SOMETHING DEAD THAT DOESN'T KNOW IT'S DEAD.
» THE CITY — INTRODUCTORY NOTES
Now that Halloween is just around the corner, the city is starting to come alive with seasonal cheer. You start to spot decorations scattered around the city: plastic skeletons sitting on benches, jack-o-lanterns decorating front stoops, and even a few places in the park near City Hall where the trees themselves have been decorated. It's clear that the autumn season is in full swing and the city is making the most of it.
From the morning of October 19, you also start to notice flyers hung up around the city that advertise the local university's homecoming Halloween party. They're cheerfully decorated much the same as the newsletter that was delivered to residents earlier in the month, and they're hung from light poles, pinned to bulletin boards, and occasionally fluttering on front stoops of apartment buildings. There might even be one taped to your door when you open it in the morning.
The flyer announces that the Halloween party will begin on October 22 and will run through October 31. It runs every night from sunset to midnight, and residents are encouraged to attend in costume! If they have their own costume, perhaps found at the Halloween Superstore, that's perfect—if they don't have a costume, though, one will be provided to them by the party organizers. Doesn't that just sound like fun? And the flyers really are everywhere, and that makes it hard not to take notice—but once you take notice, you really can't stop noticing.
Indeed, once you read one of the flyers, you just can't help but read the flyer every time you encounter another one. And every time you read one, you find yourself feeling a little more curious about the party being advertised. Will it be anything like the Halloween I know? you may think. Or, I don't even know what Halloween is, I wonder what it'll be like. It's not quite enough to compel you to pay a visit to the address on the flyer, which is one of the dorm buildings on the university campus, but it's definitely enough to get you thinking about Halloween. Maybe you ought to go find a costume…
But Halloween parties and costumes are not all you're thinking about. It's easy enough to write off at first, as tricks of the light or a figment of your imagination: flickers of shadow at the corner of your eye, cold spots in your apartment, creaking footsteps in your empty living room. There's nothing there when you turn your head to look, nothing there when you flick on the lightswitch to see if someone's in your house—but somehow, that doesn't reassure you.
By the evening of October 21, every resident in the city has been visited by some sort of entity haunting their house, and every resident of the city has been left a gift: a dorm room key, each differently numbered. You may find the key in your pocket, or on your bedside table, or in your favorite coffee mug.
Should you decide to attend the party, it will be up to you to decide: Is this just the City getting in the spirit of the season? Or is it something more… malevolent?
The flyers will be strewn about the city in various locations beginning on October 19. Characters who read them will find themselves feeling oddly compelled to go check out the advertised Halloween party, which will run from October 22 to October 31 between sunset and midnight. For the most part this will just feel like a sense of curiosity about the party, and astute characters may be able to pick up on the fact that they're being emotionally manipulated a bit.
Characters who choose to go can wear a costume of their choosing from the Halloween Superstore, or the City will provide one if they don't have a costume of their own yet. (Read on for more information about how characters can get their hands on a costume!)
Lastly, every character will find a dorm room key somewhere on their person before the party starts on October 22. This key may or may not correspond to a room in the dorm where the party is being held—of course, characters are not obligated to use the key, but they may want to know what's hiding behind those closed doors.
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ALL THESE GHOSTS COME STREAMING DOWN.
» THE CITY — GETTING THE PARTY STARTED
On the morning of October 22, every device in the city starts to buzz.
The screen illuminates, displaying a white page not unlike the orientation survey that welcomed you into the city. Unlike the orientation survey, though, there are no questions—only a single phrase in bold, dark text. THE GOOD OF THE MANY, it says, with a single "OK" button below.
For a minute, nothing else happens. You try to turn the device off, but the screen stays lit; you try to reboot the device, but the screen stays lit. It seems that the only way to get rid of the screen is to press the button.
…Have you done this before? Or are you having déjà vu?
At sunset that same day, the Halloween party will open for the first time. The party's entrance is located on the ground level of a large three-story dorm building in the western half of the university campus. The double doors into the building are fully decorated with folded-paper bats and ghosts, cotton batting pulled apart to make spiderwebs, and a cut-out sign that says "HAUNTED HOUSE" in bright red, dripping-blood letters. The decor looks almost… corny, hokey in a way that can't possibly be threatening. Right?
