EVENT LOG: THE NIGHT WE MET

[inthenightmods]

EVENT LOG:
THE NIGHT WE MET

characters: everyone.
location: the path from downtown beacon to the harbor; all over town.
date/time: february 16-21.
content: the forest spirits send off their friends to join the aurora. memory opals drop from the eerie green lights above.
warnings: n/a.

i had all and then most of you, some and now none of you.

For most of the day on February 16, all of the town's forest spirits can be found along the stretch of road between downtown and the harbor, clearly setting up for, uh, something. They're piling snow onto the pathway, creating a miles long sled trail that starts outside the Landmark Inn and ends at the very end of the harbor's dock. Not only that, but the forest spirits are also not super willing to explain what they're up to! They're busy, you lantern-havers.

By the time evening rolls around, the spirits have set up wooden railings alongside the snowy path, as well as a warming tent, hot chocolate booth, and announcer stand outside of the Landmark. Oh, and a starting banner for the race! It's dogsled time!

Throughout the event, Beacon's downtown and harbor areas will be completely overrun with forest spirits, all there to bear witness to this holiday celebration—this holiday is for them, though, not you weirdos with your naked faces. Point is, none of the spirits will be hostile at this time! They're more interested in interacting with each other than with Beacon's residents, though if pressed, a kind spirit might be willing to explain what's going on:

The aurora arrives in Beacon for about a week each year, and the forest spirits believe it to be "friends in the sky". The lights are old friends of theirs, it seems! And each night while the aurora shines above the town, the forest spirits send off a handful of friends to join the aurora! The spirits ready to join the aurora build sleds of their own and assemble mighty sled teams, sometimes comprised of dog spirits and sometimes... other stuff. Then, when the aurora is at its peak in the wee hours of the night, the sled teams will ride off one by one, racing down the snow-covered path all the way down to the harbor, where they'll finally rocket off the dock and out over the lake, picking up more and more speed as each team gallops wildly over the water before arcing up into the sky. Once the spirits are barely a speck, they'll hit the aurora and burst into a shower of light. Beautiful stuff!

See, since the aurora is made of light, forest spirits launched into it are killed on impact! Isn't that wonderful! The forest spirits seem to think so! What is death to a dead thing!

All of this information can be learned through handwaved/played-led interactions with the forest spirits during the event. They'll all be focused on saying goodbye to their friends and cheering them on as they stream through the sky, but they're happy to welcome lantern-havers to join in the celebrations. The hot chocolate is free and only tastes a little bit like mud, so. Enjoy!

•••
For the entire duration of the event, the aurora will dance in beautiful silence overhead, lighting up the whole town with its eerie green glow. Every so often, handfuls of opals will rain down like meteorites from the lights above, and these opals each contain the memory of someone currently in Beacon! They can be found all over town, landing on paths and atop buildings and maybe even rocketing straight through your ceiling to crash into your living room. Perhaps a forest spirit decided to hide some shiny rocks in your cereal box or under your pillow... Better hope the Postmaster General doesn't find your opals before you do, though. That spirits sure does love their rocks. Point is, who knows where the opals might turn up?

On that note, if you signed up for a random event, we'll be RNGing characters to receive these random events throughout the event! The event may happen in response to a toplevel on this event log, or we might turn up in your IC inbox... 👀 These events will be entirely random, meaning we could dole out any number of them at any time, so it'll be a fun surprise for all of us.

If you missed signups and would still like to toss your name in the ring, go right ahead! Signups will remain open throughout the event, though we can't promise everyone who signs up will get something.

And finally... Each day, we'll post a list of the forest spirits joining the aurora! What, did you want to know in advance? The forest spirits have never been a particularly organized bunch, so they're winging this—which means more surprises for you. :)

Enjoy the races and the lights and the opals, residents of Beacon, and remember: WHAT IS DEATH TO A DEAD THING!

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Comments

[callada]

Alchemy? No. Not as far as I know.

[It's only a word he's vaguely familiar with. Some sort of science, or magic? He's not sure if it's fact or fiction, to be honest. Definitely not his area. But he's curious now, whatever this explanation is.]

[dadandgone]

[Maes hums thoughtfully. He then looks around, but not seeing what he would like, squats down instead and starts tracing out a circle in the sand. He draws a triangle in the middle, keeping it a fairly basic shape.]

I don’t know much about how it works exactly, I just was friends with some alchemists not one myself. It’s a type of science that can do amazing things. The basics are that if you draw a Transmutation circle -- sort of like this -- and have the right knowledge you can change matter from one state into another. Different circles cause different effects and usually the more complicated the circle, the more complicated the alchemy you can perform.

[He straightens up again.]

Anyway, there was an incident at a local lab that we thought was abandoned but was actually being used for secret research into making a Philosopher’s Stone using human lives. The Elrics stumbled upon it of course and the boys asked me and Major Armstrong to investigate what we could about the Fifth Lab or a figure known to work there, Tim Marcoh. We were given orders, however, not to pursue it further.

The Elrics went elsewhere, but I made an observation by chance when I was looking at a map of our country. I did more digging and found that our country had been shaped and formed into one giant transmutation circle and that at each point there had been a major military conflict...a lot of blood shed...in the spots that would be necessary to activate it. The entire military was being manipulated to take human lives for a country-wide human transmutation circle...a circle that would be used to create a very large Philosopher’s Stone using all of the lives within it.

[Of course, some of this had been further confirmed for him when he’d woken up in the Circle and found Roy and Riza -- or at least the Promised Day information about what that actually looked like and what it meant in more detail. But it was Maes that had put it all together first. It still chills him to think about.]

[callada]

[Rosinante's eyes narrow as he listens. The fact that he has no idea what a Philosopher's Stone is doesn't matter - though he'll ask in a second. But what Maes describes is mass slaughter of his government's own people, using them as a resource for its own implied gain. Something above the military, something planned out by people who had the resources to direct the future of the country itself and who had been doing so for a very long time.]

Governments are established for the protection of their people. To abuse that position and use people as fuel for something else - that's monstrous. What is this Philosopher's Stone?

[dadandgone]

[Maes nods.]

We knew our government was corrupt for a long time before that, but it was that particular discovery that revealed we were dealing with real monsters and creatures that saw humans as beneath them.

[It had been Roy's plan for some time to make his way to the position of Furher towards the end of the war. It was only with the revelation that the government and military were being manipulated and operated by an immortal being and the homunculus that they realized just how dire and necessary that coup had become.]

It's an item that can amplify alchemic ability. Usually alchemy follows certain laws and rules, but with a stone you can bypass those limits.

[callada]

[Given his own experience, he takes the mention of monsters and creatures as figurative. Humans can be extremely monstrous, the ruling elite sometimes especially so.]

I imagine they were creating a weapon, then. Or trying to.

[Or was it immortal life they were after? It's always one of those. When people already have great wealth, they next seek power and control.]