open | holiday spirits

[cozen]

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.

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 morale improves the eldest, most powerful demon has been dealt with.

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.

Comments

[armd]

She didn't think that Sidony would ask anything probing, which is why she said it in the first place, and having that hunch confirmed is validating. Abby relaxes. She has to remind herself every so often to unclench her jaw. Might have to work overtime while she's stuck here, huh.

"... I'm sorry." There's a strange validation that comes with knowing she's lost parents too, but Abby doesn't know how to say that without sounding insensitive.

"What did you do about it?"

[indissection]

Sidony lifts a shoulder, her nose wrinkling a little. At least she's not seeing dead people, which is a wonderful and remarkable thing for a surgeon. She's sure there's a few faces that might haunt her in the future, but she is being careful enough about it all.

"Oh, no, they're not dead. Just intolerable." She sniffs. "Kidnappers, the both of them. They tried to run back to Nevarra with me on my wedding day." Moving forward, she hovers awkwardly at Abby's side.

Haltingly, she swallows.

"... I did my utmost to ignore them. Anything else would have been difficult."

[armd]

Oh. She snorts in understanding, the corner of her lips twitching in half a grin.

"Is that like in– movies, when the priest asks if anybody has any reasons to object?" Pretty extreme reaction to that question. She pauses when Sidony draws up alongside her, and casts another glance toward Yara, who is pacing in front of them, searching. Abby realises suddenly that she's looking for supplies. She's checking in imaginary spaces for things she might be able to use.

And then she turns to look at Abby, and says, as if she's only just thought of it, "Why did you let me die?"

It knocks the breath out of her.

Frozen in place, staring, she can't think of what to say in return.

[indissection]

"Something like that. Luckily, Byerly was there to be a devoted and charming spouse in spite of all of that."

And the most remarkable guise for hiding what she really wants, at least, which is what she also does for him. Her eyes move forward to look at Yara, the ghostly creature, and all Sidony can do is breathe out - until the ghost speaks.

It's always until the ghost speaks.

Her nose wrinkles and she reaches out, letting her hand wrap around Abby's wrist carefully.

"I am quite sure you wouldn't have let her die if you had a chance."

[armd]

The fact that Byerly is her spouse is something Abby will recall later with much curiousity, but as it stands she's too horrified by Yara's steady gaze. It isn't even accusatory, she's just waiting for an answer.

There's a low whine in Abby's ears, like pitchy static.

She swallows, and her chin jerks to the side when Sidony's hand finds her wrist to curl around. Surely the pads of her fingers register the wild thumping of Abby's heart.

"I didn't want you to die," is all she can come up with, her voice hoarse and guilty. "I'm so sorry."

Maybe she accepts this, because she turns around to keep leading their dimly lit way.

[indissection]

Sidony follows after her - quiet, at first, for a moment, before she summons herself and breathes out a soft little noise.

It's frustratingly sad to be a little too aware of how to comfort people these days, and she's learned how to manage all these achingly sad people - especially in comparison to her own life, mostly quite pleasant despite her burns and broken ribs over time.

"Spirits often pick on the worst of your thoughts and feelings to gain something from you," her voice is low, careful and quiet. "I know it is difficult not to take it personally, but I can assure you that this is unlikely what your real friend thought of you."

[armd]

Abby sets her jaw, and nods brusquely. As much as she's trying to strong-arm her way through this, it's clear the exchange has rattled her, and her eyes are suspiciously shiny in the dim light.

She sniffs, and sighs.

Doesn't really matter, does it. "I'll never know what she thought of me." She's dead. And it was bad luck that killed her, really, bad luck and an old feud, but Abby can't get Lev's miserable, accusatory voice out of her mind: "Those were your fucking people." It's not like Yara was the first kid to fall into the jaws of the WLF, just the first kid that Abby ever cared about.

"I don't think I can do this." This isn't even her worst ghost.