Event - The House That Wolfe Built

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The House That Wolfe Built

"A sense of eeriness pervades all the place. [It is] forsaken and majestically lovely, as if nature had at last formed one spot where she can live for herself alone." - Marsden Hartley, poet and painter, 1931, re: Dogtown, Massachusetts.

The woods are creepy, Dark, and deep within the confines of Dogtown. Whether drawn here by curiosity or compulsion, you find yourself (and perhaps your companions) making your way along a spiraling path to reach a rusted chain link fence. This fence, once fighting to block anything from exiting, has been breached by a variety of clever and sage tactics. You might have been lucky enough to join up with one of the groups that found or made their own keys. Or maybe you're unlucky and stuck going through the acid plant hole or the random violence tunnel. However you make your way inside the fence, you'll notice a marked difference on the other side.

It's quiet. Much too quiet. Even your own footsteps seem to be muffled. Beyond the trees, in a cleared out space, a house is visible. It's a New England mansion with white wood slats for walls and a dark roof that sports two smoking chimneys atop it. From the pitch black windows, it looks to be about three stories high, not including the ground floor, and rises just above the treeline. There's a wrap-around porch on the ground floor that's in questionable repair with a rusty, decayed swing to one side of the front door. Most prominent of all upon the building, though, is an enormous spiral pattern burned into the wood on one side of the house, along with a simple message:

WELCOME :)

➥ Welcome

(cw: sudden violence, rot, swarms, choking, potential for severe injury, thalassophobia, blackmail)

The world beyond the fence in Dogtown is a strange one. The sun flickers and dies, vying with the stars for space in the heavens, as if time is shifting back and forth, fighting to progress or slow. The trees are impossible things. Some of their limbs are burnt, others petrified, others are rotting, and still others resplendent with pollen-filled flowers. All on the same tree. The quiet in this place is oppressive, as well, marred only by sudden bursts of screeching, shrill sounds: a woman screaming, vehicles colliding, a gun going off. There is a dread that hangs heavy in this place and a hunger from the very land itself that seems to be starved in some way.

And all of you make such lovely prey to feed the wretched, starving things that have been trapped in this place for far too long without the strength they need to fight or flee.

The trek to reach the house proves to be a rather hazardous one for those approaching. Bear traps seem to appear from nowhere. Vines hanging from the trees curl around throats. Swarms of insects find you to bite and sting and drive you mad with their persistence. Shadows shift unexpectedly to hide pools of sticky black blood. Even a small splash of it is enough to raise a violent impulse within the most docile person. Or perhaps you're unlucky enough to find a puddle that is so much deeper than any puddle should be. Down and down and down. Something pulls at you, wrenches you into something so much bigger than you ever imagined. Strange, not-quite birds and animals dog your steps and whisper threats, promise they'll scream a secret you want kept if you take one more step toward that house.

And the gauntlet continues with every Entity fighting to keep you from your goal by force or fear. Or… almost every Entity. Nothing that twists or weaves seeks to block your way. In fact, what spiderwebs there are seem to guide you around the more deadly hazards, should you choose to follow them.

What did one of those ghosts say? "Now, it sounds strange, but you need to follow the spiderwebs if you want to find anything on the grounds. They'll never lead you wrong."

➥ Come In

(cw: various, determinant, altered perceptions of reality, strangulation)

The help from the spiderwebs stops at the door. The house that greets you is old. For how long it’s likely been empty, there should be moss and growth and decay, but all that greets you are moisture-warped boards, the creak of which serves as a loud alarm of your approach. To some, it may seem familiar, as though you've been here in your dreams. The grand hallway characters are treated to was clearly once lavish and rich with tapestries and fine carvings. Now, the corners and shadows seem like twisted faces in the wings, watching and waiting. The house itself seems to be holding its breath in anticipation.

As soon as the last person is inside, the front door shuts with a definitive thud and the way is shut. The only thing left to do is explore; although, anyone with any decent sense of direction will soon find it muddied and confused. What should be North feels an awful lot like West and South tastes like Down but has the sound of your footfalls overhead. Still, you must go Down the Up staircase and hope sense returns soon enough.

You and any companions you have with you will find vertigo and confusion abound; even the gift of flight or a handy grappling hook are no balm. You take off or start climbing and suddenly find your center of gravity shifted and turned and spun until figuring out which direction you're moving becomes a nauseating affair. Best take the slow road, even if it's difficult. And maybe mind the objects in the hallway when you walk along it. You may pass by them more than once, but find them ever so slightly shifted. Changed. Perhaps one of them might provide the clue you need on what to do next, which door to choose to escape the endless hallway cycle.

