EVENT LOG: AULD LANG SYNE

[nextnightmods]

EVENT LOG:
Auld Lang Syne

characters: everyone.
location: Everywhere
date/time: December 31-January 1
content: Another year gone by, and a sunny future ahead
warnings: n/a

Most of a year has passed since the World Eater was defeated and light began to trickle its way back in to the world. Spring brought new green growth, summer brought the first few pale flowers, and fall saw ever-longer days even as the crispness of frost returned to the air. Now, the longest nights of winter have passed (which still were shorter than those in that first spring), and as the sun rises on the new year, it does so with reassuring warmth that cuts through the ice and snow.

we've wandered far beneath the stars

Many left in those early days, lured by the chances to take the portal home, or to new worlds - and hopefully they made it successfully. The few who stayed behind in Beacon have worked hard on making the place into a home, or at least a solid base of operations for future work, whatever that might entail. Exploring has become easier thanks to the longer, brighter days, revealing a seemingly endless expanse of forest pockmarked by ruined, overgrown cities. Beacon stands at the center of it all, somehow harbors the brightest light, and so out at the edges of the explored areas, forest spirits still linger. They're generally friendly and curious, encouraged by stories spread by the spirits who fled Beacon and its sunlight in order to carry news of the lantern-folk and their success at bringing the aurora to the ground.

All right, so the story may not always be accurate, but it has been told.

And given the spirits still understand the emotional meaning to the start of a new year, counted not on a calendar they follow but on one they barely remember, they begin a strange sort of pilgrimage in those long winter nights. On the night of December 31 they swarm the darkened town of Beacon with whoops and hollers and gifts of ancient decayed (but possibly still viable) seed packets looted from broken cities, crude jewelry made of bones and shards of pottery, and something that looks a bit like it was probably modeled after bread, but are actually buns of baked clay. Before the sun rises, they depart again, leaving Beacon quiet in the snow except for the strange, eerie noises of ice breaking around the edges of the lake.

Should anyone, intentionally or by mistake, break one of these clay buns, they'll find there was something inside. Is your luck good or bad, or will their token object be too obscure to decipher?

and we ran into the night

You probably have your own way of celebrating, too. The portal works, and experimenting with it and the old lighthouse keeper's notes have provided a means to bring in gifts, food and drinks, and even sometimes living creatures, plants, or fungi, though things don't always go intended (an order for goats one day instead brought in a pair of these).

Those who live in Beacon have generally agreed not to bring in new people, but accidents sometimes happen. If you're new on the new year, this must all be awfully confusing, but if you've been here a month or so, maybe you've had time to settle in. It's certainly been made easier by those studying lantern repair over the last many months, as small dents and cracks can often be patched back up, usually with good success (but sometimes with temporary side effects).

Enjoy the new year from the shore of the lake, the warmth of The Invincible, or wherever you like - you've chosen to stay, at least for now, and Beacon isn't a bad place to call home.

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Comments

[donttalktome]

"And another point is scored." Will gives him a single congratulatory clap. "Which makes us even once again." There's still plenty of time to change that, though.

"For the record, I don't really have a favorite drink, either. I have preferences, of course, but my tastes change too often to pick favorites." When you try everything you come across, the order never stays the same for long. And, as Rosinante suspected: "The coffee is mostly for the caffeine, but there are plenty of things I like more." The taste isn't bad, but it's not the greatest, and he's unwilling to bother with sugar or cream. Takes too much time.

[callada]

"That's what I was guessing. Coffee's practical, though I like the taste well enough. Mostly I just couldn't picture you getting that drunk the first time you ever touched alcohol, you're smarter than that."

Or at least not quite that eager to impress someone else. Besides, he remembers the first time he tasted alcohol, and he didn't like it one bit. Funny how that changes, though.

"All right, let's see. Dunno if I'll be able to come up with enough miscellaneous facts to make it to ten," he says with a laugh. "Feels like a long way away. We're on what, four? Want to go to seven instead?"

[donttalktome]

Is he smarter than that? The obvious answer is yes, but it's not like he's never overindulged in something he shouldn't have. Just not the first time.

"I'm not even sure I can make it to seven." Coming up with facts that Rosinante doesn't know is difficult. They may have shared too much for this game to be completely viable.

"Honestly, I'd be satisfied if we ended it with five."

[callada]

"Best of five, then," he agrees with a nod, then leans back in his chair with his cigarette between his teeth as he thinks up more ideas. Gotta make the last ones count, right?

"I've never actually commanded my own ship, I'm trilingual, and this," he says, pointing both hands to the long scars over his shoulders that aren't actually visible through his winter clothes though Will is surely familiar by now, "Isn't actually from a sea king like I usually tell people, but just from a big fishman."