lifeaftr | October Event: Feeling Like a Ghost (Part I)

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October Event: Feeling Like a Ghost (Part I)

OCTOBER EVENT: FEELING LIKE A GHOST

Who: Anyone and everyone
What: Your past returns to haunt you
When: October 10th and onward
Where: All over!
Warnings: Character death, as well as potential for discussion of trauma and suicide ideation - please mark as you go!

Try and Hear Me, Then I'm Done

You can find most of the information you need in the OOC info post! In the meantime, feel free to use this log as a catch-all for the duration of the event. While this log will focus on the past portion, you're free to use it for the future portion. As always, you can also make your own logs if that's your preference! Come the 21st, however, we'll likely get an additional log up for those who want to play around with their future echoes as well. Remember also that the present portion will be played out in Mu, during this month's Storytelling.

Remember to let us know if your character dies during this event. Bear in mind, however: death penalties will NOT be reduced for this event.

Event Timeline

[ ♆ ] October 10th: The ghosts of the past appear.
[ ♆ ] October 20th: The warped Storytelling occurs, the Storyteller returns, and those who have died are revived.
[ ♆ ] October 21st: Future echoes replace the ghosts of the past.
[ ♆ ] October 25th: With equilibrium restored, all visions vanish, and life returns to how it was.

LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

”What have you been doing now?”

Erika barely slows, casting a quick, frustrated glance over her shoulder - then keeps making her way through the jungle, one hand clasped tightly around her upper arm. “Shut up,” she mumbles.

Her dad, or whatever not-fae bullshit is making itself look like him, does not shut up. He just keeps following her, and, even if she doesn’t look at him, she can feel him watching her, see his soft brown eyes and the slight downward twist of his mouth clearly in her memory. As if she’d lied about her report card, or shoved all the mess in her room under her bed instead of cleaning it up.

Or punched another kid in the face.

”Erika, you know I’m not mad at you, right? I just want to talk; I haven’t seen you since--”

Erika spins to face him, her lips already pulling back in… anger, guilt, she barely knows herself. “Fuck off, alright?! There’s a reason for that, y’know--”

Oh.

Whoops.

Looks like she and her not-dad weren’t the only ones here after all. Erika winces at the unexpected presence of a third party. “--Shit. Uh… hey.”

See, on one hand, Beau doesn't have a real interest in getting into other people's shit. This is obviously emotional for a lot of them, considering all the wrangling she's had to do just to stop the residents of her shack from hocking themselves into the ocean. That said, old habits die hard, and she cannot possibly just leave all this data on the floor like this. She's a criminal. She's an information broker. She's a fucking librarian now, and leveraging herself means getting information on everyone in this place if they ever decided to try something. So if people are arguing in a forest, maybe she's quietly following behind, especially when it's someone she actually enjoyed the company of. Keep your friends close and all that.

Not that she'll say as much when Erika spins around and Beau is coming out of some brush, instantly putting her hands up to her chest. "Hey, uh--" Better find an excuse for this one, and fast. "Sorry, did I interrupt an important ghost conversation? Seems like a lot of those are going down lately."

Erika laughs, kind of, but it's dry and kind of sarcastic. "Technically, you did, but honestly? I appreciate it. Not really a talk I wanted to be having."

She hears her father sigh behind her, and her fingernails dig into her palms.

"Is it fair to guess you haven't gotten lucky enough to be spared this crap?"

Oh, she sees that one. So this is someone she doesn't like, which is-- kinda weird, from her experience. Of everyone from her world, they've all seen people that were pretty precious to them, or at least enjoyed them as people. Maybe someone who likes her but she doesn't like back? Probably wouldn't help their weird mission of dragging them to the depths of hell much.

"Not even a little. Seems like everybody's got a, uh, hanger-on running around." She doesn't spare a glance to the dwarven woman clanking along behind them, just now catching up to the scene. Heavy armor isn't super conducive when it comes to following a super fast monk through the forest. So I doubt you're here waiting for me, she quips, and Beau just rolls her eyes.

"Could be worse, though. Hey, did yours try to seduce you? Is that typical?"

"Too bad. Kinda hoped it was a here-and-there thing, y'know?" Seriously, the few people are subjected to this crap, the better, in her opinion... with a few exceptions.

Erika lets out a vaguely horrified laugh. There's no way Beau could've known, but-- "God, no, uh-- he's just been, uh, y'know. Doing the parental guilt thing, goin' on about how I should visit or whatever." She laughs again, but it's... a little less enthusiastic this time.

"Ghost seduction sounds pretty awkward to work around, though."

As soon as Erika says parental she snorts a laugh in a horrible sort of grin. Oh, what an absolutely terrible coincidence. "Oh man, yeah, better not. That'd be fucked up."

Beau can't say she especially gets the issue, seeing as her parents haven't even bothered to make contact in years, but she gets the part about having no interest in seeing them. She's putting the pieces together, even if there's some holes. "But yeah it's uh, it's pretty weird. I mean, she seems kinda solid, so it's not super weird to me? But to everyone else, yeah, yeah."

She glances around like she might catch a glimpse of Erika's inner demon, but of course it doesn't work that way. "So you could get someone who wanted to see you and not the other way around, huh?"

"Christ. Can you fuckin' imagine what that would even look like? Just, walk around the corner and someone's fucking a ghost?"

No, that is not remotely the most important thing here, or even an important thing, but, frankly? She'd rather take the opportunity to say something that's not important. Because, holy shit, this all sucks so much.

"Guess so. You talked to anyone who's gotten it the other way?"

She howls a laugh back, of much of the same mindset. "Worst part is, you wouldn't even see the ghost, so it'd just look like they were losing their mind over nothing."

It's stupid, and something she'd much rather concentrate on than the serious issue here. Get those unique jokes where they can. But Erika does start talking info again, and here she is. "Haven't really been asking. Kinda imagined the point here was to convince us to fly off with 'em, so they had to pick people we were into. But it all looks like it's a mess, so. Maybe no point in looking that far into it."

It really is too bad that they can't feasibly just talk about dumb bullshit forever. But... you know. There are, unfortunately, more important things to discuss.

"Guess so, yeah. But I can see where the whole thing'd be... trying to draw us off. I mean, I sure don't plan on giving in to this thing that easy, but it's..." She presses her lips together, risking a glance at the figure behind her - then trying to look away before getting too clear a look at his expression. She lowers her voice a little, though she doesn't know if that'll stop him from hearing. "It does feel kinda shitty."

Hell, half the reason she'd been avoiding her parents to begin with was that she didn't want to do the whole 'disappointing them over and over' thing.

At this point, Beau can't tell if Erika has more empathy than she does, or if her bond with her ghost is just stronger. She's kind of imagining it to be the latter- Beau's follower isn't exactly someone she can't live without, someone she really wants to see again. Sure, their story was left unfinished, but it's not something she's craving. Not something she needs.

"I mean, ignoring a whole ass person is gonna be a dick move no matter what you're doing." That feels like a huge simplification, but she guesses it kind of is, in this case. She doesn't bother looking back to where she knows Keg is, taking a load off against a tree and puffing on another cigar. At least she'll never run out of those here. "I'm just saying, there's no need to take it so hard when it's manipulation. This place doesn't give a shit about what happens to us. We should try to do the same."

That's probably a pretty accurate call; Erika doesn't tend to be all that concerned with other people's feelings, so... of course this place would go and subject her to a guilt-memory-ghost-hallucination of one of the very few people she feels. You know. Actually guilty about.

Man, why couldn't it have been someone she killed or something. That would probably be less unpleasant.

"Yeah, yeah." She makes a face and shoves her fingers through her hair. "I know it's just to fuck with us, don't worry about that. Mostly I just... hate it."

Beau nods affirmatively, looking appropriately disgusted at the entire ordeal. "Uh, yeah, that's a goddamn given. It sucks. It sucks and it sucks we're just fucking taking it instead of doing something." Even though they both know there's fuck all they can do to affect this, the lack of action is bothering her greatly.

"We're all just sitting here waiting to die or watching our friends get axed or having to basically fight ourselves. Isn't the dog supposed to be doing something about this? Don't they care?"

"I mean, right, but what the fuck are we gonna do? Can't punch a ghost." Yeah, she, uh... also super hates it, that much is clear.

"Maybe? Theoretically? Shit, I don't know what falls in their field and what doesn't. It's just-- all this confusing Green-ass rules bullshit. Even if they're not actually Green, I guess."

Maybe she should be trying a little harder not to fling around magic terms from her home so much, but it's tough to get used to, alright.

Beau snickers a little bit, like someone just asked her about the chaos emeralds. "I mean, people can totally punch ghosts. Or at least I know people that can. You just have to hit them in a very specific way."

That sounds completely insane, but she's not even lying on this one. Then again, thre's something more interesting in that sentence, or at least something she didn't understand. "And uh, you gonna explain what Green-ass rules are? Because I hope you know that makes no sense."

"Wait, seriously? Is there like, a charm for that or something?" She knows some people have to be able to get rid of ghosts somehow, for their jobs and all that - but she's pretty sure punching doesn't usually come into it.

"...Shit, you don't have that in your world, either?" So that's one more world that doesn't. "Uh, it's like... d'you have fae where you're from, or are those just not a thing at all?"

She waves her hand dismissively at the first part, muttering a 'don't worry about it' before Erika begins to explain. She wasn't exactly expecting the fae to come into this- most people don't know much about them, and for good reason. Beau only has the benefit of what she's learned in books.

"Uhh, I mean, if you're a warlock, yeah. But if you have any good sense you don't fuck with that stuff." Not that she claims to have any good sense, but she enjoys living, so-- forget making those kind of deals, full stop.

"Alright, the... not fucking with them part sounds about right." So, knowing how much information she's starting out with: "'Green' means... I mean, fae, basically. And all this nature shit going on here, the different crap these 'gods' are in charge of, what they can and can't do... it's super fucking green."

"Oh. Yeah." Her response is pretty standard, because it does kinda seem like it's fae stuff. Getting kidnapped, magical favors, worlds that make no sense. She still hasn't met the Storyteller, but she'd be inclined to agree anyway. "So are the colors for different castors? Like fae, infernals, genies or whatever?"

"Uh... guess that's one way to put it? Like, the colors are based on what plane the magic is from, but I guess you could say it indicates who's casting, too, since... like, Earth's magic is red, so dragons have red magic. Demons have black, angels have white, and all that."

"Huh." Beau folds her arms, thinking about it. That makes... something she can track, at least, even if she doesn't practice magic herself. "Do you like, do magic? Or just study it, or does everybody where you come from know about it?"

"Me? Hell, no." She snorts and crosses her arms. "Last time I even tried a ritual myself was probably... I dunno, eleventh grade?" She's pretty sure that's when she took MystChem.

"It's just not... a big deal, I guess? It's kinda everywhere, so everyone's gotta know about it. It'd be like someone not knowing about... fuck, what's something that's just, goddamn everywhere where you're from. I was gonna say, like, usin' a computer, but I don't know if you guys have... computers."

That feels a little dumb to say out loud, but, listen, there's like a million worlds out there, seems like, and at this point she doesn't know that she can assume anything about any of them.

Unfortunately, Beau does not know what grades mean in the context of schooling, because high fantasy just doesn't work that way. She also doesn't know what a computer is, so she just kinda rolls her jaw, trying to think of a way to phrase this without sounding like a goddamn fool.

"Uhh, I dunno, like knowing about cows or whatever? My world's kinda like the... mercenaries and magic kinda type. Like, magic's pretty common, but not a lot of people know how to use it and even less how to use it well." Pretty much just the kids that got taken to that fancy Academy. "So I mean I know about fae but they're more common fantasy type? Most people've never met one."

"...Cows. Sure, let's say it's like cows." That's probably not too bad a comparison. Everyone probably knows that cows are a thing, and probably knows a few things about cows, but most people aren't gonna know all the ins and outs of... cows. Close enough.

"That sounds pretty close, honestly. I mean, I guess where I'm from most people can use a little magic? We learn a few charms and stuff in school, they make sure we know about the planes, stuff like that, but most people aren't gonna be able to do a whole lot unless they study it a bunch." Or if they've got some extraplanar genetics in there, but that's a whole other topic.

"Honestly, a lotta people where I'm from never run into fae, either, but... they pop up now and then. We gotta learn about 'em in school, too, make sure kids know what to look out for so they don't get stolen." She snorts. "Maybe they're less common where you're from, or somethin'. I bet a lot of people'd be pretty jealous of that."

Look, sometimes you just casually compare fae and dangerous magic to cows. That's just how it be sometimes. But Beau listens, trying to draw some comparisons or get together what she knows.

"Magic's that common? Most people where I'm from don't know anything." Then again, most people also don't have formal schooling, so that's just how that is. "But maybe magic's just less common. Wildemount kinda doesn't do all that. Dunno why, but."

None of that's really the point here, but now she's curious, and this is more interesting than any of this ghost bullshit. "Anyway, what I'm saying is, totally get what you mean here. In on it. And it sucks."

"Is... Wildemount what the faeries' plane is called there, or...?" She's genuinely wondering now. It's kinda weird, thinking of a place where magic is just kinda... some fancy elite thing, she guesses? Like, she guesses that may have been a thing for a while, back when humans were only just finding out about it... but it hasn't been the case for quite some time.

She gives a brief nod, and sort of a wry snort. "Who knows, maybe one day we'll figure out, like... half of it. Be that much closer to being able to predict this crap."

October Event: Feeling Like a Ghost (Part I)

Erika Fisher | OTA

dabs

HELL YEAH sorry for the wait on this lmao

UR FINE

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i can't believe i lost my first TWO attempts at tagging this back

oh noooooooo

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