May Event - All Too Familiar

[pumpkinhollow]

May Event - All Too Familiar

Content Warnings: Walking dead, character deaths, potential for gore | Special Thanks to Meghan and Kalineh

It was a fine spring day when mysterious letters began cropping up all over Pumpkin Hollow. Letters whose apparent senders do not remember writing them, whose recipients or discoverers were harmed by reading them. Eventually these mysteries, though still unsolved, come to a quiet halt as stealthily as they began, but not before a mail carrier in a cowboy hat trots out to Elsie’s tree with a letter in hand, unmarked aside from being addressed to her.

She gleefully rips open that letter, hoping it's another message from her father. It isn't and, at first, she's crushed. But only until she starts to actually read it.

Elsie,

River la Croix has been hiding something in her forge for a while now. It is called the Book of the Dead. In its pages are hundreds of spells from across time and space with the power to give life to those no longer with us.

Your father is doing his best to revive your mother. But this island’s barrier is blocking his will, resisting his magic. I can no longer watch you suffer in solitude when a solution exists. All you have to do is decipher the text, and its powers are yours. Your mother will be returned to you.

River does not want to part with it. She will become suspicious of you if you ask, and it will become harder to acquire it. You will have to take it without her notice by levitating it out of her forge. She, like many others, is fearful of the Book’s power. This fear isn’t entirely unwarranted for them, but for you, your connection to the Feywilds’ magic will be enough to grant you access to that otherworldly power.

Good luck, and all my love to your dear mother when she returns.

Fond regards,
A friend

Could this be it? Could this be the miracle she's been waiting for? Hope swells painfully in her chest as she clutches the note close. She mustn't celebrate too early. She still needs to get the book. At least her mysterious friend has already told her where to find it. Her jaw sets in a look of determination, and she speeds away into the dusk.

It doesn't take long to reach the forge. River has defended it well, but Elsie slips into her own shadow and sneaks beneath the door without so much as a whisper of sound. Only her hand extends from the puddle of shadow on the floor inside, like a disembodied arm hovering before the flames. Mustering her will, she reaches out to the ancient book and commands the winds to lift it. Sweat beads her shadowy brow while she concentrates, the flames flicker and dance around the slowly levitating book. Just a little more, a little more… There!

It's heavy in her hand, and remarkably cool to the touch despite having been pulled from the fire. She retracts her arm and the book back into her shadow and slips out the way she came. Her heart thumps in her chest as she races back to the safety of her tree. To her mother, who will soon be able to wrap flesh and blood arms around her like she once did. All that's left now is to read. Her friends have been teaching her how. Her mother will be so proud of her.

Carefully now, she opens the book, feeling her skin crawl as a sudden unease grips her very core. No, she will not be deterred. The language is unlike any she's ever seen. The letters, if indeed they can be called that, feel jagged and painful to her mind. Still, she will Not Give Up. She screws her eyes shut, thinks of her mother, and holds tight to her desperate hope to be reunited.

When her eyes reopen to behold the page before her, understanding strikes like lightning. Suddenly, she knows she can speak the words. As they escape her mouth, an unknown magic swells into the space around her, then beyond her. The ground shakes. The air turns foul. And as the trinkets in Elsie’s tree chime together in the unsettling breeze, ringing out with notes more sour than usual, it quickly becomes clear that the advice she received was not from any friend.

The forms of people begin to pry themselves loose from the ground all over town, as if emerging from water, leaving the ground unbroken as they lift themselves out of the ground. They bear horrid injuries, shambling along grotesquely, telling a story of death. However, these are not skeletons from the graveyard, housing the souls of long-dead locals. These are things of flesh and blood, however exposed they might be, wearing newer faces.

Much newer.

Since the barrier went up, many people have died, only to have their bodies vanish and replaced by a new one. Those bodies now walk the town, seeking to unleash a wrath brought on by the corrupted magic of the Necronomicon. Anyone who has died inside the barrier will have a violent, undead copy of themself representing each death wandering the island looking to increase their ranks. Which means that there will be many, many, many Yoricks.

Destroyed copies will remain destroyed for the standard overnight period of any other person. But there are too many of them to defeat this way, and their destruction is impermanent. Thankfully, help is on the way!

In the midst of the undead and their attack on the citizens of Pumpkin Hollow, tiny glimmers of hope appear in the form of folded paper birds. The little gold birds flit from fighter to fighter, small whispers promising that if enough enemies can be felled then the High Priestess can intervene. The necessary number is unknown, but if a bird alights upon someone, they will feel their weariness vanish for a short time, and perhaps, should she feel like it, they may receive a temporary boon to use against the undead.

Eventually the High Priestess will show herself, making good on the promises of the little birds. With a smile, her magic will wrap around the remaining undead, returning them to the unseen graves and binding them into Death once more, leaving the living to pick up the pieces.

Comments

[Closed Post - The Plot Thickens]

[hereticofthewilds]

Epilogue

As the magic swelling around her goes out into the earth, she suddenly feels woozy. The next thing she knows, she's waking to the smell of grass and the taste of blood on her lips. Her head is pounding and...did she bite her own lip when she passed out? That realization lurches her to her feet. She turns, eyes full of hope, only to feel it all crash down around her. Mother tree is... still just a tree.

And the book is gone.


[Closed For Bastion & Cassandra, Separately]

Elsie paces beneath her tree, lost in deep in thought with the nails of both hands between her nervously chewing teeth. She's made a terrible mistake! Those undead bodies rising from the earth can't be a coincidence. She couldn't mistake that foul, rotten magic for anything but evil. If she'd only known. She should have known the note was a lie! This is all her fault! Will her friends be angry at her? Will they outcast her again for this? That doesn't matter right now. She has to do something to fix it. But what? What can she do when she doesn't even have the book as proof?

She has the only next best thing--a journaling pad she'd been using to practice her letters. In a fit of desperation, she's scribbled out all of the strange symbols she's able to recall. It isn't more than half a page in total, but it might be enough. Now, she needs to find someone she can ask to read it. That's a little harder to do amid the chaos, but just when she's starting to lose hope, she spots a familiar friend.

"Help!" she cries, gripping the journal protectively to her chest as she sprints to them. "Need help!"


[Closed For Amarantha]

After hours and hours, maybe more than 24, running around doing anything and everything she could think of to help fix the disaster she's sure she caused, she is finally forced to collapse against her tree out of pure exhaustion. She's too spent to curl up in her shadowy tree hollow, so she does the next best thing by tucking herself into a tight ball under its roots. Tears slip silently down her face as she shivers and weeps, brushing her fingers against her mother's bark and wishing so desperately for a hand to hold instead.

"Sorry. Mother. Father... E... sorry."

[configuration_birdwatcher]

A few disturbed birds fly off into the treetops as Elsie rushes to Bastion, with only their Togetic remaining on their mossy mechanical shoulder. They wrap their manipulator arm around her and point their gun arm out in the direction she came from, expecting a physical threat to be in pursuit. With a psychically-subtitled whistle and chirp, they say, // What's wrong?

[hereticofthewilds]

She's so distressed she doesn't even stop to give Togetic her usual greeting. This really must be serious. From the safety of Bastion's manipulator arm, she sobs, "Rising dead...Elsie's fault! B-Book... evil b-book." She produces the letter for Bastion to read as she tries her best to explain, that will probably add some much needed context.

[configuration_birdwatcher]

Bastion pats her gently on the back, their hand and wrist emitting faint humming noises as the joints move. The Togetic joins in, smoothing a strand of her hair into place. They don't lower their gun arm all the way; Elsie's confirmed that there's a threat in the area, just not the immediate area. They scan the letter.

// They tricked you. This was a targeted attack by someone who had knowledge of both Elsie's personal life and the book's defenses, as well as their capabilities, since the description appears to have been assembled from selectively chosen facts rather than lies. The book resurrected the dead, but drastically altered their behavioural parameters.

// We'll deactivate it. Where's the evil book now? It doesn't look like she's carrying any unfamiliar books. There's a small chance she's hidden it somewhere safe but they estimate a significantly higher chance it's already been stolen by the letter's sender and/or is the origin point and most heavily defended section of the zombies' forces.

[hereticofthewilds]

"Yes," she says miserably. It was such a rotten trick. It makes her feel rotten from the inside, too.

"Book gone. Elsie fall down, when she wakes, book gone."

[configuration_birdwatcher]

They were hoping that would reassure her more than it did. // I don't blame you, Elsie. Someone spied on you to learn what to use against you.

Bastion makes a note that the evil zombie book is apparently extremely strenuous to use, in addition to limiting access to its functions. // I hoped you had it but I'm not surprised they took it. Maybe we can shut it down remotely.

They aren't really sure how to use magic. It's not incomprehensible like it used to be before Mortanne rebuilt their systems, using magic to replace components built with technology that Concorde doesn't even have precursors to, but Bastion didn't learn anything about how to operate it beyond their own body or the principles that it follows. If there's a spell that cancels out or undoes the effect of the book, Elsie's more likely to be able to cast it than they are.

// What did the book look like?

[not_the_last]

Cassandra is heading for Town Hall, returning from a supply run to the marketplace with a sack of her finds slung over one shoulder. When she hears the familiar voice, her head snaps up and swivels.

"Elsie?" She spots her coming, and hurries to meet her. "We need to get to safety. Can you tell me what's happened on the way?"

[hereticofthewilds]

She speeds up when she notices Cassandra's head snap around. Thank goodness! This is just who she needs!

"Where going?" she asks quickly. "Elsie take us in shadow!" Going via her shadow traveling is the fastest and safest method, by far, so hopefully Cassandra will forgive the sudden drop sensation of falling into her own shadow the moment Elsie grabs her wrist. This wouldn't be the first time.

"Elsie did... d-did something bad. The dead rising... Elsie's fault..."

[not_the_last]

"I was --" She swallows a yelp as Elsie tugs her into shadow. "Town Hall. Can you ...?"

And then she falls silent at Elsie's confession, brows tugging together.

"How?" is all she asks at first, ruthlessly suppressing her immediate urge to say that can't be right.

[hereticofthewilds]

The answer is a definite yes, as the scenery beyond the small window of vision shows the world blurring past as they go at great speed, yet it feels like they are both standing still within the void.

"Book," she says, voice small with shame. "Letter said book would cure Mother. Elsie read it...and..." sobs start to choke off her voice but she sniffles and gathers her courage to keep going. this was her fault, so she has to. "It was evil magic. Bad book."

[not_the_last]

"Oh." She reaches to take Elsie's hand. "Elsie, I'm so sorry. I don't think this is your fault. It's the fault of whoever lied to you with that letter."

Someone who knew what lie would motivate Elsie to try an offered solution, without questioning it. She finds herself coldly considering who might fit that criteria, even as she speaks gently to her distraught friend.

[priestessofthewilds]

"There is nothing to apologize for, little one."

The voice comes softly, and the edges of a white dress appear within Elsie's sight. Amarantha hasn't needed to search for the young girl, she's known where they will find each other, and when, but it hurts to have waited so long, even for someone as rational as herself.

[hereticofthewilds]

For one agonizing moment, Elsie mistakes that voice for that of her mother's. She raises her head so fast she manages to bump it painfully on a root. And when she realizes the face she beholds is a stranger's, her disappointment is crushing.

Still, curiosity draws her out. "B-but..." she answers, small and strained, "The dead...E's fault..."

[priestessofthewilds]

Amarantha's gaze remains soft, but without pity.

"I would not expect one of your age to discern a trick of the Chaos God so easily. Do not be ashamed over his deception, he has been doing such things for a very long time."

She holds out her hand so she can help pull Elsie to her feet.

[hereticofthewilds]

Chaos God? Nyarlathotep?! Suddenly, all Elsie can see is red flashing across her vision, and all she can hear is blood pounding in her ears. She was used! Tricked! Being young doesn't feel like enough of an excuse when she's doomed the whole island. The only thing that might help her feel better is to squish that chaos god's stupid head under her feet.

"Do you know him?" she asks, taking the offered hand and allowing herself to be pulled to her feet. "Who are you? Can you stop him?"

[priestessofthewilds]

"I am Amarantha, and I can stop this with the help of your friends. I have already sent them the message and they are doing what they can."

She tips her head, observing the anger with an unusual grace.

"Do not fret. Everything shall be as it is supposed to be, that is why your father sent me."

Closed, by Invitation

[blindwatchersees]

There's a soft crunch of underbrush as a figure wanders into her view- a golden-skinned, pointy-earred boy around her age, dressed like a runaway noble that's made the woods his home. He wears a fine patina of earth and mud, and his fancy robes have been cutoff at the middle and at the shoulders, their leftover length used to fashion pouches, and his frayed, once-fine trousers are rolled up over his knees, which looks like they've had their fair history of scrapes. A couple of odd butterflies cling to his shoulders, and despite the strangeness of the boy, those butterflies are all too familiar, their colors and patterns unmistakable.

"Elsie!"

<3

[hereticofthewilds]

She recognizes the magic she feels, even if the shape is new. Her friend is late, it's almost summer now, but she forgives him.

"You've bloomed!" she cries, a moment of joy breaking through like a single streak of sunlight through thick clouds.

"Be careful," she says then, in warning, as she runs to meet him, "Not safe. Elsie... made a bad mistake."

[blindwatchersees]

The boy shakes his head.

"There are always monsters. That's what the stories say, right? There's always monsters waiting to slip through whatever cracks open up so they can gobble up the hero and their friends. They would have found their way here, one way or another."

A feral smile spreads across his face.

"But we're quicker than them, and we're clever. Let's keep ahead of them now, and then we can be sad later, if we want to be, okay?"

[hereticofthewilds]

"Sad... later?" She hesitates. The feral girl in her wants to just go, run free with abandon, and let nature run its course. But... she can't. This wasn't natural. None of what's happening is natural.

"These monsters are different. Elsie made them..."

[blindwatchersees]

"And if you hadn't, someone else would have. I know you didn't mean to do this. Whoever made you do this would have just tried again. And we'd still be trying to stop them."

He takes her hand, squeezing it gently.

"If you can't put your sadness away, then let me have it, and I'll put it in a bottle for you."

wildcard as discussed!

[yournewsidekick]

Distantly, rising from the forest some ways from Elsie's tree, an agonized voice calls out.

A familiar voice.

"Help. Please. Somebody help me..."

[hereticofthewilds]

Nimona! Elsie races toward the voice, terrified that one of the monsters she unleashed might have hurt her friend. She might not be able to forgive herself for that.

"Coming! Elsie is coming!"

cw: body horror

[yournewsidekick]

"Help," the voice continues to cry, like it hasn't heard Elsie at all. "Please."

As Elsie crashes into a clearing, she finds a broken, misshapen body lying in the dirt. Its arms are too long, like putty stretched almost to the breaking point; something that might have once been wings slumps down its back in two deflated bags of skin. Its hair, and the patches of mangy fur that splash across its limbs, are matted with blood and saliva.

With great effort, it raises its head, revealing a mouth so overgrown with needle-thin teeth that half of them just through her lips and jaw.

"Help me," Nimona says.

Re: cw: body horror

[hereticofthewilds]

Elsie gasps as she sees the grisly state of her friend, and rushes to kneel beside her.

"What do? What do??" Her hands hover over Nimona indecisively. Can she use her power to fix this somehow? No... Nimona isn't a plant... 

"Elsie carry you, find help!" She's already moving to scoop Nimona's broken form into her arms.