Night 64: Underground Lake

[dualistic]

[From here.]

Harvey almost ended up tripping, which would have put him face-first in the sand, but he managed to reorient himself just before his legs gave out on him. His hand flew to his chest as he tried to catch his breath and fight down the nausea. He didn't want to think about how much it would sting to have bile come up and wash over all the wounds in his mouth if he threw up. So that wasn't happening.

The area felt just as damp and cold as the last time, and since it was all something they'd seen before, Harvey didn't hesitate to move forward once he'd recovered. His destination was the dock, and the two torches that were set there made it easy for him to find it.

As he moved toward it, he glanced back at the other two. "So this time we don't even need to draw blood. I guess that works well enough." He would have preferred that the transition was smoother, but it definitely beat having to go through the fridge like they had for so long.

Comments

[dualistic]

Right. It wasn't like Scott could feel his mouth, either. Harvey raised an eyebrow as he watched the kid stumble into the boat with Sangamon's help and was relieved that he hadn't been picked for that job. Still, even with that in mind Harvey thought touch was the better choice over hearing or vision.

The boat took off and Harvey glanced toward their ferryman as he explained what they were in for. All this got them was passage across, and it sounded like once they reached the other side they'd be on their own. The skeleton didn't seem interested in offering them any more information than that.

After the cryptic statement made about the water, though, Harvey had to look over, and what he saw was a grouping of moving corpses -- not quite like the zombies, these ones were waterlogged and graying, with blank eyes staring up at them. He pulled back sharply and kept his gaze on the other occupants in the boat instead.

"So what's your stake in this?" he asked the ferryman, trying to ignore the bizarre fact that he was chatting with a skeleton. "Borrowing one of our senses for the night doesn't really seem worth the trouble. Unless Landel's got you on a leash too?" Or this was all for the sake of atmosphere. Just like the sphinx, this ferryman seemed more like a distraction than anything else.

[vstheworld]

"Thtupid is as sthtupid does," Scott grumbled in response to Skeleton Man. Maybe they were all stupid for coming here, but when the smart option was staying in your room and alternating between cowering and moping? Yeah, Scott was pretty tired of being smart.

As they made their way across the lake, S.T. and Harvey asked questions, and Scott shuffled around a bit where he sat, trying his best to get used to this all-encompassing numbness. If he was going to have to work with this for the whole night, he had to get used to it as fast as possible. He wasn't going to let this fail just because he had been doused with industrial strength anesthesia. Granted, that probably would be a pretty good excuse if they did fail. No one would blame him. Though, all the same, trying not to fail was probably the better option here.

"Yeah, you enjoying my touchinessth there or what?" Scott asked after Harvey spoke, squinting as he tried to get a better look at the approaching shore.

[toxicspiderman]

The dead bodies were freakier than the usual dead-two-headed-fish and soda bottle crap S.T. usually saw when he looked down, but the scary shit wasn't visible. As long as they didn't all decide to get up at once, it wasn't bad. They were making good time across the lake.

"Leash, definitely. Bet we can't persuade you to play hooky and come along." He didn't really want a bitchy talking skeleton sidekick, but the answer might tell them what Landel had over the guy. Maybe just the same one they all had. Wake up back here. Stolen senses instead of bacon and pancakes. Temporary pleasures.

Stinky wasn't the worst nickname he'd ever picked up, but he couldn't just let that stand. He smirked at Scott, and then leaned back, closing his eyes. He pulled a pen out of his pocket. Then spun it over one knuckle with an ease that could -- and had -- hijacked the attention of an entire Fortune 500 board meeting. Second verse, same as the first.

The fifth time, it flipped off his hand and went straight for Charon's collarbone, aiming to play xylophone from the inside on the ricochet.

[trolltaker]

"Trust me, when you've been dead as long as me, you become less concerned with going on crazy adventures and more content with just rowing a boat, playing cards with your spider pals, and scaring hapless slack-asses with someone else's voice every once in awhile," he told them. Having been reminded of Scott's payment, he scraped what was left of his bony fingers against the side of his skull, scratching an itch.

"It's a simple life -- er, unlife!" he added with a bark of a laugh. "Guess you could say I work here, but it's not exactly work when you're basically doing what you always do, am I right?"

Of course, then Stinky had to flick a pen right down his ribcage, until it got lodged against one of his pelvic bones. "Nice," he said with a hollow smile aimed at shot's source. "By the way, I've got the sweetest pet for you to meet sometime -- if you're not allergic to sea beasties, anyway. You'd love her. She's a riot at parties."

Finally, they reached the dock at the other shore, and the small boat came to a halt. "Looks like we made it!" he announced. "Can't guarantee safe passage every time, but, hey, that's life. Just try not to die tonight, yeah?"

[dualistic]

So basically, what the ferryman was saying was that he didn't care too much about the fact that he was stuck down in these caverns because he was dead and wasn't that interested in much anyway. But... playing cards with spiders? Harvey could only imagine that was meant to be literal, but he didn't want to ask.

Harvey was startled by the sound of Sangamon's pen bouncing against the skeleton's ribcage, and sent a sharp glance toward the man. Pissing off the guy who was giving them passage across a lake packed with hungry corpses and who knew what else? Not the best idea.

Luckily, it looked like that little act of rebellion hadn't upset the ferryman enough to make any drastic moves, and they reached the other end of the shore without a hitch. Harvey got off as quickly as he could and then nodded to the skeleton. "Don't worry, I'm pretty sure none of us are interested in doing that." They'd lost enough of their group already, although with any luck Jones and Peter weren't actually dead.

[vstheworld]

While Scott had been able to (mostly) ignore the corpses in the lake in favour of becoming more at ease with his new state of being, it was a lot harder to ignore the ones that littered the gray-black sand when they landed on the opposite shore. Mostly because a few of these ones stunk more. Not so many bleached skeletons on this end; these bodies were juicier.

"Blugh," said Scott, making a better effort of getting out of the boat than he had getting into it. If he got more used to letting his sense of gravity guide him rather than his sense of touch, he could move around a little bit easier. "'f anything imma not die just so I don't leave my body lyin' 'round here. Littering: don't do it, kids."

Aside from all the bodies, the most noticeable thing on this shore was the giant cliff face covered in funky symbols. In the rock were four thick, bloody doors that didn't look the slightest bit intimidating at all, oh no sir-ee. All four bore the same warning: "Three must enter, Three must leave."

"Y'know, I like this place more all th' time. First the sthkeleton tells us not to die, and now the doorsth too. It's like they're kinda sorta cheering us on," he said as he approached the wall.

He took a sidelong look at one of the bigger blood stains. "Or whatever."

[toxicspiderman]

S.T. grinned at Charon's attempt at a comeback. Wouldn't be the strangest thing at one of his parties. Or the only man-eater, though he knew better than to say that out loud even in the absence of any girls. Especially not Kraken-Jaws-Cher-Mermaid hybrids lurking just under the surface. All supposition, but around here, worst-case scenarios and flights of fancy tended to come true.

So he just climbed out of the boat and waited for Scott to finish his dramatic inscription reading. "Beats a guaranteed death match." The last few words were said through clenched teeth. He could only get so many words out without taking another breath. Why couldn't they have hit this side first when he'd lost his sense of smell? Putrescine was bad enough when he was in charge of the stinkbombs.

"Hey, Boney. Want--" Nope. He wasn't getting through the entire offer. No freebies for Bonehead. Then he leaned over and vomited. Half-digested steak blended in with the scenery. Between heaves, he looked up at Harvey and waved a hand at the doors. "Pick one."

[dualistic]

The smell of rotting corpses was impossible for him to ignore, and while dealing with those zombies had prepared Harvey for that somewhat, these ones had probably been left to ferment for a while longer. He wrinkled his nose as he moved across the sand, noting one body that was clearly not human. So the monsters that got offed were dumped here, too?

Though that brought up the question of how it was decided whether someone's body ended up here or in the morgue. Maybe all of the bodies here were just for decoration, but unlike the skeletons, it was clear that these ones had been killed fairly recently.

It wasn't something that Sangamon had the stomach for, apparently. Harvey made sure to direct himself far away from that puddle of puke, although that almost caused him to stick his foot into one of the corpse's torsos. "Hey, hold it together, all right?" They couldn't really let the sight of some dead bodies throw them off, though the smell was pretty atrocious.

Harvey directed his attention to the doors. All four of them were decorated in a similar way (that is, carved into and blood-smeared), which meant that it was hard to pick between them. Did it even matter? There was no way to know the "right" answer here, so he was just going to have to choose at random.

The one closest was slightly to the left from the docks, and it seemed like as good a choice as any. "Let's pick door number two, I guess," he said as he started toward it. Was it just going to open for them once they got close enough? Harvey figured that was most likely, based on how everything else had worked here so far.

[vstheworld]

"Classy," said Scott, feeling his own stomach churn watching S.T. empty his on the beach. He didn't throw up himself, though, if only because throwing up and not being able to feel it would be super weird.

It looked like Harvey had the same idea he did. All four doors had the same warning, the same bloodstains, the same ominous overtones — why be picky? The second door was as good as the first as good as the third as good as the fourth. Either way, a lot of choppy stabby smashy stuff probably awaited them. Hopefully not death. Death was... Not good... And things.

"I guess yes," said Scott, unconsciously gulping as the three of them approached. Sure enough, the door opened with surprising ease once they got close enough. Getting back out once they were inside, however...

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