that's it, that's the energy here. when all of them enter the plant and the doors rattle behind them, he immediately feels the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and he's gradually scooting closer and closer to everybody else. at least in the first anomaly the atmosphere was a little more familiar and open. this feels...stifling. and terrifying, actually, and he looks around as they walk through to get a sense of the plant. it's a weird feeling, a kind of oppressiveness he hasn't felt in some time with their empty and judgmental gazes. the meat makes him recoil just slightly, and when they reach the point where the paths split he stops.
and then there's the suggestion of splitting the party, and he shivers a little. ]
...stairs it is. [ as temenos and keith begin to head down the hall, he turns to look at charles. ] Ready?
[he places his hand on shoma's shoulder, if shoma doesn't seem averse to it. either way, he gives him a reassuring smile, despite the way his own skin crawls.]
[ you go to the left, following some people wearing brown leather suits, a couple of them holding baskets in their arms. the stairs are steep, uneven, and they swerve a little to the left or right when you least expect it. you should be careful as you climb...
at a glance, there are workers up here who are tanning hides here with barely acceptable ventilation. the air is astringent and sharp, and despite the rebreathers, you can still feel the faint sting. everyone in this room is wearing a mask, though they only fit over nose and mouth, and seem to be makeshift at best. they are all coughing and clearly feverish and glassy-eyed and clustering together here. a woman is hunched over a big tub in a crouch, just quietly scrubbing away at a hide. a man is sat in a corner with a bundle in his arms, rocking back and forth slowly.
[ he hates this, frankly, and he's a little jumpy as they head up and the stairs trip him up every now and then. as their climb, and once they reach an opening to where they can see the workers, he steps to the side so they can observe for now. he observes the movements of these workers, frowning softly as he squints against the stinging of his eyes. ]
...do you think they'll actually talk to us if we approach them? [ it's mumbled quietly as to not draw attention, though he's trying to see what the bundle in this man's arms is. ]
shoma tries to see what's in the man's arms - it's a bundle of cloth, and upon closer examination from where he is at the moment, it does look a little... baby shaped. he keeps rocking it and shushing the bundle, rocking and shushing almost rhythmically to the scrubbing of a hide against a tub.
charles will approach and that motion will slow as glazed over eyes glance upwards at him. charles, you can feel the hiss of your helmet and respirator working now, really working. the atmosphere out there is bearable (barely) but bearable. but in here? in here there is something wrong... ]
[ oh this is incredibly depressing, thank you. he's following along to charles, but since he's dealing with the man he'll just as slowly approach the woman to get a look at the tub and the hide she's working on.
does it seem like she's losing strength the longer she's doing this? also...i don't...like asking but this looks like cow hide, right? ]
[ for shoma, it looks to be a cow hide. it's of course very wet and darkened by liquid, but otherwise... it does indeed seem legit. the woman doesn't seem to be losing strength with every push of her strong arms into the liquid. her eyelids are heavy. 1d20 please, shoma.
as charles approaches the man, he will be met will a look directly to his face, his eyes wet and wide, red-rimmed. he scratches his neck slowly, clutching the bundle to his chest, fingers digging in. his voice is hoarse, disused: ]
how do you comfort someone who looks so beyond grief? what is beyond grief, beyond acceptance, what is beyond that pain and hurt? the man just blinks slowly. ]
Survey... Inspectors...?
[ he's clutching the bundle even tighter. is that possible? it's possible. fingers digging in. roll a d20, charles.
shoma is totally privy to charles' conversation, but it's bits and pieces. this place is loud with the sounds of people, breathing and panting, people at work, the heat of their muscles stifling the room. as she pushes down on the liquid, some of it splashes right onto his legs. the scent is sharp and foul. the woman stops and suddenly blinks a little as she looks at the puddle she's made, her breath going tight. ]
[ this feels extremely claustrophobic. he's not sure he likes this, and he really misses his noise-cancelling headphones right about now. he doesn't move, and he doesn't react to the liquid on his legs other than a slight flinch at the smell.
but then the woman stops and shoma looks at her, trying to understand what the hell the problem is. it's...just water, right? ]
We're just here to investigate. [ he's repeating what charles is saying both as a back-up and to the woman herself now that she's a little more present. ]
[ hm okay! well 2's for both of you in chat mean that everything is great, everything is fine, don't worry about anything.
shoma looks and it's... sure. it's just water. and some chemicals. water and chemicals, her hands look raw and scratched, but as he looks closer... as she scratches her neck, her sleeve falls... and he can make out... letters? scratched into her skin?
m u s
some of the letters are off-kilter, like they were frantically scratched in.
i c
charles is so kind to this man, who is still somewhat rocking with this bundle. ]
My wife... my wife... she's gone... this is all I have left. This... this is all I have left...
[ he digs his fingers into the bundle and a slow blooming of red begins to emerge from where he clutches. tightly. oh no. ]
[ having the letters scratched in is a little disconcerting, actually. what was it the bull had said again? "dancing to the music"? he watches her, and he's about to address her when he glances over at the man who's speaking.
why is it bleeding. oh no. ]
Charles... [ it's almost a low, quiet whine, disconcerted and very unsure what they're supposed to do to help these people, gaze darting back and forth between both figures. is the woman even reacting to this at all? or is she just scratching her neck still? ]
staring at shoma now, blinking, blinking. the glazed look in her eyes remains for a moment longer before her pupils seem to shrink and her expression shifts, her hand trembling. she's staring very hard. her eyes are widening then, widening faster as her voice trembles. ]
Oh no, no no no... no... mercy... no...
[ she is gazing at shoma, or maybe... right over his shoulder instead. beyond him, lifting a shaking, raw red hand... she points... and with her other hand proceeds to keep scratching at her neck. faster. faster.
meanwhile, charles may indeed try to grip the man's wrist as he is clutching his bundle, the blood blooming from the cloth more as he holds tighter. the man's expression shifts to something tighter, drawn, more violent. the thing in his arms is clutched tighter to his chest. it bleeds faster, sluicing over his hands now like he's popped whatever he's been holding.
charles can see this man looks familiar now, like a flicker, like a glitch. the man has a mustache, the man looks like a tortured photograph of the missing son of the plant owner. his eyes are still glazed over, but there's a faint flicker of recognition, of horror as he speaks to charles, as he glances at the meaty bundle in his arms that is just... meat. rotting meat. only meat... ]
N-no... No I... no one else... should be here... [ the man whispers. ] No more... no... one... should have to...
[ have either of you ever felt what it's like to have every person in a room look at you? stare at you? watch you? their eyes now fixed upon the both of you, strangers in their hive of misery and labor. ]
[ "have either of you ever felt what it's like to have every person in a room look at you? stare at you? watch you?"
it's the vague semblance of paranoia that's familiar. that weird feeling that something's wrong, that everyone in the room is examining you under a microscope, that everyone's eyes are on you to see what happens to you next. that feeling like you're nothing but an experiment, something that doesn't belong, something different that's meant to be an outlier. that one false move and it's over for you.
the man's holding a rotten bundle of meat, and shoma's flinching because honestly the sound of squelching meat probably is terrible. but he's focused on the woman, watching her hands. he's. he really doesn't want to, but...he turns his head to try and glance over his shoulder to see what, exactly, she might be looking at. ]
[well. charles is also extremely used to people staring at him but in a less traumatic way than whatever's going on with shoma so that's fine. he glances down at the meat bundle, before looking back at the man's eyes. he frowns. bad!
in any case, he keeps his grip on the man's wrist, though gently, as if trying to reaffirm that he's not here to hurt him.]
[ well charles doesn't have to ask for long. because as he grabs the man's wrist, there seems to be a silence that fills the room. a silence that wasn't there before, an unsettling silence that weighs them both down, so heavily it's like a tonnage of concrete bearing down upon their skulls.
as shoma looks behind himself, he'll see it, the people in this room who were once staring at him and charles...
the man in front of charles is a man and then he isn't, then he is a similar head, and a bloated length of body, another fat tendril that bites into the rotting meat with flat teeth, sharp like the edge of a blade. his nostrils flare, his eyes go black. he launches himself at him suddenly, striking out like a viper, a fat, bloated tendril with jaws wide to bite him.
the silence, the silence that's so sudden and strange, that you can pick out as different from the noises of suffering, the sounds of aching bones being ground to dust under the firm hand of labor... no this is the silence that comes with waking up, with sitting up from a nightmare.
except you never left the nightmare. instead, you've woken into it.
this room is covered in blood, the woman is holding offal in her hands instead, organs, she's clutching them as a tendril wraps around her and immediately integrates her into the mass as well. she shrieks at shoma as she's taken away. and for a glitch of a moment, shoma sees a familiar face before it turns back to the washing woman again. the tendrils of these heads and necks, of this beastly conglomeration, trap her, and her face peers out like from behind the bars of a prison. she shrieks. she shrieks. she shrieks. ]
[ this is fine. the sound of silence is deafening, and for a moment he's stuck staring at this writhing mass of bodies melting together to become one. the sound of their cries it enough to fully distract him, though he knows charles can handle himself.
everything's bloody and there's organs and he's trying to decide what to do when the tendril appears. the thing about it is, even if she didn't glitch, he'd move. it doesn't actually help though. seeing her face (even knowing it's not real, this is fake, it's all fake (isn't it?)) is enough to make him launch himself forward trying to grab this woman's arm and pull her back from the mass, pushing aside tendrils as best as he can.
he doesn't make a sound. how can he when everything's buzzing too loudly in his own head? ]
[he knows the suggestion was NOT to pull out blades on people except as a last resort but something is trying to vore him right now maybe so he feels like this counts. or, in other words, he's whipping out that plasma blade now to to slash at the not-man's face.
at the same time, he glances over his shoulder to see what shoma is doing.]
shoma has baby strength, so that's a -1 to his still great roll! he can certainly reach in a try to grab her arm. it's become slippery, gelatinous, fleshy and without bone. amame's face morphs in and out of view as tendrils slowly cover her face, her mouth, drown her out. still. as hard as shoma clings... this thing clings back to him, sucks at his arm, crawls over it like it tries to integrate him too.
tries to swallow him.
(he can pull back, and if he does, but he'll find that there's a glossy sheen to the sleeve and glove of his suit, burning, burning, burning like acid, melting through the suit itself now.)
charles sweeps out his blade towards this creature trying to make him a fuckin snacc. he just meets the creature in the middle, and cleaves the man's face in two from one end of the jaw to the other. for a moment, its skull lolls backward with the weight of it, unhinging disgustingly, revealing a long, thick tongue that rises up, grows bulbous...
as it snaps the top half of its head back - and its face slowly fuses back into place, more horrifying than before, a warped facsimile of a friend that lashes out again for another attack, swarming up into charles' space and opening its mouth. that bulbous, blugeoning tongue punches him straight in the chest and then splits to try and blossom around it, burning through his suit slowly, trying to melt through the layers with its corrosive spittle to get to the soft insides it craves. ]
[ shoma does in fact have baby strength, but he's got the power of spite on his side!!! sort of. he tries to grab the woman's--amame's--whoever's arm, pulling and trying to grip. there's a strangled sound of confusion and also alarm as the limb goes fleshy and limp in his hand. the tendrils bury this woman and despite his best efforts the thing wins in the end.
though that probably has to do with the fact his suit is now melting and burning, something seeping through and eating away at his suit and jesus that's bad. he pulls back, shaking his arm before he whirls around to see-- ]
Why is it always Arthur? [ he's going to lose his mind. but of course it's enough to watch charles get tongue-punched and he's once again trying to move except this time it's to charles.
wait. he has a gun. hold that thought, it's very obvious something is very wrong here, so he's pulling out the plasma gun to try and shoot the man (monster?) in the head to get it to let go of charles aaaaAAAHHHHHH. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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that's it, that's the energy here. when all of them enter the plant and the doors rattle behind them, he immediately feels the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and he's gradually scooting closer and closer to everybody else. at least in the first anomaly the atmosphere was a little more familiar and open. this feels...stifling. and terrifying, actually, and he looks around as they walk through to get a sense of the plant. it's a weird feeling, a kind of oppressiveness he hasn't felt in some time with their empty and judgmental gazes. the meat makes him recoil just slightly, and when they reach the point where the paths split he stops.
and then there's the suggestion of splitting the party, and he shivers a little. ]
...stairs it is. [ as temenos and keith begin to head down the hall, he turns to look at charles. ] Ready?
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Yeah, ready. Onto the adventure!
ENTER: STAGE LEFT
at a glance, there are workers up here who are tanning hides here with barely acceptable ventilation. the air is astringent and sharp, and despite the rebreathers, you can still feel the faint sting. everyone in this room is wearing a mask, though they only fit over nose and mouth, and seem to be makeshift at best. they are all coughing and clearly feverish and glassy-eyed and clustering together here. a woman is hunched over a big tub in a crouch, just quietly scrubbing away at a hide. a man is sat in a corner with a bundle in his arms, rocking back and forth slowly.
what to do... what to do. ]
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...do you think they'll actually talk to us if we approach them? [ it's mumbled quietly as to not draw attention, though he's trying to see what the bundle in this man's arms is. ]
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... Might as well try.
