He wouldn't have stopped if the door hadn't been ajar.
His curiosity, unnaturally enhanced by his luminous golden heart, demanded that he find out why his Goddess had left her shrine unguarded even as his brain screamed that moving forward was a bad idea. There was something about his Goddess he didn't trust, though the very thought of not trusting her completely made him feel traitorous and small. As he pushed the door open the rest of the way and slipped inside, he tried to force such notions out of his head. She could probably hear them when he was in here anyway.
Stew didn't bother wasting his breath to see if anyone else was around. He could just make out a circle light ahead, or rather a slightly paler portion of the floor that grew brighter as he approached.
Quote:
As you reach the center of the Shrine you realize there are only two statues. As you approach closer, you realize one is empty.
Examine the plaque:
The Goddess, wrought with Paranoia, created ====, her last and final project before ====. It was then that she discovered how to replicate ====.
Much as he had when he'd first woken up, Stew ran his fingers across the plaque with a sigh. Even though he could see much more clearly now, touching the cool metal still brought him comfort.
He looked around. Where was his Goddess? And what did this stupid plaque mea—
Quote:
"Or so it goes."
She seems busy, a glowing instrument in her hands. Wires emerge, created from the fog itself around her, snapping and hissing to life before fading back into greys.
You are handed a bag. It's a simple bag, tied with loose string, locked in the center. At one end of the string is a key.
"Go on," urges the Goddess, her smile crooked but hopeful, "open it up. I have a gift for you."
Startled by her sudden presence, Stew had little to say in response to her gift. The worn cloth bag was weighty, the key old and tarnished, but still quite intricate. It felt like something he shouldn't have been allowed to touch.
He looked up at her as she told him to open it, hesitating yet again as he turned the key over in his hand.
Fine. ******** it.
Stew didn't do gifts. Everything that had happened from the moment he had gained consciousness had happened because he had made it happen. He had worked for all the knowledge he had gained and all the things he now possessed. Maybe someone owed him a gift, even if it was someone so far above him. He took a deep breath and unlocked the bag. As soon as it was open, it lost all of its heft.
He held it out for her to see. "There's nothing..."
Quote:
"Oh." the Goddess is suddenly clenching and unclenching one hand. "A small error. It's okay, I can fix this." Her gaze intensifies, "With your help, I can fix this. Could you fetch me more parts? I stored them in my special labs but it's getting a little cluttered down there. Just look for the chests, they should be inside. I don't need everything it holds, just the heart." They pause, before giving you a pair of scissors. "That should do the trick. Just the heart. They don't need theirs after all," their expression turns turns wry, gentled at the corners with remorse, "...they didn't quite make it."
More work. He shouldn't have expected anything less. Stew took the scissors with a nod, tucking them inside the bag as he strode toward the entrance to the Goddess's... special lab. He glared at it skeptically. It didn't even have a proper door. No matter.
He ducked through the opening into the darkness, only to have his vision assaulted by three bright doors.
No, that wasn't exactly the truth. The doors themselves were dark and looked too heavy to move. The sigla were the things that shone, one of them so brightly that Stew could do little more than squint in its presence.
Yes. That one. He grinned, a wild gleam lighting his eyes.
Three doors. But only one choice.
Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2013 11:50 am
Quote:
It is dead silent. All you hear is a series of steady thuds, far in the distance and what sounds almost like someone whispering a single word over and over again. A name. But not yours. It sounds familiar though.
The door shuts behind you, firmly, the second you enter. It is dark. You have to fumble your way through the abyss. The hallway seems to be moving as you move, shaping itself towards the direction of your footsteps. You reach your first obstacle at the end, hitting it accidentally. It echos a hollow thump and then another thud.
It is a large crate.
Thud.
You move around to feel around it. It is blocking your pathway.
Thud.
The top of the crate is opened, and there is an unusual shape sticking out to one side, bare outlines bathed in a sickly red. The shape simply does not fit into the crate.
Thud.
You move closer. The strange unusual shape sticking out resembles an arm, swaying slowly back and forth. Instinctively, without knowing why, you grab onto the arm.
The sound stops.
You feel around the arm. Something is wedged almost perfectly into the box, taking up most of the space, something soft and pliant. You push against it as it meets resistance. It's an unusual texture, soft, but firm underneath. As you reach a little closer you hear something else.
