Ah well.
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Don't keep yourself to a too-rigid schedule, I have seen so many GM burnouts over the years.
CR *3*? Ouch, that would have been ugly!
Briarstone Asylum? Thrushmoor? Thrushmoor, that sounds familiar... Immortal Princip-- oh. Ustalav. We're in Ustalav. Laine lets out a deep sigh, shaking her head as she leans against a wall with one hand. "We're in an asylum in Ustalav? I'm here because...I was sick?" She concentrates on steadily breathing in and out, trying to stop her spinning head. Nothing makes sense, and yet...everything she remembers is a haze, so maybe all that is true? How can she say for certainty that she hadn't been sick? That sort of thing does happen. "Maybe I was sick", she murmurs, looking at her empty hand. "I don't know. I don't remember. It could be like that..." Then, her blood goes cold when Linweigh mentions the Mother of Monsters. "Lamashtu..." passes in barely a whisper over Laine's lips. She was about to have many more questions for Linweigh, but when Fifteen stabs at the doctor, Laine's eyes go wide and she lets out a muffled gasp. Looking aghast, she gapes at Fifteen in horror. "Murderer! There was no need for that! She was locked up!" She takes a few steps back from the android woman, not sure if she should now be considered dangerous and a potential threat. Someone as willing to kill as that... Laine backs away, putting the operating table between herself and Fifteen.
"Laine. Laine..." and then her forehead furrows as she realizes she can't remember her surname.
"Oh? I'm given to understand Oppara is a large city. Certainly it has its share of dungeons underneath? But... I've never been to Oppara, so I'm confused as to how the two of us are now in the same place, then."
"Ahh...good thinking!" Laine slaps herself on the forehead when Jing locks the doctor woman up in the cell instead of strapping her to the table. "Much simpler that way." Looking over to the android woman, Laine points out, "Captives rarely know as much as captors. Passwords, guard routines and the like -- only those in power will know them. If we can get anything like that out of this woman, that would be useful."
Laine opens the door of her cell with the keys, assuming they will work. "Who is the Mistress?" she asks the man on the table. "Who are you and how did you end up here?" She nods in agreement to what the man says about the magical sleep. "We should be able to move her without waking her up, unless something goes badly wrong. Let's just get him off the table and her onto the table as quickly as we can."
"Can you let loose the victim and strap the woman onto the table instead?" Laine calls out in a half-whisper, trying not to wake the sleeping woman. She looks to Zadok then. "I think I saw a set of keys on the woman -- see if you can take them and open our cells with the keys."
"Don't kill her! She may have valuable information! See if there's anything to tie her up with! She won't be asleep for long!" Laine doesn't do anything other than speak, as there appears to be no imminent threat with the doctor sleeping, and she has no way to get out of her cell. So she tries to instruct the others on what she perceives as the optimal avenue of approach.
Laine's action on this round will depend on whether Sleep succeeds or not. If Sleep fails and the doctor remains standing, Laine casts If Sleep succeeds and the doctor drops, then Laine will wait and see what happens.
Laine extends a hand through the bars holding her body captive, splaying her fingers out toward the false Jacqueline, as her other hand goes to the side of her head, brushing against her temple as she focuses her mind. "Let go of her..." she says in a soft, gentle manner, then repeats it over and over again, in a softer, quieter, more whispery manner each time. "Let go... let go... let go..."
Works perfectly, editing works as well so I can move my token.
Laine wakes up to her own scream, with her heart beating violently against her chest, the sensation of being stabbed through the skull so very vivid in her mind. Her throat is hoarse, she doesn't know if she had been screaming for a split second or for hours. Either way, she feels terrible, her guts wrenched by the disturbing memories and her muscles aching as if she had been exerting herself for days. Lying down on the cold floor, she stumbles a bit onto her side, and her body begins spasming as her stomach wants to throw up. She gags and retches, but nothing comes out except for a thin dribble of spittle that drops to the floor. Wiping tears of the violent retching from her eyes, she finally starts to gradually become aware of her surroundings at the same time as the doctor applies her blade to her victim. Laine, blurry-eyed from tears and slow-moving from her aching body, moves up against the bars caging her in, gripping them so hard her knuckles turn pale. "What are you doing to that man?! Stop!"
"Force...controlling the blood?" Laine manages to breathe out while her exhausted, limping form is being dragged along by Fifteen's superior endurance. "Is it a person? Or some kind of...what? Sentience? The gods themselves? You saw the words, too. It was telling us 'up'. Up." While making her way uphill, Laine tilts her head to peer skywards, if there's anything she can make out above them. "Look up to the skies and see. Can you see anything?" "If you're right, and there's someone who can help us...then we're caught in the middle of unimaginable forces. A conflict far above us. Any way the wind blows, it doesn't really matter to *me*." Her feet slip again, more tears forming in her eyes as she drops to one knee. "Carry on...carry on...my time has come." Her breathing comes out ragged, as if little pebbles were rattling in her throat. "Shivers...down my spine. Body's aching...all the time." She falls to her other knee as well, stopping in place and not managing one step further. "Goodbye...gotta leave you...and face the truth." She drops to all fours, hands and knees on the ground, breathing loudly in and out in wheezes that feel like fire in her lungs. Her face is dark in shadow, and a single tear rolls down her cheek, hangs there for a moment, and then drops, hitting the ground. "I don't wanna die", she murmurs to herself. Then, after those few breaths, she lowers herself down to a sitting position, and turns herself gradually to face in the direction of their pursuer, trying to summon a final spell out of herself. "I see a little silhouette of a man."
The spell makes a pretty lightshow as it erupts from her forehead, but fizzles as she is unable to keep control of her emotions.
"Save whom? How?" Laine nearly screams out, wide-eyed in panic, although she most certainly doesn't slow down any more than her body forces her to. Maybe the truth is out there. Assuming she wants to know the truth. "How does it -- *gasp* -- make sense? You saw what I did? Blood doesn't just *do that*! It doesn't!" Wheezing, she stumbles briefly over her feet, catches herself against a wall again, and pushes on, grimacing in pain. I think I twisted my ankle. Dammit. But she doesn't have time to dwell on it. Whatever pain that comes, she must accept and continue running. "I don't understand! Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?"
Me? Up? Save? Laine's thoughts run over three cryptic words over and over again, trying to frantically figure out what this is all about, even while she keeps running as hard as she can, breath burning her throat and lungs, legs aching, body aching. At the sound of the almost bovine utterance from the terrible predator she almost lets out a terrified laugh, the absurdity of the situation starting to make her mind come unraveled bit by bit. [b]"What?" she just sobs to herself, body wracked with exertion pushing herself further as she tries to make her way uphill to some hopeful salvation.
Laine also keeps running away, trying to go up, rather than trying to fight. She's far too terrified by the monstrous creature in yellow, shaking and trembling. "You fight if you want -- I'm getting out of here!"
"Up! Up is good!" Laine agrees emphatically, nodding the moment the idea is brought up. Even if the unnatural fog doesn't behave the way normal fog would, up still feels intuitively like a good idea. "Find high ground, hold high ground. That's what all the military doctrines ever say." She holds a pause and frowns a little while running. "Do they? How do I know that?"
"Did... did anyone else see that?" she murmurs under her breath when she sees the blood spatters from Laufey, not really loud enough to call attention to it, and also not really explaining what she was referring to, either. It might be left a cryptic statement if she's the next victim. When the stalker emerges from the fog, Laine's eyes widen. "Who are you?! What are you?! What do you want?!" she yells out her confusion at the grotesque looking form.
"I... I don't know what's going on! Where are we?" Laine gasps out while stumbling a bit and leaning on the alley wall to catch herself. It feels damp, maybe from the alien fog, and when she pulls her hand back she's afraid to look at it. She just keeps moving, with the rest of the group, because she's heard too many stories where you split from the group and then the monster eats you. "My heart... it feels like it's going to burst." The corners of her eyes are a little wet, her ears barely hear anything over the thundering beat of her heartbeat.
Well, if we're in for months/years, a couple days here or there doesn't make much of a difference.
I think I'm settled on my name. Nice to meet you all. |