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 | It's no problem of mine, but it's a problem I find

Purple's ensemble of a borrowed purple suit and freshly purchased hat is so classy that you could almost forget that they're wearing a diving helmet with it. They've been in town for less than a week, nobody here has earned face privileges yet. The suit wasn't their size when they got it, but it was the best-looking loaner so they've tweaked their shape to fit. Ooh, there's deviled eggs over there!

They mostly stick to the edges of the dance floor, even when they're not snacking. "I never learned," they'll admit to anyone who asks them for a dance, just a little sheepish. "But I'll try anything once."

Act Two | The wisdom of the fool won't set you free | The World Revolving

They're not sure if the muffled many-voiced laughter ringing in their ears is real or imagined. They're lightheaded and dizzy, motion sick on a stationary floor, all they can think of is hot blood eating through their environment suit and blue field-of-vision arcs spinning wildly on the terminal.

Purple grabs the edges of their theatrical comedy mask and pulls hard enough that their seemingly metal diving helmet stretches like rubber. The mask doesn't come off.

"Get this thing off me!" They stagger to the side, bump into someone, and grab hold of them to steady themselves. Shit, now they're acting like a Masked and it's not even finished with them. They fight to keep themself from throwing up. That's the last thing either of them needs right now.

Act Three | Every day my confusion grows

They've wrestled the panic down to manageable levels (the dizziness not so much, but it helps that there are plenty of places they can sit down) and can spare a bit of mental airtime to think about what's going on. Apparently the hostess isn't as human as she looked. The asshole in the jester outfit showing her off to everyone reminds them of a real shitshow of a job they worked once, where they were just trying to pay for their ticket to the next system but they had the bad luck to pick a ship that already had a pair of saboteurs hiding on board. One from their home planet, the other they weren't sure about. Orange got the green-suited reactor technician who caught him standing over a dead body thrown out the airlock, and then when the crewmates came for him he swore up and down that Maroon was the other impostor. Not to save himself, just to make sure his partner couldn't succeed without him. Oddly enough, the humans hadn't gone for it, at least not as a consensus. They'd muttered about false accusations, Purple seemingly having been the only one to spot Maroon standing around doing nothing when the life support mysteriously shut itself off. They'd even made it to their destination without anyone else dying.

Is this whole demonic monster thing something they'll be expected to do something about? They're more surprised that the Pine Devil that stalks the streets and prowls the forests eating townspeople who stay out too late isn't an urban legend than that it's actually the heiress from the city council. If she tries to eat them, they can take her. Beyond that she's not their problem. Who hasn't had to eat a guy before? And they'd look weirder if they really went all out. They're not going to make themselves a target by being the first or even the second to jump in to defend her, but they're not going to help the townspeople kill her.

Grand Finale | Why can't we be ourselves like we were yesterday?

She doesn't have to tell them twice. The mask's gone, and good riddance. Purple's making a swift retreat even if they have to step over the other guests, although anyone who actually tries to grab hold of them is getting thrown over their shoulder and carried away with them. It's faster, alright?

Edited (mumble grumble wikia linkrot) 2024-09-24 00:32 (UTC)

Ylva has only the vaguest notion of what a diving helmet is. The concept seems clear enough, though it seems like the most annoying solution for going underwater. It also seems very heavy and awkward.

When they're both looking at the devilled eggs, though, the question that's been on her mind since she first saw them bursts from her, almost involuntary: "Aren't you uncomfortable?"

They pop the front-facing aperture of the helmet open and slip in a deviled egg. Any facial features within remain in shadow, but a keen ear could pick up faint chewing noises before they answer Ylva.

"Who, me?" As if there were anyone else nearby that question could possibly be addressed to. "I'm just dressed for the occasion! The tie's a little tight, I suppose."

The tie is barely visible under the collar of the helmet.

"No," Ylva says, not exactly irritated, but definitely thrown off by their response. "The helmet. Isn't it heavy? And hard to see through?"

"It's lighter than it looks." Being more like a piece of exoskeleton than a hat will do that. However, she's got a point about it not being the best for vision; there's a reason so many insects and crustaceans put their eyes on stalks or at least elevated above the surface of their head.

She tilts her head, but lacks the math to calculate the weight of a diving helmet, and has never picked one up, so it's hard for her estimate the truth of this.

"Huh. I mean, I just never saw someone wear something like that for a fancy party, but I don't actually know anything about fancy parties."

"It's not where I spend most of my time either," Purple says. "But hey, it sounded like it was going to be the event of the year. How could I turn that down? I think the whole town's here."

"So what do you generally do instead of go to fancy parties?"

"Hang out in the woods, mostly," Ylva shrugs. She picks some cheese and salami off of a charcuterie board. "I hunt and forage for food. Sometimes I come in to town to sell or trade or give what I don't need, but I live out there."

If she's vague about where, well, that's her territory and that's on a need-to-know basis.

"Sounds rustic." They say it matter-of-factly, and eat another deviled egg. "Got any tips? It's not really my field, I mostly work with machines, but I've dabbled. And you never know what might come in handy."

Dabbled is certainly one way to put it. Hunting per se isn't what they're most interested in; if they needed to rely on tools to catch an animal for dinner, they might have either starved or ended up dead in a Baboon Hawk nest as a warning to any other two-legged dipshit looking to start trouble. But the huntswoman lives in the woods, so she probably knows all kinds of survival skills.

"Ah," Ylva says around a mouthful of bread, because she's assuming that they're assuming several things about how she hunts, "yeah. Rustic." She swallows, hastily. "I mean, I'm a wolf, I hunt with my teeth, I don't know that I can give you tips that you would... want."

Maybe. She's definitely not sure what sort of person she is talking to.

Well, that's not the answer they expected. Ylva's right, they were making some incorrect assumptions. Her teeth don't currently look sharp enough to hunt many things with, so she must have some other ones at her disposal.

"Like a werewolf? Or is shapeshifting just something wolves can do?" Purple's heard of wolves, which seem to have a lot of cultural significance to humans, but their home planet doesn't have any and human cities only kept their domesticated descendants around.

"Not a werewolf. That's something different." Ylva purses her lips thoughtfully. "But yeah, shapeshifting. I'm a wolf, but I'm also a druid, and part of that means I learned how to change shape. I can be... a lot of things."

She shrugs, but there's a bit of pride in her manner.

"Any animal I've seen."

Purple frankly doesn't know how to feel about the idea of other people who couldn't shapeshift before going out and learning to do it. Confused, skeptical, slightly offended and not sure why, weirdly jealous and even less sure why, vindicated, proud on behalf of shapeshifters everywhere, uncertain if this is wolf-related, confused again but faster? Sure, they'll take the lot.

"I've never been good at animals, they always come out looking like bad taxidermy. They've got so many bones to keep track of..." Moving right past their struggles with animal anatomy, they continue, "Where'd you learn? Here?"

"No, where I came from. When I was a pup. Someone taught me."

So, they're a shapeshifter, too. Ylva is intrigued. "The bones are mostly the same, once you've got them. You just have to change them around a bit. What sort of shapeshifting do you do, then?"

She is grinning.

Huh.

"So are there a lot of druids there?"

"Okay, yeah, but having the wrong bones makes the whole thing look bad," Purple complains. They take a casual glance over their shoulder before they answer her question, out of habit, but it doesn't look like anyone's loitering in eavesdropping range. Besides, Pink seems to be doing fine in town and she's completely open about it.

"Reshaping my own parts is what I do the most of. For practical purposes, but not always practical practical. I had to shapeshift to fit into these pants." They're currently around the same height as Ylva - bulk of the helmet excluded - but their borrowed purple pants would be loose on her. "I can also copy people, but don't spread that around. It makes 'em paranoid."

Their main helmet window winks conspiratorially.

For a moment she blinks, taken somewhat aback by the unexpected winking of a helmet, then she stifles a bark of laughter behind her hand.

