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[P:tC] Stranger In Our Town IC
Glandmine
casual nuisanceRegistered User regular
casual nuisanceRegistered User regular
It's a bitter Michigan night when you each feel it. The Alchemical call: a sputtering Azothic beacon somewhere out there, coming erratically in flashes and spurts. It superheats the Pyros in each of you, causing it to seep into the cooling spaces between organs and commingle with your respective humours. There's a reaction. Odd visions and phantom feelings resonate out from the Alchemical fire in each of you as the signal washes over it. You're dimly aware that you're walking someplace.
The Gunman, Aegis feels his trigger fingers become numb and useless, while his scavenged jaw works uselessly at crisp Autumn air and then at the black bile rising from his throat. He sees the ghosts of people he protected long ago surround him. On a distant level he's aware that they need protecting from one another rather than an external threat. The ghosts of long ago fade like smoke, replaced by a vision of gold against lead, each metal corroding each other into some useless red-brown compound that coats his two right hands. The illusion passes. He feels a jolt of Pyros in his chest as dexterity returns to his prized hands, now clean.
The Daughter, Angel, forgets the tiny imperfection on her left cheek exists for one moment. She doesn't feel perfect, though; she feels stranger looking than ever. Her gaze catches a piece of glass. She sees her reflection, but it's wrong. It's like she's been evicted from her own face. The eyes staring back belong to someone else; the girl from under the floorboards. Mother's new daughter. She remembers the mark on her face.
The Judge, Doe, feels an imbalance beneath his skin. Organs feel off-kilter, flooded in all the wrong places with god-knows-what. Torment lurches within him -- humours snaking up his throat and images of injustice buzzing through his head. The process subsides prematurely leaving him agitated, but in control. His feet feel heavy and he becomes keenly aware of the desolation his presence will eventually bring to the land; of the pain he will cause. He sees his own sentence writ along his arm into the jagged clay-crack coating his real skin. He becomes blind before he can process its meaning. It's gone before his sight returns.
The Scientist, Helios, sees blinding blue criticality flashes and feels the heat of an invisible fire. A phantom wind of Hiroshima-level force blasts against upon his flesh (He likely knows the numbers by heart: 980 mph at ground zero, totalling 8600 lbs of pressure per square foot). It should obliterate him, but it doesn't so much as stagger him. It simply lays his disfigurement bare for a few picoseconds, accompanied by a radio static that rings in his ears, broken up by three letters spoken by something which sounds more like shattering glass than a human voice. Three letters. D. D. D.
The one known as Walker of Lines senses that the mirror world presses heavily upon the fabric of the mundane world. Pyros surges behind her eyeballs involuntarily, showing her sheer black flickers in the still air. A familiar sound escapes through these weak spots. She's certain that the rest of the world is deaf to them. Tearing, tearing, tearing. Lines has definitely heard the sound before, once. It's the very first moment -- when she was taken apart by the things beyond the veil and spat back into this world; a meat shell knitted together by the strangest of the humours, cradling the spark of embryonic Azoth. Something's watching, though, from beyond.
When the mind-fog lifts, you each find yourselves standing within the thick forest surrounding Linville, scattered, but within sight of each other. Disfigurements flare through the dark Your individual Azothic radiance interferes with that of whatever it was led you here. Once you lay eyes upon each other, you can feel the distant Azoth clearly again, albeit as a dull ache in the gut; nothing as powerful as the initial reaction and nothing compelling you to follow it; only the mad signal remains.
Out in the distance you can hear the odd car snarl through the night, along the dusty roads that snake through these woods. The sound carries easily through the bare trees and disappears, leaving only the echoes of leaves and branches disturbed by a biting wind. Silhouettes of trees surround you. They're barren and gaunt, twisting into each other like tangled old men. As your eyes adjust to the dark, you notice that the trees bear identical pilgrim marks etched in Pyros, semi-luminous in the moonlight that filters through bare, bony branches. There are dozens upon dozens of them, covering trees as far as the eye can see. The marks are obscure and haphazardly etched. They appear to depict squat, owl-like things.
