Memento Mori (PC Plot - Deerington)
Sep. 11th, 2019 10:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
onerthesAfter three deaths and seeing friends die repeatedly in Deerington, particularly after the third of Peter Parker's Informational Sessions on the network, Vira-Lorr became obsessed with making sure that multiple recordings of various forms were left behind, just in case. The information contained in these various keepsakes, papers, tapes and CDs were intended as an ongoing record of information gathered about Sodder, the Dog Keeper, Mayor and Mother Superior, the town of Deerington, the "Great Sleep" and the Deer of the city.
The information is separated into two forms below:
1) The first are in CD, Audio Tape and Notebook form in both Vira-Lorr's townhouse on Prospero and in the FEAR headquarters. She has been documenting since Majima's disappearance, but begins in active earnest starting in September of 2019.
2) The second are literal "Memento Mori." Vira-Lorr begins to study in September the method of trapping a memory for repeated recall magically into an object after dredging up a sculpture head from the waters of Lake Tomie near the docks which contains a memory of the coven she believes Sodder's mother or grandmother was a member of. These memento mori will not start appearing until October and November, when her research begins to reach fruition (and I start paying points to create them.)
The information is separated into two forms below:
1) The first are in CD, Audio Tape and Notebook form in both Vira-Lorr's townhouse on Prospero and in the FEAR headquarters. She has been documenting since Majima's disappearance, but begins in active earnest starting in September of 2019.
2) The second are literal "Memento Mori." Vira-Lorr begins to study in September the method of trapping a memory for repeated recall magically into an object after dredging up a sculpture head from the waters of Lake Tomie near the docks which contains a memory of the coven she believes Sodder's mother or grandmother was a member of. These memento mori will not start appearing until October and November, when her research begins to reach fruition (and I start paying points to create them.)
Video Tape Series
Date: 2019-09-11 04:37 pm (UTC)If you are watching this, hopefully I am still alive but I can't guarantee it. I can't guarantee anything in this place. I'm making this tape and others to keep a record of what we've learned so far. Peter, Reaper and Majima are right. We have to keep a record in case we aren't the ones who finish this. I only wish Ramona had done a better job before us... but I don't know how much time she really had and she may have been working mostly alone.
[ahem] I am Vira-Lorr. I am the current Head of Magic at F.E.A.R. We are one, but not the only one, of the groups who fight against monsters and protect the wastes and fellow sleepers in Deerington. What follows is a discussion of some of the things that we have learned Each Tape will cover an individual topic as best I can manage.
Keep in mind, we've been trying to figure these things out for months. Reality changes here so easily that we are not entirely sure that anything is true. Trust nothing absolutely. Be open to anything. Get rest when you can. Keep a record. Eventually, one of us must free Sodder and this world, one way or another.
Tape #1 - Death (Mentions of Death)
Date: 2019-09-11 04:46 pm (UTC)*cough* Moira and Angela are better at this topic than me, and if you can find their notes on the network, they are thorough. But it still bears repeating. Death is not necessarily permanent in this nightmare world, but it potentially can be, to some extent.
Each time someone dies, they are returned to life we believe by the deer of the town and Sodder's power, about a week later. However, according to Sodder this gets harder each time, and each time we are brought back we are brought closer and closer to becoming part of the nightmare itself... at least until everyone is freed.
Each effect is more intense than the last. Each time it happens, the negative effects of a prior death happen. Their severity varies from person to person, and we've found that sometimes they can be mitigated somewhat, but it isn't predictable.
[She shuffled papers and made to look like she was reading them off. It was all for show. This was from personal memories, but she didn't like revealing that.]
The first time, you will be sick to death for a week. It will be the worst flu you've ever experienced. Medicine 'might' work, but I can't guarantee it. You'll ache for the rest of the month afterwards and have trouble sleeping.
Your death will also play out over and over again until it is purged by magic or some other unknown effect, a ghostly white apparition of that moment of death over and over again. If purged, a deer statue will appear in its place.
The second? You will forget some, or all of your memories from your life in your own world. It may be total or partial, but it will persist for about two months if nothing can break you out of the amnesia. The Great Sleep helped some, but again... it's not predictable.
The third? You will forget not only your home for two months but some or everything that has happened here. This may be total amnesia, or partial.
I recommend that you leave some sort of notes behind that you trust yourself to read or view. Things to help you not be too disoriented should you wake in your bead from a death, sick out of your mind and barely able to remember your name. Very few of us are really built to handle this sort of thing, so be prepared. yes, it's morbid, but do it.
For now, we only know of three deaths having an effect. There are guesses and suppositions that we may be able to be brought back six times, and that the seventh is an "unlucky" number, but nobody has been foolish enough to test this.
I will amend this video if we learn more.
