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Post by stjimmy on Apr 18, 2009 17:11:57 GMT -4
The cat-burglar known as Silk Rose had managed to make it this far without being seen, or at least she hoped so. Now after descending a deep set of stone stairs, she found herself in pitch darkness.
The air was not too stale, but mixed with a melange of smells from the grapes and cork of the wine racks to stranger and more alien nasal affairs coming from deeper inside.
Taking a chemical glow-stick out of her bag and snapping it, Rose gasped. The cellar was enormous. Even without the piles of junk blocking her sight, she doubted the other walls would be visible.
Turning sideways and stepping between two crates, Silk Rose ventured into the unknown. It seemed the perfect place for a vault, and she could almost taste the money.
So begins Silk Rose's quest to plunder the mansion. Will she be successful? What manner of strange things await in the dark, forgotten corners of the cellar? In a mansion with wizards, mad scientists and all manner of strangeness, she is sure to encounter more than just the washing machine.
So what comes next? Feel free to suggest something. Perhaps someone has followed her? Maybe she accidentally activates a forgotten experiment? Does anything live down here? Do you have a better idea? Make a post.
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Post by Lord Hugo Prosperio on Apr 18, 2009 17:18:37 GMT -4
The dark stands before her, and she waves her glowstick, like a magic wand, trying to get a glimps of her future plunder.
In the distance, a large trunk, like a treasure chest stood...she could barely make it out with the light from the glowstick...
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Post by stjimmy on Apr 18, 2009 17:45:53 GMT -4
She approached quickly, her previous caution thrown to the wind. Could it really be this easy? It did seem too good to be true... The threat of a trap brought silk rose back to her senses. First making sure her mask was secure, she knelt down before the trunk. She prodded it with the light-stick, pressed her ear against the side to listen, attempted to peer through the keyhole, even pretending to leave before spinning around with a cry of "Aha!"
Eventually. she was satisfied that the chest was as it seemed, and took a set of lock-picks out of her bag. Within a few minutes, there was a click. Licking her lips with anticipation, she bent down to open the lid. As one last precaution, the stood behind it and pulled the lid towards her, in case anything should be ready to leap out at her.
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Post by popkop on Apr 18, 2009 17:52:07 GMT -4
Inside the chest, something moaned, "Coooookkkkieee?"
And a fuzzy, blue, four-fingered hand reached out of the chest on the left side, groping for something blindly.
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Post by stjimmy on Apr 18, 2009 18:04:13 GMT -4
Rose let out a small shriek and dropped the lid, catching it just in time to stop it slamming on the hand. Resting the lid on one knee, keeping it between her and the creature, she went back through her bag. She didn't have any cookies, but after a small amount of searching she found half a bag of mint humbugs. She unwrapped one and held it out to the hand.
"Uh, have a sweetie? There's a good... thing?"
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Post by popkop on Apr 18, 2009 18:09:58 GMT -4
The hand grabbed for the humbug . Upon touching it, the mint flashed rapidly, alternating between pink and its' normal hue like some kind of video game powerup or cartoon effect. Then it turned into a chocolate chip cookie, which the hand tried to pull into the chest.
"COOKIE!" bellowed the whatever-it-was in the chest.
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Post by stjimmy on Apr 18, 2009 18:34:23 GMT -4
Silk Rose let go of the cookie very quickly, and had the distinct feeling she had made a mistake. The creature sounded much too large to fit into the trunk, and was probably stronger than her if she decided to slam the lid. Instead she emptied the bag of mints into the box, not concerned with the wrappers. The creature would probably just turn the whole thing into a cookie. When the hand left the edge of the box, she quickly heaved the lid.
She was not quite fast enough. An enormous blue arm shot out the gap, and began groping at the lid of the chest, where Silk Rose was pushing with her back. The creature bellowed again, as it's hand rested on her shoulder.
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Post by popkop on Apr 18, 2009 18:40:18 GMT -4
Rose's world flashed pink, then back to normal, and pink again, over and over very very fast. An overwhelming scent of gingerbread filled her nose as everything seemed to grow around her. No! She was shrinking...
And a bit of nonsensical verse screamed through her mind, "Run, run, fast as you can. You can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Woman."
Inside the chest, the Cookie Monster gobbled the ex-humbugs (now cookies) with one hand, and tried to find more with the other that had touched something. If Rose had been able to see the inside of the chest, she might have noticed a small inscription on the lining, "Prosperio Anti-Cookiefication Coating. Patent Pending."
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Post by stjimmy on Apr 18, 2009 19:31:26 GMT -4
Suddenly smaller, Rose fell out of the monster's hand, slid down the lid of the trunk and landed on the floor. With a scraping of crumbs, she darted across the floor and, turning sideways, dove between two cardboard boxes.
It was soon pitch dark again, and she pressed her back against the nearest flat surface, moving methodically until she came to a small pool of light.
A shaft of light, no more than a pinprick, struck an enormous, flawless diamond. It was easily the size of her shrunken head, and sitting in a puddle of water.
For the first time since her escape, Rose could see herself properly. Her eyes widened as she looked down at her arms and legs, simple ovals of gingerbread covered in dark grey icing, the same colour as her bodysuit.
Her reflection in the water was the most shocking thing, a rounded nub of gingery biscuit made up her head, not even a thinning around the neck. She had red iced lips and a piece of black rice paper for her mask. Melted chocolate defined her hair, and although she could not see it she could feel a similar arrangement on the back of her head as a ponytail.
"Okay Rose, no need to panic." she said to herself. "There's bound to be SOMETHING in this crazy basement that can turn my back to normal. I just need to find it. And there is treasure here."
She looked longingly at the diamond, and considered going for it but decided against going in the water. She was unsure how well her new gingerbread body would react to getting soggy.
Thinking some more about gingerbread, she raised a hand to her iced mouth. She was disappointed to find there was no depth there, and all she accomplished was to tap her face. " "Rats," she thought. "I bet I taste great."
With new determination, she lay down on the floor and pulled herself underneath an old wardrobe. "At least there's an upside to this." she thought. "If I ever get back to normal I may have to look into being flat."
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Post by popkop on Apr 19, 2009 1:41:26 GMT -4
Underneath the wardrobe, the floor seemed fairly clean - or at least free of dust.
In the distance, the deep voice of the Cookie Monster bellowed, "Cookie!" and faint sounds of his gobbling reached Rose. The scrabbling of tiny animal feet was also apparent, and a greasy, faintly electric smell coming off the wood of the wardrobe.
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Post by stjimmy on Apr 19, 2009 3:47:20 GMT -4
Rose sat up under the wardrobe, and considered her situation.
"Rats. That definitely sounds like rats." She thought to herself. "They probably can't wait to take a bite out of me. Heh, at least something here can, but I wouldn't want to be spread out between so many stomachs." She absently rubbed her arm, as she sat there daydreaming, smearing her icing somewhat. "Maybe one person, with a nice glass of milk. Dip me in, bite off a leg. Or all crumbled up and on the base of a cheesecake. Just waiting for that for to come in and lift a part of me away. Mmmmm..." She suddenly stood up, and realised what she was saying. "Eat me? No no no no no. Am I thinking like gingerbread now? I've got to do something about this fast."
Using her sticky hands, she began to climb the wardrobe. About half-way up a crack in the wood was wide enough for her to slip through.She began to climb down the other side, but the icing on her hands was wearing thin. She was still several feet off of the floor, when she slipped. For a second, she was hanging by one hand and scrabbled to get a grip, but the rounded nub of gingerbread was no good. "Oh no! Aaaah..." The tiny confectionery woman tumbled through the air, heading straight for whatever was on the bottom of the wardrobe.
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Post by popkop on Apr 19, 2009 7:41:19 GMT -4
Luckily for Rose, the floor of the wardrobe had something soft folded up on top of it, or she might have broken.
Something soft that felt like satin under her when she landed. Small octarine sparks spat whereever her gingerbread & icing touched it, however, the two magics reacting to each other.
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Post by stjimmy on Apr 19, 2009 15:56:43 GMT -4
Trying to sit up only got her more tangled in the fabric. Soon the tiny biscuity woman was trapped somewhere in the folds of the materiel.
"Hmm, lets see. This way? No, maybe the other. What is this thing anyway? A sheet? A dress?"
The sparking became more intense, and a soft glow filled the wardrobe.
"Ouch! I just got a shock off this. I hope it's not polyester, I can;t stand synthetic fabrics."
The bulge under the fabric began to ripple and change.
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Post by popkop on Apr 19, 2009 16:23:08 GMT -4
The smell of gingerbread started to fade as Rose continued to try to escape from the fine cloth. A returning awareness of fingers was her first real clue that she was growing, as the cloth seemed to cling to her.
Growing back to human size and shape within the outfit, Rose felt quite strange. She might not be gingerbread, but she definitely wasn't all herself either. The hairs tickling under her nose and brushing against the collar of what she (he?) was wearing made that clear. From the soft glow filling the wardrobe, Rose could see that that cloth was crimson satin, probably made from silk, not any synthetic. And that the shape of his chest was quite different than what he was used to.
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Post by stjimmy on Apr 19, 2009 17:07:25 GMT -4
"Hmm." It sounded surprisingly deep. Rose wiggled his new moustache a few times and scratched at his beard. If anything, this was even weirder than the gingerbread, both familiar and strange at the same time.
"Well, I suppose it will do for now. Not sure if red is my colour though." Looking more closely at the outfit, it was very showy and very red. A crimson jacket and red trousers, together with a bow-tie and white waistcoat made the outfit seem perfect for a performance. A check of the pockets revealed a deck of cards, all the King of Diamonds, and a plastic black and white magic wand, a spring-loaded bouquet of plastic flowers sticking half-heartedly out the end.
"Appropriate enough, but it seems the only magic the last owner had was right here in this suit. I wouldn't like to see him try to saw a woman in half."
Rose pushed open the wardrobe door and stepped out, reaching back in to grab a red top-hat off of a shelf. He put it on and had a look around. It was just as dark as he remembered it, although a lot smaller.
He gave the wand a quick wave "Lumos! Hah, nothing. Thought it was too good to be true. Now, I should probably find my tools before pressing on. They're back that... way..."
His shoulders sagged as he saw the route he took clearly. An enormous crate was backed up against a massive stone pillar. A gap at the bottom was a few inches thick, no problem for a sheet of gingerbread but tiny for a man his size.
"I could do with a bit of magic right now. Just go up in smoke and reappear back there." Once more he waved the wand. "Abracadabra! Alacazam! Abanazar! Nothing. Hrumph. Well, best get walking."
He scooped up the tiny gem from the puddle of water that he dared not cross as a gingerbread woman and pocketed it. Then, he strode purposefully deeper into the dusty cellar.
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