hugtopia_logs | ♥ September Event Log

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♥ September Event Log

a wide green pasture at dusk with a red-leafed tree in the foreground

September (Ohnir) Event Log
Ohnir is in full swing now and the weather, while still boasting hot days, is starting to cool slightly at night. The residents are recovering after the lightning storms from the previous month and, curiously, most of the robots that had been damaged in the storms are back. They don't look the same as before, but they seem to act the same, still happy, still thankful that the offworlders are here. A few even thank those who carried their bodies to the temples with small gifts of painted stones. Havenwell continues as it always has and welcomes their new arrivals with a few rather odd changes...

❥ PROMPT I: Robot Crossing

a farmer holding a bountiful box of vegetables

Now that all the new and old arrivals have mingled and met, the robotic natives start pointing everyone toward the VR cafes. The bright lights and cozy insides have been decorated with fake leaves and carved and painted plaster approximations of fruits and vegetables in odd colors. When an offworlder comes in, they explain that back when they were still in their flesh bodies, the month of Ohnir was one for harvest and celebrations of the summer bounties. Now, without any real farms or need to eat, they've translated the Harvest Festival into a game, so why not play?

Logging in with another character will net you a little farm and a variety of games to choose from:

Pick and harvest as many Aellyn vegetables and fruits as you can before the timer runs out! The more you pick, the better your score. Work together with your partner to clear the field in any way you can. Strangely, once you finish clearing a tree or a field row of their bounty, they seem to magically refill when you turn your back. Oh well, at least you won't run out before the timer hits zero and with the sheer number of levels and combinations of trees and fields with obstacles in your way to make harvesting a little more challenging with each new level, you certainly won't be running out of things to do.
With a partner, use the giant slingshot to launch comically large fruits into a garden patch of other colored fruits. Match a line of 3 or more similarly shaped fruits to clear it from the field. The more fruits you can clear, the higher your score - aka welcome to Fruit Crush. Stack lines of 6 or more to get shining clear diamond fruits that clear the entire row and snag yourself some bonus points.
You and your partner(s) are given a magical golden pumpkin and it's your job to grow it into the largest pumpkin possible. Why? There's a county fair of course and the largest pumpkin wins! But how do you grow this pumpkin? Well, there are a lot of methods! You could gather up materials and work together to stick it to the pumpkin until it absorbs them and grows. You could do a song and dance routine together to encourage the pumpkin's soul to grow big and bright. You could hold hands and share stories and entertain the pumpkin until it feels encouraged enough to grow on its own. The possibilities are endless, so get to work making the best pumpkin that (digital) fair has ever seen!

As always, when playing the game, the picture and quality seems to increase as long as you're in contact with another person. Once the games are over and your scores tallied, the cafe attendant walks over and asks to see your communicators. To the winners, he or she attaches a little floating charm in the shape of one of Aellyn's weirder fruits. It looks like a cross between a blue rambutan and the hala aka puhala fruit, and it's called the sikheen fruit here. The sikheen are extremely rare nowadays, but their appearance is so unique that Havenwell residents still like to remember it for the Harvest Festival. Enjoy your prize!

❥ PROMPT II: Paint by Number

The new arrivals get to enjoy Havenwell in all its glory for about a week before suddenly, one day everyone wakes up to find the entire city has gone gray. And not a natural, nice gray either, but a strange dull, lifeless gray. Everything from the sky to the houses to the grass to the native people have all turned the exact same shade of graphite gray. Even the natives are confused and the devout flock to the temples while the science-minded head to the labs to study this new phenomenon. The only ones who seem spared from this strange color drain are the offworlders and the statues of the gods in the center of town. Or, well, at least most of the offworlders are spared. A few people might notice that their colors aren't as bright as they once were, or that parts of them are starting to turn gray as well. Those offworlders unlucky enough to lose some of their own can touch another player character to regain what was lost easily enough. Overall though, no one seems harmed by this sudden loss of color, but they're certainly perplexed.

A few days later and round silver platforms start showing up around the city, dragged out of storage by the natives. The first arrivals might remember these as the fireworks platforms that are activated by people standing and holding hands on them. The temple priests and scientists encourage the offworlders to stand on the platforms again and to hold hands or engage in some other sort of physical contact on them and wait.

