The Warring States of NPF - View Single Post

DFM · 09-05-2008, 01:36 AM

The decent is smooth and quiet, remarkably better than the rumbling service elevator. I don't know if it's mechanical decay or misplaced engineering priorities, but I'd take the dumbwaiter any day of the week.

It opens into what I first think is a freezer. The hotel kitchen must be close to twenty degrees. A pan falls off the stove and clatters to the ground.

Help me.

It's a girl's voice. Maybe a woman's, I can't tell. It's too soft, too panicked. I step out into the kitchen and see a book lying on the counter.

It looks like a diary. Most of the entries are torn out or charred, but near the end of the book the damage seems more superficial. I lean against the counter, back to the wall, and begin to read.

05/30/1958 - Just arrived here, at the Ocean House. We have a week-long holiday here in Santa Monica and Ed has booked us a room for the hotel's grand opening. I was against it at first, it's more than we can really afford but Ed talked me into it and I'm glad he did. It's a wonderful place, almost magical. The children have been swimming all afternoon.

05/31/1958 - The first two days have been almost perfect, except that Ed can't seem to stop asking about the locket I received from my mother. He seems to think it was sent to me by some... admirer. Ed can be sweet, but sometimes his jealousy gets the better of him. Hopefully he'll feel better tomorrow.

06/01/1958 - Sun is out today, not a cloud in the sky. Ed seems a little on edge, keeps guessing as to who my "new boyfriend" is. Silly Ed.

06/03/1958 - There was a picnic for the hotel guests this morning to celebrate the hotel's opening... quite a grand affair. Ed is in a dark mood. I don't know what more I can do to reassure him that he's my one and only. The whole thing has made him downright miserable, the only time he seemed to brighten up was when he was speaking to the grounds keeper. Boys and their tools.

06/04/1958 - We only have two days left, and thank God we're finally going home. Ed won't speak to me or the children and I've found him more than once in the bathroom holding my locket and staring at it. I'm afraid he's suffered some kind of breakdown. I've told him we can go home if he wants, but he just shakes his head. Won't even look at me. I just want to go home.

06/05/1958 - Ed left early this morning, I haven't seen him since. If I don't see him in another hour, I'm going to call the hotel manager, he shouldn't be out in his state, he could hurt himself. Tiffany went down to the basement to look for him and I'm going to send Ed Jr. out to look for them both if- Sorry, Jr says there's someone knocking, that must be them now.

Run.

The girl's voice again. Some of the pans hanging from the cabinets start to bang together. Then more of them start. Then more. And more and more and more until everything in the kitchen is shaking like it's trying to break free of some invisible chain.

Then, all at once, the chain snaps.

The massive center stove roars to live, shooting flames straight up from its burners and the temperature rises to a blast furnace. I'm knocked off my feet before I can think. I can't hear anything but the monstrous thunder of stainless steel crashing against the wall, the floor, crashing against itself... I stagger half on my feet, half on my hands, towards the kitchen door, constantly battered from all sides. A knife from one of the counters slams into my ribs, burying itself up to the handle. It feels like the blade's on fire. I pull it out and try to stem the blood flow with my free hand while a soup pot smashes into the back of my skull with the force of a baseball bat. My vision blurs and I can feel something lift me off the ground and throw me towards the door I'd been so desperately scrambling towards.

The ghost slams me into it so hard the door's blasted off its hinges and we both crash to the floor.

The noise from the kitchen is gone. It's cooler in here, too. Not cold, but... cool. Like a basement should be. I hurt like hell but other than the white fire of a knife wound in my chest nothing seems too damaged. It isn't bleeding anymore but it looks like it should be.

There's a vent and some empty shelves near the end of the room.

I pull the vent free and crawl inside. Anything to avoid going into the kitchen again.

I crawl through the claustrophobic space for a few moments before I hear the girl again.

Be careful.

I don't want to have to be careful, I'm tired of this thing having an ambush at every turn, I want it dead already.

I want it dead before I am.

The vent opens directly into a second elevator shaft. For the first time, I'm glad there's a dead girl whispering in my ear.

I know what's coming.

I leap out of the vent and hit the bottom of the shaft with a silence that belies the roar of pain from the knife wound and the dull aches from every other part of my body. As soon as I touch the ground I dive and roll into a tiny offshoot that holds the maintenance ladder just away from the main shaft. My chest feels like every organ I have is being ripped out from that wound. I lie on my back, bare feet pressed against the ladder. I'm there for a moment before I hear the ear splitting shriek, and the world starts to shake.

