Night 029

[allthekeys]

|| THREAT DOWN

|| NIGHT 029: GENERAL The sky darkens even before sunset, and as night falls, a storm breaks. This storm starts normal, but as the first lightning flashes, things begin to change. Rain pours down heavily, collecting in puddles and turning many areas to mud. For the brief instant of the brightest part of every lightning flash, everything around the characters is different. Sometimes they see the Castle environs around them, ruined, decayed with age, empty, and filled with fog. Sometimes there are flickers of someplace familiar, or not familiar - a flash of places one of the people present came from, visible to everyone around them. There’s little rhyme or reason to the flickers, but for those brief moments, it’s as if everything changes to the other place; just long enough for recognition, the illusion complete with sounds, smells, even brief respites from the relentless rain. The chestmouths seem to behave strangely. As the night starts, they all vanish into the ruins, reappearing in greater number. Some are smaller. The newer ones are smaller still. They all act both ravenous and feral, some even entering the gate in their search for sustenance. Others battle the hunters near the river, encouraging these amphibious beasts to hunt them, as well. The Guards at the gate do their best to keep the creatures out, but numbers and unpredictable surges are enough for them to slip through, one or two getting by for every one the Guards manage to block. || CASTLE The Wallcrawlers that lurked in the hallways throughout the day are still present. Now that night has fallen, however, they have lost their apparent skittishness; rather than fleeing when approached, they will move to aggressively chase down anyone who passes through. They will confine their chase to the main hallways of each floor, but regardless, they are agile, strong, and uncannily quick. Traveling through these areas brings a high risk for broken bones. On the message board, there is a new note added, tucked into a corner. The handwriting is unfamiliar to most, with no signature or mark for whoever may be responsible. “The sum of servants served a summons for a short switch in scenery, soon”. No further explanation is available. || GARDEN AND YARD The Garden has will’o’wisps once again; younger characters and those who have been helpful to the plants and beings within will find the wisps guiding them to food, water, and occasionally leading them on strange routes through the garden. The Chestmouths have spread within the gardens, ignoring the plant life and being ignored in return; those without wisp guides leading them away from the monsters will find that the overgrowth makes them easy to ambush. || THE TOWN The Townsfolk have barricaded into their homes, curtains drawn over the windows, not venturing out for fear of the chestmouths that straggle into the town in places. The Guards on patrol can be found in occasional pitched battles with the monsters, trying to drive them out of the grounds.