Day 7: Evening

Aftern-Evening: 3pm - Midnight

[ IRL Timeframe: January 22 - January 29, 2020. ]

After all of Seven's fights, ending in Luka taking Ten's hand as the other heroes arrive. The knights will be treated to the sight of something entirely unexplainable: Seven is wounded, laying on the asphalt with a bright white crossbow bolt sticking out of their body. They're still pouring black goop off of their body, but they appear to be wrapped in some kind of cloth tarp. Five is kneeling over them, dressed in a skin-covering assassin outfit that only reveals her five eyes peering out. In her hand is a phone, and that's really all that can be seen before she and Seven disappear into a portal in the ground.

Luka, meanwhile, is standing with Ten's hand in his and his crossbow laid on the ground and not in his hand. No matter what the arriving heroes cry out in order to get his attention, it's too late to stop him. Abruptly, the portal opens and both the Princess and Ten disappear into the ground.

Naturally, the hashtag #princessnapped is forged.

That doesn't prove to be the only hashtag to get some heavy use this evening. The #wizardfound and #robotwizard hashtags find a sudden, new reason to actively discuss what's going on.

The remaining heroes: Garrot, Gyre, Haizea, Matilda, Olivia, (and... where's Terrence?) will find that the events from earlier in the day have caught up to them. There's a crack like thunder as both the Wizard and the Protector flicker into existence and both land in the superhero pose in the center of the intersection that Luka just disappeared from.

The Protector, if possible, is looking even worse than before. He's sporting a black eye and numerous cuts on his forehead, cheeks, and arms. It looks like he's been lit on fire at least once, but even so he's holding his rapier out in anticipation of the next strike.

The Wizard, meanwhile, is finally openly visible to everyone after her absence. She looks rough. It's as if the areas where she'd been harmed have been replaced or repaired with robotics. The left side of her face is no longer bandaged, instead revealing that she now has a robotic eye with a glowing yellow ring. The cables that were visible in the video before are very clearly plugged in just behind her ear, trailing down over her shoulder and down her back beneath the robes.

And of course she's still wearing pajamas. But they look like they've seen better days, charred and ripped and shredded at every edge. In her hand, though, is a massive axe. One side of its head is a giant half-circle axe head while the other side is a heavy weight like a hammer. The entire weapon is jet black, but it has a glossy shine.

What's the worst that could happen?

The Weather
Cloudy, breezy.
48°F / 9°C
Brrr.

Prompts:

3:00pm The Garden, Unknown Location: When Luka falls through the portal with Ten, he'll become immediately aware that the monster has slipped himself closer and snuck his feet beneath Luka's to stabilize him. Despite the falling, he seems surprisingly stable in the air.

And then there's the soft crunch of grass beneath his feet and he shifts slightly, waiting for Luka to step back on his own. Wherever they are, the air is filled with the scents of wildflowers and scents that are both beautiful and entrancing in their complexity. It's clear that there are dozens, if not hundreds of flowers and plants in the immediate vicinity. There's the gentle warmth of sunlight on Luka's skin, clearly advertising that they're outside (or in a very clever indoor garden). But most calming is the gentle sounds of moving water. If Luka focuses, he'll be able to pick out that there's a small waterfall, several waterways, and multiple water features with water tumbling down over rocks. And, of course, a pool or a pond with fish gently swimming about beneath the surface.

But he'll be interrupted twice before he can lose himself. The first is Ten.

"We're here." He says, but if Luka's not shaken enough he'll realize that he doesn't hear Seven and his Seven sense isn't going wild. But the second distraction happens as Luka's phone bloops from an unknown sender with a text:

"Welcome to the Garden, Princess." The text reads... with no explanation of who or how they sent him the text. That's totally normal!

3:00pm Street Intersection, Bamborough: With the arrival of the Wizard and the Protector, it's very clear that shit is about to go down. But that absolutely isn't what the Wizard has in mind for this situation. She's the one running this game, and she isn't about to get five heroes wrapped up in her duel with the Protector. Before anyone can take an opportunity to make any attacks, and especially not the Protector, she snaps the fingers of her free hand five times.

And reality fractures. The way that the cracks in midair begin to fold and reflect the area and people around them, it's like the world is folding up into a trick mirror house. It's... actually exactly that. Reality twists and folds, forming reflections and containers out of the air itself until every single hero is enclosed in one. The hero in the middle of their own box, reflected on two opposite walls. But on the opposite two walls, the Wizard is visible beyond in one of them and the Protector is visible beyond in the other room. Uh. This conversation might get awkward. Worse is that they can't get distracted by their Seven senses, because no one can feel them anymore.

3:15pm To Everyone: In the middle of the earlier events, every hero in Bamborough receives a text from an unknown sender. The only one who's spared this text is Luka, because he got a text earlier. The text reads: "I can give you one teleport to anywhere today. Tell me when and to where. Don't be unreasonable!"

8:00pm Onward, Everywhere: The day is done, the events are finished. How does your character get home? Do they go home alone? Do they seek the company of their fellow heroes? Do they stay alone, or do they get a room together? Either way, it's a rough night for everyone.

