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 were only a few graves that Kuai actually felt that he should leave offerings at. Certainly there was a compulsion to honor all of them, but after Rosinante's he understood how this worked and tried to resist for the others.

This felt like an invasion of privacy, something low and dishonorable, to be seeing sights and feeling emotions that weren't his to experience. But the distaste for voyeurism warred with the fact that Cao Pi was an Emperor and therefore deserved to be honored.

Tradition was all that Kuai Liang still had.

There was no incense, no fancy food to be left, but there was wine at the bar and he'd poured some into a small silver cup as an offering. Steeling himself for what he was bound to see (and secretly hoping that Cao Pi had quietly been poisoned or died in his sleep - he couldn't remember how exactly he'd died), Kuai knelt before the bronze bowl with great reverence and made his offering.

That was certainly not being poisoned or dying in his sleep.

He's leaving when he spots the very man he just saw be immolated.]

No. I wouldn't bore you with my complaints in any case.

[shielding himself with sarcasm is a workable defense mechanism at a time like this. Even if it turns out he and Kuai are only vaguely countrymen in a distant sense, there's still something in their interactions that suggests he would be better served making an ally than an enemy of this man.

So, his expression tempers slightly upon seeing this particular face in the firelight]

I expect it looks rather strange. Giant serpents, armies of demons. Not what one would expect from a war.

I'd expect nothing less from a war.

[His own wars involved similar things. Perhaps not multi-headed dragons, but it reminded him much of Outworld.]

I was killed fighting an army of Netherrealm demons. It seems not much has changed in thousands of years.

Were you...?

[Cao Pi squints, and then shifts to look around. Well now he's just going to have to find Kuai's marker and see for himself, won't he? Even if it's probably going to be an unpleasant experience, fair's fair.]

I should hope Orochi's poisonous influence has not spread from his dimension into the real world, but with that much time passing, who's to say? If we were unable to stop the beast...

[boy that's not a pleasant thought.]

[Conveniently there's Orochi Helldemons in Mortal Kombat so this makes total sense to Kuai.]

The barrier between Earth and the Netherrealm has never been thinner. Demons, Oni, and everything else keep poking through to try their hand at an invasion. We have driven them back each time.

But I fear there's far more of them than there are fighters on the Earth side.

[well shit, that just makes him feel even more dubious about the outcome of quite literally everything. Was the Great Serpent a harbinger of the destruction of the barrier between dimensions? Did Orochi's army slip through and invade the real world? For centuries??

For a moment Cao Pi looks genuinely disturbed, before he shakes it off and addresses Kuai's last remark.]

But you stand and resist. Even down to the last of your people. There is nothing more you could do, as I learned the hard way.

I could do more if I hadn't been killed.

[He can't help from here. He doesn't even know what's happening back home.]

I can only hope the rest of us were able to win the war. Or my death will be meaningless.

[WELL...you're not wrong, Kuai. Cao Pi's expression flickers briefly, through frustration and regret, to settle on a casual disinterest. Also known as coping through pretending it's not that bad.]

Death is inevitable for us all, placing meaning on it is pointless.

[he says if only to downplay the thoughts that he feels the same - will the others win without him?]

[Years of interacting with Hanzo Hasashi who tried to scowl his way out of every conversation has made Kuai a master at noticing those subtle shifts of facial expressions. ]

It's meaningful to someone, even if not to us. Those who mourn us do not do so in vain.

If you say so. I am less concerned about being mourned than I am moving forward with whatever this place holds in store.

Still... [he adds as he takes a step, though it's not clear whether he's going to leave or just go wandering the area looking for more graves to sniff around] ...it is curious getting a glimpse into other lives, other worlds. There may be something to learn.

I suppose.

[he finds the idea of spying on people's deaths a little distasteful, however he's not going to say that to an Emperor. Cao Pi can do what he wants.]

Though there are some here who are preventing people from approaching theirs. Not everyone died as honorably.

[eh, he's probably not here to spy, but he's also not afraid of putting himself through unpleasantness if he really thinks there's something to learn. For most? There isn't.]

Oh? That's amusing. Given the number of people here I suppose we couldn't have all died honorably in battle, there must be one or two ignominious scenarios among us.

[acting like he's really going to try to find people dying on the toilet or crushed under falling rocks. He's not, though.]

...do you much care about what people may see at your grave? I frankly don't.

That's an amusing way to think of it. I was assuming it was they had something to hide that they wouldn't want everyone to know.

Anyone is free to see my death if they so choose, but it won't prove very enlightening. Wars all look the same when you have been in enough of them.

Perhaps, but we are all strangers to one another. They must underestimate the value of their secrets.

[he knows it's totally the latter and not because someone died embarrassingly, but it's logically unreasonable to think that their secrets would mean anything to a stranger. Ah well. Can't argue with that.]

You mentioned demons, I'm curious. But in the interest of respect I will not tell you whether I've gone or not. It's only fair.

Those who died as traitors might not want others to find out their loyalties are so easily swayed.

[He can only begin to fathom what other people think. All honor all the time does weird things to understanding other mindsets.]

Yes, hundreds of them. It is an up close and personal look if you wish to see it.

[it's an excellent point, though Cao Pi merely tilts his head in acknowledgement and files that away for later. Don't give him more reasons to pry into everyone's secrets, man]

I have been up close and personal with hundreds of demons, that won't bother me.

[at this point it's more politeness and not being sure he wants to feel death again. He'll decide on his own, and if he does, Kuai will only know by a scrap of paper with archaic Chinese on it]

[He bows politely, far be it for him to tell an Emperor what he should or shouldn't do. Have fun watching all them demons.]

As you wish. I'll take my leave, there are others I should pay respects to.

[Hopefully that cup of wine doesn't spill when Cao Pi gets it as a package from the post office.]

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EVENT LOG: GRAVES

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