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[DRYH] Tracking Amanda (13)
You're in the sewers of the Warrens now, the place is beginning to seem familiar to you after these many trips. The stench, too, which is not a comfort. You're in a relatively familiar section, one that Sir Ubert led you through before. The place where it became uncomfortably warm. The large pipes over your head are sizzling to the touch, and just low enough to force you to stoop over a little.
How are you feeling in this heat? Does you mask breathe at all?
Lady Dandywine is ahead, walking sure, gliding on her spider legs. It's smooth, how she walks on them nimbly, and unnerving because her head is always level, like a cheetah when it runs. She's able to easily lower her body beneath the pipes. However, Sir Ubert just stopped walking.
When you glance back, you see that his eyes are sown to wicks, the wax having melted completely. He says quietly, without fear, "Mister... Castle. if I continue, I will be well and truly blind. My sight will return when the Wax King gives me new candles, but not until."
"Tsh, young knight, such a shame." Lady Dandywine says politely. "The Howler is no fan of you at all. Perhaps it's best if he stays. What do you say, Max Castle?"
How are you feeling in this heat? Does you mask breathe at all?
Lady Dandywine is ahead, walking sure, gliding on her spider legs. It's smooth, how she walks on them nimbly, and unnerving because her head is always level, like a cheetah when it runs. She's able to easily lower her body beneath the pipes. However, Sir Ubert just stopped walking.
When you glance back, you see that his eyes are sown to wicks, the wax having melted completely. He says quietly, without fear, "Mister... Castle. if I continue, I will be well and truly blind. My sight will return when the Wax King gives me new candles, but not until."
"Tsh, young knight, such a shame." Lady Dandywine says politely. "The Howler is no fan of you at all. Perhaps it's best if he stays. What do you say, Max Castle?"
Comments
She looks back at him, pausing to observe his exeunt as if it is noteworthy. Then, she looks to you, "I am ever so curious, Max Castle." She says your pseudonym like it's all one name, really. "How is it that a body would have a Blind Knight for a guard and seek a woman who sounds very unpleasant and just happens to be at least half Awake?"
A mental sigh. I did agree to confirm or deny, and three questions seems both fair and fitting. "I was, Lady Dandywine." If she's looking, she can't miss the haunted look in my eyes at her question and my answer.
Pretty sure she knows who I really am by now. She's a Seeker, though. I'd guess she could've found out on her own.
Lady Dandywine looks up at you, adding, "I keep secrets as well. They hold their value much better that way. And personally... I was never a fan of Mother When." So saying, she turns back to continue down the corridor.
Any further conversation before you enter the domain of the Magnificent Howler?
Lady Dandywine doesn't seem nearly as perturbed. There's some light perspiration on her brow, but her hair is still perfectly coiffed beneath her hat.
When you reach the surface, you see that you're outside under a starless night, lit only by fire pits. The area is closed in my craggy cliffs and the shadows dance along the clay walls.
Lady Dandywine approaches a humongous bonfire. The fire roars, the muscular people dancing around the fire like primitives roar with it. There are a few dozen men and women, all athletic and well-formed, scarred from battle and ritual, move with fury in their battle dance.
The pair of you, Lady Dandywine and yourself, you're walking round a column of rock, having walked for minutes to reach this place. The shadows on the cliff move and dance out of size and rhythm of the warriors who should be making them. There are images in the fire, Benny. Images of anger and betrayal. What so you see in them?
"Who is this ass?" the one-eyed man with a mohawk demands in a loud voice. The probably woman snickers at the joke. One-eye is looking at you, Benny.
After that, I'm not in the mood for jokes at my expense. I change. I become Beorn from the Lord of the Rings, in bear form, ready for battle and armed with tooth and claw. As I change, "Where. Is. Amanda?"
All three of them throw themselves onto you, sweaty hands gripping at your fur, mouths open to bite and rend you. If you want to defeat them, it is Pain Four.
Discipline: (Rolled: 3d6. Rolls: 4, 2, 4. Total: 10)
Exhaustion: (Rolled: 2d6. Rolls: 3, 5. Total: 8)
Madness: (Rolled: 5d6. Rolls: 2, 6, 5, 5, 6. Total: 24)
Madness Dominates, so make your choice. And what do you do to these three?
I see red for some period of time that must actually be no more than a minute or two, but feels like a week or an eyeblink. After, I look down and the trio of muscled warriors are at my feet. One-eye and his two companions are still breathing, but won't be picking any fights soon, with four broken limbs and a dozen bleeding gashes shared among the three.
I raise my bear head and shout, releasing the pain of wounds sustained from teeth and fingers, fists and feet, as a roar. "WHERE. IS. AMANDA!"
A hand appears from the middle of the fire, reaching from inside the flames and parting it like a man might pull back a gypsy's beaded curtain and walk through.
You know, somehow you instantly know this is the Magnificent Howler. He looks at you without fear, no hesitation. You feel his power. He may not be as powerful as Mother When, but he is formidable. "I. Am the Magificent Howler. I stole Amanda from the Slumbering World. She is the key to breaking the Mad City. And you will not take her from me."
Over the space of a second I become Benny again, though still bear-tall and wearing a cloak of bearskin. I am trembling with adrenaline and pain and take a moment to still myself before I answer. "Ah, Magnificent Howler. You stole Amanda? Did you also kill her brothers?"
How is Lady Dandywine reacting? To the fight, and to Howler.
In my head, this is what had happened.
Bud, sleepless for a few days now and more than certain he's going crazy, walks into Todd's room, intending to take out his frustration, one way or another. Todd struggles, and Bud snaps. Bud's anger and madness manifests as flame, and both are consumed. Amanda, hearing the struggle opens the door in time to witness the grand finale, and in her fear winds up in the Mad City randomly, as I did.
Or something like that. But if it was not simply a matter of Bianca's feeding leading Bud and Amanda to this craziness, if this Howler sought Amanda out, it's a story changed more than a little from what my guilt has been leading me to. Still, in the end, Amanda would not be here without my choices, so I still have responsibility to discharge.
I try not to show my bewilderment at having all of my assumptions of the last 24 hours overturned. "How will she break the Mad City? Where is Amanda?" Knowledge first, then action.
I look at his scythe, and speak sincerely. "Magnificent Howler, I do not want this fight right now. Will you allow me to speak with Amanda, so I know she's alright?"
"Not now?" the Howler repeats you. "Why not now? Do you fear me? What do you offer in trade for the chance to see her? Who the living fuck are you, bear-man?!?"
My voice deepens a little, takes on a certain sing-song cadence. "Who am I, Howler? I am the light that comes in at the eye and the sound that comes in at the ear. I am the persistence of vision. I am the darkness between the frames. I am the death of Mother When. I am The Flicker. And I do not negotiate with Nightmares. Show me Amanda."
I'm aching to see how this pans out!
Exhaustion (adding 1): (Rolled: 3d6. Rolls: 3, 1, 2. Total: 6)
Madness: (Rolled: 6d6. Rolls: 2, 3, 6, 4, 5, 4. Total: 24)
Check off a box, big guy. I think you have flight left, right?
Here's how you see Amanda:
The Magnificent Howler takes the point of his scythe, and in one smooth motion, he presses it against the inside of his leg, and rips open his skin, dragging it up like a damn zipper. His flesh and meat fall open and gore pours out of him, molten blood-lava spatters on the hard ground. There, trapped behind his ribcage, her face full of woe, standing inside him, is Amanda. She's tiny now, mashed down somehow by him, or by some other unknown force.
How do you react?
I stagger back one step, two, three, and with each step I shrink until finally I'm standing there as my own true self. Before I can say anything, I fall to my knees and puke, the last remains of my distant dinner spewing out in a sour-tasting watery stream.
Finally, choked out past anger and disgust and bile, "Amanda?"
[OOC: I spend one of the two lovely Coins of Hope you just handed me to uncheck Benny's Fight box.]
The Magnificent Howler takes up his torn flesh like a curtain and begins to close the hole, "Flicker indeed. That is enough. She is mine... Benny." He glares at you, his posture angry. But just around the whites of his eyes, you see worry, a tiny frayed edge in his mask of power. You put it there.
"Howler. When you come for the Wax King, I will be there, and I will end you as I ended Mother When. Understand this - you will end, and Amanda will be free of your... protection."
Understanding that it's a gesture and feeling the anxiety and risk of it, I turn back the way we came, showing the Magnificent Howler my back and hopefully catching Lady Dandywine's eye. I'd prefer to make my way straight back to the Wax Kingdom, and her help would be a boon.
After you make your way to the tunnels of the Warrens, far enough from the Howler and his warriors, Lady Dandywine says, "I am sorry you were unable to retrieve your... friend."
She asks softly, "What will you do now?"
--END SCENE--