A very merry Halloween! [Mingle]

[ourearth]

Date: 31st of October
Characters: Open!
Warning: Non-sexual desecration of formerly buried corpses

---

On the morning of Halloween, when people first step out of their houses, they will almost step into something.

A bucket of water. Every flat and every house in the Mossgate Boundary has a bucket placed in front of its entrance door (and sometimes, especially in Folkton and Moss Manor, the back door too), in which scary apples are floating. A little sign taped to the bucket reads: Have fun bobbing!.

But that's not the only thing that happened. The second thing that people will notice is that there are billions of spiders of all sizes crawling all over the town and villages, the military base, the Manor House... everywhere. And they certainly did their job - trees, lanterns, the higher attractions on the pier, and everything else that is high all over Mossgate Council is covered in thick layers of cobweb.

And lastly... those who pass by a church will notice something about the graveyards around them. Namely, that someone placed skeletons on top of most of the graves... Awfully real looking ones. Really, really awfully real looking ones. To some of them, the soil of the graveyard still clings, and the graves underneath them are in a state that betrays that they were dug up during the night. DNA tests would show that, indeed, the skeletons belong to the individuals buried in the graves.

Comments

[vernal_miss]

Hearing her grandfather move to sit down on the grass, she stares down the spider only until it resumes crawling around in the bottom of the glass. Her head turns towards him ahead of her eyes, but her gaze certainly catches up, "Wait, you felt tha-...?" Words trailing off, her eyes widen as she takes immediate notice of the change in her grandfather's skin color.

Baffled, she tries to ask a reasonable question, "Grandpa? Did...did you dress up for Halloween?" Nel has severe doubt in this other potential explanation given that he apparently similarly felt the weird Echo effect, yet she wants to be positive he has in fact changed color when she had not looked directly at him until now.

[fairfeste]

"I mean, they're real spider webs. I touched one." Because of course they did. "If the spiders didn't make them then how would they get there?"

It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, honestly.

[fairfeste]

"What?" Feste looks back towards the skeletons, unsure. "I... I don't think so..." But if one did then they very much do not want to be there when it moves again. This has 'bad horror movie' written all over it and they are far too pretty to make it out of that process in one piece.

[iamnotgod]

Walter's response is more of a flat look.

"While that would probably help... did you happen to get a sense of feeling hollow along with the dizziness?"

His tone now is less suspicious and more outright concern - and empathy, possibly to Feste's surprise.

[iamnotgod]

"Nnnno."

Odd, that; he hadn't gotten anything from looking at or interacting with the bucket; why Russell does he hasn't a clue.

"Think you can talk about it yet, or should we find a way to get rid of this bucket first?"

Re: the wonders of rp timelines

[iamnotgod]

Oh, they likely have left the realm of reason long ago.

"That might make more sense."

Walter rubs his face.

"I do feel awkward just standing here, talking about spider powers of all things!"

[iamnotgod]

"Brothers?"

That knowledge must have come with the memory, then.

Walter shudders.

"So, skeleton zombies?"

He neglected to bring gloves, unfortunately, which leaves him standing guard.

"Need a hand?"

Oooh, that might be an unfortunate pun.

Time to TL;DR! =D

[iamnotgod]

Walter inhales sharply - is this the message, then? is his first clear thought.

And then he's distracted by an entirely different kind of message. Text, apparently; an IM chat.

You msut rsepnod in fuor secdons or I wlil feroevr temrainte cnotcat. You hvae no atrleantvie and tihs is the olny chnace you shlal get. Waht is the lsat nmae of the psredinet of the Utneid Satets?

I beg your pardon?

There's a jolt as he realizes that response is his - that here in the now, he can recognize what's happened to the words, but that in the then they didn't make sense - because they were spelled wrong!

But then, more;

I knew that she knew that you knew that they knew that you knew that I knew that we knew that I knew that. Did she know that you knew that I knew that you knew that I knew that you knew that? Did you know that I knew that they knew that she knew? Did I know that she knew that you knew that we knew that you knew?

Yes. No. Yes.

Again; part of him could follow the logic exactly - but also he, as a human, was stumped.

And then one more, with misspelling like that in the first:

Wit you're aide Wii knead to put the breaks awn the cereal Keller their B4 this decayed is dun, weather ore knot we aught too. Who nose if wee will secede. Dew ewe?

Again, your pardon?

He's not dizzy - which is also surprising! - but the underlying implication, that whoever or whatever these memories were from was- some kind of digital intelligence - still shakes him.

And then the sensation of feeling impossibly empty gives way to something worse.

That sensation of quiet and reassurance is almost drowned out as he retreats into himself, curling into a ball and feeling like he is drowning-

III Because THESE BOYS NEED HUGS.

[iamnotgod]

Unfortunately or fortunately, in Jim's case, Walter has been busy with investigation of today's mysteries for much of the day.

But after talking with many people, he does eventually get back to the Network, and hear about the flamethrower.

What he really wants to do by this point, however, is focus focus on only one thing don't be nothing don't be nothing don't forget how to be a self snuggle.

He knocks first, though, out of habit.

[dragoonrouge]

Sadie admires the outfit and grimaces sympathetically when Nel mentions burlap. "Burlap is the worst. The last time I wore an outfit that incorporated burlap I had to wear two layers of normal clothes underneath it to stop the itching. Yours really is very well done, you should be proud of your outfit!"

Sadie whistles and pats her shoulder, causing Tigger to run over and bound up onto Sadie's shoulder in order to curl around her shoulders and watch Nel. "He does indeed like to bounce."

Turning slightly to the side, Sadie turns her head to look at Nel with a wide grin, Tigger following suit, Picture perfect.

[fairfeste]

Feste blinks at him, mouth slightly open. "Uh... yes?" Oh god, is this is a specific new thing they haven't heard about? Because this is the second time this has happened, are they sick???

[catted]

She nods - that may or may not sense, but now is not the time to inquire further.

She pulls out her phone and does a quick google search for the number of whoever runs this graveyard. And then pauses. "Shall I call the police or see if I can get in contact with whoever runs this graveyard?" Is it the church at the centre of it? Someone else? She has no idea.

...But then, it's fairly on in the morning, she can't know if there'd be someone in the office...

I

[saveournpcs]

Not too long into the flamethrower antices, a police car is stopping nearby and two constables get out and then march towards him.

"Sir." The woman gives him the kind of stern look that you give unruly five year olds. ...Potentially axe murdering five year olds that you don't want to catch on to them having an axe in their hands. "We have to ask you to cease this behaviour immediately."

I

[runs]

A little while before the constables show up, Kitty wanders past and watches Jim's way of dealing with the spider webs with interest.

"Are you a chemistry teacher or a clown?" In her (admittedly limited) experience, that are the only people who own flame throwers.

[iamnotgod]

"Seeecond question, and I swear I wouldn't be asking this if you hadn't said yes; you don't happen to have a Number you can't forget no matter what anymore, do you?"

Now he's just quietly glancing around, making sure there's no one paying an unusual amount of attention to them...

Or at least any familiar strange bald men.

[dragoonrouge]

Sadie certainly won't complain about the change of pace if it makes it easier for her to lean on Ben, the contact soothes her and she knows that it has a similar effect on Ben.

Her grip on Ben's hand gets a little tighter when Ben mentions the bald man. Sadie would very much prefer to forget about him entirely and just hope that she doesn't ever see him again. Something tells her that that will be unlikely.

"The amount of variables involved in this is ridiculous as well, and only getting more ridiculous as time goes on. It does help that people seem to be fairly open in what's happening to them, it makes plotting the changes a little easier."

[warped_replica]

More reinforced by the memory than illumiating of the relationship, as it came with the undercurrent of worry for family and had been preceded by a flicker.

Backpack secured on his shoulders once more after preparing his hands and arms to make contact with the disturbed grave, he mulls over the label before shaking his head slowly, “Not quite, more like puppets. There was this voice with the light calling for...well, possibly for them. They started moving when it shone from above a golden door underground.”

There is an unfortunate edge to the phrase as Benjiro remembers literally disarming one of the skeletons, but it is met with nothing more that a pop of a brow. The teenager looks at the skeleton with hesitation, then replies, “Verbal suggestions will suffice.” Not allowing himself to delay further, he approaches to kneel down and look more closely without yet touching any part of the scene.

[iamnotgod]

The world Ben is getting his Echoes from appears more bizarre each time they talk about it...

"Probably had something done to them beforehand, if the affected skeletons were specific to a room."

Otherwise it could have been as wide an epidemic as they felt was needed.

Kneeling down again cautiously (even though he's short, he's not taking the risk of someone spotting his head above the stones), he nods.

[fairfeste]

Hoooow is he doing that. Oh god, is that related too? Are they dying because of numbers??? "Y...yeah...?"

Re: I

[tobodlygo]

Most of the spiderwebs in a ten meter radius have in fact already been incinerated by this point, and so the constables are greeted with a raised brow over a set of particularly exhausted eyes instead of blatant disregard for authority.

"Uh huh. Sure. Although, I think if I wanted to commit arson on my own property, I'd at least be allowed to do it in peace." He hefts the (oddly well-made) Flamethrower off the strap he's using to keep it in place on his shoulder and gingerly sets it down onto the damp gravel where it proceeds to hiss and steam.

Re: III Because THESE BOYS NEED HUGS.

[tobodlygo]

Walter will hear what sounds to be a garbled yell from inside the house, and then set of rapid beeps from the door proceeded with a click of an open lock.

Looks like Jim's too busy sitting down to open the door in person for you. Sorry, Walt.

When Walter walks into the main living area he'll find Jim tucked up in the sofa cocooned in a king-sized winter duvet and munching on a... that's just a full sized box of Cocoa Pops. Yep.
Mona the Vampire is playing on the TV quietly and most of the lights are dimmed down into the house's Cinema mode.

Jim hasn't shaved in days, so he's sporting a significant amount of beard, but he looks very comfortable. He's wearing a dark grey long sleeved shirt that looks like it's years old and a pair of cotton sleeping trousers. He's evidently been camping out here for a while, now.

[warped_replica]

Despite sharing that impression regarding the world of his gifted memories, he can take comfort in knowing Sadie has similar oddities contrasting with science.

“Seemed like they were. All I saw otherwise was a staircase out, and the room itself seemed centuries old. Come to think of it, the skeletons appeared to be dressed from different time periods…”

After Walter joins him, he tentatively reaches to the skeleton and begins to assess its state. Applying minimal pressure with contact, he lifts a finger of the hand tentatively to see how well it sustains the connections of the delicate joints with movement. He does not expect it to fall apart, yet he’s not about to jostle it outright. When it remains intact, he lifts the whole hand and the forearm with it, supporting under the wrist. Two fingers pinching the distal end of the radius, he applies a slow and steady increase of pressure to listen for a crackle that would indicate weakening with decay. This set of bones does not smell of rotting marrow, but the wind is bringing that noxious scent to them from other graves.

[warped_replica]

With any luck, he’ll be there the next time that bald man shows his face to a Numbered.

Giving her hand a squeeze, Benjiro stays close to Sadie as her contact with him buries the glint before it catches. The influx of the spiders will keep him occupied for today even if nothing else arises from this set stage.

“I may not be the only silent one on the Network, but the people that are conversing have been very forward,” he agrees. “Aside from the benefit of having that data, we’re able to assist in adapting to the shifting circumstances.” A larger pool of resources exists between the Numbered than any one individual, and Sadie being offered medical support on the Network recently is evidence to it. The whole thing is beginning to feel like a community.

[iamnotgod]

"The good news is, you're definitely not alone. I can show you what happens if you type up or write down the Number anywhere, even."

He shifts in place a little.

"The bad news, though, is that no one knows why it's happening, not for certain, and the longer you have a Number the more bizarre things are likely to get for any one person."

At least no one's died yet...???

[iamnotgod]

If he were more - centered, balanced - Walter might even have commented about it.

But not tonight. Tonight, he just wants something that isn't abstract reassurance or any sort of extreme connection or-

Nothingness.

Calm. One mind, one place, one purpose. That's what he needs right now

The first thing he zeroes in on is Jim's face, and he's left standing awkwardly in the doorway because Why Is There A Beard?

"James, I- Jim- Hi-"

Don't mind him; it's his turn to be awkward now.