singillatim | extinction is the rule

extinction is the rule

SEPTEMBER 2023 EVENT

PROMPT ONE — THE AURORA: AFTERSHOCKS: The Aurora comes, bringing chaos to the town of Milton. Electronics go haywire, and the Interlopers learn of the original citizens of Milton.

PROMPT TWO — THE HOUR OF THE WOLF: Tainted by the Aurora and attracted to the noise of people inhabiting the town, several packs of wolves descend upon Milton.

PROMPT THREE — IT SPEAKS: A voice comes to the Interlopers, one that knows them and their darkest fears and deepest insecurities, persuading them to fade into the Long Dark by any means necessary.

THE AURORA: AFTERSHOCKS

WHEN: Sporadic nights over the next month.
WHERE: Milton area.
CONTENT WARNINGS: supernatural horror; ‘ghost’ horror; hauntings; death of npcs in various ways including suicide, murder or exposure to elements.

After the feast, and making sure the newcomers to Milton are seen to, Methuselah packs up. He will explain to others that while he will return to check in, he is no resident of Milton and will not stay. He is a nomad, something he has been all his life. He lives in nature. That is where he belongs. But he does assure that people are welcome to remain sheltered in the Hall if they wish to. And sure enough, the old man leaves, wishing the newcomers well. He can still be found out in the wilderness, and will shelter and feed those out exploring should they come across him.

And so the days and nights of this world roll on. The initial time of those who have come to be stranded in this world is unsettled. The weather is always changing, even if it remains bitterly cold. On some nights throughout the next month, however, the snow clouds clear and Interlopers are given a rare, clear night. At first, it’s beautiful: without the light pollution, all the stars can be seen, the moon casts an eerie glow upon the snow in the dead silence of the night. One might even say there is a kind of peace that comes with it all. And for some of these evenings, they pass by: uneventful and silent — the long darkness of an endless winter’s night.

But on others, it isn’t so uneventful. The noise starts: faint at first, but then growing louder. Something in the heavens above. An ethereal, high-pitched chorus of sounds difficult to place. There’s a kind of electrical buzzing with it all, a low, endless hum punctuated with cracks and pops that echo. The sky is alive with sound, louder than anyone could ever expect it to. With it comes the swirling streaking of colour against the inky black of night, growing brighter and brighter as the night goes on: The Aurora has come.

And it isn’t the sky that comes to life too: the whole town does too. Streetlights, illuminating the town’s roads; lights in stores and homes will come alive, buzzing and flickering often. Previously abandoned cars will turn on, their headlights blaring but faltering. Electronics that had previously seemed broken flick on — and whilst there are no broadcasts available on televisions, and the radio waves only drone on in static, both only occasionally blaring standard emergency broadcasts. Any computers and phones will turn on, but will have no internet or reception. Instead, Interlopers may find texts and emails — many of them unsent. The everyday lives of their users stored within, now readable.

But there’s something else too. The Aurora doesn’t just awaken the electronics of the town. Dotted around, in the streets, in homes, in stores, the lights of the Aurora begin to take shape: spectral-like forms of people, their faces hard to make out, details difficult to define. They move in glitching patterns, they speak with voices distorted by static. Eagle-eyed Interlopers may recognise the forms of some, a body or an action:

These are the residents of Milton, in their last moments on this earth.

The forms act out short scenes on repeat: a desperate fight between two men over a vehicle, a murder in a store during a riot, a suicide alone in one of the many houses. An argument over the communication lines going down. A sobbing teen curled up on his bed. A child stares up at the skies, their hands over their ears, crying in fright. A woman begs for her father to leave his home and head to the coast with her, to try to make it to the mainland, but he refuses to leave. A man succumbs to the cold walking alone in the outskirts of town without proper clothing for the elements. Several of these ‘ghosts’ are people fleeing before they stop and simply gasp, staring off into the distance for a few seconds before they drop dead on the spot.

There is nothing that can be done to stop these endless loops. Nothing to help these poor souls. Each of these moments are captured by the Aurora: final, desperate and tragic moments in some unknown, chaotic time. Some of these ‘ghosts’ maybe stop after so many loops — flickering out into nothing, others will last all night. But all will be gone by the morning and the Aurora comes to an end. There are answers, and there are none.

THE HOUR OF THE WOLF

WHEN: Sporadic nights over the next month.
WHERE: Milton.
CONTENT WARNINGS: (wild) animal attacks, altered wildlife, possible character injury/death, possible (wild) animal injury/death.

The growing presence of people within the town of Milton has meant more light, more warmth, more noise. The Aurora has created great change, but people are not the only thing the ethereal lights in the sky has brought down upon this old mining town.

When the sun slips below the horizon, and the clear skies of burnt embers and inky blues alight with stars, they come.

