As the moon rises on the 21st, all non-emergency businesses will be closing early as the Winter Solstice celebrations are of the utmost importance. Those who participated in the ritual will feel the night is different in their very being. Anyone who participated in the Winter Ritual preparations will be immortal for the next 24 hours. No harm may come to them, they will not be affected by the cold, and their magic will be amplified significantly as they are currently a conduit for the world's magic. Everyone, regardless of whether they participated in the preparations or not, is welcome to partake in tonight's festivities as there are many ways in which the Winter Solstice is celebrated.
The most significant event of the night is the Solstice Night Run. If you didn't participate in the ritual, you may be able to get a hit off of someone's Everwarm to participate. At the edge of the City of Camelot, heading into the Brocéliande, characters will be asked to remove their clothing (or if they aren't comfortable with that, change into very light robes provided by local donations) to return as close to a natural state as possible, then run through the forest. As characters run through the forest, despite everything being covered in ice and snow, the woods will begin to come alive. Will-o-wisps sprout out of the snow and shake the frost off, floating in the air to provide lights throughout the forest. The trees seem to move and dance as you pass by, flurries pick up, and even some animals will start running alongside you. It's a celebration for all, as magic flows through your body as becomes part of the forest.
Inevitably, somehow, someway, those participating in the run all end up reaching what seems to be a crack in the ground, slabs of rock surrounding a stream of water flowing through the crack. This is the fairy fountain of Barenton, a crack in the fabric of Avalon that connects its waters to other worlds. Though it's currently unable to connect now due to the time freeze, some of the fairy folk running with you will happily let you know that some of its powers are still in tact-- try sprinkling some water on the stone slab nearby. As the waters trail down the slab and form a puddle on the floor, the drops from your hand will open a vision of a treasured memory. Anyone near you will be able to see it, so only do it if you're willing to share. There are many other uses, but since you're still very new, this is the only one they're willing to share for the moment. Regardless of whether you choose to use that form of magic or not, as you approach the fountain, it will begin to bubble and glow, and lights like an aurora borealis will begin to glow around you as your connection to Avalon deepens. You'll be able to feel the life of the forest, a connectedness to the world you've likely never felt before. Every leaf, the wind, every living being, the magic in the fabric of the world, is a part of you and you are a part of it.
As the night presses on, a large number of fairies begin to form fairy circles, both in the forest and back in the City-- so you needn't have participated in the run to find one. Toadstools and flowers sprout up through the snow that hadn't been there before, forming near-perfect circles in nature. Stepping into one, whether on purpose or on accident, will shrink you down to the pixies' size so you can dance with them, if you promise to keep going for the whole dance. The dance lasts about 20 minutes straight and there don't seem to be any rules besides keep moving around the fairy circle, even if you bump into someone. In the last minute of the dance, pixies will fly above the circle and sprinkle dust over the whole party. Anyone who completed the dance will be returned to their normal size and granted the ability to fly for the duration of the witching hour of 2-3am. You'll be invited to drink with them afterward, if that's your thing, but will not be offended if it isn't.
Not completing the dance despite stepping into their circle, being rude to the pixies, or attempting to stop anyone who is dancing will anger the pixies. Pixies are a tricksy bunch, so you'd be better off avoiding this, but if a character happens to get on their bad side, there are a few different types of pixie curses they may be inflicted with:
Small Soul: They simply won't return you to your normal size. You may need to find some other way to remedy this, or else you may be spending some time quite small. This can be fixed by a person with healing magic and a simple healing spell, as the spell wasn't originally meant to last this long to begin with.
Pixy-led: The pixies will upset your center of gravity for the rest of the night. Though in reality, there's nothing going on, you may have a huge sense of Spinning Vertigo for the next hour or so. Good luck getting home! You may want to find help. The way to break this spell is to put your coat on inside out, so you'll have to find someone willing to share that with you- the pixies might if you promise to give them something good.
Bellbark: Until broken by anti-magic, any time your character hears a bell, they will mentally act like a dog for the next half-hour. This will last beyond the span of the event until your character is able to get their hands on a counter-curse potion, so be wary if you choose this one for your character. As the night winds down, anyone who had participated in the ritual will find themselves rather suddenly sleepy regardless of where they are and may fall asleep as if under a spell right there out in the snow. They'll wake up normally in the morning, the land having used their slumber as time to finish off its work using you as a conduit. Don't worry, those under the influence of the ritual's effects won't catch cold or anything... though, we can't guarantee anything with those pixie effects-- they weren't really harmful, after all, just irritating. Anyone who fell asleep outside will find that the snow has melted in their area for about 5 feet and bright green plants have started sprouting around them on the ground, some vines growing around their limbs but ultimately nothing that can't be brushed off easily.
It would appear that while it was a permitted act during the Winter Solstice, the fae who may have told you about that little trick with the fountain and the pedestal may not have shared the whole story. As it turns out, the slab that everyone was trickling water onto is a stone known as Merlin's Step. Merlin's Step, when a little bit of water is sprinkled upon it, summons rain. When a lot of people put water on it, it summons a huge thunder storm. It is certain to, as many of the fairies are happy to attest, wash away the freezing snow so they can move about freely during the winter again. Fae often have ulterior motives, even if they're often coupled with good intentions. This may have gone a little beyond their expectations, however, as enough people have done it that the storm has brought about torrential rains and hail, frequent zaps of lightning, and strong winds. Most people are being urged and ushered into cellars throughout the city as the hail has been causing injuries, breaking windows, and the lightning is strong enough that it's been striking the ground frequently. You may end up crammed together in a small, dark room while a storm rages outside with little to do except what's in the cellar-- eat canned foods, play old board games, dust of a.. uh oh, is that a Ouija board? Get creative and have fun with what you think could be in the cellar you end up in.
After what seems like most of the day, the storm is still raging on, but the next moment you find still water, the Lady of the Lake's face shows up, with another woman beside her. The Lady of the Lake's ability to communicate via water is being used to reach everyone at once. The Lady doesn't say anything, once she's got it live, well aware that they're short on time as the lake surface is choppy and dangerous right now. They have a limited time above the surface to speak, so she leaves it to the woman with her. |
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isleofavalon2020-12-20 12:32 am
no subject
That kind of reaction is probably something they'll have to unpack one day... maybe with more than a flask of alcohol between them. He's certainly curious about the origins of his anxiety.
As it is, Magnus stops just short of giving the deck another shuffle, one brow quirked.
"In my experience, anything labeled the 'Great Plan' rarely works out exactly as planned. We can't even prove that our presence here was completely orchestrated and not just the Powers that Be playing cosmic roulette."
While he does fancy himself to be a powerful warlock, the fact that he arrived here sans all his powers means they're not quite interested in some of his more illustrious attributes.
no subject
"I'm not afraid of a card trick, they are just so demeaning. Why bother with ridiculous slight of hand when you can do real magic?"
On cue his mind brought up a memory of a Angel smiling brightly at him as he defended his love of menial card tricks, 'You're no fun.' Well fun or not, Crowley's thoughts on that hadn't changed! It still felt humiliating even with their diminished powers making it impossible to disappear things as naturally as they once could.
"If you are bored why not move some chairs around the room, or turn one thing into another, or use whatever new magic you were given... anything but card tricks!"
His brow creased deeply enough to banish the all too fond memory.
"That sounds exactly like the 'Great Plan' to me. I mean perfectly, right down to the cosmic roulette... And we will never know if things went according to plan or not because no one is ever going to tell us. Ugh, it's like starting back at square one again."
no subject
Card tricks are just not worth it for those who refuse to be spellbound ...or when there's no money involved.
"And before you say anything else, you can keep your clothes. We'll play for snacks."
Thankfully, he managed to teleport a few bags of chips to himself earlier -with less than sanctioned methods, he's sure (aka stealing). Although they're not exactly in the realm of gourmet cooking, neither of them can exactly be picky at the moment.
"I don't know about you, but my 'Great Plan' is not to wither away from boredom and insanity before I found a way out of here."
no subject
Crowley said the word some what disdainfully as he was still in a mood over the threat of slight of hand but he wandered nearer to collect a chair and sit in it the wrong way around, using the back as a place to rest his elbows.
"You dealing?"
Now Crowley hadn't actually acquired any snacks of his own as he had been preoccupied with the rain and the memories of what too much of the stuff could do but he could improvise and wasn't above snatching a few if he ended to call.
no subject
He waves a bag of them, wondering what he could find so offensive about them. They're salty, they never expire, and they go well with alcohol.
"Besides, you don't have to actually eat them. We're just using them in place of currency."
He doesn't know about his newfound drinking partner here, but his bank account stayed back in New York. That and warlocks generally don't make it a habit to travel around with wallets. For obvious reasons, of course: they make pockets look so unsightly.
"Now, who do I have the great pleasure of playing against this evening?"
no subject
"I don't mind pretzels but they aren't really high stakes."
He made a flippant gesture for the other to deal while he wrestled with the crinkly packaging of the animal crackers whose 'easy pull to open' tab had been neither easy nor a means to open the packet.
"Not that I can afford high stakes..."
With his currently unemployed status.
"Crowley. Anthony J. Crowley. And does the dealer have a name?"
no subject
"No relation to the English occultist, I imagine? Interesting fellow. Threw some wild parties back in the day. He also had incredible taste in fashion."
There aren't a lot of mundanes that are deeply tapped into the Downworld, and the ones that are... well, that's how you end up with your Aleister Crowleys of the world.
"And your dealer for this evening is the illustrious Magnus Bane, who will most assuredly promise you he is not cheating. Feel free to check my sleeves if you're worried."
He tugs downwards on his cuffs to show him that there's nothing stuffed up there. Just a few decorative bracelets -which isn't to say he can't just use magic to surreptitiously shuffle things around, but he'll refrain. For now.
no subject
"No. There's no relation. In fact that poser probably took his name from me."
Having been around from the beginning there was always some human out there picking up ideas from you. Outright stealing his name was significantly more grating but... they did say imitation was the greatest form of flattery.
"Illustrious."
The word was parroted as he patted the table in a 'go ahead and deal' sort of way.
"That just for show or are you actually famous back where you come from?"
no subject
"Unfortunately for you, he's far too busy being dead to hear your complaints, so there's not much you can do about it now."
The pretzels arrange themselves on the ground as Magnus starts to deal, not bothering to look at his own cards before addressing Crowley's curiosity.
"And famous is one way to put it. Infamous, notorious, begrudged, a great many things, but this world has kindly wiped my slate clean for me."
Probably for the better, at the moment. He doesn't have to worry about something coming after him while his magic's been greatly reduced and while his wards are non-existent.
"How about you? Aleister Crowley must have thought there was something arresting about you if you were worthy of being copied."
no subject
The problem with playing at being a devil worshiper was when one actually died and officially joined the side they were supporting all those evil deeds they had performed when they were alive still came back to haunt you. Hell was not a gentle handhold-y sort of place.
Crowley waited until the card were dealt staying as inscrutable as possible behind his shades, then spent a great deal of time looking at them and shuffling them about in his hand before he said anything else.
"Maybe old Aleister liked the way I played cards."
Two animal crackers were placed out as a bet as he waited to see what the dealer would do with that.
no subject
"If he invited you back time and time again, it was probably not because you were good at it. Then again, masochism wasn't really that far outside his usual proclivities."
As much as Magnus fancied himself the adventurous type, the famed occultist managed to invent sex rituals that even he hadn't even heard of until that point -which had been all the more reason to try them out. For science.
Yes, they'll go with that.
"What other colorful minds did you find yourself playing cards with?"
no subject
"That a call or a raise?"
His cards were set facedown on the table just long enough to reach out and snag himself a passing juice box. If they were playing for snacks he might as well enjoy an apple juice.
"And I wouldn't say he kept trying to invite me, it was more like trying to invoke me... Like I would even show up. We played cards once or twice at the... I don't know, some old bar some where, I've forgotten the name."
He was a terrible sort of person and not anyone a demon like Crowley had found himself wanting to spend a lot of time on. Aleister Crowley hadn't just fallen into darkness he had jumped into it with both feet, much like Nero, and who had time for that?
Crowley recollected his cards and sucked on the juice box's straw until it made that annoyingly grating rattling noise that only a nearly empty juice box could create.
"Does it matter? None of them are here."
no subject
Because he likes to live dangerously, smirking and doing his utmost best not to give away his bad hand. A smirk that's slightly compromised with the newfound knowledge that his friend here has been 'invoked' by a self-made magician.
"Something tells me poker night wasn't the only reason he was invoking you. He could have been lonely, after all."
He leans forward more closely, trying to peer a little deeper into those dark shades as if that might give him all the answers. It doesn't even give him a glimpse at Crowley's cards since they're turned facedown. Clever.
So much for that. He tosses an extra pretzel into the pile for kicks, turning around the possibility he might be playing cards with one of his father's cohorts in his head. It wouldn't be the most reckless thing he's done, to be honest, and Crowley seems a little less bent on hell fire, total domination, and all that.
"Ready to fold yet?"
no subject
After six thousand years Crowley had grown fairly skilled at making himself appear human. There were only a few tell-tale signs that he was not. A curious snake tattoo near his ear and if one looked closely enough, even through the dark lenses of his shades, one could make out the otherworldly look of serpent's eyes.
"He was always trying to summon up demons with one ridiculous ritual or another. It's laughably pathetic. You can't call out to a demon like we are trained dogs and expect us to show up... or to perform tricks if we do."
Crowley reached over into his small stash of animal cookies and tossed a few more into the center pile.
"Call. Why would I fold when I'd rather call and see what your hand is like?"
no subject
"Don't look at me. I never encouraged him, although I may have planted a few other, more exotic ideas in his head."
Mostly regarding the aforementioned sex rituals.
"So do I get to hear your real name, or do I have to spend the rest of my time in here wondering why a demon bothered giving himself a middle initial?"
It's a distraction more than anything really. He doesn't like losing, and normally a bit of finger magic could fix that problem. Unfortunately, he can't exactly float around a better set of cards without it being noticeable, given the limitations of his new magic in this world.
no subject
"It's Crowley."
The thing was he didn't care for his old name and as there was no more demonic paperwork that required it, Crowley had resolved to toss it into the dumpster of history.
"Gave up the other one, wasn't me." A faint pout, "I like the 'J'... How do you know so much about demons anyway?"
no subject
"Unfortunately related to one. You might have heard of him what with him being a Prince of Hell and all."
He'd be hard-pressed to find a demon who wasn't aware of his father's name. Now, he's not sure if he and Crowley are even from the same dimension, but it seems like some things simply stay the same from one timeline continuity to the next -and it's always the worst parts, too.
"Asmodeus," he finally says to clarify matters.
It's only fair since Crowley has been generously upfront about himself -at least, by demon standards. Even if he hadn't, Magnus is sure he would have found out about him at some point anyway. Demons always seem to make their way to him for one reason or another. Very rarely to play poker, though.
no subject
Oh, I’ve changed it.
Changed what?
My name.
So what is it now? Mephistopheles? Asmodeus?
Crowley.
The memory played out quietly in his mind, him speaking first and Aziraphale chiming in, but none of this would be shared with Magnus. A demon was allowed a few fond secret memories.
"I'm not surprised. He has a reputation for doing things like that... I don't know much about him, really. I was never in his department."
no subject
"That makes you the luckier one of the two of us."
And if his words don't prove it, certainly his cards do. Magnus chalks it up to the residual bitterness of thinking about his father, something a lifetime of drinking and debauchery has yet to ease, but it makes him less willing to play coy about his hand any longer. Instead, he lays the cards face up and floats all the pretzels and cookies over to Crowley.
"Enjoy. That's at least a day's supply of snacks right there."
He'll just steal a nice swig from the old flask before checking conditions outside. Something about talking of his father also makes him want to walk straight into a storm. Funny that.
Fortunately, he stops just short of doing that, merely peering through the windows.
"I can't tell you if it's let up or not, but I might just have to experiment with whisking myself back to my inn room anyway. These floors aren't exactly ideal for long-term sitting, let alone sleeping."
no subject
The daddy issues practically radiated from his gaming partner and with a demon for a father... something Crowley could recall only ever happening once as far as he knew, who could blame him. Now a demon for a Godfather, that was perfectly fine!
"Yeah. I need to check on something myself."
As it occurred to him he hadn't yet see Aziraphale enter this fun little den of board games and family talk, Alec either for that matter. Maybe they could get a rousing game of Go Fish going...
"It's been a pleasure taking your snacks from you."
no subject
Not that it will really do anything to his demonic constitution, he's aware, but he doesn't have any more clever parting words to give. Instead, he cleans up their little area for the next person and gives Crowley a parting gesture -hand raised in something of a wave.
Hopefully, he'd been right about the storm weakening because he's about to walk face-first into it in what might be the middle of the night. It's hard to tell what time it is anymore really with all the apocalyptic clouds gathered outside, blocking out every other celestial body.
Well, here goes nothing...probably famous last words as he disappears into the terrible weather. Perhaps, the two of them will cross paths once more.