>>"I doubts you all would want me here for long. I seem to attract bugs of all sorts.. It can be rather dangerous, depending on what type of bug happens to reside around the area."

Gawain smiled. "You'd be surprised, but 'dangerous' has a totally different meaning around here. But if ya wanna stick around for a while and talk to the people in charge... well, 'tis supposed to be a safe place for everyone, right?" he chuckled "So, do those spiders..."

Once again, he never got to the end of the question. The doorbell rang.

"Excuse me for a sec" he sighed, wondering where the mansion greeters were when needed, and walked back across the living room to the hallway, opening the door.
Three words.

Another. Girl. Scout.

"Well, hey there." Gawain grinned, with the attitude of a person who cannot be surprised anymore. Not today. Not ever. So laid back, you coud lay a carpet on it. "And what's your specialty, little one? Mosquitoes? Cocroaches? Naked mole rats?"

Creepy mutant girl scouts. They always come in twos.

"And what's your specialty, little one? Mosquitoes? Cocroaches? Naked mole rats?"

The girl blinked up at him for a moment, before her eyes filled with tears and she burst into sobs. "What's -sob- that supposed -sniffle- mean?! -sob-" She rubbed at her eyes with balled up hands. "I just -sob- came here because -sniffle- some mean lady stole all my stuff." A break in the girls crying finally came, and she raised wet round puppy eyes his way, pouting cutely. "Can I use your phone to call my mom?"

Inside, Megan has stood and peeked around the doorway of the kitchen, listening intently. "Whelp, that's my cue to leave." She finished off her milk and abandoned the glass on the table. On the way to the door, she called her spiders out of hiding, waiting only a moment for them before she booked it out the backdoor. Whatever spiders were still inside, were on their own..

Outside however, there wasn't an exit in sight. Just as the backdoor slammed shut, she was booking it across the lawn and around shrubbery, heading towards what looked like an out, until she got there that is. "What the crap?" Before her sat the entrance to a hedge maze. One... that she didn't know the size of. "Who keeps a thing like this in a school for god's sake?!" The scout spider who had surveyed the kitchen shrank on her shoulder- having hopped from the fridge as she passed by- and Megan shot it a dirty look. "There's an exit out back, he says." Her scowl made the small creature retreat back into her hair, and she crossed her arms.

"How annoying..."

>>"What's -sob- that supposed -sniffle- mean?! -sob- I just -sob- came here because -sniffle- some mean lady stole all my stuff. Can I use your phone to call my mom?"

Crying. Ten year old. Girl.

Gawain blushed deep red instantly, tears being a much more useful weapon against him than any kind of spider.

"I'm sorry I didn't mean to... wait, what did you just say?!"

Mean lady. Girl scout. Cookies.

"Sh*t." Gawain clapped a hand over his mouth, looking down into the tear filled puppy dog eyes once again "Uh, I mean, come on in, there's a phone in the hall, you can use it, jus'... gimme a sec I'll be right back."

With that, the knight was back in the kitchen, just to find the empty glass on the table and Charlotte (who apparently wasn't a girl scout) gone. With all the visible spiders. Good riddance.
It was easy to figure where she went; Gawain ran to the back door, just in time to catch a glimpse of what must have been their recent guest, making a break towards... the hedge maze?

Maybe she wasn't that good at finding an exit after all...

"Hey!" he called after the girl "That's not where you wanna go..."

That's not where I wanna go.

"Hey!

Well, no time like the present to find out, it seemed. She caught the last of his words and laughed haughtily as she darted though the entrance of the maze, with a wave over her shoulder. Who was he to tell her where she wanted or would not want to go? Maybe a maze was where she wanted to go...
Snorting, she ignored how stupid that particular thought was, and turned the first corner- and paused. It wasn't to late to turn back... there was always the chance that she could run faster than the boy. She blinked, once- twice, and grinned. "What the hell, I've got nothing better to do anyway."

The second corner of the maze was further down the hall way of green. Megan started to walk again, slowly this time, and puckered her lips to release a thin cord of web from her mouth. Ad she passed, she anchored the end to the hedge on her right, with help from a sticky globule on the threads end. She would use it as her bread crumb trail back, if it came down to that. Once her line was tethered, she picked up the pace again into a quick jog, keeping the line from her mouth out of the way with one had as she moved. She was tempted to send her babies crawling out into the bushes to give her directions... but that would be cheating. Wasn't the whole point to having one of these things to get lost, and have fun while doing it?

It was where she wanted to go.
Or, if it wasn't... she went in anyway.

