Day 4: Evening

[wizardseason]

Evening: 5:00pm - Midnight

[ IRL Timeframe: August 14th - August 28th, 2019 ]

As the sun sets on Harsen Island and the curtains close on Four's games that abducted all the heroes up into hours of entertainment, things absolutely refuse to wind down.

When the knights return, they'll be placed right where they were when they were added into the game show. The Princess, unfortunately, is the one that doesn't wind up where he was taken from. For everyone else, whether they were climbing up the mountain or existing elsewhere, it looks like all they lost is time.

And maybe a bit of patience.

Every hero that participated in Four's game show reeived a personalized 'Thank you!' card at the end of it, apparently the monster was excited about everyone participating! (Disclaimer: One knight did not receive a thank you card because he refused to participate like a big ole' jerk).

The bright, glowing blue fissures are still open throughout the ground, they haven't gone anywhere while the game show happened. All the cracks originate from the mountain up the slope from Craydon! Social media has finally confirmed that all the cracks converge on one location up the mountain: At a big glowing stone door. It's absolutely not a manmade door and it's definitely magic in some way, but why is it there now?

---

The Weather

• Insects chirping all over.
• 66°F / 19°C
• A surprisingly cool sea breeze.

---

Prompts:

• ??:00pm Mountain Door, Craydon: Any heroes still climbing the mountain, or who choose to climb the mountain, can reach the glowing door. As they ascend, they'll have to endure unrelenting wind blowing right in their face the whole way. When they reach the top, send a ping saying "they've reached the door" to receive a description.


• 6:00pm Rock Sugar Tea Cafe, Bamborough: Not wanting to spend the entire evening in Craydon, the Protector has made his way via train out to Bamborough to find a cafe that serves tea. Three Princesses had come here during previous years and the experiences had been good enough that he sought to try it for himself. He'll be found sitting under an umbrella-covered table outside the cafe, sipping carefully at a nuclear-hot cup of spiced apple tea.


• 6:30pm Sushi, Far Haven: Of all the places for Ten to end up in all this, he's arrived at the conveyor belt sushi restaurant in Far Haven. Situated off to the side from the lobby of the Crossroads Hotel, the restaurant is simply named 'Sushi' and is filled with numerous tables wedged up against a slowly-progressing conveyor belt filled with plates of sushi. The entire path is in a refrigerated tube to keep the sushi safe to eat, and when a hero arrives they'll see Ten reaching in to obtain a new set of rolls. There are already ten empty plates in front of him: How many more will he eat? Social media is already taking bets on the final count!


• 7:00pm Door Crater, Craydon: It's the end. Any heroes still lingering at the door on the mountain will be treated to the biggest nightmare of all time: The door starts to emit a high-pitched tone moments before it explodes outwards. Pieces of solid stone go flying outward from the blast, and when the dust clears from the event there's still smoke billowing out from inside of the cave entrance and rising up off of the small crater that the explosion made.
  
  Just inside of the cave entrance is the figure of a child, laying slumped facedown on the ground. They're wearing nothing but tatters over their translucent cyan skin. They look as if they're made of colored glass, their hair looking very much like solid, shiny obsidian but moving as if it wasn't stone at all. Their eyes are closed where they're laying, but there's an unmistakable glow even through their closed eyelids.

---

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.

Comments

[eutychia]

Luka startles at the monster's robotic voice -- it hadn't been what he'd expected, though he figured Ten must be using some kind of text to speech app.

"Oh! Uh, this one, of course." Luka gestures to the salmon nigiri he'd randomly chosen. "But... I wouldn't say no to some ahi tuna..."

He's reluctant to admit he might need assistance, especially from one of the Wizard's monsters of all things.

"I didn't know you were a fan of sushi, or that you even got hungry. At least you have good taste."

[wizardseason]

Unfortunately Microsoft Sam is the only one that, despite sounding overall less fluid, is the most consistent for how Ten wants to sound. Though he wishes he could just get someone to speak for him, that would be the simplest solution around. There's a soft rattling and tapping as Ten obtains an ahi tuna almost immediately after Luka says it, and then it repeats as he sets one in front of himself.

"It's fresh here
And tastes good
Not my favorite
But easy"

His response comes after a few moments of typing it and it's followed by a strange 'slurp' sound as one of the pieces of eel he'd picked up just disappears into the hand he'd picked it up with. If the staff here are surprised by this, they aren't showing it. They've already made it past the shock of it, now it's just year 40 of a hungry monster.

[eutychia]

Ten's disturbing method of sushi consumption is, perhaps thankfully, lost on Luka. If he had been able to see it he might have been put off on his own food, especially considering that Ten had just retrieved Luka's dish with those same hands.

"Sometimes these little hole-in-the-wall places are just what you need." He says, noticing the new dish that had appeared in front of him. "Is this all you've been doing today?"

[wizardseason]

"No.
Fixed train tracks."

The answer is followed by another soft slurp as the second eel disappears into Ten's hand. Then there's the soft clatter of a plate being lifted and put in front of him.

"Relaxing now."

[eutychia]

"Sounds like a lot of work. You didn't happen to... catch any footage of the battle today, did you?"

