Basilisk in the Basement (Closed)

Basilisk in the Basement (Closed) - Printable Version

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Basilisk in the Basement (Closed) - SolitareLee - 11-22-2018

RE: Basilisk in the Basement (Closed) - SolitareLee - 11-22-2018

There was a lot of repair work to be done on a centuries-old gothic cathedral, and Ren was not what you might call a classical handyman.

She was in the basement of the church now, or... one of them. It seemed to have sub-basements. There could be catacombs down there; she didn't know. Whatever was down there, it had better not be vampires, because she'd absolutely had enough of that shit for one lifetime.

She was currently up on a ladder, swearing and grumbling and leaning maybe a bit too hard against the wall next to her because her stupid roommate had discovered anal two nights prior and she still hadn't recovered. She was trying to fix part of the roof, which had caved in. Because she wasn't actually good at this, what that mostly entailed was a lot of desperate caulking and holding stones in place.

"Should have saved this for the night time," she swore under her breath while she wedged a stone awkwardly into place. She was sick of just having plywood everywhere, though, and her roommate was too easily distracted to actually be much help with these things. Plus, she felt like his spare time would be better used practicing language, not serving as a glorified ladder that could also hand her things. It's not like he'd asked her to fix the place up. She'd just sort of taken it on herself for lack of anything better to do now that her meals were more or less guaranteed.

It definitely wasn't just because she liked having a steady list of things to ask Jean for, because she definitely didn't keep a long list on purpose to make sure she'd always have an excuse to keep him fed.

"Uuuuugh," she groaned as her shoulders cramped painfully. "This caulk is taking forever to dry... I feel like I could have just used gargoyle jizz and had better fucking results..."

RE: Basilisk in the Basement (Closed) - Leahweird - 11-22-2018

Nagesh had been very pleased with himself when he first found the funny basement. It was dark, just how he liked it, and had lots of little corners to explore. There was nothing bigger than him already in it trying to eat him. He’d spent a blissful week or so stalking all the bugs and enjoying the peace. He ran out of insects a few days before it occurred to him that nothing bigger could get in,but he couldn't get out either.

The crack that he'd first slithered through was way up above him now . Not a problem on its own, but it was just too far away from the wall and the ceiling was too smooth and hard for his claws to get purchase. After a few painful falls trying anyway he’d been forced to give up on that method.

Next he had frantically circled the room a bunch of times looking for some other exit. Then he’d done several more circuits slowly and methodically, certain that there must be a way out that he'd simply missed. There still could be. Even though he’d definitely gone over every inch of the place he could not be certain there wasn't a door or a window somewhere that he just couldn't see.

The reality of the situation was sinking in now. Nagesh was not precisely a snake. He still had the serpentine ability to go some time without eating. But that had been….some time ago. He’d lost track. Not as if it mattered anyway. He was increasingly certain he was going to die down in the dark no matter how long it took. Which was stupid. It was unfair that he had survived to many thing that he really shouldn't have, only to meet his fate because of his own mistake. Ridiculous. And sad. Typical though.

He sighed, curling himself farther into an alcove. Trying to save energy. For what he did not know. He did know that the dark no longer felt safe, and he was cold.

RE: Basilisk in the Basement (Closed) - SolitareLee - 11-24-2018

The unfortunate fact of the matter was that old buildings didn't always hold up well. Especially when they've been neglected for, um, centuries? Yes, probably centuries. And while Ren wasn't very heavy, she was leaning basically all of her weight on one point of a wall... and the weight of a particularly large rock she was trying with limited success to cram into place. She refused to live in a plywood castle any longer than necessary! This rock would SUBMIT to her will, damnit! She had made so many much bigger, scarier rocks do that!

Unfortunately, the wrong rock decided to submit, and the wall she was leaning on shifted and then crumbled with a clattering rumble, sending her toppling off the ladder, rock she was carrying narrowly avoiding smashing into her head as it dropped.

There a lot of crashing and sudden and intense darkness and a LOT of falling. Ren ragdolled once it became clear there was nothing to grab, instinct at this point from having fallen off far too many things. She yelped as she hit some kind of floor and rolled, hoping to avoid any avalanche of falling rocks. When the dust settled, she opened her eyes into pitch darkness.

This did not, as it were, mean she could not actually see. She presumed there must be light filtering in from somewhere and stared blankly upwards, wheezing as she tried to account for all her limbs. They were intact, and she could move them. Thank god. She'd fallen pretty far, into maybe one of the sub-basements? Who even knew, with this fucking place. Groaning, she sat up, rubbing her head. Her hand came back wet and sticky, and she swore again. Not another goddamn head injury. Her roommate was going to pitch a fit. She glanced around, trying to take in her surroundings.

RE: Basilisk in the Basement (Closed) - Leahweird - 11-25-2018

The last thing Nagesh expected was for the world to explode in a shower of stone and debris. Or just the ceiling, apparently, it took him a minute to peel himself off the wall to figure out what had actually happened. The air tasted like dust, but also just a little bit less stale. The quality of darkness had shifted.

He skittered down the wall. The ground was uneven, so he had to keep testing where we was going. This had to be done with extra caution because there was suddenly breathing and heat on the other side of the room. It smelled like blood and….rat? That had to be wrong, it didn’t feel like a rat. And the shape was wrong. Too big. Alarming really….He hid by being very still next to a rock.

This required some thought. On the one hand, something unknown that was big and probably pretty mad had invaded his very limited shelter. New was good though, and it was injured. Presumably, he had the advantage.

He sniffed around a little more. The room wasn’t very large. If he kept the the walls he could dart away pretty quickly but then what? He was much less certain that he could continue to hide, especially if this new creature could see in the dark. That was always bad, because being exposed was always dangerous to begin with and often gave away the fact that he could stare all day and have nothing happen. Dangerous and embarrassing. Terrible.

Then again, assuming they were still trapped, the new thing was bound to discover him eventually. It wouldn’t do him any good to seem to be skulking.

Relying on the natural fear most creatures had of things that slither and bite, he hissed. Low and soft and threatening.

RE: Basilisk in the Basement (Closed) - SolitareLee - 11-25-2018

Ren scanned her surroundings as best she could given the dim light and possible concussion. No door. Of course there would be a room with no fucking door in this stupid church; it had probably been used for torturing heathens or something, she didn't know what these people got up to. There was a literal person sized pyre in one room, and the only reason she couldn't just the previous residents for burning corpses there was because she'd done the exact same thing.

It looked like she might have fallen in through a hole near the ceiling, but she couldn't quite see. Just when she was starting to squint, she heard pretty much the worst sound one can hear in the dark... a hiss.

She whirled around to face the sound, distress thrumming through her and into the few dozen rats that had already taken up residence in the church. They wouldn't arrive quickly enough to prevent her from being bitten by a snake, or a hundred snakes, or whatever was fucking down here, though. Hands and feet on the floor like a feral thing herself, her glinting eyes scanned the floor. Where was it where was it!

There!

She shrieked in alarm when she saw it, because it was WAY bigger than she expected, more of a lizard than a snake and almost as big as a cat. She went straight for her most tried and true reaction to something frightening, and grabbed the nearest object--a fist sized rock--and hurled it at the offending lizard before trying to scamper back away from it.

RE: Basilisk in the Basement (Closed) - Leahweird - 11-25-2018

It could definitely see him! Also it had good aim. He sensed the projectiles only just in time to duck his head out of the way, but he still got smacked and bowled over. Smarting, he wiggled around to go hid behind a mostly broken pillar.

Feeling slightly safer he hissed again, but didn’t dare peek out again unless it had another rock to throw. It had screamed though, so at least he had come across as a threat. That had sounded a bit familiar. What this just a human woman? That didn’t explain the funny rat smell, but it made as much sense as anything. Those things always turned up in the strangest places. Squishy but unpredictable. He’d seen nastier things than basilisks fall prey to that.

“Sssstop that,” he told her, and then passed to chose words that were easier to say without sounding like a punctured tire. “Or I will eat you.”

RE: Basilisk in the Basement (Closed) - SolitareLee - 11-25-2018

She missed the lizard, which was frustrating--she was pretty good at throwing in general, but this was a quick little moving target in the dark. She grabbed another rock, wondering if she could possible stone a giant lizard to death before it bit her, and also how poisonous it was. Would she have time to escape this hole and get to help? She'd rather just not get bit.

And then it talked. She shrieked again, more out of sheer shock than anything, then she began to swear, a steady flow of profanity echoing in the darkness.

"Of course! Of course there's a fucking talking lizard in my basement!" she hissed in frustration. "I hate this fucking city so much!" She pointed shakily at the lizard. "You're eight inches tall, there's too much of me for you to eat. But if you bite me, I promise you that every rat in this friggin' church will return the favor." She could feel them scampering closer, frantically hunting for holes to climb through to reach her, but it seemed like her cave-in had caused issues. Well, the lizard didn't have to know that. She scooted back further, until her back was against a wall. "Ugh. Sorry," It was pretty rude to throw rocks at sentient creatures, even if they were... iguanas? Was that an iguana, had she just panicked at the sight of an iguana... "You scared the shit out of me. Why are you in my basement?"

RE: Basilisk in the Basement (Closed) - Leahweird - 11-25-2018

The shrieking hurt his ears, but it was fortunately short lived and she didn’t seem to be throwing more stones at him, for now. He crawled over to and up the wall to get clear of debris and get a better perspective on the situation. At times like these he really wished he could flair his wings threateningly, but he couldn’t do more than shrug them. He hoped he at least looked a little impressive and scaly.

“S’my basement,” he said. Which was not even remotely true, except in the vague sense of finders keepers that most creatures did not really appreciate. Still, he had been stuck there long enough. He had a right. Sort of. “And I could sso eat you. Slowly.”

That was petulant, he knew. But pointing out his size was a sore spot to him. He should be bigger. Not by a lot sure, but Basilisks weren’t meant to be dangerous for size alone. There weren’t a lot of records on what they were supposed to look like anyway. People didn’t like studying them very hard, for some reason.

Would rats really attack him if he went for her though? That wasn’t something he had seen before, but there was a first time for everything and she seemed very sure. And rats were Trouble. He could fight one no problem, probably. But many? He would prefer not to take that chance.

“Do not bring rats down here,” he warned.

RE: Basilisk in the Basement (Closed) - SolitareLee - 11-26-2018

"It's not your basement," she said, pouting, then gave it a bit of consideration. It might actually be. She hadn't seen her gargoyle breaking in the wall to kick a lizard out so that kind of indicated that either it belonged here, or lizards just didn't count as intruders. Either seemed equally plausible. "...If it is your basement, you should be ashamed of yourself. This place is a mess. I fell through the wall." She'd been living here for like two months and she was clearly putting in a lot more effort here than any of the previous and/or current residents.

"I could eat you a lot faster," she pointed out. "I won't," she added. "People have been feeding me these days. Also, you might be poisonous."

"Hey," she said warily as it climbed the wall. "You stay over there. You can't talk about eating a girl and then just wander around. And also, I have no real say on the rat situation." This was only technically true. They were protective of her, and while she'd been able to force them to Not Attack a few times, she wasn't really sure how she'd done it and had no actual desire to do it for a rude lizard. "Don't attack me and it'll probably be fine, but they're definitely going to wind up coming in here eventually, and if you try to eat one or something, they'll swarm," she warned. She could feel them scrambling through the walls, scratching at rocks. Less frantically now that her fear had faded somewhat, but Phoebe would be deeply upset until she found Ren.

"...Wait." She stood up, squinting, to get a better look at the wall-climbing lizard. "Are those wings? Are you a dragon? Are you a baby dragon?"

She can't believe she threatened to eat a baby dragon.

RE: Basilisk in the Basement (Closed) - Leahweird - 11-26-2018

“I didn’t build it,” he muttered. If he could build anything he would include better exits. Maybe some little stairs. He definitely wouldn’t let nasty girls that threw stones and attracted rats in. “And you could not eat me! I am very, very poisonous! And fast!”

He crawled towards her a foot or two just to prove that she wasn’t the boss of him. It was halfhearted though. He wasn’t especially certain he what he wanted to do. Make her stay over there, mostly, so she couldn’t try and eat him or anything. Maybe if some rats DID get in, maybe that meant there was a hole….although it was a slim hope that he could fit through the same tunnels they could. He wasn’t That small.

He was almost deciding to maybe not try and scare her more, and possibly gain an ally instead. But then she started speculating on what he was. Very wrongly.

“A dragon?” He said, dropping to the ground and climbing up onto a chuck of stone from the floor above, so he could glare at her better. “I am not a dragon! And I am definitely not a baby!!!”

He stood, bristling with indignation. As if he was anything so ignoble as those hulking brutes? Not that he’d ever met a dragon, but he imagined they must be awful. He was from a much nobler heritage, even if we was a terrible example of the species. And a baby! Just because he couldn’t loom properly. How very mortifying...No, infuriating!

If he were a proper Basilisk she would be stone herself right now. That would teach her.

RE: Basilisk in the Basement (Closed) - SolitareLee - 11-26-2018

"If you own things, you should at least take care of them," she said, now apparently deciding she was going to lecture a lizard. God, she hoped other people could hear it and this wasn't going to turn out to be some telepathy deal and everyone would think she was insane for talking to a lizard. "...Although I guess that masonry would be incredibly difficult for someone without thumbs," she admitted. "If this is your basement, where's the way out? And please don't say it's you-sized, because I'm pretty good at wiggling but not that good."

She raised her rock hand warily when it scampered slightly closer, but it didn't seem like it was actually charging and she didn't really want to throw more rocks if she didn't have to.

She pouted in obvious disappointment at the news that her newfound lizard wasn't, in fact, a baby dragon. Of course it wasn't. There weren't actually any COOL monsters here, just scary ones. It was probably something awful. "Okay, okay, so you're a fully grown..." she gestured vaguely. "Whatever. Sorry, my range of knowledge here is pretty limited. I just moved to town." She squinted at him, eyes struggling to adjust to the pitch blackness. Everything was dim and greyscale. Did she know of any lizards with wings that weren't dragons? ...No. No she did not, but she'd never really read up on the subject. Jean would know. The librarian would also know. For all she knew, however, this was a cursed fairy or a demon in lizard form or something.

The extent of her knowledge extended to trying not to let it get her pregnant, which seemed a very moot point in this case.

RE: Basilisk in the Basement (Closed) - Leahweird - 11-26-2018

He hunched on his perch, tail still lashing in irritation. But she was not throwing things at him again, so he supposed he could be tolerant. For now. It’s not as though he had a lot of opportunities for conversation. He hadn’t really spoken much since he’d finally fled from the manticore. He’d learned lots of interesting things then, and it was nice to have a more dangerous presence around even if it had periodically tried to eat him.

“There isn’t a way out,” he admitted, somewhat reluctantly. He was loathe to admit how stuck he was, but at the moment they both were and he was out of ideas for getting unstuck. He squinted at the ceiling trying to make out how much had come down with her. “There used to be a hole up there.”

Having gotten this odious confession out of the way he puffed his chest up. “I am king of snakes. What are you?”

RE: Basilisk in the Basement (Closed) - SolitareLee - 11-26-2018

She rubbed a hand over her face. "Of course there isn't." She kind of had known, in the back of her head, because if there had been an easy way in, her rats wouldn't be scrambling like they were. "Well. We can either wait here until the rats find a hole, or wait here until sunset, at which point my roommate will wake up, realize I'm not directly next to him, panic, and then tear the entire church apart looking for me," she reasoned. This, however, was not an appealing notion for several reasons. One, she was trying to put the church BACK TOGETHER and him tearing through a wall would be a lot of work to clean up. Two, he might interpret the lizard as a threat and kill it. So far he had killed everything that wasn't her. Three, if he didn't, she'd probably have to deal with a talking lizard watching her be enthusiastically sodomized, and she didn't want to deal with that.

She looked upwards. The rubble was considerable, but she had fallen in. It stood to reason she'd be able to move rocks around enough to form an exit, if she could just get up high enough. The walls weren't exactly climbable, but maybe where the rubble had slid down one wall...

"I'm a human. Boring, I know," she said, distracted, then turned her head down to look at him again. "Why are you the king of snakes? You have legs and wings. Wouldn't you be the king of lizards, or reptiles, or something?" This probably wasn't a good point to argue, but she was curious. "What does being the king of snakes entail? Can you like, tell them what to do? Is that why you're worried about the rats?" Rats and snakes were not notoriously good friends.

RE: Basilisk in the Basement (Closed) - Leahweird - 11-26-2018

“Room mate?” That didn’t sound good. If whatever her roommate was could be expected to tear apart buildings then it did not sound like he wanted to meet it. Especially if this was a similar situation to what he used to do, lurking around something more dangerous as a layer of protections.

He watches her look up at the ceiling and did the same. He definitely didn’t think he would be welcome up there. Everything above them had a distinct aura of a place creatures like him should not be. If it had an actual guardian he did not want to meet it. His kind were never Basilisks were not, as a rule, invited anywhere.

So now he had something of a time limit, to get out before the being that probably actually owned the basement found him and punished him for intruding. He sighed. He hoped the human had some kind of other plan, because he certainly didn’t like the options so far.

And was she really just human? She smelled more interesting, but it seemed like she spent a lot of time with other things. Maybe she was picking things up from them.

“It’s from greek,” he told her, imperiously. He had only heard about greece, and the word for his kind was the only bit he knew. Still he liked the sound of it, the way it rolled around his mouth. “I am king because I am the best at snake things. Like being very poisonous.”

This was meant to be a little reminder that he was dangerous, and had no reason to be frightened of her. Even though he was, and it was a lie. His theoretical brothers and sisters did not need to be venomous. They could kill anything they wanted without anything like that.

“I am not scared of the rats,” he assured her. “I just don’t like them.”