2020-02-09 - Tarot of Terror II

Stephanie steps forward to examine the exposed cards, admittedly not knowing a damn thing about tarot cards or their significance or any sort of relevant thing. There’s something she can’t explain though, an attraction, a curiosity about the Bleeding Heart. When she sees the simple instruction on the fancy placard, Steph wonders what game she is meant to play. Still feeling a little groggy, she sits down at one of the chairs, trying to clear her mind and wake up a little more.

August grunts, finding himself lying flat on his back on a hard floor. Ugh. He's going to be feeling that for days. He sits up, wincing, looks around himself with an owlish expression. Some of the people with him he recognizes, some not. Maybe it's just a dream, and not more of Their bullshit. If it's the later he supposes he can be grateful he's in his black suede jacket and hiking boots; he might need them.

But either way, the first thing he does is go to check on Itzhak, who's no doubt already launching to his feet.

Itzhak is less launching and more struggling to his feet like a newborn foal, long legs skittering out from under him, staggering for balance. He's groggy and disoriented, and when he sees not August but some dark looming shape coming for him, he snaps into an aggressive, if wobbly, stance. Fists up. "Fuck off, pal! ...Roen?"

There's a loud groan from the corner of the room, and then a discontented grumbling muttering something about 'light' before Diana's eyes jerk open and she stumbles quickly to her feet, taking a few unsteady steps forward. She squints against the light in the room, no matter how low the light actually is, and then rubs at her eyes, frowning. "Whazzat?" she mumbles in reply to Itzhak, and then frowns deeper as she finally looks around her, tensing up. "...kay," she says simply.

Alison awakens with a groan, getting up slowly, rubbing her face. "There's no way that I fell asleep at work again.." She peers around the room, with bleary eyes, taking in the other inhabitants of the space. Itzhak is the only one that she truly recognizes, though the others' faces prove to be slightly familiar, even if from only having been at the same events around town and not having spoken directly. The schnozbearer's sudden start from 0-60 startles her somewhat, though, on her way to take a look at the table. "This is another one of those.. things, isn't it."

"Hey, relax, it's me," August says in response to his surname. Which is maybe not helpful, but he also stops getting any closer until Itzhak has a second to get his bearings. He glances over his shoulder at Alison, pulls a face. "Maybe. Probably." He eyes the placard as it changes, then Diana, Stephanie, and Alison. "Don't suppose any of you three know what kind of deck that is?" He sees no point in addressing Itzhak about the deck; he's never struck August as particularly 'woo'.

Stephanie hears voices that she chooses not to acknowledge until they are closer to the table since she has already made herself comfortable. The question of the deck comes up. “Not a regular deck of playing cards,” she announces upon closer inspection, trying to pick up the Bleeding Heart card, “Not really sure what it means, but the instructions seem clear enough.”

Itzhak opens his hands, spreading his fingers to signal he's not going to punch August. "...'m okay. I'm okay." He looks around, marking who's here and who he knows. Then, patting August clumsily on the shoulder, he schleps himself to the table and stares at the cards and the, uh, instructions. Impulsively he reaches for the first card and flips it.

The card is named The Deceptive Song. A mermaid sings her siren song to what seems to be a shipwrecked sailor, who is beginning to wade out to her, unable to resist her song. "...That's creepy as fuck," Itzhak says, kinda blankly.

"All I know is, it... looks sort-of-Tarot-y, but I'm not certain those are the 'right' cards for that sort of thing. But if it is Tarot, the Death card doesn't have to mean Death-- it could mean just, a change, or a new direction. I know that much. Also, hello." Diana nods to Itzhak first with a smile, and then gives a little wave to everyone else. When Itzhak draws the card, she makes no move to stop him, seeming to agree that it's the best course of action. After a moment, she says, "...maybe we should be plugging our ears? Hard to say." And she frowns, starting to hold her hands up to her ears-- admittedly, she doesn't 100% block out the sound.

"..it kind of looks like some kind of tarot card deck. I'm not super familiar, but Cameron had been trying to teach me some of her weird wiccan crap, and this came up.." Alison peeks over at the card that Stephanie had tried to pick up. "Three of hearts? Swords? Something. I think it means.. grief. Loss?" A shrug, then on the other one. "I don't know that one."

And then Itzhak pulls one from the deck, which she peers at as well. "..that one's new to me too." Then pointing at the Leviathan Cross. "No idea about that, either, but the art seems pretty similar."

August grips Itzhak's shoulder reassuringly, moves to the table as well. He watches Stephanie reach for one of the cards, braces himself--accept, she can't pick it up. He peers, leaning to see if it's glued down somehow. Which is when he notices Itzhak reaching for one. "Wait--" Too late.

He sighs, examines the card and makes a low sound. "Good old sirens. Just because something's beautiful, doesn't mean it's not gonna fuck you up." He looks askance at Itzhak, bobs his eyebrows. Then he waits, to see if the act of revealing the card will cause something to happen, tense.

Stephanie immediately says, “Hang on to the card, just in case. It looks you can’t get it back once you put it down.” She sighs, looking at The Deceptive Song in Itzhak’s possession, before she adds, “Lucky for you guys, if it involves us singing, I can at least carry a tune.”

Stephanie hears the Siren’s song and feels compelled to move but she manages to fight off the compulsion, unlike others around her. She eyes the deck of cards, waiting for the right time to satisfy her own curiosity. (Success)

Itzhak's looking over at August, frowning, when the song drifts in and the wall opens. He lifts his head, eyes widening, and then his eyes half closing, his expression softening into pleasure. ...And then he opens them again in genuine terror because he's drifting towards the ocean without his say so. His boots are just moving. "No, nononono..." but he's not stopping and in fact he's starting to hum in harmony and he's pale with fear.

Diana keeps her hands over her head, and god bless her, she just can't resist saying even as she takes a halting step forward, "Told you so." Her hands remain firmly pressed against her ears, but she can hear the sound over it-- try as she might, she's unable to help but take several more steps toward that beach in a zombie-like fashion. "Little help?" she adds nervously, even while bopping her head to the soft slow music.

Alison eyes Itzhak as he starts heading off in the direction of the song. "Hey, is that such a good id--ooh, that voice." And then she's heading off in that direction as well. Until she realizes that Diana and Itzhak are resisting as well. "No, wait, this is stupid." But her feet don't seem to be listening to her brain either.

August takes a half-step towards the ocean, the music lulling him for half a second. He blinks, yanks himself out of the daze he was falling into, and sees that not everyone has been that lucky. More horrifying is how they are semi-aware of acting against their own will.

There's no source to the music, no obviously door to shut, and August can't sing well enough to compete with...whatever that is. So he tries a different approach, gathering up the shaping Art in a curled fist. "Sorry everyone," he says, and shuts his eyes. He reaches out, seeking that delicate structure in the ear--something he's familiar with, having damaged one in Bosnia--and taps it, hopefully just enough to set their heads to ringing with a high-pitched whine.

Itzhak yelps, hands flying to his ears, and drops to his knees, gasping in pain, turning green. Well, that solved that problem, but now he's got an all new problem: a bitch of a case of tinnitus.

Stephanie looks to August, recognizing his use of an ability similar to hers, the impairment of the others’ hearing so they couldn’t be affected by the Siren was clever. She would offer to relieve them of their ear injuries but curiosity gets the better of her and she draws a card.

Diana tilts her head curiously as she sees the look August's got as he apologizes, but really she's probably not at all sure what he said. She's turned herself around to face AWAY from the beach and back into the room, but alas, she just finds herself stumbling backwards toward the sound. Until there's that sharp ringing in her ears, of course, and she cries out before stumbling in her backward trek, falling down with a bit of a 'thud.' ...that she can't hear. She can be heard (by August, anyway) to whimper softly, wincing and holding her ears tightly as though that's the answer. Hey, if it almost worked for Sirens, amirite? Her eyes widen as she sees Stephanie draw a card, and risks removing her hands from her ears to whisper, "Wait!" as she reaches out to try and delay her. No such luck, though!

Thankfully, August's little trick seems to have saved Alison from the call of the siren off in the distance, though it apparently worked a little too well, finding herself falling right on her ass, hands covering her ears. She manages to see August reaching out with his mind, something in their heads.. but without the actual medical knowledge of the working inside, hell if she knows exactly what he did besides using glimmer.

In the throes of agony, clutching her ears and unable to really make sensible sounds of any sort aside from groaning, she reaches out in her own way, attempting to speak directly into August's mind. But he's not exactly a neophyte in the subject either, so rather than an intrusion like a bull in a china shop, she's left angrily pounding on the door to his mind, screaming at him, though muted through the man's mental defenses. 'What the fuck did you just do to me?'

Well, it worked. August congratulates himself by blanching, coughing, and stumbling off into a corner to be sick. He'll heal anyone whose damage is long-lasting enough, but for now, he's trying to deal with what he just did. Not very successfully. And then there's Allison, hammering on his mind. He grits his teeth. "Stopped you from walking into who knows what," he grinds out, then realizes, she probably can't hear him.

And then, he's back at the table. He sags against it, wiping at his eyes. "Sorry," he says, glancing between everyone, wincing against Alison's rage, signing to her. Hell, maybe she knows ASL. He sets a shaking hand on Itzhak's arm and grips it. He heals what he did on the instant, wishing he'd though of literally anything else. Did he need to carry one of those Bluetooth Bose speakers now? Fuck. He sets a shaking hand down on the table in Diana's direction, doing the same, calming the nerves and eardrum. They'll still hear ringing for a while, maybe even a few days, but the worst should be over.

Not Allison though, not with her wailing on his brain like that. He watches Stephanie draw a card, steels himself.

Itzhak gasps again as he gets healed up and his balance restores itself. He grips August's forearm, the poor guy. "You okay?" he asks him, and then winces as he hears Ali yelling at him. To her he goes and just...kinda takes her in his arms and rocks her like she's a tantruming child. "Hey, hey, hey. Shhh. He did what he had to." Even though she can't hear him.

The redhead groans and struggles slightly against Itzhak's hug, but it's more out of continuing to react to the flick of the inner ear rather than against the embrace. Her efforts to yell directly into August's head fade off pretty quickly. But it's when Itzhak tries calming words on her that she realizes that it's not just the pain at play here, since she can feel the slight buzz of vibration of someone's body against hers when they're speaking. But hell if she hears anything above the high pitched sound in her ears.

With the abject flatness of tone indicative of someone who, for one reason or another, can't hear their own voice, she cries out. "Are.. are you talking? I can't hear anything over the ringing!"

Diana winces and seems startled as she's suddenly much more healed-- though there's a deep frown on her face, she doesn't look angry. Instead, she seems perturbed, but she also aims to put a hand on August's shaking one, and she nods, saying very softly (as several including herself are still hearing some ringing), "Thank you." It distracts her briefly from fear of whatever's coming next, though Stephanie's words have her looking alarmed as she's swept up in the current. She swims for her life! There's a giant log that nearly takes her head off, but she does manage to avoid it, just barely.

Itzhak is trying to soothe Alison when the floor drops out from under them and they're plunged into the rapids. He immediately lets go of her so as not to drag her down with his heavier frame--and takes the log Diana dodged to the gut. Glugh he vanishes under the water and does not resurface.

Stephanie finds herself drowning, swept away by the current, the rapids, unable to breathe.

August is braced for--well, not this. His instincts from training as a forester kick in, and he tries to grab something to find a bank to gravitate towards, but their isn't one. Tries to find a log, but there's not one to be found. He even uses his Art to push himself--nothing.

And then Itzhak goes under, and well, he's not standing for that, so he dives under after him. Because that will work out swell. (Eleanor's going to be furious with him if he drowns.)

When the floor disappears and they're faced with a realistic version of the Log Driver's Waltz, she finds herself plunged into the water along with Itzhak. She's not exactly in any sort of shape to be jumping around on logs and rocks in the first place, and the distractions otherwise don't help her any. It's all that she can do to flail around in the water, just barely treading enough to keep her head afloat. Thankfully the log doesn't nail her as well, but when it gets Itzhak, she feels his body go down beside her like a sack of wet cement. "Shit, Itzhak!" She's not in any state to be helping, though.