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avalaughs2022-03-17 02:25 am
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. |
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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: --
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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. |
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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:
 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. |
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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. 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.
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no subject
Don't get too close.
[Everything in here feels wrong and after what they had just dealt with in the previous two rooms he is not going to give an inch in believing that these flowers might be entirely innocent. Thanatos looks around the room, keeping his hand firmly on Zagreus' shoulder as he does so. His usual stoic expression is creased with a small frown.
His attention falls on the sleeping woman. Ah... that must be her, then.]
She's the one we're here for. [And he doesn't trust that one jot either, but the alternative is being stuck here. He breathes out a sigh.] Come on, Zag.
no subject
[It's difficult for Zagreus to just turn away from someone in trouble, especially when their pleading only becomes louder and more desperate-sounding as Thanatos pulls him back.]
... I suppose there's no harm in approaching her first. Sorry, flowers.
[He's not happy about it, but Thanatos seems to understand more about the situation than he does, and he trusts his judgement. He casts his gaze over to the sleeping woman, and he moves closer to get a better look at her. Nothing immediately happens, so he can only guess it's safe to assume there are no traps.]
What should we do? Wake her up?
no subject
So he's very sure to keep the younger god close to his side as they approach the sleeping figure, also wary of traps but seeing that nothing happens to either of them as they move in closer.]
I think--...
[He reaches out and touches Queen Mab's forearm with his fingertips. Nothing seems to happen, at least outwardly, but Thanatos feels a definite shift in himself as a magic which has become familiar to him over the past several months re-asserts itself over his inate (and currently entirely malfunctioning) power.]
That... seemed to do something.
no subject
That's it? We came all this way just so you could give her a poke? Rather rude of you, Than.
[Not that it was a poke, exactly, but he can't help but tease him a little.] What's next?
no subject
He folds his arms loosely over his chest, looking about the room. The flowers are still making noise, but with what he had just felt he trusts their words even less than he did when they first walked into the room.
But what's next? Admittedly he isn't sure where to go now. He hardly dares believe by now that Zagreus is actually here.]
I think... we should be able to leave.
no subject
Don't go! Not without helping us! We just need to touch someone who's living, and we can be free!
[Zagreus seems torn, and looks back to the flowers.]
I do want to help you, but I don't know if it's wise right now. I'll come back when I can. All right? [It seems a fair enough compromise, particularly when he doesn't want to argue with Thanatos. The flowers finally hush as Zagreus turns to the other god once more.] Let's get out of here.
no subject
And he's ready to grab hold of the other god and bodily haul him out of the room when his attention strays back to those flowers, but luckily Zagreus manages to restrain himself.]
Right.
[Thanatos cannot remember a time when he's been more eager to get out of a cave.]
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...Oh no. [He says it in a quiet voice. He's looking at his hands, which are turning translucent, and fading by the second.
It can only mean one thing.]
Thanatos... I don't think I can go with you.
no subject
Oh.]
It... [Grief twists painfully in his gut, hitting him hard enough to almost take his breath away. He had thought - hoped - but hadn't he somehow known from the beginning that this could only be temporary? Just another of Avalon's tricks, and a particularly cruel one at that.
He cups his hands around Zagreus', holding the fading shape of them between his palms.]
It's all right, Zagreus. It isn't your fault.
no subject
[Thanatos has already said it isn't his fault, but he can't just accept things ending like this. He still doesn't fully understand what's happening, or where they are, or why. At first he thought he needed Thanatos's help and that was why the other god had come here, but now he suspects it was the other way around. Was this whole thing just a cruel trick the Fates felt like playing on the God of Death?
He tries to hold on tight as if it might anchor him in place, but now he can't feel his hands at all, and his arms are fading now, too.]
--I'll come find you. I did the same for Mother, so I'll do it again.
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Zagreus, if he remembered being here at all, would not be able to reach him by any deliberate means. But it isn't something he wants to argue about when it seems that the time they have left together is already rapidly drawing to a close.]
You won't be able to reach me here. [The death god tells him gently, but firmly. He moves one of his hands up to cup it along the line of Zagreus' jaw. A tender motion he does not ever recall doing in the House. He thinks he understands, now. What all of this was really for.] So before you go, I need to tell you... I love you, Zag, and I'm only sorry it took me so long to see it. That it took me so long to see what was always standing right in front of me.
[And then he smiles, very faintly.]
I know you'd fight to find me here again if you could. It's one thing that keeps me going.
no subject
I-- [He blurts, forces himself to slow down, studying Thanatos's expression. He's running out of time (can he even feel his legs any more?) but he wants to calm himself, make sure Than doesn't think this is another impulsive decision.] I love you, too, Than. I have for a long time. Please... don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
[Even if that someone is Thanatos's own doubts.]
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[Because he does know, doesn't he? He knows because of things he now realises he doesn't have the time to explain, despite how blind to it all he had seemed while he was endlessly bickering and arguing with the prince over his attempts to break free of the underworld.
It hurts to have to let him go again, knowing that yet again he has no choice. There is a comfort, however small, in being able to actually say goodbye this time.]
We'll have the time to talk about this one day. [He assures Zagreus, brushing the side of his thumb lightly against the other god's cheekbone.] It just won't be right now. Just trust that... no matter what I say, or how much I might argue with you, it doesn't change how I feel. How I feel for you, because of you. Tell me you'll remember that, all right?
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[He says it softly, a bittersweet smile on his face as leans into Thanatos's touch, closing his eyes briefly. He wishes he could return the gesture with one of his own-- though by now everything below his shoulders has gone.]
Then I'll see you... one day, Than? [Even under the circumstances, Zagreus can be trusted to make it sound like a clumsy effort to ask him on a date.]
no subject
[His own clumsy, awkward way of saying yes to the question that went unspoken behind Zagreus' words. He keeps his hand against the warmth cupped against it until it vanishes, leaving him with a sharp chill that has nothing to do with any lack of heat in the air.
Thanatos stares down at the spot where Zagreus had been standing for several minutes before his body begins to respond to his commands again.
And only then does he finally manage to leave.]