Alice nodded, fearless, "I'm going, I will not leave him like that when I can do something about it."

After viciously shanking the skinwalker, with a thrust and a twist like the East End thugs had showed her, Penny saw the defiance and unnatural life slip from its eyes. With grim satisfaction, she yanked the bone-spur out of its belly then stepped back, watching coldly as it fell over and died. She had no clever quip now; it had been too hard to slay something that looked like a friend.

As the Indians went in to destroy it utterly, Penny was surprised to feel the pain in her stomach, to see the bloody slashes through her dress. She clutched her belly, but gritted her teeth against the agony and the foul, sick feeling.

Nodding, wordless, she followed the spokesman into the teepee. Sitting carefully, wincing, she quickly introduced herself, Alice, Emma, Kate, and the comatose Ian to Talenka, and explained what had happened and what they needed.

'I will go.' Penny resolved. 'Ian is... dear to me, and of us all, we know each other best. I can convince him to leave this dream-world.'

Kate informs you she'll stay behind and watch Emma, though Emma looks slightly affronted that she's being treated like a child to be minded all the time; amusing considering her past.

Talenka soon gives Penny the poultice and though you can tell it will help he informs you it will still take some time to be completely effective. Where you're going you won't have a body anyway so it won't hinder you he informs you. It is decided that both Penny and Alice will go, so they can keep an eye on each other. Soon he goes to work on the dream concoction and Ian's unconscious body is brought into the teepee and laid in the middle. Emma talks as the Indian continues his work. Now, if this is anything like African dream root, we will need some of Mr. Shaw mixed into the elixir and you will both need to drink it in order to enter his dream. Perhaps not the most appetizing but it is what it is. Hair or blood, what shall it be? she arches a brow.


After you mark your preference she continues. You will enter his dream but only the most powerful can control it and I don't believe either of you qualify. You'll be observers for the most part but you can be killed by nasties you may run across. You must find Ian and you'll need to convince him to kill himself. It may not be easy. The dream is typically a very pleasant place for the victim. If he dies by anything other than his own hand within the dream, you all three die.

Alice pointed to the hair, finding it slightly less disgusting than drinking his blood like a vampire. At the final warning she murmured, "That's comforting..." But drank the poultice anyway.

Penny accepted the poultice without complaint; the dress was already ruined, really. Instead, her attention was on the preparations for entering Ian's dreams. She'd begun to wonder if they really could trust the witch with all this – their lives would be very much in her hands while she oversaw this endeavour. But, balancing the risks, she decided she simply had to trust the witch to see this through, that she could rely on her not to turn sides again, and that Kate and the Indians made for more than able insurance to her good behaviour.

Grimacing a little at the distasteful notion, she plucked hairs from Ian's head for use in the elixir.

She was appalled by what was required. 'Kill himself? There is no other way of escape? ...God forgive us, even if it is only in a dream.' she muttered, shaking her head in resignation. This was a grim quest indeed. 'And what of us? Must we leave the same way?'

Emma shakes her head at Penny's question. No. Once he wakes up you will too. It's that simple. Well, in theory. Keep in mind even though the Djinn is no longer a threat, he's left his traps in Ian's mind. Not to mention Ian won't be too keen on giving up whatever fantasy he has in there that awaits you.

ooc: Feel free to finish up any conversation and preparations before continuing below:

As you take the potion and lay on the floor next to the sleeping man, your eyelids grow heavy. Kate assures you she'll keep a close eye on things here in an effort to put your minds at ease.

You both drift off surprisingly easy, feeling completely overwhelmed by the drink as your bodies go limp and almost lifeless. Then you wake with a start, fully expecting to see the inside of the teepee and your friends around you but instead you find yourselves in a field of rolling green pastures, the landscape dotted with small cottages spaced apart and smoke cheerily rising from their chimneys. It is clearly a village of some kind and you both can tell by the architecture and greenery that you are not in California anymore. Likely not even in America.

Waking up in the strange setting was disorienting at first to Alice. After a moment she shook it off and attempted to get her bearings and figure out where she was, obviously she is in Ian's head but what place has Ian created. Knowing that might help them know what is actually going on in this dream.

Penny sat up, head spinning with the sudden dislocation of realities and senses. It was a bewildering feeling. She touched her brow to steady herself, then pinched her arm to cause a sharp pain, testing the feeling and solidity of this dream body, and reminding herself that, yes, this was a dream.

She glanced around, taking in the green fields and cottages, a happy smile breaking out on her face as she almost recognised it. 'We're not in California any more, Alice.' she declared with eagerness to explore. 'I do believe we're in Britain, probably bonny Scotland!'


OOC: I don't know which Knowledge skill might be used to recognise the landscape, so this is a flat Intelligence check. My Obscure Knowledge feat might also apply.
20:02, Today: Penny Dreadful rolled 11 using 1d20+4. knowledge?
12:10, Today: Penny Dreadful rolled 33 using 1d20+13. Obscure Knowledge - location.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:11, Fri 13 Oct 2017.

Alice nodded, "That makes sense. What do you know about Ian's past? Was he ever married?"

'I— um...' Penny broke off, realising just how little she actually knew about her dear friend and companion in battle. They'd been acquainted only a short period, and much of it had been filled with focus on investigation, hunting, and slaying. There'd been little too time for simple conversation and sharing stories. Besides, she had been far too wrapped up in work to notice much else. But it was the way of hunters that the last thing they shared of themselves was their traumatic past. She recalled their first meeting, 'He was with the Pinkertons, then the New York police, before he joined the Men of Letters.' No, that was only his professional activities. 'I haven't heard him say he was married...' Penny trailed off, knowing that was no evidence he had never been married. Every hunter began with a tragedy.

Her face turned anguished as she racked her brains for clues and missed observations. How could she pay so little attention to a friend?!


OOC: Let's see what Penny knows about Ian...
12:11, Today: Penny Dreadful rolled 25 using 1d20+13. Obscure Knowledge - Ian.
12:14, Today: Penny Dreadful rolled 34,12,18 using d20+17,d20+8,d20+9.  Sherlock Scan: investigate, sense motive, spot.

Alice smirked, she knew someone much like Penny once. He had been so focused on studying invisible animals through special instruments...microscopes?...that he rarely noticed anything else. She let Penny's mind work while she studied their surroundings.

As you get a closer look at the houses and landscape you're almost certain this is Scotland. It's absurdly quaint and charming with thatched roofs and lush greenery all around. As you stroll closer to the village though, you see a dog in the middle of the field in front of you. It growls at you, hackles raised and head lowered as though daring you to approach. There is an intelligence in its eyes that surprises you. The growling grows louder.

08:47, Today: Mary-Alice Reussoe Conner rolled 20 using 1d20+5. Handle Animal.

Alison did not avert her eyes, forcing the dog to look away first and establishing dominance. She then said, "Good boy, you are a good dog." She stuck her hand out to let the dog have a sniff and recognize her later as a friend. "Can I pet you? Would you like that?"

'This is like no Scotland I ever saw.' Penny muttered, recalling have had a bad experience in Scotland once or twice. Ah, yes, hunting the kelpie beside Loch Ness had been a tedious affair, waiting ages for the monster to show itself. 'This isn't a real place, it's an idyll, an ideal. It could've been ripped from a Turner landscape. I'd wager there aren't even any cowpats in that field. This is more Ian's fond memories of home than the grubby reality of a farm.' she surmised, but that much they'd known going into the dreamworld. She was getting the measure of the environment, but knew her skills as a detective depended on observing imperfections and dirt, which would be hard to find in an impossibly perfect fantasy.

'Now that,' she said, spying the aggressive dog, 'Does not belong... What are you doing? Be careful, remember Emma warned us of the djinn's traps.' Penny urged Alice, putting her hand on her pistol should the dog attack.


OOC: Did our weapons and other possessions come with us? Is this a regular-looking dog?

ooc: Yes it is a regular looking dog, though something feels off about it and this whole place in general. Your belongings have indeed come with you.

The dog does not bite thanks to Alice's efforts, but you can tell it really really wants to. It doesn't allow her to pet it but instead backs off a few steps and continues its growling. Should you go a different way it doesn't follow, but instead stares with its hackles raised.

Moments later you see a man approaching from the nearest house. He's in his sixties with a newsboy cap and tweed jacket, a pipe in his teeth and a smile on his face. Hallo there! he calls cheerfully. You two young ladies lost? We don't get many visitors round these parts! The dog, in response to his presence, backs behind his apparent master, teeth still bared. Sorry bout him. Ol blue here don't usually get so excited

Alice did not directly answer the question. The best lies were the ones you did not have to tell. Instead she ever so slightly changed the subject, "We are actually not from around here, but we believe a friend of ours is here somewhere. Do you know Ian Shaw?"

OOC: What colour or breed is the dog?

Penny observed the dog warily, having some theories as to what it could be but knowing she could rely on nothing in Ian's djinn-induced dream-world. Did he even know the lore of the black dogs that served as psychopomps and omens?

She turned her attention to its apparent master, aware that he might not be what he seemed either. 'We might have taken the wrong road, yes. Which village is this?' she said, following Alice's lead in not giving too much information. Her Devonshire accent had thickened a bit; an American out here would be seen as unusual, a Briton marginally less. A dream-world this might be, but Penny still had to treat it like reality if they were to make their way through.


OOC:
10:56, Today: Penny Dreadful rolled 11 using 1d20+10. arcane lore.
11:15, Today: Penny Dreadful rolled 19,11,19 using d20+17,d20+8,d20+9.  Sherlock Scan: investigate, sense motive, spot.

ooc: The dog is a grayish speckled mutt heavily mixed with sheepdog of some sort.

You be in the village of Durisdeer in the Lowther hills, just north of Thornhill. It's mighty easy to get lost in these winding hills if you don't know what yer doin he chuckles. Though if yer lookin fer Shaw you came to the right place! He has a cottage just a few miles away, prolly there now, it's early enough I doubt he's up. Don't get many Americans, he notes to Alice. You some kind of kin to him? Or is it business perhaps? You won't find a better carpenter in all of Scotland. Always wondered why he wasted himself here when he could be off somewheres people can actually afford him. Or has he finally attracted a customer that can pay full price? he notes Penny's high bred bearing with amusement.

Again Alice chooses to deflect the bombardment of questions. "Well if he lives here, we are not lost." She looked at Penny, "Come, miss," she says miss the way a servant might, "we shouldn't be long finding him now. Thank you for your help, sir."

Penny thought she recognised the name, and knew the area to be somewhere in Scotland's Southern Uplands, at the border with England – a most rural and unpopulated region, which she'd hardly expected of the city-dwelling Ian Shaw. And here he was, a humble carpenter. Curiouser and curiouser.

'Indeed.' she answered the inquisitive fellow, letting him accept his own assumptions without committing to a tale. 'Yes, thank you for your time, sir. We shan't keep you any longer. Was it this way?' she confirmed the direction before she departed with Alice.



OOC: Images of the area:
https://www.google.com.au/sear...biw=1302&bih=907
Pretty!

ooc: Isn't it though? I did a little research obviously, and I thought it would be a good fit for him.

The man, a bit bewildered at these less than chatty strangers, gives a stiff nod, looking disappointed. Clearly he wanted to know more about you but instead he watches you a long while as you walk through the morning dew, your feet getting cold and wet as you wander the general direction he gave. A couple miles this way gets aggravating fast and though you are not overly tired from your exertion, you are soggy.

Eventually you come to a fair sized cottage that sits apart from the others. A waist high white picket fence surrounds the place and there are flowers everywhere, blooming in an early spring. Smoke rises from the chimney and you can smell good things coming from within, namely fresh baked bread and something sweet. It's like a home you never knew you had.

Judging from the man's directions this must be the place, though it's hard to say for certain.

ooc: go ahead and figure out how you want to proceed but for time's sake please roll a sense motive too. Thanks! :)

Hailing as she did from the damp grey moors of Devon, Penny didn't complain at the cold, the dew, or the hike. After the hot dry weather of the American West, this was a most welcome change of climate, refreshing and full of life. But privately she did wonder why Ian would dream this place quite so wet. 'Bracing, isn't it?' she cajoled Alice.

She gazed appreciatively over the cottage; it was very quaint and picturesque, almost chocolate-box art. It was perhaps among the most pleasant of cottages Penny had seen in many a British village. Naturally it was a dream. She looked for a carpenter's workshop, wood off-cuts, and other signs of practicality and reality, but they weren't immediately apparent. 'I'm not so sure this is the place, but let us ask here and narrow it down some.' She strolled up the footpath and rapped politely at the door.


OOC: Sense Motive 23

This local gravestone is a bit creepy:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/...Durisdeer_church.JPG

Alice was glad for her boot, they did not easily come off in the muck. She glanced at Penny, wondering how she could take this all in stride. Her answer was a bit sarcastic, "Bracing, it is indeed."

When they reached the cottage Alice was a bit put out. It was after all what she had dreamed of in her own youth. "The only thing missing are a couple of ankle biters runnin around." She nodded to Penny suggestion.

07:28, Today: Mary-Alice Reussoe Conner rolled 5 using 1d20+4. Sense Motive.

ooc: That's an understatement! What a cool gravestone though!

As you approach the cottage, you realize it is possible for the carpenter shop to be in the basement as you can see now it indeed has one and the place is larger than it looks. Still, at this point it's hard to say for certain.

The knock yields results in short order. A woman, roughly in her late twenties, answers with a look of surprise. She's stunningly beautiful with long raven hair in a loose braid and warm brown eyes. She greets you with a thick accent. Good day. Is there something I can do for you?

Behind her you can see the place is immaculate and even more charming somehow on the inside. You hear children's voices laughing from within but no sign of Ian as yet.

Penny's reply caught in her throat in surprise at the beautiful woman. She hadn't known whom to expect – perhaps Ian as a bachelor carpenter, or his mother or younger sister, but somehow, hearing the laughter of children, she knew this wasn't either of them. Penny doffed her hat, saying politely 'Ah, good day. We were looking for Mister Ian Shaw, on a business matter.'