it must be that old evil spirit

[singmod]

SEPTEMBER 2024 EVENT

PROMPT ONE — PAINFUL REMINDERS: An Aurora briefly connects the Interlopers to their homeworlds, and with it are able to receive items from home — but these ones will bring no comfort to them.

PROMPT TWO — THE ENEMY WITHIN: Strange and familiar occurrences begin in Milton and Lakeside, growing in frequency and danger for the Interlopers. Who can truly be trusted among their numbers?

PROMPT THREE — BAD BLOOD: The Forest Fighters finally come to Milton, and with it: they bring the yawning grave.

PAINFUL REMINDERS

WHEN: 5th - 9th of September.
WHERE: Everywhere.
CONTENT WARNINGS: potentially upsetting themes; themes of loneliness/isolation.

For many, the sight of the Aurora is now one they have become used to. There have been plenty of them over the year that has passed since the Interlopers first came to the Northern Territories. Often, they have been a sign of great danger, with plenty of unsettling and unnatural things happening when the skies light up. Other times they have been the herald of aid — a link between Interlopers and Enola, gifting them with abilities to help them survive in this world. There is no real knowing what kind of force the Aurora is, truly. And there is a tension that holds amongst the Interlopers as the day turns to night and there is the soft sound that grows louder.

The ethereal, high-pitched chorus of sounds, is difficult to place. Perhaps it sounds like voices, or discordant strings. And with it, the low-drone of electrical buzz — punctuated with the echoing pops and sharp cracks. The sky is alive with sound, and with it comes the swirling streaking of colour against the inky black of night, growing brighter and brighter as time goes on — greens, blues, pinks and purples shifting and dancing across the night. And much like every Aurora before this one, the electricals of the world come to life too. Homes, streetlamps, cars long-stranded in the snow. Man’s world comes alive, buzzing and flickering precariously.

But there are no ghosts like there once was a year ago. No terrible weather, no poisonous fog. If one could call it a ‘normal’ Aurora, that’s what it appears to be. But there is something else in amongst all the light and noise. Snatches of things: whispers of conversations, names called, laughter and tears.

You realise you recognise these voices. They are the voices of home. Perhaps you hear your mother, your siblings or friends. Whoever they are, you can hear them. And although they might not be able to hear you — for one brief night, the Aurora has connected you, bridged the gap between your world and this one. You may sit for a while, simply listening to the voices, relishing in hearing those from back home. If others join you, you will find yourself compelled to speak of them: to share in stories about those from back home — the connections you share with them.

It’s strange, though. These voices do not fill you with comfort or joy. Instead you are left with feelings of sadness, anger, and isolation. The Aurora has connected Interlopers, but now you feel so cut off from home, cut off from friends and loved ones — reminded of everything left behind. Everything you long for. Everything you have lost.

Something strange skips through the sky, a warping of the sound. It’s unsettling. Something feels... wrong, somehow.

It’s not just the voices that will remind you of this. Something else comes through the Aurora after that night. A small token will be brought through. Whatever the item may be, when you go to sleep and next wake, you will find said item. It may be placed on your bedside, on your desk or dining room table.

The item, you will find, will bring you a reminder of pain. Of sadness. Of horror. Perhaps it’s something you haven’t thought of in some time. Maybe it is something that has lingered in the back of your mind. Perhaps it is a part of you, waiting to be uncovered. A sign of something to come. A painful reminder of your past, or an ominous omen of your future.

THE ENEMY WITHIN

WHEN: The month of September.
WHERE: Everywhere.
CONTENT WARNINGS: kidnapping/attempted kidnapping; attempted murder; murder; vandalism; arson; assault; animal mutilation; corpse mutilation/manipulation/desecration; themes of peril/terror; possible character/npc injuries; possible character/npc death.

It starts with strange happenings at night, things left to be found by the next morning. Those within Lakeside many find themselves unsurprised by it, given their location, but the scenes found in Milton are a foreboding sight.

Mutilated bodies of animals: rabbits, ptarmigans, even deer — mangled and strewn about the streets, blood upon the snow. Some may awaken in the middle of the night to the sounds of their windows breaking, with houses on the Outskirts being targeted more than those in the middle of town. There is… a kind of unrest in the world.

It escalates.

Some may leave their home for the day and return in the evening to find the place trashed: items broken, precious foodstuffs thrown about the place and destroyed. Those within the Outskirts are once again particularly vulnerable, as are those within Lakeside. Fires are started in some of the abandoned buildings of Milton. Something, someone is targeting the Interlopers.

It is hard to pin-point who exactly, and it only puts the Interlopers on high alert. Nothing like this has never happened before. This is new, especially in Milton.

As the month progresses, the acts become more serious. Fires may be started in the middle of the night in Interlopers’ homes while they sleep. Some are attacked in the night, others are taken from their beds. Some killed within their very homes. Of the Interlopers that go missing, their mutilated remains may be found days later out in the wilds.

In Milton, soon enough, someone is bold enough to come out from the darkness, out from the gloom of the night. Interlopers may be attacked in broad daylight — by those they may recognise as newer Interlopers of the community, who appeared from the wilds: lost and shivering, with nowhere else to go. Some of them have been within Milton for a few months now.

Those in Lakeside will face something similar: Forest Talkers are making a move, rogue and isolated incidents — done with sabotaging attempts at hunting and taking a more direct approach.

They have no qualms about being captured or killed, only determined to get rid of as many of the Interlopers as they can. They whisper, they scream: “You don’t belong here. You should never have come here. It wants you gone, it wants us all gone. The end is here, it’s too late for any of us. Nature must run its course. The yawning grave has been opened.”

The attack is on two fronts: the first of Forest Talkers in Lakeside amplifying their actions. The second in Milton, enemies within the ranks of the Interlopers, Forest Talkers hiding as Interlopers.

Within Milton, newer Interlopers will likely be met with suspicion as being some of the Forest Fighters as a result of these individual acts of violence. As the numbers of Milton have been infiltrated, and it’s easy to have mistrust amongst those newer to the community. In-fighting is likely, and the entire town is stuck in some terrible, tense state — unsure of who to trust within their own numbers. In the days and weeks that follow, it remains like this. Acts of violence and vandalism — chaos and disorder.

BAD BLOOD

WHEN: The night of 27th - 28th September.
WHERE: Milton.
CONTENT WARNINGS: attempted murder; murder; vandalism; arson; assault; mentions of blood; themes of peril/terror; possible character/npc injuries; possible character death/npc death; actual NPC death.

Towards the end of the month, the moon is full. They call it the Harvest Moon, but colour seeps into it — oranges and reds: a blood moon, partially eclipsed. The night is calm and cloudless, but there’s an uneasy feeling in the night.

The earth groans, the rumble of another quake that’s plagued the Northern Territories since the beginning of August. It is the only warning Interlopers will get — if they may realise it as a warning. To some, when they look back, it’s a omen, a starting pistol.

They do not come through the Mines. Thanks to the efforts of Interlopers to guard the entrances of the Milton Mines, they know better. They come to town from the south, not the north.
The quakes of August and September have opened a new way from Lakeside to Milton. They are led by their Leader: a man dressed in white, a large deer skull upon his head. And while their numbers are small in comparison, they come armed and with the determination to get rid of the Interlopers once and for all. As they come into town, they launch their attack.

More fires will be set, Interlopers will be attacked with abandon. Shot at, stabbed, beaten. It is a mass execution. They will not stop until the Interlopers, or them, are dead.

Well, the majority of them. There are just under a dozen teenagers and younger people amongst their ranks who have shown hesitance toward violence in the past. Perhaps they can be reasoned with. Perhaps there may be a way to convince them to abandon their cause. There is fear in their eyes. Some of them do not want to die. They fear the yawning grave.

What will do you then, Interloper? Are you willing to fight for your life? Are you willing to take another’s to save your own, or a friends? Will you hide, or run? What choice will you make? The Forest Talkers have long since made their own choice. Now you must make yours.

