For one moment you were in one place at the second you were somewhere else. Reality went sideways and your sanity too a break. The world kept spinning and you felt your body tingling your belly felt like someone was poking with white-hot pokers while you could feel ice cold fingers running across your spin.

Than it was all gone and you were alone, the world was spinning and you senses were muffled, fuzzy cottons in your ear, blurry sight. You glanced back and saw a large obelisk-like rock glowing from heat, for a few seconds you could see the world you came from without a warning the image changed into the infinity of space, quickly the rock cooled down and the stone changed again this time back into plain rough rock.



It took a couple of moments for you to regain your senses, there was a strong sense of a swamp. Rotting organic matter with standing water. The soil was dark wet and black, it would have been fertile if there was somewhere to the water to drain. It was overcast, the skies covered with dark clouds, a break in the clouds revealed it was day. Oddly despite the distance rumble of thunder and the occasional lighting, the weather is warm and nice. If it wasn't for the clouds you'd guess this was a summer day.

Colton yeeted through the portal and into a puddle of muck, soaking his Adidas through and barely managing to stop before he faceplanted. The confusion on the boy's face was evident, pale eyes blinking as they took in the dismal - yet stunning - sight before him, a wetland vista far more primal than any he'd ever seen in his life.

That would be none. He had seen none wetlands before this, at least not in person. But was this a marsh? A bog? A swamp? A moor? A fen? Colton did not know, for he had not paid much attention in his environmental biology classes, scraping by - as in all cases - with a participatory C.

"WTF," he whispered, enunciating each letter individually. Doubleyou Tee Eff indeed.

He turned back to the portal from which he'd come and found it sealed, inert. There would be no returning to his world of being terminally online from this boggy wetland.

It occurred to him that he'd never see his family again.

It occurred to him that there was no one to erase his browser history.

A cold gnawing dread formed in the pit of Colton's stomach. Clearly he could never go home again. But so what? "So what," he echoed, hands brushing down the sides of his bright yellow crew-neck T-shirt, already damp from the humidity. "So what?"

He felt his jaw unclench, his shoulders slacken, his spine straighten as if a great existential dread of having lived in the end of days had suddenly been lifted. Yes, there was always the chance that this wasn't some iseki deal and he'd been transported to, say, Florida, instead of another world, but there was no reason to be negative. Best to assume a clean slate, a new chance, a new life in a world that hadn't been doomed before he was born.

He turned to the portal and gave his old life two middle-fingers. "See you in hell, trash fire!" Then turned boldly back towards the swamp and started walking away towards a new life of adventure, excitement, and possibly a lonesome death alone and unmourned.

Colton began his long walk, the marshlands were under an ever cloud cover with the occasional lighting and thunder. The marshes were teeming with insect life, although he wasn't sure if an eight legged and four winged creature would be correctly called an insect. These critter were on the small size, no larger than the tip of his index finger. The water in the shallow pools was muddy, full with black wet soil, white albino worms were crawling in it. Colton had a feeling drinking the water was not a good idea, thus he kept pushing forward.

Somewhere above him the the sun was slowly climbing the sky. Despite the moors he was making good progress, he managed not to lose his direction and he was pretty sure he was heading north, assuming directions worked the same. He managed not to fall into any bogs and keep his clothing more or less dry. Despite the wet surrounding he was perched and his belly began rumbling and complaining.

This swamp was the worst. Colton's socks and sneakers were soaked through, and that was the grossest thing ever. Not that they were good for the terrain, feeling like the muck was going to suck them off his feet every other step. Or for long distance walking in general. His feet were uncomfortable, he was getting hungry, and it was sooooo humid.

"Narnia sucks," he said to himself. "I should, like, find food. Or shelter. Or water. Right?" He thought he vaguely remembered something like that. So... food. Yeah. Mushrooms were probably dicey unless he wanted to trip balls or die, so no mushrooms. Berries? Maybe berries. Something he didn't have to cook, because as a 21st century digital boy he had no idea how. Even if he had, like, a stove. Which he didn't. Or new how to build a fire. Which he didn't.

"I am woefully unprepared for a life of adventure," Colton informed the wilderness. What kind of food even grew in swamps? What did Shrek like? Onions, probably. Yeah, wild onions were food. And they were moist, so maybe that counted as water, too? Maybe?

Colton kept an eye out for food, fresh water, or signs of other people who might have one or the other.

Colton spent the day circling the bog, he was hungry, thirsty and ironically wet. The weather was cold, despite this should have been the middle of the day there was little light due to the overcast skies. If he had any luck it would have started raining and he would have been able to soak his dried tongue but the dark heavy rain clouds, refused to release their content.

He was about to give up his search, maybe find a relatively dry spot and curl into a little ball and and do what? wake up? die?

At that point he heard the song, it was odd, if he had to guess he would have said the tune was something from the middle east.  He couldn't recognize the lyrics, he couldn't even recognize the language but the voice was sweet. Perhaps it was sweet because it was the first voice he hard that wasn't crawling insects or other bugs.

Colton climbed over the little hill that separated him from the voice and saw the horror beyond it. The singer, if you could call it such had four long limbs, that ended with sharp claws, it had another set of small arms that it used to probe the ground with a long metal spear. It wore no clothing but had a dark exso-skeleton. Worse part was it's head, it was set on a long fleshy pink muscular neck ending in a large maw. The creature was busy tossing inside his maw small worms and maggots it was digging from the slush.

Colton stared in shock at the creature. It reminded him of something from the distant past, and after a few moments he realized that it looked like aliens he'd seen in that ancient game his uncle used to play. What was its name? Oh yeah, Half-Life.

There were aliens in that game. And a swamp. That's really all Colton remembered, as it was too scary for him to play. Still, he'd grown up with those old games like Half-Life and Skyrim and Fallout 4, passed on down to him through his uncle's Steam account. In a way, he preferred them to modern games like Fortnight. Not that he had much appetite for games...

This creature was worse, though. It was gross. And it was eating gross worms. It was deeply problematic, despite its beautiful singing voice. Was that ironic? It felt ironic.

Didn't seem like the nudist creature had seen him yet, and that was just fine with Colton. He backed away, slowly, hoping to avoid what would surely be an awkward and tedious confrontation, like when his mom was drinking.

The singing continued on the other side of the little hill, hill was an over estimation, it was a little raised land covered with reed like plants. The song was clearer now, if he closed his eyes Colton could imagine it was a lovely maiden that sang not the horror that he saw.

The song was getting closer and closer, the creature was circling toward Colton position, it didn't seemed that the monster had noticed Colton yet.

Ugh. So awkward. Things were going from bad to worse - if the creature saw him now it'd be obvious that he was trying to avoid it, and that would be a whole other thing that he really didn't want to get into. Assuming it didn't just try to eat him, which honestly would be a lot less cringe.

Last thing he needed was to surprise it by having them suddenly run into one another. No, the better option here would be to warn it that he was close by. And the best way to do that? Song. The universal language.

Colton liked music. The songs he liked best were sad and slow, and dreary, and he didn't know the words. Or the Japanese songs from his favorite anime, which he could also not sing. But Colton did like karaoke - and while the songs were older - like Boomer and Millenial and The Other Generation stuff - he DID know the words, because that's what karaoke places had.

He racked his brain trying to come up with the kind of song a swamp dwelling creature might like, when really, there was only ever one option.

"SOMEbody once told me
the world is gonna roll me,
I ain't the sharpest tool in the shed!"

The moment Colton started to sing the singer at the other side of the elevation turned silence. With no other option Colton continued, his voice trembling shaky sounded small and alone over the large moor.

A few moment later the singer from the other side joined its voice to Colton. It was a tune and surprisingly it matched Colton memory for how the song should be.

So they sang Colton getting more and more confident as he sang and the critter  followed adding a tune and rhythm to the song.

When the song was over even a fatalist like Colton couldn't but smile with satisfaction of course than he raised his eyes and saw the creature face to face with him standing but five feet away, spear tilted across it's dark exoskeletal hide. Up close Colton could also tell that the critter smelled like a mixture of rotting fish and rotten eggs.

Shit. Now came the hard part. Small talk. Colton hated small talk, even when he shared a common language. Really, he was only comfortable communicating via memes and short texts, but without the internet as a medium and a whole new world it'd be like that space show his grandfather liked... there was this one episode where Captain Professor X was talking to aliens that could only communicate in shared cultural understanding - memes - and he couldn't figure it out.

Not wanting to let the awkward pause grow more awkward or pause-y, Colton settled for giving the alien a simple head-tilt. "Sup?"

That was how people interacted offline, right?

When Colton spoke the creature took a few steps backwards. It stabbed its spear into a puddle and than moved it toward Colton offering a squirming two inch wide milky white maggot impaled on it.

As Colton reviewed the offer the creature started singing once more repeating the tune Colton had sang, surprisingly the creature repeated the words as well but the creature voice was sweet like honey and if Colton would have closed his eyes he could easily imagine the voice belonging to a sweet teen girl.

