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 Posted: Tue Apr 14, 2015 12:31 am
Quote: MOON PROMOTION ASSIGNMENTCandidates: D. Grace, V. Hajjar, and M. Wainwright Overseer: C. Quinn Location: 29°50'34.6"N, 92°04'36.9"W Mission Overview: Unmarked village in rural Louisiana began lighting up unnatural Fear readings for several weeks now. Initial recon turned up run of the mill incidents: slaughtered animals, missing persons, possible ghost hauntings. Negligible ambient Fear has also been registered among civilians. Flagged as E Class external mission, however candidates are expected to show their initiative in order to be promoted. Objective: More in depth survey. If civilians appear infected, triage and treat accordingly. Eliminate the source of Fear. Mission Duration: Short Term: < 1-2 days max due to Fear exposure precautions :: If candidates fail to complete by then, Quinn has the authority to intercede.
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Posted: Wed Apr 15, 2015 12:57 pm
It's eighty-two degrees outside and it's only mid April. Dawson is used to the heat—it could get worse in Georgia—but it's a little jarring to go from dangerous tropic island to probably more dangerous backwood bayous. The air is different here: the wind is warm and smells like oak and cypress, fire and dirt, the machinations of man and petroleum distant. It's earthy and reminds him of home, but home has hills and prairie and pecan trees and a house and a stable and the smells of horse s**t and sweat and cows and chicken fried steak and syrup and pancakes.
(Home had.)
"Twenty-eight degrees almost," Velma reports as she reads her scanner. "No Fear level."
"We just got here," Mel says as she ties her hair up. "Have some chill."
"It's important to establish a base reading so as to more accurately record the Fear exposure once we're there. It's impossible to do on base due to previous exposure—"
What Dawson gets from this is that Velma is the smart one, and he can't help but smile a little to himself. He stays quiet in respect to them both as they're about to be promoted to full hunter status after this, and because he's afraid to sound like an idiot; he already looks like one, he's sure. But he felt a little better knowing he's with experienced people, and while Mrs. Quinn is also a scary lady, she's been trusted to haul their asses out if it goes wrong. And it won't. It can't. Please, God.
Mrs. Quinn gives the order, and they move out.
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Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2015 9:22 pm
i.╔═══════════════════╗
THANK YOU
for carrying your gun today.
10% Discount
~
╚═══════════════════╝ The sign looks morbidly cheerful. The pig is dancing in a corner, either blissfully ignorant of its fate or gleefully skipping towards the menu pinned next to it, offering a glutton's worth of burgers, brisket baskets, sandwiches, poboys, and more. Several hours' worth of work helping the citizens (villagers?) rebuild has awakened a hungry beast in his belly, or at least that is what he tells the waitress with a hearty laugh that she returns with breathy, polite chuckles.
Dimanche is small even for a village. While he has yet to learn why these people came out so far south and away from civilization, he does understand that there's a strong connection in the six or seven families he meets throughout the day. There's an unspoken conversation that happens around them, in the silent questions of exchanged looks as he's introduced, in what lurks in the honeyed words of the drawl that hums pleasantly in his ears, and in the vague answers they give as they try in their own subtle way to conduct an investigation. The candidates are posing as travelers in need of a place to rest: car broke down, unfamiliarity with the terrain, willing to lend a hand to earn their stay, leave the next day. There was more hashed out between them in case people grew suspicious, but strangely they don't seem to care one way or the other. Dawson understands this to be their version of don't ask don't tell.
Even so, there's an uneasiness he can't shake not that they've stopped moving. It was easy to ignore in the way utter focus on a task allows, but sitting and viewing the laminated menu forces him to acknowledge the fact that they've been constantly watched since getting there. It's just the usual you're not from around here vibe, Melody explains, unfettered. But Dawson came from a small town himself, and while it's not the same as a village in a different state, he does know this: there's more than simply schoolyard stranger nonsense at work. Then again, that is the very reason why they are there in the first place.
Velma compares notes with them, wrinkles her brow while muttering to herself. The waitress with a smile as bright as sunlight on bayou surface appears again, bringing them all water that has a slightly brown hue to it. Minerals, she assures them sweetly, though the women appear dubious. What's for today, boo? She leans in as they order, and Dawson can't help but notice the beads of sweat making its way down her neck, the way her skin appears taut against the skin as she spreads that smile, the quiver in her hands that remind him of someone who hasn't eaten.
How long're ya'll staying? It's a common question that day, expected and handled in the same robotic way by this time, short story, explanation, offer to earn keep and pay, overnight. It's only because she's so close that he can see what flickers in her eyes, however. It looks strangely apologetic.
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Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2015 10:01 am
Maebe [QEUED] ud probly hate this place haha its worse than deus all sticky air n bugs n swamps least u know the stuff lurkn back home u know? here kinda reminds me of how gators r in swamps but ppl still got sharper teeth in their smiles good thing im made of rubber haha Chris [QEUED] bro its ******** hot here icann barely type sweaty ring we s fingers* but I got this massive fjckn burger holy s**t itsamazing.jpg ill make u one when I get back if u been good also sneak peek theladies.jpg tweammates man ur welcome Horace [QEUED] theres a bayou here n I got this thought of yall group diving in skeets n gators n nasty a** water n God knows what else algee or some tshit scary s**t b safe idc when u get this messag always b safe n b smart man i kno u gonna say holy s**t daws shut up i got it already but feels better actn like i can talk to u right now
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Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2015 1:12 pm
ii.
He swears they're being followed. Not by the villagers--well yes by the villagers, that's to be expected. There's two showing them the Bayou Cunja and at least another pair watching them according to Melody. Three strangers conveniently finding them in the midst of Whatever Is Troubling Them is reason enough, and he doesn't blame them--he just really wishes they didn't all seem to carry some sort of firearm or dagger out in the open.
< What does that matter? They can't hope to hurt you. >
Means they're on edge. And Dawson, of course, is not a person who can sit idly by.
Their guide, a leather skinned man named Doucet who has one of the least heavy Cajun accents, stops them suddenly with a raised arm. This is tricky, he says, where the bayou starts. On still days (and there are many still days come late spring and summer, he adds), the shores are nigh impossible to see. He points out to them across the way the bald cypress trees, the green surface full of their knees, ferns, reeds, Spanish moss, and marsh grass. Today, without a breeze to relieve them of the wet heat, the bayou looks indistinguishable from the land. There have been accidents in the past because of this, Doucet tells them. Most are found before the situation becomes deadly, but that is why they travel in pairs at the least, despite the bayou's location being common knowledge.
Dawson's question is if there are gators there because it would have burned him if he didn't ask. Yes, one Doucet swears is older than even Parran *********. Velma has a more important one, however, as she squints past the length of the bayou to a dim form through the trees. What's there? Doucet returns to the vague answers they've been plagued with: an old remnant that is best left untouched. He is quick to change the subject as a blue heron breaks up the water's surface, unfettered by their presence as it watches for its next meal.
"Feels like a stupid Scooby Doo gag," Mel mutters as they make their way back. "Or a B movie horror. Tight lipped villagers in some backwater village in the south, Christ. We should probably check that place out later, I bet that's the source."
"It is," Velma says, glancing to make sure their guide wasn't too close. Mel rolls her eyes. (Of course it is.) "At least according to the scanner. The problem is figuring out to get there without these people getting suspicious."
"Or not drowning, or getting swallowed up by swamp beasts." Mel pauses and looks to Dawson. "You alright, guy? You've been pretty quiet."
"Yeah, m'good. Just thinkin'."
"About what?"
If it was too late to back out yet. "Been makin' friends with some a'the kids while workin'," he replies with a thoughtful frown. "F'the parents won't talk, maybe they will."
"You think they know something that'll help?"
"I think kids always know more than they let on."
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Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2015 5:07 pm
iii.
The logic is that the more restrictive the parents, the more likely their kids are to be rebellious. Or at least, that's the option he chooses to lean on rather than the other one of being a model child. He makes notes in his little journal as he talks to them.
