>>33051685
Oh god. This is going to be a trippy ride. Uh, let's just take a look around and try not to alert anyone else who might be here.
>Search?

>>33051685
>>Search?
Lets find things to use.

>>33051685
>Search?

>>33051685
I look for the title field and put "quest" in it.

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>>33051763
>>33051731

You clamber to your feet, mindful of the slick, subtly buzzing surface beneath your sneakers. Looking around in the darkness, you remember why mankind's programmed to fear its presence.

You've no idea what might be hiding in it.

You set out carefully, picking a direction at random and walking. Steadying your breath, you begin counting paces. This space might be infinite, but it might not - if you're careful, you can make a proper grid-search and find an exit.

You run that through your head a few times, savoring the logic, then snort as loudly as you dare. What a crock of shit.

You're scared.

From the corner of your eye something whispy and white flickers. You round upon it, your sneakers squeaking damnably loud in the void, vanishing into the black without an echo.

>Challenge?
>Continue searching?

>>33051852
>>Continue searching?
If it thinks we do not see it. Hopefully that should keep it at bay for now.

>>33051685
Holy shit is this some kind of Yume Nikki quest
YES

>>33051852
>Continue searching?
It's just a dream, nothing can hurt us here. Cling firmly to this belief no matter what evidence contradicts it.

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>>33051937
Hi

>>33051852
>Continue searching

Whatever it was, it knows we're here, but calling out could alert other things to our presence.

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>>33051937
>>33051928
>>33051897

You stare into the dark for several long seconds.

"This is a dream," you state.

You look down at your hands - and find them perfectly rendered, entirely accurate. There's no fuzz of surreality on your senses, but -

- "This is a dream," you whisper. "An extremely lucid fucking dream... but its still just a dream." And whatever's wisping around in the dark can damn well stay there - you don't like this dream and you're getting OUT.

You continue walking. Your clothes don't rustle and you feel nothing against your skin; no swish of air as you swing your open palm, nor the ambient temperature of the air - only the void, vast and dark and empty.

Something flickers in the corner of your vision again, but you ignore it, staring at your feet to keep your paces even as you count them out. There's only one way out - and you won't lose sight of your goal.

That's about when your foot connects with something very, very solid. You leap back with a sharp hiss, hands coming up in fists as you dance away from the clattering sound on the floor. You stand there like an idiot for many long seconds, listening to your heart racing in your ears, before daring to approach again.

On the ground, barely visible in the darkness, is a long shaft of hickory. You take it tentatively and tug it closer. It rasps over the smooth obsidian earth. As you take the haft in both hands, the darkness -

- you drop the fucking thing, sending a loud CLACK! into the void - and in the distant darkness, purple-red eyes BLINK.

You snatch it up again, gripping the shaft white-knuckled as illumination oozes onto it, spreading from your hands to the wooden shaft, all the way up to -

- the blade.

The brilliant red blade-and-spike of a fire axe.

In the darkness, not too far away, something hisses.

>STAND
>RUN
>WAKE UP WAKE UP WAKE UP

>>33052271
>GENUFLECT

>>33052271
Stand

>>33052271
>Es-Cap-Ay

>>33052379
>>33052403
>>33052484
Looks like we've got all the bases covered.

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>>33052379
>Genuflect

"This is a dream," you repeat, standing in a featureless void as you grip the hard, familiar shaft of the tool in both hands, the bright red axehead hovering before you in the dark as you turn slowly. "This is a dream."

In the Void before you, something shimmering white takes shape, like a pool of moonlight on a pond-surface manifesting from the nothingness. You hold your ground, staring it down, until two wide, empty eyes form, and a mouth appears.

"The hell do you want?" you ask, and it simply opens its mouth and roars a HIDEOUS SQUEALING

SCREECH OF

STATIC WHITE NOISE CHAOS CLAWING

YOUR EARS PLEASE
CHIRST PLEASE
WAKE

UP

WAKE UP

WAKE UP WAKE UP WAKE UP GOD LET ME UP OUT UP I

WANT TO WAKE

>>33052548
Aw shit

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>>33052548

Up.

You gasp sharply as your whole body spasms in response to some forgotten danger, vague vestiges of memory sliding away even as you awake. Your woozy mind can't quite grasp what's going on, but your body's too heavy to sit up and you're warm and comfortable and safe inside a snug cocoon of cloth. Some wild, chaotic hissing is subsiding from your ears, leaving you unmolested and at peace.

Wasn't there something important you had to do?

But surely somebody'd fetch you, if they needed to. Besides, you can see the ceiling - barely, in the darkness, and that's good, you know.

You can see the ceiling, so there's no rush.

You can rest.

You can

just

re

s

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>>33052655

>>33052655
Nonono don't rest no resting is going to happen here.

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>>33052548
>>33052655
We are off to a rollicking good start

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>>33052655

You're lying on the floor, the hard, hard floor, staring into the darkness where there ought be a ceiling. Clutched to your chest in both hands, like a teddy bear, is the axe, its heavy metal head solid and dependable against your breast. You take a deep, free breath, savoring its reassuring weight on your sternum.

