logsinthenight | EVENT LOG: WE ALL STILL DIE (PART TWO)

Entry tags:

EVENT LOG: WE ALL STILL DIE (PART TWO)

characters: everyone.
location: around town.
date/time: june 16-18.
content: spirits are sacrificed, and revelry turns to catastrophe
warnings: gore, violence, psychological horror. please cw tags appropriately.

this tree it will die without leaves

The music fades away as a soft-furred forest spirit with a powerful warble of a voice and the body of a large moth calls everyone to attention. The other spirits usher everyone, with masks on faces and instruments in hands, to gather up at the harbor.

For a spirit, the speaker is eloquent enough - it mimes and dances, peppering movements with melodic speech in the spirits' language, as it demonstrates the rising of the sun that might once have happened here. As it bows, three spirits walk forward and stand side by side. One is only a few feet high, lumpy and pale purplish, wearing a paper crown. The second is black and birdlike, with an elegant floral mask and a pink ribbon tacked to its chest. The third is vaguely human-shaped but for the long, thick hair (?) that cascades from its head and covers its face, and for the long, slender-fingered hands that rest tucked against its chest and sweep downward to its knees. These three are soon joined by spirits with long, scythe-like claws that stand at attention. The warbling moth spirit begins a chant, which the other spirits soon join in, and as the volume reaches a roar of demand and triumph and fervor, the three clawed spirits move quickly and precisely, slicing open the bellies of the three sacrificial volunteers. Their bodies shrink backward and begin to slowly dissipate as if melting, but buckets and bowls are quickly passed forward and much of the gore and meat is collected, and passed one by one through the crowd of spectators, spirit and Beaconite alike - and all are offered a share.

Many of you have eaten spirit flesh before, haven't you? Some have even done so recently. Surely, this is something you all want, isn't it? After a full year here, the spirits have learned so much about their current neighbors who gather around the fire. Some even offer the bowls while shrinking away in what might be fear, while others cackle and chirp and insist on sharing all this fresh food with their friends.

Meanwhile, the changes you may have begun to notice the day before manifest more strongly now. A hunger that won't abate for anything and anyone. A unique manic euphoria, difficult to diminish and hard, if not impossible, to shake that draws one into the music and demands everyone participate in the festivities. Lastly, a violent tenacity to lash out at anything that acts to get in the way of the celebration.

The compulsion starts as a gentle longing and escalates to an incapacitating urge to run without a care through the dark woods, to hunt, to forget all responsibilities. The spirits begin to dance and play their music in unison now, and they march south and east, away from the harbor and toward the village, and it is infectiously fun. In the distance, another band plays an enthralling tune which can just be heard through the miles of forest, and the spirits gather so that they - and you - may join them and bring everyone together to celebrate.

You will come along, won't you? You'll bring all your friends, too. For those who join in, the grandest celebration awaits over the next few days. You are free to pursue your instincts, to lash out, to consume. To dance until your feet are raw and madness overtakes you. To join the parade, and all it entails.

The few that did not partake in any of the festivities at all will find themselves clear of mind. They can do their best to try and keep those under the compulsion from falling to their instincts, though it could provoke violent, miserable results. Once the maddened party joins the parade, trying to pull them out would be incredibly ill-advised. The spirits in the parade and the characters under the influence of its thrall will not tolerate any interruption of the celebration. The parade will chase them down, slice them open, tear their flesh from their limbs. This is a party for light and life! Anyone not with the parade is against it. Death surely will suit them better instead.

ooc notes:

SPIRIT INTERACTIONS: As mentioned previously, anyone who posts top-levels under the SPIRITS header means you are open to spirits doing a bit of threadjacking. We will not be consistently maintaining long threads with spirits, but they will be able to come and go from threads between characters. Please bear in mind that serious injury or death is a potential result of these interactions and so posting a toplevel to this header means you accept this risk.

POTENTIAL DEATH: This event couldn't have come at a better time, as the death mechanic has thankfully been restored. If your character dies in this event, please report it here! And remember, as it was just restored, there might be a few quirks to the system...

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[ she dodges, lunging to grab her own weapon from the nearest spot on the ground. it's thicker and heavier than she'd usually prefer for fighting, but beggars can't be choosers and if he's willing to fight dirty, so is she. ]

Try it and I'll cut your legs off at the knees.

With a stick? Love to see you try. Calm.

[Though that last word might sound like it was directed at her, he taps his free hand to his chest as he says it and instantly stops making sound. There's no crunch of twigs under his feet. No whistle of wind as he snaps the makeshift bat through the air toward her chest, quick and heavy, looking to break a rib or a collarbone. Sure, she can still see him, it's not like it's a perfect advantage, but he knows from experience how disorienting his enemies often find it when they lose all the sound cues they're expecting to hear - including the crack of their own broken bones.]

[ bold of him to assume that's all she's got on her. although he's right, she's not going to be able to do much cutting up with an oversized branch. no need for her to reveal what else she's got just yet, though; she'll have to see what she's up against first. they've spent enough time together for her to know how he moves. he's still off balance enough for her to use, but clearly too quick for her to rely on that, and now there's this new factor of absolute silence to deal with.

he swings at her chest and she dodges just in time for it to avoid hitting her there, though it does end up striking her in the side of her abdomen, surely hard enough to bruise. she yelps and there's no sound, no sound from anywhere. it's disorienting, but maybe she can use it. she tries swinging at his kneecaps with the branch - it's not quite cutting, but its something. ]

[If he was thinking in terms of pure practical deadliness, he'd break out a gun himself. But the urge that takes him is not to make a quick, clean kill but to destroy with bludgeoning and brutality. Less finesse, more raw destruction.

So he doesn't even really try to dodge as he charges forward, trying to rush her despite any damage he might take in the process. The branch crashes harder than expected against his knee - she's strong, which he knows, but it's still a shock - and he's thrown off-course, staggering sideways into a trunk. He can feel the trunk crack and shudder slightly under his weight, although of course it does so noiselessly.

He uses it as a sort of backboard to shove off of, as he comes at her once again, this time swinging the club downward like an axe at her head, ignoring the pain in his leg as he moves. There's no time to look at that right now. He's still standing and that's good enough.]

[ she brings her arms up to block the blow, which ends up cracking the stick she's been using in half and bending her wrist with just enough force to sprain it. she shouts in pain (or tries to, she can feel the force of the scream as it leaves her throat but still can't hear anything) and lunges out of the way, pain shooting through her wrist again as she uses her hands to brace her fall.

with her good hand, she reaches into a pocket and pulls out a butterfly knife - it's not her sai, but it travels easier for times such as this, when she wouldn't expect to need those. ]

[Well, that thing's pretty, isn't it? It glints brightly in the light of their lanterns and even though it's small, he knows better than to underestimate what someone can do with a tool like that, especially when they're trained to use it well.

He staggers to a stop when he sees it, tumbling backward into the twigs on the ground that again fail to crack audibly under his weight, and for a second he's caught between lunging at her again, because knife be damned, he wants to beat her head in - or backing away, which is what he ultimately chooses as he scrambles back onto his feet, now wielding the branch defensively in case she seizes the fall as an opportunity.

This isn't right, why are they fighting? What the hell is going on? He shakes his head and taps his chest, and when he takes another step backward the leaves crackle under his heel.]

Hey. Put it down.

[It's as much a request as it is a warning, because he shifts the branch to his left hand while his right lowers to the holster at his hip. Brings to mind the usual cliche, he realizes - she brought a knife, and he could make this a gun fight, but he really doesn't want to. This is fucked up and he just wants to leave.]

[ the crack of the branches break through the trance, enough that elektra halts in her tracks in the middle of stalking towards him, blade out and aimed towards him. her heartbeat pounds in her ears as she tries to catch her breath, tries to sort out her thoughts - there's still a significant part of her that wants to lunge at him and make good on her threat before she cuts him to ribbons, but the part of her that's still herself is starting to grow louder as she starts to regain control, to remember who she's fighting and realize she can't remember why it started.

she closes the knife up, but keeps it in hand. just in case. ]

Why did we start this?

[Fuzzily, he knows why. He remembers what happened, he knows they've been affected somehow - the music, the dance, the masks, the food? - and he knows he can't fight it for too much longer. Part of him still itches to crash this branch through her skull but instead he recoils from his own thoughts and drops it as he staggers backward.

He needs to get out of here before he hurts her, or before she catches him with that knife.]

Dunno. But we shouldn't continue. I don't want to hurt you.

[ she's not going to be able to fight it off, either. the fact that she hasn't put the knife away speaks to that, and she knows just how easy it would be to unsheathe it and stick it somewhere vital or painful and there's still a voice in her head telling her she should, that he'd do it without questioning. but then there's visible evidence that he is, and it's enough to make her step back a few feet herself, though she still clutches it tightly, if only because having something to hold onto is helping her stay in the moment. ]

I don't, either. [ to hurt him or have her hurt him, and the throbbing of her wrist suddenly has her full attention. she looks up at him, remembering suddenly - ] Your knee - can you walk?

Yeah. Think so.

[He tests it to be sure by putting his weight on it and shit that hurts worse than he expected, yielding a hiss through his teeth at the resulting pain. But he gives it a second try, more slowly, and he can at least stand on it.]

Enough to get away from all this.

[Which he needs to act on fast. The pain brings clarity, and he steps back again, half worried that if he instead turns his back and walks off quickly she might relapse and sink that blade into his back. But the faster he gets out of here the less likely he'll be lured back in by that music himself, he suspects. No time to waste.]

You should too.

Good.

[ the pain's helping her own voice grow stronger, override the parade's effects on her mind. that's what had started this, wasn't it? they don't want anyone to leave the celebration.

he brings up that she should leave, and she knows he's right. but it's not just her that she has to worry about. ]

I'm not here alone. I need to find him first.

[ matthew had coasting by on the bare minimum of participation before. if this is how she'd reacted to rosi trying to leave, she's terrified of what someone might try doing to him. ]

[That's good, she has a distraction.

In another situation, he might be more concerned for her, and for Matt who he knows is the "him". Right now, he just wants out before he's called back by the music, before he turns on her or anyone else. He nods as he continues to back away, staggering a little thanks to his wounded knee.]

Good luck. I hope you both make it out.

[He's far enough now, it's probably safe - so finally he turns to see where he's going, and holds his lantern out to make his way out through the woods, to envelop himself in silence and hope he's broken the spell of the march.]

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EVENT LOG: WE ALL STILL DIE (PART TWO)

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