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thecrossinglogs2025-04-19 09:44 am
thecrossingmods) wrote in thecrossinglogs2025-04-19 09:44 am
THE CROSSING #2
THE CROSSING #2
It's that time again.
For more detail on the particulars of the event, be sure to refer to our info and planning post!
For more detail on the particulars of the event, be sure to refer to our info and planning post!
always keep moving
— CLOUDS ON THE HORIZON
The Desert is sprawling. If you've ever gotten turned around in the rolling dunes, it may have once felt endless. But in the weeks and days before the descent of The Crossing, something appears on the horizon: first a dark smudge of storm clouds, not unlike the others that have rolled through before, then growing — wider, darker, and more threatening.
You feel it, too. For some of you the feeling is new; for others it's a reminder of a trial you've been through before. It's a weight in your body, a solidity of your self, a vulnerability to whatever is approaching.
The storm overtakes the oasis. As the first drops of rain begin to fall, The Ferryman speaks in your mind.
It's time. Those who are prepared to pay the toll are instructed to gather on the bank of The River. As for the rest of you... we hope you have a plan.
taking refuge
— THE RIVER OF MUD
The storm hits hard and fast. Even as you gather around The Ferryman, the rain grows from spitting droplets to a desert monsoon. The Ferryman's protection only goes so far: even if you're promised safety from danger, you'll still have to cope with the cold, the wind, and the water.
As before, The Lantern's Light grows dark. As before, The Ferryman gathers memories one by one, consolidated into a mote of light in their palm that becomes the new center point for the growing temporary bubble of safety. But this time— what it was too dark to notice in the Cavern before— you realize that The Ferryman themselves is changing, too. Their form fades as the light in their hands grows, becoming as fuzzy and insubstantial as mist... not unlike the wraiths, outside of The Crossing.
The sparkling white salt flat before you begins to melt and grow murky, exposing the sticky, grasping mud beneath. The Ferryman glides out over the roiling muck of The River, and so do you, your steps as light as if there were still a crust of salt to separate you from the mud before.
You must keep moving, though. Linger too long, and you'll start to sink... and the mud might not let go, this time.
— A HAVEN FROM THE WANTS AND ILLS OF LIFE
The journey is arduous, and the storm is unrelenting. The Ferryman, unfamiliar as they might be in this form, leads confidently through the blur of lightning, wind, and rain. As before, the mote of light created from your memories follows in their footsteps, illuminating the path to follow along the wide expanse of The River.
Even with The Ferryman's protection, it is exhausting work. It's as mentally taxing as it is physically draining. As such, when the path forward begins to shudder and shift, it may come as a reprieve. The wall of wind and rain finally breaks, the Desert around you replaced by... somewhere else. A place you may recognize, or may not.
Whatever stress or fear you may have been feeling from your journey wanes, replaced by feelings of calm, peace, or joy. If the place you are in is unfamiliar, the feelings are muted, as if they don't quite belong to you... but surely this is better than returning to the monsoon? Perhaps you can rest a while. Play a game, recover in shelter, or take a meditative walk through a maze. What's a few minutes, anyway? Time hardly means anything anymore.
Just don't forget: if you linger too long in any one place, the mud of The River will start to suck you down. It's best to stay alert— and to keep an eye on those traveling with you, as well.
storm chasers
— SWEPT AWAY
The Desert isn't designed to weather a storm like this one. Beyond the pounding rain and cracking lightning, those of you who have decided to travel without The Ferryman must also navigate the environment itself. Flash floods sweep through lower-lying places in the dunes, where the sand isn't able to absorb water quickly enough. Creatures that may have been docile before are now panicked, and might impede your progress, or even lash out themselves.
And, of course, there are the wraiths.
They're easier to spot this time around, across the rolling dunes. It's easier to make out just how much they've changed as well: the claws, the teeth, the exaggerated proportions... and the unmistakable pain and fury in every movement, in every shriek and wail.
You are vulnerable to any and all injury during this time, whether from the wraiths, the wildlife, or the elements. As long as you follow your gut, you'll know where to go — but we hope you have a strategy, all the same.
— AN EYE IN THE STORM
At least in the Cavern, you had cover. Nooks and crannies, branching tunnels, rocky outcroppings... But out here, beneath the wide-open sky of the Desert, there's very little in terms of shelter. The odd plateau, or cave entrance, or inexplicable feature might grant you some reprieve, but there's always more sand to cross in-between.
On occasion, however, you may spot a strange sort of wraith watching you at a distance. Some of you may even recognize it: an eerie, dissembling creature that some have dubbed the Smart Wraith. Its form, like the others, has solidified into something grotesque and painful, as if its body has been plucked like clay by a particularly spiteful child. Unlike the others, though, it does not attack, or even approach. It simply watches, as it always have.
If you have the presence of mind to notice, however, you may find that there are occasional reprieves from wraith attacks, especially across longer stretches of dunes. They're brief, but often crucially timed (such as when someone is significantly injured, or when a flood has just rolled through), and always correspond to a moment when The Wraith can be found watching from some far-flung vantage point.
It's odd, certainly. But do you have the luxury of looking a gift horse in the mouth?
stormbreak
— CLEARING SKIES
Eventually, the storm calms. Your body lightens. The atmosphere realigns.
The Crossing ends.
The thick, sucking mud of The River has become shallow and waterlogged. It's easy to wade through now, if a touch... unpleasant. Fibrous plants and reeds line the sloped banks, inexplicably dotted with bright orange flowers. Light is low, though the sky has cleared, as if wherever you are now lingers in perpetual dusk.
If you were traveling with The Ferryman, the mirages that dogged your journey finally fade and stay gone. If you were traveling on your own, any wounds you sustained heal rapidly on their own. As before, the healing is natural, but on fast-forward, and thus may not always resolve perfectly.
For both groups, memories bleed away from you - perhaps literally, perhaps not. Anything you found in the Desert, unless given to you by The Ferryman, is gone from your pockets.
When you look again, The Ferryman appears just the same as they were before The Crossing began. Let's take a break, they say. It's been a long journey.
It certainly has.
Image credits: 1, 2 + OMORI'S STORY, and stock imagery unless otherwise noted
The Desert is sprawling. If you've ever gotten turned around in the rolling dunes, it may have once felt endless. But in the weeks and days before the descent of The Crossing, something appears on the horizon: first a dark smudge of storm clouds, not unlike the others that have rolled through before, then growing — wider, darker, and more threatening.
You feel it, too. For some of you the feeling is new; for others it's a reminder of a trial you've been through before. It's a weight in your body, a solidity of your self, a vulnerability to whatever is approaching.
The storm overtakes the oasis. As the first drops of rain begin to fall, The Ferryman speaks in your mind.
It's time. Those who are prepared to pay the toll are instructed to gather on the bank of The River. As for the rest of you... we hope you have a plan.
taking refuge
The storm hits hard and fast. Even as you gather around The Ferryman, the rain grows from spitting droplets to a desert monsoon. The Ferryman's protection only goes so far: even if you're promised safety from danger, you'll still have to cope with the cold, the wind, and the water.
As before, The Lantern's Light grows dark. As before, The Ferryman gathers memories one by one, consolidated into a mote of light in their palm that becomes the new center point for the growing temporary bubble of safety. But this time— what it was too dark to notice in the Cavern before— you realize that The Ferryman themselves is changing, too. Their form fades as the light in their hands grows, becoming as fuzzy and insubstantial as mist... not unlike the wraiths, outside of The Crossing.
The sparkling white salt flat before you begins to melt and grow murky, exposing the sticky, grasping mud beneath. The Ferryman glides out over the roiling muck of The River, and so do you, your steps as light as if there were still a crust of salt to separate you from the mud before.
You must keep moving, though. Linger too long, and you'll start to sink... and the mud might not let go, this time.
— A HAVEN FROM THE WANTS AND ILLS OF LIFE
The journey is arduous, and the storm is unrelenting. The Ferryman, unfamiliar as they might be in this form, leads confidently through the blur of lightning, wind, and rain. As before, the mote of light created from your memories follows in their footsteps, illuminating the path to follow along the wide expanse of The River.
Even with The Ferryman's protection, it is exhausting work. It's as mentally taxing as it is physically draining. As such, when the path forward begins to shudder and shift, it may come as a reprieve. The wall of wind and rain finally breaks, the Desert around you replaced by... somewhere else. A place you may recognize, or may not.
Whatever stress or fear you may have been feeling from your journey wanes, replaced by feelings of calm, peace, or joy. If the place you are in is unfamiliar, the feelings are muted, as if they don't quite belong to you... but surely this is better than returning to the monsoon? Perhaps you can rest a while. Play a game, recover in shelter, or take a meditative walk through a maze. What's a few minutes, anyway? Time hardly means anything anymore.
