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 quickly finds the offered cloth and uses it to clean his face, hands, and the juice that's now running down his sleeves too. He makes a disgusted sound because that feeling is the worst, and he hopes whatever this is doesn't have some vibrant color that's going to stain his outfit, despite it already being in pretty bad condition from his fight with Seven earlier in the day.

But he can't be all mad, because the flavor of the thing is pretty good. He actually moves to take another bite, much more carefully this time.

"Cabolini...? You said?" He asks for clarification. "Using a spoon isn't really cooking. But I bet this would be an amazing ingredient for some curry."

Gyre watches Luka take a bite, wincing as if he expects even more juice to come flying out of it. It's only once it seems safe that he turns back to Eight again, tilting his head very slightly.

"Is it from here? I've never seen anything like it..." he murmurs curiously, glancing between the two of them. The more he watches them eat, the more he wants to join them, and he looks around the garden again as if some meat fruit will come magically into existence nearby.

His eyes land briefly on Six off in the distance, and he makes a sudden note, letting Luka know, "Six is here too if you have questions for him."

Eight makes a soft sound of confirmation mid-bite as Luka asks if that was the name. He mentions curry and uh. Deliberately doesn't answer that because he hasn't had curry. But he pauses after another bite because of Gyre's question.

"From space." He answers, straightforward, before glancing off in the distance at Six.

Six seems to notice something and perks up before standing, looking over at everyone and-- Waving.

"Hey!" He exclaims, tipping his cowboy hat rim up a little to see everyone better. But he doesn't move closer yet, rummaging a moment later to get his stuff together.

"Oh, Six is here?" Luka's not sure he has any burning questions for Six, but he's happy to hear the monster is around. He would perhaps ask him if he was a fan of cooked meals, because it didn't appear that many of these monsters were and Luka thought they were definitely missing out.

"Hey, Gyre, you should try this." He offers up what remains of the produce he now knew was called cabolini. "It's not every day you get to eat something from space, right?"

"Hey Six. How are you?" he asks as the other monster comes up, waving at him as well. They're the only two who can see the gesture, so they might as well enjoy the secret between the two of them. Then he turns his attention to the cabolini as it's offered to him, hesitating for an extremely long time.

"Uh..." He doesn't know what to say? Luka is right that he's never eaten a space thing, but also the whole concept of space scares him. Will all those stars fill up his insides if he eats this vegetable? Can he even eat the vegetable without getting sick?

He glances in the monsters' direction for just a second, before reaching over and plucking one of the little beads free from inside of it. He holds it up to look at it, examining his food in a way he normally never does.

"Is this going to make me sick?" he asks, almost entirely to himself. He certainly doesn't expect anyone here to know the answer, and before anyone can even say anything, he pops the weird green nodule onto his tongue, crushing it against the roof of his mouth almost immediately. Hopefully he doesn't throw up!

Six arrives with a wave at the same time that Gyre takes a bite of the cabolini that will definitely not make him sick. Eight shakes his head when Gyre asks that. Much to his surprise later, he'll be completely fine. What kind of odd space meat-vegetable-fruit was that? Why could Gyre eat it? Why was Eight casually munching a second one now that Six had arrived?

"I'm good! Did you both get to see everyone?" He glances between the two of them, curious.

"Is Five still with Seven?"

"Not everyone." Luka replies, distracted from Gyre's cabolini dilemma by the arrival of Six. "Just Eight, and Ten, and Five, and... well, Gyre's met Twelve, too."

He finishes off the rest of the mysterious vegetable in his hand, even going so far as to lick the remnants of its juice from his fingers.

"I'd guess so." He replies. "I don't hear her stomping around and making a fuss. How is Seven, anyway? Are there updates?"

Gyre watches Luka lick his fingers for a few beats, decidedly thankful that the dude can't see him for once. His mind is wandering too much for what they need to be doing!

At least mentioning Seven makes him sober up a little, dragging his eyes off the princess to meet Six's instead.

"We were going to talk to Eight about going to Twelve. And Nine after that," he offers, hoping Eight catches him finally announcing why they went into his room in the first place. "The Wizard said you and her were going to stay with Seven tomorrow?"

"Nine said it might take hours." Six answers, sadly, about Seven. He glances at Eight as Gyre announces their plan. And then follows it with the Wizard's plan? He blinks his eyes in a circle before making a sound of surprise.

