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

[daddykong]

A one word answer, one that's incredibly uninformative, prompts a groan from Garrot. He'd facepalm if it wouldn't leave him particularly vulnerable. He didn't know what he was expecting, but it should've been this.

"Is it because I'm a Knight, or do they have a grudge against someone they've never met?" The irony of that statement is entirely lost on Garrot, sadly. His free hand, however, reaches into one of his pockets, but he doesn't pull the rectangular mass out yet. This is still an enemy!

"Would texting be easier? I have two phones." He'll absolutely play nice if it gets him the info he needs for a leg up in his blood feud against Twelve...

[wizardseason]

Of course he should've expected this answer but, at the same time, it was a completely honest answer. He asks for clarification just before asking a more important question that prompts an immediate scritching-answer from Ten:

"this is text
fones?"

[daddykong]

"What?!" Garrot is incredulous, appalled! "The Wizard can post pictures of her dinners and she's never showed that off?!" Honestly, it seems like given the quirky shirt, Ten would be aware of all manner of Wizardly Mischief. Learn something new every day.

"Hold on, so-" Garrot pulls the phone out of one pocket, and suddenly there's another Garrot pulling another phone out of another pocket. Garrot Prime rotates a bit, so that he and Ten both have views of the screen, which is open to a text message window with Monkey Business.

"You just push the little letter buttons, and when you hit the little paper airplane..." A message appears, sent from Monkey Business, reading:

hello ten!

Garrot, meanwhile, is grinning ear to ear. How the hell do the monsters not know about cell phones?!

[wizardseason]

Hm.

Ten's eyes are immediately locked on the multiple Garrots that have appeared. Multiple eyes are dedicated to each Garrot. A few moments pass as Ten figures out that Garrot is, in fact, up to monkey business.

There's some scritching as Ten writes up another message and then holds it up in front of Garrot Prime.

"how"

[daddykong]

"Oh, that's an easy one!" Garrot has not stopped grinning, even as he gets twice stared at twice over by a nuclear family's worth of child-sized-ish eyes. Little weird, that moment. Garrot Classic passes the Monkey Business phone to Garrot Prime, and then fades away into a faint mist of golden-bronze sparkles. Garrot Prime is unfazed.

"See, the message is sent as data from the phone, to these little towers you'll see all over the place, and then to the other phone!" He nods, then hesitates to make sure he's not off-base with that, and then nods again, this time more vigorously. Garrot's absolutely not telling a monster how his knight power works, that's for sure. Especially when they and the Wizard have been able to just watch videos for years...

[wizardseason]

Ten keeps watching, every eye narrowing as he looks upon Garrot's explanation. One of the eyes snaps around, looking for these so-called 'little towers'. When he spots something that might be a tower, he starts taking it in before he starts scritching another response. This one comes much quicker, and it's in all caps:

"HOW"

And then Ten makes a grab for the phone. Let him see this thing!

[daddykong]

Garrot honestly just chuckles, at Ten's focus and lunge. He doesn't even try to stop the little weirdo from grabbing his Knight phone! But he does just sort of tilt his head towards Ten a bit as he takes on that playfulling condescending parent tone.

"You're gonna have to give that back when we're done here, you know!" Then Garrot, excited to see where this goes, flops his ass down next to Ten. "It's basically like a computer keyboard for your thumbs."

Garrot would never say it out loud but the enthusiasm is incredibly endearing.

[wizardseason]

Once Ten has his hands on the phone, he begins immediately examining it. He flips it over in his hands, looking over every single part of it and taking in the details. When Garrot chimes in that he'll have to give it back, well.

It takes all his self control not to eat the phone.

He finally flips the screen-side back to facing him and then he starts gooshing his fingers against the screen.

Nothing happens.

He tries once, twice, again, and again. In the end, there's no result whatsoever. All ten of his eyes squint at the screen before they drift slowly up to Garrot. The betrayal is clear in his eyes. If Garrot knows anything about how capacitive touchscreens work (rather than resistive), he'll have a pretty solid suspicion to run off of.

