Day 1: Monster Arrival

[wizardseason]

Afternoon: 12:00pm - Onward

[ IRL Timeframe: February 24th - March 10th, 2019 ]

Everything changes when the Wizard wishes it to. In an instant, every non-knight, non-princess person in attendance at the Craydon welcoming party disappears. She knows where they went, she teleported them, but that doesn't mean she's telling the knights. The only indication she gives that she did anything is that she walks towards the door to leave. If anyone moves to get in her way, she'll just teleport to the other side of them. If anyone tries to attack her, their weapon'll just turn to sparkles.

If this were a video game, the stressful music would be playing now. The Princess, Luka, is treated to something to add to the stress. The protector finally makes his appearance but only to him and only in his head. He's the same height as Luka with dark skin and vivid blue eyes that match the color of the sky. He has wicked winged white eyeliner to accent his eyes and curly black hair with white tips piled on top of his head, it's a wonder how it stays up there. Surprisingly, or unsurprisingly, he's wearing a pajama robe that looks either blue or silver depending how it's touched or how it moves. Most importantly is that he's got brass knuckles on both his hands, like he's ready to fight. But he's not here to fight, he's here to give a whisper about what comes next.

"The monster is here." Comes his voice, pointing Luka to just outside the Craydon multipurpose center. The pull towards the monster is persistent and it won't let up until it's defeated.

Outside is, to everyone's surprise (except perhaps Luka), the first monster. It looks like a yellow ball with an eye in the middle, standing four feet high and four feet wide with an eye that's almost that big too. It's standing on two feet and appears to have no arms whatsoever. It blinks curiously at the approaching princess-knight team and then blinks up at the Wizard beside it...

The Wizard is standing beside the first monster, holding her hand out as her massive hammer manifests in her hand. The hammer's handle flickers into existence and ends up beind close to seven feet long before the head of the hammer pops into existence. It's a massive beast of a weapon, easily the size of a refrigerator attached to the end of the pole with slightly bigger ends for where she hits things with it. Just below where the handle connects is a pair of flowing wings that seem to be extended out to support the head of the hammer, the end tip has a single metal feather dangling off of it. The head of the hammer curves slightly inward away from the ends but mostly it's just a giant rectangular block of bashing.

"Fore." The Wizard says with this awful amusement before she swings her hammer like a golf club down at the monster, acting like she's going to send it flying into the princess-knight team like a cannonball. When her hammer impacts the monster, it flickers slightly and pops like fireworks. Within sight but still rather far away, the first monster flickers and blips back into existence on the road, blinks, and then runs off into the woods. Catch this little buddy if you can!

Monster Kill Opportunity: Craydon: Everyone.

---

The Weather

• Sunny.
• 70°F / 21°C
• Quite breezy, all the trees are rustling.

---

Prompts:

• The monster!! GET IT: Who needs a plan? You run off immediately, sprinting after the monster as it bounds off into the woods. Characters who choose this option are free to catch the monster numerous times and deal attacks to it. However they will be unable to defeat the monster in any of these prompts. The monster's priority in this is to escape and it will not attack back. But what were those sparkles? What's going on? Feel free to do team-threads together in pursuit of the monster.


• The monster!! We need a PLAN!: Since you didn't run off, you and your fellow knights, the princess, and the Wizard are now standing outside of the Craydon multipurpose center. Though the Wizard is just going to go back inside to get crackers with cheese and meat on top. What will you do with your companions? Will you confront the Wizard? What kind of plan will you come up with for what just happened?


• The gear train: Wether you saw the locals posting pictures on social media or you worked with Luka's new ability to find the monster, it's taken up sitting on top of the gear train as it makes its way up and down the mountain town of Craydon. It doesn't move very fast but it is a hazard and, perhaps, even more of one because the Monster is involved. The first monster is contentedly sitting on top of the train car, staring up towards the sky. What will you do about that? The monster can be severely injured in this thread but cannot be killed.


• The showdown: There are trails of, and pools of, yellow ?blood? trailing throughout Craydon from the injuries that the first monster has sustained. The knights have been relentless in pursuing it through the forest and on the train and now it's come to a stop in the center of the train station at the base of Craydon. This train station is home to the last stop on the gear train upstairs and the transfer point for the Harsen Island train station downstairs. The first monster clearly isn't getting on board to go to Bamborough or Far Haven, but it's absolutely standing on the platform waiting for a fight. It's the final showdown!

---

Procedure::

Reply to the appropriate toplevel comments for events below. Indicate if a post is a private conversation with "Private" in the subject otherwise all threads should be open to interaction with others. Plan OOCly how you'd like to toss everyone around.

IMPORTANT: When making an attack against the Monster, please add a short summary such as the following to the bottom of your comment in brackets. This will help show at-a-glance what's going on and will show me that I need to reply with the Monster:

• [Rory stabs the Monster in the leg]
• [Seth pours acid on the Monster's face]
• [Web throws a big rock at the Monster from behind]

Comments

The monster!! GET IT

[wizardseason]

Who needs a plan? You run off immediately, sprinting after the monster as it bounds off into the woods. Characters who choose this option are free to catch the monster numerous times and deal attacks to it. However they will be unable to defeat the monster in any of these prompts. The monster's priority in this is to escape and it will not attack back. But what were those sparkles? What's going on? Feel free to do team-threads together in pursuit of the monster.

[roaryrory]

It had all happened so suddenly, and Rory needed a moment to react even with the tinge of anxiety she got in advance. She had barely paid attention to it, and didn't know what it was about anyway, so there was no way she could have prepared for this. She glanced around disoriented when the monster disappeared, but when she spotted it again, she wasn't going to waste any time. She was going to run after it.

"Sefaq!" she shouted while running. "I need a weapon! Something to throw into that eye! Maybe a spear!"

[wizardseason]

Sefaq appears at Rory's side after only a few steps, running alongside her in pursuit of the monster. When she speaks, it's with this unmistakable excitement in her rumbling voice.

"Consider it yours." She responds eagerly, looking over to Rory as a particularly fancy spear manifests floating in the air between them. Better grab it before it drops, Rory!

[roaryrory]

"Thanks," Rory says and grabs onto the spear, trying not to lose running momentum while doing that. 'Now, Rory, this can't be more difficult than throwing darts, you can do it,' she reassures herself when she takes aim, though the monster is hopelessly faster and there's only a small chance it's within her normal throw distance.

With a mighty roar worthy of her status as the Tiger Knight - what seemed to be magically enchanted - she throws the spear. Holy shit it flies far, much farther than she knew she was capable of. She almost stops running in her awe of herself, but she's aware she must not do that right now. Wow, was that her knight power just now? That was awesome!

[Rory attempted to throw a knight powered spear at the monster from behind.]

The monster!! We need a PLAN!

[wizardseason]

Since you didn't run off, you and your fellow knights, the princess, and the Wizard are now standing outside of the Craydon multipurpose center. Though the Wizard is just going to go back inside to get crackers with cheese and meat on top. What will you do with your companions? Will you confront the Wizard? What kind of plan will you come up with for what just happened?

[eutychia]

Luka barely has time to process what just happened. He finds himself outside the multipurpose center, but can't remember how he got there in all the commotion.

The presence and voice of the Protector are still fresh in his mind, but Luka can only find himself bemoaning the fact that the first monster showed up before he even had time to get in a costume change. Not that many people would be seeing him, but it's the thought that counts.

"Why did it have to be NOW?", he says, exasperation evident in his voice.

[disguiseself]

[Olivia's first instinct upon seeing the monster was to exclaim "that's fucking AWESOME!"

Her second instinct had been to stand between it and Luka, producing two daggers seemingly out of nowhere. She watched as the Wizard golf-ed it away and as the monster made its escape, but she didn't relax her protective stance.]

No rest for the wicked, huh? [She says, assuming that he's annoyed that they have to fight so early on. She licks her lips, her slit pupils trying to catch any movement from the monster.] It's some kind of ball. With an eye. An eyeball. With legs. Real ugly. What's the plan?

[eutychia]

He squints. "It ran off... I think. Some of the Knights with it, too. Where did all the locals go? This is a mess."

[sustainer]

Well he didn't intend to be standing next to the princess while all this went down, but hey, he's here now. The gears in his head are turning as he takes this whole scene in, and it's only Luka's voice that pulls him suddenly out of it.

"Had to happen sometime," he says back, his voice utterly neutral. He's not snarking. He's just talking, and he turns more fully towards Luka.

"Do you know where the other people went?" The princess is supposed to have specialized knowledge about this game or something, right? He has no idea how this is supposed to work.

[eutychia]

He shakes his head. He doesn't recognize this voice, but decides the exact identity of who he's speaking to at the moment isn't as pressing as forming a plan.

"I just stopped hearing them. But I know where that thing's going," he says, confidently pointing in the direction the monster (and pursuant knights) scrambled off in. "I can feel it moving."

[zafika]

Zafika rushes to the main hall of the Multipurpose Centre, having followed behind Garrot. Stay behind? Screw that. They're staying behind for long enough to form a plan with some of the other Knights. So, for once, they just leave their blindfold hanging around their neck, and go look for the Knights that hadn't ran off.

Most importantly, they need to find Haizea and Gyre, they know Haizea can fight, and they have a feeling that Gyre can too, despite not having talked about those things with him. He's a wild elf for fuck's sake. Aside from those two, they'll honestly round up any of the other Knights that can fight.

"Muraj, I'm going to need that dagger soon."

[silentwords]

Seth had actually been trying to find Zafika, they were the one they had gotten the best along with so far and so were the best option of who to stick to as far as Seth's tired, exhausted mind was concerned.

Having had no less than 2 mental breakdown's in the span of the past a little over an hour or so...he was done.
His energy to be anxious was gone.

So when he spotted Zafika he quickly made his way over to them, expression eerily blank, phone already out.

[zafika]

Zafika notices Seth approach them, and since their blindfold is off for once, they notice his expression, but right now they don't have any time to ask him if he's alright, the monster is their first priority. But they also know that Seth can't fight, so they have to do something about that.

"Seth, good timing. Can you round up some Knights who can't fight and have them look for the people who disappeared in here? I'm going to look for Haizea and Gyre, and anyone else who stayed behind and knows how to fight, and plan with them on what to do about the monster."

[sustainer]

Gyre won't be hard to find. All the people have up and vanished, and now the fourteen of them are all starkly revealed to each other. He had followed the wizard out when she decided to make her move, and he hasn't figured out what to do just yet. He seems to be taking in details, noting who runs off and who stays, working through his thoughts.

As Zafika approaches him, his eyes focus and drop to them, a grim expression settling on his face.

"At least a couple of us stayed," he mutters, glancing pointedly towards the trees where at least two of their good fighters have just run the fuck off. "What're you thinking?"

[zafika]

Zafika stops next to Gyre and sighs, running a hand through their hair as they look in the direction the monster disappeared to. "The loudest ones seem to have gone after it.. I think I saw Rory run after it, as well as Garrot..."

"The ones who stayed behind should form a plan, the ones chasing it can keep an eye on it and inform us on its location. But most importantly, they can try to incapacitate it and blind it, so its mobility is cut down. That huge eye is an easy enough target, the legs less so, but even if we can just blind it, it should be of some help."

Their behaviour has changed, they seem much more serious, and it's clear that they're used to making plans for how to take something, or someone, down. "Its ability to teleport is annoying, but if the Knights chasing it can herd it to a specific location, the rest of the Knights here who can fight can go there, maybe set a trap, or just prepare to take it down."

[tropicalstorm]

Haizea stares after the crew that immediately ran off in frustration. She gets it, she wants to pummel that thing too, but what's the point of there being so many of them if they don't work together properly? As the other knights start to discuss among themselves, Haizea decides they all gotta get on the same page and quick.

Looking around, she finds an empty glass bottle and grabs it, then stalks over to a table and smashes the bottle against it, shattering it into a million pieces and making a high pitched, hard to ignore crashing sound. She then jumps on the table and cups her hands around her mouth before shouting.

"LISTEN UP!" She yells, and then continues in a loud, but less booming voice once she's satisfied she's got everyone's attention. "If we're gonna take that thing down, we gotta get coordinated and fast. We should all got cell phones, and I know for a fact that I at least don't got all y'alls numbers, so let's fix that right quick. Then I think we can take advantage of the crew that's chasing it and try and surround it, maybe pull off some kinda pincer maneuver. How's that sound to everyone?"

[zafika]

Zafika nearly gets a heart attack when they hear the loud, high pitched shattering sound, and their hands nearly fly up to cover their ears, but they catch themselves in the middle of the action. Instead, they turn to look Haizea's way, slightly irritated by the bottle laying in pieces at her feet, but they get it that she needed everyone's attention.

They glance in Gyre's way briefly, before they walk over to the table Haizea is standing on, so they won't have to raise their voice to talk to her, and she won't have to keep yelling much longer. "Sounds good to me. I was talking with Gyre, and one option is to incapacitate it, damage its legs and blind it, and try to herd it to a set location so the ones who are still here can go and set up an ambush. It'll still be able to teleport, but at least it should be less of a threat if it can't move otherwise."

[fop_lop]

A short time after Haizea rallies the troops, her phone will ring. It's Terrence! Good thing they met earlier.

Late to the party

[fauntofwisdom]

Joanna's private talk with the wizard was brief but significant to her, and she's barely had time to process it before everyone vanished. Nearly everyone, that is; the knights remain, except the ones running off so quickly they might as well have vanished.

When everyone gets outside, and the others group up and start talking, Joanna steps her way off to the side to regret politely nibbling food all through the morning.

Somehow, in all the mess of meeting and greeting the island's residents, she hadn't realized today would be the first of the fights - she hasn't even spoken more than a greeting to most of the others, how can they work together to fight a monster? But she can't hide over these bushes for long, and wipes her face - then walks to rejoin the others.

"Did the others mention a plan, before they left?" the faun asks, loud enough to carry over to them.

The gear train

[wizardseason]

Wether you saw the locals posting pictures on social media or you worked with Luka's new ability to find the monster, it's taken up sitting on top of the gear train as it makes its way up and down the mountain town of Craydon. It doesn't move very fast but it is a hazard and, perhaps, even more of one because the Monster is involved. The first monster is contentedly sitting on top of the train car, staring up towards the sky. What will you do about that? The monster can be severely injured in this thread but cannot be killed.

[sustainer]

Gyre is perched atop the roof of the approaching station, sat down with his knees tucked into his chest. He's got a half-lidded eye on the tracks where he knows the monster should be approaching. Now that the adrenaline of the first monster appearing has passed, he's let himself get bored, and in his boredom, he's begun plucking absentmindedly at the string of his bow. He keeps thinking he sees the little speck of the monster running along the track towards him, only to be disappointed again. It's leaves, or a mirage against the dirt. He sighs.

The reason he doesn't see it approaching on the ground becomes clear at last as the gear train rounds a corner and comes into view, the little shape of the monster slowly resolving as it approaches. His eyes widen, and he jerks up out of his slumped position, shifting so he can actually draw his bow comfortably.

He almost forgets to say anything to Olivia actually, but right before he settles into place, he reaches over and taps his phone to wake it back up. The other two had set up a voice call specifically for this moment, and Gyre watches the call timer count steadily upwards for just a beat. At least it hadn't disconnected in the meantime because fuck if he knows how to get it back if it had.

"Olivia, it's on top of the train. Can you get it down before it gets away?" he says, his voice quick and clipped, the scrape of his metal arrow against the roof as he picks it up coming clear over the call.

[disguiseself]

Oh, shit.

[Despite Luka's earlier warning that the monster was nearing their position, Olivia had gotten tired of waiting around about thirty minutes ago and was just playing pinfinger with the dagger she had requested from Iv when she heard Gyre's voice. Caught off guard, she scrambles to stand up and looks up towards the gear train - and sure enough, there it was. Cloud watching? Guess the monster had been just chilling too.

She bites her lip, quickly considering how to get the job done. Try to jam the gear train? Probably a bad idea, she might break something. Throw her dagger at the monster? She doubted she had the arm strength to reach it. The monster was just a big eyeball so, maybe catch its attention?

She concentrated, closing her eyes and rubbing her face as she tried to think of something eye-catching. She poured all her energy into her power as her hair grew long, and became a yellow so intense it was almost neon. When she opened her eyes and lowered her hands, her pupils and skin were of the same color too, and with her Rapunzel-like hair covering her dark clothing, she looked like a strange, alien, shiny beacon. She was so gonna need a nap after this.]

Here goes nothing.

[Olivia whistles loudly and keeps her ground, attempting to pique the monster's interest with her bright, bright colors.]

The showdown

[wizardseason]

There are trails of, and pools of, yellow ?blood? trailing throughout Craydon from the injuries that the first monster has sustained. The knights have been relentless in pursuing it through the forest and on the train and now it's come to a stop in the center of the train station at the base of Craydon. This train station is home to the last stop on the gear train upstairs and the transfer point for the Harsen Island train station downstairs.

There's an arrow jutting out of the center of its mass, its single eyeball is now gone, almost like it wasn't there to begin with. It's just standing there, uncertain to anyone looking at it if it can actually perceive the world around it or not. The first monster clearly isn't getting on board to go to Bamborough or Far Haven, but it's absolutely standing on the platform waiting for a fight. It's the final showdown!

Re: The showdown

[tropicalstorm]

Haizea, Zafika and Matilda are hidden nearby the station behind some brush, close enoug to keep an eye on the station platform but not close enough that the monster should be able to hear them. When the monster arrives, Haizea takes a peek to check on the situation.

“Looks like Gyre got it’s whole damn eye,” Haizea mutters to the others. “That’ll make this easier, but we should still be careful.” She turns to Matilda and nods. “You ready to get us in there?”

Re: The showdown

[zafika]

Zafika has been keeping an eye on the station while waiting for Gyre's team to do their part, and as they see the monster appear there they grab the dagger they had gotten from Muraj, their tail coiling a little as they glance at Matilda, who had been station between them and Haizea. "We can approach it on our own too but... your help would be very welcome. We'll do our best to make sure you won't get hurt."