pumpkinhollow (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
pumpkinhollow) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
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.
Melanie King | Closed + Radio and Wildcard
A better line of work... [Radio Broadcast]
Melanie's about due to start her segment on relevant monster research when things start to go to hell outside. Half-way through an update about First Aid and Sally Boyle's ongoing trials on Hanahilator treatment, there's a knock on her door. At first, she ignores it—she's got a show to finish and really, people should know better than to knock during it by now, like come on. Basic broadcast etiquette.
But the knocking gets more insistent, so eventually she huffs, sighs, and rolls her chair over to open the door. Anyone still listening will then hear:
"What do you want? Seriously, I know I'm blind but surely you can see the 'on air' placard is ou— wait, what? There's what coming out of the ground? Oh you've got to be fucking kidding me."
Some muffled sounds of movement and hushed voices are followed by her clearing her throat.
"Well, today's segment on the Hanahilators is going to have to have to be cut short there, folks, because as I'm sure some have you have already noticed: we've got zombies! Get inside and barricade your doors and listen in here for updates as we get them."
Melanie continues to broadcast throughout the rest of the crisis, with breaks here and there for rest, beating a stray Yorick or two back from the door with her cane, and when there's nothing new to report.
And at some point, she's joined by one Anya Kovaks, who'll be sharing emergency first aid tips for folks out in the fray.
..than Motherfucking Vigilance [for Anya]
"...that's all for now. This is Melanie King, broadcasting from the Pumpkin Hollow Radio tower," Melanie says in her radio voice, before hitting the broadcast switch and sagging back in her chair with a groan. "At this rate I'm going to have no voice left by the end of this."
Don't give me vigilance [Wildcard]
[ Hit me, if you wanna come by the radio or catch her during a brief break in Town Hall. ]
no subject
"I could help out," she offers. "People probably need first aid tips, right? I know how to do surgery with kitchen implements, I could--- maybe help people."
no subject
"That would be a fantastic idea, actually. The last thing we need is people blundering around making people's injuries worse and you really do know your stuff."
She doesn't need to have the full picture of what gave her that knowledge to know that, dream or not the nightmare gave her every reason to trust Anya's hands.
"I'd say we coulda done with your help back when we kept getting attacked at the Archives, but honestly," she snorts, and at the same time perfectly reaches out to snatch up Dread Pirate Jones from biting a cable—she knows the sound of his little paws, "—I don't think I got injured once when fighting off the Flesh? In hindsight that should've been a red flag."
no subject
no subject
"According to Martin, yes it was! I suppose he could be backing up Tim's commitment to the bit but I don't think he's as much the type."
She could've asked Jon too, he probably wouldn't lie to her face about anything out of guilt these days, but that'd mean talking to Jon.
"Honestly I am glad I missed the bug stuff. I mean, everything we dealt with was nasty stuff, but the whole hive thing sounded disgusting. And unstabbable. Being stabbable was a very useful characteristic for things to have whilst I had stabbing things disease."
no subject
Outside of the people who were there, Melanie is the only one Anya's talked about everything with. It felt important, after the nightmare, for them to be more open about their history. And it's good to have someone who knows.
"But I definitely wouldn't blame you for wanting to miss the bugs. That's gotta be my least favorite of all the fear things you've told me about."
no subject
"Honestly, your situation might be one of the only situations that I don't think it could've made much worse." Where she stands on the theoretical introduction of a certain Jimbo and the sharp end of something metal has never been less than obvious, since she got the full story, but— "Though, honestly, the thing about it was— at the time, it felt... good. You know? It didn't even feel like being in control, or like I was fixing anything, it just... felt good. But in the way that— ugh, it's hard to describe. Good in the way alcohol feels good until the hangover hits."
Sometimes she thinks about how the bullet didn't even have the decency to wake her up and let her stab Jon before he cut her leg open. Before the trauma, the violation. That's just how the fears go, she guesses.
She shakes her head. Rubs idly behind Dread Pirate Jones' ears. "Anyway, I think the Corruption must get the most like, background radiation of fear from people who otherwise don't care that much out of— any of them." Except maybe the End? "It really is just that gross."
no subject
no subject
"Yeah. I think you're onto something there. Even after the bullet was gone... the first few days I felt almost empty. Like it took all my own anger with it. It came back—I mean," she scoffs, gestures at herself, "obviously, look at me—but I don't think I can say for sure that I wouldn't have... gone back, if it'd been an option in the immediate aftermath of it all."
Dread Pirate Jones tries to escape her lap to commit some further crime and she tucks him back effortlessly, scratching under his chin to make him chill.
"Which you'd think would make me more grateful for the others saving me from the damn thing but ehhhhh."
no subject
"I think... I can understand the logic. Sacrificing the friendship to help the friend. I think they knew the consequences, and deciding you being okay was more important than the relationship itself. Still sucks that it had to happen, but I don't think they blame you for how you feel."
no subject
"Yeah." It had to be done. Knowing it had to be done is the only thing that kept her from totally losing it once she could feel angry about it again. It was violating and horrible but at least it wasn't senseless. "Me and Basira— we're alright now, at least. Jon's— trickier. Especially after. Y'know."
The opera didn't exactly help make that relationship any easier to... can you call it repair when you've never truly got on?
The nightmare helped in the end. Their shared space in that realm of bad dreams did something for both of them. The opera just felt like being a puppet again.
no subject
no subject
"Yeah, at least he's not the kind of guy who needs the threat of violence to keep to himself." She's glad Anya's firmly protected from that kind of thing. And well, if she wasn't already, Melanie would be more than happy to lay down a few well-placed jabs of encouragement herself.
Willingness that makes it no less a relief that she hasn't actually had to, in either case.
"It's all just a lot, right? For all of us. Just. Trying to move forward."
no subject
Anya continues picking at some string on her skirt. "So, how long do we think this one will last? Think we'll get any exciting new traumas?"
no subject
"Yeah, it helps. It definitely helps."
They might still technically be trapped in a bubble but at least the bubble's big enough to live in without being forced to rub shoulders with the people you want to avoid. They made it out of their situations in the end. Fucked up as what they had to do to do so was.
"I'mmm going to be an optimist for once and say less than a week. If what we've been hearing about just needing to kill the things is all we need then we've got plenty of badasses out there getting it done." Good time to have people like Daisy on your side. "So long as we stay up here, we might even get off without the traumas! Can't say the same for everyone else though."