[Adelie]

In theory, this should've been easy. In theory, though, most things are supposed to be easy - and then turn out to be anything but.

Here's how the story starts - a week or so ago, Ven had mentioned, off-hand, to one of her friends that she was looking for a part-time job. Maybe less than a part-time job, actually, considering that she was still a busy student with plenty of lectures to attend - but she wouldn't mind doing a few odd jobs here and there for a little extra pocket money.

When she'd said that, she'd envisioned something a little more conventional. Mowing the lawn, perhaps, or babysitting; maybe, if she was particularly lucky, she could find someone who'd pay for art commissions. Not - not this.

Whatever this was.

[Adelie]

One of her friends had mentioned to her, also off-hand, that there was a local professor planning a research study - some suspiciously unscientific drivel about crystals and energy patterns - and that she would be paid for participating. It'll be easy, her friend had said. You just have to babysit a rock for a few days, and you'll even get a free trip to the beach out of it.

So she'd believed her friend, like the fool she was. In retrospect, that should've been the first warning sign.

But even if she weren't an idiot who believed in friendship and happiness and rainbows, then she should've gotten suspicious when she showed up at the address she'd been given. It was not a university building; it wasn't a research facility, either, or even any kind of normal, modern-looking building.

[Adelie]

The address had led her to a bar. Not a particularly nice bar, either - not like one of the clean, sanitized ones that had sprung up around her university to capture the sad college student demographic. More the shady kind, where scoundrels in movies met up to discuss their nefarious plans and probably stab each other in the back. Maybe more than probably, considering she was pretty sure she'd spotted a few suspicious-looking stains on the floor.

And the professor in question? Yeah, not a professor. More like a grumpy-looking bartender who brushed her off the first time with a quick Are you even old enough to drink? and looked barely interested when she explained that she's here for the research study.

"Research study," he said. He sounded like he'd just heard a particularly funny joke. "Research study. I see."

[Adelie]

"Yes, the research study," she had reaffirmed like an idiot. She really should've just left at this point already, but some twisted sense of pride or stupidity had forced her to let this whole disaster play out to its end. "I was told this is where I should sign up?"

"Research study," the bartender repeated infuriatingly for the third time, before pulling out a pale blue crystal, about the size of his fist, from under the counter, along with a strange-looking mechanical contraption. "I guess this is what you're here for, then. It's not hard. Just put the crystal in this device and keep an eye on it for a day or so, then return it here."

That sounded easy, at least. Maybe this wasn't your standard babysitting job, but there couldn't be that much difference between looking after children and looking after a rock. And there couldn't be that much that could go wrong, right?

[Adelie]

So she took the rock, and the attached device, and what remained of her dignity, and a promise to come back in two days to collect the money she was owed. The whole thing still struck her as ridiculously suspicious - but it wasn't like she had any other plans for the next two days.

May as well.

The bartender - she refused to believe he was a professor - had cautioned her that the crystal should be charged in daylight, if possible, but that she should avoid doing so in a crowded area. "Preferably somewhere without other people at all," he'd said. "Not you, of course. You need to stay next to the crystal the whole time."

On second thought, that also should've been a warning sign.

[Adelie]

Her first thought was to take it home, of course. The task description sounded like she was raising a pet or something - a rock-shaped rock for a pet - but taking it home meant taking it inside and out of the sunlight, too.

Instead, then, it made sense to go for a walk. She'd come here for the free trip to the beach, after all, and it only made sense to capitalize on that. Most of the beaches themselves were popular, but if she just did a little hiking - and maybe even a little camping - she could find a place with a good view to camp out and keep an eye on the crystal.

A little bit of research later, and she was well on her way to a secluded seaside beach in the woods.

[Adelie]

When she reached her destination, she plopped herself down on a nice patch of sand, put down a picnic blanket, and enjoyed the sun and salt air for a little bit before finally, finally getting out the crystal in question.

On closer inspection, the device was - odd, so to speak. It looked more than a little out of place in this day and age; it was a complex sequence of bronze gears and pistons that looked like something out of a steampunk movie set than a research department. But the crystal slipped in oh-so-easily, glowing faintly as all the parts connected into place, and then -

And then, nothing. A faint hum, maybe, as the crystal glowed with its faint inner light, but nothing more than that. "Is that it?" she wondered aloud. "Well, guess I'll just sit here and watch this thing for a while."

[Adelie]

She walked around for a bit, carrying the crystal in her hands as she looked at tide pools and dug her feet into the sand; she spent some time napping in the nice, summer sun, and then she sat down and looked at the crystal and wondered if things were, in fact, this easy.

But that's the way research worked, she supposed. It didn't really make sense to trust underpaid college students with anything more complicated - or easier to sabotage - than answering survey questions or staring at a rock for two days straight. Whatever. Didn't really matter to her, as long as she got something out of it.

[Adelie]

Time passed, unremarkably. She sunbathed on the beach briefly before realizing that she didn't have enough sunscreen to support such a habit; she put together a simple lunch from her bag and ate it while dipping her toes in a tide pool and scattering little chunks of bread in the water in a way that her more environmentally-conscious friends would deride.

All in all, a good vacation. The crystal sat by her side all the while, doing whatever a shiny piece of rock was supposed to do in this situation - exist, maybe. Catch the light, occasionally. Absorb the summer sun and transmute it into power, or whatever this experiment was supposed to accomplish.

And glow, apparently.

[Adelie]

It took until late afternoon, when the sun had begun to dim and she'd escaped back to the treeline to avoid the gradually swelling tide, before she realized that the crystal was glowing. It hadn't been obvious under direct sunlight - and the crystal had always had a bit of an inner light to it - but as the light faded around her, it became increasingly clear that the crystal was shining far brighter than it ever had been before.

Weird. That was her first thought - that it was rather strange for the crystal to be doing something like that, but at the same time, it was strangely expected. Like, something had to be going on with these crystals for her to be paid just to babysit them. Having it glow was - well, it was almost reassuring in a way. A weird light was weird, but it wasn't anything more dangerous or troublesome than that.

[Adelie]

So that was fine with her, theoretically. It was fine with her, too, when the crystal started to hum and vibrate; after all, that was just an annoying little addition, not something she had to pay attention to. And when it started to flash menacingly, she tried her best to ignore it.

It was not fine with her, however, when a giant creature-thing barged out of the woods and started squawking incoherently at the crystal. It was even less fine with her when the giant creature-thing - a bird? a bird-thing? - opened its mouth and revealed some hell-maw of spines and teeth-like protrusions that she most definitely didn't want another look at.

[Adelie]

Around that point, she decided to simply stop thinking about whether she was fine with this turn of events - the answer was always a resounding no, after all - and focus on surviving her current situation. She wasn't entirely sure what this giant bird-creature was doing in her location, or why it was coming at her so aggressively, but it certainly looked like trouble.

Thankfully, it wasn't exactly fast. Actually, it had stubby little legs and seemed barely able to hold itself upright at anything more than a waddle - sense was slowly filtering its way back into her head and she suddenly remembered why this bird-beast seemed familiar.

It was a penguin.

[Adelie]

A year or so back, she had read a new article about a seven-foot-tall penguin fossil some scientist had discovered. The Lebron James of Penguins, the article had proclaimed. Not clickbait!

At the time, she'd thought it was cool. Funny, even - the idea of a penguin that stood taller than humans seemed both adorable and ridiculous. At the moment, right now, she thought it was anything but - because no one had told her that penguins had sharp, pointy beaks that looked like the flesh-lined gates to hell, and because no one had told her that their beaks went snap snap real fast.

It was all she could do to scoop up the crystal before the giant penguin's beak closed in on it, and then she did her best job of getting the heck out of here. Except the problem was - where was she supposed to go?

[Adelie]

Think, she told herself. Yes, she was currently being besieged by a monster penguin - the Godzilla of penguins! her brain supplied helpfully - but the important part here wasn't the absurdity of the situation, but how she was going to figure her way out of this. She could worry about just what on earth was happening when she'd gotten herself safe and sound.

So, first of all - she was in a relatively deserted location. There might be a few hikers around, but it wouldn't be easy to find them - and even if they were around, did she really want to lead a giant penguin to them, too? It wasn't like another person could help her take it down or anything.

She could head back to civilization, at least. It had been a two-hour hike to get here, though, and she wasn't exactly inclined to run the whole way.

[Adelie]

That could be a start, though. Her other option was running around in circles until one of her and the giant penguin tired out - and considering their difference in size, it seemed the former was far more likely. What a pain. You'd think that moving around that giant mass of fat and feathers would tire out the penguin-beast, but it also had to take one step to every ten or so of hers.

At least, though, it was slow. Not particularly dexterous, either, but it could be pretty fast with that beak it had. She'd had a few close calls with it trying to dive at her already, but she'd managed to evade them and the penguin-beast usually had to take a few minutes to scrabble back upright after each one.