There were eight idols in the clearing, each of them clearly different...and clearly profane;
They were arranged into some sort of eight pointed star arrangement, each of them clearly given some degree of care in construction.
The first was a figure resembling a dark version of the "Lady Justice" ideal, dark shrouded and carrying a sword pointed down at her scales, the blindfold torn off and revealing glaring eyes. She was outfitted with black, bat-like wings, and armor underneath the shroud common to this ideal.
The second was a grotesque, flirtatious figure, resembling a beautiful lady at the top, the bottom half resembling a grotesque goat in rut fastened with a painful belt, a white wing and a black wing curling around the form. This visibly hermaphroditic idol exhibited a sort of perverse identity. An invitation to partake in the forbidden. Despite the subject matter, the figurine was pristinely made, as if someone wanted other people to look upon the sheer work put into the construction of it.
The third was a wretched figure writhing with engraven tendrils and numerous claws bending and twisting out of the cloaked figure's sleeves. The figure seemed made of silver and pearly white material, a book being held up by the various tendrils wrought on the figure.
The fourth was a coiling dragon-like creature around a peak of some sort, a devious expression evident on the dragon's features. Four eyes were cut into the dragon's face, and it seemed the beast had a number of offered golden coins at the base of its idol.
The fifth was a great and terrible figure of war, standing plunging its sword into a screaming skull at the base of the idol. It had the wizened, elderly features of an All Father Deity, black wings drawn close over its form. The idol was smeared with blood, from various evident points in time.
The sixth was a disgusting, bloated looking idol, oozing with rot. The idol's wooden form was evidently infected or inlaid with some sort of parasitic worms, pus oozing out of the bulbous and disgusting form, mutations and squamous tendrils built in and clutching its form as if holding the idol itself together.
The seventh was a great, crimson colored spider figure, bent around the tremendous figure of a scroll of some kind with a feather pen bound alongside it. The spider's eyes seemed to blaze like fire even in the idol form given. The legs looked keen to move even though they were just carved wood.
The eighth was a great collection of clocks, fastened together by silver and gold strings and chains. Countless, countless clocks and watches, and so many other ways to tell time all pulled into one idol. The clocks were all set to different times each, and seemed to be moving at different rates. Some moved insanely quickly. Others barely moved at all. A diamond capped off the strange display of this idol.
Such was the range of idols set up in this outdoors temple. Who had gathered to worship at these strange divinities? Who would find such things divine? There was a sinister, unholy atmosphere to the clearing the more Mina saw of it. As if these cobbled blasphemies were a beacon for things she could not see. But which certainly could see her.
Edited by NickTheSwing on Dec 14th 2020 at 6:13:55 AM
An Ordinary Oddball
Mina Parker
"I see you," Mina muttered back at the statues, eyes narrowing with the purest condemnation and loathing, while ignoring Heather. "I see you all."
After making sure that she had seen all there was to see in the clearing, Mina made her drone continue onward. The display in the clearing was creepy and all, but it wouldn't help any of them find Tom, and that was the priority. "The idols in the clearing seem to be well-maintained," she commented coldly. "We'll have to make copies of this footage and hide them later in case anyone or anything comes for us later. Be ready."
Edited by JumpingFruit on Dec 14th 2020 at 6:27:37 AM
I wear the skin of the Elder Things, having come unto my own.
The Light That Blinds
Jayden
Looking at the idols again, they were pretty...icky. One of them was oozing pus and worms, one was smeared with blood, and one...well, he was certain there was a third thing in there somewhere. The Lady Justice looked nice, though. So did the cloaked figure with a book—
Wait a minute.
Jayden stared at the sketches. "Eight idols," he murmured.
He looked up at the group. "Eight of us."
Back at the sketches. "Eight idols."
Back at the group. "Eight of— OH MY GOD, I CRACKED THE CODE!"
He quickly grabbed his journal and started writing, pencil skidding across the paper like it was on fire. "Okay...the cloaked figure with the book might represent me, no idea who the others are, but what do the poses mean? Are they symbols of some sort of dire fate..." Soon, he descended into unintelligible muttering as he took notes.
"Kept me waiting, haven’t you? Tch. No matter. Dawdle all you’d like. In the end, your defeat remains inevitable."
Fwomph
"Oh, you guys saw something cool?"
Heather shrugged and just kinda started pacing about, ignoring her phone for now.
"Whatever, I'll look at my recording later. I've got your back in case something comes out of the woods for us while you're all distracted with your phones."
It's clearly a case of backroom political albumizing.
"Uh guys, are you seeing the same thing I'm seeing? I'm guessing from your reactions that you are."
James was pretty disconcerted by the idols. He had tended to avoid this part of the woods, but the thought that something like that could even be there without being discovered was worrying. What else could be out there? Why would somebody even build that thing?
"I think we should probably do some research, it might just be an overly elaborate prank but it couldn't hurt to look into local folklore and religion. Lord knows there have been enough cults and wannabe messiahs around here over the years."
He paused for a moment
"I'm not saying I think it has anything to do with Tom. My interest is purely intellectual, well, about ninety percent at least."
Edited by bobbitwormhobbitwyrm on Dec 14th 2020 at 8:48:54 AM
Dave DuVale, DIC Land
"Yo book kid, Jason or whatever the fuck your name is, you might wanna slow the fuck down. If the statues are us...I mean I just drove him here and then decided to stick around. Which one of those would even be me?" He paused. "It's possible, but don't instantly assume you figured out how to defeat Bill Cipher or whatever."
He then turned to James. "And you, man, you've got the opposite problem. Not everything's a hoax, dude. Trees don't grow like that, and...for fuck's sake one of them is covered in blood. Some weird shit's obviously happening."
He then turned back to Jayden. "You got any kind of stamp of approval? Like a 'this has been verified by other people and isn't crazy shit I made up' signature?"
Suggested wine pairing: pinot noir.
The Best Worst Psychonaut
Zaahira only half-paid attention to the goings-on around her as the others did their investigation. They seemed to have everything covered. Apparently they found a bunch of bloodied wooden statues or something? Creepy, sure, but... nah, they seemed too professional to have been made by cultists or whatever.
"Eh, could be a hoax," she offhandedly said, waving a hand around. Then she turned her attention to the big guy with the truck, going off on one. ...Wait, was that that one guy who used to be a top student but then suddenly turned into a dropout courier pickup driver overnight?
"Dude, at what point did James say the trees were growing like that? Like, someone's probably just 3D-printed that shit and stuck it there. We're probably walkin' right into someone's A.R.G. At the end of all this is gonna be a Silent Hill trailer or somethin'."
Edited by PresidentStalkeyes on Dec 15th 2020 at 6:00:32 PM
"If you think like a child, you will do a child's work."
As the club took in the appearance of the strange idols, suddenly the display of the drone's camera started exhibiting some static...after a few pulses of static however everything went back to normal. Well, mostly back to normal. Duane felt a noise starting to come up from his throat. He stopped himself before he could really react all that much.
There was now noise. Ample noise coming from about fifty feet off into the forest.
It sounded like someone - or rather, a large number of someones - walking through the woods toward the clearing. There was no other noise than that sound coming toward the clearing. Duane wondered if these idols were some sort of blasted, unholy shrine...and whoever was due to worship at it was coming now...
"Move. Move the drone. We gotta get it outta there!" Duane didn't want to see who or indeed what might've had any interest in such grotesque totems.
An Ordinary Oddball
Mina Parker
"...Roger," Mina said, with gritted teeth, as she banked the drone hard to one side in order to pilot it in a wide sweeping arc and mislead anyone that might have seen the drone. "The camera...I checked it just now. It shouldn't have fizzed like that. Maybe there's some sort of interference coming from the idols in that clearing..."
In any case, Mina was going to have the drone double back after flying it a certain distance in another direction, with the camera still trained on the suspicious noises and any other shady movements in the woods it found in the shadows. If there was anything else to be found, this was the time for mysteries to be uncovered.
Edited by JumpingFruit on Dec 15th 2020 at 11:48:56 AM
I wear the skin of the Elder Things, having come unto my own.
And what a sight Mina would see once her drone doubled back overhead.
Visible even from up there were about twelve people gathering in the clearing, coming out from the woods. Each and every one of them was covered head to toe in a swaddling dark robe and cloak, the inside of each cloak burning bright red. The robed occultists had large, pointed hoods, and all of them had strange staves they carried with them, each of them letting off some sort of dark gray or black mist.
They seemed to gather in front of the idols, and started holding some sort of ceremony, one of them stepping forward from the assemblage and waving his stave around to each idol.
The camera display then started really going crazy, the static coming back with a vengeance - and every now and then, there would be some noise in the back of the static. Something like a roar. Duane fell back on his ass, whimpering as the roar started coming through during the static...
An Ordinary Oddball
Mina Parker
Mina visibly blanched at the grisly sight, but otherwise concentrated on bringing the drone back safely to the others. Mostly, she was concerned about whether she had seen her father in that hooded crowd, but that was supremely unlikely, she hoped. Still, she had to review the footage properly later, as some cowled faces still seemed familiar...
As she landed the drone back at the club’s meeting site, she took a deep breath. "Everyone scatter. Back to our homes. Use different routes. Act like we never met here. If anyone asks, there is no Disappearance Investigation Club. Make a copy of the footage and keep it hidden. Try not to message another person from this club for the rest of the day," Mina ordered in clipped tones. "We can meet up at school to discuss the details. It's safer than being by ourselves out here. Lots of witnesses, you see."
With that, Mina started packing up her equipment, gesturing for the others to go on and leave without her. Her steely-eyed look never left her face as she saved the footage to her laptop and phone.
Edited by JumpingFruit on Dec 15th 2020 at 11:49:06 AM
I wear the skin of the Elder Things, having come unto my own.
Fwomph
Heather let out a low whine and grumbled.
"Seriously? Not even gonna step foot in the forest today? Egh, fiiiiiiine guess I better start walking... Seeya around, DI Cs."
With a little emphasized yawn Heather gives everyone a bit of a look before turning and striding off. She's walking all the way home? Bold move.
It's clearly a case of backroom political albumizing.
Hello? Hello, hello?
Merry, while silent, has noted a few things from the investigation in a piece of paper she'd use for maps under normal circumstances. When she heard Mina's order, she quickly nods.
"Alright then. Let's not stay here for too long. Who knows what could happen, right?"
With that, she packs her stuff into her rucksack and left, walking all the way home.
artsy geek | any pronouns | "well, if you're hearing this, then chances are you've made a very poor career choice."
The Light That Blinds
Jayden
"Oh, verification?" Jayden absently said, continuing to scribble down ideas. "I can get verification. There's this online forum I go to a lot, it's called Ghost House, I can give you guys the link..."
His voice trailed off at the sight of a ritual. An actual ritual. An actual, genuine, not-a-hoax ritual done by an actual cult. Before his very eyes.
"They're real," he whispered, staring at the screen. "They're actually...completely real." He screenshotted the scene. A lot.
Unfortunately, Mina pulled her drone away from the ritual, so he didn't get to see the whole thing. Even more unfortunately, she then told them to head home and not contact each other, so he couldn't even discuss what he saw. Granted, it was likely they would've vetoed his ideas anyway, but still...
Jayden stuffed his things into his backpack and slung it over his shoulder, then started running home. "You guys should totally call me tomorrow! I have a lot of ideas!" he shouted over his shoulder.
"Kept me waiting, haven’t you? Tch. No matter. Dawdle all you’d like. In the end, your defeat remains inevitable."
Dave DuVale, The Arbitrary Group of People Formerly Known as the DIC
Dave was following until Mina said "separate routes". "Uh, how's he gonna get home?" he said, pointing his thumb at James. "He gonna have to walk?"
Suggested wine pairing: pinot noir.
An Ordinary Oddball
Mina Parker
"Um..." Mina hesitated for a moment, unsure if this was really the right thing to tell the others to do. The last moments were really out of character for her. Did she really have the right to order her friends around? What if this made them hate her? Were they going to be safe from now on? What about Tom? How were they going to keep investigating? "Okay, p-please be careful, M-Merry, and Jayden, and..."
"You can...have him r-ride home with you I-I guess," she said cautiously to Dave, already turning back into her stuttering old self. "The g-goal is to c-create workable alibis f-for the whole group. I-I'm going to...I'm going to w-walk home by myself. It's b-better that way, if I'm n-not seen with anyone. My dad w-will get concerned, a-and I'm not entirely sure I-I didn't see him out there, i-in the woods..."
With that, Mina left herself to begin walking all the way home, though it wasn't too far away.
Edited by JumpingFruit on Dec 16th 2020 at 9:23:49 AM
I wear the skin of the Elder Things, having come unto my own.
Duane visibly clutched his head for a minute as he vaguely heard Mina talking, though he got the gist of it. Sometimes it just seemed like this happened at the worst possible moments. He got a distant look in his eyes for a moment as he breathed and then decided he had a lot of explaining to do.
"Alright, keep safe, everybody. I'll see if I can find any information about those idols online."
As Duane started heading home, he looked down at his side and breathed before running along.
As Mina headed home, she would see an unfamiliar car parked out front of her place - a long, black limousine with gold linings.
As Jayden headed home however it seemed that there was a colder chill in the air than usual. The trees along the streets - bereft of leaves for winter - seemed to sway and their old branches swung down toward him. The streets were awfully quiet, and it was starting to get dark out.
And Sandfield, California was not always the best place to be when the sun started to set.
An Ordinary Oddball
Mina Parker
As the sun began to set, Mina hurried home, only to pause and crouch behind some topiary bushes as she sensed that all was not well when she arrived. Peering through the greenery, she spotted the suspicious limousine—which most definitely did not belong to her father; he preferred to drive himself around—and quickly brought out her cell phone to discreetly snap a picture of it from a distance before sending it to her friends with an attached message.
Strange car in front of my house; be advised.
With her friends warned, the next step was to decide what to do next. She couldn't go to a friend's house, because it was quickly getting dark, and yet...
The status of the car indicated that it was most likely someone that was trying to visit her father even if it did seem suspicious from the outside. The fact that it was parked outside her home meant that the people who owned it already knew where she lived. Direct confrontation was imminent.
Mina dug around inside her bag of equipment and brought out a flashlight. It would be less suspect than brandishing a bat, especially during the darkening twilight. It could provide light, and was heavy enough that she could club someone with it. It was now or never.
Mina took a deep breath and walked away from the topiary, turning the flashlight on, making no more attempts to conceal herself. If all went well, then she would look casual as she approached her front door. If not...
That was what her bat was for.
Edited by JumpingFruit on Dec 17th 2020 at 12:37:56 PM
I wear the skin of the Elder Things, having come unto my own.
The Light That Blinds
Jayden
Jayden didn't notice Mina's text. He was more focused on the sudden chill, and the trees trying to smack him, and that the streets had grown quiet. Too quiet. A shiver went down his spine, and he started to wonder if he'd wandered onto the set of a horror movie.
His house wasn't far away, but he wasn't going to risk staying where any monsters could see him. Instead, Jayden grabbed onto some neighbor's picket fence and hoisted himself over it, crawling into the bushes to be (mostly) hidden.
"Kept me waiting, haven’t you? Tch. No matter. Dawdle all you’d like. In the end, your defeat remains inevitable."
Jayden in Hiding
Something large ambled through the street suddenly, seeming as if to part a great veil and then step forward half visible into the world, distorting everything around it. Wet noises would be able to be heard as Jayden hid there, something sounding like leeches squirming in a foul swamp issuing forth.
Squelching hungry noises so nearby, slurping on stone and steel fences.
Jayden would be able to feel like something was watching for him. Unable to see him, but looking for him. It was large, so much larger than he was. And going by the noises and the eagerness with which its many mouths sucked on even so much as the concrete and stone of the street, it was hungry. How much would its rancid mouths take from him?
How much blood, ichor and bone marrow?
"Jayden?"
The voice was distant, yet so familiar. And suddenly the sensation of whatever it was was gone. Standing out near the entry to the property Jayden was hiding in was a schoolmate of his. Xander Nyczus, the adoptive son of the other local preacher, Kellon Nyczus.
Jayden had apparently ended up on Nyczus' property.
Xander was tall and lean, having light brown almost blond hair and heterochromic amber and gray eyes. He was as of now wearing a long sleeved white shirt, black pants and just a pair of black socks. It seemed whatever creature had been ambling around out there had left for whichever hell it came from as soon as he showed up.
Mina
"Ahh, Mina, everyone here was so worried! What were you doing out there?" Kellon Nyczus seemed to be talking with a few of the house servants, who seemed to be divided between being polite to him and being rather unnerved. The other priest of the town was dressed for business it seemed, though his striking features were still visible.
His entire face, down to his eyebrows and head hair, was all shaved clean, with a quote in greek written down his temple to his cheek. His broad features and age of fifty six indicated he was a man used to a certain high class upbringing and with it, much better nutrition than what his opposite number had.
His suit was entirely black with only a hint of the white shirt underneath, his tux pants likewise black.
He appeared to be quite warm, which would only make the odd impression the waiting staff had seem odder.
Kellon crossed his arms and stated, "You know, considering it's your family and all, I figure that you should be present for any meeting I'm going to have with your father. After all, you're growing into a woman in your own right. You have a right to know what we discuss."
Edited by NickTheSwing on Feb 6th 2021 at 5:06:55 AM
An Ordinary Oddball
Mina Parker
Ah, so it was Father Nyczus, not some random thug or stranger who was parking outside of her home. Here he was scaring the house servants—employees—who were working for her father. And herself, Mina supposed, but she often became uneasy when she was given a position that purported to lord over others, and so chose not to pursue the train of thought any further. But scaring the employees was behavior worse than any stranger or thug...!
"Oh, it's y-you, Father N-Nyczus!" Mina exclaimed, affecting a gasp of relief. "I was hiding behind a b-bush just now because I thought some s-stranger was parking outside of m-my house! I w-was so afraid j-just now, given wh-what happened to Tom! I-I'm sorry, I didn't ex-expect you to b-be here. I—w-well, I liked the gold d-detailing on your l-limo. Man..."
She paused for a moment, thinking, before continuing apologetically: "I w-was waiting around for the w-wake for Tom to start. The s-student council asked t-to borrow my drone last w-week so they could f-film the gathering from above, but safety concerns p-prevailed and it w-was canceled. And then it was g-going to happen a-again. And then it was c-canceled. So I s-stayed a while at school t-to see if the w-wake was going to happen or n-not...I texted p-papa too, b-but he must've muted his m-messages, so you all d-didn't get the news..." This was, technically, all true, but it had happened before the meeting near the woods. The last sentence was spoken an octave louder than Mina's usual quiet tone—raising her speech to a normal speaking volume—as they entered the house, hoping that her father would hear. A futile and spiteful hope, but Mina held onto it nonetheless.
"If I w-was as charismatic as y-you, Father, and d-didn't stutter as much, do you think I c-could have talked the t-teachers into letting everyone hold the w-wake?" Mina asked Father Nyczus, looking down at the floor. "I mean, y-you must get m-many donations from p-people who agree with y-you...and y-you can even spend that m-money on a c-cool car..." She trailed off into shy mumbles to deflect suspicion from the hidden insult in her words.
Mina did not like seeing Father Nyczus making her father's employees uncomfortable, and so he was now on the receiving end of some fortuitously-timed "innocent" comments, in front of the door to the dining room, no less. If her father (probably inside) had heard, he would surely say that Mina didn't mean any harm by her words. Mina, however, meant that Father Nyczus was using his donations not to help the poor or needy, but to buy a stream of unending fripperies for himself, such as gold details on his limo—ever so subtly.
Because of course, no well-heeled young lady said things out loud like that, especially to a well-respected family friend, and if Mina was growing into a strong woman in her own right, then she was going to have to use her feminine wiles to solve more problems in the future.
Might as well get in some practice with those wiles on someone who had wronged her, however indirectly.
Edited by JumpingFruit on Dec 18th 2020 at 11:32:26 AM
I wear the skin of the Elder Things, having come unto my own.
The Light That Blinds
Jayden
"ACK!" Jayden almost leapt out of his hiding spot at the sound of his own name, poking his head up from behind the fence. "Oh! Uh, hi! Xander! Sorry to intrude, I just saw something weird, and, uh..."
For a moment, only the sound of crickets chirping could be heard.
"Well, I gotta go! See you tomorrow!" He hoisted himself up over the fence and ran all the way back home.
"Kept me waiting, haven’t you? Tch. No matter. Dawdle all you’d like. In the end, your defeat remains inevitable."
Fwomph
Heather Smythe - Homeward Bound
For the 'popular' girl, the walk home gave her time to think; was this seriously what she wanted to get involved with? These little tabletop nerds and their conspiracy thing? A couple times before she got home she'd get out her phone and watch her copy of the drone footage, the thing gave her intense creep-out vibes and probably was going to leave her with nightmares tonight. But if it really was why all those folks had gone missing, maybe it was worth sticking around to help investigate... Hopefully they could figure it out before the next victim...
As she rounded the corner onto her street she tried to embolden herself and get back into the proper headspace. She'd be a hero, savior of the town! And best of all, she'd get on the news..! That'll be her ticket for sure!
Edited by Pentigan on Dec 21st 2020 at 7:00:40 AM
It's clearly a case of backroom political albumizing.
Mina's Home
Kellon Nyczus listened to what Mina was saying, about him, about the finances he took from his parishioners as it were, and about the many things the "sewing of the faith seed" let Kellon get away with. And surprisingly by the end of her speech, Kellon was laughing. It started as a slow chuckle as he heard her dissect exactly what his prosperity gospel entailed and what it gave license to him to do, and then when she brought up him using the money to buy a luxury car, he was finally full on laughing.
Kellon slapped his knee once, and grinned, "Ohh yes, you are really quite an astute girl. When people give their tithe to me, they are sewing the seeds of their own future prosperity. Meanwhile guaranteeing my own prosperity."
A few more chuckles and then he turned in time to see Mina's father, Conrad Parker enter. He seemed like a slightly chubby, jovial businessman, at least when he was around. His lip framed by a mustache and goatee. He was wearing a business suit.
"Ahh, welcome to my home, Kellon, I was expecting you. I just needed to...ah, finish my business call." He smiled broadly.
"Oh I am quite familiar with that sort of necessity, old friend." Kellon responded, "I was wondering today about the possibility of my son and your daughter meeting and possibly—-"
"Oh, Mina!" Conrad turned to her and asked with that same broad smile, "You know young Xander Nyczus, right? I believe he's about seventeen? How would you feel about going to a gala with him?"
The Nyczus Home
Xander just watched Jayden run off. He didn't even try and stop him or really do anything. He just stared off to Jayden's left, watching something. Something it seemed only he could see at that moment. "Yeah...yeah I guess I'll see you around school! Be careful getting home, Jayden!"
Xander then stuffed his hands in his pockets, sighed, and went back indoors.
Edited by NickTheSwing on Nov 4th 2021 at 7:28:02 AM
Jayden
"Odd clearings! Mysterious totems! Clear signs of paranormal activity!" Jayden quickly screenshotted as many pictures as he could, then started sketching them out in his journal. "The plot thickens!"
He'd have to see if there was anything in his journal or his books or on the Internet about these things.
"Kept me waiting, haven’t you? Tch. No matter. Dawdle all you’d like. In the end, your defeat remains inevitable."