I'm allied to the winter

[singmod]

JULY 2025 EVENT

PROMPT ONE: BURIED ECHOES: The green fog from fissures that had begun to appear last month takes on a new form of attack, and Interlopers find themselves forced to share their greatest betrayals and deepest shames.

PROMPT TWO: ADURERE: The Interlopers are not the only ones caught in the current machinations, and return to Milton House once more.

PROMPT THREE — TERRITORY: Interlopers who venture out to the Last Resort Cannery come face to face with the Timberwolf packs who have claimed the place as their own — high risk, high reward.

BURIED ECHOES

WHEN: The Month of July
WHERE: Everywhere.
CONTENT WARNINGS: atmospheric changes; mild mental manipulation; memory sharing.

In June, a green fog began to curl upwards from fissures dotted around the Northern Territories — warping Interlopers into frenzies of rage or fear. These afflictions have ended up easing as the month turns over into July but the vapours themselves don’t dissipate. At first, they begin the mingle in the air, like a drop of ink in water — causing a green hue to taint the atmosphere. When one looks around, it's almost like the faint sepia tone that obscures the lens of daylight at sunset some days. The skies feel darker, the days are dull, and green.

There’s a distinct tingle of fear in the air. Something low rumbling — a constant drone in the background.

The reach of these green vapours extend even further as the month goes on. The fogs will grow thicker in places and at times will extend to filling huge spaces of areas quickly and silently. You could be out in the wilds, travelling alone the tracks in Lakeside, or making your way down the Coastal Highway when the fog drifts in.

It doesn’t take long before it encompasses you entirely.

With it, the skies darken further. The world turns to night, lit by the eerie green, and everything feels empty and fraught. For plenty of Interlopers, this is a familiar experience, and a sensation of fear washes over you. Or most of you.

You hear whispers in the fog: a chorus of frightened voices chittering nervously. And then out of that chorus comes a voice that is old and terrible.

She binds me, but she cannot banish me. I am coming for you, Interloper. You cannot be rid of me. The Darkwalker, you realise. It is reaching out to you within the fog.

The Yawning Grave has been opened, and I am so very hungry. One way, or another — I am coming for you. I will break you, consume you. You will go into the Dark.

The Darkwalker has its ways of coming for Interlopers, that is well known by now. The fog shifts and swirls around you. As you watch it, familiar shapes begin to form — a room, a place. Somewhere familiar to you, but it doesn’t fill you with comfort. You remember this place, and you find yourself within a moment of your history. It is not a fond moment.

The memory that forms around you and begins to play out is a memory of your greatest betrayal, your deepest regret. The thing that brings you the most shame. You and your companion will witness this — and there's no escaping this.

The Darkwalker has ways of coming for Interlopers, yes. It has ways of trying to break you down. Your deepest fears and insecurities, showing you for what you truly are; isolating you from the world around you, finding ways to lead you into the Dark. You are the Interloper, after all. You are not part of nature’s design. One way or another, it will break you down and put an end to you. To pull you apart. Now it seeks to show who you truly are to others — a moment where you find yourself at your worst.

Bonds between Interlopers are strong, but are all secrets revealed to the ones you’ve come to know and trust? Do you still have skeletons in your closet? A moment you have tried so desperately to keep buried and hidden from those around you?

No more. The question is whether the people you’ve come to know and trust will be able to look at you the same way again.

ADURERE

WHEN: Late July.
WHERE: Milton House… ?
CONTENT WARNINGS: fire; house fire; death of a child/children; hauntings; illusions of burning/being burned; potential injuries via falling/unstable building collapsing; dead bodies; gore/blood/maimed bodies; body horror; eye-related trauma/horror.

You wake up in a bed that is not yours. The air is still and cold, and for a moment everything is calm. It is night time. You are not the only one who wakes up with you, another Interloper has found themselves sharing the bed with you — maybe it’s someone you know, maybe it’s an Interloper you’ve yet to meet. But you’re in a strange home you don’t recognise, and you’re not sure what’s happened.

You have a little time to get your bearings, at least — to explore the room itself. The furniture is a little more refined from what you’ve come to know in Milton: well-made and old. The master bedroom is that of a husband and wife. There are family photos on one of the dressers: a wedding photo of a happy bride and groom in the late 1970s or early 1980s; a photo of two small boys stood in Milton Basin, holding up freshly-caught fish; a photo of a sad young girl on a tree swing.

Interlopers who have been in the Northern Territories for some time will come to realise that the family in these photos is the Barker family. The young girl is Enola. You have found yourselves within Milton House, before the fire.

If you had turned on a light to explore, power goes out. There is smoke in the air.

You hear the crackle of flames from beyond the bedroom door. Opening it into the corridor will reveal a fiery inferno, and the distant screams of children.

But there’s something different about this place, just as there has been last time. Even with the blaze, the home does not look at is should. While it looks like the burning, ruined insides of Milton House, it feels more like a maze than anything. The walls warp around you and at sudden moments, tree branches will break and jut out from the walls, burning and snapping and falling before you.

Together, you must work to escape the burning home. Getting out of this place will be far more difficult than those who found themselves in this place well over a year ago. Turning down the corridor in search of the stairs brings only more corridors, opening doors to bedrooms in search of a window will bring you to more corridors, too.

Persist, and you’ll find the stairs eventually. And like last time, the heat and smoke feel real and may even cause you pain but the flames won’t actually burn you. Whatever this is, as real as it feels, there’s some kind of illusion to all of this just as it had done before.

But what didn’t happen before is the sight that greets you as you finally head downstairs.

In the ruined mess of the blazing inferno that is the living room, bodies litter the floor. They pile on top of one another, covering every inch of floor, slumped against the walls. There must be some seventy or more bodies here. Some are harder to look at than others: some are coated in blood and wounds, some caused by animals, some by humans; some lie in crumpled, contorted messes; some are half-frozen; some are barely recognisable.

Looking at these bodies, as difficult as it may be, will bring the awful realisation: these are the bodies of Interlopers who have died within the Northern Territories. Some you recognise, people you knew only too well. Interlopers who have died at the hands of the Darkwalker, of Mother Nature itself, of other Interlopers; each of them appearing just as they had died in this place.

What’s more: scattered in amongst these bodies are the bodies of the Barker family: Thomas and his sons — half-charred and blackened by the smoke and flame.

In amongst this carnage, there’s a figure kneeling on the floor. A woman, dressed in furs, her hands covering her face. Some may recognise her as Enola, and you realise: this is Enola’s deepest regret. What brings her the most shame, her greatest betrayal.

Interlopers may choose to leave, if they wish. Making a break for a window or a door will bring them out into the snow and the world will snap to normal — you find yourselves outside Milton House, green fog swirling around you and fading with a low echo of laughter: the Darkwalker.

But others may choose to go to Enola, to try and help her, to try and end this memory of hers.

Enola feels real when you touch her. Managing to pull her hands away, you’ll realise something is very wrong. Even more wrong than all of this. Those who have seen her before in dreams, or when she appeared to Interlopers in June last year will note that she appears very different. Enola looks gaunt, exhausted — and more frightening: her left side of her face is black and withered, her eye absent from the socket.

It’s hard to say what’s happened to her, but Interlopers may draw their own conclusions and suspicions.

“It’s my fault.” she’ll whisper. “It’s all my fault, it’s all my fault. I caused it.”

Enola seems almost catatonic, and cannot seem to engage with Interlopers at first. She will rock slightly as she kneels, her one blue eye staring into nothing, her expression wounded.

“It’s my fault, it’s my fault— I couldn’t.. I couldn’t make it stop.” she continued. “I didn’t mean it, I— I tried, I tried so hard to stop it— I never meant for it, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

The house groans and shudders around you. Enola will look up, tears streaming down her face.

“I didn’t mean for this. I didn’t mean it.”

Speaking to Enola softly, offering words of encouragement or comfort will slowly begin to calm her down. It will take some time to calm her in this terrible place, but she will respond to it. She seems almost child-like: cowed and broken and small. She looks so tired.

“They were meant to be home.” she tells you. “And I ruined it.”

When Interlopers have calmed her down enough, she’ll finally look at you, like she finally sees you again. For the first time in this moment, she sees you in a way that’s hard to put into words. She reaches for your face, your chest, touches you gently — her expression is so sad, quietly crushed by the care from you.

“I’m sorry.”

In a blink, everything snaps to normal. No bodies, no flames. No Enola. Just the rotted insides of a broken, ruined home — curls of green smoke drifting upwards, out through the cracks of the walls.

