vestigelogs | (event) WAY DOWN WE GO

EVENT LOG: WAY DOWN WE GO

AUGUST 14TH - 24TH

 ►  THE BASICS

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 ►  MOD NOTES

This log is a general dump for all log threads pertaining to August's Way Down We Go event - and in lieu of the lack of catch-all for August, you can feel free to do non-event log threads here as well! Go ahead and utilize vestigenet for any event-related network posts you'd like to make.
The main chunk of the event takes place between the IC dates August 17th (reveal of the hatch) and August 22nd (the latest the spelunkers can be freed before they drown). No rush leaping on this event post, since I know most folks are honestly still plotting about it.
All event information can be found on the July Event Infopost!
Please take special care in this event to label your top-levels with identifying information such as the IC date, any prompts specifically pertaining to event roles (spelunker, rescue efforts, etc), and/or 'non-event' for any non-event prompts you may include. Just trying to keep things organized!
I'm going to help solidify the plotting efforts over the next few days to help make sure everyone's on the same page, but none of it will be set in stone just in case latecomers want in too. If you want in, chime in on the spelunkers, rescue efforts, or support roles top-levels as applicable!
Any questions can be directed to this top-level or, for a quicker response, to Trace on discord/plurk.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

xi of swords - everywhere i go you're always right there with me - (17th)

[She hesitates on the threshold. The hatch yawns open before her, a mouth in the earth, hungry and waiting, slick with tracks of lakebottom mud. Some buried part of her is flung violently elsewhere, carried away on the currents of cool, damp air wicking up out of the opening: in another life, she descends a staircase spiralling down, a hand at her elbow, cool railing under her hand, into the smell of rock. Elsewhere, in another memory, she crawls, bare knee against chill, wet stone, through a tunnel to a baptism, a drowning, a rebirth.

A tunnel the side of a coffin. A curved, double-sided staircase. A rose window.

So the OA is to play Orpheus again. She's to walk down into the underworld again, a thanatonaut, arms open to the possibility of death.

It has a pleasing resonance. It's exhausting and infuriating too. She takes in a long, shuddering breath, and aims a tenuous smile at the unfortunate soul about to walk into the dark along with her.]

You ready?

xiv. temperance - i flirted with you all my life, even kissed you once or twice - (18th - 19th)

[It's almost like being... home. Not the home of her choice or the home of her heart, but the one she'd occupied nonetheless for seven long, dark years. In the still moments -- and there are few -- she sits, immersed in the smell of the dust, wet rock, something vaguely metallic, and some cruel, hopeful part of her almost imagines that if she just turns her head she'll find Homer there, hand pressed to the glass between them, waiting for hers to mirror it.

OA swipes at her forehead with a clammy, dusty forearm, leaving a smear of dirt clinging to damp skin. Their sparse lighting sources cast strange shadows on the walls of the tunnel, flickering and intermittent, misshapen forms of bodies in motion executing a menacing shadow-play on the slick stone. She tries not to rely on it too heavily. Down here, she knows, they're going to need all their senses.

That's how she knows. The ragged edge to a rescuer's breathing, the way their footfall hitches and catches on the floor -- she pushes herself to her feet and moves, careful to make plenty of noise. She hesitates only a moment before laying a hand on a slumping shoulder and giving it a gentle squeeze.]

Hey. You're exhausted; come sit down. Someone else will take a turn.

[In the strange, harsh light, there's no missing the weariness about her eyes, but her smile is warm.]

It's okay. You don't have to carry this alone.

vii of wands - oh death, really, i'm not ready - (20th)

[It doesn't end when the last living body is pulled free: they still have to make it out. Sore as they are, battered as they are, it should be reasonably trivial -- but trembling legs and numb feet are not the only obstacle.

Once, the OA had stared death in the face as he'd filled her helmet, her mouth, her nose, her lungs with water. She'd stared and stared until he'd broken her gaze, until the last desperate spasms had wracked her body and her vision had burst into brilliant colour and then been devoured into an impossible dark, into the absence even of black.

It would be a lie to say that isn't what comes first to mind at the first growing trickle of water. It seems like rain at first, a spill, but swiftly enough there's no mistaking the current for what it is: whatever magic had parted their little sea has been dispelled.

They've tracked mud in; the rock is already slick -- the climb becomes a hardscrabble slog, gravity and inertia and banged knees. Nothing to do but keep trying.

It's at a particularly steep segment that someone slips. She grabs a fistful of whatever clothing she can, holding tight even as the weight pulls her exhausted body flat too, even as they're dragged back a spare handful of feet by gravity and the current. Her arms and legs are trembling as they come to a halt and she pushes herself to her hands and knees. Water soaks into her clothing, flows sluggishly over her hands, tugging gently at her wrists.]

It's okay, you're okay. I'm with you.

[As long as it takes. If this turns, maybe until the end. It wouldn't be the first time.]

When you're ready.

wildcard.

(( Surprise me, or feel free to reach out to me at

v__ or viveri#0501 to plot something specific! I'm always happy to write starters for folks. ))

(event) WAY DOWN WE GO

The OA | event prompts (rescue efforts) | OTA | (cw: description of drowning for the last prompt)