❪ event ❫ spirited away

[natha]

PRELUDE     I'll get straight to the point, Thesaens. Dranbu is in dire need of assistance. I have received confirmation that the disappearances we were investigating last month have... escalated. Be cautious as you make your way through Josa Forest. Ideally we could go straight through, but it seems the main entrance to Dranbu is overgrown with thorns and vines, and there's a bit of a glitch with the rail system - the train is having trouble recognizing the Dranbu station as a destination. I've uploaded a homing beacon to your devices with this message. Once enough of you have arrived in Dranbu proper, it should communicate with the train and register it as a stop. With any luck, that will make getting back and forth much easier for you all from now on. Best of luck. Entry to the forest is not only overgrown with vegetation, but seems to be growing at an increasingly alarming rate. Any attempts to clear the vines will be met with even larger ones growing in its place, and it only confirms Nurray's findings as true. The only way in is across the sound from Nadril, entering the forest from its snowy back yard. It doesn't stay cold for long; as one ventures further into the forest, the snow will disappear, as though it was completely out of place in the first place. The red sun's warmth will take its place soon after— and before long, you'll feel too warm for the clothes you came with. That's when you know you've entered the heart of Josa Forest. WITHIN THE FOREST     The forest seems to be thick with a profound presence that can’t be ascertained. While venturing through it, one will feel like there are being watched or followed. This feeling will only intensify as metallic-scented drops of rain begin to fall between the clearings in the trees. Unfortunately, what many don’t realize at this point is that this is how the forest itself eats. How it subsists and lives through the minds of those who eventually get lost in it. Wandering this far in is akin to walking into a lion’s jaw, or rather… straight to its stomach. But, the forest has a way of making one stay. While it swallows someone up, it shows them sinfully beautiful and picturesque sights. Even showing them people or things that are familiar to the lost. All of which will urge them to go in deeper and deeper. But, while the forest begins to prey on the mind of their victim— they will suddenly hear an elegant and alluring voice urging them back. This voice promises them comfort and safety. Promises to be kind and open. Promises she has a place for them where they will never feel displaced or unwanted, or lost. Before they can fully accept, they will find that they are whisked away in Barthala’s embrace. Some will be taken, wiped of all their previous memories and inserted new ones. Others will find they have no prior memories at all of themselves, only urged to go on with regular life. What is prevalent is the forest's desire to turn you. Metamorphosis is a phenomenon that occurs only to certain individuals, and there is no rhyme or reason to them. Some adventurers would find themselves changing by the minute, the hour, or the process may even take days and weeks. The forest toys with you, but it only wants to draw you closer to its core — as though there's a story there it wants you to see and understand. Will you go on anyway, knowing the forest has already has its claws on you? I. ALL ROADS LEAD TO — Exploring the forest is not a perilous experience - Barthala's blessing ensures that paths remain clear of any dangerous obstacles, and keeps anyone who enters the woods from losing their way. However, it will not always lead adventurers where they want to go. Stressed? Your path leads to a meadow, grass drifting gently in the breeze. Tired? You'll find your way to a tree with roots perfectly curved for a nap, the shade a peaceful retreat from the sunlight. The hungry will find streams full of fish or bushes laden with berries, and the curious will come upon elder trees, unique and beautiful. Only those who are truly satisfied with their circumstances, with themselves, can forge their own path, and venture to Barthala's Grotto. II. BARTHALA'S GROTTO — The deity's home is host to an abundance of life. Butterflies drift through the air, brilliantly colored and unbothered by any intruders. Foliage blooms in a rainbow of colors, many plants unique to this area alone. With trees arranged to provide a canopy over the path and small clearing, the scene is something out of a fantasy. Any plant life taken from this area will not survive long, though even in its dead, dried state, it retains a curious beauty. Explorers and creatures finding themselves in this area will suddenly find their clothing to be an unnecessary burden - what could be better than feeling the wonders of nature against bare skin? There is nothing unbecoming about such a natural state, any perverse inclinations are an aspect of personal preference. While the presence of Barthala can be felt here - a warm, comfortable sensation emanating from your core - she is nowhere to be found. Only one will have the opportunity to pass under a veil of willow branches and emerge to the cool air of a clear-as-glass spring. Another nearby grotto is home to a plant with intoxicating effects. Just smelling the leaves is enough to entice most animals, and consuming them has effects on both mind and body. More easily amused, with thoughts that weave deep and distant, along with increased sensory perception can bring the user on a pleasant trip lasting up to five hours. III. INFLUENCES — (18+) Every five days, a weed scattered in patches among the forest underbrush blooms. The flowers are small and white, unremarkable except for how clustered they grow. When their petals fall, after only hours of blossoming, pollen drifts through the air. It clings to clothing, to hair, in the throats of the sensitive animals dwelling in the forest. Even those unaltered by Barthala's magic can be affected. The locals of Dranbu claim the pollen enhances fertility, but in practice, it simply serves as a poignant aphrodisiac. Those affected won't differentiate between the warmth of another or their own, a simple need to experience sexual ecstasy overwhelmingly pervaded. The pollen loses its potency after about three hours, leaving behind only a sweet smell. YOUR NEW (NEW) LIFE    Adapting to an entirely new setting isn’t always so simple. People often say that assimilating oneself to the environment happens fluidly, and before you know it, you’re a part of it. In Dranbu, these words hold an uncanny sense of truth. When you awake, your day begins like it always has. Your daily routine meets largely unchanged, except a few tinier details. Perhaps, you’ve realized your true calling is an occupation within the villages itself. Maybe in farming up strange medical herbs, maybe in acting as a witch doctor for the people, or maybe you find yourself drawn to the arts and you really enjoy sculpting fellow villagers in the nude. Once you commit these tasks, you realize, it feels like what you’ve always done. As if it were natural, as if you’ve done them for years, and maybe you have? At least that’s what your gut is telling you, and slowly your memories will too. At the end of the day, when you return home, you realize you’re not alone. You have a partner who shares the same values and whom you love deeply. Or maybe a spouse whom you’re always arguing with. But, even that will feel as commonplace as the rest of your day. All you know is that the day that might have started off not being yours is entirely yours and yours alone. IV. THE HUNT — Those taken by the forest, animal features adorning their bodies, will find that their palates have changed as well. Carnivores crave raw meat, while herbivores don't mind snacking on a patch of grass or pulling leaves from branches. For most, there's no reason to cook a meal; once prey is captured, instinct says dig right in! It can be a gruesome sight, mangled bodies gorged upon leaving bloodstained faces, but it's natural. As is the hunt itself - any size of game can be found in the forest, and no one will go hungry for long. The magic that dwells here ensures a catch even for the clumsiest predator. Just take care not to stalk one of your own. For a hungry predator, there's no difference between a deer and a deer-like human. THE BOUNDARIES BEYOND     For some, placated is synonymous with bored. While there is a sense of wonder in the beauties of nature that adorn the woods, serene forest life isn't for everyone. Those seeking more adventure can explore the challenging slopes of Waco Mountain. Barthala's influence is weaker on those bluffs than in Josa Forest itself, so thrill chasers won't be disappointed. Lose the path, slip on loose rocks, fall into a stream and spend a night wet and cold, there are many perils that come with traveling a mountain-side. Scattered ruins offer some shelter, their walls carved with images resembling Barthala, a dragon, and three other stranger creatures. While the deity's pacification does not flow as deeply through this region, all are still save from mortal wounds, and the veil cast over their memories will not lessen. If you have made it this far, however, there is no reason to try to return to the main city of Dranbu. Accommodations are always available in the neighboring villages: Phares in the north, and Stroln in the south. These villages are in friendly competition with one another, and will tempt travelers with women and men of their kind in order to draw in business to their hotels. FINAL OOC NOTES     No REP is available for this log. REP will now be primarily available through achieving NPC quests, which will be available on the 19th! Please keep an eye out for that! Dranbu is entirely available for exploration! You may find that most of Wyver and Olympia Flora/Fauna may be found in the forest as well. For more information on your characters' (opt-in) Metamorphosis, please refer to the November Outline! QUICK NAV premise ● faq ● lore ● map ● npcs ● bestiary taken ● atp/emp ● application ● rep/acp ● quest bulletin calendar ● hiatus/drops ● modbox [ FULL NAVIGATION ] elnysa nysalogs nysaisles nysaooc elnyan

