2019-12-08 - Adventure Time!

Look, it's not easy to get real gas masks in a small coastal town, especially when you can't throw money at the problem because you don't have that much extra money. Kevin is making do with one of those super-intense painter's mask, which is going to suck, but it's the best he could do. He's also prepared for other situations, because while he was never a Boy Scout, he's a GM, and only GMs know how twisted things can get. He's got a backpack stuffed with a coil of rope, door wedges instead of iron spikes, two flashlights with extra batteries, a bag of marbles, packed food, a box of matches, a lighter, and a score of other things that he will never need. He pulls his glasses off to wipe condensation off them, slips them back on, and then looks over to Byron, "Okay, that's just creepy as hell, man. Seriously, what girl did you charm and dump so hard she started a cult?" He looks around to tunnel entrances, then adds, "Also, seriously crazy dungeon design. If this is from an adventure book, they're just there to be scary and awesome. It'd be nice to think there's an off switch somewhere though. That's real good dungeon design."

Something about going into the sewers to get at this goddamn ring again has Lilith kind of on edge. It came to her smelling like the sewers on the outside, which now, she's remembering, but she's not sure if it's because Jack was hiding or because he got it there to begin with after another family member pitched off with it, so on. But thank goodness for gas masks. Not that things are about to be pleasant. She's sweating and resisting the urge to peel out of her leather jacket and while she should be paying attention to the different screwy directions to make a decision and managing her nerves, the Byron effigies and shrine are kind of flipping her out. Is she going to have to punch a Veil creature?

Jesus, Lilith, focus. She has a backpack on to keep her hands free and inside it is a plastic treasure chest box for some reason, with her gun. She also stuffed it with whatever miscellany the nerd planners put in there to keep their hands free.

Isabella can explain things to the group all she wants, but once they are actually through the Veil and in this HOT cavern, Byron wishes that he'd gone for something short-sleeved instead. He's dressed in an Under Armour shirt in a dark blue, long sleeved, with a pair of camouflage cargo pants and heavy boots. So he's not overly dressed, but with this heat, he almost feels like that melted piece of-- what? It's odd to find a shrine to oneself in a place like this. Or, at first, that's what Byron thinks it is. A shrine to him. The image on display looks so much like him, brandishing one of his trademark winning smiles. But... different. More surreal.

UNLIKE KEVIN, Byron can afford an actual gas mask and does provide one to a few of those within their party. Standing just off to the side of said shrine, his eyes narrow, "Do I even want to know?" No, he probably does not. When Kevin mentions how creepy it is, he mutters, "You're telling me."

James just... stands there with the rest of the group. Out of all of them, he's likely the one that's had the least exposure to this level of crazy, and so, despite convincing himself to join in on this because his old D&D friends asked him to, and because it'd make good material for his book, he's still more than a little bemused by the whole situation. His eyes flick around- to that Too Tall Ceiling. To the Heart of Grossness. To the pictures of Byron But Creepy. And to the Tunnel of Oh God It Burns It Burns So Much. ".... I want to be very clear on this, so I'm going to enunciate: ... the ACTUAL fuck?", he finally gets out. His preparations mostly consisted of a backpack full of snacks and weed and a flask of whiskey. So, I guess he's the bard. He's wearing a gas mask because Byron probably took pity on him, and he's unhappy about the fact because it's real damn hard to smoke a joint through one of those things and he could really use one right about now. He's in his usual outfit, zip up hoodie, jeans, sneakers, and a t-shirt underneath that reads 'Ours is not to question why, ours is but to roll and die', with a d20 showing a 1. He may regret that shirt choice later. He's tied the hoodie around his waist in deference to the heat.

Tobin's got a backpack thrown over one shoulder with some supplies in it as well, including a swiss army knife, some rope, duct tape, a towel, rubber gloves and tongs. Listen. If there's something he doesn't wanna touch, he's not touching it. He can't help but chuckle a little bit at Kevin's comment about the cult, looking at the creepy photos with an arched eyebrow, then glancing at Byron. He has a painter's mask of his own, rather than a real gas mask, but well, it was Kevin's idea and it seemed like a good one. He's got on boots made for wading, old jeans, a shirt he's not attached to, and a jacket he's even less attached to, probably planning on burning it all after this trip.

"I know I've said this like ten," or twenty, "times by now, but I really hate the Other Side." Magnolia is trodding behind the group, decisively taking up the rear in case she has to open a doorway out -- something she's pretty sure she can do, but hasn't exactly tried enough to be sure, and so it's a deep pocket trick. Unlike Kevin, Magnolia scored a gas mask from a couple of friends in the Gray Harbor PD -- okay, one friend. He has owed Magnolia a favor since she was sixteen. She listens to Kevin prattle on about the creep-factor, but the detective is turning slowly around to look around the chamber as if she's hunting out other details beyond the obvious draw of the altar. The Byron Thorne Memorial Altar. "He's popular, guys. Stop being so surprised. Even the Weirdo Monsters like him. Didn't you get goblins in Bayside?"

