MINI EVENT: BAD MOON RISING

[sticksandbonesmods]

BAD WOLF

Content Warning: Werewolves and werewolf-related violence.

!

WITCHING HOUR

Time passes oddly in this realm. Surely you've seen it by now. Looking to the sky grants different views and moons every night, almost disconnected. The weather is impossible to predict when the clouds don't truly matter. All you have to rely on is that a day and night cycle exists and even then... ... Well. Surely it doesn't matter. Right? (Or does it?) But perhaps more importantly is that tonight, the night is clear and crisp. The flowers in the grove face the moon almost like reverent followers to a preacher. And should you follow their open gaze, you will see that the moon is bright and full and red.

Rusty whines and the Trader has drawn her stall in, and even the sleepy turtle she rides is more alert. The Shopkeeper hisses quietly to himself, barring the windows slowly- and if you're close by, he tells you that it'd be best you do the same. He dares not close the door yet though- just in case someone needs the shelter.

A howl pierces the sky, and it's quickly joined by others, echoing through the woods. The crunch of leaves and sticks and roots breaking under hulking steps makes a presence known- and white, frenzied eyes can be seen in the shadows. Not just one pair- if you're outside, or at the window, you can see dozens from all angles. As they get closer to the clearing, their sharp teeth glint in the moonlight. Another howl, and the wolf-men charge. Fight or defend your residence- but the beasts do not go down easily. Not when wounds slowly stitch themselves back together.

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Comments

QUESTIONS AND REPORTS

[sticksandbonesmods]

Quick note: The werewolves rejuvenate, so that the siege isn't a one-and-done fight- this is an all night attack. Otherwise, ask things or report any changes here!

Re: QUESTIONS AND REPORTS

[lostpsalm]

Icly 'after it seems like no one else is coming,' rennuid's magically blacked out the lanterns, and has cast



to surround the inn and general store. He'll keep it up as long as he can, but... he has to still be outside to do it.

Re: QUESTIONS AND REPORTS

[sticksandbonesmods]

RENNUID... RENNUID, DARLING, THEY ARE WOLVES THEY CAN STILL SMELL- does he have any method of defense or staying out of claws range like. c. climbing a tree or something-

[deem]

9S, having learned nothing, attempts to hack a werewolf. What happens next?

[sticksandbonesmods]

He'll get... a lot of imprints. Hunger and agony and how only ripping flesh like they too were ripped helps. Patchwork. Like a multiple people and multiple beasts were torn apart and fused together to create the wolves. It hurts it hurts it hurts you should hurt too. Where are you? I will find you. I'll find you and you'll be one of us in the end. The forest takes all.





He gets the distinct feeling that his target werewolf is looking directly at him. Calculating.

If he's not cautious, it will be going directly after him with the intent of dragging him into the woods to. You know. Maim and eat him until it realizes he's mechanical. You can't eat metal.

[amhran]

Caoimhe has attempted to stop the wolves by singing - well she just hopes they will stop and listen. Really what may happen is her charming them,

Enthralling PerformanceXGtE, pg. 14
Once per short rest, you can choose 3 creatures that watched and listened to you perform for 1 minute. Each target makes a WIS saving throw (DC 15) and is charmed if it fails for 1 hour, or until it takes any damage, you attack it, or it sees you attack or damage its allies.

[ If Charmed any of them who try to target her would not target her for an hour at least. ]

[sticksandbonesmods]

crying

yeah okay. i don't want to make 3 rolls for it because it's funny. Caoimhe charms 3 werewolves. They go from trying to gnaw on her to just sitting there like :3c with their tails wagging.

They are still hostile to Elsword, as are the rest of the pack, but hey. She has three dogs (for an hour).

