( open ) liberate your sons and daughters the bush is high but in the hole there's water

[synergismus]

Who: Everyone!
What: Events around the city, any time.
Where: Everywhere in Baedal.
When: Whenever you’d like.
Notes:

• Behold, your all-purpose open game log. There are a couple pre-written starters to help you generate new and open CR, and you may also use this post to start your own group activities or planned threads. GO WILD!
  
• No one is late to this post. You may use it forever.
  
• The companion thread for this post is right here!
  
• DON'T THINK TOO HARD ABOUT IT JUST RP.
  
• Helpful links: Neighbourhoods, City Map.
  
• Lucky Pastry Advice for the Month of Velldaren: A truly rich life contains love and art in abundance.
  

Warnings: Zombie horrors in the appropriately titled ZOMBIES! thread, otherwise TBA. Please put warnings in subject lines of your comments if content warrants one.

Comments

a night stroll (Echomire)

[blooddrinker]

Dren had decided to take a walk around the city once the sun set. He was curious about what sort of place he'd ended up in.

He hadn't had any particular destination in mind, though he had heard that the Bazaar in Aspic might be worth visiting. He was mostly just wandering, investigating various objects of interest, when he happened on Monster Garden.

He had now been exploring the garden for over an hour, examining the odd statues.

[eventheskylooksdifferent]

Lena doesn't know if she's supposed to be lurking around these gardens after dark. She's still not real clear on the rules in the city, and she guesses she should look into that sometime.

But the inn still creeps her out, and she's happy to spend as much time away from it as she can. Echomire isn't terribly far from Mog Hill. Mostly-abandoned areas don't bother her; in fact, the area and these gardens in particular remind her of Ravenwood, the family estate back in South Carolina. There's that sense of old history, of inexplicable connections to the past, and the kind of melancholy a place has when it's seen too much, let too much time soak into its grounds.

Lena feels right at home here.

She's so caught up in wandering the spooky grounds, weaving in and out of statues, that she doesn't realize there's someone else in the gardens until she pops out of a row of shrubs nearly in front of him. "Oh!" she exclaims, throwing up a startled hand. Maybe it's to ward him off, maybe the hand comes up out of some habit, some power she was on the verge of bringing to bear. It's hard to say if it's a defensive or offensive gesture.

She lowers her hand, sheepish, watching for any sign of trouble or any hint that this is something other than running into another night-time wanderer. "Excuse me," she offers, "I'm sorry. I didn't know anyone else was here."

[incaptivity]

Hal isn't commonly found on nighttime strolls-- or strolls at all, of late. It's been months since he'd left the Inn, or even his room therein, without Tom to accompany him, relying on the werewolf's presence to remind him what he's doing (starving, abstaining) and why he's doing it (guilt, self-respect, basic decency, temporary insanity). But while Tom was out at some charity event, they'd run out of dish soap, and it had been such a simple thing, such a basic necessity, that he'd thought, at five-hundred twenty-five years old he had damn well better be capable of going to the corner store.

And he was, actually. It was only on the walk back that he'd passed a group of cruorvore teens on their way to the river by way of Bloody Sunday, and the smell-- he could kill whoever thought blood milkshakes were a good idea, but at that moment he was substantially more concerned about slaughtering half of Mog Hill.

So he'd walked as fast as he could in a less populated direction, walked until he found space to breathe, and eventually found himself on a bench in a moss-covered courtyard in the monster garden, frazzled but taking deep, measured breaths. There were statues in the enclaves that might have been young women once, but their heads and limbs had been worn away by time -- or may be they'd been carved that way to start. Hard to tell.

In any case, he isn't paying much attention to them or any other part of the garden, at least not until he notices he's not alone. And that the other late-night wanderer is also lacking a heartbeat.

"Oh, for Christ's sake," he mutters none too quietly, dropping his forehead against the heel of his hand. You can't throw a stone in this city without hitting another member of the undead.