September Event - Waltz of the Harlequin

[pumpkinhollow]

**Plain text version here.

WALTZ OF THE HARLEQUIN

ACT ONE: MAKE AN ENTRANCE

{ CONTENT WARNINGS: None }

SCENE: Leeds Estate Ballroom, night. Music can be heard from a small string band in the corner. Enter PARTYGOERS, stage right.

The estate is beautifully decorated, as it always is, in vivid blues against dark wood. Flowers made from blue and golden silk adorn the walls and furniture. Candles burn in tasteful centerpieces on the round dining tables. Delicious-looking foods can be seen on the serving tables, ready to be claimed and devoured. A member of DAHLIA’S diligent staff tends an ornate bar near the door and dancers in fine clothes twirl on the dance floor to upbeat string music.

DAHLIA can be seen in the center of the room, wearing a golden gown embroidered with roses and surrounded by her ENTOURAGE, which consists of DAISY, LAIOS, RADAR, and JEFF. All of them wear the colors of House Leeds---- blue and gold. She welcomes the PARTYGOERS warmly.

DAHLIA, going for an appropriate greeting for the person she is speaking to--- a handshake, a hug, a kiss on the cheek.
Welcome. So glad you could make it. You look ravishing. Please help yourself to something to eat, and enjoy your night.

It is a beautiful night. Formal only in appearances, the energy of the Gala is casual and light, if not a bit decadent. All seems well.

ACT TWO: ALL IS REVEALED

{ CONTENT WARNINGS: rotten food, blood, forced body transformation, unreality. }

SCENE: Leeds Estate Ballroom, one hour later. The party is well underway. When the grandfather clock chimes, it sounds strange and distorted.

The sound immediately draws the attention of DAHLIA, who grows concerned. The sour chiming continues. In the center of the ballroom, a plume of sickly yellow smog bursts as if from a smoke bomb, flooding the room and causing PARTYGOERS to stagger and cough. When it fades, the environment has changed.

Enter MENDEL, from the smoke burst.

The decor in the space has changed drastically. Where once the space was deep, cool browns and shades of blue accented with gold, it is now filled with ruddy browns, jaundiced yellows, plummy purples, and searing reds. The bundles of silk flowers are replaced with bouquets of decaying fishing nets, bloody gauze, and rotten fruit which seems to bloom from splitting bruises. Tattered swags in mismatched patterns line the walls, and each PARTYGOER is now in a masquerade mask designed to fit with their outfit.

DAHLIA, lightly panicked.
What are you doing here?

MENDEL, laughing raucously.
Surprise! Oh, I do so hate to cut in, but I simply could not go another year without doing something special for my favorite niece.

He wraps his arms, which look like graying, exposed meat, around DAHLIA.

MENDEL
You see, everyone---- Darling Dahlia here has been lying to you. Her whole life, even! Can you believe it? You see, her father was never Japhet Leeds. The man couldn’t stand her! Jane Leeds was still her mother, oh yes, but her father---

DAHLIA attempts to cut in, but MENDEL grips her tighter, clamping a hand over her mouth as he presents her to the crowd. His claws dig into her arm and her cheek. He continues to snicker as he speaks, and DAHLIA struggles.

MENDEL
Her father is my own baby brother, Prince Aster of the Dark Feast! Isn’t that a funny prank? But I think the joke has overstayed its welcome. It’s time to show your little friends who you really are, isn’t it, princess?

In a swift motion, MENDEL pulls DAHLIA into a twirl, as if dancing, sending her spinning toward the crowd. When it ceases, DAHLIA stands before her gala, changed. Her complexion is blue now, and her hair, raven black. A pair of bat-like wings adorn her back, and a crown of antlers like that of a deer wreath her head.

MENDEL
Ah, no, that’s not quite what I was going for. Let me try again.

With a snap of MENDEL’S fingers, DAHLIA changes again, her body shifting against her will. Her well-kept black locks morph into wiry ashen hair which covers her body. Her face extends into that of a cow-like skull with sharp teeth. Her hands become clawed, and her feet become cloven hooves. Before the crowd now stands THE PINE DEVIL.

MENDEL
There’s our birthday girl!

THE PINE DEVIL (DAHLIA) attempts to lunge at MENDEL, but with another snap of his fingers, his streamers and swags lash out at her like vines and lash her tightly.

MENDEL
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some catching up to do with my darling niece. And you all have a party to enjoy! I leave you in the care of my talented assistants.

He starts to turn away, but then holds up a finger to shake and turns back. Oh, one more thing, I almost forgot. I’ve left all of you some party favors in those masks. Have fun!

MENDEL grabs a bound and helpless DAHLIA and disappears once more in another plume of smoke.

