Welcome to Gaia! ::

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Yume rubbed at her sleepy eyes before slowly patting and feeling the ground she was sitting on. It was hard, but still a bit soft. She looked down thinking she had fallen out of bed perhaps, only to notice the carpet she was sitting on is dark green or something similar to that. Not the buttery yellow of her bedroom carpet.
As she further scanned her whereabouts she saw Trea curled up asleep next to her. This brought her a small wave of comfort that was much needed.

“Oh dear, I don’t think I will ever get used to randomly waking up in odd places. I wonder where I am anyway.” Yume said softly to herself. She did not want to wake Trea up just yet, before she could give an explanation. Standing up she put her hand on the wall and dragged her finger tips over the smooth glass as she further inspected her box. While walking around lights slowly began to show a bit brighter. Motion-sensors turning them on, no doubt. Looking up she noticed the latch at the top, a sight that left her sighing and sitting back down. The thud created from her slumping to the ground was enough to wake Trea who now sat looking at her in large confusion.

“Yume, where are we?” Her tiny voice was so sleepy, it saddened Yume that she did not even know where to start explaining.
“Well Trea, that is a bit hard to explain. Remember when we ended up in that ghost carnival?”
“Uh-huh.” The mouse nodded slightly.
“Well, I -think- this may be something like that, but I am not entirely sure.”
“We got out of the carnival alright, we can do that again.”
“I am not so sure about that honey, look.” Yume pointed to the latch on the top of the box. “We can’t reach that. Besides, even if we could, the lock is on the outside I think.”
Trea nodded her head while listening and looking up at the lock. Squinting her eyes a bit she appeared to be thinking hard about something when she finally stood up. There was a quick inspection of Yume before she made a rising motion with her hand.
“How tall are you Yume?”
“Some where around five feet. Why?”
“If you are five feet, and your arms are another couple of feet, and I stand in your palm while you are holding me up we might be able to reach it that way. Or at least get a better look so we can try to find a way out of this.”]
Yume smiled down at her child and nodded while thinking of how wonderful and smart Trea is. After a moment she scooped up Trea and reached up, close to where the lock was and stood on her tip-toes. Trea then held onto Yume’s fingers while she shakily stood up, resembling the unsteady stance of a surfer first rising up to catch a wave.
“How does everything look up there hun? Any chance for us to get out?”
“Yes! The lock is not locked! What luck for us!”
“Are you serious?” The disbelief was obvious in Yume’s voice as she relaxed on her feet and brought Trea down to viewing height.
“You taught me not to lie; of course I am being serious.”
“That is great… well almost great. We still need to get the lid pushed open.” They both frowned at the idea of still having to get out.
“Oh wait, I think I have an idea Trea! It is something Tenez did in a hallway one time. Of course he was showing off but that might be very helpful to us now.”
Yume set Trea down and positioned herself against with her back against the wall. She extended her hands and fell forward so that her feet were pressed against one wall, and going at an angle, her palms pressed against the other. Man, I hope I don’t get sweaty palms doing this. “Alright Trea, climb on my back because when we get to the top you are going to have to help push the lid up.” With that Yume pressed her hands and feet tight against the wall and began to ‘walk’ her feet slowly up until she was suspended parallel to the floor, facing downward. Trea clung tightly to Yume’s shirt and looked up. The lid seems so far away. I hope we can make it. The task was pain-staking and extremely tiring, eight feet was a lot higher when you were traveling up this way. By the time Yume finally made it to the top her muscles were starting to shiver.
“Quick Trea! You have to stand up and push on the lid as we go up.” With that Yume grunted and with closed eyes summoned all the strength she had left to wall-walk up the last foot or so. Trea extended her hands and pushed on the lid, allowing it to come up, while Yume provided all of the lid-lifting strength. Feeling the edge with her feet Yume carefully brought one foot up and hooked her ankle over the edge. Then moved her left hand to grab the edge as well, leaving one foot and one hand pressing on the walls. She drew in a sharp breath of air as the pain of the edge and weight pressed into her ankle.
“Hurry Yume, I can’t hold this up much longer!” In the midst of her own pain, Yume had momentarily forgotten about her little mouse holding the lid up, hurting her own poor small arms. She grabbed the edge with her other hand and moved herself closer to the edge running along her side. She managed to get her chest halfway on that wall, relieving some of the pressure. Then she moved her right leg to sit on the wall, and finally pulled her left foot off of the wall and rested it on the edge. She let her legs slowly drop so that one was on either side of the boxes wall.
“Trea this is going to get dangerous. Walk very slowly and carefully down my back and off of me, keep a hold of my pants though and sit on the wall like I am, use your other hand to hold the wall so you don’t fall. I am going to hold up the lid.” With that Yume grasped the edge with her hand, slowly reaching the other one up to support the lid from closing down on her precious child. Trea did as she was told and crawled off of Yume, straddling the edge of the box, holding onto both Yume’s clothing and the edge of the wall, she peered down and swallowed hard, “That is a long way down.”
Yume grunted a bit as she sat up, pushing the lid up as well and the pushed it hard, hoping to swing it high enough, that it would fall open, “It was a long way up too.” The lid flew back on its hinges and fell back as desired so now they did not have to worry about keeping it open. “Ok, now let go of my pants but hold very tightly onto the wall.”
“Ok. Holding on to the wall now.” Trea said with a bit of a shake in her voice.
Yume slowly turned and nodded with a small smile at Trea.
“You did great my little girl. Now I am going to drop down and you are going to jump to me, I will catch you. Then, we will take a short break to rest from all that work.”
“Sounds good to me momma dear.”

