Once upon a time, in a land not so far away...
You wake to the feeling of being watched. Of a set of unfamiliar eyes, of warm breath on the back of your neck. A jolt back to the land of the living, and it's gone. No matter how quick you are, how sneaky, the source of the disruption has long since disappeared, so you have no choice but to try and ignore it. To continue on with your day and try to set that moment of strangeness aside.
You eat, drink, speak with others. Perhaps you explore a little. Whatever it is you choose to do for the day, that feeling from the morning won't return. And by the time the sun sets and the moon glows brightly above, you've likely set those moments of strangeness aside. It's not like it's anything new, after all.
It's the same again for the next few days. No better, no worse. Something best ignored, right?
A speck of blood on the doorframe. That wasn't there before, was it?
A snap of twigs in the distance. A crunch of leaves.
Claw marks gouged deeply into the door.
Into the wall above your bed.
Scraps of red fabric, turned darker with blood. Pieces of fur. Of flesh.
Do you run and hide? Do you fight? Whatever you choose, it's definitely time to make sure your body parts aren't scattered next...
...what a horribly big mouth you have.
--------------------
Since first waking up on the island, characters have been stuck with that feeling of being watched. It isn't a constant. Isn't more than a few seconds at a time, dotted throughout the day. Investigation has never turned up much, and there's never been any sightings of the cause of it all.
Until now.
Throughout the first half of the week, characters will find themselves suffering from that feeling of being watched on a far more constant basis. Rather than it being a one-off, few seconds occurrence each day, that feeling will last for minutes at a time, and on multiple occasions.
However, it isn't until the fifth day that they'll start stumbling across physical signs of their monitoring. There are claw marks on doors. Spots of blood on the paths outside. A crack of twigs in the forests, or the imprint of bloodied paws in the snow.
Ten days in and those signs start finding their way indoors. Wet footprints, tinged with red. Claw marks in the walls, the floor. Torn sheets and the smell of wet...something. Whatever it is that's been watching you, its finally decided to come and say hello.
Two weeks in and characters will begin to have sightings of the creature, its fur dark and its eyes a glowing yellow. At times it looks like a wolf, prowling in the distance. At other times, it's walking on its hind legs, almost human were it not for the muzzle full of gleaming sharp teeth. Get too close, and it slips away like a shadow, gone between one blink and the next. It decides when to reach out to characters, not the other way round.
It's after characters finally get a good look at the creature that it starts leaving...gifts. Characters will start to find familiar items from their home worlds amidst the mess. The remains of a childhood pet, perhaps. Photographs of loved ones, faces torn almost beyond recognition. It's only once it delivers its final gift that the creature retreats to the trees again: a blood-splattered item of clothing that clearly belongs to the person the character misses the most at the time, alive or dead.
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Bryn Thornbreak | Original Character
[ Bryn is not sure what to think when she opens her eyes. She remembers falling asleep to celebrations. She remembers the sound of her friend trying to navigate playing his banjo with his new arm. She recalls another one complaining about how no one told her how dirty adventuring was. She knew the sounds she fell asleep to and the familiar voices. When she wakes up there's a tired confusion as she looks around. Her companions weren't alongside her. Surely they couldn't have wandered off that far. Why would they have? They had some measure of comfort in the druidic settlement.
A moment later it clicks. She isn't in the settlement. Her companions aren't with her. She scrambles up quickly, hooves kicking away any twigs or leaves that had touched and startled her. She reaches to her hip for her weapon only to feel air. Not good. She reaches behind her to see her smaller sword was still on her back. Nothing. A sense of dread hit her at the idea that was alone and unarmed. Normally she found comfort among the woods but now her heart began to sink. Surely this was a joke. A poor joke but what other reason was there? ]
Alessandra? Azogg? If you dragged me from camp to play a joke this isn't funny.
[ Slowly she starts to walk forward, trying her best to rest each hoof lightly on the ground. Her movement is slow and cautious. She peeks slowly around each tree close enough to her. The tightening feeling in her chest gave her no comfort. She knew the wilds though. She should feel at ease but the hairs on the back of her neck felt like they were standing up. If only she had even her hunting knife on her. There were so many small comforts she was used to even if it was as simple as feeling like she had a real weapon on hand. Now of all the times to be stuck without them. ]
Last time I ever listen to someone and sleep near people.
Day Ten
[ She knows the feeling of being watched. A feeling she was far too familiar with that brought forth more emotions than she knew how to handle. She hated it. It got under her skin and wrapped all sorts of negative thoughts in her mind. She had to survive though. A small cabin, weathered and worn and barely fit to be shelter was her new home. It served primarily for storage of anything she manages to salvage from the area. Food, material that she might be able to use for crafting and a few things she thought might be interesting. Yet every night so far despite the feeling of being watched she kept sleeping outside. There was a deep comfort to sleeping in the wilds and exposing herself to the elements. It was one of the few comforts that she could find at the moment. Considering she was positive she wasn't finding a familiar village anytime soon she took any comfort as a victory.
That comfort was ruined when she found tracks in the cabin. Within a few moments she's galloping through the woods as fast as she can. Twigs, branches and roots snapping underneath her as she is done trying to sit and wait to find out what's been around the area. She is a fighter, a hunter, and she would not be bothered by some unknown creature following her. ]
Come out! Are you afraid to fight me?! Cowardly beast!
[ Finally at her last shout she slows to a stop to catch her breath. She's at about a zero on the level-headed scale as she keeps looking around to see if the beast has shown itself. ]
Just you wait! When you show yourself I'll crush you!
[ Zero chill. ]
A gift
[ No mater what she's done it seems like the creature won't fight. She tried everything she could think of. Traps, goading, even trying to knock a tree down when she thought she heard it on the other side. Not that the tree budged nor did she find that fight but she tried. That was all she could do to find comfort. It never mattered how fast her legs made her run. It was faster then her. As much as she hated to admit it maybe it was even smarter than her. What a joke. She was supposed to be capable of taking beasts down. Now this thing was messing with her like she was nothing. It was eating at her. She was letting a mere animal get her. Bryn was positive that somewhere her companions would be laughing at her. To go from the fearless fighter who charged into anything without question to a paranoid fool.
This morning as she heads out it's different. Instead of finding food while she's out and about she finds a blacksmiths hammer. Ornately carved runes along the hand and a crest engraved into the head. The hammer has certainly seen better days but it was made with a fine eye detail. She takes the hammer and turns it over in her hands a few times. There's something unsettling about having the hammer in her hand as she notes some marks on it she doesn't remember seeing on it before. ]
Hordus? Hello...? Are you out there?
[ Now she's confused. She was certain there was no one she knew here. Part of her almost hopes that it was someone else's if only to ease her mind. ]
I hate this place.
Wildcard
[ Wanna make friends with a centaur? Now's your chance! I got a little info post for her here and for any questions/plotting stuff feel free to pm me. ]
day ten!!
Hooked claws, a mouth full of fangs and a whip-like tail made it certainly look like something that would make a mess of one's cabin. In truth, a devilman's monstrous form was everything one would expect from a demon, vicious and sharp and right at home in an image of hell. Except, a glimpse of its eyes would reveal something softer, something a little more vulnerable than what you'd find in a prowling monster.
Akira brushes the remaining flakes of ice off the green-blue hair of his upper body, having flown in from the snow flurries northeast. Despite his own encounters with the wolf, it had been long enough since his last visit to allow some of that tense hunger for bloody catharsis to seep out of him. This particular forest had a soothing air to it, and he enjoyed the peace of the trees. The animals tended to go quiet upon arrival, but he knew a little time would give the birds the regained will to sing again.]