Day 4: Morning

[wizardseason]

Morning: 6:00am - 12:00noon

[ IRL Timeframe: July 3rd - July 10th July 17th, 2019 ]

If any hero was expecting day four to be anything but absolutely bananas, they'd been living in a dream bubble. Fortunately for everyone, they wake up where they fell asleep the previous night. Unfortunately, though, everyone receives a decidely rude awakening at 6:06am.

An earthquake.

No part of the island is safe, everywhere and everything starts shaking and rumbling. Roads split, the train tracks bend, buildings fracture, buildings collapse...

...and bright, glowing blue fissures open up in the ground.

No city is safe from their new feature, but in every single city it's clear that the cracks are coming from a specific source. In Far Haven, the cracks lead west to Craydon. In Bamborough, the cracks lead east to Craydon. In Craydon, though, the cracks lead directly north up the mountain. They gradually narrow the further up the mountain you go, where do they end?

Heroes will, of course, not be able to immediately see this pattern. How are they going to find out about it? Social Media won't be buzzing about it until noon at the earliest!

But that won't be the only thing social media is buzzing about by noon. It looks like Web is nowhere to be found. A concerned local not a stalker reports the missing knight and there's quickly a deep discussion about it. Death? Ran away? Kidnapped? Abducted by aliens? No one knows. There's no body. There's nothing. Where'd Web go?

Fourth Morning Event: All Cities: The Quake.

---

The Weather

• Eerily still.
• 64°F / 18°C
• Despite the quake, there's a nice breeze.

---

Prompts:

• 6:06am Earthquake, Everywhere: Every town has fallen victim to an earthquake. The damage is unthinkable. Cars aren't moving anymore, roads and paths are obstacle courses, and everything inside has fallen over. It was a big one! Fortunately the citizens are out almost immediately to begin rescue and repair efforts. No matter where the heroes go, there'll be someone to help, something to do, or help to be offered. Do you need saving, or will you be saving others?


• 7:45am Train Station, Far Haven: Social media is going absolutely crazy. There's a MONSTER here! There's a monster in the train station!! Numerous pictures are posted of a Child-shaped monster with ten eyes instead of a face. Today, however, he's wearing a pair of black athletic shorts, some flip-flops, and a T-Shirt that says "I'm with Stupid" on the front and an arrow that trails around to the back of the shirt where it says "You're Stupid". At the train tracks, he's going one rail tie at a time repairing them to get the tracks straightened and fixed again. What's the deal???


• 08:00am International Cabin of Crepes, Bamborough: As if Social Media wasn't buzzing enough about the monster in Far Haven, it explodes again when the Wizard arrives at ICoC for breakfast. Several servers post that she asked for "the family table" and she invited all the knights and the princess to join her. Breakfast. Her treat. Anyone who comes to visit will find her sitting at the head of the biggest table, sipping a mug of coffee.


• 11:00am Mountain Base, Craydon: [Exploration] Several hikers have returned from up the mountain, reporting that they'd found "strange doors" blocking their path. According to the description they gave, it sounds like the doors can only be opened if one, or more, of the heroes make the climb up the mountain. The cracks go up past the doors, but there's an invisible wall all around the area that stops them from ascending any further. Whatever's going on up the mountain will need some heroic intervention to figure out. Good luck, heroes!

---

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.

Comments

6:06am Earthquake, Everywhere

[wizardseason]

Every town has fallen victim to an earthquake. The damage is unthinkable. Cars aren't moving anymore, roads and paths are obstacle courses, and everything inside has fallen over. It was a big one! Fortunately the citizens are out almost immediately to begin rescue and repair efforts. No matter where the heroes go, there'll be someone to help, something to do, or help to be offered. Do you need saving, or will you be saving others?

Re: 6:06am Earthquake, Everywhere, private with Rory

[zafika]

When the earthquake starts, Zafika jolts awake and somehow through the chaos gets down and gets dressed, before they rush out to see what's going on, only to witness the glowing, blue fissures starting to open up in the ground. What the fuck...!? What the fuck what the fuck!

Luckily the house they're staying in survives the earthquake, and once they've gathered their bearings -and things from indoors- they climb up onto the roof to get at least a little bit better look of what's going on. And from what they can see, it's bad. Really bad. There are fissures everywhere, some houses are collapsed, some just fractured, but it's absolute hell. Residents in craydon are quick to start rescue and repair efforts, and they figure they should offer some help.

So, they put on the glasses Garrot gave them, the constant hum confirming that yes, they're working, and they quickly hop down from the roof, ready to head out to help.

6:10am Far Haven

[scandeled]

Matilda Hamilton very nearly sleeps through the earthquake- she's like a snoring sleeping beauty-- but a fucking lamp fell over and bopped her in the head, and that's got her up and out of bed. And... into the street, right away, because despite how terrifying this is, she's a fucking knight, and knights help people!

...Only, Far Haven's mostly abandoned, and Matilda's still puny, despite her attempts at training with the others. You don't get swole in three days. So she can be found in the street, barefoot and still in her frilly white nightgown, hair frizzy as she struggles to pull a literal tree out of the street. It's something.

[disguiseself]

[Olivia had woken up to the sound of a wall of the building she was squatting staying at cracking. After jumping out of bed, she had run to hide underneath a sturdy looking table until the shaking stopped. It was her first ever earthquake, but she had thankfully read enough about them to not panic.

After the immediate danger had passed, she went outside to survey the damage. She knows there won't be too many people in Far Haven, but there might be animals trapped... Instead, she sees Matilda. Trying to move a tree.]

Hey... uh. [Once she gets closer and notices what Matilda looks like right now, she raises an eyebrow. The two had never talked before, but the few times Olivia had seen her, the girl looked perfect and sort of... too beautiful to approach? It's kind of refreshing, in a way, meeting her like this.] You okay?

6:20ish

[fauntofwisdom]

When the earthquake comes, Joanna's not as tired as she could have been, thanks to falling asleep on the train the night before. And it's a good thing - the earthquake doesn't just shake furnishings off the walls, but drops a whole corner of the building into the rift.

She doesn't know the full details of what's happening as she wakes with a start at the shaking and shattering, but takes in enough to pull a blanket over her head for cover as furnishings fall and the skylights shatter glass all over. The building creaks and tilts under her, more things rolling off counters and slipping off nails to clatter and crash on the floor, and after a few moments it all comes to a tentative, tilted rest.

It's enough that she cautiously looks out, grabs for her bags, and goes to look out the window. There's signs of damage as far as she can see, with alarms going off in various cars and buildings. Checking outside the apartment's door is no better - there's cracks in the floor further down the hallway, with creaking sounds and the occasional falling rafter punctuating ceilings.

Between her own memory, and several panicked moments of consulting the internet, Joanna heads for the bathroom to take cover in the bathtub. In a high floor of a damaged building, trying to leave is as dangerous as staying put. Best to get to something sturdy and take shelter inside, to wait for rescue. And Far Haven may not have fully staffed emergency services, during wizard season... but there's multiple approaches available.

(Personal text)
Hi Matilda, this is Joanna,, Have you gotten any better with your knight power.. Or do you think you remember the way to my home? I could use some help getting to safety, if you can.. Thank you

CRAYDON

[sustainer]

It took Gyre some time to get ready this morning, his hands shaking as he tried to settle his mind. He remembers these cracks in the ground. He has very bad memories associated with these cracks in the ground. He doesn't know what to do with himself once he's found places for the collapsed bits of his camp, and he's moving just to move until he breaks the line of trees. His eyes hit Craydon first, and the sight of smoke in the air makes his chest tighten.

By the time he's gotten into town, he's moving with purpose, but there's an unguarded terror just behind his eyes, his body shaking when he's not using it to help people. Here, he's climbing the side of a building with his bare hands to collect a family stuck a couple floors up. Here, he's asked Fen for a long pole to try to lever a slab off concrete off someone trapped underneath. Here, he's standing at the edge of an alley, taking deep breaths to steady himself, running his fingers through his hair over and over again before he runs back out into the street.

He's going to exhaust himself, but he's going to help as many people as he physically can.

[silentwords]

Seth's running around Craydon, using his wires to wrap around things on the brink of collapsing as peopl hurry to get out. He's asked Qus for the reinforced glove to protect his hand, but he doesn't really even hesitate to use his less protected hand when he has to. He isn't really thinking. He's just doing what he can to keep himself moving and his mind off of the myriad of emotions whirling in his mind that he can't handle at the moment.

His clothes are dirty and he's scrathed up but that doesn't matter.
He spots Gyre at the edge of an alley, not looking to good and runs to check on the other Knight. They hadn't really conversed much after the other had helped him the first evening here, but the comfort the other had offered him back then had been of great help to him. So seeing him looking so frazzled concerns him.

6:06am onward Craydon

[silentwords]

Seth is, surprisingly, not in Bamborough when the earthquake happens. He hasn't really slept besides possibly dozing off for maybe 10 minutes at a time in a quiet corner if he's found himself in one.

What he has been doing, is walking around the island, well Craydon more specifically, as he was determined to be as far away from Bamborough as possible at the moment.

When the earthquake hits, he reacts kind of on autopilot and goes for the most open space, laying down so he won't fall, closing his eyes and curling up as small as possible, used to the frequent earthquakes that plague Tellan but damn if this isn't far bigger than any of them.

When he opens his eyes when the shaking finally stops they go wide in horror at the damage done. And in terror upon seeing the cracks. What had happened with the cracks during yesterday's horrors had been a very unpleasant and terrifying experience.

Maybe it's the stress, the lack of sleep, the conflicted feelings he's still battling with due to yesterday's time travel shenanigans, but Seth shuts down emotionally. He can't handle all the feelings inside him now so he will have to do so later.

People are calling for help.
And so he's going to try and help.

Re: 6:06am Earthquake, Everywhere

[tropicalstorm]

A few times over the course of her life, Haizea's hometown city in Farida had been hit by hurricanes that were especially bad. Each time, she and her gang had organized rescue and aid efforts to help everyone they could. When the earthquake hits, she defaults into the same general mode. After escaping from her ruined hotel room, she rounds up whatever survivors she could find and gets everyone digging. When buildings collapse like this, there are often more initial survivors than one would think and saving them comes down to the efforts of the first responders around them.

Her powers are somewhat useless against the force of the earth, but she spends the whole morning digging and hauling people out of the rubble. She doesn't even think to look at social media.

7:45am Train Station, Far Haven

[wizardseason]

Social media is going absolutely crazy. There's a MONSTER here! There's a monster in the train station!! Numerous pictures are posted of a Child-shaped monster with ten eyes instead of a face. Today, however, he's wearing a pair of black athletic shorts, some flip-flops, and a T-Shirt that says "I'm with Stupid" on the front and an arrow that trails around to the back of the shirt where it says "You're Stupid". At the train tracks, he's going one rail tie at a time repairing them to get the tracks straightened and fixed again. What's the deal???

[disguiseself]

[Olivia doesn't pay much attention to social media, really, so when she stumbles upon the monster its because she's trying to catch a train to Craydon. She'd been using the place Gyre gave her as somewhere to stash her things, but she figured she'd actually move in there now that her Far Haven place had broken glass and cracks on the walls. It's good to move around, anyway, right?

Upon seeing the monster, her first instinct is to reach for her Knight weapon, which is currently a dagger. She's learned from yesterday to have it on her at all times, besides her normal ones. She hesitates when she sees his stupid outfit though, briefly wondering if this is a real monster at all.]

Uh. Isn't it a bit early for this?

[wizardseason]

Ten turns his multitude of eyes towards Olivia when she arrives. They blink in a rippling pattern from the bottom right of his face towards the top left. He's in the middle of lifting a rail tie and shoving it to the left to match up with the ones behind it. Unfortunately, this jerks the next one in line at a strange angle. That's going to be tougher to get up and moved, but there's plenty of time.

But he shakes his head slowly when she asks if it's too early and, a moment later, he holds up a hand in the air and--

An Etch-a-Sketch board pops into existence, its red plastic frame glinting in the light for a moment. He brings it near his face, gripping it with both hands as he starts manipulating the two knobs to put some kind of message on the display. A few moments pass as he scritches out the message but, once he's done, he carefully turns it and holds it up towards her.

Unfortunately he's standing a little far away, so she'll have to come closer to be able to read the message that says:

not early
dont sleep

[daddykong]

See, Garrot had been running around Far Haven helping and healing people, as a buff doctor is wont to do. But news reached him that a MONSTER was in his city, so. Uh. He's there, staring at it from the train platform. His eyes are wide and the big guy is clearly somewhere between shocked and terrified. This monster is wearing clothes (what the fuck?) that match (what the fuck?) and are fun (what the fuck?) while it... fixes (what the fuck?) the train tracks??

"What," and Garrot cannot stress this enough, "the fuck am I looking at?" To be safe, he's already got a quarterstaff in one hand as he walks to about twenty feet away from the little weirdo. The monsters get one more eye every day, so why does this one have ten? Garrot needs answers quick or else he might lose his mind.

[wizardseason]

Ten, on the other hand, is minding his own business with the tracks. He's finishing up pressing down on a rail tie with one hand to slot it back into place when Garrot speaks up. Immediately all ten of its eyes snap up to him and he straightens up where he's standing. The eyes blink in two sets, five first and five second, all in random places. And then Garrot's approaching with a weapon in hand.

Ten keeps three eyes on the weapon while the other seven watch his face and, when Garrot doesn't actually do anything, decides this is a conversation. He holds up a hand near his head and an Etch-a-Sketch board pops into existence, its red plastic frame glinting in the light for a moment. He brings it near his face, focusing on it with seven eyes while gripping it with both hands as he starts manipulating the two knobs to put some kind of message on the display. A few moments pass as he scritches out the message but, once he's done, he carefully turns it and holds it up towards Garrot.

"trains?"

Was that what he was looking at?

Train station - 8am ish, if Ten's still there?

[fauntofwisdom]

After making it out of her partially collapsed temporary home, Joanna sticks around to help with her stasis power on some particularly collapsed buildings, holding a large piece of debris in place to make it easier for them to pull people to safety. She intends to to stay for some time helping out... But then social media gives warning of a monster already here, in the train station. And then there's nothing for it, she has to leave it to them.

Thankfully, Far Haven is (relatively) sparsely populated during wizard season. With all the closed businesses and people off-island, there aren't too many that stay in the area, and those that do have some pretty organized systems in place.

When Joanna makes it to the train station, she expects the shifted tracks and various signs of damage. She doesn't expect to see a humanoid monster in some perfectly normal clothing... putting the tracks to rights?

"...Um. Aren't you a little early, for a monster?"

She has to assume this is today's monster, but it's nowhere near noon. Doesn't the wizard have a pattern to this game?

08:00am International Cabin of Crepes, Bamborough

[wizardseason]

As if Social Media wasn't buzzing enough about the monster in Far Haven, it explodes again when the Wizard arrives at ICoC for breakfast. Several servers post that she asked for "the family table" and she invited all the knights and the princess to join her. Breakfast. Her treat. Anyone who comes to visit will find her sitting at the head of the biggest table, sipping a mug of coffee.

[scandeled]

Things Matilda Hamilton does not know: why she is here. She's wealthy enough to buy her own island, there's no reason for her to not buy her own breakfast. But she's exhausted herself from teleporting herself and various road obstructions out of the way-- so she finds herself sitting near the middle of the table, rapidly flipping back and forth the menu, unable to decide what she wants.

There's an untouched gigantic strawberry milkshake with sprinkles in front of her, but she's sipping black coffee and pouting, only stopping in her constant flipping back and forth of the menu to glare at her phone on the table.

[sustainer]

He arrives late. Very late actually, but his curiosity wouldn't let him give this opportunity up once he knew people had begun to get the towns back under control. He enters the restaurant all folded up on himself, trying not to touch anyone or anything, walking past the host station and jumping when said host turns to direct him where to go.

He could not look more out of place, and this continues as he pulls out a seat at the table and sits, looking like he expects something to explode any second now. Instead, a waiter comes up and he shrinks down in his seat, peering up at them from under his brow. He then asks for four eggs, and has to say four times that he doesn't want them cooked at all. He just wants them in the shell, please.

It takes a nod from the wizard, but the waiter nervously writes it down and leaves him in peace after that. He doesn't look uh any more relaxed, but he does at least turn his attention to the wizard, wondering how she's going to get this started.

[silentwords]

Seth looks like a dead man walking when he finally arrives after a lot of running around only to end up reluctantly going to check what had become of his...puppets...because he couldn't in the end resist the emotional pull to do that. He'd found only Marion and Abigail had survived intact, all the others were in various states of dismantlement. He couldn't decide whether to be grief struck or relieved.

Normally he would have wanted to stay as far away from the wizard as possible, but right now...he doesn't have the emotional resources to really be afraid. Besides there's promise of breakfast and he really has no idea where else he could get breakfast.
So (late) breakfast with the wizard it was.

Even though the smell of coffee made him grimace.

[eutychia]

Luka enters the ICOC with a certain air of authority, striding (mostly) confidently toward the Wizard's family-sized table. The hostess, having recognized him, guiding him there without a word.

He's requested the closest available seat to the Wizard, and sits.

"Good morning, Wizard." He says, simultaneously signaling for a mimosa from the waiter. Do they serve mimosas here? They do now. "Quite the morning, and it's not even 8 am. Nice of you to get us breakfast, though I question your choice of venue."

11:00am Mountain Base, Craydon: [Exploration]

[wizardseason]

Several hikers have returned from up the mountain, reporting that they'd found "strange doors" blocking their path. According to the description they gave, it sounds like the doors can only be opened if one, or more, of the heroes make the climb up the mountain. The cracks go up past the doors, but there's an invisible wall all around the area that stops them from ascending any further. Whatever's going on up the mountain will need some heroic intervention to figure out. Good luck, heroes!

[sustainer]

Gyre started to hear rumors about the mountain at breakfast with the wizard, and it didn't take him long after that to remember how difficult it had been to climb the previous day. Something weird is going on! More weird then normal, anyway.

This is to say, he's at the base of the mountain, trailing along it and looking up into the brush. He's trying to find the easiest path up, the one with the fewest cracks in the ground. Half of him is also wondering if other people are going to come here, and if they are, whether they should go together or not. He doesn't know if there will be a fight at the top.

This thought is the thing that makes him hesitate here, his gaze swinging from the path he's picked up towards the peak, then back behind him, scanning the area to see if anyone is coming, then back up. It's almost time to go. He can feel it in his guts. He's not going to wait much longer.

[zafika]

Zafika had been with Rory for most of the day, helping around in Craydon in whatever way they could, but the news about the "strange doors" blocking the path to the mountains eventually reached them, and they had to go check. Except, on their way, they had passed more civilians in need of help, and Rory had decided to stay and help after promising to Zafika that she'll catch up to them.

So, here they are, at the foot of the mountain, no other Knight in sight yet, getting some more information from the hikers that had gone up to the mountain. They don't like the doors and how they apparetly work, but the cracks go past them, they have to see what's going on.

But before they make the decision to get a move on, they hear Garrot, and quickly spot him too. And he's currently not with anyone, and they could use some extra physical strength with minimal amount of people, so they make a beeline to him, stopping only few steps away from him. At least they approached him from the front so he saw them coming?

"Okay, Rory and I were supposed to go up to the mountain but she hasn't gotten here yet, and I want to go search there already but I'm not stupid or suicidal enough to do it alone. Can you come with me?" That was, less ideal and organised than they wanted to, but the cracks have had them antsy the entire day, and for once they do not want to be alone. So they have to ask for help, even if it's, not exactly properly asking for the said help. But, if Garrot has picked up on their body language during the three previous days, they're clearly restless and, a little nervous. They're not very excited about where today is going.

8:35am, group chat

[fauntofwisdom]

Is everyone seeing fissures like this..
I saw something just like this in Bamborough yesterday,, or decades ago,, but it just keeps going

[With that, Joanna uploads a short videoclip. The preview image is full of a blue glowing rift than many may recognize. The video itself is a slow shaking pan, as if she was walking while filming, that starts turned back toward the distant shakes of Far Haven, then turns forward along the long fissure toward Craydon.]

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[scandeled]

(✿☉｡☉)!!

Did something break?! This is why all the stories say you can’t time travel!