[amethystic]

i. red moon

( it's been. ??? days since the encounter with the manor. though she can heal others, she can't heal herself beyond her medicines, and she wishes that add were here still to help - especially at night, when the different moons bore down on her. she's always been connected to the moon, worshiped it like a god with a familiar reverence and a pure fondness. she even connected her magic to the moon. and every night it's a different one. it splits her head, like nails- but she persists, regardless. she is a witch, and she will cast.

the moon is red today though. it's- not only does the normal headache come, but it comes with nausea. felicity can be found in her room, curled up with the curtains closed. as always she's tried her medicine, but... )

... Close the door if you're coming in. It's too bright out there.

ii. blood moon

( why did it have to be werewolves? why did it have to be dogs. the first howl has her visibly stiffen, eyes wide- and then the snarling- and the fangs- almost on instinct, she throws a hand out and the windows of the inn are barricaded, but it doesn't change the fact that when you look at her, she's breathing heavily, pale and wide-eyed- )

i

[lostpsalm]

Felicity...? I'm coming in, if it's fine to.

<sub>[ there's a rare voice lately. he's been around, but... evasive. unable to quite hide how easily he tired, and choosing to hide it behind a stiff standoffishness that effectively shut down conversation, that one couldn't always quite put their finger on.

absence was an easy notice, once he emerged from the worst of it (at least for a while)-- and worth checking on each. so, even still a bit more thin and pallid himself, he's shown up to her door with a tray of a tea & tea set he remembered sharing together.

...and the fixings, he'd seen her put in hers. ]</sub>

Re: i

[amethystic]

( felicity visibly shifts, relief and confusion both instantly washing over her- )

... I thought you were gone, too... Almost everyone is.

( ugh. moving is... not pleasant. but she does manage to force herself to sit up. she blinks at the tea before smiling for perhaps the first time since the manor quest. )

Did you make us tea? Thank you. ... I've missed you.

i | also hi

[succiduous]

[Imagine being Gnosis right now. One moment, he swears he's in his lab on Rhodes Island's landship, dozing off due to being awake for the last forty-eight hours working on his experiments; the next, he blinks, and he's here, and he has no clue where "here" is but there is almost certainly no cell phone signal to carry a distress call back to the Doctor nor anyone else he's certifiably involved with.

He hardly shies away from an adventure, but all the same, he would have preferred knowing where this is before he embarks. This is not Kjerag; the lack of snow-capped peaks say as such. This is not the Landship, for the Landship contains no forests or shoddily-built log cabins that bear glaring similitude to that of his homeland's. This is not Sargon, for the clime is too temperate and crisp, not humid as the jungles nor arid as the deserts. Gnosis crunches numbers in his head, brow scrunched, and as he's lost in thought doing calculations — not Bolivar, not Sami, not Victoria, — he mistakenly opens the wrong door.

The woman's voice snaps him out of his considerations, an ice floe breaking away from the mainland.]

Apologies. I was unaware this room was occupied.

ii

[deem]

[ Don't mind 9S as he was ambling over to check on Felicity's status regardless of the fresh hell outside, what with her having been electrocuted not that long ago. He hunkers down beside her perhaps a little too abruptly, eyeing her for a beat from behind the obscuring black of his goggles. ]

Your heart rate and respiration are irregular.

[ He makes this helpful pronouncement, concern edging into his tone. These things aren't good for organic life, he knows. ]

[simplicitas]

i. elsword continues to make bad decisions

[Hello friend, are you stuck outside? Are you unable to get back to the inn in one piece? Are you, perhaps, in danger at all? Great news! One (1) heavily-armoured Idiot With A Sword™ is here to defend you!

...this is actually probably an insanely bad idea, considering in the course of being here he's gotten parasited by the forest, attacked by a muckbeast, earned himself TWO electric shocks, and in general has made an enemy of everything here, but like! It's fine! He's fine. Sure, his sword arm is a little wobbly and he seems to be struggling to kill the wolves because of it, and sure they rapidly regenerate, and sure things are looking grim...

...BUT IT'S FINE!]

Go back to the inn. I'll be right behind you.

[Will he, tho. He's currently made himself werewolf-bait, so surely not.]

ii. the one (1) good decision under his belt

[Once Elsword is back inside after having absolutely no chance at a pack of regenerating werewolves, at least not without his full team on his side... he starts checking on everyone. Yes, that includes you, whether he saved you earlier or not.]

Are you injured at all? Let me see.

[If you are, he'll heal you up, meticulously working to make sure your wounds close up properly.]

1

[lostpsalm]

Please. You know I can go faster! You sink in your steps right now like stone!
<sub>[ Rennuid's voice, stressed and beset by vicious beasts, is a snarl of its own. They're losing ground on this. After he'd emerged from the general store, earlier, to join Tyr'oc's side-- he hadn't seen anyone else peeling off from who-knows-where for them to clear the way inside for.

This equation is beginning to weigh poorly. ]</sub>

ii

[amethystic]

( felicity has not been outside since the first howl. she is instead maintaining barriers on the inn, to the best of her ability- keen eyes might notice that her focus wavers and with it, the shielding, sporadically... and she looks immensely frazzled. )

Uh- n-no, no, I'm fine...

1

[amhran]

N-No. No! I can help - I can! [ Caoimhe musters in a quiet but sharp voice, she grips her Harp tightly looking toward the other refusing to leave him alone to these beasts. ]

ii

[deem]

[ 9S tips his head curiously for a beat, only to wave the proposed aid off like smoke. ]

Nothing a little staunching gel won't fix, it's just a scratch after all.

[ Actually those lacerations across his midsection are pretty nasty-looking, but they didn't go beyond the layer of inky black insulating material beneath his skin. It's difficult to differentiate from his torn uniform, for that matter. ]

They sure ruined my jacket though.

[ His dejected sigh says everything about what he's really concerned about here. ]

[lostpsalm]

1/ yote, inside the store

<sub>[ Rennuid came to himself on the floor of the Shopkeeper's store.

He remembered going outside in a daze, moonstruck by its full face. Motion, flowing past the corners of his eyes, as the creeping, crawling things that normally kept him entourage abruptly all turned and fled. silence. and then not.

How he got from point A to B is a mystery that doesn't immediately resolve itself.

He has a little Floor Time to himself, staring at what he figures out, slowly, is red moonlight pouring in the barred windows. Indiscriminate sound from outside resolves next into discernable meaning. He mutters a word, rueful,]</sub>

Sinne-qula'taenorr...

_{[ Wolfsong. And accompanying it, sounds of battle. A hand on the wall, he gets to his feet. They aren't steady. ]}

2/ obfuscate

<sub>[ can't try and break in to what they can't fffffucking see.

There's a point where it's certain, to him, that no one else is coming to seek shelter in their little huddle of buildings. Rennuid seeps back outside in a puff of dark mist, building back into a slim elfin man on a little ledge on the inn's facade, where he had once stood before to hang a lantern.

He speaks to the pack below in elven.


as he goes on, the flames of each lantern turn to... burning wicks of an absence of light. the one right beside him is last to go. ]</sub>

It is the light that drives you to us, is it not? It is the covetous hunger, to rend in twain, to make all alike to yourselves in your pain! To spill, red, and purify; reveal beneath, unto your teeth, the white of bone belied!

But it is not for you.


Dwell with me in darkness, hungry singers. Find each other only by your bleak and heartsore calls.

<sub>[ rennuid casts, uh



this. As Bigly as possible. ]</sub>

2

[succiduous]

[Fascinating, to see one with such — as Gnosis knows it — Arts proficiency. A brief observation from where he steadies himself against a nearby wall says that this person seems to have no Arts unit on his person; signs point to the clip in his hair, perhaps, but what an impossibly tiny and useless Arts unit that would be in the first place.

He hums a flat note, momentary interest, though his expression does not afford such displays of emotion. Rennuid recites his poetry, and it sparks reminders of some, hm, quirkier Operators from Rhodes Island.]

Impressive work.

[Hey, hi. He's new here.]

2 cont after wispy rennuid maybe?

[amhran]

Rennuid? Rennuid are you alright? [ Caoimhe darts her eyes all about, having saw the other one moment. Then the next, losing them within the thick of the cloud. Albeit, in some ways potentially helpful, in this instance she felt herself lost within its embrace. Far too worried about whether her friend was okay or not. Causing her to immediately become spun around in an odd direction.

She uses her hands to cast a spell. Causing portions of the area around them to make smells with Prestidigitation - hoping to deter these beasts away from her as she attempts to recall where the Shopkeepers place had last been. ]

[succiduous]

*light synth* h e y w h a t ' s u p

[Gnosis is not much of a front-line battler. To that end, a werewolf attack — when he has only just arrived, mm, perhaps fifteen minutes ago — is not something he wishes to deal with. It's not that his Arts unit isn't functioning (far from it — despite the circumstances, there is hardly a scratch on the hilt), it isn't that he hasn't been involved in combat before (he has been, though Degenbrecher was quick to remind him why he doesn't participate in such), it's simply that he does not care to join in the rabble. There are several people outside who have the situation handled.

Gnosis knows not where he is. He simply knows he is now here, and being here means he must make do, figure out the where's and what's and why's of the situation he's found himself in. Try to recall what he was last doing — deployed to Londinium to deal with the crisis there, he believes, but there's a gap between his part in that mission and now. These certainly aren't the marshes of Victoria; not the beautiful brick buildings of County Hillock. This is not Rhodes Island's landship. Not a Leithanien spire, not the jungles of Sargon, not snowy Kjerag.

This is, put simply, a problem to be solved later, much like the werewolves outside. If they cannot get inside, inside is where Gnosis will be. Inside is where Gnosis will be fiddling with a long, cane-like object, carefully removing near microscopic screws from its chassis. Inside is where it is safe. So focused on his work is he that he hardly notices the sound of footsteps, of talking, and if he ignores you by accident, rest assured it is just that. An accident, though Gnosis has been known to ignore others on purpose before.]

for after our other one

[lostpsalm]

<sub>[ rooftop poetry guy does eventually zone into the inn, too. He's got a tickle in his throat and was getting water, tired and shuffling and absolutely not going to sleep until sunrise touches down because can't sleep, otsfo-qula'taenorr will eat me, when he sees...

whatever...

Gnosis is now up to. He perceives the extremely tiny little screws. He surreptitiously looks down at the floor to see if he percieves any dropped extremely tiny little screws.]</sub>

COME MORNING LIGHT [WRAPUP AND CLEANUP]

[sticksandbonesmods]

It's been a harrowing night but somehow- despite at least one of the beasts managing to get into the inn- you survive. The sun begins to rise slowly, and the werewolves still as if fearful of something- and those not too mangled from their own claws and your magic flee into the fog.

Those that are too injured try to crawl into shadow as best they can, but as the light grows brighter, it's easier to see: These beasts were never complete creatures, but rather patchworks of... multiple men and multiple beasts alike- like doll pieces all sewn together, but not a single patch came from the same doll.

Maybe parts of the whole look familiar. Maybe they don't.

But the werewolves that don't escape quickly find themselves ensnared, not by your traps and magic but by vine and root. The flowers had closed for the night, but blood awakens any hunter, and they've been so

very



hungry.

Even if you wanted to take a werewolf to study, they're quickly claimed by the flora for devouring. It's a messy process.




Congratulations, Aldric's Grove. You survived the night.

[lostpsalm]

<sub>[ ,

Rennuid cannot tell the difference between night and day without looking directly at the sun or moon so he will start celebrating when someone else does first. Thaaaaaank fuck tho. That was the worst. ]</sub>

Re: COME MORNING LIGHT [WRAPUP AND CLEANUP]

[amethystic]

... Hey, what the fuck.

( THE FLOWERS ARE EATING THINGS. A LOT. WHAT THE FUCK. )