Character Island

"Maybe there's one in there." She points to the spire directly in front of them, which just so happens to be the biggest. Oh, and wrapped in more goddamn wires. Enough wires to make it look like a robot octopus had just gotten its hands (or rathr, tentacles) on the world's largest vibrator.

"And what do you mean non-human? That's mean, Klaus!" Pouty faces ensued.

"It's not an insult!" Klaus stares at the wire clusterfuck. It looks like Leah. That doesn't help him calm down. "You just don't seem like other human beings that I've met before. In significant ways. What other word can I use, anyway? Besides, catching alien venereal diseases that require alien treatments that are an unhappy blip on my schedule... yeah. Not nice. I think I'm entitled to a teeny bit of a grudge. But... we should probably move."

"I'm just special, okay? Looks like the door's down there." Lilith pointed to a small rectangular opening directly beneath the wire. Before Klaus could ask how, he was reacquainted with his now good friend, groundsky.

Upside down again. Wheeeeee.

Tightrope walking upside down like it weren't no thang, Lilith hoisted him into the hole, dropping him up unto the floor before clambering in herself.

If I ever get home, I'm going to burn my physics degree.

Klaus sighs and examines the room-chamber-thingy from his new familiar vantage point. It seems to be a library. Of vials. As a former biology teacher, he recognizes most of the things inside. And it also reminds him why he stopped teaching biology. Because this stuff is fucking nasty.

He recalls an incident, when students were examining preserved chicken fetuses and some asshole dropped a vial. The smell was fucking awful. He glances at Lilith. "Nothing too important here. There's another door there. Let's try that."

"Huh? Whadya say?" Lilith blurted, already in the middle of unscrewing the lids of what appeared to be a collection of preserved human brains.

"Hey, you remember that old timey book War Of The Worlds? I think it was written by H. P. Wellcraft or something like that. Anyway, when the aliens started invading, they took all the people and started breaking them into pieces. I wonder if they ever got around to putting 'em back together again?" She pondered absentmindedly, more talking at Klaus than to him. Rifling through the lab's contents was proving quite entertaining. She'd found a couple of eyes, and some more brains. There'd been a jar labeled "heart" but she still wasn't sure if it was supposed to look like that or the other fluffy-pink one.

"'Cause if they did," she said, picking through a cabinet of little bags with a buncha weird red stuff in them, "think this is where they did it?"

edited 13th Oct '11 9:19:40 AM by KSPAM

"Uhm, Lilith, be careful with the blood bags. They might have pathogens. Actually, don't touch anything because if there are still people here they'd get mad. Uhm, really, we shouldn't even be here..." Klaus floats to the door.

Wait... I'm floating?

He sighs and swims through the doorway. It's a plain hallway that looks kind of like the school, but somehow ever dirtier and there are no thin rectangular windows in the doors. The rooms are numbered starting with zero, and then they only use prime numbers.

Klaus does a backflip in the air. "Hey, Lilith. Try this."

"Alley-oop!" Lilith somersaulted through the air, sailing past Klaus. She kept going, down the corridor and through the door at the end of the hall, the oak swinging in gently. Giggling, she made a soft landing in a cozy little office chair. These were her favorite back home.

Kicking herself into a spin, she let the office chair whirl around for a moment or two like the spinner in a board game before sticking her foot and coming to an abrupt halt. Lurching so far out of the chair only the bottoms of her thighs were still on the chair, she laughed and laughed and laughed. This was so much fun!

Then she looked in front of her. "Hey Klaus, look at this!"

Wait! What? Prisha almost said aloud. But stood there petrified, breathless. He may have been invisible some time before. But no one had ever noticed him being invisible.

Imey considered their situation. Without any eagerness, he said, "I've heard enough old tales of heroes from the Age of Tribes to know, sooner or later, we'll be going in that cave. Wonderful, just wonderful, but we don't really have much choice. If we face this damn island's will, it might shatter our minds, or it might kill us." He looked around the group and quietly confessed, "I'm scared of both, but I'd rather be dead than lost my mind to this place. And the way I see it, it will drive us made eventually if we don't do something."

Vincent threw the rat away. "Well, we don't need to go into the cave just yet. We can still follow this trail made by the rats. It might help us figure out exactly what's going on here. And if not, hey, we've got an excuse for staying away from the cave." He made off down the trail.

"Hey, wait a minute," said Adam, following Vincent. "Who says it was deliberate? You said 'something' could have made the rats, so if it's not sapient, the rats might have stumbled on us by accident."

Vincent pondered that train of thought. "Maybe," he acknowledged. "Given the design, it's unlikely, but certainly possible. There could be a... dangit, what's the word?... a sherev here, something that spontaneously causes ordered magic. They were supposed to be disproved, but here — who knows?"

Adam grinned at Imey. "See? We might not end up going into the cave at all. It could be just a great big red herring. And this isn't a traditional tale of Heroes, isn't it?"

Should I assume that it's dark out, because if not, I'll edit my post

Donovan and Cthylla both sat on the rock near the water's edge, and looked at the darkened sky. The two sat next to each other as they breathed out and smiled, because even on an island that was trying to make them go insane, they had to stick with each other. Donovan's ears perked up on the conversation of the others.

He got up and walked toward them, "They weren't undead constructs, they were The Rats."

Vincent glanced over at Donovan. "The Rats?" he asked dryly. "That's helpful. Or do you mean, instead of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, it's Alfred Hitchcock's The Rats?" He put on a deep voice. "Coming this fall, from the acclaimed master of suspense, it's..." He made a dramatic musical sting. "THE RATS! They're not just after your cheese any more — they're hungry for blood! Starring Tom Cruise, Mikaela Benthae, Cillian Murphy, and Emma Watson."

Vincent snorted. "But seriously, you'll have to go a liiiiittle bit more in-depth than just 'the rats'. It's like saying this..." He pointed dramatically at a random plant. "...is The Tree! Dun dun DUN!"

"That's a bush," said Adam.

Vincent examined it. "So it is. But it's just one plant among thousands; what does 'the rats' mean?"

edited 13th Oct '11 7:35:55 PM by TeraChimera

Donovan pinched the bridge of his nose, "I mean that these things are 'The Rats', as in the ones who lived in the manor at Exham Priory, the ones that ate whole families for generations until the last member of the family line's son was eaten and went insane, those rats!"

"Well, excuse me," said Vincent, "but I've never heard of Exham Priory in my life. And what kind of morons would live in a house where all their ancestors got eaten? Because they were expecting a good track record? And if they aren't constructs, what are they doing here, anyway? Why were they oh-so-conveniently pushed on to you?"

"And," cut in Adam, "they're freaking skeletons. You can't get more unnatural than that. Besides, who's to say those Exham rats weren't constructed whatevers as well?"

Donovan breathed out, "Those rats fit the description of the Exham Priory rats, they were believed to be a myth, but this proves otherwise," He turned toward Adam, "I've seen some pretty natural things that most people would call unnatural, and if those rats are from Exham Priory, then I only hope they're gone permanently."

He breathed out, "I'm sorry I snapped, it's just that this island is having a stronger effect on me then I thought and I'm exhausted from the Elder Form transformation. All I know, it that those rat's aren't biological constructs and that they're living things."

Oh, crap. Klaus tumbles in the air (whee!) until he reaches her. A nice office, and suspiciously not dusty. Someone has been here more recently than Lilith.

"What is it, Lilith?"

"Don't move a muscle! Hands where I can see 'em!" Ah yes. Typical cutesy kid cowboy fingergun behavior. Except this wasn't a fingergun. It was a fucking Smith & Wesson Model 500 (someone had definitely been compensating for something)

Before Klaus could get past the "holy shit" phase and into the "bargaining for my life" phase, Lilith made a "pew" noise and laughed, sliding the gun across the desk to Klaus. "It's empty!" She giggled hysterically.

She was right. There weren't any bullets chambered. But if so, why leave it out on the desk like that? What, if anything, had those bullets been used for? Lilith swiveled around in her chair, her back to Klaus like they were in a James Bond flick. Then she asked him something he wished she wouldn't have.

"Hey Klaus, why's the window all brown 'n stuff?" Oh shit. He turned to look. It was blood. It was a lot of blood. All over the goddamn window. Klaus was slowly piecing together what exactly had happened here in their little anti-grav office, and began backpaddling out of the room nice and slow-like. Trying to get out before his brain inevitably pieced together the bit about

Look up.

