On the road again...Kevin continues on the long road leading... somewhere. Perhaps it is home, perhaps yet more danger. Perhaps the gub, which are in many ways both of those. Fortunately, it's a lonely road he's got ahead of him, so he's got plenty of time to consider how exactly the world is about to make him pay for that nice Mantra he seems to have got for practically free.
The woods get darker and the sun goes lower and lower until Kevin finds himself at borderline dusk conditions. Soon enough it's going to be pretty difficult to see more than three meters ahead of him, and honestly it feels like the hour of the werewolf is upon any bastard poor enough to find himself in the woods alone right now.
Luckily for him, though, he's not alone! Or so he thinks - there's a log cabin slightly off the path, seemingly newly-built, its windows dimly lit with a blue light clearly coming from the inside. Outside is a goat tied to a post, resting in the middle of a miniature circular wasteland of its own making. Upon Kevin's approach it gets up immediately, eagerly walking toward him until the rope prohibits it from going further - at this point it rises on its hind legs and keeps walking, the legs moving forward until the goat, its upper half still arrested by the rope, loses balance and falls backward, rolling on its side and pulling its legs up close. It cranes its head toward Kevin, looking at him like an excited dog.
Next to a tower of skulls...Sigmund decides to take a cautious route, and circles the guy on the pillar until he's managed to get completely behind him. Putting down the sphere in a location hopefully far enough away to escape magical retribution, he advances on the pillar discreetly, all the while keeping his meta-eyes on the man and his odd magic.
Well! A closer look indicates that it's not a bone that the man's using to do magic. In fact, it seems to actually be some kind of bolt, though made of a material completely unknown to Sigmund. Something exotic, no doubt. It appears to be programmed to shoot out some kind of thing a hundred times every second or so, or several somethings, and that's in addition to its magic apparently granting the ability to create matter. Not just bone. Matter.
Anyway, the guy seems completely unaware of Sigmund's presence, which is a little unfortunate, because it appears to have resulted in Sigmund's poor head getting encased in the now more quickly expanding pillar while he was busy ogling the mage's interesting bolt. It gets him a pretty good look at the pillar, confirming that it does appear to have some backwards coordinate system attached to it. It's not even stated in any kind of coherent number, he quickly notices.
At a pond of purest pink...Scott begins to deduce the truth behind this whole silliness.
"That is not the voice that previously came from the creature, was it an observer or a puppet master? Maybe even a costumed organisation? Have the wizards banded up into a huge false flag operation for some unknown profit potential? Hrmmm."Of course, functionally it makes absolutely no difference, aside from wizard machinations being slightly more appealing on account of there actually being faces he could burn off in revenge for all this. And with that, he resumes the search, taking a quick look around.
Fortunately, he thinks he sees something in the alley nearby. It looks kind of like three shapes, a little indistinct, which is strange, given that they are about ten meters away from Scott. Moving closer to check if his eye-equivalents still work, he notices that of the three blobby shadows, two have a very vertical sort of character, while one is a little more horizontal and, he would dare to venture, quite desk-like. Maybe that's what he's looking for?
Inside an endless alley...Mark urgently scribbles a note with an important question and passes it to Wilma, who reads it and frowns. She looks at him apologetically.
"No. In a word, no. Unless you want to make a large virgin blood sacrifice to the magic god, and I'm fairly sure I'm not a virgin. Although..." she looks Mark over slowly,
"... I don't know that you're not a virgin, so I could sacrifice you, if you didn't really mind? I'm getting a little desperate here.""Hm... Perhaps... Perhaps," Morton begins, fishing inside himself for his Big Book of Demonology,
"I might know a way we can leave, provided I happen to have it on me... Oh, where are you..."He continues to search for a moment in his untold reaches for the helpful tome, hoping that it's not been lost in the one or more body transformations and transitions that he's undergone in the past few days.
"Perhaps not the wisest course of action, but I'm certain it would get us out of this dreadful situation. If I could make a portal to one of the more milder demons, we might be able to bargain for leave of this situation... Say, Wilma, can you perhaps sing?""Not well, but I'll try anything?" she shrugs in response, just as Morton pulls out the book he's been looking for, electing not to ask questions on whether it was supposed to be in there at all. He resists the urge to say "aha!" Meanwhile, the walls of the alley continue to creek and start to sway unnervingly.
In a scavenger's shop...Darren, carefully regarding the store, but finding no sign of any occupants, cautiously greets the place anyway.
"Hey, uhh, what's up?"The furniture elects not to respond. Probably for the best.
Guess who's been really distracted lately? I'll try to update more often, but we'll see. Might put this on another month-long hiatus.