this is Salem, a land filled with magic and maladies. It is a place where witches and their elemental familiars gather, a home to legend and
lore that predates time itself. Yet of all the wicked and wonderful stories the past can tell us of, the most magical are the ones yet to happen.
This is Salem - this is the start of your very own journey. Welcome to starfall
Starfall is an animaga witch roleplay set in mostly modern times. Members play as witches in a world plagued by monsters, where the only safe spots are walled cities. Starfall strives to be a character-driven roleplay with expansive lore and a highly interactive plotline. We want to allow members to
create and look back on a magical journey, and mold the site and its plot as their characters grow.
“The only ones who succumb to their dreams are those that have been spurned by their realities.”[break] -Unknown, Unknown Grimoire [break][break] The skies are gray. It feels like another dreary and too long-stretching day. But even the emotional makeup of this place is dark and haunted by the lingering sorrow of mourners and their deceased. Two small groups of familiar yet faceless people sob while positioned a respectful distance from a row of five open caskets. You find yourself in line with four other people, and you find yourself inexplicably attracted to one of the caskets, like the way a vampire needs blood to survive. [break][break] Each step feels exhausting for no particular reason, but when you reach the edges of the casket which calls out your name, you feel yourself jolt to your senses. [break][break] It’s you. Dressed in the same clothes, with the same face and features, only this doppelganger’s eyes are closed and their hands are clasped peacefully on their chests. Moments pass in complete stillness. Then, the corpse’s eyes open. [break][break] Red, hollow and as evil as death itself.
[attr="class","peppershakernotes"] "I'm fired up and tired of the way that things have been"
The first thing that comes to mind is that this is a funeral. [break][break] Not that Pepper's been to a funeral before or that he knows of anyone who died recently. Except for maybe Mallori's wife. Though he can't imagine himself attending, simply because he hates formal events and avoids them however he can. [break][break] Whatever the case, the place is just...gloomy. Depressing. As a funeral should be, but it made Pepper feel as if there was this constant pressure on his chest, or some invisible burden on his shoulders. Pepper's shoulders hunch, an instinctive reaction to the slight cold feeling that trickles down his spine. [break][break] He spots five open caskets at the other end, and the fact that five people are dead at the same time flits through his mind, startling him. It's not Mallori's wife's funeral, as he'd originally believed. But then - who were the people in the caskets? [break][break] His lips form a thin line as he notices that the caskets aren't closed - it's a wake. A wake with five corpses, sitting out in the open. He vaguely wonders what they even use to preserve bodies like that, but the thought is pushed away when he feels pulled towards one of the caskets inexplicably. [break][break] It's as if that weight he was feeling increases with each step as he gets closer. His legs feel like lead as he steps up beside the casket. His gaze falls onto the person's face and Pepper stiffens with shock.[break][break] It's Salt.[break][break] His eyes quickly sweep over the body and he realizes that Salt's wearing exactly what he's wearing. It's not too surprising - being twins, they do share clothes, but he feels that familiar anger that comes with someone taking your stuff without permission.[break][break] And then Salt's eyes open. [break][break] His irises burn crimson, so different from the sea blue that Pepper's used to. They're filled with inexplicable emotions, but if Pepper were to lump it all in one word, he'd say it was hate. Or maybe that's just because Pepper's never seen red eyes on a person and frankly, it's a little unnerving. [break][break] The fact that Salt's playing dead in a casket with red contacts on angers him. It's way too far to be a prank, and for a moment, he was actually worried about his twin.[break][break] As one would expect a moody, violent boy like him to do to his brother, Pepper grabs Salt's shirt by the scruff and shakes him. "Salt, what are you doing, stealing my stuff?" he hisses angrily, tugging on Salt's cheek. "And what the fuck are you doing in a casket? With red contacts? Are you playing a vampire or something?" When Salt doesn't respond, he gives his twin a light slap on the cheek. "If this is one of your fucking zombie cosplays, I swear to god I'll just kill you myself - you've got that pretty casket all nice and ready, after all." Salt doesn't answer and Pepper lets go, frustrated.[break][break] It's only then that Pepper looks up, taking the time to process the surrounding people. There's four others besides himself. He recognizes one face immediately and a scowl forms on his features. What is Erin doing here, of all people?[break][break] Then there's that guy from the quidditch pitch who leaves a bad taste in Pepper's mouth. The other two, Pepper doesn't know, but he feels as if they're familiar - like he might've seen them before, but he can't place when nor where. He gives them both a once-over; Pepper fights the urge to laugh. One looks like a guy, but has his hair done up in such a way that it's long and wavy like a girl's. Heck, he swears the red locks trail all the way to the floor. The other is almost the complete opposite - a female who seems to hold herself like she's ready for any sort of fight, and is dressed as such to boot.[break][break] Pepper's focus turns back to the casket. He kind of wants to slap Salt again. His brother's acting is really on point, but seriously, it's getting ridiculous now.
there's an old man sitting on the throne that's saying
that i should probably keep my pretty mouth shut
[attr="class","rotation"]
[attr="id","content"]
Shock is the most
powerful emotion that can be seen in Erin's eyes for a fraction of a second, before it switches back to its usual state of cold judgement.
The body is pale, very pale, which in any other body may have looked sickly, but on this particular young woman's skin the pallor looks just right. A simple black dress and a fitted bodice hug her curves in a display of elegance and sobriety. She takes a moment to appreciate its design and what looked, from this respectful distance, like very a smooth piece of clothing. She also appreciates the black polish adorning all ten fingernails clasped together, and the light makeup and sharp eyeliner on her face, and even the corpse's haircut.
"Damn, I look good even in death."
Of course you do, should have come her familiar's agreement. Or any variation of it, really. Nothing comes, and it irks Erin, but she doesn't dwell on it too much. She has other things to worry about at the moment, like for instance why the fuck there was a corpse of herself lying inside that casket. In this moment, she should be hearing another fun fact from her beautiful vampire bat familiar. Again, nothing comes. Odd, she notes with a frown.
Then, the mirror version of herself opens her eyes, red in a way that did not quite look bloodshot but just creepy. She steps back. It's an involuntary reaction, one that gives off the wrong impression that she's scared, or worse, not in full control of herself. Plot twist: Erin really is scared for a moment there.
She supposes Pepper, Zephyr, and the other two witches she'd noticed seconds earlier had found themselves in similar situations, if only because she can clearly hear Pepper's reaction from where she stands. Her gaze drifts off towards him. "You twins have a terrible sense of humor. Must run in the family," she comments with a roll of her own pale blue eyes. What could she expect, from parents who named their children Salt and Pepper Shaker? A lot. A lot was the only answer.
Returning her attention to the second-most fashionable body present—second only to herself, obviously—has Erin sighing in sheer disappointment. "So, who's responsible for this prank? I must admit, I was quite impressed at what a good job that transfiguration specialist's done, until they opened their eyes. Red so doesn't go with the rest of that outfit."
Post by Rafik Bousa'id on Jun 21, 2017 4:50:04 GMT
❝
Baby, can you move it round the rhythm so we can get with 'em? To the ground and get us a rock and roll round. Just a downtown body body coming with a super-hottie- Let's go, yes, no, hell no-- Baby, can you move it round the rhythm? Cause you know we're living in the fast lane, speed up; It ain't no game, just turn up all the beams when I come up on the scene.
❞
No, no. This was a terrible place to be. It was too dark and gloomy- real funerals never matched that kind of mood. At real funerals the world kept on, even if you were upset- sunshine and blue skies wouldn't cloud over in mourning. But this wasn't right. he found himself next to a coffin- he didn't remember moving this close, the stares from eyeless faces felt like daggers on his skin- but he couldn't move, couldn't do anything but stare into the coffin... at his own face.
"A-am I d-" Before he could choke out the words, his gaze was matched with his own- though the mirrored was in red. Too red and hateful to bare. "No." Without so much as flinching or a double-take- or even taking notice of the others; he unceremoniously slammed shut the coffin, and turned on his heels. "Nope!" He shouted, wanting absolutely none of this shit. "Not now, not today-" he walked up to the nearest faceless mourner and stared into the featureless skin. "Nope!" He said again to the faceless face, and then continued to look around until he noticed that some of the others in the room had actual faces. Namely the four who weren't part of either amalgam of extras.
He opened his mouth to speak to them, but found himself short for words at first. Soon they formed though, and he spoke up with a second attempt. "Are you dead too? Are we just ghosts? Wh- How? I mean who's going to look after my affairs in life? I have too many responsibilities to die!" As the realization crept in, he started to tear up and continued to spout his worries in a rather intense case of diarrhea of the mouth.
"I just moved here- my mother can't take this kind of shock- How did we even die I mean? Like who are you guys? Is this some strange session of like astral projection? Why were my eyes red? Who are these people? Are they even people? Is this some kind of magic? Was there an accident? There're so many thing I couldn't fix- I never told mom what happened, and now I'm dead and it's too late. What if I come back as a zombie? Will I remember life? Will it be me or some soulless aberration? Will I feel myself getting eaten by worms or like whats going to happen to my consciousness? Why did I even die with you guys like I don't think I recognize any of you- why is that guy bunching his dead body? If we can touch the physical plane does that mean that we're really powerful ghosts? Can I fly now? Can they see us? Wait of course not, they don't have eyes- but..." As he continued on, his initial regrets and despair quickly morphed into something more akin to undiluted curiosity and intrigue. He began to attempt to fly, as any ghost should be able to, and began to attempt little hops- hoping each would allow him to levitate in the air without the aid of a flying instrument- like a broom or such. all the while, he continued to theorize- many of his points being things like not having to eat or sleep, and keeping his good looks for eternity.
The primate familiar was usually clinging to him, spindly arms wrapping around him as comfortably as a backpack strap. And when not physically next to each other, the two of them would send each other frequent mental updates: what they saw, where they were, what they heard... There were no secrets and no silence between them.
But she wasn't here -- she wasn't anywhere near here. Zeph couldn't feel her at all.
The fact that he didn't even know where "here" was was or who he was with was definitely a secondary concern at the moment. His mind was a haze, weakly grasping towards the closest thing that felt like a proper connection: the coffin was calling to him. Concern rose like floodwaters in his chest as he suspected the worst.
It wasn't until he was standing right next to the casket that he realized: "That's not my name..." The words were uttered quietly under his breath, and the fog plaguing his mind thinned. Concern turned to confusion as he saw the corpse was not Spock, but himself. That wasn't right... None of this was right.
He only had a second to try to unscramble what any of this meant before the eyes of the "corpse" opened. "Shit--" he exclaimed as his eyes (his own, not the clone's) widened in concern and he reflexively punched the lookalike square in the nose. Zeph quickly took a few backwards steps from the casket, not wanting to get caught unawares from a retaliating corpse.
He wanted to believe that this was just a nightmare, but there were other people here -- some he knew, some he didn't. If it had really been a nightmare, there wouldn't have been anyone. Even Erin being here was better than that (though he'd never openly admit it).
But this wasn't real either. And it wasn't the afterlife -- he refused to believe that. "We're not dead." he said, cutting off the ginger's ramblings with uncharacteristic curtness -- his lack of familiar had him on edge, "I don't know what the fuck this is, but we're not dead."
there's an old man sitting on the throne that's saying
that i should probably keep my pretty mouth shut
[attr="class","rotation"]
[attr="id","content"]
The misplaced red eyes
tarring her otherwise tasteful outfit were already enough of a nightmare for Erin, but the blabbering idiot running around the place isn't far from being a nightmare in his own right. He does, at least, do something of note. A single feat. His mad round around the cemetery directs Erin's attention, even if only briefly, towards the faceless masses mourning their quotation marks cadavers, end quotation. Background props, designed to be looked at from a distance, she appraises in her mind. Morbid.
Erin doesn't think he says anything important, or them to him, otherwise. It does give the current scenario a new layer of strangeness, however. Why would anyone choose fabricated bodies, when real actors could be hired? Was it so that they couldn't be interacted with, coerced into giving away the truth? If so, what kind of mastermind was she dealing with here? Her first thought, her first fear, is that she and Zephyr got caught in a mission for Leviathan, and they were about to be tortured for information; but Pepper is here, too. The others—the others she does not recognize, but surely Zeph would, if they were indeed part of their coven. She trusts his memory better than her own.
She's tempted to tell the redhead that yes, they were all dead, and didn't he remember the accident? Tragic thing. But Zephyr beats her to a reply, which she supposes is for the best. Not even all the fun in the world could save her from rolling her eyes at his antics, and playing with his sorry mind would likely have made it worse.
"Of course we're not dead," she snaps. While the blonde's words are uncharacteristically curt, hers are very characteristically so. "Don't be ridiculous." She's looking at her own red-eyed corpse and scoffing as she speaks. She closes in, reducing the already small space separating her from the coffin and realizing that whatever this being was, it didn't actually smell putrid like death. Either that, or her sense of smell was fucked up, because she couldn't smell much of anything right now. "Don't give me that. You may look just like me, but you're not, and we both know who the better-looking one is. You better get used to that idea and go back to where you belong: the dirt beneath my feet."
Just like that, without need for another word, Erin reaches up for the lid and slams the casket closed.
With the uglier doppelgänger out of the way, the witch is free to turn around and address the other, well, she didn't want to say prisoners of war. They probably were, but she didn't want to say it. Pepper is still hanging back with his own casket, where the body of whom he thought was his twin lay, of whom she also thought to be Salt at first. Clearly not anymore. "Pepper, darling, I don't think that's your brother." For once, she uses a sweet tone with him—though, after years of knowing her, he should know better than to take that as kindness.
"You have to be extremely self-centered to believe that to be Salt, when each of us got a copy of ourselves." Frankly, it's not something Erin herself wouldn't have considered, but she enjoys making the Shaker brothers feel miserable. "Now, put that body back where you found it, close the damn coffin, and come over here." That last part, she doesn't expect him to actually do, and she really has no reason for it other than maybe teasing him, but she'd lose nothing for putting the idea out there.
Post by Rafik Bousa'id on Jun 22, 2017 10:40:28 GMT
❝
Baby, can you move it round the rhythm so we can get with 'em? To the ground and get us a rock and roll round. Just a downtown body body coming with a super-hottie- Let's go, yes, no, hell no-- Baby, can you move it round the rhythm? Cause you know we're living in the fast lane, speed up; It ain't no game, just turn up all the beams when I come up on the scene.
❞
"Okay, then just--?" He stopped his ranting and incessant hopping for a moment and started to snap back a retort; before, he realized what he'd said. That was rude as hell. He bit his lip, not quite sure else wise how to react, and gave a frustrated groan while throwing his hands into the air. Pure undiluted frustration led him to madly run his hands through his mane of curly red locks, doing away with any and all semblance of tidiness about his hairstyle.
"But, you're all too unique to be a dream..." he muttered, trying to think the situation through. If they were dead, he probably wouldn't have been able to close the coffin. But, He had never seen these people before- so it wasn't a dream. He never saw strangers in dreams.... or even people.
"Magic then? Some kind of Illusion?" He mumbled on. He absentmindedly extended his arm to his side to pet the head of his familiar; but, he realized, as his hand only groped empty air, that Malicei was not there. The thought of his own red eyes staring back at him flooded the back of his mind. The dead didn't have red eyes, so there must have been a point. A warning? They didn't even look like eyes, to be honest. No, they were more like cherries- ripe and red. He had a thought briefly to pluck them from his own skull but then quickly dismissed it. There was absolutely NO WAY IN HELL he was going to touch his own dead body- If, that was really him. But the strange thirst he'd felt earlier bothered him. It just wasn't right.
As he ran through a thousand thoughts each racing through his mind, he stared on at the other four witches congregated around the coffins. He was standing a meter or so away, watching their actions. Trying desperately to discern the best course of action.
"..." He attempted to speak up but found only silence. Shutting his mouth, he began to rethink speaking up again, two of them had shouted at him already, and he didn't want to make things worse.
Claire has no recollection of this place. So many questions swirl around her head with no answer. What is this place? What is she doing here? How did she get here? When did she get here? Who are these people? There are faceless mourners, five open caskets, four other people walking towards the caskets. Is this some sort of a prank? It better be, because if not, then what is the meaning of this sinister creature with the same clothes, physique, and face as Claire?
When the creature opens her eyes, Claire stares right back to them. Adrenaline floods her veins,and it takes all of her willpower not to cut the creature's head off in that instant. She maintains safe distance from it,careful not to make any sudden movements.Her hands are frozen just a millimeter above her flail. One wrong move from this creature and Claire will obliterate her.
People around her already are in panic. Claire recognizes two fellow Knights, fledglings, she supposes. Both are blabbering, asking questions about a twin, asking questions about whether they are dead...the other two Claire is not familiar with. However she agrees with them. They're not dead. And if anyone's dying here, it would be those corpses. Claire already decided she would shove them back inside their caskets and bury them six feet under.
"Who are you?" she says, voice fierce and unyielding. "More specifically, what are you? Speak, before I force you to do so." She hopes no answer,but it is worth to ask. Why bother debating it upon themselves when you can ask the question outright?
But deep down, Claire is unsettled. Her mind is in disarray, her heart is beating fast and loud. Her breathing is short and tight and her form too rigid. Not to mention that she cannot feel the presence of her familiar...that alone is enough to throw heron the edge, clinging on for dear sanity and composure.
[attr="class","peppershakernotes"] "I'm fired up and tired of the way that things have been"
Pepper feels downright sour that Erin is here. Oh hooray. One of his least favorite people. Then again, it's not as if he's truly had someone around that he's liked actively, so it's no surprise his mood is always foul.[break][break] "Oh wait!" he exclaims with false surprise. "Did emo goth girl just insinuate that she actually knows what humor is? I'm surprised." He casts Erin a baleful look as he gestures to her casket and her doppelganger. "Would've thought this would be a dream come true for you. Isn't death all you dreary types seek?"[break][break] Rafik's noisy dilemma is enough to make Pepper want to grab the guy by the throat or land him a good solid punch to the gut to make him shut up. But Erin beats him to it (and Pepper curses under his breath at the lost chance to use his fists). The blonde from the quidditch pitch snaps that they're not dead, which to Pepper seems a wildly obvious fact. [break][break] Erin comments that the doppelganger is not Salt, and at that, Pepper rolls his eyes at her. "Yeah right," he says, though underneath his scoffing, there's a tinge of unease. Now that she mentions it, all of the others have twins of their own. Unless, for some reason, they all have twins playing dead at the same time. Which is highly unlikely, but Pepper also wouldn't put it past Salt to orchestrate something like this. However, Erin's reasoning makes sense, and Pepper hates that it does. Crap.[break][break] "Pah," Pepper sneers, slamming the casket lid down with disgust and kicking it over so that it tumbles to the ground. He sulks over to them, though his eyes trail momentarily at the fellow Knight (some higher-up gal who seems way too uptight) and is threatening the corpse.[break][break] Mentally, Pepper reaches out to comment this to Logan, but there's no response. Frowning, he tries again, and gets nothing in return. This is...perplexing. Logan's always been the type to be quick to laugh at others. So...where is she?[break][break] He gives himself a quick pinch to check if this is all real. He can definitely feel it. And he can hear those mourners crying (it's super annoying but he's not sure he wants to punch faceless people - that's kinda creepy). Pepper also takes a quick sniff. It smells like dead people, though Pepper's not really sure what that smells like. Some strange combination of must and wet earth and decay and dust.[break][break] He's not sure if this is a dream, a hallucination, or whatever. Dreams can seem pretty real, but at the same time, it's not as if he's had a dream quite so....placid. Most of his dreams are a little more violent. And no way in hell would he ever dream of Erin. So...an illusion?[break][break] "So what are we doing here and how do we get out?" Pepper asks brusquely, hands in his hoodie pockets. His eyes rove over the entirety of the scenery. Could the faceless people be that 'puck's flaw' that's been discussed as an illusionist's weakness?[break][break] Holy heck, was school actually being useful for once?
there's an old man sitting on the throne that's saying
that i should probably keep my pretty mouth shut
[attr="class","rotation"]
[attr="id","content"]
Pepper's sour reaction is
to be expected. His quip on her looks in particular isn't so much expected, but it's still all too easy to rebuke for someone as used to aggressive conversation as she is. "Right. Because you're all smiles and sunshine." Erin arches an eyebrow at him, completing the act of sarcasm with a look of disbelief. At this rate, even bickering with Zephyr would be better mental exercise for her. Speaking of Zephyr, wasn't he uncharacteristically quiet and grumpy today? She'd have to see what was going on with him in a minute. "Need I remind you of your eternally dull expression, or of your wardrobe, befitting a trashy teenage boy? You're making it too easy for me, Peps. Do keep up."
There's the sound of a frustrated groan and some rather fierce threats being thrown out, but Erin pays them little mind. She's in the middle of a conversation with Pepper, after all.
He finally sees reason, if only because she was literally hitting him with it in verbal form. And then, he actually does start to make his way to her. Erin needs to bite her upper lip in an attempt not to smile, amusedly, at this turn of events. Oh, Pepper, ever the obedient boy, she thinks as she watches him approach. Siri, what should we do to him when he arrives? she tries asking her familiar, and is reminded once more that she is refusing to talk to her. Or, more accurately, she's gone. Siri would never purposefully give her the cold shoulder.
What—Did they take Siri so she could be tortured in Erin's behalf?
The first and most obvious 'they' she could think of was the Helios Knights, and this thought in turn makes her grow furious and want to punch Pepper in the face. Right there, right then. He is, after all, a Helios Knight, too. Nevermind that Erin herself's supposed to be one, legally. It's evident he's frowning at his own missing familiar, though. That's the only thing that calms her down.
"Pepper," she calls. Her hand reaches out to him, silently warning him of what was about to follow. Except not really, because in what alternate universe would Erin be initiating a hug, with him? She tries, though. Of course, she can do nothing if he notices her intentions at the last moment and backs away, but her arms reach out to wrap around him nonetheless, like old friends being reunited. In a sense, that imagery isn't too far off from reality, save for the fact Pepper's never quite been able to stand her. "It's been a while since I last saw you." That's true enough, as well. Ever since they each were recruited into covens in Sundial, the small group of university friends met in progressively longer intervals.
She saves her laughter for Pepper's reaction, and follows up with a casual "Finally getting to the real questions."
Erin still isn't convinced that this isn't a trap, that someone's watching Zephyr's and her own reactions, waiting for a slip that would send them to the chopping block, or the fire pitch, or any equally violent form of execution, but she'd also get absolutely nothing from freaking out. "Blondie, you might wanna knock that girl out before she tries anything on you, and join us," she calls the last witch, the one whose identity remained a mystery to her. "Zeph," she adds at last, more softly. Both because he's literally steps from her, as opposed to four caskets away, and because there's something up with him that she can't seem to pinpoint.
This whole situation is too eerie.
"There is one other matter I'd like to bring to the table. Where are your familiars?"
[attr="class","gearcore"] Zephyr refused to get closer to the "mourners" (they didn't even have faces to cry with... they were just standing around), nor any closer to his beady-eyed doppelganger. However, he was starting to think that closing the casket wasn't a terrible idea. Using a quick knockerbacker spell, he pushed the lid back in place.
Erin and bludger boy were prattling on about something, but Zeph wasn't paying much attention. Instead, he was trying to get a grasp of their surroundings. Where could they go? Would it even matter if this was an artificially constructed illusion? If it was something else, was there a possibility that the faceless figures could inflict real damage? Hypotheticals spun around his mind until Erin addressed him, causing his head to twitch a half inch towards her direction. He translates Pepper's question after it's asked. "I'd say get away from anythin' lookin' animate an' unfriendly."
The enchantress also has a question, which hits closer to Zeph's concerns. "... Can't feel 'er," he admits, tone quiet, but composed for the time being. Better she know that he couldn't perform elemental feats now rather than when something urgent occurs. Still, it always baffled him when people didn't notice the absence of their familiar. Spock had been a constant presence in Zeph's life since he was eight, so any time she wasn't around felt wrong.
She gets no answer, which is expected. Nonetheless Claire continues to stare into those eyes, until her attention is snapped back to reality... or whatever this is, by the purple-haired girl. Truth to be told, Claire doesn't want to break eye contact with the corpse. She has to be ready to defend herself if this creature is to attack. Claire observes her carefully. Her doppelganger is still inside the casket, and apart from its wide-open red eyes the rest of its body seems to be still.
Still, there is something in those eyes that attracts Claire to it, much like the same reason she was attracted to this casket in the first place. She wants to gauge that eye out, but at the same time does not want to touch the creature. The other caskets are already displaced or have lids shut, and Claire decides to do the same. With her flail, she cracks the lid close, leaving a sizable dent in the middle.
Claire breathes, finally, deeply.
She then walks closer to the group, stopping a few feet behind the purple-haired girl. "I do not know what is happening," she utters, confusion evident in her voice, despite her face showing no emotion. "That is a good question. If our familiars aren't here, then there is really something wrong. It is better if we stick together, if something is to happen at least we get each other's backs."
