Topic: Our Salvation: It Is Written (Read 262242 times)

Xantalos · « **Reply #1800 on:** November 12, 2016, 09:11:47 pm »

"Well I need one and I'm not going to get any more. Look at me, I'm 95% noodle right now. Besides, like I said, they're not gonna be killed and if you need to interrogate them again or something I can just put them back out."

C'mon I gotta get at least one please guards queen anyone

penguinofhonor · « **Reply #1801 on:** November 13, 2016, 09:25:49 am »

"Okay, we should probably get in and out in a hurry, so there's no time to waste. Let's go straight for the good stuff."

I make my way through the door with the dead stoat guard.

Harry Baldman · « **Reply #1802 on:** November 13, 2016, 05:14:19 pm »

Quote from: AoshimaMichio on November 12, 2016, 08:05:36 am

"Hoi Baldr, what I'm doing wrong here?"

As far as funeral rites go, burning the body is fine way. Help and pray original owner of the cloth got taken to Valhalla, Fólkvangr or Gimlé.

Baldr isn't quite sure what went wrong. Hitting on women while they're asking you to respectfully obey the funerary rituals of their culture has worked pretty well for him in the past. Then again, viking funerals are pretty hot, and it's just not the same if you can't romantically watch a boat float away while it's on fire.

[A Lovely Funeral: 5]

You decide to help Lee out, gathering twigs and dry grass for a respectable fire that it takes the two of you only a couple of minutes to get to smoke gently, then eventually erupt into a small flame after a few minutes of blowing on it. The flame crackling away, Lee unfolds the robe and, rising to her feet from a previous kneeling position, lowers it gently into the fire - a tongue of flame licks it, and it begins to slowly smoke, then catch on fire as well. She adds it to the fire in a ceremonial fashion, folding it into a neat pile that begins to joyfully burn, and kneels back down. She begins to mutter the requisite words, closing her eyes.

[You Will Never Break The Chain: 6]

You do the same, but you continue to see her, a bright kernel of memory in your mind's eye as she brings back what she was once taught to recite by heart. A little inebriated and curious, you fail to resist. You engage.

Let your way in the world be silent, dear Moth, and let your colors be invisible. And now that you have passed, let no trace of you remain, and let nothing slow you as you go into the night where you belong.

You travel up the chain, and start picking away at the sensations - the night air, the crackling of the flame, the smell of smoke as the robe's strange fabrics slowly burn away. You drag away the subtlest first, the sounds of the wind disappear unnoticed, then the sound of distant motions in the camp, then the light of the fire shining through your eyelids, leaving you in perfect darkness.

Let your name be gone, and never said again upon the sunlit earth, so that you may be in death as you were in life. Let no eyes behold you in the halls of the dead, and your passage be as easy here as it is there.

You compact the fire into its component sensations, and operate upon the knowledge they bestow. You formulate the fire as a perfect image - not what your senses bestow upon you, but the underlying reality that they reflect. The fire becomes not a phenomenon, but rather a concept. An abstracted concept between your two hands, momentarily limitless in potential. You press them together around the flame, and the crackling quiets, the smoke ceases, and for a moment you (and Lee, for your perceptions are very much shared in this moment, even absorbed as she is in the chanting).

Let your flight be quick, and carry you to the hidden place behind the veil of knowledge, so that you may find the ground from which you were spawned. Let nobody follow you into the home of the Moth, and your soul find eternal quiet and rest in the nothingness that awaits.

You pull your palms apart without a sound, and you and Lee open your eyes in perfect sync as you exhale. The fire is gone, as is its fuel, extinct without a trace beyond the two of you still kneeling around its former place. The only thing that remains is a profound sense of never-there, and Lee leans forward as she puts her hands where she recalls the fire to have been with a look of genuine wonder, finding nothing. No ash, and the grass seems almost primordially undisturbed.

