songerein | Saving Christmas

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Saving Christmas

✵ SAVING CHRISTMAS ✵

As the sun sets and the moon rises on Christmas Eve, a strange sound of jingling bells is heard high in the sky as the snow suddenly begins to fall heavily upon the town. A heavy weight of sleep slowly overcomes everyone, and just as their eyes close they'll hear a loud, raging bellow—

That damn bastard!! I won't let you ruin—!

Before the words are finished, everyone will suddenly jolt awake and find themselves scattered in a strange looking town called Whoville. Although it looks as if it's supposed to be festive, none of that holiday cheer is evident. The town is completely ransacked with torn up decorations, broken gift boxes and toys. Even its colors seem faded, music distorted and muted.

All through the town the Whos stare listlessly at their hard work now ruined, some crying openly while others remain indoors in their grief. A brave few young souls try to help clean and bolster some cheer, chanting, "It's not too late, we can fix this! We can't let that Grinch get us down!" But many just shake their heads, their eyes dim. No one seems to have noticed the sudden arrival of new faces.

In the meanwhile, the tapirs appear to inform the Dreamwalkers that they are inside another large dreamscape similar to the one during Halloween. This time, however, an entity called "The Grinch" had suddenly appeared and attacked it, stealing all the presents and leaving everything to ruin as they see now. The tapirs point to a meter floating high in the sky, and although it's not rock bottom, it keeps wavering and lowering as time passes. The Dreamwalkers must help raise the meter to save the dreamscape from turning into a nightmare.

"But the big guy is really angry now," the tapirs chatter among themselves. "If they help fix things, maybe they'll gain a powerful ally!"

Dressed in Christmas themed attire, it will be up to the Dreamwalkers to try and restore the Christmas spirit before the day is ruined forever.

I. HELPING WHOVILLE

The town is an interesting looking place with its unique architecture, bright colors swirling and curving about that it make it look like it could be made of cake or candy instead. It's supposed to be adorned with all manner of Christmas decorations and lights, and yet all of it is missing and instead everything looks so drab and dreary, the colors faded and nary a carol sung. Its tree has also been stripped bare, the presents pilfered, and the much too big Christmas Star gone.

A. Gift Retrieval. The Grinch has scattered all of the presents and decorations throughout the surrounding forests and they need to be returned before Christmas is over. Dog sleds big enough to load up found presents are provided to be used, and the dogs will help track down presents. However, those who enter the forests should be cautious. While there aren't any huge threats, there are present mimics, monsters that pretend to be present boxes only to attack any who approach. They will also eat real presents, so be careful they don't reach the sled!

» BONUS: PRESENT DELIVERY. The last objective is to deliver the present to their rightful owners. However, it's possible the Grinch may have tampered the presents, and this will only be revealed upon opening. Players must RNG 0-5 to determine if the recipient likes the present or not.

» BONUS: SPECIAL PRESENTS. There are some special marked boxes that are guarded by present mimics. Get past them to retrieve the present. However, upon touching the box, it will disappear in a poof of orange and be replaced with a pumpkin pie that will help amplify one's dreamotion abilities if eaten.

B. Fixing Decorations. With broken ornaments and torn wreaths and ribbon everywhere, a massive cleanup is in order along with repairing and redecorating. While anyone good at crafts can help, positive emotions and dreamotion abilities will be key to help brighten everything from its current dreary atmosphere. Creative minds can help produce the necessary decorations while the athletic can figure out ways to bolster their skills to reach those high, hard to reach places. Another RNG for rating is here as the residents will judge their work.

» BONUS: JUDGMENT. Anyone can throw up decorations, but will it be to the residents' liking? Players must RNG 0-5 to determine what kind of rating their efforts receive.

» BONUS: CHRISTMAS STAR. The original Christmas star was smashed to bits so a new one is in order. Although anything can be used, the Whos do have some preferences on what can be used on the star, even if those materials may be hard to find. Rainbow crystals found in the forest will surely help give the start that glittery feeling; they prefer to have it gold; and it needs to illuminate on its own so some kind of light source is needed.

C. Christmas Carols. Carolers are doing their best, but everyone is stumbling over their verses and instruments are out of tune. A bit of positive reinforcement and Christmas cheer will help sort things out. Those who are musically inclined can lead the way by singing and even creating new songs to help inspire others.

» BONUS: A SPECIAL CHRISTMAS CAROL. In the designated thread, a new carol will be composed by the dreamwalkers. Each one will supply their own verse in response to the previous (click here for example). The thread is only for the verses, but there will be another thread where players can go ham for their characters to comment on the song as it goes on. Anyone can participate multiple times but must wait for another comment to be made first.

II. SANTA'S TOY FACTORY

Just beyond Whoville with just the Winter Forest to separate them is one of Santa's toy factories. It, too, has been attacked and smoke rises from the damaged buildings. With machines malfunctioning, toys are running rampant and everything is chaotic. If not fixed soon, there will not be enough toys for Santa to deliver.

A. Elf Rescue. The Grinch not only stole the presents and destroyed the toys, but they also sabotaged the machines running the factor. Now elves are trapped inside and are in desperate need of rescuing as toys malfunction and start to turn on them. The machines are even trying to box up the elves as gifts instead! Behaving similar to the present mimics, boxes, wrapping paper, and ribbon bounce around in search of anything to wrap up. Dreamwalkers must venture in to try to turn off the machines and rescue the elves without getting turned into a present themselves. The more elves rescued, the more allies gained to fix the factory and more favor earned from Santa.

B. Reindeer Games. The reindeer have been scattered all over and the only way to bring them back is to attract them with fun and games. In order to do so, dreamwalkers will transform into reindeer and will have additional abilities granted to them, such as flying and manipulating snow. As for what kind of games, they can choose from any of the following:

Ring Racing. High up in the air is a flying course with rings made of magical frost. Racers must pass through each ring to count, but they must fly quickly. As soon as they approach, the ring will start to contract, and if too late it will close and the racer will be disqualified.
Sleigh Pulling. This is a contest of strength! Sleighs will be piled high with presents and, if not enough presents are available, large rocks to weigh it down. Each reindeer must then try and pull their sleigh down a simple straight lane to the finish line. Just beware, rogue toys will appear on the track and will need to be dealt with somehow. There are no restrictions—each reindeer can use whatever ability or skill they can think of to help pull the overloaded sleigh. The contest can be 1v1 or 2v2.
Robot Reindeer. All the excitement does attract many of the reindeer back, but unexpected guests arrive as well—and they're not friendly. Sent by the Grinch, robotic reindeer will suddenly descend from the skies to ruin the festivities. It will be up to the dreamwalkers in their reindeer form to fight back against them—or try to convert them to help out instead.

C. Gingerbread Army. Giant gingerbread men occasionally appear and try to smash through the toy factory, hampering rescue efforts. Fortunately, they are only made of gingerbread and easy to fall apart. Unfortunately, they will not only regrow lost parts but grow from severed parts. Their weak point is the glowing gumdrop located among the many gumdrops on the body, and destroying it will destroy the gingerbread completely.

[Mod Note: Details can be read and questions can be asked on the Event Details post. Submit all special threads and ratings to the Event Thread Submissions form.]

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[ Satan, dressed in a plain Santa outfit with the long red hat included, looks at what she's done. He supposes it looks festive, but who is he to judge? Sure, she asked him, but he has a very different idea of what Christmas is supposed to be like if the residents of this dreamscape or anything to go by. ]

I think it looks elegant, but not in a cold sort of way -- in the kind of way you could string it up anywhere and it would look warm and inviting.

[ Satan presses his hands together, and when he pulls them apart, a small hologram powered by dreamotion energy floats above the palms of his hands. It mirrors her string of garland, but looks like a transparent, digitized version that could never pass for the real thing. ]

So this -- this garland -- where do you normally string it up, anyway? Trees, houses...? Just anywhere?

Oh why thank you, Sir. That is a really kind comment.

Now I am thinking of putting them up on the roof edges of the houses in the town, but I wouldn’t mind putting them on the tree branches at all.

(Pooka by this point had gathered more than enough pine cones that they are beginning to stack up into a pine cone ‘pyramid’. The little mutt surely does take his pine cone gathering job very seriously.)

[ Ugh, his heart. What a cute dog. He's honestly a little jealous at how lucky other dreamwalkers seem to be when it comes to animal companions. Thankfully, Pooka isn't a cat because Satan would absolutely ditch his work for the opportunity to play with a cat. ]

Do you think they'd stand out on tree branches?

[ He dissipates the dream energy duplication of Anya's work. He can't use it anyway because it looks so tacky when compared to the real thing. He mostly wanted to see if he had a good understanding of the effort she put into making her garland. ]

My Christmas knowledge is a little limited, so I get the big pine trees, ornaments and lights, but I never really understood beyond that. Honestly, I think it'd look nicer on the eaves of rooves than on tree branches, though. Definitely.

If you show me how you made yours, I can help to make more garland and we can hang them together.

That’s understandable, I was going to hang the garlands onto the roof eaves as intended. I don’t know how it would look like if someone put garlands on the trees outside.

(The tree branch idea was just a random throwaway idea she did considered, but as Satan pointed out, it wouldn’t make sense to toss garlands onto tree branches outside the trees being put up in homes as she has observed upon arriving in Whoville.)

Oh certainly, I can show you how I am able to make these garlands and we can work together to put them up on the eaves.

