mother_of_god | Midwich Elementary School (Nightmare World)

[Monsters: Faceless children, ghost babies, a few roaches]

[Tasks: Wander around inside. The walls and floors are now made of chain link and grating, and covered with blood and similar organic goo. Chains hang from the ceilings, and in several places, strange cloaked statues are displayed in inaccessible rectangular gibbets. The exit doors in the lobby are replaced by a giant set of sharp-bladed fans- trying to get out would result in slicing and dicing.
-There's a pair of the cloaked statues inside the school office, flanking a strange door with no handle. It does, however, have a slot in the center, and a conveniently slot-sized card on the ground in front of it. This door leads to the rest of the school; all the others are jammed or blocked.
-In the first floor girls' bathroom, the sound of a child sobbing breaks out. There are no children to be found inside.
-Upon exiting that bathroom, the characters find themselves on another floor. Reentering will put them in a different bathroom. This time, the stall door opens to reveal a decayed corpse, strung up with medical equipment. "Leonard Rhine- the Monster Lurks" is written on the wall behind it in blood.
-There's a classroom with only a table full of telephones and scattered cards. One telephone may ring and lead to an NPC conversation.
-The library has shelves stocked with religious-looking books. One shelf has a book of fairy tales, open to a relevant page [which I'll put in when the time comes]. Another, more out of the way, has less-relevant but vaguely interesting info [which I'll also put in].
-Depending on how things go and player preference, there may be an NPC encounter and boss fight.]

It's the courtyard again. The snow has turned to a steady, warm rain, and there's something "off" about the whole place- the building looks more distressed, the hedges thornier. The sharp smell of burning bites the nose.

In the concrete in the center, a mysterious occult symbol has been burned.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Jo shook her head.

"Only seen two residents, none of them young."

Unless she turned into a faceless thing?

"Guess I'll have to keep looking. I wonder what happened with this school. Is it even the same place?"

He heads for the front doors, then pauses as a radio in his pocket crackles with static, glancing around.

In the darkness in the corner, something moves. The shotgun's up and aiming.

Jo's revolver points in the same direction after the noise.

Fingers ready already, even as she asks.

"Normal radio or EMF meter?"

A couple of the faceless monsters sidle forward. Harry pulls the trigger, and one jerks back, winged.

"What? I don't know. I found it in the cafe. It looks like a radio, but I don't know what's going on with it. It only picks up when these things are around."

"Fuck. They're here too."

Jo lets out multiple shots.

Thinking about demonic and ghostly disturbances to electronics.

And how she needs a radio stat.

"Keep it on. Always. It'll keep you safe." Beat. "Relatively. And don't let those things near you."

"Oh, believe me, I've figure that out. I don't know what's going on, I just hope Cheryl's okay. I've got to find her."

With another shot, both creatures fall. He moves forward and stomps both necks.

The radio falls silent.

Without another word, he goes to the doors.

Jo walks after him. Surprised to see someone on top of their game. Even vaguely.

"Where are you headed? And where are we now?"

Edited Date: 2008-06-16 10:32 pm (UTC)

"I don't know." To both, really.

"But there's only one way to go, right?"

The hallway is laid out the same, but that's where the similarity ends. It's all grating and chain link and rust and blood. Through the spaces, rather than the ground or brick, only darkness can be seen.

Harry ignores all this as the radio flares to life again. More "children," flanking them.

"Well, then we work that way," Jo grunted.

A knife was pulled from her pocket for her alternate hand, as she raised her gun again. Wading toward the way of the noise, readying again, she added. "I'm Jo."

BLAM One of the children is down.

"Glad to meet you." Crack

Harry deals with his target with a brusque singlemindedness, then heads for the lobby.

Talking and shooting and moving.

Oh. Jo likes him.

"Likewise. Nice shooting."

"I guess I'm picking it up gradually."

Well, the lobby's not the way to get out. Unless they consider suicide a way to get out: a pair of massive fans rotate, one in front of the other, blades rusted but still sharp enough to cause serious damage.

Strung up by barbed wire, a corpse hangs between them. More oil cans lie scattered on the floor, and there's a rusty wheelchair in one corner. A box of handgun bullets and a first aid kit lie in its seat. Harry takes the first aid kit, discarding one he'd been carrying in his jacket.

