![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
RUINS I HAD LEFT BEHIND.
WHO: Everyone in game!
WHAT: Our next event, primarily set in the ruins.
WHERE: Anywhere in the core or ruins.
WHEN: During ruins exploration.
NOTES: Surreal horror, body horror, and possible violence. Please use common sense when warning for other content.
WHAT: Our next event, primarily set in the ruins.
WHERE: Anywhere in the core or ruins.
WHEN: During ruins exploration.
NOTES: Surreal horror, body horror, and possible violence. Please use common sense when warning for other content.
Art by Nicolas Lopez
CALL ME MAYBE.
The weather begins to change, the haze that hangs over the ruins thickening into a mist. It remains thin in the trees, but transforms into dense fog in open areas like the glade, bog, and swamp. Here, it's nigh impossible to see more than ten feet at a time. St. Elmo's fire becomes more and more prevalent, dancing through the vapor. At the outskirts of these spaces, animals call to each other in alarm, sensing something amiss. Anansi settle low in trees, clicking ominously from their perches. Cherts flee to their burrows. The sound of singing moss grows to a fever pitch, before sudden silence descends across the forest.
The radios still hiss with white noise, but the sound is choppy with little spits of interference. Sometimes, you might hear the voice of someone you once knew calling your name, stilted and distant.
Following the sound will lead you to old bones hidden across the ruins. Sometimes they're twisted and malformed, to the point it's impossible to tell who or what they belonged to. Other skeletons are easily identified as nonhuman, while others are unmistakably human. Some even appear to have received some semblance of burial, in contrast to those left subject to the elements.
And some bones are sealed in stone coffins—or so you realize after you open one. While there are tombs that only take a sharp shove to open, others require two people, even with super strength; they have contraptions that require two sets of hands to unlatch, on opposite ends of the casket. It's fairly basic (cinch and lift), but very child proof.
So if you want to (perhaps inadvertently) rob one of these graves, it's gonna take two of you.
The radios still hiss with white noise, but the sound is choppy with little spits of interference. Sometimes, you might hear the voice of someone you once knew calling your name, stilted and distant.
Following the sound will lead you to old bones hidden across the ruins. Sometimes they're twisted and malformed, to the point it's impossible to tell who or what they belonged to. Other skeletons are easily identified as nonhuman, while others are unmistakably human. Some even appear to have received some semblance of burial, in contrast to those left subject to the elements.
And some bones are sealed in stone coffins—or so you realize after you open one. While there are tombs that only take a sharp shove to open, others require two people, even with super strength; they have contraptions that require two sets of hands to unlatch, on opposite ends of the casket. It's fairly basic (cinch and lift), but very child proof.
So if you want to (perhaps inadvertently) rob one of these graves, it's gonna take two of you.
BLACK SUN.
For those of you who remained in or ventured back into the core, the black blot remains in lieu of a sun or moon, like someone sawed a circle out of the sky. But while this dark splotch doesn't seem to cast or reflect light, it remains eternally twilight in this part of the world. The light doesn't change even as the circle in the sky rises and sets.
In the stairwells that lead to the ruins, fossils in the walls seem to shiver with repressed movement, like ancient fish swimming through their surface. You might catch some minuscule movement if you stare too long, like a trick of the light, but turn your back and it's as if the world shifted without you even noticing.
Other than that, it's peaceful, inasmuch as a constantly rearranging world can be considered peaceful. The snow has stopped and the temperature has stabilized at a relatively comfortable 10°C (50°F) to 15°C (60°F). In fact, it's so peaceful, it's as if the weather has departed entirely.
However, while the air might be stagnant, the shadows still stir.
In the stairwells that lead to the ruins, fossils in the walls seem to shiver with repressed movement, like ancient fish swimming through their surface. You might catch some minuscule movement if you stare too long, like a trick of the light, but turn your back and it's as if the world shifted without you even noticing.
Other than that, it's peaceful, inasmuch as a constantly rearranging world can be considered peaceful. The snow has stopped and the temperature has stabilized at a relatively comfortable 10°C (50°F) to 15°C (60°F). In fact, it's so peaceful, it's as if the weather has departed entirely.
However, while the air might be stagnant, the shadows still stir.
I LOST YOU, DIDN'T I.
Get ready for some body horror.
The shadows continue to behave erratically, trailing after anyone who gets too close. It's a steady pursuit; even if a shadow isn't fast, all of them are tenacious and one could easily ambush you. They cling to anyone they catch, touch icy enough to burn, and long-term contact could result in frostbite. Like before, extended contact fills you with longing and the sense of being adrift somewhere vast, like you're chasing something beyond the horizon.
If you shake the shadow off, you feel a sense of loss, as if it stole a piece of yourself in the same way it steals your silhouette before melting away. You want back whatever it took, even if touching it again fills you with pain. For hours or even days, you can't stop seeing little flickers of movement out of the corner of your eyes.
...Unless the shadow burrows beneath your flesh, first.
It's as creepy as it sounds, physical darkness scurrying across your skin like a parasite that's truly alive. And then it's gone like a trick of the light, leaving you pondering if it ever happened at all. It leaves no blemish behind and, as a boon, other shadows begin to ignore you.
But it won't take long to realize you no longer feel the cold...or warmth.
The shadows continue to behave erratically, trailing after anyone who gets too close. It's a steady pursuit; even if a shadow isn't fast, all of them are tenacious and one could easily ambush you. They cling to anyone they catch, touch icy enough to burn, and long-term contact could result in frostbite. Like before, extended contact fills you with longing and the sense of being adrift somewhere vast, like you're chasing something beyond the horizon.
If you shake the shadow off, you feel a sense of loss, as if it stole a piece of yourself in the same way it steals your silhouette before melting away. You want back whatever it took, even if touching it again fills you with pain. For hours or even days, you can't stop seeing little flickers of movement out of the corner of your eyes.
...Unless the shadow burrows beneath your flesh, first.
It's as creepy as it sounds, physical darkness scurrying across your skin like a parasite that's truly alive. And then it's gone like a trick of the light, leaving you pondering if it ever happened at all. It leaves no blemish behind and, as a boon, other shadows begin to ignore you.
But it won't take long to realize you no longer feel the cold...or warmth.
I THINK I LOST MYSELF.
For anyone infested by a shadow, it starts out small. Food loses its flavor. Sounds become muffled, like you're underwater. Colors lose their vibrancy and smells cease to register. Touch turns into nothing more than dull vibrations. You lose small but intrinsic parts of your existence, distracting enough that you might not even notice the darkness that has resurfaced on your skin.
It doesn't burn. It doesn't feel like much of anything at all, despite the way it steadily consumes you. At least, you don't feel it physically; mentally, it makes you more volatile. The shadows erode and subsume your sense of self, just as they overwrite your body with their own.
The appearance of the parasitic shadows may be symbolic of your inner self, your thoughts and feelings, or simply something important to you (from a player standpoint, you can do whatever you want with the way the shadows look as they grow from your character's body). The shadows are also a mild form of hive mind, which means you can sense the presence of other shadows and other hosts. It doesn't matter where they are; you know each other's location and general state of being, to the point you intuitively understand how to cooperate.
Possessed individuals remain semi-aware (and how much they remember is up to players), but the line between yourself and the shadow possessing you blurs more and more. But if the parasite is removed, you'll realize the shadows are echoes of people who once lived here. They may not have been human or come from this world, much like yourselves, but they lived in these ruins as well as they could.
The memories themselves are unclear, more emotional than anything concrete, but you'll vividly recall a disaster, as if cobbled together out of dozens of apocalyptic films. And you'll know that whatever happened is what left these people as nothing more than shadowy dregs of themselves.
It doesn't burn. It doesn't feel like much of anything at all, despite the way it steadily consumes you. At least, you don't feel it physically; mentally, it makes you more volatile. The shadows erode and subsume your sense of self, just as they overwrite your body with their own.
The appearance of the parasitic shadows may be symbolic of your inner self, your thoughts and feelings, or simply something important to you (from a player standpoint, you can do whatever you want with the way the shadows look as they grow from your character's body). The shadows are also a mild form of hive mind, which means you can sense the presence of other shadows and other hosts. It doesn't matter where they are; you know each other's location and general state of being, to the point you intuitively understand how to cooperate.
Possessed individuals remain semi-aware (and how much they remember is up to players), but the line between yourself and the shadow possessing you blurs more and more. But if the parasite is removed, you'll realize the shadows are echoes of people who once lived here. They may not have been human or come from this world, much like yourselves, but they lived in these ruins as well as they could.
The memories themselves are unclear, more emotional than anything concrete, but you'll vividly recall a disaster, as if cobbled together out of dozens of apocalyptic films. And you'll know that whatever happened is what left these people as nothing more than shadowy dregs of themselves.
DESOLATION, ISOLATION.
For anyone unaffected, it's possible to avoid the parasites. In fact, the secret lies with the bones.
If you have one or more coffin-plundered bones on your person, the shadows may shy away and avoid you. It's a bit luck of the draw; the long and the short of it is the shadows respond specifically to bones that belonged to them, once upon a time. Shadows will stay in the general vicinity of their bones, to the point of moving a host closer to where they lie, regardless of where they were originally possessed.
