(event) GHOSTS & HOSTS

[vestigemods]

GHOSTS & HOSTS

SEPTEMBER 22ND - 28TH

► WAS THERE ONE YOU SAW TOO CLEARLY? DID THEY FEEL TOO REAL TO YOU?

To some, the newfound territory within the containment zone is a blessing. Others, perhaps, worry that it may be a curse in disguise. The only way to find out which is true is, of course, to explore it for yourselves. But while the nature of the miles of new frontier remains ambiguous so far, one thing has quickly become apparent: You weren't the first to find it.

While every ounce of rationality (and all five or more of your senses) may tell you as you step into town or explore the farm's shady orchard that you're alone in this place, not a day has gone by since the barrier expanded that you haven't at some point felt a prickle along the back of your neck, or a subconscious tension inching through your body. Not a day has gone by that you haven't felt inexplicably watched.

Perhaps you told someone. Perhaps you kept it to yourself, for fear of sounding crazy. Either way, your suspicion is soundly validated on September 22nd as spirits begin to manifest all through the containment zone. Some are overtly hostile, utilizing their newfound traction on this mortal plane to wreak some form of harm. Others at first seem benign, but you'll quickly learn that no spirit here is truly harmless.

DID YOU TOUCH THEM, DID YOU HOLD THEM? DID THEY FOLLOW YOU TO TOWN?

You'll also learn quickly that very little that you do can stop them. Fists and blades sail through their intangible forms as if through fog, and unless you're actively working toward gaining them that which they seek (and even still then, sometimes), words do little against them either. So what can you do? Good news, research nerds: The answer lies in a book. A very familiar book, to those who were here when they and others rotted away or turned to glass. A copy appeared on the coffee-table of each cabin that month, and regardless of where it has gone or what has been done with it since, it does so again now with a formerly-blank space now filled in. The diagrams, it seems, depict what seems to be a spirit giving his heart to what seems to be a ramshackle beast. Below it, a figure seems to be waving an iron object through a spirit - insight on how to disperse one, even if not to kill it entirely.

But what are these ramshackle beasts they depict? The answer lies amongst the trees, stone-still and watchful. You may not even realize once you've spotted one - it hardly registers as a creature, a feral patchwork of skeleton and loose fur and misshapen flesh, limbs too long or too gangly, posture far too still to be canny. Very few still have eyes in the holes of their skeletal faces, yet there's no mistaking the way they watch you. It isn't predatory, for these aren't predators, but it's vigilant and unafraid.

It makes no move to attack. Instead, it offers acknowledgment - perhaps a less derelict creature might have offered a bow of its head, but all the beast can offer is a twitch-tilt of its skeletal head, a shift of weight from one forelimb to another. And from here, you may very well seal your fate. Should you choose to walk away, a halcyon truce falls between you and the beast, and it makes no move to threaten or hinder you as you make your way off through the trees. Should you try to approach or so much as flinch in the direction of your weapon, however, and the best is upon you in seconds, far more strong and fast and sharp than such a dilapidated creature has any right to be.

THEY WERE KIDS THAT I ONCE KNEW, NOW THEY'RE ALL DEAD HEARTS TO YOU

Whether you fall prey to your better nature and strive to help each damaged soul find peace or risk life and limb to carve out the beating heart within each beast, the war against the spirits is not an easy one, and few escape it mentally and physically unscathed. It lasts for nearly a week, at which point you may very well have begun to feel hopeless, wounded and sleepless and unable to see any end to it all.

And yet an end does come. As September 28th approaches sunset, the spirits have begun to retreat. Even those who have one of the living in their clutches may stop abruptly, appear to draw in a bracing breath, then turn and step into nothingness, fading from sight right before your eyes. What has drawn or sent them away, and where have they gone? These are questions for another day. For now, take a moment to bask in the first time you've felt truly alone and unwatched in weeks as, deep within the woods, an array of beasts clamber serenely back into the muck from which they emerged.

You've done it. Or... at least somebody has.

► MOD NOTES

• This is a catch-all log for top-levels pertaining to September's Ghosts & Hosts event. Go ahead and utilize vestigenet for any event-related network posts you'd like to make.
  
• This event takes place between the IC dates September 22nd and September 28th.
  
• All event information can be found on the Ghosts & Hosts Infopost! The logs are largely flavor-text to supplement the information offered in the infopost.
  
• Feel free to use my Example Spirits list to inspire your own ideas, or even steal spirits wholesale from that list if you'd like! You're also welcome to bring me a theme or desired effect/ability for the spirit and have me brainstorm up a spirit idea for you.
  
• Please take care to label your top-levels with identifying information like the IC date and location, so that others can see at a glance if their character can hop in!
  
• Also make sure to label content warnings for any troubling subject matter in the backgrounds or present behaviors of spirits you create. Possible CWs coming to mind are for self-harm or suicide, excessive/vivid gore, any sort of abuse, or animal harm/death - but even if I haven't listed it, if it feels like it might need it then slap one on there anyway!
  
• Any questions can be directed to this top-level or, for a quicker response, to Trace on discord/plurk.

Comments

lalli hotakainen, open!

[skittering]

PRAGMATISM, anywhere, earlier in event

( the first step in figuring out how to deal with this manifesting-spirit is to get a read on the scope of the situation. how far does it spread? how dense is the population of spirits? so the early days of the incident find him mostly skittering about as if scouting, but watching for one thing in particular this time: lingering spirits.

the search doesn't have to be overly thorough. while he can't feel them nearly as strongly as he could the infected back in finland and the silent world, he can still sense a spirit within a half-dozen yards, making his scouting more of a mage-sense broad sweep than a visual scan.

all of which means that his eyes are free to notice you, a fool, making a clear attempt to help one of the spirits out. maybe you're talking to one directly, or maybe you're just doing something odd (most of the odd things that anyone does are spirit-related, right now). regardless, he huffs out a sigh and averts his course over to wherever you are and whatever you're doing to interrupt with a flat and mildly accented, ) You're wasting your time.

EXORCISM, in town, anytime

( the second step, unfortunately, can't be narrowed down to anything more specific than a thorough sweep of the town, beginning with the areas with most spiritual activity. he can be found just outside of a given building in town (especially those particularly rife with spiritual activity), hands lifted palms-out, eyes closed, speaking sharply but firmly in finnish.

any attempt to enter or even approach the building in question has his eyes opening abruptly, revealing a light blue glow, as he interrupts his recitation(?) with a sharp - ) Don't. ( and then continues on in finnish.

or perhaps you don't interrupt. perhaps you catch him as he's finishing, backing away as his hands drop back to his sides and curl into fists. his eyes flicker open, glowing for just a moment before that fades to a regular old wary glare aimed into the building's nearest orifice, though he's not really watching - he's sensing. if the building is satisfactorily spirit-free (which it often is, unless an especially potent spirit lingers inside), his face shifts briefly into something more adjacent to pleased, and he turns to head for the street to move on to the next. glancing at you, he says, ) It's clear. ( under the assumption that anyone lingering is just waiting to go inside. )

RITES, near the lake, the day after the event ends

( today, there is peace - maybe the first actual peace since the fence around this place got bigger and the spirits started to watch from hiding. but lalli is not at peace.

his job is not yet done.

most of the beasts have retreated to places unknown, no longer a presence or a threat, but too many of their bodies remain. and while their souls were apart from their bodies, each beast still did technically have a soul - and so the 29th finds lalli picking his way around the lake, excising each beast's bare skull from its lifeless body. the bones of the body, or what remains intact of them, are placed in array near where the beast fell as lalli sits and cleans the skull. then the skull is placed upon his head, and he makes his way up the tallest nearby tree to place the skull on the highest branch he's able to reach, offering the appropriate verbal rites.

he does this again for each beat carcass he finds. it's definitely not what one typically does with a carcass, but his efforts are nothing if not dutiful and meticulous. it doesn't quite occur to him that it might be considered 'making a scene'. )

rites

[bombshelled]

[ There's not much left of the beast that Lana killed. Not only was it pretty beat up looking to begin with, but she also had exploded it into tiny pieces. There are pieces of a skull left, which Lana doesn't really think about until the next day, when she starts feeling bad for the creature, as she realizes it didn't try to attack her until she tried to attack it first.

Should she feel guilty, over killing a monster? Maybe not. But she also hasn't killed anything before. So maybe she's allowed.

She goes back to the scene of the crime, where there are blackened scorch marks across the ground, with the shattered bone fragments among them. Except... Somebody has taken what's left of the bones and laid them out all nice and neat. Lana stops, about ten feet behind him, just watching with wide eyes. ]

Uh... What are you doing?

god this is so late, fuck grad school

[skittering]

( lalli doesn't even look up at the girl's approach. with luck, she'll take the hint and walk on by (that's what tends to happen, when someone finds him picking through a carcass with this degree of assurance) - but she doesn't. she stops, watches. talks to him, eventually, and while he normally might scowl at the interruption, there's something almost soothing about the process of readying the skull for the kallohonka.

and so it's with a fractionally aloof tone that he says, ) Death rites.

there is no such thing as late in this beautiful game you have created

[bombshelled]

[ Huh... Okay. Lana's never been particularly religious, herself. When she'd lived with her grandma as a younger teen, she'd gone to temple with her and said prayers and shit on the high holy days, but that had always been her grandma's thing. Not hers. When her grandma died, Lana had bounced, not bothering to stay and sit shiva like a good Jewish relative would do.

She regretted that, later. Just like she regretted so many things.

She pauses, listening to the sound of the bone being scraped clean. Finally, she speaks. ]

...Can I help?