apocalypsehowcomm | Event

Event - Untimely

Untimely

➥ Reality Check

Photo of a light-skinned person with dark hair lying in bed. They are wearing blue and white striped pajamas and a gray eye mask. The covers are white.
(cw: hypersomnia, coma, supernaturally induced metaphysical hunger, psychosomatic pain)

"We all dream," the representative from Copernicus explains, directing attention to a powerpoint slide projected onto the wall beside her. The seminar in one of the conference rooms is ADI's latest effort to combat Ava's influence and take the fight to their foe. If she's going to put them all to sleep, then so be it. Let their ranks be ready for battle there. "My boss, Zyrian Steel, is a big dreamer. Copernicus started as one. We-" She pauses as her eyes seem to catch on someone at the back of the room. "But that-that's another presentation! Suffice to say, Mr. Steel heard you were having some sleep troubles around the office and wanted to help.

"Hello, everyone. My name is Luna, and I'm here from Copernicus' Augmenting Reality group to talk to you about lucid dreaming. Now, I see some of us are here in our Halloween outfits." She smiles and poses in her 50's-style poodle skirt. "Some of you have very impressive make-up and prosthetics, I might add. I was told there might be some stiff competition for this mid-Halloween get-together. Glad to see they weren't having a little fun with me." Any non-human in the audience is given an appreciative nod. "I can see we have a few dreams brought to life here, but what about shaping the dreams we have while we're in them?"

"We're going to go through a few exercises today. The key tricks for inducing lucid dreaming include:

"One, assess your reality regularly. Even if you can't remember falling asleep, take a moment every few hours to test your reality. Dreams might look very familiar, but there will always be inconsistencies and distortions you can catch. This should help you to recognize when you're dreaming.

"Second, the MILD method or Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams. This is a method where you'll set an alarm for 5 hours after you go to sleep. Once awake, you'll tell yourself, 'The next time I'm dreaming, I will remember that I'm dreaming.' You'll also try to imagine yourself in a lucid dream as you go back to sleep. Silly as it sounds, just having that intentionality can be highly effective.

"Third, tell yourself when you go to sleep that you are going to have a lucid dream, that you will be shaping your reality, even if it seems outside of your control. Convince yourself. Convince others.

"And fourth…" Luna pulls out some high-tech looking eyemasks. "You can try one of our patented Lucidio Eye Masks. These devices help to unlock your mind and provide it with a few extra cues that you're dreaming once you enter REM sleep. We'll be handing out a limited number of samples, courtesy Mr. Steel. That's for the end of our presentation. Now, let's go through the stages of sleep…"

Whether you can stay away for the rest of the presentation, everyone will be chivved awake with increasingly harsh prods if they've fallen asleep during the presentation. There are more seminars throughout the next few days, always similar with Luna offering her guidance on lucid dreaming. Maybe it's enough. Maybe it isn't.

The music doesn't stop. As with last October, the haunting tunes extend their grasp from the graveyards and out toward the rest of Gloucester, ringing through ADI's halls, along with the Flophouse. The music induces intense sleepiness, and you might find your coworkers slumping down while they walk or you might fall victim to the music, yourself.

You awake… somewhere. It might be a place that's familiar, or one that's utterly alien. What you know is that there is something in this place that calls to you, sings in your blood and burns to be away from. And yet, you're terrified. There is something here that wants to consume every part of you, suck the marrow from your bones and leave you a husk of what you once were. You need it. You want it. You are hungry for it. For the fear it both brings and demands. This place seems to be some sort of pocket dimension, a personal hell built just for you and the things that sink their teeth into your bones and claw at the back of your mind. This is a terrifying place.

And you're not alone.

If you've been paying attention to the seminars, perhaps you'll be able to recognize this as a dream, something that isn't real. Sensations that aren't real. A world that isn't real. But with that realization comes a choice. You could try to break free of your personal hell, rip it to shreds, make it less horrific. Or… or there is something that calls to you in this place, a thing that sounds the death of who you once were, perhaps. You could call back, reshape this reality to terrorize the others trapped here with you. They'll never know if you were aware or not, will they? They don't need to know you did this to them consciously.

Just this once, what if you gave in? If someone dies in the dream, it's not like they die in real life. Right?

➥ Knead Help

Photo of several bread skulls on a red, glass platter.
(cw: blood, unsanitary food, supernaturally-induced existential dread, supernaturally-induced suicidal thoughts, isolation, dissociation)

Deathbed Bread is off the market. Thanks to a timely tip, the Health Department has finally made a slightly less timely visit to Better Loaf than Never, and were forced to shut the storefront down when their inspectors were unable to gain entry to the kitchen. The lights are still on behind the boarded-up windows, though, the smell of sourdough still permeating the air as loaf after loaf is delivered through a slot from the kitchen through the day and night, bread piling up on the counter and floor behind the register. They come at regular intervals, still warm from the oven. ADI has taken over the little storefront now and set up a tiny field office there, the higher-ups having pulled enough strings for law enforcement to look the other way and not ask too many questions about the people coming and going as efforts to break into the kitchen intensify...and as ADI staff truck away loads of Deathbed Bread to incinerate back at headquarters.

Someone has a bright (or maybe desperate) idea: if they can't get in, maybe they can at least stop the bread from coming out. Boarding up the bread slot, by all accounts, works for perhaps an hour or two as those present can still hear more bread piling up on the other side. Then there's a soul-wrenching cry of anguish followed by a violent attack on the barrier from inside the kitchen that ends with an ADI agent injured by flying debris and a cascade of sourdough loaves stained with bloody handprints. It's enough, though. Whatever supernatural seal that made the kitchen blockade impenetrable has broken, and within the day ADI is able to break down the door.

A thick, unnatural fog is all that can be seen inside the doorway. Rather than the cool of an early morning, though, the damp air is hot and cloying; those who venture inside will soon find themselves drenched with a mix of sweat and humidity from the air. They will also soon find themselves alone, regardless of what companions they might have had with them when they entered. Did you have someone with you? You must have; it would be foolish to enter alone, and yet it rapidly becomes difficult to remember their face, their voice, the touch of their hand. Perhaps you imagined them. Perhaps you've always been alone.

Dark shapes in the fog resolve into tombstones as one nears--no, into huge, upright loaves of bread jutting up from where they've been sunk into the soft ground of this strange graveyard, dry and cracked and dead. There are names pressed into them, dates of death spanning the last few weeks…and the next few. Perhaps you'll spot your own name and today's date. And why shouldn't it be today? Everyone dies, and everyone dies alone. Any action other than laying down on the soft dough of your own grave and letting it swallow you up is only delaying the inevitable.

The spell of deathly quiet over this place isn't complete, though. Keep moving, keep trying, keep hanging on to thoughts of those you love and the clear sky beyond this little world, and you might find a friend who needs your help as much as you need theirs. One or both people encountering each other may feel as though they're in a dream, unable to see or hear the other–but with persistence, with feeling, it's possible to reforge the connection. Love and friendship may shine a light on what was invisible–but so will shared anger, joy, or disgust. Any strong, shared emotion beyond the fear and sadness that permeates this place renders would-be ghosts visible, solid, and real to one another, able to move forward or turn back to escape together–or to begin tearing up the tombstones in fierce denial of their portents.

This hellish graveyard is as far as most will go. Somewhere deeper in what was the kitchen, Bryn still labors and the bread still piles up. It will be up to those few lucky (or unfortunate) enough to stumble across him to put a final end to this.

➥ Never Sleep Again

image of a country landscape with a two-lane road running through it, a bicyclist riding toward an impossible split in the road where the ground splits like a zipper and peels away toward the sky
(cw: child death, body horror, violence, potential injury or character death, nightmare dream logic)

Are you dreaming or are you awake? It becomes harder to tell as the music flows through halls and streets, rooms and parks. It’s dangerous out there, people falling asleep where they shouldn’t, or finding themselves face-to-face with what shouldn’t be when their eyes close unknowingly. Perhaps you planned it, your practice made perfect and your mind set to confrontation, maybe this time you sat down with the intention of stopping this. Or maybe it was simply an accident, but you’re here now. What else can you do but fight to survive?

The hellscape of your mind's torment might be familiar or maybe it’s a new flavor, but there’s something different this time. This time, there are seams; the dream around you is sewn together and you hold the scissors. Fight your way or will your way through, and you can pass between the swatches of your dreaming landscape. Maybe you find a friend or maybe you spot the retreating form of a little girl, turning a corner that isn’t there. Except you can see it now, the corridors of this place. You can follow her.

She leads you on a chase, her laugh a ricocheting titter of joy for the game. If you listen closely, however, there’s more to hear. The further you chase her, the more snatches of sound and sensation follow you as well. Grim melodies and snatches of song, searing heat, the taste of ash in your mouth, the sound of screaming that isn’t quite familiar. Your parents? Someone’s parents. Whispered voices. Snatches of words. ‘Amber.’ yelled, called, pleaded. Hide and seek was always fun.‘Ren’ a name that holds fondness, a feeling of a hundred tiny legs across skin- Stop! A command like a pick through your mind filled with anger and fear. Maybe it isn’t just your nightmares in here…

If you catch her, when you catch her, the game is over. Cornered and angry, Ava skitters up the wall, and across the ceiling to hang above you, neck at an impossible angle and clearly broken for it. “What’s wrong? Not having fun?”.

➥ Mod Notes

GENERAL - Bryn and Ava will both be available for NPC interaction and threading. Players who want to talk to ask Luna anything should respond to the Questions section of the OOC post. The mods will provide her answers to specific questions. Characters who die in the dreams will not die in real life, but they will experience severe fatigue and pain, and may retain scarring in the waking world from whatever killed them in the nightmares. Characters who die in real life… well, they're dead. Please bear this in mind as the game does not have an easy resurrection mechanic.
REALITY CHECK (16-25 October) - Everyone will be encouraged (but not technically required) to attend the lucid dreaming seminar. There will be a few of them over the course of three days. Characters can also pick up one of the Ludicio Eye Mask devices that will assist them in being able to enter a lucid state while dreaming. They don't always help, of course; they're mainly augmenting someone's abilities, provided they're following the guidance provided about how to enhance your lucid dreaming capabilities. Luna is clearly unaware that any non-humans are actually non-humans. She believes everyone is just really into Halloween around here.

The nightmares this go around seem to be specifically focused on the Entities that your characters fear most and/or the ones they might be drawn to. You are welcome to make up a personalized hellscape for your character with anything you'd like in it. These are dreams! Go wild! Characters will fall randomly in and out of each other's dreams and personalized hellscapes. Those who have mastered lucid dreaming will be able to traverse dreams with more purpose, aiming to go to specific people's dreams or get themselves out of ones they don't want to be in. Lucid dream experts will also be able to shape the dreams that are meant for them. In their own nightmares, characters will feel a definitive pull toward one (or more over different nights) Entity and experience an intense fear of that Entity along with the desire to feed it, even if you want away from it.

Feeding the Entities in the dreams and using the dreams to torment others will not necessarily lead to an Entity alignment… but it can do. Or it can set a character down a particularly destructive path in that vein. We would just ask that players remember that ADI is very anti-magic/Entities and anyone who is caught displaying powers/Entity alignment is liable to be mistrusted, watched, and potentially killed by the NPCs if they make themselves too much of an overt problem.
KNEAD HELP (18-25 October) - Characters may find bread gravestones with their own names, the names of people they have lost, and people they fear losing, as well as names of locals who have been confirmed dead due to eating Deathbed Bread. Some gravestones will bear the names and correct dates for people who are actually dead; others will refer to people who are still alive. Gravestone engravings may include characters back home in player characters' worlds, as well as player characters that have been dropped from the game. OOCly, the appearance of a person's bread gravestone is not a reliable indication of whether that person is actually dead or going to die. ICly, characters may or may not realize this fact at players' discretion.
NEVER SLEEP AGAIN (20-25 October) - As characters begin to gain control over their dreaming, they will find they can begin to track down Ava the Lullaby Girl. Confrontation can occur within the dream or, with enough willpower, a character can pull a piece of Ava into the waking world to try and kill her. Upon bringing her to the waking world, characters will find themselves faced with a teenaged version of the girl they were following, Ava’s actual body. She's not a little girl at all, but someone who's just entering into adulthood. Fights are likely to result in injuries ranging from mild to severe and can include death, please keep the setting’s death rules in mind for this. Threads with Ava can start in the dreams or already mid-fight in the waking world! It will take a concerted group effort to actually kill Ava. No one person will be able to do it themselves. Only a piece of her is pulled through or fought in the dreams that any person encounters.

The morning after the last pieces are killed, Ava’s mangled corpse will be found on ADI’s grounds shortly after dawn, clutching a bloody, stuffed lamb in one hand.

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Reality Check | Hunt Domain

Wherever you happen to show up, the sky is blood red and the landscape is made of gigantic bones. Fog creeps around your feet. On a smaller scale, the setting varies. Sometimes you pass through twisting alleyways between shadowy, ill-defined buildings. Mostly, you’ll find yourself in the wilderness. The trees close in around you, oppressive and yet somehow, you know, not enough cover to hide you from hungry eyes.

A)
Eda hasn’t quite gotten the hang of this lucid dreaming thing. Right now it just feels like a nightmare. Like the nightmares she used to have, despite the fact those have been gone for some time now.

She’s shivering, eyes wide and back pressed against a wall. She’s hiding behind a house nestled between the trees, and it isn’t clear if she can’t get inside or if inside simply isn’t any better of an option. She looks scared, and she looks… young. People who know Eda in the waking world might not recognise the small teenage girl with two yellow eyes and bright red hair.

She doesn’t notice another dreamer at first–she’s too busy wrapping her arms around herself and desperately trying to keep silent. Trying not to catch the attention of a huge, shadowy beast that stalks through the trees, sniffing out her trail. It has four legs but the wings, head, and talons of an owl.

It isn’t the creature that shares her mind, not the real one… because it’s too busy having nightmares of its own.

B)
“Why bother, beast? You can’t keep running forever…” The voice is childlike, even sing-song, but there’s an unmistakable edge of malice in it.

A shape passes you, running through the forest. It looks like the creature in Eda’s nightmare, but it’s less shadowy, its feathers a mix of tawny gold and rust-red. And it isn’t chasing her, nor is it chasing you.

It’s not the one hunting tonight.

It’s fleeing desperately from the figure taunting it. They’re cloaked in a dark robe, the only notable features the pattern of moons and stars on the fabric, and their face is obscured in the shadows of their hood.

The owl beast is exhausted. Its paws ache and its wings burn–a dull glow is spreading ever so slowly up the flight feathers, turning them first to embers and then to crumbling ash.

Suddenly it feels a net spread over it, threads of shadow tangling around its body and bringing it to the ground. It struggles and shrieks, clawing its way out and scrambling to its feet. The chase goes on.

The Grand Huntsman is playing with it… but they always win in the end.

C)
For better or worse, the nightmares don’t last forever. The dreams bring nagging hunger, even worse than in the waking world.

The owl beast isn’t evil, but it is a predator. It doesn’t take much of a push for it to remember that it much prefers being the hunter to the prey. Something behind you shrieks, a piercing cry like a hawk.

The beast on your trail looks older, more haggard than it did its own nightmare. It’s grey, shaggy and gaunt. But it’s hungry, and it’s determined, and it shows no signs of slowing as it stalks you.

The observant–or the slow, or the careless–might notice that there’s something tied around one of its back feet. A thin red string that glimmers slightly, trailing off into the distance. Maybe help lies in that direction? Or maybe you should just run.

D)
Eda is slowly gaining control of her dreams, and with it comes a different scene than the first night.

From a clearing in the forest comes the sound of a gentle voice. Sometimes talking softly, sometimes just humming or murmuring vaguely. Eda is sitting in the center of the clearing, and this time she isn’t alone.

The creature in her lap is much less threatening than usual. While it’s clearly the same strange, four legged owl, it’s currently about the size of a house cat. It seems restless, chirping softly and turning in a circle, pawing at her arm. There’s a thin red string, tied around its paw and ending in a similar loop around Eda’s ankle.

