Day 8: Morning

Morning: 6:00am - 12:00noon

[ IRL Timeframe: February 10th, 2020 - February ~~19th~~ 26th, 2020 ]

After the events of Day 7 and the chaos that it brought, the heroes have learned a number of things that most of them still aren't sure they're ready to know. What will they do with their knowledge? How will they share it with each other? How will--

At about 6AM, everyone receives a text from Garrot. Anyone who saw him the evening before may be surprised to see him forming complete sentences and, uh, threatening everyone? Is he okay? Anyone brave enough to want to text him back?

What a great start to the day, an early text. But that's... surprisingly the only shake-up? It's eerily calm.

The Protector had been knocked out to sea by the Wizard, spawning a number of serious worried conversations on social media. Is he okay? Was he dead? Is it time to panic? There were plenty of memes, too. Like the wizard in the foreground with sunglasses, a golf club, and a wide smile with the protector in the background and the words "time to go golfing" memed accross the image. At least some people were still in a joking mood.

The Wizard, too, had a collection of social media posts about her current circumstances. The overall opinion was that she was way scarier than before, was she a terminator? Wizardinator?

To make matters worse, Sxicq was missing. The hashtag #childlookout was trending with almost hourly updates of the island. Sxicq didn't make themselves difficult to find, which meant that spotting them even from distant photos or drone snaps was pretty straightforward. But there was no sign of their characteristic glow or disruptions anywhere. No bigfoot-esque sightings in the back of other photos. No panic that they were eating entire restaurants' stocks of food.

Nothing.

Talk about a calm before the storm, especially since Eight had alluded to several of the heroes that there was still going to be a fight today.

It turns out to be another opportunity for the heroes to collect themselves, gather information, and get themselves on stable ground. It's warmer today, and there are passing waves of light rain all over the island. Little drizzle showers that stick around just long enough to make you seek shelter, but not so long that you wonder when it'll let up. The sun dares to peek through every now and then, occasionally at the same time as the drizzling rain.

Eighth Morning Event: None.

The Weather
Light rain.
68°F / 20°C
A gentle breeze.

Prompts:

6:00am The Text, All Cities: "Mandatory medical exams today at 8AM at Far Haven General. The front desk will see you're escorted. You will be frisked, multiple times. Hospital staff says no weapons, no chaos. We can't piss them off.

That means nobody gets their animal companions, since some of you are idiots. They'll be left at the front door before going off on a guided tour. If you or yours don't cooperate, it will be assumed that you want to harm the Princess and you will die.

See you then!"

At about 6AM, everyone receives that text from Garrot. Anyone who saw him the evening before may be surprised to see him forming complete sentences and, uh, threatening everyone? Is he okay? Anyone brave enough to want to text him back?

8:08am Eight, All Cities: Anyone who decides they're going to text Eight to make a plan will find that he doesn't answer any of his texts until 8:08am. He replies to everyone all at once, at exactly 8:08 and 8 seconds. Whether your hero sent one text at 6am, or eight texts between 6 and 8am, all the answers come at exactly the same time. If anyone asks to go to the garden, they'll be deposited on the landing pad in the garden... at 8:08am. Predictable.

9:00am The Wizard, The Garden: The Wizard can be found in the vegetable section of the garden for any heroes who go looking for her. She's tending to the plants, picking weeds, watering the beds, and preparing new sprouts to grow in the empty spaces.

?:00am Anywhere, All Cities: Surely your character has to be getting up to something this morning, somewhere. This is a general catchall post for any threads among heroes that occurs. Whatever your character is getting up to, however they're preparing, or however they're coping. This is the place for it. Eight said there was going to be a fight this afternoon, after all, so there's something on the horizon at least!

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: February 2020

[ IRL Timeframe: February 1st - February 29th, 2020 ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

If the Wizard asks a question, Garrot can never grasp if it's rhetorical. But this question, it seems like something he can answer.

"You take control and change the rules." The words come naturally, because Garrot is of course the sort to march to the beat of his own drum and drag everyone else along with him. And it kind of makes his stomach drop a bit.

"But... wasn't he in control before Sxicq?" Her words gave the impression he was at least pretty similar all those years ago.

She takes another sip from her mug as he makes his assumption about what she'd said. When she lowers the mug, her characteristic slight-smirk is back on her face.

"Was anyone ever really in control?" She counters, wondering what he'll do with that little bit of food for thought.

"I never was."

Garrot just grumbles. It's frustrating, the idea that nobody was in control, and the Protector either thought he was or tried to force it. Really, talking about the Protector and who he vaguely was or was not, it... didn't seem to be getting him anywhere.

So he tries to shift his perspective.

"He said my father tried to convince the others to side with you." On the other hand, the Protector seemed to treat Gyre like he was a disease, so... "How did he know that? Was he lying? Or did he actually-"

Garrot stops dead in the middle of that thought. He can't actually voice the notion that his father could want to destroy the planet. For any reason.

Unfortunately that's the nature of the universe. People could pretend to be in charge, but against the backdrop of hundreds of thousands of stars? There was only so much control anyone could ever have in the endless expanse of space.

She watches Garrot work through his thoughts, but he leaves it as an utterly vague cliffhanger and she's left to clarify what he means here at the end by asking:

"Is it so hard to believe your father wanted something better for this world?" She pauses there, letting Garrot process it while she takes another sip of her cocoa. Another marshmallow down. Her mug only has nine left in it-- when did she add more?

"I-" He stammers out the word, going silent again. It's not hard to believe, because the more Garrot learned about the state of the world, the more he wanted to do something, anything to fix it. This year's Monkey Knight hardly wants to destroy the world, but...

"How much did he know?" The question is direct, but without the force of someone expecting a meaningful answer. His father knew enough to want to convince the others, if the Protector is to be believed. But given how the jackass talked about Gyre, it's unlikely. "What did you tell him?"

The Protector wouldn't have told him a damn thing.

"He knew what you know." She answers, casually taking another sip of her cocoa.

"And I told him anything he asked about." She follows-up, vague as usual.

"But where did he learn everything I know?" The words are combative, almost accusatory. "How much did he know when he started asking you?" Both of these, of course, are dancing around one far more direct question.

"How much did the Protector tell him?"

Garrot's asking the impossible here, an exact timeline of someone's personal knowledge from decades in the past? There was some level of specificity that couldn't ever be achieved here.

"He sought out the information he needed from the only sources who had it." She answers, before getting to the more important point:

"How much did he figure out by himself?"

Garrot, asking the impossible? What a shocking notion. The Wizard's answers are cagey and vague, like always. But her question makes him gasp, his eyes going wide.

"I- I don't know! I was a kid, he didn't tell me anything, I..." Maybe he shouldn't have just trusted his father, maybe he should've demanded the opportunity to help however he could. His mother may know something, but that's not exactly the sort of conversation you have over the phone. And in that moment of petty hindsight, a gut-twisting moment of doubt hits him. His pupils shrink and, well...

"If the Protector was secretive like always, Sxicq was in the mountain, the companions were censored, the monsters didn't talk, and they didn't go back in time, what other sources were there?!" He's more frantic than anything; she's making it sound like forty years of historical data have been wholly wrong, or that information flowed more freely in the past. And that doesn't make sense to him!!!! So Garrot's sure he's missing some simple detail that lets his worldview sit undisturbed, because that's, well, easier than wrapping his head around the alternative.

Poor guy has to refactor his perception of the planet like every day, it's a lot.

Another marshmallow bites the dust as Garrot struggles to make sense of what he knows. He can try to parse and understand it all he wants, but he'll still be left with a lot of unanswered questions.

"Just me." She answers, tilting her mug towards him. What a terrible turn of events, huh! She's sure that hearing his dad got a bunch of info from her was exactly what he wanted to hear in this moment. But there was also...

"And Eleven."

All things considered, Garrot learning that his father got info from the Wizard wouldn't have been troubling in and of itself. Many Knights have spoken to the Wizard over the years! It's just the part where the Protector seems to think breathing the same air as the Wizard erodes one's capacity for free will or doing good. So when she mentions Eleven...

"Oh." That's all he can say as his brain temporarily breaks. It wasn't just the Wizard, it was the second-strongest monster of them all. It's commonly accepted by the public that the monsters don't talk. But Ten was easily talking, Six was hanging out in public. Maybe the monsters' intelligence was just another thing the Protector hid.

"Where's Eleven?" The Wizard is very, very cagey, so if he can talk to whoever got his father, a Princess's Knight, up to speed, he's bound to make a lot more progress. Not just on getting answers about this shitty yearly game, but about what actually made the Protector kill his father. "We need to talk."

The strange case of the monster's sentience was something that would probably get dug into later. There were plenty of people who had learned about it, and plenty more who hadn't. But that was a story for another day. For this day, though, the Wizard only had one answer.

"Away." She answers first, sipping and obtaining another marshmallow reward.

"Not ready to talk yet, either." She adds, leaving it at that because it was the truth.

Of course Eleven isn't around with answers or anything helpful, of course he has to wait while trying not to just take the Wizard's words at face value. Of course this can't be easy and straightforward.

"When?" The monsters, as part of Sxicq, are powerful and can do weird things. Just look at Ten. So if Eleven doesn't want to be found, they won't.

Garrot's thoughts are spot on. Eleven hadn't been seen yet because they didn't want to be. That was just the fact of the matter. Ten was around, visible, and involved because he wanted to be.

And that's just not who Eleven was.

"Probably in three days." She answers, vaguely, implying that Eleven will at least still show up on day eleven.

"I haven't heard any desire to arrive earlier."

"Then they can text me." His tone is dry and utterly unimpressed. Three days is too long to wait! What if Eleven was working with the Protector or misrepresented things? What if his father died because he spared the monster?

"Or Xaljim can deliver a message." Garrot stays stern, trying very hard not to start yelling. Because right now, he can't rule out the monster's role in his father's death. And he doesn't want to kill someone he's never met.

"It'll make things easier for both of us."

Garrot's just a ball of frustration waiting to be unraveled so he can finally rest for maybe 0.3 seconds. He wears it on him so obviously that it's almost a visible status effect above his head: "Frustrated"

But the Wizard isn't going to be able to make it easier, because he's asking for a particularly impossible thing.

"Eleven doesn't have a phone, and the animal companions have never met them." She clarifies, watching Garrot.

"I vaguely know where they are, but they won't see me either."

"Frustrated" isn't even accurate. It hasn't been since he went to sleep on the first night. "Enraged" is usually better. Because. Well.

"Then when the fuck did my dad talk to them?!" He's yelling again, but there's a method here. "Was it before or after they fought?!" Maybe Eleven survived that year's fight?

But Garrot is coming to terms with having a very small timeframe with which to meet Eleven. He does not like it.

"On the third night." She answers, the small smirk staying put on her face even in the face of Garrot's rage. He can shout and yell all he wants to, he can try to manipulate answers all he wants to, but he'll only get the truth.

"When he sought them out himself."

"What?!" Garrot is naturally incredulous at this series of revelations. He just cannot get a moment to breathe, can he??

"How-" His brain short-circuits a bit for a moment. Poor guy, when was the last time he did something soothing? "How did he know to go looking for them?" The answer was probably the hat-clad woman in front of him. But he doesn't stop there.

"Where did he find them? Where are they this year?" And thus, he may have a new quest marker.

Garrot was the one asking for answers and he was getting them. If anyone was to blame, it was him. He could be angry at whoever or whatever he wanted, but the truth of the matter was that he was digging and being astonished by what he dug up.

"He chose to, because he wanted to, he could've found them anywhere, and they could be anywhere." She answers his deluge of questions with the vague truth, an unfortunate set of facts that would leave him still waiting solidly at square one.

Because that's where everyone was when it came to Eleven.

The truth of this conversation is that Garrot expected it to suck, like everything has sucked since the seventh day. But the deeper he digs, the more he regrets it. Not because he doesn't want the information, but because mentally, he is in no shape to be doing all these mental gymnastics. He's traumatized, recovering from drugging himself, and sleep deprived.

And it's about time he realizes that.

"Stop it!" He's pleading as his hands clutch at his head as if he had a headache. Given how angry he keeps getting and how tense he is, it's entirely possible he does have one, and he's repressed the shit out of it.

"Why can't you just-" He stops for a moment, bending over a bit and just flopping onto his butt. "Give me a straight answer?" There's even a little whine as he starts to curl inwards a bit.

"It's like you're trying to torture me." Garrot was trying to be nicer to her, so here's a moment of breaking point vulnerability.

Honestly, Garrot should take a nap. She takes another sip of her mug as she watches him. Unfortunately her next answer isn't going to help much.

"I'm telling you the truth, sometimes that's not easy to hear. But it's what I have." She explains like it answers everything.

It definitely doesn't answer everything.

Garrot needs to take like three entire days worth of naps, but that's an incredibly unsafe life choice. He's done some like 12- or 16- or more-hour long surgeries before, so it's totally the same thing, right? Yeah. Totally.

"Easy?" There's a weak, exasperated sigh from poor Garrot. "He killed my father, and I wanna know why. The truth. Every detail." And then he just groans and rests his forehead on his knees. He knows the Wizard can't help with that, or else she would've given him everything a long time ago.

"And Eleven was involved, so..."

She takes a long sip this time, watching him. There's only one thing she can reiterate here and it's the thing he doesn't want to hear.

"You already know why he killed him." She casually drops again, wondering which dots Garrot will link together with that statement.

"But I need to know more." Have another groan, Wizard. Garrot's hands move to pull his hair back and out of his face, whether it was there or not.

"If he found Eleven on the third day, right after he probably met the Protector, how did he survive to the twelfth day when he tries to kill anyone who questions him?" A short little sigh. "Did he spare Eleven? How many monsters did he, or any of them kill that year?"

Another groan, and he buries his head into his knees again, as if doing so could knock him out and he'd wake up when it's all over.

The Weather

Prompts:

Procedure:

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject