[s2—01-03] Dawn of the Second Day

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Fennec Shand

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Nails like talons dug into the warehouse’s floorboards as Shallan pulled the crucifix out, observing it. Nezuko’s lips snarled beneath the bamboo gag the Carnivale workers had placed in her mouth, part of their efforts to stave off her more… supernatural talents. She stumbled backwards, clambering up the wall and out an already broken window, when the thunder struck.

She tried to duck for cover from her perch on the windowsill, but her sandals missed their mark. White light streaked through the sky, brighter than any lightning she’d ever seen. As her hands lifted up to cover her eyes, she slipped, tumbling down a small, muddy incline just outside the warehouse and into a manhole just large enough to fit her diminutive form. Monstrous as she was and with whatever strength she had left after the Carnivale’s shenanigans, she remained a petite-framed monster, and she quickly disappeared into the shadow and far away from her wouldbe compatriots, leaving behind any hope of a quick alliance to keep herself safe early on in this –

– well, she couldn’t really wrap her head around what this was. She’d gone from being trapped in a room, chained up by the bad humans, to lurking in the corner of some sparsely decorated sitting room area, to being shoved into a helicopter, to waking up in some dilapidated warehouse surrounded by three people she didn’t recognize whatsoever from any of the previous events. Nezuko’s feral brain was relatively aware that quick turns of events would be… well, difficult for her to process, to say the very least, but this was getting wild on another level.

And that made no mention of the predicament she’d now literally stumbled into.

She banged and clanged against the sides of the metallic tunnel, somersaulting her way through the underground of wherever this place was, until finally she tumbled out with a resounding thud. She crashed into a nearby wall, saved from full impact by the bamboo gag in her mouth, which connected with the rock face first. Some of her teeth cracked as the force from the rock traveled through the wood into her fangs, and she let out a light screech as the pain radiated through the rest of her skull.

Her eyes snapped open as a shuffling sound near her yanked her back to her senses. She cowered instinctively as the silhouette figures of, well… she couldn’t really count anymore, since Kibutsuji had turned her, but a lot of – sniff – humans came into view. They practically filled the cavern, outnumbering her by a significant margin. She scrambled closer to the wall, trying her best to run away from them but finding nowhere sufficient to run. They all seemed to be in various poses of prayer, some kneeling, some standing fully on their two feet. Their dress was just as myriad, ranging from suits to nothing at all, though they all had one thing in common: the nondescript black bags covering their faces.

Nezuko’s eyebrow quirked. She’d never encountered humans that seemed to be simultaneously so fervent in their worship and also… ashamed of it?

Was that what the human word was? Ashamed? Guilty?

Or perhaps they weren’t. Perhaps there was some other reason they hid. Memories of her human life were fleeting, but she couldn’t think why they might hide their faces like this, unless they were ashamed. Or maybe scared?

She tilted her head. What could such a number of them be so scared of? What could they fear facing that they couldn’t simply overwhelm in a pack such as this? Certainly they’d overwhelm her, if she tried to make a move against them. Not that she was thinking of doing that at all, no – she was hardly capable of the bandwidth necessary to formulate an attack plan, and had instead begun to focus on trying her best to sniff out an escape route. So many scents were floating in the air, though – incense, body odor, blood – that between that and the storm outside washing things away, sniffing out a path to the great outdoors seemed unlikely.

The human who’d made the shuffling sound before shuffled closer.

Nezuko, alarmed, almost jumped out of her pale skin again. She refocused her gaze on this person, this… smaller person, who seemed to be the only person who noticed her. The rest had busied themselves far too much with their worship of whoever the tall, suited, weird god was that they’d crafted an effigy of. The tiny cultist, also sharply dressed and with a bag over his head, slowly took a step towards her, then tilted his head down and fixed his eyes on something between them.

The demon girl’s eyes flitted down to follow the cultist boy’s. Sitting between them was a crude, metallic weapon Nezuko couldn’t name, but one that recognized as the same she’d been lugging around on her back when she was briefly aware and conscious in the warehouse.

The boy chuckled. “Is that your shotgun?”

Nezuko’s head quirked the other way like a curious puppy dog. Shot… gun… ?

“Mine now,” he laughed, darting forward and snatching up the double-barreled weapon in his tiny, pale hands. “Mommy, look! A shotgun!”

The child cultist spun around and sprinted back toward a set of more mature-looking suited folks, showing off the weapon to an older woman who seemed clearly uninterested. Or, well, Nezuko supposed she couldn’t really tell what the woman was thinking, given the black bag covering her face, but her body language signaled that she didn’t care whatsoever about her son’s pestering. The worship, it seemed, had too great a hold.

The boy glanced back at her, shoulders sinking in disappointment as no one found his discovery to be much of a grand thing. He looked back up at his mother and seemed to request something else. She, impatiently, shoved a small black tome into his hand. Upon closer inspection, Nezuko could see that the book was inscribed with the same circle-and-x symbol that some of the cultists seemed to be carving into their own skin. For just a moment, the girl wondered if they all had some… collective Blood Demon Art they were activating. She thought about slicing her own palm, seeing if she could summon some demonic flames to distract the cultists and get herself out of here, but something about the way her body… felt told her that wasn’t going to be an option.

Besides, the boy was returning.

He stopped just short of Nezuko’s reach, not altogether seeming fearful but not stupid, either. He slung the shotgun over his shoulder and held out a hand.

“I’m Geoffery,” he introduced himself, and even though she couldn’t see his face, Nezuko could hear in his voice that he was smiling. Happy to see someone who looked like his contemporary, maybe? A quick, furtive glance seemed to indicate there weren’t many other children here, if any.

Nezuko whirred a bit in response, nonthreateningly, and didn’t take the boy’s hand. Why was he sticking it out for her, anyway?

He didn’t seem perturbed, and pulled his hand back. “No talking, huh?” he surmised. “I’m guessing you don’t read, then, either!”

This seemed to bring him a curious amount of joy. Nezuko’s memories of her past life weren’t altogether whole, but she couldn’t remember a time when she’d ever encountered someone being so… cheerful about someone not being able to read. On the contrary, though, this boy seemed to be almost excited by the prospect of his mute, illiterate discovery.

“Well, it’s a bit early for a bedtime story, I suppose,” he chirped, “but how about I read you one, nonetheless? This one’s called The Collective Knowledge, and I think you’ll agree that it’s quite the page turner, new friend…”
 

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Klarion & Sand Hawk​
The unlikely duo moved on further, eventually ducking into what seemed like a large mansion on the outskirts of town. It was rundown and seemed as if it hadn't been actually inhabited for a long, long while, even before the town had started going to hell. It was still sturdy enough, though, and provided a good base to hole up in for the moment.

Among the higher floors, they found signs someone had been there quite recently. A great deal of someones, in fact. Clothes and food supplies, and a startling profusion of old cloaks and coats to ward off foul weather, and the entire place draped in carvings and drawings of the same symbol, covering virtually every surface: a circle with an X slashed through it.

On one desk, they even found the same symbol hammered out of iron, attached to a chain. Almost like some kind of necklace, in the fashion of a protective charm or something, as Klarion would notice.


Shallan & Sari​
Searching through the immediate area, Sari can manage to dig up plenty of useful items. In the old foreman's office, survivors here had just tossed the 'leftover' and 'extra' bits of supplies and tools they had, or what they'd managed to recover from fallen friends. Loose bundles of tools, screws and nails, half-used rolls of tape and half-spent tubes of glue or other adhesive, rolls of mostly still useable bandages, flashlights and lanterns of varying battery strength, a still working lighter, half a book of matches, and a sturdy claw hammer.


Lilith​
Within the remains of an old doctor's office, Lilith finds the airdropped supply trunk containing the bottles of painkillers. Among the further detritus, one of the former patients slowly stirs, lifting its head with a rattling groan and lurching up to its feet only to stumble over another body and go crashing into a nearby wall...and right into a fire alarm.

The faulty and neglected system takes a moment to actually trigger, before starting to spray filthy water over the interior of the place, and the sirens start going off.

Almost immediately outside, there comes a warbling, shrieking chorus of mangled and malformed voices in response, cutting through the rain as surely as a red-hot knife through butter, and a chilling presence descends over the immediate area, as the sound of many thundering feet starts to approach. Rapidly.

Lilith has grabbed the pills, and alerted the city's zombie population to her presence. They will be here very soon.
 
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Fennec Shand

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Nezuko understood practically nothing about the book Geoffery was reading.

She hadn’t experienced a bedtime story in quite a while – it had been a long time even before she’d been demonized – but the contents of this book didn’t seem very calming, to say the least. In her feral state, the concepts already mostly flew over her head, but talk of rifts and different worlds and portals and long gibberish words like Gorr’Rylaehotep didn’t exactly read as ‘comforting,’ no matter to what level she digested them.

The boy sat next to her. Somewhere during his reading, any feelings of trepidations he had about the demon girl in his presence had dissolved, and he’d taken up a spot learning against the wall she cowered against. For her part, Nezuko simply stared at him as he read, confused not only about the concepts of the big, black hardback tome in his hand but also about his general demeanor. Humans were, quite frankly, never this welcoming to her. To be fair, he and his many cohorts scattered about this cave seemed to be worshipping a demon of their own, so perhaps her presence wasn’t all that unexpected or out of the ordinary. Nevertheless, though, his cavalier attitude concerned her.

Besides that, it seemed the other cultists had yet to even acknowledge she arrived. By now, most of them had stripped off their snazzy suits and seemed to have fully committed to their weird rituals, bowing and yelling nonsense at the haphazard effigy they’d raised in the middle of the cavern. Nezuko observed the tall, thin – some would say slender – statue, trying to discern anything about it. She couldn’t shake the fact that it reminded her of Muzan Kibutsuji just a bit, the one who’d been her original, the one who’d snatched her humanity and turned her into a demon. That comparison did not sit well with her.

“Are you enjoying chapter one?” Geoffery’s voice pierced her thoughts, and her gaze shifted alarmingly back to the young boy at her side. She stared into the black bag covering his head, blinking a bit as she tried to figure out what he meant, and how to respond.

She whirred a little bit, closing her eyes and trying her best to smile beneath the bamboo muzzle shoved in her mouth. Geoffery observed her with interest, tilting his own head in much the same way Nezuko had earlier, like a curious puppy. He reached out tentatively but not fearfully, placing a thumb just below her mouth and wiping intentionally. When he pulled his hand back, the demon girl noticed blood on the tip of his fingers – some that had undoubtedly leaked out of her mouth when she’d slammed her face into the wall earlier.

“You,” Geoffery said with a strange amount of delight in his voice, “are so fun.”

These were words Nezuko didn’t have a problem translating – but their meaning, in this context, puzzled her greatly. How could this young boy find anything about her or this situation fun?!

“Mommy!” Geoffery called, reaching around Nezuko’s shoulders with one arm and pulling her close to him in a headlock. A little ways away, the now completely-nude woman (save, of course, for the bag on her head) who Nezuko had recognized as the boy’s maternal figure glanced back at them. Her body language communicated some degree of irritation, but like any mother, she had an obligation to acknowledge her child.

“What, darling?” she groaned.

“Mommy, l love her,” Geoffery bounced in his spot. “Can I keep her?!”

Nezuko’s eyes could’ve popped out of her head. Keep her?!

Fine,” the mother waved him off. “But you have to feed her and take care of her. Mommy and Daddy don’t have the time to help.”

“Yay!” Geoffery screeched, briefly releasing Nezuko and leaping into the air. Nezuko knew enough to know what keep her meant, and so she snatched this opportunity to begin to gallop away on all fours. She got maybe four or five feet before the butt of her own shotgun smashed into the back of her skull and she splayed out on the ground. She rolled over, clutching her throbbing head with her taloned hands, and looked up at Geoffery as he leveled the shotgun’s double barrels in her face and pumped it, ready to fire.

“You can’t run, new friend,” he sneered menacingly. “You’re my pet now! You’re Geoffery’s!”

Nezuko scrambled backwards, but Geoffery lifted up one of his tiny feet and stomped on the edge of her flowing, brown haori, holding her in place. He knelt down, placing his knee on the bottom of her kimono to further keep her from moving, and placed the shotgun gingerly on the ground next to her before reaching into his coat and pulling out a small knife.

The boy clambered on top of her, straddling her and placing one hand on her shoulder as she squirmed to try and get out of her grasp. He was surprisingly strong – or, perhaps, she was surprisingly weak, her formidable physical prowess dulled by the Carnivale’s machinations. Beneath the black bag, Nezuko could hear the boy chuckling maniacally as he reached down and yanked her hand up to eye level, observing it with an almost scientific fascination.

“I don’t know what you are, new friend,” he said, clearly content at this point talking to himself, “but I’m so happy Gorr’Rylaehotep sent you to me! You will be my pet and I will take care of you and we will be such good friends!”

