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krizaland · 5 years

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Defying Gravity Chapter 3

First chapter Previous

Thank you all so much for waiting! Here’s Chapter 3!! Enjoy!

Here’s the song I used btw

Meanwhile, Zim had just finished upgrading and cleaning his space suit. It didn’t look that much different outside of the Irken Invader insignia being removed as well as some extra black armor and a matching helmet.

“There! This should protect me! Now I am truly ready to infiltrate The Massive and RESCUE MY SWEET Y/N!” Zim cackled as he stepped into his elevator.

“Computer! Take me to the Voot Cruiser storage unit!” Zim commanded as he pointed to the ceiling.

“ALERT! THERE’S SOMEONE AT THE DOOR!” The computer bellowed.

“Let the robo-parents handle it! That’s what they’re for!” Zim barked.

The base rumbled and whirred as the robo-parents emerged from the floor.

The door burst open to reveal none other than Dib!

“Well, hello little weeesal….” The Robo-mom stuttered as her head sparked a bit.

“Step aside! I’ve got a Zim to stop!” Dib bellowed as he shoved the Robo-parents aside and forced his way in.

“Alright, Zim! I’m ready! Give me your worst!” Dib announced dramatically.

“Seriously?! The Dib-Stink?! Ugh!” Zim groaned as he climbed out of the elevator.

“That’s right, Zim! I’m not a chair anymore! Now I’m gonna stop…. whatever it is you’re trying to do!” Dib dramatically held up his alien hunting kit as he spoke.

“Oh save it, Dib-worm! I’m not going to destroy the Urth anymore!” Zim grumbled as he folded his arms.

“Oh yeah? Just you try to-Huh?” Dib’s eyes nearly burst out of his glasses as he nearly dropped his alien hunting kit.

“You heard me! I’m no longer loyal to the FILTHY IRKEN EMPIRE! I now serve Y/N” Zim explained.

“Wait? You’re really giving up? Just like that?” Dib spluttered.

“Feeble human! I am not giving up anything! I am simply abandoning the FILTHY EMPIRE the way they abandoned me.” Zim’s voice dripped with venom as a sinister smile spread across his face.

“Wait? Your planet abandoned you?” Dib raised a brow.

“Mmm hmm. Yep. Left me to rot.” Zim confirmed nonchalantly.

“Well, sorry I guess. But at least Urth is safe! I finally win!” Dib cheered as his eyes sparkled.

“Yes. Yes. That’s great. Now if you’ll excuse me, I must rescue Y/N from the so called ‘almighty’ Tallest before it’s too late!” Zim huffed as he put air quotes around ‘almighty’.

“WAIT?! Y/N HAS BEEN KIDNAPPED BY YOUR LEADERS?!” Dib yelped as he dropped his alien hunting kit.

“FOOL! Those WRETCHED MONSTERS are no longer my leaders! The only one I serve now is Y/N and they’re counting on me! So stop wasting my precious time!” Zim roared as he turned to leave.

“Wait! Zim! Let me help out!” Dib begged as he held out an arm.

“You? Help me? HA! Just because I’m no longer an Invader, doesn’t mean I need any help from an inferior HUMAN!” Zim spat as he turned to face Dib.

“But, Zim! You can’t go up against an entire Empire by yourself! You’re gonna get killed!” Dib grabbed Zim by the shoulders and shook him.

“UNHAND ME, STINK BEAST! Zim is not traveling alone! I will have GIR and Minimoose join me!” Zim snarled as he smacked Dib’s hands away.

“Zim! Please let me come with you! I love- I mean care about Y/N just as help-”

“NEVER! You don’t care about my Y/N! You just want to steal them for your selfish stink self!” Zim interjected as he snapped a finger in his face.

“Zim! Of course I care about Y/N! They’re my best friend! Or at least they were…Until you came along..But that’s not the point right now! The point is-”

“The point is, that YOU shall stay here! I have no use for your big smelly head!” Zim’s voice was a low growl as he spoke.

“Zim! I can be useful! Look at these!” Dib opened up his alien hunting kit and pulled out an assortment of weapons.

“Oooh! Neat!” Zim chirped as he reached for one of Dib’s weapons.

“Not so fast! You let me come along and I’ll let you use one of these bad boys. How does that sound?” Dib offered as he swatted Zim’s hand away.

“GRAH! Fine! I shall let you come along if, and only if you promise not to try to record anything you see!” Zim growled as he put his hands on his hips.

“I promise!” Dib chirped as he put a hand on his chest.

“Very well! I shall hold you to that promise…” Zim’s voice lowered as he clapped his hands.

SWIP!

Dib let out a yelp as several mechanical tentacles shot down from the ceiling and held up upside down

CLANG!

CRASH!

BANG!

PINK!

The tentacles shook away all of Dib’s recording devices.

“There. Now I think we understand each other.” Zim chuckled darkly as he clapped his hands once more.

SWIP!

PLOP!

The tentacles dropped Dib and retracted back into the ceiling.

“Guh….Was that really necessary?” Dib groaned as he peeled himself off the floor.

“Yes. Yes it was. Now! Onward to the Voot Cruiser! The faster we get to space, the faster we can rescue my Y/N!” Zim announced as he motioned for Dib to follow him.

“Right! For Y/N!” Dib cheered dramatically as he pointed to the ceiling.

“BE QUIET!”

Back on The Massive, you were placed on a large red pet bed in Red’s private chambers.

You found yourself growing sleepy as Red blathered on and on about how cool he was.

“I miss Zim…”

Soon your eyelids slowly shut as you let out a soft yawn.

You found yourself lying under a starry night sky. You gazed up in awe as the stars formed a constellation that resembled Zim’s face. Soon the constellation melted into a heart shape.

FWISH!

SMACK!

Suddenly, a star broke loose of the constellation and hit you square in the eyes.

“A falling star, fell from your heart and landed in my eyes.”

You screamed in agony as you frantically flailed about.

“I screamed aloud, as it tore through them, and now it’s left me blind.”

You couldn’t see anything! Not the stars, nor the moon, nor even your own hands in front of your face!

“The stars! The moon! They have all been blown out! You left me in the dark!” You sang as you grabbed the sides of your head.

“No dawn! No day! I’m always in this twilight! In the shadow of your heart!” You tried to cry but the star in your eyes blocked your tears.

Suddenly, you heard a strange, alien heartbeat echoing in the distance.

“And in the dark, I can hear your heartbeat. I tried to find the sound.” You sang as you followed the sound of the heartbeat.

As you stumbled around, the heartbeat grew more and more faint before slowly coming to a stop.

“But then it, stopped. And I was in the darkness!” You fell to your knees and hung your head low.

“So darkness, I became!” Soon your body melted into nothing more than a shadow with stars for eyes.

“The stars! The moon! They have all been blown out! You left me in the dark!” You wailed as you threw back your head.

“No dawn! No day! I’m always in this twilight! In the shadow of your heart!” You sang as your shadowy body was sucked up into the now empty sky.

You swam through the empty sky, desperately trying to find your way out of your prison of darkness.

THUD!

You fell back to the ground and slowly got up.

You let out a frustrated growl and grabbed onto the stars in your eyes. Your blood curdling scream echoed throughout the dark void as you ripped out the stars.

You panted as your vision and body slowly returned to normal. You then grabbed some paper and begun to sketch out a map.

“I took the stars from my eyes and then I made a map.” You sang as you aggressively placed the stars onto your map.

“I knew that somehow, I could find my way back.” You sighed as you shook your map a bit.

Suddenly, the alien heartbeat returned, this time mixed in with the sound of footsteps.

“Then I heard your heart beating, you were in the darkness too!”

“Y/N?”

You spun around and gasped!

“Zim!”

Without saying another word, Zim grabbed your face and pulled you into a passionate kiss

Tears of joy poured down your cheeks as you savored every second of it.

“So I stayed in the darkness with you….”

“Human?! Hello?! Human?! Can you hear me?!”

And just like that, Zim was blown away like dust in the wind.

Your eyes popped open as Red continued to gently tap the top of your head.

“Oh good! You’re still conscious. For a minute there I thought you were dead!” Red chuckled as he stopped poking you.

“What? No. I’m fine. I was just sleeping is all.” You yawned as you slowly sat up.

“Sleep? Oh yeah! Sleep! Of course! I totally knew you were asleep! I was just..messing with you!” Red laughed nervously as he rubbed the back of his head.

“It’s alright…I’m just… a little tired from my trip.” You lied as you slowly sat up.

“Oh. Well in that case, you should probably rest then. You stay here and I’ll come back in an hour, ok?” Red hummed as he slowly got up.

“Sounds good to me.” You mused as you stretched a bit.

“Here. Press this button if you need anything.” Red instructed as he handed you a small remote.

“Thank you, I’ll be sure to do so.” You gingerly took the remote from Red and lied back down.

“Erm..Sleep well I guess.” Red muttered as he kissed the top of your head and left.

PING!

The door locked behind Red as soon as he left.

You wiped away Red’s kiss and tried to go back to sleep.

#Invader Zim #Invader Zim x reader #Invader zim tallest #invader zim red #invader zim purple #Defying gravity invader zim

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awashsquid · 5 years

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This is my first Official Commission, woo hoo! (Link to commission me in my header, if you’re curious.) This was sponsored by @sittingoverheredreaming and based on the prompt “Michiru - A reason to smile.” It clocks in just under 2800 words. Like it? Please comment, reblog, and/or thank her for commissioning me!

“Michiru - Michi, it’s time to wake up.”

The words were tender, breath lightly caressing her face as soft lips ghosted at her cheek. She could feel the faintest breeze stirring her eyelashes, her eyelids flickering, trying to stay shut and ignore the waking world. She weakly fought to keep them closed, to keep staring into the blissful blackness that sleep had afforded her, but the voice was persistent.

“You gotta open your eyes, Michi. You have to wake up now.” The voice was a little more forceful now, nudging her in a firmer tone. There was the smallest hint of urgency below the words, the tiniest strain in their timbre as they drifted back to her ears, finally making their way into her brain.

All right, it’s time then, Michiru thought, her eyes flickering open and blinking a few times to focus. All she could see was sky - a beautiful, clear blue expanse, a few clouds dotting the otherwise unmarred canvas. Strange, she thought, her drowsy mind not yet caught up to the world around her. Where’s Haruka?

Haruka. At the name, the entire world came back to her suddenly, a gut punch that left her choking, every sense overwhelmed and screaming:

The blue sky was suddenly far too bright and it pinched her eyes shut, and there was salt leaking from them as she blinked out--

Ash was in her nose, in her throat, choking her with the scent and texture of burning, of dying, of--

Pain, the sharp breaths she was choking in were each a new wave of agony, crashing and breaking over her, and oh god why couldn’t she feel her feet, she needed to move before she lost too much--

Blood coated the inside of her mouth and she tasted metal and copper and saltwater all brewing in a cauldron of decay that oozed over her tastebuds, sticky and sickening and frothing, boiling slowly to a fever pitch and she wanted to start--

Screaming echoed through the streets, and the crackling of a fire burning hot and wild, and horns and sirens and the dull roar of the distant sea, the tinnitus that had haunted her ever since she picked up that stick, that one terrible decision that never made sense until she realized it must have been meant to bring her to--

Haruka. There was blonde hair in her vision suddenly, a halo of the sky’s bleu de france surrounding her, the stunning color made all the more beautiful for the image that had now been put in front of it--

But when she blinked, the colors ran and muddled like cheap watercolors, soaking and bleeding into one another until each shade was tinged with gray. The hair swam and writhed like a Starry Night comprised of wriggling worms, and suddenly the blonde was too golden, too long, streaked with red ribbons of blood and fabric. The eyes remained the only point of bright blue left on her canvas, and she focused on them even as black began to creep into the edges of her vision, even as the noises dulled to the whisper of the wind rustling through her hair.

“You’re gonna be okay, Michiru,” said two voices at once, one of them gentle and soothing, the other commanding that it be so, the low and high pitched notes weaving in and out, a discordant symphony reaching a blessed decrescendo. “Just stay awake.”

But her body seemed insistent on not allowing her to remain conscious for even a moment longer, her eyelids shutting swift and firm as vault doors, the air whooshing from her mouth as her lungs relaxed. And as she drifted away on the black tide of sleep, a familiar name served as a lullaby and a prayer and a promise all:

Haruka.

The next time that Michiru awoke there was no voice coaxing her to rise, no soft caress, no gentle breeze. There was, from the infinite blackness, just the evolutionary response to open the eyes, and the bleary blinking afterwards, squinting through the lids to dilute the white.

Slowly, lines came into focus. A grid - she was staring at ceiling tiles. They were large and plain white; the one directly above her had a scuff. Michiru looked down to be greeted with more white, her uniform collar replaced with one that was stiff foam, keeping her neck straightened. She could see past that the pale blue of a hospital gown, still more white at blankets on top, a pair of hands on the bed -

her hands, she realized, and twitched the fingers to confirm. The joints moved slow and creaky, aching as they flexed, the movement highlighting the muscles so close to the skin. It occurred to her that they were wrapped in bandages, and it was then that she noticed the rust staining the palms, the deep color sharply contrasting the sterile gauze, and she remembered.

There were too many of them, numbers higher than Mercury and Venus’s estimates, and they were fast and strong, and for the third time in her life it occurred to Michiru that this was not a battle they could win.

The monsters had stopped being cutesy a while ago as the enemy grew ever more frenetic, their newfound focus on quantity meaning that they were feral beasts now, incapable of speech, frothing and single-minded in their purpose to rip, to eat, to destroy. They barely even looked humanoid, the gray and black forms rushing forth, flesh that was barely made half-peeling off before they had taken any damage at all, their eyes wild and their fingers long and sharp.

At first the Senshi had tried to treat the monsters as they would have before, as though they were still making poor puns based on hackneyed themes, but it soon became clear that this new breed of creatures could not be distracted, could not be reasoned with - they were tanks where there had only ever been musket fire, and the devastation was intense.

Michiru was fighting back-to-back with Haruka in the battle pattern that Venus had been favoring lately. (She had tried to separate the two of them, but inevitably Michiru would make her way to Haruka’s side during the battle, regardless of orders, leaving an open hole in their defense that someone else would have to adjust for. So, in a rare display of admitting defeat, she had partnered the two of them in all of the recent skirmishes.) Together, the two of them were supposed to be able to hold a large chunk of the monsters at bay, keeping them away from the center, where Sailor Moon would be most protected. And with Venus, Mars, and Tuxedo Kamen encircling her, Venus dishing out shorter-ranged attacks while the other two kept the long-range targets at bay, she could focus best on trying to use the Crystal, rainbow light shooting outwards often, taking large chunks of the charging monsters with it. But they kept coming in droves, and the Senshi had all been pushed too close together, tightening ranks until they were nearly in danger of getting hit by each other’s attacks.

In a brief moment of reprieve Michiru chanced a look towards her right where Pluto was shooting out attack after attack, pummeling any monsters that got too close with the hefty rod of her Time Key, brown sludge dripping grotesquely from its end. The women locked eyes as Pluto recovered for another attack, and without words they exchanged the mutual sentiment that this was not going well.

Michiru turned away to unleash another sweeping attack, the monsters in front of her gasping and then compressing as they were drowned and crushed by the deep oceans, but when the light from her attack cleared there were never any less of them seething forward. Sweat dripped off of the tip of her nose, and only its innate magic kept her Mirror from slipping out of her damp gloves as she used its heavy frame to cave in the skull of a close enemy.

She could sense Haruka at her back, similarly growing fatigued, and she rotated left so that she could see her partner. Haruka was hacking at any who came too close, occasional blasts of yellow light emanating from the sword to cut through whatever line of monsters was in front of it. She had grown too crowded for her earth-based attacks, Michiru realized, and shifted to try and take some ease from her partner, never mind if that meant leaving her right side more exposed.

It helped Haruka, and after a minute she was able to bellow out a ground attack, the shock reverberations shattering all of their close-range enemies and giving Michiru a moment to smile at her partner.

“I thought you had more stamina than that,” she gasped out, a smile tugging slightly at her lips, and she felt them crack, the saltwater in her veins draining her of moisture as it mingled with her blood.

