EVENT & TDM 034

[sticksandbonesmods]

WAKE UP

Cleaving across the sky of Aldric’s Grove is a deep black gouge — a rift, an open wound, that blots out the sun and moon in their respective orbits. Looking into the rift so high in the sky yields little; it’s too high up to actually see into it, but on occasion, flashes of the cosmos seem to flit through it.

Then, as the current residents of the Grove might say, people start to fall out of it, tumbling through the skies and painfully through the sky barrier preventing those on the ground from reaching those falling. New arrivals will find themselves careening through the stars and suddenly through a constantly-reforming magic barrier that feels like glass against their skin. Lucky arrivals will be caught on the backs of either a large, rainbow bird, or a golden scaled dragon — Aurora, the Sky Guardian and Sehul, the Sun’s Aide, respectively — before they hit the ground and become a smear in the grass. Unlucky arrivals won’t hit the ground thanks to timely aid from the remaining Guardians, though it’s a tossup which hurts worse: getting caught in a conjured bush made of thorny vines to break the fall thanks to Moder, getting tackled out of the sky by the tiny stone-skinned gargoyle Zahliya and rolling across the grass with him, or being grabbed by a mass of Callan’s tentacles only for him to decide he might deliver to you a “hello” bite.

At least the River Guardian Sinann sees fit to heal your wounds.

The magic here feels thin, everyone notices. New arrivals may find out from the old hats that magic was nigh nonexistent for several months, and the steady trickle of it returning has been akin to running the tap through a snowstorm — a drip, drip, drip, but the pipes still appear to be mostly-frozen regardless.

It’s just as people stop falling from the rift that the pipes finally burst.

PERCEPTION CHECK!

Suddenly, magic in Aldric’s Grove is unfamiliar and foreign. Those of you with existing magic and similar powers may find that your abilities are uncontrollable — that candle you were going to light with your fire magic is suddenly entirely melted and your bedroom is ablaze, or the healing magic you tried to use bursts outward from you so strongly that it saps all of your energy for the rest of the day when all you wanted to do was patch up a scratch. Things like this are a common occurrence, as though you’re a brand-new spellcaster all over again.

In addition to this, the magically-inclined and perfectly benign alike will feel something else brewing beneath the surface: the Grove’s own native magic suddenly becoming your own. This, too, is impossible to control — visions from the Blessing of Foresight plague your mind, the alchemy granted by the Blessing of Life shatters the vials of potions you attempt to make, and the summons from the Blessing of Conjuration do not heed your command. The elemental spells now at your fingertips are far more destructive than you intended them to be. Whether you’re an experienced caster or not, the leylines of the Grove remain wild and untamed, lashing out from months of suppression.

At least when the occasional monster strolls its way into the Grove past the flickering barrier of the fog wall, it’ll be instantly vaporized by you trying to use your abilities on it. Probably. You may just nuke yourself from orbit in the process instead.

-Players should scroll down to the “magic” section on the linked page for the full breadth of their abilities that can be freely played with.
-Magic from each Blessing is available to use up to Tier 3; the Gifts of the Sun & Moon are unavailable.

ROLL FOR INITIATIVE

With the chaos of the Grove being new and different, Ydalir the Trader takes it upon herself to find as many old spellbooks as she possibly can. This native magic has been untapped for eons, and with the sudden influx of random fireballs and ice storms every three and a half seconds, she’s taken it upon herself to dig up the ancient texts.

Unfortunately, they are ancient. Ydalir sits in the centre of the Grove and waves everyone she can see over, you included, before handing out random tomes with discoloured and dusty pages. She’s surrounded by them, towers upon towers of unsorted texts walling her off from most viewing angles. “I think I need help sorting these. And identifying them. And seeing if they’re even in a language that makes sense to people. There are hundreds and I’m stressed.”

She punctuates that with a laugh.

“You can keep any tomes you like or that you think will help you get a handle on things. Ooh, and I’ll give whoever helps sort these dusty old books properly and neatly into the library — no cheating, and don’t lie to me — some candy. I made it yesterday.”

Unfortunately, Ydalir imbues her candy with magic, too, and with it being haywire… you can expect effects, depending on what you eat. Have fun! Or don’t! She’s not your mom!

