It is not a small, shocked sound that parts her lips, but a frightened, disgusted noise that bounces off the walls and reverberates through the house. She should be ashamed of herself and she should, immediately, apologize for making so much noise, but she's much too busy attempting—and failing—to hide behind Essence as more of those creepy hands appear.
"WHAT IN DA FUCK IS DAT?!?!"
A trembling hand points at the first, then the second, and then the third of these monstrosities that appear. She is so overwrought with fear that she almost doesn't hear the comment from the woman Avery continues to hug.
"BABIES?! Dese tings ain't be no babies I ever seen before!"
The fact that she's missing hit points nearly flies over her head. It's by pure chance alone that she realizes she's been hurt. Not by much, but enough to also scream and wail about it.
"Dese babies be attacking me! Dey hurt me! I'm missing healt." Her voice lowers to a grumble that only Essence can make out. "What in da nine hells is all dis mess. Dis shit. We need ta get da fuck otta here. Dat lady is fucking crazy and I ain't be dying a second time in dis fucking game because of her and her babies."
The intention of Avery’s charade was deceptive, yet in the woman’s arms, she felt so safe. Avery’s real mom is great, but years of witnessing humanities underbelly took a toll on her spirit. Every call chips away at her mother’s energy, leaving nothing but a husk by the end of the day. Her mom is present, but rigid. Tense. A hug from her feels nothing like the hug Avery was wrapped in now. In the arms of his motherly stranger, Avery was enveloped in a warm love that felt alive. Nothing else in the world mattered. This embrace wasn’t weighed down by the paperweight of drunk drivers and robberies. This hug was for her. Avery had never realized how disconnected she was from her own mother until this moment. A deep and honest sadness washed over Avery, and she clung to the woman, almost forgetting that she was here for a reason.
A few minutes ago, the archer had suspected that the woman was behind all of the weird things that were happening in this cave mansion. Avery remembered this, and pulled out of the hug for a second. She knew what a fake smile looked like, and was good at telling whether or not someone was lying. She looked into the woman’s eyes, and saw nothing but genuine care. The woman’s smile was without perceivable deceit. Avery was convinced of the woman’s innocence, wracked with a manipulator’s guilt. The woman accepted her without thought. She held Avery as she “cried”. This stranger didn’t hesitate to love her, and now Avery didn’t want to let go.
Eventually, she peered up at Triss and Essence, who had unearthed the little monsters, or babies, as Mom would call them. They were hideous, and bore the root of that rancid odor, spewing it at will. The archer didn’t even really know how to react to the creatures that they were faced with, but subconsciously matched her new Mom’s tempered disposition. Avery scrunched her nose. “Mom. Those are seriously disgusting. And it smells so bad in here.”
But her bag of potions held a solution for everything (mostly). “Hold on.” She crawled a short distance to her satchel and pulled out three small vials. Each contained a minute dosage of lavender colored liquid, with an aroma manufactured to match. What followed was a complex maneuver mastered in the mines of crafting. A land where alchemy was a rare art, but not to be doubted, creating splash potions of numerous effects. Throwing a vial towards @Trissayne Lavelle and @Essence, Avery watched as a plume of purple smoke wafted up from the shattered glass, ideally protecting them from the noticeably damaging stench. Popping open a second vial, she inhaled the fumes directly, clogging her senses with a much more pleasant (and less fatal) distraction. This left one vial for @Viz Ventani, who still hadn’t emerged from the other room. She could only hope that they were safe outside of her supervision. This didn’t seem to be the simple sidequest she had promised the newer player.
She held the open vial out to Mom. “You can inhale it like I did, if you want. It’ll help with the smell. I made it myself.”
Viz held herself against the room's edge, her eyes running over all it had to offer while she kept herself hidden away. No other doors... Just the two of them in here. That meant Jason would have to leave with them through the front, and she could only imagine how cooperative that woman down there would be with that idea. Still, she grimaced when she laid eyes on the old man who must have been Charles. His wounds were grisly, regardless of being bandaged to Finweald and back. She found herself staring at his grossly out-of-place wheelchair while she listened to him mumble and mutter, and her brow raised over her previously squinting eyes. That scowl she always seemed to wear was present again. Inexplicably, she had expected Charles to be some kind of loyal servant or deceptive henchman. The weak, haunted man before her was anything but. In fact, he appeared to her as more of a victim that Jason was in this situation.
But she couldn't spend all day skulking around. "She's worried sick about you, you know." Her voice intruded into the space before Viz stepped forward and allowed herself to be seen again. She held her hands open in front of her, as if to signal an unthreatening intent while she stood beside the door. She continued without waiting for either of them to react, "She said it's been three weeks since you left and never came back. Little girl's been drawing poster after poster hoping someone would come find you and bring you home. That's why we came here." She explained plainly. If there was anything that seemed to grasp Jason's attention, it was little sister Charlotte. Lucky for them. That girl's devotion might be the only chance at convincing this guy to get a grip.
Viz's eyes darted between the two of them cautiously. She couldn't be sure that they wouldn't raise the alarm or treat her as a threat, despite her attempt at negotiation. At first she meant to test the waters, but this may be the only chance she gets to speak. She needed them to trust her. "There's something wrong about this place. We went deep into a cave in the middle of a forest to find this place. Look around." She urged, her eyes breaking off from them to do so herself. "The shadows don't match up to the light from the fire." If they had not yet regarded her with malice or aggression, Viz would finally move her body to point and draw a line from the fireplace to the chair where Charles sat. Though the flames flickered and danced softly in their hearth, the shadow of the chair remained still, cast at an angle that simply didn't line up with the only source of light in the room with them. Her eyes landed next on the paintings hung on the walls, another inconsistency staring her in the face that prompted her to extended her arm to gesture to. "The pictures. Look at the way they stick out. And it doesn't even feel like there's a fire going in here." She then noted the lack of warmth she felt against her skin.
"Look at him." Viz held an open palm towards Charles while holding a hard stare at Jason. "He's barely alive. Do you think he's getting better here? The past three weeks, has he gotten any better?" Perhaps it was crass to regard the old man this way--right in front of him no less--but it was difficult for Viz to accept that Jason could take one unclouded look at him and believe that nothing was out of the ordinary. In fact, she challenged him to tell her so.
Rolls
Expertise Check
1d100 (41) + 0 = 41
Awareness | Viz Ventani | Saskia's Big Project
"Um, excuse me? I don't know! Don't use me as a meat shield!"
Essence rolled her eyes, but let Trissy hide behind her. She kept herself grounded - mentally and physically - by planting her feet, staring down the not-peaches. "Ma'am, they hurt us. You gon' let these babies hurt us? We're your guests. Why are you letting them hurt me? Why are you hurting me, mom? Don't you care, mom?"
Hurt wrapped around her heart like barbed wires. This woman they trusted... could not care less about the attack. The stench was non-existent now, replaced by the seething rage Essence felt take over her. Her father hit hard with his words. She learned to hit harder. Her mother watched like it was a game. And even if she won, she'd never be enough for that pitiful woman standing by as her daughter screamed until the morning sun rose, and cleansed the household of its disgusting impurities. The imitation: putting a smile on her face, exchanging casualties, smelled far worse than the not-peaches ever could. Though Essence - so consumed by hatred - hadn't noticed Avery's potions were aiding in her nose's battle against the stench. Pain seeped through Essence's voice, rising. Higher and higher. Beauty twisted into bruteness. Harmonic magic flowed, spreading past her, to others, the Elf's cathartic release pressing against Trissy and Essence's minds.
"Let's stay. It'd be rude to leave, Trissy, babe, c'mon," she stared Mom down, but whispered to Trissy. "I wanna destroy her babies. I hate abusive mothers. Didn't you see how Jason was around her? It's... familiar," she pursed her lips, avoiding the relation that could possibly come back to bite her later. "and it pisses me off."
Rolls
Heal (AoE)
1d20 (14) + 5 + 0 = 7 (Total divided by 3) +7 HP to 3 targets
Harmonic Magic | Essence | Saskia's Big Project
+11 HP (rounded up from 10.5) to @Trissayne Lavelle & Essence (me)
As she pulled away from @Avery Aphelion hug, the woman's shoulders would jump at the noise of the bin falling, and then again at the sound of @Trissayne Lavelle's shout. If Jason, Charles, or their newest family member Avery had spoken aloud such foul language, she might've had the nerve to correct them, but this was a guest, so she let it slide. The comment regarding the hideous babies, on the other hand, she would have to defend.
In my experience, all babies look a little strange at first. Any baby of mine wouldn't look like that. But maybe Traveler babies look a little different. After all, I'm just babysitting these ones.
(While the volume of Trissayne's later comments would decrease, she had picked up one part before the quieting that piqued her interests.)
Health? Oh gosh, you're Travelers too, huh? I guess that picks up different with your bars and all that. It might be hurting you, but it won't kill you, promise! Sometimes they spit up a little, but that's what babies do
The woman resigned to her ignorance on the matter. All she knew of travelers was their immense power, confusing slang, and endless generosities.
In the moments that followed the initial gusts, Trissayne and @Essence, the two victims, would be able to notice a shift in their surroundings. Those bookshelves that stood lacking were full, and the cobwebbed tables and rickety chairs with broken, wobbly legs clicked into attention, standing straight and proper and polished. It was only once the potion thrown by Avery crashed at their feet that their high would be reduced, and the fantastical cave-bound paradise would fade back to it's usual dreariness, with empty shelves and rickety tile flooring. To imagine the place as anything more than a husk of a home would make anyone a pretender.
I'm truly sorry, dear, that it's hurting you so, but I promise that it's an acquired scent. Once you get used to it, it won't do you no harm! It just takes a little getting used to, that's all. I'm sorry…
The woman eagerly answered Essence's pleas, a sympathetic guise across her face, as she pursed her lips. Rising to her feet and taking one step towards the kitchen area, she lifted her arms to reach toward them, but had no mystical gifts to ease them. A truly cruel and mundane fate awaited the particularly powerless NPCs of this world, unable to help those in pain. She could only hope and pray for their peace. As Essence called upon their harmonic magics, the woman's hands were clasped together, watching. Healing energies encircled them, repairing the lowered indicator for health. The woman smiled, observing a greater power at work. Magnificent were their miracles. Travelers, a gift to the world. She loved them so.
It was the most she could do to clap for them. If only she could do the same.
Jason and Charles both almost bounced out of their skin as @Viz Ventani became viz-ible. Whoa. Immediately muttering to himself, the old man set into a panic that Jason had snapped him out of many a time before. Those other times, however, freeing him didn't have such a simple solution.
It's her… It's her… It's her…
It's not her, Charles. Look.
Once he calmed down from the initial shock of the stranger in the room, Jason grasped the handles of the fourth-wall breaking wheel chair and swiveled it around. The old man's exhausted eyelids raised, and his fright also faded as he recognized not the reaper of his nightmares, but one who shared many of the same traits. The pointed ears, the vibrant eyes, the gleaming hair.
As Viz spoke, Jason tapped his chin, staring to the side and downward. What he wondered felt like an impossible choice, and every time he drifted off the island, his boat was drawn back. It was as if aspects of his thought were completely out of his control, but that didn't stop him from trying. All the while, Charles didn't dare look away, his ears gobbling up everything that the Faerin had to say. The previously frightened, and before that dilapidated man was reinvigorated with this new arrival, his wrinkled cheeks bent into an excited, eternally amused smile.
She sees it too, huh? Haha! I've been telling you, boy! Both you and her! All this time, this place was never quite right and I kept saying it, but neither of you would see it, huh? And that girl, that… @Saskia, whatever the hell… She's been lying about this place since she brought me here. I knew it, I always knew it! Been getting these visions...
