John, agreeing wholeheartedly with his bovine captor, bids the kotocow farewell and, after its door dissipates, goes with Luz to try another door.
"This better have what we're looking for," he hears Luz grumble as the door opens, revealing an interesting sight. The room before them is largely dark, with the exception of a cottage-sized, white wireframe cube in the middle, its interior a very nicely decorated parlor, and a lit pedestal outside of it on which a perfectly ordinary cow stands, chewing cud and somehow excitedly narrating something at the same time.
"... ooh, that didn't work out as expected, did it? What a shame!""At least it's not a void room," Luz observes as she walks closer to the cage together with John, observing that there appears to be a coffee table placed inside it, on which a whole lot of things appear to be placed, and though it's difficult to make out some of them, most of them are clearly weapons or dangerous tools. Right next to the table one can observe Trey, two Treys, in fact. One of them seems to be currently decapitating the other with an axe, something that seems to be giving him quite a bit of trouble, judging by the way he seems to be screaming with each good chop.
"Oh shi-Trey, baby! I'm here! Stop!" Luz yells as she realizes what's going on, but it doesn't seem like they can hear her.
"Turns out the spine's more difficult to sever than predicted there, Trey 64! Better luck next time!" the cow shouts as one of the Treys has his head finally taken off his shoulders, at which point triumphant music starts playing and confetti blows over the entire room, disappearing the surviving Trey, who looks to be in great pain and breathing heavily, at the same time. The cow, up to now absorbed in the happenings inside the cube, turns to look at the two visitors.
"Ah! You're finally here. It's a shame you missed most of it, but don't worry! You can still make bets! Who will be the last Trey standing? 11, 36, 54 or 64? Three fights left until one remains!"Luz appears to have gone very pale now.
* * * * *
"Is that what that was? Well, sure but what are you and what's 'fungal worship', is it worshiping fungus or worship involving fungus?" Dave asks the voices in the darkness, and they answer immediately.
"We. Are. The. Things. Below.""Born. Of. The. Fungus. Of. The. Planet.""Make. Them. Worship. The. Ground.""Idolize. It.""Sacrifice. To. It.""Die. For. It.""Maybe. Going. That. Far. Is. Unlikely.""But. Give. It. Your. Best. Shot.""Do. You. Accept."* * * * *
"Only if they're really good. This one was magic, though. Observe!" THE DUNKER explains to the two men and tries to bring about a cloud of skirts with his mind, his receding hairline tensing all at once.
[THE DUNKER's affinity roll: 5+2]
At his behest, the air slowly begins to twist, forming the shapes of skirts out of rapidly condensing water in the lobby, up the stairs, and even in the hallway leading to the rooms, and when the air has become completely dry, they seem to abandon sense altogether and just start materializing out of nothing at all, skirts of various uncommon lengths, fascinating shapes, atypical cuts, appealing sizes and unusual colors filling the area and floating around. The two men look rather impressed with this, and
Eta appears to have stood with her back to the wall when simply backing away proved insufficient.
"Well now, that's kind of fascinating," the smaller man says, then turns to Eta.
"Give me one of those donuts, please. Oh, and Bart, give the wizard that donut you tried.""Why?" Bart asks.
"I want him to try it," the man replies. Bart shrugs and grabs the partially eaten donut from the reception desk, offering it to THE DUNKER.
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Topic: The Forgotten Art: Approaching the Nexus (Read 271395 times)