He plunged the knife into the skin on the back of Nezuko’s hand, and the only thing that kept her from screaming was the bamboo gag still firmly placed in her mouth. Slowly, he traced a circle in her skin, breaking just barely into her flesh but enough to cause the demon girl pain. She writhed and let out muzzled shouts as he completed the circle, and then jolted again as he carved an ‘x’ over it. Within just a few moments, he’d branded her with the same symbol everyone else in this godforsaken cavern seemed to be branding themselves with. He started to giggle with a psychopathic glee.

“Mine now,” he muttered, yanking her upright and pulling her into a tight hug. “And I’m never going to let you get away.”

Nezuko didn’t realize how much he meant that at first, but by the time a few minutes later when the metallic cuff had been snapped around her neck, it started to become clear. The cult began to disperse out of the cave sometime later, after their rituals had concluded, and Geoffery stood just a few feet off from his new pet, chain leash in one hand and shotgun leveled at her in the other.

Nezuko cowered. This wasn’t going well.
 

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Doctor Caustic​
Up mountain trails and through the forest between the clustered sections of actual 'city' within this place, the toxic trapper trekked. His searching didn't leave him unrewarded, however, and he finally found his prize in the blasted out remains of a small cottage just off the trail.

Cracking open the secured trunk, he was momentarily overcome by a fit of coughing and spat off to one side before reaching inside and retrieving his prize. A flick of a switch on the weapon's side, and the striking surface lit up with a crackling web of electrical sparks, sputtering and dancing along it like an exposed wire.

It brought a faint, momentary grin to his face. "Marvelous."

Caustic has looted the Lightning Club.
 

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Klarion & Sand Hawk​
The forest out this way was...decidedly creepy. Sound seemed dampened and muted, even the rain seeming less present. Only the swirling of dense, chilly fog remained an ever-present feature.

Direction was hard to keep, only the glow of Klarion's lantern letting them see any sign of a clear trail keeping the bizarre due from endlessly wandering in circles over and over again.

After what seemed like hours, the pair emerged from the fog into the grounds of a large, sprawling lodge out in the woods, up on a hill overlooking the forest at large. It was perhaps the single most intact and still used structure they had found so far, looking as if people had maintained care of it and kept using it in spite of the city falling apart around them just a few miles away.

It would have almost been a charming and welcoming sight, were it not for the bizarre...decorations found at the edge of the area. Makeshift spears and pikes jammed into the earth, with animal skulls and hides draped and hung over them. Corpses skewered to trees, and webs of flayed skin hanging between tree limbs. The thick, noxious stench of death hung over the entire area.

It all seemed deserted upon first glance, as the two moved in...but the moment they pushed open the door and crept inside, the feeling descended upon them.

A feeling of pure, unmitigated dread, as the door slammed shut behind them and flickering lanterns sprang to life along the inside walls.

Distantly, the racking of a shotgun sounded and a voice far too echoing and hoarse to be anything natural roared out from further inside, "Thissus private prop'rty!", the words slurring into a guttural growling noise only barely intelligible.

And the impossibly heavy, thumping tread of boots started to approach closer.

Klarion and Sand Hawk shared a furtive, worried glance with each other, then both bolted. Against all common sense, there was only one way to go with the door sealed behind them: right toward whatever was making all that racket.

Which they were soon enough brought face to face with, in a fashion most unpleasant. A hulking, burly figure shrouded in layers of old coats and hunting cloaks and hoods, with a dark mask and cowl fully drawn over his face; only two small holes cut out for his eyes let any sign of his face be seen. A grimy, gnarled peg leg replaced his left leg from the knee down, and one impossibly huge, meaty mitt clutched a shotgun like it was a toy while the other hefted an equally large logging axe like it was a child's plaything. He towered over the pair of Death Game contestants, leering down at them with eyes that glimmered white from beneath his hood.

"Ah. Hello, hello!" Sand Hawk said cheerily, flashing a nervous smile and letting one hand sloooowly reach for the Colt.

He was unceremoniously shoved aside by Klarion, the witch boy interposing himself between the hunter and the sandy rogue as a massive shield materialized in his hands. Sparks flew as a blast of shotgun fire hit the conjured implement, making Klarion recoil with a surprised wince. What kind of firepower did that dusty old gun have?!

In that brief instant, Sand Hawk slipped away and had all but vanished entirely from sight, leaving a very perplexed Klarion to scramble back to his feet and with a wave of one hand, release a shimmering wave of energy that made the floor in front of him rip free of its place, writhing and twisting like a bed of snakes as it lunged for the hunter.

Wordless snarls erupted as the colossal brute stomped forward, swinging with his axe and cleaving through the conjured assault, though not before several huge splinters and chunks of force tore through his chest, staggering him for a brief instant...

...and then Sand Hawk happened.

"Death, from a bove!" the sandy rogue hollered, coming crashing down from overhead in a whirlwind of sand, dust, and confusion.

He dragged down a thick, heavy old blanket with him, throwing it over the hunter's head and blinding him even as the rogue came down to a landing boots-first on the back of his foe's head. There was a heavy thunk like hitting a solid tree...then the hunter toppled over and hit the ground hard enough to shake the entire house. A loud cracking sound, like splitting timbers and breaking wood erupted, and Sand Hawk quickly rolled away and sprang to his feet, dropping into a stance somewhere between 'bring it on' and 'please don't hurt me'.

Klarion sniffed disdainfully, prodding at the blanket, only to find a tattered mess of clothes and old firewood beneath it.

Klarion and Sand Hawk have both used 1 Focus.
They have defeated the restless trapper...for now, and escaped without injury.
 

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Nico Cinder & Amalia Eckern​
The new partnership left the old school building behind and moved off to the north.

They quickly find that after only a short ways, the thick clouds of fog begin to close in and grow more dense, blocking any passage actually out of the city itself.

There is still a scattering of houses and old buildings out here for them to shelter and hunker down in for the moment, at least, in relative safety.
 

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Mirooge​
Slipping through the water away from the docks, Mirooge swam for all it was worth. The water was thankfully still and peaceful, only churned slightly by the ongoing downpour. After what felt like somewhere between a few minutes and several hours, the sight of an island hove into view among the waters, and the sickly green fiend made for it, hauling itself out of the water and onto not dry land.

The island was fairly small, but still held something of promise. A rather sizable home of some description, from the looks of it. A private little island resort, away from the main city centers. It would have been a nice place for most anyone.

It was completely demolished, though.

Most of the place had been ransacked and destroyed, looted for anything of value weeks ago. What was left was a barely-standing wreckage heap, which had been used as a dumpng ground and glorified storage shed. Stockpiles of ammunition and preserved food supplies could be found buried and tucked away in countless nooks and crannies, along with contianers of gasoline and other fuel.

