DM Cuc's Strange Aeon (Inactive)

Game Master moafnsteel

He felt the mind-numbing fear grip hold of him. He needed to get away them. He ran across the half-remembered plaza, with the sound of footsteps resonating with each beat of his heart. He ran towards battered buildings where the grimy cobblestone street split. ‘Up was towards the light, towards safety. Down – only madness and death lay that way.’ He had a vague flash of memory of some unseen horrors waiting in the darkness, and the feeling that in the darkness he had lost everything he cared for. Or maybe the fog was a manifestation of his inner demons, coming to hunt him down at last? He ran uphill, his breath steaming and coming in ragged pants. He hoped that he would be able to outrun his pursuers – or that he would die of exhaustion before they caught up with him…

The city is ancient, older, even, than storied Absalom, the City at the Center of the World. The entryways to stately mansion of crumbling black and silver brick open, unseeingly to the cobbled street. Above, black stars sparkle in a viridian sky, and the whole city is bathed in the harsh light of a vermillion moon. Not a soul stirs on the streets in this nameless city, save for you. You know not how you have come to this fabled unnamed city, but this strange city is hauntingly familiar. At the fountain, long gone dry and dusty, in the plaza around the bend, you sat and listened to minstrels sing ancient tales of far-off Lomar and Oriab. Your feet slow, drawn by the haunting remembrance, not quite a memory, but far more than a vague feeling. You can still hear the lyres play, the bard’s songs. But, then, unease fills your heart, and you look back.

Behind you is a wall of sickly yellow fog, tumbling through the street’s canyon of crumbling, leaning manses like some jaundiced flash flood. Ahead, the oddly familiar avenue, curving to the left and right. Behind, from the silent swell of mist, emanates the sound of footsteps--slow and staggered, but somehow keeping pace with the careening, hungry wave. And always just behind. Ever out of reach, but close, and drawing closer. Within, you can discern faint shapes. The fog swirls and billows in opposite ways, as though stirred by the beats of wings and or animals deep within. And always, there are the footsteps.
Still you run, fleeing the plaza of your half-remembered songs, across a courtyard of pillars top by cerulean orbs that fold in on themselves in an alien geometry. Your flight takes you down another avenue, and the battered buildings appear almost ruinous, they slump over the path, nearly blotting out the bruised twilight sky. Again, the grimy cobblestone street splits. This time, one route curves uphill, while the other recklessly descends. Behind, the yellow fog and the relentless sound of pursuit grow closer…

All the cleric knew was that he now saw the many shades of putrefying flesh and bone swirling in the sickly yellow smoke that bore down on him, and the regrets of his past in the ominous horrors surely lurking within. Urdal was no longer protected by the sturdy dwarven walls he grew up in, and the fairy tales woven by his family; he knew that whatever this magic, be it arcane, divine or even alchemical, it was powerful enough to be a mirror to whomever observed it. If there was anyone else fleeing the cloying tide over these grimy cobbles then it would surely be stirring something similar within them, be it the shadows of misguided choices or a noble urge to combat the approaching darkness.

The footsteps of old colleagues, tending to corpses beneath the temple. A dusty, vermin infested basement rather than somewhere the dead should be allowed to be interned. A rotting wooden chapel rather than the glorious stone and marble houses of worship Urdal had imagined from simple sketches in long forgotten tomes. Pale faced, toothless chancers who shouldn't be allowed within five miles of the recently deceased filling their pockets with valuables and worthless trinkets and experimenting unchecked behind closed doors.
Was Urdal half remembering the sorry excuse for a temple, or was he imagining it? Worse still, was his memory so fragmented that he was filling the gaps in it with such evil in an attempt at cohesion? The dwarf was sickened further by the idea that his own mind would conjure up this darkness. Had he been so damaged by life itself that this corruption had become his narrative?

At each corner Urdal fully expected to emerge on to that street, his sister urging him to lug the blanket wrapped decomposition out in to the street. Sweating and red faced as the horrified neighbours looked on. He expected to see the chapel, with the horse and cart at the door and a thin, jaundiced undertaker smirking as he delivered his latest haul. He expected to see leathery wings flapping above a poverty stricken village, and people peering nervously through window slats. Maybe a bard playing lonely in a town square, songs that seemed to promise a life elsewhere in some opulent city or sleepy hamlet. Instead the dwarf saw more narrow twisting alleyways and the curls and wisps of ochrine smoke inching their way ever closer.

Ahead, a literal fork in the road that would have caused Urdal to laugh if not paralysed by fear, doubt and uncertainty. A road curved upwards, and it's opposite down. Perhaps the lower road would offer the opportunity for shelter, maybe a dark basement with a thick door and a heavy iron lock where the cleric could wait out the approaching ominence. The road upwards could offer the opportunity to outrun the smoke and whatever lay within. Maybe higher ground would attract others looking for companions and assistance.
Although he was loathe to admit it, even inside his own head, Urdal was drawn even backwards to the smoke. A familiarity lurked inside, and an opportunity for control. After all, why run from your fears when you can have power over them? This time, however, fear lay in every direction. Whichever path the dwarf chose would bring him face to face with something he was likely ill prepared for.

Urdal closed his eyes and for once ignored the images which seemed to be branded on the inside of his eyelids. He began to run.

This place is not right or real. The sky is NOT that color, day or night. Stars are NOT that color. I cannot know a place that cannot be real. That there might be magic in her mind occurs to her, and she feels a sour sickness in her stomach.

And then she sees the fog and she knows it can’t be real and it doesn’t matter. Her skin is covered in gooseflesh and she runs anyway.

Laufey is very fast, and she knows it. Rarely has she met a person who can match, much less outpace her. But she can hear the footsteps coming as the fog surges on behind her. They are gaining at a walk no matter how hard she pushes herself. Her heart is banging in her chest and before long she will be winded.

At the split she consolidates what she knows and makes her decision in only a second. Left is unlucky. Uphill will slow me. Downhill will speed me but it doesn’t matter. Fog hugs the ground. Hold the high ground in a fight. She goes left, uphill where the advantage lies.

There is no point in running, and I know I am going to die. It is only a matter of choosing how. What follows me is impossible, and how can that be killed? She finds her spot, stops, and turns as she draws her sword. She barely has to wait for the fog. This will be the better way.

The city is ancient, older, even, than storied Absalom, the City at the Center of the World. The entryways to stately mansion of crumbling black and silver brick open, unseeingly to the cobbled street. Above, black stars sparkle in a viridian sky, and the whole city is bathed in the harsh light of a vermillion moon. Not a soul stirs on the streets in this nameless city, save for you. You know not how you have come to this fabled unnamed city, but this strange city is hauntingly familiar. At the fountain, long gone dry and dusty, in the plaza around the bend, you sat and listened to minstrels sing ancient tales of far-off Lomar and Oriab. Your feet slow, drawn by the haunting remembrance, not quite a memory, but far more than a vague feeling. You can still hear the lyres play, the bard’s songs. But, then, unease fills your heart, and you look back.

Behind you is a wall of sickly yellow fog, tumbling through the street’s canyon of crumbling, leaning manses like some jaundiced flash flood. Ahead, the oddly familiar avenue, curving to the left and right. Behind, from the silent swell of mist, emanates the sound of footsteps--slow and staggered, but somehow keeping pace with the careening, hungry wave. And always just behind. Ever out of reach, but close, and drawing closer. Within, you can discern faint shapes. The fog swirls and billows in opposite ways, as though stirred by the beats of wings and or animals deep within. And always, there are the footsteps.

Still you run, fleeing the plaza of your half-remembered songs, across a courtyard of pillars top by cerulean orbs that fold in on themselves in an alien geometry. Your flight takes you down another avenue, and the battered buildings appear almost ruinous, they slump over the path, nearly blotting out the bruised twilight sky. Again, the grimy cobblestone street splits. This time, one route curves uphill, while the other recklessly descends. Behind, the yellow fog and the relentless sound of pursuit grow closer…

Fifteen runs, instincts deeply embedded in synthetic muscles propelling cybernetic legs forward and away from the fog. The one glance back was quite enough and Fifteen puts their head down and flees. Fear is not an emotion Fifteen has any experience of, but the coursing of nanites throughout their frame, healing muscles damage almost before it happens sends a strange thrill through their nervous systems.

Rapid glances to each side capture snap-shots of the situation around, humanoid figures moving through the fog, all fleeing in different directions, even as the swelling wave of the fog sweeps in from all sides. Fifteen’s mind rolls smoothly through possibilities, each more illogical and disturbing than the last. This place is not real, the architecture matches no style and I have never been here before. To feel connection here means that something, or someone, is controlling my thought processors. By now the buildings are blurring past, as Fifteen continues to build momentum, huge leaping strides consuming more ground than any normal step should. The fog pursues relentlessly, never falling behind no matter how much ground Fifteen consumes.

My speed is impossible, I should have fallen or encountered obstacles by now. Fifteen muses as they swerve effortlessly between narrow buildings. There is only one conclusion. This is the domain of some sort of hunter, a predator that enjoys the hunt more than the kill. As though to mock that theory one of the shadowy figures that are constantly looming out of the shadows, collapses with a high pitched scream, a spray of blood showing unnaturally crimson before it too is swallowed by the fog.

I cannot escape by running and fighting is clearly futile. Fifteen was rapidly coming to the only conclusion left. If I wish to survive I must do something unexpected. Spying a dark spire leaning drunkenly against the viridian sky Fifteen turns, unsurprised now how the buildings open in front of them to provide a path. Leaping fifty feet into the air Fifteen grasps the stonework and swarms rapidly up the crumbling spire to the pinnacle. Looking down Fifteen sees a roiling sea of yellow mist, lapping hungrily at the shadowy forms of the buildings. Directly beneath long tendrils of mist begin swarming upwards towards the poised android. Fifteen grins, teeth bared in a rictus smile, Unexpected…. As the tendrils reach for the cyborgs feet Fifteen leaps…