singillatim | there'll be oats in the water

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there'll be oats in the water

JULY 2024 EVENT

PROMPT ONE — THE AURORA: REDUX: A storm finally arrives, and with it — Enola extends her hand to help the Interlopers once more, granting them new abilities.

PROMPT TWO — PENSIVE LOOKOUT: With the Forest Talker efforts focused on sabotaging hunting efforts, Interlopers can attempt to explore the Pensive Lookout Tower, where they can uncover secrets from the diary of Sam Bouchard — the former firewatch worker of the summer of 2014.

PROMPT THREE — A PEEK INSIDE: A group of Interlopers get their hands on one of the Forest Talkers in search of answers — and get a little more than they bargained for.

THE AURORA: REDUX

WHEN: Mid-month, for three days.
WHERE: Everywhere.
CONTENT WARNINGS: supernatural/extreme weather; lightning storms; potentially disturbing dreams; dreams of being trapped in ice; dreams of animal death; dreams of the death of loved ones.

July brings warmer weather. The fog has lifted, and the daylight returned — but an odd kind of pressure lingers in the air, the kind that feels similar with oncoming storms but something still feels off about it all. Measurements and readings are erratic, with them often making little sense. It’s hard to predict just what might be coming, but sure enough something is coming.

Hold on a little longer, Enola told you. A storm is coming.

It comes quickly, the gathering of storm clouds. At first, it looks as if a kind of snowstorm is moving in, but there’s something else at play here. Within the grey, cloudy skies, there is a tell-tale sound of an Aurora mixed within those clouds.

And with it, in amongst the dark, the swirling colours. Greens, pinks and purples weaving through the clouds, almost mesmerising to watch. The air is alive with sound: static noise, cracks and pops: a storm and the Aurora mixed into one. For those who’ve been here long enough, it’s a worrying, unnerving sight. The storm rumbles with the low roar of distant thunder, growing ever closer. The electronics of the world begin to come alive, and in the static of it all — you begin to hear Enola’s voice even clearer than before.

After so much darkness, now there is so much light. A lightning storm — aurora colours mingling with the grey clouds, punctured with crackles of lightning. Something powerful and strange — flash forking across the skies, followed by booms of thunder.

The storm lasts three days, and even though her voice is soft — you hear it over all the noise, nestled gently in your ear.

“You're still here. It means something. This isn’t the end, I refuse to let it be the end. It can’t win. You won’t go into the Dark.” Enola tells you. ”I will make you more than what you are, more than what was stolen from you. This place will not be your end. I have to try. We have to try. Together. I showed some of you, once. I’ll show you again.”

She tells you to sleep. For some, they recognise this and realise what may end up happening. For others it feels like going out on a limb. But you sleep, and perhaps a dream may come to you.

COLD FUSION: The colours of the Aurora dance around you in your dreamscape. You dream of a great hall of ice: as if it had been carved into some great ridge of it. You walk through it, marvelling at the beauty of it — a blue gloom, echoing with each of your footsteps. But as you take one particular step, the ground cracks and collapses beneath you, sending you into dark, frozen waters. In seconds, the water freezes around you, encompassing you in thick ice, your entire body trapped within it. The coldness burns you, and you are stuck there — frozen in agony. The pain is immeasurable, your entire body crushed and searing from the ice. There is no escape, no reprieve.

A voice speaks to you, perhaps it is the voice of a stranger, perhaps it is the voice of someone you know: Do you know how you survive the cold?’ They ask you. You do not know, and you wait for the answer: ‘You become colder than it.

Your eyes close. You believe those words, you do. You must become colder than the cold itself. And so you will. Your breathing slows, your heart slows and the cold… it stops hurting, it doesn’t burn. The ice around you begins the crack.

When you awaken the first thing you realise is despite the temperature, you are completely cosy and warmed. You do not feel the slightest chill. It is perhaps only once you are around other than you truly notice the difference to you — you are cold to the touch, lacking the heat you once had. An understanding comes: you are at one with the cold, it will not beat you, it will not cause you agony. Winter is at peace within you: perfect Cold Fusion.

