House Log 001: Find me way out there; there's no road that will lead us back

[payingfordeliverance]

Who: The Pandoras + various assorted acquaintances, perhaps
What: Catchall log for the PH cast, for our various non-event needs!
When: October + November
Where: Pandora House, which needs a cooler name, and perhaps elsewhere

Content Warnings: No specifics as of yet but there will probably be ghosts, PTSD, depression and grief, and also literally everyone in this cast is dead oops.

Comments

Xerxes Break

[payingfordeliverance]

Early October

[greatestfall]

Nightmares aren't anything new. In fact, it's more rare to have an undisturbed night's rest than not. They're not always so vivid, though. Frequently they are dark things that strike him awake in the middle of the night with a deep, horrible dread, the room around him feeling nebulous and uncertain.

Sometimes, though, they are so real he can scarcely tell them apart from the waking world until he's stumbled his way down the halls and found the wash room, fumbling on the shower and drenching himself in cold water until he can think. This is one such night, where the nightmare refused to stay where it belonged. Where it followed him into reality, warping the walls around him into bloody, gnashing teeth.

Not yet fit to sleep again, Elliot towels himself off and wanders his way into the kitchen, looking for something to drink. He does not expect to find company when he does.

cw: anxiety

[payingfordeliverance]

Elliot is not the only one having a rough night. Break hasn't slept at all yet -- one of his fits of nerves struck him as he lay there in the dark, his mind trapped in a whirl as he considered over and over all the things he needs to be taking care of now that he has four kids to look after, all of them weird and all of them hurting. And though they'll certainly support one another too, the bulk of it is going to fall to him, and in what world is he the best person for this job? In what world is he going to manage to pull this off? Well, it's going to have to be this one apparently because he just doesn't have a choice, and goddamn what he would not give for the chance to run to Sheryl Rainsworth, to hear her chortle at him and tell him he's overprotective and they can surely handle this or that and even though he knows she'd say it it's not the same as hearing it and he misses her so much --

Unbeknownst to him, she's in the chair nearby, or some version of her is. She's well dressed as always, the usual serene smile on her face. But she's shockingly pale and her head is tilted at a horrible angle that looks even worse contrasted against her hands folded neatly in her lap. Summoned by his thoughts, she keeps Break company as he slouches over a forgotten teacup with one hand buried in his hair, too absorbed in his racing thoughts to notice Elliot's arrival. Baltus is aware of him, but doesn't move from his position with his head on Break's leg, supporting him as best he can while Break tries to remember to breathe.

cw: beheading, ptsd,

[greatestfall]

The whole scene is a shock it's hard to pinpoint what gets him first. If not the tormented looking state Xerxes Break seems to be in, then the absolutely ghastly visage of the woman sitting at the table. He thinks for a moment, its the house messing with him, or one of the spirits playing some awful prank on them, but the longer he looks, the more he realizes he recognizes the woman.

Sheryl of Rainsworth. As a Nightray he had to be familiar with the other Dukedoms, and while he never brushed elbows with any of them directly, it's impossible to not know of their notoriety. Sheryl was a frightening force of a woman within Pandora and commanded significant respect.

So what what she doing sitting at their table, looking like that, while Break seemed to be wholly unaware of the situation? Elliot doesn't know. He isn't sure what's happening and the whole thing makes him uneasy in ways he cannot put into words. Added that on top of the nightmare he just came out of, where he once again watched his sister's head roll down a flight of stairs, his own face coated in the phantom stickiness of her blood-

"What the fuck."

October event overflow: Qrow

[payingfordeliverance]

Continued from here!


It really is weird, isn't it? When you live by the sword you expect to die by it. [Break certainly never expected to have any kind of "retirement", either, not for real, so it's easy to echo Qrow's thoughts here. Even before he knew the Hatter would kill him, even before Pandora when he was just a knight, the idea of dying for any reason other than a sword cutting through his defenses simply felt preposterous. But, well, ah.] To be fair, however, I rather did that. It's only that it didn't stick.

[When all is said and done Break grants that kill to the Mad Hatter, not Glen Baskerville. There is probably some horrible underlying subconscious reason for this having to do with his control issues and a lack of willingness to hand his death over to anything he didn't do to himself, which he will declare to be spite if called on it. But, giving credit where credit is due, Glen did get a solid whack on him there at the end and it sure did bleed a lot. So who knows. Even if it didn't actually stop him from going about the last of his business it may well have killed him even without the damage the Hatter had already done.

