♥ September Event Log

[hugtopiamods]

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...

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❥ PROMPT I: Robot Crossing

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:

1. 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.
   
2. 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.
   
3. 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

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.

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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!

Comments

Re: Paint by Number

[prince_yu]

"I see," he says mildly. So she's an orphan to begin with. Still, it seems unusually cruel for the powers that be here to bring in a child separate from the person who would typically care for them.

[morality_pet]

"Rin's used to being by herself." She assures him. "And Miss Aqua is very kind! But Miss Aqua is helping someone else with the fireworks right now."

Hence Rin looking for alternative people.

[prince_yu]

Well, that explains why she's on her own at the moment. He supposes that makes sense enough. This whole firework phenomenon certainly is a spectacle.

"And you'd like me to assist you with them as well?" Why him? But he doesn't have much reason to argue, all told.

[morality_pet]

She nods earnestly.

"Please? If you aren't busy."

Because he doesn't look like he'd hit her~

[prince_yu]

Jinghuan cannot claim to be especially kind, but he would be baffled by the idea of hitting a young girl. And he is, in fact, not busy. He replies with a slight nod.

"You're in luck that I don't have anything better to be doing."

[morality_pet]

In Rin's experience, lords tend to fall into aloof and mostly kind, loud and brash but mostly kind, and loud and brash and prone to hitting poor people like her. So clearly somewhat aloof is the safest personality trait!

"Thank you very much! Might Rin know your name?"

[prince_yu]

"Ah." He hadn't even quite realised that he hadn't introduced himself. His sense of etiquette seems increasingly thrown off here, and all the moreso speaking to a child. Where he came from, he can't imagine a girl suddenly grabbing hold of him like that without someone immediately showing up to apologise for her behavior, and even then, he was hardly ever around children at all.

And yet here he is indulging her. Why is that, exactly?

"It is Jinghuan Xiao."

[morality_pet]

Because clearly he is nice~

She bows politely at the introduction. "Nice to meet you, Lord Jinghuan Xiao. Oh, oh, you are from the Continent! Rin is from the Islands of Nihon!"

[prince_yu]

He blinks. Of all things he didn't expect, this girl being the first person who might be somewhat familiar with his homeland tops the list. The name Nihon isn't familiar to him, though he does know that the people who inhabit the islands out to the east speak a different language, so maybe that is simply their word. Perhaps she really is from the same world as him, even if a different part of it?

"I come from Da Liang. The capital city of Jinling, to be specific. Are you familiar with it?"

[morality_pet]

She shakes her head with an apologetic mou.

"Sorry. Rin's never left the country. But Lord Sesshoumaru's Father once fought youkai from the Continent, so Rin knows things are different there."

She's heard of China. She just has no idea about anything else about it.

[prince_yu]

Youkai. That's another word he doesn't know. It's hard to tell whether she truly means his country or not; and if so, it's possible that her lord's father was an enemy of theirs. Still, the things she says are the closest to familiar that he's heard since he arrived here. It's comforting, in a way.

"It would probably be more strange if you had been there," he admits. "I have not been to your country, either."

[morality_pet]

She nods. "Rin thinks, only the very rich merchants travel between places. Youkai don't count coz they're magic. But the youkai that Lord Sesshoumaru's Father fought were running from a war, the stories said, a big war all over the continent."