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ph_logs2025-05-21 07:05 pm
pumpkinhollow) wrote in ph_logs2025-05-21 07:05 pm
Entry tags:
May Event - All Too Familiar
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.
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.
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.
no subject
Not even Shen Qingqiu himself could tell you how many times he died the previous summer, when he wandered lost in bewildered in the thickest parts of the woods, wrestling with his own damaged mind and crazed thoughts after he suffered the mental touch of Nyarlathotep. But now the mystery is laid to rest in the most horrid way possible: four monsters with his face stagger through the town, all of them sporting terrible head wounds, all leaking noisome black tar from their eyes and mouths with their hair hanging loose down their backs like vengeful ghosts. The first monster, face marred by deep scratches around the empty sockets that should have held his eyes, mutters and groans a litany which the other three echo in tortured tones.
H' h' ah'legeth h' ah'legeth ah'legeth oh! ahfhtagnor yg' darth, ah'li'drn ot shuggothh, ahagl h' ah ah'n'ghft? mgep hh' n'ghft'drn mgep h' r'luh h' l'hru'ul ahororr'e?
And the other three mournfully echo, H' h' ah'legeth h' ah'legeth ah'legeth, as they trail behind him.
One is the Loneliest Number
Shen Qingqiu has taken up a position above the main door of Town Hall, controlling his sword with hand signs as it flashes and dances through the air, neatly avoiding all living persons even as it skewers the zombies and cuts them to shreds.
"Quickly!" he calls to the people below. "Get inside!" He looks out for anyone who seems to be struggling; if need be he'll leap down to carry them through the doors himself.
Four is the number of death
What happened to this guy? Purple's pretty sure that's not a normal colour for human fluids, and it doesn't even look like it's what killed him, unless the seeping blood and bonus holes all over him and his backup dancers' heads came afterwards. The way the oozing, moaning SQQ squad can enunciate so clearly with perpetually dribbling mouthfuls of thick black goop is unsettling.
The eyeless SQQ zombie gets a little too close for comfort, and they swing their shovel at his head. "Fuck off!"
no subject
"Ymg' ah ahnyth h'?! ah n'ghftog shugnahoth uh'eog ymg' r'luhhor?" Do you serve him? Is the obsidian emperor your god? echoes the words in Purple mind, and then as a group the three zombies leap on him all at once, tearing at his suit with inhuman strength and sharp, jagged nails.
cw: body horror even by zombie standards
Thoughts of the last time they got jumped by a bunch of people and the view they got on the long way down from the MIRA building's observation deck afterwards flash through Purple's mind along with the telepathic messages as they struggle to break out of the zombies' grip. Their own inhuman strength is evenly matched against the SQQs', or at least any individual one of them, but the zombies have more mass and more grabbing, tearing hands than they do. They aren't going to win this fight in this shape.
They brace themselves against the zombie grabbing their arm and open their own torso up into a maw of razor-sharp teeth, from which a needle-sharp tentacle bursts and stabs the zombie facing them through the chest. It retracts back as quickly as it emerged; if they're lucky, anyone looking didn't see exactly what it was or who it came from.
no subject
Meanwhile, the blind zombie isn't quite finished off just yet. It crawls over, despite the gaping wound in its forehead, and grabbing on Purple's suit it begins to pull itself up his leg, also making for that gaping mouth.
[closed to Jonathan Sims]
Finally one of the monsters corners Jonathan Sims in an alleyway, advancing on him without, it seems, any spark of recognition. Its hands are by now covered in blood and gore; it raises them, fingers spread, ready to clutch and tear. From its lips still fall its litany of complaints, the language strange and foul to the ears but the meaning still somehow perfectly clear: he lies he lies he lies...
no subject
It's only when he feels he's seen enough that he starts to retreat, that at last, he's spotted.
He'd recognize Shen Qingqiu anywhere, but even if he didn't see those tattered, bloody hands, he'd know something is very wrong. And the language, though foreign and setting Jon's blood cold, is known, instantly translated.
Fighting his way through would be no good. He's never been much of a fighter, not really. But even if he could, could he deny the call to pick deeper at the wound that killed his friend?
Pockmark scars open to form eyes, unfocused but quickly snapping to attention. Jon speaks, slow and measured - his words, a hook, looking to pull more from the throat of the maddened corpse.
"Tell me what you've seen. Who lies?"
no subject
It seizes Jon by the front of his sweater, claws sinking through fabric and pricking his skin as the monster hoists him into the air. With these eyes I saw his face, the squamous reality of everwinding limbs, exalted pandemonium stretching endlessly, omnipresent throughout the...the...
The monster seems to waiver in place, Jon's toes very nearly touching the ground as it adjusts its grip. A spark of recognition seems to ignite in its oilslick-bleeding eyes.
"...Jon?"
no subject
And, of course, made by this very fault of his, Jon is frozen in place, able to do nothing but listen as he's hoisted off the ground, only able to snare the wrists of the hands that lift him off of the ground.
Fear frozen onto his face collapses into a new sort of terror when he's actually able to meet the eyes of his fallen comrade, no longer being stared through as he recounts that which tore his mind apart. It's hard to focus on the stinging of claws against skin when there's something all the more terrible to consider, right before his eyes.
"Oh, god, Shen, you--- you're still in there," Jon murmurs, a quiet horror welling in his voice. "Yes, I--- I'm here. I'm here. I-I don't know what to do, but I can't leave you like this."
no subject
no subject
He shudders to think about what other Archivists may be doing. He tries to shove the possibilities from his mind as quickly as possible.
"You said--- Nyarlathotep killed you? That this is the end of some sort of eldritch madness? Do you remember anything else? Anything that could help us find him?"
no subject
It stops, staring at Jon with wide, filmy eyes. There's a snarl, and it pushes Jon back against the wall, hands locked tight around his upper arms.
"Jonathan Sims!" it roars, agonized with the sting of betrayal. "What have you been doing? Why do you have his mark on you?"