Attis

Persona: Crossroads

I was born in a thunderstorm, I grew up overnight.
I played alone, I played on my own,
I survived.

---

---

You raised your knife as you felt something rush in front you, prepared to shove it into the target and finally start to really defend yourself. But once you saw what or rather, who it was you snapped it to your side, the color draining from your face. Miyoshi. Oh god. Oh god- you could have stabbed her! Your knees started to shake at the thought.

"Sir, Fujisawa, are you two fine?"

A weak nod was all you could manage at first, but you eventually muttered an ‘I’m sorry’ as you rubbed at the scratches on your arms. Your workout shirt had been torn at the sleeves where you had guarded, the thin material offering you absolutely no protection whatsoever. Bloody and already tired from the chaos, you chose to check if your barricade had worked instead of helping with the fight.

But… what he had to say took you a bit off guard. Your English wasn’t the worst, but it certainly was limited so it took you a moment to gather a retort.

“< Ninja? Is that a joke? I- >“

A squelching sound interrupted your train of thought and caused you to jump and duck behind Miyoshi again, your heartbeat almost drowning out the sound of laughter around you. Your stomach gave a sick twist as vines started to burst through human form, sprouting flora and creating their own image. Roots similarly had grabbed the rest of you before and, these only looked slightly different. If they really did have a mind of their own, would you all be bound and broken again? What if the wisps never came for you this time?

A fresh wave of air and a thud behind you caused you to spin on a heel once again, tearing you from your thoughts.

The man behind you had collapsed and, for a moment it was easier to not think about you for once. After all, must have been the most affected by all of this. It was likely he had been trapped in this awful place by himself for well over a night, listening to those voices for who knows how long. You knew what it was like to be locked up and scared, all on your own. To do that in a place like this? You couldn’t imagine it.

“ < Hey- it’s going to be alrig- >” you said, tucking a knife into your other hand so you could rest a hand on his shoulder and try to comfort, if that were even possible at this point. But before you could get the chance he was ripped away, pulled into the depths of the hospital, far faster than you could run to grab him. You watched on in horror, eyes wide.

No.

No you were done with this. You were done just watching, hiding, cowering. Pulling the knife from your belt you drove both into the face of one of the flowers, watched the ink spill from it before jamming it into the screaming creature again, trying to ignore the human tones in its screams. If that’s what they were going to do to people, then you didn’t care-

You’d cut them down.

“Let’s go!” you barked, lurching forwards as a vine shot up to grab your wrist. A flower’s face popped up from the corpse, its smile wicked before you slammed the knife down into it’s eye, successfully relinquishing its grip. “They aren’t hard to break down! Just watch out for those vines!”

---

---

I'm still breathing, I'm still breathing
I'm alive.

Persona: Crossroads

@BrassOtter :D !!!!

Persona: Crossroads

:U I'm back from vacation, so if anyone has any questions ect I can definitely help

Persona: Crossroads

VACATION!!!! Okay guys, I'm gonna be kind of useless for like 2 days just as a warning. After that though, I should find time to post again!

points at @BrassOtter a lot!
Do not forget! This is your dungeon, broseph of dreams. You have temporary pseudo-gm status in the way that you can MAKE SHIT HAPPEN. It is your crazy awful nightmare funhouse. Just be cool, don't kill anybody's characters unless that's what they really, really want, and don't do anything crazy like burn down hades.

If you find this power scary, it's ok. I have faith in you. Also, you can elect not to use your powers. That's cool too.

Everyone respect Otter. Otter is good.

** Another reminder **
Start thinking of your character's dungeons funhouses and what their biggest nightmare would be like. Just saying. Go look up Salvador Dali Paintings for inspiration. Get funky and jot down notes.

@Crimmy It's ok bruh we won't forget you.

Persona: Crossroads

I was born in a thunderstorm, I grew up overnight.
I played alone, I played on my own,
I survived.

---

---

‘Where did you get those bruises?
How did you break this bone?
Are you okay?
Do you feel safe at home?’

To you, hospitals had always been more like interrogation rooms. You always gave the same, safe answers because hell if you were going to be any better off if they talked to him about it. It was just better to keep your head down. Say you fell off your bike or nailed your arm on a table.

Maybe that’s why you preferred the hospital looking this way. It being covered in vines and in a disarray was enough for you to disengage. Except for that awful smell that only hospitals seemed to have. That stench coupled with the putrid odor of rotting flesh made it pretty hard to ignore. It only grew in potency as the charge towards the screams drew to a close.

And oh god, how do you even begin to process that?

It was one thing to think about stabbing a human. Even to plan it. But to actually do it? Your hands shook. Sure, they looked more akin to the zombies from your sister’s horror games, but the way they walked, the way pained rattles came from their throats was too close, too real. You watched Izuki’s fist bust open one of their skulls, black blood dripping down her arm. How fast had she moved to get over there? It felt like it had only been a few seconds. You blinked again and then Taro was right alongside her, spear and persona ready, his words garbled and unintelligible.

Right. Do something. Just raise your arms and do something.

“Hermes- Rakukaja!”

Nothing happened.

Why? Why!? You’d done just fine yesterday! Why was this any different? You watched as the people, creatures, zombies- what ever they were started to close in. You tried again, nothing. You knew it isn’t going to work. They drew closer, cornering you from each direction. Shit...!

Glancing over your shoulder you tried to speak but your throat was dry as cotton. Oh, of course. You were too weak to even ask for help, weren’t you? Fine.

Taking a wide stance, you covered the really tall guy’s back so nothing could attack him from behind. You raised your arms over your chest and face, trying to remember to breathe. Even if you were useless in every other way, you at least knew how to get hit right.

---

---

I'm still breathing, I'm still breathing
I'm alive.

Persona: Crossroads

I should be posting later... if not tonight then tomorrow sometime after I'm done migrating. :0 no one wait on me though. I'm gonna be busy packing and stuff... vacation...

Persona: Crossroads

@BrassOtter OKAY. THE TIME IS NOW. You may MAKE THE POST.

everyone else should wait until Otter posts the thing
and then let the first dungeon begin I suppose!

Persona: Crossroads

And so with the consensus it would be best to save the person in question, a fair number of you agreed to meet up again tomorrow in order to retrieve them from the underground from where the wisp supposedly hailed. You all agreed on the time to be about six o clock tomorrow at the city’s central terminal, a little before the time stops usually occurred.

As the train continued to make it’s loop it stopped at each of it’s stops as per usual, the frozen passengers unharmed by the violence it had suffered. It wasn’t until the train had returned back to the point where time had frozen initially that they, and the rest of the city, came back to life once more. Nightfall finally came, and the city returned to it’s last hustle and bustle before some of its residents started to sleep. Others, worked into late hours, unaware of the events that had transpired.

As the next day approached, you all met up at the terminal and once again stepped on to the town loop together. Sure enough, the moment each member of the team had entered the vessel time seemed to halt and, so did all of the other passengers inside.

The wisp flitted to the front of the train, repeating its actions from the day before. Sitting at the control panel he closed his eyes in concentration, focusing hard until the panel started to glow a bright blue. The vessel began to move forward, slow at first before achieving its regular bullet speed. But as it plunged into the underground railway it began to rock slightly as if it had been slid off of it’s tracks and lodged into water.

---

The River Styx

When it left the tunnel, it no longer surfaced into the lazy sunset of the city, but bottomed out into a rather dark, wide enclosure. Rows of dagger like stalactites hung from the ceiling like giant candelabra, their image reflected in the great pool below. It was if the vessel was sailing over a great pointed castle that rippled underneath them. The halls of the kingdom were narrow and jagged with barely enough room to slip past without scraping the hull of the tunnel.

The passengers continued to sleep, their lives still in stasis as they were taken through the halls of this dark realm.

“I… I think they went this way,” the wisp said, taking the left path as they came to a fork in the river. The front of the vessel tipped forward and slowly but surely dipped down into the dark waters, fully submerging into inky black nothingness. With only the glow from the little blue dot and console, they continued on like this for quite some time. Despite the train not being made for any sort of water travel it remained strong, taking in no water during it’s maiden voyage into the deep.

---

The Gates of Horn and Ivory

Eventually the makeshift ship resurfaced into a large, domelike cave enshrouded in a dreamlike blue light that emanated from an opening at the top of it’s farthest wall. Harsh shadows poured over rocks protruding from black waters as thin, tendril like vines reached to coat their surfaces. Thicker vines lined the walls until almost no surface was left untouched by wooden coils. Some sprouted from the middle of the lake to form a great bridge made of bark and vine, as if a tree had grown from the water especially for their purposes.

The bridge reached to meet the bottom of a long path that snaked upwards to reach the source of the light. At the foot of the trail, a set of gates made of ram’s horn stood high, held open by thick, limb sized roots. Its lock sat discarded nearby, broken into two pieces. Meanwhile, a series of statues guarded the gates, each with it’s back turned to the other ones.

The first stood to the front, facing towards the lake. It was a humanoid figure of a man with robotic joints that wore a large harp like instrument on its back, strings very much real and made of silver. The statue’s eyes were closed serenely, as if it were locked in a deep slumber. To its side, facing away towards a wall was a similar looking statue but where its thighs began roots made of stone began to grow, adhering it to the floor below. In it’s hands it held an orb of made of waves and in the other, one of earth.

The third and final statue stood to greet visitors at the gate. Unlike it’s closest brother, its stone eyes were wide open and filled with insatiable rage. His gloved hands were clenched at his sides, dripping with a red water that was too thin to be blood.

“… I brought some things for everyone- just in case,” the white haired male said, inspecting the dripping coming from the statues palm warily before setting the cello case he had been carrying with him onto the floor. Propping it open with shaky hands revealed he had been carrying a myriad of different types of weapons that had been strapped to the inside. He took two large butcher knives and left the rest of the assortment to the others, waiting before scaling the height of the stairs.

The brightness of the opening was blinding, so much so that it was hard for him, or anyone else to see through until emerging onto the other side.

---

The Tree of False Dreams

An ancient tree towered in the middle of a vast field of golden grass, reaching up to meet what looked like to be an endless white sky. Leafless branches stretched out into the void to create an almost canopy-like covering. Its roots extended across three distinct pathways leading in separate directions.

To each of the trees sides were pathways marked with the red water that had been dripping from the statues fingers moments before. Tiny red seeds scattered each pathway, leading to smaller, more bent and broken looking trees. Their bodies twisted unrealistically, as if they had been formed of three separate entities. Knotholes in the tree bodies looked like mouths in mid scream, the faint outlines of heads in the bark barely noticeable from far away.

The third path however, remained clear of markings or seeds. It wound over to the top of a hill where a building that looked distinctly like a large hospital stood against the backdrop of the sky. Vines had begun to grow from the building, spilling out of its windows and into the field below. A quick scan revealed that the inhabitant that they were searching for was inside the building, still breathing. Still alive. But they were being attacked by monsters as they spoke.

Making a mad dash down the trail, they managed to smash open the glass doors to the building. Once inside, they began to hear a voice speak overhead, the sounds of a struggle and finally a scream.

---

---

Persona: Crossroads

A reminder that #Carmengheddon starts before 3am *EST today.

Persona: Crossroads

@DJAtomika

EEEHEHEHEH. I'm really glad you like him... successful mascot character is a go. Excited to see where the little fella goes honestly... All of these characters man... Can't wait to see some of their shit unfold.