She ran. Her eyes sting as she felt tears run down her face.
"I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry..."
The human wave swallows the man as you flee. Another shot rings, and you are not there to see the effect. You fly past strange figures reaching out to grasp you and avoid them, sometimes barely. You run, and jump and climb upwards, until it is not dark anymore, and cold wind painfully burns you face as you stand on a rooftop of some ugly brick construction.
For a moment, you escaped immediate danger. Still, you have to decide where to go next. A place of frozen desolation surrounds you. In the walking distance not that far away from you, you can see a number of landmarks; amongst ugly brick builds, what looks like a small park, and secondly, you can see something that, from a distance looks like an abandoned church. Secondly, you can see what looks like some sort of a train station, accompanied by underground railway l that peeks out of the ground only for a few hundreds of meters, before heading to the depth of earth in both directions.
Finally, there is an unfriendly-looking edge of a forest, incredibly close to the city's borders, separated from civilization only by a grotesque line of strange totems of bone that are dizzying to look at.
Perhaps, there are more things to be found away from here, but the weather makes you unable to see very far.
Of course, you are on the roof of what seems to be an apartment building, surrounded by many more nondescript brick structures. You can try your luck hiding in one of those, or at least try to find something that might easy your future in in this unfamiliar place.
"I think I met a family member from a parallel Moon." I reply conversationally.
Nonchalantly, the mauled car explodes in a quickly-fading fire, providing a not quite gentle interruption to your introductions and no particular defense against the cold you find yourself in.
Further down the road, you can see the lights of the moving vehicles in distance, coming closer. Despite the noise of crackling fire and wind, you can faintly hear the engines of what must be rather heavy vehicles. A number of them.
If for some reason being discovered next to a burning car and a bunch of bodies sprawled in the snow does not appeal, there is an opening in the forest next to you, a path between trees covered in snow. You are not sure if it was there a moment before.
"However you plan on transferring your connection, or whatever you plan on doing. Let's try and make it fast."
"I admit, I expected mistrust and refusal, typical of the travelers around here." His form vibrates for a moment - before scattering across the wind as a smoke, rendered in a vague memory in but an instant. "Not that kind of worries are unwarranted."
Before either of your two can say anything else, you are interrupted.
"I smell the spirit of careless idiots who meddle with things they have knowledge of and sign arcane agreements before figuring out the terms." A rasping, annoyed voice sounds across the forest, as a hunched figure leaves the wooden house you were standing before. Seemingly fragile, positively ancient-looking old woman dressed in countless layers of some sort of garish fabrics stares at you for a moment, before continuing, annoyance and a mild interest in her voice "Who dares to disturb me with the reckless abandon of those who care not for their life?"
"On behalf of my new companion, I am taking offense to that." A cloud of smoke materializes to your right, a moment later solidifying in a familiar feline shape. "It's not her fault that this one here is kind, beautiful and decisive. Unlike
some."
"Headstrong, foolish and naive." The old woman answers with a snort, dismissal clear in her voice, her attention on you. "I would like my familiar back. Now. "
As she finishes speaking, you notice how the woods around you start to move, converging into yet undefined, but threatening shapes.
"This sounds like a good time to mention" the cat, now materialized on your shoulder speaks softly, the forced calm clear in his words " the particular ritual of unbinding is long, painful and carries long-term consequences for your spiritual health and soul integrity. I doubt that losing bits of yourself is part of your plans."
"Not my fault. Consequences of doing foolish things." With a broad gesture of her hand, the forest around you darkens. The forming wooden monstrosity behind your raises with renewed vigor, morphing into flowing monstrous shapes, even as the rest of the trees nearby appear to wither as it forms "Now, are you going to give him up willingly, or not?"
"You may fight if you wish. You might even win. The old hag deserves some humility beaten into her." The cat whispers in your ear even as he dematerializes into a plume of smoke "Or, if you are feeling like running, I can guide you out of the forest. "
As for me I focused on the giant bugs with a barrage of iron needles, not as strong as by rings but they should still be able to deal some damage at least.
The look of mute, displeased surprise on the face of the golden man as he is being torn apart by a giant snake is the last impression that he is going to leave on this world. The bugs, however, give your much more trouble, and it takes a couple of minutes of fierce fighting for the giant snake and your own contribution to put them down, and only with great effort you avoid injury.
Nevertheless, you stand victorious, and people surrounding you, alive. It takes a bit of time for the survivors to reorganize and many are still in seems to be still in shock; a looks of awe quite often directed to you, but most of what looks like the former clergy looks at you in distrust.
Still, a fair few moments after the battle is finished, you are approached by the weary-looking middle-aged man in a plain priest's robe.
"I am not ungrateful for the save, but who are you? " He asks of you, rather bluntly.
Idon'twanttobeaghoulstucktothefloor he was a grown man and military trained, good luck, mon ami!
Your skin starts prickling as you rush out of unpleasant workshop of a madwoman; the sterile smell of embalming chemicals and the signs of a morgue-like corpse-storage are your greeting committee from the next wagon. You quickly pass forward, much more welcoming signs of wooden crates stacked upon more crates with warnings written in russian about violative maters stamped on them.
"Good, good. It'll take a moment... You are very lucky. "
The door opens with a soft hiss of advanced mechanics, rewarding you with a smell of burnt electronics and scene of disarray. An upturned table, a great many strange devices just lie on the floor, abandoned. The walls and the floor seems to be made of some sort of gold or brass; the wall to your right seems to be partially dismantled partially-charred in some sort of incident revealing strange devices and pipes and cut, still sparkling wires and many other things you don't know the name or the purpose of. Even as you get inside, a person seems to be trying to remove particularly-dangerous looking bits of broken machinery, only stopping and looking at you after the door behind your loudly slams closed. As they remove what seems to be a strange-looking, overly ornate wielding mask from their head, you get a look at them.
A formerly beautiful woman wracked with illness; pale, glistening skin and visible black veins that looks at with your with an unsettling interest of someone who found a really interesting insect to poke and prod. An automated wheelchair they are sitting on gently hums and clicks as she turns toward you. As she starts moving toward you and away from mechanical disaster she was attending a couple moments ago, several humanoid robotic constructs of gears and steam come to life, previously nothing but strange figures carelessly placed without order across the whole wagon.
"Don't worry about this inconvenience here" she gestures at the machinery in the wall, which still continues to periodically dangerously sparkle "This should not be a problem as long as I finish removing damaged mechanisms soon enough. As for you, itwas wise to demonstrate proper haste. Now, if you were guests, I'd welcome you to a cup of tea, but sadly you are no such..." A wracking cough interrupts her for a moment, as infirmity forces her to stop the monologue. A few moments are spent in uncomfortable silence, ruined only by a wet cough of somebody who looks rather close to death. "...Things."
She smiles at you - it is not a pleasant smile. Unhinged, mad gleam is in her eyes as she stares at you.
"Nevertheless, as long as you do not do anything foolish, we could just spend the rest of this talking about how two relatively normal human being managed to materialize on this train right as hellish soup outside claws and rips at the very existence of this humble ab... "
You almost feel it in your bones when wagon shudders and metal groans slightly as something seems to impact the wall to the right of you.
"...And don't worry about the additional unwanted visitors." She adds, casual disregard in her voice "The hostile environment of the outside will take care of them in a moment."
Dalek Ix said:
When I reach the peak of my arc, I release my restraints, spread my wings, and fly towards the breach as fast as I can (which is quite fastn if I do say so myself).
You let the breach swallow you.
For a moment, you feel terrible acceleration, as your body is stretched across long miles of space and yet refuses to break - that ceases, with a terrible impact which makes your bones crack and consciousness swim.
You are plastered outside a metal construction interlinked with living carapace, floating through some sort of alien space, a mix of kaleidoscopic colors and tastes and smells - a nauseating festival of sensations. A familiar light of normal reality shines closer and closer with every second, however, as your accidental mount moves through the strange space your found yourself in.
Then you feel your skin slowly starting to burning.
Perhaps, it might be wise to get inside or otherwise protect yourself.
I rid myself of that thought and give a hurried thank you to the man. I quickly look at the map and try to find something that resembled a shelter. If I couldn't find some refuge from this cold, I would drop dead anyway.
A quick look at the map shows a train station nearby. The treck through snow and darkness is a short one, but nonetheless unpleasant as cold and wind start getting to you.
The awkward, ugly brick barrack-like building you arrive to looks abandoned, only light from the upper row of windows weakly illuminated by light showing that somebody living seems to be inside. The windows are mostly although half-heartedly boarded up, the shabby wooden doors refuse to open.
Attempts to get someone to open the door are met with silent indifference as you slowly freeze outside. One way or another, you have to get inside.
A couple of the windows seems to be boarded lazily enough that you just might be able to just climb in regardless if you had a way to reach that high. Alternatively, the door's construction seems to be shabby enough and material rotten enough that you might just be able to break in. That would make some noise, though.
NephyrisX said:
Slowly sheathing her sword in false deference to their demands, lulling the fools into a false sense of security and complacency, Tapping into whatever reserves of energy she still had within her, Mag raised her hand, and she pulled.
People scream in surprise and sometimes pain as their primitive weapons are forcibly pulled from their hands and toward you, more often than pulling their wielders to the ground. Unsurprisingly, after they get up, the soldiers decide to flee, instead of fighting you. The one whom you identify as the leader of this small group seems to be screaming and barking commands that rather remind you of the Grineer calling for backup.
As they attempt to flee back to the relative safety behind the fortifications, you hear further activity from the camp, sounds of starting up machinery and strange, almost organic noises.
The camp itself strongly reminds you of grineer fortifications on the Planes near Cetus; somewhat shabby constructs mixed with reinforced firing points, turrets, and barracks. The only difference is a level of technology and, it seems, much greater sense of self-preservation. The weather conceals the finer details, but amongst the relatively normal barracks and buildings, you can spot strange, twisted structures and some sort of oversized, twisted machinery and, possibly, robotics.
How do you act?
