ph_logs | May Event - All Too Familiar

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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.

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[He looks up from his spellbook and glances back at her with an expression of "really?".]

"Just look at the state of them. They're practically shambling along the road, and they're covered in dirt and debris. Either someone attempted to manufacture cauldron-born of the townsfolk, but succeeded in doing so only in the roughest way, or we're dealing with undead. I'm not sure what happens to the bodies of those who die, after all, so we might well be looking at the answer."

[He directs the massive golem into a location that best blocks the building from all three directions and then looks back at Sorceress.]

"Either way, the way they're closing doesn't look like they're here to sightsee."

[Scarlett purses her lips as she finally looks out over the shambling crowd.

Great. It is zombies. She lets out an exaggerated sigh. At least Sylus has been able to summon his golem.]

The magic does feel familiar... in a wrong sort of way. I certainly hope mine doesn't feel this way when I summon skeletons. It's practically nauseating...

[A pause.]

Do you suppose death works similarly to our world? Given how they say the dead don't stay dead here... But then... hm... that doesn't explain... copies? Is it the magic we're feeling...?

[As the throngs of shambling bodies grow ever-closer Sylus directs the golem to shift the stacks of lumber and building supplies to a more strategic layout in front of the Arcanium, arranging what was previously a small construction yard into passable defenses. A hole in the defenses would remain, funneling the increasingly hostile looking horde into a single point should they wish to assault their residence, and putting them squarely in-range of his Golem.]

"Death in our world was impermanent, but your remains had to be recovered in order for you to return. Here, the process is automatic. Mr. Aberdeen has died dozens of times, and every time he simply awakens somewhere on the island and goes to pick up where he left off."

[He looks back at Sorceress with a somewhat grim expression.]

"I have no idea if the body is restored when they're resurrected, or if they're simply reborn elsewhere on the island. If it's the latter... then all the remains left by the thousands of deaths since the barrier was raised could be utilized by someone with the magic to raise them."

Goddesses, that has to be unsettling simply just... waking up almost immediately after dying. No downtime.

[She stands ready, magic fully charged and her focus on the incoming horde.]

... That raises the question of if one of these remains are technically the original, or if it's similar to a insect shedding its skin.

I wish I had taken more time in the library to look for the specifics.

[Wizard looks around and then up at the Arcanium roof.]

"If I might suggest getting some elevation. Range is a boon to both our skills after all, and we don't need to make things any easier on these things."

[With that he leaps into the air and floats up to the roof, taking a position with good visibility on all three thoroughfares.]

"As to the bodies, I'd wager one of them has to be from their first death, but I doubt any have significance beyond being discarded shells. I've no idea as to the specifics though. There wasn't much to read up on regarding the island's current woes, but more about it's general history."

[Now he tells her. Sorceress sighs and rushes back into the Arcanium to grab a broom, floating gracefully back out and up to where Wizard has flown up to.]

I just hope they don't wind up damaging anything we've managed to fix up... and that this doesn't last more than a day.

Edited 2025-06-04 03:11 (UTC)

[Wizard's brow furrows as the mobs grow closer.]

"I don't imagine there will be an end to this that we don't blast our way through."

[He ignites a small dragon made of fire in the palm of his hand.]

"The question is, whether these are some kinds of twisted copies of the townsfolk or their reanimated bodies, will they resurrect the same way that we do when we strike them down? If they fall like a normal foe, then this should be a simple matter. If they revive, then that complicates things."

Of course. I suppose we've had it easy up until now.

[Sorceress readies her Blizzard spell, waiting for the mob to move closer together so she can strike them all at once.]

I very much hope they remain down for the count after we've defeated them.

Would you like to go first or shall I?

"I hardly think we have to choose. Suffice to say, there's plenty enough to go around. I'll take the ones coming from the direction of the graveyard, though, as there's a fair bit less that can catch fire. Goddess knows the last thing we need is to start an inferno while dealing with a monster incursion."

[He takes to the the air and hovers over to his target crowd. About twenty of the shambling bodies were coming from that direction, and closer inspection told Wizard that it was most certainly undead that they were dealing with. Charging a fireball, he hurls a sphere of explosive flame down into the crowd and immolates seven of them in the blast. Their ire is, of course, roused by having a clear target and they begin to clamor ineffectually in his direction but he simply floats back in the direction of the house to draw them towards the golem.]

Edited (1d20 x2 enemies = 20. 1d10 damage = 7 eliminated.) 2025-06-04 23:08 (UTC)

Right. Worse comes to worse, I'll toss a blizzard over any fire you might start.

[She flies around to the northern end of the Arcanium, watching the two streets that intersect near their place. When the zombies come closer and slowly begin to merge a bit, she casts on Blizzard over the group, five of the shambling corpses freezing completely in place and eventually shattering once the spell ends.]

[ooc: 1d20 x 2 enemies = 14. 1d10 damage = 5 eliminated]

[Gliding back over the the roof, he lands gingerly on the shingles and turns to face the remaining shamblers from his chosen crowd.]

"Well... I don't know what I was expecting, but that was a lot less in terms of resistance than I was ready for."

[He charges a trio of magic missiles and fires them at the crowd, the slow-moving green projectiles floating their way through the air before exploding on contact with their targets and eradicating five more of the enemies. Their progress accelerated in the face of direct opposition now, though, and they closed on the Golem.

The sigil Wizard had placed earlier flashed to life, slowing time for the undead entering it and reducing their progress to a snail's pace. His wood golem faced no such issues, however, and wasted no time in reducing the remaining eight ghouls to pulp.]

[It's hard to get the groups to fully merge, making Sorceress have to focus on one more than the other at first. Out of the first group, she manages to get the last remaining two with her Ice Bolts and another two from the second group, leaving five zombies.

Grumpy that it's taking her longer than it should, she floats closer to the undead to cast Ice Cloud, which finally finishes them all off. The witch lands softly on the ground with her broom and lets out a sigh.]

... Is there more?

[Wizard takes the sky again and looks as far as he can along the routes leading to the Arcanium.]

"It looks like there's scattered pockets of them pretty much everywhere, but that's all there is for direct threats at the moment."

[He lands back on the roof.]

"That's not to say that something couldn't draw their attention this way at any moment, or that the racket we just stirred-up isn't going to see us swimming in shambling townsfolk any minute now, but it seems the immediate danger has passed."

[Below them, the wood golem fidgets and stirs, bereft of targets but hungry for the fight.]

"I suppose we'd better shore-up the defences here again if we don't want them tearing all our work down around us. If this sort of thing is happening all over Pumpkin Hollow, though, there's no telling who else is in danger."

[Sorceress frowns, glancing up at Wizard as he speaks, then looking over at the golem.]

And here I was hoping for a more relaxed day... I do wonder how long this will take to remedy... and how long these zombies will remain down. We can't fight all day long...

Edited 2025-06-06 00:07 (UTC)

"Thankfully-"

[He taps his index finger against his lips as he considers their tactical options.]

"-I don't think any of those shambling whatevers we just put down pose even the remotest threat against the golem."

[Wizard glances around at the surrounding city suburbs before continuing.]

"We could likely leave him here while we go to help others, and he'd ensure the Arcanium remains intact. That is, if they're interested in property damage to begin with. Provided nothing stronger comes along he'd be able to ensure this crossroads became a graveyard. Alternatively, if we lock-up and head out there's a strong possibility they just completely bypass it, leaving us free to help others who've been caught in this shitstorm."

[Tucking his Grimoire back onto his belt, Wizard looks over to Sorceress for input.]

"What do you think?"

Are you certain? It isn't going to be too draining on you to keep him up and running?

[She looks to the golem then out across the streets for a moment as she ponders.]

I suppose it wouldn't hurt to look to see if others need help.

[Sylus looks over with a signature look of superiority.]

"Of course not. Once the magic is expended to animate it it would take years for the spark to fade. I trust it's the same story for your skeletons because, if it's not, we're going to have a lot harder a time making use of all these bodies."

[The witch wants to both smack and kiss him because of that look.]

It's not quite the same, as it takes a bit more mental faculties for me to monitor them. If they're close by, it's as easy as you forming a golem, but if I'm away, it's a tad straining.

"If memory serves, your skeletons only take on a fraction of your power while my golem reflects my abilities in-entirety. This is, of course, mitigated by you producing three of them, but it does get me to wondering."

[He whips open his grimoire and refreshes the spell circle beneath the wooden construct.]

"If these replicants - let's call them - reflect the abilities of who they've replicated. If the copy bodies or raised corpses or whatever they are possess the skills of the individual then things could be considerably more dangerous depending on who's replicant we encounter."

[Scanning the array of crushed, burned, and shattered bodies the pair of them have left scattered around the crossroads, he nods to himself as if confirming something.]

"From what I could tell it was only commonfolk who made up the mobs we dealt with. Even if their abilities were reflected in-entirety there wouldn't be much to speak of. It's definiitely worth having our guard up if we encounter anyone who looks like they're extraplanar like we are."

Yes, you're correct.

[She looks out over the various corpses as Wizard spells out a worrying scenario.]

That is a terrifying thought... Can you imagine having to face ourselves? That's not something I wish to deal with after we've only been here for less than a month.

[Sylus was not an egotistical man, but he was very proud of his abilities and loathe to consider the idea that a copy of him would be able to match what he'd worked for years to achieve.]

"Given the... less than mint condition of the mobs we just dealt with I would think that any copies of us would be in a similar state. Whether ressurections of previous deaths or simple imitations, I'd expect that they would be far from the capabilities or the original. A horde of us in the amount of the dozens of Mr. Aberdeen we just immolated could be an issue, but I hold that a matchup of original versus copy would be an utter mismatch."

[Taking to the skies, begins the journey towards the docks by floating over to the next rooftop.]

"Furthermore, if these things are in-fact drawn from the periods of time where each of us died then the only point for them to draw from is our arrival."

[He grins.]

"In which case, none of them would have staves or grimoires."

Hmm. Yes, you're right. At least in your case...

[Sorceress hops back on the broom, flying back up and following after her partner.]

Ah. Yes, without the focus points of our magic, they would be rather powerless, wouldn't they? That's good, at least... At least we can hope they conveniently wouldn't have staves or books...

"We seem to have been fortunate in who's revenants we've encountered so far though, as I don't think it was anything but local townsfolk. We're near the outskirts of Pumpkin Hollow though, so I think that's decently far from where most people will have settled, let alone perished."

[He takes to the skies again, floating with the wind in the direction of the docks.]

"More than a few of the people here have powers and special skills. If we were to encounter husks of someone like that it would, no doubt, be considerably harder to put them down. We should bear that in mind as we bunker down."

Let's hope our luck continues that way then.

[ She follows after him, keeping pace as best she can, but also watching the view of the town below. ]

I wonder what caused this...

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May Event - All Too Familiar

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