Encounterlogs
Claires Odd Encounter Sr Deacon 240131
Claire, while enjoying an early morning swim at the Elm Street apartment complex pool, experiences a peculiar glitch on her phone screen. Despite the biting cold, she dives into troubleshooting, only to receive a static shock, accompanied by ghostly splashes within the pool. A spectral vision emerges of an adult figure forcibly drowning a child, replaying in a chilling loop. With protective instincts kicking in, Claire bravely approaches, offering a hand to help but pulls away at the last moment, sensing grave danger. As a tech expert, she breaks out her prototype anti-ghost device playing a high-frequency sound that causes discomfort for both her and the local wildlife but disrupts the ghostly replay.
Realizing her approach and technology aren't enough to resolve the haunting, Claire reluctantly beats a retreat back to the warmth and safety of her building. The traumatic imagery of the apparent murder and her failure to provide peace for the restless spirits haunt her as she considers doing research to help find them closure in the future.
In another part of town, Viktorin, after the end of a somber chapel service, receives an ominous text message with coordinates leading to the southern woods. Despite his trepidation and fear of a deadly supernatural entity known as Chernobog, he obliges, feeling a need to face this ambiguous fate. After a cold and nerve-racking journey, Viktorin discovers a brutal scene in the woods—a healing, skinless woman miraculously still alive. Before he can make sense of the situation, masked soldiers rush in, stabilize the woman, who then horrifyingly transforms into a wolf before they all escape into the woods, leaving Viktorin shaken and with a final chilling message of judgment on his timeliness.
(Claire's odd encounter(SRDeacon):SRDeacon)
[Tue Jan 30 2024]
In the pool
It is dawn, about 27F(-2C) degrees, and the sky is covered by dark grey stormclouds. Waist high mist flows through the area.
(Your target encounters a ghost who's fixated on some past tragedy from their life, they need to either give the spirit some sense of closure, or send it on it's way through more violent means.
)
Claire idly her laps in the surprisingly heated pool at the Elm Street apartment complex, having been at this for about thirty minutes or so. Finally taking a break Claire, shifts up to the edge of the pool and crosses her arms across the cold ground, plucking up her phone to scroll through some messages.
This early in the morning, that heated feature is about the one thing that's keeping things going during this season. But here, it's also one of the few decent features of living in the trailer park on the south side of town, often considered the poor side of the small town hamlet. Sitting the side of the pool, the air in the morning is especially chilly against the wet flesh exposed and as Claire scrolls through her phone, All seems to be normal until a little bit of a glitch seems to happen with her phone! It's nothing major, just an odd little distortion on the screen that doesn't seem to go away. It might prompt her to hit it with the side of her hand, or restart the device even.
Claire wrinkles her nose as she becomes engrossed that little graphical glitch. Claire is especially unused to things being wrong with any of her equipment, given how much personal work that she puts into it. The frigid air hardly seems to bother her as she loads into a diagnostic app and starts to dig into the matter, suddenly worried that the phone might have been tampered with.
Indeed, the level of tools and applications that riddle the phone in Claire's hand is normally enough to prevent any mis-use or malware, spyware, adware that tends to come along. This however seems something a little more organic after a sense because as someone' fingers touch the screen she's delivered a rather sudden shock of static electricity! The air doesn't bother her but it does turn colder and then there's the sound of something splashing in the water! If it draws the woman's eyes up to look, there's nothing there to be seen. She's not crazy (she thinks) but her ears definitely heard something. With the morning rays of the sun up, it's easy enough to tell there's nothing in the pool, either.
Indeed, the level of tools and applications that riddle the phone in Claire's hand is normally enough to prevent any mis-use or malware, spyware, adware that tends to come along. This however seems something a little more organic after a sense because as Claire's fingers touch the screen she's delivered a rather sudden shock of static electricity! The air doesn't bother her but it does turn colder and then there's the sound of something splashing in the water! If it draws the woman's eyes up to look, there's nothing there to be seen. She's not crazy (she thinks) but her ears definitely heard something. With the morning rays of the sun up, it's easy enough to tell there's nothing in the pool, either.
:yanks her fingers away from the phone's screen and exclaims, "Fuck!" She gawks at the phone screen for a moment, certainly unused to a machine of hers not performing as she expects and even more unused to ones lashing out. As Claire shakes her hand and plants her finger in her mouth, suckling at the still-numb fingertip, it is only then that she becomes away from the change in temperature and then the splash in the water. Flicking her way this way and that across the water and relaxes a bit. Shaking her head she wonders closer to the pool to grab her towel, aiming to go into the building and teach her phone some manners.
As Claire grabs the towel, a flicker of movement catches her eye. This time, she can see something. It's the faint spectral outline of a two shapes. A larger body and a smaller one, perhaps an older brother and a younger one, or a man and his child. The larger shape shoves the smaller into the pool from the edge where it kneels causing that splashing sound to come again. Though no other sound comes, as the woman watches she can see the ethereal silouhette of the larger person drowning what appears to be something akin to a child or pre-teen in the pool. Then ... they disappear. A few moments pass, at most a minute? Then the figures appear again, soon the splash sounding out and the silent kicking and struggling ensues all over again.
Claire furrows her brow. as she squints her eyes, watching this scene play out a couple of time in succession. She casts a wary glance over to the apartment and pads over to the scene carefully. Watching for any movement or reaction from the apparent spectres. In spite of her nerves, she moves closer and closer, continually flicking her eyes back to the building to make sure nobody unaware might be coming out to witness what she is suspecting is a spectral echo. Furrowing her brow she considers how best to handle this, but ultimately decides to get on her knees reach out towards the drowning figure, offering a hand it can latch onto.
