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ph_logs2025-01-19 03:59 pm
pumpkinhollow) wrote in ph_logs2025-01-19 03:59 pm
January Event - Lost in Dreamland
**Plain text version here.
You “wake.” Your mind solidifies and reality defines its shape around you. Your eyes focus and you become aware. What are you aware of?
Whatever it is, it isn’t good. Perhaps it seems good at first, but it is not. Wherever you are, only horrors await you here, pulled straight from your own mind. Or the minds of others.
Move. You must move. The dream is a landscape. You must traverse nightmares to escape. Seek other dreamers, and flee. To the center, to safety in false daydreams. To the underground, where the Necropolis will conceal you. To the edges, where you can feel your consciousness break free of this sunken sleep and return to the world of hard objects and light. But you cannot stay here. Gods help you if you stay here.
[ Your nightmare can look however you desire. Laws of reality and physics do not apply. Fuse them, reshape them, choose your flavor. Be liberal with content warnings and respect sensitive content guidelines, but otherwise, there are no rules. ]
What sort of dream do you find yourself in? What do you dream of? Is it success, love, peace? A life that never came to pass? For your troubles never to have occurred? Do you dream of fame or glory? No matter how beautiful or extravagant, no matter how simple or selfish, the things you desire most are yours.
You cannot escape from here. This is the center, as far away from the waking world as you can go. But the dream entreats you, as do the illusory figures within it. ”Stay,” they croon. ”There is nothing for you beyond here. Only nightmares, only terror. You are safe here. You are loved and wanted and happy here. Why would you ever want to leave?”
Time blends together. It often does, in dreaming, but this feels different. How long have you been here? Do you remember what you were doing before? How you got here? Have you ever even been to a town called Pumpkin Hollow? You can hardly remember.
Maybe that was the dream, and this is your reality. Even as the edges of it bleed together with that of your neighbor, even as fleeting memories come back to you, even as a little voice deep within you screams at you to wake up--- you have no reason to doubt the legitimacy of this place. Here you are happy and safe. Here you are everything you ever wanted to be, living the life you always wanted. Here there are no debts, no suffering, and you shall never die.
You belong here. Surely.
A seemingly endless maze of stone walls, mismatched in their depth as if they were patchworked together over centuries. Mausoleums, slotted tightly against one another. Covered marble passageways. Stone statues and carved reliefs depicting gargoyles, knights, Virtues, mages with skull motifs--- necromancers, perhaps? Banshees and dullahans, elves and humans and dwarves and orcs and fae folk of all sorts. All of these things line a network of cobblestone pathways lined with powder snow drifts and crunchy brown grass. Names are carved into the arches above mausoleum doors. Some are familiar, some are not. Fairbanks, Gladwyn, Dirthariel, Leeds, Larson, Endrin, Applegate, Brenning. Above you, white pillar candles float magically overhead, burning bright, lighting your way through the dark pink sunset sky.
In the distance, you see the achingly thin spires of the Winter Cathedral. An austere grey monolith with ornate carvings of horses and snowflake-shaped stained glass windows. Perhaps you will find some solace there. Otherwise, make your way to the river. A familiar ferryman awaits you--- though returning to reality this way will have a small consequence.
[ Encountering Mortanne here is possible, though her threads will be heavily restricted. You can do a thread here with someone else, though! It’s fine to be here without encountering her. Returning to the island by ferry will cause your physical body to die in the process, leaving you a ghost for the usual amount of time. You can also return to the nightmare and get out through the edge. ]
Like breaching the surface of water, you return to the solid, bright sharpness of reality. Actual reality, firm and true. You are where you went to sleep the night before, though some time has passed. It might take you a bit to figure out exactly how much, though…
Lost in Dreamland
Bedtime Story
{ CONTENT WARNINGS: Unreality, dream logic. Mind the CWs in individual threads, as they will vary! }
It is no secret that in the Emerald Isles, winter and sleep have a deep connection. To some extent, this is true everywhere. The whole world seems to fall asleep under the blanket of snow. Plants recede back into the ground, trees stand leafless and slumbering till spring, animals hibernate. Nights are longer. But the local folklore intensifies this, as Mortanne presides over Winter and the Beyond.
As the tales go, the Beyond is the realm of souls, the place where the essence of a person goes when it separates from their body. And while this primarily refers to death, it can also refer to the half-step between living and dying--- the unconscious mind. Sleep, and moreover, dreaming. And thus, winter and dreams have always been kindred spirits. Connected through their ties to Mother Mortanne and to a hushed and sleeping world.
Perhaps it is for this reason that when you go to sleep on the night of January 19th, 16:55, it is a deeper, more consuming sleep than you’ve ever felt. One that swallows you whole, dragging you down, and down, and down, into a sunken place that is deeper and more terrifying than dreams.
By the time you think to feel afraid, it is already too late to jolt yourself awake.
It is no secret that in the Emerald Isles, winter and sleep have a deep connection. To some extent, this is true everywhere. The whole world seems to fall asleep under the blanket of snow. Plants recede back into the ground, trees stand leafless and slumbering till spring, animals hibernate. Nights are longer. But the local folklore intensifies this, as Mortanne presides over Winter and the Beyond.
As the tales go, the Beyond is the realm of souls, the place where the essence of a person goes when it separates from their body. And while this primarily refers to death, it can also refer to the half-step between living and dying--- the unconscious mind. Sleep, and moreover, dreaming. And thus, winter and dreams have always been kindred spirits. Connected through their ties to Mother Mortanne and to a hushed and sleeping world.
Perhaps it is for this reason that when you go to sleep on the night of January 19th, 16:55, it is a deeper, more consuming sleep than you’ve ever felt. One that swallows you whole, dragging you down, and down, and down, into a sunken place that is deeper and more terrifying than dreams.
By the time you think to feel afraid, it is already too late to jolt yourself awake.
LULLABY
Beautiful Dreamer, Wake Unto Me
You wake. Or do you? It feels a bit like waking, and yet, it does not. It is similar enough to waking that one might believe it to be so. You feel ground beneath your feet, or perhaps a bed beneath your back. Or something. You feel… something. It isn’t like waking. But it’s a little bit like waking. Perhaps it is not. But perhaps it is as close as you are able to get. Let’s try this again.You “wake.” Your mind solidifies and reality defines its shape around you. Your eyes focus and you become aware. What are you aware of?
Whatever it is, it isn’t good. Perhaps it seems good at first, but it is not. Wherever you are, only horrors await you here, pulled straight from your own mind. Or the minds of others.
Move. You must move. The dream is a landscape. You must traverse nightmares to escape. Seek other dreamers, and flee. To the center, to safety in false daydreams. To the underground, where the Necropolis will conceal you. To the edges, where you can feel your consciousness break free of this sunken sleep and return to the world of hard objects and light. But you cannot stay here. Gods help you if you stay here.
[ Your nightmare can look however you desire. Laws of reality and physics do not apply. Fuse them, reshape them, choose your flavor. Be liberal with content warnings and respect sensitive content guidelines, but otherwise, there are no rules. ]
Starlight and Dewdrops are Waiting For Thee
If you reach the center of the dreamscape (or perhaps you “woke up” there), you will find an oasis. You find yourself immediately embraced by a beautiful dream. All of your wishes granted, your deepest desires pulled directly from the core of your soul and brought to life before you in vivid detail.What sort of dream do you find yourself in? What do you dream of? Is it success, love, peace? A life that never came to pass? For your troubles never to have occurred? Do you dream of fame or glory? No matter how beautiful or extravagant, no matter how simple or selfish, the things you desire most are yours.
You cannot escape from here. This is the center, as far away from the waking world as you can go. But the dream entreats you, as do the illusory figures within it. ”Stay,” they croon. ”There is nothing for you beyond here. Only nightmares, only terror. You are safe here. You are loved and wanted and happy here. Why would you ever want to leave?”
Time blends together. It often does, in dreaming, but this feels different. How long have you been here? Do you remember what you were doing before? How you got here? Have you ever even been to a town called Pumpkin Hollow? You can hardly remember.
Maybe that was the dream, and this is your reality. Even as the edges of it bleed together with that of your neighbor, even as fleeting memories come back to you, even as a little voice deep within you screams at you to wake up--- you have no reason to doubt the legitimacy of this place. Here you are happy and safe. Here you are everything you ever wanted to be, living the life you always wanted. Here there are no debts, no suffering, and you shall never die.
You belong here. Surely.
Sounds of the Rude World Heard in the Day
With how far you had to sink into unconsciousness to be here, it’s hard to believe one could go any deeper. But the Beyond is a many-layered place, and perhaps by descending a bit further, a bit deeper, a bit closer to death, you can find another place. Maybe you have a connection to death that brought you here. Perhaps you find your way by mistake. Either way, you may find yourself on a more peaceful journey through the Beyond through the Frozen Necropolis.A seemingly endless maze of stone walls, mismatched in their depth as if they were patchworked together over centuries. Mausoleums, slotted tightly against one another. Covered marble passageways. Stone statues and carved reliefs depicting gargoyles, knights, Virtues, mages with skull motifs--- necromancers, perhaps? Banshees and dullahans, elves and humans and dwarves and orcs and fae folk of all sorts. All of these things line a network of cobblestone pathways lined with powder snow drifts and crunchy brown grass. Names are carved into the arches above mausoleum doors. Some are familiar, some are not. Fairbanks, Gladwyn, Dirthariel, Leeds, Larson, Endrin, Applegate, Brenning. Above you, white pillar candles float magically overhead, burning bright, lighting your way through the dark pink sunset sky.
In the distance, you see the achingly thin spires of the Winter Cathedral. An austere grey monolith with ornate carvings of horses and snowflake-shaped stained glass windows. Perhaps you will find some solace there. Otherwise, make your way to the river. A familiar ferryman awaits you--- though returning to reality this way will have a small consequence.
[ Encountering Mortanne here is possible, though her threads will be heavily restricted. You can do a thread here with someone else, though! It’s fine to be here without encountering her. Returning to the island by ferry will cause your physical body to die in the process, leaving you a ghost for the usual amount of time. You can also return to the nightmare and get out through the edge. ]
Lulled by the Moonlight, Have All Passed Away
Should you find the edge of the nightmare, you will be able to push yourself through the iridescent membrane at the edge of consciousness. You float through the seemingly endless darkness for a moment, then another, then a third, senses dull and drifting drunkenly, until suddenly---Like breaching the surface of water, you return to the solid, bright sharpness of reality. Actual reality, firm and true. You are where you went to sleep the night before, though some time has passed. It might take you a bit to figure out exactly how much, though…
Those who escape the nightmare will find themselves home sometime between 1/20 and 1/30. Those who stay in the dream oasis will be comatose until the dream ends, and will not wake until 2/8. They will find the return to reality deeply unpleasant. What are you willing to endure to keep dreaming a while more?
no subject
He tries to get his right leg under him, but it buckles, useless, even though it looks and feels intact. The deck plating's too slick to get any kind of hold, but Gaeta tries anyway. Inch by inch, he drags himself through the blood, trying to reach her.
"Oh, gods, no no no -- "
In the corner of his eye, he spots an Eight -- the Eight -- regarding both of them dispassionately.
no subject
"I-I don't— I don't understand." Her voice is thin and trembling, too little air in her lungs, too little blood flowing to her brain. Usually warm-toned skin is turning pallid and sickly and her eyes can't quite seem to focus—not on him, not on their surroundings, not on anything really at all.
(For a moment, she swears she sees a different face. A rounder, darker face half-hidden behind a mask, impractically long braid dangling, soaking in the blood— and then it's Felix again, and Connie squeezes her eyes shut as hard as she can as if to force them to refresh.)
This isn't how this goes. There's never anyone else, there could never be anyone else, there could only ever be empty seats and the knowledge that Needles would never make it back from the control room in time to do anything to help. This doesn't—
This doesn't make any sense.
Stubbornly, she tries to push herself up at least so far as to sit, but her fingers skate through the gore as if on ice and her arm shoots ahead, collapsing out from under her and jarring painfully where she lands hard on her side. Only her own over-extended shoulder stops her cracking her head off the ground and every muscle seems to seize up against the fresh wave of agony that washes over her at the impact that remains.
(When she opens her eyes again, this time it's the watching figure, the silhouette that feels like an echo in the corner of his eye more than her own, that suddenly appears as if someone else. A pillar of matte black armour. A shadow— the shadow. And then she squeezes her eyes shut again and the illusion fades.)
Another whimper slips past her gritted teeth and she rasps for air.
cw: emeto mention
Voice shaking, "She did this to you."
The only reason it gets anywhere near a question is the simple fact that Gaeta doesn't want to believe it. Not CT, who shouldn't even be here. Who shouldn't have bled this much no matter what the Eight did to her. Gods, this can't be happening.
You did this to her, he thinks he hears the Eight whisper. You have to open your eyes, Felix.
He keeps crawling, panting for air. The distance to CT doesn't seem to get any shorter.
no subject
"I— I th-think so?" She. Who is she. All that comes to Connie's mind when she tries to think about what happened is that shadow, looming over her, swallowing her up and spitting her out. Is that the 'she' Felix means? Does it really matter? Aren't they all just shadows of something?
(β isn't so far from an 8. Letters, numbers. What's the difference.)
God, Connie's tired.
Barely, she finds the strength to push herself up part-way once more, but it's shaky and pitiful in its instability. The long side of her hair is soaked through, strands tacked to her cheek by the red.
She tries to reach out toward him. Even that feels like it goes half the distance it should.
no subject
"You knew."
The Eight's voice is faint, but audible to both of them now. She crosses her arms, leaning against the bulkhead, and continues to regard the scene without moving. Gaeta freezes in his tracks as if her words have physically pinned him in place.
no subject
Even faint as it is, the voice is enough to set Connie's head spinning in new, painful directions, the two words ringing through her skull like an echo reverberating through an empty cave. She feels empty. Like she's been hollowed out, like all that's left of her is the shell of her, of who she used to be and the thing she's supposed to know.
You knew. He knew— what? What did he know? Was she supposed to know?
The next, "F-Felix?" out of her mouth is more confused than the first. "What— what is she t-talking about?"
no subject
"He knew."
The Eight ignores him. She steps lightly over the blood,
somehow finding the only clear patch of floor on the whole pod,
and walks closer to CT. She has no trouble covering the
distance that Gaeta can't.
"He just didn't want to know. He pretended we weren't
at war, but, well..."
She smiles as she crouches down next to CT.
"This is what happens in a war. You kill the ones your enemy values."
no subject
Flickers of darkness threaten Connie's vision and in those flickers the Eight is once again swallowed up by shadow, softer lines of a figure so deceptively human replaced by the impenetrable black shapes of a silhouette that should never have been mistaken for more than a weapon.
The back and forth makes her head throb and she tries and fails to drag herself back, back, away from the smiling danger. Away from the figure that is and isn't the bearer of the hands that killed her, who she had trusted to do the right thing and who had made her pay for her naivety in blood.
Connie hisses through red-stained teeth: "G-Get— get away from me. I'm not— I'm not l-listening to— to you."
no subject
The Eight laughs, light and mocking, and tips
her head just enough to call over her shoulder to Gaeta,
"No wonder you like her."
Gaeta tries to wet his lips. Bad move: he tastes blood and coughs, hard, wasting precious air they don't have. As the Eight turns her attention back to CT, he tries to drag himself to his knees, grappling along the wall for any kind of handhold.
"How many people did you kill by trusting me, Connie? His final body count was
two hundred." A pause; a mockery of contemplation as her eyes focus
laser-sharp on CT, reflecting the red light all around them.
"Well. Two hundred and one."
no subject
The sound of her name, aloud, outside of her own ringing skull, reduces Connie to mute, choked gasping, dry-mouthed and tongue-tied. Every subsequent word feels like a knife through the ear, scrambling her already oxygen-deprived brain a little further each time—how much longer until she bleeds out, how much longer until what scant air they have can't even make it beyond her lungs?
Two hundred—and one. Connie tries, very hard, not to let her gaze flick behind towards Felix, not to give any reason for the other's eyes to follow hers. (Two hundred and one.) How many people...
Teeth grit. Her voice scrapes up her throat. "S-Shut. U-Up."
no subject
The Eight's shout shakes the walls of the escape pod and sends ripples through the blood, too loud to be made by anything organic. Gaeta reels, stumbling, but manages to catch himself on the wall and stay upright.
"Both of you! Humans," she spits. "Full of your flaws that you'll call anything but. God, your need for self-delusion is exhausting."
She seizes CT's chin in a vise grip.
"Hope. Faith. Belief in some mystical idea of what's right. Even those of you who insist the gods aren't real create your own lies to keep yourself from seeing the truth."
Slowly, behind the Eight, Gaeta keeps dragging himself along the wall -- as if, now that she's distracted, the gap between him and CT can finally be crossed.
no subject
Connie flinches, trying but failing to jerk back out of her grasp and ending up pitifully whimpering for her trouble. A thin trickle of blood falls from her nose, rolling over the curve of her lips and flooding the channel between them. They part in a gasp and iron floods her tastebuds.
Got to keep the Eight's focus on her. Come on, CT, get it the fuck together—
"A-And what's— what do you th-think it is we're not seeing, h-huh?" She swallows. Cringes, at the taste. "What— what does a sh-shadow know about truth?"
cw: violence
Gaeta seizes the Eight's hair and slams her head sideways into the wall.
She crumples. Gaeta slides to the floor with her, skidding on the blood; his right leg hits the ground with such force that he chokes on a yell.
There's no scalpel, no pen, no commingling of this moment with his memories of stabbing Baltar in the neck. All he has available are his own two hands, which he wraps around the Eight's throat with this thumbs pressed firm against her windpipe.
cw: violence
There. Action, reaction. A sudden surge of strength swells in Connie and, teeth gritted against the pain, she rises from the bloody flood bit by bit. Struggles to her knees, to grab the edge of a seat, to pull herself to her feet even as her legs shake. CT stands over Gaeta as he drives their air from the Eight with his bare hands.
Once upon a time she might have objected. Wanted to be better than this. Told him they should just leave her and get out—wherever out is from this place. Right here, right now, she doesn't say a word. Just stands there, chest heaving, braced in case she has to act.
cw: violence
The Eight flails a leg in a last-ditch effort to free herself. It doesn't hit Gaeta, but it does come swinging for CT.
cw: violence
Reflexes dulled to a flat the way they are, Connie reacts on time-delay, jerking away from the flailing kick too slow to avoid taking a glancing blow—and yet only glancing. Adrenaline enough to keep her going courses through her and though she stumbles, knee buckling, she does not collapse.
CT's jaw flexes. Iron is all she can taste. She catches the thrashing limb under her own foot and puts all her weight on it.
"G-God just hurry up and die already—" slips past her teeth, more venom than she'll ever be proud of. Venom enough that for a moment she swears she can almost feel the hilt of a knife in her empty, twitching hand.
cw: violence, death
So if she refuses to die fast, then Gaeta will make her suffer.
Her silicon-and-circuits body heaves, twitches in a far too human way. CT's boot on her leg keeps her from kicking again, though she gets a couple nail gouges into Gaeta's hands as she weakens. He doesn't flinch.
Only after her hands slide limply away from Gaeta's does he even think about moving. A slow count to ten -- the Eight stays immobile the whole time -- and then with a gasp, like he was the one being strangled, he lets go. Looks up at CT with an unreadable expression. Distantly, he notices his hands are trembling.
"Are you okay?"
cw: violence, death
CT watches. Every second—her tired and yet intensely alert eyes set on the slow, ugly scene before her as the Eight twitches and dies. Tries to imagine the shadow going limp like that, tries to imagine the electronic spark of life leaving the shadow's unstoppable form. Struggles to. Focuses on the one that can be—has been—killed instead.
Connie meets Felix's eye and swallows. "N-No," is the honest answer, still pale and breathless from the blood loss and oxygen deprivation. Aware of every internal injury still ticking away beneath her skin. "B-But— but alive. We're alive."
For now.