hugtopia_logs | ♥ September Event Log

Entry tags:

♥ 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

And were their choices influenced by these Astrals' wills? Tempering is an insidious thing, and not always apparent, even to the Tempered.

...Perhaps it’s simplest to give an example. The plague which was wrought in the wake of the Astral War—it was named ‘Starscourge’, for that was precisely what it did. A terrible darkness which twisted living creatures into bloodthirsty monsters, spawned from the dark of night itself and repulsed by the light of dawn. To a line of mortals was a holy Crystal entrusted, and one man of that line was blessed with the divine power to heal the plague from those it afflicted. He could save those who were otherwise beyond salvation, tasked by the Draconian to cleanse the shadow over our star.

‘Twas of naught but his own will did that healer work; though he wished the gods’ desire be done, it was for the people that he worked. To save them and only to save them; not for fame, not because Bahamut had ordered it of him. The people were suffering, and he could stop that; there was no greater reason than that.

How do you know this Crystal did not influence the divine healer? To have chosen that man because his nature aligned with its own, that it need not actively exert its will upon him...

[Some formless anger twisted in Ardyn’s head at that, a malice that he could recognize as something not himself and yet his entire existence. The same kind of instinctual fury that had utterly overtaken him when—]

Because it rejected him, in the end.

[He had control over it this time, and somehow that was cold comfort.]

The Crystal deemed the healer unworthy and cast him down when it was decided another would instead take his place.

[ That... It brings some manner of relief to her, visible in her posture and audible in her voice. ]

...Then it is not Mother.

[well geez someone has to be happy i guess]

... ‘Mother’?

Hydaelyn, the Mothercrystal. She is Mother to the world, and mother to me.

[you know what, sure. he’s heard weirder shit lately.]

No—our Crystal was granted to humanity by the Draconian, and through it do the gods speak with the Oracle. The Six do nothing to bend the will of mankind as you describe, and nowhere in the legends are the names of Hydaelyn or Zodiark.

Legends and history are fallible things, likely to be missing important details. Where did the Draconian come by this Crystal? Where are the missing Astrals? For there must be at least one other hidden away in your world somewhere and aspected to wind, if your Bahamut is aspected to Light.

[ She offers a small, uncomfortable shrug. ]

It sounds to me as though the Draconian does indeed bend the wills of humanity, albeit not by stealing away their minds. [ She would gladly kill him, she thinks. ] Treating mortals as playthings is unconscionable.

The others fell into slumber following the war, so the stories say.

[Ardyn frowned sharply, looking off to the side.]

You’re the second to say that Bahamut’s intent was more than he presented. I...can’t allow myself to believe such a thing. It can’t possibly be true.

They are as gods, Ardyn. They are not wont to present their whole and honest intents to us lesser beings. Even ones who love mortals would not be inclined to share all with us — just what they believe we need to know.

Even so...that can’t be true. Surely that healer’s faith was not worthless, no matter how unworthy he became.

Faith is... [ A complicated thing. So very complicated. She sighs, small and soft. ] It is never worthless. Misplaced at times, perhaps, but never without worth. Did his faith not prompt him to seek out those in need? Did he not aid others, bringing them hope in an unforgiving world?

[ Era tugs on the thin chain around her neck, pulling up a small, intricately carved whistle.

She blows on it, long and drawn out, until a small wisp of light forms. After a brief moment it solidifies into the white weasel she so often keeps on her person, landing delicately on her shoulder. It offers an innate comfort to her, and she wonders if it may offer the same to this man of twisted Darkness.

Nothing for it but to try, and Era holds out her arm for the weasel to run along, high enough that it need make only a rudimentary jump from her hand to land upon Ardyn's shoulder.

Immediately she shivers, a deep-rooted feeling of discomfort stirring in her breast, counterbalanced by the feeling of soothing relief his aura brings. ]

Your worth is not defined by the whims of a fickle god, Ardyn.

[Ardyn watched in confusion as Era pulled out the whistle, only more perplexed as she conjured up a weasel. He went tense as it leapt to his shoulder, making a very concentrated effort not to move and accidentally cast it off no matter how unsettled he was by the contact.]

...I don’t claim to truly comprehend what darkness is to you. But in our realm, it makes me an inhuman monster. The word of the gods is mere confirmation of the obvious truth.

Darkness is neither good nor evil. The same can be said of Light. Both are capable of wondrous things and horrible atrocities; corruption that most will blessedly never see in their lifetimes.

[ The weasel, Ardbert, sprawls carefully across Ardyn's shoulder, draping itself in such a way that it cannot be jostled free too easily. It radiates a soft, warm, golden glow; a gentle beacon within their immediate area. ]

You are not Darkness — you contain it, but it is not what you are. Not yet, and not so long as you fight against its influence. Hold tight to your humanity, Ardyn. Do not give it up so easily.

...You’re wrong. It’s nothing remotely similar—the Starscourge is nothing but death and destruction incarnate. It’s capable of nothing but endless pain.

That healer died countless centuries ago. I’ve no humanity left.

The Thirteenth shard was a world that became engulfed by Darkness, turning all life upon it into malformed beasts who craved naught but aether. They feasted on whatever living thing was unlucky enough to survive, then fed upon each other. They are called Voidsent, not daemons. Some are more powerful than others, though none can recall the lives they lived before. Their humanity had long since been twisted away by the primordial Darkness that eroded their souls.

The First nearly suffered a similar fate, though it was a flood of Light, not Darkness, that corrupted the world. Ninety percent of it is a wasteland of white even now, after I took so much Light within myself. Sin Eaters still roam the lands, never having regained their humanity. They still hunger for living aether, though the world is safe from destruction for now and may begin to heal.

The Thirteenth was in need of Light, and the First in need of Darkness.

It is all relative to each other, Ardyn. Darkness may be causing harm to your world, but it is not inherently evil — it is imbalance that twists it into a corrupting element. If the Starscourge were of Light it would have the same result, just a different elemental alignment.

[ She frowns, unsure of what she can say. She has never been gifted with words, and speaking at such length is strenuous, but there is such pain contained in this man, not simply Darkness. She wishes she could ease some of it. ]

Do you desire to be the monster you claim you are?

And were it of light I would be no less inhuman.

[The answer came out bitter and sharp, Ardyn folding his arms and quickly trying to collect himself.]

...It no longer matters what I desire, if anything. I simply am one, and there is no helping or changing such a fact.

[ Very rarely are there moments when Era curses her height, but once he says those words it becomes one of those rare moments. She takes a step closer, straightens her spine, rises to the very tips of her toes, and stretches out until her fingers reach his jawline.

It is — It's more uncomfortable to her than the sensation of her dream guide upon his shoulder. Touch is... Era tends to avoid it unless necessary, but it seems necessary now.

Ardbert takes this opportunity to return to its summoner, curling around her neck and bolstering her courage. Era stares up at him, expression one of stubborn determination. ]

Do you think me a monster?

...

[Stubborn and forward. It was familiar--too familiar, in a way that felt like a knife to his heart. It was't fair, none of it was. It should have been her standing here instead of Ardyn, should have been him who died that day instead.]

...no.

Then you cannot say that of yourself.

[ She withdraws quickly after that, wrapping her arms loosely around herself. This time she does not look at him when she speaks, but her words are no less meaningful for it. ]

You're as human as you let yourself be, Ardyn.

...I'm not like you.

[He drew back as well, scarred hands held close to his chest and looking like he wanted to vanish into thin air. (He did, and would have done exactly that had he any ability to concentrate.) Ardyn shook his head, also not looking directly at Era.]

I'm nothing like you or her or anyone. You of all people with the ability to see how twisted I truly am--how can you not understand this? I am nothing, an unworthy monster of no use to anyone and discarded as such.

You are but a flickering shadow in candlelight compared to the hulking Darkness that is Emet-Selch, and however monstrous he can be he is not a monster.

[ Her tail lashes irritably behind her. ]

You are Dark-tainted, but are far from corrupted by it. The most twisted thing about you is your inability to see your own worth. You are the one that decides what you are. Will you resign yourself to perceived worthlessness, or will you rise up to find new purpose?

What will you be, Ardyn Lucis Caelum?

I have no purpose. I exist in a world and time that have long since left me behind; any desires I once had are long in the past, and I've nothing left to me.

Why should I even try?

Because you are alive, whether you like it or not! Because to give up is to sully the memories of those who loved you! [ Her voice cracks, failing her briefly, and she pauses for a breath to find her voice once again before continuing more quietly but no less fervently: ] If you've no purpose then give yourself one.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject