Open Welcome to Barrow Falls

---

The evening had been ordinary. Comfortably, blessedly ordinary.

Momoshiro Komori preferred nights like this—quiet ones, where the world felt soft around the edges and even his restless mind could settle into something resembling peace. The lanterns of the township behind him had cast their amber glow across stone streets slick from an earlier rain, while laughter and distant music spilled warmly from teahouses and taverns. He had lingered perhaps longer than he should have, wandering rather than returning directly to his rented room above a modest inn, but that was hardly unusual for him. Momo had always been a creature of curiosity, prone to detours, moonlit strolls, and the occasional distraction.

Besides, the cool night air had felt good against his skin.

His white tail swayed lazily behind him as he walked, hands tucked loosely into his sleeves, red eyes half-lidded beneath the silver wash of moonlight. The road should have been simple. Left at the shrine with the fox statues, down the narrow lane lined with plum trees, then across the small bridge where the stream curved beneath the city’s edge.

Simple.

So when the fog first appeared, he paid it little mind.

At first, it seemed no more than a low creeping mist, thin tendrils curling across the stones and slipping between his feet like pale fingers. Autumn did that sometimes. Moisture gathered. Air shifted. Nothing unusual.

But then it thickened.

Momo slowed.

The fog did not roll in naturally from the riverbanks or drift down from the hills. It poured. Silent and sudden, it spilled through alleyways and over rooftops like an unseen tide, swallowing lanternlight whole. The warm gold glow around him dimmed, blurred, then vanished entirely. The sounds of the town followed soon after—the laughter, the music, the distant barking of dogs—all of it muffled beneath an unnatural hush.

His ears twitched.

“…That’s not ominous at all,” he muttered, though his hand had already drifted toward the hilt at his waist.

The foxkin turned back the way he’d come.

Or at least, he thought he did.

The street behind him was gone.

No plum trees. No shrine. No lanterns.

Only fog.

Dense and colorless, it pressed in from every side until sky and earth became impossible to distinguish. Even the ground beneath his sandals no longer felt like stone. The occasional soft crunch of gravel and dirt made his brow furrow.

“Alright,” he called out, voice carefully light despite the tightness curling in his chest. “Very funny. If this is some spirit’s idea of a prank, I’d like you to know I’m deeply unimpressed.”

No answer came.

Not even an echo.

His breath misted before him, though the air had turned strangely cold. Colder than it should have been. Cold enough that it bit through his robes and prickled beneath his skin.

So Momo walked.

What else was there to do?

Step by cautious step, he moved forward through the smothering white, his senses straining. The world had narrowed to the sound of his own breathing, the faint rustle of fabric, and the whisper of unseen things shifting just beyond sight. More than once, he thought he caught movement—silhouettes perhaps, distant and indistinct, shapes stumbling through the haze on roads that could not possibly be near his own.

Others.

Or something pretending to be.

That thought stayed his feet more than once, but standing still felt worse. The fog seemed to breathe when he paused, coiling tighter, as though it disliked hesitation.

So onward he went.

Minutes stretched strangely there. Or perhaps hours. Time had become slippery, untrustworthy.

Then, without warning, Momo stumbled forward as the fog abruptly thinned.

He emerged onto a road.

A real road—or something close enough to one. It cut through the mist like a scar, cracked and uneven beneath his feet, stretching ahead into a darkness somehow deeper than the fog itself. Dead trees loomed on either side, their twisted branches arching overhead like skeletal fingers. The woods beyond were dense, black, and utterly silent.

Behind him?

Fog. Endless and impassable.

Before him?

A town. Or the faint suggestion of one.

Far in the distance, through layers of mist, dim shapes rose against the gloom—crooked rooftops, narrow spires, perhaps the outline of old walls or leaning structures. Sparse lights flickered there, weak and sickly, like candle flames moments from death.

At the roadside, half-swallowed by weeds and neglect, stood a wooden sign.

Its paint was peeling. Its post was warped. The words upon it looked hand-carved once, though time and weather had done their best to erase them.

Still, they were legible enough.

WELCOME TO BARROW FALLS

Momo stared.

His tail had gone very still.

“…No,” he said softly, with all the immediate certainty of someone recognizing a profoundly bad idea. “Absolutely not.”

And yet—

Somewhere deep within the town, a bell tolled.

Low. Hollow. Mournful.

The sound shivered through the fog and trees alike.

Then, from somewhere unseen along those other hidden roads, there came the faint suggestion of movement. Footsteps. More than one. Other souls, perhaps, drawn from elsewhere just as he had been.

The fog had not claimed him alone.

Momo’s ears flattened slightly as his gaze fixed on the distant shape of Barrow Falls. Every instinct he possessed warned him to turn back.

But there was no back anymore.

Only the road ahead.

He exhaled slowly, one hand rising to rake through his white hair before settling, reluctantly, on the hilt of his blade.

“…This,” he murmured to no one at all, “is most assuredly a trap.”

A pause.

Then, because curiosity and bad decisions had always walked hand in hand where Momoshiro was concerned, he adjusted his robes, squared his shoulders, and started forward into the fog-bound road leading to Barrow Falls.

Behind him, the mist closed like a door.

A moon drenched path of stone before her, the silent black presence of the monastery behind her. These were things she knew, things she could verify with her own sunken eyes. The leaves of surrounding trees rustled in a slight breeze, as if to mock her and her lonely journey. She had no reason to be out here, no reason to be anywhere but in her bed. Still, she could smell her own rot from her covers, and the aching pull to feel human once again. The moon had called to her, crooning to her with its soft light.

Margot had peeled herself from her sheets, donning trousers that were now too baggy and a shirt that hung loosely around her shoulders. A slim silver knife through her belt loop was her only defense, not that she was particularly worried about protecting herself. Bare feet had slapped across the wooden floor, the creak of her dorm door sounding loud and jarring in the quiet of the night.

Slow steady paces had brought her to where she now was, her feet covered in dirt her skin covered with goosebumps. There was no reason why she couldn't just turn around and retreat to waste away some more, and yet...she was immovable. Soft tendrils of fog had begun to slip through the trees and across the ground, creeping around her and almost seeming to tug at her clothes. She could no longer see her home behind her, and so the slow steady beat of her steps continued onwards.

The surroundings seemed to shift and change around her, the fog gleefully tugging her along. She ran thin delicate fingers through it, and it seemed to reciprocate with its own soft urgency to keep moving forward. Blue eyes, with none of the spark behind them anymore, drank in the cold as if accepting a hug. Perhaps the icy touch of Death had come to take her finally, perhaps this was a new game she had found. Either way, there was no concern from her. She didn't have much to live for anymore.

Shadows seemed to lurk in her peripheral, though she seemed naught but a ghostly shadow herself. Her eyes were sunken, her face gaunt and lacking the glow that seemed to radiate from her once upon a time. Her skin was pulled tight across her bones; her golden hair had lost its luster. Her memories were stuck in a place of torture, a cell she could not escape from. If this was Hell, she'd gladly sleep on a bed of fog.

Her path opened up, and a road snaked before her. Skeletal trees stretched across it, reaching bony fingers out to grasp at each other, a canopy of rot. Margot had not once looked behind her, and she did not need to. Before her, a town she did not know. One that had risen where no town should be. Spires and rooftops were just visible, though the fog had started to wane, giving a broader view in front of her.

"Barrow Falls."

She had murmured this to herself, though she could almost feel that she wasn't alone now. There were other muted footsteps, ones not quite close enough yet for her eyes to settle on who or what they might be. Her thoughts were interrupted by the lonely, sorrowful bell. The tone was low and beckoning, and her feet moved to answer the call, almost unbidden. A flash of white hair caused her to turn her head almost too quickly, and she paused with a foot in the air. She placed it down solemnly as she walked onwards, there was no way the man before her was real. Even if he was, it didn't matter. After all, weren't they already dead?

@Momoshiro Komori

"Shit, I lost the kid."

And your dignity.

Red eyes rolled over as the fog grew thick around her. Despite being clad in black and more black, the fog was opaque, hiding her boots from her crimson sight. Just in case, Solitude lifted her knee, easing the silly fear that the fog had somehow consumed her feet. The black leather glistened as if she had walked through a field of clover on a new spring early morning. With a gloved finger, she poked two dots and wiped a curved long. A happy face smiled back up at her. The assassin didn't smile back, wouldn't have mattered if she did, the lower half of her face covered by a mask. She set her foot down on the moist ground.

Aren't you going to go after her?

Her shadowkin had a point. Solitude should have kept chasing after the blonde brat, but somehow the trees seemed to move in ways to block Solitude at every twist and turn. Blessed by Mother Meness, running around the dark had never been a problem before, her eyes accustomed to the night and shadows. Before she had realized it, the fog wafted about the ground, the trees branches lowering themselves as the roots rose, all in an attempt to trip her. She hadn't thought the kid to be a Weaver, maybe the kid didn't even know it herself and it was only instinct, but there was no way in hell that she'd let that thief run off with Zorza's lead paten.

Solitude had almost died getting the thing back from that self-righteous paladin himbo. Sure, it was easy to sneak up on a paladin, but dear Mother was it hard to kill them with poison when they had sworn an oath to never curse, drink, cheat, steal, kill (innocents, it was still okay to kill bad guys apparently) eat sugar or pleasure themselves. The stupid hunk had pulled Solitude out from the shadows and blasted her with so much holy light her skin began blistering, lips chapped and bleeding. A little too late did the poison start to kick in but hey, better late than never.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm on it." She wasn't returning back to the Citadel of Ash without that paten. Solitude moved forward, the fog may have swallowed up the kid but she had a feeling they didn't know where they were going. She'd catch up to them sooner or later. For now, she strode with far too much confidence, humming the chorus of a hymn that she always liked best as a child. She didn't quite remember the words, but the tune was enough to keep her going without hesitation despite all the trees looking the same as they loomed over her, crowding her in on a unseen path.

The toll of a bell broke through her comfort song, each ring dissipating the impenetrable gray fog into the airy, translucent mist most found beauty in. Through the haze, she thought she saw a kid shape dashing just out of reach. Her shadow stirred, her sister suddenly uneasy. Solitude's previously brisk walk turned into a run, the echo louder, the shape she chased no longer able to be seen. It couldn't have been more than a brief furlong sprint, but the trees eased up on their attempt to be a wall, spreading out for Sol to see a road and the inorganic shapes of a town, too sharp against the rounded, natural slope of the earth.

Don't.
She didn't heed her sister's warning. After all, if she were a kid running from an assassin, hiding in a town instead of in the woods made far more sense. More places to hide, less open to predators, possibly could snag some food and water unnoticed... yeah, the creepy road leading into the town sure did look spooky but didn't kids love Hallow's Eve for a reason? Although she had no intention of killing the kid, wouldn't justice be served if she played a little trick, a real-life fable as to why one doesn't steal things that belong to an assassin? Sol walked down the road, with a green keeping an eye out for little footprints. She only paused to look at the sign.

"Barrow Falls?" Sol scoffed. "Yeah right, then where's the freakin' waterfall?" She continued on, catching up to those in front of her.

The bell tolled again.

Low. Hollow. Wrong.

Its sound rolled through the fog like something alive, threading itself between the dead trees and settling uncomfortably beneath Momo’s ribs. The foxkin slowed his pace as more figures gradually emerged from the pale haze ahead and behind, no longer merely silhouettes glimpsed through the mist but people—real people, or near enough to convince his instincts otherwise.

That alone should have been comforting.

Instead, it somehow made the road feel even less safe.

Momo’s crimson gaze swept carefully across the gathering strangers as they converged upon the cracked roadway leading toward Barrow Falls. A gaunt woman with hollow blue eyes moved as though sleepwalking toward the distant town, her bare feet carrying her onward with eerie certainty. Somewhere further back, another traveler approached with the swagger of somebody trying very hard not to acknowledge how deeply cursed this entire situation felt.

Then another figure emerged through the fog at a jog, a familiar voice cutting through the gloom.