Comments

i live to torture my son what can i say

[spideys]

[ Peter isn't sure how long it's been, how much time has passed between now and the moment he and Kate had somehow become separated. Time doesn't mean a whole lot right now, maybe it never meant anything at all; maybe time is ... what is time?

When Kate manages to find him, well, when she finds the Man-Spider anyway, he's raised up on all eight of his legs - confused and frustrated, and now suddenly fearful the moment he catches sight of the arrow pointed straight at him. It's the thought of it piercing him that clears some of the fog threatening to take him over and make him forget, and then he remembers Kate.

Kate. His friend, the girl who could make him smile and laugh and do really stupid things in an attempt to impress her, like suddenly show up with a bag of stake-out snacks.

He raises two of his array of arms and waves them in protest while he tries to yell, No! No, it's me - I'm Peter! but it all winds up sounding like a deep grumbling growl. ]

and yourself clearly

[quivers]

[ Oh, great, she thinks. This is how I die. Not with a bang, but jabbed in the heart by gross, hairy, spider legs.

Well, sorry, Mr. Spider, but she ain't having it. With practiced muscle memory, she nocks the arrow at the end of her fingers, letting it stretch out the bow string until she loosens her hold on it. It flies fast, and if she had the intent, she could have shot it straight into the heart of that creature.

Instead, the arrow whizzes past its rounded head, close enough for the sound of a loud swoosh to echo, before it pierces firmly into the bark of a nearby tree.

She doesn't waste time in setting up a second shot, reading another arrow back on the bow, her stare as sharp as the arrow itself. ] That was a warning, buddy! Give me a hint you've got Peter alive in some gross web cocoon somewhere and the next one doesn't go right into your heart.

[ Do spiders have heart? They have to, right? She blows in animal biology, but she does have the experience to know some creatures have enough intelligence to understand human communication to some extent, especially if they're deformed like this. ]

take a little pain w the pleasure

[spideys]

[ Crap! In his frantic waving, the Man-Spider manages to shift his large and lumbering hairy body out of the way of the shot - but only just barely. It grazes past him with a whoosh, trimming off the ends of his furry face.

He knows Kate is capable of a killing shot, and that scares him too.

He pauses, realizing that the arm-waving isn't doing anything but upping the ante on this rather intense situation, and thinks quickly.

His camera.

His camera.

This is going to take a little bit of interpretation - and maybe a keen eye for charades.

He slowly raises one clawed arm before him in a hold on a moment motion. Slowly, he moves said claw down to point at the camera (now looking almost comically small in comparison to his current stature) and then turns his claw on himself, pointing.

Slowly, slowly.

Get it? ]

[quivers]

[ It's to the spider's luck that Kate has such an affinity for details, because her eyes follow every shift of the many arms, her own remaining tense and ready for a shot whenever warranted. She thinks for a moment, he might be making for another attack, but as she focuses her vision, she notices that it's seemingly ... gesturing?

Camera — he's pointing directly to the camera, which is something worth taking note of, considering any mindless spider who hardly care to recognize the loot from their prey. So this spider has some capabilities of communication, good start.

And then the leg moves, and her eyes follow. Perhaps it'll point the way to Peter, to wherever he has him held captive — but before she can consider a second of victory, he points to ... himself. Himself. ]

What the futz?

[ Maybe this spider is some aspiring photographer who just happened to find a lost camera. A camera that just happens to belong to her friend. Her friend who just so happens to also be leaning towards a career in —

Holy motherfutzing— ]

Peter!? [ She gasps, eyes wide with confusion and shock. But the surprise loosens her focus and suddenly her fingers lose their grip on the arrow, which quickly gets shot through the air.

In a quick reflex of panic, she shouts, ] Look out!

[spideys]

[ Man-Spider doubles backwards, displaying reflex and skill he definitely hadn't shown when Kate launched an arrow near him the first go around. It's like he's prepared himself, or his spider instincts had, and as a result, he manages to skirt the accidental arrow with plenty enough room to spare.

He remembers who he is, all right, and it's even more telling now that Kate's here - there's a Peter-ness to the way he holds himself, even with the pincers and the four extra limbs grown out of his sides. She keeps him rooted to the person he was before this form took over.

Only now he's got no idea how he's going to turn back. ]

[quivers]

[ Her heart temporarily stops, she's sure of that much.

But he moves with ease, the long scrawny legs bending and shifting as if they had known the intended direction of the arrow, something she couldn't have even predicted with the sudden unintended shot. Her arms drop to her sides, bow loosely hanging by her fingers as she stares with wide eyes and helpless awe.

Those movements, who knew that a spider could actually move like that, that a spider could — oh. Spider-Man could.