Louie says Mère's mirror creeps him out. It is hanging on the front door because the devil is vain and will forget to curse you if he sees his reflection. He thinks it's a silly belief but grows quiet when he's asked what he's seen: Less than what the mirror has and still too much.
JJ says their family is the most blessed. His brother remembers the old tales and spreads salt at the windows and thresholds so none of the spirits can get in. The crosses have never fallen upside down and the wood has never groaned except in a strong wind, he states proudly, and they go to mass every week. Isaiah 40:31—Yet those who wait for the LORD Will gain new strength; They will mount up with wings like eagles, They will run and not get tired, They will walk and not become weary. His mother said not to talk, but faith surely will see them through. It is a test, like Jonah and the whale or Abraham and his son.
Evangeline and her siblings are forthcoming but provide contradicting stories. The strew animal corpses are from something hunting in the woods too close to home. The animal skulls are a prank from one of the Doucet boys. The large pawprints aren't from a rougarou, they're probably from the Breauxs' dog because he always gets loose. Viv is the daughter of a witch. Viv is not, stop that. The skulls are gris-gris to protect the village from bad spirits. The rustles are from normal, not creepy nocturnal animals. The dead aren't— (The child is hushed with a single look.)
Remy's little gang of stained teens stays tight lipped and insinuate he should stop trying to stick his nose where it's like to get bit.
Therese swears it's a rougarou, and it's only there because someone isn't being a good Catholic. Père says she shouldn't say such things, but she knows everyone else thinks it too. She also informs him that he's also weird and should just take Viv with him when they go because nobody wants her anyway. She's bribed with candy to avoid her ratting him out.
Francis, Dee, and Elijah all grow degrees of apologetic or stoic; his search has apparently been discovered anyway.
No-one informs him of who Viv is or where to find her. Dawson attempts to broach it and finds himself meeting the quiet threat lying behind the vague answers they've been met with since getting there. The smiles go bright, and he's offered a different distraction with every segue and interruption. Pushing it further means being dumped before they're ready.
Of course, it isn't hard to see the one trailer he has yet to visit. But much like the bayou and the building beyond it, it seems impossible to approach without someone noticing. But he swears a pale face like a skull peeks out from one of the filmy windows, dark circles under bright eyes. And then she's tugged out of sight.
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Posted: Mon Apr 20, 2015 1:11 pm
iv.
The sun doesn't so much set as it is swallowed whole. Clouds chase it to the horizon, blue gray beasts with jaws wide and smoke trailing in their wake. The forest burns with fragmented, red-saturated light until the invasion is complete, clogging the sky well before darkness arrives. Above the horizon he can pick out the faintest glimmers of fire like little angry eyes watching the land. Plants, their host for the night, Geneva, explains. Methanol, she adds when she sees their confusion.
Night falls, but it does not fall quietly. As if the day had been too still, a heavy, hot wind picks up and stirs the trees into a frenzy. A blast of wind knocks the front door open, and Dawson winces as a rancid smell like burned leaves and rotten plants hits him. Geneva tuts at the air as she locks the double screen doors. She warns them not to go out; foul winds bring foul tidings.
It isn't just a bad wind to him. As they settle into two rooms (naturally separated by gender, at their host's request), he finds it impossible to sleep. The old wood creaks and the branches scraped against the exterior with an unnatural fervor. It's not a wind, he starts to think, it's the breath of a forgotten and angry god, because if old ones existed, who was to say new ones couldn't be cultivated in the earth, in the old fears ingrained in man? Who was to say there isn't something lurking there now, shrieking in the chimney, clawing at the house, digging through the foundations below, glowering at him in the dark?
There is a cross above his bed, and every time the winds make it shake, Dawson shudders.
His mind is too much awake despite his body's leaden weight. He can't stop pouring over what they had seen and heard, and the more he cycles through it, the more dread begins to gnaw at him. At every blessing directed at them and prayer witnessed, he should have felt gladdened to see faith still alive and well. Instead, he suffered a growing guilt like sludge in his veins. Mel and Velma were impervious to it all if not vaguely disdainful in the former's case. He tried not to show his affiliation with the villagers' faith—he was not so strict or old fashioned or leery of the strange, Deus had certainly forced him to be more open—but in doing so he felt like Peter the apostle: denying something integral to himself for the sake of his survival. A coward, conveniently Catholic and unable to understand a world that didn't function by what he was reared on.
And really, what did any of that mean in a world where monsters roamed freely? Where fear of something gave it literal life and power? Where he, a boy whose birth mother couldn't or wouldn't take him, could take the lives (lives, he remembered, not just Anna Marie's) of the family who had taken him in and be rewarded with a second chance? Where did he fit in a world that should have eaten him up long ago?
The house is too small, the room too hot. He breaks out into a sweat. The winds howl through the cracks and the branches scream against the glass. Syn tries to soothe him, but the reminder of a monster in his head only agitates his existential hours in the night.
A fearful weight seems to press itself against the bed sheets, suffocating him into a paralyzing silence, the kind he used to believe would invite demons to tug him by his feet to hell if they appeared over the bed. (That he still, in some ways, still believes.) He shifts slightly and the sound feels too loud against his ears, too close. Loudness outside, unnatural pressure within. Something could stroke his back, peek through the covers with bloodshot eyes, croak in a familiar, sickly sweet tone in his ears. He turns his head, and the feeling of his hair tickling his ear sparks a brief wave of panic that makes him bunch up and whimper and scratch it with wet fingers. Maybe it's better the ladies are in the other room. He might have gotten some information they hadn't, but his presence in the mission hasn't been a strong one. Certainly seeing him now wouldn't inspire further confidence.
The window flares to life with a flash of lightning. He swears for a moment he can make out the silhouette pressing down on him in the dark, in the shadows of the creased and wrinkled sheets, the long hair and heart shaped face and tattered clothes and broken limbs twisted over him like a cage. Simultaneously his sweat grows cold and his skin grows hot, and he closes his eyes and tries to tell himself, Not real, not real, not real.
But the unfortunate truth Deus has taught him is that more often than not, the frightening possibilities are real, and a cross can't save him.
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Posted: Wed Apr 22, 2015 7:58 pm
DM w/ @IAmMegaGay
more im here mroe i think ur right im a gd b***h [deleted]
DM w/ @IAmMegaGay
wasting battery idc [deleted]Chel [QEUED] cant sleep kinda wish i aksed how u stay not nervous bullshit i couldnt take ppl i woulda took u n chris or sumthin ******** bullshti
wish u were [deleted]
DM w/ @******** stupid bein scared of [deleted]
DM w/ @MaebeBaeby
i want out [deleted]Maebe [QEUED] theres no lights here just plant fires in the distance n a bad wind hope runic lanterns do better job when i maek em Horace [QEUED] ur right windows jus tmake it worse
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Posted: Wed Apr 22, 2015 11:11 pm
v.
The villagers insist at any rate. The nicer ones, at least. Come to church and celebrate with us. This is God's country. When is the last time you went to mass, cher? someone asks, and he sweats under the collar and laughs. Since Easter, he lies, and they tut at him, pat his shoulder, and lead him on. Velma, like a days old bruise amongst ghosts, isn't given the same treatment; she follows at their heels like an afterthought, clutching her scanner in her pocket.
He's never felt so off inside a church before. Dimanche's is quaint and small: more a chapel than a church, its polished insides and non cushioned pews quickly fill. It might have been comely had he not felt nauseous walking in, the heady mix of candles and the presence of people seeming to soak the air right out, leaving him gasping for nothing but the water in the air it feels. Dawson doesn't want to be there, much less Velma--but Mel is out alerting Mrs. Quinn what they've investigated thus far because she got lucky enough to pull the straw.
The preacher is going on about something, but a lack of sleep, a lack of air, and a lack of courage make it near impossible for him to keep up. His foot keeps wanting to tap with building energy from his nerves, a soft creaky noise against the wood floor that draws attention quickly. Hot, stale, no space, no comfort, no familiar faces beyond Velma who will leave when this is all over, sweat, no hat (doffed in reverence, fiddled with in his lap), helpless to the martyred looks of the saints lining the walls: a monk faced with an angel wreathed in flame, a man encircled by imps with bleeding palms, a nun struck in the forehead by a thorn from the crucifix, all with such beatific expressions--
Would you like to be a Saint? Parran ********* asks in that impassioned drone. Do you want to be in union so close with Jesus that you comfortably feel his five wounds all the time?
Dawson wants to make a crack about how awful it must be wearing all those layers, but he doesn't. He stares ahead past the priest, at the sign behind the altar: four palms in the cardinal directions, wounds wide open and feeding the bleeding heart in the center. Above it, a large Jesus hangs, blood painted yet glowing in the center of the unnaturally pristine church. Dawson realizes he hasn't seen anywhere else in Dimanche look so spotless. In contrast, he's the dirt, he finds himself thinking, the stubborn stain, the soil that something else uses to grow.
Something pricks the back of his neck the more he asks himself what he's doing there. He suddenly finds he can't remember what is more important to his faith--is it forgiveness, or is it atonement? His bulk feels more and more like the very word rather than a body, a cage of flesh with hands that have wrought destruction and will continue to do so. The heat smothers him and he can barely breath, barely move, barely think beyond the stares he keeps feeling at the back of his head, like the bayou and like the bed. Maybe it's God. Maybe it's that other one that shrieked in the night and woke the dead. Parran ********* is an ugly white noise and the choir is like a host of sharp cicadas, buzzing and burrowing until it isn't just his ears vibrating but his whole body thrumming with a wrongness of the unworthy exposed to something beyond them, skin pushed to the purifying flames. But Anna Marie, Mama, Papa, JD, a complete stranger, they're not a fever he can simply sweat out, they are not five wounds he can simply wear in penance.
He doesn't remember how or when the service ends. All he remembers before Velma shakes him out of his stupor is the eerie uncertainty of whether the Jesus figure had always been smiling like that.
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Posted: Fri Apr 24, 2015 1:15 am
vi.
Children notice his strange demeanor afterwards in the way an animal can tell something was off, as if he is giving off a slightly sour scent. Maybe that is his excessive sweating talking. He didn't exactly dressed well for church, which had drawn scorn from several gossiping women afterwards, nor had he seemed very into it. (Putting it nicely, more like squeezed until long after the juice had run dry.) Neither had some of them to be fair--the fervor of their sires didn't always align with their interests--but the difference is a simple as the one between a child and an adult, an us versus them. They cling to their individual groups and add to the sense that somehow he and Velma had unnerve them by existing.
Maybe children, just like animals, can also smell fear. They heighten his own paranoia by the way they watch the pair out of the corners of their eyes, their voices seemingly muffled. Even as they turn their backs, Dawson can't help but turn his head. There is an itch he hasn't been able to shrug off, a constant and subtle idea that there's something just behind him, or just beyond his peripheral. His agitation is enough for Velma to give him a strange look, and his answer that he's okay just eager to find something is a little too hasty for that pasted on smile he wears.
He doesn't even have the energy to feel bad when he's startled by one of the children approaching. He recognizes the pale face from his search yesterday and only numbly accepts the name ascribed to it--her. Agatha. Even Velma's questions are a blur to him, and he can't begin to understand why his concentration is so hard to maintain. Maybe it's the sun, maybe it's him thinking too much, maybe it's that God damn sense of dread. He hears one word--angel--and Velma shoots him a look he doesn't know how to translate. She thankfully takes the lead; he's always been a better follower anyway.
