TDM #2

[rhodosmods]

TDM #2: OCTOBER

Jump to: Arrival · Somewhere Under the Rainbow · The Bells of Saint Ioannis · Into the Fog · Waking Up to a Nightmare
OOC Notes · Questions · Manifestation Workshop · New Characters

ARRIVAL

Upon arrival, characters awaken in one of the main plazas of the town, lying on the paving stones around a central fountain. Your pockets are empty and you have nothing with you but the clothes on your back. It is a bright sunny day and pleasantly warm but not hot. A light breeze brings the scent of the sea, but there are no cries of sea birds to be heard.

The buildings of the plaza are all medieval stone construction, but they all have modern awnings and glass fronts. Tables out front display tourist wares: little plastic statuettes, postcards, t-shirts. Among these, it's easy to identify Greek lettering, Greek gods, photos of Athens and Crete. Predominant among the souvenirs are items marked with the name Rhodos.

But there are no vendors selling their wares. Even if characters wander into the shops, they are all empty as if their owners just stepped away for a moment. Lights are on, and some of the larger and nicer shops even have the whirr of air conditioning. Food stands waft the aroma of freshly grilled kebabs, and a gelato cart is cold to the touch and the ice cream inside is frosty and delicious.

The plaza where you arrive is set on a slope, and the direction of the sea breeze and the faint sound of waves against a shore indicates pretty strongly that down-slope is the direction of the sea. But looking down the slope from the main plaza, you can see an open archway in a tall stone wall, and beyond it is nothing but mist. Despite the clear sunny day in the plaza, the mist is a dense fog with barely three feet of visibility. If you enter it, you can see your own arms in front of you, but nothing beyond that. The breeze has gone still and the waves no longer sound so much like waves--the sound is warped through the mist so that it almost sounds like sobbing. After about five minutes of determined walking across what feels like flat ground with no other landmarks, you find yourself back at the archway.

Housing can easily be scavenged. Doors are unlocked and the interiors are clean and welcoming, beds freshly made, as if it is a hotel that's been prepared for you rather than anyone's personal residence. And yet, once you've settled upon a place to live, you start to find little signs that you have lived here all along. The photographs on the wall (which weren't there when you first arrived) depict you and your family and friends, even if you came from a world without photography. Upon arrival, you have only the clothing you are wearing, but within a day the closet begins to fill with familiar outfits from home, and within the first week you may find up to five of your own possessions around your new residence.

SOMEWHERE UNDER THE RAINBOW

CONTENT WARNING: DRUG ADDICTION

There's an old clock tower near the center of town, very visible from many locations on account of it being the highest point in Rhodos. It's set up on its own little acropolis, with a ramp leading up to stairs around the squared-off fortress sides of the tower. Like most of the doors in town aside from the opened locations and housing, the door has been locked since arrival, and the walls are impossible to climb without magical ability or specialized equipment. The clock faces on each side are all operational, but never in agreement as to time, and some of them seem to run faster than others. Even if you set your watch to a particular clock face, within an hour your watch and the clock will disagree.

One evening mid-month, the clock faces begin to spill out some kind of iridescent liquid. It cascades down the sides of the tower in a glimmering waterfall and then rushes down the stairs and ramp, quickly flooding the streets of the town. Though it eventually drains out through the gates of the town, disappearing into the mist, the flow continues at a steady rate, so that all the streets in town and the first floors of apartments are flooded one foot deep with shimmering goo. It's only a little viscous to the touch, and seems harmless aside from evoking immediate drowsiness.

Within seconds of touching the liquid, you will begin to yawn, and within a few minutes it's difficult to walk a straight line or keep your eyes open. No matter your determination, you'll be asleep within ten minutes, so you'd better find a safe place to sit or lie down.

The first dreams you experience are beatific. You may be drawn into someone else's dream, or they may be drawn into yours, but the first two or three dreams are wondrous, breathtaking experiences, showing your hopes and dreams come true, your fondest memories, or an imagined paradise just for you.

After experiencing one of these dreams, it is irresistible to seek out another one. You may touch or drink the strange liquid without experiencing ill effects aside from the need to sleep and the shared dreams that follow. But the original transcendence has quickly begun to tarnish, and the next handful of dreams will be complicated things, showing secrets and mistakes, the what-ifs of your life that you wish had gone differently, or the perfect version of your life with some kind of awful twist at the center, something dreadfully wrong.

These dreams should be a lesson, but the liquid is a drug. Anyone who experienced those initial good dreams will be driven to try again and again, but each time the dreams grow worse. Soon, you'll be drawn into someone else's nightmares, or they will be drawn into yours, and you will see your worst outcomes, your greatest regrets, your deepest hells. Your Manifestations may or may not star in these dreams, or there may be terrors far worse pursuing you through the depths of your subconscious, vast cosmic horrors chasing you no matter how fast you run or how far you flee.

After a few wretched nightmares, characters will do anything to avoid sleeping. The drug craving of the liquid still itches under your skin, whispering to you that perhaps the next hit will bring back those original perfect dreams, but your better sense knows that sleep will bring only more of those nightmares, even if it has been hours or days since the last time you touched the tainted liquid.

THE BELLS OF SAINT IOANNIS

Around the fifteenth of the month, or as near to it as anyone is capable of keeping track of days, the flood of dream water finally stops, and within an hour the liquid has all drained away through the gates. A few shimmering puddles remain here and there on the paving stones, but they're easy to avoid, and an afternoon rain shower washes away the last vestiges of the iridescent liquid.

One day of fresh air follows, and that night you are able to sink into dreamless bliss--for at least a few hours. In the depths of the night, you are knocked out of slumber by the tolling of a bell, loud and reverberant enough that you can feel the shockwaves of it vibrating through your bones. Twelve head-spinning repetitions later and it finally stops, leaving you dizzy, ears ringing with echoes of the sound.

No doubt you're exhausted after the past week of restless dreams, falling easily back to sleep, but you're only just sinking into a deep sleep when another toll of the bell slams you awake again. Just one this time, but an hour or so later and it's two, then three. The clock tower is telling the hour, but no one will be able to sleep through its vigilant time-keeping.

Sooner or later, sleep-deprived characters will head to the clock tower in desperate determination to find some way to stop the ringing of the bell.

This time, the tower door stands open.

Making your way up the winding stair within, perhaps you stop to admire the view across the city, and this may is the first time you find yourself at a height that allows you to see over the city walls. The mist beyond the walls is like a solid thing that surrounds the town on all sides, fading to blue in the distance so that you can't quite tell where the horizon line is between mist and sky and whether there's any glimpse of sea to be found in the middle.

You climb the steps to the top floor of the tower, and then ...

You find yourself back outside the tower, soaked through by the drizzling rain and shivering with cold. Something happened to you up there, at the top of the tower, but your mind skitters away from remembering it, and you grow increasingly nauseated the more you try to remember.

Through all that physical disorientation, it may take you some hours or someone else's reaction before you realize that something is wrong with your body. You're smaller than you were, or taller, or frail and wizened. The experience in the clock tower has aged you. You may be as young as six or as old as ninety-nine, and your memories may be intact or may be altered accordingly to suit what you knew at your age. If you gain years, you will gain memories as if you had lived to that age in your life back home, even if you should have died before that.

No matter how you feel about your age transformation, you are now mercifully unable to hear the ringing of the clock tower bell.

INTO THE FOG

CONTENT WARNING: CRUELTY AND VIOLENCE AGAINST (MONSTER) DOGS

After the characters have been in Rhodos for about three weeks, a heavy fog rolls into town. Unlike the mist that surrounds the city, the fog smells of smoke. Visibility is reduced to a mere ten or fifteen feet.

The electricity goes out, and shops are no longer replenished. Food may still be scavenged, but the food in shops and restaurants will slowly rot and may run out. Battery operated items will continue to work as long as the batteries still have a charge. Running water inside the houses continues to work, but it is sluggish and smells stale, leaving an unpleasant film on the skin.

While out on the streets of the town, characters will begin to encounter the monster dogs of Rhodos. The sound of a dragging chain precedes them, and then the hazy outline of a dog comes into view. It's walking oddly, however, with a sort of staggering limp, and the sound of the chain is underlaid by a low, feral growl. Furless gray skin peels away in patches to reveal bloody muscle. The heavy iron collar around the neck is studded with long black screws, the ends of which pierce the skin of the neck. Hazy eyes are clouded with decomposition, and yet that doesn't seem to prevent the dog from making its way straight toward you.

The dogs are not very fast, nor very smart. They can be outpaced at a brisk walk, and they will lose track of any character who gets more than twenty feet away or behind a closed door. But they are vicious. If you get within a few feet, they will lunge at you and attempt to bite. If two or three of them manage to corner you in a blind alley, you could be in real trouble.

In addition to the dogs, characters will begin to catch glimpses of Manifestations, both their own or those of others. At first you might just catch sight of them through a break in the fog, but after a day or two they can be spotted standing outside of apartment windows and staring in. In either case, they will not approach or attack characters unless you're foolish enough to get within six feet of them. Then, they will attack, and they will pursue at a fast walk until they lose track of you in the fog.

WAKING UP TO A NIGHTMARE

CONTENT WARNING: BLOOD IMAGERY

On the 28th, characters will awaken to find that the homey, quilted bedding has been soaked through with blood. Once you leave the bed, you may notice that the mattress continues to sag in the center with the outline of a human body.

When you make it out into the streets, you'll find that the entire world has changed. Heavy darkness fills the city, and no stars are visible in the sky. A few lights glow despite the lack of electricity, but they only provide a sickly, red-tinted light. Streets are slick with something that looks like blood, and the stone walls in many places have been transformed into metal or grate. Through the grate, you can catch glimpses of black metal hooks and gory, dripping meat that looks human in origin.

There is no palatable food or water. Anything you have saved has rotted or changed unnaturally into what looks like rotting flesh or lumps of bile. Liquid has turned into blood or black water. The only mercy is that symptoms of hunger, thirst and fatigue stabilize after 24 hours and don't get any worse. Don't worry, it won't be the dehydration that kills you here.

Your Manifestation pursues you tirelessly, and the monster dogs are faster, smarter, and moving in packs. Your home is no longer safe, and staying on the streets is deadly.

OOC NOTES

October 1: Arrival and Monthly Reset
October 10-15: Shimmering rainbow flood, shared dreams
October 16-20: Clock tower bell and de-aging event. All de-aging will expire before the fog event starts on the 21st.
October 21-27: Fog World
October 28-31: Nightmare World

The TDM is game canon. New and existing characters are both welcome to treat this as a mingle log, create top levels, tag around. (We got mixed responses when we asked how players would prefer TDMs so we're trying this! Feel free to give us feedback on how this goes and what you would prefer.) The Fog World and Nightmare World aspects of the TDM will almost always be generic, featuring currently active monsters, to allow prospective characters to play with these elements but not including spoilers for the main game Event Part 2 which will be released on the 20th.

Also! Big news, by popular request applications will now be open permanently, and you may begin playing in game immediately as soon as you're accepted. The October Event Part Two will be posted on the 20th and it's going to be bloody good fun, so get your apps in ASAP if you want to get in on that.

For the nerds among you who are enjoying this sometimes-accurate tour of Rhodes, all location images are accurate to real-world Rhodes.

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Comments

[messageforyou]

Jen. [Hermes nods his polite acknowledgement and gives a cheerful wave.] You can call me Outis.

[He says it smoothly, like it's a name like any other. And depending on Jen's background in Greek Classics, it very well could be.]

The good news? Well, the food's quite good around here half the time. And you can pick any house you want to stay in while we learn more about where we are and how to leave.

[cheetosfingers]

Well, I guess that is...somewhat good. Free food and a house without having to pay closing costs with a real estate agent?

[ yeah, that's not...bad. she still doesn't like this place but still.

at least she might be able to get a baller house. ]

No one's figured out how to leave?

[messageforyou]

Nope. No one.

[Hermes gives a little shrug, but his mild smile drops into something more serious.]

There's dark magic about. A lot of people say they used to have powers, but not anymore here. And the place cycles through phases. Sometimes it's a charming place to be, sometimes foggy, and then it becomes a nightmare before it's charming again. Almost feels like the island is alive somehow.

