strangetrip | [GP/EP] THE FLOOR IS LAVA

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[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.

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She wasn't sure why you would want to watch a bad movie but he seemed sincere about it. Then she considered if she wanted to watch a movie, watch people jump from one furniture island to the next or look for the runes.

The movie won.

"If we watch it here," or in some common area, "Others may wish to join in."

"You think so?" Peter says. He wonders how many people are playing right now. He's seen a few people jump around since he's attached himself to the wall, but people can be anywhere.

"Did you want to watch it here?"

She wasn't entirely sure she wanted to watch it anywhere, what with his assurance that it was terrible.

"I have no preference for where as long as we obtain popcorn."

"I think that's obtainable." Peter starts making a crawl over to the cafe. "Is it actually hot down there at all? Like cooking things hot?"

River was following him, pace slower as she had to move - cat like - from one piece of furniture to the next. And she had to pause to consider the lava, it certainly seemed real but she knew it wasn't real... but did that mean the heat didn't exist either?

"I am not certain." She could try standing in it. But Loki had said she would die. And she didn't want to die she wanted to eat popcorn.

"Let's just make it to the microwave," he says. "You might have to stay outside the kitchen, though. There's not really a lot of furniture to jump on in the kitchen."

Just counters and stovetops, and those were far away that...

"Unless you want me to swing you around," he says.

There was a moment when the analytical part of her wanted to ask a series of questions about how exactly he did that (the swinging part) and the teenage girl part of her who absolutely wanted to try it regardless of the scientific explanation.

"I will accompany you into the kitchen," she decided, because the teenage girl sometimes won.

It isn't long before the two of them navigate through the cafe. When River reaches the table closest to the kitchen, Peter drops down beside her.

"Okay, ready?" he asks, wrapping an arm around her.

She put her arms around his neck because that seemed the easiest way to hold on and gave him a stern look, "Don't drop me."

"I won't."

With Peter's free hand, he sends out a string of web-fluid at the ceiling near the door. With the sheer force of their momentum, he knocks open the kitchen's swinging door before shooting off another string of web-fluid that he rides to the nearest kitchen counter.

"Okay," he says. "I think the popcorn's in one of these cabinets somewhere."

River slid along the counter and opened one of the cabinets to see if she could locate the popcorn.

"Did they make you different? Or were you always different?" She's curious because even if she was always a bit different she'd been created not born as she was now.

"I was bit by this spider," he says. "I don't really know what was up with it, it just bit me and died and then I got super strong and super durable and started crawling up walls."

All of that had been utterly bizarre.

"I thought I should do something with it, so I became a superhero. Like the Avengers."

That sounded like a very unusual spider.

"They wanted to use me, but I don't want be what they were trying to make." She was sure they had succeeded, but she hadn't stuck around to see if she was good enough.

Peter hesitates for a moment before he finally asks her: "Who's they?"

"Alliance," she didn't know more. Or she did but she didn't like to think about them. Or the things they knew that she knew now.

"Wanted a weapon, not a girl. Didn't get either."

"Did they --" Peter opens another cabinet from the counter and peers inside, moving things around. He knows there's a box of popcorn somewhere around here. "-- did your parents send you to them?"

He glances over at River at that moment. He remembers her talking about her parents, how they were nobles and they wouldn't have thought much of her playing in the sand like a common person.

"Yes." Because, they had. But there was a pause and then, "No."

Another pause. Her parents were less than warm, but she didn't think they knowingly sent her off to be broken.

"It was a school. I wanted to go. So they sent me."

Peter nimbly jumps from one counter to the other, landing solidly on his two feet. He digs through another cabinet.

"Why'd you wanna go?"

"To learn," she thought that was the obvious point of a school. But maybe it wasn't. Maybe that had been her error.

"Had the best program."

"What kind of program?" Peter asks carefully. He opens a cabinet and this time locates the microwave popcorn. He pulls out the box, shakes it to get River's attention, then tosses it over to her.

She caught the box, scanned the instructions and then hopped her way to the microwave before answering. She was focused on removing the cellophane wrap and programming the machine rather than him as she spoke.

"It was comprehensive. Math, science, civics... the arts. I wanted to be a dancer." Her parents had been okay with that, but had harbored hopes that she would change her mind and study the law.

"You can still be a dancer," Peter points out. "There's a couple of people here that could show you how to dance. Kitty was a dancer. So was Star-Lo --" Peter stops and course-corrects; he's sure most people don't know him by that name -- or at least don't call him by it. "-- so is Quill."

He's not sure if River would be into Quill's style of dancing, though. Maybe.

"He saved the universe in a dance-off."

That seemed unlikely, but she didn't contradict Peter.

"I started dance lessons when I was three." She so sort of was a dancer, just not professionally. "But I will ask them if they would like to trade lessons."

The microwave beeped and she took the bag of popcorn out and shook it.

"I think Quill would be happy to have someone to teach." Peter was pretty sure Quill would just be excited to have someone ask because it meant they respected his skills. "He's from my universe. We're supposed to meet in my future."

Peter maneuvers over to where River is and sits down on the counter next to her.

"When the floor is no longer lava I will ask him." She pulled open the bag and the popcorny steam poured out with the scent, she offered it to Peter. "Did he tell you about your future?"

That seemed unwise.

[GP/EP] THE FLOOR IS LAVA

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