Play@YSDC

Mike stumbles and falls as stone floor becomes scree. He hits the dirt, hands grinding against hot stones, and as he pulls back he can see himself in a narrow laneway with tall wooden buildings leaning drunkenly toward him in a medieval style. There's fire everywhere, blurred like fluid, slowly charring the wood, and he can feel the heat from it lick his face in waves.

Wha ? Where am I? Oh. Haaa! It burns
Mike stands quickly and begins to run instinctively out of the laneway along the buildings. He tries to avoid touching the wood as much as he can he tries

The waves of heat brush against his skin as he runs out onto a rubble strewn street sided with wooden medieval buildings. There's a flutter of wings and burning pigeons streak across the sky overhead as a church bell from the church across a small square begins to toll. Nothing seems familiar on this cobblestone square.

What is this place?
Mike is panicked as he was just a moment ago in the cellar.
He instinctively make run to the church, someone clearly rang the bell a moment ago, someone who can help him … hopefully.

The church doors shimmer in the heat but the steps themselves are, thankfully, clear of those horrible heat waves that undulate and pulse all about him. The doors are hot to the touch, the wood blistering before his very eyes, but the stone building looks otherwise safe from the fiery inferno that surrounds it.

Mike tries to bash the doors open with a kick. If he is not successful, he will return to the square and look for another safe place

It took a couple of sharp kicks to send the doors crashing open, revealing a Catholic church similar to so many that he has seen before, with rows of wooden benches heading down and a large wooden carving of Christ upon the cross at the far end. At least the church is not yet on fire.

Christ
Mike exclaims as he enters the church.
Hello?! Anyone?! please help!
He looks around as he walks quickly between the rows of benches, trying to spot a door somewhere.
Someone clearly rang the bell to alarm the people of this town and Mike tries to find that someone. But a minute ago he was in the cellar … Mike is puzzled but with the fire around him he knows that it is not a good time to think about it.

There seems to be no doors within the church. The church itself is rather immaculate and everything looks to be just where it should be, other than the complete lack of doors or people. There's something strange about this place. It feels almost as though he had run onto a Hollywood set.

Darn!
Mike says, goes to the door leading outside and takes a peek, to see if he can make a safe route on the street.
Hey!, the kids !!!
He says to himself, how come they are not here.
Clive, James ?!?! are you here ?
He shouts to the street.

The only response to his words are the dull crackle of fire. It's so hot here, but there's no sign of the buildings actually being affected or devoured by the flame.

What is this? Where am I?
Mike says to himself. No chance he fainted and is a sleep. He tries to touch something hot to see if it's real. Maybe he'll wake up.
maybe I can return to the alley I was in?
He thinks to himself as e goes outside and see if he can retrace his route

It's not difficult to find his way back to the alley though it appears to be a blind one. There's a wall that blocks off his retreat. The burning houses release a lot of heat, leaving him slick with smoke stained sweat. Reaching towards the fire finds that the heat doesn't seem to increase by much but it's still hotter than makes him comfortable. Looking down the road, it seems that it curls back on itself so that he can see one length in a possible square. The road to his left turns left and the road to his right turns right in a ] shape.

Mike backs away from the fire, making his way running to the right.

He races his way around to the right and runs....

out onto a rubble strewn street sided with wooden medieval buildings with a drunken lean, each aflame. There's a flutter of wings and burning pigeons streak across the sky, drifting away into ash and shadows overhead as a church bell from the church across a small square begins to toll. Everything seems familiar on this cobblestone square yet he can't quite seem to recall why. He's been here before but ... when? A moment ago? A year? No, not a year. He was in the basement of the orphanage only ... this morning? Yesterday? Time seems to dilate and warp the more he tries to place memories upon the timeline of his life.

What, I just been here ... I'm running in circles, what the hell ?!?!
HELP!! HELP!!! Somebody !!!
Hearing the bell again, Mike runs into the church again.

His words echo back at him strangely. The church hall seems to be just as he'd left it only ... only the Christ-figure hanging from the cross seems difference. Its wood seems more brown, more tanned, and seems to bubble strangely from the heat.

Mike decides to run back outside and to the alley he came through in the first time. He arrived from there so the exit should be over there as well.
I wonder where the pig is?"
Hey Pig!!Are you here?!
He shouts

The alley is strewn with the bodies of lost children, laid each atop the others, buzzing with flies which add a drone to the silence. Their clothing is buzzing with maggots. The bodies look ... wrong. They are blistered and twisted, their limbs at odd angles as though broken...

....in seizures. The bodies held down, switching, spasming, and the bones breaking. Snap, snap, snap. The eyes rolling in skulls. The spittle foaming on their lips....

