diademlogs | Open Spooky Log!

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Open Spooky Log!

Who: Arthur Hastings
Where: A Random Spooky Diffusion Zone
When: Nebulous time in October
What: Investigating a creepy, dilapidated farmhouse and the equally creepy grounds. Fun October flavored shenanigans!

Warnings: Will add if/as needed!

Arthur knows he has options beyond scavenging. It's simply that he's so used to scavenging, and it helps to save money. Money matters in this world. He needs it for things like food and toiletries. And there's all sorts of things to be potentially found in the various diffusion zones. Things not as easily found in stores. Of course there can be danger, but it can be worth it.

And oftentimes, running away is a perfectly valid option. Arthur is quite good at running away from things.

He has found himself at a terribly random seeming old farm property, bordered by woods that appear quite dense and foggy. He parks out front and steps out, squinting in the sudden gloom. It's much darker here than it was up the road....

Spooky Farmhouse

Any hopes he'd had of a fruitful place to plunder are dashed with a close look at the house. Whatever color it may have been, it's just gray wood now. The roof is sagging in a most alarming manner on one side. Vines cover the warped and cracked walls and the steps up to the equally gray wooden porch are cracked and missing a board or two. Dust coats the windows so thickly that there's no hope of seeing inside - and Arthur isn't quite sure he wants to see inside. It's eerily still and quiet here. Surely there's nothing worth finding in this corpse of a house. Everything inside will be in similar disrepair, and the floor likely couldn't be trusted.

He's not even sure he trusts that porch, standing at its base and looking down at it. Surely it's going to grab at his foot with splintery board-edges.

And yet...he swears he can see a faint glow, up in one upper story window where the roof is in better shape. His imagination gets ahead of him, spinning ideas of strange old men brooding by candlelight and other gothic tropes.

"Dear lord, I think I've found what's left of the House of Usher...."

Barren Farm Fields

The grounds offer little more hope. Arthur frowns at the broken wooden fence surrounding what may have been crop fields in better, far distant times. They remind him of the farmland of Wellington Wells, dry looking dirt and the rotted and dried remains of what had once grown there. Weeds are the only things thriving.

He enters the fields anyway. Long dead plant matter crunches under his feet, a dry and brittle sound. The smell here is unpleasant, musty and dead. This was a terrible mistake. He ought to turn round right now and go searching for somewhere else. Something more promising. There is nothing to be found here but scenes right out of M. R. James.

One bit of green catches his eye. He drops to one knee, peering down, brushing away some of the crumbling dirt. A baby turnip.

"But it's not the right season...."

Foggy Woods

The only reason Arthur is at the edge of the woods behind the house is because he thought he heard someone.

A human someone.

He has his modified umbrella in hand, in case that someone is angry or violent. Or....not a someone at all. Maybe it's just the atmosphere that has him imagining all manner of ghouls and spectres, but that doesn't change what he's imagining.

With so much fog and the trees so close together, he can barely see beyond the edge of it. It's a wall of darkness and shadow, and no sound comes now but the rustle of dead leaves and branches. Oh bother and blast! What is he doing here? He probably hadn't heard anything at all...

"H...Hello?"

He'll call out once. Maybe twice.

Then he's gone.

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At first, there's nothing-- only the skeletal hush of the wind moving through the warped fence posts and the faint creak of the porch boards shifting under their own decay. Then the quiet begins to change. It thickens, deepens, as though the air itself has grown heavy with something unseen.

The shadows at the corner of the farmhouse seem to pool, to stretch, as if the failing light has decided to leak away from that one point rather than fade entirely. There's the faintest suggestion of movement - something slow, deliberate, soundless - like oil spreading over water.

From that deepening dark comes the soft glide of motion-- the void-black, near-silent slide of tentacles easing into view, tracing along the side of the house as though testing its shape. They precede the entity who follows them, forming a ripple of living darkness before drawing back, folding neatly beneath the hem of the robe worn by the figure that emerges from around the corner.

John stands there, his outline still half-swallowed by gloom, the dim glow from his eyes coming to rest on Arthur. When he speaks, his voice seems to vibrate the air around them, quiet yet somehow all-encompassing.

"What's the House of Usher?"

Arthur lets out a cry of distress at the sudden voice, his attention torn from the creeping shadows in the peripherals of his vision that were already mounting his alarm. He whirls around with wide eyes, umbrella at the ready...

And sees what his mind quickly informs him is his eldritch tentacle god friend.

"Fuck a duck in a bucket, you scared me!"

He exhales audibly, his shoulders slumping in relief. He is not, actually, about to be eaten by something horrible. Just have a chat with someone who looks a bit horrible. By human standards. He's sure Mr. Tentacles is perfectly normal looking for whatever he is.

His heart is still lodged somewhere in the vicinity of his throat, however.

"Er, it was a story I read. It took place in a run down big old house that I think collapses at the end. Very gothic."

He shouldn't laugh. He really fucking shouldn't-- not when he knows how he looks, and how easy it is to mistake him for something else out here. In the diffusion zones, everything already feels wrong around the edges, stretched thin and strange, and he knows his presense does nothing to make it any less uncanny. But the sound escapes him anyway-- a low, resonant echo that hums faintly in the dry air, carrying just enough warmth to take the menace out of it. The man's particularly creative curse had caught him off guard, and it is funny.

"Sorry, friend," he says, voice smooth and resonant as he lets himself drift closer. Dust stirs in his wake, disturbed by the liquid motion of his tentacles. "I should have announced myself sooner."

He halts a few feet away and offers up a smile-- a sharp-toothed, too-wide expression that tries to be reassuring. "Sounds like an interesting story. And... fitting, for our current setting."

Arthur waves his empty hand to dismiss the apology. It's not the other fellow's fault.

"The mood out here doesn't help. It's so...desolate. Eerie."

Which, he supposes, suits his current company quite well. Really, they're like the opening scene of a strange tale out of a magazine. The bookish Englishman and the eldritch entity, at the steps of a very likely haunted farmhouse. In a story, it would certainly be haunted.

Arthur isn't very sure of the status of ghosts in this world.

"Oh yes, the bloke who wrote it wrote all sorts of scary stories and poems. American fellow, but I don't hold that against him. I don't remember much, I think there was a curse on the house. I think there's a curse on this house."

He casts his eyes upwards again, contemplating the sagging structure.

"Do you think it could have ghosts? Ghosts back home aren't so bad, really, the one I've seen was just...very sad, moreso than scary."

He listens in silence for a time, the farmhouse looms ahead-- its shape all greying wood and sagging angles, a place left to rot beneath years of dust and silence. He glances toward it as the man speaks, and there's that subtle, intent tilt of his head-- an expression halfway between curiosity and calculation. The air feels thick here, weighted with memory... or maybe something worse. He's known stranger places by far, but he supposes he'd agree that this one is eerie.

"Scary stories and poems," he muses, his tone low and thoughtful, "I'd like to read them. Although I suppose it's doubtful I'll find any of his work here."

His shoulders shift beneath the loose fall of his yellow robe, the movement rolling like a ripple. "As for ghosts... it could have. Whether they're 'bad' or not depends on the type. Wraiths can be violent, although they're generally lost souls hard done by in life-- there are ways to soothe them, if you can work out what the fuck they're still bitter about."

He pauses then, turns, lamplight eyes settling on his companion.

"Are you thinking of going inside to find out?" he asks, voice edged with dry humour-- but behind it, there's something steady and watchful, as though he's already weighing what they might wake if they do.

"Sometimes I find things I know from home." Arthur's voice is distant and distracted. He, too, is contemplating the house. What could be in there? Probably junk and mess and nothing worthwhile.

Probably.

But....

What if there was something worthwhile indeed? Like books? There could be wonderful books inside.

Or doom. It's quite the conundrum!

"Oh, I think we only have one sort of ghost where I come from. Drift about, offer cryptic messages, stand by their grave and make you feel terribly guilty for not visiting it in years...." Or maybe that was just his experience. He wonders if eldritch beings have anything to fear from ghosts. Doubtful. They seem much higher up the ladder than ghosts.

"But I'm considering. There could be useful things inside. Or something interesting. Or it could rot under my feet and leave me a broken heap in a detritus strewn basement."

John's thoughts mirror his companion's more closely than either might guess-- this, after all, is part of why he’s out here. To find things-- objects he can sell or keep. And the mention of relics from home sharpens his own ache for familiarity. Not his home exactly - his home is no longer a place, but a person - but from a version of Earth he recognises. His Arthur's world-- poetry, classical literature, books he's heard spoken of but never yet read for himself.

There could be something like that here. Wonderful, interesting books.

He makes a low, amused sound when the man mentions falling through holes into the space beneath the house. It's that, more than anything, that warms him, it feels so familiar, so known. His Arthur had an almost supernatural knack for finding holes, tripping into rivers, tumbling down inclines-- a kind of endearing, exasperating chaos that he finds he's oddly fond of seeing echoed in someone else.

He tilts his head, the tendrils that frame his face shifting faintly, a ripple that suggests amusement.

"Stay close to me, and I'll catch you before you reach the broken heap stage. Perhaps we'll only encounter the cryptic, sulking ghosts you're more familiar with. And you're right, there could be something useful - or at least interesting - inside." He parts the darkness of his face in a grin, teeth glinting faintly in the thin remnants of light. "Besides, we've come all this way. May as well look around."

Oh!

Under most circumstances, Arthur would doubt that implied promise very much. He's been burned too many times, trusted too often only to be shot at, bludgeoned, blown up, or set aflame.

Those, however, had all been humans. His own neighbors and fellow Wellies. This is not a human, this is something, well, greater than. Certainly he looks quite frightening, but he's been quite kind and commiserative with Arthur so far. It's funny to think, but he feels a certain sort of kinship.

"Well, I'll hold you to that, then. I'm sure you don't have much to fear from ghosts or rotted floorboards." He pauses, something occurring to him.

"Er, this feels rather silly to ask at this point, but I realize I don't know your name...or what you like to be called, if your name is unpronounceable to human tongues." He's read his cosmic horror. "I'm Arthur. Arthur Hastings."

He's about to offer something wry, something amused, some dry remark about his own lack of fear-- but then his companion is giving him a name, and it stops him short.

Arthur.

It lodges somewhere in his chest, sharp and aching. It's a common enough name, probably - he doesn't really know - but it still sparks something deep and unsteady in him. That same quiet warmth from before flares again, threaded now with a pang of longing so sudden it almost unsettles him.

A low sound escapes him, the shape of a laugh or perhaps surprise-- soft and caught somewhere between the two.

"Arthur?" he echoes into the silence that follows, the name lingering strangely on his tongue. "That's the name of my human. My friend, I mean. From... before here."

His voice dips, threaded with a faint fondness as he adds, "He's also from England."

He's noticed the accent-- different from his Arthur's, yes, but close enough that it tugs at something familiar. It's there in the cadence, the tone. The shape of some of the words.He shakes his head after a moment, the movement setting his tendriled hair to a slow, quiet coil around him.

"And it's fine," he adds, a small smile finding its way into his voice. "I should have offered my name before now. John Doe."

After a moment of seemingly stunned silence, Arthur lets out a laugh of his own.

"If he's English, that explains it! Terribly popular name in England for lads, we're all named after the legendary king. Can't swing a long stick in any English village without hitting one or two of us."

At least in his own experience, being born so early in the 1900s. Names from the legends were still very common - his own brother was Percival, after all. There'd been Lance(lot) Jones down the way, and he's known at least three Gwens in his life....

Still. What an interesting little coincidence. Again it feels like something from a story.

"Well, pleased to properly meet you." John Doe. Yes, a very simple and perfectly ordinary name. And obviously not his real one.

"Alright then." He sets his narrow shoulders in a determined line and pushes his glasses up his nose. He who hesitates is lost and all of that. Even in the face of a possibly haunted house. He tests the first step cautiously and proceeds to mount the stairs onto the porch. They creak as he goes.

"Shall we?"

"And I you, Arthur," he says, and there's something unmistakably genuine in the depth of his resonant voice as he says it. "Let's."

He follows as Arthur turns toward the decrepit house, his gaze flicking once - briefly, curiously - toward that single lit window before he begins to move. He doesn't quite walk so much as he flows up the part-rotted steps behind him, that uncanny, liquid grace of his moving in time with the other man's far more human rhythm. The wood doesn't bend beneath his weight. It doesn't even creak.

If one were to look closely, they might notice that he isn't quite touching the ground at all. His limbs move as though he were, but there's a faint shimmer of wrongness where his tentacles ought to meet the boards. It's a small indulgence of power, one he usually avoids, but the house looks so old, so ready to collapse under its own weary bones, that it feels the safer option. He's far heavier than his companion when he's fully manifest.

A legendary king.

The title lingers in his thoughts. Arthur - his Arthur - had never spoken of the origin of his name, and it's not something John had ever thought to ask. A spark of interest flickers through him now, something to be added to the quiet, growing list of questions he has.

But for now--

"Do you want me to enter first?" he asks, pausing at the threshold. "Just in case there's anything inside more violent than a ghost."

"A capitol idea!"

Arthur nods and gestures for John to go first. If one is about to enter a possibly haunted house, behind the eldritch god being is the safest place to be. Funny how this being has already proven to be more trustworthy and reliable than any human being in Wellington Wells. He wouldn't trust any of them to keep him safe in a situation like this. Ollie would turn tail and run before ever making it up the stairs, Dr. F would sacrifice him to the ghosts or whatever was in there and take notes while they ate him....

He shakes his head a bit and moves closer to John. Even in present company there's a sense of unease. The farmhouse looms over them and he swears it's even darker and more dilapidated. A little shiver goes through him.

"Really," he says, mostly to calm his own nerves and fill the eerie silence, "I shouldn't be so nervous. I've faced much, much worse than ghosts and things that go bump in the night. And I made it through....well....mostly intact."

Just a few scars and some fresh fodder for his nightmares. Surely this can't be worse than facing down the towering terror that were the Headmistresses back home. Or an entire gang of murderous thugs out for his blood.

And this time he's not alone.

"Mmn," he says it absently as he moves to push open the door, to flow silently over the threshold, "my friend- the one who shares your name - once told me that it's what might be, the unknown within the darkness, that causes fear. And fuck knows this world is full of dangers. It makes sense, really, to be nervous when we don't know what we'll find."

Not that he sounds nervous himself-- even if, quietly, he isn't so fond of the dark. Not since his Arthur had unconsciously pressed his fears into John. It's a strange thing, sharing a body-- the way humanity seeps in over time, drop by drop. One would think the eldritch would corrupt the human, not the other way round, yet here he is, desperately changed from what he had once been. Still, none of this shows in him as he glides into the house.

The floorboards beneath the doorway are warped with age, bowed inward like the ribs of a great carcass, and when John crosses the threshold he leaves space for Arthur to enter behind him before casting his luminous gaze around the room.

The air inside is heavy with damp and something faintly metallic beneath it; old iron... or older blood. Wallpaper sloughs from the walls in pale, curling tongues, and beneath it the plaster has cracked in thin, branching veins that spread like frostbite. Every surface wears a thin pelt of dust and rot, the residue of decades undisturbed-- and yet there are disturbances. Scuff marks in the dust. A doorframe bearing the fresh impression of a hand, small, pressed deep enough to leave a faint oily print.

Somewhere deeper in the house, something drips. Slow, patient. Rhythmic.

The light - what little filters in through broken panes and torn curtains - is wan and colourless, like light seen underwater. It catches in the fine motes drifting through the air, lending them an eerie sort of grace, as though the dust itself were moving with intent. The shadows are thick here, almost viscous, and in their depths the edges of furniture blur-- chairs seem to have too many limbs, portraits whose faces sag and smear if looked at for too long. There's a mirror near the far wall, its glass bloomed with tarnish, but when the light hits it at just the wrong angle, it doesn't seem to reflect the room at all.

"It does feel... wrong in here, doesn't it?" he says at last, his tone low and dark, though not without a glimmer of interest.

The weight of the atmosphere hits Arthur immediately.

It's something in the air, that eerie off light that allows for sight but hardly offers any brightness. Not that there's anything to brighten, the interior is as faded and dull in color as the outside.

And it's too still.

"It reminds me of the bunker under Apple Holm. Still and empty...until I got to the back room and found all of the bodies."

Granted, bodies weren't that odd to find in the bunkers underneath Wellington Wells. Arthur can't possibly count how many he came upon, but that bunker...it wasn't just Downers who'd starved or Joy-induced accidents. It had been like a corpse storage room.

The inside of the house gives him the same feeling he'd had in that bunker.

He inhales deeply and frowns.

"It doesn't smell like there's bodies here, though. Unless they're terribly old, I suppose." Maybe this is what crypts smelled like, all dry and stale. He's never smelled a crypt before, just fresh and rotting corpses.

"I suppose bodies - ancient or otherwise - aren't much to worry about on their own." he says, tone quiet but far from reassuring. "The real concern is what killed them."

He drifts deeper into the room as he speaks, his movement slow and liquid, the long fall of his robe brushing against warped floorboards that whisper faintly beneath him. This space, at least, seems empty-- nothing but the press of stale air and the strange weight like a held breath crowding its corners. There's a heaviness here, a sense that the house itself might be listening. Perhaps that's nothing more than imagination, though, just a product of expectation.

They'll see, he supposes.

"Although that reminds me. You mentioned the author earlier-- the one who wrote scary stories and poems?" He tries for casualness, but curiosity thrums beneath the words, bright and barely contained.

As he glides forward, one dark tendril slips back to find Arthur's wrist, curling there in a loose, languid loop-- an invitation rather than a restraint, a wordless gesture of stay close.

"I don't suppose you remember any?"

"Unless those bodies are hosting some sort of deadly virus or bacteria or something like that...." Arthur has sudden flashbacks to the Plague Zone back in Wellington. Corpses in the mist were very much something to worry about.

But hopefully John is right, and any bodies here are the normal harmless sort.

For the moment, he's perfectly happy to let John go on ahead. He takes a few cautious steps, testing the floor, and finds it solid enough. His almost unhealthily thin frame is a benefit when it comes to unstable floors. His eyes roam the room, waiting for a shadow to move in a wrong way or eyes to be peering out from underneath something.

Only emptiness.

When John speaks again, and reaches for him with one shadowy tendril, he starts a moment. Not out of fear, simply the surprise of physical contact. Usually when anyone touches him it's to do him harm. It's rarely ever for comfort or solidarity. He offers a small, grateful smile. It's...nice.

This must be what having a friend is like.

"Oh yes, Poe. Very fitting, this place could be out of one of his stories. All it needs is a chatty raven and a pit or two." Can he recall enough of any one poem to be worth reciting? He is rather good at reciting poetry - and writing it, or so his award for best new poet indicates. After a moment he nods.

"You know, I think I remember a bit of a very apt poem of his." He clears his throat as he moves closer, still watching from the corners of his eyes for any movements. He likely won't get every word right, but close enough.

"By some route obscure and lonely, haunted by ill angels only, where Eidolon named night upon his black throne rules upright, I have reached this land but newly. From ultimate and dimmed Thule, from a wild and weird climate that lies sublime - out of space, out of time."

