>>34090867
Time for everything to go confusing and/or terrifying.

>>34090936
You mean it hasn't already?

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Hopelessly bracing for mindfuck.

>>34090981
We ended on a pretty sane and rational moment for Stark, actually. He had managed to make the bizarre physics of the dreamworld work for him instead of against him for once.

It is time!

Post incoming, just getting the right music queued up~

Wait. aren't we... early?

>>34091392

It takes me an hour after putting up the thread to get the first story post out, so... technically we're merely on-time.

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Since you woke up in the dark, alone and scared, you've braved many horrors. Strange deserts underneath a false sky. Roads that run through vast, dark woods where the rain never stops and the sun never rises. Dimensions that violate the laws of physics and sanity with equal aplomb. And a graveyard of a world, still haunted by the wraiths that once lived, struggled and died in it.

And through it all, there's been the sounds – many of which you'd rather forget. The bestial roars of monstrosities beyond imagining; the sound of gristle and cracking bone as you did your brutal work with the axe and crowbar. Even the dark voids between worlds were wicked; entropic emptiness that ate up the slightest breath or scuffle, leaving you alone with your pulse pounding loud and scared in your ears.

And with every step forward, every doorway towards your goal, its gotten worse. More violent, more frantic, more mad, utterly, fucking, /mad./

So when you step through the broken, dripping doorway after Madotsuki, the last thing you expected was the silence.

The tunnel behind the doorway is quiet. Like a Hitchcock movie, it feels – no background music, no atmospheric effects. Just sounds – your sounds – stark and lonely in a dead, uncaring world. The scuff of shoes, the slight rustle of cloth, even your own easy respiration sounds naked and conspicuous. Mado's black Mary Janes /clop clop clop/ up a few weathered earthen steps, making you wince with each loud footfall, and when you follow you find yourself in a monochrome world.

The cavern you've emerged in consists of dark water lapping at the edge of a pure white floor. The faded, scratched red paint on your axe-head, still stained dark with blood and ichor seems brighter than a flare in this stark place. The wall near you sports several long, phallic appendages, and behind you the wall sports two huge eyes.

But nothing stirs, and nobody speaks.

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Madotsuki leads the way, her red sweater similarly bright and alien against the walls, made of sand so white it's almost painfully bright to look at. You follow her towards a strange portal in the wall; the jagged, dark-gray edges looking alarmingly like teeth. Something moves in the corner of your eye, vivid against the white, and you twirl in alarm, your weapon up and out. One of the wall-eyes is weeping shade, a long, reaching shadow that slowly oozes down the wall and across the floor, five thin, reaching fingers appearing as it advances. The phalluses are twitching eagerly, and -

“Stark,” Mado says, not looking at you.

“Right,” you mutter and step quickly to follow her, darting through the toothed door before you can think much of it, Mado's Mary Janes /clop clop clopping/ up another short set of stairs. You follow closely, your eyes darting around for any danger. The steps ascend into a little hut, and through the doorway you espy an endless expanse of white sand.

“What do you call this place?” you ask her quietly.

“The White Desert,” she says softly.

>What are the dangers here?
>You're awfully quiet all the sudden.
>For someone with such a dynamic night-life you're not terribly creative, you know that?

>>34092534
>You're awfully quiet all the sudden.
>For someone with such a dynamic night-life you're not terribly creative, you know that?

>>34092534
>>34092585

>>34092534
>What are the dangers here?
Let's not bring up her issues with this place. We can guess from what we've seen so far. Though I doubt Stark could possibly be prepared for the Bloody Touching Monster. That shouldn't be reachable from where we are right now, but...well, it wouldn't be the first time the connections between the worlds changed to be more disturbing.

>>34092534
>What are the dangers here?

>>34092534
>>For someone with such a dynamic night-life you're not terribly creative, you know that?

>>34092534
>>What are the dangers here?
>>For someone with such a dynamic night-life you're not terribly creative, you know that?

>>34092534

>What are the dangers here?

She clearly doesn't want to be here. Keep her focused.

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You step past her, through the doorway, and survey the scene.

