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"...I'm alright," Barth said, the thorns releasing their hold on the seats and withering back, as if they had never been there in the first place. He was not as eager to wade through the chaos.

"We should go back to my place," he told Calder quietly, "or at least find somewhere quiet to wait things out. The cemetery, maybe."

"Meant if could get rid quickly of smell." Though knowing a shower could get some of the stuff off was a nice tidbit. A new body? Not so much.

Mort was glad he made it too, otherwise he never would have been able to forgive himself for missing not only the play, but an invasion as well! He listened to Tybalt's tale with an awed expression: a raid! Mort wondered if it was like an MMO-sort of raid they had done. "Mrr . . . C-Can concentrate FEAR counter JOY?" he asked curiously. Maybe like opposing elements disintegrating each other upon contact?

Calder nodded to Malodore. "I think we'll be okay. I think Barth and I will head back and just...find someplace safe. Will you all be okay? Do you need help?" He didn't want to leave his friends alone if they needed his help - no matter how useless he was. Then again, ever since the haunted house - he just felt like he got in the way more and more. He looked over to Christof as well, worried.

"We should head back." He told Barth. "A cemetery seems....to open to me." He wanted someplace where they could have control. Lock some doors. Somewhere where they wouldn't be lured into a trap. "You think Christof will be okay?"

Fixated on his task of getting through the sale papers, Thackery initially found the sudden blackout to be a massive inconvenience. With his best oh come onnnn whine, he had carefully folded up the papers and tucked them in one of the militant straps of his costume.

And then there was a real rat. He immediately noted that he had gotten his costume very wrong, which was a great disappointment. An even greater disappointment was spotting the swarming army of things. Worse than the gnomes, even, and that was saying a lot.

The Cerberus had pulled a move even more shameful than his rat representation. He'd ducked and covered under what could only be described as a "glob" of curtain cloth. The sounds of the other students bravely fighting the rat king and his minions were muffled by the curtain, but they were still very audible. Just a mobile wall of shame, crumbling all over him.

Only when the coast was clear did he emerge again, bits of mold and miscellaneous other strange things stuck to the paint on his ears and tail.

"This uh, so this uh...JOY stuff...is what smells? How did you guys make it on that Christmas trip..." he muttered, wandering towards the rat king and poking it with his foot. Nobody would notice that he hadn't been there all along. Probably. "Weird that we're almost kind of like...even here. We're in Halloween. We should be at an advantage on our 'home turf' like you guys said and stuff. There aren't even any Christmas things around." He paused, considering. But there was. They were all celebrating the Christmas season in varied adopted ways - was that ruining things somehow?

The door of the theater had flung open and a mass of smoke billowed out as a figure materialized out of smoke. Gilly's eyes went wide as she saw the silhouetted creature before her. She couldn't make out much because the bright lighst from inside the theater was making her squint. She could see, however, that whatever it was was ready for a fight, and she was ready to pee her pants.

A huge fist came barreling down towards Gilly. She reached up to protect her face and braced for the blow. Her eyes were as squinty as they could possibly be as she waiting for the pain to being. She sat there, for a good few seconds before she realized that she wasn't feeling any pain, just kinda wet. She opened her fingers and peered through to see that the creature had reached out a hand to help instead of strike. Gilly was embarrassed.

"Oh uh, oh my gosh, sorry." Gilly stuttered as she started to stand up. Then she noticed that in her shock she had, uh, wet herself. Not in the bathroom sort of sense, but secreted some water from her skin, and it had pooled underneath her. So it looked like, the bathroom sort of sense.

"THE PLAY MUST BE OVER." She started shouting as she pulled her skirt down and tried to stand up and kinda spread the pool around a bit with her foot, while trying not to look like she was avoiding taking the onlookers hand. "I GOT LOST AND...and" She was shuffling her feet over the puddle and hoping that it didn't look too much like she wet herself. "...IT'S PRETTY COLD OUT..." She was totally losing her train of thought as she kept scuffing around.

Astra had been absent for the majority of this battle, as she had followed the horde of JOYfull creatures outside the theater.

Exiting!

What all was going on? All Chuppi could remember was suddenly being stuck in the ground because of how she fell, then people doing their bows, and her still being stuck. Then came...one of the worst smells -ever- and she felt sick to her stomach except, well, she couldn't relieve her stomach at all so she just had to sit there and take it.

Of course right after that came a Rat King(?!) that was real and huge but the people in the audience had taken care of (?) it as best they could. Was it really dead or just stunned, like in the play? Was this the surprise she was supposed to have been looking forward to? either way the little monster was not going to stay laying down forever and she pulled herself up from where she'd been safetly hidden with a loud crack!, the wood splintering beneath her as she yanked her quills free. Honestly she doubted anyone would notice, they were all so very much absorbed with one another that she could have easily been forgotten in all the hullabaloo which was...good and bad?

"Big brother? Mort?" Her voice was quiet as she tried to stay calm and take softer breaths. No need for her to get super sick and find out just if a chupacabra could vomit after all.

[ fml work and sickness . ___________ . ]