(As Viz told Jason to look at him, Jason obliged, staring at the mangled, half-eaten body through and through. This Faerin was right. Absolutely right. The tether broke, his mind free from the repetition. Charles didn't mind that she had called him barely alive, practically bouncing in his seat at the confirmation he was finally hearing. He thought he'd be long dead before anyone agreed with him again. )
Now you listen to her, you listen, Jason. You take those twigs…
(Charles looked down toward Jason's legs, wincing, his eyes welling up slightly.)
Cause you still got a lot more than me down there… You take those twigs, and you go with this girl. You better get home to Charlotte, you hear?
The older man reached up and clasped the side of Jason's face, clinging, as if forcing the boy to make a vow, before letting him go and collapsing back into the chair, alive, but immobile. Jason turned to Viz once he was done, nodding, willing to follow.
I have to go home. My real home.
On the floor, the NOT PEACHES gathered into a ring, placing all of their bulbs together. An incongruent twitching processed through each of their meaty bodies. The sound of bubbling and the scent of melting plastic excreted from the little beings, before a smoke set low through the room, as if rising from the floor. Whatever cloud the creatures had summoned, it now flooded the room, inescapable. Despite this, the pleasant defenses provided by Avery's potion would partially protect their breathing against its effects. For now.
Characters in the main room, @Avery Aphelion, @Trissayne Lavelle, and @Essence would've taken 30 damage, but it was reduced by half by potion's olfactory protection. 15 damage to each!
There are currently 4 NOT PEACHES. NOT PEACHES have 107 HP.
But one of them has 103 HP instead.
But they're all functionally the same.
Probably.
[hp=current]max[/hp]
YOUR POST
[action]
Roll results
NOT PEACH (1-4)
Remaining HP:
[/action]
Play Sheet Link
It feels like she's at Walmart again, picking up candles and sniffing them before shaking her head and putting them back on the shelf. This time, with Avery's concoction, the scent remains, lingers even, and coats the membrane inside her nostrils. She's thankful for it, grateful even, but she can't bother to express this in words because of these fucking things crowding around her and Essence. And to top it all off, these weren't even this woman's babies? Who the hell did they belong to then?!
There was too much that wasn't adding up and Trissayne was close to her breaking point. In fact, with another glance around the room and Essence's words in the back of her mind, Trissayne figures, in that moment, she's had enough. This was a game, right? Games had rules and rules could be broken.
Fuck these babies.
Focusing on the Not Peach closest to her, she lifts her hand and attempts to begin the process of draining it of its life's blood.
Rolls
Normal Attack
1d100 (73) + 15 + 10 + 15 = 113 113 damage Lose 10 HP from Exceed Hemomancy | Trissayne Lavelle | 608 | Exceed 10
"So you'd watch us die? That's all I needed to know."she scoffed at the woman's comments, shaking her head. She'd been boiling inside. The steam of frustration spilling out of the pot needed a release. And the not-peaches were disgusting, still hurting herself and Trissy, still disgusting amalgamations that triggered something deep within, hidden. Dangerous. Essence picked up a chair. One that flashed before her eyes - from perfection to a rickety-mess, and back again. What games were being played, she wasn't sure. However, the Elf was sure about smashing a not-peach with a chair. Over and over again. Until it broke. And then she'd pick up another. Then, she'd pick up a table. Essence's rage hardly knew any bounds. She learned from the best, after all. The nicest of men had seen her put on a similar show before: damaging their things, damaging their hearts, putting on a manic show. This time, however, Essence wasn't trying to end a relationship out of fear. Out of avoidance. She saw red. Felt her temples throb with the headache of remembrance. In a game where she sought escape, Essence wasn't expecting to be presented with a mother who she saw as neglectful, possibly abusive, and willing to stand by as someone (Avery) she'd call a child was harmed. Primal grunts and shouts came from Essence as she fought back. In the aftermath, hair tussled, glistening stains from tears streaking her cheeks, chest heaving, she stood next to Trissy in triumph.
"When our Health is damaged, you should know we die. Your babies were killing us. You stood there. You're not a real mother, are you? A real mother cares. And, like, you keep your fuckin' babies in a trash bin. What's going on here? Is Jason getting hurt like this, too?"
In her hatred, Essence released her rampant emotion, spreading it to the woman before her - so that she, too, would know what it was like to suffer. The Elf only saw her own mother in this woman, and in causing the stranger's suffering, it felt like avenging a sad, sad life of never being good enough to the very being who birthed her.
Avery watched as @Essence and @Trissayne Lavelle absolutely obliterated two of the not-peaches. They were disgusted and angry, rightfully so. This entire quest was more unnerving than she had anticipated. Walking into this cave, she had thought she would find Jason, dead or alive, and deliver the news (or the man) to Charlotte. But, here she was, newly adopted, in a cave mansion, watching her allies bash monsters with chairs and tables while her new mom quietly cheered them on. The whole situation seemed absurd.
Nevertheless, these creatures were damaging her party, and like any good support she had to help them. She drew an arrow, and aimed it at the one not-peach that seemed injured from Essence’s rampage. Her target wasn’t too far away, given that the room they were in wasn’t very big, and was able to land a fatal shot. Surely, the remaining not-peach was not going to be much of a threat against the three of them, so Avery didn’t think much of it and moved on.
“These aren’t her babies, Essence.” She turned to Mom. “So who’s babies are they, Mom?”
At this point, Avery had no idea whether or not this woman was on their side or not. Maybe Mom was charmed or hypnotized. Maybe she was the perpetrator, and was better at lying than Avery herself. By her deductions, this was unlikely, but possible. Maybe this woman was abused, or in denial, or plainly clueless. Perhaps Avery herself had been blinded by the love that the woman had offered her so easily. There was no answer to any of these questions yet. If this was like any situation Avery had ever been in, the truth would eventually unveil itself.
Avery thought again about @Viz Ventani, and became aware of how much time had passed since her friend disappeared upstairs. She decided to retreat from sight for a second to send her a quick message. It read:
“Shit’s crazy down here. You okay up there?”
She turned her attention back to Mom. “Mom, if you know anything, please tell us what’s going on.”
Their reaction to her pleas were better than she could have hoped. In fact, Charles' enthusiasm caused a satisfied smile to sit crooked on her face, her chin lifting a bit with a sense of pride. Her plan was working! Now that Jason had his head on straight, they just had to get him out of this 'house' and out of the cave to make the trek back to the city. Before she went marching back to the door, however, something about Charles' rambling left her cocking her brow again...
"There's somebody else here?" She questioned, referring to 'that girl' he seemed so repulsed by. She'd listen eagerly to anything Charles had to say about this place, but then something about how he spoke to Jason when he commanded the younger boy to flee had her expression twist into one of trepidation. "Why don't we take you with us, too?" There was this hesitant, almost jeering tone to her suggestion, like she was presenting such an obviously correct course of action. "I mean, I can't carry you, but that wheelchair works, right? My party is downstairs, I'm sure they could help." Viz stuck her thumb over her shoulder to gesture towards the door.
On which note, Viz started to tread cautiously back towards their exit. It was about now that the commotion could be heard clearly from up the stairs, and she tried to peek outside of the cracked doorway without swinging the barrier wide. She wasn't in a rush to confront the others just yet, and so she lingered upstairs with the two men. She wanted a new plan. She wanted to know as much as possible before making her next move here. Just then, her UI made her aware of an incoming message. At the very edge of her vision, she caught sight of a notification that pulled her eyes away from the dusty clouds of smoke that she could see pooling up on the first floor. She flexed her hand to access the message from Avery and her red eyes trailed a single line across the air. She frowned. Before sending a response, she posed another question to her captive company. "What about that woman downstairs? Do either of you know anything about her? Seriously, I don't plan on coming back here, so if anyone else is stuck here needing to be rescued, now's the time."
