In reply to The Keeper of Secrets (msg # 20):

Clarke

Clarke could almost feel the vibrations of their voices through the spindly camp table. “Fredrick was sure full of piss and vinegar today. Must have been a new record!” Around another table sit a small group of men in drab tan military fatigues. “I don’t even know why I go anymore. It’s the same sermon he has rehashed for years. I must have heard it a thousand times by now. ‘The scour of this heathens is bound by no god…”

While the voice is familiar Clarke can’t seem to place it. Each of the mens faces are obscured by the brims of field hats or the visors of helmets, their cigarettes and cigars seeming to disappear into nothingness. “All right boys, hands down!” A moment of muffled silence is followed by a whoop of excitement. The sound of coins being scraped across the tabletop is quickly drowned out faint high pitch whistle and a shout of incoming.

The world around Clarke erupts in an inferno of flames and screams as he is thrown from his chair and into a world of darkness.

Clarke awakens to the soft murmur of hushed voices. He seems to be laying on something soft and as he tries to move a soft hand press him back down. “He’s awake doctor!” With the rustle of papers and the sound of approaching footfalls, a figure looms over Clarke, gently forcing open each of his eyes causing his vision to swim in the sudden light. “I’m sorry to say your unit was hit with a mortar. No one survived… Except Jack….” The hushed voices of the room have fallen completely silent.

“Where is Jack?”

In reply to The Keeper of Secrets (msg # 21):
Byron

The entire way home had been afraid to even remove it from his jacket. The almanac had nearly drained the last of his inheritance and most of money he had personally stashed away.  But it was worth it. He could feel the sharp edges of it under his fingers. Now inside his dilapidated family home Byron quickly ducked into the library. With most of its once lofty collection now gone, the library was bare except for the few books he had hidden away from the collectors. Nearly trembling with anticipation Byron set the book down on one of the few clean reading desks and flipped to a random page:



A loud hacking drifted down through the ceiling distracting Byron from his reading. Mother had taken a turn for the worse lately. He would have gotten up to check on her but she had been in a mood since they had released the last of the staff.



A loud thump now broke Byron’s attention followed the squeal of rusty wheels.


Byron jumped with a start as the door to the library slowly swung open to reveal the emaciated figure of his mother. She has recently taking to refusing to eat the food the Byron’s meager wages could afford. With a pang, Byron closed the book and turned to his mother, words of apology on his lips.

They died as he took in his mother as she sat motionless in her wheelchair, thinning hair obscuring her face. In a few strides he crossed the room and reached out to her when like a striking viper he mottled hand latched onto his wrist.

“Release…. Me….”
This message was last edited by the GM at 13:43, Mon 20 May 2019.

In reply to The Keeper of Secrets (msg # 21):

Clarke pushed the nurse's, doctor's hand away. He didn't care whose precisely, it was in his way and making him angry. He sat up, his head was fuzzy - he had been here before, but a long time ago. He absentmindedly patted the bedside table next to him, searching for his cards. He hit the metal pack with a thud, his fingers and hand years slower than his thought process.

The room was dimly lit like before, and just like previously it tried to hide the smell of antiseptic and rotting body parts mingling together to make the most vile odour. Clarke struggled to breathe in the enclosed space. Somehow the medical team had created a place that felt like death, even though they had intended it to be the opposite.

His mind swam. He started to shuffle the cards, but when he looked down, they were all jacks. And one in particular - the jack of spades. His friend's face sneered at him. As he flicked through the pack, the image seemed to change. Each one appeared to be a picture in a series - one part in a poorly animated movie.

After adjusting his robe, he looked at the shadowy figures with their blurred heads and blurry clothes, and asked, "You said Jack survived. Where is he?"

In reply to The Keeper of Secrets (msg # 20):

With his grandfather standing tall behind him, his iron grip around Mike's shoulder, he took a nervous sip of the drink offered to him. It tasted bitter and burned as he swallowed. But he knew a just reward for a lesson well learned. Still he wiggled nervously, he didn't understand the question. This wasn't how he remembered it.

This has happened before, he thought with the wonder of a child experiencing deja vu.

Still, he bowed his head in unknown shame for not knowing the answer to the question.

"I dunno' Papa." Mike thought about the last time he had seen Jack, "I haven't seen him since...the muddy place."

What was he remembering?

There is no god here...

In reply to trahernwithglasses (msg # 23):

Clarke
The doctor's face shifts between a scrambled mess to slightly out of focus, almost recognizable. As he flips through a number of pages on a clipboard the voices in the room have returned except now they are filled with undercurrents of urgency and a tension that only comes from pain.

"It says here that you were the last member of the unit he contacted. Did he say where he was?"

While the doctor doesn't make any discernible movement he seems to loom larger.

"Where is Jack?"
This message was last edited by the GM at 15:02, Mon 20 May 2019.

In reply to Jrodimus (msg # 24):

Mike

The iron grip on his shoulder disappears as a soft touch tousles his hair. "Now, now, Mikey. You need to focus. You and Jack were always think as thieves, always depending on you to get him out of a jam. Remember the candy store?"

A vision starts to form in Mike's head but it seems disjointed and uneven. After a few moments it dissolves like so many grains of sand. A familiar voice fills the cabin.

"Why do you seek this man? Surely such a being is beneath your notice." You try to place the voice...

SNAP The crack of fingers dispel the voice. "Hey Mikey, why don't we play a game?"

In reply to The Keeper of Secrets (msg # 25):

Clarke's mind was hazy. He hadn't even known Jack was still alive until a few seconds ago, and now 'they' wished to know where he was. How would he know? How could he know? Was there some clue? Some mystery hidden in the note? If they had held it above candlelight would the truth have been revealed? Was this a giant game of detective for them?

Clarke felt his mind tear - he could feel the pain and anger of all the years give away to hysteria and humour. After all, there was nothing else to do but laugh. This monster, this all-seeing monster, could not find a single man. It could become a void, murder innocents, save those who had died but it could not search the globe for a single being. What a pitiful entity. What a disappointment that he was going to die to a fourth-tier god pretending to be more.

Clarke snorted. "You should try Cairo. I've heard it's dark and full of secrets."

In reply to trahernwithglasses (msg # 27):

That voice...

Where had he heard it before? Mike was confused, he didn't remember a voice either. Something in his mind shifted and scrapped against the strange intrusion. Who else was there? He looked around, searching for the source.

"Hey Mikey, why don't we play a game?" His grandfather asked. He thought he could hear Papa smiling, but the face was in shadow. There seemed to be a glint at where he perhaps was grinning.

Mike loved games, he was good at that them for the most part. Hesitantly he agreed, "OK..."

In reply to Jrodimus (msg # 28):

Clarke

“You should try Cairo. I’ve heard it’s dark and full of secrets.”

Clarke’s glib outburst is met by complete silence. Around the room activity slowly comes to a standstill as if everyone is watching the exchange. The demeanor of the doctor, still looming over Clarke, changes as if he is noticing you for the first time.

“So… you mean you’re a key? A key to opening the other side?” says a familiar voice…

Clarke’s attention is drawn away from the voice as the doctor sets down the clipboard on a small tray of operating tools nearby. “Nurse… I’m afraid Mr. Walsh’s injuries are worse than we fear. We will have to take him into surgery right away.” He looks away from Clarke towards an unseen figure. “Bring me a sedative…”


Mike

Mike’s grandfather finally comes into view as he takes his place at the other side of the table. He had always seemed to be one of the largest people Mike had ever seen. The hand knitted sweaters he is wearing is stretched across his broad shoulders and the whiskey glass is dwarfed in his hand. Strangely the shadows seem to cling to him as he moves, almost as if he is walking through the clouds.

“It’s a fun game Mikey, a kind of game of chance.” Placing the glass on the table he pulls out the revolver with his free hand. “And if you win I’ve got a prize for you!” He pushes the latch on the gun causing the cylinder to swing out and the rounds spill onto the ground. He carefully picks one up and places it back into the gun, spinning the cylinder and closing it with a flick of his wrist.

“Now stay still Mikey.” He raises the gun towards you and without a word pulls the trigger.

CLICK

“Your turn Mike,” he says in a low whisper has he slides the gun across the table….

In reply to The Keeper of Secrets (msg # 29):

Clarke was tired and done with the games. He flicked the cards towards the amorphous figures. The flew into the air, scattering everywhere.

He tried to get off the bed, testing how far hallucinations could bend from their original form.

Roll of 75: Use of Education - knowledge of dreams and how they mirror reality, but do not represent it. (Modest success)

He stood, slightly shaky, but still better than when the mortar had actually hit. "There are no gods and monsters," he proclaimed to the assembled group. "There are only charlatan conjurers feebly clutching at their limitations." He peered, as hard as he could muster, at the space where the familiar yet strange voice had spoken. "If you are so mighty, so all powerful, so all wise as to bend creation to your will then why have you failed to find a single man? How can our flesh and blood, our foibles, evade our omnipotence?"

He took a step towards the group, hoping his death was quicker than he deserved.

In reply to trahernwithglasses (msg # 30):

Clarke takes a few stumbling steps towards the flickering figures, hands raised before him ready to go down fighting. With a sickening lurch the room spins around. When it finally comes to a stop Clarke is facing the doctor whose face is obscured by a mask and is holding a long syringe in one hand, an unknown liquid glistening on the tip.

"Join us Clarke. In the realm of dreams all things are possible...."

In reply to The Keeper of Secrets (msg # 29):

Mikes consciousness scrapped against his subconscious. He felt light headed as the deja vu melted away.

It’s new again

Nervously, Mike took the revolver from his grandfathers hand. Despite his heart beating against his rib cage, Miley was good at games of chance. It was one of the first types of games he learned. He knew his grandfather wouldn’t hand him a loaded gun in this game. Not Papa.
It had to be a trick. But maybe a test. Maybe his grandfather wanted to see if he was brave.

Or maybe this was something else...the shadows seemed to close in around them.

He held the weapon and pointed it at his grandfather.

No.

He turned it on himself, holding it against his temple and pulled the trigger.

23:38, Today: Jrodimus rolled 88 using 1d100.  Luck.
This message was last edited by the player at 14:40, Tue 21 May 2019.

In reply to Jrodimus (msg # 32):

Clarke looked at the syringe and felt the pull. If anyone deserved release, he did. He didn't care what type of release, just, something that concluded his story.

And yet... There was Mike, and Jack. And Byron. He owed them the last piece of his soul, even if it was not much.

"Doctor," he said, too tired to even put on an act. "Let us not do this dance anymore. Jack is clearly out there, I do not know where he is. Until a few days ago, your demons existed only in the sand. Now, as Mike likes to put it, they are also in the mud. Surely you have friends, whatever ethereal form they take. Surely you have lovers and family. I am not trying to change the fate of the world, I am trying to help a friend out of the hole they are in. Why can you not see that? Why can you not let a tired man have one last hurrah before your ascension? Help us. What is a decade or so more to a being that has seen the cosmos born?"

Roll of 71: Persuade - Fail

He could not see an immediate response. So he tried a different tack.

"Perhaps, it is this dream land that causes you hesitation. Perhaps I have more power here than you do. Perhaps if you do not tell me, I will cast you out and your master will come for your soul rather than mine.

Roll of 62: Intimidate - Fail

"Please," he whispered as the entity remained unmoved, "I just want to save one final person's life before the end."

In reply to trahernwithglasses (msg # 33):

In a quick rush the doctor charges Clarke causing them to both tumble over the gurney, knocking the tray of surgical tools to the ground. Pinned down by the weight of the doctor Clarke struggles to free himself.

"Perhaps you'd be more cooperative if you were freed of a limb or two," says the doctor as his raises the syringe, his thumb on the plunger.

Out of the corner of his eye Clarke notices a medical scalpel lying on the floor just within reach...

In reply to The Keeper of Secrets (msg # 34):

Clarke went for the scalpel, knowing it was last chance to make good on all those promises he'd made to himself to keep fighting until the long dark.

Roll for Dex: 30 - Pass

Surprising even himself, he managed to grab it before the doctor could notice. He placed it against the doctor's throat, and said, "Let us try this again." He flicked the blade right.

In reply to trahernwithglasses (msg # 35):

With only slight resistance the scalpel slices through the doctor's neck and warm blood pours over Clarke's hand. The world spins with another sickening lurch and Clarke stumbles as the weight and support of the doctor disappears.

"Now now now," says the doctor with a scolding tone as he appears a few arms length from you. "I believe the saying is an apple a day keeps the doctor away." In his hands is a jagged bone saw that medics use when they deemed a limb too far gone to treat.

"Why don't we try this again." Behind him you can see the various other medical staff slowly approaching, armed with an array of deadly medical tools.

"Where is Jack!!!"
This message was last edited by the GM at 05:21, Mon 27 May 2019.

In reply to The Keeper of Secrets (msg # 36):

Clarke knew this was in his mind. He knew this was an old memory being distorted through either his own fears, or some vague supernatural force. Which one it was didn't matter. They were both trapped in his prison. His darkest fear - his mental state. He tried once again to bring it under control.

Roll of intelligence / education to bring the dream under control: 14 - Pass

The world bent, or cracked, he couldn't tell which. However, there was a fracture there now, the angry crowd seemingly existing on a plane of memories, within other planes of memories. He felt himself float out of the moment and into a larger abyss.

"You tell me," he taunted back, "where do you think Jack is?"

In reply to trahernwithglasses (msg # 37):

While Clarke can feel the dreamworld tugging at his already shattered psyche, he is some how able to hold it together.

"Oh we know where he is," the doctor says leveling the bone saw towards you. "It seems that it will just be a matter of carving it out of your skull!" From off to the side an orderly lunges at you, attempting to restrain you with a pair of leather cuffs.

"Those boys have strong spirits. You won't be able to hold them for long," says the familiar voice radiating calm strength.

"Just because one was able to blunder his way out doesn't mean the others will," hisses a mysterious voice.

In reply to The Keeper of Secrets (msg # 38):

Roll - intellect - pass

The world shattered. He did not know if it was real, imagined or real here - in the imagined. The nurses, doctors and faceless monsters crouching in shadow splintered. Each was still talking or screaming, but they were now contained in tiny shards floating around in the dark abyss that he was falling through.

It was not hot like the scriptures claimed the other world would be, only barren of light. The characters from his memory drifted further and further away - their prisons sparkling as if they were stars in the heavens.

He hoped he would wake and find himself back in the dim room playing at being an occultist. However, the void was deep and he wondered if the monster that had hunted them lay somewhere in the mist.

He only knew that he was falling, and in this space everything was true.

In reply to trahernwithglasses (msg # 39):

Mike

BANG! Suddenly the world went dark and Mike felt as if he was falling. In blinding darkness he could feel the wind whipping around him as he fell into an unending abyss...

After what feels like an eternity Mike feels himself righten  as a familiar figure appears before him...

Clarke

The feeling of hands grasping at his psyche were a counterpoint to the feeling of falling. As the triage tent faded from around him it felt as if the shattered world was desperately trying to draw him back. Despite the adrenaline pumping through his veins, Clarke felt an overwhelming sense of... peace. He was alone. No Zoe. No voices. Just him. For a moment he felt whole, his mind focused and sharp. This feeling was quickly interrupted by a familiar voice...

To All

"About time you cake-eaters" Before you appears Jack, no different from the last time you had seen him.
This message had punctuation tweaked by the GM at 04:15, Sat 01 June 2019.

In reply to The Keeper of Secrets (msg # 40):

Clarke stared blankly at the figure from his past. He was long past the point of being impressed with the other side's tricks and theatrics.

"Hello Jack," he said. "Would you care explaining this mess you left us?"

In reply to trahernwithglasses (msg # 41):

"Well I'm not exactly... me," Jack says with his habitual impish smile. "I'm more of a fragment. Think of me as a fingerprint on a glass of water. Prolonged exposure to the stone will do that."

With a wave of his hand the void around you begins to take focus, becoming an exact replica of the sitting room in Jack's childhood home.

Dropping heavily into a nearby chair Jack tugs at the collar of his shirt. "Seems we are in a bit of a mess."

In reply to The Keeper of Secrets (msg # 42):

Clarke pulled out a child's chair and sat on it. His long legs coming close to his chin as he did so.

Place no trust in gods or monsters.

It was a vague, but also clear memory the quote came from. He was drinking with someone - some official from a diocese or a member of the clergy, but they were all drunk. Nine sails to the wind. The excuse they had was the war, but it was an excuse. There had been no indication any of this group had been sober for a very long time.

The statement had come out of nowhere, unrelated to the topics at hand: converting local tribe leaders, boosting troop morale, pretending American wars were more noble than others. The man had just spat it out, fear and rage in his eyes. He had shaken while saying it, as if possessed by a demon or angel at a rally.

It was a quote that, intellectually, Clarke had appreciated at the time. However, after Cairo it had etched itself into his heart.

He looked at Jack, wondering which he was. Perhaps both.

"What, precisely, is the bit of a mess you left us in Jack? he asked. "We were supposed to leave the killing to the war."
This message was last edited by the player at 12:23, Sun 02 June 2019.

In reply to trahernwithglasses (msg # 43):

Mike watched Clarke take a seat, looking ridiculous in the kids chair. His mind still reeled as the dream of his grandfather was wiped to black when his child-self pulled the trigger. He was still unsure if this was a dream, but as watched his two child hood friends talk, his memory started to come back to him.

The seance. We're still at the seance, but this is happening somewhere else. Our heads?

Clarke looked nervous, as he had the past few days, his eyes had dark spots pulling at his eye lids. He looked like he hadn't slept in days. Then again, they hadn't.

Jack wore his Army uniform still, muddy boots and all. Except the tension and madness that seemed to permeate his very being during the war had fell away, and for most outward appearances he seemed like the Jack before the war. Grinning and easy manner. Small things gave away some changes, tension in the shoulders, the far away look some had. The kind where a man could look at another, but his eyes wouldn't register what they saw.

Mike tried to piece everything together. "Wait a goddamn moment. Where are we? We're supposed to be communicating with the stone. Did you turn into a stone, Jack? Don't tell me you turned into a magic death stone to avoid gambling debts."

In reply to Jrodimus (msg # 44):

"Well yes and no. I represent Jack's connection to the stone," the Jack yet not Jack explains. "I, or should I say Jack, knew of the dangers of using the stone. However, my hand was forced by extenuating circumstances."

Kicking his feet out in front of him, he picks up a small tin top that's just within reach and with a flick of his wrist sends it spinning. A quiet hum fills the air as the top traces small circles on the floor

"When I used the stone it grabbed on to a piece of my psyche. I've been here ever since." Jack's head drops back against the chair and his voice grows introspective as if he is thinking aloud more than talking. "I can feel it sometimes you know. Gazing upon me as if I am little more than an insect."

The only noise in the room is the sound of the spinning top as you wait for him to finish.

"It will be nice to have some company for all of eternity"