"Oh, you both know the plan!" He says, sounding pleased. "So I don't have to explain it! Great!" He gives a little laugh, before looking at Eight.

"You're going to send them to Twelve next?" He asks his fellow monster-- only for Eight to shake his head.

"Already there." Eight answers, and as he does Luka will feel a soft feeling of something landing on his shoulder.

It's...

... A tiny bird. No more than four inches tall. With twelve eyes making up its face around a jet black beak. The wings look feathered but she's all yellow?

And she makes a soft chirp of a sound.

The feeling of a bird that tiny landing on you is less obvious than the fluttering of it's wings before it alights. Luka is still and wide-eyed, unsure of how to react without scaring the little thing away.

"A bird?" He says, his voice as soft as he can make it. He's yet unaware this bird is Twelve herself, instead he assumes it's some kind of monster-realm bird, maybe even one from space!

"Sorry, I don't have anything to offer you..." He says to it, sounding genuinely disappointed. If he hadn't finished off that cabolini moments ago he'd have presented that to her.

Gyre tilts his head at Eight's response, frowning slightly as he tries to figure out what it means. Then uh I mean he's a predator and he's hungry. The little bird wings so close to him make his attention snap to them, and he pauses for a moment in surprise.

"It's Twelve," he says, half to inform Luka, and half to inform himself. Despite trying to remind himself that monsters are friends, his white pupils have shrunk into tiny pinpoint of blazing light, his hand slowly rising. He could probably grab this bird without Luka noticing, right? This is what his lizard brain is saying anyway, and he draws a slow breath through his nose to steady himself. His hand is still moving, but slower now.

"Nice to see you again, Twelve," he manages after another second, through grit teeth.

Eight of Twelve's eyes are locked on Gyre as he works through his own hangups about eating wild birds. She waits until she's certain he's not going to try to eat her before she gives another soft peep.

And then her voice whispers again in their ears, that same whispered sound that Gyre experienced before. It won't be as strange for Luka, because he knows that she's sitting on his shoulder as a tiny bird, but it will definitely be strange for Gyre still.

"Princess, tell Boar Knight Gyre to fight me." She demands.

To the side, Six mutters an "Uh" of concern and confusion. At the same time, Eight just pulls out his phone and softly taps away at either a game, a website, or a text. Who knew?

"Twelve?!" Luka gasps, amused, surprised and intimidated all at once. "I thought you'd be ...bigger."

He turns his head slightly toward the shoulder she's perched on.

"Oh! Thanks for healing my face. Even if it was indirectly, and maybe unintentional." Luka sounds earnest and grateful. That broken nose was no joke.

When she whispers that she wants to fight Gyre, Luka's mostly confused. He had heard she liked to fight, but why ask through him? Could Gyre not understand Twelve directly?

"Gyre, she wants to fight you." Luka says, dutifully. "Something tells me you're not exactly in the same weight class though."

"She was bigger when I met her," Gyre notes as he looks down at the little bird. Then he falls silent, smiling faintly as the Princess thanks her. He's content to just let them interact for a bit here, happy to see that Twelve is focused on fighting him and not the Princess.

The whisper in his ear makes his attention snap to her again though and he uh laughs? It's a weird, unpracticed sound that only Luka has gotten to hear before! He sounds like he doesn't laugh very often, and he really doesn't. Something about her challenging him to a fight in that form is hilarious to him though.

"If we fight, will you give me the key to the uh... the bridge?" he asks, reaching out his hand for Twelve to hop on over to him. "We'll have to leave the garden though so we don't break anything."

Twelve gives another peep of affirmation in response to Luka's gratitude. And a pleased trill when he tells Gyre about the fight request. Yesssss. And then Gyre says they'll have to leave and uh--

All at once there's a heavier weight for the briefest of moments on Luka's shoulder as Twelve shifts and steps off of Luka. She takes up the form of a massive yellow boar, twelve tusks stretching out in front of her twelve-eyed face. Her tail gives a swish back at Luka and then she charges Gyre.

But it lasts for maybe two or three seconds. A charge that just shrinks the space between her and Gyre. And then she pops back into being a little bird, fluttering right in front of Gyre's face.

