(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

[soups]

❰ her eyes moisten at his insistence, but she was also expecting it. wei wuxian would never, even if she would offer again and again. her muscles loosen under his tight grasp, resigned to the answer. there's no point in begging and pleading when his steadfast answer will remain the same. ❱

A-Xian, I'll trust what you say, if you promise me it's the truth. A promise you have to mean.

❰ he might not ever let her do what she's offering, but her eyes steel once more as she asks him to swear to her. she'll be able to live with this if this is the truth, an inconvenience that can't be helped unless this drastic, disproportionate measure is taken. ❱

[mannerless]

I promise. ( but that's too quick as well, he knows it is, and so instead he releases her hand to wrap hands around her upper arms just below the shoulder. it's so that he can look into her eyes as he says, ) I promise. ( gods, to think that he'd ever have to be promising his shijie that she doesn't have to cut herself open to help him. if she's here in this place with them, how often is something like this going to happen? how well can any of them really keep her out of it?

and how fair even is that, when she's going to end up going through most of it too?

he swallows hard, then lets out a bracing breath. ) And I promise I won't lie to you about any of it in the future, either. Not even a sideways lie, not even... to say I can handle it if I can't. Okay? But you have to promise the same. No saying you're fine just so we don't worry.

( he's going out on a limb with this promise, and he knows that he'll lament it more than once in the future - shijie is far too sharp, she won't miss the subtle signs, and then he'll have to worry her. but this promise, this honesty pact, it would also mean that he'll know immediately if there's any need to worry about her in return. that's worth it. )

[soups]

❰ for as glad as she is that wei wuxian has sworn such a thing to her, her face falls as the request is reversed. that's...different. so very different.

both of her brothers are amazing people. jiang cheng, made a clan leader after such tragedy, with the weight of all of yunmeng on his shoulders. wei wuxian, perhaps the most talented cultivator of their generation, who has had to face such odds and pitfalls himself. he's even gone through something so...surreal, in her mind, that she can't quite figure out what exactly it is, but he's changed so much.

what problems could she possibly burden them with, when hers are so insignificant in the face of all they are destined to overcome? ❱

A-Xian, there are certain things that an older sister has to worry about. And it's fine that you don't worry about those things.

forgive me for my short tag sins

[mannerless]

( though the words don't open with 'no', it's right there in her tone, and he's shaking his head even before she's finished. )

It's both of us or it's no deal. I mean it. ( he's never this serious with her, this firm, but the concept of her dealing with something like this (or worse) silent and unnoticed is just not something he can stand. )

[soups]

❰ yanli doesn't like to lie. she never finds it to be useful, preferring to avoid or omit the truth if at all possible. but that will be what she is pushed to, if she is to agree to this deal of wei wuxian's. ❱

I should have expected as much from you, A-Xian. Your even sense of justice is too strong to let me get away with it. ❰ so she nods, as much a yes as she can offer him without feeling the guilt crush her chest. her free hand also comes up to brush his nose slightly; her younger brother, so weighed down, but also so willing to add to that weight. ❱

[mannerless]

( though the situation (within his own head included) is a bit too dire to properly grin, his lips twitch in that direction for a moment as he exhales a relieved sort of sigh. the hand is given time to tap his nose, then he reaches up now to catch it between his two hands, holding securely but not too tightly. )

Shijie - ( he starts after a moment, then stops again. any attempt at vulnerability, even to this woman with whom he's spent most of his life, is still very much a stuttering attempt at best. ) Do you think you could stay for a bit, keep me company? You quiet them down, I think. ( the voices. even back in their homeworld, with resentful spirits screaming in his mind, she has always been one to soothe them. as if her kindness is generous enough to satisfy even these fractured souls. )

[soups]

❰ he doesn't have to speak his vulnerability for jiang yanli to feel it, not even at the off beat of his heart she can feel in his touch. the look she gives him is serene and sad, but understanding -- all she needs to communicate to let him know exactly how she feels. her fingers slip through his grasp as she sits upon the ground next to the tree, gesturing for her brother to stay with her. ❱

You have all my time, today.

[mannerless]

( and he sits gratefully, his movements a bit heavier now. the tree lends him an excuse to sit right up beside her, leaning his back against the bark but his shoulder against hers.

a glance her way, just slightly concerned, and- ) You're not-... Do you need anything? ( he should've checked sooner. sure, he has checked a few times throughout... y'know, all of this, but it's different now that they've made their agreement. he wants to make sure that if he's just going to sit here, he's done everything he can to help her out first. )

[soups]

❰ in the moment, there is still a shrieking in her head, like a kettle's whistle but amplified into an echo in an empty room. she doesn't let this on, even if the noise is so present she has to strain to hear her brother speak. ❱

It's alright. Today will be about you, and you alone. ❰ outside of the current situation, life is somewhat monotonous, even in a new setting. she busies herself with fixing up her house, taking care of jiang cheng. there are many desires she has, but none she'd burden her other brother with. they're essentially impossible anyway. ❱