A Store of Nightmares (18 Jul 2002) Alice explores a scary place.

The Store of Nightmares
A darkened shop with mysterious objects of uncertain purpose on the closely-packed shelves. Twisted gargoyles and demonic figures loom on top shelves, stretching into the shadows of the high, unseen roof above. No attendant waits behind the empty check-out counter, with its black cash register perched like an angry insect on one end. The only visible doorway is closed and boarded up.

A silence more ominous than the strange noises follows Alice's show, via raspberry, of bravado. The store grows a little darker, long, strange shadows stretching between the narrow racks.

Prickles crawl along the back of Alice's head, her hair shifting as if beneath tiny feet.

The tickling along the back of the little blonde girl's neck makes her squirm a little. She half-suspects that there just might be a little spider crawling through her hair, lost and dislodged from its web from when Alice brushed against the web. As she takes a step forward she reaches back to gently feel around for signs of stray arachnids. Her gaze wanders along the curious contents of the shop from this knickknack to that dust-covered bauble in hopes she might get lucky and find what she's looking for quickly.

Nothing on the shelves looks like anything that anyone would want. Thick dust obscures the contents. From one shelf, a dark, reddish liquid pools, dripping from an unidentifiable object clutched in the talons of a perched stone gargoyle. The gargoyle leers at Alice, its inanimate eyes of hard glass glinting. As Alice meets its stare, her fingers brush something long, slender, and hairy, like a pipe cleaner stuck in her hair -- except this "pipe cleaner" recoils from her touch, and the prickles move along her scalp as it -- and several other touches like it -- shift position.

Alice tries really hard not to "ew". Really, really hard. Normally she's just fine with bugs and the like but here in the dark with unknown "squirmies" making a home in her hair is a bit more than she's used to dealing with. Her nose wrinkles and she shivers lightly. As she considers just what to do about this problem she dislodges her gaze from the stare-contest champion gargoyle (of course statues always win staring contests) and looks far off towards the door to the back room. She remembers clearly that what she's here for is probably there and she just doesn't suppose this old shop is going to be nice enough to save her the trouble.

The door at the back of the store isn't even visible from where she stands. The ... whatever it is ... in her hair stops moving, as if tensing to pounce. What she can see is a spreading mass of gloppy slime in the aisle before her, covered in a scummy surface of dust. A huge glob of mucus plops from the ceiling into the puddle on the floor, leaving a brief crater before the goop slowly swallows all traces of the impact.

Remembering from school that bugs because of their weight are able to handle falls okay little Alice decides on the dog-method of ridding herself of bugs. That is to shake-shake-shake until they fall off. So that's what she does and she tries to do it so the bugs don't fall in the goop -- something she doesn't think anyone would appreciate be they bug, little girl, or black-eyed gargoyle.

As she shakes her head violently, the object in her hair is partially dislodged. It slides to the end of one blond lock, then clings there as her shaking lashes it into her face. For a moment, she has an extreme close-up of a very large, very hairy brown tarantula. Except maybe it's not a spider, because she gets the distinct impression it is snarling and spitting at her in anger, and she wouldn't have thought spiders could do that. Then the creature falls out of her face from the momentum of her earlier shaking -- but, jarred by the sight, Alice freezes. The tarantula climbs her hair as if in its own web.

After a quick mental weighing of the pain of plucking the hairs versus the idea of having a big hissing spider on her head the little girl decides she's more than willing to lose a hairs to also lose that odd spider. She quickly reaches over to nab the end of the strands between her thumb and pointer finger and tries to jerk them loose with a quick tug.

With a stinging pain, the small patch of hair rips free, and Alice finds herself holding, at arm's length, a hissing spider climbing quickly to her hand from a line of golden-blond.

Alice briefly considers dropping the spider in the goo to be rid of it for (hopefully) good but even now she doesn't have the heart to toss it to its doom. So instead she swings the arachnid on the strand a bit and then releases letting the momentum carry the spider away from her.