"This is just terrible..."

"There are better interjections than terrible."

Jo says. It's silted as she's looking at the body.

Then she looks away. It's already dead.

The alive ones are more important now.

"If the layout has changed, maybe there are other ways out. We can try other rooms and hallways." She says it like it's an option, but she's already looking for doors to open.

"That's right- we can't afford to just stand around." He pockets the ammo- there's a handgun in his belt (hopefully NOT loaded)- and moves back to the hallway.

Everything seems to be locked or blocked off until the office.

Two strange-looking cloaked figures flank a door with no handle (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v480/furikku/SilentMilliways/32.jpg).

Harry frowns. "This is just like that tasteless painting that was here before."

Jo frowned. "Not exactly." She was pointing at the slot in the door. "I don't remember one of those last time."

Not that she was looking for slots.

She walked forward, only to slip and lose her balance for a moment. "The fuck?"

She looked down and then kneeled down picking up a card from the floor, like it had fallen from someone's pocket or been thrown. Or who knows what given the nightmarish place. Frowning still she said, "Apparently it's out lucky day."

Jo held the card out to him.

"Are you all right?" Just making sure. She's not gushing blood, so hopefully she'll be okay!

He takes the card, peering at it with bafflement before feeding it into the slot. It disappears, and then with a click, the door unlatches and swings open a few inches.

Beyond is more of the same dismal interior, but this time, the hallway is mostly blocked off by fencing, with only the two bathrooms accessible.

Harry glances back at Jo. "You take one, I take the other, I guess?"

Jo held her revolver up and nodded.

"Shout if you need me to come running."

Then she was making her way into the one closest to her.

Edited Date: 2008-06-17 03:01 pm (UTC)

Because social mores die hard, he goes for the boys' room.

Before she gets into hers, Jo is almost certain she hears the sound of someone crying. No, definitely sure. And it's not mixed with the moaning.

She opened the door, cautiously, as the sound of sobs got louder. "Is someone in here?"

The stall doors were kicked in, so her hands could stay on her gun and flash light, but no one was there. Right. Stickin' with creepy. She walked back out...only to find herself somewhere completely new. She took a few steps, but then remembered Mark. The Civilian-Not Civilian, which made her more likely to want to go back for him.

Jo opened the bathroom door again, thinking to try what she did and see if it would take her back. The doors are kicked in, not paying much attention, until suddenly, the stall door she kicks open, betrays a stall thats not empty.

"Fuck," Jo said, grimacing at the corpse before her. There was a decaying corpse strung up with medical equipment and on the wall behind it, smeared in blood were the words Leonard Rhine- the Monster Lurks.

The tally of people she hoped were eaten by monsters was getting bigger.

Jo shook her head, holding her gun knew her, and letting out a breath. She made herself take it all in and then headed back for the door.

Harry's standing on the other side, scratching his head.

"Jo!" He brightens. "You didn't come out, so I checked, and..." He gestures with the shotgun around the place.

"It changed on me, too." Jo nodded, shaking her head. "There's a corpse in my bathroom now. Decayed with medical equipment. Anything in yours?"

He shakes his head. "Just more monsters. Let's keep going." Only way is forward!

Or, in this case, into a classroom. Along with more of the cloaked figures chained in gibbets, there's an old, stained table. Rotary telephones and cards are scattered across its surface.

"Not like any damn classroom I've seen before."

She's eying the figures, more than the phone in case they start moving.

Which is why she jumps, turning around and almost shooting the table, when the phone rings.

"That's fucked. You want it or me?"

He wordlessly moves, lifting the receiver.

In the silence, the little girl's voice is clear even to Jo.

"Daddy? Help me! ....Daddy! Where are you?!"

And then a click and dial tone.

"CHERYL!" Harry shouts, gripping the table's edge.

"That was Cheryl's voice... I know it!"

"Going to go out on a limb and guess creepy phone don't do call back."

Jo looked across the phone. "Do you have any idea who might have wanted to take your daughter? Or why?" Beat. "Or how the hell they or she managed to call a room we just walked into?"