Within one shed, the legend even found signs it had been set up as some kind of...summoning circle and converted into a stable of sorts. One wall had been covered with a large tarp, on which were crudely drawn out seventeen figures. The twelfth of them had a large knife driven through it, jammed into the wall behind.
 

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Bloodhound​
No sooner had Bloodhound made it near to the docks, than they began to pick up obvious signs of tracks and movements in the area very recently. The rain had washed most of it away already, but...there were still the telltale signs of muddy prints and of something being dragged through recently.

They lead to one of the larger warehouses near to the water's edge, which looked utterly unremarkable save for the sign of a circle slashed through with an X carved into the brickwork near to the door.

Peering inside, the legend could spot it as being...somewhat cleaner and in better repair inside. A small alter of some kind had been set up, and before it lay a shivering man chained and bound up, with several candles lit and burning around him.

"This one was very coval about opposing Him," a hoarse voice whispered from nearby, as shuffling footsteps drew nearer. A small crowd of three figures, clad in shabby suits and draped over with long coats against the chill and rain outside, slowly came into view from further inside the warehouse. "Speaking of opposition and violence against the Operator directly."

"Foolishness," another hissed. "He seeks to bring direct vengeance down upon all our heads!"

"Perhaps we should have simply let him try?" the third spoke up, with an amused tone. "Such a fool could never actually harm Him. The Operator is above mere mortal means, and the church has been sealed so it affords no shelter."

"Seeing him slain by his own efforts would have been amusing..." the second begrudgingly admitted.

They collective came to a stop near the bound man, and one fished out a bizarre mask, seemingly formed from clay or carved from wood: bone-white and looking like blank skin stretched too tightly over a bare skull. They carefully affixed it to the suddenly struggling man's face, then tightened the chains holding him down.

"He will come for you soon, foo!" the hissed, kicking the man sharply in the ribs with a harsh crack. The man whimpered and gave up his struggled, his breathing rapidly growing labored as the three cultists crept away, whispering and snickering to each other.

They slipped out into the rain and dashed away into the gloom, and Bloodhound slowly crept back around the corner of the warehouse, staring after them, then slowly turning their gaze back to the warehouse. "What is going on in this town...?"
 

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The haze of rain was once more split asunder by the wailing of an air raid siren, to announce the passing of time.

"I trust by now you all are beginning to have at least some idea of just what is going on in this town?" the voice of the Man in Red came over the town's speaker system, filled with the crackle of static. "It's quite a frightening turn of events, if I may say so myself. Some of you have already begun to unearth very interesting little tidbits...I wonder who will begin to discover the real answers first?"

"So far, all of you remain alive and in good health. The town is just now waking up and realizing you're here. The worst monsters were still all locked up and kept from roaming freely...but now, as the sun starts to set, they've been unleashed." The voice broke off into a delighted, amused laugh. "Be careful down there, won't you?"


Bulletins, Updates and Notes
  • The monsters are now on the map and beginning to patrol the city.
  • The cultists, insane villagers and zombies in various parts of the city have now emerged in full force and begun their own patrols and actions. Cultists to the Slender Man (otherwise known as "the Operator" can be found primarily in areas A, C and E. Insane villagers serving as hounds for the Dullahan (whom they alternatively call the Seeker and the Rider) can be found primarily in areas B, D and I. Zombies, of both the rabid and hyper-aggressive "sprinter" type and the slow, lurching but highly resilient "shambler" types can be found almost exclusively in areas F, G and H. The former two groups will occasionally wander and be found elsewhere, and both groups will actively fight any zombies they come across but mostly leave each other alone.
  • The NPCs will now also begin to move and wander/roam the map. They are not strictly bound by the same movement rules, so may appear in unexpected places or seem to move too quickly. Don't worry, that's intentional.
  • Weather: The rain has begun to slacken and let up slightly, going from a constant downpour to 'only' a lighter, misting drizzle. The oppressive heat has died down, and the chill of the rain and oncoming night has begun to fully set in.
  • If you sent in updates, moves or actions and I didn't respond in some way, then assume nothing of note happened. I will be trying to be more brief from here on out barring anything important.
  • IMPORTANT UPDATE: Starting from here, movement and actions will be changing to simply 'per day' rather than being limited by time, just to make things easier and smoother overall. Happy hunting.
 

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Having evaded most of the contestants at the start, not really seeing any interest in meeting and having a friendly conversation with potential targets from a conversational standpoint, Lan couldn't have been happier to hear the Man in Red's speech over the... Loudspeakers? magical orb?... Sky voice. Killing some seventeen people that might not have deserved it...

Well, even as Lan's eyes darted around the warehouse, a genuine smile flitted across his features. the idea they didn't have to kill everyone, the idea they could work together sounded fantastic.

The hope did, however, leave with all the speed of a bullet train as Caustic turned his back and left without another word, and last year's champion left without much of any words whatsoever, after taking a crowbar.

"...-Together, we can... win." Lan mouthed, raising a hand to the two disappearing subjects.

Lan had actually watched DA 2021 on TV... he... really thought Mirage was supposed to be a lot friendlier. whatever had turned him green must have really changed him.

"...I really hope the masks are standard issue." Lan muttered under his breath, checking his backpack for supplies almost immediately. MRE's, water, compass, island map...

And something else...

Cold steel, a well-made point and a handle his hands were all too familiar with. He grasped the weapon, and his shoulders instantly slacked, his breathing evening out from it's previous, ragged pace as he felt at peace.

He'd already resigned himself to the loss of his stand, Invisible man, but he hadn't started with him. Lan had learned how to take lives from a mundane perspective first, and a short blade by his side was something he could trust.

"Okay..." Lan whispered to himself. "I can do this..."

That statement wasn't entirely true though, necessarily.
survive.

In a situation like this, deprived of his stand and left stuck in a mystery they needed to solve...

Lan took a breath as he walked forward, giving a nervous smile. When it came to social interaction, he was not the easiest to do, but as Sari caught Shallan, he gave a short, awkward wave.

"Well, I think we weren't introduced during the preshow. I didn't really understand that we could get a team victory this year, you know?" Lan suddenly offered to them. "I'm not really a good talker, so I apologize if this seems awkward - especially after you nearly fell through the floor of this deathtrap - and that's not your fault, I didn't mean to imply that, It's totally just a warehouse without proper maintenance - assuming this is even a real... ohhh, boy I'm rambling, aren't I?" Lan would stutter out, turning a little red, before taking a deep breath before clearing his eyes and giving them a straighter smile.

"My name is Lan. Lan Cameo. I'd, uhhh, really like to work with the two of you, if you'd have me. I didn't really join by choice this year... and if possible, I'd like to see this game end with as few deaths as we can possibly leave it with."
 

The Man in Red

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Klarion & Sand Hawk​
With its angry spiritual owner seemingly vanquished, the lodge was a far more welcoming place, all things told. It was rustically furnished and amply supplied with all manner of basic tools and necessities, and the old hunter had been very adept at his craft from the vast profusion of trophies and frozen game the two discovered about the place.

Passing by a mirror, Klarion paused and reflexively fidgeted with the protective charm he had hung around his neck. It felt uncomfortably heavy, and there was some oppressive feeling of something watching him, but it gave him an overall sense of security from other dangers at the very least.

The witch boy utterly failed to notice the looming silhouette lurking behind him in his reflection, however. A suited and hooded humanoid figure, bearing a black mask over their face with cartoonish caricature white dots where its eyes should be. Nothing stood there actually behind him, but it followed his every move in the reflection. It even seemed to deposit something onto a reflected table, which went clattering to the floor in the real world in front of Klarion, startling the little chaos fiend, but when it turned out to only be a compass he snorted in disinterest.

....at least until he noticed the way said compass acted. He was pretty sure these things were supposed to point a specific direction. And that they were only supposed to have one needle. Why did this one have three? And why were they all spinning so wildly out of control?

Sand Hawk, meanwhile, had been busy rummaging around through everything he could get his hands on. Enough digging eventually let him turn up several more rounds of ammunition for his 'trusty' firearm, as well as a hand-drawn map of the immediate area. In a strong, steady handwriting several places had been marked out. Most of them were crossed off, save for one last place: a cave, quite nearby to the old lodge.
 

Lilith

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50… 50… What could it mean? The prison was important, that much she knew. Whether she'd find anything useful remained a mystery.

Whatever creature caused this helicopter crash was long gone, as well as any signs of life. Lilith decided to enjoy the supposed quiet for now. The corpses weren't bad company.

Admiring the carnage, the feral woman realized her gnawing hunger. It wasn’t her preference, but… it'd have to do for now. She'd little luck finding alternative edible food sources.

The enormous knife made short work of dicing the bodies into palatable pieces. She chewed on a severed arm, sampling at first.

Hmhm… Tastes fresh enough.

Meat and tendons squished between her teeth as she greedily devoured the morsel. Lilith shredded two limbs clean before having her fill. Maybe I can save some for the road.

Spitroasting a thigh chunk with a stick, she cooked the fleshy marshmallow over the blazing wreckage. After the outside seemed properly charred, she wrapped the improvised meal in clothing scraps taken from the bodies.

Drenched, dreary and disheveled, but not starving.

—​

Lilith just couldn't help attracting attention.

She fumbled with the zipper of her duffel bag as she barreled out of the doctor's office, compensated by a wealth of pills and angered zombies.

Rotted hands swung and grasped towards the sound of splashing boots. Lilith weaved past the horde to the nearest exit, busting down the doors and…

Surrounded.

The only way out was forward. Without a moment to even assess the situation, Lilith charged into the blockade of undead, grinding her blade across the ground and knocking out a cluster of zombies like bowling pins.

The woman continued her escape, stabbing the ground and using her knife to vault through the air and on top of a roof.

Having bought herself some distance, the pill thief made off with her haul.
 

Mad Maggie

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Traveling long distances under cover of bad weather was not something I'd specifically encountered in the Apex Games before. The Syndicate always made sure that the arenas were free of obscuring precipitation, such as snow or rain. Couldn't let the weather ruin the promotional photography. Still, the thin plastic poncho provided enough cover to keep my clothes from becoming fully soaked, if not slightly damp. The chill and howl of wind wasn't helping though, and the ambient humidity had made it that much harder to breath. I had to resort to taking my respirator off to cough and spit into a nearby bush.

The spasms wracked my chest, making my lungs seize as I hacked and coughed. Having just crested the peak of the mountain in between the docks I'd come from. I could see down the slope of the mountain path towards the eastern city. I paused to reaffix my gas mask, then continued down the sloping path. Scree kicked out from under my boots, mud squelching and providing slippery, sucking support to my downward journey. As I drew closer back to "civilization", chest aching, I heard soft sussuring sounds beginning to surround me. The creatures of the forest must be active at night...but then I realized that any horror the Carnivale would have unleashed would also have most likely decimated the animals. I paused again, just as the thunder clapped above me...and lightning illuminated ten silhouettes directly ahead of and around me.

"Hrrruuuuhhhnnnn......" A low moan came from the throat of one, and as I tried to weave in between the multiple trees and bodies I felt cold, jagged nails digging into my shoulder and roughly pulling at me. "Get off!" I grunt, turning to elbow the person in the face. My swipe takes their jaw off, and I see grievous and fatal wounds already marking gray, pallid flesh. "Zombies. Again. Interesting."

The lightning club would be useless against dead flesh, even if they were rain soaked. I began a tense and tenuous dance down the mountain as I moved from tree to tree, the moans growing louder. The forest seemed to be filled with corpses, shuffling through the trees. Any time lost by having to shake one off or stop to fight one of the things would mean I would rapidly be swarmed. These were not the light, desiccated bodies of the mad necromancer of Kraw, however; these were charnel. Wet, heavy, half-rotted, and odorous. The strength in dead muscles near enough to yank me bodily to the ground if I were of a slighter build. The next fifteen minutes was a chess game of thrown rocks, hurried slides down aslope, or fitful blows aimed at a zombie that lunged tooclose.

Finally, I broke through the treeline to see squat concrete buildings rising from the woods. My deliverance from the small train of undead I was leading behind me like the Pied Piper. Running straight at the wall of one such structure, I leap from the ground and kick at the wall, finding a handhold and shimmying up the side of the building. Pulling myself over the edge of the roof, I take a moment to catch my breath and peer down at the denied corpses. "Not last time, and not ever." I spat at them, looking towards the maze of buildings ahead of my as I kept going into the city via the rooftops.
 

Aquarius

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After a short excursion away from his initial group, Aquarius decided to station himself once more. Cover some ground but not too much. He thought a moment that perhaps he was being too prudent. That he should make some grandiose display to inform the others that he was indeed a force to be reckoned with. Yet, he knew what would keep him alive. Action without too much grandeur and movement with caution. Moving beyond this initial point without knowing what was to come may lead him to certain death. Dr. Caustic was likely not far from him and he was under the assumption that the man would be making an attempt to locate the bodyguard. With this in mind, Aquarius took a seat and looked at his recovered objects.

