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291 checks

Yellow tree. Yep, all leafed up.

Trees are trees. You do not notice trees. Boring.

Increasing chance of precipitation as a front of high pressure moves across the Noscorrentes Sea. The temperature is 16 and falling.

... a whoosh of blood between your ears...

High-pitched, dissonant. A sound that compels you to stop it.

... wet, silent, like a fish behind glass...

Dust motes hang in the stale air. Unbound stars drifting in space.

From the window you can hear the sound of two people laughing out on Orphanage Street.

Above you, the last visible stars dissolve in the dawn-light. Elsewhere, the bark of a small dog muffled by a window.

Above you, uncountable stars veiled by the scattering of blue light. Elsewhere, the bark of a small dog muffled by a window.

Above you, the evening's first stars blink into life. Elsewhere, the bark of a small dog muffled by a window.

Above you, a canyon of stars, framed by the buildings of the Housing Campaign. Elsewhere, the bark of a small dog muffled by a window.

But no one jumps out of anything. No one appears to fix your hair or tell you exactly what to say. It's just you, the man with the box for a heart, and a few metres off, the maintenance man going about his lonely offices.

Out of the corner of your eye, on one of the little rounded tables, you notice someone's left an old sausage, casing black and blistered, pool of grease congealing around it.

Whispered, urgent, seething.

Anything. You can't feel anything.

One of the thinner tendrils reflexively lifts as you nudge it.

Damp. Slightly raised. Almost fuzzy, like it's sweating.

Lopsided, only one half of his mouth lifts to bare his teeth in the sinister smile he gives you.

Blood in his gums, too.

Oh, yeah. Feel that heft. This prybar's pried some shit.

The entry wound glows warm, as though awakened.

That's not liquor.

The lettering on the man's t-shirt, although barely legible, reads: '¡TODOS SOMOS NESTOR!'

The shadows under her eyes deepen. She swallows.

Her husband clears his throat.

She sends a worried look to the door. Pascal sits beyond.

You hear someone laugh, loudly, on the roof above.

His words uncertain, his bearing unsteady. Drunk, possibly high?

Milk fills the glass of his eyes.

He's none-too-discreetly hiding a cigar-sized joint under his wrist.

The book flashes open for a moment -- you see that the margins are black with annotations furiously scribbled out on almost every page.

Ramses was white lithium grease and hash. Vespar: leather, salt, sour pear. Karolina, often up programming all night, wafted coffee wherever she went.

It tasted like perfume -- floral, bitter. The flavour lingered on your tongue all day.

The smell is ecstatic, overwhelming.

Outside, the murmur of water is all but gone.

No haptic feedback, no audible change. Best ignore this one going forward.

The groan of shifting iron, muffled by masonry. Now, let the water flow.

Safety pins, refusing to yield yet.

Green so green it stings like lemon injected straight into the optic nerve.

291 skill checks - ZERO PARADES field manual - Page 6 of 6