trans_9 | I can feel the madness slowly creeping in...

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I can feel the madness slowly creeping in...

It is that time again, meatship.

Once again, the King of Nightmares has deigned to spread his touch to all of your dreams.

This time, however, he has decided to give them a much more personal touch, sending his very own children to visit each and every one of you, slowly sowing the seeds of madness within all of you.

Such a kind and loving king he is, isn't he?

[ooc: Alright folks, Nightmare King is ramping things up a bit. These nightmares are a good bit more dangerous now, and he's sending in his minions to make things a little more real. The nightmares will be of a much more serious nature this time, designed to start driving the crew slowly insane. Characters are more likely to run into nightmare minions in the guise of someone or something that will tug at the edges of their sanity. Also, this time, the characters can have joint dreams, as these nightmares are of a more mystical nature this time. Once again, tagging in isn't mandatory, but if you want to, go crazy (literally)!]

[Additional Note: Any injuries won't be carrying over to real life at this point in the plot but don't worry, we'll get there eventually!]

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Luis had his eyes locked deeper into the woods as he ran. If he wasn't mistaken, there was a ruined shed up here (he always saw it when his abuelo took him hunting, it was just to the east of the river). If he took a left at the shed he would find the path down to the del Vega's cabin, that big one near the cliffs, he could hide there and wait for Leon or Ada and-

When Kang's voice broke the eerie stillness of the woods, Luis was not quite prepared for it.

"AAAUUGH JODER!" He leapt about three feet in the air and stumbled, nearly falling backwards into a tree. He stared in open horror at the... whatever it was-- but it didn't look like anything Las Plagas could create. It looked like something out of a horrible made-for-TV fantasy movie. But it was speaking English!

"Jesus Christ, don't scare me like that!" Luis snapped, and then stifled the further urge to yell. "What are you doing here?!"

An arrow with grey fletchings embedded itself in a nearby tree trunk, followed by another spine-tingling shriek, and Kang cursed again, looking back to see the rest of the goblins getting closer.

"I'm dreaming," he snapped back, glancing towards the shed (when had that gotten there?) and ducking another arrow that would have ended up in his skull. "You're not one of the dreamwalkers, popping in to - great. We need to go before the damn goblins turn us into pincushions." And with that, he grabbed Luis's arm and began dragging him down the path that happened to lead towards the cabin by the cliffs.

"Why the hell are you in my nightmare?"

Luis felt immediately stupid as soon as he realized this was a dream... of course it was a dream. It had to be. All of the voices he heard belonged to people long dead, and though he did not like to remember ~~that~~ this, this terrified run through the forest the night he escaped from capture... it was just that. A memory. A really damn vivid memory right now. Guest-starring a giant lizard man.

"Hey, hey, watch it!" He yanked his arm out of the lizard man's grip and looked back over his shoulder. Yellow eyes in the distance. Yep, they were still there. And so he did not stop running, hustling along towards the cabin. "I don't know what you're talking about. Why are you in my nightmare? This is the backwoods outside of my village!"

"You came into my nightmare," Kang hissed, too busy focusing on the path in front of him to look over at the man. "I recognize you from the ship. What in the Abyss are those things chasing you?"

Behind them, the yellow-eyed figures and the goblins seemed to join forces, ranks mingling together. "Goddamn goblins!"

"Goblins?" Luis repeated, sounding dumbstruck. "Like Halloween, goblins? You have got to be kidding me..."

Still, he'd rather hang out with the lizard man who was apparently a crew member than hang back or run off on his own again. This guy looked strong. "Those would be the villagers," he answered briskly. "Los Ganados. They've been infected with the parasite Las Plagas. It- it hijacks their central nervous systems and turns them into bloodthirsty savages-- with a hivemind." Leave it to Luis to get all biology while running for his life.

"I'm not kidding. And if you don't run faster, you'll find out exactly what they do with the prisoners they capture," Kang growled. He'd almost considered leaving the man behind, but had decided against it; everyone on Stacy was stuck in the same situation and needed to work together. For all he knew, the human had some sort of invaluable skill.

"Villagers gone savage. Great. So, you have any idea how the hell we're going to wake ourselves up?" he asked, looking back with another hiss. "If I get my hands on this Nightmare King, it won't be pretty."

"Not a damn clue. I didn't know they could run together like this," he muttered. It was actually kind of fascinating. If he wasn't currently in the middle of it, he might be more interested in figuring out how in the hell it worked.

Luis reached back to the waist of his pants to see if his beloved Red9 was there-- of course it wasn't. The Nightmare King couldn't give him the luxury of at least a measly handgun to defend them with.

At least the cabin was up ahead. "Climb under that fence and into that cabin," he said. "We'll at least be better off out of the open, sí?" Funny, the landscape didn't look quite right to be near the del Vega's cabin. Like, for example, the ornate building rising out of the distant trees behind the cabin.

Kang snorted. He didn't care to find out how. He just wanted the damn nightmare to be over. Noticing Luis's motion, he reasoned that the human was probably reaching for a weapon. Luckily he had at least one of his weapons, and because of the time period the nightmare was set in, full usage of his right hand. Checking to make sure the axe between his wings was present as well (thankfully, yes), he unbuckled his sword and offered it. "You know how to use this?"

The cabin looked like any other cabin, but at the sight of the clean, white building behind it, his steps faltered slightly. "Figures. The temple. We'll probably be safer in there; stone doesn't burn, and there should be a heavy table to barricade the door with."

Well, he couldn't argue with that logic. If the windows were high enough, the ganados would probably be distracted trying to find a way in.

And then Kang offered his sword. Luis stared at it, then up at him, then back at the sword. "Oh, sure, I used to use a sword all the time. Except it was a stick and I was seven years old playing pirates."

"Basically, pointy end goes into the enemy," Kang rolled his eyes. There was a lot more to it, but he didn't have time to teach sword drill right at that moment. "Take it just in case."

The two-story marble temple had few windows, made of stained glass, and lined with lead. The doors were cracked open, and the draconian dashed up the stairs and inside, pausing to catch his breath as he waited for Luis to enter.

"Estupido," Luis muttered under his breath as he took the sword from Kang. "What do I look like, a Knight Templar? This is a dream! Why are we running for our lives?"

He had the answer to that before he had even finished the sentence. Because even if it was a dream, there was no way he was going to sit here and wait for goblins and ganados both to come throttle the life out of him.

He shoved the door shut behind him and headed after Kang, already out of breath. "So you got fire breath or something?"

Kang growled, pushing the one bit of furniture in the room, a table, towards the doors to barricade them, "I have no idea what this Nightmare King is capable of. I really don't want to chance it if it turns out those things can hurt us. Now help me push this damn thing."

Wings rustling irritably, he quirked an eyebrow ridge at Luis, "Unfortunately, no. That would be one of the other types."

"There are different species? What exactly-" Luis caught himself just in time. There he went on the biology tangent again. He really needed to learn some self control.

He rushed over and tried to help Kang push, but he ended up feeling like the big guy did most of the work. Once the table was barricaded, he exhaled a sharp breath and then took a few steps back. "Dr. Luis Sera, Chief Science Officer," he offered. "You?"

"If you're curious, I can tell you when we're not stuck in a nightmare together. Now's not the time," Kang peered out of one of the windows, muttering another curse under his breath. He could see the goblins sloppily forming ranks, and a hairy bastard of a hobgoblin on horseback approaching, and the villagers from Luis's portion of the nightmare's eyes eerily glowing. Human eyes were not supposed to do that.

He eyed the man for a second, then held out his hand, "Lord-Governor Kang. I don't really have a 'job' on the ship yet, but I'm more than likely going to end up helping with combat training."

Luis shook Kang's hand briskly. Oh, reptilian! Fascinating! "Well please to meet you Mr. Kang. If we get out of this I'll imagine you a drink in the sensoriums."

He looked along the stained glass windows for some way to see out of, since he'd rather know exactly how close they were to being hobgoblined and beat to death by rampaging ganados. Then again, the ganados were supposed to bring him back to Saddler alive. Then again, ganados were remarkably intelligent for parasite victims-- and only for parasite victims. They were not very good at the "bring back alive" order, in Luis' one brief experience being the target of it.

"I can't fight with this thing," he muttered, indicating the sword and then rushing for the doorway of one of the side rooms. "I need to find something-"

Luis went through the door to find himself in a perfect replica of his own private laboratory at the island compound. It was so abrupt it was almost staggering, but he managed to avoid staring at it long enough to lunge across the room to his desk, exactly how he left it. He shoved aside stacks of papers and notebooks and unused rubber gloves and (oh my god, that was his unfinished doctoral thesis, right where he left it behind!)-- yanking open one of the metal drawer and finding his Red9 and a box of spare clips for it.

He returned back to Kang a moment later, hurriedly loading his weapon. "Don't go back there," he muttered, gesturing to the door. "It's just going to freak you out."

At that, Kang quirked an eyebrow ridge, amused, "What if I told you I know where you can find real drinks? And food that isn't Stacy's slop?"

He buckled his sword back onto his belt, glancing at the gun curiously, "I really need to learn how to use one of those things." And then he sighed, checking outside one more time (it had started to snow) before making his way into the main area of the temple. It looked just like he remembered, right down to the marble statue of the Platinum Dragon on the altar.

"It'll take them a while to get through that door," the draconian stated, giving the snout of the dragon a rub for luck. "Gives us some time to figure out a way to wake up from this mess. You got any ideas?"

"Los Ganados are more durable than normal humans with greater strength, but they can feel pain and they die like anything else," Luis mumbled, still checking over his gun and securing his extra clips in his pocket. Boy, it was nice to see this vest again.

"Their heads are unnaturally pressurized so, ah... watch out for that. Also, they are extremely photosensitive and if the parasites expose themselves they can actually overload themselves into aneurysm and hemorrhage in sudden flashes of light," Luis very nearly recited. "And of course, because it is nighttime, we're pretty much screwed in that respect."

Kang nodded, listening, making sure to pay attention to the sounds outside as well. He could smell the goblins, and ganados' scent didn't help much; it made his snout wrinkle. "I'm not sure what the hell photosensitive means, or aneurysm, but I get the general idea. And of course, this is after I stopped practicing magic, so I can't throw light spells at them. Goblins are dumb as hell, and they've got crappy sword skills, but when they outnumber you... it doesn't really matter much. If we can find some way to take out the hob, we might be able to get the goblins to run off, at least. They're pretty useless without someone ordering them around."

"What's a hob? Is that the big one or something?" Luis asked. Unless these little things could deflect bullets, maybe he could take it out from a distance.

They were pounding on the door now, and Luis felt an involuntary shiver roll down his spine at the sound little hisses and growls and things muttered in Spanish.

"It's just a dream, right? We can't die," he said, mostly to reassure himself.

"Yeah, the hairy bastard on the horse is the hob," Kang confirmed. Muttering to himself, he added, "Looks just like the one Slith killed and took the form of, actually. Which, isn't surprising, considering my half of the nightmare."

He shook his head, reaching for the battle-axe between his wings. "Like I said before, I don't know what the Nightmare King is capable of. I'm not about to test it out."

The voices outside were getting louder, the guttural grunts and moans creating a dull roar with the rough voices screaming louder and louder. He could still pick out his own name and his grandfather's voice in the crowd. This guy really knew what would get to you the worst, didn't he?

"So why are our little friends after you?" he asked.

Kang's wings twitched as a high-pitched goblin shriek echoed outside. "They were trying to kill my regiment while we were traveling for about a year. Our former allies found out we had young females with us, the only ones of our race, and wanted to kill us all off."

...and speaking of young females, a squeak from one of the side rooms made the draconian freeze.

"Oh hell. Don't tell me..." He disappeared into the room, coming out with a squirming fur sack moments later. A tiny draconian head peeked out, eyes bright as she looked around curiously. "It's Fonrar." The rest of his words were curses in Nerakese.

Luis eyed the squirming bag like he didn't quite know what to think of it. "Ah, friend of yours?"

The table blocking the door began to shift, bouncing against the doors as the goblins and ganados continued pounding on it. From the babbling he heard in Spanish, they were going to try some other options rather than slamming their fists into such a sturdy door.

"They're trying to find another way in," he said. "They have a hive mind, see, the parasites can communicate with each other through high frequency sound waves. They aren't as sharp as normal humans, but they aren't stupid as-"

There came the sound of a chainsaw. Luis taught Kang a few new Spanish swear words.

"You could say that," Kang growled, loathe to set the female down so as to prevent her from wandering off. "She grew up to become my mate."

Wonderful. And they still had no idea how they were going to wake up from this. "There's a back door that way. Knowing my luck, as soon as we stop paying attention to this one, they'll bust in and catch us with our backs turned."

The sound of the chainsaw made his wings flare out in surprise, "What in the Abyss is that noise?!"

Terror was evident on Luis' face. Oh, he knew all about a few particular villagers' sudden obsession with chainsaws. He had just never been on the receiving end of it because of Saddler's order that the villagers bring him back alive.

Damn those stupid ganados and their inability to follow instructions!

"It's a chainsaw," he said, sounding almost weary. "They might try to cut through the door. Or our necks. Possibly both, I can't really say at this point."

I can feel the madness slowly creeping in...

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