[open] october nightmare/fog catchall & overflow

[reticence]

WHO: Faolan and YOU?
WHERE: Dreamscapes and around the city
WHEN: Spanning the month of October
WHAT: Catch all/overflow for the October nightmare/fog events
WARNINGS: Violence, death, references to sexual behavior and threats; will updated as needed

ii. nightmares

a) dubhan cw: death
[The nightmare starts as it's always done. The street is narrow and dark, and though it's difficult to identify for certain, they're definitely in Ireland. Faolan's home-town. The streets old and well-worn with the feet of many a traveler like those who have dared to brave the damp, chilly night.

Faolan stumbles from a nearby pub. It's where he'd been, the night Dubhan had died. Drinking with his friends, celebrating their upcoming year at University, while his brother had bled out in the alleyway where his attackers had left him for dead. Well not this time. This time he won't fail him. His brother. His hero.

Dubhan.]

Hey!!!

[Faolan calls out, lunging at the closest passerby, reaching to grab them by the lapels. He probably looks like a mad drunk but he doesn't care. He needs to find him. Before it's too late.] Where is he? You need to help me find him!

b) laurent
[This time, the nightmare is different. This time, there are no damp, narrow streets of Ireland. This time, his brother is nowhere to be found. This time, he is not forced to watch his boyhood hero killed before his eyes while he stands aside, unable to do nothing.

This time they have Laurent.

Faolan fights against his compulsion. He fights against whatever it is that has him frozen in this spot, with everything he has, until finally a scream bursts forth. He doesn't care what happens to him, he doesn't care if their attention turns from Laurent onto himself, he needs to make them stop, he needs someone to help him make them stop.]

Help!!

iii. the fog

[Faolan doesn't know what to make of it at first, this fog that creeps its way across the city. He's used to living his life on edge, constantly on watch from the fear of attack, given his position of bodyguard. But whatever it is that has brought this fog has only doubled that sensation. That feeling as though someone is watching from the shadows. It's unnerving, and coupled with the nightmares he's been experiencing each night, Faolan feels as though he's losing his mind.

Leaving Laurent safely at home (with the promise that he would call him should even the whisper of trouble come knocking, because yes he really is that paranoid, the lack of decent sleep is really starting to get to him), Faolan decides that it's worth going out for coffee and trying to get himself to relax and take a breath.

At least that had been the idea, up until the arrow comes hurtling through the fog in his direction, to wedge itself in the grass of the curb before him. Faolan whips his head around in the direction that the projectile had come from and reaches for the weapon at his side, but how does he protect himself from arrows, especially ones that are shot from an enemy in the fogs that he cannot yet see...]

Comments

[reticence]

But of course Faolan wants to check that the rooms are safe before Laurent ventures down the hallway into any one of them. Digging his gun out of the inner holster in his jacket, Faolan ventures forward towards the first door he finds. The wolf, of course. Because it had always been the first room he had investigated in the bunker, and if anywhere there were likely to be hidden booby traps here as well it would be behind a door associated with Vanderweele.

"It was similar, yes, but not the same as this," he replies, glancing over at Laurent to make certain that he is a safe distance away before reaching for the door handle. It turns under his touch -- he hadn't known whether to expect it to or not -- and the door swings open. Faolan squares his stance so that both the light and the gun are pointed into the space, but as the light of his phone reveals, it seems only to be an office. Vanderweele's office, perhaps, but simply an office nonetheless. Faolan steps inside and sweeps the room to be sure, before stepping back into the hall.

"Each of its rooms had thrones in them, to start, not office chairs." He makes for the second door across the hall, but finds a similar scene before him there as well, if definitely decorated by a different hand.

[anguinous]

Thrones. How ostentatious.

Laurent begins moving things around on the desk carefully, frowning at a piece of paper and leaning closer to read it with his flashlight.

"Here I thought America was opposed to monarchies. Scream if you find anything dangerous."

Not that Laurent thinks Faolan needs rescuing, but he is heading away out of sight and he based on previous experience these places owned by Retrospec seemed to be plagued with odd experiences.

[reticence]

Faolan lets out the huff of a laugh as he disappears into the second room, making a quick sweep of it before heading off down the hallway and making quick sweeps of the other two rooms. All clear, all definitely uniquely decorated for what Faolan would assume is one of the four founders or at least their families if not the people themselves.

"All clear," he says, making his way back into the hallway from the last office. "Nothing worth screaming about unless you're counting the spiders, which I wouldn't. I would say you're welcome to look around to your heart's content. I doubt anyone or anything has been here for some time."

[anguinous]

"Good. Come and take a look at this."

Laurent is holding a rather aged piece of paper and frowning at it. He glances up as Faolan re-enters the office, holds it out toward the man for him to take. It's a a formal letter addressed to Vanderweele. Outlined in the letter are the original goals of the Founders (to save worlds, to scout and collect "seeds" to be brought to a safe haven, to preserve the worlds while the four founders of the city design the new universe) along with a subnote:

Due to the unspeakable acts caused by you and your hand in the demise of Phillip's family line, by order we declare that you are no longer fit for this operation. You will be held in a facility elsewhere to await for sentencing.

Our operation began as a preservation of life, not simply your own. We will begin restructuring to undo the damage immediately.

This is all a little intense for Faolan, who finds he isn't sure which bit to process first.

[reticence]

Faolan steps back into the room and takes the paper from Laurent, careful with it as it seems to be rather old and delicate, given where they've found it. He scans the words quickly, frowning the further he reads. Vanderweele. It all keeps coming back to him in the end, somehow.

"They had warned that Vanderweele was dangerous," he said, turning the letter over in his hands as if it might offer some further clue, before glancing back up at Laurent. "But to have wiped out the man's entire family line is something else entirely." How many people had it been, he has to wonder. And how did he do it, for that matter. Unspeakable acts? "Vanderweele is by all technical counts the 'first' Founder. To have committed something of that magnitude... There's a story behind this."

[anguinous]

"They must have been on good terms at some point, to found this place together. I wonder what caused the disagreement."

Our operation began as a preservation of life, not simply your own.

He frowns at Faolan, then down at the desk -- shining his light around a little more.

"Putting his own life above others..."

Is there some sacrifice required, to build the city? What level of sacrifice? Just of time, of family, of life? He shines the light around again, thinking.

"You said Vanderweele's symbol was the wolf, correct? Perhaps his room will hold answers."

[reticence]

Faolan nods, turning to glance over his shoulder in the direction of Laurent's light. "It's the wolf, yes," he confirms. Vanderweele's symbol. His familiar, of sorts, or the creature that had been associated with him during the incident. He wonders at the connection between the four founders and the animals, but more than that he wonders at the connection between the man and what he'd learned in August besides.

Had he learned anything back then that might have proved a connection to recent findings? Not that he can think of off of the top of his head, per se. There had been a lot of symbolism connecting him with alchemy, or sorcery, depending on how one might look at it, but that didn't necessarily prove anything.

[anguinous]

"Then let us take a look."

Laurent moves around the table carefully, walks down the hall and pushes open the door with the wolf on it. Inside the room is a little cluttered, and clearly has a wolf theme. Stepping in Laurent carefully picks his way toward the walls, begins scanning the decorations. Charts, posters, things that don't make as much sense out of context as he'd like. Lists of names, information with nothing connecting it -- no exploitation. There's something here, Laurent is sure, if only he could make sense of it. Like puzzle pieces, with no sense of what picture he is building.

[reticence]

Faolan is wary of the room -- of Laurent being in the room, even if there is no reason for him to be wary of it. He had known Vanderweele to be an oddity, but now that he knows that the man had been dangerous, a murderer, he doesn't want Laurent becoming involved in anything to do with him. Of course, he can't stop him from being curious, but he hopes his curiosity doesn't lead him into any trouble.

"Finding anything?" he asks the younger man, glancing over at Laurent as he scans the various hangings on the wall. Much like in the other bunker, Vanderweele's desk is proving to be a dead end, although the office supplies here are at least a little more modern than the medieval ones Faolan had found in the office the wolf had led them to before.

[anguinous]

Laurent sighs a little, frowning at the wall a little longer than over at Faolan.

"I'm not sure. There's a lot of information here, but it's in no particular order. I suppose it wasn't intended for strangers to make sense of."

Secret bunkers, after all, aren't helpfully set up with guides on how to understand their secret contents. Unfortunately for them. He moves the light along the wall, lips pressed into a thin line as he thinks.

"These names must be here for a reason. Members of the company? Past, present? Family? Both?"

[reticence]

Who knows if this bunker really was intended to be secret at the time it was in use, anyway. How long ago had these founders lived, if there were these many generations of family between them and the present?

Faolan shakes his head at the question. "Perhaps both," he says. "It seems to have stayed in the family, as it were. Even now, there are still members of the two remaining families among the employees of Retrospec. I wouldn't be surprised if all of those people were involved somehow."

[anguinous]

He makes a soft, non-committal sound as he walks up and down -- scanning the wall again before letting out a slow breath.

"I'll need to do some research, find out who all these people were. Are all the rooms the same?"

Same names on the wall, or different? He glances back at Faolan curiously, turning the light to scan the other side of the room too in case he missed something.

[reticence]

Faolan nods slightly. "You'd have to search them to know for sure, but they seemed similar when I looked through initially. They're obviously the offices for the different founders, but they all had a chart and a contract like that," he said, motioning to the items on the wall. "I didn't really read through them all to compare if they were all the same though."

His priority had been more to ensure that it was safe to be there in the first place, and that it was safe for Laurent to continue to explore the offices for that matter as well.

"Here," he says, stepping over towards the wall where the names are listed, shining the light of his phone across the chart. "Take a photo of it. Easiest way to compare and have a record for later, yeah? I'll keep a light on it."

[anguinous]

He makes a soft sound of assent, takes a few steps back with a frown and takes a picture of some of the charts on the wall -- turns and takes a general picture of the room.

"Let's move a room over and see then."

See if the names are different, if there's anything else worth noting.

With a last frown around the room he steps toward the door, waiting for Faolan to escort him out and around the corner.

[reticence]

Faolan glances around the room one more time, with its wolf decor personally chosen by Vanderweele, before he guides the younger man out the door and around the corner to the next room over. Shining his light into the room before guiding Laurent inside.

"This must have been Mahoney's office," he explains as he shines the light around. "The rabbit was her animal." He can't be certain why exactly, or why any of the Founders were associated with their spirit animals for that reason. But here at least is one of the Founders whose family branch supposedly did not die out at the first. Perhaps they will have better luck finding something of a clue here?

[anguinous]

"A coat of arms, or regalia of sorts? I wonder..."

What the importance of the animals is. If they have meaning or are just... something picked long ago, for a symbol. Laurent picks around the room thoughtfully, making notes and frowning at the sheets of paper and lists of names with a sigh.

"This is like having a thousand piece jigsaw with no picture to guide construction."

All the pieces are here, Laurent is sure, he just doesn't know how they fit. Not yet.

[reticence]

Faolan shakes his head in response to the question.

"I don't know. They weren't very specific about it, in the bunker before. Perhaps there's something about it written somewhere?" He glances around the office again. "Maybe not here, but. If they really did decorate their offices in such a way as this, it stands to reason that the animals were a recognized motif."

He turns to watch Laurent with the list of names, his brow furrowing at the frown on Laurent's face as well. "Find anything else?"

[anguinous]

He scans the room a last time, pressing his lips together in thought.

"Nothing inspiring. There's two more rooms?"

Wolf, rabbit, bear and koi. There might be some meaning to the animals, but Laurent can't say he knows enough about symbolism to pin it down.

"I suggest we scan them quickly for anything of note then retreat to somewhere secure to go over it all."

Cross-check things, look up names, generally piece it all together as best they can.

[reticence]

Faolan nods. "Two more rooms, two more employees associated with them. Let's take a look and then step back outside? If it's all the same to you, I'd feel safer back out in those woods then inside this bunker. I don't know if it's because of the last bunker that I was in but it still feels like a shadow wolf might jump out at us at any false step here and I don't want to risk it."

He steps back out of the room to lead Laurent down the hallway into the next room, making certain to step in first to be certain it's clear before motioning Laurent in after him. From the looks of the room, the bear this time, it seems to look pretty much the same as the last. He stands back as he waits for Laurent to search the room, unable to see that much of a difference from either of the other rooms, aside from the decor yet again.

[anguinous]

Laurent nods in agreement, stepping into the room and making another quick scan.

"I have no intention of being mauled by a shadow creature either. I'll be quick. Most of this will mean more once I've established more context, which requires us to leave."

He takes a deep breath, moving his way around the bear decor and trying to check for anything they might have missed. Some sort of folio titled secret or a diary, anything really that stands out as being useful. There's nothing though, just more names and more questions.

The last room is the same. Laurent lifts his light and studies it with a sigh, from the dust to the cobwebs to the fish theme. Faolan wants to leave, he knows, and he can't blame him. Laurent feels like he's walked miles and no doubt Faolan has as well to find him. With a list glance around he backs out into the main area once more, staring down the desk and picking over it one last time before retreating to outside it. They're going to lose light if they stay too much longer, and walking through the woods without being able to see too far doesn't sound appealing. Still, as they begin to walk back Laurent thinks that if any of this information comes to something it will have been worth it. Just what they have is enough to make Laurent think.