goneawayworld | THE PATHLESS WOODS

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THE PATHLESS WOODS - PART 1

the pathless woods

PLOT DESCRIPTION
Far to the west, deep in the mountains, there is a forest where none may tread. Superimposed into the wilds, it has only grown wilder. But these once-quiet woods are peaceful no longer. A town built around an iron foundry is encroaching on the wilderness, enraging the spirits within.

Complicating matters: many refugees of the Go-Away war have been taken in by the town's residents, relieved to finally stop their wandering through post-apocalyptic wasteland. They have now made it their home, a place free from Jorgmund's de facto apocalyptic wage enslavement. Some have also been altered by Stuff and have no chance of refuge in the Livable Zone.

Meanwhile, Jorgmund is eyeballing the resources of the forest and wants the New Hires to exacerbate the conflict and convince the humans within to move within the Livable Zone ("for their own good, you see;") to allow for "resource acquisition." The New Hires must choose whether to stay in Jorgmund's good books, and if not, must decide whether to try to mediate the conflict, choose a side, or face the deep, dark dangers of the woods to find two lost people that some of the spirits believe can act as a bridge between two worlds.

All the while, they must fight off "demons," corrupted forest spirits changed by rage and hate. These demons can be influenced by the rage and hate of the New Hires as well.

SCENARIO

As they're driven to the drop off point, the tinted, reinforced windows of the transport vehicles gives them occasional glimpses of but it's not what they might have expected. Thought some areas are burned from fires that ran out of control, this wasteland isn't filled with scorched earth, just the skeletons of buildings slowly being retaken by the wild, trees growing through cracked concrete, vines swarming the outside of abandoned buildings unchecked. Some areas look like spherical chunks were suddenly carved out of reality, sometimes bisecting buildings. Water collects in these hollows in glittering pools that are ringed with moss and flowers.

The price paid for this life renewed was far too high, but the wilderness cares nothing about prices or unfair trades and retakes what once belonged to it faster than it might have in the past, due to the reality-warping influence of Stuff. There are no people in sight. The land is filled with bitter ghosts.

Soon that becomes literal. They start to reach areas that aren't much more scorched than the rest of the world, but there are still remnants of the war that have wandered away from battlefields, the way even the rural countryside might have some errant zombies after a zombie apocalypse. It starts with people in gas masks and military hazmat suits reaching for the convoy as it passes. The drivers blitz past them without stopping, long since used to hazards like this. People in the rear vehicles will see what happens after the first vehicle in the line ignores them - the gear collapses in on itself all of a sudden like no one is wearing it. In other areas driver-less tanks gather in herds like animals, scattering and driving away when the convoy gets close, as if skittish.

They are let out once the roads become too rugged for the vehicles, near the rocky hills they're meant to traverse. They're told the range of the rig's sensors, the outer limits they can go to before the collars claim their lives instantly. For this mission, the range had been extended to about 60 miles instead of the usual 50 because of how far out the settlement they're supposed to contact is from the rig.

The drivers are considerate enough to warn them about Stuff monsters in the countryside, telling them to be on their guard, and to be very careful of who - or what - they trust, because things that seem human often aren't.

Then they have to start a long march and don't run into much trouble until they get into a small valley in the hills in the late afternoon. A caravan of people driving oxen, laden with supplies, is trying to get them through a narrow gap mountain gap. The group is an unusually mixed group, some of the individuals look as if they've been changed by Stuff into something fantastic.

Some Stuff is in the air in this area, mostly solidified but still fluid enough to wreak some havoc. The group, fearing war or running from it, sometimes have their fears projected around them. Waves of unreality occasionally sweep through, briefly plunging everyone into murky strips of time that are shaped by the idea of war. Nothing gory but filled with the pale shadow of it - bullets zip through the air, there's chaotic yelling in fog that's suddenly appeared, the ground is rocked by explosions - but then each strip of unreality passes or can be escaped by simply charging a few steps forward.

What stays consistent in reality or in these strips of unreality is that the supply caravan is under attack and only armed with massive shoulder mounted flintlock rifles. The group will find they can speak to them, that they've suddenly been granted knowledge of a slightly archaic form of Japanese, the common language the mixed group speaks, just like some of the New Hires randomly learned English upon exposure to the rig for the first time.

If they can get the caravan to the mountain gap ahead, they'll leave the dangerous valley behind them.

Some of the threats the group must contend with that are there both inside and outside the weird strips of unreality:

a) demons

The corrupted forms of great beasts of the forest, these massive creatures have been changed to demons by their rage. They scuttle around the group extremely fast, the corruption forming spider-like legs, attacking aggressively, the squirming dark worms on their bodies killing any living vegetation it touches.

The more rage the New Hires feel fighting them, the faster and more powerful they are, as if it fuels them.

If any of this corruption touches someone, it burns right through their clothes, creating a bruise-like blight on their skin, a situation they'll have to find resolution to later - or they'll die.

Many of these demons were once boars but a few are massive deer, their pronged antlers squirming with corrupted essence. They at least can be killed but it will take multiple attacks that actually reach the beast under the corruption to finally put them out of their misery. Once killed, the great beasts have all the flesh dissolve off their bodies until only bones are left. They curse the humans with their dying breaths.

b) Flamethrowers

Not soldiers, not people, these entities are like moving statues of cracked calcification that looks like pale ceramic. Between the cracks in their skins, roiling yellow-white flames can be seen sizzling inside. They attack by getting close to people or grabbing them and suddenly stoking their internal fires so that the flames scorch whoever is near.

They can be killed if the fire is extinguished - fortunately there are streams and other sources of water around the battlefield due to a recent rain. They can also be killed if enough force is used against them, but it takes a lot for the ceramic to crack. If it can be broken or damaged, then they collapse in on themselves and burn away into gray ash.

c) Artillerymen

Phantom soldiers shoot artillery fire from a distance. Fortunately, it is weaker than real artillery, with less fragmentation, but a direct hit can still kill you. They fade and vanish when someone gets close, without needing to even be killed, but their weapons need to be destroyed or new soldiers will coalesce out of the mist and use it again.

d) Samurai

The samurai seem to have the ox drivers and their handlers especially afraid, looming out of the mist to attack with their blades and arrows and fading back into it again. They can be killed if characters are fast enough or get the timing right by attacking and forcing them to reappear in another spot. Fortunately, their movements are somewhat predictable.

OOC DETAILS
➤ This is a multi-part plot. Later parts will involve speaking to npcs in Irontown and deciding how to handle the whole conflict.

➤ Characters will have both canon gear (and clothes, if they prefer it over their field uniforms) and the wilderness supplies described in the gear section of the game mechanics page. They will also be allowed to have canon weapons they came in with or will be given a weapon they're comfortable with.

➤ Feel free to ask questions in the question top-level below.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Yeah."

Sort of. He hadn't thought about it too hard because the situation had yet to get so dire, but Guts isn't entirely sure how he'd call himself back if he had to use the armor.

"I usually have a magic user with me to help keep it tempered. This time around I'll just have to do it myself."

He'd almost done it, last time. All he has to do is push a little harder...

"...an' you've done that before, right?" Saturday is giving him a very suspicious look. He sounds like her when she's about to do something real dumb. But there's dumb and there's dumb, and the black vibes off that metal are something she'd hesitate to put on for anything short of an apocalypse.

"Some things do cause too much friendly fire to be practical, y'know. You're gonna be a unit."

"..."

No, he hasn't. His brief silence should say that much. Guts figures he will eventually have to contend with this fact if he was going to wear it into battle without his guide.

"If the situation gets bad enough that I have to use it, then I want you and anyone else around to get as far away as possible."

Saturday crosses her arms.

"An' what exactly happens that means we gotta clear the field if you activate it?"

She thinks she might know, but she wants the details. And to hear him say it.

How could he possibly describe it? It's like some terrible, dark deluge that consumes him, and when he manages to claw back to consciousness, everything around has been split open and killed. It's only with magical interference that he'd managed to avoid turning on his friends so far, as much as he's struggled for control.

"It'll be hard telling you apart from the monsters."

"Uh-huh." Saturday's stare intensifies slightly. "Is this something that's likely to happen without your say-so?"

It isn't just that she doesn't like the idea of an unpredictable black magic beserker guarding her six. It's also that - she doesn't like the idea of Guts being that reckless. This is rank hypocrisy, and if Maggie was here she'd tell Saturday so, but she is not.

"It can be a pain to control this thing, but you manage."

