sticksandbones | EVENT & TDM 014

EVENT & TDM 014

THE OCEAN IS ONLY SCARY IF YOU THINK ABOUT IT

WAKE UP

You open your eyes to a peaceful, beautiful forest. Whatever you were dreaming about — be it something happy, something sad, or something nightmarish — seems secondary to the bright wash of greenery and the comforting, cooling breeze that washes over you. It rustles the leaves of the canopy overhead, disturbing a small nest of two-headed birds who chirp as the sticks for their nests are blown away. A hop, hop, hop later, and they return to continue their building, unbothered by your gaze.

As you walk around, you will find that Aldric’s Grove feels… empty. You pop your head into the inn only to find a fine layer of dust on the furniture, and an ever-burning fireplace refusing to be put out. The General Store is unmanned, the door locked, and the lights inside completely out. The house to the south is abandoned, and a building labelled as a clinic sports no patients. The most life you’ll find lies in the church, where the pigeons see you and swarm at your feet, cooing and asking for breadcrumbs.

Flowers bloom, a deer with a halo of horns skips through the clearing, and a small lizard shaped like a leaf climbs the well. You spend several hours alone… and then from the woods to the east comes a giant capybara and a monstrous moose two stories tall. Upon each of them, they carry a hoard of people coming back from what is clearly a summer vacation, if the inner tubes, swimwear, and overwhelming stench of sunscreen are anything to go by.

Maybe the people dismounting the two animals will be nice enough to greet you and tour you around. It’s the least they can do, since you were excluded from the vacation activities.

NOT A MOMENT OF PEACE

It’s still early in the month when a cacophony occurs; an enormous crocodile with too many eyes, known simply as “The Behemoth” suddenly rushes out of the river in a panic as some kind of blue, veinlike latticework covers the surface of it, nearly trapping her within it. It spreads across the entire length of the river from east to west, creeping onto the shoreline up to the church and across the back of the home to the south. When touched, it stings bad enough to paralyse the nervous system, and after making contact for too long while you’re unable to move? Death is imminent, unless someone saves you.

The Behemoth certainly doesn’t try to, too occupied plonking around on land to look for something to do while she can’t go into the water. She won’t attack anyone, but she’s normally searching for a meal, if you don’t mind sharing a snack. As for the other supernatural creatures in the Grove…

Ever since that latticework covered the river, the moose monster — Moder — and the gargoyle that sits on the church’s roof — Zahliya — have only stared and scrutinized. One wrong move, one fight with another resident of the Grove, means either of them are getting up to deal with the problem. It seems that they’re waiting for someone here to show the wrong hand, suspicious of everyone — including those who have been here for over a year at this point. And the second one toe is out of line? Either of them are willing and ready to kill.

Though the suspicion of the Guardians doesn’t wear off and won’t any time soon, the blue gunk covering the river disappears at the end of the first week of July, and it’s anyone’s guess what’ll happen for the rest of the month.

UNDER THE SEA

cw: thalassophobia
What happens is pretty simple if you don’t think about it: Another week passes in peace, and then a disembodied voice somewhere in the woods says, “You guys still smell like seawater and sand, and it’s putting me off of my lunch,” and if you’re new and haven’t gone to the beach yet and have no idea what the voice is talking about… too bad, you’re being lumped in with the crowd. Being lumped in also includes, well… a burst of magic, the sound of fingers snapping, and a loud splash of water. When you next open your eyes…

You’re underwater in some kind of reinforced metal base, one thousand meters under the sea, and something is slamming against the outside of it in an attempt to get in and — presumably — eat you alive. If anyone finds the on-board torpedoes in the command room in time, you might be able to kill the creature before it breaks through the hull and kills everyone inside. And with that hopefully taken care of…

Welcome to your new home for the next two weeks. Your only objective is to survive. There are several rooms here dedicated to underwater research, a bedroom with enough uncomfortable single-person beds for everyone (sadly glued to the floor, too), and a “cafeteria” type room that you can eat in. While the seabase comes equipped with supplies — torpedoes, enough rations to last for everyone but not enough for big eaters to eat big, diving suits and oxygen tanks, and underwater planter boxes growing strange fruits — it may take some effort on your part to ensure that survival is guaranteed. After all, the hungry leviathans know exactly where you are, whether you go outside of the base or not. Water, of course, may pose an issue; there’s no way to filter the seawater here, so the bottled water you have is all you’ll get.

Should you venture out, make sure you’re equipped with the proper gear first. Those of you who cannot swim should probably stay indoors, as there are no fancy vehicles to take you anywhere. Those of you capable of going out may consider braving the danger in search of additional supplies… or perhaps you’re just curious about the ecosystem. You’ll be here for two weeks, after all, there must be something to do. Travel far enough from the base and you’ll find the skeletal remains of something far larger than the Grove itself… and if you’re not careful, a monstrous, snakelike thing who wants you for dinner.

Try not to lead it back to the base for the others to deal with. Who knows how kindly people will take to that?

AN OMINOUS RETURN

As always, when one of the Forest’s “games” ends and you’re returned to the surface when the magic wears off, there’s a reward waiting for you. This reward isn’t as obvious, however. The fog wall is, for the most part, rolled pretty far back. The folks that have been here before may expect to see it revealing more of the trees, or showing off some new area that hasn’t been accessible yet, but the Grove remains quiet upon return. The Guardians, too, have little to say. Normally, they’d be a little more overjoyed at your return… alas.

No, the “reward” for surviving — or blowing up the base immediately and dying, either way — is that the fog wall obscuring the lake ever so slowly rolls back. From within it, something jumps out, a dark black shape, and disappears into the forest.

…

Perhaps you’ll see whatever it is another time.

SPARK NOTES

CLICK TO EXPAND!

WAKE UP

Welcome to the empty Aldric's Grove! ...oh, here come the people, back from summer vacation! Hey hello.

NOT A MOMENT OF PEACE

The river and shoreline near it are messed up for a week. The Guardians are suspicious of everyone here. The Behemoth is taking big steppies around the Grove asking nicely for food. A week passes, and the Guardians are still suspicious of everyone. Yaaaay.

UNDER THE SEA

And then, everyone was trapped underwater in a seabase, made to survive the horrors of the open deep sea. Watch out for leviathans! And try not to eat and drink all of the rations immediately; that's all you'll get.

AN OMINOUS RETURN

Your reward for playing in yet another of the Forest's games is the fog wall over the lake rolling back. Of course, what jumped out of it and ran off into the woods could either be your greatest boon, or your biggest nuisance. It all depends on you.

OOC

Happy summer! This is a reminder that TDMs are considered game canon. For your threads, feel free to make up your own leviathans/weird fish/whatever you want for spice, or just steal from Subnautica, it's all good. OOC Plotting Lives Here if you'd like to plot anything out!

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

i. wake up

[This is not the first time Siffrin has suddenly lost consciousness and woken up in a different place, lying in the grass – from from it, in fact – but it's not a familiar patch of grass, and that's bizarre enough to distract him from the immediate and devastating realization that he's alone.

Looking around confusedly at the unfamiliar surroundings, all the green is overwhelming. Not the flora, but the literal green. That and all the other...shades? Shades he doesn't have words for. Some flowers are even that same bright, violent-looking shade of reality breaking, and just glancing their way twists Siffrin's stomach in knots. Are these colors? It's all so vibrant and wrong and he feels like his head is going to explode trying to process all of it.

So Siffrin just...lays back down, curls up on their side, and covers their one good eye. No thank you, he's good. Please put him back where he came from.]

ii. network

[Siffrin doesn't know what to make of the book he found after waking up here, or the writing that appears in it. It seems like people writing back and forth to each other, though he can't even begin to imagine how. Some kind of craft?

Eventually, they decide to experiment. A pretty decent doodle of a crab appears in the pages, soon followed by their clumsy handwriting:]

Do you know why crabs don't donate to charity?

( what's that? too much green? unfortunately it is about to get worse. maybe he notices the soft footsteps first, or light periodic scrape of something against the dirt.

white lily cookie kneels down beside him, speaking softly. )

Are you alright?

( after all, while there are quite a few new faces, and she absolutely gets the joy of laying in the grass, but- even from a distance, it seemed like the young man was overwhelmed. )

[Siffrin chooses not to react to the approaching footsteps. especially when the voice that follows is an unfamiliar one. They remain as they are, face buried in their high collar and voice muffled.]

No, I'm dreaming.

[He better be. The alternatives are too miserable to consider.]

... I'm sorry. I wish you were, but the reality is much crueler.

( white lily shifts, sitting beside the stranger not unlike a guardian angel. is this a human child? they seem young. but most she's met so far are adults, or approaching it... and she's admittedly a little out of touch with time and it's passing, these days. )

You are in a place called Aldric's Grove. You are not alone, but we are at the mercy of a cruel entity. ... But, the people here are kind.

[At a glance, he probably looks like a child. He's only like 5'1" and scrawny, and the cloak hiding proportions and hands hiding his face probably don't help matters. Don't be fooled, this is a grown-ass adult.

He's a little surprised to hear the person settling down next to him. After all, he's been told he has a certain aura that discourages pestering. It's that quiet, mysterious, irreverent rogue thing. Nice of this person to persist in her concept despite it, but Siffrin isn't really in the mood to appreciate it right now. At her reassurance, a bitter bark of a laugh escapes them, and they finally pull their hands away from their face and roll onto their back. What does this lady know? He's alone in every way that matters.]

Why?

Why, in regards kindness? Because it is their nature.

Why, in regards to the entity's actions? Because it is... as the kids say, a dick.

( WHITE LILY COOKIE. ... it might be especially funny of her to say that, given that she sounds and looks like she's not that old herself- an adult, certainly, but for how long?

(centuries long.) )

[There's a huff of breath that might be a dry laugh, and Siffrin's good eye finally opens a crack to peek up at the lady sitting over them.]

...What kind of "entity"?

[He already knows he's the universe's favorite punching bag. What's another cruel being toying with his life at this point?]

It is... ( white lily pauses, considering her words. ) I have been told it is a fallen god, sealed within the forest and freed by accident long ago by humans. It views those of us it's stolen from our homes as... toys. It is cruel and vindictive, and not above torture to get what it wants.

( another pause. )

That sounds terrible for a first conversation, I'm sorry. But it is not as hopeless as it sounds- it can bleed. And if it bleeds, it can die.

[Siffrin absorbs it all in silence, eye shutting again just so they don't have to see all that color while they process this shit. One thing at a time.]

I do have a dagger.

[Their tone is flat and, more than anything, tired. Stars, they haven't even had a chance to sleep yet, it's barely been a few hours since somehow miraculously clawing his way out of hell, and he's immediately been kicked right back in. It's not fair. Surely he can't even be at fault this time. It's not like he wished for this, right? What could he have possibly wished for that would result in this situation, suddenly being whisked away to god knows where, separated from the people for whom he nearly broke reality in his desperation to remain with them?

It's hard to wrap his head around his feelings towards the Universe even now. There's resentment, but also deep feelings rooted somewhere in everything he's forgotten. He doesn't know if he'd have considered the Universe itself his enemy, even at hus lowest point in the loops. But other gods are fair game. And one he can actually stab seems blessedly straightforward in comparison.]

Siffrin | In Stars And Time | New player

wake up

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