Day 8: Evening

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 ]

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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!

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?"

In response to Garrot's knocks at the doorknob and at the top of the door, he gets the exact same knock back only a moment later. But after the knock, Garrot will get what he wants. A voice that feels like a whisper settles in just beside each of his ears. It's like she's beside him, whispering directly beside his ear, but she's not here, even if he looks. How is her voice doing that? He's alone, in this hallway, outside her door.

"Where is there. Who are you?" She questions, from everywhere around him and also nowhere around him.

Um.

The repeated knocks are interesting, and it's evidence that it wasn't just a single, weird coincidence. But as the whisper hits him, Garrot's entire body tenses up as he whirls around, his back to the door, his head looking to the left and right as if he were a child nervous about crossing the street.

"I-in your room!" There's a nervous edge to his voice, because what the actual fuck. But he steels himself and turns back towards the door, because the monsters are supposed to be allies, as weird as disembodied voices are. "I'm the Monkey Knight." He knocks again, mostly just to see what happens. "We need to talk. About you, this year, and the eleventh year." Of course he has questions about his father's death. She was there, after all. And he can't back down just because he was creeped out this early.

"Is now a good time to talk, or are you busy?" At least he's being polite!

"I am there." The voice whispers, confirming that she was, in fact, in her room. But she's not going to actually be there, because that would be easy. Instead she's going to end up unsettling him more. With his back to the door, the whispered voice is seemingly behind him again. But then he blinks once, twice, and on the third blink there's someone standing in the hallway in front of him, facing him.

Draped over her body are numerous fabrics of all kinds of designs and colors. She has hair(?) that was spiked backwards from her head, and her eyes are in four lines up her face. Two eyes where you'd expect them, and then two more above on her forehead, and another two almost to where her hair is. The next set are below the first set, where you'd expect cheekbones. Then another back from those, in front of her ears, and the last set are below those at the back of her jaws. She hasn't opened her mouth to reveal her spiky shark teeth, but they're absolutely there. Every one of her eyes has black sclera and 12-pointed star pupils surrounded by irises of varying warm colors. Reds, oranges, and yellows that are slowly shifting in colors as she looks at him.

"I am also here. Not busy." She answers, her mouth slowly spreading into a smile filled with fangs. If Garrot was paying attention when he's met Five he'd realize that Twelve is shorter than Five.

Though she isn't moving, the fabrics are practically flowing with a wind from nowhere where they're dangling off of her form. Her hands are held slightly out-- She has twelve arms on that tiny body, and they fan out to both of her sides with her palms facing Garrot. It absolutely has the vibes of the multi-armed buddha statues, it's most likely terrifying.

Admittedly, Garrot is not as freaked out as he was moments ago, if only because he can assure himself that the monsters are his allies. Twelve is in her room. Okay, cool, he's not going insane, even though a half-step back into the voice coming from the door shows him that he's still alone. At least until he isn't.

There's a slight gasp as the Monkey Knight realizes who the tiny being in front of him is. His body tenses in surprise, his eyes going wide as he takes in her unique form. The hair? Cool. The clothes? Cool. The many eyes? He's getting used to all the monsters' eyes, but his are pretty unusual too, so Cool. The arms? Lots of em, weird but still cool. The teeth? Just like his! See, once he got over the sudden appearance, what he saw was just monstrous and unsettling enough to remind him of himself. So Garrot finds a smile creeping onto his face. She is also here, and she is very cool.

"You can be in two places at once and appear out of thin air, eh?" He sizes her up a bit, that smile still not leaving his face. In fact, it even grows a bit. "Nice to meet you, Twelve, I'm Dr. Garrot Murtakhor." And then he just... offers a single hand for a handshake. Does she know what a handshake is? Time to find out!

"Not in two places. Fight me Monkey Knight Garrot." She responds to him, absolutely ignoring his handshake. None of her eyes even look down at it. Does she not know what it is? Or is she ignoring it?

But all of her hands in the air around her have balled into fists like she's ready to fistfight him with all of her arms.

Uh.

Time to fight?

Garrot's grin is instantaneous when he hears the words fight me. His ears perk up, his eyes all but literally sparkle like stars as his gaze drifts across her many little fists and her really cool everything else. But he is also aware that the monsters are still technically children. So his reaction takes that into account.

"No way" His hands go on his hips as Garrot levels a disapproving parental gaze. "This is where you and the monsters live. I don't wanna disturb anyone or break anything." He shakes his head and sighs very dramatically, as if he were speaking to a child.

"Where else can we go to fight?" Ball's in your court, Twelve. Besides, he can ask questions while they walk. Win-win!

The moment Garrot says "no", all of Twelve's eyes close. When he goes on to ask where else they can go to fight, her entire physical body disappears right where it's standing.

In its place, however, are a dozen eyes floating vaguely in the air. They aren't attached to anything, but they all share the same twelve-pointed design as she stares at him.

Again, the voice comes whispered in Garrot's ears as if it's behind him.

"Disappointed."

The floating eyes are pretty cool, but mostly really creepy. Same with the disembodied voice. Twelve really seemed to like being weird.

"I'm not fighting you here, in the house." Garrot rolls his eyes, not interested in hiding his displeasure. "Unless there's space in your room?" His head gestures behind him to that door he knocked on. Some of these rooms seemed pretty big, and the strongest monster should get the biggest room, probably. Maybe? He's trying to be polite, but...

"Where'd the rest of you go?" He reaches a hand, finger extended, to gently and surgically poke the space between two of her floating eyes. There's no way she's just floating eyes right now, right? That'd be biologically impossible! "You looked cool, so I'd be disappointed if you were actually gone."

But if she keeps up like this though, he might punch her right in the floating eyes, just to humor her.

Garrot's finger floats between the space between two eyes. There's nothing there.

Both eyes, however, turn to lock on to that finger and he'll feel like it's been locked in place. Like someone turned it to stone in midair.

"Gone." She echoes, the voice still coming from behind him. At that moment, the other ten eyes lock onto Garrot. Just like his arm, his entire body locks in place. He's no longer able to move, not even a single inch, like he's being perfectly held in place.

"Opportunity gone." She follows at the same time that all twelve eyes abruptly close. When the eyes are closed, Garrot immediately regains his ability to move. But Twelve also starts fading into invisibility. All twelve eyes slowly raising the 'transparency' bar percentage up and up towards 100% as she slowly disappears.

Garrot wanted to be nice and polite to the strongest monster of the group, but when she froze his body like a certain, deceased Snake Knight, it only served to piss him off. He doesn't very much enjoy being restricted by magical means by someone he's forcing himself to trust. So all that exasperation comes flooding to the forefront as she starts to fade!

"Oh no you don't!" One hand balls into a fist as he waves it around in the space once occupied by those eyes of hers, as if to rattle her brain or pound on her skull. "I thought you killed my father for almost three decades and now you're just gonna run away?! You're the disappointment!" Garrot's snarling, this temper tantrum of his is so bad. Though of course, he'd been trying to temper his very conflicted emotions about the monster he believed killed his father for so long. Twelve and the Wizard, they'd been the epicenter of his fury and hatred for so long. So he pivots back towards Twelve's door and obnoxiously knocks on it! Three times! Mimic it and tell him you're not leaving, Twelve!

"Get back here right fucking now or I'll kick your fucking door down and wait for your godsdamned ass to get back here!" Garrot is yelling, no sense of respect or decorum like he had... ten seconds ago. He takes a breath, if only to keep himself from just loosing a barbaric howl into the simulated sky. "And when you get back, you better believe I'll kick your fucking ass up and down this stupid garden!"

This is not going how he expected it to. At all. And it's obvious how desperately angry he is. Embarrassing, really.

Unfortunately for Garrot, she is just going to disappear. She'd been testing him in her own way, and his reaction was giving her all the answers she needed for her purposes. He might be waving his fist around, but he's hitting absolutely nothing. It's like her eyes were just projected in the air and not physical at all.

So he's left knocking on her door, a door that provides no answer, a hallway void of any others. Apparently he'd done enough to be left alone, but he was still throwing a tantrum in the middle of a house. The phone in his pocket starts beeping with the same text sent over and over and over and over again. He'll recognize the number as Eight's.

"Please be quiet inside the house."

The text will keep sending, one every few seconds, over and over again until he responds... or until he breaks his phone.

Excuse you, Eight, Garrot has thrown many tantrums inside houses, they're just usually his own. So when he gets those beeping pings on his phone, Garrot immediately takes the device out. If someone can respond to him, they probably know where-

Oh. Oops. There's a loud groan of frustration, but the tantrum ceases entirely.

"Sorry. Is Twelve ALWAYS like this? She asked me to fight. In your HALLWAY!"

Garrot would like to think he's not that bad, especially since he hasn't gotten drunk since he got on the island. How could a legendary and powerful being be so... ridiculous?

As is normal with Eight, Garrot's phone bloops with three text replies instantaneously. As if all three were sent at the exact same second.

"Yes"
"So fight"
"Quietly"

Cue a still kinda quiet sigh from Garrot.

"But she's GONE."
"Where can I find her?"

More than anything, he'll jump on a chance to leave the house until he's less grumpy.

Once again, the texts come all at once.

"Don't know"
"Look around"
"Or apologize"

Does Eight know something Garrot doesn't? Is this generic advice? What's the deal?

"Apologize to who? For WHAT?"
"I'm not apologizing for refusing to trash your house."
"And I don't think I could fight QUIETLY in this hallway either."

Garrot has no intention of backing down from being in the right here, but he also has a sneaking suspicion he did something offensive without realizing it. That's par for the course with him normally, but with the monsters and their weirdness? Almost guaranteed.

Oh, Garrot, uh. That was probably not the best tone to take via text. He gets three texts all at once just like before.

"Not that"
"To me"
"You sent Twelve here"

His eyes widen at these messages, and his face starts to flush with... embarrassment?

"She's with you? And you'd probably rather be alone."
"I'm so sorry."
"Are you in your room? I can try to come get her."

Garrot's not waiting for a response, he's going to start walking down the hall towards Eight's room.

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Day 8: Evening

Evening: 5:00pm - Midnight

The Weather

Prompts:

Procedure:

Activity Check: April 2020

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