"I didn't even realise, that's so good, no wonder you're not uncomfortable!" It's delightful, a surprise she accepts with nothing short of glee -- though at least she's not really yelling. "See, I can't do other people because it's too much like what I am already. Oh, we should compare some time. Maybe not now, there's not enough room to run around and too many people in the way."

"No, yeah, the middle of a big party is near the bottom of my list of places I'd like to do a lot of shapeshifting," Purple agrees. "I don't wanna steal the spotlight."

That's certainly one way to describe the kind of attention it would draw if they were to shapeshift in front of a mostly-human crowd back in their own universe. (Later in the evening, the birthday girl's spotlight isn't so different from that.)

"Similarity to how I'm already shaped makes it easier for me," they muse. "Are some of your animal shapes easier than others, or are they all about the same up until that cutoff point?"

"Actually, hold that thought, if we're going to meet up again we should probably know how to contact each other." They take out their sending stone, a cluster of little purple spheres that looks kind of like a petrified bunch of grapes. "Everyone calls me Purple, so that should get through on this thing."

"Hm." Ylva gives this some serious thought. "Well, harder ones are ones that don't move like I do. It took a long time to work out birds, and how to fly. Or how to swim like a fish, that was hard, too. Any new shape can sometimes be tricky if it turns out they have weird long legs and even if I thought I understood it's harder to actually do myself. Bigger, stronger shapes are harder too. It's easy to be small."

She shrugs, and digs out her own sending stone -- a slice of grey-green chert, smooth but unpolished. "Okay, Purple." It's descriptive and easy to remember. She will offer no criticism on names, as her own name is a fancy word for 'wolf.' She got it out of a book. "I'm Ylva." She flashes them a grin.

The man called John (that’s what the mermaid calls him after all) is hoping to find her after she’s wandered off again when he nearly collides with someone in a purple suit and a strange mask on a mask: a theater mask on top of a diving helmet of some kind.

He doesn’t even stop to think: he grabs him by the elbows and tries to hold him steady even as the other person’s body shifts in place, like he’s fighting to keep his balance.

“Hey—easy, I’ve got you. Are you okay?”

"No! It'll turn me any second now, you have to get away!" The double-masked partygoer can't seem to decide whether to accept the help that they certainly do need to stay on their feet or squirm out of John's grasp, ending up in a middle ground of tensed shoulders and a lot of twitchy, flaily little hand motions that don't go anywhere. Giving any kind of context for that frantic exclamation is a distant third priority at best.

"What? Turn you?" John asks, his grip gentling but not releasing the person in front of him that...well, kind of looks like they're going to have some kind of fit.

"Look--I'm not leaving you. I don't think I do that." he replies--and it feels right. He doesn't know who he really is right now, but just abandoning someone so clearly in distress feels wrong in ways that make his stomach squirm.

"Just--lemme help you, okay? Here, let's get you over to the wall, you can sit down. Here, gimme your hands, I'll guide you..."

"The mask! I can't get it off." They point at the one that's glued itself to their helmet, forearm swivelling beneath the grip of John's steadying hand. "That zombie clown guy thinks it's funny–"

They cut themself off, rambling agitatedly and swaying in a manner that looks as seasick as they feel as he guides them along. "Okay, you're from another dimension, right? Or whatever, I know I hadn't run into these before I came to– The point is, it's alive! These things take over people's bodies!"

Rue's also sticking to the edges, watching everyone else, too nervous to approach most people. Is it strange that the diving helmet makes Purple seem the most approachable to her? Perhaps, but it also reminds her of the spacesuits they wore when the ship needed repairs when she was very little, so there's that.

"Um, hi," she says, after inching her way along the edge of the room to stand next to Purple, "There's a lot of people here, huh?"

It might be strange, but it's not any stranger than wearing that to the ball in the first place.

"No kidding," they say, turning to meet her gaze with the front aperture of their helmet. "The town didn't look that big, and the ferry hasn't made any extra trips, so she must have invited everyone."

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September Event - Waltz of the Harlequin

Purple (cw emetophobia in Act 2)

Act 1

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Act 2 (John = Amnesiac’s Lament)

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Act 1

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