3.6 KiB
| title | created | updated | public | syndicated |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 00060 | Tue, 31 Jan 2023 19:11:47 -0700 | Tue, 31 Jan 2023 19:11:48 -0700 | yes | yes |
00060
Alex takes inventory of himself, this dream world is definitely strange, but fortunately its decided to provide him with his impecable fashion, trench coat and all. Unfortunately the same can't be said for his roguish good looks, as he's found himself 6 arms heavier, and a bit more octopus-y than he remembers.
Nontheless this doesn't appear to be much of an impediment, and he promptly moves on with assessing the situation.
"Acorns? No, I don't think so. I'm afraid octopus' are terrible at fetching acrons, and at any rate, I have a dreadfully important meeting across town." turning to address Inky, "We need to make a break for it, what'd the witch tell you? Envision our goal or something? This is really a little outside of my realm of mechanical magic expertise.. unless.."
Alex makes a gesture with his tentacles in the area and a terminal prompt appears before him. His tentacles work at blinding speed at the digital window, a quick bypass there, a root access escalation there.
"Looks like this whole place runs on Linux, it's an older kernel, about 2.6 or so, but it checks out. Easy to exploit as needed. Here I'm giving us sudo access, should we need it."
"Oh and squirrel, here's your acorns"
find /* -name '*acron*' -exec mv /home/squirrel { } \
It takes Alectopus a couple tries, but he gets it. First he corrects 'acron' to 'acorn'. Then he moves all the acorns to the chipmunk instead of to the squirrel.
Hundreds of acorns appear at the chipmunk's feet. It squeals in delight.
In the distance, far below you, you hear the anguished yell of what can only be a Red Squirrel whose giant stash of acorns has just vanished.
The chipmunk rubs its hands together gleefully and starts scooping up acorns by the armful and shoving them into its mouth by the dozen. "Oh, thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" it says around a mouthful of nuts. "Here..." It tosses you a large square silver coin with a round hole drilled in the center. On one side is the number twenty-one next to a picture of a curved, short-handled sickle. On the other side is the number five and a picture of a flail.
"A Twenty-One Fiver! Sorry, you deserve more, but it's all I have," it apologizes as it scampers off, no doubt to hide its nuts. Hopefully somewhere more secure this time.
If you hold the coin up to your eye and peer through the hole, you see the dreamscape before you as though looking through a cloudy film. All the same stuff is there, but it's hazy and shadowy.
Standing a fair distance from you on the branch, just out of hailing distance, is a tall figure cloaked in black robes. Dark shadows pool restlessly around its feet. Occasionally the shadows leap up and take the form of demons the like of which words cannot describe, before falling and returning to shadow once more. The figure wears a large spherical helmet of obsidian-like glass. You can see constant flashes of a rainbow of colors crackle and splinter along the inside of the helmet like lightning, but illuminating nothing within. You feel sickened at the sight, but at the edge of your mind you feels a tug, a familiarity. Something about this character is familiar to you, but you cannot place it.
When you lower the coin, the figure and the dark landscape both disappear. When you raise it again, the distorted landscape reappears but the figure is gone.
You notice a pair of large ravens watching you rather intently from the branches below.
WHAT DO YOU DO