lifeaftr | June Aftermath: Magic Lantern Strange

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June Aftermath: Magic Lantern Strange

JUNE AFTERMATH: MAGIC LANTERN STRANGE

Who: Everyone!
What: A celebration!
When: Evening of June 21st, and well into morning
Where: Ensō, E3 and E4
Warnings: Mark as needed!

Slide the Light Off You
As promised, the evening of the 21st finds the Jormun hosting a party on Ensō's largest beachfront. Near immediately, it should be clear that they've spared absolutely no expense when it comes to showing their story-walker brethren a good time.

Of course, they may also be...showing off a little.

The stalls and comfortable seating supplied around multiple firepits appears to be a mishmash of Jormun built contraptions and items requested from the Storyteller- many may be delighted to see the variety of beach cushions and blankets, items the Jormun will be happy to let their story-walker friends take home at the end of the festivities. A veritable smorgasbord of food and drink is also readily available, from the kid-friendly options of brrshavak (a spicy drink with a taste akin to liquified chili pepper) and molkavarr (a rich chocolaty broth) to the alcoholic rakvrhak (a rich wine that tastes oddly plumlike). Do be warned, however, that the last is incredibly potent.

Large slabs of driftwood have been laid out to form impromptu tables, bristling with the Jormun's culinary expertise: fried squid, seaweed wraps, spicy pickled kelp, kebabs of roasted eel, hard-boiled snapling eggs, and so on. The vegetables and meats of the sea have been laid out for all to enjoy, so tuck in!

Throughout the evening the air will be filled with the sound of music, with multiple Jormun eager to show off their skill in instrumentation. Conch-shell horns, carved driftwood flutes, urchin-needle harps, and countless more contraptions engineered by a deep sea-dwelling people fill the air with the most peculiar but nonetheless not unpleasant sound. Most of the bands will be set up in the shallow waters, however, as their instruments are not made to be used in open air - try playing them above the surface of the water at your own risk.

Of course, there's plenty more to entertain even the most difficult of people.

You're Living the Strobe Light
Those interested in proving their strength and skill will be encouraged to enter one of the many tournaments across the shoreline. The tournaments vary, featuring such challenges as play fights with the schlacknorkcvic to prove who is the greatest warrior, timed events to see who can stay on a bucking tigershark for the longest, and even a tourney of brovonkosshk, a board game somewhat similar to chess. Don't see anything you're interested in? Make your own. If you can think it, the Jormun will happily accommodate it - impromptu challenges are the highlight of such evenings, after all, though the Jormun won't be taking any responsibility for the first poor soul that decides to usher in a drinking contest.

A small variety of walker games are also available. Jormun children are more than eager to play such games as hide-and-seek or red light, green light, while Connor Murphy will be bringing his Cards Against Humanity deck, for those ready to completely screw with the idea of a fourth wall. There's even a game of Spin the Bottle... except the bottle is being spun overhead like a mace. Being hit by said bottle requires you to do a stupidly ridiculous task, so perhaps it's best to avoid that particular adaptation...

And of course, there's the lightshow.

As mentioned previously, the main show of the evening is the show of brssticca: bursts of magical light beneath the water that will put any fireworks show to shame. The lights are safe to wade and swim through, do keep in mind that the phosphorescent algae tends to cling to the skin. And should you reach into those spiraling, fluorescent nebulae of patterns beneath the surface, some of the configurations of light may abruptly shatter like broken glass.

Additionally, skilled Jormun will be happy to assist those who care to dress up for the event with intricate applications of shellivthiss - a style of waterproof body paint that is not only bright, but luminescent. Something the Jormun may forget to mention, however, is how similar shellivthiss is to henna; should you decide to get all dolled up, except to shine bright light a diamond for weeks to come.

Lastly, those who wanted to bring their own adventures are welcome to as well! Supplying some dope roast? Bringing those sweet, sweet greens? Have some alcohol to supply? All is welcomed by the Jormun - and undoubtedly, your fellow adventurers as well.

You May Find Some Peace
Feeling a tad adrift? Make sure to check the OOC Event Post, which has details regarding the event timeline!

LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

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[ In a dead world, it is the trying that matters. That is what the Knight might say, perhaps, if they knew the Drifter's internal thoughts. A flower delivered to a grave for the peace of those long dead. A moment of reflection in a ruined kingdom. A request to be left alone at another's bedside.

But they don't know such thoughts, and so it's something that goes unspoken. They tilt their head again at the Drifter's noncommittal answer, clearly puzzled by it, but they don't ask for clarification.

They glance over to something that had clearly interested them earlier, and then, with a little motion for the Drifter to stay and wait, they get up and leave. They're back soon enough, with a brush and a pot of glowing paint, and they put it down to sign. ]

CAN-PAINT

IF-YOU-WANT

[ Whether they mean the Drifter can paint them, or that they want to paint their friend, is ambiguous. Possibly on purpose. It's fine to them, either way. It's the sharing of the activity that matters. ]

[Paint.]

[It is bright, luminous, like the spray of pink out across the grass; a blaze of colors that assures them more than anything else that the world is dangerous, that something is wrong, that something is...askew.]

[It is not the same, here. It's just paint. Luminescent patterns to be drawn on the skin, or on the clothing.]

[Not the Drifter's skin, at least.]

what do you like to paint

MANY-THINGS

[ That's a little too vague, they know. They sort of struggle visibly with attempting to sign the words, and then they resort to writing again.

paint in own language

symbols that tell stories

A declaration of accomplishment, of memory. Always about memory, with this one. But more importantly, they are keeping their language here, symbols and sigils that nobody understands but them. Patterns they have drawn time and time again.

It is about sharing what they know with another, too. ]

show me?

[You thought you were going to get out of talking about yourself? Oh, no. No, no. Just because there's no actual talking doesn't mean it's not going to happen, and it is going to happen.]

[The Drifter wants to know the Knight's language. Even if it is just sketching on the dirt, or symbols that tell stories - it's better than meeting halfway. Perhaps it is a leftover instinct they do not have nearly enough times to act upon: the desire, the innate curiosity, to regard other histories and glean what they can.]

[They'd like to know.]

[ They seem - surprised. Again, that hesitation that comes from acknowledging a question that they've never been asked before.

But the hesitation only lasts a moment. They take the brush, and instead of using it to paint they turn it so they can draw with the handle.

They draw symbols in the sand; a small cluster of domed structures is 'home', or 'town', or simply 'others'. An oval with two lines is a representative of currency. A symbol of a horned creature is the sign for 'stag station' (they stop to explain what a stag is - some kind of transport, bugs who make their living traveling tunnels and carrying passengers, apparently). A four pronged crown is the sign for 'king'. Or possibly 'wyrm'. Possibly both.

Then they arrange them into what appear to be actual sentences, or as close as it gets. The language the Knight writes in goes in circles, curved patterns of symbols and designs with no clear beginning or end. Designs that are both decorative and informative.

They translate it into something the Drifter can understand as best they can, but it explains a little of why the Knight themselves has a somewhat patchy vocabulary. Symbols change their meaning and importance based on what they are juxtaposed with, and where their position is on the design. It's something they struggle to translate. ]

[Their language travels in circles, symbols orbiting one another, while the Drifter's sprawls in blocky columns. It's far more pictographic than what the Drifter is accustomed to, but there is a sort of ease to transposing the hieroglyphic meaning into something more abstract.]

[If the symbol is not literal, then it is representative of something greater.]

[The Drifter does not take notes. That is not particularly their nature, nor is it their instinct. But they do watch, and they do listen.]

[They are good at remembering.]

[ Eventually, the Knight wipes the sand clean, and they study the Drifter for a little while before working busily at a more complicated set of symbols.

Long before they're finished, the Drifter will easily be able to tell that it involves them - that they are the subject of this particular sigil.

For their friend's benefit, they indicate where it represents something. An interlocking pattern to symbolise sickness, pointing-upwards swords to represent a fighter. Hands circling one another, for language. ]

MAKE-THESE

FOR-RECORDS

WILL-CARVE-IN-STONE

FOR-MEMORY

[ This is how the Knight stores information that is important to them. Preserves it, for the future. Even lacking comprehension of the symbols, it still indicates that the individual depicted was important to them.

Paper is fragile. Stone, they have discovered, is better for such things. The journals they'd picked up in their wanderings had proven that. ]

[A hand ghosts up to the Drifter's chest, almost as if in shock, to rest over their heart - as if to say Me?]

[But it is. It is, without question, a representation of them. There are no other drifters here this could be misconstrued as. No others wear a drifter's garb, and the sickness...]

[It would make sense, on recollection. It would make sense that this would be something that defines them. Truth be told, they can no longer recall a time when it did not. Sickness strips away all else, consumes you in more ways than one; institutionalizes your life until you have reconstructed all that you are around it.]

afraid to forget?

[ It may perhaps be a surprise when the Knight shakes their head, slowly. No, that is not exactly the purpose - they won't forget (except, perhaps, if they are returned to darkness once again. And even then - when you mask something, when you give it shape, it does not easily forget it...) ]

RECORD-IMPORTANT-THINGS

FOR-OTHERS-AFTER

IT-WILL-LAST

[ To engrave something in stone is to give it a kind of immortality. The statues and structures and the glowing remnants of Hallownest proved that; though the king had gone, the echoes of his presence were all around. The architecture of his city had outlasted him, had outlasted all its inhabitants, save a precious few. ]

MEMORY-OUTSIDE-SELF

WILL-LAST

EVEN-WHEN-SELF-GONE

[ Forever is a word they are hesitant to use. Nothing lasts forever. But even if - or when - they are gone, the words they've made will live on.

(They have already died, after all, as much as something like them can die.) ]

[They do not imagine they will grow. They do not imagine they will last. They project their existence o be a fleeting thing, vague and terminating sometime soon enough to plan for it.]

[There is no call to grieve that; that is how the sick must function. Knowing that one will die limits what one elects to do with the time they have left. Perhaps the Knight is presumptuous. Perhaps they are merely cautious. Perhaps they expect to die soon. Whatever it is, the Drifter does not say anything in regards to that impulse. They have never felt the need to preserve any part of themself. Other drifters would find their remains and take up their arms, carry their equipment, and that would be the only scar the Drifter leaves upon the world, but for their work done under the jackal god’s name.]

[Anyone who may have wished to properly mourn them is already dead.]

keep them safe

[ This world is - a dream, almost. A place filled with people of types they have never seen before. This place has a future, a past, a history weighted and a history yet to be made. The Knight's past and future have already been determined; this is merely an unexpected continuation.

They do not expect an afterlife or a reward for their long struggle; this is not what they view it as. It is what it is. They will take what comes. ]

YES

[ They pause for a moment, thinking, and then they offer the Drifter the brush, handle first. Gesturing with their other hand over their shoulder.

Their meaning is as clear as they can make it, without further words. If their friend would like to paint them, they would be happy to accept. ]

[It's not much consolation, in the end. We are all doomed, and we all walk ever closer to the end. There is not much else to say to that - to the inevitability of death, and the ephemeral nature of existence, particularly for ones such as they.]

[Perhaps the Knight is not sick in the way the Drifter is, but they are not a creature that anticipates a long and healthy life. Hence why they must fabricate the act of growing, instead of being allowed to flourish naturally.]

[It is not fair, but life has never been.]

[The Drifter accepts the brush with a single, startled blink, turning the brush over and over in their hands.]

what would you like

[They're trying this new thing where they ask people about themselves instead, and they're trying to get better at it.]

[ It is hard to grow when you were never meant to. Hard to picture a healthy, long life when you are not really a living being.

But the Knight cannot change their nature, born of void, bound into a mask and given form. Just like the Drifter is racked by illness which suffuses their entire life, reshapes them around it.

The Knight did not ask to be born. The Drifter did not ask to be sick, or chosen. But that is how it is.

Life has never been fair, indeed.

"What would you like?" Hmm. They think about it. Perhaps if they were somehow able to paint where they are asking the Drifter to, they would draw the dream sigils that they have grown familiar with. But... ]

WINGS-ARE-NICE

OTHER-PATTERNS-NICE-TOO

[ (Wings often are a sign of maturity, for many bugs. Except mantises, who lose them as they grow old, apparently. But they have wings themselves, albeit occasionally, so it makes sense to them.)

They shuffle around so they're not facing their friend, indicating where they'd like to be painted - on their back. There is an odd mark there; at the back of their neck, a four-pronged pointed, glowing brand that looks eerily similar to the symbol they'd indicated for 'king'.

