The door to the stairs opened for them, the literal door opened itself. There is no mechanism to suggest this. No shadow trick. No play by her. She gets the party out. And once outside, she broke into a very loud vibrating purr. The purring seems to echo, a double of it played a note behind. Like two of her are standing there.
They had to use the landing to repack and figure out what she did. They are lifting items that were from other parties or were from early days of starting life at the campus. A lot of 'lost' equipment. They all staring at her for this deal, the strange way she just gave up an illegal item over to an untrained kid. She stiffly watching through the glass panes. The panes appeared there.
"You didn't give a real one, did you?"
"The rusted one he throw on the floor, said it was useless and broken. It had one shot loaded, has room for reload and was workable. The exchange has no false part." She chuckles and they slowly got up and looked into the dorm with them messing with the mock gun. Welrick gulped in seeing his old closet... walking. Walk into the main corridor. He fainted and someone had to tend to him. She rolls eye in not wanting the kid to miss out. She made him smell something strong enough and he chokes awake again. She pats his back a few times, and then goes back to watching idiot kids in the dorm corridor.
"Is it loaded?" The lead star of the prank points the barrel at his eye. To look into the barrel. She paused purring. She did know they didn't have any form of gun training. The real gun thrown at the floor has the safety on with only one bullet. Thank the gods it didn't misfire when he dropped it thoughtlessly. Even with a mock gun, this was dangerous. Even if it is a nerf foam bullet gun, pointed at the eye like that can still damage.
"Lack of common sense, that is not a real gun at least." Her voice wavered with pain in how stupid this kid has to be, and to inform the others in case they think his about to die, "I just hope... well..." She goes back to purring softer, since it accrued to her that was a 'gun'. She can have that relief that the kid couldn't kill himself in such a stupid matter. Her purr rolls slower, since the thought of this kid lacking survival skill. The original echo of the purr is still there, loud as it was at the start and off beat to her now. It pulled some people to keep away.
"You lot are in so much trouble." Joana snaps as he is getting up to the landing, and freeze of why everyone is outside the dorm door. He looked pale in how the door flexed a little, "Ugh, can we take this discussion downstairs?"
"Did the shot gun bite the idiot?" She softly turns to asked and Joana blinks in dazed startle in what that could imply. He has no idea about there being any shot gun and not the smallest idea this was to do with his rival. He looked at the door and her.
The group jolted about the shot gun being a fake, they witnessed the shot gun thing. It now added enough to believing her about the kid's gun trade being a little less deadly then it appeared to be. The party whispers about how real the shots were with the glass through each room door. The sensible folks of this party took turns looking into the dorm corridor in rotations of checking their packs for spare anything that shouldn't be there. They whispered reporting what they did know with Raven. Raven helps any unwanted spares to be placed by the wall to the door. Joana staring dazed, about to pass out. A mock sock crawls into the door.
"Better." The 'door' purred with finding its voice to reply to her, "It has disappeared, right as he went to waste time. They are coming up soon. Hearing the gun fire had made them alert, sadly." She shrugs of this, the group babbles about the door talking, fear rolls among them. However the show has began that the edge of highly amusing entertainment to see their bullies get a bit of pay back. So softly without touching the door, gingerly everyone gets a spot watching the dorm corridor. More furniture was lining in the all the wrong ways.
"Give him a shooting gallery, right?" It waved proud of the idea.
"Ah, ok." She nods with that. The kids in there are so hyped about the gun. He does indeed start firing at everything that isn't their care. Joana rushed over, the small hissed shot sounds are not the typical gun sound to them in the corridor, but it fools them in the enclosed dorm space. Joana stares into the glass with looking at the show too.
"He is just holding a mimic, shooting a mimic. Harmless." Even the cautious ones are taking a look in. Watching the shooting. The mock gun firing is silent through the mock door. So far it has been, four loud enough shots. The bully group are all beaming about the gun power and what that could do for their future missions. A very 'smart' cookie of a goon picked up the discarded gun. That bit smarter in how he turned the safety off. Aims at the closet.
She pulled everyone to move away from the door, she uses all her available working limbs to shield them fast from what will happen. And with the fifth loud shot... well.
All hell broke in there.
Screaming about the wood bleeding blue. Screaming as the mock gun bite the hand holding it. Screaming about the other furniture parts wiggling in pain.
The 'door' flopped into their corridor, a slab of thick meat. The kids took out their real mission weapons and are 'killing' the mock furniture. They attacked anything that wiggles. Afraid of everything.
At this point, the sword from 'stealing the training props' bent like rubble pool noodle. It turned part snake to strangle the hands of goon. This made the party of bullies change octave pitch of screams, and has four helping the one with getting the not sword off, to the floor. The kids all finally got wise, getting out with only barely anything on them. Shivering as a pile heap, skidding away from the meat door that they just stamped across like a living rug.
"Yes, my job is done." The ink bird flew off, indicating that the potential for death was gone. The mock furniture shifted to half forms and closed itself into a room. Leaving the real rooms and original pieces as not mimics. The corridor was no damage. Silent.
The dorm keeper clatters to the top landing, beside the seething cold angry rival. The eyes see the heap of kids trying to get up. The other group with bags packed along the stair banister looking pale. The mess inside the dorm was crawling, bumping soft noises.
"You lot wanted to be in there. We warned everyone of you about moving into the nest corridor." The dorm keeper in the least surprise and unimpressed tone, "You lot didn't take the rooms we offered. You have only yourselves to blame for upsetting the furniture." The mage nearly passed out again. He didn't get the memo. Most of Ravens party are looking spooked as much as the bullies are.
"Oh that's what you meant. I thought the danger of the top floor was something else." Raven voiced and his team turned at him. The sigh of expecting this sort of terrible response and his lacking of alert to the closer threat. The shock that the living furniture wasn't the evil fear to be afraid of. Clearly the team blindly joined Raven without the warnings.
"The damned can't harm the living, Raven." She sighed, "Shadow boy has rules too." Clearly that wasn't his meaning. She steps aside with the rival teacher heals his best student.
The real gun that she did exchange seems to been lost in the fight... slipped back in her shadow. Thanks to the mock room decoration shovelled to her. The group of bullies had their pay, are being organized to spare safer beds. The nest closed off again, a thin membrane tissue over the access of the corridor. Everyone is looking at the stairwell railing like it will eat them. She dusted her shoulder off, this was another good day. Steps are controlled from total panic.
"What are they?" Asked as they all collectively go down the stairs. The teachers and dorm lady shook heads. The students growing worse since those that should know haven't told them. Leana had plenty enough with the flavours wafted by all these souls.
"It is a singular." She tuts with more trying to take the taste off her tongue "It. One thing." Raven looked up at her given she had the answers, "It is nicknamed, Do not. It has several meat bodies that mimics everything it has touched or ate. The hive mind chooses such places to coexist. Using you lot like bait. So you treat it like a dog you can exchange bones with. I have met many. Each are unique to how they become and personality." She smirks accounting her strongest memory, "One was a traveller. It was a man on horse. It was horrific to watch it change shape. The head falls off a lot. bit like loosing a hat." They stop, fear causes still pause of them going down the stair well and stare at her like she's nuts.
"Why are they nicknamed that way?" Welrick asked.
"When you seen the furniture breathing, you tend to say 'do not touch it'. or 'do not move'. But given they start talking to you. Most folks end at, 'do not', because by then it will shift and expect that to be start of exchanging. Wild ones expect a food or resource exchange for you right to leave their territory. " She encourages the lot of them to keep walking, "It is this dorms pest control. Eating the banned items the kids bring in. I have been negotiating a lot of trades over the week with it."
"So what keeps that thing in check?" the quiet kid asked, with knowing that a creature like that would have over ran the dorm a long time ago. She shook her head as the reply. Everyone made separate ways, the rival kids being shown to new beds. The party are getting out of the dorm, following the lead teacher for now.
"Well, I am not done packing myself." Joana huffed, "I still haven't any transport. The limo was totalled and was taken from our budget." The nerve as Joana walks away for now. They looked together and head for the lounge. The war room.
"You didn't hunt them." A old friend creeps over into the path, soon in matching steps of her. The party stays a apart as she talks to the black tall freak with a pearlescent gleaming white mask. Just eye gaps and cat grin.
"I had humans with sanity watching. It's not nice to watch a brutal butchers work." The Ender mask being smiles deeper, the mask making crisp clicks in transition, it really has mimic her abyss way. The flexible clouded body. Hole thought the torso. The mask that moves off the face area. But it is a solid head underneath the removeable face. The senses are not the same. It licked her emotions, not her being checked or anything deep she does. It backed off with Raven stepping between with a frown. Staring deep into this titled creature.
"You are amusing." Pets Ravens head as she does with her creatures. It reached over and pets her head to a few times. Yet it retracted softly, knowing it just pet something more dangerous then itself, "So you aren't hunting?"
"If eating the Do not's are worth your hunger." She crossed arms, the old habit of hiding her own hole through. The hold of old wounds that aren't there. The measuring gaze, "I would buy the leftovers." She turned to stop looking at it directly. It rose a little higher with pleasure of hearing that.
"I hold you to that." It shifted to a creature of hunting and stomps away on a mission. She looked back checking and she continued forwards. She softly gathers the party closer together, and ups the pace to getting them to the lounge faster.
"What would you do with leftovers exactly?" Raven asked, she shook her head about that. They finally managed into the lounge. They went to a wall and they sat together at the floor. They do some supply check list stuff. The personal bits. The share of weigh carry. She just then took back all the spare kits that was taken from the stash. She brushed tops of heads. She waved for them to stay right there.
"Nothing illegal." Raven huffed, she nosed him deeply. She took herself to an empty table. She shadow lifted several more fold out tables. She then set cloth. She sets the items. Sets her charms for exchange. She set example props to do her exchanges mutely. She got to work with being the merchant she always was. Claps. Carving wood shavings that got in the way of folks. She made a show of bits and took bidding very seriously. Gestures of exchange was exact. No souls. No disgusting trades and legal. No open meat trading was a given in such a space.
"I can't believe it is here." Keepsakes going back to those that lost them. Tears well up and paid genersously for exchanging them, worth it trades in rations or value. For other items, exchange of carver charms was picking up after this. A charm is often being swapped with drinks, rations and match boxes. The match boxes were mostly 'empty'. Something does rattle in them that isn't matches. A seed or a clipping of plant. She accepting these strange clips, because she knew exactly what around here would take them.
The war room turned cold, the sound of dragging... a meat slab. A trail of blue blood behind it. A tall dark torn strips of blacken flesh raised above her and looking deeply. A mask flitting between a smile and frown. The core of the Do Not was drops on her clothy table. She takes the core softly between claws, weighs up the energy of it and that instant was the drop of parchment next.
The mask leaning forwards watching her apraising the prize. The parchement was touched with her abyss sense, licked a little. Tastes of the very soul in her hands. The tome page of its name. The mock mask creaked a little, threatens to break human shape. Her hands hold the soul with even more care and love. Fingers soon petting it. She looked over the ender use of the meat. Sunk into its storage. The blood trail was gone too. She just holding the soul.
"My work isn't done until you take that." It staring into her, and she softly nods in understanding.
"Sent away? Or broken down?" She asked and it leans back with thinking about those options, "Reformated for a new purpose." She offered as another option, "A lot of the souls around here are altered ones... restoring is a thing I do." There a odd twist and she lowered with a nerve tick, "Not all souls are a good thing to restore." She wafted side to side, "Souls seek purpose. Some are given it. Some find it. Some loose themsevles seeking it. Most are blind." She gentle holding the soul that trembles in her claws, "What would appease you?"
"Break down... but." It leans back a soft bit more with thinking deeper "Give the new bits a purpose... New form." It nods liking this plan, "Yes. That would fix the hole."
"Yeah. Sure. Breaking a soul will bring problems." She warns, "Hollows are here. Hollows seek such broken." But that was exactly the thing this mask was trying to repair in its assumptions. She shrinks a little as this being it is choose.