MOON TOUCHED: The colours of the Aurora dance around you in your dreamscape. You dream of running through the silent woods at night. The moon is full above you, the air is calm and still. Hunger draws you forward, everything is so sharp and vivid in your senses, even in this dreamscape. You hear the crispness of the snow beneath your feet, smell the scent of the pines on the air, feel how warm you are against the coldness around you.

The snuffling of a rabbit catches your attention, and you swiftly leap after it, jaws opening and closing around its neck as you capture it. You bite down hard, feeling the crunch of its bones as they break, the sweet coppery taste of blood filling your mouth and nose. You lift your head towards the stars, blood on your tongue. You realise you are not a person at all, but a beast on all fours: a wolf, content and filling your belly with meat.

You wonder, for a brief moment: were you ever a person at all?

You do not know the answer to the question. You do not seem to worry about such a thing but there’s a flash of warning on the air. Something you cannot quite place, but you know that you should not forget it.

When you awaken, you feel… different, somehow. Everything seems a little sharper, as if the world around you had been dull, or behind some pane of frosted glass. With it comes a strange balance of calmness and chaos, tameness and wildness, fear and bravery. You find yourself looking for the moon in the skies and when you finally find it, it hits you — this is what it means to be Moon Touched.

INTERLOPER’S SACRIFICE: The colours of the Aurora dance around you in your dreamscape and then fade into nothing. You dream of kneeling in a darkened, charred wood. You are not alone. In this dreamscape, you dream of a loss, or a time you have never felt more helpless in your life. Perhaps it is when someone you knew died before you, or you stood as someone was sick and injured and you were unable to do a thing. As you kneel, they are there with you: sick or dying or even dead in your arms. You cannot do anything but hold them, and the helplessness is overwhelming.

You look up and a woman in furs stands before you, her expression solemn. Enola herself. There are tears in her eyes, as if she shares the very pain you do: the loss, the grief, the hopelessness, the powerlessness. She approaches you and lowers herself to kneel in front of you and your companion, bracing your shoulders for a long, lingering moment. There are no words, none from neither of you.

Enola shifts slightly, leans forwards. She kisses your forehead, much like when a parent kisses their child: sweet and tender.

And then you feel it, as if you are set alight: an agonising pain that encompasses you whole — so painful you cannot even open your mouth to scream. You feel yourself growing weak, the corners of your vision blurring into black. It feels as if you might die from the pain, and you want for it to stop but it doesn’t.

Enola pulls away and you gasp, slumping in exhaustion, but still alive, somehow. You stare at her, sweating and clamouring for breath, and she offers you a sad smile. Never again. you feel the words inside of you. This time, it will be different. Better.

When you awaken, you can still feel the kiss upon your forehead — enough to make your fingers reach up to touch it, your entire body tingling a little. A small voice in the back of your mind whispers, reminding you as you find yourself looking down at your hands: never again. Never again, you tell yourself and the comprehension comes to you: you have chosen. This is what it means to be: this is your sacrifice. The Interloper’s Sacrifice.

NOTHING: The colours of the Aurora dance around you in your dreamscape, but only for a moment. The edges of your vision begin the blur with black, slowly closing in until everything goes dark and you fall into a deep, dreamless sleep. You awaken, and although you feel rested, as if the dreamless darkness has helped you feel a little more ready to take on the day — nothing else about you has changed.

PENSIVE LOOKOUT

WHEN: The month of July.
WHERE: Pensive Lookout Tower, Lakeside.
CONTENT WARNINGS: themes of survival; possible fall injuries/treacherous climbs; themes of terror; themes of diminished sanity; themes of starvation.

The Old Hunting Lodge is located in the southern-most area of Lakeside, and its surrounding area is generally considered no-go territory with the presence of the Forest Talkers. As June turned into July, the Forest Talker’s presence in the wilds of Lakeside has begun to grow again — but their efforts appear to be focused on sabotaging the efforts of Interlopers, Methuselah and Young Bill in hunting fresh game. If anything, it could mean that with attentions drawn away — perhaps the braver sorts of the Interlopers can explore the area a little more fully.

