TDM #2 - Down in the Underground [REPRINT]

[pumpkinhollow]

Pumpkin Hollow Gazette Issue #3 [REPRINT]

[Moderator Notes]

Since our TDMs go out bi-monthly, this is a test run of reposting the TDM at the beginning of "off-months" in order to optimize visibility for toplevels in the second month of a TDM's lifespan. If this turns out to actually be helpful, then brand-new TDMs will be labelled "FIRST EDITION" and reruns will be labeled "REPRINT" going forward! If not, we'll just go back to posting bi-monthly. Let's give this the ol' college try and make sure to look out for new toplevels so that we can figure out how helpful it is!

Pumpkin Hollow Gazette

8/5/23 | TDM #2: "Down in the Underground"
Content Warnings: [Article 2] claustrophobia, caves, drowned corpse
[Article 4] Various violence by monster

We're glad you're here!

WELCOME TO PUMPKIN HOLLOW!

By Yorick Aberdeen

JACK'S MARINA - Reports from the Pumpkin Hollow Port Authority indicate that arrivals by otherworldly newcomers to Marrow Isle are continuing at a steady rate. The first batch of new arrivals, which had been the very first travelers to Pumpkin Hollow in at least five years’ time, began in early June of this year and have already proven to be an incredible boon to both our economy and our overall quality of life. We now have a new farm on the island for the first time in years, as well as clever new members of the constabulary, a few helpful craftspeople, and even our own brand new local musical act. Not only that, but the prestigious Ms. Dahlia Leeds has taken a personal assistant, which this reporter is pleased to announce has gotten him out of a number of mundane tasks. (No offense is meant to Ms. Leeds, of course--- the Pumpkin Hollow Gazette certainly harbors no ill will toward its most consistent donor!)

According to interviews with a number of these newcomers, they appear to all come from realms far beyond our own, to the point where they have homelands with unfamiliar names and have never heard of the Emerald Isles at all. Those willing to share more details report that they each met with a strange woman in a bland-looking office building who offered them a chance at a new life, then found themselves on the ferry here. None of them seem to know anything further, as far as the Pumpkin Hollow Gazette is aware. Curious circumstances indeed.

That said, we are beyond pleased to welcome even more new neighbors to our fair town. Any newcomers should feel welcome to come to Town Hall if they are in any need of assistance. Mayor Poe and any member of Town Council would all be more than happy to lend a hand.

Additionally, the Temple of Sacred Roots will be holding a small gathering on temple grounds to welcome any wayward souls who could use a bit of help adjusting. Reverend Degas Clayton would also like to remind everyone that he is always available to offer guidance after any of his Sunday sermons unless otherwise stated. He has expressed an interest in personally welcoming as many new residents as he is able.

Hopefully things will continue to look up for Pumpkin Hollow as more arrivals land upon our docks. This will be of particular importance as we draw ever closer to Autumn. October in particular promises to be an especially difficult time, as usual. The Pumpkin Hollow Gazette will report further on our paranormal forecast as the season of spirits draws near. We hope to keep local casualties to a minimum this year after last year’s record high.

In any case, best of luck to our new residents, and welcome again!

NOTORIOUS 'RIVER WALKER' SPOTTED AFTER LONG ABSENCE; EXTREME CAUTION ADVISED

By Yorick Aberdeen

The Paring River Bridge in Lockwood Forest.

LOCKWOOD FOREST (Paring River) - Woodland travelers beware! And not just for all of the usual reasons, either. This past weekend, local shepherd Joseph Peterson reported to the local constabulary that he had an encounter with a creature that had been presumed to have moved on from our fair isle. Peterson, 37, allegedly came across the beast colloquially known as the “River Walker” while crossing the Paring River bridge near the entrance of Lockwood Forest, where he was grabbed and knocked out. Once he regained consciousness, Peterson then reported being lost in an underground cave system whilst being pursued by the monster for an unknown amount of time estimated between six and twelve hours.

The River Walker, a spider-like creature with the face of a human corpse, is so named because it appears to exclusively use the Paring River as its hunting ground. The creature is apparently completely unique to Marrow Isle, as the Pumpkin Hollow Historical Society was unable to uncover folklore or recorded sightings of anything matching the River Walker’s description in any of the texts they have access to. However, through collecting data from resurrected residents who were its victims, the Town Hall Safety Board was able to glean information about this menace that should help citizens avoid yet another timely demise.

Firstly, all residents traveling in the Lockwood Forest should steer clear of the Paring River if possible. While it is true that the Paring River cuts directly through the forest near the entrance and arcs through the majority of the woodlands, and also that the main path through the woods which goes over the Paring River bridge is the only way through to Crane’s RIdge or any of the hunting areas, the river should still be avoided whenever residents are able. This will minimize potential contact.

Secondly, be aware of your surroundings when near the river. Data indicates that the creature will make a soft chittering sound before reaching up to grab a victim. Many prior victims also report the surrounding area seeming “too still” when the creature was in the area. If you experience any of these phenomena, it would be wise to run--- though most reports suggest that outrunning the River Walker aboveground is impossible. But still, it is important to do your best.

And lastly, should you be taken below ground with this monstrous creature, it will transport you to tight underground caves where you will be forced to crawl, squeeze, and climb for your life. All the while it will follow you, taunting and toying with you. Utilize these long, grueling hours to your advantage! Studies have shown that the River Walker struggles to attack groups of two or more effectively, so while you are being tortured, search for a traveling companion!

If you do encounter the River Walker, please report the sighting to the Town Council or the Historical Society regardless of whether or not you die. Those killed by the River Walker are encouraged to stop by the Oak & Iron for a copy of the Safety Board’s Advice Pamphlet for the Recently Deceased after resurrecting. And remember, quitters are tastier prey, so don’t give in to despair! Even if you are caught and killed, you can at least say you persisted out of spite.

BLUE ISLAND CRAB HATCHING SEASON BEGINS AS SUMMER HEAT PERSISTS

By Yorick Aberdeen

A little sketch by yours truly.

TAWNY BEACH - If you’re out on the beach enjoying the last month of warm sea water, be mindful where you step! Earlier this spring, the local Blue Island Crab population had their mating season. Males of the species came up on the shore with clusters of tiny but durable eggs bundled up in their claws and buried them in the sand, and they’ve been warmed by the summer sun all season. As we enter the last month of summer the new crabs are finally ready to emerge from their birthplaces and begin their lives.

It is worth noting, however, that newborn Blue Island Crabs tend not to go directly back to the sea. In fact, it is common for them to spend the first few weeks of their lives searching for food and nesting materials such as seashells, driftwood, broken pottery, or small pieces of metal roughly the size of the average piece of valuable jewelry. They are also very adept climbers and are capable of scaling stairs and countertops with relative ease. Additionally, they seem to be able to communicate well with others of their species and are capable of collaborating. Many townsfolk have even gone so far as to describe their behavior as “scheming.” Blue Island Crabs are also notorious for not being very picky about what they eat. All this is to say, expect to have your food, personal items, and practically anything that is not tied down stolen by small blue crabs.

An unfortunate side effect of the hex has been that the beloved and highly anticipated Cucumber Festival, which normally takes place in early June, had to be canceled due to a lack of cucumbers. This has earned the ire of a great many residents who have cited the festival as “their last source of a modicum of joy on this goddess-forsaken island”, among other more colorful statements.

But there is good news! Hatching season and the subsequent early life of the crabs, all told, will not last more than a few weeks before the crabs mature enough to return to the sea with the rest of their kind. And of course those lucky enough to catch some will report that they make for a fine meal. There is no finer party dish than a Blue Island crab boil!

INCREASED PINE DEVIL SIGHTINGS SPELL BAD NEWS FOR LOCAL PEDESTRIANS

By Yorick Aberdeen

A painting of the Pine Devil provided by Mayor Poe

ISLAND-WIDE - In more concerning news, reports have been coming in from all over the island that there have been an uptick in sightings of the Pumpkin Hollow Howler. Otherwise known as the Pine Devil, this extremely dangerous man-eating beast has been a staple of Marrow Isle’s rotating cast of horrors for at least the past 15 years. Much like the aforementioned River Walker, the Pine Devil has a tendency to come and go and sightings fluctuate with some regularity. It seems that as we draw closer to prime haunting season we will be faced with increased appearances from the island’s least-favorite celebrity.

Here’s what we know:

The Howler’s primary motivation is to eat and he prefers larger prey. This includes pigs, cattle, deer, and humans. He has no known den and is apparently nomadic. No one has ever been able to locate the Pumpkin Hollow Howler when he is not actively hunting. At full height, he stands a whopping eight feet tall on unguligrade legs. He has clawed hands and large fangs which are its primary method of attacking and is capable of flight, and his eyes glow blue in the dark. He is a strong, fast creature who has no qualms about coming into town if necessary. Surviving encounters with the beast is notably rare.

If you have any encounters with the Pumpkin Hollow Howler, report to Town Hall or the constable’s station at your earliest convenience to make an incident report. The constabulary is taking reports 24 hours a day, so please make your report either immediately after the incident or upon resurrection. May your lanterns stay lit, and be safe out there!

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Captured by the River Walker? Click here…

Perhaps you didn’t read the paper. Perhaps you didn’t take the warnings seriously. Or maybe you simply had no other choice. Whatever the case may be, the Paring River Bridge lies before you, and the world around you is unnaturally still. The sounds of chirping birds, burrowing mammals, and chittering insects have all died and left the air uncannily silent.



You attempt to hurry across, hoping to make it before anything unsavory catches your scent. But the moment you place your foot upon the stone pavers of the bridge, it is already too late. Behind you, you can hear the scuttling of much too large insectoid legs and a soft rattling sound, almost like the sound of a woodpecker drilling into a tree but somehow… wetter.



Instinctively, you turn to look behind you. A bulbous, lumpy abdomen drags the ground, and from it extends a set of eight black legs, chunky and irregular, as if they were wooden stakes hewn into rough points with a careless knife. Long, spindly fingers extend from thin arms on either side of an emaciated torso covered in shiny black insect carapace. And on top, the face of a human woman who looked as though she’d been drowned, bloated and rotting. White eyes, matted brown hair, and a wicked smile framed by patchy blue lips.



You black out before you even have the chance to scream.



When you awaken, your head is pounding as if you’ve just woken from a bender. You are on a dirty, irregular stone floor. The beginnings of stalagmites jab into your back. In the distance, you can hear dripping water and the shifting of something moving. It is dark, but light enough to see by, allowing you to see plainly that the ceiling above you is significantly too low for you to stand.



Then, you hear a laugh, hoarse and cruel. “Rise and shine, little morsel. Oh, how I do love to play with my food…”



That’s your cue to get moving.



For the next several long, grueling hours, you crawl your way through this tight and unrelenting fortress of stone on hands and knees as rocks cut into your hands. In caves that are tall enough to stand, you have to walk sideways to proceed or even hold your breath in order to make it, and all the tunnels look more or less the same. The River Walker’s raspy voice echoes off the walls, making its location imperceptible… but it’s close.



You need to find a traveling companion. And soon.

Interested in encountering the Pine Devil? Click here...

The Pine Devil is a mod-run NPC and we can only handle a certain number of encounters at once. For this TDM we will be favoring new characters on a first-come, first-served basis. However, you may still handwave or summarize the encounter by rolling a D20 with 15+ to survive and 18+ to walk away unscathed, and write out the aftermath. You do not need a mod’s permission to do this!


You also do not need to fill out a Death Certificate if you're not fully apped in, but can if you want to. Your character will resurrect as normal either way!

Comments

[graveling]

"When's 'modern' for you? Because this place is positively archaic to me." There's a glance over and a slow flash of a smile.

[batteryacid]

"Planes, trains, and automobiles?" Eddie ventures. "Um... hm... one of the really popular movies that came out last year was 'Ghostbusters', with Bill Murray. That should help place me, if it sounds familiar to you."

He does smile back, then winces as his shovel clangs loudly off a buried rock. He starts poking around in the hole to figure out how big the rock is...

[graveling]

"Never really saw any movies. But...I know they did a remake of Ghostbusters where they were all women, a while back." So he's further ahead in the timeline, so.

He winces as he hears the clang, walking over to try and help with the rock. "That thing sounded pretty solid."

[batteryacid]

"Oh, good. So there's at least a few people who will know what I mean if I start talking about technology I miss from home."

Eddie nods at Angel's comment. "Once we get it out, we can use the dirt we've already dug up to fill its place in the ground..." He starts digging to one side of the rock, loosening up the earth so hopefully they can lever it out.

[[ OOC: I'm not intending to find anything important under the rock, by the way. It's just a thing to make the thread more interesting. If you have any ideas, go for it. ]]

[graveling]

Angel nods, using his shovel to pull up dirt from the other side of the stone. "Not that I did much with technology in my time. I mean, I had a cell phone, but I didn't really do much with it."

Wait, probably too far ahead.

"Mobile. Mobile phone."

[batteryacid]

Eddie gives a little snort of laughter. "I hope cell phones are smaller than mobile phones. They're pretty new where I'm from, and about the size -- and weight! -- of a brick. Appreciate the clarification, though."

He tests if the buried stone is any looser from their combined digging efforts. It does wiggle, but resists his effort to lever and lift it with the narrow shovel.

"In fact," Eddie comments, "the mobile phones I'm familiar with might be about as heavy as this rock..."

[graveling]

"Mine are, eh..." He thinks with a bit of a frown. "Near the size of a small pack of index cards, with a screen you can touch and access to the internet. Did you have the internet?"

A pause, as he widens the hole carefully.

"I'll lift the rock once we've made space for it. Thing's gotta be pretty heavy."

[batteryacid]

"I don't recognize that word. I think it must be after my time... and as for your 'cell phones', something that small, without buttons? Sounds much more advanced than anything I've seen."

Eddie looks relieved at Angel's offer. Eddie is pretty sure that he wouldn't be able to do it, but Angel seems pretty confident. "Sounds good! And, uh... remember to lift from the knees, not by bending your back. You might be tough, but the human back is a disaster just waiting to happen."

[[ OOC: Just because I looked it up -- seems the Internet wasn't opened for public use until 1991, and it didn't really start to become widespread until 1993. While standardization of network protocols started in the 1980s, most were dedicated to government use or scientific research. ]]

[graveling]

There's a bit of a wry rumble of laughter, short and almost startled out of Angel. "I will lift carefully, Eddie."

It's a new sensation, to have someone concerned about his well-being. He isn't certain what to make of it, yet.

[batteryacid]

"I'm serious!" Eddie exclaims, raising both eyebrows as he glances at Angel. "I had a friend in college, and she threw out her back from a sneeze and it hasn't been the same for a decade and a half. Still hurts her sometimes."

And he pokes around in the hole with his shovel, all around the rock, to make sure it's been loosened from the dirt on all sides. Then he draws back out of Angel's way with a nod and says,

"I think you're good to go."

[graveling]

Angel looks at Eddie, and then...hoists the rock like it weighs absolutely nothing.

Okay, he's cheating, using the superstrength thing. Yeah, he's going to be tired for a bit afterward, slower on the digging, but he's getting his kicks from doing and saying weird shit and waiting for Eddie to ask a nosy question.

[batteryacid]

Eddie's eyebrows both go up again, even higher this time. He laughs, mostly at himself, and exclaims, "Okay then, show me up for worrying!"

He points to the side of the fence line that won't be for growing things.

"Just drop it out of the way over there. You could probably compete in a strongman competition!" Eddie's tone goes inquisitive, "Did you? Back home, whatever that is for you."

[graveling]

"No, I didn't. I wasn't around people that often, to do competitions." He drops the rock where indicated; it makes a nice satisfying thud as it impacts the dirt. "Just sort of...wandered."

[batteryacid]

Eddie passes on the impulse to sing a bit of a song from when he was a teenager -- what are the chances a guy from the future knows about Dion, a singer from the 1960s? -- and instead asks, "Did you like wandering around?"

No assumptions here, but Eddie figures he either did like it or he didn't -- and that'll color how Angel feels about being on the island, won't it?

[graveling]

"It was what I knew." Which is hardly an answer to the question asked. Angel ambles back over to where he had been digging, but doesn't start up immediately. His bearlike strength is followed by a period of lamblike weakness. He'll get back to it in a moment.

But there's a sheepish look he turns on Eddie. "Did you have...a family? Where you were from?"

[batteryacid]

"Sort of," Eddie answers, leaning on his shovel a bit. He's fine with taking a short rest to talk. "I grew up with just my mom. And I was married once, but we didn't have any children and our divorce was finalized recently."

He gives a soft sigh.

"To tell you the truth, I always felt like something was missing. Like there was something I should've remembered... and then I find out it was someone. Several someones."

[graveling]

"Several someones?" He tilts his head to one side in a doglike gesture of curiosity, leaving room for Eddie to unfold that thought.

[batteryacid]

"My mother was overprotective when I was growing up. And I didn't have any friends until I was... eleven, nearly twelve. Until I met Stan and Bill. And for a little while, we made a few more friends, and a few more... until it was Bill, Stan, Richie, Ben, Beverly, Mike, and me."

There's something nostalgic, and a little vulnerable in Eddie's expression.

"We banded together after Bill's little brother died... we figured out that there was something terrible going on in our hometown... and then, after we fought It... our families moved away one by one and we forgot about each other. Until maybe a week ago. Like we were finally allowed to remember again."

[graveling]

"It." He repeats the name quietly, putting a pin in that line of discussion for later.

"And now you've been taken away from all of them again, huh?"

[batteryacid]

"If the lady in the office is to be believed, I would have died anyway. But... yes." Eddie presses his lips together hard and blinks a few times, drawing in a breath before he can speak again. "Now we're apart again. I don't know, but I hope... they'll at least remember each other."

Eddie is silent for a moment, then he walks over to the next marker in the line and starts digging without looking back at Angel. He needs some time.

[graveling]

Angel nods, going back to digging as well, working like a machine. No sweat, no heavy breathing, no blinking. He feels guilty for upsetting Eddie, and the best way to make up for that is...well. Doing the work and doing it hard.

[batteryacid]

After a while, Eddie pauses and mops at his brow. "You sure you don't need water? I'm goin' in for some."

And whatever Angel says, he does go into the farmhouse for a cup of water before coming back out. (If it's still a no, Eddie will just come back empty-handed. If it's a yes, Eddie will bring out both cups and pass one to Angel.)

Afterward, Eddie asks, "Did you have anyone like that back home? Family or friends who you were close to?"

The quiet time and the hard work let him get the emotional upset out, and he can go back to talking about things now.

[graveling]

The water is at least politely declined.

"No, I never had anyone." And there's no bitterness or resentment there, it's just. The way things are, see? The way his life existence has been. "I wandered, like I said. I was scared that if I stopped...people might pay attention to me. Because I'm not, uh. Not like most folks."

[batteryacid]

Eddie can at least relate to the feeling of being an outsider -- although the degree to which it affects him and his life is not the same.

"Well, so far I like you fine," Eddie says earnestly. "You might be different, but that's not automatically bad."

It's not very likely that Angel will be scared of scrawny, timid Eddie, but he does want to make it clear that Angel doesn't need to be afraid if Eddie notices 'odd' things about him.

[graveling]

Angel ducks his head. Digging. Speaking to the ground and his shovel, instead of directly to Eddie.

"Five years ago, I woke up in a shallow ditch, too shallow to properly call a grave. With no memories. Like this--not breathing, not eating or drinking. I don't need to sleep, but sometimes I do it to pass the time. Comes with nightmares, though. I'm a corpse. A dead body that can't rest in peace."