Chocolate Hearts	You turn invisible for 10 minutes, but your invisible form is surrounded by floating pops of heart-shaped fireworks.
Rootbeer Bottle Candies	You are completely immune to the effects of alcohol for 4 hours. When the immunity wears off, you immediately experience a type of drunkness that can only be described as "4 hours of drinking at the New Year's Eve party".
Cat-Shaped Sugar Candies	Wherever you go for the next 15 minutes, you do so by sprinting, leaping, and swatting at things uncontrollably. AKA: you have the zoomies.
Spiral Jawbreakers	You are instantly teleported to a different location in the Grove, forest, or beach. Anyone next to you is also teleported to that same location.
Gummy Pasta	Your hair grows uncontrollably long for 1 hour. Chopping it off only makes it regrow. After 1 hour, it will automatically return to the length it was previously.
Spicy Cinnamon Candies	Every time you exhale for 30 minutes, a small burst of flame comes from your throat. A harder exhale will let you breathe fire that smells like cinnamon.

SHORT REST

The month drags on and on. Every morning someone casts Fireball. Every night, someone’s summon bursts through a window, steals your food, and runs. Luckily, the chaos starts to slow as the magic flowing through the leylines is finally used up, and the Grove’s natural magic — and your own native abilities — start to listen to you again. It makes resting easier, at the very least. No longer do you have to wait for your window to automatically repair itself after something smashes it.

You know, unless someone wants to start throwing completely mundane stones at it.

With everything settling back into a sense of normalcy again, Ydalir is… still doing things. She never apologised for her candies setting off a chain reaction of chaos, but this time, she’s not feeding you. Kind of. “If you want to stay connected to the leylines here and maintain some of the magic native to this place, here’s a spellbook for you to write your spells in, and—” she slams a leather-bound journal into your lap, a quill on top of it next to a small crystal that looks like it’s made of quartz. “A star shard! You’ll need to eat that to anchor yourself to the magic here. It’ll taste like sugar, uh… and it won’t do anything weird to you this time, I’m so sorry. Anyway, you should go out and practice with your peers! It’ll make all of this easier.”

If you head out, it looks like you aren’t the only person who’s been snagged for a bit of a magic lesson. It might be worth asking the more experienced spellcasters to help you with whatever new school of magic you picked up, or you could grab a study-buddy that’s on your tier… or you could just rawdog it and see what happens. Surely it won’t be as catastrophic as when you tried to do that throughout the month.

-New characters that app while this TDM is good (March + April) & existing characters already in the game will be grandfathered into the magic system, automatically gaining one Tier One Blessing of their choice without the initial 10-thread buy-in. The rules on the page must still be followed.
-Existing characters with ties to Beiwe & Ourania are free to pick up Gifts of the Sun & Moon at this point, instead of a Blessing.

Spark Notes (Click to Expand)

summary

WAKE UP: New arrivals to the Grove are falling out of the sky! They will be caught by the Guardians, but they'll be injured. Please help them.
PERCEPTION CHECK!: Everyone's magic goes out of control, and new magic starts to spring up and be freely used. No one asked for this but you sure do have it!
ROLL FOR INITIATIVE: Ydalir needs your help sorting through these magic tomes. You're free to read them and try to make sense of anything in them as well as claim one for yourself if you find it useful. When you help her, you will receive candy that has Effects™ in it. Whoops!
SHORT REST: Magic levels start to equalize, and no longer is life a struggle magic-wise. Ydalir will give you a star shard if you'd like to anchor yourself to the Grove's magic and keep some of what you've learnt.

out of character

It's March! Reminder that TDMs are game canon. Don't mind my notes on the prompts this time (but do mind them because I need you to follow the rules also). Questions about the magic system should ideally be directed on the magic page itself. Also does someone know how to get anchor/jump links to work on my magic page because no matter what I did it wasn't registering my div id tags and I'm starting to go insane... please let me know thanks-

updates

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

submissions

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

code

Comments

[namuthing]

[The worst part about this new... advancement is that Genya doesn't know what's safe. It could be five feet. It could be fifteen. He settles in the middle with ten, and promptly plops down into the dirt.]

Stay... stay over there, okay? [He reaches up, pinching the bridge of his nose.] This is - it's normal. Kind of. It's not supposed to work like this, but...

[He buries his face in his hands.]

[outofsynth]

[Min-Gi does, though looks extremely uncertain about this distance. Genya does not look okay, but he seems adamant that Min needs to stay away and honestly for all his worry he has no desire to intentionally place himself in danger without actually understanding the risks.]

What actually is this?

[namuthing]

It's -

[He looks down at the ground shamefully. Min-Gi has always come off as the kind of guy who wouldn't appreciate something weird like this. Maybe that's what makes him so hesitant to answer. He actually likes the guy, after all.]

It's something I can do. Normally I have to - eat something of yours to do it. It's not supposed to be like this. A-and I never would, either!

[outofsynth]

[Uh.....

The explanation is definitely out there, and not one that Min looks especially comfortable with, but he at least attempts to hide how disturbed he feels.]

So... you... turn into me?

