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
Ghost | Original
Well, maybe if she tells herself that enough, she'll start to believe it.
If you're looking for an everyday encounter with Ghost, she can be encountered outside of the haunted house, fiddling with the skirt of her costume and shuffling back and forth like she's getting used to the height of the thin stiletto heels on her calf-high boots. Feel free to chat her up before everything goes straight to shit inside...]
II. THAT'S ALL RIGHT 'CAUSE I'M WITH FRIENDS — [first floor]
Curiously, though the aesthetic of the rooms and the quality of the spooks is pretty much consistent throughout, her reactions to the nature of the interiors are fairly varied. The generic haunted mansion rooms get a sort of curious note (and possibly a frustrated grunt, if they trip off a jumpscare); the ones that are altogether empty make her laugh.
Oddly, it's the ones full of total darkness that she avoids almost categorically, taking one quick glimpse before hurrying onward...]
Shame you're not here, Ravekeeper, you'd be over the moon in a place like this...
[...Is what you might hear her mumbling under her breath, if you've drawn close enough that she hasn't quite noticed you yet. If she has however —]
— Oh. Hey — you there. Are you heading further in? Great, I am, too. Let's go together.
[...She says, and it's not really a question.]
III. 'CAUSE I'M GIVING UP AGAIN (IT DOESN'T MATTER) — [locked to
Everything about it, from the chill in the air to the all-encompassing darkness to the startle factor of the metal door clanging shut and locking behind her, gnaws at a mounting sense of trepidation that, infuriatingly, has very little to do with the actual environment. Rationally, she knows that there's no difference between the kitschy decorations on this floor and the ones on the last, but here, with the temperature dropped what feels like thirty degrees and the dim lighting doing just enough to keep her eyes from properly adjusting to the dark, everything feels apprehensive in a way she can't quite dispel.]
Get a grip, idiot. These floors aren't that long. Did you count the steps on the last one? Damn it, you should've counted the steps.
[Start with fifty, she tells herself stubbornly. Fifty steps. How many steps had it taken to go from her bedroom to Arche's chamber? Surely no dormitory hallway would be longer than that. Start with fifty. Go from there.
She starts walking, step after step. Tries to keep her eyes forward, knows it's better to just keep moving and get past this and it will all be over and fine. But movement in her periphery starts to draw her attention inadvertently to the rooms she's passing — these are manufactured scares, it's nothing, it's nothing.]
Hey, is there anybody here on the second floor? Nobody here but us Ghosts. Nobody here, there's nobody here, there's nobody here, there's —
[There are eyes in the dark, glowing eyes the only indication of the way that something looms in the room just beyond.
(Sometimes nightmares repeat themselves.)
(The thing had looked at her like that.
There had been a little spot in the doorway of Nym's office where carpet met metal, room interior met corridor. It had always seemed like a threshold, a boundary line. The toes of her shoes were just over the line, half of her in and half of her out. The door was hanging open. The lights were all on. She'd liked to lean against the doorjamb, lazy, but this time she wasn't.
The thing, the formless shadow thing with its too-long limbs and its too-wide hands and the claws that matched the gouges in Nym's overturned desk, had looked at her like that. It had looked at her like that and it hadn't moved because it hadn't been ordered to, because the only one who could order it was on his knees wailing over the disoriented buzzing in her ears, the office lights white-bright and clouding her vision at the edges. The toes of her shoes were on the boring beige carpet. Most of it, further in, was soaked dark red and wet. It squished.
"What did you do." Was that her own voice? "What did — what is — what happened to —"
"Ghost...?" And then they were both looking at her. Two sets of eyes, one lifeless and one rimmed in red. "Ghost — Ghost, I didn't mean to — I, I didn't — I can fix it, we can fix it —"
Fix it? Fix what? The gouges in the familiar old desk must have been inches deep, the splinters in the carpet like jagged toothpicks.
"No, no, no no nononono, what did you do, what did you do?!"
"Just — just help me, you can help me — we can fix it. Help me fix it!"
She took one step back. It was a mistake.
"No — Ghost! Don't leave me — come back!" And then, without thinking, in a fit of emotion because that was just how it happened, that was always how it happened, no controls no sense no guardrails just emotion just hysterics just utter disregard for reason — "Come back, come back, bring her back!"
The creature moved.)
The creature moves.]
Get away!
[The last time she ran like this, she had a place to run to. She had Arche waiting for her, offering whatever safety she was capable of providing, for however long it could last. She had sensible shoes. She had options for escape, however poor.
This time, there is only one corridor, and she's wearing stupid stiletto heels, and the creature is faster. It's faster, and she knows even before she starts running that she isn't going to be fast enough.]
IV. AND I'M FEELING LIKE A GHOST — [third floor]
Eventually, she just gravitates to one of the walls and finds a corner to huddle in, picking one that will put two solid walls at her back on either side, the better to watch the full angle of approach in front of her. She's glad for the shorts beneath her skirt, as she pulls her knees up to her chest and yanks her hood down over her head as far as it will go. If you can manage to catch a glimpse of her face, it's fairly pallid, and the color doesn't seem to be coming back anytime soon.
Hooray, Halloween fun.]
V. AND IT'S WHAT I HATE THE MOST — [wildcard]
iii
[hers is a familiar face, but the look on it, less so-- and he can see the same thing she knows, quickly enough. those shoes won't let her move fast enough. the thing chasing her is too quick. and he may not know if it's tangible, if he can best it even if it is, but he knows he can fight. he knows that along with the costume he'd decided on, there's a wooden sword at his side, not a real weapon but hopefully enough to manage.
'in the end, the hope that anyone will live on thanks to me is...'
no. he'd been wrong, back then.
netzach isn't the fastest, but he has just enough experience to manage a burst of speed as he hurries toward her, toward her pursuer, that length of carved wood gripped firm in his hands as he shoves himself between the two of them and braces himself to try to block it.]
no subject
Now, there's no getting them off her feet, so she's stuck running in them, her weight shoved forward onto the toes when she was already balancing on the balls of her feet as it is, and the motion of her legs doesn't feel right. It feels less like running and more like falling forward and catching herself with every step, rife with the terror that one of the times she'll miss.
Something moves. Something that isn't the monster. She doesn't have the time or the focus to be terrified of the second thing, even, but perceiving it is the thing that ultimately does her in — she missteps, can't catch herself properly, rolls her ankle trying to keep running. It's not a long way to fall but she hits the ground on her side and it feels like it rattles her teeth, like her whole side is going to be one big bruise tomorrow.
She doesn't even feel it. Panic blunts the sensation, and she's too busy clawing at the carpet with her bare fingers, scrabbling to pull herself along even another inch — anything to keep putting distance between herself and the death on her heels.]
Arche! Arche!!
[The monster, on the other hand, has the time and the wherewithal to appreciate that something new has arrived. Its eyes, like two eerie pinpricks of light in the encompassing mass of darkness, shift to fixate on Netzach as he slams himself into its way, knocking it back a step (for all that shadows can step.
So. Something new to kill. Two for the effort of one.
The shadows near the side of the corridor swirl, taking on the form of clawed talons half the height of a man, and this time when they swing, they're bound for Netzach.]
no subject
the sword lifts once more, defensive rather than lashing out, but if he manages to block it-- he follows it up by striking back at that hand, seeing if he can disconnect it entirely.]
Just stay behind me, okay--
[netzach isn't sure if it'll reach her, but he's trying regardless.]
no subject
The wooden sword cleaves through the mass of shadow, and indeed, once severed the massive claws dissipate, leaving a shadowed stump pulsing with swarming darkness at the disconnected end. The tiny, bright eyes lock hard onto Netzach, looking not just at him but almost through him, full of silent malice and imminent doom.
This time, it isn't a claw that forms. It's a jagged mouth, too wide and split to reveal rows upon rows of far too many teeth, gaping open from a place in the shadowed mass that a mouth doesn't belong.
This time, it howls as it lunges.]
no subject
he isn't useless, here.
netzach doesn't avoid the open mouth as the creature lunges: he takes advantage of it instead, drawing the sword back and throwing his weight behind it as he thrusts right into its mouth and up, into whatever innards of this thing he can manage to try to pierce.]
(no subject)
(no subject)
iv.
Scarlet, kneeling bonelessly as she cried, arms wrapped tightly around herself like her sides might otherwise collapse and spill out what was left of her on hell's cracked, ash-blackened earth. Brook himself, all his joints folding as though his sinews were dissolving right out of him, simultaneously scrunching himself as small as he could and pressing as much of himself as possible against the carpet, the mirrored door, his own clutching, desperate hands, to convince himself he was there in that dead stranger's living room. And failing. And falling apart.
He wanders over without consciously deciding to. Before he knows it, he's crouching before Ghost with his arms tucked around his body, less like a cool pose and more like a sympathy self-hug. In his pink jacket and Easter Bunny onesie, it's hard to imagine anyone could be more perfectly crafted to be non-frightening and inoffensive if they'd tried. He's so small, empty-handed, and soft-looking.]
...Oh. Hey. It's you.
[Despite the hood, it's the hair he recognizes. Brook pauses, unsure what to do next.]
...Do you want some candy? Chocolate?
[It's what he might have wanted, he thinks, if Scarlet hadn't been there with a hug.]
no subject
...You're the one with the boss.
[It's the easiest way of remembering people, after all: by their problems, by the things she advises on.]
Is this your night off, huh?
[It's not an answer to the question he'd asked, and that's intentional too. Easier to simply ignore questions she doesn't want to deal with; half the time people forget they ever asked them to begin with.]
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[That's what Brook's decided is logical, anyway. If he can't get home, Satan also can't get him; if he could, Brook would already be doing his time in the ninth circle. If he ever gets back, he figures he's insta-fucked after going all these nights in the City with no murders to show for it. He's trying not to think about it.
In the meantime, he continues to stare Ghost right in the face, not because he's masterfully trying to get her to respond, but because he's used to wearing a mask with people. A literal, physical one. For decades, he didn't have to worry about making the wrong expression or committing a faux pas, because no one could see it. He's like a kid with no manners.
But, since it doesn't seem like she's inclined to answer his question... Okay. Take two.]
The stairs out of here just go straight down. They're outside. They don't take you back into the haunted house.
[She clearly had a bad time in there.]
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[Sometimes, there is no alternative but to let fly a precision f-strike. And this certainly seems to be one of those times.
She does, however, glance up, letting herself be drawn into the conversation just out of habit. Talking is easy and familiar, all things considered, and it'll give her something to focus on that isn't the harrowing prospect of what she's just been through.]
I gather you know that from firsthand experience. Or don't you?
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[What else would be relevant, assuring information for her to know? Brook considers.]
Also, the food here isn't poisoned. Or it didn't do anything to me, anyway. The... what are they. The triangle candies with the stripes. [He shrugs.] They're safe.
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II
Why not? Safety in numbers. But I'd like to grab a few things from this floor, while we're here. A source of light, or something I can use as a weapon. [ He glances Ghost over, unable to see her clearly in the dim light of this blasted place. ] You should find a weapon too, if you don't already have one.
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Are you supposed to be a satyr?
[Like she's one to talk, in her red hood and fluffy skirt and hilariously inappropriate boots.]
You're joking, right? A weapon? Don't get me wrong, spooky horror stuff isn't really my thing, but that doesn't mean it's right to attack somebody just for jumping out and yelling "boo".
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[ He had been at war with the urge to come here for what had felt like hours. In the end, he had drifted here nevertheless, only just managing to stave off temptation long enough to run into a nearby building instead, hoping that it would solve matters.
It didn't. It threw him straight into the lions den instead. ]
And last time this place trapped me somewhere against my will, things went south pretty quickly. I'm not some kind of sociopath -- I'm not suggesting that we attack people wily nilly. But if someone tries to throttle me to death again, I'd much rather to have something on-hand to hit them with.
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[That's curious. Not just an interesting detail, but what feels like an important one. If something wanted them to come here, then there must be a motive for it, and lacking an incentive or a suggestion, it's not above resorting to coercion.]
Where did it trap you last?
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[ He almost did. The way this place somehow compelled him here is even more frightening than anything it can throw at him; he is a man with an iron will, but his experience prior to coming here had been nothing short of torturous, constantly having to sit in the middle of the street just to prevent his feet from taking him here.
Even then, in the end... ]
I went through a different door, deliberately trying to avoid this place, and ended up here nonetheless. Last time, it was the mall, though I had the poor sense to go in there willingly. The mannequins came to life and came after us. I don't relish the idea of the same thing happening with these... robot things.
ii
He has to turn almost all the way around to see who it is, the green hood of his supplied costume not exactly doing wonders for his peripheral vision. But once he's there he finds studying the speaker for a long, unblinking moment.
Just to add to the awkward, he's giving the question probably way more consideration than it deserves. And then, finally: ] Yeah, okay.
[ Incredible. But he does shuffle a bit closer in her direction. ]
Did you just randomly end up here too?
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There's something. Something about this one. The way he stares at her a little too long is — not owlish, and she can't quite place it, at least not yet and on a passing glance. But something isn't quite right — not in a dangerous way, she doesn't think, but in a way that has her curious nevertheless.]
No, I walked in.
[Unless that constitutes "randomly ending up here"; she suspects it doesn't.]
There were fliers. You didn't get one?
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[ And yet here he is anyway. With a sigh that seems to almost make him deflate slightly, he steps up next to her, then pauses with his head cocked almost curiously. There's a...vibe coming off of her, not quite like the other spirits in the city but something close. Maybe if he was at full power he'd be able to tease it out. Or maybe not.
Either way, he just shrugs slightly. ]
There's no way to go back out. I checked.
[ Only way out is through, apparently. Go figure. ]
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[But that's useful. Maybe even important, in terms of future reference. The environment itself will compel its inhabitants toward targeted outcomes, beginning with suggestion, continuing through inducement, and finally just resorting to coercion.]
There must be something it wants us to see in here, then. Or experience, at least.
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I just walked through a door and then I was here. So apparently the power here can do that.
[ And isn't that an unsettling thought. ]
iv.
this would all be a lot more poetic if it weren't for the fact that the hem of his maid dress continues to swim around his knees like the burgeoning surface of a pleated and extremely ruffled sea. this would also be a lot more poetic if he weren't carrying a wooden plank over a shoulder with the grim determination of a man who is planning to fight a house and win. but isn't that so? it's not the people who are at fault. it never is. it's this city that turns its infrastructure against them, houses and buildings turning from homes to nightmares-made-form. as an architect, kaveh naturally stands against it. but that isn't all.
there had been a hand on his cheek. there had been a maintenance tunnel. there had been blood.
so kaveh searches for ghost. of course he does. the wending hallways of the haunted manor is an ever-shifting map in his head as he clears each room with the kind of efficiency one would save for professional, competitive minesweeping. kaveh calculates side-passages, he opens maintenance tunnels, he checks on some of the infrastructural traps that he's set just in case, he checks off each corridor and each room one by one. it's only when kaveh has ascertained that the first two floors are clear that kaveh ascends to the third.
he finds ghost. he isn't certain he wanted to be found. but surrounded by the artificial cheer of a party made for people without people, the hunched line of ghost's back is a stark reminder of what is at stake. kaveh puts down his plank of wood. he takes off his shoes before he gets to her. he slips them by her side, the short leather wedge-shaped pair. kaveh says: ]
There's you.
[ and then, in that self-same tone: ]
Is hell this building and the scenario it's spun, or is hell other people, do you think? Miss Ghost.
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[It's the kind of thing, delivered in the kind of tone, that makes a person seem stupid. Not stupid like an insult, not stupid like a lack of intelligence, but the kind of stupid where you don't quite know what to say and so you just say whatever comes to mind first, for the sake of something to say at all. He's asked her a question and it's probably bait, probably meant to make her come up with a snappy retort or a sharp remark but all that comes out is just stupid, just the genuinely baffled observation that he's carrying a board with him, and normal people don't do that, not even when they're dressed as maids.
She looks up at him, staring without really seeing, then looks back down at her toes. Through the fishnet stockings, she can see her toenails aren't painted. Someone who isn't her would've painted them, probably. She never really understood the merits, never had anybody interested enough in her feet to want to pretty them up.]
I'm not a "miss" anything, you know. It's just Ghost. — Sir Kaveh.
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[ kaveh says. the words are said quietly, not because there isn't enough room or silence to fill, but because ghost is quiet and small, and kaveh will make himself quiet and small to suit. there's a moment of hesitation, then kaveh folds himself up next to ghost. his dress pulls over his knees. the pleats brush the long lines of the herringbone floor. kaveh thinks - they knit the floor tightly together, didn't they. but the blood would still be impossible to clean out.
with a sheepish lilt: ]
Ah. I'd like to say it's for self-defense, but - in a way perhaps it is. I've been making changes to the rooms. Sticking doors, rigging basic beam traps, hollowing out existing trap doors. Things like that. [ the tote bag that kaveh has lugged up clinks with the motion as kaveh sets it down next to it. it sags much in the way of a cat's curled tail. ] It's created a few safe spaces, here and there, when the room layouts don't entirely shift. It's also kept the individuals under the house's control away long enough so that they won't need to be hurt. Not for doing something they don't mean to. The board - well, it makes an excellent counterweight. The rope traps would be far more difficult to work with without it.
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[That actually earns a laugh out of her, halfhearted and wry though it might be. Of course that would be how Kaveh would approach a place like this. Of course he didn't let stupid fears get the better of him. He just attacked the problem in the best way he knew how: with his expertise, with his skills, hurling them at the situation until he was able to bend it to his will, or else.
God, if only she wasn't so useless. She could've done that too, once — couldn't she? Or maybe it's more that she was destined to. There was a path to a future where she could've solved all her problems with her skills, until that path was washed out by a flash flood of horrors.]
I miss when I could do that.
[She hugs her knees a little tighter, not really having meant to say that, but — well. There's nothing particularly damning about it, and it's something to fill the space, anyway.]
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