Something hisses and sputters softly to your side, and turning your head you see The Ghost. It waves and shimmers in air, its body turning and twisting every which way like a sheet, but its eyes and mouth remain fixed in space, facing you, as if its a 2D object with 3D features -

- impossible.

It circles you several times, darting away only to come twisty-turny-floating back, softly hissing and sputtering each time.

You stand carefully, leveraging yourself upright with the axe handle, and watch it for long minutes.

"What?" you ask it.

It shimmer-shammers and darts away again - in the same direction, you think, as every other time.

>Follow
>Question

>>33052804
>Follow

>>33052804
>Follow
and
>Question

>>33052804
>Follow

>>33052804
>Follow
>Question
"Okay, I'll come with you. Can you at least stop that hissing? It's distracting."

>>33052882
>"Okay, I'll come with you. Can you at least stop that hissing? It's distracting."
>You
This is a Dream.
It is a figment of my imagination.
It is a part of me.
I am asking myself to stop hissing.
Why am I hissing in the first place?
I should stop hissing.

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>>33052882
>>33052879
>>33052872
>>33052857


You stare down the strange apparition and weigh your options, which doesn't take very long.

"Fine, fine, cut out the figure-eight sun dance bullshit, I'm not a honeybee," you grump and fall in behind it as it darts away again. It soon takes up a leading position, and you plod behind it through the darkness, the axe slung over one shoulder.

"HSSSSSSSSSSSFFFHHSHRRRKKKK," it comments.

"Think you could cut that shit out?" you ask.

"KSHFFFFFFFWHAAAAAET OOHHHOSHSHHHHTTT," it bursts out, loud enough to make you wince. You glance over your shoulder and see purple eyes blinking in the dark, prompting you to step quicker and keep closer to your guide.

"Forget I said anything," you mutter. "Lets just... keep going."

"INVOLVHSSSSHSS GEHSSHOUT," it comments, swirling around you violently and resuming its lead position so swiftly you don't have time to be scared. You tighten your grip on the axehandle and take a deep breath.

Its not like you've got any better option.

Afore long you see something looming from the darkness ahead of you - a pale archway with a door set into it. The ghost hovers before it expectantly, and after you circle it to verify there's nothing behind it, you tenatively try the slick, cold metal handle.

As soon as it cracks open a milimeter, you're blinded by the brilliant light emenating from it. Behind you in the darkness, something slithers and screeches, sending a lightning bolt of fear up your spine. Seizing the handle, you fling it open, spilling blinding light into the darkness.

As you leap through, your guide offers one last burst of static.

"INVHHOOLVED"

>>33053094
>"HSSSSSSSSSSSFFFHHSHRRRKKKK," it comments.
I have no idea. It's probably saying its name.
I'm gonna call it Halfshark.
>KSHFFFFFFFWHAAAAAET OOHHHOSHSHHHHTTT
"Cut out what? Oh shit!, Oh shit!"
>INVOLVHSSSSHSS GEHSSHOUT
"Involved, Get out!"

We should tell Halfshark that she's hissing, she probably doesn't know.

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>>33053094
>theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQG2F5Vcr9k&list=PLDD62BDB8C7C52315&index=14

When you can open your eyes again, you find yourself in a desert.

Dark, dead clay clings to your sneakers with every step as you advance through a wasteland that extends to the horizon in every direction. The sky is blank, no sun visible, pale like discarded dishwater.... and flat, somehow, like a dome surfaced with cheap paint, too near and obvious and close. You look away, slowing down your breathing.

That's not how a sky should look.

Everywhere about you lie strange, twisted plants, a pale, sickly pastel green, covered in spikes and protrusions. Spaced between them at wide intervals are sandstone blocks the color of the clay, with vague approximations of faces on them.

You pick one at random and sit upon it gingerly, but it doesn't scream or leap or otherwise fuck with you. Slamming the head of the axe into the ground, you rest your hands upon it and your chin upon them, surveying this brave new land.

"My Id can go fuck itself," you decide.

>look for landmarks
>look for life

>>33053245
>look for landmarks
Do NOT look for life.

>>33053245
What does the desert smell like, OP?
Scent is relevant to my immersion.

>look for landmarks

>>33053245
>look for landmarks
Man this desert is creepy, our Id is seriously fucked up.

>>33053245
>look for anything
Why are y'all niggas so scared of shit? The world of Yume Nikki is a lonely one, find as many new "friends" as possible!

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>>33053359
>>33053287

After a few minutes of effort, you manage to stack several of the face-cubes atop each other - they're queerly shaped for it, like milk crates, or huge Lego blocks. After dragging a few more over to form a crude step, you've managed to get a good ten feet of height atop your natural six to survey the landscape.

In the middle distance, motion catches your eye. You study it long enough to discern three vague figures with some colorful bundles trundling across the desert, but after your encounter with Sammy the Staticy Spook, you very much doubt that's the Three Fucking Wise Men trekking about. You've got no fucks to give, pah-rum-pum-pum-pum. Turning away you espy a strange totem pole almost lost in a little knot of those strange twisty... plants, a little cluster of what look like tin-roof huts huddled against one horizon, and quite distant, a long, thin... finger that seems to reach into the sky.

You stand up there for several minutes more, turning and turning about, hoping to find something more appetizing. The slight breeze carries a dry scent of dust... and underneath, something musty. Like that nasty smell swamps make on humid days, of things organic... and things decaying.

You glance down at the nearest tendril-plants in disgust - and note with a jolt of alarm that they've begun to uncoil, reaching towards you.

Its time to get moving.

>The strange totem pole
>The cluster of buildings
>The distant thing climbing into the sky

>>33053598
>The cluster of buildings
Village means land cleared of weird plants. Let's go there. And maybe we can meet some sort of horribly deformed bird-person. Who hopefully has not yet gone insane.

>>33053598
>The cluster of buildings
>"friends!"

>>33053598
>I want to avoid the ghost
>I want to avoid the purple eyes
>I want to avoid the Tori picnic
>I want to avoid
I want to avoid.
What am I even looking for?
What am I trying to do?
Why am I here?

>>33053598
>>The distant thing climbing into the sky

>>33053598
>You've got no fucks to give, pah-rum-pum-pum-pum
Okay, I loled.

>>33053598
>The cluster of buildings

Every option sucks here, but signs of habitation mean a sign to find something vaguely sane in this land of madness.

>>33053855
You ever heard of the uncanny valley? A semblance of normality is only gonna make things even creepier.

Oh wait, sure, go on ahead.

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>>33053685
>>33053670
>>33053639

Buildings, you decide.

Buildings are logical structures requiring rationality and logic to construct, and clusters of buildings suggest community and social order. If anything's going to make sense in this madhouse you call your brain, that'd be it.

Shouldering your axe you set out across the wilderness, stepping atop a block every now and then to glimpse the purple shacks in the distance and ensure you're on course. Your feet don't crunch the clay so much as smush it, the earth disturbingly spongy underfoot. After you stop to rest awhile, sitting on a face-block (you turn *that* one over in your mind a few times - face-block, what the christ) you notice the musty, organic scent is stronger when you stomp your foot, like the clay's releasing it.

"*Fuck* this place," you mutter, knocking the clay off your feet by kicking the face-block, which screams.

You leap away with a scream, the axe coming down on the fucking thing in an two-hander overhand chop, splitting it apart. The stone crumples and yields under the axeblade, dark gooey smelly clay spurting out like blood as the face screams and wails unto a miserable, decaying death.

Behind you, another face-block screams.

And another.

And another.

And then the skies are split apart by a voice of robotic thunder.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCHM1do5Vqw&feature=kp

>>33053898
Aw shit it happened

>>33053898
I'm reading all the MC's dialogue with a cockney accent.
It's quite fitting. And amusing.

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>>33053898

You run.

The false sky cracks and shatters high above you (you knew it was fake you knew it was false you KNEW IT WAS FUCKING WRONG) as it rings and vibrates with the rage of Gods Voice, the terrifyingly distorted sounds hammering it. You look up to see explosions of dust and plaster as tumbling face-cubes come smashing through the barrier, a hailstorm descending towards the sick clay wasteland.

Before you the plants are stretching out their tendrils, spikey arms seeking to grab you. You tuck the axe close and leap over them easily, rolling under others with natural grace. Ahead, two of them stretch their arms out and twine with each other, forming a fence. You push your burning lungs to the limit and leap with all your strength, clearing them easily as the first of the stone cubes smashes to earth behind you, their horrific wailing cries chasing you over the hellscape towards the settlement.

You run.

You run because your life depends on it.

And you don't look back.

You gain the settlement in time to hear something gigantic and mean roar loud enough to shake the earth in that horrific, electronic voice. As you bolt down the main street of the hut-settlement, you dare glance behind you to see a towering creature made of the stacked blocks, their faces all-a-screaming and weeping little dribbles of clay. It stamps the ground in a mad rage, dancing and twisting, and then disintegrates in a pile of blocks that spill and bounce and roll into the tendril-plants, vanishing from sight.

You stumble into a side-alley and collapse against the tin side of a purple hut, fighting for breath.

>>33054124
Note to self: try to avoid unnecessarily provoking potential "friends" in the future.

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>>33054124

You peek around the corner, sweaty hands white-knuckled on the hickory axe-shaft, but all you see are...

... shadow men.

With needle eyes.

Literally.

You try to swallow, but you've no saliva for it. Amorphous blobs of translucent shadow are... walking, for want of a better word, down the street. Their feet rise and fall too slowly for the progress they make, gliding past silent and oblivious, their only distinguishing feature a beveled, see-through hole in their vaguely-shaped heads, like the eye of a needle.

"Hello?" you call out, but none of them reply.

Stepping into the road, you begin exploring. On occasion you espy a power pole, stark and empty, with no cables hanging from it.

Its twisted, and you very, very much wish you could get the fuck out of this entire place.