But the decorated double doors aren't the only way that residents may enter the party. Of course, the organizers would prefer that you use the front doors, but if you'd prefer not to, they have other ways of getting you inside.
After the party begins on October 22, any door in the city that you walk through has the potential to become a door into the first level of the dorm building. You may exit your apartment and find yourself standing in the darkened lobby; you may walk out of the bathroom and run right into a handful of cotton spiderwebbing. Unfortunately, there's nothing to indicate whether or not a door might lead to the party until you're through it—and once you're through it, there's no turning around. The only way out, as they say, is deeper in.
Were you wearing a costume in preparation for the party? Fantastic, you'll keep that costume on! But if you weren't wearing a costume, don't worry—the party's organizers have you covered. You look down and find that no matter what you were wearing before, you are now wearing a costume of some kind. Maybe it's one you would have chosen for yourself, or maybe it's totally not to your taste. If you truly hate it, you can try to take it off… although you may not find it easy to remove.
Once the party begins on October 22, as stated above, any door in the city has the potential to become a door that leads directly to the first level of the haunted house. Characters will not be able to tell by any means whether a door is pointed there or not; only once they're fully through the door will they realize that they're actually standing in the lobby of the decorated dorm building and not in whatever room they intended to enter. Once characters are inside, there's unfortunately no way to get out, not without making their way through the haunted house itself.
Whether a character enters the haunted house via the main double doors or through another door somewhere else in the city, they'll need to come in costume. (Their own canon clothes do not count!) If they're already wearing a costume, they can keep it on arrival; however, those who enter the haunted house costumeless will be assigned a costume at random by the city. The actual costume is up to the player's choice. It may end up being something that suits the character, or it may end up being something totally embarrassing—that's completely up to the player.
Regardless, characters will have a difficult (but not impossible) time removing the costume until they have exited the haunted house. This includes both physical difficulty (feeling as though the costume is fused to their skin, feeling physical resistance to undoing zippers/buttons, etc.) and mental difficulty (an overwhelming sense of dread or vulnerability). Characters are able to overcome both of these difficulties to remove the costume if they're dedicated enough; the clothes they were originally wearing may be still on under the costume or might be awaiting them at home when they return.
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THEY GO TO GROUND AND ROT.
» THE HAUNTED HOUSE — LEVEL 1
CONTENT WARNINGS: One image containing fake spiders, mention of spidery feelings; mention of zombies (but no images)
The ground floor of the dorm is decorated much how one might expect a haunted house at a university to be decorated. The entrance to the haunted house proper is through a tunnel of cotton spiderwebs filled with little plastic spiders, so narrow that it forces you to hunch down and squish together to get through. Although it feels claustrophobic, and you may imagine the sensation of little spider legs crawling over your body, once you make it through the tunnel it becomes clear that the spiders never actually moved. Whew!
The tunnel lets out into the first-floor dorm, a long (too long?) stretch of hallway with doors leading to rooms on either side. Some of the doors are closed and locked, but many are open, allowing you a glimpse as you pass. As you walk down the hallway, you make sure to peer into each of the rooms. Some of the doors lead to total blackness; others lead to rooms decorated like an elaborate Victorian haunted mansion, and yet others even lead to perfectly normal dorm rooms, like someone forgot to get around to decorating. And sometimes—not every time, but often enough—when you peer into one of the rooms, there's something peering back.
Most of the frights you get on the first floor come in the form of animatronics, realistic-looking ones that jump out at you as you pass and give you a fright. There's a man with a bloody knife, or a zombie with flesh hanging from its teeth, or a clown with sharp, venomous-looking fangs—they leap out of the doorways with a startling quickness, but never come close enough to touch. They just brandish their weapons, then retreat back into the room they came from as if satisfied with the scare they've given.
