010 » something wicked this way comes

[villagemod]

WHO: Everyone.
WHERE: ???
WHEN: Day 010
WHAT: Spooks happen. Some sanity loss may occur. (More on that next week!)
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary. PM this account to have a warning added!
NOTES: Thank you so much for your patience with this! My Friday was much busier
than expected, so I'm very sorry for the lateness on getting these out to you all.

RECOMMENDED ♫ Deadly Avenger "Gyuki"

DAY 010
“We make up horrors to help
us cope with the real ones.”
—Stephen King
The day dawns but few wake to see it. Only one, who has been exempt from the strange happenings about to unfold. She will face a day like any other, a farce of normality in an utterly abnormal universe — but she will face it alone. For none who will experience these strange happenings are to be found in the town until the next morning dawns. Each has been taken, whisked away to another layer of the town, peeled back and exposed like a raw nerve.

Mathias screams and there are none who can hear it.


THE DETAILS
Each exploration, encounter, and revelation happen separately from one another. Though some may include the same locations, none will overlap in time or space. The circumstances laid out in each prompt are exclusive to that situation — do not assume the answers someone else received will also apply to you.

Players may ask questions as they normally do for logs, but these should be kept as part of the designated thread. You may create a subthread under your header for questions, or intersperse them with your "tags". Your responses may be formatted as IC tags or as a more OOC "telling" what your character does rather than showing.

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DAY 011
All characters involved in this event will wake on the morning of Day 011 in the exact location where they began to sleep on Day 009, but they will find themselves covered in a layer of dust just as thick as that which had covered much of Mathias. The dust does not extend to their surroundings.

The memories of what they encountered or saw remain clear in their minds, no matter how impossible they might seem. Sights, sounds, smells, all may be recalled with crystalline clarity, even if they wish it were otherwise.

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Comments

[endlessflask]

“What the fuck?”

Eliot’s voice echoes off the stone as he slams the door shut. Thankfully his sense of smell has been permanently altered due to his drug habit, but enough of the scent had gotten into his nostrils. He rubs his nose as if that might get it out and steps back.

It looks like he’s now finally weighing his options. He could try to magic the double doors open. Or he may as well see what the other two are hiding.

He chooses the one closest to where he woke up, feeling moderately better in the flickering candle light there as he opens it.

[villagemod]

The smell that drifts out of this room is that of old, musty paper, the shift in the air making ancient pages crinkle as they shift. The scant light of the candles reveals a long room lined with black wooden shelves that are stacked with sheafs of paper and a few scattered volumes. Everything is old, but little else is visible from the doorway.

[endlessflask]

This room is way too studious and academic looking for Eliot. Between that and that the smelly earth room, Eliot’s leaning towards the latter.

One door left, he supposes. This time he equips himself with a candle, wax dripping on to his fingers as he pulls open the last of his options.

[villagemod]

There is no wafting smell from this door, nor shift of the air. Everything within is still and silent. From the doorway, the candlelight reveals a table at the far end of the room, holding a long wooden chest that is closed. The rest of the room is empty.

[endlessflask]

It doesn’t smell like the compost bin behind the Physical Kids’ Cottage and it isn’t full of things to read. This is clearly the lesser of the evils, and, who is he kidding - Eliot can’t resist a mystery chest.

He opens this door all the way, and as he’s about to walk through it, he stops. He can hear Margo’s voice in his head telling him not to be a total moron, what if the door closes and he’s locked in? Eliot slips off his shoes and leaves them against the doorframe, preventing the door from closing entirely if it swings shut.

His socked feet barely make a sound as he walks across the cool stones towards the chest. As he nears the chest, he holds out the candle to inspect it, then remembers that he’s a magician. He attempts to cast a spell to light the room.

[villagemod]

The spell succeeds, though perhaps with far less strength than he'd intended. The light that fills the room is dim, like that seen on a stormy grey day, and as it hits the stone walls out of the corner of his eye, Eliot might believe there is an almost red sheen to those stones, one that cannot be seen while looking directly at them.

[endlessflask]

Eliot’s just going to assume the difference in colour is an effect of the dim light and tired eyes. Thankfully he’s not the sort to automatically assume it’s something sinister. Besides, he has one priority now and that’s opening this wooden chest.

He crouches down and sets the candle beside him, then checks to see if the box is locked or latched before lifting the lid.

Please, he thinks, let it be a stash of well aged wines.

[villagemod]

No such luck, El. The box is unlocked and the lid lifts with a quiet creaking, the dim light glinting off the contents within: a polished black stone bowl and a small knife with the same stone for its handle. There is an engraving on the blade that cannot be made out in the shadows of the box from this distance.

[endlessflask]

Eliot’s starting to get serious Blood Magick vibes. Well. He could just leave it, go to another room, but curiosity is getting the better of him. He takes both the bowl and the knife out, then closes the chest so he can rest them on the lid.

Retrieving the candle, Eliot picks up the knife again so he can examine it under the light of the flame.

[villagemod]

Eliot has apparently never heard the saying about curiosity and the cat, or simply does not realize that the same might be true for magicians. Nothing happens when he removes the items from the chest, but when he picks up the knife and looks closely at it—

One moment it is a normal knife with strange symbols etched into the flat of the blade, curling spirals that at once seem to have no beginning and no end, and the next the knife is covered in cold wet blood, the thick liquid coating his hand and dripping down off the blade. The bowl is coated with it, the interior recently filled and emptied, and that red sheen on the walls is darker, shining in the light of the candle flame, almost as if...

[endlessflask]

“Holy — Shit -“

Eliot drops the knife. It clatters to the floor as he takes a step back, looking at his bloody hand.

Absolutely fuck this. He should have gone to the room with the papers and shit.

He feels behind him for the door frame and turns, looking for a hasty escape.

[villagemod]

Perhaps next time Eliot will choose the "boring" option.

He was smart to block the door from swinging shut, for it still stands cracked open and ready for him to pass through. As he does, he will jerk awake in the location where he last slept, covered in dust and with blood staining his hand. The mark will remain on his hand for all of day 011.