DGS4 Phase 2-5 -- The Caves

[The Man in Red]

Persons Present:
Kevin
Rogue
Shadow
Mid-Boss
2 Generic Carnivale employees

The climb and footing both were treacherous and arduous at the best of times, covered in who knows how many layers of ice and frozen slush threatening to turn it all into one giant slip and slide. The three intrepid contestants, already mostly through their climb up to one of the less suicidal looking paths toward the caves, were frantically hailed by a bedraggled pair of the competition's staff as they made desperate pursuit. The sight of someone having an actual plan of action had seemed to galvanize them.

Dashing in after them, and scaling the perilous cliffside paths with all the grace of a goat, came the disturbingly not dressed for the weather Mid-Boss. A flip of his hair, brushing aside a layer of snowflakes, revealed him to be...utterly unbothered by the extreme weather.

The caves dotting the cliffside wall were many and varied, ranging in size greatly. Many were only small, perhaps a foot or two across, likely just natural deformities or the burrows of some small arctic creatures, if one had to guess. Others were larger, splintering out of the cliff faces in varying states of jagged openings or bizarre slashes in the sheer cliffs. Only one of them looked to have any real promise of actual passage, roughly halfway up the cliffside. The yawning mouth of a large cavern, well over a dozen feet wide and an arching ceiling dotted with unnervingly glimmering stalactites that trembled at every particularly strong gust from the howling blizzard winds outside.

The two hapless employees have some basic supplies they managed to swipe off some of their dead colleagues (rip that one guy Buu clobbered), and any exposure to elements isn't a concern for Mid-Boss if you'd like to rob him for his lunch money or something, or just have him hand over anything he found to help weather the weather, so to speak.

You're all free to elaborate for yourselves where or what exactly the cave might lead to, so as to steer things along a bit more freely. If you'd like a more definite prompt though, I can certainly give a little more detail about what's in there.

 

[Karl Jak]

They were a few feet into the system of caves. Behind them, it seemed like it was snowing gently, but they also couldn’t rule out that further disturbances were causing snow to break loose from further up the cliff.

Deeper into the cave, Kevin could hear the hedgehog, Rogue, and ‘Mid-Boss’ arguing over courses of action. For his part, the undead PA had warned them that they should get a move on quickly, because there were likely just two outcomes to this situation. In the first of those, this cave would spit them out somewhere a little more hospitable, and they would be able to regain their bearings in friendly climes. In the second scenario, this cave was just the cliff-face den of something that would very quickly be breathing down their necks.

“’Ey, Buddy… all good?”

Kevin turned to see that the two employees had remained within a few yards of him while the others were yelling and trading thinly veiled barbs. One of the Carnival staff members, a woman, had come to within a few paces of him. It had been her strange voice that had broke the silence.

“Yes, why?” Kevin replied as the two drew close enough that he could spot details in the low-light of the cave.

“You’re the fella with the mangled face, right?” The other—a young lady—asked hesitantly. “My friend Justine was talking about a ‘Frankenstein-looking ginger in steerage’. I figured,” in the dark, he saw her pause to adjust her hair. “I figure us gingers should stick together. Alrigh’?”

Before leaving the train, Kevin had found a cloth gym bag, stabbed some holes in it, and secured it around his head. It wasn’t intended to be an act of vanity. He knew that his undead form was rather resilient, but he was nervous that prolonged exposure to the cold might simply freeze him solid before he knew what had happened.

“Yea, that’s me.” He extended a gloved hand. “Kevin Kaj.”

After a moment of hesitation, the young woman stepped forward and shook his hand. In the dim light, he spotted a faint smile on a freckled face before she moved back to stand by her friend. “Name’s Caoimhína. I’ll quiz ya on the spellin’ later,” she gestured to her friend. “Over there is Charles.” The man, also barely into his twenties, waved before returning to his hand to his pockets.

Kevin looked over his shoulder and saw that the other three had taken their shouting a little further into the caves. He returned his gaze to the unnerved pair of workers and pointed to the uniforms they still wore underneath the gear they’d salvaged from the wreck. “What do the two of you do for the Carnivale?”

“Me?” Caoimhína put a hand on her chest and smiled in the near-dark. “Before t’is I did scheduling and payroll.”

“She’s my supervisor,” Charles muttered, which got him a gentle ribbing from his colleague. “I’m an intern.”

The undead ginger frowned beneath his makeshift mask. “That’s no good. The two of you should go back to the train with the others. It’s too dangerous up here.”

The redhead scowled and stepped forward. “Ya t’ink I’m not gonna be able to hold my own?” For whatever reason, her manner of speaking got far more muddled when she was mad. Kevin backed up and shook his head.

“No, of course not. I apologize.” At this point, he didn’t think the woman would appreciate being told that she was likely deemed ‘expendable’ by the powers behind the operation of this event. “The two of you just stick close if things get bad.”

Party: Rogue, Shadow, Mid-Boss; Kevin, Caoimhina, Charles
Location: Loosely in two halves -- half near the mouth of the cave and the other half discussing courses of action ten or twenty yards away
Action: Discussing plans (I assume one of my peers will post the interaction between Rogue-Shadow-MiddyB and then get us a move on
Equipment/Items: Survival gear and winter clothes
Focus: 9/9

 

[Christopher Chaos]

“I’m not listening to a word you say, floozy,” Shadow scoffed, turning away from the much taller members of the trio.

“Unforgivable!” the floozy in the cropped jacket with the swoopy purple hair screeched, flinging a finger towards the hedgehog. “That is unforgivable!”

“Tch,” Shadow responded, leaning against the wall of the cave. The three of them — him, the Mid-Boss, and the marginally more reasonable woman who just went by ‘Rogue’ — had been going back and forth for several minutes about their next moves. Shadow and Rogue were of the same mind, given that there seemed to really only be one option: continue into the darkness of the caves. Mid-Boss wasn’t so keen on that; after gazing into the caves, he’d quickly decided the devil he knew was better than the devil he didn’t.

Shadow’s eyes flitted up as another gust of wind blew into the cave. The stalactites at the cavern’s roof shimmered as they shivered in the breeze just above their heads. He glanced further into the cave, hoping that the shimmer would reveal something about the great unknown laid out before them, but all he saw was a little more glitter, seemingly endless.

Mid-Boss continued to rail against the plan as Shadow began to take a few steps towards the darkness.

“Well, if ya are so against the caves, why did ya climb up here after us?” Rogue crossed her arms.

“What else was I supposed to do?!” Mid-Boss shrieked. “Stay down there?! With those hooligans?! No.” He spread his feet out, pointing at Rogue. “No — you and that monstrosity look like you at least could hold your own in a battle.”

Shadow glanced over his shoulder. “Keep prattling on and you’ll find out,” he snarked.

Mid-Boss growled, and another gust of wind blew in, shaking the stalactites above his head once more. Shadow’s ear perked up as he heard the crack before anyone else.

From Rogue’s point of view, one second passed between the time Mid-Boss stood before her, mouth agape, about to launch into another tirade, and the moment the stalactite hit the floor. She barely saw the glowing red streak that passed and carried the lavender-haired lord out of harm’s way just in time.

Mid-Boss laid on the ground, underneath Shadow, who held an arm out to shield him from any splinters that might’ve come from the stalactite’s impact. The hedgehog glanced back at the almost-victim’s face, and he’d admit he felt a little glee to see the lord looking absolutely scared shitless. All the color had drained from Mid-Boss’ features, and his jaw still hung agape — but now, he didn’t have anything to say. Shadow couldn’t withhold a smirk as he stood upright again, turning back to Rogue.

“Forward or forward?” he asked.

“Ah’d say forward,” the woman nodded, turning towards the darkness.

She started walking, and Shadow called back to Kevin and the other workers, beckoning them to follow. He jogged a bit to catch up with Rogue at the head of the pack, slowing his pace so he could walk alongside her. The brown-haired woman, so far, seemed the most capable of the crew — along with the ginger zombie pulling up the rear, surprisingly enough. Shadow looked up at her, curiously, as they walked.

She noticed. “Whatcha starin’ at, sugah?”

Shadow lifted his chin, observing her more. “You’ve done something like this before?” he asked.

Rogue scoffed a bit. “What makes ya say that?”

“For one, the zombie mentioned something before,” Shadow crossed his arms, “about an… abyss of some kind. Sounds about as fun as this is. For two, you’re not scrambling around like a chicken with your head cut off.”

“You see a lot of headless chickens?” she looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

“I’m the one decapitating them,” Shadow smirked before quickening his pace a bit.

Rogue let out a sigh, crossing her own arms as she continued to follow the hedgehog down the cavern which, to their eyes, might as well have been endless. “Not sure I caught your name, by the way. Figured I should know it if we’re gonna dive into the — ”

“Shadow.” The hedgehog turned around towards her, pausing briefly in his step.

“Certainly looks like what’s ahead of us, yep,” Rogue shrugged.

“No,” the smaller creature shook his head. “That’s my name. Shadow the Hedgehog.”

And with that, he turned and continued leading the way into the darkness of the caves. Rogue let out another sigh, mumbled some curses under her breath, and followed.

Party: Shadow, Rogue, Kevin, Mid-Boss, Caoimhina, Charles
Location: In the caves, still loosely in two halves but all heading the same direction, not so far from each other.
Action: Continuing further into the caves!
Focus: 1/1

 

[Rogue]

These caves give me the creeps, it'd be a bravado and a lie to claim otherwise. Doesn't change the fact that we needed to get out of that storm and if there's one thing worse than plunging into the unknown, it's dragging your feet, kicking and screaming into it. Ah wasn't about to turn back, so ah had to move forward. That itchy feeling of familiarity is rising again. Apparently ah've missed this more than ah realized.

"Heads on the swivel, darlings! There's death waiting above us and arbiters-only knows around the bends! Make sure to tell somebody before getting curious and wandering off, because ah might not come back to find y'all!"

That last sentence got more than a few looks, but ah continue on into the cave unbothered. The red-headed girl is the one who eventually speaks up.

"So yer saying that yer only going to be savin' people if it's convenient, is that it?"

Ah turn back around, unable to completely hide a smirk.

"Kev! You're a veteran in this business, ain't'cha, Hun?What do you say the odds are that this was the plan from the get-go?"

Kevin shrugged as all eyes turned his way.

"Honestly, there's a surprising amount of improvised solutions when you run something this involved. I'd say it's a fifty-fifty on whether this was always the plan or if the show runners are just making do with the disaster for the sake of keeping their timeline."

Ah nod. We're thinking along much the same lines, but it's always more convincing when it's not just one person up on their soap box about it. Ah raise a hand, pointing matter-of-factly.

"Now, not too many folks sign up for these things expecting they'll just be punching each other to death, and that doesn't make for as much spectacle anyway, so either they're gonna start airdropping toys in for us to kill each other with, or there's stuff here we're supposed to be finding."

"So you think the boss put himself and his daughter on a train he knew was going to crash?" The intern guy didn't sound convinced, but the other Rosa employee gives him a glance, almost apologetic in a way.

"It wouldn't be the strangest choice he's made." She says it a bit uncomfortably, probably because she know we're being watched by the Carnivale as we talk about all this.

"And believe you me, sugah. There's a different story where folks start the death part of this game down in that canyon back there. Would've been easy to capitalize on folks when they're disoriented from the crash. There'd have been a bloodbath, then it'd be just one of us walking through these caves all on their lonesome."

Okay, ah needed to reign it in some. Folks were giving each other nervous glances.

