EVENT & TDM 036

[sticksandbonesmods]

WAKE UP

Whatever you were doing, something doesn’t add up. For starters, you were most certainly not in this strange little village with a mishmash of cultures and strange animals everywhere. You might have been holding your weapon, yes, but maybe you weren’t- maybe you don’t even have one, and the heavy wooden beam or old pipe in your hands is foreign entirely. But as you stop to think, you also realize you were mid-swing, and someone stands before you; another fresh face being urged by whispers untraceable to fight? Or one of the villagers, alarmed and primed to defend themselves before your time seemed to stop and your mind awoke?

Even stranger, once you get that sorted out, is that the wildlife- all animals mixed with plants- are all nervous at best, actively frightened by something unseen at worst. Squirrels whose tails resemble hyacinths more than fluff and fur run through the trees chittering and shrieking, foxes and dogs with reeds and leaves and petals gently growing from their haunches bolt from place to place, alert and stanced for an attack before running off again. Getting too close to a warren may lead to something biting down on your feet.

Should you journey the distance to the beach- or use the Ark gate generously provided- even the Emerald Sea churns and roars violently, the cliffside whirlpool practically a hurricane beneath the sea. Something is amiss in Aldric’s Grove, and you are only the latest victims.

A LANTERN IN THE HANGING TREE

There’s something that wasn’t there before, one day. A dark, gnarled tree with a gaping hole in it- except the hole is pitch black, and a barrier stops you from entering despite the opening being large enough to walk into. Hanging from the almost-bare boughs are metal lanterns, all of them unable to be lit. As fog rolls in, so too does poor weather. It’s almost always raining, if not outright storming. Sometimes it lets up, but not for long.

The fog brings something else though. Golden lights wait in the fog, and approaching them sounds… incredible, actually? They do not move or give chase, but you may find them unavoidable regardless. Walking into the lights brings you to a memory, a scene from someone’s life… but not your own.

As it finishes, you might be where you’d just been standing, but there’s a slim chance you now stand before the owner of the memory; as if you’d walked there in a daze while lost in thoughts that aren’t your own.

With each light met by a villager, a lantern in the tree lights.

GUIDING BONDS IN THE DARK

It’s dark. It’s painfully dark even though your eyes are wide open. As you fumble around, hands outstretched for anything at all, your fingers catch on a metal curve. Instinctively, you slip it on your wrist- and as your sight returns, emotions that aren’t yours slip into your heart and mind. You aren’t alone, but maybe you will wish you were. A silver chain connects the bracelet on your wrist with your companion’s own before vanishing again, and if you try to put more than six feet of space between each other an invisible tug between you stops you. Removing the bracelet blinds you again, but if given the opportunity, wearing more than one overwhelms your mind to the point that you may as well be wearing none at all. Your powers are null, your weapons are not with you. The two of you are alone.

You find yourselves in a dark cavern of dirt and root. High above, a silvery blue light shines.You can hear rain hitting leaves and bark, water trickling down roots. Should you try to climb up, the roots shake you off themselves. Behind you is a solid wall. Ahead of you is a path to take, twisting and winding with ever shifting false routes and a chill in the air. There’s only one way forward.

As you traverse the labyrinth it will quickly become clear you aren’t alone. Something trudges through the caverns with heavy feet, stalking everyone within. Unlucky travelers will find themselves cornered by a minotaur looming over them, ready to fight and give chase- but it can be distracted by other travelers, or killed… temporarily, and it will come back with a vengeance.

Even outside of the minotaur there are other threats however. As you go from hall to room to hall, familiar scents and sounds creep in, all meant to invoke something you dread. Soon enough those scents and sounds will take shape, hunting you down just as fervently as the bull. Lingering in any space for too long also incites rising temperaments and lower inhibitions that you may struggle to shake off. Why would you? Smacking your partner for being a coward is so much more enticing. … Not just a smack. After all, about half-way through, when monsters born of your memories start to haunt the labyrinth too, you found your weapons, after all.

Your goal is to get to the center of the maze, while the maze wants to crush you with the minotaur, with memories of fear and regret, with its own rush of root and dirt while your emotions feed into each other, crashing against each other’s minds like ocean waves against a cliff. And should it succeed, should air leave your lungs one last time, you will not awaken in the Garden. This is a game, after all. No, as your companions filter into the center two by two, they will find you just barely breathing, strung up from the root, and the roots strung up in you. Plants grow from your flesh and blood, squeeze your lungs and heart. They may fade in a couple days, or you may well be corrupted by the Fallen Sun’s touch. You frame a single opening in the dreariness, but the sound of rain is louder than ever.

