[ Graduation Dungeon ] Zar + Barth + Calder

[Baneful]

Quote:

4. Prompt - What Doesn't Kill You
You step into a room. It's a bare, plain room. By the time you reach the middle it warps and shifts, and you are left facing your greatest fear. What is it and how do you deal with it?

If in a group, this can be either a solo exercise or an exercise in group support as you take on everyone's fear one by one.

 

[Baneful]

So this was it finally. Graduation. It had been both a long time coming and yet at the same time had arrived in what felt like no time at all. He had filed his relevant paperwork for the thing a short time before and had no idea what to expect. He'd been peacefully sleeping when he'd been seized and forcibly kidnapped and if it hadn't been for the height of his captors (gnomes, no doubt about it) he would have assumed his parents had come to collect him finally and permanently.

He didn't know where he was when he was dropped into a room and abandoned, but the banner helpfully informed him it was time.

He was the first through the door and into the room beyond, intending to investigate it before doubling back, he did not notice he had company before the world around him seemed to skew and shift, twisting into new shapes. He stopped in his tracks, but it was too late, the world seemed to stretch away until he found himself inexplicably out in the school grounds. Only there was something different, vastly different than he remembered. Normally the school seemed to teem with life, there was always a distant sound of chatter, light in windows, howls and roars. Now it was different, it was dark, not in the way things were almost always dark on campus but almost derelict.

The wind slammed a dilapidated open door again and again and he knew, in the way you know in a dream that everyone was gone.

He was alone, completely and utterly alone and there was no way out, just a world hollowed out by some horror, some nameless ill that he couldn't remember but felt as undeniably as he felt his wings or his feet beneath him.

Looking down, he pulled his shirt aside to find the mark on his chest absent completely and he made a fleeting strangled sound of surprise and horror, pulling his tail in close around him. He didn't know how to escape this situation or how to even begin to change it. All he knew was that in a single horrible instant he'd found himself in the place he'd always dreaded the most, the place he'd been dragged out of by hands that were not his own.

And now those hands were gone.

He slumped to the floor on his knees and in a change of posture so absolute he might as well have gone back in time a year or so, he just stared helplessly. Some fears he could never truly conquer.
 

[Toshihiko Two]

Barth slept through the whole thing. He should have been on alert, considering the myriad dangers he was potentially facing, but with all the prep-work and worrying and....whatever else, it was all exhausting. Barth slept early, and hard, and long.

And even when the gnomes threw off Barth's covers and stuffed him in a sack, they met a dead-asleep amount of zero resistance.

So when Barth did wake up, it was to a very strange mechanical noise.

He had the sensation that he was moving.

Some deep, primal terror and a feeling of recognition seized him. It was impossible, wasn't it? But all Fears had potency, didn't they? Had he created it? Had it found him?

Barth could barely look. But he knew he had to. There it was. The slick, steel arms, the flat expanse of the oversized belt, and at his feet, the churning pit of a fiery hell.

"Help," he said, reorienting himself, "Help, Christof. Sugarsparkles," he swore with venom, only just now dragging himself into the waking world. But it was too late. The giant treadmill was cranking him inevitably towards his just desserts.  

[MoonKitsune]

Calder was not one for early rising unless it was on his terms. When he slept in his own room, it was his security zone. It was HIS territory, and it was one of the few places be could allow himself to deeply sleep.

When he was wrangled into a sack, his animal instincts said to do one thing, and that was to trash, tear, and buck. The gnomes had a hard time getting him through the door through the commotion he put up and he was kicked a few times by a few stubby feet. He could hear grumbling and cursing but Calder at no point stopped to let himself be taken. If it wasn't for his pin, he would have shifted, but he was blocked from that option. If he could, then there would have been no way the gnomes could move a horse or for the bag to even hold him.

When at last the knot was released and he tumbled out, Calder was back on his feet and turning to try and tear and stomp down any gnome dumb enough to be near him, but they were all gone and he was left alone in a room…
..or so he thought it was a room.

It changed too much and so quickly that all he had to turn and he was in front of Amityville's closed gates. Confused, Calder looked about and then heard the crunch of gravel as a carriage was moving.

Looking, he noticed Grimhold with Christof beside him. The gates opened and inside through the window Calder could see both Barth and Zar intimately wrapped, with Zar holding the sloth demon and holding him tightly. Both were dressed in the elegant Victorian fashion while Calder, having just woken up, was still just in a worn kilt.

He noticed the packed bags and a small trailer being pulled behind with furniture that Calder knew belonged to Barth. "Hey! Wha – what's going on? Wait a second."

He moved to bring himself beside the carriage but Grimhold only cringed in disgust and turned the carriage around him before slowing down and stopping.

The window opened and Zar and Barth looked out.

"What's going on? Where are you guys all going?"

"To our home. We're leaving."

Surprised, Calder only stared at them. "I didn't know we were leaving this early. We haven't even picked a place yet."

"No need. I have money I can use. We're moving to one of my homes."

"OH…..but I thought we…."

"Barth needs to remain in luxury and my parents don't mind me unless I don't say anything. They don't even mind an extra servant."

Calder frowned and looked over to Christof. "Christof isn't a servant. He's Barth's friend."

To which the Igor glared and then took the riding whip from Grimhold's hand and whipped it as Calder, who winced under the sharp pain that hit his bare shoulder as he stepped back.

Christof then sighed quickly. Stupid Horse. Master's Igor. Always will be. Dumb Animal.

Grimhold took the whip back and Calder moved towards the carriage but as he pulled on the door handle, found it locked.

When Calder looked at Barth, the sloth demon didn't look back.

"The door's locked."

"It issssss." Barth said, leaning against Zar's shoulder.

"There isn't room for a ….energetic monster …in a lab." He said slowly, and then smiled up to Zar who smiled and kissed him back.

"You are…..creative. You'll….find a way."

"…w…what? But we're – you're my fiancé! We're going to get married!" He cried, moving to stand before the widow looking up.

The two demons only looked down.

"I told you. Demons don't love." Zar reminded him and went to close the window before stopping.

"You could work like Christof and Grimhold." Zar suggested, looking at Barth.

The demon seemed to perk up at the idea. "Grimhold…could use a horse…..to haul equipment…"

Calder was shocked, blood going cold and heart stopping.

"…What are you….even talking about…?"
 

[Toshihiko Two]

If only he could reach-

The vines reached for him, on impulse. Snarling towards the machine's arm, they wound around one pajama'd but otherwise bare ankle.

"Ha," he said, relaxing in tired relief against the still-mobile belt. The belt was slightly uncomfortable, and kept riding his shirt up, but he was no longer headed into a broiled alive forever situation, so there was that.

Now, he tried to think rationally, the whole thing must have an off-switch. The vines crept upward. There was a clicking noise, and then a whirr. The belt under him began to grind faster.

"No. No- no!"

The mild discomfort turned into a burn, and then the whole thing was shredding forward, propelling him towards the fire with only the vine keeping him in place. He tried to adjust his shirt- or find the off button, but increasingly the only thing he could focus on was the searing pain and how he was losing skin- and the whole damn thing kept accelerating to faster and faster.

He shrieked, and then, in more desperation, "Calder! ZAR! H-help, that's- That's An Order."

Whether his screams or their names could be heard over their own isolated fantasies wasn't clear- but Zar's chest would most certainly begin to burn.  

[Baneful]

There was nothing but darkness, the oppressive silence edging in on him from all sides, a world without life, without purpose. He had no reason to stand, no reason to move or try to resume his fractured existence. He had thought he could escape the bleak hopelessness that he'd stared down after Nuru's weaponisation, that there was such an un-demonic thing as hope in the world. But privately, down in his black hearts he had always known it was brief, that he was living a lie, running in the dark, too scared to look back at what was behind him with no idea of what lay ahead.

Even that had been better than this, here he'd reached the end of running, the place where he tripped and the darkness caught up. And he was so alone he couldn't even remember why, only that he hadn't been able to stop it, that he'd known and never said and that he'd never done any of the things he'd been too afraid to do.

It felt like even the faltering light was going out and the hopelessness was settling in on him like a heavy weight, making his breathing labored and his emotions deadening the way they had when he'd given himself to the insanity and hoped that at least Home would want him and that he'd finally be useful to someone. The night was so deep and so tempting, so easy to simply slip into and escape for ever.

There was a flash of magic and the pain of the mark cut through everything like a white hot knife, a bolt of clarity and truth which flew in the face of the solitude and hopelessness. As long as it was there, there could be no denying that he existed, what he was who he was and who lay at the other end of that magical thread.

He stood and around him the world shattered like black and splintered glass. He was not alone. It was an untruth, artificial and unable to hold him. He might be running in the dark still, hoping that he could avoid the inevitable, but he could run another day. The ache of the mark - which returned on his chest - was proof and dispelled the false memories of destruction and absolute abandonment. But it did not cease, it tugged and there was something important involved, something he let instinct more than anything else carry him towards.

