logsinthenight | EVENT LOG: GRAVES

EVENT LOG: GRAVES

EVENT LOG:
GRAVES

characters: everyone.
location: Bonfire Square.
date/time: July 12-19.
content: mysterious shrines appear and bring visions of death.
warnings: likely violence and potentially gore.

time to pay your respects.

It happens when no one is looking, when most of the town is asleep and the rest are inside. A makeshift cemetery has come to Beacon, taking up residence in the middle of Bonfire Square. Each monument, shrine, and altar is dedicated to someone who now resides here, a memorial of their previous life.

Some may be drawn by curiosity, others by fear, and some may simply have to pass through this strange graveyard to get to the Bonfire itself. Whenever a person gets near, the altars beckon with a mysterious urge— an urge to approach, and an urge to leave something behind. They will feel compelled to make offerings at the various shrines, but doing so has a curious effect; it causes one to experience the death of the person whose grave they've honored.

Whether you resist the compulsion or give in willingly (or something in between), you'll also have to wrestle with the fact that a grave exists for you. Will you let your death be known, or try your best to keep it secret? Destroying it sure won't work, as it will return— with a duplicate somewhere else in town.

However you choose to deal with this, one thing is hard to ignore— this a tangible reminder of your death, and the fact that it's probably permanent.

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[ There are certain weights Nate is glad to be rid of, and while this isn't necessarily an emotional unburdening, that thick coin is as heavy as all his other lies. Passing it on to somebody who might appreciate it a little better, with a little more care, seems appropriate.

Gene seems to like it, at any rate, looking over an old pirate clue with a curiosity Nate knows well. His smile quirks crooked when he finally speaks, and Nate ambles closer as he tucks his own gift away. ]

Lucky for you, that guy only collects pennies.

[ For a post-mortem taxi service, Charon is being criminally underpaid. ]

18th century. Came from a cathedral in Scotland. It was actually part of a booby trap, if you can believe it.

( he didn't spend much time in scotland. it didn't call to him the way wales an' ireland did. but the scottish hills were a thing of beauty when they saw them from the c-47s makin' trial night jumps in the highlands. the ocean air that smelled so different from what he remembered from mobile bay, the way the moon glinted down on rolling hills an' jagged cliffs.

he wishes he'd had more of a chance to see it. maybe he could'a found that cathedral nate was talkin' about, admittedly some eighty or so years before he must've found it. )

Sounds like a story I've gotta hear. ( he tips his head to the grave. ) Maybe somewhere a little less... ah. Fraught?

( he doesn't want to suggest that maybe they oughta leave outright, but. nate's a gentle man in a quiet night, an' he shouldn't be standin' out here contemplatin' his own end when they're still breathin' like they are, as alive an' well as anyone can be. gene knows enough of him now to recognize the quality of what he carries an' how deep sufferin' an' loss cleaves to him. if the least he can do is pull him back some from the abyss, he'll do it unflinching. )

[ There's an adventurer's blood in Gene, even if he never got to exercise it properly. Nate can tell in the way he examines the coin and demonstrates an appreciation for the history, a kind of muted excitement in his eyes in spite of his genteel Southern demeanor. Nate doesn't mind telling (most) of the story either, and is just opening his mouth to do so when Gene heads him off at the pass.

A fair point, though the headstone isn't upsetting him as much as he thought it would. He's taunted death enough, but the dismay of what he's left behind is a different matter entirely. ]

Sure.

[ Nate lifts his shoulders in a little shrug, turning in Gene's direction to start walking. ]

What do you know about pirates?

( they fall into an easy step. gene matches his stride as a matter of habit. maybe it's deliberate, how he puts himself between nathan an' the other graves on the way past the rows. )

Mm. ( a soft, speculative noise. alabama didn't deal with piracy the way the carolinas did, that's for damn sure, to say nothin' of the carribean itself. few errant ghosts, but nobody claimin' to be anybody famous. ) Met a few, but it ain't my wheelhouse.

( he has a feelin' that nate's about to change that, an' honestly he's lookin' forward to it. gene has an abiding love of history, an' a keener eye to it than most simply by dint of bein' able to talk with folks what lived it. but nathan has a natural, deft love of it that's a damn contagious thing. )

[ If Nate notices the unspoken gesture, he doesn't say anything to point it out. Having come close to death so many times he feels as though he should be more affected by seeing it set in stone, but at present the only sensation in his limbs is a vague numbness to it. No denial, or anger, or fear. Not even acceptance. It's akin to being a tourist to his own life. ]

Well.

[ Better to occupy himself with something that requires his fullest attention, and he recalls - albeit belatedly - that he promised to tell Gene about the building he'd drawn in his sketchbook, covered in dense vines and falling to pieces. ]

There was this one...really notorious pirate, Henry Avery. When people think of a pirate flag - the skull and crossbones? - that was his sigil. But he didn't end up like most of them, hanged or gibbeted or turned privateer.

[ Here is where his demeanor turns, suckered into his own telling by virtue of liking the history and conspiracy too much to let his mood remain dampened. ]

He pulled off the biggest heist the world had ever seen, and then completely disappeared.

( the name don't ring familiar to him, but he files it away just the same. he's got a world's worth of obscure knowledge about folks history ain't never remembered, an' he's always considered it his duty to carry that, but it doesn't hurt to add somethin' fanciful once in a while.

he listens raptly, with the practiced ease of silence of someone who has a genuine joy in oral history, an' when nate's finished — )

An' you found out where he went to, I'm guessin'?

( local man understands storytelling tropes, news at 11. )

Yeah!

[ Nate says excitedly, having picked up steam again. As they walk he gestures animatedly, incapable of keeping the enthusiasm relegated to his face alone. ]

So here's the thing - he set up this series of tests, right? Sent invitations to wealthy pirate lords all across the Spanish Main, and if they could follow the clues he left behind without losing their lives in the process, it would lead them to a pirate colony he built off the coast of Madagascar. That coin-

[ Nate swings a hand in the direction of Gene's bag. ]

Was under a twelfth century cathedral in Scotland - the Cathedral of Saint Dismas - that Avery bought just to turn it into part of his scavenger hunt. Now, Saint Dismas was the- you know who he was, right?

( he just listens with a soft, rapt expression on his face. utterly engrossed.

nate ain't helpin' this crush none, that's for sure. )

Mm? Yeah, 'course I do. Church every Sunday, Nathan.

( lordy!! with a laugh, he gestures for the man to carry on with the tellin'. )

[ He lifts his hands in silent apology before continuing, as one doesn't like the assume the coursework provided to Catholics from other eras. People get funny about which stories to tell, come time for the homily. ]

So, Avery fancied himself a reflection of Dismas, liked the whole "penitent thief" angle. Basically made it the theological cornerstone of his operation, from the invitations he sent out in crosses with Saint Dismas on them, to the Latin he had stamped into the currency he minted. The paradise that Jesus referred to at Calvary would be Avery's city, Libertalia. The, uh- [ He doesn't pause in reaching for his sketchbook. ] Hodie mecum eris in paradiso.

[ Flipping through the pages he suddenly stops short, turning the book to Gene and pressing it into his hands. Sprawled across two pages is a cityscape, or the remains of one, a ruin from a bygone time trapped in plants and split stone, a small tower in the distance marked with Treasury? ]

He built that paradise. Recruited hundreds of people to settle and live there, had them store all their collective treasure in one bank, and then robbed them blind.

( well, that explains why nate hadn't been troubled by his story about a lost legionnaire. his mind drifts back to that picture, those city streets, an'... yeah, he can see the story unfoldin' as nate tells it. a paradise, true enough. it would'a seemed a haven, wouldn't it?

but one thing's the stickin' point in there. greed, he understands. may not like, may not ascribe to personally, but he gets it. human sins. but nate just said he took the biggest treasure haul of all time — surely, then, the man was set for life no matter how many cities he built? he wrinkles his nose a little, an' then just, )

The Hell for? He not have enough already?

( gene, abruptly not a fan of this avery fella, not one whit. )

[ The half-chuckle, half-sigh he emits is telling. Nate doesn't have a good answer, outside of guessing. He was spared a satisfying conclusion by virtue of his own death, and he doesn't know what they might have found in New Devon if they'd even gotten that far. ]

Pirates will be pirates.

[ Greedy, horrible people whose code only apply to those at sea, if at all. Nate lifts his shoulders in a shrug. ]

When we got to the treasury, it was empty. Some old manifests, some graffiti, but that was it. It looked like the settlers had organized a coup to try and get their wealth back, the courtyard was- it was a mess of bodies, barricades made of barrels and furniture, rebels and soldiers. When they found out their money was gone they defaced all the paintings of the pirate lords with the word "thief."

[ He pauses briefly, reaching for something else in his satchel and pulling out a thick gold coin about two inches wide. ]

This was all we found.

( there's a showmanship to nathan now. he steps inside a story an' inhabits it with the tellin', makin' it a livin, breathin' thing with a beatin' heart and a soul of its own. when he holds the coin out as the pièce de résistance, gene reaches out to take it for his own examination. seems a heavy thing to die for. an' it was dyin', wasn't it? because that's where the story ends.

gene flips the coin over his fingers, an' then passes it on back to nathan. )

Wish I could'a seen it. All that history — must'a been one Helluva sight.

It was.

[ Nate says with a wistful edge, something scratching at the back of his voice. He doesn't know yet if it's regret, and he hasn't tried to examine it too much. Like the ghosts that appear to Gene carrying the burden of unfinished business Nate feels the same longing, the pull for completion. It's different from the satisfaction he once sought when uncovering a city packed with ancient secrets. It's a kind of sadness.

He takes the coin, mouth pressed into a tight line as he rubs his thumb over the skull. Some paradise.

Just as quickly Nate tucks it away and recovers, flashing a smile. ]

Mountain real estate, beachfront views, the promise of freedom. What more could any aspiring liberty-seeker want?

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EVENT LOG: GRAVES

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