⇨ FAERIE TALES

[ringleaders]

Who: Rescue Teams!
When: Day 61
Where: The Athenaeum
What: The carnival goes to get their kidnapped comrades, and use the Athenaeum's magical power of narrative asspulls to guide their way.
Warnings: Two out of three of the fae here are deeply unclean.

TELL YOUR STORY↴ Five of you have been lost, and it's time to get them back. Below, we will be threading the encounter threads one at a time. Put on your best improv hat and feel free to join in.

Comments

[fortuneglass]

Smell?

Carly looks back, and grimaces, scowling further when she looks ahead to see the same thing. It's easy enough for her Fortune Ladies to handle airborne matters...but with a swallow as she tries to ignore the stench, she fills her bike with power and speaks. "Sensing the opposition, the Feathered Champion called upon her power over the flames of the other world- to burn only their enemies, and shield them as they moved!" she commands, violet fires coating the bike and surrounding them. With any luck, it should be more along the lines of how it worked in her world now...

[mylastchance]

They come out of the ground slowly, but persistently. Bony hands hang at their sides while skulls only partially covered with flesh stare in the groups direction. Some of them have eyes, others have only gaping sockets. Whether or not that's scary to a group that includes ghosts and skeletons is impossible to say, but as they shamble forward their ill intent fills the air. At least until Carly's flames shove them back.

Their soggy flesh and dry bones aren't quick to alight, nor are they deterred by the pain, continuing to try and push past it's barrier even as they begin to burn with violet flames. Even as they are held back, their numbers continue to multiply as more bodies come forth out of the darkness.

[spaghettimonster]

"Oh my god?" The group as a whole may not, but Papyrus rattles at the sight of them. The rotting flesh dangling from faces and limbs... Their blank expressions, their silent staggering forward... They're uncanny. Horrifying in their not-quite-right familiarity, far shoddier than Foster's constructions.

Plus, they're bones emerging from the ground, and the group is trying to follow a trail of bones, and could they be led astray by following the wrong ones...? He whips around in the sidecar, squinting forward for signs of gaunt arms reaching up ahead of them. "And, fortunately," Papyrus pronounces before even telling for sure, "the... monsters only rose as the heroes passed! Following behind... but not surrounding them!"

For good measure, he tosses a wedge of blue bones behind them. Maybe the zombies would respect a wall of bones more than a wall of fire.

[sunflowerfields]

Hinawa doesn't have anything she can throw at the zombies, and Sunny is hiding down at the bottom of the sidecar because ghost-types are weak to their own type. She can, at least, add to the story: "The monsters behind the barriers found themselves unable to pursue our heroes, as they were just too strong to break through!"

Hopefully that would keep some of them off their backs.

[insidescoop]

She hates this. She hates this a lot. Revving the engine, Carly picks up the speed- sending her monstrous bike plowing over anything ahead, and practically daring anything to try throwing them off course. "As Fire was not the only one at her side, the Feathered Champion pushed onward- commanding the Earth itself to create obstacles for their enemies!" she snarls, 'Lady Earth' raising her staff at the command. With a wave, she sends spikes and chasms off their path but against the zombies, cracks moving through much of the surroundings. "Their time was clearly short," she adds, grimacing. "So it was fortunate that their trail would not have much farther to bring them..!"

Please, let that cheat of distance work, she thinks.

[mylastchance]

The zombies are utterly decimated in the wake of Carly and crew's narrative powers. Their storytelling combined with the powers of bone, earth, and fire have the zombies falling behind and literally falling into pits they can't jump out of as they are affected by Papyrus' blue attack. It's not long before the bone path comes to an end, the only hint that they've reached their goal.

[spaghettimonster]

It's with great relief that the bike moves on. Maybe the zombies will find workarounds and catch up, but at the least they're not actively pursued, and have time to work in. But, though the zombies haven't (yet) traveled here, their surroundings are still unfamiliar - the graveyard story's influence has changed their surroundings even this far. Dark sky, knotted trees and spiderwebs and wilted grass abound. And the bone trail comes to an end with little sign of bookshelves.

"Is this the end of the path...?" Papyrus asks the world at large, checking around. There's no others in sight, and these last couple are skewered in the ground, half-buried like a clue what they lead to. "Well! This is a good place to stop. And then start!" And he hops out.

[sunflowerfields]

"We made it?" She's only a little in disbelief. There were so many of those things! The story magic here really did work.

"In that case, we've got to go to Lauren!" Wait, she needs to add something: "Who should be right up ahead!"

[insidescoop]

"We made it," Carly confirms, driving until there is no more driving to be done. The bike slows to a stop, and Carly sets down the kickstand not that it's needed with two side cars. With the snap of her fingers, they are surrounded by walls of fire. "And to make certain they could work uninterrupted, the Feathered Champion thought to set forth a wall. A barrier that would at the very least give time to defend themselves against anything that could follow them..."

With a pause, she looks back- and then nods to Papyrus and Hinawa. "...I don't want to have Earthy begin digging until we know where he is- exactly where he is," she adds firmly.

[mylastchance]

[Pass]

[spaghettimonster]

"So we won't dig too long?" Papyrus wonders, scanning the ground with squinted eyesockets.

There aren't any really good signs where exactly Lauren was buried, just an end to the trail... And he hadn't thought to start dropping the trail until a few feet away. The last couple bones of the trail are within the firewall, at least, and he picks one up.

"Hey! What if... these bones can help us? They're for finding Lauren... Like divining rods! Bone finding bone." The scenery's still changed to the story surroundings, so maybe that logic will still work.

[sunflowerfields]

Magic bones are weird, no matter what way you slice it, but everything about this is strange, after all. "It may be worth a try... I doubt he could call out to us if he's buried underground."

[insidescoop]

"Hmm...So long as the bones show us properly, I can work with that..." she mutters, nodding to Earthy. "...Earthy- follow Papyrus' guidance; where his bones indicate, you dig, and dig with care, got it?"

The brown-garbed 'witch' nods, her staff at the ready from where the hologram/summon hovers.