MINI-EVENT: RETURN FROM THE MOUNTAINS

[sticksandbonesmods]

You are tired.

Without the truck to come get you — where did those people go? Were they even real? — you have to walk, hike up to the mountain peak, only to go back down. Did no one tell you that just the base of the mountains to the Grove itself is a seven-day walk? Perhaps someone would have, if they were here to tell you.

As all of you escape Roseroot, leaving behind the horrors slaughtered en masse, poor Astrid is suddenly blinded, his eyes turning completely black as something whispers in his mind. “Please. Please, you have to help them. You have to help them. Please, please, you have to—” As quick as it came, he regains his vision, his eyes clearing back up, and the message cuts off. Whether he shares this information or not with the rest of you… that’s up to him.

Either way, to get over the mountains, you have to hike. The winged, the flighted ones, those who can float, they might be able to take people up to the peak faster, but the blizzards rage atop it. Is flying really safe? You have only a few supplies between all of you — do you look for firewood and rest along the path? Do you traverse the mazelike caverns and hope one of you spits you out at a higher peak? Do you take shelter underneath the crystals growing on the mountainside?

If you look at those crystals for too long, they seem to reflect your nightmares back at you, but sleeping beneath them gives an incredible sense of calm.

At the mountain peak is the scene of something nightmarish itself — a group of people, some humanoid, one shadowy, a few monstrous, all collapsed. Each of them sleeps beneath the bulk of a golden dragon, tucked up underneath their bulk for warmth, while the unconscious dragon itself is mostly-buried under the snow. In the air float three charms, one of the sun, one of the moon, and one of half a sun. And just under those, maintaining some sort of magic — though even the magically-inclined may struggle to tell what exactly it is — is a leucistic deer-centaur holding a staff with a dreamcatcher head, wearing furs and leathers and braving the blizzard in his unconscious state solely to keep whatever this magic field around the peak is running.

As soon as you step further into this field, your memories come back en masse. These people are yours. They are your Guardians, your friends, your almost-family, and they disappeared one day, and you did not remember them. When you go to wake one of them up, your mind is pulled into theirs, a fragmented web of memories spanning before you.

Do you fix them? Or do you leave them here forever to suffer with a fragmented mind?

Spark Notes

out of character

Per the plotting, please remember that it is ONE character per player for the NPCs minus the Lord of the Mountains — meaning for example that Amity cannot have White Lily fix Ydalir, Sidney fix Callan, and Mafuyu fix Heimr. However, players are free to select what NPC they want to help, even if multiple players are currently helping that NPC. Guess comments will be screened and replied to as they come in to avoid cheating when someone gets one right, and all will be unscreened at the end of the event. :)

If everyone lumps into a few NPCs and others don't have interaction, I will lift the rule saying one character per player in the Discord and make an announcement.

Participation in an NPC thread will be good for Bonus AC regardless of length. Please do not use these for main AC. You can get main AC off your toplevels on this event if you choose to do so.

Please refrain from general threading with the NPCs on this post; bar Lord of the Mountains, other NPCs should be threaded with on NPC Contact if it's irrelevant to the event proper. In the case of LotM, he is the exception to every rule — everyone is free to try solving his memories regardless of if you have another character solving another NPC's memory puzzle, and general threading with him is allowed.

I maintain the right to cut a threading-thread short at any time; this is to avoid overwhelm and flooding the post with irrelevant details to the event. Guess threads will not be cut until all guesses are correct at minimum. (This is more in defense of my wordiness than a slight at you guys, I know how I get so this is a rule that exists to protect Me lmao.)

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Comments

[astralprojection]

1. He was given a staff as by his ancestors who walked before him.

2. He was told to watch over the land of ice and stone.

3. Crystals begin to form across the mountainside in bulk.

4. He could not leave his post forevermore.

5. Softhearted, he could not stand to see others suffer, so he turned his back to duties.

6. He began to weave netting to catch stray dreams and memories of people that wandered through the mountains, wanting to ward off their nightmares and ensure they didn't forget anything when they left.

7. The Fallen Sun's young daughter approached and struck a deal with him.

8. A caravan of humans from the north passed through the mountains.

[sticksandbonesmods]

ASTRID sorts the memories in an order that would logically make sense, but finds that some of them don't connect properly.

All memories are incorrect. Memories #1-3 feel "close" to where they should be, as does memory #6.

[astralprojection]

[Making a >:T face of concentration.]

1. Crystals begin to form across the mountainside in bulk.

2. He was given a staff as by his ancestors who walked before him.

3. He was told to watch over the land of ice and stone.

4. The Fallen Sun's young daughter approached and struck a deal with him.

5. Softhearted, he could not stand to see others suffer, so he turned his back to duties.

6. A caravan of humans from the north passed through the mountains.

7. He began to weave netting to catch stray dreams and memories of people that wandered through the mountains, wanting to ward off their nightmares and ensure they didn't forget anything when they left.

8. He could not leave his post forevermore.

[sticksandbonesmods]

ASTRID continues sorting the memories, with many locking into place, but...

Memories #4, #5, #6, and #7 are in the incorrect order. He feels as though #6 and #7 might have happened earlier in the sequence of events.

[astralprojection]

1. Crystals begin to form across the mountainside in bulk.

2. He was given a staff as by his ancestors who walked before him.

3. He was told to watch over the land of ice and stone.

4. A caravan of humans from the north passed through the mountains.

5. He began to weave netting to catch stray dreams and memories of people that wandered through the mountains, wanting to ward off their nightmares and ensure they didn't forget anything when they left.

