Of Fever Dreams and Screaming Nightmares

The last day of Terrainfest and I get my package from Otherworld minis in the post of exquisite cast fish from their Decorative Font.

Over the weekend I found a proper source of sculpted children to be modified for the statuary of my story as well as a GW grate for the spillway from the cistern. Thinking about the spillway, and what basing might be needed, I picked up a couple of plastic spacers at my job site I saw being thrown out.

Overall it’s hasn’t been a bad month as I have finished Giftmas up, completed commission work and managed to get just the right bits I need for a better project. This I’ll be sure to finish before the UHH has too much time to complain about another project on the backburner.

It’s not like one can pull up the weirdness of Heironymus Bosch out of “Garden of Earthly Delights” and distill it immediately to jam it into the minds of others. I can, however, scour the web and pull up images that can act as precursor to the future product.

The basic building materials are assembled. I purchased a 5″ (~125mm) plastic base from Reaper long ago from their Base Boss line and marked off 4″ (100mm) to work the wall of the wellspring. I’ll be using some of the massive amount of polystyrene foam I scavenged from work and the cast off packing garbage to make the bricks. I purchased a foam cutter and sliced rough 5mm slices off like a cheese cutter but it’s not the easiest to be consistent with straight cuts. These I then sliced with a hobby knife to nearly 5mm thick for the “foam fries”. These I’ll cut to the length for the rectangular shape of proper bricks. On top of that I think I’ll put a thin slip of DAS or perhaps spackle if I can find it. This has been a pain of inconsistent work and I might pony up more cash for a foam cutting jig (probably not as terrain is a sometimes thing).

From the foam brick work I’ll tack on balsa scaffolding and plank over to create a proper platform that witnessed the ceremonial sacrifice of children. It won’t be terribly hard and might really only need to br slightly more detailed for interest with frayed/hanging rope lines. Now that this basic plan is set all I can think of for the moment is a certain scene from “300”.

I’ll put more thought into the aquatic sculpture with an image search, but for the moment I’ll keep that scene in my head rolling as I chuckle with a twisted Monty Python humor in the sequence of kick, a quick yelp and then a splash.

The passing night has been passable but sleep comes in fits and the weird dreams roll on. The frightful cough is diminished and long gone is the threat of having a scarred throat that I be able to speak with a voice the likes of somber tombs.

Visions have washed over me in torrents of blasphemy. The things which spoke to me that should remain unspoken of will remain part of my mind. Midnights of shuddering fright I will keep to myself as I hope to safeguard the lands of other’s slumber. I have tossed in fitful waking and decided to make a single piece of terrain. It will be The Fountain of Youth.

It was built atop a spring that was fed from far below, a circular cistern of hewn stone that acted as oversized well for the town of Keln. It had long been a place where Verrotmir had been praised for the clean water. Atop the wall in one area there had been a great fish where water flowed out and spilled over sculptures of children had been erected to bask in the sun and bathe in the water cascading from it. There then came The Day When the Bells Tolled and the waters slowly dried and refused to offer succor as they once did. It was then that the voice of the fountain called for life as it had provided so freely in the past without due. When the townspeople asked what the fount wanted, the voice spoke and demanded life to be given in trade.for the life they received. “Look to the statues below me as I usher forth the torrents from my mouth. Sate my hunger and I will quench your thirst.”

So it was that a lottery was drawn and select fresh faces were paraded before the town to fulfill the need of the many with becoming sustenance for the thing from the dark waters. The water flowed again as promised, but it began to becone fouled as the bodies were left within the cistern, unable to be retrieved under threat of stopping the flow altogether for what was given freely couldn’t be undone. Misery flows from this place. The Fountain of Youth drowns what happiness remained in Keln in the days of old. The spirits speak through the babbling brook and their dead laughter can be heard on the sculptures since their long lost breath of life left them in other’s hope of staying alive.

My sleep has come back to some normalcy and I believe that the rest I find is well deserved. My mind still wanders amid ruins of the humanity which are shells of potential. Darkness bubbles up and pools where hope was once the wellspring of people in Verrotwood. Perhaps a pool for drowned sorrows, drowned hope, or even drowned children might be the next piece of this mental puzzle. Perhaps Hyperborian torment could be added as well. The ways that misery encroached on the unsuspecting means any way of divining a path toward inner peace might be legitimate.

Verrotwood is not a bad place to be.  It just seems to have become more intense in how mercurial vitality can be with favor bestowed upon the enlightened. Fickle fate and fortune can be had by those that make the most of their time amid ruined legacies of dead gods.

I have dragged myself out of the cocoon that was my bed sheets. My mind is changing from dreams I cannot stop. I looked into the skies of my Arabian Knights and found cruel stars that make my head swim now as I write this. Lastnight was once again inspirational madness in dreamscape.

My mind shields me from some of the details but it’s the bulls that stand out. The red bulls that burned and bellowed their rage as they tore after me with massive bodies larger than any bull should be known. I had seen but one and then a call went out there were five. They charged and I managed to only distract one as the rest bore down on some temples of long forgotten entities.

I had a sledgehammer handy and felled the beast with the moon logic of dreams. The cold metal head brought the fiery bovine low as it met the heavy horned one. I can’t remember much else other than the reason why the bulls had shown up. There had been balance between a frightful primal being and the peaceful one of civilization. The one of peace fell and the one of malice and rage was left alone unchecked in the world.

This is all I can come back with. My mind is still recovering and the dry coughing shakes me. Thick sputum the color of pale amber resists my efforts to to dredge it from my lungs and reclaim my body. This madness may be here for a little while longer. I don’t know if this is a blessing or a curse.

I feel like hell. I’ve been sick the past couple of days but I decided to ramp up the healing process by bundling up today at work in the heat by wearing a hooded sweatshirt and then wrapping myself up under multiple blankets at bedtime when I made ready to sleep. I fell asleep and began to dream.

It was a literal fever dream that took me. I only realized later in the safety of sanity, while the gentle patter of rain fell outside and a slick layer of sweat covered me, that I had played out the game Warren had recently described as being attached to terrain. It made no sense as it went through my head. There were no stats I can recall just terrain advantages in jumping from one piece to another and checks made when forces met or lobbed missiles from one to another. It all melded together as I fell headlong into the aesthetic of Verrotwood with some Christopher Lee snippets pulled in from my only presently legitimate sick mind. I have decided that Terrain-tober will be aimed at Verrotwood terrain as the great Ewokkebab has done in past. Here’s some of what kicked off to play in the background of my head.