strangetrip | [GP/EP] THE FLOOR IS LAVA

It was arrival day, and therefore it was possible that there would be new inmates arriving at any time. Someone else might have delayed this until some other day, but for Loki the prospect of new people was simply a bonus. New arrivals tended to be confused and upset already, any consideration from him was unlikely to change that, so he didn't plan on displaying any. He'd already raided empty rooms and moved much of their furniture into the hallways, that was enough general consideration for one day.

Instead, he took a seat on the front desk (ignoring Darryl, who also ignored him) and wove a spell that would let him be heard by everyone in the Inn. "Good morning, fellow residents. It's been a quiet few weeks, hasn't it?" All the weeks, barring undead invasion, tended to be quiet here. It wasn't exactly maddening, but Loki had spent two months being quiet and exceptionally well-behaved, for him.

"To break the monotony, I give to all of you a rousing game of The Floor Is Lava. For those of you who may not know it, it's a descriptive name. When I call time, the floor will become lava. If you touch it, you will die. Metaphorically, at least, so take this seriously." Those who sincerely wished not to play would have no difficulty; the lava was an illusion, and any 'reality' to it depended on belief or buy-in. For those who sincerely didn't want to play, the floor would simply look odd. This was fun mischief, not viciousness. "Also, because I know some people need encouragement in order to engage with fun, the spell creating the lava has been broken and invested into several individual runes and hidden around the Inn, discoverable only by those playing the game. The lava ends when all of those runes are disrupted - you win - or when no one is left alive to disrupt them and I win." That was only sensible. There was no reason to continue playing a game when no one else was playing it.

"Furniture only, staircase railings are fine. No books, no bags, no cloth, the dead can't speak but if they wish to continue playing they may come back as a lava monster under my dominion." Even in games, there were fates worse than death. "Lava monsters may do as they please, including trying to pull the 'living' into the lava. Should there be a clear non-me winner somehow, I'll owe that person a favor of their choice, at some point in the future."

Did that cover everything? It seemed like it, but he could always make another announcement if he had to. "The floor becomes lava in ten... nine... eight... seven... six... five... four... three... two...." He spaced out the countdown enough to make sure that everyone who wanted to scramble for furniture high ground was easily able to do so.

"...One." Loki released the spell and the floors everywhere in the Inn (for those who believed it or at least bought in to the game) turned to churning hot lava.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I will be," Peter says, reaching out to take some of the popcorn out of the bag. He might have been on the defensive a year ago -- reading concern as a certain skepticism as to his abilities, but things had changed. "I've been practicing a lot. Quill's also got this big plan he put together. I've been trying to get him to tell me more about it, but he's been pretty cagey."

"Cause and effect," she said after a moments consideration. Then she tossed a piece of popcorn into the lava to see what would happen. It sizzled and disappeared but when the lava was gone would popcorn be waiting on the floor? She tossed another piece so the first one had company.

"If you know what will happen, can you change it or does knowing make it true? Not knowing adds no limitations to variation in action."

"I don't know," Peter says. "I mean, Mr. Stark is pretty convinced we will remember things, but the me in the future doesn't remember Quill at all."

And he's pretty sure he'd tell Tony immediately about this place if he did remember. Which didn't happen because when Tony showed up, he knew nothing about the Madonna Inn or its inhabitants.

"I remember all kinds of things that I don't actually know I remember." WHich didn't make sense did it? But it was true weven though she didn't know how it was true.

"We forget. But we remember too."

Peter shoots River a puzzled look as he pops a kernel of popcorn into his mouth. "What do you mean?"

She wasn't sure she could explain very well but she tried.

"Memories hide. We file them away." She took a deep smell of the warm popcorn and popped a couple pieces in her mouth. "I remember my brother, and sitting by the hearth and popping corn in the fire but not until I smell popcorn. Until then it's there, the memory is in me but I don't know I know it."

That was very coherent of her Peter, be proud.

Peter is startled by her answer; most of the time he has to think a little before he really gets what she's trying to say.

"Yeah, I think I get it," he says. He's had moments like that too, where just smelling something was enough to trigger a memory he'd forgotten.

"Do you think it'll be like that? We won't remember, and then something will just trigger it?"

“I don’t know,” she admitted. And she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted more memories she probably shouldn’t have in her head.

She had enough of those.

“I hope if we want to remember we will.” But then she didn’t even really know if they went home. Maybe they were alternate versions, parallel but different from the point they came to the Inn.

"I hope so, too. I don't want to forget about any of the people I meet here. Or stuff like this." Peter gestures his hand full of popcorn. "Where else am I going to play the floor is literally lava?"

She considered that seriously but didn't have an answer, she she just took some more popcorn, eating a bit and tossing a couple pieces into the lava to watch them sizzle before smiling at him.

[ooc: fade?]

[GP/EP] THE FLOOR IS LAVA

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