Don't Smell the Mushrooms

[Narrator]

Around where the four Willstronauts were sitting, a foul stench started permeating the air.

Black mushrooms started popping out of the walls, floor and ceiling, sending off spores that flitted and danced through the air.

It was probably not a good idea to let them be here.


((Open!))

[Tereza Rozanov]

The foul stench had attracted one of the more sensitive noses in the dorms. Tereza poked her head in, trying to figure out where the smell was coming from, eyes narrowing as she saw the group and the mushrooms sprouting around the room. At least that's a resilient bunch, she thinks as she assesses who to try to move first. Her wolf gets insistent though and she moves over to Sam, reaching out to try to pick her up and trying not to jostle her too much, getting a sense that she was Busy(tm).

[Narrator]

As Tereza would enter the room, she couldn't help but getting a whiff of some of the spores...

___________
"Let's try this again"

Tereza was slumped in the corner of some kind of...holding tank? In a Black Air facility. She recognized it (how did she recognize it?), but she had lost track of time. Just how long had they been keeping her here? Experimenting on her?

These thoughts were stopped by a shock of electricity coursing through her, causing her to shift and flatten into an undefined blob of clay, churning and boiling from the charge.

"Useless and pathetic. The subject is entirely unfit for any and all purposes. Frankly, it's disgusting; we should neutralize it and just move to plan B...

_____________

And then she was back in the room, leaning up against Sam once again.

[Tereza Rozanov]

Tereza blinks, eyes golden from the experience of the... whatever that was. Clay? She wasn't clay.

Pain.

Yes.

Work faster.

Can't.

She looks at the air herself, but the mental image must have just been bleed over from whatever Sam was doing. One arm behind Sam's shoulders while the other is behind her knees as she tries to gently scoop the red-head up.

[Narrator]

She could see a few of the spores still floating around from the mushrooms; whatever was happening, it wasn't just mental residue from the Sammening. But if she didn't take any deep breaths, she could surely avoid....


______________________
Tereza was packed tightly in the box -- the trip through the postal service had been a rough one; international shipping had bounced her around awkwardly and not always painlessly. Still, she had arrived here in Ireland, and light was filtering in as the box opened.

Sam looked down, frowning, as she finished opening the box. "Oh, bloody hell. Why on Earth are you coming here through the ~post~, of all things. No, no keep it down; we don't have a lot of privacy here and I don't want to have to explain....you....to my parents," she said, with a sniff of derision in her voice
_______________________


...inhaling any more of them.

Shoot.

[Tereza Rozanov]

That wasn't... what? She shakes her head. Spores, yes, the spores. She blinks and the air in front of her face chills substantially, some ice forming on her cheeks as she quickly and mostly carefully moves Sam out of the room before trying to go back for Tosh.

[Narrator]

Chilling the air had a, well, chilling effect on the spores. It didn't kill them or anything, but it dimmed their effectiveness somewhat. So this time, when Tereza dipped into the slowly spreading miasma, she didn't get a full-on memory blast. Just a vague sense of people being disgusted with her, as she ran in to grab the scientist-slash-pastry chef in the kitchen.

[Tereza Rozanov]

Even that sense is hard for Tereza's human half to fight against, but the wolf is there to remind her that there are things that need doing. Self-loathing can come later. She hooks her arms under Tosh's shoulders and drags him out of the room to put him next to Sam. She goes back in back in to grab Robin.

[Narrator]

Robin was still diligently kneading her dough, which was beginning to rise from the yeast they had added. Even as Tereza pulled her away, her hands kept going, mixing around in plain air.

The dough itself had several of the mushroom sticking out of it. That may be less than ideal.

[Tereza Rozanov]

Can't take this out. That'll just bring it with. She lifts her hands towards the doorway and ice spreads up the frame before spreading out to block the door. Vents for the air system go next, plugged with ice and hopefully entombing anything that made it to the vents. Next are the mushrooms on the walls, concentrating the frost on the mushrooms to encase them in ice and hopefully stop them from spreading spores.

[Narrator]

Good news and bad news, here.

Blocking out the ventilation and the doorway worked a treat; if any spores had gotten out, they'd be mild, at best. No spreading Will's many issues across campus, which generally seemed like a good thing.


The mushrooms themselves, however, seemed a bit more resilient. While she could make some ice blocks around them, encasing them in place, they still seemed to be growing. Several even pushed up against the ice itself, with the slight sound of cracking coming through the air.

[Tereza Rozanov]

Tereza's ears pick up the cracking sound and she internally swears.

It is not enough. We must do more.

Not sure how much more we can do.

The time for proportional response has passed. Let me work.

Her fingernails sharpened and her eyes turned an even bright golden yellow. The hair on her head bled to white as the ice began to build around the door frame before beginning to race along the walls, floor, and ceiling with sharp edges on the front. The ice did not discriminate on what it attempted to cut. Mushrooms, light fixtures, wall decorations, everything that was in its way was at least attempted to be cut or pulled from the wall. Slowly, the room begins to fill with ice and the enclosed space begins to distress her wolf, causing the pace to falter.