"Dammit, it ain't funny!" he growled, following her. He hadn't been in the maze before, but hey, it was a simple hedge maze in the garden of a school, how complicated could it be?

After five minutes of searching for Charlotte and busy getting lost, Gawain managed to pinpoint the difficulty level of the maze to 'pretty darn'.

He kept an eye out for spiders. Unfortunately, there were precious many places for little creatures to hide. And no reflecting surfaces to teleport in. That was the main reason why Gawain preferred mirror mazes over hedge mazes any day.
Especially today.

"A'right, Aunt Nancy, why don' we just talk about this?" he called out from what he guessed must have been somewhere deep inside the maze, possibly close to the center "So ya're not a girl scout, and ya stole cookies from a ten-year-old. Ya're also a mutant, with some bug powers, an' ya came here to, dunno, have a look around?" he sighed, stopping where he was "Hate to tell ya this, but one needs more than that to get into trouble around here..."

It was a pretty big huge maze. One of her spiders had made it to the top of a hedge, and had muttered about not being able to see an end to it. Megan paused, to stoop and tie a shoelace, when Gawain's voice floated above the hedges to her. Aunt Nancy? What the hell did that mean? She stood again, her shoe forgotten for now, and let her eyes wander up while she searched for what direction his voice was coming from. 'find him...' She felt the resulting 'yes ma'am's' and smiled.

"Oh?" She started, raising the level of her voice a little. She wanted to be heard, after all. "I'm going to guess a lot of mutants here had problems then..." She tugged on her guide thread, and moved to take a step forward- continue on her merry journey. Her forgotten shoelaces though, had other ideas. One caught of a root poking out of the ground, and she pitched forward unexpectedly. With a squawk of surprise, she sprawled out onto the ground and felt the air rush from her lungs. 'Stupid shoes... Stupid maze..'

Pushing herself to her knee's again, she brushed herself off and tied the blasted shoe- knotting it a few times just to be safe. "In my defense, that ten year old should not have been talking to a stranger. I think I taught her a very valuable, non violent, life lesson." She nodded to herself, ignored the you just keep telling yourself that that floated across her thoughts, and kept going. "As for checking this place out, yes. I did. I must say though, your rooms appear really small." She wasn't all that thrilled with the idea of sharing one, either.

One of her spiders wiggled past a clump of leaves, and spotted Gawain in front of it. Megan grinned as the information was relayed back to her. "Found you." On her command, the jumper anchored himself to a leaf and bounced up and down, trying to create enough noise to attract Gawain's attention.

>>"I'm going to guess a lot of mutants here had problems then..."

"You have no idea." Gawain chuckled, wandering slowly along in the maze, careful to stay within earshot from the girl, or at least her voice. It was curiously similar to looking for his mother. He had just as much of a chance of finding her by sheer luck as any other way.

>>"In my defense, that ten year old should not have been talking to a stranger. I think I taught her a very valuable, non violent, life lesson."

"Yeah, let's hope she's got a mutant friendly family." Gawain muttered. The girl had a point, even if it was a questionable one.
And the cookies were good too.

>>"As for checking this place out, yes. I did. I must say though, your rooms appear really small."

"Yeah, I dunno what ya're used to princess, but it's not that crowded" he scoffed "Plus it comes with meals, classes, and free entertainment." he listed "Oh, and did I tell you about the traps they..."

>>"Found you."

"Wha... how?!" the knight spun around, looking for her; but her voice was still coming from the same direction, and it didn't get any closer. She was either projecting it, or she had eyes...

... eyes.

After some looking, Gawain noticed the tiny bouncy spider - but only because he had been looking for one. Walking closer he bent down to look at it more closely. Hopefully not as closely as last time.

"Hey there little one" he muttered, then raised his voice again "So, you can see what they see, or what? Is this your version of a webcam?"

Pun fully intended.

She scoffed right back. "I don't know what you're used to, but I rather like having my own room. I don't do sharing." Her feet took her further down the path, she turned a corner to her right- and ran straight into a dead end. Pausing, with a hand on her hip, she considered her options. It was far to early to turn back now... that would end the game, and she was just starting to have fun. "Don't worry about the kids family, I don't show my powers to those that don't deserve them." She stated off offhandedly, pushing an arm through the dead end to see if she could get to the other side.

Her wrist poked through, and she was able to waggle it about freely. Excellent. leaving her web dangling from her mouth, she struggled though- earning a few scrapes and scratches here and there- but eventually made it to the other side. She was quite proud of herself, too.

The spider with Gawain froze momentarily as Megan sent it instructions to follow her web and bring him that'a way. Then it resumed its bouncing and tilted its body as it regarded the human. After a moment, it sat back on its hid legs and raised its arms, a classic movement that just screamed 'pick me up! pick me up!'
Megan Snorted at the web cam comment, "Ha ha. very funny."

She continued on her way, noticing a wet patch of earth in front of her, with a thick covering of climbing ivy that had leak out from the hedge next to it. Great. She really didn't want to get her shoes wet... "Yup, I can see what they see, and hear what they hear. Nifty aint it? Now, what were you saying about tr-" Her question was cut off as the ground under the ivy gave way under foot. She shrieked, and plummeted into a good sized hold. At the bottom, once she had collected herself, she noticed that she was waist deep in thick freezing mud. A scowl spread across her lips, and the resulting words the flew from her mouth would have made the ivy above her head shrivel and catch fire had it not been to wet....

Gawain arched an eyebrow at the flailing spider. Was it really saying what he thought it was saying?
Well, there wasn't really any other reason for a spider to flail like that, so...

Gawain picked the little creature up and tried his best to follow instructions that were being given by spider body language. At least now they were going somewhere...

>>"Yup, I can see what they see, and hear what they hear. Nifty aint it? Now, what were you saying about tr-"

Charlotte let out a shriek, and a loud thud, and a string of curse that made Gawain jealous. A wide grin spreading on his face he broke into a run, turning a few corners and backg out of a few dead ends before the flail!spider lead him to the location of the girl scout.

Or, rather, close to her location.

"I was sayin' there are a few traps around the Mansion grounds, to keep nosy people away." he stated in a conversational tone as he knelt, looking down at her "But this one ain't a trap, it's just a random pit."

It was all kinds of hilarious, seeing her like that down in the mud. Not so high and mighty after all.

"But ya can have this one all to yourself. I gather ya don' like sharing..."

Oh yes. He would keep poking fun at her.
Until he figured out how to help her, that is.

Pulling her arms out of the mud, she wrinkled her nose in disgust. She was soaked to the skin with it, not to mention it was up her skirt, in her shorts, and seeping into her shoes. She heard the whisperings of her spiders and her frown loosened just a little. They recognized the trouble she was in- and even though it wouldn't help- a group of them were rushing to create a small rope with which to toss over the ledge. Like they had seen her do on a few occasions. "Cute." She muttered, trying to wipe away the gunk from the front of her shirt. She watched a shadow fall over her, and glanced up. Gawain had found her after all. The little spider he carried earned some serious brownie points. "And here I thought you guys just lacked creativity. I would've thrown a few pikes and bear traps in- had it been intentional." Digging her fingers into the sides of the pit, which was only big enough for about three people, she attempted to push herself up and lodge her foot on the other side- but the dirt was far to slippery. Megan growled lowly, and crossed her arms, leaning back against the side of the pit.

"Really? Your so kind. But I must admit, it is a little cramped for my liking." She paused, sloshed a foot around in the muck for a moment, and sighed. "And much to wet. And sticky." Wrinkling her nose, she stuck her tongue out at him, and waited. There wasn't much else to do besides waiting. Making a rope would take to long- though it wouldn't hurt to keep that in mind, and making fun of him would only hurt her chances of getting help. With another sigh, she tilted her head back and grumped. The old 'life is unfair' came to mind, but she pushed it away. Moping about ruined clothes (that weren't her own) would come later. Right now she... She was shrinking? Light blue eyes blinked, and she glanced at the wall across from her. Either her eyes were playing tricks on her, or the wall was moving upwards. Or maybe she was- "Ohmygod In sinking." A fact... that she was very unhappy about.

Gawain set the little spider down and watched it join the others forming a tiny and uneffective rescue group at the side of the pit. They were kind of cute, but if Gawain had to bt, he would have bet they would fall in too, any minute.

"Y'know this kinda reminds me of a few spider stories I've read" he chuckled, walking around the edge of the pit to survey the situation, and listened to Charlotte complain "Well yeah it's sticky, what did you expect?"

>>"Ohmygod In sinking."

Blink.
That was Gawain's cue to drop the act.

"Ya're kidding, right?..."

He looked. No she wasn't.

"Allright, I'm gettin' you out of there okay? Stop. Wiggling. Don't move."

He knelt down by the pit. It was too deep for him to lean in safely and just pull her out.

"We need a rope."

"A rope?"

She could do rope... but, that would take time. "I can manage that..." Slapping her mouth shut, she severed the connection between herself and her guidline. "Don't lose sight of this thread, she cautioned, tugging on it slightly so he could see what she was talking about. "It will lead us all the way back out." With that off her mind, and out of the way, she consentrated on weaving together a handful of thread to make a slim, but sturdy rope. Once enough was woven that she could feel it on the tip of her tongue, she reached up and grasped it between her fingers. It was only a matter of twisting a little as she pulled to add to the strength of the rope, and that was easy when you were used to it.

The rope came out like a magic trick- much slower- but still quite the same. One long continuous strand of opaque silk, with a sparkle of saliva. She foucused so much on making the strands as quickly as possible, that she forgot about his warning to stand still. Her feet slipped under her and Megan plopped further down into the mud- up to her bust. She cursed clumsily and fumbled for footing, but only really succeded in shoving her feet into the thick mud deeper... A few more tense moments, and a few more inches lost into the mud, and she had a good sized rope ready. Long enough that she would probably be able to fling the end up and over the ledge. She snapped her teeth shut and severed the thread, then spat the end out at her side.

"I'm tossing it up, watch the end, its sticky." Despite her current situation, she grinned. "Don't drop me either, dying in a mud pit would really kill my day."

>>"Don't lose sight of this thread, it will lead us all the way back out."

Gawain followed the thread with his eyes, it was thing as, well, a spider thread, but it was there. Good thinking, that earned points for the girl scout. He doubted hew ould be able to find his way out by himself anytime soon.

Turning back to her he knelt at the edge of the pit, watching her produce a silk rope from her mouth. Just like that. Just like a real spider would do.

"That." he had to admit, after he winced at seeing her sink, she was still not something he would call a friend but he would have hated to see her sink, besides fishing out the body would be a pain and would need a lot of explaining to him... ".... is all kinds of awesome."

>>"I'm tossing it up, watch the end, its sticky. Don't drop me either, dying in a mud pit would really kill my day."

"'kay" he nodded, shifting position and making sure he wouldn't slip while pulling her up "Here we go."

The rope was indeed sticky, and he had his doubts about it being strong enough... but it seemed to hold her weight just fine. Wrapping it around his wrists he pulled, hoping she wasn't too deep in the mud to be pulled free...

The slack in her rope disappeared, and she felt it begin to inch up the wall. She wrapped it around her wrist securly, and tugged on her legs. he was strong, she'd give him that. He had already pulled her up a good two inches from the muck. It was her feet she would have problems with. The strain on the rope began to show, as it gradually stopped pulling her up and instead started to simplt streatch topside. "Sonova-" Gritting her teeth, she wriggled a little and got a few inches higher, she could feel her shoes getting sucked off under the mud, and fought with her toes to keep them on.

As Gawain kept pulling, and Megan kept wriggling, she felt the mud finally starting to give way, until one huge Squelch later she was free. Free! "Ha ha! Take that mother nature!" She kicked at the muck on her way up, and once she was able to grabbed ahold of the edge and scrambled her way up. "Well..." Planting her bum a safe distance away from the edge, she kicked some clinging mud from her shoes and wipes it off of her front. "That was lovely."

The small spiders that had gathered around the pit skittered her way, climbing up her back to retreat once more into her hair. The one that had travled with Gawain didn't however... It Sat at her side and stared at her until she looked at it, then pointed one leg gawain's way. "Fine fine." Turning to glance over her shoulder, she let the spider still hiding in her mouth crawl out to return to its favored earlobe, and blew a few strands of muddy hair from her eyes. "Guess I owe you one now, don't I?" She blinked, and swept herself to her feet, treading carefully around the pit to pick up her silken life like again. "Are you okay?" She called back to him, ober her shoulder.

Gawain pulled on the rope, trying to yank her free from the mud; she felt really heavy, not because of her body weight but because she was really, really stuck. The silk rope started to cut into his wrists as he pulled, but he could feel her move, slow but steady...

Squelch

Gawain pulled her up the rest of the way, and then landed on his butt, panting a bit from the effort. She was covered in mud and didn't smell too good, but at least she was alive.

Gawain watched the spiders scurry up into her hair, and found himself not even being surprised.

>>"Guess I owe you one now, don't I?"

"Yeah, if ya insist" Gawain grinned up at her from the ground "You definitely do if ya want clean clothes to go home in. Girl scout doesn't fit you anyway." he sighed, getting back on his feet "How 'bout we go back in and we start this thing over again?"