Masks 2

Candy was able to block or mute the Song of the Deep for a few moments at a time, but it kept coming back in different forms with the same burning effect. It was a really annoying sound to pinpoint!

Zil, Finn, the Demon, and Theraea burned barnacles off their gear and everybody else's gear while Candy did the same with her shockstaff. At the same time, Ken made a terrible terrible pun.

Nocturne approached Sam and treated his wounds with some medigel, then got up and did the same for Maria before moving on to the others.

"Last time we were here," the Demon said to Finn, once the preparations were finished. "The sewers led down into a temple way beneath Rainwalk. That's where we battled the forces of this dark god alongside Siren...it's possible that's where this is leading. You remember that, Coyote?"

She looked to Coyote at that.

"Man I hate this thing. I came down here because I was drunk, bored, and high off beating my peanut record, but now this is personal. I wanna piss this thing off bad. I wanna get back at it for ruinin' my week and one of my three good pairs of jeans. If I wanted my thighs out, I've got pants for that! This has all been some ripe SUPERBOAR shit."

Sam stood, brushing himself off.

"This thing ain't no god, and I ain't callin' it such. It's an overgrown plate of calamari and soon as I find me a gun or gun equivalent, it's gonna regret messin' with Texas."

And then they began to hear very bad things coming from the sewage pipes. Loud thrashing and screeching and flopping.

"Anyone got a grenade I can borrow?"

Sam glared at the sewage pipes.

"Pretty sure I need to clear a clog."

Maria thanked Nocturne because like she kept forgetting Medigel was a thing and that was super useful. Less concerned about blood loss now. She honestly didn't know why Demon was just asking since like, this wasn't exactly a nice little trip down memory lane they were having and that didn't matter right now, but whatever.

She was about to say something about like, well yeah no shit that sure did seem like it, but she would defer to the person with Special Eyes and the guy with a giant piece of scanning equipment since that didn't do us any more good than them- but then she got a little woozy and didn't reply for a day? Weird, that hand leech must have really taken it out of her. That, or this new uncomfortability of a certain comedy cowboy.

"Uhh..." Maria. shuffled around in her bag of goodies, and pulled out an old ass hand grenade, holding it out for Sam to take. "Absolutely do not use it underwater if any one of us is in the water. Dead serious. I know they've got weird future grenades that do different shit now, but if we're in water when this goes off, it'll fuck us up more than anyone except some magic healer could fix, ok? Now- my magical sense of direction says opposite of whatever the fuck that is is the way to go, unless Hackerman or Theraea have a different idea... Might still be an elevator down, somewhere?"

Hackerman tries to figure out if there is some sort of elevator or electronics in this place.

I mean it doesn't really seem proper for this place to have an elevator but...you may never know...

Esen looks around but her non-magical vision probably doesn't see much.

"I dunno about Rainwalk, but the NYC sewer tunnels usually run along big streets and then out to the river. If we knew where we got in we could navigate using the streets above us."

Finn shrugs at Sam. "Don't have much problem callin' it a god. Nothin' about a god has tae be good. Plenty of douchebag gods in mythology an' all. That said... anyone have any objections tae me pumpin' some electricity through whatever's crawlin' in the pipes?"

Theraea didn't like the sound of that, but... they had to keep moving, right? She used her Special Eyes to try to find the way forward, and prepared to react to whatever horrible thing might have been ready to burst out of the pipes.

Out of the sewer pipes around them, giant man-sized eels began to drop. With huge teeth and slow, writhing movements they crawled along towards the group...

Theraea and Ken scanned ahead, finding a route to the deeper, darker portions of the sewers. That was where the psionic energy was strongest...

Sam paled.

"Yeah reckon I got a problem with the electricity, seein' as eels like that sorta stuff."

He looked at the grenade

"This was a better idea when they were IN the pipes..."

He pockets the grenade and instead starts picking up bits of rubble and throwing them at the eels' heads as he followed the group deeper into the sewers.

Theraea led the way! And used her telekinesis to like, hold the eel things back. The important thing right now was fucking moving.

Finn blasts fire at 'em, sword ready to stab if they get too close. Better keep moving!

Ken just has Polybius keep the eel at bay as he continues on.

Ok, cool, Maria would help with sewer triangulation as they entered areas she might possibly recall and like. Idk, shoot some creepy eels and pull the bubble along with them while they booked it!

The group blasted the eels with fire, stabbed them with swords, and smashed them with debris. Then they continued on deeper into the sewers.

As they went along, they received flashes in their minds. Images of a great fishy being destroying an ancient city, images of Siren being battled into defeat, images of a planet completely buried beneath a sea. The Song of the Deep rang through their minds, regardless of Candy's efforts, and their bandannas burned them as they tried to keep the psionics from grabbing them.

Looking down occasional corridors, they each saw something...

[PMing them to you...]

Esen looks down a corridor and jumps, reaching out and grabbing with her hookshot.

"There's a kid down there!" she shouts as she tries to bat away the eel and pull the kid to safety.

Esen's voice could not be heard by the group, and she disappeared down the corridor unnoticed...

Ken goes off to the side to..salvage something? He is Mysterious.

"PA!"

Sam went to grab Jim.

"Bastards got Pa somehow, we gotta go get 'im! You cut him loose and cover us, I'll help get him up!"

This felt like a trap. The unmutable song, all the damp enclosed spaces, the energy around them. It's enough to make Zil's hair stand on-end, and all her fur, too.

Was Candy still on her shoulder? She glances around, trying to speak up.

"You all see the old lady all hurt? Not sure why one would be here, uh. Guys?"

"Tim...you seeing this too, bud?" she thinks.

Cadence WAS still on her shoulder but she’s in a more sitting up position now. She has a huge frown on her face and is silently crying.

“No, but I do see a little girl in distresss and I hate if it is a trick! I still want to check it out, just Incase they did bring captives down here.” She says her voice all warbley. “Also its really not good everyone is splitting up! This is bad!”

Sam grabs a large Bowie knife off his brother's belt if he can't physically drag him down the tunnel to help!

Maria locked up, and the bubble stopped moving with them, as she stared slack-jawed into a corridor. The bubble... Shrunk, a fair amount. A piece of it flew out, as Maria started stepping away.

"B- Lady-" She called, and like. As this smaller air pocket went out where she was heading, and she tried to focus, swishing the water around the girl. Was there resistance? Did it all have to pass around her- or....

Theraea called out in some unknown language and prepared to run, then... stopped. Considered. Shook her head. It was too convenient. There were maybe three Weavers on the entire Earth, the odds that one would just be chilling here were... essentially zero. Especially one Theraea didn't even recognize.

- - - - -

While explicit mind control is a danger few can overcome without specialized equipment, equally dangerous to the unprepared mind are more subtle manipulations of perception. The sudden appearance of a loved one in distress. The exact tool one might need to accomplish a goal, lying on the ground meters away. The discovery of a fascinating dimensional anomaly a short walk away. When encountering psionic entities, one must adhere to this guiding principle: if something seems too convenient, it is. Do not rely on your senses when dealing with such an entity. It is imperative to confirm the integrity of local reality before taking rash action (see Section 13.7: Consistency Checks for more information).
- Excerpt from Guide to Multiversal Entities, a publication of the Menders of Spire Seven.

- - - - -

"Hey - can anyone confirm if there's a Weaver over there, or..." Theraea looked around, noting with some dismay that she was unable to focus on any members of the group. A trap, most likely. A trap that she hoped no one else was running into, but she couldn't tell, which wasn't great! Thinking quickly, Theraea popped open a panel on her Reality Anchor and tried tinkering with it to boost the power temporarily - hopefully enough to send out a pulse that might momentarily disrupt whatever psionics were affecting everyone. Probably not shut it all down, but maybe disrupt it enough that the others might notice something was wrong. It's all she could think to do at the moment.