A World, A Part

Gnarl, watching these antics, slowly shook his head, nonexistant wind passing through miniscule holes between his head and his covering bark.

Without saying a word, the giant stood up again, backing up several paces. He crouched again, this time only slightly, knees barely bent. A brief puff of air escaped what passed for his lips just before the creased up in a smile.

Sometimes, even if your only audience was a bunch of small ones, it was hard to resist showing off.

With a running lurch, Gnarl moved forward as quickly as he could, feeling air pass like a breeze through the holes in his chest, providing excess nutrient borne on the breeze to his organs, effectively surging as a shot of adrenaline as he reached the edge of the island, root-like toes of his right foot touching the great divide that separated the specks of life in the void called "islands" and

He leapt.

Which is not something you normally see trees doing.

Spoiler:

Since there's no gravity once you're no longer standing on an island, Gnarl flawless succeeds. Which would be a lot more impressive if it wasn't something that all of you who don't fly probably do every few minutes.

Jingle flew up near the portal to watch those that were entering it, careful to stay a little out of range so as not to get sucked in. "Um... Are you guys okay in there?"

There is no response from those who entered the portal.

Fallen Arches finally gets to the portal and gives about enough time to shout, "Oh come on, it looks friendly and inviting! What could possibly go wrong?" Before leaping through the hole.

Spoiler:

Kyath sighed, knowing full well he was about to leap into a dangerous looking portal created by insanity with a group of lunatics. But it was, after all, more interesting than drifting around in this ethereal mad-realm.


He dove in.

With the triumph of ages, Gnarl's neck pivoted slightly, turning to face Jingle.

He studied her for a few short moments, trying to take in her body language. Was this sprout actually...

Spoiler:

"Ha!" the old tree barked once more. "You're pretty eager to go in there, aintcha, sprout?" Then, with all the weight of a large wooden club but considerably more subtlety, Gnarl firmly placed a giant hand over the reindeer's shoulders. "I hate to say it, but I'm impressed. I'd be scared out of my trunk of this place if I weren't fireproof!"

With that somewhat sinister statement, the oblivious oak began walking forward, dragging Jingle along with him in an actually rather friendly sort of manner, albeit also a very insistent one. These small ones were pretty cocksure of themselves, but if all these sprouts could be so brave then hey, maybe he could grow to like them after all.

Spoiler:

"Well, y'know, I was going to stay here if they needed some help getting out..." Jingle insisted as she was dragged along. "B-but if you insist..."

Spoiler:

On the other side of the portal, which appears just a dark and menacing from this side as it does the other, you all find yourself in a forest of tall tall trees, dense shrubbery, bamboo shoots, and flowers of all shapes colors and sizes like you've never seen. You may get a sense of foreboding doom or general eeriness as you look at the reddish sky above. Or well, you might if it weren't for the fact that the trees are giant candy canes, the shrubs are made of pulled taffy, the bamboo shoots are large pixie sticks, and the flowers were made of such things like chocolate leaves with gumdrops or M&M's in their centers.

Dynamo exits the portal at high speed and crashes through the underbrush and finally regains control to find herself staring at a path through the forest made of chiclets.

---

Note: I'm only referring to brand names for convenience. Nothing actually has any branding on it.

Fallen Arches looks around in horror, "how could I be such a fool? This is the most horrifying place I've ever been! What cruel monster could have come up with this strange form of shrubbery?"

Gnarl looked around, absolutely stupefied. Such was the stupefaction on his face that artists, generations in the future and in entirely different realms of existence, would continuously work on single pieces of their work in which someone was required to be stupefied, wondering to themselves why they couldn't make their expressions look less wooden. Such was the depth and breadth of his confused shock that the very atmosphere near his head reacted, subtly turning a shade or two lighter in color, as if to give him the equivalent of a halo, one that would easily express for those aforementioned artists, in case their skills were not up to the task, that the person wearing such a halo was the archangel of confusion given mortal form. Such was his nonunderstanding that Gnarl, for several minutes, did a palatable impression of a completely ordinary, non-walking tree.

For the sake of his ancestral tree, there were colors in front of him that Gnarl had never seen before.

"This... This is weird..." Dynamo said very confused.

Jingle Bell had found herself face first on the ground upon being shoved through the portal, and slowly tilted her head up to see what the others were murmuring about. A wide smile formed on her face. "This reminds me of the Missus' b-day party in '71! Man, that was an awesome year. Or... or even the Candyland mishap of 1950! So many sweets! So many missing pieces! All made of chocolate!" She got up from the ground in one swift motion before cheerfully galloping over to lick one of the giant candy canes.

Structural integrity severely reduced. Activating restoration mechanism.
Currently floating around the environment, Vinnie starts pulling the individual members of the swarm together, turning from freefloating dust to a puddle of greyish liquid, then reshaping it's previous reindeer form.
Success. VNS-S-G4505-3 "Vinnie" reporting.
Vinnie is alive.
Vinnie is...sticky?
Error 134323.
Personality network damaged. Loading backup.


"Whooo-eee.
I don't know about you folks, but I have had WAY to much sugar. And we just got here!"

Warning: severe damage to personality network. Extended restoration neccessary

Dynamo gets up and tries to get out of the brush she was in. Next she tries looking around for where her co-workers in realm making are...

Perception check:

After failing at finding her friends... She tries just shooting a bolt of lighting up, and supercharges it to act as a sort of flare.

Lightning can do anything (it's witchcraft):

The Reaper pokes the shrubbery with it's scythe, wondering if it can pull the 'plant' up and and carry it.

Spoiler:

Perception check for the flare: 1d20+8 19+8 = 27

"Caution or no caution, Dynamo is in danger! We're coming buddy!"

Sugar damage still clouding his judgement, Vinnie rushes through the sugary shrubs.

With Vinnie rushing into the sugary undergrowth to find Dynamo, and well acting crazy, Fallen Arches begins to panic. "What do I do?!?!? I know, melt the sugar!"

And with that proclamation he begins to fiddle with the clasp of his cape:

Spoiler:

Oddly enough, while some things do melt, others (in particular the bushes and the trees) catch fire.

Fallen Arches looks up from what he was doing to stare into the expanding forest fire, "Ooh, I didn't expect that... kinda pretty though...

The Reaper stabs through a bush with it's scythe and hoists it up onto it's shoulder.

K'yath flittered into the heat of the fire, relying on his natural fire resistance to keep him safe, looking for the bush containing the fellow adventurer.

Jingle Bell jumps about a foot in the air at the sudden blast of fire behind her. "Ohfortheloveoftheholidays!" She spun around, waiting with panic for a moment before remembering she can fly and leaping into the air.

Crashing through the bushes, Vinnie reaches Dynamo,
"Dynamo! Dinny! Buddy! You allright? I saw your signal!
Also, this place is SWEET! I mean really sweet! I'm pretty sure it messed up some of my circuits!"