Arthur E. Hastings (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
smilefornow) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
diademlogs2025-10-18 07:53 pm
smilefornow) wrote in diademlogs2025-10-18 07:53 pm
Entry tags:
Open Spooky Log!
Who: Arthur Hastings
Where: A Random Spooky Diffusion Zone
When: Nebulous time in October
What: Investigating a creepy, dilapidated farmhouse and the equally creepy grounds. Fun October flavored shenanigans!
Warnings: Will add if/as needed!
Arthur knows he has options beyond scavenging. It's simply that he's so used to scavenging, and it helps to save money. Money matters in this world. He needs it for things like food and toiletries. And there's all sorts of things to be potentially found in the various diffusion zones. Things not as easily found in stores. Of course there can be danger, but it can be worth it.
And oftentimes, running away is a perfectly valid option. Arthur is quite good at running away from things.
He has found himself at a terribly random seeming old farm property, bordered by woods that appear quite dense and foggy. He parks out front and steps out, squinting in the sudden gloom. It's much darker here than it was up the road....
Spooky Farmhouse
Any hopes he'd had of a fruitful place to plunder are dashed with a close look at the house. Whatever color it may have been, it's just gray wood now. The roof is sagging in a most alarming manner on one side. Vines cover the warped and cracked walls and the steps up to the equally gray wooden porch are cracked and missing a board or two. Dust coats the windows so thickly that there's no hope of seeing inside - and Arthur isn't quite sure he wants to see inside. It's eerily still and quiet here. Surely there's nothing worth finding in this corpse of a house. Everything inside will be in similar disrepair, and the floor likely couldn't be trusted.
He's not even sure he trusts that porch, standing at its base and looking down at it. Surely it's going to grab at his foot with splintery board-edges.
And yet...he swears he can see a faint glow, up in one upper story window where the roof is in better shape. His imagination gets ahead of him, spinning ideas of strange old men brooding by candlelight and other gothic tropes.
"Dear lord, I think I've found what's left of the House of Usher...."
Barren Farm Fields
The grounds offer little more hope. Arthur frowns at the broken wooden fence surrounding what may have been crop fields in better, far distant times. They remind him of the farmland of Wellington Wells, dry looking dirt and the rotted and dried remains of what had once grown there. Weeds are the only things thriving.
He enters the fields anyway. Long dead plant matter crunches under his feet, a dry and brittle sound. The smell here is unpleasant, musty and dead. This was a terrible mistake. He ought to turn round right now and go searching for somewhere else. Something more promising. There is nothing to be found here but scenes right out of M. R. James.
One bit of green catches his eye. He drops to one knee, peering down, brushing away some of the crumbling dirt. A baby turnip.
"But it's not the right season...."
Foggy Woods
The only reason Arthur is at the edge of the woods behind the house is because he thought he heard someone.
A human someone.
He has his modified umbrella in hand, in case that someone is angry or violent. Or....not a someone at all. Maybe it's just the atmosphere that has him imagining all manner of ghouls and spectres, but that doesn't change what he's imagining.
With so much fog and the trees so close together, he can barely see beyond the edge of it. It's a wall of darkness and shadow, and no sound comes now but the rustle of dead leaves and branches. Oh bother and blast! What is he doing here? He probably hadn't heard anything at all...
"H...Hello?"
He'll call out once. Maybe twice.
Then he's gone.
Where: A Random Spooky Diffusion Zone
When: Nebulous time in October
What: Investigating a creepy, dilapidated farmhouse and the equally creepy grounds. Fun October flavored shenanigans!
Warnings: Will add if/as needed!
Arthur knows he has options beyond scavenging. It's simply that he's so used to scavenging, and it helps to save money. Money matters in this world. He needs it for things like food and toiletries. And there's all sorts of things to be potentially found in the various diffusion zones. Things not as easily found in stores. Of course there can be danger, but it can be worth it.
And oftentimes, running away is a perfectly valid option. Arthur is quite good at running away from things.
He has found himself at a terribly random seeming old farm property, bordered by woods that appear quite dense and foggy. He parks out front and steps out, squinting in the sudden gloom. It's much darker here than it was up the road....
Spooky Farmhouse
Any hopes he'd had of a fruitful place to plunder are dashed with a close look at the house. Whatever color it may have been, it's just gray wood now. The roof is sagging in a most alarming manner on one side. Vines cover the warped and cracked walls and the steps up to the equally gray wooden porch are cracked and missing a board or two. Dust coats the windows so thickly that there's no hope of seeing inside - and Arthur isn't quite sure he wants to see inside. It's eerily still and quiet here. Surely there's nothing worth finding in this corpse of a house. Everything inside will be in similar disrepair, and the floor likely couldn't be trusted.
He's not even sure he trusts that porch, standing at its base and looking down at it. Surely it's going to grab at his foot with splintery board-edges.
And yet...he swears he can see a faint glow, up in one upper story window where the roof is in better shape. His imagination gets ahead of him, spinning ideas of strange old men brooding by candlelight and other gothic tropes.
"Dear lord, I think I've found what's left of the House of Usher...."
Barren Farm Fields
The grounds offer little more hope. Arthur frowns at the broken wooden fence surrounding what may have been crop fields in better, far distant times. They remind him of the farmland of Wellington Wells, dry looking dirt and the rotted and dried remains of what had once grown there. Weeds are the only things thriving.
He enters the fields anyway. Long dead plant matter crunches under his feet, a dry and brittle sound. The smell here is unpleasant, musty and dead. This was a terrible mistake. He ought to turn round right now and go searching for somewhere else. Something more promising. There is nothing to be found here but scenes right out of M. R. James.
One bit of green catches his eye. He drops to one knee, peering down, brushing away some of the crumbling dirt. A baby turnip.
"But it's not the right season...."
Foggy Woods
The only reason Arthur is at the edge of the woods behind the house is because he thought he heard someone.
A human someone.
He has his modified umbrella in hand, in case that someone is angry or violent. Or....not a someone at all. Maybe it's just the atmosphere that has him imagining all manner of ghouls and spectres, but that doesn't change what he's imagining.
With so much fog and the trees so close together, he can barely see beyond the edge of it. It's a wall of darkness and shadow, and no sound comes now but the rustle of dead leaves and branches. Oh bother and blast! What is he doing here? He probably hadn't heard anything at all...
"H...Hello?"
He'll call out once. Maybe twice.
Then he's gone.
no subject
He ducks as they pass through the doorway-- or what's left of it. The frame stands bare, the door long vanished, either rotted to dust or spirited away. The hall beyond is narrow, lined with more of those warped portraits whose colours have curdled into ugliness. The floorboards beneath them are cracked and soft in places, but the dust lies undisturbed-- no footprints, no drag marks, nothing to suggest recent passage.
He halts when Arthur speaks, lifting his gaze to the ceiling in mild curiosity. "Just the house settling, probably. Creaking as old buildings tend to do."
Even as he says it, the sound comes again-- a brisk thump-thump, sharp and deliberate, the cadence of something walking. Two feet, not four. His lamplight eyes flare faintly as he adds, "... or perhaps not."
He looks back to Arthur, head angled in quiet inquiry-- an unspoken shall we? For his part, he seems calm enough, curiosity outweighing any trace of concern.
no subject
Arthur looks up, lips pressed into a thin line. Be it monster, man, or spirit, they do not appear to be alone here. Another bit of Poe comes to him, a few lines of The Raven, the house by horrors haunted.
Those thumps sounded much too heavy to be a bird, unfortunately. Even that persistent and menacing Raven of literary fame. And he supposes ghosts don't generally have much of a physical presence, do they? Not in his experience. Very light on their insubstantial feet. Oh he doesn't like that. Perhaps ghosts here are different. Maybe they go thump.
He swallows thickly and nods at the clear question John's shooting in his direction. It would be terribly cowardly to turn tail now, and John doesn't seem scared at all. Of course, why would he? Arthur doesn't want his current company to
knowthink that he's a coward."I suppose if it's something very terrible, I'm quite good at running."
no subject
"If it’s anything very terrible, I'll handle it. I doubt there's anything quite as terrible here as me." The tone is wry, but it carries that faint, candid undercurrent of truth he rarely admits out loud. It isn't that he can't imagine beings here that could surpass him - this place delights in tossing the improbable underfoot, and there are worse things than him in existance - but when one is even half of a fractured Great Old One, genuine fear becomes a rare and peculiar luxury.
He floats forward a few steps, tendrils drifting in slow, alert movements as he scans the gloom, the one coiled around Arthur's waist doing nothing to loose itself.
"Stay behind me," he adds, low and steady. "And fuck, running is sometimes the best option, even for gods. We'll see."
At the far end of the hallway, shadows break around shapes-- doorways left and right, and the suggestion of a staircase rearing upward into deeper dark. He tips his head toward it.
"I suggest the stairs," he murmurs. "If something's waiting up there, better to meet it than let it sneak down on us. Come on."
Something in the way he says it makes the darkness ahead feel less like a threat and more like an invitation to test what’s real.