The Old Lady's Lair

Izzy, Lilybeth, and Doc- carrying the rest of the party- make it through the doorway on the furthest wall. Izzy, thinking quickly, slams the door behind them, separating the party from their ceramic foes.

The room the party is in is a small sewing room, a doorway on the far side opening up onto the stairwell. Muffled music can be made out from above the party, strained notes suggestive of a 1940’s dance hall echoing in from the stairs.

Otherwise, the room is quiet, and mercifully still- nothing in this room appears to have taken notice of you, nor are their any obvious distortions in the floor or walls.

"I think you can put them down, Doc. We're as safe here as we're going to get," Izzy says quietly, mindful of the noise coming from above. "Let's see if we can wake them up."

Izzy crouched over her fallen teammates as they were put down one by one, worry thrumming in her veins. These were her people and she'd let them get hurt. What if they were really hurt? What if they didn't wake up? What if... She took a breath and started shaking shoulders and calling names, hoping against hope.

"Come on you guys," Izzy cursed softly. "You've had your nap. It's time to wake up!"

Eve stirs at the sound of Izzy's voice, and groggily gets to her paws. She startles away from the humans when she sees them, as if she has forgotten they are friends, her fur prickling as she hisses. She seems disoriented and slightly... feral...

"Hey," Izzy holds out a hand toward Eve, arm trembling in relief. "It's okay," she croons twitching her fingers. "It's us, remember?"

Riesy was lying on a scaffold, high above the work, barely hearing the other guys below shim. The sun was slanting through the roof they were building just right to warm the rest of shiz body but not be in shiz eyes. It was the perfect nap on the perfect spot at the end of a long day if shiz sore head and sorer muscles were any indication.

And then one of shiz cousins was shaking shiz shoulder and jarring shiz splitting head and it just wasn't fair, s/he didn't want to go back. She moaned and rolled away from it, following the warmth of the sunlight and shouting, "Oh my god, bitch, die without a priest."

Eve stares at Izzy with slitted eyes for a moment before her fur starts to smooth and she seems to remember herself, and them. She snorts softly and closes the distance between them to rub her cheek on Izzy's fingers in apology. She looks around at the others, worried now that she remembers their predicament. She meows in question.

Izzy lets out the breath she didn't even realize she was holding, quietly so as not to startle Eve, and scritches her fingers along Eve's cheek in return.

"Good to have you back," she smiles.

Izzy jumps at Riesy's voice and turns to slap a hand over shiz mouth. "Shut up!" she hisses, glancing warily at the stairs.

Tanner stirred, and blinked blearily; his head was pounding, discordant notes straining against his ears. They stayed discordant, even as he managed to bring the room into focus, something soft and brassy competing with a rather dizzy flute, and he was distantly aware that there were people everywhere and this was not a familiar room-

-Riesy’s curse drowned out the discordant music, and Tanner blanched, sitting up sharply as Riesy rolled into his space.

“Not today, I hope?” he said, not entirely sure what had prompted the outburst, not entirely sure of anything except that his head was killing him. “What- the, is everyone- did we get them? The- figurines?”

At the familiar voices above shime, Riesy quickly rememeberd where s/he actually was. S/he sat up with a gasp against Izzy's hand. "Eve?" she asked, muffled and scared. S/he wrapped one hand around Izzy's wrist and the other s/he fisted in Tanner's jacket shoulder, glancing around to count heads. Then s/he collapsed back over onto shiz elbow to reach a hand toward but not right up to shiz oldest friend in the group. "You scared the shit out of be back there, little dude," s/he whispered. Then looked back to Izzy while waiting for affection or rejection. "Why are we whispering?"

"Eve's okay," Izzy answered, moving her hand to rest on Riesy's shoulder instead, giving shim a relieved squeeze now that s/he wasn't going to bring the house down by screaming.

"We made it past the figurines," she told Tanner, pointing to the closed door. "But that's not Tanner making the soundtrack," Izzy warned them, pointing toward the ceiling which felt a lot closer than all the others in this house.

"Are you guys okay?" she asked, she wanted to get out of there and soon but they couldn't do that without making sure everyone was alright.

Eve flicks the tip of her tail in response, and briefly touches her nose to Riesy's fingertip, too. She trots over to look at the closed door. Why is it closed? What is behind it? Secrets? She meows at it.

"I know," Izzy sighed. "We're going. As soon as we can," she promises Eve.

They've been through the whole house. The book has to be up there. But so is whatever's playing the music. Izzy is not looking forward to finding out what.

Wait, they were supposed to be whispering? Why? What- his music shifted, taking on a rapid, anxious tempo, but the strange brassy tones remained, distant and- oh. Not his. Someone was home, someone was- was upstairs, playing music.

Tanner belatedly followed Riesy’s example, looking around to check numbers- everyone seemed to be accounted for, and nothing seemed to be moving but them, though he could hear a clinking sound from the far side of the door at their backs. The anxious tempo of his music picked up, and he wondered distantly if he was going to spend the rest of his life alarmed by collectable figurines.

Though admittedly that might be the optimistic outcome; it presumed they made it out of this house.

A moment later, Izzy was confirming that they had, in fact, made it past the figurines, and that there was other music, and Tanner swallowed hard.

“Fine, I think,” he said, keeping his voice to a muted rasp. “Little rattled.”

Izzy smiled encouragingly at Tanner. "I think we all are," she said, patting his shoulder too.

Riesy snorted and gently rapped a knuckle against Tanner's head. "Box a rocks? Me, too." S/he pulled it back and knocked shiz own head. "Wood chips." S/he hauled to shiz feet while rubbing where the fucking angel or whatever it was had hit shim. S/he advanced after Izzy. "So...do you think someone's home? Want me to spread out and feel?"

Tanner ducked his head at the casual pat, startled and a little uncertain- it was comforting, and he wasn’t entirely sure how to respond. Then Riesy reached out, and the carefully-rough contact was much more like what he was used to.

“Yeah,” he managed, with a faint, anxious flicker of a smile. “Not opening the door for the Avon lady any time soon, for sure.”

Izzy wasn't really reassured by the 'wood chips' joke that s/he was alright. But Riesy was a grown up s/he'd tell them if s/he needed assistance, Izzy told herself instead of scolding for a direct answer.

"Would anyone be able to tell if you did that?" Izzy asked Riesy, focusing on the matter at hand.

Riesy bit shiz lip and shook shiz head, "Nah, not without experience with my family." S/he closed shiz eyes, hands on shiz hips, and actually pushed out on the little corner of shiz brain that housed the family Trouble...
...then raised shiz hand and pointed at a corner of the house. "Something's moving, off beat from the music. Over there." S/he opened shiz eyes to look at Izzy.

The member 'BirdyMarie' has done the following action : Dice rolls

---

'd10' : 6

Izzy did not stomp her feet and cry but it was a close thing. Of course someone was home. Things couldn't just be easy! They deserved easy! They'd fought a damn army of tchotchkes and befriended a moose damnit! Hadn't they done enough. Instead, she nodded grimly and squared her shoulders.

"Guess we're going to have to go say hello," she told the others and started for the stairs.

Eve looks torn between staying to watch the closed door and going along, but company wins out and she darts for the stairs almost in time to be a tripping hazard.

Tanner reluctantly pushed to his feet, stomach churning with nerves, skin suddenly prickling in strange waves that matched the new, slightly guilty tenor of his music. The fact that someone was home made this whole thing feel- invasive in a way he hadn’t really let himself think about before.

But the sooner they found what they were here for, the sooner they could get out, and that could only be for the best.

Riesy took a deep breath and looked over at Tanner. "Better let me go first in case I fall," s/he said, tromping off after their dragon lady. The music was raising chilly bumps down from the back of shiz scalp all the way to the skin of shiz butt. What a very unfortunate time to enjoy stand up bass.

Izzy creeps slowly up the stairs, staying close to the wall in an effort not to make the boards creek. The staircase is narrow, anything that attacks them from uptop will have the advantage of knocking them all back down like dominoes.

She makes it to the top and emerges into a wide attic with dormer windows letting in the afternoon sun in golden slants. There's a lot of stuff, furniture covered in sheets, boxes of storage and over in the far corner a homemade rug and a rocking chair with a little old lady seated in it knitting away. At her elbow is an old record player, spinning away. Izzy feels a flash of relief to find an old lady and not a monster couch or something. The woman is looking out the window as she knits, mind obviously far away as her hands work on autopilot. She doesn't spot Izzy and her band until they're almost all in the room.