October 28, 2022

[...]

"Yeah, uh, it'll take a while but I think we can make it. Uhh... Is that everything, miss...?"

{"You can just put it under Berwyn. That's my daughter's name."}

"Okay, thank you..."

Whoever was talking sets the mic down and runs around screaming. This is probably the biggest, and most expensive trade the outpost has made. It takes a while for everything to get made, but everything is eventually put in place and prepared for delivery. Sarah might as well go, she NEEDS to see who did this.

---

[...]

There's a bit of frantic knocking on the front door.

"And the curtain opens. Here we go." Luna sighs and goes to the front door.

Lock jolts awake at the knocking and goes to watch

Luna opens the door and leans in the door frame. "Hello?"

"Holy shit, uh, hey Luna it's just-" Dude's panting like crazy.

"What's going on Otto? Sounds like you just saw a ghost." Luna asks with concern

Lock is watching from inside.

"Sarah's gone, like, we tried to hit her up on her frequency but she's just GONE. N-Not like when Lud and Clem went missing cuz like, we got SOMETHING? Just like, some static and random like, clicking? I-I don't know man-" Bro is flabbergasted.

"Oh Gods. Static and clicking? That's really weird. Here wanna come inside, maybe we can find a lead to look for Sarah?"

He nods.

Luna heads back to the top bunk.

Luna bounces her way up to the top bunk, since it's in view of everyone.

Lock sits by the wall.

He sits on the ground. "So, uh, we do have SOME idea of where she could be, cuz we do need to save every buyer's address for delivery and stuff, but someone went out there to check and it's just like, a broken down house or something?"

"Right, that makes sense. So you went to this buyer's house and it was a shack. I mean we live in an apocalypse, so that’s decently common for the houses in Meridian."

"Doesn't sound all that livable"

Luna does note how that's apparently weird.

"Yeah... Who'd be living there? Shit had like, cracks on every single wall and there were even a couple of pieces of it just fallen off into the ground."

"I know right? Do you know anything about the buyer themselves? Like anything noteworthy about them?"

"Uhhh, they didn't want to see face-to-face or something, asked to drop it with their daughter? And... they ordered a FUCK ton of stuff, like, we had to scavenge for a hot minute to get their shit, almost like they were buying in bulk for some reason?"

"Are they a ghost or just ugly?"

Luna closes her eyes.

"Wouldn't know. Only person who would probably know would be Sarah but, yeah."

"An anonymous buyer who ordered tons of drugs, clearly cares about hiding their identity otherwise they wouldn't have their daughter order it. How about the daughter? Anything with them?"

"Did they inherit the ugly?"

"Uhhh... Again, no clue. Whoever went there to check said they saw no one?"

"So like, now I'm just thinking if it was like, some weird trap or something, or maybe some cult shit? We did kinda lose some people cuz of cults before so yeah-"

"Cults... I mean there is precedent for cults to use drugs for major ceremonies, and I don't just mean Lucille's. Heaven's Gate, Jonestown, all of those fun ones. Now you said that you heard clicking and static? Where was that at? The shack?"

"Walkie. Typically Sarah uses, uhh..." Snap snap. "76.7 FM. Sorry, easy to kinda mix up signals here and there-"

"Hmm. Have you guys been targeted by any specific cults? Maybe they're connected?"

"Not really as far as I'm aware? And we tend to like, try to avoid them by staying a bit off the grid."

Luna nods, "Makes sense. But then there's just a bunch of things that don't make sense. An anonymous buyer that seemed to disappear, a daughter that doesn't seem to exist, they bought a ton of stuff from y'all. And then Sarah's gone. A trap... using Sarah as bait?"

"I guess...? Unless THAT was the trap and Sarah fell for it, and, uh, in that case... uh-" He's shaky now.

"Serial killers am I right?"

"I sure hope not Lock!"

"...maybe I guess. I just don't want her to be dead."

"Hm. I wouldn't want that for any of you guys, every single one of y'all has been amazing, well maybe not Ivory at first but she had her own issues. Do you know anyone who would have some kind of hate for Sarah? Or a motive to do this?"

"Uhh, I mean, first person that comes to mind would be that uh, blood girl-guy? But like, I don't know. It doesn't feel like her. Him? Them. Besides that, I don't know anyone, she was just... pretty chill? Childish, yeah, but... she was nice."

"The... what? Blood person?"

Luna raises an eyebrow.

"Yeah, the one that I fuckin' injected with MORE blood, uh, yeah."

"......and here I thought I understood enaturalism." She sighs.

"Hm?"

"Because up until this point, I've understood it's like creating drugs, living off the land, scavenging, community, all that fun stuff for Gaia. It's like maximum comfy vibes for everyone and I really dig it. But then blood people exist."

"It was like, in this house! I swear you were there, unless my memory is imploding on itself...."

"In this house? I really don't remember that, then again, I have to put most of my memory into files or else I forget it the next day."

"Not having long-term memory will do that." She sighs.

"Hang on, lemme check my notes."

"Oh you mean Cole... because it was that funky blood that made him a woman. With booba." Luna sighs in mostly flat chest.

"That explains a lot..." Lock mumbles

"Right, so that would give him... her a motive."

"But like, he she they any pronouns in bio lookin' motherfucker wouldn't do something this elaborate just for like, petty revenge for something that isn't permanent!"

"No. Makes no sense, not to mention Cole may be a petty person at times, but they're not the kind to make something this elaborate. Guess other than checking 76.7 FM one more time, we might need to go investigate the shack ourselves."

"I mean, yeah, we can check I guess, but... I kinda gave up on the walkie at this point-"

"Could you do it anyway?" She smiles warmly.

"Yeah, sure..."

He grabs his backpack, unzips it, pulls a walkie-talkie out, and sets the frequency.

"Yo, Sarah, last time I'm trying to check in on you. You there?"

Static with some clicking.

"Shit. Oh well, time to go explore a broken down shack."

He sighs. "I reaaaally don't wanna go. Weird feeling. Abandoned shack in the middle of the woods and shit just... blergh."

Luna concentrates on her bag and summons three things: Her trusty Marked Broadsword, a leather pouch kinda like a side fanny pack that has various knives in it, and a fresh hoodie, one with Esdeath on it.

"And I think this might be our best chance of finding Sarah."

Luna takes a deep breath. "Besides, I'm scared too. But you guys mean a lot to me and I wanna help."

"That means a lot..." He stays quiet for a bit. "I just realized I need to go either way, I'm the only one who knows the route there." Sigh. He puts the walkie-talkie back in his backpack.

"You don't have to enter if you don't want to, but if you could lead the way there, that would be primo." She smiles.

He smiles a bit too. "Yeah, uh, I might stay put outside. Hoping there's no weird tentacle this time-" He gets up and looks at Lock. "You wanna come too? You look like you could help...?"

"Yeah I could help"

Luna nods and equip her things, then waits for Otto to be ready.

Lock gets up and stretches by dabbing.

Knight wakes up! Yawning before sitting up and checking his phone.

Otto looks in his backpack for a bit. "Yeah, uh, we're a bit good to go now if this is everyone." He looks at Knight.

“Everyone for what? Also who are you?”

"Otto Karpf. Quote unquote breaking and entering expert at the enaturalist outpost."

“Nice to meet ya Otto, I’m Alice C Knight. But you can just call me Knight.”

"Thank goodness you're not unnatural"

Confused blinking.

"Anyway, we're going to an abandoned house in the woods to go rescue their friend Sarah. Wanna come with us?"

“Exploration and a Rescue? Sure!”

"Here's hoping shit doesn't go wrong when looking for a missing friend. Again." He chuckles awkwardly. He's clearly nervous.

"Even if it does, we're all capable of survival." She grins.

Otto is not built like a stereotypical twink but god is he a twink.

He goes out the door and waits outside.

Luna follows after making sure everything she wants is equipped.

Knight gets up and leaves.

Lock follows.

"Aight, uhhh, should be..." He looks around. "Over here." He walks into the woods.

Everyone follows.

The path starts to clear up, there's a lot of dead leaves and shit around at this point.

"...weird, I mean I know it's fall, but that's a lot of dead leaves." Luna mutters as she follows.

“Huh, this is pretty nice.” Knight do be following.

Lock has her hands in her pockets as she follows.

There's a sound from behind them. Falling followed by some leaves cracking.

Lock jumps slightly as she stops and looks over her shoulder.

Luna pauses in her stride and turns around.

There's a girl on the ground. Seems a bit young based on her height and shit. Green hair. You can't really make out her face cuz of how she fell. She tries to get up to walk away while covering her face.

Knight turns around. “Oh shit a child”

"Um, hey there, you okay?" Luna calls to the child.

She keeps her head down and hands on face. She's shaking a bit.

