2020-01-18 - Impressing the Zorkian Authorities
After being trapped by a startled unicorn and descending down a well by various means, a trio of Dreamers earn the wrath of the Zorkian Authorities who close the brook on them. Dahlia's knowledge of fairy tales earns her a title and regains their interest, leaving the trio to navigate a maze toward their redemption and eventual exit.
IC Date: 2020-01-18
OOC Date: 2019-09-17
Location: Dreams
Related Scenes: None
Plot: None
Scene Number: 3642
In the waking world, it's a chilly winter night, wind whipping against windows and stirring up the fallen snow which hasn't yet had a chance to melt. The Dreamers feel none of that cold when they come to, finding themselves standing in a wide meadow with a pleasantly babbling stream nearby, to the east. A well-traveled path follows along beside the stream, though it might be the majestic unicorn grazing on the other side which more readily catches their attention. The horned horse does not seem to have noticed them yet. It certainly pays them no mind, more interested in its meal.
James blinks around himself slowly, taking in the meadow, the stream, and the- "... oh shit it's a goddamn unicorn that's not good. That's never good.", he mutters, taking several steps away from the general direction of the unicorn, and towards that path. As he does, he glances around to see if he's alone or if there's any potential virgins about he can place between himself and the horn-wielding monster over there.
Carter had been on break, sitting in his car with a cup of coffee, doing some paperwork while on a late night patrol. He must have nodded off, because he finds himself in a meadow, with a stream, and that's pretty pleasant. It's the unicorn that surprises him, but only a little. Things in dreams aren't that surprising, even when they're surreal, because they belong, don't they? It's James' voice though, that startles him a little and he glances over at him. "Why is a unicorn a bad thing?" he asks, not quite understanding. "It seems peaceful enough."
Dahlia remembered watching TV while working on a sewing project. She had to have dozed off because, well, this certainly wasn't Declan's house....their house. She sat up a bit and looked around with a furrowed brow. A meadow...wait. Was that a unicorn?! Dahlia did a double take as she pushed herself to her feet. "The fuck?" She looked over at the sound of someone else. Eyes landing on Carter. She'd never seen him before. "Uh, who're you?" And why was he in her dream? Cause, this was definitely a dream right? Dahlia paused and then shuddered a bit. Unless it was a Dream.
The motion, the words stir the unicorn from its placid lunching, eyes of glittering gold and immense intensity flicking toward the Dreamers. With an irritated chuff and an annoyed shake of its mane, it does away with them, great walls of sand rising up around the trio until the meadow and the stream are blotted out entirely. A crack in the wall nearest to Carter shows not the unicorn on the other side, but a continuation of that divide stretching out onto rocky ground, leading east toward where the stream had been just a moment ago.
A sound rises from at their feet, a distant splash, like a coin thrown down a deep well. A hole in the middle of the grass--had that been there before?--looks down into darkness, a faint glint of water well below. A whisper rises from the darkness, almost tangible, like the (potentially unsettling) memory of being caressed in a dream.
"... are you kidding me? It's a nigh-indestructible magical creature of nearly unlimited magical potency and unknowable motivations with a thing for virgins.", James quips back as he notices Carter and Dahlia, still making sure he's keeping a solid distance between himself and the unicorn. "Creeps me out, man." Seems like the unicorn did not appreciate James' assessment of its character, as suddenly there's sand rising and the meadow and stream and magic horny horse all disappear and now the stream is gone and there's a... "...well?", he murmurs, staring dubiously at the hole on the ground. "Anyone feeling like making a wish?"
"Well, if it's got a thing for virgins, I'm safe," Carter quips back with a crooked little smirk. "Besides, if its motivations are unknowable, what says they're malicious?" He is mid-pondering this when Dahlia asks who he is and he says, "Carter Reid." He moves to offer her a hand to shake but just then the sand rises up and blows them back and away from the stream, the unicorn, and the meadow, and he blinks in surprise. "Okay, note to self, don't irritate the unicorn." He glances down at the well, leaning over to look down into it, and pulls out a quarter from his pocket. He turns it over in his hand, considering, and then flicks it into the well, watching it fall. Did he make a wish? Only he knows.
When the random walls of sand started rising, Dahlia instinctively yelped. This is also when she noticed James! Because her player hadn't scrolled up far enough. She skirted a bit closer to the other two - as she would rather not deal with this nightmare, weird, roller coaster of whatever alone. She looked down the hole, then back to James and Carter. "Not it." She deadpans. More than happy to let Carter take that chance. "Dahlia." She offers.
The quarter falls, splashing down with that same distant note... and, again, that weird whisper that can be felt at the back of their necks, the back of their minds, rises up from the darkness a couple seconds later. Carter might notice that the coin is still in his hand.
"James.", the short ginger beardo murmurs back at Carter and Dahlia, and blinks as Carter lets loose with a monetary depth charge on the weird whispering hole. He tenses, taking a step back, just in case it's about to explode or disgorge hordes of goblins or something else. As nothing more happens other than that soft spooky susurrus, he tilts his head. "OK, normally I assume voices in my head are just my brain being broken, but this is weird enough that I gotta ask- anyone else hear that?"
Carter tilts his head a little bit as he feels that whispering again, that faint memory of a caress, and it's not altogether unpleasant in its strangeness. It's then that he notices that the coin is still in his hand, and he turns it over again, curiously studying it. "Mhmn," he says to James, "I can hear it.. well.. feel it. It's not saying anything specific that I can tell." He considers, for a moment, and then he tosses the coin in again, to see, perhaps, if it returns to his hand a second time. This time, there is definitely no wish associated with the toss. He just watches it descend.
Dahlia looked over her shoulder at the whisper and then back to James. "Yeah I heard that." She agreed. "So, way I see it - two options. Break through the sand wall...or just down the well? Third option...sit here and wait for something else to happen." Dahlia didn't seem a fan of that option because she moved to examine the crack in the wall and the area outside of it.
Again, the coin falls, splashes, and sends back that sussurant touch which tugs at some far-off memory. Again, the coin returns to Carter's fingers, not the least bit damp despite its audible collision with the water below.
Glancing over her shoulder, Dahlia catches a glimpse of something glimmering. Should she take another look, she might note the large diamond embedded in the sandy wall, only catching the light from certain angles.
James sighs. "I don't like any of those options, really- but generally I'm not a fan of mysterious things that whisper into my brain. How would we break through the sand wall tho?", he murmurs to Dahlia, and then looks to Carter as he tosses that coin again. "... deja vu."
Carter glances over at Dahlia curiously as she lays out options, "Not sure why those are our only options." He grins a little when the coin returns to his hand once more, not at all wet from its trip down the well. "But it doesn't seem that what goes down the well stays there, nor does it actually get wet." Instead, he wanders over to the crack in the wall that shows the rocky expanse beyond and he starts digging at the sand around the crack, seeing if he can actually widen the space at all.
"I dunno but-" The glimmer catches Dahlia's eye and she moves closer to it. "Oh hey, look at this." She motions to the boys. "A giant diamond? If we can get it out maybe everything will crumble? Or, uh, we can use it as a shovel?" Because she also didn't want to try jumping down the well. "What are the other options?" She asks Carter as she attempts to tug at the diamond.
While James keeps relatively safe, near neither walls nor well, he can't help but wonder if he should have used a bag. For what? When? Would it help now? Is this that unbidden whisper blooming into alien thought?
As Carter digs at the crack, he finds the sand falls away easily, though the more he moves the sand, the more obvious the glow on the other side becomes.
Dahlia manages to ask, "What are--" before her words grow distant, the remaining "--our other options?" rising up from the bottom of the well. It's dark down here, but not so much so that she can't see, passages stretching out in all four cardinal directions. There doesn't seem to be any water at her feet.
James is all about staying safe. "... man, I just wish I had my bag with me.", he murmurs, distractedly, as he watches Carter dig at the wall and Dahlia reach for the diamond and then- "Oh crap! Where'd she go?", he asks, looking around when Dahlia is suddenly gone. He hears the echoes of her words coming from the well, and he rushes over to it, looking down and squinting to see if he can catch sight of her. "Hey! You down there? You ok?"
And now...Dahlia is at the bottom of a well?! With a diamond. "Yeah I'm down here!" She calls, slowly looking around and clutching the diamond to try and channel her nerves. "There's a lot of paths!...What should I do?!"
"It's a dream," Carter says. "Why limit yourself to what you see in front of you?" He continues to widen the crack a bit, curious about the glow on the other side, attempting to see what it might be, tilting his head a little, and continuing to dig a bit more when he suddenly hears Dahlia's voice grow distant, and glances over his shoulder. "Huh." He wanders over toward the well to peer down it again, "Maybe people can actually stay down there." He glances back toward where the diamond was. "Maybe it happened when she touched it?" He says, "Pick one, I guess?" He then begins to climb down the well, himself, to see if he pops back out again or if he can join her.
The earth near the edges of the hole proves unstable as James peers down into the well, his footing soon lost. The ground falls out from under him, and he drops rather suddenly... and comes to a gentle stop some distance above Dahlia. Just, ya know, floating in the hole. As one does. The second thought blooms in that panic, the number 110 flashing in his head. He knows this is the exit code.
As Dahlia focuses on channeling her nerves as she clutches the diamond... well, it works. Her anxiety drains from her, and the diamond seems just a little bit warmer in her grip.
Carter, meanwhile, has no problem finding footholds and handholds as he descends the well. The only problem he has in getting all the way to the bottom is the Floating James he meets in the middle.
"AAAAAAAAaaaaaaa-... aaa?", comes James' voice as he falls down the wall, falls, falls, and... floats? He'd closed his eyes, expecting an impact, and when he opens them, he's looking up at Carter while he floats there above Dahlia. "Uh. Mind helping me down?", he asks Carter. "I don't know how to steer this thing." He grumbles. "... just wish I had my bag." He kind of spins in place as he floats, looking down at Dahlia. "Be, uh, be right there. I think."
With her anxiety gone, Dahlia is feeling much better about this whole situation! She looks up at James screams and jumps a step back - good thing he didn't actually fall! She looks a touch sheepish. "Well, be careful guys." Then looks to the passages again. "I'm gonna just walk a few steps and see if I can see what's down here." Moving to peek down the tunnel in front of her."
Carter scoots a bit further down the well until he is kind of sharing the space with James, steadying him with one hand on his shoulder so he stops spinning around. There's not a whole lotta room for them both, which puts them in a little more than friendly proximity, for which he smiles a bit apologetically. "Sorry." He wriggles down past James and then grabs onto his ankle and pulls him down along with him as he descends. "Try to grab onto the wall to keep from spinning," he suggests. It's like he has a James-shaped balloon that he's tugging down into the darkness of the well as he approaches Dahlia. "Do you have a light?" He's too busy climbing and holding onto James to fish around in his pockets, so he's not even sure if he does.
James has his bag. He's always had his bag, hasn't he? It's strapped over one shoulder and drooping below him while he floats. Embossed on the front is the word ~ SCEPTER ~, indicating the intended contents. It might even be in the bag. The scepter, he knows, is necessary in order to open the "good" passage.
Which is probably not the passage Dahlia picks. She's only a few steps into the darkness when she spies a suspicious figure leaning against the wall not too much deeper into that gloom. He, too, has a large bag, from which he seems to have just recently plucked a gleaming silver chalice covered in intricate engravings. His appraisal of his treasure interrupted, he drops the cup with a hollow clatter and lunges at Dahlia with a deadly stiletto swiftly drawn and pointed her way. It's gonna be hard to maintain her cool at this rate, even with that anxiety-eating diamond in her hand.
Carter finds the ground at the bottom of the well just as Dahlia falls back desperately, and though he's able to tug James down beside him without too much trouble, he gets the feeling that nothing's going to be able to illuminate the darkness down these paths.
Dahlia screams, stumbling backwards as the mystery man lunges at her with that knife. Reflexively she throws the diamond at her attacker - hopefully at the head - while she tries to scramble back to where the men are. "Not that way! Not that way!"
The thief, clonked on the head by a rather large diamond, looks entirely confused by this turn of events and advances no farther.
"Thanks, man.", James murmurs as he's dragged down by Carter, adjusting his bag over his shoulder. As Dahlia makes to turn onto one of the passages, he blinks again. "Oh, hey, wait, not that on-" But it's too late. His feet touch the ground just as Dahlia is scrambling back after her very expensive attach on the mystery figure. "Hey, hey, hang on, wait, I think I've got this, yeah?" He looks to Carter and motions to the confused shadowy figure. "Keep an eye on that, yeah?" And then he gets to rummaging in his bag for what he hopes is a useful scepter.
Carter stumbles backward as Dahlia suddenly scrambles away from the now-beaned thief. He manages to not end up on his ass, but he does bounce off the nearby wall and winces with a grunt. "Uh, sure, yeah." He keeps an eye on the thief, putting himself between Dahlia and the guy with the stiletto. He reaches for his service weapon, but he doesn't have either his gun or his badge on him in the dream. "Sure, have a quarter, but not a gun," he mutters to himself. "Whatever you're going to do, do it before he comes to his senses," he suggests, ever so helpfully.
The thief shakes his head, trying to clear it. His gaze flits unsteadily between the trio with vicious intent, though when he gets to Carter, his eyes go wide and his hands go up. His knife clatters to the ground. "By Zork," he breathes. "I didn't think it was possible anymore. Look, man... I repent. I'm done. Out of the business for good," as he backs slowly away from the cop.
Which, really, is probably for the better as James' newly found psychic powers strike again. As soon as his fingers wrap around the handle of the scepter, he sees himself in a large room with passages to the south and west, the eastern wall nothing more than a pile of rubble. In the center, a large rock bears the engraving Y2. The last thing he hears before the vision clears is a remote, hollow voice saying very clearly, "Plugh."
Dahlia pants a bit in the aftermath of the adrenaline rush. Her brow furrowing as Carter's presence freaks the thief out "the hell..you jesus or.somethin. now?" As she pushes herself back to her feet and moves closer to James to see what's going on with the bag.
"That's right," Carter says to the thief, taking a step toward him. "And if you're not careful, I'll bop a dragon on the nose with my fist." He might be leaning into the Zork angle a little bit, but whatever buys James some time. "Go on," he says to the thief. "I'm going to pretend I didn't see you here. Just keep on movin'." He doesn't answer Dahlia right away, just waving a hand at her behind him, like, gimme a sec here.
James pulls out that scepter, his eyes going blank as he gets that vision. "... Plugh.", he murmurs, before coming back to himself. "... o-okay. Uh. Large room. Passages to the south and the west. And, like... rubble to the east? There's a rock." He looks around quickly at each of the entrances while Carter keeps the shadowy thief away from them all, trying to spot any markings on the entrances.
Maaaaaybe pretending to be Zorkian wasn't the best idea. Sure, the thief scurries off in a panic at Carter's words, but the trio get the sense that they are not only being watched by some greater power, but they are being investigated. Judged. Water rushes down one of the intersecting paths, rising up over their feet, swiftly lapping at knees. The unflooded passages to either side close, leaving them in a water-filled corridor at the bottom of a deep well. The brook closes in on them.
The Zorkian Authorities have closed the brook.
It sounds like pages slamming together. It sounds like water wooshing away. It leaves them soaked to the bone, standing in a room that might look familiar to James, so very similar to his vision, only a few of the details off. There's no large stone, no exit to the west, and it might be possible to exit through the crumbling wall to the east.
When he speaks the word, "Plugh," the world shifts further, a sapphire-encrusted bracelet clattering to the floor before them, conjured by his magic. Where the rock had been, now there is a large nest filled with golden eggs. A new path opens beside the southern corridor, heading southwest, and a staircase rises from the floor, forming before their eyes, leading up into the unknown.
Dahlia's had about enough of this. First she gets pulled into a well. Then a rando tries to stab her. NOW she's soaking wet and they're in some random other room. She eyes James and then the jewelry that he apparently conjured. "...What the hell is going on." She exhaled looking up at the staircase to see if she could spy what might be a the top.
As the stairs continue to rise, they look increasingly impossible to climb, the first step several feet off the floor and the remainder maintaining similar spacing. It might be for the best. All that Dahlia can see from here at the top of the stairs is a rather forbidding cave.
Carter glances up and around as he can feel that sudden judgment. Whups. Maybe he shouldn't have leaned into the Zork thing that hard. The rushing of the water over their feet startles him and for a moment there's a little panic as he wonders just how high that water is going to get. Then they're in the room that James described and he reaches out a hand to balance himself against a wall, a little dizzy from the sudden changes. The staircase catches his eye first, though, and he begins heading in that direction. "Okay, that looks promising. Up seems a good way to go to get out of here." Are there golden eggs? He glances at them dubiously for a moment, and then he turns back to the stairs which... continue to grow. "Or.. not." He frowns.
"Yeah, up is generally my preference when it comes to escaping from places too, but those stairs are weird. And I don't think they lead outside?", James mutters, as he bends down to pick up the bracelet, turning it over in his hands. "Maybe we should look at this stuff? Golden eggs? That ringing any bells for anyone?"
Dahlia looks for a long moment at the stairs, then the eggs...then to the boys. "Well, all I know about golden eggs is...what Jack and the Bean Stalk? Didn't he steal the goose that laid golden eggs from a giant?" Running a hand over her face. "...Is there a giant that's gonna appear somewhere? Maybe we should chance the stairs after all."
"Could be a beanstalk around to climb down if up isn't the answer, though I'm a little leery of going any deeper," Carter admits, turning away from the steps and wandering over toward the nest. He crouches down next to it and peers at the eggs, studying them. Then he reaches out and picks one up, turning it over between his hands gently, feeling how heavy it is -- if he can even pick it up at all before setting it back down in the nest.
The stairs might not be climbable or may not lead toward any discernible exit, but as Carter approaches them, he sees something underneath them, revealed by their rising. In the shadow of the massive steps, there is a platinum pyramid measuring eight inches to each side.
Perhaps it's magic like the bracelet that James picks up, the jewelry unnaturally cold beneath his touch, faintly vibrating with enchantment.
Dahlia speaks of Jack and the Beanstalk and, again, the trio sense the Zorkian Authorities watching over them. Murmurs of, "Congratulations!!" echo through the hall, down the passages, and they hear a voice declare, "All of Adventuredom gives tribute to you, Adventurer Grandmaster! To achieve the next higher rating would be a neat trick!" The whispers speak of two mazes, one with an assortment of passages leading to a vending machine where they might purchase more oil for their lamp. Oh, but they gasp! No no, they can't do that and win the game. What must they do, then?
The voices subside with that question unanswered.
But perhaps Carter has the answer. When he lifts that golden egg to weigh it, he gets the sense that it is not an egg at all. It's far too heavy for that. He can almost see through its gilded shell to a whole maze within, every passage identical to the rest. The second maze. Without the lamp-oil vending machine. Not that there seems any obvious way in.
James frowns at the bracelet in his hand, how cold it is... but decides to go ahead and put it on and see what happens, because by this point, why not. "Bling bling, baby.", he murmurs, then turns around to look at his adventuring companions- just as those weird murmurs start up again. "... the actual fuck?", he says, and looks at the other two. "Any of that make any sense to you two? More mazes?"
"Adventurer Grandmaster Dahlia," Carter intones, giving a sweeping bow to her with a grin and presents her with the golden egg. "There's an entire other maze inside this egg, your Grandness." He leaves it up to her whether or not she wants to take the egg. If not, he sets it back into the nest and goes over to examine the pyramid by the stairs. "Maybe this one has the maze with the vending machine -- not that we have a lamp."
The sudden influx of congratulatory whispers causes Dahlia to jump, startled. Looking around this way and that to try and figure out where these Zorkian Authorities might be. Higher rating? Winning the game? What kind of twisted, confusing game was this? She moves away from the stairs, closer to the eggs that Carter is examining. "Does the bracelet do anything?" She asks James, looking to the man and then towards the eggs again. "Doesn't make a lick of sense to me."
A smirk twitches her lips at Carter's address of her and she accepts the egg. "Well we obviously can't get in it like this...maybe we have to smash it? Check out the pyramid first...and then I'll break the egg. Er...try to."
The enchanted sapphire-encrusted bracelet fits perfectly upon James' wrist as if it had been made just for him. Really, it looks fabulous on him. Brings out the color of his eyes. If it actually does anything? Well, it hasn't yet. Probably.
