celebrate the peak of fall in shrike heights at our annual festival !
celebrate the harvest of the season at our annual two-week long fall festival ! from the founding of our town, we have annually celebrated the harvest by sharing food and wine with our neighbours. here at the fall festival, there are a multitude of different stalls, some on rotation, including food - such as baked goods and hearty meals, beverages, fresh fruit and vegetables - and a multitude of other stalls with miscellaneous hand-made creations by the townspeople. there are multiple seating and picnic areas complete with blankets, seating and ambient lighting, perfect for a mug of hot apple cider or a sweet piece of pumpkin pie ! if you have something to provide, you're more than welcome to rent a stall and sell your goods and services to your fellow towns-folk !
along with the food, celebrate the season with your friends by participating in our fall games, such as ring toss, pumpkin tic-tac-toe, bobbing for apples and more ! go on one of our evening hay rides, navigate your way through our corn maze, weave your own basket, or carve your very own jack-o-lantern ! there's lots of fun for people of all ages. feel free to get the weekly schedule for the stall rotations at the information booth ( where you can also purchase tickets for our halloween spooktacular event ), or come down to the commune at any point in the day if you prefer to be surprised ! either way, you won't be disappointed.
ooc info - this is an annual event that has been running in shrike heights for generations, originally run by the farmers who lived in the fields on the outskirts of town, but now run by the hippie commune who occupy the same land and grow myriads of vegetables/fruits/crops etc. due to the length of the event it is typically casual and not the biggest deal for residents, though it can be quite exciting to some, and can be a good opportunity for some muses to sell their own goods ( which you're free to have your muse do if you please, so long as the stall makes sense for the fall fest setting ! ). event interactions may begin immediately, and please note that there will be no plot drop associated with this event.
🎨 for our muses to decorate/paint ornaments together
Auradon University’s holiday decorations sprang up overnight - quite literally - and with them came the age-old ornaments that Jane had come to resent. They were pretty enough, with their minimalist design (most were just red or green spheres; only the more original iterations featured tinsel or a glossy shine), but nowhere near what Jane would like for them to be. Although not a Christmas lover by any stretch of the imagination, she was more than willing to put in work to change the state of things. She was doing everyone a favor, really, including Nova, whom she’d enlisted as her partner-in-crime in ridding the school of their default decorations. If anyone was going to understand the much-needed re-decorating, it would be her; and besides, Jane was more than a little curious to see how the other girl’s work would turn out, after admiring it often in the past. That was how the pair found themselves in an otherwise empty art room, Jane humming a little to herself as she stole glances over at Nova’s work. “Do you think the school will pay us for this?” She asked teasingly, her elbows leaning against the wooden tabletop. “I mean, I feel like they should. Most of these look like they’ve been around since Fairy Godmother was a student here. But not those!” Jane noticed one of Nova’s finished ornaments and her eyes lit up. “Damn, I hardly recognize it! How did you get the coat so even?” (@novafitzherbert)
This event is our fourth invite event, which means it’s the kind of event everyone is familiar with on tumblr: we give you a setting, you run amok with it! What’s written is canon, the rest is up to you! You will be split up into one of 3 groups to culminate the season finale, depending on your alignment. The setting of this Invite is, for Saints and Angels, the restaurant Absolution... in a way. For the Sinners and Demons, it’s Cheap Thrills... for a time.
All 3 scenes happen simultaneously. The “end” of one is the same time-ending of the others. The date stamp for the event is Sunday, May 28th, in the afternoon. There is no second part, so you can engage with this scene—and after—as long as you want until our next event in late June. ♥ Long post ahead:
You show up to Absolution because that’s where you’ve been told to go. It seems odd, given you know you’re going to an Ascension—but what’s odd when you have no idea what an Ascension even entails? So you go in, humans filing past angels, heading not up the stairs to the Angel-only meeting room that only angels know how to open, but instead down a set of dark stairs into Absolution’s cellar. You can’t see how the door opens, but it does, so you step into the darkness, unsure if you should be expecting wine casks or caskets. In contrast, you see nothing—or maybe it’s something like synaesthesia, where you feel the colour blue and see the sound of humming—and there, in the back on a wall not bordering the outside, is an ornate, white-framed ceiling-height mirror. Gabriel is the first through, a harp in hand, her face stoic.
Following are Raziel and Shibah, side by side, though not touching. Everyone else follows suit. Stepping through the mirror feels like the texture of water—it feels like rain, if rain didn’t have a weight or a temperature. Once on the other side, behind you isn’t a mirror: it’s the pearly gates. This is the first time in history that alive humans have been on this side. There is another set of gates, further on, if they could be called such: they’re made from boughs of what seems to be tall trees and everything around you reminds you of the lushness of Eden, though that garden differed from this one. There is an eerie sensation to being in Heaven: there’s the sense that birds are singing, and then you can’t find any birds, but the moment you realize you can’t find any birds—there’s a bird, solving the dissonance for you. You can’t see the sun, but you can feel it all around you, and everything feels pleasantly hazy.
The gathering of trees form a circle around you, as if mimicking a foyer or antechamber but of nature; to the right of the second gates, Gabriel sits her harp and waits. Raziel and Shibah stand in front of those gates. It feels like an eternity before something happens—but then it feels like an instant, more angels than you can count materialize into a more corporal form, and you realize it wasn’t the sun you were feeling, but maybe was the energy of angels?—and there is no way to see them all. One by one, which is an illogically faster process than you’d think, each angel begins to stamp their feet. You realize there are two rhythms happening, distinct and competing, and the tapping becomes a dull roar becomes a cacophony. An angel you don’t know leans over to you, the mouth doesn’t move but you hear, “This pattern for Raziel—this for Shibah.” You stamp your feet to match your vote.
Gabriel’s head is cocked to the side, listening, trying to pick out something you sincerely can’t: a melody out of the chaos. The stamping continues and all eyes fall to the pair of competing angels at the gates; then, very faintly, very faintly, around the edges and almost out of the corner of your eye, Raziel begins to glow, as if that same sun-energy-feeling from earlier is concentrating around him. The people have spoken: it was very close—almost too close for comfort. The vote was very nearly perfectly split: 55% voted for Raziel. Over time, the beats sound less cacophonous: people have changed their sound to support Raziel, or make no sound at all and stand aside. Anyone not standing aside moves to complete the circle as Raziel steps into the center. Then, one by one and then all at once, the angels began to dance.
There were defined movements you can’t quite pick apart at first—a swooping here, a kicking there, a tossing of one’s head, an arching of the back—and you try to join in, but clumsily. But even if you lacked the ability or the body, something more helps you. It gets easier the more go-arounds you do it: you don’t even feel like you’re doing steps, but that something is guiding your body as your energy lends its support, and you are spinning around the center like spokes on a wheel, around and around, faster and faster until you’re nearly breathless and giddy—and then you hear song, the most beautiful song you’ve ever heard, and then you realize you’re helping make the song, and the feeling in your chest is one of harmonic euphoria. In the center, Raziel looks larger than life, not physically, but something about him.
The entire garden has reached its energetic height, and like the crest of a wave, it breaks, and there’s a sound like thunder if clouds were made of silk, and then it’s done. Everyone is laughing and it’s a party, refreshments appear as if from thin air, and the sounds of the high harp move to a lull. Those who don’t support go their own way as the rest remain. It was not the strongest Ascension—not as strong as Adon’s—but it worked, and God was no longer dead. Long live God. When all the merriment this side of Heaven winds down, the angels lead the humans back through the Gates, through the mirror-feeling, and back into the cellar of Absolution.
Only after that does only Gabriel seem to realize: the mirror is solid.
The Gates of Heaven have closed.
An Ascension is short notice, but you’re not invited anyway. But what’s the fun in that? You can’t get near it, even if you wanted to—so instead, the Church of Sinners invites their brethren to their own little shindig down on the piers. Satan was invited, but declines attending, and Kiara is notably missing altogether. Nevertheless, the rest of the usual suspects and congregation gather for boardwalk festivities, some riding some rides, others hijacking busker materials and doing poor caricatures for passers-by or painting one another’s faces. For awhile, everyone seems contented to their sunny, pre-Memorial Day afternoon. Belial is making balloon animals and popping them at children.
Then, there’s an unmistakable feeling—a shifting. Like, quite suddenly, nothing around you seems for certain, or solid. You feel a sharp jolt under your feet, but don’t see anything there. Then, in succession, a few stronger sharp shakes that pass quickly. The buildings around you make a strange noise, but nothing seems off except maybe you feel like something’s tilted? Like you just got off the spinning cup ride and you’re just waiting for your ears to catch up to gravity. More strong shaking followers, lasting about a second, and it feels violent—rebellious—and you have trouble standing. People around you are screaming, but they don’t seem to be heading toward safety—they just seem to be running away.
When you are steady enough to look up, the ground is still shaking but you can see where it’s split, like someone pierced the earth clean through at a point, like all the cracks had a center; up from the cracks rises a dark mist not unlike what Pestilence had subsumed from Dr. Drobot in the Escape Room. It moved as if on an air current toward that same center, swirling—as above, so below—and right in the center of the mist and the cracks is a cross-legged, absolutely diabolical-looking Warmonger... who has now integrated into a demon. He has a sword in his hand and his energy engulfs the piers, as anyone who is left is unable to tear their eyes away. The beach becomes colder because War is drawing all of the heat toward him like the earth’s crater: he is glowing and fire unfurls from his back shaped like wings. The ground is scorched where they touch.
There is an audible snap louder than a gunshot in the air and Renee falls to the ground, re-experiencing mortality for the first time in hundreds of years. Belial didn’t die, so she doesn’t hollow, but he is no longer a demon—so she is no longer his ligatus. Far from her, Belial’s wing shapes slowly crackle down, becoming more like a sparking forcefield of energy around his body, like a visible aura. When Belial steps away from the summit of the earthquake, little reverbs tremble from his step, and then stop. Now, he looks just like himself, but a faint red glow permanently lines his skin. The Horsemen of War has been fully integrated and laughter echoes even though there are no walls; the laughter is not kind. A good quarter of the pier is decimated and two rides barely have their skeletons left—but you’ve survived.
With a dark, menacing glint in his eye, Belial turns not to Renee—an afterthought, barely a memory at the moment—and instead focuses on Babylon. You can stand now... but tread carefully.
SCENE THREE:
Somewhere in Las Vegas, courtesy of @whatroughbeast—
Morning dawns to an empty room in Sunset Tower, while the workers of the Paradise Hotel let out a collective breath of relief the moment their employer leaves the premises – the door to the manager’s office is left open and while the vault is closed once more, the remains of Belial’s investigation are still scattered on the floor, untouched. There’s a fresh pressed suit hanging over the back of a chair and a cellphone and ring of master keys tossed haphazardly on the desk. The message is clear: Satan doesn’t intend to return to this place again. His time is Los Angeles was born only from orders and leaving the City of Angels behind inspires no heartache. After all, Satan is going back to the closest to home above the earth a demon can find.
The Strip is baking in the midday sun when the once-Devil arrives in Las Vegas and it's the vault there he immediately returns to, even larger than the one in Paradise and laden with gruesome mementos that stretch back over the bulk of human memory and beyond. He leaves with only one thing: a weapon thousands of years old, stained dark with the lifeblood of creatures both mortal and divine, and he carries the wickedly curved blade like a natural extension of his own flesh. There is no pause for reflection, no moment wasted on further brooding or strategy, not after so much time already gone and the threat of the Rapture ever-looming on the horizon.
This time, Lucifer’s manor is devoid of the throng of eager guests that had accompanied Vice’s dazzling Centennial, but the memories that accompany Satan’s first steps into these halls are fresh in his mind, inspiring future actions to recreate the past. The manor has already been the stage for one death this year and if Satan gets his way, Jairus’ blood will not be the last spilt on these floors. As he stalks through the endless halls, every step bringing him closer to the being who has always carried the heaviest weight of Satan’s bitterness, there is no question of outcome in his mind. It took an angel to kill God, after all. Only a demon could properly kill the Devil.
🎨 for our muses to decorate/paint ornaments together
Now this was a Christmas tradition that Jane could embrace. Even as she spied a few of her classmates through the windows frolicking around in the snow outside, she herself was seated safely (and warmly) inside, face screwed up in concentration as she added a few minute details to the ornament she’d started a little over an hour ago. She was vaguely aware that people were intended to spend way less time on each individual ornament, but hey, she’d gone all-in. Besides, she’d had company for her artistic endeavor, and that in itself was a nice change. She felt the triumph of nearly completing her first ornament (and it turning out at least somewhat as she’d wanted), coupled with the triumph of enticing Dolly to spend the time with her indoors. Jane might not admit it, but she loved having the other around to fill the quiet. “And... done!” She remarked, proudly, as she carefully placed the finished ornament before her. “With the first one,” she continued, with a smile and a wink in Dolly’s direction, even as she leaned forward surreptitiously to get a look at the other girl’s work. “Aren’t you glad you’re inside with me instead of wasting away in all that snow?” She teased, with another smile. (@dahlialabouff)
There weren’t many situations or people who could tempt Jane outside the halls of Auradon University, but when Eden appeared at her door with her excited request, Jane found it impossible to turn down. Even if it was below freezing and Jane’s winter gloves were especially ill-fitting, and even if she had a scrapbook that she needed to finish making for her mother’s Christmas gift; despite it all, she found herself packing the snow tightly between her fingers and forcing it into the shape of a snowman on the university’s grounds. It was hard work but, somehow - it was definitely Eden’s work, not her’s - they had started to create a shape that resembled the classic three-piece snowman. It was enough to get Jane, all pink-cheeked and stoic, grinning. She wiped the look from her face in an attempt to keep her calm demeanor but couldn’t stop herself from praising their work aloud. “Are you like, a snowman expert?” She peeked out from the other side of the snowy figure, an inquisitively raised eyebrow and small smile on her face. “Pretty sure I tried this with Danny two years ago and our snowman looked like more of a... snowpile.” She flexed her fingers in an attempt to return the circulation to them. “Meanwhile, I’m pretty sure this guy will look so real when he’s finished that he could register for classes in the spring semester if he wanted.” (@edenofcorona)
The space wasn't an exact replica of the castle at Rhythm Ridge, but it was close enough to be familiar. The dim lighting, loud music, and oppressive atmosphere created exactly the environment that Noisemaster knew the Nightmare Knight hated. It was hard to imagine that someone who preferred calm and stillness had created something so loud and annoying. Then again, he'd also created Splashmaster, so maybe his first two attempts at creating minions had been more experimental than refined.
The Disaster Master wasn't hard to find. He sat in his favorite chair, suspended in the air in front of a myriad of TV displays that covered the far wall. At the moment, they were all creating a larger image of what might have been a music video, but it was so abstract that it was really anyone's guess. The sound coming from the video didn't match what was playing in the background, resulting in an even greater cacophony than usual, which was saying something.
When the Nightmare Knight appeared, it took Noise a few seconds to realize that he was there. Typically, the Disaster Master would be able to hear someone coming--even over the noise--but his boss always managed to slip in unnoticed. For someone so big, he was surprisingly quiet.
It was when he got the feeling that he wasn't alone anymore that Noise turned around, looking out from behind the back of his chair to see who it was. Great... just the person he didn't want to see in his mind.
"Yo, big man!" he called with a wave. "C'mon in, or ya gonna miss the good part!"
Damn, he hated this guy. It was a little hard to hear over the clashing melodies, but the ambient music had taken on a menacing undertone.
The music was so loud it was practically tangible, a thick bass beat and quick-moving electronic melody. It was gloomy with very few lights, save for the tiles on the floor that blinked to the beat of the music or lit up when stepped on. Along the wall near where they stood were vertical rectangles of light, glowing lightly but fading away as the wall stretched on. There must've been a blacklight somewhere, making neon colors pop through the darkness but leaving everything else dim.
It was, in short, exactly the kind of environment Noisemaster would create.
The room Flammelle and Ibuki stood in seemed to be very large, judging by how the music echoed around it. By that same echo, though, it was also apparently very empty. Whether or not there was anyone else in the area was unclear, as was the location of their host. Knowing Noise, it was a little unusual for him not to show up to his own party.
In the meantime, the two were free to explore the space uninterrupted. A quick trip around the outer edges would reveal that there were doors leading off into hallways similar to the main room, although better-lit and not quite as loud. The center of the room would be as empty as it sounded save for a raised circular platform that might be a stage. The far wall would be nearly covered floor-to-ceiling in a hundred monitors creating one large display, although they would all be off at the moment.
