isleofavalon | EVENT ✨ Wolf's Moon

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EVENT ✨ Wolf's Moon

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This is the event log. If you have questions about y event, reply to this comment HERE. Click here to view top-level comments only.

The Fairy Queen sends out an invitation for all otherworlders to an eccentric party with ulterior motives that aren't necessarily bad.. after all, they're protecting players from a ritualistic curse cast by escaped convicts from the Elphame prison. But that doesn't mean it's the party's entirely safe either.

CONTENT WARNINGS:

1st Prompt: Mild elements of body horror in the fairy queen's description (paragraph starting with "Opening the message"); this paragraph is description only and may be skipped without loss of content.
2nd Prompt: Ball prompts include reference to drugs, alcohol, smooching, and fake murder.
3rd Prompt: May have potential for mild body horror depending on player preference, as it features cynanthropy/lycanthropy.

The night before the full moon, a message is sent out to all the otherworlders in the land. In each person's inbox, the message sender reads simply "ELPHAME" and appears to have a verified account, despite that looking into it doesn't seem to reveal much content. The profile pic is simply a picture of a mushroom. Opening the message will reveal a video recording. For the first full minute, a woman simply stares into the video through one pure white eye and one wholly black eye. Her hair is white and fair and longer than can be seen in the video of her torso. Her skin is sallow, gray more than any other color, and her décolleté is peppered with what seems to be shells of mushrooms growing out of her flesh like they would on a tree, patches of bleeding tooth mushroom creeping down the side of her neck.
Atop her head, a headpiece made of platinum formed into the tiniest branches, filled with leaves of precious stones- diamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires, and moldavite trailing down in long chains that keep her hair out of her face. Her lips are just slightly parted, painted in what seems to be an enchanted design that shifts patterns as she moves, as if they were a green screened galaxy in real life. There is a stud in the bow of her lips, and the top of her clothing appears to be colorful, but is only visible toward the top of her frame, as her top is low-cut to account for the fungi. A number of small stitched scars are visible, but largely healed. She tilts her head slightly. Even though it's only a video recording, it feels as though she is looking directly at your character. "You are busy bees..." A soft voice speaks, almost as if the wind itself is whispering in your ear and not from a recorded video. "Busy bees could barely bother, but bother is basically all you do. I bequeath you busy bees a bidding. Bother blithely, busy bees, in Elphame as bristling beauties are bound to do. A ball before you, beneath the Wolf's Moon big and bright, betwixt burgeoning fae blooms. Do not baa, do not bray, bruin nor boar will keep big bad wolf at bay. Bop and bounce, ballet you may, or brawl your basest behaviors in my ballroom before break of day. Broadcast not your boorish bumf, though, or busy bees will be broken brisker than bats banished from Beelzebub's borders and bound. Bless my bestowal and with bated breath I shall bade you betokened truth, if truth be told." Whether or not your character understood what was actually said or their brain shut down in the middle of those barely benign instructions, they may additionally notice fairy circles made of tiny mushrooms start to crop up regardless of where they are in Avalon.
	Once night falls, if a character dances in them they will be transported to a costume party within the ballroom of the fairy queen in Nicnevin. Costumes will be magically applied upon arrival, based on a favorite childhood fantasy. (Did they want to be an astronaut? A dinosaur? A cowboy? A cat? That's what they'll appear as.) You can choose from any age of childhood for your character, depending on whether you want to go funny or more serious about their later childhood dreams. Whatever your character chooses to do as part of the party, the following party happenings should be noted:
1. If your character or anyone they know uses your character's name or reveals enough information about themself, they will become unable to disobey the fairy queen in future events. They've technically been warned about this in the fairy queen's message, even if it wasn't easy to understand. B. Alternately, you can have your character's name be captured by a more mischievous party guest fae and play with that as you will. You can be released either by someone else killing your captured fae for you, or the fae saying your name backward. So if your character's name is Stevie, they would have to trick the fairy into saying Eivets. This option to NPC your own fae captor is endable on your own terms, but 1a will be on the fae queen's terms down the line. 2. The party itself is a protected area; refusal to attend or leaving the party before sunset will subject characters to the Wolf's Moon, which has been put under a ritual by a prisoner group released from the fae prison during the previous dark web quest, Banyanished. This ball is being held as a gift to otherworlders to protect them from the second part of this event. (See below for details.) Characters will be told that they are in a protective area if they try to leave and to trust the fairy queen, but will not be forced to stay against their will by the fae. The only people who may try to stop your character from leaving beyond telling them this information are other player characters. 3. Dancing, food (fairy food), psychedelics and drink will be provided to those of age who want them throughout the night. If the partygoers don't seem to be having a good time or the party grows dull, the fairy queen (dressed in the award-winning submission to the Elphame Trader's contest some time ago) will make a demand participation in a party game*. If your character is standing around and not participating in the general activities, they may be coerced to participate. Anyone may join willingly as well, of course. The following party games will be played throughout the night:

a bottle on the floor

Spin the Bottle, Elphame Rules:

