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Nihilistic Mind · Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2008 4:51 am Post subject:

She can see his expression now, the light coming around the corner granting her just enough. Frightened. Scared for his life. "No, no! It's not like that! I've... I've been sleeping too long, I don't know what I'm saying! I dunno anything! Nobody told me you were supposed to come here. I swear I dunno! I've been here much too long! But it's ok, we're gonna make it ok, right?"

His eyes shift from her to her hands to somewhere behind her, "I can introduce you. You don't have to be April anymore, it's gonna be ok!" His hands are raised in a cowardly attempt to protect himself from her wrath.
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TonyLB · Joined: 09 Jun 2008 Posts: 494

"Fuck," April says flatly. Without looking back she leaps forward, aiming to roll over both the man and the round rock beyond him, before whatever he's actually scared of manages to get a solid grip on her from behind.

Nihilistic Mind · Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2008 3:45 pm Post subject:

April clears the space very easily and quickly, leaping over the man as he cringes, thinking he is being attacked. As she rolls she sees there is nothing immediately where she was standing, and the old man is done cringing and tries to make a run for it in the opposite direction of the light and music, and away from April.
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TonyLB · Joined: 09 Jun 2008 Posts: 494

April shakes her head and blinks several times.

"What the hell?" she says angrily. "I need to get my intuition checked."

She laughs softly. "Which probably means this is a dumb move, but hey who wants to live forever?"

She walks quietly and cautiously up toward the light and the music.

Nihilistic Mind · Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2008 9:01 pm Post subject:

After turning to the left, the passage continues curving back right and narrows to just a few feet. From there, through a curtain of falling water, she observes a strange scene.

The light comes through from holes in the ceiling and holes from which water and light pour freely. Pools of water gather everywhere and flat and round gray rocks form surfaces atop which old looking men and women, long-haired and nude and thin, clap in a slow, dragged out rhythm, as if the song they are clapping for is insanely long and slow. Some of them hum in unison, moan sometimes, but do not miss the time for their rhythmic clap. All sway from side to side.

Well-lit, a rocky platform rises above the pools of water in the center of the room, which looks roughly 150 feet in diameter, only very irregular. On this platform is the musical centerpiece, a man singing slowly in a shrill voice and playing a water-damaged concert piano. The song's lyrics, also dragged out over long moments, suggests the group's unending hunger and sickness for young blood. Whether it is a song in itself or revealed truths, April is uncertain.

April has not yet been noticed.
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TonyLB · Joined: 09 Jun 2008 Posts: 494

Shaking off the initial grotesquerie of the scene, April looks again with a practical eye. She susses out how many, how strong, what the construction is like (cavern or dungeon or freestanding building, solid or shaky), where the exits and entrances are, whether there's a stealth-worthy path (even if it involves climbing the ceiling) past the menagerie, and, if she has the angle, what else is on the top of that rocky platform: She hasn't missed the fact that it's about the right size and shape to house the broken pattern that she was sent to find.

Nihilistic Mind · Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2008 10:55 pm Post subject:

The caverns are entirely natural looking, and she can see high up where some of the light and water comes from some columns formed by water deposits that could be dangerously scalable, but scalable nonetheless. There also seems to be many fissures and openings that would turn out to be too small for her and for most of the people here. Some might be able to make their way to other parts of the caverns.

To her advantage, it looks like some of these boulders and rocks could be moved by someone as strong as she.

There are seventeen people here, eleven men, six women, all smaller and much thinner than she is. They look weak, but she knows even Shadowlings can turn out to be deceiving.
The people don't have knives or sticks or sharp stones or tools of any kind. They have no clothing and April cannot see any other item, manufactured or even anything manually carved into the rock. These people have not touched this cavern at all and the only anomaly is the piano, taking center stage.

No passage, cavern or waterfall, could accommodate the size of a concert piano. Unless it was assembled here, it forces the scene to give April the 'staged' feeling that she's been having.
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TonyLB · Joined: 09 Jun 2008 Posts: 494

April steps out into the light, blinking slightly. She places two fingers between her lips and in the middle of a slow downbeat she cuts loose with a piercing, echoing, fingers-on-chalkboard shriek of a whistle.

