⇨ THE FANTASIA FESTIVAL

[ringleaders]

Who: Everyone who decides to come!
When: Day 12
Where: Wismuth's Fantasia Festival
What: CY-Ren's performance in Wismuth's biggest music festival finally arrives, and those willing to help Noa the Star Guardian show up to intervene.
Warnings: It doesn't go super well.

SONG OF THE CY-REN↴ CY-Ren's arena is the biggest stage in the festival by far, but it isn't the only one. Several big acts have assembled in the surrounding area, all with a lovely view of the ocean and with Wismuth's skyline in the background. Though she isn't explicitly the main attraction at the festival, everyone knows she's the real reason so many people have showed up. The amount of star power she has is overwhelming, and there are plenty of fans that would get violent on her behalf. ► GROUP UP: Noa will ask everyone to meet her in a park area near the festival stage, so that you can discuss plans briefly before putting them into action. The key is to try to stop the concert before CY-Ren's plans can come to fruition - whatever they may specifically be. How you go about this is up to you, but with how many people are present, it's bound to be a challenge. ► INFILTRATE: After speaking with Noa and determining what everyone will be doing, it will be time for everyone to break into the performance arena. No one has tickets for this, unless they've forged them, as they sold out a while ago. Any means of getting inside is fine, whether that be teleporting, passing through walls, or jumping in by wing. Once you've gotten into the crowd, it's up to you to get close enough to the stage to disrupt the proceedings. ► UNDER HER SPELL: It only takes her first song for things to start going wrong. The impact of the music will strike each individual differently - for most it will only feel strange, but for some it will be completely transfixing, like something that reaches deep into their soul. Those people, the ones slated to become Harbingers, will react to the the song strongly - upon hearing it, they will gradually completely lose their sense of agency, sluggishly moving towards the stage by whatever means available to them. If someone tries to stop them, they will go as far as physically, or even violently, resisting. "Blindsided by the beat Clapping your hands, stomping your feet You didn't know that you fell Now you've fallen under my spell" Obviously, if you want to participate in the Harbinger plot, you'll have to arrange it so that they manage to follow through with their hypnotized objectives. They will feel somehow empty during this time, as like they need to follow the music in order to achieve any chance at fulfillment. If you are not becoming a Harbinger, you can still have your character be affected by this to a lesser degree and then stopped by another carnival member, or as a feat of self control. ► BATTLE: By the time she switches to the next song, things will have started to get real. Any blatant, long distance attacks made early on will be mysteriously blocked by some kind of magical force field surrounding the stage, which will take some time to penetrate - at least until Noa gets involved. Body guards will storm anyone who tries to get onto the stage, and ostensibly said guards are not at all human. Instead, they appear to be horrible looking shadow amalgamation in suits, and while their attacks are mostly just physical, they can move with unnatural quickness, can't be pinned, and strike very hard. They can be NPC'd by anyone, and only have vaguely humanoid thought processes. "Me and you, you and me Why don't we see who is better? We don't have to be one and the same thing Oh, what's so wrong with a little competition? Are you afraid of failing the audition?" By the end of the second song, the hypnotized carnival members will have been snatched up by CY-Ren's void agents and disappeared. This can manifest as them being grabbed and escorted off, or possibly disappearing into shadows alongside one of the bodyguards. The guards will be trying to work stealthily, ideally sneaking away anyone being affected by the song without anyone around them noticing, but they won't let secrecy get in the way of their objectives, either. The audience will be able to realistically notice if things start exploding in their faces, but the song will distract them from anything less obvious.

Comments

[atouts]

Come on, Rita. Childermass has seen his fair share of brawls, for all that one might not be able to tell as much just by looking at him. She winds up for a punch -- to be fair, he hadn't actually expected a young lady to do that, but then again, this is Rita -- and lets it loose, only to have him already moving his other arm up, hand out to intercept the fist and block it.

Block physically, that is. If she has plans to follow that up with anything else, well, both arms are now occupied.

[anti_nonsense]

What the...!?

Rita didn't expect him to block. More specifically, she didn't think he'd have much in the way of fighting instincts, and even if he did, he didn't even seem to notice her until a second ago. So when her fist meets his palm instead of his nose, her eyes widen in surprise. For a moment, she's at a loss for what to do.

But then she remembers that legs are a thing, so she swings her foot to kick at his shins. It might not have the same impact as a punch in the face, but it's better than nothing.

[atouts]

Rita wasn't important enough to notice while he was wandering off but now that she's interfered? Oh, she has his attention, if only for the moment. He scowls at her and opens his mouth as if about to say something--

But then the toe of a shoe meets the bone of his shin and whatever that may have been turns into a "Agh!" And him letting go of her altogether to hop back, favoring his unkicked leg. "You damn brat!"

[anti_nonsense]

Rita jumps back when Childermass reacts, shooting him a self-satisfied smirk. "Ha! That got your attention, huh?" He looks mad, but that's good. Anything to take his attention away from the music.

"Feel like talking now?" For all her smugness, Rita doesn't seem to have noticed he was already about to say something before she kicked him in the shins.

[atouts]

"More that I feel like not having my time wasted, Ms. Mordio," Childermass answers, what irritation the kick had caused fading with the pain of it. That doesn't matter enough to draw his focus away but since Rita insists on bothering him, that he does have to deal with. He has to go, he has to follow the music...

That means dealing with her, which also means he's closing the space between them again and making a grab for the front of her shirt. The danger there will be if he does snag her, he'll be pulling the shadows together underneath her and sinking her straight down into them, just enough to trap her legs and leave her stuck. By no means a long-term solution, the spell for it thrown together haphazardly as he can't quite rally his thoughts for anything worse, but does it matter? So long as it gets her out of the way?

[anti_nonsense]

Even knowing that something's wrong with Childermass, something's influencing him, Rita doesn't expect him to just grab her. In an instant, the grin is wiped from her face and she lets out a cry of surprise, kicking and flailing until she suddenly finds herself unable to kick anymore.

Or can she? Her feet are still moving, it feels like, but she can't tell where they are.

"Wake up already!" she barks at him as she struggles and pulls at her legs. "Keep walking and you'll regret it, you idiot!"

[atouts]

With her stuck partway in a shadow, he'll step back again and shake his head at her, like it's her who's the one who doesn't get it. Though to Childermass, that's exactly it. He has to go, he's meant to go, it's the only thing that matters in the world—

"You just don't understand," he tells her. There's a hint of regret there, that it's unfortunate Rita can't comprehend, but that isn't going to make him stay, either. He'll turn away, stepping towards the stairs to the stage.

[anti_nonsense]

Rita, naturally, reads his tone as condescending, which just makes her even angrier.

"Get back here!" she yells after Childermass. With a raised hand, she conjures four fireballs, which are then flung into his path in a last-ditch attempt to deter him. Rita tries to avoid a direct hit; upon impact with Childermass or anything else, the fireballs will burst, but the flames themselves will be contained so as to spread as little as possible. Mad as she is, she's trying to stop him, not burn him to death.

[atouts]

She doesn't hit him, thankfully enough, but the fireballs bursting around him have the opposite effect. Bursts of fire play haywire with the shadows around them, under the stage, but those aren't the only spells he has up his sleeve. Rather than risk catching fire when those four burst too near, sputtering bits of flame everywhere, he jumps back — startled at first — and lets his form distort, though the transformation is so quick it's impossible to follow how it actually goes.

One second, he's a human recoiling from fire and, the next, a crow hopping back, then launching off the ground to fly up, as far as he can to the nearest, safest perch. From up there, he'll look down one last time and caw at Rita, but after that? He takes off again, this time for good.

The silver lining is, without him there, the half-hearted shadow spell pulling at Rita's feet won't be difficult to kick apart at all.