The elevator screams past, a few inches from my face, a trail of sparks lighting up the darkness behind it. It slams into the ground just below and beside me with a deafening thud and for a moment I think its smashed through the concrete floor, but it just sits there, silent. I pull myself up and, fighting the pain, begin to climb.

Near the top of the shaft, one of the outside doors is wedged sideways just enough for me to step over and crawl through. I wince and emerge from the elevator shaft into the topmost level of the Ocean House Hotel.

The air in the hallway is stale. Stale and quiet. It looks like it's in much better condition than the rest of the hotel. A little worn, but nowhere near fifty years worth.

It's almost as quiet as the lobby first was. Almost... but not quite. The lobby was deadly still, like the entire building was dead, but here... it feels like something's there, just... holding back. I keep one hand against my chest to prevent anything from falling out and struggle towards the room at the end of the hall.

More fire damage. I stagger into the room and start sifting through the ash for the locket. That's got to be the thing I'm after. I don't know where it is, but the girl, whichever one that is, wants me up here, so it's got to be somewhere here. I'm about to near the sofa when the wall explodes in purple flames.

It's hot. Hotter than a normal fire. Or maybe it just feels that way because I'm... well... different now. The far wall quickly follows suit, bursting into ethereal fire. I run out of the room and into the hallway as quickly as I can manage without doubling over in pain. The same violet black fire spreading along the walls just ahead of me.

I come to a hole in the floor in time to see the floor below me completely covered in the fire. I leap over it, stumble, almost fall into a section of the flames. I can't imagine a worse pain. I can feel the skin on my back bubble. I jerk away and fall to the floor. The entire hallway's on fire. I crawl to my feet and run through the pain.

There's an open room down the hall on my right. It's surrounded by fire but I think I can climb the fallen ceiling timbers to make it to the next story. I manage to clumsily claw my way to the next floor, the pain in my chest almost removed in favor of the blinding pain on half by back.

There's no fire up here. I'm on... it must be the very top story, staring out into a full moon and a godless sky.

I can't go back down. If I passed the locket, Ed's already won. If it's up here, I don't know if I'll be able to find it anyway. There's got to be two feet of ash in here. I hiss as I bend around to see the damage to my back. It looks... fine. Well, the dress does, anyway. I twist an arm to touch it and almost scream when I do. Not touching the back again. Whatever fucked up nightmare wound this is, Mercurio or somebody better be able to fix it. I take a few steps further into the room and my vision begins to swim.

I stare at the room. There's piano music drifting up from somewhere below. I can hear the waves from the beach outside. It smells... fresh. New. I don't feel like I'm being watched.

Something glitters on an end table resting between two arm chairs.

Before I can think my hand shoots out, grabs it, clutches it in a death grip so hard I can swear I feel the metal bend.

My vision starts to blur.

A gull calls in the distance. My back doesn't hurt anymore. My chest still does.

I clutch the locket in both hands as tightly as I can and stumble my way back to the ground floor of ocean house. I'm being watched, and I can feel them seething, but they don't do anything. Can't do anything.

I make it to the lobby, see my purse lying near the hole I fell in. I grab it and leap down the crumbling staircase in one go.

It's right there. Right there.

I sprint past the fallen chandelier, feet barely touching the floor before launching again. I barely have time to twist open the knob of the front door before I throw myself against it and stumble outside into the open, salty air.

Free. Free. I run down the stairs, pain be damned. I can't help myself. I keep running and only pick up speed when I hit the dirt. I venture one last glance behind me.

I run the rest of the way back to Santa Monica, locket clutched in my hand. I don't get tired. Maybe it's stress, maybe it's insanity, maybe it's just because I've survived more horrors tonight than most people see in a lifetime, but running along that two lane road I feel the best I've ever felt.

I slow to a walk when I hit the city limits. I'm sorry to do it, but I'm a spectacle enough without dashing everywhere I go. As I pass the pier I can hear music playing. Soft... maybe alternative rock. I wonder if the woman from before is still there. I'm not overly eager to return to Therese just yet, so I make my way down to the beach.

The sand parts smooth between my toes and for a second it feels... No, don't dwell too much on the past. I walk up to the wizened seer. Her friends look scared of me, most of them back away, whisper among themselves. She just looks like I'm a few minutes late.

