[closed] So young and restless, I'm a cliché, yeah

[equinoctials]

characters: Jason Todd and a whole host of his inner demons
location: Around Beacon
date/time: 1 Feb
content: What was supposed to be a routine errand goes awry. Nothing is as it seems.
warnings: psychological/body horror, altered mental states, will update as it goes.


"What do you think it is?" Riku asks from Jason's left, staring at the thing that had erupted from the snowbank behind the Invincible seemingly overnight, a muddy cluster of icicles that rise from the ground, shining clear in the combined light of their lanterns, at least where it wasn't clotted with dark shapes. He had asked for Jason's help when he encountered him by chance in the Invincible and led him outside, around the back.

He steps forward, squinting. Some of these icicles were as thick around as Jason's own forearm, the central core was wider than a human's shoulder. The tip of it appears to have shattered, revealing a hollow center full of ruddy tatters. The wind sighs through the trees, their lantern flames snap at the cold and crisp air.

"Something's hanging out of it..."

This deep within the safe zone of explored regions of Beacon, with the Parade not yet in the area, surely it should be safe to explore.

Comments

[mind_blown]

Well, that's weird.

Granted, nothing much really surprised him anymore when it came to Beacon. He knew there was a certain sense of complacency starting to set in. Which he also didn't like, but it had been half a year. Gotham felt far away at this point, and he still didn't feel any closer to the answer of why they were in the mess they were in. So, when something unusual happens, it perks his interest.

Even if it's only mildly unusual.

He glances over the crystals again, and is reminded that it'd be nice to have actual light. As it is, he's having to deal with the light from their lanterns bouncing and refracting off the surface of this... thing? And it's less than ideal to get a sense of what's going on.

"I have no clue. Crazy crystals aren't in the wheelhouse for me," he admits carefully. Maybe Zatanna would know, but Zatanna wasn't there. "You catch any spirits around it?"

He'll deal with the hanging out portion later, as he circles around it-- trying to get a sense of how deep into the snowbank it goes.

[equinoctials]

"I think it's... ice," Riku observes. The surface isn't very glossy, the way an ice sculpture might be in a warmer room, probably because it's night, and the temperature is below freezing. Every time Jason speaks, his breath plumes. As he circles around, trying to look the strange formation from every angle, Riku shakes his head.

"No, couldn't tell if you they're avoiding it or just haven't noticed," for a moment, he tips up his head, looking around for the telltale beam of the Lighthouse. No red beam cuts through the dark sky. Just the stars, shining like cold diamonds out of a clear winter night.

The snowbank is crusty from many frigid nights since it first formed following the blizzard. Short of trying to dig up the formation, it's impossible to tell how far down it goes.

The broken tip of the central pillar is hollow like a bowl, full if what could be wet leaves, half decayed, perhaps a bit of spanish moss or seaweed, a clump of something dark and matted. Further down, there are blurry shapes, perhaps clods of dirt stuck inside the frozen column. A rat's tail emerges from the side of one such embedded mass, quivering in the light of his lantern.

[mind_blown]

It takes a lot to spook Jason. He frowns, considering what it means that a rat somehow got trapped in an ice sculpture like this.

"Ice crystals don't form like this. Or at least, not based on anything I've ever heard," he says with a sigh, and then crouches down, to try and see what he can, how something living got trapped in this? That mean it couldn't dig down?

"Very real possibility we're looking at something weird, but unexciting."

But very weird. He didn't know ice could form this way, sprouting up from the ground, with no major weather and freezing events to make it happen. After all, the blizzard was mostly over. And he'd expect to see it in other places, if that was the cause.

[equinoctials]

"Not naturally," Riku agrees, "The museum is full of weird and unexciting stuff."

Eyewear for a cyclops, pants for something with an extra leg. A rat, perfectly encased in ice, immobilized and still, by some miracle or because its nerves just won't quit, its tail thrashes, the only part of it that isn't locked in a frozen prison.

The broken crown of the central pillar overflows, a dark fluid crawling slowly down from its clotted, cold caldera. With it comes a smell, pungent and cloying, like fruit that's started to go putrescent. Riku stands up, dusting off a knee.

"These days, can't help jumping at shadows. Let's move on."

Wasn't there something else they came here to do? Or more importantly, what is that glimmer among the trees, in the direction of the village of cabins? Another cluster, shining pale in the starlight?

[mind_blown]

Well, that gives him a bad feeling, actually. If the rat's still alive? Clearly it wasn't expecting those ice crystals anymore than they were. And rats are mobile creatures-- unless distracted by food. But it's not like Beacon was a town awash in abandoned pizza slices. And so he stands up, taking stock of-- well. Another cluster.

"Before I get too jumpy, and since hallucinations aren't that out of the norm, how many clusters of these things do you see?"

He motions his lantern in the direction of the new set that he'd just noticed. And-- frowns at the smell? That's new. But one thing at a time.