...just another day on Carcosa?

[Blackrazor]

A slight tinge of nausea is fading quickly as you take in your newfound surroundings. A feeling in your gut says something is off, but maybe it is just the waning queasiness.

[Grognardsw]

Blood Skald raises his sword to the sky and roars in anguish and anger. Great is his loss, greater his anger. Revenge denied, honor lost. The gods have saved his pitiful soul only to toss it to unknown land.

[Merctime]

Enter the gaunt form of a blue man, with widow's silk wisps of hair trailing down his long face, dressed in beetle carapace and helm of river-fish scales, and peering emotionless into the clearing before stepping a foot into it. A brass and coral wind-chime hangs from his hide pack near his waist, and his movements cause it to bemoan the light wind thus produced with a soft, unsettling twinkling. The roaring just now heard causes him to blink, but his face remains blank of cheer or fright.

"And would the mysterious be held by you, O' men?" A bony finger trails his blue jaw, as one eye widens whilst the other shuts half-way, as if to ponder these unknown individuals before him.
"This beckoning... This gut-sickened wrenching of self into parts unknown... Which of you hast delivered this one unto you here? Is it you, shouting one?" He called this to the white man, with the great sword, who appeared to be in great lament.

His question posed, the blue man stood only at the edge of the circle, finger resting upon jaw, while his other hand rested easily just above the hardwood hilt of his broadsword.

OOC Edit: Had to edit a bit, as I posted over Grognardsw. Sorry!

[Alethan]

The yellow man blinks, arm still extended with bow held out. Slowly he lowers his arm and returns his arrow to the quiver.

He looks up at the twin suns, then eyes the large moon suspiciously. "Third eye bad, third eye bad," he says, shaking his head slowly. Walking up to the nearest trees, he grabs a handful of leaves and tears them off, holding them up to his nose. He shakes his head again, "Sticks are broken, too! Bad day for a hunt, bad day..."

He suddenly seems to notice the other two men. "What are you?"

[Grognardsw]

"I am Blood Skald of Doom," answers the albino to the blue and yellow man.  "Of the white men of the north. I was in battle against the Vhuurmis, the degenerate ape beasts from the icy reaches of the Spiral Mountains. Then I was here. I know not how."

The powerfully built northman looks about. Blood stains spatter his ice lizard scale armor. He sheaths great sword, puts down ice turtle shell shield. He clenches his fists. "Damn gods and Old Ones!" 

The beasts attack is branded in Blood Skald's memory...

Vhuurmis: Degenerate quasi-ape men wrought from ancient experiments of the Fungi from Yuggoth. Lumbering, shaggy, umber-colored beasts with mongoloid human faces bearing crazed and cunning eyes. Enjoy human marrow and the tender parts of human females. Children are a delicacy.
Source: Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea for the baseline.

[Merctime]

Noticing the Yellow Archer grasp the leaves and sniff at them, the face of the Blue Man with the wind-chimes changes perceptibly. Slowly, the features of his gaze at that action soften to a look of wonder, understanding... And foreboding.

"Yes. Those leaves... This place. Wrong. Those leaves leak of a blue, viscous sludge... They should in fact according to my learning bleed dark red. It is a thing un-natural." His reverie is broken as the one calling himself Blood Skald of Doom speaks. After his words, and his short and to-the-point explanation of what happened to him, the Blue Man nods a few times in understanding of his tale and imagining of his anger and lust for dead enemies. His nodding stops short when he damns the elder beings.

"I know not of these...Vhuurmis. But I think you and I share an ailment, o' White-Skinned Man." Without looking away from him, he points a bony finger to the sky. "I fell from that place. To here. This is why I inquired as to if either of you transported me here by some means. Now, I wonder... Did we each be brought here for some fell purpose, in like fashion?"

He pauses a moment, considering the men before him with an inquiring gaze; yet not an un-friendly one. One of curiosity.
"I am Sorrows of Vale and Mire." And then he is silent.

[Alethan]

"Gibbering! Gibbering! Gibbering! Sand chafes the souls where the third eye floats lower in the night," the yellow man starts suddenly. Looking at the other two, he sees they aren't following him, so he pauses.

He points to himself and says, more slowly, "Gibbering Wielder of the Air. From the great desert."

Then he blinks and his clarity is lost. "The sand rubs smooth the wrinkles of worry. The sand makes eyes water and blurry. The sand... The sand... The..."

He trails off into silence.

[Merctime]

Sorrows the blue man squints a bit, trying hard to follow the staccato chatter of the yellow man who calls himself Gibbering Weilder of the Air. And then a look of recognition on his face, as he speaks, "So. It seems we have all three been spirited to this place outside of the boundaries of our own wills and doings."

The blue man steps another few feet into the circle, closer to these other like he; Orphans to this new land. He unties the woven virginal hair cords that hold his wind-chime, to hold it in his left hand, out in front of him at arms-length. The lack of wind softens it's baleful moaning, and he considers it a moment.

"Yes, Gibbering Wielder of the Air... This is not our old home, is it?" He turns his gaze to address both men, now. "We are tied by strings unseen in this mystery. What in the Black Gulf has brought us here? And, importantly, what are we to do about it?"

From this point, Sorrows simply carries his chimes, and awaits the input of the other men before him.

[Alethan]

Gibbering looks at the blue man intently for a moment. Then he shrugs, as if being teleported to strange places surrounded by strange people is normal.

Then he smiles briefly, showing a mouth of crooked teeth, and says,"Survive."

He begins slowly turning in a circle, looking in all directions for any kind of feature - man-made or natural - that might stand out as an obvious place to begin heading towards.

[Blackrazor]

Gibbering- the clearing is roughly four to five talons wide at it's widest point and is roughly circular, the low vegetation is thick and leafy - green and blue broad leaves mostly - and the trees roughly five to six times your height. The trees are free of low branches, their rough bark a dark black like color. The upper branches form a spherical canopy of redish jagged thick leaves - the branches of the canopy are roughly 3 talons off the ground. This effectively blocks your vision of your surrounds from the ground. The sky above is familiar, the suns, visible stars, the moon though is a bit different somehow.

None of this vegetation is familiar.
The air is warm and dry - roughly 70 Degrees Fahrenheit.

The air is thick with a earthy citrus smell.

[Grognardsw]

Blood Skald of Doom calms himself, knowing there is no enemy to smite. Better to reserve his bezerker rage for those who put him here, if he can ever find them.

He looks at strange plants, smells foreign odors, hears unfamiliar birds, gazes up at dappled light sieving through leafy canopy. He looks at the ground more closely for human tracks out.

"Let us head north," says Blood Skald. "I like not this damnable heat and jungle of trees. Perhaps find some locals and learn where we be."

[Alethan]

Gibbering nods, takes a bearing off of the two suns, and begins walking north.

[Blackrazor]

As you begin to head north, no more than a few paces into your journey, a pain explodes in your heads. The intense stabbing pain feels like it wants to eat its way out of your skulls You cry out in agony, and your knees buckle. Then all is black.....(PMs will be sent shortly)

[Merctime]

Knees rattling fiercely, Sorrows of Vale and Mire reaches out in a flash to grasp a nearby tree with which to steady himself, after appearing to lose his footing or the use of his legs, and almost falling. His other hand clutches his forehead as if to forcibly keep the contents from spilling without; His wind-chime dropped to the ground.

"Uhh...." He looks up, head still in hand, and blinks at Gibbering and Blood Skald as his gaze darts between them, and too and fro. "What... "

What feels like long moments, he steadies there, along his crutch-tree, and stares google-eyed at his 'new' companions... Staring as if to bore holes through them with the very invisible matter of his path of sight. And then...

...Quickly, after a very forced gathering of himself, he bends to retrieve his wind-chime and stands arrow-straight. His face is very grim. His eyes remain in a hover on the two who share his plight with him, and he takes a pointed step back.

He then turns his gaze heaven-ward, and all around, taking in every sight around him, deeply.

"Fellows..." Speaks he, eyes still intent on their erratic and nervous search of his surrounds, "...There is a very strange situation unfolding for us all. I have had a vision."

[Grognardsw]

Blood Skald of Doom grabs his head to stop the dizziness, the images, the confusion. His simple mind grasps at the puzzle pieces trying to make a sane picture.

A glimpse of madness from the Great Old Ones? An echo from a former life? Blood Skald does not know. Stare too long into the abyss, and the abyss will gaze into you.

He struggles to remember the words said, the magics referenced. Put it to verse, put it to song, he thinks. For he remembers that way with his knack.

Blood Skald speaks: "I saw us in strange place. Blue man tried to summon something, yellow man help bring it forth, to no avail. An unseen threat loomed. A type of me was there, fighting it. I was told to gather 'them' and assault an unknown...enemy?  Then a flash and explosion and an awakening here."

[Alethan]

Gibbering falls to his knees, pressing his hands to the sides of his head, the shifting of time and space obviously too much for him. He tries to reply, but all he can manage is, "Same and different. Same and different. Same and different."

He stops speaking, but continues to rock back and forth for a moment.

Finally, he says, "Go to the boom and strike the light! Assault the flash that blinds the eyes! Go to the light that strikes the boom! Assault the blind by slashing their flesh!"

He stands up as if determined, looks the other two in the eyes and says, "Trust no one."

[Grognardsw]

"It seems the gods have set us on path obscured," utters Blood Skald of Doom. "Let us get underway then and work to gain clearer goal."

As the northman hikes with the yellow and blue men, he shares the story of what he was doing right before their abrupt transmigration.

The battle was nearing it's end, the bodies of your kin and foe everywhere. They fought bravely, mercilessly, but the great white ape beasts were so strong. The footing was treacherous, from the heavy rain, blood and gore.

An ape leader, half your height taller than you, just dispatched a brother and sister duo, their spears jutting through it's massive torso.

You had climbed an outcropping of rocks, staring down upon it a few feet bellow, waiting for the right moment, it is now upon you. The beasts beat upon the broken bodies in triumph, you jumped, your great sword held high, a scream of malice erupts from you as you descend. Lightning strikes, illuminating the world in a frozen flash. The beast looking up, in a snarl of defiant rage. You covered in rain, sword ready to split the ape's skull and...

You are somewhere else that is dryer, warm and you are not alone...

You stand in a roughly circular clearing surrounded by strange forestation. Overhead twin suns small and cool cast a bright light. The larger of the two ulfire, the smaller dolm. A great moon dominates the sky as well, large of full, it's blueish face smooth though it bears a handful of enormous dark circular scars.

Here you see is a yellow man, with a bow who looks puzzled and a man of pale blue, lean and wiry who seems surprised.

[Alethan]

Gibbering Wielder of the Air mills about while Blook Skald tells his story.

When he is done, Gibbering nods in understanding, then turns north and begins walking, as they were doing before they were interrupted with another vision.

[Merctime]

As, too, Sorrows of Vale and Mire, moves on as he hears of Blood Skald's tale. Keeping with his companions, he wears the face of a man deep in the darkest recesses of thought. His wind-chime moans softly every now and again, swaying as it will from his hand, when he takes and off-step that sends it bounding on it's cord.

[Blackrazor]

A few dozen paces though the thicker brush leads into the forest proper, the boles of the strange trees offer enough space between them for easy movement, even two abreast in many places. The spherical canopies overlap and interlock overhead forming a dense undulating ceiling of red leaves, which shelters the ground from direct sunlight. It is much darker here, and cooler by far than the clearing. The ground is grassless mostly, the dark soil a bit spongy and a tad moist.

The chattering of insectoids, the choral songs of strange avians, and the far distant roar of great angry beasts, fills your ears.

Progress is quick, as the terrain is fairly flat, the roots of the trees deep in the soil and not a hazard.

Long shelled bugs, the size of your fingers, flit about. You can occasionally see colorful winged reptilian hunters, not unlike slither fangs equipped with feathery wings, searching for prey, be it insect or small furred skitters the dart around and dash up and around the trees, the claws clatching as they do.

A source of clean water can not be too far away, you feel, and you do have skins so it is not a grave concern as you start out.

The first days of travel are long, but not unpleasurable. The insectoids seem far more satisfied eating one another, or the scattered flora, than you. Material to manufacture shelter is scarce, but Gibbering discovers that the spherical canopies are hollow and can support weight, though the climb is not encouraging, nor is the fact that many are inhabited by various forest critters. Nights are cool but comfortable, the ground pleasantly soft and the skitters rather tasty, thought the flying slithers were rather bitter and unagreeable.

It is midday of the fourth suns pass, the weather has remained kind. Gibbering lugs the carcass of a furred beastie with a long snout and six meaty legs, he recently fell with a well placed arrow. Water beginning to become a concern, when the gurgling and smell of distant water allows you to breathe a sigh of relief.

The journey continues as a brook of clear water comes into view. The general tranquility of the scene shatters, when a loud bestial roar erupts, the not so distant trees sway and dance with the passing of something big. Something headed your way.