The Mood is Write

Mom-de-Plume
Original poster
DONATING MEMBER
FOLKLORE MEMBER
Invitation Status
  1. Looking for partners
Posting Speed
  1. 1-3 posts per day
  2. Multiple posts per week
Online Availability
It varies wildly.
Writing Levels
  1. Advanced
  2. Prestige
Preferred Character Gender
  1. Male
  2. Nonbinary
  3. Primarily Prefer Female
Genres
I'm open to a wide range of genres. Obscenely wide. It's harder for me to list all I do like than all I don't like.

My favorite settings are fantasy combined with something else, multiverse, post-apoc, historical (mixed with something else), and futuristic. I'm not limited to those, but it's a good start.

My favorite genres include mystery, adventure, action, drama, tragedy (must be mixed with something else and kept balanced), romance (again must be mixed, and more.

I'm happy to include elements of slice-of-life and romance, but doing them on their own doesn't hold my interest indefinitely.

⋯﴾﴿⋯

Poppy shook as she descended, unable to look away from everything around her. When the eye finally formed, her own latched to it as she descended further.

This wasn't just a dream anymore.

She forced herself to keep walking, even as the strangeness of everything began to whittle at her nerve. It was this or more dreams about...

She steeled herself and kept forward, face scrunching as she started to take the steps more quickly, hitting each one on the off-chance that skipping any would sabotage her.

Poppy had to escape her kittens. Had to.

⋯﴾﴿⋯

Halfway through writing a standard answer for Hecate, the new message appeared. Elizabeth almost deleted the current draft, but sucked air through her nose to stop herself.

She continued her answer.

Eliza
The Multiverse is the easiest term to describe that existence itself is more than one universe. There are countless universes, dimensions, planes—whatever people might want to call them.


Good enough. Now onto the stressful part.

Eliza
Yes. In the universe in which she grew up, those beings are fantasies. In others, they are realities. Am I correct in assuming you're hoping for Hunters to help against the threat of these beings?


She couldn't quite help how she kept a formal tone in texting. It was just how she did things. Regardless, she began to massage the bridge of her long nose.
 
As the girl descended, the drums and flutes grew softer and more muffled. The haze grew more intense and the color of the eye turned once more into a colored blur as it's shaking grew faster and faster. The room grew warmer as the flames of each torch turned yellow, then green, then blue, shifting through the entire spectrum until she reached the lowest point, the stairs now illuminated in red light. The eye stopped moving, staring Poppy right between her own. Suddenly, the torches flickered out, The drum beats stopped immediately as the whines of the strange flute grew silent. She was, briefly, plunged back into complete darkness. The silence was broken by three thunderous drum beats, and on the third, great twin pillars of flame rose high into the air a hundred feet from either side of her, illuminating a new environment, a colossal cavern system adorned in every spot with, carvings and tapestries like those of the staircase. Around the sides of the great flame-lit cavern were great onyx effigies of strange deific figures bearing inscriptions of an unknown hieroglyphic language, as if this was a mighty temple of some forgotten ancient religion. The pillars of flame shot upward along crevices in the walls, reaching to the ceilings, and flowing into it like a waterfall, engulfing the entire ceiling with flame to illuminate the structure below. From spots on the fearsome stalagtites, great chains were nailed in, and dangled with mighty chandeliers made from gold, crystals, and monstrous bones. Across the floor was a strange cloudy mist, which layed flat upon the ground as if liquid, being shifted only slightly by any movement of her feet. Forward, there was a titanic stone gate guarded on either side by two giant robed human-shaped beings.

They were dressed in colorful flowing robes envocing a mystic appearence, which was only bolstered by their headgear, with distinct double-crowns like those of the ancient Egyptians. One's beard was unkempt and long, while the other's was kept in the style of the Pharoes of ancient egypt. Not much else could be said of their faces other than they were a mass of darkness bearing white spots of light which shifted and changed strangely. One was taller, and held a great golden staff ending in a tentacle-like golden appendage which coiled around a great stone Elder Sign. The other was stouter, and was levitating what was most likely the floating eye she had seen at the Seventy Steps.

In their immense size, they turned their strange "faces" downard to look upon her. The stouter of the two tilted his head.

They remained silent.

---

Hecate squinted. It seemed too good to be true. Actual interdimensional help. But Simon wouldn't hide this unless he knew something she didn't. She stared at the phone and sighed.
HECATE
Okay Eliza, I can tell this Pearl's important to you. I'm gonna do you a solid and get someone to intercept her and Simon, make doubly sure she's safe. Now, what you're up against is, I shit you not, Weird Fiction H.P. Lovecraft bullshit. Litteral, actual, Cthulhu, dead yet dreaming in his city of R'lyeh at the bottom of the ocean. He is problem #1 out of a whole nightmare-carnival of a cosmic clusterfuck. Yog Sothoth, Nyarlathotep, Shub-Niggurath, Mi-go, Yithians, you name it. We are a couple hundred college-age kids. We are dropping like flies, shit is hitting the fan, we're all going insane, Florida is STILL getting worse, and I haven't slept for about 50 fucking hours because of this god-damn Necronomicon passage. Can these hunters save our sorry asses?


She twirled her unseen hair in an invisible finger as she waited for a response.
 
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Poppy stared, mouth agape as she slowly approached them. They were the two guards Simon mentioned, for sure. Compared to her, regardless of their actual size, their presence felt massive before her. She wasted several moments staring at them before she began to rapidly run her fingers through her short curls.

"Ello," she greeted once the worst of her nerves faded before her rapid grooming. She offered the two a smile she hoped looked charming. "Oi'm... I'm called Pearl! I'd... like to go to the Dreamlands, please."

She was supposed to convince them, somehow, but...

"Oi'm s'osed t'convince you, in't Oi? Could show ye my tits, but... no techin..."

They... didn't look like they'd be interested in that, honestly. That was a bad idea.

She cleared her throat and fixed her hair again, forcing her accent away as best she could.

"Sorry... I'm... I'm nervous. My friend, 'e wants to meet me there, to 'ave an adventure wiv me... At least if you don't want te let me in, don't... make me go back to the ovver dream?" She couldn't help but look back and shudder. Her arms wrapped around herself. "Oi... just want ter 'ave a good time wiv my friend... And 'e said 'e gets 'allucinations, an' maybe Oi can 'elp 'im te git through 'em wivvout as much awful, yeah?"

Her pleading gaze rose up, and she looked each guardian in the face in turn, hopeful.

⋯﴾﴿⋯

Elizabeth's eyebrows shot up to her hairline. College kids banded together, trying to save the world, struggling and failing. Despite Poppy's true age, she was roughly the same, developmentally. Her lips tightened into a thin, white line as she stared at the phone, as if willing it to give up all of Hecate's troubles to her.

She instead closed her eyes and forced a slow, deep breath. Yes, these were children. Yes, they were suffering. However, Hecate had, and seemed to realize, a hell of a bargaining chip. She might not have realized just how important Poppy was to her, but at this point, that didn't matter.

"Fen," Elizabeth said aloud, and Falren straightened, releasing her from his embrace as those dark eyes watched her. She watched him back for several long moments before she stood and kissed him, hands on either side of his face to feel his warmth through the gloves of her robes before she drew back, expression calm. "Hold down the fort for me. I'll keep in touch."

She couldn't promise she'd be back soon, but she could promise she wouldn't lose contact. An honest man deserved honesty, even if it wasn't reassuring.

