Breathe It In

This post is relevant to all characters who have remained in Knoxwater. Please post any responses here.


Breathe.

It was a simple command. It had a simple effect.

It began with the Crann. In unison, they did as they were bidden. The mists hadn't come to Knoxwater for months, but tonight was different. Tonight, they crept underneath doors and through locks, gathering themselves as a grey blanket across the floorboards. The hallways were as thick with it as the bedchambers. It skulked into the cells, drifted between the trees of the courtyard and seeped wet cold into the grass.

The city fared no better. The more mist that poured from the gates of Orthelstone, the more it soldiered down the streets and sucked itself through every nook and cranny it could find. For anyone watching, it wasn't so much that the mist had come from inside that was perturbing; it was that it seemed to have a purpose. It didn't drift aimlessly, or settle entirely. It gravitated towards the living, seeking out their mouths and nostrils and clambering inside. Even the Churches, the Cathedral itself, were hollowed out and penetrated like a dead chicken in the face of a hoard of insubstantial maggots.

It didn't matter who breathed it in. Churchman, King, Lord or pauper would be subject to its noxious intentions. Those sleeping fared better. The nightmares were born out of their deepest fears, and lingered. They seemed real. They revisited, for the scant few who might find themselves able to carry on sleeping.

Being awake seemed to be worse. The mist took hold of one's own mind, turned it against itself; the thoughts simply wouldn't stop. The paranoia, the terrors, the outright dread of even the most petty of phobias, each one seemed to be riddled into thought processes. Concentration lapsed.

The darkest hours in the night became dark hours indeed for the citizens of Knoxwater. Amidst the most silent moments, a laugh spread its way down the lonely streets; demented, gleeful, female and hysterical. Its mocking quality carried through to the scattered words laced through it.

All hail Beltayne, thy Kingdom Come.