Event Log: April, Tangled Terrors Part 1

[faileas]

Event Log: April, Tangled Terrors Part One

I. A Spreading Problem The request for help from the nameless city Underground comes at the beginning of the month through intermediaries - characters who have maintained good relationships with the city and its leader, or Wilders posted at the Northern Outpost. They have good reason to speak up. It starts within the herds of velvet wormipedes, horse-sized or larger worms that serve as food, pets, and mounts, making them an important part of survival underground. It was the farmers who first noticed it, and they theorized that it was caught and started to spread when they took the worm herds out to graze in an outer cavern. What seemed to be a new disease causing oily blackened skin and various mutations has been confirmed to be Cwyld, but the veil of protective moss that surrounds and protects the city did not react the way it normally does to the infected (by gobbling them up upon entry), letting them pass with little more than a shudder of recoiling movement. By now, they’ve isolated any infected members of the herd to the grazing cavern outside the city or put them down outright and burned the bodies, but as the days pass, the phenomenon grows only more worrying. Some proactive Mirrorbound who answered the initial call to investigate will have a head-start on the information, but the Arachne leader of the Underground, the Matriarch, is upfront about what they know so far. She holds a small meeting with would-be helpers where she lets them know that her Witches from the Academy were out in the tunnels branching off the grazing cavern within the last couple of weeks, practicing the method of leyline clearing that the Mirrorbound taught them some time ago to try and drive the Cwyld back. Their efforts were abandoned when the Witches’ magic malfunctioned and caused backlash, and their Monster guards with keener hearing started to pick up on a peculiar throbbing or pulsing sound from distantly within the walls. Any who are willing to lend a hand and investigate are offered whatever supplies they request, shelter within the City when they need to return to rest, and the assistance of any of their Witches and warriors as needed. The Matriarch thinks that whatever they find out there may be useful - or dreadful - knowledge for both their peoples. They want to know what was preventing the leyline from being cleared, and what this infection or disease is that is affecting wildlife and their own herds - curing it will eventually be a priority, but fact-finding has to come first.