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: January 2020

[ IRL Timeframe: January 1st - January 31st, 2020 ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"He has been doing it every year, he started almost from the beginning." He answers, shifting his hand to take the bloody handkerchief and ball it up so he could throw it away later.

"We will find out what they are really like soon, if Nine's machine works. The Protector hid Seven from us until now." He shakes his head, he wishes he could make the Microsoft Sam phone voice sound disappointed. Seven was always hidden until the moment they were released and started killing people. Usually, by that point, it was too late and there were too few monsters available to help stop them.

It was surprising that they hadn't needed to fight this year.

Nearby, footsteps start approaching from down the path. Who's that?

"Every year?!" That certainly answered Luka's question - the Protector wasn't getting desperate, this was just par for the course. "But why? Why Seven?"

His stomach drops. He wished he could go back to the simplicity of believing that the monsters were just liars, trying to tempt him to their side. But the more he found out about their situation, the more unlikely that seemed. And the Protector - as much as Luka wanted to believe him - had offered little in the way of reassurances.

"I don't understand." He says, dropping his voice to a whisper instinctively when he hears the approaching footsteps. "Why would he need to rig the game from the start?"

"He wants to control the story. He has succeeded a lot until now. Seven was who he got to first." Ten answers, not able to make microsoft sam any quieter than he was for his voice-to-text. But that was fine, because he knew who was walking up.

"And because he's a jerk!" Five exclaims, coming to a heavy boot-stomp stop a few feet away from where Luka's sitting on the bench. The Protector sucked, dude.

"Hi Five." Ten greets her, five of his eyes on her and five of his eyes on Luka.

Ah... Five.

Luka straightens up and quickly wipes his eyes with the new handkerchief. It's not like he'd been crying or anything!

"What are you doing here?" He asks, turning in her direction. He's trying not to be rude, but the question comes out bluntly. He ignores her comment about the Protector: he is in no position to deny it given everything he'd just heard, anyway.

Ten keeps watch as Five responds. She's already putting her hands on her hips as she looks at Luka after what he'd said.

"Well I was living my life away from you." She starts with an unmissable annoyance in her voice.

"But since you asked so nicely--" She continues, the word 'nicely' practically dripping with sarcasm.

"I came to tell Ten that Seven is doing okay and I think Nine's machine is working... when I got to eavesdrop about someone I hate more than you. Love that!" She rolls all five of her eyes, glancing over at Ten.

"Thanks. You don't have to stay." Ten follows, offering Five an out. He really didn't want these two to fight here.

"It's not like I had much of a choice." Luka says flatly. "You're the one that came over here anyway."

He remembers Ten's presence and backs off for his sake.

"I'm... glad about Seven." He says, hesitantly. It was true, but Luka felt like a hypocrite saying it. It was him who put the Protector's bolt in Seven, after all.

Ten holds up a hand in Five's direction begging her to stop from advancing on Luka and throwing him into the lake. He knows she wants to.

At the same time, she rolls her eyes and turns to walk away. Now that he'd brought up Seven she can't yell at him. She stomps her way down the path as she goes. Before she's out of earshot, though, she calls back:

"Don't tell me to fix the path. I'll fix it when he's gone!" She says, annoyed, before continuing to walk away with the soft crunch of boots on the rocky path.

"Sorry." Ten eventually says after a pause, after Five's left. That probably could've gone better.

Luka shrugs. It was the most civil interaction he and Five have had yet, so it definitely could have gone a lot worse.

"What's wrong with the path?" He asks when she leaves. He hadn't noticed anything wrong with the paths he'd walked down with Ten, at least.

Ah.

"She stomped and made a mess." He says, before realizing that he needs to actually explain why--

"The path isn't even now, like it was before." He adds, hoping that'll be enough of an explanation. Leave things how you found them.

"Oh." Luka says simply, still a bit dazed by everything going on. The garden must be even more meticulously maintained than Luka had thought if something like a path being disturbed by stomping feet was something that warranted repair.

There's an awkward silence as Luka thinks of how to broach the next topic, but he decides to cut straight to the point.

"The Wizard." He says. "The Protector told me he'd killed her, but she wasn't dead. Why did he lie about that?"

Fortunately for Luka, Ten is content to watch the Lake while he works through his thoughts. It's part of the reason he picked this spot. But when the questions come, he turns back to Luka.

"We rescued her. We think he thought he did enough damage that she could not recover before the final day." He explains, pausing a moment to decide how best to phrase the next part.

"Without Nine, she would not be moving."

"Nine made the robots parts, then?" He asks, though the implication is obvious. "And they made that machine for Seven, too. You're lucky to have someone that smart around."

He leans back in the bench, one arm draped over the back of it casually.

"It was... weird, that the Protector wasn't more excited if he thought she was dead. He talked about killing her like it was the only thing that mattered to him, and when he'd supposedly done it he was just as boring as stoic as he always is." Luka is mostly musing out loud, at least not expecting Ten to have any insight into the Protector's mindset. "Well, anyway, the plan... how can I help?"

"She did." He confirms, nodding his head. Nine made both of those things. That made her smart in some ways. He wasn't sure she would want to be called smart for that, though.

"I don't know if he cares about anything besides being the one on top." Ten answers, folding his arms, before Luka asks the really complicated question.

"We have to stop the Protector from killing anyone else for five days. And connect all of Nine's machines that Eleven hid. Without letting the Protector find them." He offers, laying the basics of the plan out.

Hopefully he wasn't misplacing his trust in the Princess.

“Not much to be on top of if the world is really going to fall apart. I get wanting glory and all but he’s going to end up the king of smoldering ashes and not much else. I know he doesn’t believe it but it’s obvious by now that this year is going a bit .... off script. Sxicq is evidence enough.”

Luka sighs, exasperated just thinking about trying to tell the Protector any of that.

“What happens if someone else dies?” He asks. “We’ve been so careful and we lost Seth anyway. I’m afraid it will happen again.”

"He thinks it is all lies." He answers, shaking his head. He didn't understand how the Protector was so utterly dumb.

"If someone else dies it just gets harder to survive for everyone else."

"That's always been true." Luka says, idly twisting one boot against the grass and gravel beneath it. "I thought it might ruin the plan in a significant way. We're going to do our best to survive no matter what."

"Sxicq told me there are ships that can leave the planet... do you know anything about that? I mean, what do you think of Sxicq in general?" He tilts his head inquisitively.

Ten nods in agreement. He'd like everyone to survive, that'd be ideal. But then Luka asks about one of the particularly complex topics and--

"We're in one." He starts with, pausing for a moment before he moves on to the second part of that question.

"I think they're on our side but none of us expected them to be a person." And uh. Them being a person was a whole thing.

"Wait we... are?!" Luka gasps. "It has a lake on it?!"

He'll need a few seconds to collect himself. Everything about his current surroundings felt authentic and natural, certainly not like how he'd imagined the interior of a ship. He swears he felt the sun, even. If this were a ship, it was probably built with some serious Wizard magic ™, he thinks.

"How much more space is there around here? Can this fit the entire population of the planet?" Even if it could, he felt bad suggesting everyone cram into the monster's private space. But it might be the only way to save everyone!

"In it." Ten counters, making sure it's clear that they're in the ship and not on it.

As if to make things even more surreal, a soft breeze blows past both of them.

"They will not fit. We don't know how to get them here." He offers, pausing for a moment before--

"Maybe we don't need to but I don't know how."

"Sxicq told me they're just going to leave... and when they do, our planet's going to be destroyed." He says, gesturing as he speaks, with worry apparent in his tone. "They told me about the ships, as if to suggest we take them, but they didn't know much more about it... either way, it doesn't seem like staying on the planet is a good idea!"

Luka hopes Ten already knows about this problem - he hates feeling like he might be sharing horrible news, and ideally he has a solution for it already, too.

"They're going to the planet that the Wizard and Protector came from, originally. They said they can fix it."

Ten pauses for a little while as he considers what Luka had just said. Talk about a wrench in the plan. But then--

"You can talk to them too?" He follows, curious. He knows that the monsters and companions can, but Luka can?

"They have different goals than us, they didn't make that a secret." He answers, pausing as he turns towards the sound of approaching footsteps.

Two sets of approaching footsteps! Gyre and Five are coming back down this path. He's on a bit of a mission to talk to Twelve, but he slows when he sees the Princess and Ten, glancing out over the lake as he approaches.

"Princess. How are you?" he says, offering Ten a nod in acknowledgement instead of a greeting. His next question is directed to the little monster, something that's been on his mind since yesterday.

"Six told me to ask you how to get here without having to ask Eight."

He had heard the approaching footsteps and thought it might be Five, maybe with another monster - but definitely not Gyre.

"...Gyre?" He interjects, too blindsided for proper etiquette. "I'm... well, I've been better. How did you get here?"

Luka feels like he's bursting at the seams with information he needs to share with the knights. He wants to catch up with Gyre on everything he's learned.

Ten gives Gyre a little wave but waits for Luka to greet him. Five makes a point to fold her arms and not say a damn thing though.

"Text Eight until I can show you." He answers, the voice of microsoft sam coming out from the few small holes on his face from where he'd eaten his phone.

"It's hard to explain."

Gyre glances over his shoulder at Five when she doesn't say anything, wondering if she's really going to be that petulant about it. It's not his business though if she wants to hide from Luka. He certainly isn't going to narc on her.

"Eight offered to bring me here. The Wizard wants me to talk to Twelve while I'm here," he answers, realizing in this moment that Luka probably hasn't actually talked to Eight yet. Not unless he's really gotten around anyway.

"Did you get hurt?" he asks after another beat, wanting very much to fuss over the man but knowing he should keep moving soon.

Then he returns his attention to Ten, saying simply, "Eight is busy, right? I want to learn soon." So the poor monster doesn't have to drag his ass around whenever he requests it. He hates the idea of not being able to get to a place like this of his own volition.

The Weather

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