A force flew at haste for the closet door, and Rum was pushed backwards, stumbling a little. But, by a figure? Yes, by a figure: White Rose. The skeleton stood there, shaking zes head at the very surprised duo of Rum and Veish. As Rum quickly looked to see Veish’s reaction, he saw a tiny terror revealed on the witch’s face. Perhaps she’s having flashbacks from White Rose hunting her down? Rum straightened from the pushback, and took a slow step forward. White Rose was miming at him. He saw ze’s right hand slam against zes own ribs, before being flung up and down rhythmically in the air along a horizontal arc, zes head nodding along with each downwards fling.
“What?” Rum didn’t understand. The skeleton repeated the flinging hands act, before slamming zes own ribs at end again, and giving 2 exaggurated big nods. As Rum said nothing, trying to understand, ze repeated the act yet again, but this time, and to Rum’s big surprise, ze slammed HIS chest. Feeling that strong bony hand hit his body, Rum was momentarily staggered backwards again. Managing to look up and back at the skeleton, White Rose now shook zes head with more exaggerated motions.
“Sorry, I don’t understand” he said through a breath and a shock. White Rose didn’t appear to like his answer, or at least found it frustrating, as ze began looking around with quick motions. Finally, ze looked down at his left hand, locking veiled eyesockets at it. Again, catching Rum by surprise, the skeleton grabbed his hand with zes own left, lifting his hand up before both of them. Ze put forth zes own gloved right index finger, and began moving it along his fingers, tapping each in turn, in a repeating sequence. “COUNTING!” Rum exclaimed. White Rose nodded enthusiastically, then slammed zes ribs again. “You want to do the counting?” Again, White Rose nodded ever so enthusiastically. “Ha ha ha” the wizard laughed heartily, “of course my White Rose, you can do the counting. Let’s start again shall we?” and the new trio moved back to the closet door, Rum putting his hand gently on the handle again. “Remember now my White Rose, we count backwards. You understand how to do that, right? From higher numbers to lower numbers?” The skeleton puts zes head to the side for a second, as if unsure, but then nodded. “And we count down from 3, okay?” White Rose nodded a little enthusiastically again. “Alright. Whenever you’re ready to start counting.”
In front of both wizard and witch, White Rose raised a single bony gloved hand. From that hand, ze raised 3 fingers: index, middle and ring. The index finger fell first. Then, the middle. And then, Rum and Veish both taking an inward breath: the last finger fell. Ever so gently, Rum opened the closet door.
Inside, it was dark. A long, never-ending darkness. The things in front of Rum were not dark though. Amez’ stuff was still there, blocking most of the view and lit up through the door by the light of a blazing enchanted candle in corner of the bedroom. But behind those shelves and stacks of boxes, the closet opened up into a large open dark space, only barely made visible in some near spots by the candlelight weakly illuminating a long stretch of closet floor in front of them. However, beyond that stretch, neither ceiling nor walls could be seen. It was just a deep, mysterious darkness.
“Okay” Rum finally commented, both Veish and White Rose caught mesmerized by the phenomenon in front of them. “It is slightly larger than I intended. I was going for maybe as large as the bedroom, but I think this might be considerably larger.”
As the first daring pioneer, Rum bent down and slid inside the closet, stepping through the cramped entrance and into the great darkness beyond. “I see nothing, nothing except this patch of floor.” The wizard rotated around in a slow pirouette. “Nothing...” He put up a finger and whispered “Channel Bio-Energy”. A little flame rose up from one of his thumbs and he held it out in front of him. Slowly, the flame got larger and larger, until Rum was channelling the equivalent of a blazing torch from his finger. “More floors, but no end to the walls, or the ceiling. Only walls I can see are the one’s near you guys. This place might be the size a house, or even a palace. It’s like standing in a great cavern, but made of wooden planks.” Rum’s eyes widened at his surroundings, his face caught in continual jaw-dropping amazement, even a little momentary fright. This magic has run out of control somehow, I never intended to make something so large!
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Veish, having stood outside hesitant, experienced her own massive fascination overtaking her nerves. She stepped into the closet, cautious, bending a little. She navigated briefly over closet stash, before coming out into the large dark space, whereupon she entered a stroll, looking about her with wide, curious, but also wary eyes. “This is scary big.” Her voice was low.
“I agree.” Rum concurred, with a mostly mirrored expression.
Apparently not wanting to be left out, White Rose followed them both into the unexplored pocket of space, stopping only to stand next to zes wizard daddy. Ze watched him watching the surroundings, and then watched the surroundings zeself. It was as if ze was copying the amazement of him and Veish, though minus the facial expressions of course, lacking skin and face muscles and all.
“Okay. I’m going to see if I can find an end to this. So, can you guys just stay there for a moment, while I wander off in direction opposite the entrance?” Rum pointed with his finger into the darkness. Veish nodded weakly. White Rose nodded too.
Rum began strolling into the unknown and unexplored but presumably floored area. He tried to make his torch-finger blaze just a little brighter, but all he got from that it seemed was just more revealed floors around him. He walked for a whole 3 minutes before he slowed down to a stop. All around him was darkness, only the ever fainter light of the closet entrance allowed him some sense of direction. But that light was dying out with each new meter. I’m seriously starting to fear I might get lost in here. Rum soon lost his bravado, and walked back to the 2 people waiting for him.
“You found the end?” Veish looked at him with a face that craved confirmation.
“No. This place is unbelievably big. Suffice to say, you’ll never run out of storage space. In fact, I think you could probably build an entire little neighbourhood inside this place if you wanted to. There certainly seems to be enough space for it.”
“It’s too dark.” Veish complained.
“We can put up some enchanted candles.” Rum countered.
“It’s too scary, it’s like watching massive amounts of magic all around me. But I don’t control it. And not sure you do, either.”
“I’ll control it.” Rum smiled. “It’ll be fine. How can extra space be an issue?”
“And what am I supposed to do with it all?” Veish looked at him with a mix of worry and beginning exasperation.
“It’s just good to have.” Rum waved away her concerns. “Today you won’t need it, but what about next week, next month, or next year? Think about that! Though, now, it’s getting late, isn’t it? For tonight I’ll give you the bed’s pillow, and a magic blanket. And tomorrow we’ll buy you a bed and some sheets to put inside the closet, okay?”
Veish said nothing. Instead she looked a little defeated, as Rum walked past her and then towards the closet and bedroom. He got the pillow and the enchanted candle, walked back and put the 2 items down on the floor just past the closet entrance. He conjured a magic blanket and laid it down next.
“I’m not sleeping here tonight.” Veish protested. “You can’t expect me to trust the magic of this place!”
Rum stood there, and without taking his eyes off the witch, sighed a little. “I guess” he said after several seconds, “that it’s not fair of me to leave you here on your own. So – I’ll join you!”