TURN FIFTY-SIX: BLUR OF NIGHTMARES AND ILLUSIONS
A tad bit later than I would have liked, but then again, I did say that I was busy with some coding stuff.
Anyway, here's the official next turn for you. This will be a little on the short side, but I do plan on having a follow-up with either dialogue or even an unofficial turn. Who knows?
"Ahh, I'd better drop the act. You see, I am not some mere simple statue gardener. Rather, I am the great adventurer Gerald! I had heard of riches beyond measure down in these caves, but had also heard of the massive golem armies. Curious, I decided to come down here. However, I have yet to discover the riches, and the only sign of a 'Golem army' has been these pecuilar statues. My theory currently is that a bunch of kids found and explored this ancient, abandoned cave. They would be on edge due to it being dark and unknown territory, and probably hallucinated that these statues were moving. Because let's be real: There's no such thing as moving statues... However, there is such a thing as being rich beyond measure, so I continue to explore these caves in hope of finding the great loot. However, I suppose now that the army of.... wherever you come from, is here, there will be less riches for me. Which is unfortunate, but acceptable."
Continue with my plans of deceit.
RuneOne must praise you for continuing to play the persistent actor under such threat. You're not sure how these soldiers will react to you, but you're hoping to at least get them to let their guard down long enough to put the situation in your favor. It matters not whether they think you are crazy or not; the illusion alone will allow you those precious moments you need to act in whatever way you please.
You continue accordingly, smoothly tying in your web of fibs to set the trap for the soldiers. After you explain that you are an adventurer here under his own volition who finds the idea of animated golems preposterous, at the very least.
The senior soldier stares at you for several seconds, contemplating your answer.
"Well, 'Gerald,'" he begins,
"regardless of your reasons for being down here, this tunnel system is under the jurisdiction of the Theyin Empire. Seeing as you are trespassing on unauthorized ground, I request that you come with us." He makes no move toward you, instead beckoning you forward with one hand while holding his other over his rifle.
Discipline...
Stay in position. Wait. Watch. acclimate my ears to my environment so I'll know if I hear anything odd - or stop hearing something normal (which is the more likely giveaway of someone skilled approaching, especially animals going silent) Right now, my task is to observe.
LirianNow is the time for quiet observation. Aside from direct combat, this is one of the areas where you should be able to have the upper hand over anyone who wishes to sneak up on you. Of course, Artemis could have all sorts of surprises up his sleeves; you're going to have to remain with the utmost vigilance. You're not going to let him have an easy time prowling around if he's still here, however.
One hour passes, then two, then three. Throughout the entire time, you keep yourself as alert as possible, aided by your recent nap. Still, nothing out of the ordinary. The treeline has nobody moving through it. The field and forest behind you holds only the occasional nocturnal animal. The town has some inhabitants occasionally strolling around, but nobody who seems like they would be in the retinue of Artemis or another notable figure. As far as you can tell, everything is completely clear. This strikes you as odd, but maybe Artemis didn't care to stick around like you thought he would.
It unnerves you a bit that things are so calm. Nothing is particularly out of the ordinary, but it feels as if you should have been expecting
something to happen. Over the course of a few hours, however, all you've been doing is staring down at the town and the forests on the other side of the valley. You look behind you, to your left, and to your right; aside from the waving of the trees in the breeze and the occasional animal, you've not seen anything that would suggest danger. Still, you can't shake an odd feeling that continues to hover over you.
(Alright, I'd like to pick this up again. If it's okay, I'd like to fast forward to where'd I'd be if I posted regularly.)
I begin rambling on about various things, not noticing that she left. When I learned of her absence, I see that quite an amount of time has passed, and unfortunately, I'm going to have to sleep now, otherwise I'll black out.
((Good to have you.))
Cat SchrodingerTime seems to have slipped away while you were nearly lecturing over the technology of the Grid and how you think it could be brought to the rest of the world very soon. Reyna attempted multiple times to excuse herself to no avail. Finally, she decided simply to just leave with an apology, and you continued your near-rant for a very long while. So long, in fact, that it seems that the sun is starting to set outside. And to think that you still have to deliver a letter! You still have time to do so, you think. Might as well get it out of the way before you hit the hay.
You make your way over to the university - which, truthfully, is just a street down - and start navigating the halls of the multiple buildings to get to the copy center on the east side. There, you find the mail box of the woman that the letter was addressed to and leave the letter there. You still have a little curiosity over the subject of the letter, but that is not for you to know at this time. At any rate, your fatigue is starting to set in.
You leave the university and make your way to your small home - really, more like an apartment - and step inside. You proceed to take a shower, change into your night clothes, and get to bed. It takes you about half an hour, but you finally manage to drift into the sweet peace of slumber.
It appears as if you won't be so lucky as to have a peaceful night, however. Your dreams start out regularly, but soon take a turn for the worse. You start having nightmares of different scenarios: Someone crying out for help as they bleed out in the middle of a street, gunshots ringing in the background; a lone kid sprinting through alleyways and around corners, trying to avoid the sources of howling and screaming that reverberate off the walls; a boy and a girl helping each other run as they attempt to escape vile, murky creatures following them through a heavily-wooded area. All of these scenes whirl around your vision, and seem just as visceral and gruesome as your imagination allows them to be. You try to reach out and help these people., but you are prevented from doing so by some sort of invisible wall. They cannot hear your shouts or your attempts to break through the wall. You are helpless as you watch people desperately try to escape the inevitable.
You wake up in a sweat. For some reason, that nightmare was even worse than the one you had last night. What on earth is causing you to have nightmares of such vile fiends hounding down innocent people in the night? You suppose that you shouldn't take much stock in nightmares, but you keep it in the back of your mind still.
Ten minutes later, you rise from the bed. Since this is a day off at the university, you have freedom to explore the town or check up on things that you've recently done.
((Time dilation can take effect here if you want it. Since you have wide freedom, you can choose to even skip the day if you want.))
Warren Drake
"Honestly? I've lost track of time. Maybe yesterday? Not very long ago, probably, at least in absolute terms. I think the world might be ending, personally, but no more evidence for that idea than what I've already told you."
"Anyway, don't really need anything right now. Maybe a safe spot to sleep in, though I think I might just climb a tree and sleep there. Should be safe from random monsters there, right? They don't seem fond of looking up."
See if I can set up a sleeping spot in the branches of a nearby tree. Or maybe the girl's got something for me instead?
Warren Drake"Ah, a safe spot..." She thinks it over in her head.
"Oh, yeah! You could sleep inside of the den, and I'll just sleep outside." You give her a sideways look, questioning how exactly she plans to sleep outside when you just mentioned the monsters abound. She laughs, saying,
"Oh no, don't worry! I have this, uh, hammock-thingy that I can set up outside. I've been here long enough that I know how to protect myself, so you also don't need to worry about that. You can help yourself to the food inside the den, or some of my books or something. Make yourself at home!" You thank her for her hospitality and prepare for the night.
...And by prepare for the night, I simply mean wait until night, because you have no real possessions of significance to make ready for the night. Right now, you're pretty much just a wandering vagabond to anyone who lives here. Only the people who came with you to the coast have a vague idea of who you really are. Even then, you didn't really make yourself noticeable outside of your own village. There was no real need to; you preferred to keep things relatively simple back in Atis, and the border hostilities usually prevented you and other tribesmen from wandering too far out of the forest or coasts. On one hand, this may be a blessing. Nobody can really mount bias against you based on character, because nobody here has met you before. On the other hand, you
are separated entirely from your past life. Additionally, you've fallen down a rabbit hole of strange monsters and talking reptiles.
It's all too much to think about right now. With the liquor still sloshing around in your skull, it's best to sleep off the events of the past few days and let your ailing mind recover itself through the magic powers of alcohol.
((I'll let you determine if there's anything special you want to do before W.D. slumbers away and hopefully doesn't get assaulted by murderous shadow-squirrels in the middle of the night. If you just want to continue without a second thought, I will do a follow-up post. Think of it like a half-turn.))
Eh Ah
Eh Ah looks carefully around his home with concern. An understandable thing, looting. For all they knew he could have been dead the entire time. Nevertheless, highly inconvenient.
Lock the door again, make sure all the windows are shut. Then pack it in for today. Got a lot of things done, with yet more to do tomorrow.
Eh AhThere is at least something of a silver lining to this predicament. You still have the house intact for the most part, with the furniture still in place. You're definitely going to miss on the valuables and necessities that were taken from the various rooms, but you'll still be able to live. If you need aid in getting food, the Aecrocian government (or what's left of it) is still distributing supplies for recovery while reconstruction is still going on.
You can focus on attaining necessary supplies later. For now, fatigue is starting to take over from your various trips all over the island today. You take one more walk around your house, realizing in part the gravity of the situation now. Any stability that you might have had in the past week has fled far away. The island won't be the same after this war, though you don't really find it rational to believe that
any area touched by war remains the same.
Now that you've had time to think, you move around the house, locking the doors and windows; there's no point in inviting more looters to invade your house while you're living in it now. With the rest of the house quiet and dark, you shuffle over to your bedroom. You take one final look around the room before throwing yourself into the covers of the creaky bed and letting your worries slip away for the night.
***
One eye opens, and then the other. A smoothly-painted blue wall faces you. You turn your head to the right side, finding the shutters for the windows deployed. Oh, that's right, you did that yesterday. You groan and sit up. Surprisingly, this seems to be a rather quiet morning. Nothing has been disturbed, nobody came to murder you in the night, and you weren't haunted by ghosts. Considering your most recent track record, you'd consider this a new high.
You're more than a bit peckish right now, having put off the desire to eat to complete your investigations yesterday. You probably have a couple of canned products or small snacks in your cupboards now, so you'll have to do one of three things: make your existing food last, receive help from relief shelters, or buy food from any markets still standing. Whatever you've been carrying this whole time still remains with you. You don't really have anything for personal defense other than blunt objects, but you don't think that the rate of looting and thievery will be so high that you'll really need personal defense, considering the overwatch of the Theyins. Medicines can wait for now. After you get your necessities in order, you'll have plenty of time to keep looking around the island or report back to Seira Theyin and see what she found about the mysterious woman.
Author's Notes: Not really much to say here. Wrote most of this on a phone, so again, if there are any mistakes, please let me know. I may do an intermission soon to explain some more things. What are those things, you may ask? Well, I don't know at this point. But I'm working on it.
Hope everyone has a wonderful day,
Artemis.