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INTO THE WOODS ※ GAME EVENT

INTO THE WOODS

The faerie faire goes on into the evening, the faire filled with the sounds of revelry. For those who've spent the day there, the cool evening air is welcome respite from the bright sun that's shined all day. Those who still have some faerie gold might even want to invest in a cloak if they haven't gotten one yet, because it may get chillier as night falls.

As evening descends and various floating flowers start to glow to provide light, the spring faeries start to bring out night-time merchandise and amusements, like brightly-colored phosphorescent flower jewelry. Fireflies are charmed to blink in different colors and magical fireworks paint the sky in vibrant light. They're quieter than normal fireworks, but there are still satisfying snaps and hisses.

It seems like it'll be a pleasant night at the fair and those only just arriving in the evening will find a charming scene opening up before them.

But one thing that isn't noticed as evening begins to fall is the way the winter faeries suddenly slink away into the rising dark. Or at least it isn't noticed until it's too late. Some of the summer faeries start to react to it with alarm.

"Where did they go? The winter faeries are supposed to provide security, they signed an agreement. Go tell Ponto and get some faeries with warding magic to shore up the wards." Faeries start flying with purpose to speak to others that need to be put on security. "We can handle it ourselves but we need to get enough people out to the borders."

"Should we disperse the faire?"

"No, there's no sign of any threats and if we re-ward it, they'll be safer here than people scattering in the woods at night. Even if we had the bad luck to be attacked before the wards are re-done we can defend them with our magic - and we're contracted to."

Unfortunately that bad luck hits too soon. While the faeries scramble to re-do the defense wards, an unearthly fog rolls in. Terrible screeches start to rend the air, sounding similar to the screams of foxes. Warning bells ring from warning wards placed in certain areas of the woods.

"Nightrenders!" someone calls out and people in the crowd start screaming, gathering their loved ones closer. Horrifying beings start to pour into the faire and the hand stamps of all the people who bought tickets ahead of time start to glow. Faeries rally around those people, casting powerful defensive spells. Due to the panic, several stalls start to go up in flames due to knocked over cooking fires. Fortunately the stalls are small enough for people to escape them easily and spread far enough apart that they can be avoided, but smoke joins the fog in the air.

If a faerie sees one of the squad of otherworlders, and their lack of glowing hand stamp they're quick to offer a warning. "You have to run! The people who bought tickets ahead of time entered into a magical agreement of protection. The warding takes time to charge. We can do nothing for you, without slow-charge wards we're not powerful enough to protect you. The Nightrenders will devour your brain, or your soul."

Apparently that little disclaimer about not being fully protected that some of them read while coming in (for those that had arrived earlier in the day) was more important than it seemed.

The faeries always point the same way, still trying to help the people without tickets. "To the north! There's a place in a canyon with a large, glowing crystal. It looks like an abandoned market and dwellings. You'll be safe there, the magic of the Heartstone will protect you."

USEFUL LINKS

Setting Background/FAQ | Major NPCs

NIGHTRENDERS

The beings known as Nightrenders start amassing on the faire. Their movements are quick but clumsy, as if every one of their movements is made up of a hundred janky, smaller fits and starts, like they're made of clockwork. The faerie magic summer faeries use seems to do no more than stagger them back or temporarily knock them over, but at least makes it clear to the squad that they at least can be knocked over and slowed down. At the very least it seems to take them some time to get off the ground and back to their feet.

Attacks

They attack anyone they see in different ways. Some they wound with massive claws. Or they squeeze someone's torso and nearly suffocate them to give them a chance at possibly chomping into the heads of their victims to get at the brains. Most dangerously of all, they breathe in with a loud sucking noise, clawed hands guiding the magic that lets them drawn out someone's soul to devour it. It looks like a small delicate thing, sometimes in the form of a glittering star or a flower, as its drawn out of the victim's mouth.

This process can fortunately be interrupted if the Nightrender is attacked. As long as the soul hasn't been sucked into their mouths, it goes back into the victim.

Cursed Aura

But the whole thing is complicated by the magical aura caused by the Nightrenders. When they draw close, everyone around them is choked with fear, grief, and dread. Some succumb to visions of their worse memories playing out in their heads over and over. Some might be able to still stagger away in this state, trying to see through the visions, especially if someone helps them along, but others will find it nearly impossible to do anything other than curl on the ground. It is unknown why some don't have the flashbacks or can power through them more than others, though it's thought that those that repress their bad memories or negative emotions struggle more.

