Fantasy Trapped in the Mystlands - Weird Science/Zombie RP

[Shireling]

Chapter One: A Mysterious Benefactor?


Nobody comes here of their own volition, especially not myself. It can be a loathsome place. Especially now...


The sky that the six chosen adventurers awoke to was ashen grey, dark, broken only by flashes of heat lightning and the dull light of a blood-red moon that threw an eerie glow across the land.


Sitting up and looking out, the landscape came into focus. The world unfolded before them in a cascade of ashen grey misery. From the hilltop cemetery where they stood, they could see down the dirt road to a small dilapidated building and beyond that to small structures clustered about the tree-strewn avenue. Immediately before them, gravestones popped up out of the ground. The nearest one read: "Edward Case, 1883-1909." Shovels and other grave-digging implements lay scattered about, the whole of the place encompassed in a low stone wall with grotesque gargoyles standing watch upon granite pedestals, some crumbling under the weight of the statues. Far away, lightning crackled and struck the ground somewhere. It began to lightly rain.


Looking down, they could see they were standing within a circle drawn, no, burned into the grass and grimy, dirty corpses littered about, as if the rotten refuse of some arcane ritual. Footsteps ensued from the south. Turning to see the origin of these steps, the form of a man came into view. He was tall, thin, and possessed a sharp, angular face. He wore an old-timey hunting jacket, dark trousers, oxfords, a bowler hat and carried an umbrella under the crook of his arm. As he neared them, he opened the umbrella out and held it above his head, the rain pattering softly against it.


"Greetings," he said with a smile, "and welcome to the Mystlands. Drear place, I know. But I am oh so glad you are here!" In his voice, one could hear geniality and friendliness, but perhaps a twinge of mental instability.


Taking notice of the mysterious figure, the adventurers also took note of the five other people with them. They were as diverse as they come, each bearing the markings of their native dimensions but try as they might they could not remember much beyond their names.


"I lament to inform you that your memories could not be carried over," the figure began again, "and anyways it may have complicated issues. I'm sure you're full of questions. Ask away. Oh... Wait!"


The man removed his bowler hat, muttered something unintelligible, and a snapping sound ensued followed by a wreath of yellow particles which kicked up in the air around them.


"Opening the magical barrier," he explained, "now, questions?"


He put his hat back on, smiled, and waited.

 

[Rui]

Camillé immediately went for the blades sheathed in her stockings.


"Où suis-je!?" She demanded, frightened and confused, like a cornered animal. She could kind of understand the man; her English wasn't the best, but the things he said made no sense.


"Mystlands?"

 

[NeoLeaf]

Lukas Lebenhaupt

The man stood in his place like a statue, temporarily paralyzed by his confusion and vulnerability. The man's chest was covered in very durable looking black armor, his arms are hidden under the shelter of his dark gauntlets, leg wear is no different from his gauntlets having been designed to protect his lower limbs and at the same time keep their movement and lastly the man wore a Nordic warlord helmet. He peered over the gravestones that had seemed to sprout out of nowhere from the misty landscape and took notice of his surroundings. A Graveyard.


Why is he here? No. How did he get here? Wait? Who is he?


The man looked down towards his feet and bean to search for a name. While he was trying to dig inside his mind who he was, he recognised footsteps approachingfrom the south of the graveyard towards his general direction. He noticed an arm a few meters away from him and quickly saw the strange shape burnt onto the grass. What's this? A ritual of some kind? The Footsteps drew closer and the armored man looked up to a strange looking man. He was tall, thin, and possessed a sharp, angular face. He wore an old-timey hunting jacket, dark trousers, oxfords, a bowler hat and carried an umbrella under the crook of his arm. The man opened a strange hand held device and held it over his head to block the raindrops.


"Greetings," he said with a smile, "and welcome to the Mystlands. Drear place, I know. But I am oh so glad you are here!" In his voice, one could hear geniality and friendliness, but perhaps a twinge of mental instability.


"I lament to inform you that your memories could not be carried over," the figure began again, "and anyways it may have complicated issues. I'm sure you're full of questions. Ask away. Oh... Wait!"


The man removed his bowler hat, muttered something unintelligible, and a snapping sound ensued followed by a wreath of yellow particles which kicked up in the air around them.


"Opening the magical barrier," he explained, "now, questions?"


Alfonzo Hernandez Marie. The name popped from the back of his head. but the Name was soon swept with another one that had taken it's place. This name was Luka Lebenhaupt. So he had two names? For some reason he's rejecting the first name that had surfaced and accepting the other one. A gut feeling is telling him to take the second name and he's unsure to why that is.


"Was geht'n hier los?" Lukas had asked in a heavy germanic accent as he looked up towards the red moon.

 

[Shireling]

"Of course, the language barrier." The man said, smacking his palm against his forehead lightly. He muttered another unintelligible phrase and waved his hand in a queer sort of fashion. Yellow particles again flew up around them, and streamed off towards the strange figure with the umbrella. The particles seemed to orbit him and turn abouthim before finally returning to turn about the six again, orbitting them like a small yellow vortex before they disappeared in a "snap!"


"I believe that solves the language problem, although I can't do much for your dialects. Quite a polyglot group I have here, no?" He chuckled a bit too long to himself.


"As to your question, friend," he pointed to Lukas with a nod of his head, "We're standing in the midst of the Kalsk Graveyard, south of the town of Morham. This is the most magically charged place in the whole of this dreadful dimension."

 

[EvelynC]

Genevieve Blackwood ws stunned beyond belief. Magically charged? Kalsk Graveyard? Morham? Dimension?


"What on earth-? Who are you? Who are all of you?!" she asks in dismay, turning around looking at all of the people standing around her. Then she freezes, "Better question, who am I?"


The only things could remember is her name. Somehow she knew it, deep in her soul, that it was Genevieve Blackwood, but nothing else would come to light.


"Why can't I remember anything?" she asks, absolute terror creeping into her tone. Genevieve wanted to hide, but there was no where to go. No where to run.

 

[Shireling]

The man seemed slightly amused.


"Ah, I assumed this would happen with at least one." He reached out to put his hand on her shoulder and steady her, but instead his hand passed through her as if she wasn't there at all.


"Oh dear, collision magick is rather tricky." He mused.


"Nonetheless, calm down, Miss Blackwood. You are perfectly safe. Well... Er... You are somewhat safe."


He laughed good-naturedly, but again too long to seem sane.

 

[Rui]

"Dimension?"


Camillé paused, arching an eyebrow. "What exactly is that? What is any of this?"


She looked around at her comrades, and cringed looking upon Luka.


"Why do you force me here with this," she paused, "animal."


She spat, glaring down at them, then back to this "mystery man",


"I will tear you limb from limb, you enthused crazy!" She hissed. She angrily huffed, pouting like an enraged child...except that child is a tiger, with freshly sharpened claws and teeth, and the person whom she pouts at is a juicy raw steak.


"I will kill you slowly..." She growled, eyes sharper than the blades she would carry.

 

[Shireling]

The man clicked his tongue. "I like this one, she's got a fire in her." He said, laughing again.


"Alright, I'll cut to the chase, lads and lasses. I brought you all here to do a job for me. A job I simply can't do on my own."


He paused, then continued, "I'm trapped here. All that you see before you is a whole different universe than the one you are accustomed to. A pocket universe, that is. A very small one. An enemy, you can consider him a mutual enemy, trapped me here. I need your help to escape."

 

[EvelynC]

"Why in the world should we help you? You took our memories!" Genevieve snaps angrily. "And the gibberish your speaking of, what does it even mean? Magic? There is no such thing, only science! Pocket dimension? Different universe? You spew ideas of theory not reality!"

 

[Rui]

"Why would we help you? As you keep us here!" She gestured to the English woman, "I agree! Zis must be some kind of joke! Well I do not find it funny!" She snarled, her accent especially sharp in her rage, she reached out, aiming to grab the man by his lapels.

