EVENT LOG: DO YOU REALIZE? PART TWO

[inthenightmods]

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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Comments

[evulsed]

[ It isn't the first time he's felt the life spilling out of him, the way it seeps out cold and slow. He'd done it before, standing opposite Ventus and Sora, in the Keyblade Graveyard— but this is different. It hurts more, every inhale becoming thinner, pulling on the torn muscle. Is it worse, or better, than being dismembered? That had been excruciating, but at least it had been quick.

Elden is at his side in moments, and Vanitas' gaze lifts slow, pupils small and the gold of his irises taking up most of his eyes. He wants to laugh about it, the irony of dying for a lightbearer, but when he exhales it comes out bloody and wet. You're going to be fine. It's only death.

And then Elden lays hands on him, and then Vanitas feels his magic up close— too close— and for a moment, everything whites out.

It isn't joy he feels, because Vanitas doesn't know happiness. What he feels is a flood of a memory not his own— the calmness of a decision made. It's Sora, sitting on Destiny Islands, looking into Kairi's face. It's the realization that the fighting is over, that he's accomplished what he set out to do. It's being, and then not being. It's the anguish finally over, and the long, stretching, gentle silence of death. The cradle of a heartbeat that slowly fades out.

And then, all at one, it's Vanitas slammed back into his body— Elden's light pouring into him, stitching the muscle together, pulling bones back into place.

The pain is indescribable— and maybe it isn't pain, but Vanitas doesn't know how else to call it. His longing for what Sora had just before he came here, his longing to be whole and quiet and complete. Vanitas' face is wet with tears, and he puts his hand out, lays it flat against Elden's chest and pushes at him weakly. It's too much Light. It's too much— ]

Stop— Stop—

[spitefullight]

[ Elden isn't moved by the shove, despite how weak he may be a weak shove like that isn't going to do much. However, the asking for it to stop Elden interprets it as stopping the pain. So he continues to mutter the divine words, holding his hands over the wound as it continues to slowly fix itself.]

It'll be fine. We'll be done soon.

[evulsed]

[ It would've been too easy to ask.

He'd made this mistake once before, with his Master— when he'd been fresh and unlearned, before he'd been forged into the sort of weapon that wouldn't flinch under an attack. The memory is hazy, made that way by the exhaustion and the stress of the moment, but he'd begged the same way for relief.

The Light sears him, a hot iron cauterizing a wound. It lances through all his darkness, like a beam of light cutting through storm clouds. Elden doesn't stop and Vanitas chokes on the burning sensation in the back of his throat, on the copper flavor on his tongue. The dichotomy leaves him reeling, the agony of all that Light dumped directly into his body and the gentle, cradling warmth underneath it— the faded out sensation of taking his own life and the freedom to rest in it afterwards. A task done with nothing else to follow.

Vanitas makes a horrible sound, animal and agonized in the back of his throat, but the strength sapped out of him from the injury slowly reverses, until finally he can feel his arms again. When he can, his grip flexes, pulling Elden's shirt into a fist, and Vanitas gives him a sturdy shove in a desperate attempt to interrupt the spell. ]