There’s little in terms of buildings of interest in this area. The wilderness is thick and deep here. Perhaps the odd ransacked cabin once belonging to a local may be stumbled across — its contents picked clean, presumably by the Forest Talkers. Many of these buildings will be completely inhabitable due to the damage done — with some cabins being razed to the ground.

However, on higher ground, with a good hike to access it, stands a watch tower.

These lookout towers could mean a number of things: a chance to access supplies that may have otherwise been forgotten about due to the hike to get up there, a better view of the surrounding area, and the possibility of a radio — given the sign of a radio transmitter that can be found blinking a feeble red on Aurora nights.

With the snow on the ground it’s a little more treacherous, but given the circumstances, anything’s worth a shot, right? Those who attempt the hike may fall foul to slips and trips along the steep slow to reach the tower, and should take care in the ascent. Even with the warmth of July, it’s difficult. One might hope this might make the place a decent outpost, if you think about it. Somewhere hard to reach, and with such a vantage point.

Reaching the tower and climbing it to its interior will it largely intact but a mess. Someone has lived here for some time. Interlopers will find no food here, but some useful tools that belonged to the lookout: binoculars, maps, a compass, an alidade. There is even a radio sat upon a desk, and with it — a journal.

The journal, Interlopers will find, belonged to a man named Sam Bouchard — the firewatcher for the season during the previous year, detailing the months of his arrival and ending in November last year. It is unknown what happened to Sam, but his journal will perhaps offer some insight and even some information.

A PEEK INSIDE

WHEN: The month of July.
WHERE: The Gas Station, Milton.
CONTENT WARNINGS: themes of kidnapping; imprisonment; self-starvation; blood/minor injuries; psychological torment, supernatural abilities.

The Forest Talkers have a long history in the Northern Territories, long before Interlopers started arriving in Milton. Champions of nature, they have sought to put an end to the industries and tourism-related expansions in the Lakeside area, first peacefully and then… not-so-peacefully. But with the events known as the ‘The Flare’ last year, Forest Talkers have been… acting peculiarly, disturbingly, aggressively.

There are plenty of questions to be asked. But the Forest Talkers are difficult to communicate with. Previous attempts have ended up in aggression or being ignored entirely. And now, even with the events of the previous month coming to an end — game remains difficult to find, and Forest Talkers are keen on sabotaging any attempts of hunting made by Interlopers, Young Bill or Methuselah. And more importantly: what is the yawning grave?

It starts as mutterings between tired and disgruntled Interlopers. They need answers, and there’s got to be a way in trying to get some. They’re hungry and exhausted and so many of their numbers are now dead. Those mutterings grow, and soon enough a plan is put into place. A small group of Interlopers embark into Lakeside and wait.

Soon enough, it bears fruit. A man is captured, bound and blindfolded — quietly and secretly brought back to Milton to be held up in the unused Gas Station to be questioned. It is not the leader, but surely one of them is better than no one at all. He is injured, but not enough to kill him. It will prove challenging in trying to get answers out of him, but soon enough the Interlopers will get him to talk.

News of the Forest Talker in their midst will inevitably spread, as most things do in small communities. Secrets are hard to guard. It won’t be just those behind the kidnapping who might end up coming across the man being held in the Gas Station.

Anyone who goes to investigate will find the man sat on the floor in quiet contemplation. Attempts of conversation will be met with long, silent stares — holding your gaze for an uncomfortably long time. He will spurn any gestures of kindness: spit on the floor at Interloper’s feet, refuse any food offered — as if the man has chosen to starve himself in protest. He says nothing, at first.

But after some time, he will look into an Interloper’s eyes and utter something. A word. A phrase. It may be a name, or a place. It may be a specific thing an Interloper has read, or been spoken to by someone. Something that holds meaning to the Interloper. It may be the name of a loved one from home, or the last words ever spoken to you by a friend. Something the man shouldn’t know.

Whatever it is that he speaks to you, it is not something that will fill you with hope or fondness to remember — but quite the opposite. A reminder of something painful, of a loss, or some other thing that caused you misery. As if he had reached right inside your mind and plucked some painful part of your past from you and spoken it to the wind.

The Forest Talker smiles, and will say nothing else. The damage has already been done.