 

[Shireling]

He crossed his arms as her arms passed through him like air. Camille would feel her hands become so violently cold she would be forced to withdraw them.


"Listen, my friends. I understand the situation is not ideal. My spells have limitations. But if you help to free me, I will return you home and this whole ordeal will be but a dream. This much I can promise."


The rain slacked up to a barely-discernable mist and he unfolded his umbrella, propping himself against it.


"You may call me the Journeyman. I have traveled across space and time, all of creation truly, and if you help me I will return the favor. On my word as a gentleman."


He took off his hat and bowed.

 

[amlia]

The woman had gained her balance once more, but hadn’t seemed to even take notice of her own actions. Her eyes were distant, shifting mindlessly over the surrounding field of stones. She wasn’t paying mind to those about her, but rather she was trying to access her memories. Though it was as though there had been a wall built and a sign plastered upon it to read no trespassing. She was motionless until the crack of lighting startled her from her trance. Audrey flinched when the first raindrops hit her shoulders.


The woman’s muscles seemed to thaw and she cast her hazel eyes about. They came into focus, and the first thing she managed to process was the corpses strewn about the surrounding. Audrey’s face took on a look of horror, and it seemed as though she was afraid to simply take a breath for fear of gagging. She stumbled once in the opposite direction, but was met with only others, both living and deceased. Her form froze again momentarily in midstep, her eyes scanning the others in more wonder than fear by that point. Her mouth opened as though she were to speak, but then shut.


The woman was silent through the following events, eventually returning to her original spot within the singed circle. She began there, and seemed comfortable being placed back in that position. As though it were “home”. The following events unfolded, where the German man seemed lost, and the French woman angry, and the other woman afraid. Seeming troubled later only by the passing of the man’s hand through the afraid woman’s form, Audrey slowly began to regain her composure.


It was apparent that no one had any form of memory, and so she made an attempt to understand the now rather than the past. Audrey eyed the man with the umbrella, and her narrowed eyes showed that she might be jealous of his ownership of the object until the raindrops ceased. She followed what he said a little more easily, as if she might be accustomed to the subject. She did, however, have trouble with the idea of another world. “Journeyman,” she began after some thought, testing the name. His name, much like his tone, made her skin crawl. She ran a hand over her dampening arm as if to rub away goosebumps. “Who is this enemy you speak of?”

 

[Shireling]

"Excellent question, my dear..." He frowned, then seemed to lose himself in thought, as if he was deciding just how much information he wanted to give away.


"He calls himself Bel, and he imprisoned me here in a quantum stasis chamber. He intends to come back, but he is gone now. He left behind a grizzly assemblage of guards to prevent my escape... You will meet them soon enough..."


Seeming to be satisfied with his given explanation, the Journeyman put his umbrella against his shoulder and looked about again. He looked down the road to the small building at the base of the hill.


"Any more questions, my friends?"

 

[NeoLeaf]

The knight in black armor only stood still.


Luka listened closely to the words of the two frantic women and the strange tall hat man that cast a spell on them. Everyone has their questions and want answers to justify them. But from the man's case, he's relatively lax because of the confusion that had swept him before and the lingering effect of his enlightenment of finding out his own name. He figured that going into assumptions would only bring trouble among themselves and doesn't feel obliged to go into their mettle.


He had noticed another individual appearing from the white shroud and took heed to examine her. The woman's hair looked silver thanks to the lighting of the red moon, her eyes seemed dark but he can't quite make out their color and her face was pretty darn captivating. He returned his attention towards the conversation and saw an opportunity to talk after he had bluntly explained about a 'Bel' character.


"In return for helping you," Luka left the tomb stone that he was leaning on, drew closer to the tall man until he stopped a couple of steps away from the Journeyman and focused his eyes into his.


"What is it that you can offer us?" He asked.

