Welcome to Gaia! ::

Alex was helpless under her appreciation and gentle smile. He blushed and nervously scratched at the back of his head. "You're welcome," he managed to get out. Perhaps it was all that had happened since they had left the dance hall that made him unstable. Whatever it was, he was guarding his words carefully. He didn't want to set off any other issues with his stupidity.

He visibly relaxed soon, though. Perhaps it was positive reinforcement; the more she smiled, the more he was able to let go of his overwhelming need to protect her. If it was chauvinistic of him, he didn't realize it. To him, it was just the way a proper gentleman, such as he had been taught to compose himself as, treated a lady. Particularly one he cared about.

He made room for her on the mist cloud then sat cross-legged on it beside her. "There really is no telling with this place," Alex said. "We could bumble into a troll right now and it honestly wouldn't surprise me" He let that though sit in the air for a few long seconds before he added, "But if that happens, I'm really gonna be irritated."

He waved his open hand forward and the cloud shifted into a likewise forward drift. "This won't do," he mumbled. "It'll take us forever to get out of here at this pace." He looked to Kira for an agreement, but he noticed that at moment they passed by a candle and simultaneously her eyes seemed to glow, precisely how the barn cat's eyes back home in the vineyard did. "Whoa," he breathed. For the first time since Kira had fallen into that trance, a grin burst onto his face. "That is cool," he declared.

Distracted, he realized they were still creeping along. He waved a hand more violently in front of them and the mist again responded in kind by picking up speed. Now they were cruising along at a pleasant speed. Until they ran smack dab into the horribly ugly succubus. Literally, they ran into the demon's large belly and bounced back accordingly. Alex's magic mist faded as it brushed past her, leaving them no quick means of escape.

"Huh?" the succubus asked. Her jowls flapped repulsively as she turned to look at the two of them. "A man!!" she exclaimed, her repugnant hands flexing out towards him to grab him. Even as she did, she looked over at Kira. "And a girl..." She seemed much less enthused to see Kira. Alex found his hands and feet more quickly than he ever had before and backpedaled by a few feet.

"Holiest of holies!" he shouted. "This is too much! You're demented!" he screamed at the walls around them. "You hear me?! This is just wrong! Sick and wrong!" His outrage swinging in full force, he brought himself yet again to his feet, getting his legs under him and pushing himself forward to rise with his hands. "I'm so over this place," he muttered to himself.

The succubus came at him, grabbing at him with her pudgy fingers, but he jumped backwards. Once more, he shrugged his right shoulder, drew his other arm behind him and grabbed hold of the heavy oak and slid it off of his shoulders. He took the staff in both hands and advanced at the poor creature. "Back!" he said, prodding her with the stick, as if she were a wild lion in a circus. "Get back!" he ordered.

The heavyset succubus stumbled back a few steps, then fell onto her butt. Humiliation turned her pale face bright red and she looked back and forth between Alexandros and Kira and her eyes welled up with tears. "Oh, no." Alex smacked himself in the face with one hand. "Now what have I done?" Loud wailing began filling the narrow, dark halls as the succubus cried in earnest. Alex felt for her. It was her lot in life to seduce men, but who would have her in her state?

He meekly stepped up to her and with a swirl of his staff in the air, leaving spinning clouds of dust, he conjured more magic to life. This time, he created a dozen mist-roses wrapped in a bouquet and the roses hovered in the air in front of her. Why roses? Because he was from an old-world country, and a man made reparations with a woman by giving her a token of his affection, flowers in this case. "I'm sorry," he started to say, before she began wailing louder, her eyes clenched tightly shut. "I'm sorry!" he shouted again, this time drawing a pause in her crying. He looked at her, ashamed of himself, presenting the roses as a peace offering. "I'm sorry, okay? I didn't mean to make you cry," he said, his eyes darting to the ground.

"I mean, I know you probably have it rough down here," he said, trailing the toe of one shoe across the red carpet. "And anyway, I'm sorry I embarrassed you. Will you forgive me?" The succubus's eyes gleamed with joy and her mouth opened wide in excitement. She snatched up the flowers and admired them, then she looked over at Alex and did the same thing to him, lifting him from the floor and squeezing him in her large arms, a pleased squeal still coming from her. "A little help here?" Alex wheezed to Kira, pleading with her using his eyes.

