Tucked away in the shell of a recently-closed shop in Ala Moana Market, this pop-up gallery lives up to its name in every way. The walls on which the artwork hangs are folding panels draped with black fabric, and the artwork is all provided by up-and-coming local artists. There is a little bit of everything on display: paintings, graffiti, textiles and even handcarved woodcrafts. The entrance fee is free, and the prices on the artwork are reasonable enough that this little shop might even get by on sales. The bends and angles of the paneled walls create just enough of a labyrinth that once you pass the first set of "walls," you can't see back out into the mall. Only the bustling sounds of shoppers occasionally creep through the white noise nature sounds playing through the speakers.
Lola is the first to step in, of the pair, the young woman glancing around as she moves around the dividers to actually see what's inside the pop up gallery. She takes a few more steps to clear the entry before looking back to Peter. "You sure you want to spend our time here?" She doesn't sound so enthusiastic herself.
Lili was at the market, likely on a day off considering she wasn't working elsewhere this afternoon. Even ladies with two jobs sometimes manage to get a whole day to themselves, luckily. After shopping for a bit, she's now left with just her green tea frothy frozen drink from lunch in one hand and over her other arm, a shopping bag that had come from some sort of goofey store in the mall that sold colored chalk powder among its strange wares. As she moved past the initial wall that would prevent her from seeing the rest of the shopping center, she seemed absorbed in a painting that looked like a face, but wasn't a face so much as a bunch of other things that came together to make the shape of the face.
Lili had dressed to look good while she was out, but not so good that she could have gone on to a full evening after. It was afternoon good, really. Just a brief set of black shorts that had four huge, silvery buttons on the front flat panel and left most of her legs bare for the bottoms. For her top, she was wearing a bright yellow tank top with a black picture of a pineapple on the front.. but at the bottom of the shadowy pineapple there was a fuze, lit... For shoes, Lili had gone for comfort, just a set of red and white striped adidas with some white socks. Her hair was left to fall down her back all the way to her waist in heavy, thick waves of dark brown and she had a couple of small, twisted sections of hair along her temples, held in place by little black bands, just to keep her hair out of her face.
Peter slips into the place behind Lola, and nods in reply to her question. "Yeah, I would like to look at the woodworking stuff, if there is any. Just to get some inspiration, and maybe if the artists are around, ask some questions. And it's quiet in here, and out of the heat, which is nice for a bit. Also, we might be able to get some crafts stuff for Greenie. I know she'd like that." The young man smiles to her. "There is a treat for you though. I saw a new clothing that has opened up in the Market. I know you'll like some of the jeans I saw." Peter loops his arm around Lola, and leads her further inwards, his flip-flops making their characteristic sound.
This is something a little bit different from the all sun, all sand, all the time that the rest of Hawaii offers, and so James is here to check it out. And the price can't be beat, so if he doesn't like it, well, no harm done, right? He steps into the gallery a minute or so after Lili, looking around, and he stops to see an interesting graffiti-esque piece. For someone who looks about as straight-laced as they come, he seems to like it.
He turns to continue on, but then he sees Lili. His eyes narrow for a moment like he's trying to place her, before his expression clears and he smiles. A little bit, anyway. Even if it looks a tiny bit wry. "Well, hi," he says, moving toward her. "No fire today, huh?" It probably wouldn't be a good idea here, anyway.
Nick's on his phone when a mall cop sort drives by on a Segway, so the scruffy man steps into the pop-up, speaking in a low voice into the phone. "No, that's the price you agreed to pay *last* week. This is the price it is now. That's the difference. You don't like it, you go ahead and turn me into the Better Business Bureau." The phone is shoved into his pocket before he turns to see what sort of shop he's stepped into, lifting a brow when he notices a couple familiar faces. So much for keeping a low profile. He doesn't say anything to anyone, but examines a piece of art while waiting for the guy he hung up to (probably) call him back.
Towards the back of the gallery, a beautifully hand-carved wooden dollhouse sits across multiple pedestals. Doll mansion would be more accurate - the Victorian-styled house is easily four feet tall and three feet wide, with intricately crafted rooms, each fully furnished with hand-carved and upholstered furniture. Porcelain dolls go about their lives inside the mansion, framed by the hand-painted shutters and tiny panes of glass. The doors even have tiny brass knobs on them, with tiny brass keyholes. One entire front panel has been left open, to showcase the skilled work on the interior of the dollhouse and dolls.
Lola scoffs at Peter. "You know I don't like long pants," she answers him, allowing the nearness. Even leaning into him a bit as they move into the gallery. "The one who does would be a terror in here." She nods towards the dollhouse. "She'd love to smash that to splinters," she observes casually. Then something catches her eye and her brow creases. She's eyeing the dollhouse now, a frown coming to her.
Lili looked up at James when she was addressed, her smile coming easily to her lips and making her dark blue eyes sparkle. "James! Aloha, you look... well you look great. And don't be so sure about the fire, it's not even dark out yet. I've got hours to make sure something lights up properly for me." She winked to him playfully, maybe teasing. Maybe. She motioned over to the piece she'd been looking at and grinned. "I was trying to see if I could find something that made this less weird, because it feels almost creepy to have all the inanimate things making a face at me. Like one of those Holy Crap you need to run away because the cellar's come to life nightmares, you know?" Lili narrowed her eyes at the picture and shook her head. "Nope, still creepy." When she spotted Nick she gave him a grin, but his whole 'I'm not here, just looking at the pretties' had her shaking her head with a slight smirk.
Sighing, she looked along the the rest of the art exhibit, and raised her brows. "Oh wow, that's a ton of work into that little house, do you see that?" Lili now treating James as her companion, whether or not he'd intended becoming such when he came over to say hi. Poor fellow would likely be stuck now unless he got a phone call or ran away screaming. "Whoa.. Hey.. Wait." She frowned and moved a little closer to the doll house, bending at the waist to peer inside. "Hey... James?" Said with her face still at the dollhouse, so her voice was a disembodied sound coming from the general direction of her ass. "This is totally weird, man, that little doll... All of them, they're not dressed like they should be in that house at all. I mean.. that one..." She trailed off, chewing her lower lip thoughtfully. "Huh. Totally weird."
Peter chuckles at Lola and waggles his eyebrows. "These ones are more hole than cloth. You might like them, they have a pleasing pattern. If you tan, it'd look pretty neat on you." He looks surprised at the dollhouse display, when they round the corner and see it. "Whooaaa. Man. I am not one for dollhouses, but this one is a piece of art. Look at the details." He gets a funny look on his face, his nose working noisily. "Do you smell something burning?", he asks of Lola, looking sideways at the other people nearby. "And uh. I am pretty sure that's an Italian suit, which has nothing to do with the Victorian era... which is where this house is from." The young man gets closer, squinting. "Those... fireplaces... are actually burning."
"Well, if you get the urge, let me know so I can move away," James quips, but he sounds like he is probably just returnign the favor of a joke. At least, maybe. He does turn to survey the piece she's looking at, though, tipping his head as though he's trying to see it from another angle and make it looks more sense. "Yeah, that one is not my thing," he admits, and he turns away to look at some of the others. His attention is caught, briefly, by Nick, and he watches the other man for a second or two, like you do when you're looking at a stranger for whatever reason, though it doesn't last long enough to be creepy before he turns away. At least, hopefully.
When he does turn away again, he finds himself looking at the dollhouse, and his eyebrows raise. It doesn't necessarily seem like the rest of the art, but the work is so eclectic that it also doesn't look immediately out of place. It's well-crafted, and thus worth looking at, so he does. "Yeah," he replies to Lili as he moves closer, but he sounds distracted. He crouches down, looking into what looks like the library. "You're right," he says quietly, and Peter's observation gets a little nod, too, since he hears it near to where they are. But he is still looking into the house, and after a second, he gestures. "Does that little doll look like me to you?" he asks, before he laughs, as though he realizes that it's a silly question.
The phone chimes in Nick's pocket and he brings it to his ear. "I thought you'd see it my way. You don't want my collection agent going after you, after all," he says with a smirk, glancing over at the dollhouse and frowning a little. "See you at eight, then. Don't change your mind again." He puts the phone in his pocket again and moves toward the dollhouse. "Shit, not again," he says, peering through a window on the opposite side of the pedestal, away from that open panel. Lili is given a smirk if she happens to look his way.
Lola leans in towards Peter. "One of them looks like me." Murmured with a hint of dark emotion. Because that's not supposed to be. She glances at Peter, then Nick, hearing him comment. Frowning a little as she looks back at the dollhouse. If Peter advances on it, she will hang back. Bad feeling.
As Lili approaches the dollhouse, close enough to peer into its windows, there is a nearly inaudible crunch and the house flares to life. Everyone else who's drawn near enough to peek in creates a similarly quiet crunch beneath their feet. The already-burning fireplaces blaze out of their tiny hearths for a moment, before returning to their warm, cheerful crackling. A porcelain doll of a little boy in a sailor suit opens the front door, it's articulated mouth opening as its arms spread wide in welcome.
The sound of the crunch draws Lola's attention downward she shifts a foot, glancing down to see what the source might have been. But not before she sees the door of the house open and something.. come out? Her eyes flicking up and down to keep tabs on both directions.
Lili was still looking into the Dollhouse when her face paled slightly, which was quite a trick for the native Hawaiian, and she shuddered. It was a good thing James was there, really, because when she reached out and thwacked him with her bag and attempted to grab onto something, she didn't end up falling right over. Good for Lili, I mean, maybe not for James who got grabbed. "Ja...James. Something's really wrong. And yeah, that one... they uh, look like us." She hadn't taken her eyes off the dollhouse, but movement on the other side of her had Lili shifting slightly toward James, since she didn't know Peter, just caught a flash of his bright hair. She swallowed, and let out a soft yelp of surprise when she saw full sized eyes looking at her and a face smirking through the dollhouse. "NICK!" And Nick drew the brunt of her verbal reaction to the overwhelming sense of unease caused by the Dollhouse in general. Lili narrowed her eyes at him in response to the 'Not Again' statement and, in a manner most adult, stuck out her tongue at him and made a 'nyah' sound. Surely that would show /him/ AND the dollhouse she wasn't nearly as freaked out as her wan complexion might suggest. Right?
OR NOT. Because, you see, the damned house came to life. Lili looked around in confusion as she was now, quite literally, experiencing a moment that she wasn't prepared for. Not in the slightest. She blinked, looking hard at the front door for a moment, then at the fire, before Lili opened her mouth and started laughing. "He aha la?" Lili's laughter was bright, and flowed out of her easily, especially as she pressed her now empty hands to her abdomen. "Oh maaaaan. Who the hell drugged me? Because... this is some serious shit and I need an adult. I NEED AN ADULT!" The slightly hysterical edge that came into her voice on that last culminated with her hugging herself a little, and looking around with wide, dark blue eyes showing way too much white.
The situation being, of course, that she was actually now INSIDE the doll house.
<The Sight> James has turned on The Sight.
Peter grunts and topples to the ground inside the dollhouse, and sits there a moment looking surprised. After a few moments, his eyes narrow slightly, and he begins looking around curiously. He slowly stands up and looks around the sitting room he found himself in. The young man moves to the doors he can see, and tries at the handles. "Fuck. Of course they're locked.", he mutters to himself. Peter then gives a start and stares at Nick. "Er. Hi. Uhm. Name's Pete." He offers the other man a wave. Then Lili starts yelling and he looks to her, as if she just appeared. "Uh. Hey. It's uh okay. We'll get out of here. I'm sorry, I'm not really a fully functioning adult, but I assure you you are not drugged. That, or we all are."
Peter shrugs and turns to start searching through the jackets. He actually leans into each one and sniffs at length, moving down the line of them until he stops and grins, fishing about in the pockets. "Aha!" The young man holds up a skeleton key. "Shall we see which door this unlocks?"
James gets grabbed by Lili, but he doesn't pull away. It's clear he is also thinking that something is //really wrong//. "I think we need to-..." He cuts off, though, and sways a little bit as he attempts to maintain his balance. His jaw sets, like he's struggling against something internal, but ultimately it seems that he has won. He stands up, looking around quickly, only to see that they're missing three of their number. Including Lili.
"Damnit," he murmurs, and there's not even a brief hesitation before his eyes close, and then they open again slowly. He stares at the house, and then his eyes widen. "Fires," he says, a little louder. "This is not good." There's a little bit of pain threading through that voice, and he can't seem to look away. "Puppets on strings...you'll be a real boy someday." Oh good, this is fun. However, he shakes his head quickly, trying to clear it, before he says, in a slightly more normal voice, "They have to get to the attic. I think. Somehow."
"Not you," says Nick with a surprised laugh when Lili sticks her tongue out at him. "This doll-"
And then they're inside of it. "Fucccck," he hisses. "There's some fucking ghost kid playing games with people using dolls. I already have one that looks like me stuck in my underwear drawer back home, afraid it's going to come to life and kill me," he says, rubbing his face and backing away from the front door. "I have a really bad feeling about that front door," he adds, running a nervous hand through his dark hair.
He reaches to take Lili's hand, squeezing it lightly. "We'll figure it out," he agrees. "Nick," he says to Peter when Peter offers his name.
He looks at the fireplace and frowns. "That fire is bad, too. I don't know why. It's not good," he says, before turning to look at Peter as he goes snuffling along the coats. He cocks a brow and looks at Lili with a 'get a load of this guy' nod of his head, but then the man comes up with the key.
"Not the front door," he says. "Wait, where was that open panel? Can we go out that way?" But then James' voice, no doubt boomingly loud to their tiny little ears, comes through. Nonsense -- until the end. "The attic," he says, then glances at the two locked doors. "Does one lead to the attic and the other to certain death?" "Come on, Keymaster."
Inside the dollhouse, two locked doors stand waiting for a key: East and West. here is a coatrack, bearing the cloaks from which Peter found an old iron skeleton key, a few upholstered benches, and a pile of firewood. The fire in the hearth seems to grow more intrusive with every passing minute, the heat inside the mansion rising as the flames lick more boldly outside their brick enclosure.
Outside the dollhouse, the back section of the gallery starts to get warmer, almost like someone has turned the heater on. The panel which was open is now closed, and no hinges are visible to suggest it could ever have opened in the first place. The porcelain dolls of Nick, Peter, and Lili just lay unmoving on the floor where they fell.
Lola weaves on her feet when there is a moment of blackness, righting herself as it passes. Then she's looking around rapidly. "Peter?" Then she looks at the dollhouse and her eyes narrow. "What the fuck..?" It doesn't take her more than a moment to notice only the ones who got close are inside. Which prompts her to hang back still. But she studies the house, taking note.. and starting to think. She looks around, seeking out something long and sturdy. She needs a poking stick. Or rod. Or.. She pauses when James speaks. One of the only ones left outside. She looks back at the house and shouts, "Stairs on the west side! Get the hell out of there Peter!" She also notes something else.. but for the moment she doesn't look directly at it yet. Focused on the dollhouse like everyone else in the immediate.
Lili looked up at Peter and nodded slowly, though the color still hadn't come back to her face. "Pete. Aloha, 'o ko'u inoa 'o Lili." When one isn't quite themselves, they may forget that English isn't most people's second language. With Nick taking her hand and reassuring her, Lili managed to force a little smile to her face and then shook her head. "Oh, yeah, sorry. I'm Lili." This to Peter. She glanced at Nick and raised her brows. "The Fire's bad here? Are we in some sort of haole hell or something?" She rolled her shoulders and stood up to her full height, taking a slow breath like she was trying to gird her loins for a stage performance, then she heard the booming voices from the sky and winced, cringing away from them as best we could. "OK AKUA! WE'LL DO THAT, THEN!" She called back, staring up to the ceiling. "Awesome, Key. Awesome. Attic. Find it. Go West, My son, go West."
Lili was murmuring words as she put them together and started toward the West side, oh wait. She turned around, and actually started moving to the West this time, instead of the East. "West. That way." Something caught Lili's eye as she moved past the fire, though, and she stopped dead in her tracks. "Wait." She moved her hair back over one shoulder, then reached into the fireplace quickly, pulling free a piece of paper that hadn't been completely consumed by flames. "You guys! Look! This, it's the East Wing! Weird!" Lili held the paper out toward the other two stuck in the house with her, demonstrating what she'd found so they could see it as well.
It's a blueprint of the east wing of the mansion. A room featuring an illustrated rocking horse is circled several times in black ink, and there are building instructions to add bars to the windows, and several locks to the doors. Scrawling, erratic script in Latin is added in a note to the painter.
"I'm betting that's why we go West, even if we have to scale a wall like Spider Man or climb out of this house using my hair like Rapunzel. So.. West!" Lili then began moving all over again, heading West, to the door that the key would hopefully unlock.
"I would have liked to have met under better circumstances, Nick. She seems to know you, yeah? Can you keep her going while I take the lead?" Peter pauses a moment, and cants his head, hearing James and then Lola. "Nah, my guess is that the panel is closed. Like it were never there. Is it just me or is it getting warmer in here. As if Hawaii wasn't warm enough!" The young man waves towards a window. "Thanks Lola, thanks uh, whoever you are sir. If we don't make it out, please dump the whole place into a volcano or something!"
Peter steps towards the door on the west side, and then pauses, turning back to look at the fireplace for a moment. He reach over to yank the firepoker from its resting place. "I think we may need this." He looks at Lili and the paper she pulled from the fireplace. He shudders and turns back to the west door. "Go west, life is peaceful there...", the young man sings as he slips the key into the keyhole and turning the key, and then reaching for the handle.
When Peter slides the key into the lock, the dollhouse shudders and wails in agony. The handle turns easily in Peter's hand, and opens into a conservatory, filled to the ceiling with exotic plants. A fireplace blazes in here, as well, flames licking out wildly. The temperature has risen again. A pool of dark water fills the center of the room.
Haleakala dropped Haleaspects.
James reaches up to rub his head, and he shuts his eyes tightly against whatever it is that he's seeing while he's looking at the house. This time, when they open again, he breathes a sigh of relief. The heat, though, is concerning. To say the least. "Tiger, tiger, burning bright," he mutters, before he lifts a hand to the house and murmurs something else, this one too low to hear, and suddenly there's the sensation of very humid air. More than humid, really -- wet. "Pull on the strings, and everything unravels."
A spiraling wooden staircase is visible on the far side of the conservatory.
"Fuckkk," says Nick when the heat flares up thanks to being caught between two fireplaces, more or less. "Worse than Vegas." But then thanks to James' incantations and ramblings and magic on the inside, it's suddenly humid. "Or Atlanta." He peers through all the plants in the conservatory. "There's a stairwell," he says, moving forward, his hand on Lili's. "Never go to the west wing..." He's just full of allusions today.
As he enters the doorway, he suddenly starts calling out. "Hey kid! Sailor boy! I promise to find you a playmate if you let us out! We're just a bunch of boring grown ups. You don't want us anyway. You want someone that likes these sorts of games, don't you? Someone small, someone more fun than we are? I can find you that... only if you let us out, yeah?"
Inside the dollhouse, the plants in the conservatory part slightly to reveal an unmoving porcelain doll with purple and white hair gazing out the window. The floor length pool of water separating the parlour side from the staircase is nearly black and impossible to gauge depth. The surface is dotted with the bellies of dead fish. The flames continue licking out of the fireplace, doing their best to turn this into a steam room, but James' cooling mist reduces the temperature to something more bearable.
Outside the dollhouse, beads of sweat drop off the brow of Nick's doll. A child's laughter pierces the white noise nature sounds and shakes the walls of the dollhouse. "In my house, I make the rules. If I can't get out, I can't let you out. Come let me out. Come let me out."
"Come let me out."
Lola suddenly snaps her eyes towards.. one of the back windows and states in a throaty snarl, "I see you, you little shit. The blood tells me all about you. You'd best let them free and flee.. flee before I get my hands on you. Because I can get my hands on you. And tear your essence to tatters!" She starts to circle, as if to stalk around the dollhouse towards.. whatever she sees.
Lili snickered slightly and glanced at Peter, raising her brows. "I dunno man, I get to walk around in a bikini pretty much all the time. I like it hot." She shrugged her shoulders, then patted Peter solidly on the shoulder when he grabbed the fireplace poker. "Yes! If we see a candlestick, I'll grab that. Nick! Look out for a Rope, or a Knife!" Lili giggled a little, moving along quite quickly with long strides from her dancer's legs. Starting to feel a little more like herself, Lili had finally lost the slightly panicked vibe she'd had earlier, though she was being a touch more watchful than usual. Likely it had to do with the fact that she was gripping tightly to Nick's hand, her fingers threaded through his so he couldn't easily let go, or so that he couldn't suddenly just get pulled away into an evil pool of black water, despite the sweat on the guy's overheating skin...
Lili peered around the conservatory and shook her head once, giving a raised set of brows to Nick, then glancing at Peter. "Uh... hey, you guys, I think I'll just... You know. Help us out over that water, there. So we don't have to go anywhere near it. Something about it looking all evil and dark and ominous just... Nooooo thank you." She cleared her throat a little. "You know, get us out of here before we have to start making good on Nick's suggestion of shoveling children into that creepy little doll's house, is all."
Lili cleared her throat, attempting to completely ignore the creepy ass doll in the room, and focused on the plants. She tucked the blueprints into the pocket of her shorts, giving herself a free hand so she didn't have to relinquish her hold on Nick. Then, speaking in a sweet, singsong sort of voice, she said "Grow for me, Grow..." And she lifted her hand toward the room, sweeping it in a delicate arc, her fingers shimmering a little as heat came from them and she rubbed them together to make little sparks. The fire brand on the back of her left shoulder bloomed to life, becoming true, burning flame that rested behind her, had her back so to speak. Her eyes gleamed and became flaming cinders, leaving tracers of flickering fire in the air as she turned her gaze across the room.
Flower pots shattered, dirt poured to the ground, and the large, leafy plants that filled the room all began to grow, and I do mean GROW. They slowly braided themselves together and created a large, sweeping bridge that moved from just ahead of Lili's feet, all the way to the staircase at the other side of the room. It looked pretty damn solid, too.
Peter shakes his head to Lili when she giggles, snorting a little. "What, ye think it's a giant game of clue? We dun want to find the killer, in this case. But I am keeping a hold of this." He swings the poker about a bit. "If this thing is fae, it'll regret having real iron in here." The young man reaches around behind the door, and pulls the skeleton key from it. "Going to keep this too, just in case it matches other locks." He looks to Nick a moment when he yells out at the... spirit? "Er, what boy are you speaking of?", he wonders, looking about. "And how are we going to get across that?", Peter asks, pointing at the pool. "Those dead fish are a dead giveaway that we don't want to go swimming here today."
Peter glances up, at where he imagines Lola to be. "Hey, Lola?! You still up there, everything okay? Where's the uh.. boy?" When Lili starts to speak and wave her hands about, the sparks causing him concern. "Just remember we're in a wooden house, yeah?" The bridge that grows itself into being has Peter nodding his head slightly, a look of mild disbelief. "You must be popular at parties.", he comments, stepping onto the bridge and making his way towards the stairs. "Go west, lots of open air..." The iron poker is casually rested against his shoulder as he walks along.
That little voice, even though it doesn't sound very nice, seems to make James...tear up? He sniffs, reaching up to rub his eyes and blinking rapidly a few times. "Poor little matchgirl," he says, and the sadness in his voice is real, the heartfelt emotion of someone who truly understands. The child spirit thing may not be a girl, but whatever. James is not all there at the moment. "Time to clean up your toys," he says, and he murmurs another couple of words under his breath, waving his hand toward the house.
"Oh, shit, son," says Nick, eyes lighting up when Lili makes that bridge. "Warm enough here for me, but that's pretty epic," he says, wiping his brow. To Peter, he shrugs. "Not sure, my friend thinks it's a ghost kid. Saw a face the last time we ran across these dolls." He notices the doll resembling Lola caught in the plants, and frowns. "I'm gonna try to grab these if we see them -- don't like leaving them around for things to voodoo, you know?"
Speaking of voodoo... he glances down at the doll Lola, and smirks. "You remind me of the babe... Let's see if this works... taking a bit out of Lili's page here..." And there's the sound of hooves in the distance, when suddenly, a glowing lasso, resembling a vine but made up of vibrant greens and purples and yellows like it was a vine in the Avatar movie, appears in his hand. He spins it and throws it at the doll, giving it a flick of his wrist. It's magic, so it obeys him, even though he's never been on a dude ranch in his life.
The doll, with the power of the lasso, comes back, but the lasso disappears, leaving the Lola-esque doll on the bridge with them. "Fuck, she's heavier than she looks," he grunts. "Help me carry it," he demands of Peter.
Inside the dollhouse, the spiraling wooden staircase ascends into a glittering ballroom, lit by sparkling crystal chandeliers and candles in wall sconces. Two doors are visible from here: a door to the East, fastened with several kinds of locks and bearing a rocking horse plaque on the front, and a door to the North. The ballroom itself is lined with potted trellises of fresh plumeria. The tiles are decorated with gold inlay circles, intricate patterns set in white marble. The door to the North is sealed with a gilded lock.
Outside the dollhouse, as Lola charges towards the back of the mansion, the temperature sharply drops, and the mist hanging in the air becomes a frigid fog. As James severs the tendrils of magic controlling part of the dollhouse, the fires flare out first. Then the entire lower east wing collapses, and the dollhouse tilts dramatically towards the east. The locked door to the East shatters open in the impact, and is now the bottom of a very slippery slide.
Lola falls back now that the spirit has bugged out.. or seemed to. But she keeps her eyes open as she looks to the dollhouse again. "Damn it.." She keeps her distance, but eyes it through the windows, stalking around it in a wide circle. "Listen up, shorties! If you can get to the library at the east wing, it'll be easier to move up. But you gotta to through the kid's room. Otherwise, you have to get to the stairs through the north door.. but that's not gunna be easy. Up to you folks which you think is best." After all, she doesn't know just what the strengths of those inside are.
Lili looked at Peter and raised her brows. "Man, I can turn this into any game I want. Just trying to make it so I get out of here without wanting to /actually/ burn the place down around me. I mean, I might live through that, but would you?" Her eyes were still lit brightly with fire as she looked at Peter. "You're welcome, though, of course, for the whole not having to swim through dank ass water." She offered Peter a bright smile, world class level customer service style, as if he'd said thank you.
Turning to watch as Nick got the doll with the lasso, Lili chuckled brightly, clapping her hands with glee as her wide smile made the dimple on her cheek stand out rather obviously. "Oh! That was awesome. I love it, and good choice for color." She nodded surely and motioned to the lasso of colorful vines. Lili inhaled and leaned in a little closer to Nick, warmth radiating off of her. "You smell nice. What is that? It's like..." Lili inhaled again and her stomach rumbled a little. "Like if you roasted a reall good leg of lamb over a pine wood fire, and had just really good mint jelly with it. Huh." She blinked, the fire of her eyes glowing a little behind her eyelids as she did so.
Since Nick and Peter were carrying Lola, there didn't seem to be much need for a third person doing that, so Lili made her way over the bridge, then up the stairs in big, bounding steps. As the world tipped under her, though, Lili let out a bright sound of surprise as the lovely ballroom she'd just stepped into turned into the most expensive slide, ever. Lili managed to get herself to the side of the room, hands holding fiercly to a wall sconce, as she stared down the slippery slope and frowned a bit. "You know... I had a dream like this once, but there was a volcano in it, and this REALLY crazy Owl..." She called the words loudly. Obviously attempting to self sooth, or whatever, now that she no longer had anyone else to hold onto for comfort. "So.. Akua says EAST? I guess..." She eyed the doorway at the bottom of the slide, the one that had now burst open. "That's east. We should... Go down there, then?" She eyed the wall and the spacing between sconces and other handholds dubiously."Uhhh... I guess... make that lasso into a thicker rope, and we can use that?"
Lili let go with one of her hands and reached up, making a grunt. "Commmme here little vine... let's be a big vine. Grow!" Sparks fell down the marbled floor away from Lili as magic moved through her and her eyes blazed. The vines she could see (oddly now above her due to the fabulous tilt) started to thicken, growing wider and stronger, then a coil of them came down into the room, growing until the end of the sturdy, brand new vine rope went all the way to the East wall, otherwise known as the Bottom of this treacherous slide of doom. "Got it!" She called, panting as she held on with her second hand again.
"A ghost kid? Who is your friend?", Peter asks of Nick, and then shakes his head. "Her name is Lola. And depending on which one it is, she might not like you back." Then the floor seems to drop out from underneath their feet as half the house comes crashing down, and it's only just by the poker's hook that he manages to hang onto a small corner. Holding the doll up is a concerted effort between the two men, but in the end the doll stays put... mostly.
"East?", he says to Lili, not really wanting to look down. "I guess you have a green thumb, huh? I know some potheads who'd love you to pieces." After a few moments of looking around and trying to figure out the best way down, he takes a deep breath and kicks off, sliding down until the hook snags something else. The doll? Yeah, that goes with him. And so it is through long, exaggerated jumps and bumps that he makes it down to the doorway in question. "Try parkour they said. It'll be fun they said."
The fires going out is good, but the house tilting like that makes James wince, and he shakes his head quickly. "No, no, that's not what's supposed to happen," he laments. "Now you know what the London Bridge felt like." He starts to murmur something else, but before he does, he's suddenly being tilted just like he was in the house. "What?! I thought we sang this tune already!" he exclaims, and he reaches to grab a pedestal that's near him. because otherwise he would have had to grab Lola and possibly knock her down. You're welcome, Lola.
Suddenly, he is apparently standing in a library. His eyes widen, and he lets out a frustrated groan. However, he looks around, and picks up a book at his feet, starting to leaf through it. Come on, James, this is no time to catch up on reading! But then he sees a door with a bunch of locks. "Hm. Knock knock. Who's there? Interrupting cow." He doesn't finish the joke, but instead goes to the door and starts undoing all the locks.
"I don't want... it's from Labyrinth, dude," Nick tells Peter before Peter takes to the ballroom the hard way, lugging the doll with him. "See ya down there," he calls down, then looks up as he hears James. "Your boyfriend's gone a bit crazy out there, sounds like. Let's get out of here before we all fly over the cuckoo's nest." Because he's on an allusion roll, clearly.
He reaches for the vine she's pulled down, and wraps an arm around her waist, mindful of that flame she carries, and tries to lift and swing, but... no go. So much for gallantry. It is dead and gone, friends. "Hm. Ladies first?"
He laughs. "Hold on," he says, clearly not keen on moving on alone or having her do so and leaving him here alone in the creepiest little dollhouse in Hawaii. He takes a step or two back, holding the vine, then grabbing her, and swinging. This time it takes, and he uses the wall (ceiling? whatever it is) for some guidance and gets most of the way down.
Inside the Dollhouse, through the door with the rocking horse plaque and the myriad chain locks and padlocks on the now-splintered door, a child's room is topsy-turvey in disarray. An overturned toybox has its contents strewn on the easternmost wall, and the iron-barred windows. Dozens of porcelain and wooden dolls, several wooden soldiers, and a stuffed bear are scattered across the panes of glass. The walls of the room have been entirely papered with pages of the King James Bible, and across the baseboards and crown molding, strings of words in Latin have been scrawled in red paint.
The lower two-thirds of the door are covered in gouges and shallow scratches, and the blankets that have fallen away from the small, wrought iron bed reveal white sheets stained repeatedly in various shades of yellow. There is another bible-plastered door leading to the north. And the screeching sound of metal on metal accompanies those locks being opened from the North side.
Lola suddenly feels herself shift.. or does she? She weaves, but lithely masters herself before glancing around. Her eyes narrowing. A hint of red teases at the tips of her hair, flickering for a moment before she grunts and her current color reasserts herself. "Coward," she rumbles throatily, moving back a bit more. Ensuring there is plenty of room between her and the dollhouse. Just in case.
Lili watched as Peter made it down the slide with the doll version of Lola, then shook her head. "Dude's a mountain goat." Not long later, she lifted her head to see Nick coming toward her, and she let go of the wall sconce she'd been holding on to, rather fully transfering her weight over to Nick via arms around his neck and legs clenching at his waist. "HI!" She chuckled, looking almost immediately relieved as they swung down, and he moved them even further down the vine.
"Is James that girl voice's boyfriend?" Lili seemed a little confused for a moment, then glanced up, listening for voices. She didn't try to climb off of Nick, that's how you get people falling off of vine ropes, after all. "Uh.. I'm just going to stick with you, if that's cool, Nick? This place is still kind of freaking me out." She chuckled a little, and at least Lili being a dancer her whole life made it so that the monkey on Nick's back (or side, however exactly he managed to hold her) didn't weigh enough to rip his arms out of the sockets, despite the swinging and moving on the vine.
Lili was looking down for a moment, when her hands tightened into vice grips on Nick's shoulders. "NICK... that's the room, in the east wing blue print..." A shudder went up her spine as she stared into the room. "They put those bars on the windows, and there's all these bible pages on the wall. Oh man... and toys everywhere on the floor. Someone knocked over the toybox." She breathed quickly, a couple of times. "Don't drop us, K?"
Peter looks to Lili for a moment and shakes his head. "No, I am that girl's boyfriend. At least, as close as anyone will get anyways." He shrugs and looks to the room ahead, setting the doll down on its feet. His expression goes through several shades of disgust at the sight of the room. "Uhm, yeah, crazy and religion never go together well." He sniffs and recoils. "Eugh. Cages make me sick. This is definitely wrong." Peter's eyebrows rise a little. "Uh... something is unlocking the other door there." He lifts the poker into a defensive position. "The Lives of the Apostles huh? Riveting."
James continues to unlock the door, but his attention is caught by something on the page of the book in his hand. He stops what he's doing and squints, peering down at the page. Really, James? "Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; Bless this bed that I lay on," he says in a singsong voice. There's a thread of something else there, though -- more sane-sounding. Like he's using a memory device. Perhaps some part of him realizes that he is not quite right, and needs to remember whatever he's reading.
After that brief interlude, though, he remembers what he's supposed to be doing. He continues with the same tone, but this time the words are quite different. "One, two, buckle my shoe," he says in time with his unlocking, and as the last lock clicks open, he reaches for the handle. "Three, four, open the door!" he announces proudly as he stands in the doorway.
"You can hang on as long as you like, darlin'," Nick says, and once they make it to the bottom, he doesn't let her down but instead swings her a little over so she's on his back for a piggyback ride. Of course, if she tries to drop down, he won't stop her. "Good to know. I bet 'it's complicated' is your facebook status," he says with a grin, before that slips away as he surveys the room. "Well, this is some fucked up shit, yeah. Makes my father look sweet by comparison," he murmurs, because who doesn't love a guy with daddy issues? When James enters, he takes a look at the man, and nods. "And then there were four. Well, four and a half. We have the doll." He points to Lola doll. "How do we get out? Or do we have to do the right thing and look for stuff to find a way to help this ghost kid or whoever's doing all this?"
Lola stares at the dollhouse from where she's braced, eyeing it carefully. "Get back in where new boy came from," she shouts at the dollhouse crew. "there's a stack of books in there you can climb to get out. The window. Get moving before the little punk does something else to screw with you!"
Lili chuckled, doing her best to not get in the way as Nick got them the rest of the way down the rope. "Ok, not going anywhere. And I don't have a facebook status. I'm out of college." She shrugged slightly, though not too much, as it would possibly cause bad shifting in the movement downward. When Nick swung her around to his back for a piggy-back ride once they reached the floor, though, she made sure she was as evenly distributed as possible and kept her lithe arms and legs inside the ride at all times, closely pressed to Nick as possible. Peering around the room once they were firmly in it, Lili shuddered slightly again. "This place is so creepy. This poor kid. He could probably just set fires or something and like jerks they just locked him up in here." She nodded to the doorway to the library, then lifted her arm away from where it was coiled around Nick's collar bones. "Pete's girlfriend's voice said to go through the door to the library, right? Isn't that the library, James?"
Lili then noticed James was actually there. "JAMES! Oh my Akua, how long have you been in here? You weren't in that first room with us, and I heard you talking..." She firmly rewrapped her arm around Nick and shook her head. "Nevermind, you know? Come on guys, the girl voice just said to go back in there and climb books. Let's go climb some books!" This called with what was likely meant to be a rallying sort of cry, and Lili bounced a little, trying to help Nick move faster.
Peter stares at James for a few seconds after he's thrust open the door, and then he hefts the Lola doll. "Your coming was foretold!", he calls as he runs across the room to the other door, gesturing at the King James bibles in the room. "Thanks, mate, you're a Godsend!" The young man pauses a moment and cants his head, hearing Lola once more. "To the window! Where I shall introduce the poker to it!" He glances to Lili and laughs. "Climb some boooks!" He takes off into the library, to find said books and window.
"No," James says when Nick asks, keeping a grip on the book. "He's gone. Gone, baby, gone." He lets out a little rueful sigh at this, and adds, "Maybe we can help later somehow. Right now, we need to make like a baby and head out." He waves to Lili, a happy sort of thing that doesn't really seem very like him. Or at least, not what she knows of him. "Not //very// long," he says thoughtfully, before he turns to watch her as she runs toward the books. Peter's comment makes him frown in confusion, until his expression clears, and he laughs. "Foretold," he says, shaking his head as he follows to climb the books, though he keeps that book in his hand. "That's a good one."
"I think you're a little confused," says Nick with a laugh as Lili continues to flip who's being talked to or referred to, but he nods. "The teachers said books would open up new doors for us, but I don't think this is what the had in mind." He moves to the books and eases Lili off his back, pointing for her to go on up. "Ladies first," he says, before ushering the others over as well. "You got Dollface?" he asks Peter, before humming 'There are Giants in the Sky,' and following the others if they start heading up.
In the dollhouse's library, all of the bookshelves are toppled over, thanks to the slant of the dollhouse, and the books have tumbled into a heap on the easternmost wall. At the top of the heap, sure enough, is a window large enough for a fully grown adult to fit through, and the wood of the pedestal is only a short distance below it.
Lola watches as they move into the library. "Let's go, people! The little shit's still lurking around here. Get moving. Cause it's all up to you now!" She glances around, her voice holding an edge of urgency. Perhaps even a hint of concern. She keeps an eye out for the spirit. Just in case he tries anything she can deal with.
Lili's smile when she looked at James as she rode by on Nick's back was warm, wide, and decidedly amused by something. "You didn't hit your head when you came in, right, James? You seem a little... Happy." She cocked her head to the side, then blinked and looked at Nick curiously when he mentioned she was confused. "You know, it's entirely likely I'm confused, this place has been bananas." Lili did snicker, though, when Nick mentioned books opening new doors. "Yeah, and if you take the reading rainbow, you can totally fly high in the sky."
Lili slipped off of Nick's back and leaned in to give him a soft, sound, kiss on the cheek, rubbing his shoulder fondly. "Mahalo, 'oki'oki. But you come up just behind me, neh?" She nodded to Nick, then leaned back to give him a wink before she looked at the other two guys in the room. "Really, all of you, up right behind me, alright? No, like, straggling and making me jump back in with a vine to save you." Lili glanced at Peter and then to James, giving them both what she hoped was an encouraging smile.
And then, Lili turned to the stack of books, eyeing it, and started up. It.. was almost less of a start up and more of a cruise missile launch from the bottom of the stack to the window, really. Apparently agility has some benefit even in the weird. She pushed open the window, and crawled through it, turning around to poke her head inside so she could help other people if they needed it.
Peter looks at the pile of books, the window, and then the doll. He lets out a sigh, and begins to climb the pile, using the poker for balance... though he's sure to poke the wall and not the books. The young man takes a moment to marvel at Lili's speed and parkour skills. "Geez, what do they teach you folks at wizard college? Magical Parkour one oh one?" It's a bit of a slog, but Peter manages to get to the window, panting. He simply closes his eyes then and jumps out the window, doll pulled out after him.
"Happy? Maybe. No hits to the head, though. Not today, not yet." James smiles back at Lili, though, and begins to climb. He's nowhere near as fast as her -- maybe he missed the Wizard Parkour 101 -- but he manages to do it pretty well, and soon enough he's up at the top, looking down at anyone else who is behind him. So, Nick, one supposes. "Once more into the breach!" he says valiantly as he reaches the window, climbing out past Lili. "Thank you, ma'am," he says as he does.
"Do I want to know what that means?" says Nick to the nickname, but he flashes a grin at the kiss on the cheek, putting a hand to his chest like it's hit him deep. "Yes'm, right on up." He watches the others go first, but that was probably a mistake, because it's he who needs the push from behind, apparently. He starts on up, but it's hard, and he's a bit out of breath, pausing to take a break only a portion of the way up the stairs. "Shouldn't have smoked all those packs of cigarettes when I was a kid," he says to, well, himself, since everyone's ahead of him. "Bibles hate me, so this is fitting," he calls up, fanning himself a bit.
As soon as the feet of the first escapees slip out of the window, a wash of black miasma permeates the air. One by one, the porcelain dolls on the floor are replaced by the living, breathing, full-sized human beings. And one by one, those little porcelain faces are returned to the dollhouse. A doll with waist-length hair, a yellow tank-top and shorts is ensnared in the conservatory by vines suspending her by her porcelain throat. A wild-haired porcelain doll is impaled on a fireplace poker sticking out of the ballroom floor. A tall, black porcelain doll with a goatee is crushed between two bookshelves. The Nick doll's face is flushed and red, lying in its puddle of sweat on the floor.
Lola steps just close enough to reach out and snag Peter, yanking him away from the dollhouse when he appears. "What the hell?" The question asked of him firmly as she steps back again, to moving close to the dollhouse still. Who knows, after all?
Lili beamed widely as people came out of the window, but she kind of spidered on the side of the house, and leaned herself back into the window between every arrival. Especially as they blipped out of the tiny existence once they stepped out onto the pedastal. "NIIICK!" She called out as she leaned half her body into the window, staring down at him and raising her brows. "Hey! Need a little help?" She asked the question, then lifted her left out outward. "Come to me! But do it lightly!" Lili giggled softly as she slid her thumb along her forefinger, creating a little friction, her fiery eyes flaring for a moment as she lit up the wall behind her shoulder with the burning flame on her back.
And so, as a little wave of soft, subtle warmth just kind of added to the heat of the house and library in general, things got a little weird. Since the gravity around Nick eased up a good bit and everything felt a whole helluva lot lighter. Especially himself. A couple of the books floated clean off the floor, but not the ones in the pile to the window, naturally. "That should help. Get up here, I'll pull you through!" And of course, Lili waited, hanging in the window, with her arm stretched out to offer more aid than even the spell alone could do.
Peter falls for hardly no time at all before he's snagged and pulled away by Lola. "Erk!", he says, "What do you mean?" He straightens up and tries to look nonchalant about the whole experience. The young man holds up the Lola doll, and then his empty hand, looking disappointed about that. "I found your doll, and dropped my Pokemon." Peter looks back to Lola again, "Thanks for your guidance, we could not have made it without you, and that James fellow." He looks around then, hoping to see the others making it out.
James tumbles out onto the floor with a bump and a little exclamation of pain, though at least it wasn't his head. He doesn't need one of those right now. He gets to his feet quickly, looking around, and when he sees Peter, some little bit of tension leaves him. "Two down, two to go," he says, before he turns back to the house. "This is the house that Jack built," he says, but this time to himself. "This is the doll that lay in the house that Jack built." He reaches then to grab the doll smashed in between the bookcases so that he can survey it. "Do I really look like that?" he adds, and he makes a face. "I need to shave."
"Mahalo," says Nick when he sees Lili doing something, then, when he feels that lift in his heels and the lightness of his body, hurries up the steps in no time at all, grabbing Lili's hand. "Thanks for the lift," he says with a grin, before climbing out the window, keeping his hand in hers and falling -- and growing back to normal size. "Whew, I was going to get a complex, being so tiny, and have to overcompensate with witty comments and clever allusions. So glad I don't have to do that," he says, looking around at the others.
"James, is it? Has the right idea. Get your doll -- I don't like the idea of leaving those things around for other people to grab. Though I think maybe they wouldn't be us, when we're not here... it still doesn't feel right, you know?" he says, following James to grab his doll but not touching the others. "Ah, poor wee little poppet," he says in a surprisingly good Irish accent. "Sweated himself to death, almost like I did." In his own voice, he adds, "I need a beer."
As Nick is returned to full-size, the porcelain Nick doll is returned to the dollhouse, where it slowly roasts in the fireplace, the fireproof ceramic ensuring it will last a long, long time...at least, until the real Nick saves him from that fate. The sound of white noise nature sounds is peacefully drowning out the bustle of shoppers. "Hey, is everything okay here? Can I show you anything?" The smiling shop attendant peeks around one of the dividers, noting the large group around the pedestal. "Oh, can I show you the Iolani Palace?" The dollhouse is gone, replaced by a startlingly beautiful wooden cuckoo clock resembling the famous landmark. "The little dancing figures are striking, you won't believe the detail."
Lola keeps hold of Peter's hand as she says, "Someone has to watch your ass." She looks towards the.. where did it go? She rumbles low in her throat and as the curator pops up, far too late, she looks him in the eye, the shoulders past him. "Art sucks," she gruffs, having had enough of this place. She'll just drag Peter out, not yet interested in the little doll he has.
Lili took in a deep breath, looking around as everyone was now out of the dollhouse. When she spied her shopping bag on the floor, along with the cup of her mostly melted, frothy green drink, she let out a soft sigh of displeasure. "Oooooh, stupid house." She grumbled and picked up her bag, pulling it over her arm to carry, and of course picked up the drink even though it was likely to just be thrown away in the nearest trash.
Lili finally looked back at the doll house, peering at homage to herself, trussed with vines, and frowning. Of course, then the sales associate came over and took Lili's attention for a brief moment, during which time the dollhouse was shifted to the lovely palace. And when Lili saw that, she shook her head. "You know what? I'm done. I don't need to see any more of your creepy art, or visit any more of your creepy houses. And I'm DEFINITELY not getting too close to that freaking palace!" Her red adidas with white stripes carried her toward the way out, and she called out loudly. "BUT! I AM going to go get the biggest Hurricane I can find, and I'm gonna drink it! And I'm going to forget all about this psycho, death trap of an art gallery!" And then Lili was around the corner, those long, lithe legs carrying her pretty damn quickly.
Once Lili and Nick are out of the house, James breathes a sigh of relief. "100 percent, can't do much better than that. Everyone have everything?" The doll whose appearance he apparently isn't too keen on is stuck into a pocket, before he nods to Nick. "That's right," he says. "James." He looks at the dollhouse -- or where the dollhouse was. His eyes narrow as he examines the cuckoo clock where it had been. "Well. Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego now? That's what I want to know." He turns away again, just in time for Lili to yell at the poor curator. "Sorry," he says. "I think we're done here." And with that, he turns to start away, murmuring something under his breath that's too low to be heard. Probably for the best.
"Yeah, no," says Nick to the clerk, shaking his head. "Sorry for all that," he adds as Lili takes it out on the curator and leaves, though he looks like he might be amused by it, if the smirk is any indication.
"Nick," says Nick to James, putting his doll in his pocket a little sneakily, lest the curator notice. He heads for the door, glancing at his watch to check the time. After all, he has some money to collect, and a beer to be had before that time.
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