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

Ten pauses thoughtfully for several moments as he tries to figure out how to explain what he's going to make. He knows that there really isn't an equivalent for a lot of what he has in the bag, so...

"A stew with everything in here." He jostles the bag again, before answering Gyre's question next.

"I'm making some for Five too, she eats this." He clarifies. Sorry Gyre, this is a ?stew? for everyone. Gyre doesn't know it yet, but he'd be able to eat it too. It may not give him all the nutrients he needed, but it'd give him more than he expected. Maybe he'd have a better idea once he saw what was in the bag.

“Stew sounds good. Is it vegetables from the garden you’ve got there?” Luka asks. “Is the ambient storm soundtrack part of the process too?”

He’s mostly joking. But Luka’s genuinely curious about the audio - it wasn’t something he’d associated with Ten before.

“Or is that just for fun?”

Gyre sighs softly, disappointed and trying not to make it obvious. It's been a long time since he's felt like he had to eat cooked food, but he knows he's not going to make it much longer then this. Stew will have to do.

"Okay," he says, agreeing but mostly keeping out of the way of Luka and Ten talking. He's curious about the thunder sounds as well, honestly.

"Fun." he answers first, reaching up to press the button on the headphones to stop the sounds.

"Some vegetables and some fish. Will you both help chop them up and stir?" He asks, before motioning at Gyre to resume walking and--

"Let's head inside."

“Sure, I’ll... do my best.” Luka reluctantly agrees. “I’ve never really cooked anything... but I’m sure I can figure it out.”

He was entirely inexperienced with cooking and working in the kitchen. If nothing else, though, Luka figures stirring is impossible to mess up, so there’s at least one way in which he can contribute.

“Are they fish from the lake? I was wondering if those were your pets, actually.”

Gyre grimaces a little at the prospect of doing anything in a kitchen? He has never stepped foot in one, much less learned how to do anything in one. He supposes he'll have to learn fast if he wants to eat though, and he loops an arm through Luka's to pull him along after Ten.

"Chop them up how?" he asks thoughtfully, trying to imagine what kind of cut that might be. Maybe he can get away with just butchering the fish. He's good at butchering. Anything past that is not even close to his wheelhouse.

"Pets and food. Easy to cut." He answers, clarifying as he glances back to make sure they're following. They're already approaching the house, the front steps only a handful of strides away.

"Vegetables in discs, meat in cubed chunks, all goes together with the secret ingredient." He explains, stepping on the slightly-creaky front steps up to the door of the house.

"Oh, both." Luka supposes it isn't too strange, something like old farm families who kept animals but still butchered them for meat when it was necessary.

"That doesn't sound too hard." Luka remarks as they step up onto the house's front porch. "Does the Wizard like this stew too? Will she be joining us?"

Gyre is right there with them, hesitating for a beat on the steps before slipping inside without forcing Luka to stop for him.

"I can do that," he agrees to the chopping duty softly, leaning towards Ten just slightly when Luka asks about the Wizard. He needs to see her and talk to her very badly, so he's eager to find out.

Fortunately Ten waits until the two of them have cleared the stairs before he continues on into the house, heading back towards the kitchen at the rear behind the stairs.

"I'm saving some for her later. She's away." He says before he pushes open the door to the kitchen to step inside.

It's... super simple?!

It's maybe big enough for five or six people, with wooden countertops spanning two of the walls and cabinets above and below. But most striking is the huge black metallic orb sitting against one wall with a door on it. Is it an oven? It's probably an oven. It's definitely an oven. But how does it work? It's not hooked up to anything, there's no heat source that seems to be connected, it's just a metal orb about the size of a person.

"Can you slide the pot into the oven." He asks, settling the bag of ingredients onto the counter as he motions down towards the ground where there's a massive stew pot sitting on the floor adjacent to the metal orb oven. It'll fit through the door, but just barely.

"Yeah." Luka answers immediately, despite this job probably being a simpler task if left to Gyre. He's just too eager to help and prove himself! "Where is it?"

Luka reaches to feel out the room, finding a counter top and untangling his arm from Gyre's as he moves around to follow it, searching its surface for said pot.

"Do you do all the cooking, Ten?"

Gyre stops in the doorway, letting Luka's arm go and just staring up at the giant orb. He's been in one or two houses in his life, and he does not remember anything like this in any of them. It looks completely unnatural and a chill runs up his spine.

It's only once Luka starts feeling along the counter that he draws his eyes away from it. He has to force himself to step into the room, but then he slips past the princess, bending down to lift the pot off the ground. He sets it beside where Luka's about to put his hand so he can find it, murmuring awkwardly, "What's an oven? That round thing?"

