BARGHEST

[soulping]

[As you stand around waiting for something to happen, you begin to feel something pressing on you, vaguely...as though a heavy blanket has been draped around your shoulders, although there's still nothing there. You close your eyes for just a moment - just a blink - and then-

The floor drops. You go plummeting downwards, or so it seems; you can't quite tell, because suddenly everything is pitch dark and you feel like you're falling, falling, falling...]

Comments

RULES

[soulping]

• Teams will find themselves in a series of rooms that force them to confront some common fears ("common" as chosen by the majority who signed up- y'all got some issues).

• There will be four rooms. They will be run in a semi-exploradora format, although "exploration" is not the actual goal. In that sense, it is more like a heart or shadow game.

• The game takes place in a nightmare/mindscape formed by Knut, so that no one can actually get hurt from what happens. However, your characters will not know this. Everything that happens will seem completely real, despite being occasionally vague and absurd in the way that dreams are. Stuff will only seem weird after they wake up!

• This means that anyone who comes late or leaves early will simply appear or vanish and their fellow players won't really find it odd, because again: dreams. (In other words, don't worry too much about it.)

• People may get hurt during the course of the game! It IS a nightmare, after all. But no matter how bad an injury is, the character will only feel it in a conceptual way; like they're remembering the pain rather than actually experiencing it. This will seem normal at the time. Dreams!!!

• Powers are ON but characters will not realize this unless they actively make an attempt to use them. And certain rooms will prevent them from doing even that!

• These rules are all OOC. Your characters do not know what is going on.

• However, this does not exclude the possibility that they might eventually figure it out. That's up to you.

ROOM 1

[soulping]

You don't remember hitting the ground. But you must have at some point, because that's where you're lying now- on your back, staring up at a dark, blank ceiling. There's no indication of where you fell from...wait, fell? Did you actually fall? You can't seem to remember anymore. Your thoughts seem a little hazy and dreamlike around the edges, but your surroundings, at least, appear to be solid and real enough. So do your teammates, who lay nearby.

As everyone sits up and looks around, you see that you are in a small, dingy room. The floors and walls are rough-cut stone that is cracked and crumbling, covered in grime and mold, and there's an inch of filthy, stinking water covering half of the floor. One wall is covered entirely in thick steel bars like a prison cell. Although you can make out your dimly lit surroundings well enough, immediately beyond the bars you can see nothing but a solid wall of darkness.

There is a buzzing in the back of your mind and you feel weak and tired, sapped of any power and strength.

Re: ROOM 1

[neverendingstory]

...This does not seem entirely joyful.

Re: ROOM 1

[culpa]

Do you think you can fit through the bars?

[ you're tiny. ]

[terminalbanchou]

[ Running diagnostics on his system to locate the buzzing and remove it, as well as why his strength is dampened. ]

Let us begin.

[ He makes his eyes as bright as possible, so there is... a very small amount of light. Like a smart phone's screen in the darkness. ]

[neverendingstory]

Begin what, exactly?

[terminalbanchou]

Getting out. Reaching the goal of this task. It is unlikely we are meant to sit here.

[soulping]

[There seems to be no real source for the lack of strength OR the buzzing, but it persists anyway.]

Re: ROOM 1

[efflorescere]

[Taurus sits up a bit later than the others. Ugh, why does he feel all tired and gross...

...

This sure looks pleasant.]

Re: ROOM 1

[culpa]

[ pats. at taurus. ]

It's okay. Knut wouldn't do anything bad.

Re: ROOM 1

[efflorescere]

[Since he was already feeling tired, Taurus needs a break after kicking things and yanking on things and all that stuff. His cloak is already kinda dirty by now, so he spreads it out on a dry(-er) part of the stone so he can sit down for a moment.]

Is there anything we haven't tried?

Re: ROOM 1

[neverendingstory]

Something other than breaking everything?

ROOM 2

[soulping]

You're in the middle of a cemetery. That's subtle.

If you were at Knut's capture the flag game, you might recognize it from there. It's completely overgrown, the ornate headstones and statues are falling apart, and there's a thick, thick layer of fog on the ground. You stand in a small clearing in front of one grave which looks much less run-down than the others. How did you get here? You don't know. You don't even think to question it at first. Your thoughts are almost as foggy as you surroundings.

Your heartbeat pounds unusually loud in your ears, and you hear muffled footsteps in the distance that never get any closer.

[bloomnobly]

Oh, home again.

[ Haha. Get it. Because she's dead. The sarcasm in her voice couldn't get any clearer. ]

Well, it looks like our group effort worked.

Re: ROOM 2

[efflorescere]

[oh.

what were they doing again? eh. whatever.

he's going to check out the grave in front of them!]

Re: ROOM 2

[soulping]

It's a modestly sized headstone. It's still pretty ancient, but it looks like someone's been taking care of it. There's writing but it's incomprehensible to you. They're definitely letters and numbers but for some reason your mind can't make sense of them.

[terminalbanchou]

[ He doesn't have a heartbeat, so this will just be more intrusive "noise" in his systems. ]

Now what? Should we keep punching things?

[soulping]

You hear the hum of circuits instead. Or maybe the AOL dialup noise, your call.

Re: ROOM 2

[efflorescere]

[After randomly wandering off, Taurus eventually comes back, following a trail of.......... bits of nothingness.]

There is a strange building over here! I believe it wants us to visit it.

[Just in case any of you guys are interesting in exploring, too.

he's already heading back down the trail to go check it out himself.]

[bloomnobly]

[ ....bwah? She finishes the last grave she was cleaning, wipes off her hands, and follows. ]

ROOM 3

[soulping]

You're outside Barghest's dorm. The game is over. You lost, and you've come to give this news to your teammates. The news that you've failed them.

But the door is locked. It won't open, no matter how much you rattle the knob or pound on it. You can hear voices behind it, that you recognize as belonging to your team. You can't make out the individual words, but they sound happy- and every now and then you think you recognize your own name, followed by jeering laughter. No matter how much you knock or call for them, they ignore your pleas and the door still won't open. And you know, deep in your soul, that it will never open for you again.

You turn away and find yourself facing a wall of people. The crowd presses and jostles around you, leaving you smothered and seperated from the group (what group? There's no one here but you, is there? You came into this game alone and you failed alone, didn't you-). You are surrounded on all sides by a mass of figures whose faces you can't quite make out, their features all blurring and sliding together. They speak to each other, but the words are totally incomprehensible to you.

And nothing you do is able to get their attention. They ignore you completely as though you aren't even there.

Well, that's only right, isn't it? You shouldn't be there, and you aren't there, not really...not in any way that actually matters. You're just taking up space from someone who deserves it more, aren't you? Everyone has more important things to do than bother with you, more important people, why would they ever need YOU?

1/2

[efflorescere]

[


o h.]

2/2

[efflorescere]

[So far Taurus was actually pretty okay with everything, since. well. Barghest was there, and Barghest has helped him through everything since he's come to Kyriakos. Even when things got creepy, he figured it'd be okay, and he wanted to try hard for Barghest's sake.

So it's kind of jarring when suddenly they aren't there for him anymore?? Aren't they a family or... something? Well. It's not like he had a good reason to be part of that family, anyway. If he's useless after all, maybe it makes sense that they wouldn't want him anymore. He's not really sure how to handle suddenly being alone, though. He feels a lot less okay with it than he did when he woke up without any memories a few days ago. He didn't really care at the time, but now he's feeling acutely empty and directionless.

...but. well. even if being alone leaves him feeling lost and even scared, there's not really any reason for him to just sit around and feel terrible for himself. That will just make him feel worse. He'll have to distract himself and figure out where to go next.

If the people are going to ignore him, he'll just have to try and push and shove his way out of the crowd by force. maybe a little more violently than strictly necessary.]

Re: 2/2

[soulping]

The crowd never seems to end. A literal flood of people and you're all alone.

Are you heading TO or AWAY from the dorm?

[soulping]

Your heartbeat pounds in your ears, seeming to grow louder and louder until it finally becomes deafening, drowning out everything else. The dreamlike fog at the corners of your mind creeps in, and you feel that same sensation of falling as everything goes black again.

In the darkness you think, for just a moment, that you can feel a cold hand gently brushing the hair from your face.

Then you wake.]