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Entry tags:
- !event,
- athena | borderlands,
- benedict dearborn | original,
- carver hawke | dragon age,
- daenerys targaryen | game of thrones,
- eliot waugh | the magicians,
- ellie | the last of us,
- ivar ragnarsson | vikings,
- lee sung-hoon | duel,
- logan | marvel,
- octavia blake | the 100,
- robbie reyes | marvel,
- ruth aldine | marvel,
- vin venture | mistborn,
- will graham | hannibal,
- william | westworld
BONFIRE LIGHTS IN THE MIRROR OF SKY.
WHO: Everyone in game.
WHAT: Our first event log!
WHERE: Anywhere in the world core.
WHEN: After the storms begin.
NOTES: Expect surreal horror and possible violence. Please use common sense when warning for other content.
WHAT: Our first event log!
WHERE: Anywhere in the world core.
WHEN: After the storms begin.
NOTES: Expect surreal horror and possible violence. Please use common sense when warning for other content.
Photo by drainrat
PREVIOUSLY, ON THE WASTEYARD.
The world remains divided into a land where either a hazy sun shines muted light above or a full moon casts silvery shadows below. They hang fixed, as if nailed in place, more like theatrical props than far-off heavenly bodies. And you can still see only one of them, depending on which side you arrived.
Meanwhile, the storm rages.
On both sides of the world, the rain starts and doesn't stop. The temperature drops, transforming torrential rain into icy snow. Gusts of wind become gales and spin detritus into shrapnel, man-made disasters turned natural. Shadows spin wildly—almost comically—in cyclones, before bursting into nothingness; if you aren't careful, the winds will snatch you, too. Out here, the only protection you might have is cooperating with each other.
Indoors, it's certainly warmer, but that just means water doesn't freeze. Buildings flood with chilly water that rises no matter how many stairs you climb. Architecture groans under the pressure of earthquakes, sending more water cascading through the ceiling before it disappears into cracks below. Is anywhere safe?
Well, yes. One place, splintered into many. The mirrors in ash-gray frames stand sentinel, scattered throughout the world. They emit warm light from the other side; sunlight spills moonside and moonlight reflects sunside. Water impossibly flows around and away from them, leaving behind untouched earth that stays still and silent. Standing in front of them gives you a respite, a tiny bubble of safety to wait out the worst.
Meanwhile, the storm rages.
On both sides of the world, the rain starts and doesn't stop. The temperature drops, transforming torrential rain into icy snow. Gusts of wind become gales and spin detritus into shrapnel, man-made disasters turned natural. Shadows spin wildly—almost comically—in cyclones, before bursting into nothingness; if you aren't careful, the winds will snatch you, too. Out here, the only protection you might have is cooperating with each other.
Indoors, it's certainly warmer, but that just means water doesn't freeze. Buildings flood with chilly water that rises no matter how many stairs you climb. Architecture groans under the pressure of earthquakes, sending more water cascading through the ceiling before it disappears into cracks below. Is anywhere safe?
Well, yes. One place, splintered into many. The mirrors in ash-gray frames stand sentinel, scattered throughout the world. They emit warm light from the other side; sunlight spills moonside and moonlight reflects sunside. Water impossibly flows around and away from them, leaving behind untouched earth that stays still and silent. Standing in front of them gives you a respite, a tiny bubble of safety to wait out the worst.
INTO THE LABYRINTH.
Once you plunge indoors—unless you're really that determined to take your chances in the storm—you'll find every building with electricity experiencing a brownout. The overhead lights flicker and radios crackle with static, warbling broken news reports and tunes. They eavesdrop on strings of Morse code and private confessions on ham radio. If it's ever been broadcast on the airwaves, public or personal, you might hear it if you tune to the right station; you might even hear yourself, replaying a conversation you've had or will have. And sometimes the audio seems pointed, preternaturally so, as if tuned to your own thoughts and words.
Meanwhile, the waters continue to rise. The halls stretch long, seemingly infinite and twisted into knots. In some of them, no matter how far you walk, it seems like you never get any closer to the end; in others, you hit one dead end and can't stop hitting dead ends, no matter how many times you retrace your steps. None of that's unusual.
But if you delve deep into dark enough recesses (whether accidentally or intentionally), the world calms. The water recedes. Mirrors materialize in the dead ends, scratching out an "X" in the frame before your eyes. If you touch one, the glass falls away in ribbons, flowing like quicksilver and fleeing farther into the darkness. It reveals a hole on the other side, so deep a black it looks flat. Wherever it goes, it's so dark you can't see the other side.
And that's when you hear a sound like someone inhaling and then exhaling, steadily breathing around you. No...you feel it. A presence that has no form no matter how hard you look, but follows you in creaks and groans. It feels like being stalked by a monster in a maze.
