2nd Event: Choices We Make

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Arrival


Not all characters (known as Wickie, singular or Wickies, plural) arrive at the same time, surprisingly enough! That’s life for you. Some Wickies find their way to the island at a pivotal (or very mundane) point in their life, or even after or during their death.

Wickies who were standing or walking often find themselves entering the town South Sister, located on Lighthouse Isle, through an open doorway. Those that were laying down, or sleeping, tend to be found lying prone in beds, bathtubs, showers, couches, and similar places within the cottages on Cottage Row. There’s no rhyme or reason to it all! To Wickies familiar with the era, they will realize that everything looks as if it’s come from the ‘90s.

The house which a Wickie finds themselves within could already be occupied. This includes walking into a fellow Wicke, waking up in the same location, or accidentally scaring a room full of people with their sudden appearance.

Oops.

C-C-Changes

Thankfully the fog has gone down to what it was before, a slow creeping crawl over the ground. And too, the monsters of before are gone, leaving the town much like it was before. Well...close to what it was before.

For now the season's have changed, from a lingering summer to a cooler fall.

There’s new foods to try, even if some things like lattes cause people to slip into warm boots and tie up their hair, and soups make people curl up under blankets on the couch. And it also means decorations of all sorts, made of the leaves from the forest, orange, yellow and red things and...we can not forget...

Pumpkin overflow

Pumpkins! They're everywhere. Wickies will find pumpkins infused into all sorts of things, like coffee, ice cream, even spaghetti options! It's wild.

There’s also many jack o'lanterns. They have been placed everywhere in town, outside homes, and even small ones have been made into table decorations. The Jack o lanterns have very cheerful faces, and seem to watch Wickies every single move.

That is, until a Wickie bashes or otherwise abuses a pumpkin. That's when it changes- there seem to be more of them. Their expressions change to that of anger, sadness and disgust. None of them attack- yet. But their faces become more and more horrifying, as they follow the Wickie more and more- outside of the bathroom perhaps, or found on top of them as the Wickie wakes up in the middle of the night.

It shouldn't matter right? They're only pumpkins.

What a ride

Funny enough, with the pumpkin invasion, there also comes a dull colored horse wandering about the island. Its head is drooped, and it looks depressed and lonely. The horse is tame on approach and will accept pats and treats, even from those who are obviously not human.

But it also wants something, for all that it seems to be begging for attention. It wants someone to ride them, seems to even be begging for it with its big eyes. The horse will help Wickies to figure out how to mount; it will even stand beside the Town Center benches, rocks, or even go down in order to make it possible for the Wickie to get onto the horse’s back.

That’s when it changes. The Wickie is immediately wrapped in chains from their barrel to the Wickie’s waist. The horse turns a coal black and the Wickie’s clothing changes into that of a soldier's uniform, with a hand either holding a whip modeled after a human spine, or a jack o'lantern.

The Wickie cannot get off the horse on their own, no matter how much they struggle. As the horse moves throughout the town, they will go anywhere from a walk to a full canter, seemingly impervious to any magic or physical attacks. The same cannot be said for their unfortunate rider.

If the rider is hit, or simply in pain, the Wickie will feel an impulse that grows and grows until they scream a name of someone in town, someone they know.

And the named will drop, paralyzed. Paralyzed wickie are likely to die within minutes, more so if they are too close to horse and rider. The horse will happily trample anyone on the ground to death.

Even without the impulse, should the Wickie rider use anyone’s name, that person will drop, paralyzed, and unable to breathe.

There is only one way to possibly save the rider: scatter golden objects in their path. The horse will shriek, and promptly buck the rider off, before running away. Just make sure to catch the rider, or at least cushion their fall: they have no way of saving themselves until they hit the ground.

Heart game: confession

Current residents of the island may remember this particular beeping alert, and how it doesn’t go away, no matter what they do! That is, unless they open up the Heart Game, and answer the question.

Welcome back everyone! It’s so good to see you again! Now let’s play that game, Confession! And the question isssssss…

How do you celebrate the changing seasons! Don't be shy!

Comments

🎃

[skeletonize]

( harrow has been avoiding the various seasonal confections with dreadful severity — call it either a proper drearburh upbringing or ingrained aescetism (or both), but she abhors an over-suffusion of taste. in her perception of the universe, food and drink is meant to be perfunctory, and anything more was an indulgence dancing along the edge of blasphemy. but she is very, very far away from the time-worn stone and groaning metal of the ninth's ancestral halls, and the culture shock from even canaan house to this place had been enough to incapacitate her for several hours.

now recovered (much with the help of an insatiable need for answers), she goes to sate her curiosity by whatever means necessary.

kyuhyuk's attention might be too singularly focused on the glowering jack-o'-lantern to notice that he seems to have attracted company. though, in truth, it had been the pumpkin itself which had drawn her attention: she, too, had seen how the eyes of it and several around it had suddenly fixated on this stranger, and that had elicited both suspicion and interest. now she stands at his elbow, slightly behind him, her painted face pressed into mistrustful expression as she studies the obviously-haunted gourd. but regardless of how she tries, she can't seem to know for certain whether or not some desperately-clinging shred of malicious spirit clung to the damn thing. )

It doesn't appear to be the work of a revenant. ( though she's a piss-poor spirit magician, so take that with a grain of salt — harrow's certainty could only be found in osseous construction. now she turns her wary gaze towards kyuhyuk. ) Though it is obviously staring at you.

( they all are. she's noticed it as well, though she doesn't mention it, or at least not right now. instead, there is an obvious question in her piercing, pitch-black gaze: what did you do? )

[grantee]

[ Her voice comes like static; subtle yet surprising enough to earn a flinch. Shoulders moving upward before they relax, eyes catching a glimpse of the several other carved lanterns that had come to gather around. Heartbeat irregular as he comes to realize that he had made a bold choice to focus on one out of... like thirteen. Yikes. ]

R-Revenant? [ The word sounds so foreign, considering he's never truly used it in a regular conversation. But it seems to come to the girl with a decorated face so easily -- Her face, now that he's mentioned it, looks like it fits with everything. He can't tell if that's purposeful or not. ] Do I look... interesting?

[ Like of everyone here HE'S THE ONE OUT OF PLACE?? ]

Maybe they want a taste.

[ Please don't judge this grown ass man who holds his latte out to the pumpkin. ]

[skeletonize]

( she observes him calmly as he flinches back; she doesn't think much of it, except that perhaps not even the decrepit of her own house had such poor reactions to being slightly surprised. but harrow's is the kind of eye constantly winnow out the faults and flaws and weaknesses of those around her, even when it was not strictly-speaking necessary or beneficial, so... it's just reflexive, at this point.

she is silent for a moment, then: ) Yes. A revenant. ( does she have to explain? no. she won't. she loathes explaining basic necromantic tenets when certainly they won't be internalized or appreciated. instead, she answers his question in the only way she can: with brutal honesty. ) ...No. But certainly you have done something to gain their ire.

( sure, he looks odd to her eyes, but she is also aware that the penitent of the ninth appear as a shadow cult to the rest of the world, so she tries to take her own perceptions with a grain of salt.

she's... trying not to judge him, but instead she takes interest, trying to worry out the solution to this mystery (as was her wont). ) What is it? ( she gestures to the cup. )

[grantee]

[ Well... don't mind him as he pours a little of his latte into the mouth of the pumpkin. It just sits there, the jack o'lantern glancing down to see it's mouth dirtied with the deliciousness of pumpkin spice.

(That's probably insulting.) ]

They're serving lattes not too far from here -- it's a coffee drink with milk. [ He looks down at his hand, then back to the girl, slowly offering the cup to her. ] I've only had a few sips but you can try some if you want.

[skeletonize]

( she is absolutely minding him. and she's judging him too. why would he waste some of his drink like this...? it's not as though the pumpkin would appreciate it. it's a vegetable, for God's sake. also, have you convinced that feeding a pumpkin a pumpkin spice latte is kind of fucked up, kyuhyuk? not that harrow has any idea what's in it, but still. )

Oh. ( one of those. harrow had passed by the shops selling those drinks, but the smell had been so obnoxiously saccharine even from the street, she had given it a hard pass. for the same reason she gives his offer a pass now. ) No. That won't be necessary. ( there's a look of faint disgust on her face that speaks loudly enough about why. harrow is the type of ascetic individual to not really enjoy something like that. or something with too much taste at all, actually.

so, she has a fairly normie-looking dude drinking an overly-sweet drink, but she isn't certain if either of those factors are enough to garner such attention from the pumpkin — though, right now, the pumpkin seems to be more concerned with what had been poured into its carved, open mouth. it doesn't seem happy about it... though it hadn't seemed happy about anything to begin with. )

Are you certain you should keep goading it? ( if he had been trying to appease it, it doesn't really look like it worked. )

[grantee]

[ Listen I dunno what he was going to school for but he never finished so! And his logic is that the pumpkin's are far from normal to begin with, so the likelihood of them functioning as any other (non-lethal) vegetable seems unlikely; he's going based off a hunch, really. ]

Ah. [ Maybe she's allergic. Or simply doesn't enjoy it, if her expression is evidence enough. Fingers enclosed around the cup, his attention moves from her face and back to the pumpkin whose frown seems to have deepened -- if only just a centimetre -- after Kyuhyuk had poured some of his latte into it's mouth. ]

I wasn't trying to do that. [ He appears like a kicked puppy, brows curved and lips pressed into a straight line. ] This isn't necessarily normal, so I was thinking -- [ Kyuhyuk's words come to an abrupt stop, watching as the pumpkin's carving continues to twist and transform into something else -- the refreshed expression turning into that of a sickening grin and glowing eyes. A whole lot of latte spilling from the edges of it's mouth. ] Why is it changing? [ He takes a step back, a hallowed crunch following as his foot breaks into the face of a jack o'lantern behind him. ]

[skeletonize]

( yes, correct — harrow is allergic to zest for life. (that's why she's a necromancer.) )

Well, if you were trying to appease it, you did a poor job. ( critical to the last. and if he thinks looking pathetic is going to ingratiate him to her somehow, he is barking up the worst possible tree. harrow has spent her entire life with a near-useless cavalier primary who bent and scraped at every opportunity to undermine every measure of worth he might hold. it's incredibly annoying. nav might drive her to near-homicidal frustration at times, but self-effacing, she was not.

she observes the changes in the latte-fed jack-o'-lantern, then to the one that kyuhyuk unfortunately crunches into as he takes a step away from it. harrow isn't necessarily alarmed, per se. they are vegetables, and even if they are possessed by something, they haven't proven themselves dangerous yet.

...yet. )

Whatever entity might possess them is seemingly displeased. Though they are not haunted by means I am familiar with, as a necromancer.

( but, still: piss-poor spirit magician.

the gourds seem have surrounded them when they had their backs turned. harrow remains where she stands. ) You're fortunate they aren't inhabiting something more lethal than a vegetable. ( she carefully excludes herself from this equation because, well, she can take care of herself... )