>>33363023
>wut
At some point, you got to sit down and go over notes.

>wut
Hooray, it's time!

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>>33363131
>>33363167

You come to a screeching halt just inside the doorway to stare at the bird-man(woman?) staring at you. The impossibly thin neck and gigantic eyes covering half the head still warp and prod your mind in uncomfortable ways, but this time its the fucking striped sweater - and the little badge pinned to it, with CINDY in neat little printed letters, that brings you up short.

The Toriningen watches you patiently from its seat behind the semi-circular desk. Stenciled in blue paint upon its front is the word "INFORMATION."

To your left is a creature that's all head, a skeletal, black turtleneck torso supporting a gigantic, neon-ish... you look away, and back at the more immediate threat.

It says nothing.

>Bypass?
>Greet?
>Wait?

>>33363466
>>Greet?

>>33363466
>Bypass?
Keep on moving along.

>>33363466
>>Greet?
It says information.
Let's try getting some.

oh hell, it's you again

>>33363466
"OK, Cindy, I'd like some information alright. Where do you sell flutes around here? My female companion over yonder kinda needs one.

>>33363466
>Greet?
Axes are made to open doors?

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>>33363582
>>33363622
>>33363592
>>33363582
>>33363592
>>33363622
>>33363668

You take a tentative step towards the birdman, letting your axe fall to your side. "... Cindy?"

The Toriningen's beak cracks open and a burst of horrid, squealing static explodes from it, making you wince involuntarily.

"Not this shit again," you mutter, eying its freakish little pencil-neck, sorely tempted to apply the mute button.

Another burst of awful static peals from the Toriningen's beak, its tiny, narrow little tongue perfectly still. And then, perfectly clearly, it speaks.

"Uplink failed."

"I have absolutely no fucking idea what that means," you inform it brusquely, getting more irritated. "Tell me something I can USE, you fucking feathered nightmare!"

The Toriningen's head cocks to the side a bit, exactly like a bird, and it turns its beak a little to one side, studying you with the other eye. It seems to consider your query for a good thirty seconds.

"Ten-thirty-four," it decides at length, and its arm moves behind the counter. You start, jerking back a step, the axe swinging up to ready stance in both hands - you've seen how fast these fucking things move. Its sweater-clad, rope-thin arm emerges from behind the desk and drops an odd object upon it.

It looks like some sort of wrench.

"Code One," the creature adds helpfully in its thin, dry voice.

>Seems legit
>ah, ha, no
>reel it in with the axe

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Sorry I was so slow in that first hour, people were buggin me. Free now, we'll be getting back to the regular pace.

>>33364160
>Seems legit
I think I see exactly what's going on here, and I don't think there's any reason to distrust what looks just like the kind of tool our occupation makes use of on a regular basis.

>>33364160
>>reel it in with the axe
Oh, more tools of the trade

>>33364160
>Seems legit

That is probably some from reality/firefighting stuff she's saying.

Code One is "A time critical case with a lights and sirens ambulance response," according to Google-sensei. And 10-34 is "Assist at office" according to a page about police radio codes. So, someone found us and is trying to get our ass into an ambulance ASAP(?)

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>>33364322
>>33364302

The wrench - if that's what it is - looks naggingly familiar, like a name you can't quite remember even though the face his face you couldn't remember him his fac you should. You approach the circular INFORMATION desk with caution, creeping closer with catlike tread. Keeping the axe ready in your right hand, gripped halfway down the shaft, you unwire the crowbar and free it, reaching out for the wrench very, veery carefully with the hooked end of the iro

"What's that?"

You manage to leap sideways, spin, and trip over your own feet all at the same time, with a little HRRK of alarm thrown in for good measure. Madotsuki watches you stumble backwards and impact the side wall with your ass, completely impassive. She leans over and picks up the odd wrench, which you managed to knock on the floor during your escape. She turns it around in her hands, looks at the Toriningen, then looks at you, a smirk growing across her face.

"Pussy."

>Aren't you young for that kind of language?
>Why? You're the scariest thing in here.
>KEEKEHURRGRRR

>>33364474
Let's not bank on that though.

>>33364484
>>Aren't you young for that kind of language?

>>33364506
What else could it mean? Everything that talks to us sans Madotsuki seem to refer to things in the waking world. Unless our QM decided he wants to start throwing red herrings at us.

You wouldn't do that, right?

>>33364484
>Why? You're the scariest thing in here.

