[OOM] Labyrinth / Krampus Plot with Eric

[fluffiest_archadian]

Mrlgh, there's - fuzz on Sherral's face. A kind of cloying, drying fuzz that clings even to dry skin.

As Sherral opens his eyes, he sees that it's woollen yarn, in bright pink and orange, from the suspiciously snug floor where he's sprawled beneath a cheerful woollen lamp with a knitted lightbulb inside.

This is not what he was expecting. A room full of yarn - a quick glance around confirms that everything seems to be either covered in or made of wool, checkered in various coloured patterns. A knitted puppet the size of a man stares at him from one of corner - is never really expected.

"Faram's balls," he growls.

Comments

[onceaviking]

"Does this place seem like a place where the normal rules apply?" Eric asks in return.

"For all we know we have to pass through the walls or climb through one of the orifices of one of those things, " he points to one of the automatons." I would just prefer a hatch. "

[fluffiest_archadian]

"I would welcome seeing you climb through an automaton's orifice," Sherral says. "Maybe you should try that first."

[onceaviking]

Eric just gives him a withering look.

"Please, feel free to not share your demented desires with me," he says.

[fluffiest_archadian]

"Sometimes I doubt your commitment to escape," Sherral says breezily.

"If there is a hatch there, clearly it is hidden to our eyes."

[onceaviking]

Eric sighs and bends down to tap the floor. In one of the corners, the sound changes ever so slightly.

Bingo.

In the opposite corner, something whirrs.

[fluffiest_archadian]

- Oh, that's not good.

Sherral settles one hand on the hilt of his sword, turning towards the whirring noise.

[onceaviking]

"Will they stop if they loose their heads?"

Eric sounds almost expectant.

[fluffiest_archadian]

Sherral snorts, watching as one by one, the battle-ready automata start to clank forward.

(Those that aren't for fighting activate as well, cheerfully playing chess with themselves or writing out sonnets in beautiful cursive handwriting.)

"I'm still not convinced you can actually fight," he says. "Maybe just levitate near the ceiling until I'm done."

[onceaviking]

Eric smiles.

And then he drops fang.

Seconds later, one automaton is a head shorter. It still moves though.

Dissembling it completely seems to do the trick though. Eric stands, surrounded by parts, peering into the mangled neck, still hanging on to the head.

"No blood," he says, sounding almost disappointed.

[fluffiest_archadian]

"I'm shocked and appalled," Sherral says blandly, drawing his sword. Along the crystalline blade, the Hastega spells carved into it light up one by one.

As the last one starts glowing, Sherral vanishes - but the trail of silvery-blue Mist he leaves behind him is still visible as he starts tearing through automata.

[onceaviking]

Eric laughs and throws himself at a group of metal men at the other side of the room, moving at vampire speed and scattering torn off limbs everywhere.

[fluffiest_archadian]

The automata Sherral takes down are still nearly whole - and usually still able to move. He takes an efficient approach, severing enough connections in enough joints that they can't move or attack, and then moving on.

It isn't long until his side of the room is cleared, save for an automaton copying out Shakespeare's sonnets and two dancing puppets playing out something like a Punch And Judy Show.

[onceaviking]

Eric's side of the room looks like a scrapheap. Apparently, he decided that speed made up for efficiency and demolished everything thoroughly.

Some of them may have been engaged in peaceful tasks;we will never know.

He looks around and retracts his fangs.

He isn't even breathing hard. On account of not breathing at all.

[fluffiest_archadian]

Sherral quickly flicks some pieces of metal from his sword, checks how much Mist he has remaining by sending a few puffs of it up from his hand into the air, and starts heading towards the hatch.

[onceaviking]

"Not bad, magic user," Eric says, following along.

"Who would have thought you'd be useful. "

[fluffiest_archadian]

"Aye, after you flailed, mewled and sobbed so bravely against the goat-thing, I felt sure that you'd be the more effective one," Sherral says, deadpan.

"Come, let us be gone from this room. I trust not the puppets."

[onceaviking]

"Sobbed?" Eric repeats, but he has apparently decided to take all of this from the humorous side.

Fortunately.

The hatch opens easily, but it is narrow this time.

[fluffiest_archadian]

"There was certainly sobbing," Sherral says mildly. "You first, by all means."

[onceaviking]

"There was not," Eric says and gets down to poke his head through the hatch.

"It stinks down here, "he says and then pulls back to put his legs through first.

It's a narrow fit around his chest and shoulders. Very narrow. His skin tears but he doesn't seem to mind.

[fluffiest_archadian]

"If memory serves, there was even weeping, and wailing for a mother figure," Sherral says.

He waits for Eric to get through, and then follows - and while Sherral may be broad-shouldered, he's not as broad as Eric, nor is he full-grown, so he slips through without too much difficulty.

As soon as he hits the ground, the smell makes him freeze up. Not because it's bad (although it certainly is), but because he's smelled this stench before. It is the stench of the dead in their many hundreds.

He smelled it last at Nabudis, when the Midlight Shard's power tore through the city, striking down every man, woman and child and then raising them once more.

When he looks out over this new room, he realises that it is not, in truth, a room: Above them lies the stormy sky, and on either side ruined, hollowed out buildings, forming a corridor. In the far distance, Sherral can see a door, sitting in the centre of the road.

(Faram, it even looks like Nabudis.)

"Let us be hasty," he says, taking a step forward, "I like this place e'en less than the accursed puppet show."

Punch and Judy is creepy, man.

[onceaviking]

"Is that fear I detect?" Eric asks with a grin before sniffing the air.

"This place reeks of death and rot," he says. "Has there been a great battle here?"

He looks around. The door in the distance seems very Milliways in a way. The smell, not so much.
"Where are the dead?"

There's got to be a mountain of corpses somewhere.

[fluffiest_archadian]

"Everything about this place reeks of artifice," Sherral says, ignoring Eric's question. "The room of wool; the perfectly arranged automata, with war machines stood next to harmless amusements; the exit hatch that sat right by our entrance. Even the ruin of this place speaks to me of design, not accident."

He pauses, scuffing the ground with one shoe. "I'd warrant there has been no battle here, nor that anyone has ever lived in these buildings. It's a stage set up for our performance.

"The dead will show when it is their cue to do so."

[onceaviking]

"The dead?" Eric asks. He offers no opinion regarding whether or not this experience is manufactured or naturally occurring.

Not vampires. The scent is all wrong. Decay, not dust.

He also starts walking. No sense in hanging back when the way out is elsewhere. He is paying attention to his surroundings and his fangs have reappeared.

Ready.

[fluffiest_archadian]

"'Twas you who asked where they were," Sherral points out with a shrug.

They've not walked more than ten yards before the aforementioned dead (or undead, as it were) start to emerge from buildings ahead of them, forming a crowd to block their path.

"There we go."

[onceaviking]

They are disgusting.

A smile spreads across Eric's features, as he rolls his shoulders.

"Come here, little dead things. "

You should think he was enjoying himself. You would be right.