Day 3: Monster Arrival

Morning-Afternoon: 11:00am - Evening

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

It's monster time.

Wherever your hero is when 11am rolls around, they're in for a change. At 11am on the dot everyone will start growing more and more transparent until, at 11:15am, they pass out momentarily. When they wake, they'll find that they aren't where they were before. More importantly, they'll find that the world is not as they left it. When they look around, or on their phones, they'll see that the date is 01 AW and the specific day is one day after the Wizard was defeated, the first time, by the first set of knights. The newspapers all around the city reflect a dramatic change in the world, though several characters may remember the change if they were alive for it.

While the island is still devoid of its inhabitants, the characters will find that they are now able to locate each other. They can text freely, they can team up, but even if they do they'll feel an inexplicable pull towards those they woke up with. More importantly, they'll each feel a pull towards another presence.

All six teams of heroes will feel a presence following them, an unmistakably menacing feeling that, if they stay still, gets closer and closer with each passing moment.

Third Morning Event: All Cities: The Past.

The Weather
Alive, but with what?
64°F / 18°C
There is only wind, the air crackles with electricity.

Prompts:

11:00am Bamborough: The heroes have been shaken up, at 11am on the dot everyone will start growing more and more transparent until, at 11:15am, they pass out momentarily. When they wake, they'll find that they aren't where they were before. Haizea and Olivia will wake on the edge of the fountain in Bamborough's resort hotel lobby. If they're unlucky, a hand, a foot, or their entire body may end up tumbling into the water of the fountain. Down by the water, Joanna and Web will wake up on their backs in the sand with the ocean water lapping at their feet and legs. If they stay laying there for too long, they'll end up underwater. How did Web make it from Far Haven to Bamborough this quickly?

11:00am Craydon: The heroes have been shaken up, at 11am on the dot everyone will start growing more and more transparent until, at 11:15am, they pass out momentarily. When they wake, they'll find that they aren't where they were before. Gail and Seth wake up in hanging hammocks in one of Craydon's fancier cabins, with a small assortment of fruits, veggies, and little bite-sized sandwiches laid out on a platter in the middle of the cabin. How anyone got Gail into a hammock is anyone's guess, but somehow he's going to have to make it down. Fortunately there's a little ladder on the wall, maybe that will help? Gyre, Rory, and Luka, meanwhile, wake up on the floor of the cog train as it's making the last leg of its trip up into Craydon's central train station. If they stay laying on the floor for too long, the train will take them all the way back to the base of the mountain. How did Luka make it from Far Haven to Craydon this quickly?

11:00am Far Haven: The heroes have been shaken up, at 11am on the dot everyone will start growing more and more transparent until, at 11:15am, they pass out momentarily. When they wake, they'll find that they aren't where they were before. Zafika and Matilda wake up in the elevator of one of the tallest buildings in town. The soft 'ding' of the elevator stopping at every single floor on its way down to the lobby is a gentle wake-up call for them both. The elevator is set to stop at every floor all the way down, and it's at about floor 15 when they start waking up. If they wait too long, it'll go all the way back up to floor 56. Terrence and Garrot, meanwhile, wake up on the roof of the local theatre. The sounds of still-airing movies are audible beneath them and the constant thrum of the air systems around them will bring them back to consciousness pretty quickly. Not to mention the unrelenting wind blowing from the storm. How did Garrot make it from Bamborough to Far Haven this quickly?

12:00noon, The Monster [Phase 1], Bamborough, Craydon, Far Haven: The third monster is here? If your characters stay put, they'll feel a menacing presence getting closer and closer but they won't see anything. If they stay long enough, something invisible will start shoving them. A shove here, a push there, the attacks will come from multiple directions and will persist until your character falls over. Whatever's happening, something's here and it's insistent. How are the heroes supposed to fight something they can't see?

1:00pm, The Monster [Phase 2]: For most of the heroes, the hour between noon and 1pm is spent being filled with more questions and no answers. Why were there invisible monsters shoving them around? Any heroes that tried to attack them just swished through empty air. Why couldn't they be hurt?

There isn't an answer to that question, because the real third monster arrives just in time to distract the heroes. At 1pm on the dot, every hero's monster pull will aggressively alert them to an approaching presence. In the same way that someone hears a plane approaching from the engines, it's a feeling that practically advertises the arrival of something horrible.

All six groups of heroes will be treated to a monster that is easily the stuff of nightmares. Imagine a child with yellow skin, but no face, no hair, no details of any kind. Except for eyes, three eyes (two humanoid, one forehead) this time. Just very clearly the shape of a child. The legs are entirely humanoid, but the arm is a mass of arms, all in varying lengths and with such weight that the body is leaned over and using that arm mass as another leg.

Also every child is split in half from the head down, meaning each half-child has one leg, a half body, half neck, half head, one and a half eyes, and a mass of arms. The teams of Haizea, Olivia, Gail, Seth, Zafika, and Matilda will all be treated to the left-half children. The teams of Joanna, Web, Gyre, Rory, Luka, Terrence, and Garrot will be treated to the right-half children.

These monsters will arrive slowly lumbering down the street, one and a half eyes scanning around them as they approach. The air around the monsters steams as if the ground were on fire, the monsters' image rippling in the rapidly rising air.

The Princess will discover that he has an advantage in this scenario. He can feel that there's something more to this, that there's something in the ground that he can control. If he tries to focus on it, he'll find that he can set the ground ablaze simply by focusing on it. The range isn't overly far, though, no more than thirty feet. He'll have to plan carefully if he wants to heat things up!

?:00pm, The Monster [Phase 3]: Unknown. Will be revealed if triggered or no later than May 22nd.

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: If your character makes an attack against the monster (or stays still for longer than 3 in-game minutes), write [Character does ____] at the end of your tag and send a ping on Discord to get a reply to the action.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The great thing about the wizard isn't facing the monster, it's showing everyone online that they did.

But with the knights stuck in a frozen time in the past, and the world's apparent population down to 13 + monsters, who is there to show? Clearly, they need to fight, beat the monsters, and return to the future.

Absolutely none of that nonsense crosses Joanna's mind, as the monster's arms start writhing and spreading out towards them. She's too busy counting arms, panicking, trying to figure out how the arms are making fire - and noticing the sound and motion of another monster lumbering toward them from the same direction.

"There's another... The other half, I think!"

She starts to try to reach with her stasis power, to stop the new monster from advancing like she froze yesterday's... but that doesn't make sense. Those arms are too many, and too different, as if it's stolen the arms from a dozen people. Hardly seems something her powers would consider 'one object.'

Instead, she asks Fius for a full metallic bowling ball - brightly colored if he can manage it - and freezes that in the air. If she hits it a few times, and aims it right, it should smash that monster back, right?

Web is pretty sure their harpoon won't work here. In fact, it might do the opposite of good, especially with Joanna's doomsday proclamation.

(Okay, it's not that bad. But it could be, seeing as there are now MORE horrifying eldritch nightmare child monsters and all. Web's really trying not to think about that...)

Still, they need offense and also defense, in case those things get too close. Now, what would help under those circumstances? It takes them a moment, but they figure it out and ask Aqrisqi for a big ole spiked tower shield.

Offense and defense, right there. Maybe they're a coward, but if it works, it works!

Are they halves of a whole? Should we keep them apart? [Olivia asks, noticing the wisps that start popping up when the two monsters get close.

Seeing as the other Knights are already getting ready for a fight, she doesn't wait for an answer. She produces her Knight dagger from somewhere under her clothes, and watches it transform into a long chain whip as Iv fulfills her unspoken request. Then, she sets herself beside Web and aims at the legs of the monster half that's furthest away.

Olivia attempts to lasso one of the halves with her whip, hoping to make it fall! If it works, she'll pull that half away from the other one.]

"I don't like the looks of that," Haizea mutters when the monsters get closer and start spurting flames. "But I think I can sort it out," she says, sighs, and thinks about rain. The skies above start clouding over, but it will be a little bit longer before they open up.