[starts approaching the man slowly...]
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shoma tries to see what's in the man's arms - it's a bundle of cloth, and upon closer examination from where he is at the moment, it does look a little... baby shaped. he keeps rocking it and shushing the bundle, rocking and shushing almost rhythmically to the scrubbing of a hide against a tub.
charles will approach and that motion will slow as glazed over eyes glance upwards at him. charles, you can feel the hiss of your helmet and respirator working now, really working. the atmosphere out there is bearable (barely) but bearable. but in here? in here there is something wrong... ]
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does it seem like she's losing strength the longer she's doing this? also...i don't...like asking but this looks like cow hide, right? ]
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he glances down at the baby-shaped bundle, before back at the man's eyes.]
... Sir?
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as charles approaches the man, he will be met will a look directly to his face, his eyes wet and wide, red-rimmed. he scratches his neck slowly, clutching the bundle to his chest, fingers digging in. his voice is hoarse, disused: ]
... Yes?
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hands you my 2 i rolled as shoma keeps an ear out for what charles is saying to this man. ]
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gently,]
... I'm from a survey corporation, investigating the plant's working conditions. [...] Are you all right?
[LIKE
CLEARLY NOT BUT]
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how do you comfort someone who looks so beyond grief? what is beyond grief, beyond acceptance, what is beyond that pain and hurt? the man just blinks slowly. ]
Survey... Inspectors...?
[ he's clutching the bundle even tighter. is that possible? it's possible. fingers digging in. roll a d20, charles.
shoma is totally privy to charles' conversation, but it's bits and pieces. this place is loud with the sounds of people, breathing and panting, people at work, the heat of their muscles stifling the room. as she pushes down on the liquid, some of it splashes right onto his legs. the scent is sharp and foul. the woman stops and suddenly blinks a little as she looks at the puddle she's made, her breath going tight. ]
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but then the woman stops and shoma looks at her, trying to understand what the hell the problem is. it's...just water, right? ]
We're just here to investigate. [ he's repeating what charles is saying both as a back-up and to the woman herself now that she's a little more present. ]
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... We're here to help, if we can.
[even if he feels guilty saying this, knowing that he may not, in fact, be able to help them before the mission is over.]
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shoma looks and it's... sure. it's just water. and some chemicals. water and chemicals, her hands look raw and scratched, but as he looks closer... as she scratches her neck, her sleeve falls... and he can make out... letters? scratched into her skin?
m u s
some of the letters are off-kilter, like they were frantically scratched in.
i c
charles is so kind to this man, who is still somewhat rocking with this bundle. ]
My wife... my wife... she's gone... this is all I have left. This... this is all I have left...
[ he digs his fingers into the bundle and a slow blooming of red begins to emerge from where he clutches. tightly. oh no. ]
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why is it bleeding. oh no. ]
Charles... [ it's almost a low, quiet whine, disconcerted and very unsure what they're supposed to do to help these people, gaze darting back and forth between both figures. is the woman even reacting to this at all? or is she just scratching her neck still? ]
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Hey, hey, careful there—
[if he steps closer, can he get a better look at the bundle? he may try and grip the man's wrist to get him to loosen up. oh no.]
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staring at shoma now, blinking, blinking. the glazed look in her eyes remains for a moment longer before her pupils seem to shrink and her expression shifts, her hand trembling. she's staring very hard. her eyes are widening then, widening faster as her voice trembles. ]
Oh no, no no no... no... mercy... no...
[ she is gazing at shoma, or maybe... right over his shoulder instead. beyond him, lifting a shaking, raw red hand... she points... and with her other hand proceeds to keep scratching at her neck. faster. faster.
meanwhile, charles may indeed try to grip the man's wrist as he is clutching his bundle, the blood blooming from the cloth more as he holds tighter. the man's expression shifts to something tighter, drawn, more violent. the thing in his arms is clutched tighter to his chest. it bleeds faster, sluicing over his hands now like he's popped whatever he's been holding.
charles can see this man looks familiar now, like a flicker, like a glitch. the man has a mustache, the man looks like a tortured photograph of the missing son of the plant owner. his eyes are still glazed over, but there's a faint flicker of recognition, of horror as he speaks to charles, as he glances at the meaty bundle in his arms that is just... meat. rotting meat. only meat... ]
N-no... No I... no one else... should be here... [ the man whispers. ] No more... no... one... should have to...
[ have either of you ever felt what it's like to have every person in a room look at you? stare at you? watch you? their eyes now fixed upon the both of you, strangers in their hive of misery and labor. ]
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it's the vague semblance of paranoia that's familiar. that weird feeling that something's wrong, that everyone in the room is examining you under a microscope, that everyone's eyes are on you to see what happens to you next. that feeling like you're nothing but an experiment, something that doesn't belong, something different that's meant to be an outlier. that one false move and it's over for you.
the man's holding a rotten bundle of meat, and shoma's flinching because honestly the sound of squelching meat probably is terrible. but he's focused on the woman, watching her hands. he's. he really doesn't want to, but...he turns his head to try and glance over his shoulder to see what, exactly, she might be looking at. ]
No one should...?
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in any case, he keeps his grip on the man's wrist, though gently, as if trying to reaffirm that he's not here to hurt him.]
What is going on here? Can you tell me?
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as shoma looks behind himself, he'll see it, the people in this room who were once staring at him and charles...
are slowly mouldering together, melting, shifting, wailing.
the man in front of charles is a man and then he isn't, then he is a similar head, and a bloated length of body, another fat tendril that bites into the rotting meat with flat teeth, sharp like the edge of a blade. his nostrils flare, his eyes go black. he launches himself at him suddenly, striking out like a viper, a fat, bloated tendril with jaws wide to bite him.
the silence, the silence that's so sudden and strange, that you can pick out as different from the noises of suffering, the sounds of aching bones being ground to dust under the firm hand of labor... no this is the silence that comes with waking up, with sitting up from a nightmare.
except you never left the nightmare. instead, you've woken into it.
this room is covered in blood, the woman is holding offal in her hands instead, organs, she's clutching them as a tendril wraps around her and immediately integrates her into the mass as well. she shrieks at shoma as she's taken away. and for a glitch of a moment, shoma sees a familiar face before it turns back to the washing woman again. the tendrils of these heads and necks, of this beastly conglomeration, trap her, and her face peers out like from behind the bars of a prison. she shrieks. she shrieks. she shrieks. ]
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everything's bloody and there's organs and he's trying to decide what to do when the tendril appears. the thing about it is, even if she didn't glitch, he'd move. it doesn't actually help though. seeing her face (even knowing it's not real, this is fake, it's all fake (isn't it?)) is enough to make him launch himself forward trying to grab this woman's arm and pull her back from the mass, pushing aside tendrils as best as he can.
he doesn't make a sound. how can he when everything's buzzing too loudly in his own head? ]
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Of course things have to go to hell...
[he knows the suggestion was NOT to pull out blades on people except as a last resort but something is trying to vore him right now maybe so he feels like this counts. or, in other words, he's whipping out that plasma blade now to to slash at the not-man's face.
at the same time, he glances over his shoulder to see what shoma is doing.]
Shoma—!
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shoma has baby strength, so that's a -1 to his still great roll! he can certainly reach in a try to grab her arm. it's become slippery, gelatinous, fleshy and without bone. amame's face morphs in and out of view as tendrils slowly cover her face, her mouth, drown her out. still. as hard as shoma clings... this thing clings back to him, sucks at his arm, crawls over it like it tries to integrate him too.
tries to swallow him.
(he can pull back, and if he does, but he'll find that there's a glossy sheen to the sleeve and glove of his suit, burning, burning, burning like acid, melting through the suit itself now.)
charles sweeps out his blade towards this creature trying to make him a fuckin snacc. he just meets the creature in the middle, and cleaves the man's face in two from one end of the jaw to the other. for a moment, its skull lolls backward with the weight of it, unhinging disgustingly, revealing a long, thick tongue that rises up, grows bulbous...
as it snaps the top half of its head back - and its face slowly fuses back into place, more horrifying than before, a warped facsimile of a friend that lashes out again for another attack, swarming up into charles' space and opening its mouth. that bulbous, blugeoning tongue punches him straight in the chest and then splits to try and blossom around it, burning through his suit slowly, trying to melt through the layers with its corrosive spittle to get to the soft insides it craves. ]
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though that probably has to do with the fact his suit is now melting and burning, something seeping through and eating away at his suit and jesus that's bad. he pulls back, shaking his arm before he whirls around to see-- ]
Why is it always Arthur? [ he's going to lose his mind. but of course it's enough to watch charles get tongue-punched and he's once again trying to move except this time it's to charles.
wait. he has a gun. hold that thought, it's very obvious something is very wrong here, so he's pulling out the plasma gun to try and shoot the man (monster?) in the head to get it to let go of charles aaaaAAAHHHHHH. ]
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