A lone howl, long and haunting. It is the first signal, which carries on the air. You can’t seem to place from which direction it comes from, it feels like it encompasses you. Then another voice joins it, and another, and another. A chorus of them. As the sound echoes off, another fills its place: a strange feral chittering, snarling and snapping — the drumming of feet upon the snow, heading right for you.

Wolves.

Unnatural, glowing green eyes in the dark — tendrils of light seeping from them as they rush in and encircle those they come across outside. They come in packs of three or more, and they are clever. They’re quicker than any wolf you’ve ever known, bigger and hardier too. They will try to strike fast by zipping in when you’re distracted, snapping and nipping at legs or trying to take quick bites out of arms before drawing back. They work together to bring their prey down, a solid unit of noise and teeth. They will hunt down those who hide inside, try to claw their way inside of homes and buildings — dead set on finding you and tearing you apart. There is no hiding from them. They will find you.

But breaking the pack can send them back. If they’re broken, their morale is depleted. Fire is your biggest friend: torches, campfires and flames will keep them mostly at bay and only the bravest of these packs may attack. Striking them with flares or flames will actually send them into brief retreats. Bullets and arrows are effective with both noise and injuring the wolves, and although hitting one will be difficult due their speed, it’s possible. Killing one of these wolves will dissolve the pack’s morale entirely, and the rest will flee off into the night.

Until next time. Maybe it’s best you don’t stick around. They do hold a relentless determination.

IT SPEAKS

WHEN: Over the next month, possibly longer.
WHERE: Milton.
CONTENT WARNINGS: psychological horror; mental manipulation; themes of suicide; themes of depression; potential self-harm; potential feelings of isolation; potential attempted suicide.

There are whispers. Small, at first. Distracting. Perhaps it is only the wind you hear. Milton is so quiet, even with the new hustle and bustle of the new people to this place. Wood creaks and the trees rustle, there are plenty of sounds you could mistake it for.

‘Interloper.’ It is an old voice. Something deep and dark and ancient. Something impossible, older than the earth itself. It floats into your ears and nestles there, sending an ice-cold shiver down your spine. Even to the most stoic and unshakeable souls, it is a unnerving voice. It feels wrong. It feels like an ending. To hear the voice is deeply unsettling... and yet... you recognise it.

It comes to you, in the dead of night when sleep is far. In the long stretches of day as you go about your business, as you travel across the frigid landscape or gather firewood or try to pass the time within whatever home you’ve made for yourself. For some the voice will be clear as day, for others it may be some distant whisper — something gently murmuring in your ear. But the voice will be heard, no matter the person.

‘Interloper. Do you know what it means?’ It asks. ‘It means one that involves itself in a place it does not belong. You do not belong.’

That it isn’t the only thing it tells you. For everyone, it’s different. It knows you. It picks up on any weakness, any insecurity. It makes you feel small, insignificant. It tells you all the quiet, terrible things you hide down within yourself. For days, weeks, the voice is there. Speaking to you. It will wear you down, insist you are not wanted, that you do not belong here.

... And wouldn’t it be better if you weren’t here at all?

The voice seeks to break you. It will push you to your limit. Sleep will become hard to find, your spirits low and hollow. In time you might seem to believe it. Maybe it’s better if you weren’t here. You don’t belong in this place, why should you stay?

‘Disappear, Interloper. Go into the Long Dark.’

Perhaps you next find yourself atop the steep cliffs, looking down into the Milton Basin below. Perhaps you find yourself with a gun in your hand, or a rope. Perhaps you find your feet carrying you out into the snow. You’re going to disappear. You’re going to go into the Dark.

Or maybe the voice isn’t so loud. You can push it down, ignore it. Perhaps Faith is what keeps you steady, perhaps knowing who you are despite your faults stops the voice from taking over. Maybe you can help those who can’t block out the voice. Words of encouragement, affirmation, kindness, determination, even spite. The voice wants you dead, but you will not let it. You will not fall. You will not let anyone else fall, either.

FAQs

THE AURORA: AFTERSHOCKS

1. While examples are given, players are encouraged to come up with their own ghostly loops of similar loops. The key thing to remember is that the people of Milton have descended into public disorder. Fights, arguments and murders have occurred, as have suicides or other unexplained deaths. People are frightened. They want to leave the town.

2. Ghostly loops cannot be interacted with, only witnessed.

3. There is no way of putting these 'ghosts' to rest. These loops are more like residual memories, as if the energy of the townsfolk remained, and have been reconstructed by the Aurora.

4. The wolf attacks and Auroras occur on sporadic nights over the course of the next month, with the Aurora being the first thing, then the wolves. It's unlikely you'll get both on the same night. While the wolves are attracted to the Interlopers' activity, the Aurora's light and noise will keep them away from the town during Aurora Nights.