It's useless to think about and extra depressing here lately, and anyway, Break is now beaming at Qrow as though they are six year olds and Qrow has just invited him to join him in making mud pies.]

I can at least knock you over, I bet. I'll manage that for sure.

shall we timeskip around here?

[bolstafir]

Heh. Y'know what, fair.

[Qrow might have chosen this new life in this world to run away from an impossible, unwinnable war, but despite that...he still sees himself more as a Huntsman than anything else. He might feel as though there is nothing left for him back there, but he is still alive. Were he to have actually died before finding himself upon these shores, he wonders if he would feel differently. He can't really imagine a different lifestyle as he is now, but ... maybe. You never know.

He manages a weak answering grin to Break's beam, though.]

I'd be disappointed if you didn't, honestly.

[He's seen Break fight. It's impressive enough without factoring in the notion that Break can't see, but knowing that? In terms of sheer skill, they're on equal footing at minimum, and Qrow might even venture to give Break a slight edge. Not that he'll say as much; a man's gotta have his pride ok.

...But as they chatter about this hypothetical future spar, the burnt out tower of a certain gaudy green mansion comes into view. Qrow is a little relieved, honestly -- as easy and comfortable as conversations with Break tend to be, he sincerely feels like refried shit and wants to lie down and sleep so badly.]

Ah, that's my place up ahead.

roger that, zooming off to corpseland

[payingfordeliverance]

Mm, very good.

[It's short work to slip inside and deposit Qrow on the first comfy flat surface they find, this being a couch. While he is wallowing in his refried shitdom, Break and Baltus have a small celebration, the omen shrinking back down to his usual size with a shake and trotting eagerly up to his person for well-earned vigorous pettings, which Break quietly supplements with, "Magnificent work, Baltus; you've saved the day again!"

The praise dispensed, they creep quietly out again some moments later when Qrow is not paying attention and are gone long enough to give him a chance to doze off. But whenever he's aware next, he'll find that Break has sneakily availed himself of the kitchen in this unfamiliar house and done up a bit of tea, dragging an end table over for the teacup to live on, along with a glass of water and a few crackers arranged neatly on a plate. He's even found a wastebin to leave within lunging distance before sliding on home.

Another of the ginger candies next to the crackers betrays just who is responsible. Break doesn't always bother to care so much for indisposed acquaintances or even friends, but Qrow is obviously ill, not suffering from poor life choices. Whether it's catching or not, Break makes a mental note to check on him in the next day or two, otherwise trusting Qrow's household to take care of him.



He never does check in. Instead, the grief hits him the next morning before he manages to get out of bed and find a distraction from it, and the next few days he barely hangs on. By the time Qrow has sorted himself out enough to get in touch himself, Break is in one of his angrier moods, ignoring his omni and not spending much time at home. Fortunately, Break is easy to find -- Baltus is likewise agitated, and that means frequent trips out to the beaches where the omen has real room to run. If Qrow doesn't find them on his own, one of Break's kids can easily point him in the right direction.

At first glance, it's a sweet picture, Break and Baltus on the beach. They look for all the world like a guy who is simply playing with his dog. Baltus has a particular penchant for such classics as tug-o'-war and keep-away, and sometimes when Break manages to catch him and shove him over, the situation devolves into a loving wrestling match there on the sand before Baltus manages to noodle out and bolt away again, restarting the games over. Today, however, the fun is being overseen by a dead woman in a large gown of fine silks, hair in a long ponytail and hands curled into claws. As Break and his omen move here and there, the corpse follows a short distance away, her movements jerking and erratic. She never actually moves to grab onto Break, who seems to have no idea she is there. But she certainly looks as though she is thinking about it.]

October event overflow: Alice

[payingfordeliverance]

[Continued from here!]


[Baltus, helpful as ever, sidles forward to drape his paws over the edge of the awning and bark firmly at his person, by way of punctuation. His tail is swishing. This is all way better than Break being a lump at home, feeling sad about things he can't ever get back, as usual. It's not a bad thing for Break to feel sad, mind, but the way it's dragging him down recently seems very much not quite him.]

...well, I'm certainly not going to.

