by David Henderson » Mon Jun 11, 2018 8:46 pm
Perception: 1d100 = 22 / 31%
JiC d20/d100: 1d20 = 10 / 1d100 = 89
Paralysis certainly isn’t fun, especially when Dave knows there’s things out there that might want to kill him. Doubly so when he keep seeing...things...that he’s not certain are real or not.
I am quite certain that purple winged cyclops is an hallucination, Susan tells him crisply. Not only are even pschyomorphs like your new friends unlikely to assume such a form, one would hardly expect them to loiter here, chewing on people.
Dave has to agree, for those reasons and for others. He’s fairly certain Susan has never heard the song before, though.
He’s also never seen her before, but it seems in his hallucinating state his brain has decided to attribute a visible form to the usual voice inside his head. Considering it’s coming from inside his head it’s hardly a surprise that it’s spot-on to what he would have expected. But it’s just so...damn...perfect.
He hasn’t quite dared share with her what he’s seeing in that regard.
Little glowing faerie shapes flit past his field of vision, giggling as they spin and spiral, and he’s pretty sure they’re not really there as well, but it’s hard to concentrate on them when he keeps seeing some kind of dark shadow creeping along at the very edges of his vision. That one is all too possibly real, and he doesn’t relish the possibility of something new and dire manifesting with him unable to do anything about it.
Or, even worse, something that’s been around all along and is very much aware of what he’d been doing a few minutes ago.
Its’s possible this isn’t one of my better plans, he admits inwardly, privately glad that at least he doesn’t have to go through this entirely alone, trapped in his own head.
...possibly, Susan replies, and that single word is dry enough it could be marketed as an industrial grade dessicant.
Hey, come on now, it’s not the worst either, he protests, keeping his attention on one of the dark shapes that’s continuing to remain just out of full visibility. This is definitely the best way to maintain my cover, and with everybody else bailing we can’t be sure that we’d have been able to fight our way out. This works...assuming we survive.
Susan’s lack of reply somehow still gets the point across that the artifact would carry on in one way or another, regardless of whether or not he survives.
One of the shifting shadows finally resolves itself into a giant, glossy-shelled beetle over six feet long, with bright orange markings and a tall protrusion on its nose. It’s one of those, whaddyacallits, big exotic—rhinoceros beetles! That’s it, although this one’s way big and the colouring is strange. It clicks and buzzes as it scrambles over to him, and if he had been able to move he would have shuddered as he can feel its brittle little feet pressing into him as it clambers right atop of him.
:Hello! I speak, we speak, we hear, you do, light fight, no say, go go: Dave seems to hear, although none of it makes any sense. Although, again, perhaps he is distracted by the creature proceeding to collapse about him, cutting off his vision in a moment of rising panic, feeling the mass of the giant bug weigh down his arms and legs.
David, Susan begins, but breaks off as the shocking sensation of icy water rushing over him shatters the darkness around Dave and reveals a new hallucination. Water-spraying tentacles drag men into the room, followed by a horde of axe-wielding men in long coats – probably some analogue of Dave himself, if one is going to get all analytical about these things.
But then blue men, with—no, he realizes they’re police, armed and alarmed, and the rest had been firemen. There’s much noise, confusion, and activity, and shapes loom up around the helpless Sword Bearer before he feels the cold circles of steel close about his wrists.
Well, this just got less uncomplicated, he observes, trying to clear the effects of the gas from his mind. Sometimes it really sucks being the one left behind....