But it's fine, probably?? ]

[Wings.]

[They think of the birds of the north. It is doubtful wings mean the same thing to the Knight, that the same association carries. The Drifter lifts the brush, its tip glistening, and then - ]

[Lowers it.]

something is already there

[The crown-like ring of sharp prongs, like thorns spiking the air. The Drifter tilts their head. King? The Knight? They'd never given that impression. And they...no, that wouldn't make much sense. But it's not like it's been painted on. It seems more...]

[Intrinsic. Deeper.]

[ They look back at the beeping of the sprite, quizzical at first and then - oh.

They can't see it, but they know what it has to be. The only thing that would show on them at all; a mark re-branded from an abandoned shell.

Technically, they are monarch of a dead kingdom, long abandoned by its true ruler. Not that they had paid much attention to it. ]

KEY-FOR-DOOR-TO-BIRTHPLACE

DOOR-SHUT

NEEDED-OPENING

[ They hesitate, and then, slow and somewhat reluctant: ]

BRAND-IS-FROM-FATHER

NOT-IMPORTANT

CAN-PAINT-OVER-IT

[ The King had made many children, after all, and thrown them away just as easily. Had fled his dying kingdom, after all the sacrifices he had asked from others. They don't see why they should hold his symbol in much importance. ]

[Father.]

[King.]

[And here the Drifter did not think it would get much worse. Desensitized to the atrocities of everyday existence in Buried Time as they are, it is...different. Things are always different, they have begun to learn, when it comes to children.]

[They did not always wonder so. This is a...relatively new development.]

[But a vital one.]

your father
a king?

[ They shuffle around to face the Drifter again, because it's polite to face who you're talking to (and vital, in this case). ]

YES

KING-FOUGHT-GOD

KING-BECAME-GOD

KING-MADE-KINGDOM

KINGDOM-GREW-SICK-FROM-OTHER-GOD

KING-MADE-MANY-VESSELS

DESTROYED-MANY

MADE-PERFECT-VESSEL

PERFECT-VESSEL-PRISON-FOR-OTHER-GOD

DID-NOT-WORK

[ It was hard to parse last time, so they break it down more slowly here. It sounds like a myth, a fairytale, except - well, it's part of how the Knight was made. ]

[The morality of gods is not the same as that of mortals. The Drifter knows this. The jackal had no qualms with picking and choosing which drifters would carry the burden of curing the world of the perfect Cell's creeping toxins; which would last until the very end of the journey, and which would falter so close to the end. It did not seem fair, but life was far from fair, and the illness that devours one alive is even less so.]

[But there are gods and then there are false idols that elevate themselves far above others - charlatans who don fluttering cloaks and walk on stilts and raise their beaks high, as though they believe themselves better than the rabble they command. War-makers and egg-breakers, who sacrificed young on altars to worship a deity that did not truly exist.]

[Know this: gods that facilitate the sacrifice of children are not gods at all.]

true gods
do not murder children in droves

[ The Knight has only a vague idea of what a god is; they are unable to really define it. Something - someone - that is worshipped. Something powerful beyond reckoning, perhaps incomprehensible.

They have none of the context - the cultural knowledge necessary - to fully understand what that worship means, what separates 'false' from 'true'. But they simply nod, because the way the Drifter talks - it seems like they know more about it. ]

KING-SAID

NO-COST-TOO-GREAT

[ There's a certain stiffness to signing the words that goes beyond simple clumsiness. The Knight clearly has a low opinion of their creator, for obvious reasons. ]

TO-SAVE-KINGDOM

ASKED-FOR-SACRIFICE

FROM-OTHERS

MADE-THEM-SEALS

FOR-PRISON

[ He had separated Hornet from her mother, had taken away Quirrel's mentor and teacher. (Lurien had nobody at all, and that was sad in its own way). Always, always, asking for others to give themselves for him. ]

KINGDOM-STILL-DIED

ALL-SACRIFICES

FOR-NOTHING

[ Would it have been better, if things had worked? Well. No. Nothing could justify such costs. But the Knight finds a sort of bitterness in the fact that it had not. The dreamers had slept, could only be woken by death - in defense of a kingdom that should not have been saved. In defense of a king who had abandoned them.

Their sibling had accepted their terrible fate in defense of a father who might have loved them, and yet still sacrificed them. ]

weak words
to justify to a cruel narrative

[The world is cruel, and the world does not stop being cruel merely because its targets are children. This they know and have learned in due time. This they were always aware of to a certain extent, distantly, without commitment, without true understanding of the gravity of those atrocities but merely the knowledge that they could not be justified. Smashed eggs and stolen history are one thing.]

[But meeting the avian hermit who had spirited away what few eggs he could - meeting those who had been direct victims of such tragedies driven by vile, violent fanatics - had taken the situation from the abstract to the tangible.]

[It had not made it more or less horrifying. It had merely made the Drifter more aware of those horrors.]

our god chose us
to walk the world
to destroy the Immortal Cell

she chose the weak and the dying
who had nothing but pain in their futures
and gave them purpose

[ The Knight doesn't...quite understand that devotion to a god. The best they can do is liken it to duty - to the white-armored corpse who had died defending the White Lady. Ogrim's still-lasting loyalty to his king. A lonely figure in a tall tower, ready to sacrifice their life for a city and monarch they loved. Hornet's relentless patrolling of ruins long abandoned. The Old Stag, still serving for as long as his body lasted.

(Hearing a desperate, painful cry from someone not made for it. Coming back to a city they had fled, to end things for good.)

But this worship is clearly important to the Drifter - intertwined with the path they chose to walk, so they feel they have to say something. ]

AM-HAPPY

YOUR-GOD-IS-BETTER

THAN-ONE-I-FOUGHT

[ Good in motives. Not kind, or merciful. A purpose is no cure for sickness; it is a way to keep going despite it.

(They don't fully comprehend that drive to do something before death, despite the similarities between them. But they know that it is - important, to their friend, and so they try, struggle though they might, to see it from their point of view.) ]

WHAT-IS-CELL

DID-YOU-DESTROY-IT

[ And, blunt as ever. But they really do want to know, even if their questions are not as well phrased as they could be. ]

Edited 2018-06-28 14:39 (UTC)

[She was. The Drifter would not pretend they ever fully understood the jackal’s motives and means, but that specter of death was their only real guide aside from the Guardian’s familiar pink bulk. She did not call for the sacrifice of children. She did not preach about no costs being too great. She did not murder hatchlings indiscriminately.]

[She sought to rinse the world clean of its blight. She simply needed a tool to make it happen.]

[The Drifter looks at their hand: gloved, creased, topped with clawlike nails. Worn fabric knobbed at the points where their callouses have become scar tissue.]

[Picture it: a foam-crusted sea of water, pure and absolute and far reaching, and a sky no longer baked red with the corpses of the dead and the dying.]

[They cannot truly know. They cannot know if it was a premonition, a promise, a gilded lie - or some delusion cooked into a dying brain, desperate to manufacture some meaning where none existed.]

[They simply have to have faith.]

i hope so

[ The Knight nods in response to that. What else can they say? They hope that the Drifter's world is healed, too, even if they are not. (The Knight, too, cannot see the future, though they have more knowledge of destroying their ancient enemy. They can only hope things have become better.)

They lean forward a little, acting on some impulse to raise their hand and compare the Drifter's with their own. Slender, segmented fingers that end in sharp points. Not so different, perhaps.

They seem - pleased, or fascinated. Or just curious. It's hard to tell. But they seem to enjoy this act of comparison, of finding things about the people they are attached to that are similar.

Almost absentmindedly, they doodle another little addition to the sigil they've laid out. It looks somewhat like a pointed mask with two horns. It's not something they explained the meaning of, before. ]

[The Drifter tilts their head, grateful for the distraction from the current tenor of their thoughts. It's better to dwell in the present than it is in the past - in that which they cannot change. There is little point in that. It will not change how things are; only acting now can alter things in a way that is tangible.]

[So they look to the new symbol the Knight has drawn in the sand, instead. It draws their eye in a different way.]

what does this one mean

[ They look at what they've drawn, then look at the Drifter again. They are - uncertain, how their friend will take it, considering what they have said of themselves.

But, well. They asked.

After a moment, they lift their hands to sign. ]

FAMILY

[ The Knight is, at heart, a lonely child. Seeking to make connection in whatever way they can. The similarities of their situations is something that resonates too deeply for them to ignore. ]

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