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

[twirighted]

I just honestly... I can't figure out how they got every single skeleton out of the ground, though. That's a lot of manpower. Was there more than one person!?

[ ...Sorry, he's pacing now, because it's what he does when he thinks. ]

[runs]

[She rolls her eyes at him.]

...I won't believe you that those are real skeletons. You can stop acting like they are.

[twirighted]

You're free to examine them yourself if you don't, but you might want to vigorously wash your hands afterward.

[ I mean, he's not lying, kid, but you're welcome to think he is. ]

[runs]

[She gives him another critical look. He is awfully insistent, but is that a sign for or against a prank?]

How did you find out that they're real, then?

[twirighted]

Huh? Oh. I used to be a doctor, so I know what bones look like. I examined them closely, because I thought they were well-constructed decorations and wanted to see if I could pick up anything about the technique that went into making them. They didn't look mass-produced, and I do make dolls...

[ Basically he likes learning what he can from looking at the crafts of other doll-makers. And then found real bones. ]

[runs]

...Why did you stop being a doctor?

[She eyes the skeletons. Still critically, but with a lot more apprehension now. She's in no mood to touch one just in case he's not telling stories...]

[twirighted]

I got married and had a kid, then got divorced. It wasn't working out. I wanted to be more stable hours-wise for my daughter, so I opened a doll shop. If anything happened, because I owned the store, I could close down for an hour in an emergency. I couldn't really do that as a doctor--too many lives dependent on me at any moment, potentially. And even then, being on-call for anything meant I could end up working odd hours...

[ ...Basically being a doctor is very hard and very busy and that wasn't good for a family. ]

[runs]

[She nods slowly. That makes sense.]

Then you should leave now before someone sees you here, or they'll want to ask your doctor questions and then you'll be with people who want to ask doctor questions about the skeletons for many odd hours.

[saveournpcs]

As they return their attention to the skeletons around them, a sharp feeling of feeling completely hollow washes over them, and a powerful noise as if from a particularly strong heartbeat resounds inside of them. There is no dizziness this time.

[twirighted]

Yeah, that'd be--

[ AND THEN THEY'RE HIT WITH PLOT. Seth's kind of surprised by it, because that sure is a thing. Feeling hollow? (Like a doll--nothing inside on the porcelain ones) And the noise of what sounds like a heartbeat... That sure is a thing, and he might be standing there tense and dumbfounded for now. ]

[runs]

[Kitty recognizes the feeling and blinks in surprise, making a face. She has no idea what it means, but she sure has felt it a couple of times since the Northern Lights.]

Ew. [She doesn’t like that feeling at all. She could absolutely do with those weird spells going away again, thank you very much.] Gross.

[saveournpcs]

[And then both Seth and Kitty will find themselves in possession of a fresh, new plot echo. Maybe they'll notice now, maybe later. But it is there.]

[twirighted]

That, uh... That sure happened.

[ Scratching the back of his head. ]

Uhhhh, you going somewhere? I can at least walk you after. That. And this. Whole thing.

[ ...Listen, he feels bad for the little girl who is currently standing in a graveyard full of bones on display. ]

[runs]

...I'm not going to show you where I live or go to school.

But you can buy me a hot chocolate at the Starbucks, [she offers generously. Never say that she can't be a perfect little opportunist.

There's something else, though. That makes her curious.] You looked really absent there for a moment.