(event) SHATTER & DECAY

[vestigemods]

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.

Comments

[mannerless]

( ah, of course the question's turned around on him, how terribly accommodating a-yuan has become. wei ying has quite a bit of work to do if he's going to drag any sort of spine or even petulance back out of this boy, but he has no doubt that he'll manage sooner or later.

for now, he manages to look innocent (too innocent, perhaps) at the narrowed eyes - but to his credit, his movements are minor and mostly geared toward settling in a bit more comfortably. to his distinct delight, he finds that the outermost fingers on his left hand once again curl when he wills them to, a tribute to the power of qi healing even for one without a golden core.

...oh. it occurs to him now that he forgot to mind such a thing, what with the revelations of the past few minutes, but the junior made no indication that he noticed anything amiss. did wei wuxian really get through the entirety of a qi healing session without his coreless state coming to bear? he's decidedly failing to question his good fortune further than that, greeting the boy upon his return with, ) So actually, I've decided you'll answer to whichever one you choose. Sorry to say it, but that's just how this is going to go.

[deferences]

[worry not, a little stubbornness will go a long way here in some odd couple of minutes when they aren't wondering what wei wuxian will call him. sizhui's choice would be obvious, of course he'd want to be called ‘a-yuan’ by his father figure again except— except this man isn't quite the person he knows (but he's also no different than him, either). ugh, what a decision, good thing he doesn't have to make it!

joke's on this foolish boy it would seem because as he's returning with the bandages graham had given him, wei wuxian's prepared to turn the choice back around on him. that's fine too, he'll make the decision, but it means he's finally approaching the subject on everyone's minds alongside that while he continues bandaging whatever injuries still need it.]

A-Yuan, [sizhui answers immediately, his earlier smile quirking somewhat higher then fading just as quickly once he decides it's about time they address the final thing on his mind,] And A-Yuan wants to know something: why is your qi different? Why did it take longer for you to heal? [why is this so blatantly wei wuxian yet also not in a sense and if he's being honest, does he want to know the actual answer to this question? (no, it's likely he doesn't.)]

[mannerless]

( a-yuan. so he'll call him a-yuan, then. it has him grinning, almost a little bit foolishly, because that's precisely what he'd hoped he might call him.

the grin flags, however, in the face of the question that comes. 'why is your qi different?' that and the question that follows are two flavors of precisely what he'd hoped to avoid. that's what he gets for dwelling on such things, it's as if he thought about it just hard enough that this terribly observant boy caught wind of it.

he watches the boy's face for a long moment - a-yuan's face, grown but so unmistakably his - watches his features shift slightly in a collected focus reflecting well beyond his years. how much would wei ying have been able to tell his a-yuan? how much can he tell this boy that lan zhan raised? )

Haven't they taught you anything? ( teasing words, but his tone is too quiet, too carefully steady. as if none of this is a joke, but joke-phrasing is the only way he'll be able to get the words out. ) You should know that such qi techniques hardly work on one without a golden core. ( and there it is. )

[deferences]

[there's the briefest moment where sizhui smiles wider in kind, but like all good things: they eventually come to an end.

wei wuxian's hesitation speaks volumes; the lan disciple knew he shouldn't have asked, was well-aware it'd likely be something he wouldn't have wanted to hear anyway, and yet he'd opened his mouth regardless of knowing. his adoptive father's lingering stare doesn't do much in the way of comfort, either.

just when he thinks he'll end up looking away, wei ying finally musters up a teasing remark, something that makes sizhui's lips momentarily twitch upward again, even though it hardly reaches his eyes. not like it matters whenever the following comment reveals the truth— the yiling patriarch currently lacks a golden core. well, that might explain a few things and as pieces start falling into place, he wonders,] Tell me what happened?

[and while wei wuxian clarifies (because you can bet he's expecting an explanation), he'll work on getting the other arm bandaged before it reopening becomes a possibility.]

[mannerless]

( it's funny, how quickly this boy can go from looking as though he regrets ever asking to pressing a thumb even deeper into the figurative wound. wei ying can't say that he blames him, though. it's not as if lan sizhui grew up in an age in which the core-melting hand was at large, so losing one's core is likely nigh unheard of by his standards. )

It was a gift, ( he says, as if such a thing were so simple. ) For someone who needed it much more than I, someone whose core was melted away when a man still lived who could do such a thing.

