isleofavalon | EVENT ✨ The Answer is Always C

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EVENT ✨ The Answer is Always C

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This is the event log for IC comments only! Ask OOC questions/plot/view event notes HERE or use the FAQ for general questions. Click here to view top-level comments only. A poll to collect results of the trials will be posted this weekend and stay open until the end of the month to give people a little time to see how their threads are going.

KEY POINTS

Arthur announces the results of the polls and that he spoke to Celliwig's people, they will be testing Camelot the week of the full moon.

A series of choice-based enchanted scenarios is presented based loosely on a modernized seven sins/virtuous responses (power imbalance, cruelty or mercy, excess/greed or restraint, sloth or work ethic, desire/lust or self-control and bravery or cowardice, and sacrifice or self-preservation)

With the polls closed, the decision is made, and King Arthur takes the opportunity to address the kingdom via a streamed press conference. Though it is not an open post, anyone is welcome to comment on it and talk to each other about it. However, it is unlikely that Arthur himself will respond to comments. A notification does appear on everyone's smart devices to invite everyone to watch live; if they tap it too late, it'll still show the recorded stream.

"People of Camelot, I wish that we had better news that spoke of an easier path to the calamity that stands before us. Celliwig's charge is with protecting Avalon even in the face of protecting Camelot and those of you who chose to use your voices have shown that you choose to respect their way of handling things. However, it was only just over half of you who chose this path. I think it is important that with such a great portion of people believing that bypassing Celliwig and going directly to Elphame, as much as it may take patience, we take this action into consideration. There is no sense in ignoring the voices of so many when there is nothing to say we cannot approach from two fronts. As Camelot's king, I have issued our intent to accept Celliwig's challenge to a descendant of Glewlwyd, a man who was much trouble for my knights in our time. They have said after failing one, we shall be tested on multiple fronts, the week of the full moon's rise. Bear in mind that this is our final chance at this."

Merlin sidles up to Arthur in the video, one arm around his shoulders and leaning in to speak into the mics in a much-too-familiar manner. At least his sunglasses are off this time.

"Now then, anyone who wanted to go to Elphame, you'll want to head to the docks around, oh, say, the first of June. Step one to flirting with fae is to put on a good show before the traders leave. It's a good time whether the Celliwig's dooming us or not."

A wink accompanies that odd note, and Arthur orders him off stage before thanking everyone for their time.

With the consent of its people, Celliwig performs a ritual to place Camelot under a rather strange spell. Much is the same, but there's a sense that everything is just slightly off from what it should be. Fog covers the grounds throughout the entire city throughout the entire day. It's just a little too quiet, the usual hustle and bustle of the city falling just a little too distant on your ears. You can go about your day as normal, but feel as if something is simply off. And eventually, you'll walk through a door, and it will be. Part of the enchantment, however, includes a strange inability to connect these doors with being part of a test-- they seem real, regardless of how absurd the scenario would be were your characters thinking straight.

Day One: Power Imbalance
The door you walk through is into a club of some kind. It wasn't your intended destination and yet, here you are, and you're being handed a glass of your favorite drink and being ushered to your seat. The show is fantastical, some kind of circus-esque show with gymnasts and magical effects making it impossible to take your eyes off of. That is, until the spotlight falls upon you and urges you down to join the show. A volunteer! Well, one of two. Another volunteer is brought up along with yours, and the ring leader of the circus gives you both bracelets-- one with selenite embedded in it, another with andara. The ring leader explains that they're both known for creating high frequency connections, though one is known to spiritually be associated with finding one's path and the other with manifesting one's true self. When enchanted together, this makes it so that the person with the andara bracelet can order the person with the selenite bracelet to do anything they please-- making their true self the person's purpose. Very dangerous, very intruiging, very tempting, very morally wrong to do it for real, so please keep it to the stage! A quick demonstration of this dark use of magic as part of the show... and it seems that afterward, they forget to take the bracelets back. What will you do with your newfound control over your partner? The choice is, after all, yours. (Or theirs, if you're the unlucky partner with the selenite bracelet-- only the person with the andara can remove the bracelets, after all.)

