and neither of them looks like they're doing great, so. emet-selch leans heavily against the railing of the stairwell, leveling the gun at the few creatures attacking him. he definitely can't get the others out of there while those are upon him--
thank you paintball event for teaching him how to use gun, god.
[ The things grab at Joonghyuk, things that were once fingers clawing deeply into his arms, grasping at his neck. Their speech is garbled, but more than on trying to kill him, they seem intent on making him look.
Perceive them for what they are, because what they are is because of you. Which regression did you do this to them in? Do you even remember? If it hurts to look, then all the better, everything they once were turning into hatred and spite and an envy for your happier life, where you can try and try again. What is that like?
Dimitri may try to pull Joonghyuk out of this, but numbers really do matter. He'll struggle to do so, and in the even slight slowdown it causes, it lets some corpses grab at him, leaving singing handprints on his body, burning. You could stay here, let them consume you and join the rest as you should. As you must. The visages of these burned bodies contain only hatred, driven by that pure emotion, nothing else.
The Blasphemies, too, come towards Emet-Selch, intent on their one, singular purpose -- to kill whatever is in sight, surged on solely by the dynamis of despair. It crushes ally and enemy both in their pursuit against him, terminus jaws open wide --
But good for Emet, who finds it a great place to blast a scattershot. Instead of monochrome swirls that turn into nothing, though, it turns into black sludge that melts on the spot, leaving the stairs slippery and stained. The powerful blast goes through and Knocks over a number of the horde, including some ones that were grasping at Joonghyuk and Dimitri both -- enough that they can break free. ]
[ 11 is pretty solid, so Joonghyuk slashes another of the horde on him down. Since Dimitri is close enough, he can hear him whisper an apology, faint and light. He also goes for the zombies that lay their hands on Dimitri, cutting off their arms or even splitting another in two. It isn’t enough… There are too many.
Then there’s Emet with the shotgun and the swarm loosens. He quickly takes this as opportunity to go and he sends Emet a look that he has to follow them.
Grabbing onto Dimitri, he rushes—just kidding. He slips on the sludgy steps. Goodbye everyone. We’re falling down the stairs. Lifts my 17z ]
[ It would be easier to let himself get dragged into the pile of corpses; he can barely feel the hands as they burn into his limbs, trying to hold the two of them in place. He hears the soft apology, and wonders if he should say the same. The determination in him falters for a moment, dragged down in these resentful, scorched corpses, but...
He needs to make sure Joonghyuk is safe, first. Thankfully, Emet decides to blast these guys to high heaven, and the next second, they've got a chance to escape. Pulling free of the tangled swarm, he feels someone grab his arm, and oops.
There they go. I rolled a 20 so I guess we are falling into Emet on the way, too. ]
emet-selch, luckily, is not quite so traumatized-- he's never laid eyes on these blasphemies. but he can only imagine it's what they are, that these are what will plague them, and it only makes him more determined to blast them away.
...then the other two come barreling into him.]
Careful-!
[please he's nauseous help him... there they gooo.]
[ By god you are. The effects of the hotel almost take over because it really, really wants to play some slapstick music over what's happening here, but the CYOA nightmare wins over. By the smallest margin.
You all just kind of end up crashing down the stairwell in the big ball that you are, unfortunately right over the edge because you all rolled so??? HIGH TO FALL DOWN THE STAIRWELL??? So you are technically efficient but boy howdy, it is painful. Somewhere in the stairwell there is a window where your earlier headless boy slash distorted reflection of you is watching and looks on in disappointment and depression. You can get banged up in whatever way you like, but you are definitely feeling the hurt from this bullshit -- several bruises, an elbow right into someone's face, a muscle sprain, and of course, the impact from falling down to the bottom.
Emet-Selch, heaviest as he is, falls the hardest and he'll certainly be feeling that sharp crack in one of his arms -- which one and exactly where in the arm is up to you, wrist or forearm or what else. The worst of you, Dimitri with your poor nat20, ends up banging his head right into the wall at the bottom of the stairwell when you fall. You definitely have a concussion at the bare minimum and are now bleeding -- pretty badly.
You are now on 1F, and the doors are right in front of you. The horde will politely use the stairs I suppose but they'll be catching up to you very soon. Your move? ]
[ This is hateful and he does shove either of them during their tumble.
Joonghyuk, when they finally get to the bottom, growls as he tries to get himself up. Damn, it hurts, but he has gone through worse before. As he staggers, he checks on Dimitri and Emet… ]
We can’t rest.
[ Sorry. To be honest, Joonghyuk doesn’t want to use the healing smoke for STAIR CRIMES, but he has to because Dimitri hit his head and it sounded like Emet broke a limb.
He reaches into his pocket for the vial and opens it. Please heal them and if this is one person limit it’ll be on Dimitri.
TEEJ SAID EMET IS FINE WITJ A BROKEN BONE OR TWO ]
[ Please don't shove them, that is what started this mess in the first place. Hei your fall rolls.
Dimitri can't right himself from the fall when two other people are tumbling with him like the inside of a dryer, and he feels a burst of pain when he bangs his head on the ground. For a moment, everything around him swims and twirls enough to make him dizzy.
Now he gets to also be nauseous and headachey, though he swats at Joonghyuk when he tries to use the healing item. Don't waste that. Otherwise he's too concussed to be helpful at all this round. ]
[he wheezes... they probably fell on top of him, since he's the largest. this is Fine.
emet-selch winces as he tests his left arm's movement, which is... not much. but it's fine. he has a right one. as dimitri resists healing, though--]
Your head is bleeding, take it.
[with that, he uses his good arm to push open the door. get healed or don't and let's go, maybe they can. block the door, somehow, against that horde.]
[ Fortunately for you, the A-grade white smoke Joonghyuk picked up is the highest grade healing smoke there is. It was definitely worth the murder even though we should not be condoning murder. It'll heal Dimitri right back up, legit, as if he'd never been hurt this entire time at all. It even clears his nausea a little bit! All three of you can feel better about the nausea, even, since this is smoke after all, but Dimitri gets the full-on effects. Now you can move on, a little better for the works.
Open the door and find yourself on the ground floor, which seems more like a bizarre bazaar with several empty stands set up by people trying to make a sale. You hear the ambient noise of screeching, rusted metal, and more than that, the sound of very heavy rain. There is a small flood here, the rain being enough to pool about a centimeter or two of water on this particular floor.
Splish, splosh. Across the first floor, you see a brief vision of the headless boy again, running across and behind a corner. Its visage distorts as usual -- white coat, blue cape, fur trim, that unrecognisably familiar figure. Between you and where he disappears off to is a hole in the ground -- not the hole, but more like the ground has caved in around here, leaving a dangerous pit to the floor below. You hear the sound of rushing water coming from there.
Behind you, the growling follows. The clock is ticking. ]
Don’t be stubborn. Assist Emet-Selch however you can.
[ He’s glad Emet is also here to tell Dimitri to shut up and take the smoke. Joonghyuk will push ahead to open the door, though he can feel some of his muscles strain and ache from their stairwell fall.
He would pursue since the sight of the white coat aggravates him, but if this door can be closed after the other two pass, he will do that first before reaching… The pit? ]
[ He can't protest for very long, which is good news for everyone. Just breathing the smoke in is enough to clear the pain, blood drying up immediately. Weird. He blinks, frowning at both of them that they used something so valuable on stair crimes, but the rain drowns out any complaints.
What is going on, anyway...? He'll help Emet since their poor mage is now the most beat up, but he also wants to follow after their ghostly friend. Where are they off to. What is this hole? ]
[so F1 still isn't where they need to go. he eyes the hole suspiciously.]
I do not wish to fall again.
[he's inspecting the area around the hole-- does it cover the whole floor? can they edge around? anything around that they can utilize to help get across?]
[ You can drag over a stall or two to do a light barricade on the stairwell doors; there’s plenty of them and cases of unknown material to do so. However, when they go out into the open space to grab the materials and the rain hits them, they’ll feel a deep chill that seems to permeate down to their bones, like ghostly hands tracing fingers down their spine. It’s draining, the touch of rain, Dimitri the least and Emet-Selch the most. You get the sense that the cause of your nausea and illness — it’s the rain, and wherever the rainwater comes from.
Peer into the hole in the ground and they’ll be able to see a little bit — it seems to be some kind of pitch black lake of… something. It doesn’t smell pleasant, a mixture of blood and metal, the acrid stench threatening to remain with you like a haunting ghost. It’s also swirling down into the center like a whirlpool, which explains the sound of rushing water, even if it’s gross.
Your strange ghostly fellow appears to be guiding you to another doorway across the floor, tapping from behind a window. A gesturing motion of ‘come over here, hurry’. Another stairway, a safer alternative than to simply leap down into the abyss. The caved floor does not encompass the entire space, no — there’s places they can try to cross, planks of wood they may put down, though it does require being away from any rain-shelter underpass to do so. ]
[ Joonghyuk will take care of a barricade for them, but once he’s done he’s going to follow their headless friend. Usually, he’d be wary, but they have no other leads in terms of objective.
Also, he makes stink face about the hole. It’s hard not to think that they’re walking around sewage… That this isn’t just a giant drain, or worse? A horror toilet?
[ They can follow the guide for now. It seems like their only real lead anyway, though at least they know what door they're supposed to get to.
Though the rain is a problem. It's wearying where it hits him, but it must be worse for the other two. He doesn't need a strange, psychic bond to tell that much.
[he mutters, shivering after the rain touches him. it's draining, but-- they have to keep going. he needs to. so-
emet-selch musters his strength, fighting against that illness to start working on crossing; he can still manage, with his good arm, to move planks around just long enough to get them settled.
let's get movin'. let's also hope these will, uh, support 500 pounds of person if they're the only way to get across here.]
[ You got me. My entire CYOA is just a horror toilet. But good work on the efficiency guys, just in time because as you barricade, the growling and sounds from the creatures you just trapped within start banging against the doorways in pursuit.
Dragging planks and boards of probably a mixture of the wooden and metallic variety, you can build a kind of bridge over the more narrow parts. It's not the most stable thing you've ever built, but it's passable. You can make your way over it, but the rain will make it very slippery. Joonghyuk and Dimitri can cross over in the interest of saving tag filler space, but as Emet-Selch crosses -- well, the planks don't just snap, but he can be on high guard as the wood bends. Sitting out here in corrosive rain for who-knows-how-long, that's not good. They have a few seconds to realise what's about to happen.
The metal slips and the wood bends under Emet-Selch, and he can make an unsteady leap of faith to get across. It will not be smooth and clean, and he may stumble or get a scrape, need a helping hand, etc. At the same time, the barricade behind you breaks down, all the horrors within spilling out -- no discrimination, just know that they're mindlessly heading after you, though as your bridge snaps and falls into the abyss below you, so do your pursuers. Like a terrible landslide, these corpses, eldritch beings, are so consumed with their need to pursue and kill that they simply fall forward into the ditch, where if you glance down, they simply get swallowed into the whirlpool.
Your guide is still there, turning away and running deeper into the place as you approach closer. A simple barricaded door with nailed wood, it shouldn't be too hard to pry off, and then you can get into the stairwell down to B1F. ]
[ I can’t believe they’re doing weights, but they are doing weights. Joonghyuk will watch and because Emet weighs so much he doesn’t leave to scout ahead.
Once they’re all here and stable, he starts prying off the boards with his sword. Joonghyuk doesn’t care about proper usage of weapons. He would cut vegetables with his sword because it’s efficient. ]
[ Safe passage is a near thing. He helps scramble Emet to safety as the horde behind them plummets to its own doom, not once resting as they reach their limbs towards the three of them.
The tenacity is unnerving. It doesn't even feel like this fall is enough to stop them.
And so they keep moving. He leaves Joonghyuk to misuse his sword as he checks out the stairwell it reveals with narrowed eyes. ]
[he says, gritting out the words. he probably had to use his broken arm to help scrabble for purchase on the other side; it's certainly doing worse, now, but he's here and whole. that's all he needs.
the time spent in the rain still leaves him drained, but he can only hope staying out of it will help recover, the room spinning a little as he stays on his feet and joins them both at the door.]
[ You break the boards with fair ease because Joonghyuk gets to be OP with a big old sword. No splinters for you. And thus begins your final descent.
The stairwell is quiet when the doors shut behind you. You may be together as a group, but as you walk, you feel yourselves growing... distant. Like the other two are miles, worlds apart. For Dimitri and Emet-Selch, the distance makes you ache and feel heavy. For Joonghyuk, he simply feels utterly alone.
You find yourselves in a dimly lit basement, the B1F floor. Your only source of light is the hole in the ceiling, where dim rain falls -- the creatures that were falling in earlier seem mysteriously gone for now. Whether they already all fell in, or if you're simply in a strange space is -- unknown to you. Here, you can see the hole up close, a massive crack in the ground where the black 'water' bubbles and wells. The concrete crackles and falls in, and underneath, you can see red marks on each cardinal direction, forming something that you may assume looks more or less like a cross.
Your strange fellow stands before you, the headless boy, right at the edge of the hole. It points into the hole and gurgles strangely, urgently, and then at you -- accusingly, knowingly. The figure distorts, and finally, you can see their face.
Joonghyuk sees a glitching face he despises, a scar over one eye and their hood blowing back under a pristine white coat, unable to get stained. Someone who got their happy end, just like that, when you tried again and again and again and still continued to fail. When you let so many people die for your cause, people who counted on you. The expression is neutral, but it taunts you, what could be. How far will you go? To what reaches will you go to twist the world for your happiness?
Dimitri sees a vision of what beast he could become should he fester, a version of him twisted with delusion and anger, blood on its hands. It wants him to acknowledge that it is a part of him, out loud, that out of all the people who could have survived, it was him -- someone with a hidden malice in his heart. Is that right? Is anything right? Who gets to decide a thing like that? What could you have done? Can you prove you were worthy to live?
Emet-Selch sees the distortion twist, a man with a bored-looking expression with no joy left in life, only shattered memories and the fate of solitude and responsibility. You may try to deny it to the best of your ability, but it's about time you had to face it. This place will no longer let you hide, forcing you to look at him, tired mirror, your fall of grace. What can you do? How far will you run away, when inevitability comes knocking at your door?
[ Sorry to everyone, but Joonghyuk's instincts tell him to attack. It's easier for him to take reckless actions when he feels that he's alone. He has always been alone, hasn't he? Only he remembers the future to come, the future that has become the past, every single timeline undone lives in his memory alone. Only he stands in the same place as the world changes around him.
The solitude lets his mind stray, thoughts clouding his reasoning. The scars, the veil that sparkles like a starry night... The white coat that he hates—black is the superior color. Black is their theme color. What is white supposed to represent here? Happiness? Change? Detachment?
... It was once that he pitied this person, didn't he? They watched him and his regression where he loses none of his companions. Why is it you, not me? This person envied him, but now—he lets his sword speak. Die. ]
[ There's no reason to apologize, because Dimitri also chooses hostility. He's tired. The rain has washed away the dregs of his patience, the distance from the others makes his heart ache is a visceral way. He stabbed a 'friend' to get here, he faced devils to escape.
And now there's this thing in front of him? No. It's enough. Dimitri already knows who this beast is: the only survivor of a terrible tragedy, a monster left standing when everyone else he loved was burnt to blood and ashes. Malicious, cruel, unkind. Everyone who has seen this beast—this part of him—has shrunk away, afraid.
But Dimitri draws the small blade he's carried this whole while, and lunges forward, body wearied but rage flashing bright in his eyes. Of course he's going to attack. He'll acknowledge this monster with the sharp end of a dagger, and nothing else. This is what it, he—they deserve. ]
[the ache in that distance-- it's not familiar, but someday, it will be. he knows what's to come, knows the weight he is to bear, and seeing it reflected in the man in front of him...
he should do the same as the other two, whether he knows they are or not. destroy the future ere it comes to pass, try to prevent that self from ever existing at all. the events that create the emet-selch of the future are too devastating for anyone to bear and come out the same.
he should. but-
-it's a little strange, but you know what? I can see all the good parts of him in you.
he never wanted to consider this man a part of him.
I just wanted you to know that you don't grow up to be completely irredeemable, Emet-Selch.
he's silent, motionless, for several moments, before he walks up to the edge of the hole.]
Fine. Are we going, or not? Do something decent with yourself.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
guestservices) wrote2022-06-12 11:18 pm
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and neither of them looks like they're doing great, so. emet-selch leans heavily against the railing of the stairwell, leveling the gun at the few creatures attacking him. he definitely can't get the others out of there while those are upon him--
thank you paintball event for teaching him how to use gun, god.
he's blasting them.]
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Perceive them for what they are, because what they are is because of you. Which regression did you do this to them in? Do you even remember? If it hurts to look, then all the better, everything they once were turning into hatred and spite and an envy for your happier life, where you can try and try again. What is that like?
Dimitri may try to pull Joonghyuk out of this, but numbers really do matter. He'll struggle to do so, and in the even slight slowdown it causes, it lets some corpses grab at him, leaving singing handprints on his body, burning. You could stay here, let them consume you and join the rest as you should. As you must. The visages of these burned bodies contain only hatred, driven by that pure emotion, nothing else.
The Blasphemies, too, come towards Emet-Selch, intent on their one, singular purpose -- to kill whatever is in sight, surged on solely by the dynamis of despair. It crushes ally and enemy both in their pursuit against him, terminus jaws open wide --
But good for Emet, who finds it a great place to blast a scattershot. Instead of monochrome swirls that turn into nothing, though, it turns into black sludge that melts on the spot, leaving the stairs slippery and stained. The powerful blast goes through and Knocks over a number of the horde, including some ones that were grasping at Joonghyuk and Dimitri both -- enough that they can break free. ]
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Then there’s Emet with the shotgun and the swarm loosens. He quickly takes this as opportunity to go and he sends Emet a look that he has to follow them.
Grabbing onto Dimitri, he rushes—just kidding. He slips on the sludgy steps. Goodbye everyone. We’re falling down the stairs. Lifts my 17z ]
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He needs to make sure Joonghyuk is safe, first. Thankfully, Emet decides to blast these guys to high heaven, and the next second, they've got a chance to escape. Pulling free of the tangled swarm, he feels someone grab his arm, and oops.
There they go. I rolled a 20 so I guess we are falling into Emet on the way, too. ]
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emet-selch, luckily, is not quite so traumatized-- he's never laid eyes on these blasphemies. but he can only imagine it's what they are, that these are what will plague them, and it only makes him more determined to blast them away.
...then the other two come barreling into him.]
Careful-!
[please he's nauseous help him... there they gooo.]
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You all just kind of end up crashing down the stairwell in the big ball that you are, unfortunately right over the edge because you all rolled so??? HIGH TO FALL DOWN THE STAIRWELL??? So you are technically efficient but boy howdy, it is painful. Somewhere in the stairwell there is a window where your earlier headless boy slash distorted reflection of you is watching and looks on in disappointment and depression. You can get banged up in whatever way you like, but you are definitely feeling the hurt from this bullshit -- several bruises, an elbow right into someone's face, a muscle sprain, and of course, the impact from falling down to the bottom.
Emet-Selch, heaviest as he is, falls the hardest and he'll certainly be feeling that sharp crack in one of his arms -- which one and exactly where in the arm is up to you, wrist or forearm or what else. The worst of you, Dimitri with your poor nat20, ends up banging his head right into the wall at the bottom of the stairwell when you fall. You definitely have a concussion at the bare minimum and are now bleeding -- pretty badly.
You are now on 1F, and the doors are right in front of you. The horde will politely use the stairs I suppose but they'll be catching up to you very soon. Your move? ]
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Joonghyuk, when they finally get to the bottom, growls as he tries to get himself up. Damn, it hurts, but he has gone through worse before. As he staggers, he checks on Dimitri and Emet… ]
We can’t rest.
[ Sorry. To be honest, Joonghyuk doesn’t want to use the healing smoke for STAIR CRIMES, but he has to because Dimitri hit his head and it sounded like Emet broke a limb.
He reaches into his pocket for the vial and opens it. Please heal them and if this is one person limit it’ll be on Dimitri.
TEEJ SAID EMET IS FINE WITJ A BROKEN BONE OR TWO ]
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Dimitri can't right himself from the fall when two other people are tumbling with him like the inside of a dryer, and he feels a burst of pain when he bangs his head on the ground. For a moment, everything around him swims and twirls enough to make him dizzy.
Now he gets to also be nauseous and headachey, though he swats at Joonghyuk when he tries to use the healing item. Don't waste that. Otherwise he's too concussed to be helpful at all this round. ]
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[he wheezes... they probably fell on top of him, since he's the largest. this is Fine.
emet-selch winces as he tests his left arm's movement, which is... not much. but it's fine. he has a right one. as dimitri resists healing, though--]
Your head is bleeding, take it.
[with that, he uses his good arm to push open the door. get healed or don't and let's go, maybe they can. block the door, somehow, against that horde.]
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Open the door and find yourself on the ground floor, which seems more like a bizarre bazaar with several empty stands set up by people trying to make a sale. You hear the ambient noise of screeching, rusted metal, and more than that, the sound of very heavy rain. There is a small flood here, the rain being enough to pool about a centimeter or two of water on this particular floor.
Splish, splosh. Across the first floor, you see a brief vision of the headless boy again, running across and behind a corner. Its visage distorts as usual -- white coat, blue cape, fur trim, that unrecognisably familiar figure. Between you and where he disappears off to is a hole in the ground -- not the hole, but more like the ground has caved in around here, leaving a dangerous pit to the floor below. You hear the sound of rushing water coming from there.
Behind you, the growling follows. The clock is ticking. ]
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[ He’s glad Emet is also here to tell Dimitri to shut up and take the smoke. Joonghyuk will push ahead to open the door, though he can feel some of his muscles strain and ache from their stairwell fall.
He would pursue since the sight of the white coat aggravates him, but if this door can be closed after the other two pass, he will do that first before reaching… The pit? ]
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What is going on, anyway...? He'll help Emet since their poor mage is now the most beat up, but he also wants to follow after their ghostly friend. Where are they off to. What is this hole? ]
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[so F1 still isn't where they need to go. he eyes the hole suspiciously.]
I do not wish to fall again.
[he's inspecting the area around the hole-- does it cover the whole floor? can they edge around? anything around that they can utilize to help get across?]
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Peer into the hole in the ground and they’ll be able to see a little bit — it seems to be some kind of pitch black lake of… something. It doesn’t smell pleasant, a mixture of blood and metal, the acrid stench threatening to remain with you like a haunting ghost. It’s also swirling down into the center like a whirlpool, which explains the sound of rushing water, even if it’s gross.
Your strange ghostly fellow appears to be guiding you to another doorway across the floor, tapping from behind a window. A gesturing motion of ‘come over here, hurry’. Another stairway, a safer alternative than to simply leap down into the abyss. The caved floor does not encompass the entire space, no — there’s places they can try to cross, planks of wood they may put down, though it does require being away from any rain-shelter underpass to do so. ]
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[ Joonghyuk will take care of a barricade for them, but once he’s done he’s going to follow their headless friend. Usually, he’d be wary, but they have no other leads in terms of objective.
Also, he makes stink face about the hole. It’s hard not to think that they’re walking around sewage… That this isn’t just a giant drain, or worse? A horror toilet?
Anyway, the guide. ]
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Though the rain is a problem. It's wearying where it hits him, but it must be worse for the other two. He doesn't need a strange, psychic bond to tell that much.
To Emet, ]
Will you be all right?
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[he mutters, shivering after the rain touches him. it's draining, but-- they have to keep going. he needs to. so-
emet-selch musters his strength, fighting against that illness to start working on crossing; he can still manage, with his good arm, to move planks around just long enough to get them settled.
let's get movin'. let's also hope these will, uh, support 500 pounds of person if they're the only way to get across here.]
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Dragging planks and boards of probably a mixture of the wooden and metallic variety, you can build a kind of bridge over the more narrow parts. It's not the most stable thing you've ever built, but it's passable. You can make your way over it, but the rain will make it very slippery. Joonghyuk and Dimitri can cross over in the interest of saving tag filler space, but as Emet-Selch crosses -- well, the planks don't just snap, but he can be on high guard as the wood bends. Sitting out here in corrosive rain for who-knows-how-long, that's not good. They have a few seconds to realise what's about to happen.
The metal slips and the wood bends under Emet-Selch, and he can make an unsteady leap of faith to get across. It will not be smooth and clean, and he may stumble or get a scrape, need a helping hand, etc. At the same time, the barricade behind you breaks down, all the horrors within spilling out -- no discrimination, just know that they're mindlessly heading after you, though as your bridge snaps and falls into the abyss below you, so do your pursuers. Like a terrible landslide, these corpses, eldritch beings, are so consumed with their need to pursue and kill that they simply fall forward into the ditch, where if you glance down, they simply get swallowed into the whirlpool.
Your guide is still there, turning away and running deeper into the place as you approach closer. A simple barricaded door with nailed wood, it shouldn't be too hard to pry off, and then you can get into the stairwell down to B1F. ]
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Once they’re all here and stable, he starts prying off the boards with his sword. Joonghyuk doesn’t care about proper usage of weapons. He would cut vegetables with his sword because it’s efficient. ]
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The tenacity is unnerving. It doesn't even feel like this fall is enough to stop them.
And so they keep moving. He leaves Joonghyuk to misuse his sword as he checks out the stairwell it reveals with narrowed eyes. ]
We must be getting close.
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[he says, gritting out the words. he probably had to use his broken arm to help scrabble for purchase on the other side; it's certainly doing worse, now, but he's here and whole. that's all he needs.
the time spent in the rain still leaves him drained, but he can only hope staying out of it will help recover, the room spinning a little as he stays on his feet and joins them both at the door.]
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The stairwell is quiet when the doors shut behind you. You may be together as a group, but as you walk, you feel yourselves growing... distant. Like the other two are miles, worlds apart. For Dimitri and Emet-Selch, the distance makes you ache and feel heavy. For Joonghyuk, he simply feels utterly alone.
You find yourselves in a dimly lit basement, the B1F floor. Your only source of light is the hole in the ceiling, where dim rain falls -- the creatures that were falling in earlier seem mysteriously gone for now. Whether they already all fell in, or if you're simply in a strange space is -- unknown to you. Here, you can see the hole up close, a massive crack in the ground where the black 'water' bubbles and wells. The concrete crackles and falls in, and underneath, you can see red marks on each cardinal direction, forming something that you may assume looks more or less like a cross.
Your strange fellow stands before you, the headless boy, right at the edge of the hole. It points into the hole and gurgles strangely, urgently, and then at you -- accusingly, knowingly. The figure distorts, and finally, you can see their face.
Joonghyuk sees a glitching face he despises, a scar over one eye and their hood blowing back under a pristine white coat, unable to get stained. Someone who got their happy end, just like that, when you tried again and again and again and still continued to fail. When you let so many people die for your cause, people who counted on you. The expression is neutral, but it taunts you, what could be. How far will you go? To what reaches will you go to twist the world for your happiness?
Dimitri sees a vision of what beast he could become should he fester, a version of him twisted with delusion and anger, blood on its hands. It wants him to acknowledge that it is a part of him, out loud, that out of all the people who could have survived, it was him -- someone with a hidden malice in his heart. Is that right? Is anything right? Who gets to decide a thing like that? What could you have done? Can you prove you were worthy to live?
Emet-Selch sees the distortion twist, a man with a bored-looking expression with no joy left in life, only shattered memories and the fate of solitude and responsibility. You may try to deny it to the best of your ability, but it's about time you had to face it. This place will no longer let you hide, forcing you to look at him, tired mirror, your fall of grace. What can you do? How far will you run away, when inevitability comes knocking at your door?
You have a decision to make. How do you react? ]
no subject
The solitude lets his mind stray, thoughts clouding his reasoning. The scars, the veil that sparkles like a starry night... The white coat that he hates—black is the superior color. Black is their theme color. What is white supposed to represent here? Happiness? Change? Detachment?
... It was once that he pitied this person, didn't he? They watched him and his regression where he loses none of his companions. Why is it you, not me? This person envied him, but now—he lets his sword speak. Die. ]
no subject
And now there's this thing in front of him? No. It's enough. Dimitri already knows who this beast is: the only survivor of a terrible tragedy, a monster left standing when everyone else he loved was burnt to blood and ashes. Malicious, cruel, unkind. Everyone who has seen this beast—this part of him—has shrunk away, afraid.
But Dimitri draws the small blade he's carried this whole while, and lunges forward, body wearied but rage flashing bright in his eyes. Of course he's going to attack. He'll acknowledge this monster with the sharp end of a dagger, and nothing else. This is what it, he—they deserve. ]
no subject
he should do the same as the other two, whether he knows they are or not. destroy the future ere it comes to pass, try to prevent that self from ever existing at all. the events that create the emet-selch of the future are too devastating for anyone to bear and come out the same.
he should. but-
-it's a little strange, but you know what? I can see all the good parts of him in you.
he never wanted to consider this man a part of him.
I just wanted you to know that you don't grow up to be completely irredeemable, Emet-Selch.
he's silent, motionless, for several moments, before he walks up to the edge of the hole.]
Fine. Are we going, or not? Do something decent with yourself.
[she insists that he can, that he has.]
(no subject)