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

His brow furrows at the declaration that he's free. A declaration that's in his thoughts?? He doesn't like that at all, and he watches this little girl warily as she hands the princess something. Is this how she appeared back then? What was she angling at with all this? Was fighting him just an excuse to make Luka realize he... had a sword in him???

He sighs softly, glancing down at the key as Luka offers it to him. He reaches down, running his thumb thoughtfully over the teeth of it. The design is strange. He's never seen a key like this before.

More importantly though, the princess is right. They should keep moving. He eyes Twelve for a beat, before looking over to Eight.

"He left. He's sitting on a bench over there," he clarifies to Luka. "It's about ten paces, uh, this way." He takes the other's shoulder and aims him more or less in the correct direction as he speaks. "I'll join you in just a moment."

First though, he turns to Six, raising a hand to catch his attention. "Can I ask you something about Sxicq before we go?" And once he has the affirmative, he asks, "Are you afraid of them?"

Twelve takes a step back once the key's been taken. She has something else in mind than what Luka's asking, though, and her whisper comes only to him as she answers:

"You fight me next time."

Six, meanwhile, blinks several times at Gyre's question but then nods: Sure he'll answer but: "Uh." He stammers for a moment, bringing his hands together to wring them briefly before lowering them to his sides again.

"You can't really be afraid of something you don't know right? I just don't know what they want. Eleven said they knew 'a little' about what they want? But I don't." He shrugs, sounding utterly uncertain about all of this.

Meanwhile, at the far bench, Eight sends Luka a text: "Ready?"

... Impatient much?

"Me?!" Luka can't help but laugh at the suggestion. "Sure, I'll do my best. Maybe I'll surprise you."

He has no idea how he'd manage fighting Twelve. Those glimpses of her subduing Gyre so effortlessly proved enough that Luka wouldn't last a moment, but the idea of trying to take her on had lifted Luka's spirits. He wouldn't want to disappoint her again, so he'd try his best.

It's then that he feels his phone buzz in his pocket, and Eight's message reads out when he opens it. Luka figures he was as ready as he'd ever be, so he types out a response.

"Ready."

Gyre glances in confusion at Luka when he responds to something that he can't hear, before his attention is tugged back to Six. His eyes widen a little at the mention of Eleven, and he nods slightly.

"I'll keep you safe. You should-- wait--" He cuts himself off as he hears Luka's phone ask if he's ready, glancing at him again, then over at Eight. Are they just going to leave?? He asked for the princess to wait, god dang it! He suddenly feels rushed, making a slight flustered noise.

"If you can, you should ask them about it. I'll ask too, if I see them," he says as quickly as he can manage in this language he's only mostly comfortable with, reaching out to squeeze Six' arm reassuringly. If Six pulls away from him, he won't, of course, but he wants to help the poor monster feel a little less nervous in the few seconds he has before being teleported.

"Eight seconds."

Unfortunately for Gyre's plans, Eight got the answer he was after and that means that a teleport is coming. It's good that he makes use of the remaining seconds to reassure Six, because he is reassured. He's about to say something in response when--

Gravity assets itself over both Gyre and Luka as portals open directly beneath their feet. As usual, they're left to fall directly through... and they just sort of keep going? They're both left floating in the air as they enter the new space. It's bright white. A large round space, with no edges, no details, just rounded walls all made of white. In the center of the room is a glowing white orb with geometrical shapes raised up out of it with seemingly no pattern to them at all. Though if they manage to get to the center and grab hold of the shapes, they're stable. There's a keyhole for that key they got in the center orb, but naturally they don't know that just yet.

Because Gyre and Luka are just sort of floating through the air, in zero gravity, like they're in space.

That's.

Great?

Edited 2020-02-23 23:34 (UTC)

While Luka was expecting the teleport, he wasn't quite prepared for one that involved falling straight down. He yelps as he begins to free fall, clutching the key tightly to his chest. He hopes wherever they land is forgiving - he'd been thrown around enough today.

But he doesn't land anywhere? He notices suddenly that his body is suspended, just hanging in the air. The bright whiteness of the area floods his eyes as he opens them again, having instinctively clenched them shut in preparation for a hard fall.

Its unsettling. Luka flails an arm searching for something to grab onto - anything to give him insight into his surroundings, to ground him - but he finds nothing and feels a spike of anxiety in his chest.

Against the brightness he can perceive the vague silhouette of another - Gyre? Eight, maybe?

"This doesn't seem right. Did something go wrong with the teleport?" He asks, a rising panic in his voice.

Gyre is not going to be any help at all unfortunately! He yelps as he falls, squeezing his eyes shut to block out the sudden light, and uh going completely still as they end up in this floating, white nothing.

He's immediately reminded of Sxicq sending him to space. He can't feel his body. Or rather, his body can't feel anything else. He has no grounding, and that makes him freeze up. He doesn't even open his eyes until Luka's flailing arm start disrupting the light a little bit.

Even then, he doesn't say anything, letting himself slowly fall and fall as he stares up at the weird geometric mass in the center of the orb. He's in hell, he decides. He doesn't believe in hell, but falling forever feels like what it must be.

It's not until their backs tap against the floor of the place that Gyre moves even the tiniest little bit, bringing his hands down with a slap to cling to the wall. Even if he has to cling with his fingertips, it's something, some hint of solid ground. He also breathes for the first time since they started falling, gasping like a fish for several breaths.

"I don't know. I don't know--! There's s-something up there, I don't know--" he says, all in an unorganized tumble. He is a dead dirt elf. He never should have come to the bridge of a spaceship.

“Something up there. Okay.” Luka repeats, trying to stay as calm as he can despite everything about this environment feeling wrong. “Okay... can you tell what it is? Can you reach it?”

Gyre’s alarm is doing nothing to quell his own unease. Luka continues to feel for anything he can, and eventually an errant foot kicks off the rounded wall giving Luka a very slight sense for what his surroundings might be.

“This is nothing like any bridge I’ve heard about.” He stresses. “There should be windows, or panels or seats. How could anyone pilot from here?!”

Luka moving around gives him something to focus on, his eyes gluing to him as he kicks off the ground. It makes his stomach flip flop around to watch him floating like that, just waiting for him to fall or reverse direction or??? Nothing makes sense, and he wheezes softly.

The questions help at least, piercing through the jumbled mess that his untethered thoughts are, and he swallows loudly before answering. "It's a ball. It's bright, um. With. Lines all over it. Shapes, uh, I-I can't reach it. Not from here. Maybe if, fuck, if I pushed off, from here? I could?"

"Does anything look like a keyhole?" He runs a thumb over the key still in his grasp. If they needed a key to be here there was probably somewhere to stick it, right? Eight wouldn't just drop them into this inescapable room without purpose, surely.

"If you can get to it, I'll know where to bring the key to." Luka attempts to explain. "Since the room is so bright, I can see where you're blocking out the light."

"No, it's just shapes, I-I don't--" he stumbles over himself, pausing when Luka makes a direct request of him. He freezes in place again, trying to imagine going anywhere in this place. The princess was making it look so easy up there, but he is genuinely terrified.

"You'll be able to see me...?" he asks shakily, just barely starting to push himself up to sit on the wall. He's not going to leave this vaguely safer place unless he knows exactly what Luka's plan is. "You're sure?"

"Yeah, I can see you now." He confirms, pointing one hand in the direction of the blurred silhouette he's determined is Gyre.

"But I can't see that thing. It's blending in." He's squinting into the light to try to see if he can find the structure Gyre is describing, but to no avail.

"It will be much easier to find it if you're near it. Then we can... unlock it, I guess."

Gyre's eyes widen as Luka points right at him, a strange little flutter in his chest at being so directly recognized in this way. It's a bright moment that cuts through his uh terror. It doesn't quell it completely, but he grits his teeth, tensing his body to do this. For the princess. This is what he needs. It'll be okay.

"Okay." He bites his lip, preparing to jump and just doesn't for a bit. A few beats pass.

