Surprisingly enough, the campaign had been going fairly well. Sure, Craig had managed to defile her character notes beyond comprehension, but that was to be expected, according to the state of the place. Besides, she had a clean copy stored in her notebook, as always. Even then, her first impression of Craig wasn’t the best it could have been. The guy she sat beside however pretty nice. He actually let her ramble on in her peculiar fashion, making her take an instant liking to him. She made a note to remember to ask Alex for his sandwich recepie, or at least a few more free sandwiches, and at least half the brownies ended up in her stomach. She wasn’t much of a sushi and wasabi gal, as she found out after sampling a piece. A single bite and she was almost crying from the spice. “HOT! HOT!” It quickly ended up in the nearest trash heap, seeing as she was having difficulty tooking for an actual garbage disposal.

After this little episode, she took the chance to interact with a few of the others. Jacob was a sweetheart, and fun to chat with. They shared a couple interests, which was enough for her to hold a decently long conversation. Alex was someone who managed to match her energy, something rare for her. While she forgot to ask for his recepie, she enjoyed their banter. John and Rosemarie were interesting enough, while Nicholas seemed a bit quieter. She didn’t talk much with the other few people before returning to Soumer. Conclusion, everyone is nice, as usual.

Once Craig finished up with the newly orange stained sheets, he began with his dramatic routine. Kiarra didn’t mind much, seeing as she was fairly dramatic herself. She fidgeted in her seat, itching for the madness to begin.

“Ladies and gentlemen, let us now begin this most epic adventure!”

Only a while after Craig said that, Kiarra’s chair toppled backwards, throwing her into a random table. The bowl on top flipped over, covering her line of vision, but not before she witnessed the strange phenomina of the glowing, floating book. She stood, the thought of taking the dish not seeming to cross her befuddled mind. Not until she tripped over a toppled cabinet, that is. ...Is this house built on a fault line? Jumbled thoughts rushed through her mind before she felt herself being pulled away, though to where, she didn’t know.



A strange feeling, like her skin was fizzling. Or..his? Sliowly opening her eyes, Kiarra took in the sight. A tavern, and a mismatched bunch of characters at one of the tables. An oddly familiar bunch, really...

“Oh god. Are you kidding me?” Taken aback by the deepness of her own voice, Kiarra slowly looked down. Just as she thought. A blocky pair of hands, resting on a worn pair of work pants. “...Mackie”

Gaze roaming over the other characters, Kiarra-Mackie-almost began to wish she had made her character a bit more powerful. Then a thought occurred to her. Poiting Mackie’s fingers at the nearest table adjacent to theirs, she waggled them in its general direction. Sure enough, one of the humanoids standing there soon had their hair standing on end, small shocks running through it. Kiarra smiled deviously. “What a shocking discovery...”

Listening to the others at the table quickly reaffirmed the idea that they were all the players trapped in their character’s bodies. Most seemed to be taking the shift as expected, with shock and some anger, though someone she persumed to be John was elated at the shift. One of the characters stood, attempting to find some order in the chaos. Kiarra responded to his question with a simple “Yes.” A strange, orange creature joined them, speaking with an odd manner. A bit of the conversation reached Mackie’s ears.

“You mean the book that began floating out of nowhere? Well, that would be useful. I wonder where Craig even managed to get that book. Did he even think of opening it to check it out before the actual campaign? Speaking of Craig, where the hell did he go?” She paused, a thought crossing her mind. “Perhaps he set this all up, somehow? He seemed like the type of person to do so, even if he thought it was a joke.”

---

---

The medieval tavern that our transformed adventurers found themselves in was a congregation of chatter and cheer the likes of which their old world had never seen. Dozens upon dozens of fantastical creatures mingled with each other, most humanoid in shape and some defying description. Their conversations were like barrels of oil and water being emptied into the same melting pot over and over again, clashing and twisting and turning in a mess of color and noise. Just what had they gotten themselves into?

The second floor of the spacious tavern was much smaller due to the presence of an indoor balcony. There, quieter and more controlled conversations could be seen and not heard. You could only speculate on what sorts of tense agreements and discussions were happening above. Well, you could probably guess one of them, considering a man´s had just crashed into the floor above them.

However, two voices could be heard among the hundred around. A pair of men in ridiculous clothing stood directly apart from each other in a display of confrontation. They looked like someone had stared at paintings of corny fantasy wizards for hours and then had tried to paint them from memory while on acid. The fatter one, the color and shape of a bloated toad, was the first to raise his volume even further.

"How many times must I say that MY essence magic is the greatest in all the land!" he proclaimed, chest puffed out in pride. The previous fat toad analogy only strengthened at this. His rival, a wiry tower of a man wearing two separate monocles, let out a sneer. His robe trailed on the ground and looked like repurposed neon roadkill. In fact, that was probably what it was.

"Hah! YOUR essence magic!? Never in a hundred years could it ever be as grand as mine! Face it, the mages of Insertacountrynameheria are nothing but a SHAM to the magic arts!" The man crossed his lanky limbs in a manner that could be described as "folding chair-esque" and pierced into his opponent´s beady eyes. The people that were in their proximity quickly scurried to the sidelines to either get away from their mess or have a better viewpoint. Vampires, elves, catgirls, ghosts, circus clowns, warriors and many more made way for their approaching scuffle. The minor god of shouting Worldstar when a fight is about to happen butted in.

"Worldstar!" he shouted.

Our brave heroes were in a tucked in corner of the tavern and could only make out the traces of tension in the air. That and, another minor god had taken interest in them and possibly even their snacks. A rational person would have pointed out that the shock from having switched bodies was far more important than either of these two problems, but rationality in this world didn´t exist, unless one was referring to the obscure branch of magic consisting of repeatedly scratching oneself.

John was tuning out the vast amount of irrelevant noise and confused chatter. He had to control his power, the flow of it was something that he could feel inside him now. It would be difficult to control it for a little while and he would likely need quiet to meditate and focus on practicing. Unfortunately, quiet was not something that this tavern offered. But, for now, he was focusing on two things to the exclusion of all others. The first was his control. The other, the efforts and words of the person in the group who was of greatest interest to him.

"It is illogical to reject sensory information that has been repeatedly confirmed as well. I've thought about this kind of possibility before. Though, it was idle speculation at its best." He replied to Rosemarie's first statements with deliberate calm. He liked remaining methodical, but he was also buying time to recall his character design and specialization... and their implications. "To answer your question about skills... this character is a pure caster with a couple different kinds of spells with a focus on mastering a small group of persistent pets. In the long term, this character has no power ceiling and the pets don't have one either."

This character was also inherently capable of infecting the ecosystem with essence powered monsters in a chain-reacting storm of magically empowered evolution. But, he wasn't too eager to mention that part just yet. So, he paid attention to Rosemarie's attempt to use her own character's magic. It was far from the unintended and immature outburst that had been his first experience. She actually achieved some moderate success... and then she crashed to the floor. John found his new state of being to be rather impulsive. He had already stood and reached down to grasp her arm and help her up before he realized suddenly that he was not nearly as strong as he was used to being. This was driven home by his awareness that he had failed to help her up and had instead only managed to pull himself down to the floor, kneeling beside her in mildly stunned silence with a subtle hint that he may have bruised his knees.

"This... is going to be a challenge... and... we've already attracted some attention." He had finally noticed the visitor at their table. Whatever it was, it was far from being anything comparable to them. He turned to this new addition to their local patch of the growing chaos with a discerning eye. "Pardon our... distraction. My name is Jo.." He paused and smiled bitterly. "Fardur... Fardur Nearsigt. Would you care for... a snack?"

Testicules had opted to stand outside of the tavern and stylishly puke for a bit, resulting in a shocking yet unsurprising sight. Rows of small wooden buildings meshed with one another messily and with no sense of order. Villagers that were few in number strolled through the dusk. Their walking was quiet and quick, a small sign that lingering outside during the night would be a bad idea in this world. The general effect of both the land around him and the hundreds of stars in the sky was one of wonder.

Amidst the rapidly approaching curtain of night a certain lone individual could be seen wandering about, as if in a trance. Glimpses of their silhouette could be faintly made out at the appearance of a torch wielding guard doing his usual rounds. It was hard to tell exactly who this person was. Gradually though, they approached Testicules. A brief period of sniffing followed.

"You. You are one of them. The smell of spices not of this world lingers on you."

She was some sort of humanoid, with her delicate face being swallowed up on both sides by a messy mop of brown hair and a garment that looked more like a trenchcoat than anything resembling medieval outerwear. Her monotone and serious voice gave off a feeling of restraint. The uppermost button of her clothing wrapped snugly along her chin and did funny things to her enunciation skills. "Follow me, intruder. The protection of you and your companions is vital."

The general state of affairs from within the tavern was approaching a point where it could only be described using exotic curse words and comic book onamotopoeia noises for every time someone had their spinal cord rearranged. In the old world, the most intense fuel that could keep a fight going was either functional alcoholism or poor life decisions, both which tended to limit the possible outcomes substantially. This world had chair mimics and bartenders who required a valid killing liscence to receive employment, so fights were understandably a more colorful affair. The strange woman slammed the doors open to make a statement and then exhaled a sigh of resignation at having failed to garner any attention whatsoever. Her hands darted to the enormous handles to do it again but then stopped at having developed a better idea.

She calmly and neatly detached her head, revealing herself to be a dullahan, which in this world wasn't too much of a surprise. A quiet incantation escaped her lips, one that Testicules could've sworn sounded like her saying "Kobe". In one swift movement, she flung her head like a basketball player and had it crash land onto the pile of snacks.

"Hello, I am Miska, head mage of the council of stability." muttered her head, causing a mild snap to the table's aged wood with the force of its impact.

She licked dorito fragments that had sprayed on her lips and continued to speak as if nothing had happened.

"This is a dire warning to all of you not from this world. Your aura and scent is detectable and you are all in grave danger. The council of stability, located seven buildings to the left, will offer answers to your no doubt endless multitude of questions. Not eight buildings to your left, as that is a domesticated house mimic. Not six buildings to the left, as that is a family bar and grill." Her dainty head scanned around to make sure she was being listened to.

"Additionally, I will ask that one of you reattach my head to my body, which is currently flailing around the entrance unless your skeletal companion has decided to stabilize it. I wish to return to the council, and require assistance."

****Rosemarie/Lady Evadne****

Rubbing at her hip knowing she is going to have a bruise there later, smiling softly as she grabs John's hand "Thanks, Guess all of us have some practicing to do with our new talents" shifting to her knees as she places her hand on his shoulder when he ends up kneeling in front of her instead. She leans back on her feet letting out a heavy breath and chuckles finding the moment funny "We aren't going to be much in a fight if all of us keep falling to the ground." her eyes studying over the room at everyone else slowly coming to terms with what's happening.

Standing up she wipes at her clothes and offers out her hand this time to help John up, wanting to test out the other skills she had wrote up for her character "Do you guys think we should stay here or try looking outside the building?" blinking as a head flies through the room and lands on their table, causing a crack to move through it from the impact. She stares at the head then moves towards the body standing in the doorway and slowly back to the head as it talks about knowing they are not from this world "Council of Stability?" glancing at John before moving closer to the table and leaning over to study the head "Miska, right? I'm Ro...Lady Evadne" frowning as she tries to remember what kind of creature or rather person Miska is, snapping her fingers as it finally comes to her whispering to herself 'dullahan, cool.' Standing up straighter at the mention of someone helping put her head back on her body, Rosemarie's eyes widen at the thought but slowly reaches out with her hands gently grabbing her head "This is.." trailing off as she unsure what she even trying to say.

She carries over the head keeping it as far from her as possible being reminded of a zombie game she played one night, when she couldn't fall asleep, on her computer and had kicked around the heads of the dead zombies. "Here" attempting to set Miska's head in her body's hands. Glancing around the room at everyone, her eyes slowly returning back to Miska making sure everything is good with her head before returning back to her seat whispering to John 'That was freaky'

As Theresa continued her quiet little freakout, many things she could barely comprehend and certainly barely cared about occurred around her. There was some weird creature joining them at the table, some wizard people were yelling about magic and something else was telling about a "worldstar", and to top it all off, someone had just thrown their own head onto their table. It was like sensory overload on steroids which had been injected with acid which had been laced with amphetamines. It was so much that Theresa felt herself slipping into a state of numb shock, unable to muster greater and greater levels of surprise and bafflement to the point she doubled back into a sort of apathy. What the heck could she say or do about this that would mean anything?

However, when the head on their table began to speak, Theresa was almost glad to hear what it had to say. Not that it was especially pleasing in of itself, but at the very least, someone had come to them to offer them a clear line of action. Between everyone else being mystified as to what was happening, and the general uncertainty of the whole situation, Theresa was keen to acquire some answers. "So, um-" She caught herself as she raised her voice, still highly unaccustomed to the deeply masculine sound of it. "I think we should go to the council thingy. They have answers, I want answers. IthinkI'mdefinitelygoingtothecouncilthingymyself." The last sentence was spat out rapid fire out of a mix of anxiety and eagerness to get going. She really wanted someone who knew what the heck they were talking about to explain every last misbegotten detail about this ridiculous world they had found themselves in. If nobody was about to stop her, she was going to just dash right over to the building Miska had directed them to.

To be honest it was a veritable sensory overload.

Not a single familiar face in sight. It was just a slew of demi-humans, archetypically dressed individuals and stuff that was downright alien to her breadth of experiences. She would have been fascinated were it not for the unfortunate fact that she was caught directly in the middle of it all as one of the more unusual creatures in an already unusual gathering. With everyone talking over one another, even creatures from the surrounding taking interest in them and adding their two cents, it wasn't feasible for parse everything that was going on let alone respond to any part of it individually.

"This... Can't be real. It's clearly a psychotropic hallucination." She confirmed to nobody in particular. Others seemed to denounce the possibility that this wasn't real but she couldn't even confirm if they themselves were real. She believed her mind was projecting personalities that were familiar to her onto ideas likely born from the character designs that were brought in, all tossed up in the subconscious stew of collective ideas inseminated into her by the media she regularly ingested like so many others.

She simply crossed her arms and closed her eyes. If this was all a delusion then she needed to remain grounded lest she hurt herself through involuntary motions born of perceived actions made in this hallucinatory trap. Such would have been fine too except there was still that continued hissing noise directly beneath her. Little had she known the acidic properties of her slime had been well at work on the wooden floor ever since she manifested. She suddenly felt herself lurch back with the sound of wood snapping, jarring her out of her little attempt at returning to the reality she knew. The snap was followed in a chain reaction by the sudden cracking sound which resulted from the floor giving out beneath her, bits of acid-bitten wood showering down beside her as she plummeted.

_
Hitting the ground with a splat she quickly collected herself in the literal sense of the term, her form naturally forming back up into a humanoid shape given how it's the most familiar shape for her to assume. The world appeared to be swimming as her eye-spots swam about, quickly shuffling back where they belonged on her head. She reached up and gripped her wobbly designated head to try and alleviate that feeling that had taken hold of her since she arrived. The closest comparison she could liken it to would be sea sickness, that queasy feeling one gets like their insides are swimming about anytime their body's motion and their perceived motion is disconnected from one another.

Once she had her bearings about her she looked around at her sudden change in surroundings. It appeared she was now in the cellar given how she was surrounded by large casks. Beyond that she could see little given the lack of light sources below. Beyond the beam of light pouring down from the tavern's main floor she could see little past the darkness. She could, however, hear the delicate clattering of claws through vibrations such sounds produced across her skin. She could even hear the tremors of these movements through the surface she rested upon, able to pinpoint their locations with relative accuracy.

"Um... Hey, everyone?" She asked up to the opening in the hopes her peers were near enough to hear her.

"It's kind of dark down hear and I think I hear... Rats?" She was guessing at what these sounds might of been. The clattering was loud even for rats however. Whatever it was was a fair bit bigger than a simple sewer rat. Worse yet the idea of confronting such vermin sent a chill up her spineless back. Despite her fascination with things often regarded as disturbing or strange by many she was no less revolted by these things when personally confronted with them.

An unfortunate fascination indeed.

@DarkHuntress, @A Lowly Wretch

John simply watched and listened. This world had rules. However, the nature of those rules was almost completely unknown. It was pointless to try and make sense of it all right now. When the creature across the table gave no indication of having heard him, he turned his eyes to "Lady Evadne" as she described the situation as "freaky". She was right. She was also proving to be remarkably resilient, mentally. John felt a mild admiration that faded quickly into analytical calm as he looked at the floor, or rather the hole in it, and replied to Rosemarie.

"Freaky indeed. But, before we decide what to do as a group... we should try to get the group back together again, if we can."

He sighed as he moved his weak body to the edge of the hole and looked down, listening for the slime. Clearly, for all the adaptability of her new form, she lacked the ability to suspend her assumptions and accept the world around her. It was indeed dark down there and John could hear something moving around. He had a sinking feeling that the slime girl was right, Craig was that uninspired. Then again, the sinking feeling might have something to do with the structural damage that the slime girl had caused on her way through the floor.

"How far down is it?" He murmured as he felt around the edge of the hole for a loose enough bit of wood.

Finding one, he dropped it under the lip of the hole and listened for the sound of the impact. He was trying to not hit the girl, Cynthia... if he recalled. The delay was notable. It was probably at least fifteen feet, a ridiculous depth for a mere cellar. If there was an actual dungeon zone underneath this tavern... it would make retrieving the corrosive slime girl... difficult.

"Cynthia? That was your name, right? At the risk of tripping a flag and falling prey to numerous TV tropes... Hold still! I'm gonna try somethin'!" While he was trying to be reassuring, with a bad combination of a fake British accent mixed with a south-central American one, he was also lying down on the dirty tavern floor and extending his hand down into the hole and trying to concentrate on how it felt right before had charred the table. He saw the faint glow of flickering flames around his hand and concentrated on trusting his body to know how to do what he had in mind. The flames moved away from the back of his hand, only slightly singing the sleeve of his robe, and gathered below his palm. The ruddy light from it was still too faint to illuminate much more than a candle. So, he loosed it. The Fire Bolt seemed to leap from his hand toward the floor below, impacting with a dull flash a few feet away from Cynthia. In that faint flash, he saw several pairs of glittering eyes and shapes about the size of a medium dog.

"I can't get down there from here and my character's magic doesn't include levitation. All I can do is try to cover you from here with fire!" Then he had a thought and his eyes squeezed shut as he gathered his determination. This would be risky. "I'll try to send down some help! Just... don't panic and remember what that body did to the floor! The rats aren't going to want to eat that!"

Pulling himself away from the hole and up to a kneeling position, Fardur Nearsigt took a deep breath. His hands began to glow a pale and unpleasant green and tendrils of glowing green fluid extended from the skin of his hands, waving about as though searching for something. "Stay clear for a minute..." He said quietly, to everyone and no-one. Then he began.

The tendrils twisted around each other until they formed a ball of pulsing ooze that floated between his hands, a few inches above the floor. The ball grew in size as a few minutes passed and a small shape began to grow inside it, a shape with oddly jointed legs and a spiked outer body. It grew until it was about the size of an obese Chihuahua. Then the glow became brighter before suddenly fading as the ball burst and dissolved into a mess of glowing droplets that sunk into Fardur's hands as well as his clothes and the floor. In the space where it had been was a twitching bug with a spiked shell and a mean disposition. This last was demonstrated by the fact that John was barely able to dodge its attempt to stab his hand with a claw.

"So I can make them but they don't start off liking me, eh..." He said wryly. Then his head tipped to the side for a moment and he suddenly turned around and kicked backward, knocking the Spiky Beetle just hard enough for it to slip into the hole and fall. After he heard it impact, he returned to the edge of the hole and fired another Fire Bolt into the floor, between the slime and the fallen bug to deter it from venting its anger on her. "Don't bug the bug and it'll probably go after the rats! You need to focus on finding a way back up here!" He called down, wishing that he hadn't forgotten to include a simple light spell in his character's spell list.