When characters do as asked, the platforms shoot fireworks like they did before - in brilliant colors instead of the dull gray everywhere. And wherever the sparks fall, color starts returning to the world in splotches. The natives are overjoyed and move the platforms all across the city, asking the offworlders to find and use them wherever possible to return the color to their town.

❥ PROMPT III: Sharing is Caring

a book open with images and words popping out

Ohma's temple is particularly lively during Ohnir and the priests are busy cleaning and sweeping, decorating it with rolls of parchment and digital inkwells and quills that write as if they were actually fountain pens. The natives, especially adherents of Ohma, start to make pilgrimages to the temple in little processions, some playing music, others flying banners. It would probably be far more impressive if the colors weren't still so gray and splotchy, but they're trying their best.

Anyone who chooses to follow can observe the natives going up to the altar and sharing stories with one another. They talk about things they did over the past year or things that are far, far in their past. Some of the stories are happy and result in the procession laughing and some are...well, not everyone came back from the lightning storms. The priests diligently write every story down on those parchment rolls and deposit them onto the waiting altar, where they're summarily lit on fire to the cheers of those present. The more emotional the story it seems, the brighter and bluer the flame that it emits and the louder the procession cheers.

As the file out, they notice you watching and urge you to go up with someone else in the temple to clear your heart and offer up your own stories. They can be stories of home, information about your worlds, or stories about your life. It seems the more personal the story, the brighter the flame though and the more Dora that will mysteriously show up in your account at a later date. If the priests are asked about this donation later, they're just as perplexed. No one they know would have paid anyone for an offering to Ohma, so where could it have come from....?

❥ PROMPT IV: Sleep Sweet

With Ainea's temple familiars finally back where they belong, quiet returns to the city at night. We're sure that first long uninterrupted sleep felt heavenly, right? Although there may not be color in the city, the world of dreams at least is fully technicolor and safe. Which might be weird for some characters in case they don't normally dream or remember their dreams because now everyone is dreaming at night. Most of the dreams are the usual variety that your character always has, but every so often in the midst of a pleasant dream about home or a funky one about flying pizza (whatever it is you usually dream about, we don't judge), there's a glitch.

Out of the corner of your eye or just on the edge of your vision, a person appears. Their face can't be seen and their arms are longer than they have any right to be, but they appear and stand there, watching. Trying to focus on this person causes them to flit away and it's easy enough to dismiss as a random event, until it keeps happening. And it keeps happening, and it keeps happening, and every time you see this person, they get closer and even less distinct. Waking up and talking to or holding someone might help calm that disquiet in your heart, offworlder, so hopefully there's someone around to help you.

This event will run from September 16th to September 30th. Click on each prompt's title to see the text. If you have any questions, feel free to direct them to the FAQ or to the Mod Question thread on the OOC Entry.

Feel free to also use the OOC Plotting Post for planning what your character is up to!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[He jumped slightly at the flash of blue out of the corner of his eye, tense and startled before he could correct his racing mind that this was still not, in fact, his brother.]

...Evening.

[His own greeting was a little clipped as he forced himself to relax, however slightly.]

Hey.

[He turns around to sit on the edge of the building, legs dangling, and peers out towards the city, wherever Ardyn's gaze had been aimed.]

...Kinda expected the view to be better, with how you were staring at it.

[STILL LOOKS GREY AND SHITTY LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE]

My view has been very little for much too long. Color means little, when it is still so much more vivid in other respects.

[Ardyn being weird As Usual. He's sort of grown to expect that by now, at least.]

What's a view you miss the most from home?

[A long, thoughtful silence--it was hard to pin down any one thing. He missed all of it, even the most barren expanses of dry lands just past the capital. But upon reflection, if he had to pick...]

There was a field of red sylleblossoms that used to grow in the castle courtyard. It isn't much, but...I think I miss that quite a bit.

Red...? I didn't know they could be that colour. I've only ever seen the blue ones, back in Tenebrae.

[There'd been a few scattered here and there around Lucis, and of course there was whatever Luna had sent him through Umbra. But they'd always been blue.]

There's no field outside the Citadel these days, either.

Red was the more common color--blue was rarer, and every so often you might stumble across a white one. It's not startling that such a thing would shift over time...particularly if the kingdom were to decide the color itself were some manner of ill omen.

[He sighed after reaching that conclusion, shaking his head.]

...Bit of a shame, really. The red ones were lovely.

I don't remember ever hearing about that kind of thing. Maybe it happened so long ago that nobody knows about them.

[At least, it isn't something he witnessed during his journey, or read in any books. That's something that Luna would know, more likely than him.]

House Fleuret's grounds were covered in the blue ones. I saw a whole field of them- there were so many, Luna used to wheel me out there every day so we could water a patch of them at a time.

[His tone is quiet, nostalgic as he thinks of it. He'd asked her if his chair would hurt the flowers, but she'd only smiled, said that the weight of a prince isn't too much for them to bear. He'd had so many anxieties about his wound back then, especially with what she'd told him of his own destiny, so her words had reassured him a great deal.]

[He raised an eyebrow at the phrasing, but didn’t question it. If Noctis wanted to clarify, that was for him to do.]

I’ve never been. [Ardyn shrugged, lying back on the roof and folding his arms behind his head.] ...Aera occasionally spoke of her homeland overseas; she came to Lucis when we were all still young, after she had been named Oracle and gifted a divine trident. I think that’s where Tenebrae is, if I remember the modern map correctly.

[He absolutely does not! Actually, he realizes a bit too late that he may have overshared, but with Ardyn lying back out of view he just clamps his mouth shut for a moment. It's fine, it's fine.]

It must be. Far as I know, the line of the Oracles have always lived in Tenebrae. And Luna uses a trident to talk to the Astrals, too.

[It was, it seemed, easier for Ardyn to speak when he wasn't looking at Noctis either.]

I'd bet it's the very same one. At least I would imagine as much; weapons tend to endure far longer than some things.

[Funny how that works. What a mutually beneficial circumstance.]

Yeah, they're kinda built that way. Visiting the royal tombs for the Arms taught me that much.

[Dead bodies and cold stone, each guarding an unbreaking blade. Each one long outlasting the ruler who wielded it.]

[Ardyn stared up at the sky in silence for a moment or two, considering if the words lying heavy in his throat were worth speaking. Curiosity, as it often did, eventually won out:]

Do you-...is my brother's sword still around?

It's... around, yeah.

[Noctis hesitates, not sure he wants to play all his cards just yet, but his own curiosity gets the better of him as well. He shifts away from the ledge enough to turn and face Ardyn so he can watch the man's expression as he holds a hand out and summons the Blade of the Mystic into it, so the sword rests vertically across his lap, unthreatening but all the details visible for the other man to see.

If Ardyn really is who he claims to be, he ought to know it, right? In a way, it's his way of testing that.]

[Ardyn slowly sat up at the brief flash of magic, pushing violet hair from his face and looking to the blade with something equal parts apprehensive and...almost wistful.]

[If the distant look alone didn't prove it, Ardyn went a step further; his own hand moved, and in a flash of red did his own scarlet twin of the sword manifest lying in just the same unthreatening way.]

The Yaksha and Rakshasa Blades. They were forged together and gifted to us by our parents when we were younger even than you are.

At least I...I think they were. My memory isn't...quite what it once was.

[Whoa... never seen that sword before. Or rather, he has- just not in that colour. Noctis can't help staring at it, taking in the identical details one by one. It's pretty definitive proof, whether he likes it or not.

He glances down, brushing a hand over the detailed hilt of his own blade. He shouldn't keep it out too long, considering the strain that each of the Arms place on his body, but something about Ardyn's expression makes him reluctant to dismiss it so quickly. The unease was expected, considering his reaction to seeing Noct more often than not, but that's not the only impression he's getting. That bit's the puzzle for him.]

I can't say if you're right or not, since I've never heard it called that before. But they're definitely twins, no matter how you look at them.

[Ardyn laughed softly--a bitter, brief sound as he lowered his gaze to his own sword. His hand was wrapped tightly around the hilt; not in any threat, but as if the sword itself was the only thing he had left in the world.]

[(It was.)]

...Of course he'd have changed its name. Having one half without the other would make no sense if he sought to eradicate my very memory as it sounds like he did. What do they call it now?

I can't speak for him, um, obviously. It's been a long time. I don't know if he's the one who changed it, though? All the Royal Arms are named after the king or queen who used them, for some... defining trait, I guess. Whatever they were known for when they were alive. If they called their weapon anything else, it isn't what gets passed on.

[He glances down at the sword again.]

This one's called the Blade of the Mystic, these days.

[That earned a raised eyebrow and otherwise flat look, wistful nostalgia giving way to the timeless look of ‘well that’s stupid isn’t it?’.]

The Mystic, honestly. He had as much talent with magic as the Infernian would with a snowball fight.