No mere minder trick, she says with a noticeable sense of relief. Not any she has seen. You keep the feeling of closure in the air as she chooses to say no more, and merely smile as she looks to the sky, quietly reveling in the nullification. You keenly sense her emotions through the haze of alcohol as they radiate in gentle ripples from her mind, drinking in her satisfaction to the point where you involuntarily begin to smile as well. You regard the perfect symmetry for a moment before a distortion begins to sneak in, a little tapping on the side of this ideal picture of coherence. You frown, the high of the moment beginning to fade, and look to the side.

It's Rose, standing behind the tree, wondering why you're naked and kneeling face-to-face with the Moth woman - she inhales sharply as your eyes fall on her and ducks behind the trunk in a heady mix of fear and wishful thinking. Oddly enough this only makes her easier for you to see as you look on in the strange hyper-awareness and clarity of a man awoken from a vision.

Quote from: Toaster on November 12, 2016, 10:56:06 am

Thomas's eyes glazed over a bit. "Um, sure, meteors. Hey, that sounds like something my sister said once, about shouting against the storm. I can't remember the context, though. But, uh, I don't think one can really strike against a force of nature, no?"

Thomas found himself edging away from the crater a bit.

Keep talking. Also back off a bit.

The guard follows you in lockstep with serpentine precision as he keeps up the monotone. Very true. Nature is indifferent, as you might expect. But there are many elements of it that hint at greater and deeper influences such as deities, demigods, overgods, spirits, djinn, faeries and any other variety of hobgoblin that you may be able to think of. These are the unnatural elements. For instance, would you believe that this pool of toxic waste illegally disposed of in the middle of the wilderness is explicable by a perfectly natural phenomenon? Indirectly, perhaps. Disobedience of sensible regulation is not unexpected. Despite this, there has to be someone disobeying such regulation. And someone with a motive for doing so.

In summary, somebody is responsible. And this somebody is presumably not entirely indifferent - it is inconvenienced, therefore it can be thwarted, harmed, hurt, injured and otherwise prevented from normal functioning. And it is thus the duty of all citizens and non-citizens alike to hunt down this somebody and force them to either pay restitution or be made incapable of perpetrating similar acts yet again. Perhaps by a summary removal of the hands or whatever other appendages it possesses. He has given this some thought, he says as he draws his sword and invites you to watch as he starts to draw diagrams on the ground for several elaborate proposals on how one would possibly dismember a god, considering such factors as size, shape, anthropomorphism and omnipotence. He explains at length, and the turnkey squats by the drawings, cocking his head and occasionally pointing at imprecisions that the guard proceeds to notice and meticulously correct.

He's going to be at this for a while, the woman whispers into your ear from behind, her hands on your shoulders as she leans in on you. It's best to ignore him.

Quote from: TopHat on November 12, 2016, 02:26:42 pm

"... I'm an idiot."
Well, anyway, better get moving. El's to the West, Daniels is heading to El, so East it is.
Find Polaris, head East using that. If the constellations are even the same here, that is. Failing that, make an uneducated guess. Nothing else to do until daylight.

[Astronomical Aptitude: 2]

You find Polaris rather easily - it's the brightest star in the night sky, a brightness to almost rival the moon. It hangs in the sky circled by a ring of smaller lights. You nod, getting the sense you've established a good sense of where to go, and proceed to head eastward, to the Kingdom of the Dead. It promises to be a long trip.

And a long trip indeed it is - you head east for a time, keeping the north star firmly to the left until it's drowned out by the approaching dawn, putting a great deal of distance between yourself and wherever it is that Mr. Daniels could possibly be heading. The landscape stays largely steady, although you eventually wander into the forest once again as the biomes curve around you.

[The Land of the Rising Sun: 4]

It is midday when you start noticing a change in the environment. The leaves on the trees begin to look greyer and paler, and the undergrowth starts to become waxy as you walk on. The birds seem quieter and you see a murder of crows rise from a nearby ancient oak tree. Pushing through the overgrown forest floor you head on, occasionally crossing a black, largely silent river or two, shallow enough to comfortably ford and slowly being choked with sediment and reeds. The landscape droops and grows wetter, the forest turning increasingly swampy and dark. You occasionally see figures in the distance, but they flee at the sight of you, some of them strangely bipedal-looking for wild animals.

Midday has turned to sunset again as the swamp grows thinner and the trees become stunted and blackened, and the watery swamp floor is coated in a thick layer of treacherous red moss. You are about to pause and consider whether this is a particularly good direction to keep going in when you notice a little path - a footbridge of what look to be assorted bones connecting little islands of relatively solid ground. It proceeds in two directions, one leading toward what looks like a lone shack further east in the bog, the other stretching south and east, zigzagging precariously with no end in sight.

Quote from: Xantalos on November 12, 2016, 09:11:47 pm

"Well I need one and I'm not going to get any more. Look at me, I'm 95% noodle right now. Besides, like I said, they're not gonna be killed and if you need to interrogate them again or something I can just put them back out."

C'mon I gotta get at least one please guards queen anyone

Look, the guard says, she's not sure how supernaturally devouring a stoat is going to help you become less of a grotesque noodleman and frankly she is confident she doesn't want to find out. So if you need one, why don't you go find a straggler or a pocket of resistance that hasn't been eliminated yet and grab them? You'd be doing a great service to the community.

[The Queen's Eye: 6]

Surely he can have one, the queen mentions, briefly poking her head out from under the lord's hands before he scrambles to cover her eyes again. She starts warding him off, clearly interested in what you might possibly want one of them so badly for, and the servants start crowding around them as they try to prevent a rather embarrassing slap fight from starting between the ruling teenage monarch and her rather old adjutant.

The guards all look at you. You look at them. They heard the queen, right? They sort of shrug. Okay. Maybe you can have one. But you better be ready to give it back if the commander comes back and wants to know something. So no chewing, okay?

Quote from: penguinofhonor on November 13, 2016, 09:25:49 am

"Okay, we should probably get in and out in a hurry, so there's no time to waste. Let's go straight for the good stuff."

I make my way through the door with the dead stoat guard.

You weave through the room, trying to not make anything collapse by moving in sync with the vibrations, and the doctor follows in your footsteps, imitating your motions. You scurry over to the door and pause to gently nudge the corpse out of the way with your foot.

[Impressive Constructions: 6]

The house creaks and shifts as you do so, but luckily that appears to not have been a load-bearing corpse. You pull the door - it opens slightly before you realize you're supposed to be pushing it, and after a minute of applying firm pressure, the doctor lending her shoulder to the effort, you push your way through. And not a moment too soon, for exactly as you tumble into the next hallway you hear and very much feel the room behind you start to fold in on itself as the roof meets the floor in places, all of it closing together like a set of jaws before it slowly and incompletely rises back to its original configuration.

Yes, about what you would expect, the doctor whispers. Disorderly to begin with, and poorly insulated against the madness of the earth. Best to not spend more time in here than absolutely necessary.

Speaking of, you now find yourself in a side room - a hallway, to be specific. It curves and twists, staircases leading upward into darkness and downward into light, both swaying and undulating in ways that make you dread walking upon them. On the side of either the hallways continue for a bit - there's a cubby beneath the staircase, you think, its door breathing and splintering as the staircase moves around it, and a desk slowly crawls from one side of the room to the other, an undisturbed vase of flowers standing on it, almost taunting you to examine it closer. A trail of blood leads along one of the walls, terminating at it in a person-shaped splotch, as if a man had stumbled into the paneling and somehow been ground through it. You step away from the nearby wall just in case.

Spoiler: Status (click to show/hide)

Xantalos · « **Reply #1803 on:** November 13, 2016, 09:27:12 pm »

"Awesome, good, good."

Store a stoatman in my storage space! Check their reactions afterwards; if I'm lucky they might not notice because it kinda retcons them out of the universe temporarily and I'll be able to get more than one.

TopHat · « **Reply #1804 on:** November 14, 2016, 02:06:13 pm »

Hmm. Well, it'd probably be best to get an idea of whether the place is inhabited or not before going in.
Sit on one of the islands, rest a bit whilst watching the shack.

AoshimaMichio · « **Reply #1805 on:** November 14, 2016, 02:58:50 pm »

Fight to keep this state of hyper awareness! It's awesome!

"Why you are afraid?

We are finishing funeral rites. Death is one of three most profound events in one's life, so proper respects must be paid and rituals followed. Moth rites apparently involve burning one's posessions, sending them away with soul of dead. Very much like my people do, except we prefer burning the body and its posessions with a boat.

...Do you happen to have any pants that do not belong to anyone dead? I'm really out of luck with clothes."

penguinofhonor · « **Reply #1806 on:** November 14, 2016, 05:05:07 pm »

"Did people live here?"

I check the compartment under the stairs. Maybe it's a closet or something.

Toaster · « **Reply #1807 on:** November 15, 2016, 01:50:32 am »

Thomas turned toward the woman, a bit surprised. "Er! Um, okay. He raises a point, I suppose, but what do you make of all this?"

Converse differently.

Harry Baldman · « **Reply #1808 on:** November 15, 2016, 02:39:36 pm »

Quote from: Xantalos on November 13, 2016, 09:27:12 pm

"Awesome, good, good."

Store a stoatman in my storage space! Check their reactions afterwards; if I'm lucky they might not notice because it kinda retcons them out of the universe temporarily and I'll be able to get more than one.

[Give Them An Inch: 2]

You place your hand over one of the stoatmen, and let the emptiness within you take hold - set loose, it takes no longer than a second to consume the helpless, whimpering prisoner. A magistrate and arbiter, she oversaw the executions of over a hundred dissidents in the early days of the takeover. She feels much less proud about these now, you think, insofar as she may still feel anything at all, enveloped in nothingness as she is. You raise your hand, and the prisoner is there no longer. Perfectly absorbed.

Awesome, you say to the guards as they look on, not quite sure what just happened, good, good! Now to business, you say and begin to step over to the next one, hopeful you might get a couple more out of the bargain. You nearly manage to place your hand on the head of the next one in line before the sharpest of the guards pipes up - hey, there were six of these prisoners. And now there's five. Don't try to pull a fast one on them, she notes distrustfully. The other guards look as well, and seem to agree - yeah, weren't there six to begin with? Strange trick, they seem to all agree.

The queen, for her part, is still very busy trying to fend off the lord of the keep, and it's only by the time you're done that the two are gently separated by servants. All right, she says, are you ready to begin? He already did the thing, the astute guard says before you can go for doubling down on the bluff. See, there were six - now there's only five. Oh, the queen says. That was all? Strange trick, she comments.

Quote from: TopHat on November 14, 2016, 02:06:13 pm

Hmm. Well, it'd probably be best to get an idea of whether the place is inhabited or not before going in.
Sit on one of the islands, rest a bit whilst watching the shack.

You sit down on one of the more solid pieces of bogland, or at least one in which you sink slowly enough for it to be irrelevant, and watch the distant shack as you relax in the steady flow of damp and misery from further in the bog, a wasteland of peat moss offering little to contemplate beyond the scarce signs of habitation.

The shack itself looks very quiet and still from here, and there is no light in its windows or smoke from its chimney - or, for that matter, any sort of chimney. You're not sure if people are even meant to live there or if it serves some other purpose - a storehouse, perhaps, though what you would keep in a storehouse this far away from pretty much anything is a good question.

Quote from: AoshimaMichio on November 14, 2016, 02:58:50 pm

Fight to keep this state of hyper awareness! It's awesome!

"Why you are afraid?

We are finishing funeral rites. Death is one of three most profound events in one's life, so proper respects must be paid and rituals followed. Moth rites apparently involve burning one's posessions, sending them away with soul of dead. Very much like my people do, except we prefer burning the body and its posessions with a boat.

...Do you happen to have any pants that do not belong to anyone dead? I'm really out of luck with clothes."

It's a matter of place rather than a matter of time. You are aware because you have this place very firmly in your mind, having spent time on absorbing its details - thus any disturbances, such as your good friend Rose, burn far brighter than they should, tiny signs adding up to very coherent images of the exact nature of any intruders.

[The Mind Is Like A Muscle: 5]

You don't actually need to say a word by that same measure. At least not aloud - you can convey yourself far more efficiently. You manifest your thoughts directly to the clanswoman, and through her acceptance of the message, as much through surprise as it is through willingness, allows you a handy in. This is even more helpful. You catch her fears and anxieties at play, the woman having not the time to hide them from you.

And what fears they seem to be. They stem from a single fact - whatever you are, you are certainly not what you seem to be. She seems uncertain, however, as to what exactly she thinks you might be. A friendly face on the road? An exotic, handsome foreign traveler? A human being? Of these she rather dearly hopes at least two are true.

She seems very open, so you decide upon a question. Could she help you find another set of clothes? You seem to have had terrible luck with them as of late. You rise from your position, turning fully toward her. She peeks out from behind the tree. Well, you sense her immediate thoughts, the current state of affairs doesn't really afford the worst of views, but- she begins to trail off with a glassy stare before snapping to attention. But of course! Of course! Wait here, she should have something on hand post-haste! And with that she runs off at a very sprightly pace, no doubt soon to return.

Strange people, these Gallflies, Lee says, looking you over as well. Thieves, but not deliberately so.

Quote from: penguinofhonor on November 14, 2016, 05:05:07 pm

"Did people live here?"

I check the compartment under the stairs. Maybe it's a closet or something.

They undoubtedly did, the doctor comments in a hushed tone, but it probably did not look this way when that was the case. The earthquake has upset the architecture on a metaphysical as much as a conventional level, she fears. There's no telling what you might find in here with north-stuff running wild in the walls. North-stuff, you ask. North-stuff, she shrugs. Madness, in more poetic terms. Or chaos - yes, chaos would be a good word. She's never seen this much chaos concentrated into a single structure, mind you. It's really something else, she must say, though she gets the feeling you'd be well-served in minding your step.

[Under the Staircase: 2]

You need to get a little rough with the door of the compartment to pull it open, and once you do it comes readily off its hinges. You rest it very gently against one of the walls, but the door just responds by starting to crawl upward along the paneling. Both you and the doctor stare for a minute as it makes a good three feet of progress, its movement slightly hypnotic in its mechanical precision, but then decide to get back to business.

The compartment seems to have been the living quarters, cramped and horrid enough to suggest a relatively unwanted or impoverished occupant. Beyond that it's hard to tell - the floor bends sharply upward, and a bed standing precariously on its edge within seems to be the only thing holding up the very shaky staircase leading upward. There is something behind it, however. A pile of stuff, you think? It's a little hard to see in the unlit corner.

Quote from: Toaster on November 15, 2016, 01:50:32 am

Thomas turned toward the woman, a bit surprised. "Er! Um, okay. He raises a point, I suppose, but what do you make of all this?"

Converse differently.

The woman remains very much within what you would consider your personal space as you turn around. He does raise a point. A lot of points, very reasonable points, she says before placing her head on your shoulder and emitting the very barest of whispers. But they're both mad, she confides to you in a tone of sweet conspiracy. Please, you have to help her get out of here. She can't possibly get anywhere on her own. Could you help her?

Ah, you begin to say, but she shushes you. Don't say anything while they can hear. Just leave, and she'll follow. She raises her head and steps back, one of her hands running along your arm as she breaks contact. She nods and motions for you to turn back toward the elderly fellow, who seems to be presently droning on about eradication of aesthetics, or would that be the aesthetics of eradication? It's admittedly hard to follow without a background in applied deicide and/or raving lunacy.

