April Event Log

[kaisoumods]

April Event Log
Dominant Element: Earth
Waning Element: Water

Full Moon: April 22nd - April 24th

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Spring arrives in Kaisou once again, bringing with it pleasantly warmer weather and April showers. Trees begin to blossom once again as the rain turns the grass from its dull wintry brown to a lusher spring green. When it's not raining, you can look up and cloud gaze or admire the Spirit Vein in the sky as it turns a lovely, earthy brown. The city seems to be having a calm month, let's enjoy it while it lasts.

April Flowers

Eager to shake off the last vestiges of winter, the residents of Kaisou seem to be going all in on welcoming spring. All over town, people are finding just about every excuse to be outside and enjoy the warm spring weather. At the schools, many teachers will find excuses to teach their classes outside, and just about every park is full of couples picnicking. Restaurants throughout the town are advertising fresh new spring menu items, including dishes full of asparagus and spring greens. Meanwhile, boutiques and big box stores are pushing their spring collections, which are full of pastel and light colors. Even the merchants of Undertown are getting in the mood for spring, with vendors popping up to sell unusual seeds of plants you normally find just in the Spirit Realm.

But it's not just the Spirit Realm seeds that gardeners will find unusual. Much like last year, the arrival of spring brings with a burst of plant growth. And, much like last year, it is rapid and explosive in ways to an extreme, even unnatural, degree. Flowers and plants are growing at extremely fast speeds, and are far larger and plentiful than one would expect them to grow. The normal folk of the town don't seem too concerned, they're are mostly just excited about their flowers blooming so early and so well. Those with connections to the supernatural are a bit apprehensive, as it reminds them all too well how much closer to the Spirit Realm this city is getting. This isn't going to stop them from taking advantage of it, but all the same, there is a concern. Kaisou's turning into bit of a jungle, tamed only by careful weeding, magical solutions, and the occasional person with a machete whacking at the more stubborn plants.

These Roots were Made for Walking

Much like last year, there is a massive surge of plant growth in the city. However, this year? That is not where it stops.

As the month goes on, something... strange starts to happen. Trees that you swear weren't there the day before are suddenly right there against your house. And then it's over by your car. And... how did it get the middle of the street!?

The excessive spirit energy that is causing such explosive growth in the city is more powerful than it first appeared. Though they aren't sentient, the trees of Kaisou are suddenly ambulatory, able to walk around and be places they really, really should not be. Those in the city blind to the supernatural don't think anything of it, noting that they should really get someone out to handle the small grove of pine trees in the middle of the grocery store parking lot. The more supernaturally inclined do notice and will try everything they can think of to get the trees out of the way, if not back where they belong.

App users who are interested in getting the trees out of the way can try their hand at tree-herding. Those with a special connection to plants might be able to usher them back to their original location with a little sweet talking. Meanwhile those with more musically inclined skills may be able to do an arboreal pied piper act and lure them out of the way with song. Or you might be able to strong-arm them out of the way, if you're really desperate. Eventually, the potion makers of Undertown will create a concoction that can be poured on the roots of the trees to keep them stationary. Make sure to pour that potion on your trees in your yard, lest they go wandering again.

Truth Bracelets (The Black Order)

After the untimely death of Teresa, the Black Order has made it very clear to the Kaisou Guardians that they have until the end of April to investigate and find the culprit. But, they aren't going to let them investigate without any help, oh no. At the start of the month, each Black Order member will receive a metal bracelet engraved with runes with instructions to wear it during the month. The bracelet will clamp onto the Guardian's wrist once they receive it, making it so they can't choose to not wear it.

Once it's on, it's enchanted to detect anytime someone is lying to you (or you're lying yourself). Small lies will just make the runes glow, while large lies will cause the large sound to emit that everyone can hear. And consistent lies? If they aren't stop, the bracelet will start to heat up and cause pain to the wearer.

And top of everything else? It's not clear if the lies the bracelet is picking up on is being transmitted back to the Order or not. Any attempts to trace the spell will just give people a headache. So even if the Guardian wouldn't sell you out, the bracelet might.

New Horizons

On April 5th, Zodiac will send out an alert.

ALERT: SPIRIT GATE DETECTED IN KAISOU HARBOR.
Element Classification: Earth
Danger Level: Low
Designation: Nook Islands
Zodiac has been contacted by a yokai named Tanukichi. He says he's familiar with the app users from last November, and has a business proposition he wants to discuss with you. You can talk to him at the Zodiac office.