The woman's instincts may be right here, but getting that close may choose to be a reckless choice, as well. Watching it repeat time and again, it does seem to be a loop or a moment in time that these two souls are stuck within; pieces of them, anyway. Moving close enough to kneel down and offer a hand, Claire is just fast enough to pull her hand away at the last moment as something of a danger-sense of self-preservation kicks in and just tells her that making contact with the echo might be a very bad bad plan. This close it's also much colder. Shimmers of thin films of ice have begun to form over the pool despite the pool's heating there where the child keeps being drowned. Splash. Splash. Splash. The entire thing is quite eerie, silent but for that repetitive echo of sound. The cold is enough to put a sting against the not-so covered skin from the woman. The towel isn't enough to keep that chill at bay.
Claire jerking her hand back at the last minute before it might touch her, she shakes her head and watches that ice start to climb across the surface of the pool. With thing kicking off and the cold descending on the scene, she is certainly feeling particularly unarmed with just her phone, though not completely given all the augmentations. Kicking herself back away, she says, hurriedly as she fiddles with the device, saying rather frantically, "Ok. Ok. Tried the regular way. That is due diligence. Let's tryyyy disruption.. for the first time.." Jerking her phone out in the direction of the ghosts, a loud keening sound starts to emit from the device in what Claire designed to be a sort of disruption field for incorporeal undead, not that she has ever had a chance to try it out." Immediately she drops the phone, clapping her hands over her ears as the tone also feels like it is giving her a brainquake of a headache. "Ok. Ok. Ouch. Side effects. Fuck.""
Claire jerking her hand back at the last minute before it might touch her, she shakes her head and watches that ice start to climb across the surface of the pool. With thing kicking off and the cold descending on the scene, she is certainly feeling particularly unarmed with just her phone, though not completely given all the augmentations. Kicking herself back away, she says, hurriedly as she fiddles with the device, saying rather frantically, "Ok. Ok. Tried the regular way. That is due diligence. Let's tryyyy disruption.. for the first time.." Jerking her phone out in the direction of the ghosts, a loud keening sound starts to emit from the device in what Claire designed to be a sort of disruption field for incorporeal undead, not that she has ever had a chance to try it out. Immediately she drops the phone, clapping her hands over her ears as the tone also feels like it is giving her a brainquake of a headache. "Ok. Ok. Ouch. Side effects. Fuck." (fixed)
Never fear when a tech wizard is on the case! The first thing Claire will want to reconsider is her method of deployment for indeed that piercing sound drives right into her skull via her eardrums the same as it might anything else that can hear sounds across the higher frequencies! However, with such advanced technology experimental though it is it does seem to help as the woman clamps down onto her ears to try and drown out the sound, and let the throbbing needles of pain subside from either side of her head in the meantime - the device seems to cause flickers and then the routine flickers more violently and resets before it's reached it's end which is definitely a sign of progress. Not the only thing in the neighborhood at this hour, there will soon be howls of the stray dogs and other animals of canine nature in the area that begin to fill up the air like a desperate chorus eager for that noise to GO AWAY!
For all the agony, Claire does remain standing though she comes close to crumpling in on herself riiiight before the device resets, leaving her with a pounding headache, a probably busted phone, and a chorus of canine candidly cackling at her comeuppance, or at least barking because of the noise. Breathing a sigh of relief as the noise ceases, she looks more than a little deflated and defeated at the showing and the effect. Plucking up the phone gingerly from the ground, she starts to back up from the source of the voice and says, "Oh.. Ok. I tried! Let's call that an A for effort and call cowardice the better part of valor." Shaking her head, she says, "Not the right idiom, but that works." She backs away heading for the entry of the building, though she turns to break into a run after a few steps.
Perhaps it's enough, for the cold isn't quite so cold as Claire beats a quick retreat. But there's certainly less strength to the emination if nothing else. Now, she just needs to try and fine-tune her device so that it doesn't hit human-hearing at the very least and she might have something to work with! Beating back to the entry of the building breaking into that run will see her departing the scene without trying her luck any further and that leaves her with little else to do but breathe a sigh of relief when the blessed warmth of the indoors seeps into skin and bones and lets her know that's safe and still alive. Whatever there is to find about the spirits at the pool here, it won't be discovered here tonight at the very least. But something about the sight might stick with Claire in her mind when she finds her pillow tonight. That sound of the splash. Splash. Perhaps with some research she can find a way to find peace for this soul.
OOC: Thank you so much for participating! Let me know if you need a teleport or anything when you head down!
(Your target and their allies are hired by a local werewolf pack to investigate the sudden and mysterious disappearance of one of their members. As they delve deeper into the investigation, they find themselves entangled in a web of supernatural politics and power plays.)
Viktorin says, No, also can't seem to use the tell command..., ""
Viktorin exhales tiredly, furrowing his brow as he watches the homily end early, his lips twisting and his hooded eyes shifting from the apparent guilt and pity he felt at this moment. His lips continue to twist, into some disgusted frown, distaste oozing off of him at the events that transpired in front of him, and a heavy, exhausted sigh heaves through his body. Gently, he closes his eyes, hiding away his shame and guilt, and instead decides to mumble a prayer, quietly, very quietly, "God... or gods, Belobog, or whomever else might be or could be looking out for me... please forgive me for my sins... and for my filth... forgive all that I've taken part in... I didn't want it to come to that. I'm sorry... please..."
While it is unlikely that anyone will be addressing Viktorin's prayers and concerns in the immediate future, deities and demons move in mysterious, unknowable ways. Outside the chapel, snow begins to fall once more, adding to what is already probably a decent pile of snow from the days prior. Not to mention the hail. As everyone starts to leave the chapel, after the lesson, a wolf howl can be heard splitting the early Tuesday morning air with surprising nearness and volume.
