bravenewworld | Descent into Darkness

Descent into Darkness

As the characters arrive, they will find what appears to be a rather deep cavern. Upon entering, the caverns are quite narrow, with twists and turns everywhere and different tunnels that all seem to be interconnected. As characters travel deeper within the caverns, reality around them will start to warp, they will start to see and hear things that aren’t necessarily there - images of old enemies, past failures, voices of condemnation, visions that strike at the soul and core of the characters. Once this begins, it will only increase in power and volume, demanding it be confronted, lest they be trapped within these caves forever.

[OOC: This event will run for a week. All characters who enter the caves will be subject to some of their deepest fears, darkest demons, and most abject failures. To overcome them, characters must help each other out, finding their purpose through strength of character and resolve to move forward. In general, these visions should require characters to come to grips with themselves. Illusory images and voices can and will appear and can take any number of forms, depending on what is most appropriate to a character. Additionally, characters may thread with each other and are encouraged to help each other out to overcome these personal demons. For those who wish to take part, they are able and encouraged to narrate their own personal demons, which will be on display for everyone who enters their thread. IC threads may be made in this post.]

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Grabbing onto Sinbad as an anchor when the quakes started, Waver ducked until he was almost hiding behind Sinbad The sudden gorey imagery were well beyond his comfort zone, and not even his usual bluster was enough of a shield against this sort of onslaught.

"What's he even talking about?" He asked quietly. Somehow, it sounded as if Sinbad was almost like him...

[ Well, Gordon didn't seem too bothered by the peculiar oddity of hearing a disembodied voice so, with a shrug, Rincewind jogged after him and soon fell in step. The Luggage obediently following in their wake. ]

Gosh, at least your ghost has the decency to smell nice. [ He wraps his arms around himself and peers into the darkness, as if by sheer will alone he'd be able to make something out. ] What's she going on about?

Waver cast a cursory look at Rincewind, as if searching his eyes and actions for an answer to some unspoken question.

"I am," he said, nodding firmly. "Are you?"

Because he knew Rincewind was tough in his own right, but cowards would always be cowards no matter how brave they could seem at times. Somehow, he wasn't surprised that Rincewind would fear Death....then again, who didn't on some level?

Without thinking, he moved on instinct - listening to the waves as he reaches to grab Waver by the sleeve, pulling them to a small crevice where some rusted hunk of metal was riveted to the wall.

He puts a finger to his lips, gesturing him to fall silent as the quakes grew closer and closer, it was something not from the earth. Another shadow, large and beastly passes through, snuffling the ground, hunting. Sinbad held his breath, eyes widening as his pokemon huddled together. Briefly, the great shadow seems to turn to them, a maw opening - then it suddenly turns and stalks off.

"I don't know who'd I'd be proving myself to, that part doesn't sound like me." He shook his head as he crept out to make sure the coast is clear. "That might be an illusion, but the waves said it was dangerous..."

[He didn't linger, and averted his gaze to afford the stranger a modicum of privacy for his innermost turmoils.]

Yeah, it was something like that. The face of someone I didn't like voicing my own personal doubts.

[Lingering a few steps behind, just in case the door were to reveal something else that was intensly private, he continued:]

I think this cave is forcing us to face the parts of ourselves that we don't like.

"The waves...?"

He hadn't argued a bit at Sinbad's urgent movements, but that little note caught him off guard. Although he was ttold to be quiet, he had to know-- especially if that shadow beast were to come back, and they were to be eaten before the night was out.

[No, Fuuka was doing something that she could be proud of-- standing up to a bully who hid themselves under the guise of tradition. Waver looked at her, almost surprised to hear those words uttered from someone that he had never met before. Although he had never gathered the courage to outright argue like this, those were indeed his thoughts.

No one needed to cling to a five hundred year old tradition so strictly, and Gigas would never have been able to hold the city for forever even without Union's intervention. The Magi needed to change.

And, even if he wasn't the one to do it, that didn't mean that he wasn't going to try.]

Forget it, [He said, shaking his head.] He's part of the reason I left Sanctuary anyway. They're not going to just change because something's unfair.

[No, there was still time for Rincewind to flee if he so chose. The man in question, an Archmagus and senior lecturer at the academy, hadn't noticed him.

Yet.

Perhaps Rincewind, like Waver, was blessed with the dubious trait of being invisible unless he happened to speak up loud enough?

Waver visibly shifted under the apparition's chilling gaze, as if he were little more than a primary school student preparing himself to be punished for not clapping the chalk dust out of the erasures properly, or spilling ink all over important documents. He didn't dare lift his eyes from the ancient, faded carpeting beneath their feet.]

Nothing, really. It's too advanced for me to really get, anyway. It doesn't matter.

[The shadow tutted, slipping into the role of a nightmarish school master with little apparent effort on his part.]

"Oh, but you're wrong. It does matter. Those are the working drafts for my most recent project, you understand.

"No one is to know of it."

[Waver looked up now, fear glittering in his eyes. That didn't mean what he thought it meant....did it?]

Still, it didn't seem like it was the best conversation for me to engage in.

[As she walked even further in, he could see that she was mumbling to herself and not bothering to look at him.]

But I hoped that everything turned out well in the end for you, sir.

[Although, that was her being optimistic]

[Gordon frowns, turning a blind corner only to find himself on a rooftop in Union. Both of him. The second Jim sits on a low wall, smoking a cigarette, smoke trailing away in the wind as he watches the blonde who spoke. Beautiful, a little younger than the man, though the 2nd Gordon's hair still all has its original red, with maybe a few greys here and there. The older James, the real one, heads straight for the doorway to the stairwell, the exit from the rooftop, even as his younger reflection stands up, approaching the blonde.]

An old argument with my wife, about me spending too much time with work.

"No," Rincewind gloomily admitted. "No worries, I'll get by. It's what I do." He added, absentmindedly patting the sand off his pants. The peculiar scene seemed to be losing solidity, which was fine by him. The black sky clung to the ceiling, but the walls were walls once again. The sand had lost its unearthly quality. The figure waned.

"You don't happen to know the way out?"

"It's - everyone, and everything has these waves I can feel. It tells me when something's dangerous." He explains in a sotto tone. "I don't think it's here anymore," He crawls out on his hands and knees, keeping low to the ground.

"I don't remember it being that big..."

The shadow is a bit more concerned with the Ranger that'd just pretty much taken her knee and snapped it backwards like a twig. Funny thing about knees. They're oddly vulnerable things, when you get right down to it.

"You bitch!<" the woman snarls, electricity beginning to build up all around her.

"You're one to talk," Yuuna retorts, drawing her sword and pressing it against the shade's throat. If nobody says anything, or the Luggage doesn't intervene? It's...probably going to be lights out. "Nobody has the right to attack people under my protection. And you're no exception. Because I would never attack my friend."

[ Rincewind's face mirrored Waver's. He didn't doubt the elder magus could kill him. Magi valued knowledge. They horde it, embracing every sentence of power like lovers. Rincewind, gnaws on a knuckle. He didn't want to get in the middle of this. It would be terrible, he just knew it. Bad things always happened to meddlers. Meddling, especially when Magi were involved, meant trouble. ]

[ He grips the shelf next to him, half-hiding behind it, half-using it as a shield. His eyes alighted on a thick almanac. ]

[ it isn't real, he knows it isn't real and it's just here to mess with Waver like all the other visions people have been having in these stupid caves - but he still flinches with a Mage staring him down and calling him out as a Homunculus. he shrugs Waver off anyway. this guy is designed to target Waver; it's not Jack he knows inside and out, so Jack isn't the one that's going to get hurt by anything he says. ]

Uh-huh. The thing about that is, outside of Sanctuary? Neither does yours. Without your little Mage club, you and me are on equal standing.

[The too taut violin string isn't just a constant tone now, turning into rapid, chaotic playing, something fundamentally unsettling about the too high tone and musicless playing. The sound is off, as if the strings were be played with razor blades rather than a bow. Gordon pauses at that description, looking back Waver at the new information. Looking back, he misses what causes the anguished cry of the Squirtle as the door opens, followed in quick succession by his other Pokémon. Jim turns to look through the door, his face immediately falling at the lifeless bodies within, red hair and redder blood pooling beneath them.]

Barbara?