There are also a handful of real scare actors on the first floor as well, perhaps even some faces you recognize. They lurk in the darkened rooms and leap out with growls or shrieks, then chase you a few meters down the hall before leaving you to run away. Just like the animatronics, though, they never get close enough to touch or harm you—they just want to get your blood racing.
The rest of the scares come from paintings that abruptly change form to show a ghost's face, or candles that swoop down across your path and then move back up. And behind it all are the spooky sounds of groans and screams and tearful begging, a solemn soundtrack to your trip through the haunted house.
Oddly, you never do see a speaker. And even more oddly still, none of the rooms on the first floor match the number of the key you're holding…
The first level of the haunted house consists of fairly cheap scares, mostly relying on animatronics, voiceover tracks, and tricks of the light or optical illusions to deliver scares to the residents. Players should feel free to use their imaginations to come up with potential scares or animatronics—think something moderately more scary than Haunted Mansion but less than Halloween Horror Nights. The animatronics may feature enemies or monsters from characters' home worlds, or may be simply generic creatures you would find at a Halloween store.
In addition, the first level is also populated by characters working as scare actors. These characters may be those who attended Robby and Tsuruno's house party, or may simply be characters with a sense of humor who enjoy making other characters jump and shriek a little. Either way, these scares are harmless and non-contact. The scare actors won't harm anyone going through the haunted house, even if they do a little chasing down the hall.
Although the hallway looks oddly long and is perhaps a bit more winding than it ought to be, there doesn't seem to be anything particularly odd about the dorm building itself. Characters may, however, find that the trip through the haunted house feels shorter when they're accompanied by another.
For characters who don't wish to venture up the stairs to the second level, there is a well-hidden emergency exit tucked out of sight behind the staircase that leads upward. This is the opt-out for players who don't wish to engage with the events in the second and third levels of the dorm.
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WE WILL NOT REMAIN UNSCATHED.
» THE HAUNTED HOUSE — LEVEL 2
CONTENT WARNINGS: Generally spooky images including some ghostly ones; mention of hanging. Prompts include violence (such as mutilation) potentially leading to serious injury or death. As always, please warn appropriately!
It's once you reach the second level that you realize something has shifted.
The metal door at the end of the hallway swings shut behind you, and you immediately realize it's far too dark and far too cold. Even with your eyes wide, you can barely make out the shapes of the decorations around you; they are lit mostly by the flickering orange of electric candles and the glow of the emergency exit sign above your head. Your breath condenses into steam as you exhale, and although you rub your hands together, you can't quite seem to gain any warmth. You feel a little bit dizzy and off-kilter, and from the distance you can hear the sound of a voice murmuring in quiet, urgent tones, interrupted by brief bouts of sobbing. You try the door behind you, but it doesn't give: you are stuck here, and must make it out.
The hallway is decorated, but even the same decorations that felt corny downstairs now give this floor an air of discomfort and desperation. As you make your way down the hall, you notice that many more of the doors on this level are open, and in the sickly, dim light cast by the fake candles, you're able to catch glimpses of what's inside: shadowy figures moving in the blackness. These are creatures that seem made of the dark itself, congealed into something more or less resembling a person. There's one sitting at the desk like a good student, its too-long fingernails rasping over the surface as it scratches something into the wood. There's one sitting on the windowsill, its too-long limbs hanging out into the night. There's one hanging from the ceiling, its feet at eye level, swaying slightly in an unfelt breeze. There's one standing dead in the middle of the room and staring straight at you, its eyes two embers in its featureless head.
You lock eyes briefly and the creature starts to move: this ghost is coming after you, and this one means it. There's no animatronic rigging to stop it and pull it back into the darkness of the room, and it's no scare actor that will stop after a few meters of pursuit—no, its hands reach for you, for your hair, your throat, fingers clutching and grasping. You turn and run, but it pursues, and that voice you heard murmuring earlier is now a fever pitch of syllables behind you, half-whispered, half-screamed in a language you can't understand. The noise of it draws more ghosts out from their rooms, and they follow as you sprint down the too long, twisting length of the hallway. You can see the glow of the exit sign at the end lf the hallway, drawing closer as you madly dash for it—
And then you trip. Or maybe you're pushed, you're not sure. You hit the carpet hard and then the ghost is on you, its hands scrabbling at your throat, fingers prodding at your eyes. Of course you fight back—if you don't, you're going to die—but as you fumble blindly for something with which to beat the ghost off, you realize that this ghost has weight to it, that the fingers trying to tear out your throat aren't incorporeal and ghostly but rather the fingers of a pair of very human hands. As you blink, eyes straining in the darkness, the features of the ghost begin to resolve into those of a person.
