Welcome to Gaia! ::

"WhAT hIDEs in YOUR MinD? we hAvE aLREaDY sEEn iT." howled the Doctor as Sei fled; with a click and a mechanical whirr, the metal rod supporting the hand began to follow after him along the wall (had the Fa'e stopped to look, he would have seen 'tracks' scrawled all over the walls of the base where the hand could freely navigate; the head was stationary though, it seemed) but was forced to stop where its track ended, at the edge of the open doorway leading out of the base. Fortunately, it seemed, the Doctor would not be able to leave it.

The Clinic was open but unfortunately his only patient hadn't wanted to stay. "DolLy. doLlY! wheRe iS mY HEaD? i nEeD mY HEaD."

10|58|100%

Lucretia was unphased as Lethe passed beneath her, but boggled as the girl's HEAD FELL OFF. She dropped the gun, which fell to the end of its teather and dangled there, then floated lower to the ground with her hands out as though trying to decide if she should pick up the white-skinned girl's head, and, if so, what she would do with it. He eyes were round with surprise, which was the only sign on her otherwise-deadpan expression that she was entirely unsure what to do.

Getting lower to the ground proved to be a bad idea, though, as the Ice Rose girl soon felt something tugging at her makeshift dress. She turned back and brushed her hand over the fabric to try to dislodge whatever held her, but the black sheet came free. Fortunately, Lucretia was decent underneath - her white-winged dress that she always wore covered what there was of her body, and below that there was simply a glowing rune and a coil of what looked like a wide blue ribbon.

The things tugging at her dress had distracted the Raevan long enough that the creature that had just appeared was able to pick up Lethe's head before she was, though. As she rose to her more usual height, Lucretia turned towards it (her?) and spread out her wings, eyes narrowing slightly. The head belonged to the girl, not to the thing that had picked it up, and theft was not polite. Convinced that she was forever bound to enforce her father's will on matters of etiquette, Lucretia made a grab for the head.

"Give that back, it's not yours," she insisted, he tone flat as usual, but with the slightest waver of fear. The creature before her was hideous and unknown, but she had no choice in following the rules as Kumoru had taught her.

10|54|50%

Bhel came to one of the unwalled edges of the bridge and teetered there for a moment, trying to gather up the courage to just go ahead and jump off. He could not see the floor below - there might not even have been one. But the thing that he had left behind, that had come from him and from Mitsu, was also very terrifying. The toddler mulled over it in his mind, trying to pick the lesser of two evils and ignore that he had left his sister behind.

Finally, though, he took a deep breath, put his hand on a nearby pillar, and jumped off of the edge of the bridge ... and landed in a heap down below with a clatter from his gun. His legs hurt, but once Bhel got up again, he found he could still stand and walk at least. The vest seemed intact, as well, in spite of having given the boy a few bruises around the ribs from his fall.

The blackness around him was oppressive, though, and Bhel found new fear in that. He could hear other people talking around him, though the sounds were twisted and sometimes distant. But, looking down at himself, he was not entirely sure he was still there in the dark.

... His guardian would have a magic word for this. Much as Bhel disliked Kumoru, his magic seemed handy. To make sure that he still existed, and to try to set things right, Bhel tried the best magic word he knew:

"BHEL," he shouted at the obscuring darkness.

The Barbershop Horrors | 33% 33% pineapple% | Inner tunnel

Sensing one of the Happy Cube approaching, looking at their only audience member with hunger in his eyes, the three singing Rabyss-creatures broke their circle and lined up side-by-side in front of Caoi, holding their arms out as if to block him.

"Stop! In the name of love!" the first one began.
"In the name of love," harmonized the second.
"In tHE nAme oF taStY TUnA." happily screeched the last.

9 | 54 | 75%

A flash of annoyance crossed Dusty's face- was that supposed to be an insult? He glared in Darsais' direction, hunting for the slightest trace of sarcasm on her face. Failing to find any, however, he sucked in his breath, ordered his stomach to stop quailing in his belly, and pulled his face into a grim, angry-looking one.

"Yeah- we don't let nothin' touch us," Dusty answered shortly. Not so far away, he could already see shapes rising from the black muck; his gut tried twisting itself more when one turned to him, half-formed, and began in his direction. The thing was worryingly reminiscent of something, but it wasn't anything that Dusty could put a finger on just now.