And Six just laughs, adding: "That was good!"

His eyes widen as Twelve begins to shift shape, taking a sharp step back and yanking his hand away. He didn't expect her to just go for it, even though he probably should at this point.

"Wait!" he barks, but she starts rushing him down, and he retreats another couple steps, grabbing Six's arm and pushing him backwards so he's out of the way. Right at the last moment, he throws a shield up in front of her.

And he ends up just yelping when she's suddenly a bird right in front of his face. He frowns at her, looking disappointed?

"You're going to hurt people charging like that. Two of them can't see you, you know?" he says, reaching up to put his hand directly under her little body. "Come on, there's a space over there we can wrestle in." And he starts walking towards it, assuming she'll either let him carry her or follow him.

The all at once motion of Twelve transforming and rushing Gyre leaves Luka momentarily stunned. When the dust settles he claps his hands together in delight.

"You're really going to fight her for the key?" It sounded like a fun spectacle, provided it didn't end in any serious injury.

"Can Six and Eight and I be judges?" Luka takes a few steps in the direction people seem to be heading in. He had been a guest judge on television shows and at events before, but never ones that involved combat. Luka wasn't sure how well he'd actually be in the role, but it was irrelevant regardless. He was just there to have fun.

Six stumbles slightly as he's pushed away, but doesn't fall. Not smooth, Gyre! Off to the side, Eight makes a softly muttered "Wrong" in response to Gyre's assumption that he, at any point here, didn't know what was going on just because he couldn't see.

Twelve, meanwhile, lands on Gyre's hands and--

She turns immediately, locking ten eyes on Luka with glee. Judges for a fight. Perfect.

"Princess Judge. Yes." She confirms, hopping back before flapping off of Gyre's hands and flying off in the direction of the space Gyre was heading to--

And then she lands. Her little bird form does a flip in the air and, instead of her little bird form landing, a massive centaur lands with enough force to send rocks in every direction. Except she's got six legs and six arms. Her massive body looms easily twelve feet (ha!) in the air, and every hand is gripping a three-foot-long blade at the ready. Her upper body is definitely humanoid... until the head, where it's just a massive spiked maw surrounded by eleven eyes. When it opens: There's an eye inside, watching. The twelfth eye. She has hair, spiked back, but it's hidden behind a yellow hankerchief tying it all back. Her upper torso has the remnants of a tattered yellow cloth... isn't that just all a part of her? Wild.

And she takes up a pose, all six blades at the ready, as two things happen:

One: Luka is treated to a brief glimpse of this Twelve in his head. Gyre is, too, an advertisement of the monster before them.

Two: She whispers again, in both their ears: "Strike me, once."

Edited 2020-02-18 18:43 (UTC)

"I'm going to try," he says to Luka, determination clear in his voice. He had a half a fight with her already that's got him a little nervous about this one, but he's not going to let that show. He takes a deep breath, glancing in Eight's direction when he mutters. He'll have to ask what he meant later, he supposes.

For now, he's briefly stunned as that image appears in his mind, confusion making him pause in place. He doesn't understand what happened there, but he also doesn't want to make Twelve wait. Who knows how long it'd take her to change her mind and disappear again.

He comes to the same clearing as her, pausing as he looks over her giant form. His mind flicks briefly to Gail, his expression darkening slightly. It means that when she presents him with the same challenge as before, he huffs softly.

"Wrestling would be more fun. You'd have to be more my size though," he grumbles to himself as he draws his retracted metal bow out of his vest. The bow catches briefly on a few of the holes in his clothes along the way, and he growls to himself. A second later, he has shrugged the vest off, dropping it off to the side for now.

He starts approaching Twelve with this calm tension a moment later. "Alright, ready. 《Let's go.》"

That last bit is said in his own language, and it's the only warning he gives her before he snaps suddenly forward. He swings the bow, and the force of the swing extends it automatically so that the tip of it will whip against her flank if she doesn't move away.

"Yes!" Luka declares, excited, both when Twelve agrees to have him judge and when Gyre confirms his intention to spar with her.

"Good luck, Gyre. I think you will need it." There is a playful, teasing tone to his voice, but Luka genuinely wants Gyre to succeed in the fight. "Go win us that key, okay?"