( by now one arm is fully bandaged and the other is nearly so, and he watches ever-so-patiently as a-yuan secures the bandaging in place. the moment he's finished, wei ying sits up in his spot and hooks an arm around the boy, dragging him in to wrap both arms tight around him in a proper hug. )

[deferences]

[saying it's practically unheard of is correct; sizhui's eyes get almost inhumanly wide when wei wuxian mentions he gave away his golden core, his mouth opening, shutting then reopening as he finds the words.]

Gifts can be returned, [the boy murmurs, gently creasing his thumb over the bandage near wei ying's wrist.] What you've done? Is more precious than can be put into words. [a beat] I didn't even know there was someone who could do that to another cultivator... or that there was a way to give someone else your core.

[another press here, a quick twist there and he's done, readying to withdraw so perhaps the handiwork can be assessed. instead, an arm circles his shoulders, tugs him in until wei wuxian's other arm joins the one already around him to draw him in even further. he's glad the embrace is as tight as it is, takes advantage of the position by burying his face into his shoulder and cinching both arms around the man in kind, squeezing tighter when he feels that all too familiar burn of tears again.]

[mannerless]

( for a long moment, talk of his golden core is forgotten, swept away by the rush of - something now filling his chest as a-yuan's arms wrap around him and squeeze. as if-... as if he's missed him. as if wei ying is someone whom anyone but his shijie can properly miss. and something inside him is righting itself, something he hadn't quite realized his encounter with jiang cheng had left fractured askew until a-yuan squeezed him tight enough to set it back into place.

wei ying's next exhale is shaky, lips pressing together at once as he silently scolds himself for it with what little shred of dignity that still tries to stand in defiance of all that he currently feels. his fingers curl, tightening around handfuls of robe, and after a long moment he says - )

I hope - ( pardon him, swallowing hard to try again, pressing the side of his face now to a-yuan's hair. ) I hope that I've been there for you, growing up - and if I haven't-... ( he refuses to let his mind spiral into why that might be, now's not the time if there ever is one.

he nearly says, 'then i hope you can forgive me', but he doesn't get to ask for that. instead, ) Know that I wanted to be.

[deferences]

[that's because lan sizhui did miss him. he's missed him beyond words now that memories have started falling back into place and even though it'd only been a short time since they had last seen each other – in their homeworld, not the creepy cabins – he yearned to see him again after they'd left then, too. perhaps hanguang-jun hadn't been wrong, naming him what he did; there seems to be plenty of longing and recollecting at the moment.

gods, the shaky breath makes him squeeze tighter, his own hands reaching until they catch his elbows and momentarily hold in an almost too-tight grip— before he relaxes again and hooks his chin over wei ying's shoulder.]

I know that you wanted to be. [confirmation without being straightforward: wei ying would've been there if he hadn't died during the battle at nightless city, he knows this—

a trembling breath of his own then sizhui reluctantly withdraws, tilts his gaze upward to meet wei wuxian's, one hand moving as well so he can wipe his eyes.] It's not as if you had a choice in the matter... but it's alright because as you said: Hanguang-jun was there! [he laughs, a bit unsteadily though his words don't waver,] And you're here now.

[mannerless]

( it's not as if he had a choice in the matter. as desperately as wei wuxian doesn't want to get mired down in what's to come (at least not until he can find away to change the unsavory bits), his mind is already grasping to make sense of that statement - which is easy enough. lan zhan adopted away the boy wei ying was raising, took him and helped him make something of himself, because it was a much better future than wei ying could ever have offered in the burial mounds where he and the others are presumably still very much- not banished, per se, but not quite in hiding either.

if something happens to shijie, something he could have prevented, he can very much picture a wei wuxian who no longer can stand to face the world outside, even if a-yuan (and lan zhan) is out there in it.

teeth close on his bottom lip, and he nods a little nod. but that has to be enough, because he's not sure he can talk about this anymore, what with the bloodloss-fog in his head and pressure in his chest (it's technically a good pressure, but even good can be overwhelming and this very much is). and so he huffs out a sheepish laugh-breath, settles back on the couch a bit more, and says - ) Ah, it's so late. I don't mean to keep you. I know you Lan sorts have your sleeping hours and this is very much past them.

[deferences]

[a lot of somethings happen to many someones; sizhui doesn't know the exact details since his memories are still slowly coming back to him and wei wuxian will ultimately experience it all himself— but he's more than happy to share the details of his life that he does remember and-slash-or maybe talk about things hanguang-jun has taught him in cloud recesses. (wei ying surely knows any and everything about those boring studies himself, though!) regardless of practically having to start over, he'll show no hesitation, just like with wen ning.

at least there's one good(?) thing about horrortown: wei wuxian gets his sister back and that's something sizhui's willing to protect no matter what.

there's blatant relief in the way he slackens, shoulders slumping beneath a comfortable, satisfied weight. he's also fine with leaving that conversation where it's at, watching as his adoptive father leans back and remarks about the lan sleep schedule. well, they've been pretty straightforward with each other thus far, so.] It's okay, I haven't been upholding the rule too well. Sleeping here is... difficult sometimes. [both arms momentarily reach above his head in a stretch then he clambers upright, gives his blood-stained front a once-over, gaze darting back up afterward.] Can I possibly help you to your room or are you comfortable on the sofa?

[mannerless]

( the concern earns a vague wave of his hand, though it's a careful one (you see? he's minding the bandages). ) No, no, here's fine. I slept on a stone for a year before this place, a couch is a luxury. ( as if to emphasize his point, he's squirming down to lie on his back more properly head resting on one of the floppy decorative pillows. you see? comfy.

ah, but he's peering up at sizhui again now, because - ) But stay for a moment - you haven't slept well? Is it just since the rot, or before that?

[deferences]

[sizhui opens his mouth, ready to complain how wei wuxian must have a perfectly fine bed he should utilize while they have the chance but— then he has to make the comment regarding sleeping on a rock for so long and after a somewhat resigned sigh,] Alright, that's a fair point.

[perhaps standing might've been premature, he does stay however, mouth tightening and hands clasping together behind his back.] Before that. I was [pause] anxious about sleeping someplace I'd never been.

[mannerless]

( the confession earns a thoughtful hum, because that's quite fair. wei wuxian may never have felt that same way about any particular place, but the adjustment to having his own room instead of sharing jiang cheng's had a not dissimilar effect on him, as did the first few times he slept more than a few rooms away from both of his siblings. )

Mm, and a whole room to yourself. You Lan boys share dormitories, don't you? ( his bandaged arms stretch up above his head now, getting in a good shoulder stretch, as he says - ) Well, if it's ever too quiet you're welcome to bunk in my room as you please. I'm sure we could rustle up a cot or something.

[deferences]

[following a nod of agreement,] Yes, we do. [and that being part of the problem may seem silly, but he does miss the sound of other disciples, especially on nights when the insomnia gets to him.

wei wuxian's offer hits deep within his chest, stirs something – possibly a memory? – that has sizhui reaching to touch his temple, expression momentarily creasing. no, it's... too fuzzy, much to his dismay. right now, however, it has him grinning and accepting without hesitation.] I'd like that. One day, we'll put something together, even if it's just a nest of blankets.

[mannerless]

( the grin pulls a grin out of wei ying as well, as it will likely do from now until however long it takes to get used to the fact that this fancy lan boy is, indeed, his a-yuan (and probably most of the time even after that). )

Don't underestimate a nest of blankets! I've had excellent naps in nests of blankets. ( granted he was much younger then. it's quite a bit harder to get away with once you're of a certain age (which they both certainly are, but who's to stop them?). )

[deferences]

[it's obviously fine with sizhui, who just keeps right on smiling and nodding with agreement toward wei wuxian's acknowledgement. keeping in mind the lan clan aren't supposed to ‘wallow in luxury,’ even an extra pillow probably seems lavish by then.]

I have more than a few blankets in my room, it's been far too hot to use many of them, though. [they stay folded up in a corner on a chair, which makes him think he should maybe see if anyone else needs one, but not until the heat dies down.] The nights seems a bit cooler, however, so perhaps it wouldn't be so bad?

[mannerless]

We'll figure something out, ( wei wuxian assures him with another vague dismissive wave of his hand - one which lifts up just after to cover a yawn. ) Ah, it's apparently time to go to bed, so says my bloodless cadaver. ( eyes flicker down to the blood on the boy's sleeves (and the little bit on his front, too) and - ) I'll help you wash all that out later, hm?

[deferences]

[an agreeing nod is what the boy offers in return, followed shortly after by the faintest smirk toward wei wuxian's yawn. sleep might be a good idea, yes, and perhaps it'll come easier tonight. sizhui glances down at his robes, examines the bloodstains for a couple seconds.] Later, [he repeats.] For now, I hope you sleep well. [then – before they can get distracted again! – he offers a slight bow and turns to make his way back upstairs.]