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a forest village
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Scawwy, a quiet village nestled in its own pocket of space. Unless the weather is bad, the area remains relatively clear aside from the occasional patches of fog lingering here and there. Trying to walk through the fog to leave or explore farther than the village's borders puts the anxious and nosy right back in the village once again, looped endlessly. The bonfire lit in the center of everything can be seen from all angles around the village, burning warm and inviting. Dirt pathways lead everyone to and from each building, and it takes about a fifteen minute walk to get from one corner to another.
● The Cabin ● A small, wooden cabin with only four bedrooms. The chipped wood is worn, often dusty at the crevices, and prone to creaking. The windows have a grimy film on them, masking the view from outside and within. The simplicity belies the occasional strange groan of floorboards, or moving shadows across the wall. A perpetual chill permeates the building at night, and anyone plagued by insomnia can sometimes see a dark figure watchfully peering into one of the windows before it vanishes. Each room has two rickety beds, and the cabin can sleep up to eight reasonably. A chest sitting at the end of the hallway has a few extra thread-bare blankets and four magically lit lanterns. Outside around the corner are two plain outhouses for those who need daily quiet time.
Out front, a large, wooden mailbox is sitting on a sturdy pole. There is enough room for all deliveries for every individual assigned to this housing.
To the northeast, a stream curves south, making for prime pool party real-estate, or even a place to bathe. Just don’t swim after dark.
● The Barn ● Through the double doors of the rustic and bland barn, the first floor is spacious and smells of fresh straw. On one end are two empty, clean horse stalls, and while there isn’t a single horse to be found, periodically neighing or hoof clacking can be heard while in another area. Nearby is a chest with seven scratchy, flannel blankets. The southern side sports some quaint windows and a table covered by a rug, crates, and a single magically lit lantern. Rats (which aren’t six-feet tall, or bipedal thankfully) chitter and sometimes pop unexpectedly out of their hiding spots in the straw. A set of stairs leads to the loft above, a space filled with nothing but familiar straw bedding. A single, large window opens in the loft at the front of the barn, and in the distance, the bonfire rolls and toils. Outside to the north, two troughs can be plugged and filled with warm water as makeshift baths.
Out front, a large, wooden mailbox is sitting on a sturdy pole. There is enough room for all deliveries for every individual assigned to this housing.
● Abandoned Theater ● The exterior of the theater is hanging on by a thread, and even the trees have seen much better days. Two elegant but wilting doors open into a space more dilapidated than the outside of the building. And more… clownified? Thirteen benches litter the auditorium, some in decent condition and many others close to breaking apart, but all of them covered in the remnants of multi-colored confetti. The stage has seen much better days even with the enthusiastic strips of old banner at the back exclaiming CLOW- KING RETU—! Cracks in the flooring stretch from left and right stage all the way to the proscenium, and those traversing the stage floor should use caution lest they crash through to the trap room below. Crates and boxes are stuffed with brittle unused balloons, a broken ukulele, a stained deck of cards, and dried-up face paint.
A chest near the bottom of the stage has a handful of colorful, patchwork blankets and pillows inside.
Out front, a large, wooden mailbox is sitting on a sturdy pole. There is enough room for all deliveries for every individual assigned to this housing.
● Refectory ● Food is served at places on the tables for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, though what’s offered is tasteless and without spice. The sounds of tireless culinary work rattle away in the kitchen; however, opening the door reveals an empty and quiet room with a cold stove. Eating here in the wide, harmonic room fills diners with a longing for some type of faith, not necessarily religious, but in something, in anything. The front room can fit approximately twenty people at a time before becoming overcrowded, and a door to the side leads down into the lit cellar. A long wooden bar has been added to the wall of the cellar below, turning it into a winery and bar with several easy to open barrels of aged alcoholic grape juice. The liquid in the barrels are always at different levels when checked, even if no one has been around to have a drink.
● The Mortuary ● An industrial, cold building with no windows, brown-stained floors, and the metallic smell of blood. Five adult, wooden coffins sit neatly in a row near two metal surgical tables. Often, scratching can be heard from inside one of the coffins. Opening any of the lids reveals only an empty nest of plush velvet lining, perfect for long naps out of the sun. If the lanterns on the walls are still too bright, there is a tiny basement level with two extra coffins, not a sliver of sunlight or lamplight to be found. Additionally, the basement houses a chest with several velvet blankets inside.
Out front, a large, wooden mailbox is sitting on a sturdy pole. There is enough room for all deliveries for every individual assigned to this housing.
● The Church ● A modest building with a single pitched steeple whose bell in the center has lost its clapper. The inside is mostly homely, but full of the reverence that comes with peace and silence. Every wall has at least one giant, stained-glass window, a pictorial progression of the rise and divine instatement of a Sabbatic goat. Six pews can accommodate sitting or sleeping. The book on the altar at the front is labeled Holy Bible, but the words on the inside are written in a ghastly and scratching, unreadable language of runes. Beside the altar is a small baptism pool, though the water is murky red. Sometimes, when drifting to sleep, or bowing in prayer, a phantom bell loudly rings a couple of times from above. The chest in the corner holds a handful of drop cloths and hassock cushions.
