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Entry tags:
- ! open,
- abby,
- alexandrie d'asgard,
- bastien,
- benedict quintus artemaeus,
- byerly rutyer,
- derrica,
- ellie,
- gwenaëlle baudin,
- james flint,
- john silver,
- julius,
- loki,
- matthias,
- obeisance barrow,
- petrana de cedoux,
- tiffany hart,
- { astarion },
- { dante sparda },
- { emet-selch },
- { james holden },
- { jone },
- { sidony veranas },
- { sylvie },
- { tony stark }
open | holiday spirits
WHO: Whoever, plus some spirits.
WHAT: Everyone spends an evening regretting the past. So basically a normal night.
WHEN: Wintermarch 5-6
WHERE: A castle in the mountains north of Kirkwall
NOTES: OOC post including less vague/pretentious haunting mechanic descriptions. Fantasy violence and swearing and so on are assumed, but please use content warnings in your subject lines for things like explicit gore or sex, slavery content, body horror, etc., if you go any of those routes.
WHAT: Everyone spends an evening regretting the past. So basically a normal night.
WHEN: Wintermarch 5-6
WHERE: A castle in the mountains north of Kirkwall
NOTES: OOC post including less vague/pretentious haunting mechanic descriptions. Fantasy violence and swearing and so on are assumed, but please use content warnings in your subject lines for things like explicit gore or sex, slavery content, body horror, etc., if you go any of those routes.
THE CASTLE
Their convenient shelter from the unexpected blizzard that whips up around them in the mountain pass isn't too convenient. Anyone with a reasonable detailed map will find it marked there; reaching its clifftop location requires a slight detour. When they approach, it has no warm ethereal glow or suspiciously welcoming lit torches. The windows stay dark. The portcullis is raised just high enough to be ducked under, but the heavy doors of the keep don't swing open to welcome them.
The only immediate sign that something is amiss is the thorough, all-encompassing emptiness of the place, and it might take some investigation before that begins to feel strange. The fortress' abandonment seems recent and abrupt: ample firewood has been cut and stacked for the winter, nothing has been done to protect the furniture or strip the beds, the kitchen is fully stocked and even has some perishables that do not seem close to perishing, the stables are equipped to comfortably keep any animals along for the journey, and a chess board before the hearth in the (humble) grand hall seems to have been left mid-game. But there are no messages, no bodies, no footsteps dimpling the crunchy layer of old snow accumulated in the bailey beneath the fresh snowfall.
As they search, the castle's visitors may begin to find signs that the castle hasn't been entirely abandoned. It begins with whispers emanating from the dark ends of corridors, voices they recognize and others they don't, or faces both familiar and unfamiliar flashing in still water or window panes when firelight hits right, or forms moving on the edge of vision but vanishing before they can be looked at directly.
By the time this becomes worrisome enough to drive anyone back out of the castle, the portcullis has fallen shut and won't budge. Neither will any other doors to the outside. The windows won't break; doors won't give way even to makeshift battering rams. The only walls that can be climbed or reached by stairs face out over a deep ravine. It might be a survivable climb, if the wind and weather allowed, but it would not be a survivable fall.
THE SPIRITS
--so back inside, then.
The keep is built like the Gallows' towers, square and tall, and it won't take long for Riftwatch to notice that whatever is wrong is more wrong the higher they climb. The whispers and glimpses on the lowest floor become voices and lingering shadowy figures on the second. Someone might turn and find their hand briefly held by an unfamiliar man's, warm and real for the moment it takes him to say, "Come with me." Or behind them, a woman's shocked and seething voice says, "What are you doing?" Or maybe it's a hand they do know and a voice saying something they've heard before.
As people venture to the higher floors--whether intrepidly seeking the source or involuntarily herded onward by spirits--these moments will begin to last and linger and repeat. And those who don't dare venture higher won't be exempt, confronted by stronger spirits that emerge like ants from a kicked hive as the upper floors are disturbed.
As they approach the uppermost floor, reality will begin to slip away from them. They may find themselves lost in a maze of rooms, even though that shouldn't be possible in so few square feet, and ultimately enveloped in comforting worlds where they didn't do that thing they regret and that, like dreams, feel real until they suddenly don't--until something is too unbelievable, until someone interrupts, or until a demon is holding them under the water of the warm bath they were tempted into, shoving them off a balcony, or whispering into their ears and minds, let me in and you can keep it.
The hauntings will continue until
THE END
When it ends, it ends abruptly. Weaker spirits vanish; stronger ones retreat into the dark. The lesser demons on the upper floors linger, and some may put up a last-ditch physical fight, but without their superior, they've lost most of their mental pull and emotional sway. The castle has changed, too. Its abandonment no longer looks so recent. The food and firewood is gone, along with any sense of warmth or satiety anyone used them to acquire earlier. There is dust where none was before, mildew and rot, and a few scattered, unfortunate skeletons.
The sun is not quite up, the sky a faintly luminescent grey. But the weather is survivable, though it will be slower travel than it would have been without the fresh snow. The doors will open, and the portcullis will raise. Everyone can set off on their cold, hours-long journey back to the city. Talking about their feelings or avoiding eye contact the entire time: the choice is theirs.
no subject
"Yeah," he says, "the Queen," and the words have a little bite to them. The creaking of the rope is in his ears. He makes himself look at the weeping ghost instead. Can't understand a word of what she's saying but she's clinging to Benedict like nothing else.
"Hello, Micaela. Didn't he get you anything nice for Satinalia?"
no subject
But perhaps he misjudged, as he so often does. The weeping seems to grow more desperate as the doubt trickles in, try as he might to stand strong against it.
"She's not real," he grumbles in response, refusing to look at her. "...she's fine."
A beat.
