Past Deeds Come Back To Haunt

[Shinko]

You don’t… remember there being a cornfield out in this rural part of the bloids. And yet here one is, with a wood-plank sign hammered into grass by the roadside that reads “Trick or Treaters Welcome!” with a crude little painting of a smiling jack-o-lantern. There is a wide path cut into the corn, and as the half-browned stalks flutter in the evening breeze, you realize this isn’t just a cornfield- it’s a corn maze. Given the time of year, very likely a haunted corn maze. Well that sounds like fun! Curiously, you step forwards towards the entrance-

-And find that in the space of an eyeblink, the path ahead of you has completely changed. You look behind to see not the street from which you’ve just come, but a solid wall of plant matter. Great; you’ve been transported to somewhere entirely random within the maze. Figures it wouldn’t be so easy.

You look around cautiously. You have no frame of reference for where in the maze you even are. How will you find whoever’s got the candy? Or the way out for that matter?

Almost as if in answer to this question, you find your eyes riveted to a headstone a short ways down the path. It is carved from black marble, the words etched into its face gleaming in the silver moonlight.

Welcome, welcome, one and all

Many treats beckon and call

But to find them in this place

Long of shadow, wide of space

You’ll need a guide who knows it well

And so in reading out this spell

You’ve summoned forth little friend

Who’ll help you reach the maze’s end

Good luck!

Before you can so much as wonder what that is supposed to mean, the silver reflection of the moonlight on the engraved words turns into a genuine silver glow. You watch, fascinated, as the glow seems to reach out in a misty form from the letters, congealing together before your eyes into a shape that seems… oddly familiar…

Then a pair of extremely miffed eyes open to glower at you, and you realize what- who- you’re looking at.

The ghost of one of your own characters. One who’s tragic death you took gleeful pleasure in writing. And they don’t look especially happy with you.

Does your ghostly ally help or hinder you in your quest to find the sweets in the corn maze? Let’s find out together! If somehow you’ve never murderated a character, feel free to state as much and I’ll contribute for you one of mine- or you can ask a buddy to RP one of their dead characters to be your guide!

This is what the maze looks like. Your character knows the layout, but not specifically where in the maze you are. See if you and they can figure out the route to the center by advancing through each fork I offer!

[Celestial]

"YOU!" the ghost flies up, his grey eyes flashing. Briny water drips from his long coat and blond locks of hair, already messy in life, stick to his forehead. "I don't care about my death- this was how I wanted to go- but killing my crew and destroying my ship was too far! Not to mention what you did to my sister! I can take whatever punishment you can dish out but they and her - especially her- did not deserve it! You are the only one who goes above her husband in my list of people who need a punch in the face!"

The ghost grabs her by the neck of her sweater. A pang of fear flashes across Jackie's face before it is replaced with impassive boredom. "I have literally no idea who you are. Are you a pirate who fell into the river?"

He blinks. "Wait, you're not my writer..." he lets go of Jackie and bows. "My apologies. You look a lot like her."

"I think it's because I'm supposed to be a self-insert, whatever that means," Jackie dusts herself off and lowers her lanyard, which she had in a death grip before. "You mind introducing yourself?"

"Certainly!" the ghost grins up at her. "Captain Llyr Brachyura, formerly of the Mistral. That was my ship before my writer decided it should be destroyed," he scowls briefly before resuming his charming grinning. "And you are? Aside from being lovely, of course."

Jackie closes her eyes and assumes an expression of utter boredom. "Jacqueline. Most people call me Jackie."

"And you may call me Llyr!" the ghost smiles. He drifts closer.

Jackie takes a step back. "Llyr. Lovely to meet you. If you excuse me, Llyr, ghosts are not my speciality and I need to get back to the office," she looks around. "However we appear to be stuck in a maze. I am not sure how I got here but odd things have been happening to me...all the time."

"I don't know how I got here either. This is very far from the Veresian coast where I drowned," Llyr turns to Jackie and smiles. "Perhaps we could help each other out, Jackie? It would be pleasure to aid a lady such as yourself," he holds out his hand.

"Cool. Sure," Jackie shrugs. "I suppose I could have a worse companion than a flirty pirate ghost."

"I am a privateer. I have a letter of marque to prove it," Llyr reaches into his jacket and pulls out a soggy, ghostly piece of paper. "Oh, well...I suppose it does not matter now." He looks a little upset before immediately perking up, his bright grin once again plastered across his face. "Left or right?"

Jackie looks back and forth. "I don't know. You probably know more about navigation, Captain. Let me know if you need anything statted."

"Left it is then!" Llyr drifts ahead, though he always remains within sight of Jackie, not wanting to lose her.

[Gelquie]

"Finally. Finally, I found you."

The mage with the hooded cloak stares, and then realizes who's hovering before them. "You? ...I, uh, I can explain--?"

"What's there to explain? How do you explain what you have no excuse for?"

"There was plenty of excuse! ...I mean, you only had an idea of a personality when I first got you killed."

"Exactly!" The figure zooms forward, and the ghostly form of a Japanese-American woman with long, thin hair tied up in a bun grabs the mage by the neck. "You never gave me a chance!!"

"Ms. Sharpe, please," the mage gasps, their throat constrained though not entirely blocked. "I-I'm sorry. I really did want to write more of you!"

"Yeah, well you didn't."

"I came up with concepts, developed you more!"

"And never put it anywhere. You focused on Eugene, of all people."

"You don't understand, I had to play a villain, I..."

"Well, at least you admit he is one."

"I mean, yeah, he's a jerk!"

"Who you still write."

"Right. I'm allowed to write jerks. Look, Evelyn, this isn't a good time, right now I'm kinda trapped in this maze, and I don't really know where I am. I was kind of hoping to just focus on that right now?"

"...Yeah, you spent all your time focusing on someone who didn't deserve it." The ghost pauses for a moment, thinking, then lets go of the mage. "And I suppose you want my help?"

"...Well, I wasn't really going to ask for help, I--" The mage stops at the ghost's glare. "...Buuuut you're a very smart person who's very talented and really should've gotten the degree she deserves! And maybe you know this place better than I do."

"Sycophant," Evelyn said with scorn. "But yes, I do know this place."

"Look, help me through the maze, and I'll let you complain at me all you want. Because you're right. It really isn't fair what happened to you."

Evelyn thinks for a moment. For a moment, the mage catches the hint of a smirk, which Evelyn quickly covered with her mouth.

"Alright, deal. Just for now."

"Cool! Uh, first, which way should I go?"

"You'll want to take a right first."

"Alright then." The mage takes a turn to the right and follows the path.

[Shinko]

Celestial It is fortunate you picked the left, because left is really the only direction you were able to go from where you are. You find that the left turn you took kind of doubles back around back the way you came, only one tier of the circular maze removed. You pause as you come to a place where you can either keep going forward, or hook a right. An anemic breeze rustles the leaves of the corn, although for a split second you think you also hear the crunching of footfalls amidst the wind noises. Which path do you chose?

Gelquie You find, somewhat to your consternation, that choosing to go right isn't really the choice availed to you- in fact right is the only way you can go. Instead, there are two right-hand turns relative to where you're standing. One closer to you, one immediately around another wall of corn stalks. A howl sounds from somewhere distressingly nearby. Which do you chose?


If at any point you think you've figured out where in the maze you are, feel free to include the solution from your point of origin in a spoilerbox. Otherwise, continue to make one turn at a time until you've worked it out. ...Just be careful, dead end turns have nasty surprises in them.

[Twillie]

....Nope.

Even just a passing glance at the towering corn stalks against the night sky were enough to send a chill down her spine. A young woman donned in red attire, a poofy feather boa wrapped around her neck and a feather trail behind her, had figured before that this would be a fun area to do some trick-or-treating, not knowing any better. But oh dear, a dark corn field? Not her jam. She couldn't quite explain it, but they always instilled some kind of uneasiness in her. Welp, best just turn around and walk--

--Straight into some stalks of corn.

Coughing and spluttering against the sudden rough, dirty textures, she looks around to see all the same sight. Corn. More corn. Nothing but corn.

Ah, so this maze has a few tricks up its sleeves, huh? The feathered woman had no intentions to discover any more of these tricks, glancing around to find any signs of an exit. Instead of finding a hole in the stalks, though, her eyes catch an imposing marble statue not too far from her. And from it, a mysterious glow emerged.

Materializing from the marble, and facing directly towards her, is the floating figure of a particularly peeved man.

"You!" he snarls.

"Uh....." She looks to him with a cocked eyebrow, "You....?"

His scowl, after a short pause, slowly dissolves into confusion. "....You don't recognize me?"

"Oh!" Realization spreads across her face. "Yeah, from Hero City! You're, you're uh--" she snaps her fingers a few times, trying to remember his name. "The Queen's manager?"

"Deric," he says plainly.

"Deric!" She nods in confirmation, smiling. "....I wonder why I chose that name now..."

"Look," he says firmly, regaining his irritated expression, "That doesn't matter. I'm here for vengeance! You killed me off, so now I'm here to make your time in this maze even harder!"

"Vengeance?" She quirks an eyebrow. "I, uh, look I'm sorry about killing you off, but... I dunno. It happens, y'know? How are you going to make this maze harder?"

"You know, give the wrong directions, lead you straight into traps..." Deric waves his hand nonchalantly, looking up as he thinks of a list.

"Traps?" she repeats, suddenly wary, "What kind of maze is this?"

"The kind that teleports patrons and summons ghosts." Deric shrugs. "You might want to do your research?" He gestures to the black marble he materialized from.

After reading its inscription, she looks around at the maze, and then to Deric. "I dunno, I'm thinking right I guess?"

He only folds his arms with a pout. "I'm not saying anything."

"Right it is then."

[Gelquie]

"...Well, thanks Sharpe, you could've been more specific."

"I could've," Evelyn admitted. She folded her hands and didn't elaborate further.

"I see I'm going to have a lot of fun with you," the mage comments. The give a worrying look to the direction of the howl. "Uh... Is that a 'I need help' howl, 'I'm gonna eat you' howl, or a 'I'm howling just because I feel like it' howl?"

"I majored in physics, not animal sciences."

"Didn't you have a pet?"

"I dunno, because you never developed me or my family."

"Hey, I've been developing other parts, including your family and how they reacted to your death! I just never got around to--"

"Just assume the worst."

"Okay then. Either way, we should move. Which right?"

"The immediate one. That's what I meant."

"Fine." The mage starts moving into the first right they can take.

[Shinko]

Twillie This maze being somewhat devoid of dead-end starting points where you can go off in more than one direction, as has been the case before right is the only direction you can go. You don't get very far, however, before hitting a point where you can either go to the right again, or keep going straight. On the bright side, you don't hear anything suspicious from either fork on the path.


Gelquie You take the first right, and find that the path beyond actually doubles-back in the direction that you came, but one tier to the side. You follow this path a ways, and find that it veers to the left. You turn, and once again find the path double around...

And at the end of a dead-end corridor, a massive, hulking creature with the grey furred body of an oversized muscular human and a head like a wolf turns towards you. It gives a low, threatening snarl, ears flattening, and then charges.

[Celestial]

"-And after that, the slaver said that he would sell me off as a slave in Mzia. Told me that my grey eyes and blond hair would fetch me a high price, and nobody would know I was a Kythian noble!" Llyr laughs. "Of course, I spat in his face and told him that I would never submit to scum like them. Me and my crew would figure out a way to escape and free their illegal slaves-"

"That's great," Jackie rolled her eyes. "Do you ever stop talking?"

"Oh yes, plenty. But I thought I could regale you with tales of my exploits. Just to prove that I've gotten out of worse scrapes than this. Creepy maze, this is nothing," Llyr shrugs. "We'll figure this out, Jackie. Just you and me," he leans in."

Jackie sighs. "You can stop flirting with me right now, you know? I'm not interested in a ghost privateer. I've never been interested in anyone, period."

Llyr threw up his hands. "That's fine. I can respect that."

The woman blinked. "Okay, that was surprisingly easy. You were clinging to me like a tick earlier."

"You're cute and spirited. But if you're not interested, it's not fun for anyone," Llyr tucks his hands into pockets. He looks around. "Seems like we're going in the right way. So far so good."

"Yep," Jackie scribbles something in her notebook.

The ghostly captain peers over her shoulder. "Watcha doing?"

"Seriously? You're a sea captain, allegedly. You don't know what a map is?" Jackie tucks her pen behind her ear and holds up a notepad with a rough drawing of the maze that they have been walking through. "Figured it would come in useful."

Llyr grins. "See, what's why I like you!" he tries to rib Jackie in the side but his elbow goes right through her. "Whoops. Not used to this whole ghost thing."

"I've seen weirder," Jackie stops as they come to a fork in the maze. "What does your intuition say, Captain?"

Llyr looks back and forth. "Let's go right," he grins. "I have a feeling that will be fun."

Jackie gives a deep sigh. "That's not a good sign."

[Shinko]

Celestial You turn to the right, and find the path wends back in the direction you just came from. But as you continue through the darkness the crunching noise grows in volume, and the corn stalks around you sway ominously. To your disappointment the path ahead ends rather abruptly... and the crunching stops as a shadowed monster emerged from the corn stalks. A misshapen creature, like a man with the head of a pig wearing a red-smeared apron, screams at you in a voice like a pig's squeal and charges, holding up a bloodied cleaver.

[Celestial]

Jackie pales. "This is after-work drinks all over again." She turns to Llyr, glaring daggers. "You said go right, and now look!"

"I told you this would be fun!" Llyr grins. He draws his sword, standing between Jackie and the pig-man. "Come on then! We ate three month old bacon on our ship that was better quality than you!" Without any hesitation, he lunges and swipes at the creature...only to have his blade go right through it. Llyr blinks, staring at its point. "Oh, yes, right. Ghost. That's annoying."

There was a sudden slap as Jackie pressed her palm to her forehead. "Seriously?!" she yelled, her fear forgotten for a moment. "You're no better than my colleagues."

"Look, I'm still getting used to this 'ghost' thing. I was perfectly content to rest until I got the chance for revenge against my writer," Llyr retorts. He draws his sword and carefully backs away. "Nice piggy...good piggy...we're going to be going now," he glances sideways at Jackie. "Right?"

"Yes. Yes. YESYESYESYES!" she takes off running as quickly as she can, clutching the lanyard with her ID in her hand.

"Good! Then let's run!" Llyr flies off through the corn maze, swerving corners with Jackie, making sure to stay just behind her in case the pig man was following them again. Very soon, she was out of breath and flagging badly but Llyr made sure to always keep up with her. "Keep going. We're almost back where we started."

Finally, they reached the junction where they had made their bad decision. Jackie fell down, panting for breath.

"You alright there?" Llyr leaned down to her.

"I'm...not...meant...for...running...desk job..." Jackie gasped. She wiped her glasses on the edge of her sweater before putting them back on and standing up. She took out her notebook and pen, putting a big NOPE on the exit that they had taken before. "Forward then. We are going forward, Captain," she gave Llyr a glare. "Any objections?"

"Nope. You're the boss," he crossed his arms. "Lead the way."

[Shinko]

Celestial You progress a ways, and come to a four-way junction in the path. There is a left-hand path which doubles back on itself, you can continue straight ahead, or you can turn to the right. Further complicating things, the right-hand path is itself split in two just a little ways on meaning there is a top and bottom right fork relative to where you are standing.

On the bright side, there are no suspicious noises to speak of.

Where do you go?

[Celestial]

Shinko

"I am getting really sick of this. I have things to do when I get out of here," Jackie grumbles, her arms folding.

"Really? I'm having a great time. It's a neat little adventure. You don't get much of those when you're dead," Llyr shrugs. He is floating alongside Jackie, occassionally spinning and floating in front of her. "Although I'm enjoying being a ghost. Being able to fly in the wind like this? Highly recommended."

"Excellent. I shall keep this in mind should I meet some untimely demise. Which in my job is more likely than one thinks," Jackie continues to complain. Her shoes kick a stray rock.

