avalaughs | EVENT ✨ Nightmare on Elph Street

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EVENT ✨ Nightmare on Elph Street

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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

glowy cave water

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[I. Gifted]

[Curled up within a vernal soul pool, Zidane dreams. Of being back on Gaia, visiting his friends, his troupe, and family, but he knows it's a dream. Everything's been restored somehow; from what little construction that still remains to the fact Burmecia's repairs are done, but he can dream, right? It's embarrassing where they go, but is it so bad? For something normal, maybe even almost domestic?]

[The dream abruptly bursts and Zidane snaps awake, shaking his head as he finds himself spilled out on the street.]

What the...!?

[Sitting up and looking around, he blinks. Looking over at the nearest person, he gets up and walks over.]

You okay?

[He's not even asking questions... yet. He wants to make sure they're okay.]

[OOC: Again, Zidane's canon powers are not so magical and are more thief skills. However, if you wanna play around with Final Fantasy IX's limit break system, that would be Trance. Feel free to read about it here and play around with the beginner access of perhaps the first Dyne skill, physical enhancement, and a special transformation! Also, it is based on emotional state so enjoy!]

[II. Door of Dreams]

Huh, not bad...

[Looking around at the mountain covered in pink cherry and plum blossoms, it's all very spring feeling even with the fog around. He's a little concerned about possibly facing something he could fear going to help this Queen Mab, but he's also not... sure what he fears. Vague idea perhaps, but its so vague, he's not too worried.]

[Standing before the marble door, reading the words engraved, Zidane nods. He then grins and gives a thumbs up to whomever has joined him at the door.]

I've got this...

[And, crossing his arms, taking a breath, he'll tell the door his secret.]

I plan to marry Queen Alexandros XVII!

[Since they're in fae lands, he avoids her first name, but he feels like the secret still needs to be specific enough. His tail behind him is swishing and his face is a little red at the exclamation, but that's his secret...]

[III. Mab's 4th Wall]

[Looking around, it... it looks like the main streets of Alexandria. The simple homes and businesses with their colorful walls and wooden frames, the tiled roofs, the cobblestone streets, and the people walking around. There's that one penguin trumpeter, the human kids that normally play all day, the goat man from the ticket booth taking a stroll on his break - if it wasn't for whoever is with him, he might think he was back in Alexandria. He can even see the castle from here, but Zidane shakes his head.]

[Avalon, New Camelot, Garnet... find Queen Mab...]

... I think if we head towards the castle, we should find her somewhere.

[He can't let himself get distracted; it's only a dream right now. He has to remember that.]

[OOC: Let's goooo fourth wall characters!]

[IV. Wildcard]

[OOC: Something else you wanna play? Wanna skip ahead in certain parts instead of what's been set up? Then hit me up at

demidemonLove and we can plot that out!]

[ Somnus watches on as Zidane declares his intent to marry into royalty.

...

.........If the door demands a "secret" as payment, then, does that mean that no one knows. Or does this mean that Zidane has not yet officially proposed or told "Dagger" this intention? ]

Are you suggesting she does not know?

[D-Don't look at him like that...!]

Look, I managed to get a ring finally, but I haven't had a chance to propose to her yet...

[And as far as he knows, only Somnus knows his intentions.]

[ Somnus does, in fact, continue to scrutinize. He has a resting bitch face, it cannot be helped. ]

Proposals needn’t be rushed. However.

[ This is followed by a slight incline of his head. ]

Recall that this star may summon any, including her suitors of noble blood.

[ This is spoken as if he assumes that, as queen, she has a plethora of them already waiting for her hand. (Or maybe he means to suggest that while he can wait, it’s probably not best to wait too long.) ]

Hmm...

[At least they could agree on that. However, at the mention of other suitors, Zidane tilts his head.]

Nah, I doubt that'll be a problem. There weren't any stand outs when I made it back to her before.

[ A pause as he appears to reassess.

Then, almost thoughtfully as he regards Zidane: ]

Does she care not for title or lineage?

She does, believe me. It's just... that might've been my fault. She was waiting for me to come back.

[He didn't mean to make her wait or anything, but she did...]

I wasn't even sure if I'd keep that promise.

You have declared your intentions to a barrier that requires truth. This, is the simplest of trials.

[ Somnus turns his head towards the door. ]

As husband and king consort, you will have many more.

More trials? Sure, I'm not one to back down that easy.

['Husband and consort' huh? Oh geez, even if he hard the 'Lord' title right now, it's still weird to think that marrying Garnet might give him those ones.]

[And as his tail swings madly behind him, the door before them slowly begins to open. Don't mind his weird thoughts.]

[ At last the door opens, allowing them to pass through.

...It seems that Somnus finds it important to continue the same subject. While his grim countenance may make him come off as vexing to some, it seems he means to not dissuade with this, but rather to prepare Zidane for what may be a rather intense future as royalty.

But at Zidane's answer, there's another dubious stare. ] Have you not given thought to what future duties you may have?

[ Not!Grandson... ]

[Raising an eyebrow in Somnus's direction as they walk through the doors, Zidane shakes his head.]

No, I have. And I don't wanna say I'm practicing here because that's a bad way to put it, but I am looking after one of the townships King Arthur's decided to set up. It's not easy, but I mean, even doing this much, Arthur's still makes the final decisions.

[ There is a short, understanding nod as Zidane mentions the township, as if it's not incorrect to call it 'practice'. Somnus replies, ] You and your queen will have a council, staff, and a chamberlain for aide; however...

[ Another look. ]

Townships may not prepare you for determining matters of trade and defense, to say nothing of deliberating exiles and executions. [ Again, his tone is neutral-- not meant to dissuade him, but merely suggesting this as something to think over. ]

[He nods.]

I know. I asked Dagger to help me learn more about that, and how that all should be carried out. She might not officially be nobility here, but she's still the true royalty between the two of us.

[Though, he's pretty sure things are running so smoothly because he has her help. Of course, he smiles at Somnus.]

I wouldn't mind learning more about everything, if you're up for teaching me.

Zidane Tribal | Final Fantasy IX | OTA

[I. Gifted]

[II. Door of Dreams]

[III. Mab's 4th Wall]

[IV. Wildcard]

II

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have your Black Mage little bro! - Fourth Wall, of course

Oh nooo the heartbreak...

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