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.

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The Weather

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

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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!

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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

[daddykong]

Things do not die if they are alive.

His eyes scan the text effortlessly, first widening at the notion that anyone can choose not to die, and then just... sputtering out at the mention of ice cream. Ten can probably see his synapses short-circuiting because of how hilariously unconnected those two things are. But Garrot's been plenty stressed this morning what with the earthquake and all, so some ice cream would actually be pretty great! He's got a cheeky little grin, akin to a parent who's about to drive a hard bargain with their child.

"If you tell me what kind of ice cream you want, I'll get you some. But you're gonna have to tell me what you mean by choosing not to die." Bargain aside, Garrot's looking plenty amused, and ready enough to burst out into a sprint at that ice cream truck that he's clearly only waiting for Ten's input to be polite.

Nevermind that Ten doesn't have a mouth and couldn't feasibly eat ice cream. Garrot's not even trying to think about that right now, he's got a bribe to make for information.

[wizardseason]

Buy him ice cream Garrot!

There's a scritching of an answer before he holds it up. It doesn't have the answer that Garrot's looking for, but it's still an answer.

"vanilla
just choose not to"

[daddykong]

Garrot is displeased with this response! It's vague and useless. So he just sighs, and walks off towards the ice cream truck.

A few minutes later, he's back with Two(2) Vanilla Ice Cream Cones in one hand, and One(1) Chocolate-Vanilla Ice Cream Cone in the other. Any bribe can be made easier if you overpay!

"I feel like fixing train tracks is worth two ice cream cones." He's a bit smug with that declaration, sounding as if he's sneakily cheating at being a responsible adult figure. "It'll be our little secret." But then he pivots the conversation back to what's important:

"So when you choose not to, does that mean you just... don't fight us?" Please? Please?

[wizardseason]

It's a perfectly good answer, it's exactly what Ten does every year. But Ten tilts his head as he holds out a hand for one of the ice cream cones and tries to read him for a moment before one-handedly scritching up his response.

"only need one
depends on nine"

[daddykong]

"So are you and Nine, like, a team?" Garrot raises an eyebrow with that question, and then takes a chomp out of his two-flavor ice cream cone. There's a slight wince because oh no, he's never prepared for this. He's still holding the other vanilla cone, in case Ten gets greedy. That'd be fine by him. It's a bribe.

"I mean, if you know any ways that we don't have to fight the monsters without them trying to kill us, I'm all ears. Most of us would be." Avoid the risk of unnecessary harm whenever possible. "None of us want to die, monster or otherwise."

If Garrot can convince a Monster to go fully non-hostile, he will. Saving everyone has been updated to include saving the monsters if they want, since they're capable of thought and communication and... liking trains.

[wizardseason]

Ten shakes his head when Garrot asks if they're a team. No, he and Nine are absolutely not a team. That is definitely not what he meant when he said that. But he watches Garrot make a show out of taking a full-chomp of his cone and.

Well.

He's not much better.

In one swift movement, Ten raises his arm and the ice cream up to his face and just casually presses it into his head as if he were putting a coin into a slot. It slides in somewhere around the lower cheek and is just... gone. He doesn't even chew, the ice cream is just gone. He lowers his hand to prepare an answer a moment later.

"have to fight
or fake fight
pretend"