The Gunman, Aegis feels his trigger fingers become numb and useless, while his scavenged jaw works uselessly at crisp Autumn air and then at the black bile rising from his throat. He sees the ghosts of people he protected long ago surround him. On a distant level he's aware that they need protecting from one another rather than an external threat. The ghosts of long ago fade like smoke, replaced by a vision of gold against lead, each metal corroding each other into some useless red-brown compound that coats his two right hands. The illusion passes. He feels a jolt of Pyros in his chest as dexterity returns to his prized hands, now clean.
The Daughter, Angel, forgets the tiny imperfection on her left cheek exists for one moment. She doesn't feel perfect, though; she feels stranger looking than ever. Her gaze catches a piece of glass. She sees her reflection, but it's wrong. It's like she's been evicted from her own face. The eyes staring back belong to someone else; the girl from under the floorboards. Mother's new daughter. She remembers the mark on her face.
The Judge, Doe, feels an imbalance beneath his skin. Organs feel off-kilter, flooded in all the wrong places with god-knows-what. Torment lurches within him -- humours snaking up his throat and images of injustice buzzing through his head. The process subsides prematurely leaving him agitated, but in control. His feet feel heavy and he becomes keenly aware of the desolation his presence will eventually bring to the land; of the pain he will cause. He sees his own sentence writ along his arm into the jagged clay-crack coating his real skin. He becomes blind before he can process its meaning. It's gone before his sight returns.
The Scientist, Helios, sees blinding blue criticality flashes and feels the heat of an invisible fire. A phantom wind of Hiroshima-level force blasts against upon his flesh (He likely knows the numbers by heart: 980 mph at ground zero, totalling 8600 lbs of pressure per square foot). It should obliterate him, but it doesn't so much as stagger him. It simply lays his disfigurement bare for a few picoseconds, accompanied by a radio static that rings in his ears, broken up by three letters spoken by something which sounds more like shattering glass than a human voice. Three letters. D. D. D.
The one known as Walker of Lines senses that the mirror world presses heavily upon the fabric of the mundane world. Pyros surges behind her eyeballs involuntarily, showing her sheer black flickers in the still air. A familiar sound escapes through these weak spots. She's certain that the rest of the world is deaf to them. Tearing, tearing, tearing. Lines has definitely heard the sound before, once. It's the very first moment -- when she was taken apart by the things beyond the veil and spat back into this world; a meat shell knitted together by the strangest of the humours, cradling the spark of embryonic Azoth. Something's watching, though, from beyond.
When the mind-fog lifts, you each find yourselves standing within the thick forest surrounding Linville, scattered, but within sight of each other. Disfigurements flare through the dark Your individual Azothic radiance interferes with that of whatever it was led you here. Once you lay eyes upon each other, you can feel the distant Azoth clearly again, albeit as a dull ache in the gut; nothing as powerful as the initial reaction and nothing compelling you to follow it; only the mad signal remains.
Out in the distance you can hear the odd car snarl through the night, along the dusty roads that snake through these woods. The sound carries easily through the bare trees and disappears, leaving only the echoes of leaves and branches disturbed by a biting wind. Silhouettes of trees surround you. They're barren and gaunt, twisting into each other like tangled old men. As your eyes adjust to the dark, you notice that the trees bear identical pilgrim marks etched in Pyros, semi-luminous in the moonlight that filters through bare, bony branches. There are dozens upon dozens of them, covering trees as far as the eye can see. The marks are obscure and haphazardly etched. They appear to depict squat, owl-like things.
Int+Survival to get your bearings and know of an abandoned cabin nearby. On 2 Sux you clock that the wildlife around here is conspicuously absent.
Int+Occult-2 to decipher the Pilgrim Marks.
Wits+Investigation to figure out that going by tracks/disturbed foliage, you five are the only people to disturb this place recently.
Int+Occult-2 to decipher the Pilgrim Marks.
Wits+Investigation to figure out that going by tracks/disturbed foliage, you five are the only people to disturb this place recently.
Glandmine on
0
Posts
"Mother a' mercy, that was bad." His voice is rough, like sandpaper with a smoking habit, with something in it that tastes like the rural southwest. He stands, shakily. A dull ache is settling into the top of his spine. His eyes open and let his surroundings filter into them.
Trees? Grey. Dead. How long's he been here? Probably not that long. At least, he hopes so.
People? Where is he? The hell's going on? Well, ain't gonna find the answers in his head.
"Evenin'."
Steam
His eyes drive him out of his reflection, the luminous marks on the trees catching his eye. Briefly looking at them, he comes to a conclusion on their meaning. After coming to a conclusion on their meaning, Aegis finds his voice, one that he's been doing his damnedest to stamp out his drawl, with little luck.
"Hey there, 'yall. I notice we're all kin. Of a sort, at any rate. So, I gotta ask, anyone got any idea of what we're doin' out here?"
Nothin' doin.
To decipher the Pilgrim Marks (2d10.hitsopen(7,10)=2)
Weee... Clue please!
Twitch Stream
Someone else was speaking, and it took her a moment to focus and pay attention to the physical world once again before she could answer, looking around with faintly shadowed vision, glimmers of the twilight still appearing in the corner of her view of the world.
"What are we doing here besides standing in the middle of nowhere at the behest of something? It looks like there's some sort of cabin or shelter in the trees over there, maybe it has something to do with our journey. Nobody living is here to greet us, that's for sure."
Int+Survival (3d10.hitsopen(7, 10)=2) Better!
Wits+Composure (4d10.hitsopen(7,10)=2)
Spending 1 Pyros to activate Ephemeral Flesh and take a look around for any spirits that could be watching.
Wits+Composure looking for concealed spirits (5d10.hitsopen(7, 10)=2)
The others see Lines disfigurements become flesh as her vision shifts to accompany the things across the veil. She can see them up in the trees. Formless, ink-black things that twist around branches, making guttural, animal sounds — poor, cornered beasts. Out in the distance, towards Stony Point, she can feel some burning spirit — a towering shadow-inferno, belching mini-vortexes of ember-ash up into the night sky — an echo of the fire. The ground feels sick. Strangely, the cabin changes as Twilight seeps into her sight, appearing more sturdy, like an undersized fortress.
"I'm not so sure about no one being around. I'm thinkin' that these marks are some kind of warning." Aegis eyes the nearest mark a little closer. "A force of nature returnin', or something of the like."
Aegis looks up at Lines, "That cabin is soundin' like a mighty fine idea right now."
Twitch Stream
More Fail
1 Success! Suck it roll!
Doe runs his fingers over the marks, carefully considering them, not even really acknowledging the others around him at first.
He slowly turns to consider each one of the others around him, a frown on his face. He does not approve.
When he speaks, it is slow, as though each word were held in his hands and slowly turned and considered from every angle.
"I do not like this. If you are right, then it is best if we are away from this place. I do not see that sheltering in the lair of some creature would lead to our safety."
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
Hel doesn't see a single sign of a genuine living creature anywhere. Eerie. He really hopes he hasn't been zoned out for too long, cooking the place like a broken microwave.
"Wouldn't mind sittin' indoors for a while, myself."
Steam
"There may be a connection between these marks and the spirit of fire near here. The cabin should be safe, and there may be clues there. Shall we?"
I don't have much of an idea what we're doing here either."
Angel shuffles, looking uncomfortably down at the ground, shrinking into her long grey dress.
"Oh! A cabin! Let's get out of this cold please, it does no one's complexion any good."
Given prompting from Lines, Angel sets off to the cabin, not even looking if the others are behind her.
Doe says nothing, and just watches.
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
Twitch Stream
Angel wanders over to the hole in the floor, plucking up a spare chair leg as she goes. She lowers herself down to a crouch, peering into the hole.
"It's just an abandoned, ransacked cabin in the woods that we found after all losing control of our bodies. I can't see any reason to be afraid."
Steam
She nodded towards Angel as the other Promethean flipped through the strange book. "I can have a look at that when we're safe, it could be important."
He faces Helios. "Confidence? This place only makes me think more that there is something out there. This is either its lair, or the lair of a victim."
Doe looks out the door, behind him into the woods, searching for any sign of danger.
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
Steam
Aegis, standing near a window looking out, responds, "I'm startin' to think that might be a good idea. We've lingered 'round here for a long while, and I'm not thinkin' we're goin' to find much else."
Twitch Stream
Twitch Stream
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
"So, anythin' interesting in that book?"
Twitch Stream
"The answers had best be in that book," he says, without turning around. "I do not think that whatever creature has been plaguing that place is going to stay there. There may be a greater danger to this town posed by it. If we can find out what it is, there may be a way to neutralize it."
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche