Krampus plot

[unglitched]

This just isn't Vanellope's day. One minute she's in Milliways minding her own business, the next some hairy horned monster thing is bundling her up in a sack and carrying her off.

The next thing she knows, she's being dumped in a... huh. What is this place, exactly? It looks like something out of an old-school FPS, all bare stone corridors going off in different directions. And the hairy horned monster seems to have vanished completely. Where is she, and how the heck is she supposed to get back home?

Maybe that big guy in the leather armor knows something. She approaches him and clears her throat.

Comments

[unglitched]

Vanellope prods at the bare leg of a Marilyn Monroe statue. "What're these made of, anyway? They don't feel like stone."

[its_possible]

"Wax, I think," he says. "In some places, they make wax masks for the bodies of dead saints and heroes, and--"

He takes a step back.

"Or they could just be wax people."

He's not going to investigate that any further, not in front of a child, unless specifically ordered to.

[unglitched]

"Hello-o-o?" Vanellope cups her hands around her mouth to shout at the figures. "Anyone who's actually alive, raise your hand!"

Unsurprisingly, nothing happens.

[its_possible]

"I don't like these statues," he says quietly. "Too easy for someone to hide among them."

And they don't seem to have anything useful on them; and if they're some sort of sacred objects, he should probably not be searching them.

[unglitched]

"Yeah. And they're creepy-lookin', too." Vanellope shivers, then squints into the void. "Is that a door up there?"

[its_possible]

"It looks like one," he says. "Whether it goes anywhere, is the real question--there has to be a way out."

And walking toward a door is definitely an improvement over standing around among statues.

[unglitched]

"Would you rather go back to the room of fire and ice and tentacle bees?"

[its_possible]

"Of course not," he says, glancing from the door back to her, and--

He stops, looking out of the corner of his eye at the statues nearby. Was that one right there a moment ago? It seems... closer.

[unglitched]

"What?"

[its_possible]

"That statue behind me," he says quietly. "The one next to that woman. Did it just move?"

He's not looking at it directly. Sometimes these things don't respond well to confrontation.

[unglitched]

She eyes it critically.

"I don't remember seein' it before, but..."

[its_possible]

"I think it was closer to the wall before," he says. "There's enough of the statues in here that if some of them are alive, they'd blend right in. Whatever's behind that door, it's got to be better than fire plus ice plus bees plus statues."

[unglitched]

"Stand real still," Vanellope murmurs, edging closer to Uther. "Maybe we can catch 'em breathing."

[its_possible]

"They might not breathe," he says. "Not everything does."

The undead back home don't, unless they need the air to try to speak.

He may still not know what's going on, but his current theories don't rule out 'undead given wax masks and posing as statues.'

[unglitched]

"I said 'maybe'..."

In any case, nothing appears to be moving.

[its_possible]

"We should go," he says. "Would you rather go on ahead, while I make sure they don't follow, or we both go together?"

'Make sure they don't follow' mostly means 'watch them and see if they do.' He's not sure how one would stop a wax army, not short of fire; and if they are moving, at this pace it would take them a long time to reach the fire door down the corridor.

[unglitched]

"What if we, like, go back-to-back?" offers Vanellope.

[its_possible]

"Lead, then," he says. "I'll follow."

He's very good at following orders. And he's at least slightly better armed.

[unglitched]

Vanellope edges along, alert and wary, between a wax Albert Einstein and a wax Margaret Thatcher. Not that she recognizes either one; as far as she's concerned they're just a bunch of weird old people--

"Woah!" She turns sharply. "That wasn't there before."

[its_possible]

"Definitely not," he agrees.

At least he's not seeing things... or if he is, they both are.

"Do you think there's more of them than there were before, or does it just seem like more?"

He honestly can't tell. And the fact that he can't tell bothers him. He should be able to do this.

[unglitched]

"...maybe?"

The room is so dark it's hard to tell, but it does seem more crowded than it was a minute ago...

[its_possible]

"We should move faster."

The wire cutters are sharp, but there aren't any wires on these statues, so they're not well suited as a weapon. He could throw them, but they'd get stuck in the wax; he could stab with them, but they're not a stabbing weapon, and again, they'd probably get stuck.

He doesn't like this at all.

[unglitched]

Vanellope is even less well-armed. She has been learning a little bit of martial arts, but that's unlikely to do much good against targets made of freaking wax.

"How much faster c'n I move? My legs are a lot shorter than yours."

[its_possible]

Well, the duck... could be used as lightweight nunchaku? Not likely to do much against wax either.

"I could carry you," he says. "If they come after us, jump and run."

[unglitched]

"Good idea." She promptly hops up on Uther's shoulder, even though there's no way a child that size should be able to make that jump.