Or perhaps you'll see the People Who Are Not There who seem to populate the house. You spot their silhouettes when at just the right angle. A pillar and a vase make the shape of a man or a woman or a child. Step forward and that form spreads, warps, becomes nothing but a different shape. The People Who Are Not There are seen more and more frequently the longer someone spends roaming the corridors of the house without some forward progress. See enough of them and you might find yourself grabbed by Hands That Do Not Exist, and slowly strangled. It doesn't… hurt, though? Nothing is there, after all. Nothing is trying to hurt you. Nothing. But as it happens again and again, you may find yourself beginning to feel less real. Are You There? Perhaps not. And how do you fight something that Isn't There? Run, hide, think in ways that Make No Sense. Out of the box seems to be the only viable solution to fighting and avoiding them to make your way forward.

Finally, you come to a door…and you can’t be sure there wasn’t another door you passed or if you’ve simply turned right too many times and now find yourself exactly where you need to be… and this is the door you need. You can smell it. Opening it shows an inky, dark, substance and pressing your hand to it is like reaching through thick, chilled, smoke. It’s where you’re being called. Stepping through the doorway, you might find the companion you were traveling with is right there with you, or they might have vanished, or it might be someone else who's replaced them entirely, someone who also came into the house. Regardless, once inside, there is no going back until what lies in wait is faced…and overcome.

Face your fears. Accept your Mark.

➥ Say Hello

(cw: possible gaslighting, possible body horror, various)

Whatever room you’ve found yourself in, whatever effect might be haunting you, there’s something else moving through the house. In nearly every room, any room, there’s a chance a familiar face might appear as well. Milo, a bit more twisted and a bit too long, slides from the shadows and impossible spaces with a smile for any they find…after the clear flicker of confusion as to where they are, anyway. It fades again soon enough. “Hello, friend…might you need some help? Or do you think you have this one?” Whether you take their offer or not, they’re there at least for a moment or two, watching, wandering, and seemingly looking for something. It might as well be a mutually beneficial moment, right?

➥ Mod Notes

• GENERAL - Players may encounter non-major NPCs in the house. All non-native individuals will have been drawn to the house, which includes a variety of background NPCs who have lived and/or worked at ADI. Characters are welcome to encounter these people through the house, reference seeing them, or have them be killed in front of their PCs. Go wild! This house is deadly, and if you want your character to see that without having to be killed themselves, please go ahead. You do not need mod permission for this. Please remember that character deaths are permanent (unless you are using this as an opportunity to shift to an Entity alignment) and plan accordingly! At this point, you do not need mod approval for your 'death' and Entity alignment. We just request that you not give your character any game-breaking sorts of abilities. They will not be able to resist the house or escape from it with any new abilities.
  
  
• WELCOME - Time is strange within the fenced-in area of Dogtown. All characters entering the area will find that they seem to have arrived at the same time, in spite of entering hours or even days apart. The land, itself, seems to be fighting you, as well, as you try to make your entry or scout the area. The options listed in the prompt are examples. Players are welcome to invent any additional hazards, especially ones that would induce their character to book it into the house as quickly as possible to try to find refuge there. Once on the porch, any and all supernatural effects will stop and characters will no longer be harried by the Entities in the yard.
  
  Characters who attempt to flee the fenced in area, back out to Dogtown, will find that getting in was difficult, but getting out is impossible. At least for now. On top of the compulsion to stay and enter the house, the fence seems to have repaired itself and tightened its defenses once everyone is in.
  
  The Web and the Spiral are the only Entities that don't seem to be impeding progress into the house. Instead…anyone trying to escape out of the fence will face the full might of the Web and the Spiral. Spiderwebs and twisted metal have blocked your exits and covered our padlocks. There will be no more help here.
  
  
• COME IN - The house will tailor each of the rooms your character goes through to focus on what Fears they have not yet encountered or that hasn’t left enough of a mark on them. This could be one room or thirteen; you’re not required to play all of them out and certainly none that would touch on any OOC limits, but please handwave that your character has gone through those types of rooms. For example, if you have a fear of spiders and/or mind control and have never had your character encounter a Web based incident, they will go through one in the house, but you will not be required to play it out.
  
