World Tree MUSH

The man had black spots appearing on the tip of his nose--as well as several blotches on his cheeks and hands, the skin around them still quite red. It was a miracle how he escaped from the blizzard on foot at all, in retrospect. While the man had only been recovering at the public house down the highway for about 2 hours or more, he'd quickly used his cell phone to try to hail police, fire department, plow companies--anything, to help his wife and daughter that he'd left behind in his car with the heater running. It had become wedged in a snowdrift when he'd driven into The Lot expecting the streets to be plowed. But when no plows or other emergency vehicles arrived, he'd gone for help--his phone having been out of charge.

"Please, you gotta go there and help Katie--my daughter, and my wife Francine. Katie is only seven damn years old and none of these old men or police will do anything until the morning! They can't sit in the car and wait till that long! All I'm getting out of these geezers is ghost stories and talk of the place being haunted! A bunch of loonies around here!"

With the task in mind, the nearest highway led right into The Lot--trees lining the sides of the snow covered roads. Every so often, one might see a shape or some movement dart about in the trees. What might look like a set of eyes here and there--deer? But what deers eyes reflect back red...?

It is night, and the town seems utterly abandoned--covered in snow. A fire several years ago destroyed much of the town--leaving the downtown area a dark and snow covered ruin. The empty store windows of the 'Excellent Cafe' stood dark and foreboding along one street, along with Spencer's Sundries and Pharmacy, no lights on. Just beyond that, another shop reads 'Barlow and Straker's Furniture Shop', a small placard sign reading 'Temporarily Closed - MGMT' had fallen from the darkened storefront and lain half-buried in the snow.

Many of the other buildings are half-burned out husks, dark jagged teeth of brick and mortar half-buried in the snow-heavy earth. It is very much a ghost town. The tracks in the snow made by the car of the man who sent you here reach along into the night--but already half-drifted in and covered by the snow...

What would have brought Ash here out of his warframe? Hard to say really? However the youth was here in the flesh in the middle of a burned out building floating a foot off the ground with his legs crossed and his palms resting upturned on his knees.

Breath in. Hold. Breath out.

 THe cold did not seem to touch him in spite of how thin his clothing seemed. One could say this was due to the materials, which was partially true. However Ash himself didn't really feel the cold as he sat there in quiet meditation, unaware of the lost child, or even the raging blizzard outside. His thoughts focused inward at something that had happened weeks ago, a woman touching memory that lay dormant and buried. She had done so on accidnt and only half-aware of what she found, but it gave him hope that something of what he had forgotten could be found. It felt... Important even if these memories were unpleasant.

All this as a child was lost out i nthe snow and a father desperately searching this cursed place.

Being able to resist cold weather and heal organics means Demi is well suited for this. It couldn't worse than the winters on Dezoris after all, but she wonders why humans would be out in this weather. She wonders if kind local climate control device suddenly broke. Still, the weather wasn't easy to travel and her feet would freeze to the ground if she doesn't keep moving.

     Krystal had been wandering around along with Meia today, just taking vine portals and seeing what worlds they ended up in. Things were going nicely so far, and they'd seen some neat places, but this last one drops them into a burned out ghost town covered in ice and snow. Krystal looks around a bit, and frowns a little at the sad, deserted town. 

 "Wonder what happened here. I guess there isn't much to do unless you want to just look around at some abandoned buildings..." She says to Meia, but then suddenly she startles a little, like she just heard something, but it wasn't a sound she heard with her ears, instead she could hear the young girl, trapped in the car, crying out for help. She turns to Meia with a suddenly serious look in her eyes. "Someone is here, and I think they need help." She says as she begins looking around, trying to figure out what direction this trapped girl was in.

     Meia has been traveling with Krystal for the last few days, following the vines and checking out all these other worlds she's heard so much about. They've all been fascinating so far, but she wasn't expecting to get sidetracked so soon... not that she can offer any complaints. It's not like anything she's currently doing is all /that/ important, and she'd look like a jerk besides.

As she steps lightly alongside Krystal, the Azure Witch's attire is notably... /lacking/ in jackets or scarves or anything approaching winter clothing. It's the same outfit she always wears, yet she strides just as easily through the snow as if it were a warm Spring day. The cold never bothered her anyway.

"Strange, indeed." she says, approaching one of the buildings to peer into its dark, empty windows, searching for any signs of life. "Can you pinpoint their position? I don't hear anything myself." She doesn't dare doubt Krystal, though.

For those like Meia, Demi, Ash or Krystal, with natural defenses against the cold--or unnatural, in the former's case--the biting cold of North Massachusetts during this godforsaken blizzard might not be too much of a deterrant. What Krystal might hear--or thought she heard came from further on down the snow-packed street, where the half-drifted in tracks were leading. The car should have had gasoline to run the engine for a little while, at least--surely this guy's wife and daughter were still in the car... right?

The tracks begin to fade more and more as they are followed--as they led right to the direction of the car. It was almost as if the darkness was laughing at the group. Old man winter was balking them directly.

Further along down the road, the lack of street lights were dreadfully apparent--any light sources the group might have would illuminate small patches around them--the buildings helping hedge the light in and keep what reflected off the snow to just the area in front of them.

Further down the road--there would be a shape--lights on in a car...? The parking lights are just ever so visible--half buried in the snowdrift that had already started piling up around the car. Was there anyone inside...?

Ash heard Meia's intrusion along with Krystal's voice and slowly uncurled from his seated position. Maybe there was something? A fearful child screaming for their daddy? His head shook as he tried to solidify himself in the hear and now. "Hello out there?" He called out as the fingers of his right hand flexed. "Sorry didn't know this place belonged to anyone, wanted to stay out of the weather til it cleared." He took a deep breath as he walked towards the window Meia peered into before stepping out into the blizzard proper.

Perhaps strange perhaps not, he wouldn't know anymore, that Ash didn't show any reaction to the cold even on his bare skin. No flushed, no shivering. His body recognized that it as cold and on an intellectual level he understood he couldn't stay out in it forever, but his motions were smooth as he looked meia and Krystal over before smiling at the pair. "C'mon in get out of the cold you two. What brings you lot to this corner of... well... wherever here happensto be?" 

Maybe he didn't quite understand or it didn't register they wouldn't recognie him out of his warframe. After all, to them he'd just look like some red haired teenager with empty half-glasses frames perched on his nose outright ignoring nature trying to turn him into a popcicle.

He looked about and frowned, Unlike crystal his ears were not super sensetive so all he heard was the wind and through the sound it made memories. 'daddy... Daddy...' it kept whispering.

"SOmething's out there." He sounded more sure than he felt, "And most people don't do well in the cold."

     Krystal's excellent eyesight helped her see pretty well in the dark, but to better try and make out what happened, and for the benefit of Meia, she pulled out her staff, and without extending it, turned it into a sort of hand held torch, the top opening up and emitting a soft white light. She starts searching the town, and soon finds the tire traks in the snow, though they look like they're not terribly fresh as the snow is starting to cover them up. "Meia, look tracks!" She says with a hopeful tone. "Lets follow them!" She continues, and begins walking along the path of the tire tracks, soon spotting the car, half buried in the snow. "Oh no!" She cries, and reaches out with her telepathy to speak to those inside if they are indeed still there. "Hello, are you alright? Help is here." The little girl would hear Krystal's gentle voice in her head.

Demi follows behind the others closely as the tracks in the snow begin to fade. It seems likely the car that girl is in is buried like the others. Now came from the problem getting her out of the car without putting her in danger in the process. She wishes her Master was here, Wren was pretty strong he could likely lift the car out of the snow.

     Meia continues her investigation of the buildings right up until Krystal points out the tracks. Coming to join her friend, she eyes the tracks with a small amount of worry. "It looks like a wagon, but the wheels are wider. I think I've seen these devices in some of the other worlds we visited." she notes, her eyes following as far as Krystal's light will let them. "But they seem quite fresh, for how much snow is falling. Either they were just made, or someone's laying a trap for us."

