The weather had turned cool, perhaps pervading from the surface far above, or perhaps guided by some unknown magic hand. Leaves crisped in the coldest of the caves, tumbling with soft scratching across the rocky floors. A night passed, and the caves seemed to grow darker. That happened every year, of course; the light-orbs would dim a little sooner, 'awaken' a little later, as if in homage to forgotten seasons. But today, the lights didn't come on until hours later than usual, and when they did, it was with an intermittent flicker.

The caves remained dim; not dark, not so much that plants would all die. But the shadows in the corners were murkier, the crevices that typically gained some light now impenetrable to all but the keenest eye.

On the third day, here and there, things in those shadows seemed to move.

Andromeda had awoken--its echoes drifting through the caves, making their way to that pilgrimage site, where others could watch and listen if they so chose. But that didn't explain this. It didn't explain the lingering dark, or the wispy purple-black fog that began to roil from the darkest corners. It didn't explain why many of the cave's Masters grew first pensive, and then wholly absent, as if hiding themselves away: Astraea slipping into the forests, Aquarian refusing to emerge at all, Nemean suspiciously silent in the palace. And it certainly didn't explain the pumpkins: eerie jack o' lanterns with jagged teeth and angry eyes, grinning at passersby and occasionally gleaming with chartreuse light from within, as if to guide Gembounds to the smoky black fog.

Those drawing close to that fog would find a faint sulfurous odor about it, and the hair- or fur-prickling taint of Chaos to them. And for those who dared draw even closer, they might see figures in the dark: the flash of a creature moving rapidly toward them before vanishing, perhaps, or the clash of predator and prey, before black smoke swept in to obliterate the vision.

It seemed a veil of a different kind was thinning, this month.


For the month of October, the echoes of Andromeda (as initially described in this thread) will once more be visible.

Eerie figures can also be seen moving in a darkness which will pervade the cave until the start of November. Dark violet-black clouds of smoke can be seen here and there, with the prickle of Chaos to them. Characters interacting with these clouds will gain five corruption points.

In addition, Corruption point gains (aside from the smoke interactions) are doubled for the month of October. Characters may safely gain 10 points of corruption per day, and may additionally choose to gm tag posts for spooky Chaotic visions and potentially a seasonal non-elemental spell reward. (This is limited to one reward per character per event.)