Out front, a large, wooden mailbox is sitting on a sturdy pole. There is enough room for all deliveries for every individual assigned to this housing.
● The Cemetery ● Surprisingly less eerie than the church, the cemetery smells like freshly tilled soil and burdens those entering with a mantle of gentle sorrow. The tombstones are worn and broken with age, the real testament to how little lingers after death aside from memory. A single, very old shovel is here propped on one of the gravestones. Tarry here too long and the voices of the known departed whisper over a shoulder, or visions of them flicker in and out of the corner of the eye. At night, the only light here is of the stars above in the sky and the burning bonfire in the distance.
● Haunted House ● Light-less and lifeless, this old house groans and creaks with any passing breeze. The wooden siding is grayscale and dingy, the windows drooping like a haggard face. The first floor has a dining room, a kitchen, and a bathroom, all small and claustrophobic. The chairs in the dining room will occasionally twist in another direction, or the table will rattle threateningly against the rug. A chest along the far wall is filled with several granny-square crocheted blankets. A few rats can be heard digging around in the kitchen just over the sound of incessant, unseen flies. The stove works, but is wood-burning, and the pop of any wood used sounds like a pain-filled wail. The bathroom is also functioning, but the tub water sometimes becomes rusty and gets cold very fast while the toilet periodically shoots water from the bowl like a bidet.
Upstairs, the house is split into four mothball scented rooms with two aged twin beds each (eight total). The bedding is dusty and paper thin, so any shadows haunting the hall at night can almost be seen through the sheets. Every morning at witching hour, moaning, crying, laughter, and walking can be heard on the floor below, on the stairs, and in the bedrooms.
Out front, a large, wooden mailbox is sitting on a sturdy pole. There is enough room for all deliveries for every individual assigned to this housing.
● The Swamp ● Behind the house lies the vestiges of what was once a charming pond. The green, brackish water beneath the barren trees pops from algae gas and an earthy and pungent smell permeates the area. Hopping the eastern stones leads to an island in the center where the ground is covered by a permanent pentagram. There is a single spindly tree on the island, and the face of its trunk has the carving of a door burnt into the bark.
The swamp will now open to reveal a natural staircase. Descending it will offer curiosities beyond imagine.
● The Pyre ● An enormous, ever-burning bonfire surrounded by five benches and other extra crate seating. A large table sits at the southernmost point, and on the opposite side is an equally as large notice board filled with strange profiles and a copy of a rulebook. There are now pens and paper here to leave notes on the bulletin board or for writing messages for crows. Basking in the warmth of the fire feels mentally rejuvenating and comforting, a perfect place to hang out with others and cook food. Staring into the fire makes all else in the background recede into the shadows of the mind.
Next to the bulletin board sits a set of small, handsome shelves from Ebonbriar Academy, loaded with books. The books have been sorted by genre, and a note attached to the top of the shelves in neat handwriting reads:
Scawwy Library
A place of solace for all.
If you take a book, please return it once you've finished. Feel free to contribute books if you have them and would like to share. Thank you!
For your reference, the books on the shelves include these.
Out front, a large, wooden mailbox is sitting on a sturdy pole. There is enough room for all deliveries for every individual assigned to this housing.
To the northeast, a stream curves south, making for prime pool party real-estate, or even a place to bathe. Just don’t swim after dark.
● The Barn ● Through the double doors of the rustic and bland barn, the first floor is spacious and smells of fresh straw. On one end are two empty, clean horse stalls, and while there isn’t a single horse to be found, periodically neighing or hoof clacking can be heard while in another area. Nearby is a chest with seven scratchy, flannel blankets. The southern side sports some quaint windows and a table covered by a rug, crates, and a single magically lit lantern. Rats (which aren’t six-feet tall, or bipedal thankfully) chitter and sometimes pop unexpectedly out of their hiding spots in the straw. A set of stairs leads to the loft above, a space filled with nothing but familiar straw bedding. A single, large window opens in the loft at the front of the barn, and in the distance, the bonfire rolls and toils. Outside to the north, two troughs can be plugged and filled with warm water as makeshift baths.
Out front, a large, wooden mailbox is sitting on a sturdy pole. There is enough room for all deliveries for every individual assigned to this housing.
● Abandoned Theater ● The exterior of the theater is hanging on by a thread, and even the trees have seen much better days. Two elegant but wilting doors open into a space more dilapidated than the outside of the building. And more… clownified? Thirteen benches litter the auditorium, some in decent condition and many others close to breaking apart, but all of them covered in the remnants of multi-colored confetti. The stage has seen much better days even with the enthusiastic strips of old banner at the back exclaiming CLOW- KING RETU—! Cracks in the flooring stretch from left and right stage all the way to the proscenium, and those traversing the stage floor should use caution lest they crash through to the trap room below. Crates and boxes are stuffed with brittle unused balloons, a broken ukulele, a stained deck of cards, and dried-up face paint.