The feeling doesn't leave him as they pick their way off the path. Sporadic houses are traded for granules of hills and the white noise of nature. Even in the midst of his inner dilemma, he's conscious enough to register two things when they reach the sight: a large willow whose leaves reach out and swath them like a waiting mother as they duck through the soft leaves, and the figure out on the grass at its knees. He blinks blearily, confused and tired: its silhouette is strange, humanoid but shifting gently as if in a breeze (which isn't gracing them now, as if the night had blown itself out), and far too colorful. He blinks again and it becomes clearer.
Butterflies have obscured every inch of the corpse.
Agatha sounds far away as she explains. He hears something about sacrifice and original sin, a reminder from God that even in beauty there lurks something dangerous--something about an adulterer finding use in his death, that past sin one can still find beauty in the world (but is there forgiveness? he doesn't ask)--something about the butterflies like little angels cleansing the body, Velma piping up with deep skepticism, Agatha returning with the solemn voice of the faithful that what they believe didn't matter because it is what it is and those that didn't believe (she grows more reserved, glances around warily) they got taken to the plantation.
He's about to force himself out of his persistent stupor when he sees something twitch. The butterflies rise with a lazy indifference, colors dazzling him under the dappled light. Bits of flesh are tugged off with each, dangling from them like a macabre second pair of wings. As one the kaleidoscope parted the willow leaves, skin and meat falling in their wake.
The smell only hits him them, right as the corpse jerks upright and glares at them with a rotten, sunken face. Velma curses. Dawson simultaneously gags and gasps. Agatha screams.
The earth rumbles beneath them, and as the girl flees, two more sets of arms spear up from the ground. For a wild moment as they summoned their weapons, Dawson thinks of them as flowers in fast forward, corpse-pale palms spreading their fingers like petals towards the light.
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medigel rolled 3 8-sided dice:
1, 2, 3
Total: 6 (3-24)
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Posted: Fri Apr 24, 2015 1:16 pm
When the last corpse falls to the ground in a clatter, Velma asks him, "Are you good?"
"Yup." Not at all. His barrier is fine, his mental health is what's questionable. Thank God for decent reflexes. He grows antsy. "Y'don' think m-more would—?"
She shrugs. "The sign said population: 212, but now I wonder what percent is the living. At any rate, we need to find Mel and hit that plantation home before Quinn rides our asses for taking so long."
"Any ideas on what we dealin' with?"
"Necromancer's our best bet here. Not a very powerful one if those minions says anything," she adds, and he realizes he must look frightened half to death at this point (sleepless, dreading, unfocused, a lead weight chained to her legs) and is simultaneously hopeful she's right and annoyed she feels the need to reassure him. But he offers a tired smile nevertheless.
"Ain' a thing it can do against ya'll anyway," he says as they duck through the willow leaves. "Be too stunned 'cuz ya'll so damn pretty."
OOC DAWSON HP: 34 STATUS: Haunted (affliction by ???) RUNICS: Barrier Dagger VELMA HP: 44 STATUS: Normal RUNICS: Bandages, Barrier Dagger MEL HP: ??? STATUS: ??? RUNICS: Torch, Trapping Net
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Posted: Sun Apr 26, 2015 2:38 pm
vii.
Mel hasn't arrived at the tree yet. The longer they wait, the antsier he gets. Out of habit he checks his phone, worrying at the useless Twitter app, at his text messages, at anything that could give him something to do. He sways in place without realizing, but Velma doesn't point it out; she keeps pushing her hair behind her ear in a frustration that has nothing do to with it.
Miraculously, he gets a bar, and his phone hums several times. Dawson leaps at the chance to read messages, but what Maebe and Horace have sent him don't give him solace. He reads and rereads the DMs sent his way (the words can't seem to stick as usual) and feels another lump form in his throat. She talks about fishing, he talks about a cold shadow—Dawson wishes he could laugh out the hard rocks calcifying in his chest at the coincidence.
It's bad. Real bad.
It's so dark and wet and there's things in the darkness. everything feels wrong.
He shouldn't be here at all. He should be out there, helping them, not sitting here feeling so useless.
"It's been almost an hour," Velma reports with a cross look at her watch. "Assume captured or otherwise incapacitated."
Or dead, he mentally adds, turning pale. "What we gonna do, boss?"
"We continue the mission. That plantation has to have something to do with the source of all this Fear."
"Uh, what about Mrs. Quinn?"
Velma presses her lips together in thought. "We still have time," she answers. "Whether or not Mel got our extension, this is our promotion; we have to take charge." She leans down and starts to retie her boots, and he's grateful she can be the leader. Lord knows he's shaking at the thought of approaching the bayou in the dying light.
He quickly types as fast as his sweaty fingers can manage.
Maebe [QEUED] dint b good for me b good fr u being good for irself alwaya worth it miss u 2 will b back soon donr worry lady grace Horace [QEUED] im sorry im not there id rather b w friens helpn if its wrong get out pls just takecare urself will do good will b there somehow for yall ages n hugs
have to go in bad water sorry ttyl [deleted] (Don't worry him more than he probably is already.)
Those stones burn now; for once, he wishes he was in the middle of that same danger rather than this unknown one. The anguish of finishing this mission to see his friends again has to be enough to get him through—otherwise he isn't worth it at all.
"Stop texting your girlfriend, Dawson," Velma barks, and he nearly drops his phone in his haste to put it away. "Let's move."
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medigel rolled 2 12-sided dice:
8, 4
Total: 12 (2-24)
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Posted: Sun Apr 26, 2015 5:02 pm
viii.
When did it get so dark? He doesn't remember how long they've been walking or when exactly the forest thickened and became a roof over their heads, but what frightens him more is that Velma isn't phased. Is she not noticing, or is she not caring that the very trees seem to be curling towards them, branches inviting and bushes rustling with silent offers, insects brushing their shield with unnerving whines? Is he hallucinating the spaces between leaves as watchful eyes and the air solidifying against his skin? He guzzles water and finishes it in what feels like seconds. (Minutes? Hours? The world seems to repeat itself, carbon copies of oaks plotted on land that stretched like gum under their feet, waiting for something to sink it's teeth in.) He breathes and it feels like he's drowning.
It's not the heat, it's the humidity. How many times has he heard that?
The bayou stretches ahead eventually. How far, though? The wind is nonexistent, and it all blurs together into gnarled trees, gray moss, and a dank, cloying smell. Velma says it's safer to follow trees they can see the roots of, so he ducks his head and follows her through the brush and prays for however little it's worth. Touching the thin, gold chain his cross hangs on feels more tiring than it should.
The building's silhouette draws closer as they make their way at a steady crawl. All might have been well if Dawson hadn't tripped and disturbed the water.
OOC ZOMBIE MOB HP: 12 AD: 3 (5 if missed) DAWSON HP: 34 CHARGE:
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medigel rolled 2 8-sided dice:
3, 4
Total: 7 (2-16)
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Posted: Sun Apr 26, 2015 5:04 pm
"Ugh, not these guys again."
"I got 'em," Dawson says in a surprisingly Not So p***y Voice. "Bastards are slow. You go on ahead, see if ya gotta clear out anymore."
She nods and summons her polearm, spearing it through one of the zombie's skulls as it broke the surface of the bayou. "Alright. Hurry it up."
"Yes, ma'am," he replies with an attempt at a smile and a touch of his hat. It disappears as she picks her way quickly through the underbrush.
He somewhat wishes Velma had disregarded his misplaced attempt at Usefulness.
OOC ZOMBIE MOB HP: 11 AD: 3 (5 if missed) DAWSON HP: 31 CHARGE: 1/3
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medigel rolled 2 8-sided dice:
4, 7
Total: 11 (2-16)
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Posted: Sun Apr 26, 2015 5:15 pm
His shield slams against several of them as they shuffle and wade. They're easier to hit than shadowlings by far; he remembers his abysmal performance in the Sun training course and sets his mouth in determination. The point of promotion was to prove yourself: if slapping a few zombies around did just that, so be it.
OOC ZOMBIE MOB HP: 6 AD: 3 (5 if missed) DAWSON HP: 28 CHARGE: 2/3
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