The Twenty-Eighth Trial

[joybound]

Who: trialgoers
When: Day 60 all day
Where: the trial zone and elsewhere

[Sometime this morning (morning? there's still no sun, so what's the difference), you feel the call to a new Trial.

The entrance to the Trial Zone is a new one: a tower has sprung up in the clearing, like a bit of a fairytale castle. It's made of a sparkling pink granite and has lovely star-themed carvings -- if you can see them behind the excess of neon and lights its been decorated with. If the fairy godmother made a dance club, this would be it!

Rather than a disembodied "come hither", your call is a video on a big screen above the entrance -- a young man in a masquerade mask and a flashy, witchy costume (including a big hat) stands... on top of the tower?? It's hard to see up there, but on the screen you can tell he's got twinkly star-filled hair and a black cat with blue eyes perched on his shoulder. He's also striking a pose.]

Heroes of Distant Stars, gather 'round! I, the mysterious and handsome witch of love, have a Trial for you! Come into my party tower and prove your love to me! If you're not a weenie, that is...

[Upon entering the tower, you find yourself in a vast ballroom. Lit with rainbow lights, magic sparkles, and an excess of blacklights and glowing things, it really does look like a club. Bubbly electronic pop blares over the speakers, though there are several tables and curtained-off booths if you'd prefer to avoid the dance floor. One table includes infinitely re-filling glasses of fruity soda, which lower inhibitions incrementally as you consume them (though only for positive urges). If you wish to get even more in the mood, there's a changing room with costumes -- all hybrids of fantasy and neon pop, just like the decor.

Time to get your love on!]

Rules ☆ Turn-in ☆ Winners & Endgame

Comments

[shintaiprotagonist]

Quite an effort they've gone to. Thoroughly in the festival's spirit, or so I understand.

[toying with a glass of soda, then setting it down on empty air]

[daydreamshimmer]

....first thought is telekinesis, but it seems silly to exert a constant effort when there's table.

[Referring to the glass.]

[shintaiprotagonist]

It is not an effort.

[daydreamshimmer]

What is it?

[shintaiprotagonist]

You were correct about the effect, but not the effort involved.

[daydreamshimmer]

Telekinesis...with no effort? You don't have to think about where it is?

[shintaiprotagonist]

No more than I need think about the placement of my hand.

[daydreamshimmer]

I mean, yeah, it can take that subconscious thought, but does it fall if you forget about the cup completely is the thing I'm wondering about.

[shintaiprotagonist]

That depends on the degree of forgetting. Were something to erase it from my mind entirely, it would likely fall -- but the same would be true for my hand, would it not? As I said, it requires no more effort to maintain than it would to keep the same glass from falling from my grip.

[featherbeaned]

Fun, right?

[ Crouches to peer at the glass ]

And you've got fun magic, too!

[shintaiprotagonist]

I will take that as a compliment.

[featherbeaned]

You should, it is one!

[ Straightens back up, flipping her hair back over her shoulder. Or ... trying to. She's tangled fine golden chains with little stars all through it, and, uh. Hasn't done the greatest of jobs. It's a jangling mess. ]

Not only for the trial. You've got lots, right? Of magic, and power?

[shintaiprotagonist]

The same is true for you, I see.

[featherbeaned]

[ Her fluffy ears wiggle happily. ]

Yes! Don't remember playing with it much, except for shifting.

[shintaiprotagonist]

You are wearing an assumed form, then?

[featherbeaned]

[ Wordlessly, and with a shimmer not unlike a heat haze, she shifts into her native dragon. She's covered, from ear-tip to toe bean and the very end of her tail, in iridescent blue feathers, scattered here and there with flashes of pink and yellow - exactly the same colours as her hair. ]

I'm a dragon.

[ Settles herself down to sit, cat-like. Big cat-like; she's 6'5 at the shoulders. ]

[shintaiprotagonist]

Impressive.

[bowtiedbones]

I told you he likes these kinds of things!

[shintaiprotagonist]

And the one who announced this trial would be him, I take it?

[bowtiedbones]

That's him!

[shintaiprotagonist]

I can certainly say that he makes an impression.

[bowtiedbones]

Do you know what a convertible is?

[shintaiprotagonist]

I have not the slightest idea.

[bowtiedbones]

Imagine a super expensive carriage plated with mirrors, and that’s basically how he first arrived to meet us.

[shintaiprotagonist]

Even in the moments since I've encountered him, I have no trouble imagining that.