[OPEN] KEEP THE EARTH BELOW MY FEET

[skeletonenigma]

Characters: Skulduggery Pleasant and YOU.
Date: Throughout March.
Location: All over. Skulduggery's splitting his time between the Palace demolition, the Hotel, and... everywhere else, really. But if you're looking for him, those first two places are the best places to look.
Situation: Now that Skul has his Bentley back, he's in a much more approachable state of mind. Approach! He's also taking active steps towards solving the symbol puzzle, so if you see him flying over the Sectors, that's probably what he's up to.
Warnings/Rating: None yet. Apart from maybe a love affair with a car.

A)
Skulduggery spends at least a section of each day up on the Palace grounds, occasionally helping with the physical work of the demolition, but more often than not somewhere near the library, keeping an eye on what the kedan workers are doing with it. As long as the sealed-over entrance to the basement area doesn't get touched, however, Skulduggery doesn't interfere - and he even goes so far as to help the university kedan catalogue the collection of books.

In a marked observable difference from the previous months, Skulduggery's now almost perpetually cheerful. You might hear him whistling 'Tiptoe through the Tulips' as he works.

That changes when the Dust contamination becomes apparent. Although Skulduggery himself isn't affected for obvious reasons, he's visibly relieved to discover the poisonings don't have permanent consequences, and he starts investigating where the contamination might have come from. That investigation takes him into all of the areas deemed too unsafe for the demolition work, but most noticeably the Throne Room.

B)
While the Hotel garage is still being constructed, the Bentley itself is parked outside the Central Sector entrance. Contrary to popular belief, Skulduggery isn't there all the time, a fact which certain gang kedan try to take early advantage of. From about March 6th onwards, the Bentley gets given a wide berth, due to the stories of Skulduggery chasing up and giving those gang kedan what he called a very firm talking-to.

When Skulduggery is with his car, he's usually polishing it, or fixing the small dents and scratches it acquired while it was with Yunxu - once again whistling 'Tiptoe through the Tulips' as he works. He generally has his magical face on for the first half-an-hour, wears it out until it starts misbehaving, and then abandons it.

C)
Every so often, Skulduggery tries to follow a mental map of the console symbols through Keeliai, flying above the rooftops and landing in the centre of each Sector, following a pattern he changes slightly each time. If you catch him when he's landed, he's usually muttering, but he'll be happy enough to stop and explain what he's doing. Any help, after all, is always appreciated.

Comments

B

[jinzhong]

Keeping aside the question of how a skeleton without lips can whistle - or, er, talk, really - the whistling and the polishing catches Jackie's attention one morning in early March, and he turns to see Skulduggery polishing a car. A very familiar car.

Okay, he'd sort of gotten used to the skeleton, even if he'd been too weirded out by his existence to ever talk to him much. But he can't stop himself from blurting out, "Is that Yunxu's car?"

[skeletonenigma]

A flash of irritation is not the best way to start a conversation, so Skulduggery doesn't answer right away. When he does, however, his voice is even.

"No. It's mine. Yunxu stole it while we were under the shell fighting Malicant. I've simply taken it back."

Courtesy of China, which Skulduggery still needs to thank her for, come to think of it. That he owes her a favour goes without saying, but a verbal sentiment likely won't go unappreciated either.

[jinzhong]

"...oh." Well, at least the skeleton guy hadn't bitten his head off. Because them chompers look sharp. "Sorry. I didn't know."

He shifts from foot to foot. Yunxu's probably not going to be happy about this. Well, he probably already knows. Which would explain why he'd seemed a little irritated lately, and not just with Jackie's failure to get anything of note about Heojin so far. "Uh, well, I'm glad you've got it back, then, I guess."

[skeletonenigma]

"Thank you." For a moment, Skulduggery considers turning back to the polishing and leaving the conversation at that, but two things stop him. Firstly, he's trying to avoid being rude without a valid reason these days. Secondly, he has a question. And it's a very important question.

"How did you know Yunxu had it?" he asks, folding his arms. "He hasn't been driving it around, has he?"

[jinzhong]

"Uh, not that I saw," Jackie says, a little worried by this line of questioning. "Mostly he was just braggin' about it, showin' it off. I don't think he knows how to drive it."

b.

[akito]

Look! A car! It likely belongs to someone, but that's beyond Akito's current mental capacity at the moment because it's a car. He hasn't seen one in forever, and while they certainly aren't Air Trecks, Akito has to admit that he's missed seeing cars around.

Upon closer inspection it's a bit dinged up and damaged, which is definitely... Not cool. He doesn't have anything on him to pull dents out or fix scratches in the clear coating and so just checks how deep the damage is on all of them, curious.

