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sticks and bones. ([personal profile] sticksandbonesmods) wrote in [community profile] sticksandbones2024-07-05 09:23 am

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!

UPDATES
❖ None yet!

ghostharasser: Art by me! (243)

III

[personal profile] ghostharasser 2024-07-08 08:02 am (UTC)(link)
Yeah, they really gave us the bare minimum.

[Hey guy who is new, here is a scrungly fifteen-year-old.]

Are you an experienced diver? or maybe you've got an aquatic form or something? you'd be surprised how many people here have those.
myceelium: (128)

[personal profile] myceelium 2024-07-08 10:01 am (UTC)(link)
[ Hello, scrungly fifteen-year-old! Meet another twin! Said twin can't help but to grin wider at Dipper's line of questioning, sharp teeth becoming much more pronounced than they were before. Not in a threatening way, but more amused. ]

Ufufu, is that so? And here I thought I was a bit novel.

[ You can't win 'em all, Jade. ]

However, yes, I do have aquatic abilities; my original form is that of a moray eel merman.
ghostharasser: Art by me! (248)

[personal profile] ghostharasser 2024-07-08 06:31 pm (UTC)(link)
[Hurray another twin without the other half. They should form a club.]

[It's okay man, your teeth are cool. Though, Dipper is so desensitized to the unusual that it garners a curious raise of his eyebrows more than any kind of balk.]


A moray eel merman. That's cool. I am appreciating the merpeople form diversity here. We have someone else here who is a shrimp? It's way better than everyone having the same boring looking fishtail like in all the popular media.
Edited 2024-07-08 18:48 (UTC)
myceelium: (002)

[personal profile] myceelium 2024-07-08 09:12 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Twin club twin club!!! Though, the shrimp catches his attention. It's definitely not Yuu, he's sure, but it's an amusing coincidence. ]

I couldn't agree more; there are plenty of fish-tailed merfolk where I live as well, but they're closer to the surface and the main cities. I'm from more deeper, chillier waters.

[ Which will definitely prove useful here, he's sure. ]

Other than that, it makes me both happy and intrigued that we have quite a few people here who can traverse the sea floor. That'll make gathering resources much smoother.
ghostharasser: Art by me! (211)

[personal profile] ghostharasser 2024-07-09 01:48 am (UTC)(link)
[Twin club!! Twin club!!!]

And it makes more sense for there to be lots of different kinds of merpeople? Like, the ocean is vast, dude. The people in it should be just as vast!

[Right, before he continues on that unhinged tangent, talking to a guy who definitely knows how big the ocean is-]

Oh yeah, we have a few. Mizuki's a jellyfish. Technically I can turn into a squid, it's just uh ...it's a form I'm not very good at controlling and I haven't figured out how to make the merman thing work, if it's even possible.
myceelium: (63)

[personal profile] myceelium 2024-07-11 11:19 am (UTC)(link)
[ Jade is more amused by the tangent than anything, definitely in agreement with Dipper. The squid mention is interesting, however. ]

A squid, you say? How intriguing. Do you think something in particular is preventing you from controlling it?

[ A hand moves to his chin in thought. If only a certain octopus were here to help... ]
ghostharasser: <user name =seishirou> (142)

[personal profile] ghostharasser 2024-07-16 08:09 am (UTC)(link)
[Dipper taps his own chin in thought, mirroring Jade. Nerd time.]

I'm not sure. It's a form I've only managed to take in a few specific instances, like uh, last month I got trapped in a cave during high tide and I basically had to, or I'd drown. It's also the form I revert to if I get fatally injured.

[Moving along like that isn't alarming to say.]

So, something seems capable of triggering it, usually dangerous situations? So it feels like I should be able to control it, somehow. Maybe I just need practice?
myceelium: (107)

1/2

[personal profile] myceelium 2024-07-26 03:35 am (UTC)(link)
Practice does make progress. If you need someone to simulate a dangerous situation for you, I could lend my assistance.

[ ...That smile of his looks just a little more sinister. J A D E- ]
myceelium: (042)

2/2

[personal profile] myceelium 2024-07-26 03:36 am (UTC)(link)
...Just kidding.

[ He thinks it over a little more, though. ]

But, it is good to try and practice with your abilities somehow. Hmm... I do know how to make potions. Maybe there might be a way to help you unlock your abilities with them? Not fully- I wouldn't want to mess with your organic growth with the power too much. But, a nudge in the right direction might help.
Edited 2024-07-26 03:39 (UTC)
ghostharasser: (11)

1/2

[personal profile] ghostharasser 2024-07-26 04:08 am (UTC)(link)
[Uh.]
ghostharasser: <user name =seishirou> (33)

[personal profile] ghostharasser 2024-07-26 04:12 am (UTC)(link)
...Right. Obviously. [Nervous laughter. It's okay, even with that alarming thing said, it's not like Dipper is tossing the idea out either. It could work, and it's not like Dipper hasn't died before. He's died twice, even. Sure why not.]

Potion, huh? That's a thought... like. Maybe a temporary form to get the rest of me used to the idea of it being a thing?
myceelium: (63)

[personal profile] myceelium 2024-07-30 04:23 am (UTC)(link)
I was more thinking along the lines of an ability amplification potion. Perhaps if we just allow you to temporarily obtain a boost altogether, you'd be able to access your other form with more ease, and get used to it that way.

[ Naturally, this may include ALL abilities, but it's not a set-in-stone agreement, yet. ]

A transformation potion may take a little bit longer to make, as I'm currently working on making more for myself as well.
ghostharasser: Art by me! (246)

[personal profile] ghostharasser 2024-07-30 09:02 am (UTC)(link)
Oh! That also makes sense.

[He does ponder it. It doesn't sound like a bad idea? Not yet, anyway. He will have some concerns if it amps up his other powers. Later. Anyway, he looks interested.]

Sure, if you can make something like that without too much trouble, I'm down to try it. I can help you get materials if you want, too. I actually don't know a whole lot about potions, come to think of it.

[What a terrible blank to have in his magic knowledge.]
myceelium: (002)

[personal profile] myceelium 2024-09-06 07:05 pm (UTC)(link)
I've had to make one in the past, so I'm sure that will be relatively more simple to make. As for obtaining ingredients, your aid would be quite welcome.

[ Between Dipper and Ydalir's potential help, he's sure he can figure out substitutes for ingredients he doesn't have from his own world. ]

Perhaps I can teach you a little bit about Potionology at the same time, then- it's my best class, where I'm from.
ghostharasser: Art by me! (200)

[personal profile] ghostharasser 2024-09-17 07:27 am (UTC)(link)
Great! Just make me a list and I'll see what I can do!

[Heck yeah, he'll go on your potion fetch quest.]

No kidding? That would be awesome.