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TDM #9 - The Weather Outside is Frightful [FIRST EDITION]

Pumpkin Hollow Gazette: Winter Issue

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Pumpkin Hollow Gazette

12/13/24 | TDM #9 - The Weather Outside is Frightful [First Edition]

WELCOME TO PUMPKIN HOLLOW

By Yorick Aberdeen

The crop for which the town is named.

Hello and welcome, one and all! As time marches on and the ferry continues bringing newcomers to our fair land, we start our newest edition of the Pumpkin Hollow Gazette with a warm welcome to anyone who has just made landfall in our accursed but cozy little town. It’s winter, which can be a challenging time of year for a secluded place like Pumpkin Hollow, but you’ll also be able to join us for beloved traditions such as Mourner’s Night, Givingstide, the New Year, and Merrymeet! Local experts have also reported to the Pumpkin Hollow Safety Board that we should be in for perfectly normal and utterly harmless auroras this winter, barring any complications. The night sky will most likely not try to kill you this year. What luck!

We invite you, as with all those who came before you, to enjoy your stay at the Oak & Iron tavern inn while you settle in. Please stop by Town Hall to discuss opportunities for work and more permanent housing! All newcomers get 100 Brass in their pocket upon arrival as well, so we encourage you to take advantage of this as well. Reach out to your neighbors for help if you need it, and don’t forget to pick up your copy of the Pumpkin Hollow Gazette whenever you need the local news!

WINTER WEATHER REPORT

By Phil Connors

The Paring River looks gorgeous this time of year.

Wrap up in those winter cloaks, plug those drafts, and stock up on the oil and wood. It's frost season, and it's only getting colder from here. These nights will be the longest nights. Keep your toes warm and your rooftops clean; when we get snow, we're getting inches of it. The end of the season will get a little warmer, but prone to temperature drops and refreezes, and the wind will still be just as chilly. There will be ice all season long, so be careful on the streets, because there won't be any wet floor signs to warn you. Because it's ice.

Snowfall means roads blocked, and roads blocked means roads need clearing! Town Hall is recruiting volunteers to help shovel the walkways in public spaces. Shovels not mandatory for those of you with powers that can clear snow, or perhaps a machine like a snowplow, or perhaps machine snowplow powers. (No heat-melting allowed; we're not making a skating rink here.) Inquire at Town Hall to sign up!

WINTER ACTIVITIES AROUND TOWN

By Timothy Stoker

A peek at the Winter Market.

Speaking of snow, it turns out shoveling and falling face-first into a mound of snow on your way to market aren’t the only things you can do with all this fluffy white stuff falling out of the sky! All throughout town, there’ll be opportunities to take advantage of this weather’s unique charms all winter long.

The Safety Board is happy to report that several of the lakes and ponds around town are now thick enough to ice skate on. Ice skate rentals will be available at the Oak & Iron for 5 Brass a day. You’ll find that the safe places to skate are marked with a notice from the Safety Board, so make sure you check, unless falling through the ice sounds like your idea of fun! One of the safe locations, to the shock of everyone involved, is Lake Sal-Co-Penn, so take this opportunity to enjoy its scenic location while it’s completely free of horrible visions of dead loved ones. Just don’t look too hard at what’s in the water under the ice.

Additionally, check out the Winter Market all season long on Main Street. It’s a great place to check out deals on artisanal crafts for Givingstide (or whatever else you might celebrate) and will also feature baking, cooking, and crafting contests of various kinds every weekend from now till the end of February. Grab some hot cider or cocoa at the refreshment booth, and consider taking a friend or date on one of the horse drawn sleigh rides available.

And last but certainly not least, head on out to the farmlands in Northwest Hollow to take part in the Neighborhood Sanctioned Snowball War. No sense letting those big plots of land sit empty all season! If you enjoy frozen architecture, have applicable tactical experience, or just want to throw stuff at other people, the Snowball War is the place for you.

TOWNSFOLK BEWARE - SNOWSTORMS MAY HOLD SINISTER SECRETS

By Yorick Aberdeen

Friend or foe?

Stay alert during inclement weather, neighbors--- and not just because of the fall risk! Locals particularly around the Prague Mill and Bluffs area have been reporting that, during low-visibility snowstorms, insidious-looking figures have been appearing in the snow.

It’s unclear what exactly these mysterious figures might be, lurking in the roiling blizzards throughout town, but they’ve been known to vary in size and in shape. Tread with care when the weather begins to turn, and keep your lanterns lit!

GINGERBREAD CURSE DEEMED UNLAWFUL AND UNSAFE

By Cecil Gershwin Palmer

A most dastardly dessert, indeed.

Town Hall would like to remind all citizens and denizens of Marrow Island that gingerbread is not on the list of approved construction materials for buildings zoned for residential, commercial or farming purposes. Whoever is turning local homes and other buildings into gingerbread, complete with candy decorations, is asked to put it back, and not coaxingly, like when you try to get a cat to come down from the ceiling fan, but demandingly, like when you’re telling a dog to spit out the clearly-not-food item they have in their mouth. No, stop chewing. Do NOT swallow that! Come here, spit it out!

Local candymaker, Ambrose Macarius, had this to say on the matter: “I worry a bit, you know, that with the abundance of candy made available with this gingerbread house hoo-hah, that no one’s going to come visit my shop for the stuff I make by hand. I don’t use magic in the candy, you know?” Meanwhile, local ice cream parlor Gourd En Glace is selling a gingerbread sundae to commemorate the occasion.

Citizens are advised to be particularly careful with liquids in gingerbread buildings for the time being, until this matter is resolved.

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Further Details...

Winter Fun!

The bit about Lake Sal-Co-Penn is mostly a joke and it is genuinely safe to ice skate there. However, if you would like to do something spooky with it, feel free! It is functionally SCP-2316 but frozen. You can have a totally safe visit or a terrible one, your choice!

The costs of hot cocoa/cider and sleigh rides are negligible, don’t worry about taking them out of your Brass. Winter clothing sets cost between 100-300 Brass depending on its complexity, and pricing at the Winter Market will be comparable to the normal pricing we have on items. To avoid an absolute onslaught of price check questions, we’re more than happy to let you use your best judgement on pricing for Winter Market items based on previous pricing. Our Buyer’s Guide and this simplified Pricing Menu are great resources! Existing characters can modify their ledgers without mod approval, and new characters can wait until they app in to worry about it. Givingstide, our winter gift exchange holiday, takes place at the end of December, but the market will be open all through the Winter!

The Snowball War will be centralized around Cèsar Salazar’s farm, per the player’s request, but the whole farmland area of Northwest Hollow is free game. Have fun!

Shapes in the Snow

We give you the winter gift of creative liberty for this one! Rather than have a set creature or person lurking in the blizzard, you can have whatever you like! It can be an existing monster like the Tristitia, a Brutok, or the River Walker. It can be an eerie doppelganger of someone from your home world. It can be an opening for another player character or an Infernal Servant. It could even be a creature you make up! If you make an excellent monster, we’d love to incorporate it into the game’s canon! But whether you’re looking to have a run-in with the Pine Devil, you’ve devised a new menace to stalk our fair town, or you’re about to attack your neighbor who has innocently come to ask for a cup of sugar, remember that communication is key and feel free to get as weird with it as you like.

Gingerbread Curse

The gingerbread curse is pretty self-explanatory and is basically exactly what it seems. That one witch who turned all our crops into turnips that time probably did it. Gingerbread buildings can appear fully formed or gradually transform over time, or just take up chunks of your home or workplace. They will eventually change back on their own (the timeframe in which this happens is up to you) but if the cookie gets softened by liquids or eaten, the architecture may come back looking a little funny. Good luck!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

For a moment, Valdis thinks she's going to refuse and mentally prepares a counter argument, but Fever agrees. Finally, she's allowed to do something to help someone she loves. She wonders if she was this frustrating for Max or any of her other friends.

Valdis slips her hand into Fever's when she puts the dagger away.

"Come on, I'll lead you home, and you can finally rest."

"Not until you've gotten some help."

She won't rest until she knows Valdis is okay, that this mysterious wound has been stitched and dressed and on its way to healing. Of all the times to never have studied healing magic of her own accord.

But still, her hand is in the other's. If Valdis insists, she won't fight her on it beyond this.

If she hadn't just wondered if she was as difficult as Fever, she might have tried to argue.

"I will get it looked at, but it's really no big deal."

She says as she can feel that the cut isn't healing and is, in fact, still bleeding.

"However, if you insist, we can find a doctor when we get back to town."

"I will insist. It's my one condition."

There's enough doctors in this town that they shouldn't have any trouble with it.

"If it's no big deal, I can just wait outside while they look."

"Well, we have a ways to go, so we'd better start walking."

She gently pulls on Fever's hand and leads her away from the bloody path they had both come down. It shouldn't take much longer to return to town than it did to get here.

"You don't have to tell me who caused this, but I would appreciate it if you told me why you didn't come to me."

Before she answers, she thinks a moment, and her free hand moves.

"Aresce."

A feeling of warmth, of being dried off, and the blood leaves her from where it stained and stuck. Valdis, holding onto her, will feel it too, and excess blood and snowmelt will depart from her.

"It was fine then. It was fine every day before today. I told myself to forgive him, because it was an accident, and he did not venture far. I thought I had it all handled, that it was all together, and then...I came out here because there were monsters, and I thought I could get practice in. Except, when I started, I couldn't stop."

But it had still been things that were okay to vent her bloodlust on. It had seemed fine, except that the agitation wasn't going away and all the cracks were coming out and it was splintering and making her head hurt and hurt and it got bigger and bigger and-

"If you hadn't found me, I expect...I would have turned up on your doorstep."

Valdis flinches as the magic washes over her, drying the blood on her hand, lifting and flaking off, along with the wet on her clothing from the snow. She's not certain where her fear of such things came from, maybe from seeing Neil destroy those monsters so many months ago. Magic. One thing the Hellhounds have little defense against, but Fever means no harm, whatever spell this is was cast to help.

"You don't have to handle this alone, Fever. You don't have to wait until it's overwhelming. You can come to me for something small, a minor irritation at work, your tea being too cold, someone trespassing in your mind...I'll support you through anything."

She notices the flinch, but in the absence of explanation, decides if she remembers to inquire about it later. The sense of the magic vanishes as swiftly as it's come, not one to overlinger.

"When you say it, I think of course, I know this. I don't doubt you. I think it is only..."

It's hard to say it. Hard to put it into words, this resolve that she has to fix it herself, handle it on her own. Her problems to be handled herself, even as she'd never think someone else needed to do the same thing.

"The logic of it doesn't make sense. Yet, it exists."

Not in the way of madness, but in the way of a broken bone set incorrectly.

Of course it sounds more reasonable when said out loud, but she knows she's been guilty of doing the same in the past. Old habits die hard, and of course Fever hasn't had others to rely on much longer than she has.

"I know you haven't had others who understand before, people who will stand by you in the darkest moments and lead you through them. Just, please try to remember that you do now."

She knows Fever wants to change, and anything she decides to do will have her full support, but Valdis still worries about what Sheo and Mortanne have come up with will not work, or worse...will change who Fever is.

"I don't wish to change you, Fever, just help where I can."

Change has to come, or she'll never be steady, never feel like she has her feet under her enough to think about the future. The risk is great - alteration on such a level will always be uncertain - but she must try.

"And for that, I will always be grateful. And it's my task to remember it, to know I won't fall down if I can't manage alone, to know I don't...have to. It's just...hard."

Like learning a new weapon, or a new dance, the muscles have to be used, exercised, before it becomes reflexive.

"Sorry for being so difficult."

"You're not difficult, Fever."

Valdis squeezes Fever's hand, leading her well clear of the trail of blood and through fresh, clean snow. She lets the silence linger for awhile as she considers how far they all have come. Max has become his own person, she's learned to open up and feel, Fever has begun to heal and seek who she wants to be. Valdis wonders if any of this would ever have been possible on their own worlds.

"You're just not used to having friends yet."

Or partners.

"And how long does that take, in your experience?"

Months upon months. When spring falls, it'll be a year here, to say nothing of the time spent on the ship, and the months spent beforehand running from the Absolute. One would think she figured out something of a knack for it by now.

Valdis laughs, not at Fever, but at the idea that she might know such things after having been keeping a line between her and everyone else for a few hundred years.

"I don't know why you're asking me, my track record with trust and belief isn't exactly long either."

She stops and turns to face Fever, not releasing her hand and looking into her eyes.

"But we can figure it out together."

A smile finds its way to her lips in spite of everything, something small but true.

"You promise?"

She knows she doesn't need to ask, but she wants to, just so she can hear the answer aloud.

She lifts Fever's hand to her lips and gently kisses it.

"I promise."

Tired as she is, it doesn't stop the warmth blooming in her chest, washing away what dregs of her former mood might have clung onto her. Her smile broadens, far more present than when she was bloody and brutal earlier, and Fever lets that be her response.

When they're near one of the clinics is when she speaks again.

"Thank you, for pulling me back."

In hindsight, she should have known that a kiss would bring Fever back far more easily than violence.

"I will always be here for you, Fever."

She glances at the clinic, not having had to actually come to one since the plague.

"Will you wait for me?"

"Yeah, I'll be right outside. If I go inside and it's warm, I'm liable to just fall asleep in a chair, and that'd just be embarrassing."

She's trying to be a little more lighthearted instead of letting her worry over this injury predominate. Right now, Valdis is the one who wants to take care of her, and so she has to remember to keep allowing it.

Valdis assumed Fever would want to wait, but she didn't realize the woman wanted to wait outside.

"If you need sleep you should go home."

"What, so eager to get rid of me already? I'm sticking around."

Besides, she wouldn't sleep peacefully no matter where she is. The exhaustion is physical, not mental.

"No, never."

Valdis leans over to plant a kiss on her cheek.

"I'll see you in a moment then."

Hopefully that is all it will take.

She's patient, and uses the time to come back to herself more. In her body, in her mind, feeling the winter air and bracing herself in the present moment. Time passes, and it's only when she senses someone coming out of the clinic that she moves again, perking up when she sees Valdis there.

"Did he fix it?"

Fever seems to have settled even more by the time she exits Watson's clinic. At the question, Valdis holds out her hand for Fever to examine. It's been tightly bandaged, but the bleeding seems to have stopped.

"For not having magic I think he did great job with an unusual circumstance."

"If your own magic can't stop it, it's better that you go to standard methods anyway. Better some stitches than the magic wearing off and your hand reopening at the worst time."

She nods in approval, and stays near.

"Can I walk you home?"

"I have healed from such things before, it simply takes a long time."

The cold scar on her chest is proof of that.

"And of course you can walk me home, I will never turn down your company."

TDM #9 - The Weather Outside is Frightful [FIRST EDITION]

Pumpkin Hollow Gazette

12/13/24 | TDM #9 - The Weather Outside is Frightful [First Edition]

WELCOME TO PUMPKIN HOLLOW

WINTER WEATHER REPORT

WINTER ACTIVITIES AROUND TOWN

TOWNSFOLK BEWARE - SNOWSTORMS MAY HOLD SINISTER SECRETS

GINGERBREAD CURSE DEEMED UNLAWFUL AND UNSAFE

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