INTO THE WOODS ※ GAME EVENT

[wildestmods]

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.]

Comments

[eternalmisery]

Spencer's one (1) act of heroism today, throwing herself between Mona and a giant wolf, isn't evident on her appearance, but the stress of the day sure is. The dress is tattered to pieces, ripped above her skinned knees so she could run easier; her hair is full of twigs and ash, and her voice is a bit of a croak from being caught in a burning barn.

She looks all wild-eyed at Kon, skidding to a stop that leaves her stumbling to the ground. She picks herself up, and not for the first time, she gives Kon that trapped, defensive look that she suspects he's here to hurt her or trick her.

"Based on who? Who's telling you that?" Because she wants to believe Kon, she really does - but she felt hope when he said he was a superhero, and as she always says, hope breeds eternal misery. "It could be a trap."

[konman]

"Okay, look. The faeries are taking people off in wagons every which way but north or leading them into the woods. I've been at the edge of town - the monsters are following them and going after them. If you go any of those ways, too, you're just going to run face first into the monsters chasing them and the faeries won't be able to protect you."

He points north.

"But some of the people that are like us are going that way. That means there'll be a group of us there, regardless of what comes our way. And I know some people have powers, I've seen it. I think they actually wanted to help and pointed us somewhere where we wouldn't run into the monsters tailing them."

[eternalmisery]

Spencer pauses, and it's not like Kon would be able to see the wheels turning. It's not that Spencer's mental car is out of gas; it's that there's a boot on it. She finds herself unable to move forward.

For two years now, Spencer's whole sense of reality has been ripped apart at the seams. Moments she thought were private were public knowledge. People she thought she trusted turned out to only want to hurt her. Things she thought were unlikely or absurd - psychics, giant dollhouses, murder by bees, faked deaths - turned out to not only be real but be weaponized against her, a targeted campaign of trauma and crazymaking that's taken her, the smartest person she knows, and turned her into someone who can't make a decision.

Everything he's saying makes sense from a logistical standpoint, and yet nothing he's saying is sensible at all, because it's about magic and faeries and superpowers.

"I don't know what to do." She gathers the fabric of her dress around her, barely staying standing when she's exhausted and scared and paralyzed by her distrust. "Kon, I don't- I don't know you, I don't know what to do-"

She does, however, know that she doesn't want to draw the attention of the nightrender that's coming around the corner, and she scurries behind a shop tent, gesturing for Kon to take cover with her. She can sense the memories those monsters pull to the surface flickering away at the back of her mind, like a word that's just on the tip of her tongue.

cw: underage stuff

[konman]

Kon dives over there with her, and Krypto comes trotting over from where he'd been searching for any trapped people and bounds over with them, standing tense and ready in case he has to defend them.

"Stay quiet, boy."

Kon stays in a crouch himself, because he doesn't want to have to get up off his knees in case it comes to a fight. He picks up a nearby rock to have something as a weapon.

There is a flash. He is a few years younger, less muscular. The brick jaw hasn't grown in yet so he's got a baby face; he can't be older than fifteen. The costume is definitely a superhero costume, more spandex-ey than his current one, in some of the same colors as Superman, an S-shield on his chest. He's being pinned to an ornate canopy bed in a room that's trashed, most of the windows shattered. Stone and smoke and lava are visible outside the windows.

The woman pinning him is a massively tall, muscular redhead with wild hair. She's beautiful, but definitely older, in her twenties at least.

"I don't get it, Knockout," he says, "You were more fun than anyone I ever met... I wanted to be with you, you know? I...I guess I thought I loved you."

He winces. "But killing that cop...Volcanum..."

"Wake up and smell the coffee, Pup!" she says, grinning wickedly. "I'm a bad girl! I've always been a bad girl! You want me because I'm a bad girl! So why the surprise when I do bad things? What we had wasn't love, Pup! All we had was fun, but fun's over! Too bad. I don't think I'll find a better lapdog."

The look of slack-jawed betrayal that comes over his face is accompanied by him thrashing an arm free, and throwing a telekinesis-reinforced punch.

"You lied to me!" he cries, pushing himself off the bed. His voice sounds very young. "You tricked me!"

"No. Never. Not a word. You believed what you wanted - and you wanted me! It was cute, it was useful! But now -" She grabs him by the leg and swings his body, crashing it into a dresser "- we're breaking up!"

Then she swings him out through a window, breaking it.

He lands on the volcanic stone outside with a cry of pain and weakly tries to push himself up again, coughing from the smoke and fumes.

