Event Log: May, An Inauspicious Arrival

[faileas]

Event Log: May, An Inauspicious Arrival

I. Boaltinn (1st - 3rd) Boaltinn comes around again. A handful of Mirrorbound will remember the holiday from last year, but for others, it will be brand new. In both Residential Districts, bonfires burn in central locations through the night, frequented by the residents celebrating another summer come to Aefenglom. Curiously, while last year the bonfires seemed quite segregated by human or Monster, this year, there is more of a noticeable mix at each, and Mirrorbound are invited to join the games and festivities quite happily. Characters are invited to try and jump through the bonfire's flames to burn away any poor relationship experiences, be it romantic or platonic, past or present; to aid them in this, those at the Eastern Bonfire will give those participating rune-etched accessories to protect them from the fire. The city has quite a bit to offer for this holiday: shared rose baths at public bathhouses and pleasure establishments that increase feelings of friendliness and talkativeness, poles draped in ribbons meant to be danced around, wrapping a ribbon around the pole to bring good luck for the summer, food stalls whose offerings are meant to be shared, and fortune-telling set up by Divination students of the Coven, who can tell your day is going to go. To see last year's Boaltinn prompts, you can take a glance right here! Much of it, including the bonfires, baths, and entertainments will be similar this year, so feel free to use those in your top levels.

II. An Unusual Arrival (3rd on) A full year from the arrival of the first group of Mirrorbound, the 1st passes quietly, with no one showing up in the mirror-lined halls of the Looking-Glass House. Dates and times are important in most kinds of magic, and this is strange enough that some Witches of the Coven get together on the night of the 3rd to try a probing ritual, attempting to gather some kind of clues that could be useful in prying out the cottage's secrets. Boaltinn is the best time for such things, when the boundaries are thinner, and magic is stronger. Those who are awake that night at 3 am might notice a pulse of harmless silvery light that spreads like ripples on water throughout the whole city, originating at the Looking-Glass House, but nothing further happens, and the Coven receives no answers. Well, nothing happens in the Looking-Glass House. Before long, the reports start coming in: people are emerging from mirrors, regular old mundane mirrors, all over the city. Anything with a particularly reflective surface could be an entry point for someone from another world! Inhabited homes, businesses closed and locked for the night, pools of still water in fountains or the river, these unorthodox Mirrorbound pop up anywhere and everywhere, causing chaos for the City Guard (folks aren't happy to find strangers in their bathrooms at 3 in the morning) and the Coven both. Out of nowhere, a glint of light catches your eye; your heart thunders in your ears as your body moves on its own, your mind consumed with inspecting the source. Your reflection stares back at you, just as curious from the surface - a mirror, a pool of water, your most trusted sword, something fleeting that your mind can barely remember - then ripples at your touch. If you are one of these unfortunate arrivals, it's likely a rude awakening for you, to find yourself somewhere inconvenient, somewhere other than where you've been. It only makes sense to be confused. Hopefully someone finds you and explains to you what's happened to you. Resident Mirrorbound will hear a message from Miss Nessie shortly after it begins, a call to arms: "Dears, I'm quite sorry to disturb you, but it seems your fellows are arriving elsewhere than the Looking-Glass House this month! We're trying to track them all down for the usual welcome, but we could use a hand or several! If you could just bring them by the Coven, the usual spot, that would be lovely." She'll give her usual orientation and pass out Watches, but no doubt the Mirrorbound will be more helpful in this regard, with so many arriving.

III. The Goblin Market (All Month) Life goes on in Aefenglom, despite the addition of so many new residents. With the City Guard decidedly busy dealing with the sudden flood of break-ins (or, more accurately, break-outs?), the vendors of the Goblin Market find opportunity to set up their stalls more openly than they have since the crack-downs some months ago. They pop up all over the city, but clustered more often in the Residential Districts and the Harbor District, where there are even fewer law enforcement agents out and about to run them off. These sellers, while not as devoid of morals as those major players of the Black Market, still have very few compunctions when it comes to lying, cheating, fencing stolen goods, and misrepresenting their wares to unsuspecting buyers. It's also the place to find those things that are- not quite legal, shall we say. They won't say a word if you don't. If confronted, they are quick to pack up their things and slip away, however; they know this city and its hiding places a lot better than you do. With a brand new batch of what the natives assume are Mirrorbound, many undergoing rapid transformations into their Monster forms, many of the wares on display are potions: supposed cure-alls for aches and itches, calming draughts for the full moon restlessness, some even claim their brews can halt changes entirely! Some concoctions are meant to increase a Witch's magical ability, or decrease it, or provide them a finer control. They offer potions that they say will eliminate the need for a Bond, or temporary Bonding potions of their own that they claim are more pure, stronger, than the ones offered by the Coven. Claims are only claims, though. A few remedies for the pain of changing or some regular temporary Bonding potions can be found here and there, but for every potion that works, there are twenty more that have less than pleasant side effects. A brew that will cause everything you touch to turn to solid gold for up to an hour; a potion that will invert your sense of direction - trying to turn right will make you turn left, trying to go forward will cause you to walk backward; a potion that will remove all traction from your feet, causing you to slide around as if cobblestone are the slickest ice. Worse, some shadier vendors sell things more sinister, including a potion that gives you the appearance of being moderately to heavily infected by the Cwyld. Even if you don't drink any, the vendors are not at all careful where they're sloshing those bottles around, trying to show them off, and they all activate on skin contact.

