It isn't hard giving Aviri the slip. Lin and Trilup just mention that they need to get cleaned up, since, being otters, they need to spend time being wet (which the Lapi actually seems to accept as truth, or else really doesn't mind being separated from the girls for whatever reason). Part of the reason the ruse works is because there is an actual bathhouse on the docks. It's in a relatively high-traffic area too, being stuck to the side of the local brothel. And Aviri loathes crowds.
The attendant is an elderly Rath'ani woman wearing a very impressive hat in terms of amount of colors and feathers. Her eyes are sharp though. "No buckets? Buckets is a penny, soap is five. Don't rent combs or brushes though. Unsanitary to share those."
Linyala tips her hat to the attendant. "Just here ta rinse out the dust offn tha road ma'am." She smiles and walks towards the door.
"Stall 7 then," the woman notes, as Trilup tags along behind Lin. "Think they'll have hot water?" she whispers.
The building started out as a stable, probably from when the brothel was a more respectable inn. Curtains have been added for privacy, since the stalls only have half-walls separating them. At least they're labeled, and number 7 is all the way at the back, on the side connected to the main building. There are sounds coming from the other stalls that at least sound like washing.
Lin gives the place a good looking over, "I'd be surprised if it's more than a hand pump. Don't look like they've got kadies ta make it all fancy." She says quietly and opens their stall.
Through the curtain doors is.. a stall. It's still got a straw floor, but also has a large wash-barrel and a ceramic hand-pump. Low burning boat lamps provide light. There are two stools as well, and something like a coat-rack for hanging clothes or towels.
Trilup claims one of the stools. "Maybe you should sit in the tub," she suggests. "So any blood and stuff will stay inside. It's got a drain! See the cork?"
Linyala nods and unpacks the box and the existing notes on the other stool. "Good idea." She agrees, "Though if it does the blood flood again it'll prolly overflow. Kin you try'n keep the bag an' notes from gettin' wet if it gets all gooshey on us again?"
"Sure.. maybe we should open the drain first though, just in case?" Trilup agrees.
Linyala takes the box, hops in the wash barrel, and puts the drain plug up on the edge of the barrel. "Alrightey. You know it's just an ilusion right? The blood went away an didn't break anythin' 'cept Aviri, the twigtickle legs went away too after a while an both times it didn't hurt anythin'. Ya ready?" She asks, holding up the box and turning the two first dials to the two symbols they'd already found, in the order they found them.
Trilup hugs her tail and rocks back and forth. "Try to find something nice this time. Like a flower.."
Lin spins through the symbols on one of the dials to see if there's one with a flower or something suitably harmless or friendly.
Nothing looks quite like a flower on the dials.. but also the symbols look.. blurry beyond the first two. As if they were slightly undefined.
Lin squints at the symbols and makes a couple funny faces at the box. "They're inscruttable!" She exclaims, "This one might be a... Spider riding a fish? S'pose we're just gonna have tta hope fer the best." She starts moving pieces around, avoiding the areas she's already activated.
Trilup leans over to watch as bits are slid about and rotated. Finally, a new symbol shows up that glows white: a spiral. "That doesn't look too dangerous," the younger otter notes.
Lin gulps and holds onto the box as tight as she can. "Whirlwind, whirlpool, shrinkingness, drains!" She squeaks.
"Ah!" Trilup says, and grabs the cork! She jams it into the drain. After blowing away some dark.. fur? It's Lin's.. she's shedding! Except instead of falling out, the fur is clumping together to form.. fur spiders, which start scuttling about the tub. "Ahh!" Trilup squeaks.
Lin's eyes bug and she clenches her teeth around a bark. She closes her eyes and curls into a ball around the box. "Just an illusion, just an illusion, just an illusion. None of it's real." She tells herself over and over.
It still feels real. Once the last of the fur has fled, it feels like things are crawling around just beneath her skin. Her fingers and toes feel odd as well. "You've got bumps all over your.. ewwww!" Trilup exclaims. "Your skin is crawling.. away!"
"Aaaaaah!" Lin cries. "Bag empty box bag!" She exclaims and holds the box away from herself. She's not doing a very good job of holding back tears and is shakeing in discomfort and fear.
Her eyelids melt, dropping into the tub along with most of her skin. Her teeth revolt next, evacuating her mouth, followed by her tongue. Without her skin to hold them in, her guts start squirming and spreading out. Who knew there was so much tubing! Trilup has to cover her mouth to keep from getting sick. And then Lin's vision goes all wonky as her eyeballs pop out and start bobbing and rolling atop all the rest of her. She only gets to see her muscles unravel and skeleton fall apart in glimpses.. but she can still feel it all!
"Ahh!" Trilup yells, and this time Lin feels the other otter grabbing onto parts of her. "Stay in the tub! Stay! Oh fishbutter, are those your lungs?"
Lin would be screaming at this point but she's kind of busy freaking right out and going all to pieces. "Help?" She thinks she squeaks though she's not sure if her mouth is still in enough pieces to move.
Her tongue flaps about, and lungs exhale, although the sound is lost amid all the other wet squelchy noises (and those are heard from two very separated areas, as the 'ears' are floating and bobbing about as well). There's a view of Trilup reaching into the mass to try and pull out the box, and each time coming up with some other organ. She nearly fumbles Lin's brain like it was a bar of wet soap before finally grabbing the box. It's got intestines wrapped around it, so she has to struggle a bit. "Relax your bowels, Lin!" she pleads.
Lin sees Trilup holding the box and just thinks about letting it go. Opening her hands, unwrapping herself from the box, anything that's opposite of holding or posessing the box.
There's a pop, and Trilup falls back over the edge of the tub with the box. Lin.. reassembles.. although she feels like she can still taste her liver. Also, her vest and shorts are on backwards and her fur is a real mess.
Lin immediately vomits into the bottom of the tub. "Not real. Not... Real..." She pants and waves limply at Trilup then drapes herself over the edge of the barrel.
"Are you sure you have all your teeth?" Trilup asks, clutching the box. "Anything else get switched around?"
"P-put the box in the bag. Please." Lin stutters and starts patting herself down and running her tongue around the inside of her mouth... Then immediately vomits into the barrel again.
The box is bagged. "Do you want to take a bath? We gotta wash out the tub for sure now. Are you okay? Your clothes are on backwards.."
Linyala takes a few deep breaths and stretches, sees her fur, and nods. "Yep. Not a bad idea for a bath... An I prolly sheded a bit for real from the..." She trails off and shudders. "That was so weird."
"So, think it was trying to flush you down the drain?" Trilup asks, as she helps Lin out of the tub so it can be washed out first. Then she goes and starts to crank the hand-pump. "Good thing Aviri didn't see that! I mean.. you looked pretty weird without your fur. Or skin."
Linyala kneels next to the stool with the notes and pen and starts writes a breif rendition of what happened and adds a sketch of the symbol. "I don't know, but thank you for putting it back before I got all... Soupy. Didn't hurt so much as was realy, realy weird. Deffinitely not flowers." She starts wriggling out of her backwards clothes.
Once the sick is washed away, Trilup refills the tub with fresh water. "I wonder if that was really an illusion," she ponders. "I mean, if stuck something in there.. would it be inside you after the box was taken away? If nobody was there to pull it out, would you just turn to liquid?"
Having hung her clothes on the hooks, Lin eases into the water and starts getting her fur back in order. "Well it is a trapped puzzle box that's s'posed ta protect whatever's inside it." She concedes. "I'm thinkin' the way ta get it unlocked if we don't have the key is ta find all o' the symbols an put them inta those spinners in the order we find 'em. S'what I'm guessin'. Means we've gotta go through this five more times... At least it's something different each time. I don't want to do that again."
"Well.. the first time it tried to escape," Trilup notes. "Not sure what this time it was trying to do though. Scare you?"
"Or mix me up?" Lin offers, spiraling her finger around in the air like the symbol on the box. "Deffinitely scary though... But I think we're getting somewhere. It's gettworried. I think." Lin dunks her head and bubbles.
"I'm just glad I wasn't in the tub," Trilup says. "Imagine if we both melted! Who would pull out the box? What if we got all tangled up, and came out as one otter!" She shudders and hugs herself.
"Alright," Lin says, "So we kin be smart about this. So far it's tried ta run away, flood us out, an' melt me. If we let go of the box as soon as it starts doing it's magicness an' put it somewhere it can't get out, I'm thinkin' it'll just stop doing its trap or illusion once we stop bothering it."
"So.. just drop it into the bag as soon as you get a glowy?" Trilup asks.
"Yeah. That sounds like a plan." Lin chirps, starting to cheer up. She gets out of the bath and pulls the plug so she can replace the dusty, kind of furry water so Trilup can get cleaned up as well.
Trilup takes her turn, but sheds a lot less. "What are we gonna tell Aviri about this?" she asks Lin, while using her claws to comb herself. "Just that you found the symbol or what it does?"
Linyala fidgets with a bit of errant fur. "Prolly best ta just say we found the next symbol and it mixed everythin' up but it went back ta normal when we put the box down." She says slowly, " Don't want to lie about it, easier to keep track of a story that way. Just... Don't tell him the details."
"Like what colors your innards are?" Trilup asks, her whiskers going up with her grin.
"Looking back on that, I make a lovely pink-red-brown pool of me." Lyn retorts, "Anyone'd do well to be such a colour when they're all in pieces like that." She sticks her tongue out at Trilup.
"Be careful," Trilup warns. "It might try to escape again if you stick it out too far!" She then gets out of the tub and shakes off.
Lyn noisily slurps it back into her mouth and packs up her notes and writing supplies.
"I bet you're hungry now," Trilup says as she gets dressed. "You barfed up everything.."
"Yeah!" Lin agrees heartily, "Though let's get Aviri to buy. I'm still all woozley after that. Prolly wouldn't do to well swipin' dinner right now."
"We could sneak in next door," Trilup suggests. "I bet guys would buy us drinks and stuff! Or.. maybe not. They didn't look all that cute.. we should find the bunny."
Linyala nods, "Good idea." She pulls on her clothes and walks, rather uncertainly, out of the stall.