CLOSED SIGNUPS e s o t e r i c a || DRY SEASON

[Nemopedia]

FINLEY ELLIS || BOTANIST

There was a prayer on his lips but the words were forgotten. God had abandoned him despite his baptism and Finley wondered if hell was like this, unpredictable and constant fear as he realised he wasn't where he was before, but wherever that was had been long forgotten as well at the appearance of the new plant, creature? Finley wasn't sure as he stared and stared and watched holes be blasted and red sap to leak that looked like blood, hands extended towards heaven like Finley only knew himself to do.

Signing a cross and a prayer the Irish suddenly felt himself emboldened, inching closer, but so painfully slowly that he might as well not move. "Fire, give me a flame," he stammered, thinking he would feel a little more confident with the idea of burning the creature.

"I only know of one tree with red sap, but not native here," Finley continued to ramble, trying to reassure himself that the sap that bled and dripped down the rocks wasn't blood. The volume and viscosity made it hard to believe, but the man willed himself, the flame of the torch ahead of him as his first line of defence as he willed himself not to taste the red sap. In case it wasn't what he hoped it was.

Poking the root with the flame first Finley dashed back several quick steps, heartbeat in his throat as he waited for whatever came next, his fine leather shoes soaking up the pool of red he had accidentally stepped into with his startle.

"Please burn, please burn," he prayed once more, but he wasn't sure what he wanted to burn. The roots he had touched with the flame, or the substance to burn the skin of his feet in the hope it was resin?

 

[Ritual Lobotomy]

THOMAS "TOM" O'REILLY|| NAVIGATOR
It didn't take a lecture nor an explanation for Thomas to realize that whatever type of shit they've gotten themselves in was the type of shit that smeared on no matter how much you've cleaned it; until you went insane trying or gave up and let it go. The undulating blackness that they've left behind just swallowed the latter option. When the last members of the expedition came through the passage, O'Reilly marched along, catching a row of disturbed glances others threw back at the disappearing way they came through. He didn't turn to look behind. Whatever they've left behind was gone - for all they've known - forever. Dwelling on it was a waste of an already dwindling prowess of the group.

"What are ye lookin' at?" His voice cut through this new, unfamiliar place. "Eyes forward. Watch yer step."

He gave a courtesy glance to his hand one more time, acknowledging that nothing had changed before the scenery emerging around him invaded his perception. It was an unnatural layout made to look like it belonged as if the space replicated it from imagination to the best of its abilities. With an unreadable face, Tom took out his notebook and wrote down a few notes. With the previous hallucinatory incident still fresh in his mind, he sought out anything that would anchor his mind in the reality he found himself in.

The piercing sound of a rifle shook the eery silence of the place. Was he finally out of his damn mind? With a groan, O'Reilly marched to the front of the group, where a heated argument took place.

"You. There's something more to this, isn't there? Something you're not telling us."

Tom approached without interrupting as men on edge finally ripped into Henry. The man did not sit well with the Irish. He found no reason to intervene in his favor. Not even while questioning the time and the place chosen to tackle the topic of mistrust. Before long, his eyes drifted into the distance, landing on a shambling figure made of strings of vines and roots of trees that moved forward.

"What in the ever-lovin' hell..."

The second shot rang out, and this time, Tom welcomed it, silently relishing the moment when the bullet pierced through the abomination. Realizing those things could be injured meant he hadn't found himself in a dream where he could only run away. And, more importantly, it meant that - should the need arise - they could be killed.

He did not need additional encouragement to join in. With a swear, he reached for his gun and stood shoulder to shoulder with the rest of the men who aimed at the creature.

"Say when fella," Tom responded to Andrew's order, his aim laying calm and precise on the pile of vines that kept approaching, seemingly unbothered by the fact that they were losing precious liquid that seemed to have kept it alive.

Don't think.

Just kill.

The order to fire was given, and he shot in unison with the rest, gunning down the abomination without a second thought. When the creature hit the ground, staining the onyx black stone with its life's blood, it felt like mercy.

"Grand. Let's move ahead before it changes its feckin' mind," Thomas grumbled as he lowered his gun. A morbid curiosity over what awaits up ahead flooded his mind, having him welcome Andrew's order with an impatient huff. But before he responded, a head of red hair walked past, carrying a shaky torch in his hands. Tom rolled his eyes as he eyed the young man.

"Fin, for feck's sake, lad."

Undeterred while simultaneously looking pale with fright, the boy marched on towards the creature's body. In part out of a worry for the young fellow's safety and in part out of eagerness to see it for himself, O'Reilly stored his gun and reached for his trusted machete, following behind the botanist.

"Nice and easy, lad," the Irish encouraged.

The creature lay unmoving, absurd in appearance, and riddled with holes that oozed the thick red. With a nervous chant, the young Irish brought the flame to the corpse. Tom wrapped his hand securely around the leathery handle of the blade, ready to strike it down again.

 

[Doctor Jax]

As Fin drew closer to the creature, it weakly scratched and scrabbled at the stones in a slow writhe. The many holes in its chest wept where they had hit it, and indeed -- new, green growth was filling them in. White globules, becoming thin threads like worms, tried to work their way back into the thing's body like a fungus. The tree-thing-man had a growing crimson puddle beneath it, the stones slick. Sap should be sticky. Sap should trap the shoes that walked in it.

The red Fin stepped in was slippery.

The fire in Fin's hand seemed paltry, weak almost, unnaturally so. It seemed to struggle for purchase at the end of his torch, dampened, and even the heat it should have given off felt nearly wan, mercurially absent. Even its color seemed wrong, not the lurid red-black-yellow of combustion, but a more pastel watercolor of flickering tongues of flame. Generating it had been its own strange struggle, as if this world of water and wood was anathema to fire.

Yet, when he touched the flame to the thing's foot, it caught with astonishing speed, in a great FWHOOMP that threatened to pull Fin and Thomas into it as the hungry tongues raced along the lines of vines that made up the thing's body. It thrashed with violence and obvious agony, but it made no attempt to free itself of the torment Fin had placed upon it. The flames at last seemed to gain their full coloration, and then even further beyond, to deeply hellish, sensuous red. The body Fin set alight began to wither and blacken, the thrashing finally beginning to die.

Disconcertingly, what white globules that had not yet reached the body shrunk back from the flames and scurried into the water like fleeing mice before a terrier, bright dashes across the onyx stones of the highway.

Upon Alex's shoulder, the Gao Yord tattoo seemed to spread a feeling of boldness within, as if bolstering her. Ahead of her, the Khuman Tong softly wept, wiping his face, before making a wai of respect to the creature that had died. No one else seemed to see him, save for one other.

Henry's eyes were on the boy, head cocked to the side in curiosity.

Andrew jogged to the two Irishmen, immediately putting hands on Finley's shoulders to turn him around and give him a once-over.

"You alright, mate? Lemme see - just singed some hair off, looks like. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph," Andrew huffed to himself, looking out to the eerily silent forest. "Good job, Fin, least we know fire kills them. Let's start making more torches."

Within the flames, something remained where the heart of the creature should be, untouched by fire.

@Nemopedia @Ritual Lobotomy @DayDreamer

 

[DayDreamer]

The corpse of a monk that should not have moved from its original resting place by the stele had made all thoughts of exploding upon her american employers seem insignificant. She had stepped into a nightmare because she had been hasty. Not greedy, it was not greed to seek to get yourself out of misery. To dream of a safe, peaceful life was not greed. At least not in Alex's books.

Trying to process her situation and how she might escape it, she followed their newly rescued second-in-finance quietly, while still taking care to not spill any of the water Lung El had previously blessed.

The waters were rising as if the temple was sinking into the sea of stars they had been transported to and Alex found herself frozen on the spot. Fear gripped her mind as she slipped. She would not drown in such a closed space! She would not!

"...a mere bouncer. Is such true?" Her head swiveled around to see who Henry was addressing in such casual and dismissive manner only to be greeted with the sight of a Great Snake. Lung El had already fallen on his knees, his fear and reverence evident. Alex, on the other hand, lowered herself slowly, placing the holy water next to her before paying respects to a creature she had heard of. A creature she respected greatly as someone who relied on the rivers to make a living, even if it was not the honest kind. She was not afraid. The great serpent could kill her if it so wanted but she would rather die by his fangs than to be slowly drowned, trapped like a rat.

Her mind sent daggers to the American researcher's dismissive approach, but she dared not speak, until Nagk was finished talking. She took its words to memory and sucked air through her teeth as the sense of the invisible blade cutting the bodhi leaf on the top part of her hand had been unexpected.

"Oh Great Nagk, may I speak with you?" Alex had allowed herself to speak up while the others were busy with the gate being opened to whatever next plane of existence this Soma obsession was going to take them. She had no interest in it, not unless it meant it would take her back to her own part of reality. To things she knew, things she could understand and live with. Money be damned!

The serpent languidly twisted through the air to face its eyeless head toward her. The others were busy at the threshold ignoring the beast that had allowed them passage now that the toll was paid.

"Have thy not already?" the creature pointed out with what could have been a trace of amusement. "Dying Little Thing, this is thine own chance. Speak thy piece."

Somehow, even through all of this, the serpent's response managed to make her chuckle briefly. She had walked into that one, didn't she? Still she quickly re-arranged her thoughts. "I understand that we cannot go back the way we came. If I may be bold enough to seek your wisdom in two questions?" She hesitated briefly as to the importance she wanted to place in the order the questions were to be asked.

"I received a warning from a pret wearing american clothes, to not hear a name. What does the name refer to, so I can guard against it?"

