I'm About As Organized As Ran, I Guess? [closed post]

[summerdude]

"And then we realized Frigg was knitting with clouds. Actual factual clouds," Magnus says, passing another box that, as it turns out, holds nothing useful down to Galahad. He climbs up another rung on the little stepladder and starts in on the next shelf. "How many boxes of Legos do we have so far?" He knows it's certainly not enough for a bachelorette party yet, but surely there's something they can go on. He'd kind of tonight that this far after Dark, there would be... more? "Do you think we should find another room to look in? Maybe the game room isn't the best choice."

Comments

[onthewillowsthere]

"I don't think it would work on me. I just imagined Claudius."

[summerdude]

Magnus considers this, and then pictures Alex in the pasties, and then flushes an even deeper red than Galahad. He clears his throat. "Ah. Uh. Huh. Yep."

[onthewillowsthere]

"I know," with all the feeling his inexpressive voice can muster.

[summerdude]

"Wow. Okay. Yeah."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Let's keep going."

[summerdude]

With only the faintest reluctance, Magnus tosses the pasties back into the box and leaves the room. "What next?"

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad passes by several other doors that don't feel quite right before coming to one carved entirely from maractite, the glowing runes and dots wavering slightly in front of their eyes. "This one."

[summerdude]

"Ooooh." Magnus nods -- the door looks really cool. "Yeah. Do it."

[onthewillowsthere]

So Galahad curls his fingers in the smooth polished stone of the circular handle and pulls.

The room inside is underwater.

The water doesn't spill through the open doorway -- it stays in place, as if they were looking down at it instead of face-to-face. Inside, the water is black, lightless, except for the biolumiscence in the mouths of fish or hanging in drops from rods above their heads; tiny comb jellies, glowing pulses that travel down the ridges of their bodies. Galahad stares.

[summerdude]

"Holy crap," Magnus breathes, and pokes the water. A little dribbles onto his finger, but the barrier isn't broken. It feels like his finger is being squeezed, and he yelps, pulling his hand back. "Cold!"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Is that what it looks like beneath the sea?" Galahad asks, awed. Is this what the Israelites saw as the passed through?

[summerdude]

Magnus, who has been on the bottom of the sea, when he was Aegir's "guest," nods. "This is, like, really deep down," he says. "And not the parts that are magically lit up by jotunn god powers."

[onthewillowsthere]

"It's so dark," softly. He reaches out his own hand, just to feel what Magnus did -- it is cold, and the pressure is intense; he can only bear it for a few seconds.

[summerdude]

"Honestly? I kinda wish we could go in there," Magnus says. "But, um, I think maybe that's a bad idea. Probably."

[onthewillowsthere]

"We could try to save this door too."

[summerdude]

"And see if we can find any diving gear?" Magnus says, poking the wall of water again. "I wonder how you depressurize when you're going horizontally."

[onthewillowsthere]

"What does that mean?" Sorry, Magnus, you need to explain more things again.

[summerdude]

"Percy told me about it," Magnus says. "Annabeth's boyfriend? He's the son of an ocean god. Poseidon, not Ran or Aegir or Njord. So he can withstand it. He was trying to teach me how to not die immediately if Ran attacked me when I was sailing to Niflheim. Um, there's a lot of pressure and it gets more intense the deeper you get in the ocean, and you need, like, protective gear to keep from exploding or whatever. And if you go up too fast to let the pressure changes happen gradually, you get really sick. It feels like there's no, like, gradation here." He pokes the water again.

[onthewillowsthere]

"So it's not safe to go into it because it would happen all at once."

[summerdude]

"Yeah. Or, like, we shouldn't risk it without the proper equipment, at least."

[onthewillowsthere]

"All right. Do you want to go next?"

[summerdude]

"I went like five times in a row, you can go again?" Magnus offers. "Wait, let's mark this door first."

[onthewillowsthere]

"All right." While he waits for Magnus to mark the door, he starts scoping out the hallway.

[summerdude]

Once the door has been marked and closed, Magnus rejoins Galahad. "Does the hallway seem even longer than when we first started?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Yes," simply. As he leads Magnus down towards the next door, he adds, "Perhaps it wants to be explored. Perhaps it is pleased that we do."