singillatim | nature offers a violence

nature offers a violence

NOVEMBER 2023 EVENT

PROMPT ONE — WHITEOUT: Methuselah makes an unexpected early return to Milton to warn Interlopers of an impending monster storm, and boy does it surely come.

PROMPT TWO — A CHOICE: Following the storm, sightings of a mysterious stag prompts a hunt down in the Basin and out in the Outskirts.

PROMPT THREE — REST MY WEARY BONES: While the storm causes a great deal of mess, it also uncovers some far more pleasant surprises. Hot springs.

WHITEOUT

WHEN: Early to mid-month.
WHERE: Milton.
CONTENT WARNINGS: extreme weather; storms; blizzards; themes of survival; possible character cold-related injuries; possible themes of peril.

In the times that he is no longer occupying the Community Hall in the center of town to help tend to the newcomers, Methuselah is out in the wilds. Despite his growing age, he is a hardened survivor, and has been more than accustomed to life living as a nomad, out in the thickest, deepest parts of nature. Sometimes he can be encountered, sheltered in a cave or out in the woods, huddled by a warm campfire, or busying himself with his latest game catch. He seems to be always on the move, never staying for too long, and never coming into town — unless it’s to begin preparations for the latest batch of new arrivals.

To see him returning to Milton outside of these times is a curious sight, and the grim expression he carries is enough to make anyone wary. Even his voice is grave. The warmth and kindness usually found in his expression is gone, replaced with a deathly seriousness. He doesn’t speak in jest.

"I am long used to this world and its weather, even with the changing times to more bitter nights." he will say. "I have seen the years rise and fall, too many to count. Please, I beg that you hear me with this— a storm is coming. Greater than some of you may have ever known. It is in the air, and we must prepare to see it through. We do not have much time. Three days, perhaps. But no more."

He will tell anyone and everyone; encouraging the word to be spread around. He will instruct on what needs to be done, what needs to be gathered. The storm will be long and hard, and will last for some time. With that, Methuselah will begin to prepare the Community Hall as a place of refuge with a stock of food, fuel and water to get through the storm. Interlopers will be free to join Methuselah and bunker down together, or can choose to bunker down on their own in their own homes, or with others.

You have only three days.

And sure enough, the storm comes. Maybe you can notice the signs too: the sudden updraft, the slow gathering of clouds, the drop in temperature, the changes of pressure in the air.

Halfway through the third day, the storm rolls in: a ferocious snow-storm unlike anything you’ve seen before. Even with the fading amount of daylight as mid-winter approaches, the sky turns as dark as night as will stay like night for the duration. Strong howling winds batter the town, and even the sturdiest of buildings creak and groan under the weight. Trees will be felled, some buildings might not fare the storm.

Relentless snow that falls so hard it’s a complete whiteout, and will be impossible to navigate if one were to step outside. Even then, it isn’t advisable. The temperature is bitter, with a frigid windchill. Going out in this kind of storm would be a death sentence. Staying out in it for longer than a half-hour will certainly kill you.

It would be best to wait it out, to huddle around warm fires in the darkness. It may certainly be a test of patience, depending on your choice of place to stay. The storm will last a full week, a stark reminder of what you are, the words you have heard in your arrival: thrown to Mother Nature’s mercy, the Interloper in her design.

But will you persist?

A CHOICE

WHEN: Mid-month, onwards to end of month.
WHERE: Milton Basin, Milton Outskirts.
CONTENT WARNINGS: survival themes; themes of hunting; possible animal death.

After the storm passes, there’s a certain kind of hush that falls upon Milton and its surrounding areas as Interlopers are left to pick through the wake. While the temperature certainly doesn’t get that much warmer, there’s days and nights of clear, calm weather — short afternoons of weak sunshine and nights of chilly peace, the moon hung high in the starry skies. Winter is drawing ever-closer, but it’s still for a little while.

