Day 6: Morning

[wizardseason]

Morning: 6:00am - 12:00noon

[ IRL Timeframe: October 31st - November 7th 13th, 2019 ]

In the typically quiet town of Craydon, most residents know that the beach is only a short walk away from the train station at the base of the mountainous region they live in. They've constructed a long wooden path out to the edge of the sandy area, with a number of benches available for any residents. Typically there are a handful of locals either walking, relaxing, fishing, or ocean watching on this normally quiet and uneventful beach. But today, at sunrise, the Wizard and the Protector are on the beach. The Wizard has made short work of sending everyone away but a few have remained to post it to social media.

It's a stalemate, for the most part. For every blow one flings, the other parries it. For every shout, there's one in return. Most unsettling, however, is that they're arguing in a language that isn't native to this world.

Far Haven isn't having an uneventful morning but it is having a quiet morning. The Hospital is looking better after the events of Day 5, the front doors are now available for use and a construction team is hard at work undoing the damage that had been done the previous day. It's definitely not fixed yet, but it's clearly on the way.

That isn't the big event that's drawing people's attention, though. Six, today's monster, has borrowed a chair from inside the hospital's lobby and placed it in the courtyard right outside the front doors. He can be found sitting, one leg propped up over the other and showing off one of the cowboy boots he's wearing, with a clipboard leaned up on his leg. Two of his arms are sitting on the armrests, casually drumming like he's impatient. Two more arms are folded across his front, and the last two arms are holding and writing on the clipboard. His yellow skin is bright as the sunlight hits him, but he's clearly ready for the sun with a pair of aviator sunglasses covering his eyes. Are there multiple eyes under there? He's wearing a cowboy hat with a white bandana around his neck and thick hair(?) bound up in a ponytail dangling off the back of the chair. This monster's a cowboy!

Oh, and there's a huge double-headed axe propped up against his chair. Can't forget that, that's scary.

Bamborough is a strange blend of eventful and not. The Child's boat is back and social media has made no secret of where they headed: Breakfast. The Bamborough Diner, a staple location in the tourist town, has been serving them meal after meal all morning. They're on their sixth meal, stuffing pancake after pancake into their mouth. They've been using the diner's picture-filled menu to order item after item and they haven't repeated one yet. It's time to EAT!

But with all this happening, surely the heroes won't be up to anything else? There's definitely no reason why the Wizard has suddenly chose to go toe-to-toe with the Protector this morning, right? No way, no how.

There's definitely a reason.


Sixth Morning Event:: The Fight.

---

The Weather

• A little foggy.
• 55°F / 13°C
• Uh, grab a jacket, it's actually chilly.

---

Prompts:

• 06:00am The Beach, Craydon: Today, at sunrise, the Wizard and the Protector are on the beach. The Wizard has made short work of sending everyone away but a few have remained to post it to social media.
  
  It's a stalemate, for the most part. For every blow one flings, the other parries it. For every shout, there's one in return. Most unsettling, however, is that they're arguing in a language that isn't native to this world.
  
  The heroes can try to get close, but they'll eventually find a barrier in their way. Is your hero here? Are they talking to others? Is there anything they can do? Or do they know more about what's happening than they've told others?


• 07:00am Harsen Island Regional Hospital, Far Haven: Far Haven isn't having an uneventful morning but it is having a quiet morning. The Hospital is looking better after the events of Day 5, the front doors are now available for use and a construction team is hard at work undoing the damage that had been done the previous day. It's definitely not fixed yet, but it's clearly on the way.
  
  That isn't the big event that's drawing people's attention, though. Six, today's monster, has borrowed a chair from inside the hospital's lobby and placed it in the courtyard right outside the front doors. He can be found sitting, one leg propped up over the other and showing off one of the cowboy boots he's wearing, with a clipboard leaned up on his leg. Two of his arms are sitting on the armrests, casually drumming like he's impatient. Two more arms are folded across his front, and the last two arms are holding and writing on the clipboard. His yellow skin is bright as the sunlight hits him, but he's clearly ready for the sun with a pair of aviator sunglasses covering his eyes. Are there multiple eyes under there? He's wearing a cowboy hat with a white bandana around his neck and thick hair(?) bound up in a ponytail dangling off the back of the chair. This monster's a cowboy!
  
  Oh, and there's a huge double-headed axe propped up against his chair. Can't forget that, that's scary.


• 08:00am Bamborough Diner, Bamborough: Bamborough is a strange blend of eventful and not. The Child's boat is back and social media has made no secret of where they headed: Breakfast. The Bamborough Diner, a staple location in the tourist town, has been serving them meal after meal all morning. They're on their sixth meal, stuffing pancake after pancake into their mouth. They've been using the diner's picture-filled menu to order item after item and they haven't repeated one yet. It's time to EAT!


• 0?:00am General Post, Anywhere: Are your characters interacting elsewhere? Are they texting everyone? Put any threads here that don't fit elsewhere with the time and location in the subject.

---

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

[sustainer]

Okay so Gyre doesn't know anything about space. Honestly, space is not a concept that he has ever thought about. The sky has always been the sky, and the idea that he could ever be amongst the stars was an idea for birds up until this precise second.

This is to say, his mind goes completely blank. He fails his existential horror check, and he exhales a single, long whining note as he stares down at the world below him. He does not understand what he's seeing. He can't feel the ground below him, or the air on his skin, and his entire being reels away from the empty black around them.

He's a thing of the world, Sxicq, get your weird cosmic stage out of his eyeballs. He's having a panic attack now.

[wizardseason]

Well the Protector and the Wizard knew about space, so naturally they assumed that the rest of this world knew about space. How were they supposed to know this wasn't familiar with it?

But they notice him absolutely fucking losing his marbles.

So the cosmic stage of space starts fading out, returning them both to the ground. Gravity kicks in when Gyre is horizontal, about two feet above the ground, and he falls like a sack of potatoes into the grass.

[sustainer]

He hits the ground with a grunt, and his body responds immediately. He rolls onto all fours and his whole body heaves, trying to throw up even though he's got no stomach. He remembers the feeling at least, and it's all he think of to help the sick twist in his stomach.

He's got stars in his eyes now. He got the briefest, tiniest idea of just how small the world is, and he retches again, bending to press his forehead into the grass. His fingers grip into the dirt, and he pulls some it up by the roots, a restless, frantic energy running through him that he doesn't know how to handle.

"Wh-what--?" he says in this tiny voice, his brain reeling too much to come up with a more coherent question then that.

[wizardseason]

They squint down at him.

They watch him retch, they watch him struggle with reality, and... really, what can they even do? They don't understand what he's thinking, so instead they turn their gaze to the stars.

It's Fen that's helpful. They come hopping up to Gyre's side, a cup of water floating by their head to offer him.

"You're okay! It's okay! Drink some water! You'll feel better!" They exclaim, offering the cup right near his face.

[sustainer]

Thank you Fen. You're the only good soul in the entire world. He was completely wrong about you.

He grabs the cup from them, and drinks like he's been stuck in a desert for years. He drinks like he thinks he's never going to get to drink again. This... helps? It calms his nerves certainly, but it also puts something in his body for it to try to retch up. He looks utterly sick as he rolls over and sits down hard, breathing roughly, running his fingers through his hair again and again as if to reassure himself he's an actual person in the actual world again.

"Thank you," is all he manages, his voice strained nearly to breaking as he glances at Fen. Don't worry Sxicq, he is just as lost about what they're thinking. He has no idea where to even go from here, his vision still spinning whenever he shuts his eyes.

[wizardseason]

Well then tell them that Gyre!! Wow!! Love your companion and all they do for you!

Fen stays right near him, ready and attentive if he looks rough again. They bubble in excitement when he thanks them, glad they could help!

"You're okay!" They exclaim.

In the background, Sxicq is just waiting for Gyre to return to some level of stability.

[sustainer]

"I'm okay," he mumbles in agreement, nodding very slightly. He reaches out to rub their head, trying to calm himself by petting an animal. Even if their fur is pretty coarse, the contact is nice.

He shifts his eyes up to Sxicq after another second, peering up at them with this wary squint.

"What was that?"

[wizardseason]

Fen makes a delighted little sound when Gyre rubs their head. Hurray! They lean into the contact.

Sxicq, meanwhile, turns back to Gyre to answer that question.

"Ecq ecq."
"They said 'the shell'!"

[sustainer]

Come on, Sxicq, he just freaked the fuck out about space. Be more informative then that!!

"The shell of what?" he asks blearily, still shivering a little as he pets Fen's head.

[wizardseason]

Well last time they tried to be more informative, Gyre had a breakdown.

So they fold their arms for a moment, making sure he's looking at them, before they just point right down at the planet itself. This. Beneath them. This planet. It's the shell.

[sustainer]

He is looking at them, but he does not understand when they point at the ground. He looks down after a second, blinking several times as he tries to process what this means.

It's only once he remembers the very first day, the very first conversation he had with the wizard. The world is an egg. There's something inside it. And that's... Sxicq.

"O-okay, so... this is what you're trying to leave? The entire... world?"

[wizardseason]

They wait for him to get it, and then when he follows with exactly the answer they've been getting to, they finally answer in the one way that confirms his question:

They nod.

Yes. They're trying to leave this entire world.

[sustainer]

"Okay," he says, going quiet for a few moments. He nods eventually, looking a little more certain now that he's back in this familiar territory. He knows the big picture but he doesn't understand the details at all.

"Where will you go? What will happen to the uh, the shell when you leave?"

[wizardseason]

There were no other little details to Sxicq so long as they could leave. But he asks two questions and the answers are very simple:

"Fi aqhecq. Ci ci iqg icqqufinh qunirnhilz quuzh iqgilz."
"Far away. The shell will probably crumble over time."

And if it crumbles, they'll be far, far away from here when it does.

[sustainer]

His face darkens, and he thinks back to what the wizard said. They'll have to escape eventually, go someplace completely new. He has to figure out a way to get everyone out if he can.

"How much time?" he asks, and then, after a moment, "What about us?" He gets the feeling Sxicq might not care about them at all honestly, but he has to ask. More information is better then less.

[wizardseason]

What a strange set of questions. How are they supposed to know?

" Iqg zir' azh. Qu quizh uzheqg fi alz. Eqh nireqh fi nirus alzilz. Zir' riruzh."
"Oh, um, they said they don't know, probably a year? And they said everyone should just leave! Um, and not linger?"

It's clear that Fen didn't match their tone at all. They didn't get all excited or question their statement but Fen sure did.

[sustainer]

The tone discrepancy is making him nervous. His own language is more reliant on grammar for tone, and getting over that hump in Common had been an absolute nightmare. His attention flicks between the two of them, but he honestly not even sure Fen would understand if he tried to explain what he's worried about.

He sighs roughly, shaking his head at Sxicq. Come on, kid, work with him.

"How? We can't fly, you know?"

[wizardseason]

Inconveniently they were using the words of their language with the grammatical structure of common in an attempt to bridge the gap but uh.

There was room for improvement.

"Fiilz zirilz qu ci niriqg."
"They said 'take one of the ships'!"

Fen sounds utterly delighted to share that one, turning slightly to give a happy bounce towards Gyre.

"Yeah, do that! That's a good idea!"

[sustainer]

"What ship?" he asks immediately, looking down to Fen for a moment before realizing that they problem won't have a ton of answers for him.

"Why would sailing help? We'll still be here when the world falls apart..."

[wizardseason]

Right.

They'd nearly broken him by showing him space.

So they decide to point one hand straight up in the air, way up. Away.

"Fi niriqg."
"They said a, um, space! Ship!."

Fen's voice sounds sort of desperate, like they're trying to find the right word for what they mean. But they turn towards Sxicq and get a nod of approval. Yes. That.

[sustainer]

He looks up when Sxicq points up, and he stares blankly at the sky for a bit. It hits him all at once what they mean, and he physically recoils from the idea, gritting his teeth in pure animal fear.

"That? That you showed me...? It was completely empty up there." People can't live in space Sxicq.

[wizardseason]

Sxicq wants to throw Gyre down a hill. How can the people of this world not know or understand what they mean?

They hold up a single finger in the air, pointing at Gyre and then pointing at their finger. This finger is you, Gyre. They then shape a big orb in the air with their hands around the Gyre finger they'd shown. They hold the finger-orb in front of them and repeat:

"Niriqg."

And then they lift their hands up, raising the orb-- and a blue orb floats up out of their hand and starts floating up into the sky. That's how. Inside something. Gyre. Does that make more sense?

They look insistently at him, expecting him to understand. A ship. A space ship.

[sustainer]

He watches the orb float up into the sky and he's utterly chilled. He'd rather die then go up there again Sxicq!

"And we'd just float around up there on a ship? Forever?" he asks, sounding utterly horrified. This is a man who doesn't understand that planets exist in space and can be traveled to. Space had just been a big empty void with points of light for the brief moment he saw it, and trying to imagine living there, even in a ship, is uh the worst.

[wizardseason]

Sxicq stares at Gyre for a moment as he assumes just the worst things possible about this? They look slowly down towards Fen and give a brief comment for them to pick up on and explain.

"Eqg eqh ilzaqgfiaj sqifiilz khfiilz qu iqg."
"Oh, um, I get it!" Fen answers them before turning towards Gyre and smiling with delight as they explain:

"They said that's a way to travel! You go up, you go somewhere, you land! Like a... ship!" They explain, delighted, glad to bring it around to 'ships' again.

[sustainer]

Gyre does not understand that space is big and that there are things in it. But Sxicq looks irritated and Fen is still happy. They both seem utterly calm, like this idea is not complete and total nonsense which it definitely is.

"Are there... places? To land?" he asks hesitantly. Is this what the Wizard was talking about? "Do you want us to follow you?"