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Both of the girls stretched and yawned as they blinked awake and sat up from their curled positions on the floor. The nap had proven good and bad. The rest was needed for them to be able to continue on but it also gave their bodies time to start bruising up and tightening the over strained muscles.

“Oh boy, what a day or possibly night, this has been so far. Well, I guess now we just have to figure this silly old lock out too. This one is undoubtedly locked for real.” Yume said as she continued to peer around the room. The only light source being the lamp that turned on again as they were stretching.
“I don’t know much about locks momma. How they work or anything like that. Can we look around first?”
“Silly question, we are going to look around. Maybe we got off easy and there is something here that will help us get out.”
“Well the good new is that we are at least half way out, I hope.”
With that the girls got up, Yume picking up Trea in her arms and walked over to the table and lamp. There was no papers or anything on the table. Certainly nothing that would help them figure out the lock. With a small sigh Yume walked over to the device and stared down at it. Trea looked up at the display panel of sound waves and blinked, swishing her tail.

“Open sesame!” She said in her tiny mouse voice as loud as she could. The display spiked up and down and fell to a normal pattern but did nothing. “Well that did not work. I wonder what sound, word, or voice it needs.”
“Well, we can recognize this as a quest, hopefully it is anyway. So let us try different voices of those we know, you can do that right?”
“Well, I think I can, I never tried -voices- before, just sounds. We need to name off some people we know.”
“Iris of course, Tenez, Lucian, Donna and Carl, LP and Willow of course, Rogue and Fyrn, you have met Sid but I don’t think you would remember him. That is a pretty good list for you to start with. I just don’t know what any of them would say.”

Oh the time that was spent between Yume and Trea trying to figure out phrases and tones that would go with each of the people on their list was quite extensive. Everything for Iris saying Happy Birthday! Tenez and Lucian speaking German, Sid saying something about adventures with whips and rolling rocks, Rogue and Fyrn were a bit tough but Trea tried something about the medical pendant that she wore from Rogue. LP was where they couldn’t find anything she might say, but they tried plenty of things relating to Willow and her ghosts or tarot cards, even some of the adventures they had been on. When it came to Donna and Carl however their brains were racked.

“Donna.. I can not think of anything I have heard her say often, I guess we will have to pass on her.” Yume rolled her eyes a bit as she sighed. This was getting so frustrated. However Trea clapped her hands and smiled, “I KNOW IT!”

“MAKE WAY FOR THE QUEEN!” She said with great regality and composure, sounding just like Carl would as he announced way for his ‘queen’ and himself. A phrase Yume might not understand, that was one adventure she still didn’t know about. The castle was their place, and she kind of wanted to keep it that way, for a while at least.

The display tracked the voice and phrase and at the end pressure could be heard being released and the sliding of metal from within the door as the lock slid back and the door started to open outward for them. They smile to each other and cheered as Yume pushed the door open and led them from the room out into the velveteen shop. Her wonderful teenaged daughter in hand as well.