[midsommaring]

Better, yes. Thank you -- [She gulps for air, finally able to breathe properly now that her arm has been -- pruned, she guesses. Weird thought, but what about this time of the month isn't weird?

Dream binds her arm tightly, and once it's bound, she wraps her arms around him in a tight hug.]

Thank you. For helping me. And for telling me your story. Talking me through it. I couldn't have done that alone.

robert joseph maccready | fallout 4

[heckofashot]

i. arrival

[ It's not unusual for MacCready to wake up uncomfortable on a solid stone floor — it is, however, unusual for him to wake up in a place that is so open to the elements, and even more out of the ordinary, without some something over his head; rock, wood, sheet metal — anything, really. It's bright too, blindingly so, and as he sits up, it makes him squint and rub at his eyes.

Immediately his surroundings are wrong, the buildings look alien and out of place. Nothing like what he's grown used to seeing in the Commonwealth, not to mention they're intact. The only holes in the walls he can see look to be largely intentional — an architectural choice, no doubt — and everything looks cleaner than it ought to. ]

What the heck is this place… I've never seen anything like it.

[ Stumbling to his feet, his hand reaches up on instinct to the rifle holstered on his shoulder and finds only empty space where it should be. A quick glance around tells him all he needs to know: his rifle is not here. He can tell because the floor isn't littered with debris, it's easy to see there's nothing else in his immediate vicinity except his cap on the ground. Returning his headwear to where it belongs, he paces towards the fountain, peers inside at the water. The crystal clear liquid shimmers, sunlight reflecting off of its surface and glittering. Anyone would think it was beautiful — MacCready only wonders how it's possible for water to look so clean. Is this the work of The Institute? ]

ii. bells

[ He's holed himself up in a building somewhere, avoiding most of what he's been able to for the last week or so, only leaving to scavenge what he can — he's still not entirely unconvinced that this isn't an experiment, that The Institute are out there somewhere watching him, or maybe he and Sole wandered into a Vault somewhere on one of her wild goose chases only to have their heads filled with noxious gasses causing them to hallucinate.

What he does know, for certain, is that if he has to listen to that thunderous sound of the bell any longer, it will surely drive him insane, and so he sets off, determination in his stride. Each step further up the clock tower is filled with infuriation, it feels like no matter how high he climbs he's getting no closer to the top, until eventually—

A child in a comically large overcoat, soggy cap askew atop his head, stands outside the tower. He stares up at the structure, with no recollection of how he got there, where he is, or why he's here. Scampering away from the building, panic rising on his small features, he shows little regard for anyone else who might be in the area, stumbling over the coat and into things. If he runs into someone of a similar age, he'll narrow his eyes at them, but anyone who looks to be an adult will be met with immediate distrust and aggression— ]

Get the fuck away from me, you stupid fucking mungo!

iii. fog

[ When the fog rolls in, things begin to feel a little more familiar — lack of light and poor visibility, the smell of smoke in the air. When he turns on the faucet in the place he'd shacked up in, the liquid that comes out is brackish and looks like the closest thing to the water in the Commonwealth that MacCready's seen while he's been here.

Scratching at the doors and windows is what drives him out, sends him seeking somewhere more secure with a meagre pack and a rifle on hand. It's hard going, finding somewhere that feels safe — that scratching seems to be following him, growing in intensity. Now and then, there's a sound on the wind that sounds like the cry of a baby, and it has all the hair on the back of MacCready's neck standing on end.

The first sight he gets at the dogs, it occurs to him how different they are to those he's seen in the Commonwealth, and yet there are similarities in how they look. It doesn't take a long time to scramble up somewhere off the ground and set up a spot, laying flat and holding his breath steady as he takes aim. Behind him, there's a guttural rasping breath that rumbles and echoes until it reaches an ear-splitting shriek. MacCready's shot goes wide. ]

I

[giveusfreedom]

Okay.

[Markus answers calmly, not moving. Though not as thoroughly as he could as an android, he still scans the creature. The features, separately, are something he can register, but to think of an animal who is like this, fully like this, is impossible for him at the moment. The confidence with which Cheol-gang speaks of it makes him figure that maybe the man knows better in terms of how to handle it.]

