Mid-August Event

[chemex]

August 16-18

Three areas of Vitae ripple strangely if the city's inhabitants look closely enough. A candy shop in the Fairview Mall, the Clock Tower in the North District, and a lesser-used building in the University in the East District, specifically. If you look at them too long, they melt and distort into new, altered forms, color palettes changing, walls changing shape. Be curious, residents-- but be cautious. These distortions are not as simple as they appear. Outside of each location, Akira greets you, looking a little different than the everyday. He explains the situation-- things called Palaces in his world have shown up in Vitae. They're distorted thoughts or desires of their Rulers, and can be pretty dangerous. Anyone interested to come along can, so long as they're able and willing to fight whatever they come across.

[ᴄᴀɴᴅʏʟᴀɴᴅ ☆ ᴋᴜᴊᴏ ᴛᴇɴɴ]


Should you choose to explore the vacant mall shop, you enter a splendorous realm of candy. Everything is soft and sweet and brightly colored, though it's probably best to not eat anything. Everything within the distorted candyland has a real-life counterpart-- so that lollipop you're eyeballing might actually be a sale sign. As you make your way through the gumdrops and candy canes, you start to notice with increasing frequency that the candies all have words swirled into their colors, or written on their wrappers. They aren't always legible, and often swirl back into the colors normally before you can read them, but they all seem to make reference to selfless acts.

Be careful as you explore, as sometimes the candies come alive and fight back! They morph from their candied forms into Shadows of varying sorts, their attacks mostly based in Psychokinesis. After successfully making your way through the winding candy streets, you come upon a card, the back of which is blank until it is touched. Once it's been taken hold of, a formless, swirling mass of color behind it takes form.



At this point, Akira will make anyone infiltrating the Candyland aware that the donut must be stolen. Feel free to think he's crazy, but he knows what he's doing. Usually. If you choose to listen to him, upon theft of the donut, Kujo Tenn is released from imprisonment of his own distorted selflessness.

[sᴛᴇᴀᴍᴘᴜɴᴋ ᴄʟᴏᴄᴋ ☆ ʜᴇᴀᴛʜᴄʟɪғғ ʙʟᴀɴᴄʜᴇᴛᴛ]


The Clock Tower has become something straight out of an old steampunk novel. Everything is covered in gears and there is a constant ticking that permeates the tower from multiple clocks on every wall. Again, be careful what you touch, as everything within the distorted Tower has a real-life counterpart in Vitae! Don't try to take home and cool-looking clocks, they may be important things within the tower. The longer you spend in the Tower the more the incessant ticking starts to sound like words-- specifically, they speak to you in garbled, indistinguishable tongues that every so often drop hints of worthlessness and being unworthy.

As was the case in Candyland, some of the clocks will warp and shift and take form to fight you! They defend another swirling, colorful mass behind a blank calling card, and once the card is claimed the colorful swirling orb behind it takes form.



Once again, at this point Akira will explain the music box must be stolen. Except this time, rather than Heathcliff being freed from his distortion, a Boss Battle ensues!



You get to fight a Unicorn, guys.

Once you defeat the Unicorn (stat page here for anybody interested-- fight how you like, punch the horse in the face, I'm flexible), Heathcliff will be freed from his distorted sense of self-worth.

[ʙᴜʀɴɪɴɢ ᴜɴɪᴠᴇʀsɪᴛʏ ☆ ᴡɪʟʟɪᴀᴍ ᴊᴀᴍᴇs ᴍᴏʀɪᴀʀᴛʏ]



Well, shit, that building's on fire. Should you choose to enter anyway, it's-- about as you'd expect. There are pathways and ways to maneuver, but there are also a lot of burning books and papers and it's all falling right the hell apart. As you explore deeper, you will find that many of the fires imbue a strong feeling of guilt as they burn. It's hard to tell why, and attempting to put out the fires doesn't stop the feeling-- in fact it only causes them to spring to life in the form of Shadows, which then attack you! This sometimes happens whether you try to put out fires or not.

Once you get far enough in the university, you come across-- you guessed it, another calling card! It looks the same as the previous two, and once it is claimed the colorful swirl behind it takes form.



The envelope is addressed to Sherlock Holmes, and just as in palaces previous, Akira advises everyone present that it must be stolen. When it has been claimed, in the same way as Tenn Kujo's Candyland, William James Moriarty is freed from his distorted Guilt.

With all three Palaces cleared, the distortions on the areas of Vitae all go back to normal at once-- only to abruptly become extremely concentrated and drag everyone into a small maze of mirrors. What's this, you ask? There wasn't a fourth palace? Ohho, but that's where you're wrong.

[ᴍɪʀʀᴏʀᴇᴅ ʜᴀʟʟ ☆ ᴀᴋɪʀᴀ ᴋᴜʀᴜsᴜ]



It's impossible to tell which direction is actually part of the maze-like hall and which is just another mirror. You're constantly looking at yourself, and anyone beside you, behind you, in front of you. It's dizzying. You start to lose your entire concept of self. Who are you, again? What does the mirror say?

There are no Shadows here-- no resistance. It's strange, and atypical to the other three dungeons. When you reach the end, there is no calling card. This time, Akira himself has to walk up to the treasure while it remains a swirling mass of color, and when he touches it, it shocks him backward. This time, there's nothing to steal. The swirling mass of color takes the form of another person-- another Akira. The one on the ground who some of you may have befriended or come to know isn't afraid, isn't angry, he doesn't take up a battle stance. His eyes turn briefly yellow, and he stands up to brush off his clothes. They're his normal civilian clothes again, the Akira standing before them dressed as he was before.

He rubs the back of his neck. "Didn't see this one coming."

☆☆☆☆☆

[ᴏᴏᴄ ɴᴏᴛᴇs!]

You don't have to have signed up to infiltrate to participate in this event! If you didn't see the OOC post last week or didn't have a chance to reply, that's fine, feel free to file in accordingly. I will make a top-level comment for each individual palace, and anyone can reply to those threads except for the Palace ruler until we reach a point in the thread they have been freed! Unfortunately, if you did not sign up for a palace before this event went up, I can't add one retrospectively. This is all very fast and loose, and I want everyone to have a good time, so feel free to assume whatever you like within the themes of each palace wrt Shadows, and feel free to think up some fun designs for a "Phantom Thief" costume for your characters if you like!

All characters' phones work normally during this event, and all NPCs involved in the event will disappear as of Wednesday, August 18th in-game!