"Uh. I've never been in one myself, but I do think this one is going on a bit long. Surely it's wearing off. Or maybe it's an aftershock. Might as well ask her!"
Converse. Be helpful. Just generally observe, really; this isn't travelling weather.
Should she? Probably should. She's getting a bit impatient, see. Been so long since she's moved around again, she says, then walks on the wobbling ground over to the commander, who seems to be watching out for other likely events today such as meteorites falling out of the sky or the clouds coming down as per their thousand-year-bargain of rains with the King In Green to harvest the unwary living.
[What's The Harm: 2]
After her question of whether this earthquake is going to be ending soon is met with one of the evilest glares you've ever seen the guardswoman returns dejected. She's getting antsy, could you-
Somebody calls out from the gathered crowd. Two people seem to be running this way from the castle. And one more threw some kind of weird wobbly thing off the castle wall and fell onto it. You can't quite see from behind all these people, but you assume it's not too outlandish a claim given what you've seen.
angry
"You get the FUCK back into the shrine this is NOT the TIME"
Hopefully Wilde gets us out; if not, REND the nearest castle wall to bits to make an exit.
Necessary clarification: not the entire wall, just a section of it. Assist the demolition with floppy worm-arm punches if necessary.
Spew profanity.
[Asking Nicely: 3]
The tendrils recoil at your words, seemingly more sensitive than you'd expect an eldritch hunger from beyond time and space to be. You are about to say yet more, but you are interrupted when Mr. Wilde uses you as a whiplike climbing tool in a way you can only describe as extremely unpleasant as you do your best to wrap your limbs around stray architecture as he drags his own, much less flexible carcass after you like some wanton explorer. Fortunately, it does not take all that long to ascent the impromptu tower-ramp, and you are slung at solid stone only about twice more before you're up.
You're about to wonder what the plan is to get down from here, but before you manage to ask Mr. Wilde tosses you right off the wall. Surprisingly it doesn't hurt all that much even when you bang your head against the dirt. You guess having no bones to break does have certain advantages.
No sooner than you think this, however, Mr. Wilde comes flying off the wall right onto you, and you discover exactly how it feels to be a cheap stretchy rubber toy in the hands of an all too cruel child as his weight causes your organs to momentarily find themselves in a much flatter and more spread out configuration, and you hear an involuntary squeak start to come from your mouth and not stop as you realize that this is a lot like the last time you were in this much pain, except this time it's gone from 0 to 100 in a fraction of a second.
"Hello there you weird thing. You are in need of guidance, right? Wanna see how viking handles things? Follow my example!"
Leading by example, Leif withdraws into his mental world, inviting the sea in. Repeatedly, if it doesn't catch my drift. There he shows aftermath of apocalypse, and how to rebuild broken anew. Especially gods like Hnir. From memory of knowledge new beings imagined into existance. Recreate all Ęsir and Vanir just to show it how it's done. Maybe it can follow my example. Bring my gods into reality.
You don't need to invite it in. Your thoughts reflect as bubbles rise to intercept them, eager to taste of your imagination.
[Finding Meaning: 1]
And what an imagination it is.
There were eddies underground that had never seen the sun, and you teach them from experience how it is that the gods party. Afterimages of the Stork Clan fly in on wings of light, not yet fully consumed in meaning as they start to circle you. Worlds swim like waves beneath as stories spill from you unbidden, of long wars of the past, of great men who outlasted them! The great tribes of the gods, and their even greater wars! Intrigue! Violence! Alcohol!
One story bleeds into another, and most bleed on their own - very literally, as words take shape even before they are spoken, and your thoughts form a feedback loop of free association, giants! Aesir and Vanir, Loki, great Loki! They dive out, and dive back in, their realms crashing in the raging sea. Your stories rise and swell, and take on life, and then take flight, figures in winged helms and tall snaking ships like angry dragons flying up and outward, trailed by giant half-formed shapes of primordial creation riding upon great glaciers of the closest that annihilating light can get to solid ice. You see Surtr's mirror image, glowing even brighter than the sword he was to wield! They rise and come forth, gods and enemies and whoever else, wolves and giants and ships made of toenails, all made of light, all leaving trails of luminescent bubbles forming into small glories seldom seen, each shape shifting as new stories nestle into it!
A whole five generations of the sort of fuckup that mythology invariably enshrines relish the chance to ride again - as they float into the air, their sins evaporate from their impermanent minds. To you they raise their pints of light, and they roar and sing with the rumbling earth - they shall fight and dance until the dawn and beyond, they swear as a terrible wind starts to rise!
"I'm starting to feel like I belong in neither world," I try to say. I then try breathing, and if that doesn't work, I try leaving.
[Taking In The Murk: 5]
It takes a certain abandon to even attempt to breathe water. Something inside your head reels at the mere thought. Rightfully so, you immediately figure as you let the water enter your nose. It feels thick, it burns your sinuses as algal toxins scour your insides. You double down, open your mouth and eyes, and start dragging more in, and vomit bits of air out of your lungs as you embrace drowning, abandon survival, finding yourself in an airless state where by all rights you should die. Your body tries to fight it, but the fisher holds you steady.
You feel it, the lightness, the closeness of death. It comes close, but does not quite cross the distance, lingering at the edge of your perception as your lungs fill completely with the disgusting water of the lake, your eyes bulging, waterlogged and stinging, the cold of the lake after a cool night reaching to your very bones. Your heartbeat slows so much as to be imperceptible, and you go still.
And yet you do not die, and you stay in the fisher's hands, breathing no longer, but not dead. Minutes pass, or possibly hours. Your consciousness does not fade, and your eyes begin to discern more as you face downward. You move your arms experimentally, and they respond - sluggishly at first, and without real feeling, but they move. Your skin has turned bluish from cold and lack of air. Your voice sounds a little strange when you speak, something having gone a little wrong in the vocal folds.
You live, mermaid. You belong on both sides after all. And in this, you belong to the border.
"You better not be talking to me."
Deep breath, run up the wall. We can make it! Then chuck Daniels off and use him as a crash mat.
[Spider Parkour: 5]
You decide upon the conscientious course of action, and instead of dragging Mr. Daniels around like an animal decide to wave him at a nearby elevated piece of debris in a one-handed giant swing. Taking your subtle hint, he wraps his sausage arms around it for dear life, and you utilize the man to make progress up to a steady piece of rubble. You repeat the process about two more times, Mr. Daniels groaning the whole way through as his jelly-like form is put through its paces, and eventually make it up to the wall. It has, much to your delight, failed to crumble! Thus far, anyway.
[Avenues of Escape: 4]
Both Nately and Deirdre have already made it down in a fit of unusual productivity, you notice as a parapet that she had wrapped a rope around crumbles away and falls to the ground, nearly squashing the nearby Nately. They look up at you. You look down at them, then at Mr. Daniels. This will require you to take your cooperation to the next level, you explain, and before he can ask what that might entail you toss him unceremoniously off the battlements, his boneless form impacting the shaking earth with a harmless flop.
Pleased at his excellent elasticity, you proceed to execute a leap from the battlements right atop the poor man, an unearthly squeak of agony issuing from his gaping mouth as you land on his rubbery, boneless torso and bounce right off with a timely roll, only to find Deirdre a good hundred meters away as she seems to have started sprinting away as soon as it became clear what you were doing, and even the normally much more robust Nately appears to have followed her shortly afterward.
You look at Mr. Daniels. He is still squeaking, though his pitch has lowered from nails on chalkboard to a more respectable busted accordion-like tone.
Leif Erikson, Miner
- A Word: INEVITABLE
- A Word: APOCALYPSE
- Body Count: 33
- Wounds: 1
- Mead of Poetry (5 shining revelations remaining)
- Enders' Friend: The Grave of Red Clouds Parting
- Reappropriated, Clean Skirt
- Inscribed Wooden Stylus
- Iron spear
- 1.03 gp
- The Box: ?
- Induced Lucidity: the Aftermath, or the New Beginning
- Compatibility: Minding
- Tricks of the Mind: Perception, Memory
- Tricks of the Mind: Engagement, Negation, Abstraction, Prestige
- Tricks of the Mind: the Self, the Other
- Gods of the Underground: Did You Just What
- A Visit From The Stork: Is What You Yes
- The Voracious Dark: Two Deals Made
- The Voracious Dark: The Promised Sixth
- Moth's Flight: Not In Her Wildest Dreams
- An Ancient Sea: The Hedonist's Inspiration
Eileen Minett, Vinyl Collector
- In Living Memory: Yeah She's Probably Dead Isn't She I Think She's Dead Yeah
- Wounds: 3
- Traces of Mischief: Drowned
- The Mirror-Fisher: Mermaid
- The Doom Guard: Consorting With The Enemy
- Exotic serrated zweihander
- White silk bandeau and loincloth
- Inauspicious Day: Off Into The Horizon
- Giant White Mushroom
- A Word: SEA
- A Word: HUNGER
- A Word: CHAOS
- A Weapon: Explosive Cysts
- The Voracious Dark: Three Connections Given
- Tower of the Mind: There's Something To Remember
- The New Queen: And Something To Forget
- Body Count: 1
- The Impromptu Prophecy: ?
- Sweet Little Children: Fond Farewell
Jack Daniels, Karate Man
- Naked
- Red and gold vest and breeches combo
- Leather boots
- Traces of Mischief: 90% Boneless
- Wounds: 2
- 14033 gp (in sack)
- The Flip Side: Uh, Yeah
- The Queen's Guard: Unusual Troublemaker
- Powers of the Beyond: Gardener of Thoughts
- Dusty Wooden Speaking-Trumpet
- Crossbow Bolt (in throat)
- A Word: REND
- A Word: SILENCE
- A Weapon: Murder-Thought
- Uncoupled: Strength
- Wooden Door (held)
- The Winding Path of Inspiration: Back To The Drawing Board
- Tower of the Mind: Endless Well of Mystery
- Induced Lucidity: A Garden Well-Tended
- Elongated Affairs: Enemy of the New State
- A Place In History: Vastly Unreliable
- Anglefork Castle: the Great Worm
- The Obsolete Class: Suggested Victims
- 2 rats, crushed
- 1 rat, strangled
- 1 rat, live
- Travels In The Fourth Dimension: Sunday ± 2 Days
- The Impromptu Prophecy: There's A Mountain Higher Than We Knew
- Doomstones: So High Up But Such A Bitter View
- The Majordomo: A Great Divide Between Us Now
- The Voracious Dark: Decreasing Demand
- The Voracious Dark: More Specific Requests
- The Good Doctor: A Recommendation
- Body Count: 3
Thomas Minstep, Insurance Agent
- Troubles In Anglefork Town: Bearer of the Sword
- Wounds: 2
- A Word: ABSENCE
- A Word: GOODBYE
- A Weapon: The Sword They Fear
- Traces of Mischief: Nausea's Depths
- A Bowl, Black and Knobby
- Anglefork Castle: From Another Time, Another Land
- Gross Incandescence: Partly Illuminated
- Tight Leather Pants (worn)
- Incredibly Tight Blue Dress (worn, mutilated, mildly provocative)
- Travels In The Fourth Dimension: Sunday, July 25th, 409 S.D.
- The Majordomo: Busy Morning
- The Good Doctor: House Call
- The Queen's Guard: A Reward Well Earned
- Make A Man Out Of You: A Crowning Achievement
- The New Queen: Lasting Gratitude
- Tower of the Mind: Advice Given
- The Obsolete Class: Let Them Be
- The One They Fear: A Satisfactory Contract
- A Place In History: A Worthwhile Associate
- The Box: Absolutely Delightful
- Body Count: 2
Oscar Wilde, Chemistry Teacher
- A Word: REVELATION
- Wounds: 1
- The Serpent's Egg: Dissemination
- Body Count: 4
- Time-ender's measure (wrapped, yawning)
- 10 m of rope
- Half a candle
- 1 rat, skinless and smoked
- 6 gp
- Poor Misshapen Dice
- Lock of Hair (unidentified)
- Iron nail, unused
- An Inauspicious Key
- Burlap Foot Wrappings (worn)
- Burlap Hand Wrappings (worn)
- Moth-Eaten Hat (worn)
- Respectable Brown Skirt (worn)
- Old Brown Waistcoat (worn)
- Bright Yellow Tunic (worn)
- A Wealth of Burlap Ribbons
- An Obsolete Class: Trustworthy Individual
- The Flip Side: The Most Dangerous Friend
- The Doom Guard: The Inquisition Moves On
- Tower of the Mind: Get Away
- The Winding Path of Inspiration: The Less Dangerous Friend