Life Hacks/Hallomod(tod-pre-Cora)/This is too weird, better check with Loki
You find yourself freaking out a little bit, a condition that is becoming a rare thing for you. You aren't certain if it's the effects of the strange doll, or just your own anxiety; but you're not about to mess with the thing until you have some more information. With everyone's attention on the doll, now would be the perfect time to use the duck and stop time. Then you can use Loki's knocker and ask him what the fuck that thing is.
You set Decy down, and he immediately rushes to March and hides behind his legs. Reaching between two buttons on your shirt, you pull the duck out of the Infinity Pocket and give it a squeeze. You think for a second, and coordinate your movements to appear as though you are making the sign of the cross as you dilate time using the interface. With time paused you find yourself calming down. You actually feel a little silly, and wonder for a moment if you're over-reacting. You still feel the dread and arousal emanating from the doll, and decide that you are not.
There appears to be no doors in the attic. You sigh, and walk over to the stairs. The entire stairway is block by the rest of the Holiday clan. You carefully clamor over them, and make your way to the closest door . . . April and May's door. You take the antique knocker from your Infinity Pocket and put it on the door. It appears to stay in place of its own accord. You pause for a moment as a wave of indecision washes over you, then knock three times.
The door opens inward, contrary to the arrangement of its hinges. With everything else that has already happened today, that is just a minor oddity. What you see on the other side of the door ought to be something you could take every bit in stride as that minor oddity, something that you have seen games or some particularly fantasy driven movies do several times in the past from the other side of a screen, but somehow seeing it in real life just leaves you momentarily stunned as you look through the door onto a space that has no right to be attached to the house you are currently standing in. As a matter of fact, you ought to have completely 100% expected this, but still it takes your poor brain a little bit of effort to process this absurdity. The absurd sight in question is a massive, and very lavishly decorated hallway. Something you would expect out of some feudal castle, if the king in question had modern construction techniques available. Before you, just on the other side of the door from where you are standing, is a massive, you could probably even say "cavernous" hallway that leaves you feeling like an insignificant bug just to walk into. The floor appears to be fine polished white marble with a wide crimson rug, or rather you should probably call it a carpet, stretching the entire length of the massive space to a large set of finely carved wooden doors on the far side.
You steel yourself and step through this portal that drives in for the first time more than ever that you are now living in a completely different world from the one you woke up in this morning. Your footsteps echo in the quiet of the hallway despite the plush rug, giving you the sense of solemnity that one gets at a museum, a sense that is probably helped along quite a bit by the fine architecture decorating the wide hallways and the high vaulted ceilings of the corridor that seem almost as if they are tall enough to fit a 2 story house inside of this hallway, and every facet of the vaulted design seems to be painted with a beautiful vividly colored relief from Norse mythology with striking and beautiful deep greens depicting nature, blues for the sky that seem so vivid you can get sucked into them, and the striking white and crimson used to portray the "common nobles" even seems to have an almost life-like realism to it, and it is all outlayed in a shimmering gold that tells you it is probably using the real precious metal to achieve this effect.
The murals all over the ceiling are not the half of it even. Bringing your gaze to a more down-to-earth level, tracing your eyes down the fine mahogany walls inlayed with ebony, gold, and marble, you start to take in the statues of various Norse gods spaced out about every five feet. It is odd how such beautiful and well crafted objects could fail to stand out until you finally see them, but after that it seems like they are almost the only thing you can see. It likely helps the effect that they are not carved in the ostentatiously bright golds and vivid colors of the reliefs on the ceiling, or even the bold red and white of the carpet on marble of the floor. Rather, they each seem to be carved from a single piece of some strange black stone. The effect of this design choice is that after your attention has been drawn about the more ostentatious designs in this space, you then notice these statues witch seem to be cut from a piece of the night, and this mysterious draw that they seem to have makes you feel as though your soul is being sucked into the cold dark stone as you look at the faces of the proud warriors from the court of Oden's family and favored elite from throughout Asgard.
You catch yourself getting lost in your mind and it takes a true effort of will to tear your gaze away from what seems to be a statue depicting Forseti, the Norse god of Justice and Recognition, and stagger your way back in to the center of the corridor so you can proceed forward. Looking back the way you came, you notice that the doors you came through had closed at some point. It is at this moment you realize you are actually standing at the junction of what appears to be a T intersection in the hallway. At the end of each hall way is a set of identical doors, all of witch are huge compared to the hallway door you came through from the Holiday house to arrive in this space that any fine art appreciator would kill for the rights to gain access to. Making sense of the design, you reason that the two doors facing each other likely lead to one side or the other of the door to April and May's room witch you came through to get here. That would mean the door at the end of the leg of the T is the one that you want. As much as you would like to stay here and admire these amazing designs, there are more important matters to attend to. Steeling yourself, you stride straight to the doors and, noting the orientation of the hinges, pull them open.
Loki's apartment, in stark contrast to his hallway, appears to be a large, modern apartment. You could probably have gotten along just fine with stepping into this place under normal conditions, but after having just been in such a lavish corridor before coming here and having your expectations built up, you are quite frankly taken aback by the admittedly up-scale but comparatively down-to-earth living space. If there is a mental equivalent to whip-lash, you have most certainly experienced it from this short journey.
As for the apartment itself, it is preternaturally clean, with an open floor plan. The entire front and side walls consist of full height windows looking out into an idyllic temperate rain forest as seen from above complete with a spectacular waterfall. The view gives the impression that the apartment is protruding from a cliff. The furniture is modern and minimalist, but with an excellent sense of order and Feng shui. There seems to be a theme to the space, with the furniture consisting of predominantly stainless steel, glass, and suede. The color pattern is limited to black, white, and red, with black taking the most prominent role.
The kitchen area to your right seems almost sci-fi, and opens immediately to a dining area on the far right of the large room. Loki's dining table is a glass tabletop with an actual babbling brook encased in the glass floating above a disc of stainless steel. The dining chairs are similarly floating above stainless steel discs, and the black suede upholstered cushions seem luxurious and inviting. In the center of the room looking out toward the forest is a similarly floating sofa and chair set. There appears to be no television in this living area, but the window just in front of the sofa looks a little off, allowing you to make the assumption that it is, in fact, the television. Beyond the window is the outer deck which is predominantly filled with an infinity pool. Just to your left is a room that you presume to be the bathroom, and on the far left another that is likely the bedroom. Just beside the bedroom is a work space where Loki sits manipulating holographic code in a manner not at all unlike that seen in the Wonder Comics movie Steel Man in the work space of genius billionaire playboy and inventor Thad Stearn.
As a god of chaos you find it a bit unnerving that his residence is such a tribute to order.
"Have a seat Xander," says Loki without looking up from his work. "I'll be right with you." You make your way to his sofa and take a seat. As it is floating like all of his furniture you half expect the couch to dip down when you add your weight, but you sense no more give than any other sofa as you take your seat. "I just need to finish . . . where the fuck did you go? Come out, come out, wherever you - AH HA! Found you, you sneaky little . . . just gotta route the subroutine around your sneaky little ass . . . and . . . no good. Damn, thought I had it." Loki suddenly spins around in his floating chair. "So, that didn't take long. What's the issue? Did you miss me?"
"Um, I wouldn't bother you," you reply, "it's just that . . . well?"
"More questions?"
"What, no . . . I mean not right now. I just saw something pretty strange that I can't explain, and I was hoping you could . . . I don't know . . . let me know what was going on I guess."
"You're going to have to be more specific. There is a lot of stuff that you could have seen that would seem strange to you."
"It's a porcelain doll. It appears to be Victorian. It's about three feet talk, dressed rather provocatively by Victorian standards."
"That's not hard, what can you see it's ankles," he says, then mocks distress, "oh my!"
"Yeah," you respond sheepishly, "and it's shoulders."
"How scandalous," he says with a chuckle, "what else? I know you didn't come here for a slightly out of place antique."
"Well, it gives off a sort of . . . vibe . . ." you say nervously, wondering if you should even be here.
"Ugh. Out with it man. What kind of 'vibe' are we talking about here?"
"When anyone sees it they feel anxiety or fear . . . but when guys see it they feel arousal too."
"I see, interesting," he said with a casual smile. "Are you sure it's not just a creepy but hot doll?"
"Well, it also sort of . . . glowed."
Loki perks up. "Glowed you say? Now were getting somewhere. Describe the glow. What color was it? Was it steady, or did it pulse? Details man!"
"Well it was a deep red . . . I'd say scarlet if I was forced to choose a shade. It was weaker than when you select someone and it slowly pulsed . . . I'd say a sine wave pulse at around 30 hertz."
"Good," says Loki, "I didn't need quite that much, but good." He furrows his brow in thought.
"So do you know what it is?"
"Yes," says Loki very seriously, "I just don't know how it exists here and now. It's a cursed item. The pulsing glow indicates a special item. Red indicates magically cursed. The problem is that there is no magic, so any such object should be inert, and therefore not be glowing." He gets up from his seat, and paces a bit. "I guess I should see it. I don't suppose you brought it with you?"
"No, I . . . the thing freaks me out a little."
"Of course it does," said Loki, "it's designed to. I guess if it bothers you so much I can go there . . ."
How do you respond?
Infinity Pocket
Loki controls the local area.
