OPEN: Kirkwail

[faderifting]

WHO: Anyone
WHAT: Ghosts
WHEN: Wintermarch 20
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: OOC post. More content warnings than you can shake a stick at, probably, including allusions to slavery and violence in the body of the log post. Please use appropriate warnings in the subject lines for your own threads.

The storm sweeps in like an assassin: unexpected, in the dark, and throwing sharp pricks of sleet at exposed eyes and noses with expert aim and enough force to almost draw blood if the angle is right. Half an hour after the clouds crest the cliffs is all it takes for the city to retract indoors and huddle around fireplaces, settling in for a long night that will, unforeseen, turn into a long two days.

The Gallows, too, is pelted with ice; the walls of the cliffs and the fortress protect much of it from the worst of the wind, but when it can find a path over or through the walls, it slams through windows or doors to scatter papers and snuff out fires.

In the dark, in the rain, hurrying between towers or already accustomed to jumping firelight casting strange shadows and the wind howling like a wounded animal, people might be forgiven if they don't notice at first. But there's a hanging in the courtyard, a dozen translucent wisps of bodies dangling from the idea of nooses, and there's a girl's voice in the basement of the templar tower screaming for her mother, and there's a ghostly man in the library holding the blade of a knife to his palm and whispering this is it, this is it—or maybe there isn't, actually, when you lift your head to pay closer attention.

But as the night wears on they multiply, and they brighten, and even if you haven't noticed them, they begin to notice you.

Comments

[notched]

"Not my nightmare," she corrects faintly. "Not my dream. Just lived inside one, traveled to others connected to Yharnam. The great ones create them, for themselves, and sometimes for us; if we make the right sacrifice."

The Hunter's Dream was Gehrman's sacrifice. The Nightmare of Mensis, built on the souls of so many dead scholars. The Hunter's Nightmare was the curse of Kos. The Nightmare Frontier, the prize of one cruel Amygdala who wanted to rule in its tower. Then there was Rom's pretty dream beyond the lake, bathing in the moonlight and growing cold blood flowers.

"It wouldn't shock me, were this their Maker's dream."

But as for Lakshmi's other point, Anna wholeheartedly agrees with it: "It's assuredly some mage, some ugly ritual."

[shri]

There was - to a certain point - only one way to find out what this thing was made of. It's better her than them if this thing did turn out to be harmful. Lakshmi's hand lifts, raising up, and gently she reaches out, towards the figure.

Ghosts were nothing easy to deal with. But if they were incorporeal as they were made out to be, they had nothing to fear. She steps closer, moving near. Her hand directing for the mangled infant creature ( or whatever it truly was ).

"Something such. Or someone has just been a fool. A damnably stupid one."