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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
CT exhales, a single thread of tension unspooling from her spine. There no doubt is some zombie sharpshooter out there who made plenty of use of her sidearm, but there's no use in dwelling on it now. Either someone took it out or they didn't. Either it's still around and armed or it isn't. She'll think about that in the morning.
"Mmkay. Make some room?"
no subject
Ripley scoots, laid on her side with slender legs tucked on top of each other, head propped on an arm. There's plenty of space on her makeshift cot— thin blanket thrown onto the floor, another balled up into a makeshift pillow. It's not the pinnacle of comfort, and it doesn't need to be. CT's book occupies the space between them. She reaches out and continues combing through her hair.
"I knew a girl in school who'd invite me over to spend the night," she starts after a long, comfortable silence. "I don't remember anything about what we did, but when she said I could sleep in bed with her, I got so embarrassed that I told her I preferred to sleep on the floor. And—" a hushed laugh, "—she said, every night? And I told her, yeah, every night."
She drops her head into her arm, smiling. "I was too embarrassed to back track, so every time I saw her I'd throw my back out sleeping on that stupid floor."
no subject
CT settles down, one arm under her head and the other resting between them. It's not the first night she's spent on this floor and it's no worse than an overnight field assignment, sleeping on the ground in bulky power armour and an internal alarm set on her implants.
"Wow," she laughs. "Way to go teenage Ripley. Getting a headstart on back pain so you don't embarrass yourself in front of a girl. Very smooth."
It's charming, really, the picture of it. Simpler days. Teenage feelings and not knowing the best ways to handle them.
"I mostly embarrassed myself in the usual ways. Stumbling over words, picking the worst times... stuff like that." A low hum. A huff of laughter. "I did once climb four storeys and cross a gap between buildings to sneak in through my girlfriend's window. Which isn't really embarrassing, but in hindsight I'm not sure what I'd have done if we got caught."
no subject
"Oh, stop it." She says, prodding CT's arm, wanting exactly the opposite. "I never claimed to have the keenest romantic survival instincts."
If they'd been on-par with her ordinary survival instincts— a youth's clinging to rules and regulations or else the world comes undone— she might have spared herself the back pain.
Ripley's brows quirk. "Ahh, so you were the rebellious type. You should have packed a parachute. If you got caught, you could eject straight out the window and sail smoothly, all the way to the ground." She laughs, a ridiculous image. Like the opera dress; her way of getting down the side of Crane's Ridge in a pinch. "Hiding under the bed's always a viable option."
no subject
"That'd be a fun one to explain in the morning. Hi, Ma, I'm down on Level 0, can you come pick me up?" She mimes holding a communicator in front of her mouth, a gesture more like holding a microphone than anything else. "Don't ask how I got down here, but I promise I didn't climb down forty storeys freehand."
She probably could've free climbed all the way down if she'd ever really wanted to, but even she wasn't quite reckless enough to try. A few storeys at a time is one thing, but more than that and you're playing a dangerous game.
"I couldn't even hide under her bed, it was a solid frame. So, really, we got lucky. Or her mom and dad just didn't care. Either or."
no subject
Ripley rolls her face into the crook of her elbow to stifle laughter. It's endearing; CT swinging legs over the edge of a platform, peering between grates and pillars in search of disgruntled Ma. Awkward next meeting with girlfriend, elbow skyward, scratching her nape. 'That was a close one.'
Blinking thoughtfully through the dark, "Did you ever try and climb up on your own? Go as far as you could?"
Icarus reaching through the steel grid.
no subject
"Mm, I climbed more often than I used the lifts. A lot of us in the lower sectors did. Cheaper that way." A means of saving money, turned quickly into a part of the culture down there. "But I think the highest I ever actually climbed was— somewhere in the 60s? One of the buildings that stopped there with some clear air above it. I liked sitting on rooftops like that."
Rooftops, platforms, ledges, fire escapes. Good spots to have time alone or to hang out with friends. She still misses it sometimes. But she doubts it'll ever feel quite the same anywhere else.
no subject
Of course you had to pay for lifts. She isn't surprised. Leave it to upper management to establish the need for something, then punish that need by slapping a fee on it. What about the elderly? What about the children, too young and too clumsy to make it up cold rungs? What happens to the people who can't climb, who can't pay? Are they expected to sink?
She's too tired to be properly angry, although the aspiring public interest lawyer in her puts up an honest fight.
"Mhm... Breathing in deep, seeing the sky. It sounds nice, in its own way. Not so cramped."
no subject
"Yeah, it was. It was one of those places no one could touch to ruin."
The way the city was always growing, always changing, there was never any real control over those who chose to free climb or spend time on those little hard to reach places. Up in the upper sectors, maybe then law enforcement might take notice, but not down lower.
She exhales. Her eyes hang closed for longer than she means them to.
"I've probably lost my touch with the parkour a bit, over the years. It's been a long time."
no subject
Her affection for compact below-spaces is minimal, so much that when she picked her employment she'd felt herself act automatically. Left Town Hall, employment papers under her arm, like escaping from a dream, conscious and reeling. The suffocation you might experience on a common commercial freighter is solved by looking through its ports, out into the black sprawl where no single object is without space to exist. Without them, you feel yourself like one too many teeth stuck into the mouth.
Ripley rolls onto her back, eyes closed. Puts to use the empty, black background of her mind to pull buildings from the ground and send them skyward. She knits these pillars together with guard rails, grates and tethered lifts, then tucks herself well below the line of comfortability. A starting-point to climb.
And she climbs clumsily. Grips cool rails and wills her feet not to slip. She climbs from one junction to the next in her search for clean air. Peers down and is slapped by vertigo. Determined, she hauls herself over the lip of the flat-capped building, sky at her fingertips— and slips.
She's caught by the arm. You really shouldn't be up here.
"And here I thought you spend all your free time jumping between buildings."
no subject
CT breathes a laugh and rolls half-over, twisted at the hip, back against the ground and legs curled aside. "I mean, I could probably handle the gaps between rooftops around here. But I think I'll leave that to that blonde kid that always seems to be up there."
Some of that old agility shows itself in flashes of combat, repurposed for the battlefield. One of the things that made her good enough to get on the Project's radar of exemplary soldiers. Nothing is sacred in war.
(...she doesn't know where she'll go, if she makes it home and survives long enough to go anywhere. She can't think that far ahead.)
"...I turn 30 in August," she muses. People live longer in her day, even live healthier, but— "Probably won't be long before I start really feeling the impacts of active duty, I guess."
no subject
30 in August.
Ellen's attention drops scene and relinquishes the image to 30 in August.
She realizes— the way you realize you've put your shirt on backwards three hours after the fact— that CT's never mentioned her birthday in the sixth months she's known her. An odd thing to do completely out of the blue, she's aware, but the handing over of this ordinary-yet-personal fact strikes her as... Well, as something. Is it presumptuous to call it progress? Progress entails an end point, a goal, to which Ripley has none.
(Remember? You're not complicating this.)
She turns her cheek to look at her, tucks 30 in August in some cardinal place in her mind. CT throws attention up into the ceiling.
"So's the joy of aging," Ripley sighs melodramatically. "Soon you'll have to get readers for all that paperwork you do." Poking her, "It's aaall downhill from there."
no subject
It's still strange to think about her birthday, really. It was August at home, before she left. Hard to truly pin down the day by the end, they'd been on the move between planets so regularly by then, but it couldn't have been too far in either direction from her turning 29 that she died in the first place.
Then she arrived in town in late May and that first August here didn't exactly feel like it counted.
"Oh, god." Another beat of laughter. "I'm not sure glasses will suit me. I've coasted on keeping my 20/20 vision for too long, despite all the screen time."
no subject
"One more reason to cut back on the paperwork," Ripley teases, spreading out across her makeshift cot in preparation to actually sleep. Pulls one arm up behind her head, bends the leg closest to CT like a flamingo's and rests it on top of her's. Noncommittal touch.
"Don't worry. You'll make it work. And if not, maybe Calloway's will get in a big box of contacts. Or... magic lasik. You've got options."
no subject
"God, right, they won't even have invented proper contacts yet..." There's always some other little thing you've taken for granted as existing that doesn't, here. Oh well.
She yawns, against her will. Settles an arm beneath her head and the other draped across herself, legs staying just where they need to maintain the contact.
wrap! everyone say goodnight to the gays
The simple touch tethers her. Keeps her from sinking down, down, down on first closing of eyes. To that place she can't escape from. She's aware of this the way a child knows they're safe when the closet door is closed. Knows with almost-full certainty that whatever dreams might come to her, she'll have rope to draw herself out.
(It's a stupid, baseless idea; knee drawn up on top of leg, touch like some dream warding charm. It doesn't make sense. You think too much about sleep, and you're thinking too much about this.)
She'll have her evidence in the morning; back aching, neck thrown out of place, but a deep, dreamless sleep otherwise. Some of the best she's had.
When Ripley wakes, CT is gone, having already started her day.