5. Sharp-eyed Interlopers may notice that the 'ghosts' of those who are staring off into the distance before gasping and dropping dead are looking skyward, towards the east.

THE HOUR OF THE WOLF

1. Due to the Aurora's influence, these wolves are harder, ~~better~~, faster, stronger, than typical wild wolves. They do not die as easily, and are much more difficult to wound and kill. But not impossible. Scaring the wolves will be far easier to accomplish.

2. Wolves will return, sometimes more than once on the same night, or on other nights during the month. The only sure-fire way to have them stop coming back is to kill the pack.

3. Wolf meat is technically edible. But not advised due to parasites. Characters are still welcome to harvest the wolves they kill, however. ~~Who would say no to a cool ass wolf cape.~~

4. The wolf attacks and Auroras occur on sporadic nights over the course of the next month, with the Aurora being the first thing, then the wolves. It's unlikely you'll get both on the same night. While the wolves are attracted to the Interlopers' activity, the Aurora's light and noise will keep them away from the town during Aurora Nights.

IT SPEAKS

1. Characters can be talked down and broken from the voice's influence by others. Genuine connection and empathy will work massively, but even encouragement and affirmations to keep surviving will be powerful enough to break the voice's hold.

2. Players are welcome to play with the length of time the voice can be heard with characters. Some may want to have it over a short space of time, others can have this progress over a longer time period.

3. The voice can come at any time over the next month.

PLOTTING POST

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

She doesn’t trust him. She doesn’t trust anyone here. Not yet, anyway. She doesn’t really know anyone well enough to. There might be one or two she doesn’t… NOT trust. But for the moment. She’s cautious.

“Other than this entire fucking place?” She sighs. “Not really. Not yet, at least. Just… us, for the most part.”

"Seen stranger than this group," he said in a flat tone.

Besides growing up and still living in NYC, which was full of all sorts of colorful characters, the group of superheroes that were the closest things he could call comrades were some of the weirdest people he'd ever met in his life.

She grins, completely unfazed. “Oh, certainly. But given that we’re not supposed to be here, we’re strange enough for this world.”

There have been a lot or worlds and a lot of oddballs she’s seen in her life. And while this one doesn’t seem as weird as some at first glance… there’s something about it. She’d know more, usually, she’d SEE more, but given what this place has done to her… she’s working from a disadvantage. And she hates it.

"This world?" He questioned, the emphasis on the first word clear as he folded his arms across his chest. As far as Rorschach had known, there was only one world. The idea of there being a multiverse was something he'd never even taken into consideration.

“Well, yeah,” she answers. “None of us are FROM this world. And most of us probably aren’t from the SAME world. I’m certain I’m not.” She would have seen it, seen some of them at least once, if she shared a world. So she speaks with absolute certainty in her words. “There might be some exceptions, multiple people from the same world. I've met some who were, before. But that's the exception, rather than the rule."

The vigilante digested that information with his usual stoicism, letting nothing rise ot the surface. It helped that no true expressions could be seen on his face. "Never gave it any thought," Rorschach said with forthright honesty. The only other worlds he knew of were in books and he'd never considered the idea of something like that being another form of reality as having any basis in truth.

Then again, after some of the bizarre and strange things he'd encountered in his own world, chief among them being Doctor Manhattan the idea of multiple worlds was not nearly as strange as it might have been at another point in his life.

“Neither did I, truthfully,” Zoey tells him with a huff of laughter. “Until I started travelling between them. I haven’t been home in… what feels like a very long time.” This is safe to talk about, she thinks. THIS isn’t something she really keeps hidden. Not like her powers. Those she keeps close to her chest. Even if this world has stolen them from her, and she feels the lack like a jagged, gaping hole in her chest.

But the travelling between worlds? Well, that’s just another day that ends in Y for her.

"Hurm." He growled, considering the words. Maybe she was just a lunatic and he was gullible for believing her. But then she seemed sane and rational enough.

"Like the tale of Jack." He was referring to the story that had inspired the jack-o-lantern, Stingy Jack who had been thrown out of Heaven and Hell both because neither God nor the Devil would claim his soul. Instead, he wandered the world forevermore.

He wouldn’t be the first person to think she’s fucking certifiable. Probably wouldn’t be the last, either. Comes with coming from a world where you’re the only strange thing in it. She’s used to it. At least this would be a different reason for it. Almost refreshing.

Zoey laughs. “Something like. Only instead of being kicked out of Heaven and Hell I’m just the multiverse’s plaything. Bouncing from world to world like a fucking tennis ball.”

"Depressing," he said bluntly, shoving his hands in his pockets.

Really, it did, never being able to call one spot home for very long before being tossed somewhere else, forever at the whim of whoever it was out there pulling all the strings. Rorschach may not have liked his own world all that much even at the best of times but it was still his home. While this place didn't seem all that terrible, eventually he wanted to find a way to return to it. He had some unfinished business to attend to there, assuming time hadn't simply continued on without him and whatever had gone on happened without him there..

“… Yeah. Yeah it is.” Zoey’s gotten so USED to it that she… just doesn’t think about the fact that she hasn’t seen her home in… she’s not sure how long, anymore. Maybe it’s just another in the myriad of coping mechanisms she’s developed. And the worlds she finds herself in usually keep her busy.

“I’ve gotten used to it,” she admits. “Or maybe I just try not to think about it. There are good things about it, though. Thanks to the world hopping I’ve met people I NEVER would have met otherwise. Even if I miss the ones I consider friends badly when I’m inevitably yanked away to the next world.” It’s the truth. “It’s the exception, rather than the rule, but I have been lucky enough to reunite with a handful in different worlds. It’s always a surprise, because the chances are astronomical of that happening, but a welcome one.”

"Strange to have optimism in a situation like yours." Rorschach wasn't sure he could have kept his, not that he had much within him to begin with. Always getting yanked from place to place, never able to keep the connections one made? Granted, he'd never been one much for human connections to begin with, but they were still there if he ever wanted to explore the possibility in his own world.

Plus he had the Watchmen. Despite being quite isolated, they were always there if he had any need to turn to them for his own particular reason. To not have any of that here, it was...far different than what he was used to.

Zoey’d never really considered that optimism, exactly… but maybe it is. “I never really thought of it like that. Like optimism,” she admits curiously. “I just… keep trying to move forward. Trying to survive and figure out whatever was going on in the world I’d found myself in. The first few times were… heartbreaking. But after a while… I guess it just got easier to appreciate the good while living with the rest. Or maybe I got better at it, I don’t know.” Or maybe if she hadn’t figured out how to adapt she’d have gone mad for real.

“I want to go home. But I don’t know how or when that’ll be. I doubt I’ll have any say in any of it. So I guess I just have to keep…. I don’t know, trying. Adapting. Taking whatever the multiverse throws at me.” She gives him a lopsided grin. “Or finding the bright side in it all. Even a little”

He listened, silent as usual, without interrupting. Being so quiet meant Rorschach had that rare quality of actually listening to a person without his mind being elsewhere, always just waiting for his turn to talk or to interrupt so he could get a word in edgewise. He actually took in what a person was saying before he offered up anything he wanted to say himself.

"Hm. Survival. Will be important here." His tone was thoughtful. He wasn't sure how many of the people he'd noticed here were prepared for what lay ahead. Then again, was he? This place ran on different rules than the ones he was used to and that could be enough to end up with him dead before too long.

He was thankful none of what he was thinking was capable of showing on his face. It made it easier for people not to be able to predict what he'd do next.

“Yeah. Yeah it will. And it’s hard to try and predict what this world will throw at us. At least the cold and snow seem to be something of a constant at the moment. We can work with that.” It’s familiar enough, even if either or both of those things might go… a little weird that they can still probably deal with it. It’s just anything else that might get thrown at them at the same time that might be a little trouble. They’ll have to deal, though. There’s no other choice. Besides dying. And fuck that.

"'We?'" He questioned.

As far as working with others went, Rorschach's skills were a little bit rusty. He'd been on his own for so long that he'd lost a lot of the habits he'd used to have when he'd had a partner he'd consistently teamed up with. While he may have been all about protecting the people in this town if they ended up staying in Milton for an extended length of time, he preferred to keep them at arm's length, never getting closer to anyone there than the distance he could see them at from a rooftop.

"Anyone who's found themselves here," Zoey tells him. "Not that any of us have much of a choice on that front. We deal with the weather or we die. But it's the most straightforward thing about this place."

They don't have to do it together, but it'll be easier than doing it alone. At least to a degree.

"Strange. This place deserted. No townspeople. Just newcomers," he said, thinking a bit out loud.

What did it all mean? That was something he was still working out. It would give him something to do until he could leave this place. After all, he still had unfinished business and he wasn't going to leave his partner alone to deal with it all by himself.

“It certainly raises plenty of questions.” And somehow she doubts that answers are going to present themselves. Even if they go digging. And she will, of course. It’s not in her to do otherwise. She needs to keep herself busy. Distracted from the fact that this place has stolen something from her.

"Every question has an answer." He believed this. May the answer wouldn't satisfy most people or it wouldn't be an entirely illuminating one or just be frustrating to hear but the answers were there if only one knew where to look. And Rorschach? He knew where to look.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

extinction is the rule

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject