The ride back to town was quiet. The radios were barely making a dent in force of the whirlpools in each of their heads. As the vehicles reached town the split off to drop of their passengers before heading home. The sun was setting, but it was hard to believe that so much had happened in such a short time.
Randy dropped off Jesse without a word and sped off. The only thing that kept him from crashing on his way home was muscle memory. He was lost in his mind. He'd lost his shoes and his shirt to what basically amounted to bouncing gelatin. His skin tingled where the syrupy liquid had touched him and normally that'd terrify him. It did at first, but not now. Not after that lumbering jock had dumped water on him the first time.
His mind kept replaying that memory. The way the pink sliquid slid off with the water. How the tingling stopped the instant it was no longer in contact. His sock looked like it was bleeding pink but quicker than he thought possible it was back to dirty white again. He absentmindedly scratched his chest and took a seething breath. It was so sensitive that it brought him back to reality. That light scratch had felt like claws raking his flesh.
He pulled up to his house. His parents weren't home as usual. If they weren't working, they were doing something for the community. At this moment though Randy couldn't have cared less. He walked in the door and saw a note on the kitchen table.
"We'll be at the Nelson's tonight having drinks with the PTA board. There's lasagna in the fridge. -<3 Mom"
He nodded and walked to the bathroom, dumping his stuff in the hallway. He'd take it to his room later. Right now he needed to get this pink stuff off of him. Stripping off the remnants of his clothes, he made a note on his phone to get new ones and new shoes. That stuff really did a number on them.
After the shower he dragged his goods to his room. He didn't even bother to put things away, just tossed his clothes scraps in the trash and fell into the bed. Despite the shower relaxing his body it did nothing to quell the storm of questions in his head. He needed to know where those pink things came from. And he figured there was only one way to find out.
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George pulled into the driveway after taking Marie home, still numb from the day's events. He didn't see his parent's van and assumed they were out on a date or doing something with his little brother. He parked his truck and walked into the house carrying his belongings and his new shield. His skin tingled as he moved, a constant reminder of what he'd been a part of. Walking up the stairs, he stashed his stuff in his room and took a long, hot shower.
As the steam filled his sinuses he felt the gunk fogging his mind slowly drain away. The slimy film on his skin joining the metaphorical sludge as the near scalding water beat upon his body. His eyes unfocused as his mind wandered and he began to reflect on the day. How had his day ended like this? It had started on such a boring note. He hadn't, in his wildest dreams, thought that he could ever experience what he'd found in that bunker.
He thought back to the bunker. The statues, the clothes, how carefully maintained it all was. Surely someone would know they'd gone in. Especially after they'd gotten a look at them. Glancing down to the bruises beginning to form on his skin his mind was drawn to the pink slimes.
Why did the acid only seem to dissolve their clothes? Why did they seem to be guarding the bunker? Where did they come from? What were those little crystals made from? Why had they popped up instead of just staying as puddles?
He sighed and turned off the shower. Drying off his aching body he climbed into bed. He wasn't hungry but it didn't matter. He wasn't sure if he could eat anyways. It took him ages to finally fall asleep and he did so with a single reluctant thought on his mind.
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Jesse was dropped off at his house. He didn't notice Randy driving off. He barely registered his parents welcoming him home. His head was foggy and his feet were lead. He didn't even realize he'd walked into his room when suddenly he was sitting on his bed.
He glanced at the clear stick with the red knob barely poking out of his backpack. How had he gotten it? He knew it wasn't the right question but he didn't know how else to phrase it. He'd watched it materialize from an orb of purple light after he helped to kill a giant slime in what he could best describe as a concrete dungeon. If it was still there in the morning he'd know it wasn't a dream.
He took out his phone and scrolled through social media until he was called out for dinner. Before he knew it, he was at the table with a mouthful of something. He ate mechanically, not even tasting the food as he finished his plate. He was asked the normal questions and it felt like he was on autopilot as he responded in half answers. Or rather as his body responded for him.
With dinner finally done he went and got ready for bed. Only noticing he'd done his nightly routine once the water splashed on his face. He shook his head and blinked his eyes as if suddenly coming to from a deep sleep. He started hyperventilating and bent over the sink. Patting himself down, he felt a wave of relief at all of his clothing being intact. He went to his room, easily avoiding his little siblings, and laid down on his bed. He stared at the ceiling for what felt like an hour before he heard a knock at the door.
"Yeah?" he called out to whoever was there.
His dad slowly opened the door, "are you... alright son?"
Jesse sat up, "yeah, I'm alright."
"Are you sure?" his dad walked into the room and sat on his bed, "you seemed off at dinner tonight."
Jesse nodded and sighed, "just... a long, stressful day."
His dad patted his knee and smiled sadly, "I know that feeling all too well."
Jesse side-eyed him as he kept talking.
"Brain fog, feeling like a robot on autopilot, not even noticing where are you are, among other more minor things" Jesse openly stared as his dad easily filled in a checklist of what he'd been feeling.
His dad gave him a warm smile and ruffled his hair, "don't worry kiddo, it gets better."
With that he got up and left the room, closing the door behind him. Jesse stared at the door. For all of his dad's faults, he did truly love him and he understood Jesse far better than Jesse understood himself. Laying back down he began to actually process what had happened earlier in the day for the first time. Against his better judgement, he knew there was only one way to truly get to the bottom of this and find the answers to his questions.
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Abe opened his front door, being greeted by his mother as soon as the door cracked open. He absentmindedly hugged her and headed to his bedroom. Once he closed his door he moved to his desk like a man possessed. Grabbing his graph paper he quickly sketched out the layout of the bunker the same way he'd sketched out countless dungeons for CnC. He scanned the paper for any known problems but couldn't find any.
He stared at the small cross-like sketch and felt like something was missing. Closing his eyes, he leaned back in his chair and laid his head on the top of his headrest. Thoughts swirled in his mind, more on mechanics than metaphysics. The bunker was a dungeon, he had no question about that. His problem was more how it had appeared and how it had gotten monsters inside of it.
Slimes did not exist, this was an obvious but kind of misleading fact. There were various fungi, plants, fish, arthropods, toret, and jiba that produced slime in various forms. What didn't exist -according to everything he'd ever read- were orbs that resembled giant single-cells with a crystalline nucleus, secreted acid that only melted clothes, and were capable of both bouncing like a kickball and turning into a puddle with barely any time spend changing between states. So... How had the dungeon acquired them? There's no way they existed normally and just so happened to congregate within the bunker.
He thought back to the Boss Room as he was calling it. The giant slime could have spawned them, maybe even sent them out into the rest of the bunker. But, no that couldn't be the answer. It didn't solve the main problem he had and only pushed it back one step. He might have a possible explanation for where the little ones came from, but if that was the case then where had the big one come from? And to add onto it how did it know what armor was? That thing had grown crystal plating around its 'chest' to protect its' core.
Before he could continue his line of thought, he heard his mom calling for him. Sighing and opening his eyes, he left his room to find out what she needed only to find that he'd been lost in thought for longer than he thought. Dunner was ready and his parents were already digging in. He pulled out a chair and joined them. He could always think about it more later. Besides it wasn't likely he'd figure it out on his own without more info.
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Devon dropped off Morgan and Ross in a daze. He concentrated on the road, straining to see through the fog in his mind. He needed to make it home before he gave in to the swirling thoughts in his mind. Turning into the driveway he noticed his dad was out and assumed he was probably setting things up for a show. Parking his car, he trudged to the door and walked in.
"Hey honey," he heard his mom say from another room, "how was your day?"
"Fine," he said, internally wincing at how tired his voice sounded
"Hm, alright then. Go get some rest sweetie. Your father's getting things finalized at work, he'll be home in a few hours."
"Thanks mom."
He opened his bedroom door and dropped onto his bed. Closing his eyes, he gave in to the whirlwind in his mind. What had just happened? How was it possible? Why did it happen here? He knew the answers to a few of those questions.
'What?' He and the rest had investigated some abandoned bunker. Inside they found a bunch of acidic jelly blobs, a memorial, a walk-in closet, and an underground forest with a sky. They'd fought through it like some kinda video game and got loot from defeating a giant slime monster.
'How?' He wasn't entirely sure to be honest. The bunker was built like a decade ago so that's part of the answer. The statues and closet could be for the father and the girl he'd imprisoned. The blobs and monster though... he was drawing a blank. Maybe Ross or Morgan had an answer there?
'Why' was the only one he didn't have the slightest clue about. If the rich dude wanted a secluded location, there were way better areas. Why did those gel things act so weird? Why didn't that acid hurt anyone beyond removing their clothes? He needed more information.
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Marie was dropped off in front of her house and let out a sigh of relief that her parents were working late. She wouldn't have to explain why her clothes were ruined. Upon entering the empty house she took her shoes off next to the door, walked into the kitchen to grab a snack, then moved to her bedroom.
Once inside her room, she stripped off her partially dissolved blouse and skirt. The feeling of her fingers grazing against the skin coated with the film of slime sent goosebumps across her body. Her breath hitched in her throat. She forgot it was on her skin. Dashing to the bathroom, she jumped in the shower and almost popped back out again when the cold water hit her.
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Once the water began warming up she began to relax. The film quickly washed away and she watched the water gain and lose a slight pink tinge. What was that stuff? She finished cleaning up and got dressed again then put her mangled clothes on her desk. Trimming the parts affected by the acid, she then put them in a little glass jar.
Taking the water bottle out of her backpack, she opened another jar and poured the contents inside. The little pieces of red crystal clinked as they hit the glass, tiny drops of pink slime hitting the glass where they fell. She resealed the jars and disposed of her clothes then sat back down at her desk. She needed more. This was too little for the experiments she wanted to try.
How was this possible? An acid strong enough to eat through clothes in seconds but incapable of doing more than making flesh more sensitive? That doesn't seem possible. She stared intently at the slime core shards, attempting in vain to glean any more information. Then a thought popped into her head. She knew exactly where and how to get the info she was lacking.
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Morgan was energized. She kept slinging ideas at Ross the whole drive home even though he was too out of it to really interact much. When she was dropped off she bolted into her house. Saying hi to her mother, she dashed into her room and immediately began jotting down everything she'd witnessed. Paranormal and supernatural occurrences weren't just rare, in fact she'd never had one that she hadn't caused before.
Abandoned architecture? Check. Unknown creatures? Check. Possible ghostly activity? Well since Jason had seen someone, check. Memorial Site? Check. Possible pocket dimension or hidden world? Check. Literal magically formed items? Double check.
She was writing like a woman possessed. Sketching out diagrams and appearance recollections with just as much fervor as she was writing. Suddenly there was a knock at the door.
"Yes?" she called out, not even looking away from the notebook she was absorbed in.
Her mom opened the door, "darling, are you alright?"
"I'm fine mom, why?"
"Well, you seemed in quite the hurry."
"I had an interesting paranormal experience today. I had to jot it down before I forgot any details."
"...I see. Well... As long as you aren't hurt darling."
Morgan chuckled, "I'm fine mom."
Her mother sighed, "that's good. I'll call for you when dinner's ready."
Morgan nodded and finished jotting down what she could remember. Ruffling through her desk for her tools she found what she was looking for. A small blue crystal on a chain. She got into position and cleared her mind to enter gnosis, holding the chain taut and speaking her questions aloud. As she watched the pendulum swing and circle, she wrote down the answers she was given with some personal shorthand to distinguish how strong the motion -and therefore the certainty- was.
Soon enough, she'd gathered a list of varying answers at even more varied levels of certainty. Hearing her mother call her name she put the crystal down and got up. Just as she was about to leave the room, an idea struck her and she looked back at the crystal. She needed more answers and more certainty. The best way to do that would be to actually talk with whatever was causing the supernatural events in that bunker. And she knew just how to do that.
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Jason turned off the radio after he dropped off Abe. His chest was practically bare after the slime had eaten through his jacket and shirt. He considered himself lucky that it hadn't gotten through his pants. Shaking his head to clear his thoughts he focused on the road. 'Get home first,' he thought, 'then you can have an existential crisis.'
He pulled into the driveway and saw a note hanging on the door. As he got near he quickly scanned it and shrugged. Massive shipment of arms came in finally so his father and brother wouldn't be home for awhile. Opening the door he stepped into the smell of roasting meat and the sounds of his mother cooking.
"Hey darlin'!" He heard her shout from the kitchen. "Could you let Ramper out? I'm in the middle of somethin' here!"
Jason smiled, "I'll get right on it mom!"
Maybe Ramper would help him sort his thoughts out a bit. He whistled and called out the mogrul's name as he made his way to the back door. Hearing the clattering of its claws on the hardwood, he couldn't help but smile to himself as it came down the stairs and practically barreled through him as he opened the door. The brown-scaled mogrul leapt off the back porch and rolled around in the grass, its vertical jaws open and sloppy, tentacle-like tongue lolling out as Jason came over. He reached down and rubbed its belly, chuckling at the gurgling noise that came from it.
Soon enough the stocky toret rolled over and got up to do its business. Jason watched it trot away, more to make sure it didn't get snatched by something from the forest than actually paying attention to it. He kept trying not to think about the earlier events until he was alone. Seeing Ramper slowly cough up his business managed to stave the thoughts off though. He still couldn't understand why they'd never developed an anus, it just seemed so much cleaner and far more efficient.
Taking the mogrul to his washing bowl, the stout beast lapped the water up and rinsed out its jowls. Jason watched over it to make sure it didn't somehow manage to hurt itself then brought it back inside and walked into his room. Finally he could go over the day in peace. He set his bag down and took his axe out.
Looking over the tool he saw that the acid didn't seem to effect it at all. The only remnant of what he'd done with it was a pink film over the head but otherwise it was the same as it was before he'd used it. No, he hadn't 'used' it. He'd wielded it. He'd killed with it.
Sitting on his bed he stared at the somewhat shiny metal, trying to find his reflection through the film. Sure he'd killed other things before, but nothing larger than a mouse or fledgling falcon ray that close up. He'd taken out deer before, aurochs and hymerachna too, but he'd always shot at them from far away. But then again, were they alive? They certainly weren't like anything he'd seen before in real life. Just giant sacs of slime held together by a membrane with no organs and only a weird crystal in the middle.
He looked out the window at the forest. He'd lived out here his whole life, but things still kept surprising him. He'd always been more for the whole 'everything has a rational explanation' line of thinking as long as it pertained to humans, but the wild was a whole different beast. There were different rules out there, he knew that by heart. You can only go so far beyond the borders that man had made before you started seeing things that made you question your sanity.
He started thinking back on what he'd seen out here. Deer walking on their hind legs and braining themselves against trees just to lick at their own bloody scraps. Squirrels wearing vaasix corpses to get the drop on coyotes. A junda tree moving through roads and uprooting everything it passed to infest an abandoned cabin. Upon reflection he considered that just perhaps a bunch of living slime balls with crystal centers might not be the strangest thing he'd ever seen.
He looked back at his hatchet. He needed to clean it off. Just because the film wasn't doing anything didn't mean he could be lazy and just leave it there. As he stood up he felt the air brush against his chest and realized he'd probably better change clothes too. As he went to do so, he cast another glance towards the forest. Maybe going back there wouldn't be such a bad idea if he was better prepared.
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Ross was in a daze. Not a good one though. He knew he was on the verge of freaking out and kept taking deep, slow breaths all the way back to his house. He knew Morgan was trying to talk to him but he just didn't have it in him to contribute anything. Before he knew it he was being dropped off and walking up to his front door.
He opened it to the smell of patchouli, frankincense, and hemp. The scents disrupting his mental fog for a second he called out to see who was home. He heard his father in the living room and decided it would be best to talk to him before he did anything.
"Hey dad," he said as he pushed aside a bead curtain and entered the room.
"Hey there kiddo," his dad responded from his spot on the floor, one leg tucked behind his head and the other bent to keep him steady.
"Oh uh I can come back if you're deep in."
"Nonsense," his dad smiled and slowly brought his leg down to sit in the lotus position, "what's on your mind?"
"Well... I had a bit of an experience and I'm about to freak out."
"Hmmm I've been there, mind telling me what's going on?"
Ross sighed and sat down across from him, slowly stretching out and getting into a lotus himself. He began to slowly unload on his dad, telling him about his day at school and eventually getting to the bunker. Ross hesitated at first, unsure of how much to tell him, but soon figured that he'd get better help if he came clean. With a deep breath he told his father everything.
To his credit, his father listened intently and asked questions for clarity. Once Ross was done the two sat in silence for a few minutes, his dad thinking over the information. Eventually his dad started stretching again and smiled.
"Son," he said lightly, "I think we're both too sober for this."
Ross just chuckled and nodded, "I'm gonna have to agree with that."
His father nodded, "but I also don't think getting high is going to help."
Ross gave him a puzzled look and went to ask a question but was cut off, "and no, tripping isn't going to help either. What you need to do is go out back after dark, light some candles, and meditate. The answer on what you should do will come to you then."
The young stoner looked at the older hippie with a look of annoyance. His own father wasn't even going to try to help him with this? He knew he shouldn't have told him. While he felt better about it, that didn't change the fact that he still had no idea what to do. Picking up on his son's disappointment, the elder laughed.
"Son," he said, mirth evident in his voice, "just because I've been around the block a few times doesn't mean I know everything."
Ross had to concede that. Just as he was about to say something he was once again cut off.
"Besides, I have a feeling you already know what you need to do," the hippie winked, "I mean... An opportunity like this doesn't just happen every day.
"Opportunity?" Now Ross was just confused and the sly wording his father was using started to weird him out.
"Of course. What else would you call it? An impossible location with strange beings and weird happenings? Those don't just appear for no reason."
Ross nodded. He was right. Things like this don't just happen for no reason. Whether it was the intervention of a god, spirit, or something else, there was a reason for this to happen. He didn't know what he needed to do yet, but he had an idea. Thanking his father, he left the room and did his homework while waiting until nightfall. He would do what his dad had recommended and see what conclusions he'd come to.
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Marie Walker
Stats
-Strength - 2
-Intelligence - 5
-Nimbleness - 4
-Acumen - 3
-Physique - 3
-Synchronicity - 3
-Empathy - 3
Skills
-Brawl 2, Dodge 3, Intimidate 2, Acrobatics 3, Sleight of Hand 2, Swim 3, Appraise 2, Gather Information 3, Knowledge (AP High School, varied, Chemistry) 4, Technology 2, Chemistry 4
Equipment
-Purse, Wallet, Keys, Backpack, Phone, Flashlight, Whistle, Notebook, Pens, Pencils, Textbooks, Folders, Papers, Apple, Sci-fi Novel.
Description
-Short Ginger Dafinu with button nose and curly hair, skinny but not underweight. Wears plain shirts, long skirts, and flats.
-Born to a lower class family, she never really had a lot as a kid. She discovered her love of science and chemistry early on when her family bought her a science kit and started learning all she could. In school she worked hard and aced her classes, got into the final 3 at the spelling bee, and was always at or near the top of the class, but never really had many friends as she was too focused on her studies. She took AP classes in high school and joined the CnC club seeking some companionship and a break from her nonstop studying only to be surprised that one of her AP classmates, George, joined as well. Has never been in a relationship because her studies were more important
-Introverted and studious, always turns in homework and aces every test. Great at chemistry, and has been paid to make chemical items for troublemakers before, though she denies it. Awkward around new people but very outspoken and opinionated when around friends.