Day 3: Morning

Morning: 6:00am - 12:00noon

[ IRL Timeframe: April 22nd - ~~April 29th~~ May 8th, 2019 ]

It's the third day and, in striking comparison to day two, it is not a bright and sunny morning. The day begins for every hero with an unfamiliar room in an unfamiliar place in an unfamiliar time.

When your characters check their phones, clocks, calendars, or any other timekeeping implement they'll find that the year is 00 AW, forty years before the present day. The year before the Wizard's first game was held, the year before it came down to only two knights and the Princess facing off against the Wizard. It was before all of it.

Everywhere your characters go, there are no people. Their devices will not connect to the internet outside of the island, their companions will not appear, the Protector will not answer, but they can text each other without difficulty. If groups in the same city try to find each other, they will find that some kind of mystical plot barrier is keeping them from finding each other. A wrong turn, a locked door, a lost connection. Somehow, they're kept apart. All the support they have is who they woke up with. Oddly, everyone wakes up in their normal day-to-day clothing rather than pajamas.

There have to be answers somewhere, but where?

Third Morning Event: All Cities: The Past.

The Weather
Eerily still.
64°F / 18°C
The trees are unmoving, there is no wind.

Prompts:

6:30am Spa Hotel, Bamborough: Two sets of heroes wake up in the Spa Hotel in Bamborough. Garrot wakes up in the same room as Olivia. On the far side of the Spa hotel, in one of the waterfront cabins, Haizea and Joanna wake up in the same room. The hotel is empty, but every room is unlocked. Food's still in the dining areas, too. Oddly, things look like they were in use around the Hotel. Carts in the middle of hallways, half-eaten meals on tables, bags halfway up staircases. Odd.

6:30am Lodge Cots, Craydon: The Craydon lodge isn't much, but it's a spanning complex of cabins that maximize occupancy by filling them with cots for that "outdoor camping" experience. Rory and Gail will wake up in one of the cabins near the base of the mountain. On the furthest edge of the lodge, Gyre and Seth will wake up in their top-level cots higher up the mountain. There are a few campfires going with meat roasting over them, piles of raw meat to the side ready to cook, and various festivities left laying around. It's almost like everyone up and left all at once, but where did they go?

6:30am Cozy Inn, Far Haven: Far Haven's 'Cozy Inn' promises the 'small town feeling' in the middle of the big city. The inside is exactly that, a very cozy little hotel with three floors of rooms and a covered walkway with a glass floor over a garden into another section of the hotel. Zafika and Web will wake up in a room on the first floor nearest the train station exit of the cozy inn. No doors are locked here and it looks as if things were left strewn about like the people just teleported out of here. Terrence, Matilda, and Luka wake up in the glass walkway above, in sleeping bags. They'll find that the only way out goes to the cozy inn's far building, they'll have to go through a spanning cafeteria space with tons of empty tables that, strangely, look like they were just in use. Plates with half-full, or even untouched plates sit around on every table and there are even jackets draped over some chairs, purses on the ground. The city outside is much the same, vehicles just stopped in the middle of the street with no drivers, things dropped on the ground. What happened...?

9:30am, Exploration, Bamborough, Craydon, Far Haven: The scene is much the same in all three cities. When the heroes make their way outside, they'll notice that the sky above Harsen Island is a massive vortex centered over the mountain in the middle of the island. Heroes in Craydon will get to see it a little closer, the massive clouds occasionally crackling with blue lightning. All three cities have glowing cracks in the ground in various places, the cracks lead all around, some larger, some smaller, maybe there's something to be found? There are large glowing obelisks that are floating over each city and outside of them, they occasionally float down near the ground enough to touch or look closer at. Once the heroes make their way out into the streets, they might start seeing glimpses of a Wizard hat in the distance but each time it passes behind a wall or into shadow and is gone. Maybe they can catch up? Maybe your hero takes a moment to search through local news, the paper, letters, a television station. What's going on in the city right now?

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: 'Exploration' toplevels will unlock additional information as items in their descriptions are explored. If your character explores a feature, write [Character explores ____] at the end of your tag and send a ping on Discord to get a reply with further details regarding that item.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

The newspapers don't look that old, but those dates...this isn't happening. This is a prank, right? But folks know better than to pull this kind of prank on the Knights, Web is pretty sure. Party vans at all hours of the morning, that's fine, but this is too much. So, assuming this is true - well, for one, it means folks are going to come back eventually. Hopefully.

For another, it means more Wizard shenanigans than usual because they've traveled through time, what the fuck.

Web is pretty sure this isn't gonna end well, so they grab the nearest newspaper (a Farida one) and run for it. Alas, a little while out of the shop, they let out an undignified "mehhhh!" of distress as they trip over a crack. Normally this wouldn't happen to them, but they are a bit distressed over traveling through time, so...

[Web is freaking out over time travel. They also took a Farida newspaper for further study.]

Rory is dizzy from the anxiety in her chest pressing into her ribs, and for the moment she can do nothing but run. This has to be a nightmare, it has to be, there is no way this is happening otherwise. You'd think it would be easier to just keep running if it was a dream though, but that's not the case; she does have to stop eventually, and she falls on her knees next to a crack on the ground. It seems she's made it quite close to the mountain.

She takes a moment to catch her breath and hold her bad knee that's complaining about running so much so soon after her injury. Then the light from the crack brings her back to her senses. Well, that's new, but not the first new thing she's encountered today. Her curiosity beats her nervousness on this one, and she digs up a rock from her pouch to drop into it.

[Rory drops a small rock into a crack.]

Luka's injury-free, congratulations Princess you're unharmed!

His call out in the direction of the wind goes unanswered, but whether it's coincidence or in response to his call the electricity in the wind lets up. It's just soft static crackles, gentle touches that show there's something in the wind. But that isn't the most surprising part here.

The surprising part is the child's voice that speaks in Luka's ear. As if the child is right beside him, it speaks:

"Who're you mister?"

If Luka tries to find the source, there's nothing. Only the wind and the ground he's working on. What was that?

[After taking one look out the window, Olivia runs outside, taking in the situation. She bites her hand as she looks around, trying to ground herself and not panic. She probably only has a very vague idea of what had happened in the year she's currently in; she dropped out of high-school and wouldn't really remember the history lessons from when she was younger. Regardless, this is really fucked up. We are not in Kansas anymore.

She doesn't wander too far from the hotel, not wanting to be separated from Garrot just yet. She carefully walks over to one of the cracks in the ground, crouching down to inspect it, ready to jump away if it does anything weird. She leans in a little, trying to see what's going on inside it.]

"Yep, definitely a glitch, technology is dumb, let's get out of here!" Haizea says, sounding more like she's trying to convince herself than Joanna. Her bad feeling about all this hasn't let up, she at least wants to get out of this unknown hotel and get her bearings.

She leads the way down the hallway, brass knuckles still clenched on her right hand. Eventually, they find a door that leads outside the large cabin they'd woken up in. Haizea takes a deep breath before reaching for the doorknob, almost dreading what they're going to find.

She's frustrated and confused and upset by all this, and in a split second decides to do something that might be stupid.

"Hold on, kiddo," she says under her breath. With her brass knuckles, her knight weapon, on her right hand, she pulls back and then throws a punch towards the bottom of the obelisk. Even though it feels solid, if there's a bubble in the center that the child is floating in, she's hoping to break through it and let the kid fall out of the bottom, hopefully unharmed.

He stumbles in place upon hearing the unfamiliar voice, and so close too. He wasn't particularly used to having people in his personal space, and definitely not having those people be spooky disembodied child voices.

He pauses, trying not to panic. Maybe he was just misinterpreting the situation. He tries to calm his nerves and answers in his most confident voice.

"Luka. And who are you?" Again, he's not sure if he should even expect and answer, but it's worth a try.

My parents. [ He stops for a moment on the stairs. ] My father. [ And then he keeps going, just a little faster. Garrot isn't interested in Olivia's faces or reactions- if they aren't alone this is a good way to find out. ] If we're in the past, there's a seven-year-old me out there, and...

[ The footfalls get a bit heavier, as if Garrot really wants to see this through. His tone has shifted closer to... childish whimsy. ] That means I get to figure out who he was before the Wizard showed up, what he was like... [ There's a sigh. ] ...before he died.

[ And then he takes a little leap and sticks the landing at the bottom of another flight of stairs. Looks like someone's getting impatient. ]

Haizea gains 32 experience and discovers one "Clue" item when she impacts the obelisk with her weapon.

The moment she strikes, the entire world around her is gone and she's left to stumble forward. The Obelisk is gone and she's standing in front of a familiar house surrounded by fields on all sides. Standing mere feet away from her is the child from the Obelisk, one of the vegetables from the field in-hand. A moment later they turn, their sky-blue eyes locking on Haizea.

"Remember to set me free."

And Haizea doesn't get the chance to respond, because the vision is gone and so is the child. The obelisk is gone, and Haizea's left standing in the empty street where she'd tried to strike.

What was that?

"Luka" The voice sounds curious, trying the name like it's something shiny and new.

"Lukah?" They experiment, putting the emphasis on a different syllable.

"Looooka!" They try a different way, laughing a moment later in this utterly childish way.

But as they laugh, it's clear their voice is getting further away. Fortunately it's further in the same direction the wind is coming from. What's over there? Where's he being led? At least there aren't any trees to run into and the ground is relatively stable even if it is uphill at this point.

Zafika will get treated to something truly odd. When their hand settles into the crack, the wind picks up and starts wisping over them as they crackle with electricity. Their hair starts to stand up on end, their clothing crackles everywhere the air rustles it, and they feel like they're filled with energy (but not the kind they could use, just like they were holding it for someone else).

If they take their hand away, they'll return to normal. But the wind will continue, it's blowing from up the hill and through the trees. What's causing that?

Web, meanwhile, won't find much more in the newspaper. It's mostly all articles in the same tone and subject of the front page. The world's mostly in a panic over just about everything. Some countries ready for war, others trying to understand the world. The only thing that's certain is that nothing is certain. Their foot feels like it tapped something filled with static electricity when they trip on the crack, but they fall away from it.

There's no sign of what's causing the glow, instead it just seems like the rock itself is what's causing the glow. Like it's a hollow vessel filled with something magical, but if that was true then why was only this glowing? Why was every inch of the whole ground not glowing? Weird!

Fortunately there's no sign that it's growing, they seem largely stationary. The only odd thing is that none of the cracks seem to have ripped through buildings like fractures from earthquakes do. Instead these rip through paths, roads, parks, all natural areas.

Hopefully Joanna doesn't try to drive anywhere.

[ The crack itself is just a rip through the ground, like someone took two sections and pushed them against each other until they jutted upwards from the force. It's only the sections that have jutted up, the middle of the cracks, that are glowing. ]

[ When Olivia crouches down, she'll get to feel how the air itself changes around her. The closer she is to the ground, the more it feels like she's being pressed in on all sides by static electricity. Everything crackles, everything starts standing on end. Whatever's going on, it's charged. ]

Rory, what if this crack didn't want a rock? Huh? What then? Gosh.

Unfortunately the crack has no choice but to accept the rock, and when it plunks down into it it taps a few times before there's a pulse of bright blue light and then the rock is gone.

And then Rory will feel a weight in her hand and the rock is back there, hanging out in her fingers like it'd never been dropped at all. Did she actually drop it? Was this magic? Weird!

Well, in that case, it's an ungrateful crack! It should know Rory only collects the prettiest, most interesting of rocks.

She blinks at the rock back in her hand, then drops it back in. Have to make sure that wasn't a fluke.

Okay fine it'll just have to eat the rock this time.

But even so, a few seconds more pass this time before Rory feels the familiar weight in her hand. Rock's back.

Huh. Well, then. At least no rock was lost. Rory stands back up, not feeling any more certain about what's going on. The cracks are magic, alright.

She looks up towards the mountain, and the vortex above it. Is there something going on there? Maybe it's the Wizard's doing. She furrows her brow in determination and [starts hiking up toward the eye of the storm.]

Hey, I was wondering where you went, you just took off, and- [ Garrot comes bounding around the corner with the grace of worried parent, but he almost skids to a halt when he sees what Olivia has found. ] Whoa.

[ The doctor quickly approaches, one hand grasped tightly around his phone, which is definitely recording. This is a research goldmine, they're here when everyone on the island was gone. ] One of these showed up in the schoolyard back home. Recess got cancelled, and all our parents had to come pick us up. [ For a nearly-fifty-year-old man, he sure sounds bummed! And mostly like he's talking to the air- Olivia doesn't have to listen to his elderly ramblings. ]

But it might be dangerous. [ A beat, and he puts a hand on Olivia's shoulder. ] Wanna throw a water bottle at it and see if it gets zapped? [ Garrot sees those electrical visual effects, and he's a man of science. ]

Weird, yes. Almost as weird as waking up in an empty island full of glowing cracks in ground and sky alike.

It's plain that something unnatural and magical is going on here, even if she doesn't understand the details of it... yet. Since it seems the ground probably isn't going to crumble beneath her hooves, Joanna crouches down next to one of the cracks. If the rock itself is glowing, wouldn't that glow spread further than the cracks? This seems more like there's something invisible about the cracks causing the glow to radiate forth... and there's an easy way to test it.

She pulls at the edge of the stones, searching for a glowing piece small enough to pick up and carry away from the cracks.

Fortunately for Rory, the hike up the mountain is fairly straightforward. But there's a slow-blowing wind towards her that picks up in speed the closer she gets towards the storm. Every time some of the wind wisps by her face, it seems like it's crackling a little more with electricity.

The cracks in the ground seem to have no pattern and they don't get any more or less as she approaches. Hopefully she's fine with dodging cracks in the ground while running in the wind!

Also her hair's definitely frizzing and standing up on end in all this electric fun.

Unfortunately for Joanna the glowing rocks seem fairly solid, but since the ground is all crunched up and damaged... It doesn't take more than a few pulls at the edges of the glowing cracked stones to find one that breaks away.

But the moment it's pulled free, the blue glow vanishes from the rock. The blue glow on the ground she'd broken it from remains, but the little piece she's holding is now just a rock.

It was worth a try.

Gyre's curiosity pays off by giving him the same feeling he'd felt in the first crack. The same leap of electricity up his arm, the same feeling to follow. It's almost like he'd stuck his hand in the exact same crack he'd felt before.

Were all the cracks linked? Was it just the same magic? What was the deal?

She wishes her powers were working, but as it stands, yelling against the wind would only tire her out faster. She has no choice but to persevere against the wind if she wants to find out what's happening up there. And God does she want to. Despite the crackling of electricity intensifying around her, she will go on until it's literally impossible to continue.

What was that INDEED!

She stumbles a bit when she finds herself back in the street before finding her footing again. She looks at her brass knuckled hand, the back out at the street where the obelisk had been.

“Set you free, huh...” she mumbles this time, hands dropping to her sides as she looks up to the swirling sky above her. This is not the first time a child has asked her for help, but it’s definitely the first time she’s had no idea how to even begin doing so. The feeling of powerlessness she’s experiencing right now is crushing, she’s not felt anything like this since she was a child herself.

He follows the direction of the voice, picking up speed this time to keep up with the voice's growing distance. He's relieved that the bursts of electricity in the wind have seemed to calm.

"Yes, that's me. But you didn't tell me your name." He hopes his voice will carry over the wind. "You should be careful out here, something weird's going on!"

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Page 6 of 11

Day 3: Morning

Morning: 6:00am - 12:00noon

The Weather

Prompts:

Procedure:

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