She climbs out the window, still grinning that vicious grin.

"Come on, Pup - this is too easy! Fight back! Make me proud of the way you die!"

The memory flash stops. Kon has only reacted to it by wincing through it, but he quickly stops, still standing on his feet. He refuses to let the memory throw him off in case it comes to a fight.

It's an old memory anyway.

[cw: implications of underage stuff]

[eternalmisery]

Spencer freezes when the nightrender starts sniffing around, aside from grabbing a broken-off tent stake and holding it like a dagger. Her hands are shaking so much that when she tries to rest the tip of the stake against the dirt, it draws a jagged line like an EKG. Her eyes go out of focus, originally trained on the point and then rolling back as she witnesses Kon's memory.

At the end, she puts a hand on his shoulder and gives him a squeeze that she hopes it comforting, hopes is knowing.

She remembers betrayal. She remembers being blamed for simultaneously being too needy for attention and too pathetic to earn it. She remembers being fifteen and having a grown adult exploit that. She doesn't want to cast blame, but the adults in her life really set the stage for Spencer to not trust anyone, especially not herself.

"You're better off without that asshole," she hisses. She means it.

Then her own memories slam by in a quick, brief litany, and she presses the tip of the stake into the dirt to help ground herself.

In one memory, she's in prison orange in a van with three other teenage girls, and she's telling them I don't care how they split us up or where they put us, I'll always be right her with you, I won't let anything happen to you-

In another, Spencer's laying there in this same prom dress in the dirt behind an electric fence with those other girls, all of them croaking to each other how long do you think we can go without water? and I don't think I can keep doing this and you have to keep doing this and do you think he's just going to let us die out here?

In another, Spencer's in a nice kitchen with women who must be her mother yelling at her you just don't care who you hurt, do you?, Spencer yelling I'm fifteen!, her sister yelling it's funny how men always seem to forget that you're fifteen, it's fucking hilarious.

It's not that none of it's real. It's just that none of this is right now.

[konman]

The look of concentration, eyebrows furrowed, his "it's game time" look softens at her words. The look he gives her is one of genuine gratitude and sincerity. But after seeing her memories, his eyebrows furrow again, this time in sympathy.

The creature slowly moves away, fortunately allowing them to avoid a fight. Kon turns to her and puts a hand on her shoulder now.

"Look, I can tell you've had your head messed with. That people have made you question what's real. In more ways than one. And it seems like people you trusted didn't look out for you."

That comment about older men...well, shit.

"But not everyone's that way. And this - whatever we're going through - is real. Which means the threat is real, but also some of the people are just real, normal people, that are doing the things normal people do, like telling people where to run from an attack. You have to try going north, in case they're right."

He thinks.

"But if you're scared to go, then take Krypto, okay? If it goes bad, or it's some kind of trap, he's got more than enough firepower to get you out, and he can lead you somewhere safer. He can smell these guys coming.

[eternalmisery]

Spencer makes a little guffaw noise at Kon's description of her and why she's behaving the way she is. She envies his clarity right now. She covets his ability to feel certain about anything, to be able to think this is a sensible course of action and stick to it. She feels as if she's no more capable of planning than an animal in a kennel being prodded with a stick, of anything more than finding the furthest wall to cling to to dodge the next jab.

She nods. She follows along with him. It's so much easier to just give up and deciding who to trust and to just go with the guy who sounds like he knows what's up, who's been nothing but kind and reassuring towards her, and who is, in some ways she feels she'll understand in time, something like her. At least in some ways.

And Kon giving her the dog is a promise that he'll meet her up north too. Which means that even if Spencer is barrelling right into a trap up there, she won't be alone.

"Here, boy." She reaches over and scritches the space between Krypto's shoulder blades. "I'll take you for a few minutes...good boy."

She starts to scoot towards where she can make a break through the fog heading north. "You come get him, alright? I'm not responsible enough to be a dog parent."

[konman]

"I'll meet you there, I promise. I just want to make sure the place is cleared out first. There are still people that need help."

Krypto whines a little whine at him and he kneels down to pet him.

"I know you're worried but I promise I'll catch up. Keep an eye on her, okay? Don't let anything hurt her, and if something goes wrong, lead her somewhere safe. I promise I'll figure out how to find you."

The dog lets out another whine and licks his cheek, but then turns and jogs after to Spencer, licking one of her hands reassuringly, his own way of communicating that he's there with her and intends to do as he's told.

"Now both of you get out of here."