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?

QUICKNAV
comms	|	network • logs • memes • ooc
pages	|	rules • faq • taken • mod contact • player contact • calendar • setting • exploration • item requests • full nav

Comments

Quentin Coldwater - ota

[moderatelymaladjusted]

Lead in-

[Quentin doesn't trust the spirits.

Not even the seemingly harmless ones in town and this is why he's at home while Eliot is away to join the feast. He's living off left-overs and half a bottle of cheap-tasting red wine, sulking to himself and playing Sudoku while apparently everyone else are willing to let bygones be bygones and party with someone who might be behind a lot of the horribleness in Beacon.

Eliot stumbles in, they fall asleep, and he hears little about the feast because when Quentin makes up his mind about something, he can be surprisingly stubborn about it. And this is one of those things.

It's the noise that wakes him up, and it seems as if no time at all has passed since he put his head down and he jolts awake in the dark. There's someone at the door. Loud, clanging noises as if something is trying to claw the door open. The keyword being claw, since that sharp clicking sound isn't made by any hands he'd ever seen.

Quentin rolls over, nudges Eliot and-- nothing. Eliot is still breathing, but he's not waking up and Quentin starts to quietly panic, feeling for a pulse (which he finds) and shaking him awake (which fails). Whatever he does, Eliot doesn't wake up and the noise from downstairs doesn't stop.

He hurries down to take a look, fully expecting him to follow and what he see, makes his blood run cold. The edge of the trees looks alive. So many spirits, it's almost impossible to tell one from the other, all of them swarming like locusts towards the cabins. Carried on stilted and pointy legs, crawling along the forest floor on their bellies, but with way too many legs.

1. Cabin fever first few days

[And one of them is trying to turn the door handle to the cabin.

Quentin is down the stairs in the blink of an eye, spell on his lips and his fingers moving through the tuts for magic missile as he wrenches open the door and hurls the curse in to the face (?) of whatever it is, throwing it through the air.]

Holy shit!

[As the creature shakes itself off and gets up on shaky legs, heads bowed and bony shoulders trembling before it charges at him again, the sharp pointy things at the ends of it's legs slashing the earth.]

Someone? Jesus, is anyone out here--!?

2- on the road somewhere between 17/18/19

[It just wasn't possible to stay at the cabin anymore. No food, plenty of water and no pee-breaks. So, Quentin, tired and weary and not at all up for any of this shit, when all he had was one can of fruit and a bottle of water, times it. He watches the spirits attack in waves, clawing and biting at the wooden walls, pushing against the make-shift barriers and he watches as they fall back for a little while.

When it seems safe - ha! Okay, when it seems safer, he hurries to the tree line, grabbing two long pieces of wood and dashes right back to the relative safety of the cabin.

Thank god for junior cowboy camp!

He makes a travois, using the strips of sheets he'd set aside to mark the way in the forest with, to bind the two poles together and fastening one of the bed covers to the frame with spells, he carefully places Eliot in to it, straps on his messenger bag and the quiver of arrows and heads out, bow in hand.

It's along, long way through the dark, dragging Eliot all the way and watching out for spirits and Quentin keeps the Sumerian Shield Spell close to the surface of his mind as he makes his way out of the cabin area and up towards the town.]

3 - Town Square and the Bonfire somewhere between 18/19-21/22

[Food gone and water depleted, Quentin stumbles in to the town square and falls down in front of the bonfire. He's cold, so fucking cold, despite how much he's sweating right now from trying to drag Eliot all this fucking way. The travois falls from around his waist and he just stays there, breathing hard for a few minutes and trying to soak up some of the heat from the flames before he has to go on.

But.

And there's always a 'but' in stories like this, just as he's feeling maybe not completely miserable, something explodes out of the trees and comes for him, it's large snout sniffing the air as the raises itself on its hind legs- the body is an oozing black mess, like someone had turned it inside out and left it still alive in the forest and now it wants someone else to feel the pain.

It stalks closer on stiff legs and Quentin nocks an arrow and casts the Declan's Accuracy Spell, waiting- waiting-waiting]

4 - On the road again - remix somewhere around 21/22 - network

If there's anybody out there who wants to go to the armory, I'll be leaving in three hours from the Invincible. I think it would be better to travel in a group, but.

I'm not waiting, so come if you want to and bring food. And Water. There should be plenty of weapons when we get there.

5 - There'll be peace when you are done, the armory end-days

[Despite everything, the spirits, dragging the dead-weight called Eliot and feeling so clod he's not sure he's ever going to feel warm again, Quentin made it all the way from the cabins in the woods to the armory, on foot. Dragging Eliot along when he had to, and used magic when he didn't have anything else left to give.

The armory is here, though. Almost whole and stocked to the rafters with weapon, most of them he has no idea how to use, but there's not really any choice anymore. The Sleepers - Eliot hadn't been the only one not waking up, half the town seemed to be fast asleep at this point, passed out around the town and carefully picked up and tended to by the ones who were left.

Nothing seemed to wake them up, not food or water. No loud noises and no amount of pain or pinches could move them. Fast asleep and too vulnerable by half because of it.

He drinks his water and swallows the rest of his piece of bread before grabbing more arrows to head out to join the fray.]

Wildcard- find him somewhere between the cabins and the armory? can be at any point during the event

@Grandmaster

[paletteswap]

Are you planning to gather supplies and bring them back to the Invincible? Or set up a secondary base of operations at the armory?

[moderatelymaladjusted]

I'm going to the armory. I'd like to have supplies, but I'll go without it if I have to. There's too many people in the Invincible already and it's attracting the spirits.

It's better to split up, and the armory has weapons. And it's hidden. The Invincible is right out there in the open.

[paletteswap]

Hidden from us, not from the creatures attacking. They can see in the dark and have been here far longer than us, they likely know of even more structures we have yet to discover.

Are you going to take some of those who are unconscious with you to divide up who needs protection?

[moderatelymaladjusted]

how do you know it's not hidden from the spirits? did you ask them? And right now? I don't really give a shit about what they might know, because we can't exactly use that to keep anyone safe. We know the armory only has one way in or out, that's a whole lot safer than trying to cover a whole hotel.

As many as I can safely carry, yes.

[paletteswap]

Acting without thinking is how you get yourself, and others killed.

How many is that?

[moderatelymaladjusted]

Just because I don't want to spend useless time thinking about what the spirits might know? It's bullshit and it would be using time that I just don't have. If they know about more buildings and we don't? There's NOTHING we can do about it right now. Later, maybe. But right now? Fuck no. Unless you're not under attack? I'm spending my time saving as many as I can, finding the best place to protect them. And that's the armory. Anyone could pull the Invincible apart.

So far? Two. But if I have help, it will be more.

[paletteswap]

The state of their dwellings is clearly not my point and you are intentionally misunderstanding me.

Your plan is foolhardy, but if you are insistent on it then I wish you luck. Moreso for those you take with you who cannot defend themselves.

edit line is ic edit

[moderatelymaladjusted]

Stop being an asshole. I'm not, you think all of us hiding together is going to be what saves us? You think taking the risk of exposing myself and the sleepers is stupid, because you're not seeing the bigger picture. If one of the places fall, there's going to still be survivors who knows what we know. If we're all in one place...

I'm not helpless and I'm not taking on a bigger risk by making my way to the armory, than I did making my way to the Invincible three days ago. I can take care of myself, and any sleepers I find.

Edited (I just don't want to have to do it alone) removed 2019-10-22 05:37 pm (UTC)

[paletteswap]

I'm trying to protect as many as I can. Yes the Invincible is not the best place and I'm well aware it can be overrun.

It's not splitting up the helpless it's dividing up the fighters that I think would be detrimental. I see what you're intending to do, and it seems sensible to you. But less people protecting each area does not make sense.

Say we go with this plan. You and however many go with you. What if the entirety of the spirits attack the Invincible who now has half the defenses we did? If they divide their forces this works as we need less in the way of manpower. But if they are smart they'll hit one and then the other.

[There's a long pause before the next set of texts.]

But I agree that something must be done. We cannot stand siege forever.

What would you need of me for your plan if you are intending to go through with it?

[moderatelymaladjusted]

You've seen them? Do they seem that smart to you? This is an honest question, by the way? And not just. Nevermind.

Most of the spirits I've seen so far, seem to just attack if they see any of us? Or, maybe it that we're fighting back? I haven't seen any of them attack a sleeper, not even one that's left alone outside. What I'm trying to say is, that a grand unified attack on one place, just doesn't seem that likely? But, yeah, I get your point. What if you're left defenseless - but, there are already people at the armory. They need help too.

Someone to help me get the sleepers to the armory? Keep them safe. Someone to help drag supplies, because I can't carry it all on my own? Not when I have to be ready for an attack or. Worse.

[It ticks in a little later.]

If I die. I need someone else there, in case I die.

[paletteswap]

The creatures in the forest? Yes. I've spoke to some of the friendlier ones - they're intelligent enough to understand us, but they have a much different language. We were given instruments to communicate, but I haven't tried them.

If you mean the larger, green-eyed creatures that are attacking - I've seen them but I don't know just how intelligent they are. Even if they are animals, in a pack they are smarter than on their own.

[He reads those last two paragraphs a few more times. His need to protect literally everyone has gone into major overdrive the past few weeks and while he's exhausted, he can't let up.]

I can assist with that. Where are you? When do you wish to leave?

[moderatelymaladjusted]

I tried the ocarina, but. It didn't work? It just made the spirits curious? I haven't tried it during the attack. Maybe I should.

I haven't seen the green eyed ones in packs, only the other ones. The green eyed ones, they. Seem to attack differently? I've been having a lot of really fucking strange thoughts when they're around.

I'm at the Invincible? By the front door, almost. You can't miss me, since I'll be the one wearing a-- you'll see. But I'll be leaving in about two hours. I can carry some of what I need, but. The water alone would slow me down too much.

Thank you.

Text -> Action

[paletteswap]

The green-eyed ones do seem to be behind some of the stranger occurrences here. I'm unsure how long you've been here, but recently we were hallucinating - seeing hands puppeting everyone and hearing screams and voices of those back home. A few speculated it was caused by those creatures.

If they can manipulate our minds while attacking we're at a distinct disadvantage.

I'm on my way. I'm upstairs trying to maintain some of the barriers without going outside.

[He's been shooting balls of ice at the walls he created near some of the windows in an attempt to keep them frozen. When he comes downstairs he hopefully doesn't look as exhausted as he feels (he probably does), because there's still a whole lot of fighting ahead of him. Dressed in leather and metal armor, he's fiddling with one of his gauntlets while he tries to figure out which one of these people is who he was talking to.]

1 | 16th

[darkeyed]

<sub>[It's a canny joke on the spirits' part, really; the spirits had attacked before when they'd lured them in with a party, and now the spirits have lured them out with the same.

With a few key differences. These spirits are not half so weak, and the human side is hobbled, disastrously so, by the unconscious.

It's a nightmare--a literal nightmare, filled with impossible creatures. It's a bloodbath. In the town square, it's all he can do not to be bowled over in the initial surge of the ambush. He hadn't even heard them--but then, this is their world. Their little human-held community has always been at the spirits' mercy, no different than his childhood village at the mercy of Quinn's clippers. And they, it would seem, have come to collect.

He's no boy fleeing from swords and the stench of blood anymore. His fists and feet are as good as any blunt force weapon when wielded with the force of the gift, and by the time he finishes dragging some of the unconscious inside--the well-groomed woman with the picture perfect hair and clothes one of them, dangling like a doll in his arms--his clothes are already splattered in the blood of the spirits. He needs his armor. He needs his weapons.

It's purely the work of fortuitous timing that he's leaving his own cabin to the sound of someone else's under siege.

They're attacking from this direction, too, are they--? Well, they'll have to fight for it so long as he's still breathing.

An answer comes from above: M.K., twin scimitars out, leaps out of the dark and onto the spirit's back, driving it back down to the earth with his weight and the blades he slashes deep into it from behind. Changing grips, he draws a bloody line from shoulders to spinal cord; the head loosens once the blades cross, pulling free of the hideously deformed body.]</sub>

[moderatelymaladjusted]

[It's a near thing, getting the door shut before he finds himself with an arm full of monster, but Quentin manages to kick it closed, bracing his back against it, just waiting for the inevitable end when the monster figures out how to open doors or that windows are fragile glass-things.

Braced and waiting, Eliot still in the bed upstairs and why? Why isn't any of this waking him up?

Minutes pass and there's no loud thump on the door, and there are no spindly arms reaching for him through the tiny window just beside his head like something out of a horror movie.

There's wet, squishy sounds, though. Coming from just outside and hands ready, Quentin sneaks the door open to look.

The spirits with the impossibly long legs is dead, in pieces on the ground just outside the cabin and there's someone standing over it like a hunter over a fresh kill, swords in hand.]

Hey! Thanks! I don't know what happened, but it came out of nowhere!

[Rushing through his explanation, chest almost heaving because he's not stopping to breathe before he gets it all out.] What the fuck? It was trying to get in to my house?

[darkeyed]

<sub>[He's not at all sure what's fatal to a human is always fatal to every kind of spirit, but decapitation seems thorough enough in this case. He stands up straight over the body, which doesn't move. Dead. As dead as dead gets.

While he was busy, it would seem the non-combatant--what he thinks of most people until proven otherwise--managed to secure himself inside the cabin with little difficulty. He looks up as the door clicks open with black eyes that reflect light like moonlight on oil.]</sub>

They're attacking. Something at the table of food went wrong.

_{[Little does he realize that something went right and it's the rest of them the spirits consider a problem--but right now he can only deal in the facts, which is that this is looking an awful lot like the last celebration they staged.]}

These aren't the usual spirits.

[moderatelymaladjusted]

What?

[It's not that he didn't hear, because Quentin did, even if he doesn't believe it. Something went wrong at the feast and there's the total lack of Eliot that's more than a little worrying. He should be down here by now. He should be standing there, vest and all, overlooking the mess in front of the cabin they chose and make a witty quip about bloody neighbors or something like it.

But the room behind him is empty and Quentin frowns, hands clenching at his sides as he turns back around, eyes on M.K. and his kind of cool, kind of disturbing black eyes.]

What do you mean, went wrong? Wrong how? And-- the spirits? It didn't seem all that unusual to me? Except for how it wanted to, uh, eat my face?

[darkeyed]

_{[In answer, he steps off the body and reaches for the back of the slain spirit's neck, lifting its top half off the ground. Displaying it in the event Quentin didn't get enough of an eye full the first time.]}

This look like one of the normal spirits in town to you?

_{[It's dry, and in the next beat he drops the corpse face-down again with the faintest grimace of distaste around his mouth for having touched it with his bare hands.]}

I don't know. _{[The cross irritation boiling behind the admission is the product of long simmering frustration at his lack of insight. Very little about this place has ever made sense to him, and now this.]} Everyone who ate the food just dropped. Once that happened, spirits started pouring out of the trees. They were obviously waiting for the chance.

The village won't be safe much longer--run for town, find shelter, stay there. They're cutting down everyone they find.

sleeping beauty

[itselbitch]

[ it's one of those moments when you simply realize you're realizing something, and it feels almost unreal, except that in realizing, you in fact wake, the act itself what holds you consciousness at center and pins it there, even if you'd rather sink back under into that soothing emptiness of rest.

the next thing he notices is how dry his mouth is, and he coughs, choking immediately as his throat is also dry. how long had he been out? eliot lurches upright, which is a mistake. his head throbs painfully, the ache of a slumber that's long past its due doing worse to him than most mornings, though possibly the fact he's more often inebriated than not might have something to do with it. he's clearly sobered while asleep. and not really had enough water to combat the alcohol burn.

groaning, eliot scrubs his face, sitting forward to press the backs of his hands into his knees. there's a crick in his neck, a knot in his back, and he needs a painkiller or. something. ]

[moderatelymaladjusted]

[It's pure accident that Quentin is walking past the sleepers when Eliot sits up. He's trying to find water, food, anything of use for the first person who coughed their way awake only ten minutes ago and he wanted to, but didn't dare, stay next to Eliot to hope.

Hoping hadn't helped yet, and for all they know, maybe this one woke up because the moon was in the right place or maybe it had something to do with the sheets someone had folded so carefully over them.

Whatever it was, it flies straight out of Quentin's head as soon as he sees the well-known head lift from where he placed him himself four or five days ago. Swallowing hard, Quentin counts to ten. Then twenty. Making sure Eliot is still sitting up, before he launches himself across the room in a fraction of a second, sliding to his knees next to Eliot, and the wound on his back pulls painfully when he lifts his arms, but fuck it. Quentin throws both arms around Eliot's neck.]

Shit! Eliot!

[itselbitch]

[ he groans, the shout doing nothing to help with the headache. ] Q? Jesus-- [ he draws away from his knees and hands and tries to look in his direction. ]

What th-- [ it's only then eliot starts too take in his surroundings. ] How the hell did I get here?

[moderatelymaladjusted]

What? Oh, I dragged you. That's-- Eliot [breathless and with so much feeling behind just that]-- that's not important. [Not really giving a shit if Eliot frowns or tries to pull away, Quentin is just going to hug harder.] You're at the armory. I thought-- it was stupid, because I should have known you'd. But you're awake. [With amazement in his voice, and Quentin pulls way only far enough to look Eliot over, eyes roving over his face and his hands fluttering over Eliot's arms, down to blindly grab for his hands.]

[itselbitch]

[ still barely coherent, he lets quentin do whatever he needs to do, hands slack as they're maneuvered. ]

Yeah, I'm awake. It's-- I mean. It was just dream magic. From the spirits? I guess. Maybe to. I don't know.

Why are we at the armory?

[moderatelymaladjusted]

Dream magic? What?

[Which makes a weird kind of sense and then again not, because why the hell with the attacks? Quentin just frowns, clutching Eliot's hands in his. His back feels like it's on fire and Eliot might notice the lacerations on Quentin's hands or the bruises on his face. Or maybe not, there's not a lot of light in the room, just the lanterns, carefully placed next to each sleeper and watched over.]

I-- the cabin wasn't safe? I wanted to get you somewhere safe, and. Yeah, so. That's here. We've been-- shit. We've been trying to keep you all hydrated, and yeah, I know, the popular theory goes that if you're sleeping enough you don't need food or water, but. I wasn't about to take that one for a test drive in the middle of everything else. But it doesn't matter. You're awake.