Enter BLANCHE and SEEMINGLY (GLEE MASK), opposite sides of the stage. The pair of them meet eyes, and pantomime tugging on an invisible rope in opposite directions, and suddenly the ballroom expands as if unrolled like a scroll, becoming a sprawling labyrinth of tiny ballrooms, winding corridors, and secret alcoves. The PARTYGOERS are separated from one another. At the same time, the magic in their masks activates, inflicting one of the following curses:

• Leaky Bucket: deprives the party goer of their short-term memory. They know who they are, and why they're here insofar as understanding it's Dahlia's birthday gala, but all new information tends to leave their mind after a few minutes. (Think Dory from Finding Nemo.)
• Amnesiac's Lament: deprives the individual of long-term memory. All new information is retained, but they have no idea who they are or why they're here. How distressing this is can be at the player's discretion. Perhaps they despair at the memory loss and are trying to find a way to escape the ball, perhaps they don't see anything wrong with their lack of context and are just trying to enjoy this weird party.
• False Friend: the opposite of Zone of Truth, those with this affliction will be unable to tell the truth and can ONLY tell lies. Any fact from the most mundane to the most complex can only be lied about. Whether or not the person is cognizant of their new habit is the player's choice.
• The World Revolving: those afflicted suffer frequent bouts of vertigo which makes the space feel as though it is spinning, sometimes very slowly, sometimes very quickly.
• Dirge of Delusion: this particular curse will cause the mask-wearer to struggle to perceive reality correctly. Objects will appear as other objects, people as different people, rooms as some other place, or even the entire ball as somewhere entirely different. These disorienting visions will come and go at times.
• Feeling Funny: the wearers of these masks will find that their emotions are completely out of control, sometimes bursting into fits of laughter, tears, or abrupt paranoia, before going completely numb for a while.

All PARTYGOERS will find their masks incapable of being removed. Those with infernal resistance from NEIL or the HOUSE OF CARDS will find their masks are less impactful, but the resistance is imperfect. However, ALICE DYER and SAMAMA KHALID will find that they have absolutely no effect from the masks at all, due to the BOON OF DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY acquired by ALICE.

The party resumes.

ACT THREE: Dance with the Devil

{ CONTENT WARNINGS: rotten food being eaten, imprisonment, impending violence }

SCENE: a distorted Leeds Estate, time unknown. As the party devolves into chaos, a clandestine meeting is arranged to locate the host.

Somewhere in the distorted estate, ALICE locates JEAN. Once she gets the Golden Wolf Mask in their hands, JEAN will be able to remove their current mask to wear the new one, which has a unique effect---- the ability to see the path of MENDEL through its eyes.

JEAN and ALICE, along with anyone they are able to recruit for help, will find MENDEL and DAHLIA on the second floor, which has transformed into a large theater balcony overlooking the party. DAHLIA is caged, and MENDEL seems to be enjoying the view as he eats half-rotten tomatoes as if they are apples.

MENDEL’S assailants choose how to make their approach. When he is destroyed, the party will end.

GRAND FINALE

{ CONTENT WARNINGS: fire }

SCENE: Leeds Estate ballroom, late night. The stage has returned to its prior state, and we are left to the aftermath.

When MENDEL is at last destroyed, the ballroom is restored to its normal size and coloration, as if the events of the night never occurred. Masks fall away, and DAHLIA stands center stage, looking exactly as her friends and neighbors remember her. However, the memory of what has occurred here tonight cannot be wiped away, as evidenced from all the onlookers around her. Are their expressions concerned? Angry? Fearful? Hurt?

Does it matter?

DAHLIA, quietly.
Get out.

There is a moment of stillness and consideration, before she speaks again, louder.

DAHLIA, shouting.
GET. OUT.

As she speaks the second word, a massive burst of blue flame erupts behind her. Glass breaks. Tables topple. DAHLIA’s hair flutters in the force of the blast. She stands stiffly, unafraid as the hot, raging blue flames consume her ballroom, peeling the wallpaper and cracking the wood. She means to chase everyone out, even if it means bringing the room down upon herself.

When everyone is gone, the flames seem to retreat, as if sucked up into their original blast point. DAHLIA, spent, collapses to her knees in the burnt shell of her own birthday party, and sobs.

Blackout. Curtains fall.

After the event ends, Dahlia will be absent from town and her home only open to close CR until further notice. She will not be answering her sending stone or her phone calls.

Comments

[hate_gettin_older]

He stays low, shifting to the left like Radar says -- but when the monster leaps at him, instead of ducking, he swings.

Edgar's never heard the sound of a cleaver chopping into a squash that's gone punky in the middle, but growing up on a farm, Radar probably has. The sound of Edgar's makeshift blade hitting the thing in the side isn't exactly the same, but can't help but bring it to mind.

emeto mention again

[incomingchoppers]

Oh, ugh, like he didn't wanna barf enough already -- Radar cringes at the squishy noise and a fresh wave of rotten meat smell as the monster's innards quickly become its out-ards. It screams, a weird rattling noise punctuating the cry --

"Watch the claws, your two o'clock!"

-- and lunges to try and slam the weapon out of Edgar's hands.

[hate_gettin_older]

The warning gives him just enough time to whirl out of the way to his left -- and maybe it's the spinning motion, or the stench of the monster's guts, or something else altogether, but the sickening dizziness sweeps back over him and sends him staggering.

"Christ," he mutters, "not now, not -- get behind me!" he shouts to Radar, and braces himself with the hunk of wood, and sends out a spreading wave of the hottest fire he can manage.

[incomingchoppers]

Edgar's voice distorts, and for a second it sounds like everyone in camp and everyone he's ever cared about on the island is hollering for him to do the same -- GET BEHIND ME!
-- which is the only reason Radar's able to jolt to his feet as fast as if the whole floor kicked him in the backside. He sways, staggering with the blowback of Edgar's dizziness. Ghostly bobbing light trails streak away from both the monster and Edgar and wind themselves into tight, tangled knots, distorting the entire room. He can't tell where to go until, five seconds before the fire erupts, one of the streaks coils tighter and lands in an outstretched hand, hot and bright as a coal.

There. He stumbles behind Edgar and grabs his shoulder.

The wave of fire slams into the monster as hard as a body blow. It screams, and keeps screaming, its individual pumpkin segments igniting one by one as it writhes and scrabbles against the ground.

[hate_gettin_older]

He grips the length of wood, bracing harder as the smell makes the dizziness worse, waiting for the monster to come at them again.

Waiting, as it lurches and writhes, and ... begins to collapse.

Ah thank Christ, he thinks blurrily, but what he says aloud is "Wait, just -- wait till it stops moving, it might be shamming."

[incomingchoppers]

Confused, a little shrill: "It might be what?"

But Edgar doesn't need to clarify. The monster tumbles apart like nothing was holding it together at all, its pumpkin segments rolling a few feet away from each other. The limbs sprouting from them twitch erratically, and one spasms like it might be trying to reach for the pumpkin that used to be its midsection... but the movements slow within seconds, and finally stop after half a minute more.

Radar wheezes out what feels like the longest breath of his life as he thuds his forehead against Edgar's shoulder.

[hate_gettin_older]

Edgar huffs out a long breath too, and sags in place.

"All right," he starts to say, "let's --"

And he breaks off, as the far end of the corridor seems to dissolve into mist, the blur first slow and then swelling rapidly like they're heading into a tunnel --

-- and almost as rapidly clears, into the restored ballroom.

(UNMASK, UNMASK)

[incomingchoppers]

The mask has pressed so tightly against his face that it almost hurts when it loosens and begins to drop away. Radar fumbles to catch it -- and stop it from knocking his glasses off his face, too -- before he realizes what he's doing and drops it like a hot potato.

His ears ring in the sudden silence. The air feels cool against his damp, fevered face. Gingerly, he rubs one ear like it's gotten stuffed up, not entirely sure if everything's gone quieter for good reasons or bad ones.

"...Are we out?" he breathes.

[hate_gettin_older]

"Think so," he whispers.

Others are here. Everyone seems to be here, scattered around the room, in various states of dishevelment and distress. And their hostess, standing stiffly in the center, looking exactly as she's looked all along.

Edgar glances from her to Radar, back to her, back to his friend.

"So, uh," he says, and has no idea how to continue that.

[incomingchoppers]

The way Radar's looking at Dahlia, pain and disbelief and worry knotting up his expression, so much worry above all else --

He hasn't really told anybody how he feels about Dahlia. Or that she feels the same, and they're just trying to... figure out if it works for Radar. But anybody with eyes could see the way he was looking at her when the gala started, let alone how he's looking at her now. Edgar probably noticed ages ago how cheerful Radar was on the days he came straight to the ranch from Leeds Manor.

He swallows hard enough to make his throat bob. "Yeah. Uh," he manages, all his attention still stuck on Dahlia. Why does the room still feel like it's spinning, even with the masks gone?

Dazed, not quite thinking, he goes on in the thinnest whisper, "I think I knew and they made me forget."

[hate_gettin_older]

The way Edgar's looking at Radar is mostly worry, with a touch of baffled balked anger behind it.

"We should, uh," he says, and that's when Dahlia lifts her head and says Get out.

"-- That."

[incomingchoppers]

But, he wants to say. Even as the look in Dahlia's eye sends a chill up his back, he wavers, unable to decide whether to step closer to Edgar or forward toward Dahlia.

The fire that erupts when Dahlia screams makes the decision for him.

And still, even as he stumbles backward, even as he finally turns tail and bolts, he doesn't take his eyes off her until the last possible second.