EVENT ✨ Nightmare on Elph Street

[avalonmods]

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The ritual-wiping ritual wasn't the best news for Avalon and magic has been wacky for everyone since it was performed. However, if there was a time for it to happen, it happening before the Spring Equinox was just about the best time it could happen. The Spring Equinox, after all, is a time of renewal and rebirth. It's what you'd call a silver lining. As long as enough people participate in the Spring Equinox rituals, it should be fine... right?

CONTENT WARNINGS:

• 1st Prompt: --
• 2nd Prompt: --
  
• 3rd Prompt: --

This part of the event takes place on March 20th.

Though there is no Spring Masquerade this year as there had bene the last, there is a much smaller token of appreciation from the castle of Camelot to all of those who live within its borders: a gift basket with a salad of edible flowers, eggs, breakfast sausages, and a small bottle of champagne (or sparkling seltzer for those underage) and a bottle of orange juice to make mimosas with. Those of the vegetarian through vegan persuasions will receive vegan white chocolate eggs filled with coconut cream frosting and a mango puree 'yolk' and Avalon's best plant-based sausages. It's not quite a feast, but no one should go hungry on this day of celebration! Brownies will help to deliver these overnight, so you'll find them on your doorstep in the morning with a special spell to keep everything fresh through most of the early afternoon. Since there is no party this time, everyone will have the chance to see Avalon's plants begin to overgrow at a rapid pace within the city.
Those who saw it last year or locals who are normally residents of Avalon will tell you not to fear, this happens every spring. The plants grow around and not through structures, the buildings still safe and sound beneath large vines and leaves and pools and flowers. Most notably, huge beds of vines, open seed pools, and giantic flowers large enough to take a bath in have started cropping up around town, and they all seem to be filled with a vibrant, glowing liquid of some kind.  Each of these floral wonders, locals will tell you, is called a vernal soul pool. Upon entering one, you'll enter a lucid sleep state that connects you to everyone else in Avalon and the island itself. Doing so will cause your magic to be amplified and grow and stabilize, but also allow you to be cleansed and refreshed as a person. How much detail the person you're talking to gives is up to you (in case your characters would back off of it if they had the following details but you still want to experience it). Once someone enters, they will immediately feel as if they are at home and the pod will close over them gently, leaving them in a pool of that mysterious glowing substance-- vines grow further to encase, the pool closes, flowers close into buds instead of open blossoms.  Under normal circumstances, the pools would remain closed and in this state until the witching hour and slowly and gently awaken those within. However, even the magics of the spring aren't stable right now, and what ends up happening is the pools suddenly spill open before anyone's dream sharing can truly get underway, dumping their passengers out onto the ground into a state of jarring awakeness. With them, they will find they are unable to access their Avalon magics but instead have one of the following: Unstable, uncontrolled access to their canon powers. They may start shooting off random magic, they may be unable to shut down a normally passive ability gone into overdrive, or when they try to use their abilities, it goes outright wrong-- "Accio Excalibur" in an attempt to save the multiverse might result in all figurines of Excaliburs within 10 miles to come hurdling toward you, for example. Access to the beginner, untrained level of canon powers of someone whose shared consciousness you entered. Even if you don't have canon powers of your own, you will be able to access someone else's with this option.   This part of the event takes place late night on March 20th through slightly past midnight on March 21st.
	The fairy queen's envoy, Princess Bluebell, sends out a panicked emergency message (complete with the obnoxious alarm that sets off phones even on silent) after a couple of hours of this, and casts a mirror-travel spell to Nicnevin so that any may quickly arrive just outside of its borders, next to the river. The message states that the dream world and reality have melted together due to the majority of magic being funneled into the time freeze spell or the equinox ritual, which uses Queen Mab as a vessel through which the vernal soul pools channel everyone's magic. The Spring Equinox renewal did NOT go as planned, needless to say. Otherworlders must head to Mab's Cavern to locate Queen Mab and absorb some of her energy by touching her to stabilize their magics and drain the spring equinox's out of her before even bigger disaster strikes!
Mab's Cavern is typically a place forbidden to enter under normal circumstances. It is the world of dreams and nightmares takes from our subconscious what we most desire and what we most fear and our memories and turns them into reality. This is what your character will have to face without their Avalonian magic and the above either unstable or beginner-level powers. Mab normally goes into a slumber and connects herself to the whole of Avalon during the Spring Equinox to allow the vernal soul pools to utilize her magic, so she cannot let everyone in or help anyone navigate her realm. Mab's Cavern looks like a normal mountain from the outside, covered from head to toe in pink cherry and plum blossoms trees, shrouded in a fog that's pink itself from reflecting the petals. The entrance to the inside of the cavern is an ancient door, carved from white marble and enchanted to be impassible without an offering and engraved says: "Offer me your most secret dream and enter this forbidden realm. Dream with me for eternity." The offering, in this case, is simple: speak your most secret dream out loud for the door. The open door will allow one person to pass through per offering, and leads into a hall entirely coated in flowers of a variety of colors. These flowers speak, and will ask you how you are, warn you to turn back, tell you and whoever you're walking with that you make a cute couple, sing the national anthem of their people, whatever. They seem to get more and more chatterbox-y as you head inward and the lights grow dimmer until there is no light left. Even if you light one, it seems as if you are in a black space where nothing exists but you and whoever you walk with (if anyone), and voices.

This portion of the event contains a FOURTH WALL EVENT element and takes place on March 21st.
 

That is, until you hear a new voice and the chatterbox flowers hush. Anyone from any canon can appear and team up with you within Mab's Cavern as this is a fourth wall event. Guest characters will have access to their canon abilities, but cannot leave Mab's Cavern or affect the environment outside of it. Your new party member can accompany you through Mab's Cavern, which takes the form of a location from in-game characters' memories. Within it, their darkest fear will turn into a physical enemy and attempt to hunt them down. (How you interpret this is up to you as a player-- please create your own monsters based on your character's fears, even if they are more conceptual than physical.) Within it, their deepest desires may find fulfillment (we leave this to player
interpretation again, but be sure to ask permission if it involves another character who is in the game or a part of the fourth wall) and their new party member may need to convince them to leave instead of staying in the dream world forever. Characters who are able to get past both desires and fears will find themselves able to see a door that wasn't within their memory before. Upon going through it, they will be able to find Queen Mab, asleep in the center of what appears to be a glowing, underwater pond with stones that raise above the surface that lead to her bed some hundred feet in. Beneath the surface, more of the talking flowers start to cry about their woes-- unveiling that they failed against their fears and desires, and those who do will find themselves turned into flowers within Queen Mab's cavern, only able to escape if they are able to touch another living person!  If you've trusted the flowers, you'll find yourself in trouble. These are actually souls who crossed Queen Mab and attempted to steal their desires away from her cavern and bring them into reality. Their curse? They can escape if they trade another soul for theirs. Now would be a good time for a partner to help pull you out because as soon as you touch one of the flowers, they will turn into vines and attempt to wrap around you to pull you under the water and drown you! The "water" itself is the same liquid used within the vernal soul pools, so you'll find your life literally flashing before your eyes as this happens, making it very difficult to escape without someone else's help. If you die in the water, the flowers who did it will transform back into their original selves and flee, and you will be transformed into a talking flower yourself. If you make it to Queen Mab, you'll need to place a hand on her and all dreams and reality will sort themselves out within you-- that is, your broken powers will disappear and your Avalonian magics will return. As you head out again, the guest character brought in to help you will begin to fade away slowly enough that you can say your goodbye before they are gone. There is no way to stop this. All memories of fourth wall visitors will be retained as part of game canon. After enough people have come to take Mab's powers enough to deplete the effects of the Vernal Pools, the Fairy Queen herself will come to Mab and run a strange-looking dagger through her heart. All of the Spring Equinox magic that was being filtered through her will be released into the land and stabilize magic for everyone, and a flower will blossom out of Mab's heart around the dagger. Within the center of the bud glows a small child version of Mab, and anyone still in the cavern will find themself just wandering around in a dark cave. The Fairy Queen glows in the dark and will lead them out with little magic glow bubbles that try to make them follow if they get separated from her vicinity, but is still not speaking to anyone. She will also transport anyone who has been turned into a talking flower out of the cave via some kind of levitation spell and give them to someone they know-- whether they know them in a positive or negative light is up to you, she can only register connection on sight with magic, not emotion. A little research will reveal the following solutions to restoring your character: Siphoners and countercurse potions can remove the curse to get them back to 100% normal. Animal mages can transform them back into their original species (but they will still smell like flowers for the rest of their life). Green mages can use their magic to cultivate them into flower people-- who look like themselves, but now require sunlight and water to survive instead of food and occasionally sprout a flower or two in their hair.

Comments

steak × food fantasy × 4th wall

[battlebound]

— fresh meat.

( this sure as hell isn't the orphanage, and that in and of itself is cause for Steak to grab at his ever present swords, ready to fight the next thing that comes his way, because this is surely a threat.

there's no sign of the Holy See, the kids, nor Turkey or Gingerbread, and his teeth grit. is that a good sign or no? what exactly was that strange, purple fog filled with spirit power, and what has it accomplished?

his ears prick as the sounds of someone — or something — nearby come from behind him, spinning to face the noise; )

Show yourself!

( where is he and what is going on? is this friend or foe approaching? )

— in the kingdom.

( the kingdom in spring sees the first touches of warmth; the snow in the cities begins to melt, but the mountains framing Nevras still glisten white in the sun. the citizens begin to leave winter coats at home and when Steak patrols, he feels energised and bright.

it's a good time of year. the greengrocer's kids are running about one of the stalls, splashing water at one another, and their eyes gleam with mischief when they catch sight of the leather-clad knight and his signature horns.

Steak doesn't see the sneak attack coming and the water balloon punctures itself on his horn, dripping water all the way down. )

Oi! You brats!

( his voice is loud but the kids don't even flinch, bursting into laughter as they dart away, beckoning chase which Steak gives them, skidding around corners and ducking behind the large gingerbread shield of, well, Gingerbread, who makes no secret of how funny she finds a dripping wet Steak. )

Are you picking on little kids?

( she's barely taller than the kids she's siding with, all blonde hair and amusement dancing in golden eyes. )

They started it!

( sorry, Steak, that's not an answer Gingerbread accepts. it takes her an instant to knock him off balance and get his head in a lock, these movements so clean and well-practiced that any passerby would know that she's done this a million times. )

Get... off!

( ugh, doesn't matter how many years the knights are in service to the Kingdom, Gingerbread and Steak will always be like this. )

— wildcard.

( hit me with something else if you want! )

fresh meat

[hor]

How? I can't move the fog.

[ Horus is just wandering and trying to figure out what the hell is going on. He's definitely ended up somewhere he didn't intend to. ]

[battlebound]

( well, logic dictates that, were this voice an enemy, they'd have used his disorientation to attack, rather than simply comment about the fog.

so this voice may just be as lost as he is. and, if he's wrong, he can fight them. it's fine. )

Hold on, then.

( he's gonna try something... if his swords are here, and his soul power is burning (though the power in the fog seems to have dissipated into nothing, leaving just a sweet smelling purple smoke), then he can—

attack! slicing his swords through the fog until they reach such speeds and force that there's a blazing arc of force knocking the fog out of the way, and eventually revealing a luxurious ballroom. )

Where are we...?

( this— wait, scratch that question, he knows exactly where they are.

this is the Countess' palace. this is where he confronted Bloody Mary about his constant stalking about Red Wine. where his Master Attendant finally confessed his feelings to Madam.

this is enemy territory, as is quite clear by the dreary, oppressive atmosphere which colours every piece of fine furniture and extravagant artwork. )

...Stay close to me.

[hor]

No idea.

[ But my oh my he came out of the fog into a fancy place with a horned hottie? Wow. This is the best messed-up adventure he's been on yet.

Well, he did say to stay close. Horus moves over to his off-hand side so Steak can still use his sword... and slips his arm around Steak's arm with a smile. ]

Close enough?

[battlebound]

Get off me.

( the statement is blunt as a hammer, but Steak's shifting of his arm isn't violent enough to knock Horus off completely. it's more like a semi-polite suggestion to move.

because, ultimately, Steak is much more concerned about the place they've arrived. everything is in good condition, same as the day of the Countess' ball, but shrouded in cold, dreary grey. even as girls — and they're all girls, dressed in the Kingdom's fineries, perfectly suiting such a location — pour into the ballroom, the ballroom itself seems lifeless and cold. many of the girls are just blurs, indistinct impressions of victims from a lifetime ago that Steak didn't save, girls he didn't even meet but knew were missing.

and then there's... her. the most beautiful of them all, the one who Steak knows all too well. Madam, Red Wine's attendant, following the girls towards the edge of the room, where the Countess (also a face burned into his memory, easily picked out among a faceless crowd) stands, arms spread, beckoning the crowd towards her. )

You—!

( the Countess doesn't so much as turn her head in Steak's direction, and he grits his teeth, looking over at his companion. this isn't exactly the person he'd choose to re-confront the Countess with, but it'll have to do. )

We have to stop her.

[hor]

[ Horus may not look like much, especially while wearing what can only be described as a hoodie and a skirt. His muscles are hidden (which he thinks is a shame but it's too chilly still to be wandering around dressed how he would like) and with him latched onto Steak's arm for a few seconds, he doesn't exactly present himself as someone who would one day gain the title of war god by defeating a war god. Even with his abilities on the fritz, he's still a good fighter through training. God strength flickering in and out would only be a mild detriment unless he tried to do something stupid like fly, then lost that. ]

What are we stopping her from doing, overheating the ladies with layers?

[ He does, after a moment of blatantly ignoring the attempt to remove him, let go of Steak. He knows when the mood isn't ripe for teasing. ]

cw: everything related to Elizabeth Báthory

[battlebound]

( Steak, meanwhile, has never met a weather that can't be tackled while wearing a crop top. so, uh, enjoy those abs, Horus!

with his arm free, his swords are out, but the crowd is dense and excited as it follows the Countess to a secret passage through a wall, sweeping them along for the ride whether they want to or not. )

No, she—

( that question is probably going to be more effectively answered by the basement they find themselves in, a spacious room with chains across the walls and a myriad of sharp, lethal instruments. an iron maiden in the rear, stained brown with the blood of countless victims before these ones, everything in the same places Steak remembers them being when he first stepped foot in this room years ago.

then, there was a feeling of safety that came with the knowledge this monster was dead and Bloody Mary had fled, knowing no one else would die like this. but with the Countess herself standing there, a smirk visible through the dim lighting of the cellar as though taunting the two to fight their way through a throng of her willing victims to get to her. )

Ngh... How do we get to her?

( because the first girls are heading to the devices waiting for them. )

in the kingdom

[judgementor]

[He hasn't seen the place for what feels like so long now. Nevras, his native land, a place as dear to him as all the memories he had created in his existence there (even the bad ones). Red Wine must look somewhat dumbstruck as he stands there, just looking around with a mild and fond expression on his face, then his attention goes to the sound of laughter and two familiar voices.

Two very much missed voices.

Naturally, he does absolutely nothing to involve himself in their squabbling. He leans against the side of a nearby market stall and flicks his hair back over his shoulders, watching them both.

And his chest does ache a little as he observes them. He's missed this.]

[battlebound]

Red Wine—!

( don't think he doesn't see you! )

Don't just stand there! Getheroffame!

( ugh, Gingerbread is terrifying. there's a reason she's UR, after all, but after some scrabbling for purchase against Gingerbread's arms and looking truly pathetic, she releases her grip on Steak and steps back. )

Don't bully little kids, Steak!

What d'you mean, bully? They started—!!

( Steak, for all his arguing, hasn't noticed the little things that aren't right here. the brooch on Gingerbread's dress, for one, which signals her membership among the ranks of the Kingdom's knights. the papers outside the local stores which talk about how Steak — the first food soul to be Knight Captain — has done good for the Kingdom's safety and security. )

[judgementor]

Oh, this is nothing to do with me. [Red Wine knows that he has no chance against Gingerbread either - she's more powerful than the both of them - but he also knows that she would never genuinely harm either of them. So what's the use in keeping her from doing exactly what she wants to do?

Besides, it's been so long since he last saw her that he can't help feeling indulgent.]

She's right, you know. You shouldn't bully children.

[battlebound]

( this is why Gingerbread is never getting married. good grief... )

I was minding my own business and they threw a water balloon at me!

( hmph, that's totally valid as far as Steak's concerned. and totally hilarious as far as Gingerbread is. )

[judgementor]

Mm, that sounds like a you problem.

[It's entirely expected that he would side with Gingerbread in any situation when it was a matter of going against Steak, and Red Wine shakes his head a little as he watches their bickering.

Gods, but he did miss this. As much as he's sure it isn't real, he doesn't have it in him to do anything to bring it to an end.]

Gingerbread, he was doing something to deserve it I expect?

[battlebound]

( oh, Steak would expect nothing less from Red Wine, and rolls his eyes at once again being ganged up on. Gingerbread, for her part, is honest enough to shrug, because she doesn't know what Steak was doing specifically, but she's certain he deserved it. )

Maybe they just saw his horns...

( closer to the truth than she realises. )

Oi!

( tsk. but that's besides the point, because... )

What are you doing here, Red Wine? Weren't you...

( Steak pauses, and frowns. what was Red Wine supposed to be doing anyway? he can't seem to remember. )

[judgementor]

Wasn't I what?

[He's reluctant to interrupt this scenario. It's far too appealing to stand quietly by and watch it all unfolding in front of him (and he fails to realise, just yet, that this is exactly what the magic wants of him), but when Steak's voice tilts in question a brief flash of guarded wariness crosses his face.]

Let me ask you something, Steak. It might sound like an odd question. Do you remember how we got here?

[battlebound]

( maybe he's just imagining it, but... no, there's a lot missing from his mind, and when Red Wine says that, it only confirms the situation's strangeness. the blank spots in his mind, the way the kids seem to fade out of existence as soon as Gingerbread and Red Wine appear. the comfort which washes over him, assuring that everything's fine. )

... I don't. ( arguing may be the bread and butter of who they are so much of the time, but so is teamwork. and right now, teamwork is necessary. ) But this is home. That shouldn't be strange.

( shouldn't be but undoubtedly is. )