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: --
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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

Steph can feel the bullet fly past her arm, but her serpentine along with Typhon's distraction keep Black Mask from making a hit. He doesn't make a sound as nine sets of teeth sink in to what flesh there is on his face, but he does grunt as he viciously pulls the creature off of him to toss it aside. It leaves nine gory marks that bleed freely, but otherwise doesn't seem to bother him.

While Black Mask is dealing with the hydra Steph is able to close in on him and grab the gun by the barrel. With her staff in her left hand, though, it takes more strength to wrench it out of his grip.

"Oh no you don't," Black Mask growls, taking advantage of the time she takes to turn and kick Steph in the stomach hard enough to send her flying. Luckily the gun goes flying too, sliding harmlessly across the hall until it hits a column several feet away.

"I don't suppose you'd surrender now," Morgan said, already stepping up to take Steph's place. That would be the ideal situation, particularly if this guy were to assess his opposition properly and judge himself out of his league. He'd already lost this fight by failing to use the gun properly, in Morgan's estimation -- that warning shot had proven he wasn't willing to finish the job as ruthlessly and effectively as possible.

Morgan did not intend to make the same mistake. He put even odds on the guy underestimating him thanks to the question, and a 95% chance the guy would try to respond with violence... at which point Morgan intended to cripple the limb in question. Shatter the bone, shatter the joint, dislocate it, whatever opportunity best presented itself.

Steph wants to tell him not to ask, not to hesitate, not to show any mercy, but she pauses. She's had this nightmare before, give or take a few details. In her dreams she's always paralyzed, but she isn't now. And she knows exactly how she wants this dream to end. She just needs 30 seconds. Even if Black Mask has another gun, Morgan can buy her 30 seconds. She turns and lunges for the gun.

He does, in fact, have another gun. He pulls it from behind his back, but it certainly wasn't there before. This is the world of dreams, after all.

"Now why would I do that when we're having such a nice conversation?" he asks, aiming at Morgan's stomach and pulling the trigger.

Morgan never stopped moving -- stepping forward, twisting sideways, elbow and leg both cocked to hook at the man. Still, he knew perfectly well he might be unable to avoid the shot... the rules he played with, here, weren't his own. It's just a dream, he reminds himself, just a venture into imagination, even as he refuses to shut his eyes in the face of such potential incoming pain.

This Black Mask is faster and stronger than the original, but he doesn't bend bullets. Instead he turns to block Morgan's attack, ready to counter with a knee to the stomach. Up close it's apparent that the body under the suit and gloves is as withered as a mummy, though he hits as hard as if there was muscle stretched over that bony frame. He doesn't have the serious combat training, but he doesn't flinch from pain either. If anything he leans into it, laughing hysterically.

Steph has made it to her feet and checked the ammo left in the first gun. There's no hesitation or uncertainty when she aims it at Black Mask.

Seeing the two men fight, knowing that shot just now was aimed at Morgan, the flood of emotion held mostly at bay by shock breaks through the floodgates. She feels terror, fury, and above all of it a hatred too deep for words.

"Morgan," she shouts, waiting only for him to move and give her a clear shot.

Morgan had a rule: Killing is wrong.

But he wasn't going to judge anyone else for their choices. Nor was he foolishly naïve. Sometimes it was the least-wrong of all possible choices.

Also, the pain in his gut made dropping to the floor to clear the line of fire pretty easy. No such thing as a good, clean, fun fight... ever. "Martials arts can be so depressing," he groaned, as he collapsed.

Steph has a similar rule, with one very important exception standing right in front of her.

Knowing that if Morgan heard her warning Black Mask did too, she steps quickly to the side as she fires off four shots. The first of the bullets she knew were coming grazes her left arm, but she hardly notices it. Black Mask manages two shots before he falls, four holes in a tight cluster at the center of his chest.

He laughs at her weakly from the floor.

"Where was this resolve when it actually mattered?"

"Fuck you," she spits back at him, gun pointed at his head. She won't move a muscle until she's certain he's dead.

"It's almost like some people can learn and grow," Morgan said, sticking a finger up from the ground in the wake of the gunshots. Ow, his ears. "Nice shooting, Steph... I once again have found something to be vigorously attracted to you for."

Not joking, but decidedly making light. This situation was a disaster without compare, dream logic notwithstanding. And this had every sign of a situation that could send Steph into a downward spiral, which he didn't intend to tolerate in the slightest.

Once she can't see the body move anymore she sighs, all the tension in her body relaxing visibly. She lowers the gun, remembering to switch on the safety before letting it hang at her side. Even with the safety on, one shouldn't just drop a loaded firearm on the floor.

"Thanks," she answers with a tired smile. "I learned it for a mission." She's also been imagining this exact moment every time she's woken up from a bad nightmare for the last five years. She's not exactly happy to have just killed a man, but she'd imagined she would feel better than she does right now. Mostly she feels suddenly exhausted.

"Are you oka-ah!" The second she starts to move towards him her knees give out and she falls with a yelp.

Oh. Hi, Steph. Did not want you to join him down here.

"Are you okay?" Morgan propped himself up with an elbow -- sure, he hurt, but he'd had way worse in his time, once to the point where he lost all ability to feel pain thanks to some magickal damage inflicted at the same time as the physical. After that, pain almost felt good as a reminder.

Hi Morgan. She's not entirely sure how she got here. Sitting back on her heels, she feels like her whole body is trembling. She's a little lightheaded, too...

"Adrenaline dip," is her conclusion. Though why does her arm hurt? She looks over at it to see a long and slowly growing bloodstain on her upper left arm. Pulling at the tear in her sleeve, she assesses the injury underneath. Long, but not very deep.

"Oh, and I've been shot, I guess." Of course, now that she's looking at it it hurts like hell. She winces and fumbles through her utility belt for a bandage. Shaking fingers make it difficult.

"It's contagious. Probably not gonna stick, though." He really shouldn't be reacting this well to a bullet to the gut, but he's pretty sure it had just torn up muscle rather than perforating anything important and gooey, and he really was damnably resilient. "None of this is real... well, less real than what we're used to."

"Being shot, or being tired?" The question is more serious than it really should be. She's glad her fights don't usually end like this.

Finally she's able to pull out two small rolls of bandage, and she tosses one at Morgan. It falls halfway between them. Her body is really not cooperating right now. She glares at the bandage, then gets up to walk on her knees to his side, grabbing the roll along the way.

"Lemme see."

Morgan couldn't be in too much pain, because he grabbed his pants like he was about to haul THEM down -- for two seconds, before he tugged his shirt up. Perhaps surprisingly, the wound had already clotted, messy as it might be.

She just frowns at him for a moment, caught between amusement and disgust.

"You do realize you're sitting two feet from a corpse, right?" She glances over at the corpse in question. It's kind of comforting to see it there, still in the same place. Her own dreams never seem to have an actual ending. She half expects him to get back up and start shooting again.

She turns her attention to the wound now, looking closely and gently wiping some of the blood away to check the edges. It's clotting impressively, but it's still an open wound. She wraps it gently and secures it with a bit of medical tape.

"Don't forget we have to dig that bullet out sooner than later. For now it'll have to wait."

She turns to her own wound, hissing as she pulls her half-soaked sleeve up over her shoulder. The fabric absorbed most of the blood, but did nothing to staunch the bleeding.

"It's not a problem if I don't believe any of this is real..." Morgan stopped talking as she worked, because the more attention her actions called to it, the more it stung. As she moved to work on herself, he reached out for a bandage. Let him get that, he can apply pressure a lot more effectively.

"And if it IS, I'll kinese it out and hit up a healer immediately."

"Hope for the best, plan for the worst," she lectures, offering her arm as best she can. It's a mess, but at least the blood has washed any fibers out of the injury. Once they get out of here she should be able to use her own healing magic on them, hopefully without creating moles or any of the other weird nonsense that's been happening the last month.

"Besides, it's real enough to hurt."

"Meh. I got my brain scrambled for a while and couldn't feel pain at all. Let me tell you, not good. So I try to treat stuff like this as a reminder."

Putting core muscles into pressing on her wound was not the best idea, so Morgan put his other hand behind her back to provide support as he pressed against it.

Steph grimaces, but keeps still while he works. The pressure will help stop the bleeding, and how embarassing would it be if she passed out from blood loss later?

"Yeah, well, I got two lifetimes of pain in one weekend once, so my perspective's a little different."

She glances over at the body again, just to make sure. It still hasn't moved.

It wasn't a contest, she didn't need to hear about torture and all that fun stuff. Let's go for teasing instead. "Hey, I didn't think that weekend was that bad, I had a good time..."

The only way she can appreciate pain is with the knowledge that she's had worse. Which is actually kind of helpful, now that she thinks of it. It's hard to transition mentally while she can feel the blood pounding in her arm, but she tries.

"Just so you know, I've only got one set of memories of that. We didn't like, merge minds when she poofed."

"Good, you got enough going on..." Like what's his name over there. Not gonna ask, he'll either get to hear the story or file it under 'Steph had a hard time' and go from there.

Having doubled memories of that (admittedly not even a full) day would only be a drop in the bucket of weirdness that was meeting herself. She just shrugs, and winces.

On that note she looks over at the dead elephant in the room again. She should probably feel bad about that, right? If she thinks about it too hard she might feel bad about not feeling bad.

"...You're really not going to ask?" She's surprised he's not bursting with curiosity after the show they just put on. She certainly would be in his place.

Morgan responded with a very eloquent grunt, then tried again with less exertion on the ol' abdomen. "I mean, either you're gonna tell me and I don't need to ask, or you're not and asking would just be super-awkward, right?"

She glances back over at him at that grunt, taking a quick look to make sure he's not bleeding through his bandaging.

"I mean, you're my boyfriend. I don't think it's awkward to ask about the guy I just murdered." She quells the urge to shrug again, and looks back at the body.

"You know most of the story already. You remember I told you about the gang war? That I almost died? He's how I got from point A to point C."

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