Thump-thump.
A heart.
Thump-thump.
Through the firm flesh the Heart continues to beat a steady red.
Thump-thump.
Your bag is still empty.
It doesn't matter how long you wait. The obstacle will not move. It doesn't matter if you wait forever, or a single second, or any time in between. Time seems to be infinite. The darkness makes it terrifying. You can barely see anything. You cannot hear anything else.
The Heart is still beating and there is a pair of scissors in your free hand.
Extracting the Heart is a little difficult. It is hard to explain without fully seeing. You think at some point you moved, digging your scissors into the obstacle inside the crate. You think at some point the rubbery, unusual feeling finally peeled and ripped, slowly but steadily compliant, creating a small opening, a hole towards the Heart. You think at some point your hand reached into the opening your scissors made and felt something warmer within. As you pull your hand out, you hear and feeling a gushing noise pour from the opening, and you push your scissors deeper. Something thinner is in the way, long and elastic, pulsating with life on their own, sharply inflating and deflating in a pair. You quickly snip those parts away. The Heart is still snagged and you have to work fiercely, grabbing both your hands now, to push both sides of the cavity open. It is indeed a cavity, and you can feel it, as the sealed contents from within slide out with a heavy slosh and a thunk into the bottom of the crate. Nothing else remains, only the Heart.
Thump-thump.
You remove it. It stops beating.
Slowly, you place it into your bag.
Stew blinked in the darkness, reaching out to touch the wall as he strode forward. His heart pulsed steadily in his chest, but its glow didn't illuminate the world around him, nor did its thuds match the intermittent ones he heard further ahead. There were other sounds that had captured his attention much more thoroughly than any old thuds anyway.
wesssssssssst
Stew swallowed, but his pace didn't slow. He wasn't afraid of the familiar voice, just curious. Always curious.
wesssssssssssssssssssssstttttt
It was getting louder. His next step was a hop, the sort one makes right before they're about to break into a run. Stew tried to speed up, but instead his rapidly swinging foot met something that didn't yield.
"Shiffffffffffffuuuuck!" he shouted into the darkness. Out of all of the things he had been expecting, jamming his toes on a crate had not been one of them.
The thudding grew louder now that the voice had stopped. He reached out and grabbed at the box in front of him, only to be grabbed back by a familiar hand.
He saw her every day. Every day for two years. In the end, he hadn't even been the one who had worked up the courage to introduce himself. She had done that with her eyes and a crook of her claw. And he had followed.
Without thinking, he began digging into her, scissors snapping veins and arteries. It was difficult, but he felt the need to do this, not only for his goddess, but for himself.
"Come...on!" he shouted. The scissors weren't fast enough. He needed that heart. Stew tore into the cavity he had made, tugging at veins and muscles until the sticky, cooling mass was in his hand. It slowed and stopped, and he imagined he could see it, small and cold against his skin.
He slipped it into his bag. He felt nothing.
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Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2013 1:55 pm
Quote:
You continue to walk. You realize the floor has become less solid and more pliant until it feels almost slippery and sticky until you reach a dead end again. Behind you, you hear a sloshing noise, and then footsteps. You turn around.
Nothing.
You continue to walk and the water around you gets deeper, colder. You hear the sloshing noise and it is louder this time.
"Please give it back."
You turn around, but nothing.
You continue to walk and the water around you gets deeper still until it is around your neck. You cannot reach any further. You have to move back.
"Please give me back my-"
Two hands grab a hold of you, pushing you down. You can't breathe. You struggle, but you can't resist. You feel a sharp pain, and realize they are pushing you deep, further down, until you, the feeling of your being has almost stopped existing until they look at you with deep, grey eyes, glassy, baring their sunken teeth-
"Give me back my heart."
As her stinging claws dug into his face and neck, Stew struggled with everything in him, kicking and hissing and...
"You do know you'd remember that if it actually happened, right? That it takes more than cider and your hand up my shirt to make a..."
"Shut up." His hand had curled into a fist and he raised it then, flexing it once, twice. A threat.
"Go on then. Hit me. It's the only thing you know how to do properly anyway. You certainly don't know how to make a scareling, or string together a proper insult, or please a ghoul. She began to moan, right there in the middle of Slendy's, and his face grew hot as several boils his age looked their way and laughed.
"Never felt a thing. I just did that every so often to make you feel better."
"And now? Now how do you want to make me feel?"
"I don't care how you feel, you ******** princess. I just want you gone."
Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2013 2:03 pm
Quote:
You have no choice. It is either you or them. You must exist for the Blessings and the goddesses. Yes, when you are a goddess, perhaps, one day, you can return for them. You use your only weapon, the scissors against them, plunging it deep into an opening.
They shriek-
- And then disappear
There is no more water, and you cough the rest up, the dark and wretched substance. Light begins to pour in again, this time from a door. You have made it to the exit.
Just as you turn to leave, you could have sworn you saw for a second that same figure staring at you balefully in the distance with hollow eyes. They are holding your scissors tightly clenched in one hand.
He had no trouble killing her.
Duerre.
Stew jammed his scissors so hard into her ear that his fist almost followed, and as she disappeared he laughed, his laughter devolving into racking coughs as he brought back up all the water he had consumed.
He was still coughing when he finally struggled to his feet and left. He turned back once, but only to give her pathetic, wasted form the finger.
Finally, she was gone.
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Posted: Tue Aug 13, 2013 9:36 am
task two
Quote:
"You cannot escape forever."
The Goddess looks down at you, one hand gently running over the curved blade of the scythe as if it was a favored pet. "You must face your Fears. Eat or be eaten. That is the way of it here. Were it another time... I wonder which one you would be?"
She drops down from her perch and approaches you, circling you and looking you up and down. "I wonder indeed. Perhaps we shall solve this little mystery? Take this." She hands you a small jeweled dagger. It is a simple blade set with a stone, and from it dangles what looks to be a small claw of some sort.
"That should be more than enough," the Goddess continues. "You will need to learn to fend for yourself, to take on your challenges and judge for yourself what it means to sacrifice. That is the only way you will become stronger, else you'll fall prey to someone greater still." As she speaks the blade of the knife begins to rust, stained with a dark color reminiscent of Ruin.
"You are ready." She announces, gesturing with her scythe. "Go." Her bright glowing eyes are on you until you finally move towards a thin opening. You can still feel her gaze on you even after you leave her presence.
Stew turned with a start, his eyes wide with surprise. He shouldn't have come back here, not after... well... he couldn't recall what had actually happened the last time he had visited the shrine, only that the place made him feel anxious now, like he had to be somewhere at a specific time but someone had handcuffed him to a radiator instead. Whatever... that meant. Maybe that's why he had come back. For answers.
He quickly pushed himself to his feet from where he had been kneeling in front of her pedestal, examining its plaque. Ruin. Her presence filled his mind with questions and sparked a hunger in his heart, though what exactly he hungered for he couldn't say.
He listened to her speak in silence, his attention trapped and held by her favor. When she asked him what he would be, he didn't reply. To him, it was obvious.
When she handed him the dagger he grinned, tossing it in the air an inch or two as he flipped it over in his hand. He watched it as it rusted, but his smile didn't fade. As long as it had a point, it would do its job. He would hunt and he would eat.
Stew didn't hesitate when she dismissed him. He stepped through the door and...
Smerdle rolled 1 4-sided dice:
3Total: 3 (1-4)
Posted: Tue Aug 13, 2013 9:39 am
Quote:
You wake up feeling cold. That's strange, you don't ever remember falling asleep. There is something firm underneath you. A table, made of solid metal. It is very bright in the room, painfully so, the stark white lights in the ceiling a contrast to the greys you have been used to.
The lights hum. It feels slightly painful to your ears, ringing in dissonance. The room itself is empty. There are only four white walls surrounding you and the white ceiling with the white lights.
You take a few unsteady steps. In front of you is a door. It is unlocked.
Unfortunately the hallway outside is equally bright. As you take a few steps outside, you hear something slam shut. You turn around. The door that you walked through is still open however.
You continue onwards, taking slow, steady steps. The halls stem to stretch into infinity, but, at the very furthest distance you can see it. An exit. A way out. You don't need a reason to leave. This place is hollow, this place is empty, it's stifling, the lights are too bright, and it feels too clean, too sterilized. You start walking.
Thud.
You turn around again. The door that you left is still open. There is noone behind you, just white lights. You turn back around.
Thud.
You look behind you again.
They are watching you.
The first thing you hear is the steady thudding of footsteps against the perfectly polished floor. You can hear a strange noise, a sharp scraping noise. In one of their blackened hands they carry a pair of rusted scissors.
Thud. Screech. Thud. Screech.
They approach closer.
You move as fast as your legs allow you to. The world is spinning. All you can hear outside of your panicked breath, and your Heart that will not stop beating furiously is the steady thud of a figure, cast in shadows, walking behind you. You reach the door.
It is locked.
There are bright red letters written onto the handlebar of the door. Passcode required. A 9 digit number pad is stuck right onto the door at face level.
...woke up in a cool, white room.
Stew could barely open his eyes at first it was so bright, but after several minutes of rubbing at them and letting them adjust, he was ready to look around.
The bleakness of the space didn't upset him like it should have, but the table he lay upon did. Someone was doing something they shouldn't here, and from the looks of things, he was involved. He sat up quickly, even as his head spun, sliding off of the table and onto his feet. Stew almost fell across the room in his haste, yanking open the door with such force that it hit the wall behind it, its handle chipping the paint.
He made it ten steps into the hall before he heard a door slam. He didn't turn. He could see it now, the door behind him shut, the one in front of him not yet opened. Trapped. He quickened his pace.
Thud.
"DON'T YOU DARE LOCK ME IN."
Stew turned as swiftly as he could, his eyes meeting the open chasms of the thing behind him. It held a pair of scissors straight out at its side, the blades as rusted as his knife. The shape felt familiar. The scissors too. It took a step forward without moving its legs or feet, the scissors gouging into the pristine wall.
Stew began to walk toward the far door before he had turned back to face it. From here, he could see a pair of words scrawled across its handle. PASSCODE REQUIRED.
"I don't have a ******** passcode," he muttered, searching the floor as he kept moving.
"Excuses, excuses," the thing croaked.
He didn't turn back. Stew reached the door and shoved at it. It didn't budge.
"It's why you've never been worth anything. It's why you'll never be what your parents hoped. What she wants."
"This is me ignoring you." He closed his eyes.
She chuckled.
Distance: 45
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4Total: 4 (1-4)
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Posted: Tue Aug 13, 2013 9:42 am
His eyes snapped open and darted around. He would not give up so easily. There was a piece of wrinkled paper taped to the wall to his left.
A=0, B=1, C=2
"I don't know what that means." He began punching numbers into the keypad, each set of four generating an error.
Thud. Screech. Thud. Screech.
She was getting closer.
Distance: 40
Smerdle rolled 1 4-sided dice:
1Total: 1 (1-4)
Posted: Tue Aug 13, 2013 11:16 am
Stew couldn't see. He shouted sharply in surprise, his fingers still stabbing at the keypad.
His parents, smiling. Friends. Teachers. They all looked at the pair of them together, and although they never said it, they knew they were destined for...
"Great things."
Her speech turned twisted, its garbled strings of sounds occasionally forming words like pumpkin and useless. It grew slowly louder.
Stew began to laugh, frantic, breathy sounds that accompanied his forceful scrabbling. The door still did not budge.
Distance: 35
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Smerdle rolled 1 4-sided dice:
2Total: 2 (1-4)
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Posted: Tue Aug 13, 2013 11:23 am
"There. There!" His sight returned and he saw it, so close he wondered how he could have missed it before.
A C E G.
He punched the numbers in order, his mind moving at lightning speed, and in a moment, he was gone.
Smerdle rolled 1 4-sided dice:
3Total: 3 (1-4)
Posted: Tue Aug 13, 2013 12:58 pm
Quote:
You are outside. There are grey trees staring that greet you, hiding you from the figure.
You look behind you.
They are still steadily following you.
Without looking back and further, you continue to run. The figure following you taunts at you. Occasionally through the loud crunching of their footsteps you can hear steady snipping. They taunt you about returning their Heart. They taunt you about taking your Heart in return.
You reach the end of the trees to a long bridge. It looks rickety and unsure, swaying uneasily. You will need to cross it.
The air was still as sterile and stagnant as it had been indoors, but it smelled like freedom to Stew. He hurried on, more steady on his feet, stopping at the start of a creaking bridge.
He turned around. She brandished her scissors, her smile the same gaping maw of nothingness that her eyes were.
Stew gripped the rope sides of the bridge and stepped onto its swaying boards. He started to cross slowly, safely, but the creature caught up almost instantly, raking her claws straight across his back. Her laughter brushed his ear, even in the driving wind, and Stew ran, just as the point of her scissors broke the skin near his spine.
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Smerdle rolled 1 6-sided dice:
6Total: 6 (1-6)
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Posted: Tue Aug 13, 2013 1:42 pm
Quote:
At last you reach a final dead end a cul-de-sac. There is simply one monument standing behind you, a rickety haunted house. Strange shadows are cast from the building.
You look behind you.
They are still steadily following you.
The rusted dagger you were holding suddenly glows a bright red, as if in reaction to the shadows of the Haunted House. You hear the Goddess of Ruin's words echo in your mind. Now or never.
Without hesitation, you plunge your dagger into the figure.
He ran past the point of exhaustion and didn't stop until he came to a dead end. A house loomed in front of him. As he looked up at it, the dagger in his hand, the one he had forgotten he was holding, began to glow as if it was fresh from the forge.
Stew turned. The figure was right in front of him now, her iron-tinged breath hot on his face. He was no longer afraid.
"I must become stronger. Or else I'll fall prey to someone... greater..."
"What are you—"
He raised the dagger, putting all of his weight behind it as he plunged it into her chest.
Hesitantly, he pressed his fingers to her shoulder. She looked up at him with tear-filled eyes. "I... I never meant to..."
"I was lying," She whispered, her voice a watery croak. "I lied all the time. But not about..."
Stew looked down at the shadowy creature that slumped in his arms. "I don't care." He pushed the dagger in further, past the guard, almost up to the decoration tied to its pommel. She shuddered and went still.
Posted: Sat Aug 17, 2013 6:06 pm
task three
The scent of cookies wafted from the depths of the subway, and Stew was too curious about its origin to stay away. It brought to mind fuzzy sweaters and a tiny, ragged tree, but his flashes of memory went no further than that.
He squinted at the Goddess of Longing as he closed the distance between them, shaking his head at her offer of food. He had no desire to experience any of the emotions she had named save for one, and he had found he had no problem feeling that all on his own. He didn't need her garden or her table or her weird music or... was that snow? Stew opened his mouth and caught a flake of it on his tongue, but tasting the stuff brought him no answers.
The jars were his obvious goal, but he chose to pause and look around before he touched them, perhaps out of spite. The Goddess's cheery voice echoed in his ears, and his upper lip briefly rose into a sneer. The white flakes had gathered in small piles on the ground, and Stew smirked at the crunch they made when he put his weight on them. They sounded like destruction.
Eventually, he turned his attention to the pink and blue containers at the center of the table. He ghosted his fingers over the tops of them, squirming slightly. The pink was uncomfortable for too many reasons to name. The blue made him uneasy as well, but the tension he felt when he rested his fingers on it was one he was sure he could resolve.
He chose the blue.
"Drink me." He shrugged and did so, holding his breath after it was down to mask the taste. It didn't actually taste all that bad, but soon that didn't matter.
The tension Stew felt increased tenfold and he squeezed his hands into fists, watching as the top of the table erupted into some sort of twisted snack bar. An irregular hunk of chocolate sat alone at the end opposite him, surrounded by a dark, foul mist. It seemed aloof, not in a good, independent way, but in a smug one. Stew dismissed it quickly.
The last two were far closer: a heap of deflated candy corn and a very small, innocuous cupcake. The candy both attracted and repelled him, strongly and simultaneously. On the one hand, he felt oddly proud and locked when he looked upon the sugary nuggets, but on the other, a deep sadness washed over him at the sight of them so depleted. He moved on to the last item, the cupcake, which thankfully raised no emotion in him at all.
Without hesitation, he plucked it off of the table and stuffed it into his mouth, chewing and swallowing before he could notice his heart had begun to race. He was thirsty again. Why hadn't he saved any of that crap from the blue jar? Stew glanced away from the remaining snacks, back in the direction of the gate Longing had led him through. When he looked back, there were a pair of delicate tea cups on the table, one pure white, one deep black.
"Weird." After only the briefest of pauses, he chose the white.