"Don't worry, James, you get used to it." Kevin's cool lasts all of half a second, his eyes super-wide behind his glasses, "That's a lie. You totally don't get used to it. I'm very quietly freaking out over here." Okay, so it's not very quietly. He leans over the edge of the shrine, then shakes his head at the image, "Pretty good picture. I'm tooooootally going to ignore the jar of suspicious liquid over there." He double-snap-points over at Magnolia at her mention of hating the Other Side, "Yuuuuuup. Creeptastic." That's not even counting the rolling vial, which he's too busy looking at the obvious traps to consider, "So. In the absence of a big red button," he hasn't seen it yet, "who's going to do the Galaxy Quest thing and time the flame spurts?"

"Got it," Tobin says to Kevin when he asks about the flame spurts, but then he adds. "Do you mean, that big red button?" He points past the flames toward the other end where there is, in fact, a big red button. "I mean, I'm generally suspicious of conveniently placed big red buttons.. but I'm willing to give it a go and see what happens, or at least see what's over there." He glances around at the others, waiting to see what they think about it.

James has in fact been watching the flames, because they are the most obviously threatening thing here and it doesn't take him long at all to figure out the pattern. The problem with the pattern, though, is that if you miss even one step, there's that pesky 'consumed by flames' thing. And so he looks around for another way, because that is some bullshit right there, let me tell you, his scrawny ass isn't going to do the macarena dance with the dang fire, oh hell no he- Ooh. "Ooh!", he says, and points to the big red button just as Tobin points it out. "I vote someone pushes the big red button.", he says. "And also, I dunno, check for traps or something because, I mean, it's pretty obviously trapped, right?"

Lilith sighs noisily into her mask at Magnolia's lack of surprise over Byron's fan club from the other side, and she figures, yes, she might have to punch a veil creature one day while side-eyeing the dark-haired man again. She also eyes the teddy bear and the vial, though, for a beat, then looks along the hallway with vague squint through all the heat, informing James, "I can hadoken now. There's a lot of force and it explodes, so keep that in mind before you go running up on anything, killer." Yes. She's saying that to James. What a smart ass jerk, he's clearly not accustomed to this. But she really can hadoken and she says it with love. Whether he believes her or not is to be determined. Actually, now that she mentions it, the force of a fireball might make it through all that flame gout and push a button without burning up as junk might with TK. Maybe not, but it's better than watching Kevin run a flame gauntlet, since he's saying it.

"... I don't know if force fire will do the pushing, but I can try in case anything thrown and aimed just burns up. Better than watching one of you try to be Indiana Jones. No big loss if it doesn't work."

Byron tries his best to ignore the pictures of someone or something that resembled him, but he can't help but look at that smile and the near perfection of-- okay, he diverts his attention away now, his eyes catching sight of that bottle strangely rolling across the floor. Dark eyes look at it then lift to Isabella, wondering if she's about to reach down and scoop the thing up. Curious thing that. But they seem to have bigger things to deal with and that's getting pass this first stage... or so he's thinking of it as such. Everyone's attention is focused on that button. Looking around, he has to ask, "Any pushers want to try?" He's talking physicalists. Otherwise, we throw something at it.

"I vote pushing the button," Isabella says, voice muffled by the mask, because she's been here the entire time.

But someone else is going to have to do it because she's somewhere at the back of the party, and oggling the labyrinth with wide green-gold eyes, because her Indiana Jones dreams are coming true - and it could also be the Prozac she had to ingest so she could step through the Door without losing her moxie. Academia is a far cry from the movies, it's mostly a lot of reading, a lot of libraries and digging through paper. Now, she gets to live it. Unfortunately, she's not the party leader. She lets Magnolia or Kevin do the honors at Byron's prompting.

Magnolia snorts a breath -- a very tired breath -- at Kevin. "Galaxy Quest? Really? Here I was, about to ask where the R.O.U.S.'s are." Fire Swamp. Get it? Then she pivots slightly toward the mention of the button, and she squints at it while her mouth tightens into a firm line. "This is so stupid, I can't even tell you how much." Then she sighs out a hard breath, and glances toward Byron at the suggestion. "It's my quest," she says with a slight hint of exasperation, "I'm pretty sure I need to go climb up there and push the button." She does look toward Byron. "It's so cute that you think that will work, but... really." She looks back up at the button. "Alright, someone tell me how to get up there?"

James side-eyes Lilith. "Standard Fireball rules, then, got it.", he deadpans, because sure, at this point, his childhood friend being a Wizard in real life is just par for the course. As Lilith offers to hadouken the button and Byron's asking for drugs or something, he puts up his hands. "I got nothing for this one, sorry." And then Magnolia's offering to go in there. "Err, how good at you at DDR?"

Kevin shakes his head at Magnolia, pointing out in turn, "Mashers, choppers, acid, I bet there's bottomless pits too. Clearly Galaxy Quest, not Princess Bride." He pauses, "No matter how cool Princess Bride would be." When Magnolia offers herself up, Kevin shakes his head, "It's all of our quest. But I was there at the start too. You tried with the pond, I'll try pushing this one with TK." Because he's totally going to call it TK. Looking around the group, he sweats and adds, "Unless anyone else has a better plan than me trying to push it from here?" With Glimmer, clearly. "Because I think Hadoken-ing something that might be delicate might be a bad idea."

"Pretty sure they mean... using something and throwing it." Lilith tells Mags, then gestures to Kevin and nods a couple of times, voice muffled, "I could shoot it too, I have a gun."

Calm down, Lilith, these are probably not great ideas, but she's trying to be helpful. It's just that her brain is wired a wee bit destructive.