There is some part he has control over to keep the worst at bay, at least. Judging by his expression, he seems decently confident in his ability to keep some kind of lid on his armor.

It'll be fine!!

"Guts..." Saturday is not turning that frown upside down anytime soon. "It just kinda seems like a liability to me."

She's having practical, reasonable concerns, that are assuredly not motivated by a repulsion bordering on horror (she'd never admit to fear, even in the secret corners of her soul) for the cursed armor.

But she's not a magic expert, is she? The witch probably was...

"An' the witch who gave it to you, she said it was safe enough?"

Guts is pretty sure even a lie wouldn't convince Saturday that the armor was truly safe.

"There ain't no point fussin' about that now. It won't be the first time."

He's used it before, and he's still alive and largely in one piece. He's not going to toss the armor away as long as he can keep walking.

"Like I said, you manage. One way or another."

Saturday stares at Guts for a second longer, then sighs and pats his arm.

"If you're sure."

She doesn't like this but he's not gonna budge. Better to make a plan for the inevitable fuck up.

"So - how does it work exactly?"

"It consumes you. It unlocks something seething and terrible from within. It's like an impulse that fills your body, and it's always ready to erupt."

Guts didn't like admit that his control was shaky on something like this, but there was no use masking the truth. With the way his luck tended to go, she'd probably see it for herself one day.

"Everything becomes an enemy. You have all this extra strength in your limbs and a thing to focus it all on. Pain doesn't matter any more. There's only one thought on your mind, and you don't stop until that thing ahead of you is in pieces."

Oddly fitting for him, despite everything.

"The witch would use her magic to clear my sight, in a way. Make it easier to see through the haze of the armor, so I don't do something I would regret."

"You think there's a way one of our magic users could mimic that effect?"

It's the first idea that comes into her head, and she needs something to say while she races to process the implications of what he's saying, and the extreme concern it causes her. He is a grown man. He seems relatively experienced in his world's magic, at least as experienced as she is in hers.

Yeah, but how often has she taken risks she didn't really understand, and paid for it?

Just because it sounds like a cursed object designed to corrupt the wearer and turn him or her into a vessel for horrors doesn't mean that's what it is for sure and certain.

"Maybe. I don't know what the spell was, but I do know how it felt."

Familiar as he was with magic, he wasn't a mage himself, sadly.

"She would project her mind into mine, somehow. It was like a tether or a lifeline at sea - her voice would make it easier to keep the armor's current at bay."

Saturday did say she had some kind of magic of her own - maybe she knew a way to work it out?

Edited 2020-07-16 07:14 (UTC)

"Like astral projection?" Saturday frowns. "I've never done that. I kinda know how but it's not like, my thing. Maggie'd be able to..."

This is sort of a lie. Saturday has technically astrally jandered a couple times, but they were never on purpose and usually ended with her eyes catching fire or agreeing to be a demon's parole officer. There's a history here, is what she's getting at.

" - I could give it a shot, I guess."

She'll have to practice; the moment of crisis is never a good time to attempt a new technique.

"Should ask around, first, see if anyone else actually like. Does that regularly."

"Don't think any magic users came with us from the Rig."

At least, as far as he'd observed from their companions. That whole process was always a bit... close, anyway. It felt odd to ask a stranger to jump into his head. It meant sticking around him when he activates the armor.

He'd rather they just stay away.

"You don't need to do it if you're not sure. You could get caught in the vortex yourself."

"If you're gonna insist on using something that's barely safe with a backup, then you gotta at least have the backup," she says sternly. This, too, is wisdom from her father: he had a lot of things to say about using cool flashy powerful stuff with obvious drawbacks and thinking you could pay on credit. He'd been very clear that it never works out in the end.

"Let's make some time to see if I can get the knack, okay? I don't gotta do it great, just enough to redirect your armor's thing. Even I can do that much."

"Okay..."

She's definitely right on that account. Jumping in with no back-up plan is a terrible idea, and he knew it. The best case scenario where he miraculously manages to wrangle back some control would still be incredibly risky.

"Not sure if there's any good way to give you practice. Can't really half-activate this thing."

"Maybe if I turn on my third eye I can see where the levers are?" she suggests. "It's been kinda on the fritz since I arrived, but Big Ugly here," she indicates the armor, "ain't subtle. Shouldn't be hard to see it."