[wizardseason]

"Saved videos.
Will watch soon.
Four is making signed copies.
Don't know why."

And then there's a soft clink as a plate of two fatty tuna are placed in front of Luka.

[eutychia]

Luka's face flushes remembering his less than ideal performance on Four's show. He shakes his head and picks up another sushi roll delicately.

"Do you know where Four went? Our game ended a little... disappointingly."

[wizardseason]

"In Twelve's garden.
They'll be out tomorrow."

And there's another gentle 'slurp' sound as another piece of sushi, this time the tuna he'd grabbed for himself, disappears. The plate stack grows...

[eutychia]

"Oh." Luka sighs. "Are you all... friends, or something?"

He pokes at a roll on the plate in front of him before smoothly picking up and nearly throwing it into his mouth.

"Do you miss the ones that have been, uh, defeated?"

[wizardseason]

There's a somewhat louder clattering as Ten unapologetically procures six plates. Three for Luka, three for himself. Yellowtail, (more) eel, and a set of volcano rolls.

It's only once those are settled on the table that he types up his next responses. They're a doozy, but he sends them as one big bundle. So it's a bit of a voice wall as Microsoft Sam goes and goes:

"We're like siblings.
Sometimes we get along.
Sometimes we don't.
Don't ever miss one through three.
They're like animals.
Seven too."

[eutychia]

Luka nods, his mouth already stuffed with new rolls off the plates. Luka had yet to meet a sushi roll he didn't like, so the specifics of it all didn't matter. However, Ten's comments leave him with a grimace. He'd been hoping the monsters were much more impartial than sibling status, considering he'd likely have to kill them all.

"That's rough." is all he manages after swallowing. "What's Seven like? Besides an animal."

[wizardseason]

Ten is eating constantly, but not quickly. More like a calm and calculated machine that intends to eat all the sushi at a constant rate. One at a time the rolls disappear as he waits for Luka to finish eating and commenting.

"Intense.
They will not back down when they appear.
And they're fast this year."

They're fast so. Good luck, everyone.

[eutychia]

"Oh that's... good to know." Luka says. "I think we can take them on though. We're pretty good."

After a moment, he speaks up again.

"What about you? Do you fight?"

[wizardseason]

"They will hunt you like you hunt them." Ten clarifies when Luka says he thinks they can take them on.

He hopes they can.

"I do." He answers. Of course he fights, but he doesn't elaborate. Instead he leaves the question unanswered in the air as he waves the waiter over to point at a bowl of udon on the side menu. Looks like this place does have a few non-sushi items, that's convenient! The waiter briefly glances to Luka and asks him if he'd like anything before he heads away.

[eutychia]

Luka turns down the waiter's offer, instead keeping his attention on Ten. "Well, it will be nice to have a challenger that's actually up for a fight then?"

"To be honest though... I can't imagine fighting you."

[wizardseason]

Ten types up his next response pretty swiftly. Easy answers for easy questions.

"Five, Seven, and Twelve will always fight, I don't always fight. Might skip."

[eutychia]

"I didn't know you could just opt-out." Luka says with genuine surprise in his voice. "If you do that, won't there be less than twelve monsters though?"

[wizardseason]

Ten shrugs. He's still a monster so he's still one of the twelve. He's not entirely sure how that rule goes, he just knows where he has to be at the end of it all. He types up a response, though, with a voiced action:

"Shrug. I've done it before."

[eutychia]

"How strange. Maybe I should have paid closer attention to previous years, huh?" He pauses to savor some food and collect his thoughts.

"Well... I hope you don't bear any grudges against us, whatever happens this year."

After the words leave Luka's mouth, he isn't quite sure why he said them. Why should he care what a monster thinks about him? But he can't help it, the little guy was just so... personable.

[wizardseason]

Of course Ten's personable, he's had forty years to figure out who he was in this great big world. There's a gentle slurp sound as he demolishes another set of sushi before he's back to typing up a response.

"Too much to know. Just do your best. Do the ring thing."

[eutychia]

"That's the plan. I mean, I'm not going to try to do the wrong thing. We're both just doing what we have to, right?"

[wizardseason]

"The right thing right now is eating sushi." He answers, clearly focused on one thing.

And then there's a soft clatter as another plate of sushi is placed in front of Luka. This one is fatty tuna, how did he manage to swipe some?

[eutychia]

"Oh, good to know I'm on the right track." He laughs. "If only the whole event were so easy as this."

He picks up another roll. Luka doesn't question the source, by now he's somewhat used to being served unquestioningly.

[wizardseason]

All things considered, Ten's doing an incredible job at feeding Luka.

And not, you know, poisoning the princess in broad daylight.

"It's easy sometimes. Food helps. Do you like ramen." He considered just asking if Luka liked noodles but that seemed a little too broad and the risk of getting a 'yeah i love spaghetti' answer was too high.

Was Luka a spaghetti man? Ten didn't know.

[eutychia]

"Oh, ramen's pretty good. But pho is better!" He says, excitedly. "There was a great little pho place by my old apartment. I was a regular there!"

He assumed that, much like the Wizard, the monsters must all be fans of ramen. Hopefully they didn't see this as some kind of betrayal.