[Waylaid Tour]
Dave

No.

It isn't a chapel.

It's a very long, very grand hallways. Full of plinths and statues. Statues of holy men and women. Sixteen of them, as a matter of fact. Each has a plaque on the plinth no doubt engraved with some information regarding them. The next set of doors are even more grant, with gold and silver inlays set into well oiled wood. There aren't any cobwebs. There's no dust to speak of. Obviously this place is cleaned regularly.

The feel that something here is off grows with each step you take.

Maybe it isn't wise to explore alone?

But if this place were dangerous, wouldn't the guards have said something?

What do you do?

Gwyn

Thorns of earth skewer the flesh, causing amble damage to the abomination and causing it to become lodged on the wall. Thankfully this leaves it out of reach when it attempts to slap you with a tongue laden in teeth.

It isn't dead, though.

But the way out to the beach stands open.

The abomination struggles against the spikes, slowly working its way off them. Finding itself stuck fast, it moves on to more unconventional means of applying murder.

One of its horrible fanged maws opens, a ghostly green glow steadily building in it. Whatever it is about to do will likely be intensely unhealthy for you and it is likely a wise plan to vacate the area immediately!

How do you survive?

Aelid

You hide.

In many, many places. But you hide none the less.

Camera stolen back from the incensed weaver spawn, you set its timer and place it atop a small wall. Also crouching behind the gravestones is a ghulah, the female hyena-like humanoid cowering in a shallow, recently dug grave and clutching her shovel. She doesn't appear to have noticed your crow.

The lean-to, meanwhile, has a corpse in it. A reasonably fresh one, actually. Near his listless hand is a canteen of water where wisps are drifting out from. In addition to occasionally drifting out of his stomach, burning a hole through the flesh as they pass.

Silence settles over the Old Road. Silence, dread, and unnatural cold.

Then the silence is broken.

By a camera shutter.

A second or so of silence again.

Followed by the sound of the camera, the wall, and several headstones being shattered by tremendous violence. The ghulah loses her cool and runs, screaming, only to be caught in a heartbeat.

You hear the sound of snapping bones and squelching flesh.

Don't look.

Even if your crow gets trampled by The Thing That Hunts, don't look!

What do you do?

Carlie and Khiael

The prayers helped! Maybe? Whatever the deaconess did seems to have fixed the problem since there isn't a horrible tumor on the woman's neck anymore.

"I believe you could likely all use somewhere safe to rest," the deaconess replies as Clara finally lets her go of her. She brushes off her robes awkwardly. "I'm not sure where you could all be put up, though. I heard that a young man appeared out of the forest late yesterday as well. Maybe some of the farmers would be able to use the help..."

There is, of course, that giant castle up on the top of the cliff.

Surely there's room in there?

What do you say?

Carlie and Khiael

"I do feel really tired," Clara admits. "Thanks for asking, though. What happened to that little bat friend of yours?"

You feel overwhelming relief that Clara is fine. If she had been consumed by a demon because you couldn't run fast enough then... well... you aren't sure what you would have done. Felt pretty awful, surely. If you had swam to town or trekked through the woods you would have missed her completely.

In other news, you have a chance to tell the deaconess what troubles you. Clara knows about it, technically. But she isn't from a place like this. She doesn't understand the significance of it. The deaconess, though? A Watcher no less? You might be able to convince her to let the curse that was laid upon you for be used for something useful. You would just need an opportunity to speak to her alone.

What do you say?
****

Khiael offers a smile to Clara. He hardly knows her, but he's pretty glad that her flesh hasn't been subsumed by a tormented gestalt of never-ending suffering and hate. That isn't a fate he would wish on anyone.

Just to be polite, he answers the rabbit girl's question since she DID address it at him.

"You're fortunate the witch didn't... I don't know... pluck out your eyes to cast spells or something. I've heard they do that," Khiael says. He's heard lots of really unsavory things about witches. Though, honestly, he has no idea how many of them are true. Considering that he's still quite aware and walking around instead of being dead dead he finds that his faith in many of the anecdotes he's heard about adversaries might not be quite so truthful.

Or at least not the whole truth.

"Clara was with us on the bus, yeah. I found her down the beach near town. A demon crawled out of a pipe in the bluff and attached itself to her neck."

Which is, of course, horrible.

The totally-a-young-man-and-not-a-cherub glances between those gathered and coughs awkwardly.

"Deaconess... ummm...?" he asks, drawing out the word in anticipation of a response.

"Mirabelle."

"Deaconess Mirabelle, would it be alright if I spoke to you? In private? Or maybe to the priest in charge of this chapel?"

Hector

You set off through the dark, counting on your shadow to guide you.

It'll take a good fifteen minutes to walk to the Hamlet proper. And it's cold. Hopefully your brought your jacket with you.

Roughly half way there you'll spy a pair of people with torches coming in the opposite direction! They're still too far away to make you out at all, so you have some choices here. You could try to hide and let them pass. Or you could try slipping around them. Or you could just keep walking along the road and act as if nothing unusual is going on.

What do you do?

Leah

Finally you're free of that rotten forest. Free from the sour scent of mildew and replaced with-

Fish.

A whole bunch of fishy smell. They likely do quite a bit of fishing here.

Regardless! Making your way down to the shanty town isn't terribly difficult. There's a low, grassy bluff overlooking the bay's southern end where a ramshackle set of docks have been built populated with equally ramshackle boats. A few mostly human looking figures are fishing off the dock or repairing nets. Atop the bluff most of the homes are built, if built is even the proper word. They're absolutely derelict things scrabbled together from bits of drift wood, old tarp, sections of rusted ship hull plating, and other such garbage. Most people here appear to be working at one thing or another. Fishing, building, tending gardens, carving wood... There's a rather iffy looking blacksmith furnace over there. And the unpleasant scent of a tannery. And what is PROBABLY a tavern of some kind considering the inebriated collection of people lounging around outside. There's also a church. It isn't a grand stone building like the one in town, just a simple little white washed wood affair. Atop the steeple is a simple metal-but-mostly-wood holy symbol.

Many of the people here look quite poor. Many of them have... deformities. Though they might not strike you as such given the fact that you're a cat girl. Not always animal-like parts. Sometimes other, more troubling things...

What do you do?