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

Hector/Inspekta | Great God Grove

[carefulinspekshun]

[ CW: Gore, cannibalism (in the final prompt), violence, potential character death. ]

The Beginning

When the commotion first begins, Hector almost assumes that he's just missed the start of some festival. Things have been so busy, it's entirely possible that something like that has slipped between the cracks, right? Head down, always buried in his work. He awakens that morning, confused, but in no particular hurry to peel himself out of bed and see what all the ruckus is about.

It doesn't take long for acrid smells and sounds of terror and bloodshed to show him that this is a mistake. One look out the window shows a living nightmare, the dead setting themselves upon the living, cruel magic and claws and weapons ensuring that another will join their ranks the next day.

It looks like the apocalypse.

Out— out are the lights— out all! [Closed to Capochin]

Amid the scramble to try to barricade their home and try to decide what to do, panic seeps further and further into every one of Hector's thoughts. Shutters are pulled closed, lights are turned off, doors are locked - anything that might buy them some time to figure out the best way to help, they do. Hector feels like he can't keep up. He doesn't have enough hands. He's too fragile, this way, to help meaningfully--- the burst of flowers that'd taken his life before, being stolen away by demons and tormented time and time again without any way to fight back, proved that easily.

He has the power to fix that, though, doesn't he?

All it takes is a little bit of betrayal. One that he can't justify hiding any longer.

Looks like Eligos will get his due after all.

During a brief lull, a pause between tasks, Hector's resolve cracks. He stops Capochin before he can move to do anything else, taking both of his shoulders. He looks terrified, but like he's desperately trying to steel himself. There's a deathly seriousness to this, almost a sort of grief that hangs on his panicked features. (You should start going ahead and grieving, after all. You never figured out how to break this gently, or find a perfect way to justify it. They'll never forgive you.)

"Cappy, I--- I gotta do somethin', but I need yew to trust me, and I'll answer any question yew got as soon as this is all over. Okay? Can yew do that for me?"

And, over each quivering form / The curtain, a funeral pall / Comes down with the rush of a storm [Closed to Patty and Godpoke]

It's hard not to look down to the carnage on the ground as Inspekta keeps as much of a distance of height from it as he can. There's undead in the sky, same as the ground - the only thing keeping him safe enough is the malleable size of gods, looking little more like a confetti streamer caught in a blustering wind.

Explaining is going to be difficult, but this is why he took that cob-forsaken deal to begin with! To help his people, and keep them safe when things start to hit the fan! And considering that he doesn't have many reasons to worry about his own zombified copy, likely weighed with age and plant roots alike, this is his first concern. (Getting them home safe with the world practically ending around them is another matter entirely, but one step at a time, right?)

Unfortunately, scaring them half to death is the last thing on his mind, and the priority is getting them somewhere safer as quickly as possible. A thin wisp of red bends and shifts to something much larger, and a disembodied head tilts at the window of the two's balcony, tipping his head. One knock, then two, before he cups floating hands around his eyes to try to peer inside, squinting to try to see any signs of life inside. "Pokey? Patty? Yew in there? ...And alive?"

While the angels, all pallid and wan / Uprising, unveiling, affirm [Open - Inspekta Classic]

With their people accounted for, one way or another, there's an urgency in trying to help anyone else he possibly can.

He's no good at fighting, not in a meaningful way; giant hands may bat away the more mundane undead, but outside of his domain, he can still feel pain, and anything with a bit too much pushback, he tries to keep his distance from. Any straggling members of the living in Downtown Pumpkin Hollow may find themselves attempting to be scooped up by disembodied hands the size of people (whether they'd want to be or not - he's not exactly asking permission first), brought away from the ground and to face large eyes that are quick to look them over for any signs of death.

"Hey! Yew feelin' alright? Need a lift?"

That the play is the tragedy, “Man” / And its hero, the Conqueror Worm [Open - undead Inspekta]

[ I'm good for characters to attempt to kill him, or for Zinspekta to kill other characters! He won't go down easy, but if interested, we can discuss dice rolling for it! :D ]

All it takes is one simple attempt to pursue the living, failing to find them behind the door of a gardening shed, for the sagging form of a Drainfolk, covered with blue and yellow flowers and deep, cerulean blood, to turn into something far worse.

Spiraling through the sky like a distorted dragon of tattered reds and golds, a false Inspekta searches the ground, seeking anyone it might be able to find. The usually pristine coat of the god is torn open, fluttering weakly in the breeze; lining the insides are vines and flowers, a mockery of a skeleton fused to the inside, a tortoise-spine shedding bloody petals in the breeze. Wild eyes snap to anything that moves, setting any number of hands that had descended upon the ground, some scuttling upon all fingers, some in a mockery of walking, upon their target.

The hands snare victims, but they don't kill them. They steal them away, and the razor-sharp teeth of the false god see to a much grislier end instead.

Finished with his latest quarry, but ever-insatiable, a beheaded body is dropped unceremoniously to the ground, before colorful eyes set upon their next target. The form of the undead Inspekta curls, winding, before it launches in a flurry of petals and blood towards whatever poor soul it's got its sights upon.

The hunt begins anew.

Wildcard

( Got an idea? Want Inspekta somewhere specific that's not in town? Feel free to toss it my way, I'm open to anything! )

[coolhatluvr]

Patty is the first to catch sight of that face with its huge, toylike eyes -- and because she'd been in the middle of trying to barricade their front door with furniture dragged over from all over the apartment, her first instinct is to shriek and throw a chair at the window.

Luckily it doesn't fly far enough to actually hit -- she's strong, but not that strong -- but Patty's still left staring, stunned, at the specter of Inspekta. She quickly rubs her eyes; she must be seeing things, right??

[elvaquerito]

Godpoke immediately comes running in a blind panic when they hear Patty cry out and the chair hit the floor. They're about to ask her what on Earth is wrong, when they skid across the kitchen floor to a screeching halt to a face full of Inspekta.

Hey what the fuck?

[carefulinspekshun]

Oh thank Clack there they are.

Not the reactions his best hopes would've wanted, but not the worst ones they could've been, right? It's not like they broke a window in his face or anything! Small victories are still victories. His smile turns anxious, and he leans back a bit, wiping a hand across his forehead.

"Oh, thank gods, yew're both okay! Listen, it's, uhhh. We ain't got much time for a big ol' ex-plan-aye-shun, but me n' Cappy got tha H.Q. all blocked up, so I'm here to get ya!"

A beat, awkward and tense.

"And, uh, we're gonna wanna make this pick-up quick, it's gettin' dye-sea out here."

[coolhatluvr]

"What the Drain??" Inspekta's explanation, bare-boned as it is, is at least enough to get Patty moving -- and the first place she moves to is the window, throwing it open to she can gawp at the whole length of The Eternal Worm Inspekta's body, floating in mid-air.

"Boss!" she squawks, pointing emphatically. "What the Drain is all this? When did this is happen? Since when are you Inspekta again???"

Sorry about your ears Pokey, Patty's feeling a lot of feelings very intensely right now.

[elvaquerito]

Inconspicuously, Godpoke tugs their hand down over their head a smidge further, glad that they'd put it on when things took a turn in preparation to run. Patty's shock is completely legitimate, even if Pokey's own is a bit subdued. This probably has a story that isn't going to make anyone happy. They take her other hand gently. "Hey. We gotta get out of here, and for better or for worse, he's our ride. We'll talk about it on the way."

that the play is the tragedy (cw: gore, death, etc) (get his ass)

[lovethyneighb_or]

Mulcahy crosses himself as he seees the shadow snaking through the sky. Good Lord, do these worldly crossroads bring in some ever-stranger people.

He's been caught outside. When a decapitated body lands only yards away from him, he doesn't flinch; mostly he wonders if it means the strange sky-serpent is disinterested in that area now, and if it is, it's a way to get out of where he's hiding, which is among some racks of tools leaning against a backyard shed. But looking up, he... he honestly isn't sure.

For now, he lies still.

[carefulinspekshun]

The stillness buys Mulcahy a few moments, fleeting moments of idle wheezing. Red and blue blood alike cling to those sharp teeth, hung open in an ailing, sickly wheeze. A cough wracks the god's warped body, and at last, the false Inspekta's attention lifts.

He skims the yards, the streets, nooks and crannies, anywhere he might find some living soul.

By sheer, cruel fate, he leans further down into the backyard where yet-unseen prey lies. His eyes manage to settle on those tools, but just under the shadow of the meager roof atop the shed, his bleary eyes can't manage to focus perfectly on that still shape among the tools.

A disembodied hand finds grass, to the shed - but misses its mark, just the same, and tries for the door. The dead stare doesn't waver from where it's trained, however. He stares right directly at, yet entirely through Mulcahy, even if he's managed to pull himself all too close for comfort.

[lovethyneighb_or]

He certainly can't move now. Not with that enormous, phantasmagoric gaze fixed on him--ah, in his direction. It will almost certainly notice if he so much as twitches. His breathing shallows; his own eyes, blue and miniscule by comparison, do not turn from the dragon's. He fears that if he so much as glances, the movement will give him away. Mulcahy is reminded of what it's like to hide behind sandbags.

The wind pricks his eyes. Slowly, so cautiously, he tries a blink.

[carefulinspekshun]

Hazy attention suddenly becomes so very sharp. The flicker of eyes, even for just a split second, is enough to draw his own. It isn't long enough or sudden enough to track easily, but that doesn't stop the dragon from bearing further down out of the sky, his breath heavy with iron and decay, only a mere short few feet away.

One of the giant hands that'd wandered at the door of the shed moves to the side of it, colliding with tools. They fall, clattering loudly as they collide with each other and the ground, prodded with a claw to prove to his satisfaction that they aren't alive.

No luck. The hand lifts, and those same claws scrape the side of the shed slowly, a steady search that ambles towards his target, hidden in plain sight. Perhaps the slow, deliberate motions are out of uncertainty? An attempt to scare him out of hiding, so he can be seized more easily? Out of a lack of thought altogether, simply wandering through each hunt on the basest possible instincts? It's impossible to say, but the hand grows ever-closer with each passing moment nonetheless.

[lovethyneighb_or]

His stomach turns between the stench and the steady advance of pressure. His skin rises in gooseflesh, and he feels a flash of cold move down his back and through his gut.

Mulcahy is struck, very suddenly, with a very horrible idea.

The dragon will give chase, but it'll be a chance. But it will be such a horrible violence--but this dragon is already dead, whoever has raised up the bodies beneath this island has already violated the will of the Judge--

The hand is too close. No time. God forgive me. Swiftly, Mulcahy grabs a spade and thrusts it towards one of those huge, dizzying eyes.

All the lights are out

[staybizzy]

Capochin stops his scrambling around for his sending stone, broken from the trance of searching by being grabbed. "Wha--- Do somethin'? What the Drain do you gotta do? I gotta still gotta try n' gettaholda Moiré, Basira ain't answered me, and you was s'posed to call the kids!"

By "the kids," he means Patty and Godpoke. They're both in their late 20s, but the relationship has grown so familial that they've naturally become "the kids" at this point.

"What's goin' on?"

[carefulinspekshun]

"I--- I can't explain the whole thing, we ain't got time, but I--- I can go get 'em," Hector insists, frantic. "I'll get 'em and bring 'em here while yew worry about the rest'a the Boys. Okay?"

[staybizzy]

"Wh--- No, absolutely not, you ain't goin' out there in all that." Capochin is just as frantic, grabbing Hector's wrists. "I'm not losin' you again."

[carefulinspekshun]

"Yew won't! I can't--- it isn't---" Hector flounders desperately, and takes a hurried glance up. Nothing's threatening to breach any of their defenses. They have a minute. Gods, he didn't want to tell him like this. Hector takes in a shaky, anxious breath, and squeezes the shoulders he holds.

"I gotta show yew somethin', and I--- I need yew to trust me that I know what I'm doin'. That's all I'm askin'."

[staybizzy]

"I---" Capochin sputters. He's immediately suspicious. "I--- Of course I trust you. What's goin' on?"

while the angels

[thismaskismybadge]

Before he even gets the chance to finish asking his latest scoopee how they are, there's a burst of webbing being shot at his face.

It's not even on purpose, it's pure, startled reflex as Gwen finds herself once again cursing how her spider-sense won't let her in on the secret when something startling but harmless is about to happen to her. Talk about being picked up like a spider in a cup—

[carefulinspekshun]

The webbing hits, just as Inspekta had snapped his large eyes shut in surprise, scrunching his face to brace for impact from--- something. He doesn't actually know what it is that hit him.

That is, of course, until he tries to open his eyes again, and fails to be able to do so.

It's something sticky. Gods, why is it always sticky?

"Wh... kid, what is this?" He mumbles, a quiet sort of appalled that's greatly overshadowed by just how bewildered he is. A hand lifts to try to pry it off his face, and he's only just able to pull it away before it gets stuck all the way in the mess. "Oh, gods, dat's nasty, can yew undo this? I ain't tryin' to eat yew! Sheesh."

[thismaskismybadge]

Oh, geez, that wasn't what she meant to do. Or, well, okay, it was sort of what she meant to do in a reflexes-are-in-the-driver's-seat kind of way, but still, that's not the same thing as actually consciously meaning to do it.

"How was I supposed to know that! Usually if something huge is scooping me off the ground it's at least trying to, I don't know, hold me out of the way so they can do bad guy stuff!" she protests, waving her arms around in vague defence. "Seriously you have no idea how many times I've been picked up by a literal octopus. The suckers— uh, suck."

Literally.

As for the webbing— "But uh, sorry, dude, this stuff's not made to come off. I'd be falling to my death way more than even I'm destined to if it was easy to break."

[carefulinspekshun]

"What. Do yew mean. It don't come off."

Tentative picking turns to more frantic scrabbling at his face, and more frantic grasping and picking leaves him turning blindly, a directionless serpentine arching up into the sky. Left from right are indiscernible right now, but they can figure out where it is once they're up and away from any threats, right?

"Okay, kid, that--- ain't eye-deal, but--- it's okay! It's aaaaall fine," he says, with the tone and cadence of someone who is very much not fine with it. "I'm just gonna need yew to... direct me towards Townie Hall, so I can drop yew off! Just, uhhh. Gimme the... warmer-colder directions?"

Gods, this isn't going to work. Ohhh, he messed up so bad. But that doesn't stop him from turning, slowly and clumsily, holding his palm open to let her sit comfortably while he tries to work off muscle memory. (It doesn't work, of course - he's always been a little bit bad with directions, much less when he can't even see landmarks.)

[thismaskismybadge]

"It dissolves after like, a couple hours! It's meant to restrain bad guys! If they could just remove it then it wouldn't be very good at that!"

Okay so she isn't actually sure if it still comes off after a couple hours, the formula is slightly different here because it's the adjusted version Tarantulas and Peter came up with to suit the materials on hand, but it should be fine. She hasn't seen any of the stuff sticking around where she's shot it for longer than that. It's fine. Totally.

"Uhh— okay, colder, way colder, turn, like, south-west? Wait, no— never eat shredded wh— east! South-east."

aw fuck the eternal worm came back for the isle

[abhorrently]

A big target means that one needs to be nimble and constantly on alert. But it's the flowers and vines that set her mind to another purpose, and the recollection of that dismay and anger is fuel. The culprit may be worlds away, but her annoyance hasn't dimmed, and this creature needs to be ground back down into the dirt.

Besides. It feels good to be facing something big again - less of a chance for it to evade her. And as the undead god looks at Fever, she looks back at it, eyes blood bright and body ready. She can take this one. Or at the very least, drive it off - basking in the strange gift she's been given, confidence overflows.
 
No hesitation. She raises her hands and casts, snarling a spell that sounds like a command, and water downpours on the being, soaking cloth and fur and hands. Magic clings to her in the wake of the spell, and she uses it to fly away, heading up and touching down on a roof to get a new angle to fight at. Smaller she is, but also swift, and she doesn't intend to slow down.

[carefulinspekshun]

The undead god has snared many a target before, that when he spots this new one, the false Inspekta makes no more rush than he might any other quarry - and it seems that oversight is something he pays for.

Rushing water tears his attention away from the caster, up just in time to receive a wave to the face. The fear it inspires in the decaying beast is practically instinctual, and instantly visible. The grin and eagerness he wore melts away, and something that is so very unaware of his surroundings, that seems to have only the minimal thought cross his mind for the sake of the hunt, becomes sharply, momentarily clear.

He looks so very afraid.

The false god's serpentine body immediately collides with a building, winding around it, anchoring as if expecting more of those rushing waters to come - and then they do not, he coils upwards and upwards around the building, clawed hands still soaked as they pull his front half up beyond the roof, reaching toward the sun like a vile plant.

No more storm? Just fine. Now he can focus on catching this pest. And with two, then four, then six hands primed and ready, spilling forth from the coat and exposing more of those skeletal vines, he lashes forwards, every hand poised to try to snare his latest prey as quickly as possible.

[abhorrently]

No more? Oh, dead-thing-once-god. There is always a delay between the flash of lightning and the rumble of thunder. There is always a pause, a breath, before it lashes out again.

She has a target, so easily. And there are more, with his many hands - a few will be caught in the crossfire. She knows why she drowned him, and she knows the shape of his fear. It might be cruel, in another circumstance - but however much this being can endure, she has to bring. To slay the beast, or at least weaken it enough for someone else. There are too many people in this town to protect. Too many faces she wants to see and then claim that she did not fall.

Weaving additional complexity into this design, making it even harder to evade, more potent - and she asks the magic to do as she bids with a single word.

"Perurē!"

Lightning streaks out of the sky, aimed at the dead god's head, additional bolts coursing for some of his hands, the water a fine conductor to drag it closer to where his tender nerves might still hide. Seize him, scorch him, no matter the cost.

CW: mild eye horror

[carefulinspekshun]

The sound that escapes the false god is short, before the surging electricity cuts off anything else that might have escaped from that bloodied mouth.

Hands crash into the roof, curling and writhing like dying spiders, while that towering, corrupt sprout of his body is cut down, twisted and frozen as the electricity courses through every holy nerve in his strange body. Even as damp as they are, when the strike hits those roots and flowers that line the inside of his tattered coat, they roar to life, crackling fire and fracturing splinters scattering from the shredded fabric.

The coat never burns, but the fire glows painfully within; as soon as the first bolt is shaken, a pained sound turns to a snarl. The good eye remaining in his head snaps back to that tiny source of so much pain; the damaged one, a sign of other prey that fought back, continues to bloom through the charred petals that fall away.

He tries to lift his hands again. A mere three of the six he'd lifted before are able to rise, while the other three continue to writhe, before at last falling still.

Two hands ready claws, while one lashes forward, surging with a rush of energy shoved forth in his agonized form to try to seize her while he sees, as far as he can tell, an opportunity stands to finish this hunt.