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sticksandbones2024-03-01 09:09 am
sticksandbonesmods) wrote in sticksandbones2024-03-01 09:09 am
Entry tags:
EVENT & TDM 010
WOULD YOU STILL LOVE ME IF I WAS A WORM?
WAKE UP
Nothing ever stays the same in this place. The people who came here before you know that, and have known that, and are used to that. When you and the other new arrivals start to stumble out of the fog wall and the surrounding woods, it’s an expected thing. They see you. They knew you’d be here eventually. Perhaps someone will be kind enough to explain how you got here, and why you have such a splitting headache, and why you feel so paranoid. Perhaps the sudden sense of foreboding and doom is too much to handle. It feels unnatural. It feels like the emotions aren’t your own. And when a butterfly with eyespots almost too realistic lands on your hand, it’s nearly impossible not to scream.
“Don’t touch the fog wall.” That’s what you’re told, and whether it reaches you through the fog-induced paranoid haze or not is left up to your will and your will alone. That sense wears off within half an hour, at least, though there are still more questions than answers in this place.
For instance: What is that in the river, that monstrous crocodile with too many eyes that seems to be stalking everybody who comes too close? “The Behemoth”, they call it, and it only wants as much to do with you as you want to do with it. Come too close, and it backs up to continue watching you from afar. Attack it, and it fights back, unkillable and gargantuan in strength. Offer it meat, and it cautiously takes the food from your hand before diving into the river’s depths.
Alternatively, you might wonder what that stone creature on the church’s roof is, or what the story behind the shadow-people are, or why there’s a two-story tall, many-limbed moose monster wandering around that no one seems bothered by. Where is this?
This is Aldric’s Grove. And for better or for worse, it’s your new home.
“Don’t touch the fog wall.” That’s what you’re told, and whether it reaches you through the fog-induced paranoid haze or not is left up to your will and your will alone. That sense wears off within half an hour, at least, though there are still more questions than answers in this place.
For instance: What is that in the river, that monstrous crocodile with too many eyes that seems to be stalking everybody who comes too close? “The Behemoth”, they call it, and it only wants as much to do with you as you want to do with it. Come too close, and it backs up to continue watching you from afar. Attack it, and it fights back, unkillable and gargantuan in strength. Offer it meat, and it cautiously takes the food from your hand before diving into the river’s depths.
Alternatively, you might wonder what that stone creature on the church’s roof is, or what the story behind the shadow-people are, or why there’s a two-story tall, many-limbed moose monster wandering around that no one seems bothered by. Where is this?
This is Aldric’s Grove. And for better or for worse, it’s your new home.
CAT-TASTROPHE
cw: forced animal transformations
Although time blends together in this place and makes it difficult to tell the exact date, it’s easy enough to tell that it’s early in March when everybody wakes up feeling and looking… different.
You recall going to bed in your usual body. You recall, as you fell asleep, hearing a childish voice whisper in your ear, “I’m booooored. Let’s race!” You almost certainly do not recall being an animal no bigger than a large dog, almost unable to leave your bedroom because door handles are difficult to open with paws or claws or anything else. It’s lucky that the windows are easy enough to nudge open with snouts and beaks so that you can leave your bedroom and see what, exactly, is going on.
You aren’t the only animal. Everyone here is, too, creatures of different shapes and kinds, though all of them hail from Earth itself. The Guardians and shadowy merchant siblings are just as miffed as you are about this. “Here we go again,” they say, just as the last of you arrives at the Grove’s centre — and then it all goes dark. When you next open your eyes, you’re deep within the woods, where colourful flag markers on trees and a winding, long path indicates a race.
A long race. One that will last at least eight hours, assuming you use your time appropriately and don’t take too many naps in the trees along the path. Fret not: To ensure everyone participates in the race as expected, the Creature in the woods has sent an entourage of monsters after you, with too many eyes and gnashing fangs and claws the size of tree trunks. They’ll chase you down and try to eat you if they get their talons on you.
Use your time wisely, unless you want to meet an untimely demise.
Although time blends together in this place and makes it difficult to tell the exact date, it’s easy enough to tell that it’s early in March when everybody wakes up feeling and looking… different.
You recall going to bed in your usual body. You recall, as you fell asleep, hearing a childish voice whisper in your ear, “I’m booooored. Let’s race!” You almost certainly do not recall being an animal no bigger than a large dog, almost unable to leave your bedroom because door handles are difficult to open with paws or claws or anything else. It’s lucky that the windows are easy enough to nudge open with snouts and beaks so that you can leave your bedroom and see what, exactly, is going on.
You aren’t the only animal. Everyone here is, too, creatures of different shapes and kinds, though all of them hail from Earth itself. The Guardians and shadowy merchant siblings are just as miffed as you are about this. “Here we go again,” they say, just as the last of you arrives at the Grove’s centre — and then it all goes dark. When you next open your eyes, you’re deep within the woods, where colourful flag markers on trees and a winding, long path indicates a race.
A long race. One that will last at least eight hours, assuming you use your time appropriately and don’t take too many naps in the trees along the path. Fret not: To ensure everyone participates in the race as expected, the Creature in the woods has sent an entourage of monsters after you, with too many eyes and gnashing fangs and claws the size of tree trunks. They’ll chase you down and try to eat you if they get their talons on you.
Use your time wisely, unless you want to meet an untimely demise.
BURIAL OF ANCIENTS
The Creature is a big fan of participation awards. Whether you won the race against your peers, came in second or third or fifteenth, or died during the challenge, it matters little when the fog starts to pull back. That’s your reward for being forced to participate in a race you didn’t want to be part of in the first place, aside from the regular reward of going back to your normal body: you get to explore, and you get to explore a lot.
To the east and west where the river bends, the fog is no longer a blockade impeding progress. You can travel far in either direction by river raft, chart unknown territory, and get lost in the woods for as long as you desire. Though it will take three days to travel to the new “end point” in either direction, an offering of shells and fruits can be given to the River Guardian to be granted a travel boon that will decrease your travel time from three days to one. You’ll still have to camp out along the shoreline, but asking for that boon will ensure you aren’t gone too long.
Taking the river to the west leads you through an ever-darkening forest, marked on the banks and trees by blue-glowing mushrooms. The canopy here is so thick that the sun doesn’t shine through, making it twice as difficult to tell how much time has passed — and to see where you’re headed in general. At the end of the journey, the black fog wall comes back into view, as the river begins to widen into the beginnings of a lake. A lake, which you cannot yet reach, as you dock the raft and hop onto the shore.
Following the path leads you to a wide-open clearing with more of those glowing fungi and a strong smell of moss. In the centre of it lies a humungous skeleton half-embedded in the soil, so enormous in stature that one wonders how such a creature ever roamed this land. The inside of its skull alone is enough to build a moderately-sized house within, and have a lovely view of the lake behind the fog wall to go with it.
If you approach the lake’s edge, you can hear a soft song from within, beautiful and hypnotizing. It makes you want to walk into the fog wall. It makes you want to enter the water and drown in its depths. And if you don’t, if you get control of yourself, hundreds of sickly black hands slam into the wall again and again, desperately trying to reach you.
…
The next time you come out this far, all three Guardians are here, arguing with the thing in the lake in a language you can’t comprehend.
To the east and west where the river bends, the fog is no longer a blockade impeding progress. You can travel far in either direction by river raft, chart unknown territory, and get lost in the woods for as long as you desire. Though it will take three days to travel to the new “end point” in either direction, an offering of shells and fruits can be given to the River Guardian to be granted a travel boon that will decrease your travel time from three days to one. You’ll still have to camp out along the shoreline, but asking for that boon will ensure you aren’t gone too long.
Taking the river to the west leads you through an ever-darkening forest, marked on the banks and trees by blue-glowing mushrooms. The canopy here is so thick that the sun doesn’t shine through, making it twice as difficult to tell how much time has passed — and to see where you’re headed in general. At the end of the journey, the black fog wall comes back into view, as the river begins to widen into the beginnings of a lake. A lake, which you cannot yet reach, as you dock the raft and hop onto the shore.
Following the path leads you to a wide-open clearing with more of those glowing fungi and a strong smell of moss. In the centre of it lies a humungous skeleton half-embedded in the soil, so enormous in stature that one wonders how such a creature ever roamed this land. The inside of its skull alone is enough to build a moderately-sized house within, and have a lovely view of the lake behind the fog wall to go with it.
If you approach the lake’s edge, you can hear a soft song from within, beautiful and hypnotizing. It makes you want to walk into the fog wall. It makes you want to enter the water and drown in its depths. And if you don’t, if you get control of yourself, hundreds of sickly black hands slam into the wall again and again, desperately trying to reach you.
…
The next time you come out this far, all three Guardians are here, arguing with the thing in the lake in a language you can’t comprehend.
SHIMMERING COSMOS
To the east, another three days out (or only one if you ask for that boon), is a forest of sequoias that reach into the very heavens, and moose tracks the size of your inn rooms. Out here, there are no glowing fungi to guide your way, only the distant sound of the ocean and the smell of salt. The closer you get, the stronger both of those become.
At the end of the river where the fog wall yet again impedes progress, you hear a waterfall. It’s overwhelmingly loud, nearly impossible to talk over, but if anyone is with you, you’ll have to manage somehow. Behind the fog — only a scant few feet away — is the edge of a cliff, and a sheer drop into the sea. In the far distance looms the silhouette of a lighthouse, unreachable, and in the sea itself just barely visible behind that black wall, within a spiralling whirlpool…
…is the sleeping, peaceful figure of a serpent, scales glittering with stars. It doesn’t respond to if you call out to it. Perhaps it can’t hear you. Perhaps it doesn’t care. It is the stars fallen from the sky and the cosmos you haven’t seen since you’ve been here, immune to your plight, because what is a mortal but an ant to a God?
Even though the Cosmic Serpent can’t be reached, a sense of calm washes over you the longer you stay close to the sea. Before you head back home, why not take a nap against one of those tree trunks? Just be careful you aren’t asleep too long. A “nap” to you might seem like a small coma to everyone waiting for you to come back to the Grove.
At the end of the river where the fog wall yet again impedes progress, you hear a waterfall. It’s overwhelmingly loud, nearly impossible to talk over, but if anyone is with you, you’ll have to manage somehow. Behind the fog — only a scant few feet away — is the edge of a cliff, and a sheer drop into the sea. In the far distance looms the silhouette of a lighthouse, unreachable, and in the sea itself just barely visible behind that black wall, within a spiralling whirlpool…
…is the sleeping, peaceful figure of a serpent, scales glittering with stars. It doesn’t respond to if you call out to it. Perhaps it can’t hear you. Perhaps it doesn’t care. It is the stars fallen from the sky and the cosmos you haven’t seen since you’ve been here, immune to your plight, because what is a mortal but an ant to a God?
Even though the Cosmic Serpent can’t be reached, a sense of calm washes over you the longer you stay close to the sea. Before you head back home, why not take a nap against one of those tree trunks? Just be careful you aren’t asleep too long. A “nap” to you might seem like a small coma to everyone waiting for you to come back to the Grove.
SPARK NOTES
CLICK TO EXPAND!
WAKE UP
Welcome to Aldric's Grove. New arrivals walk out of the fog wall feeling paranoid because they touched the fog wall. There's a biblically-accurate crocodile in the river. Surely this is fine.
CAT-TASTROPHE
Everybody gets transformed into an Earth animal and thrown into a long race in which they'll be chased by monsters the entire time. Sounds fun, right? ...no?
BURIAL OF ANCIENTS
To the west is a dark forest marked with glowing mushrooms. Travel far enough out via river raft and you'll reach the edge of the lake and find the ancient bones of a humongous creature. Getting too close to the lake and listening to the thing behind it singing makes you want to walk into the fog wall and drown in the lake. If you don't do this, hands slam against the fog wall, trying to reach you. Sometimes the Guardians wander out here to shout at the thing in the lake.
SHIMMERING COSMOS
To the east is a forest of sequoias, with moose tracks between the trees the size of an inn room. The further you go, the closer you get to the cliffside, where you can hear a roaring waterfall just beyond the fog wall. Through the fog is the sleeping form of the Cosmic Serpent, and the lighthouse in the far distance.
OOC
Happy March! TDMs are considered game canon. If you'd like to plot with people for this event, head over to OOC plotting. We encourage exploration considering the sheer volume of setting updates this time, so if there's anything you want to explore in more depth, hit up this log's investigations toplevel.
UPDATES
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SUBMISSIONS
no subject
[Sorry, but not sorry. Although Vash has to admit, Passenger at least has a little more going for him. That is, if his chest is anything to go off of. You don't get pecs like that without a bit of work.
Or by being an anime boy. Don't worry about that one, though.]
no subject
Anyway, Passenger makes a distinctly pigeon-like cooing noise. It sounds... entertained? Yeah, that.]
One would think. In Sargon, the heat of the desert can kill one in moments if caution isn't taken. This is alongside the infrequent acid rains and blinding sandstorms.
[sorry the acid rains??? the acid rains—]
Looks can be rather deceiving, do you not think?
no subject
[His brain goes to the worst, the kind of rain that eats at skin and renders you into goop. Definitely not the environment detriment kind. Which, who can say which one Passenger is referring to.]
You can say that gain, though. Can you believe that some people think I'm a skinny little thing with no muscle!
[Yes, we are referring to him being called a TWINK by CERTAIN PARTIES that shall not be named (we love you).]
no subject
anyway—
Passenger looks Vash up and down, like, rakes his gaze over the man... smirks. Hums.]
Are you not...?
no subject
It gets to his elbow before it gets too tight and -]
Hang on.
[He throws the jacket off. His hands go to the hem of his thermal to tug it off.]
no subject
His headwings do slightly fluff up when he sees all the scars, though. Ohhh wow. Someone's been through the fucking wringer.]
I see... so it is the jacket that makes you appear smaller. [Hm hm hmmm] Your waist is rather thin. I may have thought you were wearing a corset underneath your shirt, had you not just undressed in front of me.
[Pigeon cooing.]
no subject
[Vash places one of his hands against his waistline, rocking his hips this way and that as he shows off. The other braces behind his head, like he's some sort of model. He's pretty sure he saw this pose in one of Roberto's magazine's once.]
I guess I never really thought of it that way! To be honest, I don't spend too much time looking at myself. I'm a little beat up, as I'm sure you saw!
[Anyway, shirt is going back on, and the jacket is being dusted off.]
no subject
[Aww, look at that, they're bonding. Passenger is rarely sympathetic; even Little Elliot in his head comments about it, an idle, "Is this what you meant when you mentioned 'human' emotions?" which is a discussion for later. (Yes, he might be trying to be a little more like Sesa in some ways, shut up.)]
If I may inquire, and you are free to avoid answering if you wish not to disclose: do they hurt, as old wounds so often do?
no subject
I'm sorry you know the feeling. Not something I'd ever wish on anyone, you know?
[He swings his jacket back on, almost sighing in relief as he feels its familiar weight on his shoulders.]
They sting, from time to time. Some of the skin is tighter than others. The metal aches when it gets cold, too. Pulls from time to time, even. [He realizes just how morbid it all sounds and grimaces.] But don't worry! I'm fine!
no subject
no subject
[He looks down at himself, as if he can somehow see through the fabric. For some reason, the suggestion just makes him laugh.]
Why? More trouble than I'm worth, don't you think! [He taps the space over the metal cage on his chest.] Plus it'd just make me all sore, and where's the fun in that?
no subject
[He works for a pharmaceutical company but it cannot be understated how much medical knowledge he lacks because he does their mechanical engineering.]
Surely your self-worth isn't so low that the thought of improving your quality of life is nonexistent.
[He caught that.]
no subject
Since when do you care so much about other people! Usually you seem to keep to yourself. What makes me so special, huh?
[Vash's tone is kept light. Teasing.]
no subject
A claw taps the diamond-shaped crystal on his forehead.]
Those of us with Oripathy often say the same. Why would we try to increase our quality of life when we are soon to die, after all? The comparison I draw isn't quite the same, but I hear similar sentiments around the Infected population at Rhodes Island. Should you be forced to suffer? Should anyone? I only believe in suffering for the most heinous of people, of which you are not.
no subject
[Passenger hadn't been there for his very dramatic announcement of his sins, had he? It's hard to remember. He'd been rather self-absorbed in that time period, and it all bleeds together.]
Good people affected by bad circumstances still deserve good things. That's what sets you and me apart.
no subject
[Passenger doesn't think so, but then again, he treats others as something of a setpiece — not due to his own ego (or lack thereof), but rather because he goes through life so passively now that everything may as well be props on a stage, including himself. He has no reason to strike Vash down: he's merely posing the question.
Also, no, he was not there for the sin confession, he just barely missed that, but rest assured if this were Gnosis who was there he'd be rolling his eyes—]
Do you believe, then, that I am a "good" person?
no subject
Which, all things considered, is both hilarious and hypocritical, considering what Vash says next.]
Everyone is capable of good and bad. And anyone can change their trajectory in life at any point.
no subject
I wonder: Would you still hold such an opinion of me if you knew more about me? The burning of the black market I built with my own hands was for a lofty sense of vengeance, yes, and though my target had been only one man, many more died in that fire. Do good men spend so long on shedding blood?
no subject
He'd spared plenty of people for less.]
That depends. What have you done since then?
no subject
[He shakes his head, a sigh on his lips. Nothing important, he says. Nothing notable.]
I do not believe I am a "good" person, but I will disclose this: I do feel a sense of loss for the innocents. Even with the time they were given to evacuate, lives were still lost that should not have been. I do not regret taking my revenge despite this. Vengeance is a blinding force, Vash.
no subject
[Vash himself looks toward the woods. He imagines Nai somewhere out there, lost just as he'd been lost to his own quest. He knows just how deeply the need for vengeance can change a person. And that's why, when he turns back to Passenger, he has a sad little smile on his lips.]
Believe me, I know better than most anyone. It's why I still believe in what I said. Everyone can change their path in life, just as you have. Vengeance blinded you, but it didn't keep you from moving forward, either.
Everyone deserves a chance to keep growing, just like you have.