"I knew it, she's ugly"

“Hey! Don’t say that about the child”

"That's mean Lock. come the hell on."

The child™ starts to sob. It sounds really muffled, even after she seems to pull her hands away for a bit.

Luna notes this and carefully walks a bit closer to the 'child'.

"Um, are you okay?" She asks getting down to her level.

The child trademark copyright looks up, still trying to cover her face. She shakes her head no.

"What's wrong? Are you hurt?" She asks the """"""""child""""""""""-looking entity with the sweetest voice she can muster.

The capital c Child nods. Luna starts to notice that the Childs skin looks... a bit weird?

Kinda like fabric.

Luna does notice that and gets a little nervous. She returns to the group to report her findings.

"So. The... 'child' has like weird skin. It's like fabric."

Otto's dead quiet. Dude is, as mentioned before, flabbergasted.

"Honestly kind of reminds me of a puppet."

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck-" Otto is a pupaphobic.

"Anyway, I think maybe we keep going towards our destination. Kinda not liking the vibes here."

"Heh?"

There's some leaves cracking behind Luna. It's The Child.

Luna turns around and faces the entity.

"Can I help you?" Almost all hints of sweetness in her voice are gone. In fact, anyone near her can tell she's beginning to shake a little bit in fear. She's got her eyes closed and focused on her surroundings.

Lock looks behind Luna.

La Criatura nods, tugging on Luna's clothes. She's not really covering her face anymore.

Luna opens her eyes and looks at it. "Why are you tugging on my hoodie?"

She has those teddy bear bead eyes, her mouth sewn shut. She's pointing somewhere, almost telling the group to follow.

"Yup we are gonna die"

“hot buttered fuck”

"...I guess... she wants us to go that way? This sucks."

Otto is bawling. Curled up on the grass.

Luna taps on Otto's shoulder. "It's gonna be okay, and on the bright side I was wrong about it being a puppet. It's a toy."

He glances up and looks at her. She looks back and waves. He curls up again and sobs a bit louder. "I-I DON'T WANNA GO WITH IT I'M GONNA FUCKING DIE-"

"Uhm...what I stayed behind with Otto while you two see what she wants?"

"That sounds like a good idea Lock. I don't blame Otto here in the slightest. Otto, are you okay if Lock keeps you safe?"

"YEAH SURE BUT JUST KEEP THAT THING AWAY FROM ME-" Sob.

Lock goes to stand by Otto

"Alright, we'll be back, hopefully with Sarah in a little bit." She waves to Knight, "Are you coming along?"

“Yep, I don’t think I’ll be of any use being here…”

"Alrighty, let's go rescue Sarah." Luna heads in the direction the doll entity pointed in.

Knight follows!

They walk for a minute or so before finding the abandoned shack Otto was talking about. The brand name plushie starts to sign for what seems to be pen and paper.

Luna reaches into her knife pouch pulling out a pencil and a pad of paper. "Here ya go. I always keep some extra things in here."

She starts to write. "hi!!! what r you doing here :o"

She reads the paper and kinda gets cute vibes, so once more the soft voice comes back. "hiiiiii! um, we're looking for Otto's friend Sarah here."

She seems to think for a bit before writing again. "how does she look like? i saw a couple of people come here!"

Luna describes Sarah to the best of her abilities.

Knight has no idea who Sarah is or what is happening so he keeps quiet.

She thinks a bit more before writing again. "i saw her!! she went with friend to the house!!" She points at the shack.

"I see, well thank you hun. By the way, what's your name? Mine's Luna, and the bunny next to me is Knight."

“Hi”

"friend calls me mint!!" She's hopping excitedly.

Back in the forest Lock just pretends to not have volunteered out of her own fear.

Otto is still sobbing. After a bit he signals at lock for her to join just so he doesn't feel alone really.

Lock begins sobbing.

Back to Mint and Knight and Luna, "aww, how cute Mint. Well I guess we're heading into the shack. Wanna come along?"

“Mint’s a cool name”

"friend not in the shack... she said i can't enter if she's not there :("

Luna looks to Knight with determination, "Ready to go in there then?"

“Yeah, got nothing better to do right?”

"Mhm. Okie Mint, we'll come back out soon okay? Just keep yourself safe." And with that, and a bright smile, Luna takes a deep breath and then enters the shack.

Knight follows while searching his pockets for something, hopefully a flashlight.

Mint nods.

The shack is a very broken down and old and just overall dirty place. The walls are falling apart and even lost some pieces and shit. It's a small place, which makes you wonder how anyone can really live here.

There's a pretty clean carpet on the floor, a bed, a desk with some drawers, and some food on the floor.

Luna enters the shack and is completely unsure how Sarah could be missing. "I don't understand. This place is tiny yet... Sarah is missing."

Knight starts to look around. “Maybe there’s a hidden basement?”

"Maybe." She also investigates the place, looking for anything out of place.

After a bit of investigating, Luna notices that under the carpet, the ground is quite funky.

"...what's with this carpet? Like... okay, it's clean, but why would you get carpet for such a rundown shack in the woods? In fact, whatever's below it feels really weird."

Luna gets out a hunting knife and tries to rip open a tiny bit of it to see what's underneath.

Wow! Who would've seen this coming! A hatch!

"Knight, you were right on the money." She points to the hatch. "Shall we?" Luna tries to open it up if it's unlocked.

It is opened.

“Sweet, Let's go!”

Luna pulls out her phone flashlight and sheathes the hunting knife, then heads down into the hatch.

Knight follows after finding a dollar store pocketknife in one of his pockets.

Down the hatch is a way more colorful room, which leads to a couple of smaller rooms. This one has a way prettier, cleaner bed, small makeshift kitchen arrangement, closet, etc.

There's some distant chatting.

“Huh, it’s like a bunker, let's be quiet so we don’t disturb who’s chatting” knight whispers.

Luna nods silently and begins to make her way around.

In another room, there's a couple of other puppet-like... things? They don't seem to be alive nor moving like Mint.

One of them stands out. Pink hair, tinted glasses. It looks pinned to where it is compared to the rest.

Luna goes to carefully examine the odd doll out and tries to remove whatever is keeping it stuck there. It reminds her of Sarah.

"...god damn it." she whispers while trying to remove whatever is keeping it in place.

Knight attempts to help.

It's removed, but it does make a bit of sound. The chatting seems to stop.

"...that's probably not good." She silently mutters to herself.

"And Knight, this doll here reminds me a lot of Sarah, same pink hair and tinted glasses too."

“that can’t be good”

Someone walks over and looks at both Luna and Knight.

"Oh fuck-" They mutter. "Who the fuck are you guys and what are you doing here?" Whispering.

“uh, meow?” knight whispers, kinda startled.

"Oh haha, the bunny fucking meowed, listen, you two need to get out of here before YOU become like HER." They point at the doll that looks like Sarah.

"...dollification but real. I hate it here." she whispers. "But regardless, we need Sarah back."

“might be past that point.”

"..."

"Oh, that was her name? Damn. Shame. Now I feel bad." They shrug. "You got her right there bud."

"I mean, she's still alive, not like, human body alive alive, but still alive, like most of the other dolls here. So, hey! Not dead. Just... a doll. Mhm." They do a :| and nod while just going mhm and yup over and over.

“…that’s horrible!” Knight harshly whispers.

"What the hell."

"Haha! I know! Listen, like I said, you both better get out, I'll explain more outside if you're out there still, m'kay?"

“sounds good to me”

"Sure. Come on Knight." She leaves doll!Sarah where it was placed and then starts to make her way out.

Knight follows behind.

Berwyn heads back to where they were. You can kinda hear them say something akin to "Oh, just a doll that fell over-"

Luna and Knight are back at the shack.

"So that sucked. Let's get out of here."

“Good idea”

They leave.

Mint shows up again waving.

"heey!! how was it :o"

"Their friend Sarah was turned into a doll. We're waiting for someone to explain what the heck that was about."

"oh that's friend! she does that :)"

“what the fuck”

"But why? What did Sarah do to you guys to get turned into a doll?

"oh nonono she just does it!!" She shrugs.

“No one really does things to just do those things”

".....and here I thought Buttons was an issue." Luna sighs.

"well idk why she does it :p i just know that she like calls people over and then they go in and leave like me lol"

".....so she's never gonna be a human ever again? Gods, what is Otto gonna say?" She says with a couple tears threatening to drip.

“Oh fuck, is there a way to fix it? I have an idea but I’d rather not do it.”

After a bit, Berwyn comes out, Mint looks at them and waves. They wave back. "that's friends kid!! :)"

"Mint, what the hell are you doing out at this time?" Mint shrugs.

"...did you bring these two here-" Mint nods happily. Berwyn sighs.

"Go in, I'll deal with them, don't tell mom about this." Mint nods and heads to the shack.

"Sorry about that. Berwyn Eyelar." They extend a hand.

“Knight.” He shakes the hand. “Now, is there a way to reverse it?”

"Nope. Not as far as I know." Sigh.

"And I'm Luna. So Sarah is basically dead then?"

“Would time shenanigans work? Kinda a last resort type deal.”

"Is Mint dead? No. Sarah's alive, just... different body. Going to Hell kinda."

They look at Knight. "I mean, probably? But like, I feel like that would just cause some weird time related stuff and y'know, I don't need another timeline."

“Another timeline?”

Luna's ears perk up to that very specific phrase.

"Eh, I'm no like, space-time continuum scientist but hey, I know about timelines and shit, time stuff is just weird, and y'know, given all of... THIS, it's hard to say I wouldn't be surprised if timeline hopping was a thing."

“Interesting… It might be possible considering everything that has happened.”

"It's just, hey, in another timeline, maybe your friend was never turned into a doll, and maybe you never heard me warn you about this area, and maybe you got lured in and maybe YOU got turned into a doll! Think about the consequences!"

“Well that’s just delving into multiverse theory. Like, what if this never happened and whoever’s down there never existed? What then?”

Luna is just becoming boggled by the second. This was the last thing she thought she'd have to think about today. So she just sits on the ground in silence.

"Oh, no, I feel like she would've existed even if Sarah didn't show up. She's done this for a while." They laugh. "Fuck, I almost got caught in this myself!"

“Caught in what?”

"The whole being turned into a doll thing."

“Hmmm.”

"Listen, she has some GOD AWFUL MEMORY. I basically escaped it by just going along with the fact she mixed me up with her daughter." They chuckle.

“…wow. That’s, wow.”

"Daughter? That was brought up in initial testimony, about someone's daughter had ordered a massive amount of drugs from the enaturalist colony."

"Yeah, yeah, I know, I'm horrible for doing this, but like, would you rather play pretend for a bit or be turned into a doll that needs to also just play pretend with a crazy bitch who thinks her basement is a kingdom."

“Oh no, I'm just surprised about the awful memory.”

They look at Luna. "Ohhhh, so THAT'S who she was... I tried to warn her, FYI. She just ignored me cuz apparently she needed some rocks or whatever."

Luna tilts her head. "Oh yeah, okay, because for payment, they take cool rocks and leaves to give to their Goddess Gaia. Like money is useless to them."

"...I thought she was just a crack addict or something."

“That sounds pretty interesting”

"Anyways, uhh, I should head back, YOU should head out, and I'll try to like, get Sarah out here living and shit."

“Huh, okay”

"Okay. Hm. Well, thank you for being chill with us Berwyn, like seriously, thank you for getting us out of there."

"Yeah, yeah, for sure. Like I said, been in your place before, hah."

Luna nods then turns to Knight. "Okay, let's catch back up with Otto and Lock. Hopefully they're okay."

She starts to walk back to the two of them.

Berwyn heads back to the shack.

Otto is still on the floor sobbing.

Luna kneels next to Otto, really unsure how to even go about saying this, but regardless she takes a deep breath and focuses.

Knight here, no clue what to do.

"....so erm.. we found Sarah.. but um,, we- well.."

Oh gods. She can't choose between lie and truth. It's a literal 50/50 now.

He looks up waiting for whatever the well is.

"....i'm not entirely sure how to phrase this. But um,, Sarah's body wasn't found. Not exactly... um.. I don't understand how this happened, but she's turned into a doll by some entity and... while she's 'alive' in a sense, she's also 'not'."

Instead of choosing one or the other, she chooses both.

Otto FAINTS.

"..."

“Shit”

"Um. I didn't know what else to say. I couldn't lie nor could I tell the truth."

“So I just... sorta... combined both of them. I believe in Berwyn.”

Luna turns to Knight, "I'm taking us home right now. Ready?"

"All four of us I mean."

“Yeah”

Luna closes her eyes and focuses on the four she needs to bring home, locking onto each one. Knight, Otto, Lock, herself.

And then she mutters something and claps her hands. They all disappear.

Knight, Otto, Lock, and Luna all appear in the living room. Otto is on the couch. And Luna faints.

{- Shit. Mana drain. -}

“Aw fuck”

{- Knight, she's fine, just needs a powernap to regain drained mana. Maybe 10-15 more minutes. -}

{That's good to hear.}