[That doesn't sound quite right.]

[namuthing]

[Genya's shoulders lift as he seems to sink into himself in shame. He shakes his head, but it's a very loose, gesture. There's no force to it. It isn't hard to see that Min-Gi is unnerved, and the last thing Genya wants is to upset him further.]

It's... not quite like that. I get. Parts of you, sure, but not all of you. L-like fins from that fish guy, or the demon's fluffy eyelashes.

[Another step back, as his arms wind around himself.]

It goes away with time and space. So I can - go if you want.

[Genya is used to a level of condemnation when it comes to this, but it sucks when it comes from someone he cares about.]

[outofsynth]

You don't have to go.

[Min-Gi might not exactly feel comfortable with this, but he likes Genya. He worries about Genya. He's trying.]

[namuthing]

You sure don't look like you want me to stay. [Genya voice comes out as a snap, one that he winces at almost immediately after. It doesn't make him feel guilty enough to approach, but at least he's not running away?]

Look it - it only gets better if I don't stay here. It goes away with time. T-that's... probably still true.

[outofsynth]

[The thing is, Genya isn't wrong. Min opens his mouth to protest, but realizes that lying will probably only make this worse. He sighs.]

It's not your fault I don't like this. I'm the one who needs to learn to be more comfortable.

[It still doesn't seem like this is all there is to it though. Genya had been yelling as though something really dangerous was going to happen. Min tries to be delicate in how to broach it. He's not completely sure he succeeds.]

Is... that all that happens?

[namuthing]

You're a normal human, right? You should get to be a normal human.

[Having had that normalcy shattered at a young age, Genya is a little protective of the concept when it comes to other people. Even if those people were grown adults.

He stiffens at Min-Gi's question, then... eventually shrugs.]

With you? I... don't know. You're supposed to be a normal guy. That should make me a normal guy. [He pulls at a handful of grass, and ends up bringing a substantial shower of dirt with it.] But it's... unpredictable. The more powerful you are. The easier it is to sometimes lose control.

It's... happened before.

[outofsynth]

Yeah. [A pause.] Normally, yeah.

[Because right now that's not fully true. Which might be worrying if the powers he'd found himself with were anything else, but all he can do is heal. He can't lose control of that, right?

The explanation helps him relax a little even if the situation is still a strange one.]

I can heal. So, like... I don't think anything bad will happen?

[Min doesn't move any closer, but that sounds like a logical explanation.]

[namuthing]

Right.

[He isn't exactly sure what that means, but he won't question it. Maybe Min-Gi is human in the same way Genya is. A fat asterisk because of what his abilities can do.]

It'll... probably be fine. [He twines the blades of grass in his hand around each other. Anything to keep from looking at Min-Gi.] Back home, I'd do it to demons. I'd have to eat a piece of them first, though. Not just get close to them.

Sometimes I'd have their hunger. It was... worse, the stronger they were.

[And then they'd come here, and all hell broke loose.]

[outofsynth]

[They're both doing a lot of leaning on that probably, so Min-Gi stays where he is. He winces as Genya explains more about his abilities, not really understanding, only knowing it sounds terrible. His past self hadn't been kidding when he'd said Genya had had it rough.]

That's messed up. You shouldn't have had to deal with any of that.

[Seriously, why are they letting kids his age anywhere near demons?]

[namuthing]

[Well, Genya isn't going to really argue that fact. What he went through did suck. It sucked a lot, and he wasn't the only one to have to go through it, either.]

That's just how things were back there. All of us had to go through it. And it was better me than anyone else.

[outofsynth]

[He does not understand why it would be better for it to be Genya, and it shows in his face. He feels as though he's probably confronted him enough for one day though. Min likes Genya, he's just not sure they're close enough for him to really push him.]

It doesn't have to work that way here.

[Well. Maybe sometimes. Genya's a kid, but that doesn't make him immune from being put into dangerous situations no matter how hard anyone tries to protect him. That doesn't mean they shouldn't try to shield him where they can though.]

[namuthing]

Doesn't it?

[It isn't that Genya wants to argue, but... he motions to the distant trees all the same. The Forest didn't care if he was a kid. It had tormented him with visions of his brother for months now, and had twisted the depth of his ability bad enough to make him kill.]

Kind of just the nature of this place, isn't it?

[outofsynth]

[Genya's not exactly wrong. The Forest doesn't care, but that doesn't mean there aren't other people who do.]

I know you can't always avoid danger, but there are people here who care about you. Who'd look out for you.

[Min-Gi has seen Genya in action and knows he can take care of himself better than he could protect him, but even so. He'd try. And there are plenty of others who have way more experience and power.]