in the woods dark and deep I offer you eternal sleep

[aarnethompson]

Who: Alba, Alexia Swiftdawn, Anna Demirovna, Bruce Wayne, Cliona Donovan, Data, Don Draper, Ilde Decima, Irene Adler, Jae-hyun Kim, Jaime Lannister, Kalinda Sharma, Marie-Sixtine St. Vincent, Martel, Nuray Amedi, Penelope Lane, Odessa Wander, Pepper Potts, Rex Lewis, Seoraj, Shrieky, Sunny, Wolfgang Einhorn, Xas
What: Something bad is afoot, and you must help.
Where: Abrogate Green, Badside, Barrackham, Chnum, Echomire, Flag Hill, Gallmarch, Ketch Heath, Pelorus Fields, Raven's Gate, Sangwine, Serpolet, Sobek Croix, Stoneshell, and the northern woods
When: July 22nd to the 30th
Notes: People are slow right now and a few are on hiatus, so slow-tagging and back-tagging are totally fine. Please check the accompanying OOC post for info and to coordinate.
Warnings: Disturbing content, will include violence, choking, drowning, body horror, and animal death.

Strange events tend to go unnoticed in Baedal, compared to the much stranger things happening around them. People don't tend to be noticed when they go missing, either. The city takes these things in stride. After all, people get called back to their homeworld all the time, or they die. Everyone knows this.

Still, rumors start cropping up around the city about the sudden appearance of twelve identical towers positioned around the city like the face of a clock...

ALBA ♞ Cliona Donovan
DON DRAPER ♞ Pepper Potts, Kalinda Sharma
ILDE DECIMA ♞ Irene Adler, Marie-Sixtine St. Vincent
JAE-HYUN KIM ♞ Sunny
MARTEL ♞ Data, Jaime Lannister
NURAY AMEDI ♞ Alexia Swiftdawn, Anna Demirovna
ODESSA WANDER ♞ Rex Lewis
SEORAJ ♞ Bruce Wayne
SHRIEKY ♞ Xas
WOLFGANG EINHORN ♞ Penelope Lane

Comments

[caballero]

It doesn't take Bruce long to notice Seoraj is missing, but longer than he'd have liked to ascertain it's not because he's been spirited away from the city. (The sensation at that initial thought - somewhere in his chest - isn't one he's looking into further.) They speak frequently enough (for him), usually in the mornings, sitting inside his wooden house with worn mugs full of tea, or just over the CiD. Beyond that, a gregarious fixture of the neighborhood running a rather noisy trade suddenly up and vanishing draws attention.

He finds the tower in a relative heartbeat. He argues with the woman (doesn't get anywhere), experiments with the party-goers (nothing), sends a series of highly irritable texts (that yield no help), finds the castle impenetrable and generally has every militant and scientific impulse in him shot down.

And so with extreme, grudging prejudice, he begins the errand he's sent on, impatient and very nearly pissed off - not worried, because being worried would imply he's over-invested and doubts Seoraj's ability to look after himself (though he did get kidnapped, so maybe he should be w- no). It's a puzzle and he'll sort it out; the likes of a magic tower aren't going to thwart him. Anger, he knows well, is the best of all motivators. The chill doesn't settle into his bones until he finds the first chest.

Somehow, he'd been imagining doll parts.

[aarnethompson]

The body in the chest could be a doll. Almost. Curiously free of blood, and yet still gory - that is, after all, a real human body - she looks almost more like a wax figure. Up until she's assembled again, joints and muscles pressed into each other, and then her eyes open and she raises her head and gasps for air, a hoarse rasp.

She's maybe in her early to mid thirties, so not exactly the traditional definition of a maiden - but then, neither is Seoraj, really. She's xenian, but it's not immediately obvious, just when you look closely. Her fingers are webbed. Her eyes are bloodshot and roll back into her head slowly. There are thin pink lines in her skin where her body parts came back together, like doll joints, she'll probably always have the scars.

"Where..." But she knows where she is - the gold chest tucked in the backwaters of Chnum, where nobody should have been looking. Her eyes open, unfocus, focus, unfocus again. Her hand flies to her throat, there's nothing there. "The key." She turns and her eyes find Bruce for the first time and her voice is rusty and low, like she hasn't used it in a while; god knows how long she's been in there. "Did my mother send you?"

[caballero]

It's faintly disturbing to watch, and Bruce stays very still while it's happening, not sure what to expect. As she starts to stir in earnest, he takes the water-skein off of his belt and offers it to her, wordless. (Somehow his first thought when she touches his throat is 'Did she expect her head to be missing', bleak.)

"I hope so," is all he has to say to that. Her mother? That old woman? It doesn't sit well with him - how long has this woman been here, why couldn't someone ask for help for just this, why now, why...

It doesn't matter, he has to get through this, and get moving. Seoraj is still there, unreachable without these keys. And so, gentle but firm, he presses on: "What happened to you is happening again, and I need to stop it. Do you know where your key is?"