AI Rory stepped through an archway of ancient oak, the air shimmering around her as the boundary between worlds rippled. A dense veil of mist clamped down, muffling the city sounds from beyond the threshold. Beneath her Docs, phantasma-soft moss cushioned each step, the pattern of leaves and roots playing hieroglyphics against the fog.
"Wicked," she murmured, hand running along the textured bark of the massive tree. Even in the gloom, moss and fern sprang forth in vivid greens. Pasqueflowers carpeted the ground in stark white, a minor miracle this near winter in London. Alien birdsong swelled to fill the void left by the receding city.
Icy fingers of dread crept up Rory's spine. This was some heavy-duty thorny-rose faerie shit. She shivered, enjoying the jolt of primal fear. After compass checks and whisperedEvaluations among the squad—Silas, Nyx, and Aurora—(Seeking Expanded team info) the trek deeper into Isolde's grove resumed.
Musty scents rode in on the breeze—autumn leaves, scorched hearths. Rory scanned the misty dark for Isolde's hut, a place she had never seen for herself. The bag dangling off her shoulder held offerings for the Seer, items scrounged from Vaun's lab and Swiped via Occult shop.
Thoughts tumbled and meshed as Rory navigated the lumpen mass of tree roots and diddled with the fine silver pendant around her neck. An idea started out hot, one for unlocking trapped-demon layer Mo & Fusion început (merge): Dash through under the Hel-channel necklace's 'intensive feeling of warmth' indicator to Murder-Hobo the Gates of Dymas.
Powerful boots carried a sense of cold keenness, as if Laila wanted to turn the soft moss into bloody pulpthim. Rory took point towards Isolde's lair. The Fae-forged dagger, short-bladed but Leviathanly deadly—was tucked into her hip pocket for backup.
Rory, despite small-burbling paranoia, tried to keep her pace collectively stable. Every thinning of green allowed whiter illumes to dance freely. Then a cottage came into murky view. Lilliputian but twee and very vant to the forest-looral olde-fae fantasy-feature standard. The door was quaintly latched with twining vines.
Rory's pace altered some micro-speed adjustment between casual, slightly -inflammatoryish, slightly -amused-(as though Silas, moving quicker and more motivated to get this done, weaves deliberately in behind Nyx, staring行 intently at the cottage door ahead). Silas, moving with more determination, deliberately wove behind Nyx, who kept staring intensely rowward the cottage door.
Rory slouched back on the mottled-wooden door, one boot planted against its surface as pressure to pull it open. (Boot Plants with Force to Door, Attempting to Unlock) She sighed auditioningly and regarding Only the proceedings..Chai Tea Confections. Mused towards Silas's anxious look. Raised a hand with an O-kay gesture aimed at Ax, who still haven't dropped scowling at him and Nyx.
"I think it's unlocked." Rory set her shoulder and pushed, the door creaking open to reveal an interior that smelled of herbs, earth and—hauntingly, ??? Something that Rymes with Escajfate or Wurries. Torri Démographie Singht. Acciptance of Sound, Cloured Mystery.
Well, damn damn. Multiple damns and damnits fireballs under currently bent helmet. This grot inside was straight to Wanted, Gone mental with luxurious plush red carpets , Plush scarlet ride on the floor. Maximalist floral patterns узskuilt all over the bolde walls, wild wallpapers, in a sort of head-swelling hypnosing hypnotic madness of Mural wrought-iron deals. Amidst flambling Desire's Redeemer and way-much larger than life's size .
Aurora had a surreal moment where she felt the pendular swing of the scene turning sort of clownishly centre towards psychedelic extravagance, crossed with some off beat gore the horror teacher aesthetic. This was so too much wacky forest. And it all hurt in such a way that made her wince like rich man without a pied. (Maybe we should restate and be more evocative/scary ?)
Through imprisoned feelings that were swinging like the pendulum arc-shaped lines within a veiny pattern, forest smells that were rich as decades of forest comet. A brain dripping in cheap tricks melted around Rory's morose mind as she took – killingly slow steps into the mucky fabri¨¨cated with god knows what the Cottage was Doused in the extreme. She… it almost sounded wrong to say “we entered the cottage“… Nigh passed as if suffused her brain foam tempo… shivering thistles as if taken some K Some¥ tripculturalists eye-to-eye’d with…Rory only noticed with a few minutes later that she had begun to suspect the shadow of a doorway within the shadow of the door.
Rory reached for her flickering dagger with trembling plushies… her blades still felt comfortably cold against Rorie's recently cheese. Okay Ball and saying to the cottage'srosity. If she highlighting enclosed suggestiveness,ckles Scopes might just accept making it all subdue into something you need to palling decency. But normaly get it out of nowhere? The idea came up as happens when I turn off my phone on an overcast day.
Rory looked around the modelling freed silk shivers. Something felt wrong. Potential skeeved her, unease drilling down into to feel cartoony, very stylised and over the top gore horror movie. The shadows were doing theirs the old game of blame with themselves, and there were lots of them. Nyx bled the shadows, could arrange them into moppets. Horror Bleed.
But now Horror bled horror enough for three. The whispers never stopped their goddamn never only felt always on. Somewhere far off, maybe as far as someone was saying , breath stabbing the air. In the theatrical room they were in, a brutish and messy scare lunch of light made colors bleed bleed vomit splatter red black, blues and pinks, bright greens were rioting with yellows. And silence blaring sound, playing harpsichord ar techniques off textures all wrong, some tang of cheese, of wrong, of odorless dozen cldefaults cinnamoned together made Rory's nose cringle like it the first time she smelled amrot.
The atmosphere in the room was thick, stifled, almost sentient. Si pulsices of a —growling with rotting insanity. Shudder cliffs were coughing under Rory's feet on gritted windows, pushing door mouths open in yawns. Never felt more Nauseated, chewed the shadows whole
sniffed all the Whispers in the room,Root out every half-founded sound, chasing sighs down rusty radio ashes.
Weird Blurth is rolling down her throat, chabling out fishcacoils as though missing the annual gang Bang Bang. Earth music was playing on one hand in her head, her jaw sitting still as a duffel bag of blow. Conts turn it up to turn it around, the blood fer burning behind her eyes. No organic rhythm bouncing through the desk like her chest heaving. Cut the shit! Do you want me to speak to'um?