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

[lovedramamoron]

Jimmy meanwhile is standing in the narrow passage between the mouse and the tunnel with Walter, listening intently to the distant voices.

"Do those sound familiar to you?

[iamnotgod]

"Actually, yes."

Walter can recognize them mostly by pitch at this point - imprecise, but given who all they can expect to be exploring these tunnels...

"That's Kitty, I believe. And quite possibly Sadie."

He keeps moving forward, somewhat more enthusiastically now.

[runs]

Kitty at this point has fallen behind Sadie, still peering around her at the approaching humans but also using her as a safety shield... and then she recognizes them. She's never seen them in thermal vision before, but Walter has a very peculiar way of moving. She'd know that one everywhere.

"Walter!" She hisses.

[dragoonrouge]

Sadie nods, "Sounds like and Jimmy as well. Let's see if they know a bit more about what's going on."

Walking forward Sadie waves at Jimmy and Walter, "Hey guys, what have you managed to find?"

[lovedramamoron]

Jimmy makes an exaggerated shushing gesture, and speaks in a half-whisper.

"You might want to quiet down. We don't want to wake it up."

[iamnotgod]

"We managed not to be eaten by a mouse," Walter deadpans, pulling the handkerchief off his face slightly.

"Though given it is sleeping, that wasn't exactly hard. Did the mice explain anything to you as well?"

Well, inasmuch as dormice can explain anything, Walter supposes...

[runs]

"So there IS a giant mouse there that wants to eat us!" SHE KNEW IT!

At another time she would probably have noticed that Walter isn't being serious here, but she's not in that kind of mind right now.

[dragoonrouge]

"I really don't think it'll want to eat you Kitty. Though I will admit that that is a very large mouse."

Despite her caution Sadie does want to get a closer look at the giant mouse later on, "I'll admit we didn't talk much to the dormice, what did they tell you?"

[lovedramamoron]

"That there was a very large mouse down here," Jimmy says tiredly. "Did you know they can do math? Except I think they meant multiplication or exponents instead of addition."

[iamnotgod]

"Assuming they hadn't misinterpreted us and were merely portraying a circumference," Walter snarks, before moving over to a cave wall to feel a little more grounded.

"If this is all the mice wanted us to do - have a look around - then I'd be more than happy to head back out and have us resume our lives. I doubt it's that simple, however."

[runs]

Kitty makes a face at the mention of maths. Did the mice go to school or what.

"...If they want us to wake it, then it's a trap." No matter what Sadie is saying. She doesn't trust this giant rodent. ...saying which, the others went down here as well, right? Maybe someone learned more about the mice's motif...

Which she would find on the network. So she pulls out her phone, puts in her number, and just as she wants to type, realizes that there's another person's message there. More than that one, technically, but...

She holds up her phone so the others can see Mary Ann's information. "Look."

[dragoonrouge]

"Oh..." Sadie breaths out as she reads the message Kitty pulled up, "That, that explains a lot."

Sadie walks quietly up to the giant mouse and perks her ears up to full alert and closes her eyes to listen, almost close enough to lean against the mouse as she listens to the heartbeat and for any similarities to what she felt and heard in the river.

"This might have been what caused the stuff that happened in the river, Walter."

[lovedramamoron]

Jimmy frowns.

"How long do you think its been down here? Because there all those earthquake reports too, but some of those happened centuries ago."

[iamnotgod]

"Possibly hundreds or even thousands of years," Walter answers, walking back over swiftly to take in the new Network entry.

"Assuming it grew at anything like a continuous rate, and didn't just spontaneously appear like certain other phenomena in Mossgate."

[runs]

Kitty will hand the phone to Walter if he seems like he wants to respond.

"...what stuff that happened in the river?"

[dragoonrouge]

"It's hard to say," Sadie comments quietly as she continues to listen to the mouse's breathing and heartbeat, "There is no natural way for a mouse to achieve this size and Walter makes a valid point. Though mice seem to have been important in the area for a very long time. I saw Bronze Age stuff in that vision from the statues Jimmy found."

"When we investigated the river mouth I got lulled in by this heartbeat noise. Whatever it was reacted to my magic, that was what caused the tsunami we had last year."

[lovedramamoron]

Jimmy frowns again as he stares over at the mouse.

"The question is, if we wake it up, is that going to cause another earthquake or tsunami?"

[iamnotgod]

Walter nods to confirm Sadie's story.

"Perhaps that is the question we should ask the mice. Both if we need to wake it up, and if those would be part of the consequences."

'Would waking your friend put the towns above in danger?' worked as a nice combo delivery method.

[runs]

Kitty brightens up at Walter's suggestion. "So we go back to the tiny mice?"

Not that she's particularly fond of them, but at least they won't eat them.

[dragoonrouge]

Sadie moves away from the giant mouse and nods in agreement, "Sounds like a plan to me. Did you come from the same direction we did?" She asks Jimmy, pointing back in the direction her and Kitty had come from.

Going with Lel's plan, so Jimmy speaks up next round...

[iamnotgod]

Walter shakes his head before Jimmy can speak. "I suspect not, except in the general sense of 'from above ground'."

[runs]

"Where did you come from, then?" She frowns. There's only behind, really, since the tunnel ends right where the giant mouse is...

[lovedramamoron]

"From the other side of the mouse." Jimmy grins. "There's a narrow passage between the mouse and the wall we could just get through."

[iamnotgod]

"Whether it goes all the way around the mouse, we don't know for certain yet," Walter elaborates.

"We haven't seen either of its eyes yet, though they may be too high up given the rest of its dimensions."

Very specifically not mentioning the mouth, there.

[runs]

"...Even so we know that it is stupidly big.

...There's more." She holds up her phone again and shows them Nel's response to Mary Ann's message.