His mustache spread to one side, and though he said nothing, she knew he would do his best.

She left her office and spoke briefly to another Councilman before she grabbed two Hunters she could trust with the secret of her daughter's existence—Bear and Seela—and headed to the portal room, the two Hunters following behind as she texted one last message.

Eliza
I'm arriving at your location very shortly.


⋯﴾﴿⋯

As she said, within a few minutes, an oval appeared in a wall near Hecate. Through it, she could see a stone structure, the walls rough as though carved from a living mountain, and lit by smoky braziers. A group of three stood on the other side.

The first, a tall person in dark robes, with no skin visible. Under the hood, preternatural shadow kept even direct light from revealing the stranger's face.

Behind, a fat and nervous man with dark red-brown skin and a brown ponytail stood. He wore a duster, a knitted green turtleneck, and a nice pair of slacks, and kept glancing nervously at the hooded figure.

To the other side, a tired-looking blonde in the same type of duster played absently with her dripping hair. Blue eyes turned to regard the portal, and she tilted her head. Her outfit aside from the jacket was plain: a tank, jeans, and boots. Her skintone changed subtly, even as Hecate watched.

The three stood only a moment, before the voice of someone out of sight said "It's safe to cross over, Councilman Leauge."

The hooded figure bowed her head, then stepped through, flanked at either side by the two who wore dusters. Behind them, the portal closed.
 
The two figures stood motionless for many moments. The pillars of fire still roared to the ceiling as their robes billowed in the hot winds. There was a shifting in the strange white light in the darkness of their faces when she offered to expose herself, which gave the sort of impression of a condescending squint. The stouter of the two shook its head in a slow nod as she spoke, while the taller of the two tapped his mighty staff on the ground impatiently. When she had no more to say, they looked to each other at the same time before looking downward back to the small strange creature that had come to enter the realm they guarded. The stout one spoke first, followed naturally by the taller, in strange low voices that reverberated throughout the Cavern of Flame.
“I, am Nasht.”
“And I, am Kaman-Thah.”

The two spoke now, in unison.
“We are the guardians of the Lands of Dream. All who wish to enter this realm must face our judgement.”

Nasht spoke once more, alone, as he slowly tilted his enormous head.
“We know many things… Pearl… of the Daylands and Dreamlands alike...”

As he uttered her pseudonym, the strange light of his face shifted to two large circles in imitation of widening eyes.

Kaman-Thah spoke sternly.
“We know why you are here. You wish to provide solace to a weary soul in the hopes that when you choose to take him from these spheres, he will be cured of the affliction he considers his developing body, des-”

Nasht chimed in, growing seemingly, smaller as he did so. The reverberation almost stopped as the lights of his face shifted to a pattern in mimicry of that of a human. Nasht looked to the eye he held, and sent it off like a balloon to float above them, where Kaman-Thah caught it and watched silently. Nasht clasped his hands together underneath his sleeves.
“We know of your communication with Hecate. Tell me, Pearl… why did you stop going on adventures?”

---

Hecate stared at the phone, wide-eyed, for what surely felt like a far longer time than it actually was. They were coming. She didn’t know how many, how powerful, or how aggressive these hunters were. She sat up swiftly, made her way to the bathroom, opened the toilet seat, and sat on the edge of the bathtub for about thirty seconds of anticipation before she was vomiting, and kept doing so until her stomach was empty. She wiped tears that had welled up and opened her eyes to look at the damage. Mostly water and bile. She hadn’t eaten recently. She sighed, and flushed the toilet before going out to her bed and burying her face in the pillow. She was plunging her coven, her family, into forces she didn’t understand because she was so scared Simon was up to something.
“Fuck! Fuck! FUCK!”

She screamed into the fabric pressed against her face, which muffled it well enough. At the very least…

She picked up motion from the corner of her invisible eyes as a hole opened up in her bedroom wall. They weren’t just showing up at HQ. They were coming through her God-damned bedroom.

As the councilman and hunters walked in, they were greeted by a view of Hecate's room. It’s walls and floor were made of concrete. The door was made of steel. Much of the exposed walls were covered by nature paintings while There were three antique shelves of different construction replete with books, artifacts, and trinkets. Two clearly expensive desks, one empty other than utensils, notebooks, and burnt out incense while the other had an ancient book open to a page of Arabic writing and disturbing illustrations. Her nightstand had a human skull on it, while her bed had three large fans pointed toward it and a large surplus of blankets and pillows of different sizes and materials. The room had faint traces of drugs, alcohol, and blood, traces far below what any human could have detected. On the bed, there was Hecate, dressed in nothing but her underwear and a loose-fitting black shirt, and that is all they saw, for everything else of her was quite invisible. She smelled like stress, fear, and a subtle hint of the odd chemical which permeated her body and granted her invisibility, otherwise, she smelled human.

No words left her lips. She watched and waited, holding her breath and growing conscious of the pounding in her chest. At the first sign of hostility… her invisible eyes turned to under her pile of pillows. A fully loaded .50 caliber Desert Eagle and a flasbang grenade was hidden. She bit her lip as her invisible eyes turned back toward the strangers.

Her phone was on her bed, screen up, holding her entire conversation with Pearl.
 
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Des—?

Her mind latched onto it, but soon enough, the movement of the large eye and then the question distracted her, the first with curiosity, and the second with dread as she felt her stomach fall out.

She bit her lips as she looked away, and then back up again.

"I... last toim... I got pregnant. From not just a boy I loiked, but also me da and uncle, even though I didn't know it yet." Her shoulders lifted as her unease brought her to try and protect her neck.

"Mum's friend, a glutton demon, 'er boyfriend got 'is tongue down 'er throat, and 'er pheromones spread, and soon 'nuff, none of us could stop ourselves, and we only stopped when we couldn't stay 'wake anymore."

She felt like she was making excuses, and closed her eyes tight as she tried to keep from remembering the next part as she said it.

"There was seven of em, kittens Oi mean... Five died 'fore they even got born, and then one died durin' the night three days after... Last one, she's stuck in a bed that makes it so'slike time ain't movin' none for 'er. Stasis, the smart people back 'ome call it..."

Her throat tightened.

"I ain't smart. T'me, she looks dead just layin' there, and I cain't touch 'er nor smell 'er, and she don't move... And... and all the kittens' das, they ain't... I 'ardly ever see 'em."

Tears started, and she wiped at her eyes in vain as more kept coming.

"And... same adventure, me an' everyone nearly died cuz a giant fing called a Synthesizer fulla tentacles tried ter ate us, an' we only survived cuz the boy I loiked, 'e... 'e lost 'is eye tryin te open a portal te git us out in time, an' the others what couldn't get through cuz they were stopping the fing from eatin' the everyfing, they only escaped cuz some being called One, she showed up an' saved 'em, but the demon's boyfriend, 'e got ate by the Synthesizer, an' then 'e became a squid that grew inter a tree, and then 'e died, an' Elli got 'is eye back, but we also found out I was pregnant then, an..."

Her voice caught as she hugged herself. "An ven one day when Bio, when she tol' us all who was the daddies, 'e jus... stopped talkin ter me... An'en a monf after Penny was born, we all find out 'bout who my da and uncle is, and 'e runs off down t'the lab an' leaves wiv 'is mum and is been two monfs and I don't fink 'e's coming back..."

⋯﴾﴿⋯

Elizabeth... did not expect such a fearful reception. Once the portal closed and she took in the cocktail of scents and the position Hecate waited in, she raised one hand slowly and pulled back her hood, making no sudden movements.

"Hecate. I'm Eliza," she greeted as dark skin and a curly mane of white came into view. "These two are Bear and Seela." She used a flat hand to indicate the fat man. "Bear is not only a Hunter with high strength and stamina, but he is also a good doctor and highly intelligent." Her hand moved over to the blonde woman. "Seela is agile and strong, and also gifted in finding new ways to think on old problems due to her inherent laziness. She can also become water by submerging herself."

Both were fairly equal in physical aspects, but she thought pointing out their specializations and doing a proper introduction would be best to calm Hecate.

"Bear. Seela. This is Hecate. She is part of a group trying to prevent cosmic-horror-level threats from wreaking havoc. We will be assisting her group."

Bear frowned, thick brows furrowed as he pondered a moment before he cleared his throat. "Councilman? I hate to step out of line, but why only two of us against that level threat?"

Seela, eyes flowing around the room, paused as she spotted the phone's screen. "Her daughter," she said with a yawn, her words earning a red-faced glare from Elizabeth, and a slack-jawed stare from Bear.

"Hecate is...?" Bear looked slowly between the invisible girl and the robed Elizabeth.

"Hecate is not my daughter. Hecate is in contact with my daughter."

Bear stared a few moments. "Councilmen can breed?"

In the next instant, Bear flew into a wall as a red-faced Elizabeth withdrew her arm and yanked her hood up.
 
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The strange lights of Nasht's "face" grew smaller, and Nasht nodded slowly as Pearl struggled to recount what had happened through a teary face. He parted his hands and sleeves, unveiling a black cloth which he handed to Pearl in a slow, calculated motion. The still-towering figure of Kaman-Thah leaned on it's staff and gazed forward eyelessly, as a slow exhalation emanated from the entirety of the being. Nasht snapped his fingers, and a waist-high pillar of warm fire emerged before Pearl. He snapped his fingers again, and a waist-high pillar emerged from the ground, scraping loudly against the stone surrounding it and disturbing the fog in rising swirls. Slowly he clasped his hands together once more.
"Please, take a seat..."

As he waited, he turned toward Kaman-Thah, and their lights shifted strangely in what must have been some form of communication. This went on for several moments. Nasht tilted his head. Kaman-Thah tapped his cane upon the ground. The lights grew briefly blindingly intense, and there was a long pause... until they nodded their heads in unison. Nasht turned slowly towards the girl.
"Hmm.... yes... we have seen your nightmare, and feel that it was bound to get worse from there... though we were unsure... your presence is..."

The lights merged and flattened to a straight line across the center of his dark face.
"...clouded to us, unlike many others who have passed through here, be they Man or Cat… or neither."

Kaman-Thah spoke, his voice resounding.
"We, Nasht, and Kaman-Thah, have passed judgement. You are worthy, and thus to be allowed passage into the lands of Dream..."

The two looked to each other for a brief second, before Nasht continued.
"You did not find this place of your own accord. The Seventy Steps of Light Slumber came to you... to stop your entry now would be to upset the natural order."

On the far side of the cavern, past Kaman-Thah, silver inlays moved upward from the fog with serpentine motion, slowly etching into the shape of a great silver gate. There was a cracking sound as the walls shifted from bare stone into a proper door. Slowly, it opened, revealing another precipice of darkness.

Nasht spoke.
"When you have gathered your nerves, step beyond the darkness and descend the Seven Hundred Steps of Deeper Slumber. Until then, you may ask any questions you feel appropriate, and I and Kaman-Thah shall provide answers within our authority to answer. Though bear in mind…”

Nasht gestured to one of the shifting carvings. It paused on a diminutive scarfed figure walking along a river, before continuing to show a tree replete will small strange-eyed creatures.
“He will reach the forest soon.”

Nasht paused for many moments.
“...Let these Lands of Dream provide respite in the coming days. For both of you.”

Kaman-Thah spoke up, motionless.
“Questions?”

---

Hecate didn’t like the way they kept looking at her. They still knew where she was… slowly, she began to move from side to side, quietly, ever so quietly, to try and gauge how well her eyes tracked her. This made her particularly uncomfortable due to her current lack of any clothing, which was something she had no cause to be embarrassed over for many years. The hooded figure, apparently Eliza, began to speak, introducing two of who must have been some Hunters. She stood up slowly. This “Pearl” was her daughter. A short exchange between Eliza and Bear concluded with the fat man flying into a concrete wall, as a vase atop one of the shelves wobbled, and fell to the ground with a crash. A few very important details became immediately clear to her and she felt her lips curl into a smile. She had leverage. She had control. Most importantly, she had a shield. Now was the time to negotiate, and Hecate was going to do what she did best; Be Hecate.
“Hold up, hold up, hold up! Girl, you and Pearl were talkin’ that good shit about these guys,and-”

There were three heavy knocks on the metal door, followed by a muffled shout in a raspy voice carrying a mocking tone.
“Hey Heck! Need a sock on the handle?”

Hecate’s response was quick, direct, and aggressive.
“You wish you were in here you lizard-ass bitch!”

She paused for a moment, sighing loudly.
“Okay… let’s start over. I’m Hecate. That was Worm, one of our best hackers. Thanks to him, I was able to track Pearl’s location. Now unless Worm bugged my room, I’m fairly certain...”

Hecate stopped completely. She stared at the wall. There was… a slit in the wall, out of which a strange phosphorescent glow emerged, changing color subtly. Hecate immediately jumped off the bed, opened the drawer, and out floated an oddly-shaped knife with a golden handle and a wicked curved blade.
“Hold up… For God’s sake don’t you dare interrupt me.”

She walked past the Hunters, and they saw the knife brandish through the air as there was the sudden strong scent of human blood, which was smeared to the wall. Hecate moved then to the book, flipping to a certain passage in unknown characters which she began to read quietly, then louder and louder as an abominable, unearthly scent began to emanate from the air around her. She finished the passage and they heard her fall to the floor. The invisible blood she smeared on the wall, over the crack, began to grow with a sickly green light of glowing intensity, the Elder Sign, and within their minds they could hear the dull whine of a distant cacophonous flute. All at once, it stopped. The lights went out for a brief second, and Hecate remained on the floor, her breathing weak and wavering. The smell slowly faded.
“Ugh… shit… dammit...”

Someone began pounding at the door, before the same raspy voice called out.
“Heck? HECK! SHIT!”

The doorknob shook, but it was locked from the inside. The pounding grew louder as many nervous voices from outside became audible.

Hecate manage to control her writhing and stand back up. She kept mumbling passages from the book, the knife flicked through the air. More invisible blood. She wasn’t done yet.
 
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Pearl took the cloth, blinking at it a moment before she recognized it as what seemed like the offering of a handkerchief. She didn't dare to blow her nose into it, but she did wipe at her tears to try to lessen them, even as her shoulders continued to shake.

Quietly and through her sobs, trying to be attentive and cooperative, she took the offered seat.

Kaman-Thah and Nasht seemed... strangely kind. Like they'd seen a lot, and little surprised them, but also like they didn't forget that others had feelings and thoughts of their own.

Yellow eyes darted between the pair as their lights changed and shifted, eyes naturally drawn to the movements, and though the communications were brief between the pair, her concentration on them eased her sobs and lessened her tears. When Nasht turned to her and spoke, she paid close attention and even sat straighter, hands gripping the black cloth tight as she sniffed, trying to get rid of the clogged nose without being too noisy.

