The Regal Rper
Mad Scientist
1 A.M.
???
"Oyu Rae ginmaerd."
They were garbled, senseless, jumbled words- if they were even words at all which held no understanding. It was a whisper in your ear or perhaps it had been a thought that sprang to mind. As time went however these words would not vanish, they grew, echoed, until you gave them consideration. And when you inevitably did- you saw it out of the corner of your eye. An exit. A large one just outside your view. You saw it for the first time, something that had not been originally a part of where you were. And when you saw this arched doorway, its staircase made of books, light streaming in- that's when everything around you changed. But for each and every one of you, how your environment shifted was different.
Staring at the empty eyes of the deceased, you watched as a bag zipped itself up, obscuring the face of the dead. The glow on the zipper vanishing as your coworkers cleaned up the mess that had been made in this crisp, slightly rainy evening. In the distance a car waited; the yellow where white should be and slit eyes of your drug lord boss illuminating as he lit a match. Watching from his parked hovering vehicle in the style of a carriage fused with a van. The elegant rails at the top with horned ugly miniature statues standing guard above his rolled down window as he glanced at you from the corner of his eye. A satisfied smile on his face and a puff of purple smoke floating up from out the window as his cigar lit up between the two out of four fingers he had while the match shook itself out and then was flicked outside into the muddy waters in the trench below. Looking away, you saw the exit. Built inside of a very large tree, the blurred face of your coworker heaving a body up and walking past the exit as if it weren't even there.
But as a arms dealer you saw no real concern for violence. Not in this setting where you too had your own small group of guards. Things of your own creation watching just behind you, as still as statues. Presenting merchandise in a emptied building on a slightly cloudy day.
You didn't really get to hear what they had to say, because when you looked back to them, they froze. Freeze framed in place and you saw the exit up ahead. In the same way the exit was in front of you, an arms dealer, so was it also in front of the finance officer crunching numbers behind his desk in front of a holographic display that featured the entire city. Red orbs hovering over certain spots with glittering messages floating up like smoke from them.
Whereas the pickpocket came across the exit in an alley after swiping the wallet off some poor fool, or the brawler saw the exit by opening their gym locker, or the desk jockey simply watched it spawn in front of them as they opened the door to their office of fraud forms.
While the gardener found herself exiting a rather opulent party by her host through a hall- a mistress got up on stage and with her hooved shoes clicking with every sway of her step and hips, she swung on the pole to perform before a crowd of flowers, throwing coins and blowing fox whistles. The changes were subtle, some not so much. But when you saw the exit- as you would inevitably- your world froze or undid itself and you moved to it.
It was a compulsion you could not ignore.
One thing became clear to you as you climbed bookcase stairs into the open grassy field.
You were not alone.
As you entered the field, others began joining you, not that you cared in the time. You were in a focused state, a trance. The night sky, the sun, all four moons, the stars, and the faint shape of what looked to be planets all appearing on the canvas overhead didn't even faze you. Sure you saw all of this, but it was at the back of your mind. You saw but did not process.
You only did when your feet came to a stop and the compulsion to move, vanished.
Stars twinkled above as you were joined by these strangers, in this strange realm, in this stranger reality; no one really got the chance to ask what was going on or what was happening. Quite suddenly the earth underneath you shifted. The grassy ground changed color. It shifted into yellow bricks and these bricks became a platform under you and these new faces also. The yellow platforms stretched, becoming a purple road that rose from the ground, going down the slope up ahead, deeper still towards a unknown location within the forest.
In the brief silence, you all said nothing. Did nothing. Your conscious minds slowly made sense of what you were experiencing like you had been in a trance and the hypnosis was slowly breaking. As you came out of it, realization and whatever clothes you were wearing earlier seemed to shift. Some gained more formal attire, others, an odd mixture of casual yet salacious. A part of your minds telling you that whatever was happening might not be real, but the faces you were seeing here somehow were.
You dismissed the thought, or maybe you didn't. Whatever weird trip you were having right now- it didn't matter. What mattered was you clearly had a place to go and so did these strangers who seemed to be following the same direction.
The forest remained oddly silent as you all stood there like a bunch of awkward idiots, uncertain of what to do- crashing from this weird mind trip you had all just been through. Distractions were minimal but one came floating by overhead.
Smiling clouds winked at you from above, brows waggling with some sort of strange suggestiveness like a joke had been made at your expense between them. It was weird, random even. And as you looked around, it became more apparent that you were not where you thought you had been.
The first person to do anything b cleared his throat. A tall light brown man, black hair that had a odd color to it in the light, sharp jaw. Said not a word and then without missing a beat, he walked off his platform and began following the purple brick road towards the destination ahead. He gave each and every one of you a single glance, sharp eyes behind his oval glasses and a rather detached expression on his face as he raised a brow to pause for a single second.
"Are you comimg, or do you intend to stand there?, his calm voice for this whole odd situation almost absurd as the face one cloud was making at you above.
Clearly he didn't care to wait for an answer. He moved on. Didn't even bother to wait for a response and he kind of gave off a bit of an asshole vibe. Disappearing down the slope within just a few seconds. The tapping of his polished shoes and the fact his features weren't blurred or grossly geometrically twisted the only sign he was real at all.
A thought, more like a prodding question came to your mind: What are you waiting for?
Tags: Taigakitt VeiledPariah Arcanist EldridSmith Huntertabbysandshark3 Nue_Fan
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