[B4^] Stage One: The Carpathian Forest (LIVE)

[codalion]

All roads led to Rome. Here, all roads -- or at least all the roads they'd taken -- led to the grassy top of a hill that overlooked a town.

The sky was darkening over their heads: it was mid-sunset, judging by the colors and the light in the sky, though no sun could be found. Soon it would be nightfall. The town below them, however, looked sleepy and hospitable, comprised of wooden shingled buildings of various sizes, with windows and shutters and firelight that glowed from the inside. The forest from which they'd come was dark and inhospitable, and rustled with unknown activity. This town was quite the opposite, and from where they were standing they could see a few figures hustling about in what appeared to be normal clothing. The town wasn't busy, but it certainly wasn't unpopulated, either.

The architecture looked to be 19th-century, the clothing of the people in line with this: somewhat Victorian, if they had to put a name to it. For all intents and purposes, it seemed they'd stumbled upon a 19th-century town in the middle of the wilderness.

The baby in Damon Amary's arms giggled. The arrow on the sign with Sailor Ares and her group spun like the Wheel of Fortune. A raven cawed overhead before circling higher.

They hadn't stumbled, though. They'd traveled, they'd beaten the setting sun and this was where they'd come. This was Vetrel.

[This is a Stage 1 puzzle thread for all players in this zone. Everyone may post to enter the thread from their previous Introduction Stage threads before the thread goes live. This portion of Stage 1 is a Meet and Greet period; nothing in this room will do you any harm. As soon as you'd like to move into the live portion of Stage 1, any character may go down the hill into the town of Vetrel and your stage will go live. On Friday, all threads that are not yet live will go live.

Stage 1 is a puzzle thread necessary to advance to the next part of Tartaros. Characters face a risk of death in this thread, determined by their actions. If a character's choice has led to their death, we will make a GM post informing you and you will be able to write a post describing the character's death, as in Barren Pines. Again, it is mandatory to pass through Stage 1 to advance through Tartaros -- characters who fail to show up for or advance through this thread will also be eliminated.

This stage is set up in an interactive fiction format. It is laid out in a number of 'rooms' with a number of interactive objects and NPCs. Room descriptions will be given anytime a character moves into a new 'room,' and players may post their character's attempt to interact with an object or NPC, and receive a GM response.

This is an activity for the entire group, but characters may choose to or be forced to split up once the stage begins. A 24-hour posting requirement is in place in all puzzle threads.

Good roleplaying, common sense and ingenuity will all be rewarded -- leeway may be given at GM discretion to those who roleplay well, but do not expect this to protect foolhardy or suicidal behavior from consequences.

Good luck!]  

[LadyNozomi]

Calintha and her group had emerged from the woods. It was disorienting, but the ground still crunched under their feet. Calintha suddenly felt very small and very big all at once, standing on the hill above the little village that sprawled underneath them. It was quaint and inviting looking, but the blonde girl didn't trust it. Not after everything else that had happened, not after what Ares had said about Tartaros. She gripped the sign in her hands, noticing the way the arrow spun wildly. As an absentminded gesture, she stroked the arrow with three fingers, hoping to calm it in some way.

"I...guess we are here. This must be Vetrel." Other groups began emerging from the woods, looking just as lost and scared as they were. It was a bit sad to see others trapped here, but at the same time it made her feel less alone. She moved closer to the sailor next to her, surveying the little cottages below.

It looked more alive than the forest had. "At least we got here before sunset." The sky was deceiving, no sun could be seen anymore, but the colors were still in dusk mode. She turned her head a bit, brown eyes surveying the forest from which they had come.

It looked creepily scary, quiet and domineering, almost trying to scare them into moving forward. Calintha couldn't help but feel a little bit of hope at the village in front of them, even though she knew it was probably just as tricky as the forest. The fingers that had been laying on the sign moved to tear another rose from her shoulder as the girl that owned them stood there quietly, unsure of what to do next.  

[Akina Tokuwa]

This was not the castle she had seen in the distance. That was farther off, still hazy. If Ares had been alone, she might have tried to trudge through the woods toward it, but Tartaros had a way of turning things around on a person, no matter the planning. The town was in sight. They were there. Judging by the movement of the arrow, this was Vetrel.

"This must be it," she said, sliding up beside Calintha. Moonstone was an afterthought trailing near her. The walk had been stiff, and her muscles were tired. "Vetrel, at last."

There was a noise behind her, and Ares sprang into the air, landing in what was her most aggressive stance. It looked like she might be preparing to sumo wrestle. She was still holding the handful of switches, though most were bent and broken from the long walk and tight grip.

There were others emerging from the woods, one held a giggling baby. "Who are you?" she demanded, pointing the handful of switches at them. Judging by the non-Victorian outfits, they weren't part of the Vetrel population. How many people were wandering in the woods?  

[endejester]

Moonstone hefted the antler to rest on her shoulder and looked with a detached gaze at the new comers, though she grimaced slightly at the sight of a baby. The very idea of its ear piercing potential made her look away as though she had just seen some small swaddled devil. Even before she had been turned to the Negaverse she had a limited tolerance for things that she considered to be 'perpetually leaky at both ends.'

"Interesting..." she murmured quietly and glanced then studied what she could of the land around her now rather than making much of any eye contact with the new faces but for prolonged glances to see if there were any faces she knew. She did not want longer pointless arguments. Not now... she was too 'tired' in bone and mind, it was one thing to sleep and dream of nightmares... it was another to live them.

She glanced up at the raven that circled high above like an message, an ink blot on a field of blue... such strange creatures they were in this world. Something between the tricksters of myth and oracles of unknown portent.  

[Melodine Cantus]

Finally, they had emerged out of the forest atop a hill, and the baby wasn't crying. Damon didn't know whether it was right to breathe a sigh of relief or not. It was laughing, In his arms. This was pretty disturbing to him.

The other people had successfully distracted him from the baby for the moment (Damon still wasn't carrying it in a proper way that babies were supposed to be carried), but as his eyes skimmed over them, he saw no sign of Delphine. Pursing his lips, the boy looked aggravated at this, his eyes flickering to the dark skinned girl who had addressed them. "Damon." He said curtly. "Who are you guys? Have you seen a girl, blue black hair in pigtails?"

His priority was finding Delphine. Even with a kid in his arms, his attention was focused on his lost sister.  

[Akina Tokuwa]

Sailor Ares lowered her switches. "No, haven't seen her. Have you seen a Princess -- long indigo hair, creamy skin, and blue eyes lit with gold? She would be dressed like me." There were many ways that the senshi of smoke could describe her Princess. This was the simplest.

After a moment, she added, "I'm Ares, this is Calintha." As if Calintha couldn't introduce herself? Apparently Ares had adopted the role of chaperone without asking. "Are you headed to Vetrel?"

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched the town. In moments, she knew that she would be walking down into it. But what did that mean? What was lurking for them down there in the shadows?  

[TheMadHatter]

Occasionally as he walked he'd heard the crow above their heads somewhere. He hadn't been able to see it through the trees but it seemed so long as they followed it's occasional cries they were going in the right direction. He hadn't really been worried about how long it would take them to make it through the woods since he knew eventually they -had- to end.

Even so the sight of the break in the trees and the slope of the hill down toward the small town was a relief in some ways. In others ...

His eyes wandered toward the sound of more voices not far off from where he and Marx had emerged. Others were here too. None of them looked like they fit in this strange place. He was pretty sure you didn't usually find girls in mini skirts in the middle of the woods on normal occasions. Looking away from the group he looked down the hill toward the town they'd been told to find.

Everything still pointed to them walking right into some place from a Transylvanian novel. At least no one was waving pitchforks or torches yet.  

[Sin Sterling]

During the long walk, he had piped up a few times with stray comments about how dark it was, or the sticks that were crunching under their feet. No doubt it probably irked his current company, but Marx didn't really care. It was too quiet without any other noise besides the crunching under their feet (how did that Arsinoe's sandals even hold up in this place?) and that crow. If it was the crow, for all he knew it could have been something else stalking them in the trees but he didn't want to look.

Breaking out of the trees and onto that hilltop was such a relief, but walking up on other people in costumes just as weird as Arsinoe's just gets his eyes rolling. "More costumes." Oh well, better than creepy old guys lying in the dead grass, that's for sure. And a couple others are dressed pretty normally too. Normal clothes were good. Except the baby, who would seriously wander around there with a kid?

He lets his attention linger on the group for a moment longer before looking down at the town first. Introductions could wait, this place didn't look like it had a castle. "This is Vetrel? That crow said to go to the castle and that would be Vetrel. Lousy directions."  

[Shazari]

"I've never heard of any Vetrel," said the blond-haired boy in the sailor toga. Sailor Thuban wasn't sure what to make of so many new arrivals, but inwardly, he was deeply relieved to see some sailor soldiers in the bunch. Unless he missed his guess, there was more than one Negaverser among them, too -- not good news. They complicated things, as did the fact that he couldn't use his powers. He'd figured that little doozy out on the walk, through trial and error.

He looked down toward the town, equally as relieved to see it. It looked friendly, and with any luck, they'd find the Montroses they were looking for, and figure out who the baby belonged to.

"We found this baby in a -- in a tree," he stood by the facts, embarrassed at how awkward they sounded. "We're just hoping to return it to its family. We haven't seen anyone else; we were just looking for the nearest town."

It was an odd-looking village. Not a bad town, necessarily, just a little bit more land-that-time-forgot than you usually found outside of EPCOT these days. Go figure. "Are you all from Destiny City too?"  

[LadyNozomi]

She mostly stood back, watching as the rest of the group made their introductions. It was relieving to see someone else in non senshi/nega gear there too, she wasn't the only 'just human' trapped in Tartaros. However, when the toga'd sailor spoke up, Calintha couldn't help but reply. "Vetrel was on the sign." She held it up, showing the others the clear words that said 'To Vetrel'. "The arrow pointed us here. And I'm from Destiny City, yea."

The girl moved away from Ares a bit, so she could look at everyone. All of the costumes were so different and unique! Calintha wondered where they got them from, and how they kept them all together. "I'm....kind've thinking that you might not find a parent." She blinked her eyes a bit sadly. "From what I've been told, in this place, things are not what they appear. But I haven't seen anyone in pigtails either."

She turned to look once more at the city below them. You aren't even worth saying your own name! Puppet. Calintha closed her eyes as the mysterious whispering voice of doubt assaulted her once more. Tartaros had a terrible way of getting to you. Whens he opened her eyes again, she looked around at all the people gathered there, and wondered if these were all the wanderers in the woods.

 

[endejester]

"Rock a bye baby in the tree top?" Quipped moonstone speaking up at last from watching the other's assemble.
She glanced sideways at Calintha, watching the roses that crept over her all thorns and deceptive pretty flowers.
She reached out and clutched at one of the long and creeping vines with as little contact to the girl as she could and pulled it free, the thorns biting into her palm like tiny daggers.

"War of the roses here too... " she murmured and wound the now crimson tipped thorns around one of the further prongs of her great antler.
She glanced over the odd assortments of clothing, the toga gave her the most pause, strange as the young man with the bright pink eyes was dressed, Toga with a statue of liberty crown was to say the least, unique.  

[TheMadHatter]

He looked around the odd group again and took in all the different outfits that everyone wore. He'd never come across someone like himself before so he wasn't sure if he should assume they were like him or if he should go with them just liking odd clothing. He really didn't -like- the idea of making snap judgments but in this place not making one seemed to be a bad idea. At least none of them were half dead or trying to kill him or looked like they'd sprout fangs and grow fur without warning.

Shifting slightly he looked at Marx and spoke quietly. "The city is probably Vetrel ... so that would be Vetrel castle. Ask them if anything weird happened to them" He wasn't about to ask them anything and if Marx was good for anything he was at least good at talking. Even though most of the talking he'd done had been complaining it at least meant that -he- didn't have to do it.  

[Akina Tokuwa]

More and more people emerged from the woods, like a school of fish converging on a single reef. Ares tensed, but it slowly rolled from her shoulders. They appeared to be civilians, starkly different from what few people she could see milling about in the town. The boy in the toga appeared to be a senshi. The one in black and white was too? She couldn't be certain, and so she fixed him with a weary gaze. "Whether we like it or not, we are going into the town. Can't be avoided," she said, ignoring the baby and other banter. There were more important matters at hand, matters like a certain missing Queen.

Leadership roles were something that Ares was hungry for, and here was a situation where she felt qualified for it (though she typically did, just lacked the opportunity). "Don't trust anyone, not even each other." Not even her? Apparently she excluded herself. "I don't know if you've noticed, but this isn't Destiny City. This isn't even Earth. This is Tartaros, the nightmare plane." She thought it was Tartaros, at least. Ares wasn't one to admit uncertainty. She apparently wasn't one to give detailed descriptions either, leaving her cursory introduction to Tartaros at just those few sentences.

The city was nestled ahead, and Ares felt certain there was no course of action but to trudge ahead. She had to find out where Selene was, or if any of the other parallels were here. God, she would be relieved to even see Aphrodite. Slowly (but confidently), Ares began to walk toward the city.

"We should get this started. Nothing will be accomplished waiting on a hill." She glanced over her shoulder. "Bring the baby if you like."

The houses were quiet, and Ares kept a slow pace to allow the others to catch up. Maybe someone in one of these houses would know where Cassandra was?  

[codalion]

The Town Square

At dusk, the town square of Vetrel was quiet save for the occasional bray of an ox hitched to a wagon, a wagon that was currently trundling across the cobblestones on the other side of the square while its driver walked next to it with a switch, occasionally striking the ox's haunch if it dawdled for too long. There was a fountain in the center of the square, currently dry. Apart from the wagon driver, though, the only people in sight were faces in windows and a man and woman that stood on the other side of the square talking.

A building in the opposite corner of the square had a sign in lettering they didn't recognize, but the wooden sign depicted an axe. The windows glowed with unknown light.

At the group's approach, the Victorian man and woman stopped talking and stared at them. They weren't speaking English, they were speaking something like Rus -- no, Romanian?

In any case, they looked at each other and quickly ran off on a main road to the north, shouting something in Romanian as they went.

Exits lay in the main road to the north and the entrance to the axe building in the other corner of the square. Aside from this, the square contained the wagon, the wagon driver, the ox and the fountain.

[The thread is now LIVE. Every participant has a shot at dying. Please reply within 24 hours. Contact codalion if there is a problem regarding this!]  

[LadyNozomi]

Calintha followed Ares dutifully down the hill, sticking close to the senshi while still clutching the magical sign in her hands. The village was just as quaint looking up close as it had been from on top of the grassy hill. Things felt a big more alive here as well. It was a little disturbing that none of the signs could be read, and that the two people in the square were shouting and running away from them.

That was the most disturbing actually, the running and screaming in some weird language. It sounded Russian to her, or at least something like it. She wondered if the pair meant any harm by their warning shouts. It was hard to imagine anything but. "I don't think we are going to be able to communicate with anyone here." That made things difficult.

The girl continued into the town, sneakers hitting dully against the cobblestone square. She strayed from the group just a bit to address the man driving the ox. "Excuse me, can you understand me?" She offered him a polite smile, trying to look as unoffensive as possible. Calintha didn't want to make anything worse.