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pumpkinhollow ([personal profile] pumpkinhollow) wrote in [community profile] ph_logs2025-11-22 08:03 pm
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November Event - Double Trouble

Double Trouble
The Dance of Celestine Begins
Ah, the Dance of Celestine! A festival in reverence of the Mother of Autumn and Sky, where everyone is asked to climb to the highest available point and spend a day outdoors cooking, dancing, singing, and enjoying the fall weather. The third one since offworlders began to come to the island, and what is hopefully a much-needed reprieve after the troubled end to October. The time around All Hallow’s Eve is always difficult, but the invasion of the Dread Powers of Fear was a particularly intense and difficult time. Many more people are staying home from the event than usual.

On the other hand, it was Celestine who called many to safety on the top of Crane’s Ridge, and others still feel particularly motivated to pay her gratitude.

So as Mother Autumn’s season makes its final descent, enjoy the last few weeks of trees bursting with vivid color, catch one more good crisp autumn breeze, and chase the sky with your neighbors. Ascend Crane’s Ridge on foot or by train to embrace the great wild blue. It’s going to be a beautiful day.

Led through the mist by the milk-light of moon, all that was lost is revealed As you approach the main gathering area for the Dance of Celestine, you’ll notice that there are many mushrooms around this year. This shouldn’t surprise anyone who was in the safe zone that was here last month, as it quickly became apparent that mushrooms would sprout wherever the goddess spent any significant amount of time. Since greeting people as they arrived was very much at the top of her priorities, the areas where people might arrive are naturally covered in the things. Chanterelles and morels, boletes and oyster mushrooms, even chicken of the woods on nearby trees, a delicious selection of edible mushrooms can be found all over.

Among them, however, are little red-capped toadstools with white flecks. Adorable, but well-known for being toxic, and thus meant to be left alone. Some of them curiously grow in extremely obvious rings, and the superstitious among the town will surely know better than to step within. However, there are many “rings” that are not so obvious--- sparse, misshapen, or just too large to realize they’re growing in a circular pattern.

Many will be perfectly capable of avoiding the rings, either by complete chance and without even realizing they were there in the first place, or with a bit of care. But others, whether they fall for the obvious trap or happen upon a more deceptive one, will find themselves temporarily transported. Not to a pocket dimension of unimaginable horror created by Nyarlathotep or a shard of Hell devised by a demon, but to a place of wonder, filled with pink puffy clouds and soft amber skies, waving purple grass or pastel colored sands, vibrant neon jungles or forests of alabaster trees with glass leaves. This beautiful place made of magic and dreamstuff is a slice of the Feywilds. Dangerous? Maybe. But certainly not in the same way as any place you’ve been before. Before you, a ruin. An ancient temple or castle. And apparently the only way forward is through. But you are not alone---- you were brought here with one other. And only together can you find your way back to Marrow Isle.

---------


For this event, all participating characters must be paired up with one other character, and inside the temple will be a magical puzzle for them to solve in order to advance. It can be any sort of puzzle, something simple or complicated, and the details of what physical actions are being taken to solve it can be sort of handwaved if you are having trouble designing something. The puzzle in and of itself isn’t important. The key gameplay element will be that you need to have an important discussion in order to complete the puzzle and escape the Feywilds. The primary concept for this was that it'd be between two characters who have existing CR and something long overdue to discuss--- repressed feelings, unresolved conflicts, long kept secrets. But it can also be used to create CR by pairing off characters who have something meaningful in common to discuss, closely guarded secrets that they need a neutral party to talk to, or might have valuable advice for the other. Feel free to do whatever you like with it, as long as it's two characters who have something of value to discuss that would further their character development.

The intention here is that each character will only have ONE partner puzzle thread, in the interest of keeping thread loads light as we enter a season of heavy travel and continue to backtag meatier events. It’s technically fine to have multiples if you have a reason for a character to go back a second time, but we strongly encourage you to keep things light--- you can always have more threads at the party itself! Be nice to yourself and to your inbox, you’ve worked hard!

Once you reach some sort of conclusion or catharsis (which doesn’t necessarily have to be positive), the characters will be deposited back on the mountainside with very little real time lost, and can enjoy the festival itself in peace. Feel free to come away from the Feywilds with some innocuous souvenir, though it should not be something large or that provides any sort of power-up. Just some silly trinket or weird food, please, and do not kidnap or bottle any gnomes or pixies. You also do not have to participate in this part of the event at all, if you’d like to bypass it. Thank you! Have fun, or don’t!

Our long bygone burdens, mere echoes of the spring, but where have we come, and where shall we end? Once you arrive at the party on the peak of Crane’s Ridge, you find that the short, step-like layers of the mountaintop are dotted with tents, left up here in a large storage area specifically for this festival. It’s fairly commonplace for people to spend the night here, as the festival runs late into the night so as to honor Mother Celestine under the light of her immense cosmos. There are also booths all around, cooking and serving food, preparing drinks, handing out handmade flower crowns and long ribbons on dowel rods for dancing with. And in the center of it all, a massive bonfire. Celestine, after all, is the goddess of the hearth among other things, and so the fire roars throughout the night. Musicians play and sing folk music, and people dance. All is well.

For the past few years, the Dance has been met with clear skies, but this year it gets a bit more overcast towards mid-afternoon. By the time evening draws near, a light rain dances over the festival, but no one seems disappointed. It’s not even raining hard enough to put out the bonfire, and the food booths are covered. So while some people retreat to their tents to wait out the mild rain, others dance beneath it, soaking their festival clothes and flinging raindrops with their ribbons. Besides, who would the Mother of Sky be without a bit of weather?

If dreams can’t come true, then why not pretend? The rain clears up just in time to catch the tail end of the sunset cutting rich orange slices through the remaining clouds. Towels are distributed, and festivities continue undisturbed under the starlight. The three pastel moons of Concorde can be seen playing peekaboo through whatever cloud cover lingers. Cadence is full, in all her rosy glory, and Endurance and Silence are both crescents at opposing ends. Two thin smiles of light in waxing blue and waning white. Stars glimmer passionately overhead, as if they are just as thrilled to be dancing with you as you are with them.

Among the partygoers, there is a woman. Last year, she lingered on the fringes, an outsider. This year, she seems to float on the moonbeams caught in leftover raindrops in the grass, the heart of the festival. Her gown is shimmering, as golden as the firelight, and her eyes are as silver as Silence. Starlight showers her dark skin in a thousand kisses, and the braids in her hair, once adorned with raindrop charms, have been traded out for a long, massive, fluffy ponytail that floats like cloudstuff behind her. Her coily bangs have been carefully styled to resemble swooping sideswept bangs, and a golden cuff cinches the ponytail upward.

If you want to greet Celestine, you can find her anywhere. Dancing on the grass, plucking and roasting mushrooms, or basking serenely in the glow of the fire. Would you like to ask her for a dance?
For help looking for a partner, check out the sign-up sheet!
ownperson: (Default)

Agent South Dakota | RvB

[personal profile] ownperson 2025-11-23 02:45 am (UTC)(link)

[ Closed TL for a puzzle with North and a separate open for the party itself once it's ready. ]

ownperson: (pb; purple hands on hips)

I always say that I don't need you, but [NORTH]

[personal profile] ownperson 2025-11-23 02:45 am (UTC)(link)

South knows nothing about mushrooms, or fairies, or any of this magical bullshit that this town is apparently full to the brim with, and so it should come as zero surprise to herself or anyone else that she ends up in some weird, magical bullshit dimension after not looking where she was putting her feet on her way up the mountain.

Strange, pastel skies and odd purple foliage in shades that are all-too reminiscent of the familiar stretch off in all directions—deep orchid and royal, dark and rich. Directly ahead, there is some sort of crumbling structure that South couldn't tell you the base architecture of if she tried, but she can see high walls and branching turns in deep grey stone that stretches further than she can reasonably see without a helmet's sensor suite.

And in the open space ahead, an all-too familiar piece of equipment she's run up against at least a dozen fucking times in her military career. A fucking wall boost? Seriously? Who the fuck is that... for... oh, fuck, of fucking course.

With a heaving sigh, South looks over to her brother and goes: "Well this is fucking stupid."

not_the_last: (Default)

Cassandra de Rolo | Critical Role

[personal profile] not_the_last 2025-11-23 03:12 am (UTC)(link)
[Closed TL for a puzzle with Neil and OTA for the party to follow.]
not_the_last: (Default)

[for Neil] is this plato's heebie-jeebies or just existential blues?

[personal profile] not_the_last 2025-11-23 03:29 am (UTC)(link)
The moment of falling through the mushroom ring, and out of the world, nearly makes her heart stop. The sky is entirely the wrong color -- beautiful, but wrong -- and the only thing that keeps her from screaming is the abrupt thought: those clouds are the same color as Elsie's hair.

Followed by: oh. This is the Feywild.

There's a path at her feet, paved with lovely multicolored stones, fringed with velvety purple grass and nodding silvery-gray flowers, leading through gently humming trees toward ... some structure that she can't make out.
gooddefense: (pic#18147600)

[personal profile] gooddefense 2025-11-23 03:34 am (UTC)(link)
North is loitering over by the obstacle, wondering how the hell he's going to get over it on his own, when he looks over to the source of the voice and the problem resolves itself. "Oh, hey South. Great timing. You wanna go first or me?"

None of this really alarms him, to be honest. Weird plants, funky colored skies, temple ruins, what else is new? It'll probably annoy South that he's being so calm, but honestly, what good will both of them getting frustrated do?
Edited 2025-11-23 03:34 (UTC)
ownperson: (pb; purple full body thinking)

[personal profile] ownperson 2025-11-23 03:39 am (UTC)(link)

Yeah that does kind of annoy her, actually, predictable as she is. Of fucking course he's already in problem solving mode. Can a girl not have ten seconds to bitch about being stuck in some weird magical sub-dimension or whatever the fuck?

"Great timing? I don't think anything about this counts as great fucking timing. Where the fuck even are we? And why is there a fucking obstacle course?"

Ugh. She throws her head back dramatically then begrudgingly walks over to join him anyway, giving the wall only the most cursory of examinations.

"—you, I think. If I have to pull your heavy ass up with my bad shoulder it might just go and fuckin' pop out again." Probably not, but better safe than sorry, probably.

gooddefense: (pic#18147642)

[personal profile] gooddefense 2025-11-23 03:44 am (UTC)(link)
"Well, yeah, it was great timing. I was just wondering how the hell I was gonna get over this thing by myself and now I don't have to, I consider that pretty good timing, all things considered."

South could find a reason to get mad about anything, he swears.

"Alright. Ready when you are."
ownperson: (pb; purple deep sigh)

[personal profile] ownperson 2025-11-23 03:50 am (UTC)(link)

South opens her mouth like she's gonna say something, then decides against it with a huff that's just as needlessly frustrated as anything she could've said would've been, then gets in position at the bottom of the wall and cups her hands for him to step into and her to push him up.

"Alright, c'mon. Seriously, though, what the fuck is this? Why the hell are we reliving basic training but in pastels right now?"

gooddefense: (Default)

[personal profile] gooddefense 2025-11-23 04:12 am (UTC)(link)
"I dunno. It's a pain, but the sooner we get out of here, the sooner we get to go to the mountain party," North points out. "Or do you not wanna drink fancy wine and watch girls do that thing with their skirts where they spin around?"

One thing these two never disagree on is that Girl Hot.

North slots his foot into South's hand and pushes up, easily able to grab the top of the wall. This was a lot harder of an obstacle for other teams they trained with, but these two tall assholes always made short work of it. Once North is up top, he braces himself with his knees and leans down to hoist his sister up.
ownperson: (pb; purple giving look)

[personal profile] ownperson 2025-11-23 04:24 am (UTC)(link)

"Okay, well, obviously I do—" though she thinks if she sees CT up there dancing she might just feel ill, "—but this is still fuckin' stupid. Who the hell puts this shit on the route to a party?"

She barely even has to hop to reach him and let him grab her, drag her up onto the top of the wall where she can sling her leg over onto the top and pull herself up to join him. Easy. Piece of cake. Rest of this can't be any harder, right?

Quick glance out ahead says... uh, she's not actually sure, some of this shit she doesn't actually recognise. Rope stuff, some other climbing things maybe, something that looks like weird platforms?

gooddefense: (pic#18147601)

[personal profile] gooddefense 2025-11-23 02:17 pm (UTC)(link)
"South, this place is full of magic and monsters. I've just decided to be content with not needing answers and call it a day," North grumbles.

And isn't that just so like him? Eternally unconcerned. Whatever needs to get done, just do it, don't complain. He forges ahead, level-headedly tackling each obstacle.

"One thing I have noticed," he points out through grunts of exertion, as they team-walk up a vertical chimney-like tunnel back to back, "is that this place seems really focused on two-person exercises. I dunno if that means anything, but I get this sense that it might be important, you know? That we're supposed to work together."
itsjustabaddream: (talking)

[personal profile] itsjustabaddream 2025-11-23 02:19 pm (UTC)(link)
"Ah, Cassandra!"

Spotting her, Neil jogs over, waving. "Hello! Oh, thank goodness, a friendly face. Heavens, I haven't seen you in ages, though. Are you alright?"
ownperson: (pb; purple confused look)

[personal profile] ownperson 2025-11-23 03:32 pm (UTC)(link)

God, he fucking pisses her off sometimes. He's gonna get grumbly about her being frustrated, seriously? Come the fuck on. Normal people get annoyed at stupid, inconvenient things—she's not the weird one here. Right?

He sets off a second before she does and she rolls her eyes at his back before she follows after him, like she always does eventually.

"I mean—" she grunts, feeling the burn in every muscle as they push up bit by bit, "when the fuck has anyone ever missed the fuckin' chance to use the twin thing, North? Whatever the fuck this is, it got both of us, so of course it's making us do this shit together. That's how it goes."

Every time. All throughout their life. Everyone always finds a way to put them together.

bedknobsandbroomsticks: (085)

Sorceress | Dragon's Crown

[personal profile] bedknobsandbroomsticks 2025-11-23 04:25 pm (UTC)(link)
[ The Festival ]

After the horrors of last month, this festival is a much welcomed thing for Sorceress. While the Goddesses of this world may not be entirely the same as the ones back home, they are similar enough, and with them being the ones who brought everyone here to help save this world, they do deserve some form of worship.

So Sorceress decides to go to the Festival, dressed in her usual outfit but this time with a Victorian style coat. It is getting colder out, after all. She sits near the bon fire, fiddling with the rod she's been handed and a flower crown sitting around the band of her witch hat.

It's nice... to be out where the energy is calm, people are having fun once more, and everything feels... relatively normal.


[ Double Trouble - Closed to Martin [personal profile] lofi_charm ]

Goddesses, how had she not seen the fairy ring as she was walking along? That's one of the oldest tricks in the book. Of course the celebration needed something else to it. She couldn't have just had a nice time.

As Sorceress takes in the bizarre landscape around her, she sees someone else is here with her. A tall gentleman with strawberry blonde hair. Poor fellow. They'll need to find a way out of here somehow though so she cautiously approaches him. "Ah... hello. Seems we both... didn't watch our steps, did we?"
gooddefense: (pic#18147593)

[personal profile] gooddefense 2025-11-23 04:33 pm (UTC)(link)
"Well yeah, but--- Hang on." As they reach the top, he takes a pause from talking to grab onto the rope at the top. "Ready to pull up?"
ownperson: (pb; purple look over shoulder)

[personal profile] ownperson 2025-11-23 04:41 pm (UTC)(link)

Another grunt, carefully adjusting her feet so she doesn't fall and fuck this at the last second as she nods. "Ready as I'm gonna fuckin' be. For the record, if I fuckin' fall I'm spending my 24 hours haunting your ass."

gooddefense: (pic#18147591)

[personal profile] gooddefense 2025-11-23 06:08 pm (UTC)(link)
"Fair," North agrees, and grabs a hold of the rope as she grabs hers. On the count of three, they both pull up and off of each other's backs at the same time, and then they are on solid ground once more.

"Anyway, as I was saying--- I know people are obsessed with the twin thing. That's not what I meant. I meant that these are the kinds of exercises that require... trust. Communication. Stuff like that. I dunno. Maybe I'm reading into it too much."
ownperson: (pb; purple oh shut up)

[personal profile] ownperson 2025-11-23 06:23 pm (UTC)(link)

South groans and rolls her shoulders, taking the moment to stretch before whatever the hell's up next.

"You probably are," she says, though she's not actually sure she believes it. More likely she's just hoping he is, because the implications of that having anything to do with the purpose behind this stupid thing settles uneasily in her stomach. "Why would magic crap be putting us through some stupid team-building shit? We can do this shit in our sleep."

Well, they could. Been doing pretty alright so far but it's not like she hasn't been more... resistant, the last few years. The uneasiness grows.

