2025-10-06 - Haunted Heirlooms: The Hollow Man

Herb is always up for new things for hte apartment especially in season changes. Now that it's fall many have gone back to school which means good loot! He also is not one to lug things around and has brought his golden retriever roommate, Austin, to aid in this.

"You know, I can maybe help folks keeping a portal open to mirror this over but I don't know how we're going to fit a fainting couch through a standee. That's a tricky one. Let's see what saving fall involves. Hoping it's not a trustfall, i'm not trustworthy for those." Seeing others he greets brightly, "Well hulloooo."

Michael strolls on in with Trick and says, "This place is kinda fun. You never know what's going to turn up in it. Sometimes it's interesting, sometimes it's a thing of nightmares. Sometimes both. I got a few things for the apartment out of here when I moved to the island. Every so often I come back just to check things out."

Eddie comes clumping down the stairs from the second floor with a loose-limbed casualness that goes well with his battered canvas jacket and jeans. He pauses a moment, looks around, and raises both hands to cup around his mouth and call out -- almost quietly enough for indoors -- "Marco!"

With Halloween just around the corner, and Leon's childhood was spent one of too many children, thrifting for costumes is just the name of the game. She's dragged Eddie along—not entirely against his will—to browse all the leftovers, not-longer-wants, and never-wants for possible inspiration. She's currently squinting at what looks like an entire collection of someone's professional ballet wardrobe, and slowly pulls out a violent pink tutu. Her nose wrinkles as she stares at it, only to spin around and hold it up to Eddie with a questioning lift of her brows. Then she sighs, lowering the tutu, and says with a trace of amusement, "Polo."

Micah still feels like one of the new guys in town, in part because he hasn't done much to spruce up his corner of the apartment. Its walls are bare and he's been dealing with an uninspiring beige bed set that does nothing to enliven things. At least the houseplant is still alive!

With Ruby's offering FRESH FALL SAVINGS, though, that's about to change. Stepping inside, he blinks for a moment before starting a clockwise tour of the room, just browsing until something catches his eye.

Trick's got a box to sell, or maybe just donate -- his hotel room's gotten a little cluttered and it does make it a pain in the ass when he vacates once in a while. Of course he's let Michael, his chaperone, poke through it for anything he might like. There's at least five sets of sunglasses, a couple of hats, and a few "keepsake" mementos from the park that he doesn't apparently feel the need to keep, for anyone's sake.

"I love thrift stores. You find the craziest shit in them. My friends and me, back in New York, would go find old weird t-shirts, things like 'Richard Peters High School, Class of 1969 or something, see who could find the best one."

He catches Herb's chatter and reaches out a hand to greet the familiar food deliverer.. "Am I the one you think about when you're sitting in your faintin' chair, drinking pink rabbits," he sings to the other man -- some probably not familiar song, but he at least has a nice voice.

Austin is super good at carrying stuff! He is, at present, eyeing the fainting couch in question. "Maybe we could find a bigger mirror?" he suggests, uncertainly. "Or we could just carry it the mainland way. It doesn't look that heavy. I mean... kinda awkward maybe, but..." The thing gets another moment of consideration before he squats down, leans a bit, and wraps arms around it to see if it's liftable. ...Yes. It is liftable. And he was also correct that, "Yeah this is kinda awkward."

He sets it back down, looking up at the greeting from Herb and the Marco from elsewhere. "...Polo?" he asks, looking around, then brightens a bit when he spots Leon answering and the direction she's looking. Okay! That sorts that out. Good. And then Trick. He looks at his roommate. "You're not... drinking Sugarfoot, are you?" How would that even work?

Michael gives an up-nod of greeting to Herb and Austin, offering both a bit of a grin as they make their way inside. He nods to Trick and says, "I found some neon green cow salt and pepper shakers. They were wearing little yellow party hats. Don't ask me why." He nods in the general direction of the back where the window to drop off things to be sold is located. As they pass by the weird statue, he glances at it sidelong and asks, "Does it feel like that thing's looking at us?"

Then he says to Austin, "Or you could find someone to shrink it.. and then carry it through the mirror," as they move on past Austin and Herb. He can't resist also calling out "Polo!" at a regular speaking volume.

Herb grins with focus drifting up to Eddie and Leon's Marco Polo game giving a wave. Trick's answer gets a scoff, "Of course I am. Full lament, martini and all. Good to see you out here." Looking to Michael he asks, "He under house arrest, sheriff? You can use my apartment. We need two more for full contact Uno later."

Looking through the items there's a jaunty green hat. Herb tries it on, and his face crumples a bit. "Evenin Micah. Tonight's question is are we taking the hat too?" For now he attempts to even ask the status in the robe for the frivolity of it. "Hat or no hat?"

Eddie gets three responses to his call, and even as he's starting to turn toward Leon with a grin, he blinks and looks over to Austin and Michael, raising a hand in wry greeting as he crosses over to Leon and notes, "I didn't think that one through." He stops several feet away from Leon however, narrowing his eyes at the vibrantly-colored tutu, "Only if it's going on a goth ballerina costume. Otherwise I think it might be too much."

Drifting over toward the others, he asks, "Halloween costumes? Leon's convincing me to not just get out the utilities again."

Trick heads to the counter to deliver the box to someone back there (Ruby? Not Ruby?) and waves off the negotiating. Donation it is. He heads back toward Michael, stopping in front of the creepy statue and making a face.

"I really hope this was part of some Halloween decor and not anything permanent. Not that you can't have a chronically eerie aesthetic, but I don't know." He peers into the face of the thing, and shakes his head. "This thing is bad vibes."

He looks around for a moment, and finds a hot pink Santa hat of all things, to pop on the statue's head, in hopes of turning down the ominous a little bit.

When another two Polo's go up, Leon turns her head to smile at Austin and Michael with a little wave of her fingers. Then she smiles over at Eddie. "No," she says in a delighted little murmur, "You didn't." She frowns at the costume, and then at Eddie's idea. "A bubblegum goth ballerina," she says with a bit of a distasteful wrinkle of her nose as she puts the tutu back.

"You don't have to be a soldier every Halloween," she gripes quietly as she follows Eddie toward Austin and Michael, offering both them, and even Herb and Trick, quick little smiles. Her eyes slide toward the statue in question, and she blinks. "I bet it was someone's favorite creepy garden gnome." She bites her bottom lip to smother her grin at the Santa hat addition.

Micah is perusing a plate-and-saucer collection that would be at home in someone's grandmother's glass display case when Herb speaks to him. He sets down the little cup with its pale floral decor, and is strucketh by the jaunty hat. "Oh. Hey, man." He gives the question more thought than it needs before saying, "Definitely hat."

His easy grin turns on the rest of the group as they gather to stare hard at the creepy statue. "Yeah, I can see that poking out of some weeds." Shudder.

"'cause I know they say cats are liquid but rabbits-- oh that's probably a cocktail," Austin continues quietly, dropping off to a murmur at the end. Full-contact Uno, though, that he seems unfazed by.

Or else he's distracted by waving back to Eddie and Leon, and then Michael's suggestion. "OH. Can you do that?" A look to Herb, "Do we know anyone who can do that? That'd be really convenient. I could carry that and the other things if we could do that." And there is a hat. A green, jaunty hat. "I like it. It makes me think of that story with Scrooge and the ghosts. You could carol in it maybe?"

Micah gets a bright smile, and he glances over to Eddie and Leon again, then back to his roomie, "...also I guess I need a halloween costume, huh." The statue is briefly eyed. Maybe he won't go with that look, though.

Herb seems to find Micah's ardent support here of the hat enough to go by. When Austin points out the caroler vibe to it Herb tries to rein in his amusement, "I mean who isn't up for some Christmas Dickins? It's a vibe. I think we get the hat. Thank you both." As for Trick's bad vibes Herb looks to the statue observing the pink santa hat. Brows knit; is this an off vibe? Yes, yes it is.

With a very conspicuous slide step back Herb says in a low voice when the lights flicker, "Ruuuby... I may not need that fainting couch shipped. Might just, ya know, try it out here in a minute." With a frown there's a look around and he asks, "Was that one of us that did that because well done, and also please stop?" It's worth an ask!

"It is, and unless you like dry gin or vermouth, steer clear of it," Trick tells Austin with a grin.

That grin falls away swiftly when the statue starts to make unhappy sounds at being bedecked with a hat. "Is it one of those motion sensor things?" the oh so, sweet summer child asks, as he crouches down and looks for a cord or a switch so he can turn it off.

That's when the lights flicker and break. "Sheesh, it's just a hat," he tells the thing, reaching for the hat to take it back off.

Eddie looks over his shoulder to the discarded tutu, "No bubblegum goth ballerina?" He shrugs, which turns into a little shudder as he looks sidelong to the creepy statue others are studying. Austin gets a nod, "I'm a one-holiday-at-a-time kind of guy." He's starting to turn around to look for some new clothes when the groan cuts through his senses, and the hair on his arms and the back of neck try to stand on end. Taking two quick steps back, he reaches out for Leon's arm even as he looks around the gathered group.

He starts to say something, and then shards of fluorescent lights start to rain down, and he tucks still further, sweat almost immediately starting to break out on his brow and his eyes going wide.

Specifically, Micah can picture the statue in the garden of a bubblegum goth ballerina. He's glancing over at the tutu display when the groan starts to pick up. "Woah." The first thought he has is the same as Trick's, and he lifts a leg up and looks down to see if he triggered something.

But then things escalate pretty quickly. The groaning intensifies, the lights flickers, and when the first one goes POP, he instinctively covers his head. "What the hell? Everyone okay?" Even a bit of raining glass can be enough to ruin someone's day.

A little shiver slithers its way up Leon's spine, and she crosses her arms a moment at her chest as she gives the statue a very long, assessing look. She's staring at it for much too long before she breaks her focus to look back at the others. "What?" Then she laughs lightly at Eddie's grousing, but it's a little forced. "I sometimes think I'm lucky to get any holiday out of you."

But then Eddie's hand is on her arm, and she blinks over at him in surprise, mouth forming the start of a word before the bulbs above them pop and she instead leaps back against Eddie. Her words shiver out with the dense fog of her breath, "Wh-what was that?"

Austin nods to Herb's conclusion about the hat, then pauses half a beat, blinks, and grins, with a sudden, small laugh. If he had anything he might've replied, that's lost to eternity when a thing that is not one of the customers (he's pretty sure) starts making unhappy noises, and then--

Herb slides a step back; Austin slides a step forward between him (and anyone else standing by them) and the weird statue, throwing an arm up protectively over his head when there's a sudden rain of burst bulbs. "What's-- okay that's--" A glance around, and back to the statue. "Stop that! You don't hafta break everything if you don't like the hat! We could find you a better one!"

You'd think that Michael, of all people, being security, would be used to the chaos, have nerves of steel, be immune to the sudden and startling. Nope. He was halfway turning to answer someone when the light directly above him shatters and he throws an arm up over his head and ducks, letting out what can only be described as an undignified half-strangled sound. "Fucking Hell." That's all he has to say about that for the moment.

Trick backs away, trying to keep away from those slithering tendrils and backing into a rack behind him -- that will definitely leave a bruise later that he won't remember getting.

"The fuck?" is his eloquent question, his usually glib speech failing him. "Is there anything we can sever them with?" he asks, looking around for, who knows, a katana display? Kitchen knives? His gaze darts around but it's distracted by the vines and trying to not let them fucking touch them.

Herb makes a grimace and stumbles back in the dark to find something to use. Half tripping over the display mannequin he catches her, but she comes apart in his hands clattering to the floor, and leaving him holding her severed plaster arm. "Darling it was not meant to be." Turning he tries to joust back the darkness at reach x2 sort of swishing the fake arm like a slapping cudgel. "Okay if we're really truly stuck we can try to make our way to the bathroom. If it has a mirror I can try to get us out. This is a PROBLEM." Trying not to sound afraid and failing he asks, "Michael, I don't suppose you can give it a citation and make it go away?" He gestures withthe fake arm for away in a jabbing motion.

Despite the instant sweat on his brow and his intense desire to find a hole to hide in, Eddie takes one look at the shadowy tendrils reaching out from creepy statue and reaches out with the hand that didn't grab for Leon's arm. Beneath the nearest rack of amazing finds, the shadows stir, and more tendrils come out, dancing and writing to the twisting of Eddie's hand and fingers.

"What..." the word comes out tremulous as Eddie's shadow tendrils twist and twine with the shadow tendrils coming from the statue, pinning some of them down, but not all of them. Clearing his throat and finally loosing Leon's arm, he tries again, "What do you want?" Apparently, he wants to talk to the creepy thing.

When she first sees the shadowy tendrils, Leon's eyes dart to Eddie. "Eddie, stop," but then she realizes he has his own shadowy tendrils, and she grabs his shoulder. "What are you doing?" She doesn't really think it's him, but she's definitely not happy to see two reasons for shadowy tendrils. While he's talking to the thing, she looks around and grabs a—omg, it's a baton. The type with the cute rubber stoppers at the end. It even has streamers. She lifts it up like a baseball bat of streamer doom.

Michael says to Herb, a little distractedly, "I don't think that works the way you think that works." A shimmery illusion of tendrils of light suddenly zip from him toward the wriggling tendrils in an attempt to perhaps scare them off. Unfortunately, the illusion of light doesn't really seem to daunt the tendrils at all, which continue to try to grab at him, wrapping around one leg. "Down, boy.."

Micah swallows hard as the shadowy tendrils extend from the darkness within the statue, slithering across the room toward them. "Oh, hell no. Don't like this!" He takes a step back, more to take up a grounded stance than to run. Another bulb shatters and he watches two of the tendrils nearest to him solidify and rise like curious vipers. Extending the fingertips of one hind, his eyes widen and go very, very till. At the same time, so do the tendrils, which seem frozen in a stare-off with him. "Someone was talking about severing something?"

Austin gropes around and arguably lucks out, or else has a moment of some kind of innate draw, because what he ends up finding is a baseball bat, which he looks somewhat ambivalent about ending up with -- it settles just about naturally into his hand, but the glance he gives it is a touch uneasy.

Not, to be fair, as uneasy as the look he gives the shadow tentacles; he takes a step back, trying to evade them, though stays between anyone already behind him and the... whatever. "We won't be able to fit the couch though," he says absently to Herb's mirror comment, though it probably means he's on board with that Plan B anyway.

"Um, look. We can tell you're really upset about something but this is only gonna get really crap for everyone, and it's not gonna fix whatever the problem is. I mean, unless the problem is us not being unhappy or you... um, wanting a fight and not having one, I guess." Yes, helpful. "But I mean otherwise maybe we can help? 'cause I would really rather do that. Wouldn't it be better having friends? If... uh, if you don't speak words we could try if you know sign language?" Can tendrils sign? He is willing to find out.

Eventually Trick finds something to hack with -- an ornate letter opener that's been crafted to look like a medieval sword. It's not very big, though, and it doesn't seem like it'll do the job for very long, while it might help momentarily.

"Can we break it? Or... smother it? Bag it up, maybe in a sleeping bag?"

He moves toward the statue to shove it face down as hard as he can, in an effort to damage it, or to at least keep it from spewing out more tendrils quite so easily.

Herb does a double take and asks the big ask, "Can we come back for the couch, Austin?" The big ask. Someone else could call dibs or it could be sucked into another world and that'd be a bigger bummer. "While you answer that cover me." turning to help Michael out Herb swats some things away with the arm and then lifts his hand and the fake hand as if it's a proxy now, to gesture peeling those tendrils off Michael. "Michael, you have got to stop attracting the wrong sort of crowd here. I'm trying to get you some wriggle room."

"It's not me!" Eddie's protest is tight, and he adds quickly as his own shadow tendrils twist and twine with those of the statue, "Okay, those are me." He straightens up out of the crouch he had ducked into when the lights first popped, his breath still misting in front of his face in the chill air. The shifting of the tendrils before Austin causes him to tilt his head slightly to one side, considering the gesture, "You want us to go into the statue's hood? That... doesn't seem like -- " because there's Trick talking about shoving and breaking and moving to give the statue a push.

"Wait! We could, you know, talk to it? Shine a light in there to see what the hell is going on?" Black spots spin out from the centers of Eddie's eyes like black snow in headlights. Shadows also gather around his brow, swirling around his head, and then twist out to touch Leon, Michael, Austin, and Herb.

Little shadowy tendrils brush across her skin and she's familiar enough with them that Leon doesn't jump, but instead feels a buzz in her veins. Leon's nostrils flare before she launches forward to whack a tendril with the rubber end of the baton. To her surprise—maybe shock—she hits it! She actually blinks a moment when the tendril goes slithering back. "And stay back," she snaps at it, before giving the baton a twirl—a toss and a twirl. When she catches it, she flashes her faerie fangs at the retreating shadow. Then she twists her head up, trying to get a sense of where else there's trouble she can whack.

"Wait! Wait wait wait," Austin says a bit frantically as people start going to attack the statue and tendrils, "It's answering, c'mon guys, give it a chance, maybe we don't have to?" They all, including the statue, get a hopeful look to share between them. Herb also gets a nod. Yes. They can definitely come back for the couch. And he nods, firmly, to Eddie, who clearly seems to be of thee same general mind on this.

"So what does, um. What does putting your hand inside your face mean?" It's the others he's asking, more than the statue itself, since clearly that was its answer. Of some kind. A tilt of his head, considering. "Are you... hungry?" he ventures to it. "'cause we're not edible. But we could get you a hamburger or something? Herb knows where all the best food is." The combination of that with Eddie's guess about it wanting them to go in somehow is... not super relaxed-making, but he looks to see if it seems to be agreeing, or not, with either of their guesses. Hopefully not both. And there's the light idea. "...do you mind if we look in... you?"

