OOC: 17:32, Today: Shawn Cramer rolled 1 success using 7d10 with the World of Darkness nWoD system with a target of 8, rerolling 10s with rolls of 1,1,6,4,8,4,1. Resolve + Occult + WP.

Shawn's mouth was suddenly forced open by the trendrils of smoke as they pried his jaw open, taking the form of hands. He could feel the cold, unfamiliar push of foreign air somehow pushing past his throat and deep into his lungs. This was followed by an involuntary sucking sound, a few gurgles, and a spasm in Shawn's neck and face.

OOC: Shawn gains conditions:

Evil Spirit Within

Voice in My Head

Shawn tries desperately to cough or somehow choke the smoke out of his mouth. What was going on!?

"Great! Just great!" The Tattooed Lady said in anger. "Now look what happened. This is all your fault. If you had just made a simple decision and didn't talk to the imp, then none of this would have happened. Now this is a real mess we have on our hands now. I'm not sure how we can fix this. Or even if it can be fixed."

"Darling, you've put yourself in quite a pickle. That imp is inside you now. And there's no telling what he'll do or what he'll want, or whether he'll ever come out."

Shawn kept on choking until all of the air was forced into him. Moments later, there was pressure in the back of his head, the stirring of something unfamiliar and foreign.

"Where am I?" Feddler's voice seemed to say. It was speaking inside of Shawn's head.

Shawn gaped at the Tattoed Lady, surprise overcoming fear for a brief moment. “Feddler’s inside me?”

"Well, it's your fault." The Tattooed Lady said in an accusing manner, not accepting any responsibility for what had happened, even though Shawn could sense a hit of regret in her voice.

"You took too long. If you had not done that, then that would never have happened. Now this is your problem, not mine. I did what I could for you. And you chose this. So, I guess that's what you get." She justified.

"So....." She hesitated. Then she shrugged her shoulders.   "So I guess, darling, that there might not be anything that can be done for you my dear. It's not entirely certain that this is something that I can do anything else for." She said with doubt.

"Here." She said, extending her hand with the elongated cigarette, a gesture which made it as if Shawn was being offered a smoke, perhaps as some kind of compensation for what had happened. Still, she admitted no guilt and offered no apology, though the gesture was clear enough.

Shawn looked at her hand blankly, even as he tried to figure a way out of this. "Sorry, I'm too young to smoke..." Maybe Griffix would no what to do? Or he still had the Numbers Game, right? Hadn't someone told him it worked better if he'd done something bad? Certainly, the recent events in his life qualified.

Shawn heard the Tattooed Lady's words, that was clear enough. But equally present was the newer, foreign sensations pressing in the back of his mind. It was like his head was suddenly thrust into a cloud, pressure building up near the back of his head, a dull, light pain emanating from the area at the base of his skull. And from this area, came a whisper....

"What?"

Shawn heard Feddler to respond to the question if he was inside of Shawn's head. As Feddler's voice chimed, it lacked the malevolence that Shawn had grown accustomed to heading from the Imp. It was stripped down somehow, confused, and uncertain.

"Feddler, is that you?" Shawn spoke out loud, not sure how he could communicate with the voice, or even if he could. This was too overwhelming.

"Where am I?" The imp's voice inside Shawn's head didn't sound so menacing now. It wasn't nearly as threatening either.

"Get me out of the jar! I swear, we can find a way. I still have to haunt you, as my Dark Lord has commanded me to, but we can find a way. Can't we. Perhaps I can delay ruining your life for a few months, or even years. Just get me out of this jar." The imp pleaded, apparently not aware of what had happened.

"You're not inside the jar, Feddler, you're inside me." Shawn was aware he was talking to himself like a crazy person, but this was the Circus, so he didn't exactly stand out in that regard. "I'm trying to figure out how to get you out of here..."

The Tattooed Lady let out a chuckle and then puffed in a drag of smoke, crossing her legs. Long legs, Shawn could see. They were covered with brown, black and green ink. Tattoos of spiderwebs, sharp objects and other unidentifiable figures.

"What do you want? What do you want!!?" Feddler cried out, his smarmy voice reaching a high pitch and hurting the back of Shawn's head.

"How do I get out?" his voice said, slowing down to a slow, wondrous stop,as if he was just realizing the gravity of the situation and what that meant.
This message was last edited by the GM at 11:08, Tue 27 Feb 2018.

Shawn searched his brain for ideas. This was a bad situation. "Umm, Miss...do you have any tattoos that'd free Feddler? I think we'd both rather be separate people again."

The Tattooed Lady replied  "I knew that you would ask something like that." She said.

"But I'm sorry. I really am." She said, not sounding sorry at all. "I just wish that we had more time. I wish that I wasn't here in this Circus. And I wish you had made better uses of your own wish."

"But you know...."

"My wishes and hopes and five cents might get me a ride of the Ferris Wheel." Her eyes gave  a quick glance through a small sliver of light passing through a hole in the tent.

"...if it wasn't burning." 

Shawn tried not to panic, to reassure himself (and Feddler) that there was a way out. "Okay, we'll figure this out. I've got magical people who could know how to fix this...and I've got the Numbers Game back home - that might work!"

"Ha." The Tattooed Lady laughed a mirthless chuckle.  "Careful with that numbers game honey." knew that you would ask something like that."

"Get back home. Let's get out of here!" The new, and less menacing Feddler yelled, voice ringing in Shawn's ears, but for all the noise, somehow less malevolent.

"One sec, Feddler." This internal/external conversation was giving Shawn a headache to keep straight. "Why are you warning me about the Numbers Game?"

"Because you got that game from Crowley." The Tattooed Lady laughed, before taking another puff and blowing out the smoke, craning her neck upward to spare Shawn a face full of it.  "Careful with that Numbers Game. Everyone knows Crowley got it from fishing in the Proprietor's Well. He went out one night with a makeshift fishing rod and lowered it down in there and after poking around for a bit, he pulled it up. No one knows what it does. Then Crowley made up some other story about how he got it. But Zampolio the Clown and Hogwash saw it. "

"Thanks for the warning, I'll be really careful with it." Certainly, not being careful with the Numbers Game was what got Shawn Feddler in the first place. But he certainly couldn't just keep going with an imp in his head either. He looked down at the ticket in his hand. "So, uh, should I keep the ticket? Or is it all done with now?"

"It's done." The Tattooed Lady finished. "Watch you're back when you step out of the tent. Things are dangerous around here lately."

"My dear, I have a feeling that there's no telling what's going to happen. If I were you, I'd try to stay away from this place until all this is sorted out. Maybe you can get your mentor Griffix to cut you a break and leave you out of the Fortune Teller's crackdown on this place until it's less chaotic."

Shawn didn't need any encouragement to stay away from the Circus, but he still nodded politely. "Thanks for the advice, miss. I hope things get better for you." Then he headed outside and pulled out his rabbit's foot, eager to be gone.

OOC: End thread