Edited 2025-11-23 18:25 (UTC)
gooddefense: (pic#18147601)

[personal profile] gooddefense 2025-11-23 07:41 pm (UTC)(link)
"I don't know," North says with a sigh, but there's obviously something on his mind. He does know, if he's honest. He knows something is wrong. Not just the tension that had slowly been pulling them apart bit by bit throughout the program, and after, though that's part of it. But since getting here, since dying, there's been this invisible wall between him and South that he can feel with his hands. But the idea of asking about it feels... dangerous. Like it might destroy what remains of their already strained bond. The one thing he has left in this place.

No, he doesn't want to know. And South doesn't want to tell him. So he'll ignore it. He'll pretend he can't feel the push of a magnet reversed, pushing him away when he tries to get close. If he's patient, he'll reach her. He always does, right?

At last, the two of them reach what looks to be the last obstacle. A wide platform sits on a long track with steep walls on either side, with walls too high to scale and too far apart to try to vertical-walk, even with the pair of them. A plaque is set into the wall, with a relief set into it in the form of text.

ONLY ONE OF YOU KNOWS THE WAY FORWARD.

"Huh." North looks to his sister. "Well, I sure don't know it. Any thoughts?"

ownperson: (pb; purple looking back)

[personal profile] ownperson 2025-11-23 08:00 pm (UTC)(link)

Her blood runs cold. A flash freeze, a sudden forced sense of sobriety she doesn't want and leaves her left hand trembling until she grasps her own wrist, then crosses her arms tight when that's not good enough.

Fuck. Fuck. She doesn't want to. She doesn't fucking want to, would rather sit here 'til they both die of dehydration or starvation or old fucking age than do what she knows it must be asking of her. It's not fair. It's not even been a month yet and what, some force of the fucking universe has decided it's already time to tear him away from her all over again?

Doesn't she deserve even a little more time?

(Stupid question. Of course she doesn't. She didn't even deserve the time she's had, not after what she did to him. Every single day she's had has been stolen time.)

"...yeah, uh, I don't know," she mutters, unconvincingly.

gooddefense: (pic#18147593)

[personal profile] gooddefense 2025-11-23 08:13 pm (UTC)(link)

Well, shit, that can't be good.

The invisible wall between them widens, presses against North shoves him further away. Fuck. Fuck! Why does it always have to be something? They died. Isn't that enough? They lived hard lives, hard childhoods, hard training, hard fucking missions, and then they died. That should be enough to earn a little bit of peace. Shouldn't it? Why can't they just do what dead people are supposed to do and rest in fucking peace?

North sighs, and takes a cross-legged seat on the platform, waving South over. "C'mon," he says quietly. "I know you've been holding out on me."

incomingchoppers: (we're both american animals sir)

Radar | puzzle time! [closed to Dahlia]

[personal profile] incomingchoppers 2025-11-23 08:14 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, wow, it's beautiful here. Sure, the part where Radar was going up the mountain one minute and somewhere else entirely the next minute has him on edge, but at least he didn't end up in a place like the Fears. It almost reminds him of Paradesium, a little -- or how he's heard people think about Paradesium anyway -- mixed in with the wildest, most colorful tents at the fae circus.

He just basks for a little bit, face upturned toward the sun as he listens to the jungle grasses whispering around him and insects whirring among the trees.

And then his ears catch a wisp of someone familiar, closer to the ruins.

"Dahlia!"
ownperson: (pb; purple shout)

[personal profile] ownperson 2025-11-23 08:26 pm (UTC)(link)

"I haven't been— you told me not to fucking tell you!" she snaps, and winces at herself for doing so. He told her not to so long as she was drunk and then what did she do? Go and keep making sure she wasn't ever even close to sober for more than a couple hours at a time. Like it was a loophole to get away with never, ever having to talk about this.

For a long moment she just stares at him, unmoving, but then she follows his lead again, like she always does eventually, and sits down. Stuffs her shaking hand under her leg to keep it still.

"...you didn't wanna hear it either," she says, edges dulled.

gooddefense: (pic#18147586)

[personal profile] gooddefense 2025-11-23 08:39 pm (UTC)(link)
"No, I didn't. It didn't seem like a good idea to talk about it while you were hammered, and I didn't want to push," North says gently.

If screaming at him makes her feel better, then he can take it.

"...Must be pretty important, though. To land us here."

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