The Fifteen Strangers Mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
strangerpeople) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
15strangers2019-05-22 09:23 pm
strangerpeople) wrote in 15strangers2019-05-22 09:23 pm
Entry tags:
FINAL INVESTIGATION
[The morning of the last day-the day of the deadline promised by the Elder Steward--there is a loud CRACK that echoes through the Mansion. It comes above, over, and around them.
Indeed, it seems to originate from outside.
Those who go outside will find themselves staring at a sky that is cracking everywhere. The cracks Osomatsu had seen before had somehow spread over the days unchecked. Now, the cracks become larger and larger, until finally, the sky itself breaks.
Glass-like pieces fall downwards as it shatters, dissipating lone before they hit the ground into sparkles. A cool breeze suddenly blows through the garden, while the sun suddenly appears for the first time, shining high in the sky. A...slightly creeping-looking, laughing sun, but that doesn't seem to be an illusion, unfortunately. Also it doesn't look ready to swoop down to attack them, which might be a small comfort.
The hole in the wall that had been made earlier is still there, large enough to crawl through. And when they do, the Strangers will find themselves in a more open grassy field, with a beach to the south.
The nice weather and grass, however, is not all that is there. It's clear there are other places in this complex to explore.]
[Before anyone can react, there is the sudden telltale ticking that begins in their heads, and their investigation scrolls appear. It's clear that the Stewards have started a countdown for them to get to the Temple, which sits beyond their immediate area, within a forest of trees that the grass transforms into. But, perhaps, the Strangers can use this to their advantage. Now, they know they have a time limit to search these places for more information about just why they are there.
Perhaps, now, they might have a chance to find something useful.
There are six strangers left. Best get to work.]
no subject
Food grabs his attention fairly quickly. And Eric can still his head. Reeling still, still feeling - or imagining he's feeling - his own skin--
No
Focus.]
He- he was there. The one that killed Emma.
[Food. Starved though he is, right now the thought of eating turns his stomach. But not as much as what Krone brings with the food. His eyes snap to and lock on the jar.]
Th-That.... It's hers. The angel soul. Why do you have it...?
no subject
Arthur is remembering a young witch's death, though, and this also isn't even what Krone actually expected, so she's very serious and attentive, not interrupting for a second.]
...they and that thing were working together so closely? Giriko had these in his house... [She jerks her head back. You know. Yonder. And yet there is a tightness in her fingers, a hardness in her eyes. Almost like she refuses to hear any shit talked about Giriko just yet?]
no subject
[He forces a swallow, and another shuddering breath. Come on. Pull it together.]
They.....they boiled and skinned her alive...
[So now they know. Exactly what Arthur just went through. The worst of it, anyway...]
There was.....another too, spiders, but they- she-- later, details later, I can't right now... There's gotta....be more to find, right? Find it....please....
[He has no idea what the weird headache machine thingy is but he bets it's important, and gets the feeling they're not done yet. He's useless right now, though, he'll be lucky if he's functioning halfway decently by....whatever comes next.]
no subject
[She puts down the plate of sandwiches - mouths at Eric that the other one is for him - and??? Okay here we go to the headache machine???]
no subject
no subject
GATHER THE SCRAPS, PUT THEM IN HER REPAIR SLOT, AND THEN THEY'RE BACK TOGETHER!
WASSIT SAY]
EVIDENCE
Neither are looking at the camera, instead looking at each other, inside what looks like a courtyard.]
no subject
no subject
no subject
I know it's probably the last thing in the world you want to do and I understand why, but we don't know what's to come and you'll need your strength. Please eat something? I can't feed you like a bird.
[Surprisingly reasonable words from a man who keeps seeing dark hair where there is plainly blond if he turns his head away. At least he isn't seeing glasses, too. Though that might be better, honestly....]
no subject
[He's struggling not to get caught in it again. The first was so tame. Despite the death, despite the spiders. By comparison it was nothing.
Food. Sandwiches.... It's strange, to be both starving and repulsed at the sand time.]
I don't....think I can... [He wants to but god, could he even keep it down? He can smell the Hollows again, and the stench of burning human flesh.]
no subject
[If he focuses on acting like "a father" he won't so desperately miss his own. If he focuses on making sure Arthur is stable he will be himself. Those who carry the spear support those who are bound by the whip, this is how it has been for a century....]
no subject
He won't condemn Eric, too. Won't tell them who the crocodile was.]
....It's not really burning, right...? I haven't....seen the mansion, or anything, not since Emma... Right now, it looks just like Gotham...
no subject
[And on a clear day you can see where Castle Proserpina appeared, because this is Whitby, isn't it, above the bay? Miss Lucy sat here with Aunt Mina, here in the graveyard. But it can't be there, they were just - and Krone is walking level where there's a steep hillside, there in that town by the sea in England. Here is somewhere else. He is not eleven years old -
He lets Arthur lean, gently stroking his hair. The Egyptians had a good god or two,among the too-human throng, didn't they? That was a different sort of crocodile, but he was a protector, that one wasn't he? It counts. It has to, or... he doesn't know what.]
It's too nice a day for a horrible place like this, but I wish you could see it.
no subject
It was too dangerous to go swimming in the Azure Rainforest. Bet the water was nice, though.
no subject
[There is no better time for light conversation than when one is confronted by hell. It is a last-ditch effort, a falling-back-through-No-Man's-Land effort, but it's something that isn't despair.]
Ah, but you're lucky to be near the sea. My hometown is landlocked... there's a beautiful river, a beautiful series of canyons north of there, but it isn't the same.
no subject
I guess all the water stops there, though, 'cause the next stratum is the Sandy Barrens. It's a desert. Everything's dry and the trees twist all funny. And under that, there's ruins from the Old World. Ricky said it was a huge metropolis called Tokyo, a thousand years ago. There were buildings bigger than anything I've ever seen, so old they'd crystallized, and everything was covered in plants...
...Under that is the Claret Hollows, though. Those're....like nothing else, anywhere else. I kept seein' them instead of the mansionhouse. They were humid and warm. The walls and floor were soft, squishy...warm and wet sorta moving? They were- they were made of flesh. And there were rocks, white and bony, and the doors were like heart valves, and the smell...
[He shakes his head. Don't get lost in it. That quickly stops being light conversation. Back tot he conversation....]
Etria's not my home, though. The Midgard Library makes a point of raising orphans, and Simon and me went there after we left what was left of Gotham. It's farther fromt he sea than Etria is.
no subject
I ought to have remembered Gotham, you did mention it before. I'm sorry. And I wish it had been some place other than those hideous Hollows, that which this place pulled from your mind. The Azure Rainforest sounds almost like a pleasant dream - but you'd said it was dangerous there, too. Monsters?
no subject
Most people who go in don't come out. And until we came along, nobody'd made it to the Azure Rainforest in ages and ages. And we're definitely the first ever to set foot in the Claret Hollows.