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

B

[inevitablerest]

[Another unfamiliar place. Thanatos has never seen anywhere like this - not in the underworld or Greece, or even here, and he stops on one of the bridges to look down into the water below.]

Interesting. [He murmurs, watching the reflections in the shifting surface of the water for a few long moments before he leans on the bridge's rail and looks out over the view.

Pleasant. He wonders who this place belongs to.

The question is answered fairly swiftly when he hears a familiar voice and looks over his shoulder to find Hijikata standing there.]

Ah, it's you.

[mayoninofukucho]

Thanatos!

[Hijikata is happy to see the god again after a long time, even if they're meeting in such a surreal place. He stands next to him and likewise looks down. The fish idly swimming along look much like the koi he knows from Earth, but the scales of these give off a prismatic shimmer.]

I know we shouldn't stay here for too long, but... it's hard to just move on through. I don't know when I'll see this place again.

[inevitablerest]

I understand.

[Sentimentality is... relatively new to Thanatos, but that doesn't mean he doesn't understand where it comes from. It's a very human thing but it isn't without its effects on gods as well, Olympian and Chthonic alike. Thanatos would say he didn't have the time for such things, and yet...]

It's an interesting-looking place. There's nothing like this in Greece.

[Or in the Underworld, but he doesn't think he needs to clarify that particular point.]

Is this where you come from?

[mayoninofukucho]

[He shakes his head, a fond expression on his face.]

It's another world that called me in like Avalon did. There were plenty of other outworlders here too, all summoned to keep this world from crystallising and dying. We succeeded in the end, but it wasn't easy.

[He exhales, breathing in all the scents of the familiar place as he runs his hands over the bridge's railing. How often did he patrol these twisting and turning streets... without ghosts, of course. Back then he was still absolutely terrified of them, and there weren't many around to begin with.]

This place taught me many things I never learned in my own world.

[inevitablerest]

Ah...

[Avalon has been fairly kind to Thanatos when all is said and done, but he isn't sure if he would ever feel the same kind of fondness for it that Hijikata obviously does for this place. He leans on the railing, looking down into the water running beneath the bridge.

Ah, yes... it does bring back some memories.]

It isn't new to me that other worlds like this one exist, but I didn't realise at first just how many there would be. And how many of them would be in danger.

[mayoninofukucho]

It's unbelievable, isn't it? I also knew about other worlds already because mine got visitors from across the universe - not from across the multiverse, though.

[Or maybe it did, considering all the parodies and crossovers... okay, no, he's not going to think too deeply about that now.]

This is only a theory, but I feel like once you get called in by one of these worlds in need of help you're more likely to have it keep happening. Perhaps we build up something like hero credentials?

[What is this, an RPG?]

[inevitablerest]

[Thanatos huffs out a soft sound of amusement through his nose. He isn't an individual easily given to mirth, but it does come more easily to him these days than it used to.]

'Hero credentials?' Really, Hijikata.

[Pft.

The death god is many things but he's sure he isn't a hero to anyone. Except perhaps his twin brother.]

I don't relish the idea of having to do this kind of thing all over again.

[mayoninofukucho]

[He grins a little.]

I guess most people wouldn't. Everyone just wants to go home, right? Well, unless their home is some dystopian crapsack world. I want to go home, too, it's just that this is my second home.

[Some shimmering dragonflies buzz past, reflecting the light as if they're made of crystal. One of them takes an interest in Thanatos' white hair and tries to land on him, so Hijikata reaches out and lets it sit on his finger instead.]

It brings back memories, even ones from before I first came here. It's a place that preserves lost things.

[inevitablerest]

Most people do, I expect.

[Even with everything he has managed to achieve here, Thanatos would still like to go home. He finds he misses his work. Though, given the choice, he would like to be able to take some of his memories of being here back with him.

He had come a long way in a short time and it would be a pity to lose it all.]

Lost things? [Thanatos almost seems to flinch in surprise when Hijikata's hand moves close, but then... ah, it's just an insect.] What does a place like this consider to be 'lost'?

[mayoninofukucho]

Well... I guess you of all people would understand. It's more about what we outworlders who came here consider lost.

[He lets to crystal dragonfly take off in the direction of the next bridge some distance away. There's a human woman, enjoying herself as she feeds the fish together with a Prismal friend.]

Do you see that woman with the short light hair? She was lost for our homeworld, but when she was brought here her sickness was healed. She can live for a long time now.

[Outworlders don't age on Prismatica, and even death isn't permanent for them - they just crystallise until their bodies have regenerated. To be fair, he's not sure if all of that still applies now that the planet has enough overall chroma to be self-sustaining again, yet he can't help but smile at the sight of his first love in a new style of outfit, with some colour to her cheeks that were so pale when he last saw her on her sickbed.]

[inevitablerest]

[Death, at least, is something that Thanatos is intimately acquainted with. He observes the woman that Hijikata indicates and stays silent for a few minutes while he watches her. What the man beside him says makes sense to a point, but... there is something about it that immediately confuses him.]

She was dying of an illness, and therefore considered lost by this world?

[An interesting concept and not one that he entirely agrees with, though it does seem a very typically mortal viewpoint. Thanatos makes a thoughtful sound, watching a few more of the dragonflies zipping across the surface of the water below. They're easy enough to spot now that he can identify what they are.]

How is it that you came here, then?

[mayoninofukucho]

[He shakes his head.]

She actually did die. That's why I called her lost. We just had to continue on without her.

[Even now it tightens his throat to remember that. He had wanted her to live her own life so badly after she spent her youth raising her little brother, but she passed on before her wedding day - never mind that her fiancé turned out to have ulterior motives.]

When I saw her again here I couldn't believe it. She told me that her last memory from home was losing consciousness in the hospital. It's like Primatica snatched her from death's door. As for me, I'd come here over half a year prior, and I was just taken out of a perfectly ordinary day. One moment I was in Edo, the next I woke up encased in crystal on one of the moons.

[He briefly raises his head, but no moon can be seen from down here, only tiny slices of daytime sky in between the buildings on Lunatia's upper levels. The lanterns never go out in Caihong for a reason.]

[inevitablerest]

Hm.

[Perhaps understandably, Thanatos has a certain view of death that many mortals may not agree with. Still... he isn't entirely cold as far as it is concerned. Not so much so that he doesn't notice the subtle reactions in Hijikata's body and voice as he talks about the woman.

This place, then... hm, what an interesting concept.]

How curious. [Best to not make comments about his opinions regarding being 'snatched from deaths door'. That... is a whole debate that even Thanatos can see is best not getting into at this moment in time. Perhaps Hijikata has forgotten just who he is talking to? Or perhaps it simply doesn't matter. The death god doesn't think he minds it, in either case.]

I don't think we ought to stay here for too long.

Continued from above (to avoid page-stretching)!

[mayoninofukucho]

[(Continued from here!)

He gives a sharp nods, forcing himself to concentrate and lead the way. A sudden fearful thought enters his mind: what happened to Mitsuba? But he can't get sidetracked; they've got to stay focused. He's a knight and a policeman and a samurai; he can't prioritise his individual concerns over everything else! Surely her friend helped her seek cover. As a local she ought to remember Majestas' last attack!

As he runs through the lantern-filled streets and squares with Thanatos the first few affected people start growing large wings out of their back, now sufficiently broken down to serve the Prideful King as minions. Hijikata abruptly halts as he sees one of them grab a small boy who'd been huddling nearby. He instinctively draws his sword.]

Change of plans! It's too late. We've got to defend the civilians here!

[He charges ahead and strikes at the brainwashed woman's wings, both to keep her from taking off with her victim and because he knows that the wings will disappear once she can be treated with the countermeasure.]

Try not to kill them! They can be turned back to normal!

[Now he's gradually feeling somewhat back in control. He isn't helpless! He couldn't take on Majestas himself, but that doesn't mean that he can't hinder his new minions' efforts of killing innocents so their master can devour their chroma.]

[inevitablerest]

[Thanatos lets out a muted sound of aggravation as Hijikata breaks away from their path and draws his sword. All of this... none of it has a feeling of reality about it. They are not really here - or, at least, this place is only a shadow of something pulled out of the man's mind to frighten him.

But he follows, scythe in hand, striking at the wings of one of the brainwashed people with the handle of the weapon. It has the effect of sounding a sickening bone-crack as the appendages break under the blow, and he grips his free hand tightly around Hijikata's shoulder once he's close enough to reach him.]

We need to do something to get out of this place. To bring an end to it. Is this enough?

[Something doesn't feel right, still... but this is Hijikata's fear, and Thanatos can only follow along.]

[mayoninofukucho]

[Now that Hijikata is able to help fight back the danger rather than just haplessly panicking his normal samurai instincts are kicking back in fast, and Thanatos' words properly sink into his mind rather than just getting washed away by his fear.]

Yes, it should be! This is how it was the last time, too - after I got turned back to normal I fought the others who'd been turned! It's all we can do! We have to trust the others to take care of the rest!

[While they keep Majestas' minions in check to the best of their abilities things indeed start happening on other fronts, as the Moon Knights move out on their winged horses to fight the lion minions in the sky and the Lunar Scientia distributes the seals that break the trance-induced corruption. Already a first helper makes it through to the square they are in and slaps the seal on the person whose wings Thanatos just broke, stopping Majestas' control and chroma drain.

As per Queen Mab's trial Hijikata, more than anything else, needed to learn that sometimes he's powerless against an overwhelming enemy - and hell if he didn't learn that the first time around -, but that it's fine to rely on others in such cases, and that there's still always something he can do. It's easy to keep that faith back on Edo with the Shinsengumi, where he follows his Commander, or even when he's leading the Yuureisengumi on Avalon, but the situation with Majestas was hard for him to face alone. Thanatos' calm and steady company really helped him calm down.]

[inevitablerest]

[Thanatos is not someone who is used to fighting alongside anyone. Even his occasional bouts with Zagreus were more a competition than cooperation. This is different, and he does lean slightly into taking Hijikata's lead with the knowledge kept in mind that this is a situation that can all too easily drive the man to panic.

Now he knows how to handle this he cuts through their enemy with quick sweeps of his scythe.]

Hijikata! [He calls out as his blade sweeps through another set of wings and detaches them from the person's body.] How does it end?

[There has to be an end to this, right..?]

1/2

[mayoninofukucho]

As they break more and more people out of his hold he can't keep supplementing his chroma through them, so the damage dealt to him by the fighters eventually kills him!

[He keeps swerving around to shield the seal-carrying volunteers from aerial attacks, but already the tide is turning in their favour. Majestas roars in pain far above the city.]

No!! You have no right! You... you mere vermin..!!

[If Hijikata and Thanatos dropped the battle and tried to leave Caihong now they probably would find a door that wasn't there before, because the samurai has passed the test. But naturally he'll keep fighting, even if it's only a dream or illusion. Lunatia is his second home, and he'll protect it!]

2/2

[mayoninofukucho]

[Eventually, though, there's one last resounding roar, and then... silence. The monitors displaying the seraph everywhere show him slowly, defeatedly, put his lion mask back on, his body already dissolving into pure energy. Hijikata is drenched in sweat, blood and dust, but the look on his face is victorious.]

We did it!!

[He sheathes his sword, dirty as it is - he'll clean it later; he has no access to his water magic now and no rags on him - and turns to Thanatos with a relieved smile.]

Thanatos, thank you.

[As he takes in his surroundings, still chaotic as people care for the wounded, but increasingly filled with excited exclamations of victory, he seems to remember where they actually are - beyond this little part of Caihong - and why they came.]

We need to move on, don't we? I kept you here for much too long and made you deal with this nightmare, but... will you grant me one more wish? Will you look for Mitsuba with me?

[He doesn't want to approach her even now - unless they find her harmed and in need of aid -, he just wants to ensure that she's alright, even if none of this should be real.]

[inevitablerest]

[Blood and Darkness, he'd been thinking it would never end. When there's that resounding roar at last and Hijitaka confirms their victory, he lowers his scythe slightly as the only real indication of his own sense of exhaustion and lets out a soft sigh of relief.

