Empyrea

[NativeForeigner]

Maria giggled as she bent over backwards, planting her hands on the ground, as she flipped backwards, evading Shepard's attack. She returned to an upright position, wearing a childish grin. She continued to giggle.

"C'mon, Sheppy, I thought you were better than that, I did! I mean, trying to hit a girl? Tsk tsk." she taunted, wagging her finger in a direction Shepard most obviously wasn't in.

"Martin!" she went on, changing subjects without much notice, "Let's take this outside, let's! It's much too confined in here, it is."

*

The door Jasper open, the door labeled "4" swung open to darkness.  

[Venom3001]

Mason glanced at the watch. The stone of his arm shifted, created spiked ridges and blades along his knuckles. He tossed the chisel lightly into the air and slammed it with his mallet at the stone wall directly behind Martin.  

[Jokerman-EXE]

Shepard scoffed. "You're no woman, Maria," he growled. "You're a monster, through and through."

Martin, about to answer his sister, flew into a rage at hearing her addressed so. "How dare you!" he cried, avoiding Mason's attack as he blindsided Shepard with a powerful strike from his umbrella, forcing the Workman to stumble back and throw up a clumsy block. Martin pressed forward, driving the off-balance Shepard back a good ten feet before backing off.

"Never address my sister in such a way!" Martin said indignantly, "Or I will personally see to your long and torturous end!" That said, he aimed his umbrella tip casually at Mason, who watched as the tip opened and a flechette-style attack blasted forth.  

[Elesariin]

Dawn hesitated for a second, then reluctantly let go of Ton'yell and walked over to Jasper. "But... We're supposed to wait," she told him, looking up at him with wide, earnest eyes, "And I'm supposed to protect you. If we do go through a door, we're supposed to go through four," she concluded, pointing into the darkness "But we were supposed to see if any of the other Workmen could catch up first. I guess...Hunter's in there. Somewhere. Probably. So he could look after us. I donno if anyone nice is behind any of the other doors right now. I guess Mary could be, but she's not much of a fighting type. She's really nice, though," she added, as though worried that they might think she was insinuating that this 'Mary' person was some kind of axe-murderer. "Really nice. She tells good stories, and gives good hugs..." The girl rattled on, ticking off the mystery woman's good points on her fingers. "She makes really good macaroni and cheese, which is good, because its my favorite meal ever. She has a pretty voice..."  

[SiberDrac]

The fair-skinned boy flicked his gaze to Martin as he spoke, tried to shake his head, and couldn't, he was still so paralyzed.

"I swear it wasn't me!"

"Jesse, you can't swear anything, because you don't know what it was! More importantly - Alex, what was that?" Alex could feel Chris shudder within him. All three of them were scared stiff, and boiling down deep somewhere, like growling stomach acids, something else could be felt, pushing. It wasn't really trying to get out, but it was definitely making itself known. Alex's hand went instinctively to the scar along his arm, but he couldn't trace what kind of instinct that was.

"I don't... know," he said out loud, and swallowed. Then, he heard Dawn's chastisement while Ton'yell hugged him, and turned his attention to the little girl. "But I don't even know what I'm doing," he beseeched her, following the group and leaving the mess of combat behind.  

[Elesariin]

Dawn turned to look at Alex, and her expression softened completely. "It's okay," she told him firmly, "You'll figure it out, okay? Just try to stay calm." Then she turned back to look at Jasper, obviously thinking hard. "We'll... I guess going through now can't hurt..." She paused and turned back to look at the other two. "Any other votes?"  

[Isa-sama]

Again Dawn spoke with that strange maturity. And then there was the strange painting drops. I'll ask her later, I suppose. This really isn't the time. The biggest issue the makeshift group had to face was which door to go through. Dawn had said to go through Door 3, but she thought Carpenter said Door 4. "Which door, 3 or 4?" she muttered.

She flinched as she felt something slide down her side; it'd been the bug. The bug started crawling in front of Door 4 and was circling around the front. "...we should go through this door?" Ton'yell was amazed. This is incredible. I don't know what's crazier, the fact that the bug understands me or the fact that I'm trusting its judgement.

Oui.

Ton'yell's jaw dropped. She'd crouched to see what the bug was doing on the ground. The bug had released some acid (which was powerful enough to leave a mark on the floor) and SPELLED its answer. "You can spell?" The bug underlined the word. "...This is crazy," she repeated. Instead of questioning it, she asked for its name. "After all, you already know my name."

Pierre.

So. He - as it was now known - was a french beetle. "Are you positive this is the way to go?" Pierre underlined his "yes" for the second time. This bug knows the house just as well as any of the residents here. There was also the added fact that Pierre had been listening to everything that had been said while on Ton'yell's shoulder earlier on. She held her hand out to the bug and it climbed into her hand. "According to Pierre, we should go ahead." If anyone else had thought she sounded crazy for listening to a bug, they might've looked at the ground and seen that this was no ordinary bug.

Pierre crawled up her arm and rested on her shoulder. "I suggest we get going then. It's starting to get louder down there," she referred to the fighting.  

[NativeForeigner]

"Oh Martin! You're just a deary, you are!" Maria said, lifting the brim of her hat just above her eyes, "Lookin' out for your sister, what a sweetheart"

She returned her hat to the top of her head and scooped up her rose she had thrown down earlier, "Now let's get outside, shall we?"

*

Carpenter and Munkwon seemed to have moved their fight already, as neither was within sight.  

[Jokerman-EXE]

Martin swelled with pride, which just made Shepard grow more livid. Both of them were only too eager to take Maria up and move outside - Martin, to make her happy; Shepard, to prove that he could beat her no matter what.  

[SiberDrac]

For some reason, when Dawn spoke, Alex almost felt a sense of calm drift over him. He met her gaze, and somehow, because someone else who clearly had powers had validated his own - made them okay to have, okay to not understand - that felt... warm. "Thank you," he said quietly, and a little of the color started to come back to his face.

And then, Pierre began his antics. While Alex watched with some interest, Chris seemed to disappear from his mental landscape. He felt it as a "dropping out" of self; without so much as a word, her particular set of mental constructs was stripped away; she stripped herself down to virtually nothing; a series of ideas centered around self-righteousness and a need for reason to exist in the world. Alex winced as he felt that part of himself bare itself just briefly in its boiled down, raw form before it was covered over, and his face went slack as he remembered why it existed.

~

"Alex! Get your a** down here and say hello to my boyfriend!"

"Yes, Ma'am." The boy stood from his homework, which he had been doodling on, anyway, and walked downstairs. He didn't like the stairs; he had fallen down them before from being scared by his mother. The hand rail had given him splinters. The steps creaked too much.

"Alex, this is Mr. Dennis. Say hi, Alex."

"H-hello, Mr. Dennis." He didn't meet the crooked-toothed man's eyes. He couldn't look at his face. This man was mean, and he would make fun of Alex's mom and then he would leave. But he would leave eventually, and that would be bad - because then his mom would start drinking alone again, and Alex would have to go back to dragging her to a sofa himself, and she was getting really heavy, even though he was getting stronger, mostly thanks to Jesse trying to make him learn how to fight, though the smoking didn't really help...

"Don't stutter!" she shouted at him, using her angry voice to go with her angry face. Her hair was wild, and her sagging face looked like too much Play-dough. "What were you doing up there, anyway?"

"H- homework. Jesse was helping..."

"Jesse who? Jesse's just an imaginary friend, you screw-up! God knows you can't get decent grades anyway, and you tell me you sit up there and hallucinate? And don't. You. Stutter! Buck the f*** up and look at me!"

"I'm..." he concentrated, trying to keep his lips from shivering as hard as he could "...sorry."

"What, does she mean you can't make the grade, boy?" the man asked cruelly. "You not trying hard enough?"

"Alex, you don't have to take this from him."

"But... he'll make her happy, for a little while..."

"But then he'll leave! Let me talk to him."

"No! Don't. I'll... I'll deal with it. Maybe he'll stay... for a little while longer."

"... if you say so."

"I'm trying, Mr. Dennis. I really am."

"So you're just stupid, is that it?"

"I- no! I can do it, I just..." Jesse was right. But he had to rationalize it. He had to believe it made his mother happy; it was all he could do. There really was a reason for this cycle to go on, wasn't there? Somewhere, there had to be something good to this. It made his... it made his mother happy...

And then, someone else. Alex heard a sniff, began blinking, and looked up at Mr. Dennis. His voice came out slightly higher, he held himself straight, and he met the man's eyes as though they were peers. "I'm plenty able, Mr. Dennis. I haven't done as well as I can, but I will work harder. Mom, I'm going back upstairs." And he had.

~

She wasn't gone, no - but she had taken too much in the past few minutes. She needed to retreat, and Alex could only hope he wouldn't need to think too objectively about anything in the near future.

Alex swallowed, almost to make himself unfreeze from the experience, and moved a little closer to Ton'yell. "Yeah, let's... go ahead and go."  

[Venom3001]

"I'm gonna wipe that stupid grin off your face, boy," Mason growled as he rushed forward, at a speed that seemed almost comical for someone as large and bulky as Mason. He feinted a strike at Martin's lower body with his golem arm; as Martin dodged, he found his neck in Mason's smaller - but still bulky - armored hand. Mason tossed him lightly into the air and slammed the golem fist into his torso with the full force of his body, torso twisting into the blow. The fist brought Martin against the stone wall - and the chisel, embedded in it from earlier. The wall rippled and a large chunk of it around the chisel exploded, the stone fragments peppering Martin's back and piercing his clothing and skin as Mason's strike drove him through the wall.

Mason stepped back as Martin tumbled through the hole in the wall. His golem arm's weight rebalanced - it appeared to have shifted most of its weight to the front for the strike. He smirked at Maria and raised an eyebrow, as though daring her to attack him.  

[Elesariin]

Dawn smiled in what was clearly supposed to be a reassuring way... except that she looked more than a little uncertain herself. "Alright," she said brightly, "Let's go, then. You'll really like this door," she added chattily to Alex, "It's very pretty, and I've even got a tree house. I hide there sometimes when Carpenter tells me to." With about as much hesitation as most people would exhibit while walking through a perfectly normal door, Dawn stepped through into the darkness, clearly expecting the guests to follow.  

[NativeForeigner]

Maria's hands were cupped over her mouth as she gasped, "Oh Martin!" she called out. Her left hand continued to cover her mouth and she held out her right as she ran for the newly-formed hole in the wall. She gripped the sides of the hole and bent over. As she leaned, her right leg lifted in the air.

"Martin! Oh Martin! Are you okay?" she called out, in a slightly worried tone, "You are, are ya?" she clapped, "Oh goodie! We're outside now, we are!"

She turned her head and gave Mason a hard glare before she tumbled through the hole.

Her head popped back up as her hands clasped the ledge, her nose just barely in view.

"Henry! You're welcome to come outside, you are, or you can just finish up in here, you can."

*

Jasper peered through the door, trying to make out anything beyond the blackness.
Nothing.

He took a deep breath before proceeding through the door's threshold. A strange sensation of insubstantiality washed over him as he was enveloped by the darkness. The door behind him vanished from sight as another opening appeared before him.

Feeling no desire to remain in such a state, he continued through.

The others were soon to follow, being led by Dawn.

They all emerged from another door into a small clearing in a lush, thickly-forested area. Sunlight shone into the clearing and was filtered through the trees deeper into the forest.
The clearing was lush with undergrowth, a circle of smooth stones of varying sizes lined the clearing, the larger stones gathering moss. Gentle sounds of birds chirping and the wind rustling through the leaves surrounded the group as the free-standing door was closed behind them.

Rough, overgrown paths went off in every such direction from the clearing, the largest heading directly away from the door.

(Those involved should begin posting in this thread.)  

[SirBayer]

Arthur growled, widened his stance, ducked under the initial jab, and threw his shoulders into Henry's hips, trying to throw the man over his back, worrying about using the silverware as weaponry later.  

[Venom3001]

Mason grinned, rushing forward and bringing his steel-toed boot across Maria's nose, sending her flying backwards. Without missing a beat, he jumped out, attempting to stomp on her with his landing. When she rolled aside, he wasn't able to say he had expected any different, though the disappointment remained as he backed up and took a fighting stance once more.