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

[sputnik]

He listens to the list with a very serious thoughtfulness, mouth still tugged back into a frown. Konstantin recognises most of the people, not all, but he knows Chloe, and how smart she is. He knows she wouldn't intentionally put herself in danger by "trying to do the ethical thing" — just like he wouldn't. Both of them have had blood on their hands in this place for a long time, after all, and they're not about to put themselves on blast for it.

But he's worried now that she might become a target if people find out that she has the same ailment as Dorian. Fear turns to anger quickly. The last thing they need is a witch hunt.

"I know you don't," he says softly, his harder edge loosening for a moment at her words, and he gives an empathetic nod as he moves closer to his friend again. "We'll figure this out. In the meantime, be careful. Very careful. Some of those people were talking about taking an eye for an eye, with Dorian. That Rorschach fellow... he's extremely dangerous. He can never find out about you."

[desperate_times_right]

“I already avoid him when I can,” Chloe confirms. “Some of the stuff he said to me about women, I know he wouldn't give me the benefit of the doubt. And he's the one who attacked Hickey and Gibson at their home.”

Kostya probably doesn't know about that, but she's been thinking about it a lot since Billy told her. There aren't a lot of upsides here, but being safe from that kind of shit was supposed to be one of them.

“I don't know how long I'm going to be able to control it. I'm so hungry.”

[sputnik]

He didn't know, and learning who was the culprit behind that attack makes something in him jolt unpleasantly. Rorschach is... complicated; Konstantin's seen for himself how there's more to the man than he thought, but that doesn't mean he isn't still incredibly dangerous. Konstantin doesn't doubt that he'd try to hurt Chloe if he knew about this, and he scowls, feeling a rush of hot anger as quickly as he had at the town meeting.

"I spoke with him, tried to make him see sense. But that bastard's a loose cannon with some kind of vigilante complex."

The mix of anger and worry swirls in him as he hears Chloe say that. He'd (stupidly) volunteered to help Dorian with his feeding situation if no one else would, and he'd absolutely do the same for Chloe. (Even more stupidly, considering the creature already doesn't love her...)

"Dorian was talking about experimenting to see if he can just take a little from someone. Not enough to kill them. You must try that, too. You can try it on me."

[desperate_times_right]

“I’ve thought about it.” She always thinks about it, about drawing on the people around her. Even temporarily filling this howling void inside her sounds like paradise. “But I'm scared… I tried it on Hickey, before we knew what it was, and I really hurt him. What if I hurt you? Or set off… you know. The thing.”

[sputnik]

Hearing Chloe openly say she's scared is a rare thing, and all the more striking for it. Konstantin frowns as he listens, serious. It is a concern, but... she's hungry. He's had to take risks, find ways to make his own peculiar diet work. It hasn't been pleasant, but he's had help. She needs that, too.

"This place has changed me recently, too. I'm... stronger, now. I can handle more than most people can." Whether that would actually help in regards to what she can do, he doesn't know... but he can't play it safe when his friend's life could potentially be in threat. If she doesn't eat what she needs to, she could die, couldn't she?

"There are ways to control the thing, keep it from hurting you if it gets hostile. I'm not saying it wouldn't be risky, but..." He frowns more deeply, bothered and filled with the need to protect his people. "You have to eat something. If not from me, then... we have to find someone for you."

[desperate_times_right]

“The strength?” That power really is everywhere. It's the one she’d pulled from Hickey that first time, just emerging from her days long illness and learning how it had changed her. It's the one she’d felt in Raylan’s body when she’d been trapped inside it, and the one she’d smelled (if you could call it that) on Louis the day that she’d talked about it with him. She samples it now, and just feeling that power there makes her body shudder with desire. She's so hungry.

“I’ve been good. Not like with the runner power.”

He’d seen her tearing into a rabbit in the woods, and she’d stolen a lot of food in this place.

“I know I need to… take the pressure off. I don't want this place to force me into it where it could really cause problems.” Like Kieren, she doesn't say, but he knows as well as she does. “But as much as I want it, I don't want to. You know?”

[sputnik]

"I'm guessing you're familiar with it by now, too," he smiles almost wryly; it sounds like quite a few people have been 'gifted' this particular... enhancement. As alarming as it is to know he's been changed against his will again, Konstantin can't quite hide that little dose of brightness in his eyes when he talks about it. He likes being strong. "It's pretty intense. I think it would take a lot to take me out, now."

Again, he can't know that it would really protect him against what the hell Chloe's got going on, but he's not going to let that scare him off. Playing it safe has never been his style.

"I know." He sobers again at that question, voice softening as he watches his friend. "It's like opening a door you can't shut again." His situation may have its differences, but the decision to willingly keep the thing fed by his own hand felt like losing some of his own humanity. Sometimes he thinks the better option would have been to let it starve.

"You feel it now, too? Around me?" She said she was hungry all time, but is it an explicit hunger for people? He's reminded of Louis again, fangs aimed his way.

[desperate_times_right]

“Yeah. Swapped bodies with a guy who has it earlier this year. You're right about intense!” She hadn't really been able to do feats of strength because they'd been too freaked out, but she could have.

“I do feel it around you. For you.” Somehow it's more embarrassing to say you want to eat a guy’s soul than it is to strip naked in front of him. “I’m still learning how it works, what it does to me, but I feel it the strongest around people with powers that I don't have. Except Svetlana. I don't know why.”

It had meant so much to Chloe, knowing there was someone here that she couldn't hurt. At least Sveta is probably somewhere safer now.

[sputnik]

The body swapping... Konstantin certainly has some experience of his own with that and he winces for a moment. "This place really is trying to kill us, throwing us into bodies with powers we can't control. I might have burned down a building the last time that happened." It was just one shed, to be fair.... but it could have been so much worse....

He pauses again at Chloe's words though, that serious frown returning to his face. The mention of Svetlana's name also has an unexpected pang shooting through his ribcage, and he can't quite hide the ache in his eyes. Losing Sveta has been... especially difficult.

"I don't want to make anything worse for you, but you can test it out on me sometime if you need to. If it needs to be in some kind of controlled environment, we can make that happen. It sounds as though there are rules to it, if certain people trigger it and others don't. We can try and figure it out."

A pause, before he continues. "I know Sveta wouldn't hesitate to help with this, either."

She'd jump in to help without a second thought. She'd done it for him, and he knows for others.

[desperate_times_right]

“Oh, you had a swap too?” Chloe had started to wonder whether anyone else had been affected that way at all. “How did that go with the…?”

She raises her eyebrows. With the whole worm thing.

“You know how she is, she felt bad that she couldn't take it on herself.” Chloe also can't imagine herself feeding from poor Sveta the way Lestat had from her. “But there was something in her, a light that shielded her from the hunger.”

[sputnik]

"It was... not as much a disaster as it probably could have been," he has to admit with a half-grimace. "Fortunately the person who ended up with my little problem already knew about it. ....It wasn't a good time for her though. Pretty sure my body is one of the worst a person could wake up trapped in."

Even with the worst moments for her, Randvi handled it better than most probably would. He feels terrible she had to at all.

"I know Sveta has some sort of.. ability, back in her world. But I didn't think it followed her here." He never learned about the feat this place gave her.

"It sounds like light is a theme here. If the sun bothers you now... and light shielded her from it." He pauses, a thought slowly seeping in.

"....You haven't grown fangs, have you?" He knows about at least one vampire by now.

[desperate_times_right]

“You’re making me feel better about my own swap.” Yeah, it had been weird and embarrassing but at least she hadn't had a worm in her guts. “He just acted weird in front of half the town in my body, wearing his own clothes.”

It would be funnier if it hadn't been her own reputation taking the hit. March will never let her forget it.

“Yeah, I don't know if it was that, her power from home, but it felt like what I imagine that would feel like. A shield protecting her. I haven't felt it from anyone else here, but maybe I will later and we can figure out what it is.”

Maybe there's a way to protect everyone.

“No fangs and I can eat food, so it's not that.”

How many times is she going to have to defend against the vampire allegations?

[sputnik]

At least when he and Randvi swapped, they kept their usual clothing... The mental image of his body running around in her clothes and vice-versa would definitely have made the whole ordeal even worse than it was...

"So you either seemed crazy or possessed, but it's okay. That seems on-par for this place. I'm pretty sure my own reputation isn't much better." He smiles, teasing his friend a little before considering the vampire allegations further. Okay yeah that doesn't sound exactly like a vampire, but some of this is pretty damn close... Maybe there is no true clear word for what's happened to her.

"Well, I mean what I said before — I'll help however I can, okay? We can arrange something safe to try out. Some way you can... feed a little." He really would willingly offer himself for this, as stupid as that may be for him, specifically... But she's his friend. That means something. (Of course, what no one can know is the Darkwalker's soon to inflict another bloodbath on everyone and Chloe might get her fill after all!)

He reaches out to grasp her shoulder, giving an affectionate squeeze. "You're not alone."

[desperate_times_right]

“I mean, I guess technically I was possessed.” That's what you'd call another guy walking around in your body, right?

Chloe is surprised how hard that 'you're not alone' hits her. She isn't, both in the sense that Kostya has been changed by a creature and has an unpleasant hunger of sorts, but also in the sense that he's here with her. No matter what happens.

“Thank you. I know it's… a lot.”