The Perils of Pudding [Open]

[Verad]

She found it? Molesting?! The very ideas in combination sent an unpleasant shudder down Verad's spine, assuming that wasn't leftover damage from the collision making his nerves twinge.

"Slander, madam!" he said as he pawed and clawed his way into an upright, if not quite all right, position, head wobbling uncertainly as he shook himself free from a rush of dizziness. "I spent several hours laying that trap. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to tie a rat up such that it makes a little bow?!"

 

Indignant? Perhaps. But he'd gone to all that trouble. He'd even made the little signs. Could it have been the case that they were too effective, and nobody noticed that a trap had been there at all?

 

He would praise his own cleverness later, and at great length. For now, he had a job to do, which would require, using appropriately delicate tactics, convincing Natalie to yield his quarry. And he was about to use them, until he got a good look at her fingers delving into its fleshy interior.

 

"You can't just have your way with someone else's pudding and expect to walk away from it!" he said, abruptly and with a bit of sputtering, attempting to use the advantage of his greater height to swat the creature off the top of her head.

 

---

 

The rat was a trusting sword, and as the bag was caught and drug along the street, unseen by at least one particularly incensed and oblivious Duskwight, the creature followed suit. It had thus far been given a nice fat piece of fruit and a few nuts and chocolates to feed upon; while other rats might have questioned the wisdom of dragging itself along whatever food-source happened to be found, this rat was doing quite all right by itself.

 

And to think, his siblings had mocked him, thinking he would never come to anything? And here he was, and there they were, somewhere in a restaurant's interior squabbling over a thrown-away dish. Who was laughing now, hm?

[111]

"Verad it's just a pudding, calm yourself." She chuckles, "Can one even molest a pudding?" as she removes her hand from the creature with a disturbing sucking noise. The slime almost seems to give a contented sigh, moment's before the Duskwight's well aimed hand slaps into it, scooping it off of Natalie's head, and sending it sailing through the air. Natalie watches wide eyed at its arc, before it lands, with a soft 'splurp' on Leanne.

 

On the open collar of Leanne's shirt, to be specific. The slime makes a gurgling noise before nestling itself in the strange, warm crevice it now found itself in.

[Leanne]

Leanne could only widen eyes, a cold running up her spine as suddenly, the strange critter made of substance found a nice cozy home between her breasts. She froze in place before trembling, a mix of embarrassment and displeasure as she felt the pudding sinking in further into the improvised 'nest'.

 

"....S-Someone...t-take it away from me before I f-freak out...." she whispered, slowly and pleading, amber hues -refusing- to have a look at the nasty sensation she felt on her chest. Over was the sympathy for what she felt was a rather endearing pudding. She now wanted the creature away from her as fast as possible.

[Unnamed Mercenary]

The pudding had nearly come after it twice, so a third time /had/ to be possible. Franz looked around for the rat, noticing that a girl was trying to pick up the back of snacks he'd dropped with...was that wand?! It was only a rat.

 

He walked up and picked up the bag, the rat inside it happily munching away, without a care in the world. "Sorry, I'll have to take this back." He gave an awkward smile, as if that would make everything better.

 

Holding the bag out close enough to Leanne to get the notice of the pudding, he tried to bait it out from it's "nest".

 

"Come on....if the Elezen was able to bait you with this, it should work for me...".

 

He could only hope that the pudding would want the rat more. It was a rather beautiful, now plump rat, after all.

[Jancis]

A smile grew on the conjurer's lips as her quarry was in sight. The fluffy missus rat was nearly in reachable distance when suddenly two large feet closed the distance. Two large hands came down and swooped up both the bag and the rodent!

 

"Ah! Forgive me, Lord." Jancis' voice came from the sewer, polite laced with an apologetic tone. "Might I trouble you for that rat?"

 

Hands came up to the edge of the sewer grate, like a prisoner, as she looked up best she could at the highlander.

 

"I have been here since the morning bell looking for her."

[Unnamed Mercenary]

The politeness completely took him off guard. It was...unsettling at best. The only way respond would be in equal politeness. He pulled out the best flattery someone educated in Ishgard could have possibly provided.

 

"I'm terribly sorry Miss, but the rat is vital to ongoing operation. Unless you can provide a way to extract that pudding alive from the other Miss, I will need to resume the previous method of luring it out."

 

He gave an apologetic look back. He'd seen the lady before at te Quicksand, but had never spoken to her before.

[Jancis]

Jancis looked up at the man, her nose and eyes visible. Turning as much as she could to see the display of pudding grope-ade, she sighed.

 

"Lord, the nature of the pudding is to gather sweetness from the ground. It, ah, well, there." Her hand came up, unable to finish her explanation of how the creature was getting plenty of bait where it perched.

 

"The rat would be more of a threat at this point." She motioned up, lifting her hand out of the sewer grate up at him. "Only a chest of greater size could possibly lure such a pudding, forgive me, for my angle is poor and the sun does set upon some glare, but you, Lord, might be the best bait to relieve the Lady of her, ah, dilemma."

[Leanne]

Leanne looked down upon the woman, the fact that she was dwelling through a sewer raising her even more questions than the pudding currently stuck to her torso.

 

"Wait...are you telling Franz to..." she raises both brows at Jancis before letting her eyes wander towards Franz's body...or more specifically, -his- chest. "How that even works???" she asks in complete befuddlement. Shifting herself a little in a knee-jerk reaction, the creature wobbled in content, prompting the seeker to shudder even more in disgust. "J-Just take this thing of from me before I begin to panic..!!" she urges.

