EVENT LOG: GRAVES

[inthenightmods]

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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Comments

[hardwearing]

[ Seriously, Rosi, what did they feed you to get you so tall? Wash's lips quirk up a little, not quite a full smile but it's something. ]

We need to get you a floor cushion. And... yeah. I was stuck somewhere else, between home and here, and there were beings that played with us a lot like this. Mind games to make us feel specific emotions, that they fed off.

[ He didn't mention Hadriel to Rosi before, and has no idea that Nate did -- or that the tall man has connected the two of them. Soon enough. ]

I'm not saying that the lighthouse keeper is up there feeding off our misery or anything, but this sure feels familiar.

[callada]

I talked to Nate first day I was here and he mentioned something like that too. People stuck in a cave, with gods feeding off emotions. And something about a war against shapeshifting robots. You were there too?

[Yes, clearly he was. But, one step at a time, to let Wash elaborate at his own speed. It's horrifying anyway, the whole idea of being stolen and kept as some kind of emotional battery against one's will. If this is the same situation, Rosinante is not going to take it well.]

[hardwearing]

[ Oh. Wash blinks, then nods. At least it makes the conversation easier. ]

That was Hadriel, yeah, and it's not just me and Nate. There's Kyna, too, if you've run into her... we're all from different worlds but met there.

[ And in his and Kyna's cases, died there too. Wash's jaw works briefly, then he seems to shake something off to be able to continue the conversation. ]

It was a little more symbiotic than this since they were also keeping us fed and protected, but the shapeshifting robots called them parasites and that never felt entirely wrong, either. They'd pull this shit. Showing us each other's dreams or memories, our worst fears... it was always something. You get used to it, in a way... like you'd come to recognize it when something was going on but it never really got easier to deal with, if that makes sense. Not for me, anyway. I'd always want to try and fight it, and most of the time you just couldn't.

[callada]

[He absorbs the information as he chews on one of the fries he'd brought over. They mostly help keep his mouth and hands occupied, even if they do little for his mind, but the absence of nicotine has to be fought one way or another and he's been turning to alcohol more frequently than he'd like.]

I met Kyna not long before I met you. She was struggling to make fire.

[Or, well, she made it, but it didn't make any light. He's used to that now. It was completely bizarre in those first few hours. It still doesn't make any real sense either, of course.]

So, if this is the same sort of thing... They could make anything happen. Loves and fears and everything in between. How long were you there?

[hardwearing]

[ Collecting 'em all, huh Rosi? Wash nods at the comment about her fire. ]

Some of her magic isn't working like it usually does here, just like some of my tech isn't. It seems like we can't affect the darkness.

[ Wash doesn't understand how that works, but it's definitely what's happening. They're going to have to figure out the rules of this place over time, though, since Winters and Will either don't know everything and/or are less than forthcoming. ]

If it's the same, yeah, there really weren't any limits. I was there 613 days... Nate and Kyna were both there before I showed up.

[callada]

[Six hundred thirteen makes for too long in a state of such emotional torture. Wash counted the days exactly and still remembers the number, which indicates both how difficult it must have been but also how precise he must be as a person. He thinks back to that armor he showed up in that first day. The precision is, perhaps, military - the armor certainly looked it, but mercenaries and pirates often scavenge pieces for themselves, after all.]

A strange coincidence that three people would come here after experiencing a place like that together. What were you up to before that? I never got a chance to ask. The armor you were wearing, it's unlike anything I'm familiar with. Same with your lantern.

[hardwearing]

[ Wash shrugs -- he doesn't think it's much of a coincidence. ]

There are a handful of other people with friends from their home worlds. The only difference with us is we were kidnapped to another plane of existence before this. Seems more like bad luck than anything else... I was never able to establish a patten with who the Door brought to Hadriel, and there doesn't seem to be one in this place either. No obvious reason that we wound up here.

[ Which is infuriating, honestly. But sometimes there just isn't a good reason why things happen like they do. He's been counting himself lucky that Beacon claimed him and Kyna together, because if they have to be dead and here at least they're not alone. As for his armor? He figured that question was coming eventually, Rosi was one of the few people to see it and not ask straight away. ]

I was a marine back home, my armor is designed for operations in deep space. But before I got pulled to Hadriel I was fighting a war on an abandoned colony we'd been shipwrecked on... this one corporation wanted the planet for its resources and knew the only way it could get them was to kill off the whole colony, one way or another. People are monsters.

[callada]

[True, he's met some of the others who came here together. Maybe it's easier if several people die at once who have some sort of connection to each other. However this thing operates, maybe that's simpler than grabbing lots of different people. Who knows.

Wash continues on, though, and Rosinante's eyes widen a little with interest, then he chuckles, almost embarrassed. Another Marine! Even if they're from different worlds, even if he travels the sea while Wash travels space. It's that common ground that makes them all brothers in arms across the vast universe. Against so many men who are so many flavors of monsters.]

I should have asked sooner, my apologies. I'm with the Marines as well back home. I don't fight in space and don't have armor like that, though. Our warships travel on water only.

[Never mind his rank, he'll leave it at that. They've been speaking as equals here so far, they're equals now. He's not even sure he should really qualify as a Marine anymore, but it's been his identity, his life, ever since childhood. Hard to give that up, and already here he's met enough other military members for it to serve him well as a sort of badge of honor. As it should be.]