II. Danger in the Deep (Underground) Branching out from the place that the worm herd were grazing when the infection set in, it becomes more clear that the situation is dire. This is not a normal, relatively slow-moving Cwyld infection, but something stronger and more sinister that has sunk its claws deep into the branching leylines. An oily black substance runs through the stone walls and floor of the tunnels in thick veins, dripping slowly in dark streaks, and the air in the tunnels feels heavier than usual. Far from showing any signs of the Matriarch’s people trying to clear the leyline, it feels even worse, more severely tainted. This only seems more likely when you start to encounter wildlife bearing the same kind of infection as the worms, oily black patches on their skin, aggression that exceeds the norm for their species. Bats and blind, white wasps and huge, glittering beetles have grown even bigger, and begun to mutate in unusual, grotesque ways. They’ll need to be put down - there is no getting past them peacefully, and no saving these creatures. Even if you don’t kill them, the infection will, as you’ll find - farther along, you start to find mutated, infected corpses as well, like oily smears on the stone and barely recognizable. And then there’s the sound, discordant in the quiet of the Underground. It’s difficult to hear at first, faint, but farther along when you get close to the walls, a distant, steady pulsing sound seems to chill you right down to your bones, as if the walls have a heartbeat of their own. None of the natives have ever heard it before, and if you have any citizens of the Underground in your search party, many of them with stronger senses are visibly scared, growing paranoid and agitated as time passes. Tracking the leylines, or the sound of the pulsing in the walls, will take several days of exploration, deeper into the tunnels than the natives remember venturing before, and those days will be plagued with danger and unrest. Keep in touch with your fellows in town as well, though Watch reception will be spotty - it will become clear that this is no longer just an Underground problem. a. Leyline Clearing It seems like a good idea at first to try and clear some part of the infected leylines, if only to cut the infection off from traveling further, as it uses the pathways of natural magic that cut through the earth like a highway to cover more ground quicker. It seems to move with each pulse in the walls, creeping a little farther along. The leyline in the Silent Forest outside the Northern Outpost, set on a path to healing last year, seems like child’s play in comparison to this herculean effort, though. Be careful, Witches. Even just one push of your magic into this infected leyline triggers a backlash that rings in your ears and wracks your body with soul-deep pain. Those who are un-Bonded, who have no Monster partner to help cushion the impact, feel it worse than those who are Bonded. But those who are Bonded, their partners can feel the pain too - lessened, more spread out over the two or three or four of you, but still intense. Even without touching the walls or the floor, the infection can spread through your magic, into you, your Bonded, and those around you if you cast the spell as a group. b. Infection Rather than settling into the body at first, this Cwyld settles into your magic, your soul, your innate connection with the world, whether you’re Witch or Monster. It’s harder to guard against it, even by taking the usual precautions. The side-effects are terrible; while the Mirrorbound in Aefenglom feel it too, all those symptoms are much stronger down here closer to the source. Trying to use your magic as a Witch (and sometimes your less physical abilities as a Monster) results in backlash, misfiring, or even a dangerous drain in energy. Reaching for one’s magic might be as natural as breathing for most Witches, but now it feels like trying to reach through a thick fog, sticky and cloying. Spells go awry, coming out as the opposite effect from the caster’s intention, or a completely different, unforeseen result (think: Wild Magic in D&D). Sometimes you can’t pull on your magic or abilities at all, and sometimes you wildly misjudge how much force to use, resulting in danger for those around you, especially in these tight, underground spaces. Interacting too much or too often with the tainted magic causes pain and fatigue at the very least, and for some even more uncomfortable effects, such as numbness of the extremities, temporary blindness, nausea or full unconsciousness. These effects are much more prominent in Witches, especially those un-Bonded, though some Monsters may feel similar, lesser effects on some of their abilities. Monsters are not immune, especially growing closer to the sinister source. Those who are Bonded to Witches can feel the strain the tainted magic puts on them, and those who aren’t, or whose Bonds aren’t strong, find that they feel the tainted pulse of the heartbeat in the walls acutely, driving them to paranoia, fear, rage, or even ferality. All Monsters on this mission will find that they’re prone to nightmares when they do try to catch some rest - the content of the nightmares varies depending on the person, but they’re all unsettling, and they all feature prominently the image of a blackened tree, the trunk bearing faces frozen in masks of horror, and the picture of gnarled roots reaching down, down, down. c. Tangled Ties As the Cwyld in the walls grows more prominent, taking on an appearance like thick, oily, veiny roots, tangled and twisted, so too does the Cwyld work to tangle the ties that bind you. Those who don’t, or can’t, keep their Bonded in close physical proximity may find that their Bond feels weaker, or perhaps it begins to only transmit negative emotions like pain or fear. They may find their Bonds shifting, or even snapping, tangling or twisting in ways they shouldn’t. All of a sudden, you might even find yourself with a completely different Bond, being drawn to a stranger or an acquaintance you certainly weren’t Bonded to before. If you didn’t have a Bond already, you might find yourself with one (or more) now - or a twisted approximation of one, as anyone who experiences this will soon find out that the magic isn’t quite what it’s supposed to be. It can’t be nullified as usual, broken off or switched back intentionally (though some days it might end up snapping to someone else instead), and down here, you only have each other, your Underground hosts, and a spotty Watch connection for help. All the infected wildlife seems to die out, as days later, your parties find their way close to the source of the pulsing in the walls. An entrance hewn out of the stone opens into what feels like a truly massive cavern, judging from the change in the airflow. The Cwyld is thick here, concentrated in what seem to be rough, blackened roots all in a tangle like a thick curtain. You can hear the heartbeat-like sound louder now, a steady thump-thump, thump-thump. Whatever lies in wait past that curtain of roots, you know in your gut that once you enter, you won’t be able to leave until the problem is dealt with. Resupply, recruit help, try to sort the snarled threads of your Bonds - it’s going to be rough from here.

III. Reaching Tendrils (Aefenglom, Northern Outpost) The Matriarch’s briefing is, soon after it’s given, relayed to the Coven and then to the rest of the Mirrorbound, through some of the Wilders or perhaps through other characters themselves. That, at least, is a good thing, to provide some kind of warning for what happens next. In far worse news, the effects of the malaffected leylines are not limited to the tunnels of the Underground, or even the nearby Northern Outpost. Somehow, just a few days after things take a worse turn down below and surrounding the Outpost, they reach as far as the city. The effects of the infected leyline overflow like a burst dam, tainted magic spilling out from the Cwyld-strangled Underground caverns and through their connected, invisible tributaries beneath the earth, stretching miles outward with each passing day. The Northern Outpost and the Wilde around it, being closest, are affected first, and it hits the northernmost parts of Aefenglom by the 10th of the month - proving just how interconnected completely unrelated places can be on Geardagas. a. Snarled Magics Wilder, Coven, and Mirrorbound Witches alike, anyone who needs to draw on the power of the world’s magic, find it feeling increasingly resistant and… unpleasant. Here too, Witches find that reaching for their magic is like battling through sticky, dark fog. It becomes more and more difficult to gauge how much magic is needed even for the simplest of spells: sometimes, you might try to cast only to have nothing at all happen, and other times, the magic bursts forth many times more powerful than intended, causing a dangerous drain on the caster and all sorts of hazards for people and property caught in the unpredictable outburst. Spells go awry, coming out as the opposite effect from the caster’s intention, or a completely different, unforeseen result (think: Wild Magic in D&D). Those with more experience or inordinate willpower may be able to push through, especially if they work together to cast group spells instead, but not without consequence; interacting too much or too often with the tainted magic causes pain and fatigue at the very least, and for some even more uncomfortable effects, such as numbness of the extremities, temporary blindness, nausea or full unconsciousness. Of course, one could simply choose not to use any magic, but how long can a Witch last without casting even a little bit? For those with Bonds, matters are even worse; a Witch is always expending some minor magical power toward their Bonded, after all. In some cases, the connection doesn’t respond well, causing paranoid and unhappy feelings, vivid shared nightmares or increased agitation, among other similar emotional side effects. b. Twisted Bonds Bonded pairs from the Underground all the way to Aefenglom will also feel the instability in their Bond increasing over the next couple of weeks, making it difficult to feel one another’s presence as normal. If the Bond isn’t treated with care and partners aren’t in close physical proximity often enough, the strain is even greater. In some rare cases, it might even… snap and shift, suddenly getting tangled up or twisted, your strings all snarled in the wrong ways. All of a sudden, you might even find yourself with a completely different Bond, being drawn to a stranger or an acquaintance you certainly weren’t Bonded to before. If you didn’t have a Bond already, you might find yourself with one (or more) now - or a twisted approximation of one, as anyone who experiences this will soon find out that the magic isn’t quite what it’s supposed to be. It can’t be nullified as usual, broken off or switched back intentionally (though some days it might end up snapping to someone else instead), and even the Coven’s most experienced Witches have no answers as to why. While use of magic is unpredictable for most, if not all, Witches, the Bond problems, however, seem to be affecting only the Mirrorbound. Seek out your new Bonded and make the best of it for now: you’re going to need each other’s support, especially if you’re a Witch unable to cast normally while the groups of volunteers in the Underground work tirelessly to make things right. Despite the onslaught of unstable magic and unstable Bonds, of unsettling feeling and a pervasive sense of wrongness, it's up to you to hold down the home front, helping where you can as the magical mishaps rack up and raiding the libraries of the Coven and Undermael College for research, no matter how it all starts to wear on you.

Welcome to Tangled Terrors, Part One! Proving that the settlements of Geardagas are a little more connected than they seem on the surface... This is just the first half of the event, but the negative effects on using magic and on Bonds will be present until after Part Two, when the problem is dealt with. These are optional, opt-in effects except for the difficulty in using magic if you're a Witch - and you can go more mild with that if you'd like, but it will be part of life for most of the month.

If you'd like to find some tainted Bonds to tangle with, we've provided a plotting header here! You can change up Bonds as often and as unexpectedly as you'd like. As always, direct your event-related questions here! And finally, the event plotting post is over here!

Part Two of this event will go up on the 17th, and will be an Underground locale-only event (meaning there will not be an Aef-focused prompt), dealing with the root of the newly-woken issue that plagues the leyline running between the Underground and Aefenglom.

Comments

[sonnestark]

[She shakes her head in immediate response to that apology, but knows better than to say anything, understanding Alice's nature well enough by now— and what more is there to say, in a moment of panic like this? Instead, Karin remains firmly planted at her side, her brow furrowed with concern, and as Alice takes her hand, she curls her fingers against it, an attempt to offer some small comfort. In the greater scheme of things, she knows she can't do much until the infection itself is handled, but she can be here.]

I know. I can... feel some of what you're feeling.

[Or she could. She swallows hard; of course, Alice actually has something to compare this to, and it makes her heart ache.]

If you need to rest, we rest. If it gets to be too much, we go back. There are other ways we can help without you being pushed past your limits.

[She doesn't have to suffer like this, except she and Alice are both the sort of people who will toss aside their own well-being for the sake of someone else, let alone a cause like this one that served the greater good. Her words may well fall on deaf ears, but perhaps they can compromise, if need be.]

[adventageous]

[Alice clings to Karin's hand tightly. It doesn't have the same effect that it would if the Bond hadn't just snapped, but it's comforting nonetheless.

At the suggestion that they retreat, Alice shakes her head.]

We can't go back. We've already come so far.

But... I promise to rest when I need to so that I can actually make it there. [Despite herself, she gives Karin a small smile.] I'm not sure you'd let me do otherwise, especially now. You don't put up with my stubbornness in quite the same way Yuri used to.

[It's a compliment. Alice appreciated Yuri's 'if you have your heart set on it I can't stop you' approach to her own determination, but she equally appreciates Karin's insistence on making sure she doesn't push herself too far past her limits. Both are the result of caring about her, and really that's the best she can ask for out of anyone.]

[sonnestark]

I'm sure you've noticed by now, but I'm pretty stubborn, myself.

[Which means that Alice is well-matched in that department. It was something Yuri had struggled with during their acquaintance, as well— Karin had never been one to let someone else's concerns keep her from doing what she felt was necessary.]

But... I think that's a fair compromise. We won't turn back, but you take the time you need.

[Fair enough. She gives Alice's hand another squeeze.]

I know how much this means to you. It's important to me, too.

[adventageous]

[Alice can't help but smile, despite herself, as she leans more heavily into the wall behind her. It's infected, but that hardly matters. So is she.]

I know you are. I've grown to count on it.

[She takes a deep breath, trying to steady herself and muster the energy to at least stand. So far, no dice.]

At least we aren't the only two to whom this matters. We're surrounded by people who are on the same mission as we are. It's good to see people coming together for a cause instead of being torn apart by it, even if we continue to suffer as we descend.

When we get through this, it's something I'll treasure.

[sonnestark]

[When it's time, Karin will be glad to help her stand, but that failed attempt means she needs at least a bit longer. She shakes her head to discourage her friend from pushing herself too hard just yet, though the bulk of their party has moved on by now.]

Seems like I can always trust you to find the silver lining in any situation.

[It's an endearing quality; Karin often likes to think of herself as an optimist, as well, but there are some situations that are too much even for her to paint a smile on. Meanwhile, here's Alice, in a heap on the ground and in pain, but still able to see the good.]

Don't let anyone take that from you.

[Given how much she's been through, it's incredible that she hasn't lost the ability to always find the good already.]

[adventageous]

[Alice laughs a little, warm but wry.]

I've had a lot of practice. It's what helps get me through, and I refuse to let anyone take that away.

[She turns Karin's hand over in hers, lightly running her thumb over her palm as if doing so might reignite the spark of their Bond somehow. Alice is realizing very quickly how dependent she's grown on having someone else present in her heart and soul. At one point, the comfort Karin offers would have been more than enough. But now... it feels incomplete, through no fault of their own.

Incomplete or no, it will have to be enough.]

Thank you for staying with me. When this is over, I owe you a whole host of breakfasts together.

[sonnestark]

[It feels lacking to Karin, as well; she's been here quite some time now, and has grown used to being connected to someone she cares for. That bond had been severed for her once before when Lightning had left, but it had been brief, and this still managed to be different— because Alice is still here, right here in front of her, and somehow that makes the absence of their bond ache all the more.

She smiles softly, laying a hand over Alice's wrist as though the additional touch will help to make up for what's been lost. It won't, of course, but it's all she has to offer now— until this is solved, it will have to do.]

I wouldn't dream of leaving you behind. No thanks necessary, although I will take you up on those breakfasts.

[Who is she to say no to good food in good company?]

Donuts next time, I think.

[adventageous]

Donuts sound lovely. I bet they'd go well with the Turkish coffee you're working on perfecting.

[It's not Alice's preference for warm beverages, but the thought of sharing donuts and coffee with Karin is nice enough for her not to mind too much. Learning how to make it has brought Karin some bit of peace and closure with Styx's departure, and Alice is happy to lean into that.

Focusing on the after and not the hear-and-now makes the pain easier to handle, and Alice stretches a little and takes a deep breath. Might as well ride the good feeling while she has it.]

I think I'm ready to move again. Can you help me stand?

[sonnestark]

An admittedly slow process, but getting close enough that I think they would pair nicely.

[Her smile persists, bittersweet though it is; she knows Alice's preference is for tea, and Karin herself is fond of both, but after the great pains Styx had gone to in order to obtain the right cups and how much it had meant to him to keep his auntie's tradition going strong, she doesn't want to see all his efforts go to waste. Alice is right; it's been helpful, even if only a little, in easing the sting of his absence.

She's back on her feet almost before Alice can complete her request, holding a hand out to her to offer her support.]

Of course— grab hold, we'll get you moving.

[She would have gladly waited longer if that was what it took, but if Alice is ready to move forward, then she's eager to help.]

I don't think we're too far behind the others.

wrapping. ♥

[adventageous]

[Alice takes the hand, and with Karin's help she gets to her feet. Her chest still aches badly, and her legs feel trembly and a bit weak. But she doesn't feel so badly that she's worried she might collapse, so that will have to be good enough.]

That's good.

[Deep breath.]

Let's go.

[Slowly, the two begin moving again. They don't catch up with the rest of the party until the party stops to make camp, but that's all right. Alice has Karin there alongside her, and Bond or no Bond that's plenty.]