In the early evenings, before the sun sets, there’s strange sightings of a particular white stag that can be found roaming the area — particularly down in the Milton Basin. It seems quite elusive, but there’s plenty of Interlopers that have been able to capture a glimpse over the coming days. Even Methuselah himself has seen this beast before, remarking there has long been tall tales of a ghostly stag that roams the Northern Territories and is said to bring good fortune to those who manage to hunt it down.

Perhaps you’re a little low on luck. Perhaps you’re feeling lucky. You’re going to find that stag.

Hunting down the stag, however, will take a great deal of patience and time. You might find yourself waiting several hours to wait for it to appear. Building a snow shelter, or hunkering down in some old shack might be needed in order to keep warm. But if you’re patient enough, and able to withstand the cold for long enough — the beast will soon make an appearance.

In the dying light of the day, it is there. It’s unlike any deer you’ve seen before: tall and majestic, with thick, soft fur of brilliant white. It almost looks ghost-like in some angles, it’s an incredibly beautiful creature. But it seems to have also noticed you, just as you have noticed it. It doesn’t dart away, however. Instead it stands before you, waiting for you to act.

You have a choice: slay the creature, or let it go.

It will not move until you make your decision, holding your gaze until you raise your weapon or until you lower it and give up your hunt. But there is a consequence to either action: if you choose to kill the stag, you will be rewarded with a sizeable bounty of venison. Eating said meat will help you feel fuller for longer, and the meat will keep for far longer than any other deer slain.

However, if you choose to spare the stag, the creature will lower its head, as if bowing to you. Then, it will disappear with a swirling of powdered snow. When you return home for the evening and go to sleep, the next morning you will find a gift at the foot of your bed: a pair of deerskin boots, or a deerskin blanket. These boots are supple, tough and waterproof — allowing for a great balance of mobility and warmth. The blanket is incredibly toasty, and will provide a great deal of comfort in the long nights ahead.

REST MY WEARY BONES

WHEN: Mid-month, onwards indefinitely.
WHERE: Milton Outskirts.
CONTENT WARNINGS: n/a.

The storm has blown in plenty of snow to make traversing the area much more difficult, but there’s something else of note that comes with its passing. While the storm has brought much devastation, and some places have been buried in snow drifts, plenty of snow in areas has been blown away, uncovering otherwise lost secrets within Milton. Clouds of what looks like steam can be noted not too far from town, towards the mountains of the north.

If Interlopers head to explore the clouds, they will find old trails leading up towards the mountains. It isn’t a particularly difficult journey, for once, and they will soon discover that the storm has blown away the previously blocked access to a cave. It appears that this is the right place.

The air is warm here, pleasantly so. Warm enough that hats and mittens and coats seem a little unnecessary. One might wonder if someone lives within, and that a great fire is stoked to keep the place warm. But there’s no one in sight, no sounds of life: human, animal or otherwise. If they press on, they will discover that the cave floor is well worn with footfall: plenty of people have come here before, and the reason why is soon revealed.

The air grows even warmer, and more humid. The space opening to reveal small pools of slow-flowing water, warm water. The stone houses a natural hot spring, and following the cave out the other side will lead to another space in the rock open to the air, where there are even larger pools of warm water, perfectly sized and deep enough to bathe in. It seems that this place was frequently used by the people of Milton, where their life of hardship could be forgotten for an hour or two.

The water is pleasantly hot, and incredibly inviting. After so long in the freezing cold without modern appliances and utilities, a natural hot spring sounds like an absolute luxury.

FAQs

WHITEOUT

1. Characters are free to play around with this prompt how they want. Maybe they're dumb enough to go into the cold and get injured or sick. Maybe they're stuck in the Community Hall for the week. Fights might break out as tensions run high whilst everyone's stuck together, or maybe you're actually having a nice time.

2. For those stuck in the Community Hall: there are board games and old school textbooks stored in cupboards. There is also a piano.

3. A floorplan of the Community Hall can be found here.

A CHOICE

1. .... Yes, you can pet the ghost stag.

2. Characters will get one choice only with the ghost stag, meaning they can't keep going back to find it to get extra gifts.

3. If characters can't agree on a course of action, whoever acts first will get their gift. The second character will have a chance to try again another time.

4. If both characters agree on sparing the stag, but players want different gifts (ie. one player wants the boots and one wants the blanket), characters will get the gift the player wants their character to receive.

REST MY WEARY BONES

1. The hot springs will now be a permanent fixture in the Milton Area, enjoy!

PLOTTING POST

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Louis's experience with time discrepancies has, until now, been only with one long-lived immortal. Vampires were the only "interlopers". Time, except when distorted through mundane perception, behaved itself.

"Right, yes, violence is always so simple and easy to explain, how could I have forgotten," he sighs. He's a bit too tired to keep up the sarcasm. He sinks lower into the water and eases his back more snugly against the rock. That's better.

"Didn't catch your name." ...All right, he can't be rude forever, his mama taught him better than that. His Louisiana accent rolls smoothly up and down, much more casual than the quick rat-a-tat of Parisian French,

"Louis de Pointe du Lac."

"It is if people don't compromise." He said this with utter conviction. On that point Rorschach was certain. When people started making exceptions for the rules and try to understand criminals instead of punishing them, that's when things started to break down.

Now that was quite the name. Sounded aristocratic, especially in that lilting Southern accent. He hadn't introduced himself to many people here in Milton but he wouldn't refuse to give it when asked. "Rorschach." Of course he'd call himself that. What else would a man wearing a mask as he did be called? Even if it was a bit on the nose.

Oof. Yeowch. Yikes. A parade of bright red flags marches past in Louis's mind. It's a different flavor than Lestat's amoral murderousness, Louis decides, but no less dangerous. Rorschach, too, would snuff him out with impunity if he decided he should not exist in this world.

With Lestat at least, there is that hold they have on each other, the "vampire bond" as he calls it. An invisible cord strung between them that precludes murdering each other, in theory. Louis just called it love.

His eyebrows furrow, belying the consternation above his incredulous smile. "Oh, haha, he's got jokes. You call yourself that back home too, or is this a Milton thing?"

He can hardly believe he's talking to a crazy masked vigilante and hasn't had a gun pulled on him yet.

Louis was right on the money there. Rorschach didn't suffer anyone who fit his idea of 'evil' to live long. At least he tried. The problem was that when Rorschach started to get close to people, to see them as more than just another member of the faceless mass of humanity that he alternately protected or killed, being humanized made it harder for him to see them in absolutes. He was much more likely to make excuses for or explain away their behavior, which made him a hypocrite, but his black-and-white thinking had always worked much better in theory than in practice.

There was a good reason he preferred to be a loner instead of try and maintain any bonds with the people around him. Easy to do in a city as big as NYC, a lot harder when stuck in Milton.

"Had that name since I put this face on. Been a long time." Going on twenty-odd years now. Though it hadn't all happened at once. Slowly, the man who had been Walter Kovacs had been eaten from within thanks to all the horrors he'd witnessed until finally the Blair Roche case had caused him to die. (If he believed that hard enough, it would make it so, right?) All that was left was Rorschach, less of a man made of flesh-and-blood and more of an ideal come to life.

Louis knew better than anyone that humanity, and the individual persons within it, were a convoluted mess of contradictions. A "library of confusion," as Lestat would say. Damn him. Louis can guess he might get into an argument with Rorschach if certain subjects came up. Louis persistently looks at humans as people, despite his bloodthirsty lifestyle.

Now he is seized with a burning curiosity to know what lies beneath the mask. It's quite the opposite situation to Louis's. Louis wore a mask, figuratively, to hide his true nature. He still keeps a few up his sleeve and alternates between them when speaking to people in Milton. If what he says is true, Rorschach puts one on to reveal his true face.