A moment or so later, Viktorin's phone notification goes off, alerting him to a message from an Unknown Number. The message itself is simply a set of coordinates. Coordinates that are in the southern woods, toward the end of Guardian Lane on the west side of that section. No further details are provided. After another moment, the message self deletes itself, erasing itself from the phone as if it was never sent.
Glancing upwards, and with minimal interest, Viktorin watches the snowfall through the stained glass windows, squinting as he struggles to make out the movement through all the color. He dully frowns, lowering his eyebrows, until he hears the howl. There was always some level of instinctual fear that passed through him, at those dreadful howls. To him, it was unnatural. Logic demanded it was so. And his gut told him to flee from it. However, he stood fast, his attention from the culminating fear instead turned towards something else that caused the paleness to erupt in his face. His eyes scanned the message, pondering it, skeptical of it. His lips twitch faintly as morbid curiosity and terror course its way through his body, a subtle shudder running down his spine. Still though, for whatever reason, he decided to resign himself to fate, in some sort of strange, miserable penance for whatever terrible thing he had done in the past, and for whatever terrible thing he would do in the future. And so, Viktorin stepped off, wandering from the chapel, muttering to himself the coordinates, and reminding himself, "Guardian Lane... uhm. Yeah. Wherever that is."
Getting to Guardian Lane is relatively easy with the coordinates to map a route. Essentially, leaving town then turning left at the last possible second to go to the end of a long, dirt trail back into the woods. Of course, without a car or motorcycle, it might take a while to reach that point. The trolly would at least be faster than going on foot, even if it requires waiting for it to arrive just outside White Oak's grounds.
The weather outside is certainly cold, and a frigid breeze manages to chill through Viktorin's jeans, though his jacket provides some protection against the biting wind. Fortunately, no further howls herald his exit from the chapel. Yet.
The student body quickly disperses from the chapel, heading about their business, some to class, some off campus, some to dorms. Who knows where the faculty disappears to after lessons like that. A couple go toward the cafeteria to munch on some Chow. That leaves Viktorin with a mysterious message, and no further directions for what to do with it at the moment.
The cold never seemed to bother Viktorin much. In truth, it did, but he was used to muscling through it, albeit with plenty of curses to fling to the wind, under his breath. The Czech noted the route, pouting softly at the rather scant options that lurked within his thoughts, and set off, paying absolutely no mind towards his fellows and his betters, the students and the faculty. To him, they were leaves on the wind, just like he was, they had their own path, he had his. And currently, his was leading outside the campus. Each step that brought him closer to the trolley was one that brought him further dread and resignation. Especially remembering that his destination was the forest. His pace quickened, in the manner of a double entendre, his strides were more rapid as he forced himself closer to the stop, and his heartbeat fluttered and drummed up, sickly at this point.
Boarding the trolley, Viktorin chose the seat closest towards the front, keeping a sharp eye on those passengers that boarded with him, his gaze cautious and wary. For all he knew, one of these could've been the mysterious third party that contacted him, and for all he knew, he was leading himself into perpetual doom, or worst, Chernobog. The mere thought of the Black Stag caused his body to quiver like a tree, shook by the wind. He would of course, plan to travel on the trolley for as far as he could, before walking the rest of the way to whatever possible nightmare he could be walking into.
The trolley has a stop right at the edge of town, right where Guardian Lane begins. When Viktorin steps off, he has a brief view of the way out of town. Like so many in Haven, he could, technically, leave at any moment. What keeps so many people in this little town when they could escape and face far fewer direct horrors at large is beyond many.
The path down Guardian Lane is entirely dirt, which means Viktorin will need to hoof it down the long path, each step deeper into the woods, possibly that much closer to dark deer-like figures, or worse. The impending doom hanging about the man only seems to loom in heavier and thicker as more light gets blocked out by the canopy of leafless limbs above.
Before he encounters the first house fairly far down that particular dirt road, however, something catches his attention. Off to the west, something large and furry has smashed through some brush and brambles, leaving behind tufts of fur, bloodied thorns, and broken foliage. This is relatively close to where the coordinates provided showed. Does it have anything to do with whatever made that path through the brush? No one is here to meet Viktorin, so he is provided no further clarity on the point. Perhaps as some sort of test in his abilities to improvise, adapt, and overcome obstacles in his path with limited information.
Viktorin' eyes wandered for a scant moment, taking in the edge of the town. He felt like a blind man tossing pebbles into a pond, utterly incapable of seeing where the ripples lead. "Fate's funny that way," he supposed quietly, voicing for himself, what he refused to voice to others. His heart ached and pained at the steps he took, his own analysis of the town mired by a selfishness that pervaded him. "I haven't seen the Stag in town. I'm safe. Even if it's filled with... other terrible things, I don't have to meet the Stag." Self-preservation was worth suffering, he reasoned. Or dealing with all the strange oddities that cropped up, and that he only recently had the vaguest explanation for. To him, it felt like insanity, but, the world of insanity becoming reality was far better than running around forever, speculating that you were insane. It was the best reason he could come up with for staying here, not that it could be anymore true or anymore false in any other way. Who was to say? Not him.
Dread was still steeped within Viktorin' soul, though seemingly random bits of frustration, aggravation, and angry regret flowed forth from his lips in the form of exasperated groaning. After all, instead of deciding to pack some boots with him when he left New York, he brought these sneakers. And he soon realized that his sneakers weren't exactly the most suitable articles he owned, for the task of maneuvering along through rough terrain. Such strange thoughts occupied him, a form of distraction from the deep-set feelings of doom that swirled within his heart, giving him chills. Occasionally, he gave the woods around him a cursory scan, paranoia fueling his desire to pull from the shadows any visions of antlers or the terrible ebony fur that he knew was probably lurking, just around the corner. Or at least he thought he knew. Or believed. Or speculated. The further he walked and the further the light faded, the more his idle distractions and frustrations were ineffective at confronting that cold, harsh thing that was gnawing at his heart.
