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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.
no subject
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?"
no subject
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.
no subject
"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.
no subject
"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.
no subject
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?"
no subject
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?"
no subject
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."
no subject
"So am I." She says, determination in her voice. "We made a promise, remember? You tell me your shit, I tell you mine."
no subject
"You don't wanna know, believe me, kid. You're better off not knowin'."
no subject
"I've killed hundreds of people," Ellie says, but she can't quite keep looking him in the eye as she says it.
no subject
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?"
no subject
So she's careful, for once choosing her words before she talks. "Yeah," she says. "Because it's true. Nobody- fucking nobody tells me the truth. I've been through shit- some bad shit."
She's not ready to talk about David. She may never be.
"The guy I, uh, traveled with before I was here," she says, "he had a daughter, too. She died when she was my age, or something. And he... when we met, he fucking hated my guts. I think it because of his daughter or something. But we kept travelling and he saved me and I saved him, I saved him a fucking lot, and he got all nice and it was like having a dad. I've never had a dad."
A quiet moment, while she works herself up to this.
"And then he fucking lied about something that's so- so important," tears well up in her eyes, and she scrubs at her face angrily. "Like, my whole fucking life, he just lied about the most... fucking important thing in my life. Like I don't get to know about it. It was my life. After fucking everything, he just..." She takes a long, shaky breath. Pauses a long moment, trying not to let emotions overtake her. She stares at her boots and lets it wash over her, silent and upset with it.
She's never said any of this out loud before. It was easier to just know. Somehow, that made it less real.
"I don't wanna be anybody's kid." She says, her voice slowly evening out. "I just fucking want people to tell me the truth."
no subject
He listens to her in silence, letting her get it out, hot and sour and stinking of pain. Smells the salt of her tears when they come and watches her shoulders tense and release. He thinks about Laura, about Daken. How many lies he told them, letting them take on the burdens of his mistakes, walking away when they needed him.
He walks around the fire and sinks down into a crouch near her, not too close, but near enough. Not putting his claws away but letting them scrape softly against the ground, bleeding red onto the bandages between his knuckles. Letting her see them, the part of him that disappears so easily.
"What do you want to know, kid?" An easy question to ask and a hard one to answer, but there's little enough he can offer her otherwise, besides reaching out and taking her in his arms, and he's not sure if that's something she wants.
no subject
What was she, when she was chopping David's corpse to pieces? Animals don't do that.
When she finally looks up, she stares him straight in the eye, ignoring how puffy her eyes feel and hoping he will to. "If I give you booze I find," she says, "will you get wasted and fucking die when something attacks you?"
no subject
Logan holds Ellie's gaze for a long moment, then glances away into the embers of the fire.
"I don't know, kid. This place.. it's doin' somethin' to me. Makin' it harder to heal."
He raises his claws again, turning his hand to watch the light swim over their surfaces. Twitches his fingers and lets them slide back into his arm. Red blooms appear on the bandages between his knuckles.
"This metal on my bones, it's poisonous. If I ain't got healing to fight against it, it starts eatin' me from the inside out. Before I came here it got.. real bad. That's how I died, 'cause it all ran out on me."
He looks sideways at Ellie. "But this don't feel that bad. Feels slow, but it's still there. When it's workin', I can't get drunk, even if I try." A wry grin. "And I try pretty damn hard. But here.." He raises a shoulder in a shrug. "So if you give me the booze you find, I can't promise I won't feel it. But I can promise I'll make anythin' that attacks me regret it, no matter how goddamn drunk I am."
It's a bitter kind of honesty, but it's all he can give her. He glances at her again.
"That how this guy died? The one you were with?"
no subject
"He didn't die," she says, rueful and tired with it. Her feelings for Joel are so mixed at the moment, it's hard to keep a handle on them. She misses him. She's glad he's gone. She wants his guidance. She wants to do things her own way. She wants to be part of his family. She doesn't wanna be part of any family that treats her like that.
"He's the only one who didn't." That's easier. "And I'm not losing anybody else to stupid bullshit." She's staring him in the eye, now, daring him to argue. "If I find booze for you, I'm protecting you while you drink it."
no subject
He meets her gaze as she makes her pledge. Raises his eyebrows a little, makes a thoughtful noise in the back of his throat.
"You got a deal," he says. "But you gotta promise me somethin' as well. You stop hidin' when you're hurt." He nods towards her bloodied sleeve.
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btw feel free to fade to black/close it out ~<3