longestnight | [audio] The traps will continue until (his) morale improves

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[audio] The traps will continue until (his) morale improves

[After a while, there's no need for anyone to keep too much of a close eye on Branch, despite the fact he was possibly one of the closest to death by the time they got to the Pole. By the time everyone else is feeling well enough to leave the Infirmary (albeit maybe with a limp in the case of some of them) he's still out but at least finally firmly stable. Breathing easily and far less pale. It's just that the sleep caused by the myth healing has him firmly knocked out for far longer than everyone else as all that extensive poison damage heals up.]

[Jack at least keeps occasionally checking in on him. He'd placed him in a little doll bed and placed that in a little dollhouse. The house is meant to make it so the troll won't just sleepily stumble out and fall right off the table or something before he's fully awake.]

[The problem is he hasn't noticed that one of the Elves noticed him initially tucking Branch away. And said Elf also keeps watching him go in and open up a little doll house. Bingle knows better, he knows he's not allowed in the Infirmary unless he wants to be helpful and has been given specific Infirmary-related instructions....but he also thinks that toy looks so adorable. And!!! Jack keeps playing with it and Jack liking the toy makes it seem even cooler!!! So after one of the times Jack closes up the little dollhouse again, and leaves the Infirmary Bingle jingles his way happily into the Infirmary after he's out of sight to go play with the toy...]

[A short time later, there is a whole lot of screaming. Terrified, Bingle drops what was in his hand, and runs out. Then what Bingle thought was a toy also runs out of the Infirmary and the rest...]

[The rest is the kind of mess that happens when a bunch of upsetting events running consecutively are filtered through a filter of high octane paranoia. Branch doesn't waste time after escaping his would-be murderer. Limping out of the room, he makes his way onto a hustling bustling floor filled with furry artisans. Looking around in awe at the strangeness of his surroundings is how he gets run over by some kind of toy car. Great. Wonderful. The injury jangles his leg even worse and causes it to break open the partially-healed snake bite gouge. But that's not about to slow him down.]

[Some stolen ribbon is tied over the bandage to put more pressure on the injury. (They must have bandaged it because they wanted him to live long enough to clear the poison.) His hair is quietly washed in the as-of-yet unused paintbrush water of a yeti setting up a table to paint toys. Then he smears green and red paint on his body and more bits and bobbles, pieces of ribbon and tinsel and pine are used as camouflage all over his body. The place is littered with garlands and scraps of ribbon and tinsel. It genuinely lets him blend. All he has to do is stop moving and then he looks like all the rest of the detritus and garland on the tables and floors.]

[He blends enough that he manages to limp to one of the windows and see what's waiting for him outside without being seen. The view is devastating and makes him realize he has to change his tack.]

[He figures out the comm devices the hairy guys are making are important by silently watching a yeti test one out, including by using some kind of... listening devices with it? Ones that go in the ears? When the yeti's back is turned, both the larger watch device and the two ear-things are stolen, as is the box and instructions for the ear things. And Branch spends the better part of an hour figuring out what it's all for, how to sync the devices, how to use the mic on the one ear bud, and how the menus are navigated - including how to navigate them by tapping the earbud certain ways without touching the comm watch.]

[Then he looks out on what is to become a battlefield, a place to lay waste to his enemies, and starts to get to work. It takes him the better part of a few hours to prepare, the large space of time between anyone possibly thinking to check on him in the Infirmary. He has to use his hair to do most of the traveling because of the shape his leg is in but he pushes his way through it.]

[Then the first casualties start rolling in. The Elves and the yetis, the most numerous of the Pole's residents and most prone to roaming around, are disproportionately affected. The first trap is tripped by an Elf. Somehow the Elf is successfully netted to the ground in a weighted net made of volleyball netting. A yeti trips a trap that causes a cascade of marbles that causes a whole group of yetis to slip and fall. A snare trap somehow whips someone upside down. Super soakers full of lemon juice are activated by a tripwire to squirt the juice in someone's face as they walk by.]

[The traps are all harmful but not permanently damaging. There are no traps that might make people fall over railings or down stairs. Nothing will permanently scald anyone and even if things cause pain and irritation they don't cause permanent damage. And it's possible to avoid tripping traps, certainly. After all, most of the traps are in the busiest areas of the Pole, and not quieter ones prone to relaxation. There's no point in hunting the hunters if you do it in places where they don't heavily congregate.]

[But for those in the more heavily trap-set areas: visible chaos erupts. The Elves and the yetis are clearly panicking. Then, in explanation, a voice comes over the new comms, in audio only, spoken over the mic of a single Samsung earbud. A few of them might recognize said voice from their time in the Multi-plex or before.]

Yeah, hi, all those traps going off around you? Those are mine and I work fast. I guaran-flipping-tee you there are a whole lot more of them than you think. Pick a random number, then quadruple it, because that's what I did when deciding how many to set. And I'll keep setting more the longer my demands go unmet.

Now I'm sure some of you are thinking "well, I can avoid all the traps." Maybe true for you, but your ugly, pointy-headed little children and the big hairy guys sure seem to be running into them. And wow, they are really freaking out right now.

So we're going to do this my way. If you want it to stop anytime soon, you'll do exactly what I say, when I say it. If you don't do what I say, I will make it worse.

[Branch is about to limp around and be a problem.]

[Yippee-Ki-Yay.]

[ooc: Threadhopping is encouraged. The main negotiations will happen with Miguel playing hostage negotiator, but anyone can talk to Branch. He can't see anything because it's all audio but he'll definitely gloat if he hears someone get trapped while on the comms with him, completely endearing himself to them instantly, I'm sure. All the traps will be inconvenient, annoying, and maybe slightly painful but not cause any genuine risk to life and limb - yet.]

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Oh yeah, sure, you'll give me cooperation if I just ask nicely.

I'm not stupid.

No, you’ve got ingenuity and flair.

[ There’s very little to be gained from agitating him, but Tim’s cautious of yes-man-ing Branch. That can make things worse. ]

They treated the wounded. Everyone’s clothed and fed. Why conclude that they wouldn’t accommodate you? Before this, I mean. This might annoy people, but you could tell us where the traps are so they can be disarmed safely.

I am not saying he is correct, but I have been in a place where our "hosts" kept us fed and clothed and treated our more serious wounds. They did not want their playthings broken too soon.

[ Tim has, too, but he’s trying to reason with Branch, and so that’s not the angle he wants people to use. ]

Okay, that’s a lot to unpack, and I don’t want to minimize how awful that can be. But has anyone done anything here? Because making demands is a little extreme.

[ He’s not saying they have to believe everything, just… the bad guy appears to be Branch. ]

Quite the contrary. They have been exceedingly accommodating and informative about the dangers we will face. But this one seems to have missed the explanations.

Personally, I do not see the harm in explaining the situation to him, then giving him what he needs to survive and allow him to go. That option was one reason I chose to trust the leaders of my first alternate universe.

I agree. I don’t love the idea of anyone going off with support, but it’s his choice.

Did you take the offer?

I did not, though as that universe consisted of the void with a train as the only safe place, I did not have much of a choice. But the Star Prince was willing to let me go off to my certain death if I truly wanted it.

I don't know that makes as much sense as you think it does, from an outside prospective.

The train was demonstrably in a void that was quite hostile to travel.

Because big people can't be trusted.

That's how it is back home and it's obviously the case here.

[Obvious only to him, though.]

I'll tell you where the traps are right before I bail from this place.

Good thing I’m short, then.

[ He’ll make the joke before someone else can. Tim’s shoulder is jerking like he’s trying to pull on something. ]

Did you glue finger traps to the inner curves of door knobs?

No, door knobs just always come that way.

[Someone's feeling sassy.]

I don’t know if I should be impressed or a-

[ His nose scrunches and the “ah” is repeated a few times before Tim sneezes and vanishes from frame before the device falls camera down on the floor. ]

What, did you sneeze yourself out of existence or -?

[Branch happens to be close to that particular trap and peeks down with a pair of tiny little binoculars that he keeps in his hair.]

Hmm.

[Tapping off the earbud, so a line isn't open for Tim to give a location in, he swings down closer by his hair and watches, seeing if Tim is stuck this way.]

[ On the bright side, Tim’s no longer stuck. He was falling, briefly, but falling wrong with no chance to catch himself because there was suddenly no part of him on the ground.

He lands on carpet, but it still knocks the wind out of him. He lays there, more shocked than injured. It should have hurt more, hitting the ground like that. He didn’t remember the rug being this plush, either.

Sitting up, all 3.75” of him, Tim blinks up at the door knob. Several stories above him. ]

What just happened?

[ Magic finger traps? ]

[Welcome to the wild world of lower terminal velocity, Tim. It is pretty helpful for not going squish when falling.]

[Branch swings down by his hair into view, chilling out on a bench near one of the work tables.]

Hi. Hey. So is that a thing with you. You shrink when you sneeze?

[ He’ll appreciate it later, although he’s putting the dots together for himself when Branch appears. ]

I…

[ Tim sinks his hand deliberately between the large fibers as far as it will go. Nearly to his elbow. ]

It’s not normally a thing. You didn’t enchant the finger trap?

Nope. Magic exists in my world and trolls have magic in them but it's mostly just an us thing.

[It's more just something that subtly physically affects their bodies.]

We can't exert it on anyone else.

[He looks thoughtful.]

My hair changed here. It's stronger. Maybe this place changed you too?

[ Standing up, Tim dusts himself off. There’s a piece of lint on his head the size of a dinner plate. ]

So you couldn’t strangle shadow demons with your hair before?

[ Tim nudges his communicator with his foot. It moves much faster than he would have expected, given his size. Definitely not a superstrength, but maybe he’s more like an ant? ]

It’s changed me, too, but I thought it just took the metahuman abilities away. Apparently, it also took away height.

[ He’s disappointed- healing was a handy thing to have, but it was never really his. Tim’s just trying to not freak out about being small in front of someone whose default state is small and who’s already having a bad day. ]

Interesting, Interesting.

[With that, Branch's hair suddenly whips out, bridging the distance between them and if Tim doesn't successfully dodge, it'll completely wrap around him like he's a mummy, leaving only his head and feet sticking out.]

[ He does not, in fact, successfully dodge. Partly because he’s tired, partly because he’s because he doesn’t think the troll is a genuine threat. The traps he seen and seen reported before this moment have been relatively harmless but clever, and - while he wanted to stop them before someone got hurt - they could easily have been designed to make injuries more likely.

(He does try to make sure he’s got one hand sticking out through the hair.)

He’s also desperately curious to see where this goes, admittedly. It’s giving baby’s first heist. Imagine Gotham held hostage by a flea circus. This is an opportunity. ]

And we were becoming such good friends.

[Branch pulls him in closer, hair dangling him from overhead so they can look eye to eye. He's smart enough to not pull him close enough for a head butt, but not shocking when he's been a proper little supervillain so far. Maybe harmless like Condiment King, but effective at the wide-scale chaos he's trying to cause.]

[Elves and yetis are still running around the place in a panic. He's definitely created the level of chaos he set out to.]

[And after Miguel's last little message he's escalating things.]

Sorry, nothing personal, but I need more leverage. I promise I won't hurt you. Once I've got some kind of transport out of here, I'll tell them where I stashed you right before I leave so they can let you out.

[Hair wraps around Tim's mouth as a gag because he's not stupid enough to let him remain able to scream. They can talk when he's got him squirreled away like a walnut.]

[Then he carries him along. He keeps him down by his side so he doesn't have a huge shape blocking his view of overhead, the most important place to worry about line of sight from. Down by his side, he can always rotate him around to look past him to the left or right. He keeps him just far enough away that he wouldn't quite be in arms' reach if he managed to get an arm free to take a swing. But Tim will find breaking free close to impossible; the hair may as well be steel cord.]

[Unable to use his hair to travel, he has an obvious limp as he moves about. He's clearly used to working stealthily - in fact, the way he observes his environment and moves from shadow to shadow, ever observant about blocking line of sight in multiple directions, wouldn't be remiss among the Batfam. But it's not the movements of a hunter, it's the mouse-like movements of something used to being prey. It's treated as absolute life or death.]

[It takes some time but not far from one of several little boltholes he's staked out, he sees something useful and drags it into his little hole. It takes another trip or two to get everything else he needs.]

[By the time he's done moving things into what looks like just a natural gap in the massive lumber that makes up the Pole's walls, like an unused mouse den, he's pale and sweating. He'd woken up but that's not the same as being healthy enough to be up and about. He's out of the woods, but unwell like some of the others still recovering.]

[In the end, he decides Tim's prison will be one of those little critter cages used to catch bugs, one of the ones that has a door that actually seals. After tossing in a small piece of a cookie and a little stoppered glass bottle with a few drops of water (the kind of tiny bottle used in jewelry), he jams the door shut from the outside with an improvised shim made from a tiny key from a diary, hammering it in with a rubber ducky Monopoly piece.]

Don't bother trying to yell, I picked this place because you can barely hear anything from inside.

[He'd tested it by briefly putting his little ear bud/mic in there and going outside to listen as other people talked at him.]

[Noticing he's starting to bleed through yet another ribbon on his leg, he sits down heavily against the large container of chili powder he stole - his possession of which he's about to brag about to Miguel shortly - to replace it with the ribbons he'd squirreled away in here. The bandage underneath has long since soaked through with blood. He's kept it on for the pressure. The ribbons are a poor substitute for more bandages.]

[It paints a rather desperate picture, that he'd not just refuse to trust and accept help, he'd limp around on a hurt leg and make it worse to avoid anyone trying.]

[Far be it from the little asshole imp he's being pictured as by some he just looks hurt, sick, stressed, and exhausted, the premature worry lines on his face furrowed and deep.]

Edited 2023-08-25 10:03 (UTC)

[ Nothing personal. Just tied up in your hair. This all feels very impersonal, and Tim’s about to say something when the hair gags him.

He mouths “Really?” Underneath the hair. Because, really?? this has to be one of the more off-putting ways to be abducted. The hair tickles his nose, and Tim valiantly tries to hold in the sneeze.

(For his own sake. He doesn’t care about getting snot on Branch’s hair, but he’d prefer to not have his face rubbed in it.)

(He has kidnapping standards.)

(Also, I’m not going to hurt you has never been reassuring.)

He’s certainly safe for now, because he does need leverage. No one’s been taking him that seriously. A hostage will do the trick.

(And something’s made Tim travel-sized. Conveniently kidnappable. Might as well be wearing pixie boots.)

There’s no struggling along the way, beyond craning his head for a better view at what they’re passing. Gauging distance. He’ll work out the scale mentally later. And watching Branch, who doesn’t seem to have the physical ability for such a hands on addiction.

Just politely being taken to a secondary location.

(His comm was recording when he dropped it. It might still be - but it’s normal sized and left behind. )

Better keep Branch here, then, so someone else can find it.

(Probably an elf, with his luck.)

Tim immediately starts to walking the perimeter of bug habitat, scuffing the shiny grey plastic with his rubber soled slippers. Squeak squeak squeak. It would probably be bright green in brighter lighting.

(Nothing to do with being heard. Just wanting to incentivize letting out of the damn thing.)

Although, if he gets accommodated to the sound, Tim will try warping the plastic. ]

So. Big fan of blackout conditions during the day, and you should probably know I’m a trained field medic.

[Branch rolls his eyes at the blackout conditions thing but would actually agree to it if he planned to keep him long.]

I'd find a blanket to toss over your cage if you really needed to be treated like a bird, but I don't intend to keep you trapped that long. If grabbing you doesn't get me somewhere, I'm just going to drag your cage somewhere random and tell them where I put you. I'll just stop using this bolthole.

[He means it. There's no point in keeping Tim hostage if it ultimately doesn't motivate anyone to give him what he wants.]

I also don't know what a field medic is. [His people don't have that many medical roles, what with just being one village.] But if it's something medical like a - a doctor or a healer, I'll be fine.

[They're interrupted when there's a squeal of an Elf in the near distance and Branch reacts...badly, nearly jumping out of his skin and darting over to the little entrance of the bolt hole to sneakily peer out and see if it was a squeal of discovery or perhaps one of the Elves getting caught in a trap in the distance instead.]

[There are three ways someone reacts that fast to some kind of alarming stimuli: superspeed (which he obviously doesn't have), training (which he doesn't really seem to have, since he's stealthy but not exactly graceful), or hypervigilance.]

[As he stands there, breathing hard, the ear nearest the door twitches and scans around like an animal's, suggesting that maybe that's what the very large ears evolved for: avoiding being prey. Then he finally seems satisfied that they haven't been found.]

[...but not satisfied enough to just relax when he needs a moment to rest. He finally starts talking again as he gets to work, carrying over several thumb tacks he found and putting them in front of the entrance, points upward. Something that would make someone's hand withdraw if they try to slip it in, maybe with just enough time for him to slip out and make a break for it between their feet.]

I'm not stupid. I don't care if you can do medical stuff. I'm not going to let you get close enough to attack me.

[Everything is paranoia. Everything is a potential attack.]

I'd rather have a blanket inside the cage.

[ Again, bare plastic floor. He's gone from being firmly planted on a couch with surprisingly warm quilts to a caterpillar condo, and it's not great. Tim's keeping his tongue between his teeth on one side to keep them from chattering.

The planned release is leaving Tim in the cage and telling people where he is? Yeah, it's not the kindest plan to leave someone in a cage, even if you're supposedly going to tell them where you left them. Too much can go wrong.

The sound of the elf makes Tim jump as well, but more because he's worried about being mistaken for a toy - he is inside a toy, after all - and put away. The elves... aren't bright.

But he watches Branch. The shortness of breath, the ears... it's one thing to be "paranoid" and aware of your surroundings (nothing wrong with that at all), but the troll is reading two ticks away from a panic attack. Not great. Less room to try to chat if he doesn't want to push him into more extreme behavior. ]

If I was going to try to attack you, I would've done it when you grabbed me. I'm sick, Branch. I barely did anything for 3 days, and I still feel wrung out. Frankly, I think your hair tips the scales in anything close quarters. Attacking you accomplishes nothing.

[ Without something to compete with the hair, an immediate attack is a stupid plan. He's better off trying to make himself useful and try to befriend him in hopes of de-escalating the situation. ]

You're limping. Just let me take a look. I can clean it and fix the bandages. You've got your hair and the thumbtacks. I'm the one running the risk of the jumpy guy attacking me.

[audio] The traps will continue until (his) morale improves

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