⇨ 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.