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cotillion-the-rope · 4 years

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Not Hollow Chapter Five: Resting Grounds

I'm still not completely happy with this chapter, specifically the latter half with the Seer, but sometimes you just gotta accept that something ain't gonna be as good as you'd like it to be and just let it be good enough and upload it so you can move on to work on other things instead of continuing to stress about it.

On the way back to the Teacher’s Archive, Hornet filled Quirrel in on the specifics of the situation and what she needed his help with. She didn’t want to share that much information about her siblings and their suffering but Quirrel knowing the specifics might be important to his search. It was best not to takes chances with that kind of thing especially since she didn’t know how much he already knew or had regained memories of. He asked a few clarifying questions but tactfully didn’t press on anything sensitive such as Hornet’s connection to it all which he didn’t need to know.

When they arrived, he wasted no time. “I’d offer to teach you Monomon’s code so you could help but it’d probably take a while so… it might just be faster for me to look by myself,” he said before heading off to get to work, not even giving her time to reply if she’d wanted to.

That left her with nothing to do but wonder the halls with Grimmchild. … Maybe she should free him from the leash and muzzle. … Had he learned his lesson though? She couldn’t say for sure and she didn’t want to risk getting caught in an explosion to test it so no, she’d keep him leashed for now. She’d made sure nothing was tight enough to hurt him or cause any real physical discomfort so he’d be fine as he was for a while longer. If nothing else it should hammer home the point that he shouldn’t attack things that explode when hit and that he should listen the first time when told to do or not do something.

***

Quirrel wanted nothing more than to leave his old life behind, start new and fresh somewhere else. He’d been in the process of trying to get Lemm to join him, mostly for the sake of a companion because he was tired of traveling alone. But it seems, he wasn’t quite done with Hallownest yet.

The vessel, Ghost as Hornet called them, was someone he’d grown to consider a friend. He’d thought they had everything handled, they certainly seemed more than capable enough, but it seems they hadn’t. They’d cracked too. Which was bad enough by itself but Monomon had died to allow them that opportunity to fix the Infection. Quirrel couldn’t let her death be in vain and he couldn’t leave his friend to suffer if he could help it.

And so, he scoured through the Archives, looking for any mention on how to enter the Dream Realm in a way that would allow one to kill a god there. Luckily, despite his spotty memories, his ability to read Monomon’s shorthand was still intact. His vague memories of his time working in these halls came in handy; he knew for sure which places not to look and had some ideas on where to begin.

He started with everything that had been archived about the Dream Realm itself. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, there wasn’t much, certainly nothing even speculating on how to access it. Next he looked into the Radiance herself because the Dream Realm was her domain. There was a lot more about her, more than even Hornet had told him on the way up here. Though he quickly found out that most of it had to do with research done on the Infection and how to contain her in a vessel. He’d have to shift through that to find anything else. It’d take a while but he didn’t have any other leads. At least it was an interesting topic.

***

“I found something!” Quirrel called as he rounded the corner into the hallway Hornet was headed down. That had taken longer than she would’ve liked but not as long as it could’ve.

She picked up her pace to quickly met up with him. “What is it?” She didn’t dare get her hopes up too high yet but hopefully he’d found something substantial.

“Well uh… it’s not a huge lead and might actually be a dead end now that I think about it,” well, wasn’t that just great? “but… there was apparently a tribe of moths that used to worship the Radiance before the Pale King arrived in Hallownest. There were rumors that they had a way of reading people’s minds and entering the Dream Realm. Alas, there’s not any information on how they did that or even if it’s true or really much about them at all. So uh… I might’ve gotten a bit excited over nothing substantial. It is rather fascinating though, so if nothing else at least we learned more of Hallownest’s past.”

Hornet had heard of the moth tribe before of course but never known that they had a way of supposedly entering the Dream Realm. If she had, her earlier connection about Ghost gaining that ability after she’d lost track of them of them in Crystal Peak would’ve lead her to a different part of Hallownest. “Actually, that might be huge,” she said. It might not be but she was tired of wondering the Archive’s halls regardless.

“Uh… really?”

Not bothering to reply, she took off towards the exit, trusting him to follow or not as he pleased. She just wanted out of here and to finally doing something again.

As much as she was in a rush, she did pause outside Fog Canyon to finally free Grimmchild of the thread. He’d been tethered and muzzled more than long enough and they would hopefully not have to venture back into Fog Canyon any time soon.

As soon as he was free, he hissed at her before flying in a large circle, spitting a few fireballs at nothing. He then flew back to start hovering behind Quirrel’s shoulder as he caught up with her. She was his aunt and he had the audacity to follow someone else just because she’d rightfully disciplined him? … Let him then, she didn’t care.

“Ah, hello little Grimm,” Quirrel said with small hand wave. “Nice of you to join me. Now uh… Hornet, I’d appreciate an explanation. The moth tribe is long gone so even if they could…”

“They have graveyard,” Hornet interrupted. “And I’m almost one hundred percent positive Ghost went there during the time period they gained the ability to travel to the Dream Realm.”

“Oh uh… yeah, I guess that’s a good lead then.”

Without further word, Hornet took off again.

