[prp] knock on wood (leila + horace)

[cibarium]

It wasn't always raining in Other Ashdown, not anymore, but today it was pouring. The water slammed down in persistent sheets, bouncing up into mist that made it hard to see. Leila had made a comically huge leaf for them to hide under sprout up out of the ground. It provided some shelter, but not enough to keep parts of them from getting soaked. She kept remembering she could just decide she wasn't soaked every moment or so, and then blink the water out of her clothes only for them to get soaked all over again, like a windshield wiper on a stormy highway.

She'd dealt with worse doing fieldwork. The mud, as far as anyone could figure, was still just mud, even if on this side she could convince it to be something else if she tried.

"So that's something you can do, if you haven't already figured it out," she was saying, a little strained but conversational and warm. "Everyone ends up with a different approach, though. And speaking of approach, we're just about there."

It was intuitively easy to find: the Queen had all but imprinted the walking pattern into her brain. Somewhere in town the sidewalks and asphalt had given way to roots that wrapped around building foundations and eventually became big enough to use as benches before converging at the trunk of a large tree -- it definitely wasn't on the other side.

"I wasn't given an image of the other colony I'm supposed to be retrieving something from, so I don't know if it's going to be more termites or..." Leila shrugged. It wasn't a foreboding shrug, but that was because she was more resigned to the potential danger than she was afraid of.

the semblance of unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

"The rain feels quite... electric." He kind of wished he could storm chase here; there were loads of pictures to get. Horace looked up at the building.

"Do you think they were bit mad we've come? I mean, I can shock things if we need to." He brushed his hands across his thighs. "Do we just go in the front door?"

cibarium

 

[cibarium]

"There's a way down near the base of the tree," Leila replied. "To some tunnels below ground." She squinted through the rain, sifting through the information and impressions she'd been lent over the past few days. "I don't know quite so much about social insects, but some species do something called nest usurpation. Something like that could've happened here."

She'd telepathically beamed over a bundle of basic information along with the term, saving her the good five or ten minutes it might've taken to explain. It was literally the psychic equivalent of giving a Wikipedia link. That's why the link's up there.

With that, she nodded. "So they might get mad, yeah. But if they're small like regular insects... you'll probably burn them to a crisp. Like a bug zapper."

A lull in the rain gave them an opportunity to jog onward, to a collapsed section of concrete leading downwards to what, in Ashdown, may very well have been a subsection of the sewers.

the semblance of unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

Nest usurpation. Exactly what it says on the tin, he thought at Leila after the wiki-dump was over. "I'll be your personal bug zapper." Horace smiled and jogged forward as well.

"If this were normal, I think it'd be condemned. Oh-" he said, a thought occurring to him as he tripped over a piece of broken concrete. Should we only talk like this? He couldn't do long thoughts or information dumps like Leila, but short sentences were fine. Water dripped somewhere, echoing around them. Unsurprising, considering the rain, but it made the ambiance that much creepier.

cibarium

 

[cibarium]

"I'm not sure it'll make a difference whether we speak or think at each other", Leila answered. There were a number of reasons for that, but the rushing of water both above and belowground was the most obvious: the area was so dense with sound that if the other colony could hear at all, it'd be difficult to pick out human voices or footsteps. < But probably good to save your energy in case we have to run. It's this way. >

They were only in the sewers for a moment, dipping through a crack in the concrete to more natural-looking tunnels. Leila still had her keychain flashlight after all this time, and as it had once before it worked unrealistically well. As they progressed they became less and less alone: thumbnail-sized silhouettes dotted the walls, covered in warped and glittering red eyes, like experimental fruit fly mutants.

For a while they simply watched. But as Leila and Horace got closer and closer to their destination, some began to follow. As they approached the chamber the 'treasure' had been taken to, there was a garbled buzzing in the backs of their heads that must have been serving as a warning.

"That's gonna be another headache," Leila groaned. "We're in for a lot of running unless you think we can dig our way back up."

the semb

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

"How good are you at booking it, then?" He looked around, trying to pinpoint the loudest buzz. "I think digging our way up might be even beyond my muscle." This place looked awful; Horace didn't hate bugs, but he didn't like them either.

"Is that the plan - a snatch and grab?"

cibarium

 

[cibarium]

"Running's one of the way I've bonded with Biscuit," Leila answered. "I have the endurance to make it back, and I figure I can feed you where I'm going directly so we don't have to waste our breath." Now that she'd thought about it... where was Biscuit? Trying to warg the hen was leading to nothing again, as if she were asleep. The stress of her situation was probably tiring her out.

A couple more turns, and the buzz became more erratic and rattling, and the masses of bugs watched and circles and inches closer. Leila had them already crawling up her pant legs (smartly tucked into her boots) and up under her shirt as they entered the chamber, and she didn't wait long to start clearing them a path with magic and uncovering the object.

It was the size of a large watermelon, caked with dirt (impossible to brush off) and lighter than expected. Something about it suggested there was some mystic magic bullshit quality and there were soldiers biting her underarms and it was very irritating

Running now.

Leila booked it without waiting. She looked back every moment or two for Horace, though.

the semblance of unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

Horace blithely followed Leila. He had, frankly, very little idea of what they were even doing. Get a thing, get out. He was reasonably sure he was unneeded, except perhaps for backup. Vague moral support?

"Alright, good," he said and they entered what he could only term as the 'bug pit'. It was a good thing bug didn't particularly bother him, although he knew he'd be itching for days. And the bug weren't really happy to see them, especially as Leila began... well, he wasn't sure what she was doing, but it was magical path-making or something of that ilk.

Leila grabbed something and booked it. The ******** was that? he sent at her. Horace lingered, just a bit, tiny pincers biting as his flesh. He hoped he was a sort of okay distraction. And then he was scooting out, too, long legs eating up the distance.

cibarium

 

[cibarium]

The Queen didn't tell me, just that there's something important inside. Come on, this way--

God, they were stepping on dozens of them, and part of Leila felt sort of bad for it even though she'd killed plenty of insects in her life for research purposes. Then again... they likely weren't really bugs. She kept feeding small instructions to Horace while grimacing through the bites she was getting. Hopefully he wasn't doing too bad on that note, and she would turn out to be right on her bug zapper theory.

The rushing of rain met their ears again after some minutes, and another minute later the damp and musty air of the sewer hit their noses. Leila let herself collapse on the street for a moment once they were out, letting the rain soak her completely.

"You good?" she asked after sitting up to look at him. The large, spheroid dirt clod was rested in her lap. "I don't think they'll come out and risk the rain. And I definitely owe you one for acting as an electric human shield back there. I'm going straight back to the Multitude with this, so if you have other places to be, I'll buy you a nice lunch some other day."

the semblance of unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

He grimaced and swiped at the bugs again and again, although he was kind of loath to zap at them. They were just protecting a thing, whatever it was. He emerged from the tunnels a good bit later, feeling itchy and anxious. He, however, did not flop in the street.

"Feeling like I need five hundred baths, but okay." Horace glanced behind him, almost expecting to see bugs rushing out after them. Then he looked back at Leila. One and done. "Uh, I can go home and get those five billion showers." He laughed a bit.

"Fingers crossed you get your babes back shortly, Leila."