"Good idea," she says to Olivia. "It'll take me a minute to do my stuff, so I think keeping them apart is a solid plan," she nods as maybe just one drop of rain hits the ground. She's making this happen as fast as she can and flexes her hand around her brass knuckles impatiently.

[Haizea starts to make it rain]

Fius provides Joanna with exactly what she'd asked for: A bright orange bowling ball. With every strike she makes against the mid-air stasis'd weapon, it starts glowing yellow more and more while a red arrow points out in the direction of the monster. That's a pretty perfectly lined up shot, there, that would mess the monster's day up pretty badly.

To the side, Web ends up with a solid metal spiked tower shield. Aqrisqi immediately questions if it can even be lifted? That's uh, scary and heavy? It may have good offense if they fall against it, and it's definitely a good defense, but there's no way one person could move it. It's just too heavy. Hopefully it won't melt in the heat? (Spoiler: It won't)

Olivia pulls off something incredibly cool. The chain whip wraps right around the foot of the closer monster. It's surprisingly easy to pull off of its feet... after Joanna's bowling ball smashes into its face. A huge splorch of yellow blood splatters all around it from the impact just before its entire body falls backwards onto the ground and gets pulled forward towards the heroes. The distance placed between it and the other monster means the air goes back to heat and not fire anymore. Also the continued pulling results in something even worse:

The monster's leg rips clean off, splattering the ground around it in yellow. The other half starts a slow lurch forward after it, arms raising up to prepare to punch any hero that gets too close...

And then it starts to rain. The air fills with steam in seconds and the boss music gets more dramatic.

[ Monster 1 HP: 30% (Bludgeoned; -1 Leg) ]
[ Monster 2 HP: 100% ]

Joanna doesn't quite hear the boss music, but she does hear her own heartbeat. It's pounding loudly after that grisly display, because for all they're strangely colored and more strangely shaped, the monsters still resemble injured children. She doesn't envy the knights who have to go in close with powers or weapons to attack them, and spends a few seconds grateful for the rising steam limiting her view.

But that's also the new conundrum. The steam's filling the view of the monsters - and where her weapon flew off to. Joanna starts a few steps to the side, planning to sneak along the side in search of the ball - when she freshly notices the strange pulling toward the monsters, the other knights.

"...Strange. All day it's felt uncomfortable leaving people, as if I shouldn't go off on my own... and here's these monsters, visibly divided and burning when they're near each other," Joanna says slowly, and comes to a halt several steps away. "Doesn't it seem a bit like a riddle? It's dangerous to us for them to be close, but maybe, if we forced them together, they would burn each other out...?"

(Joanna's searching the steam for her weapon, back to the side of the street, with the other knights in view. If either monster comes for her, she'll try to lunge back and further towards where her ball flew off. If either monster attacks Web's shield and seems to be pushing through, she'll use stasis on it to keep the shield from (immediately) crushing Web and Olivia.)

Web grins. They weren't planning to pick it up. Joanna's musings, however? That gets their attention, and the grin drops as they consider it. If that's true, then...maybe they'd have to be more careful with the charging?

Either way, they've got their hooves planted securely in the ground, and they're bracing themselves just in case.

[Web is defending this turn.]

“Given enough time, they might burn each other out. Or,” she pauses, and the rain starts falling much, much harder, “we can just try to put out the fire in the first place!” She sends a strong gust of wind out towards the monsters to both keep them slowed down and direct more of the rain in their direction.

“Olivia, so you think you can pull of that whip trick again? See if we can cut them both down to size,” she suggests, then asks Fumicq to change her weapon, this time into a long studded club that she holds like a baseball bat; if she can’t put out the heat entirely, she figures she ought to keep her distance when/if they get close.

[Haizea makes it rain much harder, sends another gust of wind towards the monsters to slow them down and hit them with more rain]

[Olivia wasn't expecting a whole leg to come back with the whip!! She lets out a lot of ew ew ew ew ews as she removes that thing from her weapon and throws it far to the side in disgust.

