Happy Halloween!

[mosaic_archive]

It might be a good idea to carry an umbrella when walking in the open area of the Nexus today. Not because of rain, however, but because of a light shower of wrapped fun-sized candies that started when a threshold number of portals reached midnight on October 30th (or the first second of the 31st, depending on how you look at it) and will continue until the same conditions for midnight October 31st.

The free candy is perfectly safe. The ground fog playing over the grassy field, however, carries an LOL with the following effects: If someone is not in costume they suddenly will be (mun's choice), and may have abilities to match whatever they're costumed as. An example would be someone in a ghost costume gaining the temporary ability to float or walk through walls. If someone is already in a costume they might get related abilities, but will otherwise be partly immune. All effects will wear off at the same time as the end of the candy shower.

In other words: Happy Halloween, everyone.

Comments

[mage_hatchlings]

"Oh, that's good," the magelet replies. "You can get candy any time, but trick or treat is special."

"Maybe we'll be safe under the tree?" suggests another one, and they'll start floating in that direction.

[deadgirlslikeme]

"It is indeed," Victor agrees. "I should call the others, have them bring Dee. I'm sure she'd love both collecting the candy and greeting anyone who comes by."

"That sounds good," Victor agrees, walking along with them.

[mage_hatchlings]

"We could have a halloween party!" chirps a magelet.

"Like they do at that warehouse," adds another.

The tree does indeed shield from the worst of the falling candy, slowing it before it drops to the ground.

[deadgirlslikeme]

"Which warehouse?" Victor asks, ducking under the branches. He puts Nibbles back on his shoulder as he pulls out his PINpoint. "In your world, I assume?" He doesn't know of any warehouses in the Nexus, but -- Nexus.

[mage_hatchlings]

"I don't know of any warehouses in our world, Mister, but we don't leave our village much there." says one magelet. Telling them apart with them all dressed alike is nearly impossible.

"We mean the big building that way," another says, trying to point with the hand also holding a lantern.

"They call it a warehouse, but there are people that live in it and they have rooms all up the inside walls. Like a town inside a big buildling."

"We go there every year, but they don't get many other visitors."

[deadgirlslikeme]

Victor frowns as the Magelets try to explain what they mean. "Town inside a -- wait, are you talking about the mall?" It would fit their description. . .but who would live inside of that? Are there apartment complexes inside the Nexus? Victor has heard, vaguely, of people living here. . .

He waves a hand. "Here, let me contact my family, and then maybe we can all search for it together. Like a scavenger hunt." He types out a quick message on his PINpoint to Doc: Hi! In Nexus w/Magelets. Under tree hiding from candy storm not far from our usual door. Hit with costume LOL from a mystery fog. Want to bring everyone around to celebrate Halloween? "And send. . .oh, and I should probably introduce myself," he says, a touch embarrassed. "Victor Brown. I believe at least some of you are familiar with my wife, Alice."

[mage_hatchlings]

They shake their heads at that. "No, we've been to the mall. The Wilybots don't live in the mall." He's pleased with himself for remembering what at least some of the people at the warehouse called themselves.

"Is it a scavenger hunt if you already know where the thing you're looking for is, Mister?"

They have to think about it for a bit, then bob in the air from nodding. "We had cake in a tree once with someone named Alice," says one of them.

[deadgirlslikeme]

"I see. . .I'm afraid I haven't the slightest what you're talking about then," Victor admits. "And I guess not one for you. I've just never heard of a warehouse people live in before. Usually they're used to store things."

He laughs softly. "That sounds like my wife, yes. I'm sure she'll be happy to see you again."

A beep from his PINpoint makes him look down. Quick question -- the costume LOL just affects your clothes?

Yes, Victor replies. At least, I haven't seen any other side effects.

Great! We'll be there shortly then, comes back. Victor grins and looks up. "Everyone's on their way. I'm looking forward to seeing what costumes they'll get."

