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

[Prof B Hunnydew]

The note from the Jeremiah, Bambi greeted with confusion and then suspicion,  

"The frog is the most sensitive to cold, and he was alone the most often after the first attack of the spiders and he can to the boiler room last"...thought Bambi... The cold in the castle would be only in the low 60's at the most by now.  

"Still the Cold hit him the hardest..." thought Bambi...

With a "sigh", Bambi makes up a small tray for the Frog.  With hot tea, hot sandwich, and small bowl of chicken soup. she heads down to the boiler room....The frost and ice is long gone from the halls, leaving here and there, only a few small puddles of water, which will dry up in a hour or two.

Bambi ready a flaming hands spell in mind as she reach the boiler room.  She was friendly but cautious to the frog
"Froggy  It is Warm outside and run to the grand hall. Go see.  Spider Mother wants you to stay  inside" says Bambi as she set the tray of food down to front of the frog... PBH watches for any spider that may attack her with a flaming hand spell at ready.

PBH

[Boog]

"Hm?" Jeremiah looked up and smiled as Bambi walked in, his large eyes practically lighting up and the sight of the tray of food. "You're a saint, Bambi. A real saint," He'd shirked off the heavy fur coat, but still was reluctant to leave the boiler room, "Thanks. I know that, technically, staying scared and hiding is what the spider woman wants," A convenient bonus; while I'm staying in here, I'm also helping the spiders lie low. "The honest truth, though, is that I'm a little scared to go out there even if it's warmed up a bit," he chuckled and scratched the back of his head, embarassed, "Bad experience when I was little; got caught in the snow in just a tee-shirt and jeans. I'd been out in it before, yeah, but I'd been wrapped up pretty tight. One day, I saw it snowing outside on I day I was going to have a test, and I was so happy to see all that snow that I just ran outside," he paused for a second, sighed, "Not something a wise amphibian does. Ended up missing the whole month of school in the hospital," He smiled apologetically at Bambi, "I tend to get a tad paranoid about the cold. Thanks for bringing me lunch."

[Cogidubnus]

 Cog kept quiet as the gunsmith drooled over Sebastian's gold, and grinned to himself as he carefully six coins across the counter. Sixty dollars was more than the knife was worth, but Cog had been wanting to try something, recently. He'd need a test subject.
Slipping the knife into his boot, he saw both Sebastian and the smith concluding their business and making the formal goodbye noises. He headed for the door and left the shop, holding the door for the bat as he leaned against the wall. He had the feeling that if he let him, the bat might stare and gape at the weaponry all day.
In all fairness, he might too, if it was a different kind of store.

[Stygian]

Perhaps to the wolf's surprise, though it should not have been, had he known the bat better, Sebastian stepped out closely after him quite soon and sidled up next to him, walking alongside as they headed for the tailor. The bat had added a pair of hip-mounted holsters to his outfit, and a pair of rather big revolvers gleamed somewhat in them. It seemed that he had gone for a pair of existing ones to get the feeling.
   "Right then. That should be done soon enough..." the bat murmured, taking silent but determined steps. He kept silent for a while, but once they got to the square and around between people just a bit he took word again. "You might be wondering why I'm going around and practically showing off like this," he said, looking dead forward. "It's all to a purpose, trust me. I mean to show that I'm back in business. And this town is a perfect kickoff point..."
   The two reached the tailor, a slightly larger building to the side of the main street. The shingle up in front proudly displayed; 'Dawes Tailoring; If we don't have it, we will tomorrow'. The bat did not pay it much heed, but simply pushed the door open with the chime of a bell and stepped in.
   Inside, a clear-eyed little rust-colored gryphon looked up at them as they entered, narrowing its eyes at Stygian. The shopkeeper, a wolf not too unlike Cogidubnus, smiled toothily but not uncomfortably as she took a look over them.
   "Hello, gentlemen. See anything you like, tell me immediately. We're having a discount week," she murred, and then went back to folding some pants over the counter.

- -

Keaton turned quite a few pages, not finding anything out of the ordinary. The book seemed to be on the topic of demons and beasts that practiced parasitism or possession, mostly, and held some rather vivid examples of the victims of such monsters or the processes by which they worked for illustration. But it hardly seemed like anything curious, what with the amount of books like it down in the library. She scanned a few more pages, the text blurring before her and the images glinting through in their detail. Then she looked through a few more pages. Then, she looked a little more, and a little more. She read some more, turned a few pages over, flipped through some more...
   She wasn't sure, but somehow the book had captivated her. She couldn't see the text, couldn't feel or hear or sense much else but the book, which she couldn't understand anyway. The words just blurred before her eyes, and...
   It took a while, and then she came to her senses and settled down. The book lay before her, closed. What had just happened, she had no idea of.

