Fantasy Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies (And Goes To Hell)

[Sizniche]

You were not a very beloved person in life.

Many a person had quite a mouthful to say about you; whether they called you a thug, a brigand, a murderer, a hedonist, a sinner, or some other chastising term, the general consensus was that you were not seen as a morally upright sort of person. What few people came to your funeral were mostly villains and criminals and scum of the earth as well, simply mourning over a fellow troublemaker, or, more likely, people who came to collect debts and favors just trying to blend in.

It's not like you want to be evil all the time; it's simply that nothing worth the while ever seemed to come of being good to you. The motives are different for everyone; maybe you had personal ambitions that conflicted with being a good person, maybe you didn't get the same thrill taking the life of an evil person that you do when you kill a goody-two-shoes paladin, or maybe you didn't like the fact that paychecks for heroes tended to be few and far between. Not to mention this most recent incident; the one time you do something for the greater good of the kingdom–albeit for quite a large sum of gold, but let's not dwell on that–you get caught in a cave collapse because some moron got antsy and pulled the relic off of the obvious trap. Or were you the moron that got antsy and pulled the relic off of the obvious trap? The details somewhat blur together. After all, you're just now accepting the fact that you did just die. But I digress; it was clear being good was never in the cards for you.

So, where does that put you? You would assume hell... right? It doesn't feel like hell; it certainly doesn't feel excessively hot, maybe very warm at worst. You see no fire or brimstone; in fact, you don't see anything. You don't hear anything. You feel almost nothing but a soft wall that seemingly submerges you; a sort of sensation that is vaguely familiar but you can't quite figure out. It's as if all of your senses have been taken away. Is this just purgatory? Am I still on my way to hell? I don't feel like I'm suffering for all eternity yet...

You try to piece together your memories backwards, trying to follow the chain of chronology. You just woke up in this mysterious location a few minutes ago, but before that is a long stretch of darkness, as if you were unconscious. Is it possible for the dead to be unconscious? That's certainly news for you, if that's the case. Before that though, you felt a sudden falling sensation, as if you were plummeting down a pit, and before that, you were in the cave collapse that marked the sudden end to your life. That, however, raises the question of whether you died before or after the fall. Before you can quite figure out that sequence of events, your thoughts are interrupted by a sensation that alarms you immediately.

One of the walls just licked you.


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[GreenEyedStranger]

Am'Ruh saw darkness all around him. In his studies, he was used to isolation and silence... However, this was different. There was a permanence in the air that he could not decipher, and all sensation of touch or scent were gone. As much as he tried to move, however, he was stuck in some sort of suspended matter. He was not certain at all.

"What... What is this place..."

He murmured in his native draconic tongue. He didn't really remember exactly what happened leading up to the moments of his death, all of it feeling like a blur. To him, he was still stuck inside that cave. It certainly reminded him of the many lairs he took refuge in back when he was still on the run from his pious family. In some way, the darkness comforted him, as it reminded him of where he drew his power from. As he thought of this, he called out to his dead he was just commanding. Beautiful creations of flesh and metal, which he worked tirelessly on... despite being unable to move, he tried to the best of his ability to perform the motions.

However, his gut dropped as he felt no such connection. Not even any tug of fresh dead or any corpse could be sensed in a large vicinity. Was he in some sort of cleansing ground? There were so few instances of his life where he felt truly separated from his magic. Nevertheless, he continued.

"Mortis Ren'au'wvis!"

He shotued out in his twisted draconic tongue as he tried to forcefully summon the dead... Nothing. As he felt his power fade, he held his hands to himself in a defensive position, looking into the darkness hesitantly. Finally, after long moments of silence he called out in a meek, scared tone, in common tongue.

"Hello? Hello?!"

He feared what sort of confrontation he'd attract in such a strange location, but desperation was setting in. He was lost, confused, and powerless.

 

[BegoneThought]

Kara had never felt such a stillness in the air. When all her other senses failed her- when her sight could be obscured, her touch be non-accessible, her taste inapplicable, her nose unreliable- she knew she could rely on her ears. But this was no quiet. This could not be considered silence. This was the void, an intangible nothingness that made Kara want to break her fingers and curl up into a ball so tight her bones would crack.

Freth would tell her to focus on her breathing and dampen the beating of her heart. She focused, centering herself, and there it was, hammering against her chest like a bird in a trap. She blamed it on her frayed nerves, but for a moment there, she thought she hadn't breathed, and that her heart had no beat for her to follow.

It was almost as if, for a moment... I was-

"Mortis Ren'au'wvis!"

Kara jolted and tried to raise her fists but found they were caught under something heavy. She grunted, straining against the force keeping her immobile. To her relief and then to her horror, she could pull her right hand free- but it came free with a sickening schluk. Fighting the urge to gag, Kara shook her hand out. Her hand felt sticky, a sensation far from pleasant, and when she curled to pull her legs under her body, she found them trapped in the same manner as her left hand. The... mound she laid upon jiggled, and Kara found it somewhat amusing, in a hysterical sort of way.

"Hello? Hello?!"

Kara heard the common words as if they had taken a detour before reaching her ears. They echoed and bounced and were seemingly in no rush to stop resounding through her head. She groaned, cracking her jaw in a futile attempt to pop her ears. Her neck craned to look in the direction she had heard the voice, but when she turned her head, her cheek brushed against a wall, leaving a sticky residue smeared across her face. Kara realized she was surrounded by it, engulfed by the warm, pulsating, oozing substance on all sides. Seriously, where the hell was she?!

A strangled noise left her throat as she felt something sliver up her back, deliberate and languid like a water drop. It curled and writhed, weaving in and out of the notches of Kara's spine, in no hurry to reach its destination, wherever that was. Kara strained to reach the offending creature with her right hand, but her arm was pinned between the ground(?) and her body. Panic lanced through her thoughts, sending her body jolting and agitating the substance surrounding her again, parting it slightly with another disgusting noise, only for it to stick back together around her.

"Shit, shit, shit!" Kara hissed.

The gelatin-like substance around her seemed to grow tighter, air pockets whispering out of where they had originally been, and as Kara's breathing grew quicker and her fear grew, she was reminded of the thought that had fled her mind before.

"It was almost as if, for a moment, I was dead."

Likely because she was.

 

[Buckteeth]

It's unnatural to be deprived of senses. It's like trapping someone in their own body. Gart came to this conclusion within a short time of realizing he could see nothing. His eyes were bleary, he could feel that, but even so, this wasn't right. It's not that it was too dark, even in darkness there was some awareness. Gart saw nothing, and this deeply disturbed him. He strained, squinting his eyes, but could not even make out vague shapes. He could feel things, but what he felt only disturbed him more. There was a strangely warm, yielding substance on all sides. He could feel it pressing against his cheek and scalp. He was very uncomfortable, pained even, his body in a strange, spread-out position. Well, besides his right arm, which was bent behind his back. Panic gnawed at his mind, and he bit his cheek to keep it at bay. It was then he was struck with a strange thought.

"I've died."

Gart shook his head, as much as he could in this confined space. The implications were too much, too fast, and threatened to drown him down here. There'd be time to consider that once he was out of...wherever this was. He felt the spittle in his mouth, determining "up" as in front of him, but to the right a bit. Flexing his left arm, eliciting audible *pop* sounds, he weaseled it in front of him and thrust his hand into a gap in whatever covered him. Gripping one of the more handleable pieces of the unknown warm substance, he began the process of dragging/digging himself out, shifting bits and pieces in his climb towards what Gart hoped was a surface. This couldn't go on forever. Just the thought caused his stomach to sink. He shook his head for the second time. Despair was for defeat and he hadn't lost yet. Gritting his teeth, he moved his left hand to the next oblong piece, and heaved himself.

He'd wiggled his right arm in front of him, and after a few stretches, started using his new means of movement. Even with both arms, it was slow going. The pieces only gave to a certain limit, often in odd directions, and he was working by touch. But he was making progress. As he searched for the next grip, he heard strange, muffled words, and stopped.

"Mortis Ren'au'wvis!"

The rest was too muffled to understand. He hadn't understood what he had heard. Still, it was a good sign. Someone, or something, was alive here. A few more pulls, and his right hand shot out into open air, his gloved fingers wiggling in glee. He groped along the surface looking for a way to pull himself up.

 

[marorda]

Darkness was like a second nature to Erskin. But this particular darkness... now that was something new. Something she hadn't experienced before in her short lifespan. Darker than a moonless night spent in an underground hideout. Memories of the recent events were... blurry. Rumble of rocks, crushing of bones. But no pain. Just nothingness. No sounds, no smell, no sight, no tou--... wait what in the world was that? Something gooey slithered through the feathers under her clothes, wiggled between her talons. As long as it wouldn't crawl through the "nostrils" in her beak, it couldn't be all that horrible. Or so she hoped. Erskin felt no fear, but calm. The kind of calm she had seen so often, washing over the faces of her victims after the fear had passed. The calm, peace, and acceptance of death.

"Now what..." she wondered to herself. Her kind had no voice of their own, only able to speak through their ability to mimic. And alter slightly. If there was nobody left around to speak, would she ever make a sound again? She'd be the talk of the town among her kin... if she weren't dead. No voice and no wings. A disgrace. She struggled, wiggling against whatever wiggled against HER, trying to break free. One arm, then the other... her legs remained stuck in the strange substance.

A voice. A voice called out in the distance, first on one tongue, then in another. So at the very least she wasn't completely on her own in this void. And with someone to speak... she had a voice to mimic. A way to speak.
"Who's there?" she called, hoping for an answer. If there were more people stuck in this weird situation, there was a chance to escape. To figure out what happened and get the hell out of... wherever this void was.

 

[Sizniche]

--Erskin, Am'Ruh, Kara, Gart--
( marorda , GreenEyedStranger , BegoneThought , Buckteeth )

The substance that surrounds you reacts with shifting movement and pained groans, almost as if the substance that surrounds you is alive. It causes a chain reaction, and more and more movement surrounds you. The words you try to get out are muffled, but manage to permeate throughout the mass of... what ever you are in. A few others chime in with calls of their own; some completely unintelligible, some close enough to be clear as day; some spoken in Common and Undercommon, some spoken in various racial languages you recognize, some spoken in languages that should by all rights be long dead, and some spoken in languages you've never even heard of, with syllables you didn't even know the mouth could make. Soon, everything that surrounds you is in a panic.

--Am'Ruh--
( GreenEyedStranger )

Before the all the commotion began, you--as the first person to wake up before all the commotion--had time to see a bit past your sensory deprivation, and almost sensed a pulse within the substance. Well, no, not a pulse; rather, a consistent pattern of waves of shock throughout the substance, coinciding with the sound of a confirming thud. With what little time you had, and with all of the reliability of your own internal clock, your best guess for the pace of each of these thuds would be about three every two seconds.

--Gart--
( Buckteeth )

The commotion sucks you and your arm back into the substance, as the chaos around you rises. However, with the brief time your hand is in the open air, you get a feel of what the atmosphere is like...

--Erskin--
( marorda )

Wiggling most of the way free with the help of your natural dexterity, you manage to make your way out into the open air. Darkness still envelops you, but not quite as much as it once had; in your periphery, you can sense a dim light on the other side of the substance, thanks to which you can now tell the substance is a pile of something. The problem now becomes getting out of the substance the rest of the way to be able to approach the light.

--Gart, Erskin--
( Buckteeth , marorda )

The open air is extremely stale, and with a dryness to which no desert could ever compare; a kind of dryness that feels like it's trying to suck the very moisture out of your skin.

--Melina--
( AssassinHD )

You remain unconscious.

​

 

[GreenEyedStranger]

Am’Ruh froze as he heard another voice. To the best of his ability, he would try to turn around in an attempt to locate the source of it. However, his search was cutoff as he began to sense the strange thudding sound. Suddenly, the situation became a lot more terrifying. Had he gone on believing he was still stuck in some sort of underground lake, Am'Ruh would have been better off, but the repeated thuds reminded him most of the sounds he was so used to listening to back in his training. Although he couldn't be certain, Am'Ruh assumed it was some sort of heartbeat, and that he was being digested in the belly of some enormous creature.

He had to escape, now. In a fit of desperation and fear, he started flailing his arms against the strange amniotic fluid around him. Although his claws weren't as sharp as the dragonborn warriors, they would still be able to rip through soft flesh. Another option available to him was his dragonborn breath. However, at this proximity, his corrosive breath would most definitely harm himself as well.

"I have to get out of here! Let me go!"

He screamed in a panic as he continued to claw his way out of the substance, as his life depended on it.