pumpkinhollow (
pumpkinhollow) wrote2024-07-21 01:43 pm
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July Mini Event - Seaside Sway
Pumpkin Hollow Community Bulletin
It’s the end of July. Summer is peaking, hitting its stride. In the forest, frogs sing and fireflies dance through the night, and dragonflies go about their business in the sun. In town, farmers roll up their sleeves and young ladies swap out their many layers for breezy floral gowns. And on the beach, swimmers take to the sea for water at its warmest and young crabs climb up from the sun-drenched sand. Kora’s glory at its finest!For about a week now, a flier has been up on the community bulletin board. :
Midsummer Beach Festival!
Join us on July 21st and 22nd for our annual beach bash! Organized by the Temple of Sacred Roots in tandem with Town Hall, all townsfolk are invited to join in for seaside festivities in honor of the height of summer. Activities will include:
- Live music (Sign-ups for performers will be available at Empty Pockets Music Bar)
- Locally made strawberry wine from last summer’s strawberries
- Beach pit barbecues for lunch on both days
- A hot food banquet for dinner on the 21st
- A fish fry breakfast on the 22nd
- Paper lantern float
- Beach games
- Tents and bed rolls for beach camping
And, as promised, the festival opens up on the afternoon of July 21st, where the smell of barbecue rises up from Tawny Beach. Tables sit on wooden plinths to avoid sinking in the sand, bearing fresh summer fruit and drinks. Pork, fish, and lamb roast in a sand pit. Enchanted barrels covered in magic frost keep frozen treats like orange juice shaved ice and strawberry sorbet cold. A station for assembling little wood-and-paper floating lanterns can be seen off in the distance and Cormac and the Banshees are setting up for their opening set. Tents and bed rolls have been set up toward the Marina. Literally everything is decorated with thin golden coins on strands of twine, sea shells, and sea glass. In the center of it all, stones have been laid into the shape of a massive compass rose, whose center houses the makings of a bonfire.
Those who were here last year will recognize that this festival is much larger than last year’s, and was not preceded with desperate pleas from Town Hall for help providing food and decor. It speaks plainly to the health of the town now. Even with all that has been going on, the growing population and renewed sense of community and purpose have improved matters around the island considerably.
Near the tent area, a family of crabs (one red, one blue, and three purple) can be observed. The small purple ones are poking each other with sticks. The Limoncello has made port, and Royal and his crew are splitting helper duty with the staff of Town Hall, and are dancing and partying the rest of the time. All is as it should be. For once, there is no dangerous surprise lurking in the shadows.
So, what’s on your agenda? During the day, volleyball, swimming, and a game that involves throwing small fabric sacks of dry lentils into wooden hoops in the sand can be enjoyed, alongside a plethora of frozen treats. At night, food and wine and lemonade are served at the banquet tables and lively music plays on the temporary wooden stage for dancing by firelight. There is also the lantern float, which encourages participants to send a glowing lantern out on the water in honor of the lost and the distant, ending the first night in a moment of peaceful sobriety. You may also notice a charming stranger milling around, cozying up to Royal, and drinking after nightfall--- a woman with dark olive skin, raven hair that soaks up the firelight, and rum brown eyes who wears a billowing blue dress and (whenever she hasn’t placed it onto someone else’s head for fun) a wide-brimmed black hat.
Then, at night, camp on the beach under the stars or head home by additional lantern light. The festivities will continue until the following afternoon! Feel free to share your beach fit in the fashion show thread below, as well. Enjoy!
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Even though he knows that it's for the person with the lantern, not for those who have no idea this is even happening.
He walks a few more steps into the water, setting down the lantern and giving it a nudge so the tide takes it away. There's a part of him that hopes a wave crashes into it and destroys the thing so he can stop looking at it. But no such luck, it spins a bit but steadily floats out towards the open bay.
Folding his arms, he stands there in the water, the bottom of his robes swaying gently with the ebb and flow.
"The harbor is going to be filled with these things."
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There it goes, bearing out his feelings on the tide. The ones he might not want to admit he has.
"No one's going to deride you for participating, Imbros."
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"I was not anticipating being here this long." Because he foolishly assumed he could solve the barrier problem in a few hours when others had been working on it for years. Overconfidence strikes again. "My body is probably rotting away somewhere, assuming it wasn't dumped into a pit in Avernus."
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Why would his body be rotting? He's in it right now. Unless he's not in it, but it's still animated.
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He laughs, levitating out of the water and returning to shore, "I hope you're correct and I disappeared right in front of those that killed me. May they forever wonder what happened."
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That's her official take, as a murderer.
"Everything's real, more or less, except the things that aren't. Like that blasted House."
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"That place was not entirely bad, it allowed me to retrieve my clothing from my realm. The one accompanying me was less than ideal, but it worked out, in the end." He likes Crichton, he just has a limit on time spent with him, a limit of approximately ten minutes.
"Which doors did you chose? What was your ending?"
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It's why she'd gone back to steal the rug. She's deliberately overwriting the story, making it less detailed and more favorable in her direction, but Imbros doesn't need to know that she had been wildly angry at the idea of having to confess anything to some imitation of justice. Or that she hadn't been able to fight off the figure with the scythe.
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"So your refusal basically ended the illusion for you and returned you to the festival. Interesting. How did the other die?"
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If she liked Radar less, she would have freely shared the information. But she does like the young man, and it is, after all, his first death. That entitles him to some privacy.
"At least it was better to others. How did you get your clothing from it?"
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"We received a wish. And yes, I realize using it on material goods is ridiculous given how powerful that could be - but it's not as if we could wish the barrier down, and this was before we knew there was a cult operating in the area."
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"You heard about that as well? I only heard pieces, but wonderful, the last thing we needed around here was a cult. And it's one that can time travel."
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"I was there, yes. And I don't think the cult itself can time travel, as they didn't know what was going to happen in the future or they would have recognized us. They feel similar to Bhaalists, but they're not making furniture out of the corpses which personally I think makes them slightly more tolerable. Nyarlathotep if that name means anything to you? I'm not familiar with it." And he'd gotten distracted from information gathering about halfway through. "They were preparing their conduit, Linette. Or well, not her specifically but I believe cursing an item to give to her that would then prepare her. Hmf. I'll have to find out."
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"If they're similar, then it means they're to be treated with the utmost caution. I don't know their god, but I can tell well enough we don't need to let them have their way."
The words come out with a slight vehemence, and she keeps her eyes fixed on the sea, hand stilling for a moment. Breathe. At most, it looks like someone dismayed to hear of such evil deeds.
"Did you hear anything about why they were doing all of that? It's a lot of work to do - they have to have been fixed on some purpose."
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"As the beginning stages of raising the barrier as far as I can tell. They needed a sacrifice in order to do so, though they called her a conduit so I assume they manifested their god here at some point. I've seen no evidence of it since. When they chanted to it there was a lot of," He gestures and casts Black Tentacle, summoning dozens of goopy black tentacles dripping with ichor out of the ground in a circle around the both of them. As soon as they wriggle up to their full height of ten feet he motions and they quickly retreat back under ground. "But more ethereal, as if made of ink almost. And I've seen no evidence of that since."
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"...They needed to start cutting this place off, or they would have been stopped before they got anywhere close to the end. Whatever happened with Linette would have been noticed before it began. If there's a good portion of them dead now...do you think you could find where you were for this ritual, in the present day? There's a chance something of interest could have survived."
To say nothing about looking at the dead. But she'll save the idea of digging up graves for when she might be able to actually get away with it.
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"The mayor's estate. Larkin I think his name was. Very drunk, very .. in over his head and probably didn't grasp what was happening. But the abattoir was enormous, almost too big to fit beneath it, though thats where it seemed to be situated. The rest of the residence seemed normal enough. A study, banquet hall, storage closets. I didn't go in all the rooms but it seemed typical."
Don't ask why he was in a storage closet.
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She's not going to think about him looking at the storage closets when there's more important things, like where would such addresses be kept. And explain it as curiosity towards the town's history if anyone asked why she was looking.
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"I could try and teleport into it, I was there long enough to be able to retain that. Assuming it still exists. I've... Hm, I've never tried to teleport to somewhere that's been destroyed I'm not really sure what will happen. It also might not have been on this plane of existence - we started in a cabin then everything dissolved after a spell was spoken and we were suddenly standing in front of the house."
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"Whatever you're going to do, don't do it until we've packed up the festival. Let there be one occasion without strange and threatening magical occurrences, and then the next five are up for grabs."
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"I'm not exactly eager to find out if this rips me into pieces should this place no longer be there." Plus he has a lot more morose moping to be doing! "Would you wish to try and accompany me? I can bring four others."
Something he'd found out the hard way when attempting to teleport five.
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Someone to bring the information back if he dies.
"Let me know when you're free, after all of this. It's not as though the location will get up and run away."
wrap?
"I'll keep you informed. Enjoy.. whatever it is they're all doing there." Swimming? He's pretty sure it's swimming or something like that.