(PrP) Nightmare At Large, Pt. 2

[Kyle Ferlen]

Things are moving fast - almost too fast for the Fairest's already fraying psyche to cope with - but he pushes onward as best he can through all of the strange nightmarish realms. He does his best to squeeze through the crowds without injuring himself or the 'people' in the dream. He doesn't even think about them not being real, really; it isn't in his nature to be callous like that. He catches a glimpse of the others moving towards Ava's voice, towards a tinted glass door. An agonizing few hours minutes later, he's able to grab on the the door handle and shove himself through.

On the other side, he's sure of two things: the others are further ahead than he is, and being in this dream isn't going to get him caught up any time soon. All these statues... He can feel him limbs moving slower as he scrambles to find the others. He's sure that if he doesn't move quickly, he'll be joining the statues himself! Kyle's full-on sprint feels like a half-hearted jog, but he catches movement near two pillars nearby. His heart should be pounding, but he almost feels relaxed - physiologically, at any rate. His mind is all too aware of the terror as he now creeps onward, finally able to pull himself through.

The next image almost grinds him to a halt. The child here, in this dream, seems more like the subject of nightmares than anyone else around. Not a child in any normal sense, really, but he can feel it. This is his dream. Unable to control himself and forced to watch the carnage from a front-row, first-person vantage point. Again, he wishes desperately that he could make a difference, but the small animal part of his brain was in full 'flight' mode now. 'Fight' had gone away somewhere back by the gilded, rose-covered gate. Not wanting to become the child's next victim, he runs around the grisly sight towards an escalator. He practically flies down it's incline, feet landing heavily only four times on his descent. Fortunately, amid the chaos, an advert for Robby's dream is lit up in yellow. Kyle puts everything he has into reaching that final gate and pushing through to the other side.

Terri is the first one he sees on the other side. The rest of the scene takes a moment to fully form in his mind. A forest of some kind. Dark and primal an full of unseen dangers. Surely countless eyes are on them here, but Kyle can't locate a real threat, himself. Wanting to be brave in the face of this situation is only easier on him because the threat feels like something he can fight against. The things out there - big and threatening as they might be - probably aren't giant rosebushes. Curiosity snaps his attention toward's Terri's sudden movements. Realization dawns on him a moment later. Oh, right! She's testin the place out. Figurin out how this dream works. He kneels down, remembering the sound of crunching leaves, and rakes his hands over the ground, feeling to see what it's made of.

  1 success

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2015-07-07 19:28:58		Kyle Ferlen rolls 5 to Wits+Empathy (10 Again)		7, 4, 8, 7, 5		1 success

[Daniel Leto]

Daniel skirts the edge of the battlefield. He gave one last look behind wishing he could do something, before reminding himself that he was doing just that. By helping one they helped them all. And so down the escalator he went.

For a moment (as much as time meant anything at the train station) Daniel thought they were in another nightmare. The sensation of lifetimes passing was disturbingly familiar. It was like reliving the beginning of his durance before he learned to accept that waiting was the only thing you could do. Then the very next moment (which might as well have been a millennium) he was stepping into a forest.

Well, not really stepping. He was ghost here. Mist with only the thought of form floating just behind the scene. An invisible observer. And Daniel didn't like what he saw. It was the same as all the other nightmares they had crossed. A child in need of help, desperate, afraid, and alone. Only this time they could do something about it. This time Daniel could offer comfort and protection.

Terri's words words echoed clearly just behind the reality of the dream but the boy was in danger now and Daniel was not content to be a ghost watching on the sidelines

"I'm going to help him," Daniel stated "See if I can draw out the Sandman."

And with that Daniel coalesced. It was a strange sensation; making yourself real. Self actualization at its finest. It was like stepping through a shadow and pulling yourself together from the world around you at the same time. Bits of darkness and damp disconnected from the environment and swirled to gather like dew on the gravewight's soul. They made him solid. They made him manifest. Not mist and not bloody stone but his 'normal' self. Dark hair, understanding eyes, and a kind smile stepped out of the oppressive dark of the forest. Raven feathers stuck out of the back of his grey t-shirt. His mantle of fog swirled around his feet.

"Robby?" he whispered moving to crouch down next to the boy. The Thing was still out there. "You're going to be okay. The people you asked for help are here. I'm Daniel. I'm going to help protect you."

  4 successes to make himself appear. Whew! That was closer to Intensity than expected. Might need to give myself penalties.

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2015-07-08 05:44:49		Daniel Leto rolls 6 to Wits3+Empathy4+Wyrd2+Pledge1-Intesity4 (10 Again)		7, 10, 7, 9, 10, 1, 1, 10, 1		4 successes

[Trickster]

Lynn watched curiously as Daniel formed himself out of dream stuff, going and kneeling down next to the boy. She permitted herself a small smile at his actions, but simply offering comfort wasn't going to be quite enough to keep the boy safe, or draw the attention of The Thing that was lurking in the bushes.