Her presence, he said, was clouded. Her head tilted, and then Kaman-Thah continued, and her eyes shot toward him. The resonance in his voice immediately held her gaze wholly on him, and her head lifted as he declared her worthy and allowed to enter.

Their exchanged glance transitioned easily to Poppy's attention shifting to Nasht as he started to speak again. He seemed the more empathetic of the two, so it seemed to her that maybe Kaman-Thah was the more logical being who observed more than interacted, likely to preserve a neutral mindset by remaining distant. It seemed logical, from the standpoint of someone who had to live with a mother like hers.

Movement behind Kaman-Thah caught her eye and she watched lines shift and a dark place appear beyond the new-formed doorway. She shifted in her seat, eyes wide as she tried to take it all in at once, from the movements behind, to Nasht and Kaman-Thah and the news that Simon was nearly to the forest, and even well-wishes and the offer to answer questions. Poppy looked between the pair for a few moments, then wiped her eyes again.

She wanted to remember these two, for sure, and how kind they were as they did their job. She wanted to thank them for it in some way, and for them to know that even if she was a tiny and insignificant thing to them, she liked them and wanted for them to have... if not happiness, then to at least not suffer or go through pains.

It seemed silly, though. Too silly to say. Still, she had to say something.

"Um..." She kicked her legs slightly, letting her heels tap light against her seat to help her gather her thoughts while her body moved.

"Oi got lots of questions, but ain't got a clue 'ow to ask 'em all, but... fahst fing I wanter say is fenk you fer... fer not bein' as sceh'y as y'looked affirst. Fer bein' kind and offerin' me an 'anky and a seat and questions an' time t'calm down."

The more she blabbered on, the more self-conscious she felt. She'd already talked so much that she felt like her throat should have long closed up.

"As fer questions... uh... vere's one what I really wanna ask, even if it's koinda silly and prolly stupid. Her shoulders lifted as she unconsciously tried to protect her neck, and her cheeks' color deepened.

"Izzere... a way Oi kin visit y'again? Eiver while Oi'm 'ere or back 'ome? Cuz... Oi dunno, spooky assiz is, yer... kinda relaxing to be near?"

A pause.

"Oh, and anovver!" She lifted her head, sitting up straight again as she squinted at Kaman-Thah. She didn't point, though. Pointing was rude. "Kaman-Thah, you was sta'tin' to say somefing, 'des'... loik maybe 'despite' or somefing?" her gaze moved to Nasht, "But Nasht, you koinda innerupted... Is... me taking 'im not goin t'wohk? Izzat what you was goin' t'say?"

Yellow eyes stared, her gaze begging her guess to be wrong.

⋯﴾﴿⋯

The shifts in Hecate's bed gave away her movements, and Seela followed them with her eyes.

Hecate's attitude shifted suddenly after Bear hit the wall, and Elizabeth realized suddenly that she should have come alone as Hecate's subtle scent took a predatory tone. Elizabeth's pupils narrowed, then widened as she tracked movements with scent and sound, aided by Hecate's voice as she spoke.

Bear rose quickly, unphased by the impact as he kept his distance from Eliza and his head low in submission.

So far, she preferred the frightened Hecate over this, but it couldn't be helped at this point. Still, when Hecate noticed something she didn't like, she immediately went for a knife. She demanded no interruptions.

Hecate drew her own blood, by the scent. Seela started toward the collapsed girl, but Elizabeth held up an arm, and the Hunter stopped immediately. With a single motion, Elizabeth ordered Bear behind her, and he complied in a manner unbefitting of a man of his height and build.

"Bear," she ordered quietly, "Prepare to help her once she's done with her magic."

"Yes ma'am," Bear agreed as he began to pull a variety of aid supplies from his pockets, including sterile tools wrapped in plastic, all laid out nicely on a sterile sheet he unfolded onto the floor beside the bed.
 
Slowly, Nasht and Kaman Thah turned toward eachother, their lights shifting to single circles in the center of their faces. The circle of light turned to Pearl, as if it were the pupil of a great eye. Nasht turned back toward her as Kaman-Thah slowly shrunk to the proportion of Nasht as his cloak billowed in a gust of smoke. There was a release of cold air accompanued by a soft hiss emenating from his "face". He spoke softly.
"Simply put, I do not know. I know not what resources you have to employ, thus I know not whether you will succeed."
Kaman Thah shrugged, and looked away.

Nasht spoke up quickly.
"...as for finding us, I fear you'll have to slog through the nightmare a few more times and simply pass through our Caven of Fire back to the Dreamlands. Fortunately, as you grow accustomed to Dreaming you'll be able to access the Steps of Light Slumber or the Dreamlands themselves at will."

---

Hecate stumbled over to the wall again, smearing another layer over the Elder Sign. The glowing slit in the wall suddenly widened, cracking and crumbling the concrete as it did so. There was another ghastly smell. A creature, terrible and alien. A long scaly finger stuck on through the crack and swiped through the air. Hecate drew in breath sharply. There was a feral, unearthly shriek from out of the crack. The claw withdrew and suddenly, the rift widened further, breaking away more concrete as a hooked chitinous beak poked it's way in.

Two strange mandibles extended and began clicking together loudly, and the creature began beating it's beak against the concrete from within whatever strange realm it imhabited, for when the beast withdrew it's beak, green flame flickered outward furiously. Hecate groaned, and began to stumble upward once more. The shouting and banging from outside grew louder, and more desperate, from many young people. Hecate half-fell on her bed, trying to reach under a pile of pillows. The creature kept trying to break through. To burrow in.
 
A 'we don't know' was better than a 'you're going to fail' in Poppy's eyes, and she nodded, taking their lack of an answer as hope rather than damnation. To her, it meant that his fate wasn't set in stone, despite how much they knew. It meant that there was a chance, even if it might be tiny, and her tail lifted slightly, a hook at its end as she nodded a few more times.

The two guardians were the same size now. The singular circles—she wondered if they were from thoughtfulness of some sort, and the way Kaman-Thah looked away, she wondered if maybe he was embarrassed. A cat would rather look away and groom than admit to having made a mistake, after all.

Nashta's quicker answer to the question of meeting again made her wonder if the two thought their inability to know Simon's fate would upset her. If so... She was right about them being caring people... beings? People. They clearly had 'humanity' even if the word itself lacked inclusion of the inhuman.

She'd have to go through her nightmare, though. Her tail lowered, though it lifted again as he said she'd get better at accessing the Steps and the Dreamlands. She nodded slowly, and her brows furrowed as she looked down to her knees, then back up at the two again, looking each in the face before she spoke to both.

"An... You two, would you loik me t'visit you two? Oi'm not troi'in to be weihd, but... yewer noice, an'... 'avin friends makes loif more fun, yeah?"

She'd have to get going soon to meet up with Simon, but to her mind, it seemed important to bother these two with the offer of friendship.

⋯﴾﴿⋯

Elizabeth watched a few moments, and then made a decision—she would not interfere with Hecate's spell, but clearly it was not going quite as planned. The girl needed help, and this situation, based on the girl's scent, had become dangerous. She glanced to Bear. "Keep it at bay," she ordered simply. A glance to Seela, and she gave the other Hunter an order. "Help Hecate do whatever she must here with her magic."