Spoiler: Status (click to show/hide)

AoshimaMichio · « **Reply #1809 on:** November 15, 2016, 03:33:00 pm »

Yep, drunken warrior sage is the way to go.

Does this way of communicating work on Lee too?

Indeliberate thieves? Like crows who gather what they find on road and strikes their fancy? I see. Though their healer seemed to be less open about alcohol thievery. Have to rely on my own products. What you know about them?

Meditate Lee's teachings under influence of imaginary alcohol and put on clothes when they are delivered. Offer imaginary bottle of quality mead for anyone who's within arms reach and willing to partake, including myself (and I'm very willing, thanks for asking).

Xantalos · « **Reply #1810 on:** November 15, 2016, 04:19:07 pm »

Daniels shrugs.

"Had to try. Anyhow, if you need to know anything about her just let me know. I'll stick with you lot until I find the other thing I need. You have a bed anywhere?"

Beds? Beds please?

penguinofhonor · « **Reply #1811 on:** November 15, 2016, 04:49:35 pm »

I grab the stuff and get out of the compartment. Hopefully it's some nice clothes so we can leave.

Toaster · « **Reply #1812 on:** November 16, 2016, 10:14:12 am »

Thomas nodded quietly, and backed off to a quieter part of the town, such as it was. "So what would you say is going on?" he asked once they were clear.

Talky talky

TopHat · « **Reply #1813 on:** November 16, 2016, 12:29:29 pm »

Let's have a look, then.
Go up to the shack and knock on the door. Take a closer look through the windows if there's no response.

Harry Baldman · « **Reply #1814 on:** November 17, 2016, 07:20:47 am »

Quote from: AoshimaMichio on November 15, 2016, 03:33:00 pm

Yep, drunken warrior sage is the way to go.

Does this way of communicating work on Lee too?

Indeliberate thieves? Like crows who gather what they find on road and strikes their fancy? I see. Though their healer seemed to be less open about alcohol thievery. Have to rely on my own products. What you know about them?

Meditate Lee's teachings under influence of imaginary alcohol and put on clothes when they are delivered. Offer imaginary bottle of quality mead for anyone who's within arms reach and willing to partake, including myself (and I'm very willing, thanks for asking).

You can communicate to Lee, and as you think in her direction she realizes she can do the same, which seems like a rather strange revelation to her.

[Freedom of Thought: 2]

Do you know what she's thinking, she seems to wonder? How long have you been listening? How much have you discovered? Did you figure out- no, perish the thought. Her eyes dart around as paranoia flares. Have you been listening the entire time? Can you hear her dreams? Oh dear. Wait. You can hear what she's thinking right now. Shit!

Okay, she blinks. Silence. Quiet. Emptiness. Now, she declares in words rather than thoughts, inhaling and stretching out her arms. Suddenly you can hear no more. She breathes calmly and deeply for a few moments with her eyes closes, shoring up her mind as slight whispers of old instructions bleed out of her consciousness.

She opens her eyes with an unreadable expression. There, she very deliberately and slowly says. That should do. She seems tense, you observe aloud. Would she like some mindbooze to settle her nerves? When she replies with an "absolutely not" that you hardly need minder skills to predict, you can only shrug. All right, more for you then! As always, you waste no time in getting wasted.

[A Shipment of Trousers: 1]

And it's quite fortunate that you do, for it seems like you might be here for a while, and Lee seems to be about as good a conversationalist as always, staring at you, the pupils of her eyes dilating and narrowing as she cycles through states of altered ego for the sake of scrambling her thoughts for unreadability.

You're not really paying that much attention to the time yourself, cycling through states of altered consciousness in your own way as you crouch down and proceed to get absolutely shitfaced on mindbooze. It's at about the time that you have difficulty getting up and the combination of cool ground and unfriendly wind starts to get to your giblets that you start to wonder if maybe Rose got lost someplace.

Quote from: Xantalos on November 15, 2016, 04:19:07 pm

Daniels shrugs.

"Had to try. Anyhow, if you need to know anything about her just let me know. I'll stick with you lot until I find the other thing I need. You have a bed anywhere?"

Beds? Beds please?

[Where A Man Might Find A Bed: 3]

The guards all look around. Well, this is the main square, and there's the inn, you should be- oh wait, the astute guard says as she notices the inn leaning a rather precipitous way, and that the gouts of smoke seem to be coming out of its windows rather than the chimneys. Maybe not the inn then, she says and scratches her head.

Try a house, another guard suggests offhandedly. Though try not to evict anyone - they did do a pass over this neighborhood, and anybody who hasn't been stabbed is supposed to be there and is at least a quasi-loyal subject of the queen and thus nominally under their unflinching protection. Basically if the front door isn't half-open and covered in telltale marks of violence, feel free to invade and sleep there. They're going to be leaving in not too long anyway.

Or you could look for an insurgent or two, the astute guard pipes up again. If you could direct your mystical powers of eating people and destroying shit toward something productive, such as pacifying the remaining pockets of resistance and saving them precious time better used for pillaging and preparing a caravan for the journey north, maybe they could see about actively taking care of your needs rather than what you're doing right now. Hint hint, she conspicuously appends without inflection.

Quote from: penguinofhonor on November 15, 2016, 04:49:35 pm

I grab the stuff and get out of the compartment. Hopefully it's some nice clothes so we can leave.

[Disturbing the Bedpost: 6]

You hold on to the bedpost as you maneuver through, steadying its wanton vibrations as you circle round it and plunge one hand into the pile of stuff in the corner.

The pile in question seems to be mostly made up of fabrics - more wool, specifically, dusty as hell and partly eaten by moths, which goes a long way toward explaining why they'd be left in a disorderly pile in a cubby such as this. You grab them anyway, noting each one to be some kind of cover for a chair or perhaps a sofa, and pass them one by one to the doctor with your free hand. In a few moments she has an armful of moth-eaten covers, and you find yourself at the bottom of the pile, where an old knife browned with rust and old blood in equal measure rests. You grab that too, figuring there's no point in leaving anything behind, and proceed out the compartment.

As you let go of the bed, the compartment wastes no time in buckling as its precarious balance is irrevocably disturbed, the staircase above bending and cracking as it detaches from the second floor hallway it used to lead to, swinging up and down precariously as the bed holding up the whole thing starts to ponderously break in half under the strain. The near wall starts to bend toward you as well, waggling back and forth out of sync with the staircase, almost daring you to try and get upstairs against such incredible odds.

The doctor looks at her moth-eaten collection of rags, then at your knife, trying to remain positive in the face of such meager loot.

Quote from: Toaster on November 16, 2016, 10:14:12 am

Thomas nodded quietly, and backed off to a quieter part of the town, such as it was. "So what would you say is going on?" he asked once they were clear.

Talky talky

[A Lecture Interrupted: 4]

You start to back away. The elderly fellow does take note of this, but seems to care little, instead turning to explain more to the turnkey, switching gears into more advanced deicide theory. You hear something about antideific acts and supreme annihilation as you retreat along with the woman across a short distance, far enough to be out of comfortable earshot.

Thank you, she says as she looks back at the two crazy people, now carrying an incredibly one-sided conversation about the nature of... well, whatever it is they're really talking about now, you can't say you'd particularly care to know. It's been nightmarish following those two around, but what's a girl like her to do in the wilderness? Her name's Claire, by the way. She's not being too forward, is she, she asks as she leans closer, pressing gently into your arm. She smells rather noticeably of sawdust, mild sweat and perhaps a little wine.

Erm, you say, trying to remember what you were about to ask, ah yes - what would she say is going on? She looks around - well, she starts tapping her fingers on your back. Honestly, it is a little difficult to say. These look like members of the Stork Clan, she points at the surrounding wailing masses. She tried talking to a couple of them a little earlier... did not go very well, she has to admit. She's positive they speak her language, being Storks and all, you know how they are, but they seem a mite sensitive - they're mourning something, she presumes. Loved ones, or maybe just the disaster, but it's definitely thrown them off doing anything much of use. Maybe that's for the best, however. She's heard things about these clanfolk. Terrible things.

She rests her chin on your shoulder and furrows her brow as she looks up into your eyes. Doesn't she know you from somewhere? Were you around in Anglefork, perhaps? You look, she glances down at your rather tight blue dress, distinctive.

Quote from: TopHat on November 16, 2016, 12:29:29 pm

Let's have a look, then.
Go up to the shack and knock on the door. Take a closer look through the windows if there's no response.

You jump from island to island, your feet sinking into the ground as you do, and finally you make a heroic jump onto the footbridge. Getting closer, it seems to be unmistakably made of bone - human bone, you realize as you notice a pelvis acting as one of the joints.

[A Bridge Too Far: 3]

What you do not quite expect is the bones being more like rope than wood as they wrap themselves around your feet and you nearly wind up plunging headfirst into bogwater, only holding barely onto the ropy cadaverous knitwork by weight of sheer fumbling. Having something to hold on to is quite handy, it turns out, because otherwise you're fairly sure you would have made far more than a passing acquaintance with the bone-shattering cold of the bogwater.

As it is, you emerge atop the intertwined bones, your stomach barely touching water as you rest between two islands, where the bone bridge is anchored more firmly in place by metal posts. Not daring to balance on such a thing lest you go tumbling off, you nervously crawl toward the shack. It's tough going, but in about half an hour you make it.

It does look more and more like a shed as you draw closer, if a peculiarly large one. No consideration seems to have been given to such things as windows or chimneys, and the thing seems to be assembled mostly of driftwood much like what you'd occasionally see floating around in the swamp. Being upright has done little to address the overall dampness and rot. The whole thing is tied together with the same kind of soft bone as what the bridge was made of. There are two things of note outside the shack that you manage to see on the way - firstly, a bog-mummified, tuskless mammoth head resting above a door you are about a head too tall to easily pass through, staring at you with dead, empty sockets, its unhealthy complexion filling you with a nameless dread. The second is a large parcel hanging off from the higher end of the shack's half-gable roof, something well beyond the size of a horse wrapped up in a strikingly filthy tarp, completely failing to swing around in the wind.

[Helpful Residents: 5]

You decide to knock on the door, but your knuckles make little to no sound on the wet wood it's made of. Nevertheless there is a stirring, and you see a glint of eyeshine before a bony hand undoes a wooden latch on the door and it swings inward a tad as a head looking a lot like a skull wrapped in a thin, almost translucent layer of skin dotted with somewhat illogically placed long tufts of hair slowly wedges itself into the crack. Two solid black eyes regard you as a mouth slowly chews on its own cheek out of habit.

[The Face of Revelation: 2]

A long gurgle comes as the caretaker squints and backs off from your shining face, electing to speak from the comfort of the darkness within. Why so shiny, he complains in a belabored wheeze. Why not drab like other westerners. How supposed to warn direly if so shiny.

He leans toward the door, clearing a handful of phlegm from his throat before asking, rather simply, what is that you want.

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Author Topic: Our Salvation: It Is Written (Read 262242 times)

Xantalos

Re: Our Salvation: Tearing the Stitches of Reality

penguinofhonor

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Harry Baldman

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Xantalos

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TopHat

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AoshimaMichio

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penguinofhonor

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Toaster

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Harry Baldman

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AoshimaMichio

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Xantalos

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penguinofhonor

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Toaster

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TopHat

Re: Our Salvation: Tearing the Stitches of Reality

Harry Baldman

Re: Our Salvation: Halfway To Sheol