Just don't forget: if you linger too long in any one place, the mud of The River will start to suck you down. It's best to stay alert— and to keep an eye on those traveling with you, as well.
storm chasers
The Desert isn't designed to weather a storm like this one. Beyond the pounding rain and cracking lightning, those of you who have decided to travel without The Ferryman must also navigate the environment itself. Flash floods sweep through lower-lying places in the dunes, where the sand isn't able to absorb water quickly enough. Creatures that may have been docile before are now panicked, and might impede your progress, or even lash out themselves.
And, of course, there are the wraiths.
They're easier to spot this time around, across the rolling dunes. It's easier to make out just how much they've changed as well: the claws, the teeth, the exaggerated proportions... and the unmistakable pain and fury in every movement, in every shriek and wail.
You are vulnerable to any and all injury during this time, whether from the wraiths, the wildlife, or the elements. As long as you follow your gut, you'll know where to go — but we hope you have a strategy, all the same.
— AN EYE IN THE STORM
At least in the Cavern, you had cover. Nooks and crannies, branching tunnels, rocky outcroppings... But out here, beneath the wide-open sky of the Desert, there's very little in terms of shelter. The odd plateau, or cave entrance, or inexplicable feature might grant you some reprieve, but there's always more sand to cross in-between.
On occasion, however, you may spot a strange sort of wraith watching you at a distance. Some of you may even recognize it: an eerie, dissembling creature that some have dubbed the Smart Wraith. Its form, like the others, has solidified into something grotesque and painful, as if its body has been plucked like clay by a particularly spiteful child. Unlike the others, though, it does not attack, or even approach. It simply watches, as it always have.
If you have the presence of mind to notice, however, you may find that there are occasional reprieves from wraith attacks, especially across longer stretches of dunes. They're brief, but often crucially timed (such as when someone is significantly injured, or when a flood has just rolled through), and always correspond to a moment when The Wraith can be found watching from some far-flung vantage point.
It's odd, certainly. But do you have the luxury of looking a gift horse in the mouth?
stormbreak
Eventually, the storm calms. Your body lightens. The atmosphere realigns.
The Crossing ends.
The thick, sucking mud of The River has become shallow and waterlogged. It's easy to wade through now, if a touch... unpleasant. Fibrous plants and reeds line the sloped banks, inexplicably dotted with bright orange flowers. Light is low, though the sky has cleared, as if wherever you are now lingers in perpetual dusk.
If you were traveling with The Ferryman, the mirages that dogged your journey finally fade and stay gone. If you were traveling on your own, any wounds you sustained heal rapidly on their own. As before, the healing is natural, but on fast-forward, and thus may not always resolve perfectly.
For both groups, memories bleed away from you - perhaps literally, perhaps not. Anything you found in the Desert, unless given to you by The Ferryman, is gone from your pockets.
When you look again, The Ferryman appears just the same as they were before The Crossing began. Let's take a break, they say. It's been a long journey.
It certainly has.
Image credits: 1, 2 + OMORI'S STORY, and stock imagery unless otherwise noted
no subject
She's not really one for cities. Too many people pressed too close together and hardly moving, and the way a city can sprawl is disconcerting. They no longer surprise or appall her on principle, though.
"I see. Orshaneise are to be commended for their calling." She says this in an exaggeratedly pompous tone, recognizing that Celehar's referring to himself as the 'dazed wanderer'. It's hard to disapprove of feeding the hungry, though depressingly common to find people who do just that.
He must have come here in some distress, she thinks, and decides not to get too chatty. If he's going to forget this, she really should try to remember a bit of it.
no subject
He paces another turn of the maze and, finally on the same stretch of path as Need, pauses. It's built to accommodate at least two people shoulder to shoulder, with how busy the maze might become during the high summer, and he waits to let her set the pace.
"You mock me, Othalo," he says, without bite. "But they are kind people."
no subject
This is a memory after all. Not a real place, and she's not restored even if it was. Need smiles lopsidedly at her own folly. As for the pace, it will take her a moment to work out herself as she starts fast and curtails it from there. She doesn't remember walking anything like this herself with anything like enough clarity to include that detail, and any of her bearers she can imagine on this path would have had their own individual reasons for how they progressed.
"I don't mean to, or not like that. It's good they fed you." It's the problem with a sense of humor and an inability to gauge people as she feels she should; she'd thought she was playing off of a self-deprecating statement, and it seems she wasn't. Need wonders if she should start saying things are a joke rather than keeping it to writing, and decides against it. Not like that had been much of one.
no subject
This, above all, is why he's never been a good conversationalist, this paralysis that emerges when the conversation veers away from his responsibilities and the role he fills as a Prelate. Easier to focus instead on adjusting her pace - he doesn't miss that she starts out at a faster clip before settling into something more sedate. They'll make good time to the center, still - Celehar doesn't imagine this place will hold onto itself for the length of walking back out of it again.
