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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.
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Despite all muttering, Inspekta takes off as soon as they're gathered up, slower than he might've liked to wind through the sky. He does what he can to stay unnoticed, both by undead upon the ground that could strike them, and anything else that might be in the sky. They don't live too far off, but making sure they're not followed is a delicate matter, to say the least of it.
"Cappy knows! ...Well, as of 'bout an hour ago, anyways," Inspekta replies, awkward. "It's a long story, but what yew guys need to know aboud'it is that somebody saw us strugglin', n' gave me a pitch to use bein' a god again to help us! I did a lil' favor, and now, I was able to get yew guys outta all this mess. Ain't that worth a lil' weirdy-ness with seein' this old mug again?"
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"You said you was done wit' bein' Inspekta!" she cries, her accent thickening. "You said you were gonna try bein' a better Hector! I was there, erryone was there! The gods were there! Was that just -- just bullshit??"
She's getting so worked up that it's starting to leak out her face, twin tear tracks dampening her blue fur.
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At this moment, they can't even decide how they feel about this whole thing, themself. How do you process something like this during a zombie attack? While flying through the air? How do you find the space to sit with all the implications of it, all the possible outcomes, and ruminate? How do you discuss constructively?
But then again, not everyone needs to do that in order to form an opinion. Patty knows her own heart so intrinsically that she's able to feel betrayed immediately. They envy that emotional acuity, even if it's hurting her in the moment.
They say nothing again, letting Inspekta answer for his choice.
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Inspekta flounders, glancing down to his cupped hands, but it's not long enough to meaningfully see the faces speaking up to him. His face contorts into an anxious frown, and were it not for the wind battering it around, his tail would certainly start lashing.
He'd never lived these things, that the other Bizzyboys who'd returned said that he's done. That he chose to give up godhood, that he made a promise to do better as he was, that he'd admitted something that he's known but tried to deny - that godhood isn't good for him. That, to try to improve, he'd need to free himself from it entirely. It sounds like things he'd do, of course, and he'd likely make that very choice if presented with it now, by the gods of his own world--- but it makes it no less difficult to grapple with, to be breaking promises he hasn't made yet.
"I'm not just back to bein' Inspekta, I'm still bein' a better Hector, it's--- a tool on da belt! I can switch it on n' off," he tries to explain. Insistent, urgent, the projected confidence slipping in his desperation to be understood. "It ain't like it was, but... when yew're a leader, yew gotta make choices like this sometimes! Tough calls to keep every-buddy safe. And problems like these ain't Hector-solvable problems! This isn't God Grove no more! This ain't somethin' we come-mew-knee-kate our way out of!"
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Throughout this salvo of hurled accusations, her voice wobbled and cracked, and finally she turns to press her hot, tearful face into Pokey's shoulder, shaking hard as she tries to grapple with her own raging emotions. "Can't believe you," she growls, "Just can't...fuckin' believe you..."
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They understand Hector too. It's hard to feel like staying fully human is the right thing to do under the thumb of helplessness, isn't it? Pokey can't say they haven't wished for ways to keep everyone magically safer. It still feels like a betrayal of his values, to an extent, but is it really impossible for him to still self-improve like this? What were his exact words?
I let power get the better of me. I need time to figure out what makes me, me, again.
But the gods still wanted him, didn't they? A noble sacrifice, Click Clack had called it. But they called for him, when the time came. He was the one who said no.
Godpoke bundles Patty in their arms, the same way she did for them, and looks up at him. Even with how softly they speak, their chiropteran echo carries their voice through the wind.
"She's not wrong," Kelaiah remarks. "This choice is yours, and you have to make your own decisions about what's right for you, but these fears are things you could have talked to us about. We talked to you about ours. We're a family. Leaders have advisors and confidantes, they make hard decisions by consulting the people they trust. If you don't trust us to have your best interest in mind, or Capochin, then who do you trust?"
A beat.
"Is it permanent?"
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Any defensiveness is quashed like a fire doused on flame, leaving only muddy soot in its wake. The self-assurance he'd stacked up atop flimsy blocks of unearned confidence tumbles down in a swift few minutes, after all these weeks he's tried to build it, to make himself so certain that, when they found out, they'd understand. They'd see it as the bold risk it was. That this wasn't some bid for unearned power, this was to lift them up with him! That everything he's done, he's done for them!
( "Are you sure this is what you want, Hector?"Miss Mitternacht's voice slices through a tangled train of thought, leaving the strands falling away, swept aside by attention. Her long, skeletal neck leans down, and her masked face tips to the side, seemingly painted eyebrows furrowing in concern. Combined with the large hand that comes to his shoulder (or attempts to do so - it practically engulfs his whole side), it makes him feel like he's a child again, being soothed after a nightmare.
"What'cha mean, Miss M?" Hector laughs in a good-natured sort of disbelief, but the nerves that tinge it don't make it come across as casually as he'd like it to. "'Course I am! Me n' tha Boys have been workin' hard as ever for this! It's a lil' late to start gettin' cold feet, ain't it?"
She thinks I can't handle it, his mind jeers. She knows I'm a fraud. Nothing I can do would be anything without my Boys.
"You just seem..." Trailing off, Mitternacht glances to the side, choosing her words carefully. "Stressed, moonbeam. You've won the election, but you're still buzzing around, like you can't pick a direction. You're in deep, junebug, I'm not even sure if you're getting sleep---"
"Rhymin' again, Missy M."
"Oh, butternut squash--- you know what I mean, though, don't you? I know there's been a lot of momentum around this, but if it's not what's in your heart..."
Hector would wring his tail in his hands, if those big, worried eyes weren't upon him. It's not like the thought hasn't crossed his mind. Becoming a god means no longer being a person, not really; you embody something so much bigger than yourself, become something so much more to so many people. Hector is a person, but the God of Leadership is an idea, an embodiment, something to work in the name of, something to pray to.
The second he's through that Rift, Hector dies. The seed of divinity cracks his feeble existence open like dry soil, giving way to flourishing, shining radiance. Something that will matter to people.
What is the alternative, though? He decides not to, he lives his feeble little life, he dies, and everything he was, everything that made him a person worth knowing, worth loving, having a life worth living, is gone? Everything his Boys worked for, in pulling themselves out of Drain and striving for better, goes to waste? That the great unifier his people needs never comes to fruition, all because he's scared of change?
This is what he has to do. He needs this. Everyone needs this. For himself, for the Bizzyboys, for Drain, he has to do this.
"Yew kiddin'? I never been more ready!" The reassurance is upbeat, and Hector lifts his hands, fingers and thumbs pointed to make a little frame around his face. "I can't wait! Tomorrow, yew're gonna be seein' a whole lot more'a this face! All yew need to worry about is showin' me the ropes!"
-
They don't understand that, though, do they? They think that this is just the same old Inspekta again. Vanity and glory, at all costs, including everyone else who never asked to have to pay for such a thing.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. That's what you get for making deals with demons. What were you thinking?
"It ain't like that. Of 'cawse I trust yew all, but--- a good leader makes the hard decisions, so his people don't got to. I take on the reese-ponts-ability, so nobody else needs to. I did this so yew all don't gotta worry anymore, because yew matter! Yew all got enough to worry about, n' it's my job to take care of what yewr worryin' about! Yew two, yew'll--- yew'll understand that, when yew're older. It ain't that simple."
A beat of quiet, of wind whistling past, of stewing in thoughts like a growing storm. His frown deepens; frowns look strange on Inspekta's face, for how often he forces smiles.
"...I think it's permanent, yeah. I didn't think t' ask."
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They look to Patty. "The reason why he wanted to stop being a god was to find himself again. To reconnect with his values and be grounded again. It's not impossible for him to still do that like this, especially since he can switch it on and off, like he said. We just have to be very open with each other. We can't undo it now, but we can work together to make sure this is a good thing, and give Hector the support he needs to stay grounded." They hold her tighter. "We're a family. We can do this."
They look to Hector, pleading eyes behind that shadow over their face. They set one hand down on his open palm. "Right?"
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But that's not the person Pokey wants her to be. It's not even the person she wants to be. But still...still...
"What are we going to do if he changes his mind?" she whispers to the Godpoke. "If he goes crazy again, who's going to make him stop?" It was an all hands on deck scenario the first time around, and they don't got a Miss Mitternacht or a Bauhauzzo to hit Inspekta with the words that count. Would her and Capo and Pokey be enough?
And what happens if they aren't?
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The carry of echolocation is not easily stifled by harsh wind or murmured exchanges. There is no way for Godpoke to shield their words from Inspekta's ears.
Perhaps he needs that.
"But he doesn't want that to happen. And what he needed then was a strong support network, so that's what we'll be. We'll keep him grounded, keep an eye on Capo, and we'll have faith that he's learned that power didn't make him happy, and that his happiness is here with us. Okay?"
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If he goes crazy again...
He'd lose us. All of us.
Empty heavens, alone.
It's a good thing this form doesn't have a stomach. It'd be so very tied into knots, he'd likely get sick.
"We're gonna stick together. I'm gonna be okay, n' I'm gonna make sure yew're all okay, too," Inspekta agrees, though it has none of the gusto nor desperation of his prior arguments. The words are almost tentative; it's hard to have that unearned confidence when it's rightfully had holes shot in it, after all. "Full disk-close-sure from here on out."
Somewhere inside his coat, a hand crosses it's fingers. It isn't that he isn't going to try, of course - but if he can help it, they can never know exactly how this came to be.
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(Internally, he's downright sentimental enough to be fighting off tears in those big eyes of his, if he hadn't gotten so good at it after all these years. They're a family. Even so far away from home, so far away from the rest of his Boys and a whole world that he'd wronged and still needs to make right with, he's still got a family.)
"Families stick together," Inspekta agrees, finally managing a little, sentimental smile. "And I love yew two too, I hope yew both know dat. I ain't takin' none'a this for granted. We're gonna get it all figured out, okie dokie?"
A beat, and he tips his head down to look at them a bit better, his smile turning to a playful grin.
"And hopefully I won't give neither of yew too many grey hairs in da process."
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Between their legs, she reaches for Pokey's hand, lacing their fingers together. She doesn't know what it'll look like just yet, but as long as she and Kel stick together, something, things will work out. She hopes.
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But they weren't bluffing before. If it came down to it, if they were ever in the position of having to choose, they'd choose Patty every time.
Please don't make me choose.
The rest of the flight over is quiet, but blessedly short as the three of them hurry into the house that Inspekta's extra hands have nearly finished boarding shut. Capochin looks immediately relieved by their arrival.
"Gods, there you three are! I was startin' to feel my blood pressure go up." He loops one arm around Pokey and one around Patty to hug them, before going to Inspekta to kiss his oversized face. "I checked in with the other Bizzyboys, told 'em they could come here if they wanted, and Spamton's holdin' down the fort at the Burger King. Apparently he's killed like three zombies, so. I think he's fine. You guys okay?"
"Hanging in there," Pokey murmurs, looking to Patty.
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The slight against Inspekta's work isn't intended; actually, Patty didn't even think of that. She's seizing on the first excuse she could think of to get Capo alone -- so they can talk.
Split - Capo & Patty
A beat, and he notices how distressed she seems. "Hey, you okay, kiddo?"
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Pokey's probably going to be able to hear them no matter how quiet she is, but hopefully Inspekta can't hear a thing as she mumbles, "No."
A little more clearly, she manages to get out, "I'm tryin', but I'm really not okay at all, Capo..."
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She jerks her head up, giving Capo the saddest, most lip-wobbling look he's probably ever seen on her face. "How are you holding up?" she asks him suddenly. "What do you think of, you know, all this?" She waves her hand back at the front of the house, where Hector and Pokey are.
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Split - Hector & Godpoke
Pokey looks to Inspekta, a little awkward. "So, how's all this work, anyway? You said you could switch back and forth, right?"
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"Shore can! I could even show ya!" He assures them. "All I'd need is a couple'a seconds and a room with nobody in it to do the lil' trick to it. I was thinkin' about switchin' back, anyhow. Seems like this look, uh... still ain't sittin' too good with Patty."
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They catch themself rambling, and trot after him. "I'm definitely curious about how all this works."
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It's reluctant, his leading Pokey into the God Complex, but he does. In a perfect reversal of what he'd shown Capochin, he pulls his head into the collar of his coat, grabs the edge of the fabric, and instead of revealing any hands beneath his coat, it parts open like a curtain, vanishing and revealing Hector once more, his smile forced and absolutely dripping anxiety that he'd managed to just barely hide as Inspekta.
"Aaand there we have it!" He cracks that tense smile into an uneasy grin. "Let's get outta here for now, okie dokie? We can, uh... check on tha upstairs windows, I s'pose, since it, um. Seems like they... might need a few minutes."
He clearly doesn't love the idea of leaving them to their own devices, to most assuredly express how they know he'd messed this all up, but what can he do? Go lurk? At least this way, he can get Pokey's temperature on it, and show that he doesn't have to have his finger on the pulse of everything that goes on.
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