Blood Skelter

**Blood Skelter** (also referred to as "Blood Skelter Mode") is a Game System and a lore term of *Mary Skelter: Nightmares*.

## About

### Gameplay

On the Blood Meter that shows progress towards Massacre Mode, the brightness of the stains (from pink to almost purple-black) represent a Blood Maiden's Corruption. Corruption slowly builds up as a result of taking massive damage, getting KO'd, certain field hazards, etc. Attempting to activate Massacre Mode in this state carries a risk of entering Blood Skelter.

A Blood Maiden in Blood Skelter gains an even greater power boost than Massacre Mode, but you lose control of them for the duration of the state. Maidens will recklessly attack friend and foe alike without any restraint, and their health will sharply drop every turn.

Blood Skelter ends when the Maiden is KO'd or the battle ends. You can cancel Blood Skelter using Jack's Mary Gun, but at great risk of KO'ing Jack.

Blood Skelter and Corruption are largely unchanged in Mary Skelter 2, however now the removal of Corruption is reliant on Nightmare Jack's Purge skills, which strain his mind and risk him entering his own Blood Skelter-like state called Ripper Jack.

### Lore

Blood Maidens cannot simply bathe in Marchen blood without consequence. Corruption will slowly build up in a Blood Maiden, making her agitated and gradually polluting her mentality. A Blood Maiden pushed past the tipping point will enter Blood Skelter, a dangerous state where she attains great power, but is unable to recognize friend or foe, becoming nothing more than a rabid berserker. Before Jack's blood was discovered to have anti-Corruption properties, Blood Maidens who entered Blood Skelter were considered already dead, and were either put down or left in the area, where they would rampage before burning out.

In Mary Skelter: Nightmares, the first known instance of Blood Skelter occurred when a Blood Maiden (this timeline's Little Mermaid) was exposed to a great deal of mental stress combined with being covered in Marchen blood. The result caused her to enter a berserker state, and Red Riding Hood was forced to kill her. The Professor would later coin the term in Haru's report.

In the alternate timeline of Mary Skelter 2, Little Mermaid and Otsuu were found and recruited into the Dawn early on in their lives, so Blood Skelter is completely unknown to anyone until Alice goes berserk. Notes about it would eventually be salvaged from the ruins of the Liberated District, and everyone would be fearful of it until the properties of Jack's blood were discovered following an instance of Little Mermaid going berserk in the Aquarium Ruins. Jack himself has his own pseudo-Blood Skelter called Ripper Jack, which triggers if he cannot maintain his sanity while using his Nightmare powers or if Otsuu enters Blood Skelter due to their link.

One thing to be noted about Blood Skelter is that it more or less freezes the body's biological clock, preventing the Blood Maiden from aging if they are alive, and preserving their corpse if they die. This is how Little Mermaid's body was still intact for so much study in Nightmares, and how Cinderella remained in her preadolescence even after years passed since her disappearance in Mary Skelter 2.