Should you head down to the Zodiac Office, you'll find that the office is strangely empty. There are no Zodiac employees, and the Professor isn't sitting in his little chair. The only person there is a tanuki in a Hawaiian shirt, which some may recognize from last November. When he spots you, he'll hurry over and seem quite cheerful. He introduces himself as Tanukichi- or Tom Nook, as he likes to be called in these parts of the world. Then he starts chatting away in his high pitch voice, explaining with many words about his plan.

You see, since November and the failed attempt to take over Kaisou, Tom Nook realized that taking over already lived-in places really wasn't his cup of tea. Therefore, he decided to start his own island in the Spirit Realm, that he could build to be a wonderful slice of paradise. He's even found a nice abandoned realm that'll do quite nicely. But before he can start building the community of his dreams, he needs some help with making the island a desirable place to live! So, he'd love it if app users would spend some time on his island and help out.

And if you're wondering what's in it for you? Don't worry, Tom Nook has an answer. You see, a good businessmen keeps his ear to the ground, and he's heard of the trouble with a certain ... deceased Black Order Guardian. Now he doesn't want to know details on who did it (in fact, you're getting the sense this might be WHY the office is so empty today), but he is willing to offer temporary safe harbor for anyone who wishes to avoid the Order's investigation. Not even those noisy truth bracelets the Black Order received will be an issue! All you have to do in exchange is some simple labor to help him out. Not a bad offer, now is it?

If you agree to Tom Nook's deal, he'll happily give you instructions to the gate. The gate this time will appear as a small airport in Kaisou's harbor that's run by Dodo Airlines. Inside the airport are a couple of anthropormophic dodos who run the entire airport. After taking you though an obnoxiously long screening and paperwork process (including where they ask you to leave any weapons behind), you'll be allowed onto their seaplane and set for take off! The flight itself is a rather peaceful one, though the only form of in-flight entertainment is a promotional video for Tom Nook's island. Maybe try to find other ways to entertain yourself on the flight.

The Island

Finally, after a long flight, you arrive at your destination. Besides the small airport that you arrived at, the island is pretty much devoid of any civilization. Quickly, you may notice something alarming. Besides the clothes on your back, your phone, and any pets you brought along? Any items you brought with you seem to be gone - including those truth bracelets. If they try to ask the Dodo pilots about where your luggage may have gone, they'll probably shrug and say something along the lines of that this realm probably didn't allow it... whatever that means. Not only that, but while many folks have retained their human forms, some of you may look a bit more like an animal person than before.

Tom Nook and his two apprentices, Timmy and Tommy, are there to greet the app users. They lead you over to their camp that they've set up, which is in a clearing not far from the airport. There's a campfire going, as well as a dinner which consists of fruit (apples, oranges, pears, cherries and peaches) and some fire roasted fish. That's it. Once enough people are gathered, they'll explain once again their big dream of making this a wonderful island paradise. But for now, they had a lot of work to be done.

Once the meal is finished, Tom Nook will go over his plan. Supplies can't be imported into this realm very easy. Sometimes things will show up, but it tends to be pretty sporadic and random. So instead, Tom is thinking that they will just build items themselves using resources on the island! He'll spend the next hour giving a basic tutorial on how to make DIY items using random items that can be foraged around the island. Anything from stone axes to shovels to even furniture. It's actually surprising how much stuff can be built using the bare essentials - but you can chalk it up to the Realm's magic.

After the tutorials are through, Tom and his apprentices will separate everyone into groups. Once the groups are made, they hand each of the group a single rolled-up tent. This will be what you'll be living in, starting off. Now it's up to you to decide where to pitch your tent. There's plenty of space on the island, so your group has a lot of spots to choose from. Maybe you want to be close to where the town center will (eventually) be, maybe you want to be living on the sandy beach, maybe you want to be high up on some cliffs, or maybe you want some waterfront property near that very normal looking body of water on the north side. The choice is yours! Try to make it comfortable as possible, though there isn't a whole lot of room in this tent for four people.

