Encounterlogs
Viktorins Odd Encounter Sr Tabitha 240212
Viktorin, alone in a barren room without furniture at the Institute, ponders his discomfort sarcastically, considering dragging a bed and nightstand into the empty space. But the larger context of his circumstance is the string of bad luck that has befallen Haven, a situation many attribute to a stolen artifact from a local coven of witches. The town has faced everything from solar flares to the inconvenience of unexplained empty rooms. As Viktorin exits and roams the streets, his phone bombards him with frantic messages and calls from Stefan, an old acquaintance who seems to be panicking over a grave issue linked to an archaeological site they both know about.
The conversation between Viktorin and Stefan grows increasingly dire as Viktorin cautiously navigates the darkening town answering Stefan's pleas. Stefan admits to removing something from the archaeological site and inadvertently awakening Chernabog, which seemed to exacerbate their cursed fates. Stefan's plan to bargain directly with this dark entity shocks Viktorin, who argues that negotiating with the witches for peace would be safer than engaging an ancient, malevolent god. Stefan's stubbornness threatens to pull Viktorin into a perilous scheme, pleading to change their destiny by returning the artifact not to the witches who claim it, but to Chernabog himself. Viktorin, filled with a foreboding sense of doom, tries to persuade Stefan to simply return the stolen item to the witches and avoid any further complications. Eventually, Stefan relents, with a chilling parting acknowledgment that it might be their final interaction. Viktorin, left in the shadows of flickering streetlights and his own heavy conscience, heads back to the Institute with a heart weighed down by sadness and a dim hope for Stefan's survival.
(Viktorin's odd encounter(SRTabitha):SRTabitha)
[Sun Feb 11 2024]
In Room Three
It is night, about 33F(0C) degrees, and there are a few dark grey stormclouds in the sky. There is a waxing crescent moon.
(A powerful artifact has been stolen from a local coven of witches, who are blamed for a string of bad luck plaguing Haven. Your target and their allies must find the artifact and return it before the witches are forced to take drastic measures.)
There's a sigh, and then another. Staring out at the empty room, Viktorin awkwardly rubs his neck, muttering to himself, "Well. Glad to see it didn't come with any furniture. Thanks White Oak. Guess I'm just gonna... I dunno... sleep on the fucking floor." The Czech pinches his nose, exhaling sharply. Nearly extending his foot to kick something, and yet, there's nothing there to land his toe upon. Puffing his cheeks, he takes a few moments, pacing the room, gauging its size, spreading his hands apart and making a rectangle with his index fingers and thumbs. "I could... try dragging a bed... here, maybe?" he asks himself aloud. "And then maybe like a night table. With a drawer!" There, the mood swiftly changes, elation and excitement, causing Viktorin' lips to curve upward, his cheeks dimpling and his eyes squinting.
This string of bad luck in which Viktorin now addresses -- a barren bedless room inside of the Institute is only one of many of the strange occurances that have been happening in town. Bad luck has been all the luck Haven has seen for the last few days, one might even say -- culminating the other evening with the solar flare, and now? Empty, bedless bedrooms.
With a shuffle and a shift, Viktorin is swiftly slinking out the door, thumping his feet down the stairs, and off, following the path through the plaza, through the reception area. His feet lead him down the street, his head held aloft, arms swaying to and fro.
Viktorin's phone buzzes on him. A peek at the screen, without actually turning the phone on to read the corresponding message notes that it is from a 'Stefan'. It buzzes at him again. Again: Stefan. They come in quick, and continuous for a while. It is disruptive, persistent. Needy.
Viktorin flicks his phone upward, swiping to accept the call, murmuring quietly into his phone as he walks, "Hey Stefan, wassup?" His gaze alights towards his feet with a steady caution, seemingly taking great care in his walk as not to trip over anything.
The phone continues to notify him of messages. Stefan. Stefan. Stefan. Until finally it rings, and Viktorin has picked it up. "I need your help," comes the voice on the other side of the line, thickly accented, rushed, and panicked.
Viktorin quirks his eyebrows faintly, surprised at the words that reach him. Lifting his voice, he asks, "Uh. Suuuureee? What's up dude?"
The words on the other side of the line, from the other side of the world. Its a harried whisper, "Remember that archaological dig you went with me on?" How could he not? Was he not just speaking about it the other night? "I went back there a few days ago..." The panicked voice wavers in and out from the phone mic, like the person there is often looking behind him.
Viktorin knits his eyebrows in concern, rubbing his cheek anxiously. His feet by now have stopped and his hands shake a little, a terror worming its way through his body, expressed in shivering, and a shaky response. With his voice low and quiet, he murmurs, "Yeah? Where are you now Stefan? I can't exactly snatch a last second flight to Prague and arrive there in a few seconds..."
"I took something from there. And now, it..." The voice comes, static, shaken, like they might be running now. "Chernabog. It is out. Have your dreams been worse lately?" It is a whisper of a question. "I activated something..." The voice doesn't say where they are, too panicked much to find himself a landmark, likely. At least he does not say so right away. "I woke something else with it." A pause. "I am home."
At the mention of waking something, a sense of being watched follows.
Viktorin blinks incredulously for a moment, before the fear sets in. With hesitation, he admits to the phone, which nearly dangles dangerously in his hand, "The nightmares are all the same dude. They haven't gotten any worse, but they haven't gotten any better neither. What'd you wake with it?" There's a pause as the Czech's hair stands on end and he takes cautious, cursory glances over this shoulder and that. He forces his body to move, gingerly crossing the street whilst watching for cars. "How am I supposed to help you whilst you're in Prague? Something I can do over here?"
So true. What can Viktorin do? With something Stefan has done, yet again, and yet again, dragged him into.
"A coven," comes Stafan's voice. "They claim that it is theirs and has been for centuries." The man on the other end says, "But I think that I can break our curse with it by bargaining with Chernabog directly with it." This. Is probably not a good idea, but has he ever truly had one?
Viktorin rolls his eyes expressively, nearly screaming into his phone, "You dumb fuck, you want to bargain with some damn Cthonic God of cruelty, evil, and whatever the Polabians believed he had control over... to fix a bunch of witches out to get you?" There was a hint of aggravation, before he asks, "What did you do to piss off the witches? Wouldn't it be easier to bargain with them and make peace or whatever?" He wrinkles his nose, though panic is rolling up his spine as he begins desperately searching for any shop to duck into, anywhere with lights, and not near so match as a single tree.
"I thought," Stefan says over a crackling line, "I thought you would be elated to try to help me bargain with it. Return it to the creature, for the release of whatever curse it's placed on us!" It comes rapid, upset. But then, the man took it from a place of rest to begin with! "And I wasn't asking you do it alone. I have someone who can path me to you..." It is bad enough that whatever power that the artifact exudes is unveiling itself over the wireless transaction between Viktorin and him. It reveals itself in the flicker and burnout of lights around Viktorin, leaving very very lit areas for him to retreat into.
Viktorin puffs his cheeks, squawking over the phone, "Maybe because I have enough sense to feel out that bargaining with a bunch of witches is probably higher up on the 'am I probably going to survive this' chart than summoning whatever thing that literally wants to strip my hide from my spine, in an effort to beg it pretty please, don't kill me now, I've come to make a bargain'... how else did you think I was going to react? And you didn't tell me... specifically, did you like... steal from the witches or something? Let me ask you this hypothetical, when you've got debts, you gonna go to the Russian Mob to get a little payday loan?" There's some guilt in Viktorin' eyes as he contemplates his phone quietly, holding it back to place it on speaker as he stares out into the darkness around him. He takes a deep breath, inhaling. "I'm not going near that fucking thing. It's going to tear my eyes out and wear my skin as a coat." A shudder runs through him and he heaves his chest, almost beginning to hyperventilate. He clenches his eyes shut, afraid. "Just return whatever you stole, why is this so hard? Why do we gotta go through a middle-man, ya know, the middle-man who wants to -kill- me?" he whines, almost pleadingly.
"Because..." Stefan whispers out, a croak, a moan, a worry. "Because they want it to keep for themselves. I want to return it to the proper owner!" Pride, probably. Fear. Which, however, is the lesser of the two evils here? "And if I give it /back/..." Back. Yes. Archaological site dig? Sure. "If I give it back, then do you think they will use it for honorable purposes?" As if this 'god' would either. "If we summon -it- and offer -it- -it-... then you and I ... we can change our fate." There comes a long pause on the other side of the phone. "I will do it alone, Vik, if I have to." Stefan is not quite convinved of the lesser evil, but there is a falter in his voice to show that he is, at least, listening. There is rustling in the forest nearby. But nothing can be seen. But its a forest, and things live there. Both natural and unnatural. Which is it?
Viktorin pauses clenching his eyes, quivering his lips as he nearly sobs. Perhaps in unbecoming to the man. Hushedly, he tells his phone, "Listen to me, Stefan. Trust me. It won't care if you bring it back. It might take it back, but do you think it'll let you live? And do you think, it will let me live? The Gods don't forgive you on a dime. There's always something that they're gonna ask or do to you... and maybe that's the more good natured ones. They're practically all-powerful. Why -wouldn't- they? And then you're talking about the god every Slavic tribe, from the Elbe to however far east those bastards traveled from, every tribe that cursed this thing's existence. Do you think, that this is the guy you should be bargaining with? Please... let's just give the witches their trinkets back, let me talk or something... whatever they do with it, is none of our business, so long as it doesn't affect us." The Czech takes a few careful steps away from the forest, watching it with a wary gaze.
"Fine, Vikki, fine." Stefan says over the phone, his words muffled like he's not speaking into the mic, but looking behind him. "You're right. Of course you're right. A voice of reason..." Anoter pause. "I'll return it." There is a fumble of the phone on the opposite end of the world. "But this might be the last time you hear from me." That, is sad, and fearful. "For whatever it's worth, I'm sorry." Then, silence. Phones these days don't end in a click, but there is a long stretch of nothingness. Viktorin is then startled by a rabbit hopping out from beneath a bush, followed by another. Something out there having scared them into what remains of the light Viktorin has saught himself.
Viktorin murmurs softly as he watches the rabbits, towards his phone, "Yeah. Yeah sure. Good luck. Have a good life I guess." On that note, he ends the call, slumping against the curb, simply sitting under the light pole. "Fuck man... why'd you have to fuck shit up more than it's already fucked?" A gloomy shift to the man's countenance occurred, and he sighed deeply. "Sorry to you too I guess," he apologized to the phone, already disconnected from the call. "For what it's worth... I hope you survive. Doubt it though." Another line, to no one particular, as if airing his guilt to the air to reassure himself. But it doesn't seem to raise the mood any higher, and the Czech takes one long, wistful glance at his phone, before stowing it in his pocket. Rising slowly, Viktorin walks off, back towards the Institute, his chest heaving, no longer out of fear, but instead imbued with deep melancholy.
The lights remain downed as someone walks back to the Institute, and just to make matters worse, new ones he passes flicker off and on.
The conversation between Viktorin and Stefan grows increasingly dire as Viktorin cautiously navigates the darkening town answering Stefan's pleas. Stefan admits to removing something from the archaeological site and inadvertently awakening Chernabog, which seemed to exacerbate their cursed fates. Stefan's plan to bargain directly with this dark entity shocks Viktorin, who argues that negotiating with the witches for peace would be safer than engaging an ancient, malevolent god. Stefan's stubbornness threatens to pull Viktorin into a perilous scheme, pleading to change their destiny by returning the artifact not to the witches who claim it, but to Chernabog himself. Viktorin, filled with a foreboding sense of doom, tries to persuade Stefan to simply return the stolen item to the witches and avoid any further complications. Eventually, Stefan relents, with a chilling parting acknowledgment that it might be their final interaction. Viktorin, left in the shadows of flickering streetlights and his own heavy conscience, heads back to the Institute with a heart weighed down by sadness and a dim hope for Stefan's survival.
(Viktorin's odd encounter(SRTabitha):SRTabitha)
[Sun Feb 11 2024]
In Room Three
It is night, about 33F(0C) degrees, and there are a few dark grey stormclouds in the sky. There is a waxing crescent moon.
(A powerful artifact has been stolen from a local coven of witches, who are blamed for a string of bad luck plaguing Haven. Your target and their allies must find the artifact and return it before the witches are forced to take drastic measures.)
There's a sigh, and then another. Staring out at the empty room, Viktorin awkwardly rubs his neck, muttering to himself, "Well. Glad to see it didn't come with any furniture. Thanks White Oak. Guess I'm just gonna... I dunno... sleep on the fucking floor." The Czech pinches his nose, exhaling sharply. Nearly extending his foot to kick something, and yet, there's nothing there to land his toe upon. Puffing his cheeks, he takes a few moments, pacing the room, gauging its size, spreading his hands apart and making a rectangle with his index fingers and thumbs. "I could... try dragging a bed... here, maybe?" he asks himself aloud. "And then maybe like a night table. With a drawer!" There, the mood swiftly changes, elation and excitement, causing Viktorin' lips to curve upward, his cheeks dimpling and his eyes squinting.
This string of bad luck in which Viktorin now addresses -- a barren bedless room inside of the Institute is only one of many of the strange occurances that have been happening in town. Bad luck has been all the luck Haven has seen for the last few days, one might even say -- culminating the other evening with the solar flare, and now? Empty, bedless bedrooms.
With a shuffle and a shift, Viktorin is swiftly slinking out the door, thumping his feet down the stairs, and off, following the path through the plaza, through the reception area. His feet lead him down the street, his head held aloft, arms swaying to and fro.
Viktorin's phone buzzes on him. A peek at the screen, without actually turning the phone on to read the corresponding message notes that it is from a 'Stefan'. It buzzes at him again. Again: Stefan. They come in quick, and continuous for a while. It is disruptive, persistent. Needy.
Viktorin flicks his phone upward, swiping to accept the call, murmuring quietly into his phone as he walks, "Hey Stefan, wassup?" His gaze alights towards his feet with a steady caution, seemingly taking great care in his walk as not to trip over anything.
The phone continues to notify him of messages. Stefan. Stefan. Stefan. Until finally it rings, and Viktorin has picked it up. "I need your help," comes the voice on the other side of the line, thickly accented, rushed, and panicked.
Viktorin quirks his eyebrows faintly, surprised at the words that reach him. Lifting his voice, he asks, "Uh. Suuuureee? What's up dude?"
The words on the other side of the line, from the other side of the world. Its a harried whisper, "Remember that archaological dig you went with me on?" How could he not? Was he not just speaking about it the other night? "I went back there a few days ago..." The panicked voice wavers in and out from the phone mic, like the person there is often looking behind him.
Viktorin knits his eyebrows in concern, rubbing his cheek anxiously. His feet by now have stopped and his hands shake a little, a terror worming its way through his body, expressed in shivering, and a shaky response. With his voice low and quiet, he murmurs, "Yeah? Where are you now Stefan? I can't exactly snatch a last second flight to Prague and arrive there in a few seconds..."
"I took something from there. And now, it..." The voice comes, static, shaken, like they might be running now. "Chernabog. It is out. Have your dreams been worse lately?" It is a whisper of a question. "I activated something..." The voice doesn't say where they are, too panicked much to find himself a landmark, likely. At least he does not say so right away. "I woke something else with it." A pause. "I am home."
At the mention of waking something, a sense of being watched follows.
Viktorin blinks incredulously for a moment, before the fear sets in. With hesitation, he admits to the phone, which nearly dangles dangerously in his hand, "The nightmares are all the same dude. They haven't gotten any worse, but they haven't gotten any better neither. What'd you wake with it?" There's a pause as the Czech's hair stands on end and he takes cautious, cursory glances over this shoulder and that. He forces his body to move, gingerly crossing the street whilst watching for cars. "How am I supposed to help you whilst you're in Prague? Something I can do over here?"
So true. What can Viktorin do? With something Stefan has done, yet again, and yet again, dragged him into.
"A coven," comes Stafan's voice. "They claim that it is theirs and has been for centuries." The man on the other end says, "But I think that I can break our curse with it by bargaining with Chernabog directly with it." This. Is probably not a good idea, but has he ever truly had one?
Viktorin rolls his eyes expressively, nearly screaming into his phone, "You dumb fuck, you want to bargain with some damn Cthonic God of cruelty, evil, and whatever the Polabians believed he had control over... to fix a bunch of witches out to get you?" There was a hint of aggravation, before he asks, "What did you do to piss off the witches? Wouldn't it be easier to bargain with them and make peace or whatever?" He wrinkles his nose, though panic is rolling up his spine as he begins desperately searching for any shop to duck into, anywhere with lights, and not near so match as a single tree.
"I thought," Stefan says over a crackling line, "I thought you would be elated to try to help me bargain with it. Return it to the creature, for the release of whatever curse it's placed on us!" It comes rapid, upset. But then, the man took it from a place of rest to begin with! "And I wasn't asking you do it alone. I have someone who can path me to you..." It is bad enough that whatever power that the artifact exudes is unveiling itself over the wireless transaction between Viktorin and him. It reveals itself in the flicker and burnout of lights around Viktorin, leaving very very lit areas for him to retreat into.
Viktorin puffs his cheeks, squawking over the phone, "Maybe because I have enough sense to feel out that bargaining with a bunch of witches is probably higher up on the 'am I probably going to survive this' chart than summoning whatever thing that literally wants to strip my hide from my spine, in an effort to beg it pretty please, don't kill me now, I've come to make a bargain'... how else did you think I was going to react? And you didn't tell me... specifically, did you like... steal from the witches or something? Let me ask you this hypothetical, when you've got debts, you gonna go to the Russian Mob to get a little payday loan?" There's some guilt in Viktorin' eyes as he contemplates his phone quietly, holding it back to place it on speaker as he stares out into the darkness around him. He takes a deep breath, inhaling. "I'm not going near that fucking thing. It's going to tear my eyes out and wear my skin as a coat." A shudder runs through him and he heaves his chest, almost beginning to hyperventilate. He clenches his eyes shut, afraid. "Just return whatever you stole, why is this so hard? Why do we gotta go through a middle-man, ya know, the middle-man who wants to -kill- me?" he whines, almost pleadingly.
"Because..." Stefan whispers out, a croak, a moan, a worry. "Because they want it to keep for themselves. I want to return it to the proper owner!" Pride, probably. Fear. Which, however, is the lesser of the two evils here? "And if I give it /back/..." Back. Yes. Archaological site dig? Sure. "If I give it back, then do you think they will use it for honorable purposes?" As if this 'god' would either. "If we summon -it- and offer -it- -it-... then you and I ... we can change our fate." There comes a long pause on the other side of the phone. "I will do it alone, Vik, if I have to." Stefan is not quite convinved of the lesser evil, but there is a falter in his voice to show that he is, at least, listening. There is rustling in the forest nearby. But nothing can be seen. But its a forest, and things live there. Both natural and unnatural. Which is it?
Viktorin pauses clenching his eyes, quivering his lips as he nearly sobs. Perhaps in unbecoming to the man. Hushedly, he tells his phone, "Listen to me, Stefan. Trust me. It won't care if you bring it back. It might take it back, but do you think it'll let you live? And do you think, it will let me live? The Gods don't forgive you on a dime. There's always something that they're gonna ask or do to you... and maybe that's the more good natured ones. They're practically all-powerful. Why -wouldn't- they? And then you're talking about the god every Slavic tribe, from the Elbe to however far east those bastards traveled from, every tribe that cursed this thing's existence. Do you think, that this is the guy you should be bargaining with? Please... let's just give the witches their trinkets back, let me talk or something... whatever they do with it, is none of our business, so long as it doesn't affect us." The Czech takes a few careful steps away from the forest, watching it with a wary gaze.
"Fine, Vikki, fine." Stefan says over the phone, his words muffled like he's not speaking into the mic, but looking behind him. "You're right. Of course you're right. A voice of reason..." Anoter pause. "I'll return it." There is a fumble of the phone on the opposite end of the world. "But this might be the last time you hear from me." That, is sad, and fearful. "For whatever it's worth, I'm sorry." Then, silence. Phones these days don't end in a click, but there is a long stretch of nothingness. Viktorin is then startled by a rabbit hopping out from beneath a bush, followed by another. Something out there having scared them into what remains of the light Viktorin has saught himself.
Viktorin murmurs softly as he watches the rabbits, towards his phone, "Yeah. Yeah sure. Good luck. Have a good life I guess." On that note, he ends the call, slumping against the curb, simply sitting under the light pole. "Fuck man... why'd you have to fuck shit up more than it's already fucked?" A gloomy shift to the man's countenance occurred, and he sighed deeply. "Sorry to you too I guess," he apologized to the phone, already disconnected from the call. "For what it's worth... I hope you survive. Doubt it though." Another line, to no one particular, as if airing his guilt to the air to reassure himself. But it doesn't seem to raise the mood any higher, and the Czech takes one long, wistful glance at his phone, before stowing it in his pocket. Rising slowly, Viktorin walks off, back towards the Institute, his chest heaving, no longer out of fear, but instead imbued with deep melancholy.
The lights remain downed as someone walks back to the Institute, and just to make matters worse, new ones he passes flicker off and on.