Oh geez oh man oh geez. Colton did NOT want to eat the gross swamp worm. He really didn't want to. It was gross. And a worm. Probably rife with parasites. Colton was skinny enough that he absolutely did not need a tapeworm.

And yet...

And yet it would be suuuper awkward to decline the generous offer, and Colton wasn't good with confrontation. Instead, he sang back to the creature.

"All I wanna do is say thank you
Even though I don't know what you are
You gave me a gross swamp worm
even though I don't have a jar."


Grimly, he would pull the worm off of the spear and examine the thing before adopting a mock shocked expression on his face and pointing behind the weird swamp monster. "Oh shit it's something horrible, look!"

If the creature took the bait he'd turn and fling the worm as far as possible in the opposite direction before faking like he'd eaten it, with exaggerated chewing sounds while rubbing his belly.

The creature mimic Colton words perfectly, it seemed it had a knack for rhythm and sounds.
Lacking any face it must not understand Colton expression and when Colton pointed and spoke he only got a blank stare from the creature whom quickly fished another maggot and offered it to Colton adding a second to the one in Colton hand.

The creature plucked a third worm and tossed it into it's open maw. Up close Colton could smell the stanch from the the things breath, it felt putrid and its breathing was warm and wet. Colton couldn't see eyes and the thing face seemed to be composed of a large open maw.

It had to see without needing eyes. Like, Colton didn't know, echolocation or something. It would have been awkward to refuse, and who was he to say that his own not-maggot-eating culture was superior? That's an insensitive attitude. Besides, he'd heard that some of the grubs they ate in Australia tasted like peanut butter.

This probably wasn't one of those grubs. Colton stuffed it into his mouth anyway and did his best to eat it.

It might be nutritious, it might be good for him but it didn't taste like peanut butter, it had a foul bitter taste, it tasted like you'd imagined a swamp maggot would taste. The taste was revolting, will Colton try to brave it and force the grub fighting his own raising bile or will he risk offending his singer friend and spit it out?

Colton didn't bother trying to hide his expression, guessing that the creature wouldn't understand human facial expressions, lacking a face as he did. It was the most disgusting thing he'd ever eaten, and that was saying something - he'd been to Arby's.

Still, he fought hard as he could to keep the greature down, chewing it with exaggerated bites and swallowing as soon as he was able. "Yum, thanks."

Bitter juices exploded in Colton mouth as he chewed the disgusting little maggot, he was barely able not to throw up.

The thing didn't seemed impressed with Colton expressions, in face once Colton finished swallowing the maggot the creature tossed him another... and another and another...

It seemed the creature wanted to Colton to be well fed.

On some things they say they are an acquired taste, on other one can get used to after eating enough. If the worms had any magic it was that made it so revolting to it one could never get used to eat them.

Colton had his limits. He was willing to play along to get along to the tune of one gross swamp worm, but he had no further interest in what the gross monster might think of him. "Thanks, I'm full, Shrek."

He tossed the worms back at the creature.

The creature looked puzzled, it is very difficult for a faceless maw-only creature to look puzzled but the creature definitely looked puzzled.

"Thanks... I'm full, Shrek." it sang back at Colton biting half the maggot and swallowing it while offering the other half, still squirming, back.

Colton felt a warm fuzzy feeling, it was very faint but somehow he got the feeling eating the worm would help them.

"Oh fine." Colton half-suspected that the feeling he had was the worm's parasites trying to get him to eat more worms and thus more parasites, but who cared. Death would be coming for him soon enough.

He at the worm.

The creature kept feeding Colton the worms, half the thing would eat and half it would toss at Colton. The taste didn't improve after repeatable eating the maggots.

What did change was Colton percept, he began to be aware of the thing standing next to him. First, he was suddenly aware it wasn't an it but a she. Colton, could sense it was lonely, seeking company. He could sense warmth from it, care and desire to help. The thing appeared like a monster but she had the soul of an angel.

~Sweet Angel Rhyme~

The thought broke into his mind, it was her name. She was looking at him with curiosity mixed with a little concern, she was afraid he would harm her.

The feelings the creature was putting out - compassion, altruism - were as alien to Colton as the creature's appearance. No, maybe not alien - he knew what weakness was. These were impulses and drives that got you taken advantage of. He'd been kind too, once... before the world taught him that for every inch he gave, the universe would take a mile.

He didn't want to hurt the creature. Colton wasn't a bad person... at least, not in that way. Just tired. Burnt out. Empty.

And distrustful. These feelings... they were clearly unnatural. They were coming from the creature or the worms it had been feeding him. Why? To gain his trust? Colton did not trust people that tried to gain his trust. In his experience, that was a sure path to betrayal.

And the only thing stronger than his desire to avoid social awkwardness was the determination to never let himself be taken advantage again, in any world, by any creature.

"Thanks for the worms, but I gotta yeet on outa here." He gave the creature double-finger guns and started walking away, ready to run if the creature followed.

Sweet Angel Rhyme looked surprised, well she didn't had a facial expression but Colton could feel her surprised.

He heard her cry in sorrow as he was running, she didn't try to follow, he could hear her sad calls and sense her despair and sadness for him bolting. He didn't stop he kept running, when he got his breath back he was at the edge of the moor.

The sky was getting dark and the air was getting cold, the ever storm clouds had abruptly stopped at the edge of the moor.

He was facing a grassy plain, the grass looked sick and yellowish but stubbornly clanged to the hard earth. He could see to the north west ruins of some sort, behind them at the distance he could see a huge forest, stretching across his field of view, behind him there were more swamp land.

Shelter. That's what he needed. His t-shirt and cargo shorts, wet with swamp muck, didn't offer much protection from the cold... even if the storm couldn't leave the swamp.

He took a moment to observe the absolute cut off between biomes. He wasn't a biologist, but he knew that wasn't natural. And if it wasn't natural, it was artificial. Someone had done this, someone had decided to do this. Maybe the whole place was fake, like an alien nature preserve.

Or zoo.

But for now, he needed to worry about more immediate concerns. Maslow said so. He set off towards the ruins in a light jog, hoping the activity would keep him warm.

It took Colton the better part of an hour to reach the ruins.

By the time Colton reached the edge of the ruined city the sun was low in the sky.

It once was a magnificent city, the once white stone was now dark and crumbling. The buildings had once large arched window now stood like open skulls with empty holes staring into the abyss.

There was a cold wind inside, it was the chill of the grave. There was green, black moss growing everywhere like a parasite slowly chocking the life from the pillars and once great monuments.


The sun was about to set, Colton didn't had much time to explore not if he wanted to find shelter for the night.

Exploration could wait. Colton needed to find shelter. Building a fire wasn't really a concern - he had no idea how - so he was looking for somewhere dry and sheltered from the wind. Maybe kinda hidden, in case of monsters. Or someplace that offered him a good vantage to spot trouble before it manifested.

And comfy. Comfy would be good. You know. Not like, on a pile of gravel. Soft grass. Or something.

Colton started it search, he could see even with a quick search that the deeper he went into the center of the city the more ruined he saw. He was no expert but to his eyes it seemed like damage from bombs with the only anomality was that the craters and damaged building seemed to be suffering more from the dark black green moss. When he passed next to large deposit of the moss a chill ran over his spine that had nothing to do with the weather.

In the end he found three places he could stay, the first must have been a theater, it's roof miraculously survived and it provide a descent dry shelter.

The second was the ruins of a small castle, it was most likely a keep of some sort, perhaps a relic from older time, the castle took massive brunt of the damage, it had gaping holes. It was open to the elements but it provided good vantage place to see around the desolated city.

The third building was once a workshop of some sort, it had a dead furnace and a rotten sign above its main entrance. Most of the roof was blasted away but it had a bed, it must have been an apprentice cot once. The mattress turned into rotten rags and the wooden frame hardly held his weight but it was a bed.

[Private to GM: The Fey Theatre: A large stone-walled theatre, said to be built upon the ground where a sidhe noble was betrayed and murdered.
The ancient ruins of a small castle, said to be haunted by the ghost of the last tyrant of a long-forgotten empire.
Coenbehrt's Hauberks: The workshop of a male human armorer named Coenbehrt, who is rumored to lead a cult of chaos.]

Colton stopped looking as soon as he found the first shelter, the theater. Would there be better spots to camp? Yeah, probably, but good enough was good enough, and that was good enough for Colton.

With the last of the fading light, he decided to scrounge around for anything useful - old costumes, matches, maybe a pump well or something. He didn't know, really. Maybe a mop handle or a rake he could use to defend himself.

Just whatever.

He'd find some hidden closet or alcove or *something* concealed if he could, a place to spend the night, and investigate the mysterious ruins in the morning.

It was a miserable night in the theatre. While dry and safe from the rain that started pelleting the roof. Beside the maggots he had nothing to eat or drink in over a day, his stomach was rumbling and his lips were cracked dry.

Sleep was hard, perhaps because of that he saw the light, peeking outside he saw glowing translucent humanoid forms materializing.

Both figures were humanoid, dressed in dark leather, they were bold with pale gray blue skin. Their faces were covered with pins and each held a little glowing box. They were arguing silently there was no sound. Than one of them pulled a long sleek knife and thrust it deep into the other phantom belly. There was a shocked scream that threatened to freeze Colton soul as the murder victim fell and crumbled into sparkling light.

The other turned scanning the environment before it moved away toward the empty doorway.

Oh snap, it was that guy from that old classic horror movie... Phantasm or something? Like Chucky, but with an evil rubick's cube? Colton wasn't sure, he wasn't into shlock. But the guy - pinface or whatever - was bad news.

Why was pinface here? Another point in the 'this world is fake' category. And why were there more than one? Well, now there was just one. Whatever. The guy seemed like BAD NEWS. Colton surmised that *why* he was here was less important than *what* Colton should do about it.

Hide.

Colton would stay hidden. Maybe see if the theatre had a back door he could sneak out of if the fictional movie monster tried to stab him or whatever.

It was a miserable night, as if it wasn't enough that he was hungry, thirsty and tired he had to deal with monsters as well. At first he stayed hidden, sleep evading him, than he decided it would be better to sneak out so he started exploring the theater with the intention of finding a back door. He found a dark stairway leading to a shadowy cellar but he didn't take it. He did find a back door, outside it was raining, black oily rain the made puddles of dark liquid. He could see more creature like the one he saw in the theater. They were both male
and female, all bold all dressed in the odd leather and all had silvery pins on their faces. Some had the held to the small box while other had it tucked on their belt.

Colten kept hidden, sticking to the alcove of the theater away from the attention of these creatures. He had seen at least half a dozen at once and later at least double that amount but he couldn't tell if them apart to tell if they were the same or different ones.

Just before morning the creatures entered different ruined building, those were the more luxurious buildings although they were in the same sorry state as the rest of the city.

Colton wished he'd seen more bad horror movies because then maybe he'd know the pinface's deals. Their leather outfits were all fetishy and they hung around fancy buildings... maybe they were the ghosts of rich weirdos? Or vampires? Something gross and decadent, probably.

Despite his lack of sleep, Colton knew that daytime was his chance to look for CLUES and SUPPLIES, the two things he'd need to survive. For now the theater would be his base of operations - the creatures didn't seem to care about it. Like LARPers they mostly seemed to care about posturing around and stabbing each other, so if he stayed out of the way he should be safe.

Pinface Fetish Larpers. That's what he'd call them.

First: Check out the theater basement, make SURE it was safe. Then, look for supplies, food, a weapon, anything... or a safer place to crash. He got this.

There was a lab at the theater basement, it was large and abandoned, when Colton entered it the walls started glowing blue giving him a modicum of light. The smell of the place was of dust and loss. At the center was a large glass cryo-pod, something/one smashed dark green glass and whatever liquids were inside spilled across half the floor leaving a dry pink colored stain. Someone had ransack the place, and on a casual scan Colton was pretty sure the looters took most of everything with them but he could search for longer period of time.

On the floor next to a metal table Colton found a skeleton. it was a twisted humanoid skeleton, the bones seemed to have some odd growth on them, the spine was contorted. The skull had dozens of dull silvery pins scattered next to it. There were remains of the dark leather outfit, he could see the outfit also had thin long needles in it, presumably to pierce the flesh.

"Oh it's a pinface." Colton briefly considered wearing the leather to disguise himself, but figured the monsters would probably figure it out on account of his skin not being blue.

Also, needles.

He decided to give the room a search, mostly because he was already here, and a little lazy. He wouldn't spend all day on it - he was hungry and wanted to check out the rest of the ruins - but it'd be a start.
[Private to GM:
ooc: He has the Keen Eye for Detail (Basic) talent if it applies here.]

Colton spent the morning searching the abandoned lab. He did found that as he suspected the lab was picked clean. After hours of searching he had the following to show for it:
A club made from a metal leg of one of the work benches.
Several bars of gray paste, he liked to think this was their original color.
A canteen with some water in it, the regular kind and it didn't smell so bad.

He had enough for a day, perhaps two if he was really lucky in rationing the food.
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:40, Sat 04 Dec 2021.

Colton hadn't expected searching the lab to take so long. He really hadn't. But sometimes? Sometimes things take longer than you'd expect. He was a thorough kid with an eye for detail, and it'd netted him some water and what might be food. And a club, so that was cool.

He'd have some breakfast, and start searching the rest of the city. Yeah - that's the ticket! Him and Mr. Smashy.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:45, Sat 04 Dec 2021.

The gray paste tasted as one might expect from gray paste to taste, which is tasteless. The water had an odd metallic flavor but Colton didn't feel particularly bad after drinking so all was well.

The section of the ruins he was at was dominated by a huge ruined Cathedral, once it was a great a magnificent place now it was ruined and covered in the same green black oily moss.

Colton was at the edge of the ruins, could go deeper into the ruins, or he could go around the edges (east or west), the risk was he would lose his path back to his base. Alternatively he could try to search more in his immediate surrounding, he would learn more on it but from what he saw it didn't contained much of anything of interest.

There really wasn't much of interest in the theater, even if he lost his way, so Colton decided to press on. Not so much into the Cathedral - he didn't like that moss - but around it, clockwise. If there was a boss fight, it'd be in the Cathedral, and he'd rather go around the edges before confronting it.

Colton went through the ruins counter clock wise, as a he traveled he had noticed that the he moved out from one district, the one with the ruined cathedral, to another. This was was dominated by the ruins of a castle/mansion.
Colton could see a road leading toward the castle but he would need to navigate the ruins before he could reach it, assuming he was interested.

As he walked in the ruins of the streets, his shoes tapping on the dark cobble stones, he saw something odd. On a second floor window he spotted a bird made of pewter. It was very life like with wings opened on the verge of flight.

He paused in a plaza there was a fountain shape like a terrible beast, with ten tentacles, four of which were pushing a young female into its maw.

On the side of the fountain he saw a graffiti in English:

Johnny is still alive!
==>

The arrow was pointing toward a street leading deeper into the district and if Colton had to guess, to the castle.

"I'm gonna go get that bird," Colton said as he went to get that bird.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:52, Sun 05 Dec 2021.

As Colton watched the pewter bird above he figured there are many ways to try and get the bird. If he wanted to get that bird, he better stop just stand there gawking at it but take some actions to get it.

The best way to get the bird, Colton reasoned, would be to go inside the building, look for stairs, go up to the second floor, go to that room, and take the bird.

So that's what he attempted to do, assuming that nothing stood in his way, like doors or monsters. He couldn't see any from the street, but that didn't mean they didn't exist!

Colton scanned for an entrance and couldn't find any. Perhaps there was an entrance from another side of the street, fortunately there was large gaping hole not far that led to the inside.

The building was rather well preserved, it had a roof and it was dark and dank. There was the strong smell of fungus in the air.

Colton located stairs leading up, the stairs were some sort of wood and they were complaining and groaning when Colton climbed them.

Upstairs was a large space leading to several rooms, he was again lucky noticing the the window the bird was on the other side. He walked toward the window, half way through the room he heard an ominous groan from the floor, the sound of splitting as the ancient timber began break under him.

Colton yelped and jumped, trying to clear the weak portion of the floor before it collapsed, hands outstretched, hoping against hope to reach the window ledge that seemed so far away...

[Private to GM: ooc: Colton is as yet unaware of his increased strength or ability to leap. It will  come as a surprise to him. Talent: Jumping (Basic)]

Things seemed to slow down around Colton, or maybe his perception of time changed. He could see the old timber start to splinter, he could hear the groan of the wood as it began to disintegrate under his weight.

He jumped, it was not a possible jump, no man could jump forward in a falling. Well in the movies it would have worked but in real life, he would just end up falling as the surface he leaped from collapsed. Colton head and torso slammed into the wall. It wasn't the floor it was the wall at the back end of the room. He had enough sense to grab the edge of the window before he fell down to the pit that opened up behind him.

He pulled himself up, he did it with ease, it must be adrenaline cause he did it with no effort. Pulling himself up and sitting on the ledge of the window. watching the street below.

He was two stories high feet dangling over the ledge and the pewter bird was two windows to his left.

Colton stared down at the street, not really sure how to feel about that jump. It was a desperate act. It should not have worked... and yet, here he was. It didn't make any sense, but neither did any of the rest of this... he could attribute a lot to adrenaline, but he didn't even appear to have strained his muscles.

What the hell, man.

He cast a sidelong glance at the pewter bird. "Buddy, I'll do a lot on a whim, but in the future where I come from there's a little economic concept you might not be aware of called the sunk cost fallacy."

Second floor. That was what, a 15 foot drop? Less the nearly six foot length of his body, it wasn't that far. And Colton wanted to be dead gone before anything came to investigate that crash. He'd continue his clockwise exploration of the city's central area.

Moving quickly but carefully, he lowered himself from the windowsill before letting himself drop to the street below.

Colton dangled himself and let go. It was a clean fall and an even cleaner landing.
He was very proud of the landing, he absorb the hit with his knees and roll. His knees were sore and he had some bruises from scraping the stone walls or cobble stones.

His treck took him to plaza with a fountain shape like a terrible beast, ten tentacles, four of which were pushing a young female into its gaping maw.

On the side of the fountain he saw a graffiti in English:

Johnny is still alive!
==>

The arrow was pointing toward a street leading deeper into the district and if Colton had to guess, to the castle.

Colton took a quick glance into the fountain to look for loose change, then decided to go see about this Johnny fellow. Whoever he was, someone who knew him spoke English, and maybe he could get some answers.

Colton continued in the broken street, he could see in the distance the black castle.
The cobblestones were of good make, he could have guessed he was in some European city, except for the whole violet sky, odd moss and the whole city being ruined and dead.

Ahead the street branched out, on a post someone scribbled in the same red color.

Pewter witch, huh? Sounded like bad news, and that frowny-face confirmed it. Not today, Pewter Witch!

Feeling confident in his choice, Colton headed towards the Shrine instead.

Colton hands and feet hurt from the jump, he was walking for over ten minutes now, the dead city was empty of life and sound. Well there was the dark green moss that grew everywhere but it felt wrong, tainted.

Ahead he he saw a building that appeared well destroyed, once it was two or three stories high but the third floor collapsed. it was an important building, it had places for statues that were now empty or just with stubs of stone evidence for a past statue.



What caught Colton attention was the red graphity.


The arrow was pointing right.

Rest. That sounded good. And Johnny knew about Pac-Man, that old game from his grandfather's time. That was also good.

Colton would head to the shrine and then rest.

The inside of the building was ruined, collapsed and blocked, Colton couldn't take more than two steps inside before his path was blocked by huge slabs of moss covered stones.

He went outside and circle the building to the left, at the turn of the building he saw a large drawing of packman eating a trail of red dots that lead further left.

Colton nods. That was him. Pac Man. What was he, a pizza? Old games were weird.

He looked under the Pac Man for the shrine.

Sure enough Colton finds beneath a pile of rubble a  debris a hidden entrance leading downwards toward what must have been the cellar of the house.

"I am so smart," Colton congratulated himself on figuring out the clever riddle. Taking a quick look around, he set about clearing the way to what he assumed was the shrine and not a horrible death trap. He was surprised at how light the rubble seemed - like it was Styrofoam or plastic instead of stone and brick. Not, like, weightless, but far lighter than it should have been.

[Private to GM: Just an allusion to his abnormally high Strength. He's slowly figuring it out.]
Once clear, he would descend into the basement.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:14, Tue 14 Dec 2021.

The rubble was heavy, Colton felt its weight but he was stronger than he expected. It lead to an opening leading downward.

Colton climb down, it is a short walk leading to a dark dank cellar. There is hardly any light inside, he can see that there is a bed in one side and there are red writing on the wall.


There were more writing on inner walls but Colton would need light to read them.

Huh. That's messed up. Boston Johnny was from Earth, but looks like he was stuck here too. The moss being bad news was kinda like what he was thinking... and those pin people, yeah, like in the movie, right?

Johnny said it'd just come out... that was, like, back in the 80s. You know, 40 years ago? That meant...

"Okay, Boomer." The words were quiet in Colton's ears, but comforting. A touch of home. There was more written but he'd need a light source... a lighter or a flashlight or something. It was unlikely that Boomer Johnny had left anything functional behind, but he decided to make a quick search of the darker areas anyway.

For now, this place would make a base of operations for him to explore the city.

Colton spend a few moment stumbling in the dark shadows, he found or rather bump into a table, it felt like wood. There were some pots on the table and he found a stone fireplace. He also found the bed, it was made of straw and he found on it an empty red spry can.

Nothing super useful... matches or anything to build a fire with. And building one without wasn't a task Colton could just figure out... he had tried rubbing sticks together once and it didn't work.

But there was a bed and a red can of spray paint. Where did Johnny Boomer get the can? Did he bring it with him? Was there a way to go back and get shit from Earth? Colton didn't know. It was nap time, so Colton decided to rest until he felt less bone-weary.

Colton slept till morning, the bad news were that he was out of food and water, eating the last of his rations for a very meager breakfast. He felt less tired from the day before but this was not the rest he wanted, without warm food in his belly and warm bed it would be very hard to rest.

In the morning Colton set out to scrounge for food and water. If there wasn't a source to be found he'd have to leave the city and return to the wilderness... which was, honestly, fine, as there wasn't really anything helpful here anyway. Just pinfaces and the ghosts of pinfaces. And the pewter witch. He didn't want to run into her for sure.

He'd search for a few hours, and then get moving, heading out of the city opposite the way he came. He had no desire to return to the gross-ass swamp.

Colton was just about to leave the shrine of Johnny when he heard the sound of running steps.

Considering that caution was the better part of valor he waited in the shadows for the runners to pass.

Four figures stumbled into the shrine , they were panting and none of them looked remotely human.

The first was dressed in a pirate outfit, sabre and pistol included. She had thick orange/red fur and she looked like a cross between a fox and a cat, she stood around five feet tall and had a luxurious tail adorned with small gems.

Following her were a pair of heavily built lizard like people, one was dressed with expensive, if dirty, cloths while the other had a large sword and was dress in light robes. Both bodies were covered in golden bronze scales, they had horns on their heads and large heavy tails. The one armed with a sword, was panting heavily and was clutching his side, his robes were soaked.

The last, was a tall and muscular man, he had long flowing dark hair and a goatee. His angular face were off, long cheekbones with sunken eyes deep in their orbits. His skin was leathery yellow and he had a pair of very long pointed and serrated ears. He was dressed in black leathers and armed with a few knives.

The leader the fox hushed the others and a sound of something large and lumbering came from above.

Noticing you, the fox held her paw/hand up in a Vulcan greet "Live long and prosper Johnny."
"Enemy warbird decloaking at starboard... I’m just here for the gasoline." she spoke in a whisper and her English was bad, she had strong accent.

Outside, something huge and angry roared, which was followed by a sound of crashing and stone being pulverized.









[Private to GM: Ascubi Sezrer Atlanian male rogue MR 48

Asin Zog warrior MR 56

Srerin Zog scholar/sorcerer MR 61

Oromi Epeco swashbuckler MR 44]

"Oh shit, furries!" Colton couldn't help but gasp. Worse than that. Trekkie furries. He flinched again at the sound of whatever giant monster was thrashing around outside. "Oh man oh geez oh man."

No wait - they weren't the trekkies. Clearly, Boomer Johnny had been. He'd come to this world and made friends with this kitsune, dragonborn, and... scraggly-ass Jack Sparrow... and taught them to communicate in Star Trek quotes.

Maybe the kitsune (which Colton knew about from anime) couldn't see him clearly in the dark, or because all humans looked alike to her, but he wasn't who she thought he was. "I'm not Johnny," he whispered back. "I'm Colton. I followed the signs looking for Johnny, but he wasn't here when I got here."

Outside the rumbling, crushing and stone grinding continued followed by the occasional roar.

The fox was grinning, she was actually excited about it. "No Johnny?" she said pointing at Colton than added "Cool-town?" pointing at herself she said "Oromi "

"No more Johnny speak... " she added.

"We off to see the wizard, Cool-town beam me up Scottie?"

Hell yeah, Colton was Cool-Town. It would be difficult for him to speak to the furries in the 90s-and-earlier movie lingo they understood - all that stuff was from before his time. Still, he'd try to remember lines from the old shows his dad and granddad liked to watch. "Uhh... and my axe? No, wait, that's too recent. Um... old movies, old movies... there's 106 miles to Chicago, we've got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark out, and we're wearing sunglasses. Hit it!"

Oromi didn't seemed to understand Colton but she did get the gist of it.
She slapped his side and spoke to the others, the moved as she introduced them.
The wounded lizard like person was named Asin, the other lizard like was called Srerin. The one with lanky figure and yellow skinn was called  Ascubi Sezrer.

They each made a little bow muttering something under their breath.

You waited half an hour maybe a little less before the crashing sounds moved away when Oromi leads you out of the hide out.

She points at the road leading to the black castle and motioned for Colton to lead the way.

Colton spent the half-hour trapped in the shrine observing these new creatures as covertly as possible. He wasn't used to dealing with people in the physical world. Even before Covid, he'd been much more comfortable online. Maybe this was the chance for him to get out of his shell a little bit... but he didn't think that the others even spoke movie-English.

When the crashing stopped and the fox lady (Colton was awful with names) asked him to lead the way, he wasn't sure why. But he did anyway.

They started walking toward the castle, Asin had taken the lead. Oromi and Srerin walked with Colton and Ascubi was at the rear, all drew blades of various length and were walking at a cautious pace.

They got to a fork and Colton saw another message from Johnny.

Colton didn't know if the fox lady could read English. He pointed right. "Johnny says go that way."

They walk up the hill toward the black castle, they took the long rout and the group walk in silence. Srerin pointed at some feature and spoke excitingly to the other but none of them seemed to appreciate his interest some much.
They reached a plaza with a well, there was another sign there.