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 shrugs. "I thought this must be her house entirely, at first. She seems like the type to carve out her own space... but you know her better than I do."

He takes it upon himself to knock loudly once they're in front of Eight's room. Luka's hesitant to try the handle just yet, as that feeling of maybe intruding upon someone was still present. But he readies his hand to open it, just in case.

"Eight?" He calls out again. "It's us."

"Come in." Comes a voice from inside the room.

When they inevitably open the door, they're treated to a scene that someone else has already seen before. But Haizea isn't here before, she arrived way earlier when the two of them had arrived outside in the garden areas. Wherever she was, it wasn't here.

There's a pile of large beanbags in a corner of the room. The walls are made up of wood, so is the floor, and there's a bed, a desk, and a small chair in addition to the beanbags she'd landed in.

Atop the desk is a collection of various books and a pile of phones and chargers. There's the soft sounds of flowing water playing from one of the phones now, adding a gentle ambience to the room. Off to the side is a single window with a wide, cushioned area for seating built up against it.

Seated on the cushions on the windowsill is a monster.

Over his yellow skin, he's wearing a pair of tattered, ripped blue jeans. Through the holes, one of the following is clear: 1) He's wearing another pair of black pants underneath. 2) The pants have been patched with black under the holes. Or 3) He's wearing black tights beneath the pants. His shirt, meanwhile, has no tattered holes in it but it does have the logo of a famous rock band on the front.

"Hey." He greets their arrival when they enter, not looking up. If Gyre looks his way, he'll see that all eight of his eyes are closed. He has something resembling hair on his head, but it seems to be a slightly darker yellow than the rest of him and also it's not hair. Like how plastic figures pretend to have hair. Luka, meanwhile, will have a good idea of what he looks like--

Wait.

How? Where did that mental image come from?

Huh?

He wastes no time entering when Eight responds, quickly opening the door and taking a step inside. If Gyre is still linking arms with him, he might be slightly tugged forward here.

"Heyy..." Luka trails off as he's suddenly inundated with the exact mental image of Eight. This wasn't the first time he'd experienced this - the Protector (?) had sent a similar mental image when Luka was 'shown' Rory and Olivia.

It was incredibly jarring still, and something Luka thinks he could never get used to - instantly understand everything about a person's appearance without seeing or feeling them at all felt uncomfortable and unnatural to him.

"Is that... you? Was that you? I mean, did you do that?" A still overwhelmed Luka sputters out three bizarre, rapid-fire questions that he hopes Eight understands.

Well it's a good thing someone is pulling him forward. Even if he resists very slightly, the forward momentum wakes him back up out of his anxious cultural tangle. He steps just inside the door at least, though he pulls his arm free from the other after that. The room is bare enough that he doesn't feel like he needs to guide him. He can hang back, beginning to observe Eight curiously.

Or well. He thinks he can hang back until Luka starts asking all those frantic questions, his attention snapping from the monster to the princess. Immediately he takes a few steps closer, touching his back gently but otherwise not sure how to reassure him.

"What happened--? Are you alright?"

Luka's confusion makes sense, and Eight lets him work through his thoughts for several moments before he responds. The problem, of course, is that Gyre also throws in a question seemingly out into the air of the room that could be answered by Luka or by Eight himself and.

He doesn't know yet who Gyre was referring to, but he does know that the answer to Gyre's question is the same as the answer to all three of Luka's questions so he calmly answers them all at once:

"Yes."

Luka turns first to Gyre upon feeling his touch, but then quickly back to Eight when he confirms that yes, that was him, he did that, and then back to Gyre once again.

"I, uh, saw him. But... not really. I know what he looks like. All of his eyes are closed." Luka attempts to explain, offering the description as if he needed to prove his claim. "The Protector did something like that to me once, with magic, I guess. It's... weird."

He turns back to Eight. Luka rights himself and stands up straight - this was no good impression to make, being all flustered and confused, even if it wasn't his own fault.

"Eight, I'm Luka Eutychia, the Princess."