...and then he is gazing at them again as they lay there silent and still, with fires raging all around them. Even the sound of the buzzing flies has stopped, although he still sees them.

What the hell ?
Mike says as he comes closer, trying to identify the children.

*ping*

*sorry, I'm waiting for the other thread to catch up*

The children are all too decomposed to readily identify though the clothing looks similar to what is used at the orphanage. As he peers at the children's body he feels something like static spark across his body, causing the hairs on his arms and the nape of his neck to stand upright.

Mike takes several steps backwards

Two of the corpses in the pile begin to stir, their flesh gaining colour and knitting itself back together before his very eyes. One is so very small, the other larger, but both are quite clearly children. They begin to drag themselves from the pile, new strands of hair pushing out from the decayed scalps, eyes beginning to bulge and fill out the sockets beneath the eye lids.

Mother Mary!
Mike back away a little bit as he stares with horror at what he sees.

The two corpses pulled themselves to a standing position at the front of the alley and stared blankly toward him for several long moments as their bodies reknitted around them. It looked like Peregrine and Clive, but it couldn't be. Could it?

Peregrine? Clive?
Mark asks nervously

Peregrine and Clive find themselves standing in the mouth of an alleyway flanked by tall wooden buildings like a badly made Knights of the Round Table toy set. There's fire everywhere, releasing waves of heat that rub across their faces. The sky is colored by the heat, given a reddish glare from all the smoke and fire. On either side of the alley are piles of dead children, their bodies rotted, and standing at the mouth of the alley is Mike, his face aghast.

"Mike!" says Clive, looking around in wonder. "We've found you! But...where are we, and how did we get here? And how do we get back?" He glances behind him.

Come to me, hurry !!
Mike calls to Clive and Peregrine. Once they come closer, He hugs them and leads them to the sqaure, away from the burning alley.
God, I thought I lost you. Where were you ?!
I followed the pig and found myself over here, hell's know where is the cellar.
Where are Jimmy and Martin?

Clive hurries forward. "They were right behind us," he says. "I went through this archway, and suddenly I was here. Maybe we can get back by returning the way we came."

There is nothing there but dead end and flames. This alley is on fire.
Mike calls out
Come, we can talk over here

Peregrine looks around him aghast, it isn't anything like his idea of Fairyland and wonders worriedly if Jimmy might have been right after all. He looks back but sees nothing of the shimmer. He smiles shyly up at Mike, very pleased to see him, and takes his hand. He walks with the others to a place where the smoke is not so bad.

What happened? How did you get here?
Mike asks
I chased the pig and found myself over here, all alone.

"Miss O, O'Reily came down the steps and found us in the cellar but she didn't want to look for you. Then she locked us in! And then we found the shimmery thing and Clive went in and, and I followed. And then we weren't there anymore." Peregrine looks around, "This isn't a very nice place, is it Mike?"

The church bells begin to toll.

Come follow me.
Mike says
We must find a way out of here.

Peregrine takes Clive's hand and they follow the older boy across the rubble and through the smoke. Peregrine looks around in wonder. "Have the Germans been bombing here Mike? Where are we going?"

There is a church over here. Have you heard the bell
Mike replies, leading the boys to the church. Now that he is not alone, maybe their keen eyes will see something that he missed.

Peregrine follows the other two towards the church. He rubs his bleary eyes as they sting from the smoke.

The church doors open to reveal a dusty, ashen and brooding interior that looks different to when it had been first entered. Now it appears to be a somewhat more recent church with less wood and more stone, including polished marble floors at odds with the rest of the ash and the dust. The depiction of the crucifixion seems to be unusually lifelike over the pulpit - as though the artist had taken great care to depict decay. It does look rather like a carving, however, and its more the paint job that makes it seem lifelike ... though it does buzz with flies rather disturbingly.

Clive looks around in wonder. "It's like nobody's been here in ages," he says. "Has everyone been evacuated?"

I'm at dark as you Clive.
Mike replies
I have no idea how we got here and what is this place as we just been a moment ago in the orphanage basement.
This place church is not like the one I've been earlier, thought I can swear it was the same one. someone rang the bells, the question is who ?
Mike looks around and eyes the depiction of the crucifixion and goes to check it more closely.

"Maybe there's a hunchback up there," says Clive as he peers at the figure too, but he can't see anything unusual about it. "I guess this church must be Catholic."

Peregrine slumps down onto a pew, he's lost, worn out, and his blanket is black from smoke, "Is there anything to eat?" He asks dejectedly. This isn't at all what he was expecting, it may be warm but it is also frightening, the flames outside create weird shadows through the stain glass windows and Peregrine watches them fearfully. He looks around at the church in general. He cuddles the dirty blanket for comfort and kicks his heels against the pew: bang, bang, bang. The noise echoes eerily.

(Spot hidden = success, just, but this is for the church not the icon)

While there doesn't appear to be anything to eat there does appear to be a pair of doors leading further into the church that everybody sees. Peregrine, who is looking about the church, notices a leather bound book on a shelf inside the pulpit before he heads back over to the pews (presumably he'd have followed Mike to the cross at first as toddlers are wont to follow adults about when nervous). It's only when he's sat down that he remembers seeing it.

Show,grumble grumble forgot to post my post on the other computer grumble grumble.

Spot Hidden (1d100=52) - Success.

Hey, what's that ?
Mike says as he comes closer to the crucified figure.
Clive, Peregrine. take a look.

OOC,You might want to rephrase that.

Mike looks more closely at the wooden sculpture and realises three things. One is that there seemed to be a glistening laquer, or something similar, that had run down the outside of the wood to give it that coloration. The second is that there is a rather god awful smell of rot and decay and death emanating from it. The third is that the statue's closed eyes look strange as though a mask were carved in place over ... no. No, it's not that at all. It is a wooden mask upon a human face and the closed eye lids bulge grotesquely before the edge of a maggot parts the lids with its twitching hindquarters. The crucified form is not man-sized though close to it so the only thing that could fit in there would be a child! The nailed seams that run along the edges at the sides of the form's body support that awful and horrifying fact. It's all Mike can do to pull himself together upon that realisation! 1/1d6 SAN loss for him (and anyone else who realises). If you go temporarily insane (lose 5 sanity points), roll Idea.

San roll (1d100=43) - Pass. Lost 1 SAN point

LOOK AWAY, LOOK AWAY!!
Mike shouts to Clive that stands next to him. Since Peregrine is looking at something else around.
Oh gross ...
Mike jumps back from the figure and leads the two kids away to the doors they found in the church.
There ... there ... there were maggots and worms on the ... the ... wooden figure, they ate the wood. disgusting. come, let's see what's behind these doors.
Mike takes a glance back to the poor child over there without revealing the horror he just saw to the kids. He can't show them that he is scared like hell.

Peregrine despondently pulls the old leather book towards him and places it on his lap. He lifts the cover and looks at the first page, wondering if there will be any pictures. He flicks through a few leaves before realising Mike is trying to pull him up. He grabs the book and his blanket and allows himself to be pulled towards one of the doors.

It looks like a book of fairy tales with elaborate woodcuts on the first page that show pointy-hatted figures surrounding a monster with goat legs and a pig-like snout. The pointy-hats all hold long sticks and seem to be poking the goatman.

What's that?, where did you found it?
Mike asks

"It's, It's just a book." Peregrine stammers, "It's got nice pictures in, Mike. Look." He holds the book tight and opens the first page to show the pointy-hat folk.

We'll check it later.
Mike replies as he thinks it is very odd what's going over here, the book probably belonged to the poor child that hangs back there.
Be alert.
Mike says as he tries the new set of doors.

"Weird," says Clive when he sees the picture. "I wonder if those chaps with the pointy hats are wizards. Gandalf has a pointy hat."

The next door opens up into a hallway that seems somehow sized wrong, as though the whole thing were 20% narrowerer and shorter than it should be. There's a door on either side and one at the very end, each of them heavy iron-strapped ones.

"Whoever built this church made it odd," says Clive. "I wonder what's behind those doors? Which one should we open first?"

let see if we can hear something or peek through the keyhole.
Mike says

There appear to be no keyholes nor can anything be heard inside. Perhaps they really are empty.

Mike tries the first door on the right.

Clive stands behind Mike and just to one side, peering through the door as it opens.

The rightmost door opens to reveal a single bed with a chair to one side and a chest at the foot of the bed. The flagstone floor and stone walls are covered in little slips of papers like flyers with bright red ink decorating it with strange symbols and patterns that are identical on each slip of paper even though each one appears to be handwritten. The paper doesn't appear to be regular paper. It appears to be thicker and with a more obvious fiber weave within them.

Show,Feel free to use any skills you like to try to interpret them or their reason.

Clive stares at the symbols on the paper. "I've never seen the like before," he says.

