♥ December Event Log

[hugtopiamods]

December (Ranir) Event Log
The city of Havenwell is recovering very well thanks to your efforts, offworlders. The hole in the wall is sealed up and, while maybe not looking like new, it certainly looks sturdy and safe. The city itself has removed much of the rubble from the battles you fought, and the people are back to their regularly scheduled lives. They're eternally grateful that you continue to put in the time to rebuild this final bastion of civilization and are pleased to see that you enjoyed their festivals so far. As the weather of Ranir turns colder and the nights longer, some may even see snow dust the cobblestone and paved streets in the morning. The time of Rawna has come and with it...

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❥ PROMPT I: At Least It's Not a Sweater

Normally when a new season belonging to a god rolls around, the temple priests gear up and start with temple festivities. Seeing how this is Rawna's month, however, nothing much of the sort seems to be happening. In fact, it's almost as if Rawna's priests don't even care that their god's season has started. Rawna is, after all, chiefly the god of Apathy, so is it all that surprising?

What might be surprising is the sight of Ainea's priests in pairs out around the city in their stead. Each pair carries with them a single bright silver sash and they alternatively stand in broad daylight or hide in the shadows of the buildings. Walk by on your own and you'll be left alone, but when the priests spot two people walking even remotely near each other, they spring into action.

The two robotic priests zip around you and another person with surprising speed, tying the sash off around you - either around your wrists, your waists, your legs, whatever it takes to tie you to another person. With a triumphant buzz of excitement, they declare "Happy Ranir! Kindness comes in many forms!" and depart to find a new pair of victims patrons. As they leave, one of the pair calls out an additional clue for you: "Be kind to unwind!"

Good luck, everyone, you're now stuck with this other person. You can either wait until the sash naturally falls off in a few hours, or you can take the direction of the priests and be kind to the other person to encourage the magical knot to come undone. Each compliment, word of encouragement, or other act of kindness directed at your new partner seems to loosen the sash a little each time, so get to winning the Niceness War.

Oh, and in case you were thinking of blasting, teleporting, or cutting your way out? No amount of magic or physical force seems capable of cutting or removing the sash. Hopefully you went to the bathroom before they got you.

❥ PROMPT II: A Delicious Delight

After a long hard day of dodging Ainea's priests or just slogging through the colder weather around the city, what could be better than imbibing a seasonally festive drink? Well, the scientists in charge of Experiment 73 certainly think so! They've added a limited edition drink selection to all of the replicators and have some delightfully festive booths spread about the city staffed by a few robots wearing Rawna's colors in their sashes and hats. There are five drinks in total to choose from and you should certainly try them! They're only here until the end of the month and then the scientists say they'll be gone! The best things in life are fleeting, aren't they? The best things in life are also surprises, so when you take a sip of these exquisitely delicious (honest! For once they're good) beverages, prepare yourself for a little trick with your treat.

• Ginger and Honey Tea: A hot, thoroughly warming drink with the bite of ginger and the sweetness of honey. Drink this and you'll be shored up against the cold, but also feel compelled to tell or blurt out the truth. Whether you're asked a question or trying to tell a little white lie, you find you can't say anything but the truth. This effect lasts for up to an hour after drinking the tea.
  
• Strawberry Shortcake Smoothie: A cold sweet treat of vanilla smoothie topped with sweet strawberry pieces and whipped cream. At the bottom, you'll find a layer of sweet sponge cake cut up into pieces. Drink this with its own special thick straw and enjoy the taste of cake; and the effect of a personal miniature snow cloud that appears over your head. The cloud dusts you and your immediate area within a foot of you with beautiful multicolored snow - and that snow leaves splotches of color behind that last for up to an hour after drinking the smoothie.
  
• Hot Cinnamon Apple Cider: A deliciously steamy beverage that tastes of apple and cinnamon and comes with a cinnamon stick stirrer for effect. This beverage smells as delicious as it tastes and the aroma wafts around the area more strongly than the others. Drink this penultimate holiday drink and you'll find yourself heating up so much that you'll want to stay cold by giving your heat away via holding someone else. You'll want to be everyone's personal heater for up to an hour after drinking the cider.
  
• Gingerbread Latte: A nice piping hot latte with the hint of gingerbread threaded through the coffee, topped with whipped cream and dusted with gingerbread spice. Served in a tall red cup that seems to transfer the heat uncannily well through its thin walls, sip this and you'll find yourself painlessly sprouting an animal's appendage at random. You can have one functioning or non-functioning, cosmetic animal appendage like a cat's ears, a dog's tail, a duck's beak or whatever else you can think of for up to an hour after drinking the latte. They can replace your original body part (e.g. your ears become cat ears) or grow superfluously (e.g. you have regular ears AND cat ears). You can move the appendages or talk with them as if they are your own, but they don't confer any special magical powers with them. So you can fly with those griffin wings, sure, but you're going to need to put the effort into it.
  
• Hot Mulled Wine (alcoholic): This one isn't for children - and in fact, under 18 people might find it hard (but not impossible, be industrious, little ones!) to get their hands on this drink. Red wine is heated with spices and citrus fruit over low heat for several hours - or it would if it wasn't all synthetically created. The effect is the same though, a delicious adult beverage that's a nice way to spend an evening with someone special. And you'll want them to be someone special because drinking the hot wine makes you inclined to get a little steamy with people. Kisses, both chaste and passionate, seem to alleviate the urge which you'll be under for up to an hour after drinking the wine.

❥ PROMPT III: Winter (VR) Wonderland

There isn't quite enough snow on the ground to allow it in reality, but in the VR Cafes anything is possible. This month, the VR Cafes are decorated with snowflakes in odd patterns and designs - holograms, naturally - that spin and change shape and color in a timed routine. Plug into the games and you'll find a new selection among the usual offerings: Winter Wonderland.

There are two modes to Winter Wonderland and each are fun in their own ways.

Snow Fight! Head out into the powdery snow where fantastic snow forts await and battle it out with snowballs to claim the most territory or just see who can hit the other side the most. You can choose Team Battle, Solo 1vs1, or Battle Royale. All magic, skills, and cunning are at your disposal. While the snow might not be falling outside, it's definitely going to be raining down on you here, so bundle up and have some fun. You earned it!

Ski Lodge But maybe you don't want to go flinging snow down someone's shirt and would rather cuddle up on a couch in front of a big warm fire, huh? Sure, we understand that. Welcome to the Ski Lodge, a cozy getaway up in the mountains where you can relax with a hot chocolate (or cider, or glass of wine even) and curl up on the couches and experience a lazy afternoon in thick fluffy sweaters. It's even better with a friend, they say, so why not create this private little getaway for the two (or three or four, we're not judging) of you? For people wanting a romantic lean, you can always slip out the back (and out of your clothes if you prefer) into the private jacuzzi on the wooden deck, too.

For people who want to have some fun tearing it up on the mountain-side though, we suggest trying Ski-venture! A year-round game that lets you ski or snowboard your way down the mountain.

❥ PROMPT IV: A Mysterious Gift [REGAIN EVENT]

Toward the end of the month starting from the 20th and on, some people may find themselves drawn to Rawna's temple late at night, when most of the priests are offline or elsewhere. The only native creatures you can see here are the fledgling rainbow dragons which watch you from their various perches all around the sanctum. As you approach the temple's altar, you realize someone else has been drawn here as well. In the quiet, dim lighting, the barest of candles still burning and the watchful eyes of the dragons, you feel compelled to unburden yourself to the other person. Tell your tale of woe or sorrow, relieve yourself of a secret you've kept hidden for too long, and listen to your companion as well. They say a burden shared is a burden halved after all.

Once you've both shared something, a pair of dragonlings crawl up into the altar's clawed hands. They wind around each other until an iridescent light shines from their scales. The light is blinding and you must look away as it reaches its pinnacle and releases a burst of rainbow light. When you look back, the dragonlings are slithering away and in their places are two objects - one familiar to you and one to your partner - so long as both of you have shared. It seems your tithe has been rewarded with something from home.

OOC: These items from home must be approved by a mod. They cannot exceed the Medium Item regain limit. It cannot be a power or other ability. It cannot be something your character did not own or have knowledge of in their canon or their CRAU. Please post your regain request in the Regain Request thread before threading out the receipt of the item.

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This event will run from December 6th to December 31st. Click on each prompt's title to see the text. You are welcome to use this log, or create entries of your own! If you have any questions, feel free to direct them to the FAQ or to the Mod Question thread.

Comments

[original_is_best]

[Shiva and Bahamut definitely sounded familiar. Some were completely unfamiliar while others were exactly the same, though he wished he knew more for comparison.]

On our star, midgardsomr are a kind of large snake. You have obviously heard of Shiva and Bahamut.

Our worlds are undeniably very different, so I thought it odd to hear some very familiar names. One or two might be coincidence, but when the list grows...

[He went back to pacing slightly, eyes turned up as he pondered aloud, half to himself, half to Emet-Selch.]

I have theorized that we have not traveled time nor 'moved' in the traditional sense to all come to this city. More, I believe that we may be from other dimensions. Those close to each other may bear great similarities, while those far away become more and more distinct from each other. I originally began thinking of this when I learned of the many Earths - some had the same countries, the same cities, yet were entirely different. What was reality on one was mythology on another.

There are many from Eos as well, but each is from a very different point.

How does something that is reality on one world become a tale on another? It may be that people can slip from one world to another, continuously passing on bits of information from one to the next without ever realizing they have even moved.

[Speaking of points, he should get to it. He stopped his pacing to more directly speak to Emet-Selch again.]

What I simply mean to say is that when you mentioned the Sound and how to create it, my first thought, naturally, was, "How would I do it?" I would never attempt to use the aether because it is foreign and unfamiliar to me. I have my own methods.

Were someone like myself to slip into your world they might very well disrupt the balance in some way and cause tremendous damage.

[Then, he almost brushed off his own musings with a dismissive flick of his hand.]

Of course, I've no proof of anything like that. It was simply a thought, it may be a rather lengthy stretch... Then again, given our current situation, maybe it's not.

[unsunderworld]

If that were the case, there would be more consistency in such things, would there not? One would not expect the wild disparity that exists between, say, our Shiva and Bahamut, with the former being a mortal woman who lived long after the latter's death, were they so connected to yours.

[A slightly flat look, then.]

I don't see how you could hope to affect aether without using or understanding it. Is not the first stage in science accepting that one's own mindset may not be able to properly account for everything?

[A slight tap of his fingers on the inside of his elbow, as he folds his arms. He's not outright saying that your approach is stupid, Verstael, but how can you seek to imitate an earthquake without an intimate understanding of the ground?]

A living creature is a great deal to have slip between the bounds of worlds on a proposed accident. Prior to this place, I could name only one way that it had happened between the Source and shards with intent - that someone was transported in body and not soul alone through the rift. And a greater rift, as between disconnected worlds, is all the more difficult to cross.

Given my own experience with the soul, I think it far more likely that it would be some other element of cognition that slips across such barriers, rather than an entire being. The matters of the intangible are a depth that even we came nowhere near to reaching the bottom of.

[original_is_best]

It's simply a different understanding of the world. The Lucians used magic but I was not gifted with such a power, so I was constructing my own method to counter their magic. Or to 'jam' it, so to speak.

I do not use aether, but something I do use might have an effect on it. Intentional or not. Since we have no such thing on my planet it would be difficult for me to say. There is always another way.

[He tapped a finger on the side of his chin ponderously before continuing with a grin.]

I may have agreed with you some months ago. However, after having come here, I have discovered that dimensional travel is not as impossible as I once thought. There is at least one here who has a plethora of experience with such travel, and knows of ancients that would create vehicles for that purpose. Surely it opens things up to a new universe of possibilities.

I'm finding that what I used to believe impossible is sometimes nothing but 'common' here. There are worlds that have greatly surpassed ours. ...I may be feeling a little envious, in all honesty. I never expected my progress to feel dated.

[unsunderworld]

But in order to counter it, you had to have some understanding of it, no?

[It's not the methods he calls attention to - it's the assertiveness that no understanding would be needed to affect something.]

And do not be mistaken - the individual I speak of is very much modern. I've been forced to accept the reality of such developments myself.

[The Sundered, at least those of the Source, haven't caught up yet to Amaurot, but for the first time it appears that they might be able to.]

[original_is_best]

While I tend towards things not happening by coincidence... There have been cases of discoveries happening entirely by accident or chance. As I said, it was simply a thought related to something foreign entering. Introducing anything that doesn't belong to an environment can have devastating effects, and as we've have seen here people from otherworlds may operate in ways completely different from us.

[unsunderworld]

Oh, certainly - near the entire science of ecology revolves around the idea, it seems at times. Release a coeurl into the woods and you'll find the jackals starve, unable to keep pace with the superior hunter; let a housecat into the garden and the singing of birds disappears.

[He gets the idea that ecology is not your specialty, Verstael, but that means something terribly different in the extent of your knowledge compared to his.]

I simply dislike the idea of attaching the cause of the Sound to something that has never been witnessed to happen. I would sooner lay the blame to some action of our own, or something of our reality but not our star, as Omega and Midgardsomr are.

[original_is_best]

It's more likely.

[He wasn't particularly arguing. He'd admitted himself that it was a stretch and just a thought, but an interesting one nonetheless. This experience wasn't the first of people being dragged from their worlds to another, after all.]

It is rather a shame for tragedies to continue to go unexplained. After all, we've no way to avoid them happening again if we don't know what caused them the first time...