EVENT LOG: ENTER MR. SANDMAN (DREAMERS)

[inthenightmods]

EVENT LOG:
ENTER MR. SANDMAN (DREAMERS)

characters: all characters that signed up as a dreamer for the event.
location: dreamland feat. beacon of the past.
date/time: november 16-29.
content: the dreamers investigate beacon as it once was.
warnings: psychological/existential horror. further cws will arise depending on the location; mods will cw tags appropriately, and you will too!

say your prayers, little one.

Hello, dreamers. Welcome to Beacon.




Below, each group has a toplevel ready and waiting for the investigation to begin. Feel free to tag in however to establish a tag order, and mod responses will begin once each character has tagged in. If you need a refresher on how the event will work, give the OOC info another read!

As for those of you in the sin bin opt out area...

The Beacon of the past isn't all too different from the Beacon of the present, frankly, except for a few notable exceptions. For one, it's far better lit: daylight leaves everything feels a lot brighter and more sensible than eternal night does. Several advertisements for community theater in the Invincible are hung up (Tryouts for the Ice Man Cometh! Cometh try your luck!) and minor lost and found posters are tacked to a community bulletin board nearby. Oh, and a merry little tune is playing on loop from a record player set up outside the Invincible.

It's cheerful, if not a little off-putting. But the signs of life are clear, even if the forest still looks darkly oppressive over yonder.

Additionally, since investigation threads 1) rely on mod responses, and 2) will likely move on the slow side given the nature of the event/size of the groups, if you would like to have your characters "mingle" in their assigned location, please feel free to write your own toplevels! We ask that you post them as separate toplevels not in response to the mod toplevels (so our inboxes don't get super flooded/we don't accidentally miss stuff). Remember that groups may only interact with each other during the event, but you're welcome to assume timey-wimey shenanigans to excuse why your characters are mingling instead of searching for clues—they do have two weeks in this dream, technically, and dreams are not always linear. If your investigation thread has not yet progressed to a point in which you've got enough of a handle on the setting to write a separate mingle starter, ask the mod you're working with! We'll fill you in on some OOC details so you can mingle accordingly while still allowing for characters to discover those details ICly in the investigation thread.

If you're still jonesing for more threading action during the event, we encourage you to check out the TDM!

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Comments

I am so sorry

[primordialerebus]

Oh yeah! That works wa…. What.

[ She stares at the furniture barricade, wanting to stop and just… stare at it for a hot second. Unfortunately, the other 2 were already moving on, and like hell she’s being left alone in this weird ass place. So she continues, trailing behind them as the crying gets louder and louder.

Please don’t let it be a monster. Please. ]

Oh…

[ Before she could ask if the woman’s okay, Elizabeth is already introducing them. ]

Uh… Coraline…

[ Okay. Now’s her chance. You can follow up Elektra’s question. ]

Are you ok?

[ She asks, unsure why the other’s moving away. ]

[inthenightmods]

[The sniffling doesn't abate, but nor does the figure respond. They stand after a moment, take a slow step forward . . . and pass right through Coraline, breezing through as though she's nothing more than an illusion.]

Hello?

[Nothing. No answer. Or at least: no answer this person can hear. They blink, and their mouth trembles, and it seems as if another round of tears will begin.

And then something . . . odd happens.

It's as if some higher being has suddenly hit fast-forward: the scene changes rapidly, the figure rushing off and disappearing. Lights blink rapidly; if the ladies turn, they'll realize a day-night cycle is happening, over and over, the sun appearing and then disappearing, four, five, six times, eight, ten, twelve . . .

Til it's night again, and there's the sounds of screams, and the figure lies on the ground.

They're gaunt, their cheeks hollow and their eyes sunken deep into their skull. Bones jut out as flesh hangs uselessly, their clothes too big and their lips cracked. Their knuckles are thick and swollen, and there's plenty of books scattered around them. Pages are torn free, ripped and half-destroyed.

The figure stares at nothing. And the longer the ladies watch, the longer they'll realize that what they're looking at isn't a person, but a fresh corpse.

A noise, shuffling and low-- and something turns from around the corner of a shelf. It waddles, a fat, white creature that moves with shocking speed. At least ten feet long and five feet high, it approaches the corpse with a low noise.

And it begins to eat . . .]

[isochrone]

[ Watching the figure right there, but unreactive to their presence, was so eerily like watching through one of her Tears that Elizabeth reflexively checked to make certain she hadn't accidentally opened one. It was still disconcerting to watch the figure walk through Coraline, and a soft gasp escaped the young woman, moving toward Coraline in concern to make sure she was all right. ]

Oh... that was...?

[ But then the figure calls out before dashing off, and then suddenly the lights are running amok. Elizabeth whirls toward the window, trying to parse what's happening, when the sudden scream makes her jump and she nearly lets one out herself, choking it off at the last second into a squeak instead.

But then.

For a moment, she doesn't understand what she's looking at. The stillness of the figure on the ground, the slackness of the skin and the absolute sense of wrongness. It's not until the white creature comes and... and... and...

Elizabeth clamps a hand over her mouth, her face going bloodless with alarming speed, but she seems frozen to the spot in abject horror, unable to look away. ]

[ultraviolents]

[ the woman walking through coraline confirms elektra's suspicions that she's not hearing or seeing them, that they're viewing something that's already happened. before she can reach out to either of her companions, the scene changes, light and dark shifting in and out so fast it makes her head spin. and then, just as suddenly as it begins, it stops. and then there's the scream.

the girl from before is lain out on the ground, barely more than a skin covered skeleton now, mouth slack and eyes staring at nothing. and elektra has seen enough death to know what she's become. ]

We need to leave. Now.

[ but before she can make the move to grab either of them and run, the creature comes from out of nowhere, huge and quicker than it should be able to move. and then it starts to feast.

elektra grabs for elizabeth's shoulder, turning her away from the gruesome scene, and takes her hand, running towards coraline to grab hers as well. the fact that the creature is eating the corpse of the girl and hasn't moved towards any of them suggests that it's in the past, too, but she doesn't want to press their luck. ]

Run!

[inthenightmods]

[They race away, and for the moment, the creature doesn't seem intent on chasing them. Which is good! Because now they've got to contend with the shelves.

No matter which way they run, the women will sooner or later find themselves skidding to a halt at the same gory scene they just fled. Take a left, take a right, double back, try to climb the shelves . . . it doesn't matter. They always, always end up stumbling onto the creature, awful wet noises bubbling out of its mouth as it tears at flesh and snaps bone. Until the person's torso is emptied, their intestines slurped down, their lungs torn, their heart chewed upon . . .

And then, just as swiftly as it came, it leaves: heading past one of the shelves and ducking to the left, and then it's just gone.

Best not to go where it goes, huh?

The next time they turn, though, they'll find they actually get somewhere: three, four, five shelves, and then they run into someone. Another spirit.

The creature tears the books off the shelf, frantically opening them and tearing pages out, just to shove them beneath their robes. The frantic noises of eating fill the air.

The Librarian's always hungry, after all.

[isochrone]

[ It's a good thing that Elektra has a firm grip on Elizabeth's hand because the younger woman's good senses seem to have completely fled. Especially when it turns out that they cannot escape the scene of the white creature feasting, and the sight and sound are too much for her. Elizabeth sinks to wobbly knees, coughing on bile that burns her throat, a breathy whimper escaping her. Some logical part of her knows that she should pull herself together, that this is such a dangerous situation and she's not helping, but the tableau is so gruesome that it overrides all sane thought in the moment.

When it finally leaves, she's left shaking, shivering, the sour taste of adrenaline staining her tongue. ]

Please... let's go... I want to leave.

[ The shelves, mercifully, oblige this time.

The new spirit does not.

Strangely, the site of the books being desecrated spurs Elizabeth to ire, of all things. ]

No! You're ruining the books!

[ultraviolents]

[ they turn the corners and run down the aisles enough times that elektra loses count of how many. the scene doesn't want to let them leave until they bear witness to all of it, and elektra has received and doled out enough bloodshed that this shouldn't affect her as much as it is. but there's a difference between brutality and savagery; there's a difference between eating to survive and gorging yourself to relish in your prey's suffering. elektra follows elizabeth down, both to help and to not look anymore, steadying her hands on the other woman's shoulders as she retches, focusing on a spot on the floor until the roiling in her own stomach quells.

she helps elizabeth stand once she's finished, glancing up at coraline as she straightens, eyes somehow both wild and focused. the creature disappears, leaving what was once the young woman desecrated on the floor. ]

Let's go. [ if they can. and they seem to be fortunate enough to be able to now that they've seen what the spirits want them to.

unfortunately, they now have another to contend with, just when they think they're getting somewhere.

elizabeth shouts at the creature tearing apart the books, somehow missing the more pertinent sound of something feeding filling the room. ]

Forget the books, go! Run to the exit!

im so sorry again

[primordialerebus]

[ Coraline, who had been stunned into silence, simply let herself be dragged. Her mind races as she repeatedly stares in horror at the scene reappearing scene. Is this… did the spirits just appear and eat the townspeople? What the fuck happened to this place? Is this their fate too? She can’t help but feel like she’s missing something. Shouldn’t she be feeling sick right about now?

She nearly screams when they run into the Librarian, surprised at their sudden appearance. Yet, she’s also slightly relieved, because… they know the Librarian right? At least kind o--… Nevermind best to get out of here. ]

We- we can check on the books after!

[isochrone]

[ In hindsight, days from now, Elizabeth will feel a bit silly having expressed concern for the books. In the moment however, it seems like the only safe thing to focus on that's not monsters, corpses, or other horrors. Books are familiar and safe to her. This is a blow.

Her boots clatter across the floor toward the exit, which thankfully seems to have lost its furniture barricade somewhere in the chaos of the shifting scenes they've been forced to witness. Even still, her hands are shaking as the grabs the handles to tug the doors open. ]

What if there are more spirits outside now...?

[inthenightmods]

[The good news: there are no more spirits outside! The bad (?) news: this is where the dream ends. The second Elizabeth grabs the doors, they burst open. The women get a split-second moment to see what lies outside: the area outside the library all lit up in the pre-dawn light, with absolutely no one outside, despite all those noises of before.

It barely lasts. Soon enough, their vision goes black and they'll wake up.]