March/April Event - By Order of the King

[pumpkinhollow]

─ A Proclamation ─

By order of His Infernal Majesty, Eligos Rex, Dominus Altum of the Regnum Infernalis, Lord of the Court of Treason, the Indomitable King of Hell

B

y order of King Eligos, let it be known throughout the Realm of Demonkind that all current denizens of the Isle of Marrow shall be detained and relocated to the Palace Infernal, where they shall be put to trial for their crimes against our people. His Majesty names these trespasses thus:

Deliberate Interference with the Unholy Rite of Succession
Conspiracy to Fraudulently Coronate a King of Their Choosing
Two Counts of Principicide, Murder of His Majesty's Sons
Conspiracy with the Dynasty of Holy Mothers
Conspiracy with the Dynasty of Red Butterflies
Conspiracy with the Dynasty of Elder Gods
Disruption of the Machinations of His Infernal Majesty

All parties residing on the Isle of Marrow have been preemptively found guilty of at least one of these charges, either directly or as an accessory. The guilty have been captured by His Majesty's Royal Guard, dragged from their beds by force, and brought to the Palace Infernal, beyond the safety of the Great Barrier that We graciously constructed to conceal them from the eyes of Death. Here, they will be given Trial, where they will either emerge absolved, or perish entirely in their guilt without our Barrier to restore them.

The Guilty Must Atone.

Details to follow.

The Dungeon

Those deemed to have the ability to supply His Majesty's Court with the desired resources have been placed in the palace's dungeons in groups, where they must decide amongst themselves whose blood will be used to pay the island's penance, and who will move on to a greater duty.

{Be aware that beyond lies inevitable pain, mutilation, and death. Proceed?}

The room is dark. Not too dark to see by, but dim. The appearance of a castle dungeon is visible, at least, by the low and menacing flicker of torch light, tall shadows catching on the surfaces of imposing stone block walls and the dirty and uneven slate floor.

You are not alone here. There is at least one other, if not more, and there is the strange sensation of being watched. Each room is laid out a bit differently, perhaps set up with some kind of bondage holding its residents in place or some strange, unbelievable apparatus that serves no other purpose than an elaborate and dangerous trap. However, each room does share one thing--- a parchment hung to the wall in reading distance, starting with the proclamation above, and followed by the details of your entrapment, along with the conditions of escape. And while those terms vary as well, the one thing they all have in common is that not everyone is meant to survive, even if the text itself doesn't make that immediately clear.

Designed to feed the Court of Betrayal, each trap is designed with a test of trust and loyalty involved. Whether it's testing how much you value a new friendship, which of your loved ones you are truly the most loyal to, or how selfish you really are when it comes down to it--- or if it's just meant to make you betray yourself and your own values. Some will end quietly, others gruesomely, but someone must die in order to move forward, with the understanding that the barrier isn't here to save you. You're in the realm of demons now. There is nothing to stop your soul from leaving you for good. Not even Mortanne can reach you here. And there is no option to take no action--- the consequences of this are that everyone dies, and the reward for proceeding is the opportunity to try and help everyone go home.

Those who survive will find that the way out opens for them, where they may encounter others in the same position. The halls outside your cell may hold any number of trials, whether they be demonic guards, traps, or winding corridors designed to make you lose your way. Or maybe your own way forward is suspiciously clear… There may even be creature comforts provided to reward you for the ill deed you did to get where you are. You may also discover along your journey a heavy stone door labeled "catacombs" that will not open for you. But will it open from the other side?

But no, that's preposterous. Only the dead can be found in catacombs. Right?

The Senate Room

Alongside those in conspiracy to delay or interrupt His Infernal Majesty's plans for today, those ignorant of the truth of their nature and how it guides their fate or who were deemed inadequate fodder for the Court of Betrayal's dungeons have been placed in His Majesty's Senate Room, where his Court and the heads of others meet to discuss matters of the realm. They must rely on each other for information if they wish to leave, testing their mettle at courtly shrewdness, their ability to trust one another, and their understanding of the self.

{Be aware that beyond lies a complex and tense game of information-gathering, with the potential for death upon failure, and the possibility of unexpected violence. Proceed?}

Dark cloth sacks removed from your faces all at once, you are seated in a polished, official-looking meeting space, gathered around an ornate table of oak and marble. Around you are others--- quite a few, in fact. And in front of you, an envelope, with something written in tight, looping font on the front.

We are nothing but our nature. We do only what we were made to do. In this way, we are no different. In this envelope lies your passage forward to duty and destiny, but to open it, you must be able to speak the name of your nature. Do so before you are able, and perish. You are in the infernal realm. The barrier is not here to protect you. Best of luck.

Looking around, you can see words floating over the heads of those around you. They are not particularly flattering words. A descriptor, assigned to that person, presumably intended to define their nature. Above your own head, you see nothing. The game becomes clear. Predictably, if you try to speak the words you can see, or anything too similar that might give it away too easily, your throat tightens and your words are stolen from you.

Game on.

The Catacombs

Those who die in the fiery embrace of the Infernal Realm will not be saved by the Barrier. Lady Winter cannot save them, so their souls will remain here and their bodies will rest in our crypts.

{Be aware that beyond lies dangerous traps, monsters, and the remains of the dead. Proceed?}

You died.

This wouldn't be the first time. After all, that's how you got into this situation to begin with. But this time, it was made very clear to you that it would be permanent. You're outside the barrier, and with nothing to catch your soul at the border of reality and sling it back at you the next morning, it should be lost to whatever afterlife might find you here.

Unless, of course, you're not outside the barrier.

Whatever the case may be, you can't stay here. You have no idea how long it's been, and there are people somewhere who think you're dead. Surrounded by the ancient, dusty corpses of long-dead demons, it's difficult to confirm you're not. Perhaps you're in just as much of a hurry to convince yourself.

Down here, you will need to conquer physical obstacles, solve puzzles, and get past monsters to escape the catacombs. There are a number of stone doors that only open from the crypt side out, leading back up to the dungeon halls where the living are trying to escape the castle. You can encounter other "dead," or reach the dungeon to find other survivors. Perhaps if you're particularly persistent, you can reach the end of the maze entirely…

The Ceremonial Hall

Marrow Isle residents who do not capture the interest of His Infernal Majesty what so ever or whose usefulness to the Court of Treason is expended will be granted to His Infernal Highness Prince Aster of the Dark Feast, to use as indentured servants for a time, that they might be given worth elsewhere. They are not the concern of His Majesty, and he will bear them no mind.

{Be aware that beyond lies the alteration of memory. Proceed?}

Welcome to your first day at your new job! As an employee of the Infernal Royal Family, you've been tasked with preparing the castle's ceremonial hall for a coronation. After a great deal of ado, the Rite of Succession is finally nearing its end, and King Eligos is finally preparing to turn over his kingdom to his heir--- his middle son, Prince Aster. Shame about Prince Mendel and Prince Efrain, dead as they are, but that's how succession goes in the infernal realm.

What do you mean, you don't remember taking this job? Of course you did! There's nowhere more illustrious to work, nor a better time to have this job. You're making history, after all! So what if you don't remember the details of the application or interview? You know that this is your job. You remember coming to work. You know that you are supposed to be here, and that you chose to be here, and that you aren't going to leave. That's what's important, isn't it?

The hall is constructed of black marble primarily, and covered in red decorations that haven't been taken down since Eligos was coronated several hundred years ago. They're quite dusty. You'll need to take them down and replace them with the blue and gold ones intended for Crown Prince Aster. You'll also need to polish the throne, scrub the floors, set up the dining tables, prepare the food, dust everything, prepare the place settings… there's so much to do, so you had better get to work!

You'll be supervised by a Noble of Aster's Court, Duchess Claunthe. She can't be everywhere at once, of course, but she can be very, very strict when she wants to be. Take care not to get caught slacking off, even if it's tempting. This is a lot of work, after all, and there's demons coming and going who have no qualms about swapping courtly secrets and gossip in front of the help. Whenever you can catch a moment away, your coworkers would love to hear this.

Yes, this is definitely your job. (It's not.) You absolutely, definitely signed up for this. (You didn't.) It'd be absolutely preposterous to think otherwise. (You know you don't belong here. Run.) After all, this job pays so well, which you really need right now, don't you? (It doesn't. Even if it did, you have universal basic income, for the Mothers' sake. Please listen to me. Get out, now!) Besides, even if you didn't take this job, and this was all some grand trick---- where would you even go?

Get back to work.

The Waiting Room

A room is to be prepared for our Most Esteemed Guest, Father Francis Mulcahy. She is not a prisoner, but an ally to the Court of Woman Scorned led by Prince Dahlia, bringer of deliverance to a new era of Demonkind. Ensure that she is comfortable, and make room for any who might attend her, and prepare a line of communication. The King wishes for an audience.

{Be aware that beyond lies a terrible duty, and one inevitable death. Proceed?}

A round room, at the end of everything. It's strange, that particular detail is so clear despite the fact that it's impossible to see beyond it. Black walls bedecked neon red curtains, despite the lack of windows. Not blood red like Nyarlathotep prefers, but the red of malice. It's unclear how you can tell the difference, but you can. Plush curved sofas encircle the room, with gaps for tables at regular intervals that have lamps, statues, and the like sitting on them. The one in the center has a candlestick phone that rings when the first guest arrives.

If you manage to make your way through the catacombs or the dungeon, whatever route you take, you can end up here as well. But at first, it's just the one. Once the door closes on the final guest, and Eligos is ready for his audience, it opens back up, now leading somewhere else.

It's time. We all know what happens now.

Comments

QUESTIONS/COMMENTS/CONCERNS

[pumpkinhollow]

Answers to a few questions I know I'll get but didn't get a chance to answer in the text:
- ICly, this event takes place over the course of a single day.
- Respawns from the dungeon to the catacombs or the senate room to the catacombs take about 10 minutes
- When Eligos dies, we'll attend the coronation of Aster and then Pumpkin Hollow will return to normal with everyone in town square at 3am.
- The senate room link can be found at the end of the prompt, but I'll also post it here for easy access!

Agent South Dakota & Theta | RvB

[n0rthernlights]

Sister, will you lend me all your strength? [closed to North and South]

Theta does not know where he has been taken, and he is scared.

His eyes open anew upon what appears to be a medieval mockery of a standard control room. A grated window, overlooking a dimly lit, mostly empty chamber, and beneath it a single row of levers. Panic stirs in his chest before he even gets the chance to look closer, breathing quickening and feet scrambling against stone as he recoils back into the wall behind him. Tight space. Trapped. How did he— why is he— where is—

Sound, from the chamber. Shuffling, grunting, the jangle of something metal. Not reassuring sounds, but enough to cut through the fear and push him tentatively forward to the window, peering through to see—

"North!"

On one side of the room, chained to the wall by one wrist high above his head, he sits on the cold stone ground. And across from him, South, in the same position, already trying uselessly to yank herself free. The jangling sound.

...he doesn't like this. He doesn't like this at all.

And when we go, I'll try not to be so slow [OTA, Dungeons]

South doesn't make him walk.

He doesn't know if that's more because she'd get irritated by how slow he'd be, or because she actually cares now. His head is too stuffy to think about it much, gunked up by the tears that keep coming and going in bursts, and it doesn't really matter right now, anyway. Arms around her neck, legs around her waist, he clings to South's back like the terrified, guilt-ridden child that he is.

...she has no idea what she's supposed to do.

She's horrible with kids. (She's horrible in general.) It makes no fucking sense, leaving her to look after him when she can't even look after herself. Three months. Three months, that's all it took her the last time, to turn into a despondent alcoholic making bad choices that got her killed. She can't— she can't do this, she knows she can't do this, can't live without her brother there without feeling hollow, like a fucking shell of a person. (Like not a person at all.)

But there's a young boy on her back. And Dmitri loved him. And so South keeps walking the halls, looking for a way out she's not sure she even wants, teeth gritted and eyes still red.

[ OOC: For the duration of their time in the dungeons, South and Theta are together. I will reply from one account at a time with all relevant responses from both of them, rather than making us deal with three-way formatting for no reason. So replies may come from this account, or ownperson. ]

Lend me all your strength

[gooddefense]

North groans, not fully conscious yet. He goes to scrub his face with his hand, finds it bound. Cold iron, biting at his wrist. "...What the fuck?"

He shakes it off instead, blinking blearily. When his eyes focus, he sees South in front of him, and then off to the side, Theta in some sort of--- weird cage, like the kind you'd see in those gruesome interactive museums about medieval torture methods.

"Well, this is a new one. Is everyone okay?"

He's anxious about what this is supposed to mean, what it's supposed to be, but he doesn't give that away yet.

And when we go, I'll try not to be so slow | What do you hold onto?

[cyansoldier]

If there's ever been a time to rage.

She's larger than herself. She scorches the halls. Catherine, Carolina, McCallister— you can name rage whatever the hell you want. Try to condense or bottle or domesticate it. It doesn't change what it is. Doesn't make it any less of a fiery maelstrom on release. She's just killed her best friend. Let's call it what it is. Murder. She's just murdered her best friend. Someone's child. Someone's partner. Her best friend is dead— murdered— and other people will die too, and she can't do anything about it. Powerless again and again and again.

This is supposed to be her body. Her actions are supposed to be her decision. It's supposed to be hers. Never was. Never will be. Reel it in. She's far past that fucking point.

The catacombs exist through a red lens.

She screams. She's been screaming— rip-and-tear through a throat that is so much larger now; noise more animal than human— for a while. She exists outside her body. Her scraped, bruised, half-dressed body that isn't hers. Her knuckles are fucked. She careens her fists into things— inanimate things, threatening things, it doesn't matter. She can't stop moving. She does this purposelessly, for no other reason than to move. To storm. To rage.

She doesn't hear the approach, the sniveling kid. She's unstoppable.

i'll try not to be so slow

[tehilim127_1]

There's a noise up ahead of South and Theta, beyond the bend of the corridor: footfalls, slow and weary, and faintly labored breathing that isn't troubling to stay quiet.

Seems like just one person, probably.

When we go

[hotgirlsummer]

There is a door along the way, labeled "Catacombs". Whether South or Theta read this label on the way past it doesn't matter--- it will open mere moments after their backs are to it regardless.

And from behind them, comes a voice.

"Theta? ...Natasha?"

I can hear the song of my death / The Dungeon | CLOSED to CT

[2onostromo]

Abruptly, she had been flung from dreaming into something dense and menacing and too starkly real. The door thrown wide open and busting its hinges— entrance wrecked, stairs crying out under sudden weight. It's wrong how rapidly the course of a nice night can change. They had made dinner. They drank a little wine, then fell asleep, limb crossed over limb. So many people— things, whatever they were— should not have fit in Connie's room. Should not be allowed in Connie's room, this safe place amidst the paranoia.

They had bowled into the room like a storm, and she fought like a house determined to stay upright. A person and can fight and fight and fight, she realizes, and in the end it means the same amount of nothing.

At least that damn cat got away. A human's will to survive apparently pales in comparison to a goddamn cat.

The room is cold and hard and unfamiliar. Twinge metal on her tongue— stone against her cheek. For all the time Ellen Ripley has spent working underground, she recognizes a pit when she's in one. There are safety procedures for when a person is stranded in places like these. Here, those things don't apply. Here— what is here?— requires improvisation, if only she could will herself to get the fuck up—

A groan across the room— familiar in a way these chambers are decidedly not— is what inspires Ripley's body to pitch itself upright. She sees Connie in a similar state, doubled over and slowly coming-to.

It would have been smart to suss out the room first. She doesn't care.

"Fuck, Connie—" She staggers over to her and drops onto her knees, palm splayed across her back. She thinks, What the fuck was that? Traps and swallows the question, because there's no point in asking something no one knows the answer to. She shouldn't smother her— give her space to breathe, to wake up— but she can't help herself. Ripley throws long arms around her shoulders and, for a moment, lets herself feel the full breadth of her fear and relief. Breathe her in. She's alive.

Emphatic— a fact, "I'm getting us out of here."

[liesdontfindyou]

One second, she's stepping out of the doors of the Senate Room, the next she comes to on a cold stone floor and feels familiar arms wrap around her half-awake body. Her hands come up to grip them on reflex and she breathes. Ellen. She's with Ellen. How— where—

Oh. Oh, shit. This... this can't be good.

"Ellen—" she says, pulling back enough to look at her in the dim light. "I don't think it's going to be that simple."

Leon S. Kennedy | Resident Evil 4

[nothingbadeverhappensto]

Tremble for yourself, my man - [Dungeon / Closed to Ashley]

[nothingbadeverhappensto]

Leon blinks into consciousness, scraped and bruised and aching from his short-lived scrap with the guards that ambushed him on the way home from the police station. He hisses through his teeth, trying to get his bearings, only to find himself strapped to some kind of... saddle? No, a statue. Eyes adjusting to the light, he sees the back of the white marble horse's head first, ears swiveled back towards him. The horse itself is apparently posed midway through rearing back, hence the odd angle he finds himself sitting at, feet firmly locked in the stirrups.

Instantly uneasy, he takes stock of his surroundings as best he can in the flickering torchlight. There's a heavy two-handed sword strapped to his hip, almost comical in how oversized it is. If he didn't know better, having a weapon would almost be reassuring, but here it just feels like it bodes poorly. On the ceiling above him is a large mirror, distant enough as to give him a view of the whole floor at once - checkered in white and black. Surrounding him are white marble pedestals, all bearing the rubble of destroyed statues similar to the horse he's currently 'riding'. All except one.

"Ashley!" She's still out cold, but that's unmistakably her, collapsed on one of the other pedestals. He tries to free himself, to go see if she's hurt, but he's stuck, and can't twist around enough to get at the fastenings keeping him in the saddle.

Glancing around frantically, his eyes fall on a large, weathered sign hanging on the wall, behind a staggered row of black statues, hooded and bearing weapons of their own.

MOVE ACCORDING TO YOUR NATURE
TAKE THE BLACK KING'S CROWN
MORTANNE CANNOT HELP YOU HERE

Agent Carolina | Red vs. Blue

[cyansoldier]

A good ol' fashioned walkdown | Closed to Godpoke

[cyansoldier]

The room is a grizzly, cartoon mirage of a Western scene; combination of scrawled lines and dark red patches denoting things like cacti, like tumble weeds and idle vultures and an old saloon with its doors blown open; like rolling winds and snakes gone into hiding. Parts of the scene are nonsensical; piles of red that could be guts or dunes, faces without bodies, etchings and symbols and strange words. The walls are dripping where the 'ink' has yet to dry. Iron smell. Disgusting. A poorly drawn sheriff, horned and spade-tailed, wags his gun hand, BANG! and smoke, chasing down—

Carolina doesn't know.

She can't see the rest of the scene without turning her head, and when she does she's met by the sure, steel prick of something. A knife, a rod, a pike— it doesn't matter. Whatever it is, it vows to spear her for the crime of looking. She tests her luck. She stays calm. She turns her head in the opposite direction— same thing. Cold bite, sharp end. Okay. Okay, that's fine. Fuck the picture.

It takes all of about five seconds to realize she's in a cage. Death-trap of a thing— a claustrophobic person's worst nightmare— only as tall and wide as she is tall and wide. She's standing. One of her arms is restrained behind her back. One is not. Carolina jostles.

Someone else jostles behind her.

"Who is that—?"

And what's she holding? What's fixed, inseparable, to her hand?

What else could it be, but an old revolver?

Pokey!

[elvaquerito]

Header time!

Catacombs | For Leon

[elvaquerito]

It's been a long day. Being as small as they are, Pokey is able to hide from monsters pretty well, and being a bat makes seeing in the dark very easy, but actually overcoming the physical challenges is next to impossible and the echoing of the enclosed corridors is so disorienting that it'd hold them up even if that wasn't the case. They're desperate to move forward, desperate to show Carolina they aren't dead, but trapped as they are, they've made no progress. Just wandering around the same couple of areas over and over.

Plus, their head is just so full of questions. Why aren't they dead? (Are they dead?)

Deep in thought as they meander, Pokey is so distracted that when they walk directly into something that could very well be either an impressively muscular leg or a stone pillar, the surprise overrides their usual compulsion to silence and gains from them an audible verbal "oof."

fever | baldur's gate iii

[abhorrently]

(closed - pyotr.)

[abhorrently]

When she wakes, her hands are bound above her. It's cold - it's so cold in this place, cold enough that her breath is fogging and her exposed skin is burning. Colder than winter, closer to Seemingly's frozen darkness than anything else. Everything in her wants to panic, but she has to stay steady. First things first, her bindings - rope bound and knotted so tightly she can feel the blood under her skin, and a pair of shackles over it. That's not giving way in a hurry. No knives on her person - is she seriously in her nightgown? Pulled straight from her bed, she feels somehow more naked than if she was disrobed. Vulnerable. All sides exposed, and she can't utter a spell to make it better.

Frantically, she's trying to wiggle her hands, bring them together. Think of fire, think of fire, try to call it up and burn the rope to get her down-

The water that hits her is freezing, torrential arctic frost that immediately seals over her skin in a layer of ice, and it hurts like she's been set alight in a deeper way. Nothing comes to numb the pain, no deadened nerves - oh no, she feels it all, and Fever clamps her mouth shut to try and stop it from drowning her. When it stops, her head hangs forward, and she feels the ice crystals forming on her cheeks. Her nightgown keeps the cold water near, and she'd rip it off if she could just move.

Looking up, what she sees is harder to make out, with ice and frigid water in her eyes, but she can figure out one black line under the rest.

The guilty must atone.

Footsteps, and Fever jerks her head in their direction. It's difficult to know, but-

"...Pyotr?"

She can feel her jaw want to chatter from the cold.

father mulcahy | M*A*S*H

[lovethyneighb_or]

i. And with thick-set / Masses of memoried flowers — [closed to king eligos]

She's here.

She's alone.

The qualities of the room spark some kind of hind-memory, a sense she's sure of but can't fully reason out why; but she's been suddenly removed from the island, and this particular marriage of darkness and luxury is specific. She's seen this before. She can guess.

The phone rings.

She stands there. She doesn't want to answer it; doesn't want to speak to who may be on the other end until she can find anyone at all who may be familiar. But the way out does not allow her through, and that phone rings, and rings, and rings, and rings, and there is nothing else in this round room but the statues and lamps and the tables—the tables, the furniture, she digs though the with her fingers, feeling for wires, for anything, and the phone rings, rings.

She seizes the receiver and picks it up. "Hello?"

ii. Hide that red wet / Thing I must somehow forget [open to the waiting room]

For the most part she's occupied with her business with the King, but here there may be lapses in the conversation. Beats of silence where the receiver is slapped back onto the switch hook, and she puts her head in her hands.

If you want to confront the one who gets to sit it all out, this may be your only chance.

ii.

[abhorrently]

The person who walks through the door looks like a murdered ghost. Pale, white nightgown splattered and streaked with blood, eyes the same color as the evidence of what she's done. On her hands, on her face, the scent in her nose - she looks wild, mad, every classic portrait of a woman who's lost her mind and higher reason to descend into the feral instinct. Kill or be killed. The guilty must atone.

There is no phone ringing at the moment, but it might at any moment.

Her body aches. Her mind is distant. Concepts start feeling harder and harder to get through. Demons and humans and gods and whatever the hell discarded flesh turns into.

She looks up, and she sees-

"Francis."

This is not a room like the one before. Is it the end? Has she made it to the end? Her limbs burn and freeze and ache and he's gone, he's gone and it all is ruined inside her and around her, and she doesn't know what to do. Dark hair lies in a braid in her pocket, the most precious thing she can hold onto, and she cannot, cannot lose it, though her mind clouds and spins.

Her feet are stained, from where she had to walk through blood.

"Please tell me I don't have to kill you too."

King Halo | Uma Musume

[overtookall]

dungeons -> closed to Haley

[overtookall]

'At least this place has a torch.' King thinks to herself. After Kadath she is DONE with dark damp dungeons for a lifetime. Not that she's had to deal with them too many times, but once is enough for this King.

Second thing she notices, she's not alone. Her friend? acquaintance? Haley is sitting across from her. Two chairs, no table between them. It's a small room, big enough for them to stand, for one of them to pace if they put the chairs against the walls, but there's not a whole lot of room in here- She's a bit unsure of what they're supposed to do here at first.

Third thing she sees, the notice on the wall. King stands, snatching it up, reading it over- And there is a part of her that considers just jumping Haley. Trying to kill her right off the bat. The other girl would likely never see it coming. And King wants to live, damnit. She's shaking like a leaf, tears pricking at her face, she wants to live! She has things she wants to do with her lif yet! She won't be done racing until the entire world has completely forgotten about her Mother's accomplishments.

But could she live with herself afterwards? Even consider it, King feels overwhelming guilt. It might not be the smart move but she does pass the parchment off to Haley, letting her read it as well.

She waits.

Edgar | Snowpiercer (2013) | OTA for Ceremonial Hall

[hate_gettin_older]

The thing is --

When you grow up in the Tail, you don't have a job. Jobs are for the luckier ones, not the Front types but the ones in between the Front and the Tail -- and, of course, for those who get plucked out of the Tail for having some skill the Front needs. You don't get a choice when they pick you.

That's how Edgar got here, he guesses. Picked to serve. Seems like there's an awful lot to do, and not nearly enough people to get it done. Course, that's probably why they came and got him. He'd better get to work.

... Except. There's this niggling feeling that he's not supposed to be here. Maybe there's something else he's supposed to be doing.

Maybe he should ask someone about that.

[lofi_charm]

There is a very large man, both tall and wide, working on sweeping a section of floor. Whether he looks familiar to Edgar is entirely dependent on if he comes to Blackwood Brews--- despite his long tenure in Pumpkin Hollow, Martin doesn't get out much. He just isn't the sort. He toils away at his work quietly, and--- maybe it's a trick of the light, but it almost looks like there's a bit of thin fog gathered at his feet.

Ashley Graham | Resident Evil 4

[bbeagle]

It's the bitter taste of losing everything | Corridors I OTA

[bbeagle]

After she's forced out of the room with Leon's body, Ashley just crumples against the door for a good few minutes, her fists balled against her eyes and her knees pulled up to her chest.

"Wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up," she whispers desperately to herself.

Artemy Burakh | Pathologic

[medekh]

catacombs arrival -> ota | cw: death

[medekh]

The Haruspex' finger twitches.

Breath returns to his lungs.

He's gasping, reeling- jolted back to life as quickly as he died. It's as if he's emerged from a body of water, trying to suck in as much air as he can. He's sitting. Stone lines the floors in large bricks. The air smells of damp mold, stagnant. He feels. Cold. He's surprised he can get will his body to move, but it does move. He uses legs and hands to slide back against a wall. He needs a moment. Needs to be out of the way.

He's so used to doing. Just doing and not thinking. But right now he's overwhelmed with thoughts. His head aches with that a dull ache in the back of his skull. His hands still shaking.

He thinks of his mother. He doesn't even know her face. His last thought before death was that he'd get to meet her. He wonders if she looks like him, light hair and blue eyes. He never asked, always just assumed.

He thinks of his father. He still has so many questions he wishes he could ask him, so many things unsaid. Had his father sent for him too late? Or had The Haruspex himself simply just been too late.

Tainted, huh? It was apt. Born in September amongst the twyre. His first murder had been his own Mother. He had thought of others words as cruel, but with some truth. But his own?? It was just the truth.

Yet, this place, Pumpkin Hollow. It had made him feel like, even if in small bursts, he could be normal. Lead a normal life. Have his own clinic. Participate in a community. Have friends.

But the Haruspex knows know that's a lie. He's never been right. Nothing about him is right. Broken beyond repair. Fractured. Tainted. Couldn't save his own town, worthless to do anything here, couldn't even manage to stay dead.

Before he realizes it he's burying his face in his knees and crying. He wants to go home. He then realizes he doesn't have a home, neither Town-On-Gorkhon or Pumpkin Hollow is his home, he's an outsider everywhere. He'll never truly fit in no matter what.

Then he just wishes for his children. For Sticky and Murky. He just wants to see them, maybe hold them again. Boddho knows, he misses them so damn much. Right now he feels like he'd do anything to see them again.

And he sobs, he sobs into his own arms, huddled up in a ball, crying like a man who hasn't genuinely cried in years.

tenna || deltarune || the dungeons (ota!)

[montyhall]

The game is far from over, and yet one of its players has already escaped the Senate Room into the dungeons beyond its confines.

"Go now. While no one is looking at you. Go find Kris and the others, now."

He has one chance. This is the only chance he'll ever get to make things right, to truly make things right, and if he wastes it now — if he messes this up after what it took to get him here, after what it took Dahlia to earn him this chance, then...

No; it doesn't bear thinking on now. It doesn't matter. The only thing that matters now, more than anything else—

"Kris!!"

Tenna's volume is cranked to its absolute maximum, his screen a searchlight beam as he races through dark and winding corridors to find the kids. Sure, he's almost certainly going to attract unwanted attention to himself as well — with all the racket he's making and the way sound carries down here, it's impossible to consider that he won't — but how could he possibly care about that now? He's not the boss of TV World for nothing, goddamnit, and if even one person tries to put themselves between him and those kids...

"Susie!? Ralsei— If any of you can hear me, call out!!"

It doesn't bear thinking on, not until it actually happens. He has to find the kids; he has to keep them from harm. He has to. He has to.


[ so, i don't have anything specific planned for tenna in this part of the event, but i'm perfectly open to anyone who wants to run into him (or track him down!?) before he actually meets up with the kids! i'm on discord if you'd like to plot something more specific, or you can always PM me! ✧ദ്ദി( ˶^ᗜ^˶ ) ]

The Dungeon

[twohundreddead]

This girl's name is not Kris, nor Susie, nor Ralsei. She is not a hero, would not consider herself brave— stubborn, certainly— and (very fortunately) lacks horns and a mop of white fur and big funny spectacles. Her name is Harrowhark. She knows these people, and perhaps this box-headed quester recognizes her too. She has, after all, spent time in Leed's estate, drifting from room to room like a directionally confused wraith.

(Escaping from catacombs is a creche affair for a girl who can conjure a crowd of skeletal arms in which to surf on. They had lifted her up, up, up—)

The voice caries, unwonted static in a place so ancient, and hits Harrow's ears in an undulation of familiarity. An awful noise, might she add. Like a man's voice shoved into a box with pebbles and shaken like mad.

She makes herself as loud as possible; she's difficult to see in the dark, for all the black she wears. What's most visible is that horrid, skull-painted face, dripping blood sweat. She looks pitifully weak.

"Ralsei is alive. Susie and Kris, they're alive. The death— it's impermanent. A deception. Kris was bade make a terrible choice. They aren't well—"

Kris Dreemurr | Deltarune

[heartofadreemurr]

[ Header! ]

Unzip my body, take my heart out [Dungeon/Closed]

[heartofadreemurr]

When hands grab Kris and force them to move, they almost don't register it as wrong for a moment, for reasons they don't particularly want to unpack. But when their brain catches up to their body, they kick and scream into that terrible night, shadows howling at their call but to no avail.

Getting to the dungeon is a blur. They don't remember how they got there--- it must've been some kind of portal or something, with how instant it seemed. Nauseating.

They tumble onto a dirty floor as if hurled. Their back hits a wall--- hard. "Shit, what the fuck," they grumble, rubbing the back of their head. "Where am I...?"

The room is split in half by another half-wall and a thick glass pane. On the other side of the glass, three trapped figures that it's too dark to see, strapped to the wall with iron bars, seated. It's... weird, their seats are different heights so that they look like they're all just as tall as the others.

Across the back wall, there's a slot at about neck height that runs the length of the room. In front of Kris, a control panel with three buttons. EMERGENCY STOP - CHOOSE ONE. Emergency stop for what?

There's a paper taped above the panel. A "proclamation," it says. Kris picks it up, starting to read, but is interrupted by lights coming on in the dark half of the room. They can see the faces of the people there now.

Their heart drops.

Melanie King | TMA

[ghostbullet]

You're a rat in a cage, you're a bull in a china shop [for Basira]

[ghostbullet]

If nothing else, Melanie can say she didn't come quietly. Kicking, screaming, it doesn't help, but it'd only leave her pride as bruised as her body if she didn't at least have it in her to try.

(And yet, jaded as she is, she still can't help but think well, whatever this is will probably be over within a week, anyway. That will come back to her soon enough in a bitter, dramatic irony sort of way.)

She comes to again on cold stone, chill bleeding through the material of her t-shirt and pyjama pants almost as starkly as it hits the bare skin of her arms. She feels around until her hand hits a wall she can use to pull herself up and notes, immediately, the short distance she had to go.

Confined space, then. Probably not a dream, because she still can't see, but that's not a guarantee. No cane, either way. Bastards.

She's about ready to feel her way around the walls of the space when she hears shuffling and a groan, echoing off the stone walls, and jolts alert. "Who's there?!"

Patty -- Ceremonial Hall

[coolhatluvr]

Starting a new job is always a little nerve-wracking, but Patty's been through this song and dance before. Keep your head down, look busy, don't catch the big boss's eye. Easy-peasy, right?

Okay maybe not easy peasy, but it's still pretty peasy! Like a whole bushel of peasy! That's a word, right? Not important! What's important is that she's the only Drainer around here -- meaning nobody else can shimmy up the walls to get those curtains down as quickly as she can! And since she's the only one up there~ Well, that means there's nobody can check her work, right? Tee hee!

She takes her time while she's up there, keeping an eye on the other human servants. Especially if anyone looks like they're having a hard time, she'll...she's not sure yet! But there's gotta to be something she can do right? She just has to try! Put that sunny disposish to work!

Catacombs | OTA

[gooddefense]

With a sharp gasp, Dimitri Katina wakes up in the dark. Well, not fully dark, but a hell of a lot darker than where he was. There are... skeletons, everywhere. Walls made of skulls with strange structures that look almost human, but not... quite. The floor's filthy with dust, making him cough, which doesn't help the disorientation he feels from bolting upright from unconsciousness. He'd pitched so far forward that he nearly flung himself a full hundred and eighty degrees to smack his face on the floor.

Patting himself down, he finds no bullet holes. Is this supposed to be some kind of afterlife? It doesn't really seem like hell, and it's certainly not heaven. It's just kind of... dirty and cold and dry. The dust makes him sneeze, and it's in doing so that he comes to the stark realization that he is definitely not dead.

"Son of a bitch."

Well, there's only one thing to do--- make it back to his sister and his son. Now. He hauls himself up, certain that some other poor fools are in the same situation. "Hello? Anyone around?"

[incomingchoppers]

"Hello?" comes a muffled voice, much fainter than North's, like whoever heard him is at least three tunnels and five and a half corners away. "Mr. North? Is that you?"

Agni Azimar | Multi | Closed & OTA

[for_i_have_none]

---

they're lining up the prisoners and the guards are taking aim (Dungeon Cell - Closed to Felix Gaeta)

Mere moments out of the Senate room, making his way warily through the halls, Azimar ran headfirst into something he couldn't see. Or perhaps something he couldn't see ran into his head, deliberately. Whichever it was, his head is aching as he comes to consciousness.

Well.

This isn't the first dungeon cell he's been in. Though the fact that he can't seem to move away from the stone wall puts it decidedly in the running for one of the worst. The fact that he can hear someone else breathing ... could go either way, he fears.

He clears his throat experimentally. "Hello?"

---

i struggled with some demons, they were middle-class and tame (Catacombs - OTA)

He wakes in dust and darkness.

Azimar's never given much thought to the idea of an afterlife; he's heard many stories about it, none of which seemed any likelier than any others. But one old tale comes rather forcefully to mind: those who go down into shadow, he can hear the storyteller's mournful cadence now, they do not return, they sit ever in darkness; clay is their food and dust their drink.

If one were to set out to instill despair, he thinks wearily, one could hardly do better than this.

... Perhaps someone has, he thinks in the next breath.

Breath. He is still breathing, a fact underscored by the acrid sting of the dust in his nose and a feeling that he's about to sneeze. Bad smells there may be in the afterlife, he is willing to concede that, but sneezing? No. If there's sneezing in the afterlife, he's just going to give it up as a bad job, that's all.

By degrees, he picks himself up and steps around the skeletal remains of long-dead demons. "Sorry to trouble your rest, elders," he murmurs in Infernal, "pray don't get up, I'll be gone in a moment. I hope."

The stone door, with no visible handle, may give him some trouble. Unless there's someone else in here who can offer some help -- or who needs help of their own.

---

didn't know i had permission to murder and to maim (Dungeon Halls - OTA)

When he recognizes the corridors around him, it's hard to suppress a bitter laugh. Is this the point of it all? Get them to kill each other, and then bring them back around to do it again?

There has to be a way out of this. There has to be.

Anyone else he encounters from here on out, he's going to try to urge to group together. They stand a better chance in numbers.

---

you want it darker? (Wildcard - OTA)

[Any ideas not covered above? Hit me!]

[not_a_traitor]

A familiar voice answers: "Azimar?"

Followed by a thump, and the same voice muttering in a much more annoyed cadence, "Godsdammit. Of course it'd get worse after we got out. Are you tied up, too?"

Rost | Horizon Zero Dawn | Ceremonial Hall [OTA]

[induetime]

- 1. it's all taking and no giving

What in the All-Mother's vast domain is a bloody job, Rost wonders as he, shirtsleeves rolled up and held in place with sleeve-garters, carefully inspects the furniture he needs to move. He has a very strong feeling that he must move the furniture, shove it out of the way but avoid scraping the floor underneath.

Rost, despite having lived long enough to raise a daughter to the age of her Proving, is still strong. He is skilled and careful and dexterous. But he has no idea how to move furniture on his own without dragging some part of it on the ground. And the marble floor here looks like even walking on it might marr it — he's wearing absurd little cloth booties over his new steel-toed boots, and he's nearly slipped at least three times just walking to this little copse of oak tables and chairs, stacked up every which way.

Hearing the ring of approaching footsteps on this ridiculous, dangerous, ugly floor, he turns and says, "there is furniture here. I'd like your help in moving it."

- 2. and they never give you credit

It is undignified, to be treated like some hopped-up outsider's lackey. Rost has lived a respectably long life without ever coming across the idea of service outside of thralldom — an institution absent from Nora society, but practised by the more powerful people all around them. He is pragmatic, a survivalist. Back in the Embrace, when he grew tired, he rested. When Aloy grew tired, he carried her home — when she was little enough to carry. When she grew, she grew a little better at telling when they needed to stop and rest, when she needed to devote a day to foraging and tending the patches of the Embrace where Rost was instructing her in cultivating aromatic and nutritious plants.

So needless to say, Rost thinks that when it's time to lean, it's time to lean. Claunthe cannot be everywhere at once, and he is not afraid of her, in any case. She has not earned his respect, and she has not shown herself to be actively dangerous just yet. So during a lull, when there is no one but the hapless drafted servants in the hall, Rost approaches one of his new colleagues who are busy at some miserable and quite pointless task.

"Have you any cigarettes? Or some desire to show me a particularly tricky task, far away on the other side of the hall?"

- 3. it's enough to drive you crazy if you let it

Wildcard! Come find Rost at odd jobs, smoking behind a pile of furniture, pretending to polish the throne, or fighting with floor-polishing cloths, or something else!

Pomni | The Amazing Digital Circus | Ceremonial Hall

[jeveuxpartir]

⭐Monitoring you, like machines do⭐[ open ]

Late. Of course she's late. Hurriedly yanking on the jacket of her uniform and holding her hat on her head, Pomni comes running into the ceremonial hall and scrambling comically to find herself something to do. Gotta blend in so she doesn't get busted for her tardiness. She bolts over to the first other person she sees in the staff uniform, out of breath. "Hey! What are we doin'? Can I help?"

⭐You still got it, I'm just keeping an eye⭐ [ closed ]

Jax and Ragatha being here too quells Pomni's nerves substantially. She spends much of her time working beside one or both of them in one capacity or another, and now's no different, helping to set tables in the same general area as the both of them.

Well, technically one of them, since someone's not working.

"You're gonna get caught," Pomni warns Jax. "I don't really think you wanna get in trouble with boss lady, do you?"

[jaxinthebox]

"What? I'm folding napkins," Jax argues back. "How's she gonna come after me for folding napkins?"

A more accurate assessment would be folding a napkin. Few tables have the cloths adorning them yet, and Jax doesn't look especially motivated to put the pedal to the metal on that.

"Honestly, it's on her for putting me over here," he adds, giving a non-chalant shrug. "You're both distracting me, obviously."