Claire casts one more glance to the caskets, then to the faceless people standing on the sidelines. She does 360, and it seems like the skies stretch to the horizon, endless, infinite, as dark as Claire's mood. "It seems like there is no easy exit. Aside from that, we are surrounded. This is looking grave for us." She refuses to say their obvious shortcomings. No familiars means they can't use elemental magic. Her scrolls are limited, because she can't afford Kiki's prices. That damn woman, cheating money out of witches. Claire grits her teeth, and holds her flail tighter. If all goes to hell, this might be the only thing standing between life and death.
your group has failed the win condition of the previous round. because of this, Pepper Shaker and claire fermont has died. they are no longer allowed to participate in the group event, but they are allowed one optional death post. [break][break] the previous win condition was an individual effort. the condition was to avoid eye contact with the corpses. my condolences, may you have more luck in the next round.
[attr="class","stafftemptitle"]
group d
"....and in that valiant battle, it was often remarked that more soldiers died than had been sent to the field, and all returned wearing the armor of sorrow."[break] - "Metnal", excrept from a book of fables [break][break]The wailing in the distance doesn't stop, but it fades away in the background, an unsettling soundtrack to the grim reality. When Pepper Shaker and claire fermont look into the corpse's eyes, they suddenly blink, but lay unmoving in the their casket prison.
[break][break] Eventually, Pepper Shaker and claire fermont will find that they cannot breathe. Their body seizes up, and they collapse before you, seizing slightly before stilling. And at once, before you can react, your bodies collectively flicker in and out of existence, caught in a state of semi-permanence.
[break][break] You are now ghosts in this reality, translucent but not completely invisible.
[break][break] When you take a look at the caskets you find that the corpses are slowly stepping out on their own accord and walking straight towards you. And no matter where you step, they seem to be inexplicably attracted to your ghost. There's no knowing what could happen once they reach you. Color seems to drain from the reality, and your body flickers from opaque to translucent again and again-- you still seem to retain tangibility, but who knows how long that will last. [break][break] You start to feel colder as the bodies approach.
[attr="class","peppershakernotes"] "I'm fired up and tired of the way that things have been"
Pepper scowls at Erin once more. "At least I don't look like a barbie who got tossed in a barbeque - burned." He looks back at Zeph before tossing the male a gruff, "No offense."[break][break] And then Erin hugs him. He freezes, caught off guard by such an alien action that he really has no idea what to do. His mind tries to put escape and staying in a single equation, and it doesn't work, and only ends up with Pepper standing stock-still but squirming. "Let go," he mutters, his cheeks tinged with a tinge of red. He lets out a sigh of relief when she does, and quickly tries to regain his composure.[break][break] "I can't feel Logan either," Pepper admits, tossing another mental message but hearing nothing. The blonde steps up beside them and makes some comments. He can't help but notice her speech is very...refined. It's strange to hear, especially paired up with that dangerous looking flail she has in hand.[break][break] He moves to speak, but can't. It's as if someone's grabbed him and started choking him, but when he reaches up to his throat, there's nothing. His pulse quickens as he scrabbles at his throat. He's not choking, but what is happening, then? He can't breathe, he can't...![break][break] Pepper falls to his knees before convulsing and falling on his face. His hands scrabble at the floor, as if for help, but there's nothing.[break][break] He can't help but think that this is karma. That's all it can be, right? His endless years of harboring his hatred and throwing it upon others who deserved none of it. It's some sort of retribution that's causing his inability to take in air, feeling that building pressure in his chest and head.[break][break] He swears his skull's going to explode.[break][break] Pepper's vision dims and blurs. The greys blend into a mixture of black splotches with brilliant white in their midst. Everything hurts. He can't feel his limbs, much less his fingers anymore.[break][break] He's just so, so tired. His eyes fight to keep open, but not for long.[break][break] Then all goes black.[break][break] tl;dr pepper dies <-- this is literally all i came to edit in
The next thing Claire knows, she is falling. Her body hit the ground hard, the pieces of armor she is wearing making a loud clang. For a moment she feels excruciating pain from the fall. It's her flail, grazing her back and making a medium-sized gnash. Blood flows to the ground, and soon Claire is lying on her own pool of blood.
She does not register that, however, because her throat closes and she can't goddamn breathe. She claws at it, trying to take just one, whiff of air. Her tongue lolls to the side, attempting to pant, but no oxygen comes and goes. With little strength left, she tries to seek for help, reaching forward, clawing the ground.
Her dimming vision catches the corpses stepping out of their coffins, and fear engulfs her. She claws at the ground, harder, trying to scoot away from the corpses.