"Othalo," he says, eventually, when the silence has ripened. "I must apologize."
no subject
She doesn't have to keep it as she always has, and that's another bizarre new thought. It must come of being so close to life. Her reflex is to be suspicious of it. Why care about something like this? There are more important matters and really, Need, is this even the place?
That's where her thoughts are, in the quiet, and she doesn't fight them. Celehar speaking surprises her and sets up a flash of... guilt? "Why is that, prelate?"
no subject
After the way things turned out just a moment earlier, he is putting more effort into minding his tongue than he has since he was a novice learning first to listen before speaking, though this exercise in the current moment has less to do with the silence that was demanded of him then.
He falls silent for another moment, attention shifting towards Need to watch her frankly, rather than try and gauge her mood sidelong. "Death itself has taught me a great deal, but so has everyone here. Even if it is only that there are places nearly beyond my imagining."
no subject
"Worried you've offended me? Don't be. That's hard to do and I'd have said something if you managed. And I wasn't hurt." She believes this. What right does she have to be hurt? "Believe me, I do understand that what I am is upsetting, even for most people in Velgarth. I thought... well, it doesn't matter."
She'd thought, selfishly, that if he understood her a little more, they would be that little bit closer. Unfortunately, she doesn't have the power to take back things she'd told people just now. "We can really only grasp things first through the lens of what we already know, and I'm half-familiar. So, I understand."
no subject
"I am neither guide nor judge," he says, to Need. "I am here to walk the path, not to carry the lantern, same as you." He shakes his head, looking out over the path - in that light, it seems a metaphor too perfectly chosen, like one out of one of his novels, but perhaps he needed a reminder this blunt. "Still, I am a Witness vel ama. And in my Witnessing I ought be satisfied with nothing less than the truth."
no subject
He'll make the effort. That's heartening but she can't help feel that she could give him too much, could break the tenuous willingness.
"I can certainly say that my experience of the world hasn't been like this." She holds up her hands as she walks. "A sword doesn't have eyes or ears or skin. For a long time I could only sense anything secondhand, when someone touched or carried my sword. Otherwise it was just the silent darkness. That's hard to describe." It's appalling, terrifying, but she'd got used to it.
"I learned to rely on that, hmm, maz more heavily. You can imagine one of the difficulties is not seeing the facial expressions people used, but I found ways around it. I could sense their emotions, their thoughts." Need had been able to in life too but it had been a background element, for the most part. "Here people are mysteries to me. I'm lucky I can read them at all, and I know I get things wrong."
no subject
It's not like a Witnessing, despite his comparison. In his Witnessing, the dead only reveal so much of themselves, and only through careful sifting, like panning for gold to find the pieces of themselves still left behind. The living, in contrast, must be teased apart more gently, through application of word and silence. Need is a strange combination - she is dead, but he is not meant to find the web of ties between her and the living, nor to interrogate her on the subject of her own death.
Easier, perhaps, to think of it as his errand to Min Chonhadrin - to find himself a chalkboard to sound out her dilemmas upon. That, most of all, sees him through to the end of her admission.
"You are walking on unexercised limbs," he says. "Or - perhaps an archer, handed a new weapon. You know the shape of your target, but you must relearn the work of striking true." He bites the inside of his cheek again, this time mulling uncertainly over his next words. "... It seems to me that it might be lonely, to lose those whose minds you once knew intimately."
no subject
"True enough," she says, suppressing a sigh. "The point I was getting at is I don't pick up what people are signalling as well as I could. It's worse with the journal. I can make a guess with face and voice and body language, but when it's writing on a page? Opaque." Not that she'd always judged right before, but it's easy to blame a lack of her power for how often it happens now.
Need looks at Celehar sidelong. Lonely? What's he getting at? "It's not so bad. That's just the way of things."
no subject
"I am told that the Barizheise find the Ethuverazhin manner cold and reserved," he says, in the end. "Formal. Even in a city like Amalo, with many goblins among our number. And the Prelacy holds its Witnesses to be its representatives." He clears his throat. "Given... the rumors that follow me from the Capitol, I was obliged to mark them carefully." Felt guilty and undeserving if he did not, but he does not think that, let alone say so.
"I... imagine it has not helped." It's not an apology - but can he apologize for being something he cannot imagine himself not being? Still, he cannot be unsympathetic towards it. He's been told in so few words that he is 'severe'.