Chloe Frazer

ARRIVAL: THE DARKWALKER’S FEAST

WHEN: Early February.
WHERE: Milton, Milton Outskirts.
CONTENT WARNINGS: potential injuries, potential cold injuries/hyperthermia risk; themes of terror; themes of stalking; mental manipulation/degradation; physical degradation; potential character death.

'You are the Interloper. You are not part of nature’s design.’ A dark, deep voice. Impossibly ancient. The Darkwalker hisses to you: ‘And I am coming for you.'

You saw the lights, your world went dark and in the blackness the Darkwalker called to you. The words echo as you open your eyes once more — squinting and straining to a world of dark, green gloom.

There are no stars above you, no moon. The world is impossibly quiet. You do not get the sanctuary of some abandoned cabin. Instead, you awaken out in the open — in the bitter cold and snow. You can barely see your breath cloud in front of you as you sit up; the gloom feels so oppressive, stifling. You are alone in the wilderness, in the frozen land of the Northern Territories — you are completely alone. You may feel different, too. Any powers or magics you may have feel... absent. Disconnected. Things that may not have affected you previously now do. Something in you has changed.

You call out. There is no answer. Your voice cuts short. You stand alone in the wilds of Milton, the woods are dark and deep — but the feeling of being alone does not last long. You only have but a few minutes to collect yourself, pick up any stray belongings that might have been dumped alongside you.

Suddenly, there is a sound that breaks the suffocating silence: a long, low, moaning growl. Something neither human nor animal. You cannot place the sound.

You feel a bolt of cold heat through your chest. You are afraid.

(Some of you may remember this sound. Remember the noises of the being who struck out at Interlopers, turning them into twisted corpses, frozen in horror.)

In the distance, you hear the heavy, thundering of footsteps. Something is coming. The Darkwalker is coming. You cannot stay here. You need to move, need to get away from those footsteps. Although slow, they are persistent, steady. You do not want to know what will happen if those footsteps catch up. And if you do not move, the cold might kill you just as quickly.

You must work out where you are, and you must find civilization as fast as you can. So you pick a direction and hurry into the unknown, trying to navigate your way through the gloom — to try and find a trail, something which might lead you to warmth and safety. Along the way, you may find someone else in the same boat as yourself, equally freezing and confused and afraid. You’ll both need to keep going. It won’t be easy. You hear the inhuman, low, growling moan once again, and the terrain is difficult: slips and falls are likely. You’re completely vulnerable out here in the open.

Or it’s possible you may come across someone else here. Someone who looks far better prepared to deal with the freezing cold and frozen landscape, out hunting or gathering. Out looking for you. They’ll likely offer help and get you into town.

All the while, the footsteps boom in the near-distance. They grow louder and louder, and you realise the reason why they’re drawing closer: they are coming for you. The Darkwalker is hunting you, and in your bones you feel that anxious gnawing. It sets your teeth on edge, makes the hair on the back of your neck prickle.

You are a hunted animal.

You must keep going. The Darkwalker is behind you, making a beeline for you — the thuds of its footsteps making the ground quake a little the closer it gets. You cannot see the Darkwalker, save for the sickly-green footprints you may see if it is immediately upon you, but the effects of its presence will become more profound.

Move too slowly, or dawdle and soon enough that anxiousness within you will turn into true fear. You find yourself lost to hysteria, unable to move, and you find yourself growing weaker and weaker — like you might die before it has an actual chance to catch up to you. Your very life slowly ebbs away. Only gaining distance from the Darkwalker will bring you back to your senses and restore your energy — but the effects on you from the Darkwalker will linger in the days to come.

The trails will lead to paths, and the paths will lead to roads. You can smell the heavy, low scent of fires burning in the dark. Unfolding before you in the mountainous forests, you’ll see the most welcome of sights: a small mining town tucked up in the valley. Battered, rusted road signs will direct to “MILTON, POP. 947”.

As you head into the outskirts and then further into town, you’ll find it’s a little easier to walk but the cold has gripped you hard. You’ll find the buildings, both shops and homes, most are dark and lifeless, some of them are boarded up, some of them are occupied. The town is quiet in this endless night, but you can see the warming lights of your fellow Interlopers in the windows.

Once you enter the town limits, the Darkwalker stops chasing you. But you can still sense its oppressive presence not too far off.

You are not greeted by Methuselah at the Community Hall. There is no Feast.

Some of your fellow Interlopers may have gathered and attempted some kind of half-hearted welcoming committee, instead. There may be a little soup, some charred meat, hot tea. Someone may be on hand to tend to any wounded from slips and falls out in the snow, or deal with any cold injuries sustained in the journey to town. But there is nothing compared to the Feasts Interlopers have grown accustomed to, or have perhaps taken advantage of.

But, no. No feast. This time, if you are not quick enough, you are the feast.

May the Darkwalker never catch you.

