Birthday Party

[peripheries]

Who: Paul Atreides and all his CR
What: Throwing everyone’s favorite Duke a surprise birthday party
When: Forwarded dated to April 1st
Where: Bone House in Gaze

Content Warnings: Drinking, underage drinking, drugs (both fictional and not), drawings of space worms, skeletons, will add further warnings if necessary



When you arrive at the house in Gaze, (affectionately known as Bone House), a skeleton will open the door and offer to take your coat if you have one. No need to take your shoes off or anything!

The large house has been decorated with black streamers and confetti. In the entryway and hung on the railing to the second floor that overlooks the entrance to the great room are large banners that say “HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAUL” (though one looks like it used to say “Jaune” but was just painted over? Whatever).

In the Living Room, there is a large board and various colored markers for people to write messages to the birthday boy. There is also a table full of bottled water and various couches, chairs, and beanbags to collapse into if the party gets to be too much and one needs a quiet place to rest or a place to chill if you’ve imbibed too much… well, whatever you had.

It is also where all the food and drinks are.

There’s an extremely large charcuterie board with the usual meats, cheeses, and olives as well as an extremely eccentric collection of snacks ranging from individual sized Cheez-it bags, to humungous bags of Doritos and salty chips, as well as nearly every kind of Oreo one can imagine.

There are also various cakes, all angel food. Some are misshapen, some have an attempt at being frosted with whipped cream and fruit, one even says “Happy Birthday Ka-” before that was hastily covered with a bunch of strawberries jammed really close together.

At the island, a skeleton is playing bartender. Surprisingly, it can seem to take and understand individual orders, but there’s always a constant flow of tequila shots being made and sent out to the great hall to be served by another skeleton.

And, no, of course it’s not going to check your age to see if you’re legal. It’s a skeleton. Why would it care?

The Great Hall is the center of activity and where everyone is encouraged to mingle and have fun. There is a skeleton on the grand piano in the corner gleefully playing piano covers of the hits from the Shrek Soundtrack with the occasional cover of “DaRude’s Sandstorm” when it has another one to help out.

In another corner, on huge piece of paper that spans nearly 6ft wide and 8ft tall is drawing of an Arrakis sandworm and it’s giant maw. The game is Pin the Tooth on the Sandworm and it’s… very easy… because the worm maw is most of the board. Even if the skeleton spins you as you’re blindfolded, it’s pretty hard to lose. If you manage to do it, which is likely, the skeleton running the game will award you a tequila shot! If you lose, the skeletons will award you a tequila shot (but it’s rail).

(It’s a drinking game, isn’t the point to drink?)

There’s also a table that has many candelabras on it, numbering up to seventeen. They’re still lit and burning even though there is a sign that says “make a wish!” even though it almost looks like a shrine for the dead.

…It’s maybe clear that the concept of “birthday candles” was greatly misunderstood.

There is also a skeleton dealing out small doses of “Spice”, a psychoactive drug straight outta the Duneverse. However, you must check in with this Skeleton to get a dose. There will be no “permanently melting your brain with ancestral memories” at this party!

Teacher’s/God’s/Jod’s/The Emperor Undying’s study, adjacent to the main hall, is closed and locked. Though, the lock is fairly easy to break if someone really wanted to get in. There’s not even skeletons guarding.

That said, many things are warded with eerie runes of blood and bone.

So, fuck around and find out.

The upstairs is generally off limits. Party goers can climb up the stairs, and it’s encouraged if they want to look over the Great Room from above, but all of the bedrooms are carefully guarded by more skeletons who will SCREAM VERY LOUDLY if you try to enter and will become hostile if done by force.

Of course, this won’t happen if you are with someone who lives in the house.

Enjoy the party! Mingle away!

((ooc: if you have any questions or anything, please hit me up at worldtype)) or via PM.))

Birthday Board | At the Party | The Morning After | IC Party Games | Spice Dealer

Comments

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[justoscar]

[Oscar cared enough about the effort that was put into Paul's party that he kept his reservations about their host to himself. Paul was gifted with a type of foresight that Oscar was still learning-- and, if Paul sensed no danger to his person, then that was fine.

However, Oscar couldn't just forget the man's uncanny eyes. Even now, over a year after the fact and after witnessing the effects of her being culled half a dozen times, Oscar still sometimes saw her eyes in his dreams. The endless darkness within them, like a boundless abyss, was lit only by the crimson that hearkened back to old adages he had heard. 'Red sky in morning...'.

The fact that this man's eyes glimmered coldly, like the arctic sun as observed from the bottom of an abyss, haunted him. And, spotting the ostensibly locked door, Oscar found himself saddled with the most curious of questions:

What would Dipper do?

Waiting for a moment when the party seemed especially raucous, Oscar deftly broke the knob in a manner that could have only been known by someone with a carpenter's skill-- or years of practice stealing into locked chambers. Biting his lip, Oscar scanned around for witnesses before slipping inside

...He had no idea what he expected, but it wasn't this.

For a second he felt like he had been transported into one of the horror novels he had read while on the farm, with the villainous scientist keeping a shadowy lair that was lined wall to wall with vials and specimen jars of unknown substances. Sucking in a breath, he pressed forward into the study.

He needed something tangible to prove to himself that this man, this Teacher, was no more dangerous than Salem. Oscar knew that he would recognize his target on sight-- and that he needed this proof to rest comfortably at night.]

[necrolord]

[ Around him are several incriminating options. The bleached-white bones on the shelves whisper with an eerie shudder of sound, just below his hearing, possibly in the back of his mind— somewhere just askance of where Ozpin's presence hums calmly to him from across Gaze. They are grouped into neat rows of inhuman skulls, huge and horrible femurs, shards and splinters and claws left arrayed together. There are jars of what must be meat, but it seems to shiver as though with the movement of something living within the flesh.

And then there is the Beast's blood.

It bubbles with constant, sickly motion. It roils, restless in its confines. The stuff looks nearly like tar, except for the reddish and rotten sheen to its surface, and there are three flasks of it— two large, one a tidy little vial— on the shelf behind the desk.

Nothing stops Oscar as he approaches. The only traps are upon the items themselves: nothing will harm him until the moment he reaches out to touch. ]

[justoscar]

[He's curious, but he's no fool. Those wards were fearsome-looking, and one of the lessons he had learned from Dipper within the last year was no touching weird wards.

At least, with his bare hands.

Frowning in concentration, Oscar pulled a multitool out of his pocket and unfolded it to reveal the simple pliers that were easily accessible. He knew better than to go for the roiling, bubbling vials full of what looked to be blood--

But, the bones...

Moving cautiously, he gingerly reached for one of the smaller bones with his tool. Perhaps this would be a good opportunity to try his hand at psychometry or scrying, like he had seen other Palebloods do.

Anything, to learn a little about how this man even functioned in the world.]

[necrolord]

[ It's a good move. Oscar reaches out with his pliers, and there is the barest resistance when they pass over the ward-line: a faint sizzle, a tang to the air like ozone. Should he let the leather of the grip, or his gloves, pass through that invisible threshold in the air...

But the pliers are inorganic and resolute. There is a shiver of unpleasant energy through them as the ward-line tries to leech the thalergy from any available organic material, but it's left gnawing slowly and ineffectively at metal.

Oscar has his choice of prizes. The shelf holds pieces of Beast skeleton: a small canid skull, a handful of eerily human phalanges, a collection of sharp and uncanny ribs; each has a stained-dark quality as though it's been left fresh and unbleached. Only a few things stand out as stark, white, and clean. One is a slim, pure length of Pthumerian bone, which seems to glow faintly in the low light. The other is a broken femur which looks uncomfortably human. It radiates a chorus of eerie whispers, and it glimmers with some sickly trace of moonlight. ]

[justoscar]

[The sight of the necromantic souvenirs, stained in their natural state and some glimmering in the dim light as if they were phosphorescent mushrooms in the wilderness, sent a chill down his spine. Stealing a breath, Oscar moved quickly. Time was of the essence here, as with any break-and-entry, and he reached for the most stand-out among the collection:

The slender, glowing wand of eldritch pthumerian bone.

He moved with an odd steadiness to his hands despite the unease that crept up in the back of his mind. With his paleblood senses sending him alarm signals in the form of needles of pain gnawing behind his ears and at the base of his neck that threatened to become more, Oscar swiftly made to wrap it up in a handkercheif.

What would Dipper do?

Dipper would not touch it until he had figured out more of it's secrets.

Perhaps this was time to slip out from the premises and sneak over to the Bone Fortress. If Dipper didn't have an answer, Ford surely would.]