"We opened the door to the shadows...

[nightbeyondfire]

The man sat alone, back slumped against a wall as he stared down at the pistol in his hand, unloading and reloading it in silence. Over and over again. How long had he been here, ignoring the sounds of life around him and the chatter and racket from the communication device on the ground along with the discarded necklace? Days? Weeks? Months?

It didn't really matter. None of it did anymore.

Load. Unload. Reload.

"You look like crap."

The man looked up, staring upwards at his only companion for what felt like an eternity. Himself... only different, like seeing a photo negative version. The colors were all wrong and there were a few things off.

It had no eyes. He'd found that strange once before the feeling had been bled out of him.

Load. Unload.

It was this thing that had shown him the truth. It had started with whispers in his mind when he was alone and had grown from there, appearing in shadows, taking the place of his reflection and finally standing right there beside him exposing the plain, hopeless reality of where he'd found himself.

An ugly grin split the negative version's face.

"So, what's the hold up, jackass? You know what you have to do now."

Load.

Yeah, he did.

-------------------


In the early morning, it happened without warning. A shudder ran through the entire city and for just a moment it was almost as if reality itself... bent for a moment, warping out of shape before snapping out of place and one of the buildings of Genessia's skyline vanished into a rising cloud of smoke and dust.

The thing rose up out of the cloud, standing over the buildings around it. Misshapen, grotesque, it could only be called humanoid in the most generous of terms. Its body was colored in splotches of red and black, its limbs twisted with the right arm many times larger than the spindly left and it stood on legs that should have been bent and twisted too awkwardly to support it at all.

The head swiveled from side to side on a too-long twiglike neck, wide, blanket white eyes that seemed painted on searched the city and a toothless mouth opened wide in a low, groaning howl that rumbled over the city.

The creature’s body convulsed and with a chorus of sickening splits and cracks its body bristled with weapons, and they all fired as one, shearing the top floors off of the next several blocks and covering the rest of the town in burning debris.




Through the city, every communicator screamed out a deafening alert, which was followed by the voice of the AI.

“CORRUPTED ELEMENTS DETECTED. PLEASE ASSIST IN PURGING IN ORDER TO ENSURE THE CONTINUED SURVIVAL OF THE CITY AND ITS INHABITANTS”


[OOC: Subthreads are up. Post in them for combat, or go nuts with planning/reactions through the rest of the comments.]

Comments

[whos_this_bitch]

His voice brings her up into the shallowest pools of consciousness, enough for her to shoot a sleepy grin and gives him a thumbs up. Right here is fine.

[betel_geuse]

Betelgeuse sits next to her, lighting up a cigarette.

"Well, sleep if you want, but I'm not sure I believe ya. Nice job on the clean-up, though."

[whos_this_bitch]

She's not totally right back to sleep yet, so he might pick up on a weakly transmitted Don't forget to feed the platypus... He's near the middle tree... as she sends the thought at him. She's not got enough mojo for it even to cause a headache if she wanted to, the thought dropping in and out. And that's her entirely spent.

Seriously, don't forget to feed the platypus.

[betel_geuse]

He received the message and it's content irritated him. Really?

"Platypus?? Lady, I don't know nothing about no stinking platypus!" Betelgeuse protested.

He stood up, looking around for a clump of trees that might have an animal hiding in it.

"What the hell does a platypus eat, anyways?"

[whos_this_bitch]

she takes a minute to paw for her phone upon noticing him looking around here. In fstren Her fingers are barely working and her eyelids droop shut. There's a snuffle and a light snore.

Sorry, Betes, she's out like a light.

[betel_geuse]

Betelgeuse read the message and sighed. "Fstren? I hope your spellings better, when you're conscious, babes."

Still, it was a clue, so he set about finding out what it meant.

[whos_this_bitch]

Ususally. However, she was suffering from sleepy fingers. As soon as he realises it means Fayren, however...

It really won't be all that hard to find. The tree will have a neat little cross marker and everything. Not that she'll be answering any calls there for a while, but still.

[betel_geuse]

It doesn't take him too long to figure it out. Fortunately, he's actually heard of Fayren before. He comes and sits next to her.

"Fayren? Kind of a large place for me to find a single, little platypus. I mean, unless there are only three trees in the whole place."

He's mostly talking to himself, trying to decide if he still wants to do this. He's leaing towards yes, because of the strength of her magic, but...this just seems weird to him.

[whos_this_bitch]

Almost as if answering him - she's not, it's just a very well timed coincidence - there's a little snuffle and she shifts in her sleep enough to move her head in what could be taken as a half nod. Or her looking up. Either or. She's just getting a little more comfortable - then made more obvious by the fact she's fidgeting her arm up under her head before she stills again. But still.

If nothing else... look at her. She's tiny. And That's what she did to help. Do you want to annoy her? She's asked you for one little tiny thing.

[betel_geuse]

Her shifting around was far more interesting to Betelgeuse than she might like. He waited, until she was completely still again, leering.

"Well, all right, babes, ya talked me into it," Betelgeuse told the sleeping woman. "Maybe I'll get lucky and there's a tree smack dab in the middle of Fayren. It's a place to start, anyways."