EVENT LOG: GHOST TOWNS

[nextnightmods]

EVENT LOG:
GHOST TOWNS

characters: everyone.
location: around town
date/time: november 5-16.
content: carved vegetables, soothing memories, and spreading the light far and wide.
warnings: n/a, please label threads as needed.

it's the promise of a better place.

It's time to relax a little, and appreciate the people you've loved, the things that bring you comfort, and all the other small joys that have followed you from your life back home to Beacon where you now reside. The spirits, drawing again on past holidays and traditions, and now mostly dedicated to helping, have been busy trying to find ways to lift the mood, let you spread light to the darker corners of town, and find ways to make life (or death, as the case may be) a little more pleasant.

I STILL DREAM OF YOU

All around the bonfire are carved vegetables - radishes, turnips, rutabagas, squash, and so on. And as the days draw on, more arrive. Each has a feeling or brief memory attached to it that belongs to someone in town. Whose pumpkin or potato have you found, and can you reunite it with them? Where are yours?

Off in corners around town, you might also still encounter the spirits hard at work and if you approach, they'll squeak and chitter and offer you something to carve or decorate, in case you want to get crafty and help out! How they add the memories remains very much a mystery, but the decorating they'll certainly share.

THAT TRUTH WE CHASE

A strange post appears on the network. Not a photo, not an audio file, no - this one is a video, for one of the first-ever times since the last reset. A fuzzy hand, and then a masked face, appear much too close in front of the camera, then a squeaky song of delight.

But there's another spirit in the background - larger, covered in feathers, with two large round yellow - orbs? - on its chest. It grunts in frustration and reaches, and the camera goes sprawling and clattering to the floor.

As the smaller spirit bounds over to retrieve it, the larger one scolds it in a series of loud clucks. After a dizzying journey across the engineer's shop downtown, the camera finally settles on the fuzzy spirit's masked face again now somewhere near the ceiling, and it yelps cheerfully, gives a two-fingered victory sign into the camera, then sets the tablet down and waves a torch around.

In vibrant blue and purple, the flames form the shape of the words FIND. YOURS. POTATO!

At which point there's a flash of feathers and the screen goes black.

Feel free to reply to the video (perhaps with frustration, as aren't tablets limited to audio or text only?), to go investigate downtown, or to make your own network posts to coordinate finding yours potatoes! Please use ENGINEER as your header if you and a friend (or you alone) are going to visit this spirit or the engineer so mods can easily find the threads for NPCing purposes.

FROM DARK TO DAWN

But that's not the only spirit who has messed with the torches. In fact, when they're not sneaking around with squash, spirits can be seen running off with torches in mouths and hands (and sometimes other appendages - those are some impressive toes!), much too fast and nimble for the frustrated Clara to chase after them, but then later returning and dumping armfuls back into the bonfire, or waving them around in delight as they conduct impromptu raves complete with flashing nonsensical messages like A HAM FHW ERGANTOOO or more simply, ♥.

Many will run up to you with a torch in hand, wave it around, then mime staring at it with hands pressed to their temples (if they have temples, or hands) - and sure enough, all it takes is thirty seconds or so of concentration and you too can have your own customized torch message! Try it out, delight your friends, prank your neighbors, or even try to act helpful and warn of nearby cautions if that's more your style.

If you take a torch from the bonfire, please let us know here!

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Comments

[policier]

Come here, then.

( He sounds tired. There's no sternness in his voice and he keeps his gaze lowered toward the other man's shoulder, as he often does whenever he is feeling guilty about something. He hesitates again before turning back to the stove, giving Soldat the chance to stay or to leave. His words are not meant as an order, and he would not fault the other man for treating him coldly. )

[worthallthis]

[Are you kidding, Javert? Soldat is practically making puppy eyes at him with a kind of hopeful relief as they come into the kitchen and approach the stove. Maybe this means they're forgiven, that their punishment is over and Javert will play their game in the evening again, not avoid them.

They want to ask how he's doing, but that could be dangerous ground. Instead, they say,]

It smells good.

[policier]

( He hums in agreement, picking up the ladle and using it to stir. It's difficult for him not to feel relief when Soldat comes to his side. He knows he doesn't deserve it, and were he not so in control of his emotions, he may have even allowed himself to show it. Instead, he instructs the other man to take two bowls from the cupboard and fetch two spoons, and once he's worked up his courage a bit, he says, )

I was hoping that I could speak with you, but we needn't do so before you eat.

( Or perhaps they should do so before? Javert's not certain how to go about this, and he seems lost. )

[worthallthis]

[Waiting until after they eat means the possibility of sitting and stressing themselves out wondering what it's about. Soldat settles back on their heels, not crowding Javert, but watching him.]

Now is fine. Is everything. Okay?

[policier]

( He almost wants to laugh at the absurdity of Soldat's question. Shouldn't that be obvious? No man in his right mind would lock himself up in his room for two weeks, brooding and wasting away as Javert had. He doesn't laugh, but he does answer sincerely, almost sighing, )

No.

( He sets the ladle down as well, resigning himself to the fact that he must make his apology now, before going further. )

I am not well, but that does not excuse how I've treated you. I took my anger out on you unjustly. I'm sorry.

[worthallthis]

[Soldat tilts their head, birdlike in confusion. Relief, but confusion.]

I deserved punishment for offending you. But I am glad if you're satisfied with the. The time done.

[Maybe that's a bit of a backslide, but it resonated so sharply with their second month's punishment from Misty that it was hard to avoid.]

[policier]

No!

( He's not going to let Soldat think that he deserved that. His voice rises a little, almost to the point of shouting, and he looks up for the first time since Soldat came into the kitchen, his blue eyes sharp and piercing. There's a part of him that almost wants to take the other man by the shoulders and shake him, until the guilt is rattled out of him, but he thinks better of it. He turns himself a little more fully to Soldat, instead, and says, )

I will not be satisfied until you stop blaming yourself. It is my fault alone for losing my temper, and for thinking that it'd be best to stay away from you. More the fool I was! I don't know how you could wish to be around me when I treated you so cruelly.