18:25 - TWISTY PASSAGES

[◊◊BLOODBEASTER◊◊]

Mills looks just about to accept your help when the floor bursts open.

Hot steam erupts like a tea kettle letting loose, and a creature rises out

of the boiling heat. It looks like scraps of a human body bound to metal

pipes and wires, assembled into a roughly human shape. The face is a

human one, with the features sanded off, leaving only pits for eyes and

the bared teeth of a lipless mouth. It lets out the pathetic cry of a dying

woman, and leeches away your sanity.

((automatic -1 stability loss for all! roll 2d10+Will to avoid losing another!!

_{(no more than 2 sta loss)} ))

[∆§Indea§∆]

(Anxious)


3pZiU7zu++2-2





Edmund-

"NoooooooooOOOoooo..."

·

[Dr. Jar]

Harriet-
(Uneasy)

"Gah!"

ZvK9bCdY+2 ·

[◊◊BLOODBEASTER◊◊]

You both steel yourself against the horrible thing. Maybe this experience has

numbed you. Harriet, you find this being especially haunting.

(No additional stability penalty, but it still upsets you.)

The creature is in between you and Mills, to where you can't see him at all.

It looks you over with that mangled face, at least as much as it can without

eyes. It smells like foul, burning meat. Every movement of its body seems to

cause it agony, the muscles tearing and stretching between broken machinery.

If it were to stand completely out of the pit, it would barely fit in this hallway.

As it regards you, your mind helplessly drifts to a horrific memory.

((Does something about this creature bring anything to your mind?))

[∆§Indea§∆]

(Neurotic)

Edmund-

”No more, no more, no more...”

I fell against a wall, my hand in my hair. Tears in my eyes. My heart running too many beats a second.

A nightmare I had years ago came into my mind. There had been a car accident all over the news. The pictures fuzzed out leaving it to the imagination to think of the horror. The mangled car suggesting the mangled bodies that had been within, Young teens on a joyride.. Tabitha had an older friend who had her license already. In my dream the vehicle had twisted around a tree, bringing flesh, wood and machine together. Tabby's face had stared at me, frozen in terror, screaming. Skull protruding with bits of glass from the windscreen. Metal twisted through her chest. Pinned into the tree, branches reaching out. She had become just like this monster. There was nothing I could do to save her. I had to imagine a world without her and the loss had dug at me like a knife. I had hugged her so hard the next day, she'd thought someone had died. She had rolled her eyes when I told her to be careful.

The image of her frozen scream seemed latched onto my brain. Her face becoming the mirror of the monster in front of me. The pain it seem to feel as horrifying as it's visage.

[Dr. Jar]

Harriet-
(Uneasy)

I grab Edmund's arm and pull him with me, practically vibrating with frantic energy.

I watch Mills disappear, out of our grasp and away. He's gone and would not be in my hands today. This was our loss. I had lost him. He was gone. And the smell. The overwhelming smell and horrible sight of whatever this creature happened to be. If it was real. Whatever it was. A nightmare. I fought the urge to flee this thing, like a horse. My heart hammered in my chest and my vision blurred.

My mind slipped away and I felt the fresh flush of unwanted tears in my eyes. The smell of rot as I remembered calling out in the dimming evening light. My desperate breathlessness as I pushed away the dark, sickly-rotted leaves. They slapped against me, shedding black mold and mud and something else. He was here.

Then, I found him. I was not sure what I had expected to find, but the sickening smell that rose up...my pulse pounding in my chest. My throat so tight I could barely utter a sound.

Ben.

The body that rest on my chest just that morning. The soft amber eyes that greeted me every day. His delicate feet, soft as a velvet glove and just as light. His soft sounds when I walked in. It was all ended, and so cruelly. The body twisted in a half-circle, intestines splayed out, wrapping around the foliage and rot, face crushed into a pulpy mass, one eye bulging.

And the flies buzzing, buzzing. I screamed at them in rage, swatting ineffectually.

Ben...

The flies settled in his red mouth like falling ashes.