Tape #2 - The Boats
Date: 2019-09-11 05:00 pm (UTC)[The feed kicks in again and Vira Lorr isn't actually in her office this time. She's on the side of a mountain in a high, rugged path, pointing towards five creepy looking boats in the side of the mountain some distance ahead. The camera is clearly set out on a rock for stability.]
Hello again. This video pertains to a location in the distance that we've managed to get into. I had been searching Mt Rheum for answers some months ago when I found these steps in the side of the mountain. Observe the colors. They're hard to see if you're not close and magic helps, but if you are very careful you can reach the first of the boats. [She proceeded to demonstrate and carefully showed the steps to the camera feed before putting it back.]
The boats are mostly there to terrify you and make you run away. There are disturbed spirits on the first boat, heads floating around that will bite you. Fire will scare them off and if you grab their hair, you can subdue them. But these are the only real threat we've found. In each boat you will see the strange and surreal, and in the fourth you will see horrible sights, mishhappen bodies and fear that chills you to the bone, but don't disturb them and push past and you may find a creature in the last boat.
Within the third boat, before that, bring sugar, oats, carrots, salt. There are deer, sleepers, trapped in it that cannot leave. Be kind to them and they will give you a gift, but... just be kind to them. They're trapped there.
The shades in the second boat appear to just be a trapped magic spell that is semi aware. You may ignore them safely, and they will ignore you. The fourth boat's fear seems to be its only effect. It feels very real, but nobody has been lost there yet. Still, be careful.
When you find the woman in the far boat, she offers a deal. A drop of your blood and she will allow you to ask one question as a group. It may be of here. It may be of your worlds. We believe she is truthful and supernaturally insightful, but I make no promises.
...if I am alive, and you ask. Please tell me what she said. I will be keeping a record of the questions asked.
[The feed ends. Attached to each copy of the Tape is a set of notes with information on the questions asked.]
1) Q: "How can Sodder be rescued permanently from the situation she is trapped within?"
A: "Start thinking with your minds: we are in hers. Sometimes freedom is the other end of a blade. Death is a permanent rescue."
2) Q: "How do I locate the Mother Superior?"
A: "Find a rosary and when she is near, it will swing in her direction. She may not always be near, but when she is, a rosary will serve as a fine compass."
Tape #3 - Lake Tomie, the Boat Master and Memento Mori
Date: 2019-09-11 05:13 pm (UTC)This was found in Lake Tomie. It contains a memory that it will reveal when touched outside of the water. I may return it eventually, out of kindness to the one that I think made this memory, but for now it is being stored here in FEAR HQ.
When it is touched, it will look at you, smoke will pour out and you will see the distant past. Women are speaking of needing to flee, of the need for a child to be born under a certain sign of the moon as part of rites of witches. They are part of a coven, a gathering of magic users with a powerful bloodline. There are hints at the end that we sleepers know the fate of the one who would come that would not be born under the correct sign.
I believe that the robed figure who leads the women is now the Boat Master. I intend to continue to hunt for more information. The one she speaks of, who will not be born under the correct sign, it is likely Sodder, Sodder's Mother or Ramona Derwin, witch and founder of FEAR. I lean towards the belief that it is Sodder, but it could be either.
Either way, it hints that Sodder and Ramona both carry a great deal of mystical power, which may explain why this whole world, this nightmare is possible. The fact that they were born apart from the sign may mean that this world is somehow tied to that curse.
More, I am not sure how to speculate.
[She covered the head and took out a piece of rock that glittered like stardust.]
However, this is not the only important part of this sculpture. I am firmly convinced its magic can be duplicated, so long as someone is capable of manipulating the mind and memories. A psychic, witch, medium or perhaps even technology may be able with the right research, to pin down what it is that is needed to seal a memory away in this fashion.
Paper rots here easily. FEAR was beyond a shambles when they found it again. Buildings degrade, and the notes found in the Hospital were ruined beyond recovery when Reaper broke in over a year ago. But this? This item lingered. It may be the only way to definitively create a record that cannot be lost, that can linger no matter what happens to us, to prepare others that might have to come after. I call it a "Memento Mori," a memory of death and the dead.
I will be using my studies of the rock from beneath the city, in the tunnels, this and other similar objects. Once I can do it, I intend to create a test memory using antler horn if possible. It has power, because it is tied to us.
If I find the method, I will record it for you.
Tape #4 - The Erasure Plague & The Sinkhole (Description of Blood, Disease, Amnesia Horrors)
Date: 2020-11-01 01:27 pm (UTC)Seated at her desk, she sighed and steepled her fingers.]
I don't want to be speaking to you about this, but there is a possibility it might return, and if it does? I want whoever you are to be able to see this information in advance, in detail.
In January and February of the previous year, we were beset upon by a plague of incredible virulence and horrible implications, referred to as the Erasure Virus. It has struck this town before, if the Dog Keeper is to be believed and I feel that he is. So, I am going to go through the information of the plague, and of its cure.
