The Lottery: Ten Pines Village
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		<h2 id="linktree">Play-By-Post: Extreme =&gt; Extreme Small Groups =&gt; Topic started by: zoarster on 02-07-2010, 05:44:03</h2>
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				Title: <strong>The Lottery: Ten Pines Village</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>zoarster</strong> on <strong>02-07-2010, 05:44:03</strong>
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				(OOC Note: This thread covers events happening in Ten Pines village, the primary setting for The Lottery. If you're interested in playing or learning more about the backstory, please see the following thread and post a profile! New villagers and guests are more than welcome! http://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=73326.0 (http://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=73326.0))<br><br>[Posting this as a quasi-GM]<br><br>Nestled high in the back roads of the Appalachian Mountains, the village of Ten Pines was isolated by the world not only by physical distance, but also by an aura of secrecy. It wasn't marked on any map, and those who visited by accident often seemed to find the village easier to forget than to remember. Perhaps the rumor was true that all who lived in Ten Pines did not choose to come there--the village, and the dark forces within, had chosen them.<br><br>The village itself was a modest one; old houses with widow's watches set at arcane angles out of space seemed starkly out of place there, as the village was set hundreds of miles from the sea. Old dirt roads connected the houses of the village, and only a few of the natives had cars--most travel within the village was by foot or bike. The ones who owned vehicles were most often the shopkeepers, merchants, and priests of the village's queer religion, who often left on errands untold.<br><br>Leading out the back of the village was an old stone path, traversable only by foot, that led to another mountaintop. Atop this mountain was a strange stone edifice, half building half courtyard, which seemed to move and shift with the winds--although those few sane minds that had returned from the village swore that they saw it moving even on the stillest of days. This was the temple of the old religion of Ten Pines, to gods left best unnamed, and it was here (and conveniently in a separate message thread) that the town's weekly lotteries took place, obscene paeans to gods long thought dead.
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				Title: <strong>Re: The Lottery: Ten Pines Village</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>zoarster</strong> on <strong>02-07-2010, 05:53:27</strong>
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				[Posting as Ethan]<br><br>The wind howled loudly and fiercely up the mountains of Tenah'Peh, the true name of the village placed in the mirror image of the plateaus of Leng. No sane mortal would dare to climb the mountain to the temple as Ethan had that night, and no mere mortal would have descended alive. But it was the first new moon since the interlopers had moved in, and it was Ethan's duty to ascend to speak with the old ones whose voices echoed through the darkness to find their intentions. <br><br>And so the robed figure, black silk hood and cape emblazoned with ever-shifting glyphs that no untrained eye could focus on, descended the mountain to do the will of Shub-Niggurath, The Goat of a Thousand Young. It was the girl that was wanted, no more no less, and the girl they would have. The rest... well Ethan was here to take care of the rest. A formerly-locked door now slipped open with ease as Ethan moved into the Knox's house, one of the town's huts that remained in a state of semi-disrepair, and moved like air into the elder Knoxs' bedroom. Husband and wife slept soundly while Ethan intoned words that were far outside the human vocabulary, calling by true name Adia Ceradia, the servant of the one in some tongues called Panthean, to reap the god's sacrifice.
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				Title: <strong>Re: The Lottery: Ten Pines Village</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Panthean</strong> on <strong>02-07-2010, 06:26:00</strong>
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				[Adia]<br><br>Hell is a loud place, as one might imagine. Adia loved being there, but the sound of the thousands upon thousands of tortured souls screaming bloody murder across the fiery planes was the one thing she could not stand. She walked through the fiery pathways, filled with a black sickening scum called hell tar, trudging through it easily and totally unaffected by the continuous gust of hellfire and burning sulfur. Her normal routine in hell mainly consisted of playing with her favorite human slaves. Some of them had actually been broken down mentally enough to become willing, in fact, eager for her to inflict more suffering on them. Suddenly, all sounds were drowned out of her mind, she stood frozen in place, her own name in a voice she did not recognize ringing through her ears.<br><br>The environment around her seemed to fade away and break apart. Her outfit, composing at the time of a simple T-shirt and a black skirt burned and faded away. The summoning spell was a nuisance for the most part; it only summoned her, her being and her spirit. She appeared in an explosion of fire and darkness as bits and fragments of hell shot from around her before being pulled back into the fire pits. She dropped to the ground, and immediately felt the cold chill of the familiar planet hit her. She shivered a bit and began breathing slowly, expelling burning air and warming the area around her as she held her arms over her chest tightly.<br><br>She glanced upwards to see the man who had summoned her. It was not anyone she knew, and did not recognize anything about this place save for the familiarity of a dark and evil presence. She hadn't the slightest clue where she was, or which language to use, so she used the only language she knew her summoner must know. "Go-romen emi yemi mesi?" she uttered the demonic language in a deep and fearsome tone, which translated to, "Who creates the path I have arrived on?" As she waited for him to answer, she growled heavily under each breath, not sure of whether it would be best to withhold her anger.
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				Title: <strong>Re: The Lottery: Ten Pines Village</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>zoarster</strong> on <strong>02-07-2010, 06:35:31</strong>
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				He answered her in her own language, speaking sharply, as one familiar with the arcane arts. "Foolish servant of Panthean... you think I would give you my true name?" He made a gesture of warding against her, so that whatever she might do would not kill him. "Besides, I bring gifts for you, and for your master--behold the two souls before you, for it is their time."<br><br>His lips curled into a malicious sneer as he gestured toward the sleeping Knox parents, who now stirred ever so slightly in their sleep. "But know this, their daughter is forbidden, for Shub-Niggurath has declared her property of the village." Another warding gesture toward Brandi's room, and Ethan stepped back to watch the demon do its work.
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				Title: <strong>Re: The Lottery: Ten Pines Village</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Panthean</strong> on <strong>02-07-2010, 06:49:59</strong>
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				Simply hearing his tone of voice and his accent gave away his native language. She chuckled a bit, she looked up at him, a dark smile on her face, her eyes vanishing light before her face. Her arms dropped as the air around her became blurred from heat flowing from her body; they hit the floor and she growled sharply. She chose to speak more before she made a decision, this time, in English, "And what, might I ask, is to keep me from taking her as well... or better yet... you?"<br><br>She laughed a bit, "You sure got your summoning magic down," she continued, "For your sake, you had better have something ready to control me too!" She jumped at him, a hand with sharp claws drawn back and ready to strike at him with a painful slash. The only thing that would be able to stop her in her tracks would be a very quickly spoken spell to force a redirection of her attacks.
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				Title: <strong>Re: The Lottery: Ten Pines Village</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>zoarster</strong> on <strong>02-07-2010, 06:54:37</strong>
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				There was no speech in his counter to her attack, only a quick hand gesture known by very few humans. It was a ward taught to him by the elder gods, and its very use demonstrated that he was indeed summoning her to do the dark gods' bidding. <br><br>A smile came to his lips as he looked to the beast, eyes narrowed. "Be careful, Adia... harm me and you risk angering your true master, or worse yet, <em>his</em> masters." Pacing slowly around her, he shrugged, the glyphs on his robe shimmering. "But fear not... there are many playthings for you in this village, for we answer to the same dark forces that bind you. Stay with us a while, and I assure you there will be fun for all. But now, I invoke you--sate your tastes in the blood of these."
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				Title: <strong>Re: The Lottery: Ten Pines Village</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Panthean</strong> on <strong>02-07-2010, 07:31:13</strong>
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				Adia stopped in her tracks, a snarl coming from her as her eyes pulsated red and black. She pulled her arm away with a rather infuriated growl, at the same time her skin around her wrist where he grabbed her heated up, rising to temperatures akin to molten iron. "Alright," she said, almost jokingly, "But if you speak my name to a soul, you will find yourself in Hell so fast, you'll spend the rest of eternity trying to figure out just when you got there." She growled more as her body seemed to shift strangely, her form beginning to change.<br><br>"This is gonna be messy," she said, as her back seemed to burst open in an explosion of her own flesh, sprouting two canine heads, "So if your squeamish at all, the time to look away is now." Her middle head altered form and turned into that of a black furred wolf. She now moved on all fours, a pair of long serpent like tails moving through the air behind her as she moved her massive form to the door of the two sleeping parents. She jumped into the doorway, breaking apart wooden walls and the door itself to get in.<br><br>She immediately moved to their bed and snapped up Bradford in on of her side mouths. Not having any interest in men, she disposed of him quickly, breathing a fiery gas around him and burning him to crisp before swallowing his remains. She enjoyed playing with her victims a little, but in this case, she felt a hunger in her that she had to satisfy. After cornering Chastity against the headboard, she reared up over her and snapped her jaw shut around her. A clawed paw came up and acted as a hand, pulling at her and tearing her apart with ease. Two of her heads fought over her already bleed out body, swallowing her down piece by piece.<br><br>Adia then began to calm herself down a bit, reverting back to her anthropomorphic wolfen form. She growled a bit as she did, enjoying the feeling of fulfilling her hunger. She looked around, and the first thing she noticed was her own nudity. She rummaged through the Knox's things until she found an outfit that suited her. She dawned a pair of Bradford's more casual pants, black in color, and stole a rather conservative tee shirt from Chastity's wardrobe. She immediately shredded the shirt, ripping the top off just below the shoulders, and tearing away the bottom until it fit just below her breasts.<br><br>She walked back out of the room when she was finished, and walked out of the house. She stretched as she looked around at the night sky. "It's so cold," she said, "But this place... it's filled with sin. I think I'm going to like it here."
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				Title: <strong>Re: The Lottery: Ten Pines Village</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>zoarster</strong> on <strong>02-07-2010, 07:36:48</strong>
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				Ethan stood back and relished the carnage, looking toward Brandi's room, thinking that the demon's initial method of entry would most definitely wake the girl. Laughing darkly, he grinned, musing aloud, "Why use the door when a twelve-foot hole in the wall will do?" He stood in a dark corner of the room, watching the violence and grinning, even getting a hard-on under his robes as he watched the two law-abiding citizens die before his eyes, second sight watching their souls unexpectedly ripped downward to be his dark masters' playthings. Turning his head toward the door, he looked to see if Brandi would watch, and how she would respond.
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				Title: <strong>Re: The Lottery: Ten Pines Village</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>NinaN</strong> on <strong>02-07-2010, 19:37:57</strong>
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				Brandi woke with a start to the sound of her parent’s bedroom door being smashed to kindling, though it sounded more like the hut that her family lived in had been destroyed.&nbsp; Sitting up in bed, shaking terribly with fear, Brandi held the bed covers to her throat as she tried to muster the courage to get out of bed and see what was happening.<br><br>Only a week ago, Brandi had lived in one of the most exclusive neighborhoods of America.&nbsp; She had no idea about the circumstances that had led her father to move his family here to this God forsaken place, even amid protests by his wife and cherished daughter.&nbsp; She would never have dreamed that the reason for their being here was closer than she could have imagined.<br><br>Brandi thought she could hear other sounds, sounds like voices, or a low, almost thunderous growling.&nbsp; In Brandi’s confused state of half wakefulness, she thought that perhaps the voices were of rescuers, or, at worst, onlookers, those who had heard the noise in the night and were just curious.&nbsp; She had to know,<br><br>Dressed only in a bra and very brief bikini panties, Brandi crept out of bed and over to the door.&nbsp; As she slowly pushed her bedroom door open, she heard a sound she could not identify, it was a soft, wet, sound, like a rolled up, soaking wet newspaper being ripped in half.&nbsp; Little did Brandi know that the sound was of her mother’s body being torn apart and then voraciously consumed.<br><br>As soon as Brandi took a breath, her blood ran cold.&nbsp; The air was heavy with the smell of sulfur and blood.&nbsp; More than anything, Brandi wanted to slam the door and hide under her bed, but she forced herself to look at what had happened, no, what was happening right now, in her parents room.<br><br>Brandi crept slowly out of her room and moved slowly to the blown out doorway to her parent’s room.&nbsp; The sounds coming from the room were terrible, threatening to freeze her to her spot, but she forced herself forward.&nbsp; She could see a gruesome creature on her parent’s bed, and what appeared to be a dark liquid running down the walls and puddling on the floor.&nbsp; Was that blood?<br><br>Then Brandi saw one of the heads of that gruesome monster bend over what was left of her mother’s body and rip a leg free with a terrible tearing sound.&nbsp; That was all Brandi needed to see to convince her that she needed to get back into her room.&nbsp; NOW!<br><br>Brnadi slammed the door to her room and leaned against the door until the terrible noises from the other room ceased.&nbsp; When the noise had ceased, Brandi felt a sudden sense of curiosity and felt unable to control her own actions; she had to open the door.&nbsp; She managed to open it only a crack though, some part of her wanted to throw the door open, but her terror was able to keep that part in check.<br><br>Through the cracked door, Brandi saw a person walk by, not a monster, but an ordinary person.&nbsp; A young woman actually, and she seemed to be wearing her parent’s clothes.&nbsp; A voice in Brandi’s mind said, “Follow her,” and the suggestion was so strong that Brandi almost obeyed.&nbsp; But in the end, she held her place.&nbsp; This was the first time that Brandi heard the voice.&nbsp; It was the voice of a woman, not unkind, but somehow domineering, the voice of one who is used to being obeyed.<br><br>Brandi did not leave her room until morning.&nbsp; She could not sleep at all after her nightmare, for that is what Brandi wanted to believe she had had, instead, she wept.<br>
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: The Lottery: Ten Pines Village</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Panthean</strong> on <strong>02-07-2010, 20:46:24</strong>
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				Adia spent the rest of the night awake, sitting outside of the small house, leaning against the walls near the front door. He body was covered in dried blood, the clothes she wore were stained in it. She drank a lot of water, not holy water of course, but ice cold none the less. In the regions of Hell she was used to, there was no cold, just the dry burning air. She was unaffected while she remained in Hell, being a demon, but on Earth she did have a fleshy, mortal body to maintain. Most of her normal form's body was in fact human, save for the separate heads in her back, her lungs, and her blood was that of a demon. Her human pieces were constantly overheated by her demon parts, even burned in some areas, constantly drying up. She could stay alive with dark magics, but just drinking water was enough to keep most of the dry sensation away.
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: The Lottery: Ten Pines Village</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>zoarster</strong> on <strong>03-07-2010, 05:53:41</strong>
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				He grinned to Adia as she left the house. "Good doggy..." he muttered under his breath as he turned toward Brandi's room, his cape shimmering behind him. He entered the room slowly, feeling a presence he could not identify inside the girl before he pushed his hood down, revealing his face to her. He locked the door behind him, casting wards on the door and each of her windows to prevent her from escaping. <br><br>It was only then that his gaze fell to the girl, and he began to speak. "Brandylynn Knox... my name is Ethan, and I am, some might say, the keeper of this village. I apologize for what happened to your parents, and that you had to witness it, but their fate was decreed far before either of us were born." His voice was gentle but formal as he stepped closer to the girl, knowing she would be in trauma. That said, he had to prepare her for the lottery that was coming up, or all hell might break loose--and in Ten Pines, such a threat was often literal.
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				Title: <strong>Re: The Lottery: Ten Pines Village</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>NinaN</strong> on <strong>03-07-2010, 17:26:04</strong>
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				When Brandi heard the sound at her door and sensed that someone had entered her room, it was all that she could do to muster the strength to open her eyes and look in his direction.<br><br>He introduced himself as Ethan, the keeper of the village.&nbsp; Brandi’s heart lightened a tiny bit when she realized that an authority knew what was happening.&nbsp; But when he started talking about her parent’s fate, Brandi became very much frightened by the man.&nbsp; Who was eh that he should talk about the brutal murder of her parents as a matter of fate?<br><br>As the stranger began to approach her, Brandi tried, ineffectually, to push herself away from him, but all she could manage was to squirm under her covers and make a very pathetic mewling sound that should have been a cry of protest, but in her state, that is all she could manage.<br>
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