(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]

[Bickering is NOT always good! Jiang Cheng why are you this way, sir.]

You-!

[Well if he's fine now then it won't matter if Huaisang shoves him away, walking a little faster now.]

[legbreakings]

Hey!

[ Jiang Cheng stumbles, caught completely off guard by the shove, and hurries to catch up to Huaisang again as soon as he has regained his balance. ]

Hey! Didn't you just say you're worried about shattering me!

[porndealer]

[Huaisang attempts to hike up his robes a but with the one hand he has left to walk faster.

He can find his own way home!]

You said you were fine now! Go back and get the stuff you were going to get before I made a mess of things!

[legbreakings]

FINE! [ Wait! What! Is he actually leaving? How dare he?!

Jiang Cheng barks at Nie Huaisang's back and he is so close to stomping his foot. Or even sending a pebble at him. The latter of which he only resists because he really is worried about more shattering. ]

Go home alone and break your face when you trip! See if I care!

[ HRMPF! ]

[porndealer]

[He stops at that, face aghast, not that Jiang Cheng can see it. But he spins then, pointing angrily at him. Angry, probably hurt too. The Jiang Sect leader had been doing so good and he had to go ruin it!]

You you-- Jiang Cheng you're absolutely insufferable!

[legbreakings]

[ Jiang Cheng makes a face of such outrage that is is downright comical, not that he is going to appreciate the humor of it. This face comes with outraged little noises, too. ]

Oh! So now I am the insufferable one! Who started this, huh!

[ He takes an indignant step towards him, all puffed up wounded dignity. ]

You picked a fight with me!

[porndealer]

[Don't you puff up and come at him, Jiang Cheng! Huaisang pulls out his fan and points harshly at him. He'll smack him with it if he gets to close, don't think he won't.]

You insulted me!

[And usually he'd brush it off or teasingly whine, but not today. Today is a bad not very good day for this sort of thing.]

G-Go away, leave me alone.

[He will walk home and trip and break his face! He doesn't need Jiang Cheng's help!]

[legbreakings]

[ But... But...

Jiang Cheng's mouth opens and closes a few times as it slowly sinks in that yes, he has actually offended Nie Huaisang for real. This is not like when they were boys at Cloud Recesses and would bicker about trivialities.

Here, in this place, where your arm can turn to glass and shatter into a thousand pieces, nerves are frayed for everyone. ]

Nie-xiong... [ His shoulders slump. Today, he fully believes that Huaisang will use that fan on him and that it won't be play hitting either. ] Alright. I will leave you here. Please be careful.