songerein | { surprise eggs }

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{ surprise eggs }

SURPRISE EGGS

A few days after the Tree of Stories has been established, there's a startling announcement that is spread throughout town: there are eggs in the room at the top of the tree! Two large eggs about a foot and a half long and half as wide can be found nestled in a nest. The owls have no idea what kind they are, where they came from, or how they got there and can only assume it must have appeared along with the tree. But the eggs are clearly unusual as they can move and jiggle about, often responding to what's going on around them. A lot of extra hands will be needed to ensure the eggs are protected and hatched safely.

Note: This log is open to everyone and doubles as a "Character Intro" for new characters who were just accepted this round. As a reminder, new characters are welcome to use their TDM threads and consider April as their first month in Song so that they're not really "new" if players wish to do so! Starting fresh is also acceptable.

The log has two parts, with the first portion focusing on the eggs and the second half forward dated to when they eventually hatch. Since the log is mostly isolated to the Tree of Stories, what happens here won't affect the character base at large. Any questions can be directed here. We'll ask for thread submissions during Activity Check at the end of the month.

I. EGGSITTING

The interior of the room housing the eggs is fairly large, almost as large as an entire floor of a one story house. There are no other rooms or doors, so it is an expansive space. There are, however, various furniture pieces such as a large table with chairs, large beanbag cushions, numerous pillows and blankets, and hanging from the ceiling are white and red crystals. The largest side has a large stained glass window that filters the sunlight to change into different colors.

A. Egg Warmers. Although no one knows what kind of eggs these are, it's decided the eggs should be taken care of. There's already a nest, but the eggs will need more than that—they even look like they're shivering! Calls for blankets, fabrics, and materials to tidy up and liven up the nest are made, as well as volunteers to watch and make sure the eggs are comfortable. However the eggs are picky! They like bright colors and they will push out anything they don't like.

» BONUS: ROOM DECORATION. The room is a bit bare, and whatever is going to hatch from it will need their own space to sleep! Help redecorate the room to make it more comfortable and cozy for its future baby tenants. The eggs will seem to notice and glow a bit brightly as more things are added, but they will also shake violently if something they don't like is put in, the item either burning or slimed. Anything colorful and shiny will be a hit.

B. Temperamental Eggs. Unfortunately, eggsitting is more difficult when the eggs can exhibit emotions. Just like a newborn, the eggs will go in random bursts of emotions and it causes a bizarre assortment of effects. Sudden loss of gravity as everything in the room suddenly floats in the air; everything changing different colors; sudden temperature changes; strange music filling the air. Even worse when the eggs decide to move and roll around, risking injury as there are a lot of things they could bump into or spaces they can get stuck in. Sometimes they will try to deliberately run away from their sitters as if playing a game of tag. The only way to counter the effects and to calm the eggs down is with opposing dreamotion effects, so anything positive or calming. Perhaps reading stories, playing music, or singing lullabies will also help soothe them.

C. Egg Thieves! Somehow or another, three-headed lizards are trying to steal the eggs. However they're quickly identified by the owls as Erasers, the Story Eater's minion. But they seem to have noctaere elements to them as well, which is fortunate as it means dreamotion will work well against them. Should the lizards manage to make it into the room, the eggs will emit a loud ringing sound like a shrill alarm and the room will react to the threat. Fire erupting on the walls, storm clouds inside the room, ice covering the floor, strange black ooze that tries to trap people in place, the tree branches coming alive as fiery thorned vines whips—all out to try and eliminate everything. Unfortunately, those who are also trying to help rescue the eggs may get caught in the crossfire. Volunteers are requested to help guard outside, including on the large branches. As soon as a creature is spotted, it needs to be destroyed quickly! Using strong dreamotion abilities will help drive them out, and be careful as the tree will also lash out from the outside as well. The lizards themselves will spit out acid and inflict nightmare energy that can momentarily cause any who get hit to temporarily be afflicted by hallucinating one of their darkest fears.

II. HATCHLINGS

Sometime later in the month the eggs will finally hatch to reveal two very small winged kirin-like foals. One is a male with an orange yellow hue with a fiery mane and tail that flicker like a true blazing fire, his wings tipped crimson. The other is a female with a dark blue hue, with a silvery white mane and tail always flowing even when there isn't wind and small clouds appearing at her hooves. Although they cannot speak much, they can say their names: Perlios and Elimei. They don't know where they came from or who their parents are, but they prefer to stay in the tree where they feel safest. The lizard Erasers will also cease their attempts and no longer appear, providing some peace. Unfortunately, while Perlios is fairly active and curious, Elimei usually remains curled up in the nest and is plagued by nightmares.

A. Pastry Run. Seeing his sister suffering from nightmares, Perlios takes it upon himself to try and bring her things to cheer her up! Venturing into town, the sweet scent of baked goods attract his attention and with a bit of dreamotion magic, he brings them to life so they can march right on up to the tree. Unfortunately, he's a baby and it causes all sweet treats to take on interesting forms to run amok through town instead. This can be a little upsetting and cause Perlios's dreamotions to make every other food around him burn to a crisp. Help Perlios gather the runaway baked goods to bring back to Elimei.

» BONUS: MAKING GIFTS. Help Perlios make other gifts that could help cheer up his sister. This could be other baked goods, toys, or other shiny crafts they might enjoy.

B. Buried Book Hunt. Sometimes Perlios manages to sneak out and cause some mischief. This takes the form of grabbing books from the library and burying them in the ground. Why? To annoy the owls. Fortunately it's around the tree, but the Tree of Stories is massive, so it's a lot of ground to cover. Searchers will get some clues by seeing life sized paper cut outs of the story characters circling in place where the book is buried. However, retrieving the books may be a little difficult as depending on the genre, the cut outs may interfere, especially if they are horror based and monsters have spawned. Other books may have other elements of their stories creep out, like miniature castles or giant puddles. They can be dealt with, just a bit bothersome. Help recover the books quickly before the owls blow a gasket.

C. Nightmares. Elimei remains in constant sleep and can often be found making small sounds of distress as she seems to be trapped in nightmares. Nothing seems to wake her up, but dreamwalking and dealing with those nightmares can help. A few owls watching over them will alert anyone nearby when she is having one and will ask them to quickly dreamwalk into it to help end it. But the dreams are strange—could they have some secret meaning?

1. Moon Rabbit. The dreamscape is set on a strange rocky, gooey black surface with the sky a bizarre green with purple stars that twinkle in and out of existence. In the distance a small strange looking white rabbit can be seen hopping about as if trying to escape from something. The "something" is quickly revealed to be a strange looking fox . The goal is to rescue the rabbit from the fox and help it gather mooncakes that are also being stolen by the fox.

2. Monster v. Hero. Here the hero of the story is terrorizing and hurting the people they are supposed to protect, whereas the monster that is supposed to be the villain is now fighting against the hero to try and save them. While one person will find themselves transformed into some kind of monster character type, the other can either be a fellow monster or some other side character to assist fighting the "hero," OR the other person could take the place of the hero instead and will behave violently and must be stopped. The cause of the "hero"'s strange behavior is due to an abomination found latched onto their back. Destroying the abomination will free the "hero" from the mind control, but it won't be easy as the "hero" must be defeated first before the abomination will release its hold. Saving the hero will restore everything back to order and end the nightmare.

3. Crumbling Library Tower. The first thing dreamwalkers will notice is they will find themselves looking a bit paper thin as they are now mostly two-dimensional and appear like a paper cut out, similar to those seen from the buried books. Movements are limited, which is unfortunate as the floor is immediately starting to crumble and give to a black abyss below. In this form they must climb up a spiraling tower of books while grabbing shining pages that stick out. Finding three will be enough to stop the process and additional pages will help rebuild the tower. Of course the ascent is filled with razor blades and scissors that will try to cut the climbers, so they must be avoided, deflected, or blocked. Any who fall into the abyss will be immediately ejected out of the nightmare and will need some time to recover.

» BONUS: DREAMOTION FOCUS. While dreamwalking is the main method to help Elimei, focusing positive dreamotion energy to the small foal will help as well. Sharing one's good dreams via the crystal lantern is another method. There is also black ooze that starts to pool around Elimei that can be cleared away with positive dreamotion, especially those filled with hope and love.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Alastor and his shadow corralled the fox, keeping it more or less in one place. Sadly, it was too nimble to be trampled, and Alastor's aim with fireballs wasn't as accurate as when he had hands. It meant the stag and the fox were more or less at a stalemate.

Rather annoying, really.

A quick glance at Isabela and the rabbit seemed to show that the rabbit was doing a bit better. Good. As long as he could keep the fox under control, perhaps Isabela could figure out what the rabbit needed to end the nightmare.