Leaping into the air, he threw wide his wings and flew, the world rippling, the walls twisting into something that was not the abandoned school, heat rising up in thermals from some enormous machinery, his wings flapped, draconic in their scale and he spotted the source of the ache, of everything that pulled him here. And there was strength in him now, hovering as he lowered his tail down and twisted it around Barth, lifting him up from the persistent belt so that it did not grate and did not move him, halting him in place above it.

The tail twisted further, coiling about the other demon tightly, the way it so often did, pressing in bodily all about him, supporting all of him as the Incubus threw his wings wide as he could, filling his wing membranes with the rising hot air and flapping them as hard as he could, the strength in his wing muscles startling, their dedicated heart hammering desperately as he threw all of his strength behind climbing higher and higher, out of reach of that infernal pit.

The machinery creaked and twisted and there was a moment where it seemed like it would be impossible until finally under Zar's efforts, it buckled and twisted, sending the two of them veering forward into the twisting colours and landscape of some other vision.

 

[MoonKitsune]

He stood frozen, looking up at the two demons and then noticed as the carriage shook. Christof dismounted with Grimhold and from a side compartment brought out another harness.

Be. Good. Horse. Please. Master. Chrsitof signed, and Grimhold waited with the Igor for Calder to take his place. The only place that seemed to be left for him.

The only place where they felt he now belonged, where he was useful, and where he would serve them only as something lower than a servant. He would be a domesticated animal.

"Come on now, Calder. You know you want this. We're giving you a place to stay." Zar said, smiling as he played with Barth's horn.

The sloth demon lazily looked out the window. "While I don't….agree to the work….it does help us…" He offered, as if trying to make a rotten carrot sweet.
"I'm not an animal." Calder grunted, hands clenched as he glared at them all.

"But you do have instincts. Ones that need broken." Zar said, and he smiled again, enjoying himself. "I would love to see you pulling us along. You'd look so…pretty."

At another time, maybe a joke or playful teasing could be made if Zar meant this in any other way, but he meant it just as he was making it out to be and that was to be their livestock to work for them. It wasn't asking him as a equal to help them out. If they asked that, he could have worked out something. No, this was seeing him as nothing else good for, not even as a lover or a friend, but as a tool to be used. It was making him a servant. It was going against his very nature.

His pride boiled hot as he continued to glare. "I'm not a horse. I'm a kelpie. A proud member of my blood. I may not have a clan but I am NO PET OF YOURS!"

He turned and kicked at Chrsitof, who stumbled back and then glared at him, tossing out insults with wild hand movements that Calder ignored.
"I thought we were friends, Christof! I spent all this time helping you, being there for you. Why are you letting them do this to you? To me?"

Not friend. Made me feel things I don't want. Not good igor now. Will be better igor. You only teach bad things. Stupid horse. Igors need no friends like you. Get in harness or go. Master doesn't need a bad horse. Better demon without you.

Barth was reading along too. "I do like having my energy back for my inventions. You….never understood."

Calder turned, his heart breaking over and over to the point it felt like a crushed grapefruit with its stinging liquids burning inside him.

"I proved to you I would go to the ends of the world to save you. I thought we had something special. You said you wanted me with you!"

"He lied." Zar said, smiling. "You trusted what a demon said?" To which both of them laughed.

Cringing under the sound, he felt each part of him break. Then, not wanting any of this, his eyes burned white and the smoke tendrils rose up.
"I am not yours to hurt like this! I'm not a demon like you, but I'm not your mule! I'm A KELPIE! I'm A MONSTER!"

"And what use do we have for monsters here? Do you see us with any other monsters, Calder?" Barth said, looking exhausted from saying so much and giving a yawn, a sign he was about to sleep.

"I didn't think that mattered to you." He said, tears forming under the white eyes. "You said you liked my creativity."

"Creativity only goes so far. You need some intelligence." Barth added then turned away to rest against Zar.

Glaring down, he looked back up. "If you think me an animal, then I'll show you to respect one."

And then he turned on the carriage and turned his hoof and proceeded to break the first wheel. Grimhold went towards him, but Calder jumped back before kicking at him and making the vampire move away. It was still daylight out. Grimhold wasn't in top form. As for Chrsitof, Calder had almost destroyed the igor once before. Once the undead went to try and harness him, Calder tore off his arms and threw them aside. "I loved you! I loved all of you! I was here to give you everything!"

He tore off Chrsitof's legs and left him as a body stump in the grass.

Turning, he went for the wheel and he heard Barth now shouting his name.
He ignored him and broke the first wheel. They would not leave him this way. He would fight them until the pain went away. If he was a monster. If he was alone. If he was to live this way, he would make them see that a monster, a kelpie, was not below them. He so desperately wanted to protect them, and now he felt the deep regret that he never proved any worth to any of them.

