cancry | Gula Underside Log

GULA DUNGEON LOG
As you make the now familiar descent, the screeches and chatterings of the Underside's inhabitants swim up to meet you alongside a suffocating wall of heat. The Gula Underside unfolds itself before you in jewel colours and sweltering heat. In stark contrast to the Rusted City stripped bare and the sterile Undercity, the Gluttony Underside is bursting with life - and danger. This densely packed rainforest spills out in all directions like a natural maze and you're going to have to pull out all the stops to find Gerda before something else does - or before it finds you.
THE UNDERSIDE
♪♫ Floating -Liquidly- – Sakuzyo The jungle is thickly clustered with huge palm trees rising to form an almost impassable canopy that only opens out occasionally when branches shift or when the wind blows, revealing the dim green light of the Underside's sickly looking sky. As you look up, you occasionally see the shadows of Revenants (or at least you HOPE they're Revenants) darting around high above your head. The ground is blanketed in luscious undergrowth that feels soft underfoot - loamy moss, tangled patches of grass, leaves. Occasionally, the uneven ground gives way to puddles of water or patches of loose, sloppy mud that you're forced to wade your way through if you want to proceed. Fortunately (or unfortunately), the jungle is so dense that you're never not within reaching distance of a sturdy tree or rock you can use to steady yourself. Somewhere in this place is Gerda and your way further down into Purgatory. Let's hope you can make your way through unscathed. AREAS OF INTEREST Due to the sheer scale of this Underside, explorations will proceed slightly differently. The Executors will be split into three teams – two to explore the Underside itself and the third being the team assigned to this layer's Boss Combat. Please see below for your role assignments. ⚝ NORTHBOUND: The Executors exploring the north are Medic, Etoile, Lion, Chiron and Veil. ⚝ SOUTHBOUND: The Executors exploring the south are Rei, Genius, Mona, Achilles, Ariel and Phoenix. ⚝ THE WATERING HOLE: Boss Combat volunteers, report! HAZARDS ⚝ Dense Wood: The overgrowth of the jungle and the tightly packed trees mean there are very few wide open spaces as you make your way through. For those of you who rely on your eyeballs, this means visibility is hampered - and that Revenants could ambush you if you're not on high alert! Uneven Footing: Given how wild the terrain here is, you might find that it's a bit hard to get stable footing when you're running to and fro here. Some of this is varied elevation but a lot of it is varied textures too. Stumble too close to anywhere with running water and you'll be slipping and sliding all up and down the Underside! ⚝ Revenant Types Present: Charles, Minturno

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

We do have all the time in the world. I think...for the moment, it hurts nothing to try. But should we go down there and find naught but despair and agony... [A shrug, as simple as that. There are options. Even if they then decide to go for the 'become Authorities and rewrite reality' route.

Still. For as exhausted as he is, as distressing if enlightening as this conversation has been, he gives a small smile.]

Mm...protector of these wayward souls to the end. For whatever it's worth, she might like you if given the chance to see you as this.

[The temptation to say 'for what you are' is there, but. None of them truly know what she is, after that monstrous semi-transformation.]

Or to see you at all. Do you even see? [After Phoenix, he'll hardly judge.]

Do I even–?

[ For the second time in a row, his question catches her off guard. Or perhaps it's simply easier to latch onto that than it is to acknowledge whatever else he might have said. Then comes a short breath of understanding. Or maybe resignation. ]

... yes. I do. The... adornments... are not for my benefit.

[ There's a pause, as if she needs it to steady herself, and then she steps out of the fog. ]

[ The bandages, ribbons, or whatever else she had been using to cover her eyes – with them gone, it's clearer what she was trying to hide. Her eyes are a dull, listless gray and splintered across her face like hairline webs of ruptures across the surface of a lake are cracks. Black as pitch, blacker than pneuma, like a porcelain doll shattered and inexpertly pieced back together.

Even as broken and distorted as it is, though, her face is familiar.

And why wouldn't it be? ]

[ After all, it's Rei's face. ]

[And why shouldn't she and Rei look like twins? If she's been honest, Rei was a part of her sliced away into her own being. A light to the dark. A bleeding heart in need of removal.

Still, he has to take a breath. A fractured doll of her own making, presumably.]

I'm going to come closer. Don't be alarmed.

[Because warping to disappear and just as instantly reappear across the muck to quite close to Birdie might produce an automatic stabbing response without a heads up, and we all want to avoid that please and thank you. He reaches out a hand as though to touch, like he would like to stroke her face as though comforting Rei. He doesn't, only lets it hover in periphery.]

It's for the benefit of others, mm? Do you think you look like a monster? Or you simply don't want to be mistaken for the likes of her?

[ She holds her ground – it's only a tightening of her expression that betrays any sort of tension or alarm. ]

Let's not lie to each other and pretend it isn't a startling sight. [ Her voice isn't precisely venomous, but it's irritated. ] Would you trust something with a face like this, no matter how much it proclaimed it wished to help you?

Ah--and thus, you would not trust a face like this, would you?

[And he can feel the shift, at least in some sense, given that for once he's doing so deliberately: the deathly pallor of his skin, the dark veins, the oozing dripping inky scourge, the blackened sclera adding the the brightly unnatural gold of his eyes.]

And yet. I seem to be trusted nevertheless.

Gula Underside Log

no subject

1/3

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject