♥ 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

[thekingsshield]

Hm? Well, let's see...

[he takes a moment to count on his fingers.]

About... three or four months now? Sounds about right. But it's hard for me to tell sometimes. My world's sense of time runs kinda slow compared to other worlds.

[rewritten_history]

[While he isn't sure what a month is in this man's time, or even if their days would be the same length, or hours or minutes, he doesn't ask after the details just yet. It's enough that they already know their own definitions of time are likely not the same.]

I see. This is something with which I am familiar already, having come from a world where time's ebbs and flows are far different than another that I had been watching. It would change without warning, and one day on my world could be the span of an hour or a day or even a year on the other world while the opposite might be just as true.

[He shakes his head lightly.] I know not where your world stands in relation to all of this, only that our concepts of a day are... likely very different.

[thekingsshield]

[He nods along - sounds about right! He stretches a bit, putting his arms behind his head - a move he's seen Sora do plenty enough.]

Still... time's one of the things we can't control. Except for Stopza, anyhow. So I figure if we can't fight it... we shouldn't worry about it too much!

[rewritten_history]

[It's an interesting gesture, one that isn't uncommon in his world, but neither is it common, not enough of either that he doesn't recognize the nature of what it is. They're already quite at ease with each other, he can see. But he is curious, as always, and not unwilling to explore any means to help this world that he can.]

Stopza? I am not familiar with this. Would you mind explaining?

[thekingsshield]

Oh! It's a spell my pal the King knows! It can stop time, but only for a little bit.

[Off-hand shrug. No biggie.]

[rewritten_history]

[Now there's a concept he hasn't ever been able to achieve, and to the best of his knowledge, neither has anything else.]

Incredible. In my own society, we have learned spells to slow an individual down by making their bodies feel quite heavier than they are accustomed to, but it does not affect time as a whole. Some of us have even learned to move about between years, jumping from one period in time to the next. But to slow time itself, that is a feat none I know have accomplished.

[He shakes his head at the enormity of it all. It may seem as nothing to his new companion, having been familiar with such things, but it's remarkable to him.]

Here, it may not be of much use, depending on how it works, but we would be better served to start elsewhere in our search. [He looks down and indicates the tome in hand, its pages written in electronic words inside a screen. Those had been odd to him, but he can't be choosy.]

[thekingsshield]

[Goofy merely shrugs. It's all greek to him - so to speak.]

I don't know much about how magic works anyhow... Always left that to Donald and the King, seein' as they're smarter than I am. Far as I get it, magic's a tool like any other... helpful in the right hands, dangerous in the wrong ones.

[rewritten_history]

[Part of him, in a knee-jerk reaction and an innate need to bring out the best in those around him, wants to reach out to the man and explore a little, to see why it is that he thinks he isn't as smart as those he seems to know from his home. It doesn't seem like he would be adverse to talking about it, but the Exarch won't press. This is, after all, their first meeting.]

It is precisely that. Depending on the magic one wields, the results can be either wonderful or horrific, as you said, in the right or wrong hands. But we need not worry about that here unless what we are dealing with happens to be along those same lines. I intend to try and find out.

[A gentle tilt of his head.]

If you are not too busy, would you care to accompany me?

[thekingsshield]

[he blinks, momentarily surprised, but he easily smiles and goes with the flow.]

Sure thing! Happy to help in any way I can, pal!

[That's right - even though it's their first meeting, he's already decided they're bffs.]

[rewritten_history]

[If the other man considers him a good friend after so short a meeting, it's a breath of fresh air for the Exarch. He has been far and long too used to caution and wariness in those around him, strangers especially who aren't aware that he would only help them if given the chance. It has been a hard reality of the world he comes from, the life they all lived.]

[But still he carries on that hope, because whether or not he wanted to confess to his true self, it is who he once was, and he must be that pillar for his people, and now for this world if need be.]

Right. Thank you for your assistance. Forgive me for delaying a more proper introduction, but I am the Crystal Exarch, if you please.

[thekingsshield]

[Oh, that's right, they haven't gotten around to introducing themselves, have they? Poor manners on his part.]

Aw, that's okay! I forgot all about it too. The name's Goofy! It's nice to meet you...

[But he trails off, puzzled. That sounds like a very important title!]

Huh... should I be callin' you your highness, or lordship, or your... crystal-exarchness?

[Coming from a kingdom himself, he knows titles and respect are important!]

[rewritten_history]

[He could have initiated that part of the conversation long ago, but they were getting on so well it seemed fair enough to allow it to wait. No harm done.]

The pleasure is all mine, Goofy. 'Tis good to have people in this world willing to lend a helping hand such as yourself.

[And then the inevitable question of propriety. He can't help a smile beneath the hood. This isn't the first time he's had to address the concern, and he doubts it will be the last.]

Oh, no. What I am to my own world holds no merit here. Pray, refer to me as Exarch. I have a name beneath the title, but it is one I fear I have not heard in... quite some time. [While that's not entirely the truth, only one until now has ever called him that within the last century, and as much as it wrenched his heart to hear it from that man, it still sounds strange to him.]

[thekingsshield]

[And Goofy accepts it without question within two seconds.]

Okay, Exarch!

[If that's what Exarch prefers, then why debate otherwise? No need to stick his big nose in other people's business. He sticks his hands in his pockets, ready to follow his new friend to the ends of the earth if need be.]

want to wrap it up here and continue on with them in another thread some time soon? 8D

[rewritten_history]

[He can't help the smile on him as he turns to continue down the road, toward the library, or what passes for one in this city at least.]

Come, my friend. Let us make our way to the library and see what we can find.

sure, hopefully very soon!

[thekingsshield]

Okey dokey! Away we go!

[And with that, he hums along as he follows his pal.]

for sure! thank for the thread! THIS MUST HAPPEN AGAIN

[rewritten_history]

[With a nod, he continues, and they're on their way!]