EVENT LOG: A MONSTER'S HERE

[nextnightmods]

EVENT LOG:
A MONSTER'S HERE

characters: everyone.
location: the mine
date/time: october 19 - 23.
content: exploring the mines and figuring out what became of the wild hunt.
warnings: explorations and threads might include body horror, gore, and monster horror.

i craft my words to fit inside your head, because no one listens to the dead.

It's been a wild few months. The remaining survivors of Beacon have turned their sights on the mine. The last known location of the Wild Hunt, though they haven't been heard from in quite a long time. Thanks to the help of spirits, the group has managed to rally and split off towards the mines to se if they can find out what happened there and if there's any of the Hunt left behind.

THE LONG TRAIL.

The spirits have helped repair a handcart located at the train station. Though, it's probably not fair to say that it helped the journey all that much. Most of it was completed on foot, taking turns pumping rusted old levers. It carried the supplies and little else.

The start of the journey goes well, until the ramshackle handcart fails at the bottom of a particularly steep incline. The group eventually decides it's better to take the time and fix it than leave part of the supplies behind. A few work on the repairs and the rest split themselves between keeping watch and getting rest while they can.

It ends up as one night along the side of the tracks. It's out far enough in the woods that it's integral to keep some of the group on watch. A few spirits will sneak toward camp, though thankfully none actively violent. They mostly seem to want to make away with what supplies the group has. Good luck chasing them back down through the woods if they do make off with something.

The rest of the group should catch rest where they can, though... Rest does not come easy. Dreams will be wrought with fears, dark and personal. Ripped from memories and subconscious, seeping deeper and deeper into dreams that almost feel impossible to wake from. Sleep will be fitful, restless — and when woken, by someone else or bolted up and out on their own, the fears seem to linger. Some might experience sleep paralysis, frozen in their own personal nightmare. Either way, when they wake, it'll be like those nightmares were real. Like they might just whisper around in the dark. Not even those remaining in Beacon are safe from vivid, terrifying dreams -- and the effects will persist for the entirety of the event.

THE DESCENT.

The group arrives at the decrepit mines a few hours after the repairs are completed. There's an eerie silence as they approach, though some might have an uneasy feeling, like there's eyes on the group shrouded in the darkness. Based on a memory shared by a certain spirit, the group is able to get the elevator in Administration functional. It's a tight, claustrophobic experience, only 5 or so bodies at a time. The mechanics whirr, then chug, then creak overhead... and shortly after the group will make it to the mines proper.

As the group organizes itself, the group will quickly be able to notice they are in an observation deck above the mines, and they'll note that there are a few general areas they can explore. The dead tunnels are a closed off, depleted section of the mine. It's noted as dangerous, and it seems as if it had been walled off at some point... but the wall is demolished, allowing entry. There is a very limited crew quarters, a mechanics area, a storage and processing area, and of course, the open mine tunnel.

If your character is inclined to explore any of these areas, please see the comment here. Remember, characters are welcome to explore these areas in top levels — however, to find plot information, a character will have to do a mini-explore.

HUMAN NO MORE.

The group doesn't manage even a few hours of exploration before the worst happens. Spirits suddenly come crawling free of the demolished closed mine — bloodied, eviscerated, emaciated and incredibly feral. The spirits are completely unresponsive to attempts to communicate, and will rend and attack to kill anyone that gets close. Characters can attempt to incapacitate over kill, but they won't be able to talk them down or communicate in any way.

The group will likely sustain some injuries in the fight, but one of the feral spirits spots the active elevator and soon, there's a rush for the cramped escape route. The spirits tear through the top of the elevator and rush up the elevator shaft, cleaving the wires that make the device function. It won't be going anywhere any time soon. The group will need to find an alternative escape route... perhaps there's another way out waiting to be found.

LET THE DEVIL IN.

The spirits swarming in the mines (and escaped to the surface) seem to possess some of the abilities usually only seen in green eyed spirits. They can slip into the subconscious of characters, pull out ugly things better left buried. Fears will come alive unbidden, and there's no way to know they're not real. How this happens can be different for whoever experiences it. For some it's like a waking memory — for others it's completely inside their head and they're catatonic until they wake. It can be limited to a single character witnessing their ugliest fears, or it can drag everyone near them along into a tailor-made nightmare.

However it happens, characters will not sustain injuries from their fears, however, if they experience an injury in the nightmare they will have phantom pains left behind for the next week. That said, just because they can't be injured by the projections themselves, doesn't mean they're not in danger... because the spirits will take ample advantage of their impaired state, and attack. It seems they aren't even aware of the damage they're causing, only lashing out mindlessly and instinctively.

And since there are plenty of feral spirits that escaped to above ground, even characters in Beacon proper can still suffer the effects of fear share. They can be more limited if desired, or just as visceral and horrible as you'd like. However, characters above ground cannot apply for a mod-generated fear experience!

Character response to these spirits is important to the ending result of the event. If characters kill the feral spirits, or if they incapacitate and attempt to keep them contained, please indicate that in the toplevel here.

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Comments

Worst Nightmare

[worthallthis]

Soldat has just finished with some seriously overkill shooting of a spirit that looked like one Alexander Pierce, and they're all but panting as they back away from the body, bumping into Rosinante as he slumps down. The gun comes up hastily-- it's empty, so it won't hurt him-- and they twitch away, but then they register who it is.

"Ros-- Rosinante. You. Are you hurt." They lower the gun again, and finally eject the clip to slam in another one.

[callada]

Reflexively, he reaches for his pistol when Soldat's gun raises in his direction. It's a self-defense reaction, muscle memory trained into him even though he gets it. Yes, of course, if people know what he is then he doesn't blame them for wanting to put him down like the monster they think he is. He'll fight for his own life if he has to, but he sympathizes with their loathing.

He manages to hold back from actually lifting the pistol from its holster, though, and instead sits curled against the wall with jaws clenched. "Nothing serious. Law already had a look. But he can't fix whatever else is going on in here."

[worthallthis]

"No. Law can't stop a horde of green-eyes. Or. Nearly green-eyes." Nobody can do that. Though a whole clip of bullets seemed to stop one, at least. He ejects the empty magazine, catches it and throws it at one of the spirits out in the dark with deadly accuracy (well, "deadly"; it bounces off a throat and slows it down, at least), and slams a fresh clip in.

With someone to protect, someone to help, he can make himself steady again, at least for the moment. "Get up, Rosinante. We can't get out of here if you're on the floor."

[callada]

"Can't move," he says.

But he doesn't know why. It doesn't make sense. And it's probably in his head. All of those things he knows and yet he can't make himself get up. He lifts his head to stare out at everything around them and for a moment the lanternlight becomes fire and everyone, spirits and non-spirits alike, cast towering shadows and spew hatred, and just like then, he's bound to this wall with no way to escape and nowhere to escape to.

He has to prove himself wrong, and so he tries - pushes against the tunnel wall with one hand, tries to straighten his legs, but whatever the phantom force is that holds him here, it pushes him back down, clawing at his clothing and flesh, keeping him trapped. It merges with his own fears too easily, feeds them, and he kicks out at nothing where a perceived member of that invisible mob gets too close.

[worthallthis]

Soldat avoids the kick deftly, seeing it coming fairly easily, and instead they hold out their metal hand for support. They don't touch, not until they know Rosinante sees and acknowledges and knows the hand for what it is. They say firmly, "Then let me help you. I'll go first and you come behind me until the way is clear for you."

This is what they can do. They can pull their own shit together for someone else. It's always been like this, they're sure of it.

[callada]

Rosinante does his best to fight off the madness, as intense as it is, because he's seen this enough before here to know how nonsensical all of it is. That doesn't make it easy, but it gives him something he can hold onto.

And so does Soldat. He stares blankly at the hand for a moment because of how poorly it fits in with his briefly-warped version of reality, but their voice cuts through. He takes a breath and then takes the hand, and pulls himself finally to his feet.

"All right. I - thank you." Focus, Rosinante. His brow creases as reality comes sharply back to him, and then checks his lantern before looking around. "Where's Law?"

[worthallthis]

"I don't. I don't know." Soldat knows where Rosinante is, and where Pudding is because she's still by the cart, and where Misty is because they came back in with her-- that's the extent of it, at the moment, in the dark. "There's another path out. Javert found it. Let's round people up."

They take another quick shot to fell one of the other spirits-- aimed at its leg to slow it down rather than kill it outright-- and shudder at the phantom feeling of latex-gloved hands on their flesh arm, even through the tac vest. They shake it off, and dig into a pocket. "Here. This will show where lanterns are." They offer their heat-sensing scope to Rosinante. Having a job will help, right? Also, looking through a scope means not seeing hallucinations. Maybe.

[callada]

"Oh - good. Good idea." This is a thing he can focus on and he's determined to do it, because there are few things he hates as much as feeling like he's slowing other people down. He accepts the scope, and eyes the mount before just holding it. He didn't bring his rifle in here given the close range, and neither his pistol nor shotgun are of a style to work with something like this without some real modification.

But that's fine. He's aware he probably shouldn't be shooting until he feels like his head is clearer. He holds the scope up to peer through it, seeking lanterns. Is that Law's ahead? Maybe.

"He might be helping someone. He'll probably find us when he can. Haki," he says, as if that one word is enough of an explanation. In his mind, it is.

[worthallthis]

"What's haki," Soldat asks, eyes on the rest of the room now, noting the points of light that represent either familiar embers from lanterns they know aren't shielded or from faintly glowing lights in the dark.

They start moving, stepping gingerly around the spirit they shot. There are echoes of tech voices all around, but Rosinante is behind them. They need to focus. The cart is six paces to their two o'clock. They angle for that, first, to collect their rifle and what's left of the supply.

Rosinante might catch flickers of a masked face behind a rifle, or of lantern and torch light glinting off a metal halo attached to a chair. Fears sometimes leak out from one to the other.

[callada]

Plenty of the fears he's experiencing aren't even his, currently - or they feed off his own, amplifying the dread from his own memories of being bound and blindfolded. He shudders as a deep chill sets in, as the fire at the corners of his vision is replaced by ice-slicked walls. Someone else's nightmares, all of them momentarily his own. It's immensely disorienting and takes all his effort to stay focused on Soldat's voice as they lead the way.

"Uh, it's -" He pauses, takes a breath. His voice had come out much more ragged than he'd like. Time to try that sentence again. "A hidden sense, I guess. Manifests differently in some people. Law's good at it, he can feel things around him without seeing them. Probably knows exactly where we are right now."

Boy, wouldn't it be cool to have powers like that, but instead Rosinante is stuck with his weird (though useful) devil fruit. And really, he's proud Law has such mastery of that hidden potential people can carry, just like he's proud of everything else Law is and can do, though it's a lot harder to gush about all of it right now than usual.

[worthallthis]

That does sound useful. "Misty has something like that. Life sense. Not as useful when we're all dead, but." It still kind of works. Lantern sense. "All I've got. Is my own eyes and ears."

And they're playing fucking tricks on them, today. "They're like green-eyes," they say grimly. "But less. Less. There's just more of them." Maybe it's why the things they're seeing keep flickering, keep changing: they aren't as strong, but there's so damn many of them all.

[callada]

Eyes and ears, advanced healing, and a badass metal arm, he wants to retort - but he's not in the mood to tease. Just holding it together right now is enough, when there are nightmares lurking around every corner.

"Something stuck in between," he agrees. "Like they weren't fully finished, or couldn't be." But they barely know anything about the transition from forest spirit to green-eyed spirit and he's not about to start throwing out guesses. That's something to debate later, once their lives aren't under immediate threat. He keeps his focus on the lights ahead for now and tries to shut out the rest. Let Soldat deal with whatever threats are actually present.

geez sorry for the delay, accidentally archived the notif

[worthallthis]

"They get over it. I think. Like we did." They shoot another spirit in the shoulder, spinning it back, and sidesteps another that doesn't seem to see them and is aiming for the elevator behind them. They feel eyes on them, so many eyes, and the plates in their arm ripple angrily again. They can't even guess which of them that's coming from. "Trying not to kill them, it's not-- it's not their fault."

They might be feeling bad about the not!Pierce one.

[callada]

Hopefully Soldat is right and they do get over it. Do spirits react the same to that treatment as they had? He's not sure it's safe to assume, but he also knows that he's seeing everything through a negative lens right now, struck periodically by waves of hopelessness and terror like he hasn't felt since childhood. The past will never leave him alone, it seems.

He watches as the spirit takes the hit and scampers out of sight, and ducks out of the reach of one that was climbing up the wall next to him as he does his best to keep up and not get too lost in his own head. "Good. Yeah. If they get over it, they'll appreciate it." And if not, maybe there's still enough of them inside to appreciate the effort later, and to behave with a little more restraint than green-eyes typically do.

"Law trapped a bunch back there too, closer to the entrance. They're unhurt, just stuck for now."

[worthallthis]

"Good. Maybe. Maybe they can get free later, or we can come back--" Though Soldat is not really liking the idea of coming back here, right now. Not unless they're sure it's safe. They feel bad for the spirits, but right now the fear and worry is absolutely taking precedence.

When they reach the cart, Misty has already collected Pudding, gotten her towards the exit. So Soldat just hefts up their rifle from the cart, and slings it over their shoulder. "Tunnel's that way. You go. Take the scope, follow their lanterns. I'll round up the last ones. Make. Make sure Merwen got out." God, she's still on the upper level, the spirits surging towards the elevator would have gone right for her...

[callada]

Coming back sounds awful to him, but no place in Beacon has been untouched by death. If they get out of this intact, if they manage to make this place safer (if not totally safe, for nowhere here ever is), then a return trip could still yield more, maybe. But one step at a time. Getting out is the priority right now.

He can hear the voices down the tunnel farther, can't tell if they're friends or people coming to burn him alive. It's a fleeting worry, thankfully; he grips the cart for something solid for a moment, focuses the sight on nearby lanternlight, and reminds himself that nobody can really burn here, not like that.

"Right. Good luck," he manages, mouth dry. He'd go along and help if he was in better mental shape but right now he'd probably be a hindrance. He needs to find Law.