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

Radar O'Reilly | M*A*S*H | OTA

[incomingchoppers]

He's been through a hundred lockdowns in Korea and a couple more on the island besides. For the first time all month, Radar feels like he knows exactly what to do.

First: secure the perimeter. Next: herd all the big animals into the barn, then the smaller ones into the house, and secure them as well. Someone'll need to go out a couple times a day to check on the barn group, but Johnny Boy can take care of it in a pinch -- whether that's feeding the animals himself or guarding whoever's on rotation while they head out there. Third: contact his friends, either for backup or to let them know shelter's available.

Fourth: sit tight. Probably the hardest part, honestly. But he covers that reasonably well, too: "You want anything to eat?" he might ask you, or "I got a deck of cards if you wanna play something." If one of the smaller animals tries to kick up a fuss at you, he'll interrupt them with a "Hey! Be polite, they're a guest!" and do his best to corral them away.

And if he knows you're tougher than he is (which is... almost everybody), and he needs to go outside for barn duty or anything else, Radar will likely sidle up to you and mutter, "You got a minute?" He really, really doesn't wanna be zombie food. It's been a hard enough month already without getting killed on top of it.

[got another idea for a thread? come plot with me in the usual places!]

[priestessofthewilds]

A paper bird alights on Radar's shoulder when he sits outside the barn early in the ordeal. He will feel his wariness fade a little, replaced by confidence.

[Roll a d20]

[incomingchoppers]

[12!]

The ragged, stretched-thin feeling dulls. Radar finds he's sitting up a little straighter. He blinks at the small paper bird, then, cautiously, picks it off his shoulder for a better look.

[priestessofthewilds]

Unbidden, the paper bird unfolds into the image of someone who looks very much like Radar holding a pair of scales. Text scrolls across the image.

Justice

[Radar will feel bolder, less nervous and more confident in his protection of Baker Ranch, he instinctively knows the decisions he makes are fair and wise. In addition, he will be able to hear the thoughts of the living birds who flit through the sky, forewarning him of any danger that may reach the perimeter, and any allies.]

[incomingchoppers]

Huh. It kinda looks like one of Bronwyn's cards. Except that's him in the middle, and...

A wash of calm overtakes him as he studies his own face. Radar even starts to smile, a little. Yeah. Yeah, okay. He can do this. He looks up at the birds winging overhead, listening to their song, hearing something in between the notes that he knows he can understand, just like he knows he can keep the ranch safe.

Radar gets up, dusts off his pants, and pockets the card. Time to get to work.

[cyansoldier]

Radar finds her knelt on the front porch, taking five minutes to catch her breath before she throws herself back into the rotted congregation. She bears the brunt of battle well; dried blood plasters to her nostrils, her sleeves are claw-torn, knees scuffed, muscles screaming. None of this deters her. She refuses to fall.

When prompted with 'got a minute?', Carolina rises from her spot using the stock of her rifle, ready to make herself useful.

"Yeah. What is it?" She doesn't smile at him, but she doesn't frown either.

[incomingchoppers]

"It's feeding time," he says, still low, like he's afraid of being overheard. He glances up at the sky, listening hard: "We got about ten minutes til more get close enough to be a problem, and Johnny Boy's keeping an eye on the gate. Can you cover me while I'm going to the barn?"

Radar says all that with a quiet assurance that's a far cry from the high-strung kid she crossed paths with a couple months ago. Sure, he's still a little fidgety around the edges, but who wouldn't be with a bunch of zombies around.

[cyansoldier]

Something about the image grates her; a kid in his twenties, maybe a little older, responsible for keeping safe a barn's worth of people and animals. Keeping them fed, keeping them clean, maintaining the perimeter, assuaging nerves— his lap ill-suited for all of it. Too small for the responsibility that usurps him now. Wasn't there a man on this property before?

Invisible strings draw Carolina's features taut. She speaks quietly, because he does. It feels right. Safe. "Sure. That way?" She points with the muzzle of her firearm to a barn. Animals bleat and whine inside.

"Go ahead. I'll follow."

[incomingchoppers]

"Thanks," he murmurs, and together they make their way toward the barn.

The thoughts he picks up from her, skipping across his ears like stones across a pond, could've been said by half a dozen doctors or nurses back in Korea. How many times did Hawkeye mutter the exact same thing during surgery? They're just kids. The past month more than ever, Radar's felt that push-pull: wishing he was still a kid, knowing he isn't and can't be, a slowly growing pride as he gets his feet under him mixed with the terrible grief of knowing John won't catch him if he falls. He still doesn't completely know what to make of Carolina, but the familiarity of what she's thinking -- yeah. It's a little extra bit of steadying even beyond the guard at his back.

The chickens swarm Radar as soon as they're inside -- they couldn't fit the whole flock in the house and still have room for human people -- and he breaks into a laugh. "Yeah, yeah, I know, hold on a sec, I can't feed you if I can't get to the food! C'mon, scoot -- "

He edges through the smaller, feathery-er horde to the feed bins. From her stall, a heavily pregnant, dappled-grey mare hooks her neck over the door to eye Carolina curiously.

[cyansoldier]

"Yeah."

Carolina follows him inside. There, she's greeted by animal musk; feed and feathers and hair; warm breath and dank, stressed atmosphere. These animals must have some idea of what's going on. Smelt the rank, traveling death long before anyone in town. What confusing lives they must lead, able to sense and respond to danger but lacking the awareness of knowing why. Or maybe what. Maybe they don't require anything at all, and trust their instincts wholeheartedly. She doesn't know. Hasn't spent any significant amount of time alongside animals to know. Their behaviors are alien to her.

Bringing along her firearm feels wrong somehow. Like the collective might catch its steel gleam, smell its smoke and decide she, the human holding it, shouldn't be trusted. She can't bring herself to abandon it at the door, and satisfies both obligation and animal caution by slinging it over her shoulder.

The mare's slow blinking eyes arrest Carolina. Long lashes curtain the glazed, saucer pupil. She turns her large head to observe, snorts once through wide nostrils. Carolina mutters her amazement, laughter and the armada-shuffle of chicken feet now apart of some inaudible background.

"She's beautiful," She murmurs, although she doesn't know to who. To the horse, to Radar, to her firearm companion— it could have been anyone. The grace of the creature requires she say it out loud, and so she does.

Feeling suddenly unsteady— unworthy?— Carolina approaches the horse with her hands raised. "Easy..."

[incomingchoppers]

"That's Helga," says Radar over the clucking. He scatters handfuls of grain over the barn's dirt floor, trying to direct the known bullies away from the smaller chickens so everyone gets their share. "It's okay, she's good with people. Only reason she might be cranky is on account of being ready to pop any week now, and I can't blame her, I'd be cranky too if I was carryin' around a whole extra horse all day. Especially with zombies wandering around outside."

Helga snorts, as if agreeing. She stretches her neck out further to keep investigating the newcomer. Carolina might be wary, but the horse sure isn't.

"You wanna feed her? I'll get Danforth, he's the next one over."

And he does not look nearly as calm as Helga, pacing the confines of his stall with his tail swishing violently. Being cooped up, plus the zombies, plus how protective he's been of Helga since she got pregnant? Radar's not surprised, and definitely doesn't want someone without much horse sense getting too close.

[cyansoldier]

"Helga."

She's close enough to rest her palms across the tough, round cheek and slender muzzle of the creature, which twitches reflexively. They trade curiosities, the dappled mare probing Carolina's skin and hair with her nostrils— and her, tracing fingers across the veins set into the horse's sturdy face. A glance over the stable door reveals her belly, swelled on either side. Yeah, she's pregnant alright.

"Better treat her right. No funny business." A warning to the rowdy stallion.

It seems unnatural that a place so harrowed by death should have the privilege to experience life at its source. She hadn't considered it a possibility. Assumed all creatures might be locked in some stasis; a purgatory where natural laws are bent or broken, and neither death nor life are finite. It makes the wonder of standing beside Helga all the more so. Feels herself separated by two degrees instead of one.

"Sure. Uh, what's... What am I looking for?"

[incomingchoppers]

Funny business?! How dare. Danforth grumbles; Radar snickers, despite himself. As one of the chickens tries to sneak behind him to get to the feed barrel, he whispers, "Voco," and conjures a semi-translucent hand to gently push it back. Turns out the magic Fever taught him is good for getting stuff from high places, squishing fae monsters, and corralling unruly farm animals.

"It's this one over here," he says, using the same hand to give the top of another barrel a couple whaps. "Use the blue bucket. She gets two bucketfuls -- put it in the big bowl next to her trough, and if the hay needs topping off there's more down that way."

The hand points to the bales on the other side of the barn, then poofs away as the spell runs out.

[cyansoldier]

Carolina looks between the phantom hand and Radar the way a person might a flying bug; with reserved curiosity. “You did that once before. Where’d you learn it? It couldn’t have been Korea,” Said mostly as a joke— one that falls flat without a punchline. Danforth snorts, deriding. He thinks it’s bad too.

Crossing over to the barrel of feed, she does what she’s told. Thin grain spills over the tin lip, hissing. She empties it, goes for a second.

Were they not under siege, Carolina might have found the task soothing. Simple, repetitious movements she could empty her mind to, if only she allowed herself. For now, she trains ears toward the door and partitions a sliver of mental space to feeding Helga.

The mare noses her way into the bucket.

"Seems like a lot to do, all by yourself."

[incomingchoppers]

"Oh, no, there's no magic where I'm from," says Radar, the guy who regularly overhears people's thoughts without even trying. He laughs a little. "Fever -- you know Miss Fever? White hair, red eyes, big scar goin' like this?" He traces the path of Fever's scar across his own face. "She taught me over the winter. Turns out even regular people can do magic here! You could probably learn it too if you wanted."

Danforth, sadly, only gets one bucket of feed because he's not pregnant. Such is life. That doesn't mean he's happy about it, though, and after Radar fills up his dish, he gives him a hard enough shove with his nose to send him stumbling.

"Hey!" scolds Radar. He pushes Danforth's nose back "No, sir, we don't do that! I know you're antsy but you just gotta sit tight and... ugh, I don't know what I'm gonna do with you..."

He trails off into more disgruntled mumbling as he checks the stallion's hay. At Carolina's next comment, though, he looks up.

"I'm not by myself. There's Edgar and Johnny Boy, and Kitty helps out a lot too when she's around." A quiet sigh. "But... it is a lot, yeah. Even if I'm kinda used to it on account of growing up on a farm, I ain't been on one full time in three years."

[maximumcake]

Valdis has official duties as the head of the constabulary, so very early into the chaos, Max decides to gather up the his and Valdis's three pokemon (plus one indignant cat) and take them out to the Baker Ranch to shelter in safety alongside Edgar and his newest housemate, Radar.

"Sure, what do you need?" he asks when Radar approaches him. Max might be a big sweetheart, but that doesn't mean he can't fight hard when he needs to.

[incomingchoppers]

"We're runnin' low on food for the rabbits and it's out in the shed." Radar grimaces. "I thought I brought in enough for a couple days, but I think Nibbles's got the same condition I do, where if he doesn't eat a whole lot when he's stressed he starts feelin' like his head's gone wobbly."

And then he starts eating the sides of his hutch, again, and really the last thing they need is Nibbles pulling another escape act. One of these days he's gonna get out, get too friendly with Bao, and gift the ranch with a whole bunch of tiny Nibbaos.

"Can you keep an eye out while I get more? You don't gotta go too far from the house, the shed's right out back."

[maximumcake]

"Poor bunny," Max says, "if only I could stress bake for him, too." Rest assured there has been no shortage of snacks for radar to soothe himself with.

