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[CtL IC] "Banana Skins is a bad name for a strip club"
Rainfall
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Months/days/years? You didn't know. It seemed like forever, the Thorns tearing at your flesh, your clothes, your skin, your soul, your heart, your mind, your memories. You screamed and cried, tearing away from them, begging for mercy, as you fought your way back from Arcadia and your Keeper.
You remember a few flashes of the journey. A grinning face, filled with teeth. Mighty beasts carving a path that you followed for a while, before greater creatures began hunting you. There may have been others with you, or perhaps you were alone, you can't remember. A kind face offered you a fruit at one point, but you refused, out of terror. Or perhaps you ate it? It's confused now.
Roars, screams, the cries of hunting beasts following you as you grew closer. The sound of engines, music, people, real life, the real world, separated by a thin fence. Whispers of deals, offers, bargains to be made, for your eyes, your voice, your soul, perhaps a week of your memory. Did you accept? It's impossible to tell anymore.
Somewhere along the line you realized you were holding...
*SCREEECH*
Nick found himself pushing up out of a manhole in the middle of the street, cars swerving to avoid him as his head poked up. A faint echo of a growl pursued him, down below in the dank sewers. He shivered, blinking as he saw the light of earth for the first time since his capture.
Marissa pushed through a door into a back alley, looking out onto a bustling main road. The whisper of the deathbirds still haunted her, they had been chasing her for hours? Or was it only minutes? So hard to tell. The sound of heavy bass pumping out a pop song hit her, and she realized that she was finally home.
Daphne shoved a garbage bag aside, spitting out trash as she emerged from the heap she had been climbing through for a week. The madmen her keeper had sent after her had all fallen behind as she fled through the abandoned buildings, and she was finally out of their clutches, finally back in the real world. Maybe she wouldn't have to clean as much...
Jared roared as he burst through the rear-view mirror of the semi-truck, hurling a reptilian freakshow in front of him. The driver swore and hit the brakes, his truck tipping dangerously as it hurtled down the freeway. The constant battle had ended, as soon as he killed the motherfucker that was trying to burn out his eyes with its venom.
What do you do?
You remember a few flashes of the journey. A grinning face, filled with teeth. Mighty beasts carving a path that you followed for a while, before greater creatures began hunting you. There may have been others with you, or perhaps you were alone, you can't remember. A kind face offered you a fruit at one point, but you refused, out of terror. Or perhaps you ate it? It's confused now.
Roars, screams, the cries of hunting beasts following you as you grew closer. The sound of engines, music, people, real life, the real world, separated by a thin fence. Whispers of deals, offers, bargains to be made, for your eyes, your voice, your soul, perhaps a week of your memory. Did you accept? It's impossible to tell anymore.
Somewhere along the line you realized you were holding...
*SCREEECH*
Nick found himself pushing up out of a manhole in the middle of the street, cars swerving to avoid him as his head poked up. A faint echo of a growl pursued him, down below in the dank sewers. He shivered, blinking as he saw the light of earth for the first time since his capture.
Marissa pushed through a door into a back alley, looking out onto a bustling main road. The whisper of the deathbirds still haunted her, they had been chasing her for hours? Or was it only minutes? So hard to tell. The sound of heavy bass pumping out a pop song hit her, and she realized that she was finally home.
Daphne shoved a garbage bag aside, spitting out trash as she emerged from the heap she had been climbing through for a week. The madmen her keeper had sent after her had all fallen behind as she fled through the abandoned buildings, and she was finally out of their clutches, finally back in the real world. Maybe she wouldn't have to clean as much...
Jared roared as he burst through the rear-view mirror of the semi-truck, hurling a reptilian freakshow in front of him. The driver swore and hit the brakes, his truck tipping dangerously as it hurtled down the freeway. The constant battle had ended, as soon as he killed the motherfucker that was trying to burn out his eyes with its venom.
What do you do?
You're all in roughly the same two-block area, so you can hear the crashing semi and the cars braking for Nick. You're all basically without equipment, although on personal examination you'll find that you have a small silver amulet around your neck, in the shape of a six.
It's a Token, and it allows you to reroll any 6s you might roll. Just be aware that there may be consequences for the use of this power. What you do with it is up to you.
Jared, the lizardman is Defense 2 Armor 1, should you choose to attack him. You can also give a shot at pulling the semi under control, one way or another.
It's a Token, and it allows you to reroll any 6s you might roll. Just be aware that there may be consequences for the use of this power. What you do with it is up to you.
Jared, the lizardman is Defense 2 Armor 1, should you choose to attack him. You can also give a shot at pulling the semi under control, one way or another.
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Nick scrambled for the safety of the side of the road as the semi surged towards him, desperately trying to make the distance without getting slammed by a car or the truck itself. Exiting the manhole was seeming like a worse idea all the time... but at least he wouldn't have to go back. (Give me a Dexterity+Athletics roll to try and make it, one success should see you through safely.)
Marissa and Daphne catch sight of each other at about the same time as they hear the crash of the semi on the street outside the alleyway, each of them dressed in tattered clothing and looking hunted and lost. There's a flash of recognition, a sense of a bond.
They clasped hands as a bird sang overhead. A promise of protection? Or maybe just an oath to not hurt each other. It felt safe. Then a rustle, the bird screams. Run!
The vision only lasted an instant.
Fortunately for Nick, his muscle memory wasn't affected by his transformation. He makes a mad grab for a street light, pulling himself onto the concrete sidewalk and narrowly avoiding becoming a hood ornament for a swerving sedan. What the hell... he used to be faster than this, didn't he? That was only a few yards! Still, better on the sidewalk than in the middle of that mess, right?
"I ... I am real. Are you?..." Her voice is small and shakes like her body.
Nick felt a tap on his shoulder. "Shit, man, we gotta get you out of here! The Gentry are too powerful this close to the edge of town! Come on, I can get you to a Winterhouse fast! Bring your friend!" Nick's eyes followed the long, pointing finger to look at the massive scarred man standing in the centre of the chaos on the road, and their eyes met for a brief moment.
Blood spilled together made them closer than brothers. A curtain of thorns hung over them as they hid from the rest of the pack, desperately trying to cover their scent. Fear, paranoia, but a safety in the other's company. Their other companions were close by, in a different hiding place.
A flash of memory hit Nick, and a similar vision took Jared by surprise.
What the hell is going on? Curiosity played its trump card, and Nick decided to follow the only obvious path.
With a nod to the goblin at his side, he called out and waved a beckoning gesture.
"Hey, big man! This way!"
Looking around, the only person who even seems to acknowledge him is the odd translucent guy that he seems to have met before. When he calls out to Jared, he checks the thing on the ground for movement and, seeing none, shrugs a little and heads to the curb. "Hope leaving that thing behind doesn't come back to bite me," he thinks to himself.
Arriving at the pair, Jared looks down at the weirdly translucent guy and asks, "You seem to know me? I think maybe we've met before?" Changing his focus to the tiny creature next to him, "I'm pretty sure I've never seen you before..."
"You're both new to me, but for all I know we could be brothers. Something about you (nodding to Jared) rings a faint bell, or that could just be my head ringing. I'm a little messed up at the moment, but this guy (nodding to the goblinoid) says he can get us out of here, which is something I'm all for right now. I may not remember much, but I'm pretty sure that--"
Nick indicates the automotive wreckage the two of them collectively caused, and the steadily-expanding snarl of traffic being created as a result.
"--is going to draw a whole lot of attention fairly soon. I don't have any answers or better ideas; do you?"
Marissa reaches out and embraces the tiny girl, holding her close.
"My name's Samuel, you can call me Silk, everyone else does. Now we've gotta move, where's the rest of your motley? Eyeless Meg said there were going to be six of you breaking loose today, and we've gotta move before we get pinned down!"
Silk's face twitched slightly as he looked over his shoulder, as though something was following him.
Nick takes a quick scan of the surrounding area to see if he notices anything unusual. Well, anyone unusual.
(sigh)
Anyone else unusual.
After a moment or two she composes herself and wipes her sleep deprived eyes. "We need to get somewhere safe... not here.". She looks at the wreckage, reminded that even the normal world can be dangerous.
"Eyeless Meg they call me, and I gather the newcomers to Miami so that Grandpa Thunder can see 'em! You're Lost, but we'll help you find your way home, dearies! All six of you! We shan't go through the Hedge, though! Not safe right now!"
Silk hisses under his breath and gestures for Jared and Nick to follow him into an alleyway. "Follow me, we'll get you to a safe house and then we can talk about 'home.' The Gentry are always hunting around here, and an accident like this could attract the worst sort of attention. I swear I'll get you to a safe place today if you follow me, may I not have the luck to find a woman 'til the next full moon if I don't!"
Eyeless Meg gestures deeper into the alley and begins moving, muttering something under her breath as she goes.
Silk nods to the two other changelings and ducks into an alleyway, moving fast enough that Jared and Nick have to hurry to catch up. He pops something into his mouth before dashing up the alley wall and pushing down a fire escape ladder, gesturing for the other two to climb up. "Come on, now! I haven't got all day to spend rescuing you buggers from the Hedge!"
Shrugging, Jared walks over to the ladder and, after gingerly testing his weight on it, proceeds to climb up. It's a tight fit for his shoulders at the top, but he manages to make it up to Silk's level with only minor protest from the metal.
After a brief moments of hesitation, she looks between Marissa and Eyeless Meg while she seems to come to some sort of tiny resolution. With a nervous gaze she begins to follow the strange old woman, her eyes flicking around the alleyway like some sort of paranoid bird. Little gets past her and soon she finds herself watching for needles as well, seeing as her shoes were destroyed long ago in her escape.
"Ok... now what?"
Eyeless Meg continued on for a couple of blocks before opening the door to a rather run-down apartment building, turning and smiling at the pair following her. "Just up here, perhaps my dear friend has managed to find some of your companions!"
She heads up a flight of rickety stairs and bangs sharply in a pattern around the knob of a door, then turns it and waves Marissa and Daphne in. "Here, we can talk here, you must have so many questions for me! Oh! Silk, you found two of the others!"
A pact made. Six of them, standing together. Four are clear, the ones looking at each other now, the other two are cloaked in shadow, lost to missing memories. Six by six, each amulet tingling as you put it on. Protection, safety, companionship. Allies, in a dark place.
All four saw the same thing, their eyes widening. The mentions Meg and Silk had made of the other two seemed to fall into place. There had been six of them, once. Where were they now?
Silk and Eyeless Meg give you the basic breakdown of what it means to be a Changeling. You got kidnapped, you came back but you'll always be different, you have magic powers, can make oaths, get into the Hedge, etc.
And the bad stuff - Your fetch, the Gentry are still after you, Goblins love your tasty flesh, etc.
They also give you a basic rundown on the state of Miami. There's a lot of Changelings here, but they're all at each other's throats. The Summer Court reigns supreme and refuses to give up power, and nobody can challenge Grandfather Thunder to take them down. The Lady of Spring is hiding out in the everglades, with a puppet installed in her place. The Winter Court does more to hurt the Freehold than to help it, trading drugs, crime, and all sorts of illegal items and activities throughout the city thanks to their completely amoral leader, Jeremiah Sleet.
According to Meg and Silk, the only sane ones are the Autumn Court, who are desperately trying to hold their own in this whole mess without getting too involved. Lady Naamah plays the political game well, and she probably has dirt on all the other Courts. Of course, they freely admit they're slightly biased.
In short, they give you the basics of what's going on so I don't need to spend forever expositing. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in OOC.
His eye was first drawn, not accidentally, to the striking young lady who came in with Meg. She was a looker all right. Nick was certain that she was nowhere near the street when he scanned it earlier; there's no way he would -- could -- have overlooked that. The entire room seemed to center on her, although that could just be because no one else in the place was really worth looking at, including himself. The eyes were simply drawn to her as if she were the only reasonable option, although Nick was fairly certain that would be the case regardless of who -- or what, in some cases -- was standing around her.
The other girl that came in with them certainly wasn't anywhere near noticeable, even without the glass-like goddess standing beside her. She was physically small for the age Nick guessed her to be based on her face, but was more accurately described as "shrinking," he thought to himself. She seemed to pull herself back, like a wallflower. Both girls looked nervous, just short of being outright frightened.
Aren't we all? Nick asked himself.
Of course, some of that nervousness might be due to the fact that they were sharing four walls and a ceiling with the big guy. Nick craned his neck to really get a good look at his partner-in-vehicular mayhem for the first time. Tall but thin, he looked like he'd been through a battle or ten. He didn't have a particularly menacing air about him, but there was still something about him that put Nick -- and the girls, from the look of it -- on edge. Maybe it was the way he had to slouch to avoid hitting his head on the ceiling in this dump.
None of this made any sense. Silk and Meg kept going on about "magic" this and "courts" that; useful information, sure, but nothing that Nick really wanted... needed to know. The big guy -- Jared, he called himself -- mentioned something about "not being home" out on the sidewalk. Nick envied him; at least he remembered where home was. He couldn't recall having a brother, either; Nick would have killed to been so certain about something that would be so obvious to anyone else.
And speaking of obvious... Nick fingered the amulet hanging from around his neck, idly noticing that it was just as faint as the rest of him.
What the hell was up with this pendant? They all had one: tall, scarred Jared; the fascinating glass-girl Marissa; and the shy, retreating Daphne. Why? And if there were supposedly six of us, where -- and who -- are the other two? Nick couldn't recall ever seeing the others before, but then again the list of things that Nick couldn't recall was apparently and frustratingly bottomless.
Too many questions. Not nearly enough answers. And it didn't feel like the "right" answers were going to be forthcoming any time soon. Nick returned his full attention to their "rescuers" as Silk and Meg finished their explanations of The Way Things Are.
Her eyes fall onto the others in the room. A man who seemed to blend into the background even more than she did and an absolute giant, especially to one as small as her. And of course there was Marissa who stood nearby, radiant as ever even though they were all dressed in what amounted to rags. They were all drastically different in almost every way, but as she looks around the room she finds one thing they all share. They all look lost. It is in the eyes. The look of people who have lost their way in the world and found themselves somewhere unexpected. She picks at her sleeve and knows that same look is written all over her face as well.
Despite her idle hands she listens intently to the pair explaining her newfound fate. Some of it is confusing, mainly the facts to do with the courts. She does not quite understand why they would faction themselves when they all had faced such unimaginable terrors. Terrors that waited right on the other side of a mirror or through a doorway. Summer sounded tyrannous, Spring sounded flighty at best, and Winter seemed despicable. And the way they explained it the court that fed on fear was the most sane? It almost feels as if she has traded one form of madness for another. How could all this exist in a world she used to know? Didn't people notice?
The explanation of the fetch helped her understand exactly why the world doesn't notice when people are stolen by formless horrors. For a brief moment she smiles inwardly at the idea of some faerie beast having to live the miserable existence that was her previous life. Then she remember Marcus. The one solid memory that had brought her back from a world of drudgery and pain. Had her fetch been with him the entire time? Had he even noticed that this mockery was not her? Did he even remember her?
Out the frying pan and into the fryer.
As if on cue, someone bangs on the door and Jared promptly whacks his head on the ceiling, "Fuckin ow! I thought you said no one had a key or knew we were here!" Silk seems to be looking expectantly at the door though, so Jared settles back, nursing his head.
First through the door is a strikingly beautiful woman, but he can't help but think she looks like she's about to fall apart. Not that anyone of them were holding it together all that well, but she looked so fragile, almost crystalline. Next is a shrinking violet type, someone he might have actually tried to talk to back in high school. Something about her seemed almost familiar, like they had something in common. Well, other than the obvious current situation. Finally an odd eyeless woman came in who seemed to already know Silk and appeared to have served a similar function for the other half of the group.
During the lecture for the next couple hours, Jared kept finding his attention wandering to the two women in the group (Meg doesn't count). Still couldn't keep his mind on the lesson, even though this one seemed a bit more important than algebra. Not that he'd be having to worry about algebra or school anytime soon. Wonder if this Fetch thing did well on his finals. Although, from the descriptions of the different Courts, it sounded a lot like he was right back in the same constant social struggle that high school is.
When Silk started describing the Gentry and just how the whole Taken thing worked, Jared began getting angry. It is so unfair that they can just take whoever they want and then do whatever they want with them with no chance of consequences or anything. Even though he'd escaped from them he still was not really free. There's no going home, no matter how close you get to where you left, especially for people like him who apparently experienced time differently from "normal" Earth time.
On that note, "So when is it now, anyway? Looks about the same as before I was taken but it feels like I was there forever..."
"I missed this," Marissa interjects, not caring about who or what she interrupts. "I missed this - the world, freedom, people. I want this back." She looks around - seeing the slight shade of a girl all bound up inside, the nose-first man with the world on his shoulders, and the hulk made of scarred fight-muscle. "All of us had something done to us. We've lost something. Not just something - everything. This is ours."
Marissa turns to the window, looking out at the dilapidated tenements. A place she would never have gone, but that feels far more familiar, real, necessary, than anything else in a long time. And it would only get better from here. "This matters. All that - goblins, fetches, whatever - that's just ways to here."
"Big guy, we're in 2011. Just hit the new year a few days ago, I'm shaking the hangover still. It's January 6th. Don't call it winter, though. Grandpa Thunder doesn't like that."
Silk yawned, flopping backwards so that his legs were hanging off of one side of the fridge and his head leaned back over the other. "So, we're going to leave you here for a day or so and go clear stuff up at the Freehold, make sure that Thunder's not in a pissy enough mood to not want to accept a new Changeling motley. You guys should probably stay holed up here, cops might be looking for you after that fender-bender."
Meg took that moment to carefully step back into the empty main room, holding the teapot on a tray with five cups she had pulled from seemingly nowhere. "Anyone want their first taste of home?"
"2011? I haven't been gone that long, then. Less than a year, tops? I think?"
There was that nagging hint of uncertainty that always plagued Nick when his memories turned away from general knowledge and towards his own personal life.
"At least as far as real-world time goes. And this is Florida... Do they even have a season that could be called 'Winter' here? Or merely days where the temperature drops below 50? No wonder those Summer guys are still in charge."
The aroma wafting up from the hot cup in his hands pulled Nick's face downward. He was more than a little surprised to see that the cup had taken on his state of semi-transparency (as did its liquid contents, but they were already halfway there anyway). Curious, he walked over to the fridge and laid his other hand on it. The appliance remained as opaque as ever, even under his touch.
He muttered to himself under his breath. "Still solid... Guess it only happens to small stuff. I wonder why?"
Now firmly in testing mode, Nick crouched down and put the cup down on the floor, watching it return to normal as soon as it left his grip.
"Huh. Must be something that I do. Or that happens to me, I guess."
Gradually, Nick became aware of the others watching him satisfy his curiosity. He was a little embarrassed, giving a nervous little smile for the first time in what was probably months, although if he actually blushed it would be difficult to tell.
"Sorry. Can't help it."
Reclaiming his cup, Nick returned to a standing position and pondered a bit more before finally taking a slow sip.
Jared wallows in his disillusionment for a bit then is distracted by watching Marissa cavort about and Nick explore his amazing affect on teacups. Grabbing a drink for himself, he momentarily entertains the thought of trying out his own abilities, but decides that would be just too petulant.
Just before taking a sip of the tea he suddenly looks up at Silk, "Don't guess you have a computer somewhere in this place?"