It was a good thing, though, that his cursory scans caught the tufts of fur and blood. With morbid curiosity, he reasoned that it could be a bear, but generally, bears don't start thrashing about in thorns and such unless they were in a panic. And he didn't know very much about anything that could really panic a bear to pursue the thorn thrashing. With no meeting time sent in the messages, and with no certainty that someone was going to meet with him at this point, and of course, the additional detail that it could always be a trap of some sort, Viktorin easily decided that the best path was by far, the strange, spooky, not-bear. And so he walked, clumsily stepping off the road to investigate the signs of destruction and the trail left in its wake. He was perturbed at the size of the creature, but he reasoned, at the very-least, that it might not exactly be in the mood to kill him or try and eat him. "Well... fuck it. Let's give it a whirl," he states, rolling his eyes at himself as he slowly steps and slinks forth, hating himself all the while for ignoring the dread and panic that was surfacing within him.
Thankfully for Viktorin's sake, he is not deep enough for the mist to include the potential of other things stepping out to ambush him. Of course, the potential of a non-monster trap definitely remains, and even he considers it as a likely outcome of stepping off of the road. The initial bramble breakage gives way to a full on trail of shattered landscape. Not the traditional clearing of forestry to build roads or construction, but certainly something large making a tunnel along this path.
After a hundred yards or so, Viktorin encounters a strange sight. A naked woman has been hung by rope around her wrists, and her ankles have likewise been tied to stakes in the ground. She has been quite brutalized. Blood covers her from almost head to toe. As he gets closer, he actually realizes her skin is gone. Patches remain here and there, but from the neck down, her muscles and everything are clearly visible. Her guts are collected in a basket in front of her.
Viktorin can actually see her chest still lifting and falling. She is still breathing. And alive. Tortured nearly to death, but alive. She is absolutely not conscious however. And despite the mostly skinless state, she seems to be healing. Slowly. Skin forming from her hands, feet, and neck to try to cover the rest of her body. There are no signs of who did it, other than some boot tracks and a horrendous number of blood splatters in the 'clearing' where she got caught, bound, and skinned.
Viktorin surprises himself with the level of destruction present, his eyebrows slowly arching upward. Still, he continues forward, nervously, shivers running up and down his spine. He slinks forward, clumsily dodging debris, helplessly making a whole bunch of racket as he continues. Upon seeing the woman, he pauses, widening his eyes and inhaling sharply. It takes him a split second or two to gauge the scene in front of him, before he turns and begins heaving, gagging, stumbling towards a tree to steady himself. His eyes close as he trembles, trying to force himself to stop, forcibly ceasing the gagging as he spits bile off to the side, shuddering disgustedly. His hooded eyes watch the woman in utter terror as her skin regrows, and he almost begins heaving again. His feet bring him closer as his pointed lips twist into a frown, and his viridian-green eyes shine with pity. He steps around the woman, peering at the stakes for a moment. And then he kneels, his hands clumsily trying to work with the knot fastening her ankles to the stakes.
While the knots are tied in an expert fashion, many knots of this nature are relatively simple to untie, just not by who they have been tied to. With a quick pull at some end, the rope gives way, and releases the woman's ankles, leaving her still strung up by her wrists like a bloody angel descending from heaven to sacrifice herself for the good of the world. Her unconscious body is entirely limp however.
It is about this time when Viktorin notices that the blood is still fresh and wet, the coppery scent clinging to every breath of air he draws in, and most importantly, because of how recently this was done, whoever did this could still be nearby, watching. Possibly through a scope with crosshairs aimed right at Viktorin.
A twig snapping nearby creates enough noise to stab through Viktorin's senses despite his grisly task. Someone else is here, though friend or foe remains to be seen. And he still has no idea who this woman is or who might wish her harm. Her breathing is shallow, but continues, despite her being a state no normal human would likely survive for very long.
With trepidation, Viktorin ponders the woman for a moment, before swiftly shifting his gaze towards the noise, searching warily for its creator. He slowly lowers himself to a crouch, tensing the muscles in his legs, preparing to dart away and hide, or book it at the closest opportunity. His nose wrinkles from the scent of blood, his chest heaving slightly. His hands slowly reach into his pack, drawing a book of all things, his arm elongating slightly before he tosses it like a frisbee, away from both himself and the woman.
Whatever Viktorin hoped to accomplish with the book throwing is mostly rendered irrelevant when a swarm of masked soldiers come rushing into the area. Some of them speak in hushed tones to each other, a couple level guns at Viktorin to let him know he is absolutely a potential target to them. But their actual target seems to be the woman. A couple of soldiers lift her a bit while another cuts the ropes on her wrists from the branches holding her up. They lower her to the ground and start stuffing her guts back into her midsection. Her skin starts to heal more quickly then, and she starts to breath deeper. Soon, skin has covered her form once more, and she takes in a deep, gasping breath, sitting up. She puts a hand to her stomach and then winces in agony as her body starts rearranging itself beneath the surface of the newly formed skin.
When her stomach stops moving, she opens her eyes, looking around. Her eyes seem a bit red. And not just blood shot. And a moment later, she looks around, then nods. Before Viktorin's eyes, her body undergoes a transformation, bones snapping, newly grown skin splitting and reshaping around her new form until she is in a wolf form with incredibly short black fur. She gets up on all fours, then shakes her body a bit. She lets out a loud howl. The soldiers nearby let out human howls of their own to match. Then they all start running toward Guardian Lane to get the hell out of there. Leaving Viktorin alone in a blood-soaked clearing, having witnessed who even knows what the hell that was. When he gets back closer to civilization after the incident, he gets another message from the Unknown Number, "Mission failed: Too slow." It deletes itself after being read.
