feeling blue
Silanea was right, that thing was just messing with them at that point in true horror fashion. Sans kept holding on to the chair he had and just paid attention to the creature's movement so he could at least know where it would be coming from when it did decide to attack.
"if that thing is now messing around in the vents, doesn't that mean you all can leave now? me and arcade will stay behind and stall, i'm sure people leaving this place is gonna force it to come out," he commented, while still keeping a close eye on the vents.
Tired of givin' up the ghost
I shrugged at Curly's criticism. "Sorry, I was in a rush to get out of an enclosed space and kinda forgot."
As I rounded a corner to the sight of an empty balcony, the feeling of foreboding that indicated its crushing presence subsided, leaving only the general ambiance of paranoia that characterized the day as a whole. Did that mean we'd lost it? Or had it simply decided to mask its presence through means unknown? If it was gone, what were the chances of something else deciding to pop out, as had been the case twice today?
I stopped at the far edge of the path, just before the walkway, and after a quick breath turned around to face opposite the void, to see if the others were fine and if there was anything there besides the usual scenery.
moved to Oceanstuck because this handle was starting to bother me my tumblr
For the Horde!
Ben frowned. "I am your friend, Rachel. And powers or not, a hero doesn't let people get hurt on his watch." He looked over at Garrett. "There's no point in having knives today, the monsters are gonna be pretty much impossible to hurt. We just gotta protect ourselves until this awful day finishes up." He handed Garrett the squirt bottles. "If anything big and nasty comes in here, squirt it in the eyes. I'll get out of here like Rachel asked me to."
With that he took a few steps back from the door, but still keeping the forks in his pockets.
I can still hail the Horde even though the company has shamed us. Strength and Honor even if Blizzard has neither.
Curly slowed to a stop as they arrived at the balcony and gladly let Morty off her back to take a breather, she felt like she was going to start overheating with how heavy she had to breathe... Seemed like it might be time for some maintenance. If it weren't for all the monsters that is.
She very briefly glanced around at the apparent dead end then started walking closer toward the railing, and the void below it. That might have been more concerning if she hadn't spent the majority* of her life in the cave system of a floating island, but wasn't there supposed to be water out there, or something? "...Hey, guys, other than yesterday, have you ever seen a moon over the city before?"
Plague Knight could make out the sound of some kind of adhesive being torn out and the rather loud sounds of food being eaten from within the stand he sat behind. At least the walls were thin enough to hear through, thus allowing the knight to listen in case anything happened to Calvin.
For now, the alchemist decided to stay quiet as to not to get the boy to run again, content to merely watch for danger.
DAMMIT MARK, STOP HOTTING HELPY!!
Gon, finding some rocks in the way
While Gon was looking for a place to start checking things out, he picked up a few rocks on the way. Small ones, but we're good enough to be kept in the jacket pocket.
"They'll have to do." The assassin murmured. That was until he could see some kind of commotion.
Shit. Gon saw someone was having a confrontation with a hostile person.
He crouched and took cover, using the shrubbery as concealment.
What do I do? Gon saw that some big muscular guy was out there. He has goosebumps just looking at him.
He hurled a couple of rocks near the guy's feet to see if he'll be able to hear the rocks fall near him.
edited 5th Jan '17 10:53:23 PM by Ominae
Rick stopped and took a breath as he caught up with the rest of the group, just as Curly mentioned something about the odd moon. "Probably, you know, a, an, what's the word," Rick took a drink and leaned up against the dilapidated, rust-eaten railing, squinting at the crimson moon with the eye of a trained professional "...quantum duplicate of an pre-existing celestial body that we're only vIUuuRUGHing for atmospheric effect, right?" Rick spun on his heel and stared out at the sprawling landscape around them: a rusting elephant's graveyard of dilapidated machinery, rotten confectionary, and 80's horror villains.
"You know, it's an atmosphere thing," he articulated, picking up a chunk of rust-eaten metal off the ground, analyzing it with a critical eye, and evidently, not finding it up to his standards, pitched it over the side of the balcony. "Nobody in *urp* horror movies ever gets killed during a waning gibbus because - uh- ''Keep it down, Morty!'"
Morty, meanwhile, had plopped off Curly's back a few feet back and was trying to wheeze for air and scream all at the same time, which was no mean feat considering the lung capacity of an average human being.
"T-this is - it's -really not the time -" mumbled Rick as he awkwardly patted his grandson on the head. "Morty, buddy? You okay there? W-we're - we're safe. For now, I guess. Like, the next few minutes at least. I guess."
"hOoooOOOOOOOOOOOOOO"
"Okay, so, I mean," Rick gave the teenager a hearty buck-up-kiddo slap on the shoulder and started tinkering with whatever he was working on in the duffel bag, "w-what do we do next? Pink hair guy, y-you're the, the horror movie guy here, we gotta find another one of those... pages, right?"
edited 5th Jan '17 9:10:50 PM by Locoman
THE SLORG!
Jason may have been slow, but he was built like a human tank, and it took Cole putting every ounce of strength he could into the maneuver just to get Jason to drop down to one knee, and growl in annoyance again. After he got his mask back in position, he turned to peer down at Cole, completely ignoring the rocks Gon threw.
Cole once again got a lesson that Jason's hand that wasn't holding the blade was still just as functional, as the large man made a grab for the prone Cole's neck; this time, Cole wouldn't escape, and Jason yanked the spirit forward as he stood back up. Soon enough Cole was up off the ground entirely by his neck, with his feet dangling beneath him. Jason slowly turned around with Cole in hand, seeming to be looking for something.
Meanwhile, inside the shop Garrett found the contents of the bottle to less 'squirt' and more 'burp', ejecting out mushy clumps of something moss-like. It did still smell spicy though, despite expectations otherwise. Rachel didn't say anything more to Ben yet, and was still watching the situation outside.
"If there's anything you should learn about this city, it's that you shouldn't make assumptions about anything; and you should be cautious about everything" Silanea said to the Grinch, then looked back up at the vents. It seemed like she was thinking as the others were talking, then eventually glanced down again.
"Sans might have the right idea" Silanea agreed with him, keeping her voice a bit down. She then pointed at Hobbes and Jack, and told them, "You two seem like you're the fastest. Both of you grab one of the kids, and be ready to book it if I say. And everybody, stay alert and keep an eye on those vents."
Suddenly, an actual noise finally came from one of the vents: A wheezy, twisted impersonation of Arcade's voice. "I'd like to fight something, even if it's any creature."
After a moment, from a completely different vent came another impersonation, this time of Specter Knight. "You're being a monstrosity, before foolishly mortal rodent."
And this of course being followed shortly after with an impersonation of Sans from yet another vent, this one almost across the whole store from the last. "if me and arcade leave you, that thing is gonna force people in the vents, messing around to come out."
And finally from one more vent came, as probably expected, an impersonation of Silanea. "If there's right idea, you grab everything, and keep the kids on those vents."
Silanea was now scowling, though looked unsettled as she nervously eyed the vents.
"We haven't seen it around. I think it's gone for today; characters in horror movies rarely get to call safe base after all" Calvin said with a slight shrug to Yoshika after their high five. Then he perked up a bit. "Oh! But I think I know what has to be done anyway!" he added enthusiastically, digging a hand into one of his back pockets and pulling out four pieces of paper to show Yoshika. On each of them was a child-like crayon drawing, crudely depicting the four animatronics they'd just escaped from.
"We found these inside the pizza place before the robots showed back up with you and the others. If I know the horror genre, then we've gotta find all of these to accomplish... Something; we'll figure that part out when we get there. The only question is how many we've gotta find" Calvin explained to her, then pocketed them again. "If it's like the indie games that usually copy the idea, it'd be something like eight of them. But to find four all in the same place, that seems kind of low" he thought out loud.
"... Maybe thirteen?" Melanie suggested after thinking for a moment herself. "This is the thirteenth day, and thirteen is kinda associated with horror stuff" she pointed out.
"That could be it, who knows? I also gotta wonder if we need to get them all gathered in the same place, or just all be found independently" Calvin then mused.
"I bet the former" Melanie said.
"Whatever it is, we've gotta let everybody we come across know" Calvin went on, looking back to Yoshika.
edited 5th Jan '17 10:50:12 PM by FirockFinion
You are reading this.
feeling blue
Sans listened to the thing's attempts at mimicking their voices, it ended up sound completely wrong, making him realize that for all that was said by that guy, this thing wasn't really all that good at mimicking others.
"wow, if i knew this thing was this bad at mimicking, i wouldn't have doubted the kids earlier," he commented, sounding more annoyed than unsettled by the whole thing. He kept looking at the vents, chair at ready. "you guys get out of here quick, i don't think this will be getting any better."
Happy Box Hater
Shrimp Place
Lucas could hear that thing in the vents. Those impressions sounded plain wrong. But the stilted voice did tell him something very important. This thing couldn't speak right, at least for now. It had only spoken words that others had said so far, and even then it was more like a perfect imitation of each individual word instead of how they'd fit together in the new sentence. He had no idea how smart it was, but it probably couldn't learn to speak without hearing others.
He needed to make sure people didn't talk too much around it. Signalling might not be obvious enough, so speaking was probably the best option. He spoke in a voice that was way more high-pitched than normal, saying "Don't speak. It learns." Hopefully, the broken sentence and the odd pitch would give this thing a hard time at learning his voice and speech patterns.
He would then throw his stick as hard as possible into the segment of window farthest from any vents.
Why is a yam attacking me?
I just want to help!
The man was...much stronger than he had expected. He didn't know why he had thought otherwise, maybe the guy just didn't look like he should be so strong, but he hadn't gone down as desired. Not even close-
Then the man's hand clamped around his neck, and he cried out when he was hauled rather unceremoniously off the ground and into the air, kicking his feet rather uselessly. He grabbed at the man's arm, trying to pry himself loose, gasping and trying to get deep enough breaths. Between his wounded ribs and being held in the air by his neck, breathing was proving rather difficult.
He didn't understand why the man was just holding him, looking around, rather than gutting him where he was. He obviously couldn't stand up to the guy on his own, why the wait? What was happening? "P-please...s-stop...stop! Please..."
edited 5th Jan '17 11:24:34 PM by ColeMinor
Web Spidus
The spook copied the voices of the others here. However, the voices was off in some way. It was like the spook didn't know how to act human. Suddenly, the snake lady gave us some new orders. I just nodded to the snake lady and looked towards the one of the vent.
Gon, he didn't have good memories of throwing things at school.
Gon cursed himself that the small rocks weren't getting his attention. His supply was also about to run out and he needed to get a better weapon from the stuff in his jacket pocket that he stockpiled.
"Why you..."
He got a medium-sized rock and gripped it hard. He threw it towards the direction of the muscular guy's head after he ran a short distance to get in some good throwing distance for the rock to land at his intended target.
edited 6th Jan '17 4:01:43 AM by Ominae
Tired of givin' up the ghost
A bunch of nothing. Finally. I was getting sick of running all over the place.
I took a deep breath, wiping sweat from my brow and remarking dryly, "Ah, the joys of being fully alive again. Namely, running yourself ragged trying to stay that way while hating being stripped of your magic. This day really wants me to hate it, doesn't it."
And yet...
Curly's musing about the moon were as good an interruption of that thought as any. "Huh. Now that you mention it, no. No sun either. Though I guess there's no reason I'd have seen one and not you, since we got here the same day and all."
Oh and Morty was still screaming. Poor kid. I figured there was no harm in sitting down next to him, still facing the city in case something showed up.
I put a hand on his shoulder. "Need a moment, huh? I get it. I can't be the only one who thinks this choice of day gimmick was a dick move on the writer's part. Go on. Take your time. I don't see anything threatening around now so I'm sure you can afford it.
"Now, I have some plans to explain, alright? Just stay in sight, and I guess you can listen if you want. That sound good?"
I stood up and turned to face in the general direction of everyone else.
"Alright, it's time we got to the point. Yeah. That was my first thought. Where I'm from," I pointed a thumb in the direction we came from, "that thing we just got away from is the subject of a video game based on a very well-known horror story, and the objective was this: you romp around a forest collecting pages while trying not to die to it. What the player character was doing there is anyone's guess but who cares what they were there for."
Thinking about it, considering what the librarian said, didn't that person, and by extension the actual Slender Man, actually exist somewhere in the multiverse? That seemed...horrifying. Maybe it was best not to think about it.
"If, and this is a big if without a library in sight, but if there's still a day challenge I can just about guarantee that this is it. Which means there should be plenty more where that doodle came from. Not sure how many, but the game had eight. That's a lot of ground to cover, so we should try to get more people in on this. And of course, if anyone dies carrying a page they'll drop the thing. So no searching alone if it can be avoided, so that you have someone to throw it to if that's what it comes to."
moved to Oceanstuck because this handle was starting to bother me my tumblr
Just another guy
Viola I Somewhere Else I Escaped
"We've lost them," I noted, having traveled far enough from the burly masked man and out of sight. And, yet again, the two of us are left alone once more after being separated with another potential helper. It might be due to our luck, or our penchant for not getting involved in others' risky affairs.
Not that I'm complaining. I kind of like this, actually. I prefer to be alone with the only person who understood me than keeping up with appearance around others for my own sake. Here, I can freely be myself, as Ellen, around her; a luxury that I no longer have without triggering someone's sense of right and wrong and have them constantly judge me every time they see me. Or worse, like how the Librarian brutally demonstrate.
If it weren't for today's theme, I would've liked for both of us to remain like this longer. As it is, finding more people and staying in a group is far more crucial.
"As much as I'm used to all this running and hiding," I spoke out. "This is starting to get really irritating really fast. Don't tell me that we have to do this all day." Knowing the Writer and from my own personal experience, this can't all be it. "Death lurking around at every corner and the possibility of a fate worse than death aside, I wonder if there's a trick to this. This being a game to the Writer, who seeks compelling stories above all else, there's the chance of there being a silver lining to it in the end."
Be it whether said silver lining is either truly genuine or a false hope that can be brutally crushed before the victims' eyes to enrich terror. I should know, as I've done a bit of both. The former, I did on a whim. The latter, I did to further feed on the cat's appetite.
edited 6th Jan '17 5:11:32 AM by JustSomeGuy732
"A post per day keeps the GMs away!"
So the time was coming, Arcade prepared himself for what was probably going to be extremely painful. When he heard his voice funneling through the vents he jumped in surprise, then his face drained of color. No one else seemed to have the same visceral reaction he did. That voice wasn't just creepy, that was him, ghoulified. His arms dropped and his hands loosened slightly around the pan. He had been obsessing over that possibility ever since he left the Courier, someone with an actual Geiger counter.
edited 6th Jan '17 12:34:37 PM by Skooter910
I say that aloud too sometimes, just: "man, no life."
Jack eyed the vents warily as the voice moved from one to the other. He kept his mouth firmly shut, even though the urge to yell at it was strong. He refused to let it use his voice to say anything else. It's last words in Silanea's voice made his chest burn, when he thought he caught the implication of the doppelganger telling them to give it the children. He glanced at Silanea, and nodded. "Alright. And good luck."
Then, he turned back around and crouched down, shifting his sign to his shoulder so he could put a hand on the kid's shoulders, then looked between them and Lucas for a moment. Said kid had been doing great, keeping calm and trying to help. But, he wasn't any older then the other two, and he wasn't going to leave him here. Especially when he was powerless today. Keeping his voice down, Jack spoke. "Alright, we're going to get you out of her safely, ok. I promise. Just do exactly as I tell you, ok."
Shrimp Place
Hobbes gulped when he heard the voices, laughably bad as they were. He had figured that the creature could shapeshift but hearing it in person in the building where they were trying to find refuge was disconcerting to say the least. Although, it didn't try and mimic Hobbes so maybe that meant it wasn't trying to kill Hobbes? The tiger was really grasping at straws here to maintain some optimism. He picked up See and heeded the advice given.
"I'm going to get out of here!" he shouted, before vaulting out of the nearest exit and booking it as fast as he could. He would place See on his back and run on all fours, ignoring everything but his animalisitic instincts as he ran.
Deep Fried
Calvin winced at the taste and just continued to munch. He was growing bored of this but he really didn't want a beatdown from Plague Knight. Still, some time had passed and the knight was no longer yelling. Whenever he threw a balloon at Mom or Dad, they too would chase him but would calm down after a bit. He really didn't want to be alone right now. Calvin wanted Hobbes most of all but until then, that knight would have to do.
"Um...metal guy...are you still out there?"
edited 6th Jan '17 7:59:28 AM by FantasyLiver
Stop Killing My Titles
Lobros
The charade was noticeably getting on Lorian's nerves, it seemed. The elder brother was growling quietly ever since the creature first appeared by the window and it didn't seem like these poor impersonations did anything to appease him.
"A miserable Hollow like this, holding us hostage here." Lothric muttered to no one in particular. Lorian made a little snarl and picked up a table, hoisting it over his shoulder. The younger prince decided to not arm himself; if the creature got to him he would be anything could be done.
"'tis probably better if we barricade here. If the monster makes it through, we can still have a fighting chance." He mused as he gestured for Lorian to guard one of the unattended vents. "If we run, odds are it will simply kill the stragglers."
The tigerman saw fit to make a run for it, but why, oh why did he have to take the child with him? Lothric didn't deem to comment on that. Morbid this might have been, but his death and, more importantly, child's death would serve as a good example.
grah
Happiness is a cup of tea
Shrimp Place
As unnerving as it was to hear a mangled, contorted version of his own voice coming from a vent, Specter Knight could at least take solace in the fact that (hopefully) no mortal would be stupid enough to believe that it really belonged to him. It did seem to have a basic grasp of the meanings behind the words, but that meant nothing if it could only repeat what it heard. "Its broken speech is amusing, at least right now...", he whispered.
Hopefully, that monstrosity had less-than-exceptional hearing.
edited 6th Jan '17 9:40:39 AM by astrokitty
Somebody once told me the world was macaroni, I took a bite out of a tree
"Yes," Plague Knight answered Calvin through the wall of the stall. "And for future reference, refer to me as Plague Knight. You need anything?"
edited 6th Jan '17 5:04:58 PM by UdtheImp
DAMMIT MARK, STOP HOTTING HELPY!!
Deep Fried Stand
"If I come out, can we...aha...just forget about this whole water balloon debacle? I just want to find my tiger so I can get out of here. Mom's supposed to take me to see Mutant Space Frogs 2 tomorrow." Calvin asked.
"That title you spoke of? It is one of those moving picture production I have heard some of the others speak about, correct?" Plague Knight asked. "Hopefully your mother neither paid too much for those tickets nor bought them in advance, because after today you have another fortnight and three days here in this realm," he explained to Calvin. "This is already my thirteenth day in this Metropolis of Madness, and the only way anyone is leaving is either on Day 30 or they prove themselves too boring for the God who created this place."
DAMMIT MARK, STOP HOTTING HELPY!!
THE SLORG!
Silanea flinched as Lucas suddenly broke the window, and Seirwuosuhr let out a yelp of slight surprise as Hobbes suddenly picked her up and booked it through said window. Tommy was just starting to nod to Jack's instructions when he too was startled by the event. Silanea's eyes widened as she saw, already too late to do anything to stop Hobbes running out. "Wait, you idiot!" Silana yelled as one of the vents thumped a few times.