FAQs

THE AURORA: REDUX

1. The next three Aurora Feats are unlocked! Please see the following page for more information.

2. Aurora Feats are completely optional.

3. Interlopers will only receive ONE Aurora Feat. The only time this is available is this month. After July, players will have to wait for the next Feat round for another chance at an Aurora Feat.

4. This Aurora/storm will last a full three days, darkening the skies almost to night.

PENSIVE LOOKOUT

1. Interlopers who dwell in the lookout for the next Aurora will find the radio works, albeit poorly. They will be able to pick up the same broken morse code message.

2. There are no signs of blood/injury that befell Sam in the lookout. It appears he made good on what he wrote on in his journal and attempted to leave to get to Silverpoint.

A PEEK INSIDE

1. While only a small number was involved in the kidnapping itself, anyone can discover the fact there's a Forest Talker being held in Milton.

2. In terms of appearance, the Forest Talker is very much your typical average white guy. Bearded, weathered by the cold, someone who's lived several years without much in the way of comforts or luxuries.

PLOTTING POST

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Konstantin pauses, looking over at her. Shit. That's not good.

The mention of Kieren makes something in his gut twist uncomfortably. He needs to ask Chloe about the kid, but one awful thing at a time—

"Who is he? Your criminal friend." He's joking as he says that, but there's a severity behind all of it. So people are starting to divide, to make note of who stands with whom..... Yeah, this is dangerous. It's best to know as much as he can about all of it, and about who Chloe is associated with. After all, he's on her team — he said he'd defend her if anyone ever came for her, and he means that.

“Remember the sailor who got his ass kicked at the community hall a few months back?” A promising start, certainly. “He’s like me, hungry, and when that thing was controlling us he killed a guy in self-defence and then... made use of the remains. Shared them with other people without telling them what it was, which was massively stupid but: possessed, you know?”

Also they really had been afraid of starving, especially when she’d been faced with a gun at the hall herself.

“His husband Billy Gibson is one of my best friends here so I had to go to this stupid trial to support him, you know? In case something happened. The captain is there literally shouting for this guy’s blood and Gibson decides now is the time to come out in front of god and everybody. I'm proud of him but who knows how that's going to go.”

She sighs. “I hurt people too, during all that. I felt crazy, like I was rotting inside. I could have done anything. How are we putting people on trial for that?”

Made use of the remains. Konstantin doesn't have to question it further, brow knitting. It's all a severe situation, but, as Chloe says — none of it was done in one's right mind, was it? And of course, he knows he's in no position to judge even acts of cannibalism.

(To think he used to be a Hero of the people and now here he is nodding in understanding to all of this...)

"They shouldn't be." Putting people on trial. "None of this is normal, the rules are warped here. We can't pick and choose which ones we're going to treat as normal, and which ones aren't." He folds his arms, disturbed by this "trial", by the inevitable consequences of it.

"It could lead to witch hunts. For people like Kieren. And you, and me. People known to have something... wrong with them." Beat. "Do a lot of people know about you? The... changes that happened to you after that dream? The hunger?"

Chloe shakes her head. “Mostly other people like us, with the supernatural hunger or something else like it. I'm starting to wonder if we shouldn't all get together ourselves.”

It's hard to get anything done when she's trying to avoid outing all these people to each other.

“I got caught trying to steal food, but we were all starving. I don't think anyone’s going to think anything of it unless they want to get mad at me about the fight.”

"A merry band of freaks?" He smiles. "Maybe we should. There seem to be more of us here than I even imagined."

He thinks of a recent run-in with Louis, those too-sharp teeth and the way he'd lunged at him.

"Speaking of. I had another one of those dreams. With the woman speaking." He frowns thoughtfully as he walks alongside her. "Nothing else happened to you, did it? To make your situation worse?" He'd come here with his own "condition", but Chloe was... given it, by whatever forces are truly at play here. And he knows it happened to her last time there was one of those weird collective dreams...

“If this is going to keep happening, we need to try and protect ourselves. No one else is going to, and we can't help if we’re all blindsided.” Maybe it's not actually safer keeping it to just the 'monsters' but it feels safer.

The second part makes her smile, a little nervous. “Yeah, something else happened. I live just back there, want to come in for a second? I'll show you, but it's a pain in the ass to do outside.”

Something in Konstantin hesitates at that, not because he disagrees at all, but there's a flare of discomfort to the fact there's still parts about his own situation he hasn't divulged to Chloe. He'd told her it was something alien, that it meant he had to feed on blood — best if it comes from brains — that he was kept in a research facility as a lab rat, but... he hasn't explicitly used the word parasite. Or revealed that it's a whole-ass creature nested in his stomach right now.

Keeping secrets about it seems both increasingly necessary and increasingly dangerous. He needs to tell her, at least, if he's going to properly form an alliance with her. But he's still nervous to the thought, considering all of this for a moment, until the woman says she has to show him something, and his brows lift as his focus immediately shifts to that. Something else happened to her?

"Sure, of course," he nods, adjusting his stance to turn in the direction she'll go, ready to follow her. Fuck, this place.... "Something worse than before?"

“I dunno about worse, but it's definitely more.” Chloe hurries with the door, mostly because nosy people on her street keep watching her bring men to her house. “It's probably got a downside but I'm not sure what it is yet.”

She ushers him inside her cabin, which is clean but relatively free of any indication that anyone actually lives there aside from a small figure of the Hindu god Ganesh sitting on the table.

“Don’t freak out,” she says, unzipping her jacket, “but I have to get undressed for this.”

Seeing the shift in Chloe's mannerism — how she hurries at the door, Konstantin follows her lead and slips inside quickly rather than taking his time. Once inside, he's looking around for a moment, before turning back to the woman.

Brows lifting, a surprised smile tugs at his mouth, at first thinking she might be teasing him. In return, he's playful as he asks, lifting an arm to lean against the wall as he tilts his head at her.

"Ah, is this why you wanted me to come inside? To seduce me? I'm not that easy, you know."

Chloe undresses methodically, looking much more like an exhausted woman getting ready for a bath by herself after a long day than anyone trying to be sexy. It's a bit of an arduous process - she's already had to repair her necklace once and luckily she hadn't been wearing her bracelet the first time, but that's all coming off too - but she does shoot him a bit of a cocky smile at the joke.

"We'll see if you're still into it in a second. Check it out."

And that's all the warning he gets before she changes.

It's nothing like a werewolf in a horror movie - no stretching or snapping bones. Between one blink and the next, Chloe is gone, and a lithe, light coloured wolf with grey eyes is standing in her place.

Konstantin lifts both brows higher as he realises she's not joking, as she truly starts removing her clothing, and he's not exactly shy about the fact, it's just.... his direct experience with beautiful woman undressing before his very eyes has been a lot less than some might think.

He's almost caught off-guard in a way he's rarely ever been, dropping his eyes for a moment as though to give her modesty, then— looking back up. Soon enough he's finding an appreciative little smile curling the corners of his mouth, about to say something flirtatious (his comfort zone, and it comes so naturally; Chloe is stunning, and comfortable around him) but—

(have you ever been watching a woman undress and then all of a sudden she turns into an entire wolf)

The man tenses at the sight, startled and confused and feeling a sharp surge of adrenaline that probably isn't good for his particular condition, but it's not anything he can stop in the moment. What the fuck—

"Chloe?!" he hisses to the creature, because it.. it's there, where she just was, it's the only thing that make sense, even as his mind insists it can't possibly make any sense at all.

The part of Chloe that doesn't feel all the way real unless someone is looking at her might have indulged in that gaze a little bit longer if the practical part hadn't had something it wanted to do.

It's harder as a wolf, controlling her instincts to simply chase every desire that pops into her furry little head, but she wants to prove it.

She sits a good distance away from him and looks up and then down, in a wolf approximation of a nod.

It— she— is nodding. Like a human would, and Konstantin's continuing to ogle the creature that's just replaced his companion, but understanding is quick to take over any lingering doubts. This is Chloe. She's literally turned into an animal right before his eyes.

He hesitates, eyeing those sharp claws, thinking of those sharp teeth, instinct keeping him tensed back from a wild animal, but he keeps his eyes locked on. She's clearly capable of understanding him, communicating with him. She must have retained her mind, or at least most of it, right?

"You... can understand me?" he decides to confirm, voice kept hushed.

Chloe forces herself to nod again, the unnatural motion, then stands only to immediately flop over onto her side with a big sigh.

See, Kostya? All her vulnerable parts are showing, she isn't going to hurt you.

So this is really happening.

Konstantin stares as the wolf — Chloe — confirms her identity and then plops down to the ground, docile as any domesticated dog. (...Even moreso than Mukhtar, the dog Vasiliy's been trying so hard to train...)

Adrenaline's still coursing through him, no matter how conditioned the cosmonaut is to handling his stress — and he feels a slight, but jarring, squirm in his gut, the alien reacting to his hormones. He tries to calm himself by breathing out evenly and slowly as he stares to the wolf. Slowly, carefully, he lowers himself to the ground to sit on the floor, transfixed as he looks her over.

"The dream did this to you? Shit... Does it hurt?"

Chloe looks up at Kostya - her friend, and she has fewer inhibitions on using that word for it in this body - then thumps her tail against the floor a couple of times. She feels great.

As intimidating as it is to suddenly be in a closed environment with a wolf, even knowing it's Chloe, Konstantin can't quite hold back an amused chuckle at that, brows lifting. She seems to be okay, not in pain, just— just a wolf.

So he moves a little closer, getting up into a crouch and then making his way across the floor to her, staying low. When he sits back down again, he's barely a foot away, staring down at her. Carefully, he lifts a hand towards her head. Is it weird to pet her? But she's cute.

"This is... incredible."

It probably is a little weird, but Chloe has already let wolf Lalo lick her hand at this point, so go nuts.

Wolf Chloe doesn't think it's weird at all. That's what you do with human friends, isn't it? She rolls over onto her back, tongue lolling happily.

Konstantin can't help giving a delighted laugh at the display. She's like a big dog, and.... very different from Mukhtar, who won't even let anyone pet him.... When she rolls onto her back, he brushes a hand carefully along her fur, giving a little scratch.

"That looks like it feels good. I'd be temped to stay like this all the time if it were me."

That statement reminds Chloe that she should probably change back. She enjoys the scratching a little more first - he's right about how good it feels - then she rolls to her feet and in a blink there's a naked woman crouched in front of him.

“The real downside is that I always smell like dog after.”

Suddenly she's back and Konstantin startles a bit, eyes widening as he breathes out a soft exhale of surprise. This new little trick of Chloe's is quick, isn't it.

"Welcome back."

He reaches for the bundle of clothes nearby, handing them to her.

"You can do this any time you want to? Are there any consequences?"

“Thanks.” Chloe takes the bundle of clothing and starts dressing again. “I can do it at will so far, but my clothes don't fare so well if I don't undress first. I’m sure it's got a downside, same as the other thing, but I don't know what it is yet.”

When she starts dressing, Konstantin turns to face the wall, lifting an arm to lean against it. Not that he thinks Chloe is particularly concerned over any shyness, but he doesn't want to just ogle the woman while she re-dresses.

"Oh no... you learned that by experience?" He gives a little chuckle; oh yeah he can see how changing into a wolf all of a sudden would completely shred one's clothing... But beneath everything, he is pretty concerned by this. What kind of side-effects could this have on her....?

"Are you sure you feel all right?"

“Yeah. I changed outside the first time and most of my stuff was pretty unsalvageable.”

This dream had been a lot more literal than the last one. She hadn't expected to actually turn into a wolf.

“I feel fine. My senses like that are amazing. I change back if I start feeling too wild.”

When he hears the shuffle of moving clothing stop, Konstantin glances over his shoulder and then turns around to face Chloe again, taking her in as his mind continues to process all of this. Someone gaining the ability to change into an entirely different species probably isn't the wildest thing he's witnessed in the past year of his life, but it's pretty up there.

And he can't help wondering why she would be altered in this way. They did this to her on purpose — it doesn't bode well with his theories that they're all being turned into experimental weapons, like he was before.

Konstantin reaches to adjust one of her shirt sleeves that got caught in itself, rolling it out to rest smoothly, and gives a little smile.

"You definitely seemed like you were enjoying it. I never knew a vicious wolf could look so cute."

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