CALCUTTA • JULY 2025 EVENT

[uruz]

EVENT: CALCUTTA

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I am caught, tangled in

( content warnings: body horror, surreal horror, post-apocalyptic themes )

You wake with soil under your nails, something sharp in your mouth, and the scent of damp rust in the back of your throat. The sky is not night, but it is no longer day. Around you, a city's skeleton lies tangled in ruin and overgrowth in the crisp, tail end nips of autumn— skyscrapers strangled by vine and mycelium tower around you, streets are cracked open like wounds. No sound of civilization. Only wind, soft and low like breath.

You are not where you should be, and you are not entirely who you were. Do you remember the dream you had? Perhaps barely, perhaps almost too vividly. You will likely find a mask nearby— one you find familiar. While you may not have the same urgency to wear it as you did within the dreamscape, you at the very least feel the need to carry it with you now.

Some wake in subway tunnels pulsing with bioluminescence, others in penthouse ruins swallowed by moss and red ivy. Rooftop gardens filled with brittle blossoms. Empty galleries hung with paintings that seem to shift when you’re not looking. Vessels are absolutely scattered. You can wake up anywhere that's possible within the bones of this city. Life endures here, but it is changed. In the streets, rats with slick, glowing underskin scurry between collapsed signs. Pigeons wheel overhead, blind-eyed and silent. Dogs and cats roam in feral bands, some marked by fungal growths, others with bodies too long, too many limbs, or split maws bursting with tendrils. Deer can also be found roaming the enclosure of what used to be Central Park, and will open their strange mouths when they seem to stare at you. Seem, because they no longer have eyes to do that with. From deeper shadows and thicker canopies come the zoo escapees: a moose that climb walls and have a petrifying gaze, herds of zebra stand frozen like littered statues until they hear noises, to which they will scatter like roaches. Sewer grates rattle beneath your feet, and something wet and ancient stirs in the depths— Hippos that release toxic gases when threatened lay in the waters and gnaw on anything they could get their teeth on. The most gentle of them all are the giraffes; they still attempt to nibble on the falling sunset leaves where still gathered, and will even come up to humans who offer anything green for them to eat. There's so much more left unsaid, if you're unlucky enough to come across them.

The flora is no safer. Familiar trees such as maple, ginkgo and oak still grow in parks and fracture ciment with their powerful roots. Plenty of the bark is etched with a strange set of sigils that hum when approached. Ivy pulses with low light and throbs when touched. Entire buildings are choked with fungus: spires of mushroom growths that sway despite the absence of wind, spores spilling like ash when disturbed. Moss spreads across broken windows in fractal shapes, responding to movement, to emotion with colors beyond what you could imagine. Wildflowers bloom in moonlight— roses with petal-thorns and daffodils exhale perfume that clouds your thoughts.

And still, the city seems to watch you soundlessly. Beneath your feet, the soil responds. Something old sleeps in the brickwork, the concrete, the iron bones of this place— and your presence has stirred it.

You'd better get moving. Survive.

NOTES:

• You must find shelter, water, and food. Anything that can be found in city stores is plausible, but much of the food will be expired or ransacked by the lives before yours, or animals. The Host-fauna are edible if you can stomach it, and some may talk in tongues before they die. The flora is a mixed bag, from harmless to not.
• The environment is reactive: Touch a wall and it pulses. Step into an abandoned deli and the shelves might whisper for a second.

OPTIONAL TOKEN EFFECTS

• Tokens will feel a strange resonance when near remnants of human structure, especially things tied to strong emotion (graffiti, photos, childhood toys, street art, music).
• Tokens will feel warm when close to sites where others have suffered or are remembered deeply. These sensations are disorienting but emotionally vivid, almost like deja vu.
• Tokens could experience nosebleeds or migraines near intense emotional hotspots. This is their magic wanting an outlet, but too newly formed to pour itself out.

OPTIONAL OFFERING EFFECTS

• Offerings will feel the thrum of the Murmur, like a second heartbeat in the earth, when near fungal flora or decayed nature.
• Offerings will feel oddly familiar with the world around them, as if it recognizes them and vice verse. Scents linger longer and skin responds to temperature or emotion in exaggerated ways.
• The act of hunting and consuming host fauna is euphoric, but only for a moment— followed by a haunting awareness of their own anatomy shifting from the inside in ways they should fear.

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And I wake, say your name

( content warnings: sensory distortion )

One night— it doesn't matter which, time has loosened— your mask beckons. Something is encouraging you to put it on. It sears cold when you do. A pressure behind your eyes grows sharp, then splits. Suddenly, the silence inside your skull isn't yours anymore.

The Murmur is stirring.

A psychic thread pulls taut through your mind like a bow ready to shoot. Language might fail. Images are the easiest to come first— flickers of hands, blood, feathers, fire. Then voices, soft and reverent, speaking your name in words you don't know but understand. Some speak back. Some yell. Some sing. You sense others, Tokens humming with potential, Offerings heavy with heat and pain.

You are not alone. You never were.



NOTES:

• Your gamewide "network" is live! Try to reach someone through the Murmur. Perhaps a thought, a memory, or just a name. Players are welcomed to create prompts within this log or post to the network community proper.
• Communication may come in fragments. Images repeat, words loop, emotion surges without cause or by accident. One name in particular echoes:

Espera.
You may try to reach for her, even if your chances are slim. You might end up contacting someone or something else entirely.

OPTIONAL TOKEN EFFECTS:

• Tokens may begin having their first access to inner magic. Not enough to use consciously, but enough to glitch with use, accidental or not. A friendly reminder that characters should not be able to use their magic with ease, yet. Keep in mind they should all have a realistic adjustment period.
• Tokens may have sensory overlaps: seeing sounds, hearing memories, tasting colors.
• Tokens may be energy sensitive. Areas with high ambient emotion (graveyards, burnt apartments, memorable objects) seem to strengthen their clarity but exaggerate their magic in startling bursts.

OPTIONAL OFFERING EFFECTS:

• Offerings may have their transformation accelerate when using the Murmur's network, albeit in a way that glitches in and out. A friendly reminder that characters should not be able to use their transformations with ease, yet. Keep in mind they should all have a realistic adjustment period.
• Offerings may hear less words, more songs, breathing, scent— nonverbal communication that may be overwhelming.
• Offerings may experience intense somatic reactions while using the network: twitching limbs, sudden pain, the sense of being stroked or watched.

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Wrapped and quartered

( content warnings: body horror )

As the days bleed together, the city begins to still. Where once the overgrowth pulsed with strange life, now it withers back into itself. The streets grow colder. The air bites. The mutated fauna, once noisy, prowling, goes silent. Ivy wilts, retreating from the moonlight. The mushroom towers collapse in on themselves with wet sighs. Even the buildings seem to hold their breath. Your own exhales frost in the air, hanging like ghosts. Above, the sky splits at the seams— crimson bleeding in from the edges, as if the moon itself were being peeled open at the arrival of winter.

And then: the masks begin to thrum.

It is subtle at first, a hum at the base of the spine. A low vibration felt rather than heard. But it grows, constant, inescapable— as if something is ticking down inside you. The masks react even when untouched, glowing faintly, twitching. You feel it in your chest. A second heartbeat. You're urged to put it on.

A voice, familiar and female, threads through the Murmur like static on a broken radio. Espera says:

"If you have not Tethered . . . do so. Before she bleeds in full."

Your body responds before your mind does. Magic stirs in your bloodstream— volatile and half-born. For some, flame dances along their fingertips, mirrors twitch in response to their gaze, or their pulse sings in electric rhythm. For others, bones shift beneath skin, teeth ache with growth, limbs feel wrong. Something is changing about you. Slowly. Irreversibly.

NOTES:

• Animal hosts may react reverently to tethered pairs. Lone vessels are ignored, followed, or violently met.
• Winter is here in full, but it doesn't seem natural— it is a forced shift. The city feels colder, quieter, and more hostile. Even the corrupted ecosystem seems to brace for something larger.
• Magic is awakening further. All vessels, Token and Offering alike, begin to experience supernatural phenomena more intensely. These changes are often involuntary, especially under emotional or physical duress. Powers may flicker, trigger, or distort, reflecting the vessel's inner state. They should not have control of it yet.
• The call to Tether is no longer subtle— it is urgent. Even characters who resist connection may optionally feel the biological/spiritual pressure to Tether. Those who remain untethered may begin to feel destabilized, sensitive to The Murmur, and/or experience the subtle beginnings of Succumbence.

OPTIONAL TOKEN EFFECTS

• Tokens may have unintentional magic surges in times of distress OR the awakening of "comfort zones". Small, warped spaces where reality thins into dreamscape, resembling meaningful memories (a childhood room, a stage, a battlefield). These zones offer eerie familiarity, but not safety from the weather.
• They may feel watched by something divine, but dispassionate— like being studied under a microscope.
• They may feel a need for proximity so great that the body physically aches. In worst case scenarios, you may even fall ill the longer you ignore your body's cry to dissipate your building magic. Tethering will immediately resolve this.

OPTIONAL OFFERING EFFECTS:

• An Offering's new instincts and transformations may begin to surface. Fear of fire. Yearning for music. It will all depend on what you're becoming. One thing that may be shared is a fierce protectiveness toward nearby Tokens.
• They may sense that something is weighing their souls against an invisible scale— not to punish you, but to categorize you. You have the inexplicable feeling that it is also the same thing that is shaping you.
• They may feel compelled to nest or anchor themselves near a Token's comfort zone or with a Token— circling the space like a sentinel or beast returning home. Tethering will make you whole, calm and seen.

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Missing pieces find me

( content warnings: uncanny doppelgängers, possible visions of murder, violence, self harm. )

Winter has settled into everything with soft snowfall. Into your joints. Into the breath you share with others in the dark, or by an impromptu fire with scraps. Into the way your name sounds now when someone says it soft like a secret, or a warning. You've learned to ration warmth like a dwindling supply.

You've grown used to the rhythm of this place: the creak of half-dead buildings, the hollow crunch beneath your feet, the subtle hum that coils through the threads between you and the ones you've chosen to keep close throughout the month. The ones who understand that survival isn't just about staying alive.

But lately, something else has begun to settle in. It's not loud, and certainly not obvious. A shift, like a door left open too long. And that, Dear Vessels, starts in your reflections.

You see it in the fractured edge of glass, or in water that should have frozen weeks ago. In any surface slick enough to cast back your image, you may look, and it looks back. You move, and sometimes it moves too— but not quite right. A second too late. A second too early. Sometimes not at all.

And then it smiles, or frowns, or spits.

It is just enough to be wrong. Unnerving. Just enough to slip under your skin like splinters. You tilt your head— your reflection doesn't. You blink— it watches. And then you turn away. You tell yourself it's the frost. The tension. The light. But when you glance back, it’s still watching you.

Other vessels are seeing it, too, even if they don't say it out loud. They pause at windows. They look into still water a beat too long. They touch their own faces like they're checking for something missing. Or added. Something extra.

At least your reflection isn’t hurting you. Well. Not yet.

NOTES:

• A shimmering surface of any kind could reflect two vessels at once but their reflections are fighting. There's blood between them . . .
• At night, the moon above is bright, ice blue and full, with its edges tainted by a splowly spreading crimson. Characters may notice that in reflections, it is completely red and the tendrils from within spew out. A double take will have this reflection of the moon disappearing.
• Characters (especially those who may not be able to see the reflections) may notice and hear their comrade's reflections laughing or speaking to them— they may even respond and try to carry conversation. Note that it's the reflection that's doing this sporadically, and not the real person.

OPTIONAL TOKEN EFFECTS:

• Tokens may notice their hands glowing in thier reflection, but not outside it. After a few moments, the same magic curls up their arms. Their mirrorselves are trying to access their magic for them, so best redirect anything if you want to avoid possible friendly fire.
• They may realize their reflection is always watching their Tether, even as they sleep. It tilts its head, comes crawling with a knife raised, drives it down— then it's gone.
• They may see their mirrorselves practicing violence on nearby objects, anything they could get their hands on.

OPTIONAL OFFERING EFFECTS

• Offerings may wake to burning, superficial claw marks on their sides. Their reflections will be found licking their fingers.
• They may notice their reflection becoming violent with their nearby Tethers; pulling them by the hair, biting into them, prying at their eyes, etc.
• They may see their reflections pushing into existing wounds and feeding, wherever they are.

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[deathstealer]

[ This city, it seems, has invented a myriad of shops that did not exist in the Lands Between. Despite the growths and the fading, many shop signs are still visible, hung above the concrete angle of their buildings. Shops for timepieces, for sports equipment, for specialty clothing. The advent of the deli is a particularly delightful one-- small stores with glass containers that had likely once held food, little tables and chairs to awkwardly cram oneself in amongst, and cheerful decorations long since faded behind the counter.

It is in one of these that Ranni finds that hard-eyed man again. She remembers him from the dream of the orchard and rotting fields; his strange rainbow scars, the makeshift brace around his leg, and the wary look in his eye. The look of a man who has recently suffered, and would very much like to not do so again anytime soon. ]

We meet again, in more solid circumstances;
dost thou feel any different from the dream?

[ But he seems not to hear her words, and snaps upright instead, something wild in his eyes. Ah, but she recognizes the look of a man driven mad by fear, and without her magic, she cannot defend herself from any strikes with that hammer. It would not harm her, only strip more porcelain from her shell and potentially dent the metal inside. An inconvenience, to be sure.

All she can do is raise all four hands in a universal sign of peace, to show she is unarmed, and: ]

Peace, wary stranger.
I come not to harm.

[hexrot]

[ jayce's knuckles go white at the grip of his weapon, brain sputtering in thought if he should make the first move or wait for the thing to come to him, break the porcelain-like husk looked fine in imagination, but this wasn't the mercury hammer. it woudln't do anything beyond stun it, perhaps, and give him time to bolt. jayce's breath catches and goes ragged as his jumbled thoughts run, but then—

it's speaking. a woman's voice—

jayce's eyes flutter and he flinches back, gaping through his breathing and twitching lips, eyelids and fingers. after a moment more of staring at the harmless figure and realizing, she is not what he'd initially saw in the endless night. if anything, he doesn't drop his hammer, but his shoulders give a visible sag. ]

What are you doing here—?

[ and how can she too be real? not just a phantom from his wildest dreams? ]

[deathstealer]

[ The hammer, at least, does not swing. Ranni is glad; enough of her porcelain outer shell is missing, and though she is not vain, she does not wish to lose more. Still, he is on high alert, bearing the look of a man who is expecting to be attacked at any moment. She had best choose her words and movements carefully. ]

This land is fraught with beasts, cold, and loneliness;
as such, I thought to seek other dreamers.

[ Slowly, she lowers her arms, and tucks her hands into her voluminous sleeves. Here, without her magic, this body does not move well; her mouth is still, as are her fingers, stiff metal and porcelain reduced to inanimate rigidity. She's doing her best not to give that particular piece of information away, however. The more strength she projects, the better. ]

Hast thee met others here?
For beings such as thee, company may be wise,
for warmth, provisions, and shelter besides.

[ Biological creatures -- and humans -- are so fragile, after all. ]

[hexrot]

[ dreamers, she says. a key to further his own questioning to unravel their circumstance. this . . . woman, almost part automation, doesn't move the way jayce remembers, but then again, plenty of his dream was fuzzy, misaligned and missing pieces if he thought about it for too long.

while doesn't respond outright, jayce does nod; he's met a few during his recent travels, but right now he finds himself in solitude by choice. he could've latched onto civilization, but this was not home and these were not his people. they were complete strangers that he couldn't find himself sleeping next to with ease (as if he's truly doing any sleeping here as of late). beyond that, the one company he did actively seek was fleeing from him. ]

. . . Do you remember me?

[ might be a reach too far, but he needs to document the pattern, or, a break in it. ]

[deathstealer]

Indeed I do.
Thee were not so wildly cautious in the dream,
but dreams will as dreams must spin;
we are all so terribly different in dreams.

[ As she speaks, her porcelain face does not move; only its spectral mirror does, the ghostly mouth shaping the words. She has been pondering the dream heavily since they awoke here; its barren fields full of half-buried objects, its magical fruit, and its bleeding moon. She feels reasonably certain that this place is no dream, but she cannot say for absolute certain.

She casts a gaze over the small shop that Jayce has been staying in. It seems a poor choice for shelter -- no beds, no soft furnishings -- so she cannot say what made him choose this place. Did he wake up here, and just decided to stay in one place? ]

Didst thee glimpse the moon in our shared dream?
Its face was as bloody as a feasting lion,
and its tentacles remind me of the rot present in beasts here.

[hexrot]

[ he was at least— receptive, in the dream. everyone felt like old friends, not otherworldly strangers. jayce shifts his body weight from left to right, allowing his braced leg to rest. he's still smoothing down the edges that made his body stiff with alert hesitation, as if danger was still there. it wasn't, he thinks— just need to let his brain catch up to relax properly. he's been doing so little of that, even when he's alone. ]

I did. [ the moonlight now is a pale blue, an eerie, watching glow across glass surfaces— the fingerprints burned into his forehead like diamonds twinkle like the stars that accompanies the moon's infinite visitation. talking about the dream— that's something that could help them understand. fish and work through answers. there's nothing to withhold. ] It swallowed me whole, from the inside.

[deathstealer]

[ Ranni nods, accepting the explanation thoughtfully. She did not feel similarly consumed, but she is not surprised that it might have done that to another. So disgusted by its bleeding face, Ranni had refused it as ruthlessly as she could.

But she had felt its pull. So, too, does she feel the pull of the sky and the moon here where they begin to bleed red around the edges. Her own dark moon had been so dear to her, and this fetid, rotten thing that hangs in the sky is... curious. She wants to touch it in the same way a child wants to touch a fire. Wants to taste what kind of magic one may be able to harness from it. ]

Then thee must take caution in the future.
Moons have a way of subsuming the whole;
waxing and waning and consuming utterly.
Glance at it too often,
and thineself may be utterly lost.

[ And there is much here to be lost in. The moon, the Murmur, the sheer amount of information available in this world. ]

[hexrot]

[ that much, he's . . . assumed, but she seems more well versed in the moon than he was. the dream's dangers felt like an omen now more than ever. he wonders if the serphentine form he took is something to take into account, too.

they, and more, are thoughts that he'd rather be sharing right now. specifically with his partner, but viktor has forsaken his presence for self loathing. jayce's flat gaze flickers, and his nose twitches with a brief grimmace at the thought. had nothing to do with her, so, eventually, he gestures with a gloved hand. ]

You can sit, if you want.

[ that way, they could exchange "notes" better than this tense stand off. jayce's little camp was meager, made with quickness and especially temporary stays in mind. the fire is welcoming enough, though, and he watches ranni from behind the dance of the orange flame between them. with that said, he too sits, pulling a slanted stool out so that he may plant his heels and sit. ]

Better for conjectures.

[deathstealer]

[ Ranni does so enjoy conjectures, so she sits, the hems of her skirts and cloak pooling on the floor. ]

Art thou familiar with these lands?
This city is called New York,
and its end came in the year they call 2023.

[ She has seen many pictures of the local denizens of this city in the newspapers at the library, and their style is strange to her eye. Remarkably simple clothing, with no embellishment or armor. Jayce's clothes are similar, but she cannot say for certain whether he came from a land like this. Thus, she has to ask.

She folds her hands in her lap, watching the fire crackle and pop. ]

I awoke from our shared dream in a library;
it has been a great boon for a hungry mind.
Though it shareth little of what calamity struck here,
the people recorded much of their previous lives.

[hexrot]

[ jayce takes a stick and works the meager logs to keep the fire alive. perhaps she might not need the warmth, but jayce does. placing one more block of moldy slab of rough furniture on top of the flames to keep it fed, jayce rolls her words in his head. ]

I learned just as much as you—[ not a lot, he only learned the name was new york because he heard it, ] I'm from a place called Runeterra. [ it wouldn't matter to recite piltover, if no one even knew to start at the planet. ] . . . But I do have a clue. Not sure if you've, [ he tries to gesture, briefly unsure of how to describe it, ] had the thought come to you.

[deathstealer]

[ As stated, the name Runeterra means little to Ranni. It is a pretty enough name for a world, but she does not know of it. In her time as a god, she watched only the Lands Between and similar worlds, not the entire universe.

His assumption has her tilting her head, curious. ]

Many thoughts have I had on the calamity that befell this place,
but no one clear answer has struck.
Mine theories can only explain so much without deeper exploration.
What is thine own theory?

[hexrot]

[ it's something jayce thinks he's at least good at, so he stews his thoughts from an earlier brain storm and strings together the one hypothesis that wins it for him. hits the closest to home. or at least, what could've been home. ]

I've only ever seen this sort of . . . Interdimensional displacement in mages, when it's intentional. Wild Runes, when it's not. [ some might even look to them with the same reverence as gods. "worship", he's heard more than once. with how easily they manipulate the world around them— but jayce knows that is not the case. most of the time. as a man of science, it's natural for him to be dubious of something that couldn't be proved. ] With misuse, the Arcane can corrupt.

Whatever happened here— My bet is on that. A mage's work.

[deathstealer]

[ Ranni looks pleased, like Jayce has just performed a particularly admirable trick. ]

Magic can grow, and magic can rot;
a mage's intention seepeth into their very work,
and yet, it too can grow wild beyond mere intent.
Magic gone awry, perhaps,
or a god playing with their toys;
magic is indeed at the heart of this.

[ Personally, her own guess goes far beyond merely one mage. An effect of this level, a dream that powerful, she suspects they are looking at the work of a god. But until she has proof of that, all theories are valid. ]

[hexrot]

Now we'll just need more than speculation.

[ thing is . . . he's stumped on that, at least for now. first, because he has a priority that comes before that. jayce stares into his fire, brows cross and gaze intent, before he sighs out deep, presses his fingers to his temples and gestures upward. ]

And I need to find my partner.