"Wow, you are just such a bundle of joy," the ghostly captain rests his chin in his hands. "You remind me of my brother. Not my brother-in-law which I was talking about, but my actual brother. He always looked perpetually stressed too."

"Thanks, glad it shows," Jackie sighs. She stops as they come to another fork. "I am getting so tired of this maze."

"Weeelll....bad things happened when we went right, so why not go straight ahead instead?" Llyr asks, shrugging. "Can't find anything worse than the pigma-"

"Never, ever, ever say that!!" Jackie hisses at him. However, she considers his offer. "Let's go straight then. I don't see any other options. This whole place looks all the same to me."

[Gelquie]

Oct 29, 2018 7:48:58 GMT -5 Shinko said:

Gelquie You take the first right, and find that the path beyond actually doubles-back in the direction that you came, but one tier to the side. You follow this path a ways, and find that it veers to the left. You turn, and once again find the path double around...

And at the end of a dead-end corridor, a massive, hulking creature with the grey furred body of an oversized muscular human and a head like a wolf turns towards you. It gives a low, threatening snarl, ears flattening, and then charges.

"Ah geez!" the mage exclaims.

"Oh no, now my 'writer' has to be scared for their life," Evelyn Sharpe drawls noncommittally. "I wonder how that feels like?"

"Aw, thanks Sharpe, you're a great friend!" The mage turns around and begins to run.

"Before you go blaming me, I didn't exactly say everything earlier. I know how to get to the end of the maze, but I don't know exactly where you are and thus how to get there from here."

"Why didn't you tell me?!"

"Oops," Sharpe shrugs.

"Uuuugh..." The mage reaches into their treat bag and pulls out some candy, which they throw behind their path. "There, now leave me alone!"

They run on, doubling back and taking the second right instead. Sharpe follows.

[Shinko]

Celestial You continue down the straight path, which briefly cuts to the right before continuing straight again. You arrive at a fork in the path where you can either chose to again keep moving in a straight line, or take a left turn. But it's odd... you see, for the briefest fraction of a second, a person in a red feather boa and clerkly looking ghost standing indecesively at the same junktion of the maze. However, they vanish again before you can can so much as blink.

So what shall you do? Keep going straigh, turn to the left, or backtrack to the previous junktion and go down another path?

Gelquie The second right-hand path loops to the left briefly, then doubles back on itself before taking a left turn. At this turn, however, you find that it has become very, very dark. Almost inky black. You think you can hear something moaning nearby. The path splits so that you can go either to the left, or to the right, but you can't see very far in either direction thanks to the darkness. What do you do?

[Celestial]

Shinko "Uhh...okay, Jackie, you saw that too, right?" Llyr blinks in the direction of the ghosts. "It is not just my imagination?"

"I did," she nods briefly, looking up from where she was continuing to draw her map. "More ghosts, by the look of it. Friends of yours?"

"Not that I recognise. And I've known a lot of people. Plenty of ones who look like clerks but nobody with such a bright red puffy garment around their shoulders," Llyr puts his hands on his hips, shaking his head. "Probably more things like that weird pig man...thing that we encountered before."

Jackie shivers. She studies her map more intently. "Okay, at this junction...we've been walking straight for a while and if we go straight, it will take us to the edge of the maze. Let's try going left," she eyes Llyr. "Do you want to try picking this up?" she holds out her pen. "I've seen ghosts that DEACON captured possess objects, even if they cannot truly pick them up. Do you want to give it a go?"

Llyr looks skeptical but he holds out his hand anyway, touching Jackie's pen. Focusing, he attempts to touch it, to possess it. His essence filters into it and the pen glows, hovering in the air. A wide grin splits his face. "Nice! I could get used to this new power."

"Excellent. You can stab someone in the eye with a pen now," Jackie says, utterly deadpan, but the relief in her eyes is clearly apparent. "If we find a weapon in this place, you ought to take it. I have silver on my lanyard but I don't know how effective it will be and I'd rather not hurt you with it."

"Aww, thanks," Llyr grins. "You do care, Jackie. Jacks? Can I call you Jacks?"

"No."