Haruka smirked back, but it was a shade of what it should have been, the Mona Lisa after centuries of grime had obscured the finer features. “I’m saving my stamina for you,” came the retort through a rasping voice, the sound of the words nearly lost in the ensuing chaos.

Michiru was about to respond when she saw Haruka’s eyes widen, for once able to sense what was about to happen as Michiru could not, before the ground gave way beneath her. Michiru was left standing at the edge of a crater some two meters deep and she watched as Haruka fell hard to her knees, a harsh cry escaping her at the impact. The dirt behind her grew form and moved forward, a monster bigger than the others had been emerging from the soil and wrapping its arms around Haruka’s neck, squeezing and smiling and staring -

Michiru jumped into the pit and felt her Mirror frame give way and morph into a dagger, and as she flew forwards she saw the monster squeeze tightly, saw Haruka’s eyes go wide and then shut, and then there was red in her vision and there was pain in her back, and she felt her dagger stab through flesh as her vision went dark -

- only to go white once more as her eyes flew open, and she gasped for air as her chest burned with an intensity second only to having her Heart Crystal forcibly ripped from its prison in her ribcage. There were people scrambling around her, machines screaming and beeping in harsh discordant tones, and she looked down to see herself exposed, the thin scar between her breasts now joined by a large rectangular burn to its right, and she smelled something she assumed must have been her own dead flesh -

- and then, all at once, everything around her seemed to go quiet, as if she were suddenly underwater, the concerns of the seagulls on the waves unimportant to a mermaid of the deep. The people around her were merely a school of fish passing by overhead, and it neither pleased nor troubled her as they dwindled down until she was left alone, only the gentle tide of the painkillers dripping through her veins accompanying her down, down…

“ - said she should wake up any minute -”

“Michiru, open your eyes, my love.”

“- history of cardiac trauma -”

“It’s time to wake up, Michi.”

“- not stable enough to transport -”

“Don’t go off in a world of your own, Michiru.”

“- extent of the damage until she wakes up -”

“Wake up.”

And she did, the room coming into focus much faster than it had before. Michiru’s mind was sluggish still, the neurons creaking until they fired feebly, working off the rust of disuse. There were two women standing at the foot of her bed, not looking at her as they argued back and forth hushed tones. Haruka was sitting on a stool behind them, looking tired but otherwise unhurt. When Michiru tried to speak, she realized that there was a mask over her mouth and nose. It was not the only new addition to her growing assortment of medical treatments, she realized, as she saw underneath the hospital’s paper gown the corner of a bandage covering the burned patch of flesh she had seen the last time she was conscious.

“She’s awake,” said the standing woman with the dark hair, interrupting her debater’s latest point, the latter stopping mid-sentence to turn towards Michiru.

“Finally,” the blonde snapped, rolling her eyes in a way that didn’t quite conceal the tears at their corners.

But Michiru had no eyes for anyone but Haruka, and her love’s eyes lit up as she beamed, an expression of relief crossing her handsome features. Michiru returned the grin weakly below the mask, not looking away even as the mask was gently removed from her face.

“Michiru, can you hear me?” the woman on her left asked, purple eyes wide and searching, and she nodded back weakly. She - Rei, her mind supplied helpfully - let out a relieved sigh.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” The blonde to her left - Minako - didn’t smile, just leaned in, eyes piercing, searching urgently for some answer that Michiru couldn’t fathom.

“Give her a break, she just woke up,” Rei hissed across the bed, but Minako’s gaze didn’t waver.

“Michiru, I need to know if you’re still in there. You gotta give me something.”

Michiru looked to Haruka and received an encouraging nod. She took a deep breath and weakly spoke. “The battle…” Minako nodded once, clearly waiting for more. “How did we win?”

Rei and Minako exchanged a look that Michiru couldn’t quite decipher, some strange mix of despair and confusion. Minako opened her mouth to speak, but again Rei cut her off. “We don’t need to tell her right now.”

“Yes, I do.” Minako’s eyes were brimming with tears once more as she answered the question, and Michiru’s heart sunk before the words even came out of her mouth. “We didn’t.

“We lost.”

Michiru blinked, confusion knitting her eyebrows together. “We...lost?” she repeated, a significantly more questioning intonation to the words. She looked to Haruka, who nodded sadly.

Rei glanced at where Haruka sat before turning her attention back to Michiru. “Basically, yes.”

“Basically.” Michiru repeated, her pain and the medicine dulling her responses to the most banal of parroting. She squeezed her eyes shut and then reopened them wide to try and force out the haziness of her thoughts, but all it served to do was make Haruka’s silhouette flicker in her vision.

“See Minako, this is why it really should have waited,” Rei stressed, but Minako didn’t acknowledge her, her intense gaze never moving from Michiru’s face.

“I’m going to ask you again, Michiru, and I need you to really answer me this time. What is the last thing that you remember? What is the last part of the battle that you saw?”

There were no more interjections from Rei, and all eyes were on Michiru as they clearly waited for her to answer. “There was - one of them -” and Michiru’s voice dropped low and broke as she tried to stifle the raw emotion that remembering brought with it “- on top of Haruka - Uranus - and I attacked it, and then -” She paused as the memory froze in her mind. She remembered the heft of the dagger in her hand and the wind under her as she leapt, and then she remembered darkness as her blade connected with soft tissue, and then no more until the white of the hospital around her.

“Then what?” Minako prodded. Michiru just shook her head, her weakened muscles only allowing it to rock back and forth across the pillow.

“Then - I’m here,” she answered. “It’s just - gone. Black.”

Minako nodded, seemingly accepting the answer. “Okay.” She turned and walked towards the door purposefully, not glancing to see if she was being followed.

Rei huffed and started to protest, but she instead turned to Michiru. “I - I’m going to get a doctor. Since you’re awake.” She smiled, but it was hollow as her eyes, too, filled with tears; she left the room briskly, and suddenly a room that had felt too crowded with life was now nearly sterile, almost achingly empty.

“Don’t worry, I’m not leaving,” Haruka said in response to the moment of sadness in Michiru’s eyes, smiling warmly as she rose to cross closer. She sat on the bed and gently stroked Michiru’s hair, pressing a tender kiss to her forehead. “I’m here.”

And the unanswered questions, the pain, the entire world fell away, and Michiru found that if everything else vanished in that instant, never to return, that Haruka alone would still be enough reason for her to smile.

#my writing #fanfiction #sailor moon #michiru kaioh #haruka tenoh #sailor neptune #sailor uranus #minako aino #rei hino #in passing anyway #sittingoverheredreaming #commissioned work

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sonicchaos-fanfic · 6 years

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|Sonic Chaos| Chapter Eight: Sonic And The Siren

( WARNING: There is some PG-13 material in this chapter; if you are not comfortable with minor suggestive themes, please keep in mind that this chapter contains them. Thank you and enjoy! The siren’s song is not my own. They are the lyrics to “Something Different” by The Band’s Visit. Check it out! )

~Chapter Eight~

“So...what happens now?” Amy turned to the rest of the gang, who were just as puzzled as her.

After passing the first Trial of Doom, Sticks had led them all to the next destination, what she called: The Cave Of Souls. However, once they arrived, they quickly discovered that the entrance to the massive cave was blocked off with what appeared to be a recent rockslide. Sticks turned to them and nervously chuckled.

“Well...this is a bit of a problem! Hehe.”

“Is there a way around it? Or over it?” Sonic asked.

“No, I don’t think so...” Amy concluded, crossing her arms and studying the area. The cave was inside of a gigantic rock that stretched for several miles wide and hundreds of feet tall. According to Sticks, this formation marked the beginning of a chain of large, jungle-infested canyons and valleys for the rest of the way until they reached Shadow Mountain. The best way to cross was to go through, sadly. Sticks went ahead and began to climb the fallen boulders. She searched around, hoping to sniff out some kind of opening. Lucky for them, she pulled free a couple of rocks and was able to dig a small hole for the three of them to slide through. Sonic and Amy carefully climbed up and followed her lead into the cave.

The sudden change in temperature sent chills down everybody’s spine. Inside was very dark and cold, and it smelled like seawater. There were multiple tunnels that went in random different directions; some were dead ends, while others stretched for miles. The walls and roofs were covered with thousands of glow worms that have inched their way inside. But, the most breathtaking feature was a glowing, turquoise stream that flowed down the center tunnel. The gang carefully climbed down the jagged, wet edges along the walls until they safely reached the floor. Sonic looked around, taken aback by the ethereal vibe inside. He whistled out of habit.

“Okay, now, before we go, there’s something that you all should know,” Sticks said, taking charge before either of them decided to run ahead.

“It might look all pretty and stuff, but this cave is really easy to get lost in. Also, there's a siren that lives in here! So we have to be really careful and try not to wake her up.” Sticks nervously looked around, as if just speaking too loud would attract monsters out of the shadows.

“A siren? What do you mean?” Amy asked.

Sticks squinted her eyes and analyzed her surroundings. She pulled Sonic and Amy to either side of her and leaned in close.

“She guards these caves. If you hear her singing, to have to cover your ears,” she whispered.

Sonic and Amy exchanged a confused look.

“If you don’t, she’ll catch you and she will eat your heart.” There was an unidentified thump that echoed through the tunnels, which made Sticks immediately push Sonic and Amy away and reach into her satchel, yanking out her boomerang and holding it up.

“What was that?!” she said.

Sticks explained that they had to be sure to stick together; after all, the winding tunnels in the caves can get extremely disorienting very quickly. And with that, the three of them ventured forward into what Sticks determined was the best path to take. They roamed blindly through the dim tunnel, gazing in awe at the alien-like energy that seemed to pulsate through the walls. Without being conscious of it, none of them made a sound; it was as if the cave itself caused a deep instinct to remain as quiet and careful as possible. In fact, other than the occasional drip from the condensation-covered ceilings, or the soft trickle of tiny streams echoing through the caves, everything was piercing, utterly quiet.

After time felt like it had passed for ages, Sonic found himself lost in wonder. His eyes remained glued to the glowworms out of pure curiosity. He found himself thinking about the starlit sky he and Amy watched the very first night they spent in the jungle. A smile began to form on his lips.

“ Ooohh...

Is this a hymn?

Is this a love song?

Something ancient by a poet...

maybe Hafiz, maybe Rumi...?”

A voice. A delicate, silky voice echoed around him. Sonic twitched his ears; having been adjusted to the deafening silence, the sudden tune had startled him a bit. He glanced around for a moment in confusion, then shook it off.

“Is he singing about two hearts...

Searching in the darkness...?

Or is he singing about fishing...?”

Sonic raised a brow, turning completely around.

“Hey, which one of you is--huh?”

He was shocked to see that Sticks and Amy were nowhere to be seen. He glanced all around him, completely dumbfounded. He was alone. But, how? Amy and Sticks were right beside him! They hadn’t made any drastic turns nor met any splitting paths...right? For some unfathomable reason, Sonic’s memory of the past couple of minutes escaped him. It was as if a cloud of fog entered his head and suffocated his brain.

“The tune seems sad, but are the words sad?

What’s he saying? Is he praying? And why does it get to me?

Is he lonely, maybe reaching out for the someone?

....Look at me, maybe I’m the one who’s fishing...”

The voice danced through the air and filled his ears. It was high pitched, yet dark and mysterious. It was a voice of an angelic presence that no longer aligned herself with the heavens. Sonic turned to look in the direction of the voice. He started to follow it like a moth drawn to a light. It was pulling him closer, binding him into a trance-like state that he couldn’t escape from. He emerged from the tunnel into an open pocket.

“Everyday you stare from the west to the south...

You can see for miles, but things never change...

Then honey in your ears, spice in your mouth...”

In this pocket, he observed three separate things at once. Firstly, the most gigantic colony of glowworms he had ever set eyes on gathered themselves on the ceiling. Second, a large, turquoise, glowing pool with a giant chair-shaped rock jutting out the center, third, a figure, a beautiful female shaped figure, was sitting on top of the rock and basking in the slivers of sunlight that seeped through cracks in the ceiling. She paused a moment, then slowly turned to him.

“Nothing’s as surprising as the taste of something strange...”

Her eyes were the same turquoise color and contained the same radiating luminescence of the glowworms. Her fur was deep purple, and once she turned it became very apparent that she was a sea lion. She wore bracelets and anklets made of kelp, a pearl hairclip that pulled her bangs out of her eyes, and a loosely tied skirt made of palm leaves. Sonic’s cheeks flushed and he averted his eyes; she wasn’t wearing much at all.

She giggled, rolling over on her stomach and resting her chin on her knuckles. She gazed at him in a playful manner, like how a young child would stare at an ant pile before kicking it over.

“Oh, did you hear me singing?” her voice was soft, but it resonated in Sonic’s head and drowned out his thoughts. He scrunched his face, unable to understand why he suddenly felt out of control of his own body. Even as he blinked, it somehow felt unnatural. The girl kept staring at him with a warm smile; which contrasted starkly against her icy eyes. Her presence was accompanied by a strange invisible aura that compelled Sonic to gawk at her.

“What brings you here? It’s not nice to trespass, you know,” the girl rolled over again and gracefully slipped into the pool. She lowered herself until only her head was above the water. She traveled a couple feet, keeping her eyes locked onto his.

“Do you like to swim?”

After an awkward pause, Sonic spoke with a thin voice.

“N-no...” He furrowed his brows; even speaking felt strange all of sudden.

“That’s alright,”

She made her way across the pool and began to step out. The water dripping from her body only seemed to accentuate her curves. Sonic pressed his lips into a thin line, feeling his heart beating faster. Something was very wrong. This girl was very wrong. An intoxicating, supernatural energy she possessed only got stronger the closer she got to him. The way she moved and spoke was like a higher being unnatural to the mortal world. Sonic started to back away, stammering as he went.

“Don’t be afraid. I’m not going to hurt you,” she said.

“I--”

“Are you lost? Are you alone?”

“Um-”

“Well, you can stay here with me. I’ll take care of you however you’d like.”

“That’s not really necessary--”

Sonic felt a hard thump of something wet and jagged against his back. The girl placed her arms around either side of him, trapping him between her and the walls of the cave. Sonic caught the scent of sweet, tropical fruit as she leaned in close. Her voice lowered to barely above a whisper. It danced around his ears again.

“You’re so handsome. Why haven’t I seen you before? Wait, don’t tell me. You’re not from around here, are you? Ahaha, I love new visitors. They’re always so mysterious,” she used one of her hands to trace her delicate fingers across his chest. “You have such a strong heart in there, I can hear it beating...” she licked her lips.

“That’s...very nice of you, heh. But, I’m feeling a little bit uncomfortable, so...” Sonic said, trying to inch his way out of her arms. She reached and placed her free hand against his cheek. Her thumb traced his lips.

“Awe, you’re leaving so soon? Without a kiss goodbye?”

Sonic gulped. The girl giggled, then started to hum a pretty tune while she ran her hands through his quills. Like magic, her tune entrapped Sonic into another trance. She gazed hungrily at him, smiling with delight at her prey. Sonic was able to resist for a brief moment, but her powers were causing him to falter.

“You’re so reluctant! You must be new to this sort of thing.” the girl laughed.

“Yeah, I guess...” Sonic muttered, not really listening to what she was saying and paying more attention to the burning in his cheeks. The corners of his lips curled into a crooked smile.

“I find that really surprising.” she leaned close enough that their noses were touching. Her hands found themselves around his neck.

“Hey, it’s really hot in here...” Sonic said nervously. The girl put a finger over his lips.

“Shhh, I’ll try to make this as painless as possible.”

“SOONIC!!!!!”

Before the siren could close the gap with a deadly kiss, another female’s voice rang through the tunnels. The siren turned to look behind her, seeing a pink hedgehog appear from one of the openings to her lair; a small badger appeared as well. Sonic saw the pink hedgehog too, and as if a switch clicked in his head, he snapped out of his trance. He blinked wildly.

“Wha..? What’s going on?” he asked. Then he noticed the random half-naked woman that was pinning him against the wall. His eyes grew wide and his face turned crimson.

“AH! What the heck?!” He cried, feeling beads of sweat starting to form on his forehead now.

“Sonic! Sonic?” Amy called out into the room; she looked around for a moment, then discovered Sonic in the arms of the mysterious girl on the other side of the room. Their faces inches apart.

