Return to Earth (Open)

The man just stared back at her for a moment, perhaps thrown by the wolf-to-woman reutine. He blinked. "Oh, what? You expect me to be able to answer that? I have no freaking clue where the Weaver went or what the heck he was trying to do to you and your head," he tapped his own skull, "I'm just messin' around with the leftovers." One of his hands swept back behind him and as it passed through the air, the houses it pointed at frosted over. "I've been in this dream for what? Five minutes? Three hundred years I've managed to live," that seemed to be a satisfying thought to him, "Although, I admit that the destruction is not nearly so fulfilling when it all goes away as you wake up. It almost makes me want to sleep forever. You stand there like that for a little while longer, my rather good-looking werewolf friend, and you will be!" He took a step forward then, and as he did, the woman who had fallen in the snow chilled and froze progressively across her body. He stopped. Evidently the look of what he had done, if indeed it was his fault, did not particularly appeal to him. His lip curled, and then he looked back up at the transformed woman. He squinted at her, leaned in. "You're the shadow, aren't you?" his voice was low, curious, and almost accusatory, "Huh, so that's why the Weaver was interested in your pretty hide!"

Shadow merely listen to the man and his rant about the world, although she was curious about this 'Weaver'. A dreamweaver perhaps? She had only heard of them in myths of her dimension, but it was possible. Although, her attention snapped back to the man as she called her a werewolf.
"I'm not a werewolf," She corrected. She hesitated for a moment about revealing her true blood origins, but he spoke again, cutting off any addition she might have been about to say.
"My name is Shadow." She said, trying to remember something. She spoke again, hesitantly. "Do you know anything about that prophecy? I heard it before, but I don't really know anything about it..."

At the revelation of her name, he sighed, "Oh..." It was as if the news was depressing, for he straightened and let his shoulders fall into a slouch. "I believe you're talking about the prophecy of the falling shadow of the apocalypse. I don't... Although I've heard it before, it plays over and over thousands of times in this web, as though it were written on every strand, every thread, perhaps that is what keeps you so enthralled?" He seemed rather bored with the subject actually, despite his previous curiosity, as if her name had caused him total disinterest. "Really, just look around you, the bloody thing is ingrained into the reality of this twisted dream," He himself looked up at the sky, as if he expected to be able to read it there.

Shadow ran a hand through her hair, starting to get irritated with this man. He seemed to be becoming difficult to handle. Not something she wanted to deal with at that moment. She was too tired.
"When I arrived in this dreamscape, there was a version of someone I know. He told me of the prophecy, saying that he needed my help." She shook her head. "I'm just trying to figure out where everything fits together."

"Projection of your memory, probably..." he shrugged it off, still staring at the sky, "Then again... It could have just been that creeper of a friend of yours jerking you around?" He turned his bland expression to face her. "What does it really matter anyway?" he asked in his slightly-interested-if-not-completely-bored manner.

The Last Prophet strolls on by, eating some Dill Pickle chips and minding his own business, tapping a jaunty tune on his metal Bucket. His sandle gets caught on a rock, and it trips him up. His flip-flops go flying, his socks do not. The Prophet rights himself, gathers his flip flops, dons them, and then strolls away.

"It matters to me, since it does concern me and it seems to be a very big thing." Shadow said, a hint of a growl creeping into her voice. She pulled her cloak further around her shoulders, shivering slightly. She could feel herself weakening a little. Fire demons didn't cope well in snowy atmospheres, especially since her cloak was still heavy with water. She ran a hand through her hair again, sighing irritably. There was a lot of information in her head, and not a lot of it was fitting together in her head.

If the man had heard her, there really wasn't much indication, because his gaze was following the path of some strange bum who had walked through the street with not so much as a "howdy do" and vanished again. "I really need to watch what I eat before I take these afternoon naps..." a complete absence of mind in the present was self-evident in his manner of speech and the almost vacant look in his eyes. He refocused upon Shadow his face pinched thoughtfully, but although his lips moved as though he meant to tell her something, no words came. Instead, he just sort of turned, shaking his head, slightly perplexedly and began to walk back into the town's center, from whence Shadow had come. He was talking to himself as he went. "Just, if the well weren't so frozen over... Get deeper in, but that's my fault I suppose. Think I'm gonna get a drink, something stronger than those ice cubes..." his mumbles were loud enough to be heard, but the shout which followed could have brought down an avalanche, "WEREWOLF-GIRL-THINGY!? Yes, you with the face!" He turned and stumbled backwards as he yelled at her his index lunging up at her. As it did, a lance of icy magic shot forth, piercing the air and aiming for her breast. After it was released, he turned and ran down the alleyway, a sort of awkward dash through the snow.

Shadow watched the man wander away with a slightly bemused expression on her face. She didn't know what to make of him. She only half listened to his mutterings as he walked away. She was more focused on what she was to do now. At least, until a shout nearly broke her eardrums. A bolt of ice-magic was heading straight for her. With a yell of surprised, she lunged to the side, attempting to escape it. This character was really starting to get to her!

She got back to her feet, brushing herself off. She started to run, her boots crunching through the snow, away from the centre of the city and its bizarre resident to come to a stop a couple of kilometres away. She turned her face to the sky to yell:
"Weaver!"

"Didn't I tell you that he had left already," the icy individual had found a perch on the edge of a rather heavily slanted rooftop. He sat there, legs dangling, kicking back and forth in a somewhat childlike manner. He froze midway through one of his kicks, leaned forward and fell straight down. The impact made a dull thudding sound as he hit the layer of snow, which managed to somewhat soften the overall trauma of the event. He raised himself up languidly from whence his face had met the frost, some of it still clinging to that anatomical structure. "If you want to find what he left for you. You're going to have to go deeper. Go deeper and you get closer to the center of the web. Get closer to the center of the web, and you will find it harder to escape from, if you can even make there before this whole tattered mess tears completely away from the dimension you call home and you wind up floating through the devil only knows where on your merry way to Oblivion. Cheers," a frighteningly twisted smile crossed his face as he raised his hand to indicate the stone structure of a well sitting at the edge of the open square in front of them. "Dive deeper into the dead regions of the diabolical trap designed just for you, or live on in peace... A pleasant set of choices," the sardonic edge in his voice was not so pleasant.

Shadow whipped round to face the man.
"You're going to have to be a lot more specific than that." She growled. "I do plan on going there, but I need either a guide or a map. Pointing to a well is not going to help me in the slightest if you talk in riddles." She wasn't worried about not being able to get back to her own dimension. All she had to do was rest enough to dimension shift. Her demonic side was awake and quivering. The thought of Oblivion sounded exactly like a place it wanted to be.

- I'm away to walk the dogs. I'll be back in about an hour -

"Think about it?" he gave her that 'are you really so dense' look, "How did you get here? The web's design allows for you to dive deeper the same way you did from the beginning... He rolled his eyes, rubbing at them. "Here, I'll show you," he strode with confidence, slopping through the snow and over dead bodies. The latter motion was both frightening and horrifying for when he stepped upon one of the inanimate corpses, they would freeze until solid and then shatter under the force of his weight. Up to the side of the well, up onto the stones, and over into the abyss. The sound of a heavy smashing and a splash could be heard guttering up the well, along with another, less pleasant and almost frightening sound, like a roar...

Shadow's face darkened as the man seemed to treat her as an imbecile, but she consoled herself that she had not been aware that she had been in this dimension for very long. Instead of getting angry as she might have done under different circumstances, she followed the man, aware of the fact that wherever he walked, ice seemed to spread. She carefully avoided stepping on any dead people, climbing up onto the edge of the well and looking down into its ink bmack darkness. She muttered a few choice words before squzzeing her eyes shut and jumping into the water. Her cloak soon became imbued with the liuid, dragging her further down into its depths.

It was a dark, muggy night in the bayou. The moon above was lost behind a bank of thick clouds which hung low in the sky, but the bio-luminescence of a thousand fireflies was surprisingly able to brighten the dock enough to see the little boat, the other boats out on the water still, and the small shack which lay at one with nature in the background. The heat was rather pervasive, but what was really bad was the humidity, well, that and the mosquitoes. So that was why it might have been slightly odd for a chill breeze to waft up. It would have been even more odd when the waters around the dock froze solid in a matter of moments. The point when anyone with common sense running through their veins would have called it unnatural was right about when the tall, thin man ascended the ice, which had reformed itself into stairs to allow for him to pass up and out of the vile swampy body of water. One leg stretched languidly in an amazing display of dexterity to haul him up and onto the hard, if not slightly rotted, wood of the dock.
Bleak, almost white, blue eyes scanned all that there was to see with a certain amount of disdain. At least there were more living things here, but it was the death that he was interested in, where were the deaths? But before he could make a really adequate appraisal of the situation, that woman showed up again, the shadow, or was it Shadow? What the H*** did it really matter anyway? She wanted to go deeper, and he really didn't mind leading her into a nightmare. H*** she might even end up trapped here. After all, with her easy going attitude, it was quite evident that she didn't understand the seriousness of what she was diving into down here. He smiled at the remaining bones of the web which still cast about, marking this world of imagination. Her first foray into this Realm of the Sleeping, and she chose to get herself caught in the Weaver's web. It would have been brave or audacious if it wasn't so d*** foolish. Of course, if she wanted to be stupid and get herself killed...? At the very least, he was sure taht he would have the chance to meet a very interesting death.

Shadow swam to the surface, taking a deep breath as she broke the previously still water. She took a moment to glance around and get her bearings before swimming over to the dock, pulling herself out of the water. Once more, she found herself wringing out her hair and cloak, wondering if she was ever going to dry out given all the swimming they seemed to be doing. Her violet eyes scanned the bayou for her supposed guide. A mosquito landed on her hand, starting to drink her blood, at least until it dropped dead. Shadow flicked it off her arm. The only blood-sucking insects she really had to worry about were fleas, and she knew she was covered for that. After all, what else was flea shampoo for?
"Where do we go now?" She called out to the man, striding towards him.

It was irritating to be dislodged from your present train of thought, but she was, after all, asking for it. His gaze swept, like searchlights, plotting out the boundaries of a prison, around to look upon the soggy and disheveled form of the shape shifting woman. "You look horrible," his smile was unpleasantly friendly, "We head deeper." Answering her question, he stepped over the grimy, decrepit boards of the dock and into the muddy ground. His shoes squelched out a disgusting sucking noise with every footfall. His aim was towards the shack. "We may need to be a little aggressive if we are going to sink deep enough before the web falls apart," the sudden chill in the air was disconcerting. A body might have noticed that the unpleasant sound had stopped occurring with his movement. Instead of mud slurping onto his footwear, there was a distinct clink of ice wrapping sharply against the heal of his nice shoe. In his wake, a cold death had spread over the bog and mire. Plants whithered and the earth froze and cracked, frost followed him, sweeping the world into an icy gray.

"Fine, lets get a move on then," Shadow said, trying hard to keep the growl from her voice. She followed him, stepping lithely on the ice where it seemed thickest. She pulled her sodden cloak further around her, muttering under her breath about a 'rude mannered, idiotic ice manipulator" as she glared at his departing back. She would normally have said this to his face, but she needed him as a guide, and therefore couldn't risk alienating him and being left without a clue of what to do.

"It's magic, Darling, and my manners aren't ill. They're dead," the smile which now turned to face shadow had not nearly so much of the former friendship in it, but still there was a morbid sort of mirth to it. His progression brought him to the door of the shack, warped hideously in its frame until it no longer fit even in pretense. Oddly, there was a heavy lock which bound the flimsy looking structure closed. A solid kick to the door revealed why. Despite being ramshackle and apparently dilapidated, the hovel was constructed of sturdy materials in a coherent fashion, so though it swayed slightly from the force of the blow, it remained a firm defense against intrusion. A snarl curled his lip, perhaps he had hurt his foot, or maybe the thought that he hadn't been strong enough irritated him. Either way, he grabbed up the lock and clenched until his knuckles were white, which didn't take long considering their initial paleness. The sound of brittle metal popping and snapping away in his fingers was sickeningly reminiscent of the sound of breaking bones. With a heavy thud, the chains fell away, and the door was laid open. He swept it back and crouched down into the low ceilinged domicile.

"I know all about magic, you moron," Shadow said, irritation creeping into her voice. She wasn't used to be treated with ill-respect such she was now faced. When he was faced with the lock, she was tempted to use her magic to blast the thing open, but he took care of it eventually.
"A little lock too much for you?" She jibed, walking carefully into the domicile. The structure was already looking delicate. The last thing she guessed whe needed was the whole thing collapsing.

"Awww, did I ruffle the little doggy's fur?" his voice took on that sickeningly sweet 'baby-talk' essence to carry the taunting words off of his snake-like tongue in reply to her first verbal assault. On the second, he didn't blink, only continued inward. "Every step down we take, there will be more intricacies. Like my friend the lock... Things will make less sense, and probably get more overtly dangerous," he took in a deep breath suddenly, "For instance, right now, there is a pathogen in the air. Were you human, you'd be dead. Now, where are you, little woman." his last words were evidently not directed at Shadow, as he began to pry around the dwelling, looking under the most ridiculous objects, like baskets and a cast iron frying pan. "I know that you're here, Deary, I can smell you!" he called in a hissing, threatening tone.
"Get you hence," the voice which answered was the kind you would imagine belonging to the most beautiful of women, and then it came closer, "You're driving away all the warmth." A flash of green skin and greasy black hair flashed in the dark recesses of the room.
He stood to his full height again. "Come into the light where we can converse like civilized folk," he sneered.
"Why pretend to be something that we're not, Jack? Trying to impress your lady friend?" the retort was sharp and harsh as a blade. The voice had lost its pretense of prettiness, shedding away into the type of tones that you would expect from a witch or a hag, with that tremulous gurgle to it.
He smiled with a short snort of laughter. "You're absolutely right, Marie," he leaned back into the dirty shadows of the hut, "Forgive me my impolite attitude. The wolf-girl here has put me out of sorts. Following me around like a stray dog. I found her wandering the snowy hills up above. She's going on and on about some prophecy she says she heard from a friend who wasn't a friend, and just spinning my poor head in circles."
"She's looking for the Weaver's words? Stupid girl to come so deep. Jack, you aren't leading the young woman astray are you?" the voice eked out of the darkness like a vile stench out of a bear's cave.
He raised a thin eyebrow as if to ask if she really needed to ask a question as simple as that.

Shadow stood in the centre of the room, one eyebrow raised as she listened to the conversation going on between the woman and the man she had been following. Her pointed ears twitched slightly as Jack kept on making analogies to her as a 'wolf girl'. Gritting her teeth, she decided to straighten the record and introduce herself to the resident of the shack.
"The name's Shadow, and for the record, I'm a demon, chasing after some stupid prophecy. If you've got any information on it, I'd be most grateful since Frosty the Snowman over there had been about as much use as a condom machine in the Vatican."

At the mention of the word demon, both the tall, frigid individual and the more compact greenish woman exchanged a significant glance, each undergoing a strange and subtle change in demeanor. It wasn't that they looked overtly different, but almost like there was something different in the air all of a sudden, a smell or a vibration of some sort. The noticeable mark was that of a look of incredible intensity in the dark beady eyes which peered out from the shadows, and a frightful edge in the icy man's own visage.
"Jack can be like that at times," the short female cast him a less than appealing sort of glance, "But if he's led to thine belief that the prophecy is stupid, then he has more to answer for then dragging you down into the Weaver's web, Girl."
Pale, thin fingers waved away the creature's words as if they were no more than a foul odor clogged in the air about his nose. "Please, spare me the self-righteous drivel, Marie. You and I could both care a world less about the Weaver spewing a bunch of words at the little puppy to drive her mad," his disgust was just as evident in every word.
"Accepting that we both know that the Weaver didn't mean to let something like that slip until she was lost," she squinted her dark eyes at the man and his cool expression, "The little girl must be more powerful than you give her credit for, Jack."
"She's got a friend," his tone was low and dark, evidently she'd hit a nerve, "He's waiting up top. Just look up, you can practically feel him there."
She squinted dragging in a scratchy breath. A low gasp escaped her. "Demoness, little girl? Just who are you?" the short woman hissed.

Shadow had her had tilted to one side in a very animalistic gesture as she listened to the pair talking as if she weren't even in the room. She was starting to wonder what Jack's problem was. Had he had an encounter with this Weaver? Or did he just not like her. Both were possible, and she shrugged off the thought mentally. No need worrying about that now. Her violet eyes turned to Marie as the woman asked her a question. Once more, she wondered how much she could disclose to the pair.
"Shadow Roth," She said, "Daughter of Karthragan the Cursèd, Princess of Darkness."

"So is the demon waiting up top your daddy then, Princess?" the reptilian voice of the woman managed to sound unrefined and yet respectful both at once. She leaned forward out of the dark, green skin glaring out of the murky moonlight. Her sharp nose angled straight for her, an accusing beak, or a hungry one.
"Who cares?" Jack was rubbing the bridge of his nose, sounding both nasal and irritated beyond belief, "Look, I came here hoping you would know where we can find the next dive."
the short woman snarled at him viciously. "The girl will speak. A trade of information," inhuman teeth ground together until she turned her gaze back to the young woman. Black, beady eyes trained intense interest upon her.

Shadow folded her arms, leaning her weight on one foot into a hip-shot pose.
"No, he's a guy I know. 'Dearest Daddy'," She managed to say the words in an insulting, sarcastic tone, "is currently festering in one of the deepest pits of Hell." She ran a hand through her hair, looking at the woman with her head tilted to one side. "Can you explain the prophecy? I don't really understand it and the popsicle isn't helping me."