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wildestlogs2021-11-09 09:35 pm
wildestmods) wrote in wildestlogs2021-11-09 09:35 pm
HEARTSTONE TROLLMARKET ※ CAMP
HEARTSTONE TROLLMARKET
The Nightrenders and the Sisters stop following their prey once they get some distance into the woods. The protective aura coming from the shelter up north is full of deep protective magic.
It is a strange place. It looks like a massive cavern underground was somehow thrust up through earth and stone, until the roof and one wall cracked and fell in many places, creating a sort of canyon with rounded inner walls. If they look up they'll see a starry band of the night sky through the cracked roof. The rocks clearly crushed some houses and businesses but seem to have finally settled, so it's safe to wander around.
The way the ceiling opened was a source of far more tragedy than the falling rocks, though. When day breaks, they'll see the band of sunlight that cut through this community. Scattered through this band of light are large figures wrapped in sheets and blankets, tied in place with pieces of bright cloth. Little trinkets lay scattered at their feet. If anyone takes one of the blankets off, they'll see the petrified figure of a troll, their stone face forever etched in fear and surprise. It's clear from the cloth coverings and the trinkets that this is a people that cared for their dead, and that had community and family life. Among some of the trinkets are the drawings of children and dolls left for their lost loved one.
Market stalls have been ransacked, house doors are open, with larders of whatever this people ate empty, like the people here left very suddenly. Perhaps they felt the need to leave because of their sudden exposure - their community not thrust on the surface, the walls and ceiling holding back the sun crumbling.
Or perhaps the were nervous because of what was happening to the great crystal at the center of their world: the Heartstone. This great glowing crystal that got folded into the Wilderlands, was the nexus of magical energy of a world, its lifeblood, the beating heart of all magic. It sustained and protected the trolls.
It is cracked and dying. Dimming to a deeper color, occasionally flickering in a way that shows that someday it will dim completely. But not tonight. Tonight its nourishing, protective magic will keep the monsters away and give them some light in the dark. Even without the torches of the trolls, the Heartstone's light causes gems and crystals in the cavern - now a canyon - to glimmer with its protective light.
❧ Quest magic: Players can handwave that the quest bond magic ultimately tugged the group to the Heartstone, eventually teleporting any stragglers to it. Once the group is gathered there, no one can go far without getting teleported back.
❧ Time Period: The mods will set up a top-level for the night they all arrived, and a top-level for players to post their ongoing threads set over the ensuing days. Unless the group decides to leave faster, they will likely stay there for several IC days. (And the mods will probably allow this rest stop to run 1-2 OOC weeks, but will touch base with the playerbase on their preferences.)
❧ NPCing: No npcs are left in Trollmarket - the trolls have abandoned their now unsafe home. However, gnomes can be found wandering the canyon. The gnomes seem sentient, as they clearly speak a squeaky language that just can't be translated, but they're near feral, once the pests of the trolls. They're small, extremely fast, massively strong for their tiny sizes, and love to steal the belongings of bigger people. Groups of them sometimes gang up to carry larger items. They're also aggressive: prone to biting with their pointy teeth, and taking off their pointy caps and leaping at people to stab them with the pointy horns on the tops of their heads.
❧ Supplies: There is no human food in Trollmarket and the remains of any stalls advertising food make that clear. The trollish writing on the signs is translated by translation magic to Sylvaen, the language they've all gained knowledge of. Apparently the trolls liked to eat rocks and various minerals, socks stolen from humans, and cats. Fortunately, the cages from the stalls advertising the last one are empty, and the feral cat colony around Trollmarket makes it clear they weren't taken as emergency rations. (Occasionally there is a great racket as the gnomes and cats go to war.) However, there are resources like course cloth, woolen blankets, and sewing and cobbling materials. There are also leather goods like satchels, packs, and belts. There is rope. And waxy paper that can be used to wrap food supplies.
❧ Weapons: There are weapons that can be found in places, but not many. The trolls were not a peaceful people but they settled most of their problems with simple, non-fatal brawling, rather than anything crueler, only fighting against outside attackers. The few weapons that can be found are very large and heavy, clearly meant for war. They're built for a people that averages 8-10 feet tall and only the strongest and largest among the squad will find them anything but unwieldy. However, there are a few "small" knives of crude metal that can be used as short swords, and metal shields probably used as bucklers, that would work as full shields for normal-sized people.
❧ Forest resources: The woods around Trollmarket are safe, especially if traversed during the day. They're full of potential food, for those that know what to look for. There are wild blueberries, raspberries, and huckleberries, and enough flat, dark rocks to dry fruit in the sun. At the edge of a nearby pond are cattails, with edible roots, and reeds and grasses that can be used for basket-making. Dandelions grow everywhere, with edible flowers and roots, and there are edible marigold flowers. There's ample firewood, pieces of flint (though it takes time to find them), and wild game like deer and rabbits. The trolls' cookware, cutlery, and knives can be used to cook and dress animals, but might be heavy to take along. Water can be found in the pond (though it'd need boiling), or in small, cleaner springs in the woods.
❧ Spells: Archivists will find that there are little springs in the woods that they can draw spells from. The mods will make up random spells for Archivist players that request one.
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He starts to pluck away some of the leaves, rubbing them between his fingers to enjoy how velvety they are.
"So, lamb's ear is what we call a 'cold' plant where I'm from, because it's good at warding animals from Hell. Hellcats, hellhounds, imps, those sorts of things. You rub it on your body and those critters can't smell you or approach you." Dan demonstrates, rubbing one of the leaves against his throat and his wrists. "Don't work on demons, because it ain't as pungent as camphor. Camphor smells like that greasy medicine rub folks use when they got a cold."
He watches Dean, waiting for a good opening to dive a little deeper, but not about to rush it.
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Dean says it lightheartedly, but that was a bad winter. Dean was fourteen and Sammy had a cough that just wouldn't go away, Dad was out of reach, and Dean was forced to figure out how to get by during winter break without school-provided meals. They almost got kicked out of their shitty apartment. Dean had to get a job where the work and pay was absolute shit, especially since it was all under-the-table. If he's being honest, he doesn't really know how they made it through January. He barely remembers most of it, at this point, other than the constant hunger and exhaustion and fear. He remembers handing over cash for rent, but doesn't remember where he got it.
When Dad finally showed up, school started back up again and Dean got his ass chewed out for skipping.
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It doesn't have the pink and purple flowers that he promised Dean, because it's not in bloom, and Dan realizes belatedly he should have known that the plant was out of season before giving Dean an inaccurate description. He holds it out for Dean to see, then brings it to his own face.
He takes a breath, as if he's just trying to smell the verbena, and decides to try and get a bit more into why it was that Dean ran into the woods to cry and rage. "There's a witch around the camp. I reckon I got reason to feel the same way about her that you do about that demon."
But he doesn't. Dan didn't have a parent molding him into a weapon of vengeance. Dan had to find himself, pull pieces of himself out of the wreckage, on his own, and he didn't find any anger or hate in the remains. For better or worse.
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"You need help dealing with that?" he offers, thinking that must be what Dan's looking for. Why would Dan bring it up, otherwise? Dean's shown himself to be good for one thing and one thing only, and he isn't surprised that Dan can tell-- he saw Dean's memories, after all. So obviously he's asking for Dean's help to get rid of her.
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Dan tries to treat every person as an individual, not an ambassador for whatever community they come from, but sometimes it's difficult not to be wary and cagey where Rowena's concerned. Bunny met her on the Rig and told Dan there was a witch who reveled in her power and treated cruelty as a plaything, and Dan has avoided her ever since. He's gone out of his way not to test how far his openmindedness can stretch.
He starts folding some of the verbena into his carrying cloth. "What I'm saying is that if anyone blames you or lashes out at you for reacting the way you did to that demon, I've got your back. Because I understand it, how hard and...and frustrating it can be."
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"But... you're a hunter?" he says. His voice betrays his confusion. He doesn't think he's met a hunter who just let something go, like this.
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He wonders if there's a way to leverage his age - he's got what, fifteen years on Dean? - without sounding like a scold or patronizing. Dan has been around the block a few more times than Dean, and his experience has made him more even-tempered, more thoughtful and precise in how he approaches a situation, even if he weren't already predisposed towards gentleness.
"We both got to pick our battles here. There's no winning if you decide to pick a fight with the demon. You'll just look like a loose cannon to folks who don't get it. This ain't a group of people that's going to be convinced to see it your way, because ain't none of them had to mourn a loved one because of a demon. It ain't staring them in the face the same way it does you."
Dan's voice is already quiet and monotone and low, but it's especially flat now as he keeps from choking up.
"Just like they don't look at a witch and think of burying their little brothers and sisters the way I do."
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He looks down at the ground. His voice sounds small and young when he speaks. "You saw, back with those creatures. Mom, she--" he chokes on the words. He hates that those monsters broadcasted his worst memories for anyone to see, but it means he doesn't have to describe what happened. "When Sammy was seven, a demon tried to take. She put Sammy under some kinda spell. Dad almost died. Less than a month later another one almost walked off with him, but it let him go for some reason. Dad's been looking for the thing that killed Mom since she died. It was a man with yellow eyes standing over Sammy's crib. Dad figures it's a demon."
His thoughts are disjointed. Dean doesn't-- he doesn't talk about this, not with anyone. Trying to talk about it with Dad is a good way to get a bottle thrown at your head, and Sammy doesn't remember that those things even happened. Dean's been pushing it all down for so long, he doesn't know how to let even the smallest bit out.
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Dan drags his hand through some of the verbena just to have something to ground him, the leaves whispering through his fingers. There's a part of him that's jealous of Dean, because at least Dean got Sammy back, at least Dean's dad only almost died, at least-
But Dan isn't a kid dealing with this anymore. It's further in the past for Dan, fresh as exposed for Dean. Dean's young, dealing with all this in a young person's fashion. There's nothing, nothing, to envy.
"You're the only person here whose whole life has been shaped by demons and hunting demons. Anyone who'd been what you been through would hate them. Anyone who lost what you lost, the way you lost it-"
Dan tries to triangulate, mentally, what the ideal outcome of this conversation is. He doesn't expect Dean to be friendly with Crowley, now or ever. But Dean's either going to learn to live with Crowley or he's going to flame out spectacularly in front of the group. The ideal is for Dean to accept coexisting.
The ideal is for Dean to accept coexisting, and feel like all this pain that's been bundled up for so long, stuffed down, twisted and sharpened into hate by his father and the way the world tells men to carry their wounds, isn't something he needs to be ashamed of. It's something other people can help him carry.
"I'm so sorry they put you through that. You and your family," Dan says, with a deep sigh that's not just for Dean but for his own family, a moment of mourning for every family that's been torn apart by someone else's malice.
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Because that's the thing that no one gets. This isn't something that happened to Dean's family, it's still happening. It's never stopped. Mary's death is a living, breathing thing that haunts the Winchesters just as much as any ghost, except this one can't be exorcized or banished.
Sam never got that. He always saw mom as something that was, not understanding the how shape of her absence could be found in every part of their life, growing up. He didn't hear Dad's drunken ramblings on the rare good nights, or the sober ones on bad nights. He didn't get sent outside in the middle of the night because Dad saw too much of Mary in his face. He didn't see how the only thing keeping Dad from going off the deep end was this revenge-quest with a death sentence at the end, his light at the end of the tunnel.
Sammy never saw any of that and then he got out, leaving Dean behind to pick up the mess as usual.
"How do you do it?" he finally asks.
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"I drink. A lot. Sometimes I do drugs. I screw a lot of strangers. I throw myself into work, same as you do. I don't talk about it much. You're about the fourth person I told any of this, ever, and only because you're another hunter and you understand it."
Dan doesn't really think he's doing it. He's surviving, barely. He wishes he could say something inspiring to Dean, something about how it'll be okay if he just hangs in there, that recovery is within reach - but even if that's true, Dan certainly isn't proof of it.
"I try to think, there's all this hurt in the world. And if I got to be a part of this world, I should try and do something about that. Hunting ain't about revenge or anger for me. It's about making sure what happened to my family don't happen to someone else's." He picks some more verbena. "It's easier when it ain't about anger. Keeps you looking forward, at the things you done protected, instead of backwards at everything you lost."
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Then he takes a minute to think about what Dan said.
"I don't think I know who I am without the anger," he says quietly. It's a soft admission, one he barely manages to give.
And it's not just that Dean wouldn't know who he is-- it's that he wouldn't be able to be who Dad needs him to be. Who Dad has made him. And sometimes he wakes up and can't stand to look himself in the mirror, but at least he knows what he's waking up for. (Though that line has blurred more and more since Sam ditched him for college and Dad ditched him for-- anything.)
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He could make a list, but that doesn't mean Dean would hear it. Dan suspects it'd probably just spook him.
"For a long time, I didn't know who I was without grief. And sometimes I still don't know who I am without fear."
Dan's anxiety about potential grief is so severe that, at times, it feels like an invisible hand controlling his every move. It nearly ruined his relationship with his husband. It's kept him from being able to hold down any job except hunting, from being able to put roots anywhere. It's brought him to the brink of death several times. That's what he blocks out with the drugs, the alcohol, the reckless sex and the dangerous lifestyle.
"But the only way to find out who you are without anger is to make choices against that anger. See how it feels. Instead of acting on anger, walk away. Instead of rage, just let it move through you and let it go. Conscious actions." Dan points to a plant - lilacs - and wanders in that direction. "For me, it was making the decision not to just take off and run away whenever the idea struck me. A conscious choice to stay put even when I want to run."
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He's thought about driving out to California and actually visiting Sam instead of just watching. He's thought about getting an apartment, or a job, or even taking up space on Bobby's couch. It's just never felt like a real choice for him.
Hell, he doesn't care about staying in one place or not. He just wants someone to choose to stay with him.
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Which still doesn't mean settling in a place. Dan thinks he'd crawl out of his skin if he ever tried to stay in a place.
"Before deciding to stick around and commit to something, someone, I'd say my life was maybe a three out of ten. Maybe a little less. Now it's probably a six. Here, lilac's good for warding djinn and revenants."
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"What's his deal, anyway?" he asks about Bunny. "I don't even know what I did to piss him off so much."
Because of course Dean assumes that he must have done something wrong.
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There's a lot of warmth in the way Dan says that, both towards Bunny and towards Dean, as if to say and you're a bit of a curveball in the most affectionate manner.
"He ain't pissed off at you. He's blaming himself for how your last encounter went down. He holds himself to a high standard, and he's disappointed in himself letting his pride and sensitivity tank things between you."
Dan figures Bunny won't begrudge him speaking on his husband's behalf and trying to smooth things over. He can burn off a little of Bunny's ego to keep Dean from cratering in on himself with self-criticism.
"But don't tell him I said that." Dan winks.
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"Whatever," he says dismissively, clearly uncomfortable with Dan's emotional honesty. He didn't bring the subject up specifically to pick a fight, or anything, definitely not. But he figured Dan would be more defensive over his...
Husband.
"We won't have any problems as long as he keep his opinions to himself."
You don't just insult a guy's family like that. It's a dick move.
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By which Dan means, but knows better than to say, he and Bunny have been psychoanalyzing Dean on the sly in a benevolent effort to help this damaged kid find his footing in a complicated, disorienting scenario, without the one family figure and person generally who's been Dean's true north - and have concluded that it's Dan, not Bunny, who's going to do the better job of it.
"He don't know what it's like to have to defend the way you were raised from folks that don't understand." That's part of the reason Dan doesn't talk much about his family. Not only does it hurt to remember them, but it hurts to feel called to the mat on their behalf when all he wants to do is grieve them, when he doesn't want anyone taking an already fragile and fading memory and tramping on it with their that sounds fucked up or that sounds like child abuse or so it's a relief they're gone, right?
"Ah, finally, here's some camphor." Dan runs his fingers through a leaf-laden branch of a tree. He picks a sprig of it and holds it out to Dean. "I don't know what world this Crowley folk comes from, so I don't know if this'll do jack to ward him, but it can't hurt, right?"
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Even if it doesn't work, or Dan's talking out of his ass, it's a kind enough gesture that Dean stumbles over his words for a moment.
"I-uh. Yeah, I guess not," he carefully takes the sprig and puts it onto the rarely-used watch pocket of his leather jacket. That way it won't get mixed up or torn apart by whatever crap he has in the rest of them.
"Thanks," he mutters to the ground, kicking a foot awkwardly. Why the hell is this guy so nice? It just ain't right.
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Dan would be looking out for Dean regardless, but he hopes that puts it into a context that Dean will accept.
"I'm going to head back - Bunny's expecting me to circle 'round for dinner - but if you need someone in your corner about this demon thing, let me know." Dan won't place himself at odds with Crowley, who seems perfectly decent, but he's happy to either be a buffer or be someone to shield Dean from the harshest interpretations of his behavior. "You're welcome to dinner, if you want."
He expects Dean's pride and wariness will prevent him from taking him up on the offer, especially with Bunny around, but the door is open.
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"Thanks, but I'll pass," he says somewhat lightly. He gets that it's a friendly offer, but he would rather pull teeth than try to sit down and have dinner with Dan and his-- his husband.
See, Dean can think about it. It's all perfectly normal, and he's not being weird about it at all.
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He'd prefer not to, honestly, but he's getting the impression that his stupid dying fantasy isn't going to let him go without actually dealing with this. It figures that even his own brain is working against him, even now.