Her heart felt a jolt of pain like she was struck by a spear. For a second, Amy felt numb. Millions of thoughts buzzed in her brain at once; Sonic was with another girl? Who even was she? Where did she come from? Amy took a step back, not sure of what to do with herself. By that time, Sticks has also seen the strange sight and desperately tugged at her dress.

“That’s her! That’s the siren!”

The girl turned made eye contact with Amy, sneering in her direction. Her icy eyes relishing at this moment, teasing Amy, baiting her with the one thing that she knew she didn’t have. The pink hedgehog suddenly felt her blood begin to boil. In the same moment, Sonic had noticed Amy as well and felt a wave of relief in the midst of his confusion. He called out to her, which made the siren whip her head back around.

“Well, it seems like you aren’t alone.” She growled.

The siren bared her teeth, then tightened her grip on him, forcefully holding him still. Sonic whimpered.

“I guess I gotta do this the hard way.” She pulled him from the wall and slammed him back into it. Sonic felt the air leave his lungs. In a panic, he fought back, wriggling himself out of her grasp. He held his hands up in defense.

“Now w-wait a second, I’m confused, what’s going on?!”

The siren clenched her fists, muttering something under her breath that Sonic couldn’t understand. Then she pointed her hand towards him. The water in the pool started to churn. It began to defy all laws of physics rising up into an amorphous mass. Sonic swallowed uncomfortably; why does it always have to be water? The siren made a throwing gesture that sent the ball flying towards him like a torpedo. He flinched, bracing himself for impact.

“Kyah!!” Amy appeared with her Piko Piko at the ready. She smacked the ball of water and it lost its shape, splashing in random directions. Sticks followed with her boomerang in hand, and the two of them took a protective stance in between Sonic and the siren.

“Stay away from him!”

The siren looked at Amy for a moment, then to Sonic, then back to Amy again. With a sultry voice that cut the through the air like a knife, she sniggered.

“If I were you, I’d surrender. You don’t know what you’re dealing with, little girl. He’s mine.”

“Over my dead body.”

The two girls engaged in a dangerous staring contest. Fuming jealousy filled the space between them. Both fighting over Sonic’s heart; of course, for two entirely different reasons. Sonic was now getting frustrated. He walked towards Sticks and tapped her shoulder.

“Hello?? Can you please let me know what’s going on? Where did you guys go? And who is this girl?”

“Sonic, she’s the siren. She lured you in here, and now she’s trying to kill us. How more obvious can it get?” Sticks said.

“Oh...that makes sense.”

The siren’s glowing eyes peered menacingly at all three of them. As she did so, she started to morph; her original body stretched and changed colors. Her fur turned to hard, green scales. Her face rotted away, revealing the half decomposed remnants of what it used to be hundreds of years ago. Her razor sharp teeth grew in size along with her height. The trio all watched in horror as she towered over them, making them all seem like tiny little hamsters in the shadow of a monstrous crocodile.

“Fine. If a fight is what you want, then a fight is what you’ll get.”

The siren let out a piercing roar and charged them. She raised her hand, flinging streams of ice-cold water at them and pummeling them to the ground. For a moment, they scrambled, barely getting back to their feet before the siren came back with a second attack. The three of them slipped across the floor, choking and sputtering. Sticks looked up. The siren was gone. There was a low growl, a tapping noise echoed from the ceiling. Green scales glimmered in the light cast from the glowworms. The young badger got to her feet and flung her boomerang towards it. It bounced off like a piece of plastic.

“Oh boy...” she said.

The siren crawled like a lizard over the walls, hissing and speaking in an ancient language. The water from the pool spun into a violent funnel. A physical embodiment of her rage. Sonic took both Amy and Sticks’ hands and attempted to escape, but the siren was one step ahead. Three streams of water shot out of the pool, wrapping them up individually and holding them high in the air. The siren crawled down from the walls and the water carried her gracefully to her rock. She observed her prey squirming helplessly in her grasp.

“I hope you didn’t think it would be that easy to escape. You’re all a bunch of fools.”

“Let! Us! Go!” Sticks cried, kicking aimlessly into the air. She bit down against the water like a dog trying to chew its collar off.

Sonic and Amy tried to pry themselves out as well, though not as ferociously as Sticks. The kicked their legs and attempted shaking themselves out, but their efforts were useless against the water’s strength. As if it were a game to her, the siren swung the three of them around like ragdolls. Then, the water released its grip and flung the three of them in random directions.

Amy slammed against the wall and everything went black.

She could see a dark sky. The clouds rumbled above her. Gusts of wind blew her quills in random directions and the rain began to fall. Her body was stained with mud and it ached. In the distance, a figure was approaching her. It was tall, with two large wings trailing behind it. Amy squinted her eyes to get a better look, but the face was hidden by a shadow. The figure held a ball of fire in its hands. It raised its fist.

CRACK!

Amy’s eyes shot open. Her hair was dripping wet and the jagged slippery rock beneath her was cutting up her knees. The room was spinning so much that when she was greeted by the sight of Sticks running toward her, she appeared to have three heads. Sticks knelt down and patted Amy’s cheeks. She was yelling something, but Amy couldn’t quite make it out. Her eyes gazed beyond Sticks, seeing the siren standing on her rock, singing a tune and pulling Sonic close. They were inches apart again; their lips dangerously inching closer to each other.

A fire erupted within her. She poofed her hammer and got to her feet. Sticks stepped away, watching nervously as Amy mustered up some sort of hidden power. She growled in anger, then raised her hammer.

“Hands off my MAN!!”

In a flash, Amy attacked from behind. She swung with all of her might, hitting the siren on the side of the head and sending her flying. Sonic--now with the knowledge of her spell, therefore being able to resist it the second time--staggered back as Amy flew past him. He lost his balance and plummetted into the glowing pool. He flailed around in a panic. However, he quickly discovered that the pool was actually much shallower than he anticipated. He sighed with relief, then paused to laugh at himself. As Amy let out all of her jealous anger on the siren, Sonic felt something roll by his foot. Curious, he reached down and felt around for the object. He fished it out.

In his hands, a turquoise chaos emerald glowed like a star.

“RAHH!!”

Amy landed the final blow against the siren, leaving her unconscious. She huffed, flipping her drenched quills and resting her weight on her hammer. She let out an authoritative ‘hmph,’ then turned to her friends. She observed as Sonic was excitedly showing Sticks the emerald. After a moment, the two of them realized the fight was over and turned to her.

“Amy, you won’t believe what I found!” Sonic exclaimed.

---

The three took a break to regain their energy, then successfully found their way out of the tunnel. When they emerged, they discovered that it was already nighttime. The stars above them winked as if they were congratulating them for their escape. Sonic and Sticks whooped and gave each other a high five; the crazy experience they just went through appeared to have given them both a rush of excitement after it was over. The discovery of a second emerald was also not too bad as well.

Sonic turned to Amy with a goofy smile on his face. He raised his hand to give her a high five. She glanced at him and left out an unenthusiastic chuckle before squeezing excess water from her skirt. Sonic frowned as she turned away and kept walking, keeping her eyes on the ground.

“Hey, what’s the matter with you? Aren’t you glad it’s over with?” he asked.

“Yep.”

Sonic and Sticks shared an uncomfortable look. Sonic made a gesture towards Amy and raised a brow. Sticks merely shrugged her shoulders. They awkwardly followed Amy’s lead, unsure of what to do. Sonic caught up with her and walked by her side.

“Why are you so quiet? Are you upset?” he asked.

“No.”

Two carried on in silence for a couple minutes. In the absence of conversation, the sounds of the wilderness filled the empty space. Frogs croaked, grasshoppers chirped, and other nocturnal creatures scurried amongst the shadowy greenery. Sonic tossed the turquoise emerald in his hands in an effort to distract himself. However, Amy’s persistently quiet demeanor was ironically screaming for him to say something. He glanced over at her. She’s never usually this quiet. Under the moonlight, he caught a glimpse of her eyes; they were downcast and unsure, still focused on her dragging feet. Sonic frowned, even though it wasn’t immediately clear to him why she was acting so weird in the first place. As he thought about it, though, it became more and more obvious.

“I didn’t kiss her, you know.”

The words escaped his lips before he could think about them. He squeezed his mouth shut, half surprised that he said it so casually, half relieved that he did. Amy turned to him. He met her eyes before timidly looking the other way. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that she stared at him for a couple of seconds, then a soft smile appeared on her face.

“...Okay.”

They still walked in silence, yet a weight felt like it had lifted off of their shoulders. With his face still concealed in the shadows, Sonic smiled too.

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER NINE

#sonic the hedgehog #amy rose #sonic fanfiction #sonic fanfic #sonamy #sonamy fanfiction #sonamy fanfic #sticks the badger #sonic boom #sonamy boom #dr eggman #sega #knuckles the echidna #Miles Tails Prower #tails the fox #sonic chaos

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slushblock · 7 years

Text

Fell - Chapter 8 - Awakening

Thank you all who are still here for sticking with me through this self-indulgent, overly dramatic backstory. :>

Little is more jarring than expecting to be transported somewhere, only to not be.

In the case of Axl and Aura, they had become accustomed to returning to their respective, homey rooms when using their mirrors. They were so panicked that they didn’t realize the mirrors were reflecting something else; the area where they’d first appeared in the world.

Only it was drenched in blood.

“O-oh my g- what… what?!” Axl was the first to voice his shock at this turn, taking a few steps in place in a vain attempt to shake off the squelchy, sticky red grass.

Aura looked around, trying to figure out what went wrong. She didn’t like the way the sky had darkened; it felt similar to the atmosphere of the corruption. She turned around, “Why wouldn’t we- oh… oh no,” she held up a hand, pointing in the direction of their house, “L-look!”

Thankfully, Axl had the foresight to build their manor not very far from their starting location. That convenience had saved Aura’s life when she first appeared. Not obscured by rain as it was back then, it was clearly visible between the rapidly wilting trees.

The vicious gash that was torn through the front of it was also visible, ripping the workroom in half and leaving gaping holes in both their bedrooms, as well as the storage room and stairwell.

“What the Hell did that?!” Axl choked, nearly dropping his mirror as he ran off towards his destroyed handiwork. As the two got closer, it became more and more obvious from the directionality of the malformed landscape that whatever had bloodied the ground and dying trees was responsible for the structural damage to the building. To accent the damage, there was a strange liquid strewn about, with the consistency of blood and the appearance of glowing, molten gold.

“Okay… so… this… th-this must be the spirit that the dryad mentioned when she said… blood,” Aura gulped, looking at the damage and, more intently, at the bizarre ichor. As tempting as it was, she refused to touch it. Much to her surprise, even Axl put his impulsiveness aside to avoid it; something about it just felt wrong, even without making physical contact.

Axl cursed under his breath, flipping the mask of his helmet up to get a better look, face etched with worry, “I… I hope there’s… I hope nobody-”

“Where the Hell were you guys?!”

The voice came from upstairs and both Aura and Axl’s attention snapped upward to see a fellow descending the dilapidated stairs. With dark skin, gray hair, and a long coat over a glittering bandolier, they recognized him as the arms dealer who had taken up residence shortly after Aura moved in. Neither had done much business with him, but Ren certainly had.

“What happened!?” Despite his obvious panic, Axl seemed somewhat relieved that there were survivors who seemed unharmed.

“Beats me! We were minding our own business when suddenly some bright red light appeared outside!” The arms dealer shouted down, as a few other tenants appeared from their rooms behind him, clearly shaken, “Whatever made it was far away, but then tore right through the place. Some huge monster we’ve never seen before! Just… this weird hulk of mismatched bodyparts!” He reached down and picked up the gun at his feet; the same shark-based model that Ren used against the giant, cursed skeleton at the dungeon, “We managed to fight it off, and it went off that way,” he pointed northwest, with a slightly cocky smirk, “I guess no amount of teeth can handle these guns-”

“Don’t take so much credit… I don’t think it wanted to fight. It looked scared even as it did,” murmured a red-clad man as he stowed a strange looking book in his coat. The adventurers almost didn’t recognize him as the old man from the dungeon. After moving in, he’d done quite the job of getting cleaned up, his matted beard and hair trimmed to compliment his dapper clothes. Despite that, he was still as grave and serious as ever, “And perhaps rightfully so… The land twisted when those lights emerged from underground, and it must be something truly terrible to frighten a beast that grisly… We’d probably best be getting to safety, ourselves.”

Axl shook his head, biting his lip. The idea that things were even more twisted than before didn’t sit well with him, and though the bloodied ground was already proof enough, he refused to believe it, “No… this wasn’t supposed to… I didn’t…” He took a deep breath and held it, closing his eyes tightly for a moment and really hoping he’d wake up from whatever was happening. When that failed, he let the air out sharply, “I’m heading upstairs. I need to see this for myself.”

Axl left them behind to run for the watchtower he’d installed, as fast as his heavy armor would allow him. Aura, much more lightly clad, kept pace with far less effort. The whole structure creaked ominously, a decent chunk taken out of its side, but still structurally sound enough to not collapse beneath them as they observed the damage to the landscape.

Much to their dismay, the corruption to the east had vastly increased in size, even past the boundaries they had created when they went through with the dryad’s magic powder to push it back.

That wasn’t all, however. To the northwest, the threatened green of the forest faded into light blue fields and pale trees with leaves of many colors. Glowing crystals peeked up through the ground, especially around the pearly exposed stone. Likewise to the southwest was another unknown land, full of tones of flesh and blood, resembling the withered vegetation by their house that had apparently been left by the monster the tenants described. However, it seemed to stop rather abruptly at the house, rather than continuing on in the direction the monster purportedly vanished.

“I… I don’t like this…” Aura paled, “Just one thing was bad enough…”

“Should have seen it coming…” Axl hunched over, slamming a fist into the stone railing, “Damn it! Why?”

“All right… yeah, this… this was a huge mistake,” Aura tried to cover up her shaking voice, “I think… I think we should go off that way,” she pointed towards the colorful, jewel-encrusted landscape, “That might be the home of the ‘light’ you were looking for… and the jungle is just beyond it. The dryad said we’d be safe th-”

Axl shook his head, gritting his teeth, “You go… I need to find Ren.” He pushed himself back from the railing, holding his head in one hand before looking up, “He said he wanted answers from that wall… well, now I want answers from him.”

Aura glared at him, holding up her hands, “Are you crazy?!”

“...Yes?” Came the incredulous response as Axl held his hands up almost in mirror to hers, “I… thought that was established?”

Something about that struck a faint sense of familiarity and Aura looked away, irritated, “...Shut up,” she attempted to dismiss, before glaring back at Axl, “You don’t even know where he lives!”

Axl rubbed his forehead, trying to itch his hairline as best he could with his helmet in the way, “Well, he never appeared here, and his face looked like it got screwed up by the Corruption… I think it’s safe to say that’s where he was living, if he was only getting worse...”

“You’re going back there… at a time like this,” Aura groaned loudly as she leaned back against the wall, looking up at the ceiling, “Gods, you really are the biggest moron.” After a moment, though, she looked down at Axl with a sigh, “And you know what? So am I. Because at this point? I need to know, too.”

Axl was torn between feeling grateful and phenomenally guilty, but managed to nod with a weak grin as he put his mask down,”Th-thank you.”

They descended the tower, glancing back momentarily to watch as the remaining tenants discussed their own departure, before heading off towards the darkened landscape.

Apart from having spread beyond its old boundaries, the rocks were somehow more twisted, the brambles far more menacing, and the trees looking far less like anything proper trees should look like, with black,fang-like thorns bursting from the bark in place of branches. Even the usual floating gasbags seemed a lot larger and more threatening, with more mandibles and eyes, and dripping putrid fluids.

Even the common slimes had become corrupted by the landscape, seething with violet toxins. Some even mutated wings to fly. The far-reaching grip of the shadow’s malevolence only grew, and the two adventurers could feel it as they carved their way through the new horrors and they could only feel that they would not have succeeded without one anothers’ support.

They took a moment for a breather in one of the chasms, away from the things that could assault them from above. At their feet was the body of a large worm, lined with eyes, like a more direct offspring of the largest one - which the Guide had called the Eater of Worlds - they had battled what felt like ages ago. It bled putrid slime laced with a strange, glowing green that flecked up like flames. They refused to get anywhere near it. “Where… would he have been hiding all this time…” Axl gasped for breath, the weight of fighting things with a large sword while in heavy armor so soon after the fight with the wall beginning to really wear on him. He coughed, “It can’t have been somewhere that well-hidden.. He had to be able to get in and out easily.”

Aura took a moment to consider the question before pounding a fist into an empty palm, “...Why not try his elevator?” She pointed off in the approximate direction of the tunnel they’d revealed prior, “There were hidden doors all over the place that we had no idea how to open…”

“That’s… actually a really good idea,” Axl’s eyes went wide at the realization, pretending to snap his fingers despite not being able to even without wearing metal gauntlets, “What better place to hide something… than behind something in plain sight that the people you’re hiding it from would not want to break?” He cringed slightly, “That… paints an even more specific picture of why he was so angry when that worm tore through the place and damaged it back then.”

“Yeah, yeah, nice analysis,” Aura waved, looking around for any monsters as she began to head in that direction, “I think what’s going to happen now is way more important.”

A few large slimes and another one of the dripping, oversized rotbags later, they found the exposed brick. While patched up, Ren had made no attempt to cover it more than that. They already knew where it was, and for all intents and purposes they had been allies leading up to that point.

Either that, or he wanted them to find it again.

“Here goes nothing,” Axl mumbled as he pulled out his pick, glowing with molten fire. Even rebuilt and reinforced, the bricks crumbled under the powerful tool in one effortless swing, revealing the tube down. “Now… where would he keep an entrance to his place…”

Aura pointed upward, “Why not the top?”

Axl looked up, then shrugged, “Well, no better place to start.” Grappling to the side with his own hook, he scaled his way up to the top, taking his pick in hand and striking the brick there. He had to shield himself slightly from the falling debris. Beyond it was solid, corrupt rock, to which the chain leading down was fixed. Axl frowned, taking the chain and striking the wall where he had latched on. More ebonstone. He turned at a right angle and swung again.

Jackpot.

The brick caved to reveal a similarly bricked passage, with a planked wooden floor of an unusual hue reminiscent of the trees found dotting the corrupt landscape. Axl looked down and gestured to Aura that he’d found something, before moving to step into the new hallway. Aura followed him in with her own vine-crafted hooks, looking just as curious as she was unsettled.

The hallway wasn’t terribly long, opening up into a very sparse, drab bunker of sorts. Had it not been for the stone brick, the dark wood of the floor, lack of windows, and poor lighting, it would have felt very similar to their own rooms, but stripped down to a utilitarian bareness. A bed, a dresser, a table, a chair. At the back, stairs led both up and down to two other rooms. There were no other doors, but that wasn’t surprising; the large man did have a thing for hidden passages.

“Huh..,” Axl only barely resisted the urge to say something incredibly redundant like ‘so this is where he lived,’ instead opting to flip his mask up for visibility and carefully walking toward the stairs. Up top, he could already make out the telltale sound of a crackling furnace; most likely a workroom, not unlike their own, situated above to more easily vent the smoke. He ascended just enough to get a clear look, verifying his expectations; almost everything he thought would be there, apart from a more advanced furnace from the underworld. The only difference is it was more claustrophobically clustered together on sequences of platforms and benches, with an entire wall made up of meticulously labeled storage chests.

Scowling a bit at the conditions the ex-military adventurer had subjected himself to, Axl turned to head down the stairs in the other direction. It led down to yet another hallway, this one dark and significantly longer and terminating in a single room. Aura was already there, eyes wide at what was stored there, which would have been dimly lit with only a faint purple light if not for her torch. Axl took in a sharp breath.

It looked like some kind of macabre art gallery, or perhaps museum. The wall before them was lined with shelves containing a great many artifacts of varying sorts, including one of the toothy ‘altars’ they’d found in the chasms, sitting conspicuously on bare ebonstone that had been built around.. Most prominently, though, was the wall to their left, which was made up almost entirely of a large mural that looked right out of some kind of prophecy-laden ancient tomb. Whether Ren had found it here and built his home around it, or somehow managed to transport it here from elsewhere, neither mattered as much as the fact that it existed at all.

Just being there filled the adventurers with a single, all-encompassing thought.

This is it. The beginning of the end.

After taking a moment to catch his breath, Axl squinted in the low light. He arched a brow, squinted again, then took his glasses off to wipe them, only to realize his armor didn’t really have any good cloth on it for doing so. With a groan he rolled his eyes and put his glasses back on, “Stupid outdated prescription. Can’t really see this thing clearly unless I put my face right up to it-”

He was interrupted mid-thought by a strange feeling, as if the very air of the room had trembled and thrummed. Aura felt it too and shivered, but remained fixated on the mural.

“You’re not missing much, it’s mostly faded anyway,” Aura mumbled, holding her torch towards it to light it up a little better, “There… really isn’t much to make out…” she frowned, “The writing on it looks similar to something I’ve seen on the stuff the goblins had.” She shuddered. She wasn’t particularly fond of that memory. The goblins appeared out of nowhere not long after they’d awakened the Eater of Worlds - and attacked in great numbers one day. While they’d managed to fend them off, it was a huge hassle, lead to more than a single death for both adventurers, and the brutish creatures were just as strong and resourceful as they were seemingly cruel.

Shaking the thought from her head, she continued, “Hell if I can read it, though. Aside that, I see something that looks like… something like falling stars. I can kind of see figures? I don’t know if they’re the stars themselves or something else.” The deep vibration cut her off again, and she nearly pulled herself away to look for its source, but not before recounting what little she could make out to Axl, “There was some kind of battle, obviously… I can’t tell if this is supposed to be the stars fighting each other, or joining together to fight something else… and the only other bit that I recognize is the wall of flesh in Hell. It looks like those stars were locked up inside of it?” She turned to Axl, “So… I guess we freed those stars?”

“Not any sort of stars I’ve ever read about… I don’t get it… but then again, what ever made sense here?” He half-smiled. It didn’t last, though. The room thrummed again, and Axl narrowed his eyes, turning around, “What is causing that-..?” He looked around at the other objects scattered about. There were quite a few, ranging from mundane things like books and scrolls, to much more threatening artifacts that radiated power, not unlike that from his sword. In fact, an open scroll next to the strange altar appeared to have some kind of instruction on it, and if the illustrations were any indication, explained how Ren knew to craft the dark weapon. How he read the indecipherable scrawl on it, though, was a matter of some worry.

The scroll barely received more than a glance, as attention was drawn away from it quickly by the most obvious of the objects in the room aside the mural. Floating opposite the mural’s wall was a sphere, much like one of the dark, pearl-like orbs in the chasms, only inlaid with silvery runes and ornamented with twisting gold accents. There were large cracks lacing through the shiny dark surface. Occasionally, the orb would shudder, filling the room with that bone-chilling rumble, an unnatural green light glimmering from within, flecking sickly embers as the cracks grew in size and number.

Axl could feel his insides twist. The orb emitted such a feeling of dread, such a profound sense of wrong with each pulse. He could hear his own voice mocking him in the back of his mind in a way that he couldn’t shake. It repeated the thought in his head from the moment he entered, but this time, added a much more profound accusation.

This is it. The beginning of the end. AND YOU HELPED MAKE IT POSSIBLE.

He growled at the thought. He had no idea! Yes, he was stupid to trust this man, but… he had his own reasons for going through with this! Either would have done it without the help… eventually, at least.

Strangely, Aura seemed to be having those same initial thoughts. She took a step back, holding the sides of her head as she quietly whispered to herself, “No… no… I… I never agreed to… I was just...” Even her hornets seemed worried.

Axl groaned at the continuing faint nagging of those accusatory thoughts as he looked around at the other artifacts. Next to the orb was another conspicuous item. At first it appeared to be another of those strange, spiky altars, only much narrower, more like a pedestal than a plinth. Floating between those teeth was a single eye.

Axl leaned close to get a better look, then recoiled, “O-oh…”

It was just a normal, healthy human eye, somehow still dripping with fresh blood. After all the oversized demon eyes swarming amongst the zombies at night, the colossal eyes with teeth, and even the floating, rotting gas-bag eyes they’d seen so frequently in the corruption, to see a regular eye with a clean white sclera and light brown iris was by and large the most upsetting thing they could have expected to stumble upon.

“O-oh my gods…” Aura put her hand over her mouth, “Do you think that’s-?”

“That… must be how he got the scar…” Axl looked like he was going to be sick, which was really something considering the things he’d seen and done, “But if his eye is here, then what-”

Suddenly, the eye turned sharply in place to look right at them, causing them both to jump.

Almost as if on cue, a wet, crunching sound alerted the two to an approaching figure from down the hall. The poor light only allowed them to see a vague and clearly inhuman shape, lumbering towards them with an awkward gait on four splayed, uneven legs. Its entire body twitched and jerked with each deliberate step. Axl hissed and closed his mask as both drew weapons in preparation for a fight.

The thing was horrific, a twisted bloat of rotten meat that would have been familiar had it been in the shape of floating bags of air or long, burrowing worms. Instead, it had an almost humanoid torso lined with scratching, vestigial insectoid limbs down its sides and emerging from its broad shoulders. The massive, cyclopean eye between a lopsided pair of mandibles on the end of its half-elongated, heavy neck was almost covered up by the sickeningly familiar, pointed exoskeleton that barely managed to contain the creature’s twisted body.

That exoskeleton was Ren’s armor.

“I knew you’d come,” it rasped, voice completely gone and replaced by a painfully grating hiss, “It only took you this long… all the better” it extended its neck, the sharp teeth in its mouth bared in a threatening smile, “I doubt you would have helped me if you knew about all this sooner.”

Axl was at a complete loss for words, his silence the only thing that could express what his masked face could not. Aura was much less stunned as she stepped forward, sword drawn and pointing towards the creature before them, “What the Hell is- what have you been hiding from us?!”

“Why ask, when you can behold?” The creature turned to gesture at the cracked orb. The glow within it flared up as it shook again, vibrating the very air in the room, “Behold the new gods of this world!” The monster turned its hand upward, bony claws curling up slowly before clenching into a tight fist, “Sleeping for so long, power locked away… but one managed to awaken.” It opened its hand, keeping the other conspicuously closed as it held them upward in front of it, “Managed to call out. And now, with our help,” it boomed a sick laugh as it pointed, “with your help... they all have enough power to break free!”

At that point, Axl definitely felt something wrong about the way Ren added ‘with your help.’ It was almost like his own mind had shouted the words in unison. Why would he think that? He glanced at Aura, who seemed to have the same doubts, quietly muttering “No… no…” to herself over and over.

Without warning, the orb burst, its physical shell disintegrating almost entirely in the emerging green flames, leaving behind a glowing green sphere which hovered in its place. It felt like it was staring at them. Staring into their souls.

Ren let out a bellowing laugh, opening his other hand. In the oversized, mutated palm was his icy mirror, looking so small and delicate by comparison. He cried out triumphantly, “Why cling to the mirror’s unfulfilled promise when darkness holds the single truth!” The younger adventurers could swear they heard their own voices in their heads echoing those words.

Holding the mirror above his head in both hands, Ren shattered it.

The moment it broke, shards hitting the ground like a chorus of tiny bells, the green sphere flared up, launching itself upward and into the ceiling, boring its way towards the surface. The world began to shake. First a low rumble, but quickly escalating to such a degree that everything fell from the shelves and the house itself began to crumble and tear apart at the seams. The hidden bunker split open to reveal newly-cracked chasms to the surface.

To make matters worse, massive worms could be seen pushing the ground apart, splitting it further. They were far larger than even the Eater of Worlds, perhaps even twice the girth, and lined with bony, centipede-like legs that propelled it through the corrupt stone and dirt. High above, silhouetted against the sickly sky, was the shadow of something that dwarfed any creature they’d seen.

Unfortunately, the only safe way out of the crumbling earth was up towards it. Or so they thought, minds racing in panic and not stopping to consider the irrationality of those thoughts.

Get to the surface. It’s the only way. Climb. CLIMB.

Not paying any heed to the cackling Ren, Axl and Aura didn’t even realize that they could have simply pulled out their mirrors to escape, instead opting for their grappling hooks. They ascended just in time for the floor to fall out from under them, dropping the mural and everything else but the strange, floating altar into an abyssal trench with no visible bottom. Axl looked down, flipping his visor up just long enough to make sure his impacted visibility from it wasn’t playing tricks on him. He paled, looking mortified as he quickly put the mask back down again and started climbing.

“It’s weird to see you afraid of dying for once since-” Aura didn’t think much before she said it. The threat of the moment drew it out of her without guilt as she followed closely behind, far more mobile with her multiple, longer vine hooks.

“No!” he shot back, cutting her off, his initial annoyance immediately replaced by the honest panic of the situation, “I’m not afraid of dying here… I’m afraid of being buried alive in this stuff, or falling into that pit!” As they grappled ever higher, he added, “Who knows how long we’d be stuck…” He shuddered at the thought, “I… I don’t want to end up like Ren!”

If she had any doubts of how dire things were, Aura certainly lost them with that statement. Seeing what someone with Ren’s constitution had become after so much willful exposure to the atmosphere of the twisted landscape… she didn’t want to think about being trapped in it. She didn’t want to think about being trapped at all. The mirror didn’t even come to mind. All that did was a single thought.

CLIMB.

They did so. The giant worms around them continued to swirl and burrow endlessly. The only blessing was that the endless movement was consistent, with no sudden worm heads to emerge and attack them to dislodge them from their path. It was easy enough to plan a route around them, even with the crumbling rock. Eventually, they made it to the surface.

It put them face to face with an abomination.

At the end of the seemingly infinite worm body was a vaguely humanoid shape, albeit split in half down the middle into a massive vertical jaw filled with sharp teeth. Its heavy, muscular arms ended with snapping, slavering worm mouths for hands. Giant eyes set into it shoulders, as well as one in the middle of its chest. Glowing green tendrils writhed from all of its mouths. For all the awe it inspired, they almost didn’t notice that Ren had crawled up from the pit after them, standing at the ‘foot’ of the titan. At least, not until he spoke.

“Isn’t it glorious!?” Ren gestured upward, reveling. Their thoughts echoed with their own voices as he continued to ramble, intrusive words that continued to gnaw at both their minds. As they beheld the massive, terrible beast before them, their thoughts were replaced by an all-consuming despair.

Why fight it? The darkness IS the only true path forward. It’s the only way.

Axl shook his head. There was no way he was thinking that, was he? How was that possible, if the creature that was Ren was also saying those words out loud? Was he saying those words out loud? It was becoming very difficult to tell. Axl held the sides of his head, grinding his teeth together. He glanced over at Aura, whose face was etched with the signs of an identical inner struggle. Yet the thoughts wouldn’t abate.

The darkness will devour everything, so why fight it and suffer?

WHY NOT JOIN IT AND REJOICE?

Aura suddenly screeched, her voice the most piercing Axl had ever heard, “Get out of my head! GET OUT! GET OUT!!” For the first time since he’d met her, Aura’s eyes welled with tears, if faintly, “We can’t stay… we can’t stay..!” She repeated to herself, over and over as she clutched the sides of her head, “The jungle is safe… The jungle is safe! The jungle is safe!!”

Without warning, she turned and ran, tears streaming from wide eyes. Ran, off in the direction of the jungle whose protection she was promised, past the blue fields and pink rivers of the newly blossomed hallowed ground.

“No-! Aura-!” Axl whirled, voice so panicked it began to crack, ”NO! I CAN’T DO THIS BY MYSELF-!” But it was too late. She couldn’t hear his desperation for her own, and soon Axl was left to slowly turn, to look up at the behemoth he was now facing down alone, and the bitter, choking laughter of its servant. His heart dropped into his stomach and he would have sworn he could feel it burning.

His mind screamed at the hopelessness of it all. He turned to run after her.

This is it. The pointless culmination of so much hard work.

“...No..,” he tried to fend off those intrusive thoughts. After all that work, there had to be something left. He barely got a few strides before he slowed.

DARKNESS IS ALL THAT IS LEFT. ALL THAT IS LEFT. ALL THAT IS LEFT IS TO JOIN IT.

That snapped him out of it. There was NO way he was thinking that himself! He punched himself in the side of his head hard enough to jar his vision for a moment before he looked up at the enormous abomination, and its new, equally twisted servant. It all made sense. The way those thoughts echoed in his head while Ren - or what was left of him - spoke.

That monster above them… The projection of will… That was its way of communicating! It used it to overwhelm weak and weary hearts! Was that how it got Ren in the first place? By making the lost man believe that darkness was the only course of action when all other hope was lost? Axl cringed through the mental turmoil, using all of his effort to push those thoughts from his mind, “No… not this time,” he hissed to himself, “I can’t give up… not now.”

Ren laughed, that same horrible choking noise from before, “I’ll give you this, you may be just as big a nutjob as I’ve given you credit for, but as far as nuts go you’re a tough one to crack.” He laughed again, “Still, what good do you think you can do? You already know in your heart; the strongest weapon you have was forged by this darkness,” he gestured with his arms to everything around them, “You accepted that gift so readily before…” The twisted servant narrowed its eye sinisterly, “...why not now?”

Axl looked down at the ground with a single, dedicated sigh. He reached into his bag and held up the dark sword that was gifted to him by the beast before him… and threw it aside, “I’m done fighting darkness with darkness,” he mumbled, instead brandishing the hammer he’d retrieved from the wall. Compared to the weapon he’d just discarded, it seemed almost laughably small, but its bright glow seemed all the more a beacon in the shadows for it.

The twisted creature chortled grimly, “Nice hammer,” it mocked, long neck undulating in an uncomfortable manner, “I’m sure it’ll be great for putting the final nails in the coffin you’ll so desperately desire but never get to use!”

Axl growled, “What happened to you?!” He shouted. It almost sounded like there would be tears in his eyes as well if he weren’t feeling so furious all of a sudden, “You weren’t the greatest guy, but I thought even you had a heart somewhere in there! I didn’t… didn’t think you’d stoop this low!” He didn’t expect any plea to shreds of humanity to work, but it was all he had to buy time.

The laugh he got in return was as ugly as the monster that emitted it, “Our new god saw fit to let me maintain any petty human sentiments as long as I continued to work towards our goal.” Gesturing with its arms and other, extraneous insectoid limbs at itself, it seemed to delight in the twisted new form, “Now that we’ve won, it has deemed them of no further use and removed them!”

“Well, I refuse to let that stand!” Axl tore his attention from the mutant that was Ren, turning instead towards the massive monster, ”And if that’s the source, I know my new goal… destroying it!” He pointed the hammer up at the abomination, determination shining behind his glasses, beneath the mask of his hell-forged armor, “Regardless how long it takes… Even if you’re beyond saving, I can’t let this thing claim any more souls! I can’t stand by and do nothing!”

YOU WOULDN’T BE SO STUPID.

The thought in his head was not his. Axl knew it now. It was the towering creature he stood before, brandishing his hammer with a challenging shout, “Try me!”

The massive beast let out an unholy sound that wasn’t quite a shriek and not quite a roar, and not quite truly a sound so much as an emanation felt rather than heard. Taking the challenge to heart, it lunged down with one of its large, muscular arms, the mandibles in place of its hands open to grasp the puny armored human.

Trying to think quickly, Axl pulled his grappling hook out and latched onto a mandible on the approaching hand-maw, launching himself into the air. He retracted the chain and released it, letting his momentum rocket him towards the creature’s central eye, hammer poised to strike it.

The move was a lot cooler in Axl’s head, and for a moment he was proud of the smoothness of its execution. However, as soon as he got within arms’ reach of the monster, it responded as any large monster with half a brain and working arms would; by unceremoniously plucking the tiny adventurer right out of the air with its other hand. The mandibles jolted his momentum to a dizzying halt, before the tendrils wrapped around him, pinning his arms to his sides. The ornate hammer fell to the ground far below with a useless clatter.

Held still and close as he was, Axl had time to really not appreciate how atrocious this monster was. It was only a touch less repulsive than the flesh wall in the underworld that had apparently released the power to wake it up. Its flesh up close looked like someone had taken the floating rot-bags and worms and thrown them in a blender, shaping the results into whatever this thing was that shouldn’t have been. The eyes in its shoulders reminded him very much of the very largest that had attacked on so many occasions. He half expected them to be able to open into toothy maws as well. And… were those tongues coming out of its wrists and wrapped around him? Axl didn’t want to think about it. He was just content that his hell-forged armor insulated him from having to touch them, and vaguely hoped from the faint sizzling noise that it was burning the creature to do so.

Tongues or not, the tendrils wound tighter, metal shrieking as that armor began to slowly compact under the pressure. Axl choked out an unbecoming squeak and struggled vainly. The abomination’s booming ‘voice’ echoed in his head, still very unsettlingly sounding like his own. Despite that, all pretense of trying to pass for its victim’s own thoughts had vanished as the beast addressed its own opinions directly.

WHAT A PITIFUL CREATURE. WHAT PURPOSE IS THERE TO ITS CONTINUED EXISTENCE?

It tightened its grip more.

JUST TO DIE LIKE A WORM IF IT WON’T WORSHIP LIKE ONE.

“S-so what!? I’ll just-! I-it’s not l-like I can-!” Axl realized what he was saying, and in what circumstance he was saying it, and immediately shut up. As awesome a boast he could make about never giving up until this foe was defeated, as much like some kind of implacable anime protagonist as it would make him sound, he wasn’t exactly in a position that could end anything but horribly if death was the best apparent option.

The monster didn’t miss the slip, but in a surprise gesture chose to lessen its grip, eyes narrowing. The permeating voice lowered, in tone if not volume.

IT COULD VERY WELL BE GRANTED A PERMANENT DEATH IF SO DESIRED.

Axl looked up, mask hiding the surprise on his face. It was a surprisingly tempting offer...but it couldn’t be true. Was that the promise this thing made to Ren? In a way, it had done exactly that; the human who was Ren was definitely dead now.

That was not the way Axl wanted to go if that was the case.

BUT NO.

It was as if the creature recognized the adventurer’s near-immediate internal rejection of the offer. The feeling of all three eyes focusing on the tiny human only amplified the sudden, gut-wrenching dread as the monster’s bizarre mouth pulled into what possibly was meant to represent a most maniacal, cruel smile. The eyes widened, even more so than seemed possible by the already unnatural standards of the creature’s form, directing all of its malice to a single point between them.

MAKING WORMS LIKE YOU SUFFER IS FAR MORE ENTERTAINING.

Axl barely had a chance to catch his breath when the pressure released, letting him drop for only a moment before the monster grabbed one arm with the tendrils of one of its jawlike-hands, then the other, pulling them tight with a sickening pop, as a cruel child might hold the wings of a fly. His arms felt like they’d tear right out of their sockets, but he couldn’t even muster the energy to cry out. He could only stare at the creature in horror, not quite in the eyes for their distance apart, but rather at its gnashing, v-shaped maw.

The massive beast seemed to take a deep breath, before exhaling a concentrated jet of sickly green fire at the suspended adventurer, engulfing him. Even the hellstone-obsidian alloy of his armor did nothing to deflect it in any way.

After everything he had been through - being digested, sliced to pieces, incinerated in lava, and hundreds of other novel ways to die painfully, including by his own hand - this was somehow worse than it all. The green flame didn’t just hurt physically. He’d become accustomed to that kind of pain; even welcomed it to a certain degree. However, he wasn’t prepared for how it burned within.

Like it was fueling itself on his mind and his soul, threatening to devour not just his body, but every positive emotion, thought, and memory he ever had.

Axl barely noticed when the creature let him drop, screaming, to the ground. He struck the stone writhing as the fire continued to cling. Even after the flames themselves flickered out, he could still feel it eating at him, weaving through his veins and rasping at his bones. He whined and wheezed, clawing at his helmet in an effort to pry it off, to vent the burning and let it die in the stagnant air, but his gauntlets merely slipped off the metal in his desperation. Finally, he managed to tear it free, gasping for breath as it clattered across the dark stone.

I’LL LEAVE THIS FOOL AND ITS ILL-ADVISED COURAGE TO YOU.

The gigantic abomination‘s massive eyes looked down to its subject, before directing off in the direction of the released spirits of light and blood.

I’VE OTHER MATTERS TO ATTEND TO.

Axl couldn’t see how the massive being departed, but he could feel the disappearance of the rumbling of its serpentine form in the ground, as well as the absence of its oppressive aura. How something so large could vanish so quickly was the least of his worries.

Unable to shrug off the ceaseless searing pain under his skin, but unwilling to give up, Axl tried once, twice to push himself off the ground, succeeding on the third try, body quaking as he coughed up flecks of blood. When the tears cleared enough from his eyes to look up, it was into the glowing barrel of Ren’s hell-infused handgun. “You talk a big game, kid,” somehow, Ren’s monstrous face contorted into a sneering grin, “It seems my lord would have me kill you. Over, and over again, until you see reason. A pointless endeavor, naturally,” he chuckled darkly, eye narrowing cruelly, “...considering you’d probably like that.”

It was very disconnecting to see such a bizarre beast holding a weapon that looked so modern - and while talking about reason, no less - that Axl didn’t really internalize the slight. Moreover, something else had caught Axl’s attention; near the foot of where the abomination had vanished, there was a strange glimmer. His eyes drifted to it, fading in and out of focus with his wavering consciousness, trying to make it out.

Ren’s ‘smirk’ darkened slightly, mixing with a scowl. He knew this man was a fool, but this level of inattention was downright insulting. His grin returned, though, as he shifted the gun to one side in a quick motion and pulled the trigger, shooting out his prey’s already nearly-dislocated left shoulder, “Of course, I could draw each death out if that’s what you really want.”

Axl, nerves still overwhelmed to feel much other than burning, just gurgled weakly as he collapsed further, clutching his arm. But he wasn’t going to resign to death. Not this time. He recognized that glimmer. A mirror, unlike the one he’d found in the caves. A mirror with an adorned golden frame.

The same one that brought him to this world.

Axl shook, coughing a few more times, then craned his neck up to glare Ren right in his bloated single eye, “You could... but I don’t think... you’d have the GUS to.”

Ren froze. As the statement sunk in, he snarled, eye going wide in a rage, “YOU-”

With a new sense of purpose, Axl reached out and took hold of the holy hammer where it had fallen. It wasn’t strong, but it would have to be enough. Ren’s distraction denied him the time to respond to that hammer being brought down on one of his misshapen knees, shattering it and sending him to the ground with a piercing, unholy wail.

That distraction was all Axl needed. Leaving the hammer there, he forced himself to his feet, staggering and tripping over himself to make his way to that mirror, even if it was the last thing he did. His body screamed at him. He didn’t care. He couldn’t risk it being his last chance.

“DON’T RUN AWAY FROM ME,” the corrupted human screeched as he whirled about in fury, twisting at the waist unnaturally. He brought up the gun and released two more shots. Both pierced Axl in the back, causing the fleeing man to gasp, collapsing on top of the mirror. As his consciousness failed, he grabbed the artifact in both hands and stared into it with every fiber of determination he could muster. He could barely see for all his pain, not even his own face. He didn’t care what the background in the reflection was… so long as it was anywhere but here.

His vision faded to white.

---

Axl awoke to the sound of chirping birds.

He sat up, slowly. His skin tingled, as if with the remnants of the cursed fire’s burn, but for the most part he felt strangely numb. As his vision readjusted, he took in his surroundings. Despite how obvious it was, his brain seemed to refuse the initial assessment that he wasn’t indoors, instead sitting in an open shrine, somewhere high up. Very high up. He didn’t remember seeing anything of the sort when they’d ascended to the sky islands looking for treasure. Clouds drifted lazily past, and he could hear a breeze, but could only barely feel it against his face.

‘Am I actually dead this time?’ he thought to himself as he looked down. He was no longer wearing armor, and it surprised him to see that he was wearing the clothes he had arrived in, but with one crucial difference.

Beneath the ironic shirt and baggy shorts, he was completely bandaged up. Only his face was left bare… mostly. Looking at his arms and his legs, Axl felt somewhat silly, like a mummy, but at the same time, a sinking dread settled in his stomach. With great hesitation, he pulled the bandages on his wrist aside, only to recoil.

The skin underneath was warped and charred. It hardly seemed like human skin at all, looking more like plastic pulled from a fire. Axl let out a long, withdrawn sigh, with barely the energy to take another breath as he slowly closed his eyes, letting the bandages go and covering his face with his palm.

“Your resolve is commendable,” a lilting voice drifted from out of view, startling Axl out of his stupor. He turned to see… something.

Whatever it was, ‘ghost’ seemed like the most fitting term, almost to the point of the absurdity of looking like it were made from sheets draped over some uncannily tall form. The only thing shattering that silly thought was the fact that those sheets were virtually transparent, revealing nothing underneath. Instead of a face, the figure had a mask.

A mask made from a gold-framed oval mirror.

Axl stared at it in disbelief, only to see his reflection in its surface, cringing. His face certainly could have been in worse condition, perhaps saved by getting his helmet off in time, but the disfigurement was still significant. He looked away, grimly.

“Axl C. Eyre,” the being spoke again, ethereal voice carrying a profound serenity.

Axl had never been referred in such a way before, and something about it caught his breath. He turned slowly towards the mirror spirit, taking care not to look at his reflection.

It bowed, slowly and respectfully.

“We have much to discuss…”

#the wall of text has awoken #long post #fell story #*sits back with a mug of tea*#congratulations you just read an 87-page setup for a pun that one person openly figured out in about 4 #well... a little over 4

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painpro · 7 years

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THE FROZEN KING: THE STORY SO FAR

episodes 1-8 summaries below the cut

Episode 1: The Trouble in Hardersfield

Our 7 adventurers meet up in Hardersfield, a fishing town with a problem of disappearing people. Kristoff, who made the posting about the job, meets them in the tavern and After asking around, the crew meets Dr. Ellington, a strange young man. They also meet Kiera, the wife of the first man to go missing who has a sick son. Kiera leads Bell, Orna and Seraphina to the spot where Jalen's body was found, and the rest of the group meets up with them. Keen picks the lock to a strange padlocked door in the ground, which leads them into a tunnel where they find a strange, stitched-together monster. They do battle, with the gnome Selxi getting the final blow, dragging her longsword down the front of its chest. In the aftermath, Keen finds a satchel with all sorts of valuables in it, which she keeps, while Selxi finds a journal, that seems to belong to the doctor. It details how he seemingly made the creature in here and was feeding it townspeople, much to everyones dismay. Meanwhile, Cik digs through the guts of the creature and keeps some of them. After gathering all the needed information they have to make their claim, Selxi and Seraphina cut off the creatures head and begin to take it back to the tavern, with Bell in tow. Bell gets some guts spilled on his clothes and he throws up, much to Cik's amusement. Selxi, Seraphina and Bell head back to the tavern with the head (Bell gets a glass of water and purifies it in front of everyone), while Cezall, Cik, Orna and Keen all go to confront Dr. Ellington. The confrontation leads to Cezall grappling him and tying rope around his wrists, forcing him back to the tavern. Kristoff was given the journal by Selxi, and had enough evidence to convict the doctor of murder. He lead him out of the tavern, and return about an hour later, buying the crew all rooms and more drinks. Kristoff told them about a possible job from his sister, Gianetta, in Abersdale, and left the crew to their night.

Episode 2: The Demon’s Shrine

The party ventures out of Hardersfield, travelling through the Green Shallows and running into some unfriendly lizardfolk on the way. After dispatching most of them, besides one that turned into a giant crocodile and swam away, the party continued onwards to reach Abersdale, a busy little town in the middle of the Friman woods where they were told by Kristoff to find his sister, Gianetta. There in the town you met Uhlor Rosk, a professor from Sizor academy who told you he had contracted some adventurers to drop off a strange gem his dying friend gave him at the Temple of Mephistopheles. Although a bit reluctant and confused about what Rosk said about a contract, the party went along. Once you reached the temple, you fought some horrible worm-like Gricks, and then Orna cut Cezall's palm to give blood to a brazier which was essentially an elevator. At the bottom, after Rosk inserted the gem (which turned out to be a tongue) into a statue of a face, several skeletons awoke and did battle with you. After some looting, and finding several interesting objects, you began to exit the temple...

Episode 3: “The KC” For Short

The party makes their way from Abersdale into King's Watch, the capital city of Imura, where they meet up with Barnabas Cross, the owner of an adventuring company, to settle an accidental legal dispute by signing up to join as one of his adventuring groups. They sign up as a group called "Keciorsesecebe" a name that they made purposefully hard to pronounce, deciding to just be called "KC" for short. Barnabas had some paperwork to do and loosed the KC into the city. They all went shopping, with Bell picking up some nice clothes and Keen picking up an ugly dress, Orna and Cik got some books. Seraphina, Cezall, and Selxi all went into the marketplace and bought a bunch of mangy, sick looking animals. All but two of the party (Cezall and Orna) went to a play being put on by the Sunshiners, a theater company. During the play, however, there seemed to be a disturbance- a commotion under the stage. Bell went under to check it out, and the rest of the party (Aside from Seraphina, who was enraptured by the play) followed suit. They came upon 4 thugs seemingly attacking a strange elf, which lead to a battle- KC coming out victorious. Now, they're left in a bloodied, gorey hallway full of dead people- and one pissed off elf.

Episode 4: Breaking Bard

Finishing the fight with the thugs under the stage of the Redtail, KC now formally met Maedis and Jirahn, two members of the Sunshiners, and also learned that apparently the Sunshiners have some shady business going on on the side. While meeting with them, they also ran into Mirna Charmfaire, which the party learned is Orna's older sister. This lead to some heavy tension between Orna and Bell which ended up with Orna casting Eldritch Blast on Bell to make him go away. Roped into helping them figure out why their business partners tried to kill Maedis, the party, along with their new companion and his dog Garm, journeyed southwards to Doveport, about 5 days. Along the way they dispatched with some unsavory hyena-like beings that ambushed them, and continued forth to Keen's home city, Doveport. It's not the nicest of cities, but the group nearly immediately met a new, eccentric friend in the form of the half-elf Rhiannon in the tavern called the Feisty Naga. Rhiannon knew exactly where they needed to go to find the thugs they were looking for, and while the party was deliberating how to sneak in, Selxi dropped in from the ceiling and began a fight. The battle was nearly won, the last enemy cowering, when a horrifying dark, dripping, spindly entity emerged seemingly from the shadows, killing the last thug and then turning its attention on them...

Episode 5: Sex and the City

The KC, along with companions Maedis and Rhiannon, are still in Keen's hometown of Doveport- and trying to figure out what is going on with the Seven Dragons. After fighting three fiends that sprung out of the shadows at them (Babau, as Bell recalled they were), the group discovered the discarded dead body of Amalexia, the most famous dancer in Doveport of the Red Diamond. Rhiannon was shocked, as she knew that Amalexia had performed last night, and was due to perform again the next. So, their new question was: Who (or what) is pretending to be Amalexia? After a few more clues and searching lead them to make the tenative connection that the Red Diamond was a base of operations for the gang the Seven Dragons, the KC and friends decided to go investigate. (But first, a quick night's rest at the Feisty Naga- where Rhiannon and Selxi decided to keep each other company for the night, and Cik invited Maedis up to his room for the same.) Keen was given invisibility by Orna, and after some magical help from Bell, was able to scale the fence and approach the Diamond. Seraphina, as a cat, slipped through the bars, then after another beast shaping into a dog, pretended to be injured in order to get the guards to bring them in. Keen, meanwhile, was having shit luck with her lockpicks. Seraphina lashed out suddenly in a panic at one of the guards, running backstage after biting him and making a mess. The guards chased, thinking them to be feral- when one hit to the dog revealed them to be halfling. A wild chase ensued, with an invisible Keen finally unlocking a door and allowing Seraphina an escape. Hearing Seraphina yell, Bell blasted open the lock to the gate with divine energy, then the group began to run. Rhiannon, however, seeing Seraphina running with a guard in hot pursuit, stayed behind, using a quick spell to stun the guard to allow the rest of the group to escape. After that eventful chase, the group decided the best way to figure out what was going on at the Diamond was to go to the Diamond as customers. They all shopped for fancy clothing, and Seraphina rested in order to incognito in Bells pocket as a rat. After a bit of deception, the party entered the Red Diamond, and were seated by Kinaren their elven hostess, and waited for the show to begin....

Episode 6: If all your friends jumped out a window...

During a night out at the fancy brothel the Red Diamond, tensions are high. The KC's waitress, Kinaren, drops a secret note at the party's table, asking for help. Bell and Keen answer the call, meeting her in a side closet to discuss. Kinaren tells them that Amalexia is NOT Amalexia, but something disguised as her, which just confirms the KC's suspicions. She tells them of a window of opportunity to strike and do something about the fake Amalexia. After numerous failed persuasion and deception checks, Keen Orna and Selxi are thrown out, while Bell used thaumaturgy to create a loud noise at the other end of the Diamond to allow the rest of the party to get upstairs into Amalexia's room. A battle ensued- a rough one, which revealed Amalexia's true form- a Rakshasa. During the battle, Keen was knocked unconscious by a babau- and lost an eye in the process, her left one. Seraphina struck the final blow against the Rakshasa, who swore revenge on them before burning up into the ether. In the aftermath, Cik found three items left behind- A cloak, a ring, and a wand. Bell tended to Keen's wound, and gave her a makeshift eyepatch. Then everyone except Cik and Bell jumped out a window. Many of them took obscene amounts of damage. But in the end, everyone was alright. Kinaren managed to get Cik and Bell out without being attacked by the guards, and the gang went to their old favorite, the Feisty Naga, for drinks and a lovely performance by Rhiannon. There was dancing, drinking, and good times had by all. But after the night passed, full of various pleasures, Selxi awoke and saw that Rhiannon was nowhere to be found, some of her gold was missing, and there was simply a note that read "No hard feelings babe". A little worse for wear, some physically and some mentally, the group decided to call this job done, although there were lingering feelings of regret. With Maedis in tow, the KC exited Doveport, took a nice deep breath of fresh air, and began to head to their next destination: South Warren.

Episode 7: Enter Senfari

The KC, after finishing their harrowing experience in Doveport, moves on to their next task in South Warren, dispatching with some goblins and parting ways with their ally Maedis (and his dog Garm) along the way. Once arriving in South Warren, they spoke to the very gruff half-orc woman Barret Shurr, who pointed them in the direction of the ruins of the ancient elven city Senfari to dispatch with whatever was scaring away the locals. No more information was gotten, because as the party discovered, none of the locals spoke common. Making their way into the ruins, Selxi and Cezall fell into a pit, which alerted their presence to several things. One, a friendly kenku they met and dubbed Klang, with wooden wings and the intent to get them to safety and help them. However, their stealth was foiled when Cik knocked over a bronze vase and alerted the Manticore and its band of other kenku to their presence inside the ruined elven school. A battle ensued, with the KC and their new friend Klang taking down the manticore with relative ease. The rest of the kenku retreated, and Klang lead the group further into the city, towards whatever is causing the trouble. When asked what was the source of all this, the only response from Klang was the noise of snake hissing, as they can only use their mimcry to communiciate. Their friend lead them to the ruins of guard barracks, where inside were several items and armor for the KC to try on. Bell found himself some lovely elven armor, Cik found a new halberd and a few other trinkets, Seraphina found some nice boots, and Selxi got a good shield for herself. Cik gave his newly found Driftglobe to Bell, who was delighted with it. After playing around with it some and lightening the mood (literally), the KC drifted off to sleep. But it's the KC, so of course they can't have a good nights sleep. As the group slept, and Selxi was on her watch, she heard the pitter-patter of familiar Kenku feet, several pairs of them, approaching their hideout...

Episode 8: Heart of Stone

The KC makes their way deeper into Senfari, led by Klang, their new kenku companion. After facing a couple of traps, hiding, trekking through the sewers, and finding a strange blast zone in the ruins of the city, Klang led them to an ancient library, where they witnessed a gaggle of kenku attempting to carry a stone statue inside. Cik ran after them, scaring them off, and found that the stone statue looked like an elf frozen in its last minutes of terror. After the KC caught up and entered the library (some of them finding books), they began to discuss what kind of creature they were about to face. Bell used clairvoyance to spy into the next room, seeing two manticores like they faced before and a strange humanoid figure. The group burst in, finding that the humanoid inside was a Medusa named Savora, who was not taking too kindly to them killing her third manticore and bursting into her home. A battle ensued, a rough one, with many of the KC taking lots of damage, and Seraphina having a panic attack for half the fight. Cezall nearly fell out a window, Keen was turned to stone but quickly brought back by Bell, and as Cezall retreated from Savora, Cik decided to lock in battle with her. Cik took a lot of damage, and Bell, seeing his best friend in trouble, ran to his aid. However, in his haste, forgot to avert his eyes from Savora, and was instantly turned to stone. Selxi, seeing Bell and Cik in trouble, ran up behind Savora, and in a final moment of desperation, cut off her head. The group looted half heartedly, and their friend Bell was still frozen in stone, in the moment of trying to heal Cik. The KC carried him back as well as two other statues of Savora's victims they found. They went back to Barret Shurr, their contractor, and she paid them, but not before having a loud, wall shaking argument between her and Cezall. Spirits downtrodden, but with a glimmer of hope, the KC got a cart, loaded up Bell and the two other elven statues, and made their way back to King's Watch, in hope of finding someone to help them.

#adventures blog #tfk

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zippdementia · 6 years

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Part 30 Alignment May Vary: In for the Long Hall (sic)

The water trapped room slams shut behind them as they exit, Karina’s tampering having disrupted it for now. They cannot go back, so the players must go forward. But first, they decide to add a new member to the team.

Long ago, the players defeated an enchantress known as “Rose,” and Karina stole her magic book, setting her on the path to multi-classing into wizard. Now, Karina decides to cast one of the spells she studied so long to learn. She casts find-familiar.

Guts of Barghest. Ground bone dust. A hot fire. Blood of a demon. Purified water. Such were a few of the items in the list of components needed for the spell. Karina did not know where she would have found the guts of a Barghest, but she had seen plenty of bones in her journey, and she happened to have a steady supply of demon’s blood, being a Tiefling. Anyway, Rose’s component pouch (which she had also stolen) had the remainder of the items (at least she guessed the dried out entrails which looked like fat worms were the guts of an unfortunate Barghest).

The rest of the instructions were as complex as the ingredient list, but Karina had studied them for weeks and found, as she did with most things magical, that understanding seemed to come to her less than a gut feeling that led her movements and gave the words she spoke power.

The ritual took an hour to complete, while her companions rested on the landing as best they could, their armor loosened so as to give some relief from its weight.

Near the end of the ritual, things became loud. Booming laughter echoed from the circle she had drawn in chalk on the floor. Smoke exploded in small puffs with sounds like the cracking of skulls. And then, in the midst of one of the puffs of smoke, a shape formed.

It was small. It had wings and also a tail. Its body was humanoid with a few distortions that made the whole thing seem wrong somehow, a hodge podge of elements like the tail and the horns and the flat pig nose and the sharp row of needle-like teeth that lined the too-large mouth.

“Mistress Rose?” the small creature asked. “Moonglum has come back to answer your call!”

It takes a little explanation to get the imp caught up the speed and a little cajoling to get him to agree to work with the party. Then, with her new imp familiar, Karina begins to scout out the remainder of the dungeon, as they plan their next move. Their goal: find the end of the tomb. The obstacle: this isn’t the real tomb.

Haggemoth always knew that his legend would attract tomb robbers and he needed to be left in peace to complete his master plan, his life’s opus. Furthermore, because of the many blockades he had put in place to actually finding his tomb, he knew that anyone who did come would be either (a) a powerful and hungry monster from the jungles of Rori Rama, or (b) a proven group of adventurers who likely had experience in traversing deadly places deep under the world.

Because of this, he built two tombs. First, he dug out tunnels inside the mountain and layered these halls with traps and the trappings of a crazed wizard, hoping to frighten adventurers away (or kill them) before they could get to his real tomb. Only this wasn’t meant to be a tomb. Deep beneath the mountain, Haggemoth has his true home, a place of magical comforts and research, only dangerous because Haggemoth’s final preparations didn’t go as planned and chaos ensued as a result. But more on that later.

For now, the players begin exploring the second part of the upper levels, rooms 17-25 on the map below. With Moonglum looking for traps and dangers, they soon discover that there are dangers all around them, including walls that slam together and a strange fungal growth breaking through the secret door leading to room 19. Room 20 controls the water trap, but there is a dead man here with his face burnt off from steam. They take his helmet of telepathy and some unidentified healilng potions he had on them, which they get very nervous about when I tell them (innocently) to record them as “Dead Man’s Potions” (note to self: if you want your players to drink a potion, maybe don’t put “dead” in its title).

The biggest threat comes from the shaded hallway to the east, amrked 23 on the map. This is a complex conveyor belt trap whose function they discover by using the crystal ball from the tomb of Udo the Grey and some experimentation. When activated, it turns the floor into two conveyor belts that run towards the middle of the hall, depositing anyone unfortunate enough to be caught on them into a set of industrial strength grinders that can easily be an instant kill (or at least a permanent loss of a limb). This terrifies them, rightly so, and they decide they need to find a way to turn this trap off before proceeding.

Eventually the players proceed north, which they deem the most safe passage, taking a winding set of stairs down to a large room with a single solitary statue...

Cloaked

“That has to be a trap,” Karina said to the group.

“Oh most certainly,” Tyrion said.

“It would seem to make sense,” Xaviee added.

“Why would it be trapped?” Abenthy asked, the one voice of dissent.

The statue in question was tall and seemed very old, judging by the battered feet and the areas where paint had peeled away and become mildewy in the cold damp of the chamber. They couldn’t see much beyond the feet, for draped over the statue was an old leather cloak, large enough to cover most of its features.

Karina’s mind went through a half dozen possibilities, none of them good. Was the statue a hibernating gorgon, having been defeated at last moment by a cloak of slumber wrapped over it? Would they release its terrifying gaze when they removed the cloak? Or was this the sign of a lurking basilisk, who waited for adventurers to wander into its lair and then trapped them here? Karina quickly looked over her shoulder at the one entrance to the room, almost sure she could hear soft padding footsteps descending the stairs towards them. Maybe the cloak was magically cursed, set here to entice adventurers, and then draining them of their abilities the longer they wore it.

“Let’s leave,” she said. “This is too obvious, too easy. We need to leave this room now.”

If Abenthy heard the panic in her voice, he ignored it. “We leave no stone unturned. It’s the only way we will find Haggemoth. Justice will protect us.”

And saying no more, he reached for the cloak. They had a glimpse of the statue underneath, the face either worn smooth by the years or left blank intentionally by its creator. Either way, it was non descript, and it did not come to life to attack them. But the cloak shifted in Abenthy’s hands, wrapping itself around his arm, his chest, his face. Before any of them could react, it was pressed tight against him and they could hear a terrible grinding and gnashing, accompanied by a muffled yell of dismay, as something wet and messy happened underneath the cloak.

Xaviee ran forward, but suddenly a whiplike tail emerged from the folds of leather and its spiked end caught him in the chest. He coughed once, then collapsed in a crumpled heap. Tyrion ran to help him.

Karina lowered her bow and instead conjured up a skeletal hand, which clawed and pulled at the cloak, leaving dark red splotches where its necrotizing touch damaged whatever the thing was, but it was unable to break it away from Abenthy.

Abenthy fell to one knee, making a deep choking sound.

“It’s suffocating him!” Karina yelled.

“Working on it,” Tyrion mumbled, as he drew his lute and began to strum madly at the instrument. The melody that came forward sank deep into Karina. It raised the hairs on the back of her neck and made her feel ill, like the world was tilting madly. The sensation passed quickly, thankfully, but that was because it wasn’t targetted at her. The creature left Abenthy with a deep sorrowful moan, peeling away to reveal a wingspan like that of a Manta Ray, and a pale underbelly with a gaping fanged hole. The creature drifted into the air as if on an unseen wind and gracefully floated from the chamber. Karina darted forward behind it and slammed the door shut.

“A Cloaker!” Karina said. “We have to hold the door!”

“What in the bloody hell is a cloaker?” asked Tyrion, running to join her. Xaviee limped after him, to add his weight to the door.

“What we just saw—that’s a Cloaker. Abominations, they inhabit the old places of the world. Not very common to see one anymore. They live on rodents, mostly, but aren’t adverse to a larger meal when they can get one.”

The door suddenly shuddered, as the fear spell wore off and the Cloaker came back, seeking its prey.

“For something that seemed made of cloth, it certainly packs a punch,” Tyrion said as the door shuddered again and cracks appeared in the thick wood.

“Open them, and I will tear the beast in half,” Abenthy growled, getting to his feet. The Aasimir’s face was a hideous red color, punctured in multiple spots by deep circular wounds from which blood flowed freely. He staggered towards the door, drawing his longsword with a schinking sound that hung in the air like a spell. He flung open the door and raised the blade... but nothing was there.

“Tricky creatures, cloakers,” Karina said quietly. “We have to be on guard. They can disguise themselves in the most clever of ways. I read about them in that book from Celaenos. One man, Vollo, describes how a Cloaker settled over a pit trap, looking just like the floor. When Sir Griswald stepped on it, it dropped him onto the spikes and then floated down while he was impaled to feast on him. It kept him alive while it ate, and left him ultimately to bleed out on the spikes. We need to keep our eyes open.”

As she talked, the four companions had begun to ascend the spiraling staircase out of the room, keeping their eyes everywhere: ceiling, floors, walls, cracks in the walls.

Then, as they came to the top of the stairs, they saw in front of them a hanging leathery curtain. It definitely had not been there before and its level of conspiciousness in the setting of the tomb was ridiculous.

“Clever, huh?” Abenthy said, and strode forward to rip the Cloaker in half.

And that’s what happens when a Cloaker rolls a critical failure on a hide check.

The Long Hall

“We are not alone.”

Moonglum was shaking as he said it, the tiny imp looking over his shoulder and biting his long fingernails in a display of fear that would be comical if they weren’t inside a deadly tomb.

When he described the creature that had pulled itself from a crack in the ceiling back near the water room, the three companions knew that the skeletal centipede-like monster had caught up with them. They stood in the place where the four corridors came together, the only light Tyrion’s magically illuminated hand. Their voices were soft but still cast unsettling echoes all around them.

“We are dead,” Abenthy said.

“Not so,” Tyrion chided. “What if we run? We have the headstart on it? We could lock ourselves in the statue room and hold our ground, or run through the long hallway.”

Abenthy scoffed. “So we either make a last stand or sprint over a deadly trap? Doesn’t seem like that would improve our odds.”

“Where is your optimism?” Tyrion asked with a grin that was more than half manic.

“I am practical, not optimistic. False optimism only leads to grave dissappointment.”

“I believe you about the grave part, certainly.”

“Quiet, all of you,” Karina said, who had been studying the hallway in front of them with rapt attention. “We have only moments to pull this off.”

In seconds she explained the plan. They would bait the creature, using her illusion magic to create a false image on the trapped long hallway of the party. If the skeleton bought the illusion, it would hopefully charge and then be caught by the trap. There was only one catch...

“To cast that spell, you have to be within sight of the hall,” Tyrion said. As a fellow student of magic, he knew the restrictions. “Which means it will walk right past you.”

Abenthy looked from one of them to the other. “Can you drink our potion of invisibility?”

“No,” Karina responded. “The casting of the spell will cancel the effects of the potion. I will have to trust that it is more interested in the illusion than in me. I have my boots of Elvenkind and my cloak, I may be able to—”

“No.” Abenthy’s voice was firm. “No, we will come up with another plan. We will make our stand in the statue room. I do not like this. It puts you in too much danger.”

Karina tilted her head slightly and regarded Abenthy with the deep black pools of her eyes, hearing somethign in his voice that she had never detected, or suspected before.

“I don’t like it either,” she said gently. “But we cannot stand against that thing, nor run from it. We are weaker and slower. But we may be smarter. It is our only chance.”

Before she could say more, Xaviee emerged from the darkness, breathing heavily. “I saw it. And it saw me. It’s coming. We have moments to run.”

Abenthy looked sideways at Karina. “We are not running,” he said. “Karina has a plan.”

Thirty seconds later, Abenthy, Tyrion, and Xaviee had disappeared down to the statue room, using the helmet of telepathy to keep in touch with Karina, who was now alone at the crossroads. Down the hallway, an image of Tyrion and Abenthy sat with their backs against a wall, seeming to sleep. She hoped it was enough. The image seemed distorted to her eyes. There was a limit to this kind of illusion, and she was pushing it past its boundaries. Abenthy was squatter than in real life, Tyrion’s clothes less colorful. They made no sound—she wished she could make them make sound—and altogether she felt that if she were to see the image in the hallway, she would question it. But then, these were her companions. To her they meant friendship, comraderie, and life. To the monstrosity they were food, perhaps, or maybe just interlopers in its world, something to be killed. To such a beast, the details might not matter.

She heard the sound of bone scraping against stone as the creature emerged into the fourway corridor. She pressed herself back against the wall, not daring to breath, trying to control her shaking. It was huge. It didn’t have hands. The bones that made up its arms and legs were sharp and stunted into tusk-like appendages that it slammed into the floor and wall to steady its bulk as it moved along the corridor. This close, she could see the dried blood on its front arms. Her blood, she realized, from when it had attacked them before.

The creature pulled itself along the corridor, barely ten feet from her. Its skeletal head turned back and forth and she heard a raspy sigh emerge from it. It looked at her and paused. But it was only an instant. Then the head moved on and saw what she had put down the hallway. It rasped again. Its four front arms lifted up like the mating sign of a praying mantis. It tapped the bones against the walls in a stacatto beat.

And then it turned back towards her hiding place.

No, she thought, and it was all the time she had before the thing was moving. But it wasn’t moving towards her. Its head snapped back to center as it screeched and charged the illusion she had made. And a moment later the hallway was filled with noise as the floor came alive. The floor stones lifted and sunk back into the wall, pieces of granite and an ocean of dust cascading off of it as it shifted. Underneath the stone was a moving belt. The floor tilted downward slightly and the belt was pulling the creature forward towards the grinders at its center, massive metal discs that cracked together like the teeth of some angry god. The skeleton’s own momentum was its downfall. It tried to skitter to a halt, but its speed was incredible and its body whipped around on the belt, turning it to face Karina, pulling it backwards until it got caught by those teeth and with a scream began to be eaten by them.

Karina watched in fascination as the bones exploded into fine white powder as half of the skeleton’s body was pulled between the grinders. Only briefly did they seem to halt under the enormouse beast being fed them. But they never truly stopped and the speed at which they decimated the bone was shocking.

But then the beast was moving, pulling itself up. Appendages dug into the stone walls and it ripped itself front half free from the lost back half. The torso began to climb up to the ceiling and then back towards her. She tried to raise her bow, but fear had finally taken hold of her mind. It was coming, so fast for something so injured, and she could do nothing, and her plan had failed afrer all.

Not failed, a voice in her head said.

Abenthy was there beside her, then. He tapped the telepathy helmet on his head knowingly and smiled for the first time in weeks. A flash of light erupted near him as Tyrion cast spell after spell at the creature, his bardic voice singing out the words to the spells. Xaviee was firing arrows at the beast. And then Abenthy cast his own spell and a massive spectral greatsword appeared in front of the creature. It sliced and the bones came free from the ceiling. It fell with a cry and was carried backwards again, into the grinder, into its doom.

And then the halls of Haggemoth echoed for the first time in their history with the sound of cheers and victory.

Noxious Growth

The companions cheer does not last forever. They have just seen a massive beast get chewed to dust by the trap in front of them and are understandably wary of approaching it themselves. They know that there are devices in this dungeon which shut down traps and so they determine to find the one for this hallway.

On a (correct) hunch, they head south, to the room where they found a secret door with a fungal growth coming through it. Abenthy, immune to disease, opens the door, enters room 19, and...

Even knowing that whatever spores or infection lingered here could not hurt him due to his divine background, Abenthy could not help but cover his mouth and nose as he entered the room, as if it could actually help protect him.

The room was thick with fungus. Every spot of the floor and walls were covered in a violet tapestry of interwoven strands of mold. Every step he took, his steel clad feet crushed the delicate rug and sent up explosions of a violet dust—more of the spores, he knew. It was impossible to tell what the room’s purpose had once been. Its only decoration now was a body.

It was a curious corpse. It hung suspended at the far end of the room, wrapped in a thick web of the mold strands. It was definitely humanoid, but its features had eroded, leaving fungal growths where limbs should have been. The feet were still barely discernible, though melded together into a fleshy mass. The head lacked most features except a gaping, too-wide hole where perhaps the mouth had once been.

As Abenthy stared, that mouth suddenly closed and then opened and a clicking sound began to emerge from it, like a tongue rapidly tapping against the roof of a mouth. The body began to gyrate madly in its prison. Abenthy raised his shield and only this saved him from death. Acid spewed forth from the mouth in a projectile vomit that went fifteen feet across the room, splashing against the shield. Even so, the air around Abenthy suddenly shimmered with heat and his lungs burned as spores began to burst into small explosions all around him. He grabbed a javelin from his side and threw it, cleanly impaling the gyrating corpose. It clicked at him in response and continued to push at the confines of its webbing. Abenthy backed up and bumped into something. He spun, ready to see another of the creatures having snuck up behind him, but it was Karina, her eyes wide at the sight of the horrendous room.

“Out!” she commanded, and then she pointed a hand at the creature. A skeletal hand ripped at its chest and the effect was terrifying to see. Where the claws touched, the fungus rotted and died, almost instantly. A gaping wound was left in the creature’s chest and it screamed for the first time, a horrible half human sound like a man trying to cry for help from underwater. The creature strained again and this time the webbing broke and it fell to what passed for its feet. Then it was charging them...

This is yet another time I have dipped into Kobold Press’ Tome of Beasts. It really is the second monsters manual I always wanted from DnD 5 and my most used third party supplement. First of all, it has some tough monsters, nicely filling out the later level gaps left by the original MM. Also, each encounter, whatever the CR, is simply interesting. Each monster has a mechanic that adds to the tactics of the system, whether it is dealing with poisons, grapples, pushes and shoves, or diseases (as in this case). I drew inspiration from this book to create several of my own monsters, including the Skele-Pede and I can’t recommend it highly enough for 5th Edition DMs.

This particular beastie is a Mindrot Thrall and I cannot detail exactly what its infectious spores do, because it is very possible that at least one of my non-Aasimir players has become infected by it and I don’t want to spoil the surprise when they read this.

Suffice to say, they do end up defeating the creature, as it vomits forth acid and spores and makes a mess of the rooms. They then push on, find the trap mechanism, and clear the way for next time’s post: Ever Deeper.

#dnd 5e #playthrough #tomb of haggemoth #Tome of Beasts #Kobold Press #epic #Dungeons and Dragons #Journey Log #Wizards of the Coast #fantasy #RPG

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flairina · 6 years

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Flair’s Dreams, January 2018

Certainly been a while. Some of these are written in shorthand, so if you bother browsing through these, forgive me for that. It gets better later on.

1/3/18: (2:00-6:45)

I end up inside Shin Megami Tensei world (again- it's apparently happened at least twice before) due to someone taking an unwanted photo of me, and thinking that I'd like it to do such. The SMT world in this case is a giant, ever shifting tower of some sort, which rumbles as if hit by an earthquake while changing. I end up in a section controlled by Alice (the demon) called "Tick Tock Goes the Clock", with decor describable as the inside of a building from Alice in Wonderland where the main colors are pink, white, and gold. I have some sort of feud with the White Rabbit (the guy/demon who brought me in here?) before I'm finally left alone. I try to remember the way a few demon conversations proceed (the short mushroom demon likes men and alcohol, the four winged cerulean bird thing thinks pants are kind of cool, etc) when the tower shakes, and an 8-demon procession turns down the hall. Some are the bird thing but there are two kinds I've not seen before, one of them a sort of floating blue horse thing. They enter the room on the left (structured like a classroom) and emerge from the other door, behind me, singing and generally unaggressive. Two girls who are permanent residents here are also part of the line, and notice me. Brooke (a black girl with long, thin pleats/braids) says hi, while the other girl (a white girl with her hair curling up at the front off of her head like a squirrel's tail) asks her how I keep getting here. I tell her it's sheer random chance, as is how I keep getting out of here. The demon's singing appears to be summoning a wedding chapel, which I stop through my own music somehow, causing it to make a weird whiffling noise as it blinks back out of existence.

1/5/18: (Powers Dream?)

I'm either "playing" as, or actually am Samus (Metroid), and am currently in the middle of Metroid Prime 3, which requires me to ascend a space pirate "tower" ("urchin"-like room was notable). This is a late game area, and the entire 3D outline of it can be seen on the map. I make it to a normal office room (somewhat out of place) filled with space pirates, and use the photon beam to eliminate them. The charged shots are purple, and track/hone in on the enemies. There is a "tooth" language that only the pirates can access/understand, but by pulling them out of the stomach of a dead one in the corner (it ATE the teeth for some reason), I should be able to understand it soon. I'm no longer Samus, and decide to raid the nearby wardrobe for something to wear, but mom is suddenly in the room, trying to move stuff out. In the closet behind me, there are lotions on the top shelf, including a "snuggling" lotion.

A strange species of creature catches four DnD-type characters (all human men) and intends to transform them, allowing a single last request from each. They then twist the requests to make the transformations ironic, turning the group into a girl, a mutant raccoon, Princess Daisy (request involved a sneer), and a ____ (ICR what, but it wasn't human). The non-humans alleviate this by make themselves look like copies of the girl and Daisy member, and progress on, thinking that someone can reverse this in the area below a nearby canyon. Just as they're about to head down, they all transform back- but as each other instead of themselves, which shocks and frustrates them.

1/8/18: (2:??-7:20)

There is a person who is repeatedly turning into combinations of three different animals in order to fight something in a dark, pseudo-futuristic room. I can see them on screen to shoot at one point, and the twins from Flip Flappers are involved.

A giant snake "person" (just looked like a two-story tall snake) attacks me and others in a city alley. It can't tell people apart easily, but recognizes me from smelling my runny nose somehow, and comes after me.

The tent I was sleeping in outside an apartment is torn apart by the weather, which picked it up and proceeded to rain, HARD, solely above my stuff.

I need to give an example of something I have "triumphed in" for a required stage show. I'm slightly late, and the first example I give has something to do with electric powers? I then switch to saying I triumph in comedy itself.

1/10/18:

2D version of a 3D game, sand "castle" area, stars to collect Mario-style, giant mantis creature (boss?) in 3D Pikmin-esque leaf area, fought using morph ball (Metroid)?

1/11/18: (9:00-9:45 and 10:00-10:22, naps) (1:17-6:45)

Endbringer attack (Worm), it’s The Simurgh, “sometimes they stay dead for days, but they always get back up” (the Endbringers can be killed, but they don’t stay down), I’m at work, Blasto’s stuff turns everything inside purple and monstrous, and dogs become zerg-dogs, I’m Taylor, I run outside, “unlike inside, here, the bodies were real” I think to myself, envisioning them, except there actually aren’t any, I can’t even see the destruction, find some old guy and walk with him, there’s a giant model of earth to the right, see places on the continents being struck with poofs of red smoke, it represents something that’s actually happening, one barrels right into us, something to do with the endbringer attacks, some other guy with us now, old guy climbs into treehouse, which is thankfully unoccupied, speaks a little about how fire extinguishers are less effective in the arctic, then falls asleep in a bed in the back, me and the other guy sleep ourselves, and wake to the kid and his friend recording something nearby, they don’t notice us until I stand (I’m me again), they protest my presence, tell the kid to help me wake the guy in the bed up, they’re related?, go to scientist guy’s large yellow house, guys named Rick and Ray live here, they have a “human tainting” chamber/tube, think I’m watching videos at class/work and just getting really immersed, stop and wake as a result

I’m in a movie theater watching an animated movie, and become convinced that because the movie has characters named Rick and Ray and I JUST dreamed about that that I got the info about the future, movie ends, person in snake cosplay, accidentally head off in a sideways moving elevator for 50 minutes, come back, see giant gel monster things, fancy plaza with tennis courts and such, night sky looking ceiling, family has been waiting

I receive information that implies I am the girl who “won the game” and left for Heaven 6 months ago. I took “The Lilac Path”, was compared to a flower, and either literally was or was represented by a white, harsh featured woman’s mask with thorned briars behind it.

1/12/18: (1:??-9:30) (Powers Dream)

Fast vampire guy with long hair and Klaus (BBB), huge and intricate mansion, they’re after me/her (multiple tenses- I was “playing” as the female MC from a forum quest?), there’s a person cannon in the next room which is somehow Homestuck related, vote on song to play as we send off to another house, decide on Here from The Ancient Magus’ Bride, I still have pills left, but didn’t realize until I literally bit into them.

Five story playground equipment in backyard of house me and two girls broke into, we go inside, Yoda uses Spaceballs to distract a bunch of stormtroopers so he can turn them into water, I ask how that makes any sense, The Force can’t do that

Filthy purple room with green stringy things everywhere, on a team playing “hide and seek” (keep three items away from other team), room is too small and empty for this, novel new strategy, I distract the seeker when he comes in by fighting him with a rubber sling ball, and time runs out

A black guy with dreads/braids is sitting in a mostly black room at the top of a tower, a silver staircase leading inside. I’m not him, but can feel him comb his hair, somehow. He threatens Hannah Montana, until I, as Ayumura Tamako (but seen from a third person perspective), along with some tall guy, break through the outside wall (which has only air beneath it) and interrupt. I throw some sort of purple laser boomerang at the black guy, the results of which ICR, before I start to feel as if I’m just imagining this part, like I’m just daydreaming. Not liking this, I decide to leave this dimension, and fly(?) outside to do so.

1/13/18: (1:??-9:30) (Taste Dream)

There is a "Dream Dungeon" game, played in the style of SMT: Strange Journey, with a black and white map. There are small, reddish-pink bipedal creatures with oversized arms called "Neebles", that are extra powerful compared to the normal enemies, but I beat the first one fairly easily all the same.

In order to change fate, I need to alter a teddy bear/my alarm/my phone, which allows me to wake up early.

Card game where pictures must be matched, in a kitchen, blue and white buttercream doughnut I can taste, need Dad to help me snap a lobster's neck, which I think I'll be able to taste as well, something about planetary alignment and 413, I suck root beer from a fish grenade thing

1/14/18:

List of chapters, two centered around betrayals by cultists with red robes, Mom and I in a light white-greenish hallway, star projections on our feet, they signal that this is the spot to leave from, we spin to teleport out, we were on chapter 6, but then chapter 9 happens

Good, bad, and normal dream all forced to revolve around the same thing: a yellow and red thing with scales.

Make it to "banned" area by getting banned, made completely of sand colored blocks (seamless), indoor confinement with a single reception desk, place a portal there so it's a good thing (would have taken forever to get there otherwise).

Competition, sports style events, grannies and ___ on one side, robots and ___ on the other, I end up winning (most were gun events), take granny as prize, it'll all be connected soon anyways so it doesn't really matter...

1/15/17: (2:00-6:30)

I'm in my house, upstairs, while everyone is sleeping. I head downstairs, and Mom (who was asleep upstairs) sits up from the couch and screams at me, seriously startling me.

I'm playing/editing a game, from the inside, via the dev mode. The beginning mostly consists of large colorful platforms (with things on them) and floating bars (balance beams), some of which have yellow "slowdown" pads on them, all floating in the sky. There are two large, worm-like dragons with dark blue shell armor flying in the sky above. I passed by the Sun and Moon God area before, and end up going back to interact with them. They stand on small platforms above a larger central one. The sun god has eight arms. They speak to me, but their dialogue implies that you shouldn't be able to see both at once- I can, because I'm still in dev mode, which I'd forgotten. Cursing, I restart in normal mode, with a lot of progress lost.

The setting is a school, where many of the teachers are special (supernatural or otherwise) in some way. A wiry black "electric gremlin" locks 33 other monsters in with it in a room to play hide and seek, or rather "hide and shock" with them. In the hallways, there are several vocaloid-like beings who have "load" put upon them whenever a video starring them is uploaded. This existence is hard on the original/first of them, a girl with shoulder-length brown hair and a yellow and pink outfit, as because of the other's popularity they won't ever leave or fade away (while she will?). Phoenix Wright is nearby, and becomes angry with her, rushing at her to attack. I'm also there, and try to hold him back, but he begins transforming into a giant blade armed monster thing, making this difficult. I try disabling him with elbow strikes to the head, and ICR what happens after. Elsewhere, in a giant gray stone cavern with a thin spread of water covering the floor (possibly in the school), there are a ton of people milling about. A mouse cursor (moved by someone unknown) that can jet water out of its tip climbs up a rock near a big deal villainess woman in a black dress. Her name is revealed to be something familiar (something with "night" in it), just before she grabs and restrains a tall black man with pink dreads, who slashes at her with his hands and wounds her arm. She's intrigued, as that hurt her more than she's been hurt in the last ___ (some number of hundreds of) years. She tears away his disguise, revealing him to be Death the Kid (Soul Eater). Because he's in danger, a portal forms and teleports him out. I'm left somewhat confused however, as the "disguise" person is still around. The scene then plays out again, fully animated this time (it wasn't originally), no different except that DTK briefly turns into an orc. Above/upstairs, a group with bulky red and yellow cloaks (like bulky, darker versions of the Journey characters) and names based on angels have been waiting to leave this place, and are disappointed when the portal (the upper half of which was sticking through the ceiling) quickly closes. Later, an older male teacher fed up with doing nothing, along with me, decide to go looking for whatever is going on around here after hearing about the animal colonies that were here being gone (only the moving pictures/drawings remain). A horse and maid were previously kidnapped from here; if we could find the horse we'd have a lead. We proceed down a long hallway with rooms in the middle, but I keep getting ultra tired, and have to keep resisting sleep. We get to the front area, which has a setup like a shop with fully stocked shelves (mostly wigs?). The teacher decides we need wigs, and steals one. I grudgingly take another (a tokyo ghoul one), but don't think I'll be able to fit my hair under it. The teacher tells me to just do the best I can until we get downstairs. I think to myself that I'm glad he's having fun at least.

1/19/18:

Game with woman in blue who dies, I wonder how it affects Mom and Ian's dreams, Ian wants me to watch Castlevania "M___ of Blood" because it ties up plot threads from Dawn of Sorrow, but I don't want to, part of it plays out IRL in front of us, guy in white suit fights the boss on an altar at the back of an elementary school library like place, using millions of spears from the walls and floor, the boss counters with vines and just as many swords.

A familiar (as in a witch's familiar) sort of thing is floating over the sink, but I don't want to accept it as one (as mine?) because I know it won't listen to me.

There are giant piles of snow stacked in mountains outside the house, in the middle of spring, the huns from Night at the Museum are going around the neighborhood hitting everyone in the face with snowballs, I get excited (this is apparently an annual event), I go outside to change my panties for some reason, dude with a sharp object in hand comes after me, I flee through tall grass back to the house, recent argument between me and Elizabeth?

1/20/18: (2:00-9:??) (Powers Dream)

I'm in a small (less than 20) group of people with "God" powers, allowing us to fly, and giving us various other abilities as well (some of us, at least?). I'm relatively new to the group (and the area?), and worry that they dislike me, especially after I did something that I didn't think was rude, but they did. I try to find a moment to apologize, but can't seem to- there are too many kids in the house that all (or at least most) of us are living at, leaving precious few moments that everyone is available at the same time. Later, I'm at a sort of futuristic store, full of white plastic tubes and such, where I pick up two small items I didn't mean to. The one in my right hand is small, white and pink, and semi-triangular, and somehow shakes me when I hold it. Nearby, a girl from my group who sort of looks like Miu (DRv3) points out a tiny hammer either in or near something on the floor, which was relevant to the adventure/plot that happened previously where we attained said flight/godhood from. Later, I'm walking with Josuke (JJBA) under a winding overpass. It starts raining the second we step under open sky, and stops when we step under the pass, repeatedly. This indicates to both of us that we're under attack, thus we summon our stands. Josuke's looks kind of like Frieza (DBZ), while mine is long and kind of insectoid, with at least six limbs and enough flexibility to curl through the air. I then warn myself, still also back at the store somehow, and am that version of myself again. I tell the girl from my group about it and she goes to get the others, before I realize that it hasn't actually happened yet (there are two different time versions of me running around, and I'm currently the earlier version). I run out of the store and down the stairs, trying to talk to someone telepathically as I do(?). I come across a girl I know/have talked to on the stairs, and tell her I need to break her arm (which we discussed previously) in order to draw "their" attention, as I can't think of any other way. She's not happy about this for obvious reasons, and so tries to jump from the stairs and break MY arm to prove that will also get their attention. This fails utterly (my arm fails to break with her weight), and I tell her that's why it won't work with me before lifting up the girl (the crowd gasps) with the same arm and tossing her into the bookcase on the nearby wall, feet first. This makes her body turn cartoonish, and other people around pull her out as I hope that's enough and rush out of the building. Even later, there are many floating pillars high in the sky, with a central larger pillar meant to be reached by jumping from the smaller ones. A guy from my group is up here, doing just that (landing on the sides), and upon noticing the three golden glints in the central pillar, starts making his way there (they indicate either treasure or entrances). He doesn't manage it via jumping, and so ends up just flying there. I follow him in, and it turns out this is just the temple of the "Jungle boss" we beat already, so there's no new treasure here. The boss is basically just moving circular sawblades on a slope that descend slowly on a conveyor belt, which need to be broken by being "bowled" over. There are cardboard cutouts of rocks that turn real when bowled off to the side for this explicit purpose. The guy didn't do great on this before, but he just didn't get it I don't think, because I do very well with no practice at all. Also, by clogging the entryway, you can basically win automatically. Once we do, the guy who monitors this place asks if we want to go up to the top again, to which I say nah, we've got it, and just fly up on my own. While doing so, I think to myself that I'm getting too used to flying, and won't know how to go without it soon, to the point that I've memorized how it feels (like being "lifted" by the inside of the back of the shoulders/heart area). It then "slips" out of me in midair, which I panic about ("Hey!")- it feels as if God (who I envision as a long haired black guy made of stars and space) is lifting me up by my shirt.

In Grandma's room, whole slabs of my leg meat suddenly fall out, causing me to fall to my knees. My leg looks like raw chicken on the inside, and a large shard of rough, bloody bone comes out from just above my ankle, along with a chunk of the side of my foot. It doesn't hurt, but I still panic, and ask Mom what to do... and she just tells me to put it back.

Girl with seven different voices in her head, she's a parahuman, she sings to Lung (Worm), which is hilarious, on the Christmas before, a nerdy boy (who was the girl?) is driving, his different personalities are taking over intermittently, he gets in trouble due to something that happens in the car.

Sentient, pyramid shaped guy made of rock called Mr. Volcano, he's actually really tiny, church area where the ground is covered in high dark water that can partially(?) be walked over, all the buildings are black, giant orb building I get on top of, see family below and wave, will have to backtrack all the way if I want to get to them though.

1/21/18:

I get out of (my) bed, wander out to the theater area, starscape ceiling everyone is staring at, find family in the crowd, was backstage earlier (metal area with green room in back) that I was seen in.

There's a weird researcher looking guy in my bed, he all but tries to molest me, I know he's not real but still feel him poking me under the armpit, to get rid of him I sit up fully, say when I look up he'll be gone, and he vanishes.

1/22/18: (Powers Dream?)

Check-in room for an unfinished movie (early access?), I look like a woman with dark hair in a suit and have a fake ID/page to get in (the result of disguise magic?), guy with "Taurus" in his name tries to get in, I can tell he's also disguised/fake by what he says, somehow he's revealed to the rest of the room, he escapes into the dark-bluish dungeon/labyrinth outside, Ben 10 (or someone similar) pursues in a tiny, fast, white spider form (Kumoko?)

1/23/18: (1:3?- 6:40)

Four people meet up at the center of a town after a period of time, and show off proof of what they beat in order to let them proceed. Two did the normal version, one did a lesser version, and the last did something strange. They enter an aqua green palace, and somehow complete several “incorrect” fights.

1/26/18: (2:50-10:00)

Giant waterfall with bumpy, multicolored ground all around, the waterfall itself and the ground goes all around the area, it has a complicated "fall", Ian and I are there?

Robin, Jason, and Anne (The Wotch) are in a pink, cluttered bedroom, Robin is wearing a weird ninja outfit thing, they transform, Robin turns female and his clothes constrict into a really tight dress, later, on a lawn, Anne straight up admits to a guy (cheerfully) that she's altered his memory, with a display on a laptop that has a bunch of gold rectangles together and flashing, missing red ones to display the missing memories.

Someone is coming after an enemy “boss”, but it's actually a decoy, being issued commands by a scientist girl (the real final boss, so to speak). She goes through the underneath of her base to change the wires and such, where the light is dark purplish.

Guy who makes those around him extremely clumsy and can make himself Happosai-sized, making him very hard to hit or catch, I was on a team to guard against/catch him previously, one of the girls on the team gets frustrated enough to suggest arming everyone with guns, I corner him in a mall, in an area that's sort of like a giant tube, I still can't manage to hit him though, he goes on to be an ice skater, in the same mall someone is trying to use their henchman to kill people, but they're too incompetent, I'm on to them.

1/27/18: (2:00-9:30) (Powers Dream)

In a flat, "outer space" void, there is a spiral of gymnastic mats that leads to the Five God Dragon (Yugioh) at the glowing center, you can step outside the spiral of mats too, but that's no fun, there are enormous, whale-sized fish under the blackness that you can catch.

I'm a beautiful female ninja with shiny black hair and an elegant pink and green (seemingly peach inspired) outfit that looks like a mix between a dress and robes, walking through a town. It is possible to obtain small chests there (both normal brown and aqua green ones) from events, the latter only being openable with keys obtained from fights. There is a free hot spring that I want to go to, but I get interrupted before I can, and end up stuck going to a snowy mountain area for a mission. The entire time I just want to get back to the hot spring, to the point that I keep letting my clothes partially slip off. The guards, of which there are two lines on either side in front of me, find this very weird. I drop into the below-ground snow tunnel they are standing over to begin my mission.

I'm in a mansion/dungeon that anyone who enters supposedly only has a single night to escape. However, you actually have an endless amount of time, because time will stop progressing outside it the moment you enter. I'm dressed in a black leotard with gold accents along the sides. Coming up from a dark below ground area, I progress through an area of enemies that are no longer tough for me to beat (though they're destroyed before I can encounter them, via horizontal lightning), picking up the lightning items they drop. I think to myself that I need something blunter to kill them, since I want the kind of items they'll drop if I use a blunt weapon. I've explored most of the place, but have no idea where to go now. There is a rule that I need to stay out of the sight of the mansion's guards/servants, which poses a problem as there is one crouched right in front of the door to get back to the entryway (their stare is seen as a red cone of light). I hit the lights from my end (which only lasts a few seconds) and scamper out, climbing up a ladder across the way on to a catwalk. There are buttons on the wall to the left to press, and a gathering of people up ahead of me, one of whom is a kid who will alert the adults in 7 seconds that I'm here. It's possible to bribe him, and I have before, but I don't this time, instead swinging to a slightly lower catwalk, followed by another. I then fall/slide down a pit that leads to a furnace, turning into Bendy (Bendy and the Ink Machine) and moving off into a smaller side-tunnel.

1/29/18:

Video game/board game/obstacle course, Mario-like bit with aqua blue flooring and small electrified bits to jump around, upper area with movable present like boxes.

1/30/18:

The Protagonist (DDLC) was meant to be a girl from the start, but was changed. He enters a mall where there is a large flashy display overhead with the DDLC girls on it. Later, it turns out Monika has been with us (in the real world) the entire time, possibly due to a game glitch caused by a poster. Furthermore, because of someone's severed hand, she is omnipresent/everywhere at once at all times. She can control things by using her left hand for the mouse and her right for the keyboard (or the cursor, which is separate from the mouse?), which she reveals while in a car with me and _____ while suffering from awareness overload.

In a store, I "hatch" shriveled, radioactive bats. There are bats that "counter" them that look more like bluish, quadrapedal lizards the size of large dogs, most of which are sealed off in a toxic/radioactive factory mostly composed of tunnels, which ends up becoming the "endgame" area we have to traverse. Inside, the Homestuck trolls are sprawled out in a tunnel to the left, looking dead (they aren't), and for some reason we start a cookout just inside the entrance.

#dreams

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