[Day 2, Night - A House South of Town]

[direstnews]

[Written into the ground alongside one of the houses to the south of town tonight are a series of strange letters, forming a rough circle near the wall. A figure of approximately Loki's build, not there during the day's exploration, leans against the wall at the corner. The door to the house is open.]

[Some hours after the sudden switch from day to night, Loki stands in front of the door, a candle before him, a kitchen knife in one hand and a spoon in the other. He checks the mirror set carefully in the darkness, nothing yet visible in its surface. Then he strikes the knife with the spoon's handle, and he holds his breath - and he waits.]

Comments

[12npcs]

[The holes isn't exactly where the head was, but nearby...

In the dirt, between the roar of fire, flash of lightning and the bursts of holy light, you can catch something yellowed in the dirt...]

[direstnews]

[Flings dirt aside in his haste to dig it out, scrabbling at the soil.]

[12npcs]

[Your desperate clawing reveals a wooden torso, bare of clothes. The curves and rise of the planes of the chest suggest a female form...]

[direstnews]

[Hooks his fingers into the shoulder sockets and pulls- and pulls.]

[Let's get this thing clear and add a little distance before we use it as bait.]

[12npcs]

[It's heavy, pushing you to truly strain... but you get it up out of its shallow grave.]

[direstnews]

[Drags it across the ground, panting, keeping an eye on the fight to pick his position: a place that will cause most of the creature-pieces to pass right by an armed opponent if they did something like, say, charge blindly toward his location. If they're not quite so stupid as that, perhaps he'll serve distraction enough to gain the combatants a few extra moments as its attention is turned his way.]

[When he gets there, he drops the torso, cups his hands to his mouth, and yells at the top of his voice:]

Would you not have even one prize this evening?

[nyanotech]

[Leeeeaning over your shoulder.]

Do you really think this is a good idea?

[direstnews]

Their weapons cause it hurt. It wavers even now.

...I would grant them time.

[soul_sister]

[It works, more than a few... one attempting to absorb another girl... a small creature of hands and beast both pause, stopping in some churning indecision.]

[nyanotech]

We can grant a bit more if it's chasing us.

[direstnews]

Would that it would be persuaded so.

[Calls again.]

This is but the first of many! We've others, besides.

[12npcs]

[As it drops Asellus ... somehow it seems to be bigger, firmer...

And somehow faster. It turns towards you and starts climbing to you with blurring speed...]

[allsneakandnoplay]

[Raiden takes the chance the distraction has given. He finally leaps off the roof in a wide arc, sword in hand, to come down on the gathering mass from behind - it looks as if he dropped out of nowhere, and his hands move in a blur in an attempt to slash it to pieces.]

[direstnews]

Aah-!

[Flinches back and gets his hands up, though they probably won't do much good to block that. He'd meant to run, but he wasn't expecting it to be that fast.]

[nyanotech]

[Yes that is. Fast.]

Nya?

[12npcs]

[From where he stands, Loki can see the arc of the sword flash. It draws a heavy arc through the creature, parting it like heavy jello. The tip moving almost in slow motion, it passes almost inches from your defensive arm.

The two sides of it shudder in the air and drop in a wet spray of some thick, dark substance.]

[allsneakandnoplay]

[whatever splatter effects just like home]

[12npcs]

[But back home, it didn't seem to trickle in past the plates, sludge in around the circuitry.

Almost at once, your vision and hearing blur. Static takes over as one codec after another open themselves. People you know and people that you don't start talking. Some explaining, others reminiscing, most philosophizing.

All of them talking at once, but none drowning out the rest, your circuit come alive, trying to process all of it at once... From how taffy is made, to existentialism, to the first picnic...

It's almost too much, not enough time, your mind too frail to take it that some feverish haze takes the edges of the codec, blurring them into one voi-

Codecs Offline]

[allsneakandnoplay]

------Rose--! Sna-- Snake--?!

[--*

AAH


AAAAAAAAAAAH

Raiden goes dead still, standing there, trying to process and just not. Maybe he screamed? He's not screaming now. Just staring straight ahead at nothing.]

[nyanotech]

[The hand on his arm probably doesn't even register.]

Raiden?

[direstnews]

Oh, ick.

[12npcs]

[From that first splatter, your mind starts to stumble over yourself. The caw of a mockingbird seems to echo in your mind, bringing up plans within plans within plans. Everything you had intended, everything you had anticipated, everything HE did and didn't, opening up into one perfect, glistening web of possibilities... And with a sick wrench it jerks back further, taking in more, and more, and more, until your mind takes in the dizzying scale of entire world wo-

and it's over, just before something would have surely snapped, leaving you absolutely hollow... empty of everything but apathy.]

[direstnews]

[The noise is not a scream, but it is a very unhappy noise all the same. He clenches his eyes tight shut and presses a hand to his head, as though trying to hold himself together- or as though trying to hold the world, or something much closer to home, at bay.]

[And then, all at once, the tension there goes slack, and the eyes blink open, no light behind them.]

[nyanotech]

[Slumps a bit behind Loki, relieved.]

That was close.

[nyanotech]

[Except those, those aren't good reactions at all.]