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vestigelogs2020-07-20 07:46 pm
vestigemods) wrote in vestigelogs2020-07-20 07:46 pm
(event) SHATTER & DECAY
EVENT LOG: SHATTER & DECAY
JULY 21ST - 27TH
► IF THERE'S NOTHING BUT PAIN, PUT IT ON ME
- On the morning of the 21st, the sun dawns peacefully over the crystalline lake just as it has every day for nearly three weeks now. Birdsong melodies soften the crisp edge to the morning air, and woodland creatures retreat from many a cabin backyard, unhurried but unwilling to contend with the cabin's residents as they wake. It's... peaceful, more so than one might expect after such a dire fate spelled out in the pamphlets upon your arrival. Perhaps, after many such days, it has managed to lull you into a sense of something like security.
Today we'll be learning a valuable lesson on why that is, in fact, a mistake.
Sometime between the 21st & 22nd, you begin to feel a bit... off. Perhaps the source is apparent at once, the ends of your fingers or toes going stiff and crystalline or swelling and blooming in small rotting sores. Perhaps the source of your discomfort is a bit less clear as your senses begin to sharpen or dull. But make no mistake, this is only the beginning.
As time passes, your situation only worsens. The glass or decay carves a slow but steady path up your limb or limbs. Your sharp senses begin to overwhelm you. Your dull senses muffle altogether. Soon, you may not be alone in your own mind, bombarded by the omnipresent thoughts and feelings of those around you in a way that you can't seem to hide from. Or worse - maybe there's no one around you, and yet you hear whispers in your mind all the same... Whispers which turn to yelling and screams and sharp violent emotions and imagery you can't simply close your eyes to because it exists inside your head.
But there is a solution.
It's detailed inside your new coffee-table centerpiece, a book bound roughly in leather and written in a language none here know or can recognize. All you know is that this book was not here last night. Not far from the book's front cover, you'll find two pages of illustrations with a page of text between them. One depicts humans holding their heads as if in distress, then cutting themselves or one another, then no longer holding their heads in distress. The next depicts much the same, but instead of a their heads they hold a discolored arm or leg... and instead of simply drawing blood, it shows them rubbing one another's blood on their discolored limbs. Skimming the rest of the book will find a dozen or so pages roughly torn from the bindings. Perhaps those were further illustrations. You may never know.
Besides - you have more pressing issues to attend to. Like bleeding, or finding someone else to, in order to make this stop.
You who only suffer the mental effects are lucky, in a sense. Your condition is deeply uncomfortable but it almost definitely isn't fatal. If you've found your limb crystallizing or rotting away, however, you have little choice but to seek a solution or resign yourself to a distinctly unpleasant death.
Regardless of which effects may be lingering, you'll find blessed relief at midnight on the 27th. Over the course of an hour, your senses will fade back into their proper strength, the unwanted guests will evacuate your mind, and the glass or rot will recede from your limbs to leave them just as they were before this veritable nightmare of a week.
Now, it's time to breathe, to recover, and to lick your figurative wounds.
► MOD NOTES
- This log is a general dump for all log threads pertaining to July's Shatter & Decay event! Feel free to utilize vestigenet for any event-related network posts you'd like to make.
- The event takes place from July 21st - 27th. All characters begin to experience effects by mid-22nd at the latest. Any event effects lingering at midnight on the 27th fade away over the course of an hour, in much the same way as they would if provided sufficient blood during the event itself.
- All event information (in detail rather than the flavortext I've provided) can be found on the July Event Infopost!
- Important semantics reminder! While you can have a character experience both psych and body horror within the event, both must be either rot or glass, not mix and match.
- Limbs lost or irreversibly damaged to this event reappear next time your character sleeps (as early as right when the event ends) unless you OOCly choose for them to retain the loss, in which case they instead regain the limb upon their next death + respawn. (If your character doesn't sleep, they go offline/fall unconscious and return to consciousness with the limb fixed.)
- Any questions can be directed to this top-level or, for a quicker response, to Trace on discord/plurk.
