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[Tomcost]

((After all that has happened with Mark, we should already know how Harry loves describing these weird things. Not that the creativity of the, umm, "transformations" aren't giving enough clues about that))

[Innsmothe]

((Yeah, the describing of the wonderful transformations I inflict upon myself.
Good to hear it's no burden to you though. Let's see what my latest half-asleep rambling will happen!))

Wait, you actually thought that the guy who devotes an average of two to three paragraphs to body alteration and body alteration procedures when they come up actually doesn't particularly like writing about body alteration?

I should probably one day run a game even more about body alteration than this. Maybe something about augmentations, complete with rusty tools and chances of rejection, mechanical errors, anatomical errors and infection.

((I would stalk you out of sheer adoration if this is a thing.
<3
Is A Big Transhumanism Activist.


edit:I don't have the means, will or money t become a proffesional stalker.))

[Spinal_Taper]

There were really two options for Darren at this point. Either piss off the god of death or piss off an old dude. Typically an easy choice. Right now, not so much.

Back off a bit. Look around the pit for anything that could be used as a puppet, as part of a magic trick, or as a construct..

[Xanmyral]

"Well, I wouldn't wish to go against your aunt's wishes, should she prefer her story untold." Morton found humor in the situation, his curiosity satisfied with the response, although half wondering if it was perhaps partially theatrical.

Feeling a question forming in the back of his mind, the desk changed topics (seeing as this one appears to have reached its end). "I suppose to move back to the nature of the visit, I have one final question pertaining to Mothdale: if the question of what happened be as it is, perhaps you could enlighten me as to the why?" As the tea apostle asked, he dredged out the map cube given to them by good lady Melville.

"If you would be so kind as to point out the prior mentioned village where suitable recruits for good group Gub may be found? I can only hope things will work out for the best. Do you perhaps have any final advice?" The desk asked, feeling his time here is coming to a close.

Ask question, ask for directions, see if there's any last tid bit she may wish to share.

[Phone posting is the worst.]

[Harry Baldman]

Across a surprisingly wide area of the lands outside Eckledun...

Sigmund, not exactly pleased with this newest development but neither feeling particularly disappointed, attempts to get more information so that his stance on this... event may be clarified. He wriggles his bits and jiggles his gibs as he tries to rediscover his ability to manipulate stone. Unfortunately, though, it doesn't quite appear to be coming to him - he doesn't feel the presence of the stone or whatever shard of the chest happens to have inherited the entirety of the magical ability of the former focus. This is unfortunate, and only leaves him with his other immediate idea - reconstitution! Using an uncanny sense of orientation, he pulls whatever bits of him are most mobile and drags them to a single point first, beginning to form a blob on the cold ground.

The material of his former body gathers and gathers until it has reached a fairly respectably high pile - about half of his original size, actually, and none too shabby in looks, if a little... gooey. He can't quite get bones to work, and his eyes don't appear to have survived the impact, or at least are currently indistinguishable from any other gib, and for that matter virtually all other sensations are a bit limited for him, which is to say that he can't quite hear, smell, taste or do anything like that, and his sense of touch and warmth is highly limited, though he does seem to have wound up with some mildly intact bits of skin. A considerable bit of him appears to have remained trapped under the boulder, and he's presumably missing a lot of blood and interstitial fluid to pad out the volume and mass. And also he doesn't actually have anything to stick his bits together apart from a steadfast refusal to fall apart, and though he can project small towers of flesh as a result, there's not much fine control to it all.

He's leaning toward this being an unfortunate twist now, despite the fact that he may be a blob and thus wonderful by default. He's starting to understand what his erstwhile ghostly friend might have been on about, in fact. It's an oddly liberating experience, being a pulped mass of stolen flesh kept moving and coordinated by what Sigmund assumes to be fell magic, because honestly what else could it be or has ever been?


In the grasp of a great many little spiders...

Kevin, figuring he's probably alright even if he's full of spiders, stirs a little, wriggling his big toe. It only starts to work after a bit, and the only result of his body stirring seems to be a series of bites to all of his organs, reinstating a state of complete paralysis once more.

Nevertheless, it seems that the spiders within him seem to have taken a hint, and Kevin, who doesn't appear to be moving of his own volition, rises to his feet awkwardly, arms pushing him up from the ground. The creatures within him experimentally have him take a few steps, surprisingly perceptive of his body's intended functions despite their seemingly mindlessly murderous nature.


In a particular room of the Black Tower of Eckledun...

Scott, eager to get to business without further ado, utters a simple pleasantry to Francine before disappearing through a nearby wall, hoping that his next dive will take him to whatever it is he seeks.

And would you believe it, it totally does! His salvation seems to have been hiding all this time in the room above. It appears to be a kitchen of some sort, strewn with horrific gore and signs of great violence being perpetrated mere moments ago. And there, at a table reading what appears to be some form of demonic document through rather thick spectacles, is the person Scott has been looking for all this time.

"Hrr," he says, nodding in agreement with whatever horrible thing just passed his eyes on the shifting sheet of parchment.


On the precipice of the Mystery Forge...

Niklas, never one to argue with a clear, sensible majority such as this, goes ahead and jumps back into the Mystery Forge, hoping for the very best of the best - in this case, a flying shark-octopus-bear-raven-chef, or the unlocking of his true, horrid form if one prefers to call it that.

[Mystery rolls: ?, ?, ?, ?, ?]

And after what feels like moments later, he emerges! Or, rather, floats out, slimy wings swinging uselessly every which way, the protruding claws and teeth on each one flailing all around. There's about eight wings on him that he can immediately discern, though none seem to be directly related to his ability to float, as evidenced when he stops flailing them around. At the tips of each wing he can make out a claw, a hook, a set of teeth, some talons, a sharp-looking knife or even a perfectly normal human hand in one instance.

What's more, he can't quite see all of himself, though he feels a little bloated, and his entire body surface as far as he can tell has become pure black and stalklike, covered in patches of fur or skin that feels extremely rough. He is also acutely aware of there being a significant quantity of nutrients in the air, odd as that may seem.

"Brilliant! Simply brilliant!" the blacksmith shouts.


In the chamber of the Crown of Flowers...

Darren backs off a little from the weird old guy, examining the pit around him. There's a bit of crap lying around here and there, junk that's either fallen off the walls, off the ceiling far above or from the edge of the pit, landing and deforming significantly as a result. Looks kind of jagged and bent, mostly, plus there's not a lot of it, but hey, it's something, innit?

The unfriendly ghost, for his part, looks back at the Crown of Flowers, thinking intently at it and probably of it as well.


In the Black Tower of Eckledun...

Morton plays it cool as usual, not quite as curious anymore.

"Well, I wouldn't wish to go against your aunt's wishes, should she prefer her story untold. I suppose to move back to the nature of the visit, I have one final question pertaining to Mothdale: if the question of what happened be as it is, perhaps you could enlighten me as to the why?" he wonders, but Suzanne simply points to her mouth, moving it soundlessly for a second, then making a helpless gesture. Getting the idea here, Morton simply dredges up his cube and puts up a map of the nearby region.

"If you would be so kind as to point out the prior mentioned village where suitable recruits for good group Gub may be found? I can only hope things will work out for the best. Do you perhaps have any final advice?" he says as Suzanne points out a certain point not too far off on the map, then draws a little symbol in her notebook, showing it to Morton. It seems to be the stylized picture of a knife covered in blood, plus a stick figure on the ground. Seems adequately cryptic, he'd say.

[Tomcost]

Oh, well, damn. It seems that there is only one thing to do right now: praying. But this time better not to do it with the one god who is all about death. Yeah, better to pray to somebody who is supposed to rule over a better kind of sphere. Sigmund should be pretty hideous right now, being a pile of meat and all that. Maybe the god of beauty will have pity for him? Well, it is worth trying. What is the worse that could happen? He has already suffered the wrath of a God before.

Pray to Narcillicus:

"Oh, Narcillicus! My body has been squandered repetitively by entities performing some kinds of macabre experiments, or maybe some dark arts I can not comprehend. My body has lost its integrity. Please guide me to make it more appealing to the eye, more useful again!

[miauw62]

"Uh, forward?"
((i am spiderlard))

[Innsmothe]

Peers at figure and then at the room in disgust, it probably violates every code and principle a cook has to follow personally and/or legally

Cursing his damaged eyes... as well as his possibly failing cogitative facilities and the general lack of detail his eyes are receiving about the figure, he says :"Just so am a sure...Sir? Ma'am? have you or have you not ever had a closeness to moving wood that is eldritch and blasphemous?"

Prepares to set the disgusting room alight if the figure is neither the Whipman or Morton and head to the highest room of the building


[I honestly don't remember the Whipmans colours. >.>
Starts rereading thread for the third time.]

[Xantalos]

Niklas expresses happiness through some form of movement.

Attempt to verbally communicate. Can I talk? Try to say something to the effect of 'this is awesome'.

Then try absorbing those nutrient things.

[Spinal_Taper]

"So what exactly did the big guy try to do that got you so mad? Because this is some serious rage against the heavens stuff."

Try and distract him into a rant. Once he's distracted, conjure together a little construct, with soft feet.

[Xanmyral]

Morton studies the strange picture she showed, then stows the map away again after trying to memorize where she pointed. Best to not get lost on the trail, after all, but what a strange message. He guesses it may be a symbol for a group, or perhaps a general warning of not dying? He couldn't say.

"Gracious thanks, both for your time again and for the parting advice, good mage Suzanne. We'll head there and hopefully see what we can do. But first, we should check in on our compatriots. I wish you good fortune in the time to come." The desk bowed to the mage, before turning to good tailor Craig and nodding (really more of a lesser bow), indicating that he's finished.

Should the tailor not have any point to raise, leave the tower and see if he can spot the wayward ghosts.

[Harry Baldman]

In the wilder parts of the southern coast of the Sea of Death...

Sigmund, tempted irresistibly by what a god of art and beauty could possibly do to harm him in this state, tries prayer - the last humorous resort of any situation, and the second-to-last resort generally, the last being good old acceptance of one's lot in life. And he'd hardly be a self-respecting bundle of pulped stolen vampire parts if he was about to accept his terrible lot in life, right?

~Oh, Narcillicus! My body has been squandered repetitively by entities performing some kinds of macabre experiments, or maybe some dark arts I can not comprehend. My body has lost its integrity. Please guide me to make it more appealing to the eye, more useful again!~ he thinks, hopeful for an answer!

"Bloghrfshlichtschlombt!" he bubbles and spurts, having no mouthparts to make mouth noises with!

"..." says Narcillicus, god of art, beauty and technology!

He's probably right busy at the moment, is all. Surely the Nicest God of All wouldn't ignore a wretch such as Sigmund, right? And if he would, surely that means Sigmund's situation is far less wretched than he thinks. This, cognitively speaking, is a win-win, he decides, and devotes it no more thought, though the idea that he could go for double or nothing crosses his seemingly pulp-based mind.


In the subterranean kingdom of infinite spiders...

Kevin, hoping for the best much like other beleaguered undead the world over, attempts to command his subjects.

"Uh, forward?"

In a spectacular coincidence, the spiders do seem to be experimenting with his movements, and currently appear to have had the same idea, and Kevin walks forward, not seeing a damn thing as he proceeds through the tunnel, the spiders forcing him to duck down to fit through.

It is when he fails to stop on command or do anything else that Kevin begins to realize what sort of predicament he may be in, the spiders, with the aid of what seem like forward scouts occasionally skittering out of his body, move him for quite a distance. As the paralysis starts to wear off, or at least things start to properly hurt again, the spiders seem to sense it, a certain hesitation in his movements, and bite him silly, poisoning the feeling right out.

The good news are, he seems to have crawled out into less spider-infested territories, and not back at the reservoir, either - the little things in his body appear to take a very serious approach to dangerous joyriding, and seem to have taken him to altogether unfamiliar places. Keeping his body balanced seems a bit difficult for them, as a side note, which mostly results in Kevin finding himself falling over more often than is strictly necessary.

However, eventually (that is to say, Kevin has no idea how long this might have taken) the fellow sees a ray of hope in the situation - in this case, an actual bright ray of light. It's actually quite dim, but it appears bright at the moment, and it takes him a while to even figure out what it is as he approaches. He feels a bit silly at first, but this is quickly replaced by a new feeling - a slight elation that this actually appears to be sunlight coming in from straight above, presumably through a very deep pit in the ground, rather than some cruel illusion or a magical lamp laid out to mislead him like that asshole guy that caused this whole mess did. He even forgets to be perplexed about how the spiders within him appear to have led him straight over to a staircase, and then straight up that same staircase without missing a beat. He even almost misses the part where the spiders move his arm to make him knock on a door, which immediately gets an answer.

"Do come in!" says a very smooth voice, and the spiders have Kevin's hand open the door and walk him right in, where a very strangely painted room awaits. It's kind of like a rather large hall, giving off a very distinct impression that it may have once been a tomb of some kind. Now, though, it's completely desecrated - the ceiling and the walls are painted sky blue with elaborate white clouds added, the floor is grass green and carpeted, while what may have formerly been sarcophagi have been broken open at the side, painted green, then had one of two things done to them - one, a mesh added and the resulting enclosure filled with rather hideous, not to mention hideously familiar spiders accompanied by bits of meat, or covered with glass and filled with water and rather spiky-looking fish. On the ceiling by a chain hangs a sphere, shining brightly down at a pit with a neat white railing protecting unwary passersby from an untimely death by falling into an abyss of endless darkness.

Near the pit sits a peculiar workstation, almost a cubicle, with a sizable chair, both made out of what look like entirely unnatural wood and cushioned with some unholy transformation of root hairs. In this chair sits a woman with long blond hair that may very well reach down to her hips, a small wreath of spring flowers on her head, wearing a very light summer dress. Her flesh is exceedingly wiry and slightly leathery, and one of her eyes is noticeably larger than the other, though both appear to have somewhat exotic yellow irises a few sizes too large for their eyeballs with triangular amphibian pupils darting around on them. She regards the arriving Kevin with a bit of curiosity.

"Ah, a spiderfriend. How do you do, spiderfriend?" she asks, and the spiders make Kevin do a motion of tipping the hat despite Kevin not having one. "Cute! Now, spiders! Leave the spiderfriend! Leave only a friend, yes?"

The spiders don't appear to understand, and she laughs at herself, guffawing a moment before squeaking at a highly unpleasant pitch and intensity mid-laugh. The spiders exit very nasty-looking bloody cavities on Kevin's body one by one, skittering out the door like little ducklings in a row. Kevin, his puppet strings cut, slowly and half-paralytically collapses in a pile, feeling very acutely that he's probably missing quite a few precious chunks of flesh right now, considering how many spiders just exited him.

"Friend!" she says, tilting her head at him as she steps out of the chair, . "Do you speak the language of civilized people, or have the gnomes been overly successful in their heinous breeding experiments? It's the second, right?"


In a kitchen of absolute doom...

Scott tries to recall who this is. The kitchen's a mess. There's horrible food somewhere in the corner, smelling like the dickens. It will probably murder whoever it tries to eat. The man in front of him is hairy, holding a very sharp cleaver and has probably been dead for at least a month, judging by the smell.

Clearly, it must be the man with the whip. Scott sees no likely alternative.

"Just so am a sure... Sir? Ma'am? Have you or have you not ever had a closeness to moving wood that is eldritch and blasphemous?"

The figure emits a fell and terrible laugh. "MANY TIMES," it then says cheekily, chopping a great big gash in the table in front of it with the cleaver as it remembers its glory days. Scott wonders whether to set the place on fire or not a few moments, but then a voice interrupts him.

"Right, fun's over," says Francine, and suddenly Scott is outside the tower, feeling like the entire world just blew away in front of his eyes like dust. He looks around, and notices the dog still there. And next to him is the person he was actually looking for - Morton! And also the tailor guy. Him too, yes.


On the precipice of the Mystery Forge...

Niklas believes that this may be the best thing that has happened to him lately, this whole Mystery Forge business.

"This is awesome," he readily communicates, his entire body tingling as he speaks, the sound itself issuing from somewhere deep within him.

"I tend to agree," says the blacksmith. For some reason, his voice doesn't feel quite as impressive to Niklas anymore. It's probably because of all these darn nutrients in the air, he thinks. They seem fairly tasty and distracting.

With but a minimal effort of will, Niklas feels his body surface vastly expand, though visibly he seems to remain the same - he feels the air around him, as if some kind of aura had just emanated from him, taking in the scarce organic traces and relatively scant moisture, filling himself with it. He has to say, it does feel pretty tasty, although a little tiring to do it for longer than 10 seconds or so, since he feels rather stretched as he tries to project the aura.


In the chamber of the Crown of Flowers...

Darren, probably having failed in buttering this guy up, tries provocation instead.

"So what exactly did the big guy try to do that got you so mad? Because this is some serious rage against the heavens stuff."

"Oh, you know," says the ghost, oddly calm. "Standard genie stuff. It's quite terrible that the god of magic is also the god of death, since one's the cure for the other. Especially when you ask him for a quest to grant your people immortality so that they may bring a golden age to the entire world. Predictable result in hindsight, but I was a bit of an idiot back then."

He immediately notices the rather curious event of two pieces of junk desperately banging against one another to make a vaguely leglike shape a few meters away.

"You wouldn't be trying anything, would you?" the ghost asks, giving Darren a skeptical eye. "That would be very unwise of you, doing the bidding of the god of death like that. Don't you know that it never pays off?"


In the Black Tower of Eckledun...

Morton, after committing the picture to memory as well as making sure that Suzanne's finger has indeed left a rather distinct point on the map, figures that this source of information may have run dry.

"Gracious thanks, both for your time again and for the parting advice, good mage Suzanne. We'll head there and hopefully see what we can do. But first, we should check in on our compatriots. I wish you good fortune in the time to come," he says, looking at Tailor Craig, who appears to have been spacing out these past few minutes. Upon being interrupted, he too bids a farewell and the two move out, Suzanne pointing them to a convenient door. Knocking on it, the two are immediately transported to the outside of the tower.

~Hey, Morton,~ a voice in his head says in a friendly manner. ~This is Francine. I'll return Scott in a moment.~

On cue, Scott appears a scant few steps from the two, looking as confused as an ectoplasmic blob can be.

[Tomcost]

Wait, Sigmund can at least produce sounds at will! That is something! Maybe not everything is missed! Some parts of him must have survived!

Search for my eyes inside my pile of myself

Fine, try to use my metasense to see how can I detect stuff. If skeletons can, a pile of meat should be able to do so.

[Harry Baldman]

Wait, Sigmund can at least produce sounds at will! That is something! Maybe not everything is missed! Some parts of him must have survived!

Search for my eyes inside my pile of myself

There might be some vitreous humor in there, for what it's worth.

[miauw62]

"M'lady" ((NO NO NO NO))
Kevin felt happy. He was no longer in the custody of lethally rational spiders, but just in the company of a raving lunatic, which had been his situation since well before his death. He knew what to expect from raving lunatics.
"I'm not a result of some unnatural breeding experiment, no. They did try to recruit me, though. But that ended with me almost being eaten by really big spiders."
On closer consideration, he added:
"Uh, I'm Kevin. What's your name?"

((i have been abducted by spiders))