THE ERRODING

WHEN: The Month of February.
WHERE: Everywhere.
CONTENT WARNINGS: supernatural/extreme weather; poisonous/toxic fog; themes of food insecurity, themes of food scarcity; supernatural illnesses; breathing-related illnesses; nausea and vomiting.

The Darkwalker told you once: I am the Rot.

The Darkwalker’s arrival has only just begun. Not only does it stalk around the edges of Milton, but its presence brings atmospheric shifts to the world that make it difficult to get about. Interlopers are well accustomed to bouts of supernatural weather, and they’ve faced something like this before — a caustic fog that burns and erodes everything it touches, or the fog that ignited Interlopers into fight or flight.

It may linger in the minds of many when this new kind of fog sets in.

It’s hard to tell it’s settling in at first, with the eerie green gloom that covers the entirety of the Northern Territories in darkness. Vision in the world is difficult, for the most part. But you notice a certain kind of heaviness in the air, and looking up has a kind of clouded, greenish haze — like a fog is slowly drifting in.

Things seem fine, at first. Just another string to the Darkwalker’s wicked bow. But when you tend to your traps, your fishing, your smokeboxes — anything kept outside — the stench of decomposition hangs. You find the meat, the carcasses, the food rotting. Anything kept outside, no matter how well protected in boxes, crates or storage, will slowly succumb to putrefaction. It isn’t just the food that begins to rot. Even vegetation will find itself prone to withering and dying — cutting off another form of food.

The fog will drift heavier, sometimes it rolls in quickly and you’re lost in a thick fog. Being out and about in this fog will make it hard to breathe, and enough to bring the taste of blood in your mouth as your lungs slowly begin to rot with each breath you take. Interlopers who spend long enough outside will slowly drown in their own blood, and will also find themselves coming down with bouts of nausea and sickness — and if they continue to remain outside, they will fall more and more ill, withering away to nothing until death.

Fog will even try to seep into houses, with unsecured buildings most at risk — the fog appears to actively try and get in anyway it can. If it fills a home, you are as good as dead.

Interlopers must work quickly to try and secure their food sources, their very homes. But how do they when something is actively turning their food to rot and their very bodies?

You remember from a dream in January. Enola drew a rune. in blood upon the snow:

“Use this, when the time comes. It will help keep it at bay. You have power, never forget that.”

There was once a rune Methuselah told Interlopers about. A warding rune to keep the Darkwalker from stealing an Interloper’s wits during its comings. A rune etched in Interloper blood.

Paint the rune in your blood, and true to Enola’s word: it will keep the fog at bay.

WINTER OF OUR YOUTH

WHEN: The month of February.
WHERE: Milton.
CONTENT WARNINGS: themes of suicide; depictions of suicide; ritualistic suicide; human sacrifice; death of NPCs; death of teenage children; potential character injury; potential hostage situations; potential murder of NPCs.


Well over a year ago, the remaining Forest Talkers — some mere teenagers, barely on the cusp of adulthood — had absconded from their group to join the side of Interlopers when the Forest Talkers came to Milton to bring devastation and death. The Interlopers had taken them in, and they’d existed quietly in Milton — getting to work, contributing to the town and gently struggling with integrating with their former enemy. And while some of them have died one way or another in that time, eight still remain.

They have kept up their habits, private rituals of beliefs that have still stuck with them even after all this time — the hunting of small game to carry out their grisly displays out in the woods: animal remains placed in particular manners, the snow dug away to the earth.

They had once told Interlopers, when discovered in these rituals: The world is still dead, even if we don’t want to fight you anymore. We just want everything to be reborn again, so next time it’ll be better. We have to give them a chance. I guess we just have to see what happens.

And now the Darkwalker is here.

Over the course of the month, the former-Forest Talkers put plans into action. Some are quieter than others, some are far more violent in their displays. It will always be outside. They shed their outer-layers, removing boots and coats.

”Don’t you see it now?” they’ll tell you. ”Don’t you understand? This all has to happen. This has to be the way of things. The world is dead. It must be reborn. The Yawning Grave has been opened. The Long Dark awaits. Leave me to the wilds, or bury me. I will return renewed.”

A knife. A gun. And it’s all over. A sudden, violent act.

Or maybe you can stop it. Wrestle a weapon out of their hand. And maybe a fight breaks out. The young Forest Talkers have no interest in trying to hurt Interlopers but they will fight to the death to meet their own end. They refuse to be stopped, one way or another they will try to end their own lives. Maybe you might have to do it yourself, maybe they force you into putting them down when they try to hurt someone else, someone you care for.

In the quieter instances, it's slipping out into the wilderness. Letting the fog take them, or trying to succumb to the elements. Maybe you’re trying to drag one of them back into town, to try and talk some sense into them, maybe you win. This time. They listen, but they do not hear you. They have already decided what must be done.

There will be other times. More attempts.

By the end of February, all eight of them will be dead — one way or another, no matter how many attempts it takes.

The Yawning Grave has been opened, and they must go into the Long Dark.