She nods at Haizea's words, preferring to keep the monsters apart too. Better safe than sorry, she thinks.]

Would we be able to drop the shield on one if it gets close? [She asks Web, pointing at the monster that lost its leg, before aiming her whip at the monster that still has all of its limbs and cracking it, hoping to catch its foot too. If she does, she's going to try to either rip its leg off too, or otherwise pull him away from the other monster]

Joanna's searching will end in her finding the bowling ball about five feet to the side of the approaching monster 1. It's in a puddle of steaming water, coated in monster blood. The monster is struggling nearby, approaching it will be incredibly difficult with all the arms. Better be ready to fight!

The second monster is kept at bay, having a really hard time approaching either its companion or the heroes. Every time it manages to take a step, it ends up having to slam its hands down to the side to stabilize itself. This means it's advancing slowly, diagonally towards the heroes. Which also means it's getting farther away from its injured first half.

The first monster's leg splatters to the ground and immediately goes to pudding. Unfortunately for the diagonally-walking second monster it's about to join the other one. The whip rips the leg off of this one almost identically to the first, apparently it didn't learn from what it had just seen, and it falls to the side and lands on all of its arms. Unfortunately it's quicker to start moving. All of its arms start rapidly slamming into the ground and propelling it towards primarily Olivia or, if it misses, the others who get in the way. It's time for a charge!

[ Monster 1 HP: 25% (Bludgeoned; -1 Leg) ]
[ Monster 2 HP: 90% (Bleeding; -1 Leg) ]

Yeah, if she had to guess where the weapon had gotten to - if she looked deep down in her heart and asked where she least wanted it to be - in a puddle of steaming monster blood a few feet from a monster is exactly the place.

Thankfully, from the way that torn off leg seemed to just dissolve into fluid, maybe they'll be able to tear these monsters down to size without risking the flame approach.

Joanna pulls her jacket over her head, the better to protect it from scrabbling arms, and dashes in to get a hand on the bowling ball. Her own mild telekinesis isn't enough to really lift it, but it's enough to start the bowl rolling toward her grasp. She does her best to get both hands on it, and swing it up and around at any arms reaching her way.

"Fius! A small sword, please!" She calls out - knowing the companion might not be able to do it in the midst of battle, but worth asking anyway.

Joanna, be care— oh, I made it worse, I made it worse! [Olivia interrupts herself in a bit of a panic when she sees how quickly the monster is moving towards her now that it doesn't have a leg.

She takes a moment to breathe before asking Iv to change her whip into an axe, if it's no trouble. Then she positions herself next to Web behind the shield, giving him a nervous nod.

Olivia is going to try to push the shield on top of the monster when it gets close enough, asking Iv to help her if it turns out to be too heavy for the two Knights.]

"Oh no you don't!" Haizea exclaims at the monster that's begun heading towards Olivia. She puts herself in between the two of them, whips up another gust and then starts advancing on the monster in the wake of it. She adjusts her grip on her spiked club and follows the path of her gust, hoping to get a hit in before the monster can recover from fighting the force of the wind.

Once she's close enough, she raises her club and swings it like a baseball bat, hoping to knock the monster's head right off it's half shoulder.

[Haizea uses the force of a gust to keep the second monster in place, then tries to bludgeon it in the head with her spiked club]

Joanna's decision to put her jacket over her head is what saves her from a decidedly un-fun hand-grabbing party. The monster's hands try to get hold of her, but their momentum means they just sort of harmlessly slide off the jacket and end up flopping nearby. She ends up recovering her weapon after only three hand-attempts, the fourth hand gets struck by the swinging bowling ball and, a moment later, it's a small sword in her grasp. Fius is floating nearby, looking very panicked.

"That was close!"

On the flipside, Olivia is now axe-equipped and prepared for something dangerous but also slightly silly. The plan, fortunately for everyone involved, ends up working as an improvisation when Haizea steps in and clubs the monster's head mid-charge. Without a head to help it see or aim around it, the monster slams into the shield from the other side and makes an awful liquid sound. A moment later Iv is pushing the shield beside Olivia and-

The sound the monster makes when it's crushed by the shield can only be described as "about two dozen balloons filled with pudding and soup being crushed under a bunch of jumping children".

It's awful, and a moment later the air is full of the scent of petrichor and rotten fish, with just the slightest accents of strawberries and sulphur. Great!

The other monster, still trapped by the wind, shudders suddenly as its other half is defeated. It, too, drops onto all of its arms and suddenly begins to charge. With all those hands grabbing the ground, it looks like the wind isn't going to keep it back anymore! It's going to target all three of them and run them over!!

[ Monster 1 HP: 0% (Crushed) ]
[ Monster 2 HP: 90% (Bleeding; -1 Leg) ]

It could smell worse, and Joanna's nose only wrinkles a little as she breathes in the eu de monstre.

Somehow, she hadn't expected the entire half monster to squelch like that. Surely there's a harder core to them, something that needs be combined, or destroyed separately, or... something.

More to the point, she'd expected to be swinging a sword at the grasping arms, but now that monster's jelly, and the remaining one is charging off at the others.

"Look out, it's coming!" She calls in warning, with a glance at the puddle of monster residue in case anything particularly plot-relevant shines out from it, then gives chase after the others. It's tricky with a sword in hand, but it's the same principle as carrying scissors, right? You shouldn't run, but if you do hold it out at your side with the point down, the better not to trip and on the pointy end.

And if the monster slows its roll near the others, she'll do her best to come in lopping at its arms.

[Oh, Olivia did not like that sound, or that smell! It seems like the kind of smell that will definitely stick to her clothes and hair and - strawberry? She has a brief moment to wonder just what part of that monster smells like strawberries when Joanna's call pulls her back to reality.]

Iv, Web, help me pick this up! [She says, pulling at the shield to stand it back up and point it at the charging monster. It shouldn't be too hard with Iv's strength, and once that's done she'll let the Rooster Knight handle his weapon while she and her companion move to the side so the monster has to choose between targets rather than have them all together. She readies her ax in case it chooses her, ready to chop off the arms or plunge it into it's skull.]

Haizea sees it charging the three of them and decides to make herself the obvious target since she feels like out of the group, she'll probably take a hit the best.

"Hey, hey! Over here!" She yells, running at the monster from the side. She swings her club wildly a few times to try and get it's attention, then holds it upright when she gets close. She's intending to try and knock this one's head off too, but at the least maybe she can make a good opening for the others to hit it.

[Haizea charges the monster and tries to get its attention before readying another swing at it for when it gets close]

Unfortunately for Joanna, the only thing plot-relevant in the puddle of the monster is the fact that it's defeated. How unfortunate! Nobody wanted that smell especially when it wasn't plot-relevant. Her plan to go arm-lopping turns out successful, because the second monster body attempts exactly that: Grabby hands! They, just like before, get cleaved through like butter to a hot knife and end up splattered on the ground.

Olivia's team tactic to get the shield into place is successful, though now the shield looks like it's coated from top to bottom in nacho cheese. Gross!

Haizea, on the other hand, pulls a Dr. Malcolm from Jurassic Park to attract the ~~T-Rex~~ monster to her and, even though she doesn't have a flare, still successfully gets its attention. It diverts its charge, and its arms, right at her.

Fortunately for everyone, this monster is weak to clubs in the face and, thanks to Joanna, has far fewer arms than it did before.

It rushes her in an entirely predictable manner and gets its head knocked clean off in the process. Unfortunately for Haizea, though, this one doesn't fall to the ground before it bursts. Instead, it reacts like her club was a pin through its balloon body and, in one smooth and entirely unavoidable result, its nacho-cheese pudding leftovers splatter over Haizea like a wave of disgusting sulphurous rotten fish strawberry blood.

Guh-ROSS!

[ Both monsters have been defeated! ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Day 3: Monster Arrival

Morning-Afternoon: 11:00am - Evening

The Weather

Prompts:

Procedure:

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