The Full Moon Rises
Adventure Log - April 3, 2023
Outside of Solaire's Meridian Castle, a rumbling occurs. A bright flash of energy lights up the evening sky as a portal appears. As the lights eventually dim, another building appears right next door to Solaire. It's a rather impressive looking chapel with a yellow crescent moon symbol in the stained-glass far up. It appears to be even bigger than Solaire!
Out near the ground, a plaque stating the chapel's name is there. The Church of the Full Moon.
The crowd of people from before, ones wearing white robes with moon phases on their backs and Solaire Enterprises logos on their chests, are congregating near the newly formed chapel next door to Solaire.
A stage with various speakers and tents nearby it selling food is there. It's like a block party! For a church! Nothing sus about this!
They seem to be waiting for something to happen.
Completely coincidentally Spider starts walking by lost in thought, her ears are back and her tail is wagging slowly
A sea of white robed cu-- church members catches Spider's eyes. They all have various moon phases on their backs, some crescent, some just black circles which might represent new moons. In fact, most are new moons. They're just standing around and conversing, not paying attention to anything.
A few tents are scattered around the area selling food. It smells almost like a generic carnival, lots of fried foods and even noodles at one of them.
The stage itself is empty aside from a couple burly guards keeping watch.
Well she's paying attention now, Spider pauses muttering, "well this is new." She heads into the throng looking curiously at the moon symbols.
The sheer majority are new moons, black circles with nothing filled in except for a golden circle surrounding it. Quite a few crescents are next. Then just a couple half moons. No full moons however.
The crescents and half moons are in the same golden color as the circle surrounding the new moons. Maybe it's a way for certain types of churchgoers to identify each other?
"So what happened to the full moons? They all get sacrificed or something?" They chuckle to no one in particular as they eye the robes warily.
They're just chatting and shooting the wind. Seems lively. People are having fun and eating. The music being played is a good danceable beat as well. As if on cue, one of the New Moons notices Spider and approaches with a smile.
"Oh hello! Are you new here?" They're about 5'6" and skinny, and hints of long red hair peeks out from the hood. Their voice is vaguely feminine.
"Well all this wasn't here last time I was in the area, so yeah."
The person continues to smile, as if their mouth is frozen and unable to move. "Well welcome to the Church of the Full Moon New Moons ceremony!!" They seem really cheerful, but it's still weird that their mouth doesn't move despite speaking.
"New moon? Bit late for that isn't it?" Her ear flicks as she watches them the frozen mouth only setting off more alarm bells.
Their entire face seems to be frozen. Not even blinking. Something's off. They go silent.
Spider's hand goes to her knife handle as she narrows her eyes at the new moon "You still with us?"
"Ah yes!! I was just listening to something!! Would you like to see what the Church of the Full Moon could do for you?" They're back to their cheerful self, but their face is still unmoving. Yet somehow, they can speak just fine.
"I mean...sure?" She doesn't trust this one bit but curiosity wins out.
The New Moon leads Spider through the crowd and up to one of the Half Moons. "Admin Artemis, we have a new recruit!" Unlike the New Moon, the Half Moon doesn't have the same creepy smile. And their face is able to move. They look at Spider with curiosity, seemingly interested in the wolfyness. This Half Moon is 5'11 and just oozes stereotypical cis white male vibes. Disgusting. "Welcome to the Church of the Full Moon!", Artemis says. The New Moon stays put.
They're barely able to resist growling at Artemis before they manage to pull themselves together "So what's the deal with this place then?"
Artemis turns to the New Moon and does a hand gesture dismissing them. Then he turns to Spider. "Well, it's a family of sorts. Our goal is to provide shelter and community despite the trying times this World is going through. At the Church of the Full Moon, we're all family. All working together to ensure survivability for everyone." His voice sounds like Billy Mays almost, just that generic late-night informercial vibe. Almost like he's reading from a script, even.
"Where have I heard that before?" They mutter to themselves "The moon's an interesting thing to base a church around, though you'll forgive me if the robes and insistence on being a family don't sit right with me"
Artemis tilts their head, "what do you mean?" There's a bit more of a commotion coming from the crowd as the music dies down a bit. As they're in the middle of it all, it's coming from all sides at once.
Spider grumbles a bit at the commotion "..nevermind, so what's going on here then?" Yeah she already has some idea but she wants to hear his take on it.
Artemis looks over at the stage. "It's the ceremony for all of the New Moons to join our family! Our leader speaks a prayer whenever our family grows, and that allows all of our Moons to be a part of us! It's always a gigantic celebration anytime we do this."
"Makes sense" She shrugs "Though I'm curious, again, why the moon?"
"Because a great eclipse is coming. It is our destiny." Artemis's words sound almost haunting. Like he's not even the one saying it. "Ah, Sol's here." And then it happens. A tall black-robed man walks across the stage as the crowd erupts in loud cheering and applause. Anyone paying attention to his back can see a full moon on it. He very rigidly turns 90 degrees towards the podium in the center of the stage. The crowd continues to cheer and applaud him. He seems to be rather old, with long gray hair and an amazing beard and mustache combo to boot. He's burly as well.
As the crowd continues going absolutely ape-shit for this man, he places a single palm up as if asking for attention. The crowd takes the hint and quiets down. After he has silence, he begins to speak.
"Family members, and new moons. I, Leader Sol, welcome you to the CHURCH OF THE FULL MOON!!!"
The crowd erupts into loud raucous cheering before quieting down once more.
----
Sol looks like this. As many members of the Church of the Full Moon are unable to have pictures of them taken, a Picrew of their image is created instead.
Please note the red eye. It's important.
----
Spider covers her ears wishing for the end of humanity or at least the end of the racket as they watch Sol walk out and talk, once again she's not liking this one bit
He continues as soon as the rabble quiets down. "As is tradition for all New Moons, I ask you take a moment to take a deep breath and listen to my prayer quietly." His voice has a vague german accent to it. Despite this, his English is near perfect. Sol opens a book at the Podium. It's a rather thick and heavy looking tome with leather bindings. On the cover is a crescent moon, but no other words can be seen, even with near perfect vision. He takes a deep breath and speaks the following prayer. It's... weird, almost as though he were speaking a whole other language.
"Oswcwdi lc llt fj lvp nmn qgcys, ieh szw on fyj tzruvv eczna ks lvp Cplvuv zf byi Xiwl Ufsf. Kp pzrc lc ehm Defm Rolj Etcge nfv yitdiegw wy tpvww hcyqek lwxea. Lrlww tpvr, os soxv jgf qozxmnsyeaj mf cfr ufzwg ls byi kiy bmxmfg tta vgdwasm. Jsgb EHM WYDZ XOWE WZOWL ZZWW!"
After finishing, the crowd is completely silent. Even Sol. It's not out of confusion though. Every single person in the crowd nods once, as if they understood it perfectly.
She drops her hands as Sol recites the prayer before looking around at the rest of the crowd muttering to themselves
"Yeah... cause this isn't cult like at all"
The silence is deafening. Absolutely no one is even moving an inch. In fact, the only one to move around is Spider. Sol scans the crowd and notices exactly that. Artemis seems to snap out of whatever trance he was in and attempts to apprehend Spider almost randomly. He tries to take their arm and lead them to the stage.
They snarl flinching as Artemis touches them, she then socks him in the face
The punch works as Artemis is knocked to the ground. Seems he wasn't prepared. Sol doesn't make any moves. The rest of the crowd is still frozen.
Spider looks over at Sol "Not sending anymore minions at me then?"
Sol is silent. The entire crowd is silent. And Artemis is on the ground whimpering like a bitch who got hit by a wolf.
"hm I wonder if I just.." They take a step forward to see if that triggers anything
Nothing happens.
"I'm gonna regret this aren't I?" After a minute they attempt to walk up onto the stage to check out the book a hand resting on her knife handle
As soon as Spider makes it on stage, without any issues mind you, something seems to change in Sol's behavior. He turns to face them with a weird forced grin on their face. His left eye has a patch on it, while the right one is glowing red. In fact, from the corner of her sight, she can see the entire crowd has glowing red eyes. And they're all watching. All watching Spider and Sol.
"Hello." its voice is stiff.
She flinches as he turns to face her then she notices the crowd which reminds them of Luna that one time, "..Well this is uncomfortably familiar, and hi" (edited)
Sol takes a step forward. "Welcome to the Church of the Full Moon. Would you like to join our family?"
Spider hears two people stand right behind her, attempting to block her exit.
"Not particularly" She growls glancing around for another exit that doesn't involve crowd surfing
The stage is nothing more than a giant hollow wooden crate with a thin black curtain on its back. The main exits may be blocked, but… The guards and Sol all take another step forward. "This isn't a request."
"Well shouldn't phrase it like one should ya?" They grumble seriously considering the crowd surfing option
Sol goes silent, questioning its own words before taking another step forward. The guards take one more giant step forward. Time is running out.
"fuck it" They jump off the stage to escape, "live" to fight another day and all that
The crowd doesn't move. Seems whoever is in control of this situation doesn't know what they're doing. A couple attempt to block Spider's path, but they're not aggressive in the slightest. Another two go to punch Spider as they move through the crowd, but their attacks land on other New Moons. It's chaos, but it's not *dangerous*, if that makes sense. Now what is dangerous are those two guards from before. They have daggers and are chasing Spider through the crowd. Make your move.
battle theme: 7cwaWybHkuE
As she takes in the chaos around her she can't help but laugh at how terrible this entity is, and so as she spots the guards they decide to have a bit of fun She pulls her knife out and rushes towards them aiming a slash at the closest one. The one closest to Spider gets slashed in the chest. The pain received from this hit seems to snap them out of whatever trance they were in. The other guard attempts to disarm Spider of her knife by slashing them with its dagger. It does not know about Impurity. The rest of the crowd continues to watch as the battle theme linked above plays over the speakers. Whoever this controlling entity is, they sure love chaos. The one who got slashed hits the ground. "Sorry ma'am."
She dodges to the side and uses the handle of her knife to bludgeon the second guard, before turning to the first looking almost confused for a second at being called ma'am before her expression goes neutral as she shrugs at them. "It's fine" Same thing happens. Pain leads to them blinking and their eyes return to normal. They snap out and apologize to Spider for attacking them. The music is still going, but none of the other crowd members are moving. Spider has an escape route!
She takes it, as fun as it was to fight those guards she doesn't fancy becoming a cult member just yet
As soon as Spider escapes, the whole crowd collapses. It sounds like a loud FWOOMP. If she turns around, it looks like they all had their marionette strings cut at the same time. It's completely silent. Sol is gone.
They pause looking at the dead(?) cult members for a few minutes before sighing and heading back to the house
After a while, the crowd disperses unsure what just happened. The only two to have any recollection are the guards that attacked Spider. Oh and the two New Moons that punched each other like idiots.