Outside 43: Where the sun hurts your eyes and burns your skin

[Recaiden]

[Pit]

The rope does not respond to the tug for more slack. It just keeps reeling in, trying to drag Nick all the way back if need be.

The magma creature though, is still.

[Deathkeeper]

Pit

"Well, they're not letting up so I'll be back to chat a while later. Don't sneak up on me next time! And uh, you have a name or something?" he calls while it's still in view, slowly walking backwards so he isn't dragged.

[Recaiden]

[Pit]

Through another channel, a name is provided. The fearful song in his head rings out into an image. The eight-rayed sun symbol, in the same blazing magma blue of the monster.
Slowly, the song on his radio fades out, replaced by various concerned voices.

[Deathkeeper]

Pit

Nick waves good-bye to the creature and tries to hail the townsfolk on the radio again.
"Yes, yes. Can you hear me again?" he calls, a bit garbled by the mind-imprinting and the confusion and the monsters not being sure if they should act like monsters, et cetera.

[Recaiden]

[Pit]

The magma-monster slinks away to hide in a crevice once again.

'yes!' 'what happened'
His confusion is pretty fair.

[Deathkeeper]

Pit

"I made contact. I'll explain when I'm back at the top." he says, waiting until that happens for him to give the whole story.

[Recaiden]

[Pit]

He's pulled up to the top, gotten out of the ropes, and helped out of his suit.

Maria (now with a young boy riding on her shoulders) and the dwarf and a bunch of other people are waiting excitedly.
"Made contact with it how?"
"Why'd you pull to come back up? It finally got ta ya, right?"

[Deathkeeper]

Pit

"Actually, the mental volume kinda plateau'd after a while. That probably isn't normal. Either way, I started to notice that I was being followed. Like echoes, but with a delay. It's part of my training. Anyway, I yelled out that it should stop hiding, so it did, and it looked like a glowing blue humanoid made of liquid rock and a swirling design on its head. I don't know if it was a thing or the thing. Either way, it made a swipe at my ropes, so I gave the signal, because there was no way I was getting stuck down there. Before I left though it stopped attacking and started messing with the radio. It got a word or two out, but nothing else. I asked it for its name, and the Song gave me a picture. Then I came up." he says.

He understands that the story is somewhat unlikely.
He also understands that these people are living next to this pit dangerously near cult status, so who knows?

[Recaiden]

[Pit]

"This is a sign! This newcomer has been accepted." Cheers go up! This is the best thing to happen here since the pit was found.

"The picture. Draw?"
Nick is offered a set of paper and colored pencils.

[Deathkeeper]

Pit Town

Nick nods, and takes the blue.
"The creature's 'face' looked like this..." he says, forming the triple loop.
"And the name that it gave me was the same color, which was the design I was trying to ask you about over the comms." he says, drawing out the sun.

[Nalix]

The Tower - Second Floor

Phil considers the smoke. If there are still signs of struggle then that's because Hotaru is having trouble, he figures. It's hard to concentrate with the blood filling his mask, but he's healed worse on himself in the past. He raises his hand with a mid-grade charge, aimed just below the sound of the fighting. Wind, he focuses.

[swift wind]

[Lex-Kat]

[Not-North Forest]

"The city is annoying, polluted and full of drek. I don't care for it, but each to his own."

((Hey, this font seems to make better sense.))

When she offers to find a nice animal to fight, his face brightens until the gears turn in his head and he notices her lack of enthusiasm. This annoys him. "I can tell you're an assassin by your gear, so you should love this suggestion instead: let's spar."

A pause, then he tells her why he said that."You're not enjoying yourself. Let's change that. After all, the peacock cannot travel with the lizard unless one learns to crawl on walls."

Judy almost chokes on her sputter. "Spar? With you?" she spins around, smiling. "We don't even know each other. What if I hurt you? The agency that contacted me will never hire me again." she turns back toward the nice forested area. "I think for now we should just stick to lions, tigers, and bears. Oh my!" she says, shaking her hands in the air as if afraid at the end of the sentence.

[Recaiden]

[Pit Town]

A number of townsfolk make a sign involving splayed fingers over their chest.

"That is why the markers changed, yes. As we started to know it."

"I suspect the thing you saw is not all that made the pit, and sings the song."
Everyone is crowding around to look at the picture and at Nick.
"You're going back down?"

[Gullara]

The shifter simply blows a gust of breath at Mimi, and the sound of flesh ripping echoes through the air. The great giant's form slumps to level the nape with Mimi as Sophia emerges partially, sinew straining to stick to her cheeks and chest as she leans upwards.
You may of hit my nape, but you couldn't kill me. your blade couldn't cut deep enough, and no chunk of flesh was removed. Let me show you how my people do it.
She offers, grinning.

[Sie Sind Die Jaeger]

Mimi flounders a little in the air, but recovers in moments. "Pfft!" She scoffs! "I probly coulda did more if I didn't wanna hurt you." She boasts. It'd take a lot more than a immense difference in size to stop her!

[Deathkeeper]

Pit Town

"I mean, I ought to. I was talking and everything. I can't just let it sit there after I managed to speak to it. But I can't go back right away. I was sweating my brains out in there, at least let me take a water break." he says, quite tired from all the excitement.

[Recaiden]

[Pit Town]

Someone is sent off to get jugs of water, which are passed out to everyone, starting with Nick.
He's pretty well trusted after having gone on an expedition, whatever he might smell like.

"That's great, if you managed to talk to it, and we're going to see more. What an exciting time!"

"Of course, we wouldn't send you down again right away. You can return to your 'brother', was it? If you need to."

[Deathkeeper]

Pit Town

"At the end of the day, I have to go home and see him. I promised you a few hours, and you'll get a few hours. I'm sure I can give it one more go before the day is out. I can only stay a few hours because of the radiation anyway." he says, gulping down some water.

Wait, smell? Who's been sniffing him, the badger? That's normal for griffins, not humans and dwarves.

[Arkhosia]

[Sie Sind Die Jaeger]

Mimi flounders a little in the air, but recovers in moments. "Pfft!" She scoffs! "I probly coulda did more if I didn't wanna hurt you." She boasts. It'd take a lot more than a immense difference in size to stop her!

Well, maybe so, but still, I wanna show you the way I've learned to fight.
Sophia responds, reentering the titan form and letting out a loud roar, before ripping out of the titanic body and summoning her 3dmg, using it to perch on a tree.
Loud footsteps sound as a titan slowly approaches through the forests

[Recaiden]

[Pit Town]

Nick is encouraged not to hurry. He wouldn't want to go back unprepared.

People are asking him what it was like, what the song is, a million details about the magma-thing that he saw. He's free to answer as much or as little as he likes.
He's also offered some salted fish to eat.

The badger, mabye. Maybe people aren't only what they look like here.

[ThirdEmperor]

[Outside Outside]

The monk laughs until his wheezing breath has covered the pane with fog, and wipes it away with the same hand he wipes the frozen snot from his nose. Sniffling, he lurches back in his seat as the limousine begins to roll through the night, and leans against the window to see the frosted shadows of the monastery roll past. There goes his life. There goes the tumbled cliffs and barren trees, and days of watching them rise and sink within the tides of windblown snow.
"Achka." But he won't miss it one bit. He sniffs again, louder, but only for the frost and the biting redness of his face, rubbing a hand against his cheeks to push some warmth back into them. The llamatyr is a young one, for a monk. The muscle in his arms is wiry, shoulders broad but rising sharply against a hungry frame, dark skin stretched against angular features. Maybe in a few years and more than a few meals he could be called handsome.

"Ey, demon, where are we going? I'll break your nose if you say hell." It hardly bothers him the stranger is red-eyed and grim, as long as his fingers do not leave the wooden staff. A good thump across the head will fix any supernatural horror he's walked into. There's a happy certainty in Achka's voice, a blunt outlook that leaves no room for things not bleeding when he thumps them. "My soul's something you'll have to wait on, if that's what you want."

[Deathkeeper]

Pit Town

Nick gives what details he can. But truly, the creature didn't have much detail to it, and the Song is hard to describe. He'll guzzle down plenty of water, some food, and probably relieve himself before he's ready to try again.

[Recaiden]

[Pit Town]

Of course. But that doesn't stop people asking. Food, water, restrooms are all available, though this place could do with legitimate plumbing.
Disappointing that he's having trouble describing the song. Other people are wanting to go down now and see for themselves, none enough to actually try it, but they can boast and suggest.

When he's ready, well before his hours out here have passed, the same handful of townsfolk are prepared to man the ropes and the radio, help him back into the suit, and so on.
"Good luck!"

[Deathkeeper]

Pit Town

"Thanks. It's possible I'll need to be pulled up again, though. Last time the diplomacy was a little shaky after all. Be ready for me." he says, before descending, just as slowly as last time.

And this time he'll be paying more attention to cracks for things to ooze out of.

[Recaiden]

[Pit Town]

'we'll be ready'

Down goes Nick! Past, slowly, all the same things, the song building back up to its maximum Nick-available strength. There are a number of cracks once you look for them. The places where the tunnel intersects caves, seams in the walls across from most of the markers...a lot could get in here relatively quickly.

[Deathkeeper]

Pit Town

"Hello? I came back, like I said I would." he calls as he gets back to the part where the static starts.

[Recaiden]

[Pit Town]

The radio communication fades away, replaced by the song over another channel.
'why'
Not just why is he back. Why everything.

The same footsteps start up, following him many paces back.

[Deathkeeper]

Pit

He stops, turning around.
"Stop hiding. And don't try to touch me or the rope this time. Like I said, if the rope or the suit fails I'll die.
I'm a simple guy, I can't answer open ended questions like that. I can only help you with things that I can answer. What is it you want? What you need?" he calls out to it.

[Recaiden]

[Pit]

The magma-creature is there in the open standing again with claws outstretched towards Nick. It doesn't move.
'hide' 'be safe'

[Deathkeeper]

Pit

"You're hiding? From what? If there's something after you maybe my friends and I could protect you." he says, facing the creature though he suspects that the villager was right and it is not the true body of the Singer.

[Recaiden]

[Pit]

The magma-monster turns slowly, ponderously, though as Nick saw earlier it can move quite quick.
It walks back to the markers that have the bird symbols, and places a claw against one of them.
'need space. no safe space. hide.'