[The tension is let loose all at once as the razor blade cuts through. Jim charges through the door, all knowledge of the illusion of it falling away as an animal panic overtakes him, the pokémon quick on his heels. The man drops to his knees by the bodies of his wife and children, tears in his eyes.]

Another late night, captain? Shame you missed it.

[The new voice is unlike any previously, seeming less like a human voice and chaos in spoken form, cracked and frayed.]

"Poor Yukiko..." her shadow clucks, tapping her finger against the dark haired girl's cheek.

"Let...let me go! Fuuka, ignore them! They're just trying to rattle you..."

She struggles, pushing her hands against her shade and stepping clear finally, rubbing her jaw. But then, what was this Fuuka talking about...it didn't make any sense. Tohil hisses angrily, hopping up onto Yukiko's shoulder.

"You don't want to hurt me, I know that."

More or less.

[Gordon considers the young woman for a moment.]

You alright, miss?

[ He sticks closer to Gordon. What was happening now wasn't what should be happening. They were in a cave, this was wrong. At least the hallucinations seemed benign enough. For a man rooted in reality, he was taking this rather well. ]

Can't live with it. Can't live without it. Erm ... was it too much?

[ He raises a skeptical brow. Rincewind is about as familiar with family matters as the Luggage was familiar with being an inanimate tree. ]

[He was burning.

That was the first thing Waver processed as he laid his fingers upon Gilgamesh. He was burning up-- and plainly in no condition to stay in this cave. Despite his own hesitations regarding the fallen man, he knew that he wouldn't be able to sit with himself if he just passed by someone in this state.

He was human, after all.

The whispering, disembodied voice, however unnerving, was the only thing that made some sense in the darkness of the cave.]

Shut up or I'll shut you up, [Waver hissed, dragging Gilgamesh out into the open despite all protests.] I can at least do that much.

[A classic Hypnosis spell would be a cinch while Gilgamesh was in this condition, he thought darkly. But there was no reason to earn anyone's ire just yet-- and he didn't have the stamina to maintain such a spell for terribly long.

Kneeling next to the muddy figure, Waver pushed his tangled hair out of his face and tried to recall another technique he had on hand.]

I can also help clean you up a little, if you let me. [A pause. There were no sounds but the water dripping in the distance and their own ragged breathing.] Only if you let me.

Rincewind's alignment was lawful cowardly. He had no qualms with the dispatching of someone trying to murder him. All the more power to her. Death happened all the time in Sanctuary. The Luggage, however, had worked up a consistent trundle and didn't look to be stopping anytime soon. Rincewind widly flails, attempting to attract the Luggage. Yuuna had this handled. She didn't need a Luggage to go and start mucking everything up.

"Bugger you, let them be!"

[The heavy scent of blood in the air was enough to get Waver to stop in his tracks behind Gordon; the sight of broken bodies and tangled limbs lying in an ever widening pool of blood made him feel sick to his stomach. Turning away so his back faced them, he promptly started promptly fussing with the Warp Band, trying to remember how to call his strongest and most reliable Pokemon to the field.]

Don't let it get to you, [he stammered, voice shaking as he sought to find something real to grasp upon.] Don't let it get to you.....

Frowning, Waver cast him a glum look of embarrassment in reply to the question.

"I didn't realize we were going to be entering the Labyrinth of the Minotauros," he said, shrugging helplessly. "I didn't pack nearly enough rope to mark our way."

[The younger James Gordon embraces the blonde just in time for Gordon to step through the door, what had been a stairwell a moment before swiftly becoming cave once again. The taut-wire tension becoming something more erratic, a string played in something with only the loosest relation to music.]

That depends on who you ask.

[Perhaps the argument isn't quite so old as Gordon would like to pretend.]

[Jim is in shock, looking over the bodies of his wife and two children. He looks for the source of the voice, but there's no threat, no crime to stop, because it already happened.]

Barbara... Junior...

[He starts to tremble, his back to Waver, but the defeat is clear in his next words.]

You were right.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 33 of 68

Descent into Darkness

Re: Open

no subject

no subject

Re: Open

Open

Open

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Re: Open

no subject

no subject

no subject

Re: Open

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Open

no subject

no subject

Re: Open