[Cogidubnus]

 Cog quirked an eyebrow at Sebastian and nodded somewhat at his words. "Quite. I would agree, largely. Iai teaches that one should learn to win without having to actually draw a sword...or gun, I suppose. Sheer intimidation can do this nicely."
Cog sighed as he entered the tailors shop, and made a bow towards the shopkeeper, taking off his glasses and approaching the bar. Upon entering, he had scanned almost the entire place, and seen what he might need, what he could use, and what the tailor could likely do with them. He wondered what she had in the back...
Nothing then remained but to ask. Somewhat forgetting about Sebastian, he leaned against the counter and began to adress the shopkeeper, seemingly engrossed in his own strange world. "My good lady. Your presence, nay, your very essence here is a boon to my heart. As water to a thirsty soul. For, behind you good lady, upon the cupboards and hooks on your lovely, pastel wall, I see hats." Cog said, his voice lilting and flourished. "In point of fact, upon the second-to-the-top on the leftmost rack, I see the very hat that I lost today. Not the very hat, for that would be too much boon to ask for, but verily the same kind, to me, now gone."
Had she had tried to shake Cog's hand, this would have been the point where he would have kissed it. Instead, he merely continued with renewed vigor. "If my lady would be so kind, I would love nothing more than to see if it fits. After that, I would expect talk of what you have in concerning shirts..."

[Prof B Hunnydew]

Bambi just nods and with a weak smile, she takes her leave of the Frog.  Her face shows her worry over something.  She is no more wiser than before, but can't shake the feeling that he's hiding something....Even his comments are reasonable if a little odd about the spider mother and spider woman.   But Bambi herself has too many words missing from her mind to talk straight enough to be understood. 

With a sign and a wave bye, PBH returns to Gina, the Kitchen and her own lunch.. She takes Gina out into the sunny kitchen garden with their lunch to enjoy the sun and breeze as their eat.  They are visible through the large kitchen window.   "It's back to the baby book, soon" thinks Bam

PBH

[Sunblink]

As Keaton leafed through the yellowed pages of the aging book, she found herself increasingly bored by what was contained within the novel. Demons, possessions, rituals? After all that had occurred within the Castle between the span of a day she was hardly surprised that the cursed palace happened to have something as cryptic as a book specializing on such matters. Not particularly interested, Keaton normally would've set down the hardcover and left the room in search of something else, but she somehow remained glued to it, thumbing constantly through the pages.

It was becoming harder and harder to see the text as it blurred before her eyes. Something had ensnared her mind, keeping her leashed to that mysterious book even as she became unaware of the world around her. Without realizing it, everything vanished for a split second as the words emblazoned on the pages smeared and swirled like running ink, fading away...

Brown eyes fluttered open behind askew lenses. Unconsciously, Keaton reached up to adjust her glasses, then stared confusedly around the room. Inevitably her gaze led her back to the book, which was sitting peacefully on the bed once more, closed. Something about that unnerved her, especially since she didn't distinctly recall ever setting it down...

That clinched it. She was getting the hell out of that room.

Without a moment's hesitation Keaton climbed to her feet, picked up her fallen mace, and raced out of the room, leaving that damn book behind.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Aisha deCabre]

With the warmth in the castle regathered, Aisha took her coat and cape off as she walked into the kitchen and laid them to the side, having smelled lunch upon entering.  Still, a little hungry as she was, the panthress didn't feel at all like letting her guard down, even with the comforting thought that the spiders were long gone.  The adventurer had seen enough of the castle's features in that floor alone and below to never start trusting appearances.  Stopping and leaning on a counter in thought though, she did wonder if she was following instinct, or perhaps starting to become a little paranoid.

"Only you know the difference, chica," Aisha muttered to herself, the words having come long ago straight from the mouth of her mentor.  She watched Bambi leave, noting that Jeremiah wasn't with the group, and shook her head.  Things were peaceful for the moment, and she could hopefully trust her comrades to also keep on alert.  At least she couldn't be worried for Gareeku, for he was just as experienced with sensing that kind of trouble as she...it was a relief.

Humming quietly in a random tune, a sign of restlessness, the jaguaress decided to look for something of her own to eat, taking a few pieces of fruit when she found them.  Then, juggling them with a hand, she had an idea and went for the stove, remembering an old favorite from when she was a child.  One of the few things she knew how to make, or at least hoped.  "Fried rice and fruit.  Perfect lunch after a cold snap," she joked, perhaps more to herself than to anyone who might have come with her.

[Stygian]

The wolf woman seemed just a bit taken aback, but about halfway through Cogidubnus' tirade, she just settled into a musing smirk and waited for him to finish before she fetched the hat and ordered it. Leaning over the counter, smiling sweetly and showing perhaps a bit more cleavage than she should have as a businesswoman, she set the hat on his head and then inclined it slightly, tipping the front down a bit. It was a near-perfect fit.
   "No worries, mister. I would gladly show you around." She kept the smirk, which fit her like a glove and probably not out of accident, and swayed over toward the men's section of the botique, the end of her long, slashed dress waving slightly. As she did, Stygian, as if by chance while interestedly studying some hats and scarfs for himself, placed himself next to the wolf, turned away from him.
   "Nice little piece, don't you think?" he smirked slightly. "Just don't let her follow you into the changing booth. She's Cubi," he muttered silently, while scratching his chin.

- -

Keaton had no problem leaving the book behind. Yet, somehow, she couldn't get that dizzy feeling out of her head. Her feet seemed steady enough, but it was as if her cranium had suddenly been turned to goo and her headwings begun trying to flutter off with it without her doing anything, or noticing quite as it had come up on her, as fast as it had. She tripped down the stairs steadily at first, but halfway down them she had to stop and steady herself against the railing, just because it felt like her feet were going to run away from the rest of her.
   That's when she heard a whispering sound from behind, up the stairs. It had not been anything discernable, just a draft from above perhaps or the echoes gathering in the large, round room. But she couldn't shake the feeling that it had actually not sounded as either, but rather like a voice...

[Sunblink]

Pivoting and swaying dangerously on her heels as she trudged wearily back through the Castle, Keaton struggled to recall every last step she took previously, her head braced against one of her hands. Her head and back-wings were drooping simultaneously, a stark contrast to the strangely fluttering feeling that kept whirlwinding Keaton's dazed and agonized mind. Halfway down the stairs she thought she was going to give into the dizziness that plagued her, but thankfully a steady grip on the handrail assured that she wasn't going to do any impromptu tumbling.

Her heel rested against the surface of the next step when she heard it: a distant, indistinct whispering sound, emitting from over her head. Ears quaking, Keaton stared in the direction it had transmitted from, her eyebrow raising. Fantastic. One event after another in this fucking castle. At first she would've disregarded it, but a moment of intent listening and clearing of her mind revealed that what she had heard was almost akin to someone speaking. Voices.

Was someone else in the Castle?

With this in mind, Keaton turned around and started to follow the sound, using it to lead her to the source, slightly sobered from her dizzy spell.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Cogidubnus]

 Cog winked at Sebastian as he followed the proprietor over to men's clothing. He felt much better with a hat on his head, and his demeanor showed it. "Worry not. Furthest thing from my mind, actually. But a charming customer is hard to cheat. Usually." he said, grinning widely at the bat and joining the proprietor next to a group of shirts. Giving her a charming grin, he began to look through what she had on hand.
"As far as it goes, m'lady, thicker fabrics are better, but nothing too heavy. As you can imagine, the perils of the road dictate a certain amount of reliability and toughness for my garments, but wearing something that itches can be just as bad when not immediately vanquishing foes. Strong, and comfortable. Being on the road means I don't get to pick." he said, picking up a black shirt of satin he'd found. "Something along these lines. But with the stitching done in silver." he said, indicating the various places. "Oh, the buttons as well. Mother-of-Pearl is so brittle, after all."
He gave her another charming grin and handed her the shirt, starting to sort through the pants. "I prefer very loose pants. You will find, actually, I prefer them about a size and a half too large. Practicality, after all. A proper fit can be too confining for certain things. Adventuring wise, I mean." He said, handing her a pair he liked. "These will do nicely. The same treatment as the shirt, if you please, and a belt to match."
The tailor hadn't manged to get a word in edgewise, and Cog pressed his advantage. "I think I will keep this particular jacket." he said, indicating the one he currently wore. "If you make the alterations to it as to the pants and shirt, I will most certainly. Now, if you would be so kind, there is only the matter of measurements, and price..."
At the last word he grinned toothily, and waited for the Cubi to respond.

[Stygian]

The bat couldn't help but make a bit of a smirk at Cogidubnus' bargaining tactics. He seemed to have a bit of success... but on the other hand, the way the wolf lady took it, with a smile and in stride, might have indicated otherwise. Sebastian himself tried out a rather nice fedora and some good shirts and vests, more modern garments than he was used to, before moving on to the neoclassic stuff. All the while, the woman just smirked back at Cog and then moved him over to one side of the shop, taking his measurments and checking the clothes he was already wearing.
   "These seem a bit loose on you. I suppose you might want it that way, but I think I should still make a better fit. And perhaps a tighter collar, to better frame that lovely mane," she said. She took his shirt and his jacket and then left him sitting on a chair while she went into the back and started doing some preliminary work.
   Sebastian emerged from a booth after a while, and laid up an assortment of garments on a chair, before standing over by the counter and leaning back on his elbows. He sighed, then looked over to Cog, scanning him over.
   "Too bad we don't know the girls' measurments. I'm sure they'd appreciate something," he commented coolly after a while. "Well, maybe they'd like to come some other time..." he then muttered, and leaned back a bit, looking into the ceiling. He murmured something about it not even being evening yet, and then walked up and over, settling down in a chair next to the wolf and waiting. His look was not one of annoyance or preoccupation, but rather of sheer glumness, as if he'd much rather be elsewhere and elsewhen, though he knew he couldn't.
   After a while, the wolfess emerged again, this time with samples of her work and of different threadings and buttons and belts. There was the usual haggling, the keeping up of the flirtatious routine, the selection and taking orders, and finally the work. Cogidubnus' fee landed on an even seven hundred, while Stygian paid a thousand for his larger selection, though he earned a quick but off look from her at one occasion and somehow managed to unnerve the wolf woman even though returning her comely smiles and her cues, something Cog could smell well enough. Which was strange, considering that he was the adventurer.
   They left the tailor with full bags after a couple of hours and tea and books while waiting, and a pair of signatured cards, though Cog was the only one whose card smelled of the same lavender perfume as the shopkeeper wolfess had worn. Sebastian sighed just slightly as he stepped out into the street, slipping a package from the gunsmith into one of his bags, and then without saying anything began walking determinedly back toward the square and against the castle again.

- -

The problem with following the whisper, Keaton found, was that neither did it keep up nor was she sure where it had come from. She took a few steps up the stairs, before she felt something in her ears, a sort of tension, as if someone had blown a really high-pitched whistle somewhere off. But it only felt that way. It wasn't...
   Another whisper came, this one close to her ear, and yet still so distant that it seemed to have traveled for a lifetime before it reached her. The stairs seemed to lengthen before her eyes as she watched, the surroundings turning darker and gloomier somehow, the dark corridor opening up into the balcony at the top of them just waiting for her, opening up into a gap from where she could feel the darkness reaching, calling to her, clawing after her. And still, that was not the most terrible thing. The stairs seemed to be tipping, sloping as they lengthened, growing steeper and steeper and wanting to throw her over backwards, to fall down into a vertical nothing where she would just keep falling and falling forever. And...
   There was someone behind her.
   Kill them all...!
   She snapped around, looking down the stairs. Down at nothing but the marble and blue carpet that covered them. They looked just thesame as they had before.

[Sunblink]

As Keaton scaled the stairs, she started to realize how oddly the surface and slanting had begun to distort. Every so often she would stop, overwhelmed by the consistently irritating dizziness pecking at her brain and the constantly warping, shrill whistling and whispering that twisted into her eardrums, to stare about and make sure that the tumultuously bending staircase wasn't going to buck her off like some sort of rabid horse.

The darkness swarming at the top of the staircase seemed to open up to her with shadowy, serrated claws, beckoning her, calling her closer, closer, into its grasp. Once or twice Keaton wanted to turn back, simply too unnerved to approach, but the occasional reappearances of the murmurings kept her going. It was just her imagination. Nothing more. She was Katherine Beatrix Jyraneth, proud Succubus and member of the once-powerful Jyraneth clan. Darkness was her forte, she bent it, commanded it, shaped it to her will! Nothing of the sort should scare her.

Suddenly, Keaton's body froze up instinctually as she felt the flickering presence of someone behind her, radiating body heat, subtle telltale signs she had learned to pick up over her five hundred years of living. Teeth gritting like enamel beartraps and pupils pinpricking, she was just about to turn around, weapon raised, when she heard it.

Kill them all...!

Nothing. It was nothing. Nothing was behind her, just the infernal length of staircase she had left behind. Keaton unconsciously realized that her heart was pounding in her ears, as though that sudden, ephemeral utterance had electrified it. And not very pleasantly at that. Brown eyes snapped back and forth, scouting for someone who could've possibly snuck up on her.

Nobody was there.

That did it.

She was out of here.

Leaving any curiosities about the voice behind, Keaton whirled around and started to ungracefully stumble down the stairs, her free hand keeping her balanced on the intricately crafted handrail.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Cogidubnus]

"Lovely woman." Cog said as they began walking back towards the Castle. "Although, I fear my plan may have backfired. Seven hundred seemed a bit steep. Ah well."
He tapped the new hat that now covered his head. "I would have paid twice what the hat was worth, and I think she knew it. Shopkeepers always do - they can smell it in your blood, you know. Or in this case, read it from my thoughts. Sharp eyes, you have." he murmured, grinning at the somewhat sullen bat. "Ah, but look at me, complaining about my expenditures. Praytell, sir, are you going to show me what the gunsmith gave you?"
As they walked, he slipped the card that the woman had given him into the inside of his hat. He'd want to remember her: good tailors were so hard to find.

[Stygian]

The bat scoffed, and gave Cogidubnus a sidelong glance, smiling with the slightest show of his teeth and a sort of bitterness that did not pass the wolf by. He turned his face back quickly, slowing his pace just the smallest bit so that he and the wolf were walking alongside each other.
   "These are not eyes but lies, my friend; To gaze into haze that has no end..." he rhymed. Then he chuckled. "I suppose you've heard the expression 'blind as a bat'?" he continued, the bitter half-smirk staying in place. "Technically, it's not entirely true; many bats actually have better vision than comparable animals. But in some cases it's... still very correct. As in mine. After all, a creature made to live entirely in darkness has no need for eyes. And these..." he said, pointing to his own, "do not see."
   Sebastian slipped his hand down by the holster on his hip. Rather than being held by his belt, the heavy guns he had purchased were strapped to the hip itself, mainly because it was a steadier way to hold them and because he didn't want them swinging around or making noise.
   "And as for these... Well, I don't think you would like a demonstration now," he said simply, patting the gun to his right, his face going serious again. They were just for practice. Sure, they were the most powerful pieces that the man had been capable of selling, but they were still not as good as the ones that he was intending to lay his hands on.

- -

If Keaton thought that she would have been able to escape the fear - because that was what it was, she realized, however much she wanted to deny it - by moving quickly and away from the darkness, she was terribly mistaken. She didn't have any more overwhelming moments, but twice she thought that she could hear something around the corner, sounding like cloth billowing or whispers or some sort of rasping sound, and everywhere she looked to the shadows they seemed darker than they had before somehow. The dizziness had faded, yet the world somehow still seemed to bear down on her. And she couldn't get that feeling out of the back of her head; the sensation of someone staring into her back just behind her, just waiting for her to turn...

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel awoke with a stretch. While her nap hadn't made up for her lost night of sleep it had refreshed her and restored her magic. She stood and stretched her wings out to their full spread, shaking the stiffness out of them. Catching sight of herself in a mirror in the corner of the room she shook her head. Her borrowed dress had been hopelessly creased by her nap. Feeling refreshed she decided to try to retrieve one of her own outfits. With the strong magics of the castle around her she wasn't quite sure she could bring things in. With a familiar spell she reached into her bag and was gratified to feel fabric. Soon she had a favorite outfit laying on the bed. Black camisole and trousers first, then her tall boots. A blue shirt with the tiniest shimmer of gold then over all her grey suede coat. It had enchantments to keep cold in rather than out and made life among beings a lot more tolerable. In a pleasant mood she left the bedroom to see what everyone else was doing.

[Aisha deCabre]

After a little bit, a mixed smell came from the kitchen amidst whatever food had been cooked there before, something hot and fried.  It was certainly a comforting thing for Aisha, noticing how the room had been as dreary and abandoned as the rest of them before the presence of food and other supplies turned it into a moderately comforting and working space.

