Alpha Delt Fraternity House, UC-Sunnydale, Saturday Evening
Tara looked up at the exterior of the fraternity house with some apprehension. Over the last two months in Sunnydale, she'd done her best to steer clear of this part of campus.
But Karla was in town this weekend, and Asher wouldn't shut up about his fraternity's awesome Halloween spookfest -- and to be honest, after he'd talked long enough Tara was almost curious enough to see it for herself. They were Fandomites, after all; a bunch of half-drunk teenagers shouldn't scare them.
"You guys ready to go in?" she asked nervously, fiddling with one of the strings of beads that transformed her peasant blouse and long skirt into a gypsy costume.
Warren
"Ready as I'll ever be," Warren decided, looking up at the house with his nose wrinkled and his wings in full view. If ever there was a day for him to throw together a cheap costume at the last minute, it would probably be today.
He... hadn't been planning on doing anything for Halloween, but with a roommate as persistent as his, a makeshift toga thrown together out of a white bedsheet was apparently also what it took to shut Asher up.
"Karla?"
Karla
"Now you're dressed up as an angel," Karla muttered. She had not reprised her devil costume from last year. For obvious reasons. Like it showing her knees. She was a pirate, though not of the 'skimpy' variety. It had taken an impressive amount of time to find a costume that didn't reach mid-thigh.
"I think so," she replied to Tara's question. "It's a party, right? Not like we haven't been to a bunch of those."
Tara
"Yeah, but it's a frat party," Tara said, with a wrinkled nose. "There'll be ... bad music and people being loud. And rude. And s-sticky floors."
She turned the doorknob anyhow, letting them into a deliberately spooky parlor decked out in old furniture and possibly real cobwebs. They were alone in the room, and the noise of the party seemed muffled. "Did Asher say where to go?"
Warren
"Not really," Warren admitted, shaking his head a little. "The frat parties that he has dragged me to since coming here usually have at least someone passed out in the front hall or something. You kind of just follow the trail of fratboys until you make it to the party."
So the empty parlor was a little weird. But at least there were appropriately spooky signs on the walls, or at least on the canvas that was draped across the stairwell, saying that the stairs were out and there was a detour.
"There are signs, at least. I guess we just follow those?"
Karla
Karla wrinkled her nose a little. "This must be a well-designed spooky house," she said, looking around. "The house positively reeks of fear. Is this some kind theater frat or something?"
Tara
Tara shook her head. "No, but the party's supposed to be a big deal?" she ventured. "M-maybe it's .... built up, from a bunch of people being a little scared for years."
She walked carefully toward the hall the signs led to, ducking under a cobweb along the way. Ick. "It smells musty," she observed. "Maybe they just don't clean much."
Warren
"I probably wouldn't have let Asher talk me into this place if it had a reputation for being grungy," Warren reasoned, pulling his wings in tight and ducking under the cobweb himself. "But I have to say, this is a really convincing decorating job. Cotton spider-webs aren't usually so... webby, are they?"
Webby was a completely legitimate word for it, honest.
Edited at 2012-10-19 02:18 pm (local)
Karla
"I could have given them more convincing spiderwebs," Karla grumbled, picking the cotton out of Warren's feathers. What? She wasn't scared of a few spiders. "And--is this really what they think black widows look like?" She picked up a floppy rubber spider with a bright red hourglass on its belly and placed it on her shoulder. "The proportions are all wrong. Hmph."
Was someone taking it as a personal insult? ...Yeah.
Tara
Tara made a small noise of agreement. "Rubbery," she agreed. "But look, that one looks a little realer."
She poked at a second spider, a tarantula, with the tip of one granny boot -- then promptly yelped and jumped back when it responded by clambering onto her shoe.
Warren
Yeah, rubber spiders didn't do that. Warren hissed between his teeth and dove forward to collect the thing from her foot, picking it up by the behind and holding it out at arm's length.
"Probably somebody's pet let out as a prank," he reasoned, looking around for a... bowl or something to put the tarantula in. "Harmless, just... big."
He gave Karla a look to inform her that it would probably be kinder to Tara to not make comment on how it compared to the spiders in Kaeleer.
Karla
Hey, hey now! Arachnians were technically a kindred race! And only the most powerful were about that big. Jaenelle said the Arachnian Queen was about the size of Saetan's fist, but--yeah, that was still not something to share with Tara.
She helpfully dumped a glass bowl full of candy into a corner and gestured for Warren to put the spider on the empty spot. "We'll just keep it safe until its owner comes to claim it," she agreed, placing the bowl upside down over the tarantula after Warren set it down. "Which seems cruel, considering this little guy might get..." Blink blink.
"...Squished?"
Were they seeing that, too?
Tara
Tara wasn't, at least; she'd been distracted inspecting every inch of her skirt for any other arachnids and wishing she'd worn heavier tights. Maybe a full suit of armor. Anything, to keep the creepy-crawly legs off of her.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
Warren
"Um," Warren said, squinting as he leaned over the bowl where they'd trapped the spider. "It's fake."
Which it wasn't, a moment before, while it had been waving its hairy little legs around in his hand.
Which was... weird.
Karla
"Yup," Karla agreed, moving the bowl yet again to poke at the rubbery spider identical to the one on her shoulder, save for the lack of the painted hourglass on its belly. "I'm going to assume that's not the kind of prank a frat boy could play?"
Edited at 2012-10-19 05:43 pm (local)
Tara
"Maybe if one of them is a witch," Tara suggested, but there wasn't much belief behind it. Animating inanimate objects was not easy, and she hadn't seen any real evidence of magic use on campus.
She waved an arm down the hall. "Let's -- maybe just keep going? I'll feel better when we're by people."
Even douchey people.
The squeaking, rustling noises coming from the next room they were to enter were still almost entirely muted.
Warren
Warren didn't really hear them yet, or at least not for a few more steps as he carefully navigated yet another doorway, mindful of the fake cobwebs and what might be dwelling in them. It wasn't until he was a few feet into the room that he kind of stopped short, furrowing his brow and frowning a little.
"Does anyone else hear that?"
Last he checked, the frat house definitely didn't have a mouse problem.
Karla
"More annoying rubber things?" Karla asked, also frowning. "It...almost sounds like the kind of noise you get when you squeeze a toy, you know?"
Almost, but not quite.
"You know, how do you guys feel about taking advantage of Warren's empty room and playing a game of Scrabble or something," she said, tensing as the sounds got closer. "We can tell Asher we came, appreciated the decorations and the sound system, and it won't even be a lie..."
Tara
Tara bit her lip. "I want to," she admitted. "But -- what if something's really wrong and we could stop it? I'd just ... feel better, knowing for sure."
The last words of her sentence were almost drowned out by the VERY LOUD SQUEAKING as she opened the door and bats poured down from the ceiling.
Warren
"Bats!" In case the girls hadn't quite figured out what was fluttering around them on dozens of pairs of leathery wings. Warren was quick to spread his wings over both of the girls, doing his damnedest to keep little flapping mammals out of their faces while his heart tried to jump right out of his chest. "Okay, bats are not a usual frat house pet!"
Karla
This time, Karla did jump. She had no fear of spiders, but bats were rather creepy and they'd taken her by surprise when they'd swarmed out of the room like that. She huddled under Warren's wing and tried not to clutch at him too tightly.
"That's not a pet, it's a bloody health code violation!" she snapped, because her answer to being frightened was anger. "Now I want to find these frat boys just to sock them a good one!"
Tara
"S-s-scrabble," Tara said, swallowing hard as she ducked down with her arms locked to cover her head. "Is -- running out and spending the rest of the night playing scrabble still, uh, still an idea?"
She wasn't exactly afraid of bats, but there were so many of them and this was starting to feel deeply Wrong.
Warren
"I've been studying up on words with the letter Q in them for an occasion just like this one," Warren said, only sort of managing to not sound too terribly shaken. "I think running out and playing Scrabble for the best of the night sounds like pretty much the best idea I've heard all night."
Way better than, 'Hey, let's go to that frat party!'
Karla
"I can spend the evening honing my rant to Asher," Karla agreed, only her death grip on Warren's hand showing just how unnerved she was. Her Black Widow precognition was also going off, very 'helpfully' informing her that she Did Not Want To Be Here, but providing no reasons as to why. "Polish it up, make sure it's appropriately cutting without using too large a vocabulary...I'd hate for him to miss an insult because the word I used was too big."
So, back out the front door? Because that would be awesome about now.
Tara
"I can call Wesley," Tara mused. "He's -- good at the spooky stuff. And English, so h-he could help with the insult vocabulary."
She picked herself off the floor and turned, intending to head back toward the parlor. She got about six feet and then frowned.
"Weren't there stairs this way?"
As far as Tara could see, the hall ended on blank walls in both directions.
Warren
"They had that sheet of canvas up over it, I remember," Warren agreed, eyeing the blank wall with no small amount of trepidation, now. "And there's not exactly any way for us to have made a wrong turn, seeing as we were going straight ahead the entire time."
Right? He wasn't losing his mind, here?
"For the record, frat houses don't tend to do this at all."
So, you know, this was weird. Completely harmless so far, if startling. And weird.
Karla
"Give me a second," Karla said, finally letting go of Warren's hand. "I can step through and see what's on the other side. Maybe this is...some kind of prank?"
A really, really thorough one? One that somehow involved creating movable walls complete with paint and plaster?
She kissed Warren's cheek and gave Tara an encouraging smile. "Sit tight, you two. I'll be right back."
And with that, she passed through the wall and was gone.
Tara
"Well," Tara grumped, "that's helpful."
She glanced over to Warren. "Th-there has to be something we can do. We can, can be meth-methodological and explore and maybe --"
She was cut off by a scream from above.
"That did not sound like somebody playing a prank."
Warren
Warren's feathers were prickling behind him at the sound of that scream.
"No," he agreed, his voice dropping to something a little more quiet, "it really didn't."
It sounded a bit more like absolute terror, mixed in with sheer agony. He'd heard a few of those screams, since first coming to Fandom. He'd made a few of them himself over the years, too. It was the sort of scream that never really got easier to hear.
"Karla?" He rapped his knuckles against the wall. "Karla, now would be a great time to either tell us what's up, or to get the hell out of here."
Not-Karla
There was no response from the other side of the wall. None. Not even a muffled yell from the other side or a knock back
Tara
"I need to go after her," Tara said breathlessly, then -- before she could reconsider the plan or think about the details, or anything, really -- she pulled open the door to the next room.
And then she too was gone.
Warren
"... Tara?"
Warren stared at the empty space where Tara had been a moment before, a hallway stretching before him where he could have sworn there was a room before. He hesitated, looked back at the wall and even clawed at it, stopping a moment later when solid brick chipped away at his nails. Wherever Karla had gone, she was nowhere that he could get at. And Tara had vanished from plain sight.
There was nothing left to do, it seemed, but to follow the hallway that had been opened up to him.
[OOC: Scenario from "Fear, Itself." Preplayed with the amazing glacial-witch and not_a_parakeet Post 1 of 3.]
But Karla was in town this weekend, and Asher wouldn't shut up about his fraternity's awesome Halloween spookfest -- and to be honest, after he'd talked long enough Tara was almost curious enough to see it for herself. They were Fandomites, after all; a bunch of half-drunk teenagers shouldn't scare them.
"You guys ready to go in?" she asked nervously, fiddling with one of the strings of beads that transformed her peasant blouse and long skirt into a gypsy costume.
Warren
"Ready as I'll ever be," Warren decided, looking up at the house with his nose wrinkled and his wings in full view. If ever there was a day for him to throw together a cheap costume at the last minute, it would probably be today.
He... hadn't been planning on doing anything for Halloween, but with a roommate as persistent as his, a makeshift toga thrown together out of a white bedsheet was apparently also what it took to shut Asher up.
"Karla?"
Karla
"Now you're dressed up as an angel," Karla muttered. She had not reprised her devil costume from last year. For obvious reasons. Like it showing her knees. She was a pirate, though not of the 'skimpy' variety. It had taken an impressive amount of time to find a costume that didn't reach mid-thigh.
"I think so," she replied to Tara's question. "It's a party, right? Not like we haven't been to a bunch of those."
Tara
"Yeah, but it's a frat party," Tara said, with a wrinkled nose. "There'll be ... bad music and people being loud. And rude. And s-sticky floors."
She turned the doorknob anyhow, letting them into a deliberately spooky parlor decked out in old furniture and possibly real cobwebs. They were alone in the room, and the noise of the party seemed muffled. "Did Asher say where to go?"
Warren
"Not really," Warren admitted, shaking his head a little. "The frat parties that he has dragged me to since coming here usually have at least someone passed out in the front hall or something. You kind of just follow the trail of fratboys until you make it to the party."
So the empty parlor was a little weird. But at least there were appropriately spooky signs on the walls, or at least on the canvas that was draped across the stairwell, saying that the stairs were out and there was a detour.
"There are signs, at least. I guess we just follow those?"
Karla
Karla wrinkled her nose a little. "This must be a well-designed spooky house," she said, looking around. "The house positively reeks of fear. Is this some kind theater frat or something?"
Tara
Tara shook her head. "No, but the party's supposed to be a big deal?" she ventured. "M-maybe it's .... built up, from a bunch of people being a little scared for years."
She walked carefully toward the hall the signs led to, ducking under a cobweb along the way. Ick. "It smells musty," she observed. "Maybe they just don't clean much."
Warren
"I probably wouldn't have let Asher talk me into this place if it had a reputation for being grungy," Warren reasoned, pulling his wings in tight and ducking under the cobweb himself. "But I have to say, this is a really convincing decorating job. Cotton spider-webs aren't usually so... webby, are they?"
Webby was a completely legitimate word for it, honest.
Edited at 2012-10-19 02:18 pm (local)
Karla
"I could have given them more convincing spiderwebs," Karla grumbled, picking the cotton out of Warren's feathers. What? She wasn't scared of a few spiders. "And--is this really what they think black widows look like?" She picked up a floppy rubber spider with a bright red hourglass on its belly and placed it on her shoulder. "The proportions are all wrong. Hmph."
Was someone taking it as a personal insult? ...Yeah.
Tara
Tara made a small noise of agreement. "Rubbery," she agreed. "But look, that one looks a little realer."
She poked at a second spider, a tarantula, with the tip of one granny boot -- then promptly yelped and jumped back when it responded by clambering onto her shoe.
Warren
Yeah, rubber spiders didn't do that. Warren hissed between his teeth and dove forward to collect the thing from her foot, picking it up by the behind and holding it out at arm's length.
"Probably somebody's pet let out as a prank," he reasoned, looking around for a... bowl or something to put the tarantula in. "Harmless, just... big."
He gave Karla a look to inform her that it would probably be kinder to Tara to not make comment on how it compared to the spiders in Kaeleer.
Karla
Hey, hey now! Arachnians were technically a kindred race! And only the most powerful were about that big. Jaenelle said the Arachnian Queen was about the size of Saetan's fist, but--yeah, that was still not something to share with Tara.
She helpfully dumped a glass bowl full of candy into a corner and gestured for Warren to put the spider on the empty spot. "We'll just keep it safe until its owner comes to claim it," she agreed, placing the bowl upside down over the tarantula after Warren set it down. "Which seems cruel, considering this little guy might get..." Blink blink.
"...Squished?"
Were they seeing that, too?
Tara
Tara wasn't, at least; she'd been distracted inspecting every inch of her skirt for any other arachnids and wishing she'd worn heavier tights. Maybe a full suit of armor. Anything, to keep the creepy-crawly legs off of her.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
Warren
"Um," Warren said, squinting as he leaned over the bowl where they'd trapped the spider. "It's fake."
Which it wasn't, a moment before, while it had been waving its hairy little legs around in his hand.
Which was... weird.
Karla
"Yup," Karla agreed, moving the bowl yet again to poke at the rubbery spider identical to the one on her shoulder, save for the lack of the painted hourglass on its belly. "I'm going to assume that's not the kind of prank a frat boy could play?"
Edited at 2012-10-19 05:43 pm (local)
Tara
"Maybe if one of them is a witch," Tara suggested, but there wasn't much belief behind it. Animating inanimate objects was not easy, and she hadn't seen any real evidence of magic use on campus.
She waved an arm down the hall. "Let's -- maybe just keep going? I'll feel better when we're by people."
Even douchey people.
The squeaking, rustling noises coming from the next room they were to enter were still almost entirely muted.
Warren
Warren didn't really hear them yet, or at least not for a few more steps as he carefully navigated yet another doorway, mindful of the fake cobwebs and what might be dwelling in them. It wasn't until he was a few feet into the room that he kind of stopped short, furrowing his brow and frowning a little.
"Does anyone else hear that?"
Last he checked, the frat house definitely didn't have a mouse problem.
Karla
"More annoying rubber things?" Karla asked, also frowning. "It...almost sounds like the kind of noise you get when you squeeze a toy, you know?"
Almost, but not quite.
"You know, how do you guys feel about taking advantage of Warren's empty room and playing a game of Scrabble or something," she said, tensing as the sounds got closer. "We can tell Asher we came, appreciated the decorations and the sound system, and it won't even be a lie..."
Tara
Tara bit her lip. "I want to," she admitted. "But -- what if something's really wrong and we could stop it? I'd just ... feel better, knowing for sure."
The last words of her sentence were almost drowned out by the VERY LOUD SQUEAKING as she opened the door and bats poured down from the ceiling.
Warren
"Bats!" In case the girls hadn't quite figured out what was fluttering around them on dozens of pairs of leathery wings. Warren was quick to spread his wings over both of the girls, doing his damnedest to keep little flapping mammals out of their faces while his heart tried to jump right out of his chest. "Okay, bats are not a usual frat house pet!"
Karla
This time, Karla did jump. She had no fear of spiders, but bats were rather creepy and they'd taken her by surprise when they'd swarmed out of the room like that. She huddled under Warren's wing and tried not to clutch at him too tightly.
"That's not a pet, it's a bloody health code violation!" she snapped, because her answer to being frightened was anger. "Now I want to find these frat boys just to sock them a good one!"
Tara
"S-s-scrabble," Tara said, swallowing hard as she ducked down with her arms locked to cover her head. "Is -- running out and spending the rest of the night playing scrabble still, uh, still an idea?"
She wasn't exactly afraid of bats, but there were so many of them and this was starting to feel deeply Wrong.
Warren
"I've been studying up on words with the letter Q in them for an occasion just like this one," Warren said, only sort of managing to not sound too terribly shaken. "I think running out and playing Scrabble for the best of the night sounds like pretty much the best idea I've heard all night."
Way better than, 'Hey, let's go to that frat party!'
Karla
"I can spend the evening honing my rant to Asher," Karla agreed, only her death grip on Warren's hand showing just how unnerved she was. Her Black Widow precognition was also going off, very 'helpfully' informing her that she Did Not Want To Be Here, but providing no reasons as to why. "Polish it up, make sure it's appropriately cutting without using too large a vocabulary...I'd hate for him to miss an insult because the word I used was too big."
So, back out the front door? Because that would be awesome about now.
Tara
"I can call Wesley," Tara mused. "He's -- good at the spooky stuff. And English, so h-he could help with the insult vocabulary."
She picked herself off the floor and turned, intending to head back toward the parlor. She got about six feet and then frowned.
"Weren't there stairs this way?"
As far as Tara could see, the hall ended on blank walls in both directions.
Warren
"They had that sheet of canvas up over it, I remember," Warren agreed, eyeing the blank wall with no small amount of trepidation, now. "And there's not exactly any way for us to have made a wrong turn, seeing as we were going straight ahead the entire time."
Right? He wasn't losing his mind, here?
"For the record, frat houses don't tend to do this at all."
So, you know, this was weird. Completely harmless so far, if startling. And weird.
Karla
"Give me a second," Karla said, finally letting go of Warren's hand. "I can step through and see what's on the other side. Maybe this is...some kind of prank?"
A really, really thorough one? One that somehow involved creating movable walls complete with paint and plaster?
She kissed Warren's cheek and gave Tara an encouraging smile. "Sit tight, you two. I'll be right back."
And with that, she passed through the wall and was gone.
Tara
"Well," Tara grumped, "that's helpful."
She glanced over to Warren. "Th-there has to be something we can do. We can, can be meth-methodological and explore and maybe --"
She was cut off by a scream from above.
"That did not sound like somebody playing a prank."
Warren
Warren's feathers were prickling behind him at the sound of that scream.
"No," he agreed, his voice dropping to something a little more quiet, "it really didn't."
It sounded a bit more like absolute terror, mixed in with sheer agony. He'd heard a few of those screams, since first coming to Fandom. He'd made a few of them himself over the years, too. It was the sort of scream that never really got easier to hear.
"Karla?" He rapped his knuckles against the wall. "Karla, now would be a great time to either tell us what's up, or to get the hell out of here."
Not-Karla
There was no response from the other side of the wall. None. Not even a muffled yell from the other side or a knock back
Tara
"I need to go after her," Tara said breathlessly, then -- before she could reconsider the plan or think about the details, or anything, really -- she pulled open the door to the next room.
And then she too was gone.
Warren
"... Tara?"
Warren stared at the empty space where Tara had been a moment before, a hallway stretching before him where he could have sworn there was a room before. He hesitated, looked back at the wall and even clawed at it, stopping a moment later when solid brick chipped away at his nails. Wherever Karla had gone, she was nowhere that he could get at. And Tara had vanished from plain sight.
There was nothing left to do, it seemed, but to follow the hallway that had been opened up to him.
[OOC: Scenario from "Fear, Itself." Preplayed with the amazing glacial-witch and not_a_parakeet Post 1 of 3.]