The tarantula pinwheels briefly through the air, landing out of sight with a clatter and a tinkle, scuttling under one of the shelves. A sudden thump behind the shelf, and a growl follows the landing, then a crunch. From the direction of the gargoyle, Alice hears deep, heavy breathing

Now that she's free from the spider and more that a little sorry that it probably got crunched the little girl turns her attentions to the immediate problems -- the strange breathing noise and the glob of mucus that covers the floor before her. She decides she's just not athletic enough to try jump over it. She just doesn't think she'd have a very good chance and she most assuredly would rather not land in that slimy stuff. So she steps back and away from it and tries to find another aisle that leads to the back door all the while keeping an eye out for signs of whatever is breathing so heavily or any other dangers that might threaten her.

She's almost to the end of the aisle when she hears the sound of padding paws on the other side of the shelving, where the spider fell and vanished. A low growl echoes, like the sound of jruuh, menacing and vicious.

"I know what you look like!" calls Alice to the sound of padding feet. She figures if there's anything jruuh-monsters really don't like second to being spotted outright it's knowing what they look like. "Little dog, flat tail! I'm going to see you!" She wiggles her fingers in a "scary" fashion. "Wooo-ooo! You'll be spotted for sure!"

The creature on the other side hesitates for a moment, then lowers to the ground, growling deeper. The noise is answered on the opposite aisle, behind Alice as she's turned to menace the sound on the other side of the shelves. Another plop sounds from the goop of the puddle, this time closer.

Alice moves on out of the aisle she's in and away from the sound of the approaching plop. Jruuh she knows all about, though from where she isn't quite sure. Mysterious-slime-from-the-ceilings she's pretty sure she's never learned about. And she's usually rather attentive when these sorts of things are spoken of in class. Therefore the jruuh seems like the better of two evils and she heads along down to the next aisle. As she goes she tries to keep her gaze wandering so as to try and make it hard for anything to sneak up on her. Every so often she gives a call of "I'm going to see you!".

Just before she enters into the aisle into which the spider disappeared, she hears a scrabbling of claws on wood. No jruuh appear in it, but the shelves are lined by gargoyles, each looming over the aisle, each larger and scarier and than the last.

Alice wonders if maybe it wasn't a jruuh but a gargoyle that growled in this aisle. She briefly glances down the way to see if there might be another aisle available.

As she glances behind her, she catches a glimpse of something fearsome and furred, with long claws and sharp teeth, descending towards her back. She has enough time to think, jruuh. Then the monster is gone.

"Well, now, see I said it." The little girl puts a hands on her hips and nods matter-of-factly. "You had to be a meanie and now you're dis-appear-ed!" She gives one more glance around and then decides she'd better move down the gargoyle aisle before something else decides to try and sneak up on her.

She walks bravely down the aisle for several feet, but the gargoyles all around loom over head. Outstretched wings arc above her head. Cockroaches crawl along stone limbs that seem to shift, subtly, in the gloom. A drop of something liquid drips from the talon of one to spatter against the floor.

Alice keeps an eye on the gargoyles as she travels down the aisle towards the back of the store. She wonders if gargoyles ever have their legs fall asleep on them from sitting in that uncomfortable looking crouched position all day or if this is what someone meant when they told her that when you make a funny face it might stick that way.

As she nears the middle of the aisle, she hears the faint sounds of voices and a strain of music, like a distant, grown-up party, from somewhere beyond the back door. One voice rises briefly, like a scold. Then, the muted sobbing of a girl.

The party noises are dispersed by a sudden spattering directly before Alice. There, right at her feet, is another huge puddle of goo -- and she almost stepped in it. As Alice looks up, she sees that the goop is dripping from the mouth of the largest, ugliest, most vicious-looking of the statues. Its clawed feet curl around the edge of a shelf. Its wings hunch wide above the huge puddle. Its right hand reaches out to menace her. And its left ... coils close to its chest. Holding something. Something Important.

"What's that you have there, Mr. Gargoyle?" inquires the blonde girl as she sidesteps away from the puddle of goo. It feels important, but she hasn't got enough of a look at it to see just what it is. And of course since it feels important she feels very much obligated to see what it is. She peers at it without to try and make out what the object might be beneath the gargoyle's claw. All the while the strange sound from the back room makes her wonder just what might be going on back there. Maybe the owner is having a party, she thinks. It doesn't sound like a fun party, though.

It's hard to tell what the statue has, with stone talons wrapped around it and the shadows thick all around. But as Alice strains to see, she can make out dark plastic, and the glint of a lens. A camera? Another gob of mucus-like drool lolls from the hunched statue's stone tongue. The puddle ripples, goopily, and the perimeter of it stretches, nearly brushing Alice's toes.

Again the little girl sidesteps away from the goo -- this time not quite as far since she needs to get that camera. She's pretty sure this is what she's supposed to come here and get. Unfortunately it seems to be wrapped up in a gargoyle of which she's pretty sure isn't a new kind of feature camera feature. After another quick glance around she gives the gargoyle another look over to determine if she can dislodge the camera. Or failing that try and guess how heavy the gargoyle is. If she really has to she can buy them together.

The gargoyle is perched on top of a shelf at the end of the aisle, roughly four feet off the ground, and is so tall that its wings spread over neighboring shelves that stand seven or more feet of the ground. At the foot of the shelving is the puddle of goo, spreading for several feet in all visible directions. With the camera clutched to its chest, there's no obvious way of getting it out of the gargoyle's hands without getting much closer--and braving the strange, unidentifiable goop. A cockroach crawls along the underside of the gargoyle's chin, and another over its outstretched right hand.

She had already decided she wasn't leaving without what was important. And this is it ... isn't it? Alice ponders the camera for a moment longer and suddenly she gets a most disconcerting idea. Maybe what she's here for isn't this. Maybe it really is in the back, and maybe it isn't an it at all. She wonders for a moment at the girl she heard crying and about the camera. The camera is important, certainly, but the girl's voice sounds familiar. Something more important than even the camera. "Rebecca!" exclaims Alice as it dawns on her. "Sorry, Mr. Gargoyle but Rebecca is more important. I'll come back!" And with that she turns from the statue and tries to find a way around the drool and to the back of the store.

She looks from one side of the cramped aisle to the other, but both are lined with the goo. It even runs under the shelving. As Alice brushes against one of the shelves, trying to see past, a sharp talon from one of the other gargoyles catches on her dress, tearing it when she recoils away.

The girl rubs her shoulder where the claw tore her dress and gives the offending statue a serious raspberry. Satisfied she turns to regard the pool of drool that slowly spreads its way across the floor either way. Not quite sure what to make of it she reaches in to her purse and pulls out a neat stone she found while playing with her friends. This she tosses in the goo to see what happens.

The stone craters into the goo, which spreads slowly away from it. Then, as the stone lays there, the thick, icky, nasty-smelling substance oozes across it as it closes over the gap formed on the impact. Within thirty seconds, the object has vanished beneath a solid layer of goop.

While rubbing her arm a bit more Alice ponders the difficulty of the goo. The recent scratch on her arm, however, gives her an idea. She steps back a little and then reaches up to try and tug one of the gargoyles to fall down in to the goop and perhaps act as a stepping stone.

While Alice contemplates the gunky puddle, the sounds of the party rise again. The faint music is strangely distorted by distance and the intervening objects, making it sound a little off-key. Alice can't make out the words, but she hears Rebecca's voice, shrill and upset, then deeper, grown-up words that silence her. The little girl tugs at her chosen gargoyle, but it's heavy and its stony hide is full of hidden burrs that snag at the skin of her fingers, pricking them when she touches it.

This certainly isn't easy, thinks the little girl as she relents from trying to tug the statue into the goo. It seems she just isn't going to be able to go this way. And with the spreading gargoyle drooled slime she may not even be able to come back for the camera. Thus she decides she'll get it now, while she can, unless Rebecca begins to sound more in trouble than she already does. Alice walks over to the large grotesquery and puzzle how she might pull the camera out from its grasp without falling in the goo or having the statue fall on her.

The little girl doesn't find anything else that will help her in her effort to get the camera. So she decides it's time to brave that goo. She grabs a nearby shelf in case the goo tries to pull her in and then gingerly steps a foot in it.

The goop seems to reaches up to her foot as she lowers it, and it sucks at the sole of her shoe. It smells even worse after she steps in it, and even through the leather, it feels unpleasant, like mud, blood, saliva, mucus, and even worse things, all mixed together. Alice's fingers tighten on shelf as her foot sinks into it. At the edge of the puddle, she hits the floor with only the bottom half of her shoe submerged.

"Okay," thinks Alice aloud as her foot hits the bottom. "It sure is -- ew -- not bottomless goo." This is heartening since she was certainly running out of ideas as to how to get around the goo. Now she feels more confident in simply wading across it. While holding the shelf she slowly tries to walk further in the goo towards where she can get the camera and from there across to the other side.

The shelf ends as she reaches the aisle at the back of the store, the one that runs perpendicular to the aisle she's in, and wherein the gargoyle stands. She manages to hold onto the shelf and stretch, as she walks deeper into the pool. It feels nastier with each step, sucking like quicksand at her feet as she lifts them free for each step. As she gets to the base of the gargoyle's shelf, one hand stretched behind her to reach the shelf of the previous aisle -- the goop flows over her ankles, squelching into her shoes. She reaches up to the gargoyle's hand that holds the camera, and out of the corner of her eye, she sees a big glob of the disgusting slime swelling over its stone tongue, threatening to plop right on top of her.

Deciding having highly sticky goo plopping on her head might make breathing particularly unpleasant Alice scoots her head to the side so that the goo drips on her shoulder instead. It doesn't seem to have hurt her other than smell bad and be sticky so she's hoping its safe enough. With her head out of the way she tries get that camera so she can move on.

Plop.

"Ewwww!"

Goo splatters over her shoulder, her dress, into her hair, over her neck and arm. It drips under the collar and oozes down her bare skin. But her fingers close on the camera. The stone of the gargoyle scrapes at her skin, not wanting to relinquish its prize.

Alice does a full body shudder after her disgusted cry. She doesn't think she's ever felt so unclean ever in her whole life. Yuck! But she didn't get slimed just to give up on the camera because the gargoyle is being difficult. Scratches or no she's going to get it and help Rebecca.

She tugs and pries at the camera, using both hands, until her fingers are scraped raw and bleeding. The goop all over inadvertently comes to her aid, lubricating the stone talons. With a final, determined effort, she pulls the camera free! The sudden lack of resistance overbalances her, and she falls onto her rear with a smack in the puddle. Distantly, she hears the laughter of adults through music.

"Bleh!" Alice thinks her mother is never going to approve of this mess. Sore and slimed, she tries to pull herself up and wade to the other side of the slime pool so she can continue on her way. The sooner she can escape the goo the better she thinks.

The pool fills the whole back aisle, Alice sees as she gets to her feet, slimed, cut, and bruised, but intact. She spots the back door out of the store, just on the other end of the aisle. A thin crack of light escapes from the edge. From beyond it, she can just make out the sound of Rebecca's voice, childishly petulant and angry. " -- listen --!"

With slime still clinging to her shoes the blonde slowly drags her feet across the remaining distance to the door. With every step there's a splorch followed by thin ribbons of slime as she lifts her leg to move forward. Behind her several shoe-shaped globs of goo mark her passage. The trail ends as she finally reaches the back door -- camera clutched tightly to her sticky left arm. She reaches to pull open the door.

The door creaks open, onto a scene of candlelight, laughter, and music. Elegant Lords and beautiful Ladies dance in perfect rhythm across a marble floor. Wholly out of place is a freckled, baby-faced girl with unruly red hair, wearing a black graduation gown several sizes too big and clumsily gathered around her waist. She tugs at the sleeve of an impossibly tall and lovely adult woman, with flawless skin and lustrous, perfectly-ordered black hair. "Don't you see?" the child complains, tears of anger and frustration in her eyes.

The woman blithely ignores the child, dancing with her fairy-tale-perfect partner.

Above the dance floor, there is no roof, only a looming black void, marked by a pair of huge, sinister dark eyes, and gaping maw that threatens to consume them all.

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This site serves as a chronicle of sessions in an online roleplaying campaign moderated by Conrad "Lynx" Wong and May "Rowan" Wasserman. The contents of this site are (c) 2001, 2002 by Conrad Wong and May Wasserman except where stated otherwise. Despite the "children's fantasy" theme of this campaign, this site is not intended for young readership, due to mild language and violence.