EVENT ✨ The Answer is Always C

[avalonmods]

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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.

Comments

[raveyardpatriarch]

He's starting to think that he's not the more confused of the two of them, here, and that's the saddest thing. It's hypothetical, and then it isn't, and it's just people telling wild stories, but also he may be being tricked, or mistaken? There's clearly some gap between her ideas where they can't quite knit their edges, a mess of true versus consequential, both or neither, that people are wrong but also he deserves the chance to be wrong himself. It is true that she's a tiefling, it is true she uses magic, and it is apparently true that some people take issue with those facts--is he supposed to have adopted these ideas too just by hearing them, or have come up with it on his own? Is this kind of ingrained thought why she never wants to just lie about things just because no one will know the difference? Must be weird. He shakes his head, less a refusal and more like there might be water in his ears stopping him from hearing and understanding properly.

"I don't think anyone would disagree that I'm too quick to say things, but I didn't make any mistakes. If I said it didn't matter without knowing whether or not any of it was true, why would it then matter with knowing more? Wouldn't that make me the liar here?" This little oration is picked through carefully in some parts, and delivered fast and with a flash of an easy smile in others. But he's said as much already, and it didn't seem to stick, so he takes another tack, giving her the most incredulous look. Surely if anyone knows better than to accept things without testing them, it's her-- he just has to lead her to it.

"Besides, is something really true just because enough people think it? Wouldn't I still need to find out for myself?"

[sulit]

It's good that at least one of them is picking up her internal conflict because Klaudia certainly seems to be struggling with that on her own, caught between what she wants and feels is justified and what she worries others might assume. Can an "It doesn't matter" ever really be true if he doesn't know what sorts of things he's tossing aside? Can she trust that he knows what he's saying if she doesn't illuminate all of the possibilities? Maybe there's a situation that he hasn't thought of or hasn't included because he doesn't think it applies. Or other stipulations or conditions that he thought didn't need to be said. Wouldn't he feel like he was being deceived if she didn't make sure they were on the same page?

It feels reasonable when she thinks about it like that, but when he asks if that would make him a liar, she balks a little at the thought. Would that make him the liar? She doesn't think of him as one, certainly. He seems very honest to her, and she doesn't want to imply otherwise. But that would mean that those things really didn't matter to him--that it wouldn't matter regardless of how much context she gave him, and she finds that so hard to believe. At the very least, her being a tiefling and what that means has always mattered... save for the only place where it hadn't.

There's a visible discomfort in the way she fidgets with his questions, trying to work out the logic in a way that doesn't run itself in a circle. She looks at a loss with how to respond for more than a few seconds, partly because she's still trying to make this piece feel reasonable again, and partly because she's embarrassed to realize that she's arguing a point she doesn't even like or agree with.

"It's not true just because people think it's true," she concedes because that's the easiest place to start. She can't rightfully argue otherwise, when just the thought makes her both angry and ill. "And I don't think you're a liar. But it wouldn't really be lying, would it? I mean, if there's something that you would have objected to, but you thought it wasn't included, that's not lying... right?" She sounds more uncertain of that conclusion than she did a moment ago, but continues regardless. "And it would look like I was trying to hide it from you, if I didn't fully explain it... wouldn't it? It wouldn't matter if it was true or not, then."

[raveyardpatriarch]

She can have all the time to work it through that she needs, Wei Wuxian has become very invested in this as much as any cultivation debate, and wants to dig out an understanding if there is one to be had. Klaudia doesn't have a monopoly on persistence, at least while Wei Wuxian is in town, and it's no different than the patience of letting Lan Zhan formulate his thoughts into stodgy words. It would be nice if this were a silly hypothetical about bone ghosts attached to kites or a morality question about rabbits, much nicer than the obvious discomfort she feels sifting through the whys and wherefores of how society views her and how that reflects in how she views herself. It isn't like he loves seriousness, or seeing her upset. But it's important, and she still hasn't quite understood him, though she's coming around, maybe.

He nods at the concession, compassion hopefully outweighing the irritating smugness. Hanguang-jun wouldn't steer someone wrong about the importance of forming your own opinions. Wouldn't be wrong about that person's receptiveness to learning. And he certainly suspects she has no qualms about going against the grain where necessary. So is it even really smug vindication if it's regarding her strength of character, as a known quality? Who could say. But surely she's close to being able to accept or at least allow that he meant what he said. The cracks are already there and just need a little more agitating, which he may be able to provide.

"If there's something I would have objected to, and I don't tell you, then how could it be that you're hiding something? How could I say it doesn't matter and not be lying?" He levels her with a mock-unimpressed look. Do they really have to argue about who is being dishonest like it's a contest? "If you really did something wrong, that wouldn't have been the way to right it. And if you didn't, then it definitely wouldn't. So either way, it's wrong. And either way, I don't want to see my friend mistreated by a bunch of wild animals. So what could you tell me or not tell me that would make a difference?" He gestures with both hands, as if inviting her to try again and find a way out of it, which he notably does not give her the chance to do. There's a time limit on sincerity.

"I tried to fix the thing I could see." This is awkward, and he shouldn't even have to talk about it, it's going to ruin his image. Klaudia is going to owe him lunch for this for sure, which is all that lets him push on. "If you did something terrible, would I fix that by letting another terrible thing happen?" Surely now she gets it. Also, the time limit is up, so he wags a finger at her and adds, "And you did say no murder."

[sulit]

For what it's worth, Klaudia does try to formulate her end of the argument. If there was something that he objected to and he didn't tell her... It would make sense to think that he was the one hiding something. But in that case, who would actually be at fault for the misunderstanding? Him for not telling? Her for not explaining? Objectively speaking, whose responsibility did that fall to?

In the end, maybe she's trying to be too objective about it. It certainly starts to feel that way, when he mentions not wanting to see his friend mistreated. There's a spark of something warm in her chest, something that she can understand and agree with. Regardless of who was at fault for what did and didn't get said, she wouldn't want to see a friend mistreated either. In that situation, maybe she could see how one could say that it didn't matter and mean it without any stipulations being held back. If their situations were reversed, she wouldn't care what he'd done. He's still her friend regardless.

She lets him finish, though she begins to nod or shake her head in agreement with him as he goes--the wag of his finger getting a more bashful response out of her. She feels a little bit like she's being teased, but it lifts her spirits for the familiarity of it, and she smiles a little. "I did say that. That's one of the rules."