[◊◊BLOODBEASTER◊◊]

((Fantastic!! Both a yous))

The horrible sobbing and moaning echoed around the metal hall as it

crumpled in on itself like tinfoil. The hallway split in two paths. At the

center was a man-sized, pulsing piece of meat. A heart, thudding so fast.

Its thick veins traveled along the hallways, forming vines that

threatened to trip. Instead of cold, dirty water, it was blood so hot that

it sent up steams into the cold air.

Ed--

You begin to run left, when something comes lumbering out of the hall

to meet you. Something with the face of a scorched elephant seal, its body

formed out of crystalline glass, its squelching organs clearly visible within.

It swings a barbed finger toward you-- catching you in the chest. It pulls

something out-- you feel no pain, but feel a bizarre sucking sensation.

Skewered on its finger is a tiny version of you. Like a very realistic, squirming,

1/8 replica of Edmund Bassett. In an instant, it gobbles it into his crimson,

spiny mouth, the tiny Edmund shrieking like a dying baby.

((Lose 1 stability and roll 2d10+Will to avoid losing another!))

Harriet--

Edmund tries to pull from you in the hall, but stops abruptly, almost

knocking you over. He jitters around, for seemingly no reason. Whatever

that creature behind you is, it's still there...

The halls ahead are dark, and disturbingly biological.

[∆§Indea§∆]

(Anxious)


YI6dJyRD++2-2


I shriek with it grabbing at myself where I lost the little me. I pushed at it as if trying to keep more of myself in.What part of me had it taken? What?


Edmund-

"I'm lost... I've lost myself...Nooo…."

·

[Dr. Jar]

Harriet-

"Doctor, come on...Hurry... We have to go now..."

I look back at the space Mills occupied, but see nothing there. Instead I move faster, pulling on Edmund's arm, my hand like a vice.

[◊◊BLOODBEASTER◊◊]

Edmund-- you feel hollow, like you suddenly lost several pounds worth of

organs. But somehow, you're alive. The strange beast doesn't follow you

as Harriet pulls you to (potential) safety.

Both of you-- The hall abruptly ends, looking out on some vast field of machinery.

You're inside some kind of factory, filled with dirty pipes and furnaces. It's all

dormant though, no roaring fires or chugging pulleys. You seem to be in a drainage

pipe, there is a ten foot drop to a trough of water, but it doesn't look that deep.

There is something unnervingly ordinary about what you see before you, though

the scale of the scene is overwhelming-- this factory must be the size of an

airplane hangar at least.

((Please roll 2d10+ Coolness to leap down safely, and describe what you think as

you look out at this environment))

[∆§Indea§∆]

(Anxious)


I let myself be led like an unruly child, still holding myself where it had left me. I try to jump still holding on.


Edmund-

"You saw it right? What it took from me? Did it take anything from you?"

JbTHP2n6++1
·

[Dr. Jar]

Harriet-

"...I didn't see anything. I think a lot of things here aren't real...You should...try to focus on surviving."

My voice shook. I didn't feel cool. I was angry now. How...how dare this place. How dare these people! This was a ridiculous parade of of family drama playing itself out in front of us. We were all going to die because of it. The nerve of these people.

I squinted as I dropped down. NO. No no no no no no no no. NO. No. No.

m66gAh1M-2

·

[◊◊BLOODBEASTER◊◊]

Harriet--

Oof! Sploosh. You lose your balance as you fall and splash in the cold,

grimy water. Ugh. Otherwise, you are unhurt, but it doesn't feel good

on your scraped leg.

Edmund--
Oh dear. You land all wrong. Too distracted, too ungainly and exhausted.

((Roll 2d10+Fortitude to endure your injury.))

[∆§Indea§∆]

(Anxious)


Edmund-

"Ughhhhhh!! Bedsheets!"

I try to roll with the fall somehow.


aTiUxQ8X++1·

[Dr. Jar]

Harriet-

"Ugh. Where are we?"

I brushed myself off. My clothes clung to my skin and added an additional level of misery.

I tried to help the doctor up to his feet.