The serpent shivered, the entire body undulating against walls, ceiling, floor, in a roil like water in a glass. Its fanged mouth opened in a hiss, the selfsame sound as a rushing river beneath a boat. The creature reared back, as if to gather itself, before at last slithering to loom.

"So a bird sings in the World of the Living, and sing sweet it does. Mine tongue is bound, these jailers chain it so."

The serpent turned its head to the plinths carrying the other monks that yet survived, silent and unmoving. It hissed again, a cacophonous noise.

"Even as they rot to hold the door, and I alongside. Ye may know the name in its cloying. Before it is spoken, the air is sweeter — the ear bends to it — the tongue salivates— beware such sensation. Ye may find the poison dripped upon thine ear," the serpent stated. "It matters not to me. Poisoned, hale, still I am bound."

As Nagk hissed and shook, Alex took a small step back out of instinct but stood her ground otherwise. Her eyes trailed to the monks. Five of them were now back on their pedestals. Yet their group had only killed 3. What had happened to the fourth one? Her hand hovered over her pistol, her mind briefly entertaining the idea of attempting to kill the rest of the monks. A way to show her appreciation to the serpent for its wisdom.

Then the hairs at the back of her neck stood up and her hand retreated back to her side as the piece of her mind that was always preoccupied with her survival reminded her how easily the monks could overwhelm her and how likely it was that she would unleash something even worse into the world whose safety she wished to return to.

"Is there a way to return to my plane of existence if I follow the path forward?"

"Ahhhh! The little sparrow wills to roosteth home? Thou hast found this portal, no? Where thou sojourn, the fabric is… thin. Gossamer. Others are sure to have fled and not just through this door. A master of ritual may assist thee, mayhaps? Cut thine own way out, per se. Or find the path another hast cut."

The great serpent seemed pleased with the prescience of this member of the crew, swaying to some unheard music, humming a low and disorienting noise that could be mistaken for a song. The Nagk lowered before Alex abruptly, it's cold, cold breath washing over her.

"Anything else? Little Dying Flame?"

Alex shivered as the breath of the serpent engulfed her. She bowed in respect. "No, Great Nagk. I am most appreciative of your wisdom even if I can't show it in actions." She picked up the bowl of holy water again. "I shall endeavor to make good use of your advice. Fare well."

When she crossed the gate, the Americans had already engaged in combat and were in the process of burning some kind of sentient tree. She watched in horror and fascination as the flames, a scene so familiar to Alex, appeared more otherworldly than the rest of their surroundings. She saw the Khuman Tong mourn the creature and she wanted to reach out to console the young spirit when she felt a sense of confidence surge from her shoulder.

"Good job, Fin, least we know fire kills them. Let's start making more torches." She heard Andrew congratulate the botanist after he was done fussing over the lad. "I am guessing you were not listening to the great Nagk then. Those taken by soma will yield to flame for a time. They are not dead. At least not for long." She said as she approached the creature and stood next to Khuman Tong, briefly glancing at the boy with concern.

"Get your flasks out and take some of the holy water. It will guard against ghosts. But we should not waste time unless we actually get attacked. We should leave this place. Whatever this fruit, this soma, it is you are looking for, … it is not worth it. " She set the bowl down and took her jin flask out, emptied it and filled it with holy water instead.

"I have received the same warning twice. There is a name, Nagk was forbidden from explaining who or what the name belongs to and it seems one of your crew from the previous expedition was doomed to be a pret in death for hearing it." She sounded confident. More confident than any person thrust into supernatural nightmares had any right to be. "There are telltale signs. Anticipation, the air will turn sweeter or your mouth will start salivating. Your hearing will turn sharper….. Make sure to plug your ears if you feel anything like that."

 

[Kuno]

Dissension in the Rank
@Doctor Jax collab
​

It sometimes surprised Peter how much clucking and chattering and hemming and hawing a party of men could do in the time it took to move. Shortly after the monster burned alive, the group stalled, stagnant, immobilized by their need to waste words.

Peter heard much from Alex in the past hour but here she stood, pontificating in her usual style about their strange realm while the others played audience. All the while his skin bristled, his soul restless. He was on the battlefield again; closing his eyes did not make the sensation leave, and he returned to the same thought that had dominated him from the moment he had shot the thing from hell.

Keep moving forward.

The words came not of his own subconscious volition, but from the pale, clammy memory of Delia's lips. Keep going, her likeness whispered, sickly in her frailty. Peter's eyes swept over the gathered men that had hung, alighting on the riflemen beside him.

"You lot." He spoke to Andrej, Helmut, and Mawvan impersonally. There was no pretense of discretion. "Are you prepared to move forward? No matter what?"

Andrej looked to the others, the tall Dutchman translating for Helmut. Mawvan, however, was already checking his rifle, slamming the bolt closed.

"Nowhere else to go," Mawvan said dimly, "I follow you, Peter."

"Helmut says, he sees we do not have many options. We go forward with you, too," Andrej said, Helmut nodding alongside the other man, though he remained silent. "Maybe we can find something to help Taumai."