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>>33364586
>>33364532

You catch your breath after a long moment and manage a sickly glare at your tormentor, who gives you an innocent little smile.

"Aren't you a little young for that kind of language?" you scold her, a hand resting atop your axe-handle and the other on your hip, tapping the end of the crowbar against the wall behind you.

"Aren't you a little young to be acting like a father?" she snorts in reply. "Stop being such a bitch. This one never does anything." She reaches out with the wrench and pokes the Toriningen with the end of the wrench. "Boop." The wrench is, quite suddenly and abruptly, green. "Boop." Dark, burnt orange. "Boop." And now its red.

"That's what you said about the ones in the Bed Room," you say sourly.

"Anyways, here," she says, tossing the wrench at you. You catch it awkwardly; its a heavy sumbitch, the shaft made of stainless steel and the head, hot-forged iron. The hooky things that adorn the odd head make it easy to stick in your belt without it threatening to slide through as you move.

Matotsuki's already moving past you, towards the open doorway leading to the next room. "Come on. O-Man should be in here!" You turn to follow -

- and then you see the "Art."

You know, I'm starting to believe Madotsuki is not as young as she appears. Her oddly dated room, her use of language, her intelligence... If she and her room look the way they did when she first fell into this seemingly endless dream... Could it be she's been in the dream world for longer than any of us could possibly imagine?

I'm probably way off track here.

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>>33364810

On each side of the stuffed sofa the don't look jesus christ don't fucking LOOK is sitting on, the wall sports the most awful posters you've seen so far. Strewn throughout this twisted, oddly-lit Hive of a mall with its nonfunctional fire alarms, security cameras with bulging eyes that track you around and shoppers that scurry like ants, you've seen a lot of disturbing posters - people having their skin peeled off in one long strip by disembodied hands; stomachs that seem to sprout eyes, even hands on long, wiggly stalks trying to tear someone apart.

But these two are the worst.

A weeping face with you damn well know something being forced into its mouth; and a close-up of a shattered mouth that seems to drool blood blood let it be blood like everything else in this fucking nighmare its blood.

You stand and stare at the posters as something nasty writhes and roils in your gut... and move on. Mado's waiting.

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>>33364995

As you enter the next room you're greeted by a mad scream that fades into a decresendo trill, a thrilling cascade of notes rippling and tripping forth from the room's occupant - another "man" like the one behind you with an ebony recorder in its hands, pressed to its "face." The dark folds of its torso are more defined, seeming to suggest folds and lines of cloth, and its addressing its instrument with utmost seriousness.

"This is... O-man?" you ask Mado, who's standing near the door and staring at the creature hard.

"Mm," she concurs. "He never sounded like... like this, though."

On cue, the creature ceases its mad, capering "music" and flows smoothly into something slow, sweet, and almost calming.

>theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ySor8ni9oU&index=18&list=PLU4ktq2pWONsZjNJfmbfMY4jAU3KyZ871

"Catchy tune, but you can't dance to it," you mutter.

Madotsuki sighs, tapping her knife against her thigh idly. "First time I got here, I stayed in this room for an hour, just listening to that. Everything else was so..." she waves the knife idly by way of summary, making you twitch a bit. She doesn't notice, her eyes still fixated on "O-Man," addressing the recorder. "Found the flute right there," she says, nodding at the bare patch of floor between the overstuffed sofa the creature occupies and the doorway. "Sat here another few hours just trying to learn it. Turns out I'm not great at music."

She sighs, and continues to watch "O-Man" as he continues his tune. His rapidly repetitive tune.

>About those posters all over...
>So why didn't you realize you'd lost the Flute until now?
>So how do we get the Flute back?

>>33365293
>So how do we get the Flute back?
>So why didn't you realize you'd lost the Flute until now?
In order of importance.

>>33365293
>>About those posters all over...
She's gonna be thrilled by this question.

>>33365293

>So why didn't you realize you'd lost the Flute until now?

Could be important, and the first question is kinda loaded, to put it mildly.

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>>33365331

Even with the calming music enveloping this little island of peace against the insanity, the posters in the other room continue to roil in your gut, refusing to digest quietly. Judging from her reactions in her bedroom earlier, though, its not going to be easy broaching the topic.

"So how do we get the flute back?" you ask her, to fill the silence.

"Like this," she says brusquely, her eyes refocusing from a distant gaze to a focused stare so abruptly you take a step back. She lunges across the room, leaning into the attack as she grips the knife in both hands, putting the full strength of her charge behind the attack.

O-man's recorder smashes into her wrists with a sickening CRACK!, the knife plunging into the sofa's back cushions, O-Man's other elbow slamming between her shoulderblades a second later. Her skull slams into the foot of the sofa a second before O-man's boot goes flying off just over it trailing black ichor -

- it spares a quarter-second to register the fire axe buried in the sofa's base, still quivering, before looking up to meet your charge, your odd new wrench smashing into the glowing red dot that marks the center of its face. It swings -

- and you wake up on the floor, against the wall, blood hazing your vision. Madotsuki's sensible black Mary Janes are windmilling three feet above the floor as O-Man holds her aloft by her throat with one hand, waving the other before her eyes almost mockingly.

Lying almost within reach is Madotsuki's knife.

>KNIFE?
>CROWBAR?
>RAGE?

>>33365903
>>CROWBAR?
Can't go wrong with crowbar violence.

>>33365903

>CROWBAR?

Let's stick to our own effects.

>>33365903
>RAGE?
I doubt we can use her knife, and we don't know if the crowbar is even in reach. Summon your inner quarterback and tackle the motherfucker.

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>>33365903

You lurch to your feet, that motion alone carrying you halfway across the tiny room. You see a swirling tentacle of smoke where a leg should be and bring your crowbar up and across just in time to stop your own axeblade from embedding in your chest. The iron bar thrums with the horrible force of the strike, but you keep your footing, sliding the crowbar down the axeblade, the razored edge almost brushing your collarbone as your bar slips underneath the head - and then you yank back, wrenching the axe free and sending it flying over your shoulder. You twist the bar around spike-end first, rearing back to bury the point in the monster's wrist -

- and Madotsuki's head abruptly rolls right off its clenched fist, her body completely absent. You and O-Man both stare at her severed head for a brief moment as it rolls clumsily away across the floor, safely out of reach.

Then you twist your bar to block as O-Man's now-free arm smashes into you. The blow slams the iron into your chest and sends you flying across the room, sheetrock imploding beneath your back as you impact. Madotsuki's severed head sprouts a body again, blood still dripping from her newly-intact neck as she snatches up her blade.

O-Man is standing upon the sofa, arms spread wide. Its odd, circular red "head" turns to the ceiling - and the entire couch erupts in flames. Arcid chemical fumes assail your nose as the flames jet and roar towards the ceiling like a blowtorch, the sofa becoming a flaming pyre within two seconds. In this pillar of flame the creature is dancing manically, jumping from foot to foot, and over the roar of flame and rush of wind -

- you hear its mad, high-pitched laughter skirling and whirling through your very soul.

>EGRESS
>ATTACK
>CHALLENGE

>>33366481
>EGRESS
No. Not fire. Why did it have to be fire? Of course it would be fire. I'm not sure what sense it makes for that thing to be able to make shit burst into flames, but I won't tax my mind to ponder. An alarming number of dream creatures have been getting increasingly pyrotechnical.

Could Madotsuki just douse it again with her effects like she did before?

>>33366481

Is he still carrying the flute? If not:

>GET FLUTE AND EGRESS THE FUCK OUT OF THERE

If he still has the flute:

>CHALLENGE

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>>33366683
>>33366644
>I have to quest fast and votes too slow
>theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFuhFyh4fCU

The creature leaps into the air and swings its heels together, its boots merging into a loop as it keeps rising towards the ceiling. The circular red "head" with its glowing eye explodes in a cascade of sparks as it hits the paneled ceiling, the dark body becoming a pillar of dark, arcid smoke that spreads rapidly across the ceiling. A clattering racket erupts from the exit as a metal security gate plummets from the ceiling and slams into place. The smoke flows through it, vacating the room as wee snickers of laughter echo in your ears.

You dart forward, the intense heat from the couch seeming to slide over you as you grasp your axe and wrench it free. You turn and sprint past Madotsuki, who's unfolding her umbrella rapidly. You size up the wall and bring your axe back as a light patter of water lands on your head and a cacophony of hissing pops erupts from behind you.

"It's not enough!"

"A hand-line won't cut it now, sweetheart!" you shout, and bring the axe down on the wall. Another blow, and a third, and a fourth, smashing gashes three feet long in the wood and sheetrock with every sundering blow, the hickory vibrating solidly as you continue your assault. You smash your heel into it and shattered studs exlpode into the hallway outside.

"GO!" you scream, and Mado goes, ducking and crawling through the hole. You bring your axe down two more times and scuttle through, the ceiling of the little room already well involved. Madotsuki's already twenty feet ahead of you, her knife in hand.

Around you, The Mall is going insane. The fire alarms little T-Handles are drooping down like sad-faces as they rattle and twist and click in their housings, emitting little moans and cries. Thin sheets of dark smoke are spreading across the ceiling rapidly, and below the blobby non-persons of The Mall are scurrying like ants abandoning a hive...

>>33367049
>>I have to quest fast and votes too slow
Sorry, I would have voted for >>33366683 if I had read faster.

This quest has some wicked good imagery that I like to take in slow.

>>33367049
>"A hand-line won't cut it now, sweetheart!
His firefighteryness is showing.

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>>33367049

... scurrying in and out of doorways with lumpy, mishappen little boxes and objects clutched in their hands, emitting bursts of panicked static.

You catch Madotsuki by the shoulder. "What the hell are you doing?"

"I NEED IT BACK!" she screams, smashing your arm away violently. Her bloodshot eyes are brimming with fear and bright with rage.

"The fl-"

"FUCK the flute!" she snarls, reaching into her pocket and tearing out - a recorder, which she smacks your shoulder with. "It was a ruse, I'm so stupid - it's got the Medamaude!"

"The wh- oh FUCK it. Go that way!"

"Why?" she asks.

"THE SMOKE!" you shout, pointing at the ceiling. "Direction! Flow!"

She glances upwards, thinks for a moment, then nods. She dashes forward, pulling something from her pocket - and beneath her a bicycle seems to expand into existence, her feet finding the pedals mid-stride. She spares no breath for farewells or instruction; simply leaning over the handlebars and pumping her legs for all she's worth. She bolts down the crowded hallway like a rocket sled on rails, weaving and twitching expertly to dodge the scurrying creatures that are swarming and fleeing through the halls.

You sprint after her, hauling ass as best you can. Your breath settles into an easy rhythm as your feet pound the glowing, grubby white linoleum with reports like gunshots, accelerating into a quick CLAKAKAKAKAKAKAAKAKAK as you barrel through the hallways, just barely keeping Madotsuki in sight. She loses speed at the corners, but you don't, your sneakers gripping better than tires. The panicked creatures give you wide berth, some of them bouncing off you when they can't egress fast enough.

The ceiling of The Mall is roaring and coughing static, and as the smoke above grows thicker, darker and faster, you begin to discern words-

"KSHEESSssshshhhHFHFFFHFFFFFAST TEAM WITHDFFFFAW-"

>>33367071

No problem, probably my fault for shit vote options. The first part of this quest tonight wasn't so hot; thankfully its picking up now.

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>>33367321

From ahead you hear a wicked, childish giggle floating through the haze of smoke beginning to descend to eye level, and Madotsuki puts on a fresh burst of speed. You finally lose sight of her around a distant corner and strain to put on more speed, your joints squealing and aching as you milk your battered body for every ounce of power.

"-SHHHHHSHSHSHUUT DOOOSHN UTILITES-"

From beyond the corner the giggles erupt into horrific shrieking laughter, and bright red light begins dancing and playing on the linoleum ahead. From nowhere, a hail of pattering rain begins to fall, making you slip precariously on the smooth floor. Above you, the lying EXIT signs are melting, their arrows all drooping to point downwards.

You finally lose your footing, your sneakers flying out before you as you fly down the hallway and past the corner on your ass, slamming sidelong into the wall with a grunt. Beside you lies Mado's umberella, unfolded.

Above your head lick tongues of flame.

Actual *tongues* of flame, muscular and defined, sixty feet long and lavaciously licking the walls and ceiling, curling around spiky, dead decorative trees and storefront signs, trailing glowing droplets of napalm in their wake. The flex and curl with delight as they molest the very building itself.

You hear a desperate cry from ahead and look at the floor in time to see a frog-headed creature clear a decorative planter with a single leap. Its head shrinks and morphs back into Madotsuki's even as she stuffs a hand in her pocket for another Effect - and then the smoke snatches her. A long billowing smoke-tendril drops from the ceiling and grabs onto her leg, vague fingers forming from the black, ugly smoke. Mado shakes it off, little puffs and wisps of vapor escaping it as she struggles - but more descend upon her. Her blade flashes as she swipes out almost reflexively, but the smoke simply roils and reforms. More fingers, more hands are appearing out of the mass every second.

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>>33367613

"-EESSHSHHHHHHEEEEE EEEM EYE ISSHHH TSHHOOO STRONG, WKHSRHHHTS CAUSING-"

Madotsuki falls to the ground, crawling towards you as more fingers and hands emerge from the mass of smoke tendrils and begin grabbing at her. As they squeeze and grope and *constrict,* she looks down the hallway at you -

- and screams.

Your eyes flick away from her prone, beseeching form to look further down the hall, where the licking flame-tongues congregate into one complete nexus - the Origin. And hovering swirling above it, a rounded swastika-like pinwheel of smoke that can only be your enemy, pulsing and spinning in the pyre of flame...

... and laughing with delight.

You feel a breath of cryogenic air flowing through your brain, chilling your thoughts and slowing down Time itself. You know what you have to do first, but after...?

>Dissipate the Smoke entirely.
>Attack the Seat of the fire directly.

>>33367753
>Dissipate the Smoke entirely.
Save what's left of Mado's innocence

>>33367753
>>Attack the Seat of the fire directly.

Find the Origin and you'll find the End or whatever that quote was?

>>33367753
>Dissipate the Smoke entirely.

>>33367753
>Attack the Seat of the fire directly.
Quite sure blowing away the smoke isn't going to solve anything, and will only make things worse.

>>33367818
Is now when we're supposed to remember the turbocharger??

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>>33367894

That won't be needed until after you wake up.

>>33367942
Good. I was worried the real life fire was being affected by psychic bullshit.

>"-EESSHSHHHHHHEEEEE EEEM EYE ISSHHH TSHHOOO STRONG, WKHSRHHHTS CAUSING-"
Doesn't sound good.

>>33367894
Dissipating the smoke will give the fire even more fuel to burn.

It's the reason why you don't bust open burning hot (car) doors.

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>>33367892
>>33367860
>>33367818
>>33367801
>WHY NOT

The doorway you seek is already obscured by a thickening haze of smoke that's pressing towards the floor. You duck your head, axe dangling in one hand, and sprint into the dark. The smoke stings and burns your eyes even through closed lids, but you charge on, holding your last clean breath deep in your lungs. You count your long strides, and when you ought be close you drop to your knees and skid the remaining distance to the door. You pat the knob cautiously, then twist it - locked. Unlimbering your crowbar, you slam the spike into the wall two inches to the left of the jam, one inch below the knob's centerline, and wrench outwards, ripping the bolt right through the thin wood paneling. You shuffle inside on your knees.

The horrible bleeding rectangle-creature is here. Its rolling, googly eyes fix on you, and it sticks its tongue out as it tilts over to one side, pouring a stream of thick red liquid from the hole in its head.

You stride forward, remove the odd wrench from your belt, and smash that smug motherfucker right in its twisted, warped, wrong face.

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>>33368153

The creature screams horribly, a jet of bloody liquid spurting from the top and splattering against the ceiling. You slam the wrench into its face a second time as you pick it up bodily with your free arm and bull-rush it towards the back corner of the room, where the little stubby bits of dripping rectangle pieces protrude from floor and ceiling.

"YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE WET!" you scream with rage, igorig the sharp pain in your chest as the fucking monster bites you, or the sharp explosions of pain from your shins as it kicks you with its pointy little "feet." You fling it at the corner, where it bounces about, googly eyes rolling around comically - before it focuses on you and snarls. It tilts forward and unleashes a gout of liquid at you.

You step forward, twisting to the side as the blast of pressured whatever lances right past you. Your crowbar comes across in a backhanded blow, smashing the monster back upright, before you slide the bar across him to bury the point in the wall, firmly embedded in a stud. Using this for leverage, you press the monster's corner into the junction of the walls, smashing the heavy iron wrench-head into its face and kicking it madly to force it back.

At last, the creature's edges are roughly aligned with the rectangle stubs in floor and ceiling. You latch the long, curved lug of your wrench around it, catching at the corners, and aren't surprised at all when a segment of rectangular monster *twists* around, like a layer in a rubix cube. The thing sputters and snarls at you, but you just kick it again.

"Why weren't you wet," you snarl, falling to your knees and locking the bottom in place. "You're gonna be wet now, you useless motherfucker. YOU HEAR ME?"

The creature's mouth puckers and spits a bloody, semi-solid glob in your face. You hiss as your eyes burn and water, the sensation spreading across your face even after you wipe it off with a shirtsleeve.