While she hasn’t seen the struggle just yet with the rabbit duty, Isa is faring a lot better in the rabbit calming part with her vines and dreamotion energy combination. She is becoming happier to see it less panicky and nervous, but they may not have the time while she could hear the struggle happening nearby.

“Okay, little one. Now that you’re starting to calm down, I would like to ask you this: is there a way for us to end this nightmare before it gets worse?” Isabela asks the rabbit with a hope that it has the key to solve this messy nightmare.

There was a pained bellow from Alastor as the fox got bold enough to chomp down on one of his forelegs. He reared and snapped his fangs at the fox, his shadow circling about in case the fox decided to drop down and try and escape.

Curse this form! He wasn't used to it!

Isabela takes her eyes off the rabbit briefly when she notices Alastor is struggling with fighting the fox. This is starting to boil her blood as she could see how bad it is going for the demon, so she has no choice to but restrain the fox before it could hurt him more.

She the conjures plenty of sundews to go after the fox, entwining around the animal and some even go as far as biting on its fur in order to help Alastor out in some form. Immediately, she returns to the rabbit to learn from its rabbit noises that it is trying to gather mooncakes that the fox has stolen from it.

“So wait, that fox has stolen all the mooncakes?” she is doing a double check: she doesn’t have the ability to talk with animals fluently like Antonio, but she is trying to understand the rabbit well.

The fox writhed in pain as some of the sundews nipped at it.

Alastor's ears twitched back towards Isabella at her question. He kept his eyes on the fox as he asked her, "You can understand it? Well, that should make things significantly easier! Though what is a 'mooncake'?"

She must have suspected that it might be a new dreamotion ability she just unlocked or it could be pure luck, but right now, that can be explained fully a little later.

“I have a feeling that it could be a dreamotion ability to me. Back at home, one of my cousins can speak with animals better than I do,” Isa admits to Alastor, “As for the mooncakes part, I still haven’t found out what they are just yet. I will ask the rabbit again.”

“Excuse me, rabbit. What are these mooncakes you are looking for?” she asks the rabbit again, to which it responds through rabbit noises that Isabela manages to relay to Alastor, “I think that it is saying that the mooncakes are round pastries with some sort of filling and salted egg yolks made in honor of the moon.”

"Any chance it knows where they are?" Alastor asked, tapping a forehoof against the ground in thought.

If the rabbit knew where the cakes were, he could get the rabbit and Isabella to them instead of being so large and useless against a small and lithe creature like the fox.

The rabbit then replies back in its usual rabbit noises explaining where they can try to locate the mooncakes while the sundews are busy snapping at the fox. Once she gets the answer, Isabela informs Alastor of where they could be at.

“The rabbit says that the fox must have hidden the mooncakes inside an old log that is covered in moss and mushrooms when it tried to retrieve them,” she explains to him.

"Wonderful!"

He looked to his shadow which took on a more serpentine shape to circle the fox over and over. Good. It would do what it could to further delay the fox while he and Isabela focused on the rabbit's task.

He trotted over to the tree, stopping beneath it so Isabela and the rabbit could easily drop down onto his back.

Isabela didn’t waste any time getting onto Alastor’s back to help the rabbit find its mooncakes. Taking the rabbit with her hands, she immediately jumps out of the branch and directly onto the demon who is currently a stag so they can get to the log and retrieve the mooncakes.

With the sundews and Alastor’s shadow busy giving the fox a hard time, the rabbit gives them directions in rabbit noises of where the old log is at and Isabela gives the information to him as quickly as she could.

Having done quite a bit of "nightmare walking", Alastor could say beyond a reasonable doubt that this nightmare was weird.

He galloped along the route Isabela had relayed to him. It wouldn't do to waste a moment. The strange black gunk splashed up onto his legs and belly as he ran. Well, at least they weren't sinking into it.

The rabbit is chittering on with the hopes of getting the mooncakes back while Isabela is on the lookout for the log in question. She is also quite surprised to see that the strange gunk hasn’t gotten them stuck so far, which she hopes is a good thing. Some of the gunk did got onto her dress, but she isn’t too bothered by it as she is pretty focused on the task at hand.

As the three of them venture around the forest, the rabbit begin to chitter more noises to tell them that the old moss and mushroom covered log is not far away from their current direction.

“Oh hey, the rabbit is saying that the log is over there! We should be getting closer to it soon enough,” Isabela alerts Alastor as they approach the log.

"This almost seems too simple. We should've run into something by now."

And right on cue, one of his forehooves plunged into a suddenly deep part of the gunk. Fortunately, Alastor maintained his balance on his remaining three as he stumbled to a halt. He pulled his foreleg up, giving it a shake before carefully backing up so he could put that foot onto solid ground.

"Ah, there it is. I was wondering." He looked over his shoulder at Isabela. "Looks like we'll be taking it slow from here."

“And let’s just hope that the fox doesn’t show up all the sudden to scare us off,” she chimes in as the rabbit leads them to the mooncake stuffed log.

The rabbit makes its typical rabbit noises as it sniffs the scent of freshly baked mooncakes from the log itself, allowing the two dreamwalkers to follow after it. Isa is able to check to find the missing mooncakes inside the log they are looking for upon reaching it after double checking the nearby surroundings for any dangers that they would have encountered.

“Okay! Now we need to get these things out of the log so we can end this nightmare.”

Alastor stepped closer. "I might be able to speed up the process. Assuming there isn't any particular way we're supposed to do it. I can't sense anything that might indicate there's a magical trap to it, but this is a dream world." He looked to the rabbit. "Is there one?"

“Maybe we shall check for any traps that the fox may have hidden inside this log just to be safe,” Isabela suggests as she checks the log for any potential hidden traps the fox may have placed inside it.

The rabbit also nods in agreement as it too inspects for possible traps too.

Ugh. This large form really was inconvenient.

He couldn't fit into small spaces. Instead, he carefully walked around the log, sniffing the air for anything that smelled off. His ears twitched as he listened carefully, somewhat regretful that his shadow had had to stay behind. It really would've come in handy here.

While there is some uncertainty brewing in the air, Isabela has so far found nothing suspicious to look out for. But she wants to be sure that there is nothing to ring any alarm and so does the rabbit.

Then the rabbit could hear something from within the log that it had one of its ears planted onto the surface to listen very closely if the noises does seem to be off as it twitches its nose.

Alastor saw the rabbit listening intently to something. He pressed his own ear against the log, shifting his head to avoid smacking an antler into it.

What...is that...?

The rabbit soon feels skittish that it begins to chitter frantically with no sign of stopping. Thinking that they may have found a cleverly hidden trap inside, Isabela tries to ask it of what it has managed to listen to. She does want to be proven wrong just to be sure, but animals can be tricky to understand sometimes.

“Huh, what’s wrong, Rabbit? Did you managed to listen to something strange inside the log?” she inquiries it in a calm though concerned manner.

Alastor answered instead. "It almost sounds like something's in there."

He straightened up and lightly kicked the log with his hoof, hoping to get a reaction out of whatever might be lurking inside.

The rabbit frantically chitters again as the noise grows louder and more eerie in tone that it even makes the usually steely nerved Isabela very nervous. She couldn’t imagine what sort of trap that the fox must have placed inside the log or if there is something else living in the log and doesn’t want to be disturbed.

“Um, it seems that the rabbit is sensing that this something is making its presence even more known to us now,” she observes while trying to not lose her nerve.

"Yes, these big ears of mine hear it, too."

He turned his towards Isabela.

"Would you be a doll and take the rabbit? I have an idea which may not be particularly wise for us all to be standing close to the log for."

“Yes, I will get myself and the rabbit away from the log as far as possible,” Isabela nods before she turns her attention towards the rabbit, picks up it, and tries to reassure it as she back away from the log so Alastor can investigate it further.

“Don’t worry, little rabbit. We’ll get to your mooncakes as soon as Alastor finds out what is behind the noises inside the log.”

Alastor stood for a moment, taking slow breaths as he concentrated. He could feel his magic deep inside of himself. It just didn't have its usual ways out.

Well, time to get creative.

"Whatever you are, I'd suggest you get out of that log sooner rather than later!"

He re-opened his eyes, radio dials clearly visible as they glowed bright red. Little wisps of flame started dancing between the wickedly sharp points of his antlers, Eldritch symbols dancing among them. He gave a sharp toss of his head, releasing the flames to encircle himself and the log. After a moment or two, they started slowly creeping closer to the stag and the log.

Alastor grinned maliciously as the heat from the flames teased at his hind legs. "I've endured the fires of Hell itself, so these are nothing to me! But if you don't come out, we'll be seeing how well you fare!"

{ surprise eggs }

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