abraxaslogs | EIFSTIDE

EIFSTIDE

As much as the changing of the seasons differs across Abraxas, so too do the traditions that herald in the coming holiday. While some view this time of year as a joyous and silly affair, others consider it a time of extreme caution and scorn others who mock its gravity. The days have started to chill and nights are spent by a warm hearth as the leaves change to their autumnal hues. Winter approaches, much as it always does, but not all is as it seems. Something has shifted in Abraxas’s very being, whether by the large influx of outsiders or to something deeper and darker, no one can say for sure. With all good things, there must also be a balance.

THORNE/NOTT

In the whole of the kingdom of Thorne, autumn has taken on a distinctly festive flair. Decorations in rich oranges, yellows and reds adorn homes and businesses alike. Lining the streets are gourds, painted or carved into intricate designs and often hollowed to make room for flickering balls of flame. For the whole of the week of Eifstide, everyone seems to be a bright, cheerful mood, taking time out of their schedules to sip mugs of warm cider or eat any number of seasonal treats that seem to be available for almost nothing. Children run around in cobbled-together costumes of old clothing and hats, mimicking the university students of Hayle or the scarecrows that now stand as decor throughout the town. Neighborhoods smell of bread and pastries throughout the season, and most families have a few morsels to spare to anyone who expresses interest. Eifstide is a holiday of gratitude and fun, of honoring the gods for the bounty they have given over the summer and fall, but mostly an excuse to have a good time.

Come Eifstide Night in the city of Thorne, a massive street fair opens in the center of town. Booths sell pastries and sugared nuts, jars of preserves and pickled vegetables, crafts made from any variety of natural materials. As the sun sets, the whole town shares in a feast, with every family offering something to share with the others. Once the plates have been licked clean, the townspeople send lanterns into the sky, giving the last of their summer to the gods in exchange for a safe and short winter.

As the lanterns fade in the distance, the children begin to Roam. Holding burlap sacks, they run door to door, asking everyone they come across for "blessings" to be put in their bags. Blessings are little treats or trinkets, and even people walking down the street seem to have some spare items in their pockets for those who stop them. Anyone who visited the fair earlier will have been advised to stock up, lest they set themselves up for a haunt from the unblessed — or maybe just a jape from an empty-handed child.

In Nott, the festivities are nearly the same, if with a more nautical flair. There's far more seafood available, and popular costumes include sailors and mermaids. They send their lanterns over the sea, and it's common to give little strands of unsellable pearls as a blessing.

As the town clocks strike midnight, there's a sudden chill in the air. A screaming wind tears through the kingdom and fires both inside and out extinguish themselves. Whole streets are suddenly plunged into darkness, with only the moonlight filtering down to cast terrifying shadows on the cobblestones. With eerie crrrreeeeaaaaaks, the iron gates of the kingdom's graveyards swing open, and ghostly figures flood neighborhoods with anguished screams and furious groans. They make their way toward the homes and taverns, where they begin to bang on the doors and windows.

FREE CITIES

In the Free Cities, the celebrations are in full spring. Citizens are gathered together for parties and get-togethers in every city. Some of the festivities have spilled out onto the streets, revelers parading in fancy clothes or face masks or clustered together outside of taverns and cafes. Music and light spill out from private residences.

It all starts off as expected. Spirit boards are brought out to be asked silly questions, tables are set for no one, bands and phonographs wail out songs about ghosts and spirits and graveyards. People dance and eat and drink and tell stories by the fire. Maybe you've wandered into one of the many open parties thrown, either in some wealthy citizen's home or a public house. Maybe you've even joined in on some of the party games. It's all just for fun, you've been assured.

And everyone is having fun! Despite the grim and macabre nature of the holiday, the Free Cities are full of laughter and merriment. Drinks (and whatnot) are flowing freely. It seems as though the celebrations may well go on right until dawn!

It starts at midnight. Here there's a group gathered around a spirit board, giggling and trying to think of the most ridiculous questions to ask. There, a handful of revelers are drinking in one of the cemeteries, sharing stories by the graves. In the streets clusters of people are swinging crystals to hunt out ghosts. Something in the air suddenly changes. The wind turns sour. The air grows thicker. In houses and taverns and on the streets the laughter begins to die away. Spirit boards start to move on their own. A thick mist drifts in from parts unknown to blanket the ground.

Then the screams begin.

SOLVUNN

Contrary to how the other settlements have chosen to pay tribute to the coming holiday, the mood in Solvunn is a somber affair. The lighthearted attitude about getting the work done before noon is almost gone, its residents working harder and longer hours as if a fire was being lit under their feet. In the days leading into Eifstide, wreaths of branches and bone are hung upon the doors, and lines of salt or soot are placed in front of the door and the hearth. The daylight hours are spent reverently in harvest and small groups of mages make their way around the perimeters of farms and communal areas performing rituals of warding to confuse the angry gods while volunteers follow behind to smudge with sage and cedar.

As the sun begins to set, citizens don homemade masks of varying degrees of complexity. Animal skulls or taxidermied skins decorated with veils and dried fauna or branches cover the faces of many of the older members, while children wear handcrafted masks depicting various animals or unnerving faces not their own.

On the night of Eifstide, despite how everyone has stayed indoors as night falls in the week leading to this, large bonfires are lit in the center of the Primary Settlement. Sacrifices are made by the Council members, each doing their own ritual for the safety and prosperity of their own settlement as well as for those who reside there. No one’s face is unconcealed by both mask or headdress and smudges of warpaint upon their face in large, disorienting swipes. Mages stand in the background chanting incantations from worn, leather books by the light of the bonfire.

As midnight strikes, something shifts.

The wind howls, though it seems not to have a true point of origin. The bonfire continues to roar, but its light flickers, seeming not to travel as far. Shadows twist along the periphery and a chilled fog starts to dance across the ground. A hushed murmur sweeps over the gathered crowd as mothers gather their children closer. Along the edge of the gathered crowd, a man screams, and a woman next to him lets out a mournful wail. The spectral figure of a child appears out of the fog. Closely followed by countless more of the same, gaunt and angry expression. Those long-dead have come back- and they’re out for blood.

Make haste in your actions and do not dwell in unrest- those who have brought you into their fold are in danger of being consumed. Fight off these spectral creatures large and small before Eifstide’s end, or the season’s change will not be the only thing that grows colder. Just as things will seem at their most dire, the spell that caused the dearly departed visitors will right itself and they will vanish with the morning dew. Until the spell can be reversed, ask yourself this most important question:

If there’s something strange and it doesn’t look good… who are you going to call upon?

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Festivities

Never let it be said that Hennessy doesn't know how to have a good time.

The moment she realized that there was to be some sort of Halloween-esque celebration, she'd taken it upon herself to dream a small collection of accessories that can best be described as eclectic, most of which she's currently wearing as she investigates the festival. An incomplete list: devil horns atop a headband made of living flowers in overly saturated deep shades that oughtn’t exist in nature, several layers of mardi-gras beads shaped like tiny pumpkins, a small set of sequined bat wings, terribly realistic spider rings with glittering jewels in their eyes, and, as always, heeled boots that make her no less than three inches taller.

She can be found stuffing an almond pastry into her mouth with what actually seems like genuine enjoyment. This place is still highly questionable, and she still kind of sucks at magic, but she's alive and willing to be entertained. It's a start. She turns to the nearest passerby who seems like they might possibly share a sense of humor about this entire thing.

"Have you tried the cider? Please tell me they've spiked it."

Haunting

Some hours later, Hennessy can be found swinging her sword FROM CHAOS at the aggressive spectres that have appeared -- because of course this place has real ghosts now, why wouldn’t it, with all the magic they’ve been practicing? -- and cursing colorfully when she nearly trips in pursuit of one.

She pauses for a moment to take stock of the situation and catch her breath. This is decidedly not how she’d planned upon spending the evening.

“Can someone call the damn Ghostbusters already; this is getting repetitive.”

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Hennessy has a sword, which is one up on Mal. The strip of heavy wood in his hand has been decent enough, but comparatively—

"Ghostbusters?" is a little questioning, before Mal visibly shakes off the curiosity as he looks around them, one hand at Hennessy's elbow to steady her. "Do we think they vanish at sunrise, or that we need to plan on doing this until someone comes up with a more permanent solution?"

