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+---- Thread: [open quest] If you go down in the woods today… (/showthread.php?tid=30432)
If you go down in the woods today… - Jassal - 10-22-2021
Somewhere in all the chaos of cave exploring and mountain climbing, Jack left the safety of his little forest hut. The chill of crisp autumn air does not seem to hinder the impossibly wide, fluid strides he takes to cross the mountain. The ice monsters that display the audacity to swing at him are met with ripping claws and brutal kicks. He slings them aside as if they were weightless little toys for him to discard. The fog swirls behind him as he crosses into the dark red dust.
With each footstep he leaves trailing behind, he wakes the dead. On broken hooves, on ragged claws, on stumbling feet they trudge to meet the adventurers at the border. Every head is hung low, shoulders slumped and starving, notched spines raised high into the air. Their skin is leather stretched over dry bones. Where the monsters before had been beautiful in their own ways, these new terrors are despair given shape.
Somewhere in the fog, two burning eyes blink open once more.
“Lay me down for eternal sleep,
Dry your eyes, do not weep.
Give this ghost your loving heart,
Or rip their mournful souls apart.”
His eyes close once more. In that same moment, the dead lift their heads and every set of eyes burns in his stead.
With each footstep he leaves trailing behind, he wakes the dead. On broken hooves, on ragged claws, on stumbling feet they trudge to meet the adventurers at the border. Every head is hung low, shoulders slumped and starving, notched spines raised high into the air. Their skin is leather stretched over dry bones. Where the monsters before had been beautiful in their own ways, these new terrors are despair given shape.
Somewhere in the fog, two burning eyes blink open once more.
“Lay me down for eternal sleep,
Dry your eyes, do not weep.
Give this ghost your loving heart,
Or rip their mournful souls apart.”
His eyes close once more. In that same moment, the dead lift their heads and every set of eyes burns in his stead.
1. All gifts are now gone and no characters have been healed.
2. Everyone’s normal traits/defects/abilities are still disabled.
3. The dead are very hungry and very determined. They may be someone your character knows or complete strangers or entirely made up. Either destroy them or befriend them. End your post by approaching Jack.
4. No more than 1,500 words per reply.
5. This round will end on October 29th at 11:59pm. Late replies will receive a penalty in the next round.
Llorona must complete this round with a broken leg as a penalty for replying late. Describe how she breaks her leg and how she copes with it moving forward.
Cyan has succumbed to the crystalline monsters of the cave, and so they have replaced his eyes with shards of amethyst. If he wishes to regain his sight, he may seek help from any character with a healing ability.
RE: If you go down in the woods today… - Anuya - 10-28-2021
Anuya
RE: If you go down in the woods today… - despoina - 10-28-2021
DESPOINA
I guess the sound of your voice in the aching will just have to do
RE: If you go down in the woods today… - Llorona - 10-29-2021
She stumbles into some sort of crevice to hide, but it is deeper than she had thought. He stumbles and catches herself - badly. Eight is giggling and do is she, until she screams from the surprise and pain; the foot that had already been limping is caught between her body and a crack, her full weight on it, and then a sickening crack tells her what she already knew was wrong.
She writhes on the ground, just in time to see a strange ghost stare at her. The filly is winged and glittering, pink, Llorona thinks? But she isn’t sure what is happening at all so why bother if it is the color of a blood moon or of lavender. Sister, the filly greets her and for a moment Llorona thinks it is number Three talking but that can’t be right. ”What?” Perplexed, she sits upright to stare at the ghost. Llorona doesn’t really notice how she looks, how they both look. They share a mother, she knows somehow, and she figures that’s not per say a good thing.
Indeed she is grinned at with a more menacing-looking look each second, and Llorona scrambles backwards on her hands and single foot. Don’t you love me, little sis?” Llorona smiles prettily at her, ”Of course!” And indeed it is not her ghostly looks that she dislikes. But even through her pain she gathers that something is off with her, so she tries not to get attached.
She doesn’t make it very far until she hears someone cry. First she thinks it must be the ghost who claims to be her sibling, but then it turns out it is Llorona herself; her tears trouble her vision. She turns around and hugs the ghost, who was only looking for some love, same as Llorona.
The broken-winged ghost and the broken-foot girl limp towards the centre of the red-rock land. Llorona honestly doesn’t know where she is going, but they end up near a pumpkin-head, and they smile at him like sisters.
Sorry, it’s not living up to it’s potential but I don’f have time to make it better rn :|
RE: If you go down in the woods today… - Etojo - 10-29-2021
 |
Somewhat unsteadily, Etojo managed to heave himself to his hooves. He felt old and battered, his joints already stiffening. His chest, legs and sides a cobweb of scratches and cuts as his blood oozed onto his hide and began to congeal, finally, thanks to the fine red dust of this place. His own pulse, deep and reverberating like a drum felt relentless and achy in his head. An ache mirrored in his stiffening shoulder, the one that had ended his fall. There were no ice monsters here, he'd left them on that peak. But still, even down here, there seemed no end to this darkness. Save for the burning pinpricks of light which began to dance to and fro in pairs, surrounding him. Uurgh. It all looked rather nauseating. His head spun. Instinctively he squeezed his eyes shut as if doing so would right the world and he'd gain some perspective of where the hell he was. But that wasn't to be, it never was, he thought sourly as he tried to steady himself upright, for when he reopened his eyes he, of course, was met with the same. Except those dancing pinpricks of light had come closer. Too close and too real to be filaments of an achy, throbbing head. And with a jolt of horror, Etojo realised the truth was far more gruesome, his lips peeling away from teeth in disgust as he wobbled unsteadily backwards. Those pairs of bobbing lights belonged to bodies. Their shapes taking form as they emerged through the dark and foggy gloom. They surrounded him from all angles. Rows of dead creatures of all sorts though they hardly resembled whatever they’d once been now. All ugly and mangled beyond recognition, their burning pricks of eyes embedded in haggard faces sinewed to skeletal bodies. Some big like giants, others as tiny as mice. They smelt like dead things too, a horrid rancid smell tinged with a dampness that would be impossible to shake just as it was impossible to escape them now. It all felt rather inevitable. Somewhere inside of him there was a semblance of fear. He should feel afraid, and he did. But his head throbbed like something wild and his eyelids felt incredibly heavy. He felt shaky, burdened to stillness with muscles too sore and weak to work. Too exhausted to run and too zapped of anything left within to fight. He’d had a long life, a long and lonely one. Was it so bad if it ended now? None would mourn him, he’d leave this place as if he’d never been. The dead trudged closer… Close enough he could feel their cold rattly gurgles against his hide. Did the dead really try to breath? And swarming like ants who had found something tasty on the forest floor, the dead huddled to him, pushing and clambering and crushing. Grabbing at his flesh with teeth and claws which oddly was not accompanied with pain. No, it felt good. Perhaps even soothing. The icy chill of their touches numbing his wounds as they stroked and caressed his body in their strange dead way. Gobbling up his pain, satiating their hungry bellies with his sufferings. Their claws and teeth biting into the little emotion he had, drinking the good but mostly bad memories. Take it all! And they did, until he was left numb and a husk. Once full, those that could climb scuttled over their brethren, reaching for him, curling their bony fingers around his twigged mane. Latching and hoisting themselves up around his neck, shoulders and back. They dug their feet into his sides, they urged him on. Etojo hadn't the strength himself, but as part of the great dead mob, he was pushed and part carried along. They steered him onwards through fog and darkness, until as one, they halted suddenly at a patch of dark fogginess that looked much the same as all the others - to him. The dead creatures dispersed, his hooves sinking into the sand as he was forced to once again bear his own weight. The creatures perched on his back leaping away. He felt a zing of vulnerability and a nakedness in this dark unseeing night. But something saw him, plastered with a jagged smile and big burning eyes. Etojo stared dumbly back. |
RE: If you go down in the woods today… - Elliana - 10-29-2021
E
lliana had never known there could be an ache in the fog. It covers her body like lead and presses down on every inch of this new, fragile body. Septimus once told her stories of a town that crushed those they believed to be witches. She hopes not, if only because this weight would be enough to kill her. They writher like snakes when the head is cut off. With the same sort of emptiness that a serpent without a head portrays. The rolls of their body, the slithering motion their steps nearly take on. Elliana spots dark portions growing in her vision, like shadows swallowing her whole. She sucks in the air with a sharp inhale, she does not recall ever exhaling it. The shadow girl walks towards them, her heart no longer in her chest, but it swims up her throat and she thinks she is choking on it, can only breathe between beats. Beat, breathe, beat, breathe, beat, breathe, beat. One of them reaches out to her. The little girl jumps to the side with all the grace of fighter Nicnevin taught her.
They are dead.
They are dead.
And she cannot look at their faces between she is so terrified she will see the one she wants most. Gods could James be with them? Could her baby brother have really become this monstrosity? Has she just been pretending all this time that his soul sits at sea, content on a pirate ship of his own making?
In those unfamiliar hands she grabs two stones as if that were enough to defend herself. A wooden sword in war amongst those with iron. She clutches them tightly, like a priest with a cross. She tries to avoid looking at them, glancing down and throwing her arms to push them away when they come too close. They reach and they grab and they snarl. She thinks this is it, she thinks I am dead, she thinks they will kill me. And one reaches to kiss the point of her elbow. “Stop it,” she says with gritted teeth and shaking knees. “Where is he?” Because she thinks they know, they have to know. Those blue eyes open wider, wider still as they look around the ghosts.
“He isn't here,” she says, and her eyes are glassy. Her heart finally settling.
At the end of it all, the dead are still dead, as they are supposed to be. As they should be.
So Elliana strikes those stones together.
And from the stones there is a spark.
And from the spark there is a fire.
And she buries the dead not in dirt, but flames.
And it is only then, with smoke on her skin and eyes glowing like blue fire, that she walks on and comes to stand before Jack. “Are you the one we have been trying to find?” And despite herself, despite herself and everything else, there is just the quirk of the smile that appears and fades like a ghost passing over.
some are ghosts before they are dead.
RE: If you go down in the woods today… - sawbone - 10-29-2021
Mouth set in a grim line, Sawbone’s orange eyes flicker left and right. There is nothing in the darkness and the fog, not even the faintest glimmer of the moon. Twisted anxiety swells in his belly and his chest, and all he can do against the tide is close his eyes. He’s gotten this far, that’s all he knows.
He knows he is brave enough and steady enough to face what lies within the fog.
It doesn’t take long—no more than a few minutes—for the mist’s monsters to reveal themselves. Their coming starts with quiet grunts and growls, so low Saw has to stop his hurried walk to make sure he is not imagining the noise. Sure enough, the disquieting noises of the living dead begin a slow climb to a crescendo. The boy hunches his shoulders and moves faster.
Where once was the soft crunch of his boots comes the overwhelming orchestra of zombies. It is only a few minutes longer before the monsters are crowding his dust and shrub-lined path. Panic chokes Sawbone as he quickly glances to the canyon walls on either side of him.
Trapped.
He is trapped.
Too tired for words, for song lyrics he does not recognize, Sawbone doesn’t curse and cry out. He merely attempts to steady his breathing, taking air in through his nose and out through his mouth. In the limited light of the Halloween darkness, he can just barely make out the shapes of the creatures. One with a back so bent its unusually long arms drag in the clay. Another tall and fox-like, with a slender snout and spikes that slim to dangerous ends along its back. He sees one more, the last one he can care to notice before their presences drive him mad. It is decidedly feminine, human in form and willowy. An orange and yellow glimmer taunts him. As it moves, it drags a leg, hips swaying unnaturally. He knows it for what it is: his mother. Sawbone drags in a shaky breath.
For the third time tonight, he thinks he is going to die.
He just never thought it would be by his mother’s hand.
As the creature approaches, Saw stands statue-still. Slowly, so slowly, she draws close enough to reveal all of her nightmare features. Where beautiful eyes once glimmered, hollow sockets with a pale, golden light in the middle reside. Her mouth, once soft and loving, is too-wide and set with sharp teeth. She grins, accentuating how her nose is too small for her face. The damp hair along her shoulder and back is stringy and dead.
“Mo—” he tries, but feels some stupid phrase falling out instead. The creature stops, unblinking eyes peering at him. At a pace that can only be described as creeping, his mother’s corpse grabs his elbow. Saw glances down at it, only looking up again when she tugs on him impatiently. He follows blindly, quietly thanking the gods that he has a mother loving enough to cling to her maternal instinct even in death.
Patient, scheming Jack waits for his arrival. Saw merely swallows and lifts his chin at the sight of him.
RE: If you go down in the woods today… - Beechbone - 10-29-2021
Beechbone scurries down the mountain path on silent feet and plunges into the vast sea of soft grey fog to look for Jack. The fog obscures everything but her whiskers show her the way, her Opossum-Sense tugging her this way and that as she winds through the ultra-foggy canyon. She's never been to Pangea so she isn't sure if it's usually this foggy, but it's honestly a bit much. Who does Pangea think it is with all this fog, Taiga?
Something in the dark hisses and the opossum-girl freezes, something in the darkness that smells just awful. Way worse than the snow ape did. A figure looms just ahead, staggering towards her. A wolf howls in the background.
It's just your imagination, she tells herself, but even as she does, the mist clears just enough for her to see the creature. Beechbone doesn't recognize their face, grey and twisted and melting into death. The stallion's eyes are white and wide and he leers at her through the parting fog, which falls to stir at their feet and reveal that he is not alone, and they are close - oh so close. Has she come all this way just to fail now? Just to--
Is that music?
Somewhere, distantly, in the fog and the dark, music careens plaintively against the canyon walls.
'Cuz this is thrillerrrrr
Thriller night
There ain't no second chance
Against the thing with the forty eyes, girl
She can't fully trust her eyes, but none of the ghouls around her seem to have four, so maybe there's a glimmer of hope after all. The dead are creeping closer, their steps in hypnotizing unison and she lets the stallion get so much closer to her than she should, transfixed by their otherworldly rhythm.
"Girl, I can thrill you more
Than any ghoul could ever dare try"
(Thriller) Ooh, ooh
(Thriller night)
"So let me hold you tight
And share a"
(Killer, thriller)
"Oh I'm gonna thrill you tonight"
He's so close that she should be able to feel the breath of his words, but of course, he hasn't any. The brush of cold flesh breaks her stupor.
"Oh, ah, wow. No. Thank you, but yeah, no, I'm okay." Her long nose bares pin-sharp teeth at the stallion as she steps away from him, a shiver running the length of her spine, but as she does so, the rest of them press in around her greedily.
"I mean it!" Beechbone shouts, her voice wavering. The stallion's leer becomes a graveyard grin, the exposed bone of his jaw wet with some dark fluid. They're about to leap on her when instinct takes over and the young (giant) opossum drops to the ground with a gurgling hiss. A foul-smelling fluid expels from her anal glands, filling the canyon with a scent far worse than the perfume of the Dead. The music stops abruptly with a jagged screech.
"Oh shit, oh fuck, oh that's so gross!" The dead stallion rears back, his compatriots in step falling backward as well, "Oh my god I think I stepped in it, oh shit. Oh shit!"
They are not the silent dead tonight, disappearing back into the night and the fog with varying noises of disgust and disbelief, but Beechbone doesn't notice for a few minutes and by the time her torpor dissolves, quiet reigns again. She wakes with a yawn to find Jack's burning eyes flickering in the risen fog.
Finally.
Something in the dark hisses and the opossum-girl freezes, something in the darkness that smells just awful. Way worse than the snow ape did. A figure looms just ahead, staggering towards her. A wolf howls in the background.
It's just your imagination, she tells herself, but even as she does, the mist clears just enough for her to see the creature. Beechbone doesn't recognize their face, grey and twisted and melting into death. The stallion's eyes are white and wide and he leers at her through the parting fog, which falls to stir at their feet and reveal that he is not alone, and they are close - oh so close. Has she come all this way just to fail now? Just to--
Is that music?
Somewhere, distantly, in the fog and the dark, music careens plaintively against the canyon walls.
'Cuz this is thrillerrrrr
Thriller night
There ain't no second chance
Against the thing with the forty eyes, girl
She can't fully trust her eyes, but none of the ghouls around her seem to have four, so maybe there's a glimmer of hope after all. The dead are creeping closer, their steps in hypnotizing unison and she lets the stallion get so much closer to her than she should, transfixed by their otherworldly rhythm.
"Girl, I can thrill you more
Than any ghoul could ever dare try"
(Thriller) Ooh, ooh
(Thriller night)
"So let me hold you tight
And share a"
(Killer, thriller)
"Oh I'm gonna thrill you tonight"
He's so close that she should be able to feel the breath of his words, but of course, he hasn't any. The brush of cold flesh breaks her stupor.
"Oh, ah, wow. No. Thank you, but yeah, no, I'm okay." Her long nose bares pin-sharp teeth at the stallion as she steps away from him, a shiver running the length of her spine, but as she does so, the rest of them press in around her greedily.
"I mean it!" Beechbone shouts, her voice wavering. The stallion's leer becomes a graveyard grin, the exposed bone of his jaw wet with some dark fluid. They're about to leap on her when instinct takes over and the young (giant) opossum drops to the ground with a gurgling hiss. A foul-smelling fluid expels from her anal glands, filling the canyon with a scent far worse than the perfume of the Dead. The music stops abruptly with a jagged screech.
"Oh shit, oh fuck, oh that's so gross!" The dead stallion rears back, his compatriots in step falling backward as well, "Oh my god I think I stepped in it, oh shit. Oh shit!"
They are not the silent dead tonight, disappearing back into the night and the fog with varying noises of disgust and disbelief, but Beechbone doesn't notice for a few minutes and by the time her torpor dissolves, quiet reigns again. She wakes with a yawn to find Jack's burning eyes flickering in the risen fog.
Finally.
Beechbone
The foulest stench is in the air
RE: If you go down in the woods today… - Sintra - 10-29-2021