Little by little you make your way through, exiting from the gnarled tree strung in lanterns. The bracelets drop from your wrists and crumble to pieces. You’re free.

SOMBER RAINY MORNINGS

It’s been a trying month, and the rain does not stop. The lights do not dim, the lanterns in the tree do not flicker. All you can do is try to cope, in whatever way you can. And when something tugs at your mind again and the scent of dirt floods your nose, something roars in the distance.

The clouds in the sky are cut in half as a serpent made of the cosmos flies above, an iridescent rain falling from its body. Those corrupted in death will find themselves trying to avoid it, for its waters purify the rot in their bodies. Others may simply enjoy the warm beauty as the world seems to settle into a calm. The lantern tree seems to bloom and heal before vanishing into a flurry of petals, leaving only a few broken lanterns behind on the ground. Nene, the girl with flowers growing from her hair picks one up with a far-off gaze before returning to her cottage, leaving the rest behind.

Flowers begin to spring to life, embracing the warmer days of summer in the wake of spring, and gradually the wildlife begins to calm down.

For the first time in weeks, a sunny day awaits and the sky is stained with rainbows.

Spark Notes (Click to Expand)

summary

WAKE UP: New arrivals in Aldric's Grove arrive holding weapons, covered in blood, and most likely pointing them at someone. Surprise! On top of that, all the animals are on edge, and some might attack you if you agitate them or get too close.
A LANTERN IN THE HANGING TREE: A tree appears one day with hanging lanterns. Getting close to a golden light means that memories of others will enter your mind, and with each person who touches a light, a lantern on the tree lights.
GUIDING BONDS IN THE DARK: Within the labyrinth, everyone is connected by a bracelet and are therefore sharing emotions. Getting more than six feet apart will stop you from moving further forward, but without a bracelet, you'll be fully blinded in the maze. Your weapons and magical powers aren't with you, and threats loom around every corner.
SOMBER RAINY MORNINGS: To potentially cure the Corruption that some characters may have endured by dying in the labyrinth, the Cosmic Serpent rises from the sea to spew purifying rains across the Grove. Flowers bloom where the corrupted ground was healed, and you're given a break - for now.

out of character

Happy May! This is a reminder that TDMs are game canon. Current players in the game may redeem TDM AC this month (meaning: if you tag a new player/character and the thread reaches 5 comments from you, your AC is that entire thread for the month if you want). We'll find a better way to clarify this rule in the future and we're sorry for anyone it's confused in the past. Have fun with the event!

updates

Any potential updates, such as characters damaging something important or whatever else, will be put here.

submissions

❖ Questions
❖ May Plotting
❖ Past Life Plotting (Closed to Game Members)
❖ Investigations

code

Comments

[namuthing]

[Genya is quick to grimace. His mouth opens, an apology quickly forming, but it dies on his lips the second Lodi starts to speak. Clearly he hasn't taken it too much to heart.

Thank god he clarifies that it wasn't a literal drilling. At this point, Genya would have believed it.]

I get that much. With my work, you start to feel bad when you even have to take the time to heal. It means there's less slayers out there to keep people safe. [The thought alone makes his stomach twist.] You're a good guy, huh?

[ninelines]

[ As much as he doesn't want to acknowledge it, Genya does understand Lodi's stance to a certain degree. It was a soldier's mentality. The sacrifice of the self for the greater good. He had learned these things at an age similar to Genya's, assuredly, but that doesn't mean it doesn't sting to see it reflected in one so young.

Lodi heaves a sigh. Leans his head back. ]

Between you and me, I'd –. [ He huffs out a laugh. ]

I'd hesitate to call myself good. Maybe that calling just comes easier to me. Not sure it necessarily defines my character. But it was how I got to this point with – everything, really. When I was brought to the point that you saw, it meant acknowledging the end of everything I had never known and knowing for a fact that I could never go back. My life as I'd known it was kaput. But the people in that new time, they – didn't need me, but they needed what I was brought there to do. And... if I didn't do it, it meant that some other poor sap would get plucked up to do it instead, and that just...

[ He shakes his head. ] Couldn't stomach it. So. Here we are.

[namuthing]

[If not me, then someone else. If they weren't where they needed to be, someone else would suffer. Genya understands that more than he cares to admit. Maybe it doesn't make them good people. Maybe they're just people, period.]

I get it. If it weren't me out there, someone else might get hurt. And that someone might lose someone important to them too.

Gotta stop the cycle somehow, right?

[ninelines]

[ God, he really, really wish Genya didn't get it. It's hypocritical to sit here and think this is a good kid after he'd just protested otherwise about himself, but... there was a difference to what Genya was speaking of and what Lodi had done. He knows this for a fact.

Lodi smiles. It is genuine, but it doesn't reach his eyes. ]

Yeah. Just... don't let it be the only thing motivating you, okay? I mean, you've got a whole life ahead of you. Especially here.

[namuthing]

[You have a whole life ahead of you. Genya finds himself flinching, his stomach bottoming out. He had, at best, a handful of hours left back home. While Lodi may be right that this place was different, it was a hell of its own making.

None of it felt worth being optimistic over.]

R-right. Sure. [He's almost certain he's pale. If the shift in mood wasn't obvious, then surely the way Genya tugs away would be.] I should - get going.

[ninelines]

[ Alright, so he'd said something wrong. That much was blatantly obvious. He'd said something that was so abhorrently wrong, as a matter of fact, that he'd made Genya flinch and go pale.

And he could let him go without a fuss, sure. But he knows that look, or at least an approximation of it, and if Lodi didn't even try to dispel it he has a feeling Genya would be grappling with it for the foreseeable future. ]

Hey. [ It takes hardly any effort to shift his tone into something gentler. ] I'd really appreciate it if you stuck around for just a minute or two. At the very least, get your knocks in for me saying something that was obviously boneheaded.

[namuthing]

It wasn't - [He trails off. Despite his general irritability toward strangers, Lodi had managed to worm himself into something more than that. Genya liked him, the idea of lying made him feel guilty. Given the circumstances, maybe it was a boneheaded thing to say, but it wasn't like Lodi was supposed to know better.] You had no way of knowing.

[Really, the idea of talking about this with anybody is nauseating. But considering Genya's own inadvertent spying,t he least he can do is share a little in kind.]

's'just. I don't... have a life ahead of me, y'know. [He glances down at the ground, socked feet toeing at the dirt.] I don't make it out of where I'm goin'.

[ninelines]

[ God, and if that isn't a punch in the gut. And of course he'd opened his fool mouth and said something that was objectively untrue, to a teenager who knew the date of their own death. The urge to stick his head in a hole and stay there for the next business day is becoming increasingly tempting.

His personal anguish shouldn't even factor, actually. Lodi finds himself abruptly, bristlingly upset at how unfair of a concept that is. But he'd known how cruel the world could be for a long time, now. He heaves a sigh. ]

... I'm sorry. I really did say something I shouldn't have. That's –.

[ He pauses. ]

Listen. You don't have to take anything I say to heart if you really don't want to. Lord knows I was sick and tired of people getting up on soapboxes trying to make me feel better at circumstances that were outside of my control, especially when I was younger. But when I learned what I know now – God, it really sucks to feel like you're walking around like a ghost, twisted up with knowledge that it feels like you shouldn't have. When you're constantly waiting for that other shoe to drop. So I can't pretend like I know exactly what you're going through, or the exact shape of the burden you bear, but... I just can't see this, here and now, as a strictly bad thing, because –. I like to think we've established a rapport, and it evidently wouldn't have been possible without us being here.

[ He smiles sheepishly with one corner of his mouth. ]

Not that I'll be offended if you don't feel the same. I know how I'd feel if I was your age and talking about this all with a, uh, old man. All I'm saying is that I feel like this is all worth something. Even with all the shit we've been put through.

[namuthing]

[Under normal circumstances, Genya would probably have bristled at any of these attempts. Really, the fact that Lodi doesn't get a fist to the face for even trying says quite a bit. Himejima was the only adult that had ever managed to bring Genya to heel, and it was anyone's guess as to how he pulled that off.

Still, there's something to the way Lodi speaks, and how he frames his words. Or maybe there's something to be said about the horrors that Genya had once witnessed. At the very least, he knows that when Lodi says he understands the younger man, Genya actually believes him in a way he normally would not.

By the time Lodi finishes, Genya isn't quite smiling, but a ghost of amusement passes over his face all the same.]

I mean. You said it, not me. You sound like a real geezer, talkin' like that.

[And yet Genya is still there, and the weight on his chest seems to have been lifted ever so incrementally.]

[ninelines]

[ He really wouldn't have blamed Genya for punching him in the face, to be completely and utterly honest! He had felt like he was overstepping throughout the whole spiel. If the only kickback he ultimately gets is being called a geezer, he will take it! ]

You know what, I'll take it. Worse things to be called than a geezer. Since you called me one, though, it means I get to say this –.

[ Lodi beams. ] You're a good kid. And I do mean that.

[namuthing]

[Though Genya huffs and instinctively bristles, he smooths himself out just as quick. Lodi is right — he earned it with his own quip.]

Yeah, yeah. Just don't go repeatin' that, alright? I have a reputation to uphold, you know!

[He absolutely does not. Everyone knows he's soft. He only has one "enemy" in this place, and even that isn't true.]