thaumobabble | bewitched armor

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.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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thaumobabble

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

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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.

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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.

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Sherlock is unpleasantly surprised!

The first thing she tries is stepping just where Bella was. She doesn't expect it to work.

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thaumobabble

The floor is quite solid there.

Oh, also, there's a wall back the way they came now.

"Sherlock?" says Bella's quavering voice.

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calendarofcrime

"I am not presently able to join you," says Sherlock.

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"Sherlock, where'd you go?" Bella asks, overlapping enough of Sherlock's sentence to make it clear that the floor is soundproof in one direction.

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That is annoying. Sherlock is annoyed.

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thaumobabble

Is it also unpleasantly surprising? The cave does strive to live up to its name.

"Can you hear me?" calls Bella. Sherlock can hear tentative Bella-footsteps.

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calendarofcrime

It is liable to cause Sherlock to set something on fire if it goes on long enough.

She follows Bella as best she can.

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thaumobabble

Bella's path veers off to the left, judging by the footsteps and occasional calls for "Sherlock?".

Sherlock's path - pitch dark with the loss of Bella's glowy thing, unless she chooses to set something on fire - divides, as best she can tell by listening to echoes and groping around, into stairs up and to the left, stairs down and to the right, and a scrunchy twisty passage that goes forward and slightly angled downwards.

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Twisty passage it is.

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thaumobabble

The twisty passage is slippery and damp, and it gets cold in there as Sherlock proceeds.

She can't hear Bella walking anymore after she's gotten about ten feet in.

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Time to go back, then.

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thaumobabble

The twisty passage's back end apparently now divides into three equally twisty passages (left, right, and forward-and-down) in that direction.

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She picks right.

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thaumobabble

The darkness eventually gives way to a crystalline sort of glow; there is moss growing in this part of the tunnel that phosphoresces. Because this is the Cave of Unpleasant Surprises, it also releases a noxious smell when stepped on or otherwise touched, which is hard to avoid in a passage this small.

She can hear Bella again, if that's Bella running and making breathy fearful noises somewhere off to the left.

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calendarofcrime

Sherlock quickly becomes very good at not touching the glowing moss. She also keeps following the sound of Bella's voice.

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thaumobabble

The tunnel path Sherlock chooses in trying to stay close to Bella exits into a large cavern with the phosphorescent moss completely coating the ceiling. There is a six-foot sheer drop into a deep pool of water with no less-sheer shore available, except the stream that's running at high speed off into that lower tunnel there.

There's a wall behind her again.

There may be something moving in the water, deep under the surface.

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calendarofcrime

Sherlock decides that more light is required.

She holds a hand out to one side and slightly behind her, and ignites her gauntlet.

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thaumobabble

Well, if there was something moving in the water, it's not making the water ripple anymore, although it's possible that from her vantage point there are parts of the pool she can't see, cut under the tunnel she's standing in.

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Curiously, she douses the light.

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thaumobabble

The water remains still.

Under this completely still water swims a dark shape.

Also, it does not appear to be limited to travel through the water. It rises, surface yet unrippling, and swims through the air, jaws wide; it looks like a cross between a shark, a weasel, and a sea anemone, and it's six times Sherlock's size.