He does make a small motion as if to stop the man from sheathing his sword like that, but too late in the noticing of his intention he isn't quite quick enough to stop it. No matter, he supposes, as blood slides slowly down the blade of his own weapon and drips from the sharp tip.]

We do need to move on. [Thanatos replies with an uneasy look. It's not easy to refuse a plea like that, though, and he pinches the bridge of his nose for a moment before he drops his shoulders in defeat.]

Fine. But if something else happens, I am lifting you up and taking you out of here whether you like it or not.

[mayoninofukucho]

[Hijikata sees and hears Thanatos' exasperation, and he understands, he really does - so he appreciates the god's accommodation of his request all the more. He cracks a small grin at the "threat".]

Got it.

[He'd probably still yell and struggle - no one gets to pick him up! -, but at that rate he'd frankly deserve it. He loses no time now, briskly striding through the disarrayed winding streets until he finally stops on one of the bridges - a different one from before - and exhales in relief. There, in the distance, the frail woman is just coming into view, carefully peeking out of a temple's entrance at her friend's encouragement. As she approaches the stairs leading down she spots Hijikata from her vantage point, freezes up in surprise for a moment, then waves at him. He lifts a hand in return before turning back to Thanatos. After everything he made him deal with he won't put him through a prolonged moment of him and Mitsuba gazing at each other!]

She's fine. It's back to the program for us, then.

[He says that so casually now after all his fretting and panic... sure, partly he just wants to hide his feelings. Of course it'll be hard to leave her like this, to not make his way over to her after all - but it's better this way. He always freezes up and gets tongue-tied around her, anyway, as if he were still a nervous 17-year-old. And of course it'll sting to leave this little piece of Lunatia, to not help move the rubble and collect the wounded, and of course he'll miss all of Caihong's scents and sounds, but they need to get back to Avalon.]

[inevitablerest]

[Thanatos follows, his height ensuring he can keep pace with Hijitaka with relative ease. He fully intends to follow through on his threat if he has to and will be keeping his eye out for any hint that the man is about to run off or fall prey to something else in this dream... or whatever it is.

He stays back politely enough, though, as his companion and the woman exchange that look. While they both turn to leave, he ventures to lightly pat Hijitaka on the shoulder - just for a moment, but enough.]

I know how it is. To feel like that about someone.

[The words are offered quietly and Thanatos does not look at Hijitaka as he says it, but there's no reason to doubt the truth in it. The god would not say something like that in jest, and he would certainly not lie about it.]

[mayoninofukucho]

[Once again Hijikata appreciates the pat - he takes it a small, gentle sign of reassurance that Thanatos really isn't upset with him after the whole ordeal. The words that follow surprise him a little, and he looks up at him as they start walking away from the waterway, even if their eyes don't meet.]

You do?

[Somehow that makes him happy. Back home he and Thanatos both lead lives controlled by duty, but unlike the god he sometimes at least has days off or gets sidetracked into random adventures with comrades and acquaintances. For Thanatos to have someone he loves as well, be it back home or here on Avalon, is something Hijikata feels he deserves.]

[inevitablerest]

I do.

[And under normal circumstances he might not have given any more detail, but he just saw a part of Hijitaka's life that the other man might not have ordinarily divulged and... some small part of him feels like he owes him a little something in return.]

His name is Zagreus. The son of the King of the Underworld. [Whether Zagreus is here right now or not isn't something he adds because really, it doesn't matter either way. He loves him whether he's here or not.]

It took me a very long time to realise the true extent of my feelings for him.

[mayoninofukucho]

[Hijikata finds that information pretty dicey - doesn't that mean that Thanatos is in love with his boss' son? He wonders if that sort of thing would cause drama in the world of gods like it would among humans.]

At least you had the time to figure it out. If you were humans you'd have gotten old over it, but as it is you've got the rest of eternity!

...

Have you told him?

[He didn't mention anything about them actually being in a relationship, only about his feelings, and Hijikata can imagine all too well that someone as reserved as Thanatos might simply opt to bottle it all up!]