Basilisk in the Basement (Closed)

[SolitareLee]

"You don't know him?" she asked, looking amused. She had kind of suspected it didn't actually live here, but... She supposed it could also be that snake-kings didn't count as people and it had simply never seen her roommate awake. "Eight feet tall, wings, horns, talons, has been known to rip people's spines out for intruding or daring to touch me?" Okay, she was maybe enjoying this a little too much. She shouldn't tease the lizard. Or phrase it like that, ever again, even in her head.

She stood up, finally, slowly, to examine the walls. They were too tall for her to be of much use, but she suspected between the lizard--pardon, king of snakes--and her, they might be able to figure something out.

"Okay, so you're the snakiest snake, except you have legs and wings and you're poisonous, whereas snakes are venomous. Got it." This didn't come out as sarcastic as it could have, mostly because she was distracted with the problem at hand.

"They're probably scared of you," she reasoned. "But don't worry. As long as I'm here and we're friends, I'm sure they won't--oh!" She sounded delighted, which was not the normal noise a young woman would make upon having a rat fall on her head. "Phoebe! You made it! Don't worry, he's fine." She glanced over her shoulder at the lizard. "You are a he, right? I figured, what with the 'king' and all, but I don't want to be presumptuous. This is Phoebe. I think she got through a hole near where I fell, which means the rocks must be loose. I'm not sure if you're strong enough to move them--no offense--but if I can climb up there, maybe I can shift something." She shrugged. "Better than waiting down here for ten hours, right?"

[Leahweird]

If Nagesh had the right physiology, he would have blanched at her description of her apparent protector. It did not sound like something that would take pity on poor lost basilisks. No wonder this girl was so cheeky, if she had a protector like that upstairs.

He was feeling brave enough to shadow her movements as she looked for holes big enough. He wasn’t sure what he hoped to accomplish doing that though, from this angle everything up there was a dark blur.

“I didn’t pick the name. It’sss not my fault,” he muttered. He was hissing again and needed to try and get that under control. “I just like how it sounds.”


Something fell from the ceiling again, sending him running back to the wall. Finding out it was just a lone rat wasn’t enough to coax him back out again right away. Those things were suspicious. The girl was talking to him though.

“Um...Yes. I’m a he,” he said, perplexed. The question of gender did not come up very often, all things considered.. Whether she could shift rocks was much more interesting. If anything was loose enough to pick away at, now that she was here so possibly lift a block, there was some hope.

“Do you have any tools?” He asked her. Humans always seemed to have useful stuff with them. Could she have been using any before she fell? If so, would they possibly be down here? He sniffed around to try and search.

[SolitareLee]

"I had tools," Ren said with a forelorn sigh. "I'm not sure any of them fell through with me. I might be able to ask someone to drop one, although ideally not directly on my head. Guys?!" she shouted up the wall, her voice echoing uncomfortably in the empty basement. "Drop a hammer or something!"

She scooted quickly out of the way, which was just as well, because about a minute later, there was the sound of clanking, several squeaks that could only be frustration, and then a few rocks and a hammer fell loudly to the floor from quite a ways up.

"Yes!" Ren exclaimed happily. "Good job! Now to... climb... straight up a rock wall... Like... fifteen feet. God." She let out a long sigh. "This sucks, so much. I'm gonna be half dead again by the time he wakes up..." She was grumbling to herself, before seeming to remember she had company. "Oh, my name's Ren, by the way. Don't think I said. I'm a she. I know it can be hard to tell," she added with a laugh, patting her extremely flat chest. She wasn't even sure lizards would be familiar with mammalian secondary sex characteristics. "I don't suppose snake-king powers include giving random girls the ability to stick to walls?"