⇨ KERNER ISLAND

[ringleaders]

Who: Anyone who fits the stipulations below!
When: Day 160 - Day 169
Where: Kerner Island
What: Remember the Spectres? Now's the time to meet them, if that's something you want to do for some reason.
Warnings: Individually marked!

A GHOST TOWN↴ [This is a selective mingle log. Note: characters who are young, have flying dæmons or no dæmons at all, and/or have angelic aspect can come to Kerner. Others will feel the presence of Spectres too keenly to set foot on the island. Ask Joysweeper if you want to see what your characters find or talk to NPCs. ] Kerner Island is covered in plants and animals not local to the reality, let alone the area. Most noticeably it’s absolutely overgrown with a version of kudzu which produces fuzzy kiwifruits. The vines half-choke trees and splay across buildings, creating deep cover for various animals, including shy, harmless rabbit-deer-rodents sporting tiny antlers. There are a few windows to other worlds scattered about, and during the day a couple dozen children ranging from ten to their mid-teens can be found ducking in and out of them. The oldest of them stays night and day unless persuaded to leave. The biggest concrete danger comes from blue tektites ranged in size from softball-sized juveniles up to beachball-sized adults. The children kill them whenever they can, seeing them more as a nuisance than a real danger - a twelve year old and their dæmon and a big stick can easily defend against several at once. To children and unsettled teenagers the tektites and any new hostile creatures coming from other worlds are the only danger on Kerner. Teenagers closer to settling will feel a sourceless unease, and their dæmons will see things out of the corners of their eyes. The closer someone is to settling, the more they will be able to perceive Spectres, and the more Spectres will notice, passively leach from their souls, and be drawn to them. The Spectres are intangible, insubstantial, noiseless, and nearly invisible even to adults. They seem formed out of tenuous things like mist, heat-haze, smoke, light reflecting on water, and have twelve-foot-tall shapes that are usually read as columns, or trees, or humanoids. Adults and settled teens can sense a Spectre’s effect on their soul and and pinpoint it by the feelings of nausea and wrongness. Spectres are mindless, drawn to consume souls in the same way fire is drawn to consume fuel. If they can physically reach a dæmon it only takes a few minutes to consume it; if they can’t they feed passively on the internal soul or the soul’s connection to the body, which takes hours to a day to complete. A Spectre’s passive range is much wider than their physical reach. Having an adult soul and being anywhere near Kerner is unpleasant. Even a few minutes of passive exposure to Spectres leaves the soul worse off. It's more obvious with dæmons, which go quiet and appear to be in pain, but their bodies, and anyone who still has internal souls, feel it too. Most people experience nausea, disgust, weariness, and mounting despair often coupled with a desire to hide it and pretend nothing’s wrong. Even when safely away effects linger, but creating or building things, or spending time around other people, helps restore the soul. Different kinds of magic can lure and direct some Spectres out of the way. They can’t be damaged physically or by most magic. Angelic magic has some effect on them directly and might destroy a few, but the Spectres are so thick on the island that staying to fight is just going to result in being overwhelmed. This is not a place of glory, unless you’re a kid.

Comments

[joysweeper]

During the performance week there's one guest who has no interest in the attractions or the excitement of meeting people from other worlds. Marta's a short, plump middle-aged woman with a seahorse dæmon floating in a levitating bubble of water. Seahorses can't emote well, but the woman's body says it all. She's disheveled and has dark circles under her eyes, and her hands are continuously wet from reaching into the bubble so she and her dæmon can touch. There's an engraved ring around his tail identical to the one on one of her fingers.

Marta's there because word that the Carnival is from another world is spreading, and she asks for help. Her son has been missing for months after receiving some bad news. He's been on the island, and he's just stayed there. Children coming and going have seen him, whole and healthy, and he's refused to accept messages or give them reassurances to take to his parents. Even though he's been showing hints of settling, he's staying.

So his other mother decided to fly over to talk to him. She's a witch, it should be okay, she's done it before, but it's been hours and Laurel hasn't come back, and neither has her dæmon. Please, can't you do something?

This will lead to some small boats being taken across the water late in the afternoon. Summarize please - before then, do you ask her about the situation? Do you make plans? If you're going and aren't on one of the boats, are you going to get there some other way?

[amusicaladventure]

Ash is gonna go over on the boats, sure, but she wants to know: Laurel was a witch, why didn't she keep her daemon well away from the island? Or did she mean the daemon was away, but hasn't come back anyway?

[joysweeper]

Laurel did. Having your dæmon out of reach doesn't make being among Spectres safe, but it buys time. Still, an hour or so before Marta went in search of help her dæmon, a black vulture, got super uneasy and flew off himself. He was upset and in too much of a hurry to explain.

Perhaps he's there to help persuade or for magic. Both halves of a witch can cast spells, and they're stronger in one place.

/late

[destiny_key]

Sora kindly asks Marta a bunch of questions, trying to figure out details about what happened, and maybe get some more information about the island itself without upsetting her. He also asks for descriptions of her son and Laurel, so he can know them if he sees them.

After, he'll go across in the boats with Rohan.

[joysweeper]

Marta had only been to Kerner a couple times, when she was eleven; she settled pretty early, and that was a long time ago now. She has only really vague hazy memories of it as basically a thing tons of other kids loved but she didn't like having to make the trip, and didn't think it was worth it. Otherwise she just knows what anyone knows.

Ames is a lanky boy of sixteen, old for an unsettled person, with longish brown-blond hair. She'd describe him as willful and impulsive but not a bad boy, but she seems anxious about that.

Laurel is an elder witch, immensely tall and both young and old at once, dressed in fine, billowing black silks despite the cool spring weather. Marta visibly restrains herself from going on unhelpful rapturous tangents about how beautiful and kind she is. Laurel's dæmon is a black vulture.

[joysweeper]

When approaching the island the trash and campfires and the wild overgrowth of vines are clearly visible, but for those that can see them, the Spectres are too many and too indistinct to count. They throng the shores and drift into the surf, less and less tall as they get further out. They aren't floating, it's like they have to be anchored to the ground and can't submerge. Water passes through them without the slightest ripple.

Anyone who can see them can feel them too, a slowly building dismay and unease in the pit of the stomach that gets worse when actually among the Spectres, which will gather around and follow anyone who can percieve them.

A couple of children and their galloping dæmons chase each other down the dirty beach, passing through the cloud of Spectres without a care until they see people approaching. If they see adults they yell things to the tune of "Go away!" and "You're crazy!" and "Grown-ups aren't allowed!" before running off again. If not they may stay.

[You can assume that this happens to anyone approaching Kerner. If your character is willing to go rescue a witch, please keep it to one thread, no particular posting order.]

[amusicaladventure]

"This sucks," Ash said to no one in particular, her skin crawling in downright waves as the Spectres take slow note of her. Twyth was safely away, on the wing well away from the island, and Ash was grateful that she was a witch her and could do that.

She didn't have her guitar here, but she didn't need it to call on her magic. Still, she missed its reassuring presence the way a swordswoman would miss her weapon, never mind that her body was strong enough to fight foes on its own.

"Hey, you kids! Anyone seen a witch around here?!"

[stillwinningthehardway]

Scout shakes her head, not disagreeing, but wishing she'd turned back, like the first time she'd tried approaching Kerner. This doesn't feel as bad as that got. Instead of being in the boat with her, Tràkata is high in the air, turning in uneasy circles, and doesn't that look weird under the glamor that makes him resemble a bird. Up there he's out of the reach of the Spectres, so Scout herself can be among them. She feels it though.

In a way it reminds her of being in the presence of Ventress or the traitor. There's no sense of a malevolent personality shining with power and contempt, no, but there's something of that sickening lurch, that hint of this can't be happening. She struggles to work around it, shading her eyes to stare after the children. "Is that a rude gesture, or is he pointing inland? It's probably both."

She brought a cloudpine bough. Scout's not confident enough in her grasp of the witch ability to fly with them to have taken it over, but she knows she can use it to get off the ground if she has to. That's reassuring, if nothing else is.

[osteothropy]

Sans had been unsure about going, but given that some carnival members obviously decided it was a good idea - he decided he'd go along to keep an eye on things. After all, it'd be way better to keep a look out now than have to drag a soulless husk back later.

Soulless husk. Weird - the idea that a body could exist without one.

This means that when Sans appears, it's by air, and with angelic wings extended. They radiate the same angelic aura he had in Portland, made of seemingly intangible light. He hovers above the ground with his hands stuffed in his pockets - even being up here, the spectres make him feel extremely so easy, with his soul especially vulnerable to outside effect.

Helvetica crawls on top of his skull, observing the ground below.

"Do you suppose our nature is the same as the angels spoken of in this place?" she muses, merely observing for the time being.

[joysweeper]

From the air, it can be seen that the largest building on the island has three sort of wells or pits sunk into the flat roof, all of them open to the sky. The kudzulike plant covering most of the structure has overtaken it to the point where from the ground it looks like some kind of steep hill, like most of the other buildings here.

