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

[fogey]

[ he breathes out a sound that might be a laugh on someone else, looking off to the side briefly. ]

You happened to it. I shouldn't be surprised.

1/2

[originallutece]

I certainly did.

[She smiles briefly, faintly, more than a little pleased he appreciates this.]

It's a lovely painting.

[It really is. Officially, the goal of the experiment had been to see if they could truly bring large objects out of other worlds, but there was no reason to steal a painting. But they like Rembrandt, and Robert likes making her happy.]

[originallutece]

[Liked making her happy. That particular correction smothers her mirth, and her next exhale is harsh.]

. . . in any case. Do you want the long story or the short?

[fogey]

[ he watches her glow, then the light fade out as she remembers where they are, what they're discussing. breathes out. ]

Long.

[originallutece]

[Long. All right. She exhales slowly, glancing away for a few seconds as she gathers her thoughts.]

Columbia debuted in 1893, at the Chicago World's Fair. There were any number of founders, because Comstock's abilities to get funding were great, but not perfect. He also had a fair few people on what he called his board: people who would work on varying issues. I, of course, was there as the person who made the damn thing fly in the first place. A few others there solely for their purses, or because they brought a personal expertise to the field: a police commander, an economy expert, so on and so forth.

And, when it came to the raw labor, to building the city up, and more importantly, to keeping people in their places . . . he had Jeremiah Fink.

[Rosalind crosses her arms under her chest, the movement not defensive so much as angry.]

Jeremiah Fink was not intelligent the way you and I are intelligent, but he was very clever. He knew how to wheedle and promise and cheat, and he all but enslaved his workers under the guise of employing the impoverished out of the goodness of his heart. He was the perfect man through which Comstock got vast legions of virtually unpaid labor, and because Fink chose those populations that were minorities, no one fought for them.

[Herself included.]

The other way Fink got his money, though, was through plagiarism, pure and simple. He was intelligent enough to understand how things worked, even if he couldn't come up with them himself. And sooner or later, he was wealthy enough that suing him was pointless.

He badly wanted my inventions, and accordingly, I kept them close to my chest.

[That's the first part of the story. The second is a little easier.]

I told you Comstock styled himself a preacher, and that I aided that lie. With it came others, more and more outragous, until at last one of his lies grew too sinful to ignore. We intervened. And then, a few days later, our machine exploded.

Tell me, what do you think more likely: that I made an error? Or that Comstock hired a man familiar with my work to sabotage one of my machines and make our death look an accident?