In all directions stretches a blinding-white expanse of sharp, grainy sand, like the salt flats of Arizona on a bright day. The sky above, however, is pitch black. The contrast leaves you feeling cold inside – exposed, colorful and conspicuous between the pure white earth and flat black sky. You turn to find Mado still standing in the little hut, like a schoolgirl waiting for the bus. She's looking at you, her expression unfathomable.

You open your mouth to tease her – something, anything to keep the oddness of this place at bay – but the words die in your throat. Somewhere along your journey, you stopped wisecracking altogether – and contemplating it now, you don't find anything here worth laughing at. You gaze into Mado's serious, weary expression, and something queer twists around in your soul, something between a shiver and an ache, not sure where to go.

You decide on a serious question.

“What should we look out for, here?”

Mado's eyes simply flick upwards, and she nods her head a fraction of an inch. Glancing upwards, you see something zooming through the sky, its trajectory flat and unnatural. Something brilliantly bloody red is spraying out in a fine mist – blood, from the stump of a severed head as it flies overhea above.

The disappointing “tump” of your axe hitting the ground drifts to your ears with boring normality as you watch the head fly into the distance, behind a weathered white rock bluff, and vanish.

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“Well,” you croak intelligently, your mouth completely dry.

Madotsuki says nothing as you continue on, little puffs of sandy (salt?) kicking up from her coal-black Mary Janes as she leads you through lonely white cacti and narrow gulches between stony bluffs. As you round the corner of one, you make a sharp sound of alarm – jutting high into the sky, impossibly huge, are the arm and leg of a giant.

You stare at them blankly, following the details of nails and cuticles, the fine hairs on the knuckles of fingers and toes, large enough to use as ladder-rungs – even the wrinkled, rough skin near elbow and knee. Far ahead, dwindling to a dot, is the small red patch of Mado's sweatshirt, an ant crawling beneath the gigantic appendages did it move-

“MADO - ado –- ado ---do!” you cry out, your voice echoing harshly across the dead sand. You lunge into a sprint, arms and legs pumping for all you're worth, eyes fixated on the huge appendages, suspecting they moved, /sure/ they're moving now, about to reach down and smash Mado like a flLLLYYYYAAAAAH -

- your feet skid out beneath you and dump you ass-first onto the ground as you reverse course towards me it moved towards me rolling around sharp little sandgrains biting your plams as you scrape-crawl-hurlyourselfUPWARDS and onto the balls of your feet, running the other way and looking back you see -

- she's walking towards the fucking thing, the glint of sullen steel clear in her hand what the FUCK IS SHE DOING -

>STAY STILL THEY HUNT BY MOVEMENT
>MADO WTF JESUS GET AWAY FROM IT

>>34093376
>>MADO WTF JESUS GET AWAY FROM IT

>>34093376
>STAY STILL THEY HUNT BY MOVEMENT

>>34093376
>MADO WTF JESUS GET AWAY FROM IT

>>34093376
>STAY STILL THEY HUNT BY MOVEMENT
I just want to vote for this so we can call Mado a "clever girl".

>>34093376
>>STAY STILL THEY HUNT BY MOVEMENT

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>>34093431
>>34093475
>>34093480
>>34093587
>>34093654

You freeze in place, staring wide-eyed and helpless as Mado approaches the bicep of the arm, heedless of the danger, the knife glinting in her NO YOU STUPID NO NO FUCK SHE FUCKING STABBED IT AND ITS FUCKING /MOVING-/

vision narrows into a long dark tunnel as every muscle screams taut with terror knowing death is near even your ass clenching so hard it aches in your aching tailbone fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK -

...She turns to you, knife still dripping blood, and flings her arms out in a “so what?” shrug.

>okay its cool its cool its not cool its cool
>KEKEHRRGRRR
>VIGILANCE

>>34093899
>>VIGILANCE
Cool it Stark, this is not the time to freak out.

>>34093899
>okay its cool its cool its not cool its cool
>VIGILANCE

>>34093899
>>KEKEHRRGRRR

>>34093899

>KEKEHRRGRRR

Release is needed.

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Your brain tries to go in twelve directions at once and ends up in arrythmia, twitching and jolting helplessly as the urge to run, to fight, to scream and to hide quiet like a mouse from an owl tear you apart. You can only lie there, staring up at the gigantic, twitching limb, blood still dribbling from Mado's knife attack, waiting for the other foot to f

ark
stark

STARK

*SLAP!*

You come around slowly, sharp white sand biting your cheek. The clean, sullen steel of a kitchen knife is buried in the earth by your head, and just above it Mado's squatting, hands steepled and a serious, patient expression turned upon you.

