🌟🌌Dimension Hoppers [RP Remake]🌌🌟

Clover pauses after the tremor ceases and walks away further.

She glances at Hoppers, then at the lighthouse, then at her friend again.

"I shouldn't be here."

Clover hesitates whether or not she should at least say goodbye, but decides not to. She turns her back and begins walking towards the lighthouse.

Hoppers tries to reach out to you as you walk away, but stops himself, the words dying in his throat. So he just watches Clover leave, silently, still wrapped in the turmoil of his own thoughts and what he thinks he should do in the moment.

The lighthouse of Old Man Pinch is just like one of those lighthouses that all look the same. The place looks sort of ramshackle from the outside. It was probably a part of a police investigation some time past, and the residues of that still haven't fully worn off. The door itself is unlocked, and can be easily entered.

Inside it looks like the garage of a hoarder, dozens of items of different shapes, sizes and colors all scattered about haphazardly, not helped at all by the fact that nearly all of them were probably pored over by detectives. What really is unnatural is the giant pit in the middle of the first floor, which sort of devours the staircase. There's no trace of life inside the lighthouse, just the creaking of the wood and buzzing of the flies.

It appears the pit opened sometime after the police investigation and sort of recently. Dust from rocks and stone still line the entrance into the hole, and it looks like no one really delved that deep into it. It looks to be your delivery location.

Clover walks in expecting to give Pinch a heart attack. Seeing a gaping hole and not him is an unwelcome surprise.

He can't possibly have...

...no, he must be up to something. He's too resilient.

Clover examines the pit itself to find a safe way to descend.

There's a simple way down, evidently used by someone before to clamber down into the pit. A long piece of rope tied to a conveniently placed sturdy iron stake. Both the rope and the stake seem plenty intact and stable, with very little chance of either flaking out or breaking mid-climb down.

Below, the point of descent itself (where you're at after climbing down the rope) is perfectly safe. No ominous spikes or monsters or flesh-gobbling swarms of magical flies, just rock cavernous walls of rocky complexion that exhume a vibe of rock. While the rocky rocks are rocky and jagged, they're not an immediate danger to you all in any way that counts.

Other than that, there's not exactly a whole lot of light to see much else, other than observing the fact that the cavern of interest is pretty big.

Clover walks up to the rope, holds it firmly and begins shuffling down as fast as she can, which is still, comparatively to an average person, a little slow. She’s visibly shaking and looking up and down constantly for any sort of bad omen or danger, but none is there, which makes it worse.

Her mind races with thoughts of her past life. Her former friends, especially.

“Hoppers will definitely tell everyone”, she realizes (but doesn’t say). “What will they think…?

…It doesn’t matter, It’s not like I’ll have to come back here again. It’s not like I can.”

Down on the ground inside the cavernous cave are more rocky rocks. Looking around, the underground is mostly dark to the point of on-sight, but there is a somewhat defined path forward via a trail of mysteriously burning lanterns that don't seem to be emitting any heat. The lanterns lead to an old wooden door with a big metal skull right in the middle of the wood. It appears to unlocked.

Clover walks slowly so as to not make noise. She glances behind her one last time. Then she carefully opens the door, hoping it doesn’t creak, and peeks in.

Inside the room that the door leads to is what could be described as a workshop, but on a much more massive scale. Though the alcove is small, it’s packed full of things, from elaborate blueprints to complex magic sigils and tech and scraps of bronze.

Poured over all these materials is an old crab person. But something is wrong. Nothing that old moves with that much agility, with that much vigor.

Your intrusion does not go unnoticed. The hinges of the door are poorly maintained, if at all and as such the door creaks, annoyingly loudly. The crab turns around and another fact that makes it look unnatural catches your eye. The thing’s eyes are pitch black, no irises to be seen. It speaks and its voice is all wrong.

”Yes, you’re the delivery people, right? The package, the core, hand it over now. My work is nearly done.”

Clover steps in and looks around the area.

“What in the…”

What happened to this man…!?

She makes eye contact with the old crab for a brief moment. But she quickly averts her eyes towards the floor.

”What… what is all this? Are you ok?”

She hugs the package a little.

The crab turns its head inquisitively, or at least tries to for a moment before it finally gets what you’re saying.

”Oh, you’re referring to this vessel! Yes, I admit it isn’t the most efficient thing on this planet, but it was the first I could find on short notice. Not that it’ll matter once I finish my work. Now hand the package over.”

Whatever it is attempts to snap their fingers, but only ends up clicking their claw because they’re a crab now.

*Alice gives the package to the crab*" here you go!"*she said with a smile*

“‘Vessel’…?”

Before Clover can process this, Alice takes the package from her hands.

She weakly reaches out to retrieve it. But it’s too late.