A Pizza Party

In the night House healed, it pulled together stone and wood. The plaster took its place after a wall went up. Against the moonlit night the silhouette of House could be seen as it changed and mended its wounds. A new chimney crept its way up to its cap stone and chimney guard. While I fell asleep a little gray mouse popped in and nested just over my shoulder.

"So where do you think the mask is?" Larry asked me as we were standing, watching House put up a new wall. It should be about where the hall to the purple door of the library. "I have no idea, maybe back to Janus?" I responded. I honestly had no clue. It makes sense that it would return to the owner. Remaking the half of his head that was missing would be the first place I would want to go. "I think the latest answer to our questions would be with how the mask was trapped in the chest, or why it was trapped, or it was with whoever or whatever sent it to us." I added as I took a step closer to House to look inside a window.I saw the last of the new stairs form over where Pixie Hollow had been. The pipes from their organ were missing, as was the door to their little home. I had hope that they would be able to put their home back together. As I turned away from the window I said."I think we need to go to the Gods realm and figure out what is going on." The look in my eye showed how serious I was about what I was saying. There was only one problem, the gate to their realm was under a mountain and guarded by Cerberus. The three headed dog of mythology that guarded the entry to the afterlife. Now the sigil on the chest made sense. It was so obvious now, it was literally right in front of us. After the explosion we moved the chest into the greenhouse, the barrier that protected the inside from anything escaping would be strong enough to contain anything that might be left in the chest. We put it down in the basement room with the flower, as an extra precaution. We figured the flower could handle anything that the chest might throw out. Though I didn't think it had many secrets left to learn. When I went down to look it over I flipped the lid down and examined the sigil, now that I knew what it meant I wanted a better look at it. "It might be a puzzle of some kind." I said to Robbie and Karen. They had come down with me to look it over. I ran my hands over the stones that ended each like and they moved just a little with the pressure of my fingers."They can be pressed!" In my excitement I broadcast the thought with essence, a habit we had when we were in a battle or surprised. A closed telepathic link came in handy when we wanted to coordinate without anyone hearing us. "These are moonstones!" I said,this time speaking rather than broadcasting my thoughts. "True moonstones are rare, they grew in the craggy cracks in mountain ranges and only formed when moonlight was reflected deeper into the crevices, settling there and forming a stone much like a pearl in an oyster.

Not only did Cerberus have his three heads but he had fifty snakes that grew out his back and added to the danger. Putting him to sleep was the only option; the guardian of the gate couldn't be killed because everything he held back would pulse out and the dead who weren't meant to be held in the afterlife would roam the Earth and set the balance of life and death off. Cerberus' best way of guarding the gate was to be the gate. It was that reason alone that the Gods set him to protect the entry into their realm. As a gate and protector of gates the beast is the perfect option. We need something that can put anything to sleep and trap it in a dream, the shepherd's crook is the answer to the issue at hand. Looks like it was going to pull double duty in such a short time. Its ability to pull in and trap the great dog in a dream was perfect."The question is, what do we do to get close enough to plant the staff?" I asked Robbie hoping he would have any ideas. The staff needed to be close enough for the effect to work, even its power to pull anything into it had about a seventy five foot range.

"Well we have to put him to sleep and we need an expression to do that. I don't think we have anything like that." Robbie explained as he looked at the sigils and the moon stones. Each one reflected a slightly different hue of color. Robbie suddenly knew what to do."Blue-Green-Yellow-Blue-Red-Green!" He blurted out as he pressed some of the stones in the order he exclaimed. A compartment under the stones made a clicking sound and clicked open. Inside the compartment were three pomegranate seeds and a small flute with small but matching moonstones, and a pestle made of black granite. Karen smiled as she spoke."I think we have just what we need now." We each took one of the items, Karen the pestle, Robbie the seeds and I took the flute.

So with new tools we came back out of the greenhouse, when we approached the rest Steven was the first to notice our new tools. "Are they expressions, or are they mundane?" He asked as he picked up the flute and played a small melody on it. It sounded like a blast of high volume birds belting out a disjointed summer song. It had no reason or melody. "I'm great at many things but this confirms one thing. I'm not a musician." We all laughed at Stevens' statement. It was honest and funny. We looked on as House grew larger, taller, and bigger as energies fed into it from the source element through the roots growing at its base. With our new tools in hand and a day or two until our home finished repairing its damage we all returned to the stables,the pens, and the greenhouse was now in use by forest and woodland Fey that preferred the confines of trees and plants opposed to the open plains and open floor plans."Do you know what mountain or at least what mountain range we need to head to?" I asked David, Mathew, and Karen as we sat around snacking on some fruits and cheeses brought in by the Gnomes from an underground store they kept nearby. As I brought a slice of apple up to my mouth I heard a squeak on my shoulder and a tiny gray mouse appeared on my shoulder."Here you go little guy it's the least I can offer you." I said to the little mouse now smiling and squeaking happily on my shoulder, holding a small bit of apple and munching with happy little crunches. Robbie was the first to reply followed by David."I think its an ocean mountain, if I remember correctly." "Its in a place humans normally won't go. They call it the bermuda triangle." There were a number of underwater mountains in that area of the world, we would have to narrow it down more than just the triangle. I had to wonder if there was anyone we knew that would be able to help, maybe someone who might know more about the area than we do? "Who do we know in the area that might be able to tell us a little more? Or maybe someone that knows the area better than we do?" I asked around the room at large. Someone in the barn had to know someone that lived in the area of the triangle. I hoped that maybe one of the beings had a friend or relative among the mer-people, or a grindylow had cousins in that part of the ocean. At first no one answered through the rush of the afternoon. Many things needed to be done before tonight. The tables needed to be cleared, the floors swept and candles placed around the room. Fey light was great but not reliable for anything more than dancing or partying too. Tonight was going to be less of a party and more dinner and reading and rest. As a day and night of rest the strobing, wild and undulating of Fey light and Fey fire, we would be able to set a fire in the center of the room and the candles would be better suited for a night of sleep. A water Fey that calls one of the rivers nearby home, came up and said that he has a close family friend that lives off the coast of Florida and may know what we were looking for. She said that we can communicate with them tonight when the moon rises.

As the afternoon wore on we had nothing else to do so we went into town, bridgewater wasn't far from our land and on the line to Boston proper. As we walked around the small town we decided that it would be fun to have a pizza party for everyone. When we came to the pizza parlor and ordered 50 pizzas for carryout we had some odd looks, but the odd orders might have been the cause, some pizza couldn't have any tomato, some could be made with tomato but couldn't have anything related to fish on it or in its sauce, others had to vegetarian but we couldn't have onion on one, we couldn't have olives on another, and etc. So we waited for our order, it was over two hours but finally we had all of the order. We double checked before leaving.Finally we made our way down the road with pizza in hand. When we reached the trail that split off to our land we waited until we reached the boundary where the glamor that hid the strange nature of our home and its inhabitants. "We thought it would be a good night for pizza everyone!" Larry yelled as we walked up to the barn. We spread the boxes out by type and style, making sure that everyone understood that some pizzas were meant for different beings. The night came on and the moon rose into the sky, we walked down to the river's edge and waited for the right time to reach out to the ocean's Water Fairies. We stood and looked into the ripples of the water as the moon climbed to its highest point in the sky and we called out to the waters of the ocean and waited for the water fairies cousin to respond. The air moved and the surface of the water rippled, as the small circles grew larger and larger a face came into view, it was a Water Baby. Water Babies are small squid-like beings that have round bulbous heads and cute antennae, as well as two tiny arms and hands. They bobbed in front of us at first, floating in the water just under the vision. Then they did a backflip and greeted all of us with a nod and saying."Hello cousin, and to you three of the seven, old family." Being the only humans and also the longest lived in the area we knew they meant that for us.