kaisou | June Event Log

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!event log

June Event Log

June Event
Dominant Element: Light
Waning Element: Shadow

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Summer is here! Throughout the month, the weather will be warm and sunny. Very sunny in fact, the UV rays are a little strong this month, so you better make sure you have sunscreen or coverage or you'll find yourself getting sunburned pretty quickly! Still, not a bad price to pay for a little warm weather. At night, the darkness has turned to normal levels and the starlight even seems a bit more visible than normal. Take a special someone with you to go stargazing, if you're so inclined.

Summer Days in the City

With school out for the season, the school campuses are mostly shut down aside from any summer school or club programs. The rest of the city is full of life, however. Outdoor markets are in full swing, and it's easy to find an event in the park whether it be live plays or small concerts. There's also the anime convention that's taking place at the civic center during the weekend of June 18th! Grab your cosplay gear and your merch and set off for a wild weekend!

Around town, there's many new places to see. Buy some Japanese-style convenience store food at Ai-Mart, eat a burger at Big Bang Burgers (or take the burger challenge, if your stomach can handle it), or buy some knives at the new cutlery store! If you're hurt, you can swing by Bubu Pharmacy for some medicine. If you're more into performances, why not check out the Seisho Music Theatre Academy? Just whatever you do...stay out of the Dog Park.

If you take a trip out to Stardew Valley, the season has changed dramatically to summer there. Summer crops are all that are being grown. Even the vegetation is radically different. You don't remember there being any palm trees in the Valley before, but they're sure there now! The beach is now open as well, for anyone hoping to get some fishing in or gathering seashells! Perhaps taking a relaxing vacation to the valley is the perfect way to kick off your summer. And is you want to revisit some old spirit realm grounds, the gate to Kanto has returned to Blue Fish Lake Park. Go on some wild adventure and ~~get attacked by zubats~~ meet some Pokémon! Just watch out for the horrible goose that roams the same park.

Luck Be With You

The bright sunny days of June make the dark harrowing nights of May seem like a distant memory. It's pretty tempting to go out in the sun and just lay out. Be careful however, because throughout the month while you're outside- the Spirit Vein in the sky will flicker before dropping random items at you. Try not to get hit! Any fragile items will be magically spared - either by bouncing, having a little parachute, or having something (or someone) conveniently break its fall. Some people may also find themselves awake with new powers or changes to their appearance. Seems the Spirit Vein is once again acting up and spewing out some stuff from other realms. Oh well! Finders keepers!

Sweet Dreams are Made of These

At some point during the night of June 10th, either during an actual dream or as a sort of vision, you'll find yourself encircled by a set of five gems, all in different colors. They spin around you once or twice, long enough for you to get a good grasp on what they look like, before turning into small balls of colored light and flying into your chest, becoming one with you as they vanish. You don't entirely understand why, but you get the sense that they were always a part of you.

...Or, well, that's what's supposed to happen. For some of you, you may find that before the gems can become a part of you once more, a shadowy something will reach out and snatch one away, vanishing into the shadows before you can reclaim it. From that point onward, depending on the gem that was taken, you'll find that a part of yourself feels like it's missing, and you may find yourself changing as a result.

If the red gem was taken, you'll find yourself suddenly feeling unnerved by things that you never felt frightened of before, and you may find that your physical abilities and powers no longer function as they once did.

If the white gem was taken, you'll find yourself suddenly, and rapidly, growing older.

If the green gem was taken, you'll find that you no longer possess the impulse control you may have once had, and you'll find yourself leaping into situations without thinking them through.

If the blue gem was taken, you'll find that you just... well, you're just a bit less smart than you once were. Reading, writing, and arithmetic, things that might have once been easy to you, are suddenly much harder for you to grasp than they should be.

And lastly, if the yellow gem was taken, you'll feel yourself sinking into a deep depression. You may no longer be able to muster up the energy to do anything at all, because what's the point, or you may simply just be stuck viewing the entire world as a glass mostly empty.

Sometime mid-morning the following day, Zodiac will send out an alert:

ALERT: SHIFTING GATE LOCATED IN CENTRAL SQUARE.
Element Classification: Light
Danger Level: Varied
Designation: Night Dimension
A new gate has been detected in Central Square. Initial readings are inconsistent regarding the presence of hostiles, so precaution is recommended. Further investigation is required.
Investigative reports, as well as retrieval of lifeforms from inside the realm, will be compensated.
Additionally, Zodiac has received some reports of this realm being accessed via the subconscious. Actual evidence of this as a possibility is sparse and inconclusive, however, so Zodiac has elected not to investigate further.

Stopping by Zodiac Headquarters, the place has calmed down a lot from the previous month. If anything, the receptionist looks exhausted from all the paperwork and all-nighters they had to pull. They keep conversations brief and allow you to borrow equipment, right before drifting off again. Professor Willow meanwhile seems to have more energy. It's been awhile since this particular gate has been spotted! He's heard it has the power to manifest your dreams, and it'd be really fascinating to see what kind of creatures would live here. He'll ask anyone to record their findings and bring it back to them.

True to form, there is indeed a gate in Central Square. From afar, it just looks like the entrance to a normal office building, but once you walk past the windows, you'll notice the reflection of something flying past you— it's hard to make out exactly what it is, but it's definitely purple and it's definitely not something that seems to actually exist among the crowd. The gate itself is a simple wooden door, and functions exactly as you'd expect.

Realm of Dreams

Upon entering the gate, you'll find yourself in what appears to be some sort of courtyard at nighttime. There's a lovely fountain at the center, surrounded by a ring of wooden doors not unlike the one you entered to get here in the first place.

...Or did you? As Zodiac mentioned, it's entirely possible that you might fall asleep and find yourself here, or on the other side of any of those wooden doors. Isn't that just lovely?

Regardless, the first time you arrive here, you'll find that it seems to be snowing. It's brief, only lasting long enough for some of the snowflakes to land on you and melt, but as soon as it's over you'll find that you feel somehow lighter... and if you look down, you'll find two things that might strike you as alarming.

For one thing, you will find that you are not wearing the clothes you came in with— instead, you're wearing some kind of fanciful jester or silly outfit (maybe a crappy halloween costume, or even a fursuit). The outfits vary based on people's personalities and aesthetics, but they all have a jester aesthetic or otherwise silly outfit. Thought you were too cool for cosplay huh?

For another, you're now levitating.

This is approximately the moment that you'll be greeted by a talking owl, who will ~~forcefully~~ helpfully inform you that you are now in the Night Dimension, and that some being named "NiGHTS" must have granted you the ability to fly while you're here. He'll give you some pointers on how to control your new ability, but you'll find it's easiest to control if you spread your arms out to either side and just allow yourself to glide along. Just don't think too hard about the trail of sparkles behind you while you're flying.

The owl will also inform you that the doors around the fountain lead to various places in "Nightopia," the world of dreams, and encourages you to head on through whenever you're ready.

What you see when you head through the doors entirely depends on what it is you'd like to dream about. You may find yourself in a gorgeous green landscape, with rolling hills and streams and blue skies. Or perhaps you may find yourself in an amusement park, or even on the streets of a city you've always wanted to visit. No matter where you find yourself, it's always bright and sunny (or a clear night sky, depending on the dream), and the weather is always perfect.

Naturally, you're not entirely alone here. While Nightopia isn't exactly bustling, eventually a couple of small beings, reminiscent of cherubs will poke their heads out and start to approach you curiously. These, as Owl fills in whether or not you want him to, are Nightopians, the denizens of this realm. They don't seem to speak any language, but interacting with them will reveal that they're sweet and rather childlike. They enjoy playing, nice food, and anything that inspires laughter, and they'll cry and flee whenever they're scared or hurt.

They only seem to react badly to some of the other creatures that you might find poking around Nightopia— things like weird sheep, or other strange creatures that look like they could only exist in a dream. They don't seem entirely out of place here, but they definitely aren't as friendly as the Nightopians and you'd do best to fly after them and take them out. They seem to be weak to being rammed into, or even just forming a loop around them with the sparkle trail from your flying. Weird weakness, but okay.

Nightmare Realm

Speaking of being scared, no matter where you find yourself in Nightopia, you'll inevitably find that if you go far enough, you'll find what seems to be the edge of the world— a sharp drop into inky nothingness. If you try to approach, the Nightopians will latch onto your arms and legs, trying to pull you away from it and making increasingly upset noises. Even Owl won't get too close, but he does tell you that the darkness leads to the realm of Nightmare.

The name itself more or less gives away what it is, but Owl does provide one last tidbit: Those gems you saw before the gate opened were called “Ideya,” and it's only here that they can take physical form. The Nightmaren, denizens of Nightmare, have been stealing Ideya from visitors— and if you've already lost one, Owl deduces that must be what's happened to you. He doesn't know why they're doing it, but he does note with some sadness that visitors who lose all of their Ideya aren't able to wake up again.

Of course, you're welcome to ignore all of their warnings and head right in, but Owl and the Nightopians won't be coming with you.

What you'll find in Nightmare depends entirely on you, but the basics are always the same: Darkness, coupled with twisted, impossible geometry. The rest of the realm begins to build itself based on your worst fears. A person with a fear of snakes might find themselves in a den of vipers, while others might find themselves caught in a traumatic memory.

The Nightmaren here are nowhere near as cute and cuddly as the ones that must have slipped out into Nightopia. These take the form of strange monsters that are, unsurprisingly, torn straight from your nightmares— giant twisted spiders, mutant clowns, et cetera.

If the nightmares become too much for you, don't worry! Before you can get killed, you'll hear the sound of a flute before you pass out. When you wake up, you'll be back in the entrace way of the dream world. Seems someone was watching out for you.

Taking out some of the stronger Nightmaren may or may not release some of the captured Ideya, but will definitely net you some information: the Nightmaren work for a “master” deep at the center of the Realm, and he needs to collect Ideya from visitors like yourself in order to gain the power to make it out of the gate and begin conquering the waking world.

Retrieving Your Ideya

While many of the Ideya have been taken to Nightmare, a few fell out of the Nightmarean's hands and got scattered across Nightopia instead. For these lucky folks (IE, the ones who aren't quite ready to face their nightmares), they'll find their Ideya to be free for reclaiming … if you can catch them, anyway! They seem to be teasing you, flying away from you and leading you through an obstacle course of Nightopia's natural scenery, as well as rings that will appear in the sky for you to make your way through. Complete the obstacle course and catch the Ideya, and it's yours!

For those less fortunate, you'll have to travel into your Nightmares to reclaim what was lost. For some, this might mean facing off against your own nightmares. Some who do that will find their Ideya as a reward for their bravery. But for many, even that won't be enough to garner their Ideya, and they'll have to travel deep into the realm itself to face off against the Master of the Nightmare Realm.

The closer you get to the center of the realm, the stronger the nightmares become, and the more personal you'll find the nightmares becoming. What were once generic scares are starting to take more and more realistic forms— twisted versions of people important to you, whether that importance is positive or negative. All that matters is that they're targeting you, specifically, and they want to break you before you can reach their master.

If you can make it to the center of the realm, though, you'll find that it's quite a bit different from everything else so far. In fact, it just seems to be Kaisou's Central Square at nighttime. There's one problem with it, though— you distinctly remember there not being a skyscraper-sized metallic man with six hands in Kaisou.

This, as he'll introduce himself, is Wizeman the Wicked— Lord of Nightmare, and the cause of all your strife this month. If you can defeat him, you should be able to free all of the captured Ideya… but can you defeat a being that can wield your deepest, darkest fears against you? It'd be best to work together and possibly target some of those hand eyes.

Aftermath

Eventually, though, Wizeman the Wicked must fall. He threatens that he'll never truly be gone, not so long as darkness lives on in the hearts of men, but whatever. He's dealt with for now, and that has to count for something.

Any characters that help to take down Wizeman will have their Ideya restored upon his defeat. The rest of the gems will go flying away, presumably back to their owners who couldn't make it this far into the journey. Characters who lost a piece of themselves will find themselves whole once more after this point, whether or not they went into the Spirit Realm.

Nightopia will remain open and accessible for the remainder of the month, and all of the Nightopians will be celebrating your victory. You're welcome to join in on the party! Zodiac and Professor Willow will be happy to compensate any information you bring back. However, any items you try to bring back won't survive outside the realm and fade away - like it was a dream.

However, you'll find that if you try to approach the entrance to Nightmare again, you'll find that it begins snowing as you get closer and closer, until you find yourself in a blizzard so thick there's no way to proceed. Seems like that snow that granted you your flying— “NiGHTS,” was it?— doesn't want you to go back. Ah, well… maybe that's for the best, anyway.

OOC Notes

The dominant element this month is Light! Anyone with an affinity to the light 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 Shadow 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.

This event is meant to be a chill "pick your own flavor of trauma". If you want your character to face their deepest nightmares, great! Otherwise they are welcome to just play in the happy dream land of things. Do as you like!

The original OOC plotting post for this event can be found here. Free gacha is obtainable for any character, including new ones, through June 30th!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Now that is some new information. He pauses]

W-Wait, Belos is...a human? The Emperor of all the witches, is human? [How the frick frack patty whack did THAT happen? He's not shocked that a human could be capable of such evil, because man look at history, but - what.

But ok, that insane revelation aside-]

Ok, I just wanted to make sure you weren't going to blame everything on you, since he seems like the type to try to make people think that. [aka, a manipulative bastard]

But you will. You will find a way back to the Boiling Isles and put a stop to this. This? It's just a bad dream. One you will make sure doesn't come to pass, okay?

Yes, but shh. Even HUNTER doesn't know that. Bellos purposely made himself look like a witch, but he isn't. It was all to fool people so he could finally enact his final plan.

[Yup, seventeenth century witch hunters were the worse, especially one as tenacious as Phillip].

I blame myself for giving him knowledge he didn't need to have. Because of how it happened, it gives him a big head start over me in magic.

I'm going to stop it alright! And give Bellos a kick in the rear!

...Of course he doesn't know. [Belos lied to Hunter about so many things, why not this? This of course led to many questions in Elliot's head about what this meant about Hunter, but he bites his tongue. Luz wanted to tell Hunter that stuff first] The more I hear about this guy, the more I hate him.

[Truly truly the worst.

He also has real mixed feelings about Luz blaming herself about Belos's bullshit, but he doesn't know enough about the situation to really say anything- so he'll leave that well alone. ]

Right. Well, our first step to doing that though is getting out of this nightmare.

[Gotta get this kid away from this. No one should be staring at a sight like this]

No, he doesn't. Bellos has plans for Hunter, and the moment that Hunter works against him, he's got a plan for that too.

[Luz wasn't going to get into details there, because that tied into what Hunter actually was, though Luz had likely already hinted what might actually happen to Hunter once he stopped being useful to Bellos, which was unfortunately the actual truth].

Gladly.

[Luz got up, her legs shaking and she closed her eyes a moment, tensing up].

Just....give me a moment. This reminds me too much of the Knee.

[Plans to use even his own family like tools. As he thinks about how horrendous that is, a mental image of a another man flashes in Elliot's mind, causing his stomach to twist. He's never seen this man before, but right away his gut tells him all he needs to know - whoever they were, they were similar to Belos.

He puts his palm against his temple, forcing himself to breath. He can dissect that memory later. But he does have one thing to say about Belos's plans, and to whoever that man was]

Screw his plans.

[Whatever they were, they weren't going to happen. Elliot will do what he can to make sure of that.

He'll get up along with Luz. Noticing that her legs are shaking, he'll offer his staff.]

Alright, here. You can lean on this.

[That was absolutely what Bellos was like, though Luz knew the whole "family" thing was far too complicated for her to get into. That was something Hunter would have to find out somehow. It wasn't something she even knew how to explain to him].

Yeah. Exactly.

[She couldn't say it herself, but she could certainly think and sympathize with that].

Thank you.

[She steadied herself on the staff, her eyes lingering on it].

This staff. How did you get it?

[He'll let go of the staff as she holds onto it. In contrast to witch's staves, the staff is made of metal and has a more mechanical look to it, with the orange gems glowing in the center. It's not wholly unlike Hunter's artificial magic staff, but not quite the same either. ]

Er...I found in my closet?

[Well, it's not WRONG. He rubs the back of his head, willing to talk about if it helps distract from...well, all this. ]

Pretty sure it belonged to my other self. It's called an "Orbal Staff", which I think is a way for humans to use magic in that world. It can't fly or turn into a cute animal like a Palisman, but it has some tricks to it.

[It actually did remind her of Hunter's artificial staff, but it somehow had an interesting top, almost like a papal hat]!

In your-you know what? I found Owlbert in the freezer, that's actually way more normal.

[Orbital staff. Huh. It was at least a good distraction, mostly because the lack of her green gem allowed her to jump from one idea to another].

How do you use it?

Hehe, I remember that! Owlbert looked so cute with that scarf.

Well I haven't unlocked all the tricks yet, but watch this- [He'll put his hands on the staff along with hers, moving the staff in a downward swing as a demonstration almost like you'd swing a lacrosse stick.]

You just swing it like this and-

[As he swings it, three glowing bubbles come flying out, flying a fair distance before popping. Magic bubbles!] Tah-dah!

He did! I even sent Hunter pics!

Right, of course, you're just remembering I think, right?

[She watched the swing and saw bubbles. That was a good starter spell]!

Cool! Are they powerful bubbles?

[Awww, he's sure Hunter liked that.]

Yeah, that's right. Haven't remembered enough to get a full picture, but bits and pieces.

[He lets go of the staff now, letting her swing or carry it as she likes.]

I think so? They hurt more than they look. And it doesn't matter if someone's wearing armor either, it'll hurt the same.

[In other words they are ARMOR PIERCING bubbles]

[Hunter was the one who had things started with the pics of his Palisman]!

I wonder if there's something that specifically triggers those.

[If it happened with Eda, Moxie and Antonio, it couldn't be a coincidence, right]?

That's super helpful! Those are some nasty bubbles! That has to come in handy if we ever have to fight some kind of spirit monster!

[Hopefully they wouldn't, but Luz didn't think they'd be that lucky].

Who knows? They seem to happen to people on the app. But beyond that...I couldn't tell you.

[That goes above his magic knowledge pay grade.]

Mm, they will! You don't have to worry about me holding you back.

[It's the last thing he wants to do. It's why he's been training so hard ever since he first starting getting access to magic. ]

Right, the app. I wonder about that app.

[How much of it was connected to Zodiac? Were they being tracked now BECAUSE of the app]?

Good to know! I mean, in an ideal situation we won't need them, but we are all here, so I guess that "ideal" part is right out the window.

That's another mystery alright. One that's gonna need someone more tech savvy than me to solve.

[Unless it's a music-related program, his skills with computers were pretty pedestrian. ]

Prepare for the worst but hope for the best, as they say! [in other words, yeah. this isn't ideal but he'll deal with it] Speaking of, we need to find a way out of this nightmare.

If its only tech, right?

[Boy, she hoped that was all it was. Honestly, if she had an idea that Zodiac was not magically in the know as she feared, that would at least be one fear she could put to rest.

She didn't think she was that lucky].

R-right, yeah! We'll fix this somehow!

Oh, right! My gem!

[How did she forget! She had some nightmare guy to interrogate]!

They stole my green gem or whatever! I have to go get it back, and so far signs point to some Nightmare guy! I'm thinking that's how we'll finally get out of here!

Yeah, wouldn't be surprised if it's more than that.

[Not that he'd still be much help. He knows even less about magic tech than normal tech.]

Oh right, the gems. [He heard some talk of that] So if we find him and get him to give back the gems, we'll be able to get out of here?

Me neither.

[She'd need to have more than just a hypothesis].

That's usually how this works. The owl told me so!

[The owl told her so.

Yep. This is his life now. He's taking the word of a talking owl]

Well...owl's are supposed to smart, so we might as well listen.

How do we find this nightmare guy?

[Listen, he was a very convincing owl, ok]?

I mean, if you entered a weird nightmare world because someone stole your gem, wouldn't you want to know how you could recover it in a world you were unfamiliar with? He's got my gem thing, got to get it back!

Probably deeper in the nightmare. That's usually how these things go.

Hey, I'm not arguing. I say we trust the owl.

[but right...deeper into the nightmare. ]

Ok, so we move deeper. Are you sure you'll be alright?

[Because this is already rough man]

I usually have a good track record with that!

[If you count the Boiling Isles anyway].

Now that that happened, you mean? It just made me more fired up to fight that Nightmare guy and punch him in the face for throwing my weakness in my face! Now I'll show no mercy!

[Luz was definitely missing her common sense here].

[Yeah he is picking up on the lack of common sense here. But well...at least she's fired up. That's fine, they did need to deal with this guy]

Alright! Clearly couldn't talk you out of it then even if I wanted to. Let's go then!

Let's just try to stay in view of each other okay? This feels like a realm that it'd be easy to get separated in.

[Luz was all ready to deal with this guy if she needed to! Considering all she had to see, she was not exactly feeling charitable right now].

Heh, that's the spirit! Resigned compliance isn't exactly my favorite way for things to end up, but I'll take it!

Sounds like a plan! With your staff and mine, we can't lose!

[He laughs a little. Oh boy is he worries about her being impulsive about this, but at least her spirit is motivating]

Right, let's go!

[He'll start walking away from the scene that was in front then, moving from this nightmare and going deeper into the darkness. All the while he'll glance back to make sure she's following along. ]

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