You simply close your eyes and keep breathing, letting the pain in your chest subside as you suck in lungfuls of dry, bitter air.

“Don't laugh,” Mado says quietly. “Not here. Not fucking here. Why'd you have to laugh?” She scowls at you, a faint tremor developing in her arms as she presses her hands together tightly. “God dammit, Stark.”

“It was moving, Mado,” you whisper, curling up on the ground like a child, eyes squeezing shut again. “Moving, Mado, *moving* -”

“They don't do anything,” Mado says quietly. “They never d-”

“Rules have changed the rules have-”

“I KNOW!” she snaps, the “oh~ oh~ oh!” echoing alien and alone across the sands. She ducks her chin deeper behind her hands, as if hiding from it. “I know. Just – just shut the fuck up.” She falls back onto her rump and buries her head in her hands. “Just... shut up.”

>Talk
>Rally
>Question

>>34094329
>Rally
>Question

>>34094329
>>Question

>>34094329
>Rally
Keep her focused, and maybe we'll get focused too. Neither of us can be allowed to freak out like this again.

>>34094329

>Talk

Okay. Time to talk things out a little bit, here. Both need it.

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You squeeze your eyes shut against the gigantic limbs and take a few more deep breaths, trying to follow her command. Trying to forget that the crazy bitch just ran up to a tiger and kicked in the balls and left you standing there pissing your pants as you waited for her or you or both to be smashed into a bloody red smear on the fucking pavem- sand.

You have to keep moving, and you're running out of time. You struggle onto hands and knees, your breath still coming quick and painful, but – your axe, here. Both hands now, steel head against the ground, and *push,* levering up and off the ground-

“Stark,” Mado says quietly, frowning at you. “Just wait a moment-”

“We don't... have... moments,” you grunt, your eyes wandering back to the gigantic, towering limbs. “Lets... just keep... moving-”

Mado rises to her feet, snatching her knife from the sand and smacking the flat side against her thigh in frustration. “Stark, you just flipped out. Slow down for a second-”
“ME!?” you snap, diving face-first into old familiar anger with relief. “Y-you m-oron, you stabbed it-”

“They don't do an-”

“EVERYTHING does something!” you snap, “-thing-eeng-eeng-ng~” echoing away. “The fucking *sky* falls on you if you wait long enough so I'm not waiting,” you snarl as you scan the area again, the axe in both hands again. “Why did you *stab* it, Mado?” You look up at the Limbs again, then check behind you, just in case they pop out behind you arms and legs and limbs and wiggling phallic cocks and long red rubber tongue tentacles right out of the case-

You flinch as Madotsuki seizes your axe with both hands and yanks on it violently, almost pulling you over. You relinquish it after a moment, letting her fling it away. Her knife clatters to the dust as she catches both your wrists in her hands, keeping you from drawing more iron.

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>>34094769

“Stark,” she intones, those deep brown eyes staring up at you seriously. “You don't have anything to fear here.”

“You said this was a bad place,” you whisper, and a shared tremor crosses between you – you both know it, instinctively, to be true. But Mado just shakes her head slightly, not breaking eye contact. “It is. But...” her eyes drift away from yours as her grip cinches tighter around your wrists as she visibly swallows.

“... come on,” she says, sliding one hand into yours and gripping it tightly. You both stoop for your weapons, not breaking your grip. Hand clasped tight in hand, you both walk under and through the limbs.

Deeper into the White Desert.

So how long until we meet Bloody Touching Monster? Or will we need to encounter Uboa before we see it?

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>>34094824

>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNO8sjfDKgk

You've come a long way on your journey, all right – with everything, everyone and every/where/ doing its damnedest to rip, kill and maim you and your charge. You squeeze Mado's hand tightly, the other gripping the hard hickory shaft of your always-ready axe, but nothing moves to strike you. Nobody pursues across the wide, stark expanse behind you. The cacti don't deign to attack, and the severed limbs of giants that jut from the earth in odd places at wrong angles pay you no heed.

