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 Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2010 11:50 pm
...Anyway, back to the story.
On this particularly unhappy night there was a particularly unhappy store. Lately it had been throwing a fit; well, as much of a fit as a shop can throw. It groaned, it creaked, on a couple occasions it topped over some objects, made items hung up on the wall fall over, and once it even locked Switch out for daring to call it a child. Nothing could seem to calm it down, and honestly, where would you even start?
All alone, the shop threw a fit. The drawers of Switch's desk open and closed, the doors in the upstairs rooms opened and slammed shut. Items moved around seemingly on their own (a particularly noteworthy move was made by a vase who, after falling off of it's post and shattering into a million pieces, used a breeze to push itself to the other end of the room, where it reformed as if nothing had happened; second place went to a sling shot, which threw itself at the wall and broke). Long story short, it was generally chaos.
That was, of course, until a heavily cloaked figure stepped down onto the main floor. It was hard to tell exactly where this figure had come from; the front door had not opened, and for the longest time the only inhabitant at night was occasionally Switch, or that red haired brat that sometimes stayed the night. But the moment the first brushes of the figure's cloak hit the dusty old wood floor, the chaos stopped. The desk drawers and upstairs doors stopped opening and closing; the items stopped vibrating; the ones that had been moving fell where they stood...in fact, the only thing that kept moving was a feather, and that was only because it took a feather a little longer to hit the ground than, say, a cannon ball.
"Oh you poor thing..." The figure whispered sympathetically, it's voice echoing with two tones, one male and one female. "This must be uncomfortable for you..." It said, picking up a nearby object, rotating it gingerly between its hands. "It looks like that Shop Girl is not pulling her weight around here..." With both of it's voices sounding disappointed, the object was set down and the robed figure walked to the giant oak desk, reaching into its long sleeves and dropping nine odd little disks on golden chains onto the surface.
"Don't worry, I will help you." It promised as the nine items began to emit a smokey grey substance followed by nine little bursts of energy.
The odd little disks, the smoke, and the figure disappeared.
The shop went quiet, oddly quiet. When Switch came in the next morning she was understandably suspicious, but decided to count her blessings and in the end thought nothing of it.
However, as the day progressed...nine little Curio children came into strange new powers....
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Posted: Tue Jan 19, 2010 10:11 pm
Ever since the whole rotting food incident, Switch had been hesitant to go near the fridge. She knew her boy, and she knew how forgetful he could be; it was more than possible that he had made a few of the items rot, then left them to cater to some other distraction. There was a good chance that there was a pile of rotting food, and the blue haired woman just wasn't brave enough to tempt it...until she was really hungry, or until Tek needed to be fed.
Now was one such time, and Tek not only needed to be fed, but he needed to be fed now. The mismatched toddler was shrieking and crying, his wolf ears flattened back, his dragon and phoenix wings flapping in his discomfort and displeasure. If she didn't feed him now, he'd probably bite her and there was a good chance she'd need to go to the hospital for it...weighing her options, braving the fridge won by a long shot.
Switch didn't hear the door bell ring over Tek's shrieking, and she barely heard the competitive yell of 'I'LL GET IT!' from Xbalanque as he ran heavily from his room to the front door. It wasn't until Tek was quiet and sucking on his bottle that she even suspected something was up, and even then it took a few minutes to comprehend what was happening.
Xbalanque was standing there, holding a silver box and a bright blue ribbon, watching and laughing at an odd grey trail of smoke that was bouncing around the room. While Switch was aware that Kay could see and talk to the deceased she never saw any of the spirits he insisted was there, so Imagine her surprise when she saw this one, bouncing off of items and walls like a ping pong ball, holding an odd golden chain with a curious pale blue disk attached to it.
"Hahahaha! Hey Na, lookit this! He says he's lookin' for somethin." Kay laughed and waved her over, but the moment he spoke the little smoke creature stopped hitting itself against the TV and turned around, focusing a single blue eye on her. If there was one way to describe the look this creature gave; it was stupid.
"Hellohellohello" It chattered from the mouth it didn't possess, going right through Xbalanque on it's way to Switch, where it held up the disk it was holding. Now that she looked at it, it had a spiral imprinted on it. Curious. Green eyes stared at the dense looking creature and it's little disk, when it started to sway the disk back and forth.
"Youaregettingsleepyandnothungry." Chattering in a quick voice, it kept it's attention solely on the person it was trying to convince. Sadly for it, it wasn't working; Switch just stared at it in confusion. "YouaregoingtogotoBalcombeCuri---"
"Uh. No." Switch said suddenly, swatting the hypnodisk away from her. "That's my shop. Why are you trying to get me to go there?"
"BalcombeCuriousitiesYourshop?"
"My Shop."
"..." It seemed at a loss for what to do. It stared at her again, looking remarkably perplexed. "Youaregettingsleepyandnolongersufferfromdelusions" It seemed to think that trying again would fix the problem, and once more it was met with a slap to the disk it held.
"Stop that! It's not working! What do you want?!" The little creature looked like it was panicking, and after flying in a circle it tried holding it's disk down to the baby in the woman's arms, where once more it was slapped away. "Are you stupid? Get out of my house!" She commanded, using her good hand to try and grab the creature.
"I am afraid he will not." Came a new voice; a dual voice that was both male and female, yet not one over the other. A heavily cloaked figure stepped into the home through the open front door, hands clasped in front of it on it's stomach. "You are not doing your job well enough. We will be doing it for you." The door slammed shut behind the figure and locked, and bars appeared over every window, blocking every exit.
Switch was remarkably calm about this. She worked in a living shop filled with junk. A stranger showing up at her home didn't surprise her as much as it should have. "I'm not doing my job, so you're sending these idiots to do it?" She questioned, pointing at the smoke creature who was still trying to hypnotize her baby. It was working, but instead of making the Baby go to Balcombe, it was just putting him to sleep. The figure's shoulders hunched a bit.
"Yes, well," It coughed, looking to the side then back at the understandably suspicious shop keep. "Their powers are in hypnotism, not brains...unfortunately." It had seen that Switch was about to open her mouth to ask a question, and effectively cut her off. "It did not work on you because you run the shop...and it seems the male that usually resides in this house is out..." A thin hand moved, patting Xbalanque's head. "I would not normally ask this of this child, but it seems I have no choice. Xbalanque, will you come to Balcombe with me?"
"Xbalanque, don---"
"Okay! I'll help!" He chirped, not quite understanding what was going on, but completely willing to help his Na and go in her place. She had the baby to take care of, after all!
"Excellent." The figure stated, curling it's fingers over Kay's shoulder. "I will return him when I am finished, Unharmed of course." It promised. With a bow, the figure - and Kay - disappeared, leaving her with the stupid smoke creature in a locked down home.
"....Haaaaaaaaaai." The creature said, opening the mouth she didn't realize existed in a wide, toothy grin. Switch could just groan.
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Posted: Tue Jan 19, 2010 10:49 pm
Xbalanque didn't understand what was going on; one minute he was at home, and then everything went black, and once he opened his eyes again he found himself at the shop? Odd. He seemed to be alone too, wasn't there a robed figure before? Oh well. Oh hey, Mrrh was here! Completely forgetting his should-be woes, the Shaman Mask boy wandered over to a nearby shelf, picking up the shrunken head and tossing it from one hand to the other.
"Nobody else is here yet. Good." The dual voice said softly, startling the boy so much he nearly dropped the head, performing a little dance to retrieve it. Xbalanque's gaze turned to stare at the robed figure as it started to twist and turn in on itself, fading in and out of view like a TV with bad reception.
"Hey, are you okay?" He asked in a worried tone, holding Mrrh in one hand but reaching out with the other. By then, the figure had stopped moving and stopped it's little static dance, reaching up to grasp it's hood.
"I'm fine." It said softly, it's voice purely feminine...and very familiar. The hood pulled back and the robes dropped to the ground; it wasn't a stranger that stood there. No, it was Switch...or at least someone that looked suspiciously identical to her.
"Hey...you look like..."
"Shh." She commanded. "They should be coming any minute now."
(( Guardians: Please find your Curio's name below and complete the RP with me before posting here!
Evari || Faris || Pilot || Kailani || Wynn and Deimos || Carina || Ryan))
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Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2010 1:00 am
Faris and Luis rather compliantly wandered to the shop. It wasn't very hard to get them moving and since Luis was unprepared she naturally didn't try to resist or look away in any form so she was quite hypnotized and following the suggestion that was put forth for her. Faris was more or less chattering at the thing that had hugged her face though after a while it detached and started doing its strange dance or to chew on something it had apparently found appealing.
The gargoyle ended up calling it over if it got too distracted. The name it had, temporarily, was 'Critter'. Faris didn't seem attached to the idea of leaving it behind at all. She needed to protect it, obviously, it was too silly headed to protect itself.
It took a small while but eventually they were at the shop where they simply entered with little to no fanfare.
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Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2010 1:05 am
A short while after Luis and Faris entered the shop the unhappy cries of a certain glowing girl could be heard from outside.
"Noooooo! Icecreamnooooooow!" Evari cried angrily. She didn't want to wait! She wanted it now! Xai ignored her for now, dragging her daughter through town until they reached the curio shop. Xai reached over to pet at the little thing clinging to her ear once, it had remained there the entire trip from the house. The only time it ever let go of her ear was to buzz around her head excitedly, something that didn't seem to bother her for some reason. Her hand then reached down to try the door, opening it when it appeared to be unlocked and just waltzing right in. Evari continued to tug at her hand until she spotted a familiar friend, gasping and swinging from Xai's hand. Faaaaaariiiiiiis! "Hey! Hey! Heyheyhey! Heeeeeeeeey!"
Xai blinked, still holding Evari's hand. "Hello!" Where was Switch? Wasn't she usually here too?
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Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2010 2:04 am
Pilot and Ophelia where not amused when they finally arrived at the store. The creature hadn’t been at all helpful with Ophelia questions answer simple things like, “How did you die?” with “Ducky!” and other ridiculous answers. Pilot on the other hand had been perfectly happy until it had started chewing on his hair, earning it the nickname of ‘Nom-Nom’. Morpheus on the other hand was feeling very smug, the thing had left him alone after he’d had one good swipe at it.
As they entered they all perked up, Ophelia was interested in all the new people that hadn’t been here last time and Morpheus and Pilot hadn’t been to the shop before. Looking at all the different people around them they all gave their separate version of a greeting.
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Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2010 2:20 am
A rather odd little group showed up next. The pink skinned Wynn floated at the front, holding hands with the two funny looking creatures and looking around with them.
Behind them walked Reu, who was carefully walking with one arm around Jiang, and Deimos clinging to his leg. He nodded politely to the others as they entered, calling up to Wynn to behave and not get into trouble.
The pink boy laughed before grinning at the critters. "Let's look around!"
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Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2010 2:25 am
Deimos opened one eye slowly to look up at Daddy Reu, over to where Mommy Jiang was, then over to Wynn watching him play with the creepy gray creatures. It took the boy only a moment to realize that they weren't alone where they were, there were others... his eyes squeezed closed once more and his form faded away from view as mentally he started to repeat the words, 'Don't notice me, don't notice me, don't notice me' over and over again like a mantra that would protect him.
Jiang looked around the area, nodding in a polite manner to the others that were nearby though he did step in that much closer to Reu. He wasn't used to crowds, rarely dealt with them aside from those rare days that he went out shopping with Reu. This was definitely not a normal day though, was it? It was a day that was building up to be a really strange and overly eventful one... at least he knew that he would be sleeping well tonight as he was getting exhausted already.
"Don't go far, Wynn. I want to be able to see you." He told the boy, not wanting him to get lost or stepped on or worse. His worry was showing through in his voice despite trying his best to remain calm and strong.
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Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2010 2:30 am
A very clean and pleasant smelling, if slightly pruney fingered, Carina rode on her father shoulder's as they entered a place that felt familar but that she'd never seen before. The grey skinned girl wondered just why Purple had wanted them to come here enough to interrupt her bath. Of course she'd made Purple come along too, praising the one eyed jewelery wearing ghost thing for lifting up a heavy towel for her and fetching her shoes while they got ready. Purple was Carina's new favourite servant, even more than Bethy and she wondered if Purple could lift a kettle.