A chest near the bottom of the stage has a handful of colorful, patchwork blankets and pillows inside.
Out front, a large, wooden mailbox is sitting on a sturdy pole. There is enough room for all deliveries for every individual assigned to this housing.
● Refectory ● Food is served at places on the tables for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, though what’s offered is tasteless and without spice. The sounds of tireless culinary work rattle away in the kitchen; however, opening the door reveals an empty and quiet room with a cold stove. Eating here in the wide, harmonic room fills diners with a longing for some type of faith, not necessarily religious, but in something, in anything. The front room can fit approximately twenty people at a time before becoming overcrowded, and a door to the side leads down into the lit cellar. A long wooden bar has been added to the wall of the cellar below, turning it into a winery and bar with several easy to open barrels of aged alcoholic grape juice. The liquid in the barrels are always at different levels when checked, even if no one has been around to have a drink.
● The Mortuary ● An industrial, cold building with no windows, brown-stained floors, and the metallic smell of blood. Five adult, wooden coffins sit neatly in a row near two metal surgical tables. Often, scratching can be heard from inside one of the coffins. Opening any of the lids reveals only an empty nest of plush velvet lining, perfect for long naps out of the sun. If the lanterns on the walls are still too bright, there is a tiny basement level with two extra coffins, not a sliver of sunlight or lamplight to be found. Additionally, the basement houses a chest with several velvet blankets inside.
Out front, a large, wooden mailbox is sitting on a sturdy pole. There is enough room for all deliveries for every individual assigned to this housing.
● The Church ● A modest building with a single pitched steeple whose bell in the center has lost its clapper. The inside is mostly homely, but full of the reverence that comes with peace and silence. Every wall has at least one giant, stained-glass window, a pictorial progression of the rise and divine instatement of a Sabbatic goat. Six pews can accommodate sitting or sleeping. The book on the altar at the front is labeled Holy Bible, but the words on the inside are written in a ghastly and scratching, unreadable language of runes. Beside the altar is a small baptism pool, though the water is murky red. Sometimes, when drifting to sleep, or bowing in prayer, a phantom bell loudly rings a couple of times from above. The chest in the corner holds a handful of drop cloths and hassock cushions.
Out front, a large, wooden mailbox is sitting on a sturdy pole. There is enough room for all deliveries for every individual assigned to this housing.
● The Cemetery ● Surprisingly less eerie than the church, the cemetery smells like freshly tilled soil and burdens those entering with a mantle of gentle sorrow. The tombstones are worn and broken with age, the real testament to how little lingers after death aside from memory. A single, very old shovel is here propped on one of the gravestones. Tarry here too long and the voices of the known departed whisper over a shoulder, or visions of them flicker in and out of the corner of the eye. At night, the only light here is of the stars above in the sky and the burning bonfire in the distance.
● Haunted House ● Light-less and lifeless, this old house groans and creaks with any passing breeze. The wooden siding is grayscale and dingy, the windows drooping like a haggard face. The first floor has a dining room, a kitchen, and a bathroom, all small and claustrophobic. The chairs in the dining room will occasionally twist in another direction, or the table will rattle threateningly against the rug. A chest along the far wall is filled with several granny-square crocheted blankets. A few rats can be heard digging around in the kitchen just over the sound of incessant, unseen flies. The stove works, but is wood-burning, and the pop of any wood used sounds like a pain-filled wail. The bathroom is also functioning, but the tub water sometimes becomes rusty and gets cold very fast while the toilet periodically shoots water from the bowl like a bidet.
Upstairs, the house is split into four mothball scented rooms with two aged twin beds each (eight total). The bedding is dusty and paper thin, so any shadows haunting the hall at night can almost be seen through the sheets. Every morning at witching hour, moaning, crying, laughter, and walking can be heard on the floor below, on the stairs, and in the bedrooms.
Out front, a large, wooden mailbox is sitting on a sturdy pole. There is enough room for all deliveries for every individual assigned to this housing.
● The Swamp ● Behind the house lies the vestiges of what was once a charming pond. The green, brackish water beneath the barren trees pops from algae gas and an earthy and pungent smell permeates the area. Hopping the eastern stones leads to an island in the center where the ground is covered by a permanent pentagram. There is a single spindly tree on the island, and the face of its trunk has the carving of a door burnt into the bark.
The swamp will now open to reveal a natural staircase. Descending it will offer curiosities beyond imagine.
