EVENT 023

[sticksandbonesmods]

TAKE ME BACK TO NEO EDEN

CHAOS IN PARADISE

The more problems get solved, the more others start to pop up. Sure, some heroes saved the children in the manor — who are no longer children — but those siblings are now comatose, and the manor is on permanent lockdown, black briars blocking every possible entrance and Corrupting anyone who tries to get in. Sure, some sneaky hopefuls hid a magic circle to help maintain the fog barrier (and keep the Forest out) in a secret location, but now the magic in the Grove feels off. Your spells come out more powerful as intended while the world is out of balance, and it seems like they will for some time.

Maybe in your haste to fix all the Grove’s issues, you forgot about a certain skeleton spirit who shows up every April in some attempt to help you cheer up. Perhaps you remembered, and were hoping he’d arrive. Either way, Mr. Bone-Jangles clatters into the Grove in broad daylight, waves hello to those of you lingering in the centre of the Grove, and snaps his phalanges.

Immediately, a magenta-coloured, swirling portal opens up underneath your feet, and your friend’s feet, and that friend’s feet, until most of the centre of the Grove is consumed by it. Those of you on the outside, free of the portal’s reach, may witness it: everyone caught in it gets pulled into the rift, Heimr and Ydalir and Mr. Bone-Jangles included. In the next blink, the portal is closed and they’re gone, leaving behind flowers where each of them fell.

For those of you who got caught in the portal, you’ll find yourself at the entrance of a city, where a sign reads: WELCOME TO NEO EDEN.

4 C0LD W3LC0M3

Trying to turn around and walk outside the city causes your nose to crinkle as you slam facefirst into an invisible barrier. You can see other buildings outside this barrier, natural as a landscape could come, and yet you can’t progress. The skies are a somewhat odd purplish-blue, though you can’t tell if that’s because your eyes are straining against the bright neon of the city lights or not. Underneath the arcing city sign, a police car labelled “NEO EDEN P.D.” passes by, the robotic simulacra of human law enforcement inside giving everyone a friendly wave before it keeps driving, seemingly having come from beyond the barrier and thus warping into the space, as far as your eyes can tell anyway.

Mr. Bone-Jangles helpfully guides you further into the city, past the holograms of normal humans in neon-glowing techwear going about their business. They don’t respond to anything you do or say, seemingly on a set path, living their daily lives. The city is packed enough to be claustrophobic, cars and holograms rushing past, a stark change from the small-town vibes of the Grove. Those of you who fish in your pockets as you wander will find that your magic notebooks have been replaced with cellphones, and all prior notebook correspondences are there, as well as any new ones. The cellphone does nothing other than connect to group chat, but this one is clearly cooler — you can send emojis, stickers, and GIFs without drawing them.

…those on the other side, however, are getting each GIF drawn out frame-by-frame in the notebooks. Please don’t spam GIFs at your friends.

Additionally in your pockets is a small plastic card — a debit card, for those of you who are familiar with them — containing 1,000 Credits, the currency here. You didn’t think your shells would be useful, did you? Simply tapping the card at any facility that takes payment will subtract the necessary amount… but 1,000 Credits isn’t much. It’s enough to buy a thousand candy bars, but unless you’re frugal, it won’t last you the month. Luckily, it looks like every store on the nearby shopping strip is hiring! From restaurants to clothing stores, to empty buildings that you can make your own business out of… surely this capitalistic nightmare will be tenable!

The lack of animals is noticeable as you head further into the city, toward what signage says is called “Mania Square”. The birds, instead of being your typical Grove plantanimals, are robotic. There’s a severe lack of any pests despite the garbage in the alleyway dumpsters — no bugs, no rodents, no raccoons. Mania Square itself contains a fountain big enough to swim in, the centre focal point of the public plaza, but Bone-Jangles hooks a sharp left and leads you to the apartments instead. Up three stories are small studio rooms for each of you, your names written on the door placards in your own handwriting, and the insides are customized to your exact preference already. A notice pinned above your kitchenette tells you rent is due by April 30th… you hope you aren’t here for that long.

4R3N’T Y0U H4V1NG FUN?

Despite the standard day and night cycle, some of you may notice this place still doesn’t feel quite right, a bit outside of time. That shouldn’t stop you from having fun! And should you need to go back to the Grove — or if you’re someone looking to get into Neo Eden in the first place — you need only to gaze into a mirror placed in each of your bedrooms or apartments and wish to go home… which may lead you to fall catastrophically through it to the other side. Try not to hit your chin on the ground.

