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.

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"I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."

She might be watching parts of her own skin act like glass, reflecting every light in painfully sharp fragments, but she's here.

"I see you too. We're in what isn't. But we are, and that makes it difficult to process."

If it weren't for Elsie's gift, she's certain the agony and fear of all the party goers would kill her, but as it is, she only has to deal with her own feelings. She'll have to thank Elsie later.

She slowly opens her eyes, frustrated by the flames and blood she sees, the fact that the ground seems like it might crack open into burning lava.

"I can't fight like this."

And she needs to...so very badly.

"If I touch you, will it make things worse?"

It could help. But the last thing she needs is Valdis lashing out at her because she misjudged the situation.

"We're going to get through this. I've dealt with this before. I will not harm you."

She believes that Fever wouldn't hurt her, but she can't be sure that she won't react on instinct. Raphael had been an enemy, but a tragic one, one she hadn't wanted to have. He had cared once, perhaps she could cling to that, and could cling to the soul of someone she loves.

Valdis takes a deep breath, struggling to keep her focus, trying to force control. Yet Fever had told her to let go. Whatever is happening is beyond her power to conquer, fighting it was futile. So what was left?

"I believe you."

"Focus on me, then. Try to see me through the changes. You know me. You know what you're looking for."

It's not control, not exactly. Just looking for the cracks in the whole thing, to stabilize herself. Like roots forming around stone.

Valdis tried to focus on Fever instead of what she sees, to look past the illusions of Raphael and the surrounding warriors. A flicker of inspiration comes as she considers how to see her friend and she drops her vision into the soul plane.

"I see you now."

Her voice wavers still. This may not be sustainable for a long period, but for now her heartrate slows and her mind is able to focus.

"I don't know how long I can hold it together."

"It'll be enough. I'm going to get you to safety first, so we can clear this from you without worrying about your surroundings."

Remember, remember - this place twists and shifts, but even the demons and like cannot be everywhere. All she needs is to get to some place with a door that will lock, where there's more peace.

"Can you see me enough to follow me?"

If not, her hand is there, extended. No magic, no weapon - those will remain away until needed.

Valdis shakes her head and lets her sight drop, reassured for at least the moment. The world is still upside down, and her sight makes the rest of the room almost vanish. She takes the extended hand, trusting Fever to lead her somewhere safer than here at the very least. No matter what faces she sees in this moment, the soul is that of her beloved friend.

"I trust you."

"Don't let go."

Her grip is firm as she's guiding Valdis, fighting the shimmering at the edge of her vision that wants to overlay the world. Not until they're safe, not until they're stable, and there are murmured words to guide Valdis as well. Object on her left, step over that demon's corpse, until they're going through another doorway and Fever sees an intact lock. Close, lock - she's glancing around for something heavier to move in its way, but spots an alcove in the room that'll be perfect to rest in.

"Here, here - I've locked the door. If something tries to come in, I'll hear it."

She'll defend her, is what she means, placing herself between Valdis and the rest of the room.

Everything still seems wrong, even with her switching back and forth between soul sight and reality, when reality is wrong it doesn't help much. Still, she's able to catch her breath and regain some of her sanity when Fever ushers her into a room without any others in it. At least, it seems that way.

"I don't know how you do it."

Her voice breaks as she struggles to keep it together. She hasn't felt this completely helpless in a very, very long time.

"That's a complicated answer. One day, I'll explain it all. But for now, let it suffice that I can, I will, and I do."

Her path, her faith, what she has experienced and dreamed of and found to be just shy of the truth - none of it is a guarded secret. But it's all too complicated to outline in a place like this, where her friend is hurting, and where it's the most natural thing to try and draw her into an embrace.

She's protected. Sword and shield and sorcery alike.

"We've survived worse than this. Mendel will have to try so much harder if he wants us to fall apart. He's not seeing another morning."

Of course it's complicated, but guilt starts to twist around her just as firmly as the fear that her mind is deceiving her. If Fever can function, then her friend needs to go support the others, needs to go help those who can fight. There's no point guarding her when she can still defend herself if necessary. Fever is needed elsewhere.

"You don't have to stay."

The words don't exactly catch in her throat, but they are strained.

"Those who can fight need your support."

"Valdis. If you think for a moment I'm simply abandoning you, you're even more in the grips of delusion than I thought."

This is why she isn't letting go. Why she's still there.

"Even I'm not so stupid that I'd leave you to suffer just because the door's locked."

