With the tournament resolved, the plan is simple: The five tournament winners and Queen Elphame will be casting a spell from various corners of Avalon to launch the Fisher King and his curse into the center of the Calamity. Characters will be performing synchronic magic, lead by the winners of the tournament, to send the body of the Fisher King (soul removed thanks to a band of death mages, so the Fisher King is not suffering) through frozen time using a powerful magic canon spell that would obliterate any living body that could die by forcing it through frozen time. While it will not immediately solve the problem, the Fisher King's curse should slowly tick away at Excalibur's spirit, degrading it over time and decreasing the strength of the explosion. After having enough time for the Fisher King's curse to tick away at it, it will require less of Morganna and Avalon's magic to still time, which will eventually allow everyone to send a party to retrieve the weakened sword and depower the Calamity.
That's the plan anyway. Whether or not it succeeds will depend on missions in the coming months preparing for that moment... starting with performing the ritual to launch the Fisher King into the Calamity.
Once your character picks a group, the Fairy Queen will be providing all those who participate with their very own flying mounts based on the location/missions they choose to go to. Feel free to play out meeting and greeting mounts (which you will be given a pendant to summon at any time after this event), performing the ritual, camping overnight until everyone's timed up during the witching hour, or dealing with obstacles located in your group's location.
Additionally, because resources are being diverted away from performing the summer solstice, the sun and moon are thrown out of cycle, plunging Avalon into a temporarily eternal night-- an effect which is causing a huge upset with a special kind of microscopic fairy that's randomly teleporting people to other locations-- which means you can really thread with anyone you want, even if you're in the wrong group, and will need to find a way to get back to your group before the witching hour!
Separate into groups lead by the following characters/locations:
Mamori Minamoto - Merlin's Step at The Brocéliande
- MOUNT: Gryphon - These majestic creatures are beings with the body, tail, and back legs of a lion and the head, front talons, and wings of an eagle. They are powerful guards who will always have your back, and fierce warriors. As a species, they tend to be a little condescending after being treated as deity guardians and placed on Family Crests since ancient times. Note that they mate for life, and your gryphon's mate may or may not be bonded with another character yours doesn't get along with... and you're going to have to find a way to make it work, because love is the most powerful magic in the world-- and they're not choosing you over it.
Xue Yang - The Ruins of Celliwig's Diamond Falls
- MOUNT: Arkan Sonney - A white pig with the wings of the fairy. They're said to be very lucky, and can carry ten times their weight. It can alter its size, so when not being ridden, it can change into a piglet-- if it chooses to. They have quite stubborn personalities and do not like to be chased, so it's best to approach with manners and ask permission to approach. Those who partner with Arkan Sonneys tend to come into money more easily by sheer luck.
Rei Amayado - Malous in the Unnamed Marshes
- MOUNT: Impundulu - A black and white bird the size of a person which can summon thunder and lightning with its wings and talons. It has an insatiable appetite for blood and has the ability to take the form of a beautiful young man with a seductive nature, allowing it to get close to victims for its vampiric ways. They will form bonds with sorcerers and tend to target their enemies for food whenever they can. They do not need to kill their victims when feeding, but sometimes choose to. When they summon lightning, they lay eggs 6 feet under the spot the lightning strikes. The eggs can only be fertilized if they are doused with blood. The Impundulu can only be destroyed with blue fire and are immortal. Some people say eating the egg of the Impundulu is how the original vampires were born... but as far as we can tell, it just gives them a good reason to eat you before you find out.
Zidane Tribal - Lotus Pod Mountain (2nd Ash Mountain)
- MOUNT: Harpy - Harpies are women with wings attached to their arms and the bottoms are birds of prey. These beautiful bird-women are not going to let you ride them, so "mount" is perhaps a bit of a misnomer here.. but they will carry you by your shoulders with their talons to your destination. (Or if you manage to get friendly with them, they may offer to let you hug them, but you're not riding them.) Piss them off and they'll steal your food and make you watch them eat it. Do wrong, and they will happily change course and dump you in prison. They would be ideal for those with a strong sense of justice.
Caster - The End of the World
- MOUNT: Pegasus - Descendants of the original Pegasus, these pegasi come in a variety of colors and patterns at your choice. When they get excited and stamp their feet on the ground, water can start rising from the ground where they dance. They can be quite playful besides that, and are easily the easiest of the mounts to form a long-term bond with. Pegasuses can navigate at night without guidance, following the stars where the original was transformed into a constellation by Zeus. This effect is increased when star magic is possible, but not right now.
*Note: Leaders may change mounts at the end of the event. As thanks, Queen Elphame will make it so. Statues of the tournament winners will also be constructed around the entryway of Elphame, as the Otherworld Heroes of Avalon, and protected by fairy magic. Immortalized, baby.
Now then! What of the ritual itself? There are three roles you can take to do your part:
1. Teleporting Micro Fairies: Chase the micro fairies around whatever area you're in to try to capture them. These fairies can be captured with a bit of arts and crafts magic! That is, you'll need to make a terrarium in a mason jar. Go around your location collecting local flora and fauna to create an environment and lure the fairies in by placing small pieces of cake in it. Once they're in, which you'll see by the cake slowly disappearing, close the mason jar and use any magic spell over it and they'll be temporarily trapped. This will help protect those performing the ritual from suddenly ending up somewhere they shouldn't!
2. Synchronic Magic: Find a partner to perform Synchronic Magic with, which will then funnel through the group's leader, who is performing a ritual involving a circle, burning herbs and shaking a magic gourd, and jumping in and out of the circle. (It is not the hokey pokey, but it looks a little like it.) Don't forget that synchronic magic requires trust, so you may want to find a way to open up to your partner if you don't know them yet.. or else things could definitely go haywire-- including accidental temporary body swaps, magically gluing yourselves to your partner, or accidentally temporarily changing your canon point mentally (lasts for about a day).
3. Protect the Circle: You're in a potentially dangerous location. Someone needs to be at the borders combatting enemies who live in the area your team is! Team up with others to fight off enemies known to frequent locations, including any creatures that have been previously found at that location in past events. The bestiary has a good number of ideas (though is a little outdated, so if a creature existed in an event, TDM, or quest after that that you want you use, feel free! We'll be working on getting the bestiary back up to date this month.)
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I wonder about that. Our names and legends are written into everything we are- in a way, we are still bound to them. Our present is stained by our past.
...But you're right, in that this world is a different one, without the associations of the one I came from.
[His serious remark received a serious reply in kind- Caster, after all, was always one to reflect how she was treated- surprised though she was by his consideration. She'd been bracing herself for more of his snark. To laugh or mock. To say that one like her could never hope to be such a thing, what with his earlier remarks! But that never came. And as such, a little more started to slip out.]
And even then... I can't help but wonder if at least my homeland grew to remember me with a little warmth, after all this time.
[That made her voice waver ever so slightly. After all, if Belgium's comment were to be believed, a statue had been raised in her honour in recent years, in what was once Colchis.
After all this time... a woman like her was being honoured?]
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Even if history reviles us, there'll always be at least a few people who'll look at us differently. That's been true throughout the ages.
[He briefly wonders what will be left of him, if anything. The image of a violent, merciless swordsman, a demon to his enemies? Or that of an honourable warrior who protected Edo? A mix of both would perhaps be most appropriate, but what ends up in the scrolls of history will largely depend on politics, and those can change tremendously in only a few decades.]
You love your home, even now, right? I think that matters. Someone who loved their homeland until the end shouldn't be forgotten by it.
...
[He's growing increasingly uncomfortable at how both her and his usual abrasive facades towards each other are starting to get cracks, so he takes out his cigarettes and turns away from her and the statues.]
I need a smoke. Best of luck with at the End of the World, group leader. The rest of us will be counting on you.
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...But she didn't voice that thought- the silence that hung between them all at once felt stifling. Why was she telling him all of this? She'd definitely- definitely said too much. And so, she felt, had he.
It was a small mercy, then, that he began to excuse himself. She wouldn't thank him for his kind remarks, that would be a step too far, but his words left a warmth in her all the same.]
...I'll leave you be, then. If all goes well, I trust we'll have this Fisher King dealt with soon enough.