Out of all her spells, or mystical abilities, or magic powers, or whatever you care to call what Grace does, the one she dislikes using the most is noclipping. She’d like it even less if she knew that the term originated from video games. She’d hate that.
Magic is a slippery snake. If Grace had her way, she wouldn’t do anything with it until she knew 100% beyond a shadow of a doubt exactly how it works. She knows that magic is too dangerous and unpredictable to be careless with. Unfortunately for her, there’s not much of a choice between being blown up and working some magic that you don’t understand. Die, or leap into the unknown. Easy decision.
Grace doesn’t like suddenly being in a seemingly endless series of rooms and hallways with yellow wallpaper. Why would such a thing exist? Is it another dimension? That has staggering implications. If it isn’t, what is it? Whether it is or isn’t, why would an old comedian serial killer know about it? And why would that person pass that knowledge on, seemingly at random, to another comedian along with a serial killing legacy? There are too many questions. And it doesn’t help that there’s dead bodies there either.
Izzy is even less thrilled about it. Grace at least was prepared to go there in an abstract way. Izzy is learning about it for the first time. Izzy was just hanging out at this shop, half stoned and half asleep and then all of a sudden he’s in some creepy as fuck giant windowless office building? Harsh man, harsh.
The good news is they weren’t there long. Grace got them out of there as soon as she could gather her energy to send them back. The bad news is they returned in the upper part of Lee Vining Creek, the section that stretches from Saddlebag Creek and Tioga Lake alongside Highway 120 down to Ellery Lake. Why did they appear here instead of back in the ruins of the magic shop? Grace has no idea. That’s why she doesn’t like doing it. One reason anyway. What’s to prevent her from appearing somewhere dangerous? Nothing so far as she knows. Not to mention which, being 143 miles away from your car is a real pain in the ass.
They startled the hell out of a trout fisherman called Derry. A lot of people think this nickname is Dairy because he works on a dairy farm but it’s not Dairy, it’s Derry. So called on account of his love for the works of Stephen King. A lot of people think It is his favorite Steven King work but he prefers Insomnia. He talks often about how Insomnia should be made into a movie.
The good news is that Derry doesn’t think “oh, these two just fell out of a magic portal right in front of me” he just thinks that his attention wandered and they snuck up on him somehow. When he asks them what the hell they’re doing in the creek scaring away all the trout, Grace explains that they’re very high right now and a little lost. Derry chuckles and thinks fondly of the good old times doing mushrooms with his pals Skeeter, Hunter and Sloppy Dan. Can’t be doing that kind of thing anymore.
The bad news is that as Derry gives them a ride into town in his 2015 RAM 1500 Laramie Limited with the passenger door that doesn’t shut completely and a taillight with red tape on it, he and Izzy talk at length about how what Izzy likes to do when he’s with a lady is jerk off until right before he pops and then stick it in her at the last second. Derry finds this fascinating because it makes no sense to him. That’s opposite of what you should be doing. Grace is much less interested in the topic. Although she does wonder, did Izzy bring this up because he’s high and that makes him think it’s okay, or because dudes are just gross?
