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

[themogget]

[He takes it as it's meant to be taken. Good. Mogget has no inclination towards nursing hurt feelings.

(Jail for Momo. Jail for a thousand years.)]

I'm sure I can slip into a pack and have someone carry me down there. [He says, and he illustrates the spectacular laziness of that comment with a wide yawn that shows off all of his sharp white teeth.]

Normally I wouldn't be interested, but I haven't seen this place before and feel the need to occupy my time with something new.

[yesdoubt]

[Momo can't help but laugh at that bit of comedic timing, though he glances around to the packs around them with a bit of a raised brow.]

If you can find one that someone's left enough space in to fit, maybe. People seem to be using every spare inch of space they can at this point. Guess it comes of not completely knowing what we're dealing with.

[Which is understandable enough. He's packing more heavily than he entirely needs to for the same reason, since he doesn't know how many of the supplies might end up vital.]

Well, we only got so far out with the leyline cleansing attempts the first time around anyway. Definitely not as far as it looks like we'll need to be going for this, so it being a new experience might be the one good thing about it. I hope we can actually sort out the root of the problem, though.

[themogget]

I suppose I can walk, if I have to.

[But from the sounds of it, he's going to try really hard to not have to walk... and Mogget can be incredibly resourceful about such things. If he has to sit on someone's shoulder, he'll do that.]

I lent some time to the leyline cleansing. [Again, out of curiosity.] We should have known that wouldn't be the end of it.

[yesdoubt]

[Momo nods a little, since he remembers Mogget offering with that - he'd been glad for all the help he could get back then, though by this point, he feels like a good chunk of the people who did help out are gone. It makes him wonder how many are stepping up this time.]

It was always kind of...maybe not a temporary measure, but definitely a stopgap. It wasn't going to be effective to do on really large areas, or ever be a total cure. I'm just hoping whatever this is might give us a step towards maybe being able to do that.

[If they've pushed out something new, then there's the chance for more study and more answers to come. And maybe, if he's really optimistic, it might turn out to be a final defense mechanism against them reclaiming the tunnels.]

[themogget]

Treating the symptoms without rooting out the cause is never a sustainable tactic.

[But he says that mostly without judgement, perhaps surprisingly. He had seen when he had been assisting that those trying to help really were just doing the best they could with the information they'd been given.

This new development, while different to what he had expected, is still a very predictable one.]

What do you think we're going to find?

[yesdoubt]

[Momo agrees with that, honestly - at that point, there hadn't been much else they could do but treat the symptoms, but it didn't mean it was going to last. So he just hums an assent to the point, and focuses on what's in front of them right now.]

It's hard to say. It does look like this is a fairly different strain of Cwyld than we've dealt with before, and possibly more aggressive, so I'd expect plenty of Shades on the way. But as for what's causing it...I couldn't really tell you. We know so little about Cwyld and its origins besides the tale behind it that I don't think anything like this has come up before.

[themogget]

Mm. I've always found that curious, haven't you?

[He gets up from where he's sitting and hops forwards, and idly winds around Momo's legs.] That something so damaging to the world has almost no accessible records as to its origins or previous attempts to eradicate it.

[Mogget sits down on Momo's shoe.]

If I were a suspicious person, I might think that meant something.

[yesdoubt]

[Momo's eyes follow Mogget's progress around his leg and then onto his foot, the latter of which has him visibly trying not to laugh. As much as he's aware Mogget isn't simply a cat, he certainly embraces the shape a bit too wholeheartedly sometimes.]

I'd guess they haven't had much luck, considering how bad things have been since we arrived. The leyline purging was basically just being seriously tested a year ago, and before that mass burning seemed to be the big clearing for environmental infections...and that's not really an option everywhere. If it's been around long enough, the origins might've just gotten muddied or twisted over the years, like that kind of thing often does.

[Momo isn't particularly trusting, but he does get the impression that at least the lack of records on elimination attempts has really just been having minimal recourse against it until very recently. That seems to have been half the reason they got pulled here in the first place.]

[themogget]

[It's hard to say if Mogget does it because it disarms people or because he's just so used to being a cat that it's all but impossible for him not to. Only prying it out of him would tell, and he's so prone to being enigmatic.]

Undoubtedly. Such things are common, especially when the only ones who could have told you the truth of things are long dead or not inclined to speak of it.

[Does he think there could be beings around who remember how it all began? Absolutely. But they aren't being forthcoming... which he can also understand.]

However... I can't help but notice the Mirrorbound are being thrown into the firing line once again.

[yesdoubt]

[Momo uses cuteness to disarm people, so the possibility crosses his mind, but he's not concerned about it too much as it relates to him. Right now, the topic of conversation is rather more interesting to him anyway.]

Yeah, with how many people got wiped out or driven to different places or whatever else, it makes sense. I'm honestly kinda surprised the story about how it originated made it down this far, though I doubt it's the whole truth.

[Otherwise they might be having a few less problems than they are.]

I don't know if it's "thrown in" as much in this case. There's not a whole lot of us here, honestly, I think it's mostly the people who knew about the Underground already and were willing to respond to a call for help.

[themogget]

Hmm. It does make one wonder, though.

[Mogget pauses here to stretch, a small arch of his shoulders that doesn't shift him much at all from Momo's shoe. If the man wants him gone he's going to have to move his foot.]

There are plenty of non-Mirrorbound, no? Why is it left to us to foster these relationships between the various cities of this world.

[He could be wrong, he supposes, but on a superficial level that is how he's seen it playing out. The Mirrorbound are the ambassadors, the examples, the first line of defence, and why? What stake do they have in this world anyway?]

Or perhaps I'm simply too used to being left alone.

[yesdoubt]

[Momo doesn't currently need to go anywhere, so he doesn't mind Mogget camping out on his shoe for the moment. It's probably a good thing he was mostly done with his bag before this conversation started. Mogget's take on things does make him smile a little thoughtfully, though.]

I'm not sure how things went with Dorchacht originally, honestly, but the Coven did at least intervene and help more with the recent stuff. The main bit we had to do ourselves was the dreamwalking stuff, and that was just because we have some natural thing for it. Here was...a weird case, I feel like. But then, we've only been able to visit the two cities, so it's not a huge sample size.

[Momo doesn't necessarily mind - thus far, it's seemed justified, and the powers that be in Aefenglom at least haven't ignored when there's extra assistance needed in the other cities. The issue with the Underground is the fact that they opened up to the Mirrorbound first.]

[themogget]

Hmm. I'll concede that you have a point.

[Still doesn't really trust the Coven as far as he could throw them, but Mogget is Like That about authority in general, so it's not all that surprising. There's suspicion to be found everywhere.

He does, finally, make the decision to remove his posterior from Momo's shoe and extends his front legs out, flexing his paws and extending both sets of claws in a full-body stretch.]

Well. I suppose we ought to get a move on, shouldn't we.

[yesdoubt]

[Momo shifts his foot back when Mogget moves off it, tapping it on the ground for a moment before it settles.]

Yeah, better do some last checks before people start to head out. Hanging around here isn't going to get us to the bottom of this any faster.

[And he really does want to put whatever this is to rest, given his concerns about how he might've contributed to it.]

[themogget]

[Mogget sighs quite audibly, and looks around with his tail held high in the air and the end of it twitching. He's quite sure someone is going to step on him, and they won't hear the end of it if they do.]

Yes, yes, I suppose you're right. I should dismiss any second thoughts I have about coming along.

[Or he could leave, but the fact he's here at all likely indicates he isn't going to do that.]