She knows the feelings she's sensing from Fever. It's that same fierce protectiveness she feels for Max, the same rage she feels for Fever. That instinctual care that comes from something more. She's sure Fever doesn't recognize it for what it is, and this is in no way the proper moment to consider it. Despite the desire to rest in those feelings, the idea that she might be too weak to defend herself causes a spike of her own anger, not necessarily at Fever, but at Mendel, at herself for not foreseeing this, for underestimating her enemy.

She's lucky she has enough sense to not completely panic, lucky that there's nothing waiting in the wings to take control in her uncertainty. Lucky that Fever had gotten to her so quickly and given her something to hold onto. And yet...

"It's not abandonment, Fever. It's recognizing that you are more useful to them than me right now. They need you. They need someone who can fight."

"There's a whole host of souls I could name that are out there right now, capable and ready and likely armed. They need fighters, and they're out there, no doubt regrouping and making a plan of how to navigate this. I'm far from the only one who longs for demon blood."

She knows violence is what she's good for. But if she leaves this room, if she leaves Valdis vulnerable, and something happens? Fever will never forgive herself. It'll be another on the long list of her personal fuck-ups to carry around forever.

"Please. I won't leave you to navigate this alone."

Cast aside pride, guilt, and all the rest. Let her be stubborn, and selfish, and try to help in a way that she knows she can.

Valdis bites her lip so hard she breaks the skin, moving too quickly between anger and fear to even feel the pain. She's furious with herself for being so prideful, for thinking the demons weren't a threat she couldn't handle. She hadn't counted on magic and mind games, though...considering magic was a scarcity on her homeworld, perhaps she should have been more cautious. No, she should have been more cautious.

She's known for so long that Fever and Neil could be massive threats to her if they were enemies. River could also give her a great deal of trouble. It all depended on who was faster, yet she never considered the demons to be of the same level. She knows better, and now Fever feels like she has to protect her and her heart is torn between relief and rage.

She can't bring herself to tell Fever she doesn't need her, to say the words that might drive Fever from her side out of desperation to make her protect the others. The words are there, on the tip of her tongue, words that are designed to hurt, to anger, to push Fever into motion.

But she can't. Just like she couldn't with Max. She can't bring herself to drive Fever away. If she even could.

"But none of them are you."

And none of the people outside are you.

"Look at me."

Red eyes lock onto green, unwavering, a firm place of resolve. The same conviction Fever'd had in the village, tearing open the husk of a god with a kitchen knife. Maybe she's not out there with Mendel's throat in her teeth. Maybe that's not her fate. But if she's protecting people, then she's damn well going to make sure those close to her are under that particular aegis.

"If you are in the hells, Valdis, I will find you there and bring you back."

What does she have to do, to convince her she's worth it?

"And then I will lay waste to this foul blooded Prince and all his Court, that they thought to try themselves. If they aren't already slaughtered. But that comes after."

Mendel doesn't get to win over her. Fever will make sure of that.

No matter how much she wants to see Fever when they lock eyes, it's still Amos wearing the soul of the woman she loves. Each word that leaves his lips, in his voice, belongs to Fever. She knows that, and yet it hurts so much to try to separate what she sees from what she believes. Still, even in this agony and confusion, she hears something that Fever doesn't even realize she's saying, and wonders if Fever will ever realize it herself.

If Fever won't leave her, then they'll just have to go together.

"Then I can't stay in here Fever. No matter how much pain or confusion I feel, I can't sit in here while the others are out there, so if you want to bring me out of Hell, you're going to have to follow me into the flames."

"Is that all it takes?"

And despite the circumstances, all the chaos and uncertainty, Fever smiles.

"Then I am already following you. I'm with you, and we'll find the way out."

The way she says the words imparts a sense of belief, of certainty in her reality that cannot be denied or overturned. If she believes it well enough, she is there, in the howling fire, in the realm that is not here. Not a reaching into Valdis's world, but forcing her own visions to align to something else, similar enough to overlap. Remember fire. Remember it burning into you, remember how it hurts, the warmth, the way the skin still aches in its absence. And she is there, she is there.

"The air here is particularly foul. Let's not linger overlong."

No. It's not all it takes, but no matter how much fear she has, Max is out there, so are Ylva and others she cares about. Fever refused to leave her, refused to go fight, to spill the blood of their enemies, to give in the battle lust Valdis knew she was feeling. Because other feelings were taking priority.

It would have been easier if Fever had just gone and left her to struggle through this alone, but now is far from the time for self pity. Valdis grabs onto the bloodlust, the need for battle, the desire to dominate her enemies, the emotions that belong to Fever, and make them her own. It's all she knows how to do in this moment.

"Yes, let's go."

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September Event - Waltz of the Harlequin

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