Nightmare splinters successfully caught, Sybil gathers the campers at Fireside. It's not quite moon-day, but it will be soon. The elder has stacked all of the jarred nightmare splinters up on several tables.
Sybil addresses you all, "Thank you for your efforts gathering these little shadow splinters. It's taken some doing, but all of the various shenanigans have brought us to this point. I believe we've collected the creature you saw the other night, but only in pieces." She straightens herself, looking out past the group and raises her voice—"And we're more than ready for a reveal, so get on out here."
There's a pause.
Then, you see...Ave? appear through the bushes. Her eyes are... unnervingly open and her voice is... off, "Oh! Hello everyone. Sorry I'm late, hehe!"
Sybil replies in a deadpan tone, "Ave never has her eyes open."
The... Ave seems surprised, looking around at all of the wide eyes focused on 'her', "Oh. Well—" she shrugs, "I guess it has been a while." Her form morphs and twists into a long, shadowy shape. It bellows and roars, horns splitting and growing long. Eyes spring open from a skull-like surface. What you're faced with is something like that out of a bad dream. A long, snakelike body and thin, spindly hands... staring, unblinking eyes... and a curling tail caps off the creature. It's body seemed to be all-movement, shifting slightly every moment you look at it. It's not terribly bigger than the lambicorns gathered. It does appear very skeletal and.. incomplete?
"Wowie," comes a voice from the mouthless thing, waggling its fingers toward the jarred splinters,"You got them!"
"Wh-who is that??" cries a panicked voice from the crowd of campers.
Sybil sighs, and in a low tone of amusement states, "This... is the reason for the season."
The creature points to itself, feeling everyone's eyes still glued to them, "Me?? OHH. Me. Well I'll introduce myself properly, but first, dudes—" it zips forward over the crowd and towards the jars with impressive speed, shattering them all at once. The shadow worms (or other little creatures) are thrown into the air, and almost like a magnet are rapidly drawn back to the creature's body.
At first, it looks very bizarre... but as more and more of the "worms" are drawn to the creature you begin to see they aren't worms but are becoming... fur? The creature grabs its head in its clawed hands and shouts, "A TUNE! I NEED A TUNE!"
There's several hums that hesitantly begin rising from the crowd, and you hear a deep rumble that turns into a long howl–presumably from Beo. The creature howls back, syncing its sound with the cacophony as the splinters are all 'attached' back to its body.
In a flash of kaleidoscopic light, the creature launches into the air, its entire body bursting with all sorts of colors. It transforms slightly, growing in size, fur puffing out grandly, and the skeletal face shrinking back into a flattened mask. Its eyes seemed brighter and more carefree, and a smile spread broadly across its face. The colors relax and it's body becomes solid mostly black.
"Wow," its voice booms. "That is so much better." It looks down over everyone, "Thank you so much. Sheds totally suck."
It laughs, rather pleased, and then notices everyone's stunned expressions, "Oh! Haha, yeah. I'm—" it puffs its chest up and looks slightly more intimidating for a moment, "THE IMP LORD!"
The... Imp Lord... finishes their introduction with a loud, 'spooky' laugh.
Then it snaps right back to the form it had before with the mask, "I'm gettin' way too old to keep doing that. Ha.. whatever. Yeahh, I'm Rakshasa the nightmare... uh, whatever whatever and HEYY party lambies!!" It finger guns at everyone and says with a wink, "Call me Raksh!"
Sybil flicks an ear, and says sternly, "You. Your 'shed' almost caused some big problems. Why did you let that run loose out here? You could have just showed up on the first night and not come late. We would have helped out."
Raksh shrugs, looping their long body like a hula hoop backwards and around to reply, "Uh... because that's boring, dudes. Also, I've been here the whole time, obviously." It catches the glances of several lambies who can now connect the dots on the weird lambicorns or people they had run into previously. "Aaand I might have had some helpers with these majorly sick headbands," it exclaims, twirling a little shadowy, horned headband on its clawtip, "Have you tried them? Radical little things."
There's a slight, awkward pause, and Raksh sighs. "Listen. I'm sorry for the mischief this may have caused. All of my efforts were in good fun, no harm done!" It gulps at a few hard stares, "A-and my nightmare shed, I'm sorry for the distress. That part wasn't in my control...it did actually get away from me so I don't know what forms it took or what it did. I know I saw it being some giant beast, and then it was some cursed rabbit or something... Look, not so groovy, I know. But, you crew were stunningly good at catching them all and helping me out!!" It peeks thru one eye at the crowd and clears its throat, "Haha.. ha. Yeah."
Sybil can feel the questions burning on everyone's tongues—"Allow me to explain, Rakshasa is, yes, the Imp Lord. The Imp Lord throughout history exists in a cyclical state of being. It passes through periods of being chaotically unstable and nightmarishly leaning, to periods of relative calm and..." she stares at Raksh, "—mostly stable."
Raksh looks impishly pleased, "Aaand mostly-stable-and-realtively-calm, I am."
"Each reincarnation of the Imp Lord shifts the cycle, and determines the behavior of the nightmares that are part of his charge. So while things may get scary, they're never as bad as the darker chaotic cycle," Sybil continues, "And this glorified... dork... is the calmer version we've had for the past millennia. He's been away after the transformation, and while I had heard rumors he might be heading back this way, I wasn't certain."
"Ta-da, right?" Raksh chuckles, stretching. "COOL well now that introductions are over, we really need to spice this place up! This ain't a party!" He noodles through the air over the crowd and does several large zaps from his "finger guns," conjuring a plethora of picnic tables, festive party lanterns, and a HUGE buffet of delicious food. He continues with the addition of a, yes, light up dance floor and above-ground swimming pool, along with plenty more purple-and-orange party lanterns. "Aaah. Now that's more like it!"
He whips around; a hat on backwards and a boombox in-claw, "....shall we?"
☆✼★━━━━━━━━━━━━★✼☆
Well, quite way to cap off the night! Moon-day begins, and the campground is enormously more festive than before. Everything is glowy blue, purple, and orange. Most of the mysteriousness has been brought to light by Rakshasa's entrance. And while the famed "Imp Lord" may not be the entity you expected (well, not in this lifetime at least!), he does seem fairly approachable.
Most of the other campers seem to have relaxed a tad after all of this, and are starting go enjoy the party atmosphere. The celebration will be winding down in another dusk-day cycle, so enjoy the moon-day! You can stay at the party or head off to do other things for the day cycle. Most of the spooky things in the woods are now gone, according to the elders!
You will only be rewarded once for this prompt, but you can answer NPCs' responses afterwards as well for fun! This prompt is rather low-key; it's time for a party! Prompt closes 11/3, at 10 am CT!
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[center][b][i]Party time!![/i][/b]
{ Respond with your lambie(s) IC for what they'll do now! }
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