"You did a lot for those children. Their mother, too. More than most would have, I think." She shakes her head, a little sadly. "They are not safe yet, but I know you'll do the right thing."

I clutch the locket a little tighter.

"You actually do see the future, then. And... the present, I guess. Are you... No, never mind. Are you still charging for a reading?"

"Yes, but..." She thinks for a moment. "Twenty dollars. You, I think... you need to hear it more than most."

I hand her a crumpled twenty from my purse, fishing my fingers through a miniature sea of ammunition. Her eyes start to dance around, she looks up at the sky, around the city, out to sea, then she starts to speak.

"The crimson ship..." She looks confused for a moment, then determined, her train of thought completely shifting. "He's not who he says she is and it's going to burn." She squints towards the city, her voice changing inclination and pitch with every sentence. "Dinosaurs? He's furious... the man with the crest. The voice in the darkness, boss. Chinese brothers." She turns and looks straight at me, like she's giving me a command. "Follow the lights to the end of the tunnel." She leans back, her voice quiet, almost contemplative. "Destiny. Where do you want to go?"

I blink for a moment through the silence.

"Do you have anything more... specific? Something that might save my life?"

"Don't open it."

"Okay, how about... who can I trust?"

She thinks for a long time, eyes dancing, like she's scanning a million different names and coming up empty.

"The man on the couch. Hmm... and the lone wolf. All others... tread carefully. You will have many enemies. Everywhere. Some with swords, some with smiles. But I pity them. You are a remarkable foe."

OKAY well that's the end of Ocean House! We have two things to vote on this time, both of them sorta out of character. The first is a name for our heroine, since if people ever start referring to her by her name "DFM" isn't going to cut it, probably. We've got "Mona" so far and I'm fine with that one. The second thing to vote on is our next quest. There's a sidequest at the beach involving some background vampire mythology and searching for a missing girl. Or, if you think we've already spent too much time futzing about Ocean House and you want to see some plot advancement, you can vote to keep going on the main quest. Like I said, it's not really an "in game" decision, just what you'd personally rather read.

09-05-2008, 01:36 AM	#245
DFM Om Nom Nom Join Date: Sep 2005 Posts: 3,850	The decent is smooth and quiet, remarkably better than the rumbling service elevator. I don't know if it's mechanical decay or misplaced engineering priorities, but I'd take the dumbwaiter any day of the week. It opens into what I first think is a freezer. The hotel kitchen must be close to twenty degrees. A pan falls off the stove and clatters to the ground. Help me. It's a girl's voice. Maybe a woman's, I can't tell. It's too soft, too panicked. I step out into the kitchen and see a book lying on the counter. It looks like a diary. Most of the entries are torn out or charred, but near the end of the book the damage seems more superficial. I lean against the counter, back to the wall, and begin to read. 05/30/1958 - Just arrived here, at the Ocean House. We have a week-long holiday here in Santa Monica and Ed has booked us a room for the hotel's grand opening. I was against it at first, it's more than we can really afford but Ed talked me into it and I'm glad he did. It's a wonderful place, almost magical. The children have been swimming all afternoon. 05/31/1958 - The first two days have been almost perfect, except that Ed can't seem to stop asking about the locket I received from my mother. He seems to think it was sent to me by some... admirer. Ed can be sweet, but sometimes his jealousy gets the better of him. Hopefully he'll feel better tomorrow. 06/01/1958 - Sun is out today, not a cloud in the sky. Ed seems a little on edge, keeps guessing as to who my "new boyfriend" is. Silly Ed. 06/03/1958 - There was a picnic for the hotel guests this morning to celebrate the hotel's opening... quite a grand affair. Ed is in a dark mood. I don't know what more I can do to reassure him that he's my one and only. The whole thing has made him downright miserable, the only time he seemed to brighten up was when he was speaking to the grounds keeper. Boys and their tools. 06/04/1958 - We only have two days left, and thank God we're finally going home. Ed won't speak to me or the children and I've found him more than once in the bathroom holding my locket and staring at it. I'm afraid he's suffered some kind of breakdown. I've told him we can go home if he wants, but he just shakes his head. Won't even look at me. I just want to go home. 06/05/1958 - Ed left early this morning, I haven't seen him since. If I don't see him in another hour, I'm going to call the hotel manager, he shouldn't be out in his state, he could hurt himself. Tiffany went down to the basement to look for him and I'm going to send Ed Jr. out to look for them both if- Sorry, Jr says there's someone knocking, that must be them now. Run. The girl's voice again. Some of the pans hanging from the cabinets start to bang together. Then more of them start. Then more. And more and more and more until everything in the kitchen is shaking like it's trying to break free of some invisible chain. Then, all at once, the chain snaps. The massive center stove roars to live, shooting flames straight up from its burners and the temperature rises to a blast furnace. I'm knocked off my feet before I can think. I can't hear anything but the monstrous thunder of stainless steel crashing against the wall, the floor, crashing against itself... I stagger half on my feet, half on my hands, towards the kitchen door, constantly battered from all sides. A knife from one of the counters slams into my ribs, burying itself up to the handle. It feels like the blade's on fire. I pull it out and try to stem the blood flow with my free hand while a soup pot smashes into the back of my skull with the force of a baseball bat. My vision blurs and I can feel something lift me off the ground and throw me towards the door I'd been so desperately scrambling towards. The ghost slams me into it so hard the door's blasted off its hinges and we both crash to the floor. The noise from the kitchen is gone. It's cooler in here, too. Not cold, but... cool. Like a basement should be. I hurt like hell but other than the white fire of a knife wound in my chest nothing seems too damaged. It isn't bleeding anymore but it looks like it should be. There's a vent and some empty shelves near the end of the room. I pull the vent free and crawl inside. Anything to avoid going into the kitchen again. I crawl through the claustrophobic space for a few moments before I hear the girl again. Be careful. I don't want to have to be careful, I'm tired of this thing having an ambush at every turn, I want it dead already. I want it dead before I am. The vent opens directly into a second elevator shaft. For the first time, I'm glad there's a dead girl whispering in my ear. I know what's coming. I leap out of the vent and hit the bottom of the shaft with a silence that belies the roar of pain from the knife wound and the dull aches from every other part of my body. As soon as I touch the ground I dive and roll into a tiny offshoot that holds the maintenance ladder just away from the main shaft. My chest feels like every organ I have is being ripped out from that wound. I lie on my back, bare feet pressed against the ladder. I'm there for a moment before I hear the ear splitting shriek, and the world starts to shake. The elevator screams past, a few inches from my face, a trail of sparks lighting up the darkness behind it. It slams into the ground just below and beside me with a deafening thud and for a moment I think its smashed through the concrete floor, but it just sits there, silent. I pull myself up and, fighting the pain, begin to climb. Near the top of the shaft, one of the outside doors is wedged sideways just enough for me to step over and crawl through. I wince and emerge from the elevator shaft into the topmost level of the Ocean House Hotel. The air in the hallway is stale. Stale and quiet. It looks like it's in much better condition than the rest of the hotel. A little worn, but nowhere near fifty years worth. It's almost as quiet as the lobby first was. Almost... but not quite. The lobby was deadly still, like the entire building was dead, but here... it feels like something's there, just... holding back. I keep one hand against my chest to prevent anything from falling out and struggle towards the room at the end of the hall. More fire damage. I stagger into the room and start sifting through the ash for the locket. That's got to be the thing I'm after. I don't know where it