"Of course I can." He reaches around and brings out a small knife he keeps in a sheathe at the small of his back. It's razor sharp and well-balanced. "I'll watch your back, you carry the food."

[incomingchoppers]

Edgar sure picked a keeper, all right. Moving out to the ranch full time has been pretty rough, but secretly, Radar hopes it means he'll get to eat Max's cooking more often.

"Thanks. Copy that," he says. He eyes the knife with mild trepidation -- wow, Max was just carrying that around like it was no big deal?! -- before peeking out the back door. "...Looks like it's all clear."

Carefully, caaaaarefully, he starts tiptoeing toward the shed.

[maximumcake]

Radar is in luck, that's exactly what it means. As if Max could resist cooking for someone who loves food this much?

Seeing the way Radar looks at the knife, Max sheepishly ducks his head. "I swear, I do know what I'm doing with this. I've been training for eight or nine years by now." This is meant to be reassuring. Debatable if it is.

He's is right behind as they tiptoe out. At first, all seems fine. They make it to the shed without incident. But Max is still keeping his eyes out. Good thing, because there's a group of six Yoricks shambling their way and the winds have just shifted.

"I think we better take what we have and go. I see a group heading our way."

[incomingchoppers]

Startled as he might've been, Radar figures it's good one of them knows what to do in a knife-versus-zombie fight. All he can manage with his own pocketknife is cutting open feed bags and slicing apart snares in a pinch.

He stiffens, a bucket of rabbit feed cradled in both arms, as he hears the inbound Yoricks. "Shoot," he hisses. "Okay, c'mon -- "

He sidles toward the door and peeks around Max. But... he's not looking in the same direction.

From the opposite side of the ranch, in tandem with the group Max spotted, a second pack of Yoricks has begun to close in on them.

cw: suicidal ideation

[maximumcake]

Max realizes this a second later and swivels his head to see the other group too. Shit. That's a lot of them and all he has is his knife. He could probably best three of them at once, tops, and probably not without injury. This many? Suicidal to even attempt it. 

"Shit. Okay, we might need a new plan. We could close ourselves in here and hope they lose interest or..." a beat while he thinks of what else "...or I could transform into a wolf and try to keep them off you while you run back." He doesn't expect to survive that option but at least Radar would be able to get home with the food.

[incomingchoppers]

A flicker of noise crosses Radar's mind; it kinda sounds like crunching bone, and has the slipperiness of an ambulance floor during a real bad push. He shivers like he's physically trying to shake it off. What's he supposed to pick?

(He thinks of that paper bird, and the little half-crumpled card in his pocket. Justice. The anxiety quiets.)

"I think if we both run we can make it. Turn into a wolf just in case, but -- if we just stay put they're gonna break in sooner or later, right? We gotta get moving. And nobody's gonna die," he says, firmly, just to get the rest of the breaking-bone noise out of his head. "Not if we're quick."

Just like running from snipers, right? They can do this.

[maximumcake]

Max watches this reaction, unsure what it means, but he knows it's significant. He trusts Radar's suggestion when he makes it. No time for back and forth, they need to move.

"Yeah, that's what I think too. Can you please pick my clothes up after I shift? I'll still be able to talk to you telepathically, so you don't have to worry about that part."

As soon as he finishes that sentence, he shifts forms right there in place. It's painful, every bone in his body crunching and crackling as they bend and reshape, but it's over so quickly he barely does more than grunt from the discomfort. Just like that, there's a unusually small black wolf, roughly the size and shape of a German Shephard, standing in a puddle of Max's clothes before Radar.

You open the door and I'll run out first to clear the way while you follow. Okay?

[incomingchoppers]

Oh, ugh, ick that's gross, he didn't know shapeshifting could get that messy-looking. Hopefully that's all the crunching-bone noise in his head meant, though!

"Got it," he says, already scooping up Max's clothes to bundle them in his arms with the rabbit food. "Okay, on three. One. Two..."

And on three!, he flings the door open.