"Like, really. ...I. I think."
no subject
Does it work on proximity? Because he's stood close to Benedict, he can hear the crying--so presumably because Benedict is stood close to him, he can hear the rope. It doesn't matter except that the crying has grown louder. Matthias lifts his shoulder and rubs his ear against it, briefly contorting himself.
"Only I reckon if she's fine out there, then she wouldn't be here."
no subject
"She's safe, she's free. I freed her, so there's nothing to..." he gestures brusquely at the spirit, "there's no reason for this."
His heart is racing, and he's saying stupid things before he can stop himself. He knows the inclination well, and also knows the best way to deal with it is probably to leave, but for all his bravado he doesn't want to disturb the woman on his shoulder.
no subject
There's nothing furtive about Matthias' look. He gives Benedict a once-over, scornful--and then the spirit, still leaning on him and bawling her eyes out, and his look for her is similarly unimpressed, though really he means that toward Benedict--who he very pointedly looks back at.
"And very freed she looks, too. I s'ppose you might just ask her to shove off, then, or at least stop her bloody racket."
no subject
"And I suppose that means Queen Anora over there is your doing, too," he says before he can stop himself, gesturing to the dangling figure, "can you tell her to shove off? Oh-- wait-- looks like she already did."
no subject
"Why don't you shove off, dicknose?"
bop
He wrenches his arm back and brings one hand around to cuff the side of Matthias' head, rather more like an offended cat than a trained fighter.
"Dishing it out's all right, but can't take it, can you?" he hisses, struggling to create some distance between them.
no subject
The blow is little more than glancing, a momentary sting. It's the indignity that gets Matthias more than anything--the indignity, yeah, and more than that, the tension that exists beyond the two of them--his sister hanging by her neck, dead, and this other spirit globbing big wet tears all over her front with a face like old jelly--Benedict can't strike both first and last in this moment, it's not on. Matthias is determined to prove himself.
He kicks the back of Benedict's knee. Good solid kick, that. He knows what he's doing. If he wants some distance, let him have it on the floor.
no subject
The kick is solid, but not solid enough to be felt too clearly through the adrenaline now surging through Benedict, which has him back on his feet in moments and whirling on Matthias to stride forward and give him a good shove.
"You fuck off!" he snarls, mindless of the foolishness of the moment, of how unlikely it is he'll beat Matthias in any sort of physical altercation.
If he had a moment to think about it, he'd likely chalk it up to this being worlds better than attending to their miserable surroundings.
no subject
It's much easier to punch Benedict instead of face all of that.
no subject
Benedict goes sprawling, but manages to stay on his feet, clutching now at the point of impact from Matthias' fist, spitting a bit of blood onto the ground from where he bit his cheek.
He takes a moment where he is, his eyes streaming despite his best efforts; he's been punched in the face before, but never because he struck first. It's a destabilizing and shocking feeling, but he's done enough sparring to know it's not the end of the world: all his teeth are still here, the only bleeding is internal, he won't scar.
It hurts, but the pain is louder than everything else that's going on, and that's all he could really want at the moment.
He straightens, directs his dark gaze back to Matthias. There's no vengeance in it, not really-- but there is a desire to prove something, if only that he won't always run away from conflict.
He comes back over to him, still rubbing his jaw, but lowers his hands. Pausing to make direct eye contact, he shoves him again.
It's nothing personal. Maybe this just needs to happen.
no subject
He takes the shove, but before Benedict can step away, he grabs hold of his shirtfront with one hand, and punches at his ribs with the other--once, a good one, and then a second if he can. Fuck off.
no subject
Neither of them has much padding.
"How typical of you," comes a voice from behind them, and the sobbing ghost has changed: she's a proud and elegant woman, tall, with long shining hair and high cheekbones, her dark and calculating eyes an echo of Benedict's at his best.
"I can't think of what would be worse: that you're a massive coward, or that it's by design you simply let life happen to you."
She rests her hand on Benedict's shoulder and looks at Matthias with sneering distaste.
"Finish the job, won't you? And put us all out of our misery."
no subject
"What?"
Somewhat comically, his fist is still clenched, and still held behind him like a great windup to a punch that is maybe someday going to fall. It's a dumb pose that leaves him vulnerable, probably--if Benedict is clever enough to seize the moment, but he likely isn't--which means that Matthias agrees with this spirit, which isn't right. Because it is a spirit, and spirits aren't meant to be trusted.
He looks at Benedict--then back at the woman--then at Benedict again, all of it very quick and wary, as if his face might also change in a moment.
"What's this?"
no subject
"This is stupid," he mutters, clambering to his feet and dusting off his knees, doing his best to wave away the woman behind him, which, of course, completely fails.
"Won't fight you, won't fight me, won't fight for anything," the specter declares, folding her arms in a look of imperious triumph, "what's the point of you, Beni?"
Benedict seems to take the question into consideration, staring tight-jawed into the middle distance, his own fists balled. Fuck.
no subject
This is stupid.
He looks back at Benedict once more and, at last, drops his arm.
"Hit me."
no subject
Given express permission, he puts Jone's teachings to work: he returns the punch to the stomach, demonstrating a decent amount of follow-through for someone whose mother is picking at him in ghost form.
He doesn't seem to relish it much, instead just standing there and waiting for something in return. Anything to make her shut up.
no subject
"Ooh, but you're better'n I expected." Ow.Not as bad as it might've been but still not pleasant, right. He sucks in a breath and stands properly again so he can face down the spirit with a little scowl. "Happy now?"
no subject
Right behind that thought is the notion that, united in as stupid a way as they are, this is no time to make a proper enemy.
Hesitating a moment, Bene then comes forward to solemnly extend his hand, "Look, I... shouldn't've said all that shit. About your friend."