He looks at the strange man thoughtfully. "So... I'm lookin' at the true face, the one that is chosen, not the one foisted on you? You are--pardon the expression--bare before me, in a manner of speakin'? I should feel honored."

Rorschach might have been more inclined to discuss himself if he wasn't sitting across from another man with both of them having far too few clothes on. As it was, he disliked being psychoanalyzed by Louis. It made him feel like he was back in prison, with the good Dr. Long sitting across from him, confidently thinking he knew everything when it came to figuring out how the vigilante ticked. That was before Rorschach had ended up accidentally breaking his therapist down by revealing what the world was really like. "You assume much." Which was a grudging acknowledgement that Louis had figured him in part. But not all.

Rorschach had enough going on beneath the surface that no one had ever understood him. He doubted anyone ever would.

He cocked his head, challenging Louis with a question. "What's first rule of a Rorschach test?"

It's the only conclusion he can reach when Rorchach says the mask is the only face he can stand to look at.

He lifts one shoulder in a shrug. "Never taken one. That thing where someone shows you ink blots to find out what kind of crazy you are?"

It was in use as a tool for doctors dealing with schizophrenia. It did not come into use for general psychology until just a year ago. Louis wouldn't know anyway. Whoever heard of a shrink for vampires? His hours are too strange for anything but night business, and he could never reveal the source of his troubles in the first place. This is the extent he knows of mental health, unfortunately for them both.

Rorschach nodded, a soft sound that might have been something approaching an amused snort escaping him. He'd never be one to deny he himself was crazy. He'd known it for a long, long time. But he rationalized it by thinking anyone who did what he had for two decades would have ended up the exact same way.

"First rule is people see what they want to see." Hence it was with Rorschach himself. Everyone projected their own ideas of what was going on in his head, his motivations for doing what he did, and the morals they had. All were both a little bit right and a little bit wrong in what they thought about him.

Occasionally in the face of the weird, Louis and his sass become reckless. "I see a man who has confessed to murder sittin' across from me, and that's not somethin' I want to see."

Sure it helps him feel less alone, but his hide isn't worth it. Despite regular insistences to the contrary, Louis does want to live. If it weren't for the surprise Rorschach has shown thus far, Louis would think the masked man gets a kick out of revealing his past just before killing his victims. Louis is intimately familiar with some of the depravities connected to serial murder. He turned a blind eye...

He tilts his head against the lip of the spring and sighs, staring up at the ceiling formations. "What I'd like to see is an attractive charming someone with a healthy glow who smells good, but we can't have what we want all the time."

Rorschach glared at Louis from where he sat and the marks on his face seemed a touch more jagged when he did so. It was probably just a coincidence. "Was justified in killing those I did. Took no pleasure in it. But needed to be done." Despite everything else he lied to himself about, in this he was completely honest. Rorschach killed when he felt it was necessary to purge evil men from the world, no more and no less. Someone had to do it and it was better he did than people who were still innocent in some way.

"Sure you aren't just looking for a mirror then?" Rorschach said dryly. Look, he knew he was a weird little critter, more feral cat than man. It wasn't his fault he got the better end of the deal with Louis sitting right across from him on the other side of the hot springs.

Out of the corner of his eye, black and white churns. Must have been a trick of the light, or some other fanciful chemical technology Louis isn't aware of. Just when Louis thinks he's getting used to that weird mask, it unsettles him again.

He blinks at the ceiling, but the falter only lasts a second. "Thank you for the compliment, but when I am alone, I prefer the company of a book to a mirror."

Louis feels he should leave the joking about looking for attractive people to Lestat. Louis didn't expect that assessment of his looks. He isn't used to thinking of himself as an object of desire, except for Lestat's, and Lestat is crazy. Part of it is Louis not being able to openly look for male partners, but he is also plagued by bouts of self-deprecation. It's Lestat who channels Narcissus.

He returns his gaze, if that is indeed what Rorschach is doing. Louis can't tell. He grows thoughtful and very still. "Some murders need to be done, and there ain't no joy in it. Just makes me wonder if I'm next if I look at you funny."

"Good. Far better way to pass the time." He was just going to pretend that he hadn't just given a compliment to an attractive man, instead focusing on the fact Louis liked books as well. Rorschach's fondness for books was far greater than the tolerance he had for people.

Rorschach thought for a moment and his words came slow as if he was thinking hard about them. "Don't kill people for no reason. Only kill those who are evil." Of course, 'evil' was a very subjective term and Rorschach applied it as he wanted to by his own set of morals. Fortunately for everyone in Milton, he hadn't found anyone who fit the description of who fit what he considered to be an evil person, with the possible exception of the pirate he'd met. But the jury was still out on what he would do about Edward, if he decided to do anything at all.

He tried to make sure he didn't start killing just because he wanted to. If that happened, he'd be no better than those he hunted down and killed like dogs. Rorschach just end up another murderer waiting for someone like himself to take him out.

He doesn't need Rorschach's approval of books, but it's nice to hear it.

"Well, that clears things up. Only evil people, nevermind that everyone has a different definition of what is evil... But, of the two reasons you've mentioned why you might kill someone, I match neither."

Louis tried and failed to only kill evildoers, but it is true that Louis always killed for a reason, even if it was that he might steal someone's blood. Probably doesn't spare him in Rorschach's book. Being spared, or escaping the notice of vigilante justice, does not comfort Louis. If God exists, Louis reasoned on many a late night, he either does not care or consigns Louis to some sort of damnation. The only surety Louis can count on is not being sure at all.

"Evil is easy to categorize." He ticked them off on his fingers. "Those who hurt children or women. Those who murder and like it. Those who rape. Those who find joy in torment of others." Then he looked back up at Louis. "Simple when people don't try to make excuses."

In this thinking he would not compromise no matter what. Rorschach's mind was a rigid, unyielding place that had its own rules he followed no matter how difficult that was. It was not an easy way to live but facing an otherwise chaotic and often unpredictable world was too much for someone who felt as deeply as he did about the suffering of others.

"Stay clear of those and there is no reason for me to harm you." And for all of his brutal ways, Rorschach didn't find Louis to be someone he disliked. He was easier to talk to than some here, even if he did act a bit more like a girl than a proper man should have, and he hadn't irritated Rorschach the way some of the idiots in this place had done already even off of just their first meetings with him. That was enough reason to try and get along with him. (And it had absolutely nothing to do with the way the Southern man looked. None at all. Nope.)

Those who find joy in torment of others. Not him, but someone he knows. Someone he tried to cut ties with but still has a lot of complicated feelings about. And there is still the matter of their collective body count.

"You got it, Mr. Rorschach."

He's pretty sure he doesn't have to add a Mr. to that, and it's because he doesn't have to that he does it anyway. He can't flout social graces like Lestat, but he has his little revels. What Rorschach sees here is Louis cautiously at play. He speaks this way to people he's familiar with, or (in the old days) customers at his club as a way to diffuse tension. Normally Louis is more understated, deferential, quiet and thoughtful with a book close at hand.

He rolls his shoulders against the stone and sinks lower in the water. He would still like a little quiet relaxation after all.

Rorschach folded his arms, not sure if Louis's way of addressing him was meant to be flippant or polite. It was hard to tell with Southern men and their damned unspoken rules about manners. He decided not to answer at all and spent the rest of his time in there lapsed into his usual silence. He'd only leave once Louis was gone, one pragmatic reason being he hadn't brought any towels with him, and therefore would need more time to dry off.

If he still cast occasional glances over at the other man, it meant absolutely nothing. He certainly wasn't going to mention that fact anytime soon. And if he told himself that enough times, maybe it would actually be true.

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nature offers a violence

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cw: toxic masculinity thinking

can wind this down since we got Plans

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