Hornet had been to the Resting Grounds before of course – she’d had a long time to explore all of Hallownest – but she’d never really thought much of it. It was a graveyard of bugs she’d never known, what could there possibly be here that would be of interest to her? Nothing unless there was something here that could get her into the Dream Realm. She didn’t fancy the idea of graverobbing to get it but she’d do what she had to.

First, she had to wait for Quirrel and Grimmchild to catch up. Which thankfully they did fairly quickly.

“Are we going to be digging up graves?” Quirrel asked. “If so, we might want to go get some shovels first.” Well, he apparently didn’t mind the thought of doing such a thing so at least they wouldn’t be having an argument about it if it was necessary.

“I don’t know yet, let’s just explore the place some first.” Hornet resumed walking, going much slower now. She wanted to continue rushing but she didn’t know what they were looking for so slow going and careful examination along the way it was. “Tell me if you spot anything interesting, you too Grimmchild.”

Looking much more closely than she ever had before during her brief prior visits, Hornet couldn’t help but notice that the graves, though old enough for the lettering to be starting to wear away on more than a few of them, seemed to be well tended. Odd, why would anyone bother to take care the graves of a people long gone? Especially in a kingdom so devoid of life. … It also had to mean someone lived nearby that Hornet didn’t know about, right? A discomforting notion considering how long she’d watched over the land while thinking she knew of everyone who inhabited it.

Eventually after reaching and climbing most of the way up a vertical cavern, it was starting to look like they weren’t going to find anything without doing some digging. She was not looking forward to digging up a bunch of graves. She was determined though so…

“Ah, about time you should up!”

Hornet jumped, whipping out her needle to point at… a little old moth using a cane to walk as she approached out of the shadows of a smaller cave. She looked harmless but one could never know for sure so Hornet didn’t dare lower her needle yet.

“I’ve been expecting you,” the old moth continued, seemingly unphased by the needle pointed in her direction.

“Who are you?” Hornet didn’t like this. “And what do you mean you’ve been ‘expecting’ us?”

“You can just call me Seer. And what else could I mean by ‘I’ve been expecting you’ than exactly that? I knew Hallownest’s princess would find her way here eventually. You’re looking for a way to access the Dream Realm, correct?”

Hornet flinched a little, she didn’t like someone knowing who she was and what her goals were when she knew next to nothing about them. Before she could reply though, Quirrel stepped forward to stand beside her.

“Yep, that’s what we’re here for,” he said, seemingly unbothered by this whole situation. “I’m Quirrel, this is Hornet, and this,” he pointed up to Grimmchild still hovering just behind him, “is Grimmchild. We’re looking for a way to enter the Dream Realm so we can kill the Radiance. She’s been causing problems for far too long and there’s a friend of ours that we wish to save from her. I assume since you know what we’re looking for, you can help, right?”

“Yes, I can. Follow me.” Seer turn and started back into her cave.

Quirrel started following her with no hesitation. With a sigh, Hornet forced herself to relax and sheathe her needle at last and follow suit. She was still not a fan of this situation but it probably wasn’t dangerous and if this did lead to a way to kill the Radiance, putting up with it would be more than worth it.

Inside the cave was obviously Seer’s home. Most of the space was taken up by a nest of pillows that the Seer had already settled on. Quirrel sat down in front of her, resting his nail down on the ground beside him, he kept a hand near its hilt though so he wasn’t quite as nonchalant about all this as he seemed on the surface. Grimmchild settled on the pillows, the furthest from the Seer though so he wasn’t completely chill either. Hornet however was far too anxious to sit down so she stayed standing for now.

“How do get into the Dream Realm?” she asked as Seer started pulling out a tea set as if she were planning on serving them tea of all things.

Unphased, Seer continued her tea preparations. “The most efficient way to get into the Dream Realm for the purposes you wish to enter is by using a Dream Nail on an unconscious or near-unconscious bug.”

“Great, where do we get one?”

“Or two,” Quirrel added. “I’ve already come this far in this quest, I’d like to continue if possible.”

“I can give you each one but only in the Dream Realm.”

“That doesn’t help much then.” Hornet didn’t bother trying to hide her displeasure.

“No need to get feisty dear, that’s what the tea is for. I said the Dream Nail is the most efficient way into the Dream Realm, not the only way.”

“So, you’re going to drug us?” Hornet interrupted before she could say more. That wasn’t a pleasant idea but… there probably wasn’t any other choice.

“Yes. It’s mostly harmless though, you should come out the other side feeling nothing but a little groggy. My people used it frequently with little consequence.”

“Your people being the old moth tribe that worshipped the Radiance?” Quirrel asked, seemingly more fascinated by that than the fact that Seer was planning on drugging them.

“Yes. I’m the last.” Suddenly Seer sounded a lot more somber.

Like with Hornet, Quirrel had the tact not to press any further, staying silent instead. Holding back a sigh, Hornet lowered herself to sit beside him.

“Watch her while I do this,” she said. “Make sure she doesn’t do anything she’s not supposed to while I sleep.”

“Hmm… I’d love to but, like I said, I’d like this Dream Nail thing too. How can I assist in killing the Radiance without one after all?”

Hornet was tempted to object; perhaps she didn’t need his help with that part after all but… even if she didn’t want to admit it, she might. Killing a god wasn’t something to be taken lightly after all. And besides, he had very good reason to want the Radiance dead too; he’d been close to Monomon – in what way Hornet wasn’t sure but definitely very close – he wouldn’t want her death to be in vain just like how Hornet didn’t want Herrah’s to be. And the questions he’d asked about Ghost while she’d explained things to him suggested he was fond of them and possibly even consider them a friend. So she couldn’t deny his help, when he was actively offering it.

“Little Grimm can watch over us though, can’t you buddy?” he continued looking over at Grimmchild on the pillows, watching the three of them. He chirped what sounded like an affirmative in reply.

“Good,” the Seer cut in. “With that settled, it’s nearly tea time.”

Hornet rarely remembered her dreams and even when she did, they were never vivid. But here, if she didn’t know better she’d think she was still awake. She was standing on a platform, floating in a bright sky and surrounded by clouds.

“This place is actually quite lovely.”

She snapped around to see that Quirrel was standing beside her. Which actually made sense, they’d come here together so why wouldn’t they remain so. Grimmchild was flying just behind him though.

“Grimmchild, you’re supposed to be keeping watch,” Hornet said, giving him a stern look.

Grimmchild paused for a second before turning to look at her. He then made an apologetic sounding chirp before vanishing, leaving behind a few red symbols in the air that quickly faded too. As suspected though, he could come in and out of the Dream Realm as he pleased.

“Now let’s figure out what we’re supposed to do.” Hornet grabbed Quirrel’s wrist again and started dragging him towards the edge of the platform. Before the reached it another one appeared a short distance away. They both easily made the jump and the next one after that and so on until they reached a platform with a glowing moth on it, presumably Seer even if it didn’t look much like her.

“Here,” she said. “It’s long past time this stasis came to an end.” She lifted her arms and two bundles of light shaped like nails appeared before them.

Without hesitation, Quirrel grabbed the hilt of his. He vanished with a flash of light, presumably returning to the waking world. Not letting herself hesitate, Hornet followed suit; there weren’t any other options available.

She woke feeling rather groggy and sluggish, looking up at Quirrel standing over her. Wordlessly he held out a hand, offering to help her stand up. She wouldn’t normally accept such an offer but whatever, they were allies in this so she might as well.

Back on her feet, she glanced around the cave. They were in the exact same spot they’d been in when they’d gone to sleep. Seer was there too, looking up at them.

Hornet reached for the Dream Nail, instinctively knowing there was no physical component to it, making it more a spell than anything else. She still wasn’t sure how to use it but asking Seer to explain the ins and outs of it shouldn’t take too long. Then they’d be off to kill the Radiance at long last.

#My writing #hollow knight #Hornet & Quirrel #the Seer

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izzy-b-hands · 5 years

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A Different Kind of Fear

The K Company server is a gem and goldmine for random sometimes silly/interesting writing ideas I never would have had otherwise

Which is how this It AU is happening so please enjoy. This and the Ghost inspired fic are gonna make up the start of my Horror Movie AU and I’ll be sure to tag these fics as such!

Also this isn’t going to be canon compliant with either It movie tbh like

I’m just taking Pennywise and putting him where I want and he’s gonna deal with it.

Half of me can’t even believe I wrote this or that it ended up the way it did.

As always, my love to those who read/like/reblog (though I understand if you don’t wanna reblog this one lol.)

“How the fuck is he out here?” Snafu hissed.

“Same way he managed to be in New Orleans, but somehow in Mobile at the same time,” Eugene huffed, staring down the clown waving at them from across the airfield, using the arm of a dead soldier laying on the ground to wave. “Tormenting kids no matter they are.”

“We aren’t kids anymore, so what the fuck does he want?” Snafu glared at the clown, a hand on his rifle.

“Don’t think it has to be kids. Kids are just easier to scare. But y’know what’s out here right now?”

“Whole buncha scared men, some of ‘em not even eighteen yet,” Snafu replied. “Shit.”

“Yeah,” Eugene sighed. “The hell do we do if he comes closer? We can’t start spoutin’ off about seeing a fucking clown in the middle of-”

“You guys see him too?” Ack Ack popped up behind them, seemingly from out of nowhere, and they both jumped.

“Uh...yessir. We see the...clown,” Snafu replied. “How can you see him?”

“How can I not? He used to follow me and my friends all over town. Calling to us from storm drains, showing up in our backyards just...watching us. Always turning into the worst thing you could imagine whenever he got close enough or got anyone cornered. Still think he took one of my friends. They said he ran away but...he wasn’t that sort. But he had that damn clown trying to chase him down almost every day towards the end. He wasn’t sleeping, wouldn’t sit still long enough to eat. Always felt like he had to keep moving to avoid it.”

“Jesus,” Eugene breathed. “So...what did you and the rest of your friends do to get rid of him?”

“We didn’t. I still get letters from some of the boys who couldn’t enlist for medical reasons, saying he’ll try and catch them after work if they’re alone, or show up in the basement of their home as their worst fear. Hell, thought I was losing it when I saw him a few days ago looking like...” Ack Ack looked to the ground and coughed. “I’d rather not say, honestly. It was gruesome.”

“We got guns, enough men to take on an airfield full of Japanese. Why not just go after him before anyone higher up notices?” Snafu asked. “If we split up, and send 1/5 just over-”

Ack Ack held up a hand to stop Snafu. “Not all the men can see him. At least, I’m fairly certain not all of them can. We’d be sending them after a ghost, as far as they’d be concerned. And that won’t do. Besides, I’ve shot at him in the past, and it didn’t do a damn thing. Didn’t even slow him down.”

“He can’t be immortal,” Eugene said, ignoring the clown as it shape-shifted to a vision of Snafu, then Ack Ack, both with bloody bullet wounds in their foreheads. “Somethin’ can kill him. I just know it.”

“Most we can do is keep an eye on him,” Ack Ack said. “You both should rest; we push forward in the morning.”

Snafu glanced over to the clown and shook his head. “Not sleepin’ so long as that asshole is starin’ at us. I don’t trust that he isn’t plannin’ to run over here as soon as we let our guard down.”

Eugene nodded. They’d both been on guard, after discovering they were both being followed by the same monster, during an off-hand discussion in the foxhole that had led to a deeper talk about fear and the scariest thing they’d ever seen. And now that thing was watching them, his head cocked to one side, while he grinned maniacally.

“You can’t not sleep. Or try to sleep, at least. I’ll keep watch for you, and both of you sleep,” Ack Ack admonished.

“Sir, that isn’t fair to the other men, I mean-” Eugene started.

“I gave you an order,” Ack Ack interrupted, but smiled softly. “You both remind me of my friend right now, and I’m not letting that thing get anyone else on my watch.”

They leaned against a wall of the abandoned and nearly destroyed airfield building the company was sheltered in for the night, Ack Ack in between them and

It still wasn’t easy to sleep, with the sound of war ongoing and the threat of the Japanese possibly coming to try and take the airfield back somehow, but he managed. Snafu seemed to have done the same, his head on Ack Ack’s shoulder as he snored. Ack Ack was asleep too, and it hit Eugene like a brick to the face.

Ack Ack was asleep. Snafu was asleep. He had been asleep. No one had kept watch for Japanese or that goddamned clown.

In the corner of the room, the sound of shuffling loafers caught his ear. He turned to look, and there stood his father.

“I don’t even recognize who you are anymore. Killing like that. How many more lives can you take before you’ll be an empty shell, as empty as the veterans from the Great War? And don’t think I’ll call you son after all that.”

He knew it was the clown, knew it was fake, but fear and sadness and hurt seized his heart all the same, and he slapped at Ack Ack and Snafu until they woke up.

“Jesus shit,” Snafu scrambled towards the blasted open section of the wall, pointing his rifle at the clown. “Sledgehammer, move to the side. I’m endin’ this.”

Ack Ack’s hand was on the end of the rifle in a flash. “No, you won’t. It won’t work, and you’ll give away our position-”

“I think the Japanese know we’re fuckin’ here,” Snafu snapped. “And this asshole-”

To Eugene, it was just the clown now, but to Snafu it was clearly something else. His face was contorted with fear, a tear running down his cheek.

“It isn’t real; don’t look at him,” Ack Ack said, turning Snafu’s face towards him even as the clown continued to approach them. “You’re sitting in the dirt in a godforsaken airfield in the Pacific, so whatever or whoever it looks like right now can’t be here.”

Snafu snapped out of it, shaking his head and wiping away the tears. “Please let me shoot him. We have to do somethin’.”

The clown opened its mouth to speak, but the shriek of a mortar interrupted it.

They huddled against the wall, waiting for the ringing in their ears to abate before moving away from it.

The clown was huddled with them, holding onto Snafu’s waist like it was the only thing tethering it to earth.

“Um. Don’t,” Snafu grimaced and wiggled away from the clown’s hand.

“What hell is this?” the clown asked, and they stared at it.

“Sorry?” Ack Ack laughed. “Are you...you are, aren’t you? Scared shitless. What, the cursed pit you rolled out of doesn’t have war?”

“Those things kill your kind,” the clown continued. “I can see it...blood and bone and gristle.” It stared at its hands and Eugene noticed they shook.

“Yeah. That’s what bullets and mortars and flame-throwers tend to do to people,” he said. “Are you...gonna get around to tryin’ to kill us or...”

The clown shook its head. “I should not have followed. This is...this is unholy.”

“So are you, you nasty motherfucker,” Snafu said. “We gotta join up and head out with everyone else so-”

“Do not leave me!” the clown was on its knees, scrabbling to tug at Snafu’s jacket.

“For fuck’s sake,” Snafu groaned. “Stop touchin’ me!”

“Can you not just...go?” Ack Ack asked. “I mean, back home you could go anywhere.”

“Do you see any goddamned sewers here?!” the clown shrieked. “I followed that one on a boat.”

Eugene glared as the clown pointed at him. “Well, I didn’t ask you to follow me! That’s your problem, and your fault!”

The clown sobbed, and they exchanged looks.

“Um. I guess you can stick around with us until someone gets their million dollar wound and gets to go home. I wouldn’t wish you on anyone, but you can follow them back to the States, but you can’t hurt a hair on anyone’s head, do you got me?” Ack Ack said, in the same tone he used for misbehaving soldiers.

“I am not even hungry,” the clown whimpered. “Who could hunger during so much bloodshed?”

The sound of Snafu working on a tin of K rations made the clown shriek again, and they laughed.

“Snafu can,” Ack Ack snickered. “You want to be kept safe from anything that can kill you here? Then he’s gotta eat his rations, so he can be big and strong and scary against the Japanese waiting for us.”

Snafu grinned, in a way that gave Eugene a shiver down his spine, but he smiled too as Snafu directed it towards the clown. “I think I want you to stay. I like you like this. Scared outta your wits, not even able to try and kill anyone. You oughta stay here. Maybe buried under a shit ton of coral, if we could ever dig any of it up.”

“No, no, no,” the clown sat back and rocked back and forth, and they laughed again.

“C’mon. We gotta move,” Ack Ack directed, and led them and the clown back towards the rest of the company.

It was strange, at first, the clown walking behind him, clinging so close he swore that in another moment he’d end up carrying him piggyback through the trees.

Ack Ack was up front, but Eugene could feel his eyes occasionally watching them, and the thing behind them. It was reassuring, even if the clown was basically harmless now, gagging every time they passed a corpse.

“You eat people, you seriously gonna keep gagging like that?” Snafu asked as they dug in for the night, miles away. “I mean...really.”

“This is different!” the clown spat, and Eugene rolled his eyes.

“What? Cause it isn’t fresh meat?”

“No. Different...fear. Different death. It would taste like poison,” the clown said coldly. “Wasted meat.”

“Oh, just wasted meat,” Snafu said. “Hear that, Sledgehammer? He’s just mad this ain’t the perfect buffet for him. Ass.”

“That is not all that I meant,” the clown stuttered, but they both ignored it as it tried to keep talking. There was digging in to complete, cold K rations to heat up and eat, and then a little bit of sleep to try and get before the next battle operation.

Snafu roused him from his sleep far sooner than he wanted, and pointed to the space that had become No Man’s Land. “Lookit this dumbass.”

The clown was wandering No Man’s Land, weeping over the corpses there from previous battles. Before he could run, a Japanese mortar shot out and right through him.

“Holy shit,” Eugene whispered. “Is that...I mean...”

But the clown lived, not bleeding but instead running back to them with bits of its broken form turning into wisps and floating off into the night sky.

“Look!” It shrieked, and Eugene was grateful no one else other than them and Ack Ack seemed to be able to hear it. “Look at what they’ve done to me!”

“You went wanderin’ around like you were takin’ a walk around town. The hell did you think was gonna happen?” Snafu chuckled. “Shame it seems you can’t be killed. Japanese nearly solved our problem for us.”

The clown scowled, and dropped into the foxhole, the hole in its torso slowly disappearing as parts of it reformed. “I hate it here.”

They shared a joyful glance, and bit back laughter.

“Welcome to the club. Everybody hates it here. Hell, even the asshole crabs and the Japanese probably hate it here now. This here is a wasteland of fear and death and disease, and nobody wants to be stuck in it, but we are,” Snafu said. “You better get mean and deal, or we’re just gonna leave you here.”

“You can’t,” the clown begged.

“We can. In fact, so far as I can tell and you’ve mentioned, this is the only place we could truly get away from you once we go back to the States,” Eugene said sharply. “So sit the fuck down, and stay down. Or you’ll starve here on this island.”

What the clown didn’t know, was about the small slips of paper Ack Ack had passed them the last few times he’d been near them, once while marching and then again during dinner, detailing a plan. The plan was just that, to find a spot to trap the clown and leave it. They couldn’t let it make it back to the States, or anywhere else. The island was so ruined that even if folks did inhabit it later, they’d have already seen enough hell to likely not be afraid of it. It would be toothless, unable to survive, and would starve until it died-or did whatever it did when it couldn’t find people to scare and eat.

A firefight broke out, and kept them busy for the next few hours, while the clown huddled and shook beside them, muttering about how badly it wanted to leave.

When they were finally able to move out again, with the corpsmen treating their wounded, they had their chance.

Before the clown could move, Snafu bashed it over the head with a particularly large bit of coral. They waited for it to move, to do something, as the bit of its skull that had been indented turned to wisps. But it stayed down, apparently dead or at the very least wounded heavily enough to be knocked out.

“Holy shit I think we got this. Move!” Eugene shouted, and they scrambled out of the foxhole, filling it back in as quickly as they could, tossing hunks of coral on top of it. It wasn’t a foolproof way to keep it down, but it was better than letting it continue to follow them.

“The fuck is wrong with you two?” a Marine shouted from a few yards away.

“Crab in the damn foxhole!” Snafu shouted back. “He’s dead now.”

“He better be,” Eugene sighed as they fell in with the rest of the company, walking on towards their next assignment. He caught Ack Ack’s eye as they walked, and they shared a nod. It was over. It had to be. And it was over before it had even started for maybe hundreds of kids back at home, who might have been tormented by it.

“Can’t believe it was such a fuckin’ coward,” Snafu said, later that day as they were told to settle in yet again.

“I can. Thing like that can only be a coward,” Eugene scoffed. “Doesn’t matter now, anyway. The thing is dead, and now all we gotta worry about is...”

“Stayin’ alive?” Snafu finished, a grim look on his face.

“...yeah,” Eugene sighed. If only the rest of it was so easy.

“Y’know...might need to check things out once we get home. If we get home,” Snafu said. “Just in case that fucker somehow gets out. Really shouldn’t do that alone.”

“You’d come to Mobile and make sure I’d be safe from it there?”

Snafu nodded. “But only if you come to New Orleans and help me check out my place.”

“I could do that,” Eugene said. It sounded nice, to possibly spend time with Snafu outside of a foxhole, after they’d both had an actual shower. “It’s a date.”

He froze as soon as he said it, feeling a blush heat up his face. But Snafu looked just the same, red as could be, staring at the ground like he was being paid to look at it.

Eugene tried to distract himself from considering what a date with Snafu might entail, but failed miserably even as he tried to focus on keeping watch, for Japanese or a flash of clown hair and clothing.

He was distracted enough from his watch to miss it-standing over near the hiding Japanese troops.

A vision of Snafu, warped due to the thing’s wounds, with a bullet hole in its forehead.

#text post #Horror Movie AU #LeeH writes #this isn't exactly Sledgefu but #edging near it #just boyfriend things when you try and commit the murder of a monster together #I finished this fairly fast so forgive me any typos #I'll do a reread later and clean up anything I missed #I promise lol

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secretgamergirl · 5 years

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RPG Campaign Setting Thoughts - Alignments, Death, and Outsiders

Continuing on from this post here, tonight we have some VERY sketchy notes about the Outer Planes and associated stuff, which is going to spill over from world-building into mechanics and this is all too loose for me to bother with anything resembling in-book presentation.

The Outer Planes have traditionally always served two purposes in this cosmology of D&D and its derivatives which are honestly somewhat at odds with each other. They are both the actual afterlife of the setting, where the souls of the dead end up, theoretically for eternity, and they’re where all the demons and devils and daemons and angels and maybe gods and a bunch of other really weird things that exist mainly for the sake of symmetry generally hang out when they aren’t being summoned so they tend to prominently feature as a way to go bigger and more epic late in a campaign. It’s also very much a tradition (which is weird because I can’t think of a single religion that actually works like this) where all of these supernatural creatures are what the souls of the dead BECOME in the afterlife. If you’re neutral good, when you die you become an angel. If you’re lawful evil, you become a devil, etc. (and there’s a lot of weird exceptions because there’s way more outsider types than alignment combinations, and that’s before also factoring in undead and reincarnation and so on).

The problem here of course is that sometimes, the PCs are going to end up dying, and having friends who die, and when you’ve established that that turns you into one of these cool types of monsters, and that those monsters can be summoned, dying turns into this weird sort of power-up, and this was fixed with a very... game designer sort of solution. Namely, when you die, you completely lose all your memories, skills, personal connections, and really by any reasonable standard straight up cease to exist, being replaced with some new outsider springing into being on whatever other plane who’s really just a different character doing their own thing. And, yeah, that solves that problem, but it creates the new one that WOW, THIS AFTERLIFE REALLY SUCKS!

Now, I did already establish for this setting the concept of a layered prime material plane, where you can essentially have your high level alternate universes as weird little pocket dimensions you can honestly just walk right into without even using magic... but I mean, visiting the outer planes is still a cool fun thing to do, and fighting demons is a cool fun thing to do, and your soul transforming into some weird thing in the afterlife is just neat. So I don’t want to drop any of that, but I want to make some tweaks.

Also? Death sucks game mechanics wise. Players, as it turns out decades down the road from when this whole RPG thing first began, tend to be really attached to their characters, and don’t want to just rip up their sheets when they die. They want to cheat death. Which is fine. But the way you cheat death is you pay a bunch of money and either have your cleric cast a quick spell (or rush back to town to find one) and tada, you’re back with some temporary experience penalty you either kinda walk off or buy off. Which is all very... weightless. And straight up losing cash sucks if you’re saving up to buy fancy magic stuff. AND you don’t even get to visit the afterlife really.

So... the standard raise dead spells? They’re gone or at least getting alterations (gotta keep reincarnate in some form because I have a soft spot for it). Plane shift? Also gone. Instead we are going to dust off our old pal Astral Projection, have it at a reasonable level, and no, when someone gets killed, you have to cast that sucker, chase them across the astral plane, maybe to one of the outer planes, and have this whole mini adventure of rescuing their soul and shoving it back in their body.

Also? I am sticking to a hard and fast rule that the material plane is the physical plane, and all the outer stuff is all souls and magic. Nobody gets to bring their body with them which also means you don’t get to bring all your fancy equipment. You’re either a ghost getting sucked into hell or you’re a demon that used to be a ghost or you’re still alive but effectively a ghost tethered to home by a silver cord.

By the same token, outsiders can’t just physically come over to the prime material plane. This is kind of a big fundamental shift in things, but at the end of the day, isn’t it just freaking weird that there’s never really been a place in D&D for demonic possession?