I don't think I have ever seen anything like that creature. What is it?

Re: Newbies Rolodex

[giveusfreedom]

Markus (Detroit: Become Human) Top-Level

Need | Heralds of Valdemar

[hasapoint]

A: NETWORK video! un:NEED

[An old woman with a seamed, scarred face peers closely at the camera, frowning and muttering in a deep, gravelly voice.]

-haven't seen a teleson in ages and this isn't even... It's transmitting something now, isn't it? I'm too old for this kind of thing. Is that a writing interface? Why is it laid out like that.

[DISGUSTED. technology NO THANKS.]

let's actually engage with prompts

B: DARE: Dead Angelswords Resist Ecstasy
[Need is deeply suspicious of weird new things and withdrew from the flood of opalescent fluid when it came down, using her hoard of useful items and slow-acquired skills to make waders or long boots and long hand and arm-protecting mitts out of Rhodos-branded rain slickers before being willing to go out into it. Maybe you talked to her then, seeing her in this frankly ugly getup collecting supplies, or finding you passed out or almost asleep somewhere where she thinks you'll be drowned in the colorful cascade, so she drags you up some steps. She does of course also collect some of the fluid in bottles, very carefully. There's no telling what will be useful.]

C: not actually unshakeable

[She did go up to the tower, and has appeared at the base again, down on the ground, on her knees or if it's been longer, fully collapsed and drenched in the rain. Physically Need looks... exactly the same! A tall seventy-year-old, clearly someone who'd once been quite broad-shouldered and muscular, still knotted with some strength remaining. But she's staring at nothing, doing nothing, barely moving, her jaw clenched and her breath coming slow and harsh.]

D: wildcard

[Come up with something! In the fog world she may give you some preserved food or stale conserved water. She'll fight dogs, too, armed with a sword, but she is after all quite old, and can only do so much before tiring.]

[kamaz]

I'm not sure.

[ The thing takes another step closer, landing lightly on its human digits; Cheol-gang takes another step back, gun still held in front of him. ]

Maybe a fox or dog.

[ That's a generous assumption, given its intermittent swathes of bare human skin and lack of paws, but the ears are recognizable as a red fox's, the tail a dog's. Presumably it's some nightmarish iteration of a normal creature, those guard dogs he's seen around the place warped one degree further away from what's normal.

He doesn't like the way its attention is solely on him, even with the introduction of another potential item of prey. ]

I don't trust it.

[cheetosfingers]

Used to have — powers?

[ oh, now that's interesting. jen hasn't tried to go all big and green just yet but if she can't anymore, that's going to be a thing.

hmm. she frowns, making a mental note to try and figure that out when no one else was around. ]

You've, uh, been here for a little while then?

[giveusfreedom]

Do you think it's going to attack?

[For a split second, Markus considers fighting the beast, but it occurs to him that he just became human and he doesn't know how strong he himself is.]

[messageforyou]

Been here for a month or so. That's long enough for me.

[And long enough to hear from the others that there's a pattern, and what he went through already happened and will probably happen again.]

You didn't ask, but if you want any advice, I recommend finding a bedroom on the second floor. High enough off the ground that most things can't come through your window, but low enough that you can jump out of the window safely if you know how to land right. I've already had to jump out of a couple windows, so it's nice to plan ahead.

it is... here they go

[rehandle]

[ It's too late that recognition dawns. Owlish stare meets slack jaw as details come into sudden focus— Wanda. Wanda Maximoff, unmistakable now. How didn't he notice? He of all people should know better than to discount the dead.

It occurs him in the time it takes her to enter the building and climb the stairs that the multiverse remains vast and mostly unknowable, but that in at least one corner of it Wanda still lives. How many more, given infinity? How many Wandas could this be, from how many different worlds? And amidst all of those possibilities, what are the chances she's the woman he knew, and underestimated, and left without a friend when it mattered. The woman he fought with every hypocrite's pike he could find?

She takes the final stairs and the question dies. This isn't the Wanda of 838, or any other Wanda from any other anywhere.

He's silent a moment. Jaw still slack, his own breath vaguely laboured with surprise. His hand is a loose and aching fist at his side, instinctively ready for spells he can't cast. ]

... I know.

[ No more than a minute from first sight to now, no more than a minute to make the assessment, but as he says it he knows he believes it. It isn't that she's dead. Or that if she could've neutralised his magic she'd have done it long before now and America would likely never have made it out of Kamar-Taj. It's her back as a portal closed up before her, sealing off hope. It's a crumbling mountain and the Darkhold, burning up before his eyes, before the eyes of its keepers in every universe with keepers to bear witness. ]

This wasn't you.

[ Slow, a little unsteady, but it's true the second time, too. Not that either of them should be relied upon for great wisdom or to bear unimpeachable truth, but he's taken his own word for graver things than this and lived to wish he couldn't tell the tale. All that's left is to rise to his feet in unhappy quiet, unsure of the ground they stand on, unsure how long it's going to take for iridescence to drag Wanda down into a no doubt tortured sleep.

They never do just get to rest, do they? Not in life and not in death. Maybe that's all this is: Happily Never After. ]

fogggg

[standless]

[Perhaps the scratching MacCready hears is that of the dog's claws upon the ground. In the fog, it's not quite dire enough for Jonathan to carry Danny about as they scavenge- they need food somehow, water somehow, and whatever is stored away in anticipation never cuts it in the end.

Everything rots.

Everything falls away.

Jonathan's sword is in his dominant hand, while his other arm is holding a bundled of supplies gathered thus far. If he's careful, he thinks, this just might hold out until the end of the month!

...

He tries not to think about what the end shall mean, instead pausing when he starts to hear that same infant's cry.]

...Hello..?

[So he starts, but his voice comes out quieter than he thinks. The sound seems to move as well, changing where it appears to come from, to the point that Jonathan is left holding his blade aloft and at ready.]

...Who's th-

[A crack rings out. Jonathan ducks- Danny yelps, and both grow tense as smoke rises from where the bullet that just fired lands. With a swallow, Jonathan hurriedly shouts.] HO, THERE!

PLEASE, DO NOT SHOOT! WE ARE NOT MONSTERS, FRIEND!

[rehandle]

[ Shit. Shit shit shit.

Stephen's voice is mostly free of breath-drawing pause when he replies, whether through the help of advice that he may or may not have taken or his own tried practice, but that doesn't do anything to rid it of the hushed tension as he replies in a murmur, ] I can take a wild guess.

[ He hasn't seen it yet. Somehow he's ducked away at every turn, kept himself busy with other terrors long enough that this is the first trace he's caught of his own. And there's still no knowing for certain that it's his, no telling that some shapeshifting, voice-stealing thing in the bloody night isn't out there twisting his fear to its own ends—

That's when the knowledge hits. It comes for both of them as the creature in the road ahead stands in quiet waiting, still some way out of sight: the undeniable dread of death. Death is waiting for them up ahead. Death, inevitable and terrible, final even in impermanence. And for any prone to laying down their life for others, another whispering feeling creeps along on the belly of death's great beast: Whatever it takes. This is the only way.

Stephen takes a sharp breath in, hit so hard and fast by that old familiar conclusion that reason rears up to complain - why? - and he tunes his focus as resolutely as he can back on Outis. ]

We need to go. Now.

[ He'll take suggestions. He's as close to helpless as he's ever been, he knows it, and if that means he has to follow he's happy to defer. ]

[cheetosfingers]

That is...very creepy advice, thank you.

[ creepy but probably good advice. she doesn't really want to ask what could crawl through her window but — ]

God, I am going to regret this but what kinds of things climb through windows here?

[heckofashot]

[ He hisses, a curse on the tip of his tongue, as he adjusts his rifle and locates the source of the shout through the scope. The visual of this massive man with a dog at his side wielding a sword should probably be a cause for concern, but in his time, he's seen people use truly bizarre things as weaponry. There's a grimace on his face as that wailing gets louder, echoing off of surfaces that aren't there.