TERRITORY

WHEN: The Month of July.
WHERE: Last Resort Cannery, The Coast.
CONTENT WARNINGS: themes of survival; gore; human remains; (wild) animal attacks, altered wildlife, possible character injury/death, possible (wild) animal injury/death.

Moving towards the south east from the village of Silverpoint will bring Interlopers along the cracked and crumbling road that loads to Last Resort Cannery: a complex of several warehouses and workshops, and has long since fallen into disrepair. Most of its staff were employed by the village of Silverpoint, and with some even coming from Milton to work — but economic decline has seen the company fall into hard times.

Murmurings from around the village will have Interlopers discovering that there may be some leftover stock that is still usable, such as canned goods, but the villagers have found it incredibly difficult to scavenge there, due to the increase in hostile wildlife. Many villagers that have attempted to travel there have never returned, and those who have, have returned maimed, injured, often dying due to their injuries — and Silverpoint residents have often persuaded Interlopers not to go there.

Interlopers, however, are made of sturdier stuff these days, and maybe it’s worth checking the place out in hopes of finding some useful loot.

The Cannery itself sits right along the coastline, and incredibly bitter and open — much like most of the Coast’s area. As Interlopers head closer, they will soon discover exactly what the villagers spoke of: the frozen, grisly and often skeletal remains of those who have tried to venture forth scattered around the area, torn backpacks and clothing — as if the bodies have been consumed by animals.

Not even Jace has been out here to scavenge, either out of safety, or respect for the dead.

Most of the buildings are open to the elements, having been hit hard by the extreme weather — and provide little in the way of shelter. But not all of them are so open. There are some buildings that will provide ample shelter: warehouses and factory floors, even some small staff breakroom quarters. There are even spaces where it appears that some of the workers even lived on site, with bunk beds and shower facilities.

There will, indeed, be crates filled with canned goods that remain in relatively good condition: mostly canned sardines, tuna and salmon. Interlopers may find seafood soups, too. But there’s an overall theme: the Cannery is a processing place of fish and seafood, after all. However, that is not everything that is housed within the Cannery’s site. Explorers will be able to find heavy but durable work clothes and boots, along with survival tools and equipment that belonged to workers. There are workshops that could be used during the Aurora — which can be used to repair tools and… interestingly: craft ammunition.

A spray painted wall reads: THEY HATE THE LIGHT. Another reads: LOUD NOISES = GOOD FOR SCARES. Another, more ominously: THIS PLACE WANTS US ALL DEAD.

Why would such a plan require a workshop in order to craft ammunition? It might have something to do with the culprits behind the grisly finds Interlopers have come across in their approach to the Cannery itself: the packs of Timberwolves that have made their home here and often prowl the area. And soon enough, they will come running.

A lone howl on the wind, carried on the air. More joining the first. Then, the demonic chittering and growling as one of the packs descend upon the Interlopers. Fortunately, these timberwolves are not quite like the wolves faced by Interlopers right at the very start of their time in the Northern Territories — but they are still altered in terms of the Aurora: smarter, and far more aggressive that wolves have ever been known to be.

They do function in a similar manner, at least. Pack morale is important, and breaking that morale can send them back. If they’re broken, their morale is depleted. Fire is your biggest friend: torches, campfires and flares will keep them mostly at bay and only the bravest of these packs may attack. Striking them with flares or flames will actually send them into brief retreats. Bullets and arrows are effective with both noise and injuring the wolves, and although hitting one will be difficult due their speed, it’s possible. Killing one of these wolves will dissolve the pack’s morale entirely, and the rest will flee.

And at least then, for a while, you might be able to scavenge in peace — and make it out alive.

FAQs

BURIED ECHOES


1. The memories cannot be interacted with in any way.

2. Interlopers with Darkwalker’s Revenge will feel slightly revitalised in general during the month of July and be extra revitalised during these heavy fog instances. They will feel fit, hale and alert — probably the best they’ve ever felt in a long time due to the polar sun.

3. Memories can be from a character's future in their canon, not just their past.


ADURERE

1. All Interlopers who have died in game can be found within this prompt. This will also confirm the deaths of Interlopers who have been missing but never confirmed dead and also confirm Interlopers who have simply gone home. You can check out the Interloper Masterlist for further details.

2. Interacting with Enola is optional. Interlopers may choose to simply escape house and the memory.

3. Interlopers have limited interaction with the memory. They can look at things, or even touch the dead down in the living room, but not remove anything from the house.

4. Characters will not be physically burned in the fire, but only feel as if they have been. The effects of this illusion will last a short time after they're out the house before they will fade.

5. The only real injuries characters can sustain will be from fall damage, or if the floor gives way and their feet go through, etc. whilst in the house.

6. Please see the January 2024 Event Prompt ‘Adust’, or the Areas Page, or the October 2024 Mini Event under the February 1994 for further information/context.

7. Interlopers who are in Milton will find themselves in Milton House when the memory/illusion ends. Interlopers in other areas of the world will find themselves in a random, rundown/dilapitated home found in that area.

TERRITORY

1. You do not have to kill a Timberwolf to scare off the pack, simply defeating the pack's morale with noise and flame is sufficient to scare them off for several hours.

2. Timberwolf packs typically range from three to seven wolves.

PLOTTING POST

Comments

[comfortablyerect]

This-- this is what he needs, actually. Simple instructions to follow. Orders that allow him to fall into line and simply obey without thinking. There's as much safety and security in that as there is in the gun in his hand. It doesn't much matter who's giving the orders right now. In his head, Bigby could be one of his sergeants or lieutenants.

That's probably not something he should be leaning into. He puts one foot in front of the other, snow and ice crunching beneath his boots. It's an active fight to separate reality from memory. Constantly reminding himself that there's no sand beneath his clothes, no gunfire echoing in the distance.

He can't shake the paranoia out here in the open. There's too many windows, too many corners, too many places for people to hide. He's looking over his shoulder, scanning the tree line further out, startling when a door slams shut not too far off.

"Where're we goin'?" He needs to focus on something that's not everything in his head.

[bigbaddy]

"My place."

It's a simple answer. Mostly because he doesn't want to over complicate things right now. Bigby can only imagine how much of a mess the other's head must be in this moment.

"Should be no one there right now." Snow went out too, after all. The last thing he wants her to suddenly have to deal with is a traumatized guy with a gun. Better if it's just him and Tim in there until the other can come down from all of this again.

The home is close enough that only a few steps later Bigby is already opening the door, stepping inside to let the other in first.

"Come on. Peace and quiet in there."

[comfortablyerect]

It's one foot in front of the other, but he can't take his eyes off the treeline, looking for-- something. A glint of light, a break in the pattern of leaves and trees indicating someone watching and waiting. Left right left right, but each breath he takes burns his nose like there's smoke in the air. A short walk, but he feels hot as if he's burning beneath the desert sun.

His mind is a jumbled, chaotic mess of memories warring with reality, fragments and pieces forcing themselves together like mismatched pieces of a bloody puzzle. He can't think straight. He'd do anything for a stiff drink or two or six. He understands why the men he served with are in and out of NA meetings, why some of them end up eating their gun.

There's a moment of hesitation as Bigby waits for him to step inside, his mind warring with itself between being exposed and feeling trapped. He forces himself past the threshold, into the house, where he immediately walks the perimeter of the front room, clocking each and every exit, checking behind couches and chairs. When he comes to a stop, it's with his back to a windowless wall, gun still clutched in his hand.

"We're the only ones here?"

[bigbaddy]

He doesn't bother to interrupt the other. Considering the state Tim is in, Bigby gets what the other is doing. Instead he just stays close to the door - just in case the other might decide to try and bolt out in that state, but also to stay out of the way while the other checks everything.

(There may be a stray animal bone somewhere behind the couch. Sorry, man-- Wolves are kind of messy eaters, even in human form. Other than that the place looks entirely normal though. There's not even a single gun in sight, other than the other Tim himself carries.)

"Yeah. Snow's not in."

If she was, he wouldn't have brought the other here. Bigby likes to think the other won't do anything stupid even while he's freaked out, but you never know. And Snow is too important to risk something like that.

".. you should sit down, if you can. Pull up a chair to the wall, if that makes it easier." Considering the way he's pressed up to the wall right now. And-- hey, considering what a slob Bigby is, it's not like he minds his living room getting rearranged momentarily for the sake of the other's state of mind.

[comfortablyerect]

He's not in Afghanistan. He's not in Iraq. He's in Milton, in fucking Canada, where it's cold and snowy. Where the enemy isn't the people around him, but the place itself and the supernatural forces that inhabit it.

Nobody is a danger to him here.

He can't unclench his fingers from the grip of his gun.

It's not actually the first time something like this has happened. The first time -- though far from the last -- was just two weeks after he came back stateside, still sleeping at his mother's house when a blast from a neighbor's hunting rifle jerked him out of a dead sleep.

That had been exponentially worse than this.

"I don't want to sit," he says, because it's going to make him feel more vulnerable, less ready, but-- ready for what? There is no danger, he reminds himself, and after a few moments, he grabs a kitchen chair and puts it against the wall. It still takes him several seconds to actually sit, the gun hand resting on his knee, very purposefully not pointing at either of them.

"I didn't have a spotter." The words kind of just spill out suddenly, short and succinct like they're all the context needed for the point he's trying to make. He's looking at Bigby, but not really seeing him. "Fuck, I mean-- they asked me if I wanted one and I said no. It was my first deployment, I was nineteen, thought I was some fuckin' hot shot 'cause I had the best accuracy scores the Rangers had seen in a few decades."

The point. The point being: "Nobody was there to see it when it happened, when I-- shot that kid. How I did it -- nobody was supposed to ever see that."

[bigbaddy]

"Unfortunately this place doesn't really give a shit about that."

It's the first thing he says after a long time of silence. He doesn't speak up while the other is slowly getting himself to actually sit down, nor does Bigby speak before Tim can speak up instead. He knows how this works. If he's going to say too much here, then the other is only going to be even less inclined to sit - let alone to speak.

He was standing the whole time too. It's only now the words are slowly starting to flow out of the other's mouth that Bigby takes a seat too. Not close to the other - instead he just flops down onto the couch a little distance away in the same room.

Bigby slowly exhales.

"Don't think too much about me having seen that. It sounds like you've got enough to deal with already with that memory alone."

[comfortablyerect]

Yeah, no shit.

This is not the worst PTSD episode he's ever had, because he can at least recognize it for what it is. His mind is fractured, his senses grabbing bits and pieces of things with no regard for what's pat or present. He's in Canada, not Afghanistan, and he doesn't know how many times he's going to have to remind himself of that.

Or of the fact that the gunpowder burning his nose isn't real, and he's not actually hearing helicopter blades cutting through the sky. There's no reason to feel like he's about to be attacked at any given moment, but the hairs prickle against the back of his neck and arms anyway.

He breathes in and he breathes out. He just needs to get his shit together. Stop reeling, stop letting the memory flash through his mind. Rebury it, but he doesn't have the alcohol to bury it with, and he hasn't discovered a different way to do it.

"Do you have somethin' to drink?" There's a pause before he adds, "Water's fine."

Nobody's about to give a guy with a gun having a PTSD episode liquor anyway. He just needs to wash the feeling of sand out of his throat.

[bigbaddy]

Well, of course he can get some water.

And yet he doesn't do it. Not right away, anyway. Bigby just stands there, staring at Tim for a moment before he opens his mouth to say: "If I head to the kitchen for a second, will you still be here when I get back?"

Not that the other is his captive or anything. It's just that he doesn't think it's a good idea for the other to go roaming around in his current state. It's better if he sits here for a bit to come down from it all first.

"Can I trust you with that?"

[comfortablyerect]

If he weren't acting like an absolute flight risk, he might be offended that he feels like he's being treated like a child. But unfortunately, it's a reasonable question for the situation. Tim looks like he might bolt. Shoulders tense and drawn back, his entire body leaned forward a little like he's ready to shoot to his feet in a split-seconds time.

And yet--

"Yeah," he says tersely. "I'm not gonna bail out the fuckin' window or anything."

Assuming there aren't any incredibly loud and incredibly unexpected noises.

[bigbaddy]

There's a slight moment where Bigby still stares at him, maybe evaluating that answer, before his head finally dips into a nod.

"Alright."

He'll trust Tim for the moment. Hell - even if he does try to leave, the other will have to do it quickly enough that Bigby will likely be able to hear him from the kitchen before Tim is fully out of the house. So he moves off towards said kitchen, grabbing a glass of water, and then returning to the living room to hold it out to the other.

"Here. Drink."