He had never been loved by then. He was never any use to any of them. He was never respected or wanted. And now, now he was going to be easily ignored and forgotten.

And then – where would he go?
 

[Toshihiko Two]

The mark simmered with cooled and soothed satisfaction the moment Zar wrapped his tail around Barth.

And Barth, at last, could think, and he would feel very silly if it wasn't for the relief he felt at seeing the treadmill spiral out of view.

"Good riddance. Where have you been? Where are we?"

There, at least, where the familiar cobbled streets of the city, although...

"Do you hear, um?"

Smashing. Crunching. And a lot of it.  

[Baneful]

Zar's hooves sparked on the cobbles as he landed heavily, untwisting Barth into looser coils and what amounted to a supported standing position next to him.

"I have no idea where we are." he admitted. "I did not know where I was a minute ago either. That was quite the machine you summoned up over there."

He blinked. "Is that Calder?" he was wrecking the carriage!

Zar made his way over, dragging Barth along with him. "Stop that!" he said. "What are you doing?"

 

[MoonKitsune]

Grimhold was leaving the carriage, moving to the side to bring out a longer whip. Christof was nothing more than a legless, armless lump on the ground, his head somewhere this way and the rest of his limbs somewhere that way. When Calder hear Zar, he turned to see him coming towards him, ordering him to stop while dragging Barth behind.

They had left the carriage to stop him.

"You should have never promised me this! You should have never lied to me! You should have NEVER offered the world to me and taken it away as if I wasn't important!" He moved in, hooves hitting the ground hard and kicking the dirt out in clumps as he crossed the space between them in an instant and threw his entire weight into the punch he hurled at Zar's face.

"You should have never treated me like I meant something if I didn’t'!" His eyes stung and he felt the clash of emotions from the raging heat of being under appreciated, for being lied to when he had given all his heart to being with them and only tossed aside in the end, and the urge to try and push the panic in being left alone once the carriage did leave.

Once they were gone..............it would just be him.
 

[Toshihiko Two]

Barth seemed more preoccupied with the glimpse of very convincing versions of himself and Zar canoodling in the floor of the now-damaged carriage than his treadmill rescuer getting punch.

"Hmm,"

Barth rubbed his beard with his knuckle.

"Lied? Are you, err, are you quite sure-"  

[Baneful]

Zar was about to tell Calder to calm down and talk some actual sense for once when he was punched - hard. He most certainly hadn't expected it, Calder wasn't normally overtly violent in his experience, at least not in a way he couldn't normally handle. Normally he could simply be talked into a ball of self loathing and reasonable behaviour.

Not this time.

Zar's glasses made a splintery breaking sound and the Incubus went careening back onto the cobbles with a clatter of horns and hooves.

There was a hiss like an exhalation and when he stood, tail unwinding from around Barth, it was in his natural form, needle-sharp teeth bared.

"WHAT WASSS THAT EVEN FOR?" he bellowed, pain still blossoming across his nose.

 

[MoonKitsune]

"YOU KNOW WHAT THAT'S FOR!" Calder shouted, glaring at the demon gone creature. "That joke wasn't cute before when you said it, but telling me to put on a reign?! You can jack yourself!"

He turned on Barth and wasting no time, moved to him and grabbed him by the collar, lifting him up to stare right in his face.

"You can say it was a demon way of doing things, but you LIED to me. You can't jackin say you didn't. You promised we'd be together and you LIED!"

He threw his fist back and then brought it up to sucker punch Barth right in his face, letting the demon drop. "That's for breaking my heart."

He then moved and threw his hoof right into Barth's side. "That's for telling me we'd be together!" He said, voice cracking.
 

[Toshihiko Two]

The hit floored Barth pretty well immediately, and he clutched his face with the dismal feeling it was going to bruise. When the hoof plowed into his ribs, Barth curled around his middle protectively.

"I didn't! We...we will. We are," Barth squawked.  

[Baneful]

Zar gave Calder a very critical sort of look. "Erm." He did want Calder to put on a reign, though he wasn't sure how the hell the kelpie had learned that fact or even the degree he wanted it to happen. It certainly wasn't a reason to punch him though.

He was about to argue all of this and try to wheedle himself out of it when Calder turned on Barth instead, he stepped back and sat down on his haunches, tail looped around him as he tilted his head curiously at the sight.

There was no mercy at all for Barth as the sloth demon got kicked around like a ragdoll, the Incubus simply smiling cheshire cat style, all the way to his floppy ears. The anger of moments before seemed to have dissipated entirely. "I think this scenario is a hallucination you stupid pony. We however, are not."