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Stripes feels the shudder, the fear taking hold. His mantle's whispers take on an eerier quietly. They become almost a single, hushed voice that, if one strained, could almost be heard. Something speaking of madness and beasts and horror to come...
Stripes is in for a rough time
As the air gee colder the fear grabbed hold. Fear was an unsightly thing vet even Leon had to show it occasionally.
Lou strode confidently deeper into the Hedge along with Perry, wary, but yet unsure where the delightful frights of the Autumn host were to be. While the scenery was indeed spooky, he was expecting more of a showing. Perhaps the path was simply a prelude to something larger?
That has to be it....
This theory was confirmed by the sudden chill the Draconic felt down his spine as he went deeper into the hedge. The twisted trees grew gnarlier and took on a more sinister look. The shadows became deeper and more pronounced. Even the way the air whistled was haunting. Lou was excited on one hand, but worried on another. He wanted to continue, but he didn't want to be afraid. Or at least, he didn't want to run away screaming in fear. Regardless, he pressed on deeper into the Maze, not only to sate his curiosity, but to fulfill the pledge made with his friend.
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Had it not been for the sudden shiver that ran up her spine, Juno would have turned to face the others with a huge - sharptoothed - grin on her face and two thumbs up. The graveyard, the path, all of it looked like a black metal CD cover brought to life and for a brief instant it met with her highest approval.
The fact that she actually felt unsettled by the sudden change in ambience gave her pause. Looking over at the others, the Manticoress knew that while a cat preferred to Walk Alone, common sense dictated that there was safety in numbers where the unknown and ever-changing nature of the Hedge was concerned.
Instead of walking ahead on the path and leaving the others to their own devices, Juno slowed her pace to allow for the larger group to catch up.
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Whatthefuckkkkkk --
Perry suddenly felt the chill overcome him, putting him on edge; whatever was to come, he was not sure he could stand up against it. He was not scared... yet. But it was like that creeping knowledge of the serial killer being just around the corner, with a knife and a Ghostface mask.
The irony did not escape him that he was in fact wearing a Ghostface mask and had knives on him.
"You see anything?" he asked Lou quietly, peering to and fro.
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Magnus stops for a moment as ice water fills his veins. Part of him just wanted to dig into the nearest hole and hide. Instead he shakily brings his glass to his lips and throws back the entire cocktail.
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OOC
As the Lost continued to walk down the path, they found that the eerie sensation from before only intensified with each step they took further into the Hedge maze. Feelings of uncertainty took a hold of some, while others began to feel like they would get lost and be trapped within the maze for who knows how long. However, this was not the worst of it. Halfway through the maze, the hallucinations begun.
Jezebel could hear the sounds of several machines at work at a distance, the clash of metal against metal. Slowly but surely the sounds began to get louder and louder, and every time she moved forward she caught a glimpse of something or someone following her, watching her, waiting for her to get back to work. As she started to run, filled with an unnatural fear, mechanical towers and machines began to appear out of nowhere, blocking her path at every turn. Eventually she was lead to a dead end by this process, and ahead of her was an elderly man, working on something that looked like a mechanical contraption of sorts.
As John lay hidden in the hollowed out tree, waiting for his chance to spook those walking by, he too was overcome by the wave of fear. At first he began to hear scattered whispers here and there, some felt distant, while others sounded like they were coming from inside the tree itself. The darkness of the night worsened, making it pretty much impossible to see anything. The only thing the Whisperwisp could see was the moon above him, and reflected upon its surface...the shadowy figure of a woman.
The manticoress of Spring was the next victim of the horrific illusions manifesting around the maze. One moment she had been standing by a row of graves, and then in the next she found herself in a room that appeared to be a little too familiar. Leaning against one of its walls, she could make out what looked like a small Hello Kitty bag, and just as she recognized it, Juno heard a familiar voice call to her from behind. "You are permitted to look at me," it said to her. But when the Fairest tried to look for its source, she only found mirror images of herself that stared at her in disgust.
Leon's own nightmares were the next to manifest, and just like the other hallucinations, they only manifested for his eyes and nobody else's. As the Ogre walked further down the path, he began to hear a familiar voice calling to him. As he looked around the maze, he quickly realized that the voice was in his head. Panic started to settle in, when suddenly several scarecrows began to erupt from the ground around him. Upon closer inspection, each one of them looked familiar, like someone from his past...and they were very much alive. As the Oni began to run, more and more scarecrows continued to break through the ground to block his path, eventually surrounding him and blocking his attempted escape.
As Lou ventured forward, ignoring his instincts that told him that this maze was a bad place, things seem to be perfectly normal at first. The tall Draconic conversed with Perry as they made their way down the path, chatting away to keep their nerves down. However, as they seemed to reach a dead end Lou noticed something ahead. As he walked closer, he found an old mirror that reminded him of his childhood. In it he could see himself, but not as he stood now...no, his reflection showed him as he had looked before being taken. Appalled by the image, Lou tried to turn away from it but for some odd reason he felt compelled to keep on looking. The overweight child that stared back at him began to grow in size, becoming larger and larger, reaching an obesity of grotesque levels. Eventually, the child was no longer a child, for it had turned into a huge, fat ugly dragon. The beast broke out of the mirror, flying above Lou and the others, breathing fire all around as it caused much havoc. The vicious thorns of the maze caught fire, and in the distance the Draconic could hear the laugh of a woman that sounded a little too familiar for comfort.
While Lou was having to live out his own horror, Perry was completely oblivious of what was happening to the Draconic. Besides, he had things of his own to deal with. It started with a call to order, followed by the loud banging of a huge wooden mallet. Suddenly, his ears were filled with the shouting of people in a courtroom, utter chaos filling its walls. Then a familiar voice shouted loudly, calling them all to silence. Just when the Shadowsoul thought things had come to an end, he heard the voice once more while he felt like he was being watched from above. "Are you ready for your own judgment?" asked the voice before everything went silent once more.
Just as Magnus finished knocking down his cocktail, the Brewer began to feel a little funny as he ventured forward. At first he may have thought it was the effects of the booze, but then he reconsidered this since alcohol typically didn't affect him in such ways. As the Winter Wizened continued to walk, he suddenly realized that the maze had turned into a huge hall, with rows of massive benches to either side of him. Magnus picked up his pace slightly, and that is when the tolling of the bell began, which was then followed by the organ playing a song that would perhaps haunt the poor Brewer for the rest of his life. Magnus began to run at that point, but it was pointless. No matter which direction he chose to run in, there was an altar waiting in the end...and a beautiful woman wearing a beautiful bride's gown, whose face was covered by the veil of her dress.
Even those who had favored the Ashen Court were not safe from the fright feast that began to take place. As Serreth walked down the path, trying to find ways of scaring those who walked ahead of him, the Elemental suddenly began to feel heavier and heavier. Each step he took required more energy and effort than the previous one, and slowly but surely he came to a full stop. When he tried to move, Serreth found that it was no use in trying. The only thing that moved at that moment were his eyes, and as he looked ahead of him, he noticed that all those who had been walking in front of him had been turned into solid stone. Broken depictions of their former selves, doomed to suffer an eternity as someone's statues.
Last, but not least was the young Hunterheart known as Stripes. As the whispers of his Mantle began to become quieter and quieter, he started to notice that the Hedge maze around him began to suddenly change. The vicious thorns and crooked trees were suddenly turned into huge green trees, which appeared to be full of life. The tiger Beast could hear the sounds of wild animals nearby, as the exotic flora of a long forgotten jungle continued to sprout all around him. It was at that moment that an intense fear began to settle in, and it felt like a kick to the gut. Stripes began to run, for he felt like he was being chased. Whatever it was that it was chasing him, it was certainly a much bigger and more dangerous predator than he. Thus, the Hunterheart ran as fast as he could, not stopping to look behind him. However, he finally came to a full stop with the realization that he was not the one being chased; he was the one chasing the rest of the Lost who had come into the maze with him.
The horrors continued for what seemed like hours, which may have been a mere few minutes in reality. However, it was hard to tell when one was in the Hedge. The Lost wandered around the maze aimlessly, trying to find a way out, to put a stop to their nightmares. However, the conditions of the hallucinations just seemed to worsen by the minute, until it all came to a sudden stop. The lot of them had closed their eyes in an attempt to block out the horrid images, no longer being able to deal with the suffocating fear of the whole experience.
When they opened their eyes again, the group found that they were standing merely a couple of feet in front of the door that led back to the Throne Room. As they looked ahead, there was no maze to be found, just the shadows of the vicious thorns at a distance, being casted on the ground by the bright moonlight.
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