Mal's out of breath. And they won't be able to stand here for long, though they're in shadow and more or less easy to miss for the moment. Or until Mal straightens up to his full height.

Her sword's even a little bit magic, its blade gleaming with an unnatural moonlight glow and throwing off sparks like starlight as it slices through the incorporeal beings. She's glad the guy next to her at least seems to be able to hold his own.

"1980s Earth reference; don't worry about it," she says with a little shrug as she glances around the small hidden alcove they've gotten themselves into. It's not a good place to be if more come, but it'll do for a minute.

"If I had time for a nap I'd dream us something, but as it stands we've gotta find someone who's better at magic or at least has a better idea of how to banish them."

The scant light between them is her sword, glowing, and perhaps it is enough to illuminate the way Mal's expression tightens. Passing wariness giving way to quiet resentment giving way to pragmatism. She is not wrong, whatever Mal's feelings on magic are at the moment.

The only grisha he trusts is far from here.

"I don't know where we'd start looking for that," is what Mal says instead, because it's true. He doesn't know who might have that capability. "And in the meantime, most of the people here seem underprepared."

In fairness, who is prepared for ghost attacks?

"We should try to make our way back to the castle. Everyone who knows what they're doing is there."

She hopes. It's possible they've all decided to go out and enjoy themselves, or they're all sound asleep by now, but she's fairly certain all the ghostly activity would've woken at least someone by now and raised the general alarm. At least her sword is its own source of light as long as she keeps waving it around.

"Do you have any special powers I should know about?"

Please tell her you can do something more useful than wave a stick around. The ghosts don't frankly seem to give a shit, and her shoes are starting to hurt.

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Mal's grimace is short-lived too, distaste crowded aside by practicality.

"No."

Stopping short of something more familiar: I'm not grisha. What would that mean to her? Nothing, surely. Mal has been here long enough to understand the differences are vast enough that the terms he's known all his life are utterly foreign here.

"And I've no rifle, so this is the best I can do."

Hit ghosts with a stick until they vanish. It's not much, but better than nothing.

"If we go, who'll manage things here?"

It's okay, Mal. Hennessy doesn't approve of herself either.

(Or of most other people, but at the moment you're better than literal actual fucking ghosts, so you're cool. )

"I don't think guns would work any better on them, to be honest."

More fun maybe, if there weren't the risk of hitting townspeople. For all her seeming lack of concern for others, she doesn't want anyone hurt who didn't have it coming. She huffs a skeptical noise in response to his question, looking around at the buildings nearby, all of them likely full of terrified townspeople. She could help them if she had time to dream something to round them up, but for that she needs supervision and a space free of murderous ghosts.

"Hell if I know, but I'm not sure this is managing things."

Of course he'd found himself out in the midst of what was once a festival, out in the town, caught up in the repetitive task of slashing and stabbing at ghosts, them dissipating, and slashing and stabbing at more. It'd been too easy to get carried away with it, turns out. Like killing fodder for XP.

Fuck, Brad hopes that's something he can get out of this; otherwise he's just looking at a sore body and the need for an ice bath or something when this is all over. When, not if. But the adrenaline he's got going now, combined with Hennessy's eye-catching attire, not to mention a pop culture reference he actually knows, and he can't help but snort.

"What, you afraid of these ghosts?" he pants more than says, striving to fight off exhaustion as he hacks at another spirit in front of him. Brad rights himself, looks around; how did he end up all the way out here, anyway? Rookie excitement he's regretting now, but at least he's back with someone who also knows how to use a sword. "This endless, endless barrage of ghosts?"

Because yeah, she's right; this has gotten old now. And with no end in sight... Nah. It's gotta be over and done with at some point. It kinda just has to.

"These incorporeal assholes? They wish."

She's not scared of a whole lot of things that exist outside her own head, honestly, and your average ghosts are pretty far down the list, even as aggressive as these ones are. It had been fun for a while, even. She'd had a good time; enjoying the festival for a little while, partying in the Horizon, and then landing back here for some good old-fashioned violence. But now she'd really appreciate a chance to change out of these shoes and take a nice long bubble bath or something equally indulgent.

"Someone's got to have a magic ghost jail in their back pocket, otherwise what are we even doing here."

EIFSTIDE

Jordan Hennessy | The Dreamer Trilogy | Thorne

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