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[To Sail the Zeitgeist Sea] Robotman Fan Fiction - The Sane Asylum
6012/The Sane Asylum
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- Cliff Steele has posed:
The Madlands are in pain. Ever since the Chainer of Souls stopped providing their biennial soul to shield them from dreamers, more and more have been appearing. This is a problem because this deep into the madlands, the dreamers sanity and weight causes them to act like acid on the dream constructs, as such specialists carry them to a specially shielded area called the Sane Asylum where such intrusions from the Waking World do not harm the denizens. This might not be a problem, per se, were it not for the fact that Doctor Phrenologist, the proprietor of the asylum had such a curious mind and liked to ...experiment on its denizens. As it was, of course, solutions and substitutions had to be made...
Following dream logic, the entire seven story structure is seven stories of glass; the cells of its inhabitants totally transparent to those inside of it such that the dream forms of those insides were quite visible. The Brazier, sold at considerable cost was lit, and the City Fathers/Mothers were told it would bind the souls to it such that they would not escape the asylum and go wandering out into the city. And it worked...too well. The souls bound to its supernatural gravity found themselves sleeping, night after night, the time differential of the madlands making the 'crazy dream' seem like a year to the single night. Because it really WAS a year subjectively. This had been going for a week and while the souls were held in the gravity of the burden but the number was getting more and more crowded.
The city outside was gorgeous but used Escher and Dali like Geometry, twisting and impossible spires, some in bending and shifting non eucledian geometry, flying bird skeltons on fractal geometry trees, straight lines up and down into the ground with thanksgiving construction paper leaves draped all over them.
All of this was visible to the inhabitants of the Asylum who had little else to do but watch each other or the city or the grounds day in and day out. The caretakers were animated straight jackets that walked about on legs made of extended surgical tape, moving in and out like bees from the closed door of Doctor Phrenology, the only room besides the basement that could not be seen into. Note, of course, the wards could not see through the transparent walls. When they looked in, a small spy hole closed that blocked the 'eyes' as it looked into the room to check its patients.
But one room held a physical occuptant, not a dreamer at all, but physically present. Subjectively he had been here for centuries even though he had only been gone for three years in the normal world. His fingers were held together by a simple paper finger trap that induced depression. It had held him here for a long time but as the wails and screams began to increase in the asylum, slowly, ever so slowly, depression began to be replaced with rage. And Cliff's eyes glowed slowly more red. "Wh....whaaa....whaa....."
SNAP. The paper was torn just like that and Robotman began to look in shock. "What the fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck?"
- Michael Hannigan has posed:
Things have been pretty busy for Mike recently. And with the balancing of his work and personal life he's spent a little less time focused on the powers usage. He has caught glimpses of similar dreams but he didn't think much of it. Plus, after the- other incidents, it seemed best to just let sleeping dreams lie until he was rested enough to deal with them.
Well, that was the plan.
However, it appears that if he wasn't going to go into the dreams, the dreams were going to come to him.
And that is how the purplish black raven smacked into Cliff's window, sliding down with a cartoonish streaky sound.
- Kate Bishop has posed:
Kate has had a whole lot of wierd dreams this week.
Okay to be fair she has pretty much had the same strange dream every night this week and it is getting to be a bit much. She can't describe it as waking up in the Asylum. Though it is actually something akin to that. She closes her eyes in Titan's tower and opens them in a prison made of glass. The city below was wild, somewhere Kate was absolutely convinced that Vorpal would love. It was pretty much the sort of mad world or wonderland kind of vibe he seemed to personify. The Cheshire Cat in all that.
Honestly all of the varied things here, she should have probably told Terry about her dreams, but she kept forgeting with as busy as things were during the day.
The dreams though. That strange Dr. whom all the animate straight jackets listened to. The times where Kate had to experience her most intense emotions and relive them. Her mother's death. Joining the Titans. Saving the Day. Competiting on Themyscira and fighting the Manticore. All of them intense. Not all of them good. Not all of them bad.
Still having to do that for a year a night has definitely started to have a toll on her.
"Ughn... not this again." she complains as she opens her eyes looking up through the glass walls at other people in other cells. She shifts and rolls to her feet and heads to peer at the walls once more. For the thousandth time looking for a way out of this dream box. "Mmm"
Her dream self is wearing her Hawkeye stuff, it is a core feature of her identity.
- Colette O'Connail has posed:
Colette dreams.
This is not an unusual thing. Not just in the way it is not unusual for any person to dream. Most people spend one to two hours walking the paths of Dream each night. Colette is no different in that respect, but she has been doing it a lot longer than most people. The total time during which the words 'Colette dreams' have been true is in the order of a quarter of a billion years.
Another way to put it is that Colette is used to dreaming. She's an old hand at it. And she's had a lot to dream about.
Colette dreams of an ancient space-ship, reminiscent of some vast cathedral, made out of flesh. She dreams of a ring of stars exploding into viridian mist. She dreams of an ocean of dust adrift in space, populated by creatures the size of small moons that drift endlessly in the eternal night. She dreams of a canal ten miles wide that circles a desert-planet, the thousands of strange vessels sailing that vast canal the only habitation for the world's population. She dreams of spires carved from the bedrock by organo-technological processes by a long-dead civilization, inhabited by the virtual reality ghosts of its former population. She dreams of drinking coke in Times Square. She dreams of the Temple of H'ronmeer, a great and gloomy place where Martians gather to debate the difference between life and death, between light and dark.
She dreams of a city of intersecting planes and impossible structures that bend the rules of geometry beyond breaking, where skeletal birds perch in fractal trees, where the bridge on which she stands crosses a river that flows overhead, and where an erratically lurching seven-story building looks like it's going to fall on her at any moment. Unusually, she does not recognize the location. This gives her pause. It's not common she dreams something new to her.
Colette dreams, and she looks up a the Sane Asylum, faintly offended that something unexpected should interrupt her dreams. She decides she will find someone to complain to.
- Cliff Steele has posed:
The Dreamers all stir, the Lucid awareness of a person physically present sends ripples in even the shielded elements of the Sane Asylum. The Workers move back and forth in panic but isolate Kate and Colette and Cliff as the biggest problem with Cliff being the biggest concern for them. Another pair of surgical tape appendages emerge from the workers, with a needle in each 'arms' ready to pacity the patients, over a dozen opening Cliff's door as he is about to pound them and looks at the bird. "Wha?" He blinks and breaks open the window, some of the glass turning to dust on touch with his hand as he grabs Michael in one hand to keep him from falling down to the ground. That fall could be slow and harmless or instead of seven stories accelerate to several hundred. The thugs advance on Cliff and he punches one, turning it to a bundle of tape and then another, their needles bending as they try to inject him.
- Michael Hannigan has posed:
SCREEEEEeeeeeeeee-
As the glass breaks from the outwards motion, the raven's body falls back away from the building before the sight of the metal hand grabbing out manages to take hold of a talon. Wings flap as the raven sets out to right himself effectively slinging him forward into the cell.
"ARAWK!"
- Kate Bishop has posed:
Oh hey..... This is new... The door is opening.
Kate cocks her head abit now. "Ah.. excellent.... this... this I can work with." she backs up slowly from the two Workers, or as she thinks of them now Orderlies. Mostly because she is trying to get a bead on how fast they move and also to give herself room to move.
After they both enter the cell, she does just that, moving quickly around to the right so that only one of them is closer to her and then she steps forward fast.
While martial arts isn't what she is famous for, she is still Talented with various forms of offensive and defensive fighting ranging from boxing to jiu jitsu.
Still this is fighting animated inanimates so she isn't entirely sure how it will work. So mostly she is going for a couple of quick strikes to try to tangle up the things needle arms and launch it at the other one. Her goal is to get out of the cell through the way they came in and leave them behind now.
Hell if there is a door she will kick it shut leaving them in the cell for icing on this crazy cake.
- Colette O'Connail has posed:
There is something particularly offensive to Colette about the seven-story building. The way it seems to be at the wrong angle is not exceptional in this city of incoherent spacial relationships, but it's the nearest offender to her, and therefore the one she will bring her complaint to.
If she can figure out where the front door is. There's no visible path from the bridge to the building, but something that might correspond to a street can be seen below the bridge in the immediate proximity of the building, so Colette travels from shadow to shadow to get there, and starts to circle the building, looking for something that resembles a door. She sees one, upside-down, two stories up. Another stands ten feet in front of the building, in the middle of the street, but is not directly connected to the building itself. She contemplates this one for a few moments before deciding it's irrelevant.
The way in becomes apparent when a section of non-descript wall a short way ahead of her swings open like a door, and two orderlies from the Sane Asylum come trundling out. Slender figures apparently constructed from bandages, sutures and hypodermic needles, rolling forwards with hospital gurney wheels for feet, arms outstretched, advance on her.
Yes, this place is definititely something that requires complaining about. Colette raises a hand towards the onrushing figures, commenting "No, I don't think so," before unleashing a blast of dark energy at them. In the real world she always tries to do that kind of thing as subtly as possible, but this is a dream. No need to hold back.
The windows in lower floors of the Sane Asylum rattle from the blast of dark magic, and Colette steps through the mound of bandage and debris that used to be two orderlies, to walk inside the Asylum. "Okay," she yells. "Who's in charge here? I have a complaint."
- Cliff Steele has posed:
The Alarm sounds the instant Kate steps out of her cell, the light turning to red and flickering black and yellow, obnoxious but the howls of high pitched whale songs that only dogs can hear, except that everyone hears it anyway keens through the building. A few other doors begin to strain as Kate looks about merely by her presence though are holding for now.
Cliff makes quick work of six of the things turning them to piles of bandages as he can clearly recognize Michael is something MORE than just a regular dreamer, but ...more defined somehow. A bird but the eyes are more intelligent, "You OK little guy?" He asks as he pounds another straight jacket into tape and steps out of the door as two behind him ruin two more needles fruitlessly.
Colette is not immediately met with any explanation except six of the things that begin to move at her, though the door to a large office named "Doctor Phrenology, Director" begins to SLOWLY open, then reopen, then reopen in a loop that is wrapped up in the logic of dreams as a large glass hands with stenciled body parts emerges, slowly
Cliff is about to go downstairs to get the hell out of dodge when one of the dreamers in the cell across the way says, "You? Robot...man? Robotman, yes, you need to get the Brazier...in the basement..."
He looks down and there is a large room with large pipecleaner men made of red felt wires are feeding ....something? Coal? Into a burning brazier that now that he looks is spreading eldritch 'unseen' tendrils that he can 'see' to the horizon as more and more dreamers appear within sight as they feed more ...coal? into it,
"What the fuck is that?"
"The Brazier of Kuldun, one of the most dangerous artifacts in the dreamlands..."
"Is that where I am?"
"Yes."
"I thought I was in space again. Fuck."
- Kate Bishop has posed:
Kate looks up and around as the alarms start going off. Okay that is actually something much more familiar. Annoying yes. But familiar. "Well okay... didn't like that at all." she mutters talking to herself. She glances down at the glass cells below her then up at the ones above her.
The door bulging and everythingf strangeness is very strange. Then again the whole city is strange. She wanders down the hallway and eyes one of the straining doors then kicks out hard and fast with a booted foot. She has a lot of practice kicking in doors without hurting herself and is curious what happens if she does it here now.
Very effective is what she finds as the door shatters inward and open revealing a dreamer in a cell much like hers.
"Hmm... this is going to take.. way to long..." she shakes her head and starts to head down now. Well. Tries to. She spots a lot of activity going on down there through the glass floors. Somewhat distorted. Somewhere there has to be ... ah spiral glass stairs ... she starts to trot down.
Not that there isn't a tussle. She is more than happy to literally tie an orderly who gets frisky into knots.
The gruesome bit is the wheeled guerney legs they seem to have. Well she snaps both of them off and twirls them now like really makeshift escrima sticks as she progresses making her way down.. down.. down.
She has really had enough of this dream world in particular, and honestly has no compunctions of decimating dream orderlies. It isn't like they are real right?
- Michael Hannigan has posed:
The raven's wings flap, trying to get loose before "YEAH YEAH LET GO!" The bird responds back. "F***ing hell, can't take a couple nights off without something pulling me in."
The wings stop flapping, instead adjusting to push himself out of the hand.
- Colette O'Connail has posed:
Colette stares for a few moments at the gang of 'orderlies' advancing on her, then at the door-that-doesn't-door-properly. The the siren goes off, just to add the annoyance of the situation.
"Director, yeah. That'll do. I want to speak to the director." She holds out her hand again, this time not projecting a blast of dark energy but rather a wall of it, which the orderlies run into and attempt to push their way through, as if unable to see it is blocking their path. She turns her attention to the figure with glass hands attempting to emerge. "It's a /door/," she points out, voice dripping with sarcastic contempt. "Just because it's the dream of a door is no excuse not to be able to go through it. That's what they are for, you know. Get it together, incompetent half-wit child of L'zoril." The Martian name for their god of dreams. Colette has no doubts of where she is.
"And 'Doctor Phrenology', seriously? What kind of a dumb fucking name is that. On the other hand hey, if you think hammering your skull into a different shape will make you a more co-operative person, I'm game."
The orderlies continue to push against the wall of darkness, wheels spinning wildly, and slowly they seem to be making some progress. There's a slightly disgusting squelching-sucking noise as the first of them finally pushes through the wall of darkness, but for no particularly good reason it comes out the other side of the wall of darkness as a swarm of brilliant blue butterflies that careen crazily around the room. Colette looks at this, blinking with mild surprise, as the second one slips through, doubling the size of the butterfly swarm.
Colette swats butterflies away from her face and looks back at the unfolding glass-handed figure, presumably Doctor Phrenology himself, and sighs. "This is fucking stupid," she tells the director. "Make it less stupid or I'm going to start wrecking the place."
- Hope Summers has posed:
Hope Summers has always been a workaholic, burning the midnight oil so to speak as she works long and hard to find out whatever she can on the latest mystery bad guys that had been giving mutants and other young metas a hard time lately. Lately, she hasn't had much time to actually take it easy even though she made some promises, to herself and to others..
Eventually exhaustion took over and she slumped against the sofa of the study room, drifting into the mysterious world of dreams..She hadn't in fact had a good night's rest in a long while now, so her body was making up for all those sleepless nights, finally..
She is..In some sort of asylum then..Glass walls..Prison..Futuristic city. Wait, did she get bunted through time again? She frowns, not liking being a prisoner and frowns, knocking on the glass. "Hello?Whats going on? Let me out!" she yells, maybe just a bit panicked.
- Cliff Steele has posed:
All hell breaks lose.
First, the legs for the orderlies WAS surgical tape but now its wheels. That's what happens when Dreamers run around Dream, they change things especially here. They were wardens but now they cant think of themselves as anything but orderlies. They keen extreme exasperation.
None of this is as deadly as the sheer BANALITY of Colette's complaints. The door stops flickering and opens and a large glass skull with the regions of the brain marked on it such as 'hope' and 'joy' and 'fear' as he 'frowns' though since he is perrced atop a glass maniquen's body dressed in a morticians suit how that frown is accomplished is not clear. He touches a region of his head that says "Fear" and suddenly the orderlies and several dreamers are cowering. Granted, this is unlikely to affect the martian construct, but Dr. Phrenology doesnt know that does he?
Kate runs down the stairs that seem to grow more palacial and more ornate as she moves, th e clear glass slowly becoming more and more stained glass showing various scenes of her life as if she were viewing them on a medieval tapestry and as she goes downstairs she hears Hope's voice and kciks open the door. They can see each other clearly, images of themselves but ...different, idealized and altered by their internal belief of who or what they are, but still recognizable as themselves. There is a very large switch on the far wall on this floor that says, "Master Cell switch, DO NOT break" with a small note beneath that written that says, "Why did we include this again?"
Cliff looks at Michael and says, "Whoa there sorry buddy. Didnt know you were a talking bird."
"He isnt."
"He isnt what?"
"A bird," the sage in the far room that told Cliff about the Brazier, "He's a Dreamer, and a powerful one. Both of you, hurry, get the Brazier! Before they summon the Pianos!"
- Kate Bishop has posed:
"Well.. this is annoying..." Kate notes as she runs down the staircase and it goes from Asylum Chic to something her family would love. Not her really. But man her father would definitely build a stain glass staircase just to show other people how over the top rich and powerful he is.
Probably not with scenes of Kate's life though. Several of which get wheeled solidly and shattered as she races down those stairs. Not really keen on other people seeing too much of her life, even in a dream. Not when she is kitted out and has a secret or three to keep.
Still she pauses on a floor when she hears a distinct cry for help, and ever the hero hits that cell door hard with her wheeled stick weapon shattering it too. "Oh hey .. you can stop yelling now." before looking around and then blinking. "Okay.... this is ..." she just sighs. "God Vorpal would love this place way too much.... makes me realize why Rae wants to throttle him so often..." she eyes the switch and the note. Then walks over and purposefully breaks it wiht one of her escrima sticks. "I hope this shuts the alarms off too.... getting really sick of those."
- Michael Hannigan has posed:
The bird pops out of Cliff's hand floating above it for a few moments to put the wings on the hips in assessment. He turns his head, eyes narrowing to the assessment that he is a dreamer this time around.
But if he's dreamer this time around-
There's a twist of the bird's beak upwards into a smirk. "Alright." He looks to Cliff, "Lead the way."
The bird lands upon the floor, form elongating into something a bit more canine like. "Sooner we get this done, the better." The grey wolf adds.
- Colette O'Connail has posed:
Colette's mind is a complicated thing of several parts. Behind potent barricades of Martian psychic control, attempts at psychic interference of all but the most powerful sorts brush lightly against the surface of her mind and are easily ignored. Here in the realm of dreams things are a little more complex than mere psychic power though. In Dream, that which should not be possible is possible, and in the human parts of her mind, the awareness that she /ought/ to be feeling fear grows increasingly strong. As the third of the orderlies becomes another swarm of butterflies, Colette takes a nervous step backwards, her rock-solid confidence beginning to waver.
There is a third part of her mind that is neither human nor Martian, but something much older. That knows fear too, but in a different way. She stops backing up and chuckles slightly. The blackness of her pupils grows larger, filling her eyes and starting to swarm down her face. Smoke-like darkness floods from the sockets and starts to envelop her. Whisps of darkness form around her hands and flow up her arms, swirling into shapes like tendon and sinew, fingers growing long and claw-like. "Fear? Really?" She asks. Her voice begins to echo strangely. "Foolish. You're just a little dream, I'm a nightmareareareare.
Colette steps forwards, the shadows-form that she had been turning into seeming to melt away as if she were stepping out of it, and she's back to humanity. "Want me to start jabbing at bits of your head? That looks like fun, I could go for that." She raises a finger threateningly, aiming in the general direction of 'hope'. "Alternatively, straighten your fucking building up, try obeying the basic rules of geometry, stop making this whole place so fucking dumb, and maybe even upgrade your psychiatric practises to something a little less nineteenth century. Phrenology? At least read some fucking Freud or something!"
- Hope Summers has posed:
Hope Summers narrows her eyes, glancing around, calming down almost instantly as Kate frees her, much easier from the outside than the inside. But she's no longer yelling to her attention and no longer in panic mode. In fact, as she steps out of her cell, Hope is already assessing the situation, all battle mode ready..
Of course, in this realm, she's not a battle hardened young soldier, nor is she a cape and spandex clad super heroine..Instead, Hope Summers is just a lanky girl, dressed in a navy and white themed school girl uniform, kinda like a certain other girl in a movie she once watched in a dreamworld like this about a girl trapped in an asylum in a dream..Hey, she even has a sword strapped around her shoulder, ready to fight if he'd be, even if she promised herself some 'me time'.
"Right...I'm Hope Summers. What is this place, some sort of extra dimensional time warp? I'm used to time warps, never seen so,etching like this before.." she glances up the steps that Kate came down, frowning thoughtfully at the delicate colorful glass...Okaay, she came from that way, but are there any other ways out of this place? "Hey, I dont think we're alone, you hear voices?" Hope glances around for the sources of other prisoners they might be able to free..
- Cliff Steele has posed:
Dr. Phrenology sputters, insulted, "FRUE...FRUE..FROY....THAT ...THAT...HACK!? FIRST YOU RUIN MY ENTRANCE AND NOW YOU QUESTION MY METHODOLOGY! PHRENOLOGY IS LIF!!!!!" He touches a region on his head that says "Music" and a softer keen, more like radio telegraphy goes up from a glass antena on top of the building....waves moving out to the city as base notes begin to play and lights go on in the city as the sun moves rapidly down on the horizon and dark shapes the size of oak trees or elephants begin to stir and move en masse towards the Asylum.
The Orderlies are properly intimidated and are finding useful things to do elsewhere, suddenly panicked as Kate's actions unlock ALL of the doors. The good news is that everyone is free. The bad news is that no one is able to 'wake up' while the Brazier is active and people are panicked and confused as the orderlies inject a few causing them to fall asleep.
Cliff follows Michael, punching a lot of Orderlies as they move. As they go down, Cliff recognizes Titan (Gar told a lot of stories) and says, "Hi guys. We gotta go to the basement and get a glazier."
There is a shout from the top floor as the sage corrects him off screen, "BRAZIER!"
"Right what he said." He points to the basement, through the still transparent though rapdily opaque random scenes of stain glass on the ceiling, floor and walls of elements of their lives, "THAT Thing." The red pipe cleaners look up, shake red furry fists and feed more into the brazier which seems to be building to critical mass.
- Kate Bishop has posed:
There is a deep breath as she breaks the control switch and all of the cells start opening. "Hawkeye... odd someone in a dream has a name and isn't someone I ever have met. So um... maybe we are in an extra dimensional time warp."
There is a pause. "I mean.. I've been to wierder places than this. At least more dangerous ones... this has less demons at least..." she mutters.
She starts to head towards the stairs once more. "The prisoners should be all free now... sounds like it at least." is replied to Hope's statement about not being alone.
"Hello..." to Cliff looking at him a bit curious then starts to ask what a glazier is... but is interrupted with the off screen correction. "Oh.. Brazier.. I was going to ask something about donuts but.. okay." she glances down. "Okay... well lets go get it then...." she squints "Is that Colette?" looking through the glass floor now.
Regardles. "Stairs this way...." she squints again at Colette through the glass though then runs for the stairs down.
- Michael Hannigan has posed:
Time lost with the initial interactions Mike is a bit ready to catch up. Now, perhaps some more thought should be placed into who he's helping but, when has that stopped him before? And honestly by the time someone has the debate about who is in the right and who is in the wrong and the various factors going on in the scene. The situation might be over and much worse off than if he took action.. Best he can do right now is hope he picked the right side based off of what little information he was given.
And it is SO little.
The argument about how to pronounce the word draws the Wolf's attention. "Glazier, Brazier, Tomato Tomahto. All I know is if I see a co-"
He pauses as Cliff gestures to downwards through the... just noticed transparent floors. "Right...Let's take the express route."
His form shifts YET again, this time becoming more humanoid in apperance, leading to a mirrored image of the rocker. Hank can yell at him later if he finds out about this somehow.
He holds his arms out. "Grab on to an arm, close your eyes, and jump. You'll be fine."
- Colette O'Connail has posed:
Colette's starting to have fun. "Question your methodology?" she asks with an incredulous laugh. "That's not a methodology, it's a laughable superstition. Really though, it's cute. Imagine believing that phrenology is real!. Still, you are a particularly stupid dream. Phrenology!" She gives a bark of laughter. "Maybe I should dream up some phlogiston and burn your dumb building down, that would be a way to fix your geometric incompetence."
Colette's attention is fixed on the immediate surroundings, and she doesn't notice the others yet. Even as Kate spots her, her attention remains on Doctor Phrenology when he starts up the music. She folds her arms, looking at him with a wry expression. "What's this, trying to sooth the savage beast with music? It's not going to work." She starts circling the chaotically discordant figure, studying the zones of his glass skull. "How do you change the channel on this thing?" she wonders provocatively aloud. "Or are you permanently stuck on dubstep? Is there a part of your skull I can touch to make you shut the fuck up?"
- Hope Summers has posed:
Hope Summers arches a brow, glancing around and smirks, "Soo what, you co e here often? Are they friends? Who put us all in here?" she follows after Kate down the stairs, peering at Colette. "Hey, need a hand? How do we get out of this place?" usually the one in control, Hope suddenly feels frustratingly out of control and helpless in this weird glass maze like building.
- Cliff Steele has posed:
As Collete mentions this, the effects of being a dreamer shift the writing on his skull to include the words, "Dubstep" and "STFU" and "Georgia" and "Love" and "Antidisestablisharianism" and "Ennui" as he begins to back away in exsistential horror, "You will pay! You will all pay! The Pianos come for you and no mortal can withstand the Running of the Pianos!" He starts to laugh and then laughs hysterically rising his hands in a sinister fashion though his skull is very much within reach.
Cliff grabs on and (assuming Kate and Hope do too) mutters to himself, "Why didn't I think of smashing through the floor?" But he lets the guy who can change his shape in a dream take the lead here, part instinct and part not being sure what to do.
Discordant Piano music is audible on the horizon.
- Michael Hannigan has posed:
Arms held out, Mike cracks a smile, "Alright, eyes closed til I tell you to open. Do not let go until I say to. Everyone set? Yes? Good! Eyes closed! Jump on three! One- Two-"
"THREE!" And in true form of a musucian on the beat, Mike takes a jump off the landing, taking those who opted to join in with him. In the dreamworld it is a rush as they blaze past previous floors before their descent rapidly slows to a stop. Mike peeks, mindset allowing for him to properly guestimate their proximity.
Upon reaching the basement floor the musician chuckles. "Thank you for taking the Phantasm express. Please hold on until the ride comes to a full and complete stop. You can open your eyes now."
- Kate Bishop has posed:
Kate reaches out and grabs ahold of Mike when he says to grab on like that. "Well... I thought about it." about the floor smashing. "But I don't have any of my explosives with me and I figured I couldn't do it with these wheel legs from the orderlies..." still she tucks one wheel leg away and grabs hold firmly.
"Eyes closed?" she quickly closes her eyes, not entirely sure why they need eyes closed, but she closes them.
It sounds epic.
She is frankly a bit upset she missed whatever the show is and everything but still she keeps her eyes closed not about to risk it.
When she is told she can open her eyes she lets go, opens them "Huh.. okay... that worked..." she glances up then around. Hmm pipecleaner minions.. sort of.... okay this is still an odd place.
She snags the tucked away orderly leg and starts to wade in ... beating Dr. P's brazier feeding minions.
- Colette O'Connail has posed:
Colette keeps circling Doctor Phrenology, grinning at him with a predatory expression. She holds out a hand and starts to focus her imagination on it, trying to convince herself that she's holding a sharpie. "Oh I like it, Doctor Pseudoscientific gibberish. I really do. The whole zones of the skull thing, it has such promise. I wonder what happens if I cross out what's written there and write 'reality' in its place. Don't you think that would be fun to find out?"
Finally her attention is drawn to the presence of other people in the dream as the Mike Express brings them close, two of whom she recognizes. She watches at them with an expression of amusement as they hurtle past, through the ceiling and through the floor. "Well that's random and entertaining." Raising her voice to call out to them: "Kate and Mike. Hi, welcome to my dream. And uh..." she looks Cliff up and down. "What are you supposed to be, low-budget Cyborg? Oh and Sucker Punch." She looks upwards and raises a finger to the heavens. "Fuck Zack Snyder!" She announces.
Colette turns back to Doctor Phrenology, not paying a whole lot of attention to the new arrivals, on the assumption that they are just part of her dream rather than being real presences, but jerks a thumb in their direction through the glass floor. "Have you met my friends? They're a crack team of ninja piano-tuners. The robot looking guy once tuned forty-seven pianos in a single minute. The piano hasn't been born that they can't tame."
- Hope Summers has posed:
Hope Summers is quite confused by now as more people join them, including the crazy guy wuth wruting on his skull (?) Oh and that weird guy who, wasn't he a bird earlier? Tells them to grab on and she shrugs, stepping to join them. "Okaaay, I guess this couldn't possibly get any weirder. I just hope you know what you're doooooing...!"
rThen they're travelling through floors and landing in the basement. She blinks. "Woah..Sooo there must be a door out of here somewhere.." she starts peering around, resting doors, helping to free anymore prisoners who might still be stuck in their cells, though ever keeping an eye out for the exit.
"Wait, Sucker pu --Are you saying we're all sucked into someone s dream? Then, who?" she peers intently at each of them in turn, wondering who pulled them into this mess. All bets are on crazy guy with writing on his skull.
- Cliff Steele has posed:
Doctor Phrenology is actually panicked now, "REALITY? You'll kill us! ANYTHING but that!" He is the most powerful being in the asylum and realizes he is out of his depth randomly pushing elements on his head, dubstep which makes patients and orderlies dance briefly, Georgia which puts them in southern clothing, rapdily trying and failing to melt into the wall.
Cliff mentions, "Actually I did tune 20 Pianos once when Mr Nobody" and is too busy punching pipe cleaner men in the head as they sudenly swarm at him. There are dozens of the things, easy to grab and bend but hard to 'hurt' the 'coal' on close inspection shows memories and dreams. The brazier isnt evil but OFF, WRONG in this place and burning these memories just feels...WRONG, like an aobmination, at this point he begins to rage and punchthem by the score and looks at the others, "LET"S CLOCK THESE ASSHOLES!"
As Hope slowly fades there is a large GAP in reality as many of them simply cease to exist.
- Michael Hannigan has posed:
"I think we're all dreaming." Mike responds back, "Most dreams are singular but some places are the merging of many dreams to make something more lasting. Like a mental baton pass. I think we're in one right now."
As Hope fades off, he tilts his head, "Case in point." Planting his feet, he bolts forward, launching himself into the air to switch back to the wolf form. Claws snatch up one of the pipe cleaner men, twisting and bunching it up into a lump of cleaner.
- Kate Bishop has posed:
"Well.. Dreaming does sort of make sense..." she glances sidelong there as reality sort of intrudes and Hope leaves and .... many of the pipecleaner minions also cease. "Well.. hope she wakes up refreshed...."
Kate looks up through the floor at Colette and waves her weapon. Then points down at the Brazier and then points to Colette and then over again.
Then she clocks a minion in the head.
"So this thing is part of why I am having recurring dreams stuck in this place.. do we smash it or steal it.. I mean.. I think steal it." she sweeps a couple of the minions aside with her makeshift weapons.
She starts to make some headway to it, stubborn. "Move it figments.. you're not even REAL"
- Colette O'Connail has posed:
"It's MY dream, obv!" Colette shouts down to Hope. "I'm dreaming you all. Probably a bad cheeseburger." Hope vanishes and Colette gives a shrug. "No staying power. Maybe not the cheeseburger then."
She advances on Doctor Phrenology, the sharpie now 'real' in her hand, as much as anything is real in the dream world they're currently in. "Correction, Doctor P. it'll kill YOU. I actually am real, so reality is fine by me. C'mere and let me scrawl on your skull, you glassy fuck."
"When Mr. Nobody /what/?" Colette calls down. "You can't leave us hanging like that, robot guy! Stop messing around with pipe cleaners and finish the anecdote!"
Colette swarms forwards suddenly until she's right over Doctor Phlogisten, sharpie being wielded threateningly as if it were some terrible weapon. There's a squeaking sound as she scrawls 'reality' on his skull. "Maybe 'wake up' would be another good option," she says with an evil grin. "It would be fun to see what effect that had on you. " More squeaking as she scrawls some more. "But let's start with...." squeak squeak. "There." Colette's finger jabs down on a skull zone that now reads 'pipe-cleaner men begone.'
- Cliff Steele has posed:
"I don't want to talk about it," Cliff mutters, clearly its a bad memory, like a REALLY bad one and the rage he is already using to bend the pipe cleaners into knots is even MORE focused, and he grabs the brazier that is red hot but doesnt seem to bother his hand, "So I have the damn thing? What now?"
When Collete redraws the part of his head there is a RIPPLE and suddenly sleepers begin to wake, vanishing and the entire asylum begins to vanish as the Doctor screams in pain. Collete herself is feeling it...easy to wake up though if she tries she can stay and continue to get them. Jabbing the region as compared to the writing is even MORE potent and as Michael and Kate fight the things below suddenly all of them are gone. The minions are clearly messed up from Cliff and Kate and Michael but now they are gone, even the bent ones.
The voice from the top floor says, "The Brazier must be brought back to the Waking World....RUN!"
The thunderous Pianos make the earth shake as animated pianos, hundreds of them rush up from the city making discordant music the size of Elephants with 'angry' expressions.
- Kate Bishop has posed:
"See I knew I was right. We need to steal it!" there is a laugh, mostly because all of a sudden Kate is actually having a bit of fun with this messed up place.
Well Maybe not the Pianos. That music sounds prety discordant and bad.
"Col.. I think we are all in each others dreams or maybe a DREAM... but still it isn't REALITY...."
Regardless she has no one to hit with her beating sticks thanks to Colette so she darts forward with the cleared basement and reaches to pick up the Brazier, or at least get a firm hold on it. "Do we just.. wake up now or yank it through or what..." depending on how big it is. Then well the voice said run, but where. She looks for an exit. "Could use a door with an exit to the waking world right now...."
- Michael Hannigan has posed:
Challengers gone, the wolf glances around and looks up to the ground level. Ok so now it's being suggested they take something from this world to the waking world? "Uh, try waking up while holding it?" He looks to Kate, "I don't think I can pull out dream objects or dreamers. Kind of have to be physically real to be brought to reality."
- Colette O'Connail has posed:
Wakefulness starts to assert itself in Colette's mind, but as far as she is concerned this dream is her personal dream with no particular existential aspect to it. She hasn't realized there might be any actual consequences to all of this, and she doesn't want to leave just yet - she's having fun.
She decides to remain a bit longer just to add to the chaos, so she adds a few more zones to Doctor Phrenology's skull. There's 'a door back to the waking world' because Kate asks for it, and that seems like an amusing notion. There's 'Give everyone a bottle of Maker's Mark' because why not. There's 'Herd of Piano-eating flying sharks hungry for piano flesh' because that'll sort out the piano problem. There's 'no more butterflies' because there's /still/ a swarm of butterflies in the air and they are getting annoying.
Then there is the final insult. One more squeak of the sharpie, and Colette touches a zone on Doctor Phrenology's skull that now says 'Phrenology is fucking dumb.'
Colette holds her hand out, opens her fingers, and lets the pen drop to the floor. No microphone, but she can do a pen drop.
"Right. I'm done. Stupid dream anyway. Where's the fucking door?"
- Cliff Steele has posed:
Cliff Steele says, "I think I'm really here unlike you guys, I might have to carry it." He mutters and looks worried as Kate and Michael conjecture, "But I mean which way is the real world?" He mutters. AS he mentions it Cliff does seem JUST a little more solid, just a little more mundane than the others, and the urge to wake is slowly increasing.
As she writes, Doctor Phrenology screams and maker's mark appears, including one in Cliff's hand, "Thanks!" He chugs it.
The butter flies vanish and several people go through the door.
The door to reality suddenly gains a giant neon, "EXIT" sign."
- Kate Bishop has posed:
Well. It seemed like an excellent plan. Kate carries the Brazier of Kuldun runningf for the doorway out. Neon sign and everything blinking above it.
Speed seems to be of the essence as she hits the threshold, piano music pretty disconcerting there.
Of course what no one explained is the Brazier can't be brought out this way to the real world. It catches on the threshold, her momentum causing it to slam into her chest, then she ends up tumbling past it letting it go as the 'breath' is knocked out of her.
She is gone.
The Brazier remains clattering to the ground.
Back in Titan's Tower she jerks to sit upright breathing hard in her bed.
"What... the ... Actual... Fuck..."
- Michael Hannigan has posed:
Mike's eyes widen as he looks to Cliff. The wolf sits, looking to the metallic acquaintance. Who knew fur could become paler in expression? He frowns, studying Cliff's features for a moment. "I'll keep an eye out for you." The musician promies, "If I can. I'll try and come back. Fully."
POP! Goes the dream bubble.
- Colette O'Connail has posed:
Colette peels the wax from her bottle of Maker's Mark, pulls the cork and takes a good swig, before raising her bottle to Cliff in acknowledgement. She contemplates blasting a hole in the floor to get to the door Kate has passed through, but decides not to bother and steps from shadow to shadow to get to it instead. "Later, dream-Kate," she says with a smirk as Kate steps through, leaving the brazier to tumble to the floor.
Colette stares down at the brazier, then looks back up at Mike and Cliff. She looks back at the brazier. She shrugs her shoulder. "Don't look at me, I wasn't even paying attention to that part of the dream," she says. She takes another swig of Maker's Mark. "Besides, dream. It doesn't exist. You don't exist. Later, dream-dudes!"
She steps nonchalantly through the door, still swigging, and awakes in her apartment.
Colette sits up in bed, rubs her eyes, and smacks her lips. "Weird fucking dream," she comments to herself, then yawns. "Totally the cheeseburger."
- Cliff Steele has posed:
Cliff Steele does, of course, still exist and looks back at a hoard of angry Pianos and says, "FUCK!" as the trapped dreamers all flee through the door as Cliff takes the brazier under his arm like a football and runs, and REALLY runs, faster than his considerable speed even normally is, though the Pianos give chase for some time, the sun rising in the North.
All around the Waking World people wake up and share details of the dream. A few even find each other in the internet. For most, though not all of the dreamers there is a lingering memory of the discordant Piano music.
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