The poor man was still on the litter behind the main group, asleep.

There was an unsettling emptiness to Peter's eyes as they rested on Taumai, seeing but not seeing.

"Right," He finally intoned. "Well here's what I say then. Shoot anything that isn't us, lay fire on what still moves. We keep progressing, no matter what. I've no mind or inclination towards what the Warren's or the others say no longer. They've no foot in reality. We'll bully past, if need be."

Peter, too, checked his rifle then, the hard slam of the bolt ending his statement succinctly. Mawvan looked questioningly to Andrej, Helmut already resigned to their forward motion as he stepped forward with his own rifle. The Dutchman's expression was bewildered, perhaps some little bit dismayed. He looked back, past the group, fear seeming to spur him to huddle closer in apprehension of what unknown things may yet be behind them.

"And the dynamite Andrew asked us to pick up?" Andrej asked, pointing back to the boxes that lay at the edge of the group who seemed to still be in deep discussion. "Mr. O'Keefe… are you feeling alright?"

The Irishman looked at him, hefting his rifle once more into an easy position in his arms.

"Keep that rifle at the ready. And if yer so keen on dynamite and orders, run back for it. What killing needs done will be done with or without it."

Like a stone skipping across water, his gaze glanced and darted away and across both the dynamite and Taumai, lying still on his litter.

They should've left both things behind.

 

[Nemopedia]

FINLEY ELLIS || BOTANIST

Another state of catatonia. Finley had only woken from his slumber less than an hour ago, only to be transported here. What had happened between his last memories and now felt like a lifetime and were still lost on him. All he remembered were the dark holes in the face of the mummified monster that had dropped on top of him earlier and now it were the flames that burned itself into his mind as his next memory.

He couldn't recall what warning Alex meant, had she shared it before while he was out? He didn't even know what he truly was trying to do. Just that something within him willed him to do it, a force of courage that he had been lacking all this time before.

Air sweeter. Finley licked his lips, wondering if that was sweat he tasted or the scent of the foliage surrounding him.

Mouth salivating. Where did the sweat come from? When was the last time he had water? If he wasn't dehydrated by now why could he still gulp?

Hearing sharper. The botanist could swear that he could hear his own heart racing in his ears. He could have sworn that he could hear the leaves of the trees rustling despite the lack of a breeze on his heated skin.

Should he plug his ears? But he couldn't hear whatever Andrew was saying, or was he simply too overwhelmed to register? What was Peter saying?

And then the slick underneath him. The slippery slick that wasn't sticky into which he found himself now, fallen, on the floor, eyes still focussed on that tree he had tried to burn of which now only a heart remained. Raising his hand all Finley saw was blood, blood and the sweet cloy of burnt flesh that reminded him of the Sunday roast his mother made and and…

"Am I next, I am next? Am I next?" the panic swelled and the words tumbled like a prayer, the earlier instruction now entirely lost on him as he only remembered the warnings.

 

[Ritual Lobotomy]

THOMAS "TOM" O'REILLY|| NAVIGATOR

The unexpected burst of flames made him jump aside, shielding his face with a grunt. He could have sworn something quick crossed his boot, making him step back. For a moment, the heat seemed impossible to handle, and Thomas was left expecting the searing pain to engulf his bare forearms. When it didn't happen, he dared look at the thrashing pyre before him. Disturbed murmurs and shouts accompanied the dying movements of the creature. The scene held his attention firm for a moment as he silently attempted to piece together the solution to the puzzle of such a thing's existence only to keep drawing blanks without an idea for resolution. At the very least it wasn't the idea Thomas wanted to entertain. But he was painfully aware of its shadow looming, impossible to ignore. Denying it its audience was a brutal test of mental prowess.

"Fin," he called out when the chaos died out. Despite the shock, his voice remained firm and his movement focused. "Finley!"

He didn't have to look far. As the fire died down, the image of the young man came into view. Thomas exhaled the tension and approached the boy whose eyes remained fixated on the charred creature, his expression that of silent terror and mind-bending confusion. Andrew's praise seemed to have done nothing to bring Ellis back from wherever he had wandered off to.

"Right then," he sounded off authoritatively to the young Irish. "Let's get ye away from that, lad."

He was nigh there to touch the boy when his feet slipped from under him in a random direction. The image of the dock boards disappearing from underneath his subconscious self as the morphing faces of his old companions loomed over him came back. The thought of that thing catching up to him if he were to miss one and fall, worked to keep his legs up and support him.

"Oh, feck off, will ye?" Thomas mustered a swear; a primitive way to focus on the here and now, but it did what it was supposed to. Strategically, he shimmied out of the slippery trap, finally reaching the boy at the other end. The uncomfortable squelching sound followed him through with every step, tickling his imagination. A firmly suppressed memory of what he didn't want to remember then and there flooded the vision of Finley in a pool of red.

In a pool of blood. He stood no chance.
Lil' Aidan stood no chance.

"Aidan?" Thomas repeated to himself as if he were testing the flavor of something bitter that felt uncomfortable and out of place. The boy in front of him stared into hands coated in blood, evidently spiraling down into panic. Despite the numbing of limbs, Thomas reached out and gently dragged him out of the red pool. The urgency with which the others argued about the situation was momentarily lost on him as he turned his full attention to the young man.

"It's alright, lad. Yer alright," he repeated with a blissful relief when he didn't find a single wound on the boy that would produce blood. None of it was his. Thomas knelt in the boy's field of vision. Young Aidan's visage drifted away, leaving an even younger, just as terrified and lost face of Finley Ellis staring into nothing. The scowl expression softened, riddled with genuine concern for the boy.

"Fin. Eyes up here, lad."

The shock on Ellis' face didn't subside even after a couple of tries. And, surely, the horrific omens Alex discussed with others only a few steps away weren't helping. Tom's eyes followed her around as she spoke and while his mind still somewhat found it all absurd beyond belief, he couldn't deny that what she had mentioned reflected on Finley's face and was turning for worse right before him. Perhaps it was words themselves that had such an effect, but their power over the already panicking boy was nothing to be scoffed at either.

"Am I next, I am next? Am I next?" Finley finally managed to muster. Thomas sighed and shook his head in the face of Fin's rising panic.

"No, lad. Yer not next. Not if I have a say in the matter."

Did he? What gave him the right to speak of things that he couldn't quite understand as if he had a mastery over them?

Perhaps nothing, but the boy would only get worse if he had done nothing. If Greene was already crazed enough to chisel his thumb off, what other horrors could happen to an impressionable kid like Ellis? Against his own beliefs, Thomas decided to obey Alex's folk tale for Finley's sake.

"They'll have to go through me first, right?" Tom chuckled and squeezed Finley's shoulders comfortingly. "But yer a clever lad. You know we have to get our behinds out of here and work it out." For a moment, he wasn't sure which one of them he was trying to convince, but the end goal was the same.

"Now, we're going to do as she says, but ya need to focus," Thomas instructed again, gripping Finley's face gently with both hands, forcing the boy's attention to fall onto him. Without further explanation, he emphasized breathing in and out in even intervals, encouraging Finley to follow suit. Moving slowly, making sure not to disturb the boy, Thomas laid his hands against Finley's ears, cutting off the noise. Whether it was just a game of nerves or something else, following instructions given couldn't hurt. He nodded wordlessly to encourage the boy to continue to breathe.

Then, he sighed for himself, observing Alex as she filled her flask and urged the others to do the same. Asking for assistance proved harder than he wanted to admit. But with his hands full, he had little other choice.

"Oi!" Thomas called out to the guide and the rest of the group. "We could use some water for the lad here."

 

[Doctor Jax]

Forward, Then
​

With obedience borne of desperation, of hopefulness, Angelica did as Alex said, filling her own canteen with the holy water that Alex and Lung El had brought with them through the doorway, the others seeming to do the same.

"We'll need someone to draw a map as we go. Alex, can you do that?" Andrew asked.

"No, we don't move forward until--" Charles attempted to say, but Andrew put up a hand to him.

"We don't have the time, Chuck," Andrew stated.

The financier threw his hands up in the air, towards Henry, his air exasperated.

"So we ignore him! This! The elephant in the proverbial room!" Charles shouted, Angelica flinching at the sharp tone of voice, looking to her father, who stared at Charles with long eyes, a set jaw.

"Yes, we fucking ignore it!" Andrew yelled back. "Until we've got a goddamned place t' put our heads and a torch in every hand and-- wait, where's Peter?"

Looking forward, it was clear, they were already far farther ahead than the others, their guns taken with. Andrew swore under his breath.

"Fin, Thomas, light what torches you can as we go. Angelica, Alex, lead ahead, she's the one who knows where this godforsaken road goes," Andrew hastily ordered. "Henry -- we will talk. Later. Miss Volkov and Chuck shall bring up the rear with Mister Taumai in tow."

And so it went, the road continuing forward. Past the still-burning body -- which now resembled far more a skeleton, blackened, charred, inside the voracious flame -- they sped. Peter's steadfast group continued farther ahead of them, remaining ever in sight. The highway felt long, the wide black road passing beneath the trees as if through a tunnel. Should he look up, their resident botanist might find something unusual about these trees -- that they were every single one the same, a bodhi tree, in various sizes and shapes, but without any other variety. No ficuses, no palm trees, no other sort of plant life seemed extant except these self same trees. They had grown taller as they went inward, the ones at the beginning of the road being little more than saplings a man and a half tall but now here reaching well into the tens of feet. The eerie quiet continued, the forest, if indeed this was a forest, completely still, save for the gentle shush of leaves swaying in a light wind none of them could feel, as if they shivered in delight at the presence of these travelers.

Buildings began to appear, slowly. First, they were the remains of humble houses on stilts, burnt to the ground, the fields beyond them - or what may have been fields at one time, as the earth there was piled up yet overtaken by the same trees. Statues were next, of strange figures in what appeared to be the robes of monks, with shaven head and beatific smiles pointing down the road. Then, the houses grew more numerous, made of stone, bearing signs of having been burnt or broken into. The highway widened as roads of the same black stone joined it, creating a wide thoroughfare, broken through in places by the bodhi trees that had chosen to grow through without the maintenance of men to keep them from their ingress.

At last, after several hours' walking, they passed under a massive arch made of white marble, carved with the motif of Nagk, of trees and fruits, of devas and ashuras, the bodhi trees grown so tall around it that they shadowed the arch under the wan sunlight. Angelica swallowed as she read in the Tala-patra, " 'lo they walk beneath the archway/into the City of the Ever-living Ones/these blessed woven one to another like... like webs/to seek the...' The word's been scratched out here. But past this we should be in the market square for visitors, then the Gardens of Life. There are also residential areas as well, and something called the 'Courts of the Magi'. I'm not sure what those are."

Indeed, past the archway marking the beginning of the city proper, there was a massive market square, all the buildings built of sandstone blocks atop the black rock that seemed to undergird the city structures. The waters from beyond the city flowed in channels leading in one of three directions - forward, left, and right. Giant bodhi trees were grown through the rock in places and so shaded the square, making the flagstones of ink uneven. Piles of blackened things like vines were heaped atop each other, the roots of bodhi trees growing over many as if protective. In the very middle was a colossal fountain carved from marble that overflowed, more blackened and charred things in the water. One of the root-men was only three-fourths the way in, its top half charred in the water, one leg still kicking at the flagstones for so long, the vines of its surviving foot were polished smooth.

Bodies long decayed also littered the square, skeletal and more human, in fewer numbers. What weapons were near them seemed of an improvised variety -- sharpened sticks with a small knife attached, a large branch. Some had strange parchment that had not decayed in their grasp. Still more had a torch at one point, though they were all burnt nearly to ash.

The broad thoroughfare continued past the fountain, the trees erupting through grand buildings and roads. In the distance, there was the wide expanse of something dark on the horizon. To either side, the buildings loomed with their arboreal guardians swamping them. It was difficult to tell what else might be lurking between these trees in the ruined city.

"Let's rest here," Andrew said, the square wide and shaded enough that he could not immediately see whether Peter and company had progressed ahead or chosen to likewise break camp here. Unnervingly, the light remained the same wan mid-morning, as if no time had passed despite several hours' hard walking. Where in the hell were they?

 

[Doctor Jax]

Sightseeing
A collab with @Kuno & @Ritual Lobotomy & @Nemopedia ​

In the market square, around the fountain, a brief respite was held by the erstwhile group, footsore and thirsty. A look at the water in the fountain would dissuade any but the thirstiest however, littered with chunks of what seemed to be charcoal. Andrew did a headcount, and quickly, he realized that Peter and his merry band had marched on ahead of them. Quickly, he circled the fountain and saw that they were further forward down the avenue.

"Shit," he muttered under his breath.

He feared he knew what that meant. With so many riflemen following along after him, Andrew smelled a shift in the structure of their party, looking back to Charles and the others. The only rifleman still with them was Taumai, and he was laid up on a stretcher, being attended to.

"Chuck, I'm going to catch up to Peter, try and slow him down. I think he's hellbent on heading on, even though he's not got a single bloody clue where he's goin'," Andrew stated, hefting up his own rifle and torch.

Charles, who was busy helping to count rations, looked up to nod absent-mindedly, lost in thought. Andrew pointed a finger at Tom and Finley, gesturing for them to come with him, given they too were carrying their own torches.

The avenue they walked down was shaded by the massive bodhi trees, growing straight through buildings, roots clambering between the black flagstones of the road. Despite the air remaining dead still, the leaves sussurated in such a way as to almost sound like whispers. The mind played tricks upon the men that walked forward - things darting inside the husks of the great buildings made of intricately carved stone, colonnades home to dark shadows that seemed to move and dart.

And everywhere, charred bodies. Gnarled, like roots, blackened.

Ahead of them, there must have been another square, but it was fully obscured by what almost appeared to be a forest that had erupted straight up out of the ground. Great boulders of black rock were piled where they'd been flung. A dull thudding noise could be heard somewhere inside the miniature forest. Though there was no breeze, a smell wafted to them -- and to each man, the smell was different.

But the effect was the same. Salivation.

"We'll have to blow through it."

Peter's voice was as coarse as the charred bodies. He turned to the rest of his men. If the lead rifleman was exhausted, he showed no signs of it, though the sweat had built at his back and brow. If his leg injury hurt him, his brisk walk betrayed nothing of it. He was a man possessed.

"Where's the TNT? We can lay waste to it now and clear the way for the others."

Through Tom's effort Finley had calmed down, if only enough so to hear the instructions given and then Peter's voice asking for the explosives.

"No," Finley started, as if finally waking up, "no, don't harm the trees, o-or the death," he continued, stumbling only over his words when looking down at the charred bodies reminiscent of the body he had set on fire before. The one covered in substance, of which he had prayed to be an unknown plant, but now he rather hoped it wasn't.

Gulping, Finley felt his throat drying up again, longing for some of the water as he smacked his lips, trying to find the words to speak. "I, uhm, I-" he started, clumsily, "we should," he restarted, eyes fixated at the crown and then at the tree itself and then the roots, his heart beating faster.

"Alex, said to keep holy water, I rather think that maybe we should…" and here Finley was about to make a suggestion he wasn't even sure of himself, but he was certain that more violence and fire wasn't going to help.

"Pray. We should try prayer," he managed to get out unconvincingly.

Thomas was many things: a good soldier, a decent sailor, and a fair amount of an asshole. But he was a shit diplomat, and - often - in the situation where both sides made a good point, he preferred letting them handle it. Except, in most of those situations, they weren't exactly deciding between involving either non-discriminatory destruction or God himself in the matter; both of which were great and terrible ideas at the same time.

"Whatever makes men not lose their minds is fine by me, lad. Be it. I think I'll pass," he responded to the young botanist, absent-mindedly studying the intertwined foliage within the ruins. The scent of the jungle was a comforting, warm one and he was not one bit surprised that his mouth began to salivate, seeing how the rest were combating the same strange affliction. To ignore it, he allowed a morbid curiosity to overtake him as he observed the bodies.

What in heaven's name did they get themselves into?

He understood Peter's frustration, but as much as he wished to support the idea of brute force as something he was innately good at, Thomas hesitated.

"Aye, sure," he sighed finally, waving his torch around in gesture. "Sure, O'Keefe. Let's bloody blast this fecker down and then what, eh?" Thomas paused, keeping his voice void of the undertone of frustration guaranteed to pick a fight.

"We don't know how much damage we'd be doing," he spoke pragmatically, approaching the wall Peter stood in front of. "Worse yet, we don't know how many more of those cursed things we may be inviting over from beyond there, eh?"

Somewhere deep under the frustration he made an effort to control, a genuine concern for his comrades in peril emerged through a light-hearted mockery directed at a frustrated man with a rifle. A brilliant strategy.

"What then? Ye goin' to valiantly blast the feckers up and fight them off with your one good leg and two hours of sleep? Yer fuckin' kidding me," he chuckled.

Peter had mirrored the wall. He had not turned, nay, not even stirred at the emergence of the men behind him; not one word had turned his head or engendered an expression across his face. The low chuckles of Thomas petered off into the ominous quiet of the unearthly forest.

"Two sticks." Peter looked up at the wide expanse, squinting. "Two sticks should be enough, methinks."

The rifleman paused.

"Mawvan. Go back to the others and bring two sticks of TNT back with you."

The auxiliary stared up at the trees with something like trepidation. He did a double-take at Peter. Unsure, he looked to Finley and Thomas, the other auxiliaries throwing their own hands up at the idea of blasting their way through the thick wall of trees blocking their path.

"Mawvan--" Andrew warned.

The dull sound of something sharp hitting wood inside the grove continued. And then, abruptly, voices. They were shrill, speaking a language they didn't understand, scratching the insides of their ears, nails to chalkboard, blade to porcelain. Even unintelligible, it was clear the voices were jeering.

Mawvan paled, and quickly he fled to do as Peter had asked, just skirting Andrew's grasping hand.

"Peter, why not just go around the bloody thing? Who knows what the hell's here?" Andrew hissed, throwing a hand up at the wall of trees.

Or what we'll draw here when we blow the thing?

"Go around the bloody thing?" Peter echoed. It seemed, at last, some words besides the demonic had registered with him; he turned bodily, his dull eyes darting between Andrew and Thomas. "Why? Do you know something I don't? Been here before, have ya? Know the other way's safer for a surety, yeah?"

"You go on 'round if ya like, but it's high time I started trusting myself. The lot of ya have led us to shite thus far. The only things a man's got now are his wits and his guns, and I'm no longer opposed to using the latter on anyone or anything if that's what it takes to get out alive. Understand?"

Without shying away from Peter's intense glare, Thomas responded with a prolonged, barely audible exhale that managed to at least elevate some of the burning need to throw fists in place of reason. The intense audible disturbance in his brain made his decision-making all the more difficult.

"Right, lad. Pokin'n'proding went well for us thus far, eh? Why not give this bloody place a good rattle while we're at it…"

Through the seeping sarcasm, Thomas' attention turned back to the wall; tall, menacing, hellishly inviting.

"We don't know shite about this place, but neither do you, O'Keefe. Wits my arse!" Thomas tapped his own temple leaning towards Peter, then throwing his hands into the air.

"Fuckin' look! Look at them," he insisted, pointing back to the group now left a fair amount of distance behind them. "Shite be hittin' the fan, how many are ya willin' to lose to prove yer right, eh? Fin? Miss Greene? Auxiliaries that already tremble at every rattle? Can't expect everyone else to carry the weight of ya measuring off your wanker against those feckers."

The voices proceeded to mock and tease. They proceeded to force him to admit that he was just as curious as he was vary about that which was on the other side.

Fine. It was fine. It was but a passing itch, no worse than that of a mosquito bite.

"The point is, we need to investigate. We need a feckin' plan. Blowing shite up isn't a plan."

He wasn't known for his glamour of bravery, heck Finley had proven himself to be the biggest coward so far. He had been a disappointment. A scholar without a backbone, a catholic without faith. An unmovable rock that blamed the wind for his erosion but a rock remembered its rugged looks before the polish of nature and so Finley remembered his role.

"See," Finley pointed at the tree, though he winced at the finger lifting in the air, the sign of disrespect starting his heart, "look these are branches," he continued, his finger trailing in the air to draw out the figures, drawing the attention. "The bark, remember the fire earlier?" the botanist continued, for he did remember what he had set on fire before. Caught too soon, not sticky enough and yet sticky, everything he prayed for it to be but had not turned out to be.

"Destruction will only lead to obstruction, we are in the middle of a single organism," he stated confidently, for the first time since he sailed out of home.

An unconscionable thought crossed Peter's mind. He stared, at and through Finley, before his eyes darted to Thomas, lingering. He waited a minute longer, the wheels turning in his head over an unspoken conundrum.

And like a flame vanishing with a breath, Peter's anger appeared to instantly snuff out.

"Weelll," The rifleman breathed slowly. "I stand corrected. My apologies."

He smiled thinly. Turning his head, his gaze passed over the remaining auxiliaries. A nonverbal command followed: a jerk of his head, back in the direction from whence they'd come. From his pocket was produced a small cigarette previously offered to him by another rifleman. He had refused it then; the smell of it made Delia ill, and he had vowed to kick the habit entirely.

Peter struck a match against his gun holster and set the cigarette alight, bringing it to his lips.

 

[Doctor Jax]

At last, it seemed that cooler heads may yet prevail. Andrew sighed heavily to himself, rubbing his forehead as he looked back to the veritable wall of trees. A breeze -- it had to be a breeze -- wafted a scent from them towards him, and his eyebrows drew together as his taste buds watered, his body calmed. Yet, that said, some part of him did feel a subtle unease, as that aroma was familiar to him as his childhood block in Perth, and could in no way be here, the scent of eucalyptus trees in bloom. Around them were naught but the ever-present bodhi trees that shaded them in the wan half-light of an overcast midmorning.

Somewhere in the distance, there was a distance crash of trees, as if they were being felled en masse. The shrill voices were back too, the thudding noise at last halted from within the wall of trees.

To the adroit among them watching, something did sneak up in the boughs, shaking them as they went with their weight, and seeming to congeal in the white light, to any who would pry at the dark within the trees, there was what could only be described as a woman's head and entrails floating in the air. A shimmering, translucent outline seemed to follow her, long black hair down and flowing around a bloated, decaying face. She leered at something beyond the wall, but had not seemed to notice the men talking before them.

Mawvan, however, had indeed been paying attention, and without a single word to the group, his only sound a strangled and terrified whimper, he fled as fast as he could in the other direction with everything in him. Andrej watched in confusion as he took off as if a demon were on his heels, looking to Helmut, who only shrugged at him in confusion and lowered his rifle.

***​

Back at the fountain, Lung El patted Taumai's forehead with a wet rag, leaning down to hear something he said. Angelica, seated not far away, perked up at the chance to be of use. It was so intensely quiet otherwise, without even the chirp of insects or the whir of bird wings in this silent, abandoned, cursed city. Charles was too busy pacing, waiting for the auxiliaries to return while her father investigated the trees in the square.

"He's thirsty," Lung El said to Angelica, "and we are not having water long."

He shook a canteen that had a swallow or two left.

"Is the water here... safe?" Angelica asked, and Lung El gave her a long look.

"Safe, not safe, you not drink, you die," Lung El gently chided. "We find out."

He handed her the canteen to fill at the fountain, and Angelica stood up from her spot, brushing off her dirty dress. Looking to Alex, the girl asked, "Would you come with me? I should rather not wander about alone, even... even so close."

Further from Alex, staring in the direction where Peter and the rest had gone, Alex would see the Khuman Tong as clear as day. The little boy was sat on his heels, eyes zeroed in on some place in the distance, before directly back at Alex with a heavy expression. He gestured if she wanted him to go with them.

@Ritual Lobotomy @Nemopedia @Kuno @DayDreamer