"You do that and I'm likely to kiss you," Alexandros retorted. Now that the succubus was taken care of, or escaped from, it was time to get all sorts of out of there. So, he didn't fight Kira when she grabbed him and tugged him along. "Thanks for the save, by the way," he said. They were nearly thirty feet away before Alex realized he had dropped his staff when the succubus had smacked him into a wall. He certainly wasn't going back for it now, perhaps it would somehow get returned to him when the Haunted House was taken down.

The run gave him a chance to reflect, the heavy panting they were doing hindering any chance at conversation they had. He thought back to how his mist had caught the glass in the vanity room and wondered why he had never before been able to affect inanimate matter with his magic. Was it his emotional tie to Kira? Did being in this setting he was now enable him to grow emotionally and thus enhance his magic? He would really have to do some research on magic, and discover what secrets his abilities held.

Alex was no slouch, he was conditioned by hard labor on this family's vineyard, but after a while, he was starting to get tired. Right before he was about to call it quits and fall flat on his face, they came upon the still-open trapdoor they had fallen through. It seemed that had come full-circle in this never-ending hallway, and Alex was struck with inspiration. He gave Kira a conspiratorial look and was the first to speak. "You thinking what I'm thinking?" he asked her, giving the trapdoor hanging down towards them a significant look. He elaborated. "Ride my mist up and ditch this place for good?"

It didn't take too long for them to leave the building where the students held the dancing event and find their way around campus towards the Haunted House. Varon had only just arrived that morning, though he'd already memorized the chool map, and there were a few blunders on the way. Never-the-less, they arrived without spending so much time wandering aimlessly.

He stopped in front of the door, rubbing his chin, "You know how these things usually work, right? According to my sources, this house contains a total of 566 rooms, yet you can see it has nowhere near the right dimensions to accomodate such a large exterior." He opened the door and motioned for her to go inside with a small bow and a wave of his hand, "Come inside, and I'll show you."

As they entered the room, Varon stood right in the threshold, gazing at the space between the outside courtyard and the scarlet-furbished room, "There are actually several ways to accomplish this feat," While Evie surveyed the room, Varon raised a hand to his chin, speaking in a low voice as if either talking to himself, or contemplating to someone right next to him and doesn't know which, "One of them involves linking two points via a portal, the other deals with using sorcery to actually distort the fabric of space-time, stretching or compressing it to the specifications."

"Now, if you look closely-" He turned towards Evie, motioning her to come to the door frame, only to jump to his side, startled by the sudden and horrific appearance. The hulking succubus only just noticed his presence, touching herself in a horrifying mockery of seduction and speaking in a low, rough and ugly voice, "Why, hello handsome."

As the hulking figure approached, Varon raised his hands in an awkward gesture of greeting and submission, slowly backing into a wall, "Ah, countless greetings! My partner and I were just passing through your most charming adobe, would it be too much to ask such a fair lady to show us the way out?"

Large, clubbed and greasy fingers danced across swollen lips as she continued to approach him, "My, my... how lucky... seems like I caught a smart, handsome and charming drink of water. This woman needs a drink before showing her guests out." It was clear that the situation was growing more uncomfortable as she approached- even more so now that he hit a wall and started inching over to the side, clearly trapped in a bottleneck of a wall, rich furniture and a voluptuous bed he'd rather be poisoned before even approaching.

Varon jerked his head to the side, as if Evie has just proposed something incredible, "Are you insane? Do you have the slightest idea how difficult it is to deconstruct such a collosal object? Why not move the entire haunted house while I'm at it!"

Apparently, the rotund succubus wasn't deaf or dumb as her face distorted in an expression of raging insult, "Hey, that's not very polite! I'll have to teach you some manners!" She approached him at a higher pace, but stopped when Evie blockaded the way. Her attempts at bravery gave her a brief moment of laugher, "What are you going to do about it, girl? Step aside!"

The flabby succubus charged at the both of them, threatening to run the both of them over and smash them agains the wall. Grabbing Evie beheath his hand, wrapping the arm around her waist and running to the far end of their death trap, Varon opened a slight portal at the last second. They plunged through to the next room, landing on the floor just as the portal closed and the room shook visibly as the collosal succubus rammed the wall, now wailing in frustration.

He dusted himself off without looking around, something he figured would be huge mistake. When they named this a haunted house, boy... they weren't kidding, "Well... that was unpleasant... thanks for the help, by the way." He checked his figure for any injuries. Lucien would be in a world of trouble if there were any signs of injuries in his body; Varon doesn't take desecration very lightly.

[Oh, not at all...having a bad case of writer's block, for some reason. To take away some confusion before I later explain the connection, I'll just change the names for now.]