[Unnamed Mercenary]

"You...you both must be joking..."

 

They wanted him to what?! Why were Eorzean's obsessed with shedding their clothes? It hadn't even been a week since the night Leanne had visited...

 

He stared back and forth between the two ladies, hoping for some other answer, but none would be found. He'd just have to make the person sacrifice.

 

Carefully holding the rat, he passed it to Jancis, "I erm...guess you'll take care of the rat from here? She seems to be quite the glutton." He began to walk towards Leanne, taking his gloves and tabbard off, carefully folding the tabbard and putting his gloves onto the ground, softly putting the folded tabbard down on top of them, to keep it safe. "I like that one....", he mumbled. ((Because we all know this is what people were waiting for))

 

He walked over to Leanne, bare-chested. "Miss Leanne, I apologize in advance for this." He knelt down to her and hugged her. The bare chest starting to perspire from the hot Ul'dahn sun. "Let's hope this gets the pudding off of you", as he held on, thinking a plan such as this really couldn't possible work. Naturally, the pudding would prove that wrong as it noticed the closeness of another body. One it hadn't gotten to touch yet.

 

The pudding slid from Leanne onto Franz and he released the hug, cradling the pudding in his arms. "So....um, what exactly do we do now."

 

He walked over to the Elezen. "I believe this is....yours?" He stood there awkwardly holding the pudding, ensuring that it was both alive and incapable of escape.

[Leanne]

You could say Leanne looked away in complete embarrassment as the shirtless Franz stopped on height difference meaning her face would directly face his now bare muscular chest. Anyone, asexual or not, would become awkward at such close sight of biceps, Leanne being no exception. "...Why this is happening..." she mutters, also completely skittish at such plan.

 

Leanne couldn't do nothing nod and hold reaaally still, praying for the pudding to unlatch from her chest and instead glue itself on the bigger torax opposite to Leanne. She could grimace at the weird sound of suction she heard as the pudding changed between chests, body soon overcoming with relief. "O-Oh by the gods...it worked...I don't believe it worked..." she mutters in complete shock, staring at the perverted critter. She could swear that creature was once more cooing while sinking into Franz's chest.

 

"I'm going to need a few baths after this." she muttered.

[Verad]

Things had not turned out as he'd planned, but it was abundantly clear now why that was the case: he'd laid the wrong trap. Clearly a rat was the wrong prey.

 

Now, he thought as Franz approached, bare chest glistening both with sweat from Ul'dahn heat and the shimmer of the pudding itself, what was the correct prey. It had drawn itself to the Sultansworn, than to the woman in the hat, and then to the man's chest. Based on that, it was quite clear what he needed to do.

 

"Thank you very much, good sir," he said, plucking the pudding from Franz's chest between two gingerly grasping fingers. He had come prepared to contain it, and dropped the wriggling mass into a small sack that he extracted from one of the many hooks on his belt. "I don't suppose I could ask you or any one of these fine ladies to lay on the ground and attract more? This may be a prime location for them, and they are clearly attracted to flesh - if not in the manner I had originally intended."

 

After some thought, he decided against cutting the pudding apart. Something about some of the onlookers suggested things would be worse for him if he did that now rather than later.

[111]

Natalie has a strange dreamy look on her face from the display. When Franz backs off though she shakes her head, and wipes a strand of drool from the corner of her mouth. "H-hey!" She shouts, seeing Verad take the bag. Natalie steps in front of him and places her hands on her hips, "What are you gonna do with that thing anyway!" She narrows her eyes at him, "Wait... I think I know."

 

Natalie points over his shoulder, "Wow! A giant floating butt."

 

Hoping he is distacted from her clever ruse (how could he not be?), she attempts to swipe the bag and flee down the street.

[Jancis]

"I erm...guess you'll take care of the rat from here? She seems to be quite the glutton."

 

Gratitude was evident in the eyes of the conjurer as she reached up and took the rat from the man. The critter was certainly plump and sluggish, her fur soft from attention.

 

Surely this was her quarry! The children of Ul'dah called her Missus Cornelia Snickerdoodle as she was a frequent of the hovels and something of a mascot to the little ones who found shelter therein and underneath the sunlit streets of the Jewel.

 

Some would be remiss to learn she missed the display of strength and skill above, as highlander met miqo'te, arm in arm, as the puddling found true happiness. Such a cruel ruse to play upon such a peculiar creature.

But Jancis missed it all as she flipped over the rat to soothe it and button it safely away in her leather pouch.

 

"I don't suppose I could ask you or any one of these fine ladies to lay on the ground and attract more? This may be a prime location for them, and they are clearly attracted to flesh - if not in the manner I had originally intended."

 

Quite the voice came from above, barely in view from Jancis' spot in the sewer, with an older eloquence to it. She looked around her vantage point, shining the lantern about the area. The tunnels did glisten with pudding 'tracks'.

 

Taking her original bait of walnuts and soft cheese, Jancis broke it apart and tossed around the gutter, throwing the excess out onto the street above.

 

"I have baited the way, but there is little else to do. Lord, I will thank you proper for this favor, I shall!" She called from below. The echoing of metal tapping coming shortly after as Jancis made her way, hopefully, back.