1.1 - In Search of Sanity - Prison of the Mind

In the midst of a strange city, you flee a tenacious citrine fog. Alone, pulse pounding, you find yourself running through the twisted alleys as if unable to muster control over your own body. You realize that you both know this place, yet do not, like a faded memory from a lost childhood, or an overdue echo in a dark cave. You know not where you are, nor how you got here.

All around is a wall of sickly yellow fog, tumbling through the alley’s canyon of crumbling, gray brick walls like some jaundiced flash flood. A strange scent of dusty copper lingers in the air. Ahead, the unfamiliar alley splits, curving to the left and right. Behind, from the silent swell of mist, emanates the sound of footsteps—slow, but somehow keeping pace with the careening, hungry wave. The sound of metal scraping across stone grows louder while remaining muffled by the dense fog.

Racing, you pull around a corner and find yourself at the edge a central plaza. Five figures total, all strangers to one another, arrive at the same time from as many tributaries of his forlorn city, each with a dense wall of fog slowly approaching from behind them - it will be upon you in mere moments.

The only direction that appears devoid of the sinister fog lies to the east - a wide path that appears to twist towards the heart of the city.

Upon peering into the fog, Elias sees the faint flicker of a hulking shadow seem to pass within it, then the shadow is gone.

The fog continues to grow closer, and the sound of metal scraping across stone sharper.

The fog presses closer, and closer. As it draws near, each of you still looking back can clearly see twisted, shadows of unnatural creatures - large spider-like visages, as big as horses, skittering on forests of legs and horrible, lurching tumor-heaps.

As your footsteps pound across the cobbled stones and echo through the quiet streets of this forlorn city, the sickly, amber fog remains consistently at your heels. After several minutes staying ahead of it, the alley walls begin to sag, battered brick slumping over the path before you, nearly blotting out the bruised twilight sky.

Again the grimy cobblestone path splits ahead of you. This time one route curves uphill while the other recklessly descends.

Behind, the fog grows ever closer, now also clearly audible the sounds of low, rhythmic humming and the sound of a blade being sharpened across stone. A singular, tall human-like visage can be seen, veiled within the fog, lilting from side to side as it grows closer.