"Okay," he says again, making a truly pathetic little noise in his throat before he shoves suddenly off the wall. He immediately regrets it, his body tightening up in a horrified spring as he loses all sense of where he is in the air. It's not until he smashes against the orb in the middle that he even breaths again, grabbing hold of some of the larger bits of geometry and clinging to them desperately. He hooks his feet into a few of the grooves, and just freezes in place there.

"I'm here-- Th-there's places to hold on to!"

"Okay! Okay, good." Luka tries to track Gyre's movement as he attempts to launch himself toward the mysterious orb, giving words of encouragement to try to make the task less nerve-wracking. Luka himself is still drifting unsteadily, feeling again for a wall that's just out of reach.

It takes a few awkward, fumbled attempts for Luka to get his bearings, but eventually he is able to angle himself in such a way that kicking off of the wall will send him right in Gyre's direction.

And he does. The launch sends him forward faster than he anticipated, and he's worried his arrival might accidentally knock Gyre, or possibly both of them, back into the air sending them to square one.

He sends his hands out forward, anticipating some part of the structure will be there for him to hold. He grabs the first bit of it he feels, and when he's secured in place he allows himself to inspect the surface of the orb with his touch.

"It worked!" Luka beams proudly. He's still feeling the odd structure as much as he can, hoping for some hint of what exactly they were expected to do here.

Whoever made this place is out of their mind. Or they weren't imagining individuals like Luka or Gyre being at the helm.

The biggest things that stand out about the central "orb" is that there are very faint, almost imperceptible shapes on the outside of the orb's surface. Where there's a cube floating just above the surface, the sphere's side is flattened slightly in a square platform below it. Where there's a decahedron, there's a 10-sided shape flattened on the surface of the sphere. A floating triangular prism? There sure is a subtle triangle flat surface on the orb just below it. They're obvious to see or feel once noticed, but who would be looking for something that subtle?

The floating geometrical shapes appear to be free-floating, but if they're grabbed they stay solid. They stay put. There are a total of 14 floating shapes, all different. Only one slightly flattened space on the center orb doesn't have a shape floating above it, and that space has a jet black keyhole in it. Now that they're here in the middle, it won't be hard to find.

"Okay," Gyre answers immediately. He's happy to hear it, of course, and watching Luka reach around is reassuring, if only in the sense that he knows the princess is nearby and safe. But he is frozen completely in place. He doesn't want to move. He doesn't dare look anywhere that doesn't involve the one other living person with him here in hell.

The only thing that saves him is pure visual habit. As Luka feels around, he follows the movement of his hand. He's a person who's spent his entire life in dark forests, interpreting incredibly dense visual information. It means he's looking for differences without even trying.

It's not so much that he notices the pattern of flattened shapes beneath their 3D counterparts, but that he notices the gap in angles amongst those 3D shapes. His eye catches on that space once, twice. The third time, he finally reaches for it, slowly sliding his hands across the surface. He has to stretch hard near the end, but then his fingers dip into the keyhole and he gasps softly.

"There's a hole here, where my hand is," he says, his voice still obviously shaking.

!

"That must be it!" Luka squints as he tries to make out where Gyre's hand is, but with the proximity it's become more difficult to discern. Instead he reaches his arm out to find Gyre's and moves down the length of it until their hands meet.

"Here?" He asks for clarification though he's already moved to try and feel for the hole himself. When he finds it, he then passes the key to that hand - making sure not to lose his grip - and positions it to enter the keyhole.

If it fits, he'll give it a twist as one would typically when unlocking a door or starting up their car. Hopefully this works!

Hopefully these two boys are ready to find out whatever they came here to find out. When Luka puts the key into the slot and gives it a firm turn, all the white light in the room immediately cuts out and leaves the two of them in darkness.

What follows is the twelve geometric shapes and their corresponding platforms beneath them all lighting up with individual colored glows. The triangular prism lights up in yellow, clear buttons visible on its outer surface. The whole triangle area on the center orb is yellow, too, with multiple messages and readouts of information to look over. All the others do the same. The cube in green, the decahedron in blue. A bunch of different colored and shaped terminals with a lot of information in languages that these two boys won't understand at all.

What they will understand, however, is a single soft-white message window that pops up just above the keyhole. Listed in midair, and voiced by a soft female voice (that sounds oddly like Twelve, but not really) a few moments later, are the words:

"How may I be of assistance."

Gyre is not ready at all. He twitches the second Luka touches his hand, grabbing his and squeezing it tight. He's clinging to him a little, making a soft, yelp of a noise when all the lights go out.

"What--" he starts, only to cut himself off as the lights start coming up. His eyes dart from one shape to the next, and he licks his lips nervously. It takes him a few moments to realize that there's text scrolling across the screens, and he watches it for a long time, trying to read any one line of it.

It's not until the voice speaks up that he realizes he can't read any of this text, and he turns his attention to the new white screen.

"Who are you?" he asks automatically, not even beginning to think that this might just be the Wizard's Google Home.

Luka gasps softly when the room suddenly goes from piercing brightness to absolute dark, and he's glad for Gyre's hand in his when he loses that silhouette in the darkness.

His eyes catch on the shapes as they begin to glow, but the rest of the displayed information is lost on him - not that it would not be had he been sighted, as the text was all in unrecognizable languages.

And then the voice speaks up. Luka (correctly?) assumes it must be some kind of AI assistant installed in the ship, based on its phrasing and source. But he's momentarily overwhelmed by all of this, and finds his mind blank on what to ask of it.

"Uh, do you have directions to the Wizard's home planet?" It's an awkward question as it comes out, and Luka hopes this AI was advanced enough to understand it.

"Inquiry 1 logged: "About system". I am AESSIS: Autonomous Explorative Soul System, Investigative Series. Last update unknown. Location known: DC-I-13."

As the voice makes its announcements, it vocalizes the dashes in the location but displays it on the floating screen.

"Inquiry 2 logged: "Origin location". Location known: HH-I-01. No other origin locations registered. Navigation enabled, engines disabled. Unable to chart accurate course. Engines require immediate attention."

After the second answer, a small blinking "Awaiting inquiry" with a blinking _ cursor remains flickering at the bottom.

What the hell... These are a lot of very big words that he does not understand, and he blinks around at the bright lights around them. There's just text scrolling, and this woman talking and talking.

"What's that?" he asks in response to the machine's title. Autonomous Explorative Soul System. How does one explore with souls? What are they investigating?

Then she's talking about engines, and he at least understands that word. He's never been much for electronics, but at least he's seen an engine before.

"What's wrong with the engine?"

"Mm. I wonder why it can't chart a course. Maybe it's really gone, like the Wizard said." Luka says quietly, as if he doesn't want the system to overhear.

"There's another ship just like this one on this same... um, location." He speaks up again. "Can you tell us anything about that? Do you know it's status?"

It was a long shot, but he figured he might try and see if it knows anything about its companion ship.

"Inquiry 3 Logged: "About System: More details". Please clarify what additional details are requested."

"Inquiry 4 Logged: "Engine Details". Last known status was logged as "fuel critical". Current fuel percentage unknown. Monitoring systems offline."

"Inquiry 5 Logged: "Ship: Other". Confirmed "AESSTAS" ship registered for simultaneous departure."

"Inquiry 6 Logged: "AESSTAS Status". No current logs. Last known log recovered on descent to DC-I-13: "Fuel critical"."

Gyre is quiet again for a beat, listening to all these answers and watching Luka. He's trying to figure out if the princess is just as confused as he is with all this. He forces himself to scooch a little closer along this weirdly shaped core so he can actually hear what the princess is murmuring, settling a little closer beside him.

"It sounds like it's broken. Maybe that's why it can't uh, chart anything?" he proposes softly, chewing his lip for a moment.

"Um, I guess, can you explain what you are? As if... as if I was someone who'd never heard of uh, a Soul System before?"

The Weather

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