The River

The sign up and its plot and forms can be found here. Please do not repost your character forms, as it is unnecessary. If you wish to join, we have unlimited non-human spots and three human spots remaining.

[u]Law
1. The only limitations to what you create in this world are:
1a. There are no other humans, though humanoids are acceptable.
1b. The time period of The River world is medieval.

2. Try your best not to manipulate another player's character incorrectly, but if it happens, it is unnecessary to give any information for future reference or send them a private message to tell them to change it. In this situation, simply write your own reaction so that it shows that the player's character misinterpreted your character's actions.

3. The Mature tag does not stretch farther then implied sex, semi-graphic violence, and moderate profanity.

4. If you do not notify me via a method I will take notice of (private message or the Away Topic are preferred), I will boot you from my roleplay if you do not post once every five days. I understand that there are extenuating circumstances, but these will be under extreme scrutiny for their validity.

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As is, the only thing you need consider as a human with your first post is the fact that you must be inside the River World by the end of it. Everything else is your call. The order in which you post determines who is in The River World when.

For non-human characters, just begin as you please. If you need a little guidance, think introduction. Tell us "who" your character is. What is their purpose?

= Joseph Faust =

A single lolling tongue of frigid water rolled itself over in my mind, a wave of nausea that bit at my senses and threatened that my will (for once) might incapacitate my body. Each time I blinked I saw it for a split second, a sea goddess' breath upon the barren wasteland that was the inside of my head. The broken plain with all its little cracks... A single notion dissuaded my normal function, tripping my thoughts in a cruel cabaret of a mountain lake's lucidity. There are two reasons a man cannot sleep. The first is a conscience that longs to finish its path of righteousness. The second is a conscience racked with guilt. At this point, it was all too fluid for me to tell which it was. A throbbing awoke me a little, pain reminding me that I, at least, was alive. A few drops of blood fell to my hand, and a spark like that which started a storm traversed the length of my spine. The blood... it was... mingled.

Suddenly the surrealism dropped away in a liquid moment, the shards scattering and my brow raising. Risen to the sweltering heat. In the distance there was a single sliver of woodland, or at least that's what it appeared to be. I wasn't in the desert, but the fields might as well have their own ability to create mirages. Of course, a sane man sees mirages. An insane one sees nightmares. Choices, choices...

I reached the road and did a double-take, skimming across the areas the piercing rays of the sun touched. Searching... searching for any signs of life. Nothing. Then... a field mouse emerged from the thicket at my right. The brush was tangled and obtuse, jutting from the ground like a miniature forest. The rodent took one look at me and bounded back into the underbrush. I waited several seconds and felt a pinprick of pain, like a mosquito bite. Then, a cat trotted out of the briar with the dead mouse clamped in its maw. After that, I didn't stop again to look behind.

I was running again in a minute and I reached the stripe of woodland in record time, taking into account the steep incline of the forest and jumping rather clumsily over several rocks on its outskirts. Fragments of some ancient rock wall, one the forest had reclaimed over time. Among these convex artifacts stood a single metal stake, a pink ribbon fluttering drearily in the light breeze. This was clearly private property, but that concern was above me. In my mind's eye, the ribbon turned red and was thrown to the wind in a fierce gust. No more. Trespassing or not, however, I couldn't help the deep sense of foreboding that overtook my heart. I had never trusted emotions, intuition. Symbolism and vague messages had their time. It was time for me to take control over whatever tattered remains of a cushioned existence remained. Forget the deeper mysteries. Today was a day for logic... and reason. Discarding the foreboding, the only warning I knew, I took a single cautious step into the wood. Another followed, my right foot slightly lame. My limp had manifested early, which only meant bad news. I would travel at night.

Carefully now, still a little startled and not knowing why, I took a few more steps. It must have been me and my own preferences, but in the forest the light faded away as suddenly as it came. Under the trees the sun wasn't as hot. I wasn't ready to take full reciprocity on my notion that it was causing hallucinations, though, as the calls of strange birds invaded my hearing. Once I thought I saw a flickering image of a maiden, even. She was in a white dress, or had it been black? As I tried to recall the details, her memory vanished. The pit-a-pat of her steps among the wood echoed in my head, soft and sound, loud and purposeful. They changed as she did, and then she was gone. I was left alone again, following the tree line deeper.

It wasn't long before the last sign of the hay fields faded and I was left only with trees and silence. Wait, it shouldn't be silent. Unless my presence was disturbing them, I couldn't understand a place where the animals weren't avidly about their business. Silence was golden, indeed, and I cherished the moment. My suspicions from my first steps here reaffirmed themselves, but I shunned them away. There was safety here... or at least I thought so. There were far more places to hide among the green.

=

I was amazed at the wood's size. I had imagined it small, but now it seemed the size of my cynicism. As the day drew on, and the hours passed away, a sliver of shadow began to grow on the horizon. Like a single canoe on a placid lake, my footsteps were hardly interrupted by the call of the wild. It was not as dead as before, but it was if a tension hung in the air... slick and implacable as ice. Still, even with my fostering freedom, nothing shook this meandering. Over every crest was another tree, tall and towering. The floor was even gloomier for them, but I didn't mind. The melancholy in my blood blended well with the fallen leaves. All was little, until a distant trickle caught my attention.

It persisted. I tried to leave it, to walk away, but it remained clear. It never faltered, never hastened, never increased in volume. However, the sound of water was unmistakable. I gathered up my canteen and peered inside with an evil eye. A few stray drops were all that was left. I would need water if I wanted to get anyway, especially if I hoped to find my way out of this green snare. Gradually, I gave in and followed its lilting voice. Gradually, I climbed a steeper incline than before. The terrain grew a bit rougher, and I nearly fell face first into a few upturned boulders. They were in an odd position, even without significance as they were. It was long, but time slowly gave away the secrets of the noise. A little stream came into view.

The sound did not grow louder. It never faltered, as I said. However, as I closed upon this little stream... I found it was not so little. It would have been a roaring river had it not been for the meager wave of its bowels. The surface was clouded, not mudded, but gray. It was as if a smoke bomb had gone off and hung itself in the cords of the creek, growing and infecting the whole length of it. I didn't bother to pull off my clothes, as I had reached a point where it seemed sufficiently shallow. Only in to the knee, it took but a moment to casually stroll to the monster's center. Here, it was strangely calm. I could hear rapids up ahead.

I bent over and filled my canteen with no fuss and no hassle, uncharacteristically. Realizing, I removed my sandals and strode to a portion of the river just a little deeper. Diving under, I washed the stain and pungent scent from my clothing. I left them on, refusing to lose the only thing I could carry on my back for the time being. They would dry like Satan himself had bestowed them some heat as soon as I found the sun again. I came up for air fleetingly and grappled with the tide for the dirt bank, finding it and putting an arm on it. I brought myself up to eye level and rose out of the water. It was but a footfall before it ended.

My soul skipped forward a leap and my heart stopped. A choking sensation rattled my body and what I saw in horror as some sort of seizure overtook my limbs. Ghoulish and garish images circulated my vision, portrayals of man's accomplishments and strange, runic messages I couldn't understand. Memories I hadn't know raced through my head. In a single teardrop, I felt a bit of my brain tear. Suddenly, I couldn't remember what my voice sounded like. What my face looked like. I couldn't assure I was whole. I struggled with all my will to reaffirm these things, to return to fact. It wasn't the case, and I couldn't. My eyes were a vice as soon as the urge to struggle had reached my nerves, and my feet no longer stood on solid ground. It felt like I moved, but didn't. It was as if I had phased from one room to another without really leaving. A melodious cry rattled my throat, but I wasn't sure if it was my own. Feelings, tastes, textures, pungent scents and fragrant disasters, an eyeful of tender horror, all mixed into one. And just as it started, it stopped...

=

My body was still standing, stock still. My eyes were shut. My mind was shut. I could feel solid ground but disregarded it, wondering, and trying to catch one wisp of that experience. Had I disliked it? I supposed I had, but suddenly everything was gray. And then... vision.

As my body awoke, never really having slept, a sudden realization rocked my body with avid hesitation. That time in darkness, and that sensation, had been only a blink of my time. The blink of an eye, and it was different. It was as if someone had swept the hand over the Earth and said, "Change!" A snowflake burst my reverie, oddly warm against a pallid cheek. I stood, no longer in a forest but looking at one about half a mile away down a wintry knoll. Everything had fallen away so fast, that all I could do to comfort my senses was stick my tongue out like when I was young... a single flake graced my tongue, and melted. Then it was real, and as a fickle mind took its time to come to its senses... I rebounded. Turning, I faced a rock wall, towering but not to the sky. Long, but how far I didn't know. The end was obscured by gray sea mist. The atmosphere was buttered with sorrow. Staring into that blank stone, I muttered words I didn't pay attention to. I looked deep into it, searching for some crack or texture. There was none. A second later, I was just alone. That was all. My abilities became nothing except... "wait and hope."

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