>>33110896
>WHO THE HELL CARES SHE'S SWINGING A FUCKING KNIFE AT ME

>>33110896
>[x]She's under control.

I've been looking forward to this all day.

>[x]She's under control.

Fuck yeah Yume Nikki quest!
>>33110896
>>[x]She's under control.

>>33110896
>[X]She's under control.

>>33110896
[x]>>33111029

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>>33111029

Survival first.

She snaps to her feet like a bullwhip, wicked steel winking in her hand as she lowers her head and charges like a bull, the long blade in one hand and hooked, eager fingers on the other. You fling the axe with a sideways toss and she leans further into her charge like a linebacker, the weapon sailing harmlessly over her head as she charges straight into the heel of your sneaker -

- or would have. She ducks her head like a startled bird and seems to stretch like a twilight shadow as her lunge becomes a dive, sliding across the slick ground and into the shadows, the faint tink of a knifetip the only thing you hear.

You scramble to your axe and heft it, sprinting towards the closest lamp-post and pressing your back to it, quick, tight breaths wheezing out of you.

>[ ] I have to stop her.
>[ ] I have to save her.
>[ ] I have to escape.

>>33111174
>>[ ] I have to save her.
I'M A HEROOOOOOO

>>33110896
Is the first option meaning "she's being controlled"? Because at first I read it as "she's not out of hand" for some reason.

>>33111174
>>[x] I have to stop her.
First let's get that knife away from her, then we can think what to do next.

>>33111222

Yes.

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>>33110896
Awright, yume nikki.

[x] I have to save her.

The most efficient way to save her is probably to stop her, though.

>>33111174
>[x] I have to save her.

Let's kick our firefighter instincts into gear! I mean, this actually Madotsuki's creepy mirror doppleganger and we should axe her some questions, but we don't know that, so we're going with rescuing.

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>theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tku5ELCpruU&list=PLU4ktq2pWONsZjNJfmbfMY4jAU3KyZ871&index=33

You stare wildly into the night, turning in quick little circles as you slide around the iron pole, but you can only see the little islands of lamplight and the reflection of dark, scudding clouds that aren't there drifting by in the flat puddles that spread into the darkness.

Somewhere, a foot splashes in one, and a giggle echoes through the black.

Five minutes ago you'd been Found, by the dreamer, in her own dream. The park ranger had found you, the helicopter was on the way, the six PM news was running a feel good story on it. Your reality anchor just dove into a dark lake and you can feel the line pulling you after.

"I can he~ar you," a voice fairly bubbles from every direction at once, the puddles rippling.

"Heeeeee," you wheeze as your lungs lock up in fright. You stagger, a little dizzy, when you hear footsteps in the water again.

"Here I come."

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>>33111471

The splashing cacophony of footsteps echoes and bounces through the void, coming from all directions, closer and closer from every side until at last she appears to your right, eyes afire with demonic glee and the kitchen knife glinting eagerly in her hand. The steel slashes in, a short, brutal arc that terminates against the iron crowbar attached to your axe-shaft as you meet her swing with your own, kicking at her leg and bringing the flat of the axe down upon her. She dances away with impossible ease, the flickering knife jabbing towards your eye.

You feel the tip brush your forehead as you jerk aside, cold and wet, then shove forward with the axeshaft. She goes flying, landing on her back and rolling adroitly into the darkness.

"LET HER GO!" you wail, your voice cracking. "LET HER GO!"

"Let my people g~oooo~" a voice croons with mocking tones from behind you, and she comes in again, laughing full-out this time, beady red pupils flaming with delight. You lunge to meet her, shoving the axe at her like a spear, one-handed, and when she twists away from it, the knife arrowing towards your heart, you catch it with your palm. Ice spears your hand, so cold you want to scream, but you just seize her wrist and *twist* with all your might as her pigtails bounce about with her strange cries.

"OUT!" you scream madly, your breathless voice pushed to its hysteric limits. "GIVE HER BACK GIVE HER BACK FUCK YOU GIVE HER BACK GIVE HER BACK GIVE HER BACK-"

>>33111718
Grope the girl.

Caught this early! Time to break up the atmosphere by saying how much I love this quest.

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>>33111718

You lock her knife-hand under your arm and twist violently, slamming her body into the ground with a wet *splat,* your vision going dizzy as you scream, crushing her wrist with your free hand. You lever the knife sideways with your impaled palm and sharp bursts of light explode before your eyes, your lungs emptying in a hideous shriek that rips through the dark.

Madotsuki, who found you.

Who made you name yourself.

Who gave you a road out of here.

Gave you a purpose.

A future.

Hope.

You lungs empty out, and somewhere else something tinkles and splatters on the ground.

>>33111859
KISS HER YOU FAGGOT!

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>>33111859

You come to your senses a moment later, hanging off the iron lamppost by the crook of your arm as your hand twitches and spasms uselessly, dark liquid running forth in a slow flow. You fight for breath against the taut muscles constricting your chest, leaning your head back as you gulp for air.

In the darkness, a knife-blade shimmers and vanishes with a splash.

You look down at your foot, where you'd stomped on the blade as it fell... but only dark, brackish water is under your sneaker, foul and sullen.

You keen miserably as you clutch your wrist, not daring to touch the wound, so badly does it ache.

Something's wrong.

The girl who gazed at you with those deep brown eyes and asked for Help.

That isn't her.

That isn't her anywhere in there.

[ ] Find Madotsuki.
[ ] Dispatch the fiend. You only need one solid hit.

>>33111937
Please do not kiss the daughteru in a romantic fashion.

>>33111958
>[ ] Find Madotsuki.

>>33111958
>[ ] Find Madotsuki.
I don't want to go down the road Madotsuki went down. I don't want to be lightninging and stabbing first.

>>33111958
>[x] Find Madotsuki.

>>33111958
>[X] Find Madotsuki.
Given that this appears to literally be Madotsuki's reflection come to horrible life, I'm not confident that any wounds inflicted on it won't be mirrored on her. Let's not go chopping just yet.

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>>33112058
>>33112027
>>33112020
>>33111995

You collapse on one knee and snatch up your axe, heavy and awkward in just one hand - but its the first friend you found in this nightmare, at the beginning, and hasn't failed you once yet. As more splashing and laughter tinkle and drip through the dark a blind and hot fury rises in your blood, the axe shaking as you imagine driving it through that fucking apparition's skull. Everything about it is wrong; slippery as eels and playful as licking flames. Its not her, and never was -

- you lurch to your feet in panic as you realize Madotsuki is out there somewhere, in the dark, alone with the monster. Remembering how Mado activated the lamp, you begin battering it with your axe-head, kicking it with your sneakers, making the sturdy iron vibrate as it flashes and flickers like a sparkler.

"MADO!" you scream into the darkness, the demonic giggles lost underneath your hoarse bellow. "MADO! MADO! OH GOD, MADO, COME TO ME!"

Its not working. You sprint into the darkness, axe held aloft and ready in one hand, the other twitching as you tuck that elbow close to keep it out of the way. "MADO!"

There's only one real place to look in this empty, morose world - the puddles. You dash to each one in turn, peering into them, searching through the reflection of somber, scudding clouds for the girl.

And then, impossibly, you find her.

>[ ] Call to her
>[ ] Stick something into the puddle to pull her out
>[ ] Go in and get her

>>33112301
>>[X] Go in and get her

>>33112301
>>[x] Go in and get her
Dive right into the flam... water.

>>33112301
>>[X] Go in and get her
Strip diving go!

>>33112301
>[x] Go in and get her

>>33112384
I mean skinny dipping.

>>33112301
>[X] Go in and get her

We must go deeper!

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>>33112384
>>33112357
>>33112349

The fire axe's rear spike throws sparks as you bury it in the asphalt earth with one mighty blow, anchoring yourself - and then you dive in with your wounded hand, the bone-deep ice-ache stabbing up your arm and stealing your breath as it breaks the surface of the brackish water. But below you can see Madotsuki looking up at you, bubbles floating away from her mouth as she screams for help. You thrust deep, your fingertips just brushing hers as she flails for you. Not even pausing to take a breath, your mouth fills with stagnant water as you thrust your head and shoulders in, lights popping your skull as you force your ruined hand to close around her wrist and PULL.

She's caught somewhere below, by her ankles. Mad panic lights up every nerve of your body as you pour every last iota of strength into pulling her hand as her dying breath bubbles around your head and floats to the surface. You grip ever tighter, drawing her upwards with all your might as your lungs catch fire and explode in your breast.

Your vision dims, and you set your fingers tighter as the darkness comes for you.

OK, I missed last thread and just got to this one.
We know we're a firefighter but something doesn't add up for me: The Smokejumper patch and the tinfoil tents (fire shelters) would seem to indicate that we're a firefighter of the forest variety, but the fact that we have the Irons seems like we were in a residential setting.
Is there anyone here who actually knows this stuff?

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>>33112533

Asphyxia is painful.

You know this.

The darkness that closes in - the last desperate thoughts that fire off and go bouncing around a dying brain - is terrifying.

You know this.

So you can't let her go alone.

The turgid water stirs and you rise, your clothes tugging and waving in the current, so very far away. A last dream, perhaps, or your first step to elsewhere -

- and you're dropped on the cold, hard asphalt like a dead fish. Someone snarls with fury nearby, and then its over, your eyes getting a great view of the top of your skull as your brain stem handles the breathing.

"What... the... fuck...?" Mado asks, falling on her rump beside you, her knife clattering and ringing on the ground. "Stark... Stark?" Your eyes roll 'round the right way just as her face hovers into view above you, half-lit by the weak lamp. "Stark!" she winds up and slaps you across the chops, brackish sludge flying from your mouth and knocking your head sideways.

"Oouuf," you complain, barley conscious.

"STARK!" she screams, her face drawn with anger, and slaps you again, *hard.* Bells go ringing through your head. "BREATHE!"

You reach up and clutch at her pink sweater, seizing a big handful. She jerks back, surprised, but you just hold it weakly and let your eyes and lungs and everything burn and burn and burn, your chest heaving for air.

Air. Definitely air.

>>33112699
And her sweet scent....

>>33112579

You are indeed a firefighter in a residential setting, in a structure fire. The causal links between the Mann Gulch encounter and you, personally, aren't that rigid or strong. (For instance, the foil survival shelters didn't even exist when the Mann Gulch disaster happened, which was in 1949. There's been incidents much more recently where they were used, however, one which claimed almost the same number of lives.)

Dreams are strange places where some stuff gets mashed together oddly, where themes override chronology or causality. And if that's not enough, well, nobody ever said *everything* in this dream comes from you or Mado's minds alone...

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>>33112699

She rolls you on your side, slapping your back to evict any stray water -

- and you come face-to-face with what's left of Madotsuki. Her face is just beginning to melt, the red pupils of her mad eyes expanding and mixing with the whites of her eyes, mixed pinks and whites in a spreading puddle around her the only thing left of her body -

- you roll the other way, flopping about like a fish, wheezing and keening with fright.

"Its dead, its dead, it's dead," she croons, stroking your hair. "Its dead." She waits for you to cough out more water, then prods you. "What the hell were you doing?"

"Tuh... trying to pull you... out," you sputter weakly.

She's silent for a long moment.

"Are you retarded?"


>We're safe, we're safe, we're safe, that's what matters
>Knock her into the closest puddle
>write-in vote

>>33112893
>>We're safe, we're safe, we're safe, that's what matters

>>33112893
>>We're safe, we're safe, we're safe, that's what matters
Your face, your face, wtf the matter?!

>>33112893
Yes? I didn't vote for jumping in.

>>33112893
>Knock her into the closest puddle

>>33112893
>>write-in vote
Touch her face, try to get it back together.

>>33112893
>explain about the not-her and trying to find her, you were panicked and not thinking

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>>33112950
>>33112936
>>33112919

"Nice... to see... you... too, sweetheart. Eeeaaah," you wimper, rolling onto your back and proffering your impaled hand by the wrist. "How bad is it?"

"How bad is what?"

You crack open an eye and check your hand - which is conspicuously unstabbed, the icy ache fading by the second. "It stabbed me."

She looks down at the rapidly melting doppleganger, and back at you. "Serves you right for sticking your FACE in it, idiot."

You wipe the water out of your eyes and squeeze it out of you drenched hair. "What did you see?"

"You were right behind me one second, and then you weren't. I saw a lamp flashing, heard you shouting, and by the time I got here you were buried up to your shoulders in THAT thing," she says, indicating the monster. "I shanked it and pulled you out. What the hell were YOU doing?" she says, giving you a stink-eye that implies Suspicion of Lewd.

>Admit to thinking the Real Her was in a puddle, and you weren't strong enough to pull back when it sprang the trap
>Admit to being totally suckered
>Admit to everything, including completely flipping your shit

>>33113166
>Admit to everything (except lewd, that was like one anon), including completely flipping your shit

>>33113166
>>Admit to everything, including completely flipping your shit

>>33113166
>>Admit to everything, including completely flipping your shit
Confessions thread!

>>33113198
As that anon, i counter you anti-lewd vote. Must admit lewdness heheheheh.

>>33113166
>>Admit to everything, including completely flipping your shit
Where did she go, then, if she wasn't actually in the puddle? What happened to her while the doppleganger was messing with us?

>>33113265
>"You were right behind me one second, and then you weren't. I saw a lamp flashing, heard you shouting, and by the time I got here you were buried up to your shoulders in THAT thing,"

>>33113166
>>Admit to everything, including completely flipping your shit
No secrets allowed in dreamland.

>>33113272
>"I shanked it and pulled you out."
Whoops, part 2.

>>33113272
No, I mean, how did we get separated? We WERE right behind her. So how and when did the doppleganger switch out for her? Was there some sort of hypnotic effect?

>>33113166
Wait, if Mado is le japonais and we're not, how do we understand each other? What language are we even speaking?

>>33113321
Probably, dream within a dream magic.

>>33113343
Dream logic, son. Sometimes we don't even speak and we understand each other.

>>33113321
From her account, more time passed for us than for her. Dreams are weird like that.

>>33113321
With all the weird shit that has happened, that is what you want to ask about?

>>33113374
I would hope that having two minds observing it would make the dream world cohere to causality more. One person can get distracted and give the dream an opportunity to change something when they're not noticing. Two should be able to keep an eye on each other. But I guess that doesn't work.

>>33113416
Mado did look away. There's your distraction.

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>>33113198
>>33113217
>>33113219
>>33113241
>>33113265

"You were in front of me the whole time... I thought. You - *it* - just turned around and tried to fillet me like a carp, laughing like a lunatic. It was like trying to punch water." You sit up, shaking the ache out of your hand. "Kept coming after me - thought you were being mind-controlled or something-"

"-In my own dream?"

"-yes and shut up," you continue. "Figured out it wasn't you, and when I went looking I saw you in that puddle, drowning."

"Drowning in a puddle?"

"I saw you in it, I saw you drowning, I went in, okay?"

She glances at the fire axe, the spike embedded completely in the asphalt, and looks thoughtful. "Why'd you stick your whole head in-"

"I was SCARED, you idiot!" you cry, splashing water at her from a nearby puddle. "This whole place is terrifying and then I find you and you're sane and human and sane and, then, you, you just-"

"Oh," she says, taken aback. "I... sorry." She fidgets, stands, brushes her skirt off. "... but your whole HEAD?"

>>33113435
Yeah, but we were looking at her the whole time. Somehow she still got separated from us. Freaking dreamworld.

>>33113439
Yes....I was scared okay? *tears fall*

>>33113502
I don't like manly men but this is going too far in the other direction.

>>33113439
You don't think clearly when you're panicing.

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>>33113439

"You. Were. Drowning. IDIOT," you grump, starting to blush as you start yanking at the firmly embedded axe. You just flipped out like a child in a thunderstorm and she clearly heard a good three-quarters of your terrified babbling, but she just can't let it go. "I couldn't reach you. I had to go deeper."

"... you never tried to pull out?"

"Everyone knows that doesn't work-"

She smacks the top of your head.

"Seriously. That thing shouldn't have been able to hold you that firmly."

You yank the axe free with a final grunt of exertion, and wearily sling it over your shoulder again. "It didn't."

"... what."

"I didn't even realize what it was till I saw it melting after you ventilated it."

"You were literally drowning in that thing," she says. "What the hell were you thinking?"

"You - it - whatever," you say, swiping at air. "You were stuck, somehow, I couldn't lift you."

"... so why did you stay under?"

You tilt your head and look her in the eye. "... Mado, you lost me."

So what part exactly was our head buried in? Aren't we taller than her? It would be pretty awkward to get our head in any part.

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>>33113579

"Its nothing," she murmurs.

"Uh-huh," you say, too exhausted to care (even though you're asleep, how droll he he oh god fuck this everything) and gesture with your hand. "But before we enter the next part of Miss Mado's Mindfucked Ride, kindly brief me on the ghosts and ghoulies *before* we get there?"

She glares at you. "That was all you, dumbass."

"Sure looked like you. Literally."

She shrugs. "So you're a pervert lolicon-"

"-the fuck is a lolicon?"

"-or whatever. There's nothing like that in my dreams, at all, ever. The only thing in this whole world is puddles and lamps. Usually. It had to be from you."

You squint at her dubiously. "Mado, if I can get into your dream... maybe other things can, too."

Her eyes widen, but she says nothing; just turns and beckons for you to follow.

>>33113592

It was spread out on the floor like a big sentient murder-puddle, terminator 2 style!

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>theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhIc6BuII64&list=PLU4ktq2pWONsZjNJfmbfMY4jAU3KyZ871&index=34

Madotsuki leads you to a dark door, and throwing it wide - into The Nexus.

There can be no other name for The Nexus. You seem to stride on a pane of crystal clear class suspended over a dark void, beautiful and somber glyphs of vast size slowly rotating and spinning through the darkness below you. Standing in a wide ring around you are twelve doors, and set apart from them, more distant, a thirteenth - of simple wood.

"We now go to the Number World," Madotsuki warns you. "Its... not a comfortable place. Stay close, and don't touch anything. Don't axe anything, either. Especially not the Toriningen. Its all over if you do that."

"Why?" you ask, hefting the axe. "I've axed plenty of questions since I got here."

She grumps at you, eyes lidded. "Nothing you didn't bring yourself, I think. I've tried it many times, trust me. Sometimes you can even get three or four thrusts in while they're juicing up to teleport you, but it never works. All it does is piss them off. DO. NOT. AXE. THEM."

You press the axe/crowbar combo to your chest in salute. "Aye-Aye, cap'n."

She makes for a big purple door with an ugly red bulb in the center that looks suspiciously like an eye. "Are you ready?"

>Ready and unwilling, ayep.
>... what's that plain door over there?

>>33113929
>>... what's that plain door over there?
We're curious

>>33113929
>... what's that plain door over there?

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>"I couldn't reach you. I had to go deeper."

>>33113929
>>Ready and unwilling, ayep.
I would be curious, but we have no reason to think the plain door is any weirder than the other weird doors.

>>33113929
>Ready and unwilling, ayep.
Let's not waste time. We're dying in a fire in the real world, we need to stay focused.

>>33113987
It is not in the ring, but placed separately. It must have a different purpose.

>>33113929
>... what's that plain door over there?
Tiebreaking in progress.

>>33113929
>>... what's that plain door over there?

I wonder whether we can exit through it? What would that even do?

>>33113929
>...can I have a look at your room?

>>33113998
>Let's not waste time. We're dying in a fire in the real world, we need to stay focused.
It would be kind of awesome if we did die and our ghoooooost helped Mado.

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>>33114113

"Suppose so," you say. "Wait. I thought you said we need to go through the staircase of Hands, first."

"You don't... 'go' to the Staircase just like that," she mutters. "You can get to it from a few places, but you need a bed, first."

You've a brief image of standing at the head of a four-poster king-size as it sails through the starry sky, the wind blowing your silk scarf back as you adjust your goggles. "Beats a carpet, I guess. There's a bed in there?"

"Yes," she says, and begins to crack the door.

"Waaaaait," you intone, clapping a hand on her shoulder and poking your axe at the plain wooden door set apart from the ring. "What's with that one?"

"... what about it," she says tersely.

"Its... normal. And over yonder, too."

"That's the door to my room. Dream room, anyways. Nothing in there. Lets go." She swings the door open to Number World and tries to step through.

"Wait," you say, tugging at her sweater. "Isn't there a bed in your room?"

"Duh," she mutters.

"Why not use that?"

"Why not use the one in here?"

"... can I have a look at your room?"

She spins to stare at you disconcertingly. "What the hell."

>what say

>>33114395
I have to agree with Mado. What the hell. Why would you just ask something like that.

>>33114395
>"I-It's not like I like you or anything"

>>33114395
"I'm... curious?"

>>33114395
>"Just curious" you reply after an awkward silence. You feel twitching in your pocket and as you grasp it you notice it is quickly filling with spaghetti.

>>33114395
"That was the response I was hoping for. Weird dream monsters don't have a sense of propriety. At least I don't think they do. That puddle doppleganger got me paranoid. But yeah, you're probably the real Madotsuki. Let's go."

Hahahahahaha. Creepy write-in people never stop.

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>>33114443
>>33114441

What the hell, indeed.

"... a room?" you ask. "Like, a normal room with, a bed, and a TV and a desk and bookshelves with shitty knick-knacks you never dust and the pile of laundry you're too lazy to fold? You know, normal? In HERE?"

She looks uncomfortable at this. "So?"

You shrug. "I dunno. I kind of feel-"

- powerless -

"-like you might vanish at any second or something. Maybe you're just a fragment of my imagination, an ex-girlfriend I really hated or something WOAH-" you exclaim as she directs a kick at your shin. "This place might be familiar to you 'cuz its your head and all, but I just feel... scared."

She turns away from you and takes the doorknob to Number World in hand. "I'm used to it down here," she says quietly. "Never said I liked it, though."

Madotsuki pushes the door open to Number world, and draws you through.

>>33114543
>Madotsuki pushes the door open to Number world, and draws you through.
Whoa whoa whoa, hold up. Draws us through? With her hand? And our hand?

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>>33114583
Stop trying to Waifu Mado, seriously. She's way younger than us, and pretty insane.

Besides, she's not even best protag.

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>>33114543
>theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJFSrlpcFUI&index=25&list=PLU4ktq2pWONsZjNJfmbfMY4jAU3KyZ871

You step into a bad place.

The walls in this hallway glow with black light, and the glossy black floor beneath your feet seems to reflect you and the walls from below and above at the same time. You glance up to find another black marble surface polished to a mirror-like sheen. Caught between the rebounding, recursive reflections, you have to look away -

- at the purple, distorted faces painted on every dark-green wall, their mouths open in perpetual screams.

And then, of course, there's the sound.

The walls vibrate with the deep thrum and rumble of machinery, something deep below, or far above, churning and churning. The irregular and strangely distorted rings of huge bells or goings echo and thrum through your sternum; as if you're standing in the heart of a gigantic grandfather clock that's not running right.

Glancing at Madotsuki, you realize - you might just.

>>33114739
Ask Mado if the enviro is normal cause its a bit much.

>>33114739
Fuck the freakishness, hum a happy tune

might just what?

And why couldn't we use the bed in dream-Mado's room?

>>33114874
Because it doesn't go to where we're heading. We can only get to the stairway from a certain bed. It's dream logic, just go with it.

>>33114874
She probably just didn't want us seeing her room. She's done this a lot, she's used to it. To her, going to that bed is a lot easier than letting us into the room of a Hikikomori, after all.

>>33114917
She didn't explain that though. She implied that either bed would work fine.

>"Why not use that?"
>"Why not use the one in here?"

And the obvious reply now is: because your dream room isn't creepy as fucking hell.

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>>33114806
>>33114739

"I guess this is different too?"

"No," Madotsuki says tersely. "Not one damn bit." She's still got you by the hand - wrist, actually - and is gripping you rather tightly, dragging you along rather fast. You glance left-right-left-"

"Why are the fucking walls bleeding, Mado-"

"Because its a dream and shut up," she says, recycling your own words. As she drags you through the nightmare, you look down and see a number scrawled on the dark floor in something red and smeary - 853.

The numbers continue as she pulls you through the labyrinthine halls, looking down and checking them on occasion while muttering to herself. Apparently they're useful as landmarks, because quite soon she's drawn up before another odd-looking door.

"In here," she says. "And remember - do NOTHING."

She flings wide the door.

Inside, you see an endless horde of Toriningen.

>RUN
>HIDE
>CHARGE

>>33115005
Listen to Mado, do nothing. Atleast not yet.

>>33115005
>do NOTHING

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>>33114956

Actually, either bed WOULD work fine; but there's something else nearby in Number World she needs to pick up, first.

>why isn't this a party hard macro yet

>>33115005
She said do nothing. Do absolutely nothing. Follow Mado.

>>33115005
>Do nothing, like Mado said
Seriously, let's not be more stupid than we have been lately.

>>33115005
>FREEZE
Stay perfectly still. They probably can't see us if we don't move. Though whisper to Mado that she better not be another evil doppleganger trying to get us killed, because this time we're going to go straight to chopping. Just thought she should know.

>>33115005
Do nothing and prepare for Mado to be freaked out when all the bird people start shouting PRONGIE and bum rush us anyway.

>>33115039
I was hoping we would get to the Ravebox in the desert.

>>33115005
>- wrist, actually -
Phew. That's alright then.

>>33115005
>MOONWALK

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You stare into the eyes of seventy-odd assorted creepy birdfolk, and respond the only way you know how.

"Whuuu," you emote intelligently. The functioning remnant of your cerebellum spins you around to begin walking the fuck away until your hindbrain supplies vivid images of seventy-odd birdfolk landing on your back with clawed feet and ripping your spine out with their terrifying freakish long horrible horrid nasty beaks -

"Come on!" Mado insists, and you turn to see her thrusting a small model of a traffic signal before her, the red light glowing intensely. Hand still clamped onto your wrist, she drags you through the standing ranks and file of birdmen, careful not to brush up against them. "They're not supposed to be awake," she mutters. "They're not supposed to be awake."

"How long does that thing last?" you ask her, cold sweat beading on your forehead as your hand creaks on the axeshaft.

"Long enough," she says. "They're not hostile anyways... but they're also asleep, anyways, every time." There's a tension in her voice, like she's waiting for the next shoe to fall. You lock your eyes on her hand, where she's gripping your wrist, not looking at the hordes of birdmen flocking (hur hur) on all sides, standing straight at attention by the head of each bed, still as statues.

Statues. Literally. No rise and fall of exhalation, no fidgeting, not even the slightest sign of a pulse in their necks - even the deep, alien thrum seems unable to rustle their (oddly human) hair. They wait, as silent and inevitable as ICBMs in their silos.

This isn't a bedroom, you realize.

It's a barracks.

Madotsuki draws up before her goal - the opposite wall. A long, violent gash has been carved out of the wall, and the gash is... bleeding. You clap a hand over your mouth involuntarily at the stench, which almost seems like...

- your gorge rises, and you clamp your hand tighter to stifle your weak little sounds of disgust as you force it down again.

>>33115417
Think calm and soothing thoughts. Like how soft Mado's hands are.

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>>33115475

>>33115475
First of all, we haven't been given a prompt. Second, she's a little kid, we're at least a young adult. If we're the Iron Man, we're probably a bit older than a new recruit.

>>33115568
So? I'm all for not waifuing her, but "She's too young!" is not an argument.

>>33115599
Right, forgot where I was for a second.

>>33115475
It's probably cutting off our dream-circulation. That's not pleasant.

>>33115568
I don't think she's a little kid. The impression I got was that she was around 14 or so. Still too young for our adult protagonist to romance, though. Still way too young.

>>33115774
>pinch yourself

It's time to wake up again.

>>33115774
>PROTECT THE PRINCIPAL

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>theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFS4zYWxzNA

"One of the effects we need is through here," she tells you, talking quick and low as she glances at the room of silent, waiting birdmen. "There'll be three Toriningen in there, and they'll be angry. I could - I should do this alone, but-" she glances at the seventy standing Toriningen again and bites her lip. "If anything goes wrong - just run."

You nod, and unlimber your axe from your shoulder. Undoing the wire securing the crowbar's end, you slide it through your belt, letting it hang free from the hook like a small sword, and grasp the heavy fire axe in both hands. "Your call."

Without another word, she plunges head-first into the wound in the wall, and you follow. Ragged, bleeding flesh squeezes your torso, smearing thick, congealing blood over your face and clothes, but before your stomach can turn itself inside out you're through, and standing with Madotsuki in a small room that reeks of blood and viscera.

In the center stands a guillotine, its razor-sharp blade hoisted high and a bloodstained basket already sitting before it.

The six Toriningen standing around it swivel their heads like automated gun turrets sensing a new target, and their beady little eyes light up with purple fire.

"BEEP BEEP BEEP-" they exclaim as one, and rush you.

>BLOOD AND THUNDER
>PROTECT THE PRINCIPAL


>reposted, wrong music before

>>33115774
>"There'll be three Toriningen in there, and they'll be angry."
>The six Toriningen standing around it swivel their heads
FUCK
>PROTECT THE PRINCIPAL

>>33115774
>BLOOD AND THUNDER
and
>PROTECT THE PRINCIPAL

Yes, both of them, we're going to charge those bitches, but at the same time we're going to make sure we're between them and Madotsuki.

>>33115867
>PROTECT THE PRINCIPAL
God damn it. Maybe it's "three angry Toriningen per visitor", and Mado just didn't know because she's only been in here alone before?

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>>33115895
>>33115896
>>33115855

Madotsuki's voice rings in your head.

If they catch her, she has to wake up. And tonight's her last chance to prevail.

You bolt forward with a snarl as the birdmen converge, leading with your left foot even as your hips twist to the right, winding up a mighty blow with the axe. Madotsuki's screaming -

- "NOOO!" -

- but you're already committed, bringing the swing in as the closest Toriningen dives for you with both its skeletal-thin arms reaching for you with long, clawed fingers. It closes faster than you could've imagined, catching the solid hickory shaft across its thin chest and flinging it against the low, bloodstained ceiling. You follow through with the swing, the big blade halting behind your left shoulder before smashing the handle-end into the face of the next birdman even as its arms claw and scrape at your shoulders for purchase -

- a third lands on your back, its skeletal arms locking around your throat like iron before you swing the axe backwards over your head, planting the spike in its torso.

"EEAAAAHHHH!" you scream as you jerk the axehandle forward, ripping the monster off your back, bringing the axe into a haymaker swing into the floor. The impact jars the Toriningen off the spike and you kick its skull in.

The other three hit you as one, and you're borne to the ground in a tangle of slicing claws and nipping beaks and bodies that are bony and hard and *wrong.*

>MAKE WITH THE LIGHTNING LADY
>I'M A STRONG INDEPENDENT MAN DON'T NEED NO EFFECTS

>>33116207
>MAKE WITH THE LIGHTNING LADY

>>33116207
>I'M A STRONG INDEPENDENT MAN DON'T NEED NO EFFECTS
Keep their attention. She starts throwing lightning and they might come after her. Also, she can only summon lightning in the rain, and we're currently indoors.

>>33116207
>I'M A STRONG INDEPENDENT MAN DON'T NEED NO EFFECTS

We were stupid enough to commit to this, we can't let them get to her.

>>33116207
>>MAKE WITH THE LIGHTNING LADY

Go ahead, hit us with your best shot. I'm pretty much invincible to lightning

>>33116207
>MAKE WITH THE LIGHTNING LADY
Zap, motherfucka!

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>>33116271
>>33116259

The axe is ripped from your grasp and sharp clawed hands are beating you everywhere, flashes of light exploding before your eyes as their cruel blows land. You writhe against their grasp, prying uselessly as their claws sink into your flesh.

The crowbar comes free of your belt easily, the tip of the hook catching a Toriningen under the beak and around the throat, and you apply leverage with your one free arm, twisting. It flails madly, releasing you to scrabble and claw at your hand, but to no avail. With one good fling you send it hurling into the wall, and something inside it snaps with a brittle sound. The last two dive for your crowbar hand but one catches an elbow in the face and the other gets the iron shaft between the eyes, sending them reeling. Reversing it, you plow the sharp forks of the flat end through the chest of one with a howl of pain as your wounds begin to tell. The iron embeds in the ribcage and the last one is already coming in, claws swiping for your throat and belly.

You back up from each swing until you notice a cabinet behind you in your peripheral vision - when you run out of room, it'll tear you asunder. Instead you dive into its guard, blocking the next swipe with the blade of your palm to its wrist and driving your free fist into its chest. The fucking thing seems to compress like the sides of a stiff woven basket before springing back, but the creature is staggered long enough for you to follow with a left uppercut to its hideous fucking beak, your knuckles exploding in pain as they slam into the hard structure. The Toriningen flies into the ceiling, its skull cracking loudly on contact, and falls limply to the floor.

Madotsuki is staring at you, her hands shaking like leaves.

"THAT'S NOT POSSIBLE! THAT'S NOT POSSIBLE!" she screams, pointing at the pile of birdmen you've strewn about the place.

"GET THE FUCKING EFFECT AND LETS FUCKING GO!" you scream.

>>33116207
>MAKE WITH THE LIGHTNING LADY
MADO-CHAN, SAVE ME SENPAI!

>>33116580
I AM MAN, WRECKER OF GAME MECHANICS.

>>33116580
>"THAT'S NOT POSSIBLE! THAT'S NOT POSSIBLE!" she screams, pointing at the pile of birdmen you've strewn about the place.
For someone who spends most of her time in a dream world she hates, she sure is closed-minded.

>>33116640
Remember, it's always the same. Every dream she has is in this place, and nothing ever changes. The dreamworld has a logic to it that it has always followed. My guess is that since this isn't our dream, we can defy the dream logic. She can never defeat the Toriningen, probably because they represent some psychological trauma she's had that she can't get past. But we never had that trauma. To us, they're just bird people. And birds have brittle bones.

>>33116760
No, it's definitely our dream too. Thus the beeping and Master Stream and all that.

>>33116829
Well, yes, parts of our psyche are bleeding in. But for the most part it's still hers. Certainly the Toriningen don't have anything to do with us.

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>>33116580
>>33116580

Mado dashes to the guillotine and snatches up the basket, folding in the flexible sides and bundling it into a much tighter package that she hugs to her breast. You both make for the bloody wound of an exit and spill into the bed room - the barracks - in a gasping, bloody heap.

The seventy-odd Toriningen have rotated a perfect one-hundred and eighty degrees, still as motionless and inanimate as statues, to stare directly at you.

As one, seventy-odd Toriningen blink, and when their eyes open, the sea of cold, staring blue eyes has turned purple.

"STOP!" Mado screams, thrusting the little stoplight at them.

They don't move, purple eyes glowing with lunatic promise as you and Mado haul ass for the exit. As your boot connects with the door you hear shrieks at the very back of the room, the horrible rustle and rattle of their thin, terrible bodies in motion, piercing shrieks and hunting howls and above it all that awful cry -

"-PROBIE PROBIE PROBIE-"

The hall is thrumming and rattling worse than ever, the gargantuan, sonerous off-tune bells seeming to shake the blacklight-lit halls to their foundation with every so-called "ring." Through the halls you hear more horrible cries, "BEEP BEEP BEEP!S" ear-piercingly loud and artificial rebounding through the halls as the birdmen close in from all sides.

"THE DOOR! THE DOOR!" Mado screams, pointing across a small open space at a door - with an army of enemies closing in on you at their characteristic velocity of too fucking fast.

You need to make a choice and you need to make it NOW.

>FOR THE DOOR
>MAKE YOUR OWN DOOR

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>>33116760

>>33116915
>>FOR THE DOOR

Making our own door is dangerous. Who knows where it would lead?

>>33116915
>FOR THE DOOR
I want to go "I am Iron Man" and make our own, since we are the forced entry specialist. But I really don't trust a door we make ourselves to go to where we need to. It could get us really lost deep in the dreamworld. And tearing our own door open in the wall would take time we don't have. Better to spend that time running.

>>33116915
>FOR THE DOOR
We just established we can kill Toriningen. 70 would be impossible but we just have to kill enough to get to the door.

>>33116915
>MAKE YOUR OWN DOOR
Out of curiosity to see how that would happen.

>>33117007
It might go exactly where we need to go. Our needs aren't necessarily Mado's needs.

Why does she even think she needs all the Effects anyway? Is this more crazy person logic?

>>33116915
>MAKE YOUR OWN DOOR

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>>33117071
>>33117007
>>33117004

Your guide points, and you go.

You spin the crowbar around to grab the curved bit in your fist, shaft lying along your arm, and grip the axe just below the handle. With Madotsuki right on your heels you charge into the mass of Toriningen with your arms thrust out and to the sides, forming a wedge.

You don't know what these horrific things are, or what warped aspect of Madotsuki's personality crafted them - if they come from her head at all. You don't know what they want, why they're attacking you, why they scream insane things, or even what happens should they succeed.

But you do know they're light little fuckers, and you're not.

Toriningen go bouncing off you as you plow through them like a freight train of muscle, some of them ricocheting off the ceiling as you bull through. Hordes of them close in and you smash them back three and four at a time, bowling over ranks and ranks of birdmen behind them. One steps in front of you, its narrow body slipping between the 'points' of your wedge so you just lower your head and smash it into his stupid fucking beak before running him over, the body cracking and crunching underfoot with sounds you know will echo through your skull every time you close your eyes oh god oh god oh god WHERE'S THE DOOR WHERE'S THE FUCKING DOOR -

- THERE!

You swing your axe-hand back, letting the hickory shaft slide through your fingers till you're grasping the very end, and bring it up and over in a mighty blow, bisecting the doorknob with one clean blow before your shoulder staves it in and you both go tumbling down, down, down, into a red oblivion.

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>>33117314

NEXT SESSION: LIKE A BAT OUT OF HELL!

We will resume WEDNESDAY at 6PM EST (-5GMT) for the exciting adventures of Mado and Stark in Fuck This Maze Oh My God Seriously I Hate You No Wonder They Call It Hell.

Making your own door would have taken you to the Staircase, and Kyuu-kun.

>>33117366
On the one hand, I did want to see Kyukyu-kun. On the other hand, FACE. On the other, other hand Hell. On the fourth hand, Hell does lead to my favorite places.

>>33117366
Well, it seemed like the right decision at the time. Oh well. But hey, anything that means we get to spend more time doing this quest is good in my book. And we have to go to the Staircase eventually, right?

I hope we meet Poniko at some point. Maybe Stark's additions messed with her?

>>33117463
Considering that Poniko is how you find Uboa, and it's practically the mascot of the game, I think the chances are high we'll meet her.

>>33117409
> And we have to go to the Staircase eventually, right?

Given how central Kyuu-kun and FACE is, it'd be hard not to.

>>33117628
Oh, good. Should be fun to see what your interpretation of that scene is.

Still hoping for .flow stuff, but this is probably strictly Yume Nikki. Getting my read anyway.

>>33117686
What about Middens?

Since the thread wasn't archived yet, I went ahead and did it.

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/33110896/

Here you go. That okay with everyone?

Vomit-chan has a quest? Oh my.