ph_logs | June Event - Cukey-Scary [The Cucumber Festival]

June Event - Cukey-Scary [The Cucumber Festival]

**Plain text version here.

CUKEY-SCARY

Come one, come all!

The long-awaited festival to enjoy vegetables and welcome in the summer months has finally arrived - and this time, completely uninhibited by curses!

Pumpkin Hollow's streets are bright and bustling, adorned with green ribbons, baskets of flowers, and freshly arranged shop stalls to market their goods to the festival-goers as they mill about the streets surrounding the Festival Green. Cheering crowds watch performers perched upon stages, jaunty music played by thoroughly energized bands fills the air, and the smell of freshly-cut cucumbers is carried on the breeze.

Welcome to the Cucumber Festival, a sorely-missed holiday held exclusively on Marrow Isle. It is a festival begun at the town's inception to encourage the newly-established farming community, which was rapidly embraced from then on. Many smaller-scale gardeners dedicate vast amounts of energy in joining farmers to make the festival possible, and this year is more abundant than ever, thanks to the efforts of the new arrivals taking up the farming mantles. The merriment sprawls all over the Festival Green, and even further into the town.

One question yet remains: where to begin?

Cucumber Celebrations Commence!

Copious Cucumber Cuisine

With the cucumber harvest more bountiful this year than it'd ever been, the booths have a wide assortment of offerings - cucumber chips, fried pickles, bowls of salad, breads with chunks of vegetable in them, fritters, among the wide tide of other culinary delights. If you can make it with a cucumber, these people have!

Almost as abundant as the attendees are, the stalls and booths set up with cucumber-centric meals are easily found. much of it is cheap, even free in many cases, and scattered with them are other booths peddling artisan goods.

Challenges of Chance and Cheer

As much as Hollowites enjoy their food, there's rarely an opportunity that they pass up to incorporate games or rides into festivities, and the Cucumber Festival has an extremely wide variety to offer!

The Whirling Wyvern is a ride that stands shortly behind a neat arrangement of picnic tables. Rope fences wind around the ride, giving it a safe distance from any bystanders, and the surrounding area is littered with flour bags, densely stuffed to offer padding.

Watching it even briefly makes it very clear why the padding is needed: the platform, raised about two feet off the ground in the middle, begins to spin its seated riders, rotating faster and faster until they topple, roll, and fall off the sides, into the padding below. People can often be heard nearby making bets with friends to see who can stay on the longest. (It's not a recommended ride for anyone who's been drinking!)

Bumpermobiles is another ride, operating on enchantment instead of electricity and a switch, that may look familiar to some of Pumpkin Hollow's residents from more modern times! Though they lack the distinctive roofed building in favor of a section of paved road closed off with wooden beams, the small carts of the bumpermobiles resemble automobiles of the current time, outfitted with wide-edges to brace the impact they'll inevitably have on one-another! Each one seats two, but are able to be driven on their own, if you'd prefer to focus your conversations on heckling your fellow driver.

Hot Air Balloons are set up not on the Green, but just outside of it, taking a spot just off to the side that's unoccupied by booths or frequent foot-traffic. Each ride carries a maximum of three, not counting the operator, and gives any rider an impressive view of marrow isle for thirty minutes.

The Carousel stands in the center of the Festival Green, chiming cheerful music from the pillar in the center. Horses are joined by the addition of shimmering unicorns, beaked pegasi, and colorfully painted pony-drawn carts (which are crafted to be seats, for those who cannot climb on one of the other mounts).

The Wheel of Chance is a vertical wheel, perched between artisan's booths, offering low-stake prizes for a small payment! 5 Brass allows you to spin the wheel, offering one of ten available prizes:

a cucumber, covered in batter and fried, on a stick.
a goldfish in a decorative bowl.
a pair of pants, with several varieties to choose from.
a deck of playing cards.
a fine leather-bound notebook.
a set of six shot glasses.
a bottle of wine.
a basket of assorted fruits.
a glass-blown animal native to Marrow Isle, palm-sized, in assorted species and colors.
10 Brass. Double your money!

(For any concerned about the wellbeing of the fish: the person operating the wheel assures the health of these goldfish, and that the bowls are simply for festival distribution. They do note, however, that you'll be on the hook, no pun intended, to provide the new home for the fish.)

The Cucumber Festival's Raffle is one of the most coveted opportunities to spend a small sum of brass and win one of the many prizes donated by the community, with all contributions going into community services and upkeep.

Each ticket costs 20 Brass, and each person may purchase up to 5 tickets. There will be three drawings total, granting a small prize, a medium prize, and a grand prize to each winner. One person cannot win more than one prize; if the same person draws a second prize after their first, it will be re-rolled.

To purchase a raffle ticket, please reply to the Pumpkin Hollow mod account comment with RAFFLE TICKETS as the title, also linked here, stating how many tickets your character will be buying. On JUNE 14TH, ticket purchasing will be closed, and the prizes will be rolled!

The prizes are as follows:

1st (small): a telescope, with elegant engravings in the metal, donated by Elias Coldwood.
2nd (medium): a set of two enchanted tea puppies, one glass and one metal, donated by Neil West.
3rd (grand prize): a basket-hilt sword, well-weighted, masterfully crafted, and delightfully ornate, donated by Dahlia Leeds.

Contestants Convene for Competition

Of course, what's a festival without a little bit of friendly competition! Over the week of celebrations, the Cucumber Festival hosts the following activities for any and all participants interested in joining in the fun.

The Cucumber Growing Competition is a celebration of the farmers who made all this possible, as well as a flexing of gardening prowess. Each cucumber is measured in weight, length, and color! The prize for the best cucumber in show is simply a ribbon, but among the Pumpkin Hollow farmers, it's quite a statement to have. Career farmers, hobby gardeners, and onlookers alike gather to see the town's farmers' handiwork!

The Cooking Competition follows directly after the Cucumber Growing Competition. While the larger of the vegetables don't make for very good foods, sacrificing flavor for size, the rest of the entries are cut up and used for a variety of dishes. Chefs of all varieties are encouraged to participate to show their culinary prowess!

The Great Turnip Smash-Off is a cheeky jab at the prior year's failed festival. Wielding any tools they like, including but not limited to one's hands themselves, each contestant is allotted three minutes to destroy as many turnips as they possibly can. The prize for the cucumber festival's first annual turnip slayer is a small trophy for bragging rights!

The Water Walk is a fun sport for all ages! Lined up in rows with metal spoons full of water, the participants must walk carefully to the end of the "racetrack" to a small glass of water, with a line denoted on the side at the middle. The first person to fill their glass to or above that mark wins!

The Variety Show occurs throughout the week, offering the stage to many people of assorted talents. The first day is booked up for magicians (sleight of hand, specifically - mages are politely requested to refrain from participation), and on the following Monday, a "feat of strength" competition will showcase the might of those strongest in Pumpkin Hollow! The other days are yet to be filled, and several festival attendants are waiting with clipboards to accept submissions. Many newcomers have talents they've never seen before, so new submissions of the musical, magical, or other remarkable talent alike are not only welcome, but strongly encouraged!

Carnival Complications

Of course, not all things can go entirely peacefully in Pumpkin Hollow's festivities, and the Cucumber Festival has never been exempt from this. Though the prior years' incident was far more disruptive to the festival's celebrations, several things begin to crop up over the span of the week.

Capricious Crashers

As the festival goes on, it seems that some poltergeists have seen fit to invite themselves to the party. Two games are affected, with varying results.

The Whack-a-Mole Game, during the first night, becomes the first item to start experiencing a mild haunting. Though the specters only make themselves known when the participant is alone, there's a distinct feeling of guilt that comes with each smack, not unlike stepping on a cat's tail without realizing it. Instead of the triumphant jingle that the machine lets out when the game is complete, a stark silence settles in, as though the entire festival has frozen in time. Only then does a whisper, no louder than a breeze, brush past your ear.

Rolling a D3, the spirits haunting the whack-a-mole machine will tell you the following:

a secret that isn't yours to have about someone in town.
a piece of gossip, a shocking recent happening that may or may not be getting around in whispers.
a lie, carefully crafted to impact the way you see one of your fellow townsfolk.

(Mod Note: the information given is always going to be about someone nearby. When tagging into someone's top-level with the Whack-a-Mole Game who's got secrets or gossip, provide a piece of information about your character that the spirits might've said! Additionally, feel free to request a piece of information about an NPC, major or minor. For a lie, anything goes. Have fun with it!)

The Candle-Shooting Game is the next to become haunted, though the haunting is significantly more straightforward. In an act of simple mischief, the flame will occasionally withstand blasts from the water gun that should have surely snuffed it, or the flame will go out just as you line your shot up. These spirits are aiming to ruin this particular game, but not your night.

Cards and Consequences

On the outskirts of the festival, there is a strange building set up. Just a small shack, decorated with celestial trappings and a mysterious air. Above the door, a sign painted black with gold lettering says "HOUSE OF CARDS". Is it a funhouse? A fortune teller? No one's sure who set it up. Perhaps another effort of Captain Tuttle or something.

There is a sign on the double doors that make up the entrance, which reads, "Admission is free, but you must enter in pairs." And true to its word, the doors will not open unless two different people take each door's handle. Otherwise it is definitively locked.

So, choose a companion and go explore! What's the worst that could happen? All you have to do is open the door.

| CONTENT WARNINGS: mild manipulation, unreality, snakes, possible character death. |

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He nods, determination filling him. "Then, I want to see it with you."

With that decided, he pulls on the door and then gasps as he beholds the beauty on the other side of it... and the food.

"Wow. Is this... safe to eat? Should we try some? Look at it all."

Once again she steps into the copy of Eden, but this time with Max, the man she genuinely loves.

"It is safe, yes."

She reaches for his hand and leads him up into the gazebo.

"I can recommend the peaches."

His grip on her is firm, as if afraid to let go for fear of being separated. This scenery is so beautiful but it's dimmed by the disquiet he's reading from her. Something about this is off and he wishes he knew what.

"Can't go wrong with peaches," he answers as he settles down on the gazebo bench, but admittedly his attention is less on the food now than her.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong, Max. This place just reminds me of another one. One from a very, very long time ago."

She picks up a peach and hands it to him.

"We can linger here as long as you want."

"It makes you seem sad." And he can't help but wonder why a place this beautiful would bring back memories that don't seem all that fond.

He takes the peace and puts his thumb in the seam to peel it open. The fruit comes apart in two perfect halves, the pit stuck to one side. He offers her the pit-free half.

"Would it upset you if I asked about it? I... want to know more about your past."

Valdis gently takes the peach half.

"I'm not upset Max, I'm just not ready to talk about it."

She takes a seat, patting the spot next to her with her free hand.

"Come on, lets sit for a moment and then continue the game."

"Okay," he answers with a plaintive sigh as he sits down beside her.

There's so much he still doesn't know, so much he wants to ask, but he won't force it. She has to be ready. He hopes it won't be that long to wait until she is.

In the meantime, he bites into his half of the peach and moans with pleasure at the taste. "Oh, fuck. You're right, these are delicious. I wish I could take some home to cook with. These would make the perfect peach cobbler."

Edited 2024-07-26 02:56 (UTC)

She knows he wants to understand, but she doesn't know how he could even begin to try, or if his opinion of her would change, or if he would pity her. She couldn't imagine anything worse that Max feeling sorry for her. She has no use or need for pity, not for something that happened hundreds or even thousands of years ago. There's no reason to share her failures or weaknesses, not even with a man she loves. She would like nothing more than to pretend that none of it ever mattered because none of it was important for her life now.

"We could try to take some. It might not work, but there's no harm in an attempt."

"Okay. Let's try. Maybe I can see if the pits will grow in our backyard. That would be fun, wouldn't it?" To have his own fruit tree, his own garden where he could pluck food right from the vine and prepare it. Just imagining it fills him with warm fuzzies.

He picks up a few leaves off the ground and carefully wraps the fruit in them for padding before he slides them into his pockets.

"We should have tea parties like this at home. This is fun. I'm going to try a few more things."

He makes a show of selecting more treats and savoring them with eyes closed as if he's a judge on a Food Network cooking show. Eventually, however, they do have to move on.

"Which way should we go?" He looks to the maze with trepidation before turning to the trellis. "I think... maybe I'd rather go through the purple flowers." Hedge mazes remind him a little too much of the labyrinth.

"Yes, it would be."

Valdis also tries a few more of the treats, but mostly sticks to the fruit, savoring the natural sweetness. When they finish and continue to where she went before, she's relieved when Max prefers the wisteria.

"I would prefer the purple flowers as well."

She reaches for his hand and leads him through the trellis, and into a neglected and ruined vision of the garden they were just in. Fruit lies spoiled, ivy has overgrown the beauty, the place seems more rotten than uplifting now, and of course there's no going back.

But the small table and the question upon it has an easy answer.

His fingers press tight to her's, a thrum of nervous energy pulsing through him as they approach the next door. It's dark on the other side. Dark and dense with overgrown vegetation. The rotting fruit makes him frown and check on the peaches in his pocket. They still seem fine.

He cautiously approaches the table and reads the card they are meant to answer. Relief floods him. That question is easy. He checks the "yes" box with a decisive flourish of the pen.

And then he looks up to find the door waiting. "Shall we go through?"

Valdis smiles at him. It's easy to allow the pain of Eden to fade away when he's with her. She answers the question the same as him and walks confidently through the door with her hand in his.

The ship floating through space, glimmering with starlight and life. The singing of the whale draws a little gasp, such a beautiful and serene sound, more soothing that the garden by far. Her question is just as easy to answer as the last.

She turns to face Max.

"As long as I have you, tomorrow will always be beautiful."

It's breathtaking. He looks up in awe at the stars that shine all around them, drinking in the consolations with wide eyes full of wonder. Is that a whale made of stars? Is it singing to him? Talking to him? it's almost too much for him to speak, but when Valdis does his eyes turn to her still full of the same wonder, joined now with bottomless love.

"I couldn't say it better myself. All of my tomorrows will be beautiful because I have you." He reaches for her hand before he moves to open the next door.

Which makes it all the more distressing when he comes out of the other side alone. Nothing here but a lantern...

"Valdis?" He refuses to go further without her, so he brandishes the lamp out in front of him and cuts away through the dark, calling her name. "Valdis!"

No. No no no. Valdis frantically searches the forest looking for Max, she won't leave without him, not again. No matter how much the choice hadn't been hers the previous time, she knew he had to be here somewhere. With a deep breath, she closes her eyes and recalls his soul, pouring her love and devotion into the connection she knows they share.

Then she follows the feeling and every time she pauses she feels the tug to continue. It guides her through the woods, closer and closer, only to soon hear him calling her name.

"Max!"

The longer it takes the more his heart pounds in his chest, but he clenches his jaw tight and wills himself to keep calm. Maybe this is why Valdis didn't want to come in. She was afraid of something like this happening. It was his idea, his fault, he has to keep it together. She'll find him. She always finds him. He has faith in her.

"Valdis!?" That was her! He knows he heard her calling. "I'm here! I'm here!" He takes off walking faster in the direction of her voice. He wants to run, but that's just a good way to get hurt, so he doesn't.

"Valdis, I hear you!"

Her heart leaps into her throat as her anxiety starts to settle when he returns her call, followed by relief as she sees the light of his lantern illuminate him in the darkness. He's always been more than just her lover, more than a boyfriend, he's her anchor, the one thing that keeps her from diving completely into who she once was.

"I found you," she says breathlessly.

Unlike him, she does break into a run, almost wanting to cast the lantern aside so she can embrace him, but in the darkness they will need both.

"I found you," she repeats as she slows to meet him in the clearing.

"You always do," he tells her confidently, as he sets the lantern at his feet so he can hug her. "That's why I didn't let myself get too scared." His faith washes over her as he summons the feeling up again. He knew that no matter how dark it got, she'd still be here for him.

"Are you okay?"

She'd promised him she would always find him, but someday she knows that may not be true.

"I'm fine."

His embrace is as warm as ever, and she wants to just rest in it, but they need to move on.

"I found the door, let's go through it together."

Just as with everything else.

"Okay." He lets her out of the hug, but he refuses to let go of one hand, too scared of being separated again.

Once through the door, he gasps at the beauty of the meadow before them. The sky is awash in golden light streaming through the clouds, like the dawning of a new day.

And there in the distance are two doors. "I feel... drawn to the right door. Do you feel it too?"

It is beautiful, just like the garden, just like Eden, but somehow this place feels more hopeful. And while she also feels the draw toward the door on the right, years of paranoia hold her back. She knows the darkness of the magic here, how it twists and torments, and yet...she had made it through unscathed with Gabriel, she can do so with Max.

"I do."

Even if it is the wrong door. Even if they die or something bad happens, at least she was able to find love again and he would be waiting for her somewhere on the other side of everything.

"Shall we?"

"Yeah," he says, squeezing her hand. "Let's go through together."

He reaches for the door on the right, and when he pulls it open, he lets out a small gasp of surprise at finding himself back on that cliff edge where they'd started. Pride swells in his chest.

"We did it! We made it through together! And we... get a wish?"

Valdis breathes a sigh of relief when they appear to reach the end of their journey. Their love had gotten them through, but she really shouldn't have doubted it.

"We do," she turns to kiss him. "You should wish for whatever you like. I already have everything I could ever need."

"Hmmm," he debates with himself a little about this. Is it really fair if the wish is only for him? If it could really be anything then...

"Oh, I have an idea. I want to be able to use telepathy like you do. That way, even when I change into my wolf body, I'll still be able to talk to people. That would be good for both of us, right?"

"That sounds like a wonderful wish."

He brightens at her approval. "Then... that's what I wish for."

Nothing spectacular happens. There's no noise or cue to say it's taken place. But it has.

"Do... you think it worked? Should I try transforming?"

June Event - Cukey-Scary [The Cucumber Festival]

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