iselldrugstothecommunity: (Basic - Frolic Dance and Frolic)
Howard Bassem ([personal profile] iselldrugstothecommunity) wrote in [community profile] thearena2013-03-19 12:44 am

I Sleep Beneath the Golden Hill [Open]

WHO | Howard Bassem and anyone
WHAT | Howard builds himself a hidey-hole in Thunder Mountain, steals a bunch of prop guns.
WHEN | The day after the Conucopia.
WHERE | Frontierland
WARNINGS/NOTES | None yet.

Howard finds shelter in the crannies and nooks of Thunder Mountain, but he doesn't sleep for a while. Instead, he works through the night, replacing solid boards on the bridge with rotting ones from down by the water and the fake dinosaur skeleton. It's difficult work, especially without any tools, but it's manageable. He undoes screws with his hands and with broken pieces of the anamatronic wildlife and some of the remnants of the 'saloon'. He uses some of the wires scavenged from the decapitated fake goat to tie himself to the rail while he works, but even with that there are a few moments where he's convinced he's going to fall in the dark and break his back against the hard cement ground.

By morning his hands are throbbing from scrapes and splinters, but he's managed to isolate a section of Thunder Mountain for his own safety. One of the little peaks the train goes through has a rail bridge on both sides, and Howard's made sure that unless someone knows where they're stepping - someone like him, who rigged the boards - it'll crack underfoot. It's also not a terrible view. He can see that there's still work to be done, he still needs to take the good track boards and hide them so his trap isn't deducible, but he's exhausted.

He's taken all of the prop guns from the shooting gallery and thrown them in the water, except one, which he takes up with him to his hideout. Not everyone will necessarily know that it's a prop. He has a stick of dynamite, too, possibly a prop, although he refuses to sleep near it. It's left out on the track, where he can run and get it but where he doesn't have to worry about rolling onto it when he rests. And he's broken off a sharp piece of wood from a rotting crate, and it'll serve well enough as a stake.

He sleeps fitfully through the morning and wakes around mid-day. He slinks out of the hideout, standing up a good twenty feet high on his little peak, and surveys the surroundings. He knows this makes him visible, but for the moment he feels safe enough that he doesn't mind being seen if it means seeing other people first.

Once he's satisfied the coast is clear, he walks across the track like a cat on the skinny edge of a fence, both arms held out like a tightrope-walker, until he's back on solid ground, and goes to the water and drinks it with his hands.
pieceofcake: (Gaius: ?)

[personal profile] pieceofcake 2013-03-29 02:03 pm (UTC)(link)
"What's a machine gun? Or a tank?" Generally speaking, the outrealms Gaius had visited before were analogous to his own. Magic, swords, bows, and the like. But some of his fellow contestants were apparently from wildly disparate backgrounds.

Gaius thought, not for the first time, that this would all be made much easier if the people in charge had sat down and explained things to everyone over a nice crop of jam pastries. Or not brought him here at all, really. "Does your realm not have professions or something?"
pieceofcake: (Gaius: wow that's so wrong)

[personal profile] pieceofcake 2013-03-29 05:24 pm (UTC)(link)
Gaius wrinkled his nose at the mention of accountants and businessmen. "Oh, right. We've got people like that, too. But I've never really been the accounting type."

He tried to envision what Howard described, and: "Oh, you mean a ballista! Kind of awkward to cart around, though, aren't they? If it was a fast flier, you'd be toast before you could even fix your aim." Then again, the same could be said for most approaches. "I could probably work one of those, but I don't much like being a sitting duck."
pieceofcake: (Default)

[personal profile] pieceofcake 2013-03-29 06:26 pm (UTC)(link)
Gaius's eyebrows shot up. "With explosions? You mean like a sea-cannon? I guess I can see that working. Maybe."

He paused for a moment. "If you could armor it well enough, it'd be a real menace. Except for the moving it around part. I don't care how fast you can reload the thing; those things weigh a ton."
pieceofcake: (Gaius: serious)

[personal profile] pieceofcake 2013-04-02 02:56 pm (UTC)(link)
Gaius looked at Howard like maybe he'd said the best way to keep warm in the winter was to set your house on fire. "Well, if you say so. Teeny-tiny explosions that you can use to get around? Sounds a lot like magic to me."

EXPLAIN HOW IT WASN'T MAGIC, HOWARD.
pieceofcake: (Default)

[personal profile] pieceofcake 2013-04-03 02:08 pm (UTC)(link)
"Right, okay. Different." The entire idea sounded nuttier than a fruitcake, but Gaius had the feeling that pressing Howard for more detail wasn't going to get him anywhere. Besides, he was getting hungry.

"Anyway, I'm gonna go find something to eat. There's gotta be some sweets around here somewhere."
pieceofcake: (Gaius: thief)

[personal profile] pieceofcake 2013-04-03 07:20 pm (UTC)(link)
"Oh, I'm sure," said Gaius, turning and heading back along the track.

"But there still might be some fruit trees or berries growing around here. Unless, of course, they want us to starve to death instead of knifing each other."