"Oh fuck me."

edited 13th Oct '11 9:43:31 PM by KSPAM

"Well..." said Vincent, unconvinced, "if you're sure... Hang on a moment." He began pacing back and forth, muttering to himself. "Possible... and that would fit in with... yeah... and everyone else... hmm... yeah." He stopped. "I think I might have an idea what's going on here. The island is conforming to something that's unsettling to us - each of us, individually. When Grimm and the rest of us went into the cave, the magic in there was weird and twisted, and when I tried anything complicated, I almost had a seizure. Imey here hates caves. Lo and behold, not only do we camp outside a cave, but there's something important about it to keep us going in."

He began talking faster, and seemed to get more excited. "Donovan, you knew about the rats before, which are bit unsettling even to you, and you've said the island's having a greater effect on you than you'd expect. Adam, you're..." He paused, and began tapping his tail. "Actually, I'm not sure about you. Hmm."

"I think I've gone insane," Adam said, "and I wouldn't be surprised if Satan pops up doing the can-can. Does that count?"

"Close enough," said Vincent. "Continuing, Grimm's got a really hot temper, unless he's always like that, and he's somewhat struggling to keep us together. Everybody hates Prisha. Lilith had a major freakout over seeing someone who was almost a corpse, so there's that. That physics teacher, Klaus, was a bit shocked by the whole thing in general, and got involuntarily teleported away by Lilith, and Bianca..."

"She saw lights last night and went crazy," Adam supplied. "Climbed up a tree and almost fell on her head. And she didn't like the ship we found down by the shore."

"So there we have it," said Vincent, spreading his arms and wings wide. "Everyone's had something to mess with their sanity in some way."

Night.

While continuing to follow along, Prisha heard of Vincent saying that everyone had something to mess with their sanity.

"Actually I'm quite used to it," Prisha said even if nobody would notice. He would be more unfamiliar with people who didn't hate him. Such as the recent years.

edited 14th Oct '11 6:00:31 PM by PsychoFreaX

Klaus sighs and rubs his eyes. "Gee," he says flatly. "Maybe we should look at those doors. Maybe we'll find nice things. Like dead bodies and aliens and a kimchi factory. Wouldn't that be fan-fucking-tastic?"

Lilith cocked her head. Why was Klaus so upset with the cieling? She looked up, and saw him too. "He" was a skeleton, dresssd in a fine suit with finer shoes, missing the back half of his head.

"Why's he up there? Is it because he's broken?"

"I'd say he's pretty broken," Klaus says, still in monotone. He drifts out of the room and opens the first door to the left. It is completely filled with jars of kimchi.

"OH HELL NO!" He slams the door and tries the one across from it. More kimchi.

Klaus buries his face in his arms. "FUUUUUU—"

Clear! *Uses a defibrillator to zap some life into Island due to lack of work to do on weekend*

Cthylla looked up as she noticed something falling from the night sky. She got up to go to Donovan and tugged on his knee-length long coat, "Donovan, I think I see your backpack," she said while pointing to a small falling object.

Donovan said nothing as he made a horizontal dash, grabbing the pack back before it fell to the ground. Doing a barrel roll as he grabbed the backpack, he spiraled several times before crashing into a tree.

"Donovan!" Cthylla immediately ran to his side as she leaned over to see if he was okay. He attempt to get up with a slightly pained look on his face, "I'm fine, I just have to thank Nyarlathotep for some extra pain resistan-," a crack from his back could be heard as he got up, "Ow, or not."

He managed to finsh getting up through all of the pain and leaned down as he opened the backpack and took out some items. Consisting of a gray shirt with a red design, a new pair of shoes, another pistol that was similar to Violet Rose, some holsters for the guns, a strap and a large magnet attached to it, and one fingerless glove.

"Oh hell yeah!" Donovan looked excited as he put on the respective items to their proper places. In a display or arrogance, he threw the backpack into the air as it seemed to shift into a sword midair, Donovan jumping up to catch the sword, slamming down on the ground a he landed.

He got up and grinned, putting it to his back, the magnetic holster holding it, "Who's ready to have some fun!"

Note- the backpack is kind of like a Hammerspace and Morph Weapon thing.

edited 16th Oct '11 1:15:12 PM by draconiansuperior

The trail the skelerats left seems to be converging as the group had followed it. Which soon led them to a clearing they see up ahead. In the middle of the clearing stood a dark cottage. It was quite old looking, with a chimney. The grass around it weren't half the height of the bushes in the forest but still long. The rats trail seems to lead right into the cottage.