But Kevin's spoken up about his intent to try, which sends her combing around the immediate area looking at the floor to make sure they aren't going to fall into lava sharks or something when the button is pushed. Then she takes to looking at the walls for gaps where axes might come out like in the other hallway while the man sets up.

Byron suggested that someone use their TK to push the button, so he won't object. But he will say as a warning, "We don't know what will happen once that button is pressed. So everyone, keep alert." A look is given to Lilith first, a cautious look, before he looks at the faces of the others. "Either this works and something good comes of it OR it's a trap. Just be ready to stop whatever it is that gets set off, if that's the case." He, himself, has no such abilities that could assist in that...

"I mean, I can see what the pattern of the fire is. One of us could get through it, and get over to the button," Tobin fofers, but then Kevin is stepping up to give it a shot with the TK, and he falls back a little bit to watch and see what happens. In fact, he gets a little away from the mouth of the tunnel, just in case. Byron seems to have the right idea.

Oh god, it's hot in here. Isabella moves back from the flames, her arms coming up in an instinctive, defensive posture, a garbled shout escaping her. Beads of sweat pebble her skin, pooling around her collarbones whenever that's over, and she's panting a little bit - it's so hot, too hot, in here. But she attempts to wipe her eyes with the back of her hand and digs out her flashlight, just in case. Like the rest, she's got a very small pack full of gear. "Alright, we should probably make a break for it before anything else happens." And much like her secret hero, Leeroy Jenkins, she bulls into the cleared path to see where it leads.

"What's DDR?" Magnolia blinks at James. "'Do not... Resurrect?'" She knows her audience. She probably would have clued into that pushing the button was goal if she wasn't on edge, feeling the chill of the Veil push around her despite the heat of the flame-accented cavern. She breathes in a breath, holding it as she waits for Kevin to push the button. At Byron's suggestion to stay alert, the woman shifts slightly in her stance, beginning to look around to catch the first reaction that may suggest this was a terrible, awful, no good idea. She glances over to Tobin, and she gives a little smile that can only be seen in her blue eyes thanks to the mask. -- and then Kevin pushes the button. The heat overwhelms, and she's crouching down slightly because, well, heat rises... she's already closer to the ground. Maybe this will work for her! When the fire dies away, she looks up, glances around her, and then then urges people on, "Time to move! Do as Izzy tells you!" She's racing after Isabella now, showing she's small but fast.

Isabella may be vial-happy, but Lilith picks up the teddy bear of all things when she finishes her combing search and wanders close to Byron again. Then she freezes to watch Kevin do the glimmer-push of the button with force, reeling back with a 'woah' of noise when all the heat flares up and goes and goes and goes and... then stops when they start to decide maybe they should go the horribly toxic way. But then all the heat drops off and Isabella is off, and Lilith contains the urge to chase, grab, and slingshot the woman into a wall when she takes off. But she does call, like a total mother hen out of the blue instead of promoting destruction, "Isabella be-- oh hell." Mags is off too and Lilith looks at Byron with eyes that say, "I know, behind you." Lilith can be good sometimes. Especially when it comes to being set on fire instead of setting fires.

Kevin walks over toward the flares of flame, looking at them warily and worriedly. "Dance Dance Revolution," he eyerolls at Magnolia, looking back to James with a shrug. But hey, he's not going to let Lia do all the dangerous stuff, right? He licks his lips, eying the flame bursts and feeling the heat wash over his face. The sweat pouring down his forehead is partially from that heat, and partially from the effort of concentration. After a moment of gathering his power, he points a finger sharply toward the button, an emphatic gesture that gets... oh thank god, it depressed. The voice causes Kevin to widen his eyes, "Oh shit..." and then... "OH SHIT!" He staggers back as the flames roar higher, falling onto his ass and then scrambling back to his feet as he backs away from the flame, "Well, um... I guess that wasn't such a good idea." But he still waits it out, one hand up to shield his face from the heat and the brightness. Then the heat dims, and he brightens up, "Hey, it worked! Wait!" He sighs and lumbers after Isabella and Magnolia, his pack heavy on his back, "Leeeeeeroy... Jenkins."

Tobin is suddenly very glad that he was standing back away from the mouth of the tunnel when the seemingly unending gouts of flame coming shooting out of everywhere. "Oh god," he gasps as it suddenly becomes even more stupidly hot than before, sweat dripping from his temples. He wipes at his forehead with his sleeve. "Okay so that was a bad idea," but then it stops, and Isabella is taking off down the tunnel and he blinks, "Uh.. okay." He kind of liked the tunnel better when the flames were at predictable intervals rather than a surprise mega-roasting. He moves to follow after Isabella and Magnolia, "Please don't turn back on, please don't turn back on, please don't.." he mutters under his breath.

You can't help but to hold your breath when waiting in anticipation of what will happen once the button is pressed and Byron is doing just that. The results, however, are not what he'd hope for. It was already sweltering and the push of the button made things worse. His hair damp (and not with pomade or anything today), he runs his fingers through it, slicking it back up and away from his face the way he tends to often style it.

Then the geysers shut off. Ever the cautious sort, he'll wait for a moment. What if they just turned back on once they tried to cross? They'll never know until they do right? It doesn't take long after the first person decides to book it, that Byron will follow suit, turning to look behind him at Lilith with the teddy bear and giving her this lifted brow look. No questions asked for now, all he's thinking about is that they get through before the thing turns back on.

