2025-01-13 - Beware the Skeletal Furby

[TXT to Trace] Gabriel: Hey so I missed you when you came in last night

[TXT to Trace] Gabriel: How was Ouija Club?

[TXT to Gabriel] Trace: Oh. Yeah. Got back a little late.

[TXT to Gabriel] Trace: It was interesting. Can't decide how I feel about it.

[TXT to Gabriel] Trace: The skeptic in me can't keep thinking someone was pushing, or someone was fucking with us using illusions or tk or something.

[TXT to Trace] Gabriel: As someone who recently found out they can use tk, how dare you lump us all in together

[TXT to Trace] Gabriel: JK, I'd cheat too

[TXT to Trace] Gabriel: What happened?

[TXT to Gabriel] Trace: Well the thing moved. There were answers.

[TXT to Gabriel] Trace: Also a lightbulb blew out. The table shook. And Wes ended up wearing his drink.

[TXT to Gabriel] Trace: Also, he has a tail.

[TXT to Trace] Gabriel: What were the questions?

[TXT to Trace] Gabriel: Also what kind of tail?

[TXT to Gabriel] Trace: Lizard

[TXT to Trace] Gabriel: I just got off my shift, I could pack up some cheese fries and bring them to you? Are you home?

[TXT to Gabriel] Trace: The tail, not the questions.

[TXT to Gabriel] Trace: Yeah, I'm home at the moment.

[TXT to Trace] Gabriel: Okay please hold, I have ten more questions re: what kind of lizards. Will be there in fifteen

[TXT to Gabriel] Trace: I do not know. But I'll tell you the questions when you get here.

Gabriel's a liar because it actually takes them twenty minutes to get to the apartment. Someone wanted a milkshake at the last second and they felt compelled to make that person's day.

The door opens and they walk in, toe out of their shoes, then close it behind them to head into the living room.

"Your order has been delivered," they call out by way of greeting, plopping a white paper bag with a couple of grease stains on it onto the coffee table. The grease stains are how you know it's good, obviously. "There's a fork in there too."

Not that Trace is counting or anything. He's settled on the couch with his phone out watching tiktoks or something. There's a glass filled with ice and probably Coke or something in front of him on the table when the bag is set down. "Hey," he says as Gabe comes in. "Thanks." Reaching for the bag, he rolls it down just enough to make a bowl for the cheese fries within. Then he grabs the fork and takes a couple of bites before saying, "So.. yeah.. we went to Lucky's and got one of the booths in the back and started asking questions. Very quickly we figured out that if anyone other than King tried to ask a question, whatever it was got supper annoyed with us and started breaking things."

Gabe sits down on the opposite side of the couch, drawing their legs up underneath them and tugging out the blanket Trace got them for Christmas from the little basket in the corner where lazying accessories go. They wrap it around their shoulders, ready to listen to this whole Ouija business.

"So...why King? Do they have some history or something? Her and the...what was it? Entity? Also remind me what you were looking for in the first place?"

"I don't know," Trace says as he fishes out another fry but before eating it. "Maybe she was the drunkest?" She definitely was by the end of the evening. "Oh, we were asking about the blue light and trying to figure out why those who do readings, divinations, kept coming up with readings about lost things and loss."

"Ah. So just. She was more tuned in, got it." Gabriel scrunches up their nose in amusement, clearly linking being drunk to somehow being more tuned into the ether of it all. Their expression changes a little with the mention of the blue light. This is more of an uneasy subject. "So what'd you find out? Is it aliens? Are we all gonna get abducted or something?"

Gabriel's guess was as good as Trace's in this particular case. He is a science guy, not an occult guy. So this was an entirely new venture for him. "Okay so, we asked what the whole loss/lost thing was about and it said to find what was lost. Cool. So we were like asking questions to figure out where it was and it turns out that eventually we got it to tell us it's in the water off the southwest coast of Spellbound Island." He then goes on to say, "Fin has been helping me go out on a boat and do some 'readings' to figure out where magic ends and plot the points to figure out the perimeter of magic around the islands. And it turns out that the center spot is.. in the water off the southwest coast of Spellbound Island."