Hollows are empty of any soul. Breaking down the pest to give the things souls was a good fix. At a cost. Not a solution that fixes instantly. Could send the hollows into a frenzy of killing, as the soul impant will not complete the emptiness.
"Do the hollows have a say about the souls to be gave? Do they know what they are being given?" the mask tilts and shrug like that wasn't a problem, "Make a mess for the humans and hunters to fuss." She tuts.
"Break it down." He demands. She takes a deep breath, holding the soul. She releases her spare hidden parts of herself. The tome of broken souls lifted in the flesh book it was. She then summoned up the life book this soul was on, given it wasn't allowed to be declared a dead thing - even in this shape. She claws through the pages and began ripping the root language parts of this exact soul. She isn't deleting the language or removing the matrix. Just this soul, it is pattern of it is being spilt as divided patterns.
Her mock of a mask was gone and the gap of a face was showing. The soul drops into the void. The letters of the pages into the void. She then with care, claws through her torso - the gap there on purpose, removes the edited changed souls. One large thing was about five separate things. She pours the ink of the language back into book of living. That book was taken back to the place it was summoned away from. Being checked by a proper goddess or admin being for tomes. The souls are passed over to the Ender, expecting the being to have any clue of what to do with those.
The stood back crowd of next customers or those watching the sceptical of the creeps exchanging. Plenty were pulled away and eyeing the strange. The veils doesn't allow humans to see the gore aspects of these creeps. The few that do see a filtered strange clouded blur and strange gurgled sounds. As for the exchange at hand, the most suited of the five was put back into the survived shell of the do not. That was taken back to the dorms. The spare souls are carried like eggs. The being stomps away pleased of the exchange.
"Dude, what is her?" She can hear the topic raised. She fixed her appearance. She wipes a blank slate over the gaping hole of her face, the materials tighten hiding her torso gap. Her spare limbs folded away as 'belts'. She bent her hands back to human shape, and lowered with fussing her table of exchanges.
"Returned form the abyss. A realms walker. Another form of traveller that can exist. We are surrounded by many... she just able to be present among us."
The raised brows and the confused ones. The bet between two was exchanged. She has enough match boxes that, she softly came away from her table. She edges softly to a black vine wall... the wall wasn't vines a second ago. She pats it, knocking the wall by the roots system. She let's it pat her hand back. She was then stomps somewhat of a number. The black vine shivers. It pulls a massive sack through a window... the window wasn't there a second ago. Either way, the match boxes are emptied onto the black vine. The seeds, clippings of plants and other bugs are being added into the vines of black. It tangled vines, make shift hand that drops the heavy sack of patterned cloth at her feet. Mismatched sewn patches of unknown cloth. The boxes empty and the two sides bow.
She goes back to her table, pulling the sack underneath. The black sunk through the walls, pulled back and unremarkable bit of wall that seems untouched. The window made a soft air sigh on closure.
"Miss Vesper." Joana looks like he doesn't want to ask. He pulled himself to the emptiest table between them. But here he is, stood looking down at table. Not at her, her table cloth that flicks at the edges like a living thing. She looks him over and sees that his looking at carving of something that hasn't been put away yet. She tilts indicating that she is listening. He does the rules thing, no soul exchanging or enslavement. She gave the return of that. He doesn't ease. He just lowered a bit more.
"Spit it out man, I don't read minds. I can read your soul's desire." She rolls her hand. He flinched and was a little afraid of that strange difference.
"Take us across the dead man lands." He said finally like that was a hard ask.
"Oh, I haven't been asked as a guide in awhile." She reshaped her 'face' to the old mark she uses for such a request , An innocent face broken with a massive breaking down the forehead that made part of her lips.
"Tribute?" the old voice of that small part of herself has never changed. Joana lifted gaze into her mask face. Raven was shivering, looking a hat mask and heard ha old voice. Joana drops a bundle of strange herbs. She looks at them with barely touching the stack, she wafted her hand in notion that more was needed for the size of the party was crossing and nods shared gentle.