An axe, a taser, and a baton. All in rather awful condition. They wouldn't add much strength to his own. If he affixed them, however, there may be a chance he could have something useful in his inventory. Aquarius scavenged in an attempt to find something that could apply pressure to the handle of the taser from it's hilt, while having the electric end of it pointed towards the axe head. With whatever he could find, he tried to create an electric axe.


Once that task, successful or not, was completed, he would find a quiet spot to read once more. While the moans of the dead had not reached his mechanical ears yet he thought it safe to try and decipher it once more. What had Adam said? Page 10 before 7. 10 was his only starting point. May as well begin there.
 

Klarion

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Klarion examined the compass resting in the palm of his hand with a raised eyebrow, watching as the little needle-points danced and swiveled about, turning seemingly at random. It was clear enough to the witch boy that this wasn’t an ordinary compass. No, no— this object was practically screaming magic at him, and when a strange magical object is trying to tell you something, you had better listen.

His claw-tipped fingers closed around the compass, possessive, as he clutched it to his chest. Mine.

Investigating the rest of this part of the hunter’s lodge yielded nothing more of interest to him. A dusty old mirror, a few trophies from various big game, but no more mystical treasures like the compass… what a bummer. Finished with his search, Klarion stood with one hand propped on his hip, idly fiddling with the oddly-shaped pendant over his heart.

The compass, the necklace, and this strange cabin… the mystery of it all raised the fine hairs at the back of his neck and sent delicious tingles down his spine. Ooh! It was all so… so exciting. It left him antsy, eager to find his companion and discuss their next move.

“Hey, Desert Eagle,” he whisper-shouted, peering about with literally no clue of where the dusty rogue has vanished off to. “Have you found anything?”

There was a muffled thump from somewhere out in the hallway. A beat later, Sand Hawk appeared in the doorway, a few tiny metal objects rattling around in his grip. “Ah, yes! You will be happy to know that I have uncovered several bullets more, and this map!”

He revealed said map from beneath the folds of his cloak with a flourish, proudly showing off his find.

“A map?!” Klarion demanded, squinting at the unremarkable scrap of paper from afar. The various markings on it were hard to distinguish in the half-dark of the rustic cabin, but there seemed to be some words and stuff written on it, too, so that was enough to pique his interest. “I wanna see!”

“And you shall, you shall! We can even look while we eat,” said the sandy old rascal, unslinging his duffel bag from his shoulder. “Here, let’s sit in the light of your lantern…”

Several moments later found the pair huddled beside Klarion’s lantern, scrutinizing the hand drawn map. The witch kid sat cross-legged on the old floorboards, mildly irritable about the splinters digging into his behind, while Sand Hawk pored over the map in the dim, flickering glow of the lantern, earnestly pointing out various things for his partner’s benefit.

“Look here, my boy— this trapper’s map says that a cave is nearby,” the rogue gushed through a mouthful of crackers, spewing crumbs as he jabbed at a mark on the page. “I’ll wager that’s as good a place to investigate next as any!”

Humming in interest, Klarion pondered this in silence for a moment, intent on chewing through his food before speaking. He was a bit more picky about the MRE fare, nibbling on some crackers slathered in the blandest peanut butter he’d ever eaten. To tell the truth, the stuff left his tongue tasting like a dusty desert and twice as dry. No sugary sweetness at all. Bleh!

Finally, the witch boy swallowed thickly, nodding in agreement with his companion’s assessment.

“I want to leave here as soon as possible!” He cast a narrow look at where the trapper’s body had fallen, wrinkling his nose at the pile of old tinder and rags. “If I know anything about restless spirits, it’s that they’re, well… take a wild guess.”

“You think our angry friend was a ghost of some sort?” Sand Hawk prodded, interested.

Klarion shrugged, seeming unbothered once more.

“Or some wackadoodle tree spirit, or a very cranky old druid… I don’t know for certain, but I’m not eager for a second round. That was exhausting,” he whined, slumping dramatically where he sat. “Using magic in this place really takes it out of you!”

Sand Hawk considered this, rubbing at his chin while evidently deep in thought. Suddenly, he burst to his feet, moving over to peer out through one of the cabin’s windows as Klarion merely looked on, a little bemused. There wasn’t anything out there, after all— just a bunch of corpses and crummy animal bones.

“… the host of this Death Game said that we’re being hunted now,” Sandy Bird Man said at last, turning back around to face the witch kid. “Perhaps a cave will be a decent place to hunker down for the rest of the night?”

Eyes flashing like a cat’s in the dark, Klarion snatched up his lantern and gave a wide, fanged grin. “Ready when you are.”
 

Shallan Davar

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“As few deaths as we can leave it with.”

Sure.
That was all well and good to say. But Shallan had a firm belief that more than a few of the seventeen contestants wouldn’t make it off this island alive. You didn’t go through this much trouble to kidnap people without having something equivalently nasty to put them through, it just stood to reason. The fact that they were somehow allowed to work together wasn’t exactly something to be excited about.

The boy didn’t seem all that threatening at least, tripping over his words with the nervousness of a startled cremling. Truth be told, neither she nor Sari had a good reason to turn down potential assistance either. Strength in numbers or something to that effect. So it was that the three of them had set out into the rain together. That had been hours ago, but the precipitation was quite insistent on its participation and had yet to abate.

The weather now was what Shallan would emphatically describe as ‘Storming miserable.’ She hunched forwards in the rain, shielding herself as much as possible with the flimsy parka that had come in her bag of supplies. Even so her safe hand pouch and the bottom of her havah were absorbing water quite readily, as though to make up for the dryness of her previous desert sojourn. It couldn’t be helped, staying in the warehouse was only asking for trouble, and their destination had been out in the storm.

“It’s always so much more romantic in concept, don’t you think?” She spoke aloud as the three of them trudged through the rain-splashed streets.

“Er.. what is?” Lan asked with a frown.

“Being rained on. People act like it’s somehow more emotional to say things in the rain. If a boy were to confess something important to me right now I think I would just be distracted by how awful it’d be to die of a cold just afterwards!”

Sari gave a chuckle.

“Well, you’d at least have picked a convenient spot for it.” he said, nodding to the row of metal fencing up ahead. The gates of the cemetery were open, some might even say beckoning, just a few feet from where they stood.

“I am nothing if not conscientious!” Shallan nodded, though the jovial tone withered into quietness as her eyes remained locked on the hinged black metal before them.

Shallan wasn’t overly familiar with graveyards. Generally, a lighteyes family like hers would pay to soulcast the bodies of their deceased to marble or some other precious stone directly, either as a statue of memorial, or to rest in a mausoleum. It was usually the darkeyes who would lay their dead to rest in the ground directly. It seemed a good enough solution in theory, but as she stood at the rusted metal gates on the outskirts of town, Shallan didn’t want to go in. There was something…. Wrong about the idea in her brain. A subconscious feeling that defied forming into a cohesive explanation.