IV. A Wilde Hunt (7th - 22nd) All Mirrorbound, temporary or not, are likely to feel it. Monsters are always affected by the full moons, but this month, it is more. Stronger. Instincts rise to the surface as the Sisters emerge full and visible in the night sky, and for many Mirrorbound, they are undergoing rapid transformations into whatever type of Monster they are meant to be. Curiously, the natives get along like they usually do, noticing nothing out of the norm, other than the increased agitation and restlessness from Mirrorbound Monsters. Monsters' aggression fades when the Sisters start to wane, but as the new moons approach on the 22nd, Mirrorbound Witches will notice their magical reserves overfilling, and will find themselves stricken with the overwhelming urge to use it, until casting spells, pushing one's magical limits, is almost a compulsion. Those who are not in proper Witch-Monster Bonds will feel it even stronger, with no stabilizing magic to consume (for Monsters) or avenues to expend magic (for Witches) other than casting spells. (For those who are interested, the Coven does offer temporary Bonding potions which can be used to help alleviate the effects somewhat.) The Coven Witches notice the signs, and they take decisive action on the morning of the 6th, the day before the full moons. So many Mirrorbound, likely to be so heavily affected by the lunar cycle this month, many of them coming into new features and abilities at a breakneck pace, only spells danger for the city. They barricade off a massive chunk of Wilde outside Aefenglom, largely free of Cwyld and totally bereft of farms, homes, and Wilder outposts. They invite anyone who feels the effects of the moons too strongly to control to come out for a Hunt. The hunting grounds will be open nightly to anyone who needs to work off restless energy or overflowing magic; all participants will be warned that their safety cannot be guaranteed from others, but they won't be able to harm bystanders out here. The woods are thick, with the river cutting through them, and full of wildlife. There is room to run and chase prey, or room to play with your developing magic. Play cat and mouse with your friends or Bondmates, or stalk a stranger. If playing games isn't your thing, there is something else to hunt out here as well. With the deep Wilde entering into Winter, this patch of land so close to the city is much warmer, and fearsome Shades have emerged to search for prey. These were once living beings, Monsters, Witches, or animals, who have been overtaken by Cwyld infection long ago, leaving them dead but for the infection, white-eyed and seeking out sources of magic to consume and infect. Anything could become a Shade, but the most common out right now are the ferocious remains of bears, wolves, and nomadic Arachne and Turnskins. If not killed, these Shades threaten the people of the Outer City, when they inevitably escape the barricade. Careful to limit your contact, though; anyone infected upon their return to the gates will be escorted straight to the infirmary.

Welcome to May's Fourth Wall event, An Inauspicious Arrival! The comms are now open to comments from all registered users and will be until June 1st. Current players, if you don't want fourth wall characters tagging your posts, just say so in your text. Fourth wall characters can use this post for their own network top-levels, or this post for log top levels. This event is game canon; threads from this fourth wall can be used as application samples later and current players may use these threads for AC. As always, be courteous to each other! Let the mod team know if there are any problems and we will handle things.

As always, please direct your questions to this thread!

Comments

<3

[headshaking]

[ ah, ah, really, this is how he goes to his end?! of all the ways to die, after everything he's done, to be drowned in a pond?! huaisang flails for a minute longer when he gets yanked up, reaching up to grab onto his strange savior's wrists in case he's going to be eaten.

.....and then he freezes, blinking back too, genuine surprise all over his face. ] ...Wei-xiong?

[ sure enough, from where he's being dangled, his toes touch the bottom of the pond, and he squeezes the wrists he's still loosely holding, brightening with the true realization that this is none other than the yiling patriarch himself. ] -- Wei-xiong!

[ lucky, lucky, what a savior...! ]

[weiward]

Nie-xiong! It really is you!

[he grins, recalling a scene similar to this one. one taken straight from their younger days in gusu, when nie huiasang almost perished in even less water. hopefully there's no threepete, but just in case-]

...Remind me to teach you how to swim. Come on.

[he lets him hold his wrists, guiding him over to the bank and then helping him out of the water. it's the robes that are really to blame, more than twice as heavy after soaking up so much water. wei wuxian brushes at them, trying to get some of the water out even if he knows the effort is futile.]

Is this always what you wore? [his memory's bad, but he doesn't think it's that bad.] Whatever, I can't believe I get to see you again too!

[headshaking]

[ "is this always what you wore"? he glances down at himself briefly after wei wuxian has helped him out. nie huaisang is dressed in his usual colors, greenish gray and gold, the nie sect leader emblem hairpiece wrapped around his (now very wet and kind of flat) bun, white ribbon sticking to his back. ] ...yes...? [ he thinks?

maybe wei wuxian remembers him as younger than he is, or something? could that be possible? has he hit his head? there are way too many questions for nie huaisang, who tends to be a logical guy (despite every helpful assumption otherwise), and he's still soaking wet and too confused to think about it too much.

eventually, he too gives up on trying to get himself dry, and starts to remove the top layer coat, pulling it sticky off of of himself. it's not like he goes swimming in qinghe nie often... it's cold up in the mountains, and he's rare to wear something that's not thick. unfortunate. huaisang starts to shake the heavy garment out, trying in vain to save it, and then just straight gives up, looking at wei wuxian to actually start asking. maybe he knows.... ] ....Wei-xiong, where am I? What's going on? I was traveling back to Qingghe Nie and I woke up in a pond?

[ for once, truly honest about not knowing a single thing..... ]

[weiward]

You should've come through one of the mirrors. I guess something really did go wrong this time.

[wei wuxian's busy stripping down, peeling out of as many of his own soaked and heavy layers as he can. which inevitably reveals the wet white fur along his arms that was covered up by those dark robes. Like about half the population who comes here, wei wuxian has gone through some...changes. if the golden eyes didn't already give him away.

he seems oblivious to it though, mind elsewhere. guess it's up to him to give the usual 'welcome' speech. damn, he really should've paid more attention at his.]

You're in Aefenglom. We've been pulled here to help this world. You'll probably feel a little different, one way or the other...

[wei wuxian trails off thoughtfully before he starts circling huaisang, looking him up and down in what is a clear inspection.]

No wings, no fangs. Eh, Nie-xiong, are you hiding a tail under there? Let me see.

[what's a little backside peek between old friends?]

[headshaking]

[ nie huaisang misses every single thing wei wuxian is saying towards an actual explanation, because he is absolutely staring at the fur on his arms. he has fur on his arms? why does wei wuxian have fur on his arms? that looks so soft. is it from a rabbit? is it--

oh, he's circling him. huaisang makes a surprised noise, his cheeks pinkening, drawing his hands up to his chest like a precious little maiden, whining: ] Wah--Wei-xiong! Why would I have a tail?! I just saw you a few days ago and I didn't have one then! Where are you looking, exactly!!

[ embarrassing...!! ]

[weiward]

[and it's a very convincing maiden act! really adorable!

but wei wuxian has seen your porn collection, you little deviant.]

Because everyone who arrives here becomes either a witch or a monster, and a lot of monsters have tails. Mine hasn't come in yet.

[he doesn't actually look, but he does give him a little pat and - nope, nothing back there that shouldn't be there.]

I guess you're a witch. [he grins at him again.] Nie-xiong, that might be true for you. But I've been here for months. Even your brother has been here for awhile.

[headshaking]

[ i don't, really, really don't know what you're talking about ♪

anyhow. witches, monsters... strange.... nie huaisang takes the moment when wei wuxian stops inspecting him to peek backwards worriedly, like he might have just sprouted a tail. he's still half listening, but the very last phrase nearly makes him drop every act he's ever put on his life.

huaisang's head snaps up. ] What? [ his brother? ]

[ perhaps whats sad is that the idea that it's his brother, live and in the flesh, doesn't even occur to him. he immediately thinks of the fierce corpse, now finally laid to rest. frankly, that's just as concerning. if wei wuxian has been here for months, does that mean he remembers that entire fiasco? does he know that the fierce corpse that has been rampaging belongs to nie mingjue? does he know what guangyao's done? what huaisang has done? he can't ask any of these questions because they'd give him away, and he settles, instead, with a stunned: ] My brother....?

[ because he's going to need a lot more details than that, and stat. ]

[weiward]

Ah-

[wei wuxian's smile drops at the sharpness of nie huaisang's reaction. right. he's gotten used to more than just monsters and witches in this place, but also the fact that the dead can make an appearance. not the way that notes from his flute can return them either, but whole and truly alive.]

Yes. [his voice is more sober now.] Chifeng-zun is here. You probably want to see him right away, but before you do, I should warn you that he has gone through some changes.

[like a tail...he thinks. nei mingjue seems to be made out of a lot of parts these days.]