Stanley asked for help: The Crawlspace
(follows chapter 5)
Stanly stood up with his paddle held high.
"Hi, Mic, my bid for that requires a bit of a story and revealing that I broke some rules to be here. Can you let me explain it and grant me safe passage out of the Crawlspace if I tell it?"
Mic shot Stan a dirty look before waving the bigfoot in a suit over and whispering to him. After a few seconds of conversation, the big foot left the stage.
"I have just dispatched my assistant to get a burlap sack. After the auction, he will stuff you into it and carry you out of the Crawlspace that way with the lamp if you win."
Stan's face scrunched up at the idea.
"A burlap sack? Don't you have a back door or secret entrance I could use instead?"
Mic shot Stan a look that reminded him that this guy was also a judge.
"If you broke the rules of the Crawlspace, this will be your punishment. Now, continue your story or I'll throw you out now."
Stan sighed and picked up the two posters he had with him.
"My name is Stanley Pines, Stanford Pine's twin brother. Yes, I'm human, my skin is green due to nicking a potion that turns my skin green."
The room began to murmur suspiciously, but the people rolled their eyes. A fairy flew over and sprinkled some dust over Stan, which reverted his skin to normal.
At that, everyone erupted into outroar. Several yelled about throwing him out, some said to dissect him as Ford dissected them, and a few voted for boiling him in a stew. Mic banged his mallet on the sound block several times with no result. Eventually, he picked up the lamp and signaled his Bigfoot assistant.
Said assistant then pulled out a comically large mallet and slammed it on the podium that had just been holding the lantern.
The resounding bang had enough force that papers not weighed down were sent flying.
"I will have order. We all have reasons to hate Stanford Pines and keep humans out of the Crawlspace, but Stanley isn't his brother. For one thing, they have different numbers of fingers. We will let him have his say, and if we disagree with it we can always have my assistant throw him out of the Crawlspace and into a lava pit."
"WHAT?"
Mic shrugged. "There is a reason there is a door to here inside the local volcano, it's great for disposing of people and things we don't want. Now, continue."
Stan needed to take a few breaths to calm himself before he began.
"4 days ago I received a postcard from my brother asking for help. It was the first time I heard anything about him in 10 years. When I got here, he was…"
"Deranged?"
"Unhinged?"
"Unstable?"
Stan shot a look at the crowd before deciding on "Traumatized.
"He explained that he built a high-tech gateway that takes you to other dimensions and could be used for terrible destruction. He had split up the diagrams describing how to make and use the portal among three journals and said he hid two before handing me the last one.
"He then said I should take the journal and sail as far away as possible."
The crowd winced at that.
"When I objected, he said he was giving me the chance to do the first worthwhile thing in my life."
At that, Mic winced and turned to the bigfoot. "Cancel the burlap sack, just politely walk him to the nearest exit. If you find Ford, please punch his lights out."
Stanley smiled at the gesture and let out a sorrow-filled chuckle.
"I beat you to it. After that, we had a massive fight where I got branded by his portal device, which was activated.
"He- He then fell into the portal after I shoved him too hard after being branded. He was barely able to throw the journal to me before he disappeared. It then turned off, for good. I tried turning it on, but with only one-third of the instructions it was a losing battle. I've tried finding the other two journals, but I have no clues as to where they may be.
"I know you all hate Ford, I understand it, but I still need to save him from whatever nightmare dimension he has been sent to. That lantern could be the only way of knowing he is still alive.
"So this is what I am offering. If you give me the lantern, when I get him back I will turn him over to your courts and wave the finders fee."
The crowd was shocked at that. Mic even dropped his mallet!
"Th-That is a very impressive bid, but what proof do we have that you won't just draw bringing him back out to help him escape justice?"
Stan smiled and held out his arms. "I can offer myself in collateral. If the candle shows he is dead, then I will accept whatever punishment you were planning to give him. However I have to ask, what does the wanted poster mean by "20% weregeld?"
Mic was so stunned by Stan's offer that it took him a bit to understand what he asked.
"Weregeld is an old term for paying the people you harmed directly, with a little extra tacked on that goes to the nobles and courts for meditating. How about this, you pay off all his weregeld then if and when he returns you will have it refunded to you and the debt will be transferred to him. I can't give you a full list now, but I estimate you would have to pay about…"
Mic gave a number that made Stan's heart drop. That would deplete the remainder of his windfall from the police chief.
"Is this agreeable to you?"
Stan couldn't respond as the amount he would have to pay rattled around inside his head, then he looked down at the wanted poster. Would he be willing to throw away the one chance he had at being welcomed back into his family on the off chance it might help his brother?
Who was he kidding, he would do anything for the people he cared about. And he still cared about Ford.
"Yes. I don't have anything of his with me right now, but I think there is some of his hair and nails at the house I can use."
Mic's head then began spinning around in a full circle.
"No need since you're his twin your blood can be used to link it to him. The finding feature won't work until you are both in the same dimension, but it should tell us if he is alive until then."
Stan nodded and walked up to the bench, holding out his hand to the bigfoot who was now holding a small needle.
After a quick prick, Stan smeared his blood over the wick and stood back to let chant under his's breath in an unknown language.
Stan kept his eyes on the candle the entire time, waiting for it to light. As much as he put on a brave face and refused to believe that his brother was anything other than alive, a small voice deep in his mind kept whispering that it was likely not the case.
What if he ended up in space without a space suit? What if he ended up on a planet like Venus or Mars where you would die instantly? What if he was sent to Hell, or worse, LA?
