Now It's Time for: Zombie Chef

[Nevin]

Those here stumble upon landing, and are surrounded by the smells of rotting meat and the thick, cloying scent of blood filling the air. All around there really shambling 'waiters' carrying large platters, or enormous jugs. The waiters with the platters - adorned by humanoid body parts in varying states of decay - slowly shuffle into a large set of double doors, leaving the stone chamber that those in here can see. The area behind the door remains out of sight for the moment.

From another door, this one just a single door by itself, is where the 'waiters' carrying the jugs originate. These individuals shuffle carefully, their burdens sloshing about. The fluid inside is clearly bodily fluids - proven when the leg of a 'waiter' literally falls off, and the individual collapses, breaking the jug it had been carrying. It groans quietly - but only for a moment before other figures descend upon it and pull it apart in a bloody display - and then it's limbs and body parts are slapped onto platters and carried into the back.

{Participants:
Stare
Nevin}

[Nevin]

Nevin staggered as the shadows released their grasp on him. The man was slightly woozy - unlike some of the others around, he wasn't used to teleportation and usually stuck to walking if he needed to get somewhere. The two spatial movements in relatively short succession has seriously messed with his sense of balance, and it took him a few moments to recover and look around.

He was in what looked like a large kitchen serving room. Long wooden tables sat along the walls, with... With body part scattered across them. Not just human - animal, monster, and humanoid bodies were all in evidence. Nevin had to swallow revulsion when he saw what was clearly a Zombie dressed in the tattered remnants of a butler uniform stagger to one of the tables and pick up a torso and slowly carry it through a set of double doors that were set into one wall.

The last thing of note that he saw in his first glance around the room was that near him was a large swelling of shadows, like a giant pod that was about to burst. So - he wasn't going to be alone here?

[Stare]

Her first thought was to curse.

Where the hell now, I thought I was to-

Thump! She landed, sprawled in some form of oddly angular, preparation or work room. Dark stones made the walls, and the barest of good-quality candles lit up the place. Huge wooden tables were shoved against the walls, and upon them were rows and piles and hunks of dead meat. Bloody, putrid, and in varying stages of decay they seemed to be identifying this as a pantry of some sort. A strong smell of rotting flesh was thick in the air, making a horrid miasma that could have killed if one was so sensitive. Stare was reminded of Vitruvion's ability to smell different forms of magic, much in the same way that she was able to see them. His were more general, however, and she began to wonder what exactly this scent would, or could, mean.

Necromancy, he murmured.

She sighed - at least there was some comfort he was still there, and paying attention. Despite his grumpy mood, he had some intention of keeping in contact and not allowing her to die horribly in this castle which was very obviously cursed. Evidence lay in the fact that she had felt the tug of teleportation enchantments spiralling around her as she had stepped through the dark void of the doorway. Her instinct had been to assume that Vitruvion was causing it, as that is what he sometimes did. But, no, apparently it was part of the castle.

Figures, he warned.

She saw two movements. One was a lumbering individual easing his broken way through swinging doors. Freezing in her steps Stare realised that it was nothing more than a zombie. It made the idea of necromancy all the more likely, and she tried to make herself as still as possible. Perhaps his stupidity would cause him to consider her a mere decoration. Beyond that ...

There was another movement. She spied it from the corner of her eye, in the peripherole vision. Tensing, she prepared to grab her dagger when needed and fly into a killing spree, sending blood and guts wherever it was required. Keeping both figures in check she waited, anxious and awkward, the zombie and the shadow, until -

Red hair. Dark eyes. Red -

Thank the kami, she sighed. It had to be Nevin after all - her dear friend who had been the one to centre all this action. The first one to stride in through the doors of doom to this haunted place.

Still though, she did not move. Instead she kept her eyes cautiously on the awkward sack of drooping flesh that made its way to a table. The zombie still did not seem to register her existence. Rather, it did seem to be that stupid. It took a dull metal tray with a thigh of carcass on it, into its hands, then began to turn. With a despairing groan it lumbered slowly back out the way it had come, not one notice to Nevin or Stare taking place.

And then her sigh of relief could come. Spinning around, she looked at the alchemist.

"Where in the worlds are we?"

[Nevin]

Nevin's knuckles were white on the grip of his whip as he sent virulent glare at the departing zombie. It had taken a very strong effort of will not to rip the damn thing apart - after his experience with the undead things in Ezoreth's Tower, where he had fought three of the accursed bastards, he was more than a bit on edge in regards to necromancy and zombies. Still - he was able to restrain himself, even if it was only for one reason.


The black pod of shadows had slipped away, revealing Stare, his dear friend standing there in her Kenku glory. She had spotted the zombie - her eyes were on it almost as soon as the shadows left her - and immediately frozen in place, and Nevin had decided to follow her lead here, and kept himself still until the door swung shut behind the zombified waiter. He let out an explosive breath and shook his head, hard.

"I think - I'm not sure about this- I think we're in... A larder? It looks like they're storing food here. If you can call that food." He indicated the tables laden with body parts with a nod of his head. Nevin was having to ignore the fact that his magic was thrumming and singing with the splashes of blood everywhere. He looked around the room - but aside from the door that the zombie had carried its gruesome burden into, there was only one other door - and it was close enough to the first that it most likely lead to the same room.

Nevin froze when that door swung open, and the same as before shuffled out. Only now, it was carrying what looked like a large pitcher. He didn't have to see it to know what was in that jug - no, his magic was singing loud enough that there was no doubt in his mind about it. He watched,
frozen in place with Stare, as the undead beast shuffled aware from the door - and when it got to the middle of the room, it was wrapped in dark black shadows, just like they had been - and then it was gone.

The alchemist fought down the urge to fetch. This was a kitchen, but one devoted to feeding those who feasted on blood.

[Stare]

Zombies are weak to fire, was his quiet first piece of advise.

Stare paused as she watched the newest creature get to the centre of the room - then disappear in a writhing mass of suddenly appearing darkness. It was clearly another teleport, the type used in this castle. Her heart thumped as realised that at any moment it could happen to them again. Whether they chose for it to or not. Certainly, the time before had not been Vitruvion after all, but the horror that dwelt within this place.

"Fire. Okay ..." she looked around and saw one of the few candles that melted fat wax onto a table, singing the wood and even merging with some of the food. She suspected that those eating this 'fine dining' would not object to a drop or two of beeswax mixed for flavouring. Especially if this was their ... kitchen.

Striding over she began to talk to Nevin, "Vitruvion says the zombies would be weak against fire," she explained. "It is a place to begin."

I am not near my library, the god murmured, and she caught a sense of him leaning back in his throne in the brotherhood council chambers, staring up at the ceiling. Still, he held his goblet in hand and still, he was alone. Give me time and I will access Ansaldo's archives.

If we have time, the teleport could take us anywhere.

Then I will be as swift as I can. There is no guarantee he ever made any undead. His eyes slid closed.

Stare breathed in and grabbed the knob of wood that made the candlestick. It took a sharp tug but she managed to free it from the table. Turning back around she looked right at Nevin.

"We need to get back to the front doors, wherever they were. Perhaps we should head in deeper?"

[Nevin]

"Fire. Yes, fire should work.
If these things operate the way the ones I fought before did, getting rid of the base of their animation should also work - the head, from the ones that I had to kill." Nevin frowned as he thought about it. There was something else - ah, cold. Too bad they didn't have Fenn available, the pint sized Fae spread frost just by existing in a location. If they could chill the zombies, their rotted bodies should end up being unable to move.

But frost wasnt available, and fire was. Fire, and taking off their heads. He would leave scorching the zombies to Stare - she seemed to have a predilection to set things ablaze. He preferred not to mess with fire outside of using it for Alchemy or cooking. Instead he cracked his neck, and let crimson threads descend from his wrists and hands, merging together into coiled red whips.

Stare already knew of his threads, so he felt no reticence about using them here. While his normal whip was better against living creatures - its blood draining capabilities were handy - against these undead beasts, the strength and versatility offered by his thread whips was more effective. He took a deep breath as he settled himself.

"None of them will look like her this time." His voice was a whisper as he steeled himself. There would be no zombie that looked like his apprentice this time. Nevin cleared his throat and nodded roughly to Stare's suggestion.

"Pressing on will be a good idea. That vampire did say we had to get something from wherever we ended up in order to progress." So before another shuffling zombie could appear and jeopardize them, Nevin strode forward heading towards the double doors. He was able to reach them without issue and he shouldered the door open, ready to defend himself.

Of course he couldn't exactly defend himself from the utterly nauseating stench that filled the room. Rotten meat, poorly cooked meat, excrement - vile odours were mixed together in a gut churning medley of terrible smells. Nevin stayed standing through sheer dint of will, and the fact that he had smelled similar things before whole working with Alchemy. It was close though, and he knew he took on a green pallor as he fought down the urge to retch.

[Stare]

Stare could honestly not remember a vampire. Mostly just Vitruvion's orders to be more open to hugs, and stay around to gather intel. There may have been a another voice that said something similar to that in the great hall, or in the realms of her unconcious, but it could have also been just some arrant thought. Pushing her gauntleted, non-candle-holding hand through her feathers at her head, pressing down the blackened glossy things, she nodded slowly, agreeing with her friend.

"It seems the doors are the way to go."

Looking around she glowered at the various hunks of meat and paused to lean down to inspect one. It had some ghoulish green, blubbery mess oozing from it, between the skin and muscle. It was raw, a pale lumpy flesh that barely looked like meat, let alone edible. Bits of gristle spoke of rotted skin and prickly fur, and there was a thick mass of marrow-filled bone that was broken, snapped in some fight. Maybe the fight to kill it. A great tendon lolled out of the side, flopping onto the table in a mangey, discontented way.

"I wonder what you once were," she murmured, then she straightened again, and let out a grunt. Nevin seemed to be equally interested in on the muck of the 'dinner' around them.

Sucking in her breath she tightened her grip around the candle and sauntered forwards. Lowering her hand to the door before them she took time to shift over to her aura sight, reading herself just in case. Just in case there happened to be some being who was not chaotically neutral like the zombies likely were - most normal slave species were, born for service and little else. If there was some good-hearted being, it might give them more of an idea of what they could expect.

Nodding once more, and for the last time then, she shoved open the door and stepped through. Raising the candle hand she prepared to set alight any who came as Vitruvion continued his wanderings of investigating his father creator god's mind and memories. She stopped still and stared as she was faced with yet more ...

Zombies. Many more of them now, yet still as seemingly empty eyed.

For now.

[Nevin]

The room that they were now in was a massive circle, gargantuan in proportion. Along the outside wall were more and more doors like the ones they had entered through - double doors that had shuffling, dead-eyed zombies stumbling through and into the room. All of the zombies that came in were carrying loads of meat just like the one that they had already witnessed, while the others were carrying jugs filled with blood. There were a few zombies that had no burdens at all, but they were few and far between - and almost all of them were out the outside edge of the room, near the wall. The center of the room was the clear destination of all the zombies carrying meat - a steady set of streaming creatures shambled their way in from the various rooms, heading for ...for...

The thing in the middle of the room defied description. It looked like a massive, undulating pile of meat that had, at some point, rotted and been shoved into a chef's uniform. The thing was enormous, easily twenty feet tall, and it looked like...like dozens of bodies had been shoved together, and their skin stripped away to reveal the raw, angry red flesh beneath. There were arms and legs sticking out of it at random intervals, but they were tiny in comparison to the disgusting monstrosity. The thing itself seemed to have no legs, instead relying upon the zombies to bring it sustenance. As they watched, horrified, a large, slimy tentacle burst from one side of the creature, and latched onto one of the platters of 'meat' that were being brought to it. The 'meat' was carried upwards, into a gaping hole that ripped open, and it vanished inside the cavernous black abyss that was the mouth of this thing. There was a moment of stillness - then a zombie carrying a jug, apparently empty, shoved it against one side of the abominable chef - just as a bloody blister formed and popped, sending a stream of thick, viscous blood down its side, and into the waiting mouth of the jug. The zombie then staggered away, carrying its repulsive burden back through a door and out of sight.

Before they could process this sight, they saw why the only zombies with nothing to carry were at the very outside edge of the room. One zombie tripped, and the platter it was carrying flew away from it. Before it could get back up and retrieve the platter, another of the meaty tentacles shot out and wrapped around the empty handed zombie, and dragged the entire undead thing into a new maw, dropping it in, still moaning and struggling. This time there was no blister of blood coming out - just a loud, disturbing crunching and cracking.

"What in the name of the Great Flow is that thing?!" Nevin's voice was shocked, stunned, and as quiet as he could make it as he stared at the abomination.

[Stare]

Stare looked doubtful.

"I have no idea," she murmured, backing up as far as she could go, without compromising the door. In her mind the idea of going back to that pantry of fleshy offcuts was not constitutional to a genuine attempt at moving onwards and getting the hell out of this place.

A gargling zombie, eyes rolled back into his head lumbered by them, making a long, low moan. Stare watched as he stretched a flailing arm in front of him and it hit the swing door. There was a screech of hinges and the door opened, allowing him in, but then it hit back at a rate he had not been expecting. The arm itself was hit and cast backward as he continued on his way. For a moment it flopped harmlessly on the floor before a great growl came from the massive fleshy beast in the centre. A great sniff sounded from a series of pig-like noses extruding from the side, and a long arm lashed out to snap it up.

Stare pressed herself all the more to the wall perpendicular to the doors, and breathed in tight. Though she had her hand stuffed with candle and dagger she still felt a great sinking feeling as she examined the morality of the fat sack of meat and little skin. It was so ugly she could have been sick, and in fact actually considered it, thinking of the circumstances. Certainly distasteful. Certainly not attractive.

Who so would ever create a thing?

It's aura was a pulsating sable nightmare, almost every chakra was dim. That meant it was a terrifying chaotic beast with no morals and little emotion - or if they were, they were bad. Especially it's hunger. It seemed starved, it's root chakra so dull it could be said to not be there at all.

"We need an explosive," Stare murmured. "Like a ... an Aleran fire cracker. Those. What we need to get it inside it ... I don't think it would take much to persuade it to eat."

She eyed up a zombie lugging his way towards them.

"Not much at all."

[Nevin]

Nevin watched with a kind of horrified fascination as the abomination in the center for the room continued its grisly meals, taking body parts both from the platters, and any that fell off of the rotting zombies that were serving it. It was a sickening sight but one he found almost impossible to look away from.

"An- an explosive. I don't carry -" Nevin paused, and looked around the room again, his eyes suddenly gleaming as he examined the chamber once more. Was he, or was he not, a skilled alchemist? And were they not in what looked like it had once been an utterly massive kitchen? He had been distracted at first by the admittedly worrisome amounts of zombies that shuffled around them, but it seemed the undead creatures were far more concerned with not becoming a snack for the thing in the middle of the room.

But now that Nevin wasn't focused on the ugly creature, only on keeping far enough out of its range that he didn't join the menu, he saw there was more to this room than he had originally noticed. Namely, cubbies and alcoves set near the edge of the room, behind zombies in some cases. He looked to their left and right, and the walls closes to them, and saw more - and saw that inside of them, what he couldn't see from far away, was that there were jugs with various warning labels upon them. He grinned, a twist to his lips.

"Well. I might need you to buy me time if any of the zombies get too interested in us, but there are plenty of supplies here that I can use. It won't be a fire-based explosive, but, well, chemical bombs can corrode flesh very, very well." He gestured towards the cubbies and their somewhat dangerous contents.