Also, it's possible to communicate with anyone possessed by a shadow. They aren't necessarily rational and have no coherent sense of self, but they seem to have personalities. If caught and restrained, some will threaten their captors and others will beg for their lives. Others will mimic their hosts, or shift through various personas. They're a hive mind, after all.
Removing the shadows from someone is trickier. While some of them can be convinced to leave and may even return to their tombs, you need to force others to give up a physical form. You can do this by destroying their bones; once you find the right skeleton, you can turn the corresponding shadow to dust.
If you have one or more coffin-plundered bones on your person, the shadows may shy away and avoid you. It's a bit luck of the draw; the long and the short of it is the shadows respond specifically to bones that belonged to them, once upon a time. Shadows will stay in the general vicinity of their bones, to the point of moving a host closer to where they lie, regardless of where they were originally possessed.
Also, it's possible to communicate with anyone possessed by a shadow. They aren't necessarily rational and have no coherent sense of self, but they seem to have personalities. If caught and restrained, some will threaten their captors and others will beg for their lives. Others will mimic their hosts, or shift through various personas. They're a hive mind, after all.
Removing the shadows from someone is trickier. While some of them can be convinced to leave and may even return to their tombs, you need to force others to give up a physical form. You can do this by destroying their bones; once you find the right skeleton, you can turn the corresponding shadow to dust.
LOCKED IN A MEMORY.
Some quick things to remember about the ruins (which you can freely explore, as per the previous log):
- The archive is OOC knowledge only; characters need to ICly learn info through trial and error. Or gossip.
- It's impossible to see the sky overhead, but sunlight does make it down somehow.
- All plant life, including those in the archive, glow if an area is dark enough.
- All flora and fauna, including those in the archive, bleed black. Many of them may also smell of rot.
- Attempting to remove a living organism from the ruins will kill it. Removing anything with special properties will nullify those properties, unless they're treated (boiled, cooked, etc) first.
- You can handwave something's existence if it's generic, not permanent or recurring, and won't interfere with other players' fun (e.g., random fruit trees, nondescript rodents, general weather).
( RUINS: EXPLORATION | ARCHIVE )
SHADOW Q&A.
You can chain together responses or utilize them in your own threads. For example, if an unpossessed character is interrogating a possessed character, you can rewrite the information provided to suit the characters involved. Replies may be cryptic or straightforward, depending.
EXAMPLE: "You used to be someone who lived here. If that's the case, do you know what this world is?" "Alive."]
no subject
1. What are these ruins? How did they get like this?
2. Does this world have a name?
3. What turned you into a shadow? Is this what happens if we die here?
4. What's beyond the ruins?
5. What kind of people used to live here? Were they from other worlds too?
no subject
2) "It did, once. I don't remember it, but we gave it a name. I was so happy."
3) "We didn't belong here. But no one else wanted us, so we were stuck. You don't belong here, either, but maybe someone else will want to keep you. Remember you."
4) "Everything."
5) "Ordinary and extraordinary people. We were all from other worlds. I loved them so much."
no subject
2. Do you remember your world? Your name?
3. What do you mean "remember us"? Are we in danger of being forgotten?
4. How do we get out of the forest?
5. How can we stop whatever did this and get home?
no subject
2) "There's nothing left to remember."
3) "You're here, aren't you? Everyone is in danger of being forgotten."
4) "Keep walking."
5) "How do you stop something you don't understand?" [This is perhaps less rhetorical than it might read.]
no subject
Why can't you come inside?
What do you want? Can we help you?
What were you like before?
He'd also try writing out the letters to see if they got any reaction...sorry.
no subject
2) "How do you go somewhere that doesn't exist?"
3) "I wanted to talk to someone. I wanted you to understand. I'm so lonely. I don't remember. I don't know what I want. I don't remember. What do I want? Talk to me. Help me, please."
4) "I was like you. Discarded."
And you'd have to show us what he would write out for a response to that last one, finger guns.
ruth
Ruth stays in the ruins. She prefers them--the whole place is alive, but the ruins are where it feels like it.
The problem, of course, is that living there herself is hard: more dangerous surroundings, less obvious food, little shelter to speak of. She sleeps in one of the crystal caves, keeps all her stuff on her in case she can't find her way back to one of the right ones, and spends time with others when she can. Foraging's safer that way.
Which is how, one time, she winds up pausing amid the trees, head cocked. "Do you pardon, d'you hear that?" That clicking. It's somewhere overhead. She's heard it before, but never this close, and the hairs at the back of her neckk are standing up.
