avalaughs | EVENT ✨ Nightmare on Elph Street

Entry tags:

!event

EVENT ✨ Nightmare on Elph Street

QUICK NAV: LOGS ⚔️️ NETWORK ⚔️️ MEMES ⚔️️ OOC ⚔️️ NAVIGATION

This is the event log for IC comments only! Ask questions in response to this comment HERE or use the FAQ for general questions. Click here to view top-level comments only.

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. Desire: Home Sweet Home

Steph stops short after passing through the door-shaped portal from the endless darkness into what is, undeniably and unaccountably, her childhood bedroom. She hasn't seen it in years, but somehow she knows that it's exactly the same, down to every last poster, sticker, and taped-up photo of friends. Her bed is even made, with her assorted stuffed animals lined up on it against the wall. From their condition it's obvious that not all of them date from her childhood.

She ignores her embarassment and looks back at the portal she and her companion just walked through to find that it's the door of her bedroom, opening out into a normal hall. The sounds of daily life and the smell of fresh waffles waft up from downstairs. Before she can do anything else her mother's voice calls up the stairs.

"Stephanie! Come say hi to your friends!"

II. Fear: Literally Beat Up Your Trauma (multiple threads strongly encouraged)

Steph can't help staring a little as they walk together through the finely polished stone walls of what is clearly some kind of castle. What little lighting there is comes from torches set in the largest pillars she's ever seen, and the walls and floors alike seem to radiate cold. The hallways don't seem to be in use, and from the smell they might well be in some lost ruins.

She comes abruptly to a stop when she hears what sounds like a third set of footsteps. The sound stops when she does. She scans their surroundings, but the light is so poor that everything beyond the pillars is in shadow.

"Did you hear that?" she asks her companion in a whisper.

III. Never Trust a Daisy

Steph frowns at the talking flower she finally decided to question. The nonstop chatter got old very fast, and she had been hoping that she could get them to shut up. Instead she got a sob-story about the flowers being cursed because they were unable to escape the challenges of this weird dream world. If only they could touch another living person!

"So, wait. The curse is literally 'get someone to poke you'? That's not very curse-y. Don't you have to like, learn a lesson, or get someone to say their name backwards or something?"

"Yes," Minako easily replies.

After all, it's just true. It really does sound like there's some footsteps aside from just their own - even though they also seem to stop at the same time as theirs do, making it a little more confusing.

Or perhaps jsut as confusing as this entire odd castle-like building is, anyway.

But that doesn't change a thing about the fact that something clearly sounded off while they were walking.

"There's something else here," she says, looking at Steph. "But it stopped."

Steph nods, then holds a finger to her lips to indicate silence. As well as sound carries in this hall, their pursuer already knows they're onto them. She turns silently, barely moving her feet, to examine the hall more closely for any shadow or hint as to where exactly the enemy is hiding.

Suddenly the hall echoes with the sound of low, menacing chuckling. Steph grabs the staff from her belt and presses the button that extends it to full length. The sound the mechanism makes is accompanied by a second sound: a gun being cocked.

"Two pretty girlies," taunts a slightly rasping, masculine voice that seems to come from everywhere.

"It must be my lucky day."

Steph freezes, every muscle in her body tensing at once. She grips the staff so tightly her knuckles turn white. Only her eyes move, still searching for any sign of the enemy.

When that voice resounds, it's Steph that Minako first glances at - maybe especially so since she can't spot whoever is talking, and she's trying to see from the other girl's reaction whether Steph has a single clue what's going on here or not.

Her reaction is hard to read though. Sure, Steph looks shocked, but who wouldn't be in this situation? Regardless of whether or not you'd actually recognize that voice.

So Minako also turns to look around them, trying to find the source. She contemplates things for a moment, but then decides to just speak up.

What's the use in keeping quiet if they've already been found anyway?

"What do you want?"

Nothing good, she bets, and so Minako frowns as she's voicing that question out loud.

"You're as bad a conversationalist as the purple one," the voice complains, evidently referring to something other than Steph's light green shirt.

"Don't let your guard down," Steph advises in all but a whisper while the enemy is distracted by talking. Her tone is as steady and neutral as her expression. Later she might recognize fear, hate, overwhelming rage. Right now she only knows instinct.

"Well, there's plenty of time to teach you both manners," the voice goes on. From behind one column steps a man with a head like a charred, blackened skull. On further inspection it seems that beneath his suit and gloves is a boney, mummified body. He doesn't give them time to inspect, though, shooting the space directly between the two as soon as he takes his second step into the open.

Steph, reacting on a hair trigger to the sound of that first step, shoves Minako out of the way just fast enough to avoid getting shot herself before darting at Black Mask.

There's no need to tell Minako to be on guard, really. She already was, just by sheer instinct. Minako has been in too many shady situations and combat situations to not be immediately on her guard in a situation like this one, that's bound to end up in battle.

But the man's appearance.. Now that's something else. Minako has fought a lot of things, but she can't quite recall ever facing anything that looks quite like him, more skeleton than human. Like a rotting corpse that's somehow still walking.

She's ready to sidestep the shot when she hears it, but then there's suddenly something pushing against her side, momentarily breaking her concentration by total accident. It takes a moment to regain it - just long enough for Minako to just stand there while Steph is already rushing at whoever this person is.

Minako raises a hand, tempted to use her refound powers, only to realise she's definitely going to get the other girl caught up in the blast like this too - and that's no good.

Instead Minako draws the sword that's hanging in the sheath at her side, running closer to try and assist the other girl.

Steph stays low to the ground, staff held out to the side as she zigzags the short distance between her and her target. She's certainly drawn his attention, and Black Mask continues to shoot at her even as she charges him. A lucky shot grazes her arm, though she hardly notices. Once she's close enough she uses her staff to launch herself at him, landing a kick to his chin that causes an audible crack.

It doesn't seem to bother him. He grabs hold of the end of the staff as Steph hits the ground, and turns to face Minako.

"Aren't you going to introduce me to your pretty friend?"

At least she doesn't even have to think about whether to fight this guy or not. He's hurting Steph, and that's enough reason for Minako to jump into the fray without caring about this person's wellbeing.

He can't be a good guy if he's going around beating up random girls.

"If you wanted to talk, you shouldn't have started fighting instead!"

It's all Minako says before she runs at the person, making sure to zigzag as she goes too in case he might shoot again, and attempts to swing her sword at him when she gets close enough.

Black Mask yanks on the staff, meaning to pull Stephanie into the path of Minako's sword. Steph lets the weapon go, which launches it into contact with the sword but also gives her an opening to loop her arm around the one holding the gun.

The shot that would have been aimed at Minako goes wide, and Steph grabs his wrist to slam the arm viciously down on her knee. This doesn't seem to bother him much either, but she's able to take the gun from his hand. Out of habit she empties the mag, turns on the safety and flings the weapon across the hall. She would have liked to use the thing herself, but it's too late for that now.

Honestly, just being able to take the gun away from him is already quite a step ahead in this battle, as far as Minako is concerned. Steph may be a good fighter, and Minako may be a superpowered alien, but there's only so much either of those things are going to do for you when there's the threat of getting a bullet shot into you.

And while Minako still has about ten thousand questions, she also realises this so isn't the time for it.

First beating up this guy, then she can ask what's even going on here.

Which means that she keeps swinging her sword. She's well aware that he's probably going to keep blocking it with the staff, but that suits Minako just fine. After all, every moment he's spending here with his attention focused on her gives Steph another moment to try and attack.

Black Mask laughs as the sword and staff collide.

"The bimbo has learned some new tricks," he delightedly notes, keeping the staff between him and Minako's sword while he kicks backwards, hitting Steph in the stomach hard enough to knock her off her feet.

"But you just tossed away another chance to win. I guess you need another lesson."

That at least gets a reaction out of Steph, even if it's only a flash of anger. Her attacks were already brutal and unforgiving.

At the same time as he addesses Steph he presses forward to keep slashing at Minako's blade. It's clear he's trying to keep her occupied and push her back rather than make any solid hits. He's faster and stronger than a non-mummified human of his size too, and puts all that strength into the staff.

Minako can notice his strength. It's what makes her glad to have her regular powers back, even if she doesn't know for how long. She's not too sure if she would have been able to keep up with him like this if she didn't have those powers.

.. but then again, she knows that just keeping each other in this stalemate is not going to work, especially when this guy is just going to make disgusting insults the entire time.

So Minako frowns. A sign lights up on her forehead, and at the same the sword she's holding starts glowing with a golden light.

"Venus Wink Chain Sword!"

And this time when she slashes with the sword, it actually fires off a huge beam of light at the man - strong enough to make any regular person fly backwards to the other side of a room, if not worse.

After all, Minako's powers aren't quite in her control right now, which means they're coming out stronger than intended.

Steph is still in Black Mask's periphery, but with Minako keeping him occupied there's not much he can do when she rolls forward and sweeps his legs out from under him. Off-balance, Minako's blast sends him flying over Steph's head and crashing into the wall.

"Oho," he laughs, "Girlie's got a magic sword! Isn't that sweet-" Steph doesn't give him the chance to finish talking. She's only seconds behind him, hitting with an uppercut to his jaw that if nothing else, does shut him up for a moment. Her other hand grabs tight hold of her staff.

In the next moment Black Mask's hand is on her throat and Steph's is on his hand, searching for a nerve with enough flesh to dig her fingers into.

"Is this any way to treat an old friend?" he growls into her face.

Stephanie Brown | DC Comics

ii

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

cw: sexist insults

no subject

no subject

II

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject