Play@YSDC

Murray falls. The distance seems impossible. How could this be beneath the hospital? Where could he be? The air is warm and humid, its moisture cloying around his body. He's falling backwards though he could have sworn he'd pitched forwards. There's a disturbing click-clack-whirring sound like an old-fashioned camera. It continues again and again, the sound emanating from all around him. Then there's a sudden flash of light as he slams into something which groans, tilts, and rolls him down onto another platform. He rolls to a stop on his side, bruised all the way up one shoulder and hip, and staring out across an expanse of misty red-tinged shadows with hunks of building walls jutting up from lengths of steel grille sidewalks. The windows are all broken glass. Barbed wire topped chain link fences move out here and there and everywhere.

Somewhere above him he hears something take flight. Something massive whose wings beat the air and cause a breeze. It makes a deep gutteral sound like an angry pur that ends in a click-clack-whirrrr as it launches off into the distance. Something deep down inside Murray tells him that it will be back. Presuming he sits up to regard the place, he sees that he's on a sidewalk himself with a tall red brick wall to one side that seems somewhat familiar. There's a big glass window in the wall, smoke-darkened, yet whole.

Murray drags himself to his feet, suppressing a groan. He puts his flashlight back in his front shirt pocket, clipping it on. He grips his gun in his right hand, looking around nervously. What the hell? he thinks. Just when I thought things couldn't get any weirder. Gotta get indoors before that thing comes back. He makes his way over to the window, trying to peer through it to see what's inside.

OOC,Nice! I hadn't even noticed I was approaching the end of the chapter. Do I get to roll for skill increases?

He can see what appears to be a factory office through that smoke blackened window. It appears to be blackened and charred. It reminds him of a case he once had involving arson against a failing business to claim on the insurance. He'd been hired by the insurance agent and had found the man guilty. He'd come out of it with neither factory nor ill-gotten gains. The steel door beside the window is locked but it has a simple enough lock that should be easy to pick (+15% to your Lockpicking percentiles to do it).

OOC,Yes you do. Sorry, I forgot about that. Everything you have a check mark beside it. Since your character was extra cautious throughout the whole thing, I will let you have a free skill increase in Hide.

Murray takes out his lockpicks and has the door open in short order. He slips inside.

OOC,Thanks! :)

There's a charred wooden desk shoved up against the other door in an otherwise empty room that smells of ash, soot, and lost dreams. As Murray approaches the desk he can see a piece of paper pinned between the desk and the door. The page contains the words: I Know What I Must Do.

Murray shuts and locks the door behind him, then pulls out the piece of paper and holds it up to his flashlight to see what else is written on it.

The rest of the paper is blank, albeit a little charred at the bottom.

Well, at least someone knows what they must do, thinks Murray, folding the piece of paper and slipping it into a pocket. He then tries to move the desk aside to get access to the other door.

The desk scrapes loudly across the floor as he presses his weight against it to move it aside. As he pulls back from the desk, now that the door is cleared, he can hear a faint whimpering coming from inside followed by a man's terrified scream.

"Help is on the way!" calls Murray. He draws his gun and tries to throw open the door with his free hand, hurrying to rescue whoever might be in danger on the other side.

The door opens to reveal a bathtub situated against the wall on a rusted steel grille floor. A man lies in the tub, wrists slit, water bloody. The man is someone familiar to Murray. The owner of the business whose efforts Murray brought to the light of day. Murray hadn't heard about the end of his story. Is this what he really did afterward? Or is this just a lie from this terrible location?

There's a note folded up on the dirty sink beside the tub and no other doors out of here. It looks like if Murray wants to leave he'll have to go out the way he came in.

This isn't my fault, thinks Murray, looking away from the tub. He did this to himself. Curiousity getting the better of him, he picks up the note, unfolds it, and reads it.

The note states: I am what I perceive. I see what I am. In physics, one can't observe a situation without changing it. Even the atoms and molecules change. We'll meet soon. I've missed you. - Ash.

Wow, I must really mean a lot to her, thinks Murray. I just hope she's not sweet on me. This must be meant for me somehow, but I'm not sure how she knew I'd find it. He folds up the note again, puts it in his pocket with the other one, and leaves the office, heading back outside.

As Murray steps outside he can hear the heavy wings beating in the distance. There is, at least, only one direction to go across the rusted steel grilles that made up the floor here. Peering down below at the gaps beneath his feet he can see enormous steel girders placed here and there, as though offering support to this twisted monstrosity of a town. Gazing ahead to where the path veers right he can vaguely make out through the heat haze the words 'Post Office'.

Ah, perfect! thinks Murray. Maybe there I can find that post office box and finally get some answers. He sneaks down the path to the right, sticking to the shadows as he approaches the post office.

The post office looks like a mundane building if not for the oddly red brick walls and the cracked smoky glass window behind thick metal bars that wouldn't be out of place on a pawn shop window. The door is slightly open and there's a creaking sound coming from inside. There's also a series of metal post office boxes on the outer wall so that people can collect their post outside of shop hours.

Murray looks for box 392 as he fishes the small key out of his pocket. If he finds it, he tries the key in the lock.

All of the numbers are degraded and rusty. There must be a way to figure out which one is the right one without having to try them all. The answer seems so simple yet is just outside of his realisation.

OOC,you can either solve this yourself or roll Idea roll if you get stumped.

The boxes are probably numbered in order, thinks Murray. I'd guess from left to right in rows, but they might be numbered from top to bottom. All I need to do is figure out which box is number 392 in the correct order. He counts how many boxes are in each row and how many are in each column.

The post office boxes are in descending order and go from left to right so it takes him two sets of counting to find the right one. He puts the key in and twists it, opening it to reveal a handgun that reeks of gunpower as well as a folded up note. There's also a ticket in there to the Artaud Theatre: "Blessings Taken Unawares: One Man's Story."

The first thing Murray does is unfold the note and read it, holding it up to light coming from his clip-on flashlight.

That sounds like something my client would say, thinks Murray with a pang of guilt. I've got to find her, but I don't see how this helps me yet. Maybe the theater will have some more leads. I never did finish exploring that place, and this ticket has to be relevant somehow. He pockets the note and the ticket. Then he puts on his gloves and examines the gun, which seems to have been recently fired. He makes sure the safety is on and checks how many bullets it contains.

There is one bullet in the handgun sitting behind the trigger, so to speak, rather than lurking in the clip. And no, the safety isn't on. There are fine traces of gunpowder on the muzzle which still feels a little warm. Very recently fired.

Knowing that every bullet counts in this place, and that he's used several already with no replacements until now, Murray turns on the safety and pockets the gun. With nothing left for him here, he locks the empty box and pockets the key as well with the note and ticket. Then he checks his map and tries to identify his current location and the best route to get back to the Artaud Theater.

The map propbably won't be as much use as he initially thought. Only one side of the street is available to him, the other seems to move off at an odd angle at an intersection as though some great entity had unzipped all of the streets and then refastened the sides at random moments. There are shapes moving through the flickering red fluoro-lit semi darkness. He isn't alone here. There are other things hunting. He is utterly aware of that fact. Perhaps in the gaps between when the street lamps flicker on in the streets ahead he could pass them by and try to remain hidden within the darkness. Perhaps. Or perhaps he should find a trusty implement to help him deal with threats without expending his precious bullets. He may need those later on. Who can say?

A warm fetid breath of air is expelled from the pit below like from some fell god's throat, ruffling the hairs on his head. The other disturbing fact about the streets is that they do appear to be gently sloping down though it is difficult to say whether that is a fact or just some quirk of perception.

I'd better get indoors, pronto! thinks Murray as he puts the map away. He tries the post office door.

The door handle clatters a bit as he yanks on it but with a bit of elbow grease he manages to jerk it open, revealing a dusty and room with grimy shelves and grotty stained packages, parcels and envelopes littering the shelves. The door behind the counter creaks a little as it swings back and forth slightly. The cash register is broken. Someone has smashed it with a fire axe, leaving the axe behind. It reminds him of a similarly shattered cash register he had seen in a robbery he had once investigated when the police ruled it as suspicious and he was called in by the owners to clear their name - which he did. That was a happy ending, at least.

