The #Broken_Dagger Forum

ATTENTION: Before replying, please read this thread. It will explain the rules regarding this Chimera experience.



You are asleep. You are dreaming.

Or are you?

Is it real? Is it a dream?

You decide.



While it is likely this is not the first thing you would notice, it's important that you know there is a small red jewel embedded in the hollow of your collarbone.

It is not especially large -- perhaps the size of a robin's egg -- but over half of the jewel is buried beneath your skin, so it's difficult to determine the exact size. (And, in the end, does it truly matter?) It is round and smooth and the color of dried blood, and deep down in the depths of the strange jewel, which is now very much a part of you, there is a faint yet undeniably eerie glimmer of light, like the glow of distant fires on the night-darkened horizon.

But, again, this is not likely to be the first thing you notice. You are without a doubt an observant person; possibly you pride yourself on the degree of your ability to observe, whether you are observing objects, people, or places. That is why it is the last of those three you will likely -- more than likely, really -- pay attention to first and foremost.

Surrounding you is a wilderness, but it is unlike any other you have seen.



Save for the echoes of distant screams, the howling of the wind and the wailing that follows in its wake, and the squish-squelch of your footsteps, it is quiet in the wilderness. It is vast, endlessly so, and except for the person next to you, appears to be otherwise uninhabited. Perhaps it is better that way, considering the circumstances. Awake or dreaming, no one would want to be here; it is a horrible place, the very embodiment of the surreal and the macabre.

The air is thick and heavy, making it difficult to breathe; it fills your nose and mouth, raping them on a sensory level until it is forced out of your lungs with considerable effort. There is a wind, but it does little other than carry the wails and moans of what sounds like the tortured and/or the dying, than swirl the overpowering, combined smells of blood, rot, and excrement that seem to envelop the wilderness in a perpetual, stomach-turning miasma. Streams and rivulets are everywhere, like a visible network of glistening, gurgling vessels -- except these consist of blood, urine, pus, and liquid feces, among other stinking bodily fluids. In some areas, where there is a depression in the land, the various fluids meet and form a disgusting, sickeningly pungent pool that occasionally bubbles; in others there are sphincter-like geysers which tremble and then spew the same foul fluids in a roaring, boiling gout, splattering anything nearby with their putrid concoctions.

In the wilderness the trees are not trees at all, but instead twisted formations of flesh, tissue and bone that rise as extensions of the land. Here, a "tree" as massive as an ancient oak climbs to the sky, its trunk consisting of layer upon layer of quivering muscle tissue stretched taut, their interwoven tendons on the verge of snapping; its branches were snow-white ribs, curving outward, sometimes out and up, and femurs, long and straight and knobby at the ends, and fused to each of them were countless skulls of varying shapes and sizes. And there, another "tree": this one was like a fir, at least in design; its entirety was composed of male and female genitalia, and its branches dripped with ejaculate. And another, and another, and another, each as abominable, if not more so, than the last -- one was a tortive pile of distorted bodies, men and women cut up, shredded, or simply disfigured until they formed something monstrous, something coniferous; another, a weeping willow by the look of it, was perhaps the oddest of all, for it was made up of countless eyes of countless colors, shapes, and sizes, their cornea reddened by intricate traceries of capillaries, and all of them leaked an impossible single drop of blood from the pinpoint black of their pupils.

The land itself is not the soil or stone you have come to know and love, to take for granted; it is skin, pulsing and alive, throbbing and moving, with purple veins bulging from its surface as if on the verge of bursting, with contracting and relaxing muscle beneath it in some places and soft, rubbery fat in others. In addition to the repulsive fluids coursing over the "land," these movements and sudden changes in terrain will obviously make it a trial to traverse the wilderness, much less explore it to any real degree. With your every step the skin underfoot shivers and shudders, as if it were actually feeling itself being walked or ran upon -- as if it were pained by it, or at least made distinctly uncomfortable.

Now that you are aware of your environment, however -- now that you have had a proper amount of time to observe and subsequently absorb it -- you should focus immediately on the person next to you.



The person next to you, put simply, is someone you do not like at all. Possibly you hate them. Truth be told, it doesn't really matter so long as somewhere deep down in your mind and your heart, you once -- just once -- wished they were dead or thought the world would be better off without them. That's all it takes.

Now what you may or may not discover is the crumped piece of paper in your hand, your pocket -- it's difficult to say where exactly it will appear on your person, but it will be there. Hopefully you read it, because it contains a very, very important message, which, should you find and then read the note, will state the following:



At this point it is ironic to point out that in front of each of you there is a strikingly familiar knife: it has the same square pommel, the same leather-wrapped haft, the same rectangular guard, and the same eight-inch, double-edged blade with its serrated side and blood gutter. It waits almost expectantly, perhaps impatiently; this is emphasized by the same two words etched into the bottom of the pommel:



Before you act, however, before you act -- please finish reading the note. You missed the last sentence. It states:



Well, fancy that. Perhaps you ought to stop standing there gawking at everything around you and the person you don't like that mysteriously appeared next to you? Hopefully you do, because the light inside the jewel is starting to grow brighter -- and hotter.



There are several questions you may be asking yourself: how did I get here, why am I here, where is this, how do I get out; what am I supposed to do, where am I supposed to go, what is happening; and so on.

The real question, though, is this:

How far will you go to keep the person next to you alive?

That's up to you.

And whoever else may be in the wilderness.

She never sleeps alone.

When she was young, her hands tangled platonically in her sisters' hair, and even now the tight quarters in the Kaczmarek home mean that, sometimes, limbs are strewn against limbs; and when she wasn't there, there was Aeryn, and the closeness of that was something else entirely --

-- so it's not that hard for her to stir awake, now, prone against the ground, and reach for the person next to her, to yawn and wrinkle her nose against the smell, to let her hand touch her companion's arm, to try to shake that person awake.

"Get up, somethin's wrong," she says, and then she opens her eyes.

She shrieks, bringing her hand back like a snakebite, quick eyes taking in the scene around her, swallowing bile and vomit, until she shakes the person awake, still lying on the ground. Glenn Burnie? What the hell? What the hell was this place? "Glenn, wake the hell up," she says, and then rocks back on her knees; this is real, so real, until she finds she's holding that knife and wearing her winter woolen night-clothes, the new ones, and a pause to read that crumpled piece of paper in her hand --

"Shit," she moans, and then begins to worry at Glenn's shoulder with her bare foot. "Shi-i-it, Glenn, wake up, and if you vomit I'll --"

Kill you?

No, Kaschei. This feels real, but she remembers that phrase, that knife.

"GET UP."

He rolled a bit at the first touch of her foot. "hnn... 'notha minute." Through a little more than sheer chance, Glenn was clad in new woolen winter sleepwear himself. They had been purchased, with the rest of his winter clothes, on the advice of a certain OTHER woman with Northern New Dauntless roots, one he would have much rather been with right now.

Finally, the mapmaker's eyes opened. He became alert VERY quickly. "This is... where the hell did you take me Agnie?" Glenn was already up on his feet. No, he did NOT have a sword with him. It was very much a good thing that Glenn Burnie did not sleep with his sword. He would likely wake up missing whole chunks of skin most mornings. There was, unsurprisingly a hint of fear in his voice, specifically for two reasons. The first is that he had good reason not to get too far from the center of MyrkenTown. The second was that the last time someone had knocked him out and taken him somewhere, he awoke to an unholy Drow tea party. This seemed far, far worse.

His hand closed tightly upon the hilt of that knife and his gaze immediately fell to the note. Yes, he would take the written word over Agnie's words nine times out of ten.

It was about then that he started to feel his shoulder warm strangely, started to see the light. The response, naturally enough, was a quick and steady backstep. As he moved, the ground below his feet began to split, as if sundered by an earthquake, or in this case as if a giant knife had cut at it mercilessly. Blood started to ooze from the broken skin/ground, and it continued until Glenn had walked a few steps further. It seemed wherever Glenn Burnie walked, ruin immediately followed.

"I can't tell you how much I want to vomit right now, Agony. Hell. Hell..." And then, he looked at her with surprisingly young eyes. It would not last long, until he had some sense of his bearings, only until her first bit of absurd foolishness, but for now he was scared.

"What do we do, Agnie?" and in any other circumstance, wouldn't that question from Burnie's lips likely be music to the peasant misfit's ears?

... and it still is, in a way.

"So vomit. Just don't do it on me. We do what the assbucket says," she says, chewing at the insides of her mouth with nervousness and revulsion. "We move. We stay alive." She steps forward and grabs at Glenn's shoulder, and if allowed, she'll push him forward. That's what you get for taking the crumpled paper over Agnie. A hand goes up, noticing the jewel at her throat for the first time; it roils. She takes a step. It subsides. She looks up at the putrid sky. "Trust nobody but me. As much as it's *hard* for you to *do* that, bootlicker."

She's angry.

Perhaps Glenn might see that she's not angry at *him*, but at that sky.

Perhaps.

"Don't use that knife. Last time I had a knife that said 'use me,' I killed five people." She shoots him a glance. "Maybe four." She pauses, and slightly maliciously: "I killed *Ariane*." And then she's setting off. Well, one thing's for certain, Glenn, she's giving you an out; you asked her what to do, and she's certainly taking over.

"And my name is Agnieszka."

At some point, a great deal later, it's quite possible that Glenn Burnie WILL thank Agnieszka Kaczmarek for helping him find his nerve once again. The second that she called him a bootlicker, his entire composure changed. It wasn't the first time that she inspired such things in him. This time, however, was doubled spurred by the fact she just mentioned killing Ariane.

Still, he was following her. He just wasn't QUIET as he followed. "Don't worry, Kaczmarek. You'll ALWAYS be my Agony."

Even as those words escaped his lips, Glenn noticed that the ground was still writhing under each one of his steps. It was still splitting under his feet and reforming after he passed. "Why... WHY the hell is that happening to me and not to you! If it was going to happen to anyone, it ought to be you. I'm perfectly reasonable and friendly. I get along with anyone who is even halfway sane. I try to help. That's a good, useful thing, not like you're able to figure that out, ever. I'm not the icebitch of the frigid north." Perhaps he was more than a little spooked from this entire experience. Perhaps he was just sick of holding things in for Rhaena or Ariane's sake when it came to Agnie. Either way, some things were slipping out, even as he followed behind.

The girl's slippered feet sink slightly into the ground. She is wearing a simple nightgown - the sleeves reach to her wrists, the neck up to her throat, and the hem drifts around her ankles. No gloves hide the delicate bronze scaling on her fingertips, no veil conceals the rather more obvious oddities - the small ridge that runs up her forehead, dissapearing into bronzed hair that is a disheveled mess at the moment. Green and bronze scales mark her forehead, edging cheeks and jaw as well.

The girl opens her eyes.

A horrified expression contorts her features as she takes in her surroundings. The reaction is almost immediate - she doubles over, vomitting. The stench alone is enough to cause such, let alone the sight of this place. And so, as she recovers, her gaze settles on the one slightly normal thing in this place - Ariane Carnath-Emory.

"Miss Emory!" The girl sounds, looks terrified. It is an expression that is not eased at all as she reads the words written on a paper (and where had that come from, anyway?), and catches sight of the knife before her. "Ariane! ..Where are we?"

"No. You're a dirt-dweller. You hang on to people's coat-tails, licking up information, trying to get other people to feed your blasted insatiable ego 'I help other people!' 'I'm a good person!' Shit, Glenn, you live in Myrken Wood, nobody can say that -- not that this is Myrken Wood. Maybe it's happening because, deep inside, you're toxic, and since you can't see it, the world is tellin' you," she pauses, looking back at him.

She's dressed in her pyjamas, but she's a little taller than Glenn is used to seeing her; her eyes have taken on a reddish tint, she smells not of soap but of a bonfire, and yet her skin is brighter, cleaner, like it's been scrubbed with angelic glitter. Her eyes are brimstone, looking one way; like clear sapphires, to the other. It depends, really, on what Glenn is saying, and right now it's brimstone.

"No. You're not. But I'll tell you something about the icebitch of the frigid north, asshole: I've seen this before." She waves the dagger. "Last time it was a dream. This time --" she looks around, taking a breath; breathing out, Glenn, have you noticed? Depending on what she's saying, whether it's kind or not, it's like she's walking around in the winter-time, with her breath dark red like the surroundings or white, like a searing winter's day. "I don't know. I'm not so sure. This is -- this is way too real. Shit. Shit!"

She shakes her head. She continues walking, for now, slowly, but walking -- will he follow? "Come on. Let's find something that looks familiar. Before I throw up on your feet for that comment."

He was about to say something in response, about to shoot back at her with very dangerous words indeed, but there wasn't a point. She had simply said that he wasn't good, not that she WAS. There was no point in telling her what she already knew, no was there?

"Yeah, if that's true, than from my viewpoint you're just as toxic as me, Agnie, maybe more so. I can only imagine what your poor Ma," who he happened to like a great deal, especially when she baked things, "what she might think if she saw you now. It's got to be proof positive of what we all already know, about where you're going," especially after what you did to Ba... damn it, Glenn. Focus here. She's right.

She was right and they had to keep moving. This felt completely real to him He followed, the ground tearing with silent screams as he walked. "We're not going to find anything familiar, I bet. You were right about something you said before. Yeah, I like information. So let's go find some."

But she's not going anywhere -- not right now; she's rounding on him as he moves forward, she's going for his neck with one hand, his shoulder with another, and damn, she's quick -- her eyes brimstone again, her breath dangerously hot --

"And where am I going, Glenn Burnie? Besides to smack your goody-two-shoes face back into las' Sunday?"

"Something's wrong."

And she murmurs this very quietly, she murmurs this without moving her lips, without speaking the words at all. In this dreaming world, the swordswoman's companion will hear the words regardless.

As for Ariane herself, she is not quite so unfortunate as the Wilder girl, for she'd arrived in this shared landscape somewhat prepared; it's a loose, long tunic of some thin linen for her, but those are sturdy leggings beneath it, and the only shame of it all is that she hadn't gone so far as to sleep with boots on. The landscape is moist and yielding beneath her hip, beneath her bare feet when she stands, and she does this almost immediately, because --

"There's something wrong with me," and this time those words are spoken for true, an uncertain accompaniment for the hand which has flattened against her chest, which has crept towards the throat and pauses some fraction short of discovering what's embedded there.

After all, just look who's standing right there.

"Hello, Rhaena," she smiles. And almost as an afterthought:

"Its begun."

Four months ago he would cowered at this. She'd seen it. Now, he was smiling, almost laughing, certainly enjoying it in his own way. "Don't look at me, Agnie. Not my beliefs. If there's a higher power out there, then I'd rather die than worship him given all the shit that I've seen in my life. You have any idea what it's like going from one place on the verge of destruction to the next for eight whole years? Any god that would allow that sort of a thing isn't for me, 'cept for to fight against. Now if YOUR god says that you go to some putrid underworld for murdering someone, well, that's your business, not mine, unless of course you think that's where we are now. Anyway, I spoke out of turn, I suppose, but only in that regard." And he would put both hands forward and try to push her off of him. "We've got to figure out what's going on, don't we? You're not going to get any answers out of my bloodied face, are you, Agnie?"

And -- she smiles a little as she pushes her off, pouts -- "Po-o-r Gwennie," she says, in a voice that imitates her sister Trudy's when she's talking to her baby. "Gwennie's had a bad life! Gwennie's mad at G-A-A-W-D! Gwennie's a fweakin' martyr! Gwennie thinks he's so much better than me! Hah! Don' play the martyr card with me, asshole. Rhaena might think it's hot, but I know better."

She throws her arms wide. "Now I know! We're in hell. We're in hell! I don't know what's worse, the smell or the fact that I have to look at you all the time. God. We woke up together. Please say I don't have to see you naked at any point this 'ternity. It's hell. It's hell! Think you're better than me, Gwennie Burnin'? You might wanna start checkin' yer conscience."

She shrieks, yelling at the sky -- "Hey, Baker! I hope you're enjoyin' your brimstone sandwich! It was worth it!"

And then, without another word, she stalks away towards the horizon, holding her stomach and looking rather ill.

It's a strange awakening; or at least, that's what it feels like. It... must be an awakening, as it's got none of the familiar facets of his usual dreams. No scent of cavern-stone, no pallid moonlight, no mountain chill to the air. Just Cinnabar Calomel, sprawled in the relaxed attitude of slumber, in the thin drawstring trousers and old shirt that make up his bedwear. His bed is soft, and warm, and comfortable. At first.

It's the smell that first presses itself upon his consciousness, and which has pale eyes flicking open, lips curling in disgust, limbs moving to bring him upright to some half-crouch before he's even aware he's moving; an almost instinctive desire to get up, get away from the source of it. Foulness, vileness, sickness that has him retching deep coughing heaves that double him over for a time; nothing to come up, though, nothing to contribute to the filth that chokes the air and land.

It takes some while to school himself to take shallow, cautious breaths, to straighten, turning with unsteady steps on moist and yielding ground that threatens to stumble him; first staring incomprehending at the vista of madness that stretches out around him, and then to the crumpled scrap of paper clutched in his fist. A few tries before the meaning sinks in, and he looks around again, for they.

A shuffled footstep brings his heel in contact with something harder, colder than this landscape of tumescent flesh, and in the next moment he's stooping to retrieve the thing, turning it this way and that in his hands, and it's only when his eyes fall upon that etched lettering that he begins to understand.

"Oh. Oh, I see."

Knife held loosely by his side, the back of his free hand against nose and lips in some futile attempt to fend off the all-pervasive stench, he looks up again and makes a more careful survey of this landscape of corruption that he finds himself in, for all that each new sight of horror brings the bile back to his throat.

Ah. Over there? Some arrangement of shapes that had at first seemed to blend in with the fleshy, pulsating terrain, but which now make more sense, now that he looks. Not something, but someone.

Careful steps in that direction, then, circling round for a better look.

They.

Yeah, that's how it generally was. You give Dominik Kaczmarek a bit like that, a bit of yourself, and he's going to use it for all its worth, for your sake, for his, to make the one equal the other. You give it to Agony? She starts tooting off like she's a six year old. Emotional maturity and all that. Glenn was just left to shake his head as he tried very, very hard to repress the urge to smack her across the back of her head.

"I'm glad to have you with me, Agnie, all things considered. I have to admit that if this is.. you know, like what you experienced before," He spoke as he walked, trying hard not to look down at what his every step seemed to wroght. "At least I have a perfect example of how NOT to end up."

"Of course something's wrong, look where we are!"

The knife is favored with a look of revulsion from the Trader girl - she does not pick up. In fact, she steps right over it, moving hurriedly closer to the swordswoman, the only relatively normal thing here.

"Something's wrong with you? What are you talking about? What has begun?" She is frantic, this girl, confused and scared. Scared enough, surely, that Ariane is actually a lovely person to be around for perhaps the first time since she's known the swordswoman.