While she idly worked over the stove, exercising her minor cooking skills, Aisha couldn't help but still think that it was still strange that the adventurers were slowly making themselves at home in the castle, even if uneasily.  She still felt like an intruder.  There was an audible and soft laugh at the prospect, which had only become silly by now.  The only former occupant who had taken outright offense to their presence was dead.

With a sigh, she found a plate and put some of the cuisine she made on it, then filled a few more plates with it.  The panthress hadn't an idea of what time it was when she was finished, but hunger often knew no boundaries.  Lunch may as well have been early dinner, and a small meal of one at that.  And it's not wise to be in the middle of an adventure on an empty stomach either, Aisha smirked to herself.

She set a small plate aside for Gareeku, then her ears swiveled, having thought she heard a few of the others passing by.  "Amigos!  Anyone for fried rice?  You'll love the fruit too."  She called to them with a smirk, hoping that the atmosphere could be brought back to a bit of calm.  She knew nothing of how wrong she might have been.

[Cogidubnus]

 "Ah, well, you bump into surprisingly few poles for being blind." Cog joked. "And an odd choice of weaponry if you can't see. But that's not what you meant, I think."
He turned a glance at the bag the bat was lugging along. "And it wasn't the revolver you have strapped to your hip I was talking about. I've seen many such. Killed quite a few who carried such. I meant that thing you slipped into your bag of clothes." he said, his tone light. "Of course, I understand if you wish to keep your secret. We're almost there, anyway."
Cog sniffed. "Someone is cooking rice too. Feel up to some lunch?"

[Prof B Hunnydew]

Bambi and Gina were returning into the kitchen from the sunny garden, when Aisha call out to everyone to try her fried rice dish.  

Bambi snuff the the rice pot and says "mmm Sweet!", but then points to the still warm pot of chicken soup, and the two or three sandwiches in the cool cabinet and looks at Aisha with a puzzled look.  Still she serves Gina and herself up two small bowls of fried rice.  The fruit tastes tangy and sweet with the rice.  

"Thanks Aisha  it good." says Bambi to Aisha with a bow.

[Stygian]

Sebastian's face was still dead serious as he walked on, him and the wolf making their way up the somewhat steep road up to the castle with ease.
   "I don't see the world. But I feel it a whole lot better than any vision could let me do. My vision has been... twisted, sort of, like the rest of me. When there is no light, there are far better ways to image the world. And I can still act as if I see things normally. Also... you're not the only one who can smell and hear things far better than normal. She's sparesome with the butter, I feel. And I think I really want something with meat in it," he said, relaxing a bit as they came into the shadow of the gateway into the courtyard and watched the main entrance as they had left it.
   He pushed the forward doors open slowly, and stepped in, holding it for the wolf but not turning, fishing the package he had taken from the gunsmith out and holding it up a bit. It was a paper-wrapped little box of some kind.
   "Just a bit of tryout steel and designs, and more importantly ammunition. Nothing fancy." With that, he walked off briskly, heading after the trace of the smell into the kitchen to prepare something to eat for himself. If the others wouldn't take their dinner in the dining hall, then he'd bring some books up to his own room. He'd apologized, but however talkative he was still uncomfortable about being around them, the wolf and the dragon in particular, instinctively punishing himself.

[Sunblink]

Keaton rushed down the stairs hurriedly, barely keeping herself from launching herself off of the staircase and making an ungraceful landing on the floor. Around her she was plagued by crawling feelings creeping up her quivering spine, her ears filled with distant sweeping and rasping, elicited from every angle. Every time she glared behind her she could swear that the darkness corroding the air at the top of the stairs had become even more contaminated and deep, almost like an enveloping vortex of shadows. By the time she made it down the stairs she wasted no time in sprinting off, using every bit of stamina she had in her body to carry her far, far away from that scene, and all the unpleasant sensations that infested it.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Drawn by the smell of food Mel found herself drawn to the kitchen. Sleep wasn't the only thing she had neglected recently and she found herself walking quite quickly. She only paused once when she thought she heard a faint sound of running feet, then decided it was only an echo of her own quick steps. "Sounds great, Aisha." Mel took a portion of the rice and added some of the soup and sandwich as well. Except for the leftover bits at breakfast she hadn't eaten since she had arrived at the castle. "Has anything happened while I was napping?"

[Stygian]

The problem with running, Keaton found, was that the feeling did not go away. Instead, it kept with her, chasing her, breathing down her neck. It was everywhere, encroaching upon her mind and her senses, refusing to let up. And it was getting worse. She found herself filling with sensations of helplessness, of anger and shame and guilt and hatred. And most of all with fear. She could run and run and never stop, but it would keep hunting her. And she felt that if it ever caught her, that would not be the end of it. It would be the end, but it would not stop her suffering...

- -

Cogidubnus and Sebastian walked into the kitchen, the smell of food filling it up yet still not really appetizing the bat. His senses didn't tingle really like he was used to when what he usually called food was near. Still, that was easily helped. Setting down his bag, he placed it on a countertop and then went over to the bags he had previously brough, fishing out a bottle of wine and another bag of medical blood. He didn't feel like taking the time to cook up the roast beef he had bought, so that and a bit of fruit would have to do. Once he had taken the things, he took a glass and a knife, and then turned on the spot. It would do for a very early dinner.
   "There we go... If we need more food, just tell and we can take another visit to town. For now, I think we should have enough to last us quite some time," he said, and then walked out and away, toward the large stairs and his room. Sitting down and being awkward with the others hadn't occurred to him. The dragon still smelled like she was uncomfortable, and Cog may have put on a humorous face but his case was probably thesame, or so Sebastian thought.

[Prof B Hunnydew]

"Froggy scary down in fire room,     Cog and Bat  ah ah no Home.  Keaton be ah I not know.  but I learn words again...slowly and hard" Said Bambi as holds up a child reader book. "Gina help"

"Bam make more sandwiches dor Dagon fried?" Asks Bam to Mel....

PBH

Oops   Hi Cog and Sebast said after she hears the bat and wolf

[Aisha deCabre]

Aisha nodded to each person in turn who answered her call, having set a plate aside for each of them.  She smiled proudly at the compliments, nodding first to Bam and then to Gina and Mel before filling her own plate, just as Sebastian walked into the kitchen with Cogi.

"Welcome back," she said in passing, nodding politely before standing at the table near the others.  She made a flourishing bow.  "You're all welcome for the food.  I don't think I could make it half so well as my family.  But I hope it's enjoyable nonetheless.  I made plenty."

With that, she sat at the table with her own plate, licking her teeth in anticipation.  She hadn't tasted the dish in quite a while, and she grabbed a bit of what Bam had prepared earlier in addition, thanking her as well.  However her ears perked, having thought she heard pounding on the floor, faintly, as if someone were running.

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel smiled at Bam's torrent of words. "Thank you, but the food I have is quite sufficient." She took a seat across from Aisha and had just taken a big bite of the sandwich when Sebastian and Cog entered. Unable to greet them properly she just nodded and was a bit discomforted when the bat merely took a container of blood from the ice chest and disappeared again. What were they doing hanging around the castle when the owner could barely seem to stand the sight of them? Mel couldn't even name her own motivation aside from an instinct that they needed to stay together a while longer.

She temporarily pushed motivations aside and asked Aisha, "Did I understand correctly that Jeremiah refuses to leave the furnace room and we have no idea where Gareeku and Keaton are?"

[Cogidubnus]

 Cog nodded at Aisha and grinned to the others, setting his bag down at the entrance of the kitchen. "Rice sounds delicious. And rice with soup sounds even better." he said, taking a bowl of the stuff and pouring a ladleful of chicken soup like a dressing. It made a sort of floating meal, to which he began to eat with gusto.
He watched the bat leave the room and suppressed the grimace he felt coming. He kept his words to himself, however. He was who he was. Maybe he would come down later. In the meantime, rice.

[Prof B Hunnydew]

Bambi smiles at the dragon.... "Thanks...and Scary Jermy  scared  to leave the ?boooiler room?  Yes .."

[Stygian]

Sebastian was not to receive the calm that he had expected though. Since he was headed for the stairs, he had head warning of Keaton from her hard, running steps, but he did not try to avoid her, figuring that it was something htat would probably haunt him some way or another later if he didn't. He had no idea how correct he was.
   She came straight at him from down the long hallway, running as if chased by the hounds of Hell in her boots, tromping quickly against the floor. Quickly, he set the wine and the bloodbag down on a small table in an alcove in the side of the corridor and then stepped out, standing and waiting for her. She came upon him quickly, and he caught her, halting her stampede and holding her gently but firmly.
   "What's wrong now?" he said almost tiredly. "Who or what needs to be put out?"

