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fandomhigh2020-04-09 12:38 am
arboreal_priestess) wrote in fandomhigh2020-04-09 12:38 am
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The Cryptozoologist's Field Guide, Thursday, Per 2
Prom was tomorrow, so Liam and Verity figured a class spent fighting things would be a good idea to help work off any potential nervous energy.
Walking into the Danger Shop, the class would find themselves on a train station platform while a giant steam locomotive - the Southern Pacific Railway's darling flagship train, The Flying Pussyfoot - idled next to it. Porters bustled back and forth with luggage, while passengers lined up to board, laughing and talking and checking their belongings. They were all dressed in clothing fashionable nearly a hundred years ago. Well, not their teachers, one of whom was a calm spot in the chaos of the station, while the other was drinking coffee like she was in a competition to reach the bottom first.
Don't judge her. Her or her wonderful, life-giving coffee.
(Liam was absolutely judging her, but he'd claim he had a special husbandly dispensation that permitted him to do so.)
Verity and Liam nodded at the class in greeting just as the conductor shouted, "All aboard!"
"Well, you heard the man," Verity said. "Don't wanna get left behind." No matter what car the students entered, they'd all find themselves in the same private, first-class carriage, with amenities straight out of the late 1920s. There was a man napping in a seat, one who bore a startling resemblance to their teacher's little sister, though only Liam could appreciate that. Verity paid him no mind. With a heavy chug, the train started moving, building up speed and soon leaving the station behind, pulling out into the lovely, open plains of middle America. "So, back when train travel was a lot more common, sometimes trains would just vanish," she said, gesturing for everyone to take a seat. "Hard to imagine several tons of iron and tens of hundreds of people just disappearing, but it happened, from time to time. Some of them certainly had terrestrial reasons for leaving from one station and not making it to the next, but not all." She used her best 'spooky' voice, she added, "They called these disappearances 'Hell-bound trains,' saying that the weight of the sin of the people aboard was enough to pull it down to Hell."
Verity, it was prom, not Halloween. Maybe put down the coffee.
There was a flash outside and suddenly the golden plains were gone, replaced by a blasted wasteland beneath a bloody sky. The distant mountains remained, but they had been transformed, going from a comforting fence against the sky to a virtual wall of what looked very much like heaped-up bone. "Not entirely true," Liam said, picking up the narrative.
"Trains, because they have such a heavy weight of iron and go at such a high speed, can tear holes in the thin spots between dimensions, kind of like throwing a rock through damp tissue. That might not be so bad, except there are inhabitants in those border regions and those inhabitants aren't very nice."
Just then, the door to their compartment was torn off its hinges with a violent bang and a squat, hairless humanoid biped slouched inside. It was hairless with four arms, large claws, and a mouth so full of needle-like teeth that it couldn't close properly. The creature was like a moving square of muscle: solid, and very dense. It lumbered towards them, arms outstretched to rend until a single shot from their teacher's gun stopped it in its tracks. It slumped sideways, the hole in its forehead leaking an oddly-colored fluid that was most assuredly not blood as they recognized it. "So, what we know about border imps is sadly, not much, save what we've observed during fights. They're a lesser form of demon who are attracted to iron--which is why they swarm trains. They eat meat, including humans, and cannot survive beyond the borders of their own dimensions long. Individuals of four genders have been observed: male, female, neuter, and what seems to be a secondary male form in which the penis is bifurcated in a manner similar to that of the koala. We do not know if this is a mutation or a natural sexual form and it doesn't really matter. Young border imps have never been observed, but this could mean that they grow to adult size rapidly, rather than signalling a mammalian 'child' phase. To be quite honest, we just don't know." Which made Verity sigh with regret. She hated not knowing things.
Did Liam's customary scowl deepen just a hair as Verity spoke? Possibly.
"But what you need to know for today's lesson?" he said, "If you must kill one, use silver. It's the only way to be sure. Even with the head fully removed, the body of the border imp has been known to continue fighting. Magic also works, if you have it," Hi, Nina! "And fire hurts them, but will not kill them. Still if all you have is some silverware from the dining room and you need time to hack through its neck, burning will buy you that time - assuming you don't set anything else on fire." Screams started echoing up and down the train. "When trains would break through the dimensional barriers, the common modus operandi for the train personnel was to protect the conductor for long enough to get the train from one edge of the border dimension to the other and hope that some of the passengers survived. If the passengers did, they'd be paid handsomely for their silence, if they didn't--well, no one would be asking them what happened anyway. So today, your job is to hunt down the imps on the train and keep them from eating as few passengers as possible. Feel free to turn anything you can find into a weapon, though you won't be able to take any of the imps out without silver."
And there was plenty of silver around if they knew where to look, including a car carrying silver from the US Mint if they felt like searching around. Weapons were also available, whether they wanted real ones or create something makeshift from their surroundings. "Don't worry about protecting the livestock car," Verity added. "My great-grandma's in there with knives and a hankering to kill anything that might hurt her precious horse, Baby. Otherwise, unless you have questions--" she shooed them all away. "Go hit stuff."
Walking into the Danger Shop, the class would find themselves on a train station platform while a giant steam locomotive - the Southern Pacific Railway's darling flagship train, The Flying Pussyfoot - idled next to it. Porters bustled back and forth with luggage, while passengers lined up to board, laughing and talking and checking their belongings. They were all dressed in clothing fashionable nearly a hundred years ago. Well, not their teachers, one of whom was a calm spot in the chaos of the station, while the other was drinking coffee like she was in a competition to reach the bottom first.
Don't judge her. Her or her wonderful, life-giving coffee.
(Liam was absolutely judging her, but he'd claim he had a special husbandly dispensation that permitted him to do so.)
Verity and Liam nodded at the class in greeting just as the conductor shouted, "All aboard!"
"Well, you heard the man," Verity said. "Don't wanna get left behind." No matter what car the students entered, they'd all find themselves in the same private, first-class carriage, with amenities straight out of the late 1920s. There was a man napping in a seat, one who bore a startling resemblance to their teacher's little sister, though only Liam could appreciate that. Verity paid him no mind. With a heavy chug, the train started moving, building up speed and soon leaving the station behind, pulling out into the lovely, open plains of middle America. "So, back when train travel was a lot more common, sometimes trains would just vanish," she said, gesturing for everyone to take a seat. "Hard to imagine several tons of iron and tens of hundreds of people just disappearing, but it happened, from time to time. Some of them certainly had terrestrial reasons for leaving from one station and not making it to the next, but not all." She used her best 'spooky' voice, she added, "They called these disappearances 'Hell-bound trains,' saying that the weight of the sin of the people aboard was enough to pull it down to Hell."
Verity, it was prom, not Halloween. Maybe put down the coffee.
There was a flash outside and suddenly the golden plains were gone, replaced by a blasted wasteland beneath a bloody sky. The distant mountains remained, but they had been transformed, going from a comforting fence against the sky to a virtual wall of what looked very much like heaped-up bone. "Not entirely true," Liam said, picking up the narrative.
"Trains, because they have such a heavy weight of iron and go at such a high speed, can tear holes in the thin spots between dimensions, kind of like throwing a rock through damp tissue. That might not be so bad, except there are inhabitants in those border regions and those inhabitants aren't very nice."
Just then, the door to their compartment was torn off its hinges with a violent bang and a squat, hairless humanoid biped slouched inside. It was hairless with four arms, large claws, and a mouth so full of needle-like teeth that it couldn't close properly. The creature was like a moving square of muscle: solid, and very dense. It lumbered towards them, arms outstretched to rend until a single shot from their teacher's gun stopped it in its tracks. It slumped sideways, the hole in its forehead leaking an oddly-colored fluid that was most assuredly not blood as they recognized it. "So, what we know about border imps is sadly, not much, save what we've observed during fights. They're a lesser form of demon who are attracted to iron--which is why they swarm trains. They eat meat, including humans, and cannot survive beyond the borders of their own dimensions long. Individuals of four genders have been observed: male, female, neuter, and what seems to be a secondary male form in which the penis is bifurcated in a manner similar to that of the koala. We do not know if this is a mutation or a natural sexual form and it doesn't really matter. Young border imps have never been observed, but this could mean that they grow to adult size rapidly, rather than signalling a mammalian 'child' phase. To be quite honest, we just don't know." Which made Verity sigh with regret. She hated not knowing things.
Did Liam's customary scowl deepen just a hair as Verity spoke? Possibly.
"But what you need to know for today's lesson?" he said, "If you must kill one, use silver. It's the only way to be sure. Even with the head fully removed, the body of the border imp has been known to continue fighting. Magic also works, if you have it," Hi, Nina! "And fire hurts them, but will not kill them. Still if all you have is some silverware from the dining room and you need time to hack through its neck, burning will buy you that time - assuming you don't set anything else on fire." Screams started echoing up and down the train. "When trains would break through the dimensional barriers, the common modus operandi for the train personnel was to protect the conductor for long enough to get the train from one edge of the border dimension to the other and hope that some of the passengers survived. If the passengers did, they'd be paid handsomely for their silence, if they didn't--well, no one would be asking them what happened anyway. So today, your job is to hunt down the imps on the train and keep them from eating as few passengers as possible. Feel free to turn anything you can find into a weapon, though you won't be able to take any of the imps out without silver."
And there was plenty of silver around if they knew where to look, including a car carrying silver from the US Mint if they felt like searching around. Weapons were also available, whether they wanted real ones or create something makeshift from their surroundings. "Don't worry about protecting the livestock car," Verity added. "My great-grandma's in there with knives and a hankering to kill anything that might hurt her precious horse, Baby. Otherwise, unless you have questions--" she shooed them all away. "Go hit stuff."
Re: Listen to the (Very Long) Lecture
Today was the best!
"So, like, I guess we'll find out how effect it'll be!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"