Much like the shop itself everyone inside was a stranger to Carina and the girl pressed herself into her father's neck and head as she waited to see if they would be nice strangers or not. A little nervous she reached up with one hand to fiddle with a dial on her head.
Bastion was mildly concerned and yet comforted at the same time by the amount of people he found already at Balcombe curiosities, maybe as a group they could pin Switch down and question her. Either way strength in numbers was good thing or so he hoped.
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Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2010 10:40 pm
The walk to the shop had NOT been enjoyable for Ryan or Greloren. The little thing had tried to hug the bumpy boy more than once, leading the half-elf to swat at it with the newspaper he still held rolled up in one hand. Finally, it had stopped, only to babble on constantly about how it loved everyone and had hugged Greloren's face again just feet from the shop, so most people's first impression of the man was him with an angry red face, swatting a rolled up newspaper at the hovering thing before him, which was wailing about how mean he was. Wonderful.
Ryan stopped as soon as they walked in, his eyes growing wider and wider as he noticed that there were a LOT of people here!
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Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2010 11:02 pm
Just as 'Switch' predicted, the door opened and the Satyr walked in, carting along the Gargoyle girl and that silly gray thing he'd seen at home. Wow, so there was more of them?! He'd been about to call out to the girl (whose name he did not know!), but then...more people started to pour in. More Guardians, more kids, and more of those stupid smoke...things. Instead of calling out to them, he cast a side glance at the robed figure that wore his Na's image, very confused but not enough to call the bluff.
"Welcome. Thank you for coming." Not-Switch said softly, stepping out into the open, in a space that seemed to stay clear of children and Guardians, that gave her centre stage so to speak. She was about to say more but a sound cut her off; it was a shrill, insanely excited and happy screech echoing seven fold from various spaces around the room.
The smoke creatures seemed to have noticed each other, and were now bouncing excitedly around the room, jumping this way and that, off of walls, off of items, off of Guardians, through the children themselves, off of each other. It was a madhouse of excitedly screeching creatures, all chattering to themselves and to no one in particular. Soon they all splattered against each other in the air for a giant group hug, making a huge, floating smoke ball in the middle of the room.
Noises kept coming out of the mass of gray, like they were still talking to each other.
"...As I was going to say." 'Switch' said, gritting her teeth in annoyance with her green eyes on the madd of stupid creatures. "This shop...is getting antsy. I don't know if you can hear it groaning, or if you can feel it's unease...but it is hurting, and I need you, all of you." The figure wearing Switch's appearance pleaded with the crowd, apparently trying a bleeding heart tactic to win everyone over, to get them on it's side. "My tactics to lure people here are not working as well as it hoped." It explained, clasping it's hands in front of it's stomach.
"Guardians, Xbalanque;" It glanced to the side at the Shaman Mask Curio, knowing full well that it's true parent would not be able to help, thus that spot fell to him instead. Green eyes returned to the crowd, knowing full well that there was one Guardian that had not arrived yet; whatever, that one would arrive in due time, and it would win that one over, too. "I need your help."
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Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2010 11:30 pm
Faris heard Evari right as she came in and peeked around her mother to see the glowy girl and let out a small happy keen but unfortunately her mother still held onto her hand and seemed unwilling to let go but she still let out a happy greeting, "Hai~, 'Vari, haaai~." she chirped at her partner-in-crime-when-they-where-in-the-same-room. Luis acknowledged Xai's entrance with a small nod and a faint smile before she turned her attention toward other people entering and even Evari gazed at them. Both mother and daughter gave greetings when they were greeted first and otherwise they seemed to simply stay where they are for the moment.
A voice caught the attention of mother and daughter and both looked toward it, Faris doing her fair share of fidgeting and she let out a small 'aww' when Critter left her and suddenly went pinging about into the insanity. The gargoyle let out a small giggle when some bounced off of her and she lost track which one was Critter. Luis watched with a furrowed brow. These things were insane. What were they?
The voice spoke up again and their attention focused on the figure before them.
Wait shop groaning? She didn't hear it at the moment though she could feel unease but she wasn't sure if it was because of this supposed shop disturbance or those around her. Switch hadn't said anything when they first met about shop groaning and the like so the Satyr furrowed her brow and stared at the figure with a bit of skepticism evident in her gaze. For now she kept her doubts to herself.
Faris however heard and noted distress from the shop and squeezed her mother's hand a bit and frowned a little before she gave a small empathetic nod to show she understood the lady who wanted to help the poor building. For once the small child was being somber and serious. Something needed help and protecting!
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Posted: Sun Jan 24, 2010 1:55 am
Oh wow! So many different people around here! Evari was still grinning, waving to the awesomest awesome she'd ever met. Yay! Faris remembered her name! "I wanna play with Faaaaaairs!" Evari told Xai, tugging at the woman's arm to try and free herself. Xai didn't let go, but she did smile at Luis. The door opened again and a little boy and his mother walked in, followed by two similar-looking..boys? Whoa! That girl looked really cool! Hey! Heyhey! It was Ryan! "HEEEEEY! Heeeeey! Hi! Heeey!" Evari called out excitedly to the boy with a huge grin. She liked him! But he didn't seem to like her. Xai had actually been about to let go when she heard footsteps, blinking and tilting her head at the way Switch was dressed. How peculiar! Why was she dressed like that? Evari gasped, waving at Kay. Yaaaaay! More friends!
Switch was speaking and then she suddenly wasn't. Instead the weird ghost thingies were going insane! Evari gasped and watched with wide eyes of amazement. Whoooooa! That was awesome! Evari laughed and tried to clap her hands, staring up at Xai when she still refused to let go. Xai was more focused on what Switch was saying, and since Evari seemed to like harassing the strange little creatures perhaps keeping a hold on her would be the best decision here. Antsy? Could builds do that? Xai tilted her head a bit to lift an ear in an attempt to hear this groaning. Groaning? She didn't hear anything! How odd! "Lure?" She didn't know Switch was luring people here! Huh.
"Hmm...well, alright~!" Xai answered cheerfully, smiling at Switch. She liked Switch! She was a nice lady! Of course she'd help.
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Posted: Sun Jan 24, 2010 4:15 pm
Jiang started to look around slowly as the woman described the unease in the shop, that it was antsy and that it was groaning... his long ears gave a twitch but he couldn't quite hear anything. He was actually quite grateful for that though, he didn't like the idea of a building that made sounds like that... even though he couldn't hear it didn't mean that he was comfortable being inside a building that was unhappy. He stepped that much closer to Reu as though he'd be able to protect them all if this went awry... then his eyes went over to where Wynn was.
The only upside to everything was that all of those creepy, gray things that returned to playing with one another instead of scaring him and Deimos he thought to himself idly, "How are people supposed to help a building?" He whispered to Reu, as though he would have the answer to such a strange question.
Deimos was silent as he tightened his grasp on the leg of his Father, eyes squeezed closed, and refused at the moment to come into view. So long as he was invisible he would remain safe and away from the attention of those around him. That was how he preferred it to be, not wanting any attention upon him that wasn't of good intent and from his family. It was likely just him but everything the woman was talking about just had him scared... that a building could feel things, that they were inside that building, did that technically meant since they were inside that the building had eaten them? He didn't like that thought one bit, he didn't want to get eaten by a building.
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Posted: Sun Jan 24, 2010 4:23 pm
Reumiae held Jiang just a tad tighter and reached down to pry Deimos off his leg and pull the toddler up so he could hold the boy close. "I have no idea." he whispered back to his mate, looking nervously at the strange person.
Wynn, who'd been holding onto the gray things when they went flying, was thrown down pretty fast when they started flying through things, and landed on the ground giggling. Seeing his family all clustered together, the pink boy floated closer to wrap his arms around their legs.
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![[ X_Bleeding Roses_X ]'s avatar](https://a1cdn.gaiaonline.com/dress-up/avatar/ava/1c/33/567ba7fb23331c_flip.png?t=1362967601_6.00_11)
