ph_logs | September Event - Waltz of the Harlequin

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September Event - Waltz of the Harlequin

**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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

act one [ota]

Phew. Finally. After weeks of running around and twelve straight hours of last-minute prep today, the gala's arrived, and Radar can take a second to breathe and enjoy it.

He doesn't clean up too bad, if he does say so himself. Not even his army buddies -- okay, probably especially his army buddies -- have seen him dressed like this. Sure, it felt a little weird the first time he tried on the outfit, like he was going to a costume party instead of wearing something that really looked like him, but by the time everybody starts filtering in, he's settled into it with the pride of a guy who just got his lieutenant's bars. This is exactly where he wants to be: next to Miss Leeds as she welcomes everybody, knowing all his hard work will make the night go just like she hopes it will.

If he spots someone he knows, he'll break formation to beam excitedly at them and give them a small, but extremely enthusiastic wave. Look! Look how great everything's going!

(And if he keeps sneaking awestruck looks back toward Dahlia... can you blame him? The first time he saw her wearing that dress, his breathing went all funny for a whole minute. He'd happily stare for hours if he didn't have a job to do.)

act two, scene one [meta]

Honestly, Radar's first reaction is sheer indignation. After everybody worked their butts off, the gala's gonna get ruined by a bunch of party crashers?!

That quickly becomes the least of his concerns.

What strikes him hardest, under the brief burst of terror, isn't incomprehension. Instead, it feels like he swept under the mess tent tables and found a missing puzzle piece from a gathering weeks ago. Deja vu, but not even that, really. Just a single thought: I knew this already.

Dread builds in his gut as he stares up and up at the Pine Devil -- Dolly -- Dahlia -- just like he did that night in the woods. She's exactly the same. The teeth, the ragged fur, the horns, the ambulance stink of her breath. It's been her the whole time. Just because the news doesn't impact him as fresh as before doesn't mean it hasn't scrambled his thoughts and sent his ears buzzing.

Radar barely has time to feel more than that before the bindings lash around her.

"Don't hurt her!" he cries, with such a driving desperation that he doesn't even realize he said it at first. He even takes half a step forward like an absolute dodo, as if he could stop Mendel on his own when he's lost fights with his own bedsheets a not-insignificant number of times.

Then the curse hits, and the world falls apart.

act two, scene two [dirge of delusion; ota]

Radar collapses to his knees.

what's going on

where am i
what's going on

where am i
oh god
HELP ME
oh god
HELP ME

He claps his hands over his ears with a shuddery noise of pain. Everything. Everything. Every thought every word every sound. It roars around him like it never has before in his whole life, as loud and incoherent as if he were tumbling down a waterfall, tailspinning, drowning. He can't block it out. Feedback screeches in his head at a pitch that makes his eyes water.

over here
stop, please
can you hear me

who's there
don't come any closer
over here
stop, please

Gasping, he squeezes his eyes shut. Opens them again as the noise whirs and whirs and thunders.

"Choppers," he whispers.

over here

over here

He looks up. Stretching into the endless distance, a hospital corridor reeking of blood beckons him. Radar lurches to his feet. His shoes skid on the concrete -- dirt road? corn husks? -- and he catches his hand on a wall that feels too warm. His palm sinks into it just enough to make his gorge rise.

"Choppers," he says again, louder. Coughs around the stink; raises his voice as he starts moving. "Hey. Hey! Can you hear me?! WE GOT CHOPPERS INBOUND!"

There's gotta be a doctor around here somewhere. Where is everybody?

grand finale/epilogue [closed to dahlia]

He wavers. But eventually, Radar bolts with the rest of the crowd.

Ears ringing and head pounding with the aftershocks, he stumbles out of the ballroom. For half the length of a hallway, he follows the flow of traffic, too dazed to do much else. It's not until he whacks the back of his hand against a doorknob that he jolts back to himself.

Right. He's -- he's got a guest room. All his stuff's here. He thinks, with an oddly calm clarity: I'm not gonna make it all the way back to my house like this.

So that's where he ends up instead, after everything, the heavy wooden door of his room muffling the last dying embers of the gala. He just barely manages to find his teddy bear and peel off that fancy outfit he loved so much a few hours ago before his body gives out. Toppling into bed, he curls up, mashes a pillow over his head like that'll block the rest of the noise, and tries to sleep off the migraine.

It only kinda works. He wakes up on a flood of adrenaline a handful of hours later. Some nightmare he can barely reach, of Dolly snatching up the bodies of the wounded before they can get them inside... but then it's gone, leaving him too jittery and way too awake.

So. What now? Radar sighs. Slowly, creakily, he shrugs on the bathrobe he brought along. With his bear tucked under one arm, he shuffles out of his room to take stock of the aftermath.

There's a whole lot of damage to fix and even more of a mess to clean up. He'd better get started.

When Dahlia emerges from her own room some hours later, she looks dehydrated and like she cried off all her makeup rather than washing it. Her hair is a mess and she's heading to her kitchen for tea in what appears to be a nightgown, three dressing gowns, and a thick blanket, turning her tiny form into a large mass of gossamer fabric.

She walks in on Radar doing whatever it is he's doing and just stops. Staring.

A whole lot of people dropped their personal effects in the rush to get out the door -- an earring here, a sending stone there, a pair of heels he guesses someone kicked off so they could run better. Radar has trudged a slow loop through the estate collecting everything he can find in a basket. Once that's done, he'll start matching effects with partygoers.

Dahlia finds him crouched next to a broken necklace, meticulously sweeping all the pearls into his palm. When a floorboard creaks, he looks up -- and stops, too, staring in kind.

"...Hi."

Slowly, Radar tips the pearls into the basket and straightens up. His own robe, a hand-me-down he found when he moved into his house, hangs too long on him, the hem dragging on the floor. His bear pokes out from one of its oversized pockets like a kangaroo joey.

Instinctively, he tries to flatten his hair to cover his bald spots.

"...You're still here." It's a statement rather than a question.

She looks so hollow, and still reeks of ash. Not that he could tell, from standing in the burnt shell of the room. Her hair is full of scorch marks and curled ends.

Radar's whole heart aches to look at her. Even on his earliest mornings at Leeds Manor, he's never seen her anywhere close to this state before. He wondered for a second if he'd end up calling her Miss Leeds automatically like he's done a million times, but... this isn't poised and proper Miss Leeds, his boss. It's just Dahlia. His friend.

(The Pine Devil.)

"Yeah." He starts to shove his hands into his pockets, only to have one of them collide with his bear. Stifling a wince, Radar fumbles it free and tucks his arms around it. "There's... there's a lot to clean up. I can call the staff back to help once I got an idea what we need, and, um, one of the architects oughta check for structural damage too, probably. The kitchen's not too bad though if you want your tea."

"...You don't have to do that." Her voice is soft and hoarse. She looks guilty. "You're--- You can go. Paid time off. Until further notice."

Oh.

Radar's tendency toward overwork isn't all pure and selfless. Keeping busy helps him not think too hard, sometimes, about the worst of the bad stuff. Maybe he half-hoped he could just... keep working like normal until he forgot about this, too, a little bit.

But if it's just Dahlia in front of him, not Miss Leeds, then of course he's not gonna be her assistant right now. Makes sense. Reflexively, he hugs his bear a little tighter; it makes him look even more unmoored.

"Can I make you tea anyway?"

Watching him standing there looking lost, clutching that stuffed bear that somehow seems to be a reflection of his soul in her eyes, and asks her if he can make her tea, Dahlia feels----

Well. She just feels.

A frown tugs at the corners of her mouth as she tries to hold back tears, not upset with him, but frustrated with herself. This is all so much right now.

"Yeah," she finally manages. "I'll fix breakfast."

For a moment, a feedback loop snags Radar: Dahlia's misery and overwhelm knocks into his own, amplifying it, and all of a sudden he's on the verge of tears, too.

Come on, you dummy, he snaps at himself. Keep it together.

"Okay," he says, almost inaudible. Swallowing down the lump in his throat, he falls in step with Dahlia as they move toward the kitchen. Maybe he can help with the rest of breakfast too once they're there.

In the kitchen, his bear goes on the counter, far away from the stove. He fetches the kettle. Fills it. Sets it heating like he's done a hundred times.

Radar O'Reilly | OTA + 1 closed

Epilogue

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act two, scene two

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Act 2 Scene 2

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cw: spider

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act 2 scene 2

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