Lights Out

Percy isn't a huge fan of thunderstorms. Not for the usual reasons, but because the rain hisses and stings against the lava that makes up his body. Here though, inside the building, there's nothing to fear. Not from the rain, anyways.

So when the lights go out, Percy is calm. His body glows very faintly with red-orange light and watches as Parish begins to organize a group to fix the generator. "Would you like any help?" he asks. "I may not be staff, but I am pretty handy!"

Soon, Percy is officially invited to join the mission. As he lumbers to the entrance and peers down into the darkness he begins to feel uneasy. Stairs don't normally stretch down into infinity, right? But Percy offered to help, and there's no way he's going back on his word now! His body shifts uneasily, then settles into burning resolve: Percy will not let a little darkness spook him!

"Beginnings are always delightful; the threshold is the place to pause," Goethe said. So Parish does so in the open door to the basements. Wide stone steps spiral down into the rooms beneath the B&B. It was pretty tame compared to the rocky tunnels that led into the Nome King's mountain fortress or the Caves of Destiny that would show your future for those brave enough to face them.

Still, this is a quest and people are counting on him. Parish found himself smiling with a greater spring in his step than usual. "I am pleased to have any boon companion aid with the task." Parish invites Percy and any other to join him. Once his band of heroes is assembled, Parish strides boldly down the stairs.

Amelie had been idling in the corner of the room when the power went off. They'd also had most of their systems shut down, with little else to do and the place mostly cleaned up where humanly possible. Or not humanly possible, robotically possible? So when things blinked out and their emergency mode kicked in, they were slightly out of it. If possible, they were what humans might describe as groggy or half asleep.

It took some time for their programming to boot up in emergency mode. Ironic, really. Yazeba had intended to look into that, as she always intended to look into everything but never did. Emergency mode activated so rarely, after all, that they never really needed it to be resolved. Now though, it would've been nice.

Amelie discovered some candles and offered them around to the questing party. They could see in the dark, with their headlamps, so they didn't need any. They made sure everyone had what they were looking for, and then set off with Parish. With any luck, they'd keep their footing. Their motor functioning hadn't come back properly, yet, and the stairs were very steep.

Neutron Gal was their favorite thing ever, they had seen every movie, every episode and had a whole lot of the toys. Hey Kid was standing ready to shout the catchphrase and then, right then the power went out. "Noooo! Come on!"

They shook the TV a few times but that didn’t work and apparently the rest of 5he power was out too. Hey Kid was upset and they wanted everything fixed. So, when they saw a party gathering to go down into the basement to fix the power they decided to jump right in. They practically hopped with excitement, "I’ll come, oh oh, pick me. I’m not afraid of nothin. I’ll be like Nuetron Gal and pew pew anything scary."

Sal stared down at the piece of paper he had been writing some lyrics onto. He had moved from the front desk once the storm had really gotten going, since there was no chance they'd have another guest in this weather. Instead, he had the opportunity to work on his latest song. It had been a week, and he still hadn't found the right rhyme to follow "under all this pressure". He took a candle from Amelia, but it was no good--it was too difficult to write, hold the paper against his knee and keep the candle steady. He usually found writing in the rain quite peaceful, but this kind of booming thunder made it hard for him to hear the melody in his own head.

He looked up as Parrish. Sal wasn't afraid of the dark, but after the incident with the witch...well, it didn't bear thinking about. It was enough to say he was a little cautious of deep dark basements. Still, with others following, he would feel bad leaving them to do the hard work. And who knew, maybe doing something that scared him would knock some lyrics loose.

"I'll come!" Sal called, getting up from his seat and following the little band of compatriots out of the living room.

With Percy, Amelie, Hey Kid, and Sal following in his wake, Parish boldly leads the way down into the foreboding basement...And it would seem that the frog-knight's confidence and bluster pays off! Almost immediately upon entering the labyrinthine complex beneath the Bed & Breakfast, you come upon the fuse box. Parish was sure the emergency generator was being stored here... but it is nowhere to be found.

Getting the lights back on will not be so easy!

"Ah yes, this seems familiar. Should be just around this corner!" Parish announces as he turns said corner into a storeroom full of boxes and crates. The confident smile skips from his face as he scans the room. "By my troth, I was sure it was here." He murmurs. Spying the fusebox, he springs up onto a nearby crate and prods the door open with the handle of his room. He inspects the tangle of connections and announces. "Well this confirms our problems come from without. We must continue our search."

Hey Kid follows softly singing a song as they go along, "Neutron Gal, she's the best, Neutron Gal, saves the rest. Power and fury, righteousness and flame..." This is actually fun an adventure even!

Parish finds the fuse box but not the generator. She jumps right up where Parish was and copies them, opening the fuse box the same way Parish did. Then Hey Kid also looks through the fuses and says, "Yep, yep that confirms it. Our problems come from without. We must continue our search."

As Hey Kid takes the lead, you press on through a series of dank, gloomy cellar rooms. Spiders and other less identifiable shapes skitter through the shadows.

Ahead, you spy a musty coffin. Hey Kid peeks inside, revealing a cackling dracula, with sharp fangs and nothing better to do than to scare you! "Bwah ha ha!" the dracula cackles, leaping out and wiggling his fingers. "BooOOooOO!" He hisses and bares his fangs!

"Ahhhh!" Hey Kid cowers as the dracula keeps coming by to scare them silly.

Percy is so intent on searching that he nearly misses the dracula situation. He is bound and determined to make himself useful, and trails behind Hey Kid's rapid pace to complete a much more thorough investigation of every nook and cranny in the impossibly large basement. His ashy skin is a network of shifting cracks, like tectonic plates, which allow the light of his inner lava to project snaking patterns on the walls around him.

"Not here," he mutters to himself as he checks an unusually large closet. "Hmm, not here either," he continues happily as he peers into a large vat of what may once have been wine. The act of searching is almost meditative. And better yet, the scale of the basement utterly dwarfs his large, awkward body. It's easy to pretend he's human-sized here, with the correct body plan to interact with the world without bumping into the clutter of furniture and knick-knacks humans insist on filling their lives with. So, ignoring the screams from above, Percy remains in this transcendent moment where his purpose is clear and his body is right for the task.

As Percy revels in mundanity, thunder shakes the foundations of the house, a reminder that there is still a storm raging outside!

KRAKKA-THOOM!

Percy is violently startled out of his reverie while waist-deep in a chest of brewer's gear. As he jerks out, the rubbery aprons contained within melt and fuse to his skin.

"Aw, heck," he 'curses' as he tries to extricate himself, although if anyone is close enough to hear, all that makes it past the apron strap stuck to his face is a muffled "awhk."

As he spins around, he becomes further entangled until he is nearly totally restrained. He stumbles forward, crashing through the doorway to the room with his companions and lurking dracula before crashing to the ground in a melting, oozy heap.

Thunder boomed so loudly that Sal felt the crack of it in his chest. It's like a deep bass magnified to a million, and not in a good way. His whole body is covered in goosebumps. Then Percy goes flying past him, making him jump back. And all of this on top of just having heard Hey Kid screaming with what appeared to be actual Dracula chasing them? It was too much in the dark and spooky basement!

But as much as Sal's heart is racing, he's meant to be cooler than this. A chill, easy-going guy whose faced scarier stuff than this, for goodness sake!

So, instead, he musters all his bravery, puffs out his chest and says, "Pfft! It was just some thunder! No need to lose our heads about it!" He is quite pleased with how little his voice seemed to quaver. He then marches towards Hey Kid. "Don't worry, Hey Kid! I'll sort this vampire problem right out."

He doesn't have a plan, of course, but how hard can it be?

"Bleh bleh bleh! Boogie boogie boogie!" the dracula says, continuing to caper around Hey Kid in a menacing fashion. Sal confidently (?) marches forward, searching for a way to drive away the hooligan!After traveling through a series of dark and dusty rooms, Sal spots the generator! It is tucked into a crumbling crawlspace...

Parish aids Sal in the search pausing every so often to sweep the dracula to side with his broom. When Sal finally spots the generator, Parish claps Sal on the shoulder. "Well spotted my friend! Now that the grail is in sight, let's see if we can grasp it, eh? Parish lowers down, sticks his broom ahead of him, and crawls into the space.

The dracula cackles and dances away from Parish's broom, swooping back each time to torment Hey Kid further.As Parish crawls ahead to get to the generator, he accidentally knocks over an old mason jar! The top pops off, and an ancient and powerful ghost emerges, wrapped in a sickly white sheet. "OoWooOOwoo!" the ghost moans as it flies past Parish, in search of an unlucky victim to terrify! Parish is able to drag the generator out of the crawl space.

Hey kid hears the thunder and drops to the ground screaming, then they grow, and grow, and grow until they literally explode *KABOOM* after the explosion Hey Kid is a puddle on the floor and it takes a bit of time before they collect themselves.

Of course, once Hey Kid, has collected themselves the Dracula is back at their old tricks and Hey Kid tries to hide behind Sal. Then whine pitifully, "Go away! We don't like you Dracula!"

Parish lunges for the mason jar but can't catch it before the ghost is released. Honestly, why does Yazeba stash these things all over the place? This was the haunted pancakes all over again. Parish sighs and hauls the generator out into the open. He checks the fuel gauge and it reads a disappointing E. Their quest would have to continue.