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deercountry2022-10-08 11:56 am
reddosmod) wrote in deercountry2022-10-08 11:56 am
Entry tags:
- *event,
- abigail williams: alex,
- ahiru: timmy,
- ange ushiromiya: jelle,
- ariadne: wizera,
- chizuru yukimura: jelle,
- daniel larusso: jelle,
- darth maul: shade,
- fakir: orlando,
- hotaru tomoe: xae,
- jin guangyao: ray,
- jinx: bekka,
- jun ushiro: matt,
- keith: sailor g,
- lance: charley,
- luca: robin,
- luna lovegood: cheryl,
- luz noceda: pedro,
- maria thorpe: jaina,
- mike enslin: aeri,
- minako aino: fay,
- nico di angelo: xae,
- peter graham: jhey,
- scorpia: gore,
- shen yuan: drake,
- snow white: jax,
- usagi tsukino: jax,
- vi: aeri
long ago forgotten bones
OCTOBER 2022 EVENT
SECOND DEATH
UNMASKED
LOST IN THE WOODS
CODING
Due to the cyclical nature of Trench, PROMPTS FROM LAST OCTOBER are available to be used this year as well! Please note you are using prompts from the previous event in your starters so that people are aware.
IMAGE DESCRIPTORS IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE
Prompt One
[Image One: A creature forcibly consuming the soul of another person. ]
[Image Two: A red moon. ]
Prompt Two
[Image One: A fox max on a pile of books. ]
[Image Two: A person with sharp fins protruding from their back. ]
Prompt Three
[Image One: A broken clock. ]
[Image Two: An entrance to a rose maze. ]
Prompt One
[Image One: A creature forcibly consuming the soul of another person. ]
[Image Two: A red moon. ]
Prompt Two
[Image One: A fox max on a pile of books. ]
[Image Two: A person with sharp fins protruding from their back. ]
Prompt Three
[Image One: A broken clock. ]
[Image Two: An entrance to a rose maze. ]
WHEN: October
WHERE: Throughout Trench
CONTENT WARNINGS: Memory loss, decaying creature, undead themes, possible death via being eaten.
WHERE: Throughout Trench
CONTENT WARNINGS: Memory loss, decaying creature, undead themes, possible death via being eaten.
There's something strange going on. Anyone who goes to visit the cemetery will find that there are holes dug throughout that weren't there before. Fresh graves, maybe? It seems like an awful lot and some of them are in front of graves that already existed. The coffins, if they're visible, still look closed, though. That's got to be a relief, right? Maybe there's just some kind of strange maintenance going on or a new ritual for the Black Parade this year. It wouldn't be the first time Trenchies did something strange like that.
Then Sleepers start to feel...off. It starts off with just being a little forgetful. Sleepers will find that maybe they have trouble recalling an important date or remembering to return a book they borrowed from a friend. Then it starts to be small moments in time or faces of people they knew once upon a time. The memories they lose become bigger, more important, and harder to ignore as time goes on. There's an agitation that comes with the loss, a sense that something isn't right, that they're not just losing memories, but full pieces of themselves. Our memories are what make us who we are, after all.
There are whispers through town of what might be responsible. A draugr the Trenchies will say when asked. It's spoken with fearful, hushed tones, like speaking the name could bring one into existence right there. These creatures can roam about unnoticed, sometimes even invisible, but they don't stay that way forever. The more a person forgets, the more visible the draugr becomes. They're feeding on those memories, absorbing them and creating a new life for themselves, stealing the history of the person they've targeted. The more visible they become, the more one might wish they'd stayed invisible: these creatures are unpleasant to look at, with dark black skin that's rotting off of bone. Muscle and tendons are visible against the skeleton, every bit a literal walking corpse. And they smell awful, reeking of decay, the odor becoming more prominent the more visible they become as well. It's enough to make someone sick.
The draugr has superhuman strength and is difficult to kill. It's intent is to eat away at all of a person's memories, weakening them, until they've finally forgotten so much that they may as well be in a coma. It's then that the draugr will begin to consume their target in full. Quite literally. They'll eat whoever they've latched on to, and as they devour the living person, their own body will begin to heal. It will bring them back to life and allow them a second chance at the world they feel was stolen from them.
Their souls are that of a human, but it doesn't seem like they're suffering from beasthood. There's no time to really figure it out, either. In order to save someone from the draugr (or save themselves), the draugr must be completely destroyed. It would be easier said than done if they weren't so strong and skilled at fighting. Chopping off the head and limbs is the easiest way to immobilize them, but they're quick, and it may be easiest to do so in a group fight. After the body has been dismembered, it has to be burned, and the fire must keep going until the draugr has been completely reduced to ash. Once this has been done, the person who was losing their memories must ingest a small amount of the ash. After that, their memories will be returned to them.
Information on how to kill the draugr and restore memories can be found in the Archives or told to a Sleeper by one of the locals. Apparently, this isn't the first time the draugr have plagued the city, and the Trenchies clearly don't think it will be the last.
Then Sleepers start to feel...off. It starts off with just being a little forgetful. Sleepers will find that maybe they have trouble recalling an important date or remembering to return a book they borrowed from a friend. Then it starts to be small moments in time or faces of people they knew once upon a time. The memories they lose become bigger, more important, and harder to ignore as time goes on. There's an agitation that comes with the loss, a sense that something isn't right, that they're not just losing memories, but full pieces of themselves. Our memories are what make us who we are, after all.
There are whispers through town of what might be responsible. A draugr the Trenchies will say when asked. It's spoken with fearful, hushed tones, like speaking the name could bring one into existence right there. These creatures can roam about unnoticed, sometimes even invisible, but they don't stay that way forever. The more a person forgets, the more visible the draugr becomes. They're feeding on those memories, absorbing them and creating a new life for themselves, stealing the history of the person they've targeted. The more visible they become, the more one might wish they'd stayed invisible: these creatures are unpleasant to look at, with dark black skin that's rotting off of bone. Muscle and tendons are visible against the skeleton, every bit a literal walking corpse. And they smell awful, reeking of decay, the odor becoming more prominent the more visible they become as well. It's enough to make someone sick.
The draugr has superhuman strength and is difficult to kill. It's intent is to eat away at all of a person's memories, weakening them, until they've finally forgotten so much that they may as well be in a coma. It's then that the draugr will begin to consume their target in full. Quite literally. They'll eat whoever they've latched on to, and as they devour the living person, their own body will begin to heal. It will bring them back to life and allow them a second chance at the world they feel was stolen from them.
Their souls are that of a human, but it doesn't seem like they're suffering from beasthood. There's no time to really figure it out, either. In order to save someone from the draugr (or save themselves), the draugr must be completely destroyed. It would be easier said than done if they weren't so strong and skilled at fighting. Chopping off the head and limbs is the easiest way to immobilize them, but they're quick, and it may be easiest to do so in a group fight. After the body has been dismembered, it has to be burned, and the fire must keep going until the draugr has been completely reduced to ash. Once this has been done, the person who was losing their memories must ingest a small amount of the ash. After that, their memories will be returned to them.
Information on how to kill the draugr and restore memories can be found in the Archives or told to a Sleeper by one of the locals. Apparently, this isn't the first time the draugr have plagued the city, and the Trenchies clearly don't think it will be the last.
WHEN: During the Black Parade
WHERE: Throughout Trench
CONTENT WARNINGS: Potential body horror, mind control, violence, blood ingestion.
WHERE: Throughout Trench
CONTENT WARNINGS: Potential body horror, mind control, violence, blood ingestion.
Masks and face paint are meant to keep people safe, and most of the time, they absolutely will! The Black Parade is such a boisterous celebration, of course people will want to get involved again. Masking up didn't do anything last year, after all. And the parade was mostly a fun time, save for the usual weird happenings that come with being in Trench in the first place.
The masks are fun and who doesn't love face painting? For the most part, it's the same as last year: completely harmless. It's easy to want to play along. But this year, a few unlucky people might find that the masks they're wearing is a little too comfortable. It's almost like a second skin, even.
A minor Pthumerian has cursed random masks and face paints, turning the wearer into whatever design they may have donned. This can be small aesthetic changes, such gaining fox ears and a tail, or it can be something that completely warps the body, breaking bones, altering flesh, and slicing people open to make room for fins or extra limbs they were never meant to have. Once a person has started to merge with the mask, it's impossible to remove.
There are two ways to break the curse. One is to just wait it out. Maybe it's inconvenient, or maybe it's downright agonizing, but the curse only lasts for 72 hours before the wearers body will return to normal. If waiting isn't something they fancy, though, there is one way to lift the curse early: drinking virgin blood. It can't just be a single drop. A standard cup is required to get the curse to lift. Virgin blood is hard to come by, but luckily for everyone, there are fresh arrivals almost every month, and not everyone who's come in over the past year has given in to blood rituals, right?
Time to get hunting.
As a note: if your character has virgin blood, drinking their own will not work. Trench would never let anyone off that easy.
