[OPEN] FRIGHTENING FESTIVITIES

[heirring]

WHO: Everyone
WHAT: Celebrating a totally 100% legit wedding.
WHEN: Summerday
WHERE: Edlingham Hall, the Vinmark Foothills
NOTES: cw: Spectral Violence and Ghostly Gore; if you don't want to deal with the spooky ghost adventure half of the evening, feel free to say your character went back to Kirkwall early rather than staying the night.

PARTY;

A few hours' journey from Kirkwall, the great old shape of the house known as Edlingham Hall rises up from out of the Vinmark foothills. In the decades (ages?) since it's abandonment, what must have once been a very imposing stone structure built in the mountain's shadow has given way to age and the elements. What remains is unequivocally a ruin, albeit a stunningly elaborate one. It's a place of columns and alcoves, gutted passages and weather worn stairs leading to the skeletal remains of old towers and chambers, with everything turned to varying shades of brown and green and as it's been grown over or into by the surrounding landscape. There's hardly a roof remaining to be found in the whole of the place.

Luckily, this particular party doesn't require one. In what might have once been the titular hall, a series of tables and benches (borrowed from the Gallows, thank you very much) have been set up around a stretch of cracked tiles which has been more or less cleared for dancing and everything has been lit amply by a collection of merrily burning braziers.

Party-goers will be treated to a host of entertainment, included but not limited to: at least one speech (thank you, Provost Stark), a half dozen toasts, a rather impressive spread of Orlesian-styled cuisine (no doubt prepared by someone devastated to be expected to do so under such rugged conditions), quite a bit of rather good wine, music, dancing, and a few more avant garde Rifter-influenced party games including a vaguely wyvern-shaped pinata and some heinous game called Snap-Dragon.

And if none of that sounds like a good time, then there are ruins to explore, discreet alcoves to investigate, and a campground pitched in the ruin's shadow where one might retire early from the party with only a stock level of scorn.

AT THE STROKE OF MIDNIGHT;

An eerie mist begins to stream from the cracked tiles of the dance floor. Riftwatch does not count a fog mage among their midst. Was one perhaps hired? Is this a trick of some science? A peculiar feature of the weather in this region? Such murmurs begin to circulate as the mist continues to thicken, and rise, and sour to a sickly pale yellow. It clashes with the decorations. Its touch seems to wither the impossibly sumptuous meal, curdling cream fillings and souring fine meats.

And then the screaming starts.

In the stone frame of an upper window, see her: a woman, in a long pale gown, with a horrible wound around her neck. Her slippers peep over the sill. Blood begins to drip down her front as her mouth opens, and opens, and opens, until her jaw rests upon her bloody chest.

Guests seated at the table will feel some creature bumping against their legs--something big, and solid, and hot, and hairy. When they pull away in horror, they will find nothing at all beneath the table. But the growling will not stop, nor will the crunching of teeth on bone.

The twisted figure of a man rises from a pile of tumble-down stone. His limbs hang at loose and unnerving angles. One arm has been crushed and droops down too low, brushing at his warped knee. His face is a mask of pain, and his left eye bulges as if ready to burst. Pressure has thrust his circlet of gold low on his brow, cinching his balding head. He shuffles toward the party, reaching with his ruined hands for human flesh. Or perhaps a cup of wine.

A headless body comes running out from the rotting main keep. It is wearing armor but is otherwise without identity. From its stump of a neck sprays a great geyser of blood, spatting party-goers and the ground and the food and whatever else is in its way. Its graying hands are reaching, but without a head, its path is random and monstrous, trampling over anything and anyone without regard. Or it would, if it weren’t spectral.

The ghosts must be stopped. Find the source of the haunting or this marriage will be ruined.

Those not interested in tracking down the source of the haunting will soon discover that the fog which has wreathed Edlingham Hall has become quite impenetrable. Attempting to escape the grounds will result in being impossibly turned around and eventually spit any would-be escapee back into the ruin. Solving the mystery may be optional, but experiencing the haunting by the aforementioned ghosts (and any other thematically appropriately specters your heart might desire for the convenience of creeping out your characters) apparently isn't.

Comments

early arrival.

[deuselfmachina]

It's several hours before the party is set to begin. When unloading some of the wine casks, it had come to someone's attention that their order of Antivan red had been left behind, and so a message was sent to bring it up post haste, given the finagling with ferries that would be going once guests began to cross the Gallows for the mainland.

When the cart does arrive—well, no, Florent Vascarelle is not driving it, nothing so useful, but he is there, inexplicably, with his things for the overnight stay. When Adrasteia notices his presence (elf, tall for being so, fly-away blonde hair, dressed loudly enough as to be hard to miss), she will find him circling one of the pillars, paper streamers in hand, placing it all just so. And so, another set of hands is in play, not one that lifts anything heavy or really commits, but fusses with things here and there, offers little improvements.

They are nearly done. He is currently perched on a ladder and hanging a big fluffy paper bow at the end of one draping sheet of decorative silk.

"I went to a wedding once," he says, conversationally, in his thick as treacle Orlesian accent, "where the decorations were pretty women with their clothes off, painted in silver."

[kantikoy]

She appreciates the extra set of hands, even if she doesn't do any heavy lifting. That's what her own arms and magic are for, anyway, plus the few Gallows staff that have come up to assist in this project.

When he starts to speak Adrasteia pauses from her Wyvern-stuffing project, but then goes immediately back into it. "I don't think I'd have managed a budget for that kind of thing, honestly." It sounds like a rich people party, which means things that would be otherwise distasteful if not for the sheer amount of money and power involved. "But that does sound very... pretty." She tilts her head and lifts the Wyvern for heft. "How was the party otherwise?"

[deuselfmachina]

"Très magnifique," Florent says. "Of course."

He finishes fussing with the bow and turns so that he can sit on this perch, the ladder creaking a little ominously, but he seems not to mind. It's not so high up that he couldn't roll out of it, he thinks, worst came to worst.

"It all comes apart anyway, after enough wine has been drunk. Or should, if it's any good. What is that, that you're doing?" he asks, and points to the pinata that she is handling.

[kantikoy]

She chuckles a little. "Of course."

What else would a rich person's party be like? There's still no little concern that this wedding won't meet the standards of those in attendance, lest of which includes de Foncé and Poppell. Her first major project as Morale Officer and Adrasteia is starting to worry that she won't be able to manage it.

Please, she thinks in a little prayer, don't let this be a boring flop of an event. (Later, she'll regret that wish.)

"This? It's something a few Rifters discussed when there was planning for a Riftwatch themed garden party. People strike it with a stick until it breaks, releasing candies everywhere." She wrinkles her nose, trying to remember what it was called. "Paper masshay?"