6. Softhearted, he could not stand to see others suffer, so he turned his back to duties.

7. The Fallen Sun's young daughter approached and struck a deal with him.

8. He could not leave his post forevermore.

[sticksandbonesmods]

ASTRID is very close to getting the full memory to play...

Memories #6 and #7 are swapped.

[astralprojection]

[WITH TRIUMPH AND TOTALLY NOT HAVING TAKEN MANY TRIES:]

1. Crystals begin to form across the mountainside in bulk.

2. He was given a staff as by his ancestors who walked before him.

3. He was told to watch over the land of ice and stone.

4. A caravan of humans from the north passed through the mountains.

5. He began to weave netting to catch stray dreams and memories of people that wandered through the mountains, wanting to ward off their nightmares and ensure they didn't forget anything when they left.

6. The Fallen Sun's young daughter approached and struck a deal with him.

7. Softhearted, he could not stand to see others suffer, so he turned his back to duties.

8. He could not leave his post forevermore.

1/2

[sticksandbonesmods]

The memories are correctly sorted, and lock into place, unable to be further altered. As the Lord of the Mountains stirs from his comatose state, the full memory leaks into Astrid's mind:

[[BUT UNFORTUNATELY I HAVE TO SCREEN THE COMMENT SO NO ONE CHEATS SO YOU GET A SECOND COMMENT]]

[astralprojection]

[THIS IS INCREDIBLY INTERESTING... he'll have to let people know about this later, when things have settled down.

Can he help mr. lord out of the npc pile?]

[sticksandbonesmods]

[He can, although the Lord is less "in the pile" and more "vaguely outside of it trying his best". Wakefulness does wonders for him, though. The decorations on his antlers clack together through the storm as he looks around.]

Ah, there you are... I was hoping you got my message. My apologies for what I imagine was a scary and sudden plea.

[He was here to talk to you about your car's extended warranty.]

[astralprojection]

Ohh, it was you who reached out to me, then?

[That makes sense.]

I'm glad we were able to find you all. Hopefully we can get everything sorted...

[sticksandbonesmods]

You walk in dreams, don't you? [The staff still glows, as a reminder.] I thought you might be the easiest to reach.

Oh, but! We should be able to. The others seem to be starting to stir.

[The Brightest smile, except there's a blizzard so it gets slightly buried.]

Are you cold?

[astralprojection]

I do. I'm glad you did.

[That makes sense. He was drawn to helping him in particular due to the dreamcatcher staff he wielded, in fact.]

Oh, very. I'm a bit of a baby about the cold, admittedly.

[sticksandbonesmods]

That's alright. Come here, my friend.

[Whenever Astrid approaches, or even if he doesn't, the Lord of the Mountains will wave his hands about and cast some sort of spell. The blue energy coagulates around his hands like visible whorls of wind, and then all at once, the furious storm begins to let up.

So, that won't fix the cold necessarily, but it should make it a little warmer...?]

[astralprojection]

[He does come closer, and peers at the Lord with a curious gaze and ears upright as he weaves his magic.]

Oh! Thank you. That will definitely help everyone a lot.

[sticksandbonesmods]

I have some pelts you could borrow too, if you'd like!

[Beams like :D ]

Or, perhaps, you could cuddle up under Sehul? They're quite warm, despite the weather.

[astralprojection]

[aww ur so cute mr. lord]

I don't think there's room for all of us from the Grove under Sehul, so I wouldn't want to be greedy when there's surely someone in more need than I.

[However...]

...I wouldn't entirely mind borrowing a pelt, though.

[sticksandbonesmods]

Come this way. I don't want to lose you in the snow the moment I turn my back.

[Never know when Sehul is gonna get up and shake-a-shake-a all the snow off and Bury everyone else. Anyway, the Lord of the Mountains spring sproings into a cave at the peak, rummages around, and providing that Astrid followed...

Ta-dahh!! A nice (heavy) pelt gets placed on his shoulders.

It is VERY warm and weighs a fuckton, and clearly meant for a taurian creature of the Lord's size and not like. Y'know.

An Astrid-sized being.]

2/2

[sticksandbonesmods]

When he was a young man, crystals formed across the mountainside in bulk. He did not know what to make of these, only that they were unnatural and strange, and had the ability to trap memories within them. Nonplussed by these events, his ancestors who came before gave him a plain staff, telling him this was to be his, and that he would wield it while watching over the land of ice and stone as his family had for countless eons.

When he came of age, a caravan of humans from Roseroot passed through the mountains. They found the journey troublesome, and many of them suffered nightmares and anxieties, and many others found themselves forgetting supplies. Knowing a little about the crystals, he wondered if he could use something like it to trap their nightmares and take them from the people, but found he couldn't get the magic to work for him. Instead, he took to weaving, casting the first dreamcatcher over his staff and allowing it to catch the nightmares instead. This helped the humans, who were grateful that he had tried at all to stop their nightmares, and he had succeeded.

Eons later, the Fallen Sun's young daughter Zonari approached, taking interest in the crystals that could trap memories. At this point, the humans of the Grove were dead, but she promised to spare him if he simply gave her free reign of the crystals here and did not help another human again, should they emerge. With their magic unfamiliar to him and his depression in wake of the slaughter, the Lord of the Mountains simply accepted, allowing her and the Fallen Sun into this space if they so wished. After all, he did not think he would see humans ever again.

For eons more this continued, until new humans arrived. He wanted to love these new humans as he had loved the last, and so unto Moder he bestowed the secrets of weaving dreamcatchers so that she may help them while he remained in the mountains. This, however, went against his deal with Zonari and the Fallen Sun, and as punishment, he was hexed, cursed to never leave the mountain peak for the rest of his days.