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

[inthenightmods]

Right is right, or at least so it seems! The instant all three of them slip to the right, the tunnel suddenly grows wider. But it also stops about three feet ahead, despite the fact a moment ago it seemed endless. There's a small cart suddenly there, big and a little rusted, and in it . . .

Copper ore. Mounds of it, green and red, stacked in a haphazard pile. Dust is settled on it, suggesting it's been here for some time, along with a broken lantern, a pickaxe, and one single, darkly stained glove.

How odd.

They don't have long to speculate, though, because guess who's back. It's Molly they go for this time, and it's more than just hands: something wraps tightly around the length of his body, binding his legs, his arms to his side-- and then the sensation of something rooting an groping around his face, over his chin, up and up and then there, and two tendrils slip where they shouldn't, slipping into his eye sockets, severing, pulling--

But then again, how bad is blindness when one's in a dark tunnel, right?

[mollymocked]

Wider is better. Molly's having a moment that's covering up with the best that bullshit can offer. Being underground, the walls closing in... It's a little too much like a grave. Like waking up to dirt in your face, slowly suffocating as you fight with every bit of strength in you to get out.

...He's honestly pretty consumed by that thought, so much that he barely registers the scene laid out before them. Maybe that's what makes him a target- that he hangs back a bit to collect himself and shoo the errant panic away.

But it doesn't go away- it's just replaced by new panic as he suddenly feels something wrapping around him like the coils of a snake. He struggles, trying to get to his blades, but his arms are pinned and all he can do is kick and flail and try to bite at nothing, only to stop when he feels that.

What no one wanted to see- that Molly's solid red eyes are red from front to back like two bloody orbs attached to clusters of nerves. Molly's lucky in that he doesn't have to see it at all, but he can hear his own anguished painful scream echoing down the chamber.

[lunchbreaks]

Aziraphale is busy picking through the items and trying to figure out if someone's passed here before when he feels the creature pass by, and though he raises a sword it's too late.

"Get away from him!" he yells, as he swings wildly at it in an attempt to weaken it or even just chase it off. "You have taken more than your fill, now go!" he exclaims with a thread of panic. No one can see this in the dark, least of all Molly, but Aziraphale pushes down all the fear and dread currently rising in him, favoring a bravery and a stupidity.

[justcawse]

Well, so much for taking the wing along, but there's nothing that could be done about that. So for now he's just focusing on his surroundings, as well this tunnel. As the sides get closer, he preemptively put his mask on top of his head to try to help get through. Now they had a choice...

Honestly, he had no idea what side would be better, so he's okay with just following behind and keeping an eye behind them. "The way it came... It might be a way out I suppose...," he chimed in. But the moment they went right, he was thankful to have space again. Not bothering to move his mask back on his face, he was too busy taking in the new area. Inspecting the broken lantern, he couldn't help but wonder if it belonged to a fellow Beacon citizen. He was going to check the rest of the stuff when his concentration was broken with the threat showing itself again.

Shit! Do something! Anything! But what can he do to help? Damn it! In the short span of time he had to think, it had already succeeded. He tensed a bit to the scream, but it wasn't unexpected. At least Aziraphale was trying to use the saber to ward it off like he would have had he had it, but they weren't fast enough.

There wasn't much he could do unfortunately. All he could do was try to help free Molly however way possible. If they can get him free at least, he'll catch him from falling, slinging Molly's arm around his neck.

[inthenightmods]

The bindings spring free the moment Aziraphale swings at them, slipping away to fade into the darkness. Akechi gets Molly's arm slung around his neck, and all seems to be well. Or, hm. Stable, anyway. Perhaps not well. Sorry, Molly.

A wing, a pair of eyes . . . and now those tendrils drop lower. It's all but impossible to see them in the light (or if your eyes are missing, again, sorry, Molly), but sooner or later, Akechi will feel them brushing against his ankles, nudging gently. Prying at his shoes, lifting the hem of his trousers up a little . . .

And then cutting, deep and swift, a slice along one tendon, then another, cutting through his ankles like a hot knife through butter. A wing, a pair of eyes, and not just blood, but an ability: walking is so much harder when you haven't the tendons to do it.

And behind them: a bellow, low and distorted and inhuman and loud. Better figure out what you're doing, boys.

[mollymocked]

"The fuck-" Molly barks indignantly with a manic sort of laughter bubbling up from his throat, because he can't even process any of this properly right now. He can feel hot, sticky blood on his face like a flood of tears from the dark holes where his eyes used to be, and the whole concept is somehow cosmically disturbing and hilarious. He goes boneless against Akechi, unaware of what's about to happen, so if Akechi is about to fall, Molly's going down on top of him.

[lunchbreaks]

Aziraphale hears a sound like a gunshot and the two of them tumble backwards even as he reaches out and tries to stop them from doing so-- kind of hard to do with a sword in your hand and a semi-permeable enemy at bay.

"Away, fiend!" he shouts as he runs over and just throws healing miracles in their general direction, as much power as he has - which is probably stable but in no working condition - and starts to rip off part of his clothes to act as bandages.

"I think I'm going to need you both to get in this cart so I can push it," Aziraphale remarks, trying to hide the panic in his voice and utterly failing.

[justcawse]

This whole situation was bizarre to start with, but he'd been warned things get pretty nasty around here. No matter how prepared you are, anything can happen. There was only so much you could do to prep yourself. Normally even considering to help another person didn't cross his mind, but they were all in this together. It did him no good if the others were out of commission. He's certain if Akira heard Goro was actually trying to help someone, he'd be proud, but this was no the time to think about that. Instead, he's so focused on trying to make sure Molly doesn't tumble over that he hasn't even considered being cut down himself.... Literally.

The moment he felt something brushing against his ankles, he was about to shake it off, but now he's more focused on the fact that his ankles were currently being sliced through. Letting out a sudden, loud shriek of pain as he lost his balance; Unable to support the two of them. He was trying to help and instead the both of them were going to crash to the floor. Despite his ankles being out of commission and in pain, he still tried to cushion the fall as he slammed his hand down cushion what little he could. If nothing else, at least Molly wouldn't fall nearly as hard as he would had he not tried. Perhaps all it did was cause more unnecessary injury to his wrist, but instincts were a bitch and he had to act fast. So Molly is still going to tumble down no matter what with him, but now that they're on the ground, he's focused on his new injuries.

"Shit!" He exclaimed, trying not to focus on the pain so much as the situation. There were more important things to worry about here and if they didn't move, there was going to be more problems. With Aziraphale's healing miracles, he feels a little better, but it still stings.

"I'll try. I'm not sure how much I'll be able to move," and he hates that. He hates the idea of being useless. It's hard to stand on his injured tendons, but he's pushing himself to try at least. Using the side of the cart, he tried to pull himself up so he didn't have to rely on his feet too much, but there's only so much he can do like this. After a few failed attempts to stand up enough to be able to climb into the cart, he managed to at least slump against the cart. He's just going to ignore the blood that's seeping into his pant legs and feet.

[inthenightmods]

Anything can happen. There's only so much you can do to prepare yourself. And unfortunately . . . sometimes, no matter how hard you try, no matter what routes you take, even if you're experienced, even if you know how this goes, even if you're angelic . . . sometimes, you lose.

Akechi and Molly climb in the cart, jostling aside copper scraps. And then the beast turns, filling the mine shaft with its bulk, and they finally see it. All of it. Insect-like in nature, with too many mandibles extending out of a torso that might be human. A face, too, although the eyes have long since been covered by flesh. But the mouth, grinning excitedly, bearing teeth needle-thin and a glee that's positively sadistic. Ghostly hands brush around it, groping at the edges of the doorway, picking at the wood, the track below, as curious as they are destructive.

The Bishop has come.

What happens next is, perhaps, inevitable. They know this. They're soothed by it, their panic and pain hushed, their grief swept away. This was always going to be the end. It's natural. Grasshoppers are eaten by toads, and toads are eaten by snakes, and snakes are eaten by birds, and birds are eaten by humans . . . and here, now, they're going to serve as sustenance. It's not personal. But it is an enormous honor.

It moves to consume them. Slowly, savoring each person before moving on to the last. It doesn't force them to stay alive, but nor does it rush the kill. And they three of them will just watch, waiting patiently, eyes half-closed and knowing deep in their hearts, that this was always meant to be.

Perhaps they're lucky and bleed out. But more likely they watch the Bishop as he eats, hunched over their torn-open stomachs, blood and entrails dripping from his mouth-- and when the pain becomes too much to bear, when their bodies give out, when it's just too much . . .

. . . they wake in the real world.