There's a cry and some kind of commotion, and a big black vulture-dæmon flies up out of one of the empty skylights, climbing fast.

Two things are strange about that: he flies quickly and strongly out of the normal dæmon range, and one of his wings doesn't look like flesh and feathers, or even like a normal dæmon wound. It's a thick concentration of golden motes held in the shape of a vulture wing, by will or magic. With every wingbeat some of the Dust composing that wing scatters and dissipates, and he lurches, rocking in the air.

Seeing people who aren't children, he cries out "Oh! -oh, help! She'll die!"

For Reira

[joysweeper]

Ames is, loosely, the leader here, which is to say when problems come up kids usually come to him. He's sixteen, pimply and lanky and unkempt, and as of the Carnival's arrival in Greysol hasn't left the island at all in over a month. This is unusual. Many children will stay overnight sometimes but this isn't a great place to live. He's dragged some furniture into one of the small, vine-overrun houses and seems ready to stay.

His dæmon is one of the rare same-sex ones and is usually a tanuki or a tiny prairie vole, changing infrequently and with a certain amount of effort. Spectres cluster around him and he and his dæmon often blink and glance around or rub at their eyes. He's close enough to settling to start sensing them and feeling the effects of their presence, off and on.

[soft_focus]

Ames no doubt (being the Leader, Of Course) noticed when a particularly odd child made her way to the island not long ago. Any of those who actually spotted her arrivals (because she also LEAVES often, and often the same way) would have caught the first strange bit. For all that her Daemon keeps shuffling and shuffling (though lately, they seem to have extended the time to a whole TWO MINUTES. Wow!), the girl practically mastered taking advantage; from the boat to the shore line, it was first a matter of getting airborne, and then bouncing off various large flying baby monsters until she was at her destination.

Right now her daemon stays small however, occasionally sitting on her head, or occasionally shuffling around her feet. The girl doesn't say anything-but after a while, Ames might realize he's being stared at.

....And if he doesn't, she doesn't stay quiet forever.

"....There's more empty spots near you.." she finally says, swallowing.

It's rather unnerving.

[joysweeper]

She came up when he was telling a pair of sugar-smeared young brothers how to handle a problem in Candyland.

"This is what happens when you go real far from a window though, new problems. -no, listen, they are made of candy, they are literally made of candy, all you have to do? Is take a bite. Just bite them. That always works there."

The brothers, satisfied that their problem has been addressed anyway, turn and go, shoving at each other while their dæmons leap at and wrestle each other. Ames is not particularly bothered by being watched, kids who want his attention usually do this if they don't interrupt.

He crosses his arms across his chest and leans against the vine covered wall, his dæmon crouched by his feet and shaking his tanuki head as if fly-bothered. "Yeah? Shoulda seen me an hour ago. Six people at once! What d'you want from me?"

[soft_focus]

.... She immediately shakes her head, instead pointing to where a spectre likely is.

"....Not people. Empty things."

....This is perhaps a little more worrisome. "....Normally they don't move to places..."

[joysweeper]

There's absolutely a Spectre there. He's surrounded and enveloped in them and has only the vaguest inkling that something may be wrong.

His dæmon gives Reira a look which involves a lot of the white of his eye showing. The rest of Ames scoffs. "The creepy kid shtick isn't funny, but someone always goes and tries it. Find a different mark."

[criticallyfucked]

Despite the Psionic's best efforts, keeping Foster van Denend on the carnival grounds had proven a futile endeavour. And honestly, he probably should have expected that. Because for all his impairments--or possibly because of them--Foster is remarkably resourceful when it comes to getting his way.

The boat he'd... not-all-that-gently requisitioned from a local is still where he'd left it when he finally finds his way back to the harbour, and he takes it as another sign. Like Lapis. Like her abrupt departure. Like the Idea.

This destination was meant for him--he was meant take this boat, meant to go to the island. He is certain, and absolute in his certainty. That this path--this meaning--was made clear to him for a reason.

The warnings from true bears are shed like water--this is why he was given this form (this familiar form!) instead of his own, instead of a daemon, which would have prevented him from living this moment. This is something he is meant to do. This is his purpose here.

Or at least the start of it.

It's not... a good feeling, wandering the shore, but it's not... unfamiliar, either. Strange wildlife, eerie shapes, horrible feelings and unreal sensations--none of these are unexpected, to him. The first one because of the Carnival. The rest...

It's hard for him to tell, entirely, what is him and what is... here. This place. What he was warned about. But he is unfailingly, rapturously devoted to this search.

What is he searching for?

He doesn't yet know.

But he's certain that he will.

He will find it. And he will recognise it when he finds it.

....or it finds him.

[soft_focus]

Well. Reira, for her part, is having...mostly a blast. She hasn't yet spoken with Ames, suffice to say. For now though, she's already long stolen away the tektite and brought it back. Now? Now...she's sitting with a very, very cautious little deer-rabbit. She doesn't intend to take THIS one. She's pretty sure it's only sticking around because it keeps her from the other ones. But so far, she thinks she's made it clear she won't hurt the other and is now having her fingers sniffed.

That is...about when she realizes someone is coming. She doesn't move suddenly though-she doesn't want to scare this thing!! She just slowly turns her head, staring through the bushes and kudzu, and eventually speaks. "....H'llo?"

[criticallyfucked]

Foster is.... not very stealthy. There's something about topping 500 lbs that makes it hard to be sneaky. He is, however, intensely on edge, and the sound of Reira's cautious greeting brings him to a dead stop. Frozen, tense--not entirely certain whether the voice he heard was real--or 'real.'

The person he... smells? Is that a real person? Is... was... someone here?

Small as Reira is, foggy as the island is, dense as the kudzu is... he heard her, and he smelled(?) her... but he hasn't yet seen her.

[soft_focus]

Well, that unease she's sensing sure isn't helping matters at all. But the source of it pauses, and as such Reira sighs, bidding her deer rabbit thing goodbye as she moves closer.

Let's try this again, shall they?

"Hellooooooo...?"

[criticallyfucked]

He.... definitely heard that. It's... frustrating. Difficult, to focus at all in this hazy reality--

It feel like the haze is not just around him, not just in the air and in the earth and in the sights and sounds and the brush of strange leaves against his limbs as he moves, but also inside his mind.

But--

Well, he actually almost trips on her.

Which makes for the second time he's almost tripped on Reira at 500 lbs, and the second time he's managed to avoid running her the fuck over in the process. He actually scrambles over her, gracelessly stumbling and sidestepping through the kudzu until he's facing her again.

"Reira." He angles his head up slightly, looking down at her with a very carefully neutral expression.

This.... is not exactly what he was expecting when he came in search of a sign.

Everyone look at this idiot.... idiots?

[bananaspeedrider]

[Yugo regularly spits in the face of danger. Doing stunts to that degree is part of his job as a daredevil is just a bonus.

So it was his bright idea no matter how long he debated with his own soul about the matter to stick his nose where it shouldn't be for the sake of looking around the place. And since getting a boat wasn't happening, he's in swim trunks and nothing else when riding on Tama to the island. Once they reach the shore...]

Why did you talk me into this?

Didn't you want to see what this place was about too?

I did. The moment has passed.

[Punctuated by the seal soul letting loose surprise blast of fire that flies over Yugo's head toward some looming shapes. Which seems to do nothing more than scatter them at most.]

Definitely a bad idea.

I'm fine, we're fine...!

[Blatant lies, "says" a dragon from the safe and waterproof bag containing it and the rest of Yugo's deck. They both look to be ill, on and off.]

[soft_focus]

[Hoooboy. One minute there's a void some ways off, right where there's some growing Anger, and the next...There's feelings coming through it again. Reira is rather tentatively peering around a tree covered in kiwi kudzu, but when she sees who it is, she....

Well. Widens her eyes, frankly, because that guy looks like Yuuya but Bigger, and a Dragon, so-]

...Zarc..?

[So she doesn't sound scared, despite that. She sounds hopeful, if anything.]

[bananaspeedrider]

... What did they just say? [Tranquil fury.]

IT'S YUGO, NOT FUSI-

They said Zarc.

WELL IT'S NOT ZARC EITHER!!!

[And original flavor fury that swings abruptly into confusion.]

Wait a second how...?

[soft_focus]

H-NHHNGH-!

[OH GOD SHE HAS MADE A MISTAKE.

Not just any mistake either. The sharp snap makes her flinch and cringe, and briefly her eyes dot with tears as she holds her head. Her daemon, behind her, shapes into a young-but no less smaller-clear wing for a moment, before flashing through each variant of the thing one after another at intervals of 300 seconds.] Y...You looked...

I didn't mean it..!

[don't be mad don't be mad don't be mad-]

[bananaspeedrider]

[Intrigue flashes from the synchro dragon toward the rapidly shifting daemon, if Reira can sense that as well. Though Yugo and Tama's shared confusion shifts nearly as quickly into frantic panic over yelling at the little kid so badly enough to shake them.]

Woah hey I'm not mad now, really!

Now look at what you did.