Nothing inside, huh? Good thing you didn't try to eat the chicken." What... a helpful gift. * Lilith rolls her eyes. * Mitch shrugs, and concentrates again. (Money!) ( You did actually eat the amber, however, right, Anne? ) ( Yep. ) [ The can of coke clatters to the floor, however, as Anne has just turned into an owl. ] ... ... Hoot? *** Anne is now known as AnneTheOwl ...give a hoot, don't pollute? * AnneTheOwl resists the urge to peck Mitch's eyes out. ( You are indeed an owl. Which includes the inability to talk. ) * Lilith stares. That...was unusual. Holy shit! What are you trying to pull with us, submarine guy? ...I hope you can change back. Do you have any mice? * AnneTheOwl looks rather distressed. Eroles chuckles to himself. "Must be a shapeshifter. An owl, though? What a weird choice." He sips his juice. * Lilith rounds on Eroles, having now yanked her stone free of her bra and hefting it in the fist she's waving at him. (The image changes to a rather unhappy pile of rodents.) * AnneTheOwl eyes Mitch and once against resists the urge to peck his eyes out. Huh? Sorry, I didn't do that on purpose... ( There's actually only one mouse. It doesn't appear to be moving, outside of an adorable whiskertwitch. ) Eroles waves a hand at Anne distractedly, ignoring Lilith. "I'm sure if she stops panicking and thinks for a bit, she'll change back." Hoot. * AnneTheOwl is having trouble avoiding panicking, as she's an owl! Uh. There there, owl girl. * AnneTheOwl now considers pecking out Lilith's eyes. * Lilith notices the owl staring at her and scowls back. Eroles blinks. "Wow. She's really taking this kind of hard." He glances at Lilith. "No shapeshifters where you're from, I'm guessing." Nnnno. * AnneTheOwl scowls, and as she scowls, also turns back into Anne. "Hoo... I mean, what the fuck was that?" Not outside the movies or drugs, no. Nor people able to create images with their minds, nor magical artifacts. "Really? Wow. Sounds kind of dull." He glances at Mitch for a moment. "Well, at any rate, when you first take the amber things are a little... unpredictable. But in time the gifts stabilize." A little? How much time are we talking about, here? * Lilith looks suspiciously at the amber still resting in her palm. You mean I might turn into an owl again? Eroles hmms. "In general, it's... during times of deep emotional stress. So if you start to panic you may turn back into an owl." Yeah, because that'll help. Oh yes. Nothing better in times of stress then to be small and edible. The man grins. "What's the old saying? 'Fight or fly'?" * Lilith rolls her eyes. "Haw haw." (The image changes to that of a large squeakymallet.) ( I wish Lilith's player wasn't so terribly curious about what's in her hand... ) * AnneTheOwl eyes the mallet. * Mitch tries picking it up. Eroles blinks. "Apparently not just food. Hmm." [ Mitch's fingers go through the mallet slowly, as if he were dipping his hand in molasses. Eroles ahas and snaps his fingers. "Illusions!" ] ...interesting. * Lilith sighs and gives her amber one experimental lick. She cringes and awaits a transformation into a frog or a prince or something. ( She turns into Riley Finn! A Frog Prince! ) [ The outer shell tastes like a bit like mild chocolate. Nobody changes into anything else, owl or otherwise. ] ( AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! ) ( Truely a terrible curse. ) ( If Todd turns her into a potato, I'm blaming you. ) ( ...the image changes to that of a deep fryer. :9 ) * Lilith grimaces, and then sighs and decides to just go with this whack-ass universe so as to hit all the points they want and make it HOME. * Lilith slowly puts the amber in her mouth and munches away. ("Fukui-san?" "Yes, go ahead...") [ The amber tastes as described above. When the warm feeling passes, Lilith starts hovering a couple inches above her chair. ] ...nice! Oh, I turn into an owl and she gets to fly? Damn. * Lilith blinks several times. * Lilith gets a thoughtful look on her face. "Now this could have some fascinating implications for business." No more FedEx, for one. * Lilith frowns a bit and peers more closely at the people in the room. "Huh." [ The short form is this: Mitch, you have access to your Illusion attribute now. Anne can turn into the owl, and Lilith can use flight and empathy. ] * Lilith waves her hand about two inches to the side of Mitch's head, looking like she's raking her fingers through the air there. * AnneTheOwl eyes Lilith curiously. "If y'a are reading my mind, stop it. * Mitch peers quizically at the hand. "Er?" * Lilith ignores him and continues poking at the air. So, her special power is having a drug trip? *** AnneTheOwl is now known as Anne Makes sense. Eroles chuckles. "Well, then. So you all had that kind of potential." He leans back and sips his juice. "The amber is from the tree at the heart of the Terra Gospel. It has... properties to draw out the potential in people." You mean I had the.. potential to turn into an owl? What the hell does that mean? * Mitch peers at Eroles. "So, have you eaten the amber?" * Lilith leans in more closely the more she waves her hand around Mitch, looking more and more curious by the second. * Mitch looks vaguely unsettled. ( Dear god. Lilith has turned into Drusilla. Drucilla is gonna be pissed. ) ( The ponies are singing our song, Spoike. Get me a paper doll. I'm cold. ) Your host coughs. "I did. A long time ago. But... it was a slightly different type of amber." He sips his juice. * Anne thinks for a second. She turns into an owl again, and then turns back. "That's actually kind of neat. In a really freaky way." * Lilith finally breaks away from Mitch and now starts raking the air around Eroles. She looks positively enthralled. [ A tinny voice comes over through what must be some sort of loudspeaker. "Hey, you lot. We're almost to the temple. Come on up to the bridge." * Anne eyes Lilith s'more. "I think she's gone bye-bye." ( IDLE FOR A BIT. PAUSETASTIC. ) (BRB.) ( So we've got Adamitch, the amazing test subject, Anne, the great Owl Girl, and Lilith, the literal "High" girl. ) ( I can see you. All of you! Everything I put in the ground dies. THESE FLOWERS ARE ALL WRONG! Mweh heh. Drutastic. ) ( Now she's going to start calling Drucilla "Grandmother", and make vauge guest appearances as the First Evil. ) ( Dru()illa, however the hell Cham spelled it. ) ( My first action will be to appear as the Frist Evil and take over the Senate. ) ( Dear god. The one thing that does more talking then the Senate. How evil. ) (...oh, dear.) ( I can make Gore decide to run for president or not just by singing a song! ) ( Perfect! But Bush will try to stop you, unless you make Cheney into an evil, black haired warlock. ) ( Alright. BACK! ) Eroles stands up, giving Lilith a bizarre look. "Come on. You'll probably want to see this." * Anne shrugs and follows along. She's already turned into an owl, things can't get any weirder. * Lilith grins more openly and warmly than you've seen her do yet. "Sure thing." * Mitch shrugs, and follows. [ It's not a long walk to the 'bridge', which is actually a cockpit a lot like the Millenium Falcon's, complete with domed glass windshield. Dru is reclining in the pilot's chair and points forward. "There it is. The sunken temple." ] * Anne looks towards the temple. Wow. It's so... wet. [ What you see outside the window is... water. Lots of water. ANd lots of sealife. And, surprisingly, streaks of refracted sunlight; apparently this is fairly shallow by comparison. The temple itself is straight out of books about Atlantis: fallen columns and buildings around a central dome, from which an immense, thin spire leads up and out of sight. ] How.. cliched. Impressive...but yes. ( So, is one of the towers phallic-shaped so the Family Values Council can complain? ) ( Anything is phallic if you look long enough. (/proverb) ) ( What Anne said. ) ( What about the Grand Canyon? ) ( Give it time. ) ( Time will just make it deeper and wetter. ) ( There's a church in Minneapolis that actually covered their pipe organ after complaints. ) ( Not if my plans go through. Mweh-heh. ) So.. how exactly are we gonna get to this mirror thing? I mean.. you people don't have SCUBA gear, right? * Lilith ponders and looks at Anne. Can you turn into a fish? (FISH. X - no, on second thought, I don't want to die.) * Anne tries. She fails. Nope. Looks like I'm stuck as an owl. ( Funny if you'd turned into a fish and then panicked because of the lack of water, though. ) ( Hilarious. At least you'd have fresh fish for dinner. ) ( Hey, we have bagels, we need lox. ) ( "Alas, poor Anne. We knew her well. But she tastes GREAT with a little butter." ) Dru points a finger. "There's an ancient drainage system inside. I'm gonna take a type a' root that'll let me breathe water and go figure it out. We've only got enough for one. Ye might as well get some rest, as it's gonna take a while. Then... ye just have to make it through the temple and find the mirror." ( Dru got some Gillyweed from Dobby. Good for her. ) (...) So, you're going to send us untrained people through an ancient trap- filled temple? * Anne makes a mental note to have Mitch lead the way. Well, I'm not entirely untrained. Can't be any more dangerous than Hell's Kitchen at night. Don't tell me you're Indiana freaking Jones. No, but I've done contract law. Eroles chuckles. "We'll be going with you, so there's no real need to worry." He nods at Dru. "Be careful, okay? Your dad wouldn't forgive me if I let something happen to you." (Your d - oh, nooooo.) ( Angelus? ) ( .. We're all going to die. ) ( .. Angelus Drogg. Oh dear GOD. ) ( "Back in my day, we didn't even HAVE Chainsaws. Except for that one I invented, but that was more of a shotgunsaw." ) ( We gotta wrap this up. I'm barely upright. ) ( Ha! ) ( Okay. ) ("...Come get some. *ka-chakkkkrunch.* ...wait a second. Could you please hold this screwdriver?") (Okay. ^_^) * Anne eyes Eroles. "And how do we know you're not just planning to use us as bait for some big nasty kraken?" * Mitch looks. "Don't worry, we're in the entirely wrong area for a kraken." * Lilith frowns and leans in close to Eroles. No, I don't think he's lying. These are more like Leviathan waters. ( I sense hostility, Captain. ) Drusilla punches a few antique-looking knobs and then gets up, leaving the sub supposedly pilotless. Eroles glances at Anne in exaperation as he turns to go after her. "Yes, that's right. I only brought you here, fed you, helped you, gave you the amber, and am trying to help you because I want you dead, here, under the sea, in an enclosed space where it would be nigh-impossible to dispose of the bodies." I've heard dumber. Dru and Eroles are both out in the cabin at this point; his voice floats back: "If I were you, I'd get some sleep. We have a lot to do tomorrow." Feels like we just woke up. Oh well, at least the beds are comfy. * Mitch nods. * Lilith pokes a bit more at Anne's head. * Anne eyes Lilith. "Why on earth are you doing that? Are there invisible fairies around my head or something?" [ And on that amsuing image, we fade to black and draw SESSION TWO: CLOSED ]