Anyone that helps someone who's having visions may get a glimpse of their memories - and empathically feel a flash of the pain, fear, rage, or grief they felt during the memory. If two people try to help each other move forward when both are having visions, they may transmit glimpses back and forth.

Weaknesses

The Nightrenders cannot be destroyed, only knocked down, or slowed down. However, those with "holy" weapons, spells, or powers, or those who have weapons, spells, or powers that can hurt "ethereal" beings or evil spirits will find they can cause them enough pain that sometimes they run away. Spells and abilities that create magical manifestations of good will and happiness, as well as spells of light, or purification can also harm them and drive them away.

THE SISTERS

The Nightrenders don't speak, but some have the misfortune of hearing two voices echo out of the fog. The come in stereo, only just slightly out of sync.

"Chosen Ones, you must be so confused. You've become lost in the forest, and the Dark Lord's nightmares already pursue you. Fortunately for you, our mistress desires your company. You'll adore obeying her will. Don't run, embrace a better destiny."

Two woman in white masks and straw hats, with cloaks made from the feathers of ravens, come out of the fog, body language almost identical. No eyes can be seen through the eyeholes of their masks, just darkness.

They start attacking, and when they beset their victims they stop speaking, refusing to talk or answer questions, instead filling the air with wild, mocking laughter. One wields twin katanas, the other a kusarigama with a painful claw at the end of the chain that closes down when it hits something.

Nets

While they're extremely willing to injure the squad they seem to be trying to capture them instead of killing (albeit capturing them after they're maimed), occasionally tossing out nets of glowing silver of moonlight. Being caught in the nets renders someone paralyzed and weak, a deep cold settling into the marrow of their bones. Some may even hear the shrieks of dying loved ones, whether they've actually died in reality or not. The Sisters apparently have the strength to carry even the largest of the squad in the air and will attempt to fly away when someone is ensnared.

The nets are difficult to destroy, but can be with great force of some kind. It has to be aimed at the part closest to the Sisters' hands, because the force required to break the nets would also injure those trapped inside them. The cold and paralysis fades when the victims are free, but some of the rescued may feel weak and need help staying on their feet. Unfortunately, even when they're broken, the nets of moonlight seem to be something they can recreate within several minutes.

Smoke Monsters

For some, they don't attack directly. Instead, one of the sisters pulls out a pipe and smoke monsters pour out of it. They try to drag their victims closer to the sisters so they can be caught in their nets. Fortunately, they can be destroyed with enough force.

While the Sisters seem impossible to injure, they can at least be caused pain with extreme enough attacks, something that makes them teleport away before risking any further injury.

PROMPTS

a) RENT
Uh oh, a Nightrender has you. Either it's squeezing you so hard you're suffocating and about to chomp into some juicy brains, or it's in the process of sucking your soul out through your mouth. In either case, you're likely broadcasting visions of your worst memories in small flashes to whoever is near. You're in desperate need of rescue and the summer faeries can't help - their magic is all but useless on the Nightrenders if it didn't have time to build by a covenant. Only others that fell into the Wilderlands like you did can save you.

(Feel free to provide multiple memory options ala a memshare, but keep in mind they'd only be flashes instead of a full memory!)

b) NABBED
The Sisters have got you, their smoke monsters are trying to drag you away, or you're still trying to fight them to avoid being caught. It'll be a lot easier if you have help - otherwise you're outnumbered and possibly outclassed. The only way to stop them is fight back hard enough that they feel you're not worth the effort and teleport off.

c) RESCUE
Perhaps you're not affected by the Nightrenders or are just good at powering through the haze of painful magic they're inflicting on the area. Either way, you're out to help the people around you. Perhaps you run into another member of the otherworlder squad that needs saving - or maybe they join you to protect a third otherworlder, or a denizen of the Wilderlands that also forewent a ticket and is therefore at risk. Unlike many of the people from other universes, many of the denizens of the Wilderlands are powerless and thought they were in for a day and night of safe fun.

There are also other hazards to rescue people from. Maybe a small child has been separated from their parents and is disoriented by smoke, in need of rescued from some flaming tents. Or maybe an elderly person has fallen and is at risk of being trampled. There are lots of reasons people might need help, due to fires, panicked horses, collapsing tents, and panicking crowds.

d) RUN
It's time to run! Perhaps, after some screaming and confusion - and teleportation - you finally grab a buddy and bolt through the woods. You better run fast because the Nightrenders and the Sisters may give up chase at some point but it may take time and moving through difficult terrain in the fog to lose them. Perhaps you and a partner have to help a third, injured otherworlder because they're having trouble walking.

