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

84 years later...

[wingbound]

Levi isn't quite as driven to help as many injured as Kate seemed to be, but still he's felt and followed the compulsion enough times today to leave him more tired and sore than he normally would be after an ordeal like this. He steps outside seeking a reprieve, and, of course, at this point he's not too surprised to find the other Levi sitting there, apparently taking a moment's rest as well.

He says nothing at first, just sits next to him -- some space left in between -- and leans his head back a bit to rest against the wall, staring up at the sky.

"You okay?"

<3

[solitarysoul]

He nods to the older man as he sits down. "...Fine. Just tired." As fine as he ever is, at least. "You?"

[wingbound]

Which doesn't seem to be very fine at all, but Levi is certainly the last person to give anybody shit about that.

"...Yeah. Same."

[solitarysoul]

He nods again and lets the silence sit for a moment or two before speaking up. "I saw you got him. The one who was here before. Good."

[wingbound]

Ah.

Levi had expected someone to have something to say about it, though this is honestly milder than he was anticipating. It's not like he was the one who ultimately made the decision to let him go, but ultimately he considers himself responsible for the situation, so he's not going to split hairs about it.

He still doesn't necessarily think it was a mistake to let the man go. They would have been attacked either way; at least this has given them some warning.

"Yeah. Too bad he came back."

The fool could have lived if he'd chosen to stay away. But his decision was clear; he wanted to kill them more than he wanted to live, and that was all the reason Levi needed.

[solitarysoul]

He grunts, "Too bad that he was here in the first place. Too bad they didn't let me end him then." He's not really sure how much of a difference it would have made, but he still feels guilty about not somehow stopping this. What was all his work for if the Forest Talkers had been hiding among them for months? At least the barricades had been useful to hide behind.

[wingbound]

"That didn't change anything except give us a heads-up," Levi grumbles, through he sounds more tired than argumentative. He can admit that the ordeal hadn't been quite as helpful as he had hoped, but considering that when they were interrogating that guy some people were still trying to make buddies with the Forest Talkers, the information was more than needed to correct their course.

Did anyone actually take note and interpret the weird poem Levi put up on the message board? Well, that's a good question. He certainly could have been more direct with that.

"Who stopped you, then?" He doesn't seem angry at there being an attempt at all.

[solitarysoul]

He grunts, "Would have been a lot smarter a choice than the one that got him here in the first place." He knows the other Levi was somehow involved but not how much or how early he got into it.

"Bigby and Fraser. They walked by just as I was taking the shot." He frowns, still thinking their arguments for it were stupid and misguided.

[wingbound]

"I find it preferable not to go into things blindly," Levi shrugs, seemingly uninvested, tone mellow as usual. He doesn't disagree that killing the guy would have been the cleanest wrap-up, but he doesn't see how learning the Forest Talkers' true intentions was a bad idea. Well, there's a lot of teenagers who consider themselves smarter than everyone else; he's not going to contest it. Shit, he'd never claim himself to be smart, not when he'd been surrounded by geniuses for half his life, but this particular decision he stands by.

He's probably seen Levi shooting by now, the two of them likely having been on some hunts together. If someone was merely walking by, he could have still pulled the trigger had he truly wanted to, but maybe they were blocking his way. That or...

"Did you hesitate?" There's no judgement in his tone, no expectancy. Perhaps he's merely curious.

[solitarysoul]

"Hn. Cause we got so much useful information out of that guy, huh." He rolls his eyes. They brought an enemy into town, the least they could have done was stuff him in the mines somewhere.

He sighs. "No, Bibgy's just a lot faster than I would have thought. I watched that damn gas station for hours, but as soon as I go to take the shot I have the rotten luck of them walking by. The trees blocked my sight of them coming, but they spotted my rifle." Next time he'll be further in the woods or up a tree.

[wingbound]

"Some of us were still trying to leave them love letters in the supply caches," Levi points out mildly, "So yes, we got something that we needed out of it. Was it worth the risk? Each of us may think differently about that. But nobody can know the outcome before the decision is made."

If only everyone was afforded the luxury of hindsight in advance. But that's not realistic, and if people waited for the perfect circumstances, opportunities, or for safe choices, nothing would ever get done.

And that doesn't win any fights.

If it were up to him, however, the questioning would have absolutely taken place somewhere in Lakeside rather than here.

"That's too bad," he says simply, but it sounds like the kid learned something from it anyways. Whether it was a good or bad lesson remains to be seen. "Well, it's taken care of now."

[solitarysoul]

"Letters in the caches wouldn't have provoked a counter-attack. They didn't seem eager to do anything but chase us away before." He'd have been fine with an uneasy truce or just avoiding Lakeside, though he knew some people preferred that side of the mountain.

"Yeah. What's done is done."

[wingbound]

"Do you think that's what it was? A provoked counter-attack?"