She stretches out her metal hand. "An' this arm is magic, so usually it can like. Touch magic stuff, like ghosts and spirits an' such. So maybe at least I can beat it down if it gets obstreperous."

"Wouldn't hurt to try. When could you do it?"

Having seen Schierke do her spells, he isn't sure if that means Saturday might go into a trance-like state while she takes a look at the armor's astral self. Trudging up the mountains makes that a bit inconvenient - especially if there's an attack in the middle of it.

Better than figuring it out after he's activated it himself, he supposes.

"Pretty much anytime we can find fifteen minutes to focus on it." Saturday grins a little lopsidedly. "The nice thing about my kind'a magic is you don't need anything but focus to do it. Don't gotta trance out or nothin', just open the, you know." She taps the middle of her forehead, over her 'third eye'. Then she hesitates.

"...mind you, I've had some real spectacular luck with it. Like. Getting sucked into another dimension by mistake kinda luck. Or my eyes gettin' burned out... not all the time!" she hastens to assure him. "But for me it's like, if it's gonna go wrong it's gonna go all the wrong. So middle of the column wouldn't be the best place."

It's fine, everything is fine. They are both very reasonable, mature, sensible magic-botherers.

Guts looks back at the dark forest, the shadows peering back at them through the rustling leaves.

“I don’t feel any demons around. Not sure how much quiet we’ll get to have deeper down the trail.”

Not that he’s in a rush, but he figures things won’t stay peaceful like this the longer they wait.

"All right, then." She sets off, leading the way with a determined stride to hide the knot in her belly that acts up every time proper magic gets involved in things. She accepts that she's got a magical edge, now; she has to, after all she's seen and done. But proper magic, mage magic, with books and formulas and study, that still feels - like she's looked around the card table and realized she can't spot the sucker.

She wishes Maggie were here, but she's not. So.

"All right." Saturday turns to face him in a small clearing. Shafts of sunlight brush against the forest floor. "You ready?"

He follows her into the woods, awfully silent as they make their way between the trees. It is a dangerous thing they're attempting, no doubt, but he will have to simply trust in Saturday's prowess here. If something goes wrong, they'll figure it out the next steps when they get there.

After taking a hawkish glance at the forest around them, he nods.

"Yeah. Need me to do anything?"

"No, just, you know, stand there and try not to think psycho thoughts." Saturday takes a slow breath, settles her nerves. Then she closes her eyes, and opens them. And then she opens them again.

What Guts sees, if he sees anything, is her eyes beginning to glow faintly. Not with the kind of light you can see by, either. As soon as she gets a good look at him, she blanches.

The armor is black as rot, clinging like an oilslick to the sides of his soul. It's not a cloak on his back, she sees that now, it's a living shroud that ripple with the urge to suffocate and swallow.

Her upper lip curls. The beast hiding inside the armor sneers back.

She steps up to Guts, grabs a chunk of the cloak - feeling only cloth against her skin, seeing the pelt of a great beast clenched in her hand. She has a snout, or a paw, or neither of those things. Whatever - she's got its attention, which is exactly what she wanted.

A pale, mocking eye opens in the black fabric. She snarls, tugging the beast by the base of its astral tail, and hears it hissing back in the corner of her mind. The cloak yanks from her hand, and she braces her heels in the earth and hauls, determined to make her point as it tries to swarm away from her.

For Guts, this probably all looks and feels extremely weird.

Guts can only see her grasp the cloth as her eyes begin to glow, but with his body being half-step into the astral realm itself those manipulations are going to feel... tangible. It was different from Schierke’s tether. This creature lived in the armor, but it was still a part of him.

It is stirring the same way it does when the strong scent of blood hits his senses. The way it will seem to emerge from the darkness when his heart quickens with an odd excitement at danger. It’s as if the smoldering coals are being brushed with bits of kindling, making the flames leap up at him and threaten to ignite. But no, there was no danger here. He needed to keep himself composed.

The beast’s jaws are a mess of sharp teeth as it stirs, awakening from its dormancy. He can feel it - that familiar seething mass of black hatred. A malicious thing that would grow too large for the chains it was given some day - though for now, it remains fully tethered in place. Whether the astral chains are from the witch’s talismans or Guts’ attempt to control it is unclear - maybe it is a bit of both.

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