 

[Shireling]

"Why, my dear negro, I'm offering you your life back, and more!" The Journeyman supplied.


"Imagine! The power to teleport, change shape, walk through walls! I have such powers, sadly they are limited by my imprisonment here. If you set me free, I can show you universes of possibilities! All that was, all that is, all that will be! Can you imagine it? Does it not baffle the imagination? Oh, I understand you're not all boffins and don't quite get the jist of trans-universal travel, gravity wells and whatnot, but surely you can grasp the magnitude of the worlds I can open to your mind? And besides, perhaps you don't want your old lives back anyways. That's up to you, my good fellows."


He turned as lightning hit the ground closer them, on a nearby grassy knoll.


"Ah, it can be so beautiful here at times. Every place has its own beauty." He chuckled again in his awkward and slightly discomforting way.

 

[NeoLeaf]

"Intriguing." Lukas backed away from the man when the lightning had struck near them.


The way he had worded his sentence brought thoughts into the man's head. Giving our lives back and the mention of travelling to other plains that he isn't at all familiar with. It had it's draw backs and benefits but doesn't feel like asking about those types of matters - yet at the very least. For now he's pondering with the situation that is at hand. For example why are there bodies lying around them? How was he able to gather them here? What are they suppose to do from here on out? Lukas stayed silent, crossed his arms and expected the others to ask his questions for him.

 

[amlia]

Guards. She paused at that mention, and then frowned when he told them that they’d be meeting these gaurds on their own. She inspected their surroundings once more, and read the words on few of the nearby tombstones. She was surprisingly not upset for her loss of memory, for something seemed to tell her that she’d rather not recite her past.


When When the large man spoke and stepped forward again, she listened to his words, and then after the Journeyman’s reponse she stepped forward with her own. As long as she was not the nearest to the stranger, she would approach. She stood behind Luka at an angle, near enough to the strange man with the umbrella to see clearly enough for her liking, and eyed him with her eyebrows drawn together. Her hair had been wetted by the rain and now stuck to her shoulders and back, as did the fabric of her clothes. When the lightning struck and Luka stepped back, Audrey seemed panicked, but stood still in her spot. She wouldn’t allow one to know her fear, especially the one who seemed to be in any control.


“Two questions,” She confirmed, “One, why has this Bel trapped you here? And my second, why are we here to help? What makes us so “special”?” She spoke the last word with a twist, as though she were bitter. She did not few them as special, and possibly viewed some as a little too rash for her liking.

 

[Shireling]

"Bel does not agree with my methods." The Journeyman muttered stiffly. "I was only trying to help!" He threw in under his breath, barely discernable.


"Bel works for some very powerful people who don't take kindly to people like myself trying to step in where I can and make things better."


"As to what makes you special, my dear. Wait and see. You will learn." He smiled and laughed again.

 

[EvelynC]

"I don't like you cryptic answers." Genevieve says, "Could you talk normally jut for once? Give us more information on Bel person."

 

[Rui]

Camillé lowered her gaze, eyeing her boots with disdain. She could sense a kind of darkness in this man...something she disliked. It frightened her; nothing had ever done that. She watched the man nearest to her again, wondering why it was he wore armor. It was untypical of a slave. She scoffed to herself, and returned to glaring at her boot intently.

 

[Shireling]

"I would explain more, Miss. But you wouldn't understand."


The Journeyman turned and looked towards the sky, which was beginning to dim as a thicker group of clouds passed over the blood moon. Lightning crackled twice in rapid succession, this time striking one of the nearby statues and shattering it violently.


"The storm is getting stronger. I can stay no longer... You should consider finding shelter, my friends."


The wind picked up and the rain ensued again as he pointed to a small building at the base of the hill with his umbrella. "That looks like a suitable place to weather the storm."


The Journeyman smiled kindly to them. "I hope to see you there."


He then turned and began to walk away, gradually becoming transparent as he walked before fading away to nothing. The six were alone once again on the hilltop, with the howling wind and driving rain beating against their skin and clothes.

 

[Rui]

"Ooh! Ze gull!" She groaned, her heavy dress, now sodden and cold, weighing her down. "Zis is far too heavy." She huffed, and began tearing off the gown, and stepping out of the tightly fit cage, into her Mercier suit. A proper lady should have felt shame at her state, but Camillé felt comfortable, as if she'd been this way many a time. A mask was tucked into her belt, with blacked out eyes. She couldn't explain it, but she tucked the porcelain garment into her garter for safe-keeping.


"Let's go. We have shelter to find, before we are hit. Jes?"

 

[NeoLeaf]

Lukas watched as the man disappeared into the white shrouds and lightly bit his tongue. He would have liked to learn more of what the man had said about him and his confidence in the gibberish. Lukas heard small pinging sounds around his helmet and looked up into the dark swollen unholy sky and it's now cloud blotched red moon. The cool wind had been picking up it's speed, the abnormal weather posed as an inconvenience for him and he looked out over yonder to the cabin that the journeyman had described.


Rrrrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiippp!


Lukas looked behind him and tried to make out what he could in the dimly illuminated landscape. He didn't really need to figure out that one of the women had torn their gown completely off. Lukas could make out the feminine curves that the woman was showing off. From what he could tell, she was wearing a dark corset top and a tight leather pants with some frills on the side of her thighs. Lukas pondered why the woman didn't just tear away at the gown's legs to walk better instead of tearing off the whole thing.


"Let's go." The red head had said.


"We have to find shelter before we are hit, Jes?"


"I wouldn't want to stand out here and get drenched both inside and outside of my armor..." Lukas spoke in a deep accent. It's hard to tell when the north Germanic accent began and when the more African dialect would end, when he would talk. But you'd have to get used to it eventually.


Before Lukas took a step foward to the exit of the cemetery he turned his armored torso around and stared at the other woman wearing a complex looking gown, a dress that he thinks that he's never seen. It looked awfully heavy in contrast to the red head's dress and a small voice had told him to be 'kind' to this sort of woman.


"Can you walk with that attire or do you want to be carried?" He asked politely.

 

[EvelynC]

Genevieve gaped at the woman taking off her gown. 'How scandalous!' She thought, then paused unsure of why she would think that. 'Maybe I should... No.' It went against all of her instincts to follow suit with the red haired woman, even though she knew for practicalitys sake it would be beneficial.


Then she turned around and looked up at the hulking mass of a man in black armor, and almost gasped. 'Oh goodness,' she thought. 'How utterly terrifying.'


"Can you walk with that attire or do you want to be carried?" The man asked.


Genevieve froze. Was he talking to her? He was most definably not talking to the red headed woman.


"I- umm..." She murmured, testing her dress to see how it would fair in the rain. It was already quite heavy, but not unbearably so. She picked up the front of her dress and took a few hesitant steps forward. Then grinned. "The rains not to bad I think I can man-"


Lightining struck again and the rain poured down in buckets, completely drenching the heroes.


"On the other hand, if I wouldn't be a burden..." She asked shyly.

 

[NeoLeaf]

Luka turned completely around and approached the dressed woman cautiously.


"Excuse me."


Not wanting to waste anymore time getting wet in the rain, the man grabbed the woman's long arms and placed them around his neck and shoulders. Next he crouched and placed one arm behind her lower legs and clamped his other arm around her waist. He scooped her up quickly and held her more or less like that of a princess in a fictional tale. He sighed in relief that the woman didn't fall down from this procedure and returned to the cemeteries exit.


With every step the two could hear the soft squelching sound from the muddy ground and the light metallic clatters from his armor. Lukas made way for the cabin that stood isolated at the bottom of the hill, mildly annoyed by the fact that the red head could move more freely than he could and made a head gesture for the other woman - 'let's go'. Thus Lukas and the heavily dressed woman passed the exit of the accursed collection of deathbeds and headed for the structure located by the base of the hill.