And another, the air suddenly goes wrong, in a way she can't describe--only that it's reminiscent of static, and she's not sure if it's clinging to her or her companion or both of them. Someone with eyes will probably see the brilliant blue veins of plasma.
i call this story
It's like something out of Jane Eyre: her name, soft and occasional, across the closest they have to moors. (Across space? Across time.) Sometimes it's her aunt, sometimes a school friend, sometimes a teacher. More than once, it's David. Whoever it is, they're not here--gone altogether--and she's a mix of curious and heartsick at the whole thing.
When she gets there--and before she realizes there's a "there" to be--her cane clinks against something. Not a root, not a rock, both moveable and solid, sounding and feeling different than the stuff she usually runs across in her walks.
She only figures it out when she kneels down and hesitantly touches it. Something smooth but porous, clublike at the end she reaches, drawing up years-old memories of zoos with horns visitors were allowed to touch. And the overwhelming awareness of death. It all happens in an instant, and then she's pulling back like she found a hot burner, shrieking in surprise and horror. These are bones.
the tale of the lonely ghost
The shadows don't attack her, but others--they change. She doesn't see the dark patterns starting to move over others' bodies, nor the way they stretch out from limbs and shoulders and torsos. The real shift, at least for Ruth, is how the vague sense of presence disappears. Where she expects emotions, or a sense that a person is there at all, there's nothing. Or, if there's something, it's a child's stick figure, not a life drawing.
It all feels wrong.
She asks, inevitably, everyone like that: "No, no-- Are you okay?"
wildcard
[Ruth won't be possessed by shadows, so please, let her support your character in their freaky hive-mind self! She spends most of her time in the crystal caves, at the river, and finding her next meal atm, so if your character's in the ruins, it's pretty easy to come across her. Please feel free to hit me up via PM, PP, or Discord if you'd like to plot something specific!]
logan | marvel 616 | cw: body/psychological horror
ii. I closed my eyes and I slipped away - (the ruins)
iii. more than a feeling - wildcard
William | Westworld
Nothing.
Time sort of skips after Ruth tells him that. Unreliable before, it now seems rare, those instances where reality coalesces into a minute, ten, half an hour. His once-detailed notes become scattershot, outpourings of ink one day, nothing the next—then he loses his pen. Forgets over and over that he hasn't replaced it.
William falls asleep with the radio on, static in his ear, in his head. There's a line—Paul Valéry—he won't stop turning over in his mind. “God made the world from nothing, but the nothingness shows through.” Anyway. That's how his thoughts work now, strung together with that word. Anyway, he's alive.
It isn't the first time her voice seeps into his dreams. Everything warps around it, noise and color. William, she calls haltingly, tripping over the syllables. As though it's some foreign word. William? He wakes up and reaches automatically for the radio. “Dolores?” he rasps. And again, unsteady with doubt.
He gets up. It's not her—he knows it on some level, but he buries that thought away. Follows the radio through the mist, the forest around him clicking and chattering, relieved to be lead. To have a sense of direction.
The voice guides him to a tomb. William runs a hand over it, the cool stone, feeling for an inscription. Works his fingers into the ridge in the side. It's desecration—strangely, that makes him want to open it all the more. Something would have to be sacred, wouldn't it, for it to matter.
He tries with one arm. He tries with two, his shoulder protesting at every tug. Finally he picks up the radio. “I need help. I'm not hurt, I just”—his tone twists wry—“need a hand.” Amid the bursts of static, the message may be garbled.
ii. between the essence and the descent [ closed to Bigby ]
William stops thinking of himself as William. He doesn't know when, though it does occasionally strike him: there was a time before this, when he was other than this. He knew touch, the feeling of skin, though recalling it is like recalling the color orange. Harder to grasp the harder he tries.
Anyway.
He's a wisp of a person sometimes, and sometimes just a wisp—a different, darker kind of mist. Sometimes his outline is sharp, light leaking through quarter-sized holes. Sometimes he sprouts legs and scuttles. He's impervious, and sometimes he likes that and sometimes he doesn't, that feeling of separation.
Anyway.
“We're not alone,” he tells his captor. It doesn't feel like speaking, more like delivering a message. The words echoing off him. His form shifts—he'd been mimicking, mocking his bonds. Now he's a replica, Bigby's own silhouette. “Never alone.”
iii. falls the shadow [ for rescuing, open to the first person to respond! ]
It's larger than it should be, subtly so: the shadow of a man on horseback. The rider's posture rigidly exact. From a distance, you might mistake it for the real thing—only as it nears, there's no sound of hoofbeats. No distinction between man and mount, one bleeding into the other.
