The Castle [02] (Remba, but don't let it stop you)

[Boog]

The mention of some method of incapacitating Keaton caught the frog's interest. It would be useful to discover whether or not I'm capable of hypnotizing a cubi; definitely something worth knowing. He kept his ear open to the conversation going on there as he strode over to the newcomer.
"This castle is a scary place," Jeremiah offered, holding out a hand to Ketefe, "Name's Jeremiah, the token useless civilian of this lot. And you?" his wide mouth curved into a friendly smile, "What brings you here?"

[Sunblink]

When Stygian tackled her Keaton went utterly beserk. Red flashed before her eyes as she kicked, scratched, and screamed like a wild-eyed banshee, pummeling at Stygian with her fists and claws even once she was disarmed and pinned to the ground. Pure horror as etched in her ferocious facial features even in the midst of her chaotic panic, exacerbating as she started to realize that her clawing was doing nothing to jostle Stygian's hold on her. Over his shoulder, she barely caught the glimpse of two other arrivals, making her freeze in place.

One looked to be some sort of a bastardization of a wicked fairy-tale creature; an imp and a pixie and all sorts of malicious troublemakers mixed together in one gruesome concoction. The other had a mask partially fused to its face, a wicked smile crawling along its lips.

A moment after Keaton allowed a pathetic, puny groan to slither its way from her reticent throat, she found herself hauled up and securely seized by Stygian, leaving her to dangle from his clutches and stare in hopeless shock at the demented fae-pixie and masked feline. Yet it didn't stop there. There was what felt like hours of flailing and gnashing of the teeth and frenzied flapping of her wings. Dangerous sparks of electricity flashed around her eyes, ignited without warning or any provocation of her mace, which lay, abandoned, nearby, threatening to explode at any second and fluctuating rapidly as her writhing and thrashing intensified...

She felt Stygian's eyes bore on the back of her head. Keaton's violent movements ceased and the orbs of sanguine lightning died down to a few, fluttering flickers. Keaton closed her eyes, took in a seething gasp, and looked around.

At the winged, fanged wolf-demon; at the malicious fae; at the corpse-frog; at the masked feline-creature; and at the dark-furred she-monster.

Another sigh, this one stuttering, maybe even choking. Looking on the verge of tears, Keaton let her shoulders slouch in resignation and her wings wilt in their sockets.

"Bastards...." she hissed, "You fucking bastards..."

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel stepped forward to where Keaton dangled in Sebastian's grasp. "Please calm down and relax Keaton. We want to help. What has you so scared?" As she spoke she probed the jackal's mental shields. Cubi tended to have good shields but Mel had been doing this a very long time, she knew where the soft spots were. With only a few false starts she was in and took control of Keaton's motor systems. "She can't fight now. We might want to go someplace more comfortable to figure out what is wrong with her."

[Stygian]

As horrid as the others were, and as much as Stygian made her skin creep as he held her fast, none had such an overwhelming impression on Keaton as Mel. Standing much taller than before, with dark eyes in a ghastly white face, with spiked frills, curved horns and towering wings, she looked every bit the mythical and terrifying creature that a dragon was. Icy mist fell slowly to the floor, wreathing around her feet as she walked, and her face was bitter and as cold as if carved out of ice. Claws and teeth like pearlescent knives glinting, she closed with the captured jackal, and then started prodding her mind's protections like nobody's business. For all she tried to struggle, she had little to put up, and soon she felt her muscles and sinews slacken, even more than they had when she relaxed. Even her eyes would hardly move as they were told anymore.
   It was a nightmare. First the whole castle tried to kill her, next her companions turned out to be horrors, and now she wasn't even capable of putting up a fight. Amid all the terror, she just found herself hearing the same thought over and over again; that she should get away; that she should kill them all and then just run into the darkness and never come out again.
   Then she felt as she was hoisted up, and her head tilted to the side to look down the corridor. She briefly caught a glance of Cogidubnus before she passed him, the wolf looming even taller than the bat, his face a dark thunderhead under his hat and his eyes glowing and crackling with bluish-white electricity, his fur swept back and spiked as if it were full with static. She could do nothing but follow along as the bat paced, heading where she didn't know.

- -

Stygian felt the cubi finally relax completely in his arms, and slowly released his grip, his face still a bitter mask. He felt odd for a reason. Somehow, he knew just about what was wrong with her, as if it were a thought he had just to remember or a word at the tip of his tongue, but that he just couldn't place right away. He knew what it was that Mel had done to her, and knew that the cubi would just stand and walk along, incapable of controlling herself, should he set her down. And just therefore he instead lifted her up into his arms. It seemed... less of a blow to her pride that way. He knew from his own experience.
   Walking past the others silently and heading down the same corridor they had come from, the bat made for the ballroom, being the largest and most comfortable room near them now. Once there, he set the jackal into a sofa behind a large oval table and next to an armless marble sculpture, and slipped into the matching armchair next to it, looking at her gravely.

[Prof B Hunnydew]

Watching the bat take Keaton to the ballroom, PBH wondered what went wrong with her truth spell.  Then she remembered that the spell hit Stygain and not Keaton.

But hearing the frog's voice, Bambi cause to snap her attention to the newcomer and the frog.. She was still fearful of the frog, and that something was even more a miss with him.  With a wary look at the frog, Bambi walk over there to defend the newcomer should a spiders try to attack the cat in the mask.

"Hi I am Bambi" says PBH with her hand out to the newcomer cat, but she is also ready with a flaming hand spell on the tip of her tongue, should any spider that appear. 

PBH

[Angel]

Ketefe glanced at the two outstretched hands before shaking both simultaneously. The frog seemed friendlier and more normal than most of the people in the castle, and had actually understood she was scared. And  the light brown cat (who, Ketefe noted with surprise and pleasure, had the same hair color as her) also seemed like she wanted to help out, even if she couldn't speak very well. She also didn't really approve of her attire - doctors made her nervous for some reason, but this one seemed kind and innocent. Ketefe smiled shyly at the two.

"I'm Ketefe. Nice to meet you both." She let go of their hands and addressed Jeremiah. "To answer your question, I'm here to satisfy my morbid curiosity about the commotion here last night." She raised a hand halfway. "Please, don't tell me it'll kill me one day. That joke lost its funny after the three zillionth time I heard it."

[Sunblink]

At the first sight of Mel approaching her, Keaton let out an unrestrained scream, her pride shriveling up and crawling into the dank, dark corners of her subconscious for that one, shameless moment. Thrashing intensified, wings, arms and legs stiffening and flailing in Stygian's grip as Keaton threw every bit of energy she had in escaping. Yet, she found her muscles paralyzed in the next second, falling limp.

Pupils dilated into pale pinpricks, she stared in pure horror at Mel. Instead of the pearlescent, slim dragon from before, it seemed as though she had been turned into an icy abomination, carved entirely out of frosted stone. Her claws and teeth were serrated and dangerous, more like blades than actual appendages. Diaphanous mist wafted up from the air in coiling, somersaulting, white clouds, seemingly issuing from the sheer, frigid temperature radiating around Mel's icy body in palpable halos. Part of her registered feeling a mental force probing at the outer defenses of her mind-shields; barriers which had been constructed painstakingly, but she didn't care anymore if any of her privacy or the secretive history she so desperately guarded was sacrificed.

Finally she lost the will to fight for the first time in centuries. She allowed herself to be carted off, glassy eyes staring off into space, no longer caring whether or not they were deliberately pointed at the monstrosities encircling her, now with the addition of the recently-arrived, towering Cogidubnus. Even the sagely wolf had been morphed into a monstrous bastardization of his former self, rocketing past even the bat in terms of height, his eyes sparking and eliciting fresh shards of lightning. His fur was windswept, seemingly charged with static electricity and spiked up over his sinewy body in peaked thorns.

