undergrounds | Down the Rabbit Hole

This event runs from 26th-29th November 2015.

follow the white rabbit.

Maybe you took a wrong turn when trying to catch the train on the Underground. Maybe you walked down the street and fell into a manhole. Maybe you caught sight of a strange figure with white rabbit ears and followed them into misty darkness...

You've stumbled into the Other Realm, but you're no longer in London. This is Wonderland, a twisted version of the classic tale created by the fae. What's going on?

Summary
26th November 2015 is the 150th anniversary of the publication of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. In honour of this great occasion, the fae have created their own version of Wonderland... and your characters have fallen down the rabbit hole. Participating characters will be trapped for up to three days in the Wonderland version of the Other Realm.

Characters will enter Wonderland with their powers intact and they may retain any possessions or weapons that they were carrying before being spirited away. However, they will find themselves... altered. Items will become poor copies of themselves e.g. a real blade will become a wooden toy sword, a magic ring will become a cheap plastic bit of jewellery, etc. Supernatural powers and characteristics will take a turn for the absurd e.g. vampires will sparkle in the sunlight, shapeshifters will turn into either ridiculously adorable or monstrous versions of their animal forms, magic will backfire.

If your character is a member of the Seelie or Unseelie Court, then they know what is happening and they're in on the act. Have fun. If your character is not a member of the Seelie or Unseelie Court, then enjoy getting sucked into their game. When in the Other Realm, characters will enter a dream-like state influenced by the fae magic around them. This world will be dictated by dream logic: the most absurd events will seem perfectly normal.

To escape, characters must beat the fae at their own game. Some escape options are suggested below, but feel free to make up your own! If you have any questions about this event, please ask them here.

Prompts

1) I AM THE WALRUS. Fae of the Seelie and Unseelie Courts, this is your game. Why not choose a part? You could play the White Rabbit, luring unsuspecting mortals into Wonderland. Or the Cheshire Cat, providing cryptic advice before literally disappearing. Or even the Queen of Hearts: off with their heads! The fae can play any Alice character, with the exception of Alice herself.

2) EAT ME/DRINK ME. What's this? You come across a cake or a biscuit with the label "EAT ME" on it. Or a small bottle that says "DRINK ME". Some of the food will make you shrink to the size of a mouse. Some of it will make you grow to the size of a house. Beware: fairy food ties you to the Other Realm and makes it harder to escape. Perhaps there's a door that will lead you out if only you're the right size to fit it... now where's the key?

3) MAD TEA PARTY. A merry unbirthday to you! Why not join the Hatter, the March Hare and the Dormouse for a most unconventional tea party. Solve their riddles correctly and you may yet be able to leave.

4) PAINT THE ROSES RED. The Faery Queen dislikes white roses. Paint them red, she says! Paint them red. Paint them all red or she'll chop off your head.

5) CHECKMATE. Even a pawn can become a queen. Avoid being captured by the Knight or killed by the Queen and you too may reach the other side of Wonderland to be crowned as a Queen. Checkmate the King and you'll win the game and be able to escape.

6) CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE. Perhaps a game of croquet, an encounter with the fearsome Jabberwock or a trial of stolen tarts. Anything Wonderland-inspired is up for grabs.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Lancelot has this nagging sense he knows what's going on, yet somehow he can't put his finger on it. He's dressed in a tabard marking him as a soldier, a playing card, with bright red hearts on it. It's a surreal sort of feeling, to at once understand a joke but be unable to explain it or escape it. His hair is flowing longer than it should be, obscurely, and he's attempting to tie it back out of his face when he hears footsteps. Instincts make him snap to attention and resume a soldierly pose when Sirius comes shooting past, and in the background he hears the hoof-beats of a horse following. He hesitates a moment before moving to follow Sirius through the maze. Whoever heard of a horse in a maze, anyway! It's far too small for such a thing. Flowers alternately cheer him and call for his head until Lancelot has a distinct, unnerving feeling Sirius is running toward a dead end and decides enough is a enough.

He turns and waits until the knight is turning his (... small? Is that a Shetland pony?) horse around the corner and forces himself to stand to attention.

"Stop!" he declares, and wills himself to sound confident. "By order of the queen! This man is late already for a game of croquet!"

Sirius stops running when he hears a voice shouting, using the pause to catch his breath and trying to place it, since it is familiar. The less than logical part of his brain is objecting, he doesn't even know how to play croquet.

The Knight, in the meantime, looks a little suspicious, but at the same time, commands from the Queen should be listened to and he doesn't want to be the next one to lose his head. So he nods, turning his horse around before it starts to eat the maze and leaving. For now, at least.

Sirius pokes his head out from around the wall.

"Thanks," he says.

"I'm a little surprised it worked."

If he thought about it, he'd also wonder why on earth he picked croquet of all things -- and why someone running away would be due to play with the queen. For the moment, though, it makes perfect sense. He's a visitor, after all, and visitors should be honoured. Probably. Lancelot gestures with a heart-tipped stick for Sirius to walk with him and offers an awkward sort of smile.

"We should get a move on in case he comes back. Are you all right?"

"Fine, just a little out of breath," Sirius replied. He wasn't used to running that speed on two legs, and it was easier with four.

"Hopefully, he's not going to check with someone about it. Are we continuing through the maze?"

He hadn't really been paying attention on his way in, and doubted if he could manage finding his way back out.

"Better than doubling back in case he changes his mind. Besides which, it seems you have a game of croquet to get to."

A game of fae croquet at that, which is sure to be rigged. He takes stock of where they are a moment before frowning and picking a route through the maze. If it's the wrong one, well, he'll take the blame -- but it feels right at the moment.

"Been stuck here long?"

"Well, it'll be an interesting game, if nothing else. Don't think I've played since I was young, and even then I didn't really pay attention to the rules."

Except the one where you got to knock your opponent's ball away if you hit it. That was always fun, even if it did eventually end in tears. Or an argument of some kind.

"To be honest," Sirius says, after a moment's though, "I've no idea. I've been horribly lost since I got here."

"I suspect the rules are a little more flexible here. Honestly, everything is a little more flexible here."

He lets out a slow breath, squinting down pathways between the hedge walls as he tries to find a way that feels right.

"It's easy to lose track of time, among other things. I'm a little more... used to it, but I'm not so sure it's helping at the moment."

In fact, he's strongly suspecting it's barely helping at all than to make him very aware just how out of control everything is. Which is a disconcerting feeling, to have the full knowledge you are acting strangely and everything is going wrong but be unable to behave otherwise.

"So I gathered," Sirius replied. He had hoped to keep his dealings with fae to a minimum, and for the most part that had worked out for him, but something told him that walking straight into their world meant that his luck had run out on that front.

"Dare I ask how you're used to it?" It's more curious than anything else.

"Long story," Lancelot says, and pauses to scramble up a hedge wall a little -- trying vaguely to assess if he's at least going in the right direction. The branches bend unhelpfully and scratch at his arms as he squints around. "The short version of which is I've been here before, and I don't exactly recommend it."

"Fair enough, although that doesn't really help our current predicament," Sirius replied. "Did you need help?"

He figured he could at least provide a boost, rather than let Lancelot get all scratched up. He'd try to latch on to a scent of some kind, but mostly all he could smell was greenery. It made him feel like sneezing.

Down the Rabbit Hole

Checkmate!

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