Fairies are quite randy creatures at times, and the first game played is none other than spin the bottle. The rules are as such: when it is your turn, you are blinded by fairy magic and must spin the bottle. Once the bottle stops spinning, the person the bottle lands on will kiss them. The person who is kissed must guess who from the circle kissed them; a correct guess will mean they stay in and the blindness spell will be lifted. An incorrect guess will eject them from the circle and they will wander around blind for the duration of the game until a winner is declared. Feel free to play out gameplay or your character needing assistance after being ejected from the game circle.

Truth or Dare:

The standard game of truth or dare. Don't forget to be very careful, as certain truths may have dire consequences. (See point 1, be very careful.) You can play issuing and completing dares or asking and answering truths with other player characters or receive dares from NPC'd fairies, which may escalate to dangerous and magical lengths. The only solid rule is that no dares are permitted to require exiting the party to complete, and lying during a truth gives permission to fairies to steal your tongue from you if they discover your lie at any point, even after the party is over.

a woman gasping dramatically with subs that say "Escandalo!"

a woman threatening a balloon with a knife

Balloon Game:
Everyone loves a good murder game! Everyone is outfitted with a single balloon. You may secure the balloon to yourself for 2 minutes before the start of the game. In the center of the game circle is a pile of close-range weapons varying in usefulness from binoculars and pots to knives, slingshots, axes and more. Magic is also permitted. If your balloon "pops" you are "dead" and will float to the ceiling to fly around until the end of the game, out of harm's way. Do not commit any actual murder or the balloon of the deceased will immediately wrap around you in a full rubber bodysuit and imprison you until the fairy queen can deal judgment. (If this happens, notify a mod so we can discuss Queen Elphame's judgment with you OOC.)

Helping to empower otherworlders to improve their chances of saving the world is the kind of task that can be a little.. subjective. A little questionable when it comes to consent, at times. After all, no one is here with their consent and no one was bonded with their familiar or given magic with their consent. What's a little more empowerment? Certainly, a group of imprisoned lycanthrope wizards seem to think they have something of a solution to increasing other worlders' potentials: a ritual using the Wolf Moon of January's full moon cycle to transform unprotected otherworlders into fellow cynanthropes or, in layman's terms, werewolves and other types of weredogs. Anyone not protected (at the party) will be affected by the curse ritual.

dog in front of full moon

Cynanthropes in Avalon have the following characteristics:

Character is now able to transform into a humanoid dog or wolf form to the extent the player chooses (go ears/tail or full-furry)
Experiences enhanced strength, enhanced sense of smell, night vision, blood lust, and characteristics similar to the character's dog or wolf breed.
These effects are only applicable the day before, the day of, and the day after the full moon from sundown to sunrise on each day.
Note that new weredogs/wolves do not have control over their instincts for the first few months of transformations and will behave aggressively. If in an emotional state, they can lose control of their transformed form regardless of how long they have been cursed.
Though characters can be killed by normal means throughout the month, they can only be killed by silver bullets during the 3-day full moon cycle
Full-time side effects include cravings for meat, animal mages having mild influence over them, being able to eat food from Elphame without being bound to the land, and the occasional hair ball.
It is up to players how painful they want the transformation to be/not to be; you can play this how you want and chalk it up to ritual reaction variation.

Cynanthrope ritual curses are particularly strong and require at least two siphoners working together to break the curse, a counter-curse potion (only available through events), or a deal with a powerful being such as the fairy queen or Morganna.

If your character did not attend the party, left the fairy queen's party, or wasn't at the Red Springs (protected by the mysterious crystals that turn it red during the full moon-- conveniently for your excuse not to participate in either prompt if you want to opt out!) they will become a werewolf or weredog.

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...Yeah, I get that.

[ But her shoulders do relax a little. Maybe she had guessed he might say that--in spite of whatever relationship he might have had with Anastasia, she can't imagine him being a terribly demonstrative person--but it's still a relief to hear. It's nice to be reassured that things aren't quite so ruined forever as she'd worried.

Ritsuka rocks on her heels for a moment, tipping her head back to idly watch some of the balloon game players drift by. ]

You know what also sucks? Even if it's just a little thing? I can't even say something like, let's blow this joint and get snacks or something--because either something weirder is gonna happen if we go, and it's not like we can really trust the food here.

[He notices that. She was actually worried? About what? He's not sure. Ruining their . . . weird kinda-friendship? It's a little flattering if she cares that much about his shitty company. Or maybe she just has anxiety, formless and weighty, and he can understand and appreciate that too. It makes him feel a little less alone to see her express it.]

If this kinda thing is gonna keep happening to us, I really need to just start keeping non-perishable food on me wherever I go. After all that shit at the Solstice, I've been burned too many times. And you definitely don't wanna go out there. I tried, and they weren't kidding about how seriously they're taking keeping us in here.

. . . So I guess we've just gotta deal. There's always alcohol.

I'm underage for that.

[ She says that automatically, because that's been her excuse for the past three years. Does it matter that Japan might not technically exist, in this strange snowglobe alternate timeline they're in? Or that in their own world, Japan is definitely not one of the countries that currently hosts a Crypter? No. Not to her, it doesn't. ]

But if we can't eat the food here, wouldn't drinking also be kind of a risk?

I think the booze is safe just to stick it to us, but I don't blame you for not wanting to test that. Uuggghhh. And by the way, I'm pretty sure the legal age here is like 16.

[SERIOUSLY . . . does she actually care about that . . . ? A goody two shoes?! They're not back home with their world's laws! Those don't even exist anymore, at least for now!]

Nope. I gotta wait until I'm 20.

[ She looks him straight in the eye as she says this, as deadpan as she's ever managed to be. That's the legal drinking age where she's from! It doesn't matter if she's somewhere else now! Kadoc, please, Izou is in this Camelot and if he finds out she'd be willing to try alcohol it might end very badly for her ~~liver~~. ]

You're really serious about it. Damn. I'm not gonna try to talk you into it . . . I've gotten plenty of that myself from Beryl and shit. Not gonna do it to anyone else.

[She's committed! Or maybe it's an excuse. He knows all about those, and he's going to respect hers, because he's been there.]

But that just means you've gotta deal with my shitty company sober.

Yes, because I've never had to do that before. I have no idea what you're like when we're both stone-cold sober.

[ She manages to say this entire thing with a straight face, deadpan, before she elbows him gently in the ribs. ]

I have nooooo idea what it'd be like.

Ow, hey.

[Of course it doesn't actually hurt, but you can't not say ow when someone does something like that. It's a reflex! And he rolls his eyes at her, though he doesn't look all that harsh about it when he does. More like a sullen teenager. Moooom!]

And you know what I mean. It's one thing to deal with me normally, and one thing to deal with me after all that.

After what part?

[ If she had to guess, she would assume he means the kiss. Honestly, did that really even count as a kiss? She feels like she could make an argument for otherwise! It had been practically perfunctory, more just the awkward touching of her mouth to his. It probably didn't count.

But it could mean everything else that's come before, between the two of them. His death and resentment, the confrontation in Russia, and then that creepy priest stabbing him before her eyes... there's a lot that could be filled in the blanks, here. ]

Because no matter what, I don't think there's any way it could be that bad.

I mean, I was talking about kissing me, but it's actually even worse if you go back further than the last ten minutes. "Not that bad," huh?

[He's dubious. His expression is dubious! He levels a Look at her, one that isn't exactly harsh or unkind, but one of his weary, mild, sarcastic faces she's probably very used to by now.

. . . The truth is, hearing that is a relief, for the first time that he can remember. Not that bad. It sounds stupid as hell. But what if it's true?

What if it's actually just not that bad?]

Not that bad, yeah.

[ She meets that look with one of her own, head tilted, one eyebrow slightly raised in turn. It's not the first time she's had to meet sarcasm with sincerity, but she's not ashamed of it.

He's not the first person that's tried, with dedicated intensity, to kill her. He's not even the first person she's had to watch die--but he is the one who came back when he shouldn't have. People don't come back after being stabbed in the back, and yet: here they are.

