fh_trips | Nine Hundred Ninety-Nine Feet Below Fandom, Thursday

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bde summer 2021: donut holes

Nine Hundred Ninety-Nine Feet Below Fandom, Thursday

Happy Thursday, hole-y people! Were you going insane yet? Some of you had the good fortune of having a loved one down here with you, so maybe not!

Travis probably was. But, like, in a quiet way now where he was almost used to never seeing the sun again.

This was the perfect time to learn to play guitar, right?

[open!]

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Yesterday Rey had gone through the buildings she could to see what was available and what hadn't been done yet, and tried to get the word out that if someone needed something to do that she could come up with a job for them. She figured people might need to at least feel like they were doing something and making progress to feel better about the situation, even if it was only busy work. So if anyone needed that, she could be found in the ice cream shop, going through any supplies that weren't actually melted ice cream.

She'd also managed to carve some semblance of an X into the ceiling way above them this morning, to give everyone one spot to aim for if they were able to get up that high to start chipping away. That was basically just training for her.

Stark had bolted for an indoor (more indoor?) location once the cannons and people with guns started falling into the cavern. It just seemed wise.

"Now there's more people," he announced. "With guns. Cannons! We don't need weapons! That's not going to help!" He wasn't sure anything was going to help, at this point. But strange men with lots of weaponry didn't seem to be something they needed in here. And he hadn't even seen the brawling.

Rey stopped what she was doing, having heard the sounds and kind of assuming that was another building falling. She'd only gotten here yesterday, she didn't know.

"When you say weapons...?"

Because if someone was trying to rob them or whatever, good luck?

Stark had absolutely nothing with him of any value, so robbing him would be pointless.

"The cannons. Guns." Maybe there were blades too? "Several cannons. Nothing that's going to be any frelling help! Nothing that's going to be useful unless they're trying to kill someone! I don't want anyone dying down here! Or up there! But especially down here!"

"No one's dying down here," Rey assured him. "Are they threatening anyone or do they just have them?"

And would hopefully not use them in a cave place like idiots.

"No one is dying right now," Stark agreed in a completely not reassuring manner. "I'd have noticed. They just have them. I don't know. Didn't want to stay out there."

Good thing. He'd just missed the fistfight.

"Not that what we want matters we're all stick stuck."

"Okay, you can stay in here with me," Rey told him. Lightsabers were great for breaking things up but she would be really glad if she didn't have to bust that thing out for that purpose. "You could help me, if you'd like."

"What are you doing? There isn't even ice cream left." Which was a tragedy. Just ice cream soup and that was how you get ants.

"Staying in here isn't going to help either. Nothing is helping! We're still trapped and there's more of us, again. And I am tired of being trapped!"

He'd started pacing now. That wasn't helping either. Neither were the increasingly large gestures while he spoke.

"I know. I'm sorry. The ice cream is gone but there are toppings and ingredients here that could be used for other things," Rey told him. "Besides, keeping my hands busy helps."

She was fine, she'd been stranded for way longer than she'd ever be down here, but she'd encourage having something to focus on.

"I haven't got anything to do." Which may have been why Rey said you could help her, Stark.

"I want to do something useful but I don't even know if there is anything useful." And if they were in a situation where Stark was uniquely qualified to be useful then things would have gone very, very wrong. "We're just here. With no way out."

"We'll get out," Rey told him, and waved him over behind the counter. "Come here."

"We should be out already!" They also shouldn't have been down here at all but here they were anyway. "It shouldn't last this long things like this don't last this long. Not here. But this one does."

Stark was, in fact, feeling a bit betrayed by Fandom not following its own absurd usual guidelines.

"What are you doing?" he asked as he walked over.

Rey got it. She just didn't have much to offer him there besides relentless optimism.

So she said, "I found toppings that I'm going through. I think the berries are done but the bananas are probably still good, and there's plenty of nuts and chocolate and things that should be okay. I was thinking anything that might go bad we should probably move to the bowling alley since it should still have generator power. What do you think?"

Maybe there were waffle cones left somewhere!

"It isn't hot down here, at least. But not that cold, either." Which was good. Stark would be extra miserable if he was cold and trapped. "Keeping things cold should help. There's power at the fire station too. For now." Because generators needed fuel and that wouldn't last forever.

"Exactly. It's best to prioritize right now," she told him. "And this place is probably going to smell terrible and I'd prefer not to come back for things."

Pray for the Chilly Boulder employees when this place got back to the surface.

Maybe the owner could just leave it down here and make an insurance claim.

"Take what's salvageable and go." Stark nodded. "That makes sense. And you're right. The melted ice cream will go bad and then nobody will want to be in here." They'd all some their best to eat it but there was only so much ice cream any one person could eat.

"Can you help me check what's still good? I figure anything that's gone bad can be left here and isn't worth transporting," she told him.

Re: Life in the hole- Chilly Boulder

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stykera - 2021-07-09 00:11 (UTC) - Expand

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stykera - 2021-07-09 00:52 (UTC) - Expand

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thatwaslucky - 2021-07-09 00:53 (UTC) - Expand

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Re: Life in the hole- Chilly Boulder

thatwaslucky - 2021-07-09 01:20 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Life in the hole- Chilly Boulder

stykera - 2021-07-09 01:43 (UTC) - Expand

Clint was rapidly running out of things to do, and a bored Clint wasn't something anyone should have to deal with. He had mostly thought about searching for any ice cream that was still edible, to distract himself from thinking about how badly he needed to get back up to the surface, but watching Rey poke at things was equally appealing.

"Hey, you find anything good?" he asked, going to peek into the tubs. It was probably a terrible idea, but that was his specialty.

"The ice cream itself is pretty long gone," Rey said, and if she'd been here just days earlier she would have had this transfer plan in place to save it, "but I'm rescuing the toppings, and if you're really desperate I think there's some ice cream bars at the bowling alley."

Lemons into lemonade, and all.

"I don't think I'm desperate enough to trust bowling alley food yet. You need any help searching or carrying stuff?" he asked. "This feels slightly less like looting if someone else is doing it too."

"Please. I'm going through and finding anything that's gone bad so we can leave it here. Anything good, we can take over to where there's still generator power," she reasoned. "So it's not really looting as much as saving some of their product."

"See, that's a good way of thinking about it too, we're doing folks a favor," he said, going over to start rifling through the toppings. "How much longer do you think it's going to take before the smart people figure out how to undo this? I knew this was going to be unpleasant but being stuck is even worse than I expected."

"I wish I knew," Rey said with a sigh, setting one of the good containers on the good container pile. "As of yesterday no one up there had any idea what was happening. I'm trying to focus more on trying to get out from here than waiting for rescue."

That got Clint to perk up and pay more attention. "You think we can manage it? No one I've talked to so far has the ability to fly, and I haven't had any mutant powers wash off on me yet." He'd been trying to manifest something useful, but alas he was still just himself.

"I can't fly, but I can Force jump. So I've been able to chip away some with my lightsaber," she explained. Was she the only one here with powers? "It's not much, but if I keep it up and we can find other ways to hit the same spot, we might be able to bring it down."

In like, years. Shhh.

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