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[indent][color=gray][i]It was quick like a blow to the head.

Hot, crippling pain exploded in your skull. A piercing light flashed behind your eyes. A terrible, trembling horror ripped through you like knives of ice. Blinded, you felt as if you were falling, falling from an impossible height, down and deep into a hungry hot chasm stretched wide to receive you like the great maw of a beast. Its damp swirling breath smelled bittersweet, like chocolate laced with a hint of cinnamon ...[/i][/color][/indent]

You awaken at night to the creaking of crickets and the sob of an owl. Your bruised, aching limbs are tangled in a pile of warm strangers -- other people, like you, deposited all in one place, to the detriment of whomever was first to arrive.

The air is cool and calm on your cheek; it smells sweet like rotting leaves and copper. You and your new comrades are collected on a low, circular metal platform that is half-buried in the dirt and looks as if it's been there for centuries; there are markings etched into the surface, obscured by ancient moss and creeping ragged vines.

Above, a thick rustle of leaves and mossy branches obscures the sky, but you are not without light: a weathered old lantern hangs from a high bough of a tree, held up by a thin shimmering thread. It casts a steady bright glow upon the platform directly below it, and it illuminates the small clearing of weedy flowers and spines that lay between you and the dark towering woods.

The tree -- which rises old and twisted beside you, and whose dark gnarled branch supports the lantern that is your only light -- is ticking.

[img]http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm243/jelost/blue1.jpg[/img]

The bright light of the lantern above casts a pale blue glow. An owl is perched on the branch above it, staring down with bright bored eyes. The metal platform is still and cold, crisscrossed with heavy brown vines and thick moss. The tree is ancient, wide, and stripped of all but a few scraps of bark; it is covered with old scars and holes from claws and burrowing birds. Deep inside the trunk, barely audible over the rustling leaves, is a metallic sound: [i]click-clack whirrrrr. click-clack whirrrrr. click-clack whirrrr.[/i]

Just beyond the reach of the lantern's light there appears to be a path through the trees -- but it is hard to make out in the darkness.

[img]http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm243/jelost/red2.jpg[/img]

The bright light of the lantern above casts a pale red glow. The metal platform is cracked through the middle; sapling trees grow out of the fissure, and the rest is covered in grass and tough weeds. In the grass beyond the platform, just within the light, a small white-furred rodent scrabbles in the dirt. The tree which bears the lantern is huge, ancient and twisted grotesquely. There is a deep dark hole in the bark, through which a distinct, strained mechanical noise can be heard: [i]screee chik-chak. rrrrrrrr. screee chik-chak. rrrrrr.[/i]

Deep in the dark woods, far beyond the reddish glow of the lantern, there is sometimes a small flash of green light.

[img]http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm243/jelost/green1.jpg[/img]

The bright light of the lantern above casts a pale green glow. The metal platform flashes bronze between wide patches of yellow lichen that fill the intricate carvings of runes and geometry, and it hums ever so slightly. The tree beside it, which holds the lantern above, is old and ragged, burned and tattered on one side as if it had been hit by lightning long ago. Inside the trunk there is a creaking and groaning noise, of metal against metal: [i]kkssss chak. tick-tick-tick-tick kkssss chak. tick-tick-tick-tick.[/i]

Just by the edge of the lantern's reach, something smooth and white like bone sticks up out of the weeds and grass. Beside it, something small and shiny catches the green light.