Better head north like the faeries said. The faeries were right that this Heartstone to the north may be your only hope - and you'll have to reach it despite the fading evening light, skies overcast with dark clouds, and fog.

It may be easier navigating in the dark with a partner or two.

e) WILDCARD
Maybe you decide to do none of the above. Go nuts!

OOC DETAILS
❧ Quest magic: Players can handwave that the quest bond magic is tugging the group northward to the safe place, with the mysterious Heartstone. They can also use the quest magic as an excuse for many different threads. As the group tries to run, their scattering movements will affect the magic and cause people to teleport at random, allowing for many different encounters with many other characters. This can explain why two characters that might otherwise stay together through the whole thing might get separated.

❧ Network: The network can now be used. Mirrors can and do float if someone is trying to talk through one and running, and can follow someone as they move, allowing people to communicate on the go or during action. Feel free to start using the network in parallel with the log events.

❧ NPCing: The mods won't be npcing but players are free to npc the actions of bystanders, the Nightrenders, and the Sisters. The Sisters won't speak, just continue laughing, and players can npc their specific attacks, capture attempts, and teleportation. Please just don't have them talk or godmode them dying - they're currently a little too sturdy for that. If you have a question about whether/how something will affect them feel free to ask the mods in the first comment below.

❧ Environment: Feel free to manipulate the environment. There are things left over from the faire people can work with like bow and arrow sets from the competition, horses (which can be temporarily stolen, though we'd like to limit any that are permanently stolen to the (1) horse another player already requested), and even explosive faerie fireworks (they're quieter than the normal thing but still create a big bang). Abandoned stalls also have weapons and supplies to grab as people run for it. If they didn't think to steal or buy useful things during the day, please limit this to only grabbing one or two items as they run, like a cloak or sword. They won't have time to loot for more.

❧ Experimentation: We'd like to encourage people to experiment! Obviously ask other players if they're down first, but it could be fun to do something other than 2 person threads, like maybe 2 PCs banding to rescuing a 3rd. Players are also encouraged to set limitations if they think it'd be more interesting, like locking their final escape prompt from the faire grounds to a single thread partner and playing out the drama of a full escape.

[OOC: Plot is visible so people can see and start plotting together but not open until Nov. 1. The mods will enable comments then.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Closed to Need

Raistlin emerges from the trance Need’s put him into a vision of hell. Fire, fog, and a cold spreading dark that has him clutching his staff in one hand and Need’s hilt in another. Faire-goers are running, screaming, trampling each other and knocking over tables. A summer fairy pulls at his sleeve.

“Run! We can’t protect you!”

And then the first nightrender appears. It moves like something from a nightmare, stuttering forward at strange angles, and with it comes a wave of horror that nearly drives Raistlin to his knees. He’s a child again, ten years old, face ground in the dirt. Where’s your magic now, Majere! they chant. Show us a magic trick, wizard!. His lungs fill with dirt, he can’t breathe, they won’t let him up -

Open to All

Raistlin can barely breathe. He has his kerchief over his mouth and nose, medicinal herbs grasped tight within them, but the smoke of the fires is boiling in his lungs and the terrible darkness of the creatures’ fearful aura is snatching the air from chest. Even the screams have faded to a kind of dull background roar.

That’s when the sisters find him. He knows at a glance that he can’t outrun them. Without his brother, he’s unlikely to succeed in fighting them. And yet, he finds himself raising his hand to cast, searching for the strange new channels of power this place had carved inside him -

And then the one with the chain moves faster than his eye can see, and cracks him over the head.

He comes around as he’s being dragged across the ground, bound hand and foot in smoke, and understands that his life is over. No one here knows him. No one here has any reason to help him. He sees someone watching him from cover, and meets their eyes with a tired resignation of a dying animal.

Kevin has gotten worrisomely accustomed to weird shit happening to him, but it still takes Kevin a minute to assess wild new situations. That's how he ended up behind one of the racks of archery targets.

There are... smoke monsters, bro. He doesn't know what they are, and there are scary masked women and creepy... Kevin doesn't have the spare brainpower to drag up adjectives for the nightrenders.

Should he run? He should run. He should definitely, definitely run.

That's when he sees the guy from earlier. The one with the weird eyes, who told that story about dragons? He's getting dragged away.

Kevin is a skatepunk, full of risky impulses. Kevin has made it through his first decade as a vampire, meaning his self preservation instincts do at least exist.

It means he hesitates, but only a little.

"Let him go!"

The pale fire of the klaive flashes through the smoke as Kevin rushes into it, whirling Foehammer in an undisciplined but fast arc. He can't tell if there's damage done, but at least the creatures are distracted by the need to separate around the blade hacking through them.

Scooby's with him, bouncing and darting at shadows, staying just out of reach.

Raistlin almost shouts a warning, then bitterly decides to let the young hero choose his (stupid, wasteful, pointless) fate. So he's incredibly surprised to find the his bonds loosening as the smoke-monster contorts, trying to avoid the blade's wild swings. Never one to sleep on an opportunity, Raistlin yanks himself free and crawls off a ways before rising.

"Sederai donitan," he whispers. See me as I wish to be seen. And tries to hold in his mind the clearest image he can of the white masks, the black feather robes...

When he looks at his hands, they're delicate, graceful, and white as a corpse.

"Begone!" he snaps at the smoke monster, his voice coming out high and echoed. It's not a very good imitation; he hasn't heard them speak except at the beginning. But it seems to confuse the monster, one part of it flowing away from the young hero and attending to Raistlin.

"This one is no prey of ours," he insists. "I command you to depart."

Kevin is not coordinated or knowledgable, but Kevin is fast. He makes a frustrating target, and between that and the confusion Raistlin is causing, the smoke monster seems to be wavering.

Still on some kind of guard, Kevin suppresses the urge to shudder and scoots in a Raistlinward direction. Scooby comes to heel.

"Yeah dude I um, like, am totally joining up, it's fine," says Kevin to the monster. "Super fuckin' psyched about being like, coworkers or something now. I'm sold, man."

The smoke monster looks from Raistlin to Kevin. From Kevin to Raistlin. Back to Kevin. Back to Raistlin.

Then a laugh trills in the distance. The smoke monster turns, flowing eagerly towards the sound. Two figures float out of the mist, black and white and carefree as dandelion seeds. They see Raistlin and Kevin across the field and cocks their heads, confused.

Raistlin drops the illusion.

"Run!"

"Yeah, dude!"

Kevin takes off, but he holds back. He could be gone, if he wanted, but he's got an ally here and he's not gonna leave red robes guy behind.

So he's still there when the twin with the kusarigama sends the claw whizzing toward them as they move. Kevin parries with the klaive.

"Fuck!"

The claw grips the blade, and Kevin wrenches at it with a screech of metal.

"Ast kiranann kair Soth-aran! Suh kali Jalaran!" Raistlin's hands move in a complicated pass, and a white-hot ball of illusory flame screams through the air at the Sister attacking Kevin.

She doesn't even flinch. Only bats it aside with one hand, as if it were a particularly irritating fly. It evaporates in embarrassment.

" - blast and damnation - keep running!"

It's going to be incredibly disorienting for Raistlin emerging into this, having just felt like he was quite a different person, dying thoughts filled with grief and rage and cold absolute focus, experiencing the sensory deprivation and some carefully limited degree of the edge of madness that comes with it, and then the triumph of finding that she could control the body of her grieving student, and that all her skills and powers were still available to her. That feeling skims like clouds over a heaving sea - it worked! She's done something unforgivable to a girl who trusted her and who was already bowed under horror and sorrow, but it worked!

For a moment, this seems less like the fair Raistlin had actually been present in an hour ago and more like that long-gone compound, and there is the sense that people he cares about - that Need cares about? - are lying dead, just out of sight. Need disentangles hurriedly with a :That place is long gone and not here and it's not relevant right now. You're alive, and male, and a Red Robe mage. One of us was addressed as Sister and it's not you, boy.: She's been doing the best she can to make this less of an identity nightmare. This a lot of why memories are best shared with someone who's either asleep or sitting in a quiet room. In either case, they can come out of it slowly and reassert their own perspectives on their own time.

Raistlin has about twenty seconds as Need splits her attention and builds a mental map. :Some of the defenders abandoned their posts and let an attack catch everyone vulnerable,: she says dispassionately, and without that memory between them he would never know that this intimation of betrayal has her holding back a snarl. Reaching through the gales of emotion whipping past, she catches just the edge of a spitting, bestial hatred and yanks away from it like pulling a hand away from fire, catches glances of it through three pairs of borrowed eyes. :Oh, what - the hell - are those? Walking dyrstaffs?:

It had reacted to her touch, however fleeting that had been, and its effect roils outwards as it comes towards her. She feels it first - a fractured mirror of several bad memories at once, several pictures of shame and agony. Women and girls and others she hadn't been able to save, for one reason or another, but whose pain and hopelessness she had shared in. If she'd had teeth, she would have gritted them. How dare this thing... how dare...

:Child,: she says to Raistlin, very deliberately. :We need to move, and if you can't, I'll move for you.:

Need's reaches Raistlin like a firm hand on his shoulder, cutting through the sick haze. He snarls, lashing out, and his tormentors tear apart like cobwebs. She is right, and he is acting like a child. He is not a child, not any longer. Not helpless. A mage grown and Tested, forged in the fire of magic.

:Yes. he thinks to her, through gritted teeth. :I can move.:

And he stands, despite the wailing terror that wants to turn his legs to jelly. The Staff of Magius bears his weight, as it always has. The smoke from the fire tickles his lungs, and he barely suppresses a cough.

That's some imagery that is just not going to get interrogated right now. Far too much going on. The walking dyrstaff is drawing closer, unhurried.

:I'd ask but there's not much time. Hold out for a moment,: she says, and starts to build the parts of a spell in Raistlin's flesh and bone. And lungs, very definitely lungs. It takes her longer than the shield had, multiple seconds. This is a spell that she can and does literally cast in her sleep but she's normally working with someone more robust, whose body she knows better, and who doesn't have that there-and-gone trace of oily something making it more complicated. Not to mention bad memories!

In between a flash of frantic drowning with stones tied to her feet the surface far above and the dull despair of the healer says one more will kill me but I think he switches out the herbs and I've missed my monthlies, there's a moment more specific to Need. A conversation with a priestess looking into a bronze mirror, allowing Need to see her face - seamed, and she wears high regalia, but she seems so young, everyone is so young now. What was your name before the Twins gave you 'Need'? And... nothing comes. Nothing comes at all. It's not possible to remember every detail of several hundred years of existence - and she's made herself into something that could last until the End of All Things.

She's made her peace with that, but how horrible it had been in the moment surprises her. No matter, though, she's done well enough that it won't break the boy, even though she's had to resort to scaffolding in places. Need pours her power out as strength.

The echo of outrage and impotent fury might be mistaken for a brush of memory, his or hers, if Need hadn't not-quite-seen the oily black thing before. Try to catch the thought, however, and it's gone like a nightmare come morning.

What Raistlin feels is a rush of energy that catches him like a kick in the chest. Except it doesn't hurt; the opposite, in fact. For the first time since his Test, his lungs are clear. No fever burns through him. Despair and horror still beat at him, but the sheer relief of the strength flowing through him overwhelm them. The shock of it makes him forget to mindspeak.

"Are you doing this?"

She's closer to the surface, closer to the living world right now, she's stronger than that weird echo of something that wanted to prevent her, and the atavistic satisfaction of that is enough to push back the dyrstaff's effect for a moment - enough that the thing hesitates, looking at them.

Raistlin speaks out loud and it would be easy, it would be so easy to catch the vibrations of his throat and push him aside and respond in kind. Nope. It's not happening. She doesn't allow herself that kind of thing without the time to sit down and establish boundaries per session, even when she has the kind of long-term bearer who wouldn't mind, it's just too much temptation. She has Mindspeech and that's just going to have to be good enough.

:I need you to be able to move,: she says and there are undertones to it of I should have asked first and this only lasts as long as I maintain it and a simmering general background rage and fear and eagerness, and of course MINE and not mine do not forget not mine, all bound together into a steady voice.

:Whatever this thing is, if either of us can kill it it's me. It's noticed me.: Not a lot can kill her, the intimation is, but she doesn't want to find out of this can manage. :Run, or let me take over. It would only be for a few seconds and I will let go. I promise on the memory of my apprentice Vena.: She will, too. She always has before.

Rasitlin responds by taking a few hesitant strides forward, faster than he would normally dare. When no tight chest and closing throat follows, he breaks into an awkward sort of half-job, a body that had never walked at faster than a brisk shuffle in its entire adult life straining to accommodate the sudden change. Muscles that haven't woken in years ache and lengthen. And then he's running, in a way he hadn't been able to even as a child, galloping about in an awkward, adolescent stride he's aware must look quite ridiculous.

But it's so easy to move. He feels as if he could do this forever. And then the thought creeps up like bile: this is what it feels like for Caramon, always. Caramon, the strong twin, the one born with all the good looks, while Raistlin got twice the brain. If Caramon had never been born, could he have ended up with Caramon's strength?

( - "It wasn't your fault, Raist," Caramon had told him, afterwards. "It was those mages, they tricked you - " the great oaf, refusing to believe even his own eyes - )

Raistlin stumbles a bit.

:I think I am able to move myself, for the moment. How did you do this?: he thinks to Need, still running.

Raistlin Majere

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Open to All

Re: Open to All

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