“Everything alright there?” Sari asked with an unperturbed air, “You’re a pale one to begin with, get much whiter and I’ll start to worry you’re turning into a spirit!”

“Just don’t try to drink me…” She mumbled in a barely coherent voice.

She couldn’t go in. Shallan was too scared to cross those gates. She would wait here in the rain, for whatever monster was hunting them. It was somehow the preferable option than following their only hint of a means to survive. She wasn’t even sure what she was afraid of, really, but Shallan wouldn’t do it. She refused.

Radiant would though. She was a knight, a shining warrior, not someone who was collapsing into a frightened heap before anything had even happened. She wasn’t afraid of that place. She was part of a war, there were going to be dead bodies, more horrible sights by far. Somewhere inside, Radiant knew that wasn’t what Shallan was afraid of. That poor girl had seen bodies before. She pushed aside that thought and turned to face her two blue-haired companions.

“I shall be fine in a moment. This storm is not good for idleness, come.” Radiant moved past them with as long a stride as the rain-soaked havah dress would permit.

It was unfair that The Man in Red had limited her Lightweaving, Radiant would have to remain looking like Shallan for now. She held up the crucifix key with a skeptical eye, glancing about the monuments for any sign of a lock. She noted that Sari and Lan had followed her in, but Sari was watching her instead of looking about, and his expression was less pleasantly smiling than before.

“Is everything alright?” he asked again with a bit more emphasis. Lan was also frowning at her, likely they were concerned about her abrupt change of tones. Storms, they were probably worried she was possessed now or something.

“Shallan will be fine.” Radiant nodded, turning to address the pair, her hands clasped together patiently in front of her as she explained, “I am Radiant for the moment, but rest assured that nothing unusual has occurred. Shallan simply needs some time to… process things. We should continue our search before it becomes too dark to see.”

Sari gave a less than satisfied grunt, nodding. “Alright. You kids, take a look to that side, I’ll check this area over here. Keep your wits about you and a sharp eye out for trouble. If it's bad enough, shout.”

They nodded and split up. The graves littered the area with a logic that escaped Radiant, but she checked each one dutifully for any glyph or symbol that could link it to the key in her hand. Lan followed closely, walking with a surprisingly deft footing for his manner.
“So Shal- er, I mean, Radiant? I guess?” He stumbled over his words still at least.

“Yes, Lan?”

“Is there a reason we aren’t checking the Church building itself, first?” She gave him a glance but did not immediately respond. Lan coughed nervously.

“See, because… well… it’s gotta be for a lock in a door or a trunk or something, right? I mean, wouldn’t it make more sense to… It makes more sense to me, at least. If its something in there, maybe?”

“Perhaps.” Radiant responded simply, her attention now fixated on an open grave maybe ten feet behind them. There was something about it, drawing her eye. Her nonanswer certainly didn't do anything for Lan's confidence.

“Well, I just mean, it doesn’t seem smart to poke around out here too much because-er… where are you going?”

Radiant had trudged back towards the open grave. A rectangular hole, six feet deep, muddy mounds of dirt sitting to its side. Something about it was bothering her. She frowned at the gravemarker. Why would such a recently dug grave have a marker this covered in ivy? Radiant walked closer to it, her gaze peering briefly down into the muddy puddle the storm had created at the bottom of the empty grave. She crouched down in front of the gravestone, reaching out with her freehand to brush aside some of the vegetation, then froze.

LIN
DAV-


Father.

Shallan crouched, unable to move her hand away from the gravestone. Her breath quickened, blood pounding in her ears. Slowly, her eyes drifted down, dreading what she would see in the bottom of that grave. He was there now. Half submerged in muddy water, but the red hair of the Davar family was still visible. He still had her necklace twisted around his throat. How?

Shallan trembled, begging Radiant to come back, but she wouldn’t listen. Either she was too startled by the discovery, or she was punishing Shallan for changing without agreeing first. Shallan couldn’t deal with this. How was Father here? It didn’t make sense! The hole had been empty! But he was there. His lifeless eyes staring up accusingly at her from the bottom of the grave. It was her. She had done it.

She had done it.




“-are you even looking at?” Lan’s irritated and nervous voice broke through her senses. Veil slowly glanced to the side, seeing Lan crouched beside her staring at the gravestone. She didn’t dare look down into that grave again.

“Linda and David?” The small blue-haired boy frowned as he read, “What’s so special about that?”

“Nothing.” Veil mumbled, getting to her feet slowly, “Just got distracted. We should try the Church building, you think?”
 

The Man in Red

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Karl Jak & Nezuko Kamado​
It was hard to tell, exactly, just how many of them there were in the group that her 'new friend' was dragging her along with. The cultist boy had continued to prattle on about this and that, anything and everything, making inane promises and telling Nezuko aaaaall about where they were going and what was going to happen.

Most of it went over her head, as she stubbornly tried to dig in her heels and get free of the heavy metal band around her neck. It was a losing effort, especially with the looming threat of the shotgun always just a breath away, looming uncomfortably close.

The boy had already fired it at least twice, just to show that he could, and that it was very dangerous. And also ostensibly to frighten off something lurking out in the woods.

The merry gaggle of demon-obsessed dorks were entirely, completely unaware that something much, much worse lurked in the woods all too nearby.

ka-thwoomp

The light, pressurized thudding noise was the only warning they got before something positively exploded, sending a shower of mud and splinters of wood into the air, along with a terrified scream and spatter of blood as three of the cultists immediately went flying and sank into crumpled heaps.

"What? What?!"

Everything was chaos and confusion, and Geoffery let the shotgun sag in his hand in bewilderment, looking around and just blinking stupidly. He was still just a child, after all, and easily rattled by the unexpected like this.

The momentary hesitation was all Nezuko needed. Heavy chain and collar or not, she took her chance, and pounced on the startled lad! He went down like a crumbling tower of blocks, with a startled yelp, and the firearm was knocked from his hands by the feral demon girl. The boy quickly proved he was, in fact, much stronger than he looked; the kind of stringy, wiry and frantic strength of someone with absolutely no outlet for their energy and no idea how gauge their own strength yet.

But he was also the one pinned nearly flat to the ground with an angry demon atop him, punching and clawing and hissing through the bamboo gag in her mouth, making the cultist boy flail and squirm helplessly, trying to simultaneously dislodge her, ward off the blows, plead for his new friend to knock it off, and call for his parents.