>>33368372
Hydrant get?

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>>33368372

"GRRAAH!" you scream, and punch the rectangle fucker right in its nonsensical face, the impact sending a jolt of pain up your arm and a rattling vibration up the structure. You force the center of your wrench over the thing's nubby little nose, and spin the handle, tightening the screw-head against it. It squeals and snarls and bubbles, but to no avail.

You fight to your feet, the smoke now filling the room, and look at the nightmare you've just locked into place.

"Get charged, you bastard."

You fall upon the wrench with both hands.

The rectangle-monster's entire face twists as you forcibly turn its nose, its eyes and mouth swirling around as you forcibly deform it. It screams hideously, an eerie, high-pitched wail that seems to emanate from the walls themselves, descending into a hammering, pounding shudder that shakes and vibrates the completed rectangle against the walls its buttressed against.

At last, it ends.

And above you, a rusty, spiked wheel that looks like a bloody stirrup star spins into motion with a horrid shriek - and a spray of red liquid.

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>>33368488

You stagger outside, crouching to keep your line-of-sight clear under the smoke layer. The sprinklers have activated, the bloody drops mingling with the clean, cold rain from the Umbrella to produce a goodly volume of water, pinkish rivulets flowing down the edge of the hall. You tread carefully on the slick linoleum, looking for your goal.

A tongue of flame slams into the ground before you and whips at your face, wrapping around your neck. Another catches you around an ankle, and a third slithers from leg to thigh to chest, molesting you with a sticky trail of hot napalm.

And none of it does a damn thing.

The cackling, mad laughter by the ceiling deepens into a mighty bellow of rage, so feral and deep it rattles dust from the ceiling panels and shakes peeling paint from the walls. To your right, a storefront sign erupts into abrupt light, then explodes in a shower of sparks as a flame-tongue slams into it from above with a violent whip-crack that punches in your eardrums. The shattered sign explodes in neon sparks and smashes into the thin sheet of water coating the floor. You feel the buzz and tingle of static race up and over and *over* your skin, ticklish and frantic, but not harming you in the least.

This time a screech of madness punches through your skull, the plate-glass shop windows on either side of you exploding in a cascade of splinters. No time for caution now; you run. Your sneakers slip and squeak precariously on the linoleum as you book towards the laughing man, the Origin - your enemy.

More flame-tendrils come whipping out of the dark, and you dive forward, skidding over the floor like a water slide. They whip past above you and turn around for another go, but you've already reached your goal - the gigantic, bleeding zipper with "MAINT" writ above it. Your axe flashes and cleaves down the middle, and with a horrible tearing sound and a spray of blood, you've gained access.

All this running around without Mado feels terribly wrong.

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>>33368747
With the flames started by the fire-tendrils battered down by the sprinklers and rain, the smoke isn't building as fast. You can see just enough through stinging eyes to make out the glassed-in, coiled hose in its case by the door. A blow from your axeshaft liberates it, and with a twist of the valve the occupant-use hose sputters to life, leaping free of its enclosure as it expands to three times its flattened dimensions as "water" surges into it. You charge into the hallway again and wrench the valve open, unleashing a powerful stream of... whatever. The hose bucks and writhes in your arms like a living creature, and you wrestle it around to direct the stream at the center of the writhing tendrils clinging to the rafters above, sweeping it back and forth at its base.

The tentacles go berserk whipping about with such speed and ferocity that you can only see their afterimages as they blur into a ball of incandescent wrath - and then they explode in a roaring nimbus of sparks and flame, expanding and vanishing.

The terrible, keening wail shrieks through the air, and this time you DO go down. Smoke billows towards you, creeping across the floor. Before you can move to evade, its flowed in around your ankles, bogging you down like wet mud. You fall to your knees and it swarms over you.

You can't breathe.

Your vision dims.

And then everything goes EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

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>>33368964

Above you, a demon in Madotsuki's sweater is leaning over you. It reaches out, and its mouth moves.

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE"

You shake your head and stammer a reply -

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeee

"-okay?" You think you make out. The demon seizes your hand and hoists you into a sitting position easily, with suprising strength. You shake your head, still numb, and look around you. A cloud of rising steam surrounds you, new wisps floating up as stray droplets of water land on the warped and blackened linoleum around you.

The demon - Madotsuki now, back to normal - kneels next to you, shaking your shoulders and moving her mouth. You tap your ears and shake your head. She seizes your arm in both hands and leans back, yanking on you till you oblige by struggling upright and staggering after her down the hall.

Smoke is still drifting about the ceiling, and the linoleum no longer radiates its inexplicable luminance. Into a long, dark maze of hallways and faint floor-reflections you go staggering, Mado's arm looped through yours for guidance.

After a long, long interval, she brings you to a halt near a dark staircase vanishing into the depths. You slump against the wall, exhausted and pained. She sits near you, hugging her arms across her chest, knees pulled up against her.

"Can you hear, now?"

You nod, your mind still scrambled. "Did you..."

"Lightning. Soon as I got clear."

A beat.

"You should see your hair right now."

>>33369133
There we go. All is right with the nightmare world.

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>>33369133

"Sorry I had to leave you there," you gasp, your eardrums still aching a bit. "Did you-"

"-soon as the sprinklers started, the... things seemed to thin out. I was able to get the hat and scarf out."

You turn a completely blank look towards her.

"They turn you into a snowman, in the right conditions. And near a fire, I just... melted, and flowed away."

"Ephemeral to counter ephemeral. Water to counter air. That's some Sun Tzu shit, right there," you say, not quite sure what the hell she's talking about.

"What did you do?" she asks. "You just ran off, and suddenly the water turns on."

"I beat the shit out of that rectangle-thing," you tell her.

"Tokato-kun?"

"Yeah. Gave him something useful to do. I Created A Job. Someone call the media."

"Okay," she says, looking at you like she's not quite sure what the hell you're talking about. "So what did you DO?"

"Turns out your creepy little friend is a stand-pipe that went on walkabout," you explain. "I put him back in place and wrenched the fucker down."

She gives you a long, piercing Look, opens her mouth, and thinks better of it. "Okay. If you say so."

You sit there together in the dark for long moments, content to just breathe free for a few minutes, together, and mostly safe.

>>33369339
>"Yeah. Gave him something useful to do. I Created A Job. Someone call the media."
w

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>>33369339

Matotsuki has inched closer to you, her arm brushing against yours, looking at the floor instead of out into the darkness of the now-silent, abandoned Mall.

"What was that thing?"

You sigh and let your head fall back to clunk against the wall. "Must be what the man in the car warned us about."

"No shit, sherlock," Mado mumbles into her knees. "But what WAS it?"

"How the fuck should I know? Its your dream."

"THAT wasn't from my dream," she snaps, her head whipping around to glare at you. "It was pretending. It must be from *you.*"

You close your eyes and run that idea through your head a few times. "I don't think so."

"Just how do you figure that?"

"Did you have to peel my weeping face off the linoleum afterwards?"

"YES."

"Fuck *you,* that was because you blasted me with a god-damned lightning bolt," you bark, grabbing her head and shaking it around gently before letting go. "You get my point. I wasn't afraid of it, really... as long as I had it in my sight."

"... how does that make any sense?" she asks you.

The image of the creature standing atop that sofa, wreathed in a pillar of flame as it capers and laughs with demonic glee flashes through your mind. The way it dissipated and flowed away through the security grate, like smoke. The sharp, acrid chemical scent in the air as the sofa went up.

Flaming furniture. Chemicals. A figure that flows away like smoke in the wind, dangerous only when unseen.

>solve the puzzle?

>>33369617
>solve the puzzle?
As someone who knows jack shit about fires, I'm guessing carbon monoxide?

I hope one of those people who knows what their firefighter shit is awake.

>>33364160
Anyone else noted that "10 34" is the police code for "Open door or window"?

>>33369617
Maybe it's a warning light for something, and if it's off then it means your equipment is damaged.

Or, what if it's the ceiling? If the ceiling is covered with smoke, that's a bad sign.

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>>33364160

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>>33369729

All the elements jell, they feel right, just like the wrench felt familiar, just like the capering little biting fuck in that twisted room with the bubbling blood-pool was familiar enough to recognize, the moment you needed it... and yet the proper name slips your tongue.

But not the import.

"Traps," you say quietly. "That car door, earlier... you remember what the window looked like?"

Mado shrugs. "Black. Almost oily?"

"Yeah."

"So what?"

"Remember the *sound?"*

She thinks for a minute. "... yeah. Like someone tapping on an aquarium."

"But when I opened it-"

"-you got a faceful of fire. Like a dumbass."

"Yeah," you say, brooding. "And my Effects didn't do anything against it, either. They worked fine, just now."