Murray shuts the front door behind him and locks it if possible. He still has the crowbar from the hospital which he had taken back from Craig, but the axe might be better at both opening doors that refuse to yield to his lockpicks and for fighting off the various monsters in this crazy place, so he exchanges the crowbar for it. Yoink! he thinks as he picks it up and hefts it. It's like this place is made out of my memories or something. Like a dream...or a nightmare. He peeks through the swinging door to see what's on the other side.

The doors were lockable once though not anymore. It appears that age and decay has put paid to that idea. Through the door behind the counter there's a dark passageway leading down, down, down, down with a series of trapezoidal niches in the walls which are wider on this side than the other side. They appear to have the occasional hole pierced through them. The passageway is eerily gloomy and the light from his flashlight doesn't penetrate much further than twelve feet. The corridor is certainly longer than that.

Well, there's only one way to find out what's in there, thinks Murray. He carefully ventures down the passage, trying to make as little noise as possible.

There is a dull whirr within the corridor like the sound of a reel of film playing out as he begins to descend the ramp-like passageway, passing those trapezoidal indentations with their round peep holes from which seem to emanate the only sources of light. It's a wan light akin to light escaping through the holes than any bulb within them. The ramp continues to stretch away before him when, unenbelievably, he starts to hear a phone ringing at the very bottom of the passage.

Murray quickens his pace, but he doesn't rush so much that he puts himself at too much risk. Somehow he knows that call is for him.

The ramp seems to descend for hours before finally flattening out into a small room with a big steel door that has a round puckered hole in the middle that appears filled with darkness. Two paintings flank the door. One shows a camera. The other shows his bedroom. A ringing telephone sits upon a tall occasional table in the corner of the room. The floor, walls and ceiling are of unpainted concrete. There's no light in here other than that released by his flashlight.

Murray leans his axe against the table to free his hand and snatches up the phone. "Hello?" he says into it.

Murray hears a distraught woman (Ash?) answer the call, "Why? Why, you jerk? Why'd you let me leave? Why didn't you just ... you just ... do what you were paid for? You took it halfway! You don't even have the right to judge."

OOC,Oops! :oops: I'm so sorry I hadn't realized you'd posted here before I left back in June. I'd been wondering why this game wasn't being updated, and now I see that it's because I forgot to post. I only noticed when I saw other posts being made here.

"I'm not here to judge you, Ash," says Murray. "God knows I've done some things I'm not proud of, and that's one of them. I'm here looking for you because your family needs you, more than you can imagine."

"My family? That's why I'm here! That's why this is all ... all happening. I just wanted it to go away. Why did you let it go away?"

"I don't really know," says Murray. "I guess I'm just a sucker for a cute toddler. How is it that you're here because of your family? Do you have family in Silent Hill too?"

"You come all this way and you still don't know the first thing about me," she said, sounding weary. "Didn't you even try to visit my mother? To learn why I might be here? To learn where I might go?" Her voice turns suddenly angry and she says with viciousness in her voice, "You didn't even try, did you?!"

"I did try," says Murray. "I visited her in Shepherd's Glen before I came here. First thing I did. She pretended to be someone else and claimed Mrs. Whittleby no longer lived there, but I saw through her. She shut the door and locked me out. I called her phone and got her machine, which proved who she was. I got her to pick up the phone, but she yelled at me and insisted she hadn't seen you in twenty years before she slammed down the phone."

"She called me, I swear," she said, voice hoarse. "They have ways of calling you here."

"I believe you," says Murray. "I've gotten some unusual phone calls here myself." Case in point, he thinks, looking at the phone in front of him. "Can you please explain what the deal is with this place and why you came here? If you want to talk, I'm here to listen."

"I came here to accept my fate and be free," she said softly. "I've been running for so long..."

"Your fate?" asks Murray, confused. "What do you mean?"

"We always hated this town ... Silent Hill ... but we wanted the same strength it provided the others on Toluca Lake," she said softly. "But then one failed to do what was needed and the whole town just went down. Everything ... we lost everything. I thought I could get away but the dreams ... the dreams kept calling me back ... then you ... then Jack ... but it was all your snooping and your lies that decided it for me. I had to leave. I had to come home." Her voice becomes twisted, enraged. "You told me ... you told me to go home! Well, I have something for you ... a gift ... in the very next room you can make yourself at home!"

It really was my fault! thinks Murray, the revelation weighing on his heart. "I'm sorry, Ash," he says. "I didn't know, I didn't understand. I'd meant for you to go back to your family in San Francisco, not here. I'd never even heard of Silent Hill. What happened here? What was it that needed to be done? Where are you now, Ash? I'll come find you."

"You'll come find me?" Her voice breaks. "That's what they always promise ... isn't it? Dreams of a brighter future. Of a tomorrow. You think they really mean it, this time, but they can't ... everyone has their own little words and they can't ever hear you. I - I wish it weren't true but no one ... no one ... ever heard me."

"I can hear you now," says Murray, "and I do mean it. If it's at all within my power, I'll find you. That's why I came here in the first place. You've got a little girl who misses her mommy, and I intend to see to it that you two are reunited."

"There are no guarantees in this world. But I believe you will try." She sounds tired. So very, very tired.

Murray hears her replace the phone back in its cradle and the familiar beeping sound of a telephone call abruptly ended can be heard coming down the line.

Murray hangs up the receiver and moves to the door and the paintings to get a closer look at them. On a hunch, he takes out his camera and points the lens at the hole in the door, then peers through the camera at the hole.

There seems to be some kind of mechanism further inside the hole. Something metallic glints around the edges.

Murray tries to use his camera's light to enhance the image and get a better look at the mechanism.

Photograph skill to work the lights just right.

Murray adjusts the light as best he can, but the image is a little blurry.

The mechanism seems to be some kind of switch at the edge of where the hole broads out into the other side.

Well, I'm not sticking my hand in there, thinks Murray. He digs through his pockets looking for a piece of string he can use, planning to tie one end into a loop so he can snag the switch and pull it from what he hopes is a safe distance.

There may be some package twine at the post office. There isn't any string in his pockets. He does have shoe laces but it's probably best not to use those unless pressed.

Murray creeps back upstairs to look for some twine.

Murray sees nothing in the gloom, but he can hear just fine. He can't quite be sure if anyone has been this way recently.

If he's to find twine or something similar he will need to provide a better source of light. His flashlight is starting to get dim despite the fact he had loaded a fresh set of batteries before coming here. Either more time had passed than he had realised or something about this place drained batteries. He might need to grope about the shelves and pull off the old mouldy boxes if he wants to find that twine. Luckily the only disturbing noises he could hear came from the fans outside in the street.

Murray makes his way back up to the ground floor and begins his search, hoping to find either twine or something that could be used as a light source. A candle would help, as he still has the matches. He might even be able to make a torch by taking a length of wood, wrapping one end in something flammable (such as paper), and lighting it.

OOC,I'm using the clip-on flashlight. [b]Craig[/b] had the one I had brought with me.

The clip-on flashlight produces dim light though still somewhat serviceable, though it'd still be a good idea to create a non-electronic light source for when it finally gives in. The flashlight, however, still manages to send the long shadows a'skitter, making it difficult to find the twine he needs. It takes more searching than he had expected, and as he pushes some of the papers and mouldy boxes about, his finger rasps against something rusty hidden among them, drawing a line of blood on his finger. As he withdraws his hand, he knocks something, and sees a ball of twine go thump-thump-thumping across the floor.

Murray grits his teeth and has a sharp intake of breath. He pulls a handkerchief out of a pocket of his trenchcoat and wraps it around his cut, applying pressure. I better not get tetanus, he thinks. Gotta clean that fast. Alcohol would do nicely.

OOC,I'm not sure what I've picked up, as it's been a long time. Do I have any medical/first aid supplies from the hospital? And do I have any alcohol? I don't have anything like that recorded on my character sheet.

OOC,I don't think [b]Murray[/b] ever did find one though he did search pretty hard for it. At least, I don't think he found one since using up the last one on Craig after the gunshot. I'm pretty sure everything was dirty and grimy. Just plain awful, in fact. In truth, it's funny how folks minds work. I can truly believe someone worrying about tetanus when they're in a hellish deformed world of twisted metal and all the more twisted monsters.