From his position, Jonathan might see a figure emerging out of seemingly nowhere behind MacCready; long and gangly proportions like someone has been stretched out, skin sagging and oozing a putrid black ichor. MacCready realises a second too late, as claws swipe at his back, and though he swings his rifle around and clips the thing with the butt-end, it doesn't do much. It just shrieks and screams and swipes at him once again, and while he's able to block the attack with the rifle, he fumbles with it. It slips from his grip and clatters to the floor below. ]

Shhhhhi—oot.

[ With nothing to defend himself, he's a sitting duck and the ghoul-like creature is on top of him within seconds, he tries to elbow at it with little luck. Fighting within melee range is not what he does, he's not suited to it — the skirmish is messy, frantic — rolling away from gnashing jaws he overshoots, finds himself hanging off of the edge of the roof. He shouts to the stranger with the dog. ]

My rifle— grab it and shoot the damn thing!

[messageforyou]

[The specter of death hits 'Outis' visibly differently than it should. Because to Hermes, death is not a fearful unknown--it's a job, one of many. It's a coworker who despises being out in the sun and is too socially awkward for a full conversation. It's a promise of an embarrassing but safe visit to his uncle and cousin.

So instead of freezing, as most normal young mortal men might, Outis just cocks his head in the beast's direction, taking a deep breath. And when he speaks, he speaks with the tense but casual air of someone at work presented with a pressing but not insurmountable problem.]

Let's see how good it is at climbing.

['Outis' takes Stephen by the hand, tugging him into the nearest building and finding the stairs. This is where all of his restless exploration during the good times pays off.]

We keep going up and barricading each set of stairs. Best case scenario, they lose interest and chase down some other unlucky soul. Worst case scenario, they keep coming and we start running by rooftop.

[Luckily, the architecture in Greece has always set buildings close together. Close enough for someone particularly athletic to jump from roof to roof.]

[messageforyou]

Monster dogs. [He says it immediately with no thought put into it.] Very big monster dogs who can crash through first floor windows.

There aren't any about now, but there will be.

[No one can ever accused 'Outis' of not knowing how to spit it out when necessary.]

[cheetosfingers]

Monster dogs.

[ and her without the ability to shift. that was — that was great.

she makes a face and laughs even if there's nothing humorous about the situation. she crosses her arms. ]

So, this is a foggy city filled with monster dogs that I can't leave. Anything else?

[standless]

What-

[The rifle..!?

Jonathan can't shoot. He has never held a rifle. He's held a handgun at best and he shook the whole time.

Jonathan, in his panic, picks it up the way one expects an Olympian lancer to grab a lance.

And then throws it.

(At least he doesn't miss.)]

I apologize sir, but I fear I would more likely end your life before that thing's own! Quickly!

[Either catch and shoot, or run while it's avoiding the gun-lance!!!!]

[messageforyou]

There are monsters besides the monster dogs, but I haven't gotten a good look at most of them.

['Outis' finally swings his last leg over the sill and stands up inside of the house that is not his, brushing himself off.]

I recommend getting to know the space. Want to come explore buildings with me?

Somewhere under the Rainbow

[messageforyou]

[Hermes looks like a completely normal, exhausted human. The iridescent liquid sits thick around his ankles, and he has to fight every urge to drink it in even knowing what horrors it'll inflict on him.

He doesn't even answer the naive new arrival. He grasps the new arrival by the elbow, tugging him towards the nearest buildings, a restaurant with a house sitting atop.]

We need to get away from this stuff.

[cheetosfingers]

Uh, s...ure.

[ yes, that's probably a good idea. ignore her hesitation, she's just trying to get caught up with all of this.

she rubs her hands over her face and then sighs, straightening her shoulders. ]

Do I need a weapon or something?

ii

[faeriegold]

[Vögelein isn't a child, but as a skinny little thing standing around four foot eight it's easy to mistake her for one at a glance, or even on a longer look not be able to put a precise age to her. Messy-haired and with dark circles under her eyes, she was glowering up at the clock tower before she catches sight of the boy and just - gapes, taking long seconds to comprehend.]

What... you shouldn't be here! It can't be that cruel, it-

[He won't hear the bell, but she does, tremendously louder near the foot of the tower. Vögelein makes an incoherent mewling protest and claps both hands over her ears, bending almost double.]