Day 6: "Monster Arrival"

Afternoon: 12:00noon - Evening

[ IRL Timeframe: November 13th - ~~November 20th~~ December 4th, 2019 ]

Following the events of the morning, with the Wizard and Protector locked in a heated duel, Gyre has paved forward with his plan to gather all the heroes to show them something. Be proud of him, he texted EVERYONE!

The fight between the two powerful entities continues, they won’t be joining anyone just yet. Sxicq, meanwhile, is… somewhere. No one really kept tabs on them, even social media has lost sight of them.

Monster Arrival: Far Haven: No one! Six is preparing to “arrive” in the evening.

The Weather
Clear with a few clouds.
52°F / 11°C
Bring your heater, the chill continues!

Prompts:

12:30pm Mounain, General Post:

I.
Gyre arrives early to the main hiking trail at the base of the mountain. There’s a big sign advertising where it starts, and he sits against one of the legs of the sign. His legs are neatly folded, his arms crossed over his chest. As people begin to arrive, he greets each of them, standing after a second or third has arrived.

Once they’re all gathered, he raises a hand to get everyone’s attention. “Is this everyone?” he asks, clearly counting heads. A flicker of angst crosses his face as he realizes how much smaller they look without Rory and Web and Gail. As he counts, he realizes Zafika and Joanna are missing as well. He wasn’t able to talk to either of them, so he supposes he’s not surprised, but there is a little bubbling concern in his chest. He’ll have to address it later.

He waves at the lot of them once he’s done counting, gesturing for them to follow, “We’re going to the top. I’m going to move quickly so we can get back down before dark. If you need help, ask me. Rely on each other,” is all he says before he turns and heads up the trail.

The ground is worn enough to make the climb relatively easy, but it’s still climbing a mountain. How is everyone taking it? It’s a long trip. There’s time to catch up now that they’re all together again.

II.
This is the top of the mountain. When the heroes arrive, they’ll find Five and Ten seated at a small foldable table playing cards. Five is wearing jeans and a black hoodie with a computer error screen printed on it. She looks at the group of heroes arriving, giving a small wave once she’s seen some familiar faces-- but she immediately moves to hide behind Ten when she sees Luka.

Ten, meanwhile, is wearing a shirt with a picture of himself wearing a shirt with a picture of himself wearing a shirt-- you get the idea. How did he pull that off? The shirt is printed with a picture of him here, on the top of the mountain, outside this cliff door. Did he plan for this? He gives a wave at the group, greeting them with a Microsoft Sam voiced phone message:

“All around me are familiar faces. Ha ha, hello.”

Did he just reference a song? He definitely did. That was definitely “Mad World” by Jary Gules.

12:30pm Onward: Mountain, The Mountain Cave Entrance:

When the heroes decide to descend into the cavern, what they’ll find is a strangely winding corridor that’s barely lit at all. The ceiling is rarely higher than six feet, sometimes shrinking down to four feet and even three feet near the bottom, and most of its length is only wide enough for two people to fit through. The floor is slick with water, the slope of it acting as the perfect place for water to drain into from above. This means the descent is cramped, dark, and slightly slippery.

Good luck, heroes.

The corridor suddenly opens up at the bottom into a wide-open cavern, the walls spreading out too far in every direction and disappearing into the darkness of the cavern. The walkway into the space narrows as it crosses over a massive pit that surrounds a central circular platform. There aren’t any other walkways leading to the middle.

The circular platform in the center has twenty-seven metal rings that make up the floor, smaller ones in the middle surrounded by one massive ring around the outside. It'd take a lot of counting to see the 27 rings but, believe me, they're there. What the heroes will be able to spot, though, is that a few of the rings on the floor are rotating very, very slowly. It would be easy to miss, but once noticed it’s clear that there are exactly ten rings moving and seventeen that are not.

Surrounding the center platform are twenty-seven raised platforms in a big circle around the center. Floating above four in a row are bright yellow blobs with one, two, and three eyes respectively. The fourth and fifth have the slain bodies of Four and Five. Four is wearing the game show garb they’d worn on the day of their games. Five is wearing a set of heavy black robes, not the assassin garb she’d worn on her day. The other side has five occupied platforms each with knights floating in them. Web, with Aqrisqi floating above them. Rory, with Sefaq floating above her. Gail, with Giqra floating above him. Joanna, with Fius floating above her. Zafika, with Muraj floating above them.

Wait. When were Joanna and Zafika defeated? Both of them have a single red mark above where their hearts are like they’d each been stabbed with a blade.

Five and Ten have followed everyone down to this room, looks like they’ll be able to answer questions… maybe? But everyone knows that neither the Wizard nor the Protector will be here, they’re still fighting up on the island’s beach.

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.

Activity Check: November 2019

[ IRL Timeframe: November 1st - November 31st, 2019 ]

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Gyre grabs Luka's hand and stuffs his handkerchief into it, so he can actually clean up instead of just smearing frosting everywhere. It means he's right next to him when this flash of anger runs through him and his whole body tenses up. For a second, the air around him feels very much like he wants to punch Luka again! But he takes a sharp breath through his grit teeth, letting out with an irritated noise.

"You--!" he begins, and then retreats back further from his anger with another breath, speaking softly so Five hopefully doesn't hear. "You implied you were going to attack her. You killed her friend yesterday. Stop."

He straightens up after that, glancing between the two of them. "There's eight of us. You think Ten wants to be bombarded with everyone's questions? This way we can split it between the two of them."

"Only because she provoked it." Luka says indignantly, though he keeps his voice low to match Gyre's. "And I wasn't really going to do anything. I told her as much and I was serious. It was all talk until she threw stuff at me, but whatever, fine."

He wordlessly makes use of the handkerchief, finally returning his face to a respectable state. It hasn't had a good past couple of days. When finished, he holds it out expecting someone to take it off of his hands.

"I want to be in the group with Ten, then. Besides, I doubt she'd answer any of my questions."

Five, despite the intense conversation happening between Luka and Gyre, isn't re-joining the conversation. She's standing close enough to overhear it, but far enough away that she can stay out of it.

That isn't stopping her from shooting nasty glares in Luka's direction, of course.

Luka gets the driest look of all time when he says he didn't mean it, as if that's an excuse. It's not an excuse, Luka!! You're being a jerk.

But the conversation has moved on before he has a chance to, first, realize the Princess couldn't see his face, and second, clarify his feelings on how the dude is acting right now. He lets out an exasperated sigh at least, and takes the little cloth out of Luka's hand. He doesn't put it away again, planning to hang it up on a tree branch to dry as soon as he fully splits these two up.

"That's fine. Just leave each other alone. You don't have to like each other to be working towards the same goal," he says, glancing between the two of them, and making a slight cut-it-out gesture to Five's glaring.

"...thankfully." Luka says, agreeing to the truce. "If she stops being rude and annoying in my presence then I'm fine with ignoring her."

He folds his arms again. "Can she manage that?"

This is a lot, Luka.

"From what I saw, all she had to do was exist for you to call her rude, so uh... no she probably can't manage that. Why are you acting like this?"

"Am I supposed to just forget about what she did yesterday? Because I won't." He won't back down. Gyre defending her seems to only make Luka more defensive of himself.

"I don't want her here. She clearly doesn't like me and I don't like her. I don't think it's unreasonable to not want to be around that energy."

Five, off to the side, seethes with barely-contained rage as she listens to the utterly infuriating conversation the two are having about her. When Luka puts words in her mouth that she doesn't like him, she decides to confirm exactly that.

"Yeah I don't like you because you're a jerk!" She exclaims from afar, not coming any closer.

But hey, at least she's not leaving?

He glances at Five, deciding to just let her go oof. She's mad and he can't blame her. More and more, he wants to smack Luka upside the head. Why is he being like this!!

"Is she supposed to just forget what you did yesterday? You look absurd right now!" he nearly shouts at him, throwing his arms into the air in pure exasperation.

"Just talk to other people. Leave each other alone!"

"I do not look absurd." He retorts instantly. "I'm not the one stanning a monster here. One who specifically invited me to kill her - which, lest we forget, wasn't even real."

Luka gesticulates as he speaks, obviously full of riled-up energy. As he finishes, he sighs dramatically and seems to relax.

"I'll leave her alone. I'll pretend she doesn't exist. Whatever."

"My dead body is floating right down in there." Five immediately chimes in angrily when Luka implies it wasn't real. She isn't going to let that slide, but she can't help herself from taking a completely cheap and uncalled for addition.

"You would notice if you had eyes, or if you would listen at ALL!" She ends with her voice raising, clearly annoyed. Hadn't she told him he was done? He'd killed her and here he was still eager to get "real" blood on his hands.

As if his hands weren't stained permanently with blood already.

Edited (oops they're not in the cave yet; so she's referencing where she knows her body is) 2019-12-05 03:52 (UTC)

"I don't know what that means!" he shouts over Luka, specifically to the word stanning. He says it like it's a bad thing, but Gyre has absolutely no idea honestly. He's so utterly irritated with both of them right now.

"You should be happy it wasn't real. That means you didn't kill someone, Princess," he snaps, and then turns to Five. "You, don't demand a he see things when he can't. You're just being annoying on purpose right now!"

And with that, he shoos Five away, banishing her from the conversation. In the same moment, he takes careful hold of Luka's shoulder and nudges him in the opposite direction, releasing him once it feels like he's gotten the idea. He's forcibly splitting you two up, cause you're being big babies. As far as he's concerned, this conversation is now over, and he says as much, announcing, "Now never talk to each other again."

Despite just previously saying he would ignore Five's existence, Luka's about ready to jump over Gyre at Five when she brings up his blindness.

"I HAVE eyes!" He points to them for emphasis. "Don't you? Maybe you should get yours checked!"

But then Gyre is saying something and nudging him away and he lets it happen, reducing his rage to a seething groan of annoyance.

"I can't believe the gall of that monster. No class at all." He grumbles.

Dang right she's being annoying on purpose! She's two seconds away from throwing down with Luka right here when Gyre intervenes and quite effectively shoos her out of the conversation. Hey!!

"Whatever!!" She exclaims as her final exit to the conversation. Hopefully she never has to see that jerk of a princess ever again.

Gyre watches Five retreat for several seconds, making sure she's not going to turn around and gripe some more. He can feel the fight that almost happened still in the air, and his whole body is tense, ready to jump in the middle if they do go for each other.

It's only once she's far enough away that he'd hear her running approach that he turns to Luka, sighing angrily at him.

"She's gone. I'm not here to babysit so if you could not fight with anyone else, I'd appreciate it."

“I don’t need to be babysat, that was your decision.” He says, poking a finger in Gyre’s direction. “Well, I cant guarantee no fighting, either. You never know what’s going to happen, and I can only tolerate so much bullshit. You can have my official royal decree of having no obligation to intervene in the next one, if that helps.”

If he hadn't just broken Luka's nose, he'd be doing it again. Instead, he grabs the Princess by the front of his shirt, shaking him hard once as if to jostle some sense into his head.

"Listen, you selfish child," he snarls, lifting Luka up to put him on his toes, "If you can't get over yourself long enough to save the fucking world, then get out. Go down the mountain. Get out of the way." And then he releases him, shoving him backwards in pure frustration.

He was ready to let this whole squabble go, he really was.

To Luka, Gyre's reaction comes completely out of left field and accordingly, he doesn't have time to even form a thought until he's already fallen ass-backward into the dirt as a result of being shoved. He rights himself quickly, hoping that as few of the Knights as possible had just seen that.

"Who do you think you are, exactly, Gyre? I'm in your way? You don't need me to save the world? What about the other Knights, are they in your way, too?" Luka says, seething, his face flushed. "I'm only on this stupid mountain because YOU asked me to be. If the Princess isn't important enough to be necessary, then I'll get the hell out of here."

Edited 2019-12-15 05:13 (UTC)

He is so frustrated!!! About all of this! But especially about his apparent inability to make his point as cleanly as he wants. He can't believe it got to this, and he's stepping forward to help Luka up just as the other rights himself instead.

He covers his face for a moment, sighing angrily through his teeth as he tries to steady himself. These people don't fight the way he expects, and trying to restrict himself to just words is hard. Despite Luka's seething and his own desire to just brawl it out, he's trying not to match him here.

"I asked you to be here because I want your help! I want everyone's help, but especially you, and especially the monsters. The Wizard and the Protector too, if I can!" he says, an edge in his voice, there at the end, that might be pleading if he was a different person.

"But this is fragile. We will die if we can't do it. You're important, but I'll do it without you if you're going to break it before we have a chance."

"I'm going to help." Luka folds his arms defensively. "But I am not going to prostrate myself for your monsters, and especially not for the disrespectful ones."

He realizes as he says it just how stupid this whole situation is.

"Your plan is worth trying, and that's why I'm here. But it's not the only one. If it doesn't work then we'll find another plan. The world is going to be saved no matter what." His phrasing is short and terse, lacking in his usual panache. "Don't imply that I don't care about saving the world. And don't imply that I'm second fiddle to you."

"No one is a fiddle!" Gyre snarls at him, throwing his hands into the air. "If you have a better plan, I want to hear it! I want everyone to hear it, but the second you assume that the world will be saved, no matter what we do, we have lost."

He takes a deep breath at that, reaching up to run his fingers through his hair. After a beat, he retreats a step back from Luka, trying to find his ground again. "I'm not asking you to prostrate yourself for anyone. I am asking you not to threaten people if you don't intend to follow through."

"I didn't say that my plan is better, but if this one fails there's going to be another plan. However many it takes. Whatever sacrifices we have to make." His posture relaxes, but Luka keeps his arms firmly folded. "It's not an assumption, I'm speaking it into the universe: we're going to save the world. That's always how it's worked for me. I usually get what I want."

"I'll ignore Five. I didn't think you'd be particularly happy if I'd carried through on my threats."

"I would have stopped you again," he says with complete certainty, looking Luka over as he says it. The Princess relaxing a little means he gets to relax a little as well, sighing.

"I'm glad it didn't come to that. It's been good to work with you." Even if he thinks 'speaking it into the universe' is mostly nonsense, he can't fault him if he's going to do that work as well. He's done his fair share of saying things he thinks are impossible in this situation just in the hope he can make them happen. Between the two of them, hopefully they can make the universe listen.

"Come to what?" Luka raises an eyebrow. Gyre makes the theoretical situation sound particularly dire. Would he have put the well-being of the monster over Luka, he wonders? Was she more important than him, in Gyre's eyes? The concept makes Luka uneasy.

"To a fight," he says automatically, watching Luka's face with a wary confusion. He thinks he's being perfectly clear, but just to be sure, he adds, "I don't want anyone to get hurt, especially not here."

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