"Now, the clown lady's not given us a clear mission yet, least not to my ears. So it's very possible the death in this game isn't coming from each other, and there's no need to be at each other's throats. But ah've been through this kind of nonsense before ah've learned that this is the bad kinda place to go making friends. We're all stuck out here and it's good to have allies for this kind of thing. Ah'll be doing what ah can to look out for people, but we're all in a place that wants to kill us, and ah'm not making any promises ah won't be savin' my own hide first, ahright?"

There's a moment of silence after ah stop speaking, then Shadow gives one of his scoffs, uncrossing his arms.

"Understood. I have no objections, but know that you should not expect me to endanger myself saving you in return."

Ah smile after him as Shadow leads the way into the cave, "Of course, Sugah. While a lady doesn't tend to mind a knight stepping in to defend her, she isn't expecting one to when the name of the game is last one standing."

Midboss starts yammering on about some offense or other, but what gives me pause is the look from Kevin. Ah tell you something, when a staple-faced mangle of a visage is staring you down like he can read your thoughts, it gets in your head. Ah squirm a bit despite myself but ah'm not about to break that stare.

"No followthrough." He shrugs eventually, "that's what the boss said last time too."

He walks past without another word, the two carnivale employees goin' with him. The statement catches me off balance, and ah don't have a good retort as the four of them head further into the cave. The only one still back with me is Midboss. We glance at one another, and then he takes a stance like ah've just insulted his mother.

"Frankly it is quite outrageous that you believe there will ever be a case where moi would be in need of your aid to begin with! It is far more like that you will find yourself in such dire straits that your only recourse will be to-"

"Darling. Hush your face before ah hush it for you."

Party: Shadow, Rogue, Kevin, Mid-Boss, Caoimhina, Charles
Location: somewhat into the caves
Action: Yet further into the caves!

 

[Karl Jak]

“This is unpleasant.”

Kevin turned to see Charles a few paces behind him. The younger of the two Carnivale workers was pale enough that he almost looked like he was glowing in the pale, ambient light of the cave passages. It had been nearly a half hour since Rogue and Mid-Boss had last exchanged unpleasantries, and the group had once again started to drift into pockets as they pushed deeper into this network of slicked, poorly lit caves.

“The tunnel? Or…” Rather than speak it, the ginger simply motioned ahead to the more boisterous members of their improvised troupe.

“Both.” Charles muttered. “The guy and the talking animal give me the creeps, and the lady just seems like something is off.”

“I have an associate who has a saying,” Kevin spoke softly as a smile spread across his face. “I never quite knew what he meant, but Mr. Wilson was always harping on about ‘not trusting anyone with a Southern accent’.”

The other Carnival worker leaned in and turned her green eyes to Kevin. “You sayin’ we ought to not trust ‘em?”

Kevin laughed—a hoarse, unpleasant rattling sound when issued from a walking corpse with no air in his lungs. “No, I was just trying to lighten the mood, that’s all. They’re just suffering from clashing egos… it’s a natural occurrence.”

“Shouldn’t we work together though?”

“Yes, but it’s got to be in a round about way,” Kevin explained. “Shadow has ‘Final Boss’ syndrome. When you pair him with someone who been given the nickname ‘Mid-Boss’ and a reputation for being underwhelming, the result is going to naturally be a situation that’s a little unstable.”

“I’m not sure I follow,” Charles spoke in hushed tones.

“Kev’ is sayin one of ‘em thinks he is the be-all, and the other lad has the same idea about hisself but is too spineless to do anythin’.”

“More or less,” Kevin continued. “If they can’t work out a clear friendship, we can assume that one of them, probably Mid-Boss, will betray the other at the moment he deems most opportune for himself. He might even stumble into the chance, but when it happens, he’ll say it was his plan the whole time.”

“But aren’t we just supposed to survive and escape?”

Kevin shrugged his shoulders. “The Starscream can’t accept being second fiddle to the real big bad. We have to hedge out bets on a bigger evil revealing itself in the near future, which I think is bound to happen eventually.”

“Sounds terrible, Kev’.”

He smiled. “Rogue, she’s the straight-woman, and I don’t mean her orientation. She’s the level-headed heroine who also happens to be rough and tumble and probably has a secret heart of gold.”

“You’re leaving us out of all of this,” Charles mentioned.

Kevin turned and shrugged his shoulders. “Parts are still being written.” He didn’t have the heart to tell the two that—in the cosmic layout of this cinematic endeavor—they were NPCs. He didn’t want to break it to either of them that they could just as easily be killed in a rock slide out of nowhere or fall victim to a giant monster exploding up from the floor. By the kais, he hadn’t quite figure out where he slotted into this equation. His first attempt at being a lead character in a production had resulted in a brutal death that had (essentially) unfolded off-camera. He made up five seconds of a five-minute recap of last year’s events.

He looked down at his marbled wrist at a watch that had never existed. While he didn’t know if he was a real protagonist, he could at least find some solace in the notion that he hadn’t blown up yet.

Where he went from here was anyone’s guess.

“This is where a GPS would come in handy,” he spoke a little louder as he tried to see ahead of the group into the dark. “… why couldn’t he have given me low-light vision?”

Party: Shadow, Rogue, Kevin, Mid-Boss, Caoimhina, Charles
Location: somewhat into the caves
Action: Yet further into the caves!
Focus: 9/9

 

[The Man in Red]

A low noise echoed down the tunnels, from somewhere back the way they'd come, near the entrance. The sound of something large moving, claws scraping and rasping over stone, and a hissing noise of released breath. An uncomfortable, moist warmth drifted along with the cold wind still blowing in from the cave's mouth.

"....we're being followed." Kevin spoke up, shortly and to the point.

"Followed? By what?" Shadow barely turned to look back at the statement. "More survivors from the crash?"