It is another night of chaos on a town already scarred by the events of June. Interlopers will note two familiar faces in the fray: at some point during the night both Methuselah and Young Bill will arrive. While Methuselah will concentrate on aiding the wounded and trying to shelter Interlopers the best he can, Young Bill will help protect Interlopers from the Forest Talkers with his rifle in hand. But fortunately, it is just for one single night. Ammunition runs out, sides are switched, and people are killed. As dawn approaches, Forest Talker numbers dwindle. Either killed, incapacitated or defected. In the early morning light, bodies lie in the snow both Interloper and Forest Talker alike.

Those trying to hunt down the leader will see him slipping inside an empty cabin, heavily wounded. Following after him, they will find him settling himself down to kneel on the floor. The white of his tactical gear stained red with blood as it blooms from his wounds. Slowly, he removes the deer skull from his head to reveal a clean-shaven man in his late twenties with a shock of white-blond hair. His eyes are blue, calm.

He sets the skull down, panting and sweating. He is dying. He is not afraid.

“My name is Mallory, not that it matters now. We are dead, you and I.” he says softly. “We exist in a dying world.”

He is in much pain from his wounds. He moves again to sit cross-legged on the floor. A hand touches the bloodied fabric of his front and he laughs humourlessly.

“You don’t understand, do you? The end must come. That is the order of things. The end must come so the world can be reborn. That is how it’s always worked. When the world is swallowed, it will grow again from the earth.”

It is a story. The story of the Darkwalker. Some believe it to be the end of the world, but Young Bill had once said there is another telling of the tale. A creation myth. The Darkwalker swallows the world and returns to its slumber within the earth. Within it, everything its swallowed grows again and the world returns.

“We fought against man’s actions to ruin this place, not knowing our true purpose. The Devourer has shown me the truth, and I sought to put that into action.” His head tilts to one side. “The yawning grave is opened. Does new life not grow from the decay? It is a cycle. The grave and the cradle.”

He finds it difficult to breathe, but he presses on.

“You fight to live. You come here and you do not see what you are. You are only delaying the inevitable, perverting the true course. Prolonging the suffering. You are the Interlopers, you are not part of nature’s design. The Darkwalker does not want you here. And where it fails, we have tried to succeed.”

There’s another laugh, something catching in his throat. He coughs, blood bubbling from his lips.

“And failed. For now. The First Cursed cannot hold it forever. She, too, delays the inevitable." Even as he is dying, he still have the energy to sneer. He speaks of Enola. "A woman who plays at being a god. What right does she have? All must go into the Long Dark. ... As will I. Return me to the grave.”

Mallory’s head dips, his body sagging. He inhales once more and then stops.

FAQs

PAINFUL REMINDERS


1. Players must sign up for items. See the toplevel on the plotting post.

2. Items will face the same warps/nerfs as everything else that is brought into the game.

3. Items can be no bigger than something your character can reasonably carry.

4. While items do not have to belong to your character, there has to be a good reason why they’d receive such an item — ie. something related to your character.


THE ENEMY WITHIN

1. The Forest Talkers within Milton are a number of NPCs that have been pre-selected from NPCs who arrived in April and August. Not all of them will show their true intentions as the month goes on but will continue to stay hidden.

2. Two NPCs killed in the June Event were also Forest Talkers. … Good… job?

3. The following NPC Interlopers will out themselves as Forest Talkers at this stage: Devon Busswood; Rita Yee; Realm Lovejoy.


BAD BLOOD

1. Following the events of this prompt, Interlopers now have an additional way into Lakeside. It’s still rather dangerous: it’s through a partially collapsed cave system that ends into abandoned bunker on the Lakeside side. The game map will be marked accordingly in due course.

2. Some Interlopers may recognise a familiar face in the Forest Talker ranks: the man who was kidnapped by Interlopers previously in July has returned. Looks like he made good on his promise. He's come back to cause problems.

3. The following NPC Interlopers will out themselves as Forest Talkers during the attack: Jackie Blackmore; Ross Huguet; Jennifer Kitchen; Daniel Kresco.

4. As a reminder of numbers: around fifty Forest Talkers will show up for the attack.

5. There is an OOC vote on the fate of the remaining Forest Talkers, the link is here.

PLOTTING POST

Comments

[lestercraft]

Those odd nails certainly get noticed, but with no other context, he just makes a note and moves on.

Because the man's commentary gets a brief huff, lightly amused. "Don't worry, I knew that. The man's unmistakeable- legendary, even."

The praise comes easy, genuinely, as he makes his way in. "I'm more of a Hoagy Carmichael man myself, but I'm a pianist, o-or I was, so I'm- I-I can admit I'm biased."

[flambeaux]

"He's active in the North, yes? There was a period of my life where I missed out on a lot of things. Didn't go out much to see shows. My... my daughter had left home abruptly. But before that, I had Jelly Roll Morton playin' piano in my club. Only the finest up-and-comers, and my doors were open to anyone with money to burn."

A smile breaks on his face, and the effect is instantaneous: There is the ghost of the savvy handsome man in a 3-piece suit and expensive cigar. Though he looks down on his luck now, the rich gentleman's affectations are real. If he employed Jelly Roll in his early days, that places his club in the 1910s.

"There's a piano in the Community Hall, or at least there was last time I was there. Ordinary thing, barely in tune, but I'd love to hear you play."

Lestat would pound away on the piano in their Rue Royale townhouse when he was in a mood. He favored the old European masters like Bach and Mozart, but he had such a good vampiric ear that he could imitate the ragtime and jazz around him. Mockingly, Louis sometimes thought, with ulterior motives behind the music. For all his skill, Lestat only ever pressed one record.

[lestercraft]

"Jelly Roll-? Jesus." That's not confusion - it's awe, a sort of vicarious pride at being in the presence of someone who's brushed so close to greatness. "Y-you're- from the South, then, right? New Orleans?"

He can't say he's encountered many Creole men in Boston, but he can certainly put two and two together. "I was based in Massachussets, er- Boston, through New York originally."

The piano comment, he's just going to- quietly ignore, for now, maybe he'll address it later.

[flambeaux]

His gaze is unblinking and quietly expectant, but he supposes Arthur will come around to it in his own time. Louis can be patient. He has more years under his belt than he appears to.

"New Orleans." New Aw-lins. It's a compulsive need to correct any pronunciation other than how the locals say it, never mind that it's already changed from the original French.

"Must have been quite the scene in New York. Lot of writers comin' up in Harlem too. I'd have loved to sit in on their meetings." Rich patron of the arts chasing a bit of authenticity maybe.

He rises smoothly albeit slowly and extends his hand, cool to the touch. "Louis de Pointe du Lac. This is my store."

[lestercraft]

Arthur's not unobservant - he'd be a piss-poor detective at best, and the one thing he is confident in is his own abilities. So he doesn't miss the way Louis doesn't blink, or the quiet confidence that he carries himself with. The way everything about him screams predator. A lion in his den.

Well. Arthur refuses to let himself be prey.

His own hands are gloved - practically medieval in design - and he doesn't hesitate in taking Louis' hand. There's no showboating from him, just a steady, measured grip. "Arthur Lester. Private investigator, for what it's worth. I've only been here- maybe two weeks, now."

[flambeaux]

Predators seem lazy. They only move when they have to, and it's rare they encounter natural enemies. They move slowly and prefer not to make a fuss—until it's too late.

His grip is genteel. He's not trying to act tough like he did on Liberty Street, and these are allegedly a pianist's fingers. It does not do to crush flowers underfoot. It's really too bad about Louis's poor circulation(?). Must be the Southern man in him. He is always complaining about the cold. He left his gloves off only so he could more easily thumb through the pages of Claudia's diary.

"A private investigator?" He lowers his eyes with a grin that isn't quite a laugh. His teeth are white, mostly even, unremarkable except that they are pearls in a handsome face.

Goddamn it, he better not be like the cops. "Bet you get a lot of insecure men hirin' you to follow their wives." That's the old joke, spoken like a man who doesn't wear a ring and has had no need to hire anyone for that. He does his own following just fine.

"There good money in it at least? No time for the piano then?"

[lestercraft]

The thought that passes through his mind, perhaps irrationally when he sees that smile, is that it's too handsome.

And he can't say his recent experiences with Southern gentlemen (or at least one in particular) has left him particularly endeared to the accent being smooth at him.

Still, he smiles peacably at the joke, a small huff that hits the 'oh yes that old chestnut' note just right. "A few, sometimes, but it's just as much the other way around, wives looking for proof for the divorce- or others as well, children, grandparents, friends- it's sort of our signature, actually, missing persons." His smile tightens a little. "And I don't play, anymore, so- more time to invest in actually helping people."

cw: homophobia his beloathed

[flambeaux]

Yet another reason to hate murder. Hidin' bodies is such a chore with fellas like this around.

Curious, Louis wonders if the money isn't that good then, if this man feels the need to explain his trade, which is more respectable than the business Louis got into, anyway. He nods once at "divorce" because, let's face it, the law favors men. If Levi ever fooled around, God forbid, Louis's sister Grace would fare much better if she had some incriminating photos in hand.

Not that Louis would know. For Louis, there is no recompense, no law on his side, no holy matrimony to begin with. That is the realm of man plus woman only. He would be arrested for crimes against nature. For love.

"You say that like music doesn't heal the soul." Just look at his soulful eyes. They're so effective because he actually believes this. Lestat believes it even more so. The opera transports him. "Even I know that, and I don't play. Lot of people go missin' where you live?"

It's his way to come back around to asking a question before veering too personal faster than he'd like.

[lestercraft]

Arthur certainly believes Louis believes it, but he's been burned by playing - the equivalent of his entire heart going up in smoke, a shell of its former self - and so he's unmoved.

"Enough for a steady stream of income, unfortunately," he dodges readily. "Arkham isn't exactly known for its upstanding reputation. As a friend of mine once put it, you can't turn over a rock in Arkham without some cultist or another scuttling out from under it. They're not the entire reason, but we've had enough tussles with them over the years that we can never truly rule it out."

[flambeaux]

"Cults specifically? Missin' people... They aren't killin' them, are they?"

He's mildly concerned, ever the gentleman of a modern age. Terrible news. Shocking really. He wrinkles his nose at vulgar, unnecessary cruelty. Human sacrifice in the 20th century? That belongs in the 19th with the werewolves and vampires. Then he cants his head, not quite shaking it but nevertheless shaking something off.

"But this is hardly parlor talk, forgive me Mr. Lester..." He wanders over to the player as the record comes to its end and lifts the needle. "Any requests? I even found older stuff, my daughter enjoyed playin' Debussy..."

[lestercraft]

"Not if we get to them first, but..."

He lets the comment trail off, because - well, yes, it's not typically polite conversation. "I'm- more than happy for you to play whatever you like - clearly you're a man of taste," he comments wryly. "And, well- quite frankly I haven't had much of a chance to listen to the new popular songs these past few months, so I'm always willing."

cw: dysfuntional vampire drama family

[flambeaux]

Louis is terrible at smalltalk, but for some reason death doesn't fly over well in polite conversation. Imagine that.

"I got no idea what's popular in this century. There was a young man around here who would play, uh, some descendant of rhythm 'n' blues? Maybe if rhythm 'n' blues had a lovechild with opera and tribal drummin' and made it a mission to be as loud and discordant as possible. Electric screechin' like dyin' animals."

That is his honest attempt at describing heavy metal. "I'm not sure if it's to my taste, but respect to fingerwork where it's due."

He flips through a box of records. For all his charm and unusual looks, some of his gestures are still perfectly ordinary. He's still within the range of one human lifetime. He still remembers what it's like to be human. He's terribly human for a vampire. Maybe he won't put on Debussy. It conjures up memories of Claudia and Lestat learning a song on the piano as they took jabs at each other. Ah, family.

Louis finds Jelly Roll with relief. "Here we go. The man himself."