And it is a person. It's a person you may even know, a friend of yours, a fellow resident of the City. Not a mannequin facsimile, but someone real, someone who fights you with everything in them as you struggle to break free.
Your grasping hand grips something firm, maybe a flashlight or a fire extinguisher, and you swing it as hard as you can at their head. You don't want to, this is your friend, but what choice do you have? After all—it's either them or you.
Once characters enter the second level of the haunted house, those attuned to energy flow will immediately be able to recognize this as a place full of negative ghostly energy. Characters may sneak extremely carefully and quietly through the hallways, avoiding every single ghost; they may be pursued by ghosts, but ultimately make it to the exit, beyond which the ghosts will not pursue; or they may be caught by a ghost (or "ghost") and be forced to fight for their lives.
Not all of the "ghosts" on the second level are truly ghosts. Players may opt to have their characters participate in the event as the considerably more deadly "scare actors" of the second level. Only they won't be acting: to these characters, anyone who passes by in the second-floor hallway (the "partygoer") is an absolute threat that must be dealt with immediately. Scare actor characters will be possessed by an irrepressible need to hunt down and attempt to injure or kill any partygoer or other scare actor they encounter, and can only be stopped by either death (of either the partygoer or the scare actor) or being knocked out and removed from the hallway.
These characters may also be those who attended Robby and Tsuruno's Halloween house party and ended up getting a little too in-character in a negative way (see their plotting post for more information). However, characters do not have to attend the house party in order to participate in this mechanic. Any character who enters the haunted house can become a second-floor ghost if the player so desires.
Either the scare actor or partygoer may be seriously injured or even die. If this happens to the partygoer, the haze of bloodlust will immediately lift from the scare actor and reveal to them what they've done. (If the scare actor is knocked out or dead, obviously this realization will take place after they've returned or regained consciousness.) Killing and death as a part of the October event is not subject to murder or death consequences.
If a character chooses to sneak through the second floor and avoid the ghosts, and does so by entering any of the decorated dorm rooms, they may find shorthand messages scratched into the desks, closets, or doors. These messages might just be names, familiar ones belonging to people from home, or might say things like HELP ME or ITERATION 4█ or LOOK BEHIND THE APOCALYPSES. Characters may also find small, non-magical, recognizable personal effects belonging to people from their home worlds, tucked into drawers or kicked under the bed or in some otherwise unobtrusive location, easily overlooked.
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WHEN YOU HAVE NOTHING TO SAY, SET SOMETHING ON FIRE.
» THE HAUNTED HOUSE — LEVEL 3 AND CONCLUSION
After the second level of the haunted house, the only way to go is up… assuming you survived, that is. Exhausted and battered, you make your way up the stairs—perhaps alone, perhaps with a friend, or perhaps dragging the unconscious body of your assailant-friend—and let yourself into the third-floor common area.
This is where the Halloween party is taking place! Congratulations, you made it! There's a bass-heavy soundtrack throbbing in the background, and the room is decorated once again in the cheesy Halloween decor of the entryway. A large casket full of ice holds beers and sodas, and a table in the middle of the room bears all sorts of spooky snacks: peeled-grape "eyeballs," candy corn "teeth," sour gummy worms in brownie dirt, and any other kind of snack one might imagine.
If you made it through the haunted house with a friend, you will find a letterman jacket in your favorite colors, with your name embroidered on the back, hanging on a peg on the far wall of the room. You can take it with you now, or when you go home, or you can leave it on the peg forever—it's your choice, but it is a symbol of having survived the haunted house, so it might be nice to have. Don't you think?
You may have to do this again, you realize. Now that the doors in the city occasionally open straight into the haunted house, there's no telling how many times you'll have to survive this before the Halloween party draws to its close. Maybe you do need a beer after all…
Oh, and you still don't know what dorm room that key goes to. Maybe you had better just hang onto it for now.
The topmost floor of the dorm building, the third floor, is where the "party" part of the Halloween party is taking place! The food and drink is abundant and, of course, free. There's just about any type of drink or Halloween-themed snack imaginable, so characters can help themselves. When they're through partying, there's an outside staircase that leads directly from the common room back down to ground level.
Characters who survive the haunted house in a group of two or more will find that that there is a custom-made letterman jacket with their name on the back, perfectly their size, hanging on a coat rack on the far side of the room. While wearing this jacket, characters will be less susceptible to the scares in the haunted house, and the ghosts of the second floor will not pursue them as intently (although it has no effect on scare actor characters). To any characters who are particularly sensitive to this sort of thing, the jackets do have a moderate protective effect against various negative status effects, so to speak; this effect does not diminish after the event is over. Characters can only get one jacket, their first time through the haunted house; subsequent trips through will not result in additional jackets.
The dorm room key is not a usable item during the October 2023 event, but will become usable in November and December, so characters are advised to not lose them.
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WILDCARD.
The city is by no means small, and there are plenty of things for you to see. There's no rush in exploring, so feel free to take your time looking around and peering into various nooks and crannies and alleyways—and don't worry, you're not very likely to find anything peering back.
If none of the above prompts appeal, feel free to check out the Locations and Maps pages and write your own freestyle prompt using one or many of the available locations.
This month's event headers come from "Landscape with Fruit Rot and Millipede," a poem by Richard Siken.
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citylogs2023-10-19 09:00 pm
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Of course I understand. Not all wounds take the same amount of time to heal, and you have always been much more careful with your emotions than I have.
[ He rests his head on Louis', closing his eyes, letting the weight of him and the sound of his voice and his breathing settle him. It mixes in perfectly with Armand's pressure at his side, the stillness of him in sleep, and Lestat can feel lethargy creeping in at the edges of his mind. ]
I think he just wants to be taken at face value. It sounds impossible, especially for someone like him, but that's what I believe.
[ Lestat sighs, thinking of Armand when he tried to show them what could have been, the hurt look in his eyes when it backfired, the terrible loneliness he'd felt in the blood, the wish for someone to simply look at him and see him without any of his past mistakes. It's almost relatable. But it isn't like this is all on them, there would have to be effort from all sides to salvage the relationship, but Lestat at least feels that he understands a little better now. ]
Thank you for coming tonight, Louis. [ His voice is quiet, almost said around a sigh as he tilts his head back against the headboard. ] I'm glad you're here.
no subject
Lestat...
( Louis sighs his name, a mixture of "Of course I came" and "You don't need to thank me" and "I love you." He reaches out once more, his hand lingering longer in Armand's curls this time before retreating. )
I'm glad you were there for him.
no subject
[ Lestat murmurs the sound, and just as Louis' sigh had meant multiple things, Lestat's seems to agree with the sentiment and be the reasonable reaction to laying somewhere comfortable with the two people he holds dearest in his heart. He lets his eyes slip closed, the arm around Louis shifting slightly so he can press his palm along his back, keep him close and safe against him as his body settles...
He knows it won't be easy, but Lestat's unshakeable hopeful romantic heart is elated at just the inclination to try. His eyes close, he sighs, his awareness going slightly fuzzy as the turmoil of the evening takes its toll on him and makes him heavy against the unused springs of the mattress. ]
Stay with me here, Louis. You don't have to go.
[ If Louis did want to leave, if he genuinely can't force himself to stay here beside him, he'll let him go... but he has to at least ask for what he wants before he lets that happen. ]
no subject
He sighs, and some of the tension unspools from his long limbs as he settles himself more comfortably against Lestat. His hand comes to settle on Lestat's chest, and he turns to tuck himself as close as he can for the day. )
All right. I'll stay.
( His expression flickers, softens, and very briefly something like a tired smile comes over him. )
I think I would rather sleep beside you than without you under almost any circumstance. Will you thank Armand for me, when the two of you wake? ( A pause. ) Presuming you both wake before I do.
no subject
I will, though... I don't think he'll agree there's anything to thank him for.
[ Not modesty, Lestat knows, just a great discomfort for being the vulnerable party. It makes him smile, a bit, to think of Armand's face so screwed up with derision. He presses a kiss to Louis' head, then lets his other hand fall gently to Armand's hair, winding through the curls idly. He murmurs something that might have been a wish for them to both rest well, but it's muffled by the overwhelming and fast acting temptation to sleep. ]
no subject
When the death sleep takes him, it's an inky, mostly dreamless relief. No pain, no distress, just the utterly pervasive relief of not being alone as he slumbers and the lingering scent of familiar cologne pressed to his nose.
Awareness returns to him as the sun begins it's descent into twilight, though it's a slow, muddled thing. Armand doesn't awaken to pain immediately, but the uncomfortable tightness of healing skin and the tenderness of bruising. He's not moved a muscle in his sleep of course and the dried blood has already begun to flake completely from his skin, but he feels soiled emotionally as well as physically. He lays there, eyes still closed, letting his senses take shape of the world around him, the weight of Lestat and Louis on the bed beside him, the bear in his arms-- wait.
Armand doesn't so much as panic as feel suddenly overcome with the need to move and he sits up, pulling the blanket with him and blinking - eyesight unhindered by the gloom of the evening - taking in Lestat and Louis still slumbering as he is at his side. ]
Have you lost all sense, Lestat? What is Louis doing here?
[ It's hissed in old French, the words rough sounding from his still strained throat. Armand's expression is carefully blank, but there's an agitation about him as he pulls away from the two other Vampires, slipping from the bed to stand unsteadily beside it and very obviously casting about, mind putting together what he can remember from last night. ]
no subject
His right hand is empty and his other still holds Louis close, and when he shifts his lover is a dead weight at his side, heavy and unmoving. Memory dawns like the rising of the sun, peeking over the horizon in small rays that gradually become beams of light and then a blinding glow as Armand's words sink in, and Lestat looks up to find where he's gone to. ]
He was worried for you. You were comforted by him. What's that face for?
[ He murmurs, a slight frown on his face more out of confusion than annoyance. ]
no subject
He'd heard them talking hadn't he? Felt...safe. Gentled. Loneliness stripped away for a breath taking moment. He'd been laid so utterly low and here these two were. Lestat had caught him and Louis - here at Lestat's behest perhaps - but still lingering close.
Armand's hand goes to his hair, touching the long curls, gaze gone distant. There had been fingers in his hair, he hadn't dreamt it, he'd felt the touch before the pull of dawn, before any spill of dreams through his mind. His vision slowly floods with pink, the same hot feeling touching his face and shoulders, though there's barely enough blood in him to make it visible.
He swallows, the click of his throat audible in the quiet and avoids Lestat's curious look as he completes the motion, tucks hair behind his ear and ducks his chin. ]
I see. [ A pause. ] I-- I should find my clothes..
[ Being naked is one extra layer of vulnerability he can't abide at the moment, not in the face of Lestat's sympathetic regard and Louis' gentle repose, so Armand turns to the vanity and pulls clothes from the drawers. He's shaking, unsteady on his feet still, but the room is small, the bathroom only a handful of steps away and he's fleeing into the tiled room as quickly as he can - though pauses at the last moment.
He's peeking out from behind the door, mostly covered by it, but still clutching the blanket and the clothing to his chest as he finally meets Lestat's eyes with the tentative, open vulnerability of his own. His fellow vampires could have left him to his fate at any moment in the past 24 hours...but they didn't. They had every reason to, every opportunity, but here they are.
The words are quiet, would be inaudible to a mortal, but are clear to their sensitive hearing in the quiet. ]
...Lestat? Thank you.
[ The door clicks shut. ]