So, tada. That’s a thing now. Outsiders on the material plane need to borrow something to use as a body. A willing person to possess, or an unwilling person subjected to a proper ritual first, or a recently sacrificed corpse, maybe some kind of magical focus stone. This is one of the sketchier parts of the idea here, but no matter how it works out it’s a built in adventure hook, and it doesn’t really change a ton because obviously being possessed by a whatever dramatically transforms the host into the standard existing stat block until its defeated. Summon spells kinda need a material component or a focus I guess, or maybe even not because like you’re calling up a whatever but you can’t really anchor it so it just has this unstable body made of dust and debris and temporarily conjured matter.

I’m also tempted to straight up invent a new divine caster class to fit in with this theme that’s all about having some outside pal they let possess them in combat. Get the whole Devilman sorta thing going, Maybe in a little subsection with a really dex-y fighter and a different take on an arcane type and a rogue type for a really non-standard but complementary core 4.

Back on the side of dying and visiting the other planes though, I say this is a good place to wedge in a good ol’ corruption mechanic. If you die,and your friends manage to catch up to you while you’re streaking across the astral plane, cool, no harm, no foul. Once you end up in whatever plane though, you gradually start to turn into whatever sort of outsider. Subtle cosmetic stuff at first, sprouting horns and getting weird colored hair and maybe a tail first, some slight shifts in personality, and over months or years you just kinda naturally lean into that, and your class levels fade away, and you just kinda naturally go all in on being a mephit or an azata or whatever the hell thing.

And then when your friends do get your soul back and shove it into your body again, that weird metaphysical transformative soul corruption deal doesn’t just go away. That’s partially demonified you possessing your old body now, so, you keep the horns and the flaming eyes and stuff as a permanent reminder of that time you died for a bit and you can be all angsty about it and maybe rededicate yourself to something because that’s not an afterlife you want to go back to, and honestly if you’re the sort of person with a real thing for dramatic mid-campaign transformations and you want a character to look all furry or glowing or be a hot demon gal at higher levels without the mechanical baggage of transformation magic, hey, the door’s open a crack for you.

Also speaking of succubi, while I’m playing around with outsiders, this one has always bugged me. Say we’re going all 7 deadly sins. We’ve got our wrath demons- big angry spikey jerks, maybe on fire. We’ve got our sloth demons- big gross sluggy things who can barely move. Our gross-Kirby gluttony demons, etc. But then we get to lust and it’s this super hot seductress. That breaks the pattern and I hate it. I am definitely kicking them out of that niche and replacing them with proper lust demons, evoking super creepy long-fingered horny dudes.

And really there is room from there to expand into a two-tiered system of outsiders for every plane where there’s the things that are there because they’re what happens to the average person who had this alignment as their reward/punishment, and then there’s the things that are their to make sure things run the way they’re supposed to, are generally more powerful, and are formed from the souls of people who really actively served their patron deity in life. I’m mainly looking at this from the angle of “do the members of the cult of this demon lord realize that in the afterlife they’re all going to become lemures and realize how much that sucks?” but even on the good side, you have to figure the average paladin doesn’t want the blissful retirement package after death, they want to do the whole holy avenging archon sort of thing and continue to kick evil’s ass, right?

Which segues me into alignments. A lot of people absolutely hate the traditional law/chaos good/evil alignment system, but I find as long as you’re careful to use it descriptively rather than prescriptively and you don’t use really messed up alignment definitions (AD&D 2nd ed had some DOOZIES), it’s cool. There is one missing element I would like to formally add in though- An extra variable for mundane and divine/committed/radicalized versons of each. Breaking this down with specific examples...

First and foremost, I am a big big fan of neutral as the default alignment nearly everyone falls into, with everything else being a bit of an outlying extreme. On the good/evil axis then, neutral if for people who you would generally describe as basically good people. They know right from wrong, and generally always try to do the right thing, but they have a strong sense of self-preservation. Truly good people go past that and will, as a general rule, really stick their neck out and take major personal risks or do full-on self-sacrificial things to help people. Evil people are all about looking out for themselves first. Or put more simply, seeing someone being attacked/persecuted/in great need, a neutral person will think “someone should do something,” a good person will think “someone should do something and I’m that someone” and an evil person will think “sucks to be that person” and try not to think about them much.

Meanwhile on the law/chaos axis, lawful people have an unflinching commitment to some form of faith in the system/some particular authority/a rigid personal code of some kind.and will always work within that framework. If that’s always obeying the law, any plan that’s explicitly illegal is off the table, and if the law is unjust, working to change it is the way to go. If they’re super religious, doubting their own deity is never on the table. If they’re strict adherents to a code, they don’t make exceptions. “I’ll never allow suffering” never gets a quiet clause of “unless the person suffering is a scumbag who deserves it” they’re really going to intervene over that.

Someone who is chaotic meanwhile actively has a chip on their shoulder about any sort of bureaucracy, full stop will never “have faith in the system,” generally assume any sort of authority figure is a power hungry scumbag, and while it’s hard to translate this into fantasy terms, be the sort of person who always jailbreaks their phone and has a strict no-DRM stance on all their software.

The vast majority of people are, again, neutral, falling between those extremes. Follow the law, trust that calling the cops will usually get things sorted out, but when push comes to shove, most rules are really guidelines and you can make exceptions where you have to.

All of these represent real, realistic attitudes normal real-world people have. Most are true neutral. The corner alignments are the rarest (always going by the book and always sticking your neck out is demanding, looking out for number 1 without bowing down to the powers that be really requires a certain sort of lifestyle, etc.) but there should be people you can point to at all 9 points on the grid, and none of them should really clash so hard that people can’t be friends or live in the same society, and they should all be functional alignments for adventurers since a good adventure should have a mix of personal stakes and rewards and a good party should all like each other enough to stick together through whatever comes up.

Then there’s the more extreme versions of these alignments. Where neutrality becomes about “maintaining the balance” or actively rejecting society as a whole, evil is actively causing harm for harm’s sake, chaos is constant change, law is absolute rigidity and caste structures and such, and good gets really extreme about scope. These are still worldviews actual humans CAN hold, but more typically these are the sort of things supernatural forces get bent out of shape about and have as sources of constant conflict.

Again, lots of loose sloppy notes here, but you can hopefully see where I’m going as far as moral philosophies and cosmology driving games in fun directions, right?

#game design #worldbuilding #rpg campaign setting #D&D

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wbicepuppy · 7 years

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Part 2

Aspen put his laptop away and leaned back to stretch his arms, which were getting sore from spending most of the afternoon typing in the same position. A glance at his watch told him it was much later than he thought, and he’d forgotten to eat all day again. He swore under his breath and rolled off the comfy white couch, lightly making his way to the kitchen so he could at least get some coffee going or something. Time always slipped away from him when he got in the mood for writing, and Dorian would get pissed off if he passed out from three days straight without sleep, like he’d done in the past. It wasn’t that he was particularly bad at taking care of himself, not normally at least, but his sister did get concerned when he shut himself off from the world to really focus on his work.

Not the, uh, consultant work, of course, that one just served to pay the bills until he could get the next arc published. He wasn’t an extraordinairily successful author, but he did have his own small group of loyal readers avidly awaiting the sequel to his psychological modern fantasy series. Of course, he wasn’t doing this for the fans so much as to get the damn story out of his head and into the world, but he certainly didn’t mind the modest amount of attention. The positive kind, at least, because he got enough of the other kind in his day-to-day life.

Aspen remembered to pop a new container of prepared coffee into his machine, and dropped two pop-tarts into the toaster while he was waiting for it to brew. Not the most nourishing mid-afternoon breakfast, admittedly, but at least it was something.

His scalp began prickling, and he frowned. Not today, surely? He was just getting to the good chapters...

Sure enough, just as his coffee finished pouring, the phone rang. It was an older model, wall-mounted and still wired, because he tended to lose anything that wasn’t tethered down. It didn’t have caller ID, but Aspen had never needed something as mundane as caller ID, and he knew when he picked it up that he’d be hearing his sister’s voice.

“Hey Asp, it’s Dorian.” She began, he suspected, out of habit. Of course he knew who she was. “I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”

He eyed the toaster dispassionately. “I’m making lunch, actually. But if it wasn’t important, you wouldn’t be calling me.” Maybe a minute left? How long did toasters take, anyway?

“I - hey, I call you all the time, you just never fucking answer!”

Aspen leaned closer to the toaster, until he could see his reflection in the polished metal. “Because it’s not normally important, but this time it is.” Yeah, he was looking paler than usual there, definitely could use more sleep, but he was already sipping this coffee and that meant he’d only crash somewhere around three or four AM if he wasn’t careful.

His sister went quiet for a moment, bringing him back to the matter at hand. “We need help. Off the records, as usual.”

“Consulting work, gotcha.”

“Like last march. Three dead this time, and it’s... kind of worse. Real messy.”

“Ghosts get messy when they’re angry. What’s the adress?” He glanced at the toaster again. Should be ready now, shouldn’t it?

Again, Dorian was hesitating. She never did like the whole ghost thing, did she? Blood or not, he loved his sister dearly, but she got so protective of him sometimes. Well, always, really, but he usually could take care of himself, damn it. And if he couldn’t, who else would the police call to take care of their weirder cases? One of those “psychics” who made you pay through the nose for vague, fake predictions? He’d looked into them out of sheer boredom once, and not one of those he’d gotten in touch with had an ounce of real power.

The toaster beeped and released his meal, slightly burnt on the edges, he knew it had taken more time than usual, the damn thing was probably broken again. Aspen wrote down the adress on his hand in blue pen. Baker hall was downtown, wasn’t it? Lots of activity in the older parts of the city, but old spirits rarely got violent to the point of killing. Something weird was going on, so it was only normal they’d call someone weird in to take a look. His chapter would have to wait.

Just as he was about to hang up, Dorian called his name. “Asp, you’re all right with this, right?”

He squeezed the phone between his shoulder and ear, freeing his hands so he could break off the burnt edge of his pastries. “It’s fine, Dor. Tell your girlfriend I’ll be there in... call it half an hour. Wait, traffic, make that fourty-five minutes.” He rolled his eyes at the sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line. “I know she’s there. Honestly, Lisa’s one of the few people who want me poking around in your crime scenes. You should tell her to come for dinner some day.”

“If you think you can spare the pop-tarts, sure.”

#more of this halloween thing #Aspen is weird and I'm sorry

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