Task "Knock Knock" [Tag: Jessica]

[Madge Baker]

The ginger girl was about to go to bed and join Emer in her slumber when suddenly she heard... Knock knock. And then, after a short pause, she heard a gentle knocking sound again. And again. And this time it wasn't coming from either of the walls. The knocks were coming from the door.

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JESSICA'S TASK: Answer the door.

RESULT: There is no dice involved in this task, Jessica just needs to decide if she wants to answer the door. If she ignores the knocks and goes to bed - don't reply to this thread. Tasks are not obligatory, so don't worry, your character won't be punished/injured in any way for not completing it.

BONUS: ???

[Jessica Fleming]

"I need some sleep," thought Jessica, sitting on her bed and staring into the everlasting darkness. Even though that shooting event was just a sick joke it hurt her. A lot. She remembered her tears, her despair, her fear for the lives of her friends, especially Kim... and Geoff, that Tuxedo Mask who appeared to be a villain, pulled the trigger. Jessica was still scared, not to mention the fear of the unknown that she was having now.

"It can't go on like this." Jessica rubbed her tired eyes. She was too weak and fragile for this. Yeah, she always wanted to be a hero of some sort but how she could save anyone if she could not pull herself together? Yes, she could be seen as easy-going and optimistic but in her case it was by night one way, by day another. Jessica was all alone with her grimy thoughts at night and constant fear of nightmares did not let her sleep. She tried counting sheep but there's one she always misses.
Jessica was getting down too low... she just gotta let it go.

Knock-knock.

Jessica jumped on her bed from fear. Well, she got used to the knocking but this one was different! It came not from the walls... but the door.

If it was a horror movie Jess would never approach that door. The scary monsters always hide behind the doors for screamers. However... it was not a horror, right?

The knocking went on and on and Jessica carefully came to the door in her sweat pink pajama. Her heart was pounding like a jackhammer. She took a deep breath.

Knock-knock-knock-knock-knock!

Jessica knocked in return. She realized that she unintentionally repeated the knocking of Anna from Frozen during "Do you wanna built a snowman?" song and smiled sadly. Well, some things never change.

[Madge Baker]

A short pause followed Jessica's pattern of knocks before... it was repeated back to her. Whoever was on that side of the door knew the song and followed the girl's "groove".

After this short Frozen reference - a piece of paper slid in between the door and the doorframe. It was a pretty simple drawing of a rainbow with four missing colors - red, green, blue, purple. And below the rainbow was a few drawings of various fruits and vegetables: kiwi, grapes, pear, cabbage, avocado. All of them were really well-drawn and one may say - quite detailed... but they lacked a smudge of color. Besides the unfinished rainbow part - the rest of the picture was black and white. Each of the art pieces had an arrow pointing at them. On top of each arrow was a small broken heart or a sad face - :(.

And then they continued the song, gently knocking the pattern of the next few lines.

[Jessica Fleming]

During this pause Jessica was feeling herself a fooliest girl in the world. How she could do it? Why can't she knock like normal people, without making references?
However... she got a response, that made her jump. The person behind the door watched Frozen too! Well, that was a relief. Jessica could not suggest that evil maniac will respond to this. Maniacs usually are too arrogant for such things.

Jessica was surprised to see a piece of paper slid in between the door and the doorframe. It was... a drawing? How cute! Even though it missed some colours... How convenient that she had crayons!

Jessica quickly found them and got back to the door. She began to colorize the drawing.
"Maybe this is a drawing of a talented child of a villain whose crayons I have found," thought Jessica, looking at small broken hearts and sad faces on the top of each arrow. What if she had to paint only one of them? Well, there was no clue, so Jess decided to risk and color everything. Let's hope that she was just digging too deep.

What a strange coincidence! The missing colors were the exact ones that she had: red, blue, green, purple, and black as a bonus!

Jessica colored the rainbow first, using necessary colors and then came to fruits and vegetables: kiwi (black plus red for brown skin and green flesh with black seeds), pear (light green), cabbage (green again?), avocado (also green... is this a pattern?), and grapes... Jessica held her crayon. Maybe this child wanted her green crayon to be finished, or... was this a test? But for what? Purple or green, purple or green...

Well, how it is said in the famous meme: "Why not both?" Jessica made purple shadows on the grapes so it was looking even more realistic. There were transitions in colors as if the grapes were ripening. Actually, Jess did a great job. She put great efforts in this drawing, made shadows, and even did not cross the lines.

However, she could not resist. It seemed that the person behind the door had the rest of the crayons (yellow, orange, maybe navy blue?). Jess due to childish nature decided to make a contribution as well and draw an outline of the Sun using the black crayon, just over the rainbow. And a little cute Olaf the snowman under the vegetables. So the child may just color the Sun in yellow and the Olaf's nose in orange and they will be even! Even if the kidnaper's kid won't like it... Jessica tried.

During this process, she did not forget to respond to the knocking song. Sometimes she used only one hand for drawing and knocked using the other one but overall, she managed to be a Cesar - the song was done and the drawing was finished. Jessica returned the piece of paper to the gap between the door and the doorframe. Let's hope the next song will be "Love is an open door". Desirably literally.

Please, open the door.

[Theodore Wong]

This girl was silent comparing to Keiari who he met a few days earlier. Did he do something wrong? Didn't she like his drawing?

But he saw that she drew something in the books! Did he misjudge her actions? Teddy didn't want to be rude, he just wanted to find another friend... And since Teddy himself was guilty of drawing in books - while he pretended as if he read them but in reality, he just drew little flowers or smiley faces on the pages - he thought that they could be buddies. It was pretty lonely down here... and he craved for some human interaction.

So the man got a little bit worried until he heard the piece of paper slip back to him. Fully colored! Oh, she even got creative and used some accents! What a nice little collab! Next time maybe they can try something even more complicated!

"Teddy," he thanked her and looked at the drawing. He definitely missed those colors! Especially green. Green was his favorite! "Oh, eh-" he cought and straightened his back as he realized that he didn't introduce himself to his newfound friend yet! Oh, bother, bother!

"Teddy!" he made himself sound even low and more manly than before. He hoped that the girl would not be TOO confused by all of this... "Oh!" he got an idea, "Teddy!!" he asked the girl to wait while he was on his way to solve their little problem!

He drew a small simple picture of a teddy bear with an arrow pointing at a small picture of himself - just a smiley face with a brown beard. Under this picture, he drew a simple smiley face of a girl with the ginger girl's hairstyle coloring her hair orange - one of a few colors from the set he had left. Then he pointed an arrow from the smiley face to a question mark and slid the new drawing under the door, waiting for their response.

[Jessica Fleming]

Well, Jessica always had many ideas and crazy theories. She could expect any response for her drawings. But even her twisted mind could not predict what she heard.
"Teddy!"

Jessica believed that she communicated with a child, but it was the voice of a grown-up man. That was an unexpected twist. The girl shuddered surprised and thought that she probably misheard.

"Teddy!" repeated the voice, ruining her theory. Well, if someone turned on the creepy music on the background, it could be a part of a horror movie, but without it... it was kinda cute, in its own way.

"Teddy!" she heard for the third time, only intonation was each time a little different. So... it seemed the man could say only one word, like Pokemons or, more appropriate analogy, Hodor. Jessica quickly felt ashamed because of this thought. He was almost like Jess - a grown-up person with a mind of a child who cannot properly speak. Just one word or no words at all - the difference was not so crucial.

She wondered if this Teddy man realized what was going on here. Probably he was a son of the kidnapper and maybe, just maybe, all this wedding mess was not only for poor citizens of Mainefield to find love but for Teddy man as well. Obviously he had some struggles with that and his parent has found... pretty radical solution.

Suddenly Jessica got a paperback and saw a simplistic drawing but... it made her exciting. It was a simple riddle but Jessica still felt proud. Also, they communicated in a way that was almost as thrilling as Morse code. Pictures!

That was easy. The male figure with a beard was man, named Teddy (the picture of the bear and the word "Teddy" were quite good clues) and the female ginger one of Jess. Of course! He wanted to know her name because she could just, like, say it!

Well, Jessica saw different solutions to this problem. First of all, she just wrote her name, using capital letters but she was not sure that Teddy could read... and it was too boring and obvious choice. Of course, she could make a rebus like, draw jelly and put some Ss in the middle, or draw snakes... but there was a more convenient way.

Jessica actually knew only two popular characters that shared her name. They were Jessica Rabbit from Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Jessie from Toy Story. She lacked some colors but believed that she could handle this.

So, Jessica drew two simple drawings one was on the left side of her name and the second one on the right. All of them pointed on the picture of Jessica with the arrows.

Luckily, both of her namesakes had red hair. So, Jessica drew a red-head girl with a red cowboy hat, white shirt with green accents (no yellow) and spotty black and white trousers. The second picture was easier - red hair that covers an eye, the other eye is green and with purple eye-shadow. She did not have pink so, her long dress with corset and side slit was red, white gloves were purple.

Even though the description may sound complicated, these drawings were rather simple. She did not want Teddy to get away without the answers. Jessica could just hope that her additional pictures made it easier for him but not more confusing.

[Theodore Wong]

Sexy cowgirls? Whaaaaa-a-a...

Teddy squinted his eyes, inspecting the picture he got scratching his beard in confusion. This riddle was a little bit tougher than he expected it to be. He loved solving those though! He just needed a bit more time...

Come on, Teddy!
Think, think, think!

His glance moved from the sexy lady with really big "boozoms" to the cowgirl again and back, lingering on the "boozoms" of the sexy lady for a moment. Those were definitely distracting him from thinking straight...

Oh, wait! That's right! His eyes darted to the cowgirl, the character he DID actually recognize! She was from the Toy Story cartoon, right? Jessie! Oh, now he got it! The girl's name was Jessie! Immediately, the man drew a big thumbs up near the cowgirl drawing and was about to slide it back to his new friend - he was just so EAGER to exchange even more drawing collabs with her but, with perfect timing, he heard distant footsteps echoing down the corridor...

Which meant their little "play date" was over, time to go.

"Teddy!" the man whispered his goodbyes as he slid his drawing back to the girl behind the door before he, on his tiptoes, disappeared in the darkness of the corridor.

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NPC ACTION ROLL:
8 - Teddy managed to solve Jessica's riddle.

Task completed! Since this was a story related task it doesn't have any actual bonuses BUT... Teddy will remeber this.