The basement.

Father Andrews makes his way down the main steps to the basement hall, uneasiness rolling around in the pit of his stomach as it so often did ever since they had made that… thing. It didn’t have a name yet of course, that would have to wait until the leader of their new dark faith arrived and spoke with its incarnated soul or some bullshit like that. The guy was probably the most fearsome swindler this new world had to offer, Andrews would almost say he liked the guys style if it weren’t such a pain in his ass. First there was this quota nonsense. You had to kill or convert five hundred people all in a specific way without breaking any of the tenets of the faith. You couldn’t just off a righteous person, you had to offer them up to the undead to be ‘purified’ in Christ’s name. When your quota was filled your time was up and it was your turn to be purified, it was a tricky thing to dance around but the power this insane little cult offered was too much to pass up. When you were in control of where and how these monsters were made and you were in command of zealots insane enough to handle the things, well he had already proven how powerful it could be with how easily he had taken control of this little town.

He stops in front of the reinforced steel door and fumbles with the sizable ring of keys in his hands, trembling just the slightest bit as he undoes the locks one at a time. He was not particularly fond of this part of the basement, however he found himself unable to go to long without compulsively coming down to check that everything was still safely under lock and key especially since the new addition to their ‘family’. He pushes the heavy door open flinching a little at the sound of moaning and groaning from within. The steanch of rot hit him like a brick wall and he covered his face with a handkerchief sprayed generously with cologne as he steps inside and looks around. There were zombies packed into shabby wooden stalls with iron gates, each one padlocked shut. This part of the basement was built by his great grandfather during the great depression. Grandpa Andrews had wanted to keep animals at the church to help feed the towns folk and had built something of butchery down here. There was a large door that lead from the barn, which was now just another part of this ever rapidly expanding church, down a ramp into this part of the basement where the animals could be slaughtered and the meat stored in the commercial freezer.

He makes his way past all the pushing and clawing zombies locked up in their stalls, arms reaching feebly through the bars toward him, and heads for a door on the other side of the room. He takes a deep breath to steady his nerves before turning the handle and stepping inside. As much as he braces himself he cannot help the primal panic that rises in his guts and pounds through his veins like fire in proximity to the thing in the cage. Every nerve in his body screams at him to run but he ignores the impulse and crosses the room halfway to the cage looking upon the monster therein with an expression of awe and reverence. The kid had been on the tall side originally. Maybe six feet or so but the creature before him was well over eight feet tall now, barrel chested and heavily muscled. Coarse black hair cascaded down its back in matted waves, and its wide shark like grin was bloody as it watched him approach.

“You’ve been trying to eat your cage again I see.” Came a cheerful young voice from the doorway. Father Andrews jumps in surprise, his heart beating so hard he was afraid it might burst out of his chest. He spins around holding back an angry curse. It was that Devin kid from the bar. He strides up next to Father Andrews wearing the black chef coat and bandana ensemble he always wore these days and fondly mirrors the monsters grin. Sure enough there was blood from the things gums on the bars and cracks in the concrete around the cage. He really hoped the old crackpot would hurry up and get his ass down here and name this thing so they could ditch it somewhere. This place wasn’t built to hold this thing. “You look awfully grumpy today, hungry?” Devin opens the large walk in freezer at the back of the room and heaves a body off one of the hooks, some police lady who had come snooping through town a while ago, and drags her over to the cage within reach of the beast. It makes a sound almost like a chuckle as the boy steps within reach of its powerful claws, it swipes out halfheartedly at the boy knocking him over before snatching up the half frozen body and ripping it into pieces that will fit through the bars. It plunges its massive cawed hand into her abdomen and begins coating its face in the thick coagulated blood.

“He always was fond of painting his face.” Father Andrews muttered. The boy had been part of some kind of clown rap cult or something and always insisted on wearing makeup. He was something of a monster from the very beginning, a sociopath with a need for an outlet. Father Andrews gave him that outlet and the kid had ended up being the first member of their little cult to fill his quota. Five hundred people in less than a week. It was frightening. When the boy had returned and demanded Father Andrews deliver him to the nearest Disciple to be purified in the name of the ‘messiahs’ he hadn’t been quite sure what to do. There was no way the priest was going to make the dangerous journey to someplace like Detroit to feed the little psychopath to a super zombie. He ended up tossing the kid to the regular zombies he had stashed in the basement and luck somehow managed to shit in his face and a monster was spawned under his church.

Devin chuckles as he watches the beast pull off the womans limbs and eat them, the bones snapping and crunching in its jaws. The young cook had eerie similarities to the clown boy and it made Andrews uncomfortable. “The new arrivals are all here.” The boy says, his eyes dancing enthusiastically as he watches the beast make short work of its meal. “Looks like everyone’s all getting ready for the ceremony.” He adds.

“Right.” Father Andrews says tearing his eyes off the beast and the torn bloody flesh hanging from its massive fangs and fingers. “Very good. I suppose I should be making preparations as well.”

He leaves the room the way he had came. There were cult members in crude armor grabbing up zombies by the necks with long metal dog catchers poles and dragging them upstairs for the ritual. He waits for them to make a safe path for him before quickly crossing the room and heading upstairs to the octagon room and helping everyone set up.

Karkat stares down the hall at the open metal looking door with all the locks and shit. If these wackjobs were keeping people somewhere a big armored door wasn’t a bad place to start right? A familiar stench was starting to fill the hall and he could swear he heard groaning or something. What the fuck was with this place? He glances back into the room with all the beds, rolling his eyes as he realizes he is alone. Where the fuck did everybody go? A sinking feeling fills his stomach and he grips Meulins bat even tighter. Maybe he should go back and make sure those morons were okay. He retreats back into the room with the beds and closes the door behind him before backtracking to the weird room with all the broken computers sighing in relief when he is back in the proximity of his fellow rescuers. This place was creepy as fuck. He walks over to where Rose is looking through the one working computer, her face glowing eerily in illumination of the screen in the dark room, and glances over her shoulder to see what she is looking at.

(( Have we been through the octogon room? ))

(meulins been through the basement level of the octagon room and shes heading up to the main level of it, that big long thing was supposed to have happened before meulin checked out the metal door and decided to leave it alone i guess, and then after she left the zombie wrangling peeps came by and left the door open so they can move some zombies abouts the church and thats how karkat found it.)

(( okay, excellent. Exactly what I wanted to know ^w^ ))

After Rose finished printing the pages on the strange "Saints" & tucked them safely away for later study, she returned to the computer & started going through a few more of the files, looking for anything else that could prove useful. Most of what she found was bland, things like inventory lists & schedules for random events, but eventually Rose found something interesting; the church's doctrine. While a great deal was the basic "love God like he loves you" kind of bullshit, other last page took a much more sinister & disturbing turn. All kinds of things involving sacrifice, & quotas, & "purification". Rose closed the program with a shake of her head. Just how insane were these people? and...she shot a worried glance at Sollux & Jennifer. Did either of them know about this last page? Were they actually part of this dark religion?

A sudden movement on her other side caused Rose to quickly turn, drawing one of her needles from its hiding place in her sleeve, but she relaxed when she saw it was only Karkat. "Oh, there you are. Did you find anything?"

Meulin collected her Bravery and acsended the stairs. Small tea lights lit every five steps along the path. The warm glowing wicks flickered sharp and angry shadows on the numerous tapestries draped throughout. The wildly dancing flame brought out life from the portraits. Yellowed skin, and dark, red lined eyes. The men in these pictures looked ill, more like people who needed a savior, not one they claimed to be. The looks on their faces. Empty glass stares, pallid and too thin sometimes. None of these "saints" or "reverents" even resembled normal healthy human beings. Everything was wrong, they looked.... They looked sick. Religious art of the severe infirm. The further she traveled up, the worse the show around her got. The men grew sicker, with darker sunken eyes, many began to lose hair. They looked more tired and falling part, soon the themes shifted with another tone. Mixed amongst the aging infirm were bodily disfigurements. Stoned-face men with pink and magenta bloodied rosebud eyesores. Young boys with slicked hair and thick oiled pitch flowing from gaping maws. Missing teeth, fingers, ears, noses, lips.... It went on and on until you couldn't recogognize these figures as people anymore. Men and women their holy visages tampered and redux. Whomever these people were once meant to be, were now their own blasphemous deciples, figureheads, saints and saviors.

Meulin gulped dryly. At least they're creative with their sacrilege. Though she couldn't help but feel bad. Who ever had been the original biblical figures here, deserves their respect. Her family was never very religious, not outside of her catholic grandparents, but Meulin couldn't help but feel slightly guilty in her ignorance.

As far as overwhelming situations went, this was huge. Sollux remained quiet; his feet shuffled and his eyes shot to the floor whenever even a glance had passed over him. There was no way to get the rest of these machines working that didn't demand his time, patience, and willingness to place himself in danger. However from the looks of it, Rose had collected all the information that was needed. From this Church anyway.

This was not within his expectations. He'd lived in a devoted Christian family, doting and kind. Their faith taught him to love and respect others around him, and to value life itself. His faith in God had given him the courage to overcome a lot of very dire situations. He even wore a small silver cross around his neck. When his mother turned... when she slaughtered his father and twin brother Mituna... he was left with little choice other than to set fire to his home and run for his life. The Church was naturally the place he was meant to go, right? There was always a place for a lost lamb in the house of God, right? Seeing all this unfold before his eyes... it was almost as if everything he'd ever known had been a lie.

He tugged at his cross, snapping the chain that held it in place. Without even acknowledging those around him he stared at the trinket as it glimmered in his hand. He did everything he could to fight it back, but eventually he could not stop himself from coming to the conclusion. He whispered it to himself.

"god ii2 dead."

After spending a few moments in silence... he decided to speak up to the others without prompt, an action so out of character that he'd even surprised himself with it.

"guy2, let2 keep moviing. ii have a feeliing hangiing out here two long ii2 goiing two end badly."

(( WOW. KU-DOS sollux. That was a beautiful and elegantly written post ))

rowdyossuary wrote:(( WOW. KU-DOS sollux. That was a beautiful and elegantly written post ))

((d'aw gosh. it was nothin really...))