Realizing her approach and technology aren't enough to resolve the haunting, Claire reluctantly beats a retreat back to the warmth and safety of her building. The traumatic imagery of the apparent murder and her failure to provide peace for the restless spirits haunt her as she considers doing research to help find them closure in the future.
In another part of town, Viktorin, after the end of a somber chapel service, receives an ominous text message with coordinates leading to the southern woods. Despite his trepidation and fear of a deadly supernatural entity known as Chernobog, he obliges, feeling a need to face this ambiguous fate. After a cold and nerve-racking journey, Viktorin discovers a brutal scene in the woods—a healing, skinless woman miraculously still alive. Before he can make sense of the situation, masked soldiers rush in, stabilize the woman, who then horrifyingly transforms into a wolf before they all escape into the woods, leaving Viktorin shaken and with a final chilling message of judgment on his timeliness.
(Claire's odd encounter(SRDeacon):SRDeacon)
[Tue Jan 30 2024]
In the pool
It is dawn, about 27F(-2C) degrees, and the sky is covered by dark grey stormclouds. Waist high mist flows through the area.
(Your target encounters a ghost who's fixated on some past tragedy from their life, they need to either give the spirit some sense of closure, or send it on it's way through more violent means.
)
Claire idly her laps in the surprisingly heated pool at the Elm Street apartment complex, having been at this for about thirty minutes or so. Finally taking a break Claire, shifts up to the edge of the pool and crosses her arms across the cold ground, plucking up her phone to scroll through some messages.
This early in the morning, that heated feature is about the one thing that's keeping things going during this season. But here, it's also one of the few decent features of living in the trailer park on the south side of town, often considered the poor side of the small town hamlet. Sitting the side of the pool, the air in the morning is especially chilly against the wet flesh exposed and as Claire scrolls through her phone, All seems to be normal until a little bit of a glitch seems to happen with her phone! It's nothing major, just an odd little distortion on the screen that doesn't seem to go away. It might prompt her to hit it with the side of her hand, or restart the device even.
Claire wrinkles her nose as she becomes engrossed that little graphical glitch. Claire is especially unused to things being wrong with any of her equipment, given how much personal work that she puts into it. The frigid air hardly seems to bother her as she loads into a diagnostic app and starts to dig into the matter, suddenly worried that the phone might have been tampered with.
Indeed, the level of tools and applications that riddle the phone in Claire's hand is normally enough to prevent any mis-use or malware, spyware, adware that tends to come along. This however seems something a little more organic after a sense because as someone' fingers touch the screen she's delivered a rather sudden shock of static electricity! The air doesn't bother her but it does turn colder and then there's the sound of something splashing in the water! If it draws the woman's eyes up to look, there's nothing there to be seen. She's not crazy (she thinks) but her ears definitely heard something. With the morning rays of the sun up, it's easy enough to tell there's nothing in the pool, either.
Indeed, the level of tools and applications that riddle the phone in Claire's hand is normally enough to prevent any mis-use or malware, spyware, adware that tends to come along. This however seems something a little more organic after a sense because as Claire's fingers touch the screen she's delivered a rather sudden shock of static electricity! The air doesn't bother her but it does turn colder and then there's the sound of something splashing in the water! If it draws the woman's eyes up to look, there's nothing there to be seen. She's not crazy (she thinks) but her ears definitely heard something. With the morning rays of the sun up, it's easy enough to tell there's nothing in the pool, either.
:yanks her fingers away from the phone's screen and exclaims, "Fuck!" She gawks at the phone screen for a moment, certainly unused to a machine of hers not performing as she expects and even more unused to ones lashing out. As Claire shakes her hand and plants her finger in her mouth, suckling at the still-numb fingertip, it is only then that she becomes away from the change in temperature and then the splash in the water. Flicking her way this way and that across the water and relaxes a bit. Shaking her head she wonders closer to the pool to grab her towel, aiming to go into the building and teach her phone some manners.
As Claire grabs the towel, a flicker of movement catches her eye. This time, she can see something. It's the faint spectral outline of a two shapes. A larger body and a smaller one, perhaps an older brother and a younger one, or a man and his child. The larger shape shoves the smaller into the pool from the edge where it kneels causing that splashing sound to come again. Though no other sound comes, as the woman watches she can see the ethereal silouhette of the larger person drowning what appears to be something akin to a child or pre-teen in the pool. Then ... they disappear. A few moments pass, at most a minute? Then the figures appear again, soon the splash sounding out and the silent kicking and struggling ensues all over again.
Claire furrows her brow. as she squints her eyes, watching this scene play out a couple of time in succession. She casts a wary glance over to the apartment and pads over to the scene carefully. Watching for any movement or reaction from the apparent spectres. In spite of her nerves, she moves closer and closer, continually flicking her eyes back to the building to make sure nobody unaware might be coming out to witness what she is suspecting is a spectral echo. Furrowing her brow she considers how best to handle this, but ultimately decides to get on her knees reach out towards the drowning figure, offering a hand it can latch onto.
The woman's instincts may be right here, but getting that close may choose to be a reckless choice, as well. Watching it repeat time and again, it does seem to be a loop or a moment in time that these two souls are stuck within; pieces of them, anyway. Moving close enough to kneel down and offer a hand, Claire is just fast enough to pull her hand away at the last moment as something of a danger-sense of self-preservation kicks in and just tells her that making contact with the echo might be a very bad bad plan. This close it's also much colder. Shimmers of thin films of ice have begun to form over the pool despite the pool's heating there where the child keeps being drowned. Splash. Splash. Splash. The entire thing is quite eerie, silent but for that repetitive echo of sound. The cold is enough to put a sting against the not-so covered skin from the woman. The towel isn't enough to keep that chill at bay.
Claire jerking her hand back at the last minute before it might touch her, she shakes her head and watches that ice start to climb across the surface of the pool. With thing kicking off and the cold descending on the scene, she is certainly feeling particularly unarmed with just her phone, though not completely given all the augmentations. Kicking herself back away, she says, hurriedly as she fiddles with the device, saying rather frantically, "Ok. Ok. Tried the regular way. That is due diligence. Let's tryyyy disruption.. for the first time.." Jerking her phone out in the direction of the ghosts, a loud keening sound starts to emit from the device in what Claire designed to be a sort of disruption field for incorporeal undead, not that she has ever had a chance to try it out." Immediately she drops the phone, clapping her hands over her ears as the tone also feels like it is giving her a brainquake of a headache. "Ok. Ok. Ouch. Side effects. Fuck.""
Claire jerking her hand back at the last minute before it might touch her, she shakes her head and watches that ice start to climb across the surface of the pool. With thing kicking off and the cold descending on the scene, she is certainly feeling particularly unarmed with just her phone, though not completely given all the augmentations. Kicking herself back away, she says, hurriedly as she fiddles with the device, saying rather frantically, "Ok. Ok. Tried the regular way. That is due diligence. Let's tryyyy disruption.. for the first time.." Jerking her phone out in the direction of the ghosts, a loud keening sound starts to emit from the device in what Claire designed to be a sort of disruption field for incorporeal undead, not that she has ever had a chance to try it out. Immediately she drops the phone, clapping her hands over her ears as the tone also feels like it is giving her a brainquake of a headache. "Ok. Ok. Ouch. Side effects. Fuck." (fixed)
Never fear when a tech wizard is on the case! The first thing Claire will want to reconsider is her method of deployment for indeed that piercing sound drives right into her skull via her eardrums the same as it might anything else that can hear sounds across the higher frequencies! However, with such advanced technology experimental though it is it does seem to help as the woman clamps down onto her ears to try and drown out the sound, and let the throbbing needles of pain subside from either side of her head in the meantime - the device seems to cause flickers and then the routine flickers more violently and resets before it's reached it's end which is definitely a sign of progress. Not the only thing in the neighborhood at this hour, there will soon be howls of the stray dogs and other animals of canine nature in the area that begin to fill up the air like a desperate chorus eager for that noise to GO AWAY!
For all the agony, Claire does remain standing though she comes close to crumpling in on herself riiiight before the device resets, leaving her with a pounding headache, a probably busted phone, and a chorus of canine candidly cackling at her comeuppance, or at least barking because of the noise. Breathing a sigh of relief as the noise ceases, she looks more than a little deflated and defeated at the showing and the effect. Plucking up the phone gingerly from the ground, she starts to back up from the source of the voice and says, "Oh.. Ok. I tried! Let's call that an A for effort and call cowardice the better part of valor." Shaking her head, she says, "Not the right idiom, but that works." She backs away heading for the entry of the building, though she turns to break into a run after a few steps.
Perhaps it's enough, for the cold isn't quite so cold as Claire beats a quick retreat. But there's certainly less strength to the emination if nothing else. Now, she just needs to try and fine-tune her device so that it doesn't hit human-hearing at the very least and she might have something to work with! Beating back to the entry of the building breaking into that run will see her departing the scene without trying her luck any further and that leaves her with little else to do but breathe a sigh of relief when the blessed warmth of the indoors seeps into skin and bones and lets her know that's safe and still alive. Whatever there is to find about the spirits at the pool here, it won't be discovered here tonight at the very least. But something about the sight might stick with Claire in her mind when she finds her pillow tonight. That sound of the splash. Splash. Perhaps with some research she can find a way to find peace for this soul.
OOC: Thank you so much for participating! Let me know if you need a teleport or anything when you head down!
(Your target and their allies are hired by a local werewolf pack to investigate the sudden and mysterious disappearance of one of their members. As they delve deeper into the investigation, they find themselves entangled in a web of supernatural politics and power plays.)
Viktorin says, No, also can't seem to use the tell command..., ""
Viktorin exhales tiredly, furrowing his brow as he watches the homily end early, his lips twisting and his hooded eyes shifting from the apparent guilt and pity he felt at this moment. His lips continue to twist, into some disgusted frown, distaste oozing off of him at the events that transpired in front of him, and a heavy, exhausted sigh heaves through his body. Gently, he closes his eyes, hiding away his shame and guilt, and instead decides to mumble a prayer, quietly, very quietly, "God... or gods, Belobog, or whomever else might be or could be looking out for me... please forgive me for my sins... and for my filth... forgive all that I've taken part in... I didn't want it to come to that. I'm sorry... please..."
While it is unlikely that anyone will be addressing Viktorin's prayers and concerns in the immediate future, deities and demons move in mysterious, unknowable ways. Outside the chapel, snow begins to fall once more, adding to what is already probably a decent pile of snow from the days prior. Not to mention the hail. As everyone starts to leave the chapel, after the lesson, a wolf howl can be heard splitting the early Tuesday morning air with surprising nearness and volume.
A moment or so later, Viktorin's phone notification goes off, alerting him to a message from an Unknown Number. The message itself is simply a set of coordinates. Coordinates that are in the southern woods, toward the end of Guardian Lane on the west side of that section. No further details are provided. After another moment, the message self deletes itself, erasing itself from the phone as if it was never sent.
Glancing upwards, and with minimal interest, Viktorin watches the snowfall through the stained glass windows, squinting as he struggles to make out the movement through all the color. He dully frowns, lowering his eyebrows, until he hears the howl. There was always some level of instinctual fear that passed through him, at those dreadful howls. To him, it was unnatural. Logic demanded it was so. And his gut told him to flee from it. However, he stood fast, his attention from the culminating fear instead turned towards something else that caused the paleness to erupt in his face. His eyes scanned the message, pondering it, skeptical of it. His lips twitch faintly as morbid curiosity and terror course its way through his body, a subtle shudder running down his spine. Still though, for whatever reason, he decided to resign himself to fate, in some sort of strange, miserable penance for whatever terrible thing he had done in the past, and for whatever terrible thing he would do in the future. And so, Viktorin stepped off, wandering from the chapel, muttering to himself the coordinates, and reminding himself, "Guardian Lane... uhm. Yeah. Wherever that is."
Getting to Guardian Lane is relatively easy with the coordinates to map a route. Essentially, leaving town then turning left at the last possible second to go to the end of a long, dirt trail back into the woods. Of course, without a car or motorcycle, it might take a while to reach that point. The trolly would at least be faster than going on foot, even if it requires waiting for it to arrive just outside White Oak's grounds.
The weather outside is certainly cold, and a frigid breeze manages to chill through Viktorin's jeans, though his jacket provides some protection against the biting wind. Fortunately, no further howls herald his exit from the chapel. Yet.
The student body quickly disperses from the chapel, heading about their business, some to class, some off campus, some to dorms. Who knows where the faculty disappears to after lessons like that. A couple go toward the cafeteria to munch on some Chow. That leaves Viktorin with a mysterious message, and no further directions for what to do with it at the moment.
The cold never seemed to bother Viktorin much. In truth, it did, but he was used to muscling through it, albeit with plenty of curses to fling to the wind, under his breath. The Czech noted the route, pouting softly at the rather scant options that lurked within his thoughts, and set off, paying absolutely no mind towards his fellows and his betters, the students and the faculty. To him, they were leaves on the wind, just like he was, they had their own path, he had his. And currently, his was leading outside the campus. Each step that brought him closer to the trolley was one that brought him further dread and resignation. Especially remembering that his destination was the forest. His pace quickened, in the manner of a double entendre, his strides were more rapid as he forced himself closer to the stop, and his heartbeat fluttered and drummed up, sickly at this point.
Boarding the trolley, Viktorin chose the seat closest towards the front, keeping a sharp eye on those passengers that boarded with him, his gaze cautious and wary. For all he knew, one of these could've been the mysterious third party that contacted him, and for all he knew, he was leading himself into perpetual doom, or worst, Chernobog. The mere thought of the Black Stag caused his body to quiver like a tree, shook by the wind. He would of course, plan to travel on the trolley for as far as he could, before walking the rest of the way to whatever possible nightmare he could be walking into.
The trolley has a stop right at the edge of town, right where Guardian Lane begins. When Viktorin steps off, he has a brief view of the way out of town. Like so many in Haven, he could, technically, leave at any moment. What keeps so many people in this little town when they could escape and face far fewer direct horrors at large is beyond many.
The path down Guardian Lane is entirely dirt, which means Viktorin will need to hoof it down the long path, each step deeper into the woods, possibly that much closer to dark deer-like figures, or worse. The impending doom hanging about the man only seems to loom in heavier and thicker as more light gets blocked out by the canopy of leafless limbs above.
Before he encounters the first house fairly far down that particular dirt road, however, something catches his attention. Off to the west, something large and furry has smashed through some brush and brambles, leaving behind tufts of fur, bloodied thorns, and broken foliage. This is relatively close to where the coordinates provided showed. Does it have anything to do with whatever made that path through the brush? No one is here to meet Viktorin, so he is provided no further clarity on the point. Perhaps as some sort of test in his abilities to improvise, adapt, and overcome obstacles in his path with limited information.
Viktorin' eyes wandered for a scant moment, taking in the edge of the town. He felt like a blind man tossing pebbles into a pond, utterly incapable of seeing where the ripples lead. "Fate's funny that way," he supposed quietly, voicing for himself, what he refused to voice to others. His heart ached and pained at the steps he took, his own analysis of the town mired by a selfishness that pervaded him. "I haven't seen the Stag in town. I'm safe. Even if it's filled with... other terrible things, I don't have to meet the Stag." Self-preservation was worth suffering, he reasoned. Or dealing with all the strange oddities that cropped up, and that he only recently had the vaguest explanation for. To him, it felt like insanity, but, the world of insanity becoming reality was far better than running around forever, speculating that you were insane. It was the best reason he could come up with for staying here, not that it could be anymore true or anymore false in any other way. Who was to say? Not him.
Dread was still steeped within Viktorin' soul, though seemingly random bits of frustration, aggravation, and angry regret flowed forth from his lips in the form of exasperated groaning. After all, instead of deciding to pack some boots with him when he left New York, he brought these sneakers. And he soon realized that his sneakers weren't exactly the most suitable articles he owned, for the task of maneuvering along through rough terrain. Such strange thoughts occupied him, a form of distraction from the deep-set feelings of doom that swirled within his heart, giving him chills. Occasionally, he gave the woods around him a cursory scan, paranoia fueling his desire to pull from the shadows any visions of antlers or the terrible ebony fur that he knew was probably lurking, just around the corner. Or at least he thought he knew. Or believed. Or speculated. The further he walked and the further the light faded, the more his idle distractions and frustrations were ineffective at confronting that cold, harsh thing that was gnawing at his heart.
It was a good thing, though, that his cursory scans caught the tufts of fur and blood. With morbid curiosity, he reasoned that it could be a bear, but generally, bears don't start thrashing about in thorns and such unless they were in a panic. And he didn't know very much about anything that could really panic a bear to pursue the thorn thrashing. With no meeting time sent in the messages, and with no certainty that someone was going to meet with him at this point, and of course, the additional detail that it could always be a trap of some sort, Viktorin easily decided that the best path was by far, the strange, spooky, not-bear. And so he walked, clumsily stepping off the road to investigate the signs of destruction and the trail left in its wake. He was perturbed at the size of the creature, but he reasoned, at the very-least, that it might not exactly be in the mood to kill him or try and eat him. "Well... fuck it. Let's give it a whirl," he states, rolling his eyes at himself as he slowly steps and slinks forth, hating himself all the while for ignoring the dread and panic that was surfacing within him.
Thankfully for Viktorin's sake, he is not deep enough for the mist to include the potential of other things stepping out to ambush him. Of course, the potential of a non-monster trap definitely remains, and even he considers it as a likely outcome of stepping off of the road. The initial bramble breakage gives way to a full on trail of shattered landscape. Not the traditional clearing of forestry to build roads or construction, but certainly something large making a tunnel along this path.
After a hundred yards or so, Viktorin encounters a strange sight. A naked woman has been hung by rope around her wrists, and her ankles have likewise been tied to stakes in the ground. She has been quite brutalized. Blood covers her from almost head to toe. As he gets closer, he actually realizes her skin is gone. Patches remain here and there, but from the neck down, her muscles and everything are clearly visible. Her guts are collected in a basket in front of her.
Viktorin can actually see her chest still lifting and falling. She is still breathing. And alive. Tortured nearly to death, but alive. She is absolutely not conscious however. And despite the mostly skinless state, she seems to be healing. Slowly. Skin forming from her hands, feet, and neck to try to cover the rest of her body. There are no signs of who did it, other than some boot tracks and a horrendous number of blood splatters in the 'clearing' where she got caught, bound, and skinned.
Viktorin surprises himself with the level of destruction present, his eyebrows slowly arching upward. Still, he continues forward, nervously, shivers running up and down his spine. He slinks forward, clumsily dodging debris, helplessly making a whole bunch of racket as he continues. Upon seeing the woman, he pauses, widening his eyes and inhaling sharply. It takes him a split second or two to gauge the scene in front of him, before he turns and begins heaving, gagging, stumbling towards a tree to steady himself. His eyes close as he trembles, trying to force himself to stop, forcibly ceasing the gagging as he spits bile off to the side, shuddering disgustedly. His hooded eyes watch the woman in utter terror as her skin regrows, and he almost begins heaving again. His feet bring him closer as his pointed lips twist into a frown, and his viridian-green eyes shine with pity. He steps around the woman, peering at the stakes for a moment. And then he kneels, his hands clumsily trying to work with the knot fastening her ankles to the stakes.
While the knots are tied in an expert fashion, many knots of this nature are relatively simple to untie, just not by who they have been tied to. With a quick pull at some end, the rope gives way, and releases the woman's ankles, leaving her still strung up by her wrists like a bloody angel descending from heaven to sacrifice herself for the good of the world. Her unconscious body is entirely limp however.
It is about this time when Viktorin notices that the blood is still fresh and wet, the coppery scent clinging to every breath of air he draws in, and most importantly, because of how recently this was done, whoever did this could still be nearby, watching. Possibly through a scope with crosshairs aimed right at Viktorin.
A twig snapping nearby creates enough noise to stab through Viktorin's senses despite his grisly task. Someone else is here, though friend or foe remains to be seen. And he still has no idea who this woman is or who might wish her harm. Her breathing is shallow, but continues, despite her being a state no normal human would likely survive for very long.
With trepidation, Viktorin ponders the woman for a moment, before swiftly shifting his gaze towards the noise, searching warily for its creator. He slowly lowers himself to a crouch, tensing the muscles in his legs, preparing to dart away and hide, or book it at the closest opportunity. His nose wrinkles from the scent of blood, his chest heaving slightly. His hands slowly reach into his pack, drawing a book of all things, his arm elongating slightly before he tosses it like a frisbee, away from both himself and the woman.
Whatever Viktorin hoped to accomplish with the book throwing is mostly rendered irrelevant when a swarm of masked soldiers come rushing into the area. Some of them speak in hushed tones to each other, a couple level guns at Viktorin to let him know he is absolutely a potential target to them. But their actual target seems to be the woman. A couple of soldiers lift her a bit while another cuts the ropes on her wrists from the branches holding her up. They lower her to the ground and start stuffing her guts back into her midsection. Her skin starts to heal more quickly then, and she starts to breath deeper. Soon, skin has covered her form once more, and she takes in a deep, gasping breath, sitting up. She puts a hand to her stomach and then winces in agony as her body starts rearranging itself beneath the surface of the newly formed skin.
When her stomach stops moving, she opens her eyes, looking around. Her eyes seem a bit red. And not just blood shot. And a moment later, she looks around, then nods. Before Viktorin's eyes, her body undergoes a transformation, bones snapping, newly grown skin splitting and reshaping around her new form until she is in a wolf form with incredibly short black fur. She gets up on all fours, then shakes her body a bit. She lets out a loud howl. The soldiers nearby let out human howls of their own to match. Then they all start running toward Guardian Lane to get the hell out of there. Leaving Viktorin alone in a blood-soaked clearing, having witnessed who even knows what the hell that was. When he gets back closer to civilization after the incident, he gets another message from the Unknown Number, "Mission failed: Too slow." It deletes itself after being read.