revenance_rpg | What's this, what's this?

Wash rolled his eyes. That bat could be counted on to do several things consistently, and begging for treats was definitely on the list. "Fang..."

Hearing his name, Fang gulped down the treat, squeaked his thanks, and flapped over to land on Wash's head instead. Hi, person! Your friend gave me a treat! He's really nice!

Wash gave a short sigh and passed a cookie down to Melody, who had been waiting patiently. "I think we're good," he said, heading back to the door and pushing it open. "Guess it's up the stairs, then. Left or right?"

"It's alright, Wash. I don't mind sharing." He had more than enough, and could easily pick up more if they encountered any more nightmares.

He followed them out into the hallway, looking in either direction, although he could also have been shaking his head to try and wake himself up a bit as well.

"How about left?" he suggested, not daring to point in the direction. Something told him he might have gotten it wrong if he did.

Neither of the directions seemed to be better than the other, as far as Nepeta could tell. Nor did she really have much a preference one way or the other as far as direction went. They both got them up to the next floor and that was all that really as far as she was concerned.

"Left it is!"

True, it was entirely likely that there were going to be Nightmares somewhere, but Nepeta bounded off towards the left-hand set of stairs without so much as the slightest bit of concern. If Nightmares showed up, she'd deal with them then and not before.

Of course, that was right when Nightmares showed up. On the stairs.

"Of course." Wash rolled his eyes, pulling the rifle off his back and sighting the Nightmare furthest away from Nepeta in one fluid motion. He didn't know how she fought yet, or if she could - better to give her a bit of leeway until she reacted. He took the shot, sending a Nightmare plant falling to pieces as Fang and Melody both charged into the fray, intent on helping.

There would be nightmares. He should have expected this. Well, he'd just have to do his best.

Cactus and Winnie charged on ahead, Winnie taking out one of the sheep and Cactus swinging his tail around wildly. He was going to hang back when he felt Theta stir in his head. The AI recognized it was a combat situation, and that he'd half to help.

North sent a thought of encouragement to the AI, and backed up a bit onto the other stairs, taking aim through his rifle. At a distance like this, a clean hit was a given.

Oh, Nepeta most certainly could fight. Her bat was the first to launch itself into the battle proper. but Nepeta followed shortly thereafter, claws drawn and ready.

No one could really say that her method of combat was anything well defined. However, it was also both surprisingly effective and remarkably efficient. It also made her look a little bit like a troll-shaped whirlwind of claws, but it was certainly making a dent in the Nightmares.

Edited 2013-04-06 22:01 (UTC)

Wash paused for a moment, blinking at Nepeta's fighting style. She was part cat, part person, part death hurricane, and at the moment he was extremely happy he had a ranged weapon. Fang at least had the sense to stay above the battle and out of range, and Melody kept to the outskirts of the fight. Wash shook off his surprise and aimed at another Nightmare on the outskirts of the fight, firing twice and taking it out.

It didn't take long for the last of the Nightmares to be destroyed. After a quick visual sweep, Wash shrugged and started up the stairs behind Nepeta, picking up dream pieces and munny as he went. "That went fast."

North blinked. He'd only managed to get a few shots in before Nepeta went to work. Needless to say, he was pretty impressed.

"Yeah, guess we showed them," he said. He was quietly thankful though, since he wasn't sure how effective he and Theta would have been in the long run, not to mention it saved him some ammo.

There's a split-second's worth of pause, and then Nepeta puts her claws away as if nothing out of the ordinary had ever happened in the first place.

"They haven't efur been really hard," Nepeta answered with a shrug. "Not after Sgrub."

Part of Wash wanted to ask what exactly Sgrub was and get an answer with some detail this time; part of him didn't want to know. There were more urgent matters at hand, he told himself. Instead, he reached the top of the stairs, headed to the left, and pushed the door open.

This is a stark white room, very lightly furnished: a long white table in the middle of the room, a wardrobe against the far wall, and curtains in the window. The table is littered with papers, crayons, and a single book. What brings the spark of personality to this room is the makeshift decor. The walls are covered in brightly colored crayon drawings depicting, for the most part, people. Those familiar with the mansion might recognize some of the drawings: a blond boy and a redhead man eating ice cream at the top of a clock tower; three friends sitting on an oddly shaped palm tree; a boy, a duck, and a dog all ready for adventure. There are, however, a slew of new pictures as well: three figures in brightly colored armor; a boy in a bright green hoodie; two alicorns, one blue and one white. Look closely - you may find yourself or other familiar faces among them.

"This is different," North had to comment. If he wasn't able to look out and see the stairs they'd just come up, he could have sworn they were in a different building altogether. There was no real way to connect the two rooms, as far as he was concerned.

He walked around the room, looking at the pictures curiously, trying to put it all together in his mind.

Very much different, but not a bad sort of different. The light was a little brighter than Nepeta would have liked, but it wasn't a bad room. As a matter of fact, the pictures strewn around the place made it feel almost like home already. Honestly, if she hadn't seen them step through the door, she would have expected there to be some manner of shenanigans afoot.

"It is. But I don't think it's bad eifur."

It gave Wash the creeps.

He'd spent enough time with Namine, looked at enough of her art, to be able to recognize her pictures. Everything in here looked like she'd drawn it, and she had said she'd spent time in the mansion - this had likely been her room. That all checked out.

What didn't make sense was the pictures of people that weren't from Namine's world. He recognized a picture of himself, North, and York - one he hadn't seen her draw. There was one of Celestia and Luna. There was one of that kid, Emizel. There was one of Bolin. There was one of Ziva. Interspersed with pictures of the people Namine would likely have known during her time in the mansion were pictures of people from here - people Namine couldn't have known at the time.

"I don't like it," he said. "Something's off." He looked over at Nepeta. "Leave the crayons here. You can get new ones from the Moogles." He wasn't susceptible and he didn't believe in horror stories. He was just being cautious. They were in an abandoned mansion with inexplicable artwork in a dream world where magic was commonplace - it was a completely justified reaction.

North had to agree. The pictures were odd, and the fact that this room wasn't like any other part of the mansion was disconcerting. Still.

"Do you think there's a connection between the crayons and these drawings?" It was possible, but then, the crayons had been in a different room. And even then, it wasn't as if the drawings were possessed, right? They hadn't done anything, except be strange pictures on the wall.

For her part, Nepeta wasn't at certain there was a need to be concerned about the crayons. Sure, the drawing might have been new - or appeared as if they were new - but that didn't mean anything. The world was already dreaming and what was to say it couldn't dream new pictures of the people who had set foot in it?

Besides, they were only crayons, and not even Sgrub had made those cause alarm. Nor were the paintings any great problem.

"They might be? But I don't see why we should worry just beclaws of of some drawings."

"Because we don't know," Wash replied tersely, "and that's exactly the point. This whole place is weird, there could be magic here that we don't know about, and I'd rather not fuck with it. Leave the damned crayons here."

North didn't like where this was going. He was familiar enough with that tone of voice that he knew if he didn't step in, a fight would break out and that would be the last thing they needed.

"Wash, relax. They're just crayons. We already moved them out of one room and so far nothing out of the ordinary's happened." It was weird how nightmare attacks counted as ordinary all of a sudden. "Still, Nepeta, you might want to leave them here just in case. I'll get you some new ones from the moogles."

He wasn't sure how old Nepeta was, and if such a compromise would work, but it was the best he could come up with. Something told him they'd want to get out of this mansion soon, and fast.

Old enough to be able to deal without compromises. She was still pretty sure that Wash was overreacting to the whole thing, but she wasn't about to step in on someone else's attempts at moirallegiance. Or at least, something close to the same. It was a little hard to tell from only one instance.

"I don't really need them," she answered with a shrug, as she pulled the crayons back out and set them on the table. "But thanks for offurring anyway."

She still had plenty of chalk, and she that was really easier to work with anyway. (She did, however, make a mental note to figure out just why Wash was so absolutely terrified of a few simple drawings; something that would have to wait until later.)

The crayons glowed with a golden light and a chime sounded from somewhere within the mansion.

Wash's eyes widened and he whirled abruptly to face the door, gun in hand. When nothing happened in the next few seconds, he relaxed but kept the gun out. "What the hell," he demanded flatly, turning back to glance at North, then Nepeta and the crayons.

Which were still faintly glowing.

Wait.

"Was that supposed to be a good thing?"

"Thanks Nepeta," North replied. Though, the fact that the crayons started glowing came as a bit of a surprise, and he looked up when he heard the chime.

It was new to say the least.

"Well, we haven't been attacked by nightmares yet, and the roof and walls haven't started collapsing, so maybe it was."

Whatever happened, there was an excuse to leave the room.

"We should probably go check it out. I think the chime came from the other side of the mansion."

"Of course it was," Nepeta answered. "Haven't you two efur played FLARP?"

Sure, she hadn't been allowed to play the more extreme variants, but that didn't mean she was unaware of how things worked. Besides there was always something to indicate that you'd done something right in videogames, and even if this was a dream, she supposed it wasn't too much of a surprise to find things were similar here.

There was a short pause as Wash tried to figure out what the actual fuck Nepeta was talking about and failed.

"No," he replied flatly, mind already on other things. So putting the crayons back had been a good thing, and something - maybe the mansion itself, maybe something else entirely, who even knew - was showing its approval. But why? All they'd done was put something back where it belonged.

Wait a minute.

"Stay here," he said, heading towards the door. "I'm going to go test something."

FLARPing was definitely a new one on North. Vaguely he guessed it was similar to LARP, but he'd never engaged the hobby in either case so he couldn't be sure. He would have questioned further had Wash not started to leave.

"No way," he said, following quickly behind Wash. "The last thing we need to do is get separated in a place like this."

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