32 - Blow Your Top

[godsoffortune]

Who: Everyone!
What: A volcano eruption threatens the Western District
When: Jan 14 - 16
Where: The Western District of the Heavens
Summary: The Western District volcano is erupting again, endangering nearby temples and sending ash sprinkling down across the Heavens. Is it natural, or another attack? Those who dare climb the volcano can find out.






Earthquake Warning

On the morning of the 14th, an earthquake rattles windows throughout the Heavens. It's not strong enough to knock down buildings -- unless they're about to fall down anyway, like some of the older abandoned temples -- but it's strong enough to knock things off shelves and startle any late sleepers out of bed.

After the earthquake, strange sights abound around the Heavens. The poetic koi are swimming in organized schools in all of the canals, heading upstream towards the east. Springs of pure water burst out in some areas, and in others, normal springs or fountains have gone temporarily dry. Blue and green lights bob and weave across the landscape.

Falling Rock

The volcano begins erupting with a roar and a bright scarlet glow on the horizon. Ash and bits of rock fall across the Western district, and may even reach into the Southwest, Northwest and southern Central districts. Volcanic glass fibers that look like golden hair collect on trees, fences and buildings.

Trails and fountains of lava are also erupting from freshly opened fissures and wending down the sides of the volcano. Gods and shinki who live in the Western District are going to need some help clearing ash and glass from their roofs, trying to re-route lava flows (the good news is, if you cool one side down enough, you can turn them! the bad news is, that takes a lot of work) or just offering them a spare room to stay until things calm down.

Swamp Gas

It's not just lava and springwater erupting from mysterious new crevasses -- and it's not just mundane volcanic gases, either. Divine volcanic vents are blowing mind-altering fumes all over the Heavens. Anywhere across the Far Shore, but especially as characters get closer to the volcano, they may experience one or more of the following effects:

• Confusion
• Intense emotions
• Anger and irritability
• Impulsive behavior, loss of emotional control
• Hallucinations
• Unusually clear insight into other people and situations
• Coughing, eye and throat irritation, difficulty breathing
• Irresistible impulses to speak in poetry

Most symptoms will clear up after a few hours in fresh air, and all of them will be gone within 48 hours of the last volcano gas exposure.

Mountain Climbing

Natural disasters don't just happen like this in the Heavens... do they? Amaterasu's white-robed shinki are convinced that something is wrong, and they're organizing into search parties to go up the mountain and seek out the cause of this eruption. New and old gods and shinki are welcome to join them, or form their own groups. All of the hazards -- tremors, lava, ash, and volcanic gas -- will get worse as characters ascend the volcano. Strange little spirit flames, in shades of red and blue, dance on the rocks, dazzling, confusing and threatening to singe interlopers.

And there's someone up here, too. A mysterious figure with glowing red eyes is keeping watch on the intruders and vanishing behind boulders whenever someone turns his way. He won't let anyone traveling with one of the white-robed shinki get too close, but solitary gods or shinki might manage to lure him into conversation, if they try....

OOC: Please comment to the 'NPC REQUEST' thread below in order to talk to the mysterious figure on the volcano.

Those climbing the volcano will have a chance to battle the mysterious figure should their characters choose to do so. If you're interested in a fight, please comment to the 'NPC FIGHT' thread below before the top-level is posted. A top-level for the fight will go up on IC Jan 16/OOC Sept 4.

In Summary:

• Don't get rattled
• Help out the Western District with their volcano problem
• Watch out for volcanic gases
• Find out who's behind the eruption
• Have fun~

Comments

[letteropener]

[Clambering in is easier than walking, actually, since she can grab onto things with her hands that aren't Hakkai and tug herself up. Once she settles in, she wraps the blanket more firmly around herself, both for the sake of warmth and human modesty.]

I am amazed none of us seem able to. I am becoming entirely too accustomed to feeling weak.

[reformedsinner]

[Hakkai pauses, and shoots her a startled glance before he hits the gas.]

So, ah, would you normally be able to stop an entire volcanic eruption by yourself...?

[letteropener]

[She lets out a little grunt as the acceleration presses her tender back into the blanket and the seat, but it is more surprise than true pain.]

It is possible. I would certainly be able to put up a better showing against it than I did today.

At the very least, I am certain I could have redirected the lava away from danger. That is a simple matter of engineering and magical construction. Here, however, I am not at my best, and there is a great deal of additional interference in the randomness of the world.

[reformedsinner]

Mm. You wouldn't be the only one who was distracted up on the mountain today.

[He'd attacked Gojyo. And Nia, for that matter, although she'd luckily escaped injury....]

Perhaps it's just something in the air.

[letteropener]

Ah yes, but -- I mean that this world has weather and seasons and natural processes that do their own thing, uncontrolled and barely controllable. I have grown used to it, but it vastly curtails my ability to affect things that would otherwise be easy.

