(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

Morning of the 27th, cultivator frat house - closed to Wei Wuxian

[legbreakings]

[ Five days. Five days of him haunting him, never leaving Jiang Cheng alone for any noteworthy length of time, barely letting him sleep or rest - and as his resolve weakens, the spirit that has been haunting him keeps growing stronger and more determined the closer it gets to its goal of breaking him.

At first, he had tried to ignore it. Then he had tried to hide it. By now, all he can do is try to hold on.

This morning, he stands outside their makeshift Lotus Pier boathouse, hoping against all better knowledge that the fresh, crisp autumn air will clear his head after yet another sleepless night. His face is tear-stained, his eyes red, breath still coming too fast though he has escaped the suffocating feeling of his room closing in with nobody but that cruel shade of Wei Wuxian to keep him company.

I will destroy you, Jiang Cheng, just like I destroyed her. The whisper spoken in Wei Wuxian’s familiar voice settles into his mind though he’s not even sure if it is spoken aloud and when he turns around, he can’t catch sight of the spirit. It rarely shows itself where others could see it, only when he is alone. Didn’t she look pretty when she died? Maybe I’ll do it myself this time. She is better off dead than burdened by you, you know? I’m doing her a favor, really. Poor Yanli, forever weighed down by an useless failure of a... ]

Shut up! Shut up, Wei Wuxian!

[ There was laughter, bright and merry and sweet, as if he had said something particularly funny. As if they were children at Lotus Pier again. Not the cackling laughter as when Wei Wuxian watched his parents be slaughtered, not the triumphant laughter when his hands had been soaked in Yanli’s blood for the first time, no, this isn’t even... ]

Just shut up!

[ His bellow is loud in the early morning’s quiet, startling a few ducks on the lake into indignant quacking. Jiang Cheng shoots the boathouse a worried look. He can’t have Yanli hear him, can’t have her come check on him… He can’t be near her now. Not with him always there…

But. His eyes fall on the other house in the distance, their closest neighbor. His house.

Suddenly, it is all clear in his mind and before he has even figured out what he wants to do, his feet are taking him there - or is it even him moving his legs? He doesn’t know and it doesn’t matter. ]

Wei Wuxian! [ His voice is a loud, commanding bark as he approaches the house, Zidian sparking at his finger ready for battle. ] Show yourself!

[mannerless]

( wei wuxian, meanwhile, isn't even at home. he briefly humored the delusion of trekking the woods to find the beast for the spirit which plagues him, but he encountered too many others along the way and only narrowly managed to sidle away from conflict one too many times for one afternoon.

besides, it's... mostly benign.

he's already walking somewhat briskly as he approaches the treeline, but the telltale bellowing from the general direction of his cabin has him breaking into a similarly brisk jog as he emerges from the trees and into sight. )

Jiang Cheng, ( he calls, hushed and sharp, the tone of one trying to get someone's attention without making any more of a scene. it's a wonder none of his housemates (or gods forbid, gilia) have come out to investigate already.

he slows as he gets a bit closer, walking again, brow knit somewhat warily. he sure does see that spark of zidian along jiang cheng's hand, and he's carefully resisting the urge to draw his flute in defensive response. recalling the last time this very man attempted to storm his cabin, he asks - ) Not Shijie again. ( yes, that was a question. )

[legbreakings]

[ Jiang Cheng halts in his steps and even the vile whispers go silent for a moment as he feels cold for very different reasons, feels overcome by memories, by the despair and raw desperation he had felt the last time he came to confront Wei Wuxian.

Belatedly, he remembers to shake his head. ] No. Not Jiejie.

[ But now he is floundering, he has lost where he was in the script he is playing out here, and the words that should be coming don't want to fall from his lips. So he just stands there, staring at him with huge, teary eyes.

They had searched together then, hadn't they? Wei Wuxian had searched.

It should have been her Wei Wuxian's voice whispers to him. Look at him. He looks disappointed. ]

[mannerless]

( the relief that washes through him at 'not jiejie' nearly weakens his knees, but it's shorter-lived than it might have been because jiang cheng still looks at him like that. like he's desperately lost, and wei ying is both the one who led him so far astray and the only one who might lead him home.

he takes a step closer, though he knows better than to reach out to him. if it's not shijie, there's only one proper guess remaining. ) It's one of the spirits, isn't it? ( his voice is still low, not quite hushed, and that soft-edged firm he seems to adopt whenever he's set his mind to taking someone's problem onto himself. he doesn't wait for an answer. ) What does it want with you? ( they all want something. if it's simple enough to give the spirit what it wants, they'll do it. )

[legbreakings]

[ That is... actually a really good question. What does he want from him? He pauses, scowling at Wei Wuxian, mostly just trying to separate in his mind the red-eyed Wei Wuxian from the one standing in front of him now. It's hard, though. He had been able to do so at first, he knows that, but who had been with him whispering to him last night? Who has been saying all these things to him? It's so hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.

He takes a tentative step towards him. ]

Why did you kill them? Why did you kill my parents?

[ Yes, it's the spirit. ]

[mannerless]

( the trouble is, wei wuxian is dumb. perhaps not always, but if given a chance to assume he did, in fact, fuck something up, he'll nearly always default to that rather than considering alternatives.

and so the question has him flinching slightly, just a flicker across his face before he presses his lips together. then come words, steady but with an undercurrent of pain and regret. )

I didn't know it would go like that. ( a slight shake of his head. ) I didn't think Wen Chao would dare, not with somewhere like Lotus Pier. And even if he would, I didn't think-... I didn't think me just surviving that stupid cave was enough to get everyone killed.

( but it did, because wei wuxian was a naive and overconfident fool. but he didn't kill them on purpose. he didn't choose to disregard their lives. it was an accident. )

[legbreakings]

[ Denial. Pretend ignorance. He should have known this would be the only thing he would get, Wei Wuxian has never held himself accountable for a single thing in his life, has he? He only takes and takes and laughs and gloats while Jiang Cheng's life is ripped apart time and again...

He snarls, stepping closer towards him, his face twisted into something ugly and angry and he can hear that cackling laugh again, the laugh that had echoed over Lotus Pier when his parents died... He has been seeing it so often over these past days and has heard Wei Wuxian's gloating follow him into restless, nightmare-filled sleep. ]

That is not what I'm talking about and you know it, Wei Wuxian! I'm talking about when you killed them! When you were laughing as they bled out! Your fucking resentment ripping them apart right in front of my eyes and I was too blind to see it for what it was! But I know now! I know now!

[mannerless]

( a confusion flickers over his face as jiang cheng's fury only intensifies, as he steps closer and seethes out more words still. words that don't make sense - when wei ying killed them, isn't that what he said last time? when he was-

laughing. an echo of this same accusation trickles back to him from two months past, as jiang cheng sent him messages filled with incoherent vitriol, as he spit accusations at him right there in person on his bedroom floor when wei ying came to help. he still bears the scars from that night. he regrets them no more than he regrets any of his others. )

Jiang Cheng. ( two words, slightly warier but in a tone like 'listen to me', meant to steady the man long enough to hear as he says, ) I didn't have the resentment then. You know I didn't. ( his brow knits, and he lets out a tense breath through his nose. ) If I did, I could've stopped it.

[legbreakings]

[ There is such vehemence to Wei Wuxian’s voice that Jiang Cheng halts in the midst of his anger, conviction swaying momentarily. Confusion flickers over his face and then something very anguished, a pleading that makes him look younger than he is. ] But the memories... [ His protest is feeble, more of a pained whine than proper insistence. He shakes his head, trying to shake it all off, to make sense of the different sets of memories bleeding through his mind, none solid enough to properly grasp and examine them to say which is an actual memory and which cobbled together from whispers and hallucinations and his own darkest fears. ]

I remember. I remember you there. And you keep telling me... [ His voice is small now. Wounded. ] You keep telling me you had fun.