⇨ 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

[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."

[soft_focus]

... "Creepy..?" Honestly she has no idea how eerie she is. The point is, however, that as her tone grows more insisting and worried, she...well.

She's worried. "...I was just saying they're there, and normally they don't do that..! And...and everyone was saying there were bad things here, but they ignore kids, but they aren't ignoring you because they keep coming here, and..."

And she swallows. "...that isn't good, I thought. ...so...you should know the empty spots are there..."

[joysweeper]

The hairs on his arms are rising, hidden by the light jacket he wears. It's a little chilly out here. Ames crosses his arms. "What, Spectres? You can just say Spectres, you know. You don't gotta be coy about it. I'm fine. Those assholes, if they're even really real, they won't touch me."

His dæmon becomes a tiny, round-faced rodent with a short tail and curls against his shoe. Ames stoops to pick him up and hold him in the palm of his hand. "You got a ride from Murphy, didn't you? He's just a coward."

[soft_focus]

"....Spectres sounds like a ghost," she mutters. "...like something with a heart. ....there aren't any feelings there though. ....not even other people's feelings passing through them. ....they're just empty places..."

...it is, perhaps, worth noting that her daemon has now shifted at least five times. But moving on. "....They keep coming closer though... ....I don't think they won't touch you forever..."

[joysweeper]

"Then you don't know what you're talking about. I ominous pause am fine." Ames kicks at a flattened, rusted soda can. There are so many here it's harder to find a square yard without any on it. In his hand he strokes his soul, keeping him out of the kid's sight. "Got any other long lapse spooky stuff for me?"

[soft_focus]

"Our stutter is not pause," speaks her daemon quite abruptly, voice deep and far beyond the seeming age and maturity of its cycling juvenile stages. "It is fear of what once was."

Perhaps not entirely accurate-but her daemon is her protection, that part of herself capable of care, and now it intends to step in. Reira swallows, her face burning-not from embarrassment, but indeed the fear he speaks of.

"...I..." What do Ames' emotions tell her, or his daemon's? Regardless of what it is, she's certain.

"....it doesn't feel like you do either though..."

And that?

That does scare her, her tiny voice not merely stammering but now wavering with it.

[joysweeper]

Mostly, he's annoyed and a little on edge. Clearly, this kid and their weird flickery baby dæmon is just the newest in a long line of people who thinks they know better than him and wants him to do things he has no interest in doing. If he's not going to take it from a six-century witch he's not taking it from some kid, either.

"Great. Go on then. Tell me what you want me to do." Ames rolls his eyes. But I'm not going to do it is very clearly implied.

[soft_focus]

"I... I don't know either..!" She finally shouts, choking on the scream. "...I'm just..I....th...they brought someone back, and they were empty too," she manages to start crying. "And it wasn't even like when it was too dangerous for me to feel, there was nothing there, and all people said was they got too close and...! ....and I don't want anyone to be like that...B...because it seems worse than even just listening to everyone all the time..! At...at least then there's still on feeling...gh..."

Daemon's turn. For a moment they are a younger version of a black crane. "Why presume we know. We merely sense the emotions at hand. They tell us where danger lies, and where the heart wavers."

[joysweeper]

Ames is self-centered and kind of an ass in the way young people can be, but he's not a monster. He narrows his eyes and takes a breath, and then his dæmon interrupts him by nipping the base of his thumb. A lot of people do this sort of thing. Ames clenches his jaw and strokes his soul's back, dragging in a breath to let out in a sigh.

His tone is a shade condescending, but maybe that's better than before? "Hey, hey, don't do that. Look, this place upsets you. I get it. It upsets a lot of people. You can leave, or you can come with me when I go to the Doubloon General. Okay?"

He does spend a lot of time in other worlds. Being outside of the Spectre's reach might just be what's saved him for this long.

[soft_focus]

"....It's not this place that hurts though." Briefly, her daemon ends up some sort of large coloured mammoth, drowning the girl in its fluff. "...It's when people get hurt, or sad, or scared...or...or angry..."

She swallows-but the tone is, at least, a bit better. "...Feelings like that hurt. ...and... ...And it's strange when there's empty places that feelings don't exist, I guess. ...I just don't want other people to end up empty too."

But perhaps that in itself is a little presumptuous as well. Reira chews her lip, staring at the ground. "....what's Doubloon General..?"

[joysweeper]

"Fuck, then you should like just hang out with repressed people on the mainland. Preach not grabbing at someone's soul, if we didn't have seizer freaks everyone'd be happier. Don't walk into closed doors and don't do things you know will hurt, that's free advice." Avoiding uncomfortable things: the Ames manifesto right now.

He hoists an empty bag over his shoulder.

"Free stuff central, if you don't get caught. 'Ventually they'll start getting wise and we'll have to close it off and make a window to somewhere new, but right now they have no idea."

[soft_focus]

The frown she fixes him with is stern.

"..........It's worse with more people," she says rather lowly. "....You can't avoid things all the time anyway. ...It's just dumb not to avoid things that definitely hurt the most."

As it is. "...I know how to not get caught," she says without pause. "...If I didn't, I wouldn't be here, I think."