Christmas Eve

[skeleton_king]

Jack doesn't attempt to leave the custody of Gene as he leads the search party into the forest, map in hand.

There are a great many more doors now, each with a pumpkin, and as Jack comes into the vicinity they seem to give a little click.

He turns to the search party.

"Spread out and search each area of the forest." he says. "There is likely to be monsters behind these doors, preventing the retrieval of the first Santy Claws. Your Santy Claws is, I think, in the hands of a creature called Oogie Boogie, the former king of Bug Day, who appears as a big sack full of bugs. If you find him, or you get into trouble, shout for help at once. The other monsters should not hurt you too severely, but they will attack, so your best bet is to force them back into the door."

Comments

[guppy_sandhu]

"Awesome." Guppy says. "I've picked up a bit myself in the ten years being here."

He shines the light around.

"Quite a few of these trees have doors in."

[mindofathief]

Duster followed him, hands hanging by his sides.

"Maybe we should check out some of them in the back, you know. I think Santa would be hidden in one kind of far from the bar."

[guppy_sandhu]

"Good point." Guppy follows him.

"We should make sure we don't get lost." he adds.

[mindofathief]

He continues forward, not looking back. "I guess we can leave some markings? I don't have a knife on me, so we might just have to make sure we know what direction we're heading."

His steps are quiet, a surprising feat especially for one with a pronounced limp as his. "I've gone through the wilderness many times, so if we don't travel for hours, we can easily find our way back."

[guppy_sandhu]

Guppy notes the limp, but doesn't comment.

"It looks different with the doors. But if all else fails, if we walk long enough in one direction we should end up back at the bar."

[mindofathief]

That didn't make much sense to Duster, even after months of staying here, but he knew not to doubt Guppy's words.

"Think we should stop in about a minute and start looking?"

[guppy_sandhu]

"Yeah."

Guppy pauses and looks around for a tree.

"The skeleton said they might have monsters in them." he says, approaching one cautiously, getting his stun gun out.

As he approaches, a yo-yo with a skull drops down from a tree, bounces right in front of his head, and goes back up again. Guppy jumps backwards, shining his torch on it.

[mindofathief]

Duster doesn't even flinch when the yo-yo comes down, moving himself into a better fighting position before it goes back up.

"Are you okay?"

[guppy_sandhu]

"Yeah, sorry, it just made me jump." Guppy says, stepping back, before working his way around the yoyo. Just ahead seems to be a string of orange Christmas lights, hanging from a tree, and he wonders where they came from.

[mindofathief]

He lets out a sigh. "That's good. Let's stay closer together in case we run into something dangerous next time." Guppy doesn't look like a fighter, so Duster makes it his responsibility to make sure he doesn't get hurt.

"Maybe we should follow these lights. It might lead to somewhere important."

Duster always had a tendency to take the most obvious route.

[guppy_sandhu]

"Good point." Guppy says. "Someone must have put them up."

He looks up and adds. "They're orange, which is quite unusual for Christmas lights."

[mindofathief]

"Really? Why?" Duster doesn't understand what a particular color has to do with this holidy.

[guppy_sandhu]

"Orange is more of a Halloween colour." Guppy says. "Christmas lights tend to be white, or red, or blue, or multi-coloured, but just orange is unusual."

[mindofathief]

"Oh." Even though there was no way he would know about these holidays, he feels a bit guilty for not figuring that out beforehand.

"So then it would make sense to find a tree with these lights, right?"

[guppy_sandhu]

"Yeah."

But the lights don't seem to lead to a particular tree with a door, so Guppy looks around and spots the nearest one that does.

"There's one over here." he says, getting his stun gun ready again. "The skeleton said things might jump out. Are you ready?"

[mindofathief]

"Ready." This time, since he's prepared to something to attack once they open the door, he readies himself into a position that will give him the first strike, just as his father taught him.

"Open it." He shifts his weight to his good leg.

[guppy_sandhu]

Guppy opens the door and jumps back.

The monster doesn't leap out, but it does creep out slowly, and grin.

"I am the one hiding under your stairs
Fingers like snakes and spiders in my hair."

[mindofathief]

It's instinct to Duster by now: he takes a leap at the monster and swings his leg at it, hitting its shoulder before it can react.

It's not enough to defeat the odd chimera-looking creature, but it's good enough to get a head start on it.

[guppy_sandhu]

The monster hisses and tries to bite with its snake fingers.

With Duster heading for the shoulder, Guppy attempts to get around its other side with the stun gun. He doesn't get a shot at its head, but does manage to stun three of the snake fingers before managing a kick to its shins.

[mindofathief]

He's glad that Guppy's able to stun the monster's fingers, but Duster's worried about what those snake fingers can do if they start working again.

He circles around the monster and reaches into his pouch, pulling out what seem to be two oversized staples. Once it's looking at Guppy's direction, Duster leaps and attempts to pins its arms onto a nearby tree and hopefully do the same for its legs.

Unfortunately, trees are not ideal surfaces for Wall Staples, and the monster easily breaks the one arm poorly pinned down, now hissing at Duster. It bites at him, and while Duster dodges the worst of it, his arm now has a noticeable cut.

[guppy_sandhu]

Guppy jumps and aims a high kick towards where he thinks its diaphragm is, then aims a stun at its head, which at least seems to slow it down, though some of the snakes are still wriggling.

[mindofathief]

There's no time to focus on the pain. The monster doesn't look fazed at all by the kick (unsurprising, considering how weird chimera biology must be), but at least it's slowing down.

Duster takes a deep breath, finds his rhythm, and runs at the monster, kicking it with one foot, letting the inertia spin him downwards, and as he pushes himself off the ground, hits his two more times.

The monster makes a grab for him with its fingers, but Duster rolls out of the way in time, now removing his smoke bomb.

[guppy_sandhu]

Guppy attempts a punch on the monster, but it wraps his arm around with its fingers of snakes, pulls him sharply and headbutts him in the forehead.

Aside from being covered in spiders, he staggers back, his nose bleeding, and looking a bit dazed.

[mindofathief]

"Hey!" Duster throws the smoke bomb at the monster before running over the Guppy. "Are you alright?"

He takes a quick look at where he threw the bomb. It actually worked this time, and the monster is wiping at its eyes, unable to open them.

[guppy_sandhu]

"M'okay, get it back through the door." Guppy says, holding his nose with one hand and firing off a few more blasts of stun gun at the monster with the other.