Still, your heart hammers in anticipation, and your muscles ache for the release of action – something simple and effective.

Anything but waiting.

You've gone some distance through the Desert when you notice it – a slight, sharp scratching sound out-of-synch with your sneaker-scuffs and Mado's cloppy schoolgirl shoes. Like a wire brush shot over steel, or... scratching.

Gigantic fingernails, scratching.

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>>34095513

You pass by a tall, contorted tower, a bright red tube winding in and out of its “windows.” Just past it a bright white flame stands frozen in time, a snap-shot of death as dead and still as everything around it. Bushes begin to appear on each side of your path, some of them sporting frozen flames of their own – this one just catching, that one fully involved. Madotsuki seems to be looking around for something, more and more apprehensive.

At length, she comes to a stop, her hand squeezing yours hard.

“This is new,” she mutters.

Before you stands a stark thicket of poplar trees, their bark curled and blackened by flame. The tops of some are still alight with that frozen fire, like a gigantic hand reached down and sketched in extra details. The unburnt poplars are vivid and cold against the frigid sky, skeletal, leafless limbs criss-crossing over the blackness.

A fine veil seems to settle over the thicket as you watch; millions of dust-motes appearing from nowhere to float downwards like snow, but much finer – ash. A rain of ash, the weeping of the dead forest, mobile aftermath to the frozen fire.

>>34095594
So this is probably from our mind, I'm assuming. Fire, ash, all that goodness. I wonder if this is the final push we'll need to figure out who the smokejumper was in relation to us.

>>34095733
>So this is probably from our mind, I'm assuming. Fire, ash, all that goodness. I wonder if this is the final push we'll need to figure out who the smokejumper was in relation to us.

Sorry for the delay. Some... son of a bitch... just linked me an image that literally numbed my fucking brain for a good five minutes.

I just got mindfucked. Back now. Brain still full of fuck, but... back now!

>>34095799
It's fine, man, no worries. I'd ask what the image was, but if it's so bad that it can mindfuck you, I don't think I want to know.

>>34095944
Probably something from /d/ or failing that, /a/.

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>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1VzNgGMX4U

You only realize you're moving when Mado's hand tugs against your own. You tug in return, urging her to follow, and after a moment she does, lingering after your footsteps as you enter the stand. The silence has returned, the fine sifting ash settling on your head and shoulders like snowflakes; a blanket of silence. You drift through the woods, a pair of living ghosts through a dead world; drawn inexorably forward by some magnetism that draws at your soul like the current of a deep river.

A tiny red dot drifts across your vision. You reach out gently and let it land on your palm. Mado stands on tiptoe to examine it as you bring it close to your face – the tiniest speck of red dust. As you stare at it, another alights on your fingertip. Looking up, you find a thin, faint veil, a line, of the little red motes leading deeper into the forest, vivid against the monochrome world.

You follow the motes with your eyes until you espy a column of falling red dust, drifting as slow and sedately as the pure white ash. The dust falls in a perfect circle five feet wide, a cylinder of bright color stretching to the sky amongst the uniform white expanse of pure ash. You approach slowly, a strange, hollow numbness in your mind and heart and soul as your hand seems to float forward like a leaf in a stream. Something cold and delicate tickles your fingertips. You lift your hand, a fine silver chain running over your fingers as the small medallion is brought into your palm – a cross of St. Florian.

You look up into the cylinder of drifting red dust, and feel the tears begin to trickle down your cheeks.

>>34096351
Shouldn't Stark know better than to do that? That dust is loaded with ammonium sulfate. It's not toxic, but that doesn't mean you want to get it in your eyes.

>>34096351
"The symbol most associated with St. Florian is the Maltese Cross, commonly known as St. Florian's Cross. It is used the world over as an insignia for fire departments and firefighters, since St. Florian is their patron saint."

Oh boy.

>>34096627
Yeah, it's definitely one of his effects.

>>34096717
I wonder if we can use it against the dancing devil.

>>34096815
It would be appropriate, wouldn't it? A holy symbol of firefighting against a demon of flame. I hope it'll help us.

>>34096831
Ha, I hope we'll end up having a boss battle with it, I know just the right theme for the encounter.

>>34096918
What song? Because I feel like "Flame" from Witch Hunter Robin that someone posted last thread would be appropriate for boss music.

>>34096972
Vagrant Story's boss battle theme with the spirit of fire, Ifrit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqpdsieTL_s

>>34097023
It's a good song, but just isn't desperate enough for a battle with the Dancer. This is a manifestation of our deepest traumas and fears, it needs to have an appropriately dramatic soundtrack.

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“... Stark?” Mado asks softly.

“Fire retardant,” you say quietly, looking back at the little silver medal. “The wildfire was right on top of us – they must've had to fly right through the updrafts to bring in the strike. But they did... and I lived.”

And somewhere else, a man you knew and loved crawled into a tinfoil bag to die.

You close your eyes and clasp your hand tight around the cold, delicate silver as the tears flow down your cheeks, cutting through the thin mist of ash. Madotsuki squeezes your other hand as you cradle that little bit of metal close.

You can't remember his name... but he didn't forget you. A demon from demenses unknown has followed you into this hellscape and haunted your steps – but so did an angel, perched on your shoulder. Someone reached through the barriers between worlds, crossed the burning river Styx to lend his aid, and his love, to your quest. A single, weak sob sighs out as you collapse, the sternum-shaking roar of turboprops vibrating through the somber poplars. Madotsuki jerks in alarm, but you squeeze her hand harder, a brittle, beautiful smile cracking through your face. You press your fist to your face, savoring the feel of the delicate silver chain tickling over your lips, and weep with relief.

Mado is talking, worried, upset, glancing at the sky.

>Don the medal.
>Put the medal around Madotsuki's neck.

>>34097187
>Put the medal around Madotsuki's neck.

>>34097187
>>Don the medal.
Since it is our Effect, I guess we're the one who can bring the most out of it?

>>34097187
>Don the medal.

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>>34097301
>>34097334

I've been waiting all day to see which one of these Anon would choose.

>the suspense oh my

>>34097187
>Put the medal around Madotsuki's neck.
It's the right thing to do. The medal represents sacrifice in order to save another, it's not proper for Stark to keep it for himself. Not when Mado's still trapped here. And there's a certain poetic appropriateness to it. The Romans sentenced Florian to burn for not enforcing the proscriptions against Christians. He said that if they did so he would only climb to heaven on the flames. So instead they tied a weight to his neck and threw him in a river. Let's not suffer his same fate.

>>34097187
>Put the medal around Madotsuki's neck.

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>TIED TWO AND TWO

grinning so hard right now

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>>34097598

CALLING IT

>>34097187
>Put the medal around Madotsuki's neck.

We have a guardian angel. Madotsuki needs to know she has one as well.

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You crack your tear-blurred eyes open for a second and gaze at Madotsuki. For the first time, you wonder just how old she really is – a futile task in the dream, perhaps, but nonetheless you wonder. She looks like a girl of fifteen or sixteen, but carries herself like she's thirty – sometimes. Even through the tears you recognize the hard set of her mouth, the tension in the corner of her eyes, the businesslike grip as she buckles down on her fear and handles herself like a baseball bat; blunt, swift and forcefully. Self-reliant and under strain.

The little medallion is growing colder to the touch; your fear and tension seeming to drain into the blessed silver. Just holding it makes you feel better; a symbol of hope, a reminder of aid from on high. Mere minutes earlier you cracked up with hysterical laughter till you passed out, driven nearly mad by a *failure* of anything trying to kill you for five minutes, and now, *now*...

… you're considering giving this surcease away.

Madotsuki grabs your shoulders, squeezing hard, clearly restraining the urge to shake an answer out of you already. You gaze into those piercing brown eyes, so shielded and hard. There's nobody to help her down here, no ghosts to trace blessings in ash on her forehead. You suspect you're here by mere accident, some cosmic coincidence.

She has nobody.

If you should die before you wake, you pray your soul the Smokejumper to catch. But who will catch Mado, if not you? In this life, or the next?

You rub that silver chain against your lips once more, savoring the balm. It calms the fear in your soul – and you know what you fear most.

As Mado winds up an open-handed slap, fear blossoming to anger on her face, you reach out and slip the silver chain over her head.

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She blinks, confusion spreading over her face as the chain touches her neck. She looks down at the little thing, fingering it wonderingly.

“Stark?”

“The cross of Saint Florian,” you say gently. “A firefighter. And a soldier. A man who drowned, rather than betray his soul.”

Madotsuki looks up at you, confusion evident in her eyes. “But-”

“Looks good on you,” you say. “Besides – a young girl should have a cross, like that. And I didn't see a jewelry box in your room.”

Mado's face softens... then droops into a frown as she tugs gently at the chain, as if to remove it. “... Stark, I don't think-”

You press a finger against her lips. “No,” you say, soft, but stern. “There's an old prayer – a German prayer, unsurprisingly: Oh Saint Florian, spare my house, kindle others. Do you think Florian ever answered those bastards?”

Mado's eyes fall at this. She takes the medallion in both hands, fingering it gently. She says nothing, but as she turns away from you, she tucks it into the collar of her sweatshirt.

“Lets go,” Mado says, almost too quietly to hear. “We're almost at the end of this.”

That's it for tonight! I don't have work tomorrow (AT LONG FUCKING LAST FINALLY JESUS) so I can sleep in and wake up bright and bushy-tailed to run ANOTHER THREAD.

There's no way we're going to finish in just one thread. I've got a Thing to do Thursday, but we'll run Friday and maybe Saturday after I get off work at 5.

SEE Y'ALLS TOMORROW

>>34098547
THE END IS NEAR!

>>34098547
See you then, friend. Thanks for running. I don't know where this is going to go, but I know it's going to be a fun ride.

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I was just catching up in the archives and ran across the haibane renmei references, so I went to wikipedia for the skinny, and:

>Rakka realizes that the crow in her dream represented a person whom she had hurt and who had loved her in her past life, whose spirit then flew over the wall as a bird to bring her a message of forgiveness. Rakka's guilt is relieved, and her wings turn gray again.

fuck ME.

>>34098599
Well, I suppose I should really say that I don't know exactly where it's going. Some self-sacrifice on Stark's part seems likely. But maybe we'll manage a 100% good end and save both of them. Maybe if we can figure out what the Dancer is.

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>>34098724
>fingerguns

>>34098746
oh my god I can't wait for the end I can't wait for it oh my god

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After >>34098502 scene my prediction of the end is image related.

>>34098777
Yeah, neither can I. It's all coming together. Like, I think I understand what's going on with Stark, now. Even if he doesn't know who he is, I think I do. All I need to know is who the Dancer is. If I can just figure that out it'll all fall into place.

>>34098879
Sure seems likely, doesn't it? But at the very least, we WILL get Mado out of this. No canon ending for her, she's getting out of this alive and happy.

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>>34098888
>All I need to know is who the Dancer is. If I can just figure that out it'll all fall into place.

CAN'T. WAIT. TO. WRITE. THAT. ENDING.

You didn't archive the thread again.

Oh yeah can't wait for the ending.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMam8IiAbNU

>>34098888
Something Stark dragged in I would think. Heavily associated with fire, and follows him everywhere, so an avatar of negative aspects of past incident.

>>34098995
Thread isn't archived.

>>34099026
Maybe. But it's also got elements of Mado's traumas, the ones themed around molestation, and she seems to be its primary target. So I'm thinking that it might just be feeding off of Stark to empower itself with more deadly and dangerous imagery. I think what happened to Stark was that when he was younger he was trapped in a vehicle caught in a forest fire. And someone he knew, though I'm not sure how, was a smokejumper who ordered the fire retardant to be dropped to save Stark instead of himself. That's why Stark became a firefighter, because he was inspired by that sacrifice. And more specifically, why he's the Iron Man, since being trapped while fire bears down on you is a major theme in his fears.

And then the Dancer drew on that. Because being trapped and helpless is what it feeds on. It's not torment that it wants, specifically, it's helplessness. The knowledge that you're powerless to escape your fate. That's probably why it went after Mado, because whatever is being done to her, she's trapped by it. But for some reason she stopped being as satisfying prey for it. She gathered the effects, and that's let her slip away from its influence. So it drew in someone else who had those fears, of a slightly different flavor, so that it could change the script on her. Stark's like a...a spice, I guess would be the best analogy. Something that isn't itself food but makes food better. I just don't know why it picked him.

>>34099327
Archived now.