bermuda....? ♔ and it will take you to fears you never knew

[behindcloseddoors]

♬ Vessel - Zola Jesus

WHO || Stiles, Fiona, Astrid, Lila, Drax, Snow, Phineas
WHAT || A wish goes awry and the team finds themselves lost in a world of shadow...
WHERE ||Maybe Bermuda. But not.
WHEN || April 14th, 2015 [backdated].
HOW || Actionspam. Single thread.

It started as a simple enough mission.  Travel to a remote area in Russia where an entire town had fallen from the Shadow World years ago and remained largely entrenched in the culture of that world, to check on a Russian woman who had married the local baron for her parents, who had stopped hearing from her.  The woman had expressed paranoia about her husband's behavior, and upon investigation, the party discovered why: Anya's husband, Stepan, harbored a dangerous secret that threatened not only his family, but the entire town.  Years ago, he made a dark deal with an entity who lived inside a family heirloom called a Midnight Mirror - an artifact of Loviatar used as a magical prison to punish those who offended the goddess.  Agreeing to let this entity take over his body for a year every decade, the shadowy figure helped Stepan to trap his own brothers in the mirror and take over the baronry for himself.  His marriage and the subsequent birth of his child, however, made him change his mind about following through on the next swap, and the shadowy being, angry at him for reneging on his deal, released a plague upon the local town called tallowthroat, a horrible disease wherein shadows birthed out of the inflicted's throats.  

Stepan convinced the heroes to enter the Mirror and destroy the heart of it, ending the threat to the town and freeing him of the deal once and for all.  After a fierce battle against the horrible form the Heart had taken, the Shadow Manor began to collapse, taking with it their only escape route.  Trapped and uncertain what would happen to them if they were there when the entire Manor fell apart, they made a wish on Fiona the genie, to escape to Bermuda.

Where they found themselves seems to be the beach - but they are also in a world still drained of color - trapped somewhere, perhaps, on the Shadow Plane, with no known way to return home.

Comments

[bittersweeter]

[ lila glances up at the sky, eyebrows lifting like "oh, astrid's right". ] I hadn't noticed. But I hang out in nightmares, so... [ the landscape isn't what bothers her. ]

[unlost]

[Yeah she...hadn't noticed either. She looks up, and immediately looks disturbed.]

That's kind of ominous, isn't it.

[pathology]

Right?

[bittersweeter]

There wasn't any light in the mirror either, so reason would lead that we're still stuck in that world. [ she exhales her little cloud of smoke away from the both of them before glancing at astrid, and then snow. ] Either of you know any light spells?

[pathology]

[ DAMN IT JIM I'M A DOCTOR, NOT A SORCERER.] Uh, no.

[unlost]

Maybe this will work.

[And she reaches into her bag and pulls out...a flashlight. Let's see if it turns on!]

[behindcloseddoors]

[ it... does, but the beam only extends about half as far as it should yay ]

[bittersweeter]

[ yay... once snow's flashlight is proven to work, lila pulls hers out as well. two tiny beams. well, three, because she knows astrid has one and it'll probably be out soon. ]

You know, I thought the mission with the fucking Mind Flayer was the worst? Scotland was awful. But this takes the fucking cake.

[ grumpily looks around. ]

[pathology]

[yep, astrid gets hers out next. three poorly working flashlights. yayyyy.] I almost miss Germany. Like, I don't, but I almost do.

[bittersweeter]

[ while they're kvetching, lila digs around for another candy bar because she's starving, before sweeping the beam of light further down the beach. and still finding nothing of note. (spot 10) ]

Aren't you best friends with the drunks in that town now?

[pathology]

Sort of ... there was one cute guy, and that one dad ... Franz! Shit, I wonder what happened to Franz? He's probably fine now.

[unlost]

[So lost in the midst of this conversation so she'll just...keeping looking around while they gossip. Kids...]

[bittersweeter]

[ aw so sad, she affects a deeply saddened look, but her resting bitch face comes back after a few seconds. ] Poor Franz.

[pathology]

[astrid realizes snow doesn't know this story (and thinks she might actually care???) so she decides to relay, for her benefit] In Germany like, I don't know, forever ago now, magic stopped working. And sometimes when it did, there were all these weird side effects. Franz was a guy in the bumfuck village we went to who like legit went insane trying to cast a simple spell. I talked to his dad, he was nice. I said we'd be in touch, but then there was the underground torture puzzle basement and the timewarp so that .... didn't actually happen. I'm sure he's fine. And if he's not, we're probably going to die here, so it doesn't even matter.

[unlost]

Well, maybe you can make that your first order of business when we do find a way home.

[None of the pessimism young lady.]

[pathology]

[astrid sighs in the face of ur optimism.] Yeah ... maybe.

[bittersweeter]

You can trade Adam in for Franz.

[pathology]

Um, I don't even know what he looks like! His dad was okay, in like a dad way, but that doesn't mean anything. Gunther and I don't look anything like our dad.

[bittersweeter]

How is your brother? [ still getting spontaneous boners over strange girls? ]

[pathology]

I dunno, I haven't talked to him since we went to Philly. Probably the same?

[bittersweeter]

Little lamb. [ out of the blue, she makes a frustrated noise. ] I don't even know what we're supposed to be looking for!

[unlost]

We're just scouting for now. So anything on interest, anything that could be used as shelter, getting to know what we're dealing with.

[She's not expecting to find some magical door home, basically.]

[bittersweeter]

Darkness, shadow, acid water probably. [ grumble. while they walk, she tucks her flashlight into her pocket before reaching up to unhook her necklace, pulling it out from the top of her dress. ] Come here, Red.

[pathology]

[she steps closer like werwatey???] What? Wait, oh my god, can you even call me that now that we're in a world with no color?

[/existential crisis nbd]

[bittersweeter]

Yes, your soul is red. [ putting the necklace on astrid like nbd deal with it nothing to see here. she needs her bestie to be safe, okay, she only has two, she wants to keep them both. ] Don't lose this. It's worth more than your fake college education.