Minor and Major Keys

[credit_not_blame]

Who: Stacia, Bunny, Saturday, Remy, others to be added
What: Stacia finds a mysterious key and investigates
Where: About the rig
When: After Pathless Woods/Saturday Morning/Unicorn Hunting
Warnings/Notes: none as of yet


There is a mysterious key in Stacia's possession and she is wildly curious about it.

She'd found it in her room, and promptly stomped on it just to make sure it wasn't going to get any funny ideas. She'd crumpled the accompanying note a bit in the process, but the message is still legible:

Never forget: Keys turn both ways. You can lock something away... But you can also throw a bolt and set something free.

It's true enough, she has her own experiences that speak to it, but someone or something is playing a game here and she doesn't appreciate not being told the rules ahead of time. She also doesn't appreciate the fact that she knows that this key will open the wooden music box that Jorgmund has in their Collections room just from touching the key.

Stacia is not a girl prone to investigating the weird and mysterious on her own unless she has no other choice, and she has a person or two she wants to talk to before she takes this thing to Collections to see what will happen...

Comments

[credit_not_blame]

Stacia points to Saturday. "You're not wrong on the "if it vanishes when someone else touches it, it's probably bad" point. However, my concern is more that, if something wants it used and doesn't approve of other people touching it, it could end up in the hands of someone less ethical about its use than me. Any one of the executives, for example."

Having drawn sufficient attention to that distressing possibility, she nods to Bunny next. "Not to mention that something wanting us to use it doesn't inherently mean that it's a bad thing. Whatever is behind the delivery mechanism could be pissed that its music box is in Collections. The Jorg is certainly very good at pissing people off. Sure, I'd prefer if I could have a chat with the keeper of the keys or whatever, but until that option presents itself, I want to be as sensible as I can about all this."

Remy also gets a nod. "I'm dubious of inanimate objects that come with their own psychic tutorials as well. But it's beginning to sound like we're coming around to me taking the key for a spin anyway. Unless you think we should take more prep time, Saturday?"

[wheyoftheadept]

"I mean, what kind of prep can we take? If I had everything I normally have, I wouldn't touch that thing til Bit and Maggie had a go at it - they're a shaman and a mage, respectively," she says, for the benefit of those who don't know. "But I got nothin' other than trying it and seeing what happens or... not doin' that. It's your skin. If you wanna try it, I'm game."

Too many unresolved variables, but that's nothing new. Most of Saturday's life choices have boiled down to picking a direction at random and going for it.

[bringinghopewithme]

"There's a lot I wish we had to prep with, but this is what we have," Bunny agrees. He wishes they had a shaman and a mage, too.

"If you want to give it a try, Stacia, now's as good a time as any."

[kingofneworleans]

"Dis is pro'ly as safe as it's gonna get." Before anybody else knew about the key or even the possibility of it. "Saturday an' I can keep watch easy 'nough. See how dis goes."

[credit_not_blame]

Having gotten the nod from all three -- and Bunny twice, who's really the most important here -- Stacia moves toward Bunny, key in hand. They keyhole appears on the back of Bunny's neck, right where the key told her it would be. It's weird and unsettling, but that's magic for you. She taps it gently with a fingernail.

"Let me know if it hurts," she says, and slides the key home. Bunny goes still, more still than she's ever seen him before, and she almost yanks the key right back out, but--

A doorway has appeared just ahead of them, off-set such that Bunny isn't blocking it. It's standing in midair rather than against a wall, an archway of interwoven branches and flowers blocked by a moss-covered stone. Stacia knows that she could push the stone aside easily; that it's something she's meant to be able to open as the person who put the Head Key into Bunny's neck.

Oh! And Bunny's also there, translucent and ghost-like. Or perhaps just more spirit-like than usual?

"Bunny? You okay?"

[bringinghopewithme]

The transluscent ghost-Bunny is as still and wide-eyed and staring as his body, for a moment, before his hackles drop and he finds his voice again.

"Yeah, I'm fine, for being in two pieces."

He waves his own spectral paw in front of his own staring eyes, which are never ever that still naturally. If not for the very shallow rise and fall of his chest he'd be unnerved to see himself this close to the stillness of the grave. He's still unnerved, but, you know, at least there's that to keep his nerves a little unfrayed.

He looks at his own gate, and, so Stacia doesn't feel she's being too invasive, walks over to push the stone open himself.

[credit_not_blame]

Stacia waggles her fingers at Saturday and Remy -- they're still moving normally, so she and Bunny don't seem to have slipped sideways into a pocket realm or anything -- and follows Bunny to his door. It doesn't seem like his 'ghost' has any physicality to it at all, even when it comes to his own door.

"Here, I'll do it," she says, and pushes the stone aside. "Oh!"

It's beautiful inside, unsurprisingly. It looks like the place she went when she was inside his memories, when it was good and not a frozen horror show he asked her to close her eyes against.