With Herb's help, Michael is able to wriggle free of the tendril that's got him by the leg and quips to Herb, "Listen this is the closest thing to a date I've had since February." He pauses. "That's just sad on all possible levels." And yet still true. But he is free and so he clasps Herb's shoulder in thanks.

He looks over toward Austin and says, "I think it wants you to put your hand inside IT's face.." somewhat dubiously, squinting a little.

Micah remains right where he is, gaze focused on the tentacles in front of him. They remain immobile as he he shifts a bit, nervously, since there's something like fighting happening nearby. A struggle and a baton twirl, at least. Plus, too many tendrils. "I'd like to keep my hand, thank you." He's not sure the thing would agree with Austin about any of them being inedible.

The shouts to wait catch Trick just as he's about to tackle, so he puts his hands up as if he's just been told to drop his icing spatula in the Great British Bakeoff.

"Okay, okay!" he says, not irritated at all at being told to stop, but caught up in the chaos of the moment. "Fuck, that's creepy."

He grins over at Michael. "It could have at least bought you dinner first." Even as he jokes he pulls out his cell phone to turn on the flashlight, and steps a little closer to shine a light into the things face, to see if there's anything, um, down there. "Pardon me, sir or madame or... um."

Herb focuses long enough to make sure Michael can get out with a look of honest relief. "Summer was weird and that's no one's fault. This is at least fixable. You alright?" It's almost like Her isn't paying attention, but roomie is always on teh radar it seems. You can't let a retriever just run wild as they say. As Micha, Eddie, Austin, Trick, and Leon work on beatings and negotiations Herb props the arm on his shoulder like a bat, or high five extender seeing where the hands pointing to the face goes.

As Austin speaks of foodthere's a flick of a hand in a swirl until Herb is holding a pumpkin pie with whipped topping which is just handed to Austin. That's delivery right there- this team is good! "If that doesn't work maybe a cute mask? Everyone deserves a face."

Eddie allows his own shadow tendrils to dissipate as the statue stops trying to grasp them, and the whispers of shadow connecting his head with the four fade out... although they don't entirely vanish. "Thanks," he notes to Trick, and then looks back to Micah and Michael, "Uh... yeah. I also don't like the idea of putting anything we need in the statue's hood."

Poof, there's a pie, and Eddie blinks over at Herb, "That is... kind of awesome, I'm not going to lie." He crouches down to try to get a good look at what Trick is aiming to illuminate with the cell phone, "You hungry? Everything gets hungry. Pie sounds like a good something to eat instead of people." Sidelong to Leon, he asks, "Did you just twirl that baton? Next time with fire."

Michael smirks a little bit over at Trick and says, "Right?" And yet, it did not. With most of the tendrils having receded and pointing into the thing, he moves a little closer to it as Trick shines a flashlight into its face hole. "There's definitely something down there," he confirms, and then promptly backs up again, because he's only getting so close to that opening.

"What are we going to do with it!" Leon looks around frantically at the others. "And please don't tell me we're taking it back to the Park." Her baton is still raised, staring at where are pointing. She makes a discomforted sound at the sight of it all. Then she gapes at Eddie, only to then realize that Herb is holding pie. She stares for a long moment, only to then lament, "I want pie..."

But she does cast Eddie a quick smile. "I took dance as a kid," she takes dance now, but let's not get into details, "every kid who attended Ms. Rachel's dance studio learned to twirl batons." Beat. "Without fire." She then looks at the statue again, frowning at Michael's observation. She also takes a cautious step backwards.

When Micah next bats his eyes, the tendrils he had paralyzed twist and move once more, perhaps shifting , like all the rest, to point down the statue's maw.

Micah takes two steps back and peers at where Trick is shining his light, trying to see without getting too close. "Careful," he says helpfully, though he's primed to spring and pull someone away if anything gets bite. Speaking of which, Herb's display of magic definitely catches his attention. "Damn. Party and Herb's place after." That pie looks good.

Austin does not look deeply enthused about Michael's interpretation of what the statue wants, but he can't really argue it's a bad guess. Just... possibly a bad idea.

And then... Herb has a pie. And is offering it. Austin blinks. "What. How. Did-- I mean we were getting way better at baking but-- Where did you--" Okay, this is something that's going to need going into later. "Thanks," he goes with instead, as that is safe, and takes the pie from his roomie, then pauses, and trades him the baseball bat for the mannequin arm as well before he starts toward the statue, carefully.

"Okay, yeah, want some of this pie? It smells really good so if you don't I definitely do but I think maybe you're... hungrier? And. If you really want a hand in there I can..." He reaches out with the mannequin limb, toward the face. If you can't do homemade maybe store-bought will do?