Difference between revisions of "Log:The Dollmaker's Plaything"

1 January, 2016

A normal day in the realm of The Dollmaker.

Arcadia, The Dollmaker's Realm

The sun was rising on the horizon, although it brought no sense of warmth with it. Arian awakens to find her clothes changed as usual, even if they could be that. Just enough to give some sense of modesty, but more than able to reveal much of what her Keeper had done to her. As she awakens her shoulders are surprisngly sore, and a glance down revealsa the white of it. Mechanical, metal and nothing completely like what she knew of her own body. Thin, spindly, grey, unliving.

Her legs were well enough, even if the last time she saw them they were being replaced for the fifth time. Standing proved to be simple enough, and with it comes the echo of things whirring into place. The ones she saw in the pens are no longer at her side, and in this vast mechanical jungle the only sound comes from the clicking from where her heart used to be. In the distance a beeping can be heard, and it matches the pace of that facsimile of a heart.

Ariana looks around when she begins to come to. Her eyes taking in the view of the twisted landscape that has become familiar each time that she wakes up. Her legs are solid upon the ground while she stands, even though some part of her tells her that they should be shaking and she should be unsteady on her feet. The beeping calls to her, and she begins to walk in the direction of the sound.

The beeping leads to what amounts to a door. The door is golden in color, but a closer inspection reveals it to be made of wood. There's a single eyehole seeming set just high enough for her to look through without effort. The handle of the door is silver, and gleams brightly in the faux sunlight. From the inside she can hear the murmurs of someone calling for her. Whispering for her and her alone.

Ariana stares at the door, the faint feeling that she's been here before starts to ring alarm bells in her head. Her hand stops just short of the door, her face a mere foot from looking through that eyehole. Her hand briefly clenching, even while she hears her name continue to be called from just on the other side of that door. Slowly, ignoring the warnings in her head as curiosity wins out over mere self-preservation, she peers through that peephole with a green eye, one hand resting against the surface of the door, the other wrapped around the handle, but not opening it yet.

The door is warm to the touch, and likely the only thing that betrays her body as her own. Inside she can barely make up what's inside. Things are foggy, a haze of confusion seemingly clouding the room. The outside world, as it were, looks fine when looking away, but something inside is wrong. Another look, and she can make out who is calling her name. A still figure, skin as pale as snow blood dripping from its shoulders and knees. After a moment's thought they look familiar save the lifelessness of them. One arm even has the same scar she received from her childhood.

Ariana stares at her double through that peep hole, her hand frozen on that warm handle while she stands there. Slowly, she moves her head back from that hole, contemplating that door and that figure. She looks around in the light from the fake sun's dawning, looking for any other features in a tangled web of machinery. Finding none, the young woman slowly opens the door to the figure that is calling her name, "Hello," comes the nervous word, word that sounded heavy and somehow too loud for the room.

Ariana's words echo all around her. "Isn't she lovely?" a large, echoing voice booms. Far above her stands a Junoesque woman that looks more like a giant doll than anything living. "She's going to be the one to replace you, love." She seems cheery despite her typical alien nature. The Dollmaker is not a pleasant being to be around, even after agreeing to the Gentry's wants for the time being. Survival is what it is. "I thought to myself, why simply make something of straw and thistle once more. Maybe, this one, won't end up destroyed or some such." She clasps her hands to gether, cheeks turning rosy red with joy. Then a looming hand is gplaced on Arian's shoulder, fingertips digging in and forcing their way inside. "But! We'll see, yes? Well, you won't!"

Ariana looks up at that booming voice, flinching away from it as she takes a half-step backwards from the woman or thing above her. Her eyes going wide while she listens to the words, even as she takes a half-step back and almost back through the doorway before that hand is suddenly on her shoulder, and fingertips are digging into it. She cries out in pain, her opposite hand comes up to push back against the hand on her shoulder, words failing her while she is one again face to face with the Gentry.

The Dollmaker shakes her head and clicks her tongue in disapproval. "Tut tut, love. It isn't even that bad. Here, let me show you what true pain feels like." She turns Arian properly toward her, staring down at her with eyes as black as the darkest reaches of Arian's nightmares. The woman isn't allowed to look at them for long as those fingers are right in front of her face. No matter how much Ariana tries to move she'd held in place as the next thing she feels is nothing but white hot pain as her vision begins to painfully fade.

Ariana struggles futilely as she is turned towards the Dollmaker. She shakes her head, struggling to deny what's about to happen, some part of her knowing that this was how this visit to the room was going to end as she is forced to stare into those eyes that are as black as the abyss. Then those fingers are over her eyes, and the pain begins as she opens her mouth and screams, her hands struggling to push those hands away. A struggle that they will not win.

Despite the Gentry's frail frame she proves immeasurably strong in group of what she perceives as hers. Her rooting around in Arian's sockets continues on until the pain becomes too much. As she drifts off she hears her keeper's disapproval once more. "You fail me again. Again and again and again. I may just have to bin you with the others. In fact-" Darkness comes again and a new day along with it. The sun greets her again, its lutescent light revealing the world around her. Arian is strewn among a heap of flesh. Bodies and parts piled high enough that she may well be sitting on the peak of a mountain. TO her sides ae others like her. Their skin something artificial, false eyes, mismatched limbs. They count three, at least those that appear as awake as she is.

Ariana lets out a soft groan as she slowly begins to come to. Her hands almost immediately going to her eyes as conciousness begins to come back, a vague sense of loss permeating her being, even as she can't quite place what it is, or where it comes from. Shaking her head, as her hands drop and she actually looks around at her surroundings and the bodies around her.

"Who... who are you," she asks after a couple of moments, to those that seem to be as aware as she is of their surroundings, looking out over the landscape of twisted bodies and mismatched parts, shuddering while she listens to the faint whirring sound from within.

"Jonathan." What was once a man is a rusty falsehood of such, and the only thing wholly human of him appears to be his eyes. Green gas vents from his shoulders, and come from his mouth with every word out of it. "You've been out of it for a few days. Here." He holds out a bowl filled with oil and something that looks like sprockets. "I still say we shoulda eaten her," another grwols. She looks more bestial than human: a mechanical sphynx wreathed in gold. "Not enough room here for all of us, and she'll come back. Just you watch." "No, she won't." This one appears at least similar enough to Ariana. His skin pale and waxy, his hair threads sewn and stitched into his scalp. He extends a hand and the acts cause his joints to whir. "You good to move?"

Ariana looks at the bowl that is passed to her, before she slowly sips at the oil in the bowl, unsure about something that's never seemed like food before. Her eyes travel between all three of them while she sits there, at the mention of her memories flash through her mind of pain and darkness and she freezes for a half moment, before she swallows the mouthful that she had. "I um.. I think so," she says after a few moments, stretching out her legs and making sure that everything seems to work as it once did. "What is this place," she asks after a few moments of consideration, putting the bowl down.

"Like everything else here that isn't really alive, it's The Dollkeeper," answers the sphinx with a mild glare of annoyance for Ariana. "This place is where she puts away those she's bored with, or that she no longer wants. She does come back, but only for those of us she wishes to bless again." "No," says the rusted man. "She only comes back when her pets on the outside haven't brought her someone new. We're where she casts of her unwanted pieces and people. Until she comes for us again. I've been here since- Fuck, I don't even know anymore."

Ariana looks at the sphinx and nods her head, "I see," she replies to the explanation that's given to her. Slowly, she starts to stand up, reaching her feet and taking a deep breath while she stands there, before she looks back at the Rusted Man, and the group of them, "Is this all there is? Just an endless field of broken bodies," she asks, not knowing what she wants, other than to not be anywhere the Dollkeeper might reappear at.

"Do you wanna go back into the room?" asks the one as her. "She ditched me after she found you, and I don't know where to go. I remember my family, but-" He shakes his head. "It's kinda hard to remember as much." He frowns as the rusted man goes back to his bowl of oil, drinking it up as easily as one would water. "We can't escape. Not that I've seen. The last one that tried got used up, and she gave me his arms."

Ariana shakes her head, "No, I don't want to go back to the room.. but I don't want to just sit here and hope that she doesn't come back," she says. Her eyes looking out over the field before she shudders, "Well, I'll at least try and look around and see what's about," she says after a couple moments of consideration, before she starts to pick her way through the body strewn ground.

The pile goes on for ages. What was once the peak as she travelled only grows higher the further away she moves from it. Looking back, the others have either moved on or were never there at all. Further down, there are cracks in the piles. Where a black liquid is pumped down one pipe away from the mountain of bodies, and another pumps something red toward it. The black is oil, but the red is something else. Stronger and almost familiar.

Ariana shakes her head while she continues to walk, struggling to get her bearings even while she wanders through what could only ever be described as a hellscape. Her mind struggling to wander over how she got her, pulling details that feel lost in a fog while she trudges along. Stopping at the pipes, she pauses, staring at the red liquid, before slowly reaching out to touch the pipe, fascinated by the red fluid that flows through it.

The pipe is cold, almost freezing. However, there doesn't appear to be a single bit of ice inside. The pipe itself goes on for ages, and past the horizon. Much further down she can make out that it goes on past the mountain of bodies and parts. Looking closer inside the pipe is difficult with how quickly it moves, but after enough time she can make out the cadence at which it shoots bodies through the red goo.

Ariana watches those bodies go through, standing there for a few moments before she lets her hand slide from the pipe. She nods her head a little, before she looks around, trying to judge how far she is come. Turning her attention back to the pipe, she begins to walk again, though this time she follows the red pipe, wanting to figure out where the bodies are coming from, thinking that it may be her way away from whatever this is.

The trip down the mountain is longer still than it appeared. Even worse was the journey along the pipe. Her trek takes her away from the bodies, and in doing so the sun's light. She has to feel her way along the pipe, and in doing so finds memories of home. Eventually, though, she finds her way back to that metallic monstrosity of a city that dominates The Dollkeeper's realm. It leads towards what is likely the center of this place, and in turn she finds four points of interest. Four sets of pipes appear to her, each with a different color. The green she recalls from it being how she got here. The black is the oil with which all subside lest they die of starvation. The red where the wasted and unwanted are dumped. The last is clearer with several large yellow blobs inside. However, it's destination is an unknown.

Ariana looks at the pipes as she comes to where they are. Her eyes traveling down the pipes as she comes to a stop next to them, trying to decide on her next move. She bites at her lips, turning her head to the left and the right, before she places her hand on that clear pipe, trying to figure out where she should go. Figuring that the red pipe will only lead her to the room again, she follows the clear one.

Following the pipe away from the central location leads her well around the keeper's realm. While she isn't seen, The Dollkeeper's presence is felt around her. Some times something that may have just been her mind playing tricks on her in the dark, and others as a bit of light hitting a building from just an odd enough angle. As the horizon begins to brighten she finds the pipe's destination to that of another of the buildings where the captives are held, but larger than the rest. Much, much larger as it reaches far and away into the clouds.

Ariana shudders as she feels that presence through the city, often times skulking much more than every walking through that city. Her eyes watching the horizon and the corners while she makes her way through the city. Reaching the building, she slows down as she comes to that huge building, and takes a shuddering breath. Knowing that she's probably just giving the Dollmaker even more of an excuse to notice her, she heads into the building anyway, hopingh to find a way back.

There isn't a room on the other side of the door. No, but there is light with it a warmth she hasn't felt for the eternity that she's been held there. It hurts her eyes, almost feels like fire to the skin. In front of her the pipe comes to an end as it goes below ground. Despite this not being a room there are walls. Thistle, thorns, and vine forming up all around her: high enough that the only thing seen above it all is the sun.

Ariana blinks, her eyes struggling to adjust to the sudden flash of actual light. Shading her eyes with her hand she looks at the walls all around her, and her first glimmer of hope begins to turn to despiar as she sees the thorns and brambles that make each wall impassable in turn. "Where am I," she says to herself, struggling to turn slowly surverying the room for any hint of a way to continue.

Trying to climb the wall of thorns looks to be a lesson in pain that The Dollmaker would very much enjoy. Each thorn as long as her finger and as sharper as any of The Dollmaker's blades. The way back leads to her realm. The pipe is the only thing that goes away, but to where is a mystery and its seems to be similar to them any plastics and metals her Keeper favors.

Ariana looks at the wall of thorns in front of her and to the side, and then down to the pipe again. She bites her lip, struggling to figure out where to go from here. Without anyway that's obvious to her to continue, she turns around and begins to back track, frustrated that she found a dead end and heading back to where the four pipes met.

As she exits that room she doesn't get too far. "Naughty, naughty." That familiar clicking rings behind Ariana even as she turns away from the door. The Dollmaker digs into into her shoulder, always into that same spot. "Now why were you wandering around here, hmm? I thought I was done with you, and here you are. Again!"

Ariana stiffens as soon as she feels the hand of the Dollmaker on her shoulder, knowing it from the way it stabs into her. She slowly turns to look at the Dollmaker before she says, "I.. I was just wandering, no reason why," she answers, being as truthful as possible without actually admitting to trying to find a way home, intuitively knowing that things would go bad if she did.

She lets go of Ariana for only a moment, and stands in front of her in the next breath. She digs into Ariana's shoulder gain, lifting the woman high enough to meet the keeper face to face. "You thought you could escape?" She scoffs at the idea, and clenches her hold tighter. "Now, really. What. Were. You. Doing!?"

This is a new sight. At least for Ariana. The Dollmaker's face contorts into rage as she pulls Ariana closer still. "I will return you where you belong, and you will stare there. If I see you ever again I will rend you limb from limb, and use your spare parts for more fetches. Do you understand me?"

Ariana's eyes go wide at the Dollmaker's display of anger. Her hands going slack on the Gentry's hands as she hears that, and she slowly nods her head while she hangs there, "Yes, I understand," she says in a voice that is extremely cowed.