When Carter first looks the platinum pyramid over, it seems just like a metal decoration, an expensive paperweight. But when he considers it from another angle, when the angles of the stairs reflect upon its surface just right? He can see the maze inside the egg all around him, identical pathways branching out in various directions. Dahlia might even see him there, too, within the gilded egg, though he hasn't disappeared yet from this room. Should he turn his head back, he's fully here again, no longer in the maze. He may well have found the entrance.
"It looks damn good, but that's about it. And I guess it's a little colder than expected.", James replies back to Dahlia, chuckling to himself at Carter's aping of the title the whispers gave Dahlia. Standing between the two people investigating the egg and the pyramid, he has no idea what they're seeing, but seems content enough to just kinda play with the bracelet a little while they do their investigations. On a whim, he checks his bag again, in case there's any lamps in it.
Dahlia narrows her eyes a touch. Looking past the egg - to where Carter is definitely still standing in the room. "Uh. I know you're still here...but...I can see you in the maze." She calls to Carter as she peers back at the egg. "Maybe...they're connected?" She looks to James a moment to see if anything fancy gets pulled out of the bag.
"I think the pyramid is a key to the maze," Carter says. "Maybe it's what lets us get into it? When I look at it this way... I'm inside it. If you both came over and we all looked into it with the stairs right... there. Maybe we can get in?" He holds it just so, the way that he had been holding it when he was inside the maze the last time. He doesn't take his eyes off of it this time, making sure to hold it steady in case they want to try it.
It's a very fine bag, securely attached to James, but it seems to have little else in it. Unless one counts the elaborate enamel inlays which line it, depicting a fine bracelet bearing a rather large emerald. No lamp.
And no light, either. It seems his fussing with the bracelet may have activated something as the world seems a little dimmer around his wrist, the sapphires no longer catching the light as nearby shadows deepen. It's probably nothing.
Carter finds the right angle to hold the pyramid steady, getting the sense that he could just... step forward into the maze, that they could all easily follow. Why shouldn't they be able to do so? It's a dream.
Should they proceed, they'll find themselves in the mazespace, inside the egg that Dahlia holds, all the paths visible from that bird's eye view. Which might prove immensely helpful given that here, at the center, they all look impossibly identical, even twisting off in the same directions.
James purses his lips at the inlays on the bag, comparing it to his bracelet, fiddling with it a bit more as the lights dim just so. "... huh.", he murmurs, only looking up and towards the pyramid in time to find himself dragged into the maze along with the rest of them. "... whoop. OK. That just happened. Uh. Anyone else notice the lights are dimming?" He jingles the bracelet a little, poking at it to see if he can get whatever supernatural dimmer switch is in it to go in the other direction.
As James fusses with the bracelet, the light drains further until all the facets of the sapphires seem flat. All the gathered shadow weaves itself into the jewelry, the gems now depicted in exquisite brocade. With all that darkness drawn into itself, the world around them seems brighter, the gloom lifted, the paths ahead of them clear.
"It does look fabulous on you." Dahlia agreed with James. She decided to keep hold of the egg for now, walking to where Carter was. "Worth a shot? Maybe if we're in and the egg stays with us - we can use it like a map?" She peeks back a the egg to see if there is any discernible exit from the maze to elsewhere. Once inside the maze, Dahlia looked around, then back to the egg. When James mentions the lights she looks puzzled. "Uh, looks brighter than before actually."
Examining the egg, turning it in her hand, Dahlia's able to find what looks like a possible way out on the far side of the egg, at the nine-o'clock position from their current facing. The details are impossibly tiny, but close study suggests what looks like a small chamber at the end of one of the twisting paths, a cracked window looking out into who knows where.
"Seems like that would work," Carter agrees with Dahlia and then nods to James when he mentions the changing of the light, suddenly able to see their path a little more clearer. "Well, let's give it a shot?" He then steps right into the maze with the pyramid held to allow them entry, and glances over at Dahlia to see if she can still use the egg inside to direct them.
James looks around then at the bracelet, then back around. "... huh. That was not what I was expecting.", he murmurs, then looks back at Carter and Dahlia, nodding his agreement. "Lead on, brave navigators. I'll bring up the rear. In case of minotaurs."
"I thinkkkkk....I see it." Dahlia says as she turns the egg carefully. "There's a little room with a broken window." She explains. "I'll try and lead the way." She looks around the actual options before them for leaving the maze and then back to the egg. After a few more minutes of careful deliberation and mental backtracing she starts towards the path she thinks is the correct one.
Minotaurs? There aren't any minotaurs here. Probably. Dahlia might see one sitting in a warmly lit chamber at the six-o'clock position of the egg-map, reclining in his chair before a furnace with pipes twisting into the wall. A large pile of something black, probably coal, occupies a nearby table. The furnace room also has windows--without any cracks--that look out on the world, but the floor which has been broken with heavy hooves might imply the minotaur is not always so chill as he looks at the moment.
The guardian beast doesn't seem aware of their presence as Dahlia navigates the twisting passages, guiding the group down one path after the next until they find themselves at not a doorway, open and easy to pass, but a door, their destination on the other side.
At the center of the locked door--testing the handle nets no success--there is a combination lock requiring a three digit number.
Carter lets Dahlia lead them through the passages, his pyramid held between his palms, watching where he's going and letting James keep an eye out for minotaurs, and Dahlia for them to find their path. When they reach the door, he glances at the pair of them and asks, "What now?"
James has not seen the minotaur in the egg (unless Dahlia pointed it out) which is probably a good thing. He has a thing about minotaurs. Not as much of a thing as he does about unicorns, but, really mythological creatures in general just seem to be trouble. He's more than willing to let the others lead, however, until they come to that door, and he leans in to look it over. His eyes light up as he sees the code. "Ooh. Ooh. I know this one.", he says, bouncing on the balls of his feet a few times. He points at Dahlia. "One.", he says, and sets that number. Points at Carter. "One." And again, second number is set. Then he points at himself. "Zero!", and the third number's entered- and then he takes a quick step back. Just in case that was actually the self-destruct code.
Lucky for James, Dahlia kept what she saw to herself. Primarily because she was concentrating on not getting lost! When they came to the locked door, she frowned. "Well what-" but James seemed to know exactly what to do so...she let's him. An amused little smirk crosses her lips. Though she does step back as well. "If this works I think that makes you a hero, not a zero." Dahlia chuckled. "Well. Unless it leads to a pit of lava. That's not so heroic."
It might be nice if the door just... opened. That's what doors are supposed to do, Zorkers! It does not. The code does, however, work, and the Dreamers find themselves in that small room on the other side. It's empty and dingy, with only a wall behind them where the door probably should have been. Not exactly what one hopes for upon defeating a maze and... what was it the Zorkian Authorities had said? Achieving the next higher rating?
A dingy, cracked window sets directly across from them. On the other side, they each see something different, the empty places their dreaming bodies left behind when they got transported here upon dozing off: a bed, a car, a couch.
The only other exit is that set of stairs that lead deeper into the dream. They can sense the Zorkian Authorities watching over them, approving, encouraging. They can tell that they've... earned something. Approval? Power? A new quest? It's hard to tell as there are no voices this time. Just a subtle tug toward the stairs, a hope that they continue their adventures, continue to entertain the unseen entities.
When he can see the car just there outside that cracked window, Carter makes his way over and pulls it open. "Come on," he says to them both. "I can give you both a ride home." He has no idea that they don't see what he sees. And then, without further ado, he crawls out through the window toward his patrol car.
James bites his lip. On the one hand, that looks like the way out. Oh, that couch. That beautiful couch. And more importantly, the bong that's on the coffee table in front of that couch. On the other hand, the call to adventure down those stairs. He's about to say something about maybe exploring just a little further, but then there goes Carter. "... a ride?", he starts to say, seeing no car, but Carter's gone. He blinks, then looks to Dahlia. "OK we probably don't want to take those stairs without our tank. After you?", he says, motioning to the window.
The stairs are calling but...Dahlia doesn't really want to be here anymore. Because something terrible is bound to happen the further down the rabbit hole they go. "Out the window it is." She agrees. "It was, uh, fun?" She half asks as she follows out and back to her bed! Dahlia doesn't even question it - Because she's had enough nonsense for one day.
It's as easy as that. Just slip through the window. One at a time, they all wake where they fell asleep. It might be more comforting if they didn't feel the Zorkian Authorities watching them still, judging them for picking the less interesting path, but there seems no impending brook rolling up on them for any unseen powers to close, so they're probably in the clear.
Tags: gpt2