"You are joking?" The team got up and steps up, "You can summon gates?"
She studies the party with figuring out any issues. She was counting them and pointing at the herb bundle in making the gesture clear about the exchange amounts.
"I couldn't bother her ladyship with a travel internal cross." She purrs back to the voice they knew, "The tribute would need to be severe hands otherwise." She closed palms in waiting for this exchange was correct, "Travel hell is simple, the getting out is harder. Although, the heavenly realms are hard to reach and exit easy."
She rolls up her cloth, the herb bundle left in place as it was a unfinished exchange. Her spare tables are folded and slipped downwards, sunk to darkness.
"She never talks during her guiding work." Raven voiced. Joana flinched with remembering. He pats his body down, found a scrap of paper. He draw the needed mark down. He drops it onto of the tribute bundle. She narrows eyes at Joana deeply, and he drops the herb bundles matching the party. He drops two spare bundles, a unknown candle with runic paper casting inside it and obsidian stone hard thuds the top.
She turned mute, taking the herbal bundles with the note burning into purple flames. She slips the candle and stone into her cloak. She softly checked the party, swiftly not human physically possible. Ghosting each with a tie of her cloth over them. She shifted out of her human mock, and into those of the 'wayward guide' creatures. Those that take lost humans through god realms and curtains. 'distant' shapes that wave over to safe places or block death paths. Some wave guides show how to walk through things, if the pathways were requiring some skill. Every guide of unique summons mark were used for such unique pathing.
"We are going to the dark market." Joana voices, "At least the edge eclipse crossing of it." She twirls around them all, softly patting each person kit tightly. Nothing loose. Nothing reactive. She rune seals their gifts. She magic seals over those with magic ability. With the last pull of strap on Joana's bag. The last person she was hosting for this group.
"Are we going by gate?" One asked. Raven shook unsure. She softly pats them all, petting heads or putting their hair in neat braids. Softly, she ties more charms to add with the token feathers. She circles them, making them step together. She uses her left hand guiding they way. A soft bow or a wave for them to pay attention.
"Keep up or be dragged." Raven warns them, "Follow."
And so it began. The moment they left the war room, through a door that wasn't human use. She then was softly pulling them back to living realm. They were outside but it isn't right. They noticed that the directions are all wrong. Places are appearing and disappearing in the wrong ways. When it seemed like places they think they knew, an element of it that are wrong. She can see the clues, just as the nomad tribe man told her.
She gained 'company' that knew this job, she posted about her hosting as a nightmare through the sigil panes. And soon there was others that helps wafting away them away from dangers. Some pointed when they are distracted. This got the party to be coopertive.
"Do they know?" The pearly mask jumps to walking around them, prowls a few goes and then walks at her side. Pointing with her. Pointing the right ways across with her.
"Why are you coming with us?" The Mage asked. The mask of ender smirks, staring deeply looking into them.
"They really don't know." It looks at her and she eyes rolls, "What did you do to cheat Thanatos?" Prowls another circle around the group, pulled the lagging tired ones to stay closer. It studies them. Studies her. Studies the gear, "You didn't cheat him at all. How?" She huffed loudly as the reply.
They all felt the unease of the crossings, as it was dangerous now. She was tactically sneaking them in fallen realms and broken ones. She snatched the mask freak, and marks it into being one that she is hosting. It felt happy that she treats it like its own being. With evading a few undertakers in a death realm, ducking them through a painting crossing. She shoved them out of the realm before damage can come about - no clay altering or sudden body soul lock up.
"Password?" A grim fella stands in the way, flesh hung loose. The reptile living in the corpse has exposed opening that made the lizards hold of the internal body meat to function the corpse was very visible.
She steps right up to the face, the real face of the lizard that was stuck out from the neck of the dead. The mask that is her face was gone. The gapping void of her body was very visible. The reptile gulped. Slowly she eases back, her hands flow her natural and most exact greeting. It watches as if its life depends on it. It replies the hand gestures, fear shivering and imperfect finger work. She circles the party to her and it bows. It flees quickly. She eyes where it disappears to.