They needed a distraction. And if there was one thing she was good at, it was drawing the eye.

Daniel was kneeling and comforting the boy. And Terri and Kyle were trying to examine the dream itself, learning what they could from it. Lynn on the other hand, made her way carefully a ways apart from Robby, glancing at Daniel to make sure he had an eye on the kid. Concentrating fiercely brought her into the dream as well.

After that, it was just a matter of finding an chunk of wood the appropriate size.

"Oy, ugly!!" The chunk of wood went sailing in the direction of the heavy breathing. If followed, it would draw the eye in the opposite direction of where the child was.

"Pick on somebody your own size, ya overgrown crotch sniffer!!"

  1 success

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2015-07-09 21:20:37		Lynn Mills rolls 7 to to appear in the dream {Wits (2) + Empathy (2) + Wyrd (2) + Pledge (1)] (10 Again)		7, 5, 2, 2, 9, 7, 7		1 success

assuming I get pity dice and can actually interact with the dream at this time

[InvertedMonkey]

Terri Nutkins Kyle Ferlen
No matter how high the Steepscrambler seems to climb, there seems to be only more trees. Once again, she encounters the obstacle of dreams dilating time and space. She climbs but goes no farther from the ground, grows no closer to the trees' peak. Her progress seems frozen at about ten feet up. The dream its self resists her going outside of it's bounds. Robby doesn't need to know about what's above this forest, that's not part of his universe right now. His universe is the forest it's self, and the terror of the creatures lurking within. Likewise, when Kyle rakes his fingers through the forest floor, he finds a thick litter of dead leaves over cold, mealy humus. Worms wriggle up from the earth in the furrows his fingers created, white and glistening. Kyle knows that this isn't real. But the dream is making it very difficult to tell.

Subtracting the four rightmost dice from Terri and Kyle's rolls (Intensity penalty) results in zero successes, they have failed to analyze the dream at this stage.

Trickster
The chunk of wood sails out of the darkness, but strikes nothing. Lynn is certain she pitched it right at the origin of the huge, menacing shape, but it makes no difference. A shout of defiance and a branch thrown with scorn are not part of this dream's script, and it resists their intrusion. Is this resistance entirely born of Robby's mind? Or of the Sandman's? Whatever the case, the young boy's eyes do not find her, and the formless monstrosity pays her no mind. For now.

Subtracting the four rightmost dice from Lynn's roll (Intensity penalty) results in zero successes, she has failed to manifest in the dream so far.

Ava Campbell Daniel Leto
A strangled scream dies in Robby's throat and he thrashes in place, trying to squirm away from the strange man that suddenly manifests beside him in the darkened forest. Not all monsters that lurk here go on four limbs, with teeth and claws as their sharpest weapons. He scampers backward so fast that he nearly bumps into Ava's legs, and jumps in surprise. Then he sees her, the familiar face. A month had gone by, and he'd begun to suspect that she had abandoned him. Yet here she is. Impossibly, occupying his dream. That stops him cold, chest heaving with panicked breaths, as he looks up at her.

Ava and Daniel have now successfully manifested in the dream. Although they can distinguish it as fantasy from reality, their presence here means that the dream can now interact with them. Which is something of a vulnerability. However, as they can now more directly manipulate the dream and it's outcomes, and engage with Robby, it's probably worth it.

As though sensing intrusion, the Dream reacts. On the heels of Daniel and Ava's manifestation, a new sound joins the creaking and groaning and cracking of the forest. Whuuuuff. Whuuuuff. The sound of great, wet nostrils moving as they take in the air, gathering scents. Then a rumbling growl of satisfaction and anticipation, deep and thrumming and tickling your chest cavity. Some great predator, hunting. The Lost began as human, and all humans began as prey animals, that ran and hid and climbed from predators. Evolution has left it's footprints of that time in their brains, old instincts that rear, sharp and deadly, at the right stimulus. Detecting all the signs of being hunted, and declaring that this is acutely something wrong.

If the dice penalty seems like too great an obstacle, a good option might be to Scour the Intensity of the dream. Those of you who failed your rolls this round, never fear. You can continue to make your attempts, at no additional dice penalty.

[Daniel Leto]

Daniel held a figure up to his lips. He hadn't meant to scare the kid so badly but this was a nightmare after all.

Then again, there was no guarantee that the Thing out there was even the Sandman. It could just be a dream predator while the true threat sat behind the scenes. He scooped up a handful of the mist that floated around his feet.

"Find him," he whispered to it "Warn us when he starts to get close."

The fog coiled around his arm briefly, as if acknowledging it had heard. Then it drifted back to the ground and began expanding outward. First traveling along the ground, then slowing floating up. Daniel kept only the lightest bit of control over it, except to push the fog bank ever outward. He felt it swirl around tree roots and branches but he also felt where will pushes back. The curls of white avoided Ava briefly, her instinctive Wyrd control repelling it for a short time before allowing the change in the dream to affect her. Then there was Terri in the trees; Kyle and Lynn's outline briefly showed like invisible footprints on the forest floor. When they moved, the air shifted subtly, letting Daniel keep track of them if he was paying attention and more importantly he could track the other presence the dream was sure to contain. And then the fog bank pushed beyond them as well and encountered the predator and moved beyond.

It probably didn't help the nightmare's atmosphere. The forest now looked haunted as well as hunted. But the unearthly mist was benevolent and belonged to Daniel. Slowly they'd take control of the dream and save Robby from the nightmare.

Daniel is trying to find the Sandman. Determine whether he's the predator hunting them, something else, or unmanifested. Not really covered under available actions but Analyze Dream seems appropriate.

  Analyze the Dream 2 successes

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2015-07-10 16:54:02		Daniel Leto rolls 4 to Wits3+Empathy4+Pledge1-Intesity4 (10 Again)		10, 10, 4, 3, 3, 1		2 successes

[Trickster]

Lynn shook her head and cracked her neck. Obviously they would need to change the dream more before they could interact with it. So instead of going after the monster again she took a deep breath and closed her eyes. This was a nightmare, but it didn't have to be quite so bad. Not anymore. Robby wasn't alone and that would make all the difference.

Reaching with an ease born of long familiarity, Lynn reached around and pulled her fiddle case to her; absently noting that it was still in the shape of a tiny coffin and bound to her in silver chain. Some things persist, after all. But she chose not to dwell on it and instead flipped the case open and pulled out her fiddle; tucking it under her chin in one smooth motion.

To those with ears to hear it, the gentle strands of Brahms Lullaby drifted through the nightmare. It didn't seem to change much, not at first. But gradually tiny bits of moonlight started poking their way through the canopy, lighting the mist with a gentle glow. Even the scent of the forest changed, going from dank and decaying to simply bitter and old. The shadow of the monster even changed, shrinking a bit as the music wound through the trees. It was still a nightmare, but now it was a manageable one.

  Scouring the Dream

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2015-07-10 18:06:18		Lynn Mills rolls 8 to scour the dream {Wits (2) + Empathy (4) + Wyrd (2)] (10 Again)		8, 7, 8, 3, 2, 9, 5, 10, 1		4 successes

Roll minus 4 dice off the end leaves me with 2 successes. That means the intensity of the dream has dropped from 4 to 2.

[Kyle Ferlen]

Wriggling white bodies rising from the humus does little to comfort Kyle, let alone tell him anything useful. Really, what had he expected? As he struggles to rein in the feeling of uselessness, the resounding snuffling whatever is out there renews his sense of urgency. Whatever is out there has noticed them. Well, maybe not directly... but whatever it is seems to know something has changed. If Kyle can't figure out the dreams from the sidelines, he might at least be able to do something for the boy. He hadn't tried anything like this before, but figures it can't be too difficult. Can it? He concentrates on asserting himself into the dream and bringing himself before Robby.

  1 success

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2015-07-12 15:55:23		Kyle Ferlen rolls 7 to Wits(2)+Empathy(3)+Wyrd(2) to manifest in the dream (10 Again)		7, 4, 2, 1, 5, 2, 8		1 success

I'm guessing after subtracting 2 from the right for intensity, Kyle's attempt has failed.

[Terri Nutkins]

The invisible ceiling at the edge of the nightmare caused Terri to curse and she decided that even attempting to analyse the dream in this manner was going to be a fruitless task. Looking down, she could see Kyle digging through the ground as Daniel and Ava had decided to manifest themselves into the dream proper. A wise course. Lynn was trying to weaken the hold this place had on Robby, making it easier for them to work.

Then the sound of the predator came and Terri could feel the fear at work in this place. Well, she had been hunted before. Never again. Not as long as the Autumn leaves touched her soul. She knew how to fight in this place, was taught by one of the best in fact. When the Sandman came, the Legate will show him true Fear.

For now, however, she dropped like a leaf, weightless, landing in a roll among the detritus on the ground. With outstretched arms, her nails dug into the trees closest as she attempted to draw out the poison of the nightmare; to make it a magical wood and not the vile deep, dark forest.

Red Riding Hood, eat your heart out, bitch.

  Scour the Dream

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2015-07-14 14:31:26		Terri Nutkins rolls 8 to Scour the Dream (Wits 5 + Empathy 3 + Pledge 1 - Intensity 4) (10 Again, WillPower)		7, 6, 2, 3, 3, 1, 9, 5		1 success