2019-09-28 - Leaf Key - Motel California
In the Dream, Mark chose to pass through a door into an Idyllic forest containing a quaint cottage. (Directly after Motel California Fever Dream log.)
IC Date: 2019-09-28
OOC Date: 2019-07-07
Location: Idyllic Forest Cottage
Related Scenes: 2019-09-28 - Cloud Key - Motel California 2019-09-28 - Motel California (Fever Dream)
Plot: None
Scene Number: 1888
The instant everyone is through, both doors slam shut with a loud and resounding THUMP. Inside, there is no door handle, no keycard slot, no nothing, just an upright white door standing in the middle of an idyllic forest, old cottage pumping out meaty scented smoke.
<FS3> Mark rolls Grit+Apathy: Good Success (7 7 6 5 5 4 3 3 1)
Again. The Smell. Of Cooking. Meat.
Mark couldn't give a damn about a weird door in the middle of the forest slamming shut behind him. It just means Sea View really went all out on the budget for their new Forest Suite. He keeps on heading down that path towards the old cottage, wiping the underside of his nose with the back of a hand. "Fuck it. More meat for Mark."
<FS3> Mark rolls Stealth+2 (8 5 4 3 3 2 2 2) vs Listening Ears (a NPC)'s 5 (7 6 5 5 3 2 1)
<FS3> Marginal Victory for Listening Ears.
There's a hesitation of moments after Mark wanders out talking to himself. It seemed the forest was empty, but as soon as he says More meat for Mark, all animal sound in the forest utterly stills. A long few heartbeats later, the door to the cottage creaks open just a little bit, and the smell of roast meat intensifies. Dang, smells like something marbled in fat and roasted up crispy. Mm-mm carrots too.
Well if that right there isn't an invitation. Mark, my friend, you don't even fuckin' know what is.
Does Mark notice the silence? Maybe. Does Mark notice the door creeping open seemingly without outside impetus? Maybe.
Does Mark notice the smell of meat? Ab-so-fucking-lutely. His pace increases, the bottle swaying loose in the pocket of his coat being pulled out as he approaches the door, gripping the neck with a clasped fist as he reaches out to push it open that little bit more. "Ay! You got a suite with a grill? I got booze and a sparklin' personality that you're gonna love."
He doesn't enter, but he most certainly does check out what he can see of the interior. It'd be rude to just bust in, and that might cost him meat.
Inside the cottage, the floors are planked with hand-hewn, wide boards, walls hung with fragrant dry herbs and other things. A couple of shelves of drawers. A heavy handmade table takes up most of the room, lined with bowls, few chairs, cooking ingredients, large, crackly rounds of rustic bread, and a small butter bowl, a massive mortar and pestle.
A huge hearth is hung with an iron pot, and a stooped old woman, all spindly arms and gaunt features stirs that huge pot with an equally large ladle. Her clothing is layered, some looking like rags, old and well-patched, but the scarf around her hair is Prussian blue and covered in little hand-embroidered stars. She has a lean and hungry look about her.
It probably smells even better inside.
"Ma'am. I'd say I don't ask this very often, but that would be a lie."
Mark leans his head in through the door, checking above it for a quick glance for no particular reason. Okay, there is a reason. He'd been hit by things above doors in the past, and the lesson sticks deep. Crack dens are deathtraps, yo. While this place doesn't look like a crack den, old ladies know how to run shit. He's not taking any unnecessary risks.
"But I am real interested in your meat and would like to know more."
The rickety old woman turns slowly, her long grey hair mostly in a neat braid covered down her back. Wisps of hair escape to frame her face. "Oh?" She squints, as if she's a little nearsighted, or a lot. Her voice is heavily accented. Something Slavic. She speaks English, though, as is evidenced by her saying, "Are you hungry, young man? Do come in." Her voice is a little reedy with age, but it carries well enough. Her hands look strong for how thin her skin seems to be. There's some strength in her yet.
"Sit, sit. Never turn away a guest when you have more than you need." She seems to be talking to herself there. "My, you're a tall one."
She totters over to the table, pours dark liquid into a heavy clay cup, then retreats back to the hearth.
There's nothing above to fall on mark, save maybe a house spider minding his own business in a tiny web there.
Stepping inside, Mark greets the invitation with a nod, taking in the sights of the dried herbs, the handmade table, the giant rounds of bread. He looks... impressed! "Well, thank you." He even sits, sliding out the chair to take a seat, placing the bottle down on the table and gesturing towards it as he speaks. It's odd, but for a 'homeless' guy with his general attitude up to now, he's very careful not to put his elbows on the table. In fact, they tuck together in his lap as he watches her move.
"I even brought a drink. Unintentionally. Was meant for this paramedic I know, but they've remodeled the hell out of this place. You don't know what room 14 is called now, do you?"
Dark, dark eyes peer at Mark from under an uneven fall of wispy grey hair on her forehead. The woman says, "There's nothing by that name here, tall one." She ladles several scoops of stew into a smaller pot to carry it over and serve, though she's a little slow about it. It's full of onions and potatoes and richly aromatic. "You are nice young man." She misses the occasional word in English here and there.
"Will you share this drink?" She looks at him as she slowly shuffles over, stooping a little as she passes behind him to serve from his left. Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle. "How hungry you are?" She reaches over to ladle rich stew into his bowl.
<FS3> Mark rolls Alertness+2: Great Success (8 7 7 7 7 6 4 3 3)
"Well. Shit." Mark states. Pretty succinct for the guy. "They really went all out, huh? I missed the renovations. Got it done quick, too. How much you payin' a night?"
He doesn't seem to mind the speed at which she brings the pot over, sliding the bottle out of the way in her direction and giving his second nod of the evening. It sends his-out-fluffed hair bobbing back and forth, and it's accompanied with a wide, toothy grin at the sight of the delicious stew being ladled over. She's generous, that's for sure. "What's the point of a drink if you don't share it? Especially with someone servin' such delicious lookin' food."
She's got a giant fucking cleaver under her shawl. Mark isn't blind. It's the Sea View Suites. More than one occupant of the place is probably packing something.
The fact that his coat slips aside to show the Mossberg Witness Protection 870 with Bird's Head stock that hangs from a sling across his shoulder, currently dropping past his hip and pointing directly at the floor? Entirely unreleated. And unintentional. For sure. Look at his face. You can trust that face. "God, looks fantastic." Food or the knife? Up in the air.
The old woman seems to let Mark's prattle wash over her like water over smoothed creekbed stones. She ladles in two full scoops of herbed stew, thick chunks of meat plopping gently into his bowl. She's smiling when she says, "You are smart young man." He may not be young, but he's younger than she. The offer to share his liquor pleases her.
She says nothing about the firearm, merely dumps the brew out of the cups, and onto the dark wood floor, when she notices the label of the liquor. She can read! Good. She pour her cup full after putting the heavy, smaller pot down. She picks it up and swigs, belching her approval. "Yes, good. You may eat, young man, and then you may go." There's the sense this isn't always the case, particularly as something round and delightful percolates to the cop of Mark's bowl of stew.
<FS3> Mark rolls Alertness+2: Good Success (7 7 7 4 4 3 3 2 1)
<FS3> Mark rolls Grit+Apathy+2: Good Success (7 7 6 6 5 4 3 2 2 1 1)
Mark's heard of soups and food that contain eyeballs as an ingredient. Sheep's eye. Cow's eye. Goat's Eye.
The eye that floats up to the surface in his stew is distinctly and unmistakably human, which might raise concern if any of the people who abandoned him were here to see it when he scoops it, and plenty of the herbed water in to his spoon, popping it in to his mouth without a second's hesitation. She told him he could eat, and so he eats. It would be rude to shun the hospitality, after all. And not to tell a lie, he's glad he had about a quarter of that bottle when he bites in. It bursts in his mouth, a largely tasteless liquid oozing before he swallows. It's kind of like a mushroom. A little bit rubbery, and most of the flavor comes from what it's been cooked with. "And you're a very kind young lady, ma'am." He replies once the entire spoonful is swallowed, working his jaw a little and licking his lips clean.
After that? Well. It'd be rude to waste food. He goes for another spoonful. And another.
The old woman sits, her chair barely creaking. She's quite light, tall and a bit gaunt, but there's a humor in the turn of her lips, and a satisfied little mm when she tastes the stew. "Yes, yes. Very good." She eats too, more pleased as he appreciates her cuisine. Which is, as she tells him later, an old family recipe.
When he's finished, she ushers him toward the door, a hand-hewn portal with a ... keycard lock in the face. She nods. "You use a symbol. Choose wisely, young man."
She goes back to stoke the fire, adding a new log that smokes a little, a bit too wet to use it seems. Ah, no matter. The heat will dry it soon enough. There's always more to cook in these woods, always more wandering into her pot.
When he's finished, Mark looks around for something to wipe his mouth with. Whether he found something or not, he ends up using his coat sleeve. "Well, I'm real glad they passed it down." He replies to her tale of the old family recipe, pushing the chair away to stand, closing his coat as he moves from the distinctly empty bowl to give her a nod. And then another, as he remembers. "Oh, shit. Right. I got these."
Two cards come out of his back pocket, The Cudgel and The Star. He considers them for a moment, turning them over and over in his hand as she does the best he can to choose wisely.
But this is Mark. He doesn't make wise choices. He makes gut choices. He takes the Cudgel card up in his hand, places the other down on the table next to his empty bowl, and throws the old woman a quick wink that's interrupted by having to stifle down a burp that tastes remarkably of bad choices and someone named Keith. "I'll leave that one with you, Lady, 'cause you're a star."
But the blunt instrument used to harm? That one goes to the door. And uses the card on the reader.
There's raspy, though somehow girlish titter from the old woman. Aw, Mark. You have an admirer.
The keycard is inserted, and the lock flashes green. The rough-hewn wood swings open, and behind it is a room from the Sea View Suits bar area, perfectly normal (normal for the Sea View Suites, that is). When you step through, you will return to where you started this dream, perhaps passed out on a lounge chair with an empty bottle, perhaps passed out on the sidewalk outside, perhaps sitting on a curb. The forest is left behind, though the faint scent of wood smoke persists for about an hour, and world? Well.
It just seems full of possibility.
<FS3> Mark rolls Grit+Apathy (8 8 7 6 5 4 1 1 1) vs Pretty Sure You Just Ate A Human Stew (a NPC)'s 5 (7 6 5 5 4 3 3)
<FS3> Victory for Mark.
Tags: #veilflu2019