[Alice's proclamation only backs up Break's fibs, meanwhile, and the crowd begins to disperse, satisfied with this little drama. He will see about sorting out these oniony things while she is up there. Honestly, this is a pretty good thing to have happened. Break is quickly learning that you can make a lot of dishes much better by slapping some sort of onion into it.]

[velvet_teen]

[ Alice makes what she's pretty sure is a rude gesture over the side of the awning. It's not quite accurate, but her heart is in the right(?) place. She eventually jumps down after she's touched a soft dog shaped creature long enough to mitigate all the clown cooties.

They have some sort of food, she helped, somehow, this is... maybe helpful for potato soup. You can put a lot in a potato soup that's not an actual potato, she is not entirely clear on the details. What she is clear on what she currently knows that Break wouldn't and can tell him in a bossy tone of voice. ]

Those big ones are white and green, the little ones are all white, the rest are white or yellow and one of them's purple. And that grassy stuff is green, too. It might be a decoration.

[ When in doubt, put it in your mouth! Alice eats a chive. ]

It's not a decoration.

[payingfordeliverance]

The purple ones are really only for sandwiches.

[Break knows this by way of being that guy who will try most anything once provided that it is purple. These are salad onions too, the purple ones, but in what world is that relevant to Alice? Not this one. Oz is probably the only person in the household who would eat a salad on purpose and actually enjoy it. Elliot just feels like a soup guy, as appetizers go.]

Anything resembling grass is most likely an herb, not a vegetable. Those are for -- ehhhhh, a little extra something? To add a bit of bite to a baked potato, perhaps, or to put in a little bag and steep in one's soup broth, like a tea.

October event overflow: Oscar

[payingfordeliverance]

[Continued from here!]


Break does pause to pay close attention to the sudden memory, as quick as it is. Oscar will feel him go very still as he focuses on it, and considers it all after. He's terribly curious and can't help it -- not just for these kinds of details, but for the way things look. Because he was really only blinded recently, his lack of sight is something that makes him feel very lonely at times, adrift in crowds and untethered in solitude; thus the reason Baltus is so physical with him. The omen serves as a helpful anchor in Break's darkness. But the world still feels distant from him in so many ways, and knowing Qrow slides from bird to man and back again in an eyeblink is vastly different than actually getting to watch him do it.

He's quiet for a few long moments after.

"...the bulk of what I've heard is that it was profoundly terrible," he says, after a moment. "Mm, but -- more than one person has told me they were glad to be there all the same, and most of the 'Sleepers' I've met seem eager to help one another."

Break is cranky about the whole situation, but that does mean something to him.

[justoscar]

Oscar wiggled on Break's head, happy to know that the man had good ears and was a fine judge of circumstance. Perhaps one day Oscar would feel comfortable sharing more visions of Remnant with Break-- but, he wanted to get more control of his powers, first.

"You've got the right idea. It was literally a little girl's nightmare, after all. But, because everything that happened there was connected to her sleeping mind, she did have some control.

"Sometimes, she even made the magic I had from Remnant activate on it's own and turn me into a bird when things got stressful. It was only last winter that I figured out how to do it when I wanted to."

[payingfordeliverance]

"-- good gravy, that's the last thing I need. My house is full of darkbloods."

This puts a new spin on this business where messing with shadows is easier than not doing so lately, for some reason. Break had been indulging in that somewhat, even tonight. Perhaps, then, he will stop doing that. Deep down, Break is terrified of his own potential for making a mess with his blood powers, even as the kids are mostly using them to have fun floating around. The idea that he could be led into using them without his own permission is even worse.

He will really feel like a tool when it turns out his powers have been blinding him and keeping him stuck with a morning cough this whole time.

October event overflow: Lucius

[payingfordeliverance]

[Continued from here!]

No sooner has Lucius slid away than Baltus has spun about and launched himself back into the fray -- or toward it, at least. The omen makes it a point to keep behind Break rather than get underfoot, giving him plenty of space to utilize his fighting style to the fullest. He's much stronger than he looks but his real skill, like his omen's, is speed, as well as his capacity to turn on a dime and react to attacks in advance, even blind. Having anything else too close to him in a fight only complicates matters, and that includes Baltus.

That's not to say Baltus isn't helping, of course. The fighting style they've mastered together has the borzoi keeping a careful eye on the daugr and shifting from side to side behind Break, sometimes letting out a short bark to let him know an attack is coming in from a particular direction. It gets a solid hit on him all the same just before the gyrfalcon swoops in to help, swatting him away like nothing more than an insect, and Baltus puffs into smoke to let Break slide right on through him across the pavement, trusting that he'll sort himself out. He does, catching himself in his skid and twisting in such a way that he's aimed back at the daugr and ready to leap back in.

"Does it have a weakness?" he calls, to anyone who might be nearby. He can hear it grappling with the bird now -- Baltus sends him a helpful flash of the sight over their link, just enough to enlighten him -- but he definitely sliced the thing up a little too while parrying its attacks and it isn't slowing the thing down at all. The last time he did battle against someone who failed to die from mortal wounds Break paid for it, and he'd rather not waste time figuring out this one's secrets if he can avoid it.

[lludw]

Is the man really blind? It's possible to sense a lot without looking, especially when all your senses are on the alert in battle, but even so. As he watches, though, Lucius starts to notice how the omen moves relative to its master, when it barks. So that's how it is. Clever.

Lucius inhales in a sharp hiss as Break is knocked aside, and releases the breath as the man quickly recovers. Emrys is still buying them some time, distracting the creature by pecking and clawing at its face. As soon as the draugr reaches for the gyrfalcon, Emrys dissolves into smoke, only to reform and attack from another angle.

"You have to cut off the head." At least, that's the only way to stop them in the tales. He raises his sword defensively. Sooner or later the monster will come for one or the other of them.

Elliot Nightray

[greatestfall]

Alice Baskerville (White)

[wishforaneye]

Oz Vessalius

[swornto]

Alice Baskerville (Black)

[velvet_teen]

House Ghost mini-plot!

[payingfordeliverance]

Haunted as all get out, they'd warned Xerxes Break, when the topic of snatching up an abandoned house large enough to hold himself and several teenagers had come up. No one wants it. It's just too much. Sure, there had been plenty of ghostly activity when they arrived in September, up to and including a disembodied hand that likes to run around all over the kitchen. But after a series of pranks involving sugar switched for salt and so on, it was determined that the hand really just wanted to be included in things, so they named the thing Scrabbles and now it's as much a part of the family as Elliot's slowly growing batcat army. So it's gone with most of the ghosts and that seems right and proper. After all, everyone who has arrived from their world is also firmly dead and still kicking anyway. Isn't it a pleasant thing for so many ghosts to be sharing this nice home? When you put it like that, haunted as all get out doesn't really seem like a terrible thing at all.

Anyway it's October now, the ghost activity is much worse, and it all seems to center around some sort of horrible cackling monstrosity living in the basement behind a padlocked door that someone felt the need to hide behind a brick wall.

Probably that's what the warnings were really about.

So, here's how the story goes:

- Shortly after the concerning basement discovery, Dipper Pines posts a very convenient network broadcast concerning ghostbusting, which Break happens to catch with his freshly acquired mad networking skills. It is agreed that probably the basement monstrosity ought to be investigated, and so it is that Dipper comes to visit and Break braces himself for another episode of chasing teenagers around while annoying things happen.

- Annoying things proceed to happen. Turns out the basement ghost was locked down there not to keep others out, but to keep him in. Once released, the ghost attacks and scatters the party, chasing smaller groups of them all over the house in turn. Fortunately, Dipper's presence gives them an even six and nobody ends up alone.

- Armed with Dipper's ghostbusting run-down, every team manages to plant a solid hit on this ghost. After a series of house-wide shenanigans, finally the ghost retreats to its basement lair, and our heroes follow to exorcise the thing properly. Success! ...and so it is that we find ourselves standing in a horrible homebrew blood ministration laboratory, packed to the brim with bad, bad vibes. Turns out the ghost was some crazed mad scientist doing illicit experiments at home, and probably all the other ghosts in the place are somehow his fault. No one wants to think too hard about Scrabbles the disembodied kitchen hand.

- Rifling through the blood minister's notes reveals the existence of a solidly corrupted spouse who was tossed into the attic for safekeeping long ago, and died there. Was this man trying to help his lover through her insanity, and failed? Was he the cause of it in the first place? Either way, this is a house where insane people getting imprisoned in towers and treated as experiments at best is unacceptable, and so it's off to the attic to bring peace to this ghost at last.

- It is decided that all the other ghosts in the house can stay. The only other really scary one lives outside, and to all appearances, eats threats.

- Dipper Pines gets to have the experience of joining a pack of exhausted feral Victorians at the local ramen shop.

Go to town!

Dipper Pines | Who ya gonna call? (Him, apparently)

[ghostharasser]

The Mission Briefing.[Open]

[It was Dipper's first case in Trench and boy was it exciting. Also terrifying. He never had a problem being consulted in Gravity Falls, but everything here is so different. Less people knew him, and the stakes were much higher. This house he was heading to now definitely promised to be wild, if by just the description of the situation was enough to go by. Okay, Dipper, don't mess this up!!]

[Anyway, this is how the Pandora House has come to have this short (4'8"), spunky Ghost expert in their house. He comes with a large bag tossed over his shoulder and immediately makes his way down into the Problem Area with the rest of the house.]

[Dipper does not have to get close to know exactly what this dude is all about. He can feel the bad vibes from the stairs.]

Oh yeah, this guy's got to go.

[Big words from someone advocating for talking ghosts down on the network. Anyway, he does not waste time getting to work. He empties the contents of his bag:

- 12 or so candles, some of them are white and glittery and smell faintly of milk
- a few jars of salt
- a few lunar orb powered handheld lanterns
- several silver objects including: two silver mirrors, a silver candelabra, a silver platter, a flute and a few silverware items.
- a few containers of blessed water.
- One large vial of paleblood. ]

Okay, so, listen up everyone. I didn't have enough silver mirrors to pass around, so instead I hunted down as many silver things as I could and gave them the same spell treatment. I don't think they will catch ghosts, but they should be effective for thwarting them, at least. I'll keep one of the mirrors and then everything else is up for grabs.

We don't know what we're gonna see on the other side of the door, so everyone look sharp. Any questions?

[ooc: You guys can use this as a mingle before we bust open the door. Ask him questions or talk amongst yourselves.]

[wishforaneye]

[One of those jars of salt? It was suddenly floating up and directly in to Alice's hands as she floated as well, legs tucked underneath her as if she were merely sitting. Examining the jar, turning it a little half to listen to the salt moving inside of it.]

What's this for?

[Look, Dipper, you said any questions.]

[velvet_teen]

And we thwart them by hitting them with all of this? That’s easy, the Great Alice shall strike down every ghost in this territory.

[ This confident declaration is slightly muffled because there’s a candle in her mouth. Dipper said up for grabs and she’s taking him at his word. ]

[not actually doing anything I just needed to write this out]

[payingfordeliverance]

[Break is having a "this may as well happen" kind of day, honestly. A "so this is the situation I find myself in" day. The vibe in here is very similar to the time Oscar Vessalius gathered all the kids together on a super secret mission to infiltrate a boarding school and find out who young Ada had a crush on: Very Serious Business™ to be sure but is it, though? Is it really? He read a novel like this once and it was amusing and all but not his favorite? Break is so torn between genuine concern about a thing in the house that could decide to hurt them, and hoping vaguely that the kids will have a nice time.

He is paying attention to everything, mind. And has no intention of going in unarmed. While Dipper is speaking, Baltus trots over to investigate the pile, and of course he hones in on the most stick-like thing of the bunch and brings it to his person. Feeling it out, Break is deeply bemused to realize he has just been handed a damned silver flute, but sure, sure. He spins it a little, testing out the weight and balance. Sure, he will swordfight a ghost with a flute and then he'll be able to say that he did that, why not. This might as well happen.]

Forks too? [He asks it of Baltus softly and gets a gentle "boof" in reply.] Grab me a couple of those, would you? Ranged combat, you know.

[It's really for the best if there is only one horrifying murder Ghost in a place at a time and Break has moved in, so he'll have to assert dominance over this other one, he supposes. By chucking forks at it which Break is great at. And swordfighting it with a flute. Why not! Why not. He is a squid now.]

[swornto]

If I'm also a ghost, am I in danger?

[Oz cheerfully reaches for a piece of silverware anyway. YOLO or something!

... Or more appropriately, because he knows it won't hurt him. He's already accidentally touched the silverware and it didn't cause any trouble. His question is asked solely to keep the mood light. His own included.]

This is exciting. I've heard of ghost stories, but I've never met anyone brave enough to fight a ghost~.