He feels it - the brief start - and glances back toward the man behind him, concern flickering in the gold of his eyes. Perhaps he's overstepped. It must be a strange thing, being touched by him. The tentacle that curls around Arthur's wrist runs hot and surprisingly solid, with the smooth-scaled texture of a serpent's belly-- desperately different to any human touch. But when he looks back, it's not fear he finds there-- only the faint glimmer of a smile. He returns it, fleetingly, before drifting on through the long, dim room.

Inside, the house feels larger than it should be. The air hangs too still, too heavy, and the notion that something waits here settles over him like dust. He's quiet ashe listens to Arthur speak, pauses near one of the warped paintings lining the wall, studying it. From the corner of his eye, he could've sworn the figure's face had begun to run, slow rivulets dragging features downward like wax. But now, seen head-on, it's only a portrait again-- dust-furred, dull-eyed, harmless.

The sound of Arthur's voice pulls him from the thought. The cadence is soft and rhythmic, and despite the poem's macabre undertone, it settles over the space like something soothing, familiar. He listens until the final line dissolves into silence. A quiet, almost pleased sound escapes him-- low, resonant, unbidden.

"Out of space, out of time," he echoes, the words vibrating through the still air. His tone carries a note of reverence. "I like that a lot. And you're right, it does feel very apt."

"There's more, but I don't remember it as well. Something about the mountains tumbling into bottomless lakes forever outspread...each spot found seems more unholy, every nook more melancholy..." Arthur shakes his head, wishing he could recall more. There's only snatches and pieces of half-remembered lines.

"It's a beautiful poem."

Still his voice is a touch distracted, his eyes picking up on more little details. Are the shadows truly shifting or just a trick of eyes that aren't the best? His large thick glasses aren't a fashion choice. He'd never had very good eyes. Was that rather intimidating cracked bust in the same place it had been a few moments ago? He isn't sure. His nerves are all on edge and he doesn't trust his own perception.

He never trusts his own perception.

"All about journeying into a strange other world. Just like us. We're otherworldly travelers cast into a realm far from our home. We're both come to this land but newly." A soft chuckle. Mr. Poe likely could have woven quite the tale about the pair of them on their current adventure. Or perhaps they were more suited to Hodgson, considering John's nature....

"But even so, I'm rather glad I met you."

He turns toward Arthur as he speaks-- it's a shame the man doesn't remember more of the poem, he'd have liked to hear the rest. But even this fragment, carried in Arthur's voice, is soothing in its way. The images linger in his mind-- bottomless lakes, strange worlds, travelers cast adrift between realms. They feel known to him-- familiar to the here and now, and achingly familiar, too, to those months before he'd been pulled into this place.

He's still caught in that quiet reflection when Arthur's next words register-- so unexpected that his eyes widen a fraction. The tendrils that frame his face stir in a ripple of motion, betraying his surprise.

"You are? That's... " he echoes softly. For an instant, there's a flicker of instinctive disbelief, and the words he means to follow with are 'surprising, misplaced, poor judgement', all those reflexive thoughts that come too easily. But he pushes them aside with visible effort. He's trying to be better, to be someone worth speaking to, worth liking. To unlearn what he was.

"... Good. That's good. I'm glad, also."

The echoing depth of his voice carries a genuine warmth, felt in the air between them. They share more than he expected - more than either of them probably expected - and it eases something taut in him. He turns back toward the dark of the room, the long shadowed threshold ahead seeming to breathe faintly in the half-light.

"Let's keep moving," he says, quiet but certain. "I don't think there's much in this room for us-- unless you've developed a fondness for ugly paintings."

Arthur can't help but wonder a moment what John's world is like. He's probably just not used to humans accepting him so easily, what with the shadows and tentacles and all. He can somewhat understand - people aren't usually glad to see him, either. Or weren't, back home. He was a Downer. A madman, as far as they were concerned. Poison. Sometimes he'd felt like a monster in a radio drama, being pursued by the literal angry mob.

No wonder he feels such a kinship with John. Outsiders tend to stick together.

He nods and follows along, keeping careful watch. Every creak of the floor, every little scurrying sound in the wall makes him grip at John's tentacle reflexively. A sound above him makes him look up, eyes narrowing.

"Did...did you hear footsteps?" His voice is hushed, eyes still on the ceiling. Silence now, but he swears he heard muffled footfalls from overhead.

Or. Well. Thumps, if nothing else. A small and very rational voice in his mind posits that animals are likely to have moved in. It's probably just an animal.

But Arthur doesn't think this is a logical place.

He notes it, of course - the occasional grasp at the tentacle looped loosely around Arthur's wrist - and tightens his hold, just slightly. Reassurance, wordless and instinctive. He isn't going anywhere; not leaving Arthur to wander this strange, echoing place alone.

He ducks as they pass through the doorway-- or what's left of it. The frame stands bare, the door long vanished, either rotted to dust or spirited away. The hall beyond is narrow, lined with more of those warped portraits whose colours have curdled into ugliness. The floorboards beneath them are cracked and soft in places, but the dust lies undisturbed-- no footprints, no drag marks, nothing to suggest recent passage.

He halts when Arthur speaks, lifting his gaze to the ceiling in mild curiosity. "Just the house settling, probably. Creaking as old buildings tend to do."

Even as he says it, the sound comes again-- a brisk thump-thump, sharp and deliberate, the cadence of something walking. Two feet, not four. His lamplight eyes flare faintly as he adds, "... or perhaps not."

He looks back to Arthur, head angled in quiet inquiry-- an unspoken shall we? For his part, he seems calm enough, curiosity outweighing any trace of concern.

There's no mistaking that as simply the settling of the old house. That was patterned.

Arthur looks up, lips pressed into a thin line. Be it monster, man, or spirit, they do not appear to be alone here. Another bit of Poe comes to him, a few lines of The Raven, the house by horrors haunted.

Those thumps sounded much too heavy to be a bird, unfortunately. Even that persistent and menacing Raven of literary fame. And he supposes ghosts don't generally have much of a physical presence, do they? Not in his experience. Very light on their insubstantial feet. Oh he doesn't like that. Perhaps ghosts here are different. Maybe they go thump.

He swallows thickly and nods at the clear question John's shooting in his direction. It would be terribly cowardly to turn tail now, and John doesn't seem scared at all. Of course, why would he? Arthur doesn't want his current company to ~~know~~ think that he's a coward.

"I suppose if it's something very terrible, I'm quite good at running."

Arthur's unease clings to the dim corridor like humidity-- John hears it in the tightness of his breath, the slight catch in his voice, the way it shapes itself when someone is trying not to sound afraid. It's familiar in a way that stirs something almost fond in him. When Arthur tells him to keep going anyway, John flashes a quick, crooked smile-- pleased, a little amused.

"If it’s anything very terrible, I'll handle it. I doubt there's anything quite as terrible here as me." The tone is wry, but it carries that faint, candid undercurrent of truth he rarely admits out loud. It isn't that he can't imagine beings here that could surpass him - this place delights in tossing the improbable underfoot, and there are worse things than him in existance - but when one is even half of a fractured Great Old One, genuine fear becomes a rare and peculiar luxury.

He floats forward a few steps, tendrils drifting in slow, alert movements as he scans the gloom, the one coiled around Arthur's waist doing nothing to loose itself.

"Stay behind me," he adds, low and steady. "And fuck, running is sometimes the best option, even for gods. We'll see."

At the far end of the hallway, shadows break around shapes-- doorways left and right, and the suggestion of a staircase rearing upward into deeper dark. He tips his head toward it.

"I suggest the stairs," he murmurs. "If something's waiting up there, better to meet it than let it sneak down on us. Come on."

Something in the way he says it makes the darkness ahead feel less like a threat and more like an invitation to test what’s real.

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