● The Pyre ● An enormous, ever-burning bonfire surrounded by five benches and other extra crate seating. A large table sits at the southernmost point, and on the opposite side is an equally as large notice board filled with strange profiles and a copy of a rulebook. There are now pens and paper here to leave notes on the bulletin board or for writing messages for crows. Basking in the warmth of the fire feels mentally rejuvenating and comforting, a perfect place to hang out with others and cook food. Staring into the fire makes all else in the background recede into the shadows of the mind.
Next to the bulletin board sits a set of small, handsome shelves from Ebonbriar Academy, loaded with books. The books have been sorted by genre, and a note attached to the top of the shelves in neat handwriting reads:
A place of solace for all.
If you take a book, please return it once you've finished. Feel free to contribute books if you have them and would like to share. Thank you!
For your reference, the books on the shelves include these.
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scawwy ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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FULL NAVIGATION
LOCATION CHANGES / THEFT
WEEK 1
An oblong island smattered with a dreamcore, pastel veil and surrounded by the sea, perpetually caught at the very beginning of a tepid sunset. The grass is green and the trees are lush with ripened fruit like peaches, apples, and coconuts on the beach. Shaking any of these trees has a chance to drop a beehive out of the branches, and the bees will chase the perpetrator until they get inside an enclosed shelter. Gorgeous multicolored flowers bloom both wild across the island and neatly in tended beds near the center township.
It’s a peaceful paradise no one would ever want to leave.
Ten little houses sit together on a section of the island, each one unique, but vacant and unlocked. Evidence of a home’s inhabitant is left behind in color, room decor, and keepsakes; some houses even have hanging photos of bipedal goats, cats, and dogs. In the neighborhood center is a low platform stage strung with fairy lights, and a boombox nearby alternates between songs.
● Yodel Ranch ● On one corner of the island, a wooden farm fence encircles a large barn and a field. A Sheltie dog greets visitors immediately upon entering. Her collar proudly proclaims she is Dani, and she is extremely friendly and will sit and offer her paw. Inside the barn are several barn cats and a buckskin gelding whose stall has a name plate which reads Hårgas. On one wall of the barn hangs farm tools: a hammer, a hoe, an axe, a watering can, a sickle, and a fishing rod.
Alas, these items will leave stealing hands and return to their place at the barn if an attempt to leave with them is made.
The field is split into three different sections. The first has been tilled and planted, and turnips, sweet potatoes, cabbage, pumpkins, and spinach grow in neat rows. Somehow, these crops don’t seem to follow the rules of seasons. These all strangely regrow within a few hours after they have been picked. The second field is filled with fluffy white sheep, and the third field is filled with black and white heifers. Near the sheep and cow pens are a milk bucket, brush, and bell; ringing the bell will cause the sheep and cows to come over.
● Funky Fashionista ● The sound of a phantom running sewing machine can be heard while browsing the racks and shelves of this clothing store. The wallpaper and flooring are bright and chipper, and many of the headless mannequins show off the new fashion trends of the island. A small selection of clothing and accessories can be found at one time here, but all of it rotates on a day to day basis. A list of rotating, in-stock items can be found here. These clothing items can be taken.
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WEEK 2
A desolate two-lane roadway winding through fog, trees, and hills for about a mile. No cars or trucks rumble down the road, though occasionally, white apparitions can be seen disappearing into the trees. Reaching the end of the road envelopes travelers in fog and loops them to the beginning once more. Along the journey, several eerie places spring out of the fog into view.
The store itself has rows and rows of shelves filled with snack foods as well as freezers along the back walls packed with water, sodas, and beers. The lights inside are so white and harsh they feel draining, and after spending several hours in the building, the uncertain dread of being watched seeps into every bone. The counter at the front is unmanned, but no matter how long of a wait, no one ever comes. Cigarettes are just out of reach on the wall behind the counter, and a case of lottery scratch-offs and 5-hour energy shots crowd the space where items go to be rung up.
In the back corner are two doors: one is a grungy, halfway clean bathroom; the second is a staff room only as big as a closet space where a small server buzzes to keep the split-screen camera monitor alive. Each camera points at a different area of the station, two inside, two outside (front and back). Watching the feed doesn’t reveal much for a long time, but every so often, a figure can be seen looming in the shadows of the building, especially when the lights flicker off.
● Toyama Residence ● This old minka house, sitting in endless night, has become dilapidated and overgrown by weeds. A single dirt path from the gate cuts through the brush straight to the creaking engawa and frosted-screen sliding front door. The genkan is nothing more than dirt which has turned into mud from an abundance of stale-smelling water, a shoe stone, and planks of wood on the other side welcoming visitors up into the first section of the house.
The dated exterior clashes with the transplanted interior decor from the 80s and 90s, and despite having electricity, none of the lights work. Most of the individual rooms are filled with tatami flooring except for the washroom and kitchen, and the brittle rice paper of the sliding doors have all been torn or ripped out. One of the front rooms has a small irori fire pit. Flickers of figures pass through the holes. Sometimes, a figure may be standing at the end of a hallway, or across through the sliding doors of several rooms. There and gone again.
There are two additional levels: a second floor, up a set of steep stairs; and an attic, up a ladder on the second story. A lot of old, hoarded junk spills out of the rooms into the hallways. Musty clothing, boxes, furniture, broken heirlooms and collectibles; handed down mementos mix with the modern age like a room with a kotatsu, a television, and video cassette player.
Dank, shadowy bedrooms fill the second floor where remnants of occupants have been left behind in time. The ladder into the attic spills straight into a room covered in rows and rows of dusty Ichimatsu dolls. It’s difficult to tell if they move their eyes or their heads. One way here, another way there.
Outside, around the side of the house along another dirt path is a single outhouse with a hole in the ground. Low, scratchy whispering occasionally rises up from the depths of the dark hole.
● The Side Rooms ● A surreal, eerie labyrinth of different rooms stretched into the distance by a liminal space. This area can only be stumbled upon accidentally through a door in the Toyama Residence, or the Gas-N-Pass station. All who enter become lost within for some length of time; to the outside world, only about an hour, but to the lost it could be minutes, hours, days. Rooms are lit or dark, high or low. Some are upside down. Some are filled with pools. Some have strange geometric structures, or holes, or warping hallways, or doors through doors through doors. The air is lukewarm and quiet.
Travelers inside feel watched and stalked. Some unseen creature is hunting all who venture through the rooms with an insatiable, curious hunger. The urge to keep something living inside of this dimension. As the pressure of being chased builds up, running away will finally lead anyone lost suddenly back to the main village as they pass through the next doorway.
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WEEK 3
These lands feel like waking after the end of the world. Quiet, desolate, seeing only the remnants of what once was great, or alive, or new. The sky is always overcast and grey, storms come and go. Great wars between gods and men have flattened the life out of this place, though pieces of nature still clinging to the world are beginning to flourish once more.
Outside of the bottom landing is a peppering of small marshes around the base of the cliffs. A ramp of earth leads up into the patio beside the first few buildings. Each building connects into the next–building and rock, rock and building–everything open to the air and sky through columns and doorless entries, no need for windows. Though mostly ruins, mementos of a regal, intelligent civilization are left behind in the decor. Scraps of parchment write highly of a group of paladins called the Eternal Edict who devote themselves to establishing and maintaining True Order and life and death in the land.
Everything winds upward and into the mesmerizing sky, though the orbs always seem just out of reach of a hand. When ascending, the ground grows slowly darker and darker, morphing into an empty reflection of the sky overhead. As above, so below. Standing high amid the stars, it’s easy to feel the vast reach of the universe even here underground, rendering everything insignificant and tiny, and yet grandiose in the presence of it all at once.
● Tree of Nascent ● A forest of yellow-leaved aspen trees huddles in the looming shadow of an immense, blooming dogwood tree. The eye-shaped knots on the aspen trees blink and shift when anything passes by along the winding path. The wind is gentle, but the forest is deathly silent otherwise, a noticeable lack of birdsong and animal scampering, making the air feel sacred. The great dogwood sits in a small clearing near the center, larger than anything imaginable and outlined in a soft, golden glow. The halo of light once encircling the back of the white canopy is now broken and dark; the shards of the halo are tangled in the branches, or lying in ruins among the roots of the tree. The trunk facing the path has been split open vertically, and where the giant, grotesque figure was cradled before is nothing but an empty and hollow area with a broken, twisted umbilical cord of bark dangling from above.
A stone plaque near some of the enormous roots reads: I am that I am.
A spigot has been lodged into the bark of one of the roots of the dogwood tree near where it meets the trunk. Turning the spigot on fills the steel bucket below it with strange gold and red blood.
● Ebonbriar Academy ● A colossal stone structure sitting on an island in a small lake and built into the sky almost like a fortress. Several towers stretch higher than the rest, emitting a blue glow from their arched windows.
The Academy has a multitude of different rooms between the winding halls, chilly, covered in banners of Academy design, and cramped by books, chalk placards, desks, gemstones, runic maps, and strange alchemic or magical devices.
A teleporting stone sitting on a balcony transports visitors directly before the large double doors of the enormous library. Shelves of books line every wall from front to back, and the shelves stack inward toward the center of the room where there sits an enormous cradle with a cracked gemstone egg inside; the shadow within the egg looks almost like an embryo. Thousands upon thousands of books from every universe are here, some in unreadable languages. Many of the books expand on the history of a group of Chaos following, immortal seeking mages called the Afflicted.
One of the towers holds a single room filled with growing yellow and blue crystals as well as wicker baskets of the same harvested gems and miniature picks. Pieces of the crystals’ edges have been chipped away, though not all the cavities are even like they were done by tools. The room reverberates with the low, mental hum of an old, dark, and magical force. Standing inside for very long will instill a deep, insatiable hunger; at first for knowledge, for Truth, for power, and then, slowly, for the shimmering and tantalizing crystals inside the room. Scattered here and there on the floor are pieces of teeth.