Though if anyone starts getting into fights over the tent space? They will quickly discover violence does not work on this island. Any swung punches will comically miss their target, powers used against other people in violent attempts won't work, and hitting someone with a blade will somehow not cut them. The most you can do is harmlessly poke or smack people with sticks or bug nets. Guess this is what Tom Nook meant by people being safe here. As for other powers... well, they seem to work for some people, while others will find them completely powerless throughout their visit.

Get those Bells

And so begins your island life. The first night is yours to relax, familiarize yourself with the island, or maybe practice your new DIY skills. The very next morning, you'll get text messages from Timmy and Tommy. As it turns out, the capitalists only needed a day to figure out how to make money off of this. Apparently this realm has a unique currency called Bells, a type of gold coin that when there's enough of them- can be used to magically accomplish a task. So while you're welcome to continue DIYing your way into a better island, you can also do other things to try to earn Bells.

And how do you earn Bells? Well, there's two ways. The first way is exploring the island for any interesting items and selling them to Timmy and Tommy for a price. The twins are pretty keen on running a shop on the island, and so they're willing to buy just about anything. Seashells you found on the beach? Sell it. A cool bug you found? Sell it. The failed DIY project that you made? Sell it. Those dinosaur fossils that keep appearing in your yard every morning? Sell those too. Some items sell more than others, and it's really hard to make sense of why some things sell so well (such as scorpions and tarantulas, they are willing to pay a concerning amount of money for those) - but that's just business baby. Some folks will even encounter glowing cracks in the ground. Digging there will reveal a glowing hole with money in it. Plant something in that hole? And very soon you'll have trees that grow money. Nice!

Meanwhile if you aren't in the mood to forage for sell-able items or you aren't having any luck with money trees, Tom Nook is happy to pay you in bells for doing various odd jobs about the Island. After all, the whole reason you're here in the first place is to help out with that, so you might as well get to work.

Some of these jobs include:

• Planting Flowers: The tanuki will happily give you various flower seeds to plant around the island in order to liven up the place! Help tend the flowers best you can. These flowers are special and seem to reproduce just about whenever they get watered, so any budding botanist could try their hand as crossbreeding flowers for new variants and colors. Just be careful not to let the flower population get too out of hand, as they can quickly overrun an area after a rainy day if not kept in check.
• Weeding: Just like the flowers, weeds have a way of growing quickly on this island. Make sure the weed problem is under control. It seems like every day new weed plants sprout up, so if you happen to be particularly lazy about it? It'll only take a few days before your area of the island is overrun with them.
• Food Gathering: So the island only has two native food sources: the fruit trees and fish from the various bodies of water. That's it. The fruit trees can be found throughout the island, offering a variety of apples, pears, cherries, oranges, and peaches. Be careful during your fruit picking though, as some trees contain wasp nests that seem to pop up out of nowhere and will get a whole swarm flying at you if you disturb them. As for the fish, they can be fished out of any body of water on the island. Though there's also always a chance you'll fish up a piece of garbage... or if you do catch a fish, you'll feel strongly compelled to make a pun about it.
• Building Infrastructure: There's a number of building projects needed in order to get the island going: a town hall, a general store for Timmy and Tommy, a clothing store, a museum, bridges to make river crossing easier, and staircases to help climbing up the cliffs. Help out building where you can either by gathering needed materials or helping build it yourself. Otherwise, you can always sell things to help contribute bells towards the projects.
• Landscaping: While it's important to get the basic infrastructure down for the island, there's plenty that could be done to make the island look even better. Help build and paint some fences, create public spaces from the furniture you build or find, and even use your powers to change the land itself.

Whether you choose to rely solely on DIY projects, or you decide to do work to earn some Bells - as long as you put in the work, it'll start to pay off for you. The first benefit will be your lodgings, as the tent you put down will become a proper building. Sure, it'll start with a single room house that's pretty cramp on space, but eventually with enough work done? It'll grow into a full house with multiple rooms, an attic, and a basement if you're willing to work the extra mile. Or, you can slack off and live in the tent all month. The choice is yours really!

Once you got the lodgings you desire (or deserve), it's now time to actually furnish it. You can build your own furniture with DIY. Or, you can buy furniture from Timmy and Tommy's general store with your excess Bells (though they will only sell a small handful of furniture pieces every day that are completely random). But besides that, you'll notice that items seem to show up... randomly on this island. Sometimes you'll shake a tree, and a sofa will fall out. And sometimes a balloon with a gift box will come floating by. Shoot it down with a slingshot, and the random gift inside is yours! It can be anything from furniture to articles of clothing to clay. How frequently these appear and the contents inside seem to hinge entirely on your luck, so may fortune be in your favor. Though even if you have the worst luck possible, you'll still get a minimum of three gift balloons coming your way with various gifts from the stars.

[OOC Note: Aka, every character can get three free gacha pulls this month! To redeem the pulls, please head over here!]

Island Visitors

Luckily, your time on the island isn't just going to be app users, the dodo birds, and the capitalists tanuki! As you put in efforts towards bettering the island, other visitors will begin to show up on the island. Some of them will be here for short visits, while others will move onto the island permanently. Every single one of them seem to be an anthropomorphic animal and act like it's entirely normal to be one, which gives you the strong impression that maybe humans are the strange ones here.

Some of the more notable arrivals include:

• Blathers: A brown owl that intends to run the museum on the island. While he's nocturnal in schedule, he's happy to chat with app users about various topics and seems to be good friends with the Professor (fuzzy) and Professor Oak... somehow. Since a museum needs things to look at, he'll ask that you donate any unique fish, bugs, fossils, and art pieces to put on display. He'll even happily talk about any of the items you bring him! Well, except for bugs. He is deeply afraid of bugs... the poor guy.
• The Able Sisters: Hedgehog sisters that'll run the clothing store once it's been open. They'll sell a random limited variety of clothes that characters can purchase with bells. These outfits will range from the chic and trendy to the extremely questionable, so keep your fingers crossed you don't spend your month looking like a fashion disaster. One of the sisters, Label, will ask people occasionally to try on various fashion styles for her own research, if you're looking for some quick easy Bells.
• Isabelle: A dog lady who will eventually be hired on by Tom Nook to help with running the town. Unlike Tom Nook, she is not driven by capitalism and will gladly help you sort out any infrastructure projects that aren't profit driven! Not only that, but if you're getting annoyed with your neighbors, you can ask Isabelle to issue a strongly worded complaint to them if you wanna be petty like that.
• Leif: A sloth that'll appear on the island some days to sell various plants. If you want more unique bushes or flowers for your landscaping, he's your guy! Even more importantly, he'll sell you food crops that AREN'T fruit - such as potatoes, wheat, pumpkins and carrots - just so you can get more variety in your diet.
• Brewster: A pigeon that'll open up a coffee shop within the museum, providing this island with some much needed caffeine. His drinks are pretty delicious, though he keeps calling the milk he uses as "pigeon milk". What is that? Should you question it and risk losing your caffeine access? Better not chance it.
• Redd: A kitsune who'll show up in a very shady boat and try to sell you fake art. No surprise, he's related to the kitsune who live back in Kaisou. Though as you deal with him, you start to get the sense he may be the stupid member of the family, as amongst all his obviously fake art? You'll find real famous works of art that he's selling for ridiculously low prices. Where did he get the actual Mona Lisa or a real Van Gogh? Who knows, but you might as well grab it before he realizes how pathetically low his asking price is.
• Saharah: A camel that has an unusual way of speaking but will sell you rugs, wallpapers and flooring for your place. The catch is? You won't get to see what she sells you until you buy it. Sometimes it'll look great, and other times it'll be the tackiest thing you ever laid eyes on. Is this a scam? It feels like a scam. But at least your place will have some carpeting.
• Daisy Mae: A young boar who will come to the island to sell turnips. These turnips can be used for cooking or try to invest in the turnip stock market. Each day, the sell price for turnips will change. Sometimes you can make it big, and sometimes you will lose money. Either way, the turnips go bad after a week so you gotta hope you're picking the right time to sell.
• Kapp'n: A Kappa that sits on a motorboat off the pier. He'll take you to a unique deserted island once a day, where you might be able to grab special resources or just spend time away from your housemates. What kind of island he takes you to is entirely up to change, and he will sing sea shanties the entire trip.
• Zipper T. Bunny (UNLUCKY CHARACTERS ONLY): If you are particularly cursed with misfortune (ie, you have the misfortune regain), sometime when you are alone you will be visited by a yellow rabbit with a zipper on the back. He will tell you that Bunny Day is coming, and so he's left chocolate eggs for you to find. From this point on, anytime you try to gather any resource you will have a 1-in-3 chance to find a chocolate egg instead. Try to catch a fish? Egg. Try to get some fruit? Egg. Go digging for fossils? Egg. You will also dream of DIY ideas you can do with the eggs. No one else will see Zipper. If you try to tell someone anyone with any truth-telling abilities about Zipper, it'll get pinged as a lie.
• K.K. Slider: Another dog that'll show up every Saturday to do performances in front of the town hall. While he's apparently a very famous musician and he's written music for just about every genre imaginable. As for his actual singing skill, well, it's an acquired taste.

Besides them, there are number of other visitors that'll pop up such as Blather's sister Celeste who'll show up whenever there's a meteor shower to watch (which happens about weekly in this realm), the obviously gay couple C.J. and Flick who'll pay extra for fish and bugs, the seagull Gulliver who keeps washing up on the shores after he keeps falling off his ship, the Otter Pascal who'll trade any scallops you happen to find for "Mermaid furniture"; and random animal people who'll show up to stay in a tent for the night. All in all, there's loads of new people to meet during your stay on the island that'll make the place just the all more memorable.

Aftermath

You can stay on the island as little or as long as you like. Whenever it's time to return home, you simply need to head to the Dodo Airport to take a flight home. Otherwise, you're welcome to stay on the island for the entire month if you'd like. The worst harm that'll come to you on this island is getting bitten by a tarantula and passing out, so you can consider this a safe place to be. Tom Nook will thank you for all your help, though how sincere that thank you is will depend on how much work you actually did. He also tells you you're welcome to come back anytime during the rest of the month, just head to the airport in the harbor.

At the end of the month, the realm will disappear like so many others did in previous times. But who knows, maybe you'll see it again someday.

OOC Notes

The dominant element this month is Earth! Anyone with an affinity to the earth element will find themselves boosted throughout the month. This could mean a boost to their power, having more energy, feeling more inspired with creativity, having better luck on different attempts -- the boost can manifest in all sorts of different ways. By contrast, anyone with an affinity for Water will be experiencing the opposite. Perhaps their powers will be weaker, they have less energy, they're having a creative block or general worse luck - again it can manifest in all sorts of way and players are free to play with this mechanic as they'd like.

During the month of April, players can obtain up to 3 free gacha pulls! Please redeem these gacha pulls in the plotting post.

The original OOC plotting post for this event can be found here. Another Zodiac Post will be going up April 15th to serve as an intro post for new characters and allow characters to react to developments over the network.

Comments

[prunedworlds]

"Really? But flying you can just fly over things instead of just looking from one spot..."

She might be a tiny bit jealous. Her monster form even has small wings now but she still can't fly or anything!

That said, that last bit she can probably help with at least, seeing as she has a fair bit of experience with it. In fact, she'll just shift to her own three-tailed fox form to demonstrate.

"Oh! The trick is not really to think about it too much? Just kinda walk on instinct."

[jackdawvision]

"Doesn't feel as earned if I just fly around." Yes, he has a high jump and a shadow tentacle but that's different, that's more like just aiding him in traversal. Flying bypasses all the effort, which misses the point to climbing, in Edward's view. "Still, I suppose if I need a faster way around in the middle of some catastrophe, aye, I could fly."

A few months ago this would've shocked Edward something fierce, but he's been in Kaisou for long enough now that he just watches Ritsuka shift and move around, before he does it himself, clearly taking a cue from her.

"It doesn't feel right," he huffs.

[prunedworlds]

"Why would it have to be earned just to enjoy it? Sometimes some things are fun just because..."

She gets the feeling of accomplishment after putting in effort, sure, but there's also just having fun because a thing is fun. Or cool, or so on. Then again, Ritsuka's learned to enjoy the quiet, no-effort moments quite a bit, too, given all she's seen and done.

She watches as Edward tries copying her, sitting back on her haunches as naturally as you please.

"That's probably because you're still kinda thinking of your front feet and legs as hands and arms. The first time I got changed even just standing up seemed weird because of that." Especially so as it had been so suddenly and surprising, she hadn't even known what she'd turned into at first. "But if you can stop thinking about that, it's just sort of... instinct?"

A beat.

"I mean, it really is a little annoying not to even have hands, but it's not like just thinking about it will change that, so..."

Don't think, feel, and all that nonsense.