The masks are fun and who doesn't love face painting? For the most part, it's the same as last year: completely harmless. It's easy to want to play along. But this year, a few unlucky people might find that the masks they're wearing is a little too comfortable. It's almost like a second skin, even.
A minor Pthumerian has cursed random masks and face paints, turning the wearer into whatever design they may have donned. This can be small aesthetic changes, such gaining fox ears and a tail, or it can be something that completely warps the body, breaking bones, altering flesh, and slicing people open to make room for fins or extra limbs they were never meant to have. Once a person has started to merge with the mask, it's impossible to remove.
There are two ways to break the curse. One is to just wait it out. Maybe it's inconvenient, or maybe it's downright agonizing, but the curse only lasts for 72 hours before the wearers body will return to normal. If waiting isn't something they fancy, though, there is one way to lift the curse early: drinking virgin blood. It can't just be a single drop. A standard cup is required to get the curse to lift. Virgin blood is hard to come by, but luckily for everyone, there are fresh arrivals almost every month, and not everyone who's come in over the past year has given in to blood rituals, right?
Time to get hunting.
As a note: if your character has virgin blood, drinking their own will not work. Trench would never let anyone off that easy.
WHEN: October
WHERE: Possibly Trenchwood
CONTENT WARNINGS: The feeling of being stalked, panic, paranoia
WHERE: Possibly Trenchwood
CONTENT WARNINGS: The feeling of being stalked, panic, paranoia
Waking up in the middle of the woods is probably never a good thing. On the plus side, there don't seem to be any beasts in the immediate area. If anything, the woods seem rather... calm. Sleepers will notice when they wake up that there is a piece of a broken object, though it's hard to tell quite what it would be used for. A clock, maybe, if the numbers had all been wiped off. Or possibly a compass, though it still doesn't quite look like most compasses that are available in Trench. This object can be found in their hand, on the ground near by, or even stuck in one of their pockets.
When the Sleeper decides to start moving, the broken piece will start to glow. It will be a dim glow at first, but it grows brighter as they start to move through the thick trees. It seems to be guiding them down some sort of path, growing brighter when they are going in the right direction, and dimmer the moment they take a step the wrong way. If Sleepers decide to ignore the directions of the object, they will find that they get horrifically lost in the woods, and that feeling of calm will quickly start to disappear. There will be a feeling of being stalked, as though something is hunting them, but the woods are too thick to figure out which direction an attack might come from.
Following the directions doesn't lead Sleepers towards an exit, though: it's leading them to the other pieces of the object. These objects can be broken into two, three, or even four pieces, and they will each glow brighter the closer that the Sleeper gets to becoming whole. The other pieces will be held by other Sleepers. When they find one another, the pieces will be blindingly bright, and once they are held up close to one another, they will bind together seamlessly and make the object whole once again.
It's clear now that it is a compass, with a dragon's head that spins to tell the Sleepers where to go. The blue gem in the center glows brightly at first, but begins to fade the longer the compass is used. Following the directions from the newly formed compass will quickly guide the Sleepers out of the woods together without meeting any dangers along the way. As soon as the Sleepers have stepped out of the woods, the blue gem will have gone out entirely. The compass can recharge, but it takes several days of rest before it can be used again.
These compasses will protect the group no matter where they go. They can think of a destination in order to be guided by the compass and it will be able to get them there on the fastest route possible. If they were to think abstractly, such as "I want to go somewhere new", it will be able to guide them to a new location that they've never been to before that it feels the person (or persons) may enjoy. Sleepers will have to decide who in the group gets to keep the compass. They can end up lost more than once which gives them more chances to get a compass of their own. Otherwise, the compasses can be shared, and groups who travel together will be kept just as safe as the person carrying the compass itself.
Currently the charge on the compass only lasts for a few miles, but it seems like the more it's used, the farther a person can go. Eventually it will be possible for the Sleepers to use these compasses to safely travel outside of the city limits, but it might take a few months before that becomes doable.
When the Sleeper decides to start moving, the broken piece will start to glow. It will be a dim glow at first, but it grows brighter as they start to move through the thick trees. It seems to be guiding them down some sort of path, growing brighter when they are going in the right direction, and dimmer the moment they take a step the wrong way. If Sleepers decide to ignore the directions of the object, they will find that they get horrifically lost in the woods, and that feeling of calm will quickly start to disappear. There will be a feeling of being stalked, as though something is hunting them, but the woods are too thick to figure out which direction an attack might come from.