  This is the last chance to go wild with any ideas you might have! Whether you’d like to deal with bodies sitting up in body bags, the existential horror of space, or experiencing life as an earthworm, all players are encouraged to do what sounds fun as long as it aligns to one or more of the Entities attempting to leave their marks or traumas on your character. Once a room has been finished, ICly, explorers will find themselves faced with another door that will likely lead to a new horror until they’ve experienced every Fear they’ve missed…or if they’re one of the lucky few who finds an item to help them.
  
  
• SAY HELLO - Milo will be poking their head into every room, but whether your character notices them or not or takes them up on their offer is entirely up to you. They will try to help characters through their room as they are most assuredly lost and simply wandering about. Though, there doesn’t seem to be anything impeding their way through the house at large. If you’d like a thread with Milo interacting with your character, please respond to the comment below with a little information or a full set up of what they’re walking into. More than one person in a thread is welcome as well, just note that in the comment, please!
  
  

Comments

Bucky/Winter | OTA and Closed prompts

[worthallthis]

I. Spider Keys - Rogers and Yelena

Rogers and Winter take ages to finally find the gate and get it unlocked. The key works like a dream, though, and Winter has Rogers hold it open until he can find some rocks to wedge it open, just in case something happens to the key. Or him. He's expecting this will be dangerous.

They don't know where they'll find Yelena, but they know she had her own way in, but Winter is looking for her.


II. Unexpected Arrivals - Rogers, Yelena, and Kate

While prowling around the house, gathering intel and trying to determine the best avenue of attack, so to speak, Winter and company run into someone they don't expect to see... they, after all, spent the time the message went out circling the fence, where phones don't exactly work anymore. None of them saw it.

So turning to make a suggestion to the other two and seeing Kate coming through the half-open gate behind them, Winter stops short and says, "Kate? What's wrong?"

Surely if she came all the way out here, something must have happened.


III. Not a Welcome - OTA

The house is visible in the distance. Winter can see it. But he's having the damndest time getting to it. He and whichever of his people who are prowling with him are going slowly, twitching nervously at the sound of a bone saw or gunshot coming nearly from over his shoulder, testing the ground ahead of them with each step after the first time someone nearly fell into a puddle that was actually a hole.

Winter keeps a knife in one hand, ready to slice through reaching vines and attacking animals, and his other hand grasping onto whoever is walking with him. He doesn't want to lose them.


IV. The House - OTA

Despite Winter's insistence that they stay together, of course the little squad gets separated. One room opens to pitch darkness and they lose each other in the black. Winter spends more time than he should desperately trying to find them before he finds, instead, the door-- then ignores the door in favor of still trying to find his people, until someone else finds him to drag him out or he finally gives up and hopes they got out, too. The Dark doesn't scare him, but Lonely is starting to. He's so attached to his people, he doesn't know what he'll do without them.

In the halls he feels the eyes on him. Paranoid and alone, he throws knives and fire bullets at the sources, only to find he's jumping at shadows, shattering oddly shaped vases, and punching stains on the wall. They can't tempt him to stay; nothing can tempt him to stay until he finds his people. But he can keep swinging at them to try and warn them off, for all the good it does.


V. End's Say - Rogers, Yelena, and Kate

Winter finally corrals his people again, and this time they stay together for what feels like the last room. They're all alive, all mostly in one piece, maybe a little more in one piece than they should be given the whole... entity goo thing. But they're together.

And this is certainly the last room. It's bare, boring even, nothing scary at all. Just a table in the middle of the room and no door, not even the one they came though. On the table is a small vial.

Winter doesn't trust it.

V

[musicdied]

A room, a table, a vial. No apparent signs of a trap, no places where the stone flooring might have been pried up for pressure plates, no too-deep shadows where monsters could be lurking. The sparseness is almost unnerving in and of itself. Yelena rolls her shoulders, wincing a little as the motion tugs at skin blistered and burnt from her passage through the fence, and strides over to the table. Her fingers close carefully around the vial - no pressure plate there, either - and she picks it up, turning it in her hand. No label, no instructions, nothing.

"I was not expecting Alice in Wonderland," she says, desert dry - because the door isn't too small to pass through. There just isn't a door at all.

[bossyboiler]

Where has the door gone? The door that they had just walked through, the door used to get into this room, that door. Where is it?

"No no no no." Kate turns her back to them as she moves to where the door had just been. It's not better for the claustrophobic Kate that there are other people with her. It's just another small space that they're all trapped in together with.

Her dirty fingertips press into the wall and she starts to feel around. She is looking for any sign of a door, a crack in the wall, something. When she doesn't find it she screams, "LET US OUT!" She hits the wall a few times before turning around.

"We have to get out."

[punched_hitler]

The strange room with no exit, the lack of a pressing, immediate threat - it could almost be a reprieve, except for the way it's really, really not. Nothing here is. It's all building, and not to something good.

"We will," Rogers says, reaching out, taking Kate gently by the wrist with his own not-exactly-clean hands so that she can't turn around and hit the wall again. It won't do any good, but he knows she knows that. Maybe a little touch will help ground her. His grip is solid but not tight, and she can shake him off easily if she wants. Then he glances from Yelena, vial in hand, to Winter.

"It's been a while since I read that one, but it feels awfully appropriate."

The way everything's twisted, upside-down, wrong in a way that's less whimsical and more terrifying. "I don't know that drinking that is the best idea, though."

[worthallthis]

"It's the only thing in here to do," Winter says. Not in a way that encourages drinking it, but in a way that sounds deeply suspicious. "We don't know what it will do."

But without it, how will they get out? He has no idea. They'll figure it out, though. They're all fairly smart people. Surely there's a way out the entity in charge of this room didn't think of.

Are the walls a little closer than they were a minute ago...? He can't be sure.

[musicdied]

"It's not a first choice," Yelena allows, though she keeps hold of the vial, running her thumb across the faint, raised ridges ringing the bottom, like little abstract stars.

She crouches to inspect the underside of the table, squinting at the grey-on-grey. "Check the walls. Maybe there will be a mechanism we can trip."

[bossyboiler]

Kate lets out a small, startled noise when Rogers takes her wrist. She hadn't been expecting the sudden touch but it does remind her that she's not alone, that there are other people in the room with her. She doesn't hit the wall again.

If only she hadn't already used the hagstone that she had found on Jessica's body. If only...

She looks from Rogers to Winter and to Yelena still holding that vial. It is the only thing in the room. Winter is right in his assessment. What's inside it? What will happen should it be opened?

"Maybe we can shoot a wall?" She offers as a suggestion. (But Kate, you can't go around just shooting everything.) "Maybe it's a test? Testing our patience?"

It's not Winter's imagination. The walls are definitely a little closer than they were a minute ago.

[punched_hitler]

"I don't think it's a test of patience." He doesn't like the way this room feels. (He doesn't like the way this house feels. This town. This world.) "I think the room is getting smaller. Or it wants us to think that way."

He doesn't think shooting will do anything, but he does heft Mjolnir, even as he scans the wall closest to him for something. Anything. A weak point to aim a hammer at. "I could always take a swing at it." He can't use lightning in here. It's too small, they're too close together.

He eyes the vial. "Or we throw whatever's in the vial at the wall." That seems too simple, but who knows what's too simple or not for whatever test they have to pass to get out of here.

[worthallthis]

"Patience doesn't scare anyone," Winter agrees. He starts circling the room, tapping metal fingers at regular intervals along the wall. "Let me test the walls before you start hammering or shooting. That might make it worse."

Winter is suggesting not shooting. Amazing.

He keeps looking sideways at the vial in Yelena's hand, though.

[musicdied]

"Ricochets would definitely make it worse," Yelena says, peering up over the top of the table before returning to her inspection of its underside. There's nothing carved into the wood, but there, under the hand she's using to brace herself, are indents beneath a layer of grit, like dust accumulated over the course of years. "We should not be shooting anything in here unless it tries to eat us and is immune to knives."

It isn't just the walls. The ceiling, too, seems to draw down - or perhaps the floor is rising - and the air has gone just a little thin, too quickly to be natural, even with four full-grown adults in the space.

[bossyboiler]

"Well it has to be some kind of test!" Kate lets out a little whimper-like noise. She doesn't like this. Why is the ceiling closer than it was? Why are the walls moving in? Why are they stuck in this room with only that little glass vial?

"This should not be happening." She raises a hand to her mouth. She tries to take a deep breath in and out but the air feels weird now. It's like she can't get enough oxygen from the air. Kate bites her thumb to keep from asking how this could all be made worse. It can always get worse. The ceiling could spout spikes next.

"So we can't shoot the walls and we can't hammer them." She is trying so very hard not to panic. "Let's throw the vial, Yelena. Maybe that's what we're supposed to do."

[punched_hitler]

Rogers is not prone to claustrophobia, but something uncomfortable is starting to spark up in his gut. This room is not going to be safe to stay in much longer. Even if nothing is actually changing, they're all feeling it. The tension in the room is ratcheting up by the heartbeat.

"Everybody just take a breath," he says, mind working furiously. What's the most frightening option he can think of? Maybe that's the trick. Not a fun exercise, though.

Mostly, the only thing that frightens him is failure. Is watching the rest of them die. Watching any of them die, while he has to carry on.

"What about the ceiling?" he asks, glancing up. "Will that table hold someone's weight?" Certainly Yelena or Kate, if not Rogers or Winter. Maybe there's a trapdoor there they can't see, but that still doesn't explain the vial. It could be a red herring, but he has a bad feeling it's not. He wants to think it's useful, but it could be something that kills them all, if uncapped.

"Yelena, can I see the vial?"

[worthallthis]

Winter's not panicking. Not yet, anyway. Small spaces don't scare him. Hell, even dying doesn't scare him, not really. The thought of all his people getting squished does, though. He keeps running metal fingers over the wall, meticulous but hurried, looking for some kind of seam or edge, tapping as he goes in case there's something more hollow than something else.

Maybe he can punch through the paneling. No chance of lightning, and a metal arm could surely tear a hole big enough to shove people out of. "Not mine or yours," he answers Rogers, half-paying attention. "Kate or Belova maybe."

II

[bossyboiler]

She had found the hole that Yelena had made to get in. And she's had nothing but grief ever since then!

There is a scream and then there is the sound of a small explosion, gunshots, and then another boom before Kate is ever seen. An explosion that sounds familiar enough to those experienced with grenades. You know who isn't experienced with grenades? Kate. Did that fact stop her from throwing two at the landshark chasing her? No, it had not.

There is boom number one after Kate had pulled the pin and had thrown it wildly behind her. She missed. She fired her handgun at it to no avail. The creature continued to pursue her no matter how fast she ran. She stops and throws a second grenade but didn't make it far enough not to be effected from the blast herself. It gets the landshark but the shockwave throws her to the ground. Ouch. Bits of the landshark land on her back and backpack along with dirt and debris. Gross.

The wind gets knocked out of her and she is down for a entire count before she even lifts her face off of the ground. Oh, her head.

[worthallthis]

Yeah, there's definitely something wrong. That was some explosion. Winter hurries to her side, crouching down to touch her head, then her face when she lifts it. "Nobody ever trained you with grenades," he says, half scolding but half relieved.

[bossyboiler]

"Well you weren't around and the gun wasn't working." She finally says after Winter touches her head. Her bell has been rung and she is slow in pulling herself to her knees. "Is it dead?"

[worthallthis]

Winter keeps his hand on her shoulder, half to steady her and half out of worry that she's even here, looking her over for actual injuries. "It isn't moving but I don't think going to check is a great idea. Maybe we should move a little further away just in case."

[bossyboiler]

She sits on her knees for a few moments. "I think I'm going to need help standing up." She blinks once and then twice. How do people handle these things. Oh, that's right. They were ear and head protection.

"We have to get into the house. It's important. Nia wants us in there."

[worthallthis]

"Nia?" Winter repeats with a frown, though he does offer her his hand to stand with when she seems ready. "Is that why you came out here?" Kate wasn't supposed to be out here at all, after all. This wasn't her mission. She was supposed to be safe at home.

[bossyboiler]

She accepts the hand when offered and slowly stands. "Oh." There's a sudden spell of dizziness that occurs after standing. It catches her by surprise. "Yes. Nia. She posted on the network asking for us, all of us, to come and help. Come on. We have to go."

[worthallthis]

Winter keeps her hand to steady her, looking concerned. "And you just. Came? Knowing we were already out here and will have it handled?"

[bossyboiler]

"Yeah!" Kate replies like it's obvious. "Nia said it was really important and you all needed help. I tried to bring other people with me but I couldn't find them. Do you not have your phones on you? I'm sure everyone saw it."

[worthallthis]

"Phones don't work around Dogtown anymore," Winter says, frowning. "Kate, you were supposed to stay back. In case something happened to the rest of us, you could send for help. Did you forget the plan?"

[bossyboiler]

She reaches up and pushes her hair off of her face. She also brushes off some of the debris from her shoulders. "I didn't forget it. But Nia said to come here so here I am." She really doesn't understand what the big deal is. "I'm sure if you were able to see the video then you'd understand just how important it is that everyone comes and we get inside that house."

[worthallthis]

Winter is starting to wonder if it's not a good thing that he didn't see it. He's worried, now.

But they can't send her back now. So he stands up and offers her his hands. "Stick with us, then."