It might gallop past, might gallop at you. Or it could slow, trot a circle around you. It has no eyes, of course—nevertheless, there's the sensation of them boring into you.
If you stick with it, if you manage to follow, the shadow always returns to the acid bog. Bounds into it, over it, its form stark and unaffected by the noxious pool beneath.
iv. wildcard!
[ I know this has fairly limited options for interacting with shadow!William, so feel free to throw something else my way or hit me up to plot! Also don't hesitate to ask if you want to do the rescue prompt but need some direction. ]
i.
He considers stopping to respond to the broadcast itself, but he thinks he heard it twice; once from the radio he's picked up, and once from his surroundings. So he shifts attention to follow it instead, soon locating the person responsible--a real person, not just a disembodied voice this time--and... Is that a coffin?
"What are you doing?" He asks in English, assuming that's probably the language to go with, and though his English is rapidly improving it's still pretty clear by pronunciation that it's not a language he uses a lot. He's figured out the radios translate, but that's annoying and slows the whole process down so he'll only resort to that if necessary.
no subject
He hurriedly clicks it off. “I want to open it.” He tries to keep the words simple—feels a little exposed in doing so, his desires that much closer to the surface. He touches his left hand to his right shoulder: “My arm—there's a catch, a trick—”
He sighs, takes a step back. Flicks the flashlight back on, plays it over the tomb. “Did you come here by yourself?” he asks, which should've been the first thing out of his mouth, the first thought in his head. “You shouldn't be alone.”
no subject
So he just blinks hard a few times while William explains, but despite the distraction the response is simple enough that he doesn't have to do much mental translating and therefore gets pretty much everything said to him. Before answering, though, he steps closer to the tomb and reaches out to touch it, using the light from William's flashlight to look it over.
"I'm fine, thank you." It isn't flippant at all, completely genuine--he appreciates the concern but it's unnecessary--and quietly certain. This situation is weird and fascinating and probably a little dangerous, but he's been in worse. So far.
"Why do you want to open it?" That's a more interesting topic of discussion, and it's curious rather than judgemental; part of Koushirou is not super into the idea of opening a casket, for several reasons, but the other part of him definitely wants to find out what's inside. Everything that's going on right now has to be happening for a reason, right? And exploring everything involved is the best way to figure out what that reason might be.
no subject
As for the question, he sighs. Switches off the radio, though of course that makes no difference—it squeals a little with feedback and keeps on hissing. The answer, the real answer, is that he's afraid. Afraid of what? Afraid they'll open it and there'll be nothing there. Not that the grave will be empty—that they'll strain and strain and lift the lid off a void.
He can't say that.
He scratches a hand—the wrong hand, his arm twinges with pain—through his hair. “Because someone built these buildings. Someone wrote on that wall. Someone made this, this tomb. I need to know, I just—” He turns away from Koushirou, extinguishes the flashlight. “I can't do this with you. There could be anything.”
no subject
He watches William's movements, not great a that sort of subtle body language stuff, but he's still getting the impression that William is... Agitated, perhaps, is a good word. Of course, it's probably not unwarranted considering the situation, but it's still a little concerning. The response, though, is one Koushirou can mostly understand and relate to, because--
"I want to know too." And more than that, he intends to know. So whether or not William wants a partner in opening it, Koushirou is going to figure out a way to get it open regardless. Might as well work together, right?
iv
The bog has a foul smell to it, though, like a warning sign telling anyone who comes near to stay away. It's noxious enough that he coughs, raising his arm to cover his face. Fuck. Time to go check somewhere else.
As he's turning to leave, the shadowy horseman appears. Quentin freezes. There's not really anywhere to run, the creature blocking his path, and he isn't even sure if he's in danger except it's a shadow and that can't be good, not in this place.
It--he? She?--heads straight for him, moving at such a quick pace and Quentin ducks out of the way, dropping the walking stick in his panic.
"Shit, shit, shit," he whispers, stumbling back, the shadowy horseman now right in front of him. He can't stop looking at the eyes, like they're starting right into him, like they can see everything about him. And he nearly misses that it's not a horseman at all, more like a nightmare centuar, a person combined with a horse. What he doesn't miss is the lack of sound those hooves make as they draw nearer.
Quentin scrambles farther back until he connects with a tree behind him. Fuck. He raises both his hands, bringing them together, preparing to cast the battle magic he'd learned from Kady so long ago. His brain moves at a mile a minute, heart hopping quickly, a part of him knowing this probably won't work but at least it might do something to save him.