"No, I don't think so. It sounds like—"

A deep rumbling sound drowned out his words, the unmistakable growling of some immense beast echoing down the tunnel with enough intensity to set loose stones on the ground to rattling. Distantly behind them, a pair of red eyes glowed dimly in the dark, and the flickering sparks of claws raking across stone as something lumbered closer with an unsteady, crawling gait shone beneath them.

"....well. That's not good."

The proverbial master of the cave has come back to roost. You can opt to confront it or flee, at your discretion. I have more information to offer about what it is if you choose to do the former, or just want to know what you're in for either way.

 

[Karl Jak]

Perhaps it was simply a panic response.

Perhaps it was simply a way to satisfy a morbid curiosity.

Perhaps it was idiocy.

Either way, one of the Carnivale employees—Kevin wouldn’t tell because his focus was on the encroaching sounds—light up some sort of emergency flare.

The cave tunnel was suddenly awash with light, and the immediate response was for the nearby creature to let out a bellowing shriek as it recoiled.

“What’s the plan?” Kevin asked without turning his back away from their guest. The dark dragon that lurked before them wasn’t some colossal monstrosity, but it still vastly outsized any member of their little retinue. He saw that it had four limbs, and instead of legs on its front limbs, he could spot partially folded wings. In the new light of the flare, the PA could see that an armored knight of some kind was mounted atop the creature and actively trying to assuage its inflamed eyeballs. “…plan?” Kevin reiterated without breaking visual contact.

“Run?” Someone spoke—the man with the wings whose name eluded Kevin the moment. A typical response, given everything the PA knew about the individual. “It’s a dragon!”

It was then that Kevin craned his head back. “Wyvern.”

“Yer splittin’ hairs, Sugah!” Rogue replied as the rider succeeded in redirecting his monstrous mount toward the squad.

Kevin, who had the unwanted privilege of being at the front of the group, grimaced as the creature rapidly closed the distance. “Fall back to that wider space we passed through!” He shouted just moments before throwing himself out of the path of the creature. After crashing against the wall, he turned and saw his allies fleeing at a rate much worse than he had hoped.

“… crap,” he muttered as he shoved off the wall and grabbed the tail of the wyvern just as it was about to pass by him. As he closed his fists around the leathery flesh, he drove his feet down into the cave floor. The wyvern let out another hissing screech as its momentum was stopped abruptly, even as the Kevin heard the stone floor splinter slightly against the stress. Atop the winged beast, its rider remained soundlessly even as they were thrown forward and nearly torn clean from the saddle.

The PA opened his mouth—this felt like the part where he should shout something derogatory or humorous to the enemy—but the wyvern was already snaking itself around and lashing at him with its jaws. Releasing his grip, Kevin ducked the snapping jaws, narrowly missed the stabbing strike of its rider’s spear, and quickly slipped around it en route to a rendezvous with his newfound allies.

He spotted them all about twenty feet up ahead, and it was clear even at a distance that they were already bickering about one thing or another. Kevin came to a stop a few yards from them and cleared his thought—a hideous, croaking death rattle that pulled them all out of their argument.

“Please stop bickering like interns,” he spoke softly before glancing at Charles the Carnivale worker. “Nothing personal.”

“S’okay,” he muttered as his eyes went wide at the approach of the rampaging wyvern and its medieval themed rider. “It’s coming back!”

“Plan?” Rogue spoke quickly as the group turned and steeled themselves against the approaching threat.

“You two should hide,” Kevin spoke as she glanced at Charles and Caoimhina. “Heroes tend to die.”

“We could use them,” Mid-Boss rasped, leaving a lot of room for interpretation into the subtext of his statement.

“We’ll be fine,” Kevin snapped back. “We should separate the rider. Then, we divide and conquer.”

“How do you suppose we do that?”

Kevin shrugged his shoulders as he lifted a hand. There was a flash of light before a hammer appeared in his hand. He lifted his other hand and clenched his fist. A beat later, said fist was replaced by a gleaming red arm cannon. “We’ll figure it out.”

Party: Shadow, Rogue, Kevin, Mid-Boss, Caoimhina, Charles
Location: The Caves, naturally. In a slightly wider area after retreating from initial encounter with the wyvern and its rider
Action: Steeling themselves to confront said threat.
Focus: 9/9

 

[Rogue]

“Figure it out? That’s not exactly inspiring, Sugah!” Ah continue to back away as the snarling beast claws its way closer.

It all happens in shades of reflecting red. The icy surfaces of the cave reflect the light of the flare that Charlie’s abandoned onto the floor. It lies there, spitting angry shades of coloration onto that monster and the bozo riding it, as though they didn’t look dangerous enough! That thing’s jaws would put a serious hamper on a gal’s lifespan and judging by the gouges its claws were leaving in the stone they weren’t looking much more survivable. No weapons, no directions, but still plenty of death in this game, it seemed!

“So what’s the play to separate them, Kev? We’re running short on room to keep backing up!”

“And how did that become my job?” Kevin shouts back, firing pellets of energy from the little gauntlet he had materialized onto his hand.

“Of course not! Do not be foolish! The one who shall lead us to victory in this conflict is moi!” Mid-boss takes a step forwards, placing one hand on his chest with an eager smile.

That smile curdles in the space of a second when the monster roars so loud that it dislodges several icicles to come crashing down around us. The coward freezes mid-boast and doesn’t even start talking about a plan before he starts cringing backwards towards the pair of carnie workers. Ah’ve a good mind to give him an earful of that, but the monster didn’t give me a chance. It comes sweeping through the group of us in a half-glide, half-scrambling rush. It tears straight through the chamber, with all the might of a freight train. A dive out of the way gets me a few inches of space beside a sweeping lance blow from the rider as the monster rushes by.

Shadow doesn’t hide at least. He stays in the fight, dancing just ahead of the monster’s snapping jaws with an air of frustrated disdain.

“This paltry device!” Shadow grunted, “To think they would seek to limit my speed!”

