Autumn Party 12

Riiip. A strip came off the dragon's neck scales.

"Oh well, I suppose I might's well take off the headpiece now. Snake Hips, if you wouldn't mind?"

"A pleasure, my dear talking pooch," Lamia said vaguely, and pulled off the dragon's mask. A glance inside showed her a neatly stitched label reading My name is Glittershanks. If found drunk, throw me in the river and send word to...

"Thanks," said Basaltine.

Lamia sniggered and showed the mask in Ebani and Serpentine's direction.

Any comment the two demons might want to make was cut short by a bloodcurdling scream from the upper level, cut short and followed by a faint, rumbling growl.

"Sounds like entertainment," Serpentine said happily.

"Yeah!" said Basaltine, in between worrying at the strip of neckpiece that was enmeshed in his fake talons.

"I do hope somebody's been badly maimed," Lamia said, standing and heading for the stairs.

Nico frowned. Scream. Do you run away or to? She was not quite that certain everything was planned. After a moment's hesitation she hurried to the music room. Her companion had come back to the hall and asked her, "Any idea...?"

She shook her head, gestured him to wait and fetched her stick. When she was back, Azra had caught up. "I hope it's just 'entertainment'," Nico said with a sour look, and followed Lamia, followed in turn by the other two.

Ebani and Kinta seemed undecided what to do, but also got up.

Behind the door at the top of the stairs was a study with a light dusting of notes and papers that hadn't been put away after work. There was an oversized fireplace on the back wall, but no door.

The monk looked vaguely worried when he poked out of the library, and overtook Serpentine in the race to get to the room. Once inside, he let his hands hang limp, sighed and moved toward the fireplace.

"Just what are you doing?" asked Serpentine, who looked quite disappointed as he sniffed the air for any interesting scents.

"Oh, finding nobody," said the monk and knocked on the inside wall.

Serpentine didn't get it, of course.

The wall was obviously just a thin shell. There were some traces of scent drifting through cracks, alcohol and more unpleasant chemical aromas.

"Checked that already?" Nico asked, frowning, and pointed at the fire irons. It looked like there was a bit of a gap around the base of the hook they hung from.

As her companion picked up that not only her, but the "monk" as well was worried, he took off the mask and sword and left them on a table.

The demon-trio hovered around the door, Azra just inside the room, the others outside; it was getting crowded.

"If this is another screamer..." Laima had remarked darkly. Ignored the papers except as general atmosphere, the first thing she'd done was glance suspiciously behind the door by which they'd come in.

"Sounds like you could put a boot through that," she said, referring to the wall the monk had been knocking. She sounded about as worried as a goblin on puff-weed, which is to say placiiid, man.

Serpentine finally got it. "Oh!"

He almost threw the monk out of the fireplace and, as Lamia had suggested, put a boot through the wall. Then, from behind two huge wings came the following word: "Yep."

The monk facepalmed and, as Nico had suggested, grabbed the fire irons, manipulating them.

In the background at a questioning hum - lifted eyebrows didn't work well with those masks - from Azra, the man in black explained, "Stage weapon. Just gets in the way."

Pulling the hook triggered a mechanism that rotated the back wall of the fireplace. This left a way into the other room on one side. On the other side, Serpentine was rather awkwardly trapped.

From the next room wafted unpleasant smells, including pure alcohol and sulfur, though more hints to normal equipped noses than true stink.

Nico walked right through, tense, eyes narrowed. The second room was a "storybook" laboratory, including a few preserved small animals floating in liquid. The little giant slowed to a stop at the narrow, open doorway at the other end of the room. The third was the biggest, with part of it hidden by a wall reaching about two thirds into the room. Around the end of it, there was something halfway between a smear and a puddle of blood on the floor.

"Wonder-Dragon approves," the dragon announced. Basaltine trotted over to sniff at the blood, then tried licking at it.

Lamia caught a laugh between her fingers at Serpentine's predicament. "Here, lemme help," she began, sizing up the wall before tackling trying to free the foot.

"Someone's going to have to answer for this," said a pair of fluttering wings with vehemence heavy and sharp enough to kill.

The monk, of course, simply smiled to himself as he walked down the space. He was getting chills from this; it reminded him too much of some places... and the puddle of blood simply made it worse. He looked at Nico.

Nico stalked forward, because at this point she had to find out what was going on. So she had a pretty good view when a cat poked its head around the partition to sniff the dog curiously. The pig blood didn't interest it.

The cat's fur was a medium, rusty red, and the head and snout longish. It was also big enough to bite anyone in the company clean in half. That cat would not fit through the door to the lab.

Nico stared, and when the cat got up, she said, "Awww, Not Lucky!", sounding dejected. As she took a step back, she lowered the stick.

"Respect!" said Laima simply, throwing up the ears.

Basaltine's fur stood on end in one smooth ripple from his snout end down to the tail. That is... since most of him was covered in what looked like red silk doggy-pyjamas, this wasn't as noticeable as it might have been.

The growl originating from somewhere beneath his sternum was more so. His ears were flattened. He didn't back down a millimetre.

The monk, on the other hand, raised both eyebrows under the cowl. He simply looked at the big cat. "Hello, pretty."

The cat blew a breath out at Basaltine, and turned its attention to the people.

"Agh," went Nico, when the cat caught the back of her costume as she turned to flee. The cat lay down again, dragged her between giant paws, and started licking her.

"Ah. One of those," her companion commented from near the door. At least one of the demons, who had their was to the lab, snickered when there was a muffled "I'm not your kitten!" from the giant.

The monk smiled and turned a look over his shoulder. "One of those?" he asked, then kneeled just in front of the giant and the cat, watching both of them attentively.

Reaching round the other side of the wall, Laima thumped Serpentine's boot back through.

"This is a cat on an awe-inspiring scale, if it can pick up a giant just like that," she noted.

"YES!" yelled Serpentine. Then. "...cat?"

"Nnnnnyou might not want to look round," Laima observed.