All right, then, I'LL stop.

Angel I was taking you at your word, it is other people I am not so sure about.

I am not surprised.

When was the last time you were surprised Shadowstalker?

Type. Not write.

Ok Eilonwy, remind me to get you a small, light weight collapsible cane for when you misplace your staff.

And remind me to put a remote controlled beeping device on your staff so you can find it when you misplace it.

And tether it to your wrist.

As I said, Nikki led me into yet another house that morning. The place was old, even compared to the rest of the old town, and it looked like it had been neglected over the years. To my eyes at the time, it looked like the house was alive and was wanting nothing more than to have us walk into it's mouth. It took some effort, but Nikki convinced me to go in. That we needed to help there.

From the moment I stepped in, I could feel the eyes watching us. The signs of decay were everywhere, and all of the shadows seemed alive. I could hear the things running in the walls, even more than the other houses. The rotten furniture seemed to move and laugh at me. Nikki told me it was just my 'imination' and that we were 'good'. She led us from decayed room to decayed room, occasionally pulling me into a corner to hide from the creatures. Eventually, we made our way into what probably was a study at one time.

I remember seeing the fireplace and the remains of bookshelves and a desk. There was also a corpse in the chair that told me I was going to die. The iron poker turned the chair into splinters. The creature that came in at the sound of noise also fell to the crazed swings. Once the creature was gone Nikki in her own way got me to calm back down and led me into a corner of the room.

Eventually while I sat in the corner and tried to banish the sounds and images in my head, Nikki found was she was looking for. She pulled me over to the wall where a metal wall scion was and put my hands on it. I realized what she wanted and pulled with everything I had. The back of the fireplace opened up to form a dark mouth. It wasn't long before she was leading me into the darkness within.

DarKnyht wrote:There was also a corpse in the chair that told me I was going to die.

Whoa. Do you mean that in a literal sense, or did it really say, “You are going to die”? That is very . . . disturbing.

Bert . . . thanks.

You get used to it.

Fire is always a safe bet to begin with.

At least you know not to use fire anymore.

Fire, like everything else, is just a primitive and crude form of explosion

All right, hands up who DIDN'T see that one coming?

I was seeing quite a bit that wasn't there at the time. I think it was being close to the thing we found eventually for such a long time. It just slowly ate away at my mental defenses until it broke them.

Thankfully, outside liking seafood even less than before I think I am alright.

Almost.

You can blow up some things up into bits and they will survive it.

An explosion requires compression. Not to pick nits or anything

I was thinking the same thing. Fire is combustion, explosions are rapid and violent expansions.

Making our way into the passage that we found that the entrance sealed behind us. We were instantly plunged into darkness for a few seconds before I found and turned on my belt light. During that time, which seemed to stretch for hours, I felt Nikki grabbing me by the waist and shaking. There were also more unnatural sounds and moans coming from around me. The light seemed to chase some of them away and I started to look around.

I looked around and found an old oil lantern hanging on the wall. It had shutters on it and the oil level was full. Unlike most of the things we found it seemed to be in fairly good repair. I took it and lit it with one of the matches I carry. I shuttered it to only give off a small enough light to see right around us, and hoped that nothing noticed the light.

Ahead of us was a small passageway that opened up at the end to a hole with a ladder built into one side. With no way to go backwards, we went down.

So there was a cave coplex under the town? I was wondering where the Squid heads were coming from, maybe they were down there during the day?

Eilonwy Solstice wrote:

DarKnyht wrote:There was also a corpse in the chair that told me I was going to die.

Do you mean that in a literal sense, or ...

It be "figurative", not "literal", yo.