December Event: No Rest for the Wicked

[lifeaftr_mods]

DECEMBER EVENT: NO REST FOR THE WICKED

Who: Anyone and everyone
What: Your trials by fire
When: December 15th - 18th
Where: On Maati and Ensō
Warnings: Character deaths and violence are both likely - please mark as you go!

The Trials: Only Then Can We Begin

As noted in the OOC info post, your Trials will all begin on December 15th. As many of you will not be deposited into your trials with food and water (or any items of your own at all, in most cases), the Trials will last only as long as December 18th. If you've failed to complete your Trial by this deadline but have not used up all the deaths allotted to you, you will awaken by Maati's mana pool at the event's conclusion. If you have not failed your Trial by using up all your deaths, this will not count as a character death, and you will not need to submit for a penalty; you simply won't be able to obtain the reward you would get if you had succeeded! When your character wakes in their allotted Trial, they will discover that their starting chamber has been inscribed with the name of the Trial, the names of those participating, and the number of deaths they have remaining - though the latter aren't labeled in any way. You'll simply have to learn it the hard way; every time your character suffers a death, the number will go down by one. If it wasn't obvious what those numbers stood for at first, by the time the dying starts properly, it certainly will be. And you probably don't want to see it go all the way down to zero...

Should you reach the end of your Trial, you will step out onto the rocky cliffs of Maati, exiting from one of the seven doors set into the cliffs at the seven points of the island's star shape. You see, those doors you discovered earlier weren't the entrances to the Trials at all. They were the exits. And set into the towering cliffs...why, those house the winding mazes that comprise the Trials themselves.

There will be a top-level below for each Trial. Remember to plan with your groups and communicate with your thread partners! Whether you choose to do mingle-style threads or lengthier group threads is up to you.

Once you know the outcome of your Trial, success OR failure, please do let us know so that we can ensure your character gets the reward that befits their triumph...or lackthereof.

Remember also to let us know if your character uses up ALL their deaths during this event. While death penalties will not be inflicted during Trial deaths, if you use up all the deaths allotted to you and die for real, your death penalty will NOT be reduced.

The Water: Don't Let Them Get Away

The rest of you have plenty to contend with as well, of course. If you've opted out of this month's event, be advise that the waters creeping across shores of Ensō, along with the rest of the island, aren't going to take evasion kindly. They'll seek you out, spread along every inch of the island if they can, until they can find you. There is a top-level below, if you're intrigued! Though if you end up top-leveling yourself, we may very well reach out and find you anyway...

Event Timeline

[ ♆ ] December 15th: The Trials on Maati begin, and the water begins to rise.
[ ♆ ] December 18th: The Trials reach their end.
[ ♆ ] December 19th: Those who have "perma"-died in their Trials are revived.
[ ♆ ] December 20th: The monthly Storytelling occurs.

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LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Comments

[smallkindness]

[Climbing out of the strange mass is the easy part of this trial. All it was is a matter of not losing one's footing.

But the ease of it ends there once the Guardian breaks the surface. As far as the eye could see, within this darkness was nothing but bone-white skulls. Cracked and leaking a black ooze this was nothing short of a graveyard that lingered in a place where everything appeared to be swallowed up by a black sea of death.

They activate their hard-light blade and the masks are bathed in a soft red light. The appearance of these are...familiar. Small like children, like the little shadow that the Guardian met when they first came to Lifeaftr.

It is not the first time that the Guardian has been surrounded by corpses. But it is the first time that it has been children.

Bones crunch under their heel as they make their way over to the Knight, past the dead. It is difficult to read them due to the Knight's unchanging expression but the Guardian can see the shiver. This is not a place they wish to be.

They kneel in front of the Knight.]

Are you unharmed?

[lightlessfuture]

[ They stand there, silent as usual, lost in their own thoughts - until someone speaks to them.

They look up. They might have blinked, if they could.

In response to the question, they simply extend their hands, holding them palm up to show they're unmarked. Though there's a scar on their body, it's a wound that's healed over. This trial hasn't caused them any physical injury.

So, they're

Fine? No, they're not fine. But fine physically. ]

[smallkindness]

[The scar on their body is old and the Guardian cannot see any other physical wounds. But the broken masks scattered everywhere, that may as well make up the entire area they both are in, look far too much like the child's own mask to be dismissed as a coincidence.

And the Guardian knows very well about scars that are not physical yet ran bone-deep.

So they kneel to look the Knight in the eyes - or eye sockets, as it were.]

Do you need help getting out?

[lightlessfuture]

[ They stare back with a kind of lost helplessness, before glancing around and shaking their head uncertainly. They don't think they do. They could probably get out.

(Nothing is clinging to them, except in their heart, except in their head.)

The soft click and clatter of shifting masks go on and on, underfoot, like a tremor. They tug silently at the Guardian's cloak and at their feet, insistently grasping.

Even though they are broken and empty in a way their living sibling is not, even though they shouldn't be moving at all, some part of them seemingly persists.

(The Knight's guilt persists.) ]

[smallkindness]

[These little shadows, these children made of bone and smoke. The Guardian had admittedly reacted at first the same way they had once done so with the visions of Judgement: their blade and gun, hoping it would make it stop. But they just faded into the darkness with nary a sound. They clung but did no harm.

(Please take us with you, the children that were dead and gone seemed to say, and all the Guardian could do is shake their head.)

And again they shake their head at these doomed children and reached out a hand for the Knight to take. The Vessel is small enough that the Guardian could easily carry them, but it would be presumptuous to assume they were incapable of walking.

A hand is what they can offer, at least. What they have done for many before the Knight.]