Running from it only intensifies the feeling. Attacking makes it even worse. Calm acceptance is the only way to lessen or even neutralize it, but that's something you'll have to discover for yourself. In the end, there's no way to defeat it. You have to trust your instincts and believe it's there, despite the fact that you can't see or touch it.
Meanwhile, the waters continue to rise. The halls stretch long, seemingly infinite and twisted into knots. In some of them, no matter how far you walk, it seems like you never get any closer to the end; in others, you hit one dead end and can't stop hitting dead ends, no matter how many times you retrace your steps. None of that's unusual.
But if you delve deep into dark enough recesses (whether accidentally or intentionally), the world calms. The water recedes. Mirrors materialize in the dead ends, scratching out an "X" in the frame before your eyes. If you touch one, the glass falls away in ribbons, flowing like quicksilver and fleeing farther into the darkness. It reveals a hole on the other side, so deep a black it looks flat. Wherever it goes, it's so dark you can't see the other side.
And that's when you hear a sound like someone inhaling and then exhaling, steadily breathing around you. No...you feel it. A presence that has no form no matter how hard you look, but follows you in creaks and groans. It feels like being stalked by a monster in a maze.
Running from it only intensifies the feeling. Attacking makes it even worse. Calm acceptance is the only way to lessen or even neutralize it, but that's something you'll have to discover for yourself. In the end, there's no way to defeat it. You have to trust your instincts and believe it's there, despite the fact that you can't see or touch it.
CHANGING SIDES.
Elsewhere, it starts as a smell.
As the ground shudders and cracks, the stench of rot comes from the fissures. Mirrors and windows melt off walls, and a strong sense of vertigo comes and goes, like cresting waves. Looking out a window shows buildings and bridges breaking off of the labyrinth and drifting—or plummeting—away. They dissolve into nothingness as they vanish into the abyss, like they were bathed in acid. The already fragile world is falling apart.
It comes with a pervasive sense of wrongness, perhaps ironic in a world where everything is already wrong. But that's when it happens: You look up and realize you're no longer where you started. The sun or the moon, whichever you expected, is no longer in the sky. Instead, on the horizon lies its opposite.
It's a phenomenon unique to areas with high concentrations of ash mirrors and hallways, particularly when there's someone else on the other side. Sometimes the instability flips your positions, so one of you is now in the dimension where the other previously stood, while other times it drags you both together into the light of the sun or moon. It's like you resonate, magnets attracting or repelling each other in little pockets of peace.
As the ground shudders and cracks, the stench of rot comes from the fissures. Mirrors and windows melt off walls, and a strong sense of vertigo comes and goes, like cresting waves. Looking out a window shows buildings and bridges breaking off of the labyrinth and drifting—or plummeting—away. They dissolve into nothingness as they vanish into the abyss, like they were bathed in acid. The already fragile world is falling apart.
It comes with a pervasive sense of wrongness, perhaps ironic in a world where everything is already wrong. But that's when it happens: You look up and realize you're no longer where you started. The sun or the moon, whichever you expected, is no longer in the sky. Instead, on the horizon lies its opposite.
It's a phenomenon unique to areas with high concentrations of ash mirrors and hallways, particularly when there's someone else on the other side. Sometimes the instability flips your positions, so one of you is now in the dimension where the other previously stood, while other times it drags you both together into the light of the sun or moon. It's like you resonate, magnets attracting or repelling each other in little pockets of peace.
THE LOCKED ROOM.
Amidst the chaos, as the world shifts and there's no telling where or when you are, you slip through a crack. Or maybe you're a weirdo who climbed through the hole left behind a mirror.
In either case, the fissure is both literal and metaphorical, influenced by the unstable world and your actions. Maybe you step through a door, crawl through a crevice, close your eyes, or do something else to take you between here and there. Whatever the case, you find yourself in a room unlike any others you've seen in this distorted world. Well...once you look closer, anyway. On the surface, it may just be another kitchen, ballroom, or cellar.
But in these rooms, it doesn't matter which side of the divide you were on. Not only because you can't see whatever lights the sky, but because they lie between dimensions. There are no windows and no doors; you'll only find walls the same mottled gray as everything else in this place. Attacking them gets you nowhere. Any damage is there and gone, like the erased moments between flashes of a strobe light. There is no easy way out.
But there is a mirror. Hairline cracks run through its surface, shattering a single reflection into multitudes. Set in an ash-gray frame like so many others, it's left somewhere in the room, whether hanging on a wall, haphazard on the floor, or leaning against some furniture. It emanates the skin-prickling sensation of being watched. Turning away doesn't help; you can feel it gazing at your back.
The haunted feeling only subsides when you stare back. And you should stare back, because these mirrors are your escape route. Staring into them will reveal someone on the other side with the same predicament. Surprisingly, you can hear each other when you speak. It even comes translated if you don't speak the same language, although your mouths still sync to your native tongues. It's like a poorly dubbed movie.
