Mokley

RATTLECHOMP

Yey! 💚💚 wb!

RATTLECHOMP

Toni's been tremendous! 💚💚

@dryden how are you feeling about this scene rn/still wanna jump in? :D

Also anyone else who's still puttering around, give a shout! 🎺

RATTLECHOMP

Nop! 😶‍🌫️

RATTLECHOMP

So question about the Rue: are they in any capacity the lingering spirits of once living people? Or they more akin to things like demons wherein they were never alive to begin with and just ghostlike entities that filter in from a parallel plane?

((Asking because I had a thought on something I'd like Toni to experience if it's possible))

@Wayward

No and yes but maybe. 😄

Rue are alive in their own plane of existence, the same way our characters are alive here. To them, we're the ghostlike demons! It's a matter of perspective.

They aren't ghosts of people who once lived in our plane. However, it could totally be possible that when someone dies on either plane the ghost could manifest somehow in the veil between planes. Just to make it more complicated?

This is to say, if you have a cool idea I'm generally all for doing cool ideas. 😎

RATTLECHOMP

Ye! We're thinking the same wavelength! :D

For this scene I trust you all - you're free to make up the layout of the train, the layout of the cavern outside, what exactly the Rue look like or are doing and how your characters perceive them. Just notes:

- The Rue really want to stop this plant from going forward, but due to the barriers they can't quite get onboard. So stopping and/or derailing the train is their goal. Toni is feeling the outer reaches of their auras, they haven't passed through the walls of the traincar.

- A few of them are extremely angry, but some are just going along with whatever's happening, some seem to think this is a fun party, and others seem to just be hanging out and not involved.

RATTLECHOMP

Putting on a brave face, Neomi answered bluntly. “I am not too sure. I can kind of manipulate air with my hands. It doesn’t do much, to be honest, but look cool…” Neomi felt a little lame admitting this. She hoped she wouldn’t be sent back home for being too inexperienced, but skirting the truth never suited her. “…I guess I need some practice, or guidance.”

@Mole

I... I could feel it... if that makes any sense. Toni blushed a bit as she explained. I mean I can see them, but only vaguely,; they're like blurrs or clouds of smoke that are almost shaped like something. But it's the feeling that I get from them. She paused, staring out the window as if she expected to find something amid the glowing fireflies in the tunnel. Not looking away from the window, she continued. "Most of the time it's just a prickle through my skin. Hairs sticking up. Other times it feels more pleasant, like drifting on a cloud... but then... sometimes it feels heavy. Like a burden. L-like something is pressing against me. That's... that's when I'n sure they mean harm.

@Wayward

“It…” A line appeared between Sasha’s brows as she pulled them down in a frown. It felt unfair to be questioned like this, like they… like she had done something wrong. “It was in front of the train… like it was trying to stop it.” That seems silly, now that she knew the train was warded against them. But then, wasn’t the station supposed to keep out Rue entirely? Would it have been able to stop the train? What could a Rue even do to a person, if it got close? She’d never found out. She’d never asked. “You said they would be coming after you, because of the plant.”
“Most of the time, they just run from me… the gun. I shot one… once. They… the ones in the forest… don’t get close… after that.”

@King Cosmos

The tracks rumbled beneath them, and the car jostled gently back and forth at a consistent but respectfully moderate speed through the gleaming natural caverns. Yiya kept her knobby hands folded over the top of the cane while she wavered to and fro with the sway of the car. Her eyes remained sharp on each Howl in turn as they spoke.

Echoh, meanwhile, drooped dejectedly at the rejection of its fragrant tea and proceeded to put the cups and saucers back into the invisible storage underneath the vibrant terrarium. The robot scuttled deeper into a corner and sat in silence.

"Neomi." Yiya squinted thoughtfully, her chin raised. "What you've got is the breath of the Rue. If you can mess with the air no matter where you are in that protected city, you might be a most powerful Howl." She tapped her cane on the floor and looked at each of them. "What all of you are seeing and manipulating is another plane of existence. A dimension that overlaps ours. At some points the barrier between us is thinner: there the Rue can more easily manipulate our world, but our Howls can in turn manipulate theirs. You could say that to the Rue, you Howls are the strange shadowy visions." She smiled creakily.

"Now, Neomi. In a few minutes we'll be passing through the Gold Cathedral, where there's a wide hole into the Rue's plane: there's nothing like it in Oaken. Even all these wards on the train won't stop you from feeling the wind that blows in their skies. If you relax yourself, let yourself feel that other place, you might catch a little more of that air and pull it into our plane."

Yiya's sharp eyes fell on Toni. "Young Toni. You're a poet, I see. And you've experienced a kind of weight that I hope you never experience again." There was the faintest of sad smiles in her lined face. "You've made some important observations, and I see now something in you. Have you heard the theory of auras and empaths? That our emotions radiate from us and touch the world around us, even if we outwardly appear as if everything is right? You're feeling the auras of the Rue. Each one of them is a different personality: like dogs and cats, like squirrels, like people. And each of them has a different disposition. When we get close to that cathedral, see if you can pick out how many Rue are around us, and maybe their intentions. I wonder if they can read you in turn -- and if that's so, whether you can decide what their sensation of you will be." She squinted thoughtfully, appraising Toni's face.

"And Sasha." Yiya sat up straighter and stomped her cane twice for attention. The red lights in the traincar flickered. "Yes, I believe a Rue would try to stop that train. Stop the Trailing Bird from leaving. It might have gummed the engine or given the engineer a stomachache, or worse, if you hadn't scattered it with your weapon. That is an interesting thing. The barrel's clearly empty, we all heard it click, but the kickback and the danger to the Rue's plane is very real." Yiya tapped a finger on the cane, considering the possibilities. "Let's conduct an experiment. You're obviously manifesting a bullet of some kind in the Rue's plane. The rifle in your hands and the familiarity of the weapon make that expectation a reality. Try focusing harder on making that bullet real. Imagine what it looks like, how cold it is, how heavy. Imagine the chemical reaction that sets it firing off. Imagine how much damage it'll do. But I do wonder. What else might you be able to conjure?"

The train wheels screeched and the rails took a sharp turn, listing the traincar to the side while the red lights shivered. A stalagmite whipped past very close to the window, then the lights went out. Darkness pressed close like velvet over their eyes, but moments later the windows brightened with brilliant golden light from outside the car.

Shards of sunlight poked through the ceiling and reflected blindingly in the polished white stone of the vast cavern. Ripples of shimmering gold spidered up the bulbous walls and crackled through the white marbled floor and gathered at the tips of stalactites, giving the cavernous room the regality of a ridiculously rich cathedral.

The Howls would feel as if, on the other side of the dark corridor, they were in a different space, far bigger than the sheltered traincar. Neomi might feel a gentle breeze on her cheek, maybe the faintest smell of an unfamiliar flower and something distant burning. Toni might feel, all at once, a prickling at her back, a pull on her left pinky finger, a feather-light brush on her face, the hairs on her right arm standing up, and a pressure in her stomach as if someone were trying to push her into the seat.

A sharp noise over Yiya's head-- BANG! --made the old woman jump, and she looked up just as a skittering noise clattered along the outside of the moving traincar. Even she could hear it.

Outside the windows, in the gleaming stone and sunlight, a dozen nebulous and flickering shapes-- some bright and flitting, others shadowy smoke, still others like sinewy ribbons that danced overhead --raced with grave intention toward the train.

The train's wheels ker-KLUNKED and the traincar veered violently as it hit something on the tracks, but somehow remained on course. The next time might not be so lucky.

"It seems," Yiya called out over the rumble of the train as it sped up with a rumble and roar, her thin hands clutched on the back of her seat, "the Rue would very much like us to stop."

RATTLECHOMP

Last call for posts! :)

RATTLECHOMP

Any way to jump in later on this one? Perhaps a character met along the way? 😀

@dryden

Hmmmm will have to see how it goes! I'm interested to know what the other players here think, here or in PM. :) Because I'm basically reacting to the character actions I can't guarantee if or when we'll hit another stop. Unless your character is already on the train for a completely unrelated reason.

For now, the answer is "potentially maybe!"

RATTLECHOMP

"Hum, oh." His faculties decided to rev into action at that moment. He patted down his pockets as if one of them contained his name. Unfortunately, all he found was a slightly beer stained flier.

"The Job." He stated, shoving his hand out awkwardly only for the ..contraption... To gobble it down.

@Mae

Echoh paused with a steamy hiss and a mechanical squeak, a sharp leg scratching on the concrete floor. It reached out a scissored appendage and snapped the flyer from Archie's hand: the paper disappeared into a limitless abyss beneath the thriving terrarium. The robot tap tap tapped on the floor as it spidered away, leading into the open door of the red-lit traincar where the others were gathering.

Toni would be the first to enter the train following Echoh and Yiya. Crossing through the sliding door felt heavy, but once inside the weight became feathery; a light sensation, like being brushed by soft hair or fur. At ease, she looked a Yiya, pondering her questions. But her attention would turn more to Sasha as she would enter the train. "Your revolver," she would start. "It's... not normal, is it?"

@Wayward

"I--I think there was a rue," Neomi said to Yiya. "And we-or, umm... Sasha? She fired a gun at it, and it disappeared." She looked back at Sasha and then at the poor guy who just showed up. There was something awkward about him, and it was not just that he had arrived quote-unquote semi-late to the game. Not that this is a game...

"And, yeah, I definitely have a lot of questions," she quickly added and looked back at Yiya.

@Mole

“Um… Yiya? You can’t see the Rue, can you?” ...

Sasha placed a hand over the holster at her waist. “When you see me draw this gun… it means there is a Rue nearby. That’s the only time… the only reason I’ll ever draw it.” She never kept it loaded. She had never pointed it at another person, or even at an animal, not even as a threat. It was a keepsake and nothing more. At least… at first it had been.

“I… we… need you to trust us. If we say run… run. If we… say hide, then hide. If you see me… shooting at nothing… there was a reason for it.” Sasha’s voice faltered, suddenly realising how defensive she was sounding and feeling embarrassed. “Just… you hired us because of the Rue. So… trust us.”

@King Cosmos

Yiya was quiet while she shuffled down the center aisle of the traincar, her cane clacking a rhythm on the red-hued wood. After she had found a seat with significant leg room (space for the angle of her cane and the stretch of her aching legs) she let go of a long sigh and sniffed thoughtfully. A knobby finger tap, tap, tapped on the carved handle of her cane.

"The stations are supposed to be protected from Rue interference," she said quietly, almost to herself. She tilted her head to peer up at Toni, consideration stiffening the lines in her face. She could not see Neomi from this angle, but the girl's explanations curled the old woman's hand tighter on the cane. Her eyes rested heavily on Sasha's holster.

As soon as Archie had stepped across the threshold, the traincar doors hissed and snapped shut. He might see the fading, scattered shimmers of what had been a Rue in the space where the train now sat.

"I cannot perceive the Rue," Yiya acknowledged, and she stared at nothing in particular, lost in another thought. She hunched in her seat, a transient feebleness shuddering through her. She was still smiling hauntingly. "My daughter always sighted them for me. And now it seems I've been followed."

The traincar rumbled to life and metal wheels screeched underfoot with a rattle and a quaking jerk. The red light flickered and shone again. The station moved slowly past the left-side windows, while on the right smooth concrete gave way to rough-hewn stone.

"You all saw it, then?" Yiya raised her voice over the rising rumble of the train. The station slipped away from view and the windows blackened, leaving them with only red light. "Or perceived it? Neomi, you saw something. Sasha, you shot at it. And hit it, I expect, from the tone I hear in Toni's voice. All of you recognized a Rue in the station. So you are truly Howl."

The tracks clattered beneath the train, and Yiya wobbled in her seat, her cane pressed firmly into the floor in front of her, while she turned her sharp eyes to each of them in turn.

"The Trailing Bird is sacred to them," she explained gravely. "Like a deadly volcano is sacred to the people who live below it. While the tree lives, its presence is like a drug or an idol god, intoxicating. But the moment it dies, so do all the Rue in a miles-wide radius. So the rumors say. Our village is finishing its own barrier of witch-pilings: we'll kill the Trailing Bird at the middle of the village, in a swarm of Rue like moths to the flame, and then we'll finally be free of them for good. But until then, as far as those Rue are concerned, I'm a burglar who's stolen a god from their temple, and they're not too pleased with me."

She rapped the end of her cane on the floor like a gavel and sat straighter, the obstinance returning to the square of her thin shoulders. "So tell me, Sasha, what made you choose to shoot it? What was it about the thing you perceived that prompted you to raise your gun? Neomi, if that shot hadn't fired, what would you have done? Toni, you were the first to call it out, you said you may have to deal with this one. What did you mean? Did it threaten us, did it have a look in its eye, did it say anything, did it touch anyone? Are you sure it's dead? Are you sure there aren't more?" She twisted in her seat, a vain attempt to squint back over her shoulder. "And why are there four of you? Who is it, who's there snooping? Just because I can't see Rue doesn't mean I'm blind!"

While Yiya spoke, Echoh produced a steaming teapot from nowhere and poured a stream of rosy pink tea into a chipped blue cup, its saucer clutched in the delicate grasp of a scissorlike clamp. The robot held out the cup and saucer in a slow sweeping motion, offering it to whomever would reach out, while it poised a third leg and started filling a second cup of sweet-strawberry tea.

The train had picked up speed and was speeding through darkness. Outside the windows were shimmers of bioluminescent insects clinging to great stalactites and stalagmites, formations of flowing rock and deep gaping caverns that stretched away like the throat of a dragon. Occasionally a witch-piling blurred past the window, a feeble beacon of safety in the heavy dark.

RATTLECHOMP

Ye, cool! :D I am here, puttering!