Mokley

RATTLECHOMP

Neomi looked pleadingly at the other girl and began to run. Her feet felt like lead, but somehow, they still moved quickly after Echoh into the next train car. She didn’t want to dare watch as Toni tried to save Yiya and kept her eyes on the moving terrarium — just as instructed.

@Mole

Echoh crashed through the door to the next traincar, leaving a mangled mass of metal and splintered wood for Neomi to navigate in its wake. The terrarium jostled violently while Echoh's sharp legs scrambled over seats and clattered in the aisle, flickering with the broken red lights that crackled overhead. With every flash of light, more shadows loomed outside the windows, their eyes like hollow caverns.

A crash of glass shattered across the seats far ahead, and the terrarium skidded to a clamoring stop while a billowing gust of sweet-smelling wind roared through the traincar.

Something dark sailed neatly through the jagged remains of the window and landed with a taptaptap on the glass of the terrarium. It was a child-sized four-legged thing that drifted in and out of Neomi's sight, its four long wings striking out and in again. There was a shrieking sound of claws on glass and the robot shook and danced to try to shake it off.

Echoh reached underneath-- and Neomi could now see the trap door on the underside of the robot --pulled out the steaming hot teapot and tossed it at the creature, but the Rue was unaffected and the gusting wind threw scalding tea throughout the traincar.

Slowly, Toni stepped over debris and through a shallow pool of the train driver's blood. She took a smooth, deep breath. "Let her go," she spoke, mostly in stern tone, as though ordering the Rue like a misbehaving child.

@Wayward

Back in the first car, the silken Rue with a head of spinning gold lifted Yiya by her throat with long sharp fingers. Blood had begun to soak the old woman's saree. But at the stern command the gold bands of the creature's head spun to focus on Toni, its jaws sharp and grinning.

The Rue lifted Yiya so that her feet thunked against the top of the seats while the Rue slipped forward along the aisle toward Toni. Toni could feel it, blistering cold, gooseflesh down her arms and prickling the back of her neck, like frozen metal in an ice storm.

Her finger hesitated on the trigger, a sinking feeling in her stomach telling her that her weapon wouldn’t stop this thing. Wouldn’t kill it. Instead she turned away from its torso and pointed the gun at its elbow instead, aiming at the inside bend of its outstretched limb and firing a shot into it.

@King Cosmos

BANG!

The shot rang out through the train and echoed in the shining chamber beyond the windows, where the shadows and apparitions flinched with the thunderous noise. The arm that held Yiya shattered with the impact, the gold-banded Rue collapsed backward and dissipated into the air (only Sadie would hear its unearthly, soul-wrenched scream like a thousand nails on a chalkboard) and Yiya crumpled against the back of a chair and rolled into the seat, unmoving, with a few limbs bent in ways they should not bend. She was breathing, but would not wake.

She rushed ahead and stopped when she saw a group of people, one holding a revolver towards something Sadie couldn't see. Gulping, she looked around and raised a brow. "The hell is going on around here?!"

@Sadie

A thousand hollow eyes stared in through the windows. Beyond the shivering gray shapes, the Golden Cathedral sparkled like the halls of a mansion, glittering with a mockery of bright gold and marble in the shape of stalactites and dripping cavern walls striped with precious metal. The light outside was beckoning, like a flame to moths.

They might hear the scuffle and crash of Echoh and Neomi in the next car.

Sadie alone would hear a hissing, almost electronic voice like steel through a spinning fan, that came from everywhere and nowhere: give it back

Sasha and Toni would see the mist of silky vestments, then the rise of the reappearing spin of golden bands and sharp teeth emerging out of the air behind Sadie's back. Its left arm was gone, but, as she felt a thread of tickling cold in her chest, it leaned close behind Sadie's ear, with the same chopped hissing voice that only she would hear: tell them to leave ... or we stop your heart

RATTLECHOMP

I did several double-takes, absolutely forgot you collabed and thought I hallucinated. 😶‍🌫️ Ok actually working on this for real! 😆

RATTLECHOMP

I almost made another post the other day because I was so excited about this game, and then I remembered that it was the GM’s turn. 🙃

@Mole

Hang on I don't see a Neomi post this round?

RATTLECHOMP

I've got some extra time the next few days, working on a post!

RATTLECHOMP

@Mokley

Okay so the train is derailed and all in the middle of a cavern. I'm not one hundred percent sure about where Sadie can pop up since she wasn't on the train.

@Sadie

We can absolutely retcon that she was on the train! Sadie made it down to the platform as the others were boarding and managed to get onboard as the doors were closing. Maybe she's been in the wrong car or in the back of the car, which is why she hasn't met the others yet, if you want to roleplay out that meeting. Otherwise I'm pretty sure all of us wouldn't mind also retconning that we've all already met -- whatever you write down will be canon from here out. 😊

RATTLECHOMP

Woohoo! Awesome!! 💚 wb Cosmos and Sadie, looking forward to Sadie and Sasha's stories!

@Wayward I concede, you were right 😆

RATTLECHOMP

@dryden @Mae @King Cosmos @YoshiSkittlez @Sadie

This is a ping just to let you know that we're in battle and open for re-joining, no questions asked, no pressure. 😊 You haven't missed a ton: we're on the train, which has crashed in the middle of a highly dangerous cavern. Attacks ensue. The latest mod and character posts are really all you need.

If you'd rather not hop back in, there's no need to respond. Thank you so much for being a part of this and best of luck with all your rp and writing! 💚

RATTLECHOMP

I'd rather not pressure or embarrass anyone who's not particularly interested anymore, which is cool by me - if they're still subscribed and checking the site, they're getting notifications. 💚 The only other thing I could do is open the OOC back up for recruits.

RATTLECHOMP

<Snipped quote by Mole>

Awesome. I'll get something started up over the coming weekend.

@Mokley

Two questions:
1. Am I correct in understanding that the train is coming to a stop?
2. Would you be OK if I shared this RP on the Guild's Discord to see if we can round up a few more participants? We seem to have lost about half our party.

@Wayward

Yep, the train is definitely stopped, the engine's derailed and the engineer may or may not be alive. 💀

Sure! 💚

RATTLECHOMP

The feeling set in... rather, the feelings. Pushing. Pulling. A split second of an easy caress. An experience of simultaneously bursting from the inside and being crushed from the out. How would she do what Yiya instructed with so much colliding with her from so many angles?

"Woah!" Toni cried out as the train joltted up and off of the tracks and landed miraculously back into place. She looked out the window and gasped at the sight of dozens of shapeless dark clouds flying by the train. She took firm hold on the seat in front of her. "We've got to do something!" She called out to the others. "Stop the train? Is that safe, Yiya?"

@Wayward

"Or maybe we should just keep going?" Her eyes shifted from person to person. Maybe she was being a coward, but at the same time, she kind of felt like running from the fight, "Like, we're super outnumbered, and to be honest, I would like to think Sasha's gun could stop them all, but there's basically an army out there. They also don't seem very reasonable, as much as a Rue-empath as you are..." Her eyes shifted downwards, "And, I'm pretty useless...at the moment."

@Mole

The train screeched and hurtled along the tracks, blurring their sparkling surroundings. Red lights flickered and deadened inside the traincar, and all they could see outside the windows was light and moving shadows.

"Brace yourselves," Yiya called, gripping her chair. Echoh-- which had just been pouring another hopeful cup of tea for Toni --dropped the porcelain saucer with a clatter and spidered its legs across the aisle just as a thunderous explosion ripped through the air far ahead and another catastrophic CRASH rattled in their skulls. The traincar lurched violently while bright sparks flew in cascades across the windows.

A blackened hunk of metal loomed close to Neomi's window and stopped just shy of ramming into the side of the car. It was the train's engine, mangled almost beyond recognition. Blood dripped from the engineer's seat.

Everything fell very still.

Yiya wobbled on her cane and shoved herself to her feet. She looked out the windows at the bright light and the glistening gold and the hordes of shadows shuffling closer. Then she examined Echoh and the Trailing Bird, still safe and vibrant inside its terrarium. Then Neomi and Toni, both of whom she watched with narrowed eyes.

"It's too late to make a decision, so it's been made for us."

The door at the end of the traincar slammed. Then slammed again, like a sledgehammer.

Yiya bowed her head. "It was a pleasure knowing you all."

The door cracked away from its hinges and exploded inward; splinters of sharp wood flew across the seats, driven by a whirling howling wind that smelled like poppies and seafoam.

A shadow blocked the light in the doorway. It was lanky, draped in a rendering of translucent cloth, its head a spin of flickering gold bands that occasionally flashed sharp teeth.

Toni would feel it like a weight on her chest: the dense confidence of authority, a sharp cut of superior existence entirely void of fear.

The Rue ducked to fit through the door and rose to its full height, spinning and glitching and billowing in the gusts of wind that roared through the traincar.

Yiya looked straight through it. She couldn't see it at all, but she knew something was there. "Echoh!" she roared over her shoulder while the Rue stepped closer. "Run! Toni, Neomi, protect--!"

The Rue snatched out a long hand and caught Yiya's head in its grip. Sharp talons pressed into the old woman's throat.

Echoh threw open the opposite door and scrambled hurriedly across the gap to the next traincar, struggling to fit the terrarium through.

Outside, the shadows pressed close.