EVENT & TDM 026

[sticksandbonesmods]

GETTING SOME VITAMIN-SEA

WAKE UP

You wake up to a sticky heat, the sound of waves and seagulls in the distance. It smells like sea salt, sand and copper, and as you come to, a scalding hot sun against a red sky pours into the window. You find yourself within a grand room full of Rattan furniture, luxurious silks and chiffon draped around. On the bedside table is a folded note:

Welcome to the Sunset Bay Hotel, courtesy of Süri, the Darkened Sun!

The note wishes you a happy stay, while alluding to something no one should know- a secret shame, something that certainly no hotel would bring into play. As you explore the hotel, you’ll find both residents of the Grove and new faces alike, all with the same rooms. Men and women alike in airy uniforms, scales smattered across their cheeks and arms and fins where their ears should be, wait to serve, but careful — Sirens are dangerous creatures, and you’re not here to relax, but to entertain in the cruelest degree: surviving. Those caught by their sweet and friendly demeanors and enchanting voices may just get bitten.

The amenities would be luxurious — a pool, a private beach, a gym, a café and multiple restaurants of varying degrees of ‘fancy’ — but between the Sirens waiting to lure you in for a snack and the scent of blood everywhere, alongside the blood-red burning sky and the feeling of being watched, it’s hard to enjoy. At least the water is beautiful…

Wait, careful, there are more sirens in the water.

STAGE FRIGHTFUL

Eventually the Sirens all move in unison, dragging random members of the lot of you to a mysterious building one morning — attempts to save the grabbed don’t work, as a barrier protects the kidnapping staff, and the doors close tightly behind them, the building repelling all force and locking itself up.

Later that night, the building seems so much more grand from the outside. Golden lights shine, beckoning whoever wasn’t taken to come in. The black lettering on the sign of what most of you will recognize as a theater says “The Mortal Life”, but nothing else. A siren concierge gleefully welcomes you, gives you your seat number, and both a bucket of popcorn and… tomatoes? Before she waves you off.

You find yourself forced into a seat, and if you look around you can see a box seat above everyone else, and a familiar face — Süri himself, with Zonari beside him, sitting, amused and bored. Those who try to attack will find their bullets and magic repelled, and no one can move from their seat until the lights dim.

Those who were taken, in turn, find themselves forced to put on a performance: a play that’s a terrible parody of their life. Süri seems entertained, at least, and if you resist you find yourself tugged around like a marionette. Only at a random interval can people be free to move again, be it to rescue those from the stage before their worst secrets are butchered and proclaimed live in full view of everyone or to flee the theater entirely.

The process repeats the next night, and then the next, new victims every time, all while Süri laughs.

OCEAN VIEWS

Eventually, the wretched God gets bored, and the Sirens are getting restlessly hungry with all the fresh meat just waiting to be eaten. Maybe it’s when they finally snap and begin to maul ‘guests’ that he decides to end it all- one minute you’re staring fangs and scales in the face, claws digging into your skin, and the next, you’re on the beach, sheltered in the presence of Ourania’s grand statue.

You’re free to leave and return to the Grove — Renard, Heimr, Ydalir and Nene have been taking care of everyone’s pets and gardens, and are more than happy to see you all — or you can stay in the cabanas for a little vacation. Regardless, it’s over. Even if the feeling of marionette strings and an ever-burning stare linger.

The fruit sharks swim through the air lazily, and the mobster lobsters and coconut crabs — literally coconuts who are also crabs, mind you — have escalated their turf war down the road, and sunberry bushes line the cliffside with abundance. The seamonkeys that Mizuki once helped find their footing in a society of their own rise up within their tidepool, wishing to see the God that taught them about morality and free choice once more, and will stop to ask anyone with a Bone Ring where the “benevolent God of Blue” is. The caverns to the cabanas still flood to the ceiling at night, and the gentle breeze welcomes you to rest after everything.

Summer closes with the disappearance of those mushrooms that have turned half the residents into monsters a few months ago, too, and with it, those of you who have become monsters finally revert to your original forms. Finally… it feels nice to have your normal legs again, doesn’t it?

Spark Notes

summary

WAKE UP: Welcome to the Sunset Bay Hotel! Not only are new arrivals here, but so are the oldbies. Unfortunately despite being a nice resort with many ammenities, the Siren staff members would rather have you for lunch most of the time.
STAGE FRIGHTFUL: Some of you may be kidnapped to the stage to put on a play for the Grove's two least favourite antagonists, a terrible parody of something from your own life (or the whole thing, if you're so inclined). The captive audience of your peers can't leave until at least halfway through, so try not to get stage fright and delay!
OCEAN VIEWS: Finally bored of you, the False God sends everyone back home to the Grove's seaside, where you can venture into the Grove or hang out with the animals for a while. And finally, those of you who were affected by the prior month's mushrooms will turn back to normal again. Hopefully your usual legs aren't too hard to walk on.

out of character

Happy July! Here is your usual reminder that TDM threads are game canon. This log is short and sweet to give you guys a relaxed summer before we head off into horror times for the next several months.

updates

Any potential updates, such as characters damaging something important or whatever else, will be put here.

submissions

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

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Comments

[sticksandbonesmods]

The book on Beiwe is radiant and gold, smelling of honey and citrus amongst the pages. There are multitudes of stories, but some that stand out early on include...

The many arm wrestling matches with other deities- knowledge of the world around them will clue Kiera in that it means Guardians. ... She has broken many a table this way, and even the floor with the force when one opponent would not yield.

The Golden Sun has held competitions in the past, and it was learned the hard way not to cheat: when a gladiator was caught doing just that, she immediately threw him into the sea. ... Rumor has it that had he been a woman she would have been a bit nicer about it.

Once a farmer begged the goddess for help with his crop that refused to grow, and having no experience in this sort of thing, she summoned a sunshower to rain on the farm for thirty whole days. Literally, even during night the sun shone right on that patch of earth. Every year since then his crops would grow, both in size and in abundance.

When asked to attend a wedding ceremony between a devout follower and a her abusive fiance, Beiwe instead came down from the heavens and told the bride to pick someone else, before making an official decree: if she caught anyone ever abusing their partner she would "feed them to Sehul". Sehul is said to have nodded and bared their fangs about this.

And that's just a few of the stories!

[cryopathy]

unapologetically strong, maybe a little biased but with good reason, benevolent and protective... yeah, it makes total sense that luca would like her.

just in case, kiera flips through the rest of the book in chunks, looking for any flaws, weaknesses, or failings that might paint the goddess in a less perfect light. they aren't looking for a "gotcha!!" necessarily, but -- clearly things weren't always Amazing, or the world wouldn't have gotten to this state.

[sticksandbonesmods]

The author has a very clear bias- there are no such stories.

The author also writes in a glittering crimson.

[cryopathy]

even though she doesn't expect the author would be completely honest about themselves... while she still has this book, kiera looks for anything about her relationship with her brother. things that may have been special between them, events or objects... anything that the author may seem particularly fond of.