[She shivers slightly, though it's more from the lingering effect of her wounds than any revulsion or fear.]

[reformedsinner]

How exactly does the weather work in your world?

[It doesn't have its own weather and seasons? It doesn't have natural processes that act on their own?

That's difficult to imagine -- and, Hakkai thinks as he dodges another pothole, it'll be good to keep her talking while he gets her to someplace where she can rest. That shiver makes him worry that she might still be a bit shocky from her injuries.]

[letteropener]

We ponies control it. Most of it is manufactured in the pegasus city of Cloudsdale, and then distributed all across Equestria for local weatherponies to manage.

[She might be, just a little, but Celestia is naturally clearheaded and doing all she can to keep herself focused and in the moment. Talking helps, indeed.]

[reformedsinner]

So you're naturally in control of every kind of weather?

[Now that's wildly bizarre. It makes sense that someone coming from a place like that would feel out of control in a world that's wild enough to have seasons of its own.]

How strange. -- I assume you create it magically, then.

[letteropener]

You might consider our techniques to be so. [She rubs her arms absently with her opposite palms beneath the blanket, helping herself feel warmer.] But from a pony perspective, our means are purely mechanical. The weather factories at Cloudsdale condense the clouds, for example, and generate the coloring for rainbows in large vats ready to deploy...

[reformedsinner]

Rainbow colors are created by refraction...

[Mixing the coloring for rainbows in vats?

He sounds more and more bemused.]

[letteropener]

Now if that were true, how would they stick to the rainbows?

[Celestia has the presence of mind to gently tease him, at least. She knows how rainbows are created in this world, having looked it up.]

[reformedsinner]

How would paints stick to the rainbows? [She sounds as though she's teasing. What he can't tell is whether she's teasing about her world, or whether she thinks her world is so natural that she doesn't understand what he's saying about refraction.

Sometimes, it makes his head hurt to realize that he has to wonder about that sort of thing.]

[letteropener]

[Celestia laughs softly, and fortunately for all concerned, there's no sign of shock-induced hysteria in those gentle noises.] I looked up how rainbows happen here, so I understand what you mean. But it is very, very different in Equestria. I think better.

[reformedsinner]

It must be very difficult for you to adjust to a world like this one.

[He chuckles lightly in return; she's sounding all right, still. It's why Hakkai's keeping her talking. He can't look to the side to keep a close eye on her condition while he's driving, at least not too often, but he'd hear deterioration in her replies.]

I'm from a place that's more like this, at least when it comes to the weather.

[letteropener]

As is everypony, I've found. Equestria appears to be... truly unique.

[She trails off then, putting a halt to her words before, in the stress and the trauma of the moment, she can say more than she intends to.]

[reformedsinner]

You do miss it. [His tone is mild.]

Don't worry, I won't be offended if you prefer your own home to mine. -- Why don't you tell me more about it?

I'm afraid I have to drive, but it won't be too much further.

[letteropener]

Yes, I do. [She laughs softly, well aware that he's keeping her talking as a way to monitor her condition.] Well, where to begin? Equestria was founded about two millennia ago, when the three pony tribes discovered the Fire of Friendship and at last patched up their shoddy relationships into ones of friendship and harmony.

[reformedsinner]

[Well, as long as they both know...]

Fire of Friendship?

[letteropener]

By forging bonds between them, three ponies who had till that point been separated by their difference found the combined strength to banish the windigos who were plunging the world into eternal winters.

I regret not having the opportunity to put on a pageant about it, as we ponies traditionally do during Hearth's Warming.

[reformedsinner]

Ah, really? A whole pageant? That must be one of your important holidays, then.

[All about the power of friendship to overcome danger. Hakkai feels vaguely torn between his general agreement with the premise, and his deep desire to be skeptical of things being presented as quite that easy.]

[letteropener]

It is to us what Christmas is to the Near Shore. Actually, they are very close analogues, even down to the decoration. [Which is a puzzling thought, though Celestia continues to be amazed at how equine and human civilization seem to have developed in close parallel in so many respects.]

[reformedsinner]

[Hakkai pauses thoughtfully.]

Lights, cakes shaped like logs, trees?

[He can't quite see the link between trees and friendship, although he supposes evergreen trees have a certain symbolism of immortality.

Also, they're very flammable, so if it's a fire festival in her home world that only makes sense.]

[letteropener]

[Celestia nods, picking up the list.]

Candy canes, gift exchanges, spirit of togetherness and harmony... The main difference seems to be that ours is about history more than theology or myth.

[reformedsinner]

After a certain amount of time has passed, it can be hard to tell the difference between the three.

[Curiously, he adds:]

How long ago was that 'flame of friendship' in your world?

[letteropener]

Two thousand years or so.

[She can answer swiftly and surely, without hesitation at all. The figure is actually quite close to that, so the round number is barely a rounding error at all.]