[daddykong]

Luckily for Garrot, he's literally an engineer! His eyes do go a little wide as Ten's fingers start gooshing into his Knight phone, because he has no idea if that'll like... cause damage? Monsters are weird, and by the looks of it lack any sort of natural conductivity. The second monster didn't seem to like the rain, so...

"Huh, that's weird." The good doctor feels plenty bad at the look in Ten's many eyes, and it's clear that Garrot needs to put him out of his misery by... solving the problem. So he reaches a hand back into his magitek medkit and, after a moment of rustling, he's offering a stylus to Ten!

"See if this works instead?" Putting the stylus in the medkit means he won't lose it, which means he'll be fine if he has to prescribe one of his allies something on the fly. Better safe than sorry! But the drawing board is quickly running out of options.

[wizardseason]

Fortunately for Garrot, he'd packed away a stylus that wasn't one of those 'it conducts because you conduct' cheap versions. The one that ends up in Ten's hand has a battery in it that makes it do exactly what it was supposed to do. The moment it presses to the surface of the screen, it reacts, and uh.

It's unreal how quickly Ten's hand starts to move. It loses its form as a human hand and instead appears more as a mass as he starts working on things and.

He squints at the screen, apparently displeased that it can't keep up. A few flicks later, Ten pulls the messaging screen again and sends a message to Monkey Business.

"I want one of these."

[daddykong]

Garrot's eyes go wide like dinner plates as Ten's hand stops being hand-shaped. Then, his eyes turn that special teal when he's trying to super-gut-check something. Do the monsters even have bones?! How do they move?? How did the third one have so many arms if Ten can just reshape?!

"Y-yeah, they're pretty cool!" Garrot nods, still somewhat shocked by what he witnessed. "What, uh... what were you trying to do? Were you looking for something?" Does Ten even know what the internet is? Would it be a good thing if Ten discovered the internet? How can he fix the train tracks if he's on the internet?

Kids and kid-sized eye-monsters these days...

[wizardseason]

Ten's hand takes up its normal shape again as he looks at Garrot and that question. He seems to think about it for a moment before he gooshes his hand up again, rapidly opening the messages app to send another message.

"Learning."

And just as quickly, he's flicked away from the app and is going through... every single app. One at a time, methodically from the start. He's seeing what each and every one of them is, even if it takes time to sort through them. Uh. Good luck, Garrot?

[daddykong]

Garrot's eyes go a little wide at the message he receives, and he scoots in next to Ten. Like a proud parent, he's looming over the lil buddy's shoulder, watching as the monster is going through... every app. That's. That's terrifying.

"So..." The Monkey Knight still feels weird talking to a being who will one day try to murder him and many others. He could absolutely kill him, but... that's like killing a kid, which is super fucked up when they're not trying to kill you first. "What do you want to learn about? Yanno, like what do you think is cool?"

Maybe then he can recommend some stuff, or at least keep him from reading about every app ever. Most of them are so boring!

[wizardseason]

Unfortunately for Garrot, Ten doesn't stop looking through the apps even as he's asked that question. He makes it to a painting app and starts immediately sketching on it. It takes him a few moments to get the shape right, but Garrot will be able to recognize it as a train almost immediately.

Except he's not stopping with the details as he keeps drawing. With the stylus in his hand, he just keeps getting more and more detailed with the train on the screen. Uh. He's not stopping, Garrot, this train is gonna be a masterpiece.

Except it looks identical to the train that runs on the rails around the island.

[daddykong]

Garrot is not an artist. Like. At all. Big hands with clawed fingers and a lot of strength means it's just... not for him. He can handle scalpels just fine, but the flow of an artist's movements just happen for him. He'd rather move his entire body, anyway. So he's absolutely enamored when Ten starts drawing a train with insane amounts of detail.

"Woah, you're really good at that!" He's surprised, but still very proud. "How'd you learn to draw so well?" Of course, Garrot recognizes the train. "Do you like trains?"

Just respond to him Ten. Please. He's needy.

[wizardseason]

Ten is uh, absolutely not stopping. But at Garrot's question of 'do you like trains', he snaps his eyes up to him and holds up a hand in an immediate and undeniable thumbs up. Yes. He absolutely likes trains.

And then he's back to drawing and while he's getting close to finishing, he's not quite there. The guy behind the fourth wall says he'll be finished up by the next tag and then Garrot can get the conversation he so desperately craves.

[daddykong]

Garrot got a thumbs-up, which is more than he honestly expected! So he's placated for about... five seconds until he's talking again. See, if they stop their little conversation, it'll be easier for him to resort to violence, and this... seems like a risky time for that. As much as he wants to.

"So, wait, you've only ever been on this island." There's a flash of realization in his demeanor, and now Garrot is getting a little excited. "Instead of fighting us, why don't you just travel the world and look at trains?"

They both know that's not how this works, clearly. A little bit of what-ifs never hurt though, right?

[wizardseason]

Ten suddenly holds up the now-completed Train art directly in front of Garrot to answer the question. He waits for Garrot to reclaim the phone before he pulls his etch-a-sketch out again and starts scritching a message on it.

"cant
thats fine"

[daddykong]

There's a gasp from Garrot as he takes the phone back. This is a really well-done train! But the next message from the etch-a-sketch is about as annoying as expected. So he just sighs.

"Yeah, okay, you can't leave." That would cause mass hysteria. "But if you could do anything you want, all the time in the world, what would you do?"

Just the fact that Ten can and is willing to communicate is enough to keep Garrot's very prying interest. It's such a weird situation.

[wizardseason]

It's a really well done train that now belongs to Garrot. It's one of a kind and also completely unremarkable except that it's well done. It's the kind of still life painting that just about everyone could learn to do.

But it's still neat.

At Garrot's prying, he watches him for several moments before tilting his head and then turning back to the etch a sketch. Sure, he has a response for this. It takes him a little bit to write it, but when he does he holds up a pretty surprising answer.

"open restaurant
no menu
no money
only food"

[daddykong]

"Huh."

This answer was pretty worth the wait! It turns out Ten likes trains, art, and cooking. Who'd have thought?

"What kind of food would you make? Would it be the same thing all the time?" Ten doesn't even have an obvious mouth, how does he eat and taste anything?! Truly baffling.

But maybe they can use all this information against Ten later?

[wizardseason]

Excuse you. Ten likes art but loves trains and cooking. Get it right, Garrot. But then Garrot's asking two questions at once and Ten narrows his eyes at him for a moment before shaking the etch-a-sketch rapidly and then writing an immediate response. He not only holds up the response, but he urges the etch-a-sketch right into Garrot's facial personal space.

"everything
!"

[daddykong]

There's a high-pitched little "Eep!" as the etch-a-sketch is shoved in Garrot's face. He did not expect this!!! But it's cute, very endearing. But he looks contemplative for a moment, and then decides to escalate things a bit.

"What if you opened a restaurant on a train?" The way he says it, he's excited like Ten's mind will blow out and it'll be one less monster to deal with. But he's definitely keeping food filed away for later use...

[wizardseason]

Ten stares, and stares, and stares at Garrot. He's unmoving, clearly processing what Garrot said. After a time, though, he takes a step back and shakes the etch-a-sketch. Afterward, he writes a much calmer message before holding it up.

"must be a space train
havent built one yet"

[daddykong]

It takes a moment for Garrot to process space train, because wow, what? But he knows magitek, engineering, and science, so it's too good of a topic for him to pass up.

"Well yeah, we'd have to get to space first." He chuckles, not even sure what that would look like beyond what's shown in the movies. "And where would the stations be?" That remark, however, sounds a bit more like a hypothetical question. This is all just a what-if, anyway.

"Do you even have time for hobbies?" A beat. "You know, when you're not... working." Awkward. So awkward. "Like do you get to do things for the rest of the year?" When you're... dead? Ten wouldn't be able to grasp trains and cooking and whatnot if each year was a crop of new, unique monsters, right? And if Twelve has things they like too, it sounds like all the monsters might come back each year. Maybe.