Day 2: Morning

[wizardseason]

Morning: 6:00am - 12:00noon

[ IRL Timeframe: March 17th - March 25th March 31st, 2019 (Buffer week added) ]

It's a bright new morning and the first monster has been defeated, the first hurdle has been cleared and everything is going great. The heroes should be feeling good, everything should be going according to plan. Especially because when the heroes wake up this morning, they'll be treated to a set of kigurumi pajamas themed after their animal companion sitting right beside them. Each set has a little note on it that says "From me to you" with a stylized "Wizard" signature beside it.

The morning should prove fairly uneventful. In striking comparison to the first day, the island is much quieter than it was before. Instead, the day's celebration is centralized on the train that circles the island. One eight-car train is circling the entire island, taking a little over an hour and a half to make its circles. It's 30 minutes between each city and the train isn't stopping. Each car on the train is open and any hero can board it free of charge. There are party cars, food cars, and lounge cars to enjoy on the trip around the island. There are also some commemorative prints and products available near the caboose of the train, some sellers having already gotten hard at work to create products to sell. They're seeking to get a seal of approval from the heroes themselves on them!

For the Princess and the Protector as well as the Wizard and her evil-allured knights, their dream threads will go on until the Second Monster arrives.

Most importantly, a certain knight has a message for the rest of his allies at the bright and early hour of 6:30am.

Second Morning Event: All Cities: The Celebration Train.

---

The Weather

• Slightly Windy.
• 64°F / 18°C
• The trees are rustling, flower petals in the air.

---

Prompts:

• 6:30am Punch Club, Bamborough: A message reaches the group with... an attached video? Opening the file shows Garrot staring straight at his phone's camera with a big smile. "Rise and shine, team!"


• x:xxam Train Ride: The party train is available for any hero who finds it. It'll be rolling through Far Haven at 6am, 7:45am, 9:30am, and 11:15am. It'll be rolling through Bamborough at 6:35am, 8:20am, 10:05am, and 11:50am. It'll be rolling through Craydon at 7:10am, 8:55am, 10:40am, and... well, this post only goes until noon. The next stop in Craydon is out at 12:25pm which is in monster arrival territory. While on the train, your hero can get up to anything. Will they discuss with the others what they think of the first line of hero products? Does this action figure look funny? Do these stickers look okay? Discuss and deal with vendors or just party it up elsewhere on the train!


• 10:30am, Power Plant, Far Haven: Social Media is abuzz that the Wizard has made an appearance in the power plant in Far Haven. She could wipe power out to the whole island if she wanted to, she could turn the connections to chocolate, or she could just be standing around. She hasn't done anything as far as the cell phone videos show, but is that going to last?


• 11:30am, Relaxing Time, Craydon: The residents of craydon, with the assistance of some of their kids, sent out invitation videos to ask the Princess and knights if they wanted to drop by Craydon and join in a meditation session. They're going to meditate outside, in the woods, and relax as much as possible before the next monster arrives. The residents of Craydon are emphasizing how important it is to keep mentally healthy above all else. Which of your fellow heroes have joined in on this session?

---

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.

Comments

6:30am Punch Club, Bamborough

[wizardseason]

A message reaches the group at 6:30AM, with... an attached video? Opening the file shows Garrot staring straight at his phone's camera with a big smile. "Rise and shine, team!" He bellows it loud enough to be a human rights violation. The feed shakes as there's a loud crash! Another voice shouts out, and boy is she pissed. "Ah, fuck! G, you don't gotta YELL into the phone like that! I thought you were gonna give me a warnin' before you started, you made me drop all those helmets!"

"Shit, sorry! I'll help you pick that up in a sec." He looks towards her, winces, and looks very regretful. Maybe even a little scared? "So Zea and I got a gym out in Bamborough and we're gonna use it to teach people some fightin' essentials and, uh, test our powers out!" He brings a hand to his chin, looking deeply contemplative. Haizea is grumbling in the background about how much equipment there is to sort out here, but she does wave to the camera once with a smile! "Ask your companion if you don't know your power yet. Thanks for that, Gyre! Oh, and if anyone who can fight wants to help us out, let us know! We'll be here at least through the morning. See you soon!" And then the feed cuts out. Sent a minute later is the address to the gym, a smiling and nondescript beast-person emoji, a lightning bolt emoji, and two cheerleader emojis.

Upon arriving at Iron Empire, it's easy to see the posterboard signs at the door. One labelled "POWERS" and points to an open-air basketball court, and another with "FITNESS / COMBAT" points to an empty area inside, populated by training dummies, agility ladders, and a makeshift sparring ring. A third, labelled "BREAKFAST!" has a crude drawing of what seems to be Garrot eating a donut. It points to a dance hall off the atrium with tables and chairs, donuts and coffee, and some top-of-the-line energy bars.

---

Note for Players: In the initial subject line, please include the sign and maybe also the instructor, ie "combat + garrot" or "Powers Haizea" or "Breakfast, Open!" Fitness would be a prompt focused on normal gym stuff like agility, endurance, or strength. Combat can either be using a weapon or defense. Breakfast is the obligatory chill option. Additional instructors (Gyre, Zafika, etc) can also totally happen.

Power training with Haizea

[silentwords]

Seth... had actually gotten a decent amount of sleep in after Matilda had left. And thanks to that his emotional reserves had pretty much recovered.
Though that of course meant he was back to being pretty nervous. Well at least he'd gotten to know the majority of Knights yesterday? And honestly his experiences had been mostly positive.

So taking a deep breath, he head for the open-air basketball court, following the sign. If he wanted to be more helpful, figuring out and learning to use his powers would be the first step towards that goal.

[tropicalstorm]

Haizea is practicing her own powers out on the court, ever since getting a handle on her wind powers she's been itching to see how much control she has. She's got a bag full of basketballs next to her and is purposefully throwing bad shots at the basket, then immediately trying to use the wind to guide the ball through the net. It's pretty difficult and she's missing about two thirds of the shots she's throwing.

"Yes!" she yells, after making a basket. She wipes the sweat off her brow and looks around, ready for a break. When she sees Seth, she waves and heads over.

"Hey there! You here to work on your powers?" she says, signing H-E-L-L-O as she approaches.

Combat + Haizea

[fop_lop]

Last anyone saw of Terrence, he was still sauced out of his mind and shedding ever more articles of clothing at around 1:30 AM.

...So it's kind of a surprise when he comes jogging into the training area looking bright-eyed and bushy-tailed (literally) as all get out, complete with a generously form-fitting Game of Death jumpsuit. A matching wristband wraps around his ears, absolutely nailing the Lola Bunny look.

"Alright, who's ready to teach this pampered brat how to throw a punch?" he asks, looking around for Haizea. It's not that he'd mind training with Garrot, but the dragon knight is closer to his size and less... Hyperbolic.

[tropicalstorm]

Haizea would be delighted to! She looks up from the pile of training gloves she'd been sorting by size and waves Terrence down.

"You came to the right place!" She says brightly, then looks Terrence up and down. "You're really going all out, huh? 'A' for effort!" and she gives him a thumbs up.

combat - open someone please help her

[scandeled]

Matilda has shown up bright and early, as...prepared as she possibly could be. Okay, so maybe she's not as dressed for the occasion as she should be, in her brightly colored romper and her gladiator sandals, but honestly, it's as close as she's going to get until someone forces her into sneakers. Her hair's tied up, her goggles are firmly in place, and she was feeling really confident until she got over here to this ridiculous amount of stuff in here.

Is it too late to run? She turns around to try and leave.

[zafika]

As she turns around she bumps straight into Zafika, who was in the middle of returning to the combat area after having gone to sneak a cup of tea from the so called breakfast room. They had been deep in thought, which had allowed to collision to happen, but it also means that they give a quiet, very much serpentine hiss as they stumble backwards a bit.

"Who the-" And then they notice the scent of a very sweet annd familiar perfume, and quickly peek at the person they had bumped into from beneath their blindfold. Matilda. Oh no. "Fuck, I'm sorry, I wasn't paying attention to where I was going... are you here to train?"

Combat + Garrot

[spookyroomba]

Web's first reaction to the message and video is oh thank fuck. Their second reaction is to note the time and location so they can head there right after a good bath. They'll eat afterward, they can handle it.

Once they're at the gym, they look around for someone who looks like a teacher. Someone who actually knows what they're doing, in other words. ... Or one of the folks from the video. That's easier.

Over to Garrot they go, head tilted. "'Scuze me," they manage. "Do you know how to fight? 'Cause I don't, and I'd like to fix that."

This is so much more awkward than just honking a vuvuzela at people. Ughhhh.

[daddykong]

The scuze me is a great indicator that Garrot needs to redirect his attention, so he spins on his heels and stops when he's facing Web. Mostly. He has to adjust a bit so they're actually looking at each other. The Monkey Knight looks far different from his suit and tie of the day before. Gray sweatpants, a white tank-top with a MurtaKorp logo, and a matching headband and scrunchie combo, both bright pink and adorned with a rainbow-haired half-dragon, half-bear creature that's clearly from the popular children's show with all the merchandising.

"You were with us in the woods!" And then Garrot extends a hand out for a handshake, which makes it harder to avoid the dragon tattoos snaking up from his elbows to his chest. "I don't think we've actually had an introduction yet." He chuckles, but doesn't really stop the confidence train. "I'm Garrot, and I can probably teach you whatever you wanna know." And then he looks side to side awkwardly. "Whatever that is?"

Combat training, open

[zafika]

Zafika arrives bit late at the gym, having had to make a detour to their housing in Craydon, but they're now here, and ready to help people train. Their experience gives them the perfect knowledge to help people work on their footwork and dodging, and for attacking, they plan to go for more technique and dexterity than physical strength relying way of combat.

So basically, if anyone wants rogue/assassin training from them, feel free to approach them, they're waiting next to the sparring weapon racks, close to the makeshift sparring ring!

Seth: it's time to learn how to have good footwork

[silentwords]

Seth was honestly very happy with the progress he'd managed to get done on his powers with Haizea...which meant now was the time to tackle the more hands on aspect of fighting...and admittedly it made him very nervous due to past experiences.

Garrot seemed a little busy at the moment though...
And then Seth spotted Zafika and he perks up a little.

Zafika was an assasin, so maybe they could teach him about the more non-direct aspects of fighting.
So he heads over waving a little.

Power training with Haizea

[roaryrory]

Since Rory had already got some punch practice in with Garrot last night, she figures power training would be good to get done next. Thus, she locates Haizea when she arrives at the Punch Club. Rory had more of a clue of what her powers could possibly be after thinking about all the different incidents the night before - and after having a talk with Sefaq as recommended, turns out her hunch about them being sound based was accurate. Maybe she and Haizea can brainstorm different applications for them.

"Hey! I'm here like I promised!" She looks energized again after a good night's sleep, and she has an already-bitten-into energy bar from the breakfast table in her hand. There will be a new monster to look forward to, so she has no time to dwell on what she could have done differently on the first one. "So, power stuff, right?"

[tropicalstorm]

Haizea's still out on the court when Rory flags her down, and she waves in a greeting.

"Hey there, glad you could make it!" She tilts her head to the side and nods. "Yep, power stuff. Do you know what yours is?"

Breakfast, open!

[partyhorse]

Gail didn't just want to Not come at all since that would be rude, especially after Garrot made the effort to reach everyone, but he also didn't really. Know what to do here. So he kind of his in the breakfast room, snacking on some donuts and pacing around.

Garrot teach this kid some self-defense

[silentwords]

Seth had taken a break after training with Zafika, sure he was used to moving around his heavier puppets, but aside from that he wasn't used to longer physical exersize. So he'd had to take a break to recover a little.

Now that break time was over though...
Seth was really nervous for what he was about to do.
Because it meant talking to Garrot again after things had ended on kind of an awkward note because of his freak-out last morning.

So he's nervously fiddling with his fingers as he approaches Garrot.

Sparring with Garrot

[zafika]

When they have a break from training the other Knights, Zafika slinks away from everyone who are practising to have a moment alone, and glance across the room. The Knights they're training are doing better than they expected, but they still have a lot to learn. Maybe they should suggest having them train a little on their own too.

As they're looking over everyone, they spot Garrot near the sparring ring, currently not busy training someone else, and a thought pops into their mind. He had seemed very confident yesterday when talking to them, so he most likely had felt that he could have taken them down if they had ended up being a problem.

The more they think about it, the more they want to test out his skills. And, they haven't exactly gotten to practise properly themselves either, so this should be good for them too. They push themselves off the wall, and without making a single noise make their way over to Garrot, and like always, leave enough distance between them that they won't be punched if they startle him. "Hey. Do you have a moment?"

Power training with Haizea

[fauntofwisdom]

Joanna slept little through the night, and she was already awake when the group text arrived with the video message. The invitation was an answer to prayers she'd hardly dared to voice. Knights, reaching out to each other, guiding each other through this. An invitation to advice on her powers, rather than the reminder that she's not as physically able to fight as some of the others.

The earliest train ride - aside from the one leaving just as she watched the video - wouldn't be until 7:45, so she found herself with time to eat, dress, ask Fius about her power, and experiment a little. The answer of "stasis" gave a few ideas, especially after checking some online dictionaries, and trying to summon her powers on her coffee mug...

Well, she shows up to the gym shortly after 8:20, with shadows under her eyes, casual yoga attire, and a damp coffee stain on one sleeve. After a moment of studying the signs, she beelines for the basketball court.

"Hello, the court," she calls out, waving to the couple of people already there. "Who should I speak to for training ideas?"

x:xxam Train Ride

[wizardseason]

The party train is available for any hero who finds it.

It'll be rolling through Far Haven at 6am, 7:45am, 9:30am, and 11:15am.
It'll be rolling through Bamborough at 6:35am, 8:20am, 10:05am, and 11:50am.
It'll be rolling through Craydon at 7:10am, 8:55am, 10:40am, and...
...well, this post only goes until noon. The next stop in Craydon is out at 12:25pm which is in monster arrival territory.

While on the train, your hero can get up to anything. Will they discuss with the others what they think of the first line of hero products? Does this action figure look funny? Do these stickers look okay? Discuss and deal with vendors or just party it up elsewhere on the train!

[disguiseself]

Oversleeping seemed to be quickly becoming a bad habit for Olivia. After exhausting herself the previous day, she had gone to bed early, missing dinner, and woken up with a hunger so great that the sounds her stomach was making could frighten the Wizard herself - or, maybe not, considering she had apparently sneaked in her bedroom and left her an... Ox pajama? Okay.

After a considerable freak out over not feeling safe in her own room, during which she cut the kirigumi to pieces (sorry Wizard), she put her make up on, took the backpack she kept her few belongings in, and caught the train. The thought that the Wizard could possibly know where each Knight was at all times hadn't crossed her mind before, but now it was making her paranoid - she did not like feeling exposed. Whatever the case was, she couldn't stay at the hotel anymore. It was too pretty for her, anyway.

The train was fine. Not too crowded, yet. She avoided the car with the vendors like the plague, making her way to one of the food cars instead, and filling up two plates with breakfast food. Sitting by herself, she takes her phone out with a sigh and starts going through the cat pictures on her camera roll. Her hoodie is up and her tail is nervously sweeping the floor.

10:30am, Power Plant, Far Haven

[wizardseason]

Social Media is abuzz that the Wizard has made an appearance in the power plant in Far Haven. She could wipe power out to the whole island if she wanted to, she could turn the connections to chocolate, or she could just be standing around. She hasn't done anything as far as the cell phone videos show, but is that going to last?

[roaryrory]

Despite her doubts concerning her rashness yesterday, here she is again, recklessly jumping in when she heard the Wizard was up to something. She snuck out from whatever she was doing before to go investigate the Power Plant, ill advisedly alone... unless someone followed her? Trying to turn her around? Or just accompany her? Either way, she has not noticed anyone else around, just the Wizard behind the corner.

11:30am, Relaxing Time, Craydon

[wizardseason]

The residents of craydon, with the assistance of some of their kids, sent out invitation videos to ask the Princess and knights if they wanted to drop by Craydon and join in a meditation session. They're going to meditate outside, in the woods, and relax as much as possible before the next monster arrives. The residents of Craydon are emphasizing how important it is to keep mentally healthy above all else. Which of your fellow heroes have joined in on this session?

[sustainer]

Gyre has. He normally meditates in the evening to wind down for sleep, but he was uh busy last night, and he's a sucker for kids. While he hates that they sent another video to his phone, the second a child asks him to come meditate in Craydon, he already knows where he's going.

This is to say, Gyre is a couple meters from the general crowd, but near enough to be counted as part of it. He's got his legs folded and his hands cupped neatly in his lap. For the most part, he meditates with his eyes closed, but every now and then, he lets his gaze fall on a bird or a squirrel moving through the trees, following them incredibly closely until they disappear from view again.

Once he's gotten comfortable here, he also starts to practice his power. A soap bubble of a shield slowly grows around him, expanding out from the center of his body. It gets bigger and bigger until, about a foot out from his body, it pops and vanishes. He always frowns when this happens, before he sets himself right back to it. He needs to be able to hold this damn thing around himself at the very, very least, and he'll do this for the entire day if he freakin has to.

[eutychia]

Luka finds himself in attendance at the meditation session. He has, maybe unfortunately, forgone the kigurumi gifted to him and instead shown up in comfortable high-end leisure wear. He's never been one for the outdoors, but the townsfolk in Craydon were charming and a meditation session sounded like a welcome break from all the meal-heavy banquets he'd been to in the past couple days.

He's laid out a mat on the forest floor --- because ew, there are bugs there, and is currently sitting cross legged in a typical meditative pose.

Luka's having trouble putting aside thoughts of last night, when he'd spoken to the Protector in his dream realm. He lets out a sigh of frustration.

[spookyroomba]

Web, being a Craydon local, is already there, chilling in the woods and...occasionally snacking on a blade of grass between meditation sessions. Look, it's what they do. They like being in the woods, they were raised in the woods, so just being here is doing wonders for their mental health.

And, uh, so is eating the grass, apparently. Look, Web's always been an odd one...