Day 8: Evening

[wizardseason]

Evening: 5:00pm - Midnight

[ IRL Timeframe: April 1st - April 15th, 2020 ]

The light rain has changed into a downpour, coating the island, its forests, and its people in a constant barrage of water. After the events of the afternoon, it's like it's all being washed away.

Except it isn't, because the events of the day all happened. They're all real. And social media is abuzz about the loss of Harsen Island's mountain. Now, it's all just flat. There are forests, but Craydon is no longer a mountain-side town. Instead, they have a cog train that rolls horizontally across the flat ground from the main train station and over into their very flat town in the woods. Bamborough's hillside hotels with dozens of floors higher up for an ocean view are now down with the rest of the buildings, and only the highest floors can see out over the touristy area to the water. Far Haven, in contrast, has barely changed. You can't flatten something that's already flat. The only textures left on the island are the silver humps of two ships, one near Far Haven and the other near Bamborough. There's also a hump at the center, the cave entrance, leading down into the cave where the bodies were. For anyone who goes to look, there's a new body there now.

- [1] -

The participants in the fight against "Eight" put up a valiant fight, eventually defeating it in a show of heroic justice somewhere along the tracks. In all the rain, its yellowed body is disappearing away into the ground as it washes away.

- [2] -

#childlost

Sxicq is... somewhere. The internet lost them again. Wherever they're at, it's not out on the surface of the island.

- [3] -

The monsters, meanwhile, have returned back to their home in the garden. At least, the ones who seem to live there.

Five and Six are in their rooms on the main floor with the doors open. Five is laying on her bed, tacking away on her flip phone. Six is in his room, sitting on the edge of the bed, also on his phone. If there's anyone in Four's room, it's unknown due to the closed door. Also on the main floor is the Wizard. She's casually sitting in one of the more plain of the thirteen chairs, reading an unnamed book. There's a steaming mug of cocoa on the coffee table in front of her.

On the second floor, Ten's room is the only one open. The doors for Seven, Nine, and Twelve are all shut. If anyone heads in to look for Ten, they'll find him writing in a small notebook with the title "Chef Notes" on the front.

On the top floor, Eight's door is shut but has a small "Text me" sign dangling off of the handle.

- [4] -

If anyone goes looking for the newly surfaced space ships, all they'll find is the smooth metallic surfaces of them rounding out of the terrain. If there's a way in, it's not obvious to others

The Weather

• Heavy rain.
• 59°F / 15°C
• A constant wind.

---

Prompts:

• 5:00pm Onward: Monster House, The Garden: For any heroes who are up for meeting any of the monsters, this is their opportunity. Some closed doors will have no one behind them, but the open doors are a guaranteed someone to talk to. Will they talk to the monsters, each other, or the Wizard downstairs in the sitting area?


• 5:00pm Train Station, All cities: All trains have been suspended, citing the "unknown conditions of the island's tracks" after the events of the day. No one is allowed to ride the rails, no one is allowed to go anywhere. Is your hero trapped at a train station waiting for an uber? Does another hero come to their rescue? What's the deal?


• ?:00pm General Post, Anywhere: Does your character go to investigate things around the island? Do they meet with other heroes somewhere over coffee? How are they handling being cut off from the world? Their family? Their loved ones? How do they feel seemingly being made the enemy of all people of the world?

---

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.

OOC Mortality Warning: Any hero who actively seeks out the Protector IC will be at a high risk of death in some manner. He is on the move, tread carefully!

---

Activity Check: April 2020

[ IRL Timeframe: April 1st - April 30th, 2020 ]

Comments

5:00pm Onward: Monster House, The Garden:

[wizardseason]

For any heroes who are up for meeting any of the monsters, this is their opportunity. Some closed doors will have no one behind them, but the open doors are a guaranteed someone to talk to. Will they talk to the monsters, each other, or the Wizard downstairs in the sitting area?

[sustainer]

Gyre begins his evening in the house. He has a few people to check up on, as well as some leads to follow. He returns here after his late afternoon walk in the gardens, speaking to Five and the Wizard, trying to find Nine. His expression is still dark after all that, but he has a way forward now. That path forward is the only thing keeping him from holing up someplace for the night honestly.

He says goodbye to Five, seeing her off to her room, and he hovers awkwardly in the front room for a few minutes. It's still incredibly strange to him to be in a building like this, but repeated exposure has tempered his nerves a little. He looks around, and then, eventually, decides where to start.

He heads up the stairs and knocks softly on Seven's door, waiting for a sign of permission before he opens it. As he waits, he pulls his phone out, texting Eight, What kind of music do you like?

Catch him invading Seven's room, or later. He's going to be all over this house until he finds the clues he needs.

[wizardseason]

Gyre's about to get started. Immediately after he sends his text, literally as he hits send, his phone bloops as it receives a reply from Eight. "Mine. Rock."

But the real startling thing is that the entire door in front of him vibrates, as if it were impacted by something or someone on the other side. The floor shakes, too, actually, everything shakes. And then the middle of the door cracks, a strange diagonal crack like something impacted it from the other side. It may or may not be cracking a little more, pushing outwards towards Gyre.

Down the hall, there's a soft click as Ten's door open and he takes a step out before looking towards Gyre and--

"Was that you?"

Downstairs, Five shouts out "What was that!!"

[sustainer]

Well the shock of Eight's immediate answer gets completely overshadowed by the floor rumbling under his feet and then the door cracking?? He jerks a step back, eyes widening enormously. His body goes tense, preparing for a fight.

"What-- you--" he makes these few startled noises, and then Ten's voice behind him focuses his thoughts. He steps to the side to the monster can see the door splitting like that, and he gestures wildly at it.

"There's something in there??" Something's in there or it's Seven, and his voice makes it clear he has no idea which it is, jerking back another step as the door continues to break outwards towards him.

[wizardseason]

Ten approaches... surprisingly casually? Eight of his eyes are on the door and the other two are on Gyre. The door cracks again, bulging outward as a black metallic edge comes breaking through.

"They must be awake." He comments and sounds utterly matter-of-fact about it courtesy of microsoft sam's text-to-voice.

"Hello! What's going on!" Five oomplains again from downstairs, leaving her room to come up the stairs.

Which turns out to be just in time for the rest of the giant metallic tank to come crashing through the door to Seven's room. The door splinters outwards as the circular top of the tank obliterates the wooden blockage. Now everyone can see: The tank that Seven is in is laying on its side, crashed through the door, still filled with that cloudy impossible-to-see liquid inside.

Somehow, it's not spilling everywhere. That's probably not great.

Luka + Wizard

[eutychia]

Luka is headed for the monster's house immediately upon his arrival in the Garden. He's drawn there without any real purpose or intentions, but rather the lack of anywhere else he can think to go. He enters without so much as a courteous knock, carefully shutting the door behind him before getting a sense of his surroundings.

It's then that he picks up on the familiar scent of hot cocoa in the air.

"Uh... Wiz? You're here?" He calls out softly. Luka seems somewhat flustered, as he hadn't expected her presence in the house at all.

[wizardseason]

"I am." She replies quite casually, her gaze drifting over to where Luka had powered his way into the house. He'd looked like a man on a mission, and here he was stopping like he'd come here without a plan after all. There's not really any active sounds in the house at the moment, with all the monsters doing their own thing in their spaces.

"Were you looking for someone?" She offers, wondering what's on his mind, curious how much he'll be willing to divulge. "Or something?"

[eutychia]

"I'm looking for..." Luka stops there, realizing he doesn't know what he was looking for. He instead moves toward the table, and takes a seat at the first chair he can find that doesn't seem absurdly far from where the Wizard's settled.

"I just needed somewhere to be, I guess?" He says as he lets his guitar case fall carefully beside the chair. "Sorry to just... invite myself here. It felt like the only place I could go that isn't outwardly hostile. Who would have guessed."

Olivia + Wizard

[disguiseself]

[The first thing Olivia had done when she arrived in the Garden was explore the vast outdoors. The place was incredibly beautiful, and definitely more peaceful and safe than any place in Harsen right now. She walked around, discovering as much as she was able to without straying too far from the House with a childlike wonder.

She spent a considerable amount of time laying on a field of wildflowers, at first focused on her phone, trying to get her social media accounts back up, but soon enough giving up on that and just laying there, reflecting on the events of the day.

When she finally visited the Monster House, she gave the door a light knock before opening it carefully, unsure of what she'd find inside. She almost felt like closing it and leaving when her eyes spotted the Wizard, but instead of doing so, she took a deep breath and approached her.]

Hey, uh... mind if I join you?

[wizardseason]

[ When Olivia finds the Wizard, she's reclined with her feet up on the table. She has both hands holding her cocoa, and her hat is tipped slightly down over her face. She looks really, really relaxed honestly? ]

Of course, take any seat. [ She offers, sounding relaxed as she motions out at the room with one hand. The other twelve seats are in a variety of shapes and sizes. Some are too big for Olivia, some are too small, some are just right. Whatever fairy tale these came from, at least some were usable. ]

[disguiseself]

[Olivia is far from relaxed, but she does her best not to show it. She's not sure whose chair it is, but she picks one of the biggest to seat on - that way she can sit criss-cross applesauce on it, the superior way to sit.]

So, I... figured I should get to know you, if that's okay. I mean, since it looks like we'll be... working together? [It was weird to speak to her casually. Most of the conversations the media had shown between the Wizard and the Knights over the years were the "you will never win, evil Wizard!" type of interactions, and Olivia briefly wondered what people would think if this was being televised.]

I imagine you already know way more about me than I'd like you to but uh, regardless, I'm Olivia.

Garrot + Twelve(?)

[daddykong]

When he was in the garden the day before, poor Garrot was in bad shape and couldn't really do more than grumble and get in the way. But now? After "Eight" has gone down and he's back, the Monkey Knight knows what he has to do.

He needs to find Eleven and Twelve. The first met his father, the second is the strongest of all the monsters. Since he'd heard enough about Twelve to know she hung out in the Garden whereas Eleven did not, the course of action was obvious.

And that's how Garrot found himself knocking on Twelve's door. And if there's no response, well, he's more than willing to harass whoever else he finds.

[wizardseason]

If Garrot was expecting some magnificent fanfare, some kind of world-shattering entrance, some sort of shock-and-awe arrival on Twelve's part when he comes to knock on her door, he'll be massively disappointed. Because her door is closed, none of the other monsters are shuffling around to see what's about to happen, and he gets a response to his knock.

In the form of his same, identical knock coming back from the other side. Same weight, same height, same rhythm. How odd!

[daddykong]

All things considered, the little bits he'd heard about Twelve had him doubting he'd get a response. And yet he does. Maybe? Unless he was hallucinating the identical knock. But he probably wasn't.

"Is this some weird magic thing, or uh..." Garrot's being more than a little cautious, because he did spend about thirty years wanting to kill Twelve, and circumstances have just muddled and confused that intent. He knocks again, this time near the doorknob with one hand, and near the top of the door with the other. "...are you actually there, Twelve?"

5:00pm Train Station, All cities:

[wizardseason]

All trains have been suspended, citing the "unknown conditions of the island's tracks" after the events of the day. No one is allowed to ride the rails, no one is allowed to go anywhere. Is your hero trapped at a train station waiting for an uber? Does another hero come to their rescue? What's the deal?

?:00pm General Post, Anywhere:

[wizardseason]

Does your character go to investigate things around the island? Do they meet with other heroes somewhere over coffee? How are they handling being cut off from the world? Their family? Their loved ones? How do they feel seemingly being made the enemy of all people of the world?

Hopefully they don't try to find the Protector, that'd be deadly.

Sad boy hours, Open

[eutychia]

Luka has retreated back into the Garden after the events of the afternoon settled (as much as those particular events could be settled), brazenly turning tail and running away from Harsen Island and all its troubles. He needed a moment to breathe, he justifies to himself, though the knot in his stomach only twists tighter.

He's found himself back on that bench by the lake, unsure of where else to go. He's looking oddly pedestrian tonight - no makeup, minimal jewelry and a downright average attire. It's clear he dressed himself, and in a hurry. The few belongings he'd grabbed from his Craydon lodgings rest beside him: his old guitar and an uncharacteristically silent phone.

Luka's blankly laying across the length of the bench, facing upward toward the Garden's artificial night sky. He picks up his phone occasionally, sighing in frustration at the absolute lack of response from some of the few people he trusted enough to give his contact information to. It hurt being so powerless to explain himself, and with another sigh, he lets his phone fall from his hand into the gravel beneath.

[sustainer]

This is not what he expected to see when he came to the lake. He's here to find some measure of peace after the day, a chance to listen to the water and meditate. He's pacing the circumference of the water when he spots someone laying on the bench.

It's not until he's gotten much closer that he realizes who it is, and his steps quicken along the path, eager to see the Princess again today. He slows the moment he reads his mood though, coming to a stop a few feet away from him.

"Luka?" he murmurs, unsure whether the man wants any company at all with how blank and dressed down he looks.

[eutychia]

Luka wasn't expecting anyone to come upon him here either, and startles when he hears what sounds like approaching footsteps. He feels a sense of relief when the other speaks up, however - of all the visitors that could encounter him here, this was one of the better possibilities.

"Gyre." He says, scrambling as he sits up. His instinct is to act like nothing is wrong at all, but he knows that Gyre knows that's... absolutely not true, for any of them. Trying to play it off wasn't going to work.

"I didn't know where else to go." He says, pulling his legs underneath himself to make room for the other on the bench. "Craydon's a mess, you know. No one's even talking to me."

Luka + Eight, Text

[eutychia]

Later that night, Luka sends a text after being tipped off by the Wizard that Eight wanted to speak to him.

Hey Eight.
A certain Wizard told me you wanted to talk to me about something?
What's up?

[wizardseason]

Eight stares at his phone as the text arrives and it takes him a full eight minutes to draft up a response. But he sends it all at once, a wave of texts that arrive at the exact same moment:

Hello
Nothing
Something
You like music?
You make music
It's good

...How embarrassing.

[eutychia]

Well, this was unexpected. Luka takes a moment to double-take at the message, making sure he heard it correctly.


You listened to it?
And you liked it?


Luka can barely contain his excitement as he types his response.


Do you make it too?
It's my favorite thing ever.

Luka + Olivia, Text

[eutychia]

A lot has happened since the tumultuous meeting this morning, and now Luka realizes just how long its been since he's really got to touch base with Olivia. It seemed even more pressing now that the Protector had officially turned on them both.

And so Luka finds his phone and types a message out to the last remaining Protector knight.

Hey Liv.
You're in Twelve's Garden right?
Wanna meet up?

[disguiseself]

[A minute later, Luka's phone buzzes with Olivia's reply.]

yes. where are you? i'll go to you.

[eutychia]

Despite already being told Olivia was safely in the garden, the solid confirmation of it is a welcome relief to Luka - especially after having learned the Protector was on the hunt.


You know where the portal usually dumps you?
And there are those signs?
Let's meet there. I'm not far.