Levi doesn't usually think much of conspiracy theories, but in this case, he feels every single one of his has been proven true. He fights the urge to run his hand over his face.

"They've been gearing up for this for a while. They'd hoped the Darkwalker would make us wipe ourselves out at the start of summer, and when that didn't work, they prepared to take matters into their own hands. They wanted us dead this whole time."

Which is what they found out thanks to some of them finally doing something proactive and talking to one of them.

[solitarysoul]

"It sure didn't help. It probably wasn't everything that drove them over to this side of the mountain but it was probably part of it." It still seems weird to him that they'd go so far from their base, but if a god was involved that could explain it.

"This is the first I've heard of that." He did not at all understand the poem and stopped trying quickly, so Levi's heard basically none of the intel. "But its not surprising."

[wingbound]

"If only." To think they had that much control over the events would be reassuring, in a way. But all those ritually arranged corpses in the woods... no, June was the Forest Talkers' doing, it had to be. "They already started starving us out before that."

"You could have talked to him before shooting him," he points out, but he can't help but see the glare of his own failure right there and sighs. "I thought it had been obvious. He gave me that creepy poem when I asked about the bodies they left in the wilderness. They were hoping nature would do their dirty work for them."

[solitarysoul]

"Not on this side of the mountain." He doubts the Forest Talkers' actions had much impact on what the Darkwalker did or did not do to them.

"Why? He'd been there for like a month, what could I have gotten that the rest of you didn't? I'm not good at that sort of stuff."

The poem...right, he remembered seeing that on the board. "That poem was too confusing for me. I'm too dump to get cryptic shit like that."

[wingbound]

"Not yet." Unless something actually happens that challenges the assumption Levi has made, he'll remain convinced that the cult and the entity they seem to worship could indeed communicate to some degree.

"It's different to hear for yourself rather than what someone else tells you," Levi mutters and scowls up at the sky. "Especially if they fail to relay it properly."

That would be him. Maybe he really should have just written down his suspicions as fact and posted those instead, but he'd been wary of forcing his way of thinking on anybody else. He'd just hoped everyone would come to the same conclusions.

He turns to look at the boy, still frowning, but now it seems more confused than annoyed. "You're not dumb."

[solitarysoul]

Levi grunts. "I guess we'll never know now.

"What he had to say didn't matter at that point. I tried to kill him because there was a chance he had the ability to talk to the rest of the Talkers and tell them what was going on here, how everything was set up. We've got people who can do that sort of thing, I didn't want to take the chance."

He shakes his head, "No, I don't know much of anything. I'm just the dumb guy who shoots things. Even before they conscripted me I wasn't good at school." Very few pre-teens were, but after his mother died nobody ever tried to encourage him to do well in school.

[wingbound]

"Don't worry; he didn't see anything useful. Unless, of course, he had an ability for that, too. Though distance may not have helped us in that case."

The guy had a bag over his head whenever he was outside, and you couldn't really see the town from the gas station... though Levi had still advocated for keeping that bastard at Lakeside. That may have been compromised when the others started turning up, however. Did any of the ones that turned out to be traitors visit him?.. Levi's not sure. ...Well, that loose end is all wrapped up now, anyway.

Trying to convince this kid to value himself a bit more might be even more challenging, however. Levi turns it over a few times in his head before finally coming up with; "School doesn't mean anything."

Not that he'd really know. He's never been there. But he turned out fine, right?

[solitarysoul]

"Its okay, you know. It doesn't bother me that I'm dumb. You don't have to try to make me feel better or smarter."

[wingbound]

"I'm not doing that. I'm saying all those 'smart' school kids would've been dead after the first week if they got dropped here like you have. You don't think it takes smarts or skills to survive?"

Eat shit (affectionate) and love yourself, Levi.

[solitarysoul]

"That's not really the same sort of thing. Not the same kind of smarts. But I guess knowing how to survive is more important here." The distinction he sees is people can learn how to survive but he gives up when things get confusing can't learn that other stuff.

[wingbound]

"Different kind of smarts doesn't make it not smarts."

Not everyone can learn survival. Plenty of people do just die, whether while trying or after giving up. Not everyone could learn 3D Maneuver Gear either, even if it had come to Levi naturally. He'd been quite outraged when he heard about the death toll of cadet training; people just dying of their own stupidity and those who allowed it, rather than something enforced on them like starvation or the Underground's filth.

"Don't sell yourself short, kid."

[solitarysoul]

"I...I guess. But all I'm smart at is being a weapon and that's just...I don't think I'll ever get away from that."

[wingbound]

"Is that so? Bet you haven't had the chance to even try that many things." There's rarely that luxury when all your time is occupied by trying to survive. He has spent a long time thinking it was the only thing he was good for, too. In some ways, he supposes it still is the thing he's best at. But--

"Even if you don't, it doesn't have to be all there is to you."