His parents, though, had their own problems. In the form of a disgruntled old soldier, grimacing as he applied boot to teeth and sent one of the startled fools spinning ass over teakettle to come down with a heavy crunch neck-first on the ground. "Buncha freaks," he grumbled, whirling around and giving another one an up-close-and-personal look at his weapon via applying the heavy metal directly to the face. "What kind of cult wanders around the woods in the middle of the night, while it's raining, and doesn't even have weapons?" His scathing disapproval hit almost as hard as the elbow strike he almost casually planted in the chest of a scrambling cultist behind him.

The struggle with Nezuko and Geoffery quickly pitched another way, as the demon girl flinched from a crash of thunder and the boy finally threw her off. Wheezing and gasping, he scrambled in the mud and leaves for the fallen shotgun, scrabbling toward it on all fours and groping for the handle...just in time to feel a rough hand seize him by the back of his coat and yank him off the ground, tossing him away as casually as a misplaced chunk of garbage. The shotgun was quickly snatched up by the sudden interloper, and as the boy rolled over to look up at who it was, his eyes were wide and confused.

Karl Jak stood there, grenade launcher hoisted up over one shoulder and the other holding the boomstick danger end-first toward Geoffery. He was a little battered and bruised, sporting a split lip and a new ragged tear in his jacket, but otherwise seemed remarkably unharmed.

"M-Mom? Dad?" the boy squeaked, looking around frantically. But every other cultist in the area had either already fallen, dead or groaning in pain on the ground, or run for the hills once things went south. They were crazy and delusional, but not suicidal; none of them were really fighters, and this was a fight. Slowly he turned to look over toward Nezuko, then back at Karl. "You're a jerk," he pouted.

"And you're out of luck."

BLAM

The old soldier slowly turned his head to look at Nezuko, shotgun still leveled at her former captor's remains. "....one of the other players in this game, huh," he muttered. Then just sighed, shaking his head exasperatedly. "What is it with kids and life or death games?" He spun the boomstick about and tossed it handle first toward the demon girl.

Nezuko and Karl Jak both suffer some minor beating and bruising from their round of cultist disposal simulator 2022 (Story Injury).
 

Nico Cinder

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Nico Cinder was not the sort to walk, if other options were readily available. They were not. Nico walked, and so did his new companion, who trailed close behind him. Before they exited the school grounds, he made it a point to Amalia that they should travel in silence. It wasn't hard. The mist and the fog and the sheer gloom that hung about brought it's own kind of special silence. Were they anywhere other than about to die a horrible death, it might have been peaceful. Instead, Nico went back and forth from pavement to grass as they went, trying to decide which soggy foot slap would draw less attention from spooky monsters. After voting in favor of grass, he tilted his head back to make sure Amalia was still behind him, since he couldn't just do the usual method of checking on the homies by screeching at them incoherently.

Sure enough, she kept in step with him, her edges blurring against the fog. If he didn't know better, Nico would've thought she was wearing it like a winter coat, hood up. He felt it hug on him too, his hair heavy on his neck with what could only be described as wet. She must've noticed his movement, as she met his stare with her own for a moment before going back to darting her elfish eyes around, scanning for unseen threats. That was enough for both of them to confirm the other's existence. After an indeterminable amount of walking, the silhouette of a looming home peered through the veil. Just the sight of it stopped Nico in his tracks, Amalia squelching to a stop one step after him. She shrugged. He shrugged back. Out in the open like this felt like a bad idea, but so did going in the probably haunted house. Nico pointed in an arbitrary direction away from the structure and made a pinching motion with his finger and thumb. Just a little bit. She nodded, but couldn't hide the hesitation. Being outside was quite literally weighing on the both of them.

So they braved the silence again and kept walking away from, for all they knew, the only shelter for the next couple of miles. Nico decided he'd count to 88 and if they didn't find something a little cozier, they'd just do a 180 and walk directly back in a totally straight path to the first house. Because that's how being lost worked. Luckily for him, these two were not the normal kind of lost. The house came back, right around 74. It faded into view just like it did the first time. Nico sneered at it - he was pretty sure that wasn't math. Amalia gave the house a good look and Nico another one. He jerked a thumb back in the direction that they had theoretically came from, and turned heel. The girl exhaled a shaky breath and followed him.

The house came back. As it materialized right in front of them just as before, Nico threw up his hands, accidentally startling his friend with the sudden motion. That definitely wasn't math. Begrudgingly, he gestures at the house to Amalia, who can only offer a weak smile in return. Guess this is happening, then. Hope this place has a fucking fireplace. Be a shame if it burned down in some freak accident as the result of not having a place for a goddamn fire.
 

The Man in Red

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Bloodhound​
The legend moved carefully out further into the docks. In the late hours of night, the fog near the water was incredibly dense and heavy. Among the fog, far out on the water, there was a ghostly silhouette racing across the space; they could've sworn it was a horse and rider, but after blinking it was gone, leaving only an unsettling feeling hanging in the air.

It drove them to take shelter beneath a nearby truck, diving and sliding into place just as...something slowly came by, talking and almost gliding through the fog. Like a hazy distortion, where the fog and rain simply refused to touch, and moving utterly soundlessly.

It stopped only a dozen feet away from the legend's hiding place, revealing the impossibly well-tailored hem of dress pants that were...in a sense, so black they were an utter absence of color. A dull, throbbing ache began to settle in behind Bloodhound's eyes, forcing a monumental effort to remain steady....and after another long, tense wait the eerie figure advanced forward, vanishing entirely by the time the legend had crawled back into the open, leaving behind no traces of its passing.


Doctor Caustic​
Event: Project Viridian


Aquarius​
With only a modicum of effort, the ancient machine managed to cobble together something useful from the half-broken implements he had found. With some slight measure of satisfaction, he held up the axe and with a light tug of the wires wrapped around its haft, the taser sparked to life, surrounding the axe head with a crackling field of electricity.

After settling in to an area out of immediate 'getting rained on' range, he slowly pulled out the book again and cracked it open, turning to page 10. As he pored over the pages, a deep pulsating feeling of dread began to well up in and around him. Something whispered and hissed at him, words unintelligible and crazy, as if half-heard from an adjacent room. But worryingly, it all began to make sense. The world flashed in and out of focus, the noise of clanking and screeching chains nearly deafened him, and stars danced before his vision.

But when eh came to, some time later, he found he had been busy, scribbling his own notes into the book's margins, a mostly understandable translation of the book's madness. He was making progress.

Aquarius suffers the equivalent of a Minor Injury from mental strain and hallucinations, but makes progress deciphering the book.
 
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