Run, run, follow me [Open Mingle]

[saveournpcs]

Date: Saturday, 4.1.2020
Characters: OPEN

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I.

It's midday when trouble seems to brew underfoot. Literally underfoot, in cases - wherever the Numbered are, they'll suddenly find dormice approaching them, running around their feet, in some cases up their legs, aiming to get their attention, and then running off - coming back again, running off once more in the same direction.

Trying to get the Numbered to FOLLOW.


II.

If Numbered decide to follow the mice, they'll be lead through the streets, fields, or whatever there is (in some cases, this might mean that the mice are trying to lead them through the military area aroudn the air base). Perhaps they'll run into other Numbered on the way - all mice seem to be leading those that they lead into the exact same direction.


III.

The direction of, it turns out, the tunnels under the cliffs. The mice will easily slip through the grates that bar the entries - the grates were made to keep humans out and let a tiny mice through easily. The Numbered, however... well, the grates were installed solid and sturdy to keep humans out. The mice will vanish in the tunnels and not come back.

Comments

[runs]

"Sharks in the sinks?" Oh no, that sounds GREAT and she wasn't here for it. So rude of her foster parents to move... well, former foster parents, now. She's back in Mossgate with a new family, after all.

"There's one entrance in the forest behind the cliffs. It's easy to get to, don't worry. You don't have to climb." She looks at him a bit more closely. He look... sick? Sick is maybe the right word. She's not sure. But he definitely doesn't look well, even though she can't quite put her finger on why.

[spaghettimonster]

Sick is a good word for it. He'd been thin before, but he's much thinner than he used to be, and a little pale - especially with the concealer not quite being the right tone.

"Oh, climbing's no obstacle," Russell brags, all the better to move the conversation away from sink sharks. "I can move very lightly these days. Jumping ten feet straight up if I need to. But if we don't need to..." She can lead the way, he'll follow along for this.

[runs]

She'll lead the way, but she'll also not just buy this. "You look like you're sick and probably running a fever. Even if you can normally run and climb, you might not be able to do so right now." She knows this from bitter experience. Being sick totally sucks, there's no beating around the bush there, but it also can't really be ignored safely. Because you will fall out of the window when normally you could pull yourself up onto the roof, no problem.

[spaghettimonster]

"Yes, thank you, I look terrible, I know," he grouses, freshly reminded of previous conversations with this very outspoken child. "I look terrible, the way Stone looks grey. But I'm not sick. Mary checked me out and everything, and she's a doctor."

Search him whether the authority and respect of that title will mean anything to Kitty, but it feels well worth throwing out there. A doctor and one of the Numbered, who better to check on him? Even if it's been a year and change since he visited her office itself.

[runs]

"...okay." She'll believe that, if it was a numbered doctor, but she'll still keep an eye on him and lead him to an entrance where he doesn't have to climb, because she'd really rather not responsible for him falling down the cliffs. That'd just make everyone ask questions. Even if he doesn't die (which with him being Numbered and all isn't that unlikely at all. Weirder things have happened).

"This way." And she'll lead him up the Greens and past the castle ruins. They'll be walking for a while.

[spaghettimonster]

Russell walks a little easier, relieved with not feeling that he has to defend himself overly much. But as much as the mice and tunnel mystery is on his mind, they pale a little in importance now that the mice aren't swarming him and the grates are out of sight. The other curiosity is eating at him.

"Now, when you say it's your job...?" he asks, a little into the walk. "Do you mean, uh, you've been breaking into things, while you were wherever you were?

[runs]

No more than normal. It's only breaking in if the door isn't open anyway, right? Or the window. Or the attic emergency exit. And it's not like she takes anything. Except for everything that looks tasty. And pets the cat. And most of the time she wanders in when there's people home, like with Nanny Ogg or old man Sky - people will let her sit on the couch and watch TV and eat their sweets if she just wanders in. No need to break and enter. "Of course not.

Just," she frowns, trying to find words for it. "I know that it is my job. To figure out how to get others into places sneakily. And. Such." She waves a hand around vaguely. "I think it is an echo."

[spaghettimonster]

He suspects his life would be easier if he fully believed her. If, for instance, he didn't remember her very easily convincing him to hand over some candy. As it is... Russell kneads his forehead with a hand, ducking around a tree branch.

"Yeah, that sounds like an echo," he lets out after a minute. "Especially if you don't remember the details of it. Unless you were a terror in Reception." He could believe that, certainly.

[runs]

"Not just the details. I just... I remember the that of it, you know? But nothing else. It's more like... a feeling. This is what I can do and I can do it professionally." She frowns. It's weird, to know something but not actually know anything about it. Especially when it is about you yourself.

And then she stops frowning and grins. "But it's useful right now, isn't it?"

[spaghettimonster]

"It is! I'll grant you that," Russell agrees, in words and tone. Relatively sincerely, even through his misgivings about the child thief. "I want to know what the mice are on about."

And, preferably, to do whatever illegal investigation they're doing here without tipping the police off. It can be practice for whatever Mr. Helpful ends up convincing them to do about Mr. Evil.

[runs]

"They're probably up to no good." She has her doubts about their benevolence. But they're also potential clues to what is going on. So they should be investigated.

After all if they are in fact up to no good, that should be known so they can deal with it accordingly. ...However they will do that.

[spaghettimonster]

"Maybe... maybe not. They're not friendly with the sharks, which I consider a slighty good sign," he muses, all but thinking aloud.

Even if they are a bunch of house-invading, echo-inspiring nuisances. They've never poured onto his head through the shower-head, which is not something he ever expected to be grateful for, but now that they've stopped swarming around him it's easier to remember those little things.

"You know," he says, this time to Kitty. "'The enemy of my enemy is my friend'?" That's an ancient proverb that all the kids are talking about, right?

[runs]

"I don't think that applies to giant beasts that want to eat you.

And to tiny beasts that bite you. Without any reason." Which is a big fat lie, but she's going to ignore that she did provoke it for the sake of the argument. She didn't expect retaliation, that is the same as not provoking it.