Luka is about to turn to Six and begin to ask a question when he's hit, again, with the magic vision of Twelve. It's still a wholly unpleasant and disruptive sensation to suddenly have so much information inserted into your mind. It's especially jarring when that mental information is the bizarre, monstrous appearance Twelve's currently taken.

Luka snaps his eyes shut tight and clenches his jaw when it happens. "They have got to stop doing that."

Luka could certainly ask them to stop doing that, but he was about to be privy to a particularly unpleasant sequence of events all at once. He'd never been in the position he was about to be in, and his previous experiences were too mild and tame to really give him a picture of how intertwined with things he actually was.

The fire he'd been able to pull up from the ground, for example, wasn't a fluke.

As Gyre rushes Twelve, three of her eyes snap down to his advancing strike. The first locks on his extended bow, mere inches from her body, and it stops. Like a hand grabbing hold of the tip of it, it's held firmly in place in midair. Luka will be treated to a flash of exactly what that eye is focusing on, just for a moment.

But that isn't all, because the second eye is locked on Gyre's shoulder. Like an invisible hand grabbing him and stopping him like an adult does to a child, he's held. A second after the first image, Luka is assaulted by this one.

The same happens a second later as the third eye locks on Gyre's torso and he gets held in place. Three massive holds on his body, three flashes in Luka's brain, three impossible actions of magic.

And if they remember previous years, they'll remember tales from the previous heroes trying to describe Twelve as a "monster playing chess with everyone and everything on the field" but never really explaining what they'd meant.

Being here, now? This is what they meant.

Off to the side, Six is watching wide-eyed with fascination. He wishes he could do that! Eight, meanwhile, has nothing to contribute to this nonsense taking place.

Well. Gyre is running at her so he doesn't notice which particular direction she's looking, especially not when she's got twelve individual sight lines to follow.

Instead, he's left to slam up against her magic, snarling with effort as he tries to force the bow past whatever is stopping him. The grip at his shoulder makes him pause for a moment, and when she wraps that invisible hand around his chest, he grunts softly, winded. His thoughts spin for a second, an instantaneous panic rising up in him. He hates feeling trapped and this is doing exactly that.

"Stop!" he barks at her, squirming in place, trying to back off to see if that will get him unstuck. Does she have some kind of barrier around her? He doesn't understand what's caught him, so he does the next best thing, and tries to smack her in the chest with one of his shields.

Every bit of lighthearted fun Luka had expected to have has vanished as he's nearly doubled over trying to cope with Twelve's barrage of visions. He didn't ask to see this. He doesn't know why she's showing it to him. It's invasive, it's overwhelming, and Luka hates it.

"Eight, why is she doing that?!" Luka's face is set into a pitiful frown as he asks the question. He expects Eight to understand what he's referring to and to have the answer, since he'd used a similar technique just before. That's how things work, right?

Gyre will succeed at toppling backwards, but will fail at his attempt with the shield. The instant it manifests, four of Twelve's eyes lock on the shield and hold it in place. Did she have to use four eyes, or was she doing it for another reason? It isn't certain.

What is certain is that Eight has no idea what Luka is talking about. And he has no idea that Luka is getting flashed with another four-perspectived vision of Gyre's shield being stopped in midair.

He takes a step closer to the princess, focusing on what exactly is happening in this moment before he realizes what Twelve is up to. He's put enough of his pieces together that he has some semblance of a plan to act on.

All at once, eight portals open up in a sphere around Twelve. They go to all kinds of locations around the garden: The lake, Eight's room, the path, Twelve's rock, and others. The perspective of seeing eight flat discs rip open in reality to reveal different locations beyond is jarring. More jarring is the barrage of scents and sounds that flood through all eight.

But it's enough that Twelve stops. All of her eyes look not aggressively, but curiously towards Eight...

...and Luka. Hopefully Gyre will notice that Twelve is not looking at him at all as the eight portals disappear around her massive body.

"Explain, Princess." Comes the whisper.

Edited 2020-02-18 21:33 (UTC)

"Explain what?!" Luka shouts back, a stark departure from the monster's whispering. "No, you explain!"

One of his arms is stretched forward, an index finger pointed directly at Twelve. His other hand has reached to take hold of Eight's arm.

"Why do you keep doing that to me? You can't do things like that without permission!"

The Weather

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