And he’s not exaggerating either. Though he’s still fast enough to keep a few steps ahead of the beast, he’s looking far from safe. At least it keeps the monster’s attention away from the civvies, and that coward who’s hiding in the corner with them.

Just as ah’m thinking this the Wyvern’s head springs forwards again with a wicked fast movement. Shadow slips out of the way of the snapping jaws, but a lucky swipe of the beast’s neck manages to glance him hard enough to send him skidding across the ice. We need to act before that beast picks us off one by one.

“Kev and Shadow, you two keep that lizard’s attention! Pretty-boy! You’re with me!”

Mid-boss balks at me from his hiding place.

“If you think that I shall be so foolish as to throw myself headlong into battle with that-”

“Then shut up and throw me, Sugah!” Ah rush over to him, already tugging off my gloves with my teeth.

“What?”

“Ain’t you strong mister ‘Dark Adonis’ or whatever you called yourself? Give me a hand ah've got a classic maneuver to try on that sucker!”

Mid-boss still looks confused but he -is- stronger than his scrawny frame would suggest. With a quick alley-op ah’m sitting crouched, balancing on his hands over top of his head. Ah perch there, as we wait for an opening. Shadow dances the wyvern up against a wall and manages to dart away. The monster turns to follow, just in time for Kev’s hammer to smack it one to the jaw.

“Perfect! While they’re distracted, let’s hit ‘em with a fastball special! Pull!”

“Hyahhhhh!”

Mid-boss sends me sailing across the cavern, so high ah’m almost worried ah’ll hit some of the icicles, but his aim is as sharp as a needle's eye.

“Heads up, Sugah!” Ah shout as my flying tackle wrenches the rider off of his saddle.

It isn’t the cleanest of dismount. His foot snags in the stirrup and we both go tangling down the far side of the Wyvern’s flank. Yanking the reins like that quite confuses the big lizard. It starts to rear and wheel as it tries to make sense of what’s going on. The rider’s not too happy with me, but Ah’m in too close a range for his weapon to do anything. All he manages to do is sock me one left hook with his gauntleted fist. Ah taste blood, but ah keep my grip, locking my legs around the guy as we dangle from the side of the startled wyvern.

“Now that’s no way to treat a lady!” Ah reach up with one of my bare hands, gripping the side of his staring face, “How about we see what’s got you both so worked up, hmm?”

Party: Kevin, Rogue, Shadow, Mid-Boss, Caoimhina, Charles
Location: In them caves still!
Action: Rogue is attempting to absorb the powers/skills/energy of the Wyvern's rider.
Focus: 1/1

 

[Christopher Chaos]

Shadow’s heels skidded in the dirt of the cavern floor as the wyvern thrashed before him. He watched as Rogue dangled from the side, locked in a tussle with the rider. He scowled; their situation wasn’t totally hopeless — the wyvern and his rider were at the Southern woman’s mercy for the moment, at least. But if it kept thrashing like that? Ramming into the sides and ceiling of this cave? Well, the whole thing would come crashing down on top of them in a blink of an eye.

The hedgehog glanced down at his ankle, locked in the silvery collar that drained him of his powers. It hadn’t been enough to fully bring his speed down to mortal levels, but if he was going to do anything about this, he was going to need every mile per hour he could manage.

He knelt down, wedging his fingers on the inside of the ankle bracelet, and started to pull.

“STOP!” Kevin yelled, dropping the hammer on the ground with a clang before grasping a clump of Shadow’s neck fur and yanking him upright. The hedgehog leapt into self-defense mode, ripping himself out of the zombie’s grip and spinning to face him. He brought a knee to Kevin’s gut and then a foot to the dead man’s chest, knocking him onto the ground.

The arm cannon on Kevin’s arm whirred to life as he lifted it up, aiming it squarely at Shadow‘s face as the hedgehog landed on top of his chest.

“We shouldn’t be fighting,” Kevin panted, nearly pleading, “I don’t want to do this.” Resignation washed across his face, though — he’d expected things to turn violent between him and his comrades at some point. That was, after all, just as these things went.

But Shadow didn’t provoke him further. The hedgehog knelt down, his face very close to Kevin’s. “Neither do I,” he grunted, “but I need my speed.”

He leapt off Kevin’s chest, but just as he leaned down to pull at the collar again, one of the interns shouted.

“Ya will ex’plodd!” Caoimhina yelled.

“Yeah,” Charles backed her up, “she’s telling the truth!”

Shadow’s head whipped toward the pair of Carnivale employees, his brow furrowing in confusion. The Man In Red had sent them to kill or be killed, but… stripped them of the things that helped them do so? His scowl grew deeper as the sensation of being totally and completely fucked began to set in.

What was the Ultimate Lifeform without the ‘ultimate’ part?

“Ah hate to complain,” Rogue’s voice pierced Shadow’s existential crisis, “but I’m kinda in need of some help over here!”

Shadow’s gaze turned back to the wyvern, still thrashing about, Rogue and its rider continuing to flop alongside it. The woman slammed against the beast’s scales — Shadow knew they had to get her down, and quick. He turned to Kevin, who had started to make his way back to his feet.

“I need your help,” the hedgehog snarled.

Kevin looked a bit caught off guard, a first for the perennially prepared zombie intern. “Character development, already,” he mused. “How interesting.”

“Shut up and give me that hammer.”

Kevin obliged, tossing the weapon to Shadow. Without another word, he climbed onto the zombie’s shoulder and Kevin sprinted forward as fast as his undead feet would carry him, ducking behind a craggy rock formation just a few meters away from the thrashing wyvern. Shadow leapt off Kevin’s shoulder, landing on the wall of the cave and running up it. He may not have his full speed, but he had enough to get up to the roof, Arbiter damn it.

Kevin leveled his arm cannon just so, firing several bolts of energy. They whizzed past the wyvern and Rogue and its rider, crashing into a very empty part of the ceiling. Stalactites nearby vibrated from the impact; Rogue vibrated with just a little fury.