Outside, due to the conditions of the day, Hobbes would find that he couldn't quite as fast as he normally could, his speed having been toned down to about that of an average human. Behind him, something bounded off the roof of the restaurant and landed neatly, already in a four legged sprint itself. The doppelganger looked different than when they'd seen it at the window; its body was sleeker, thinner, and longer, with limbs so needle thin as to almost seem like spider legs. Its head seemed shaped more like a jackal skull now, though still with that same effect of the skin of someone else's face stretched over it.
The Skin-walker chased after Hobbes, closing in on him as it enthusiastically taunted him in his own voice, "I'm going to get you! I'M GOING TO GET YOU!" On Hobbes' back, looking back at this thing with widened eyes, Seirwuosuhr started screaming loudly.
"Damn it! I'm going after them!" Silanea said, quickly slithering over to that window. "Sans try- EHN! Try to think up a trap or something!" she called back, interrupted with a quick grunt of pain as she slithered over the broken glass of the window.
Jason didn't pay any attention to Cole, still looking about until the rock hit his shoulder, getting a slight grunt of pain from him. Despite it however, he managed not to drop Cole, and then turned his attention towards Gon and gave a sort of annoyed growl. Jason then started to march towards Gon; Gon himself would find that moving directly away from Jason was moving him towards a bumper car attraction.
Inside the noodle shop, Rachel looked away from the scene to Garrett. "I don't think there's much we can do for him now, but..." Rachel trailed off, not keeping as quiet now that Jason was farther away. "... I don't know what Wells would think if he knew I didn't at least try" she added, glancing back outside and shaking a little.
"Now's probably the best chance for us getting away" Rachel said, partially seeming to just be thinking out loud and partially clearly giving off a hinting vibe.
Things still seemed pretty quiet, and the group still seemed to be alone, until a voice called out from one of the circus style tents not far off. "Hey! Over here!"
From the entrance of the tent, a man was shining a light from the back of his smartphone, which he was waving in his hand to get their attention. The light then flickered off, reducing the inside of the vent to pitch darkness; as the phone flickered back on, the man was looking at the screen, his confused expression about its malfunction visible in the glow the screen gave off. It flickered again for a brief moment, and then they could see his still confused expression, and another figure standing right behind him.
The phone flickered off for a longer moment, and there was a wet squelch sound; when it came back on this time, the phone had dropped to the ground, the flashlight on the back illuminating the man and what appeared to be a stone angel statue with a nasty set of long, sharp teeth buried in his neck, much to his evident surprise. The man vanished a couple moments later, as did his phone, once more dropping the tent into darkness.
Above them, a cloud briefly passed below the moon, darkening the area for a couple seconds. As it started to pass and the light swept back over, now the statue-like figure was standing several paces outside of the tent towards the group, looking entirely like a normal statue, save for all the blood running down the front of it.
As the cloud passed away entirely and the light continued sweeping over past the Weeping Angel, that pressing sense returned as none other than Slender Man was revealed, standing no more than thirty feet off to the Angel's side.
Plague Knight and Calvin would then hear footsteps on the cobblestones and voices approaching from one way down the path. It wasn't long until a certain hermit-turned-normal and little girl came walking into view.
Seiga and Viola would see, beyond Plague Knight and Calvin, was what looked like a young woman of indeterminate age standing a bit farther down the street, facing away from them. In the lighting it was hard to make much out, except that for certain she had long, black hair that hung straight down, and was wearing only a sleek kimono that was red with blue flowers on it.
... It looked like some of the red might be splattered or stained on.
You are reading this.
Garrett raised his eyebrows at Rachel's answer, then moved over to the condiment rack, examining the bottles. They were caked with dirt, but he could just make out the labels. ...Spicy sauce?
...Might be worth a try. And even if it doesn't work, he still had one vial of oil left, after all.
He backed into a particularly shadowy corner of the shop, carrying one of the bottles. He shook it a little, then squirted it a couple of times onto the cup of his hand. Considering that everything in the shop looked abandoned for years, there was no guarantee there still was anything squirtable inside, after all.
edited 5th Jan '17 12:39:54 PM by Korodzik