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Nightmare Wonderland



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Mon Sep 05, 2022 10:21 pm
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Mageheart says...



Nightmare Wonderland


Brought to you by
@SirenCymbaline and @Mageheart!


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mage

[ she/her, but in a boy kinda way ]

roleplaying is my platonic love language.

queer and here.
  





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Tue Sep 06, 2022 12:22 am
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SirenCymbaline says...



Spoiler! :
phpBB [media]


A great yellow moon hung leerily over Halloweentown on this dark and windy morning, mournful frogs sang to its coming, while sporadic gusts of wind prodded the corn stalks in a dry, blackened, wretched little cornfield. Crows idly gathered at the edges of this tentative feast.
For despite how lifeless this field may have appeared to you and to me, these crows were a part of this merry land, and this was just the corn for their dark jive.

And here to thwart their wicked thievery was Baba the Scarecrow.

A little scarecrow child with a Jack 'O Lantern mouth, a tattered wide-brimmed hat, and baggy overalls many times patched. The scarecrow was just as patched, with sewn up scars snaking in twine over their cheeks and arms.

Baba stalked the crows. Baba wiggled as a black cat wiggles in preparation, and pounced at the crows on the fence. Baba jumped, and chased, and threw nets, and dug little holes and covered them with dry leaves. The crows behaved, of course, like crows.

Baba was born to chase these feathered devils. And the feathered devils enjoyed a little war. At the end of the day, Baba would come inside the farmhouse and have a good yarn with Mr MacGregor, the wolfman who lived there. He was sort of like a dad, or an uncle. He was mostly like a wolf. A caring old curmudgeon of a wolf in a cowboy hat and wellington boots.

But for now I’m quite happy to stay in this cornfield, watching the little scarecrow have a go at their multitudinous enemy. At the moment, Baba has opted for a stealthy game of sit in the cornstalks and wait for something to walk by.

These crows wouldn’t know what got them.
Bad souls have born better sons, better souls born worse ones -St Vincent
  





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Tue Sep 06, 2022 12:52 am
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Mageheart says...



When Mira opened her eyes, the first thing she noticed was that she was surrounded by corn. Which was weird, seeing that the last thing she remembered doing was visiting Kalim over in Scarabia for an impromptu Halloween in winter party.

The next thing she realized was that she wasn't alone. Kalim was sitting right next to her with a startled, terrified expression on his face, and Mira quickly saw what he was staring at.

There was a skeleton. And it was moving its head as it sat up. It was also wearing Ace's Halloween reaper Halloween costume, which was weird, and creepy, so Mira did the first thing she could think of: she took an ear of corn that had fallen onto the ground next to her and chucked it at the skeleton.

"Ow!" the skeleton said in Ace's voice. "What was that for?"

Mira, midway through grabbing another ear of corn, paused. "Ace?"

"Who else would it be?" Ace said, rubbing at his face. He paused, then stared at his hand as he drew it back. "...Why's my hand just bones?"

"It's not just your hand-" Mira started to say, but was cut off by Kalim rushing to his feet and rushing over to Ace to help him up. Ace, of course, was too preoccupied with no longer having skin.

"I'm a skeleton?!" Ace exclaimed, shock in his voice. It was, Mira thought, impressively on his face, too, despite his face being a skull.

"I'm glad it's you!" Kalim said, tail of his werewolf costume wagging. "I was so worried when I couldn't find Jamil anywhere and saw a skeleton-"

"Uh," Mira said, blinking. "Kalim. Your tail. Is. Moving."

Kalim turned to her with an innocent expression on his face. What had been fake ears shifted like real ones when he tilted his head to the side. "What do you mean? It's not-" He let out a startled yelp when he turned to see his tail moving after all. "Why's my tail moving!?"

