Chapter 6
Enjoying the Gub Life?
In the Free City of Gub...
Mere subjective moments after the sudden onset of unexpected unconsciousness, the undead cohorts of the Artiste begin to slowly awaken, their minds filled with very good questions like, for example, 'what's going on?', 'where am I?' and 'why does this always happen to me?'. However, these are questions they cannot immediately find answers for, partly because some of them are entirely rhetorical, but also because it hurts to think right now.
Mark, for one, awakens in what he recognizes to be a mortuary of some sort - the place is filled with partially melted, mutilated, burned, dismembered and otherwise grievously harmed corpses. Though most of them are human, some also appear to be, unusually enough, distinctly anthropomorphic human-sized rats, though in some cases it's hard to identify what some of the remains might actually be, given their rather sorry state. Most of them are placed into piles, with signs placed near them indicating that some organization may be in order, while others are placed into specific alcoves in the walls. Besides the vast quantities of fleshy material, Mark also notices several unoccupied stone slabs with various shiny surgical tools placed on them. Looks like this place might be open for business.
~welcome to workshop duty, city beautification officer! congratulations on your promotion! now, pretty sculptures to please the eyes of silly humans are needed!~ a now-familiar voice rings out in his head.
Elsewhere, the disembodied ethereal head known as Scott also slowly wakes from a slumber that did not feel all that long. He does appear to have been a little displaced, though. He seems to be at the top of a lighthouse, judging by the rather sizable empty brazier he appears to be floating over.
~enjoy your promotion, ship guide! your job is to be here and keep the beaches shipwreck-free!~
Judging by the way the shore, which he can see from here, seems to have quite a few shipwrecks on it already, Scott wonders who his predecessor might have been, and how he wasn't fired sooner.
Kevin regains consciousness in a tavern - a quite dilapidated and partially singed tavern, but a tavern nonetheless. He appears to be the only one here. Also, he doesn't see any booze - all of it seems to have been either drunk or stolen.
~you are the new jolly, enjoyable ambiance officer! your performance will be judged based on increase in business and subsequent, unavoidable immigration! at least it should. remind us if we forget!~
Morton awakens in an office of some kind - it looks to have belonged to a magistrate of some kind, although somebody evidently left it in quite a hurry. There are also quite a few signs of fire damage in it, with the heavily damaged drapes and the ashes lying on blackened spots on the wooden floor.
~beverage consultant! there are matters that require your attention! we think, at least! let us check right quick... yes. we think there are indeed matters that require your attention.~
Sigmund, though, finds himself in the strangest place of all - tied to a robust metal pole of some kind at the top of the town's central, tallest tower - the sun shining down on him feels incredibly unpleasant, and he can't say he's a big fan of being thirty one stories up from the ground, no matter how well-secured he is - and he looks to be rather well-secured indeed. With chains, in fact.
~airmaster! lovely view, yes? perfect for your job, we think. speaking of, you are now airmaster. very fun job. must keep the weather clear and the air nice or face severe consequences, like freezing solid or being struck by lightning. keep watch on clouds, don't trust them!~
All in all, a great way to start their day.
Under the sea...
Niklas, not one to say no to an opportunity for nautical plunder, goes over to explore the ship. A quick look at the thing, though, gives him a strange feeling. For one, there's no loot he can see. Secondly, the whole thing looks a bit wrong to him, not at all conceivably like a ship that might have sunk - Niklas knows what those look like from experience, after all. Though the hull is cracked, it doesn't look natural at all. Once he looks through the crack, though, he notices that the ship appears to be entirely hollow, lacking anything inside it apart from a rather strange-looking ornate metal capsule about the size of a small house. It's difficult to make out what exactly the ornaments on it might be, it being the bottom of the sea and all.
One thing's for sure, though - it's probably not supposed to be here.
In Blynn...
Since the town of Blynn appears to be lacking in food, or at least food that anyone would want or be ready to give, Timothy has a great idea. It involves pie and interdimensional travel, like all good ideas - the latter, which he thinks he should be able to do with the knowledge he's obtained so far, will provide the former! Time to head over to the Quasi-Elemental Plane of Pie, which Timothy is pretty sure might exist somewhere.
Despite the potential concern that the Plane of Pie may be a place he might not want to return from after having seen its glory, Timothy tries to slip off the mortal world for a quick trip to the plane he dearly wishes actually exists. He quickly shuffles off the world, and soon finds himself... elsewhere. Looks like a land of rhombuses and spheres to him. No pie in sight. What now?
At the Tomb of Everything...
Darren thanks the girl for considering pet adoption in the near future, and heads back down into the city of ghosts, passing by Karina on the way. He wonders where to find a more dense concentration of ghosts - there's several alternatives. The outskirts have few ghosts - Karina and Danielle, plus maybe some others, the outer city probably has more, but they're mostly hiding, the engineers' quarter has two he knows of, but both of them are crazy, though in different ways, plus a whole bunch of seemingly intelligent constructs, while the engineer tombs, his ultimate destination, presumably have a bunch of them, but he hasn't been there yet, so he can't vouch for the safety of going there right now.
All in all, lots of options for dear old Darren. But which will be densest?
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Topic: Life Begins At Death - Epilogue: We Live And Live Again (Read 564481 times)