Nevertheless, she follows the blue-furred vixen all the way up to the car, keeping an eye out along the way for any trouble. As Krystal reaches out with her telepathy, Meia briefly considers her options. Some running water should melt the snow from the car, but it could just as easily refreeze and make things even worse. Agh, if only she could do more with fire magic...

The car has it's light still on--and the heater is definitely still running--if Ash or Krystal would try to open the door. Quite toasty inside--though no sign of the woman or the little girl. There is a discarded lone barbie doll on the floor of the passenger's side... no coats are left behind, which seems to imply if they had left, they had their coats, at least.

Ash's voice might not be answered by anything... at least not at first. There is the sound of the wind, carrying on it what sounded like the tinkling laughter of a ...woman?

In a nearby lot behind Ash, out of the copse of trees there comes a lady--sandy blonde hair with blue jeans and a long cotton green poncho blowing on the wind around her. Her skin is like porcelain and her eyes seem to glitter in the light there is.

She is also standing /ontop/ of the snowdrift, as if she has no weight.

The more... robotic sorts like Demi might not notice this at first, the car engine is still running--she can tell that--also that it's almost out of gasoline. The heater had kept the car warm--but not for much longer.

Krystal reaches out with her telepathy--can she sense a faint little voice along with a heartbeat...? Somewhere further along the road?

Ash saw Meia and Krystal just... wander off. With a shrug he decided to follow along since wit hthe weather this bad he didn't feel like being alone. The fact neither acknowledged his preasence was a seondary concern, as apparently there were people trapped out in this that had no means of surviving what nature threw at them.

When they got to the car Ash opened the door and frowned. "Warm interrior, CHild's doll..." His frown deepened. What little he knew of children suggested the doll would have been carried by the child. "Either of you see anything wrong here, like... people leaving a warm place in a hurry and going into a blizzard?"

Then he turned and saw the woman standing on top of freshly fallen snow. He reacted by taking a defensive stance, right hand raised palm forward towardsthe lady. "Oh... kay... " He took a deep breath, not bothering to lower his palm, "I'm assuming you're dead. So... can you help us out here?" He gestured with his left hand to the car. "What gives?"

     Krystal's would finally look toward Ash as they made their way toward the car to check on who was inside, finding it empty. "Um, have we met?" She asks with a curious tone. "Sorry if I forgot, you just don't look familiar to me. I agree though, why would they leave their still running car and head out into the cold and unforgiving blizzard?" She then notices the woman with pale skin and sandy blonde hair behind Ash and blinks. "Who is that, and how in the name of all that is good, are they standing on the snowbank like they weigh as much as a tiny rabbit. Then suddenly she sensed that small voice, and the signs of life, further down the road. She blinks and looks at her friends, and then points. "The girl I keep hearing in my head, I think she's that way."

     Meia finally acknowledges Ash as he begins investigating the car too, the Azure Witch tilting her head as she watches him. "You're... Ash? The flying soldier I met back in Palamecia?" she guesses, since she's only really known two people from other worlds so far. "You look different, sorry for failing to recognize you."

The strange woman who now approaches them is given a quick glance... and then a much harder one as Meia summons her Arc Mirage and takes up a battle-ready stance. "All these strange occurrences, and a ghostly woman appears out of nowhere in the middle of a blizzard while there's a missing child? I /highly/ doubt these events are unrelated. Krystal, I trust you can take care of yourself? I'm not so certain of this one's intentions."

"Jared?" The woman near Ash speaks--and she sounds as if her voice is being carried by the wind--it is charming--but so is also the look she gives Ash as she steps forward--the furred ankle-high uggs-style boots she's wearing not making any tracks in the snow.

"Won't you help me find my husband...?" and as the wind blows the rich green cotton poncho she's wearing up and around her--the twin puncture wounds become more visible on the lady's neck... Her skin is white and bloodless, the light of the moon reflecting in a pair of completely dead, black eyes--glittering like obsidian. Less human than a wolf's eyes, her lips drawing back in a vulpine grimace (sorry Krystal!) to reveal a nest of cruelly sharp, ivory teeth as she takes another step toward Ash--lunging for him!

Krystal could hear the little voice on the wind, but it is faint and the road stretches onward. A pair of clown-white faces with red-rimmed mouths appear out of the darkness ahead of Krystal and Meia. Two men--one is dressed in a flannel shirt, a bit younger looking than the next who is squatter and older wearing a football jersey with the team numbers facing front--worn backwards? The one in the flannel shirt also isn't wearing any shoes--not that their feet are actually indenting or touching the snow.

Black eyes glitter in the night and attempt to fix both the fetching females in their stare--calling the magician and the vixen to come closer... closer. The eyes--once looked into, can take all willpower to try and look away from. It feels so good--but like... drowning.

Demi for her credit, feels no such pull... somehow. But her sensors can definitely tell--something is wrong here.

"Pretty sure the lady there is dead," Ash's voice was calm. "Question is if she's from the car then where is the body?" In this weather any tracks, or even a corpse, could have been buried in a hurry. "Can you get a fix on the girl?" He wasn't sure what Krystal could or couldn't do, but Mirage had given him enough intorduction to telepathy that the concept wasn't terribly surprisin.

Ash's fingers flexed as he lookedover to Meia, "Sorry, I'm the guy wihth the bow trying to get taat group of guards to grow a few brain cells and find somewhere else to play. Hi. Hell of a time for me to pick stepping out of the suit for a bit. Sorry for the mixup." He had to admit he'd feel more comfortable in his transferrence pod than out here, but wasn't the whole point of excersions like this to test himself outside of his frame so if it were destroyed or the transferrence gear burnt out he wouldn't be completely helpless?

And then the lady decided to spring at Ash, perhaps assuming he was unarmed or otherwise the weakest of the trio of investigators. Perhaps that was true, but he was still armed even now.

THere was a low, almost audible, intake of... breath? Life? Energy? At Ash's palm before a narrow bar of energy fired at the vampiric woman. Meia or anyone able to analize elemental energies would get all sorts of conflicting and nonsensical feelings from this burst of power. It seemed to be all elements, none, impossible combinations, and in shortit was the energy equivilant of non-ecludian geomatries.

Something about insane and cannibalistic people lunging at Ash in this state tugged at the back of his mind. Something too familiar, but he couldn't afford to think on it since the lady here was quite real and quite wanting to murder him.

     Meia is about to leap in to help Ash, but it seems like he's got things handled as the strange woman turns out to indeed be a threat. Her gaze is instead drawn toward the two vampiric beings heading toward Krystal, who, thusly outnumbered, appears to need help more. "Right, well, take care of her would you, Ash? Gently, if you please."

Springing to action, she leaps to Krystal's side and looks dead on at the two men... and finds herself lost in their stare, as if she's being pulled into those black, lifeless eyes. The eyes of a puppet, stripped of all humanity and guided along by the strings of another, more powerful being. The feeling of drowning... she /knows/ that feeling all to well, and their predicament is so very familiar...

It's a few moments before she snaps out of it, inhaling a deep breath before setting her jaw and swinging the Arc Mirage in front of her, conjuring a row of sharp icicles that launch themselves like missiles at the two undead creatures. "Begone, shadows! I'll not be enthralled by your like or whatever you call master! I am the Azure Witch, no mere common woman!"

If she didn't know better, she'd accuse Vox of being behind this somehow...

     Krystal is busy looking down the road and trying to listen with her mind for where this missing girl was. Though when the ghostly woman lunges for Ash, and two more strange figures appear in front of both herself and Meia, she begins to think this might be a trap, but it's too late for her to avoid becoming entranced by their obsidian gaze, and she suddenly grows silent, slowly moving toward the two men, at least until Meia spears them with icicle missiles. 