"I think we've been turned into Halloween costumes," a young, familiar voice suddenly observed from behind the corn stalks. A moment later, they parted to reveal Ortho holding Grim in one arm. When Grim saw Mira, he squirmed out of Ortho's embrace and ran over to Mira's side.

"I found you!" Grim said. "Not that I was scared when I couldn't find my minion—you must have been scared-Fgnya! Why's there a skeleton over there?"

"That's just Ace," Mira said.

"I'm so confused," Kalim whined, and it really did sound like a whine.

Mira glanced down. She was still wearing her Halloween costume. So was Grim. Neither one of them looked all that different. But Ace and Kalim both looked like their costumes were real now, and even Ortho's pumpkin head seemed to be floating above his somehow still partially robotic suit of armor in a magical way.

"I think we should figure out where we are," Mira said, "and how we got here. Maybe there's other people near here?"

"There's a farmhouse within a ten minute's walk," Ortho reported. "There's a 56% chance that it has people there, and a 33% chance that they're alive."

Ace scrambled to his feet. "Why wouldn't they be alive?"

"Because this is most similar to the endless Halloween," Ortho noted, which he probably wasn't wrong about, "and most of the people we encountered in that realm were ghosts."

"You think we're in the Ghost Realm again?" Kalim said, eyes wide and nervous.

"It does look a little dead here," Mira commented, looking around the corn stalks.

Grim's stomach grumbled.

"I don't care if there's ghosts here!" Grim declared. "I just want to eat some food."

"Then let's start walking," Mira suggested. The sooner they found other people, the better.

So the group did exactly that and started to head for the farmhouse that Ortho had spotted earlier.
mage

[ she/her, but in a boy kinda way ]

roleplaying is my platonic love language.

queer and here.
  





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Tue Sep 13, 2022 1:59 am
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SirenCymbaline says...



Movement. Movement! So much rustling. A whole group of rustling interlopers!

The first thing that Baba could see through the tall grass was a pair of black boots with black hearts on them tromping confidently towards the farmhouse without a care in the world. Baba had many friends and acquaintances who wore black boots, but this was a new and unfamiliar pair of black boots, and thus, probably full of crows.

Baba pounced. Baba seized.

It felt as though there was more to this body above the boots- ankles at the very least- but Baba saw this as no reason not to lock limbs and attempt to wrestle the whatever it was to the ground.
Bad souls have born better sons, better souls born worse ones -St Vincent
  





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Tue Sep 13, 2022 9:53 am
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Mageheart says...



When someone suddenly launched themselves out of the corn stalks and onto Ace, Kalim yelped and Grim climbed down from Mira's shoulder so she was holding him instead. Ace yelped, too, but it was less a terrified noise like Kalim's and more like a just plain out startled one.

It took Mira a second to realize that Ace was getting attacked by a moving scarecrow, and another second for said scarecrow to successfully knock Ace down.

"Get off!" Ace cried out, trying to push the scarecrow off and failing miserably. "I can't get this scarecrow off of me!"

Kalinga frantically dug around in his pockets. "I can't find my wand!"

"There's a 97% chance that, if this like the endless Halloween, we won't be able to use magic here," Ortho observed from nearby.

"Fgnya!" Grim exclaimed. "Not again!"

Mira guessed she probably should try helping Ace now, so she plopped Grim into Kalim's arms and marched over to where the scarecrow was wrestling with Ace.

She tugged at the scarecrow.

"If you don't get off of Ace soon," she warned, "I'm going to have to throw an ear of corn at you."
mage

[ she/her, but in a boy kinda way ]

roleplaying is my platonic love language.

queer and here.
  





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Fri Sep 30, 2022 7:03 pm
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SirenCymbaline says...



Hmm. That voice wasn't very crowish.

Baba rotated their head 180 degrees, and peered at the stylish intruders. The scarecrow had ceased the hissing and thrashing, but for now calmly remained in place.

"Baba guards the corn." said Baba in a low, still voice. "Have you come to steal corn?"
Bad souls have born better sons, better souls born worse ones -St Vincent
  





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Fri Sep 30, 2022 7:11 pm
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Mageheart says...



Ace, probably because he didn't want the scarecrow to return to attacking him, stayed surprisingly silent. Kalim yelped when the scarecrow turned its head around, and Grim clung to Kalim. Ortho just looked on, presumably intrigued.

"No," Mira said, still holding the ear of corn up, "but I'll use the corn as a weapon if you don't get off of my friend."
mage

[ she/her, but in a boy kinda way ]

roleplaying is my platonic love language.

queer and here.
  





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Fri Oct 14, 2022 6:43 pm
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SirenCymbaline says...



Baba went limp, and slid to the ground. They rolled away into the weeds.

"You make a fair point." said Baba, from the weeds.

At that moment the farmhouse door opened with a c r e a k and a tall, bulky figure came out. It was a wolfman, with brown fur and a long, rumpled snout. A long zig-zagging scar stretched from the left corner of his mouth all the way up to his left ear. Similar scars crawled lazily around his thick forearms, over which the shirtsleeves were always rolled. He wore a wide-brimmed hat, a bolo tie, and thick rubber boots. His yellow eyes shone ahead in the dim morning light.

"What's all the noise out here?" he called out. His voice was gruff, but that seemed to be his default setting.

Baba stood up and scampered over to the wolfman in a blink, and curled fondly around his ankle. This was a looser, more loving ankle hug. The farmer allowed this expression of clinginess without acknowledging it, since he had to look formidable until he had assessed what sort of situation this was.

"Intruders. But they're not crows. And they're not stealing the corn." said Baba from around the wolfman's rubber boot.

"Thank you, Baba." said the wolfman. He walked down the path to meet the group, despite the scarecrow on his leg.

"I'm Mr MacGegregor, what brings you little devils to my corn field?"

From the simple way that he said it, it seemed that 'little devils' was a casual form of address here.
Bad souls have born better sons, better souls born worse ones -St Vincent
  





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Sun Oct 16, 2022 12:37 pm
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Mageheart says...



Mira dropped the ear of corn she had grabbed in preparation of needing to use it as a weapon. She could easily grab another one if she had to, but she didn't entirely feel the need to.

Kalim's tail went still and his ears drooped. He was clearly nervous. Even Grim, who would have normally been clamoring to get out of Kalim's arms, was still. None of them really knew what to say.

Or, at least, that was what Mira had thought for all of the twenty seconds it took for Ace to get off of the ground and to brush himself off. She always forgot how good he was at becoming a decent human being when he wanted to be one instead of a teenage boy.

"We're not really sure how we got here," Ace said, tone friendly. If this wasn't the twentieth time she had seen Ace do this, she would have been shocked at how he went from, well, Ace, to this. "We were just having a party and found ourselves in our corn field."

Kalim nodded enthusiastically. He also leaned over to the person closest to him, who happened to be Mira. "Do you think he's like Jack?" he whispered in a voice that wasn't a whisper at all.

Grim, seizing the opportunity, scrambled out of Kalim's arms and climbed onto Mira's shoulder. If Mira remember more of Earth, she would have thought that it was vaguely reminiscent of Pikachu on Ash Ketchum's shoulder.

"I don't know if this is the time to be discussing that," Mira whispered back, her voice actually a whisper. She thought for a moment, then leaned over and added, "I think he's just like that. Jack's either partially wolf or full wolf, not more than partially wolf."

Ortho, who apparently still had the same ability to eavesdrop that he had when he was a normal robot, gave a wise nod of his pumpkin head in agreement. "Jack Howl is a beastman. Mr. MacGregor is a wolfman."

Grim made a confused noise. "There's a difference?"
mage

[ she/her, but in a boy kinda way ]

roleplaying is my platonic love language.

queer and here.
  








Life's short; smile while you still have teeth.
— Tuesday