"The round thing." Ten confirms, nodding at Gyre as he moves the pot into Luka's grabbing range.

"I cook a lot. It's fun." He adds, hosting the bag onto the countertop from beneath his arm.

"Can you help me cut these?" He follows up, dumping the contents of the bag onto the counter. Laying out in piles are now: Six slabs of a bright green meat, several lumpy root vegetables that look like purple ginger, about a dozen garlic bulbs that are a pale blue, a pile of what looks like orange asparagus, a collection of leafy ~~greens~~ purple, and lastly a pile of multicolored potatoes(?). There's no telling what's on the inside of any of these, so really it's down to which one Gyre grabs first.

But the wafting scents that rise off of the vegetable pile already make the room smell utterly incredible. They were all so potent. The strongest scents are lemongrass, orange citrus, and vinegar.

Edited 2020-03-10 00:49 (UTC)

Luka finds the pot where Gyre had set it and lifts it from it's place. Success!

"Where's the round thing, then?" He says as he turns to move to where ever he's directed.

He pauses to take in the various scents of all the ingredients Ten's laid out, savoring the delicious smell as much as he can. Thankfully, he's spared from the off-putting nature of their unusual coloration.

"If the stew tastes half as good as it smells I might have a new favorite food." He says, excitement clear in his voice.

"Come towards me, about five steps. It's on the wall, and it's uh, pretty big," he says, watching Luka to make sure he knows where he's going first.

Once he starts moving though, Gyre shifts towards Ten and his pile of ingredients. He looks more and more unsure the closer he gets, tilting his head as he stares at the pile of... stuff. It doesn't look like food to him, even if the smell it's giving off is very nice. He looks them over, and then grabs the asparagus. This looks like the easiest thing to cut so he'll start here.

"Just into disks, you said?" he confirms with Ten first, pulling a knife out of his vest and unsheathing it easily.

Fortunately Ten doesn't need to clarify any more than what Gyre had already said. That was enough for Luka to go off of to find the oven, and it was fairly straightforward what to do (open door, insert pot) once he got there.

Gyre, meanwhile, is asking a fairly simple question too. But Ten opens a drawer and pulls out a knife that looks like it belongs to a butcher. He brings it up over one of the asparagus stalks and does a quick cut-

And the piece of asparagus that was cut off unfolds like the petals of a flower opening up. It's like the asparagus-alike was just made up of dozens of thin layers just waiting to be unfurled.

"Like that."

Luka follows Gyre's guidance and finds the oddly shaped oven. He holds one hand out, feeling for any radiating heat and making contact with the orb when he finds none. Luka had imagined this would be more akin to a cast iron stove - not a literal round thing, and so he feels its shape for a moment, perplexed, until his hand finds the little door.

He struggles for a moment to fit the pot into the door of the oven. It's a pretty tight squeeze! But he makes it in, and shuts the door afterward so as not to leave a hazard.

Luka approaches the table where Ten and Gyre are beginning to chop apart the vegetables.

"Okay! It's in." He announces. Luka isn't entirely sure why they're putting a pot into the oven and not on a stove top, and why its an empty pot at that - but he's no chef, and who is he to question Ten's methods? "Anything else I can help with?"

Gyre stares down at the weird asparagus as it unfurls, his brow furrowing in confusion. Vegetables weren't supposed to move, right? That was part of what made them vegetables, wasn't it? He opens his mouth for a moment, then closes it, mirroring Ten's cut on a new piece of the stalk. Again, he pauses in absolute wonder, only taking his eyes off this bizarre orange thing when Luka speaks up.

Immediately, he smirks slyly back at him. "I'll stand behind you, and we can cut this stuff together," he purrs, clearly teasing him. He truly has no idea what else there is to do in a kitchen, but he can't resist the chance to maybe get a little closer to the princess.

Ten is trying to figure out which of the vegetables he's going to offer for Luka to cut when, fortunately, Gyre suggests what Luka can do together with him. Sure. Teamwork was fine. Ten flashes Gyre a thumbs up before reaching over to the pale blue garlic bulbs.

"These after, like this." He explains, bringing the garlic bulb over to a flat surface and hovering his knife over it horizontally. He whacks downward with the flat side of the blade and then sets it aside.

All that's left is a bunch of pale blue papery scraps and dozens of little dark blue and purple star-shaped bulbs that are squishy to the touch. Immediately upon being revealed, the room fills with the scent of lemongrass and pistachios.

He takes a moment to flick away some of the papery scraps from his pile of garlic before he settles another of the pale blue bulbs over by Luka and Gyre's pile of asparagus-alikes. Then he moves away to get a bowl to start gathering the finished veggies in.

"Hmmm, I guess I can help you if you really need it." Luka jokes, moving closer toward where Gyre and Ten are working on chopping up the various vegetables.

His fingers slide along the edge of the table until he's found his position right near Gyre. Unfortunately, the fanfare of the vegetables falling open and unfurling in unusual ways is entirely lost on him, but he can at least enjoy their varied aromas.

"Show me which ones still need chopping." He says eagerly. "Do you have a knife ready?"

He watches the garlic demonstration for a beat, nodding at Ten once it's over. Got it. And then all his attention is on the princess.

"I've got a knife," he affirms, reaching out to slide a hand around Luka's hip and pull him a little closer. In the same moment, he steps away from the counter, and takes up a position behind him, setting hands on his shoulders and running them lightly down the other's arms. He takes his wrists, then his hands, bringing one over to where he set the knife.

"Grab it here, like this," he murmurs, getting Luka's fingers in the right spot to hold the knife stably before he reaches to his other side and brings the asparagus pile closer. "We have to finish this first."

Then he wraps his hand loosely over his, folding his fingers into something similar to the cat's paw Ten had used just a moment ago to demonstrate for him. Those fingers are set loosely on the latest orange stalk and then he brings their combined knife hand into place.

"Bring the knife down smoothly, with confidence. It will cut. Use the knuckles of your other hand as a guide. I'll make sure you don't get yourself," he explains softly, loosening his grip just slightly on Luka's hands so he can try out this cutting thing. Good luck princess.

Luka feels... unsure? Conflicted?

He would not normally allow himself to be guided through such a simple act as chopping produce for fear of looking dreadfully helpless, despite his inexperience with the task having more to do with his privileged upbringing than his disability. And yet, when Gyre had suggested it Luka found himself unable to resist the offer despite knowing exactly what he was getting himself into.

He's caught up in his own personal dilemma so deeply that Luka only catches the last bit of Gyre's instructions, the rest having melted into mere white noise.

"Right." He says, snapping back into the moment. There's a clear hesitation as Luka makes the first slow chop, his face flushing at his obvious lack of skill. Why couldn't he just be instantly perfect at this?! It would be way more impressive that way.

"Mmm." It's clearly a noise of dissatisfaction. "Was that okay? How would I use my knuckles as a guide without cutting myself?"

Ten misses the two of them getting into their, uh, arguably romantic pose behind him as he pulls forth several wooden bowls and sets them on the counter. When he turns to face them, he gets an eyeful (more like ten eyefuls) of these two being uh, deeply sappy.

And he doesn't get it at all.

So he just blinks at them, observing, what a strange and weird pose to cut vegetables in. Eight had never wanted help like that, perhaps Luka was just weird?

But he watches for a moment as Luka works on cutting the vegetables, making sure he's not going to cause him to lop a finger off. Once he's sure it's safe, he reaches over with one bowl and places it right near where the two of them are cutting. Here, kids, put the finished veggies back.

And then he takes a moment to just sort of... watch.

If he realized Luka was having any dilemma at all, he'd back off. This was mostly just an excuse to touch him (a lot) more, but uh I mean he also thinks it makes sense to not want to handle knives on your own when you can't see them. It doesn't even occur to him that the princess might be just fine figuring this out without him hovering. He is a dumbass sometimes.

As it is, he watches Luka's cut, slipping his hands back and out of the way so he can see.

"That's good. Here, ah," he pauses a beat, glancing down at Ten as he sets a bowl on the counter for them. He looks first at him and then uh down at his hands? The kind of cutting he normally does isn't so precise usually, so he's taking a second to remember the way the monster had moved in the moment. Right.

"If you lay the flat of the blade against," and he brings Luka's hands together exactly as he says it, moving him into a couple quick cuts as he describes the motions, "the flat of your knuckles here. Keep your fingers tucked in. And always move this hand first before the knife, then the blade never overlaps with your skin. You can't cut yourself." He finishes this by slipping his hands back to Luka's wrists, touching them gently so he can try it now.

And also uh glancing down at Ten again. He doesn't say anything, but his eyes definitely scream, Right?? Please don't tell him he gave this lovely man bad advice.

He's listening with intense focus now as Gyre explains in detail, and memorizing the correct motions as he's guided through them. He's determined to perfect this! Or at least do a decent job.

His next attempts are more successful, though markedly inexperienced. Regardless, when he notices that its working decently, Luka feels emboldened to cut a little faster than before and make some progress on these weird vegetables.

"That makes more sense." He remarks, pausing proudly to make sure Ten and Gyre have seen his success. "More than hearing it described."

The Weather

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