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

"No, no, I will carry you as I am carrying me." Xavin offered a hand. "My force fields have carried all the Runaways, they can handle the two of us easily. I would not let you fall, Hurley."

"You sure? I mean..."

Hurley presses his lips together, arms resting at his sides.

"...I'm kinda big."

"I have carried myself plus seven others, one of whom was a dinosaur. The person this power comes from can hold fields through an assault by the strongest being in the universe." Xavin waggled her hand a little to repeat the invitation. "I will not let you fall, Hurley. If you do, I will fall too. Come play this game with me?"

Hurley's not encouraged by the fact she's ready to fall into a pit of lava with him. Granted, the lava's just imaginary and neither one of them is actually going to die, but...

Hurley unsteadily crouches on the couch, leaning heavily with one arm on the arm of the couch. "Okay, what do I do? Do you just like... come here, pick me up, and we drive off on your disk or something?"

Xavin floated closer. “Yes. I wish I could make the disk not invisible, but that is not how the power works. Take my hand, step up, and I will make sure you have a place to stand. When you are comfortable we will drive.”

Hurley still doesn't look entirely convinced. Not because he doesn't believe that she believes what she's saying, but because he doesn't believe that she knows what's involved here. He had been the guy who collapsed an entire deck once.

He reluctantly offers up his hand and attempts to step onto the disk -- or where he thinks the disk would be.

Xavin accepted his hand, gripping strongly, smiled sheer happiness, and extended the force field under Hurley’s foot. She also made sure it was strong enough to carry a vehicle - easily at least five times as strong as it needed to be to carry the two of them, she estimated. Hurley would feel safer once he was sure everything was solid, surely!

True to her word, Hurley is effortlessly pulled up onto the disk. Still, Hurley doesn't feel comfortable enough to stand up, so instead, he lowers himself into a crouch, then gradually just sits down at Xavin's feet.

He doesn't want to risk falling off. Or causing the thing to lose its balance or something. The further down he was on the disk, the less likely there was going to be some sort of weird tipping incident that landed them both in imaginary lava.

"Where have you been so far? You find any of them?"

“I found a strange crooked line on a vending machine. I do not know if it was one of these runes, but I scratched it out anyway.” On a whim, she stepped slightly sideways and sat as well, tucking herself against him and shifting the disk to be a bubble instead. For the moment. “Do you know what they look like?”

"No idea, dude," Hurley says. "I mean, I figured if I did anything I'd just wander around looking for anything outta the ordinary. We've been here long enough to know what should be here and what shouldn't."

Xavin longer of the two of them, too.

"Worst case scenario, we do a little bit of damage that'll be repaired by morning anyway."

Hurley generally wasn't much of a risktaker, but this place was pretty devoid of risks.

“That is a good idea. I know the library has no lava, it stands to reason there will be none there.” Illyana wouldn’t stand for it, even if the Asgardian had tried. “He spends time in the clinic, I think. Shall we search there?”

"Sure," Hurley says. He doesn't know where else to look, but the guy's stomping grounds seems a good a place as any to start searching. "How well do you know this guy?"

And then: "You're not getting hurt or sick, are you?"

[GP/EP] THE FLOOR IS LAVA

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