[pogo_boy]

Speaking of folks getting costumes, here's Quint. He's suddenly found himself dressed as a knight, and the child with him as a ghost, and he's holding the plastic shield over the little ghost's head to ward off falling candy as they also try to take shelter under the tree. "Um, hi."

The ghost with him stays close, giving wary looks to the strangers with big salmon-pink eyes. If one goes by size, they might be all of three years old... but one can never be sure in a place like this.

[mage_hatchlings]

This results in several chirped hellos from the Magelets, and one says to Victor, "Now 1t's really not a scavenger hunt. Quint's one of the ones that lives at the warehouse."

[deadgirlslikeme]

Victor scoots over to make room for the newcomers. "Hello," he says with a nod to Quint, before glancing over at the Magelet. "Is he? That does make things easier. . .and you were at the carnival too, weren't you?" he adds, turning back to Quint. "See you've found the LOL too. . ." He frowns at the continuing storm. "Really, if the Nexus is going to be spitting candy from the sky, the least it could do is provide umbrellas."

[pogo_boy]

"Yeah," Quint admits, a bit sheepishly. Usually he was better at avoiding these things, but oh well. "At least we were going to get costumes anyway. It's not Halloween at home, but then it was through a lot of the portals, and my siblings like to trick or treat because of the free candy." That, and it gave Enker a non-violent equivalent of a 'raid' to organize. "Most of us had our costumes from before, but Little Blane's new and I didn't want him to miss out on his first chance to go trick or treating."

The salmon-pink-eyed bedsheet ghost next to him watches the falling candy.

A few boxes of umbrellas spontaneously appear in the field.

Quint's not that surprised, remembering a few old stories his siblings had spread around about some cardboard boxes. "It listens sometimes..."

[deadgirlslikeme]

"Heh, well, saved you a trip, I suppose," Victor says, looking on the bright side of things. "It is Halloween back where I live, but it's not a very good place to trick or treat, I'm afraid." Being, you know, a pocket dimension with them as the only residents. He nods at Blane. "Hi there. Enjoying the candy?"

He blinks at the sudden appearance of the umbrellas. "Oh. Ah -- thank you," he says, looking around generally. Seeing figures trooping over, he adds, "And here comes the rest of my family!" He waves to let them know where he is. "Everyone! Over here!"

[pogo_boy]

The child looks up at Victor, registering the question. Questions always had to be answered, especially those horrible ones about chickens... But this wasn't about chickens, and he shakes his head. "No. It hit me."

"He hasn't really had a chance to try any yet," Quint adds to explain.

Little Blaine half-hides behind Quint at all of the approaching people. To his reasoning, most people were dangerous, irrespective of whether they were good or bad as well.

Little Blaine's shyness makes it a bit hard for Quint to keep the plastic knight shield over the little guy. But the tree is blocking most of the candy and slowing down what it doesn't, so that shouldn't be as necessary now.

[mage_hatchlings]

"Um... he hasn't had any of this candy, or he hasn't ever had candy at all?" asks a puzzled magelet.

[deadgirlslikeme]

"Well, that's fair," Victor says, trying not to smile. "It's much better once you get it into your mouth."

"Victor!" Alice hurries to the front of the group. "Well, isn't that an interesting -- oh!"

She stumbles to a stop as the LOL hits her, turning her usual blue dress and apron into -- well, it's still blue, technically, just a more grayish shade. But now the blue's bled onto her skin, along with what looks like dark twisty tattoos all over her body. Her bodice features a prominent ribcage, her skirt now resembles a ragged piece of torn flesh, and her boots have been replaced by a pair of large paw-like feet. She reaches up to feel the long pointed cat's ears now poking from her hair, one with a silver hoop dangling from it. "I guess this LOL figured, if you're Caterpillar, I should be Cheshire," she comments. She glances behind her -- yup, long bony tail with a tuft at the end. "My, isn't it thorough."

"Weiwie!" Poor Nibbles attempts to hide behind Victor's neck -- which isn't easy, given how thin Victor is.

"It's okay, it's okay," Victor assures him. "It's still just Alice."

[pogo_boy]

"She looks hungry..." Little Blaine comments, sounding a bit worried. He looks up to Quint. "Am I edible?"

"It's all right," Quint reassures him. "She won't eat you. I don't think anyone here would try, especially with all the candy around, but they'd hurt their teeth if they did."

[museicalmarty]

"No, this is just how Cheshire looks," Alice assures the little ghost. "And I am much more likely to go after the candy than you."

"Uh -- is that tail real?" Marty asks, stepping forward -- then almost tipping back over because the LOL thinks the best costume for him is a classic 80s Ghostbuster jumpsuit, complete with what is obviously a full-weight proton pack. "Whoa!"

"Marty!" Doc hurries forward to steady his friend, picking up -- well, it would look like the LOL's run out of ideas by the fact he ends up in a pretty staid sweater vest and brown trousers combo, until you notice he's also got a mustache now and realize it's supposed to be Einstein. "Great Scott, how odd. . .you all right?"

"Yeah fine. . .holy shit, how did Bill Murray and the others lug these things around?" Marty manages to steady himself, leaning forward slightly and tugging on his straps. "Come on, LOL, you couldn't go inflatable or something?"

"Well, no one says you have to wear it," Alice reminds him, grabbing an umbrella and opening it over the three of them so they don't have to suffer being pelted with candy on top of everything else.

Dee, by contrast, darts in without a care in the world, ending up in a kid-friendly Optimus Prime costume. "Cool!" She does a little twirl, before going to the ghost. "Hi! I'm Dee!"

[pogo_boy]

The Magelets have taken to the tree branches at this point,and it's easy to think at first that the tree is just decorated with bobbing lanterns and - for some inexplicable reason - random bedsheets before one of them chirps a hello to Alice.

Little Blaine is already half-hiding behind Quint and thus has nowhere further to hide. Plus, he knows he should reply if spoken to... even if there had been previous times he hadn't if there was too much risk of Big Blaine noticing he still existed. Big Blaine was gone now, like Patricia. "Hello Dee. I'm Little Blaine."

Quint smiles. "Hi, Dee. I'm Quint. I don't know if you'd remember me, from the carnival? Little Blaine here is... well, he's still kind of getting used to being around people, and he was in a very scary place before so sometimes people scare him. I think it would be good for him to have someone to play with, just be gentle with him, ok?"

[dee_lorean81]

"What -- oh, hello up there!" Alice says, looking up into the tree branches. "Happy Halloween!"

"Nice to meet you," Dee says to Little Blaine, before looking up at Quint. "Yeah, I kind of do -- you were one of the food stall people, right? And then came by while we were eating and getting Pokemon and stuff?"

"I believe we got a pizza from him, yes," Victor says -- though, really, so much happened at that carnival that he's fully prepared to admit he might be wrong. He's reasonably sure that's where they first met Quint, though.

Dee nods, then looks at Little Blaine again. "I'm sorry you were in a scary place. It's no fun being scared if you're not trying to be scared." She bounces a little on her heels. "Do you have any games you like? I like tag, but--" She points at the falling candy.

"Yeah -- good for trick-or-treating, less good for running around in," Marty agrees.

[pogo_boy]

Quint nods. "Yeah. My family actually lived in the Nexus for a while when things in our home universe got kind of rough for a bit. And though we've moved back now, we keep the Warehouse here as a kind of... um... 'Embassy' might be the closest word. Or a checkpoint for imports."

Little Blaine doesn't understand why someone would try to be scared, but he doesn't ask that as his mind goes over games instead. "I don't know how to play any games I like," he says after a moment. He hadn't been with the Wilys for long enough for them to teach him any of their games, and the games played by either the people of Lud or Big Blaine... he didn't even want to think about those, much less play them.

"He's only been with us for about a day... or so, Nexus time being what it is," Quint says. "And he wasn't even mobile when we found him. Just stuck in some big server system under a ruined city."

[dee_lorean81]

"Is that so?" Alice says, playing with her tail. "Funny to think of the Nexus as safer than one's home universe. . .then again, it was definitely safer than Wonderland during the bad old days." She still remembers her first time stumbling in, after -- a scrap with some Army Ants, she's pretty sure. It had been a relief to come to a place where she was merely expected to ask a question, rather than slaughter creatures intent on her destruction. "That's a good idea, though -- having a spot to take visitors and anything you might want from here and make sure they're all on the up-and-up."

Doc nods in agreement. "And just having an extra place to stay in case you can't get back to your home universe for a while too. Makes me think we should have some sort of similar waypoint here."

"We're never really that far from our door, though," Marty points out, looking back. "Maybe we should just buy an emergency tent or something."

"Oh." Dee frowns. "Well, that's no good. Maybe I can teach you some games! Though we should probably get out of the candy storm first," she says, looking up again at the falling pieces.

"I agree," Victor nods. "It's fun, but -- kind of painful." Nibbles nods with a little "wei!" "If I know LOLs, the costumes should remain even out of the fog."

[pogo_boy]

Quint nods, not about to bring up the details of, well, everything that had happened leading up to World War Four in his own world. "We still visit other worlds for supplies sometimes for the colonies. And we have a policy of staying in the Nexus if possible when any of us have certain kinds of LOLs, just in case they don't play nice with our world's physics or something."

Little Blaine looks up as well. "I think there were other games, long ago, before the world moved on. But... Big Blaine took a lot of memories with him when he died."

The candy storm seems to be shrinking in on itself as if it's some timer of how many portals still lead to a Halloween. It shouldn't be more than a minute before there will be a big enough patch of field to safely play games in - though they might have to clear away the fallen candies first.

[dee_lorean81]

"Now that's a smart idea," Doc says. "I don't think we've experienced any LOLs that had additional deleterious effects in our own universe, but -- for example, we know the vending machine has -- or had, anyway -- a certain kind of soda that could change humans into machines. I'm not sure if it had the opposite effect on machine lifeforms."

"Yeah, I only ever saw it working on a human," Marty confirms. "Got mixed with an animal LOL too, so he ended up a mecha-poodle." He shifts his proton-pack again. "Figure this one should be safe though, right?"

"It does seem to be just clothes," Doc says, picking at his sweater vest. "And they all wear off sooner or later. We should be fine."

Dee's starting to think there's a lot more to Little Blaine than meets the eye. But she doesn't want to bring up bad stuff, especially on Halloween, so instead she says, "If we can get something to draw with, maybe I can teach you hopscotch?"

"I don't know if you need chalk -- you could probably make a board out of all these sweets," Alice jokingly suggests, watching as the candy storm slowly shrinks. "There's certainly enough of it on the ground. And it looks like that bit over there's clear now."

"Great! Let's go!" Off Dee charges, ignoring any last bits of candy bouncing off her head.

[pogo_boy]

Little Blaine is still adjusting to walking, and doesn't try running - especially since he's still wary of getting too far from Quint. Quint will protect him, he thinks, based on what happened in Lud and afterward. But Quint's walking over to the storm-free area too, so it all works out.

"We had some problems with some of the LOLs that were used to help emergency med-evac during the Ragnarok War, so we've learned to be extra careful," Quint says. "Um, you see... damaged humans can't just be shut down for later repairs, or can bleed to death and things like that. They can keep getting worse, even if nothing's damaging them any more. So the medical teams were LOLing severely injured humans into reploids... um, androids like me and most of the rest of my family. It saved a lot of people who wouldn't have otherwise survived long enough to even be moved anywhere for medical attention. But later..." He sighs and shakes his head.

"The LOLs didn't wear off like we expected, because we'd repaired them while they were 'bots. Some were ok, depending on what kind of injuries they'd had. Some ended up cyborgs. And some of the others, the ones who were almost as good as dead when they got LOLed, changing back would have killed them. Once we realized what was happening, we had to find a way to make the LOLs permanent."