"Do you think..." Gabe starts, eyes squinting in thought just a bit. "The dream we were in...where the person asked if we had it? If that was part of the thing that was lost too? I don't know how to link that with what everyone is saying on the employee forums." But then Trace mentions the water, specifically off the southwest coast. Their brows shoot up and they tug the blanket closer. "That's actually extremely helpful of that ghost, fuck." The kicker floors them for a moment. They just stare at Trace with wide eyes. "This feels like the plot to National Treasure. And you're Nicolas Cage."

"Jack says it wasn't a ghost. He can see and talk to ghosts and he says it didn't feel like a ghost, felt like something else. And when we asked who it was, the name it gave us was this massive jumble of letters really fast," Trace says with a shrug of his shoulders. "If we're believing that all of this actually came from some kind of entity at all." Then he says, "Yeah, the dream where the guy asked if we had something.. and then when we didn't we had to escape on the boat." Then he points a finger at them and says, "Do not ever insult me like that again. I have better hair."

"Not a ghost, okay, de--" but Gabe stops before verbalizing that thought since it's ABSURD. It pushes the boundaries of everything they've learned in their first month here and maybe they're not quite ready for that. "Did you write down the letters? Maybe it's an anagram?" Their fingers curl into the plush blanket, expression falling neutral again as they recall the dream. "Right. And there were things that wanted us dead." Whatever mood they had been succumbing to with that sentiment immediately vanishes with Trace's pointed finger. "That wasn't even an insult! Nicolas Cage is an auteur." They let out a gasp. "Oh my god do you not like Nic Cage?!"

Trace shakes his head and says, "It went so fast none of us even got them, I don't think. King might have written down a couple." Then he pops another cheese fry in his mouth before he smirks and wrinkles his nose. No, he does not like Nic Cage. And the face he makes proves it. When he's finished off his fry and takes a sip of his drink he says, "So.. it also told us whatever this lost thing is? It's the source of our magic. And.. when we asked if it was dangerous to us? We got no answer."

"Bummer." That no one got the letters. Gabe's eyes follow the trajectory of a cheese fry right to Trace's chompers. That wrinkled nose gets a soft shake of their head and a crooked smile. "No one's perfect." A gentle tease, then they move on to the next topic, which is just as alarming as the rest of it. "The source. Suspicious. And of course it's dangerous. Magic is dangerous just by itself. There's no way the source is just going to be like...what, a big Furby that says I love you when you walk up to it."

"A big Furby under the sea," Trace adds. "Soggy furby. Possibly skeletal soggy furby after being down there for who knows how long." He has no idea how long. He also has no idea what it actually is. "It didn't tell us how big it is either. Just that it's down there." He does nod in agreement to magic being inherently dangerous. Their little panic at the diner was evidence enough of that. "Yeah it was just weird that it didn't just say hell yeah, I guess?"

"Yes. Exactly. The skeleton of a Furby welcoming you into its loving embrace," Gabriel says flatly yet with a curve of a smile. This is exactly the kind of macabre shit that amuses them. "If we're going by common lore, lets just says eons and construction of the theme park woke it up. But obviously the creator of the Furby must have been attuned to it when creating the toy in the first place." There's a squint, like they know they've squeezed all the juice out of that joke. "Maybe it ran out of phone minutes and had to bounce? Anyway, more mystery. More mystery hunters. You're making a magical map, it sounds like. Now tell us about the tail."

Trace gives another bit of a faux shudder at the mental image. "Sounds like the start of a lot of movies. Someone dug too deep. Hit some ancient juu. Chaos ensues. Do not jostle the sleeping furby." There's a faint laugh at the idea of the spirit running out of phone minutes and having to tap out. "Maybe. Who knows? But yeah. I'm making a map and we're going to go see if we can take a look and find out if there's anything down there."

As for the tail? "I mean, it's a tail. Looks like a lizard tail. No I don't know what sort of lizard. But it's about four feet long and .. is .. a tail." He's not sure what more there is to say about the tail. "I'm kind of okay with my tattoo."

"Solving mysteries. Didn't think that was in the job description but I like this for you. Keep me updated?" Gabriel's brows then lift in surprise. "Four feet is a lot of tail, shit. I hope he's doing alright." There's a tilt of their head towards Trace, as if trying to see the tattoo the got a glimpse of while being a poltergeist at the diner. "As far as tattoos go, that one is pretty cool. Honestly. I'm still on the fence about being a glow worm but it's starting to grow on me. Glow on me." They huff out a laugh at the pun.