EVENT LOG: ENTER MR SANDMAN (DEFENDERS)

[inthenightmods]

EVENT LOG:
ENTER MR. SANDMAN (DEFENDERS)

characters: those who signed up as defenders for the event
location: all around Beacon
date/time: november 16-29
content: the defenders attempt to drive off a spirit invasion
warnings: lots of horror! body horror, psychological horror, gore, violence, etc.. please cw all threads where appropriate! mods will do the same

in your closet, in your head.

It all happens in a matter of moments. Your friends, your companions, and even some people you aren't all that fond of; everyone who took so much as a bite of the spirits' feast suddenly collapses into a comatose heap. Which is bad enough already, but the worst, by far, is yet to come.

Before anyone can really figure out what's happened to the sleepers, the woods surrounding the town come alive with sound. Rustling, screeching, clicking, howling, and under it all, the characteristic hoots and whistles of the forest spirit tongue. But these aren't the friendly creatures that set up the banquet in the first place, and they aren't the familiar faces (or masks) from around Beacon. As they begin to emerge, bursting forth from the trees, these spirits reveal themselves as a horrifying army of terrors. And sprinkled among them, distinguishable by the emerald glint in their sockets, are the infamous "green eyes", the dangerous spirits that appeared once before.

Attempting to talk to these spirits is a moot point, made obvious by their immediate assault on anyone they get close to. They attack with claws and teeth, with limbs far stronger than they have any right to be, and the green eyes, as they are wont to do, will try to get into your head. Somehow, they seem to know what it is that scares you most, and they don't seem too hesitant to use it. It's not clear what they want— are they here to eradicate you? To frighten you? To send a message?

Whatever the case, one thing is very clear: you and everyone else, sleeping or waking, are in serious danger. Are you ready to defend Beacon?

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Comments

D - the armory; don't think I'm not interested in C too 👀

[equinoctials]

[ The armory's camouflage is more effective when there are no torches to indicate its presence. Riku, who isn't fooled into thinking its location and their other resources haven't been carefully marked and noted by their attackers, has taken every torch from the vicinity and transferred them inside.

He's reluctant to open the door for nearly anyone, suspicious especially of those he didn't tell about his plan to secure people here, because he doesn't know if they've been compromised by the headgames the green-eyed spirits are capable of, he doesn't know their intentions, doesn't know if he can trust someone with the weapons inside.

Which puts plenty of people and Riku himself in something of a bind.

A major exception is Vanitas, who Riku smells coming. The panic, the fear, the malice and rage all belong to the Darkness and that negativity has only ever fueled him, makes him strong. He doesn't even need to pound a fist against the camouflaged door when Riku opens it, reaching for the strange darklight of Vanitas's lantern and instead pulling him inside by the shoulder.

Inside, it's dark. Riku's own lantern casts wild shadows, turning the barricades littering the room into long shadowy fingers and thorns jutting in all directions. It looks like he took every chair, table, and other frame-like object and lashed swords, spears, and polearms to each one until they bristled with sharp edges.

They would surely leave nothing unscathed that chose to blindly charge inside. The torch is near the way downstairs, further away. Riku scarcely waits for Vanitas to say anything before he slides a bar across the door, one brief screechy squeal of metal to shatter the quiet. ]

You came alone.

[ There are questions he doesn't ask in his panted observation. Is he safe? Is Vanitas hurt? How bad is it out there, it's all he can manage to keep a few people safely hidden here. ]

tl;dr wow sorry

[evulsed]

[ This cycle is how Beacon works on Vanitas: the lulls can be long and stretching, bleeding days of apathy into one another. Vanitas has no close ties to anyone in this town, and the people he interacts with he does so at infrequent whims at the best of times. He let it happen, once, with Gene— with Sora— and it did exactly what he knew it would. Bonds were a weakness, until they were shattered. Losing them was probably good. The pain has made him stronger.

But the problem is Beacon has given him a choice, and with that choice, Vanitas does his level best not to let it happen again.

Yet still, when these events happen, when the world acts on everyone and the spirits attack and the grief and despair and anguish start to rise— Vanitas turns to it like a flower toward the sun. Some part of him craves it, something innate rooted in the fact that even now, he has no light inside of him. He can't help feasting on the negativity, and like clockwork, it fosters that black spirited thing inside him.

He can't say what's different this time around. Maybe the fact that half of their number are out, sleeping peacefully. But there's more than enough rage pouring off the spirits this time around to make up the difference. So why it is that Vanitas finds himself helping the citizens instead of trying to further the designs of the spirits, he can't quite put his finger on.

What he doesn't understand is that, whether he's wanted it to happen or not, existing in a place with the constant influence of others— someone other than his Master— is changing him. ]

Who else would I come with?

[ Vanitas says it without looking at the other boy, instead, the reflected surface of his helmet melts away and his gaze sweeps the upheaval of Riku's handiwork. ]

Bruce is sleeping.

[ And he's the only person Vanitas has elected to spend any of his time with of his own volition. This impromptu team up with Jason is only because the other man refuses to leave Bruce under Vanitas' attention alone.

Vanitas turns his gaze on Riku after the fact, and his yellow eyes almost gleam in the darkness. It makes him look as inhuman as ever, and as sharp as he's been in weeks, all trace of his lingering indulgence on alcohol missing completely. All this despair, all the fighting— Vanitas feels as close to his version of normal as he possible could. ]

Where are the rest of your friends?

[equinoctials]

[ Riku has a theory about what's different this go around. Just like those who thought they knew everything about the nature of the heart had it wrong, just like those who thought they knew everything about Nobodies was wrong, people aren't just one kind of thing. Without hearts they aren't empty vessels merely imitating feelings, with hearts they're never entirely without darkness, without light, whether it comes to them internally or externally, no one being is an island, closed off from any influence.

Darkness can be used to bring out Light. It makes sense, when Riku believes without a single doubt that these two forces love each other, don't oppose as much as chase each other, orbiting around in perpetuity. Bright light casts the deepest shadows.

Vanitas has found something to protect, someone that matters. Having seen Bruce interact with Vanitas many times over the last month, he thinks he knows who to thank for that marked shift. It's... good, Riku thinks, because he had nothing to hold on to and so he drifted through self-destructive currents, it would have been a matter of time before it carried him over the edge into oblivion. They've traded barbs and blows, they've shared meals sitting shoulder to shoulder. Riku may not have known him as anything but another opponent before, but he knows him just a little better now.

The boy born out of darkness, raised in a dry and loveless land. He has a sweet tooth and a heart so bruised it's built up thick walls around it like hands form callouses. Riku doesn't ask about Bruce because he knows Vanitas wouldn't have left him unsafe, or as close as he could afford. ]

Scattered. Some are here. [ A pointed glance. ] Or the Invincible. Are you hurt?