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In an insignificant, insignificant galaxy, there was an insignificant, insignificant star. And around that insignificant, insignificant star, there orbited an insignificant, insignificant planet. It's name was Golarion, and over the course of it's aeons, it had withstood many perils. Comets strikes. Devils invasions. Wish-craft wars. Alien Techno-Monsters. All horrors with names and faces. And each time, the perils were turned back at the last moment by groups Golarion's wandering, legendary heroes. But in 4716 AR Golarion faced a nameless horror. And the small band of heroes who faced it remain unsung. For the cost of just seeing it alone cost them their minds. For...
-H.P. Lovecraft
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Night-time. You find yourself stand on a cobbled street in a dark city. Besides the seven of you, it's deserted. Things are weird here...something isn't quite right with the buildings. A yellow mist moves in ominously from the west. Is this a dream? Yes, it's a dream! A lucid dream. Well, at least you are wearing your pants. Cautiously, you explore your environment, and get to know one another.
Winnova looks curiously at the buildings then at the people. "Hello dream people.".
Looking about, Volreg whimpers a bit before moving towards the others, "Dream, dream? Yes, yes this is a dream. But why are you all here?" Bringing his hands towards his face, he takes a step back before cautiously waving. "He... hello." His eyes dart about momentarily before his head turns towards the footsteps as he whispers. "What was that?!"
Looking around Ungebrochen feels lonely. The voice in his head, so dominant and ooh soooo sothing is gone. There are other people around him, alien people. What do they want here with me!
Suddenly one speaks. Interesting. She calls you dream people.
Hmpf. Well let´s play along."Hello woman in my dream!"
A lanky young man with wiry glasses and an angular faces, Volco looks at his companions. "A dream, eh? Rarely figments of my imagination would admit to being in a dream, so it may be the truth. And perhaps it is somehow a shared dream. Hello then. Or did I take mindhaze again?"
He turns to the shop door and fiddles with the lock.
It clicks open, and Volco peers inside.
"A dreeeam?", Narcizia's head is tilted to the side, "I see. But whose dream is it?"
She hears footsteps in the mist, and instinctively tries to get herself a blade. Maybie she can will a dagger into existence?
"I guess is not my dream, i don't know this place very well, maybie its his dream?", she points the direction of the footsteps.
"A shared dream? Some kind of magic? But why? Is it a message?", she pauses when Narcizia points off towards the fog, "Is someone else there? I didn't hear anything."
Seara looks around cautiously, awaiting the whip or the bludgeon to come and crack her knuckles. When the blows don't fall and the pain doesn't happen she looks around eyes wide.
"wwwhat is this place?" She moves more caustiously as the others here with her don't represent the priest of Zon-Kuthon. "A dream you say? I have never dreamed something like this, always a nightmare of pain, torture and blood."
Seara finally notices that she isn't carrying her armor or weapon, she is just in her under clothes. She tries to make her clothes and armor appear, willing it to happen.
After she notices everyone else staring at the yellow cloud.
"Thing, there's a thing coming...." The varisian man pauses for a moment as he points, hand shaking. Every footstep he hears makes the man flinch a bit, with a hand slowly headed towards his belt. A trap! They all want to take it from me. But it is mine, I found it! Groaning, the man grabs his head and stumbles back a bit. Think you fool! Footsteps and fog, something isn't right. Save yourself! Your knife, where's your knife? Again, the man reaches for his belt, hoping that he hadn't lost his knife or his scarf. His, scarf? Ah yes, to stay safe, he needed his scarf as well.
Tyrithe looks about himself, bemused, for though lucid dreams are far from unusual for a servant of Chucaro, this one...perhaps this one hid a darker hand. The footsteps draw his attention, and the lights dancing before his eyes draw faces in the yellow mist--singing? Or perhaps screaming, he cannot tell. But those footsteps...Tyrithe recoils from the mists a step.
"I believe the woman in red is, ah, on the money. I do not believe this to be any of our doing. A predator, perhaps, one who savors suspension and the thrill of a different kind of chase." A low, sinister thrum of music in his ears sends a shiver down the elf's spine. Looking down at his empty hands, he wills his bow into his hand, imagining the solid yew wood in his palm, arrow nocked and ready. What are the limits of your control here?
"A predator in the yellow mist? The color could mean a xanthosis process, or citrinitas. Should we need to defend ourselves, I'll need aether salts to combine with viridiana and scarlet crow as a catalyst..."
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Then a strait up horror appears out of the mist. He looks like this. Holy crap, it's the Tatterman! A terror from childhood stories. Razor teeth, tattered clothing, blood all over. When he steps in to view, he just stops. Pointing his jagged curved medical dagger at you, he grins...
-flight: he walks, at 10ft per round. You MIGHT be able to run. But who knows where these cobbled dream-streets lead?
-fight:
-hide: would be stealth that beats . You get +2 in the darkness of the ice-cream shop.
"Now I need a weapon, my armor will protect my body but my weapon will cleave heads."
Seara will take a step back, disgust and revolt on her face. "What sort of beast is this? Nothing like the priests of Zon-Kuthon, this is far worse."
Seara begins to shake visibly at the thought of the torture she endured at the hands of Zon-Kuthon's priests. Not wanting any part of this beasts dagger.
"Oh!", Narcizia runs her finger softly through the side of her blade, evaluating how solid it really is. For one second she motions into making a small cut on her finger, but stops at the last moment. "What if this wakes me up from the dream? Hm...Bad idea."
The Tatterman walks out from the mist and the shock is visible on her face, she retreats a step, as if already cornered, her eyes can't move away from the creature, untill the red-headed woman says something.
"Doesn't look like its his dream either, or else it would be much worse, right?"
She quickly glances at the others, after looking at the dwarf, her red as blood lips form a nervous smile.
Winnova licks her lips, and attempts to make a loaded crossbow appear.
"Standing and fighting it is then?"
As the Tatterman steps forward, Tyrithe's eyes narrow and his knuckles go white gripping the bow as the music in him mind hits a discordant pitch. Is your control here weak? Or so absolute that our weapons would not avail us?
Shaking his head to try and clear it as a he breaks out in a cold sweat. "I think this a foe well beyond our abilities, we all should flee..."
"No, not a dream. No, no, nononono! Bad dream!" Volreg shouts as he starts to crawl away from the man in tatters before stopping mid stride. Blast it man, get a hold of yourself! Something is wrong, and you need to take care of it. That, or we switch places. Mid crawl, the man grabs his head and growls slightly before standing up, head tilted to the side, and an odd gleam in his eyes. "I do apologize for earlier. My name is Volreg, and I do believe that we should run from that ragged man. While I am willing to fight, but it appears that I am low on ammunition, and I fully agree with the elf."
"Well, it only makes sense that in a dreamscape we should meet a creature from our nightmares. Running... Yes, running seems a good option. We can run but we can't hide. And I can run pretty fast, should need arise. On the other hand, it's seven of us against one monsters. And where would we run?"
"Very true. Perhaps then a few pebbles and trinkets are in order. I am quite fond of using the mundane against my enemies." Straining in thought, the man spreads out his arms and with a noise similar to a black powder rifle is enshouded with a violet aura. Pretty things! Yes, we need small pretty things! Like, like rocks! The childlike mind starts to imagine many colorful stones around the feet of his body.
"Running is best, I cannot fit this with just my fist, I need steel or something large to kill it. I cannot get either and I don't want to give my life for nothing."
Seara starts to back up away from the beast.
"Time is running oooout~", Narcizia herself is ready to run, unless everyone else stays.
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Together you flee down the twisting cobblestone streets. You are sure you are running faster than the Tatterman, and yet, every time you stop to listen, it sounds as though he's right behind you.
And then, an intense feeling of dismay comes over you. For you look down at your legs and realize you are running but getting nowhere! Your arms and legs feel sluggish. And the footsteps are right behind you in the mist.
And then he appears again, grinning horribly.
"Something is wrong! We aren't moving....." After a moments pause, he slaps himself, causing the world to fade into blackness.
Bolting upright, shirt drenched in sweat, he looks about. What was that? It seemed almost real. And who were those other people?
"To sleep, perchance to Dream; aye, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. But I'm not dead yet."
Taking to memory the appearance of the Tatterman, Volco spreads his arms and lets himself fall backwards. But instead of hitting the ground, he's jerked away from the dream, getting back to reality.
Or is it? He pinches his nose and tries to blow air through it.
Winnova runs through the strange streets, until she looks around and finds herself getting nowhere.
This is a dream, I have to wake up!
She digs her fingers into the palms of her hands, willing herself to wake up, and finds herself somewhere else, hopefully somewhere real. She looks around hurriedly to try to figure out where.
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Shaking his head, Tyrithe mutters, "No. This realm is rightfully Chucaro's, not yours, and I will not abandon it to the likes of you." Ignoring the shrieking music in his ears, the elf slides to a halt, gracefully spinning about as the arrow draws back--but how can this be!? Tatterman is upon him, hooked knife lashing out to sever an ear. With a cry Tyrithe tries to fall back and draw his morningstar but the creature keeps pace effortlessly, hardly even seeming to move.
That wicked knifes flashes again, and the morningstar clatters to the ground as the elf clutches at his torn wrist. With a casual flick, the monster buries the hook into Tyrithe's abdomen. As the ranger fights down a scream, the Tatterman leans close, a long prehensile tongue snaking out to slide along the elf's cheek as the knife slowly rips upward...
"He seems to be catching up, guess that would be very bad for the slower among us, eh?", she says, speeding up, before looking back and noticing she is at the same place.
"W-what!?", one by one, the others start disappearing as the Tatterman is about to reach them. "Right, wake up from the dream...". she takes the dagger and makes a cut in her hand, starting to feel her connection with the dream world fade, she is about to escape when...
"No!", the clawed hand is grabbing her neck, she tries to move, fight back, but her body doesn't obey. It does feel, though, every single slash, even when her members are severed she still feels their pain, Narcizia just wants to scream, but even that she can't do...
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGH!", she sits up, gasping, her long back hair is dripping cold sweat, her clothes glued to her body. "...A, a dream, ha, haha..."
"We can out pace him, he doesn't seem to move fast at all."
"My muscles have seized, I cannot move." Fear in Seara's eyes, then rage.
As the scalpel slices cleaning though the hide armor, Seara's eyes widen in shock and horror. Her mouth opens in a scream but nothing comes out but blood. "The Armor, it failed me, my rage it failed me."
After awaking and realizing it was all a terrible terrible nightmare, Seara turns her face in same from the others. "who are these people? Where am I?"
Running from the monstrosity as fast as his short legs carry, Ungebrochen flees with the others. This can´t be, we must have left him behind. No, no, no he is right behind me. Run you lazy git, run. And just one extra helping next dinner! Suddenly he is close so close and Ungebrochen bits on his inner cheek to wake up.
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You wake in a dungeon cell together. Outside the bars, a man is strapped to a wooden operating table. His skin is covered in a mapwork of fresh bloody cuts. Wake up, damnit! he cries to you.
An unsettlingly thin women in a bloody Doctor's coat, circles the table casually. She stops to scrutinize one of the man's wounds, then selects a different scalpel from a tin tray nearby. With careless cruelty, the "doctor" draws the blade across the man's bare thigh, releasing a tortured wail.
Winnova spots the ring of keys hanging from the woman's waist and whispers to her cellmates.
"Psst, she has keys, one of those keys must be the key to get out of here, anyone with quick fingers?"
Eyes flying wide, Tyrithe's hand goes immediately to his stomach then his ear, but he is whole and unharmed lying upon the cold stone. With an start he snaps his gaze over to the man being tortured, seeing an ugly purple haze swirling from his injuries. The woman...he does not care for her look at all, for a sinister red halo anoints her head, and when she speaks the elf hears a discordant "echo" shadowing her question is stereo.
Not daring to draw her attention, he slips forward, fingers long practiced with the bowsting and the harp quietly relieving her of the key. Easing himself back to his original position, Tyrithe waits for his moment.
Narcizia looks around, noticing all of her "dream buddies" are here as well, her attention is captured by the man screaming and the doctor's question, she watches with interest.
"Hm...I'd guess he'll rate it at a 4."
Seara noticing Tyrithe take the keys moves away from him in the cell, "Your tactics for inducing pain are weak, I met children in Nidal who could cause more pain than yourself. Zon-Kuthon would be embarrassed by feudal attempts at torture."
Looking about, the man smiles at the others until the wailing starts. Crawling to a back corner of the cell, Volreg begins to whimper a bit. "No like scream, no like them. Lady is being bad, cutting him like that." Are we still in a dream? Bah, who knows. We need to leave this place soon enough though. That woman seems quite frightening.
It seems like we have the keys now, so it may be bast if I am going to make a choice. Eyes fluttering, Volreg looks at the others. So, how do we get out? he whispers before looking at the woman again.
Volco shakes away the last remnants of the dream, squinting at the weird scene in front of him. Wish I had my glasses.
"Being together in the cell as we were in the dream, beyond coincidence. But it's not just torture. That cut was cleanly along the quadriceps."
"Hey, Doctor! Are you dissecting him? If so, I recommend curarin to paralyze the muscles, you'll cut cleaner!"
As he's giving advice, Volco looks around, looking for stones or any other object blunt and hard enough to throw.
Looking around and rattling the bars once Ungebrochen looks at the doctor."You.. are in my book now!"
Speaking up from his corner, Volreg raises a hand. "Excuse me for asking this, if I already have, but why am I here? Why are we here? And how is cutting that man helping him?" [i]Scary lady cuts, and cuts. Not safe here, no. Not safe. Lowering his hand, he watches the woman as he looks and out the cell for anything that he could hold on to.