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

Xaljim folds his arms and looks Garrot over. Is he really going to try to have this conversation now, while he's like this? He looks like he's about to pass out ten times over.

"Nothing I didn't already know. Nothing that I can tell you. Not without a certain someone intervening." He adds, shaking his head.

"Which I can only say because we're here."

"Got it." He sighs before taking a moment to drink from that ridiculously large jug of water again. Can never be too hydrated, especially if he has to do all the godsdamned work himself. "Write anything down if you-" And Garrot just pauses. Maybe Xaljim can help!

"Two questions." The Monkey Knight takes a moment to loose something between a cough and a sigh. He can't stop here, he can't take a break, this is- there's so much to learn here, to do. "First: are the Wizard and Sxicq trustworthy if I wanna learn the limits of this shitty game, or are they both shit? The Protector's obviously a no-go... for now." He'll make him see reason, maybe. But it's clear he's prioritizing using his brain over catching his breath.

"And... how do you feel about delivering messages? I want you to put your paper to good use."

Xaljim nods when Garrot asks if the Wizard and Sxicq are trustworthy, and then shakes his head when he follows 'if they're shit'. He knows better to say it out loud and deafen Garrot.

"What kind of messages." He asks, extremely suspiciously.

Garrot nods at the gestures; good to know. But that suspicion... it makes him chuckle. Smirk, even.

"An apology to the Protector with a little information." He shrugs, unconcerned. "Nothing he couldn't figure out if he decided to look at someone instead of down on them. It'll inflate his ego." The others were very transparent with their hopes and motivations. Garrot's, of course, changed on a dime, and that's his little secret for now. "But if he's a bad idea, ask the Princess to deliver it instead." The wheels keep turning, and another sigh slumps his shoulders a bit.

"Can we trust the other companions to deliver letters to their Knights?" He brings a hand to his beard, gently scratching at his jawline with his claws. Garrot is very casual about all this; is it the sedative? "Or are you gonna pull a Protector and say you're the only one I can trust?"

If anything, Xaljim gets even more suspicious of Garrot's intentions in this moment. He keeps looking him over, listening to the proposal all the way to the end--

"Some of the companions, yes, others, no." He begins to explain, already manifesting additional pieces of crumpled paper.

"I'm not writing these letters for you." He adds, not mentioning that his handwriting is literally illegible. Can he even write? He doesn't know. But he isn't going to try.

"I'll write them, but which companions don't we trust?" The only reason he's asking for this much is because he saw how fast Xaljim could fly on the first day. Garrot's arms cross and he sighs, looking down at the ground. He doesn't care about the paper balls at all. "The world's at stake, I'd monitor free Knight phones if I were on the outside. We need an alternative." The Protector's willing to kill with the tiniest sliver of motivation, he doesn't need to put himself or anyone else at risk. But there's a spark of something as he thinks back to his time in that cube, and his eyes go wide as he stares at Xaljim.

"Unless... whoever got us away from the Protector used a weird Unknown Number. Can they help?"

"You know I can't tell you that." He starts with, folding his arms. "Unless you want me to deafen you again."

But he keeps listening to Garrot's thoughts and plans, and he knows the answer to Garrot's question based on the murmurings the others had already had.

"That was a monster. Fen said so. If you trust them, get their help." He adds, narrowing his eyes as he watches how Garrot will respond to this revelation. Unless he already knew.

Garrot rolls his eyes at another roadblock from the Protector. What a piece of shit! So he starts to unravel the paper ball he's been holding onto for the past few minutes. At the same time, he listens. He wasn't paying the most attention to Fen (or anyone, really) when he showed up, but of course it's a monster. Hands pat around at Garrot's pockets for a moment before he sighs and just... tightly balls his hands up into fists. The puncture wounds on his palms start to bleed again, and after a moment he's using his own blood as an inkwell.

Haha, what the fuck, Garrot?

A minute of gruesome scribbling later, he holds the piece of paper up to Xaljim, a stern look on his face. The paper contains the animals for each of the Knights he knows to be alive.

Dragon
Pig
Dog
Ox
Rabbit

"Show me who I can trust." Every fiber in his being refuses to let the Protector win. If he thought the Wizard was bad...

Xaljim narrows his eyes at the list, knowing something that Garrot didn't about one of them but not wanting to reveal it just yet.

So he moves his hand forward and--

"Trust to what?" He asks, for clarification. What was his measure of trust here?

"Trust with your lunch money?"

The hesitation from Xaljim means that something's weird here. The fact that he has to ask about degrees of trust when a monster got a simple yes/no is... more than a little troubling. So Garrot scoffs, rolling his eyes. Why can't this just be easy?

"Who can we trust to keep the Protector in the dark?" There's a half-moment of pause, but then he continues, his conviction rock-solid. "I can't make him suffer if he's got someone on the inside."

At Garrot's specific narrowing of the question, Xaljim nods in understanding and--

Folds his arms.

"That's your answer." He states, absolutely calmly. Despite that this revelation is... pretty unsettling.

Garrot absolutely facepalms, smearing blood across his forehead and brow. The sedatives have him a bit on the physically and emotionally numb side of things, so he... doesn't notice and wouldn't care. Yikes. But he sighs before peering through his fingers at Xaljim.

"Nothing's easy, is it?" The sarcasm is strong enough to kill the first three monsters on impact alone. "Fly a lap around this place and figure out who's here and where. I'll see if we can catch a ride." A hand fishes a phone out of Garrot's pocket before he repositions himself onto his knees. Looks like someone's ready to get moving despite heavy sedatives.

"Go." But it's clear he's not interested in wasting time on further questions. At the same time, he begins typing out a message to the monster behind that Unknown Number.

"Any chance you can teleport me around this garden place? Trying to avoid being on my feet right now. Doctor's orders."

Xaljim rolls his eyes and flips backwards, disappearing into nowhere. Just in time for Garrot to text and--

"Eight minutes between." The reply comes immediately, how was that sent so fast?

You know who's too casually high on that sedative to properly parse that response time? Garrot. And now that he's alone for a bit, where Xaljim can't worry about him, he's able to actually relax and, well, embrace modern medicine. So a few moments later, when force of will isn't holding back the sedative's effects, he begins to respond.

"Coool.

When my frieda gets back.
Can you help me w a tech thing 4 our phoenix
Phonics.,
FONES! Its rely"

There's an awkward moment of pause in the meandering clumsiness of his messages. Is he still there?

"Its private and important!!!
Can i just talk to your face buddy
Or are your pants off for the day
Do you wear pants"

At least the latter half is still coherent, by some definition?

Unfortunately, Garrot is going to miss all the faces Eight is making. The first text is fast:

"Sure. Now?"

The second text comes... probably about eight seconds after.

"Pants required."

It may be for the best that they aren't talking to each other's faces yet. Garrot spends that eight second gap just sputtering, and then, well.

"Not yet!!!
Not until my friend gets back!!!!
And my pants stay on!! I need the pockets!!!"

There's about three seconds of pause, and then the messaging continues.

"Thank you for being a helpful and cool monster and not killing us send message oops wait"

Edited 2020-02-05 19:16 (UTC)

Eight's next reply is delayed, about sixteen seconds, before all of a sudden two texts hit immediately after each other:

"What friend."

"I'm a Pacifist."

"flying little monkey guy and so fucking what!!!!

There's a long moment or ten of pause. Dictating texts is exhausting and Garrot needs some more water. And then, well...

"my dad was a pacifist and he fought the monsters probably

you arent some coward who doesn't want to carry your weight your doing things and helping people like me who you havent even met and for all you know could try to kill you later

when do we get to fake fight you"

What a strange text. The next three replies come instantly. As if he'd sent them at the same time.

"Xaljim."
"You won't."
"Tomorrow."

It's almost like anything that makes Garrot think of his dad right now throws him way off-balance! But he does notice the immediacy of the messages. Plural.

"are you and xaljim friends and ate how did you do that"

He does it again, two at once.

"No."
"Skills™"

Garrot's response is to just talk louder and faster, like this is a competition.

"kids these days

are you not friends because you haven't met or because you don't like each other because he can be kind of difficult sometimes so like I'd understand"

Garrot is left without a single response for exactly 64 seconds. That's as many as eight eights. ~~And that's terrible.~~ But when the response finally comes, it's a single text with a single word.

"Neither."

Garrot is high and invested in this conversation so you better believe those eight eights go by so slowly that he actually starts standing up and sorta stretching his legs a bit. He even starts to move toward the gate for this little area, impatience taking over before he finally notices the reply.

"So then why aren't you friends you seem like your on the same team?"

Edited 2020-02-09 19:05 (UTC)

Time for a fast response again. It's like he already had the text written up when Garrot sent his. The reply arrives almost instantly:

"Too talkative."

The Weather

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