01 | un: sans

[ribticklers]

so the other side of that big wall is pretty messed up

[And Sans posts a link to a video taken from the top of the Gilded Wall. The landscape is a ruin of grey, dry soil and scattered, desiccated trees. There are no animals to be found, not even insects. Something in the distance glitches--round static, with a dark circle inside. As soon as Sans tries to focus the video on it, it vanishes. In that distance is a large, spiky black mass that can't be clearly seen.

Then the horde draws Sans's, and thus the video's, attention. Dozens of humanoid figures are rushing toward the wall. As they get closer and clearer, their appearances seem to be constantly shifting--humanoid, animal, entirely formless, full of static and cracks. In some of them, an eye forms in the darkness.

They seem to be actively avoiding making contact with the wall, but with the way they reach and claw upward, it's clear they are singlemindedly intent on murdering Sans.

There's a flash of something else shifting--brown hair, chin-length. The video cuts off immediately.]

Comments

un: delacroix

[aceso]

They're called the Cursed. At least that's what Elder Marinero said they were called.

[ The video leaves her a little shaken, even though she had an idea already from her talk with the elderly bat. ]

If the glitches around the island are related to them, then I wonder if the wall is weakening.

[ribticklers]

if they've got ambient magic or something it could just drift around the wall
maybe somebody should check up on what the wall's made of
go in with a big suit of wall armor

[Sans is definitely not going to do that.]

[aceso]

He definitely wanted to reinforce the wall, but says Lola's against it. She believes in this thing called the Purging dance which apparently stopped them in the past.

[ribticklers]

why not just do both?
you could send someone over there to dance if you wanted
or maybe they could dance on top of the wall
idk what dancing is gonna do to em though

un: defeynseattorney

[doubledsofjustice]

Well, that's certainly something I haven't seen before.

Were you able to see anything else beyond this?

[ribticklers]

you saw everything i did
i figured it'd be a bad idea to go in there with em so i took off

[Sans did actually cut off the very end of the video, hence only that short flash of brown hair, but that's none of anyone's business as far as he's concerned. It was a very sharp end to the video, though--it looks like it was cut off rather than that Sans grabbed it and left with it still on.]

[doubledsofjustice]

[if mia's at all suspicious, she doesn't make mention of it in her response. it's not unnoticed, though.]

no kidding. I don't remember seeing any monsters like this before. Shapeshifters aren't unheard of, but this seems different.

were you given any feelings? Detected any magical energy or anything like that?

[ribticklers]

nothing offhand
pretty sure i remember getting sick one time when my magic got messed with so nothing like that
and the murderous intent thing was
eh
kind of the big emotional focus

[So Sans's Balance memories, while obviously not fully restored, are at least starting to fall into patchy place.

The emotional thing, meanwhile, is just that monsters are very sensitive to negative emotion. That did come up in Sans's Wonderland post (somehow also involving bad liveriverer recordings), if Mia has that memory!]

un: dearsunshine; text

[hxppythxughts]

[This is bad. This is so, so bad. Looking at these things makes her nauseous with visceral fear.]

omg
ur ok right??? those things look rly scary (┬┬﹏┬┬)

[ribticklers]

[Oh hey, it's Sayori. Sans hasn't looked through everything on the network, but he only had to make it as far as looking through his old PMs to see that they'd been pretty close friends. He has no idea what to do with this knowledge! But he should probably try to reassure her.]

i was on top of the wall
and they really didn't want to touch that wall
so it was cool

[hxppythxughts]

[Sayori has figured similarly, but she doesn't let on one way or another in these messages.]

ok good!!!
if theyre as dangerous as they are scary then i understand why the animalians are so worried (;´Д`)
i wonder why they dont like the wall... maybe its special magic???

[ribticklers]

probably something like that
or they're allergic to gold
but it'd probably be easier to work with magic than get everyone who wants to check that place out gold armor

[Also Sans has no idea if the wall is made of real gold, but he's just joking around with that anyway.]

un: PAPYRUS

[spaghettimonster]

THAT'S A BIG MESS.
ARE THEY ALL LIKE THAT?
SPOOKY, AND BLACK, AND GLITCHING AROUND?

[ribticklers]

all the ones i could see

[Except that last one. Something in him doesn't want to think about that one at all.]

whenever those cracks opened up it looked like there was more
but like way too much to fit in those bodies
if those even count as bodies

[spaghettimonster]

WOW, I DON'T LOVE THAT.
LOOKS LIKE DRESSING ROOM MIRRORS, ONLY REFLECTING DARKNESS.

[Other than those fragments of color, and those flickering dots of eye-like shapes... They look a little bit like what he, briefly, saw. Which is alarming as all hell, if he's being honest with himself!

Of course, trying to avoid being honest - with themselves or with others - runs in certain skeletal families. Not that he remembers that's why, but the habits are still there.]

DID THEY ALL MOVE LIKE THAT?
WHERE YOU COULD LOOK AT THEM, WITHOUT DISAPPEARING.

[ribticklers]

as far as i could tell
i didn't get up close and personal or anything
'cause they didn't really look like they wanted to make friends
they were definitely all trying to move in my direction

un: mrbellucci

[protegge]

uh hey what the whole fuck

ur outta there ok right??? you escaped the ZOMBIES???????

[ribticklers]

yeah
i figured going down there would be dumb
so i stayed up on the wall

[protegge]

i mean yeah it woulda been stupid as hell but you never know

they cant get over the wall at us?
i guess youd be dead if they could
what the hell how do we kill em

we have to right

[ribticklers]

it didn't look like they could touch the wall
dunno about killing em
if it were me i'd sneak around instead

[unrecovered]

[What. The fuck.]

[Either whatever virtual environment they're stuck in - because Wash Still hasn't ruled out that possibility, not quite yet - is glitching out, or they're in a goddamn horror movie. Amorphous shapeshifting hordes bent on murder - there's a horror movie like this, right? There's got to be.]

[The flash at the end of the video catches his attention, and he watches the message again. Sans took this video, and he vaguely remembers Sans showing him a photograph that looked like a family photo: Sans, Papyrus, a few other monsters, and a human with brown hair...]

[But the memory is hazy at best, and that's beside the point. The point is, this is bad, and he...honestly doesn't know how to approach it yet. Not with the situation still so full of unknowns, and not with Sans still missing a good chunk of his memories.]

[So he takes the Sans approach, such as it is.]

Well, that was bone-chilling.

[ribticklers]

[Sans always appreciates when people take his approach.]

oh yeah
enough to rattle a skeleton's bones
gotta say, i'm not into anything looking at me like it wants to tear me to pieces

[unrecovered]

Most people aren't.

[And Wash isn't terribly interested in talking about the exceptions to that rule.]

What do you make of it? Aside from "this looks bad."

un: steelsamayarai : video

[feytality]

[ maya stares at the video and continues staring long after it's finished. ]

That's---

[ a beat. ]

T-That's really creepy....

.. I don't think you should go near that wall anymore.

[ribticklers]

[Here's his third person of interest. He can't say her concerns are unfounded, considering that video.]

I wasn't planning on doing any expeditions. Doesn't seem like they can touch the wall, though.