(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

[lethechained]

[ The fact that there's a peculiar odor about almost makes Naminé reconsider her choice of paths. It's not so much that it's overpowering at such a range as that it tells her something's off, and she knows better than to overlook any kind of warning sign in a place like this one. But then she spots a lone figure in the distance, and that's enough to give her pause; most of her trouble here hasn't been human-shaped, but there have been plenty of human-shaped people in trouble.

She tries not to wrinkle her nose as she makes a cautious approach, walking up behind the fellow only to stop at a respectful distance - and one that's as safe for her sense of smell as possible. By then, he's already sitting down; she mightn't have caught up otherwise. Lips pursed, she hesitates, wondering whether or not it's appropriate to lead off with an, 'Are you alright?' when she's already getting a strong impression from both his body language and the scent that he isn't.

Then she recognizes the glint of a knife as he drops it, and her audible little, ]

-- Oh.

[ … makes a more well-considered greeting perhaps rather unnecessary. But should he happen to turn, he might find that they have something in common; her right arm hangs at her side, glass nearly up to the elbow. ]

i have tried to write this tag so many times now and my laptop keeps not cooperating and eating it!

[callidus]

[ any other day, any other circumstance, five likely would have been ready for her approach. spending so much time alone means no one to watch your back and learning to pay attention to your surroundings. unfortunately, it's not any other day under any other circumstance. he approach of the stranger happens to take him by surprise.

five fumbles for the knife, holding it up defensively as he twists around to face the newcomer. even armed, he'd be at a distinct disadvantage if she ended up being aggressive. getting up off of the ground would take a lot of effort and he doesn't have it in him to warp, between his dying leg and his overall feeling like shit.

it's just a girl though ("just a girl". he actually knows better than to assume that means she's harmless. he has two very dangerous sisters, after all. and then there's the handler, cha-cha... there's no shortage of women in his life who are anything but harmless). a girl who looks not much older than him. or rather, than he appears to be. he lowers the knife, though still keeps his grip on it ]

Your arm... Is that... glass?

rude of it!! laptops aren't supposed to get hungry. >:O Thanks for persevering!

[lethechained]

[ The girl - who is not "just a girl", in point of fact, but for whom it is generally advantageous to be thought of as one - doesn't make for a very imposing figure. She's a skinny slip of a thing, and having a knife brandished at her seems to give her a quite understandable start despite the distance. She sucks in a breath, after which she goes still except for the quick one-two flick of her eyes as they swap between the weapon and his face, then back to the knife again as it lowers.

His question elicits what could very well be self-consciousness, going by her hesitant expression - or maybe that's just because she's been worrying over the subject herself quite a lot lately. Her left hand drifts over toward her transparent wrist, not quite defensively so much as if to remind herself it's still there. ]

Yes, [ she says, after a beat during which she eyes him carefully. It seems unlikely he's got any reason to throw the knife at her, so she elects to clarify her answer. ] At least, I think it is. It feels like glass, and I don't know what else it could be.

[ And it hasn't escaped her notice that he might very well be similarly afflicted; her gaze shifts slightly, peering at him with a mix of wary curiosity and genuine concern as she examines him for any sign of the same. ]

You're hurt, [ she suggests after a moment, because regardless of whether or not she can get a good look at his leg from where she is, the smell and his odd choice of a place to rest imply as much. ] Aren't you?

[callidus]

[ five releases the knife (she definitely doesn't need to worry about him throwing it. he's not the knife thrower in the family. besides, he's in no position to retrieve it if he misses. this is all hinging on the idea that she would even give him a reason to attack her to defend himself, which she hasn't done yet, so), leaving it close at hand of course, as his eyes follow her hand to her glass wrist. the translucence is a little unsettling, which feels like a strange sort of thought, given all he's seen and done in his life and, hell, his own family. but the way the flesh on her arm just ends and becomes glass, it's... well, unsettling is really the only thing that comes to mind ] I take it that's new? Because you don't really seem comfortable with it.

[ or it's not new and she's self-conscious about it, feeling especially so now that five has gone and drawn attention to it.

with far more effort than five feels it should take, even in his current state, he climbs to his feet. it hurts like hell, but sitting while she's standing makes him feel like he's at a huge disadvantage. again, not that it seems like she's going to come after him, but. preparing for the worst. he looks down at his leg with it's rotting flesh and then back at her with a forced smile ] Never felt better, actually.

[lethechained]

[ Her shoulders sink subtly yet just enough to be visible as he lets go of the knife. She hardly blames him for his caution, especially considering her own reservations about strangers, but there's always the potential for some unfortunate misunderstanding. The farther he is from making use of that weapon the better, in her opinion.

Her eyelashes flutter partway as she refocuses on his words, the pursed line of her mouth becoming slightly more so when he acknowledges her demeanor. She's forthcoming, however, with her somber, ]

It started yesterday. And it... hasn't stopped spreading since.

[ Her real hand curls as it falls back to her side. The glass hand doesn't shift, although the fingers are already bent as if she was holding something when they lost mobility. Her brow begins to knit as she watches him stand, and it only becomes ever more so in the face of his false smile, which she examines with a small frown. Head tilting by a handful of degrees, she regards him with unmasked incredulity, although there's nothing unkind about it. ]

What's been happening to me isn't painful, [ she observes after a beat, ] but that looks...

[ Her gaze on his injured leg is indication enough of what she means, if it weren't already the elephant in the room. ]

Different, [ she finishes, after taking a moment to choose a word more tactful than, 'horrible.' ]