logsinthenight | EVENT LOG: HUNGER AND THIRST

characters: everyone.
location: around beacon.
date/time: september 19-30.
content: some new friends - or enemies? - seek offerings, and offer something in return
warnings: memories may involve violence, death, grotesque body horror. please cw as appropriate.

pining for the things i could have been.

Recently, the forest spirits have been agitated. The crooners, those that remain, chatter noisily and strut with purpose. The lunch lady hunches over their station and holds claws to their face, miming peering through dense brush. The skunk judge murmurs about the ones from the countryside. Word has passed beyond the reaches of Beacon's light - there are people in town, and they are mostly good this time. These lantern-bearers have lasted longer than most. They may even want to help.

Seems these spirits will have to see these people with their own eyes, and test those rumors themselves.

For the first two prompts below, please feel free to NPC spirits yourselves. However, if you prefer, you may post your toplevel under the MOD-CONTROLLED SPIRITS header and we will do our best to drop in and out with interactions as time permits. These are not intended to be one-on-one threads with spirits written by the mods, and you will likely not always want to wait for a mod reply at every step and may find yourself doing some minor NPCing all the same, but we will do our best to keep up with you and your thread partners who tag in!

In that header, please specify whether you want a friendly or antagonistic spirit, or if you want a surprise, you can always say "surprise me!"

ALL MY JOYS.

You come home to find spirits in your wardrobe, with socks on their hands and pants tied in daisy chains from wall to wall. Abruptly they squeak and dive for cover, or crash through windows in their attempts to escape. They steal things that are yours, only for you to find them days later, floating in the lake or buried in the greenhouse. Can you chase them down alone? Maybe you need some help.

Not all spirits are so troublesome. Maybe you turn up at The Landmark kitchen to find that one spirit has already gotten the coffee pot started - well, except it has poured instant cheese powder from a box of easy mac into the pot. But at least it's trying to help! Maybe you can show it how the machine works. Others wind up at Solis's labs where they thumb rapidly through books and peck at computer keys, and more than one takes samples from the shelves and shoves them in your face. Did you need this alien foot in a jar? No?

A pack of roving... branches? crawls around town. They have no mouths with which to speak, but instead vibrate and clack their many tangled limbs together. They grow in number and size, making a thicket of live wood that bars you from a doorway, completely fills up a section of the tunnels under the town - or makes an impromptu and convenient bridge, if you think that climbing on someone's limbs is appropriate. Is it?

Largely these spirits seem neutral, even benign. Confused. They might ask for your help, or try their best but they struggle to communicate even more than the usual forest spirits do. They have no sense of what your personal space is, though, and more than one will reach for a lantern to bring it closer and investigate. Awfully uncomfortable, so what are you going to do about it?

ALL MY GRIEF.

At any moment, the above interactions can go south fast if you meet the wrong spirit. The one who took your lantern? Decides to run off with it, leaving you gasping for air and with very few options if you are to survive. The branches constrict and crush you, or drop you suddenly in the river. Are they here to harm you, or just to test your limits?

Others will be malevolent no matter what. The scrapyard dog snarls and pulls at its chain as it watches the thing that stalks and hunts. A small herd of soft, wooly spirits crouch low to the ground, whimper and pant as if sick or starving, only to turn on you with vicious teeth once you seem invested in assisting. Better hope you have someone nearby who can help you fend them off. Or is it better to try to distract them and make an escape? Will they be convinced to stand down, or will they wear your face as a new mask?

ALL MY BONES.

You are directed by the local spirits to the dense curtain of trees where torchlight fades to darkness. The ones you are familiar with hang back, but nod for you to continue ahead alone, or with a friend or two if you prefer. The more people who go together, the stronger the connection - as indicated by the spirits grabbing at your hands and linking them together, and giving a very serious nod. Bring your offerings whether they be food, stories, gifts, or memories of your own, and hope they are sufficient. Place them on the forest floor, or hold them out to the air. The new spirits will find you, they promise; this is not a trick. Make yourselves comfortable on the damp, mossy ground and wait for the sound of footsteps in the leaf litter.

For this prompt, you are welcome to describe your arrival to the site if you like, but all that is required is a comment with the names of the people involved, and the offerings you bring. Characters can make multiple offerings and visit multiple spirits as many times as they wish.

Afterward, a spirit will lead you back to Bonfire Square and encourage you to tell others what you've learned from your new guests. No fair keeping the goods to yourself alone!

LEFT IN THE LONG NIGHT.

After connecting with spirits, you are led back to the bonfire, to recover and recuperate from the joining of hearts, minds, and memories. You will find yourself weary, in a way the flames seem to help. The glow of the campfire is comforting, tempting. It might be difficult not to fall asleep or try to draw others into enjoying the comforting lull of crackling firewood along with you.

The weariness does fade, after some time around the fire. You're not the only one resting from the experience in the glow of firelight — and there's likely things you've seen to share. Ideas and memories and pieces and figments of past to fit into place like puzzle pieces. Now is a good a place as any to share it, isn't it?

Lastly, those that approach a spirit in tandem will find an unseen consequence. A link between them that isn't so easily shaken by a short stay at the fireside. Characters will find that feelings and sensations seem to move from one to the other without warning. Fear, anger, mourning, resentment, joy, love. Touching makes the link stronger, but even distance isn't enough to stop it. Did you want to share night terrors, even a mile apart? Or to taste coffee, even though you're in the middle of brushing your teeth? Well, too bad. The effects will last for two weeks, whether you like it or not.

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Reiju is bringing a bit of technology she's been tinkering with, and Soldat is mostly here as translator and support, though they probably poked at the item a little bit, too. Maybe offered advice on how to open the plating based on the plating on the metal arm, or something. Anyway, have some clockwork decor, spirits.

Crisp, sharp footsteps announce the arrival of a scarecrow-like creature. Shredded clothing hangs from their limbs, and the tops of their shoes rest on top its feet, but the soles have been entirely worn away, leaving toes protruding that are too humanoid-looking for the rest of its ragged body. They carry themself proudly, though, and Reiju and Soldat almost get the sense that the spirit's arrival should have been heralded by trumpets with how high their head is held.

The spirit gives a bow so deep it's comical, then holds up a cracked monocle and inspects the bit of clockwork, hmmming and ahhhing, though their voice comes out as a whisper through a wheat field, or corn husks crackling in the breeze. They pick up the piece, finally, take an end of loose twine that has come untied from their shirt, and weave it through any open gaps, winding it around metal and then tying it in place. A necklace! Or something. But the spirit seems pleased regardless, laughs a dry laugh, and then blows a gust of hot, dry summer wind into their faces.

They are carried north on the breeze to a time and place far across the lake. The burlap-headed spirit is hidden here beside an old rusted water pump, crouched low as they watch lights approach. A team of twenty-two, they count - half the town, come all this way in an act of desperation and violence. Word had passed through the forest that they were coming, that they were determined, and therefore more foolish than they realized. They had locked the Keeper in his tower, destroyed so many spirits who tried to hold them back, and they were now betting their flames on this one final, heroic, stupid act.

Before they can pass, burlap-head stands and leaps in front of them and shouts, even though they know these lantern people might not understand. Might be violent. "You bring light to light-swallower! Life to death-maker! This is-"

They don't get to finish their sentence as one of the people knocks them aside with the butt of a gun and whatever they say, the burlap-headed spirit does not understand. They scamper backward to the shelter of the pump and wait.

We can help, they think. We want to help. But they know why they cannot help. To travel near the eaters of worlds is to become enthralled by death. So they watch, and hide, and are privately grateful that these lantern-bearers showed mercy when mercy was not given to so many others. In the few stories that escaped from Beacon, they knew that this group had become as frightening as the ones with green eyes. Strong, smart, vicious.

The wind shifts and frost blankets the ground on this, the last day of summer. Through the trees, the lake crystallizes. The sky above darkens abruptly, and the low hum-buzz spreads through the ground faster than the people can know. Burlap-head grips the pump and tries to stay focused against the savagery that wells up within them as those pale green eyes begin to dot the forest like fireflies.

The lantern-bearers look shocked, and the burlap-headed spirit feels slightly sick with the realization that these ones will fail as well. Cracks begin to lace the lanterns like pulsing veins, and one immediately falls to the ground as elongated spines jut sharply outward through their clothing. The remainder are split - some kneel to try and help, while others raise hands, weapons, and wands to the air, preparing to fight even though they are few and uncoordinated.

A long, lightless limb steps down out of the sky to the plain in front of the people with their lanterns, which do not even reflect on this one's flesh. Furious, desperate spellcasting and gunfire lasts all of a few seconds. Burlap-head's ears are ringing, and they shut their eyes beneath the mask to fight off the call of death itself but from the woods, the green-eyed ones leap and run toward their feast like hyenas seeking scraps.

When the burlap-headed spirit risks a peek at the would-be combatants, all it sees are bodies. Some are mere dry skeletons. Others are dismembered piles of organs. The green-eyed ones swarm and pick over the bones, kick aside empty lanterns. They only look up for a brief moment when the red beam of the distant lighthouse sweeps past just enough to illuminate the space around the thing which has no light at all.

The frost melts, the lake moves, and Soldat and Reiju find themselves back in their own minds as the creature with the burlap head stares at them with its ragged face. "Unprepared," it declares in that crackling voice which Soldat translates for Reiju.

"Violent. Needed help and did not listen. Long ago but winter always comes again. No tall light now. No more tries."

Soldat is reminded a little bit of Owl-Friend by the suit and the clawed hands :(

No tall light. No lighthouse. No more resets-- this is their last try. No wonder these spirits are coming out to see them. "Unprepared," they say after a moment, and after a glance to Reiju and a murmur to her what they're going to ask. "You thought, we can help, we want to help. Can you still help? Help us be not unprepared again?"

"Can try. Some won't, some will. Many of us might go if best way to help is not to be enemy. I saw aurora. Might be like this again for some. When death sings, most can't help but listen."

The burlap-headed spirit pauses and thinks, then tilts its ragged head, making the trinket around its neck rattle slightly against some buttons.

"Maybe you help us. Maybe we listen to you and not eaters of worlds. Maybe."

That is... encouraging. That maybe they can, in, fact, have the spirits on their side. Between this and what they heard from the flesh horse, this is actually really encouraging. Soldat nods firmly. "We want to help you too. What do you need?"

"Leaders. Uniters. Direction," it lists as each comes to mind, then taps at the edges of its mask in some sort of thinking gesture.

"Friends," it finally adds with a nod.

"Friend yes. My friend said that. We lead, you follow." Soldat says Owl Friend's hooting name in spirit language and a taps the charm Owl Friend made them, still on their lantern, then smiles, a little sadly, and translates for Reiju. "We will be friends. Direction, leaders, we will talk to others." Soldat is not a leader. They know this. But the others, they are, and they'll help, he's sure.

EVENT LOG: HUNGER AND THIRST

Reiju and Soldat

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