- Location
- The End of Glory
[X]- The Town: Investigate the town to find out how the creatures are getting inside.
House of the Rising Sun (A Weird West Quest)
- Thread starter Laplace
- Start date
- Original
-
- Tags
- western weird open voting
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X]- The Body: Investigate the most recent victim and try to figure out what killed them.
Seems like the obvious initial choice - imvestigate what's actually being done, not what people say is doing it.
Seems like the obvious initial choice - imvestigate what's actually being done, not what people say is doing it.
InterstellarHobo
Cosmic Vagrant
- Location
- No Fixed Planetary System
[X]- The Body: Investigate the most recent victim and try to figure out what killed them.
Knowing what it is will help find it, and how it gets in. Knowing the other two won't help with the first.
Knowing what it is will help find it, and how it gets in. Knowing the other two won't help with the first.
[X]- The Body: Investigate the most recent victim and try to figure out what killed them.
[X]- The Town: Investigate the town to find out how the creatures are getting inside.
The Story Of Splitwater's Murders (Part 3)
- Location
- boundless optimism
The room stank of rot. The body at the central table was a week dead, and invasive ectoplasmic necrofungus grew on what was left. It was humid, too, which accelerated the stink of decay that Moustache Joe brought Lizzy Darling to. "Why wasn't the body moved?" she asked through a handkerchief dipped in rubbing alcohol. Anything was better than the stench. It was all too hot, too familiar. It pressed itself against you like a demanding puppy that had rolled in entrails and wanted to share the all too obscure joy of flies and plague.
"We were going to," Moustache Joe said, waving in a tepid effort to encourage fresh air to enter the house. "But then you said you were coming a week ago. And then yer horse died and here we are."
"Eh. Can't riddle with fate." The agent stepped into the… a pantry? It was hard to tell the aim of this odd house on stilts. It was used for storage of some kind, there were shelves lining the walls and the remains of an icebox that was crushed by some monstrous bulk that slithered out of a hole in the floorboards. Lizzy Darling snapped on rubber gloves that were the providence of Caelon state witches and began prodding the body. Moustache Joe turned and sat on the threshold facing outwards with a shotgun on his knees.
She began cutting and paring away at the mat of necrofungus on the body. You were too late, too fucking late, why didn't you save me, the fungus whispered as she snipped away the fruiting bodies and placed them in a jar marked DO NOT OPEN. After a while she removed most of the mushrooms and the body, such that it was, purpled over and at places rotten to the bone, leaking black pus, was more or less able to be inspected.
Head. Signs of a concussion, but the major trauma was constrained at the chest, where broken ribs floated in a pool of rotting viscera. The empty cavity where the liver was, now that was almost surgical in how the organ was plucked out. The monster was an oddly clean eater, and therefore Lizzy Darling allowed her a small smile. Perhaps she could invite it for a tea and politely explain that sir-or-ma'am, as you can see, there are no fishes and surely you could do to mousy on over to another vale. And then they'd respond with, I was here first, what business do you have mucking up my damn river, away with you invaders.
"Found something?"
She started. Hadn't expected the stolid Moustache Joe to ask a question. And for a second after the bartender said his piece she had almost expected it was someone else's world. "It's a clean eater. Bashed out the man's chest and then plucked out the liver clean as a picture. If there was a cancer on my liver I wouldn't mind the monster being my surgeon."
"Fuck you, Lizzie Darlin'. He was a good man and now you're here joking around. Give me a diagnosis or I'll wire for another agent."
Lizzie raised her hands. "It's a cunning sort of monster. I'd say it's a… hmm. There's the rentu serpents, but they don't like this heat. There's the possibility of a crocodile mutant, but they'd drag their meals to the water."
"Mutants aren't known for followin' their native ken."
"Oh, an erudite. But yes, that is a possibility." She leaned against the table. There's another possibility. A conjured spirit. There are fifty kinds of devils who sup on the livers, another twenty on the eyes alone. Silence fell. Lizzie heard the bartender's slow breathing. So, let's follow this line of thinking. Who would be the witch? Well, hell's to know. Could be anyone. Rampant paranoia is a friend of no one.
"Boy, what are you doing?" Lizzie turned around and there was a young boy grinning before Moustache Joe. "Get gone. Git!"
"This is a free bloody country," the boy said, craning his head to look at Lizzie. He waved and she waved back. "Ain't no fuckin' law sayin' the youth can't go wherever they please."
"Teaching laws to you savages is the worst thing we've done."
"Oh, not the camps? Not the enclosures? Not the thefts?"
"No, because none of them produced a cheeky brat like you. Hey!"
The kid stepped inside the room. He left footprints all over the dust and the blood and the indescribable fluids that a corpse makes. "Do you think he died screaming?" he asked with a sort of youthful curiosity. "I was up the river in the church. I hope he died screaming," the boy added after a moment of thought. "He was a metaphorical sort of bastard, cheated his friends, and was a sodomite besides. Wait. The last thing isn't a sin. I have to get better at this."
"It is exceedingly likely that he was in great pain," Lizzie confirmed, mildly discomfited.
"Oh, dope."
Moustache Joe stalked off. "Fine," he spat before leaving. "Go dally around. But when this is over I'm writin' the bureau and get you fired and destitute."
"What does that even mean?" Lizzie bent over what at first seemed like the remnants of venom but was just mildew. She felt Moustache Joe's footsteps over the wooden walkways.
"It means that that's righteous."
"You're making up words."
"They'll come in time."
She turned and took a closer look at the boy, extending one filthy, corpse sodden hand. The boy took it without care. "Lizzie Darling. I didn't catch your name…?"
"Aaron. But I'll be mad if you use it too often." The boy looked like an aborigine. "Are you gonna keep talking to me or do you have a next step?
Her next step is…
[]- To eat the fungus and see what the dead man's last memories were.
[]- To follow the monster's trail and see where it leads.
[]- To call up a devil and politely inquire as to if it's compatriots have travelled near Splitwater.
"We were going to," Moustache Joe said, waving in a tepid effort to encourage fresh air to enter the house. "But then you said you were coming a week ago. And then yer horse died and here we are."
"Eh. Can't riddle with fate." The agent stepped into the… a pantry? It was hard to tell the aim of this odd house on stilts. It was used for storage of some kind, there were shelves lining the walls and the remains of an icebox that was crushed by some monstrous bulk that slithered out of a hole in the floorboards. Lizzy Darling snapped on rubber gloves that were the providence of Caelon state witches and began prodding the body. Moustache Joe turned and sat on the threshold facing outwards with a shotgun on his knees.
She began cutting and paring away at the mat of necrofungus on the body. You were too late, too fucking late, why didn't you save me, the fungus whispered as she snipped away the fruiting bodies and placed them in a jar marked DO NOT OPEN. After a while she removed most of the mushrooms and the body, such that it was, purpled over and at places rotten to the bone, leaking black pus, was more or less able to be inspected.
Head. Signs of a concussion, but the major trauma was constrained at the chest, where broken ribs floated in a pool of rotting viscera. The empty cavity where the liver was, now that was almost surgical in how the organ was plucked out. The monster was an oddly clean eater, and therefore Lizzy Darling allowed her a small smile. Perhaps she could invite it for a tea and politely explain that sir-or-ma'am, as you can see, there are no fishes and surely you could do to mousy on over to another vale. And then they'd respond with, I was here first, what business do you have mucking up my damn river, away with you invaders.
"Found something?"
She started. Hadn't expected the stolid Moustache Joe to ask a question. And for a second after the bartender said his piece she had almost expected it was someone else's world. "It's a clean eater. Bashed out the man's chest and then plucked out the liver clean as a picture. If there was a cancer on my liver I wouldn't mind the monster being my surgeon."
"Fuck you, Lizzie Darlin'. He was a good man and now you're here joking around. Give me a diagnosis or I'll wire for another agent."
Lizzie raised her hands. "It's a cunning sort of monster. I'd say it's a… hmm. There's the rentu serpents, but they don't like this heat. There's the possibility of a crocodile mutant, but they'd drag their meals to the water."
"Mutants aren't known for followin' their native ken."
"Oh, an erudite. But yes, that is a possibility." She leaned against the table. There's another possibility. A conjured spirit. There are fifty kinds of devils who sup on the livers, another twenty on the eyes alone. Silence fell. Lizzie heard the bartender's slow breathing. So, let's follow this line of thinking. Who would be the witch? Well, hell's to know. Could be anyone. Rampant paranoia is a friend of no one.
"Boy, what are you doing?" Lizzie turned around and there was a young boy grinning before Moustache Joe. "Get gone. Git!"
"This is a free bloody country," the boy said, craning his head to look at Lizzie. He waved and she waved back. "Ain't no fuckin' law sayin' the youth can't go wherever they please."
"Teaching laws to you savages is the worst thing we've done."
"Oh, not the camps? Not the enclosures? Not the thefts?"
"No, because none of them produced a cheeky brat like you. Hey!"
The kid stepped inside the room. He left footprints all over the dust and the blood and the indescribable fluids that a corpse makes. "Do you think he died screaming?" he asked with a sort of youthful curiosity. "I was up the river in the church. I hope he died screaming," the boy added after a moment of thought. "He was a metaphorical sort of bastard, cheated his friends, and was a sodomite besides. Wait. The last thing isn't a sin. I have to get better at this."
"It is exceedingly likely that he was in great pain," Lizzie confirmed, mildly discomfited.
"Oh, dope."
Moustache Joe stalked off. "Fine," he spat before leaving. "Go dally around. But when this is over I'm writin' the bureau and get you fired and destitute."
"What does that even mean?" Lizzie bent over what at first seemed like the remnants of venom but was just mildew. She felt Moustache Joe's footsteps over the wooden walkways.
"It means that that's righteous."
"You're making up words."
"They'll come in time."
She turned and took a closer look at the boy, extending one filthy, corpse sodden hand. The boy took it without care. "Lizzie Darling. I didn't catch your name…?"
"Aaron. But I'll be mad if you use it too often." The boy looked like an aborigine. "Are you gonna keep talking to me or do you have a next step?
Her next step is…
[]- To eat the fungus and see what the dead man's last memories were.
[]- To follow the monster's trail and see where it leads.
[]- To call up a devil and politely inquire as to if it's compatriots have travelled near Splitwater.
[X]- To follow the monster's trail and see where it leads.
Got a bad feeling about eating the necro-fungus of doom...
Got a bad feeling about eating the necro-fungus of doom...
- Location
- boundless optimism
it's very friendly!