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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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I- I have to go on stage. [ No. "Have" somehow feels too weak. ] I need to.
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But she can't help but hold on. After all, it'd be worse if her gut feeling was right, and if she'd lose Tsumugi forever. If the other people important to him lost him forever. She can't allow that. She can't have been the person who let him go. ]
You can't!
[ It's why she can't help but instinctively let those words slip out of her mouth. The emotion in them, so frantic and desperate, makes it very clear the words are instinctive. Emotional.
She shakes her head, the desperation reflected in her eyes as she looks at him, trying to catch his gaze. ]
I can't.. explain it. But something about all of this feels bad, Tsumugi-kun! It feels like we'll lose you if I let you go, you know..?
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If he does, will that be enough to chase away the last of his insecurities? Will he finally be a worthy actor in Kamikizaka's eyes?
Tsumugi meets her gaze, conflicted. ] I know, but I... [ He doesn't know. Leaving her would feel awful, when she's so desperate to make him stay, but it's hard to ignore the stage. Especially this stage. Because- ] What if he finally acknowledges me from there?
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[ It's partially an instinctive response, because Minako genuinely doesn't know who Tsumugi is talking about in this moment. And she wants to know, so she can understand more about this situation. So she can learn more about something that clearly means a lot to her friend.
But on the other hand, Minako also realises this is something she can use. Every moment that Tsumugi is focused on talking to her is a moment where he's not heading in the direction of that stage quite yet, after all.
So when she speaks up again, it's a little more calculated this time, despite the concern and interest still being very much genuine. ]
Who are you talking about..?
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Reni Kamikizaka-san... the general director of God Troupe.
[ It's clear this is painful for him to talk about. While not completely adverse to vulnerability, having to spell out his dream for the door - I want Kamikizaka-san to see my worth as an actor. - and then finding himself in this space is a lot, to say the least. It's worse than salt in his wounds, and he has to remind himself that Minako would want him to share this part of himself. Even if it's seems shameful, even if he wonders why it still bothers him so much... because that's what friends do, isn't it? They stick with each other through their highs and lows.
Still. Getting the words out is difficult. ] He. He once told me I didn't have any talent for theater. And you know how much I love acting. [ They wouldn't be in this situation, with her actively trying to keep him away from the stage, if he wasn't hopelessly devoted to his craft.
Tsumugi's never been boisterous, but he's never sounded so small before. ] It's been years, but I still can't forget his words.
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Wait, what?
[ Of course she hasn't heard of that person before. It's someone who doesn't exist in her world - or at least, not on the same level as in Tsumugi's world, if he does exist there at all. But learning this right upon hearing about his existence for the first time sure isn't giving her a very favourable idea about the other. ]
What do you mean? Why would he tell you that?! I know you, Tsumugi-kun! [ Maybe there's a little bit too much passion kicking in here all at once, but Minako can't help it. When it comes to defending her friends, she never holds back.
Even if it's about defending them from people who aren't even here. ]
You're so passionate about the stuff you do! How dare anyone tell you something that rude?!
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It was after my audition for his troupe. [ So not completely out of left field, but still. ] I'd gone with my childhood friend, who I'd always acted beside, but only he passed the auditions. That was difficult enough, but to then be told I didn't have any talent... I couldn't handle it.
So I ran away. [ His voice wavers. ] I tried to leave theater behind me, and start over completely... but even after he rejected me, my love hadn't died. I couldn't stop dreaming of being on stage. It was all I wanted. [ It's still all he wants.
His grip tightens, hand shaking. ]
That's why I- I have to face him. I can't run away. [ Not again. ]
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[ .. okay. He did just mention how important that guy is - and it's also very obvious that he's left a huge mark on both Tsumugi's life and his heart.
But even so, Minako can't help but say this all the same. It's not like she has ever cared for authority, after all, and so Minako isn't going to give someone credit just because they're some bigwig or a hotshot. And even less so when they're also apparently a huge jerk. ]
Why do you have to prove yourself to him, Tsumugi-kun? Wouldn't you rather prove yourself to the people who actually matter? To the people who care about you, unlike that guy?
[ She's still not letting go of him. ]
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And he may have not made this part of himself obvious, but... Tsumugi hates to lose. The two vote difference in their Act-Off felt like a miracle more than a victory won from his skills as an actor. So maybe it's not the most mature mindset, but he wants to face him again. To crush him with the skills he's honed with Mankai.
But nothing she says is wrong, either. He remembers how wonderful it felt when Tasuku said he'd admired his acting - when the rest of his troupe told him to be more confident. When it comes to proving himself to the people who care about him... he already has. Many times over.
Doubt buds within his heart, a bright and bold yellow within a sea of blue. ] I... I don't know. But I feel like I have to. [ And yet he lowers himself from the stage, both feet returning to solid ground as he stands before her, an audience member to the ongoing play once more. ] If I don't, I might never be truly confident on stage.
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Maybe it's to keep him in place, but honestly.. he already left the stage on his own just now. It's probably more about the hug itself. About the emotions behind it. About feeling like maybe, maybe, she will only be able to properly convey her emotions to him this way. ]
I want you to be confident on stage.
[ There's no doubt about that, though the words might be slightly muffled against him with the way she's tightly clinging to him. ]
But I want that confidence to come from you. Not from some external source. Not because someone tells you whether you're good enough or not. [ Even if it's someone really important. ] I just.. want you to believe in yourself. Because you're enjoying yourself up there. .. That's all.
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It's not something he can change within himself in a day. He won't wake up tomorrow completely free of doubt and insecurity. But that earnest, heartfelt wish of hers makes him want that for himself.
Tsumugi returns the embrace, just as tight... and though he doesn't full on cry, he feels the beginnings of tears forming as his voice wavers slightly. ] I... I'll try. I promise I'll try.
[ And then, softer: ] ... I'm sorry I made you worry.
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[ Especially since Minako can tell from his voice. She can't see his face in their embrace, but she can hear the way his voice shakes, that telltale sign of the fact that he's emotional enough to start crying.
No one who's crying should ever have to apologize like that. ]
You've.. had a hard time, Tsumugi-kun. You've suffered. [ Maybe it'd be a bit much to call what he went through that - especially when Minako is so used to suffering on a much, much larger scale. Entire civilisations dying out.
But she can understand personal trauma just as well, even when it's not quite on the scale she is used to. She can understand a friend's pain. ]
Sometimes that makes you a little confused. I understand, so.. please don't worry. No matter what you do, I'll always be proud of you..
[ She means that.
How could she feel anything else, when Tsumugi is always doing his best? ]