[That... actually gets Noctis fighting back a smile, the corners of his lips twitching in an upwards direction. Be strong, Noct, be strong!]

Sounds familiar...

[One more thing he has in common with Somnus, apparently. His skills with magic have never really been up to snuff- he preferred to prep the spells and hand them off to more capable hands, namely Ignis.]

I don't think it meant, like, magic-mystic. The stories say that he traveled around with the Oracle to purge the world of darkness, but chances are he just fought daemons. And the sword doesn't do any kind of fancy spells, either. People probably just didn't see the power of Lucis that often- it must've looked like magic, right?

[Well, okay, it's still magic. But not magic-magic. He's never considered warping or weapon-summoning to be magic, it's just something he can do. Spells are different.]

He had nothing to do with the Oracle's work.

[That came out a little too bitterly, Ardyn running a hand through his hair.]

...I suppose it must have. We were the only two with any such powers, and I didn't quite make a habit of pulling out my sword where it wasn't necessary.

[Noctis opens his mouth, then shuts it again, holding his tongue. There's no tactful way to retort that it would have been a different Oracle that he worked with, considering the long history of cooperation shared between their two families- but more importantly, considering that would be a reminder of the previous Oracle's death. And he really didn't want to start thinking about Oracles dying, again.

Instead he just lets it go. Not like he knows anything more detailed than the vague ancient legends passed down through the ages since it happened.]

...Do you hate him?

[He's asking before he even realizes, the words out before he can stop himself.]

...

[Ardyn didn't answer, but he didn't ignore the question either. Gold eyes drifted to the red greatsword, Ardyn prying a scarred hand from the hilt to rest lightly on the blade. He traced the silver patterns idly as he thought over his answer, trying to pin down just what he did feel at this point.]

I don't...know. Possibly--probably? I hate...what he's done and what he became. I curse myself for being too weak to stop him any number of times, and I blame him for Aera's death as much as I blame myself. Somnus took everything from me and delighted in the act--I can say that I hate the man who committed those acts without hesitation. Just looking at you who resembles him so sets me on edge and unsettles me in a way I can't describe.

But when it came down to a fight to the death in the throne room...I couldn't do it. Despite all of the atrocities he'd committed, despite how we'd drifted apart...I looked past our crossed blades and only saw my little brother. The child who was my second shadow, who I taught to warp across the courtyard. The teenager who demanded we settle our disputes over a chessboard. The prince who wanted to protect the kingdom.

...I should have killed him then and there, and Aera would have lived another day. But even had I the strength, I hadn't the heart to cut him down.

Edited (a word) 2019-09-29 03:22 (UTC)

[That's... a lot, but he's not sure what he'd expected when he asked the question. As soon as he asked he'd figured that was too personal a wound to be poking at, based on what little he already knows.

This, though. It's something he can work with. Clumsily, probably, because he still isn't quite sure what he feels or what he's supposed to feel about this whole arrangement, but... it is what it is. And he ought to try and make the most of it, one way or another.]

I... for what it's worth, I'm glad you didn't. I wouldn't exist if you'd done that. The Lucis I know probably wouldn't, either, and I know that's not your priority but... [He shrugs his shoulders.] There's a lot of people just trying to live there, outside of all this family drama going on in the background. They deserve better.

[His brows furrow, taking in the twin blades once more, the curves and the colours and the little details he'd never paid much attention to before now. Inscriptions and sigils, things that mean nothing to him but who knows what they might have conveyed to those who made them, or who wielded them in the past. There's still so much that he doesn't know about... everything.

With a flex of his wrist he dismisses the blade; keeping it out this long is already tiring him, and falling into stasis on the edge of a roof would be a fool's way to go. Once it's gone, though, he looks up at Ardyn properly.]

If that's what he built the kingdom on, then I want to rebuild it on something better than that. I don't know what that means yet, but it's on me to do it. So I guess... watch me, in the future. [He looks down again, a bit hastily.] That's all.

[Another long pause, Ardyn still staring at his own blade before dismissing it in turn. He ran a now-empty hand through his hair, taking a slow breath to steady himself and try to find the right words.]

I only...wanted to help. I had no desire for the throne, it was simply what the people asked of me. Somnus was the one so desperate to prove himself that he was blind to what would benefit the kingdom itself.

[...]

If you truly do mean that, then you'll prove a better monarch than either of us.

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