 She blinks, shaking her head as if she's just recovered from being dazed, and eventually turns to Meia. "Thanks, those two almost had me there. Need to be more careful. Needless to say though, I'm starting to wonder if this little girl I'm hearing in my head is actually real, or if this is all some sort of trick."

Demi senses no signs of life coming from the figures approaching the group "They don't seem to be living...how is that possible?" They didn't seem to be robotic either. Still they seem to be trying to entice the others somehow. She assumes because of her artifical nature she's not effected. She draws her Impacter and starts firing at the lifeless figures. She figures it's best for her to draw their attention so the others aren't distracted.

There is a screeching howl that would have sent birds flapping into the wind--if there was any birds to fly. The energy fired from Ash's palm scorches the side of the woman's face and shoulder--briefly setting her poncho alight as she snarls with inhuman ferocity and pats at the fire. The energy has seared a black line along the pale beauty of her cheek and shoulder. Blackness--but not any pink, or redness, as if she was made out of marble, something far beyond life. With a vengeful look of scorn she begins to separate into particulates--becoming lost in the snow and the wind--but not before a look crosses her face that seems to speak of a crushing sorrow--but only for a moment. And then she is gone.

The pale man in the backwards football jersey advances on Krystal, the blue vixen trapped in his stare. All she had to do was lift her chin and then it would be all right--they would be one with something great... and good. The eyes told her so. The man's mouth opened and a pair of long tusk-like fangs emerged from a row of horrible sharp teeth--and Krystal would be able to see that the man was drooling--a tiny sparkle of light hanging off his lower lip, before--

The icicle missiles conjured by Meia SLAM into the two figures torsos and the one in the flannel shirt gets one plunged directly into one eye socket--rearing back with a howl as if it were a horn sprouting from the face of a new breed of horrible, deranged animal. It falls falls back on the snow and writhes horribly--kicking great flurries of snow up as the one gunning for Krystal stares dully down at the large spikes now sticking out of it's front. It seems confused--before taking a second step toward the two girls!

It is then that Demi's energy weapon lights up the night--the second--just about to pounce on Krystal finds most of the upper torso of it's clown white body suddenly burned and missing--a half-there face howls into the night as fire rises from the stub of the creature's left side--burning like a torch!

Ash has been in this situation, and somehow there was that sense of familiarity without the actual memory. The woman's screams, even the inhuman rage in her somehow had this familiarity to her.

Ash watched, transfixed by the animal lack of humanity in her face as she burned and fell away. For a moment the cold was gone, here was gone. Snow replaced by fire, the howling wind replaced by automated ship warnings as the bioms designed to support the pasengers were put to the torch.

Even that moment of sadness when the woman died spoke of memory and a place far from here. He stared, unmoving as his hand dropped. "Mom....?" His voice was smal andfar away.

     Krystal is still shaking a little from how close she came to getting bitten by those strange vampire things. She turns to check on the others to make sure everyone else is OK, seems she and Ash were the ones who came closest to having holes in their necks, and Ash can take care of himself just fine. But wait, there it was again, that voice. "I'm still hearing a strange, small voice in my head. I'm starting to wonder if I should listen to or try to find it, but if someone really is still out here in the cold. I'd feel terrible if we wrote it off and just left them out here..."

     Meia takes note of how the two vampiric men react to her icicles, also glancing aside at Ash's opponent. The shot from Demi's weapon also prompts her to turn around and acknowledge the fourth participant in this little fracas. "Thank you for the help, er... I'm afraid I'm unfamiliar with you, sorry." she calls to Demi over the sound of the falling snow, then turns back toward the undead monsters, launching herself into a whirling attack with that massive blade of hers, its edge gleaming as it slices through the air and aims to do the same to what remains of their foes. "Firstly, we should make sure /they/ are dealt with. We don't need any nasty surprises while helping whoever's in trouble."

"My name is Demi! We should find the girl and get everyone somewhere warm. Prolong exposure to the cold isn't safe." Even she has her limits and while she can't get hypothermia or frostbite, her systems still can freeze up. "I'm not scanning any signs of life from them, but I wasn't before." She's not quite sure how to tell if they're destroyed unless they vaporize them. Even then it's possible they might reform somehow.

The little voice on the wind continues to cry out to Krystal, even as the voice in Ash's continues--he seems to be lost in his head.

What was happening to the still burning and frost-spiked pair of creatures had to be seen to be believed--their skin soon became sallow, shrunken--hair and teeth shriveling and falling away. Eyes shrivelled, fell in--faces now bearing horrible black holes for eyes and mouthes as they are slowly reduced to writhing skeletal horrors. Fingernails flake and peel back like pencil shavings, skin recedes and leaves the hands clicking and chattering like castanets. Their bodies soon resemble broomsticks fitted into mismatched and ill-worn clothes--the black holes of the eyes and mouthes soon meet, the skulls powdering and turning to dust that floats away in the wind and snow. The girls find themselves standing in front of what looks like someone's dirty laundry, cast out into the street. Nothing about them remained.

 Naught but a horrible feeling and a smell--like burnt hair and ozone--along with something else. Putrescence, then dust. And then nothing.

They are alone, for the moment--but just uphead--down the street, a board has been pulled away from the front of Crossen's Agricultural Store, as the sign reads--apparently the town's old hardware store. Inside Krystal can pick up on the still shivering--and miraculously still breathing heart-beat of a girl!

Ash watched as the bodies rapid-decayed, and with them the surroundings of the brief fragment of memory the situation remidned him of. He inhaled deeply, and his nose wrinkled at the smell of ash, causing him to cough. "WHa?"

He looked around and frowned, did he space out? He wasn't sure. "Any other hostiles?" He tried shoving the episode, and his brush with schitzophrenia to one side. THere was still work to be done.

That's what he told himself anyway. Maybe the cold was getting to him after all.

     Krystal again heard the voice, and now she could swear she could feel the girl's heartbeat too, like a drum pulsing in her head, what's more, she could feel she was close, up ahead, in a darkened abandoned store. "Someone is out there, I can feel it, I'm going to go see if I can find them, anyone who wants to come with me is welcome, if not, I can't say I blame you after what just happened." She says, looking back at the others to see who might join her, but after a moment she just starts heading off toward the hardware store just a bit further down the street.

     The rapidly decaying corpses cause Meia to step back a bit, eyeing them suspiciously... but it seems like they're truly gone, for now. "Very well, let us go then." she says, following after Krystal, her blade still drawn and eyes darting to and fro. In response to Ash, she adds, "I don't see any more, but that doesn't mean we won't run into any on the way there. The sooner we can get out of this place, the better."

Well it wouldn't make much sense for Demi to come all this way and leave, she hasn't substained any damage after all and the girl is still out there. She follows Meia and Krystal. Plus one of her duties is to ensure the well-being of organic life, she would be going against her programming if she just walked away.

There is a small girl huddled in the inside of the 'Crossen's Agricultural store', which looks mostly empty--the stock having been removed long ago by creditors, but apparently had been at some point squatted in by homeless, which now are nowhere to be seen. The girl has sandy blonde hair and is clad in a pink parka with feathering around the collar, as well as matching snow pants and pink converse sneakers. She is sniffling and shivering as she peers out at Krystal. Her skin looks healthy and alive.

"Are you with my momma? I wanna go home," she belts out, it would appear that the girl has been located.

No more shadows emerge from the town... for now. So it would be a simple matter to spirit the girl out of there and back down the highway--and back to the nearest town. And back to her father. He is happy and relieved to have her returned, however his eyes remain haunted on the whereabouts of his wife.

Somewhere out in the night, the porcelain skinned woman with the burned face just might still be looking for her husband and daughter.

Time passes as it always does, and the folks who still knew of the tragedy that occurred in that small town are a sight older now. Eventually the time will soon come for them, too. People move on and pass away--but folks who live around Fallmouth still know, but do not speak of it... to never to go into Salem's Lot.