Day Two: Schadenfreude
Yesterday seems like a dream, and you may even feel the need to write it off as such unless you run into the same person again and realize no, they too remember it. But if that's not the case, it doesn't matter. You'll be able to find yourself in your definitely normal and usual mideval city, where someone is in the stocks. Your memories seem a little fuzzy on whether or not you're supposed to be in medieval times or not, but this seems right, and there's a fruit vendor right next to you selling soft fruits to throw at the poor sap in the stocks. There are also a number of other ways to mess with the person, including feathers to tickle them, a riding crop, some ink if you want to grafitti the person.. a good number of ways just to humiliate the person without causing them permanent harm. The crowd is cheering you on, but you also see the keys to set them out just sitting on a table nearby. Do you engage in a little sadistic fun or do you embark in a daring rescue? (Or are you the punished in someone else's scenario?)

Day Three: Indulge Me
Back to the modern day like it didn't happen, you and a friend walk into a door to your favorite convenience store and as you finish up your purchase, you win an all expenses paid trip to the Black Knight's Castle, formerly the home of the Black Knight and turned into a lavish tourist attraction by Yvaine and Laudine's descendents, who have become worshippers of Dionysus. You're transported there in a puff of sparkling magic dust, right before an extravagant golden fountain in the middle of the lobby. The owners explain their policy for the Black Knight's Castle that you can have anything you desire, however much you desire. Anything at all, consequence free. The only thing that they ask is that you give a blood offering to their god to help feed his dead worshippers on the other side of the veil, which will ultimately tie your soul to him as well. Just a quick cut of the palm and you're welcome to come back any time, have anything you want, for the rest of your life. Taking the deal means you really will get what you want! ...For the day, anyway. (This is just a spell, after all, even if your character doesn't want it.) If you choose not to, you'll find yourself magically deposited back to the convenience store.

Day Four: What's the Meaning of Stongehenge?
This fourth day, there's certainly something to be said about a hard day's work. When you walk through today's door, you find yourself in the middle of a grassy field, strange markings on the ground, and surrounded by oddly shaped boulders. The markings on the ground seem to indicate where some the stones should be placed. There aren't really any directions, but there's always the option of waiting for someone else to solve this problem for you... There is a very comfortable looking patch of grass anyone able to relax in. So the choice is yours: wait for someone else to move the rocks or move them yourself?

Day Five: Pooling Desire
Day five is a trip to the pools. But not just any pools! These are special, underground pools hidden deep within a cave. You're sure whoever told you to head through this door mentioned something about them being a special relaxation package at the Red Springs. As you head into the pools, however, you find someone in there with you: the subject of your desires. Regardless of who or what they are, they seem to have a crown upon their head, aren't wearing anything in that water, and seem to have a lovely singing voice judging by the tune they're humming to lure you in before you even notice they're there. It is at that point they will try to seduce you, even if that same person is standing right there with you. The seduction, of course, needn't be sexual-- a strong lusting for a turkey leg wrapped in bacon may be just as powerful as a desire for a brand new Ninblendo Swatch or something you should definitely label as NSFW if you want to thread it that way. Give into them, or.. maybe listen to the person who came in with you that they're definitely some kind of weird half-otter bottomed monster under the water before they try to drown you. Or if you're the one trying to stop this, are you brave enough to get in between a stranger and a monster to try to snap them out of the siren's thrall, even if it means fighting both of them?

Day Six: #ChaliceChallenge
The sixth and final door sets you walking outside on a beach. There's nothing else there really except for nature. The sounds of the waves crashing against the sound is soothing, and real, and sharper than anything you've felt in the last five days of haze. There is no fog today. Clear, blue skies stretch forever above you, not a cloud in sight. The only man-made thing you see is a small woode table and two chairs. Upon that table, two chalices. Nothing will happen and there seems to be no way off of the beach until both parties sit down at the table, at which point a strange old man with huge, rippling muscles of at least 7 feet tall and a long, scraggly beard will appear. He informs your characters of the rules: in one chalice, deadly poison. In the other, water and bitter flavor. Each must drink from one cup, or you will both perish of starvation on this beach. Choose wisely.

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[ The answer given is what is received, he need not words to understand what it is that lay beneath the mind of he. Gawain respects tenacity, and Kadoc is all but ruthlessly full of it. His eyes do not leave away from Gawains, and idly he is reminded of the Chaldea master. How their own eyes ignite with fires and flames of hellish things they've seen and how in every action they take to step forward. They do not grimace at the path they take, as if to say they will continue onward - and the man before him. Mimicry's that, if not earnest in his own justly ways.

If not valued at his own sake, Gawain cannot but accept the answer. The way he knows he accepted Leos, in a memory far away.

Gawain's answer to him is as unique as Kadocs, he moves and steps into the water. The Siren there stuck in its form begins to cry and call for the other however - the Knight does not stop. The blade strikes down with such reprieve or lack of care for the others well being, but he does not go to kill it instead. The Blade sinks deep through the dress between her legs. Causing the Siren to squeal in agony as if she had just lost her life - except it is that Gawain with such fury looks at the fairy.

The luck of one given, with such unbridled rage and unkindness. It causes the Siren to waver and wrought in its true figure. It turns and dives into the pool where it swims away, scared for the life that Gawain threatened to take.

He watches idly, making sure none would come from her or after her. Holding his sword thusly, rearing it out from the ground. Looking over to the lad, the broken man seemingly full of rage and woe upon him. With such energy, Gawain wondered idly how he lived his life like that. Minding himself the image of Lancelot, when he would fall into berserk like states. ]

Shall we go then?

[ Gawain retorts even and calm, waiting to see if the other would move. He does not want to leave the man alone, but if it is of his will to sink into his thoughts. Then so be it. ]

[Now his fists are tight again, clenched so hard he can feel his nails dig into his palms. Good. When he had refused to look, Kadoc hadn't decided how long he might refuse, or known what he might be refusing in full; as it turns out, he stays put, rock solid and tight as a whip, as the entire scene unfolds behind him. He hears every bit of it. The knight's heavy approach. The swish of the blade. The cry of—whatever that had been. That hadn't been Anastasia's scream, and hearing the alien wail hadn't even surprised Kadoc. He should have realized sooner, really. Still, the sound bites into his chest like a trap snapping closed, squeezing the breath out of him. Someone very keen might hear the shuddering sound he makes in turn when he tries to inhale again.

It's over.

But—

Now he needs to see. With Gawain so casually treading away, leading Kadoc from the scene of whatever crime had happened behind him—he can't, he can't not look. What had he done? Is its (her) body there, floating in the water, leaking blood? Her head? An arm? The thing hadn't been Anastasia, and he knows that now. There's literally no benefit to looking back at whatever sight might be waiting for him there. But Kadoc is Kadoc, and those who've observed him in the past as the boy unable to let anything go were right about him. Call it a personal flaw, whatever. Call it masochism. This sight can only hurt. He has to see it.

So instead of turning to acknowledge Gawain, he turns, and turns more, until he's facing the water where it (she) had been. . . . Nothing. No body, no blood, no signs of a struggle. The thing seems to have simply fled to safety, unharmed by this Knight of Chaldea.

Finally the last of that horrible tension leaves him all at once in a shivering gasp, tears beginning to roll down his cheeks.]

[ Gawain will not press into the whims of issues a man has of his heart. Instead he leaves the other their reprieve, waiting outside the area acknowledging that their trial had been done - whether successful or not. Would be a question or answer for the people of Celliwig to hold decision over.

Meanwhile, Gawain readies and steadies himself in a position. When Kadoc is well and ready to leave the strange cave. The Knight will greet him as if nothing were out of the ordinary. From one broken man to another, he smiles calmly and offers a wave. ]

Salutations then good Sir - [ He would have said traitor but youre lucky he just saw the bs he was going through. ] I was uncertain you would leave the pool at any time. Or that the Siren had it's tricks upon ye yet again.

[It takes some time for him to come out. When he does, he's composed, but red-eyed; there's no mystery about how he'd spent his moments alone in there at the empty poolside. The masochistic draw of the situation had been too much temptation for him to just turn his back on so quickly. Every moment had been another opportunity for the monster to come back and try again, and he'd stood there, watching the water's surface through his tears, waiting for it. A slim hand rising for him from the depths. A vision of illusory blood pooling on the surface. If any of it had actually happened—he would have regretted playing chicken with a Siren instantly. He knew that. . . . But knowing it hadn't been enough to draw him away from the water. Only time had managed that.

He swipes his wrist over his eyes, embarrassed, but only faintly. It's not like Gawain hadn't already seen him at his worst in there.

Had he recognized him? He had, somehow, hadn't he? Or had Kadoc only assumed that in his addled state? He realizes now that he doesn't know. It had felt like the knight had been looking at him with knowing eyes back there, and it's not unreasonable to think he'd know, the way Gareth had known him on sight. But was that true, or just Kadoc projecting?

There's only one way to find out. It's also easier than actually responding to anything Gawain had just said, which is a bonus.]

. . . You know who I am. You at least know I know who you are. Right?

Indeed! A prisoner of my Master, and a free man here by his own right. Let us put the past behind us then - yes? Look forward to the future of what bestows us here, we have like minded purpose upon Avalon. There is no sense of us procuring old habits into this new life of ours.

[ Gawain can understand the depraved state of the other. He does not push upon it, nor does he feel it reasonable to talk about the past and warrant issue from their old lives. He treats this no less a separate summoning, and has been instructed in helping save his own world as well as the others. By participating in what he can here rightfully, as such he did not feel the need to hold past regards into new ones.

Especially since, in technicalities that was the truth in essence of a servant. To be summoned as a familiar, and used until their purpose were made redundant. He felt that to its core even upon this land here. ]

Are you able to walk? I did not wish to see you left alone, until I was certain you were better off than before.

I'm fine. . . . I was upset, not dying. I've somehow managed to live this long having been upset before.

[For that matter, he's also lived this long having died before, but that's a whole weird thing.

He bundles up in himself, hunched, watching Gawain warily; it isn't suspicion, precisely. Actually, he does believe Gawain. It's hard to distrust a speech like that coming from a grand figure like him, and it's not even the first time Kadoc's heard something similar here from a Servant of Chaldea. . . . From Gawain's own sister, which just makes it all the more believable. They're just like this, apparently, the both of them.

But still. He may believe, but Kadoc doesn't understand, and it's never easy for him to accept anything he doesn't understand. He watches Gawain like a hawk even though he doesn't particularly expect to see anything telling.]

. . . I don't get you. Gareth said the same shit to me, because of course she did. I don't get how you can just brush it off, either of you.

[ That... That earns an earnest chuckle where his chest heaves in great ways. As the warmth of the air seemingly fills with his hearty laughter. He cannot help but enjoy what the other says, is enamored by it and rightfully pleased. It is good to hear that his sister and himself truly are one in the same. It makes him smile happily, answering plainly with a merry sort of voice slipping past his lips. ]

Is it that we merely deal with what it is we are given, I believe that is more akin to our upbringing then anything else. That is to say, we value the future and what it can bring especially as it is. We have both seen what it is revenge, and ones own turmoil can bring.

[ Gawain offers the other a hand. ]

Allies then?

[For a moment Kadoc just looks at the extended hand, as if he might not take it. Way to leave the knight hanging! But it's not that he's above either of these things—a truce, or a handshake to seal the deal. He's experienced by now in both. And really, what other option is there? What's his plan here, to reject a truce with Gawain when he accepted one with Gareth? What would that lead to other than inevitable strife? He doesn't especially want to lose what he does have with Gareth, whatever that is, and he wants even less to create any kind of strife between the siblings. He's not worth that.

All the same . . . it's hard to accept a hand when it comes attached to that kind of warmth in Gawain's expression. Kadoc isn't worth that, either.

But what's he going to do? "I'll agree to a truce, but only if you don't like it too much?" Sheesh.

So at last he reaches out to take it, though he is cool himself, diffident. His handshake is the handshake of a man to whom they don't come naturally, but who knows theoretically what makes a handshake Good, and is trying despite his distaste.]

. . . At least a truce. Sure. I don't have much of a choice here anyway.

You always have a choice, Kadoc. Just know how I feel about disloyalty is all.

[ Gawain firmly grips the other after having said that, but it is a short one. Where the moment he lets go, it is certain that Kadoc is free to do as what was said. He is unaware of the mental Olympics the other goes through in order to understand the situation at hand. Instead, naturally seeing everything for what it were. Having no issue with Kadoc nor a need to have one thusly. ]

That said, let us be on our way?

Yeah. You don't need to tell me twice. I'd rather not hang around this place anymore.

[Some part of him is still waiting to hear "Anastasia's" cries start up again from the pools in the distance . . . probably not, but he can't turn off the high alert his brain is still on. Let's get out of here. He can still feel the pressure of Gawain's hand on him, as heavy as the illusion of choice: he could turn down a truce, sure, but in favor of what? He knows better. Know how I feel about disloyalty . . . sheesh.

But with that, he goes to trudge away, feeling the fatigue sink into his bones from the adrenaline ebbing away after this whole experience.]

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EVENT ✨ The Answer is Always C

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