Only it's Peter who's on her mind now, as her feet track forward, closer to the large creature, her new confidence in his identity giving her the courage to approach without her previous defenses. ]

Peter, is that — ? That really you, buddy? [ Her tone is more of concern now, her gaze falling up and down him as she stands before him, observing, calculating, trying to make sense of the current circumstances. ] How the futz did this happen to you?

[spideys]

[ Now that the worst of it appears to be over, Man-Spider allows his great heaving form to sag a little - and then he shakes his head, almost forlornly. A low grumble erupts from his throat.

Yes, it's really him.

And as for how the futz this happened to him? He's got no idea. It was the ... trees, the air, maybe something in the water. The longer time he'd spent within this forest, the more he'd begun to forget himself. And then, quite suddenly, he was this creature.

If this is how the people Nurray had been looking for disappeared, well, it's no wonder.

He starts to speak - What do we do now? - only his voice still winds up sounding growly and gutteral, the words not quite comprehensible. ]

[quivers]

[ When he makes the noise this time, it doesn't have the same weight of threat Kate had imagined it to have the first time around. Now that she pays closer attention, she can sense something almost pitiful in the gargle of a cry, something like a wounded animal unsure of his next action.

Sighing, she begins to reach out instinctively, hand raised as if ready to pet him, as she normally would, patting her friend's shoulder in a comforting gesture. But she's quick to remember his current state, and the texture of coarse hairs she's not exactly mentally prepared to make physical contact with.

Maaaaybe not a good idea.

Instead, she crosses her arms, sighing as she tilts her head, giving him a continued look over, despite the lack of answers in a mere visual. ]

To be honest, this isn't really my territory — physical transformations and all of that. Billy would have better luck. I'd even take my chances with Loki on this. [ But her best friend nor the childish god of mischief weren't here. It was just her and her new pet spider. ] But are you really all in there? Like, your consciousness? You know it's me?

[ Tapping her chin, she hums, pursing her lips in brief thought, before she gives a light punch into her palm. ] Oh! Got it! Why don't you scribble on the dirt with your pointy legs? Maybe write something? A word I'd recognize?

[spideys]

[ Man-Spider turns his dark, many beady eyes on Kate while she speaks, listening, trying to fight back the spider instincts in him, and remembering Peter Parker.

He looks at her when she asks him whether he knows it's her, and then he flinches when she suddenly lets out an exclamation, but he's calmer now, and strangely docile for a giant eight-legged spider beast with pincers and dark eyes.

He rises to his full height and moves forward, looking for a clear-ish patch of dirt to scribble on. It's hard remembering who he is, let alone figuring out how to write with these many legs and claws, but at least he doesn't have to try (and fail) using a pencil.

The hairy beast pauses for a moment, thoughtful, before he begins to draw something in the dirt, scraping away at the blades of grass until three crude markings make themselves legible.

If Kate looks really hard, she'll be able to make out:

N Y C. ]

[quivers]

[ She'd mostly been kidding. Because, come on, even if it is Peter's consciousness in there, there's no tootin' way that a spider would actually manage to write anything legible. But her eyes go wide when she sees the giant spider body edge forward, a long bent leg sketching into the dirt. ]

I swear, if I see some Sistine Chapel quality mural on here ...

[ Kate tilts her head, squinting her eyes to get a look at the ground once she sees he's presumed to be finished, and a moment later, her gaze softens, a smile begin to lift on the corners of her lips. ]

NYC. [ She reads, and it's more than enough to prove this is the very Peter she knows, the same one she's gotten to exchange stories of their worlds with, of the old lives they once knew. Even if she'd moved out onto the west coast, New York had always been her home, and there was something relieving whenever they spoke of memories they hadn't shared physically, but could transverse one another into just as easily.

Taking a deep breath, she puts her hands on her hips, eyes still on the letters until she eventually looks back up to her fellow friend's transformed body. ] You know, you still owe me finding me that New York pizza. Which means there's no way I'm letting you get away with staying in this creepy body. We're finding you a way out of this.

[spideys]

[ Man-Spider can't quite breathe a sigh of relief, but the attempt is there, all the way down to the slight heave in his shoulders (do gigantic man-spiders have shoulders? sure, sure, lets say they do) as he allows himself to hope for an end to this awful transformation.

He turns away from the scratches in dirt and back to Kate, waiting expectantly. If she's got any ideas about how to find a way out of this ... well, he's all non-existent spider-ears right now.

Operation: Human Again is on. ]