Momo stopped cold.

"...Osytha?"

Relief hit him so suddenly that he was moving before he'd thought better of it. He closed the distance in quick strides, wrapped her in a tight embrace, and pressed a gentle kiss against her forehead.

"I've never been so happy to see you."

The words had barely left his mouth before the relief curdled into something colder.

His smile faded.

"...No," he murmured quietly. "Not you too."

For a moment he simply looked at her, wishing she were anywhere else but here.

Then Guffers trotted over, and Momo immediately dropped into a crouch, burying both hands in the little dog's fur with a relieved laugh.

"And you too, my friend."

Looking back up at Osytha, his smile returned, though it couldn't quite hide the worry behind it.

"...Please tell me this sort of thing happens to you often," he said. "And that you know exactly what we're supposed to do."

Beyond them, Barrow Falls loomed through the fog like a memory half-rotted with age. At first glance it resembled an ordinary settlement abandoned to time: crooked rooftops, leaning buildings, weak lantern light bleeding through dusty windows. But the longer Momo looked, the less stable the town appeared. Roof lines shifted subtly when he blinked. Alleyways seemed narrower one moment and wider the next. Even the lights themselves flickered strangely, wavering with an underwater distortion that made his skin crawl.

And beneath it all lingered a sensation he could not shake.

Not malicious exactly.

Hungry.

His tail fluffed once before he forced it smooth again.

“…Well,” he murmured lightly, mostly to himself, “this is either an elaborate spirit realm, a mass hallucination, or I’ve finally suffered a complete psychological collapse.”

A beat passed.

“I’d like the record to show I’m hoping for hallucination.”

The joke landed weakly even to his own ears.

Still, instinct pushed harder against his unease with every passing second. Slowly, Momo lifted one hand, fingers curling through a practiced gesture as he reached outward to summon one of his thralls. He intended to summon his flock of crows to scout the area. Normally, the response would have been immediate. A familiar stirring of spiritual pressure, a swirling of black and purple energy. A ripple of distortion and then his cursed spirit would emerge.

Instead—

Nothing happened.

No energy answered him. No spirit stirred. No sensation met his senses at all.

It was not resistance. Not interference. It felt worse than that.

It felt as though his power simply did not exist here.

Momo froze, hand still half-raised. For the first time in years, the motion felt empty—like reaching for a limb that was no longer attached to him. He tried again, quieter this time, focusing harder.

Still nothing. No spirits. No familiar energy. No connection.

Only silence.

Momo stilled.

For a moment, he simply stood there, ears twitching faintly as he tried again—more carefully this time. Not summoning. Searching. Reaching outward with senses honed across years of spirit work, probing for even the faintest trace of familiar presence.

Nothing answered him.

Not even the ambient spiritual noise that existed naturally around every living place in the world.

The silence beyond the fog was absolute.

Momo slowly lowered his hand.

For the first time since arriving here, genuine alarm crossed his face.

“…That,” he said quietly, “is deeply concerning.”

Because it was not merely that his powers had failed.

It felt absent.

Like reaching for air and finding none.

For a while it was only the bell that spoke to her, deep heavy tones that seemed to reach her very bones. Her skin was covered in goosebumps as she continued onwards. As she finally began to study her surroundings, a voice reached her. She recognized who had called to her immediately. A hiss escaped through her teeth as she turned on her heel to face Syr Osytha.

Blue eyes were wide and feral, burning into those of her fellow knight. Margot approached Osytha and the pup that followed at her heels everywhere she went. Margot's fingers curled as she reached the pair.
"You should not be here. This place isn't meant for you."
For in Margot's mind, this is where you came to die and live eternally in purgatory. At least for someone like her. She had no perception of reality and could not tell that this was some form of trickery on her and the others that were slowly gathering.

For a few beats, Margot stared the unfortunate Dusker down before sighing and seemingly relaxing. She did not have time to apologize for her hostility before the trio was approached by the man with the tail that Margot had noticed first. When he approached and started speaking, that's when Margot started to understand that maybe this wasn't exactly what she thought it was. Perhaps it was some elaborate trap? Now the hint of danger finally hit her, and she dug her nails into the palms of her hands.

The foxkin was trying to lessen the heaviness of the issue by using humor, though it was falling a bit flat in the gloom of the town that hovered over them like a snake squeezing its' prey. It seemed he wasn't a threat, so she let the two speak for a moment as she watched the steady approach of another to add to their small group. After a short break in conversation as the foxkin seemed to be occupied with experimenting, Margot turned her attention back to Syr Osytha.

"The moon called me, so I came. I didn't expect to run into anyone else. I'm sorry you got pulled into whatever this is. I thought I had finally died."
A lot of what she said probably wouldn't make sense to most others, but she knew what she was talking about. "I think we are in a lot of trouble." She waved dismissively to their surroundings, the thought of danger doing little to alarm her.

Growing up in rituals of blood and shadow had prepared her for anything unsettling. The Church could be creepy like this. Not all of it. Most of it was presentable with silver and moonstone, Sognare marble and obsidian shined so well it reflected all of the moons. It was the deeper levels that left Solitude with a feeling much like she had now. A feeling like a vengeful spirit was following after her, dreams mixing with reality, or the absence of goodness being so absolute that Solitude herself felt wrong. She called that place home.

"Yo." Solitude raised a hand in easygoing greeting. Her shadow was darker than all of theirs, a shadow meant for three not one. The dark-haired one spoke.

A pause, eyes blinking as her mind relayed the words again and again from her ears. Solitude supposed she had been called things worse than hen, but wasn't that term used for those with children? Sure, a few ladies might have warned her already about getting older and considering settling down long enough to pop out a kid or two. Mother Meness will provide, they said as if Solitude was worried about finances.

If she smiled politely, sometimes they added that Mother Meness believed everyone should experience the gift of motherhood and one didn't need a man to adopt if she were inclined to different lovers. Sol's eyes curled, wrinkles at the corners. Signora Immaculata was going to shake her head as Solitude emphasized a few extra details about the interaction.

"That's right." She said with a shrug, looking around them. "I heard this place is lovely this time of year. Fantastic weather, lovely locals." The assassin shivered, feeling a bone deep chill course through her spine, ice in her veins, heart struggling to beat. She cleared her throat, the feeling ebbed, but icy tendrils slid about her ribs. "Any of you see a little kid running around?"

Momo's gaze lingered on Margot for a moment after her explanation. The moon called me, so I came. There was something deeply unsettling about the certainty with which she had said it. Not because he believed she was lying, but because she genuinely seemed to believe it herself. Whatever had drawn them here, whatever force lurked behind the fog and the bell and the impossible town waiting ahead, it had touched her in a way that felt disturbingly personal. When she admitted she had thought she was dead, some of the tension left his expression. The fear in her voice was familiar. He had heard it before in haunted villages, in ruined temples, in the aftermath of disasters people could not explain.

"You're not the first person I've met who thought they were walking into the afterlife," he said quietly. A faint smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. "Though usually they wait until after they've died to make that assumption."

The joke was gentle rather than humorous, offered less to earn a laugh than to remind her of something simple and important: she was still here. Still standing. Still breathing. For the moment, at least, that counted for something.

His attention drifted toward Osytha as she stepped forward and wrapped her cloak around the other woman without a second thought. The sight drew an involuntary smile from him and just a hint of redness to his cheeks.

Of course she did.

Momo knew enough about the woman to understand that kindness came as naturally to Osytha as breathing. Faced with danger, uncertainty, or fear, her first thought never seemed to be for herself.

He watched her fuss with the clasp, adjusting it with quiet care, and felt a familiar warmth stir somewhere beneath his ribs. There was something disarming about the way she moved through the world. So much strength, yet so much gentleness. Most people spent their lives trying to become one without sacrificing the other.

Osytha somehow managed both.

"I'd say that's admirable," he said, his voice carrying a fondness he made no effort to hide. "But I suspect encouraging you would only make you more impossible than you already are."

The words carried an unmistakable warmth and familiar fondness, but it faded as his gaze shifted to the newest arrival. The woman with the red eyes. The one asking about a child.

A small knot tightened low in his stomach.

"I... maybe?" he began slowly.

His eyes drifted past her shoulder, following the empty street disappearing into the fog. Aside from the small group, there had been many shadows and shapes drifting in and out of the mists around them. Any one of them could have been the person she was searching for.

"I'm not entirely sure though."

The humor had vanished completely from his voice.

"Whatever I might've seen is gone now anyway," he said as he gestured to the blank canvas of the fog behind them.

The silence that followed seemed to stretch. Around them, the town remained unnaturally still, every dark window and empty doorway feeling just a little too attentive.

As if in answer, the bell tolled again.

Low.

Hollow.

Wrong.

The sound rolled through the fog and empty streets alike, and this time Momo found himself wondering whether it was ringing for them—or whether something inside Barrow Falls was listening for the sound and drawing closer every time it rang.

---

The bell's toll rolled through the fog and over the cracked roadway, threading itself between dead trees and abandoned fences alike. The sound lingered longer than it should have, hanging in the mist as though reluctant to fade. Perhaps it never truly did.

Barrow Falls called to them.

From a distance, the town resembled any other forgotten settlement left to rot beneath indifferent skies. Crooked rooftops leaned toward one another like conspirators. Weathered storefronts slouched beneath the weight of years. Pale lanterns burned behind dusty windows, casting weak pools of amber light into the fog. Yet the longer one looked, the harder it became to trust what was being seen. Roof lines seemed subtly different whenever eyes returned to them. Alleyways narrowed and widened without explanation. Entire buildings appeared slightly misplaced, as though the town had shifted while nobody was looking.

The fog concealed these imperfections well.

It always had. It always would.

The newcomers gathered at the edge of town while the mist coiled around their feet and ankles. Strangers, all of them. Pulled here by different roads, different reasons, different fears. Some had followed voices. Some had followed instincts. Some had simply arrived without ever remembering the journey.

The town accepted them all equally.

It did not care how they came.

Only that they stayed.

Elsewhere, deeper within the fog-choked streets, something moved.

At first it was easy to dismiss them as tricks of the eye. Dark smudges drifting between buildings. Fleeting shapes glimpsed through gaps in the mist. The sort of things that appeared when one stared too long into darkness and allowed the mind to begin filling in the blanks. They lingered at the very edge of visibility, where certainty gave way to imagination.

One shape appeared.

Then another.

Then several more.

They stood scattered throughout the streets ahead, half-hidden behind curtains of fog and pale pools of lantern light. Motionless. Silent. Watching.

The mist curled around them like living breath.

For a few moments they looked almost human.

A lone figure standing beneath a streetlamp. Another resting beside a fence. A third crouched low near the gutter. Ordinary silhouettes. Ordinary people.

Then they began to move.

Not wandering.

Not passing through.

Approaching.

Slowly, deliberately, they drifted forward through the fog. With each step, the illusion weakened. Shapes sharpened. Details emerged. The things shambling toward the gathered travelers possessed the rough outline of humanity, but only in the way a corpse possesses the rough outline of life.

Something was wrong with them.

Terribly wrong.

One limped forward with arms so long its knuckles dragged across the pavement. Another crawled on all fours, moving with unsettling speed despite joints that bent in directions they should not. One seemed to slither rather than walk, its body folding and unfolding beneath a ragged coat like a nest of serpents attempting to mimic a human form.

More figures emerged behind them.

And behind those came still more.

The fog seemed eager to birth them.

As they drew nearer, faces became visible. If they could still be called faces.

One possessed eyes—far too many eyes. Pale, wet things crowded across its brow, cheeks, and throat in clusters that blinked independently of one another. Another had none at all. Its face was smooth and featureless, flesh stretched tight where eyes, nose, and mouth should have been. A third wore an impossible grin that split nearly ear to ear, exposing rows of human teeth packed so densely they continued far down its throat into darkness.

One crawled upside down across the road.

Another lurched forward with its head twisted completely backward.

Several jerked and spasmed as they moved, as though they had only recently learned what people looked like and were still struggling to imitate the process.

The bell tolled again.

Its mournful voice rolled through the fog, washing over the streets like a tide. The creatures halted immediately.

Every movement ceased.

Every twitch.

Every stagger.

Every crawl.

Dozens upon dozens of distorted figures froze where they stood.

Then, as one, their heads turned.

Not toward the church.

Not toward the bell.

Toward the newcomers standing at the edge of Barrow Falls.

Toward the living.

The fog drifted lazily between them. Lantern light flickered. Somewhere a loose shutter banged against a wall before falling silent once more.

And then the creatures smiled.

Not all of them possessed mouths.

Some had no lips.

Some had jaws hanging at impossible angles.

Some lacked faces entirely.

Yet somehow every one of them smiled.

The sight spread through the crowd like a disease.

A welcome.

An invitation.

A threat.

When they finally spoke, it was not dozens of voices.

It was one.

A single chorus emerging from every throat at once. Men and women. Young and old. High voices. Deep voices. Broken voices. Voices that sounded as though they had not spoken in years.

All speaking together.

Perfectly synchronized.

Perfectly wrong.

"Welcome home."

The words drifted through the fog.

Then came again, softer.

Closer.

As though the town itself were speaking through them.

"Welcome home."

The bell tolled once more.

Then the mass of creatures flooded toward them in a frenzy.

Margot recognized Osytha's tone as firm, but from a place of care and concern. She hadn't had many run ins with the Dusker, but she had always heard wonderful things about her, high praise and gentle words. The Dawnling could see why, for even in this shadowed and grim place, Osytha still found time to tend to others. There was the smallest flicker of her humanity, her blue eyes losing their dullness for just a moment a she watched the other woman fiddle with her cloak.

Momo? It seemed the two knew each other, which was probably good news. They spoke back and forth for a moment, Margot silently paying attention to the exchange. There was a deep feeling of trust she felt for the foxkin, it was very strange and unexpected. Perhaps it was just the energy with which Osytha spoke to him that had her trusting this very fluffy stranger.

Her blue eyes landed on Momo as he spoke. Her shoulders dragged into a shrug as she attempted a smile. "It is hard to tell these days. I never know if I'm awake or dreaming anymore."

The Dusker was now clenching her cloak in her deft hands, odd that she had removed it. Margot flinched away as Osytha put the cloak about her shoulders. Her fists clenched, her chest heaving. It took only a moment, but to Margot it was ages. She was pounding it into her own head that Osytha was not the enemy, that she did not need to lash out. It took every bit of her concentration to not attack the woman she knew as friend.

The cloak was on, it was done. Margot could breathe again. She knew it was a gesture meant with good intention, and she did not miss the look that Osytha had given her. Her mind was searching for too many answers all at once, about herself and the others. She could feel a rising panic in her chest.

By then, another had joined them.

Red eyes and a walk that seemed like the most dangerous thing they had yet encountered here. Margot looked to Osytha, finally acknowledging her words. "Dawn and Dusk, together as it should be." She nodded as if convincing herself. Her gaze followed the approach of the new entity that had infiltrated their little group. She moved with an easiness that was bit disconcerting, but it seemed as if the goal for now was to stick with each other and any others that may join them in the suffocating fog.

At the mention of a child, Margot simply pointed to Guffers, her face deadpan though she was trying for humor. "He's the only child I've seen around here." She thought she was funny and had no clue how she might come off to the others. She was cut off then, the bells rolling over them with tones that spoke of death and danger. It was low, and steady, and wrong.

They started as shadows, hidden well in the fog. They flitted back and forth in front of her eyes; she couldn't quite understand what she was seeing. The bell had stilled the group, but still the shadows moved and contorted in front of them. Like a wave of darkness, these being lurched closer. Margot couldn't even describe the horrors that met her eyes. They were all wrong, abominations of every kind.

The bell sounded again, and both groups froze as its mournful tone rolled over them. A voice reached them, a voice that belonged to many, but none. Margot felt fear flood her veins with its icy chill. She no longer felt content, everything had changed. She felt trapped, and a trapped animal is always dangerous. She drew her silver blade from her belt, standing beside her Dusker companion, and the others that she did not yet know, but that she would still protect with her life if needed.

The flood of bodies bore down upon them, and Margot stood ready. The first one, no mouth and too many limbs fell upon her, she swung the slender blade to bite at it, sweeping it up again for another strike. Her forehead was creased, concentration and exertion apparent. She wasn't really in decent shape to fight, but she'd be damned if they were overrun. A flash of another battle crossed her mind's eye, and she faltered slightly. "They're going to take me again!" She wailed it out as she swung again, tears streaming down her face. She didn't even know if she was hurting the damn things at this point.

@Osytha @Momoshiro Komori

"Oh, a puppy, that's cool." That was stupid, who brought their dog into danger? Little thing, too, not one of the war dogs that could be found in Somniāre with their massive heads and jaws and of course, pure black pelts. Always needed a good war dog that was black to help hide all the blood and guts. Speaking of blood and guts....

Yuck. Monsters, of course, in this godforsaken place there would be monsters. The grotesque was sublime, in Solitude's eyes, her soul, now complete with her sister's, would surely take a similar shape. Harmony and the distortion of it blurred together with the tolling of the bell. The bell that welcomed them into the fog and shadows was now welcoming them into a horde of villagers that had surely seen better days.

"Do they have to smell like that?" Solitude grunted, adjusting her mask over her nose. Although she may have been used to the sight of monsters, she most definitely wasn't used to the smell. The final toll of the bell, all for the six of them. Seven, Sol corrected herself, she hadn't included the dog.

Some monster kids with slingshots, jumped over a wooden fence, flinging sharpened bone and teeth with poor aim, which happened to be more dangerous than good aim. She took a step forward, loose rubble sliding her down into the splits, just in time to miss shards sharper than steel. The children wore potato sacks over their head, a creepy, dripping smiley face painted on them with broken fingers and blood, shapes sagging like jack-o-lanterns weeks after Hallow's Eve.

They continued running, exposed white and yellow fat around their knees dripping with maggots, skin peeled and loose and hanging, green pus oozing from stomach wounds after roughhousing about with each other. One of them, or all of them, had clearly poked an eye out.

"Little shits," Solitude aimed her dagger point at the one closest to her, their mismatched ghost laughter beginning to sound less and less like the laughter of children and more like the shrill screams of someone begging for their life while being tortured. Her blade flew through the air, slicing through the stale, lonely air before piercing through sagging flesh. It was enough to trip it, and with luck on Sol's side, the kid fell and ended up tripping the other's in its gang.

Pulling more blades between her fingers, when Solitude got up, only to hear the blonde one screaming, she frowned, it hidden by her mask. At least the knight kept using her sword while screaming her head off. With the fling of her wrist, the hands reaching for slingshots were stabbed to the ground. Red eyes looked towards the other knight, the one not screaming but making plans.

"You two wanna run for it," Sol jerked her head towards the buildings, "I can buy you time." Knives as black as the blood coming from the monsters was pulled out now, a thick and heavy sheen with the smell of a campfire coasted the entire blade. The blades were shorter and wider, with a shape that helped to make it stay in place wherever it had been thrown.

With one hand free, she leaped, reaching for a rusty awning over a shattered window, pulling herself up easily with the swing of her legs. The awning creaked but didn't break until after she had started scaling the wall to get onto the flat rooftop, what might have once been a lovely little balcony back then before all of... this. The slingshot gang was back up, letting a piece of their decaying hands remaining on the ground as they readied their slingshots towards Solitude. She threw herself flat onto the ground, hearing the crack and pop of wood, feeling the rush of air just barely over her head. Her head poked out over the short wooden wall looking like swiss cheese, seeing the gang of masked potato sacks readying their slingshots once again.

Solitude began aiming her Sussurrini blades in a shape far enough from the living and angled close enough to the monsters that their natural ebb and pull wouldn't give them a chance to avoid the fire once it ignited. The assassin ducked and rolled, avoiding once more the little menaces.