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Posted: Sat Aug 17, 2013 6:07 pm
tl;dr, extremely mild blood and slavery
The hatch behind the shed in the yard had never been off limits. It had long ago been presented as the cramped, musty space where Mr. August kept his gardening supplies, and it seemed there was no greater deterrent to secret exploration than the promise of a lawnmower.
The hatch's perceived boringness quotient became a point of interest, however, when the adults decided to have a suspiciously loud argument while standing on top of it. The little boy had been perched on one of the shorter rooftops nearby when he had heard them, and he turned his attention from flinging wads of gum at his parents' guests to spying on them.
To be fair, only his uncle's voice was raised beyond its normal volume, and even then, it didn't carry far enough for the guests to hear.
"You told her you'd clear all that s**t out."
His father never shouted. "I can't recall saying such a thing."
"At the very least you could do it for the kid. This is not..." His uncle paused.
"Not what?"
The shorter demon rolled his eyes and waved his hand as if he was searching for a reply in the air. "Wrathy."
"He has my money. He doesn't need... wrathy."
"Are you serious? You're happy sitting on your a** not doing your job? Not teaching him to do his—"
"Telefsen."
The boy ducked closer to the roof at the sound of his mother's voice. He didn't fear her, only her disappointment.
"Zira. Your husband's being an a*****e."
"This is not the place."
"Fine." His uncle stalked off toward the grumbling, gummed guests. His parents slowly followed.
The hatch was abandoned.
The boy slid off of the roof before he was sure they were gone, pulling the creaky wooden door open with all of his strength. He dropped into the dank space, his sneakers sinking into the muddy ground. Slowly his eyes began to adjust. He saw... a lawnmower.
"Lame."
"Hello?"
The raspy voice was barely audible, but it made him jump. He was fairly certain it was coming from behind the far wall. He didn't reply. Instead he squelched across the room and ran his fingers over one of the looser looking boards, finding an edge and pulling that too.
The first thing he registered was the smell. Filth and mold. The smell of undead that didn't take care of themselves. He had seen one once, begging outside the maul they used to frequent, but his father had noticed too and they hadn't been back since.
These weren't the undead. Judging from the glow, they were ghosts. Four or five ghosts, each trapped in his or her own cramped, glittering birdcage.
"Little boil, let us out," the nearest one pleaded. She flickered erratically as she tried to phase through her swinging prison, but she could not escape.
"Yes, please. It hurts so badly." The next man's leg was sawed off at the knee, the bluish-grey stump dripping bright red blood onto the floor beneath. The boy knelt closer, but the ghost shook his head irritably. "Not that. This."
He held out his arm, and on the inside of his elbow the boy could see a delicate black mark curled there. It was strange to see it gouged into someone's skin instead of in the places he found it every day: embroidered on his mother's robe, in the subtly shifting beiges of the wallpaper, in the pattern of his vests for school. It was his father's mark.
"Oh, that's just—" Something heavy hit him from behind. He never saw the ghosts again.
When he awoke, the party was over. Everyone was gone, including his uncle.
"He won't be coming back," his mother said when the little boy asked. "He's always been flighty, but the things he said about you..." She pressed his hair flat as she ran her fingers between his horns. "I will not stand for it."
His father had ignored him when he asked about the ghosts.
As soon as he'd been left alone, the boy had opened the hatch once more and looked behind the wall. The ghosts and their cages were gone, but the bloody stain remained.
Posted: Sat Aug 17, 2013 6:09 pm
Stew frowned as he set his teacup on the table. He had only taken a sip, but that was all he could stomach. Lies. So many of them. The memory felt true, but it pressed so hard against his brain that, no matter how hard he tried, he could not be objective. It wanted to be believed.
He was desperate to cleanse his palate, to see things from another point of view. There had to be something else around here to drink.
Colour of Tea Tasted: Magenta Description: Mingling guests. Gum. A confusing conversation. Ghosts.
Your commentary on its flavour: The tea is confusing, but Linswo isn't surprised by this. He keeps drinking. He's had his fill of confusing teas, and he feels he can take this sort of confusion after everything he's tasted. The conversation confuses him. He wishes for context, but it's not like he can ask the tea's owner to explain. The ghosts confuse him further, and he feels concern over the blood. The sight of red stains sets Linswo at unease. What's going on here? But he never receives his answer. The tea's owner doesn't either, and he leaves Linswo forever wondering what happened.
