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

Luka's face twists appropriately at the description. Slimey monster vomit. There were likely much worse descriptors that could have been applied, but none of them were particularly pleasant either way.

"Do you still... have it?" He asks, in spite of his better judgment. "I need my hands in full working order."

It was true. There were actual insurance policies taken out on his hands, but beyond that, having one injured was just really inconvenient. As Luka continues to weigh the pros and cons of touching the healing vomit, he suddenly rises from the bench.

"Wait." He says, an idea dawning on him. "Can this completely heal my face too? The broken nose?"

The Wizard is more than happy to let Gyre stumble through explaining slimey monster vomit to Luka. Neither of them have asked for her input, so she's casually sipping on her coffee as they work through it.

Fen, meanwhile, just gives Gyre a confused look before Five pats them on the head and waves Gyre off. She'll go tell this little boar a story.

Ten, at least, provides answers while not bringing up that Gyre is stripping in front of Luka. He stuffs his phone back into his face before he responds:

"It can." He answers Luka's nose question. It'll be quick and relatively painless minus the crunchy sounds. Enjoy.

"Do it." His reply is instantaneous. There was no choice to be made anymore - suffering a little facial contact with monster vomit was absolutely worth having his broken face and burnt hands (arguably some of his most valuable assets!) back to their normal condition.

Luka approaches Gyre, cautious not to get too close to where he presumes the edge of the lake must be. He inhales deeply and squeezes his eyes shut, arms straight at his sides, his fists clenched tight in anticipation.

"Okay, go, I'm ready." He says between holding his breath. "Do what you have to do."

Gyre watches Ten push his phone into his face, and he's so stunned for a moment he doesn't even notice Luka approaching him. He realizes after a second that this shouldn't surprise him. He saw it earlier. And yet watching that glowing box vanish inside the monster's normally smooth face is too shocking to ignore.

It's not until Luka is close enough that he might fall that he suddenly snaps back into focus, raising a hand to catch him if he comes too close.

"Okay," he says in a daze, taking a second longer to process what he actually asked for. He uh dreads touching his broken nose honestly, but there is something almost pleasing in be able to fix something he fucked up only a couple days ago. He takes a deep breath.

"Okay," he repeats himself, and this time he actually moves, taking Luka's wrist almost delicately and turning his hand upwards. Hopefully starting here will make the face slime a little less unpleasant? He gathers a little more of the goop out of his hair (blegh), and begins to smear the stuff over the other's palm with his thumb. He's trying not to push too hard, but he's also making sure to cover anything that looks discolored.

After a moment of this, he takes his hand away, checks his work, and asks, "Ready?" This is all the prompting Luka will get before he reaches up suddenly, and grabs him with both hands, running fingers over the bruised arch of his eyebrows and straight down his nose. He moves quickly, but precisely. He's straightened a few broken noses in his time, and he coats him in slime with the same sort of efficiency, trying to get it over with while causing the least amount of pain possible.

The second he's done, he steps back, letting him go and waiting to see if the healing takes. Fingers crossed!

The Wizard makes a hand motion off to the side for Five. As Gyre and Luka get up to their healing shenanigans, Five wanders over to her to offer Fen out like a basketball to her. They have some minor smalltalk that gets buried by the disconcerting sound of Luka's nose mending.

Despite the shifting bits in his nose and the soft crunching of cartilage realigning and healing together, it doesn't hurt. It's not comfortable, of course, like pressing a thumb hard into your foot or palm and moving it around. But it doesn't hurt. It's. Just. Not normal.

That didn't make it any less psychologically astonishing as the healing process mends his nose and heals the skin on his hand.

But hey, it was the little costs for good outcomes, right?

Ten, meanwhile, stands to the side and just glances between Luka and Gyre, and Five and the Wizard's conversation with Fen.

Luka opens his eyes when Gyre steps away. He was expecting something a lot messier, like a bucket of the stuff overturned on his head. But as the surface level damage begins to fade, the strange feeling of his face literally repairing itself from the inside sets in.

It's an alarming sensation unlike anything Luka had experienced before. He winces, expecting the pain to follow, but it never comes.

As the process subsides, Luka's hands snap to his face and immediately begin feeling it. He nearly jumps in place as a wide grin breaks across his face.

"It actually worked?" He half asks, half exclaims. His hands land at Gyre's shoulders and he just about shakes the man in excitement. "That was amazing!"

He lets out an audible sigh of relief as he watches Luka's face reverse all the damage it had been trying to heal, and then he uh turns his head away. As pleased as he is, it is absolutely nasty watching all that cartilage move under his skin. A chill rushes up his spine, his stomach churning a little just at the sounds of it. Gross!!

"You look be-- tter???" he tries to compliment him as the sounds stop, only to be grabbed and shaken around all at once. He grips Luka's elbows just to steady himself a little, and uh starts laughing suddenly? He is not a person who laughs normally, and the sound is weird and choppy in his ruined throat, but there is something wonderful about seeing the princess that happy. It reminds him of listening to him sing, and despite the stress of the day, little hints of joy bubble up into his chest. He feels... good. He did good.

"Ah, I'm happy to help, princess," he says, almost shyly, once the shaking stops. He's not thinking about it really, but he's going to leave his hands on him until he pulls away. "Do you think your fans will forgive me now?"

Ten watches this interaction take place, amused because he's been a part of weird healing moments in years past and they've all been roughly like this. There weren't a lot of things in the world that could heal instantly, so it was a nice surprise for most knights.

But once Gyre starts laughing and then shifts to talking about Luka's fans, Ten takes a step a little closer to eavesdrop.

And while all that's happening, the Wizard is casually hovering Fen in the air between herself and Five. Fen is getting bigger with each passing second, turning into an absolutely massive boar. They're rounding out like a balloon would, legs kicked out in different directions.

"Wowww!" They declare, rotating slowly as they look out on everything. Their voice is a little louder since they're so much bigger, but uh... they're nearing the size of a preposterously oversized beach ball. One of the ones that two people can't even get their arms completely around together.

"Some of them might." Luka says, his grin settling into a smirk. "I'll have to let everyone know this was your doing, but, even then, some of them might need more convincing. They can be very protective."

He is completely unaware of the floating boar steadily increasing in circumfrence nearby.

"At least I'll have a little help in that rega-- ah?? Fen??" His eyes jerk away from Luka and up to his companion getting bigger and bigger in the air. Despite his impulse to hold onto the man for a little longer, his little animal wins out.

He pulls away from him, reaching up to pull Fen down towards him, looking them over with this anxious little wibble.

"Are you okay, ki'ta?" he asks gently, glancing over at the Wizard as if to ask what happened. What did you do to his sweet little boar?

Fen is huge but still manages to make a delighted sound as Gyre rushes over--

And then they're back down to wooloo-sized as they radiate flowers out around them.

"I'm great!" They declare, excited, as the Wizard greets Gyre's searching gaze from somewhere behind them where they can't see. She holds a finger up to her lips as if to say 'secret'--

"Did you see how startled he got?" Five interrupts, barely containing a laugh.

"You should do that all the-- ...? What. ... What?" She cuts herself off as she catches Ten facepalming and the Wizard sort of casually shrugging towards Gyre. Looks like this joke is ruined.

The entire joke is completely lost on Luka, and not entirely because he isn't privy to the visual elements of it all. In fact, he might be even more lost if he were sighted. The feeling that Luka is somehow intruding upon something not meant for him returns, and he gives up attempting to piece together what just occurred.

He instead navigates back to the bench, feeling carefully for where he'd last left his coffee. He takes a long, drawn out sip after returning to his position on the bench.

"Anyway," He begins, his tone demanding attention. "How do I explain my face to the Protector?"

It's alright, Luka, Gyre doesn't get it either. He stares at the Wizard's shushing motion, blinking several times as he tries to decipher all of that. He doesn't understand the facepalm, or the shrug. The only bit he even begins to understand is Five talking about how startled he was. Is that a fun joke for her? Startling people?

He manages another bewildered glance around the lot of them before Luka speaks up, and his attention is pulled there instead. He is more then happy to leave whatever strange exchange that was in the past, though he keeps a very close eye on Fen when he lets them go again.

"Ah... good question," he offers limply, glancing at the Wizard as if she might be able to offer some solution.

"You could break it again..." This is not the right solution, he knows, but it'd be better then the Protector knowing he came here willingly. Probably.

Ten is so eager to leave this entire exchange in the past that he puts his hands on Five's shoulders and pushes her in the direction of the garden crossroads. He's sending her to her room. Fen, too, gets floated away with them with an excited sounding 'where are we going!'

The Wizard, meanwhile, has an answer to Luka's conundrum.

"A spell would make it look broken, still." She offers, sounding a little mischievous as she adds:

"It won't be the only thing the Protector hasn't noticed me do."

"Absolutely not." Luka cuts in, immediately shutting down the idea. "I'd sooner confess everything that happened here. A spell..."

He hesitates, grimacing almost as much at the idea as he had at imagining being punched again.

"... Well, it could work, if you're sure he wouldn't notice your magic. I'm not very eager to look like busted garbage again so soon after getting my face back, though."

"Actually," He pauses to sip from the mug, finishing off what was left of his coffee. "I don't know what I'll tell him about, well, any of this. Why I went with Ten, what happened when I was here... I thought I'd tell him partial truths, but even that seems like too much."

He sets the now emptied mug down next to him.

"That's all assuming that he's even willing to hear what I have to say."

As Luka speaks, anxiety settles back onto his shoulders. All he can think about is Luka having to lie to that man's face. All he can think about is the brilliant light of his sword as he tried to attack him. Twice. He doesn't know what the princess could do if the Protector really came after him, and that's terrifying.

"Better to look uh, busted, then for him to realize what happened," he says almost automatically. It's not a demand exactly, but his voice makes it clear that he highly recommends that option.

As he's speaking though, his thoughts are miles away, turning the problem over. He's never been good at this subterfuge thing, but after a moment, he hesitantly offers, "Maybe you were kidnapped, but we were trying to convince you to come to our side? So Twelve healed you?"

He glances at the Wizard as he says this, looking for confirmation that the Protector even knows that Twelve can heal.

As Luka puts his mug down, he'll be greeted by the soft sound of liquid pouring and a fresh wafting coffee scent up towards him. Care for another cup, Princess?

"He knows Twelve can heal. He believes every knight has turned against him, save for Olivia." The Wizard follows-up Gyre's theorizing, and then she offers a casual bit of hope.

"He'll be eager to believe he has not lost the Princess. You could tell him who the knights aligned with me are, to secure his trust." She takes a sip of her own coffee, apparently willing to divulge that information if he asked for it.

The coffee is there now, regardless, so it may as well not go to waste. The caffeine boost might help, too, if it doesn’t serve to worsen the growing anxiety instead.

“He knows about Gyre.” Luka says, nearly taking a sip before recoiling from the piping hot mug. “Not from me. The hospital thing was a bit of a giveaway. If he’s assuming everyone but Olivia has turned on him already, I doubt any other names will be worth his while.”

Luka blows on his coffee futilely as he thinks over the proposed plan.

“I can lie to him about what happened here. That the healing was a bargaining chip makes sense to me. But he’s very smart and not easily charmed.” Luka sighs. “If he catches on I’ll be in trouble.”

Gyre's attention jumps to the Wizard and stays there, wondering what exactly she has planned. He has been fairly public about his involvement with her, but he also knows he can protect himself. He doesn't care for keeping information secret really, but they are also safer if the Protector doesn't know who they are.

He lets out a breath he didn't realize he was holding when Luka refuses the information, glancing down at the ground for a beat. There are little nervous tremors running up and down his arms, but he's doing his best to stay practical. Much as he would prefer they all just weather the Protector storm here, where he can't seem to get to them, he knows that's not practical.

"I can hide nearby when you talk to him? If he turns on you, I can keep you safe," he offers after another beat.

The Wizard casually sips her coffee, pondering the situation they're all in, watching Luka and Gyre come to their conclusion and--

"There's something you should both know, about tomorrow." She begins, not wanting them to plan too far before she's revealed this bit.

"Both Eight and Sxicq are going to be causing a big commotion tomorrow." She says casually, blowing on her coffee for a moment.

"I'll be with Nine and Twelve, getting things ready for later. Ten will be watching the Protector. Five and Six will be with Seven." She pauses, before a little smirk appears on her face and:

"Eleven will be in the mountain."

Luka shuts his eyes slowly and heaves a big, dramatic sigh.

“If you have anything in common with the Protector, it’s that you both seem to hate giving even the slightest of details.” He says. “How do you know what Sxicq will be doing? I thought they were a free agent.”

There were more questions Luka could rattle off. There were always more questions. But he holds the deluge back and waits for clarification on the first one first. As a courtesy.

There is something almost miraculous about seeing another person getting frustrated about the Wizard's vague bullshit. He should've made Luka come with him to talk to her days ago, and he can't help smirking slightly as he turns his gaze onto the Wizard.

"What kind of a commotion?" he adds into the mix, hoping that with two people asking her about tomorrow, she'll actually give any details about any of it.

"They are, but Eight contacted them. Those two get along." She offers, sipping her coffee.

"They're going to change the shape of the mountain." She offers, pausing just enough before she adds:

"Without hurting anyone."

"Why do that?" Luka asks. "If you're at liberty to say."

She probably isn't, but it's a strange scenario to put forth without explanation, so Luka figures he may as well try.

"And... will we have to 'fight' Eight tomorrow too? Sounds like he's booked full with this mountain business."

Gyre nods to all these questions, glad to see the Wizard is in one of her easier moods to interrogate today.

"Eleven is going to be on the mountain while they reshape it?" he adds on to Luka's original 'why', leaning a little closer to her. He's hanging on her every word at this point basically.

The Weather

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