"You... saw...?" he asks, sounding just as confused as Luka did just a moment ago. He looks between the princess and Eight a couple times, trying to understand it, trying to figure out which questions to ask.

And then Luka moves on to the introduction, and he tries to settle himself. He feels like he's in completely the wrong place, his eyes darting around the room every few moments. He can't believe there's a bed in here. He can't believe he's in a place where someone sleeps. Ugh!

"Nice to meet you," he adds after a second, sounding about as awkward as he feels.

While Luka and Gyre waste time working through the things they'd learned, Eight shifts on his window perch to get more comfortable. He doesn't really have anything to contribute as they're figuring out what they think of their thoughts. But then Luka introduces himself and Gyre just says that and.

That was the line Eight was going to use to counter both of them stating their names, but now Gyre had said it without giving his name and--

"Thanks. For not killing Seven." Straight to the point, then.

Smooth.

(It wasn't smooth at all.)

Luka grimaces at the mention of Seven. It wasn't the worst possible thing to come from Eight, but it was pretty up there. It was this kind of reception that Luka had imagined he'd receive in Twelve's garden when he'd initially taken Ten's hand back on Harsen Island.

"Oh, yeah..." He replies, deflating. It was weird to be thanked for not killing someone, and he didn't know the proper etiquette for the situation. 'You're welcome' was obviously not a good dialogue choice here. "I'm glad they're recovering."

"This is Gyre." Luka noted that he hadn't given his name. It was probable Eight already knew a lot about the two of them, but Luka shares the information anyway. "We need you to teleport us somewhere but... I have lot of questions I want to ask you."

Oh wow, he really just went right for it. Gyre's eyes widen slightly when Eight brings Seven up like that, tilting his head curiously. He glances at Luka, watching his face for a beat as he works through all those feelings he's probably having. The princess seems to regret hurting them, and Gyre already said his piece about it. It was frustrating they were hurt at all, but they're not dead. They are recovering.

"How are they doing?" he can't help asking after a beat, unable to just let them go. He wants to check on them sometime today, but he's not sure when he's going to get the chance.

In fact, he's going to ask for even more detail about them when Luka goes and introduces him?? His attention snaps to him, and he looks utterly bewildered. Introducing another person is so bold and intimate to him, he never thought the princess would do it. It catches him off guard, making him sputter a little in the background while Luka asks the actually important questions. He'll rejoin the conversation in a moment. Give him a sec.

Well.

As far as responses went, Luka's wasn't the worst but it certainly wasn't the best. He makes a soft 'Mm' sound when Luka introduces Gyre instead, but then he moves on to the point and Gyre chimes in and Eight's much more thankful to have topics to answer.

"Seven's healing." He starts, letting that hang for a moment before tilting his head ever so slightly in the direction of these two boys:

"Ask." ...their questions, that is.

Luka takes a long moment to think over everything he wanted to ask Eight, and narrows it down to things he probably should ask Eight. It's a decidedly long pause before Luka settles on his first, and maybe most important question.

"So... you like music?" The band logo on Eight's shirt did not go unnoticed, and of course Luka had to inquire about it. There was a decent probability that this monster may be familiar with his own music! So Luka had to know.

"Oh, and that magic mental vision thing..." He follows up with something a little less pedestrian. "Do you do that all the time? To yourself?"

Edited 2020-02-10 22:07 (UTC)

Music? This is not the first question Gyre expected him to ask, and he's once again a little bewildered by it. His eyes dart between Luka and Eight, trying to figure out where music could have come from. He glances around the room, looking for records or evidence of instruments. Did the impression the princess got also tell him about the monster's interests? Someone doesn't understand band t-shirts and it's Gyre.

He decides not to comment on that, trying to pick up with the second question. Again, the princess is asking about things that are important and all he can do is attach a related question on top.

"You said the Protector did something similar?" he asks Luka, glances towards Eight to direct his question, "Is it the same kind of magic?"