Bear didn't hesitate. He'd expected the order sooner, and he pushed himself forward, shoving bare hands against the beak. Inhuman power shoved it back as he growled, sounding more like his namesake than the human he resembled.

Seela stepped smoothly to Hecate, finding her by the shape on the bed, and following her reaching arm to find the gun and the flashbang, which she shoved into Hecate's hands.

"How can I help?" the female asked, not bothering to ask if she could, though she glanced back toward Bear as he kept at the creature's beak, then took cover in his jacket any time fire came.
 
The two figures turned to the girl in unision, their lights splitting simaltaneously into two small circles possibly in imitation of human eyes.
Nasht spoke in an amicable tone, lurching slowly forward in what must have been acknowledgement.
"Should you seek knowledge or council, or to simply regale us with tales of your exploits in the Lands of Dream, we shall be here."

Slowly, the two now returned to their positions, growing once more in size as Nasht reclaimed the floating eye, before sending it downward to float at the wall of darkness between Pearl and the Seven Hundred Steps of Deeper Slumber. Kaman-Thah began speaking in a strange, unintelligable whisper which resonated softly through the room, and the spectral eye began it's quickening motions once more, darting it's slitted pupil across every detail of the surrounding environment.

Nasht gestured toward Pearl.
"Do you have any more questions before you descend to the Gate of Deeper Slumber?"

---

Bear’s attempts at forcing the creature back were met with hard resistance. Whatever this thing was, it was large, and it wanted in. Two antennae rapidly emerged, lustrous, segmented, and sparsely bristled. One brushed against his hand. The creature paused for a single moment as the appendages retracted back into the green flame, making a noise like a creaking hinge as it’s savage beak tilted, cracking more wall out of the way, snapping it’s monstrous jaws as it’s dextrous mandibles reached blindly to try and grab the carbon creature at it's beak. It’s smell changed subtly, still a foul alien miasma.

Hecate completely disregarded the flashbang, but graciously accepted her personal firearm. She aimed at the creature, she had seen their ilk before. At the very least, they could be harmed by conventional weapons, sadly, so could the Hunter wrestling the creature back. Healing factor or not, she didn't fancy popping a cap in an ally.

Hecate paused thoughtfully for a moment. Grimacing. She was seeing double, pretty lights, dark figures, in conclusion, she was in no shape to handle a firearm.

She sucked in air and held her head in one hand.
“F-fuck… nope... bad angle…”

She handed it right back to Seela.
“...gonna need another coating...”

Her head rolled invisibly toward the desk, specifically, the book on the desk.
“...hand me the book… don’t look at it… help me up...”

She looked at the damage the beast was causing already, ripping it’s way in. The more of it got through, the greater the danger. Of course, that wasn’t the only problem. It was a limited amount of time before the metal door was opened, and the situation would become exponentially more complicated.
 
That... sounded like the sort of roundabout invitation someone shy or prideful might offer. Her toes curled with excitement as she nodded, eyes bright despite the redness from her earlier tears. Like any young creature, emotions came and went at whim in her, and now that she was suitably distracted from the tale of her suffering, and the cause of her nightmares, cheer came as easily as breath.

"Fenk you!" she chirped as she pushed herself up from the pillar. They didn't seem the hugging sort, especially since they already began to grow back to their massive size.

Nasht gave a last call for questions as Kaman-Thah began chanting and the weird eye darted about. She assumed it was time to go—that she didn't have time to dawdle at this point.

"I fink I'm good on questions. Oi loik learnin by doing better'n asking lots of questions. 'Opefully Oi'll see you two again, Nasht and Kaman-Fah!" With that, she blew each of them a kiss, which she knew was similar to saying 'thank you' in one of the sign languages a friend back home used.

With that, she darted towards the stairs, tail held high with a crook at the tip.

⋯﴾﴿⋯

Seela took the gun and nodded. She absently pocketed it to get it out of her hands, then grabbed the book and shoved it into Hecate's hands, ignoring how her nose dripped blood freely. She pulled Hecate to her feet, then looked toward the place where Bear wrestled the thing, fearless against it even as its fury grew.

"I'll keep the ones outside at bay," Elizabeth promised as she headed to the door, ready to lock it again should anyone unlock it. More chaos was the last thing they needed against this beaked thing.

The beak was tearing at the walls. One of its movements slammed Bear in the face, breaking his nose in its efforts to get through.

Once it sensed Bear, it seemed all the more desperate to enter, and a strange scent filled the male's nostrils as much as his own blood, but Bear showed no fear. In his mind, he'd become his namesake. In his mind, the thought of the thing making it inside didn't occur to him in his fighting confidence. During one of its withdrawls, he pulled a gleaming, too-bright dagger from his pocket.

The combination of silver and mithril slashed one mandible nearly all the way off, leaving it to dangle as Bear used one hand to hold the beak against the wall to keep it shut, and then began to punch the dagger into the creature.

Again and again he struck, holding it in place with massive strength. His arm didn't fatigue or slow as he kept going, stabbing the beak in every place he could hit it.

The beak was hard, but the dagger was harder, and it burned at the creature's flesh.

Bear kept going, even as his face began to swell from its strike against it.

Seela glanced toward Bear as she scented his blood in the air, then looked back towards Hecate. "Need back over there?"
 
As Pearl approached the gate, Kaman-Thah's chanting grew to a peak in force and volume as she found herself swallowed up in a torrent of colorful flame, hot wind rushing over her in the swirling pillar before leaving her quite unscathed and in a new environment. The dreamlike haze had grown more intense. The Seven Hundred Steps were of a similar design to the previous thresholds, but the details shifted at an even faster rate, especially in the corner of her eyes when she did not focus on them. Even the architecture itself was affected as well, and the staircase itself seemed to sway strangely, crumbling off in some places into floating debri of cracked stone. The deeper it went, strange roots with bioluminescent fungal growths snaked in and out of the rock with increasing size and frequency. Going far enough down, the tunnel's swaying became so great that there was a constant obstruction of the exit. A distant, beating drum and the dull whine of a primal flute echoed upward, beckoning. Despite the spatial shifting of the environment, and the sense that she was moving across great distance, her balance was seemingly unaffected, a merciful detail, for the Steps still lacked any discernable handrail.

---

The creature let loose a loud trill that filled the room and beyond as the blade chopped through the hard chitin of the mandible, spraying black ichor in an foul dense mist which didn't take long to soak whatever it shot at as the apendage twitched. The slamming of the beak against the wall dislodged the dangling claw while the other one poked and scraped randomly and rapidly. It's head was pulled through the rift by the attack, revealing a chitinous mass which bore a grotesque countenance calling to mind the shape a human skull, out of which poked both the previously seen antenae, and two round, black, compound eyes, which brilliantly reflected the emerald light of the flaming rift it had been crawling in through, and the glow of the silver blade cracking off the rigid outer layers of it's beak. Two fuzzy, pointed ears twitched at the side of it's large head, almost vibrating. Where it's head terminated, the beast's thick-skinned neck ran up and down with coarse bristles which almost could have been fur. The knife plunged downward again, and the beast trilled louder still, for the dagger had now pierced fully through the top of it's gleaming beak, which now hissed with noxious smoke and bubbling black froth, earning an exuberant reaction from the invisible girl as it began thrashing violently.
"Ha! Critical fucking hit!"

Hecate laughed at the thing for only a moment before she was cut short by a fit of gagging and coughing, which in turn halted with a sharp breath.

An invisible grip briefly tightened around Seela's wrist.
"Go help Snarly before that thing gets it's shit together."

She felt a pat on her side where she had stored the gun, and Hecate's voice moved closer.
"Nine shots..."

Her eyes shot to Eliza, now very close to the door. Knowing her coven...
"Uh Lizzie Girl! You wanna look like a cultist when they..."
She coughed into her elbow, dazed. Her head felt like it was being beaten with a hammer.
"...when they blow that shit down?..."

Hecate stared wide-eyed for a moment, before sucking in breath and reading more inhuman words from the book in her unseen arms.
 
It was... really hard to keep herself rational as she descended. The further she went, the more dreamlike and unstable the stairs became. Still, her body moved seemingly on its own, and she descended eagerly, her eyes roving about, trying to take everything in even as still more changed before she could catch it.

Her mouth hung open, and she wondered—if she sped up, would it make any difference? If she slowed?

Pearl's mind couldn't keep up with it at all, and the thoughts and ponderings escaped before she could enact them.

⋯﴾﴿⋯

When Hecate patted Seela's pocket, she felt nothing of the gun inside, as though it'd disappeared. Still, Seela's hand dipped into the leather and pulled it out. Despite the situation, her hands were steady.

Her first shot hit Bear's shoulder, but the bullet didn't penetrate. Bear glanced back through swelling-shut eyes, and she apologized.

He seemed to forgive her as he resumed his stabbing at the creature. Every slice burned the creature, half-cauterizing the wound even as Bear inflicted it.

He held it in place firmly before he spoke, his voice deep and sharp. "You want the corpse?" His stabbing at the thing, half-blind from the swelling, continued as Seela's next shot hit the monster rather than the other Hunter.

Elizabeth glanced down at her outfit, then scowled as she breathed a quick "Fuck." She gripped her robes by the front and flipped them around, and they not only unfastened themselves, but they grew shorter, and her boots and gloves and hood all disappeared. What she put back on was simply a black blazer, worn over a pale yellow blouse and a knitted sweatervest, while dark blue pants dominated her lower half. Much more modern and normal, and much less cultist.

However, even in the chaos, she shot a correction to Hecate, "It's Eliza."

That said, she pressed her ear to the door to listen for any signs that those on the other side had set a bomb—usually when people did that, they backed away.

She doubted an explosion would hurt her, but what kind of people recklessly used a bomb on the door of an ally? A thought came to mind, and she made a decision. "Bear, Seela, take care of Hecate. Answer to her until I get back."

With that, she unlocked the door, stepped out, and closed and locked it behind herself, removing anything that looked like an explosive, which promptly went into her blazer pocket, which didn't bulge as it should have.

"Please, be calm. Hecate summoned two soldiers under my command, and I am lending them to her. Allow my soldiers to show her their capability."

She stood tall, confident and commanding.

"Who here is experienced with medical care? One of my soldiers was struck in the face, and will require help draining the excess blood from his bruises."

Simple orders that didn't relate to the care of Hecate might put her people at ease, especially if they related to only minor injuries. People in fear and chaos needed order.

She pointed to one person present who looked particularly wild-eyed. "You. Please go prepare a hot bath." The more she disrupted the mob, the better. She pointed to another. "Get help and prepare a meal. High in iron."
 
As she continued down the Seven Hundred Steps, it became increasingly clear that the drum beats, though cacophanous, were synchronizing in some way with her footsteps. In places where the roots grew gigantic, she found that their form twisted before her descent, allowing her easy passage. Steps that had crumbled away rebuilt themselves. Puddles of dripping water dried before her foot landed. The tunnel had turned to worn brickwork, with carven stones of all shapes and sizes, as roots snaked out of and into the crumbling mortar and sagging architecture. In some small holes in the walls, strange white lights shot outward, casting beams where the air became cool and humid. Now, some of the roots became more branch-like, as small leaves poked out of small protrusions to catch the beams of light. She saw a creature, feeding on a thin glowing toadstool, but it was concealed within the haze, and the only discernable detail was a lustrous red shell. Eventually, the steps swayed a certain way, and she saw what must have been the floating eye, marking the exit. It's movement was once more so rapid it blurred.

---

"Hoo boy..."
Hecate remarked when Bear turned. It really got him in the face. Though to be fair, Bear got it right back in it's face. She thought it was terribly thoughtful for him to offer the corpse.
"...ooh I wish, but I don't want the rest of that thing in my room... I still gotta close that shit..."

Of course, it would be unwise to try and pull the rest of the thing through, for there was still a considerable portion not through the portal and her room was a little packed as it was, even with Eliza... walking out the door...

The creature's size quickly became an important factor, as between the continued assault and the gunshot, it's head abd neck suddenly jerked backward, for in the distant place from whence it came, it's body fell from it's perch, pulling it from the room with it's immense weight as a dull chatter rattled out of the creature's throat.

She waited, wide eyed-to see if he'd either let go, or continue... She brushed a hand across the top of her chest where she felt a tingle, which turned into a hot, sharp sting as her hand brushed a lateral wound. Oh she hoped he cut that thing's fucking head off.
"Cut it's fucking head off."


---

Eliza was met with a surprising sight. She picked up two charges, one for each of the metal hinges, but there was also a dense gel across the border of the door that smelled volatile. Across either side of the hallway, some sort of ramshackle task force hadset up a line to hold, with layers of riot shields bearing a green Elder Sign spray painted over, a drone with a camera buzzed not far from Eliza's face. The largest among the militia was an eight-foot tall figure carrying an anti-tank rifle bearing, if all things, a fearsome bayonet. They had been between the two , aiming directly down the door before Eliza exited. Though they were tall, they smelled human, or at least, it was impossoble to narrow down their individual scent from a group composed seemingly of only other humans. Their face was concealed behind a gas-mask, and they had thick body armor. They focused the weapon now on the center of Eliza's body. Slowly, they stepped back.

Luckily, Eliza's attempts of communication were successful in at least preventing a halo of gunfire, behind them, other young people watched the scene unfold. The formation weakened on one side, allowing a slouching young man to pass. His eyes were green andsslitted, more like to that of a reptile than a feline, his lips were thin and dry, and he stared with scrutinizing eyes. He held a phone in his hand, which he turned toward Eliza. There' she saw the scene between those in the room and the creature playing out in front of her.
"Bitch you wish you were in here."
He said in a mocking tone, before chuckling lightly. His teeth were sharp and strangely uniform.
"Hello 'Eliza', you can call me Worm. I'm about ninety-percent sure I've just prevented a real shitstorm. Even had Eve here ready to shoot that Byakhee through the door if it started winning..."

He smelled human enough, though more like a strange mutant than any supernatural or hybrid creature.
"The thing in that room is called a Byakhee, an alien monster that manipulates distortions in spacetime. I bet it saw something weird and decided to check it out..."
He raised his thin, sharp eyebrows.

"They ain't real strong but when you're in the middle of a spell the fuckers can be a real problem."

His bravado wavered slightly.
"Closing that rift is gonna fuck her up... let's hope it doesn't get bigger."
 
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The stability in her feet landing and in the distance between steps even as the surreal imagery danced along her vision, in and out of it, left Pearl sinking into a dream-like state. So much stimulus, and such a smooth passage, and her mind began to haze.

An absent-minded smile teased at her features as she looked up at the blurring eye, bemused by its rapid movement, and it started to rouse her mind a little as she paid it more attention. By the time she reached it, she felt awake and eager, excited to find the other side of this long stairway and to see Simon and tell him all about Nasht and Kaman-Thah, and how beautifully bizarre everything was, though he'd likely seen it before.

Did he visit them at all, she wondered.

⋯﴾﴿⋯

Bear grunted acknowledgment of her wishes not to have the thing's body, but a short time later, she asked for its head. "Won't be clean," he warned before he shifted his grip and began stabbing and slicing at the neck. Sometimes, he hit off-target, but he kept true often enough that the head and neck began to separate. His powerful gripping arm gave a sudden twist, and head and neck parted with a violent and loud rip, before he shoved the body out and dropped the head onto the floor.

His shoulders sagged as he stopped to breathe, then placed a foot on top of the thing's beak to keep it shut in case the thing could keep biting after decapitation.

With Elizabeth gone from the room, he was able to look Hecate roughly in the eyes as he wiped his mouth on his sleeve, then made his next comment, a joke at the expense of a Christian saint. "His head, Salome." With that, he smiled at her through the smeared blood and gore.

⋯﴾﴿⋯

Not what she expected, but... They weren't firing futilely on her. Their bullets wouldn't hit, even if they did, but it would be wasteful and possibly terrifying to them if they tried to shoot her and nothing hit.

The drone was an annoyance, though, and she shot it a fitting glance before movement brought her yellow-eyed gaze toe a slouching figure. His phone showed the inside of the room, and he repeated Hecate's words from earlier.

"Hello, Worm," she greeted, sparing only a glance at the phone before returning her gaze to his face.

Like her, they probably used false names for protection. She respected that.

"They do seem troublesome," she agreed. "The Byakhee shouldn't be an issue much longer, though." Her eyes pointed toward the screen purposefully, and a small smile grew as she watched Bear twist its head from its neck.

Her smile faded after only a moment, and she returned her gaze to Worm. "As for Hecate's health, I trust you have medical facilities? Hopefully ready? If not, we may have to rely on Bear, in which case we'll need hot compresses and a fine steel blade to reduce the swelling enough for him to see."
 
Reaching the eye, a new variation of transition made itself known to her, as the stone steps beneath her feet gave way, and she fell suddenly downward into a pit of coarse vines and smooth roots, before they moved all at once, coiling around her boots and midsection. The top closed over her in a moment of complete darkness, before opening up to pale moonlight shining in through mighty trees that bent and sagged with their gigantic weight. She was suddenly hoisted up, springing out of a hole in the ground, flying through the air, and landing on something which immediately collapsed under her weight, yet broke her fall quite efficiently. She found herself on top of none other than Simon Mortimer, who had in turn been knocked into a sturdy patch of bioluminescent mushroom caps, nearly concealing them both in the resulting burst of luminescent spores. Simon looked... healthier, though his large eyes maibtaibed the sleepless look, and he was covered in various forest debri. Dusty strands in his hair, scarf, and sparsly across his right cheek suggested that he had walked through a large spiderweb, and his face went from one of wild panic to wide-eyed realization as he recognized Pearl, having wandered through dense overgrowth and gnarled trees in search of her. His outfit was similiar in style to the one he had in the swamp, though utilizing articles of a more archaic construction. The scarf, however, was indistinguishable from his daylands equivalent. From under her, he managed to cough out a few words.
"...oof... Uh... Hello..."

He wasn't quite sure how to go about this... From his persoective, it's been a day's trek and a bit more through the Dreamlands to reach the forest, and he realized he hadn't put much thought into introduction. He lifted a hand to try and help her up and off of him, but it simply hovered over her thigh fir a moment, before swiftly moving so tbat the young man could cough into his elbow.

"Uh... welcome to the Dreamlands..."
He said, amicably, yet, sheepishly. His wide eyes shifted around, thankfukly finding no lack of details to focus on, from the colorful luminescence of the diverse mushroom colonies, to the flutterings of strange insects whose wings reflected the sift glow of the moonlight which seeped in through the mighty branches and numerous leaves of the ancient trees around them.

---

Hecate cackled sadistically when presented with the Byakhee's twitching head. What remained of it's neck slid uneventfully back through the portal, spraying out a trail of putrid blood. When her laughter died, down, she sighed loudly.
"And a one-liner! God damn!"

Her gaze turned toward the gaping rift spitting green flame. She's have to close it swiftly, or risk the intrusion of more Byakhee, or something worse. She dutifully began reciting a chant, hoisting herself up before walking forward once more. A few strokes across her wounded chest provided most of what she needed to draw over the branching lines.
"And now the 'fun' part..."

She sucked in air, then began the process of drawing the primary line. Once her hand hit the fire, she gasped with a strained voice, before reciting the chant again and again, her hand pushing away the flames slowly as they spit out with greater intensity. Very suddenly, she shouted, and with a single motion swept her hand across all at once, dragging a trail of invisible blood across cracked concrete and exposed stone, dousing the flames and closing the rift. A ringing in her head reached a peak. She couldn't tell what she was looking at anymore. She heard drums, and flutes, and for a moment her eyes weren't working the way they were suposed to... she began to realize she had pushed too hard, and from out of the unfathomable darkness, she she began to see the movements of...

From the hunter's perspective, the smell of blood closed the rift, and they heard air escape Hecate's lungs as she collapsed onto the hard floor, a woman-shaped streak in a puddle of black froth. Though now unconscious, she was restless, twitching and shifting.

---

Worm turned the phone back to him. He regarded the scene with an eyebrow raised, before the other followed and he cursed under his breath. He switched camera types...
"Heck got fucked up. Look at this shit."

He turned the phone, revealong what must have been some sort of heat function. The Byakhee's signature was thoroughly strange, with patches shifting in and out. Hecate's revealed a hot line below her clavicle, running diagnol and termininating at the top of her breast on the opposite side. He shook his head, then patted the the eight-foot tall goliath next to him fondly on the thigh.
"Eve, clear this shit up, we need Heck in the infirmiry quick..."
He glanced at the phone.

"I think she got real blasted... Shit..."

He turned towards Eliza.
"When you go at the magic shit too hard, it fucks your head. Too much and you can slip into perceptional levels that will permafuck your shit up."

The armored figure nodded, glancing at Eliza through tinted lenses before moving gracefully to the right, gesturing wildly and effectively, dispelling the militia and beckoning two young adults in mostly white jackets carrying a stretcher marked with the Elder Sign. If fact, the Elder Sign was plastered in every inch of the place, with intriquite grafiti and signs, evidence that the people have made this their home. A couch was being pushed back into place by two students, and a stern looking blonde man with a flamethrower tank on his back was carrying a out a small, unconcious humanoid creature resembling a child... but it's smell carried that of distant mutation, in a different, and perhaps more natural fashion than Worm's. Indeed, a handful of those around her were not quite human, though all were close. It was still impossible to mark down Eve's individual smell, though she reeked of anxiety.

Eliza was still seeing fearful glances and hearing nervous whispers from across both sides. This whole place reeked of anxiety.
 
Pearl squeaked as she shot upward, only to come down in a softer-than-expected landing. She looked down, and there was Simon! It hadn't been long for her, but it felt like ages, and she grinned at the sight of him.

"Soimon! Nasht an' Kaman-Fah're my friends now, too!" She purred as her tail raised, a hook at its tip as she stared down at him. "Fihst they made me croi, butthen Nasht gave me a hanky an tol me to take my time an' calm down, an' 'ey let me ask questions an' such, and everyfing was so woild!" By the time she finished speaking, her face was only a short distance from his, eyes bright.

