fandomhighdorms | Main Campfire, Early Monday Morning

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Main Campfire, Early Monday Morning

A day after Fandom's arrival in Arkham Reservoir, something changed.

It started with the water underneath Fandom's rocky base. Shortly after night had set in, something pushed itself upwards, displacing rock and earth and mud on its way. It cracked the surface within minutes, splitting the main campfire apart. Water spilled forth from the newly-created gash, leaving behind a shallow pool.

It wasn't much. It could have been caused by the rain. Except the fissure that had spilled it was visible right beneath the surface, and with it, this most peculiar piece of meteor, of a color somewhat hard to define.

Anakin (and Ralph)	Anakin was maybe a little bit excited to be here. He hadn’t run from the police station, but he’d certainly been walking in enough of a hurry to get Ralph a little winded. When they got there, Anakin looked at the water and frowned. “What happened to the campfire?” Anakin had never been afraid to ask the super-obvious questions.
Zoe	"Excited" might not have been the word to describe Zoe, but she was definitely intrigued. "It seems to have disappeared," she said, not afraid to give the super-obvious answers. "Under water and...well, I'm not quite sure what that thing is yet. It doesn't seem to be ticking, so that's something."
Bo	Bo might have been a little excited. In the purely professional way! This was the first time she’d actually been called out to do something in her security position, aside from monitor the picnic for pickpocketing goth girls. “It almost looks like opal, but.... not.” She crouched down to get a closer look at the rocky thing in the firepit, then swiped her fingers through the water to see if it was just the distortion from that which made it hard to pick out the colour. “...Whoa.”
Anakin	”Why do I have a sudden bad feeling about your ‘whoa’?” Anakin asked, crouching down as well.
Bo	”No, it’s not bad... I guess?” Bo stared down at the rock, except... “You’re gonna think I’m nuts, but this thing almost feels like it’s...alive.” She wasn’t sure she wanted to tell them how it felt alive.
Barney	Barney was less than enthused than the others to be staring at a rock first thing in the morning...though he didn't mind seem to mind staring at Bo's rack. "Blah, blah, blah! Sure it's pretty and maybe there's a baby dragon inside, but that's not my thing. Which of the miscreants did it?" He thought this was the obvious explanation in light of well, the population.
Deadpool	While Bo’s breasts were fabulous and all there, that didn’t mean they should be the focus right now. He snapped his fingers at Barney’s face, shaking his head. “Focus on things that are obviously the beginning of a SyFy original. If anyone from the government shows up to quarantine this place, I’m out of here faster than you can say ‘OH GOD, WHAT IS THAT COMING OUT OF MY CHEST? OH GOD! OH GOD!’” A beat. “Admittedly, that might be pretty quick.”
Zoe	"Forget the government," Zoe said, crouching down next to Bo. "If this thing is alive, should we quarantine it? The students probably shouldn't be poking at it, living or not."
Anakin	”It’s a rock,” Anakin replied. “It can’t be that tough to move it out of the way. Hopefully the students won’t look at the water and think ‘ooh, swimming’...maybe a sign, just in case?” Because Anakin had met the students.
Bo	”Maybe a sign and a guard dog?” Bo had met the students too. She frowned and actually reached through the water to grab at the... thing that she really didn’t think was a rock, because rocks didn’t exude the succubus-measurable desire to... “Erk!” Yeah, she’d be taking that hand back now.
Deadpool	Maybe rocks where she was from. Try that on a cosmic cube, baby. Just you try. “I think some of the kids are actually dogs and/or turn into them, so I recommend some sort of high-pitched whistle as well,” Deadpool added, leaning over to peer at the stone too. And maybe give it a careful prod with the blade of his sword. “Eeeew, it’s squishy like a person!” Thanks for being helpful, Deadpool.
Zoe	After that kind of a description, Zoe had to reach in to give the stone a poke as well, and she made a disgusted face as she drew her hand back out of the water. "Yeah, that's definitely not something we should just leave sitting here. What should we do with it?"
Anakin	”Need a really ugly paperweight?” Anakin asked, trying to lift the thing and grunting in surprise. “It’s bigger than it seems.” Way to set up a “that’s what he said,” Anakin...
Barney	Hey, that joke was too obvious for even Barney to go after. Which isn't to say he didn't think about it. "Skywalker, now is not the time for jokes about the inchworm in your pants! Now do your finger waving voodoo and airlift this thing out of here so we can all get back to our morning lawn watching." No, they should never have given him a window with that particular view. And yes, he was kind of getting freaked out about the whole creepy rock that seemed to bother even the weirdos who were never freaked out about anything.
Bo	”If I find out the cheerleaders practice out there ...” Bo said, giving him a sidewise look -- then pausing and not wondering if there was a camera that covered the lawn, because age limits, she could haz them. “I won’t be any more confused about why you’re the dean of students,” she finally, truthfully, finished. Because she really couldn’t be any more confused about that.
Anakin	”Inchworm?!” No, Anakin hadn’t progressed from that part of the conversation. He accidentally (only not at all) nudged Barney into the water under the guise of stretching his arms out to yank the rock out using the Force. Lifting rocks was one of the most elementary lessons of a young Padawan, after all, which was why he was more than a little embarrassed that the thing didn’t move. “Um,” he stammered eloquently.
Barney	Knocked into the creepy water, Barney cried out like a little girl about his suit getting all wet as he splashed around, not that anyone was probably paying him any attention. "He-he pushed me! You all saw it! Don't tell me you're gonna let Professor McMullet get away with this sort of behavior, Principal Hotness!" Because obviously Zoe should like Barney better. She saved him from that cryogenic freezing pod thing after all! “Think of what it teaches the children!”
Zoe	"It teaches them not to insult someone's man parts when they can do finger waving voodoo," Zoe said, trying not to smirk. That effort was helped quite a bit when she looked at Anakin. "Um?" she repeated.
Anakin	”It seems to be stuck,” Anakin said. “Maybe we can saw a piece of it off?”.
Deadpool	"Your magical little powers don't work?" Deadpool asked, jabbing it again with the sword. "Somewhere, George Lucas is crying into his over-priced Zima at a bar where the pick up line 'I'm George Lucas' doesn't work." Another hard jab managed to cut a line into what was visible through the water. "It's still squishy."
Bo	That just increased the feeling Bo was picking up of....fine, she was going to come right out and say it, no matter how stupid it sounded. It wasn’t like reading a human, but animals and even plants gave off some feeling of sexual energy. Everything alive wanted to reproduce itself. “I think you’re turning it on.”
Deadpool	"...okay, someone slap a not safe for work label on this," Deadpool replied, jabbing it again for good measure.
Anakin	Anakin gave Deadpool a quick “what the hell are you talking about” look before turning his attention to Bo. “It’s a rock that likes getting poked. This is going to be an interesting few days, huh?”
Bo	”I was a mouse for the last week. After that, horny rocks are...still freaking weird, but at least I have opposable thumbs.”
Deadpool	”Pff, I was a dingo for way too long once. The only good part was stealing food from people who worked for Nate,” Deadpool replied, using his other sword to scoop the now broken piece of stone up out of the water. “Oh, that’s not a normal color. That’s a color that needs a ‘u’ in it and will turn you into a ranting lunatic from staring at it too long. Like watching The View too long...”
Anakin	Anakin stared at Deadpool for a long, long moment. Finally: “...so it’s a Canadian rock?”
Zoe	"If it was a Canadian rock, it would probably be friendly to us," Zoe said, managing to crack a small smile. At least she thought she was funny sometimes. "Most things that show up here don't tend to fall into that category, especially looking like that...whatever the hell it is."
Deadpool	”Hurtful stereotype that slurs all my Canadian brethren,” Deadpool replied. “But that’s not important now. We’ll do a PSA about it later.” God help everyone. “Where should we put this lil’ one?”
Anakin	Anakin poked the rock experimentally with his finger. “This is out of my realm of expertise,” he said, looking to Zoe. “Maybe one of the science teachers?”
Zoe	"That's a good idea. I can think of at least two people who might be good to bring this to," Zoe said with a nod. "They might at least know where to start to figure out what the thing is." If they couldn't, well, they'd all just have to figure out something else, wouldn't they?

[[ the main campfire has now been roped off from the public. feel free to ping in with reactions/curious chattering among students/etcetera ]]

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Quinn paused by the roped-off campfire on her way to class and leaned way over the rope. Before she quite knew what she was doing, she dabbling a hand in the shiny water. Then she realized how weird that probably looked and dried her fingers on her jeans, slightly embarrassed by the impulse.

"We get to go back to the dorms if the campsite's about to flood, right?" she asked anyone who happened to be around.

"Probably," Stan said, staying a safe distance from the mystery water. He had a sixth sense about these things, damn it.

"I liked the snow better than this."

"This doesn't seem so bad," Quinn said, still frowning at the water. "I'm sure it's just an earthquake or sinkhole or something."

Edited 2011-08-01 20:34 (UTC)

"If it's not, I'm spending my week playing video games and ignoring whatever happens."

Because it was easier that way.

Quinn gave him a funny look. "Please don't tell me you think this is a weird island thing and we're all going to turn into leprechauns because of a stupid rock. I can't deal with that on a Monday."

"Or we have to deal with crab people or something." Crab people, Quinn.

Look like crabs, talk like people.

"Ugh, pass," Quinn said. "Last summer we had crazy mutant apocolypto-world. I don't need people with pinchers."

"Like, a real one?" Stan asked, mildly impressed.

"It so wasn't fun," Quinn said. "There were these wormhole things and a bunch of people got sort of sucked into these crazy dangerous places." She shrugged. "Mine had giant scorpions."

"At least they weren't Guinea bees," Stan muttered. "Let's hope for nothing giant showing up."

"Of course."

Quinn frowned awkwardly, then: "What's a Guinea bee?"

"Giant Guinea pig in a bee costume." A beat. "It was startling."

"I'll say." Quinn's eyebrows were about to kiss her hairline. "What kind of person dresses up a guinea pig?"

"I think they dressed themselves up, but it could have been some Peruvians."

"Probably the Peruvians," Quinn said sagely. "They have to be up to something besides making delicious chicken."

"And play in panflute bands," Stan added.

After his fourth period class, Warren had made his way back down to the cabins, thinking that the whole 'rest and relaxation' thing sounded like a pretty good idea, since that was technically the reason he was back on the island, instead of commuting back and forth for classes and whatnot from Kaeleer.

The roped off sinkhole thing had been kind of weird, sure. The main campfire was sort of like the one important landmark around this part of the island, and so naturally he wandered a little closer to check it out.

... Spooking a drinking rabbit in the process. Of course, after the skinning dead things class, it had to be a rabbit. The thing jumped a good foot in the air with a noise that Warren wasn't even aware rabbits could make, and then splashed down directly in the puddle.

Well. One good deed for the day, then, as the thing panicked and splashed about, trying to get free. His bunny-skinning-karma was telling him to fish the poor creature out, and so he slipped under the rope and reached in to do just that, getting a few fast-healing scratches and bites for his troubles.

Funny how he suddenly felt less sorry for the whole skinning a second one in class today, too.

Scully had been taking photos, and sending them to Mulder and the guys.

Meteorite, or egg hatching? she sent. What do you guys think?

Right, like Claudia wasn't going to check out what was weird enough for the administration to rope it off.

"Hey Scully." She leaned over to peer at the rock. "Is it an alien egg?"

"I'm not sure," Scully said in her I am so fascinated I am not registering half my surroundings voice. "I'd vote for alien, but the pattern of soil breakage is wrong for a meteor impact. And we probably should have heard something last night if it fell. It looks like it rose from under the surface." She pointed, careful not to touch. "Look at the color of it. What *is* that?"

Claudia leaned forward even further. "It's kind of like a rock, but I've never seen one that color before." She stretched out a hand towards the water. "Or is that the water? Hang on, I think I can get it."

"Gloves," Scully protested. "There could be radiation!" Although, if there was, they were probably screwed just standing here. "...or spores. Stick! Poke it with a stick!"

"Right. Stick." Claudia looked around, then grabbed a handy little stick. "Alrighty, let's see." She poked at the rock. "Dude, it's kinda squishy."

"Like coral?" Scully got even closer to take more photos, watching the stick sink into the rock a little. "Or a sponge?" Ooooo. "New life form! ... well, possibly."

Claudia shook a bit of water off her fingertips. "Like . . . live an animal. Maybe it's a weird kind of lizard?"

Scully paused, sitting back to stare at the portion visible. "If this is an actual life form..." She backed up a step, blinking. "Then the vast majority of it could be under the surface, like a glacier."

Yes. This would be why the area was roped off.

Edited 2011-08-02 03:32 (UTC)

"Giant rock lizard. Heeeeey, you don't think the island's, like, transmogrifying, do you?"

"Anywhere else, I would tell you we're not in a 1950's science-fiction movie," Scully said, picking up the stick and poking at the water, then examining the tip. None of the shininess seemed to cling to it at first glance. "But here?"

"Maybe this is what the island has always been, and now it's molting."

Yeah, that was a wonderful thought there, Claudia, thanks.

"...would that make the clockwork underneath an artificial heart, or artificial brain?" Scully wondered aloud, scrutinizing the stick, then the opalescent rock-scales-coral in the water. "Research. We have to do research."

Her fingers tingled for a moment, but not even long enough for her to really register it happening.

"Agreed. We'll be brave scientific explorers. I call Einstein. You can be Mendel."

"I could be Pasteur," Scully considered, but then said, "No, you're right, Mendel." She grinned. "Stand next to it, I'll take your picture for posterity."

"Ooo, hang on." Claudia stepped to the side, posing with one foot up ~~like she was in a Captain Morgan's ad~~. "Frame it so it looks like I'm standing on the rock triumphantly."

"Be sure to clean off those boots later," Scully nagged a bit, but then framed the shot like a conquering ~~booze hound~~ hero anyway. "Perfect!"

Claudia looked down and realized she was standing on the very age of the pool.

". . . Alien reptile egg mud. Ew."

"Or prehistoric coral slime." Yeah, like that was so much better. "I'm sure that'll come off with bleach."

Ever the optimist.

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Main Campfire, Early Monday Morning

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