bewitched armor

[thaumobabble]

There are plenty of things to do. Bella orders a carpet to enchant so she can commute to and from Reformist Wizards efficiently and move house. She starts combing through the castle library to find background material on her Minor Technical Issue.

Sometimes she watches Sherlock cook.

Sometimes she watches Tony forge. (Nnnnf.)

Comments

[thaumobabble]

"Do you know anything else yet? Besides where to go?"

[calendarofcrime]

"Very little. Nothing I could easily put into words."

[thaumobabble]

Bella nods, and continues following. "I could scout from the air but I doubt I'd be able to report the kinds of things you're looking at."

[calendarofcrime]

"You wouldn't," Sherlock agrees. "I am - ah. Here. One moment."

They've come to the edge of a small pond, with a stretch of gravel along the near side. Sherlock studies it from a distance. Then she points.

"You will find your spell residue just there."

[thaumobabble]

Bella approaches. Bella works her magic. Bella inspects the residue in minute detail.

"It went north, east, or some combination of the two," says Bella after she's sifted through all the available information, "more than one hundred miles but fewer than two hundred fifty, isn't designed to land within the Enchanted Forest's borders, and carried at least five hundred pounds worth of people, creatures, and objects, none of whom were inherently magical like dragons or unicorns are."

[calendarofcrime]

Sherlock thinks about this.

Sherlock says, "The Cave of Unpleasant Surprises."

[thaumobabble]

"...That doesn't sound at all good."

[calendarofcrime]

"I agree. But we are going to find it anyway."

[thaumobabble]

Bella nods.

"Carpet?"

[calendarofcrime]

"Carpet."

[thaumobabble]

Bella unrolls it and sits. "You want to drive or should I?"

[calendarofcrime]

"It might be most efficient if you drove and I navigated."

[thaumobabble]

Bella nods and sits at the front bit of the carpet. When Sherlock joins her, she commands, "Up."

The carpet rises.

[calendarofcrime]

Sherlock points.

[thaumobabble]

Bella steers.

[calendarofcrime]

It is not such an incredibly long flight, and the cave is quite visible from the air.

[thaumobabble]

"That sure looks like a cave," says Bella, descending cautiously.

[calendarofcrime]

"It is one," says Sherlock. "Apart from that, its contents and nature are not extremely consistent."

[thaumobabble]

"Would we be better off invisible?"

[calendarofcrime]

"We may very well be."

[thaumobabble]

"Okay." Bella pauses the carpet, and carefully casts a spell of invisibility on the both of them. And then she descends the carpet the rest of the way, and rolls it up, and puts it behind a rock.

[calendarofcrime]

"Let's find Tony," says Sherlock, and starts into the cave.

[thaumobabble]

Bella swallows and goes in after her, each hand on the opposite wrist ready to pull something out of a sleeve.

[calendarofcrime]

It's called the Cave of Unpleasant Surprises for a reason. Sherlock goes in expecting to be unpleasantly surprised. She keeps a little ahead of Bella, but not too far, in case something unpleasant comes at them from a surprising direction.

[thaumobabble]

The cave is dark. Bella has a glowy thing, which she takes out and hangs around her neck; the cave doesn't seem inclined to unpleasantly surprise them by preventing the glowy thing from working.

The cave narrows to a tunnel just barely wide enough for them to proceed single file.

Bella follows Sherlock in for twelve steps, and then is swallowed up by the floor with a yelp. The floor closes after her. It doesn't dampen the sound of her in her armor clattering to uncharitably distant ground, or her whimpering the words of her healing spells.