Life goes on regardless. In this city, there’s a lot to do. You could go shopping at the strip mall near Mania Square, where Heimr and Ydalir have set up a temporary shop to continue to provide for everyone’s needs. They’ll still take shells, but there’s nothing much they can do if you run out of Credits — both will gently suggest you find work in Neo Eden. You guys own businesses back at the Grove, it can’t be that bad, can it?

The good news is, Mr. Bone-Jangles and his entourage of skeletons who you swear weren’t originally here 12 hours ago are happy to help you get a job, where the interview process involves simply “showing up and asking your holographic boss if you can be employed”. Starting your own business is more difficult — you’ll need a loan from the bank! — but not impossible. Any hologram humans that come in to buy things will ignore you, get what they want, and leave. The only time you can interact with your fellow neon-coloured humans is when they’re making a purchase, at which point their items will digitize and they’ll leave. All very odd, but at least the customers aren’t rude to you… or your skeletal coworkers who have joined you for back-breaking labour.

After work, perhaps you want to head to the amusement park — Thrill Point is an utterly massive one to the far northeast of the city past the river that cuts through the digital roadways. With drop towers, roller coasters, rides for little babies who hate heights and fun, and tons of food stalls to stop at, you could feasibly spend all night here and almost forget that you have to be at your next shift in the morning! If you seek a different thrill, Arcadia is a nightclub southwest of Mania Square, where the music plays all night, the liquor flows freely, and anyone under 21 who enters gets marked with an X on the back of their hand by a harmless laser beam. Just outside Arcadia is a small photo booth named “The Swap”, and if you enter with a partner, both of you hitting the “TAKE PHOTO” button will bodyswap you for 12 hours. It will also print out a funny photo of you as a keepsake. Enjoy being someone else for a while!

Head to the Rent-a-Ride, where you can rent any vehicle on wheels — electric scooters, cars, motorcycles, hoverbikes — as long as you can pay the expensive fee. Speeding will get you a ticket from your local robopolice; breaking standard civilian laws will get you arrested and thrown into the unmanned city jail. And try not to tailgate or crash your ride — not only will you be on the hook for vehicle damages, but you’ll be shafted with a ludicrous hospital fee. Seriously, people live like this?

But, if a calm walk through nature is more your style, City Park and its digital trees to the north may suit your needs. The fish in the river here can be fished up by hopeful anglers, though all are wiggly, inedible robots. Hm.

WELCOME BACK

By April 30th when your rent is technically due, a text message goes out to everyone’s phones… and consequently the notebooks, too, from two different senders:

REMINDER: YOUR RENT IS DUE TODAY! PLEASE PAY 3,000 CREDITS OR FACE EVICTION.

DONT WORY. I WIL RESKYEW U

The messages from the second sender will get slightly more ominous as the day goes on.

GRAB SUMTHING U WANT 2 TAKE WITH U
I WIL REETORN U HOM

HAS ANY1 SEEN MY WIFE
FOWND MY WIFE :)

R U REDY 2 GO?

By evening, hopefully you’ve grabbed something to take back home — something you can feasibly carry without a struggle — because a portal is yet again opening under your feet. In a split second, you’re back in Aldric’s Grove, holding whatever you came with, your cellphones reverted back to notebooks. Mr. Bone-Jangles is nowhere to be seen, but he reappears a few hours later to hand out personal apology notes to everyone reading: “SORY, TRIYD 2 SAV U :(“ before he and his merry band mope back into the woods. He hopes you had fun while you were away.

Next time anyone heads out into the woods, all seems normal… minus the amount of fungi that have started to sprout in absolute droves across the forest floor, unwilling to be torn up from their roots or killed in a way that matters.

Spark Notes

summary

Chaos in Paradise: Mr. Bone-Jangles is back and here to kidnap you to a new location. This is a cyberpunk-esque city known as Neo Eden. No, he does not ask if he can do this first.
4 C0LD W3LC0M3: Further in Neo Eden are your apartments at Mania Square, where rent is due by the 30th. Your notebooks have been turned into cellphones, and you have a debit card with 1,000 credits on it for your shopping expenses. Seems like you'll be here a while.
4R3N’T Y0U H4V1NG FUN?: If you need to move to and from the Grove, there's a portal accessible in everyone's bedrooms via a mirror. Here, you have the freedom to do whatever you want: Rent a car, ride a roller coaster, get a job, start a business - the city is your oyster!
WELCOME BACK: And then all of a sudden, the neon paradise is ripped away from you as you're transported home. You can take back an item with you to remember your time here, if you want. The forest itself has started to grow mushrooms in droves, ones that can't be pulled up or killed. Hm!

out of character

It's already April! What the heck! We hope everyone enjoys this event; please feel free to make up businesses/buildings/things to do, you aren't constrained to what's been written in the post.

updates

- A small shrine close to the inn has appeared in the Grove. Affogato's spirit is tied there, to a black raven figure carved from smooth stone.
- The spell strengthening the Grove's fog wall is buffed.
- Sinann has been powered up, and therefore can enter its human form and go on land. It will largely still be by the river.
- Suri's creations are now and forever weak to poison.
- Pearl has made a terrible rainstorm back in the Grove.
- In Neo Eden, Add has enhanced the jail and made Jail2, which has far more security measures and functions as an escape room of sorts. Please see Add's toplevel below for further details.
- Jail2 has partly collapsed due to White Lily Cookie.

submissions

❖ Questions
❖ April Plotting
❖ Past Life Plotting (Closed to Game Members)
❖ Investigations

code

Comments

[lupusxylem]

[Well if you’re giving him the OPTION…

Wolfwood does not, in fact, unlock the door. He’ll literally vault over the passenger’s side door and into the seat, leaning right into Flamebringer’s space with his forearm on the center console the moment he’s seated.]

This why you picked a convertible?

[thebladebringstheflame]

[Flamebringer is immediately leaning forward, hand on the back of Wolfwood's head, to drag him into the sloppiest kiss. Yes, he is shotgunning smoke into Wolfwood's mouth before they separate, and then he's flipping his sunglasses down and driving them off down the road.]

Convertibles are fucking cool. [He says, ashing his cigarette over the side of his door.] But yeah. Easier to hop into, easier to smoke in, and way easier to tell whose ass I'm checkin' out before I open my mouth.

[The lack of blind spots makes catcalling easier (source needed)]

[lupusxylem]

[The moment Flamebringer starts kissing him, Wolfwood kisses back with equal fervor, somehow making the kiss even filthier while managing to keep the smoke locked between them for the most part. He breathes it in deep, letting it exhale slowly through his nose so he looks like a dragon as Flamebringer drives them off.

Like literally the holograms who saw yall doing that shit on the sidewalk were probably scarred.]

Makes sense. I mean, it’s why I got a motorcycle back home. That, and tryin’ to drive anythin’ but a truck in the desert fuckin’ sucks.

[thebladebringstheflame]

[The holograms have some kind of offensive AI coding now because they saw these two yeah]

That's what four-wheelers are for. Just get yourself a shitty driver like W and it won't matter what terrain you're in.

[lupusxylem]

Well that depends. How shitty is shitty?

[Like, is she an “occasional fender bender” kind of driver?

Or is she Ain.]

[thebladebringstheflame]

"Drive fast enough to go careening over a canyon" shitty. "Take a speedbump so hard it nearly killed Kal'tsit" shitty.

[So pretty shitty. Every day is a fender bender with her.

Flamebringer turns a corner, then presses a button on the car's radio to turn on some sort of Neo Eden version of Aesthetic Perfection. You know, aggrotech. This is his jam actually.]

Kazdel is all rough terrain once you leave the city, and even then, the plates making up the city proper are prone to catastrophic failure sometimes. Gotta drive like ass or you're gonna wreck your car on a pothole.

[lupusxylem]

Damn, for real? That’s fucked up.

[Wolfwood shakes his head as he reclines in the passenger’s seat, crossing his good leg over his knee.]

Sounds like some fun driving though. Like, we got the desert, which is hard enough to drive in, but once you’ve got somethin’ that can handle sand it’s like…fine. It’s long stretches of nothing for what feels like forever. Can get pretty boring.

[thebladebringstheflame]

[the way i'm looking at that last tag laughing to myself bc FB has t-minus 3 days until he finds out Kal'tsit like actually died]

Ha. "Long stretches of nothing" is familiar.

[Turning down this street...]

Alright, sheygets... got anything you wanna see or do in this city? Dinner? The nightclub? I'd love to see if the hood of this car can hold up to our combined weights immediately, but I feel like we can make some worse decisions first.

[Or. Or. You two could Not fuck on top of a car. At all. And could be normal, and have a normal date like normal gay people.]

[lupusxylem]

[HAHA…IT’S….IT’S FINE…Flamebringer is having a good day let him have this before he dives headfirst into Depression.

Anyway, Wolfwood watches Flamebringer out of the corner of his eye while Flamebringer (hopefully) watches the road, smirking.]

I’m down for makin’ some bad decisions. But I mostly wanna get drunk. Wanna go to a club?

[thebladebringstheflame]

[He's watching the road, but occasionally he's watching Wolfwood. He really wants to do something crass like pat him on the dick when they're driving, but he'll behave this time around.]

Fuck yeah.

[And he's flipping around the corner to take them there. He knows where that club is. They serve great liquor.]

You're not a lightweight, are you?

[lupusxylem]

Me? No way. I'm drinkin' whiskey straight on the regular. Do you think we can get anything better back where I'm from?

[You drink your paint thinner and like it or you simply don't get to be drunk ever, that's just how it works.]

I'm pretty sure I could shotgun fruity drinks and feel nothing.

[thebladebringstheflame]

We'll see. The shit here is more fucked up — some stuff glows, and others have eggs in them or something. I don't think the egg is gonna mess you up, but it sounds nasty. [Therefore he has to try it. He didn't last time he went. He was cautious about it since he was by himself, but now he'll have Wolfwood backing him (aka Wolfwood will enable him).] It's a club, though. Hope you know how to dance.

[lupusxylem]

Eggs? The fuck?

[Gross. Then again there ARE cocktails out there that use eggs apparently so what do I know.]

Well...depends on the kinda dancin' we're talkin'. Not that I expect ballroom dancin' in a club.

[He cannot DANCE dance either, do not let this man fool you. He couldn't even if he didn't have a prosthetic leg.]

[thebladebringstheflame]

Can't tango? Lame.

[Flamebringer also can't tango. But now that Thorns is here he might commit the playercest sin and learn because I think it would be hot—

Anyway, they're approaching the club now. Flamebringer, despite all his attitude and snark and the fact that he's blind in one eye and therefore lacks depth perception, manages to swing into a parking spot like the most normal fucking man ever. This is the parking job of a soccer mom taking her kids to Walmart. He is In the lines.

And then he's leaning over as he turns off the engine to playfully bite Wolfwood's ear.]

I was hoping more for a bump and grind from you, by the way. You can do that much, right?

[Ope he's getting out of the car now before Wolfwood can Get him—]

[lupusxylem]

Haha...

[As Flamebringer bites at his ear, Wolfwood feels the skin on the back of his neck prickle pleasantly. His tail wiggles in the space in front of his knees, and in response he reaches up a hand to trace along Flamebringer's jaw, turning his head his way so he can nip at his lips briefly.]

You'd better believe it.

[Then he'll give him a pat on the back of his shoulders before he moves to get out of the car, eyes traveling along the space where Flamebringer pulled in like damn you really did park like a soccer mom.]

C'mon, we're burnin' daylight!

[thebladebringstheflame]

You gonna run the five steps to the front door?

[Flamebringer is right behind Wolfwood, though.

Obviously, the inside... is a club. Neon lights, a disco ball for some reason, holograms dancing without a care (as if they could in the first place), a bar with way too many drinks on their menu... the music is far too loud and they'll have to yell over it, but for these two loudmouths, that shouldn't be a problem.]

Drinking ourselves stupid first sound good? [It's more fun to dance like that, with the wild flailing motions, when you're drunk and don't care how you look.]

[lupusxylem]

God, yes please. I've gone way too long in this place without a whiskey.

[Or a vodka or...actually, are they going to even HAVE normal liquor here?

Well, there's only one way to find out as the two of them stroll up to the bar and have a seat together there to look over the quite frankly overwhelming list of options, uhh...]

...this shit here says it's like. 200 proof. I don't think that's possible without just drinkin' straight alcohol.

[What if it IS just straight alcohol-]

[thebladebringstheflame]

Pretty sure it's just straight alcohol. [Flamebringer jabs his index finger at the display shelf behind the counter. One of the bottles literally looks like rubbing alcohol.] Feelin' brave?

[Flamebringer, meanwhile, is going to get a weird cocktail called a "Red Seal of Shimoda" which looks like it's whiskey, pomegranate juice, ruby port, lemon juice, honey, and green tea salt — which is just matcha powder and mushrooms ground up together. It sounds interesting, okay.]

[lupusxylem]

[Brave? Or stupid? Because at least Flamebringer's actually sounds, you know, like something you'd want to KEEP drinking.]

What...you think I can't? You dare me?

[Do Not]