World War Burst S2: Part 5

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http://pastebin.com/P74JVbpi

[15:06:35] * Oxford changes topic to 'Re: Request for clipping, 7/4/36'
[15:12:21] <~Oxford> Elsa sits at her desk. The log-cabin walls of her office let off a rich, oaky scent as they warm up in glow of the morning sun. On the desk are a lamp, a magnifying glass, and an envelope of freshly-arrived newspaper clippings.
[15:14:08] <~Oxford> The envelope, as well as the steaming mug of coffee by the corner of the desk, came courtesy of Sella, who brought them up with the mail as part of her regular routine. The clippings are from a Cimbrian newspaper overseas.
[15:16:34] * Elsa stares at the Cimbrian newspaper clippings, realizing that she can't atually speak it, much less read it. "…maybe theres a picture of her somewhere." She says before dumping 8 spoonfulls of sugar along with a significant amount of milk into her coffee.
[15:22:45] <~Oxford> The milk makes cloudy white swirls against the black coffee, expanding and mixing until it reaches a uniform tan. The first clipping of the article is just a single column summary for the front page, but the second has a grainy photograph of a man in fine clothes snipping a thick ribbon with a giant pair of scissors. The crowd in the background appear to be clapping enthusiastically.
[15:23:56] <~Oxford> Aside from the man with the scissors, their faces are hard to make out immediately.
[15:24:14] * Elsa looks at the crowd more closely, looking for Flauri and Donalds.
[15:28:30] * Elsa looks REALLY HARD
[15:31:39] <~Oxford> The magnifying glass hovers over the crinkled page, scanning across the faces of the crowd. She notices one figure towering over the others - a man head-and-shoulders taller than the rest of the crowd. The photograph is too blurry to make out the details of his face, aside from his thick grey mustache. And on his shoulders sits a small, frail girl with long, black hair.
[15:35:13] * Elsa squints aharder, "Thats gotta be them…gotta find out what this place is before I go looking for them." She takes a drink of coffee and winces, still bitter after all that sugar. "Or I could find a Cimbran to albean dictionary."
[15:39:26] * Elsa stands up and stretches confident taht with the information Stranahan gave her, if this is an orphanage or something like that she might have hit jackpot.
[15:41:13] <~Oxford> The headline of the article reads: "Nye børnehjem åbner i Aarjerg." A full translation can probably be gotten either through a comrade who speaks Cimbrian, or at worst by way of dictionary.
[15:47:40] * Elsa decides to struggle with the dictionary, is better if she doesn't leave someone knowing where she might be going. After several minutes of struggling with the unfamiliar language she gets a result. "Orphanage…opens? in Aarjerg?" She smiles at the realization and decides to call it a day. Time to give Chelsea a visit!
[15:50:30] <~Oxford> The old photography blackroom is seperated from the rest of the lodge by a heavy felt curtain and a rotating wooden door.
[15:54:04] * Elsa knocks on the door, ready to tell Chelsea about everything in the day, like she always does, not many of the other girls really bother enough to visit her and those that do still find her too weird to be around, taht is if she doesn't kick them out of her room as they come in. "Chelsea, may I come in?"
[15:54:13] <~Oxford> Even as she approaches, Elsa can hear a strange thumping through the walls, muffled by the thick oak. The sound comes a few times a minute, without any consistent pattern or interval. It is a noise akin to a sack of potatoes being tossed into the back of a truck.
[15:55:59] <~Oxford> There's no answer from the other side, but after a moment of silence another thump, louder this time through the thinner door.
[15:56:11] * Elsa is immediately worried about that, given that its coming from Chelsea's room. She forgoes any sort of formality and opens the second door to her room. "Chelsea, whats going on? is something wrong?" She says as she walks into the room.
[16:01:07] <~Oxford> The inside is dim, lit only by the stab of filtered daylight that manages to slip in past the curtain and Elsa. The moment the light enters, there's a flurry of movement as something in a dirty white dress scampers to the far corner on four legs.
[16:03:38] * Elsa closes the door behind her and hurries to the girl tahts huddled in the corner. "Chelsea? Is something wrong? Should I go get a doctor?" She tries putting her hand on the girl's dirty shoulder, reminding herself that she needs to convince her to take a bath once in a while at least.
[16:05:10] <~Oxford> From behind a veil of tangled black hair, eyes glint sullenly up at the interloper. "Enterings prohibited: The Great and Mighty One feels icky," Chelsea says, tucking her knees up against her chest.
[16:07:44] <Elsa> "Well, too bad, I'm already here. Whats wrong? It isn't like you to be…like this. Its almost like you want to break down the walls and go out, when the sun is up." She says seriously. "What happened?" She keeps her hand on Chelsea's shoulder.
[16:12:30] <~Oxford> The girl rocks back and forth slightly on her heels. "Something gooey. Last night, the badderness of this place suddenly exceeded minimum non-badderness levels." She looks up at Elsa, lips pulled tight in a pout. "Can we leave, please?"
[16:16:35] <Elsa> "I…wish we could. If we do the Albean army would most likely hunt us down." Or do nothig at all like what happened to Flauri. "Is there anythign else I can do to make it feel better? What was that gooey thing like?" Something is definetly wron if Chelsea want to go away from the comfort of her room."
[16:24:14] <~Oxford> Chelsea looks away, and then scooches forward, alternatingly moving her feet and her bottom. She turns around until her back is facing Elsa, keeping the same upright-fetal position as before. Her voice wavers a little, but her tone is authoritative. "Provide brushings, then. No head-yanks allowed. Please," she adds, more softly.
[16:26:35] * Elsa has been in this room enough times to know its layout by heart, all those stubbed toes werent for nothing. She grabs the brush from its usual locations and begins brushing. "You know, if you brshed more often, head yanking wouldn't happen that often."
[16:30:15] <~Oxford> "But then my heavenly locks would loose their intricate knotting!" Chelsea protests, wiggling her shoulders. She seems to be calming down as Elsa works on her hair, the gentle feeling of the brush soothing away her fear.
[16:32:29] * Elsa smiles at her before saying, "Are you calm enough now to tell me what happened last night?" Brush brush, I'm worried because you don't like you want to go out of your room, unless its a new moon out."
[16:41:03] <~Oxford> "I was in the middle of my chelseanap, and I was having a sleepvision of these two Grand Dragons who were fighting over a beautiful princess. Her dress was even prettier than mine."
[16:41:09] <~Oxford> She taps her bare feet against the wooden floor and adds as an aside, "But that's just because dreamthings aren't real and don't have meddlesome washer-wenches sneaking them away from you and lyeing on them while you're not looking."
[16:43:58] <Elsa> "You'll get sick if you wear your clothes for too long." Elsa warns as she weakly flicks at Chelsea's back of the neck. "So what happened after that?"
[16:48:34] <~Oxford> "Oh, well then I woke up, because some knaveish woebegone kicked me in the stomach and dumped waterice on me. I tried to eat him, but he wasn't real." She lets out a soft pout, like a child whose mother won't let her have a lolli from the candy shop. "Still felt nausey and shivers, too."
[16:54:25] * Elsa doesn't really understand what she means by this other than that someone dumped ice water on her. "Well, maybe that part about waking up was still your dream and the feeling of iced water woke you up?" She says as she keeps brushing the tangled hair, "I mean, you're still pretty dry."
[16:56:14] <~Oxford> "That's because the water was too scared to stay wet," Chelsea says, but she sounds a little uncertain if that's really the best explanation.
[16:58:35] * Elsa shrugs and keeps brushing, "I found a lead to where one of my friends might be, the one where I made her something to keep her alive when the pendant…uhh ate her heart."
[17:00:35] <~Oxford> Chelsea nods. "Pendants are rav'nous beastieblocks. They'll try to eat you unless you eat them first."
[17:02:59] <Elsa> "Or you toss them into a volcano." Elsa says plainly, "I've seen that first hand, two in the same day…its scary."
[17:03:27] * Elsa stops brushing, "I don't really have to fight one of those if I can avoid it."
[17:05:07] <~Oxford> "One of those what?" Chelsea asks, and tilts her head so far down her hair sweeps the bare planks they sit on.
