~ Tнє Pαяα∂σχ Hσυѕє ~ now back to regularly scheduled chaos

Sam | for Sam room | strider ®Hawkpath®

It didn't seem to be long before Sam had had enough. In fact, perhaps too short a time. He looked like he still wanted to gag. Everything about what had just happened was wrong and the only thing which Kelsier's blood seemed to 'fix' was that he was now far, far too aware of Nico slowly fading away beside him.
Sam rubbed at his mouth, his whole world tossing around him. It was too much. Everything felt like a problem.
So he tried to focus. Tried to reach out to Sam. Tried to cling to him and keep him real.
His shoulders were shaking.
"K-Kelsier?" he asked, teeth almost chattering with the stress. "Fix him. P-please."
He was worried. So worried. He didn't know what to do or what to say. If Nico was dying ...
Sam was crying. The tears didn't look quite right. For a vampire that was, because clearly they were still the same bloody tears that vampires cried. But this looked wrong still. Looked ... different. But he didn't recognize this.

There were very few things Nico would refuse to do if doing them ensured the safety of his loved ones. He had to admit that both Kelsier and Sam counted as loved ones. One was family, the other was… something he wasn’t ready to admit yet. The excitement in his voice, the admiration when he had told Kelsier about Sam, when he had explained their blinks together… that had been real. That had been his genuine feeling towards Sam. He had to believe it was friendship. It was the only thing that made life manageable at the moment. He couldn’t let himself believe in anything other than friendship, at least not with Sam. He pushed the thought away, annoyed that his brain had even decided to bring it up. The point was that Sam was a close friend, and he loved him enough to die for him. He hadn’t died, though he feared his body hadn’t quite gotten the message.
“I’m alive,” Nico whispered, the words barely more than an almost inaudible gasp. He reached up to try to wipe Sam’s tears from his cheek, but his arm paused midair. He didn’t quite have the strength, and he wasn’t sure what he would do if his hand melted right through Sam’s very corporeal body.
“You’re crying,” he pointed out, the pain in his voice obvious. “Why?” He wanted to be able to do something about it, but he couldn’t even get himself to his elbows. “Dad,” Nico murmured, trying to shift to see Kelsier better. He wasn’t as successful as he wanted to be. “Make Sam stop crying. You’re… you’re really good at that. You… you make me smile all the time and I’m… not smiley.” He frowned, trying to make the words come more easily, but they seemed to residing in their own part of his mind – somewhere he couldn’t quite access them.

Kelsier and Mare | Switcharoom | strider

Mare wasn’t surprised by the answer. It was the only thing that made sense, from what he’d told her. That this was a future Kelsier, one who’d escaped Hathsin with his life, and apparently his mind. That he missed her, and even loved her. That was the problem with regrets, she supposed. You couldn’t regret a thing unless it was too late to fix it.
Did Kelsier still believe she had been the one to betray him? Nico clearly didn’t, but Kel was not a man who changed his mind easily. Once he had made up his mind, he was almost impossible to sway. It made him a good thief, but it had also landed them both in here.
Or she was just losing her mind. But she trusted herself. She always had, and so far, it had kept her alive. She didn’t want to give it up now. And anyway, what good would deciding she was mad do her? It wasn’t as though she could do anything about it.
Would she rather accept that she’d lost her mind, or her life?
Her life, she decided a second later. Because that, she could try to do something about. Nico was right. She wasn’t dead right now. However this had happened, however Nico had gotten here, maybe she could change things. Maybe they could all escape.
“You’ve seen real flowers?” She breathed, eyes widening a little. “How is that possible? Is there a place outside Scadrial where they still grow? Are…are the plants green, too?”
It felt impossible. It felt like a fairy tale. But she still waited eagerly for his reply, her expression almost hungry.
And Kelsier had seen them. And the butterflies, though she couldn’t even picture those. She shook her head a tiny bit, amazement written across her face,
“Can you ask him something?” She asked very softly after a moment, letting Nico speak to him first. “Can you ask if he’s happy? I suppose he can’t hear me, if I can’t hear him, but I want the truth. No quips.”

Kelsier frowned a little. It would have been nice to know that in the last room, he figured, but he didn’t say it. As far as he could tell, Nico wasn’t thinking about that, and there was no need to add to the pile of things they were currently handling.
He listened to Nico’s reply without speaking. He hadn’t heard the question, but he could guess it well enough. She’d already figured it out, hadn’t she?
Half of him wished he’d been more careful with what he said. The other half was relieved that she didn’t have to be told. It wouldn’t have been a task he’d have liked to make Nico complete.
He stopped by the river, taking another drink as he felt the air start to smother him once again, his spin burning. He wanted to avoid using the ambrosia as much as he could. The longer it lasted, the longer he lasted, after all, and he didn’t know how long this room was going to continue. A while, probably.
How real was the Mare Nico was talking to? Had the House really blinked her in, or was she an illusion? He almost hoped she was an illusion…if she was real, it was possible that the Mare he’d seen in the room with Orpheus had been, too.
He pushed the thought away. He needed to concentrate.
So far…that wasn’t a problem. How long had Nico been in Tartarus? He should know that. But it wasn’t like he’d been willing to ask for details on a subject that was clearly hard to think about, so he didn’t know that much about it.

Mordecai glanced briefly to the girl as she started examining the room, then back to the Golden Guard, still wishing he could take back his words. Ugh what was he thinking, this was going to be a mess.
At least his next question was something he could probably answer correctly… though whether either of the other ra’Seirri- or whatever they were- would believe him or not was another question in itself.
“This place is called the Paradox House,” he started, mentally running through all the information he’d gained on it so far. He really couldn’t think of a way to make it believable so he would just have to explain what he knew and hope that they didn’t think he was crazy. “It is a type of pocket dimension that pulls people in from different worlds… we don’t know how or why, but after awhile you will be returned to where you were before and no time will have passed.” Or maybe he really was imagining it and they weren’t real. Still, he figured it was best to treat the situation as reality until proven otherwise, so he pointed toward the doorway and continued, “The doors down the hall over there can lead to anything, they seem to work like portals.” He looked between the two, hoping this was making at least some sense to them. “I don’t believe anyone fully understands it yet.”

Zuko gave a small nod, frowning back at his drawing before he looked at Sal. He could see what Sal was trying to do, and… well, it seemed he was persistent. It was admirable, even though Zuko was having trouble understanding what a check even was. He understood what banks were, at the very least, though he thought of them more as a place to deposit large sums of physical money. Best he could tell, the check Sal was asking for was supposed to represent money that actually existed elsewhere.
Another slip of paper drifted down from the ceiling, this one addressed to Sal Fisher. It likely wouldn’t blink back with him, and even if it did, the account number wasn’t going to lead to any real account that existed on Earth. The House, it seemed, had never seen the need to own a checking account.
Another piece of paper drifted down, made of the same sort of cloth paper other money was made of.
“United States of America,” Zuko read as he picked it up. He turned it around, frowning at the bust of the president. “Zalimorpho Kinsington? Who’s that?” The bill, crucially, had been created almost a thousand years after the day Sal was born.
Zuko added something small to the drawing in case the House decided to end a round based on how long it had been since the drawing had been completed. He set the marker down, brow furrowing at the offer. He was glad he was facing the board. He was grateful that Sal couldn’t see the hunger that flickered across his face.
“The only tangible thing that I want is alive,” he replied darkly, “It’s not worth the risk in this room.” He forced in a breath, then turned back to Sal. “You should… keep trying to guess, though.”

Hunter wasn’t sure whether or not to believe the Shadow of Kirro, but he didn’t really have another option. The best thing he could do was tentatively believe him but do his best to prove it for himself. It didn’t sound implausible, There were portals, after all – Emperor Belos had been searching for access to one for years. If he and Amity had ended up going through a portal… a portal to a place full of portals. Interesting.
“Yes,” he replied to Amity, switching his staff to his other hand and approaching the hallway. There had to be a portal to the Boiling Isles. More importantly, perhaps, there had to be a portal to the Human Realm. He wasn’t going to mention that to the Blight girl… she wasn’t supposed to know what Emperor Belos was looking for. Nobody was. Even Hunter wasn’t certain, but he thought he might be able to help… his eyes narrowed and he gave a firm nod.
“We’re going through a portal,” he announced, stepping confidently into the hallway. He stopped dead in his tracks, eyes widening at the sight of the unending line of doors. Okay… so maybe this was going to be more complicated than he had assumed.

Dipper blinked into the living room, sweat trickled down his pale face. He was not standing up, instead sitting on the filthy living room floor in a his usual red shirt, grey shorts, and white socks that were snug around his ankles. Sitting up smack dab in the center of the unoccupied room and without his journal no less. "Great timing, house." He groaned his breath realizing he'd awoken to something on the lines of a nightmare come true. Thankfully Gideon didn't find a way to warp time which meant Dipper had some unlikely advantage. Of all things possible, maybe he could cut this place some slack for once.

“I don’t know if that’s a good ideaaaaaaaohhhh… this place again,” Wylan exclaimed, eyes widening as cobblestones turned into dark green carpet and bright sunlight became the dim lighting of the living room. It was odd to him, how he had never blinked in once for all of his childhood, and suddenly he was blinking in at least daily. Perhaps this was just going to be the new normal. He couldn’t help but wonder… why him? It wasn’t like he was anything special. He was just… Wylan Van Eck. And now he didn’t even want the Van Eck part. He just wanted to be Wylan.
“Oh, hi,” Wylan murmured, a blush spreading across his features as he realized he wasn’t alone.

“There are good parts and bad parts to every world,” Nico murmured, trying to force a smile. It didn’t come nearly as easily as he had hoped. He took a breath out, letting his expression settle back into something carefully neutral. He didn’t want people reading him, but that only worked when he wasn’t really feeling anything in particular. When he was feeling any strong emotion, people tended to know. That was one of the downsides to having powers that reacted to his feelings. There were no such powers here, though. There was a certain freedom to being more unreadable. Was it cruel to hide part of himself from Mare when in another world she may have ended up his mother? He didn’t know how to feel about it, so he turned away and let his hand skim across the cavern wall.
“I was turned into a flower once,” Nico said conversationally, giving an uncertain laugh with the statement. “I hated every second of it. I guess I tried not to think about flowers very much after that. Until I saw a room full of them with Kelsier. Until I realized that other worlds aren’t lucky enough to have them. Until Kelsier showed me your drawing. We don’t… we don’t have that flower in my world. I hope it grows here again someday.”
Was Nico ignoring Kelsier? Not… intentionally, but yes. It was much easier to talk to Mare than it was to compliment himself to her. And he knew that Kelsier was going to make this as painful as possible. This was exactly the kind of situation he was dying to take advantage of, and there was nothing Nico could do to stop him.
“He uh. He said…” Nico hesitated, then switched into Kelsier’s tone and cadence. “I’m getting there. Sometimes. But mostly, yeah. This random kid fell into my life and made it a lot closer.” Nico crossed his arms, pursing his lips. He didn’t want to continue. If Kelsier was fighting something – and he almost definitely was, based on the soft grunts Nico could hear from Kelsier’s end of the connection – maybe he would forget what he had said. Maybe Nico could get away with not saying it… maybe if Nico saved Mare here, Kelsier could say it himself without making Nico be the middleman.

Wylan was never sure what to make of the people he encountered in the House. He hadn’t met that many people yet, but all of them had seemed nice. He had heard of people who weren’t so nice… it was only a matter of time before he ran into those sorts of people, so he was a little bit wary as he looked over at Dipper.
“Don’t… worry about it,” Wylan replied, caught off guard by Dipper’s apology. Okay, so Dipper was the nice kind. That was good to know. Wylan gave a tentative smile, raising a hand in greeting.
“I’m Wylan. Nice to meet you, Dipper.” It was interesting, he thought, how he had been warned of the cruelty on the streets of Ketterdam, and he had been explicitly warned that the House was a dangerous place, but both warnings were wrong, so far. Or maybe Wylan had just gotten lucky twice in a row.

Nico wanted to imagine that, too. He hadn’t seen Scadrial, not really. The Pits were the worst part of it, and that was all the House had decided to show him. Still, he could imagine the rest of it well enough. The ashmounts blowing ash everywhere, covering the streets and the buildings. The brown plants that only just produced enough to survive off of. No bees, no butterflies, no pollinating bugs. It wasn’t that difficult to picture, but… it was drab and depressing, and Nico knew why Mare had been drawn to the Larsta faith. He knew why she wanted to believe that the world would once again be beautiful. He had to believe that it would. One day, it would. One day, Kelsier was going to kill the Lord Ruler, and he would usher in an age when plants would grow and flowers would bloom, and… and Nico didn’t know how he was going to manage it. But he did know that if anyone was capable of it, it was Kelsier.
“Hey,” Nico replied lightly, blushing as Mare spoke again. “I got… I got lucky, I guess. I mean… if things had gone differently he would probably still hate me. And he probably would have robbed me before if I had anything worth stealing.” He couldn’t deny that Kelsier loved him, though. He couldn’t deny that he loved him back. That he had chosen Kelsier over Hades, and as painful as the decision had been, he had no regrets about it.
“Shut up,” Nico mumbled, his blush deepening. “You know full well that trying to save the world is less impressive when you’re already in the middle of it.” He glanced at Mare, wishing she could hear Kelsier, too. Wishing he didn’t have to be the one to translate. “And you’ve saved my life far more times than I’ve saved yours, so that’s not even something you can brag about me for.”

| Victoria | Blender Room |

"Put it back away?" Victoria guessed incorrectly, trying to interpret what Eliyen had said. "Put what back?" She asked the other blinkers stuck inside the blender, looking from Steve to Rex as the two spoke.

She trotted over, slipping on the sliced fruit, and put her front paws up on the glass and tried to peer out into the kitchen. Then she hopped down, paused, and hopped up again. "Hey, what if we all push on one side? Maybe we can knock it over."

Ronan | Blender Room

“What is that supposed to mean?” Ronan yelled back as Eliyen tried to reply. He couldn’t quite make out what she’d said, and the glass made reading her lips impossible, which probably meant she couldn’t hear him either. He let his breath hiss between his teeth. With no way to communicate with her, she could easily think one of them pointing at the buttons meant telling her to press them, not to under no circumstances interact with them in any way.
He turned, taking in the others instead. He didn’t recognize anyone, which wasn’t all that surprising, since he didn’t know many people here. Still…he wished Zuko would appear. It’d be nice to have someone competent in with them.
“Anyone know sign language?” He asked loudly, waving a hand. “You know, maybe before that random girl out there starts pressing buttons?”

Sal | Pictionary Room | strider

Sal caught the paper, pulling the first one out of his pocket at the same time and tucking them together. Both of them were utterly useless, but he was tempted to keep one anyway, in case it actually did blink back with him. He could use it as a souvenir if nothing else. Maybe a bookmark.
He looked up as another piece of paper drifted down from the ceiling, watching as Zuko caught it. Maybe…?
“Zalimorpho Kinsington,” he repeated incredulously. “They’re…our president, apparently. Which means they could easily have changed their name and must have decided not to. Which, you know, respect, I guess. Maybe it’s a red herring, everyone’s so busy thinking about their name that they don’t have to worry about making smart decisions with the fate of the entire country. Actually, you know what? None of my business, they can have whatever name they want. Actually, why am I defending a made up president?”
He hadn’t meant to ramble, but he did it when he was nervous. He didn’t like to seem nervous, but the truth was that he still didn’t really understand what was happening, and he wasn’t positive that Zuko was right in thinking he’d go back after a while.
He hesitated, a more serious look in his eye as he glanced at Zuko. The other boy wasn’t facing him, but the tone surprised him. It wasn’t the same light tone he’d been using before.
He didn’t reply for a long moment, then gave a tiny nod. “Well, let me know if you change your mind. Maybe this place thinks I’m being greedy…actually, how specific does it need to be? Is it something I’ll think is really cool?”