[She tapped a set of papers on the desk and held them up, reading very obviously. It gave her voice a calculated element, one devoid of emotion. It was pretty obvious that she was doing this in order not to personally think about what she was discussing more than absolutely necessary.]
Early warning symptoms are excessive, almost obsessive thirst, a sensation of itchiness and dryness that is unnatural. Fever is not uncommon, but again it is a dry fever. Skin may be cracked, painfully dry and yellowed.
As the disease takes hold, a violent, high grade fever will erupt. The dryness of the body will worsen. Dry, hacking cough is not uncommon. Outer layers of skin will begin to flake and peel away. It has been visually described as watching paint peel. The layer of skin underneath is painfully, almost excruciatingly dry. Further flaking may result in open bleeding from the resultant wounds.
The victim will begin to lose their memories and become disoriented at the middle stages. Early on, this disorientation is mild, but it will worsen over time. Eventually, major events and key details will begin to be lost and sense of identity will be "erased."
As the fever reaches its peak, the bleeding will become profuse and the person will start to take on a texture almost like a mannequin whose outer layer is flaking away. Amnesia may become severe or total, resulting in hallucinations that someone has become or always been someone else. False memories, those of other sleepers, may appear in the victim. The fever will worsen until death, at which point the full outer layer flakes away to leave a bone-dry husk of a person underneath.
[She set down the papers and put a quartet of item sets in front of her. First was a small pick-axe and a stone that looked like the night sky, glittering like stars. Second was what looked like a lock of hair preserved in a glass case, along with a set of special sheers. Third was a single ... needle? It was made out of antler and next to a hermetically sealed container of blood. Finally, there was a single vial, very carefully preserved and sealed of a serum. Putting on a gloved hand, she reached over and plucked a glass orb with some of the black stone inside and set it out in front of the others.]
Now then, the Cure. We were met by what were called "Golems" from the laboratory on Mt Rheum where we believe Julia Sodder is being held. We believe them to be possibly former sleepers turned into semi-robotic magical constructs, performing research in the labs, and working with Mother Superior. However, we cannot be certain.
When they came down, they infused volunteers with an essence that permitted them to find the ingredients, and for others to synthesize a cure. Anyone without this infusion, which took the form of a green cross for explorers and a blue cross for pharmacists, under the eyes, was incapable of making the cure safely. There is no guarantee that this is still the case. This is Deerington, after all, and things change. However, these are the ingredients.
Hair, taken willingly or unwillingly, with these sheers from the head of a Waste. I suggest asking nicely and offering them something in return. It's much easier and better, and they've been through enough. Blood, siphoned with a syringe made of antler and stored safely in containers like these. Do not bleed out enough that the deer would die. They were willing to help when this happened and hopefully will be again. Lastly, the star stone, which I will get to in a moment, was chiseled off with this chisel. These were synthesized with lab equipment and mixed to for the cure [She held up the vial.] When administered, it caused the vomiting up of a black blob of gunk that was semi-sentient and had to be destroyed before it fled. Fire is preferred.
I have only this one sample, so... if the Erasure Virus ever happens again? We'll need more, because I do not know that the Antidotes or Moon Essence will do the trick. And to get the star stone, you will likely have to enter a sink hole in front of the hospital, should it ever return. [She looked haunted as she said that.]
It is a place of death and horror. Descending, we found countless bodies, almost a hill of them. The floor of caverns that traversed beneath the city streets were made up of zombies stitched together. Occasionally, they would rise up with needles and try to... sew us into the floor. They could be beaten down, but came in great numbers. Do NOT travel alone. Go armed. Go ready for a fight. Be quiet if at all possible.
They are not the worst below. The lickers and winter lanterns are easily worse. The latter are horrid things with glowing eyes that sing a creepy tune heard from a distance. Avoid them. If you cannot? Do not let their gaze fall on you. Stealthily strike them from behind and they can be killed. If they gaze upon you, it can paralyze anyone, and eventually they lunge in to strike, damaging the mind and causing insanity that is incurable without magical means or the highest of technology.
Lickers are bipedal horrors that prefer to crawl on all fours. They're blind, but that doesn't matter. Their senses of taste, smell and hearing are sufficiently advanced to hunt prey. They have no skin, being all exosed brain matter and muscle, with vicious claws and whip-like, violent tongues. They hunt for meat within the tunnels by sound and are as dangerous as any of the silent hunters we have seen in recent months.
If you require a detailed visual account, speak to me. I will let you touch this [She indicated the orb.] It has a memory stored from a successful venture into the tunnels. You will see lickers, the zombie carpet rising up but you will not see winter lanterns. You will also see the cure prepared and administered, along with some signs of the disease.
Gods willing, you will never need any of this, but ... be prepared.