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

fever (dark urge) | baldur's gate 3 | ota

[abhorrently]

[starters below.]

the moon is full and shines an evil blinding light.

[abhorrently]

It might be strange, the emotion that rises in Fever's chest when she hears the news. There's frustration, yes, and worry for everyone she knows - but there's also a certainty that slides into place like a hand to sword hilt. This is something she can do. This is something she can help with more than dancing to some demon's tune. And it's been so, so long since she didn't have to think about the surroundings, about what people would remember. These shambling corpses are no better than the ones in the cursed lands - it will be a mercy to put them down in any capacity.

And so, armoring herself in robes, Fever goes out to do what she does best. Destruction arcs and courses from her fingertips in a myriad of forms, magic coupled with physical force from weapons. So many undead, but so much pent up frustration at the world. They will fall to dagger and staff and so much lightning - other elements make their appearance, but Fever's indulging herself. It crackles and sparks around her, fueling her to dart around and reposition herself, the essence of the storm clinging onto her wherever she goes.

Wholesale slaughter isn't the only reason to be out, and those that need a hand might just find one coming their way, either as support or as cover to escape somewhere. And if moments allow, she's also reaching out to those she knows via sending stone to check their location, ensuring they remain if not fully safe, then out of immediate harm's way.

[yournewsidekick]

Nimona just had a chance a couple months ago to get her own ultra-destructive jollies out. She sees the light show from afar, and even if she doesn't know for sure what's going on, she knows, you know? It's the destruction of something caged breaking its bars at last. The fierce delight of stretching your limbs as wide as they'll go after too long stuck in one shape.

So pretty soon there's another spark among Fever's conflagration: this one a familiar pink, laughing riotously as it falls in next to her and pops into teenager-shape. Nimona pounds a fist into her opposite palm and grins. "You want backup?"

[abhorrently]

There's a joy to it all - a vicious and flourishing type, Fever in her utter element with a sharpness to her gaze and her smile. Alive in the way that only pitched combat makes her, blasting back two shambling Yoricks with a wave of violet light and sound. Strength validated, skill on display. And free in a way that so rarely gets to take form.

Nimona isn't just allowed, she's welcomed, and Fever immediately nods. Her focus isn't as infinite as the magic seems to be, but considering their odds...

"How much do you trust me?"

Because there is an idea brewing in her head that she'd love to see come to life.

[yournewsidekick]

Immediately: "If you've got literally any kind of plan and it involves a bunch of zombie blood, I'm in. Or zombie explosions." A tiny gasp. "Zombiesplosions!"

Please please say it's zombiesplosions, Fever, you'll make her so happy.

[stoneoftherose]

Pyotr's ghost trails after her, in awe of her destruction even as his heart aches with the pain he's caused her. Once or twice he tries to speak to her, but it does no good -- whatever talent she has for speaking with the dead, it appears not to function without a body to receive her power. Or perhaps it is simply that she has no way to sense his presence... He has to make this up to her.

He calls her as soon as he wakes back up in a flesh body, ignoring his own precarious situation high in a tree. "I'm here," he tells Fever, the moment he hears her voice over the sending stone. "I'm back, I'm sorry."

[abhorrently]

"What happened to you - never mind, have you gotten yourself somewhere safe? There's a few solid safehouses for people, they're being guarded, and we can stop whatever happened from recurring."

She's...well. She's barely touched down in days. Minimal rest, eating just enough to keep going, and riding the high of killing and victory to keep going. When it's over, then she'll take a break, but without the same amount of headaches and general physical malaise that she used to have, Fever wants to push herself. How far, how fast, how strong?

But a call is a call, and she's taking a breather to answer it.

[stoneoftherose]

"Ah..." A little helplessly, Pyotr takes stock of himself, finally admitting, "I appear to be in a tree, near the center of town. None of the creatures on the ground seem to be able to reach me, but I don't like my chances if one of those flying monsters show up."

Sheepishly, he asks, "I don't suppose you could...come get me?"

[cyansoldier]

"I'm not interrupting your party, am I?" Carolina's voice sounds clear and assertive through the din.

Does Fever look like she requires assistance? No. She looks like an elemental anomaly. A well-dressed, human-shaped weather phenomenon. Lighting chases out from her fingertips. Fire fries a dozen bodies at once. They charge her, their skin sloughing off in blackened heaps. Mindlessly blood-lusting for the unattainable, and topple stupidly over themselves to reach her. No, she's doing perfectly fine on her own, and Carolina cannot help but to throw herself into the mix. For fun.

Her rifle is an archaic tool in comparison; long muzzled with a sturdy wooden stock and click-action. In her belt, a hunting knife and untrustworthy handgun. They're accessories to a more dangerous weapon; herself. She wields them well.

An undead lurches from behind, hooking its arm around Carolina's neck and snapping ferociously into her ear. She sets her jaw, gropes its collar and in a brutal blur of force, flips it over onto its back. Fetid spine thuds. Limbs gesticulate. She rams her gun barrel into its mouth, past the yellowed teeth and flapping tongue— fires.

"When I heard dead bodies were storming the town, I didn't anticipate there being a dress code."

[abhorrently]

It's a brutal, graceful display - elegant in its raw simplicity. Fever admires it for that, and while guns have never been truly appealing when one has other options before them, (no matter how Crichton might talk up his at points) they do have solid uses.

"I never was much for heavy armor. Weighs me down too much."

It barely helps her block, but the robe's true strength lies in what it does block, and how it brings her back. And it's good to wear it for proper purpose, she finds.

"But this party's still in full swing - you're not even late, if you'd care to join."

She can moderate her fire around another person easily enough, and she'd like to see Carolina's skills on someone else, after enduring enough of them through herself.

[cyansoldier]

Fever's eyes scorch two small marks into her skin. She doesn't splinter under the pressure of being watched. It goads her. Fans a flame she hasn't indulged since she was struck down— no, long before that. Before Texas. Before the implementation of AI. Training sessions wherein the Director himself would press his nose to glass and watch her. Watch her.

Watch me.

See what I can do.

"Don't wanna hide what you're working with?"

Two corpses flank her on either side; a lanky market woman still wearing her produce apron, and a walrus of a man who smells like the sea. Salt crystals and blood cling to his beard. They throw their arms up and out in sloppy, unpardonable offenses. Brainless, stupid things. Training fodder. She'll enjoy this. Already is.

"My pleasure."

She's on the lankier one in an instant. Throws her gun's barrel across its neck to trap it in a headlock. Biceps and shoulders flex to crush metal against larynx. It pops, gurgles, goes limp. Carolina drops it, shoots twice in Mister Walrus's direction. Twin brass bullets obliterate him— one through the shoulder, tearing limb from trunk, and another in the chest. He keeps charging.

Click— a fourth bullet slides into place. Carolina pulls the trigger.

Nothing. Jammed.

That's fine. She'll fix it in a second.

"Do me a favor!" Carolina hollers, tossing her rifle in Fever's direction. "Hold that for me."

cw: gore/biting

[lordoftheozarks]

When Erik answers his sending stone, he sounds uncharacteristically frazzled and he's not even trying to hide it.

"Actually, if you're free, I could use some assista--ARG!" his request is cut off by a snarl of pain as his very own zombie self, call him Zerik, bites down hard on his arm and yanks off a cold hunk from his bicep.

"Out near... Valdis and Max's farm house."

[abhorrently]

"You're in luck - I'm not too far off," she replies, and she already starts heading in the familiar direction. If Erik needs her assistance, it's got to be a nasty one, which by now she feels accustomed to dealing with. Hopefully, it'll be obvious when she nears where exactly they are.

[lordoftheozarks]

"Thank you," is all she'll hear before the call drops because he needs both hands to wrangle himself. 

No doubt she'll find him easily. The zombie he's currently engaged in a knock-out-drag-out fight with is a twisted and mutated version of himself, sporting feathers and talons and a beak where his mouth should be. That, and he is very, very loud when he screeches his frustration at not being able to land a blow to Erik's face.

By the time she comes on scene, she'll find Erik flat on his back beneath the beast, holding back his double by the beak with both hands as the monster attempts to force a killing blow. 

"The eyes," he calls to her. "Go for his eyes. I'll hold him."

[hadnoright]

It's been at least a full day of this, when Daisy seeks Fever out. Even now she's covered in the gore of the undead she took the time to kill on her way across town, as she trails the familiar scent of slaughter and ozone to reach her. They are bloodsoaked and in their element, in this sea of unquestioned violence, and yet still there is a frayed mania to Daisy when she finds her.

"So. Small problem."

[abhorrently]

Fever, by contrast, is at as much peace as one can be while hacking down a mess of corpses. She feels alive, invigorated, and her mind beautifully clear. It's a beautiful thing, to solve problems with unquestioned amounts of violence. Truly, there's very little news that could be brought to her at this moment that she would not receive with grace and charity.

Having hacked a second other self to pieces earlier, she'd then continued in her task of culling the numbers, and the blood of the twice-corpses stains the robes she wears, while the scent of smoke and burning flesh is in the mix of every other.

"Oh? Nothing that our talents combined can't handle, I'm sure. What is it?"

[hadnoright]

"I died." Blunt and to the point as ever. She'll undersell it but she won't dance around it—well, at least not that it happened. Getting how out of her might be a touch harder. "So. We've got a second me running round."

One's bad enough. Everything that makes it easier for her to keep fighting also makes her a nightmare to fight in turn. Never before has her own constant healing been such a pain in the goddamn arse.

under a monolith, her likeness marble white.

[abhorrently]

The Fever that rises and walks with the other corpses lacks light in her eyes, the side of her neck torn open by claws oh so long ago and flesh death pale. This was not a peaceful death, and she did not go easy - yet to watch her move, you'd neve know that the wound killed her in the first place. She lacks any obvious weapons, but why should that be a concern, when the greatest weapon she ever had existed in her body, in her very bones?

Her magic flies with all the grace of the executioner's axe, targeted and brutal. Acid and fire to corrode and burn. Frost and thunder to freeze and deafen. Force and lightning, heralding only the desire to kill, to add to their ranks. And it will take far, far more than another cut to outsmart her or drive her off. If her gaze lands on you? Better have a good escape plan, because she doesn't intend to let you get away. Not until your blood marks her like that of all those who couldn't run fast enough.

[ooc: please talk to me if you want to fight zombie Fever instead of flee. she will pursue escaping victims, but not to an unreasonable extent. living Fever may come in to handle the problem if needed.]

[redlightgreenlight]

There's a reason Fever and Neil would be the first to die should she ever turn, it would be done from a distance, long before either of them knew something had shifted, and that reason is standing only yards away, wielding the elements and other magicks as easily as she wields Death.

She'd been looking for herself, but this...this is almost worse.

Run.

The enforcers with her don't hesitate to follow the order, seemingly aware there is nothing they can do against the undead sorceress. Valdis herself isn't certain of how much she can do, she's a rather large target after all, even if she is a difficult one. Still, she must cover the retreat of her enforcers.

The Hound releases a terrible snarl, one that would make the skin of any sane mortal crawl. Somehow, she highly doubts this Fever is sane.

[abhorrently]

The sorceress turns, and her attention is a dead thing - weighted as an unmoving corpse, the light out of her eyes. Utterly silent, for speech is difficult with an open neck, but the great Hound would be a prize indeed. Hers to fight. Hers to slaughter. Hers, later, to fight alongside. But let her destroy first and foremost, and bring terror into this land.

There is so little inside of her other than hate.

The dead Fever raises her hand, and in a rasping whisper, four projectiles of red light fly towards Valdis. Each carries the strength of a solid kick to the ribs. This is only a test, to see what will and will not work.

[redlightgreenlight]

To say she's not disturbed by the sight of her loved one in such a state would be a lie, the sense of hatred seeping through every pore of the undead Fever, the look in her lightless eyes...she doesn't have time to dwell on the pain of it. The sorceress has already sent some sort of spell her way and she gamely leaps aside to avoid them, but they follow her as they move, slamming into her side and flank as she tries to dodge. It feels like nothing more than a punch to hard, fit muscle and she shrugs it off with ease.

Valdis isn't dumb enough to believe that's the most this Fever can do. Fever is calculating, if anything this was a low probe into how much power will be needed to bring her down. The answer is most certainly a lot more. She shakes off the little missiles, and lunges, seeking to cross the distance between them within a few bounds. She is large, yes, but also terribly fast.

zombie queen, black light guides you.

[abhorrently]

Collision, like something foretold, between one living Fever and one dead. The dead and throat torn one might have her ruthlessness rated higher, but the one still breathing has tricks the other had not learned at the time of her demise, and they both harbor hate. Back and forth, spells and physical movement, the flash of a dagger and the bright ozone of magic both piercing the air. There is no decadent beauty in this - it is a raw rage. No wasted motion, nothing that does not drive them closer to their goal. They pursue and are pursued in turn.

Fever does not relent. Will not, cannot. She hunts herself to a nearly single minded goal, driving her off from more populated sections until she can land the executing blow. Hard fought, hard won, and it's only the morning. But she doesn't stop there - however she strikes herself down, she descends upon the new corpse, one of her blades withdrawn and brought to cut, to stab, to pierce, over and over and over until the creature's abdomen is a ruin, until her hands are scarlet with her own blood. Until soft tissue yields and she sees bone, feels nothing but ash and meat. Until she feels finished.

It will never, never be enough, but there are others to strike down. Others to see to. And Fever finds herself capable of drawing back, keeping the corpse in sight on reflex. A gesture, a whispered word, and around the pair, enough rain falls on the ground for her to start healing.

Her heart still pounds in her chest. Give her a moment to rest and recover herself after that - there's so much still to handle, after all.

[priestessofthewilds]

A paper bird alights on Fever's shoulder and warmth fills her tired body.

[Roll a D20]

[abhorrently]

[2.]

Though an unfamiliar force, the bird is welcome for the energy she feels restore to her. She can keep going, and she will, and this helps a great deal.

ghuleh, ghuleh. (wildcard.)

[abhorrently]

[want something custom or not mentioned? have an idea of something you want to throw at me? let's go! plotting comment here for ease.]