[Fic] "Trollstuck," part 24 - Homestuck
Oct. 12th, 2012 10:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
edenfallingback to part 23
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Trollstuck, part 24
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====>Jothan: Wake
When you blink your way back into muzzy awareness, you are lying flat on your back on what appears to be one of Equius's worktables. A wide leather strap is fastened over your waist, and there are some objects resting on a tall stool beside your head. You grope awkwardly in their direction, hoping to find your glasses.
Success! You fumble the frames onto your face. The lenses are cracked beyond repair, but they're still better than nothing. And now you can see to open your sylladex, which always has a spare set since that time you ended up half-blind in Alonde's hive and nearly died about eight times over between the water, the squid, her lusus, and her creepy summoning circles.
You successfully decaptchalogue your spare glasses without launching anything across the room. Then you unbuckle the leather strap, sit up, and look around properly.
The room is made of bare stone with no windows and a locked steel door -- probably somewhere way down in the canyon wall, then. A heap of broken robot parts lies in one corner. Equius is so weird about those robots! They never manage to give him a good fight, no matter how STRONG he builds them, because he can't program them to be unpredictable enough. He should just get over his issues and ask Sollux for software help. But no, that would be beneath his dignity as a b100b100d or whatever it is he's always going on about. Stupid, stupid, dumb!
There are three other things on the stool beside the table: a glass of milk, a folded paper, and your handheld wireless computing device. Oh wow, Casey survived! Awesome!
You should probably read Equius's note before you go online, though.
====>Read note
You unfold the paper. In midnight blue ink, it says:
D --> Jothan Aeolio
D --> While it was ine%cusably rude for you to invade my hive, I feel it incumbent upon me to prevent your death through negligence insofar as that is possible
D --> I e%amined you for spinal trauma and found none
D --> Nonetheless I insist that you remain lying down and have locked the door to ensure this course of action
D --> I have gone to salvage the wreckage of your rocketcycle and 100k at the foundations of my hive
D --> The milk and your wireless device are available in case you wake while I am gone
D --> Do not try anything foalish such as begging my neighbor for rescue
D --> We will discuss this further when I return
D --> Equius Zahhak
====>Try something foalish
Don't you mean foolish? Hahahaha!
Anyway, you don't need Vriska to rescue you. Unless Equius has done something really weird to the walls or the door, you can break out whenever you want. That's what your warhammer is for.
You grab it from your strife specibus and take an experimental swing at the door. The dent is about the depth you expected, given the strength behind your blow. Yeah, okay. Locks, what locks?
But you might as well wait until Equius gets back so you can ask him if he knows anything about this conspiracy. You're pretty sure he has a thing for Aradia, and he made Jarlia's dreambot so... oh, hang on, what if he's the one behind this, and he programmed the robot to screw up Jarlia's visions? That would be just like the plot of a movie you and Vriska watched five perigees ago, all layers under layers until even Niklas Cayidj could hardly figure out who the real mastermind behind the evil conspiracy was!
So yeah. You're not going anywhere just yet.
In the meantime, you might as well check Trollian and see who was trying to reach you.
====>Read log
-- caligulasAquarium [CA] began trolling ghastlyTrickster [GT] --
CA: hey joth wwhats up
CA: wwoww i am so fuckin tired right noww you havve no idea
CA: stupid lon an her stupid magic
CA: wwhich i guess isnt quite as fake as i used ta believve
CA: i mean maybe hypnosis could explain the non-euclidean lightshoww an the noises that wwerent actually noises that i heard and saww
CA: as wwell as the huge fuckin headache i havve
CA: but the slime burns on my poor ships rail an the wweird unctuous film cloggin up my gun are kinda hard to dispute
CA: an the inside out glowwy corpse on the deck is an evven better argument that black magic is a thing that exists
CA: by wwhich i mean lon set a fuckin alien death squid monster on me
CA: an fef didnt do one damn thing ta stop her
CA: wwhat kind a romance is that i ask you
CA: ...
CA: wwhere the fuck are you joth wwhy arent you answwerin me you douchelord
CA: i just wwant ta commiserate about that huge wwitch come on talk ta me
CA: she an aradia are plannin all kinds of treason
CA: stuff to do wwith ancestors an legendary traitors an vvolcanoes an eldritch summons an wwho knowws wwhat else
CA: ...
CA: joth wwhat the fuck
CA: wwhat is this
CA: youre not the kind a troll to givve a guy the cold shoulder for no reason
CA: an NO your jokes dont count as reasons
CA: wwoww fuck you an this silence bullshit
CA: is this some kind of black solicitation
CA: are you in cahoots wwith lon noww
CA: do you think playin horrorterror games an callin the condesces attention dowwn on our friends is funny or something
CA: oh shit you wwould think thats hilarious wwouldnt you
CA: you are exactly that kind of cracked in the brain
CA: an noww youre tryin ta get me to flip my shit since im on ta you arent you
CA: wwell its not gonna wwork i am not the kind of wweak wwilled wwimp ta roll ovver an play scared for you bulgemunchers
CA: you wwant black you got it
CA: ill bust into your hivve an leavve the squid monster in your coon see if i wwont
CA: an wwhatever you an lon are plannin i wwill wwreck your shit like shit has nevver been wwrecked in all the history of the univverse
CA: just wwatch me
CA: it is ON
-- caligulasAquarium [CA] ceased trolling ghastlyTrickster [GT] --
====>Answer Eridan and correct his assumptions
What are you, crazy? It's way funnier to let this go for a while. Besides, it's not like Eridan could really be a threat to anyone. Watching him try to rope you into a kismesissitude will be hilarity of the highest degree.
(You do wish you could figure out which of those three is auspisticizing for which other two, though. You're pretty sure it started with Alonde mediating when Eridan and Feferi flipped black, but this sounds like Eridan's accusing Feferi of not mediating between him and Alonde. And you've seen Alonde and Feferi get all quiet and deadly at each other a couple times (which was terrifying and you really, really wish you hadn't been in the same room to watch) until Eridan broke the tension by being all socially inept at them, so... in conclusion they are kinky and make no sense and argh! You hate trying to figure romance out. It's hard and no one understands.)
Instead, you think you'll head across the canyon. You can apologize to Equius later, after you've made sure Vriska's all right -- assuming he's not secretly an evil mastermind or someone else's evil minion, of course.
You drink the milk (your throat is dry, okay?) and scribble a quick note on the back of the letter:
~~ hey equius, thanks for not tossing me over the cliff, haha! sorry about breaking your window and now your door. i'll help fix them later, or just pay for the supplies, whichever you want!
~~ jothan
You are just about to pick up your warhammer and bust through the door like you're an unjustly imprisoned spy breaking out of Troll Alcatraz when Casey pings. Someone is trolling you.
Oh, goddammit.
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---------------
From here on your choices are going to get fairly restricted -- this plot arc has hit critical inevitability and I don't want to derail it -- but I will try to leave some things open for suggestions. (And you can always suggest future plot arcs!) In this particular case, the person trolling Jothan is Karkat. That is not up for debate. But I would love any ideas for how he should open the conversation, and how Jothan should respond. :-)
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continue to part 25
And now to bed, since I have to be at work at 9am tomorrow. Bleh, mornings.
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Trollstuck, part 24
---------------------------------------------
====>Jothan: Wake
When you blink your way back into muzzy awareness, you are lying flat on your back on what appears to be one of Equius's worktables. A wide leather strap is fastened over your waist, and there are some objects resting on a tall stool beside your head. You grope awkwardly in their direction, hoping to find your glasses.
Success! You fumble the frames onto your face. The lenses are cracked beyond repair, but they're still better than nothing. And now you can see to open your sylladex, which always has a spare set since that time you ended up half-blind in Alonde's hive and nearly died about eight times over between the water, the squid, her lusus, and her creepy summoning circles.
You successfully decaptchalogue your spare glasses without launching anything across the room. Then you unbuckle the leather strap, sit up, and look around properly.
The room is made of bare stone with no windows and a locked steel door -- probably somewhere way down in the canyon wall, then. A heap of broken robot parts lies in one corner. Equius is so weird about those robots! They never manage to give him a good fight, no matter how STRONG he builds them, because he can't program them to be unpredictable enough. He should just get over his issues and ask Sollux for software help. But no, that would be beneath his dignity as a b100b100d or whatever it is he's always going on about. Stupid, stupid, dumb!
There are three other things on the stool beside the table: a glass of milk, a folded paper, and your handheld wireless computing device. Oh wow, Casey survived! Awesome!
You should probably read Equius's note before you go online, though.
====>Read note
You unfold the paper. In midnight blue ink, it says:
D --> Jothan Aeolio
D --> While it was ine%cusably rude for you to invade my hive, I feel it incumbent upon me to prevent your death through negligence insofar as that is possible
D --> I e%amined you for spinal trauma and found none
D --> Nonetheless I insist that you remain lying down and have locked the door to ensure this course of action
D --> I have gone to salvage the wreckage of your rocketcycle and 100k at the foundations of my hive
D --> The milk and your wireless device are available in case you wake while I am gone
D --> Do not try anything foalish such as begging my neighbor for rescue
D --> We will discuss this further when I return
D --> Equius Zahhak
====>Try something foalish
Don't you mean foolish? Hahahaha!
Anyway, you don't need Vriska to rescue you. Unless Equius has done something really weird to the walls or the door, you can break out whenever you want. That's what your warhammer is for.
You grab it from your strife specibus and take an experimental swing at the door. The dent is about the depth you expected, given the strength behind your blow. Yeah, okay. Locks, what locks?
But you might as well wait until Equius gets back so you can ask him if he knows anything about this conspiracy. You're pretty sure he has a thing for Aradia, and he made Jarlia's dreambot so... oh, hang on, what if he's the one behind this, and he programmed the robot to screw up Jarlia's visions? That would be just like the plot of a movie you and Vriska watched five perigees ago, all layers under layers until even Niklas Cayidj could hardly figure out who the real mastermind behind the evil conspiracy was!
So yeah. You're not going anywhere just yet.
In the meantime, you might as well check Trollian and see who was trying to reach you.
====>Read log
-- caligulasAquarium [CA] began trolling ghastlyTrickster [GT] --
CA: hey joth wwhats up
CA: wwoww i am so fuckin tired right noww you havve no idea
CA: stupid lon an her stupid magic
CA: wwhich i guess isnt quite as fake as i used ta believve
CA: i mean maybe hypnosis could explain the non-euclidean lightshoww an the noises that wwerent actually noises that i heard and saww
CA: as wwell as the huge fuckin headache i havve
CA: but the slime burns on my poor ships rail an the wweird unctuous film cloggin up my gun are kinda hard to dispute
CA: an the inside out glowwy corpse on the deck is an evven better argument that black magic is a thing that exists
CA: by wwhich i mean lon set a fuckin alien death squid monster on me
CA: an fef didnt do one damn thing ta stop her
CA: wwhat kind a romance is that i ask you
CA: ...
CA: wwhere the fuck are you joth wwhy arent you answwerin me you douchelord
CA: i just wwant ta commiserate about that huge wwitch come on talk ta me
CA: she an aradia are plannin all kinds of treason
CA: stuff to do wwith ancestors an legendary traitors an vvolcanoes an eldritch summons an wwho knowws wwhat else
CA: ...
CA: joth wwhat the fuck
CA: wwhat is this
CA: youre not the kind a troll to givve a guy the cold shoulder for no reason
CA: an NO your jokes dont count as reasons
CA: wwoww fuck you an this silence bullshit
CA: is this some kind of black solicitation
CA: are you in cahoots wwith lon noww
CA: do you think playin horrorterror games an callin the condesces attention dowwn on our friends is funny or something
CA: oh shit you wwould think thats hilarious wwouldnt you
CA: you are exactly that kind of cracked in the brain
CA: an noww youre tryin ta get me to flip my shit since im on ta you arent you
CA: wwell its not gonna wwork i am not the kind of wweak wwilled wwimp ta roll ovver an play scared for you bulgemunchers
CA: you wwant black you got it
CA: ill bust into your hivve an leavve the squid monster in your coon see if i wwont
CA: an wwhatever you an lon are plannin i wwill wwreck your shit like shit has nevver been wwrecked in all the history of the univverse
CA: just wwatch me
CA: it is ON
-- caligulasAquarium [CA] ceased trolling ghastlyTrickster [GT] --
====>Answer Eridan and correct his assumptions
What are you, crazy? It's way funnier to let this go for a while. Besides, it's not like Eridan could really be a threat to anyone. Watching him try to rope you into a kismesissitude will be hilarity of the highest degree.
(You do wish you could figure out which of those three is auspisticizing for which other two, though. You're pretty sure it started with Alonde mediating when Eridan and Feferi flipped black, but this sounds like Eridan's accusing Feferi of not mediating between him and Alonde. And you've seen Alonde and Feferi get all quiet and deadly at each other a couple times (which was terrifying and you really, really wish you hadn't been in the same room to watch) until Eridan broke the tension by being all socially inept at them, so... in conclusion they are kinky and make no sense and argh! You hate trying to figure romance out. It's hard and no one understands.)
Instead, you think you'll head across the canyon. You can apologize to Equius later, after you've made sure Vriska's all right -- assuming he's not secretly an evil mastermind or someone else's evil minion, of course.
You drink the milk (your throat is dry, okay?) and scribble a quick note on the back of the letter:
~~ hey equius, thanks for not tossing me over the cliff, haha! sorry about breaking your window and now your door. i'll help fix them later, or just pay for the supplies, whichever you want!
~~ jothan
You are just about to pick up your warhammer and bust through the door like you're an unjustly imprisoned spy breaking out of Troll Alcatraz when Casey pings. Someone is trolling you.
Oh, goddammit.
---------------
---------------
---------------
From here on your choices are going to get fairly restricted -- this plot arc has hit critical inevitability and I don't want to derail it -- but I will try to leave some things open for suggestions. (And you can always suggest future plot arcs!) In this particular case, the person trolling Jothan is Karkat. That is not up for debate. But I would love any ideas for how he should open the conversation, and how Jothan should respond. :-)
---------------------------------------------
continue to part 25
And now to bed, since I have to be at work at 9am tomorrow. Bleh, mornings.
