OOC: Shawn Rolls Wits + Composure with the following results

0 Successes: A thorough search leaves nothing but the front entrance

1 Success: Shawn finds another entrance

2 Successes: Shawn finds two other ways in

3+ Successes: Shawn finds two other ways in and learns something else...

OOC: 08:17, Today: Shawn Cramer rolled 1 success using 4d10 with the World of Darkness nWoD system with a target of 8, rerolling 10s with rolls of 5,1,1,9. Wits + Composure.

It took a while, but by climbing above the entrance like a rat, Shawn was able to scurry up to the roof of the dilapidated structure. It was there that he was there was no way it could possibly stay upright on its own, without being sandwiched between the old-time gaming booths. It was more like Gaggles had fit a tarp and layered it over with random fabric than that she actually took the time to build something.

Shawn could feel his feet scrape across the multicolored fabric as he reached the top of the roof. There he saw a small hole.

Peering inside, he could see Gaggles sleeping. A long rope of fabric draped down from the hole. Tugging on it, it seemed somewhat firm. It wouldn't take much to scurry down the rope and land near the bed.

Shawn tried to get a sense of the distances involved; how high up was the roof? How close to Gaggles would the rope put him? If he fell, how hurt would he be?

These questions occurred in the relative silence, and Shawn noticed that the Circus itself was rather quiet just as he had come to know it: The rides were still and empty. The Big Top, with its spiraling, tented points ending in ragged flags that listlessly moved from an unseen, unfeeling wind.

Nevertheless, there was a sense--not unlike a scene in a suspenseful movie--that all of this might change soon. How, Shawn couldn't be sure. Perhaps it was the way the tents and gaming booths seemed slightly more colorful. The rides, particularly the 'Big Wheel' seemed to buzz with an unseen, but felt energy--The Circus was getting closer to opening.

Focusing back on the task at hand. Shawn stuck his head through the hole in Gaggles' rag-tag structure to better gauge just how he might descend into her home, and if it was safe.

The first thing Shawn realized was that there were dozens of rope-like threads from many smaller holes that dotted the roof. Like a worn pair of jeans, these threads descended from the roof at varying lengths. Shawn could judge that he was approximately 20 feet high up.

But the hole he was looking through was the only one big enough to fit through and the thread like rope that he was examining was the longest and thickest of the bunch: woven  and partially unraveled, coarse fabric of a red color that was nearly touching the floor next to Gaggles' bed. Descending it would place him within feet of the Killer Clown.

Still, if Shawn fell, he probably would be hurt (A child suffers one point of bashing damage for every three yards she falls. 20/9 = 2.2 = 2 Damage Bashing)

Of course, that would probably mean nothing if Shawn woke Gaggles up.

Shawn wanted to play it as safe as he could, and considering the danger he was in right now, he was worried just rappelling down the rope would wake Gaggles. But fortunately, he knew something else was very good at climbing, and could climb down threads much thinner than he could. He carefully pulled his bottled spider out and examined it.

Shawn examined the jar.

The spider was inside was frozen in time. It wasn't moving. But then again, Shawn hadn't yet done what Griffix had advised: to think of something so horrifically violent, that it would set the spider into motion. Griffix said that the more obscene the thought and the more detailed and violent it was, the greater chance that the spider would bite the intended target and not be confused.

Shawn took a breath to centre himself. He remembered Mrs. Worthington's lesson on bringing genuine emotions to mind to enhance the realism of your performance. This wasn't remotely the same thing, but he recalled her advice for portraying anger. You weren't supposed to think of times you actually were angry. Instead, she'd told him, think of times you were treated unfairly. Think of the inequalities in your life, the times you were inconvenienced through no fault of your own. Even if you weren't angry at the time, focus on the injustice of it. And think about lashing out against it...

Shawn closed his eyes and thought about something that was still fresh in his mind. The Circus. The thing that Griffix had told him about what attracted them to children, the lies he told. How those lies were never for his benefit, but to keep Mom and Dad and all other adults and his friends and the people he worked with happy, and because of that, his life had become a never-ending nightmare! How was that fair?! How was that his fault!? All he'd ever wanted to do was to have people like him, and everyone just took and took and took and he just had to stand here and pretend to like it!

In his mind's eye, he fantasied about being ten feet tall, ripping through the fabric of the big top with his bare hands. The clowns were scattering before him, but Shawn was too fast too strong. He seized Gaggles and Mr. Cherrywinks by the collars and pulled them off their feet by their throats. He knew out here in the real world he was small and weak and thoroughly mortal, but that contrast only drove the inner rage he was feeling. He found himself staring at the bottle, squeezing the bottle in his fist as the anger rose.

As Shawn focused on the bottle, the spider began to move. To his surprise, somehow the bottle was already open. Shawn's fists squeezed at the bottle and the spider moved forward, his inner rage the engine that powered its delicate movements. It traversed the lip of the bottle and slowly made its way towards the tethered fabric that was the rope.

And then...

It stopped.

It stopped and began to turn itself around. First it did a complete circle. Then a half a circle. And then it started to crawl towards Shawn.

In that moment, clarity struck Shawn in the face as the spider made its way towards him with slow, deliberate--and certainly deadly intentions: the sacrifice that Shawn had made...The vision of his murderous rage against Gaggles and Mr. Cherrywinks, was not sufficient to direct the spider towards its intended target.

Shawn would've panicked, but his heart was too full of anger to really feel it. In his vision, Gaggles had pulled a knife, and he'd ripped the clown's arm off with his bare hands and watched the blood fountain onto the ground as the arm twitched and grabbed at nothing. He grabbed the knife and pinned Mr. Cherrywinks to the ground with it - directly through the neck. Then he grabbed the weakly struggling one-armed Gaggles with his bare hand and slammed her against the ground. He formed his other shovel-sized hand into a fist and punched her in the face over and over and over again, until he felt the skull begin to crumple. In the vision, it felt like he was saying something, but it wasn't a recounting of the terrible things he'd seen her do, or even fury at the terrors the Circus had perpetrated. It was just elemental hurt; he wanted to hurt her and hurt her, and the reasons had faded away under a red fog.

The red fog of his own inner rage blinded Shawn to the spiders movements but it didn't matter. It was almost as if focusing on those dark thoughts and retreating from reality was necessary to feed the malicious hunger of the arachnid. Shawn could feel its predator impulse coursing through his thoughts, his mind and his body.

For a moment Shawn's anger and dark thoughts reached a feverish pitch and then began to slowly subside. The heat of the rage inside of him diminished, and as it did, Shawn could see the spider slink away from Gaggles' neck, leaving a red, swollen mark where it had kissed her. It delicately crawled out of sight, under the makeshift bed she was sleeping on, and into a hole in the wall.

Shawn couldn't see but he could feel.

It was pushing away now, crawling further and further into the wall and into the unknown darkness.

Gaggles shifted for a moment, and then, as if seized by a sudden electric shock--she stiffened and remained stiff as a manikin. Her eyes remained closed.

It took at least a minute for the rage to leave Shawn enough for him to think again. He wasn't sure what to think of the experience, to think of what kind of rage he had inside him to let him do that. But he pushed aside the thought of self analysis; he had a job to do. He gingerly tested the rope that led down from the ceiling, and then, assuming it was more or less stable, he carefully climbed on and started to slide/climb down.

It took longer than expected to reach the floor of the ram-shackle hovel. While the other kids had been busy playing on the playground and learning the ins and outs of jungle gyms and play structures, Shawn had been busy on costume sets and trying to impress for the next big role.

And so it took a while for Shawn to slowly descend down the path of rope and land softy on the strewn pile of clothes that scattered Gaggles' bedside.

Gaggle lay there breathing, chest rising and falling, as if she was in a deep sleep.

Shawn took a closer look at Gaggles’ neck, double checking that the spider had in fact bitten her and it wasn’t just a trick of the light. Then, screwing up his courage, he reached for the nose and tried to pull it off.

The spider bite on Gaggles' neck was swollen. A red rim of purple flesh was raised in a circular, inflamed bruise. Two dots were at the center of the swollen mass.

Shawn quietly placed his hand on the nose and gave it a tug. Gaggles' face moved along with her head, but she remained still and unconscious. The rubber nose felt cool to the touch. He gave it another tug:

Nothing.

It was a firm. Firmly attached at least. It barely budged. In fact, the rubber nose seemed less like a prop and more like a real nose.

Gaggles lay there in complete silence as if she was fast asleep.

Shawn gave the nose a few more experimental tugs, trying to see if it'd come loose at all. Assuming it didn't, he hesitantly drew the knife and took a closer look at where the nose was physically attached to the face. Was there some sort of seam?

Shawn looked at the nose. It was literally part of Gaggles' face. It became clear, after a quick inspection, that he would have to remove it a way that would require him to flay Gaggles' face. Just strip the whole portion of the nose and probably a thick area around it on each side.



As Shawn began to examine the nose, he sensed, before he saw--Gaggles' eye open. Just one eye, the left one. It moved around the room as if it, or she, was examining the room as if to find out what her surroundings were.

Finally, it focused on Shawn with a glare that appeared to be more surprise than anything else. It took in the vision of the knife, the point like an arrow towards Gaggles' nose.

"you..." she whispered through pursed lips, that barely moved.

"you're here. you're finally here. to...do..it."

"are you hear to...do it?"

Shawn immediately looked around for any weapons Gaggles might use against him, though his panic subsided a little when he saw she was still weak. But now the adrenaline was pumping, and with shaky hands he started pushing the knife against Gaggles' face. "Yeah..."

The knife slowly penetrated the skin and immediately, red tears began to flow from Gaggles' eyes, they pooled down onto her cheek and then onto the edge of the knife Shawn was holding.



"There comes a point where you no longer care if there’s a light at the end of the tunnel or not. You’re just sick of the tunnel. My mind and heart weren’t made for this. I’m tired of being tired and I’m tired of being sad." Gaggles confessed, almost as if she was on her deathbed.

"Please kill me. Send me back to slumber. I know this place will bring me back again, but at least I won't have to be here this time it opens. My punishment for what I've done is too much to bear."

Shawn continued to saw through Gaggles' skin with the knife, trying to look at her face as little as possible. "I really wish I was doing this for revenge or justice, but all I can think about is that I really really don't want to die. But I'm not going to apologise to you for this." Despite the horrific circumstances he was in, he couldn't bring himself to lie to someone he was murdering. Even if she was only technically alive.

The knife began to saw through the skin with a meaty, cutting sound. Shawn had never done anything like this before. It almost felt like cutting through steak, or perhaps that one time two years ago when Dad let him carve his own piece of the Thanksgiving turkey.

Now Gaggles' eyes were locked on Shawn. They were wide, barely blinking, the tears slowing down having pooled all over the bed and dripping onto the floor. No blood was coming out of the wound Shawn was inflicting, but puddle from Gaggles' tears had reached his feet and he could feel the tips of his socks moisten with warm blood. There was a metallic smell in the air.



"Yes..." Gaggles agreed. "I deserve it. I deserve all of it...My punishment of being brought back is more than I can bear. I cry, not because I am weak. It’s because I've been strong for too long. I hate getting flashbacks from things that I don’t want to remember. The things I have done and what I know I will be asked to do. At least I'll go away for a while.I should have never invited this place into my life. I know now I can never escape." Gaggles said.

"Kill me." Those last two words 'kill me' suddenly filled the room with a heavy weight. Shawn had never been ordered to kill anyone. Not really. Certainly not by someone asking him to do it either. The significance of what was happening clicked in Shawn's mind.

Because of this, or despite it, Shawn decided to....

OOC: Shawn Decides from one of the following

1) ...Stop:  Shawn does not cut off Gaggles' nose. Gaggles does not die. The scene continues and the Fortune Teller's demands against the Clowns are unmet.

2) ...Continue cutting: Shawn cuts Gaggles' nose off. Gaggles dies. The Fortune Teller's demands against the Clowns are satisfied. Shawn rolls 2d10 degeneration roll.

A) If Shawn succeeds degeneration roll, he might feel uncomfortable with what he’s doing but his overall world view on morality doesn't collapse. ....

From page 82 of Innocents Book in italics:
the character probably feels guilty as well as or instead of feeling justified. The character might feel compelled to tell someone, but knowing of no one who
would understand, he starts to act out. He might deliberately
get into trouble at school just to be punished and obviate
some of the guilt, or engage in obsessive behaviors
such as hand-washing or nail-biting. Yes, these behaviors
resemble triggers, and the player is perfectly welcome to accept
a trigger voluntarily to represent this internal struggle.

B) If Shawn fails the degeneration roll, his morality becomes 6. Then Shawn makes a 6d10 Trigger Roll.

...If the trigger roll succeeds, he manages to come to grips with his new Morality,
slipping at least somewhat comfortably into the
fact that he now accepts actions he once spurned as
deplorable. If, however, the roll fails, the character
has failed to come fully to terms with the new situation.
He develops a mental or emotional ailment or
condition that is caused by the stress, grief or remorse
of having committed the “sin,” or even guilt because
he isn’t suffering the stress or grief he feels he should.

Shawn continued sawing away at the nose, though he couldn't hide his tears.

OOC: 22:39, Today: Shawn Cramer failed (no successes) using 2d10 with the World of Darkness nWoD system with a target of 8, rerolling 10s with rolls of 4,4. Degeneration Roll.

22:40, Today: Shawn Cramer rolled 3 successes using 6d10 with the World of Darkness nWoD system with a target of 8, rerolling 10s with rolls of 8,5,3,2,10(+10,2),6.  Trigger Roll.

'plop!'

The rubber nose came off and fell onto the floor. Blood droplets splashed onto Shawn's shins from the puddle that Gaggles tears had created.

Gaggles was dead. And Shawn watched as her body suddenly withered away. The pale skin turned into plush, peach-like color. Her hair went slowly from a dark-brown color to a strawberry blonde. Her facial features--once maniacal--suddenly became soft. Even her size began to slowly diminish.

Suddenly she was a little girl. A dark dress with a wide off-the-shoulder neckline, short puffed and cap sleeves and an unfitted bodice gathered into an inset waistband. It led to a full skirt to calf length. It looked like clothing Shawn might have seen in an old Western movie.

The only thing that remained unchanged, was the gaping hole in her face. She was missing a nose.

Shawn saw the girl, but couldn't bear to look at her face. Not because of the wound where her nose was, but because he didn't want the reminder of what he'd done. He bent down to pick up the nose, and inspected it carefully before stashing it in his pocket.

He took another look around the tent before kneeling down and putting his hand on the girl's hand. He still couldn't look at her face. "I hope...I hope this helped you somehow. I don't really understand how this works, but maybe you're free since Gaggles is gone? I don't really think there's a heaven, not anymore, but I know I've been wrong before. A lot. So maybe you're going to a better place? I only did this because I was afraid to die, but if something good happened because of it...maybe I did the right thing?" His voice was hoarse and ragged, since he hadn't really stopped crying.

He stayed there for a time, but eventually then got to his feet. He had the rabbit's foot ready.

OOC: SHawn Joins Thread

Shawn: Griffix's Plan