She strokes its feathers and tries to hush it. “Come on… it’s alright. We’ve been making so much progress, right? Just… stay here. There’s a good… owl thing.”

Perhaps you shouldn’t interrupt whatever this is. But the little creature looks up suddenly, noticing they’re not alone.

E)
Things seem to be going better… until one night they aren’t.

The creature stalking you tonight is clearly a monster, but one that looks a lot like Eda. It walks on four legs, it has wings, and its eyes are solid black, but its hands are long and almost human, and its face, despite all the sharp teeth, is recognizably that of the witch herself.

It seems they’re both hungry tonight.
You could try to reason with it.
But it’s probably time to run.

Hulk was in the woods. They were dreaming, at least he thought they were dreaming. It felt like it usually does when they whisk away to the world in their head to convene but this time Hulk was alone. Puny Banner, Grey and Pa were all gone.

Hulk's lumbering form eased onto his knuckles in a crouch, much like an ape settling it's weight.

Then something whisked past- feathers and claws. It reminded him of-

"BETTY-?" Hulk barely got the name out before realizing the red wasn't as vibrant, the face wasn't as pretty. It looked like an animal, and it looked like it was scared.

The green figure whipped his head to the sing-song voice and saw its robes of stars and moons and suns.. He may have thought it a friend but as it cast out a net over the scrambling animal- a familiar sensation boiled up quickly in Hulk's chest. Anger- sympathetic anger, knowing what it was like to be hunted.

Hulk barrelled between the robed figure and the Owl-beast as he slammed a foot down and clapped his hands together. Sending out a thunder-wave of force towards the figure, hoping to knock it back further.

"GO AWAY! Hulk shouted, voice bellowing out through the trees around them.

The Collector--or more accurately whatever aspect of the Hunt currently looks like the owl beast's memory of the Collector--is caught off guard. This isn't the way this goes. They're knocked back a good distance, though they right themselves again quickly.

They tilt their head to the side at a slightly unnatural angle, more curious than anything else. There's still no face visible, just the glint of a golden crescent moon.

"What's this... do we have a third player?"

The owl beast, meanwhile, finishes tearing its way out of the net and takes the chance to catch its breath, watching in confusion. This isn't how this goes! It sniffs in the direction of the new creature, backing away slowly with the feathers along its spine ruffled.

Hulk glanced back at the Owl beast to make sure it was alright. As the huntsman- or collector rather, spoke Hulk would scowl more but take a slow, gentler step down towards the creature. Tentatively Hulk reached out as his expression softened however best it could, before pausing and moving his hand to a swatch of the net on the ground.

"HULK SAID-" He howled once more, before whipping around to face the Collector with net in hand, "GO!" Hulk raged on, quickly closing the distance between the two of them before attempting to toss the net over the figure instead.

He clearly wasn't interested in banter.

The owl beast stopped backing up, though it still looked more than a little wary. It stayed where it was, but gave another hesitant sniff in the new creature's direction. They weren't chasing it, but then again that was a rather low bar.

The net fell over the Collector who didn't dodge... but did melt into a pool of shadow on the ground before popping up again a few yards away. "You're no fun," they complained, crossing their arms. Their form flickered, just a little. The structure of the dream was faltering slightly under the changing narrative.

Hulk was getting fed up, a boiling frustration was building in his chest. Normally, people were scared of Hulk. This made them hurt Hulk, or run from Hulk. But this *stupid cape-thing* was just bothering him. It wasn't reacting, wasn't leaving.

Hulk looked back to the Owl Beast, the way it was hesitating in place, recoiled and nervous. He shook his head before whipping back around to the Collector. He lurched forwards and in a swift motion managed to grab hold of the collar of its cloak.

"PUNY STRANGER TALKS TOO MUCH!"

And then.. with all the force Hulk could muster- which for Hulk in a dream was hard to calculate finely with how it seemed to increase tenfold over his usual already absurd limits, he reeled around and threw the nightmare Collector as far as he could into the horizon over the trees.

Eda Clawthorne | The Owl House | OTA

B (Hulk)

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