Well now you've gone and made James all sweaty, and no one here needed that, really, so, I hope you feel good about yourself, dungeon designer. "OK, that didn't go according to plan.", he mutters, wincing as he takes several steps away from I Really Shouldn't Have Had Those Tacos Tunnel. Also, his other childhood friend just pulled a Yu Yu Hakusho on the button and that takes about 3 minutes to process, which is convenient because that's how long it takes for the flames to go down. "Yeah, that's definitely a trap-", he starts to say (to be fair, he thinks everything is a trap), before Isabella just makes a run for it in there. And Magnolia's saying to follow suit. And then Isabella does it. "Ah, fuck." And now he's doing it too.

Now that everyone's safe through the tunnel, Isabella looks back to see whether everyone else has made it. Glancing from the left tunnel and the right tunnel, points to the one with the pool of water. "Both the tunnels are the same size - there's something...a physical presence in the other tunnel, but the pool's low enough to wade through. I say we go that way unless people object."

"I think if we're going that way, we should toss something into the water first to make sure nothing is going to grab our ankles." Lilith suggests after cussing and getting out of her jacket with a hurry up on Byron's heels at the last moment before all that flame gouts to chase them to a new impasse. She's also still clutching the teddy bear she commandeered for some reason and while people are deciding, she takes a moment to shove it and her jacket into her backpack to get down to her layered long-sleeve henley shirt beneath. And she almost pushes up the sleeves with reflex from residually sweating, then cautiously stops and pulls them down over her wrists and hands instead with fidget.

It's like a stampede through a minefield, but luckily for them, no one was caught in the geyser directly. Seeing the others taking up the back, he'll wait to assist in the case that any of them needs to be pulled forward, but Byron's more than relieved when that turns out not to be the case. "You alright?" He asks Lilith first, before his eyes flicker to Magnolia and Tobin. Realizing that they are confronted by this fork in the road, the pool actually did look like the most inviting of the passageways, but who knows how deep-- Isabella seems to have that figured out. "Good. After what we just went through, I don't mind a taking the time to cool down some."

Before he even steps foot in either direction, however, he attempts to mentally scan the area for any presence, emotions. Other minds. He seems to be just as wary as Lilith is. So far, he's picked up nothing.

Tobin races through the tunnel and comes out the other side just before the WHOOOSH Of heat that leaves a bit of a scorch mark on that jacket. Good thing he wore it for just that purpose. Running both hands through his hair, he pushes damp strands back from his face and enjoys the feeling of the cool breeze, not yet removing his painter's mask though. He does not trust this whole lack of gas thing, not yet. "Do we know what lies down those tunnels from the map?"

Magnolia's heart has nearly exploded in her chest as she is crashing through the end of the sprint just as the geyers roar back to life. She grabs onto Tobin, nearly taking the man to the ground as she just latches onto something that isn't currently on fire. She holds onto him for a long moment before she wheezes out, "Dracarys." Now she looks up at the others, her blond hair wet with sweat and her skin a bit smeared with ash beneath the pink tinge. She closes her eyes as she feels the cool air hit her skin, and she hugs Tobin tighter around the shoulders before she lets him go. Now she looks at the two tunnels that lay before them, and she takes in a shaky breath. "Hmm." She takes a careful step toward one tunnel, only to back up and glance down another.

Kevin reaches the end of the tunnel, starts to turn back -- and thankfully there's Magnolia, because the flames rush higher again, and he skitter-steps back even as he reaches out for her arm. "Woah!" There's a pause as she makes the reference, and he grins at her, "Okay, that was cool, babe." Only then does he have time to look around the area, "Everyone made it?" And everyone did, "Oh good, everyone made it." Isabella's suggestion widens Kevin's eyes, "Oh nononononono..." he snap-points at Lilith, "any good gamer will tell you that you never go into the water if you can help it. Good, the things that can lurk under even really shallow water? I mean, everyone here saw Anaconda, right?" But he blinks, "Oh, wait, but you said there's something in the clear tunnel?" And then he sighs, "This is gonna suck. I hate having wet shoes."

"Um." Magnolia tilts her head as she steps back again. "Doesn't matter. I think that... either way will get us to where we want to go." She sounds a bit... uncertain. Perhaps even a little foggy. In fact, if she were an 8-Ball, there's a good chance the answer floating to the top would be: Reply Hazy, Try Again Later.

James was just almost consumed by fire, which is pretty high on the list of Terrible Ways The Old Fortune Teller Said He Would Die. This is more than a bit frazzling, and so as soon as they stop, he begins hyperventilating just a little. "That. Sucked." The moment the temperature goes down, tho? He's got his hoodie back on. Unzipped, sure, but it's on, because this dungeon has done enough messing with his #Brand. "... someone please say we can take these masks off, whatever direction we go in?", he finally says, and looks around. Just along for the ride as much as anything else, he's happy to let someone else decide which path to follow. I mean, look at him, this is not a man who has followed the correct paths in life.

It's weird what Lilith does after looking between everyone and getting a lukewarm uncertainty from a lot of directions. But one thing, is at least agreed upon-- water can be scary as Kevin pointed out, and if Isabella thinks they should go that way and Mags doesn't fully object... well. She's going to chum the waters to see if anything bites. She digs out the teddy bear and looks at one of her fingers before it splits open to bead blood. Then after swiping it across the teddy bear's neck with slight smear and a hiss behind her mask, she tosses it toward the water to see if it gets ripped apart or dissolved.

She waits until Lilith tests the water, and she flashes the young woman a thumbs-up. "Thanks, Lil," Isabella murmurs before glancing over her shoulder at the rest. "I'll go first," she tells them, ever decisive, so she drops into the pool with both feet and then proceeds to start to wade across. Her hand reaches for the gun strapped to her thigh, undoes the safety and moves.

There's a curious look given Lilith when she sacrifices a stuffed animal to test the waters, literally, to see whether it's safe. Nothing jumped out at them immediately. And as Byron sensed nothing coming from that direction, though he's not sure if he extended himself enough to actually pick up anything, he can only watch as Isabella dives on in without any further thought. "Typical.." He murmurs of the firebrand as he tends to play more cautious. He had a mind to remove his shoes, socks and everything you do before hopping into any body of water, but he might need those on the other side. So once Isabella goes through, he gives Lilith a brief look before following in turn.

Lilith takes a moment to look at the water before, oh, there goes Isabella again, and she starts to study the air in response to James' question about the mask, like she's trying to see gaseous threats on a teeny tiny molecular level. Then she just kind of shrugs because Byron's moving and she's not sure she wants to risk removing it yet in case they run into more problems. Lilith may be a bit of a wildcard and destructive little bint, but she's been hurt enough to stay behind his lead and not charge ahead. It's really also not worth the exasperated sighs and potential lectures later. She also picks up the teddy bear out of the water and looks at the door once her booted feet have sloshed through to the other side, looking for a handle or slide bar for the door if it's set in stone, "... okay. Who wants to try to open that." For some reason she looks at Kevin, teddy bear dangling from her hand.

James sees no one else taking off their masks, and he sighs. "Worst. Dungeon. Ever.", he growls under his breath, but trudges along behind the others, sighing in resignation as his sneakers get soaked.

"I don't think -- !" But it's too late. There goes Isabella, and Magnolia just drops her face into her hands with a low sigh. Now she starts wandering forward toward the water-laden tunnel, and she just follows after Byron without worrying about her Converse sneakers or the thin polkadot socks she's wearing with them. "Well, at least we know it's mostly safe." Mostly. She sloshes through, getting her jeans wet as she does, and ends up with the others at the door. She crosses her arms slightly as her chest before she glances at Kevin. "What's the term? Kick down the door?"

Kevin watches the blood-daubed teddy bear go flying, grimacing a little warily as if he expects it to turn into shreds of fluff. It doesn't, and he looks around, then sighs and nods, "Okay... maybe that was the trap." He looks up toward the roof of the tunnel, narrowing his eyes, "Metagaming GM." But he leaves that alone, heading toward the water behind a couple others, toward the middle of the group. He stops briefly, however, grabbing a big Bingo pen from one pocket of his cargo pants and making a giant arrow pointing back the way they came from on the wall. "Okay. Here we go. Who knows how to check a door for traps? I looked it up on Youtube, but there weren't any useful videos. So I'm definitely not the Rogue. I can TK the lock, but I can't do anything about traps." His sneakers squish as he points at Magnolia, "Nope, nope, nope. Definitely not playing Munchkin. I don't want any Squidzilla or Plutonium Dragon coming after us."

Tobin follows along with Magnolia and gives her shoulder a gentle squeeze as she lets out that exasperated sigh. Then he follows along behind her, taking up the rear and glancing behind them every so often, just in case something decides to come up behind them. "I watched a video on how to break into all kinds of doors but not how to check them for traps. Did you know that the primary manufacturer for those keypad things you use to get into doors use the same key for all of them. As long as you have the key you can pop the open and use a relay to pop open the doors." Not useful, Tobin, but it's a random bit of trivia and he shares it anyway.

She glances over her shoulder at the rest, Isabella leaning over to squint at the door, lips pursing in thought. She hears everyone in the background, and Kevin mentioning traps - considering where they are, these are probably very sound assessments to consider. "Well, you know what they say, guys," she says as she reaches out to grab the knob. "No guts..."

And then she'll attempt to turn the knob, because it makes sense to try that first, at least, and if it's unlocked, she'll push it slowly inwards.

If not, they can deal with it, then.

Lilith is conflicted because something is tossing in the direction of Byron and she's not sure if he's the target or not, everything is happening real fast. But what she does know is that Tobin is getting charged by a mother-effing gingerbread man and cookies burn, so on reflex, it's the thing she lashes out on first with shimmer of heat collected to fire in hand for a toss and explode. It lands behind where the cookie-attacker was just a split second before, though and she hisses behind her mask before running with dart to where Tobin is.

Kevin is right there behind Isabella when she opens the door, "Woah!" And then the door shows the inside of a log cabin, and he echoes James, "Worst dungeon ever! This doesn't even fit the narrative!" But there they are, and here come a bunch of fruitcakes and... a gingerbread man with an axe and, "Oh! Oh! There it is!" He points at the glowing not-a-gumdrop-button. Bringing up both hands with two-finger finger-guns, he focuses and blasts a nicely-lace-covered ottoman across the room at one of the trundling fruitcakes. It's a glancing blow, but he shifts around to bring the furniture around again, bouncing it off the thing's 'head' again, "Damn it!" More explosions, "Shit!" More explosions, and he drops the ottoman and then reaches out with both hands, just blasting the 'poor little' fruitcake up into the ceiling. It falls down and doesn't come back up again.

Why is she getting charged by two homicidal fruitcakes. Isabella's expression is utterly indescribable, because she's always tried to avoid sugar as much as possible, and now this log cabin (WTF?) is crawling with monsters that have been made with it. And while she loves Christmas in that wholehearted, truly unapologetic way, she does not love fruitcake. "Oh no. No." And since they're not really alive (??), she attempts to pick one up and tear its leg off. It doesn't quite work. And then she gets pelted by cherry bombs and shrapnel, blown back and her back hitting the wall.

"Oh, god," she groans. "If I get killed by a fruitcake, the actual Explorers Club will never-- " And the last cherry bomb does it. She's reduced to a pitiful heap against the wall.

"Oh, fork me," Magnolia breathes out suddenly as they go tumbling into grandma's cabin. She whips her head toward the Gingerbread Man, and she points at him. With that pointing finger comes a flare of Glimmer as she flares with light and throws a slam of force into the axe-wielding Gingerbread. She helps Tobin make that terrible monster explode, and then she turns her attention to the fruitcakes, and she growls. "What shit is this!" She makes quick work of those terrible Christmas loaves, and then starts to turn around to try to make sure there's no other killer bakes. "Where's Mary Berry! You all have shitty crumb!"

Joke's on you, Gingerbread Man, James is a ginger, has no soul to stare into. But then everything is happening all at once, and look, James isn't a battle-hardened veteran, he's not a fighter, and when fruitcakes tossing cherry bombs at them and people start zapping and stabbing and shooting and whatever and he just half-panics, instinctively flipping off the fruitcake that tosses one at him, distracting it while he dodges out of the way of that first bomb. "Haha! Missed me, you cliched piece of tired comedic holiday tropes!", he shouts at it- just in time to get knocked on his ass as he's hit right in the chest with the next cherry bomb. "Owowowfuck!", he shouts, while the members of the party that are actually useful in some way clean up. Heroism at its finest. "Fuckowowow!"

Tobin follows the group in through the door and pauses at the disconcerting sudden difference of their location to where they were. Damn, it smells like Christmas. But then there's a giant Gingerbread man coming at him with an axe, and Tobin immediately brings both hands up in front of him in a way that looks like he might be making a grab for the axe. What happens next, though, is that forked lightning shoots out of his hands into the abdomen of the giant cookie monster and giving it another baking of the electrical kind.

Unfortunately, that doesn't stop him from getting clocked in the head with that axe, which knocks him to the ground. Fortunately, with Lilith's assistance, he manages to get back to his feet just in time to help zap the other bomb wielding meanies. He gives her a quick, but somewhat glassy-eyed smile. Ow. That smarted. There's probably a concussion. "Thanks, Lil." Yeah, he's going to sit right back down now, here, on the floor, that's only somewhat moving beneath him. Is that a star on the tree? Maybe stars around his head, or little birdies twittering. His fingers still jolt with electricity a few times.

Once that door swings open and the group is confronted by an army of fruitcakes led by a gingerbread man with an axe, Byron gives a side long glance to the others. No, this is not surprising at all. It could be worse! Were these the cultists? Was there even mention of cultists? And where did these guys come from, holiday sweets living down in the sewer or wherever this is? So many questions, no time to get any answers. Instead, it's an all out slaughter fest up in here, with Byron needing to close the distance between himself and those deadly cherry bombs being lobbed his way. For giant stale cakes with fruit in it, they move remarkably fast and perhaps its this denseness that absorbs the electricity that he tases them with, all the while being caught in some bit of cherry pitted shrapnel along the way.

Early on, he catches sight of Tobin being downed by one of those guys, but in the heat of combat, it's hard to make out who is where. Like usual! He gets a good quick exchanges in against his fruitcake of choice until Lilith joins into the fray to help seal the deal.

Lilith brought that teddy bear as a tactic and sacrifice and prop and... okay, she might be mildly offended about the Byron shrine and looting it with a whole lot of 'mine' unwittingly. But it's dropped when the fireball lashes out as Tobin is charged, then she's bouncing from his side to place hand at his chest with adrenaline spark speeding up the body to rouse him when he goes down, but gets the cookiemonster down too with Mags. She'd like to linger, of course, but as soon as he's able and moving, she's on the move again too, darting to where Byron is in viewing to see exactly which cake is trying to give him the fruity explosive business. Then she cuts it straight through in slash as others zap and set into it.

But maybe she should have been paying attention to where Isabella was surrounded, because after making survey from behind the restrictions of her mask, she spins just in time to see the other brunette hit the wall. Immediately, as things explode and fall to inaction, she's over rousing with both hands on the other woman's cheeks, the same jolt of acceleration from within hitting like an adrenaline needle, "... Izzy. Isabella. Be ready to move." She knows it's going to hurt, but she hasn't had a split second to survey what comes next. But... maybe that's a good thing. Lilith touched the shit out of that gem once and there was so much deadly and dangerous fallout.

"What in the hell was that?" Kevin may have been cool(ish) during the fight, despite all of the expletives and yelps, but now that it's over, he's staring at the mess wide-eyed, "Those were fruitcakes! Or am I going fruitcakes?" He laughs at Magnolia's joke, and there's a little bit of hysteria to the laughter, "Mary Berry. Hah! That's great, Lia. Holy shit, did you see the lightning, god, Tobin, that was awesome. And who the hell did that fireball, that was dope as hell. Holy shit we just killed a bunch of fruitcakes and a gingerbread man, and where'd that..." His eyes widen, "Tobin, Isabella, James, are you guys okay? Wait, where's the gem, who's got the box?" Now he's just babbling.

Her cheeks slapped, the pain and the shot of adrenaline Lilith provides is enough to rouse her from that sinking, pain-filled haze. Isabella's green-gold eyes fix on the familiar near-violets of Lilith Winslow. "I hate fruitcake," she tells her, before she attempts to push herself off the ground, using her heels and the wall against her back as leverage. She's fine with pain, though - it helps her focus, even when her teeth grinds together at the effort. She's not about to drag her group down.

"Gem's under the tree. We need a box to put it in." There's a pause, and she glances over at Lilith again, meeting her eyes. "...the box from the parade?" she wonders, remembering what the young woman received as a present from Santa.

When the dust clears, Byron's standing in a pile of delectable fruit that just combusted before his very eyes. He could assume that it was his doing, but looking back at Lilith, he knows where the assist came from. The crackle of electricity from his hands slowly begin to fade, surveying the damage laid out. A look is shot over at Tobin, when he asks, "You okay?" He didn't look okay a few moments ago, but not Isabella was downed as well. Making his way over there to crouch down beside her just as Lilith goes to assist in that matter too, "Izzy.." He murmurs.

Then everyone's talking about the box and that's when his eyes finally take notice of the gemstone. "I believe we brought both. One held the jewel in it the first time, the other..." He remembers the tests they ran on it when they'd gotten back home, "Is a lot more durable. I'd say use that."

James sits up slowly, groaning, holding a hand to his chest. "... ah fuck my t-shirt.", he says, and he no longer cares about whether the air is safe or not because his t-shirt is blasted to shreds and there's scorch marks and concussive bruises on the pale, scrawny chest beneath those t-shirt threads. He takes off his damn gas mask and with the natural grace and speed of a lifelong toker, within seconds there's a lit joint dangling from his lips. He inhales deeply, giving Kevin a shaky thumbs-up when he asks if he's ok. He slowly lets it out, sighing and waiting for the buzz to start hitting. He then looks around, watching the others start to gather their bearings as well.

"Don't touch it!" Magnolia's words are gasped as she spots something glittering under the tree. "I'll get it," she says toward the others, and she starts to un-shoulder her backpack. Every hero needs a backpack. "I have the box," she tells Lilith -- the one from the pawnshop. She glances over toward the others as she tugs out the box from the insides of the back. An extra pair of socks rolls out.

Tobin is sitting on the ground, with his head in his hands, though bending over forward is a bad idea, and he turns a fantastic shade of green -- kind of like that time Lilith showed that picture of her hand on the phone. He straightens a little and says, "No, I am.. definitely not okay," to Byron. "That.. hurt like fuck. That.. still hurts like fuck." Then he looks over at Kevin and says, "Yeah.. I.. there's things I should tell you.. later.. when we're not in the middle of all this." He doesn't even notice the gem at first, until Magnolia starts moving in that direction, then he watches her go over toward it.

Kevin returns James's thumbs-up, "Good good. First time's the worst." It's not. He nods to Isabella, "Let's use the better bo -- " Magnolia's headed for the gem, and then Kevin yelps as she's hip-checked by an ambulatory chest that wasn't there before, "Oh shit! HEY! You mimic asshole!" He starts forward, rushing toward Magnolia, "That's our goddamn gem to return to The Collector! So cough it up!" Beat pause, "Literally!"

Magnolia slams into the wall, and stars explode in her eyes. She's staggered, grabbing onto the edge of the wall, trying to haul herself up just before she turns her angry gaze on the mimic. "Spit it up, or I'm ripping it out of you," the blonde snarls. "I'm delivering that gem to the Collector." Even if she can't exactly see straight. The box from her backpack has clattered open to the floor, yawning wide and eager to take the gem it once held.

Tobin raises a hand and says, "Guys? Why can't we just deliver the mimic to The Collector with gem inside? It's conveniently in a box.."

"Actually guys... we should just take the whole box." Lilith suggests after she has Isabella up and focused enough to bitch, casting an a-ok hand gesture at Byron afterwards since she can't smile with a mask on. Then Mags is suddenly flying and she stares at the mimic chest as if trying to figure out how to disable it mechanically into a closed and still position.

Byron's concerned look earns him a tight smile, though she does attempt to make it as reassuring as possible. "It's just a flesh wound....multiple flesh wounds...maybe a cracked rib...it's fine! I have the soup at home. You guys okay?" Oh god. But Isabella seems to be in good spirits because the gem is here and they're actually prepared to store it. "Tobin? Everybody? I-- "

And then the Mimic appears and she nearly falls back against the wall again. "Holy sh-!" But it hurts to even say that much in an octave higher than normal, so she ends up nearly doubling over, groaning out loud. "Fuck me." As Magnolia attempts to grab the Mimic... "Just take the entire thing to-- " And Tobin and Lilith beat her to it. "....yeah. Maybe muzzle the damn thing first before stuffing it into the sack."

James blinks as the mimic suddenly appears, talks, hipchecks Magnolia, and eats the gem. He blinks again, and looks at his joint. ".... damn." And then Tobin's making his suggestion, and he perks up. He lifts a finger, about to voice his agreement, but by then everyone else is already on the same wavelenght, so he settles back down and has another drag of his joint while they handle it. "Go team, and such."

Okay, Byron was not expecting to see an actual Mimi-- Of course, he probably expecting something like this. Kevin and Magnolia may have mentioned it before. Look, he's only seen them in gamebooks and stuff. It's almost mesmerizing... Okay, he saw a severed pair of feet with mouths for toes and a disembodied eyeball, this Mimic's got nothing on that.

It comes out of nowhere though, hip-checking Magnolia out of the way like a Mimic does. "Right. I mean, was this the guy you all were talking about earlier? Can't he, it, just deliver the jewel to the Collector." But after having heard so much about the Collector even Byron is curious as to what this Veil being looks like.

"Oh," Tobin says. "Well, that's easier." Remember those tongs he brought with him. He pulls those out of his bag and offers them to whoever wants to pick up that bag, looking at it a little bit dubiously. "Here, you might want to use these." He isn't getting up, not yet, not until they're ready to leave. Because really, he took a good crack to the skull and the world is still a bit spinny.

Magnolia's eyes widen a moment, and then she takes a breath as she feels some of the anger in her dissipate. She glances around at the others before she straightens up and steps cautiously toward the monster chest. "Thank you -- Happy to be... of service." She very carefully reaches out, grabbing the cords of the velvet bag to scoot it toward her despite the dizziness in her head. She's pretty sure the floor is currently tilted.

"Language!" Kevin chastises the mimic, as if he hadn't just been cursing himself. But it's a chastisement that comes naturally to him, of course. Tobin offers the tongs, and Magnolia reaches out for the bag, and he takes the tongs and offers them out to Magnolia, "Here. That looks slobbery." His other hand reaches out to offer her a hand up, "Um... thanks, Mimic-mini-boss? You know, you could have just told us instead of running Lia over."

Sometimes, someone would DM a mimic or she'd see them in video games, but Lilith seeing a talking chest is just plain fascinating to her, apparently. When she spoke of disabling it earlier, it wasn't even in that fight-and-burn kind of way she usually has, she mostly seems to be kind of mentally dissecting it like it's a 'thing' and she likes 'things' and their anatomy much more than she likes healing or plant or people anatomy. Things have always fascinated her and a good chunk of the people here know she was notorious for taking things apart as a kid just because. Eventually, though, she blinks and looks at what's coughed up, the tongs produced, then the door, "... whoever is bravest, grab it fast because... when we're offered a door on this side, I think it's best to take it."

"We should probably take a look at what's in that before we take it back to the other side," Isabella says, swallowing a groan. "Because I remember the last time a thing went from here, to there, and a lot of people died, and apparently the Gem was from our side, which made its way here, and now it's all twisted up....I think we should at least take a peek before we end up transporting a portable Apocalypse through our current way to salvation?"

James takes one more drag from his joint as he watches all this- and when an agreement is reached with Mr. Mimic over there instead of another brawl, he smiles. "... heck yeah, man. That's what I'm talking about." And then he slowly gets back to his feet, wincing a bit at the pain on his chest. He turns to look and listen to Lilith. "Don't have to tell me twice.", he says, and starts making his way towards the door- tho he doesn't go through yet. Not going first. Nope.

Lilith was also so preoccupied with chest-thing being a real life mimic that she didn't see Mags do the nabbing, just the tongs.

Watching the Mimic curse them out for distrusting it, Byron has no beef in any of this, letting the hungry treasure chest take the cursed thing away. What it hacks out like a cat throwing up a furball, however, gets another wary look. Probably if it weren't covered in Mimic saliva, Byron might have just grabbed it, him-- Looks like Magnolia is braving that Mimic saliva. Good for her!

"If we're doing this, let's do this fast before the door shuts on us." He tells the others about Isabella's advice to take a look at what's in the bag before they go transporting Gohl's bones or something similar to the cursed jewel out of the Veil.

Magnolia looks around at all the people handing her tongs. "Lark handed me a dead frog yesterday," she says blankly at the others. "And then asked me to hold onto it for her while she went to go retrieve her marble from the gutter. You think I'm afraid of some chest slobber?" Now she sort of leans to one side to look at the fruitcakes, and then back to the mimic. In a very motherly voice, Magnolia replies with, "Oh yes, that was really well done. In the spirit of things. You did a very goo-- okay, then." Then she's walking along with the others to she can step out with the others.

When she finds out what their reward is... oh, she's going to be so forking mist.

Kevin looks at the tongs, over at Magnolia, then shrugs, offering them back to Tobin, "I thought they were a good idea. I still pick up Lark's used hankies by the corner she didn't blow her nose into." And then something snags on his brain, "What... you put the fruitcakes in here? What the... you built this place? Couldn't you have just slobbered up the gem yourself then? What the hell, man?" But they're already headed back through the door out of the Veil (thank goodness), and so Kevin is left ranting over his shoulder. He might see some humor in their reward. Or he might rage just as bad as Magnolia. That all depends on whether or not James is sharing that weed.