Following the directions doesn't lead Sleepers towards an exit, though: it's leading them to the other pieces of the object. These objects can be broken into two, three, or even four pieces, and they will each glow brighter the closer that the Sleeper gets to becoming whole. The other pieces will be held by other Sleepers. When they find one another, the pieces will be blindingly bright, and once they are held up close to one another, they will bind together seamlessly and make the object whole once again.
It's clear now that it is a compass, with a dragon's head that spins to tell the Sleepers where to go. The blue gem in the center glows brightly at first, but begins to fade the longer the compass is used. Following the directions from the newly formed compass will quickly guide the Sleepers out of the woods together without meeting any dangers along the way. As soon as the Sleepers have stepped out of the woods, the blue gem will have gone out entirely. The compass can recharge, but it takes several days of rest before it can be used again.
These compasses will protect the group no matter where they go. They can think of a destination in order to be guided by the compass and it will be able to get them there on the fastest route possible. If they were to think abstractly, such as "I want to go somewhere new", it will be able to guide them to a new location that they've never been to before that it feels the person (or persons) may enjoy. Sleepers will have to decide who in the group gets to keep the compass. They can end up lost more than once which gives them more chances to get a compass of their own. Otherwise, the compasses can be shared, and groups who travel together will be kept just as safe as the person carrying the compass itself.
Currently the charge on the compass only lasts for a few miles, but it seems like the more it's used, the farther a person can go. Eventually it will be possible for the Sleepers to use these compasses to safely travel outside of the city limits, but it might take a few months before that becomes doable.
sorry for the smoltext fail whoops
What was my tell?
[it's probably everything. he knows. he's unraveling by degrees, and he could stop it, maybe. he's ...halting it right now isn't he? because the girl that is not katie takes notice. she's gone very still as she watches, and her feet no longer swing in place. her posture, should one look at her again, has somehow gone from observant to defensive.]
It's not the drinking. Can't be that, the bars are too full here. So that leaves the...
[a sniffle. it's the crying, isn't it?]
...I can't stop. I wasn't like---
----this.
[he stops shy of the word, dances around it, huffs and finally whispers it as if it's an offense:]
---before.
[it isn't katie. but that doesn't mean the presence hasn't been a comfort. a false one, sure, but ...if he says it out loud something terrible might happen. she might leave. but he's started to pull at the bandaid, and he hums, shaking his head before he rips it further.]
My daughter. Ka---
[he cannot yet force out her name. what comes out is a small sob.]
it's okay i had a dumb typo in the tag before... we truly can't type
It makes a whole lot of things click into place here for Daniel. If this kid sitting there isn't just some random creepy faceless kid Trench spawned, but instead some twisted memory of his daughter, it makes everything make more sense. The way this other guy is sitting here, drinking all by himself, looking absolutely miserable.
It's a feeling Daniel understands pretty well when it comes to family. ]
Your daughter, huh? [ He keeps his voice a little on the soft side, not wanting to draw too much attention to Mike's mood when they're in a public place - figuring the other might find his near-breakdown here kind of embarrassing later. ] Do you miss her?
[ Kind of an obvious question, given.. well, Mike's everything right now.
Daniel grabs his own glass, taking a sip. ]
I have a daughter too, you know.
[ He figures that it might make the other guy feel a little bit more comfortable. It's offered like an olive branch, like a sign of 'I get it.' Might make it easier to talk, even with all the feelings going on. ]
Her name's Samantha.
we cannot and it is FINE
S-so much.
[so much he'd stuffed it down and down and down so deep it had taken a literal demon to unbury his own metaphorical one - under ice and ash and bone - every circle of hell a spiral into his own condemnation, his own failure, a lie on his lips that there was a better place after this, and she'd be there and someday they'd all be together as a family again, that lie he spun so easily - from the thread that lily had handed him.
i have a daughter too, you know.]
Samantha. [his voice is a thread, too. it's worn and thin and barely more than a ghost itself.] That's. It's ...a pretty name. Is she...
[alive? he can't bring himself to say it.]
...here? Do you ever see her here?
no subject
No. She's not here.
[ He tries his best to keep sadness out of his tone as he says it. It's clear the other guy has a lot to deal with already here, and the last thing Daniel wants to do - ever, at any given time - is shoving his baggage onto someone else's plate. ]
I haven't seen her either. [ Since he knows that's different. There's a difference between someone being here, and this place conjuring up some illusion, a mirage. Something that has thankfully never happened to Daniel himself, but he's heard stories.
.. and he's pretty sure this odd, faceless girl sitting there with them is proof of it, even though he's trying to not look too much at her. ]
But I know this place sometimes.. makes us see them. Right? [ There's something faintly gentle about the way he says it, like he's trying to coax the words out of the other without giving him a full on breakdown.
As far as Mike isn't already caught up in one as-is, anyway. ]
I'm not sure what I'd do if that happened to me. I'd probably feel pretty miserable about it. It wouldn't really be her, after all.
[ So it's okay if you feel that way, is the implication here, even if it goes unsaid. ]
no subject
he doesn't make a move to acknowledge her nearness - not yet. he's still parsing the words the other man - the other father - has proffered. his daughter isn't here. he hasn't seen her here, either. but mike's seen other children here - some younger than his daughter, many older. not sure how many of them were ...brought over the way he'd come to find himself here, but he doesn't know what it means.
but he must miss her, his samantha, wherever she is?
(wherever they are)
this place makes him see a lot of things. how is one to determine what's real and what isn't? (the drink feels real) but real or unreal, the girl isn't his own, and this man has spoken it into the air, made words of thoughts, a statement out of suspicion. (come on, man, you know it's not---)
he knows, deep down. he just doesn't want that knowledge.]
You think I don't know that?
[it's a hiss - desperate, a touch of anger rising out of that desperation, and the fingers of the girl reach to tug at his shirt, and he audibly cries out when she does. doesn't he want her to come sit with him? why won't he look at her? should he give her the barest assist, she would clamber up into his lap and hook her soot spattered arms around his neck.
that small spark of anger - it's enough to make the spectre desperate, too.
but it's lit, and once that match is struck it's struck - and though the heat of it gutters out, no malice toward daniel, only a slip out of the shade's grasp as he rubs at his eyes with the heel of his hand.]
I thought she was from the Orphanage at first, so I just let her follow me. Until she...
...changed her shape. She started to look more and more like my Katie.
[there. he'd acknowledged it, too. and its face is a whirl of formless storm, black shadows rushing in to try and take shape and finding no footing just now.]
no subject
But Daniel does realise doing that might just make things worse. Whatever this being is, he knows so little about it, other than the fact that it's apparently capable of latching onto people and taking on a shape that is familiar to them. Daniel has no idea if it's capable of lashing out, and in which ways.
And the last thing he wants to do is put either of their lives on the line here, nor the lives of anyone else at this bar.
So Daniel watches, frowning, a little tense - though he's relieved to hear Mike admit that last part himself. Like he's pulling himself out of the claws of that being. ]
It must have latched onto you. [ He instead slowly says, trying to continue to look at Mike, rather than at the faceless girl. A part of Daniel is too worried about it noticing the pain and longing in his own heart, and he won't let this thing have even a single part of Sam. ] Like it felt what you were missing, and then took on your daughter's form to...
[ .. his voice trails off. ]
Who even knows.
[ Who even knows what things do here. Probably something bad. Maybe it would have clung onto Mike like this until it drained his life. It's still here right now, after all, like it's unwilling to fully give up. ]
But it can't be good to let her stick around.
no subject
this thing wearing her dress but not yet her face - all it's made of is want. and he's had enough of being sucked dry these last few weeks, he's an empty well of somehow bottomless tears, it seems. but here and now, and with someone else to acknowledge this, he's just fucking done.]
It isn't her. It's not. It can't be, not here.
[the tears well up again, and he deflates a little, before he flicks his gaze toward daniel - another man that's lost his daughter - no, she's likely not dead, but it's a piddly difference when the end result is the same. he can't see his kid anymore than mike can see katie.
who even knows.
yeah, let's think of that. the whys of this. what could it want? (what did the room want?) does it want him dead? maybe. eventually. maybe it wants him miserable. maybe it wants him sad. lonely. desperate. it certainly doesn't want anything good for him, that's obvious now. if he's real with himself it had been obvious for days.
he keeps his eyes on daniel and does not acknowledge the girl. there's a bitter, jagged thing in his voice as he speaks, a cold heat. a distant, darkened fire that causes the thing that's shifting now - it's a girl - it's a man - it's a woman - it's ...a shadow - to back up and scramble away with a hiss. it's ...smaller]
We're done here. You don't get to make me see this.
no subject
He isn't sure what he can do to help. It already seems to be working, but until it's fully gone, Daniel wants the other guy to know he's not alone in this. Maybe it's a little weird, since they're just two strangers meeting at a bar, but..
.. well, screw it. Daniel's never been shy about showing other people a little encouragement, and Mike sure as hell still looks like he could use it.
So he reaches out until his hand lands on the other guy's shoulder, the corners of his lips turning up into a smile that seems a little tired, but genuine all the same. Supportive. ]
It's working.
[ It's not fully gone yet, but it's so, so close to it. ]
You're doing great.