Back in the corridor, Peregrine crouches down and looks under the lefthand door, if there is a gap. He then gets back up and follows the other two into the strange bedroom. He clambers onto the bed and sits down, gazing at the papers but they mean nothing to him.

rolls,First roll, spot hidden (success) second roll for recognising the papers, (unsurprising fail.) [url=http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4131370/]1d100=37, 1d100=91[/url]

Perg, check the book. maybe something in there will exlpain this place. I think the pig on the first figure is the one we chased.
Mark says
Some clearly lives in here.

Peregrine pulls the old book onto his lap and starts looking through it, turning the pages over one by one. "Do you think they really are wizards?" He asks Clive.

Peregrine's a little too young to read the very long words handwritten onto the pages but he can recognise the very fancy first letters on some of the pages and can certainly see the pictures. Some of the pictures show lots of hungry rats following three women and one rat even stands on its hind legs and points. Some of the pages show rats who have human feet or faces or little human hands. Others show three women holding each other's shoulders and all standing naked while in the background a shaded in man stands foreboding. On another page is a hill with some trees on it but one of the trees has several ropes and one of the little rats is trying to climb up it. On another page there's a rope swing with a rat perched on it like a little person and holding onto the ropes with surprisingly big human-like hands. There's a picture of all kinds of people torn up and a pig eating them. There's pictures of faces with parts of masks pulled off and their faces have been made up with lots of lines (an adult would see it as a pictorial representation of a flayed face) and pictures of eyes and strange little dots and eyes. None of it makes much sense to him but it is interesting.

"I dunno," says Clive, trying to read the book over Peregrine's shoulder as he looks through the pages. "Maybe. Those women look like they could be witches."

Peregrine points to one of the women, "That one looks like Mrs. Matlock!" He giggles but his laugh sounds forced and too high pitched. "And look, here is the pig; Mike look at this; the pig is eating the people." He looks at the pictures with big wide eyes, not really understanding the significance of what he is looking at. But then it isn't much worse than his Grimms' Fairy-tales bed-time reading.

and the rats ...
Mike add as he recall the rats in the basement.
let me read it while you check the other doors. be carefull, I guess the rest of the rooms are empty too.

"I looked under the door opposite this one and it just had a bed and a window like here." Peregrine is loath to let go of the book but allows Mike to sit on the bed next to him so he can see it more easily.

"All right," says Clive. "That leaves the one at the end of the hall. That's probably the important one." He looks down at Peregrine. "Do you want to go take a look?"

Peregrine looks dubious, "What? On my own?" He thinks for a moment and then slides down so his feet are on the floor. He puts the book carefully on the bed and then, carrying his grubby blue blanket, he trundles across the wooden floor and out around the door. Clive and Mike hear his footsteps dwindling away down the corridor.

There's the creaking open and shut of a door down the hall.

"I meant for both of us to go together," says Clive, hurrying after Peregrine.

Mike is left alone in peace and quiet for the moment with time to read his book.

Take a peek and return quickly.
Mike says as he flips over the pages.

The book seems to be a mixture of religious instruction, journal and a collection of myths. Considering the rather random way its written, he would probably be better if he perused it looking to separate and focus on one aspect or the other: Myths / Stories, Religious Instruction, or Diary. If he likes he could read it as written but that would be more difficult to read.

Hmm...
Mike decides to read the diary notes first. Maybe it will hint something about the writer.

The diary notes are written in a spidery hand that seems uncannily like the Head Matron's....

It has been so long since we gathered beneath the stars and intoned to the monuments and thus so much has changed but one cannot turn one's head toward the past too carelessly or one will be carelessly tossed aside. If not for the Hounds we could move bodily between the spaces instead of a single passage from a time of fire and cruelty to a time where the Old Ways are thought forgotten. There is a power here in this verdant land that is largely ignored. A power steeped in human energy, boundless, yet tempered through age. To withstand the time that still slips us past we must first turn our attentions to gathering what finances we need - for which is required a man, always a man - and then move toward a gathering of such power and a design of such a place that can house such growing power so that it may be harnessed when the time draws truly close. Alas while we have our mingled memories to draw upon for the fulcrum we have not yet settled upon an existential truth that would be worth springing into an uttermost being.

Mike is distracted by a sound at the edge of his mind. What was that noise? It sounded like it came from outside.

Clive returns, leading Peregrine. "Mike!" he says. "We found a ladder going down to a room full of food and there were skeletons but we didn't eat anything because I thought it might be a trap so we came to tell you." He states all of that in a single breath, only stopping to inhale when he finishes.

Peregrine looks at Mike with big, hopeful eyes.

Hush! I hears something ... someone is outside.
Mike close the books and lead them back to the church.
We'll search the candyroom later

Clive nods and follows Mike quietly.

Please return to the Arrival thread.