[17:07:02] <Elsa> "Pendant monsters, back when I was sent to Gaulia. I already told you about these things. They eat magic like a sponge eats water. Nothing I did worked."
[17:11:38] <~Oxford> "Hm-pah, hm-pah, hm-pah," says Chelsea, making what she seems to think is a thoughtful sound. "Sponges don't eat water. They just slurp-slurp on it so they can vomit it back on you when they're squeezed."
[17:13:02] <Elsa> "Fine…a thirsdy dog laps up water." Elsa says sounding a bit annoyed, "Better?"
[17:15:02] <~Oxford> "Maybe," Chelsea says, sounding a little disappointed all that hard thinking was for nought. "Pendants look less like dogs than sponges, though…"
[17:18:05] <Elsa> "They can loock different though, the one I saw was this big silverish beating mass that just kept growing and sucked up all my magic when I tried to attack it, and then we had to run away."
[17:23:50] <~Oxford> "It must be a true scarily, to have frightened my glowiest man-at-arms." Chelsea stands up and pads over to the bed, where she plops down and starts kicking her legs. "Chelsea wouldn't be enfeebled by that, though."
[17:25:19] <~Oxford> She seems to be feeling better, now. At the very least, Chelsea's distracted from what she was feeling earlier.
[17:27:16] <Elsa> "Maybe, but anyways, see? Youre much better now, it wasn't anything other than a nightmare. Just go to sleep, if you're still feeling tired." Elsa then grumbles, "I wish I could sleep as muuch too."
[17:33:55] <~Oxford> Chelsea pouts and tucks her legs up under her on the bed. She bobs up and down, bouncing on the mattress springs. "I don't need an elsanap. I wish to confer further with my loyal shieldberry." She sighs and flops back on the mattress. "But your dutiful duties beckon, don't they. Very well. I accept your proposal that I, your Prince and Ruler, am sleepy."
[17:35:55] * Elsa smiles and lets her sleep, with a quiet, "Sweet Dreams, Elsa is out of the pitch black room and again in the hallway." What the hell was that about anyways?
[17:37:50] <~Oxford> She finds out on the way back to her office. As she reaches for the doorknob, it suddenly opens, and Sella comes out, breathing heavily.
[17:40:58] <~Oxford> "Ah! I was, just, looking," she gasps, putting her hands on her knees, "for you." She takes a deep breath and straightens up. "Headquarters called. Didn't even wait for me to get you, just read it off to me and told me to take it to. Said you'd understand."
[17:41:19] * Elsa blinks in surprise, "What's wrong Sella? Are the Novs attacking us?" Theres no way the Novs could know about this place, but its still possible it could happen.
[17:47:23] <~Oxford> "No, it's," Sella clears her throat and glances down at a scrap of paper in her hand. "Ahem: 'At approximately 2300 hours last night, an incident occurred in the Southwood. It is believed to be similar to the incident in which you were involved in the Occupied Zone four months ago. You are ordered to report to Headquarters immediately for further instruction."
[17:48:15] <~Oxford> Sella blinks and offers Elsa the piece of paper, so she can read it for herself. "Does uh, that mean anything to you?"
[17:54:05] * Elsa pales as she hears the report and practically rips the paper off her hands and reads it herself. After verifying its contents she crushes it in her hands and the paper immediately combusts, all of it. Elsa is left staring at her hands. "Some god forsaken idiot either did something really stupid or that thing happened again." She looks up at her assistant, "Get me a car, now. I
[17:54:05] * Elsa need to go tell the old farts that I told them this would happen. And get me some pieces of paper, string, and some scissors."
[18:00:18] <~Oxford> "Yes, ma'am!" Sella says, instinctively snapping to attention. "Uh, what's all the stuff for, though?" she asks, sheepishly.
[18:02:44] <Elsa> "To make them feel more guilty for not listening to me after that happened."
[18:05:20] <~Oxford> "So you can-" Sella frowns, and then a look of understanding crosses her face. "Yes, ma'am! I'll have everything prepared at once."
[18:12:15] <~Oxford> /session