- -

She was gripped mid-run and stopped dead, however she had just dashed.
   "What's wrong now? Who or what needs to be put out?" The words were gloomy, almost bored, but to her ears they snaked and writhed and echoed. Not like his ordinary voice. His fake voice, she realized. There was something seriously wrong. She looked up.
   The world seemed to have turned an off sepia, or as if she was viewing it through darkly greenish colored glass. Shadows distended and snaked at the fringes of her vision, and the horror that followed her spread through her entire body. But now it was faced with another horridity as well. Sebastian, or Stygian, was not the same.
   His face was a deathly mask, a cracked and skull-like thing with black, hollow gaps for eyes and crumbling at the edges. His entire skin seemed made of some sort of whitish ash or perhaps stone, or something in between, that was constantly being turned to dust before her eyes, blackness hiding and snaking within it, taking disgusting shapes and seething like a boiling acid where it showed through. He seemed like a grotesque golem, an animated statue or a corpse infested with this darkness, speaking to her with a voice not his own. He opened his mouth again, and a centipede-like thing of blackest black crept out through it and down, in through a hole in the ashen skin on his neck. She felt a crawling where his hand was, and looked down to see something spider-like emerge from the clawed appendage, prickling her skin with its taloned legs.
   "Keaton? What's wrong?" he said, black fangs glistening wet with toxic drool, his voice decaying like his body. She jerked back from some reflex, and out of his grasp, and his horrendous face grew puzzled. Slowly, gingerly, he reached with a rotting hand for her. Around him, the whole corridor seemed to be crumbling. Slowly, she saw a black, writhing halo come into view, set against a pair of torn wings. And somehow, she knew. This was how he really looked.
   "Calm down, sweets! You look like you've seen Hell."

[Sunblink]

And she ran, and she ran, and she ran, plagued by the prickling, creeping sensations slinking all around her and the phantasmic apparitions that flashed in the corners of her mind, trying to keep herself from stopping and lashing out at every little thing that crawled into her vision, whether it was the twisting shadows or the barest glimpse of something invisible. All the way Keaton tried to keep herself from screaming, from alerting anyone or anything else lurking within the castle, despite her ever-growing terror and dread, either from her own demented pride or to prevent drawing any attention to herself.

She did, however, nearly shout when she collided with an indistinct shape which seemed to appear out of nowhere once she had turned her head away from her shoulder.

Keaton struggled momentarily, at first incapable of registering who it was that was holding her still. A voice. She heard a voice, it was supposed to be familiar to her, but it came out resonant, eerie, distorted. Not right. Out of instinct Keaton was forced to glance up, only to feel her breath wind itself into a knot right in the center of her constricting esophagus.

The air surrounding them had been drowned with an off-colored, sickly green hue, drenching it in shamrock slime. Darkness prickled along the ground like seething, dying serpents, decorated in cactus barbs and oozing ichor, painting the walls in atramentous dollops. So far away from her, so beyond her control, so--so--and then there was the bat himself standing before him, having been transformed into one of the single most nightmarish creatures she had ever seen before in her life. Fur had become faded ash, coiling strips of darkness climbed along his body in snaking trails, corroded wings made of baked and aging leather unfurled themselves from his back...

Rivulets of cold sweat slithered down the back of Keaton's neck as she stared into the abysmal pits that had become Stygian's eyes, her own, sienna pupils pinpricked down to specks and fear evident in every twitch of her body or convulsion of her facial muscles. It grew even worse when he touched her arm. Without realizing it, Keaton snapped her head towards where it had rested, only to nearly let out a blood-curdling yell when she saw a vile spider writhe its way from his skin.

The subtle twitches which had been racking her body started to become more and more tremulous, even looking as though the jackal was going to try and lash out at any moment.

And she did the next moment Stygian spoke.

Muscles clenched, teeth unconsciously bared, and, in a desperate effort to escape, Keaton let out a shriek and shoved, hard, against Stygian with every bit of strength her body contained. Once he was successfully pushed back, Keaton whirled away and dashed past, winding around a corner and darting out of sight. Not even thinking of using her wing-tentacles, just focusing on purely escaping, of getting the fuck out of there and running for her life.

Screaming all the way.

~Keaton the Black Jackal