In the halls of Castle Fenton...
Niklas wastes no time and tries on the chef outfit, assuming he should probably fit it reasonably well, considering the dimensions of the average chef. He discovers that, while the chef appears to have been wide enough for his purposes, he also seems to have been considerably taller. The resulting ensemble of clothing thus looks even more like a dress than it usually would.
On the other hand, now he has knives and forks. And a spoon! After discovering he seems to have no pockets, Niklas sticks them all in his oversized pants, inhaling to tighten the waist area and prevent any kitchenware from coming loose. Having thus achieved a maximally cheflike form, Niklas goes forth to find his kind clothing donor in the kitchen.
Arriving there, his first deduction is that the chef appears to be dead. And also inflated. Little stalks ending in soft, fluffy bulbs appear to be rising from his body. His skin is covered in dark veins that seem to be branching actively even as Niklas examines them.
~WELL! THAT SURE IS AN INTERESTING SIDE EFFECT. SUDDEN INEXPLICABLE DEATH FOLLOWED BY INTENSE FUNGAL BLOOM. GUESS NOT EVERYONE HAS THE IMMUNE SYSTEM TO KEEP THIS STUFF IN CHECK.~
With a feeling that reminds him of a mental ping, Niklas feels the presence of another person being added to his collective. The maid appears to have found one of her colleagues, and she seems to have responded in a much more positive fashion than the cook.
~ANYWAY, PROBABLY NO POINT IN PUTTING YOU ON INFESTING DUTY. COME OVER TO THE STUDY, MAYBE? IT'S A LITTLE INCONVENIENT YELLING AT YOU THROUGH THE MENTAL LINK ALL THE TIME, AND WE HAVE THINGS TO DISCUSS.~
In the increasingly dangerous town of Eckledun...
Mark continues his attempts at communication now that both sides are sufficiently relaxed and unlikely to explode. He then discovers that the best he can effectively convey through dance seems to be a general state of unknowing and inquiry.
Mr. T, seemingly getting the message, responds by opening his mouth and letting noise pour out.
"<#!!$@&%!!> <#;!!;;*!!>!" he seems to say, intensifying the vibration of his body once more.
Morton, relieved that he is absolved of the responsibility to deal with someone like this, mentally breathes a sigh of relief. Mr. T, seemingly sensing this, suddenly blinks out of existence, reappearing right above the desk. Morton tries to move out of the good fellow's way, half out of reflex, half out of a healthy respect for his personal space, but Mr. T seems intent on staying above him for some reason.
"What a strange man," Wilma says, approaching a little closer to the floating figure.
In the wilds outside Eckledun...
Sigmund starts to dig as quickly as his badger claws will allow, that is to say very quickly indeed. He didn't think this specialization would come in handy so soon. In no time at all, he seems to have reached his buried flesh.
However, just like in the case of a lone badger ambushing a moose, a pervasive sense of "what now?" strikes him as he realizes he doesn't seem to be feeling any better.
[Will roll: 6-1]
Fortunately, that seems to correct itself shortly enough. Not questioning magic out of turn, he thinks nothing of it and continues on his quest for more magic. Locating a handy pebble with his advanced badger senses, Sigmund tries to make it into a focus to substitute the loss of his stone chest. Simply tuning it to project its presence according to his instructions when he realizes that he doesn't exactly remember what he did to make it work in the first place, Sigmund turns the pebble into a workable focus in no time at all. He's getting better at this, he thinks for a moment before realizing that he's probably jinxed it now.
Deep down under Eckledun...
Scott, desperate and helpless, finally crosses the disillusionment event horizon, the point where everything just seems like some sort of cruel illusion created specifically to annoy him. It's not a dramatic threshold to cross, so Scott elects to pick up the slack with some well-placed shouting.
"GO DASH YOUR FACE INTO THE NIGHT-SOIL IF YOU THINK THIS FARCE WILL IMPROVE MY TEMPERAMENT! Show me some consideration and courtesy, god's thrice damn you!" he yells, his ethereal voice muffled by miles upon miles of minerals as he descends deeper and deeper.
Focusing on the plainly apparent lack of realism in this situation, Scott then attempts to convince himself that all this surely cannot be an actual thing that is happening. He is marginally successful, he thinks. He sure feels pretty detached from the facts, anyway. That might be the best he's likely to get, he thinks before something interrupts his thoughts.
[Scott's endurance roll: 1]
That something feels a lot like a magical flat plane of something entirely ineffable, despite such a thing being about twenty miles underground feeling utterly out of place. It feels rather real, Scott observes as his ectoplasmic blob form splatters against it, his ghostly form scattering evenly across the strange subterranean artifact.
[Scott's will roll: 4]
Very real indeed, Scott continues to think in the next few minutes, now a much flatter, thinner and sheetlike ghost than ever before.
In the chamber of the Crown of Flowers...
Darren is at a loss for physically viable resolutions for this encounter, and so tries to pull the standard undesirable immortality card. Who knows, it might even work.
"So I mean, doesn't that seem like sort of a bad thing? Roaming the planet without a purpose just because you want to 1-up a god?" he asks.
"Everybody roams the planet without a purpose. Don't see why I or any of my people should be any different. And one-upping a god is a purpose of its own, so that's a bit of a logical contradiction," the ghostly keeper of the Crown tells him. "Besides, the alternative to that is dying, which is in a whole different league of worse, as I'm sure you must understand."
The ghost pauses for a moment.
"Wait, you probably don't really know what happens when you die, do you? You've died once, obviously, but you probably haven't retained much of your post mortem, pre-revival experience, right?"
In a village out in the sticks...
Kevin, robbed of a quick exit, tries to find authority of some kind, even if is of the booze-dispensing kind, and goes right into the inn, which seems like the most important building in town.
Inside he finds people - lots of people. Seems like almost the whole village has gathered in here, about a hundred men and women in a space that might be a little small for this sort of gathering. About two thirds of them are standing up due to a lack of seating, and the inside of the place is hot and lacking in oxygen from the sheer volume of bodies it is hosting.
They all appear to be looking at the bar, where a man is pacing steadily back and forth on the counter, ranting at the people in the room about something. It seems to be about the dismal state of the bridge leading out of town.
"-and I am telling you, good people of Rugish, fixing the bridge is a secondary concern - the important task is to find out who broke it in the first place!"
"Must have been the witch on the hill!" goes a voice from the crowd, prompting immediate agreement from much of the room.
"Or vicious termites! Perhaps beavers!" another, slightly more inebriated voice says.
"They must have been acting under the witch's orders!" the first voice collaborates, prompting even more agreement.
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Topic: Life Begins At Death - Epilogue: We Live And Live Again (Read 564041 times)