isleofavalon | EVENT ✨ Fall Equinot

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SUMMARY: In the days leading up to the fall equinox, geese intended for eating escape and cause havoc around town, people share techniques to preserve plants for the winter, and Camelot's citizens compete to make the best light shows with traditional wax candles to draw spirits peacefully into Camelot.

With all the harder preparations gathered for the Fall Equinox, throughout the month people will notice that decorations start going up around town. The colors of fall seem to seep throughout Camelot, but more than that, so do more traditional sights and smells. In the days leading up to the equinox, traditional acts such as the sacrifice and consuming of flesh are performed. Well.. normally they would be. The fattened geese that are normally eaten in preparation for the equinox have escaped and are causing havoc around town. Geese are running around causing trouble for everyone-- stealing glasses, opening gates, putting up toilet seats when people try to sit down so they fall in the bowl... all kinds of madness! Even if you weren't intent on eating geese and were going to settle for the vegetarian option (pumpkin and nut soups are frequently served using the gourd itself as a bowl), you have to agree the general public needs to be rescued from these menaces. If you have the stomach for it, you are welcome to keep one of the geese you capture for your own table... but otherwise, please return the birds to the farm where they can be handled accordingly.

Birds are not the only sacrifice made to the autumnal equinox. As the flowers begin to reach the end of their life, there is a strong tradition of gathering flowers and herbs and preserving them for the upcoming winter, either to protect their beauty, scent, edibility, and sometimes magical properties. The simplest form of preservation is, of course, drying and pressing-- a technique you don't need magic for, but some of the locals will happily teach you. A more advanced technique can be learned to enchant glass bell jars to suspend the lifeforce of any living thing within its grasp for up to a year, if no one opens it. It's a technique used to preserve important or rare plants that may otherwise die out during the winter, such as herbs used in your favorite spell.. or dish. The glass bell jar will protect the plant, but each time it is picked up, a single petal or leaf will fall off of the plant. If all the leaves fall off, the plant becomes unrecoverable, and come spring the caster will find themselves cursed with a touch that wilts any plant they come in contact with. So if you choose to use this, be warned that there are consequences for misuse and a wide number of horror stories from people who have tried to use this spell for anything other than plants. Any type of mage can pour their magic into a bell jar to enchant it, and the type of magic will be reflected in a glass design that forms around the rim and handle. (An elemental mage may have glass flames form, or frosted etchings of your favorite animal may appear if you're an animal mage, and so on. Feel free to get creative.) Green mages may find this magic a little useless, since they can just replenish plants with their own magic, but it's still a good technique to know.. just in case!

Perhaps the most beautiful tradition that takes form leading up to the autumnal equinox is the candle pathway. Every street in Camelot will be lit up with thousands of candles for two nights leading up to the autumnal equinox, as a guiding light to help the spirits find their way to Avalon. The way the streets in Camelot are mapped out, the lights will form a path to the square where the fairy coins are being held until their release on September 22nd, the same area where the guardian egg ceremony had been performed. Some people get very creative with their lighting displays, which can sometimes result in beautifully lit streets and magnificent structures of flames. Accidents are quickly quelled by volunteer elemental mages throughout the city to prevent any structural damage. Some people might be compelled to make their own light display the most outstanding on the block, and it becomes a bit of a game to compete with your neighbors to see whose section of the candle pathway is the most extravagant.

SUMMARY: The autumn equinox ritual is interrupted by a huge earthquake caused by a Stone Giant bursting out of the Ash Mountains, bringing the closest Ash Mountain and Lestari to the ground. The purple dragon erupts from the ruins to attack Celliwig. The survivors of the collapse need help desperately. Characters must choose where they go to determine the fate of Avalon.

Calm and mundane preparations are a nice break from the sometimes stressful lives of Camelot's citizens and otherworlders, who often are asked to embark on life-threatening adventures and tasks. It's probably a good thing most of the month has been relatively peaceful, as things need to go a little bit differently this year on the fall equinox itself... but not as differently as they actually do.

In the town square, elaborate celtic-similar symbols are carved out into the ground and filled with mysterious glowing liquids. All of those who gained guardian tattoos and their attendants were asked to attend a ritual to release them on the night of the 22nd, along with anyone else who would like to witness. Everything is ready and as the witching hour approaches, several individuals dressed in flowing robes with their faces painted like skeletons approach. As the leader raises his voice to explain why they've come and what to do to make this night a success, a sudden shock-- Avalon itself shakes with the might of an earthquake... or at least, that's what it seems like for the first few minutes as everyone gathers themselves until they hear mass screaming in the distance. Though it's hard to see what's going on... there are still some very, very obvious problems.

A stone giant rises from the first of the Ash Mountains, crumbling the mountain around it as if the ancient being were holding the very mountain itself up... and it was. Those who visited Lestari will have seen its giant feet within the underground city. The former city. Lestari is now buried beneath the mountain, along with many of the other creatures living on and around the mountain. A huge storm of mixed weather forms above the giant's head, blizzard and lightning raging around it to no avail. As the people of Camelot watch what's only visible at a macro distance, they may not be as quick to notice that all of the fairy coins have begun glowing vibrantly, then suddenly burst out of the jars they've been held in, shattering right through them to fly off en-masse toward the stone giant. They embed themselves in it, fueling the giant with enough power to both begin to walk away from the rubble and for the spirits that have begun gathering in Avalon to head toward it, rather than where they had been intended.

As if that were not enough, after the Stone Giant takes two large steps through the Land of Rot, the gargantuan cloud of dust covering the ruins of the first of the Ash Mountain range rather suddenly lights up with a vibrant, ultra-violet burst of flames that illuminates the smoke. The gargantuan purple dragon that once took up residence in the mountain clambors out of the dust and shoots straight into the sky, enraged and furious, and able to sense where the magic came from that raised the stone giant. The reason it immediately begins flying toward Celliwig with the intent to raze it to the ground is likely not immediately apparent, but it is quite odd that it bypasses the much closer target of Camelot with its rage. As does the Stone Giant, though it does not head toward Celliwig and instead seems to absorb the souls of the dead that were intended to be guided by the fall equinox's rituals as it lumbers through the land. If someone does not stop it, it is headed for the Forest of the Felled.

King Arthur is immediately on the emergency broadcast system to implore people to join one of three groups:

Investigate and stop the Stone Giant

Slay the dragon and save Celliwig

Rescue survivors of Lestari and the Ash Mountain

The success of each of these missions is dependent on character participation. See the poll for details about how certain character types may affect the outcome of the missions.

~~Please refer to Event Poll Notes for information about aftermath of this event and additional event info~~ > Event Outcomes.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Hijikata jumps, clearly startled as hell when the goose suddenly comes back to life, and stares after it as it speed-waddles off. Thanatos' approach snaps him out of his bafflement.]

Wait, you did that? You froze it? How'd you do that?

I didn't freeze it, only kept it from moving.

[(Than, that's probably the same thing.)

He watches the creature until it disappears from view, and then turns his attention fully to the man in front of him.]

Kinetic magic has many uses.

Oh, that's what it was!

[It's practically visible how the cogs in his head start turning...]

Don't you want to take up knighthood and help fight crime around here? If you can simple stop perpetrators like that it'd make things really easy!

[Is he seriously trying to recruit him for knightly duties that really only exist in his head? Believe it!]

I'm not interested in mortal titles. [Thanatos replies with a small shrug. While he knows he's mortal here, that doesn't negate the eons of existence that he has or the unique perspective that it has given him. Has he ever considered trying to get a knighthood here..? No, not at all, because what would be the use of it?]

I didn't need one to stop that bird, did I. I wouldn't need one to stop a person, either.

[Hijikata sighs... he can't argue against that.]

Fair enough!

[He exhales smoke into the air. Thanatos is a fellow death mage, so he wonders...]

Will you be participating in the equinox ritual?

I've considered it.

[It sounds a lot like the kind of work he's used to and there would be a comfort in it, but he isn't sure if the nostalgia of it would be too close to home. Though, given that he didn't immediately decide he wasn't going to get involved...]

I expect I'll be there. Will you?

Yeah. I signed up for the spirit guardian thing.

[He says it so casually, but he actually is a bit apprehensive... what if things go haywire? So far he hasn't sensed the presence of the spirit guardian at all, but hell if he knows what the equinox ritual proper will entail.]

Hm. Brave of you.

[Considering Hijikata's attitude to such things - spirits and the like - when they met, he's... actually a little surprised that he'd volunteer for something like that. It's not something he would have expected of the man.]

How are you feeling about it?

[Hijikata really stepped up his game ever since he first shrieked and shuddered his way through Loch Manor - which isn't to say that he won't still get scared out of his mind if a ghost spooks him on purpose, but his sense of responsibility for the dead has increased significantly over the last months.]

I feel unsure, to be honest. But they needed the extra volunteers, and I've got a decent enough pain tolerance, so I raised my hand for it. I don't want things to go south somehow because they didn't have enough spirit guardians... whatever those really are. I got the gist of it - that they guide the spirits to the afterlife -, but I've got no clue what they look like or how I'm supposed to get it out of my body.

[Hopefully that won't involve any mortifying procedures like it probably would back home...]

I'm sure they will be able to tell you.

[It's going to be an interesting experience all around, and he is impressed that Hijikata is taking to it so well.]

As much as the way spirits and the like are dealt with here discomforts me to a certain extent, I can't deny there's a level of respect about it. [And at least he can't feel what's going on. It's one of the only times he has really been comfortable about not being Death here. Meddling with spirits would just be too much to be around.]

It's familiar, in a way.

What about the customs here is uncomfortable to you?

[If it's the fact that they boiled the ashes of the undead Hijikata is of the same mind, but he's curious... perhaps there are other things that are done differently where Thanatos is from. He quietly notes that the god seems a little more at ease than when he last met him. Maybe he's managed to settle in and get more comfortable with this place, his mortality, or both?]

Hmn...

[Hijikata is correct in his observations - Thanatos is far more comfortable here than he was, and more than that... he is more comfortable with himself. Though it isn't a matter of being mortal. More one of simply having grown more settled with being away from his work.

He has friends now. People he cares for and has the time to spend around. He even has a couple of hobbies.]

Where I come from, the mortals have very different burial rites, and consider omission of those rites as an insult to human dignity. It's simply... that I need to get used to it.

[Not an easy task for someone as old as he is.]

That makes sense. It's different where I'm from, too, but I've been exposed to plenty of different cultures already, so it's less of a surprise to me.

[Between the Amanto invasion and following globalisation back home and his time on Prismatica he arguably has gotten around more than Thanatos, whose life revolved around the dead of his domain until he arrived here.]

From what I understand ghosts from all sorts of places pass through here, so maybe there'll be some from your world? Let's keep an eye out for them during the equinox!

EVENT ✨ Fall Equinot

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