(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

[porndealer]

[Once he's sushed Huaisang does his best not to squirm. He's excited to see the results, which is very obvious by the way he'll grab for his phone once Wuxian is finished.

He turns back to press it into his friend's hands.]

Take a picture, take a picture! I want to see!

[mannerless]

( with a conceding sort of grin, he takes hold of the phone and leans back just enough to get a good angle. pardon wei ying's entire lap in the picture. at the very least, it captures the braids themselves, tied in place by a bright red ribbon.

he hands the phone back now. ) If you laugh at my work, it's the last braid I'll ever give you, ( he warns, because such a thing absolutely needs said. )

[porndealer]

[Wuxian chides that if he makes fun of the work he's done he'll never help him with it again and he knows it's probably not completely true, but Huaisang isn't going to test that. Once he gets his phone back and sees the picture he doesn't even think about laughing.

Of course they're not perfect and the bright red of the ribbon is never a color he'd wear back home... but the effort that his friend put into this makes up for any imperfections. They truly do look good, but that Wuxian did this for him, and will continue to help him with this, it hits him harder than he thought it would or could.

Ugh, he's not going to cry right now! There is a little sniff, but he tries to pass it off as being critical of what he's looking at, clearing his throat. He's fine.]

Whoa, Wei-xiong is truly so talented. I should have never doubted your skills.

[The bright red ribbon now in his hair is like a beacon. If they were back home no doubt it would have people whispering some not so kind things. Was the young Nie heir trying to show support for that wicked evil Yiling patriarch? How dare!]

... thank you, Wei-xiong.

[mannerless]

( though he was the one who made the threat about laughing, he's not entirely prepared for the opposite response, and the praise and especially the thanks have him humming and huffing a couple of vague noncommittal (fond, appreciative) noises before patting at huaisang's shoulder. )

If you're going to stay down there, I'll take the rest of my couch back. ( as it stands, there's a whole half-couch waiting for huaisang to scoot back up onto. )

[porndealer]

[It's okay Wuxian you can be flustered from the praise, it's fine. He will scoot on back up onto the couch, unable to stop the little smile on his face.]

So are you bored anymore?

[A very important question.]

[mannerless]

( the question (and huaisang's migration up onto the couch) earns a grin and the faintest shake of his head. ) No, it seems you've sufficiently entertained me. And who better to do so?

[porndealer]

None here.

[Huaisang gives a little flick of his hair. Dramatic ass bitch.]

Now will you tell me why you were so bored this late?

[A glance at the wraps on Wuxian's arms.]

... did something happen?

[mannerless]

( every so often, there comes a moment in which wei wuxian has to choose whether to divulge his secrets or risk wounding a friend with his silence.

this feels like one of those times. he could certainly brush the question away, it would be easy, but what then could be said for huaisang's own vulnerability of this last hour or so? in his place, wei ying would feel a bit insulted.

so he sighs a deeply put-upon sigh, oozing down a bit on the couch so that his head can fall back against the cushion with a sighed, ) I've told you, someone needed the blood. ( but he's really just fussing, because a moment later comes a fractionally more sincere. ) Jiang Cheng. But he's alright now.