You concentrate on sending a command to Piecewise, asking him to do something impossible. You decide to command him to hover. For a few seconds he just sort of stands there but then he raises himself up onto his toes and starts hopping up and down.
Advise skeleton that this is now known as hover mode. Purpose: So we can later say something like "PIECEWISE. ENTER HOVER MODE!" and then watch him start proudly bouncing on his lil' skelly toes. Additionally, this will test if we can pre-program commands into him.
You tell piecewise that his hopping attempts to hover are now what you'll call "Hover mode". You wait a minute or two and then think "Hover mode" at him. He responds by starting to hop in the same way as before.
Just put the sheet over him for now, we can get clothing later.
And make him walk into the closet.
Just put the sheet over him for now, we can get clothing later.
Despite fragmentary knowledge of the world, you're not really sure how the general population will feel about an animated skeleton. It seems normal to you but it might not be. You have a vague sense that people might dislike the meddling with of corpses. So you take the moldering bed sheet and drape it over the skeleton before commanding him to walk into the small closet and curl up in the corner. Once in place he's pretty inconspicuous; seemingly just a lump of wadded up bedclothes. You close the door to the closet and note that the thin thread that runs from your pricked thumb passes straight though the door and other solid matter, invariably pointing back to the closet.
Regardless of whether we're taking Ghost Piecewise with us, let's try to find this Moribund Private Library mentioned on the business card.
You unlock the door to the hotel room and take note of the room number as you leave. 432. Might be good to come back here some time and grab piecewise but...well you suppose the little "thread" from your finger would let you find him again. The rest of the hotel is equally abandoned and dilapidated, though not to a great degree. You don't worry about floors collapsing under your feet or that the ceiling might cave in, but the paint is peeling, the doors hang open and the rugs are molding. You take the stairs down to the bottom floor and out into the lobby. Its a big place, plenty of room for guests to mill around between the now scattered and decaying sofas and refreshment tables. A chandelier lies in a heap, rusted skeleton still draped in crystal glass. The big glass front doors are surprisingly still intact and swing easily open as you push through into the night beyond. Front drive and valet area are completely coated in snow and you have to struggle through it till you hit the road.
You look at the card again and then look around at the street signs. This street is called Hemlock road and the nearest intersection is with Nightshade Lane. Judging by the names, Ergot probably isn't far from here. You choose to head right first and follow this road several blocks until finally giving up and turning back. This time you head left and find Ergot just one street down, after Wolfsbane Road. You check the address again and follow the road towards the number. Its quite silent out, and you have seen only a handful of people in this entire time, all of which are similarly bundled up and seem to be making a concerted effort to ignore you and everyone else. That strange layer or plane of iridescent cobwebs is still there, and to your surprise seems to be always at about the same height, just a bit above your head. You see more creatures in it; almost all of them following the primordial fish sort of plan but a few are different. Crab spider things, eels, even, very high up, a whale like creature that you glimpsed only for a few moments. Whats more, every person you see seems to be producing a similar "Well" in that layer, just like you and the skeleton.
After maybe 20 minutes of walking you arrive at the address indicated on the card. The building it belongs to is a large one, maybe three stories, and built with a solid Romanesque appearance, like an old cathedral cast in concrete instead of stone and mortar. There's light coming from the arched windows but no sign or any identifying markings on the building and the big verdigris covered double doors are shut tight with a thin layer of windblown snow covering the stairs in front of them.
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Topic: The Left-Hand Path (Read 118839 times)