aather_ooc | THE FINAL SUMMARIZING

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plot summary

THE FINAL SUMMARIZING

This post can be used as the master summary post for the larger plot that's been running in Aather between late October-November and mid-January! It includes the events of this last weekend in consumable form for those who did not need all details to participate but would like to catch up. ♥

Reading the following comments alone — or even the top portion of the comments that get a little bit lengthy — should suffice for a broad understanding to enable you to play your character being aware without being involved, though there are a lot of links throughout for reference if you want to go back in and double check details. We do encourage that if you want to do it, especially if you want to dig for extra facets to play with later when handwaving involvement — some of this stuff has been pretty cool!

ON TO THE SUMMARIES:

Foreshadowing: Day 403 (end of October)

The Start: Day 407 (Mid-Nov) through Day 413 (Dec 1)
The Prince's Struggle & Heroes' Plans: Day 415 (early Dec) to Day 420 (end of Dec)
Hope, Beauty's Return, & Preparation: Day 423 & Day 424 (early Jan)

Down the Trails: Dawn, Day 426 (Thursday Jan 15-Saturday Jan 17)
Dreaming With The Dragon: Morning, Day 426 (Saturday, Jan 17 finale)
The Dragon Who Must Be Defeated To Claim Victory: Late Morning, Day 426 (Sunday, Jan 18 finale)

The Return: Noon, Day 426 (Sunday Jan 18, end)
The Result: Afternoon, Day 426 (Monday Jan 19)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

• Before the rest of this really kicked off, there was a strange path into the woods open. Inside, people found twisted fragments of tales and strange relics like a boot, a compass, and a dagger with a ship's wheel on the hilt, as well as a Darkness-corrupted Mother Goose storybook. I'M SURE THIS HAD NO FUTURE IMPLICATIONS.

• Since the Prince ran a game at around the same time as some heroes visited the Dog's realm and dreams and stirred up its memories, the Dog was able to get the Prince (its Master's) scent and start to track it, realizing that he was both alive and trying to reach them.
• Beauty reacted to this news by conferring with heroes and Maleficent and announcing that she must go and find him herself, after he had been trapped away from them for so long. Per the advice she'd received from the heroes and Mal, she went to her sworn knights outside of this part of Aather to gather power from them for the trip, since she didn't want to make previous mistakes and leap into adventure recklessly.

Edited 2015-01-19 23:15 (UTC)

While Beauty was gone to prepare, the Prince was still active and aware, struggling to return to Aather. After the success of his first game, he tried three more times to reach out to Aather and gather power to return — but this time the Darkness was watching him, and the attempts didn't go so well. His contact with Aather only gave the Darkness one more avenue to reach Aather, like trying to open a door and letting the snowstorm outside blow in...

Waver Velvet documented much of this portion of events ICly for the benefit of heroes keeping up at the time, for which I for one thank him. Thank you Waver Velvet.
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• The Prince trying to send a letter with helpful quests to perform on it was coopted by the Darkness, and shortly afterwards, anyone who saw the letter had strange freestanding doors open near them. "Someone" behind each door cried out for help in realistic terror and desperation, but heroes who tried to go to these voices found that only Darkness, strange monsters, and bleak and twisted empty landscapes awaited them. Opening the doors for any length of time let Darkness seep out and turn anything that touched it to brittle stone, creating one quite large patch where one hero left the door open for a long time — even just destroying the doors by resisting their temptation left tiny petrified patches as evidence of their natures.

• At this point, the heroes had a community meeting to discuss the creepy doors, at which the Dog revealed their true nature as the Darkness following the Prince in. They resolved to ask for Personae help together and completed a number of quests to further protect the realm.

• This turned out to be fortunate, as the Prince's next attempt to run a game was interrupted by a tidal wave of Darkness which splashed down, infecting many areas of Aather. While the protections put into place by the heroes (especially Snow White's well-attended quest to protect her home) were sufficient to keep most areas safe, the heroes did still need to battle back many small splashes of Darkness. Fortunately, between these efforts and some games (...thanks, Goldie) in the meantime, all of the little petrified patches left over from the previous event were cleared up... except for the extra-large one.

• Whether or not it was conscious, a last attempt seemed to be the Prince's dream of his own experiences being pursued by the Darkness, which was coopted halfway through, plunging the heroes into an even more nightmarish vision of the Darkness's point of view. It became very clear that the Darkness was in fact learning by absorbing and copying the experiences of those it overcame, as had been theorized after some of the Darkness-run games back in Camelot.

• ...In light of this extremely busy week, the heroes met again to discuss next moves. The need for more information and action to gain it rather than just reaction was discussed - this time, the Dog piped in to add that if other parties wanted to head out to investigate the dark part of the Forest more at the same time that Beauty left with those who wanted to help her directly, the Darkness would be far less likely to shift attention off of her quest long enough to notice them. Plans to deal with the remaining petrified Darkness patch in the woods were also discussed, and Snow White offered her help in defending the heroes' part of Woods while (it seemed) a large number of people planned to leave it.

The heroes used their hope and bonds to restore the patch of Darkness in their woods on the same day that Beauty returned, ready to use her newly gained power to run a game that would help her change — with the heroes' help. Snow White provided further defenses, the Dog, Silver, and Killua provided further intelligence via Darkness scouting, and Echidna provided a lot of tools to help the heroes' planning and decisions about what to do next.
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• The previous plans to fix the large Darkness patch were put into play: a hope seed was planted in the patch and encouraged unconditionally by the heroes using their keys and every other bright idea they had at the time. In response to their will and requests, the hope seed grew into a small crystal tree and many quickly-crumbling crystal flowers... which cleared the ground of Darkness influence despite their brief lives, and left behind dozens more hope seeds.

• Beauty returned from her trip full of the strength and support she'd gathered from her knights and a use in mind for it! She asked the heroes for advice on how to use her power to face her role and this particular challenge via a Princessmaker game, stating baldly that she while she pushed against her role, they would help her guide the direction of the push, and she trusted them with that responsibility. In the aftermath, she seemed changed, and full of energy.

• After speaking to the heroes, Snow White used the quest she had offered to disguise the heroes' activities and reinforce their defenses of the Forest for their trip. The very things that made the heroes most unique were hidden in a sort of "play dead" scenario, leaving the Darkness unable to see their plans and activity...

• ...just in time for Echidna to give the heroes a space for preparations, at Beauty's request. An easy means to reach the beginnings of the trails they would follow, a platform for discussion of what people wanted to do, and quests to boost their abilities were all provided by Echidna in her love of the heroes challenging themselves. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, the Dog and Silver of Onyx had been doing more research in what paths could be followed. Silver's mysterious Darkness pokemon, once set out to scout for the heroes, brought back news of two areas of interest. With Killua's help to map out where to reach them, Echidna facilitating access to the trail, and the heroes' own planning... everything was prepared.

As previously discussed, there were 3 separate paths the heroes could follow here, which they all started down at the same IC time! While this was happening, several heroes hung back to guard the entrances of the trails to make sure that nothing snuck up behind their friends or back into Aather. Since these runs were all at different OOC times, they are divided up by those times below in their explanation.

While the paths were very different, they all had one thing in common: disturbing remnants of familiar Personae long gone and taken by the Darkness.

The handwaved rear guard went only a very little way up any of the paths and scouted back and forth around the entrances to the trails instead, so that if the other heroes needed that way back they would have had it available. After a while, regardless of what path they followed, they started to see visions of Scary Things, demons and terrors, accompanied by a Darkness shadow of a small girl. If they successfully stood up to these visions and overcame their fear, whether through combat or just standing firm, all the visions vanished, leaving them a memory of her name and identity before the Darkness made her a statue and started using this shoddy copy of her story — the Persona, Jacobi. There was a sense that through defying the Darknessed version of her story they had each done a small piece to free her.

Here.

Once they'd stepped onto the beginning of the trail, characters chose one of three paths, with each path reflecting the Darkness-tainted symbolism of one of three Personae: Old Joe (bones and runes), Captain Hook (ticking clocks and boats), or Pandora (clay and breaking). There were also flashes of a laughing deer running ahead... when the characters found the clearing at the end of the paths, they discovered a number of retired Personae who had been taken by the darkness, resting as statues there. The list, predictably, was: Brother Deer, Old Joe, Captain Hook, Pandora, and Mother Goose, whose book had been found corrupted by darkness in the foreshadowing 3 IC weeks before. The heroes found a memory of Brother Deer's attempt to escape the darkness, and his apology for not being able to do more for the heroes, in his collar, which they were able to take with them to share the memory. They used a hope seed to destroy the Darknessed statues of the Personae and seemed to provide them with rest in another sort of form in that way.

Here.

Before splitting up on the trail, the characters saw a highly-discomfitting rip in the air appear and disappear before it could be investigated further. After this, they could choose one of three paths, with each path reflecting the Darkness-tainted symbolism of one of three Personae: Odile (feathers and jewels), Narcissus (mirrors and reflections), and Rumpelstiltskin (parchment and names). They discovered more rips in the air at the end of these paths, similar to ones that had previously appeared in Wonderland and other realms to reveal other worlds: it became clear through memories that the retired Personae were trying to escape from the Darkness chasing them through these rips, but were unable to do so because of their lack of bonds and help — and that even if they had, the rips only led to further Darkness-devastated worlds. Each group confronted and dispelled a Darkness projection of the Persona it had absorbed on their path. When they met back up at the ends of the paths, they were able to use their bonds to further dispell the pool of darkness in the clearing there and plant the hope seeds that revealed to bring some kind of peace to the Personae there.

Here.

This was Beauty's group to find the Prince, and the Dog led the whole group through some discomfiting territory littered with scraps of paper from many stories featuring Princes before the trail abruptly ran out. It had been muddled by the Darkness - and hidden underneath a Darkness statue of a retired Persona, the Netted Lion. There was some consternation at the Lion's presence before the group discovered a starving and apparently unDarknessed fragment of story in the form of a very weak mouse hidden with the statue - when they fed it a hope seed, it streaked on ahead, reestablishing their trail. It also revealed to them a memory of the Lion's self-defeating story and attempt to sell Aather out to the Darkness long ago at the end of Three's realm, with the knowledge that this attempt was unsuccessful, as it was consumed by the Darkness instead. The hope seed grew into a bush that destroyed the statue, and the Lion seemed to be left to some kind of peace.

The party continued past more ominous paper scraps and past a conflict wherein monstrous crow-things attempted to imitate their loved ones, to the crumbling gates of a garden that had once issued a challenge that only princes could pass. Once inside the garden, they found the remains of a beautiful garden with a giant dragon with marks of battle on its hide that dated back to its previous appearance attacking over the walls in the Siege of Camelot coiled around an enormous tree. After the dragon woke up, it revealed that the Prince was its prisoner.

Here.

No matter which of the four routes that a character took to enter the woods, when the dragon that Beauty's group found woke up and realized they were after the Prince it was hoarding, it started noticing everyone in a hurry. It summoned all the heroes and knights in all parts of the woods at the time — everyone who had been in an explore — to its garden and sent them into a deep sleep to try to try their resolve, but they were able to break free with their effort and will.
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The dragon provided some witty commentary before giving an ominous speech which revealed its intentions - returning them to complacency instead of a state where they would charge out into its territory like this as a slower means of killing them. Its power sent them into a deep and comforting sleep reminiscent of the confines of Beauty's original role, waiting for someone to come rescue them and entirely content to do so.

In various ways, all of the heroes and knights broke free of this hold by working together in the small groups in which they found themselves, helping Beauty and the Dog to break loose of the hold as well. The strange pastel clouds of their prison were shapeable, and through imagination and will they were able to create solutions to free themselves, including: summoning F/Z Rider as outside help, wind machines and gods, dragons and cloud-punching gloves, growing a hope seed, and creating a sun. I didn't come up with these I'm just summarizing.

Their efforts to dispell the Darkness sleep magic also had the side effect of dispelling the Darkness pall from the tree and vines the dragon coiled around, making it climbable — getting up there to get the Prince was now possible. However, the Dragon was really mad about this, and turned on the Prince to kill him first; the Dog distracted him, but this only made the dragon try to kill the Dog instead. However, as shown in the previous link, Beauty defended the Dog with sword and shield — and made her own declaration against the dragon, that she would not allow further harm to the ones she loved. Her anger and resolution spread to all of the heroes, preparing them for the fight ahead.

Here.

Everyone was awake, but the Prince was still in danger (tossed about like a leaf from where he was hanging on the tree) and the dragon was ready for dinner. It was faced by combatants and noncombatants alike, all of those who had set out to explore the forest earlier that morning.

While the attackers braved a lot of physical damage potential, berserker status effects, and Darkness and foul magic to drive hope seeds into the dragon's very flesh and behead it at the end, their friends knocked apples off of the tree's branches to succor the fighters' wounds with their healing powers, climbed the tree to rescue the Prince, made a net to catch his fall, and bound the dragon's jaws and wings to allow the death blows to be struck. At the end, triumph was high... but a discovery made it a bittersweet victory.

Examining the small Darkness statue of a dragon left behind, those assembled realized that it had been yet one more Persona who was not quite sure how to fill her role, one who had never even met the heroes before being taken by the dark. What they had fought had been her Darkness shadow, just one more imitation on the Darkness's part, and the memory also revealed that the past evidence of sapience on the Darkness's part in the form of the mosquito plague of long-ago had also been imitation — poor copies made in an effort to destroy the heroes. The heroes gave the statue a hope seed, which dissolved it and finally allowed the dragon's memory to rest in another form.

Echidna arrived on the scene of the victory at last, to congratulate and open the way home for the heroes.

Beauty carried the Prince home to where Maleficent and everyone else was waiting for her here, as all of the heroes and knights who had accompanied her completed their own reunions, moved to help the wounded Dog, and met the Prince for (in many cases) the first time. But Beauty has grown into a very different person than the sleeping girl who the Prince remembers, and Aather has learned a great deal more about the nature of the Darkness. Furthermore, the Dog is not dying, accepts Beauty as its new master, and said it had one more task to do - directing a tiny part of the huge power released with the Darkness's defeat to fetch a few Personae home.

The plot is finally tied up for good with the reveal that the garden and the Personae you rescued are now part of accessible Aather for good, with memories (one for each team member), artifacts gathered from out in the woods, and a lot of interesting experiences to show for all of this. Thank you for playing, everyone.

Where will Aather go from here?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

THE FINAL SUMMARIZING

Foreshadowing: Day 403 (end of October)

The Start: Day 407 (Mid-Nov) through Day 413 (Dec 1)

The Prince's Struggle & Heroes' Plans: Day 415 (early Dec) to Day 420 (end of Dec)

Hope, Beauty's Return, & Preparation: Day 423 & Day 424 (early Jan)

Down the Trails: Dawn, Day 426

A Scary Little Girl (handwaved rearguard run, offscreen)

Familiar But Lost (Thursday Jan 15 run)

Rips And Ruin (Friday Jan 16 run)

Villians Unlamented (Saturday Jan 17 run)

Dreaming With The Dragon: Morning, Day 426 (Saturday, Jan 17 finale)

The Dragon Who Must Be Defeated To Claim Victory: Late Morning, Day 426 (Sunday, Jan 18 finale)

The Return: Noon, Day 426 (Sunday Jan 18, end)

The Result: Afternoon, Day 426 (Monday Jan 19)