[Narrator]

Oh, man, the repair crew was going to hate Tereza when she was done, but sometimes, you just gotta smash some things.

The ice slashed and sliced and diced, and THAT seemed to be doing good, mostly. Slicing through the mushrooms would produce more of the spores, but the cold kept them from fully metastasizing, simply adding more to the gloom and doom of the room. Cabinets fell as the ice smashed and slashed; as Tereza's pace slowed down, she would see mostly debris on the floors and counters -- and a lack of intact mushrooms.

Three issues. One, the mushrooms would have to be disposed of safely. Two, when Tereza unsealed the room -- and her wolf was certainly distressed enough to make that an enticing possibility -- she'd have to figure out some way for the enclosed spores not to continue to spread. Three, the dough was still on the counter, now with some diced mushrooms and wall debris mixed in. It would have to get pulled out, and Tereza may need to shepherd the three telepathic zombies to somewhere where they could continue their work in relative piece.

Still, all in all -- smashing worked! And was probably a little tiny bit cathartic, too.

[Tereza Rozanov]

My turn.

Tereza looks around the room and the ice begins shuffling some of the debris to a corner, pulverizing some of it into bits like a trash compactor. Another section of the ice forms into a small person, reaching down to pick the larger bits out of clay where it can and tossing them into the "compactor". Then the ice-person flattens out and slides under the bowl growing up around it in an enclosed sphere that sprouts legs and begins shuffling for the door, following Tereza who begins filling the with ice as she herself wades towards the door. It might not kill the spores, but it'll at least keep them contained... until the ice melts anyway. Try not to think about that.

[Narrator]

A tiny ice person was just the right side to get all (or, at least, most) of the nasty bits out of Will. They could figure out a way to kill off anything else nasty later, but at least the huge chunks were gone -- and ice people can't have nightmares, so the spores wouldn't affect it. Good thinking!

Tereza and the walking ice sphere could shuffle out, at least taking both Will and the contained damage out into the hallway. This was progress, and at least they weren't cooped up in that damn room anymore.

[Tereza Rozanov]

She lays a hand against the ice blocking the door and a large biohazard symbol raises out of the ice in the doorway, large enough to hopefully stay for a while once she actively stops keeping the ice cold. That done, she turns to look at the three telepathing zombies. She needed to get them to the Point or to the Infirmary. Either could do containment... but fewer people went to the Point. But to get three people out there in a decent time, she'd need help. Taking a deep breath to steady her wolf, she reached out to two people she was mostly sure could stand up to this. The message wasn't complicated, the nature of the bond wouldn't allow "complicated". Just the sense of a packmate in need and a call to assist.

[Narrator]

The teeped trio were not much help here, mostly out to the world. They must be in pretty deep, all things considered.

Sam looked like she was concentrating hard. Tosh, too, had a serious expression on his face.

Robin looked kinda dopey, especially as she continued to knead a Will that was not there.

[Vivienne Chinnoir]

"Tereza?" The vague "call" for help making her cautious as she arrived at the door.

[Tereza Rozanov]

Tereza was standing in the middle of three people who were concentrating really hard. Standing to her was an ice orb with four legs with something inside it. The door to the kitchen was blocked by ice with a giant icy biohazard symbol on it. "Vivienne, good. We need to get them out to the Point. Some bad mushrooms. I'm not sure what's going on."

[Vivienne Chinnoir]

"Mushrooms?" She looked at Sam, Tosh and Robin.

"Right, to the Point." She stepped forward and took a hold of Sam's hand.

[Tereza Rozanov]

"Might have to carry her, sweetie. I think she's doing the telepath thing." She looks at the other two, "We should stick close together. If she is doing her telepath thing, I wouldn't want any of them to get beyond her reach. I don't know what would happen."

[Isolde Schwarz]

"You know, I do have a phone," Isolde says from the doorway, golden-eyed and irked.

[Tereza Rozanov]

"And I'm not exactly up to making phone calls at the moment," Tereza snaps back, picking up on Isolde's irk. The four-legged ice construct gets more wolf-like briefly as her wolf gets a little up in arms. "We've got to take them out to the Point," she says, gesturing at the three 'sleepers'.

[Vivienne Chinnoir]

She knelt getting her shoulder under Sam's and lifted the other young woman into a standing position then hooking her free arm behind Sam's knees picking her up completely.

"Shall we?"

[Isolde Schwarz]

"I suppose we shall, but if you call on me because you need something off a high shelf, we'll have words," she sighs, hefting both Robin and Tosh, one over each shoulder.

[Tereza Rozanov]

"You get to deal with the memory mushrooms next time, then," Tereza says, leading the way out with the ice sculpture, containing what she assumes is Will, following her.

[Narrator]

It was a rather comical sight -- a pack of wolves carrying three comatose students across campus. Xaviers was a weird place, you guys.

The path for them through the quad and to the point was cleared of students by your helpful Eye in the Sky, as ASHLIE did something useful for once, so the trio would have little problems dragging the other trio into a safer, more out of the way locale.