“How are ya missin’, Sugah?!” she yelled, clawing again at the face of the rider, “the big ol’ thing’s right in front of ya!”

“He didn’t miss,” Shadow scoffed, sprinting across the ceiling towards the cracks and crevices Kevin’s blast had unearthed. He swung the hammer down — or up? — onto the cracks, putting all of the strength his tiny body could muster into it, before detaching his feet from the ceiling and letting himself go into free fall. As the cracks above him started to expand and the smaller stalactites broke off and crashed down onto the wyvern’s head, he grabbed onto the rider’s lance, glancing up at Rogue.

“Are yah tryina bring the whole cave down on us?!” she shouted, eyes wide.

Shadow smirked. “Kinda, yeah.”

He swung Kevin’s hammer up into one of the joints of the saddle, releasing Rogue, the rider, and himself from its grip. The three of them fell to the ground. The rider, still drained from Rogue’s use of her powers on him, tried unsuccessfully to clamber to his feet. Shadow and Rogue glanced up at the ceiling.

“Well, did it work?” she asked.

“I don’t think you should stay and find out,” Kevin shouted, already starting to back toward the Carnivale interns, “come on!”

Rogue looked down at Shadow, then at the rider. “You’re faster than me,” she noted; Shadow resisted the urge to tell her she was pointing out the obvious. “Can you carry him? I think we need to have a conversation.”

Shadow glanced down at the man, then grabbed him by the scruff of his long mullet which peeked out of the back of his helmet.

“Hell yeah,” he nodded. “Let’s go.”

Party: Kevin, Rogue, Shadow, Mid-Boss, Caoimhina, Charles
Location: Caves!
Action: Shadow and Kevin were hoping to bring the roof down on the wyvern, then escape the debris with the rider.
Focus: 1/1

 

[The Man in Red]

The damage to the cave spread rapidly. Perhaps more quickly than it should have, spurred on by the wyvern's steadily escalating rampage. Being separated from its rider, and with chunks of the cave starting to fall down and smash into its body repeatedly. It bellowed a shrieking, screaming roar of something between defiant rage and pain as it was pelted with chunks of ice and rock ranging from fist-sized to small boulders.

The dismounted rider, still dazed from his brush with Rogue's powers, nonetheless fought his damnedest. Like something more akin to a rabid dog or other wild beast rather than anything human, he kicked and punched and clawed, thrashing about in a manner and with a discomfiting clacking, snarling of gnashing teeth. But he wasn't fighting to overpower or defeat anyone anymore; he was trying frantically, desperately, just to break loose and get away, one gauntleted hand occasionally lashing out toward the wyvern and grasping desperately, a hoarse and strangled voice issuing from beneath his helmet in choking, wordless monosyllabic screams, pleading for....something.

The wyvern's thrashing as it lumbered after them finally proved its undoing, as with a mighty shaking, rumbling the ceiling of the cave all but split open. Huge plumes and gusts of dust and dirt and broken slush, flecked with shards and chunks of rock and ice belched down the tunnel as an avalanche of rock and ice came tumbling down over the reptilian beast, washing over it in a frigid earthen cascade.

One final, shrieking roar as it was buried and crushed beneath the cave-in left the air ringing. And the rider just went slack and still, arm still outstretched toward the way he had been dragged from. Fingers trembling, arms shaking, he just seemed to visibly deflate and slump down. Physically he remained unchanged, but mentally...it was like something just went out, withering into a defeated husk, leaving him as just dead weight to be hauled along with only the occasional mumbled groan to even indicate he was still breathing.

Or, well...maybe not breathing. It was honestly hard to tell.

Eventually, the tremors and rumbles threatening further cave collapse dissipated as the motley group went stumbling out into a much larger, open chamber. Shored up with wood and metal reinforcing, it slowly opened out into a cavernous, wide open area, the stone underfoot giving way to metal flooring after some few dozen feet. Distantly, industrial-type walls and construction could be seen, and scattered rows of of old mothballed vehicles, massive storage crates and containers for who knew what, several scrapped and dismantled teleporters, and a massive cargo elevator in the far corner.

 

[Rogue]

***​

The Sky rushes past with a furious howling. It roars at me like a beast enraged, but I do not fear its tempests. The skies and I have always danced this way. Their rage is not at me, I dance with their currents. The sky’s fury is meant for the rock and the ice, the stubborn things that must be shaped and formed.

Not I. I am free.

***​

“A simple task!”

The Man in Red laughs easily and, despite my irritation, I find myself doing the same.

“I’d rather keep the project on schedule but, if we must re-route the boring, I will concede the point.” The showman spins a pen a few times before catching it with one hand, “You know your beasts better than I do!”

“Trust me.” I nod, relieved, “Changing course is the best way to keep on schedule. If we disturb that nest you’ll really get to see what a problem means.”

***​

Fire.

I am on fire from the inside. Like someone has built a forge inside my stomach and is dancing a jig upon the bellows. The world is vanishing before my eyes, or is it my eyes that are no longer there? I cannot tell for the pain of it. My scream leaves my voice raw, but I cannot hear my own voice. Do I still have ears?

I do not want to die!

***​

The fellow’s gone still, limp as a sack of potatoes in the back of a wagon. Ah fall back, breathing a sigh of relief as the frantic fighting stops for a moment.

“All tired out, huh?” Ah frown, wiping the blood from my nose and wishing my head would stop aching, “You couldn’t have stopped a few swings earlier, Sugah?”

Shadow looks down at the Wyvern Knight, Alleane, with a look of disdainful frustration.

‘We’re not even going to get any useful information out of him, are we?” He scowls.

“Ah… don’t think so…” Ah get to my feet with a sigh, “He’s… been through a good bit… might need a minute or two… might not come back again at all…”

“Bah.” Shadow drops Alleane’s limp form without ceremony, turning away without a second look, “In that case we should keep moving. This place will surely bring another monster down on our heads before long.”

Ah was having a harder and harder time being mad at the guy, as the bits of his memory that were still working started to settle into my own recollections. Alleane wasn’t a bad fellow, and he’d certainly been through his share of hell in his time. Ah may be cold-hearted, but it didn’t look like Alleane was going to be in a state to get himself out this place alive… if he even still was.

Ah stoop down, hefting him over my shoulders with ease despite his platemail. Figures he’d still be wearing freezing cold metal in all this tundra. Ah swear if ah get frostbite on one side of my face....

Shadow clicks his tongue when he notices me, but none of the others seem to take issue, or at least nobody is willing to voice them. They’re probably too nervous to bother me. With this headache ah must be scowling up a storm and a half! They probably aren’t even paying attention, we’re all too distracted by the graveyard of equipment ahead of us. Some of these vehicles look older than the lot of us combined, others look like they’ve nearly been torn in half.

“Well this is just poor management of resources.” Kevin sounds sadder about this than any of his previous comments. Ah feel a sting of embarrassment for whoever’s job it was to keep all of this maintained. They did their best.

“Hark!” The prancing fool points towards the lift like he’s only just now noticed it before the rest of us. “Assuredly, that will take us to a place with some real answers!”

“Hold up now, Hun!” Ah adjust my grip on Alleane so that I’ve a free hand, noticing that I’ve forgotten to replace my gloves, “We shouldn’t rush through all of this without making sure there’s nothing here that’s worth the keeping. Aww, crumbs! Speaking of which, did we lose Alleane’s lance back there?”

“Who?” Shadow frowned.

“Oh I grabbed it, lass, don’t you be worrying!” Caoimhina held up the weapon with an unbothered nod.

“Someone find some lights then! I’m not searching this place by flarelight.” Kevin nodded.

“Make sure y’all give a holler if something comes along to eat your toes!” ah grin and then we start to spread out to begin our searching. Ah set Alleane down, and go looking for something we can use to restrain him on the chance he starts to get a bit more lively.

“Uhh…. miss Rogue?” That voice sounds timid, so ah’m unsurprised it’s Charles the intern who’s talking when ah turn to look. He looks a good bit confused by something.

“What do you need, Sugah? Can go ahead and spit it out, don’t got to keep a girl waitin’ now.”

“...Erm… I just noticed it a moment ago… but you’re looking…. uhh… shiny?”

“Shiny huh? You may be needing to work on that line a bit more, darling…”

“No! I mean… you’re reflecting light… like you’re…”

Ah glance down at my hand, and now ah’m the one frowning. Its faint. you can barely even tell in this scant light, not a clue how Charles noticed. but now that ah'm looking its unmistakable. Experimentally, ah swing my hand backwards into the door of a busted up old jeep. There’s a clang of the impact metal on metal and it doesn’t even hurt when ah remove my hand from the dent ah’ve just made in one of its doors.

“Well that’s a fine how do you do!” ah raise my hand to my face and rap my knuckles against the side of my head with a solid bit of clanking, “Since when have ah been metal?”

Party: Kevin, Rogue, Shadow, Mid-Boss, Caoimhina, Charles, Alleane?
Location: Vehicle hanger
Action: Searching the hanger for equipment or information
Focus 1/1

 

[Karl Jak]

Their clash with the wyvern rider had been over and done with in the blink of an eye.

A frenetic scramble and tussle with the unspeaking, platemail-clad warrior had resulted in one dead lizard and a catastrophic cave-in, leaving the group and their unconscious adversary with no where to go but further into the network of caves.

In short order, the group had once again fractured apart. The allure of discarded equipment had drawn most of them to scavenging through the wreckage that lined what was otherwise a shockingly large opening in these subterranean passageways. While the others scrapped and dusted away to find things of value, Kevin had wandered further into the area. Far behind him, he could hear Rogue and Charles talking about something, but it didn’t sound terribly important to their situation.

“You were right.”

Kevin furrowed his brow and craned his neck to see the hedgehog standing on a partially rusted crate a few feet behind him. “How so?”

“A waste.” Shadow gestured to the graveyard of industrial equipment that lay around them. “Some of this stuff probably could have been used for… something. Anything, really. I’m no engineer, but a few of those vehicles looked as if they’d never been turned on.”

The former assistant walked over to a partially rusted dune buggy and brushed some powdery dirt from the console. “How can you tell?”

“Not up there,” Shadow said as a teeny, smug-y grin spread across his cartoony visage. “Down there.” He hopped down from the crate, jogged over, and rapped his gloved fist against the little hatch that concealed the gas cap.

“No fuel?”

“Never.” Shadow muttered as he cracked open the little hatch and twisted away the cap. “I’ve checked a few of these, and it seems like a lot of them were never even fueled up, even once. Unless they’re using some kind of fuel that leaves no odors.”

“You’re certain?”

The hedgehog’s oversized eyes narrowed as a scowl spread across his muzzle. “Ultimate. Life. Form.” Shadow punctuated each word by smacking his palm on the side of the abandoned vehicle. “You think you got a better sense of smell than me?”

Kevin shook his head. “Even if I did, I doubt it would do me much good given my … condition.” In lieu of taking the makeshift cowl off of his face, he simply popped off his hand and gave the stump a few shakes before reattaching the limb.

Shadow grimaced and shook his head. “I didn’t need that reminder.” The fact that both of them were born from the minds of madmen (at least, in Kevin’s case, a fabulous one with mostly good intentions) seemed to be lost on the hedgehog. “All I’m saying is we’re no closer to knowing much of anything.”

“Unfortunately, you’re right. More questions than answers, and I’m sure there’s only more of that on the horizon.” The plot, after all, rarely grows thinner over time. Kevin glanced around and then crossed his arms over his chest. “Have you formulated our next steps?”

Another scowl. “I… I can’t be called upon to do all the thinking for you people!” Shadow muttered as he gently kicked at the floor of the cave and walked away, leaving Kevin to smile faintly beneath the hood he wore over his Frankenstein face.

Left to his own devices once again, Kevin continued down the row of abandoned vehicles. After enough time in the near darkness of these caves, his eyes had managed to adjust fairly well, and he could tell that there was a clear end of this sprawling complex. As he made his way forward, his thoughts couldn’t help but center on the situation at hand. Rogue had made the decision to bring the wyvern rider with them, and on a surface-level, Kevin had no complaints. Crushing the lizard had been a necessary evil, but that didn’t mean they had to murder its rider while they were at it.

Even so, the PA had to wonder if they were making the best decision. After all, it was wholly possible that this Alleane would just as soon regain his sense of reality and try to murder them, and given their track record, such a turn would likely happen while they were all trying to sleep.

Do I sleep?

It was a fair question, since he didn’t feel sleepy yet after all this travel. Then again, he didn’t feel much of anything when he stopped to think about it.

Okay – focus on the issue at hand.

He nodded to himself as he glanced back at the distant figures. The other possibility was that the newest member of their entourage was important to someone or something. Whether that would help them survive this or simply lift their conscience was left to be determined.

Ahead of Kevin, he could see a shift in the landscape of their environment. At some point, the sheer stone walls appeared to give way to riveted steel plates and support girders. Further ahead, it was clear that the natural caves faded away in lieu of manmade construction. This repository of unused and/or unloved equipment must border the exterior wall of some underground installation. Why the owners would feel the need to dump this materiel outside rather than just store it within walls was a question that Kevin would stick a pin in for now. The most important point in all of this was the fact that they were seemingly out of the caves.

As he drew closer, he could tell that it was certainly used in the transportation of heavy machinery and cargo. The PA had overseen the planning and construction of enough preshow facilities in his lifetime to know what a cargo lift was when he saw one. The best part about these sorts of lifts is that they rarely failed, given how durable they had to be to survive frequent usage. So long as the mechanical parts hadn’t broken, it should still be functional, and even if there were some faults, Kevin knew they’d be solvable with all the brains in their group.

When the undead ginger’s finger thumbed the red button, he couldn’t help but smile behind the cowl as the lights along the base of the lift popped to life and some machinery underneath his feet rumbled to life.

“I think I found our exit.”

Party: Kevin, Rogue, Shadow, Mid-Boss, Caoimhina, Charles
Location: Far end of the repository cavern
Action: Kevin will wait to be joined by the party before heading up the lift.
Focus: 9/9

 

[Christopher Chaos]

“I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, or delay us further from our journey,” Caoimhina said meekly, “but are we sure this lift is goin’ to take us to safety?”

At Kevin’s call, the group had gathered at the base of the lift. Mid-Boss had quickly climbed aboard, eager to get to somewhere with more natural light. Shadow and Rogue, too, mostly trusting in the zombified PA’s judgment at this point, had joined them, carrying the unconscious wyvern rider with them. The Carnivale’s own workers, though, were much more wary.

Caoimhina, in fact, still stood a good ten feet away. Charles had made his way up next to the thing, but he hadn’t yet taken the brave step up to join the stronger warriors — and Mid-Boss — on their quest up.

“I mean,” Kevin shrugged, “if it’s not safe, you’d be the one who would know, right?”

Caoimhina let out a deep sigh.

Once he’d finished helping Rogue get the wyvern rider onto the platform, he turned his gaze toward the young woman, crossing his arms. He hadn’t really taken stock of the Man In Red’s lackeys before — it had been all too easy to write them off as disposable, to be honest — but now, as they were about to cross into the next, perhaps even more dangerous, part of their journey, the weight of their plight started to settle in.

How must it have felt to be abandoned by the person who made them? Shadow didn’t know if the Carnivale employees had literally been constructed from the atom by the Man In Red like he had been by his masters, but nevertheless, he couldn’t shake the feeling that their situation wasn’t dissimilar to his. His masters hadn’t exactly left him by choice, but it had decidedly been their plan to dump him in this Death Game, to send him to the wolves to have him figure out his capabilities and — though this may have been more his hope than theirs — his purpose.

He didn’t know if the Man In Red had planned the train crash, but it didn’t seem unlikely.

These poor fools didn’t even have the edge of being the Ultimate Lifeform to fall back on, either.

Shadow hopped off the lift, his air shoes squelching a bit as they landed on the cold metallic floor. He crossed slowly toward Caiomhina. Her freckled face scrunched and she tensed just a little bit as the hedgehog approached; certainly his massive power, which he’d already displayed in abundance, had her feeling fearful that he was going to give in to his proclivities for violence.

Instead, though, the hedgehog simply held out a hand.

The Irish woman stood and stared for a second at the gloved, four-fingered hand outstretched for her. Her eyes lifted up to Shadow’s face, which — for maybe the first time in his short life — wore an expression that might be mistaken as kind.

“What are ya doin’?” she asked softly.

“There’s no other way,” Shadow said, firm but as gently as he could manage, “we have to go up.”

Caoimhina’s gaze flicked toward the lift again. Nervous wrinkles started so snake between her freckles.

Shadow reached out, lacing his fingers in hers.

“We’ll protect you,” he promised, tugging a bit.

She looked back down at him, then up at the rest of the crew already gathered on the lift. Charles was clumsily clambering onto it, the last hold out aside from her.

With another deep sigh, she further interlaced her five fingers with Shadow’s four, squeezed his hedgehog hand tight, and let him lead her onto the lift.

Party: Shadow, Kevin, Rogue, Mid-Boss, Charles, Caoimhina, Alleane
Location: the lift!
Action: up, up, up!
Focus: 1/1