SHUT UP INNER VOICE! STANFORD IS ALIVE, and that fancy candle will prove it. You'll see.
Eventually, the candle did light. Stan sagged in relief as his mind filled with hope.
"So, he's alive?"
Mic nodded. "He is alive. Very well, we will accept your terms. However, you must return here once a year to keep the CSA up to date with your progress on getting him back. As for the journals, what do they look like?"
Stanley smiled and handed over his missing person poster.
"See that symbol to the right? The one I have has that symbol on its cover with the number 1 on it. I think the other two have similar ones on their covers with the numbers 2 and 3 instead."
Mic looked at it for a few seconds before nodding. "Very well. I'll see to it that posters about this are distributed to all the weird and wild communities. If we find the journals, we'll let you know." He then turned to the rest of the room. "And anyone that finds one will get 5% of the weregild."
The room got excited at that prospect. Stanley was still a little worried about how Stanford was going to pay that much, but maybe this was exactly what Ford needed to have happened to him for him to realize just how much he messed up.
In fact…
"How does the weregild payment go? Do I just give a lump sum to you or another judge to distribute or do I have to pay each one individually?"
Mic shot Stanley an annoyed look, obviously done with the drama of this "routine" auction.
"It depends, some plaintiffs want to confront the payer directly, others want to stay far away. I'll send news about that to you as soon as I can get the relevant information. Expect to see me within the week.
"Now Stanley, Susan will escort you to the exit."
With that, the bigfoot stepped forward. Stanley was a little thrown by the Bigfoot's name but decided to just roll with it for now.
"All right, let's go."
As Susan escorted him out of the auction house, he saw the Handwitch sitting on a bench.
As her eyes widened in shock, Stan made sure to not show any sign of recognizing her. As long as people thought she was coned by him and didn't smuggle a human into the Crawlspace, she would be safe.
That night
Stanley sat at his dinner table eating a TV dinner for one and staring at the lantern on his table.
He was never letting this thing out of his sight. It might not help him find Ford, but it will be a constant reminder that he was alive and that what he was doing wasn't in vain.
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK
Stanley was surprised to have someone visiting this late. Did Anna come over with the translations?
When Stanley opened the door, he found the Handwitch standing in front of him with a concerned look on her face.
"Oh, hi Hand Witch. It's a little late for an interview, isn't it?"
"Why did you tell them you stole the potion from me?"
Stanley rolled his eyes. "Because I wanted to keep working with you and didn't want you to resent me for getting you in trouble with the CSA. Speaking of which, I'll be right back."
He then turned around and went back into the kitchen to pick up the journal he bought at the auction. When he turned around, he saw the Handwitch had followed him in.
"I got this for you, paid for by bet money I got on your fight with the Footwizard."
When he handed it to her, the Hand Witch stared at it with a surprising amount of emotion.
"Um, are you ok? You know it's just a book, right?"
The Handwitch decided to forgo talking with just wrap Stanley in a massive hug.
"Thank you so much! This is the nicest thing anyone has done for me in years!"
Stanley softened a little at that word and decided to return the hug a little.
After 5 seconds he then proceeded to try and separate the two of them.
"All right, now that the mushy stuff is out of the way how about we talk business since you're here? Have you eaten yet or should I set up another TV dinner for you?"
The Hand Witch smiled and sat down at the table across from Stan.
"Dinner with a handsome gentleman would be nice."
Stan released a hearty laugh as he went to the fridge to take out another meal for one.
"I am many things, but a gentleman isn't on the list."
After plopping the food into the microwave, he sat down in front of her.
"Ok, you mentioned that Stanford destroyed the local casino when he built a bunker, right?"
She looked confused but nodded.
"Well since he isn't in the town now and I invoked the town's weird laws to take possession of all his property, I own that bunker. If you show me where the casino used to be, we can find the bunker and turn it into a new casino. I have done a lot of gambling so I can show you the ropes of how to run one. You can worry about the day-to-day operations and taking the majority of the profits while paying me rent. Sound good?"
The Hand Witch was so stunned that he didn't react when the microwave dinged, or when Stan plopped it in front of her with utensils.
"Why are you giving me such a good portion of the deal?"
Stan rolled his eyes. "I saw what people bid at the auction and who won, a fraction of it is what I would be able to use. Gold, jewels, Human money, and things like that are what I would be interested in. We can worry about the actual percentages later, but I'm thinking once a month I come over, we look over the profits together, I select what percentage I will take, and you keep the rest.
"The one thing I MUST insist on is that there is a non-zero chance that my brother hid one of the Journals in that bunker. If you find it, I'll give you a year off paying rent."
"Deal!"
The two shook on it and had a lovely dinner together.
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Sorry , I guess when I uploaded the doc to the "doc manager" I forgot to add the chapter to the story proper.
To celebrate the upcoming "Book of Bill", I have decided to make this a Gravity Falls summer! This means I plan to post a chapter of this fanfic once a week, every Friday morning until
August 30th. Though currently the prewritten chapters are extending over the 13 I originally planned, so it might go longer.
I have a if you want to support me and my New Year's resolution of posting one fanfic of 2k words or more weekly. This is also being posted on , AO3, and Tumbler.
: user?u=10132890
: s/14051718/1/luz-appreciation-week-2022-from-1228248
AO3: /works/52823413/chapters/133608991
Tumbler: blog/brianedner
I am also doing fanfic info dumps, think wiki articles that go one episode at a time with some compilations at the end on certain topics that are sorted by episode.
Fanfic info dumps here: 1228248/gallery