[ In all fairness, no one should be relying on him for Christmas decoration advice. ]

We could find out how it looks if we make enough garland. We could even try putting it in places considered unusual.

[ Satan doesn't think it would look bad in trees, but he feels like if he put so much work into the garland, he'd want it to stand out. ]

Oh, you'll show me? Excellent - thank you.

[ He wasn't expecting to have such an easy opportunity to learn about Christmas decorations. He thought she'd say no, or that he could learn himself through observing someone else. ]

Do you think your dog will share the pinecones they've gathered?

Why yes, I am more than happy to show you how. And I am also certain that my dog is able to have gathered a lot of pine cones for us to add into the garlands. Isn’t that right, Pooka?

Arf, arf, arf!

(Yes, he is more than happy to share the pine cones, he doesn’t want them to go to waste after all. Taking some of the pine cones that he has gathered, she begins to show Satan how to make pine garlands similar to the one she has just finished making. She does slow down her garland making speed so he can see how it is being made.

First, she begins by carefully tying some branches of pine with some strings to join them together into one neat line. While she is tying up the branches, she then weaves in the plaid and translucent ribbons intersecting the pine garland before adding in the string lights next.

After that was done, she proceeds to insert strings onto the pine cones and wooden beads and tie them onto the garland, making the knots tighter so they wouldn’t fall off. While she is doing the process, her dreamotion energy and childhood Christmas memories begin to flow into the garland’s lights, making them glow bright as the star in the starlit skies above.)

What a cute puppy dog~

[ Satan is genuinely moved by how cute Pooka is. Is he embarrassed over how much he's fawning over a little dog? Yes. Can he help it? Absolutely not. Who could look at a cute face like Pooka's and not have their heart melt? Who?!

Still, when Anya begins to demonstrate how she put the garland together, he does give her his full attention. Seeing her weave the decorations together and how she utilizes her dreamotion energy to power the lights is fascinating to him. Just as he thought, it isn't a decoration that can be made carelessly. No wonder they give off an aura of warmth and a feeling of home. ]

It's beautiful.... Did you learn to make them through watching others in the dreamscape, or is it something you already knew how to do?

Back in my world, my sisters and I used to do crafts like sewing and embroidery as not to keep our minds and hands idle for too long. But we also did painting, sketching and playing music for fun as well.

For some time when I was in the Realm of the Stories, I did get to learn to weave fine flax from my Story Essence.

(Doing plenty of sewing and art is no stranger territory for her: she was already to used to making embroidery work and sketching and painting from a very young age even before Rasputin’s curse hit her family hard.)

Well, I did observed and learned from what the others are doing in here before starting on this project so I know exactly I’m doing.

And you're confident to boot. Of course you are, considering the quality of the decorations you can make.

[ Satan reaches to take a spare pinecone so he can examine it. He doesn't really understand why ponecones appear to be incorporated frequently, but they do make for an interesting decoration piece. ]

I've never been to the Realm of Stories, but it sounds like Story Essence is similar to the dreamotion energy here. Is your Story Essence something you could utilize here? Well, perhaps not in this particular dreamscape, but in Songerein in general? If so, I bet it would be quite handy.

Yes, it does to an extent. Me and the other Aspects had abilities that we can upon arriving the world to help the Realm of Stories in restoring stories and their life force.

Besides the weaving flax part, I don’t have any other abilities that are associated with my Essence right now, but maybe in the near future, it is possible to get them again, especially with the whole protection against offensive magic.

[ The Realm of Stories sounds like such an interesting place. Surely a place named that would have a reasonably sized library. Honestly, at this point he'd take a single bookshelf as long as it was jammed pack with historical documents and texts about this world. ]

I'm surprised.... You're a human after all, aren't you?

[ To be fair, he's just assuming she's human. Nearly everyone in this place seems to be human. ]

If so, I suppose it's excellent luck that this world offers you the opportunity use magic, even if its powered by dreamotion. The way you used it to light those lights was genuinely impressive. I know someone who wouldn't be able to power a single bulb with his magic, even if his life depended on it.

[ Satan wonders if her time in the Realm of Stories helped her navigate her way around dreamotion easily, the way his own experience with magic made dreamotion almost second nature to him. Almost. ]

Why yes, Sir: I’m just a mere human to begin with in my world, I didn’t expect to gain some magical abilities until I started my journey across the universe months ago. I guess my time at the Realm of the Stories in repairing stories is doing a lot to help me navigating dreamshifts.

(Clearly, her short time in the Realm of Stories is assisting her in going through Whoville, even though she knows that she still has a lot to learn about dreamotion energy and walking through dreamshifts.)

Oh, this friend of yours is having a difficulty in lighting up light bulbs. Does he need some help in using his dreamotion energy or something?

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Saving Christmas

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