>question the locals
>explore the huts
>examine the poles

>>33054323
>explore the huts
You can't get arrested for Breaking and Entering if it's in your dreams

>question the locals
I'm holding out hope that they're even capable of meaningful communication with us.

>>33054323
>examine the poles
So far the only safe thing we've done is look at things. Everything else has ended horribly. So let's just look at the poles.

>examine the poles

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>>33054323
>examine the poles

>>33054476
How can looking at things be safe if our eyes aren't safe?
How can our eyes be safe if our mind isn't safe?
It's a shame you can't look at your eyes in a dream. If you do, you go insane.

>>33054323
>question the locals

Weird as they are, they don't appear to be trying to harm us, in fact they're pretty much ignoring us, which is more than we can say for other things we've encountered in this nightmare. Trying to talk to them might prove fruitful.

>>33054623
If it's anything like the game, the only result we'll get from them is being teleported into a Famicom system.

>>33054649
Inspect the wall at the bottom of the dungeon

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>>33054500
>>33054485
>>33054476
>>33054447
>>33054434

Glancing upwards at the power poles, something makes the back of your neck itch.

They're out of place.

Hell of a thing to say in a dream like this, with screaming cube-faces that bleed clay and assemble themselves into fucking Cube-Tron Under A Badly-Painted Sky, but... there you have it. Everything has a consistency of its own, even if its "well-pureed mindfuck," and the poles just don't... fit, somehow. Screaming face-blocks have squishy smelly clay for blood - at least that's consistent, in some twisted way. Power poles with no cables... isn't.

Selecting a pole, you approach it and twirl the axe about in your hands. With a solid overhead swing, you embed the sharp spike on the backside into the punky purple wood. Using the axe-head as a toe-hold, you stand atop it, gripping the pole with both arms and one leg, using a free foot to press against the axe-head, spinning it around the spike till the handle's facing upward. Wrapping both legs around the pole for purchase, you yank the axe free and swing it overhead, one-handed, planting the spike to the hilt in the pole with no difficulty. After a few repetitions, you've gained the top, and sit on the small cross-poles to rest.

From this vantage you can see clear across the blasted wasteland of your fucked up pill-riddled Id. No, you decide. Alcohol. Your problem must be too few pills, not too many, judging from this bullshit.

What did you come up here for, anyways? There's nothing here. Just a pole, two cross-poles...

... and insulators.

You reach out, curious, and pluck one off its mounting. The others are weathered and cracked, but this one is still intact. A handsome green glass, the internal threading and maker's name still plainly visible.

"The hell?" you mutter, turning it about in your hand. Its genuine enough... but why would it be here?

>>33054649
I haven't played the game, so I can be blissfully unprejudiced about my decisions.

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>>33054823

"This is a dream," you inform the town of shade-needles from your vantage point, kicking your legs idly as you enjoy the clean, crisp wind high above the reeking blood-clay-plant everything. The cross-pole's wide enough to be comfortable, so you've got all day to contemplate the antique glass insulator in your hand. "This is a goddamn dream," you repeat, turning the heavy object around in your palm. "The power poles are here because my subconscious associates them with structures and civilization. If there aren't any cables, why are there fucking insulators on the poles? Much less antique ones?"

In the distance, a horrifying shriek splits the air, ringing over the landscape clear as a bell. From your high perch, you can just pick out three little dots approaching the town at great speed, a tall plume of dust rising in their wake.

"What fresh mindfuck is this?" you swear, stuffing the heavy glass insulator into the roomy pocket of your jacket and grabbing for your axe.

>Stay up here, they can't reach you.
>Descend and hide.
>Try to talk

>>33054948
>Descend and hide.
Better to be able to run if we need to. Don't get caught up a pole with monsters below. Granted, their speed means we probably won't be able to run anyway, but we'd have a better chance than we would up there.

>>33054823
Item get!
Pick up the Insulator (if possible), we might be able to use its insulation later.

>>33054948
>Try to talk

>>33054948
>Descend and hide

No way we're staying up somewhere were we can be left surrounded and without escape. What if they cut the pole down? Or light it on fire? Or whatever the fuck insane thing they come up with to get at us when we can't run.

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>>33054981
>>33054980

You glance at the dots again; which've grown into small figures, red pigtails whipping behind them madly as they scream over the -

- OVER the fucking plants because the motherfuckers can FLY -

- you leap from the pole to the roof of the nearest hut, only about twelve feet below, collapsing your knees and rolling to absorb the impact. You can't outrun them, but inside a hut they'll be forced to come after you through the door, single-file. Leaping from rooftop to earth, you dart through the door and twirl about, hefting your axe in both hands across your body - a barricading motion, not an aggressive one.

You hope.

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>>33055076

You smell them first; a shitty smell, like a chicken coop from a distance on a hot day. Three shadows creep over the earth outside the doorway, the torsos almost half the width of the arms - an artifact of the suns position, long thin shadows (but where is the sun there was no sun FUCK) you grind your teeth together and grip your axe-shaft ever tighter, must be fingerprints embedded in that bitch by now and then oh christ what the FUCK are those?

Birds.

Fucking birds.

Beaked mouths, gigantic, unblinking eyes... and human hair pulled back into pigtails, tied off with pretty little ribbons. Pencil-thin avian necks mounted in human-shaped shoulders too thin, far too thin for a human torso. They stand in front of the door in a triangle as you abort your visual examination at the waist, too shaken to see what they use for feet. You lock your eyes on those bizarre striped turtlenecks clinging to their queer pencil-necks and issue your challenge.

"Who are you?"

They stare at you with their gigantic glassy eyes as long, needle-thin tongues lap and roll around their huge, narrow beaks.

"Probie!" one of them croaks.

"Probie!" the other two repeat.

"PROBIE PROBIE PROBIE!" they chant, pausing a beat, then repeating. "PROBIE PROBIE PROBIE! PROBIE PROBIE PROBIE!"

>at least its a start?
>fuck this noise. Literally.

>>33055385
>at least its a start?
Um, hi? We're Window, nice to meet you.

>>33055385
>at least its a start?

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>>33055385
>Probie
Aw hell naw it's one of THOSE dreams.

>at least its a start?

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>>33055451
>>33055444

Considering you're staring down half-human half-bird hybrid chickens from hell, anything that involves communication over them devouring your damned flesh is a Good Thing that you should encourage, so you press on.

"What do you want from me?"

Their beaks all clack shut, and they simply stare at you.

"Iron man," one of them says.

"Iron man," a second fills in.

"Iron Man," they say together. "Iron Man, Iron Man, You Are Iron Man. Iron Man Iron Man You Are Iron Man."

"I always hated that fucking song," you mutter, feeling a sick, irrational anger welling underneath your fear. "Speak straight, you stupid bastards!"

The foremost creature twitches, its long beak jerking left-right-left, then centers on you again.

"Its fully involved," it says with perfect clarity - and then they rush you.

>AGGRESS?
>DEFEND?
>FLEE?

>>33055508
>Aw hell naw it's one of THOSE dreams.

... care to clarify?

>>33055593
>DEFEND?
>>33055626
A very probey dream

>>33055626
Dreams involving the probing of the genitals. Possibly without "consent" of the dreamer.
[Does consent even work in dreams?
And since it's technically a part of YOU performing the probing, does it even count as a breach of consent?]

>>33055593
>DEFEND?
Oh god, why?

>>33055692
You know, one of the more common interpretations of Yume Nikki is that Madotsuki is trans. Maybe we're hallucinating this while under anesthetic for SRS?

>>33055753
That's some nasty epileptic trees you got there.

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You meet the first one with a sharp, short swing of the axehandle to the beak, using it like a quarterstaff. It reels just long enough for you to shove the handle into its chest and bull-rush it back through the doorway, sending it sprawling into its buddies. You step back and SLAM the rickety door, wedging the axehead underneath the simple handle and kicking the handle to brace it against the floor, keeping your foot on it. Outside their queer criers have changed into a eerie, high-pitched sound like a smoke detector, always in threes -

BEEP BEEP BEEP!

BEEP BEEP BEEP!

BEEP BEEP BEEP!

Soon their furious blows have moved to the sides of the dwelling. You watch the purple wood splinter and quake under their incessant hammering, faint dust rising from the walls as they continue their assault. The tin roof is rattling like nobody's business as they worry the structure with all their might.

They're ignoring the door now, though. This might be your chance.

>Make a break for it
>Wait them out.

>>33055897
This is a dream.
Are you SURE there's no basement or sewer or secret passage?
Damn it.
>Make a break for it

>>33055897
>Make a break for it

>>33055897
>Make a break for it

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>>33055951
>>33055947
>>33055934

As they're occupied with the sides and rear, you unwedge your weapon from the door and dive THROUGH it, splinters of wood exploding in every direction as you pick up velocity. You hear them send up a single shrill cry in unison behind you, and as your heart leaps into your chest, YOU leap ... onto a rooftop!

Somehow it doesn't surprise you (its a dream its MY dream why can't I be fucking Superman?) as you sprint across the tin roof, the hut below booming like a big drum with each footfall. You reach the edge and leap again, legs flailing in air for a terrible, long moment before landing on the next rooftop over. A quick glance over your shoulder reveals the bird-freaks following you in like fashion, their gangly claw-footed CHRIST YOU LOOKED AT THEIR FUCKING LEGS as they leap from rooftop to rooftop. Through the endless town you race, your lungs burning and blood singing as you launch from one building to the next, the scrabble of avian claws sounding on each tin roof just as you vacate it.

Ahead you espy a building larger than the others - large enough to get lost in, if you can gain it. You need only reach its roof, but its quite a distance away. You put on a final burst of speed, squeezing the last strength out of your screaming thighs as you race for your objective.

You leap, your legs windmilling for purchase as soon as they land, to cross the building and find an entrance on the opposite side.

And then you crash right fucking through.

>>33056185
Aw shit. Too bad we didn't get stoplight yet

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>>33056185
>theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=verUNMCtDIw&list=PLDD62BDB8C7C52315&index=19

You find yourself in a dark, dark room.

Above you the faces of the three bird-monsters appear, jockeying and bumping heads with each other until they all guide their beaks through it. They sit there, twitching their heads left-right-left, their huge eyes unable to locate you in the darkness. After several long seconds, they withdraw.

You lie on the warm wooden floor for many minutes, struggling to catch your breath without gasping loud enough to alert your pursuers. You suck in lungfuls of moist, hot air, thankful to be...

... alive?

They can't kill you, right?

It's just a dream.

All the same, you'd rather not find out.

At length you stagger upright and look around the room. In the slatted wooden floor are several large square pools of steaming water, some of them with little bubbles frothing to the surface. There's even towel racks in the corner and

"-FUCK!" you squeal, your weapon coming to a low ready again. In the corner sits a horrific creature, an elongated pod of a head. From the rear of its bony skull emerges a long, red tube, which is audibly slurping water from the hot spring pool it sits beside.

And its staring at you with one huge, wide eye.

>What say?

>>33056364
"Hello, I'm Madotsuki and I'm lost, How do I get home?"
Also
"INVOLVED?"

>>33056364
"Um, hello. Look, I'm not really sure why I'm even talking to you, since nothing else I've encountered here has responded to rationality, but I'm not hostile. Please don't attack me. I am perfectly willing to be friendly with you. That thing with the clay blocks was an accident, I swear."

>>33056364
I don't think we need to say anything.

>>33056413
I doubt the PC's supposed to be Madotsuki (at least as she was in the game). Considering the completely different, almost snarky (and very masculine) demeanor towards everything and the fact that our weapon is a Goddamn Fire Axe.

>>33056531
Nuuu I'm playing as a duuude D=

>>33056531
I've been thinking of her as "Window", which is admittedly just the English translation of Madotsuki.

>>33056565
Maybe, maybe not.
We're certainly not mute, and we seem a lot more physically capable than her.
Anything else, who knows?

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>>33056413

"... sup," you try tentatively, grasping your axe just beneath the head in a casual, non-threatening carry.

The queer creature just sits there, only its enlongated head, staring eye and pulsing head-straw visible.

You approach carefully, sneakers squeaking on moist wood as you strain your eyes in the darkness. As you draw near, you make out the creature's body - a sturdy, metallic looking cylinder, decidedly non-organic. On each side it sports spindly little blue legs, almost certainly useless.

"Hello?" you try. "Who are you?"

It blinks, the lids moving sideways and meeting along the middle. Its pupil squishes and warps, turning square like a goats before rounding out again, quivering like a bowl of ink someone bumped.

"I Am Master Stream," it says, its deep, onerous voice echoing around the big room. "Who are You?"

"I...." a cold, empty feeling spreads in your chest and slowly sinks to your stomach. "I don't know," you whisper hoarsely. "I can't remember."

The huge, staring pupil slides all around, looking you over. Eventually its huge eyeball settles on your right hand, and you follow its open gaze to your axe.

"You Are Iron Man," it says in that same deep, hollow tone. "You are Friend."

"Listen," you say, hearing the tremor in your voice and not giving a damn. "I just want to get out of this goddamn place. Somewhere more friendly. Home."

The huge dark pupil rolls around and around the perimeter of that wide, wet-looking eye before slowly spiraling back to center to focus on you. Its head-nozzle ceases sucking, slithering out of the pool smooth and sinuous. It uses the little sucker-end to point over its head at a pool a little distance away.

"Drink."

Speech doesn't fit the setting at all, glad there wasn't any in the game.

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>>33056692

You kneel next to the pool, regarding it suspiciously. Dipping a pinky finger in, it proves to be merely warm, not hot, and this close to it, it almost smells... carbonated.

"Where will this take me?" you ask. "Home?"

The little blue legs begin kicking up and down, finding no purchase on the wooden floor, but Master Stream is able to turn anyways, as if his little legs were spinning gears in his brass column. He brings his big eye to bear upon you once more. "It takes you where you need to go."

You ponder that for a moment, then weigh it against your other options, which involve screaming bleeding face-cubes and psychotic beeping murder-birdmen. "Good enough," you surmise. From your jacket pocket you produce the insulator, and dip it into the water. You give it one last suspicious sniff, and then sip from it. It does, indeed, taste like club soda - carbonated, but with no flavor.

"Iron Man," the creature says. "It is fully involved. I cannot help you any further. You must find your own way out."

You open your mouth to reply... and keep opening it, your muscles going slack. Your spine lasts a moment longer before your body loses all cohesion, your muscles going slack and sending you toppling towards the dark, bubbling water before you. It takes a long time to fall, the dark liquid expanding to obscure all your vision as you plummet, the wind whistling past your ears.

"Doooo nooooooot faaaaaaaaaiiillllll," Master Streams voice drones from a very, very long ways away. "Yoooooooooooooou aaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeee......."

You crash into the water.

>>33056869
So:
We are Iron Man
It is fully involved
We almost got Probie'd.
This is going poorly so far.
At least we've got an Axe and an Insulator.

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>theme: hhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APufCfeIImM

You wake up coughing water and bile, lying on your side in the shallows. Your fingers dig into wet sand as you drag yourself onto dry land, water pouring from your jacket pockets as you collapse in long, wet grass. Rolling onto your back you stare into a starless dark void, the tops of tall trees at the edge of your vision.

Maybe he did help you, maybe that straw-man sent you... home.

At length you sit up, wiping brackish water out of your eyes, and find your axe lying next to you. A heavy lump in your pocket proves to be the insulator, for what little its worth.

You sit on the shore of a dark lake, stretching into the unfathomable dark. Behind you is the glow of incandescent light, and with no better leads you pick up your weapon and squelch grimly onwards. You thrash and curse your way through some ferns, and emerge at the edge of a small clearing.

A single bare iron lamp-post sits in the center, the heavy, humid air making its illumination an almost tangible bubble of light in the darkness, a little like sunlight filtering through a dusty room. Beneath it sits a dark train-car, a set of tracks and overhead power-line stretching into the dark forest behind it.

The forest begins to liven with the sound of singing cicadas - a buzzing, organic thrum that grows louder by the second.

>Yay, a ride!
>Yeah, fuck the creepy traincar, we'll just follow the tracks.

>>33057154
We're so getting on that tram.

>>33057154
Peek inside the traincar.

>>33057154
>Yay, a ride!
It's better than the alternative. We need to get out of here fast before we get eaten by locusts.

>>33057154
Inspect traincar.

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>>33057269
>>33057265
>>33057231

You evaluate the dark, foreboding woods warily as you step out of the darkness and towards the little bubble of sickly amber light shed by the lamppost. Around you the buzz of the cicadas is growing in intensity, unbelievably loud. By the time you reach the traincar you can feel the buzzing in your bones, the volume almost violent. Some primal instinct itches at your nape and makes you look behind to see -

- nothing. Just the trees, damp and silent, and all the forest around you buzzing and snarling like a woodsaw.

Yeah, fuck that. You wedge the spike of your axe in the cab's doors, and with a quick twist you've pried them open against their squealing, complaining hydraulics. Once inside, they wheeze shut behind you with a stale puff of air.

The traincar is long, and silent, and empty.

>rev 'er up and GTFO?
>explore the baggage compartments first?

>>33057420
Quick look inside, inspect from the outside, then again from the inside.

>>33057420
>explore the baggage compartments first?
We're inside and safe from whatever was in the woods, at least for now. Let's take a little time to make sure we're safe from anything in here, too.

>>33057420
>explore the baggage compartments first?
item_get.ogg

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>>33057494

You recall that not every storage compartment on a traincar lies inside - there should be a toolbox on the outside, underneath the bed. At least there is on trains you're familiar with; the electric kind... you don't know.

But still.

Prying the doors open again, you step into the humid night once more. On the right side of the car you discover a long storage box secured by a rusty padlock; a quick blow from your axe severs it handily. Wrenching it open, you discover a long bundle of braided steel cable, rusted together and useless... and behind it, a long crowbar.

Well, that's not half-bad. You pull the crowbar out and examine it. It's the emergency kind; red paint with black tips, a double-fork on one end and a flat iron blade on the other, in the shape of a slight hook extending at a right-angle to the bar. Some of the thin wire securing the cable bundle is still serviceable, and within moments you've wedged the fork-end over the bottom of the axeblade, the hooked part resting against the axe-handle where you secure it with a few twists of the wire. Hefting it, you can still swing the axe easily, the bend in the crowbar serving as a grip to keep your lower hand from sliding too far down the shaft.

Pleased with your find, you return to the doors, using the spike to part them again, and enter the train-car. The cicada-buzz is loud enough to rattle the windowpanes at this point, and you're eager to get the hell out of here. You start forward down the aisle, towards what looks like the operator console.

That's when the big man sitting near the front blinks.

>>33057646
Is he involved?

>>33057646
Ignore him and continue efforts to get the thing moving. Without turning your back at him for too long of course.

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You stop halfway down the aisle, frozen to the ground.

He wasn't there before he definitely wasn't fucking there before, this hulking thing in the black, a black blob for a face and two glowing red orbs that wouldn't be eyes but for that he can *blink* them, winking in and out of existence with slow and lazy predictability, staring straight ahead.

You feel faint, and weak, and begin to stagger back, wary of another Straw-Head trick, a misasma to rob you of strength and topple you into black waters where you'll drown as it eats you, its going to eat you and you can't breathe -

- you trip and fall flat on your ass, your tools rattling and clanking on the floor. You sit there panting in a half-panic as the dark figure at the end of the traincar just blinks and blinks and blinks, not even looking at you.

>Challenge?
>Take a seat?
>Leave?

>>33057748
Take a Seat.
Figure out if it's Involved.

>>33057748
Take a seat. Ask the man about the train schedules.

>>33057748
>Take a seat?
Just don't look at it directly. Keep it about a third of the way across your field of view so you can still see it clearly, but don't look right at it. that way lies madness. Er...more madness.

>>33057748
Sit down, and...
"Are we about to leave?"

>>33057918
Would be a smart rule of thumb in general to avert eye contact, just to save on SAN checks.

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>>33057810
>>33057775

You gain control of yourself at last, feeling a little foolish as you grab the seating and lever yourself upward.

This place is getting to you... and if you let it get to you too much, you've got a bad, bad feeling you'll never escape. So you do the only thing you can - you face the fear. You take the seat across the aisle from the black-headed creature, directly in its line of sight, your hands resting atop your axehandle per your habit. The vinyl seat cushions wheeze out stale, vinyl-scented air into the musty cabin, reminding you of the creaky old schoolbus you used to ride in middle school.

Now *that* was a nightmare fit for Dahlmer. Blinking Black-Head isn't shit compared to that.

"Sup."

The creature just blinks. You try another tack.

"Are you... involved?" you say hopefully, hoping some of this madhose bullshit will fit together with a semblance of meaning.

The creature just blinks.

"So what time does this thing leave the staaiOH!" you exclaim as the entire car lurches violently with a steely squeal and crash. The lights overhead flicker madly and flutter to life, revealing the perfectly ordinary traincar and your mysterious riding companion. The conveyance begins to move with the customary clank and rattle of rail transport.

>theme: >theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVXNyqpZ4rM

It trundles into the night, blobbish, rubescent-eyed blinking billy no more talkative than before.

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>>33058013

You sit there quietly, shivering in your soaked clothes as you stare out the third window to Blinking Bill's right, not looking directly at him and not looking away, your axe ready to hand, just in case. The lone traincar trundles through the dark forest, a little compartment of sterile, white ordinary traversing the foreboding darkness. You think of how many times you've ridden like this, and come up short - a car's like a warm, personal coccoon, dark and inviting, with the glow of the instrument panel to cheer you and your destination in your own hands. This is something altogether different, a cold and tense thing... and for all that, it feels preferable to walking down those glinting steel tracks in the darkness, alone.

Outside the window you see something huge and formless swish through the swaying treetops, and abruptly redirect your gaze to the rivets in the sheet-steel sides of the car, below the windows.

All things told, you're very, very happy to be riding in this chilly, stale-smelling bundle with the non-human thing sitting across from you.

When in Rome, etc.

You nearly jump out of your seat when the brakes engage, a long, tortured squeal of steel-on-rusy-steel shrieking through the night. The traincar screeches to a stop over a road guarded by the typical striped barrier-poles that idiots love to drive around before getting plastered. The doors hiss open with weary complaint, and taking your clue, you get the hell off. The lights flicker out as soon as your feet leave the traincar, and it rumbles into the night once more.

Behind, and before, stretches The Road.

Which you get to walk along, alone, in the darkness, like you were just thinking wasn't a thing to do at all.

That's about when it starts to rain.

"Can we blow up the planet already?" you ask the rain plaintively. "Thats the best part of the movie, when they're flying away from Id World and watching it blow the fuck UP."

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>>33058277

Behind you, in the darkness, seems to be a blinking red light hovering over the road. It might be a traffic signal, or it might be another black-headed monster, this one with an appetite. Ahead you glimpse the meager little glow of another lamp, with a large rectangular thing nearby which seems to be a vending machine.

The rain isn't getting any lighter, but at least you were soaked to begin with. Positive thoughts, and all that. Wouldn't do to give into negative vibes in a subconscious that seems to be filled with negative vibes, right?

"Wrong," you snarl. "This dream blows."

>blinking light?
>vending machine?

I, a player reading the thread, have to IRL for a bit.
Other guy playing, you're on your own for now.

>>33058339
>vending machine?
Let's get some snacks. Maybe we can use them to distract whatever horror we stumble upon next.

>>33058339
Even if we managed to conjure currency, because that's how dreams work, not sure if we want to take a chance of going on another of Mr. Bathhouses wild rides or whatever the flavor of fuckuppery the vending machine happens to be serving.

The light. Take a look at the light.

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>>33058457
>>33058453
>>33058354

Its almost 3:30 AM here so its no wonder there's not enough voters to break a tie - I'm going to call it a night here. Yume Nikki Quest Two - Mindfuck Boogaloo will resume TOMORROW at 6PM Eastern Time (-5 GMT.) See you there, folks.

And sleep tight tonight. Don't let the strawheads bite.

>>33058529
Nah, I'm following Build Fighters Quest, and that usually doesn't end until around 5:00 AM my timezone. I'm going to be up until sunrise, most likely.

Anyway, thanks for the mindfuck. There were some effective ones. See you next time.

>>33058529
10 in the morning here. Thanks for few Yume Nikki pics I didn't already have.

Also nice response to the signal I gave when leaving the train and returning, was kind of testing if you know the game.

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>>33058589

attaboy.

I was here at the start of things but got distracted by IRL stuff. Pretty good stuff, mindfucky and creepy as hell. I'm kind of glad it didn't finish tonight because it means I get a chance to participate in the second part.

>>33058617
Are you going to archive this, or do you want to wait until you're done with the thread?

Well done, OP, I enjoyed the read.