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

[bigbaddy]

[ The other's story is completely foreign to him, and yet not at the same time. It feels a little bit like the other side of the coin, a side that Bigby has never gotten to see before. What would it be like if your reputation was something that helped you, rather than worked against you? Is living up to being adored harder than living up to being abhorred?

.. he doesn't know. Honestly, Bigby isn't fully sure he really wants to think about that too hard, unsure whether he'll like what he will find on the other side of that thought.

So-- ]

Of course. This place is the solution.

[ He doesn't leave it at that - knowing it probably doesn't sound like a solution to Konstantin, who's used to something so different. Something so different, before it all went to shit for him back home too. ]

No one here knows who you are. No one knows about your secret, unless you tell them. You don't have a good reputation or a bad reputation here. [ Since Konstantin seems mostly worried about the latter. But what he doesn't seem to see yet, is the fact that it can be liberating to be freed from any reputation at all.

That's what it's been like for Bigby, after all. ]

You don't have to let who you are depend on anyone else here. It's time to decide for yourself what your place here is.

[ He looks over at the other man. ]

Think you can do that?

[sputnik]

( Konstantin sits there, stunned as he listens.

'No one here knows who you are.'

Ironically, that very thought has been one that's unsettled him for a long time now. Knocked him out of sorts with himself, made him feel so... lost, so hopeless, so alien. No one here knows who he is, which means he's nothing. (Right?)

He hadn't thought of it in any other context than that. In any other way. So what Bigby's saying to him is foreign and strange and there's still some part of him that wants to flinch away from it, to begin with, but....

'You don't have to let who you are depend on anyone else here.'

Can he do that? Has he ever been able to do that? ....Yes, maybe he has, actually. Maybe recently, when he began to realise that he was strong enough to leave Vasiliy's home and decided that he didn't want to. That he wanted to stay with him, keep him. When he knew it was probably dangerous to let his heart become attached to Kieren, and let it happen anyway. When he spends time with people he'd truly consider friends, not the kind he has back home, but the real kind. Randvi. Chloe. People who enjoy his company, not his status. None of that has had anything to do with... who he is back home. It's all been what he wants.

He's still a bit stunned by all of this, staring at the blood-stained snow for a long moment, until he can feel the other man's eyes on him and finally lifts his own to meet them. He hasn't forgotten what Bigby told him about his own reputation, back in his world. (Is this what Bigby's had to do here, too?)

Konstantin's going to have to do that, isn't he. Decide for himself what his place is, here. Running away isn't an option, not anymore. He can't leave, and— maybe, somewhere deep down, he doesn't truly want to. Not when he's found the closest thing he's ever found to being loved (not adored) by others. And he thinks— he loves them in return. )

Yes. ( He says, quietly. ) I'll find it.

( It's a terrifying thought, but maybe it isn't the worst one. Maybe.... Maybe it could be nice. Maybe.

Konstantin finally moves, shuddering out of the snow, and the thing doesn't stir at all as he does. It's fast asleep. He put it to sleep; drinking the blood worked. (Maybe who he is in this place is someone who can protect people. Maybe he can do that.) )

....I don't even know how to thank you enough. ( He turns to Bigby. ) You've done a lot for me.

[bigbaddy]

[ ...

Honestly, for a guy who's lecturing other people on this stuff, it's not like Bigby's own relationship with it is not complicated in other ways entirely. But he's perfectly fine burying those deep in his heart. Other people don't need to know about it. Especially not Konstantin, who is still struggling with things on the other side of the coin entirely.

But part of Bigby's struggle with his own status as a monster is exactly this. Being thanked - and weirdly genuinely so, on top of it. It's not something that happens. It's not something he's used to getting, and so Bigby has absolutely no idea what to do with it when it's suddenly thrown out to him like this.

It leaves him staring at Konstantin for a quiet moment, trying to figure out what to even say, how to even deal with something like this, before--

Before he settles on something else entirely. Something that can allow him to dodge the thanks without looking too awkward. Something that allows him to stick to his own status as a monster. ]

You could leave this here for me.

[ He gestures at the animal carcass Konstantin drank from a few moments ago. ]

I'm hungry too, you know.

[sputnik]

( It happens before he can even think to subdue it; Konstantin smiles, and laughs. It's more quiet than his usual, more boisterous things, but no less authentic. Maybe more authentic, actually, because it isn't planned or practiced at all. It bubbles right out of him before he can think twice.

(Never mind that his usually-white grin is stained with some blood now....) )

Happy to share, my friend.

( The easy, affectionate response is something he doesn't have to think about, either. It's typical for him to call people his friends, to be open towards them (perhaps truly a counter to the other man's gruff demeanour....)

He takes a step to the side, as though relinquishing the dead thing to the other man. There's something bizarre and horrifying and freeing about this moment: he can be himself around Bigby, as monstrous as his self is now. What a thought.

It's all so much easier, not doing this alone.

He's still somewhat shaky from the experience as he shifts more to the side, then stoops to gather his fallen items, drawing them up to his chest as he stands one final time. He needs to head back, find Vasya, clean himself up.

But before he goes, he smiles again — a little more softly this time. )

Thank you.

( Sorry Bigby, he's going to directly say it... even if it still doesn't all feel like enough. With that, Konstantin dips his head in a nod and starts to trudge back off, mind spinning with thought. )

[bigbaddy]

[ ...

You know what, this is definitely the strangest thing about this entire encounter.

Learning a little bit more about the other man's condition and watching him feed on that animal hadn't been strange to Bigby in the slightest. If anything, it's very much like the things he deals with back home. It could've been a Fable case, really. Bigby can understand that. He can handle that, no matter how high the stakes are.

He's less certain on how to handle this. Konstantin actually laughing, like something about everything Bigby told him today allowed him to move past how awful the actions Konstantin had to resort to were. And then calling him.. 'friend'? Of all things? Bigby figures it's likely just a casual remark, but anyone using the f-word around him is wild, okay.

It's why he can't say anything. He doesn't even know what to say. What the hell does anyone say when someone else calls them a friend - can someone just give him an emergency speed session on that part of being social?

Instead he watches Konstantin for a moment as the other leaves, and then just sets himself to something that feels more natural.

The man who's walking away may hear an odd sound - if he hasn't heard anyone transform before, anyway. If Konstantin glances back at all, all he'll be able to see is a very large black wolf feasting on the carcass. ]