Lucien rubbed his shoulder, having wrenched Evie so suddenly may have caused some things to shift when they shouldn't. Damn, Varon isn't going to like a dislocated shoulder blade. And to think he could clear it out with a clean record... it's always wish-thinking when it comes to pleasing the guy. Not that he cared about it, really; while Lucien resented the man, today was a perk. It's not everyday he gets to meet a charming young lady and have full control over a body. It's always a scheme when it comes to dealing with him, however...

His train of thought was cut short by Evie's sudden disappearance. Only just after noticing the movement where she was, did he become conciously aware of the surroundings: red. Too much red color, rich furniture and a remarkably familiar bed.

"Wait for me!" He ran after her, his partially dispropotionately long legs giving him a rare advantage- longer strides for a faster escape and the graceful maneuverability to dodge furniture and obese succubi. The door was shut behind him before the fat lady recovered and sung, much to his pleasure. Overcome with a nasty cough, Lucien pressed a hankerchief to his nose and mouth, holding another one to Evie.

The room looked somewhat familiar- his uncle being notorious for collecting artifacts and antiques, both magical and mundane. He began exploring the room, dusting off the covers of old books, the face of a grandfather clock- surveying everything he could lay his hands on, "Ah, what a magnificent place! All of the antiques- lost artifacts of knowledge in ages past."

Taking the blanket off a cupboard, Lucien saw a little black kitten laying down at its top, it large, adorable eyes peering curiously at the nearest visitor, "Aww... look at you! A black kitten with such a curious complexion... I know! I shall call you: Mephisto!" Little did he know, the name might actually suit the subject, for Mephisto was the name of the trecherous demon that accompanied Faust in his adventures, where his apparently miraculous acts were never what they seemed.

Lucien stared intently at the kitten, mezmerized by its appearance... such a cute little kitten. Large orbs of black met his own, shifting only to gaze curiously at the young woman, mouth oopening sightly to let out a soft 'mew' and purring as its hair was stoked. Evie spoke in a curious tone, met by Lucien's intellectual stare as she inquired as to what he spoke of, "Have you not read the great work of literature, Faust by Wolfgand von Goethe?"

It seemed for a moment as if he was shocked to find someone who was not familiar with the book, but it receeded as the realization that he no longer stood in the great intellectual circles, "I apologize, I didn't mean to phrase it quite like that." He returned his gaze to the cat, moving his torso to both sides as if to ardently study the cat's every detail, forgetting the nature of the place he'd gone into, "Faust is a great novel written in poetry that depicts the adventures of a scholar who, after a lifetime of seeking every bit of knowledge there was, remained dissatisfied with his current understanding and seemed frustrated at having realized that he wasted his entire life achieving something that would end up with such unsatisfying results. He made a pact with a demon, Mephisto, who will grant him his every wish, giving up his immortal soul only once he achieves a moment of happiness so great that he would wish to linger in it forever. And so it was..."

Lucien stretched a hand to rub the underside of the cat's head with his index finger as he finished the lecture, always oblivious to the fact that he's doing so and failing to think of the other party's perspectives on it, "Mephisto stays true to his word, always granting the wish that is asked of him, but there is always something that is not as it would seem. When Faust asks for a potion to put his lover's mother to a deep sleep, it turns out the draught actually killed her. Honest and true to his word, yet desceptive..."

As if on cue, the kitten lunged forward, claws extended and digging deep into Lucien's skin. He staggered backwards, screaming at the sudden agression and the stabbing pain in his face- hands grasping at the hostile creature in his face who now proceeded to claw at every patch of skin in his reach: face, arm and hand, all the while growling in the malicious rage of an angry kitten.

Lucien winced, sharp pain shooting upwards from his hands and across his face. Before its claws were retracted and it lay purring in Evie's hands, caressing them with its own face and mewing happily, the beast managed to do quite a bit of damage. Applying a handkerchief to his wounds showed a change in its hue- white and gold to patches and streaks of red.

It was getting late- maybe it was time to go. Before he had a chance to express that feeling, a sudden rush of nauseating sickness momentarily took over him. A hand was brought to his face as Lucien stumbled a bit, disoriented for a few seconds before recovering- it was definitely time to go, "I apologize, it seems the night has grown old and I must retire- work has to be done in the morning which seems is only a few hours away. Now we need only to find an…” As he said this, Lucien turned around to find a door with a glowing ‘Exit’ sign, “…Huh.”

[Bah, not very creative today, for some reason. My next one would have us actually leaving the place. I'll be readin my novel, so hopefully the juices will be aflowin' by then]