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logsinthenight2019-08-18 05:06 pm
inthenightmods) wrote in logsinthenight2019-08-18 05:06 pm
EVENT LOG: DO YOU REALIZE? PART TWO
EVENT LOG:
DO YOU REALIZE? PART TWO
characters: everyone.
location: Bonfire Square.
date/time: August 18-19.
content: the party takes a turn for the worst.
warnings: violence, gore, character death.
"but if your lantern's too banged up to fix, you ain't coming back."
Late on Saturday evening, just as the party's hitting its stride for the night, the foghorn sounds. It's a frantic blaring, the deep, hollow bellows of the horn echoing over the trees in some approximation of a song, impossible not to hear from wherever you might be lingering this evening.
It captures the attention of the forest spirits, first and foremost. They drop whatever they're up to as soon as the first note strikes the air, and they listen. You listen, too, though any sense of understanding is lost on you. One thing is clear, though: the time for distraction is over.•••
The tone of the party has changed, and not for the better. Before, the forest spirits at least seemed to be enjoying themselves, feasting and dancing, wobbling around and entertaining themselves. Now...
Now, the atmosphere has changed. There's tension thrumming through the air.
One's head snaps to the side sharply, focusing on something unseen in the forest. A few moments later, and others do the same: bodies locked in place, limbs frozen, they stare at something out into the darkness. Can you see it? Maybe. Maybe there's something out there... and maybe you'd better not attract its attention. Two pinpoints of green light, glimmering though no light manages to reach its body. It doesn't move, and neither do the spirits in town, but perhaps it's best not to disturb them.
A few aren't so calm. Mouths dropping open, the noises they emit range from low urgent clicks to desperate howls, but all give off a deep feeling of anxiety. Fear, verging into terror, claws digging into dirt and spirits skittering madly over buildings, limbs snapping erratically, the path of their movements understood only to themselves. They don't lash out at others, not yet— but there's a frantic energy to their movements which suggests something is wrong.
Good thing you're disguised as a spirit, isn't it? Although if you haven't gotten to that station yet, rotten luck. Maybe you better get to hiding, because right now it seems like the spirits aren't so keen on things that don't belong.•••
Ah, but after that initial panic, the foghorn abruptly goes quiet. The lighthouse beam shuts off, too. The thing with the green eyes vanishes, and most of the other forest spirits have already fled or are still stuck frozen in town, but it's now that the others attack. Apparently not all of the spirits were won over by the party's attempt at diplomacy.
The hostile spirits attack with abandon, and can't be reasoned with. The only way to stop them is to kill them or detain them, although you could just wait it out and hope they move on soon. In any case, how you deal with the spirits is up to you. Feel free to NPC them in your own threads if you'd like to fight them or attempt to interact with the frozen ones, though the fighting spirits will continue to fight until dispatched and the frozen spirits won't snap out of it no matter what you do.
As far as what the expedition teams are up to, that's up to them. All expedition teams including the team that's with Winters are able to make it back to town to witness the chaos. What happened out at the lighthouse, though? The Winters crew will be sure to let you all know... soon.
And if you'd like to go after the spirit with the green eyes? Well, go ahead, but do so at your own risk.
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no subject
For all that, Vanitas couldn't deliver a better sucker punch than that observation. In the hot burst of surprise and chagrin that follows, he takes the shove without much fight. It's true, when push came to shove, he'd acted to protect his lantern from the Unversed without even thinking. He's still undecided how he feels about that. The reminder only serves to make the anger that riders ever-close to the surface in his dark state flare higher.
It's not even that Vanitas is implying he's weak, but that he's exposed a lie M.K. hadn't realized he was telling.]
Neither did you, or have you forgotten?
[The lapse lasts only a second, and it's with a pure, snapping petulance that he pushes back, literally and figuratively, stepping forward to reclaim the ground Vanitas had shoved him back from. Had he not struck that nerve, he might've stopped to consider the friendly warning, but--
Oh. The pieces fall into place. Sensitive in many ways, M.K. is also observant in others, and those black eyes relax from their narrowed glower into a wondering sort of understanding.]
You're afraid. [That's it, isn't it? His growing certainty takes on insistence.] You're afraid of it, that's why you don't want to go after it. I'm right, aren't I? Why? What do you know about it?
no subject
Even when the realization dawns on M.K.'s face, Vanitas doesn't falter. He doesn't flinch away from that truth, doesn't step back, raise or lower his guard.
After all, he is afraid. Not for anyone else, but for himself. Vanitas isn't consciously thinking about sparing any of these people the pain he went through, but the reminder of it, just looking at that thing— having fought the spirits he has, already, the stark reminders of what it felt like to be torn asunder— it's enough to make him act out.
But beyond that, the more people that die in some illadvised attempt to engage something stronger than them, the fewer they will have remaining to ensure the success of the mission. ]
It's stronger than you think it is. Those things in the woods aren't like these—
[ He gestures broadly at the spirits in the square, the ones that have gone feral. ]
no subject
Releasing their locked gazes, he cuts his to the side, over the other's shoulder. Transferring the weight of it onto the points of eerie green reflected light still hovering in the gloom. Still unmoving. For the time being, he pushes aside the confusion Vanitas' comment had managed to send boiling to the surface.]
Is that what killed you?
[It's a guess, but one that feels like a square peg in a square hole. Vanitas in the church. Vanitas, so certain in his firmness.]
no subject
He doesn't think it was that one, specifically. He knows he would have remembered those yes, the specific green shine of them. But it's the stillness, the way it stands, the threat that floods off the body Vanitas can't quite see.
It's the same— or one just like it. ]
One of them.
no subject
[It's all making sense. He's not someone who thinks in strategy, he thinks in terms of what feels right--and this grim realization feels right, from the ripple through Vanitas' fierce demeanor, to Vanitas protecting him from something rather than protecting something from him as he's been used to all his life...
Confirmation of the truth only lends weight to the conclusion. For all his strange power, this darkly dangerous boy fought and lost, and he doesn't want the rest of them charging headlong into battle with this new spirit.
Now's no time for pity, if he were even liable to offer pity for the no doubt painful death that had left Vanitas in the jumpy state he'd been in when they'd crossed paths in the church. He cocks his head, taking the warning into serious consideration even as a table splinters behind him with an explosive crack as a frenzied spirit barrels into it. There is a time for strategy, and now... might be it.]
You think I'm not strong enough to beat it?
[Never mind that Vanitas has never seen him use his power but briefly. The question has the obstinance of a challenge to it--but if he wasn't asking for some manner of honest assessment, he would've already bowled his way past.]
no subject
His eyes go back to M.K.'s and lock into place. ]
No. I don't.
[ Because Vanitas doesn't think anyone is. Maybe if there were only one of those monsters, maybe if they fought that spirit in a group— but Vanitas can already see what would happen. Those things had moved fast, and Vanitas could use the darkness to teleport. M.K. wouldn't stand a chance on his own.
Besides: he knows a trap when he sees one. ]
Not if it leads you to all it's little friends.
[ That's an exaggeration. They'd been anything but small. ]
no subject
But it seems to have an effect nevertheless. He stands unblinking with that inscrutable gaze a moment longer, and then relents, no more than a shift of weight on the balls of his feet, leaning back instead of toward.
Maybe this guy is like him in the nature of his power, maybe he's not. But often those people with dark gifts have been the only people in life who've given him an honesty he can depend on. Anyone else and he may have pushed them aside--but coming from Vanitas, of all people in this town, he listens.]
Tell me about it later.
[A request--to learn more about these spirits that not even Vanitas is ready to face again.]
no subject
He doesn't raise his hand to his face, but the black glass that melted away to show his face pulls itself back up untilthe helmet is covering his head again. ]
If we live through this, I'll think about it.
[ But Vanitas seems ready to leave it at that, because he turns away from M.K. and toward the yawning black portal he opens up on his left. He needs to find his group, and running through this mess is going to take too long. Without another word he steps through the corridor and it swallows up shut behind him, preventing anyone from following him. ]