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sticksandbones2024-02-17 08:11 pm
sticksandbonesmods) wrote in sticksandbones2024-02-17 08:11 pm
Entry tags:
MATTERS OF THE HEART
Who: Livio, Wolfwood, Elsword, Mizuki, Add, Heimr
What: heimrquest
When: several days after the bar is built, late in the evening
Where: ???????
Warnings: mentioned child death, mentions of plague, paranoia, supernatural-driven insanity, survivor's guilt, death, possession, impersonation, body horror. more will be added as needed.
The General Store isn't always the most bustling place, least of all in a small make-shift town of only a handful of people, each one more troubled than the last. But at some point, each and every one of you has needed something from Heimr today. Maybe it was just a bag of candy. Maybe it was something more pressing, or some groceries. Regardless, one by one he's tended to your needs, and you leave the store with little fanfare save for the fact that it's unusually foggy out this evening- not enough that you can't see other buildings...
Until you can't.
All around you is a heavy mist, and the scent of a wood fire and warm spices floats through the air. There's no turning back, so all you can do is move forward.
On an OOC note, the Choose Your Own Adventure threads will eventually merge into one group thread. Once this occurs, mod tags will occur after each involved character has tagged, or after 24 hours have passed. That said, if it looks like good banter or development is happening, the Mod will hold off a bit or until dramatic irony strikes.
What: heimrquest
When: several days after the bar is built, late in the evening
Where: ???????
Warnings: mentioned child death, mentions of plague, paranoia, supernatural-driven insanity, survivor's guilt, death, possession, impersonation, body horror. more will be added as needed.
The General Store isn't always the most bustling place, least of all in a small make-shift town of only a handful of people, each one more troubled than the last. But at some point, each and every one of you has needed something from Heimr today. Maybe it was just a bag of candy. Maybe it was something more pressing, or some groceries. Regardless, one by one he's tended to your needs, and you leave the store with little fanfare save for the fact that it's unusually foggy out this evening- not enough that you can't see other buildings...
Until you can't.
All around you is a heavy mist, and the scent of a wood fire and warm spices floats through the air. There's no turning back, so all you can do is move forward.
On an OOC note, the Choose Your Own Adventure threads will eventually merge into one group thread. Once this occurs, mod tags will occur after each involved character has tagged, or after 24 hours have passed. That said, if it looks like good banter or development is happening, the Mod will hold off a bit or until dramatic irony strikes.
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I’m a mercenary, Mister Livio. I’ll be okay.
…Are we talking about the memories we saw, though? Do you think that’s alright? I mean, they’re Mister Heimr’s, so…
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What good will keeping 'em to ourselves do? We're already here, it ain't like we haven't all seen something.
[And for as much as this is a breach of the man's privacy, Wolfwood figures that if he didn't want these memories shared, he would have told them all at some point to keep their mouths shut.
Not that Wolfwood is going to be terribly inclined to tell the whole story of what he saw. He didn't even tell Livio all of it.]
...I saw the start of an expedition. It was before the Grove was founded. Didn't see any monsters...yet.
[He conveniently isn't saying who "he" was, though.]
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I was... younger, too. After the Grove was already built. We were hunting, and... this merchant in the woods turned into a monster. Heimr shot it, and it fled.
I don't think he'd seen one before then.
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I saw the aftermath of the Grove's destruction, and the last moments of the ritual. The monsters had already moved on, aside from the Forest's avatar. Luckily, there was no physical altercation. [he doesn't wanna fight that thing fr]
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MEMORY START: The Merchant's Expedition
"You're sure about this? We both know it's dangerous further in." Aldric says, arms crossed.
"Of course I am. Besides, isn't that why it's best they have a guide?" The other man asks, his voice light and airy.
Fool. Aldric thinks, and the thought echoes through everyone's mind like an echo. Yer just goin' because their leader's a pretty woman. Practically guarantees she ain't interested in men with your luck. But he doesn't voice this, instead shaking his head with a sigh.
"If you're certain about bringing the merchants to the temple, keep an eye on them, would you? We know there's magical beings out there like we've never seen before. We got lucky with the river, but we can't just assume they'll all be nice to us. Wouldn't do to offend them... And I don't think your little entourage there cares."
"Of course, Aldric. Why, they won't even misstep on a flower with me there!"
The optimistic man turns around, and the merchant woman steps out of the general store to her little caravan. No beasts of burden to carry the gear for them, not with the thick underbrush, but that's what the men are for. She and Aldric's eyes meet, and she smiles.
It's so pleasantly sweet and mild, yet it feels cruel.
"Aldric."
"Callisto."
"We'll be heading out in an hour. I do hope we've received your blessings...? Especially after that little tantrum your son threw."
"You haven't. I expect you to return in a week and then leave my town."
Callisto pouts, before sighing. She knows better than to goad the man too much, though.
"Very well, very well. I do hope the animosity is worth it, though."
Aldric isn't a rude man, not really. He's always polite, gracious, and the only people he's ever had trouble with are ornery customers and bad parents. This does not stop him from blatantly rolling his eyes.
It seems that no one's noticed the group of intruders upon the memory.
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sorry if it's hard to see past him, though. have y'all tried not being so short?]
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She seems mean. [He waits until the merchants have started to head off though, before looking up at Livio's.... arm I guess and then back to everyone else.] We should follow them. I think we can sneak.
[elsword you're in plate armour and livio is 7ft tall how do you think youre going to sneak]
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[Not unless they’re all filling some kind of unseen role as a person in the memory, anyway, assuming he understands how this all works.]
The hell are they talking about, a “temple”?
[He very specifically avoids mentioning Aldric talking about them disrespecting the forest since he’s been exclusively drinking disrespect forest juice lately.]
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The temple is where the thing that's possessing the forest is from. Like I said, these are the people who released the creature and are the catalyst to all the bad things that happened.
…They're not good people, and I don't really want to watch this, actually. [ Beat. ] Can I eat them?
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.......................................... HELLO???]
... Can you wait? If we see what they did, maybe it'll help us figure out how to undo it.
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I agree that we should wait. First-hand accounts like this are valuable, and there may be details here that would otherwise be difficult for Heimr to recall... once we've acquired enough data, we can dispose of the unneeded elements.
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[Elsword they're not real]
Isn't the Temple where Zahliya came from? I think he said that. On the map I have at home, there's the old church, [not the new and improved Catholic Church brought to us by Saint Father
DaddyWolfwood,] and there's the Temple. The old church was Nene's, and the Temple is what they made the gargoyle statue to stand in front of until stuff went south. ...I think.[what if the church is garg and the nene is temple?]
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[Wolfwood boutta walk ahead without you guys-]
Plan: follow ‘em, listen to what they have to say, figure out some lost secrets about the past or whatever, let squirt eat everyone.
Do I have it all right?
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He lets go of Livio’s hand and cloaks himself in his invisibility before he saunters behind the merchants diligently. ]
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closely, because he doesn't trust that they will stay intangible to the denizens of this memory forever. some kind of attack feels inevitable.]
Everyone try to stay on your guard.
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"... Whatever I may think of you, come back safe, at least. And please don't piss off the spirits." Aldric says softly, which makes one of the merchants snicker.
Olivia wants to punch him, but with her twin brother gently squeezing her shoulder, she refrains. Callisto offers the first genuine smile, though it still feels off.
"You worry too much. We will be more than fine."
As the merchants and their guide set off into the woods, Aldric watches from the edge before he turns around, jaw clenched.
Mizuki and Livio may find that as they try to follow, the forest becomes less a real forest and more... like a watercolor painting that they happen to be standing in. Even the merchants take on that sort of appearance, and whatever conversation they try to make feels a bit garbled.
They can continue going forward if they wish, as this isn't the end, but Aldric's memory cannot clearly provide what he wasn't there for.
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We can't perceive events that Heimr wasn't aware of. Figures...
We should go back. Mizuki?
[the merchants aren't useful anymore, so !]
gagtag
replies to the gagtag for tag flow reasons- cw: cannibalism, bones crunching, gore, etc. dead dove
He whips out a couple of his tentacles to grab Callisto and her crew as Aldric turns around, covering their mouths so noises are muffled. He's not sure if memory people are edible, but it's worth a shot, right? He's going to attempt to drag them back into the more real looking forest, in hopes they become less watercolored themselves. If they don't, it's fine, he can just munch them anyway. He does instinctively sting them with his tentacles as well, as he usually does with his prey, so if there's any nerves to be affected, then have fun with the hallucinations.
Callisto is first, of course, as Mizuki sits down by her and pulls her head up by her hair. The other merchants are, at least, quickly put out of their misery. They're squeezed so tightly that the crunch of their bones breaking is all too audible. ]
I know you're not the real person. I don't know if you're just something fake — a puppet of some kind made up for this memoryscape, but… I'll try to fix you, anyway. It's a bit of a coincidence that we meet twice. It seems only right this time I do something to try and help.
[ He leans in, and there's a glow about him that's probably usually comforting. The light blues and pinks aren't supposed to be that scary, but perhaps, now, they're a bit more menacing than they should be. ]
Thanks for the food.
[ And he digs his teeth into her neck to pull out a chunk of flesh from there. ]
we love mizuki in this house
Right, I'll go back to check on Aldric... if any of you want to keep exploring ahead, we should be able to regroup at the next "layer". It'd be useful to know how much we can explore beyond the memory's limit, or if he might recall something useful about the temple.
[and then he's just gonna start walking back towards the Grove so someone else has to be on Mizuki Watching Duty... party split party split party split]
i love a little guy :)
I'm going to go with Add, since I figure Wolfwood-hyung and Livio-hyung will be fine on their own. They know how to fight.
[Backhandedly says that Add cannot sorry Overmind DPS weaksauce]
cw: cannibalism in the first paragraph
For a moment the world pauses, and everyone will see a vision. The merchants never reach the temple and their guide returns to the Grove, confused and afraid- Aldric sighs and marks it up to the spirits of the woods not wanting anyone to touch the temple. He brings the guide into his home for some tea to calm him down, asks he go talk to Grace, and... life goes on.
Edward and Nene raise a garden that she soon plays with a young Vash in while teaching him how to harvest cucumbers and eggplants and fresh tomatoes. The children go to school and thrive, as best they can- a dark skinned man can be seen teaching the kids drama and flynning while a woman who looks like BB runs regular classes.
Helputt happily teaches those who ask swordplay with the guards.
Astarion and Taliira tend to the school flowers.
Wolfwood and Livio and the twins bond, and little Mizuki remains in frail health but is so very loved by his older sister.
Lucian and the theater debut with a small but adoring and loyal crowd that eventually grows larger.
Life continues. It thrives. They grow older, and the town grows more and more but always respectful of the forest lest it tear into them too. Before your eyes, everyone gets to live, and be happy together, finding love and whatever else.
And eventually the five of you find yourselves standing in a warm sunset while an old and grey Aldric saunters over, hand in his pockets. He looks at the clocktower that's been built in a small plaza with a smile before giving the boys a wistful look.
"Coulda been nice. ... Sorry this wasn't what you had. Now, go on back and we'll see what else you bring forward."
... And just like that, they're in the watercolor forest again, everyone- even the memories- safe and sound.
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at least there's a palette cleanser. that... then needs its own palette cleanser, because seeing their happy ending strikes livio so deep in his heart it nearly takes him out at the knees. before he realizes it, he's holding his head in his hand because of the wetness of his cheeks and the throb in his temples.
he knows there's no time to dwell, though. having been given instructions, relieved to not have to make the decision himself, he follows after the restored figures of the merchants. at least he doesn't have to worry about the others' abilities to look after themselves. and if wolfwood tags along, then good, but livio doesn't force or even outright ask him to.]
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But it seems to have passed, for now. Add sighs, running a hand through his hair as he straightens his posture again.]
So that's his ideal ending... a cute fantasy, but I doubt it would be that simple. [he's mumbling in that "talking to myself but also don't care if you hear me and want to answer" kind of way] If it attracted one group of adventurers, more would probably follow. Those types hear about mysterious deaths and take it as a challenge. If the seal could be broken by regular people, I doubt it would've held up much longer regardless.
[Natural disaster, human curiosity, who's to say someone from the Grove itself wouldn't eventually cave? He knows what his own friends are like. The more you try to keep people away, the more they'll wonder what's hiding there. And back then they didn't even know, so why work so hard to protect it?
It's not Heimr's fault, in that sense. He could have delayed it if he was more paranoid, maybe, but even then it was never a guarantee.
... he should tell that to him later, once they're all back in the real world.]
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