Your Friends Have Turned To Stone

[missrecalled_mods]

As usual, the horrible thing happened around midnight. There was a terrible noise like stone scraping on stone and the whole school shook briefly and then they appeared. Crudely hewn stone statues that still somehow managed to evoke the memory of who they were meant to represent to those who knew them.

The statues were of enemies, foes, rivals, anyone that one of the Misery-called might never want to see again. The statues look like rough hewn stone, but any attempts to deal with them the way one might a stone statue would fail. Even moving them would prove impossible, even with team work.

There is one blocking the doorway to every room used as a bedroom currently. A person could get in and out past them if they are small enough, nimble enough, or just don't mind losing a chunk of skin to the rough stone as they scrape past. Those ones would especially be targeted at whoever sleeps there.

But the rest of them will scatter the halls, making them hard to transverse. The majority of them were blocking what little light sources existed in the halls, making the passageways darker than usual. Much darker. Darker enough that it almost seems like a prime place for jump scares...

Blocking the doorway out of the school were three such statues. One was of a young man with short hair. One was of a young woman in a ballgown with a skirt that alone took up most of the doorway. And one was of a barefoot girl with impossibly long hair that snaked down the hallway, making a tripping hazard all the way between the door and the room Mother Gothel had claimed.

Getting in and out of the school until at least one of the statues was removed was going to be nearly impossible.

The statues in general couldn't be moved or broken in any conventional way, however. But some trial and error... or just happenstance might well provide the answer. If the Misery-called who knew the person the statue represented talked about the person to someone else in front of the statue... That would work. Though what they said would matter.

If they managed to dredge up something to say, some tale or anecdote or comment that was actually positive... the statue would vanish in a haze of black and silver glitter that would spread everywhere in easy reach and defy all attempts to clean it.

However, if the story or comments are negative, or give away some secret that the person the statue is of would not want shared the statue will explode in a shower of stone, one stone of which would hit the Misery-called hard enough to hurt but not to break skin. However where the stone struck the Misery-called would bear a new scar. A small pile of stone would remain where the statue had been, also resting all attempts to move or remove it, causing anyone walking past to have to carefully step over it so as to not trip. Which is not ideal if one is carrying something, or for example, running away from a crazed animatronic.

When The Mess Fades - A week later.

A week after they appeared any remaining statues would just vanish with another loud and horrifying noise. As would all the scars, all the rubble piles, and all the glitter. In their place where each statue had been would be a small bunch of grapes covered in rock dust. They are extraordinarily sour. In theory edible once the dust is washed off. In practice only the desperate would want to eat them. Whoever does eat them will be plagued by nightmares about whoever the statue had been of, even if they didn't know the person themselves. The nightmares will only happen for one night after eating the grapes, but if someone stretches out the grapes to eat a few every night for a week... that is a week of bad dreams. And also, again, they are sour. The sourest candy in the world isn't half as sour as these grapes.

Comments

[fallen_child]

"I don't get it. Why did they get sleepy from eating beans? Doesn't that just make them stinky and noisy? And if they were sleepy, why'd they come out??"

[mist_the_point]

He chuckled. "Yes, I imagine they were likely rather stinky as well," he said. "But they were sleepy because they'd just eaten such a large meal; they were intending to return to their dens where they could sleep, as they'd always done after pilfering from the villagers, but weighed down by their meal they were easily caught."

[fallen_child]

"Why didn't he just poison the water? Then they wouldn't have gotten to his plants at all."

[mist_the_point]

"Poison, once introduced to an environment is very difficult to get rid of," he said. "If one of those pails had spiled it could have gotten into the crops or the village's water supply and harmed everyone. And the rats may well have avoided the water after the first few fell, or detected the scent of the poison and not drunk it at all. Thus was Tothor praised not only for his cleverness, but for his sacrifice for the greater good. He did what was right, even at great cost to himself."

[fallen_child]

"But the crops died anyway so he shoulda just used the poison. Besides, if a few died and it scared away the rest, then they all coulda put out poison and never had rats again."

[mist_the_point]

"As I said, poison in an environment is difficult to get rid of," he said. "And difficult to contain, as any farmer would know. It wouldn't have been only his crops endangered by the poison, but those of the other villagers as well. And if the poison had gotten into the general water supply it could have harmed not only crops, but people, animals other than the rats, or the land itself."

"In a way, you're making the same mistake that the other villagers had been making. Namely, believing that the most aggressive solution to the problem must be the right one, when in reality that is seldom the case, and often causes as many problems as it solves, if not more. As Tothor was clever enough to deduce."

[fallen_child]

"What about cats and stuff? Or hawks? They coulda eaten the rats right up!"

[mist_the_point]

He fought the urge to sigh. He hadn't been nearly this inquisitive as a child. At least not about a simple story that may be as much tale as truth. "Oh I'm certain they tried such methods," he said. "As well as traps, bows and other weapons for hunting small animals, or any other methods available to them. Their situation wouldn't have been so dire otherwise."

"And might I say," he said, "the fact that you're asking far more questions than I ever did when my mother told me this story gives lie to the idea that you don't possess a good mind. While your ideas in this case are flawed, the simple fact that you have so many of them shows that you're thinking. Which is more than can be said for a great any people."

[fallen_child]

Chara's face scrunched up in confusion. "Did you just call yourself not smart? An why do you think what this guy did was so great but what I tried to do was so wrong? Huh?"

[mist_the_point]

"When I was a child? Absolutely. I was never a very good student, and did any number of things that I now know to be incredibly foolish."

"As to your latter question...", he said with a bit of a sigh, "your actions, as well-intended as they were, were reckless, and put Azreal- and in the end many others- in great danger. Whereas Tothor carefully considered his actions to avoid doing just that."

"If you wish to one day be a protector, you must learn not just strength, but discipline and consideration. Any fool can lash out in fear or anger. A protector must learn to evaluate a situation and consider what sort of actions are required, not just for themself, but for those they mean to protect. A protector ultimately seeks to lessen the amount of harm being done in the world, not to add to it. Tis seldom an easy task, but that is why they're both remembered and respected."

[fallen_child]

"But he and his family coulda starved, so it was just as dangerous."

[mist_the_point]

He fought the urge to sigh once again. Were they being deliberately obtuse because they didn't like what he had to say? Or was he just that poor of a storyteller?

"I've never heard mention of him having a family," he said. "And even if he didn't have the necessary coin stored away to sustain himself, do you truly think his neighbors would have let their protector starve?"

[fallen_child]

Chara considered that. "Were they humans or monsters?"

[mist_the_point]

He was almost certainly human, given who'd been telling the story. But to Chara, he said, "It was never mentioned. Likely those relaying the story didn't deem it an important detail, as the lesson is meant to be fairly universal." Which was, after all, the truth.