If this gets her at least a moment of silence, she starts walking forward toward the rocky platform and calls out "Okay, who wants to get on my good side by giving me some answers?"

Nihilistic Mind · Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2008 7:18 pm Post subject:

Her whistle and grand entrance get April the attention of everyone there and the old folks are startled and instinctively sit back away from the platform and the man standing at the piano turns around violently, his wet hair flinging droplets everywhere.

Some faces are frightened while others are excitedly curious. None of them look aggressive or angry.

After a few moments that feel like forever, the only sounds in the cavern being groans, moans and the waterfalls all around, the man at the piano tentatively asks, "Wh-what is it you want?"
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TonyLB · Joined: 09 Jun 2008 Posts: 494

"Like I said," April retorts, "I want answers." She jerks her thumb down, in the general direction of the dark caverns below. "For starters, what do you think you've been doing to the people down there?"

Nihilistic Mind · Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 6:32 am Post subject:

The old man frowns and pouts at April and asks, "What are you talking about? We can't fit everyone in here! Not everyone earns that right, you know..."

April keeps her mind sharp, there are a lot of people to track here. Thankfully, they seem to afraid and interested to move much at all. They don't even bother whispering among themselves, some in awe with her. Some of the old men's eyes reflect aggressivity, but are showing restraint.
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TonyLB · Joined: 09 Jun 2008 Posts: 494

April keeps walking forward, halfway now to the rocky platform. "So who'd even want the honor of sitting here bemoaning your collective fate?" She nods pointedly toward the tiny patch of light at the top of the cave. "There's open sky and endless possibility out there. Had you forgotten? What's holding them here? For that matter, what's holding you?"

Nihilistic Mind · Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 3:27 pm Post subject:

"Who wouldn't want to be here?! And a chance to bask in the glorious light!" he laughs, throwing his head back. "It's a privilege to end up here and pass the time as we do. Passing the time is all there is to do here."

He pauses to look around the room, then raises his gaze to the ceiling, then back to April. "Do you imagine we've never tried climbing our way out of the Pit? The Pit keeps us here. Every window of light is filtered through a torrent of water, high above us... We tried shifting away from this cavern, but we cannot shift the darkness away... It follows us and brings us either back to here or to the dark maw that ate us. Were you not eaten by the great maw as well?!"
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TonyLB · Joined: 09 Jun 2008 Posts: 494

April breaks stride. "Oh for pete's ... stuck in the ... sit and play the piano and ..." she sputters, hot color rising in her face. She takes several long, deep breaths.

"You mean you people aren't a religion or a conspiracy or ... you've just given up your lives because you hit a NAVIGATIONAL HAZARD?" she shouts.

Without bothering to wait for an answer, she starts pointing at people. "You, you and you, you're going to be on debris-clearing detail. Keep the area we're working clear ... last thing I need is someone breaking their leg on this. You there, figure out a place to pile up the gravel, and get them something to carry stuff with. You and you, you look limber, get the ones who will have trouble moving, and get them out of the work area. Maybe run 'em through some calisthenics, get their muscles used to working again. You, find my things. If it wasn't you feebs who took 'em then head down to the crow room and ask for Freaky. You, and you, right down into that darkness and roust out anyone who's still got some life in 'em."

"You," she fumes, pointing at the pianist. "You're with me."

"Can't believe... just give up without a ... loser geezer-goths ... oughta just leave the whole lot ..." she mutters angrily as she stomps toward the edges of the cavern.

She looks over the piled boulders, and up at the rocky columns leading to the ceiling.

"Okay," she says after a time. "We move these stones, maybe break a few down for packing, and that gets us a ramp up the first twenty feet. Then I figure we've got enough wire and metal in the piano to piton a way up that ascent there. I wouldn't want to leave it for climbers twenty years from now, but it should hold for today. The trick is going to be arranging people who can pass up the damn lid, because I don't relish one-handing my way up that, even with handles, while dragging a piano-lid behind me. Bucket brigade's got to be better. Once we've carved grooves there and there," she points at one of the openings through which water pours, "We slide the lid into place, and that gives us a water-break that'll let us work some people up through that opening."

"You got anything else that'll be useful?"

Nihilistic Mind · Posted: Wed Jul 30, 2008 11:55 pm Post subject: