logsinthenight | EVENT LOG: THE NIGHT WE MET

EVENT LOG: THE NIGHT WE MET

characters: everyone.
location: the path from downtown beacon to the harbor; all over town.
date/time: february 16-21.
content: the forest spirits send off their friends to join the aurora. memory opals drop from the eerie green lights above.
warnings: n/a.

i had all and then most of you, some and now none of you.

For most of the day on February 16, all of the town's forest spirits can be found along the stretch of road between downtown and the harbor, clearly setting up for, uh, something. They're piling snow onto the pathway, creating a miles long sled trail that starts outside the Landmark Inn and ends at the very end of the harbor's dock. Not only that, but the forest spirits are also not super willing to explain what they're up to! They're busy, you lantern-havers.

By the time evening rolls around, the spirits have set up wooden railings alongside the snowy path, as well as a warming tent, hot chocolate booth, and announcer stand outside of the Landmark. Oh, and a starting banner for the race! It's dogsled time!

Throughout the event, Beacon's downtown and harbor areas will be completely overrun with forest spirits, all there to bear witness to this holiday celebration—this holiday is for them, though, not you weirdos with your naked faces. Point is, none of the spirits will be hostile at this time! They're more interested in interacting with each other than with Beacon's residents, though if pressed, a kind spirit might be willing to explain what's going on:

The aurora arrives in Beacon for about a week each year, and the forest spirits believe it to be "friends in the sky". The lights are old friends of theirs, it seems! And each night while the aurora shines above the town, the forest spirits send off a handful of friends to join the aurora! The spirits ready to join the aurora build sleds of their own and assemble mighty sled teams, sometimes comprised of dog spirits and sometimes... other stuff. Then, when the aurora is at its peak in the wee hours of the night, the sled teams will ride off one by one, racing down the snow-covered path all the way down to the harbor, where they'll finally rocket off the dock and out over the lake, picking up more and more speed as each team gallops wildly over the water before arcing up into the sky. Once the spirits are barely a speck, they'll hit the aurora and burst into a shower of light. Beautiful stuff!

See, since the aurora is made of light, forest spirits launched into it are killed on impact! Isn't that wonderful! The forest spirits seem to think so! What is death to a dead thing!

All of this information can be learned through handwaved/played-led interactions with the forest spirits during the event. They'll all be focused on saying goodbye to their friends and cheering them on as they stream through the sky, but they're happy to welcome lantern-havers to join in the celebrations. The hot chocolate is free and only tastes a little bit like mud, so. Enjoy!

•••
For the entire duration of the event, the aurora will dance in beautiful silence overhead, lighting up the whole town with its eerie green glow. Every so often, handfuls of opals will rain down like meteorites from the lights above, and these opals each contain the memory of someone currently in Beacon! They can be found all over town, landing on paths and atop buildings and maybe even rocketing straight through your ceiling to crash into your living room. Perhaps a forest spirit decided to hide some shiny rocks in your cereal box or under your pillow... Better hope the Postmaster General doesn't find your opals before you do, though. That spirits sure does love their rocks. Point is, who knows where the opals might turn up?

On that note, if you signed up for a random event, we'll be RNGing characters to receive these random events throughout the event! The event may happen in response to a toplevel on this event log, or we might turn up in your IC inbox... 👀 These events will be entirely random, meaning we could dole out any number of them at any time, so it'll be a fun surprise for all of us.

If you missed signups and would still like to toss your name in the ring, go right ahead! Signups will remain open throughout the event, though we can't promise everyone who signs up will get something.

And finally... Each day, we'll post a list of the forest spirits joining the aurora! What, did you want to know in advance? The forest spirits have never been a particularly organized bunch, so they're winging this—which means more surprises for you. :)

Enjoy the races and the lights and the opals, residents of Beacon, and remember: WHAT IS DEATH TO A DEAD THING!

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Which argument, he thinks ruefully. They argued so often toward the end—well, Somnus' end.

"The Scourge. It was a disease that made monsters of men, turning them against their neighbors."

Soldat nods. They can't really imagine that, but Somnus wouldn't have and reason to lie. "And only your brother could cure them. Not feasible to cure them all." Yeah, Somnus's case makes sense. It's horrible, makes Soldat kind of want to hit something, but it makes sense. They nod once, understanding. "Untenable situation. No good choices, yeah?"

He has a great deal to say about his brother's part in the quest to rid the world of the Scourge. That's neither here nor there, though. Untenable is right. "There was only one choice." Somnus glances down at the wrapped opal. It wasn't as if he chose that path without considering the alternatives. "The rest would have led the people only to ruin."

As soon as the words leave his mouth, he shuts it with a growing frown. The gears turn, little by little. Did his brother cure the ailing?

"Why ruin?" Soldat asks, just out of curiosity, and because that frown seems to suggest more thoughts on the subject. They know so little about the situation, from that single memory scene. And maybe it will help Somnus to talk about it?

He angles his head to the side, putting the growing thought aside for the time being.

"By our time, the Scourge had taken over a million lives. In order to see the newfound kingdom prosper, necessity compelled that it be purged without discrimination." He straightens his neck to face Soldat. "A ruler must take the actions that secure the future for the people."

Or so he thought. Look where that thinking has landed him.

"Unless the cure could be distributed on a large scale... untenable," Soldat agrees. "Sometimes people need to be put down, too." Speaking as, you know, an assassin. Who would gladly shoot every single one of their former handlers and technicians in the fucking face, after all the death they dealt at their hands.

Those weren't people, he thinks as a knee jerk reaction. He just as quickly reminds himself that, no, they were. At the time he tried to make a clinical distinction so that his brother would understand his reasoning, only for it to further damage their relationship.

"Though our methods differed, mine was just as cruel," he says, because it's only fair that he acknowledge the ruthlessness of his approach. He knows how poorly it must reflect on him.

In any case, that's in the past. He's dead and there's no point in crying over spilled milk. Straightening, with the flick of his wrist a slice of fresh bread magics into existence in his hand. "I've done as you suggested."

He's sure been carrying that bread around for weeks. It's probably his first time taking it out, too. And it could've been gross, but thankfully all that enters the Armiger goes into stasis.

Soldat shrugs a little, looking unconcerned. They're an assassin. They don't get to judge how cruel or kind someone else was, not given the orders they followed. Especially not for someone much further up on the chain of command than they ever were. They fully believe Somnus might be capable of cruelty, but then again, and there's not many people they don't believe could be. Makes it a pleasant surprise if it doesn't happen.

The bread is much more interesting, anyway. They pluck it off Somnus's hand to examine, looking it over and giving it a sniff, a poke. "Seems fresh," they say. "How long was it in there?"

The nonchalance is welcome, if only so they can leave the topic behind in its totality. Right now, the bread is priority, because it's rooted in the present and not the immutable past.

"Four weeks."

There's no mildew or mold of which to speak, as far as Somnus can tell. And Soldat agrees. The suggestion was to leave something hot or cold in there for a day, but he decided to go all the way when the hopeful plan is to utilize this power for more than just himself. That's not something to do half-baked.

Half-baked. Heh. Puns are great.

Soldat looks up again in surprise. "Four weeks. Gotta be true stasis, then. That's good news." That means anything they put in there should keep as long as necessary. "How do you find things in there, if it starts getting full? If it starts getting full." He'd said before that he didn't know how much he could fit in side that particular magical space, or whatever it is.

They sure are.

He can't say. If there's a limit, he doesn't know it, other than not being able to put living creatures or something truly massive inside. (A morbid part of him wonders what that means for them as the animated dead.) That being said, reaching into the Armiger has always been an instinctual maneuver on his end.

"I call and it answers. There is no finding."

So the mental image of a bunch of magical shelves in a magical pantry-slash-weapons-locker probably isn't a thing. Probably more like some pocket of negative space or something. (Magic is so frustrating. It really fucking is.)

"So nothing can get lost. You can keep as much food in there as can fit-- fresh food. Vegetables, fruit, meat, dairy. Keep the cans in real places, because they won't go bad. When the ferry comes. Maybe start putting things away. Not a lot. But some, each time." Soldat likes this plan. "Say on the network, maybe. So people know."

Magic is just science that scientists haven't made boring yet.

When Soldat lays it out like that, it almost feels like he's overestimating what Somnus can do with the Armiger. After all, he's never put more than perhaps a dozen or so weapons (and a myriad of other, smaller things) into that pocket. He'll have to experiment some more before announcing anything to the public.

Never mind that he can barely use the tablet. In order to do more for this world, he'll have to learn to do better.

"Your proposal is sound, but I must further trial my suitability for the task. Once I've determined the answer, I shall inform you and the others."

Hey, man, you're the one who said you'd never found a limit of what you could put in. Soldat understands the need for more data, though, and for over-stepping their own bounds, so they nod, looking down. "Whenever you're ready, of course, sorry."

There's no joy in promising something that he can't deliver on later. He'd rather be cautious for the time being, but he appreciates Soldat's initiative more than Soldat might realize. It doesn't merit an apology, and Somnus is surprised that he's even hearing one.

"I'll not be long."

Unnecessary apologies are unfortunately one of the (relatively minor) consequences of dealing with someone who used to get punished for taking initiative. Soldat tends to step back immediately at any sign of disapproval or mistake. Somnus seems to have forgiven the assumption, though, so they feel it's probably safe enough to say, "Good. You know how to find me, yeah?"

"If you were me, what would you have done?" To a point, Soldat was him. He glimpsed the memory, so he felt some of what Somnus felt at the time. Somnus can't help being curious, though he draws back as soon as the unseemly words leave his lips. Soldat doesn't have to—shouldn't—answer that.

"I know where to find you, but how do you prefer to be reached?"

"Finding me at the Invincible for my lunch hour, or meeting me along my patrol route, would probably be best." Soldat is a bit wary of the network, and prefers not to put tactical information on it. Even in inboxes, they're cautious, and keep to the superficial or personal. The sole exception was once to show off their new rifle.

The other question hasn't been forgotten, though. What would they do. Soldat considers a moment. "I don't know," they say, which probably dodges the question, but it's still true. "Normally those kind of decisions aren't something they would leave up to me. I generally follow orders, I don't issue them, unless it's a matter of immediate battle commands or first aid."

Somnus doesn't doubt that he'd be able to find Soldat faster in person than if he were to reach out over the network. He's that slow, because everything about the tablet is foreign to him. Seeking Soldat out in those places strikes Somnus as entirely reasonable.

A part of him is mortified that he even got an answer back to his question. What he latches onto, though, is something else that Soldat has just said. "Whose orders do you follow here?" Who's they?

Well, in this case the "they" meant HYDRA, since in this weird afterlife there's really no decisions like that to be made, but Soldat is perfectly happy to answer the question actually asked, too. "Inspector Javert, Misty. Aziraphale. Anyone with better ideas than me, if the result won't be terrible, really."

Names of reliable persons are always good. Somnus commits them to memory as he nods his assent.

"Here, we are all deceased. No one person stands above the rest. We're free to choose from whom we accept orders and to whom we issue them." Somnus may have been a leader once, but he's no such thing here. "I ask that you share your ideas with me." Without unnecessary apologies.

The look Somnus gets is one part dry and one part resigned and one part the fuck did you just say. "The Inspector and Misty are my handlers. Aziraphale is my technician. Maybe I picked them this time. But that's still what they are." They shake their head just a little. "And I don't have a ton of ideas. Is the problem. But the magic stasis space was one. Checking the books at the library to see if they change, because Sora's did. That's another. During the siege I had some, but that was a siege. I think better in combat situations."

Somnus stares. This time? Soldat talks as if he were an animal and a soldier in one. "Decision-making in combat requires evaluation of possibilities for a favorable outcome. If you can do that, one idea is as worthy as many." A dozen suggestions from an ignoramus wouldn't be half as credible.

Tool, Somnus. Weapon. Not animal. Soldat has discipline and tactical flexibility, not to mention intense love of music and cooking. What they lack is initiative and confidence more than anything else-- there's a lifetime or two's worth of following orders in there to get over.

Vaguely baffled by the intensity of Somnus's reaction, they offer, "If I come up with any more ideas, I'll share with you." Why not, right? Sharing ideas means they're more likely to get done, if they're good ones.

Tools are incapable of thought while animals are capable. Somnus is loath to discredit Soldat's contributions and won't go there. It would be demeaning, and no man should be made to feel so little.

The response he receives is a concession, and he accepts it with a nod as well a measure of appreciation. "Till then."

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