February Catch-all | Open and closed starters

[godfragment]

Who: John Doe and various others!
Where: Panorama, The Fringes, Kolliery
When: Throughout February
What: various

Warnings: Blanket canon warnings likely to apply. Will update if specifics are needed later.

((Starters below, both open and closed. Plot with me brightflowers or PM!))

Comments

Closed to Viktor (and Jayce?) - Cube shenanigans and project proposal

[godfragment]

[Concrete yawns wide and empty as Viktor sets them down on the top level of an abandoned parking structure, its stacked floors like the picked-clean ribs of some colossal carcass. Wind moves through the open sides in low, hollow breaths. Old oil stains bloom across the cement, indicating life had existed here once. A diffusion zone, quiet for now. Mercifully solid.

John does not feel entirely housed within himself, almost dazed. The world arrives a fraction too late, like sound out of sync with its source. His tendrils answer his will, but the will feels distant, relayed across an immeasurable span. Tentacles spread instinctively over the warm concrete to steady him, void-dark lengths adjusting to a gravity that feels subtly misaligned. One coils too tight, another lags, as if the signal had too far to travel.

He glances toward the low barrier at the edge of the structure, marking the sun's new angle. Shadows have shifted. The air has cooled. He turns one hand, flexing long claws as though testing unfamiliar machinery. The motion feels oddly borrowed, somehow, as though his body doesn't quite belong to him. Which... isn't exactly a sensation he's unfamiliar with.]

It was... surprised when I reached out to it. Tentative, but-- I don't know. Curious.

[That is what lingers most. Not hostility. Not the vast, glacial indifference of a whole and unfractured god, but recognition, cautious and interested. Something that felt unnervingly, impossibly like him.]

Road trip + Kolliery visit | Closed to Alucard, Viktor and Jayce

[godfragment]

[Kolliery in deep winter feels less like a town and more like a stubborn interruption in an endless white wilderness. Snow falls in a fine, ceaseless drift, softening the brutal edges of rigs and factory roofs until everything looks half-buried, like machinery sinking slowly into a frozen sea. Exhaust plumes and steam vents breathe pale ghosts into the air, rising straight up in the brittle cold before vanishing into a sky that never brightens beyond a dim, iron-grey twilight.

The polar night presses close. Streetlamps burn around the clock, their light swallowed only a few yards out, leaving pockets of yellow glow adrift in blue-black dark. Sound carries strangely - distant clanks of metal, the low grind of drills, the cough of engines - muted and directionless, as if the snow itself is listening. Tire tracks disappear within minutes. Footprints blur at the edges, then fill, erasing proof anyone passed through at all.

People move quickly between buildings, wrapped in layers, faces hidden behind scarves and frost-stiff fabric. No one lingers outside unless they have to. Somewhere beyond the last row of worker housing, the land drops away into a blank, frozen vastness where ground and sky are almost the same colour.

Not the best time of year for a visit, perhaps, but here they are.]

[cryptsleeper]

[Alucard is relived he spent the past month lining a coat with fur from...some beast...that he bought at the winter market. The bits of grey that stick out from the cuffs and collar are warm in and of themselves, but all of the interior that now clings to his torso? It is downright toasty.

He lined gloves as well and had the thought to bring a few larger scraps with him in case there became a need for repair. Now though, walking through the night air, he is considering the wisdom of just adding them to the coat's interior on top of what is already there.

Gold eyes flicker skyward, then down to the ground to observe the snow. Or perhaps more accurately, frozen over piles.]

Almost nothing here has melted on its own.

OPEN - haunted house?

[godfragment]

[Word travels in Panorama the way damp creeps into walls-- slow, persistent, impossible to fully ignore. There's a building on the thinning edge of town, people say. Not ruined enough to be condemned, not whole enough to be lived in. And yet lights flicker sometimes behind the top-floor windows where no power runs. Low sounds ride the wind-- thuds, a scrape, movement where nothing should be.

Those who get too close report the same thing: a pressure behind the eyes. A crawling dread that doesn't feel like fear of the dark, but fear of being noticed by it. Thoughts that don't feel entirely self-made enter you, a susurrus of overlapping whispers at the back of the mind-- Go. Leave now. Anywhere but here. A certainty that if you linger, something vast and terrible will turn its attention your way.

Maybe you've heard the rumours. Maybe curiosity outweighs sense. You climb the narrow stairs, expecting ghosts, or rot, or some shrieking thing from a horror film. Maybe you expect nothing at all but hyperbole and overactive imaginations.

The stairs wind in on themselves, narrow and uneven, boards bowed with age or - sometimes - missing altogether. The last flight is steeper, tighter, ending at an attic door you'll find either chained and padlocked... or perhaps standing quietly ajar.

If you pick the locks, or simply step through, you find a wide loft with plank floors, patched and sanded smooth. Exposed beams arch overhead, old damage carefully mended. Large windows line one wall, admitting the light, or the glitter of the city at night. Fur throws on a battered sofa, neatly stacked books, across a space that feels lived in rather than laired in. Still-- knocking is highly recommended.

You might find it empty at first. Only to feel, moments later, a dark and concentrated presence enter behind you. Or perhaps you walked in uninvited and find him there already: something tall and void-dark, crowned in gold, tendrils shifting as lamplight eyes turn your way.

An eldritch horror, yes.

But also... it's John Doe.

If you don't flinch too hard, don't react too poorly, he might tilt his head, study you in that steady glow, and - after a moment's consideration - gesture you inside, invite you to stay awhile, or ask why the fuck you're bothering him at this time of day. If you're already familiar with him, chances are high you'll be greeted pleasantly.

If you scream, reach for a weapon, or let revulsion speak first... the dread from the stairwell will bloom into something far more intimate, and you will find yourself very suddenly, very desperately certain that you need to be anywhere else in the world.]

[cryptsleeper]

[Give a dhampir the rumor of a haunted building and he will go right up to it to ascertain the truth. Not because he wants to, but in this case, it is because it is familiar and he doesn't want to forget how to deal with this problem. Besides. Fern's recent concern about the Midnight Skinner not being entirely gone does add some level of real concern to all of this.

So Alucard spends a few days walking past the place when evening falls, noting the flickering lights and asking those who live near the place about unusual noises. The stories are consistent with effects, especially the note of dread that suddenly creeps in.

He approaches the house during the daylight, acting as if this is his own place of residence. Up and into the building itself, mindful of where the effects truly begin to settle in.]

[godjr]

[ Jack is naturally curious at the sound of anything haunted. He and his family spent time helping ghosts cross over, and this didn't sound like the fake haunted house they had during Halloween time. This seems more like the real deal. He decides to go check it out and make sure there are no spirits stuck who need help.

He's in his grocery store clerk clothes with an apron and his name tag on it since he came from stocking shelves. It's the thing they use him most for due to his strength and ability to fly up to the highest areas. They don't have any equipment for tracking ghosts here like he did back home, so he'll have to hope he feels the cold spot and figure out what to do from there.

When he first steps into the area, he doesn't sense anything off, so he curiously wanders the lower floor first. It's when Jack starts go to up the stairs that he decides to speak, because he sort of gets that he might be walking into someone's house, technically.]

Hello? Is anyone here? Are you a ghost who needs help?

[ Jack knows that spirits usually don't know they're ghosts, or don't even think they want help, so it's not really the best approach, but he is trying his best here. He walks toward the attic, not fully expecting someone to respond to him, but he starts to sense someone familiar the higher he gets.]