Your hands are still slightly shaky, but you focus on getting them still. It's important to have a good camera angle, right?
"Today's video is sponsored by..." Oh, right, you don't have a sponsor for this one. Slipped your mind. Forget it. You pretend you didn't just slip up, and get on with it.
Condensed content is the norm, people don't have the time to watch thirty-minute long videos these days, or at least your audience doesn't, and you're not sure if you have the time or battery life to record something like that anyways. Your mouth moves, almost without your say-so, but really, it's just habit, the beautiful gift of gab you've cultivated, first in debate team in high school, second in sales courses, third in your influencer vlog. Never found as much success as you'd have liked.
You spit hashtag after hashtag, cough. You aim your phone around the room, and out the window, and back at your face. "But at least I have you guys, right?" You wish you had a live audience, just so you could hear someone else's voice.
"Honestly I'm not feeling so good right now. Everything's unfamiliar. Shit's fucked." You laugh a little, self-deprecatingly. Whoops, should probably cut back on the swear words if you want the algorithm to notice you. "Imagining your support is going to help me a lot here, trust me. And PlumCo, I'd really appreciate a sponsorship, if your big corporate eyes ever notice me. That's all. Chad, out."
You never suffered from stagefright or a stammer, but that's not to say your heart doesn't pound. But in an unfamiliar situation such as this, who could blame you?
Another spark, and you jerk your foot out of the way of a pair of leather-looking boots that drop out of the air and hit the flooring with a harsh thud. Right, you didn't bother to mention that part on your newest vlog. What, like anyone would believe you if you said fucking magic was a thing, right? That's happened twice now, first with your phone, now with these boots, and you're not the type to disbelieve your eyes. You tuck the phone into your pants' pocket, pick up the boots, and sit on the bed to inspect them.
Looking them over, they look like real leather. Real costly stuff. Durable, too. And not a hint of modern material. You compare them to your ash-coated shoes, and figure that if you're going to be kicking any kidnappers, you want better foot protection. You unlace and tug off your sneakers, tossing them aside. Each one releases a little puff of ash from the impact, which settles onto the floor.
In a place as neat as this, doing that feels like littering. You're not sure how much you care, it's just so... inane, the things your mind focuses on. Your socks look clean, at least. You pull on the boots with a bit of effort. They're snug, but they fit suspiciously well. Score one for magic. You guess you could be drugged, or hypnotized, or some other bullshit, but everything is too... real. Your emotions are intense, but they're normal. You'd like to think you'd recognize if you were addled. Maybe you wouldn't, but getting stuck in a loop of questioning reality would just drive you insane. So you manage to stop doing that, though you have to steady your hands again.
Boots get. You take another look around the bedroom, inspecting the now-messy bed, the ash-marked floor, your old shoes, the window. There's no electronic lighting, nor any signs of outlets. The walls don't look like drywall, they're covered in an intricate light blue wallpaper. You'd take the time to admire it, but you're not exactly in the mood for it. There is an end table, with a small metal lantern settled atop it, a candle within the lantern visible through the glass. That could be useful later, if it ever gets dark.
You turn the doorknob - okay, so you're not locked in - and step out into the hallway. There's several more doors much like the one you exited from, likely other bedrooms, if you had to guess. Another window to illuminate the hallway, an open closet door, which you peek inside. You flinch back for a moment, before realizing the woman you see inside is just a painted stone statue, utterly motionless.
She's bent over a shelf, reaching for a towel, never to fully touch it.
You're not sure how high your spookiness meter can go, but evidently it wasn't high enough before.
Do you further investigate the closet and the statue? What about the other bedrooms, assuming they are bedrooms?
Are there any preparations to be made before you proceed down the hallway and further explore this strange manor?
Pick One:
Potion of the Serpent's Tongue. This magical elixir brewed from legless lizard scale, springwater, salamander oil, and mashed spiders tastes awful, but grants the drinker the ability to have their vocalized words understood by reptiles of all kinds for one hour, modified by the body weight of the drinker. This notably does not impact the intelligence of the reptiles in question in any way. An animal is still an animal, but for diplomacy with dragons, this is an adequate aid.
Locked Iron Lockbox. This item is, in fact, empty. If you can find a means to open it, perhaps it would be useful for the safe storage of your treasures. Otherwise, you are strong enough to throw it or use it as a bludgeon.
Pouch of Worn Gold Coins. Wait, is gold even valuable here, wherever here is? You'll have to find out. This small cloth pouch contains eight worn gold coins with degraded markings, as well as twelve similarly degraded copper coins, though the gold is the star of the show, obviously.
Choices are final. Items unchosen are forever lost.
Author
Topic: A Thousand Treasures (And You) (SG) (Read 1974 times)