Various traps are sprinkled within the building: hidden walls which vanish after being hit, leading to other rooms; tunneled hallways behind secret doors, detouring from one area to the next; teleporting objects transposing curious individuals across the Academy to other rooms, or dropped outside in a botanist’s garden on a cliff-face with no exit except to climb the stone railing and narrowly shimmy along the edge of the building to a broken window.
● Burgoswald Woods ● A dank and grey, coniferous forest with a canopy thick enough to make the forest floor relatively dark. An old, wooden sign at the mouth of the area warns of the dangers within.
The trees are exceedingly tall and very thick, old as time itself. Inside the forest, the air is chilly, and it smells of rotting bark, and moss, and leaves. A terrible, unnerving energy permeates the entirety of the radius mile, something akin to dark magic, something that makes the hair on the back of the neck and the arms stand on end.
Journeying through the forest is met with the periodic howls and growls of bizarre, unseen beasts, and travelers stumble upon tiny sections of gravestones sprinkled oddly throughout the trees. Tantalizing orbs of light bob quickly away from the path, and wanderers will be lead astray in the dark, often toward precarious bogs.
A clutter of green, dog-sized spiders live in one corner of the forest, their thick webs strung up between the trees. If they can't trap foolish prey with their webs, they will shoot webbing from their abdomen, or descend like lightning from the canopy to grab prey and paralyze them with their venom. Anyone caught will become a dried-up husk left in a coffin of silk.
If travelers can make it to the center, a clean, perfect stream several feet wide runs through it; the water is fresh and cold enough to shock the senses. Deer, rabbits, foxes, birds, and other gentle animals can often be found here searching for water and rest. A single ragged, old gravestone is here with a burning lantern hanging from the top. The light from the lantern is warm and comforting, and despite being a marker of the dead, the wordless stone feels like a nice place to rest.
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WEEK 4
The warm days and chilly nights of the Atlantic northeast dominate the summer stay at Borrasca camp and the boardwalk. Some days are overcast, but most are bright and sunny. The waters are shockingly cool and the wildlife is abundant. Even this far north, the mosquitoes are bad in the evening and at night, buzzing incessantly, and the area comes alive at night with the sounds of crickets and frogs.
In the day, the camp is a peaceful, if lonesome, respite in the thick of the wilderness. Animals like deer, foxes, birds, squirrels, or other small mammals and reptiles roam the natural landscape just yards away from the border of the camp. The pawprints of a bear or a mountain lion can sometimes be spotted in the muddier areas near the lakeshore, and the lake itself is home to various fish and other aquatic animals even with the dock stretching out into the water split from the swimming platform in the distance by a bit of water. A gazebo stands near the lake, perfect for kissing your honey (or kissing a side piece behind your honey’s back). At the center of all the cabins on the shore of the lake is a small bonfire surrounded by seating, the best place for telling ghost stories late in the evening.
At night, the forest closes eerily inward onto the camp. Brush moves and branches snap somewhere in the trees, but it’s difficult to see through the heavy darkness all around. A strange, guttural howl pierces the night periodically from different areas around the outskirts of the camp as if circling it. With no light pollution, the sky above is a beautiful sliver of the universe, blue-black and violet and freckled by white stars for those brave enough to stand outside and look up.
The safest haven are the cabins: simple but sturdy sanded, stained-wood logs and a roof. Each cabin has two twin bunk beds, a fold-up table with two chairs, a tiny kitchenette, and a bathroom. A mini fridge in the kitchenette has a few cans of soda, hot dogs, eggs, and sandwich meat which periodically replenish. Ingredients for smores, crackers, and bread are on the counter. There’s electricity! Of course, it will go out from time to time, and campers are forced to use the flashlights available instead.
● Doyle House, Infirmary, and Radio Tower ● The camp office, named Doyle House after the founding family, serves as the liaison between the normal outside world and the hellacious two month summer stay in the heart of the wild. Inside is a large desk with an old rotary phone (which unsurprisingly doesn’t work) and stacks of papers and folders–supply inventory, a map of the lake camp, and a list of campers: Kaitlyn, Jacob, Emma, Nick, Ryan, Dylan, Abigail, Laura, and Max.
The infirmary is a tiny cabin sitting near the office, fitting only two chairs and two cots along with a kitchenette. The cabinets are filled with very basic medical supplies like bandages, aspirin, wound ointment, hot and cold patches, fire blankets, bug repellent, and bear spray.
Getting to the top of the radio tower is a long ladder climb not for the faint of heart, or those afraid of heights. At the end of the ladder is a wrap-around balcony and one 10 ft. by 10 ft. room with walls lined by windows. In the day, chunks of the camp can be spotted through the thick forest, but at night, there is nothing but darkness stretching for miles. A VHF radio box sits on a desk, and switching through any of the 14 channels gives a range of soft static to distorted, strange muttering, to animalistic growling. Reaching out through the mic will always earn a whispered, “Help me,” in reply.
● Turnpike Trailhead ● A winding, two-mile trail horseshoeing (with plenty of twists and turns) from the camp back to the camp once more. Strange, unnatural footprints are sometimes left in the dirt, mud, and brush along the trail. Trickling water can be heard, but none can be found. Dancing lights off in the trees tantalizingly try to pull hikers from the trail. If anyone wanders away from the path, they become lost for several hours before finding themselves once more on the trail, dazed and unable to remember how long they have been missing. Periodically, a whispery and waifish voice demands for hikers to “return The Slab” from somewhere in the distance. It can take hikers anywhere from thirty minutes to several hours to traverse the entire trail, and often even those hiking together feel as if the time they have spent on the trail differs.
● Sonica Manta Boardwalk ● A 500 meter stretch of salty wood and greasy, delicious concession stand food. During the day, the amusement park is plain, but functional, operating on its own. At the top of the ferris wheel, the ocean stretches endlessly for miles and miles; in the distance near the horizon, the silhouette is no more rip. The sun is warm, the food is great.
At night, the amusement park is alive with light and sound as the rides and games continue on their loops of starting and stopping. The food is delicious, but doesn’t ever satiate, creating the urge to eat more and more. It’s difficult to resist the desire to stay here forever, lost in the fun of the park and the sights and food of the boardwalk. At the top of the ferris wheel, the ocean is only a black and eternal mass of rolling darkness, never-ending.
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WEEK 5
Standing at the bottom of the steps of a stone lighthouse brings the realization it is immersed in an all-consuming ocean. There is nothing in any direction except water, water, water. And foggy mist on the horizon. Up the steps is a large double, golden door left ajar, though it seems as if it shouldn't be open at all. Inside, lights wink on, illuminating a plaque on the back wall: A man chooses, a slave obeys. A two-person bathysphere awaits, and music plays gently from within. Hopping inside makes the round door shut, and the bathysphere drops through a glass tunnel 18 fathoms deep into the pit of the ocean.
Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? The bathysphere is lopped out of the tunnel and onto a rail above an expansive, modern underwater city. A screen flickers on in the bathysphere, running through a static reel of a confident and handsome man regaling riders with the story of his creation: an entire city built for artists without censor, scientists without morality, and great men who would not be constrained by the small. A city for gods.
The bathysphere arrives in a docking area connected to a building, and ELYSIUM is embossed on the plating of the opening. After decompression, the bathysphere rises into the building and opens, releasing all passengers. Glowing advertisement boards all around the room sell EVE ("Running on empty? Fill up with EVE!"), plasmid ("Pick your Plasmid and evolve!"), and ADAM ("With ADAM, there's no reason NOT to be beautiful!"). For as much as the city touts its shining, golden accomplishments, the interior is left dilapidated and in ruins after what could only be civil unrest.
There is also Dental, one room with a single chair and arms and arms of dental drills and picks attached to the base. If the Surgery Ward was bad, one can only imagine what would happen here.
Already dead? No problem! The Crematorium has a giant, ever-burning furnace where any twisted, freakish body can be wiped from existence and turned to ash.
● EDEN ● One respite in the city below the sea: a few rooms of ecology stolen from the land above. A Tea Garden is lush with plants, small trees, and an abundance of flowers. Iron tables and chairs are set up, offering a place for food, drink, and gossip, or even love.
The tea garden flows straight into a Grotto where a small waterfall spills into a waist-deep pool of perpetually circulated, filtered water.
Adjacent to these is Atlas Farms, a hydroponic chamber full of artificially cultivated fruits and vegetables via growth lights.
● THE PAVILION ● A collection of merchant shops and restaurants for the wealthy and impressionable. Clothing, jewelry, and accessories are here in droves, but the styles follow 40s and 50s designs. Bookstores are filled with fiction and nonfiction, self help, and, of course, etiquette. Restaurants cater to all kinds of palettes and cultures via small, faceless robots, but every experience is elevated and rich. Vending machines are here, too, selling thin vials of ADAM - juice that makes you look and feel beautiful - and EVE - a 5-hour energy shot from hell. Both of these are extremely addictive and have bad withdrawal effects. A large ballroom sits at the end of the rows of shops, the inside left a mess from civil infighting.
● SOMNOVIUM ● The residential district is locked behind a large sliding, metal door.
Strange, blackish organic matter clings to the door itself,The black, organic material has been broken away by the opened door, leaving a mess on the floor, and a large robot is stuck in the same material on a wall nearby.Two thick tubes stretch from it to organic ports by the doorThe two thick tubes have been unplugged from the ports on the wall. A lever switch sits by the door, now turned off.The door hums with energy. The robot will tell those nearby in a man's voice it's very hurt and needs help, a doctor maybe, repeatedly; he always ends his sentences with, "Would you kindly?"The robot has become dormant and unresponsive.The large door has slid away, leaving behind an opening which leads straight into a spacious, open foyer full of elegant and rich architecture and decor marred by the mess of infighting. There are benches and chairs for sitting and an empty reception desk at the back. Two open archways on each side lead to two separate wings of high-end apartments neatly stacked side by side along two stories. Each room is furnished like a lavish penthouse: a den, a full kitchen, several bedrooms, and a big bathroom.
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WEEK 6
A small village nestled in the curve of a meandering river through a valley. All of the buildings - mostly residential houses - are made of adobe, stone, and stucco and are perched at varying levels along the mountainside. The interiors are are full of rustic, wooden beams and the roofs are ASMR-worthy clay plates. It's forever warm, and if there is any rain at all during the day, it only lasts for a few minutes.
● MARKET ● A little outside market stretching along the interior of the village. The stalls are unmanned, but filled with an assortment of both food and wares. Some have fruits, vegetables, and baked goods while others have hand-made household wares (bowls, plates, eating utensils, vases, containers), leather pouches, hand-made jewelry, or knitted items. These can be taken back to the Scawwy village. A peculiar stall at the end full of repurposed junk has a single camera obscura. Strange glyphs are carved around the lens at the front, and similar glyphs can be seen through the viewfinder outside the capture circle. Though the camera flashes, it does not produce any film.
● CATHEDRAL ● A small-scale imitations of what would be Gothic architecture found in a larger city, a miniature cathedral sits at one end of the village on the rise of a hill. The interior is simple, but the vocal reverberation it offers creates a feeling of powerful and sacred divinity which leaves those basking under the cross at the front awestruck. A plaque at the front near the altar proclaims: Give unto the Lord your own Flesh and Blood to feel His everlasting Grace. Arranged on the altar are several empty, glass cruet bottles.
Through a steel door in the back of the church, visitors can enter a tiny room and descend a single set of stone steps down into the black pit of the earth...
● LABORATORY ● At the bottom of the stairs, trespassers are spit into a laboratory. Out of place and a stark contrast to the village above, the modern, high-tech laboratory sits swallowed below ground in bat-filled cavern. Computers and monitors are hooked into an unseen power grid; most of the screens are nothing but lines and lines of mathematical and chemical calculations, equations, problems, and graphs. A few computers off to the side have pathology and pharmaceutical information about a T-Virus. On a table beside these computers is a tube rotator, incubator, and centrifuge. Cylindrical tanks filled with green liquid and strange, twisted baby creatures bubble along the wall. There's a steel operating table in the center with leather restraining straps and a large spotlight hanging above.
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ROOMING CHOICE
Choose two (preferred & second option) between the following: Cabin, Barn, Abandoned Theater, Mortuary, Church, or Haunted House.
Fill out the form below and reply to this comment so we can sort everyone into designated rooming areas. We will try to fit people where they would like to go as best as we can! This room choice is for later logistic purposes and characters aren't beholden to sleeping or hanging out in one location permanently.
We will post the official assignments in the Week 1 Monday mingle.
Cabin: 8 max
Barn: 6 max
Abandoned Theater: 5 max
Mortuary: 7 max
Church: 6 max
Haunted House: 8 max
Wait, explain how this works again.
The buildings will, ICly, lock onto individual people to "claim" them as residents. How does this work? Magic idk. OOCly, you are giving us your preferred rooming choices and we will try to give you your preferences. Please note that depending on building popularity, you might not get your preferred rooming choices.
Do we have to do this? Can our characters just stay elsewhere?
Like noted above, your characters do not have to stay in whatever room is assigned to them. HOWEVER, even if your character chooses to sleep somewhere else, there will be Things still connecting them to their assigned home that will be revealed later. Because of this, yes, OOCly you must do this even if your character ICly ignores it.
Also, keep in mind that each building can only comfortably sleep a certain amount of people, which is listed. While it is allowed to bring other people in, it will be an uncomfortable fit if it is over that number listed.
Does this mean these locations are private use?
Nope. Absolutely anyone can enter and use them for PC or mingle purposes like regular locations, so you have to deal with people going into your house. There will be places to store belongings though, so your items will be safe.
Do we have to make our own catch-alls?
We will host a mod made one in
SWAMP HEALS
The Swamp beckons you in with your ails. Once you enter with your injuries and ailments, it envelops you. You sink further and further in as the mud wraps around you, dragging you beneath the surface. It slips into your mouth, your ears, your nostrils. You can't breathe. Didn't you just want to be healed? Is it worth it? Is it?
Eventually, you rise again. You float gently to the surface. The murky, brackish green has shifted to a haunting red color. Your injury seems to have healed.
You feel... different.
Player Name:
Character Name:
Day: When does this happen?
Injury: Let us know what you'd like healed!
Please wait for mod response for the results of your little swamp swim!
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