Without realizing it, they were walking off, leaving that corridor and entering an enormous ballroom, where she was set in a sofa. Almost unceremoniously Keaton crumpled there after her back hit the vermiculated cushion, long-dammed dust spilling around the abandoned pillows as her weight was pressed upon them. Sitting upright, Keaton glanced around, her expression unreadable.

Then she snapped.

Keaton's lower eyelid twitched briefly, tapered ears lying flat. The yellow jackal let out an unidentified grating, choking noise, part-scream and part-sob, and pulled her legs up to her chest.

"AhaAHAHAahAhAaHAHAHA..." Keaton forced out a deranged laugh, her voice constricted by rasping wheezes. Dirty blonde hair lay askew along her head, draping over her face like a ragged shroud as she lowered her head, face and muzzle disappearing from sight behind her long legs. "This is a nightmare!" she laughed, "That's all this is. I'm sleeping and I'm going to wake up ANY MOMENT NOW! ANY MOMENT!"

Head lifted again, eyes blinking wearily from behind the loose strands of her entangled hair. Dark, snaking lines of tears were creeping down the dark, crescent-shaped patches emblazoned over her bloodshot eyes, dribbling from Keaton's rigidly chiseled jawline. Keaton's hands slinked up into her hair, confining her slender fingers in the disheveled mess of her hair. "Aha... that's all... th-that's all... this whole thi...thi--thing is a ni-nightmare...

"Just a nightmare..."

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Boog]

"Pretty, competant and a sense of humor?"  the frog raised one bushy eyebrow, adjusted his glasses, and turned to Bambi, "We can keep her, right?" He offered up another friendly grin, "Fine, I'll spare you the knee jerk reaction joke. This place is starting to seem like one anyway." He pointed to various individuals in the room, "Seriously, just look. 'A dragoness, four adventurors, a cubi, a mad scientist, an art teacher and whatever the hell Stygian is walk into a castle...' Actually, that's not even all of them. Some others have been seen wandering around here, this place is huge." He chuckled, "Seriously, I wouldn't be suprised if small civilizations spring up around here. Just like normal civilizations, but at about one-eigth scale."

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel sat next to Keaton on the sofa. "When did the nightmare start Keaton? What were you doing when the nightmare started?" She could have just ransacked the girl's memory, but it would be better for both Keaton's emotional state and her dignity if she cooperated. "Can you tell us what has you so scared? We can't help you until you tell us what is wrong."

[Angel]

Ketefe blushed at the compliment and laughed quietly at Jeremiah's joke, and then went a little serious. "Who's Stygian? Is that the bat? 'Cause he's creepy." She suddenly remembered the endless questions she'd had in her head prior to the battle. "And while I'm still thinking about it, why could I hear sounds of an attack across town last night? Does that have anything to do with Keaton's condition?" Her yellow eyes moved to the door, and she heard muffled shouts and thrashing, and then a crazy, desperate peal of laughter. She shivered involuntarily. She had more questions - a lot more - but that was enough for now. Even if it took a while to explain, she had to know at least a little. She made a mental note to write to Jarevei and let him know she'd be gone for longer than she thought. If she explained, he'd understand; he knew that helping people was important to her.

"I'm not sure how long I'll be here, but do you think I'll be able to help out?" she asked Bambi and Jeremiah.

[Boog]

"Yeah, the bat's Sebastion or Stygian, depending who you ask," Jeremiah nodded, "As for how helpful you can be..." He shrugged, partly because he didn't know and partly because one of the spiders twitching under his coat was tickling him, "To be honest, this place plays merry hell with the psyche, and it's dangerous to boot. Matter of fact, many aspects of this bloody castle can be compared to hell. Such as the unholy number of curses that would appear to be on this place. As for Keaton..." The stuffed his hands into his pockets, "No clue whatsoever. Personally, I've been a little worried about her mental state for a while. It could just be this damn place getting to her." These words, of course, spoken with the severity and seriousness of one who had been in this place only about a day and a half longer than Ketefe.

