o4 . february catchall

[necrolord]

Who: necrolord and you!
What: Local necromancer is networking. Archives research, healing for lockjoint and self-mutilation, and more.
When: February.
Where: Archives, Lumenwood, streets of Trench.

Content Warnings: Skeletons and mentions of the self-mutilation curse. Note all the usual warnings of this character.

(1) research.

You've probably seen him around, by now. The man is something of a fixture in the Archives: he settles at an unremarkable table and proceeds to drown it in open books, scattered pages, notes, journals. He seems intent on skimming his way through half the library. Sometimes there's a girl, scrawny and dour with her face painted up like a skull, hovering at his elbow. Today, he's on his own.

He doesn't look like much. Simple clothes; bare hands, which suggests he's either confident or reckless, in a town that will titter at anyone who doesn't wear gloves; he looks fortyish and plain. Only one thing about him is remarkable: his eyes, black as oil from edge to unpleasant edge.

Today, he's amassed an odd collection of vials, bloodstones, and shards of bone. You might catch the sudden reek of Beast blood, which is alarmingly toxic to handle even with gloves; you might catch him weighing a huge, inhuman bone in the palm of his hand, looking thoughtful. If he notices your attention, he'll speak without looking up.

"Six months, and I'm still trying to puzzle out the basics."

(2) the skeleton plow.

[ On the 9th, a blizzard blows in. It leaves the town blanketed in a heavy weight of snow, and Trenchies come out with shovels and resigned expressions to scrape the streets clear.

God, who has places to be, finds this a touch inconvenient. He's meant to be in Lumenwood just now, playing Jesus on everyone's frostbite and having a generally pleasant morning. So he claps his hands, watches a dozen skeletons claw their way free of the frozen earth and pop out of the snow ("like daisies," he says to whoever is nearest) and then sets off across town with his helpful new posse.

Each skeleton moves as smoothly and politely as a human servant, with a speck of red light in each empty eye. God makes a little gesture, like a conductor with an orchestra; his servants' fingerbones fuse and spread. Their arms distort and lengthen. They each now wield a broad bone scoop, which looks somewhere between silly and horrifying.

The skeleton army sets to work shoveling snow, heedless of appalled bystanders. ]

(3) healing.

[ Maybe you're still suffering from Lockjoint, Sleeper. Maybe you've begun scraping your own skin away under this month's curse, trying to resist temptation, trying to resist the urge to confess.

It doesn't matter whether all the damage is hidden by your clothing, or whether you think you're doing a good job of masking your pain. Today you're near the gates of Lumenwood - maybe to get help for your own issues, maybe not - and there is a man here, who has just waved away a grateful Trenchie making conversation. He turns, tips his head in hello, and considers you. ]

Want a hand with that?

(4) wildcard.

[ Happy to match formatting! ]

Comments

[necrolord]

"I've heard a bit of that, too."

Not enough to truly parse it. Only enough to make a few private jokes. The thing is, he's not going to accept the shape of this universe as unknowable and himself as someone's storybook villain. It just isn't much of an option.

(It's been a long time since he thought he was anyone's storybook hero.)

"You say it as though you knew her." He tips his head in thought, tone dropped a little out of respect for that silence. "Did you?"

[themuseabandonsyou]

"Not exactly," says Orpheus, frowning still. "I only spoke to her once. But in the dream, if you went to the right place at the right time, or made offerings in a certain way, you could see memories of hers, and other people from the real town. I tried to find as many of them as I could, while I was there."

It had felt like the right thing to do, getting to know the people that Orpheus at least had assumed they were there to help. If nothing else, it meant someone remembered them when they were gone, and Orpheus feels like that counts for something, at least. Maybe it's more reassurance for the survivors, to assuage their guilt more than anything else, but it's something.

"Anyway," he says. "I think one of the people who changed the dream the most - by telling Julia things that she wove into the fabric of it - was the Dog Keeper? He was a firefighter in the real Deerington, and one of the people who was kindest to her, I think. There might have been something special about him, too. He was sent there from somewhere far away, and I don't know by who, and he's the one who told us that there were other half-Pthumerian children around, and that was a big part of why everything went so wrong."

He taps his fingertips to his temple, thinking hard. How did he put it, again?

"Julia was the strongest of them because of her lineage, and one who opened the first door, and let the monsters into town. But the other children - once they saw her do it, they realized they had doors of their own. But everyone blamed Julia, because it was easiest. That's what he said. He's still around, after all this time? He doesn't talk much anymore, but you can find him out in Trenchwood."

[necrolord]

"The Dog Keeper."

He nods, slowly. It's a good story; it lines up, fills in gaps he'd not expected to have filled today. God drums his fingers on the table and thinks about the implications of somewhere far away.

"Do you think there's any trace left of the memories? The places you could go to learn their stories, in that world... were they carried over to this one? I've been told there's some overlap."

[themuseabandonsyou]

"I'm not sure," says Orpheus, frowning. "The way I understand it - Deerington, and the dream, and the events leading up to it - they all happened a very long time ago. Long enough that it's faded into myth and legend. But some buildings from the dream are here, and when the people who lived in them found them in Trench, they looked like they'd only gone unoccupied for a little while? And those buildings aren't - they aren't in the same places, in relation to each other."

He remembers trying to figure it out, early on, walking past buildings he recognized and trying to fit them on a map in his mind of where they'd been in Deerington. It hadn't worked too well.

"So, time and space work a little strangely here? If it was even about the place and not the emotion of the memory, or something. I wouldn't be surprised if you could still find them somewhere? But I haven't heard of anyone stumbling into them here."

[necrolord]

"It's funny you put it like that: the emotion of the memory." He taps an absentminded little rhythm with his fingertips on the old worn wood, an echo of the melody. "That's the piece I'm only starting to understand. The books don't go into it, but I've heard bits and pieces from Sleepers. The dream operated on dream-logic, on stuff inside your head— on someone's head."

His fingers go still.

"If it was little Julia running the show, back there, who and what runs it here? What's our guiding principle if it's not emotion, anymore? What happened to all the other kids with all their other doors?"

He has theories. Oh, he has theories to fill volumes and to fuel a war. But this boy has pieces for him he doesn't yet hold.

[themuseabandonsyou]

"That's a good question?" says Orpheus, chewing his lip slightly as he considers the more philosophical than historical nature of it. "Should we assume there is one? Any more than our original worlds did. A storyteller's dream may have united themes - arcs to follow, or repeated motifs, but does the waking world? Or is reality too messy for that?"

He shakes his head, frowning.

"I think it could, but it may be harder or more complicated than the world Julia made. Especially since the closest thing we have to gods here are the Pthumerians, and there are a lot of them pulling in different directions. I think some of the ones in the city may be related to - or may even be those half-human children, grown now, but I'm not sure. I haven't had the chance to talk to many."

And as much reading as he's managed to do, it's difficult information to stumble upon accidentally. Pthumerians seem to be pretty private about a lot of things, or maybe he was just looking in the wrong places, too busy seeking signs of Julia or the real Deerington to notice anything else.

[necrolord]

"Some seem friendlier than others," he agrees. "There's a thought I hadn't considered, though... who's full-Pthumerian, and who's only half. I'll do some digging and see what turns up."

He sits back in his chair, nods appreciation to his new friend and his guitar.

"As I figure it, anywhere run by gods subscribes to someone's plan. Somebody's design, somebody's narrative, even if the thread is deeper-buried than you'd think. There'll be something to learn from the foundations... from whatever got built after the flood."

His smile is a little crooked, a little wry.

"Guess we'll have to figure those bits out together."

[themuseabandonsyou]

Orpheus nods along. "Right," he says. "I just think it will be deeper-buried, and much more complicated, because the Pthumerians here aren't children trying to make sense of the world, and there are so many of them, and they sometimes seem to work at odds to each other?"

Or at least that's his assumption. Orpheus may be reading more hostility into certain relationships than another person might, given his own experiences with the divine side of his family. Gods fight. Families fight. It's normal.

"But I'm sure we can work it out! I'm - mostly still trying to pick up the pieces of what happened in Deerington, but if I learn anything that I think you might find interesting I can tell you!"

The offer is entirely open, because why wouldn't it be? He's a fellow Sleeper and by Orpheus's estimation at least a friendly acquaintance, and sharing information is good for everybody, right? That said, his Omni buzzes in his pocket, and he pauses to fish it out, glancing at the flat side.

"Oh, um. It's later than I thought it was? Maybe I should get going soon. But - my name is Orpheus! It was nice meeting you."

[necrolord]

He nods along as the boy checks his not-phone, readies himself to hurry back off to wherever, and leave God with his papers and odd little bits of rock. He has new angles to consider, here. He has new creation myths to crack.

Then the kid gives his name, and John's eyebrows quirk up.

There is a hanging beat: he seems to consider the boy as though seeing him for the first time, blinking at the clothes, the guitar, the earnest set of his shoulders. Then he says, with a slow-dawning smile:

"You too. Thanks for the song. Consider me a fan."

[themuseabandonsyou]

Orpheus manages to notice that the man doesn't offer a name of his own, which is strange, but he supposes that's his prerogative and doesn't seem too offended over it in any case. It does catch him by surprise a bit, though, and thinking about it effectively distracts him from noticing the way the man sizes him up.

"You're welcome!" he says, brightly, the subtle recognition lost on him. "I'm planning on telling everyone -" he gestures with the Omni, "when I finish it. That might not be for a while, though? There's a lot to cover."

And with that, he gets up, picking up his guitar again and slinging it over his shoulder. He smiles, nodding goodbye, and turns to go.