Touching the mirror gives you the impression it's somehow leeching off you, trying to fill those cracks. Try to pull your hand away and you'll find it's a little difficult, like unsticking your tongue from a cold pole. Moreover, you'll feel a compulsion to tell the truth, to do something real.
In either case, the fissure is both literal and metaphorical, influenced by the unstable world and your actions. Maybe you step through a door, crawl through a crevice, close your eyes, or do something else to take you between here and there. Whatever the case, you find yourself in a room unlike any others you've seen in this distorted world. Well...once you look closer, anyway. On the surface, it may just be another kitchen, ballroom, or cellar.
But in these rooms, it doesn't matter which side of the divide you were on. Not only because you can't see whatever lights the sky, but because they lie between dimensions. There are no windows and no doors; you'll only find walls the same mottled gray as everything else in this place. Attacking them gets you nowhere. Any damage is there and gone, like the erased moments between flashes of a strobe light. There is no easy way out.
But there is a mirror. Hairline cracks run through its surface, shattering a single reflection into multitudes. Set in an ash-gray frame like so many others, it's left somewhere in the room, whether hanging on a wall, haphazard on the floor, or leaning against some furniture. It emanates the skin-prickling sensation of being watched. Turning away doesn't help; you can feel it gazing at your back.
The haunted feeling only subsides when you stare back. And you should stare back, because these mirrors are your escape route. Staring into them will reveal someone on the other side with the same predicament. Surprisingly, you can hear each other when you speak. It even comes translated if you don't speak the same language, although your mouths still sync to your native tongues. It's like a poorly dubbed movie.
Touching the mirror gives you the impression it's somehow leeching off you, trying to fill those cracks. Try to pull your hand away and you'll find it's a little difficult, like unsticking your tongue from a cold pole. Moreover, you'll feel a compulsion to tell the truth, to do something real.
THE GREAT ESCAPE.
For those of you left behind where the sun and moon still shine, keep an eye on your own mirrors, especially broken ones that seem to be influenced by something invisible. They display a room that most decidedly isn't your own, acting more like a window than a mirror. And whoever's inside, trapped, might call on you for help. You won't be able to hear them, though, so how are you with body language?
Meanwhile, for escapees...
No matter how you escape the rooms, you might notice something a little strange once you get back to the labyrinth. Well, stranger. For a brief window of time (one that grows longer with each room you escape), you'll discover the sun and moon occupy the same sky. The area you've entered is a temporary nexus of sorts, one that fuses the dimensions into something that almost seems stable.
It feels right, but the world isn't strong enough to hold itself together for long.
Meanwhile, for escapees...
No matter how you escape the rooms, you might notice something a little strange once you get back to the labyrinth. Well, stranger. For a brief window of time (one that grows longer with each room you escape), you'll discover the sun and moon occupy the same sky. The area you've entered is a temporary nexus of sorts, one that fuses the dimensions into something that almost seems stable.
It feels right, but the world isn't strong enough to hold itself together for long.
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Instead, he resumes watching the shadows, claws still out at his sides. Not quite guarding, but ready. The hair on the back of his neck prickles in the ebb and flow of whatever this thing is that's watching them. The shadows haven't bothered him much so far -- hell, he's had to deal with far worse than a few ghosts -- but this seems different. More malicious.
"Glad to see you, kid," he says, because he knows he'd regret it if he didn't.
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"Holy shit," he murmurs. "You're like friggin' Angel Knives." Her breath is still a hushed whisper, but there's something like hope in it. "I- fuck, I never got your name last time. Shit, sorry. I'm Ellie."
Because if she doesn't get his name fast, she's gonna call him Angel Knives forever.
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"Here I was callin' you Ariadne," he quips, then frowns. "This Angel Knives guy ain't got blond hair, wings and claws, has he?"
Wouldn't be the first time he found out about an alternate version of himself or even him having children from another dimension, but him and Warren making a kid would be a new one.
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She looks down at her arm, sliding the sleeve back down carefully. "I guess that kinda shit's real someplace."
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He glances at Ellie, then back out at the shadows. "I'm Logan. Nice to meet ya, Ellie. Sorry it ain't under better circumstances than.. whatever the hell this is."
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"This place isn't so bad," she murmurs. "I don't wanna stick around, but I've seen worse. The... thing? It hasn't gutted us yet."
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Though she has a point -- in fact, now that he thinks about it, the prickling being hunted feeling has waned while they were talking. Like paying attention to it was making it worse.
Interesting.
He lowers his arms, not exactly relaxing but standing back a little. Lets his claws slide back into his hand and hisses a little at the sting of the wounds between his knuckles. They're healing slow, the skin there raw and new. He rubs them, considering. Thinking about the last time he faced this problem; the mistakes he made.
"You got any spare bandages in that pack?"
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She nods and tosses him a pack without thinking, throwing the (now closed) bottle of rubbing alcohol along with. And after a moment, a few strips of jerky.
"I wish I could find fucking animals in this place," she murmurs. "I dunno how long you can go without, like, meat? I found fruit, so that's good for scurvy, right?"
She's half saying it, half hoping, for no real reason, that he'll know. He reminds her of Joel, in more ways than she'd like. Joel would know. He told her what scurvy was.
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"Sure," he replies, opening the pack of bandages and beginning to wind them around his hand. "Though it ain't gonna do much good once it runs out. Especially if people keep turnin' up like they have. It'll get ugly enough before we gotta start worryin' about scurvy."
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It's weird, and kind of amazing.
"Like what?" she says. "I know how to hunt for animals and crap, and I've found enough food for me, but... I dunno, I feel like people here aren't very good at this shit." Surviving. She means surviving.
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"That's why it'll get ugly," he points out. "I've been in places like this before, more'n once. People tryin' to survive, they get desperate. Sometimes the worst of 'em take advantage of it."
He tears the bandage, tucks it under his palm and flexes his fingers experimentally. It'll do for a few days, provided things don't get worse.
"That's why we gotta look out for each other. You 'n' me. You 'n' whatever other unfortunate souls you find out there." He tosses the remaining bandages in her direction, along with the mostly empty bottle of rubbing alcohol.
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And whether or not Logan intended it, it was giving Ellie some responsibility in that.
She looks up at him, and through the fire, there's something like hope or even wonder in her eyes. She twists her smile a little sharper as she catches her shit and puts it back in her bag. "So what you're saying," she murmurs, still smiling, "is I gotta look out for you. Gotcha. Loud and clear."
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"I can take care of myself, kid." He looks sideways at her. "But I ain't gonna try and stop ya. Pretty sure it wouldn't work anyway, right?"
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After a moment of consideration (and making sure the pot holds), she sits back. "I don't think the thing here is gonna attack us," she says. "If it hasn't yet, it's not gonna. What d'you think?"
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At her question he glances back into the shadows that surround them. The itch of being watched seems to flare a little at the back of his neck, but the promise of claws and teeth has gone.
"I think you're right, kid. Maybe we ain't the kind of prey it wants." He rolls his shoulders and grimaces as his muscles crack. Too long on the edge, without sleep. Even he can't run forever. He remembers the jerky Ellie gave him and pulls it out. Gestures with it to her pack.
"Don't suppose you got any beer in there?"
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She stares into her pack for a moment. "Uhhh. I don't really... prioritize that shit." She doesn't drink. Getting drunk would be a guaranteed way to die. And she tried beer once and it was awful (and also seventeen years old). "I found some whiskey, but I used it for cocktails. Didn't do as good as rubbing alcohol, but I was low..."
don't die squirtle :c
"Cocktails? Who the hell were you makin' cocktails with in this place?"
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"Kid," he points at her with the jerky, "promise me. Next time you get hold of somethin' like that, don't waste it on these spooky assholes. Keep it for me. And you can throw me at the shadows if you want."
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"Are you an alcoholic or something?"
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He looks away from her out at that blackness, chewing the last bit of his jerky. He rubs his palm across his bandaged knuckles, feeling the snags of the fabric against his skin.
"I'm a lot of things that you don't wanna know about, kid."
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"So am I." She says, determination in her voice. "We made a promise, remember? You tell me your shit, I tell you mine."
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"You don't wanna know, believe me, kid. You're better off not knowin'."
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"I've killed hundreds of people," Ellie says, but she can't quite keep looking him in the eye as she says it.
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After a minute or so he starts to talk.
"I've got a kid like you," he says. His own start. Handing it to her, to use against him if she wants to. A feeling like turning a sword in his hand, holding the blade and offering the hilt. Trust. And once it starts, it's hard to stop again.
"A daughter. She's.. she didn't like me much. For a long time. Took a while. She's like me, I guess, likes makin' it hard for people to get close. I was born able to heal, able to.." He snikts out one set of claws. Examines them in the fire's light. "I signed up to the wrong outfit. I was dumb, lookin' for a fight. They took me and made me into somethin' else. Gave me the metal. Turned me into somethin' that's not even an animal. Killed.. did worse than killin'. I got out, spent some time comin' back. But they didn't forget me. They made her, instead, because they couldn't have me. Made her, and she didn't.. even have a choice. Just because I.."
He pauses for a time, just breathing. Then glances over. Shows the points of his teeth. "Does that make you feel better, kid? Knowin' that about me?"
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btw feel free to fade to black/close it out ~<3