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sticksandbones2023-08-04 10:59 am
- !event,
- !tdm,
- arknights: gnosis,
- arknights: mizuki,
- arknights: shalem,
- baldur's gate iii: astarion ancunín,
- elsword: elsword,
- fate: bb,
- handead anthem: gara ukai,
- i'm the grim reaper: brook,
- jujutsu kaisen: toge inumaki,
- original: caoimhe ailbhe,
- original: felicity morais,
- original: rennuid tathviel
Event & TDM 003
You open your eyes.
It feels like you’ve been here before, like you’re finally home. Today, the sun shines brightly, brilliantly, on the open forest clearing making up Aldric’s Grove. Vines wrap around old buildings, overgrowth covers ruins of what once were homes and shops, and weeds poke up through the cracks of foundations. Before you stands an inn, a well, and one hundred beautiful flowers peppered throughout the clearing. Be not fooled by their beauty, wanderer; should you stray too close, the flowers are happy to bite.
Fret not, however; should you seek escape from the carnivorous foliage, the inn is plenty safe from attacks. Perhaps you ought to get acquainted with others like you, lounging in the lobby with nowhere to go. Perhaps you should find yourself a room, a place to stay. After all, room and board is completely free of charge! Should you dig through the bedside table of your new room, you’ll find only one thing within: A Polaroid photograph of yourself from years ago. You were younger, then — or, if age doesn’t define you, you were different. Still, you remember posing for this photograph… don’t you?
If the photo is too much for you, a trip to the river might offer respite. The oppressive fog wrapping around the grove and obscuring much of the distant forest some miles out won’t let you wander too far. Luckily, there’s a stretch of river perfect for a round of fishing, playing in, or simply relaxing by. Mushrooms grow along the banks and on the trees, but remember to say “thank you” to the forest if you take them. You wouldn’t like the consequences otherwise.
cw: madness, hallucinations
You might have had luck avoiding the gnashing fangs of the flowers thus far, but they begin to get restless and aggressive the longer they go without feeding. They can’t quite uproot themselves and chase you down, but they will stretch their stalks as far as they can, unfurl their petals and try to wrap sharp leaves around your legs and anything else within reach. If you aren’t careful, their fangs will pierce your flesh, and they will drink from you until they drain you dry. Shout for help if they latch on. Surely someone will come to your aid.
…just try not to look at them much. The flowers take passive abilities of anyone they feed from, and that means they possess powers of their own. Stare for a moment too long, and you’ll begin to see your nightmares brought to life, feel a crawling down your back like one million insect feet, a grappling at your ankles as something tries to drag you under the metaphorical tides. Black tendrils sweep over your eyes, they grip the facades of buildings, they tear your friends to shreds and eat them whole. Focus. Focus on that voice telling you to snap out of it, on the people around you waving their hands in front of your eyes. It isn’t real. Blink, shake your head, and clear your thoughts.
Or don’t. “Give in,” a sultry voice murmurs, “Let me consume you.”
cw: auditory hallucinations, animal butchery
From the fenced-off, locked-up manor to the northwest of the Grove, a spill of magic begins to leak out from boarded-up windows. It’s gradual at first before it suddenly bursts, and that’s when everything starts to go haywire. The Manor’s heart aches, friend. Something in that house is oh-so-miserable with no way out… and it intends to make you feel its pain.
Every regret you’ve ever had — every word left unspoken, every lie you’ve told, everything you believe you’ve done wrong — those feelings are brought to the surface and magnified. No matter where you look, what you do, or how much you try to distract yourself, those emotions will always bubble to the surface.
You might think wandering into the forest will help you flee from yourself for a time, but as soon as you cross the threshold, the path back to the clearing closes behind you in a rustle of leaves. The only way out is forward, it seems, but the forest won’t play fair. The path will shift unexpectedly, blocking your route, forcing you to backtrack, but never quite allowing escape. All the while, voices fill your mind, chasing after you no matter where you go. They are the murmurs of those you have wronged, the murmurs of a conscience slighted.
Seeking out a companion in the labyrinth will quell them, for a time. Should your heart weigh too heavy, confessing to your labyrinth-partner what you’re grappling with will absolve you of your guilt and leave you feeling clear-headed enough to escape. At that point, the forest, too, seems content to let you solve the maze without interference.
Should you escape fairly, without harming the labyrinth, you’ll be rewarded: A freshly-hunted game animal from your homeland is dropped at your feet just as you step back into the clearing. Enjoy it, for you will not have the opportunity to get another. The forest only allows one round per person.
The residents of Aldric’s Grove have had a rough time here, but not everything has to be bad. On the night of the new moon, the Shopkeeper leaves his store for the night, and alongside the Trader — who normally sits outside the inn by her stall and her giant turtle — he constructs a bonfire some distance from the carnivorous plants. Nearby to it are tables with a feast set upon them, free for everyone to enjoy. There’s music playing from… somewhere. Don’t think about it too hard. The wispy, sentient shadows that comprise the Shopkeeper and Trader are happy to dance with you, too, if you ask.
Enjoy your night, friends. You’ve made it to the end of the month, and you deserve a break.
CLICK TO EXPAND!
❖ Several patches of the murderous flowers seem to have been electrocuted, lit on fire or cut.
Caoimhe | DND 5e Homebrew
０００ ❝ Become as Gods ❞
[ Sometime before the magic bursts, you see Caoimhe setting up what seems to be a shrine within the inn. It is not, elaborately decorated. There seems to be furs of the many things they have eaten these past weeks upon the table. Cleaned with a skill only someone learned could afford - but not so perfect that it was her specialty. Simply something anyone of her people should be able to do, especially as a woman. There too were feathers, cleaned, decorated, and turned into beautiful offerings.
All along the shrine and to it, would be found Shimenawa. Item like ropes tied in intricately beautiful fashions. In her culture this was representative of the Serpent, a God that dwelled within the ocean and brought up lands for them to live on. There also were rocks she had brought from the river. Cleaned, polished and beautiful. She made sure to make this area cleanly, and often could be found quietly praying to it... Who she is praying to - well that would be 9S the God himself!!!!
Anyway you can find her sitting there meditative, playing music on her harp. ]
００１ ❝ HEY ❞
[ It would be dangerous if she... Let herself be gripped by these vines. If they took from her a succor and means of charming others by simply singing songs to them. It would be...
Unfortunate. ]
...
[ Caoimhe stands there, the soft fade of light streaming through the branches of the trees before her. There is a soft wind - where it comes from none could know. Though it elicits a pause from her, as if the same winds were that of the lands she came from. Caoimhe knows of their smell, knows of their weight. It is all to familiar and she is caught unawares of the hallucination that grips her.
Her lips are small, and her eyes gently wander around seeing nothing but the branches swaying from the embrace of kind winds. Her hair picks up and drifts along with it, the basket in her hand bounces against her knee as she ceases her movements. Within are flowers and all sorts of herbs she had found in her daily scavenging. It is full, so full and evident of the hard work she puts into finding what she can for everyone within the grove.
In this moment, her attention is caught by something. Looking directly into a bush of flowers in front of her.
It seems she spaces out, as the sound of something haunts her mind. She is listening intently to what it is. With such intensity, the vines take advantage of this moment and begin to unfurl over her, under her - toward her figure.
What you see, is static in comparison. There is no warm wind, no swaying of branches, just the dead silence of the afternoon day and dark vines moving all around her. ]
００２ ❝ IT'S ALRIGHT ❞
[ Caoimhe can hear the screams of orcs that haunted her from that day, the children crying out to their mothers. The elderly broken and unable to move. How the people screamed in horror and terror after having been held tightly by limbs much like tentacles. This was a scene that happened several months ago for her, and she had thought herself moved on Caoimhe had spent... 3 full days without rest, mourning what had happened, mourning the mistakes of her misjudgment.
At first she cowers in a corner tightly holding her knees to her chest. Hands over her ears, but the sounds do not stop.
She remembers.
She remembers for the first time.
Murdering someone in cold blood.
What that felt like to want to kill someone. ]
BLEU -
[ She vomits. The same way she did that day too. After running behind a tent, while people around her scattered about this way and that. When no one had come for her, to help ground her or see if she was okay. Caoimhe had fumbled to a place out of view of the bodies and blood. Throwing up all that was within, just as she back then. Now Here. Within the plants. ]
Im... Sorry...
[ She manages, to whisper between her broken sobs. To them.
The heated exchange from herself and the man who called himself Tobin echo in her mind once more.
She tenses, ]
Please, stop!
[ 'Do you not know anything? Anything of worth?!' Caoimhe had clamored back then with a ferocity that she did not know she had. This was too much even for her to keep acting as if she could remain calm with this lack of instrumentation before her.
'I know that.... Nobody, would ever wish to take Sylas's Place.' Such wickedness. Such cruelty - how ugly and devoid of humanity he was. Caoimhe did not know, did not know Sylas was enduring such sufferings.
'If there are no objections, we should cut off his head.' Cormacs disdain of his old friend, of someone who was his family. Echoes into her mind again - and just like that.
A battle.
Just like that.
Tentacles erupted from the ground, gripping so many innocent lives. They had been so close to dying that day, and Caoimhe had almost needed to stand before the Paladin. Protecting him with her whole body so as to not let the enemy slay him. Yet it was by the notch of another enemy - someone who acted the part of friend among them. Who had shot an arrow, and fell the man onto the floor. Deep into the crevices of a pit, that had been created by Tobins demonstration of great power.
When the group had began their congregation around this hole, this crater. People screaming in the background... The one named Thoryien, the acting friend. Ran to grip this Tobin, and hold him up with questions thrown at them. Cormac followed suit and stood at the edge of the creator. The Monk, Sumeragi questioning the validity of keeping this person alive.
Caoimhe at that moment, stood there. Frozen. Quiet. Shell shocked.
The screams she that hears now in her head, were muted back then. As if she were deaf and could hear nothing but the sound of her rising heart rate. There is a feeling she recalls now, that she had never felt before. It had began to buoy from stomach to her chest.
They were contemplating keeping This Man Alive. In front of her.
This Man, THIS MAN, ThiS MaN ?????????!?!?!?!?.
This disgusting man, who cynically laughed and in his wicked transgressions mercilessly killed hundreds of innocent people simply because they were in his way and to make a demonstration. A people whose clan they had JUST JOINED. THIS WAS THEIR PEOPLE AS MUCH AS IT WERE THE ORCS.
She drew her bow.
A notched arrow flies into the air, and hits its mark.
Tobin dies.
Cormac nodded in agreement.
Thoryien berated her.
The Paladin did not care.
The Monk, was torn.
It is all your fault, you weren't strong enough to stop any of this. You were not able to save any one of them. You could not even make them understand the wrongs of their actions. You. Have, no voice. No Power. No Strength. No purpose. ]
Please... No more...
[ Caoimhe is a stumbling mess, and when her stomach is empty she is gagging beneath the bushes. Gripping onto whatever she can hold, trying to find a sense of stability and remember the kindness in words offered to her when moments like this are too much - but nothing can be heard. Just the screams of people dying. The blame being inflicted. Godwyyn's scoffing laugh at her. The Paladin shutting her down. Thoryiens cries when they mutilated him. The realization that they were as much monsters as the Beast they faced.
There was nothing kind or beautiful about her.
The labyrinth keeps her lost, laughing all the while. ]
００３ ❝ I'LL TAKE CARE OF YOU ❞
[ She has not slept in days. She is muted, in a corner. Minding herself. She seems to stay way from the group, and looks contemplative. ]
００４ ❝ wildcard ❞
Hit me w anything or plot with me !
At some point within the Labyrinth while she is with Toge Inumaki
Rennuid, I am lost in a labyrinth with another... The forest is playing games again, do you know how to escape from here?