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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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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
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.
no subject
That's enough to make her certain, weaving the spell from before back into being, drawing it through her body and into her hands. Her heart beats steady, strong, and the smile that pulls at her mouth has only the heat of blood to warm it.
"I'm coming for you."
Letting it go with another incantation, the blue white light aims for the bulk of the creature, and the shots that arc off seek hands again. Sparks of magic still fizzle around her, consumed in an instant to move - to another roof not too far off, on the side of the damaged eye. Force an adaptation, add more pressure, let the fire do more work as it shines within.
no subject
And then, she's gone, just as yet more hands--- though, now so much thinner in number--- slam into the roof. Hands are turned over, and even in this state of corrupted un-life, he almost looks indignant in failing to find her.
A sweeping look to one side, to find nothing, then to the bother - and there she is. The wicked grin returns to the false Inspekta's face, and the building he'd had his serpentine hold on is let go.
Curling, building pressure for only a moment, he launches; it doesn't matter if he collides with the roof, but those sharp teeth are open, just like the hands. If he can't catch her in his hands, maybe he can take the even faster solution.
(Faster is starting to look more necessary by the moment. He's slowing down, even if he doesn't seem to notice. The fire consumes, and even in the haze of dense smoke, the damage to the hands and face are only growing more and more apparent.)
no subject
Finish this. Hurl yourself into his gullet if you have to, but end this. For yourself, for everyone else in the town, for those you love, because that's what all this power is for.
She plants her feet, knowing the hands are coming in, staring into those eyes, the twin abyss of hunger and wrath, and her hands know what gesture to make. The incantation is half lost in a wordless scream, a battle cry that launches a thin green line into his open maw that divides, wraps around, explodes with the force of a thunderstorm tearing into him and through him. Not just shredding him - disintegrating him, power tearing him to pieces and grinding him to dust. Smoke and fire and destruction that tastes like electricity coursing through her teeth, her heart surging in her chest. All her rage, all her hate, all her desire to do something brought to the forefront and lending its strength to the spell.
If he can survive that, he deserves to kill her. But he has to survive, first.
no subject
But there are no heavens here, and there is no Rift.
There is only an already-dead god, coming undone at the seams, struck with a decisive blow powered by more hate and fury than he could possibly have conceived of.
The momentum isn't stopped by the impact, but there's a shock to the beast's eyes, an unfocusing of that trained, hungry gaze. The head is detached, but the strike seems to pierce through the very core of what makes up the false Inspekta's very essence. Instead of a plume of black dust, scattering in the winds, there's an exploded moment where the fractures in his form--- every cut, every scratch, every stab wound--- shine golden, light from inside of his face spilling out. The fractures spread, like cracking glass, spreading down his tattered coat, all the way to the end of his tail.
And just before those sharp teeth would collide with Fever, Inspekta shatters.
Golden ashes, bright with Rift-light, flows with the sheer power of his lunge, over and past his prey, scattering on the rooftop. Debris of burning vines destroyed are carried in the same wind, burning to smoldering, fluttering pieces. Stray hands lie down, as if weighed by sleep, and collapse all the same.
Blue blood soaking into the shimmering remains of the dead god are the only signs remaining that he had even been here in the first place.
With his skyward wrath put to a halt, at last, the Dragon rests.