Compared to all of that, an awkward kiss doesn't even compare. ]

...Look, I'm sorry if you hated it, and I'm sorry you got stuck with playing that game when you don't really act like a guy who likes or wants that sort of thing. But if you think that kissing you is the worst thing that could happen to us, I've got some news for you.

It's not like I can argue with that one.

[He snorts. Okay. She's got a fair point. Why get hung up on this stupid thing, considering the long history of everything else?

(But he knows why: because it feels so much more mundane, and thus real. It's such a cop-out to think of himself as offputting because he's unattractive and bad at kissing, in comparison to being offputting because he turned his back on Chaldea and tried to murder her. Those things really happened, but they feel so much less immediate these days.)]

Fine. So it's not that bad. Somehow you dealt with all that other shit and still decided you wanted to talk to me, so this probably isn't gonna be the final straw. I get that.

I don't know if I even have a final straw.

[ It's not bragging, just thoughtful. She's heard it before, muttered behind her back in Chaldea proper: that it's uncomfortable, untenable, how easily she forgives. There has to be a limit to it, right?

Except maybe not. Ritsuka herself isn't sure there is. ]

You're my friend, okay? Even if I'm not yours. When I go in on someone, I'm all in. Just try to remember that.

[Wait a second here.

Fujimaru. Fujimaru.

Kadoc is Kadoc, and he's the same kind of person in some ways; that realization is especially glaring right now. The words she just said to him feel like they could've come out of his own mouth in some other situation. But maybe that's why they get under his skin even more, enough that he has to say something about them, crossing his arms.]

. . . You seriously still think I don't think of you as a friend?

...I mean, I wasn't going to assume?

[ She blinks back at him, more bemused than anything else at the question. She wasn't! It seems like the exact sort of thing he'd be offended by, if she just outright said "we're friends" and didn't allow him any sort of wiggle room. ]

I'd like it if we were, but I was trying to be respectful.

That's cute and all, but I can't believe you didn't even think we'd hit friendship level after I sent you a custom handmade Christmas gift and stuff. Seriously?

[He has not acknowledged the gift out loud until now. It's still kind of embarrassing that it happened at all. It was a vulnerable thing for him to do, for everyone, but especially for her! But now that low-level embarrassment fades into the background of disbelief. Really, Fujimaru?]

I mean, maybe you did it out of spite...?

[ Well! He said it first, so she's also allowed to address it, right? Ritsuka shrugs, rubbing the back of her neck, but she meets his gaze evenly. Being motivated by spite feels easy enough to believe from him. ]

I do a lot of stuff outta spite, yeah. But not going outta my way to design and make and send Christmas presents. That'd just be spiting myself, unless that's what you meant, 'cuz I also do plenty to spite myself.

[But that hadn't been it! Still. He gets the feeling, from this, that she really does know him pretty well by now . . . weird to think about.]

Spite is spite. I definitely have used it as motivation in the past.

[ Some silly, and some serious. She could tell him about the ordeal that it is to go through Valentine's Day with Chaldea--not just making and distributing and accepting of all the girichoco, but the events that keep popping up around that time! She could tell him about about Halloween and the increasingly ridiculous things that happen around that time of year.

...Maybe someday, she'll tell him about the end of the world, when her own fury and spiteful determination had been what carried her through--not a Servant, not a mage, nothing but the spiteful desire to live. ]

Heh . . . yeah. I know. I got that feeling off you. Honestly? I like that about you.

[They're friends. They copped to it, it's done with. He's free to admit this now, even if it's a little embarrassing to come out and say, because even complimenting Fujimaru in a backhanded and complicated—if sincere—way still feels awkward as hell. But they'd better get over that! If they're friends!]

Wow, thanks for the vote of confidence, Senpai.

[ She puts a bit of a bite into her tone when she calls him that, but she's smiling as she does. It isn't technically incorrect! Even if their paths diverged before they could actually work together, he's still her senior. ]

Oh my god, don't call me that. That's too weird.

[Look . . . it might be true, on some level, but it's still extremely weird. You just don't do that to someone who was your senior in something they then totally betrayed later! And you don't smile while you do it! She's teasing him about this of all things!]

So what? We've lived through weirder, and it doesn't make things any less true.

[ She's completely unrepentant, too, still grinning at him as she shoots back. ]

I promise, you get used to it after a while.

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EVENT ✨ Wolf's Moon

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