"And it suckered me in real good just now," Madotsuki growls. "Stupid, not to check my pocket first. So damn stupid."

"So, who's it from, then? Your nightmare, or mine?"

"I don't know," she replies, huddling a little tighter against the dark. "Aside from Toriningen, nothing really hunts me, when I'm down here. And certainly nothing... baits me." She's quiet for a moment. "It had the Medamaude."

"Hope he's got a good HMO, then."

She smacks you upside the head. "It's a hand, with an eyeball in the palm."

You shudder, remembering a particularly nasty scene from some old horror movie that always scared you shitless as a kid. "Lovely."

"It's hand, when it was waving at me while it choked me - its hand *was* the Medamaude."

I know zip-doodly about fires, but apparently furniture can go from smoldering to flaming direct.

Maybe it has something to do with that? Or maybe not.

did I just blow our chance on a wrong guess or what

we're in over our heads

save us, firefriends

>>33370112
this is what we get for fully involving ourselves

>>33369617
It's a bust Gas main isn't it?

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>>33370009

Her voice drops lower, and she tucks her chin deeper behind her knees. "How did it even *get* it away from me? Why didn't I remember what the fourth missing Effect was? How did I lose them in the first place?"

"How the hell did I get into your dream?" you ask.

You both sit silently after that, your shared thoughts unspoken, but plain. The unknowns are piling up fast, and now you're being stalked by something malicious and smart; no subconscious goblin, but an active threat. You're playing a game you don't know the rules to, with an unmarked finish line and an unknown prize. A shiver of cold, pure dread ripples through you, sending your heart sinking into your stomach. You've survived so far, but only by the skin of your teeth. There's no telling what lies deeper inside the dream; or what consequences it'll have for you upon waking. The Toriningen's strange statements, the voices in the static, Master Stream's lecture - all the nonsensical babble is finally catching up to you, ominous warnings with only one decipherable element.

Urgency.

"Mado," you say, your voice rippling through the thick silence.

"Mm."

"I don't know what's going on 'up there'," you tell her. "But... I don't think I'm just sleeping through an alarm, now that I think about it."

She doesn't look at you, but you hear hear breathing pause.

"If I should vanish-"

"That won't happen."

"Well, if-"

"THAT WON'T HAPPEN," she almost screams into her huddled knees.

"You finish w-"

"SHUT UP!" she screams, lashing out with a backhanded blow to your chest. She starts hammering her little fist against you uselessly, hiding her face against her knees. "-up shut up shut up just shut the fuck UP!"

Right beside you, a stationary escalator descends into an unlit basement; the next leg of your journey. With a destination that Mado was afraid of - even before everything she knew in this dream became warped.

You shut up. All things told... you're more afraid of Down Here.

Much more.

I really hope "solve the puzzle" really means "realize you're a firefighter" or we may be in a heap of trouble otherwise

Apparently (mineral) flame retardants actually make things worse until hit by water.

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>>33370358
>>33370155
>>33370112
>>33370064
>>33370046

No doom, no worries.

Y'alls are going to go OH SHIT later when it all clicks, though. I can't fucking wait.

Calling it here for tonight, on that SUPER EXCELLENT CHEERFUL LAST UPDATE. We will resume on MONDAY, same time. Question: should I start the quest a bit earlier in the afternoon, like, 4PM EST? Or is the current timeframe good?

>>33367753
>CMI is too strong, what's causing...
>>33367613
>Shut down Utilities
>>33367321
>Fast team withdraw

>>33370435
Well we already realise we're a firefighter in a burning building, and that we just dealt with defective sprinklers and a potential gas scare.

>>33370392
Also Halogenated compounds (fire retardant) degrades(/burn up) into toxic dioxins.

That furniture is extremely toxic while burning.

>>33370488

I think that was EMI, actually. Electro-magnetic interference?

And then there's the first thing the Toriningen said:

>"Uplink failed."

Not sure why establishing radio contact with (an obviously unconscious) man would mean a damn thing, though.

>>33370488
>>Fast team withdraw
Does this mean they have us or they weren't able to reach us or what.

>>33369617
>>33369729
>>33370527 (You)
Aw hell burning furniture loaded with flame retardants means Carbon Monoxide/Hydrogen Cyanide is filling the house fast

>>33370740
The Firefighter Assist and reScue Team got ordered out.

Firefighter Glossary:
https://www.chandleraz.gov/default.aspx?pageid=930