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

Gifted

[ Never has he claimed to be someone with class. He knows how to behave in certain situations, how to speak to certain individuals, and what not to do in society. Of course, this is the society for regular folks, those working the nine to five, which makes Noah about as upper class as someone working a hotdog stand. Despite this and his lacking knowledge on upper class society, he does know when something is of certain value, and a certain object nicely tucked in a basket placed carefully at his door is enough to send a chill down his spine.

He's at a loss, wandering up and down the street outside his lodgings like a lost deer. In his hands is the basket, which he held as if it were a baby, attempting to speak to anyone who passed but also just as quickly retreating back to himself then repeating the pattern. Up and down he went, hesitant and eager to speak all at the same time. Something has clearly ruffled his feathers. ]

'Scuse me! I, uh, mmm, ah....W-What I...ummm....

Door of Dreams

Sakura and Plum Trees

Bloody hell, would you look at that....

[ A lot of things brought equal amounts of wonder and fright to Noah since he's arrived. His familiar being one of the prevalent wonders. These flowers now aming such wonders. Their etherial beauty, the grace of the petals as they fall and dance on the wind, even the lingering fog was beautiful to him, it's all simply breath taking as he wanders. ]

If only I could take this back home to the others...

[ Suddenly there's a rattle behind him as more petals fall like rain and Noah swears and swings around only to see his snow leopard familiar climbing the tree. ]

Oi. 'Scuse you, miss. Get off of that.

[ She blinked but also ignored him as she continued to walk on the lowest branch, more petals falling as a result. ]

Oi. Don't ignore me. Get out of there.

[ He says tugging on her tail, but then she quickly leaps off and runs up another tree woth Noah still scolding her as he gives chase. ]

Opening the Door

[ He stands before the door, armed crossed and a large frown on his face. ]

This soddin' door....

[ Secret dream. It asks for a secret that he possess, but he holds many secrets, too many to count. But he knows what its asking for, the specific secret it wants from him, and its not getting that if he had a say in it. ]

Oh hey, good day, torch!

[ He says turning with a smile as your approach. ]

You wanna try your luck? This thing is asking for something pretty pricy.

Mab's 4th Wall - Abandoned Factory

[ The chill of the night clings to the skin, the dark clings to every corner, hiding from the pale and serene blue light of the moon hanging in above in the starless sky. The air is still, quiet save for thr creak of rusty doors and rustle of discarded sheets of paper or plastic, but there is something casting its baleful stare on the ones who tresspassed on this sacred land. ]

What in the-?....How?

[ Noah whispered to wind as if it could answer. The chill clings to him just as it does you, but beads of sweat roll down his face and neck. His jaw is clenched, face ghostly, and eyes wide with anxiety and fear. Something was very very wrong. ]

The path forward is....through there.

[ He points towarsds the main factory, where the darkness is strongest, where the light of the moon cannot pierce its forbidding vail and where the crytpic fog rolls. ]

Edited 2022-03-19 00:07 (UTC)

[ Ritsuka misses some of his attempts because she's inside a cafe at the time, but in the way of these things, she's stepping out around the same time he wanders by, with the basket in his arms. She's got a monstrosity of a drink for herself, something that is probably minimum half whipped cream by volume, complete with a scattering of rainbow sprinkles on top.

(Look, she's not proud. It's been years since she's been able to order a horrible, overly-sugary coffee drink, and she's been taking advantage of it since discovering them in this Camelot.)

But she recognizes him from behind, and the sound of his voice, and she pauses, cocking her head. ]

Noah...? What're you doing?

[ He swings around at the mention of his name, a mixture of relief at seeing a familiar face but still incredibly overwhelmed by the contents of the basket. ]

Ritsuka![ And he has that down. Ten points for him. ]

I-! Wh-Wh-Wh-! .... bottle.

[ Comprehensive. ]

Yes...?

[ Is it mean to be kind of glad that he's so flustered? Even if it's not at something she's done or said, is it mean? Maybe a little. But she swallows down any comment she might make along those lines, drifting closer to see what he's holding. ]

That's champagne, looks like? Or at least something fancy. Someone likes you.

Aye, it is! What do I do with it??? Who's lost it???? Oh gods, I am a deadman if I don't get this to whoever owns this!

[ He starts to pace back and forth, still holding the basket like precious precious cargo. ]

Right! First, I need to put this away yeah? Somewhere safe. Also cold. Oh bloody hell, what if its gone bad while I've been running around? [ He gasps. ] Oh bugger! What if the fuzz is already looking for it??? Oh shit, what do I do??? I opened the basket! I don't nearly have the money to cover this even if I lived three lifetimes!

[ And he continues this pacing before her, clearly lost in his little panic-y world. ]

Noah--hey, wait--Noah.

[ She tries to grab for his sleeve as he paces, to get him to slow down and look at her. Honestly, it's a little bit cute that he's so worried, but she can tell there's some genuine anxiety in his response... and as much as she might want to tease, she can't just let that keep going. ]

It's a gift basket. If it was left in your room or wherever, that means it's for you. Nothing in there looks immediately perishable, either--it'd be a pretty bad gift it it went bad in the open air for a few hours, right? So it's okay. Really.

[ And, because she is aware there is some kind of commotion going on, but she doesn't know these baskets are part of it--and because she can't resist teasing a little, she has to add: ] Maybe one of those girls you've been flirting with decided to step things up.

[ Its a good thing she was calm about this whole thing, because he was about two decisions away from going underground. ]

For me?!

[ That felt almost like a joke. ]

Who in the world has that much cash??? Was it it Stella? Jane? Or maybe Anri? She certainly seemed like she has champagne money? Or, wait, maybe Gareth? How much money do knights make? Or maybe it was that goddess? Goddesses seem like they have wealth to spare...

[ Surely, this is not how she expected the teasing to go down, with him listing every girl he has actually flirted with since arrival. Just a gentle reminder that he is, in fact, a flirt. ]

Or, hang on, is this from you???

[ His face a mix of shock, wonder, amazement, and confusion. Something you'd only find in a child who has on the verge of discovering something truly amazing. ]

No?

[ Sorry, Noah, but that's that line of thought quashed without hesitation. She looks more bemused than offended--as much as he flirts, she'd already resolved not to take it too seriously. Why would he think she'd do that? ]

Gareth makes plenty of money, to be honest, but if she was going to make you something, it'd definitely just be baked goods, and she'd probably give it to you directly. I don't think I know anyone else you've mentioned, though... but to be honest, most of the time, gift baskets don't really cost that much? The bottle probably is the most expensive thing in there.

...But also, lots of people here are rich. Technically, I'm rich.

[ Mostly because within her first couple of months here, Beowulf dumped a portion of a dragon's horde on her, but that's neither here nor there. ]

You-...Y-You are?

[ Talk about suddenly feeling inadequate. ]

B-But this thing cost so much you half a city with it! How much money do you have???

[ Because there was wealth, then there was wealth. Both of which Noah has never known, only dreamed about and now is being troubled by. ]

Ritsuka, I really have no idea what I'm supposed to do with this. I've only ever seen something like this, and that was because this bloke I know was bragging that he had it. Well, deliver it to his boss, but still. The most money than I have ever seen in one tiny box, now is in a tiny basket.

Noah LeClair | Original

Gifted

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Mab's 4th Wall

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Continued from above (to avoid page-stretching)!

Okay! Thanks!

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Opening the Door

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