deercountry | those demons from which we all hide, OPEN

After being trapped in this hellish landscape, the last thing she expected or wanted was to be swept away by water again. Water every bit as cold as the North Atlantic that terrible night, the cold that killed Jack and fifteen hundred other people.

They hadn't had a chance and as she struggled to keep her head above water, she was afraid that neither did she. She felt her breath quicken, the blood pounding along with her rapid heartbeat in her ears.

But much to her surprise, she saw something ahead of her in the water. A door. That damned door.

Rose swore to herself, then did her best to swim towards the door and grab hold of the outer corner, trying to hold herself upon it yet again, pulling herself aboard. Once she was braced on the door, she reached her arms down, trying to steer it around rocks.

That was when she heard the shout for help.

She couldn't do nothing, so she started kicking in the water to propel herself and the door over to them. If she scooted just so, another person could hang onto it with her.

((OOC: please feel free to have Rose find your character in the water. two people can't fit laying on the door, the Mythbusters proved that, but there's room for two holding onto the door))

Rose's scream was of frustration more than anything. She didn't know how or why this place chose its squids to make it to the shore, but she knew she wasn't dead back home and that she hadn't always been a squid.

That alone gave her the determination to go forward. That she had a life waiting for her back home, a life she'd build on her own terms for her own ends.

When she found the backpack full of supplies, she breathed a sigh of relief. She'd honestly been afraid that she'd been left down here to die.

Maybe she had?

((OOC: individual challenges to follow this comment, feel free to run into her in the first area, though!))

She saw the Paleblood jewels glittering on the floor before she saw anything else. Maybe that helped her, helped clear her head.

She'd been through with money, with fancy jewels (even though she had the Heart of the Ocean squirreled away in her flat), with beautiful clothes that looked as though it would fit her to a T. She preferred the jeans, the sweaters, and the black leather boots that she'd found and wore here. A dress would be nice...but not one that reminded her too much of home.

That was when she saw someone else enter, trying for the cellar doors. She cried out in response and ran as fast as she could to try and pull them away.

((OOC: feel free to have your character fight her in their attempts to get the treasure or turn portions of her skin to gold if she got there too late)

Rose breathed a sigh of relief as she saw daylight ahead of her. She wanted to run towards it, but was afraid that doing so would cause the floor to collapse beneath her.

So she trod carefully. Or at least she'd meant to.

Instead, she screamed loudly as she found herself in a nest of---of mushrooms? What in heaven's name...was this? She saw. Skeletons? Even more mushrooms than seemed possible.

Only now the mushrooms weren't on the ground, they were growing on her. She screamed again and tried to yank the mushrooms out of where they were growing on her, crying as they only seemed to multiply.

She screamed for help, begging whatever gods may be in existence that someone would hear her and help her.

((OOC: rescue the damsel in distress and she'll swear to your character that she'll do them a favor, regardless of what it was or when she'd be asked to do it))

When he feels the current pull him under, Luca lets out a cry. And then he doesn't come back up.

Of course, this is because he's turned into a sea monster and has gills now, but it's hard to see that through the dark and murky water. It's only when he sees that she's trying to move the door to where he went under that Luca realizes he should alert her to the fact that he's okay.

He comes up, grabbing a rock so he doesn't get swept away before he can explain, "I'm okay! The current's just more than I can handle, but I won't drown!"

Sure, he might get beaten against the rocks, but he won't drown!

She couldn't let anyone else get hurt. Not when she could at least try to prevent it. So when she saw the--the person she hadn't met yet go under, she does her best to steer the door over towards them, letting it get caught on a rock while she anxiously worried about them surfacing.

That's the same rock Luca had grabbed a hold of. She's never seen anyone who looked like him before, but that's beside the point. The point was making sure he was safe. "Are you certain? There's room on the door if I shift a little to the left!"

She waited for him, hoping she could help.

Luz was still in the throes of this place when she heard the scream. They had been singing Karaoke WAY too much for Luz not to recognize Rose, and thanks to an earlier summons she finally DID have Eda's staff in tow. She sped toward the scream and encountered Rose trying her best to get the mushrooms off.

Oh boy.

"Rose, look at me! We have to get you out of here! These things are only going to get worse!"

She heard Luz before she saw her, she'd been so focused on ripping the mushrooms out of her skin, leaving bloody wounds in their place. Ridiculously, she found herself hoping that they wouldn't scar, despite the fact that she now spent most of her time covered in sweaters and jeans.

And as Luz asked, she looked up. "How do I--how do I grab you without spreading the mushrooms? I don't want to do that!" And she yanked a mushroom from where it had been growing on her neck.

Well now she was seeing that Rose was getting just as injured as she'd been with Minako! That was definitely not going to continue happening on HER watch.

"Just get on! We can worry about that later. Right now, I don't think it's safe if you stay there! Quickly!"

She saw mushrooms everywhere, no matter where she looked she saw mushrooms. She was trying to focus her mind and not panic, so she concentrated on Luz's face, on her voice. Oh, god, what awful thing was happening to her?

"Okay. Yes, I'll do that." And she struggled to find her footing, more mushrooms tearing out of her back as she stood, eyes watering with the effort to not scream at the pain. But pull herself to her feet, she did. She wanted to live, damnit, she wanted to live!

She got on board the staff as ungracefully as possible and was afraid to touch Luz for fear of spreading the mushrooms. So instead she clutched to the staff as hard as she could, knuckles turning white with the effort.

"I'm ready. Please, let's go, please!"

Oh boy. She was pretty sure that Rose was new to this place, and honestly? Mushrooms suddenly sprouting out of you would be bound to freak anyone out. But when she'd been here herself, she knew how important it was to get out, because the longer you stayed, the worse it got.

Luz hadn't wanted to test how much worse it would be, not then and not now.

The moment Rose boarded Luz kicked the staff upward and they rose rapidly. Luz made sure they were at least near the ceiling before shooting forward, making sure to clear them of the poisoned air. Luz could already feel some of the mushroom starting to sprout on her arm but knew that they'd be able to get them off soon.

Luz waited until they were a good, long way aways before turning back to Rose.

"How are they looking?"

Michael grabs onto the edge of the door as soon as it nears him, steadying himself upright and gasping for air. He wasn't really in much danger, of course - at least, not danger of drowning. But the current's too fierce for him to swim, especially in human shape, and being torn along and flung into various rocks isn't exactly fun.

"Oh - ugh." He grimaces; now that he's stable long enough to really look around, his glasses are useless with all the water beaded on their surface. The demon shakes his head as if to try and fling it away. (This does not work.) "Did you make a raft?"

Still terribly new. Had it been one month? Two? She came in around Valentine's Day, that would make it a month. And she'd never seen or felt anything like what she was undergoing at the moment. She desperately wanted to get out, to bandage her wounds and pray that they didn't scar, she was vain enough for that much still.

Her mind was momentarily too panicked to think clearly, remembering how it felt to be sucked underwater by the remnants of the Titanic, but she finally brought her mind to surface.

She's hanging over it, her torso over one side, her legs over the other, hanging onto the staff with her middle pressed together and her hands clinging. They travelled faster than she ever had before, even faster than the fastest rail line she'd ever been on.

Rose was doing her best to not have the vapors, but it was hard going. "I--I'm not entirely sure, I feel as though some of them must be growing on my back still and will I--will the marks scar me? Please tell me no, that the healers here have some remedy."

She's both glad and horrified to see Michael in this situation. Mostly glad because at least this way, she could help, she could be of use. The current was unlike anything she'd ever known, faster than any stream she'd ever seen. But every bit as cold as the North Atlantic.

She was tempted to reach out a hand to squeeze Michael's shoulder, but she had to focus on staying on board the door and steering it away from the worst rocks. "Not exactly! One from home found me!"

"Okay?" He doesn't get it! But whatever!

Michael cringes as they sweep past another rock. It doesn't actually hit him, but it's closer than he'd like. Honestly, he hasn't registered the cold of the water; he can never really tell when it's too cold or hot for humans. But that doesn't mean they're in a great situation! "What's our endgame here, is this gonna end sometime? We don't - we don't have any naturally-occurring rivers in Hell."

Yeah, that would have been far too little for Rose to be used to anything around here. The poor woman was going to have to get used to things going from bad to much, much worse in an instant. It was just the way things were here sometimes, and in others you hardly had time to breathe.

Once they were away from that area though, Luz started hacking at her own mushrooms, wincing as they came off her skin. Man, but she HATED this one part of the game, and saw it as wildly unnecessary. What was with Trench and mushrooms anyway? It was enough to give someone an attack and some pretty nasty flashbacks.

"I'll get them for you, I'll try to be as gentle as I can," Luz said, slapping a glyph on Rose's back so the plants could at least attempt to choke out the mushrooms. "You can get scars removed, yes. I know someone who can make that happen."

"Just hang on as tight as you can! I'll handle steering!" And she's getting better at it, kicking with her legs and moving her arms so that they missed the worst rocks. But the worst aren't all and she finds herself cringing as the rock they couldn't avoid crashed into the door.

But it was no matter. The door was strong. The door would continue. If anything on Titanic taught her anything, it was to be like the door.

She's freezing in a flimsy gown something like what she would have worn back home. That taught her, no more anything other than sweaters, jeans, and work boots. "I assume it will end somewhere. Every stream has its end, but whether it's into the ground or into a larger body of water, I don't know!"

She'd been afraid before. She'd thought that after everything involving the Titanic, she'd never be afraid again. She was wrong.

Rose had never liked mushrooms. Whenever she was served something with mushrooms in it, she'd carefully eat around them, pushing them to the side of the plate. After today, she'd have a hard time seeing a mushroom without wanting to get sick.

"Thank you. Thank you. Oh, thank you. I--I've never--does this happen a lot? Mushrooms?" She could hear her voice trembling as she felt something she'd never felt before. "Good. I--I don't want to have any remnants of this, especially not scars."

"Fuck!" Michael, on pure instinct, punches the rock. Part of it does break off! But, you know, that doesn't really change anything.

"Okay! Uh - " He attempts, for a second, to pull himself up onto the door as well. But the way it dips in the water is immediately alarming, and he stops once he realizes the danger of just capsizing the whole thing. "Okay! Hey, at least there's no piranhas!"

Her eyes widened as she watched Michael literally punch and break part of the rock. Did everyone have some special skill other than her?

When he tried to climb on, she cried out "Wait, wait, we can both ride it, but it won't let both of us fit. Learned that the hard way." And his comment about piranhas made her smile as much as she could in such a desperate situation. "Yes, no piranhas. Now, let's do our best to get to safety." As soon as she was sure his grip was strong enough, she'd push away from the rock and start steering the door again.

Oh no. There was lots of things to be afraid of, things that Rose had yet to experience. Luckily, Luz has already been in this particular situation, and at least knows they can't stay there, lest things take a worse turn.

Luz had had VERY little choice about mushrooms in the past few months, as they'd be plentiful and, in some instances, absolutely necessary for being calm. She was pretty confident she'd have a break from them now though.

"Scars? Yeah. I can see why you wouldn't want those."

Look, she GOT it. Rose was super pretty and probably not wanting to have a souvenir of this terrible experience on her skin. Luz had scars of her own, and chose to keep them for different reasons.

"Do mushrooms growing on you usually happen? No. That's a new scary experience to me. Can't say I'm a fan though. Usually mushrooms tend to dip toward the 'magic mushroom' type, if you get my drift."

She worried that having such a panicked reaction to the mushrooms would lead to losing her nerve in other ways. She couldn't do that, she promised Jack that she'd survive.

Rose was quite certain she'd see mushrooms forever from this point on. Mushrooms growing out of her walls, on her floor, on people. She's trying to not see it as foreordained.

"I don't want anything reminding me of the mushrooms, certainly not their scars."

Which may have been petty and overly vain on her part, but even if they were scars on her back where she couldn't see them unless she looked, she'd worry about how unsightly they may be to others.

Rose shuddered, unable to help herself. "I hope that it never happens again. But...no, I'm afraid I don't know what a magic mushroom is."

Luz was understanding of this, in a way. How could she not be? She'd been in Rose's position before, albeit at least prepared for craziness thanks to the Boiling Isles and Luz's only plucky nature.

Oof. That would have to serve as a reminder NEVER to talk about Ellie's world. That honestly won the award for horror situations involving mushrooms.

"I mean. There is at least ONE kind of mushroom you might want to be familiar with. Trust me, you won't regret it. But I hear you. You shouldn't have scars from this."

Luckily the mushrooms didn't seem to be readily growing anymore now that they were out of the immediate area.

"There will usually be something different for us. As far as magic mushrooms, I'm talking more about the hallucinating type. The ones that make you SEE things, that disrupt the communication in the brain. Like, drugs, I guess?"

Luz wouldn't know...by recreational reasons, anyway.

The kind of craziness Rose had witnessed was the kind of crazy when there were only lifeboats for half of the people on board the Titanic. When people realized that and tried to take matters into their own hands.

All she really wanted to do was find a can of cream of mushroom soup and toss it at the Moss King's head. Even if it did upset him. Though, she supposed that it wasn't a very mature response.

"There is? No one's mentioned that before, but perhaps that was because no one had reason to. And, thank you." She ripped a mushroom off of the small of her back and could feel the blood it left behind trickle down.

"Are all of the Pthumerians so--so uncaring?" But the description of the magic mushrooms piqued her interest. "My goodness. What mother would say about her little girl using drugs! That's a good reason to go ahead and do it."

She knows of drugs people had used in her time, but most people kept it politely out of sight.

He's fine; he's got it.

Grumbling, he peers out over the rim of his glasses. "If you can get us towards a - a rock I can grab, I can lift you out of the water. Just not one in the middle of the river, that wouldn't help." Granted, he could probably toss her to shore, but then he'd be stuck.

those demons from which we all hide, OPEN

RUSHING RIVERS

CATACOMBS

UNTOUCHABLE TEMPTATIONS

THE EXIT

RUSHING RIVERS

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