EMERGENCY BROADCAST (text)

[justribbing]

(All active cellphones sound an alarm briefly during the delivery of this message.)

To: All Users
From: sans.
Subject: (SUBJECT HERE)
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URGENT ANNOUNCEMENT: The following is an automated message.

Nature of Emergency: cagey queen left us hanging


PRESS 1 if outside the vicinity of: home If it is safe to do so, follow the prompts to take and send an image of your surroundings to the administrator.

Users in the vicinity of: home are requested to congregate in the: mess hall immediately for: probably a good idea to come save us


Additional Notes:

* sup.
* not much, not much, just hangin' with about 3 new and old friends in this cage dangling precariously above the water.
* can't say i like the conditions either, but the cold and damp doesn't get under my skin. i think i see other cages, tho and, uh, i can't say much for them yet.
* six other occupied cages, with about three in each. hey, it's like those math problems you used to get in school.
* startin' to get a real sinking feeling so if there's anybody out there who ain't locked up, it'd mean a lot to me and over 20 other people if you bailed us out.
* see ya. sans.

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Comments

[heritrix]

[Ultra specific spells like that always have loopholes to exploit. Or maybe the Queen actually does have a sense of fairplay? Who knows anymore, really. Wrapping her arms around her middle, Rin meets Zuko halfway and tilts her ear closer to the cell.]

Well, he is sitting.

[Her voice is light from humor, even for how tired she is. But hey come on Zuko, they're not doing nothing either. Rin still thinks it's impressive they managed to solve as much of the puzzle as they did before needing to ask for help. She doesn't say anything about that, or the rest of what Zuko said, however. Largely because:

Don't be stupid. We're helping each other.

Yes, that summed up her thoughts succinctly.]

[justribbing]

Heh heh heh heh, c'mon. Gimme a break. These shadows are tryin' hard enough to, anyway.

[ Whoops.

Reel it back in with that gallows humor, Sans. Zuko's the type to take it literally, Rin's--Rin's the type to see it for what it is, and she ain't like Wade, who gets it, who understands the anesthetic properties of a joke, even the dark ones. (Sometimes, especially.)

And they've all got bigger things to worry about. ]

Anyway, don't blame ya for havin' trouble with that other one.

Y'know what a boondoggle is?

[ Honestly, he isn't even sure that'll translate right. ]

Hold your phone up to the puzzle if you gotta.

[daughterofursa]

[Zuko wastes a moment trying to figure out just what kind of joke that's supposed to be before she lets it go. It's not important.]

Boondoggle?

[No, the word doesn't translate, but Zuko repeating it phonetically seems to work just fine. She looks up as the characters rearrange themselves to form what she's pretty sure is still nonsense, but whatever.]

That did it.

[Is that the last one?]

[heritrix]

[It's his coping mechanism, and she can understand it for that at least. It's not the worst one she's heard, and from other people. It gets easier not to cringe at these things.]

Boondoggle?

[As Zuko offers that up as their guess, Rin utters the word like a foreign object that feels strange in her mouth, bewildered. Her speech probably comes out a little muffled, talking on the other side of Zuko.]

What? Did you guys grow up in 1940's New— [Glancing up at the ceiling, she suddenly cuts herself off.] Wait, wait. It's doing something new.

[That word was indeed the last one. The finished puzzle remains for a few seconds, glowing softly before seemingly erasing itself. In its place, letter by letter, something new is carved. Sans, of course, isn't privy to that. He just gets the short, bated silence on the phone as the word is spelled out.

When it's complete, Rin reaches to take her phone back from Zuko, so she can properly speak into the phone. Her voice comes in more clearly now.]

Altar room. [She breathes out a sigh, a little relieved, a little... Okay. She puts a grin in her voice.] Thank you, Sans. I think you just got us our key location.

[justribbing]

Go us.

[ Sans's drawled 'cheer' doesn't even deserve that description. It's not sarcasm, he just knows they're not outta the woods just yet. ]

...Huh. So those puzzles don't open the cages?

[ Key locations. ]

Ok. Yeah. Leave it to the Queen to send us on a wild goose chase. Can you relay that to the rescue teams?

I gotta handle a thing over here.

[daughterofursa]

[The altar room. The altar room is enormous. Unless they get lucky, which she doesn't count on, it's going to take the rescue team time to find a key in there. They need to get on it fast.

Zuko leans a little closer to Rin to make sure Sans can hear her.]

Yeah. We'll take care of it.