[Prof B Hunnydew]

"Ketefe, Come have some food... Mel will able cure Keaton" said Bambi as she pointed the way to the kitchen, and waited for Ketefe follow....

She smiled at the new catgirl, but looked worried at the frog for a second.

PBH

[Angel]

Ketefe returned the smile Bambi sent to her. "Okey-doke," she answered, following the lab-coated cat and finally realizing she was hungry. "So, Mel would be... the dragon, then?"

She wondered about the nervous glance Bambi had directed at Jeremiah. So far, the frog had been completely amiable to Ketefe. But Bambi was a spellcaster, and obviously experienced despite her speech... had Ketefe let her guard down too easily, or was Jeremiah masking his true nature? Even though it was probably nothing, she'd need to watch him a bit more carefully.

[Gareeku]

Standing back as the others successfully restrained Keaton, Gareeku walked with him, trying to imagine what on earth was wrong with the jackal succubus. Why had she become so...well...psychotic? At this time the wolf had absolutely no idea, but he had a strange something, or someone, was responsible. As Keaton broke down, Gareeku was not help but frown.

[Stygian]

Stygian took word almost immediately, for oddness' sake.
   "She has something dark inside her mind. It's all over her. I suspect she was poking around the castle. Though I am somewhat surprised as to why it would not have sought us out," he said, looking mildly confused and unsettled. Slowly, he bent forward against Keaton, while his eyes blackened over and his irises shrank around a pinpricking pupil and started to glow. Slowly, his hand moved up, and he brushed past her cheek. She could feel the claws of the thing, easily capable of gripping around her entire face, tracing through her fur, and his eyes narrowed as she felt a sort of chilly tingle. In her eyes though, it looked significantly different, the dark appendage crawling with tendrils and little insect-like shapes that moved and clawed her skin, almost trying to make their way under it. Fortunately, the bat drew his hand back quickly.
   "Yeah. Something's gotten into her head allright."

[Aisha deCabre]

Aisha replaced her sword in its sheath, only quirking an eyebrow in reply to Keaton's cursing outburst before she was finally subdued and carried back over to the ballroom.  She shook her head slowly as she followed the others there as well, just as curious to the jackal's condition.  She stayed a distance back however, thinking of how she was recieved.  There was no telling what a succubus could do when in such a condition, and as an adventurer she wasn't about to place more discomfort.

She too could only stand back with a blankly sour expression as Keaton awoke and spoke as if insanity had a firm grip on her mind.  Aisha was going over what possibilities there could have been for it.  Perhaps she was possessed?  Another curse?  Gah, why couldn't I have learned more mental-based healing...?  She even stole a glance at her light-enchanted bracer, resting around her wrist where she decided to keep it, and wondering if that would help somehow.

"Gotten into her head..." she hummed after Sebastian made his observation.  Curiosity was starting to get to the felid, and she wondered what would happen if she went to look for the source of this trouble.

Not without a ward, I'm not, she decided, crossing her arms while looking back to the jackal.

[Prof B Hunnydew]

Bambi  takes Ketefe ahead down the hall and away the frog abit..

"Spiders, mindstealing spiders, be in the castle and were in us.  Beware spiders."as she looks quick lt to the frog " and  Traps and curses fill the castle, Keaton got caught.  And me, too.  My words were stolen, I'm cursed too.  So going nowhere alone." says Bambi

PBH

[Boog]

Jeremiah raised an eyebrow at the newcomer being led away by Bambi, but didn't think anything of it. I've given Bambi no reason to suspect anything. Besides, Ketefe seems like a reasonable person; she'll require proof, which the good doctor doesn't have. Wonder if Aisha knows what's going on with Keaton... Being controlled by spiders didn't make Jeremiah any less himself, and he rather enjoyed talking with the adventurer. He followed the others to the Ballroom and, seeing the huntress lost in thought, tapped her on the shoulder to get her attention.
"Erm..." He jerked his thumb in the direction of the maniac cubi, trying to think of a nice way of saying 'Why's she crazy?' "Uh... What?" Was the best that came out.