The first two questions are easy, and Eight shifts slightly on the window sill as he gives his simple answers:

"Music, yes. Vision, no." He hits both of Luka's questions... and then goes silent as he turns his head back towards the window in response to Gyre's... cruddy question. He waits several seconds, eight actually, before answering.

"Protector... Not the same, but not all different."

"Oh." He says simply, deflating even more. Luka's absolutely disheartened by Eight's answer. This is the kind of response someone gives when they have absolutely no interest in carrying on a conversation with you. He had foolishly expected an opportunity to have a lively conversation about mutual interests and passions, but being met with Eight's blunt responses had all but shut that dream down.

"Me too." He shares, regardless. "I'm a musician... and Ten told me you're blind too. I found the braille in the garden pathway. So... we have a few things in common."

Luka lets his awkward attempt to connect to Eight linger in the air, hoping maybe he'd engage beyond a few words. He felt flustered trying to make friends with the monster. It wasn't a position he was often in: people are usually desperate to make friends with a celebrity like him. And so, he wasn't exactly sure what to do when met with apparent rejection.

"The Wizard said you'd be fighting us, but not really, tomorrow?" He asks eventually. "What's with that?"

Oh, Luka. Gyre glances between the two as that attempt at connection goes completely unacknowledged, his skin prickling a little at how blunt Eight is. It's... appreciated. He feels terrible that the princess was trying to connect with him, but direct, mostly clear answers are all he's been looking for in this past week.

He let's this awkward silence continue for a beat, reaching up to squeeze the princess' shoulder reassuringly? But once Luka moves on, he moves right with him.

"What can we do to make sure people aren't hurt by whatever it is?"

If only Luka knew that Eight had one of his shirts in a drawer.

"A few." He agrees with Luka's assessment, letting one leg slip off the side of the window sill so he can start shifting off of it to stand.

"Foam padded copy. Accurate, not dangerous." He answers both of their questions. Both 'what's with that' and 'make sure people aren't hurt'. Easy answers.

After he says it, he settles his other foot on the ground and starts to shift off of the ledge. As he does, the air in the room starts to shift and change. The walls start to flicker, the sounds start to get muted. It's like they're being put into a glass jar, the air around them starting to shift and change and--

And then they're standing in the vegetable garden. The smells of fresh produce and the heat of the sun are immediately present. Six and his big cowboy hat are visible at the far corner, rummaging in the dirt to get something planted.

Great!

To meet someone of fewer words than the Protector was not something Luka had expected, but here he was. He wasn't sure why he had expected anything at all from Eight, given what Ten had said.

Luka has no time to dwell on that as his surroundings start to fade out and muffle. He thinks he must be about to pass out - it wasn't an entirely unfamiliar sensation - and so he stumbles looking for a place to sit before he inevitably falls on his face.

But instantly he's somewhere else. He catches himself in his stumble as he's suddenly aware he's outside.

"What... just happened?" Luka takes a moment to orient himself. The smell is enough to tell him he must be in the vegetables area, but he has no idea why or how. "We didn't ask him to do this yet! And this is the total wrong place."

Luka realizes he might very well be all alone right now. "Wait, Gyre? You're here too, right?"

Gyre is similarly confused, watching Eight stand up and not realizing he should warn Luka about it until after things have already started changing. He jolts when the princess starts stumbling, reaching out to catch him if he actually does fall.

Instead, they're just in the garden, and Gyre looks around with steadily deepening confusion. Why are they here? Did Eight have something to say to Six? He doesn't even think to explain himself until Luka speaks up again, immediately reaching out to grab his arm reassuringly. He only holds it for a moment, but it's enough to let the man know he's nearby.

"I'm here. He is too. He came with us, uh," he turns to Eight, tilting his head. "Why'd you bring us here?"

Eight's going to give both of them the answer to their confusion by his actions alone. He moves over to one of the plants right by where they've arrived and he reaches out for an oddly spherical tomato-looking vegetable. He plucks it from the vine and pauses as the smell of cinnamon fills the air.

He brings a hand up to it, piercing a finger just barely into the side and-- His finger draws the side off of it, peeling it like the outer layer of an onion. The flesh beneath is a bright, vivid green... and just a bunch of grape-shaped orbs. He keeps his grip on the outer red layer as he reaches in to grab a bright green orb and pop it into his mouth. There's a scent of peppers that joins with the cinnamon.

"Hungry." He answers after swallowing, just a moment before popping another one into his mouth.

Luka breathes in deep, taking in the rather uncommon scents for a vegetable garden. He only wonders what they're growing that smells so strongly of cinnamon. Is it actual cinnamon? Kind of an unusual choice for a garden like this, but nothing was very usual about these monsters at all.

He's suddenly very aware that he hasn't eaten a thing all day. Coffee in the morning at the Bamborough Cafe and two more cups when the Wizard appearified them at the lake, but nothing solid. Luka stands there salivating at the enticing smells while his stomach cries out for appeasement.

"Eight... can humans eat these vegetables too?" He asks, sheepishly.

Gyre is having a similar realization to Luka in this moment. The smells don't do a damn thing for him, but watching Eight peel into something and start chewing gets him thinking. He at least at something real in the morning, but he's been running nonstop since then.

Unfortunately, he's also realizing in this moment that he hasn't seen a single animal since he got here. Maybe Five has something? She seemed to have similar enough tastes to his. He makes a note to talk to her whenever he sees her next.

For now, he starts looking around the garden, wondering if he'll see anything that looks even remotely familiar. He's not a vegetable expert, but he's never seen anything like the nightmare orb Eight is holding right now.

"What is that?" he offers in the background, sounding distracted as he peeks around at the plants.

What Gyre will see as he's looking around the vegetable garden is that, at first glance, every single vegetable looks familiar. But if he peers closer, he'll realize that none of these are normal vegetables. They're a little too round, a little too long, a little off color, a little strangely curved. There's always something about them that's... off. With the exception of one fruit that's growing in the shape of a donut. With a hole in the middle. That one is totally alien to everyone.

But Eight, without missing a beat, plucks another of the round veggies off of the tree and shifts a little closer to reach over and press it against Luka's chest. That's enough of an answer, because he also has to answer what they are.

"Cabolini." He answers like it explains everything, a moment before he lifts his up to his mouth and just cronches juicily into it through the hole he'd ripped with his finger. Why eat it one bit at a time the whole time? That was slow. Immediately the air is filled with a stronger scent of peppers to go with the cinnamon.

Have fun eating that, Luka. If he tries biting into it, the outer layer is waxy and pliable and doesn't easily give way. The force of a bite would likely make it spray juices out everywhere. Fingertip or knife, Luka! A single puncture!

...

Eight should probably have warned him.

Luka blinks as Eight presses what he presumes to be some kind of garden vegetable to his chest, though he doesn’t recognize the name given. He reaches to hold it, feeling it’s uncomfortably spherical form. He thinks it must be tomato-like, based on its feel and size. As much as biting into a raw tomato seemed foul to him, he was very hungry.

“Do you cook anything? Or eat it all raw?” If that were the case it’s no wonder Ten ate so much back on the island. He rolls the veggie curiously in his hands, still hesitant to take a bite.

His stomach quickly wins over his hesitation, and Luka goes for the bite. He soon discovers what Eight failed to warn him of as it’s form collapses and bursts with a surprising amount of juice, leaving him standing there perplexed, disappointed and messy. If Luka wanted to seem cool for Eight that ship had decidedly sailed by now.

He blinks when Eight puts the vegetable into Luka's chest, tilting his head. The name isn't familiar to him either.

"What's cabolini? Is it from here--!" Whatever he was trying to figure out falls out of his head as Luka squirts himself in the face. He gasps in surprise, and barely a second later, he pulls a kerchief out of his vest. The corner of it is torn after Seven, but there's enough of a usable area, and he drapes the cloth over Luka's arm so he can uh clean himself off a little.

"Are you alright?"

The Weather

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