Geralt of Rivia // OTA
[ Someone doesn't seem overly concerned with what's happening right now. Not because he isn't concerned, but because he doesn't want to give the whoresons responsible the satisfaction. He's kind of trying to ignore it, and he's also made sure to wear something that covers it, despite the heat. Even so, though, the rotting spot on his arm still shows below the sleeve on his wrist, if barely, and, well … It smells.
He's also not about to believe the supposed cure that was provided by the ones who caused it. No, instead, he's scouring the lakeside and the edge of the forest for plants that he may be able to use to create something that could potentially heal it. And how intently focused he is on this task is a good sign of just how concerned he really is. How couldn't he be? It looks and smells not unlike a necrophage bite, and while it obviously isn't, he's worried about how dangerous it is.
If you happen to be in the way of whatever patch he has his mind set on, he'll speak sharply, almost a growl or a hiss between his teeth. ]
Move.
B. Mind decay like July 25
[ Just when he thinks he might be free of it, the world around him turns … bland. The wind still rustles the leaves and the sun still shines as brightly, but he steps out of the cabin and he can no longer quite smell the forest, or the deer that he can hear walking not too far from here. His expression wasn't exactly bright to begin with, but it darkens instantly, lips curling with distaste. ]
You've got to be kidding me.
[ They're messing with his senses now? He needs those. And how come his medallion still hasn't hummed? What the hell is going on?
To anyone brave enough to speak out when he's got this face on; kudos to you. ]
C. Wildcard
A.
It had happened with such finality before. She had gone into the water and come back to a world made dark, and there had been nothing to do then but to accept that fact. The suddenness had, for her, made the loss of a sense easier to bear.
This is different. She stands, clutching the branch she's been using as a walking stick and looking out over the lake and thinks about how she'd heard once that for those who come into blindness slowly, sometimes it comes on as a blur, a blur that might spread the distinct scintillae of sunlight on the troubled surface of the lake into a holy glow, an all-encompassing sea of incandescence. That might be, in its way, lovely. Instead, her world is just darkening.
The growled command jolts her back to the moment; OA angles her ear towards Geralt and nods, probing the ground ahead of her with the stick to ensure she isn't walking into the water or into the slick mud at its edge before she steps forward. It's habit more than necessity, but she takes some comfort from it. And him? She thinks at first to let him be; whatever his business, he doesn't seem to want any company in it.
That, ultimately, is what sways her.]
Is everything all right?
no subject
Mindful, of course, of the poison ivy as he picks a few of them. His voice has no less sharpness when he responds to her concern, either. ]
I'm fine.
[ He's fine, will be fine, will manage. He always manages. He either goes untouched, unhurt, or if he is hurt, he will heal, whether it's with the aide of an elixir or not. He needs no one. ]
no subject
OA stiffens visibly, expression impassive but for the tension in her jaw and the flaring of her nostrils on the sharp intake of breath. What she can see tells her he's bigger than she is. The body remembers lots of things: a voice cutting across the noise of a subway station, a hand guiding her own across the dishes on a table, the same hand at her elbow, coaxing her down a spiral staircase. Down into a cage. The finality in the click of the latch. It remembers, and her heartbeat quickens for the remembering.
She closes her eyes, taking in a deep breath. No. No, he's only here for the flowers.]
Mm.
[It's a dubious sound, but placid. She doesn't believe him -- nobody here is fine -- but isn't offended at being lied to. There's a pause in which she fiddles with her stick, turning it in her fingers, before she drops to a crouch alongside him, wearing a smile tenuous with residual nervousness but nonetheless warm.]
Then what are we looking for?
no subject
[ Vague enough to be true but doesn't actually say anything about why. There's no need for this woman to know anything about what's afflicting him, after all.
And if she keeps asking, he might just say that too. ]
no subject
It's not new. Very little feels as though it is anymore. She huffs a voiceless, rueful laugh and looks away.]
Echoes.
[It's a statement to herself, to... something, someone. Ripples across time, space, dimensions uncountable and unknowable.
She isn't sure she knows what to do this time.
What's the worst that can happen? He walks away? He rages? He kills you? How frightening are those things, really?]
Sorry, just -- you remind me of someone I know.
[Another little huff; she shakes her head.]
I'm not gonna bite you either.
[The humour lingers just a moment longer before draining away, leaving her looking harried and weary in its wake.]
Look, I'm-- I could use something to think about that isn't... all of this. Is there anything I can do to help?
no subject
His mouth twists in a grimace, and he straightens slightly with a few flowers in hand, settling back on one heel while propping his arm against a knee. 'All of this'? Is something wrong with her too? He supposes it would make sense if others are affected by whatever is happening too, if it's orchestrated by these 'Technicians'.
He inhales slowly, and pauses for a moment. Is that scent ...? Her? That's not a human smell, but his medallion isn't humming. Maybe it's just some kind of strange perfume but even then it's not usually like this. And where would she have gotten perfume anyway? ]
Know anything about plants?
no subject
[Abel used to take her out to touch the plants, each in turn. He'd nestle her in the branches of a tree, guide her hands along the rough bark, the papery leaves warmed by the sun.]
I know how to identify some, but... not many are wild.
[There's genuine regret in her voice: she'd been deprived of wild things. Her childhood was domesticated, medicated into a dull, benign smear she can recall only in vivid flashes. In her adulthood, she'd been a prisoner, deprived even of that garden, that tree.
Though maybe... she extends her hand, palm up. She still travels under the passport of this body: maybe it remembers what her mind can't.]
Could I hold one of those?
no subject
[ Well. Doesn't really matter. He's not sure what she could possibly work out from holding one - and he's not sure how he'll work out if they have any special properties - so he drops one into her hand. ]
no subject
At length, she lifts it to her nose, inhaling the scent -- a green thing plucked, and something gentle, something sweet. Not a rose, subtler, something...
Let the body remember.
Roots grip her wrists, coaxing rhizomes to grip in turn, to translate secret messages -- to the trees, to her. They speak in holy unison, a vastness she thinks might split her skull--
No. Back. Further back.
«Нина,» Papa coaxes, crouching by a scrubby little plant bedecked with clusters of white flowers. At the edge of a meadow, the sun leaks through, lighting them up golden. They've walked far, but near him, this glowing man, she is safe. «Смотри.»
Obliging, she moves to him and kneels, attention fixed on that little cluster of flowers, committing its form to memory as she knows he expects her to do. As he speaks, he plucks one of the little clusters and tucks it into her hair.
OA opens her eyes.]
Is this...
[Поре́зная трава́? What's the word?]
Yarrow?
no subject
When she finally finds it, he makes a quiet sound of agreement, and brings one of the flowers he's still holding up to his nose. ]
Seems like it.
no subject
[What did Papa say? The little girl she never quite was sleeps within her, those memories accessible only when the mind surrenders to the body. Sometimes not even then. Nina is tired, and OA is still learning how to share space.]
People used to chew it for toothaches. Something else. Tea, for... something.
[She shakes her head.]
I don't remember. Maybe it doesn't matter. The plants here are... different.
[The berries bite, for starters. OA pauses, angling her head and opening her eyes to peer at the plant, its shape, its distant smear of dim colour.]
But if this is what you're after, I can help you find more.
no subject
No.
[ With a quiet scoff, he drops the other flower he picked up, grimacing with the realisation of what he already knew. The plants here are different, and he can't be certain that anything is what he expects, even if he finds something that looks like celandine. ]
B.
or... help them fix it, probably. mrrrh. he hates this already.
he spots the culprit before too long, a terrible scowl attached to a man he actually recognizes. the man who didn't believe in finland. maybe lalli should just leave him here - oh, but then he's going to keep being irritated. with a sigh, he calls from off between trees about ten feet off: ) It wants blood. ( he draws his knife, making a vague slicing gesture in the vicinity of his own arm. ) Not as bad when you bleed. Worse again when you stop.
no subject
[ He's not giving it anymore. It was enough that it forced someone to bleed for him. If bleeding himself would actually help this time, that's at least better, but he has no intention of playing these games anymore.
(Refusing to act doesn't tend to work out in his favour, but it's fine. Everything is fine.) ]
no subject
so instead, he lets out a frustrated huff and storms off through the trees. )
no subject
What ]