EVENT LOG: Leave a Light On

[pluviosamods]

LEAVE A LIGHT ON

You aren't scared of the dark, are you?

The dark is safer than the light. It's the light the reveals the things you'd rather not know. It's the light that's essential to knowledge and to growth. It's the growing things you should be worried about around here. They've been waiting for you for a long time.

... Of course, so has everything thing. But it's the growing things that have the opportunity, now. No matter how dark and stormy the night, morning always comes.

This is the event mingle post for Leave a Light On. This event includes general content of rapid plant growth and the possibility of infection by the Growth (plant-related body horror element) for participating characters. The IC duration of this event is the afternoon and evening of Day 4.

This is not an event with heavy moderator involvement. Players are welcome to make their own top-levels on this post.

Further information on the event can be found here.

Comments

[vermillionpledge]

The muffled sounds of struggle and swearing make it difficult to tell if John is injured, though she realizes it would be hard to know even if she could see him. Something almost like a hand stretches toward her out of a small gap in the vegetation and she wrestles with something reassuring to say.

"It's all right. Just hold still and I'll try to cut some of it away." Her rapier isn't the ideal tool for the task, but there is something of a cutting edge on it that most swords of its like don't have. The crystal is slightly jagged, and she hopes that will be adequate. There's always fire, she supposes, though that will remain a last resort. She's quite certain John would throw a fit if she singed his clothes.

[aureatefantasia]

The only thing injured thus far is his pride, so there's that at least. But he pushes still, coiling all limbs to press back outward in an attempt to stretch this bullshit out enough to escape even a little, but it doesn't do him much good.

This is panic, he knows, and panic doesn't help any situation. He knows it from talking Arthur through it. So instead he... He's pretty sure he's heard what she's said and furthermore what she's implied: to hold still, to calm. It makes sense, and Alisaie has been... kind. Trust comes slowly, but she is the closest thing to a friend he's managed to stay close to so far, and he'll trust her that much, at least.

While John doesn't quite go limp, he does slowly relax and allow the plantlife to settle back into its preferred configuration.

(But also, he will much appreciate if Alisaie does not set anything on fire, if it can at all be avoided. Fire spreads, and John's tattered robes are as much him as they are strange material, and that will just... be unpleasant.)

[vermillionpledge]

She smiles a little when what little she can see of him seems to relax and give in. Far be it from her to be frustrated with another's stubbornness, but she's glad he's decided not to put up a fight for now. Maybe the feeling of suddenly being trapped exhausted him enough that he's giving in a little easier. She'll take it.
"I'll start at the bottom where the larger branches are," she says. "It might take a while." Thankfully the new growth is still soft and pliant, so she can make a pretty substantial hole in the thicker vines before attempting to saw at it with the rougher edges of her rapier.
Several minutes of sweating and cursing later, she can see what might be his foot or the bottom of his robes. Trying to figure out where his body ends and clothing starts is probably an exercise in futility, she knows from the weird headachey feeling she's gotten whenever she tries, but it's more than she could see before.
"Move your...foot a little? I can't tell how much I've freed." She hopes he doesn't catch the slight hesitation when she tries to name what she's seeing, or at least doesn't take it personally.

[aureatefantasia]

He's worn himself out some, it's true (and between several things, though this is the most pressing concern), but there's something of a sulk settling into his shoulders as he forces himself to keep from starting all over again out of pure, simple impatience.

It really is better to not try to make sense of his shape. The gap immediately catches his attention, rips it away from the dour, sullen thoughts that had begun to creep in(, the panic), and John zeroes in on it. He's still a bit too caught to really wriggle or turn or... do much of anything unless he wants to start flailing again, but it's a starting point.

"I c... Well, I can see, at least! A little." Her hesitation is the furthest thing from his mind—he is focused on this. It's close enough he could reach through it, even! And one black(?) shadowed thing creeps out to test that, compressing as it does like the limb of an octopus or the foot or eye stalks of a slug. It retreats quickly; John's not really a fan of how it blocks the gap off, even with the rush that comes with a solution in sight.

"If you can widen it a little more—maybe a foot!—I think I can get out." Maybe. He thinks. Possibly. H-hm...

[vermillionpledge]

"I can try to make room for your foot, if that's what you mean," she says, a bit puzzled. The odd phrasing aside, being able to catch glimpses of him through the rebellious foliage is encouraging. She redoubles her efforts, sawing at the vines clumsily and resolutely not thinking about what she'd seen in the gap between the vines. Squirming, amorphous...but it will make it easier for her to get him out. His shape unsettles her, and dwelling on it even more so, but he'd been kind. In a way that wasn't easy to feign when she'd caught him so off guard. And she will never let it be said that she doesn't repay her debts.
"Almost...there," she calls out between breaths. "You will be free soon, I promise."