Holes/Session 55
A fragment of the Garden of Remembering
INT. Great rift at Sanessee - tunnels
As the party continues on through the tunnels, ever deeper, ever darker, they pass more figures frozen in time. The figures look black like the walls of the caverns, twisted almost. A couple even seem to have been walking on the ceiling, for whatever reason.
A mouth opens up on Rasputin with a wet pop, and a pipe slowly slides out of the corner. Rasputin gums it a bit.
The Gravedigger lights the pipe.
Rasputin opens widely with grotesque porridginess, still holding the pipe off to the side.
RASPUTIN
(mouth open and rippling)
Thanks, bro!
Rasputin closes with a wet slap.
Frezak (Gravy): I could do without the sound effect descriptions, thanks.
Bear Soup Guy (Greibel): The wet slap is essential.
Kyrule offers Rasputin a sausage, waving it about in front of the pipe.
Rasputin greedily devours the sausage, making ungodly slurping noises.
Amadi gets her own sausages. They're green. She doesn't manage quite as ungodly a display as Rasputin, though.
THE GRAVEDIGGER
I'm not cleaning up after you two.
Rhu notices an old lady with muffins amidst the other figures. (rolled 28 perception) Obviously a trap.
RHU
(whispering)
Can anyone else see the old lady with muffins over there?
Radek stares ahead, hollow-eyed and bitter. He does his best not to acknowledge the nonsense occurring behind him.
RHU
(rolled 1 reality)
Mom?
THE GRAVEDIGGER
If only your father could see you, he'd die of shame.
RHU
What are you doing here? And why are you a trap?
Rhu is initially paralysed by indecision, but then steps slowly up to his mother.
RHU
Mom?
THE GRAVEDIGGER
BEGONE, SHADOWS OF THINGS.
The Gravedigger twiddles a horn and activates eyebeams. His eyes gleam like headlights. (rolled 37 perception)
The trap ignores him, though she's clearly visible to the others, too, now.
AMADI
Why didn't I ever have a trap-mum? Or even a muffin mum! This is so unfair.
KYRULE
You didn't have a mum at all.
AMADI
Exactly! So unfair!
The trap smiles to Rhu, holding out the muffins, beckoning him closer.
KYRULE
Pretty sure that was your own doing.
You could have had a mum. If you'd wanted to. At the time.
Rasputin opens a mouth grotesquely.
RASPUTIN
(mouth open and rippling)
IT'S A TRAP!
Rasputin closes with a wet slap.
RHU
(smiling at his mum)
What are you doing here?
(he reaches out for a muffin)
But why aren't you talking?
THE GRAVEDIGGER
Amadi! Fire!
Radek sighs and raises his rifle at the muffin tray.
THE GRAVEDIGGER
(pointing dramatically)
FIRE AT WILL!
Amadi digs muffins out of her pockets and starts throwing them willy-nilly. One of them bops Rhu in the head.
When he looks again, the trap that would have been his mother is just shadows and rock. And some muffins on the ground.
RHU
What? Did you guys see that?
Rhu backs away from it, back towards the rest of the party.
AMADI
Muffin attack! I'm the best!
Amadi air-punches.
RADEK
Yes, I saw it.
THE GRAVEDIGGER
I SEE ALL!
KYRULE
Indeed.
RHU
It was a trap. It was... that was...
RADEK
An aging domestic servant. With victuals in hand.
KYRULE
Not your mother.
RADEK
Yes. Don't be so gullible, Rhu.
Rasputin opens a mouth grotesquely.
RASPUTIN
(mouth open and rippling)
I TOLD YOU!
Rasputin closes with a wet slap.
RHU
Right... yes...
I need to sit down for a second. But maybe we should just keep moving and get out of here before stranger things happen.
Ganelon (Radek): I was going to type out "the only food safe to eat in these parts is what Amadi offers us", but then I took a second to think about it. And no, it's probably not.
Radek glances at Gravy.
RADEK
Can you support another passenger?
KYRULE
Butterflies sure are nice.
Sorry, did I say that aloud?
AMADI
Mmm, yes... butterflies...
RHU
No, I'm... I'll be okay. Let's keep moving and get to that damn hole.
KYRULE
Yes. The damage only spreads.
As they continue on, Kyrule makes some glowing butterflies and sends them ahead into the darkness, and then follows vaguely after one of the butterflies.
Amadi makes a decorative candy butterfly (that also shines) and eats it.
Rasputin opens a mouth grotesquely.
RASPUTIN
(mouth open and rippling)
EVERYTHING IS HORRIBLE.
(wet semi-belch)
ERR... EXCUSE ME.
Rasputin closes with a wet slap.
Bear Soup Guy (Greibel): I don't know why I'm yelling. It just seems like the right thing to do.
INT. Great rift at Sanessee - crypts
Ahead, the tunnels break into a series of chambers, cut out of the rock, probably long before any of this began.
It gets colder as the party approaches, unnaturally cold.
Radek stabs himself with a syringe the moment it seems like he might be caught shivering.
Amadi starts pulling coloured blankets, tied together at the corners, out of her pocket and makes a blanket fortress on top of Gravy, peeking out through an opening between his horns. Then she starts playing bagpipes. (rolled 31 perform) The ends stick out of the blanket fort awkwardly.
A small whistle slides out of Rasputin's pipe and plays along.
A tumble of rocks marks the entrance. The crack splits right through the chamber before them. It's something of a crypt, with some frozen zombies and a couple of wraiths just sort of floating, frozen in time. The zombies are glowing horribly.
A large bird carving on the wall, surrounded by strange raven glyphs, marks an association with Neiryo, a goddess of wisdom. There was something mad here. They wanted to ward it.
The Gravedigger and Kyrule head in, passing a sign saying, in large blocky letters, "This crypt is managed by GEORGE". The undead utterly neglect to respond to this.
The Gravedigger heads down the stairs to to check out the next room, and Rhu and Radek enter as well, though Radek hangs back a bit before trailing after, holding his shielding orb. He doesn't even have his gun out.
Kyrule takes a swipe at a nearby zombie with a semi-transparent sword as she passes, and both zombie and sword explode into glittering dust, which just sort of hangs in the air.
Frezak (Gravy): Okay, she's cheating.
In the lower room, there is a strange design on the floor, like a riddle wrapped in an enigma wrapped in utter insanity. other than the wraith, the room is basically empty. A large doorway set into the far wall heralds further crypts, and the cleft of the tunnel that brought the party here in the first place opens up a bit to the side of it.
Rhu examines the design on the floor and discerns very little. (rolled 12 religion) It's pretty insane. Also very religious. There's power behind it.
The Gravedigger glances at Kyrule.
Kyrule points down the cleft ravine thing.
The Gravedigger peeks down the ravine. It looks much like the tunnel in, but here it's deeper, cleaving down into the earth with only a narrow passage on the edge, and it's glowing. Horribly, and more intensely the further in it goes.
THE GRAVEDIGGER
Is this it?
KYRULE
Not far now.
Gleaming.
Rhu mutters something to Radek about the zombies maybe coming after them when this is all over, and why are they all frozen anyway?
Radek reminds him that they're all currently outside of time.
RHU
But why?
KYRULE
That would be my doing.
THE GRAVEDIGGER
Go oooon.
KYRULE
Time and space are already off here. This can be used, and it can be broken, but for now, we're only partially here to begin with. Tethered to the place, in a single point in time.
RHU
Only partially here? Where's the rest of us, then?
KYRULE
Outside.
THE GRAVEDIGGER
Hmmmm.
RHU
I see.
Rhu clearly does not see.
KYRULE
The mathematics are extremely complicated. Just trust that you are here, but not, and thus you will reach your destination.
AMADI
I can play two bagpipes at once. Harmonizing.
Rasputin gets a slightly disconcerted face, and opens a mouth grotesquely.
RASPUTIN
I can only do one...
Rasputin closes with a wet slap and toots the whistle sadly.
RADEK
The only reason my inquiry will cease at that explanation is because our own timeframe is clearly not infinite.
Let's move on.
KYRULE
Indeed.
The Gravedigger throws a rock down the cleft of the tunnel. The rock falls a bit and bounces before finally clattering to a halt a ways down.
Glowing butterflies flutter about.
The Gravedigger gets his move on down the ledge passage, and the others follow after. Kyrule and Amadi play with the butterflies.
The Gravedigger hums.
It's actually really boring.
INT. Great rift at Sanessee - caverns
After entirely too much walking, the tunnel abruptly opens up in horrible, illusory glow. The party comes out into a grand cavern, long and deep, full of sections new and old. Stalagmatigites and crap define various edges and sections, some so old so as to have closed up entirely, forming solid pillars and even walls. Pools cover the floor, and rise up in sections under various drips, their edges built up over time from mineral deposits.
The newer areas are not so normal, shattered and bubbled, walls carved not by water over time but by broken reality.
In the pool before them, large and clear as night, the water is perfectly transparent, apart from the black, glowing tendrils spreading through it, and the flickering sheen on the surface forming fractal patterns in the light...
Amadi puts away her bagpipes and looks wide-eyed at the pools. Jumping off Gravy, she runs over to the large one, picking a flat rock out of her hair.
The Gravedigger looks at Radek, waiting for Science to happen.
HAZZ'RIDAN
(such that only Rhu can hear)
Here. You must close it.
RHU
Hazz'ridan says it's here. The Hole, I think he means. We must close it.
RADEK
Your god is, shockingly, correct.
But we'll know when we see the source. This is only close to it.
RHU
See? I told you he was good for something!
AMADI
This might cause a cave-in, guys. Just so you know. If it doesn't, something else probably will.
Amadi skips the stone across the fractal patterns on the surface. They dance about to meet it at each individual skip, before the stone suddenly stops, suspended mid-bounce.
THE GRAVEDIGGER
Hmmmmm.
A little quiet voice in the back of Gravy's head recalls that he's only holding the concept of the shovel. Metaphorical gears turn.
The Gravedigger looks at Radek again.
Radek shoos him forward.
THE GRAVEDIGGER
But... Hole?
KYRULE
Over there. Beyond the water, and, for now, the light.
I'm uncertain light will even shine on this one. Should be an interesting effect.
THE GRAVEDIGGER
Hmmm.
The Gravedigger plods forwards, and they skirt around the edge of the large pool, until another deep ravine cleft stops them, about three metres wide, this one cutting through the cavern itself, deep into the floor. For some reason the water was sliced as cleanly as the ground, only the tendrils underneath continue on where the water should be. Across the ravine.
On the other side, the cavern continues on as normal.
The Gravedigger tosses a couple of rocks into the ravine. They fall into nothing.
RADEK
This should be it.
RHU
Across the ravine?
KYRULE
Aye. Space seems to have shattered around the epicentre. This is not good.
Kyrule glides over the ravine and continues on ahead.
Radek takes a moment to make a hardlight bridge, and walks across. He knows it's stable, but looks down into the chasm below. (rolled 14 reality)
It doesn't end. Reality was simply sheered, torn apart. Below, there is nothing, and light that is not light. Light full of laughter, full of fear and loneliness. Full of other things, too, things that can't quite be felt, things that should be remembered, because they've always been there, somewhat at a tangent to perception... but aren't.
Rhu and Gravy follow after.
Not far on, they find another chasm, this one much larger, and much more distinct. It is as though a great hole was punched through the space of the cavern, both above and below, with huge cracks spreading out around it, outward, and in various circles connecting them, like shattered glass. Except this time the ravine, the hole, isn't what stands out. What stands out is the shape hovering utterly still in the middle of it.
It's round and pointed on the ends. Littler bits form teardrops drawing away from it, but the main one is metres across, and more tall, covered in gleaming, but black, black, black.
It whispers, filling the minds of all around, full of nothing, full of promise, of everything, hinting at the worlds. Here, is it as though nothing is true. Here, there is no need, no desire, only a vague, growing dread, only the purring, only the underside of the realms.
Bear Soup Guy (Greibel): This hole has another hole inside of it. The hole on the inside is bigger somehow. And also on fire.
Kyrule is standing in front of it, facing the party as they approach, utterly dwarfed by its shape, looking dim and colourless. Something, even darker than the rift itself, is shimmering at her edges.
KYRULE
This is what you must close.
THE GRAVEDIGGER
Gosh.