is, but the girl, whichever one that is, wants me up here, so it's got to be somewhere here. I'm about to near the sofa when the wall explodes in purple flames. It's hot. Hotter than a normal fire. Or maybe it just feels that way because I'm... well... different now. The far wall quickly follows suit, bursting into ethereal fire. I run out of the room and into the hallway as quickly as I can manage without doubling over in pain. The same violet black fire spreading along the walls just ahead of me. I come to a hole in the floor in time to see the floor below me completely covered in the fire. I leap over it, stumble, almost fall into a section of the flames. I can't imagine a worse pain. I can feel the skin on my back bubble. I jerk away and fall to the floor. The entire hallway's on fire. I crawl to my feet and run through the pain. There's an open room down the hall on my right. It's surrounded by fire but I think I can climb the fallen ceiling timbers to make it to the next story. I manage to clumsily claw my way to the next floor, the pain in my chest almost removed in favor of the blinding pain on half by back. There's no fire up here. I'm on... it must be the very top story, staring out into a full moon and a godless sky. I can't go back down. If I passed the locket, Ed's already won. If it's up here, I don't know if I'll be able to find it anyway. There's got to be two feet of ash in here. I hiss as I bend around to see the damage to my back. It looks... fine. Well, the dress does, anyway. I twist an arm to touch it and almost scream when I do. Not touching the back again. Whatever fucked up nightmare wound this is, Mercurio or somebody better be able to fix it. I take a few steps further into the room and my vision begins to swim. I stare at the room. There's piano music drifting up from somewhere below. I can hear the waves from the beach outside. It smells... fresh. New. I don't feel like I'm being watched. Something glitters on an end table resting between two arm chairs. Before I can think my hand shoots out, grabs it, clutches it in a death grip so hard I can swear I feel the metal bend. My vision starts to blur. A gull calls in the distance. My back doesn't hurt anymore. My chest still does. I clutch the locket in both hands as tightly as I can and stumble my way back to the ground floor of ocean house. I'm being watched, and I can feel them seething, but they don't do anything. Can't do anything. I make it to the lobby, see my purse lying near the hole I fell in. I grab it and leap down the crumbling staircase in one go. It's right there. Right there. I sprint past the fallen chandelier, feet barely touching the floor before launching again. I barely have time to twist open the knob of the front door before I throw myself against it and stumble outside into the open, salty air. Free. Free. I run down the stairs, pain be damned. I can't help myself. I keep running and only pick up speed when I hit the dirt. I venture one last glance behind me. I run the rest of the way back to Santa Monica, locket clutched in my hand. I don't get tired. Maybe it's stress, maybe it's insanity, maybe it's just because I've survived more horrors tonight than most people see in a lifetime, but running along that two lane road I feel the best I've ever felt. I slow to a walk when I hit the city limits. I'm sorry to do it, but I'm a spectacle enough without dashing everywhere I go. As I pass the pier I can hear music playing. Soft... maybe alternative rock. I wonder if the woman from before is still there. I'm not overly eager to return to Therese just yet, so I make my way down to the beach. The sand parts smooth between my toes and for a second it feels... No, don't dwell too much on the past. I walk up to the wizened seer. Her friends look scared of me, most of them back away, whisper among themselves. She just looks like I'm a few minutes late. "You did a lot for those children. Their mother, too. More than most would have, I think." She shakes her head, a little sadly. "They are not safe yet, but I know you'll do the right thing." I clutch the locket a little tighter. "You actually do see the future, then. And... the present, I guess. Are you... No, never mind. Are you still charging for a reading?" "Yes, but..." She thinks for a moment. "Twenty dollars. You, I think... you need to hear it more than most." I hand her a crumpled twenty from my purse, fishing my fingers through a miniature sea of ammunition. Her eyes start to dance around, she looks up at the sky, around the city, out to sea, then she starts to speak. "The crimson ship..." She looks confused for a moment, then determined, her train of thought completely shifting. "He's not who he says she is and it's going to burn." She squints towards the city, her voice changing inclination and pitch with every sentence. "Dinosaurs? He's furious... the man with the crest. The voice in the darkness, boss. Chinese brothers." She turns and looks straight at me, like she's giving me a command. "Follow the lights to the end of the tunnel." She leans back, her voice quiet, almost contemplative. "Destiny. Where do you want to go?" I blink for a moment through the silence. "Do you have anything more... specific? Something that might save my life?" "Don't open it." "Okay, how about... who can I trust?" She thinks for a long time, eyes dancing, like she's scanning a million different names and coming up empty. "The man on the couch. Hmm... and the lone wolf. All others... tread carefully. You will have many enemies. Everywhere. Some with swords, some with smiles. But I pity them. You are a remarkable foe." OKAY well that's the end of Ocean House! We have two things to vote on this time, both of them sorta out of character. The first is a name for our heroine, since if people ever start referring to her by her name "DFM" isn't going to cut it, probably. We've got "Mona" so far and I'm fine with that one. The second thing to vote on is our next quest. There's a sidequest at the beach involving some background vampire mythology and searching for a missing girl. Or, if you think we've already spent too much time futzing about Ocean House and you want to see some plot advancement, you can vote to keep going on the main quest. Like I said, it's not really an "in game" decision, just what you'd personally rather read. __________________ [14:26] ManoftheRus: YOU GODDAMN SNEAKY DEE Last edited by DFM; 09-05-2008 at 01:46 AM.