Taking a different grip on his laser gun, preparing to use it as a club, he grabbed for Dar's wrist with his free hand. "We're goin' this way!" Not waiting for approval or suggestion, he clomped back in the direction of the exit to the arena, fully prepared to use the full of his mass to strong-arm Darsais into coming along if he needed. Get out, get real weapons, get help- in that order. He didn't want to play around with these guys without a decent weapon in hand, and he didn't want to risk standing around and discussing it, either.

8|60|100%

"W-what are you--where--how--" Lethe swallowed once, wondered idly where exactly said saliva was going if her throat no longer connected with her stomach, and then decided there were more important questions to worry about. Like who this freak was, and (ewww her fingers tickled, and reeked besides; her eyes were beginning to water) what she was doing with her dirty paws on her head.

"Let me go!" Lethe ordered as imperiously as she could, while meanwhile making a grab with her arms -- she missed by miles though, could see her body lunge forward at the completely wrong angle out of the corner of her eye. Someone else had a similar idea, it seemed; she felt waves of cold crash against the back of her neck, little hairs prickling as a mysterious hand made a grab for her.

"Oh for-- YOU HAVE YOUR OWN HEAD. YOU DON'T NEED MINE. LET GO." Her natural instinct was to struggle, so she did; she quickly stopped once she realized her body was now right next to a wall, slamming itself into it repeatedly in her attempt to wriggle free. Oh Hades.

...And then there were the people screaming for her to deal with. "I CAN'T COME, I'M BUSY TRYING TO GET MY HEAD BACK. I DON'T WANT TO PLAY ANYMORE, TURN THE GAME OFF."

Wall of New Faces | ???% | West Wall

"AylAnA," said something behind her in chorus. The older Fa'e woman probably did not even have to turn to know she was not going to like what she would see.

A single row of faces had emerged from the wall behind her, spanning perhaps fifty feet wide -- there were at least 20 there, and none of them pretty, and all of them with pinprick eyes trained on her. Some were downright Picassian; one looked like Amaris, if her nose were long and pointed like a butcher knife, and another looked like Kumo, if one of his eyes was higher than the other, and both looked vaguely disappointed in her. Some were furry and wild, one with empty sockets and eyeballs curled in his portruding tongue, and one with his features completely upside-down: a mouth where the eyes were supposed to be, and eyes where the mouth was supposed to be.

"Take us."
"Rip us away."
"Hide us."
"Wear us."
"We will cover you.
"We will hide you."
"The XXX can't find you if you wear us over your face."

"YoU wAnT TO pRoTEcT YouR cHILdREn, DOn'T yOu?"

9 | 60 | 100%

Nao had yet to see another soul while playing this game. At least, not since the game started, and on top of that, he couldn't seem to find the blue team's base. The music gave Naolin the beginnings of a headache, the plastic caused him to sweat and generally smell funny, and he always had a hard time with the darkness. This game, he decided bitterly, was Not Fun.

The screams alone drew his thoughts away, muddling his brain for a moment as they continued. Fear and Pain. Pain in Fear. Fear of Pain. It all mixed pleasantly in Naolin's mind, running together like lumpy pancake batter only partially mixed. What a wonderful game this had turned out to be!

His mental visits to the Hey-Day of his 'youth' were cut short as the screams halted, and were replaced instead with the echoing sound of a beating heart. What unease had still resided in him vanished under the lullaby of a heartbeat.

The lights flickered and flashed, but Nao wasn't paying attention enough to distinguish the pack's lights from everything else. It was doubtful he even noticed.

"Of course, there should be blood at--"

FWOOSH!

Naolin choked and flailed awkwardly as a jet of fog hit him square in the face, cutting him off and knocking him off balance. Spitting copious amounts of fog tasting saliva onto the floor, the hummingbird cursed as the plastic vest pinched him uncomfortably. With the heartbeat no longer giving him a sense of false security, the Fa'e attempted to gather his bearings.

In the end, he decided this situation was Not Right.

When the speakers began screeching horrible creepy songs (he guessed), Nao deemed all of the happenings a mechanical problem. Unfortunately, as much as he wished that to be the actual problem, with a large group of Fa'e squashed in a small, dark maze of a room, something so normal as an equipment malfunction seemed unlikely.

However, with no overwhelming supernatural evidence to overturn the verdict of mechanical disarray, Naolin made for the West wall and in turn, the exit. Still, he kept his senses as aware as possible. This was a gathering of Fa'e, after all. History often repeated itself.

Maybe they had Red Bulls at the concession stand?