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singillatim2024-09-09 11:48 pm
singmod) wrote in singillatim2024-09-09 11:48 pm
Entry tags:
- *event,
- arthur lester: maniette,
- benton fraser: lorna,
- billy prior: karen,
- casper darling: mimi,
- charles rowland: giz,
- chloe frazer: tess,
- cornelius hickey: kates,
- daisy johnson: amy,
- edward little: jhey,
- eren jaeger: lyn,
- francis crozier: gels,
- illarion: lark,
- james fitzjames: ami,
- jane margolis: amber,
- john irving: gabbie,
- kate marsh: cheryl,
- kieren walker: cheryl,
- konstantin veshnyakov: jhey,
- lalo salamanca: amber,
- levi ackerman: dem,
- levi jordan: cirape,
- louis de pointe du lac: tea,
- michonne grimes: cloude,
- ragnar lothbrok: lily,
- randvi: tess,
- reiner braun: kas,
- sameen shaw: iddy,
- sandor clegane: em,
- scratch: laus,
- snow white: carly,
- tim drake: fox,
- trixie: gels,
- vasiliy ardakin: yasmine,
- wynonna earp: lorna
it must be that old evil spirit
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
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.
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.
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.
no subject
Between two fingers he offers it to him, smeared red ring of blood on it and all. Still numb, it's just a familiar gesture to do in the face of whatever the hell is happening. Lestat was always after him for being sloppy, but here he is looking like that Mardi Gras night—before Louis betrayed him. Louis tries to make sure his fingers touch his to make sure he's real.
"So it's finally happened. I'm willin' to bet someone got pissed off enough about my 'crimes against nature.' Only glad she... wasn't in the house when it happened. What are you doin' here lookin' like that?"
no subject
He takes a long, slow drag of the cigarette, then blows out smoke in a thin stream, admiring Louis shamelessly, drunk on the night and blood and Louis' continued existence.
"We're all being persecuted for our crimes against nature tonight, Louis," he says, with a light, drawing room laugh, offering the cigarette back to him with the imprint of his lips in blood wrapped over the imprint of the same Louis already left behind, like a kiss caught in shutter-stop sequential frames.
"And I came to save you, of course," he continues, casually, because: of course. "But you seem to have saved yourself, as you do." A little nod of acknowledgement for that, pleased to concede it. "So now - who knows where the night takes me?"
no subject
Lestat looks proud of him, both as lover and teacher. Odd not to hear him chastising him for lingering stained with blood next to such a display.
"Hold on, we're all being persecuted? Go back to that, what do you mean? You mean this wasn't a little stunt of yours?"
Louis suspects not--there are far less dangerous ways Lestat can provoke him--but Lestat is nothing if not creative. When Louis draws a little away from the terrible smell of burning flesh (their incinerator, Claudia when he scooped her up) and the building roar of the house fire, he can hear screams and shouts from the south side of town. Vaguely he revises his theory that this was a personal attack.
no subject
"Yes, our neighbours from the forest have - "
Then he stops short, eyes narrowing, and leans back slightly to give Louis an affronted look.
"A stunt of mine?" He asks, voice curling up in disdain. "You think I would conspire to burn down your house, Louis? Yes, it was hideous - but so is every other little shack in this dire outpost, and I haven't been setting them to the torch, have I?"
it took louis .5 seconds to ruin the peace goddamn
"...I doubt someone just tryin' to rouse me from the couch would risk hittin' me with an incendiary. So they're, what, tryin' to run us out of town? Kill us?"
He recalls another night of fire and screams. "Is it... because of anythin' I did?" he asks quietly with the thrum of guilt in his voice like a plucked violin string.
i'm not sure lestat 'of course i thought of burning your house down' de lioncourt helped tbh
The blood is quick in him. He sees it quick in Louis. Their hearts are flushed and hungry for more. Little puts him in a more sanguine mood.
"Mon cher," he says, gently chiding, "As talented as you are at whipping up an angry mob, you cannot hope to take credit for each one that arises. And yes, they are trying to kill us. Not gracefully executed, but perhaps they deserve credit for some bleak determination."
His voice suggests he doesn't think so, but he's trying to humour Louis' humanistic streak. He is still very relieved to see him.
"You should come with me," he suggests, with a throb of excitement, "There's nothing to be done for your - residence," hideous shack, "But we might yet preserve the integrity of your loyal customers."
no subject
So he knits his brows in that disapproving way that nevertheless means he will do little to counter what has annoyed him.
Come to me. It was an imperative that placed Lestat at the gravitic center of their universe. But coming with him is a true companionship. Louis' eyes flick to Lestat of their own accord, bright and abyssal. His heart steps into a faster beat at the thrum of Lestat's voice. They are on the balcony and Lestat is asking him to dance, but the hunt has already begun. Louis knows deep down he is thinking more of the blood he will take into his mouth than of saving the lives of the Interlopers he's come to know and rely upon.
It should make him sick. He feels nothing as he gives Lestat a barely perceptible nod, one that is like a beacon to them who have observed with preternatural sight every tell and gesture.
He flicks his cigarette into the roiling flames and exchanges his dreamlike fascination for a smooth prowl across the snow in the direction of the screams.
no subject
One half of him, the preening, languid predator, was assured of Louis' assent as he made his proposal. Louis would agree, and come with him, and they would hunt together, as they so often have. There was no if, no uncertainty, nothing but the order of events that would unfold inevitably.
The other half of him, the one who occupies his face as Louis flicks aside his cigarette and tilts forward into a graceful stalking gait, is the Lestat who has always stood rapt at the threshold of Louis' judgment, the shining eyed supplicant at the altar awaiting his acceptance or denial.
For once, Lestat manages to say nothing to ruin a moment. He looks at Louis, his eyes oil lamps shimmering under the blood moon, and slips into step beside Louis, caught up in the perfect synchronicity of their old rhythms.
Save that this time, so unlike all other times, Lestat trails a half-step behind, for at least these first strides into the killing night.
no subject
They move towards the chaotic sounds of running feet, splintering wood, and the sparing gunfire (ammunition is so hard to get out here). Louis had a feeling he would kill first, hungry as he is. The bursts of speed he uses to take down his prey put him in the vanguard for the moment.
He leaps upon a large man from behind, and he'll feel the bruises later, but now he can only think of sinking his fangs into his neck and drinking as much and as fast as he can. The struggling man rears and tries to throw him off, but Louis rakes his claws across the soft flesh of his face. Muffled against his neck, he moans with hunger. He clings until his victim stops screaming and his spasms peter out.
Louis rises up to kneel in the snow, eyes glassy and staring darkly up at the sky, blood on his mouth and smeared on what is now his only set of clothes. His hot breath mists in the cold night air. The blood makes him dizzy but not faint, and it warms him more than the ambient fire. He can still hear it rushing in his ears. He can still feel the man's pulse beating frenetically against his lips.
cw: vampire feeding, death
It's a wicked temptation to reach out and stroke the back of Louis' neck as he feeds, but Lestat resists. Feeding well after a long drought is a fraught time, one that primes the sharper instincts. It wouldn't do to spoil the moment by enticing Louis to lash out.
He waits until Louis rears back, staring up at the blood moon, to lean over the final twitches of the near-corpse to touch Louis' face, smearing his thumb through the fresh, cooling blood on Louis' jaw.
"Mon cher," he breathes, in wonder, French rolling off his lips, "How beautiful you are like this."
cw: vampire feeding, death, gore, vampires being weird about it
Louis turns his abyssal eyes to him. Lestat calls him beautiful. This is how Louis knows he's insane.
Louis answers in French, "Half-starved, drunk off blood, not even a hat to my name because it burned in the fire. You need your eyes checked."
Louis's mind threatens to reel with counting how many things he lost in that house. He nearly forgot his walking stick—yes, the weapon of betrayal—except that he brought it along should he have needed it against his assailant. He did not. He nearly forgets it again as it lies next to his victim in the snow and he rests his hand on Lestat's cheek.
He draws close with the fixated look in his eyes that usually precludes a viper's strike. It is so tempting to gnaw through the soft flesh of Lestat's face and mix their blood with the third unfortunate's. Carefully he presses his wet and shining lips against his.
cw: vampire feeding, death, gore, vampires being weird about it
He takes his sharp inhale of the cold winter air when Louis' lips touch his instead, and the needle breaks off beneath his skin, lodged there as a fixture. He kisses back with an initial tenderness that soon turns avid, lapping the blood from the seam of Louis' lips, from his teeth, from his tongue, mingling the tastes of life and blood and desire.
"My ferocious Louis," he murmurs, enthralled, cradling Louis' cheek in a nearly trembling hand, "I love to see you fed."
So much of this comes back to that. To his desire, in his way, to see Louis' hungers slaked, to know that he's had a hand in them. Lestat at the head of the table, watching his family eat, content in his part in their satiety.
cw: vampire feeding, murder, they should stop making out but will they
Lestat speaks just as Louis feels the points of his fangs will do more than just graze, allowing him room to draw back enough to feel just the brush of his lips against his. A vampire can little afford to lose themselves and forget their surroundings, but Louis is drunk and hungry all at once, and Lestat has a particular effect on him.
Lestat was the one who gave him this hunger. More accurately, Louis is loath to admit, he transformed the drinking problem already there. He is already loosed upon the world. Once made, a fledgling cannot stay in the nest forever.
Louis hates that word.
"Don't worry, I'll get you one," he says, eyebrows slightly raised above glassy eyes, the subtle joke about casual murder in his voice if not in any curve of his mouth. Coveted made-to-order sweets at the fair. Louis knows Lestat would never be content to let him have all the fun, and Louis thinks it's really rich of him to veer possessive and proud and oddly sweet when he hasn't had a hand in either of these kills.
He drags himself away from the taste of him and moves with unnatural speed to clothesline a man who thought his cover sufficient behind a house. Louis grabs and throws him—sans gun—back across the ground, nowhere near as far as he once would have been able to, but herding him with a flash of fangs towards Lestat all the same.