Eventually he gives up and caves to the desire to peek first under the hood (there are some pretty neat alterations), and then under the body of the vehicle itself. His coat already needs a washing from an earlier delivery so he doesn't mind a little extra dirt if it means he can nose around in mechanics for a bit, even if he isn't actually doing anything apart from admiring. Being small has always been useful for fixing up the RV - no need for a carjack in most cases - and it doesn't fail him this time, either.

[skeletonenigma]

When Skulduggery returns to the Bentley late in the day, he's treated to an image of someone's feet poking out from underneath the bodywork. A quick visual inspection of his car doesn't reveal any new dents or damage, so he's not inclined towards violence, but it really is about time these local kedan start recognising that touching his car is a criminal offence.

"Hello," he says deceptively calmly, standing over the pair of feet. "Can I ask what you're doing under there?"

[akito]

What he's doing, Skulduggery, is letting out a muffled noise of fright, immediately followed by a thud as he bashes his head on the underside of the Bentley. Hard enough to knock him out for a handful of seconds, then leave him stunned for a good handful longer.

[skeletonenigma]

Oh, for the love of - thud is not a very good noise to hear around a car in any circumstance, but particularly when that car is Skulduggery's Bentley and the muffled noise of fright which came right before the thud was, if Skulduggery isn't very much mistaken, someone he knows is prone to clumsy accidents.

"Akito?"

No answer. Skulduggery bends down and pulls the teenage boy out from underneath his car, makes sure he isn't dead, and then tries again. "Akito? Are you okay?"

[akito]

He's still stunned when he's extracted from underneath the Bentley, but another couple of seconds and he blinks once, twice-

"It's gonna rust!" Akito blurts it out, clearly not entirely back to himself - dazed, at the very least - but at least responsive again. "The belly is gonna rust if you don't treat it."

A vague gesture with an arm, presumably meant to indicate the car behind him. "I- Um, I didn't do anything to it I just haven't seen a car in forever and had to see why there's a car here, so..."

Yeah.

"I forgot how creepy you look! A... A biological impossibility!"

C

[sonjaofyellowcomet]

"Have you found out anything with these paths?" Sonja isn't quite convinced that the puzzle actually involves moving between sectors, but it was unwise to rule out possibilities that hadn't been conclusively disproven.

[skeletonenigma]

"Anything useful?" Skulduggery shook his head. "The coffee beans at the Hotel suggest that each Sector has a specific time when items from the Dreaming become permanent, but that doesn't rule out the possibility of the console messages outlining paths. The Hotel sits in every one of the Sectors at the same time, after all."

He fell silent for a minute, seemingly staring into space, or at least at the very uninteresting brick wall of the Central Sector building they were standing across from. Then he came back to his senses and returned his attention to Sonja. "We haven't spoken in a while. How have you been settling in?"

[sonjaofyellowcomet]

Oh, an abrupt subject change focusing on Sonja. She was generally not a fan of those.

"I'm-" steadily alienating every foreigner and kedan she meets? "...doing alright. I have a job now, and I'm also volunteering at the welcome center."

Let's move the subject to something other than Sonja. Something like...

"Do you actually have to move your mouth to talk? I mean you don't have lips, or a larynx, so your voice must be generated through some other means, right?"

[skeletonenigma]

"It is," Skulduggery assured her. "Magic."

For some reason, many of the Foreigners in Keeliai were reluctant to accept that answer at face value. There was a period of time when Skulduggery had become used to the probing questions, and then they'd very quickly become annoying. Today, he would entertain them, partly because Sonja hadn't done anything to annoy him yet and partly because the paths through the Sectors were beginning to frustrate him.

"I don't consciously move my mouth when I talk any more than you do," he said. "It just happens. If I keep my jaw shut..." He demonstrated, and the rest of the sentence was lost amid the 'mm'-ing sounds of someone who'd been gagged.

[confirmationbias]

Call it whatever you want. More often than not, these 'magic' things tended to follow their own rules. She wasn't concerned with learning the physics, she was just struck by peculiar fancies sometimes. What it felt like to be a skeleton was a far more interesting question than 'what exact physics allow you to exist.'

"It seems its more of a psychological limit than a physiological one then- of course maybe the psychological aspect is all that matters if you lack a physiology? Are you the actual you that existed as a human or just a remnant, like a shadow or an echo? Then again, I supposed you'd first have to define what a human is to begin with." The last comment was directed more at herself than at Skullduggery.

C

[gathersnomoss]

"What are you doing?"

Zel had jsut seen Skul land in the Water sector and clearly was absorbed in something.

[skeletonenigma]

Skulduggery hadn't been at it for very long that day - less than half an hour, in fact, which was why he was still wearing the magical disguise China made for him. It took him a moment to realise the question was directed at him, and when he recognised one of the other Foreigners, he let the disguise fall. He didn't know Zelgadis very well, but he wanted to conserve the time his disguise had left. And honestly, the Foreigners should really all have known about the skeleton in their midst by then.

"Solving the mystery of the console messages," he replied. "Someone suggested they could be referring to paths through Keeliai, and I'm testing that theory."

[gathersnomoss]

Yes, Zel knew and didn't particularly care.

"Any luck?" Zelgadis said. He remembered that discussion.

[skeletonenigma]

"Not yet," Skulduggery admitted, the frustration evident in his tone. "I know what the console messages are referring to, but there must be more to the instructions than being in a certain Sector at a certain time, or we would probably be hearing about instantaneous substantial increases in wealth among the kedan. Have you?"

[gathersnomoss]

"Nothing," Zelgadis said. "Either we need to do something or we are going about this all wrong."

A - as promised - post-quarantine

[theideaguy]

Ugh, Sokka does not feel good still. While he's technically been let out of quarantine, he still feels like a complete wreck. While the technical signs of the Dust contamination have left his system, Sokka... is still having headaches and just generally low energy levels. But unfortunately he's expected back on the job, and thankfully it's only going to get better, though there still will be the frequent withdrawal symptoms of distraction, lack of focus, and a generally tired malaise.

But he's on sight and under the Metalworkers' employ; the show must go on.

And so he's moving around at about half-speed, shuffling through reports on his clipboard as he collects data from the teams and catches up on all the progress reports from all the workers. And it's because of that lack of focus... or perhaps lack of awareness, Sokka is staring straight down at his clipboard before running headlong into Skulduggery somewhere in front of the throne room.

Of course, Sokka's not going supposed to be heading straight into that place as it was one of the off-limits zones. But that doesn't mean he won't be passing it.

"Oof!" he says as Sokka makes a wild and flailing (though successful) attempt to catch his balance before falling over. "Sorry," he says, clearly still not seemingly awake. "Didn't see you there....... oh hey, Skull... Skulduggery, right? Haven't talked to you in a while."

[skeletonenigma]

Skulduggery's taken to making absolutely sure there isn't a single speck of dust - drug or otherwise - anywhere on his skeletal frame whenever he leaves the throne room, and for good reason. He hasn't gone so far as to physically run into someone before, but there's a first time for everything.

So he can be relatively sure that Sokka's distracted and tired demeanor has nothing to do with being immediately dosed right then.

"Should you be working?" Skulduggery asks doubtfully. "You look one step short of collapsing." Raine certainly wouldn't have given this a clean bill of health, which means it was likely one of the kedan overseers who ended the quarantine. Not that it's any of Skulduggery's business, strictly speaking, but the clipboard makes it look like Sokka's in charge of something, and that's enough cause for alarm.

[theideaguy]

Sokka shakes his head a little bit, trying to clear out some of the lingering effects and to give him a dosage of focus at least for a proper conversation. He looks up, realises who it is. He smirks and points innocently to Skul's chest. "Well, if I can be honest, you look one step short of dying, really," he says. At least Sokka's wit is about him; that must be a good sign, right.

But yeah, after that, Sokka's going to hold his fingers on his nose, pinching slightly. That's seemed to help get him through the day so far. "Well, you know how it goes. Quarantine is lifted, and so they wanted everyone back on the job. Believe me, you have no idea just how much better I feel today than, what..." He starts counting on his hands until he gets to seven. "...seven days ago when I fully got hit with... the Dust thing."

[skeletonenigma]

Skulduggery regarded Sokka with what on a human face would probably have been something like amused disbelief - the visual equivalent of sarcasm. Then, after a few moments, he tilted his head. "Close. But as I've already died, I'm more accurately one step short of living."

With that correction out of the way, Skulduggery made a conscious decision to take Sokka at his word - nothing had gone extraordinarily wrong in the past few days, after all - and moved on to a more important question. "You were fully hit? Did anyone manage to locate where that was?"

[theideaguy]

It takes Sokka slightly longer to get the joke. It really is funny, but his brain still isn't running at capacity. But the laugh comes, and it's a deep laugh. Yeah, Sokka loves that one. "Okay, okay, you got me on that one. I suppose it does fit a little better." After all, if Skul hadn't already died, well, he'd have hated to see little Skul when he was younger.

But that's a minor footnote. "I take it you mean more specifically than just the Palace?" Sokka says, with an ounce of sarcasm. "Don't know, really. And I actually haven't asked yet. For me, it felt like it came out of nowhere. I... think I was... in the vicinity the throne room?" he says, trying to remember back. "Not that we're destroying the throne room, of course, but somewhere around there. All of a sudden, I just felt... like I had drunk the world's largest supply of cactus juice."