It doesn't appear to be a big cut and it's not bleeding too badly, though the handkerchief certainly helps with that. If he ever gets out of this hellish place, he may very well need to get another tetanus shot. As he applies pressure, he hears something release a sound that is part-howl, part-snarl and part-scream. Did something pick up the scent of that blood?

Murray shivers when he hears the howl, suddenly with more pressing concerns than his cut.

OOC,Is there any way I can lock and/or barricade the front door?

The shelving structures could be pushed against the door, providing some degree of barricade. The internal door could also be theoretically barricaded from the inside, though it would only buy him time, and probably only as much time as it would take to push them in place. If he could wedge something in the landing by that internal door, that could do a reasonable job, though it would take a Mechanical Repair roll to figure out how to do that (failure means he's at a loss as to how to do it so it won't cost any time).

Murray hastily shoves the shelving against the front door. He sntaches up the ball of twine and hurries back downstairs. Unable to figure out how to efficiently block off the interior door, he settles for closing it behind him as he makes his way back downstairs.

As his foot hits the bottom step, he can hear a thud against the exterior door. Hopefully he can rig the device to pull the lever quickly (Mechanical Repair).

Murray ties the end of the twine into a loop and effortlessly lassoes the switch without having to reach into the hole. He stands well back, playing out the twine, and pulls it to activate the switch.

The switch sticks for a moment, but another another tug, it moves and with a clatter of internal gears the two doors begin to yawn open, pulling backwards to reveal red-tinged air and a hint of smoke that smells like matchsticks and old-fashioned camera flash bulbs. From somewhere above comes another crash of weight against the door above and the groaning of upset metal. Plaster dust drops in little patters and the doors cease their movement, as though the vibrations had set their gears off course, though there is room at least for Murray to squeeze through.

Murray quickly squeezes through the doors, preferring the unknown to whatever is chasing him - which is also unknown, he realizes, but somehow it seems worse to him.

The room is large with a high vaulted ceiling. There's a snap-snap-snap-snap sound like a high-speed shutter slamming and along the right wall stands a bank of monitors, in front of which lies a set of venetian blinds whose movements open and closed seem to be causing the commotion. A ramp heads up along both walls to an elevated platform which contains (from what he can see) some sort of stone bench that stands before a large red cloth which drapes across the rearmost wall. Two old beaten up couches stand before the stone bench, facing it at odd angles.

Murray tries to close the doors behind him an then heads over to the monitors to see if they're displaying anything.

The monitors show familiar faces through the staticky shroud. Old clients?

Weird, thinks Murray as he makes his way up the ramp to the platform to get a closer look at what's up there. Am I going to find the Wizard of Oz behind that curtain?

The platform contains two ratty couches, and a floor lamp that match the kind of furnishings he keeps in his office, if in a more rundown condition. The stone altar has a recess within it which contains an ambiguous figure whose skin ranging from face to chest to the tops of the limbs have been flayed open and pinned back.

Murray grimaces when he sees the disgusting idol. Well, there's someone who's having a worse day than I am, he thinks. He tries to light the lamp, then goes over to the curtain and takes a peek behind it.

The lamp switches on just fine, though it doesn't appear to be plugged into anything. The red curtains obscure nothing but wall. It seems like they are decorative wall hangings rather than designed to hide anything.

There is a low static charge to the air that makes his hair stand on end. Something is happening, has happened and will happen.

The corpse, laid open and revealed for all the world to see, twitches in the recess, its muscles spasming as though it were still alive though surely that couldn't be possible.

That can't be good, thinks Murray, beating a hasty retreat back down the ramp.

As he hurries back down, he can hear the sound of steel grinding against concrete as WHAM!! something slams against the slightly open door and WHAM!! it slams against it once more.

Murray looks around for another way out, but his rising sense of panic distracts him.

There is another snap-snap-snap sound as the monitors slowly resolve their static to reveal a series of faces of those he had followed and revealed for their criminal or just plain dodgy activities. The false injury claims, the thefts, the arson investigations for insurance fraud, the cheating spouses.... All of those people whose dastardly doings were revealed to the client to see. Then with another snap-snap-snap it turns to static before revealing a woman standing by the railing of a lighthouse. It's Ash and by her side is that man ... Jack.

Wham!!! Something slams against the door.

"She was tough as nails like my mom," said Ash, her voice ringing clear from her multi-screen face. "I was always jealous of her. Always. She always seemed to be their favourite. I didn't really know what had happened but I guessed. When I turned sixteen mum felt I should know as she'd be passing on the baton to me. I ... well, I balked."

Wham!!! Something slams against the door.

"The powerful leaves behind words that are feared, sometimes even worshipped by the meek, thus gods are born, and these gods perpetuated by all the cruel men that comes after. It's not the cruel world that breeds cruel gods, but rather cruel men and women," Jack says, then mutters, "I have trouble believing that people actually believe whatever gods rule here. They always sounded more like demons to me." Jack shrugged. "Sick and twisted demons, corrupting men and women and leading them towards their death. Not that I really care anymore."

Murray frantically keeps looking for some means of escape, or at least a hiding place, while still paying some attention to Ash and Jack's exchange on the monitors.

Jack turns to gaze down at Murray through the giant collection of screens as they each flip to become a giant combination picture of Jack and Ash. "You can't run forever, you know. Sometimes you have to turn and fight." And with that all of the screens erupt into a shower of glass shards and sparks that fly across the room, miraculously falling harmlessly against Murray's side. Sitting on the platform before the monitors upon the altar now lies a drowned and bloated body of a woman with blonde hair wearing a long coat who clutches desperately at a shotgun. She seems quite dead. The flayed figure has disappeared, though a trail of blood now leads to the ragged red curtain on the left.

The WHAM!!! at the door, however, sounds very much alive, or at least animate. Murray doesn't have very much time.

Murray runs to snatch up the shotgun and then bolts for the red curtain. Even if there's no way out there, he might be able to hide and ambush the creature. Like Jack said, he can't run forever.

There is a gore encrusted and slippery chute heading down into blackness. The sides of its metallic frame look a little sharp and threaten all kinds of infectious diseases. There'd be no way to hide in that chute but one could attempt to continue fleeing down the rabbit hole to get out of here. Alternatively, one could stand and fight. The crunch of the doors finally buckling inward reveals that the time is at hand to make your decision.

Oh no, thinks Murray as he hides behind the curtain and inspects the shotgun, Getting jabbed by sharp, rusty metal once was plenty for me, thank you. It's a good thing I've got this shotgun now, but it didn't do the dame much good. I guess I'm going to have to stand and face my nightmares. He shakes his head. I can't believe I'm listening to Jack. Of course, he wasn't talking to me...or was he?

OOC,What kind of shotgun is it, and how many shells does it have?

The doors crack open as a bizarre shape of shutter-flash static-lit edges and twisted shards of razor and edged metal rushes into the space, its edged limbs rasping against the cement as it moves forward, whipping around a head-like appendage filled with whip-thin wires as though seeking out his presence through the very vibrations in the air. The sight of it feels as though a giant weight were pressing down on Murray's heart, as though it were some massive guilt that threatened to overwhelm him, yet he feels that the weight here isn't entirely his own. It is the weight of everyone he has ever met before and everyone he will meet. The queer notion and it's strange non-Euclidean geometric shapes rattle the mind (1/1d10).

Murray recoils in absolute terror, overwhelmed by the crushing guilt. The certain knowledge rips his mind apart.

OOC,Farewell, my Sanity... :?

One sight of the terrifying beast is enough to completely melt away Murray's resolve. Without a moment's hesitation, he plunges screaming down the chute, clutching the shotgun as if it could somehow keep him safe.

The rusty edges of the chute alternate with a sharp gleam in his torchlight as he makes the almost equally terrifying descent, the rough rust-splotched back of the chute abrading the back of his jacket as he goes down, slowing a descent that would otherwise be insanely fast. The substance before him seems fleshy and water-stained as he continues his slide, and in certain places the ragged edges are split, revealing worm-like appendages that writhe in the quick staccato motion of his descent. He plummets for a seeming eternity before striking something so hard the sensation jars his entire body.

(OOC, an additional +1d3 SAN loss before you pass out and then I will describe where you awaken.)

Murray freaks out further, barely having time to feel relieved that he is wearing his trademark trenchcoat before everything goes black.

OOC,I hope I wake up in the 1940s. That would be awesome!