"An 'ere was a big eye an vines an' the stairs was shiftin and swoiyin, an' the drums, an' the flutes, an'...!"

She paused as she realized she was on her hands and knees straddling him, face inches from his, and suddenly sat up, her butt resting on his lap. "Ah, sah'y!" Red-faced, she quickly began to adjust her hair. "Oi... er... got Sheffield... jussa wee bit..."

⋯﴾﴿⋯

Both Bear and Seela tried to catch Hecate in time, but failed. Both stared down at her, then looked at each other.

"Get the door?" Bear asked as he knelt beside Hecate, two fingers resting on her neck to check her pulse.

She was alive, but not doing too well. The scent of her was off, and she hadn't lost enough blood, he was sure, to be suffering from that. After a moment, he gently lifted her, just as he heard the door click, then open.

He closed the distance, barely able to see, but with a few light touches from Seela, he avoided smacking Hecate into the doorway, and even found the stretcher to rest her on.

"I'm a doctor, if that's needed," he volunteered, forgetting for a moment that Elizabeth was there.

"Good idea. Help take care of Hecate," Elizabeth urged him. What she knew now from Worm made it quite clear that Hecate was going to need all the help she could get. "Seela, go with. You can help drain Bear's bruising so he can be useful."

"Mm." Seela nodded, then took Bear by the arm to lead him, while he cast a fearful glance in Elizabeth's direction.

"Yes, Councilman," Bear whispered and went along without a struggle.

Elizabeth returned her attention to Worm once Hecate and the Hunters were on their way to the infirmary. "It would be wise to get an air filter into that room, and get the gore cleaned up, yes? Hecate was having difficulty breathing before I came out." She cast a concerned glance in the direction the infirmary-bound group went.
 
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As Pearl's face grew closer, and the yellow gleam of her eyes hit him like spotlights in the dim forest, he found his head sinking slowly back into the mushrooms as his face grew steadily redder.

Her story matched up with what Simon remembered. He was glad to see she made it through and had enjoyed the descent, and he wasn't surprised she got along with the gatekeepers.

His blush wasn't going away yet though.
"...so uh..."

He brushed some of the glowing dust off of his face.
"...glad to see you made it...

He raised himself a little higher as she pulled back, though not by much. He turned his head to a few tools leaned uo against a tree-stump. A lit torch, a spear, and a cutlass.
"I brought a sword and a spear in case we run into trouble..."

He blinked once heavily, and began trying to brush the glowing dust off his scarf, mostly futiley.

---

Worm, covering his nose with one hand, reached over and pulled Hecate's door shut.
"Yeah the cleanup crew should be here in a few minutes, and they're gonna like Heck a lot less when they see that freak's severed head on the floor."

A young man on a white coat adjusted his glasses, and as they walked, a doctor sprayed a dyed blue mist downward, revealing her laying on the strecther with countless tiny dots of color. On her chest wound, the color appeared strange from landing on invisible blood. 'Eve' had begun to follow the stretcher, discarding her fearsome weapon as she clasped her hands together and stared down with growing intensity at her wounded comrade.

One of the medical team replied to Bear.
"Wounds aren't too bad. Knife wounds are nothing new, and it's not too bad on her chest. We're more worried about..."

Hecate, in a half-conscious state, began shivering uncontrolably. One of the 'doctors' spoke nervously.
"She's on the border of Overperception."

---

Worm watched the group dissapear with a scowl on his face, before turning slowly back to Eliza.
"Alright, so I think I've pieced together most of this little situation... but one big detail important to all of us remains under question..."

He went through his phone again, before pulling up a picture and handing it to the Councilman. It was a picture of a small young man with messy hair, a scarf, and large odd eyes.
"That's Simon Mortimer, the guy sharing a motel room with your daughter. He just came back from a self-assigned suicide mission he didn't tell any of us about, and now reality is being distorted all around the tomb he was creeping around. Know anything about him that we don't? Pearl's safety could depend on it..."

Slowly, a cleanuo grew in rubber suits and gasmasks came to the scene. One opened the door and peaked inside.
"Shit."

He said, though was quickly swept up in a dozen others clearing the way with an abundance of janitorial tools.
 
She trilled, then got up and offered a hand to help him rise as well. "Fenks!" Already here, she seemed to smile more freely than she had even in the motel or in the club. Her eyes wandered the area, fascinated by everything.

"Isso pretty!"

She turned her attention back to Simon, then giggled at the glowing dust in his scarf and began to help in trying to bat it away.

⋯﴾﴿⋯

Bear nodded, thinking as he followed along with Seela's guidance. "That isn't something I've encountered before," he admitted. "It's... clearly not another word for overstimulation, either." Bear used his sleeve to wipe more of the gore from his swollen face, though he still tasted his own blood from his nose until he found a tissue in one of his pockets and stuffed his nose with it. He had to breathe from his mouth, but he wasn't contaminating more of the floor, at least.

"How can we help?" he asked, eager to be useful, despite barely being able to see.

⋯﴾﴿⋯

Elizabeth looked at the image, frowning at it as she searched it for any clues before she finally looked up at Worm and shook her head.

"I'm afraid you know more than I do at this point about the circumstances here. What I know is that Pearl arrived, and she has been ignoring my texts. Whoever this boy is, she seems to trust him... but I'm not entirely certain of her judgment when it comes to people."
 
"Certainly better than the swamp..."
He gripped her hand and managed to pull himself up, shaking his jacket to get some of the fragments of mushrooms from his back. Most of the dust brushed off well enough, though it stuck where Simon had certainly walked through a large spider web.

He looked around as well, particularly aware of the soft beams of moonlight.
"But yeah, it's all rather refreshing when times in the Waking World get hard..."

He smiled faintly.
"...I'm glad to finally be able to enjoy it again. Up until now I couldn't afford to take risks or go on adventures... I needed this place too much."

He blinked several times, then stepped forward toward the tools he laid on the stump.
"Also keep an eye out for a yak wandering around here, it really didn't like me..."

He glanced around with a raised eyebrow.
"...and the Zoogs, of course."

---

The "doctor" sucked in air through a disposable mask.
"Overperception is what happens when a human mind is forcibly exposed to stimuli it was not designed to properly process, and is intense enough to bypass the brain's ability to disguise the stimuli. It's the level of perceptional ability that contains knowledge within that spectrum.The resulting trauma is often... bad..."

Eve shuddered at the thought. Hecate was hurt... There were strangers in HQ... She had to look tough. She wanted to represent her friend's and creators efforts. She clenched her fist.
"Why are you here?"

---

"Well of course she trusts him, he saved her life by going up against a freaking Shoggoth. Now I don't think he's sketchy, but he doesn't got the guts to play the hero. He watches his own back first. Why is this girl suddenly worth enough to him to make him risk his life?"
Worm squinted, and shifted idly on his feet, gesturing with... strangely shaped hands with claws for nails.

He scowled at the sight of the cleanup crew dragging out the Byakhee's mauled head.
"Ugly son of a bitch..."

He turned around slowly.
"Welcome to The Ark. This facility is a combination of mines, natural caverns, and ancient ruins running underneath the city of Arkham. How much Lovecraft are you familiar with?"

He beckoned at her to follow him, a blank look on his face, but a smell betraying great uncertainty.