[Angel]

Ketefe listened to Bambi's explanation with surprise, uneasiness, and a bit of sick doubt. Curses and traps all over? Mind-stealing spiders? The results were all too clear; she had seen Keaton, and she guessed that Bambi had sounded much clearer before. Maybe she shouldn't stay here after all... or if she did, she'd need to learn how to detect magic so she could avoid being cursed or brainwashed.

"God..." she whispered, shaking her head in disbelief. "Why is everyone staying here if this place is cursed?" Then her brain answered her question: Because there are people who have been here too long. They need help, and how many people will believe a crazy story like this one? She gulped, and looked at Bambi. "How long has everyone been here?"

[Prof B Hunnydew]

WHY??  for We be Heroes, to keep the badness inside...for the gold,  For our friends, for Adventure! To save the world.  And most be here a day or three..." says Bambi as she hands the catgirl a sandwich, some soup and fruity rice in the Kitchen.. "Gina!, We have a new friend... Meet Key tee fee... This is Gina.." says Bambi as she show Ketefe off to a white furred ferret...

PBH

[Aisha deCabre]

Aisha blinked upon being tapped on the shoulder, only turning her head slightly to see that it was only Jeremiah.  She smirked at the confused expression on the frog's face and shook her head.  "Your guess is as good as mine, compadre," she answered, glancing back up to where Keaton stood, while those with powers that would do well to defend against a 'Cubi were trying to snap her out of it.  "All that was deduced so far was that something got into her head."

The panther's ears flattened.  "She was roaming the castle, the last that anyone has seen of her."  This didn't come as a surprise to Aisha.  Still, she didn't want to come into contact with anything that could make Keaton scared to death.  She raised her voice, offering a suggestion.  "Is there no way to make her coherent enough to tell us anything strange that she has seen only moments ago?"

Other than us...she added silently.

[Sunblink]

Under Mel's gentle interrogation, Keaton only continued to sob and release heaving laughs, unable to say anything even remotely intelligible. Her body was shaking uncontrollably with each escaped wheeze or choking rasp, and it only exacerbated when Mel approached. The illusions had been eased somewhat, but the convulsing, twisting abyss which consumed the background remained, along with the neverending terror which gripped her.

"Aha... th... ni... nightmare... just a..." Keaton resumed her demented chanting until it deteriorated into even more senseless babble, her lips forming the words but completely incapable of carrying anything past them. "AhaHahAAh..."

Stygian's hand flashed somewhere beside her, teeming with insectoid, inky silhouettes, but she had utterly surrendered at that point. Despite an involuntary tremor of fear that was added to her already spasmodic quaking, she didn't resist, instead folding her wings a little closer to her body even as the squirming tendrils lapped at the surface of her flesh.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Stygian]

"Yes there is. But it would be very painful for her," Stygian said, still looking a tad off. "And it's not a nightmare. There's something in her head that's basically taking control of her through her fears, making her go insane so it can take over. Makes the spiders look like flyshit." Now, his eyes widened, but he shook his head and then looked hard at Keaton again.

- -

Gina, a good deal shorter than Bam, looked up from a book and at Ketefe a bit distractedly, then got out of her seat and walked over, taking the other feline's hand.
   "Sorry. She's a bit overenergetic sometimes. But cute," she said, and gave Bam a smile. "I'm Gina."

[Boog]

Jeremiah mulled over Aisha's words for a minute, and Stygian's. A threat to the spiders. Not good. Poor Keaton. He looked over at the gibbering wreak that was the local cubi, and it came to him.
"Perhaps it's a matter of asking the right questions..." The frog hazarded to Aisha, keeping his voice low so as not to worry Keaton, "After all, she's probably in no state to lie to us. We phrase things right and she may tell us when this started."

[Angel]

Ketefe smiled, a smile that, for the first time since she'd entered the castle, showed happiness. She shook the ferret's hand. "Hi. Nice to meet you." She glanced at Bam. "And it's Keh-Teh-Fay, by the way," she corrected good-naturedly. "S'all right, though. A lot of people get it wrong."

She released the ferret's hand and walked over to the table, pulling out another chair and sitting down. "Is it all right if I put my sword down? I've been carrying it for a while," she said, gesturing to the black-wrapped weapon on her back.

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel looked at the jackal cubi lost in a world of endless fear. By the rising temperature of her body her adrenaline had to be pushing her heart hard. It was a question of which would die first, her mind or her body. Mel was already past her shields but it seemed rude to try anything without asking. "Keaton, would you like help waking up from your nightmare?"

[Gareeku]

"Something worse than the spiders..." Gareeku muttered as he took in what Sebastian had said. This was not good, to put it lightly. As Sebastian had already pointed out, whatever had gotten inside Keaton's mind was driving her insane, to the point where it could take over, presumably able to control her easily once the victim had no sanity to conjure up any sort of willpower to fight back. To state the obvious, they needed to act fast....the only problem was...
"Then how are we meant to go about helping her" the wolf asked. He would be the first to admit that he was no expert when it came to dealing with issues of the mind, but he would help in any way possible. He had not known Keaton for very long at all, but he felt that he had a duty, as a friend, to help.

[Prof B Hunnydew]

*sigh*  Bambi need be hyper to keep to the gloom away...." sighs PBH as she turns to make something lemonade in a pitcher....  Can she still hear Keaton's screams faintly, or Is it her congence nagging her...?  Bambi puts some glasses and the pitcher of lemonade on a tray.... After offer some to Ketefe and then Gina with a teasing tickle and quick kiss, Bambi takes the lemonade to the ballroom.

"Lemonade Anyone?" asks PBH as she walk into the ballroom and puts the tray down nearby the group.  She see that Mel has calm Keaton down, but not much else, and that the jackal was in danger of disappearing into her fears..
"Mel, Will the truth help?" askes PBH as she casts a new truth spell, but hold it in greenlight sphere in the palm of her hand.

PBH

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel realized that Keaton was beyond asking for help and decided she would have to act now and apologize later for any invasion of privacy. She was already past the cubi's shields in a superficial way, but moved entirely inside to hunt for whatever was terrorizing the girl. She faintly heard Bam's question but was unable to respond. One of the others would have to answer her as Mel devoted her attention to searching Keaton's mind.

[Stygian]

"Truth? The truth never helps. It is fact, and action. It is instant. But people always twist the truth, the very moment they lay their eyes upon it," Stygian said, intently eyeing Mel and Keaton, apparrently talking without thinking. "Truth is in the eye of the beholder, however cliché it might sound. And seeing as it is neither certain in or out of perspective nor..." He stopped, suddenly, and shook his head, then returned to studying Keaton.
   The jackal had begun to shake and quiver again, though thankfully she remained relatively silent now. Her eyes had slowly rolled up, exposing the whites, and she was taking short, whimpering breaths. But though she couldn't express it, she was feeling a rather intense, numbing pain and discomfort, the result of something trying to use her to block Mel out with increasing agression. It felt, quite literally, like the worst migraine one could possibly imagine.
   Mel, in turn, was having some difficulties tracing down whatever it was that had gotten into Keaton. She was getting steadily closer, true, but for every real pathway or hint that she got there were ten rather convincing false ones set out to lure her, or snare her, or make her trip some sort of psychosis or nightmare or horror in the jackal's mind. She found herself delving through Keaton's memories, images and sensations and feelings flashing past, flickering and leaping as she trailed the thing delving through the cubi's consciousness. Just a glimpse here, a trail there, yet soon she thought that she could almost feel it, getting closer...
   Behind his back, Stygian was flexing his fingers slowly, his other hand placed steadily on Keaton's shoulder. One could never know what was to happen next...