Day 9: Twilight

[wizardseason]

Twilight: 12:00noon - ??:00 Unknown

[ IRL Timeframe: July 20th - Onward, 2021 ]

In the past, the heroes had found themselves face-to-face with the Protector and the Wizard on year 0. They'd found the shattered pieces of Sxicq. They'd found the story before anyone had polished it into what it was today. It was free of all the lies, save for the ones coming from an alien's mouth.

The heroes influenced the past in subtle ways: Confronting the Protector with questions. Shaking the Wizard's solid foundations and instilling curiosity about the truth. Most importantly, Sxicq had seen all of their faces.

After chasing the crystals around the town and mountain, the heroes were pulled back into the room beneath the mountain. There, to their huge surprise, they were hidden behind some incredibly convenient piles of rocks to watch the events unfold that would define the next forty years. Floating over twelve of the platforms in the cavern were twelve of the crystals with kids inside of them that had been floating around the mountain. In the center of the circle stand two figures: Sxicq and the Wizard. The two appear apprehensive, but it's the third figure at the edge of the circle that's ruining it:

"Contain it! What are you doing!" The Protector shouts, stomping a foot. The air feels heavy, like it's made of electric cotton, and the hairs on everyone's arms stand upright.

"Get-- out! Of the way!!" He continues, stomping forward into the circle. As he does, a familiar blade slides out into his hand. Its shape is a tear in reality, a hole in the very makeup of the world itself.

The only thing that keeps the heroes from leaping forward to change history is the twelve small, glowing forms that are holding their hands. Smaller than children. Animals. Twelve of them, pleading in whispers: Stay. Watch.

True to their word, there is something to watch. The Protector rushes in, swinging his blade in a high arc before plunging it downward into the center of the circular floor of the platform. From it: A blue beam of energy, like lightning, fires forth through his chest. It pierces out from him, through Sxicq, through the Wizard, through the twelve crystals, and finally through the twelve animals where they're sitting around the heroes.

One bright white explosion later: The animals are gone. The crystals are gone. Sxicq is gone. The Wizard is gone. Only the Protector remains, standing over the circular rings in the floor. Slowly, he retracts his blade from the center. The edges of reality start to go to static.

"It is done." He declares with an air of finality. The static creeps in on the edges of everything, fading the vision as Sxicq descends into slumber.

The Protector's wrist beeps in defiance. He looks down at it, his face scrunching up in disgust. "It has to be done! Acknowledge: Mission complete!" He nearly yells at his wrist, only to be met with a response that stuns him.

"User not recognized, access privileges locked down." Says the same voice that came from within the ship. The static finishes pouring over everything, fading the vision of the cavern into nothing but noise.

And then everyone wakes up.

Everything feels wrong: The clocks all say it's sometime after noon, but the sky is an ever-churning, ever-shifting muddled mess of blues, purples, and darkness. The sun is missing. Weather outlets everywhere didn't have any explanation for the phenomenon. News stations were being careful to avoid referring to it as a sign of the end. The Protector had told them things were dire, after all, but they couldn't cause a mass panic.

And, most importantly, a small handful of news headlines on the planet were talking about time travel being real. They're talking about the blip to forty years ago. They're talking about the very same things that the heroes had just experienced, like they had experienced those exact same things. What effect would this have on the carefully-crafted story that the Protector had pieced together over forty years? Just how many people had shared this experience too?

Unknown to Luka, Gyre, and Olivia: Terrence had been to the past and had an experience much like the one they'd shared as a trio. He ended up with two regular people from the world who didn't recognize him as one of the heroes from this year.

What would happen now?

Ninth Afternoon Event: Afternoon Twilight

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The Weather

• The birds aren't chirping.
• 68°F
• A little breezy.

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Prompts:

• 12:00noon The Return, The Garden: When Gyre, Luka, and Olivia return, they're placed on the ground around the portal arrival in the garden. Nearby, Terrence has also been deposited: But he's in a tree about three feet up.
  
  At least the gang's all here?


• 1:00pm Onward, Around the Garden: Once the heroes start making their way around the garden and inside the monster house, they'll realize that, for the first time, all of the monsters are here either inside or somewhere nearby. If the heroes wanted to find anyone, now was the chance for them to do so!

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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.

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Comments

[wizardseason]

As Gyre enters the kitchen space, he'll be greeted by the culinarily-inclined monster lifting a preposterously large pot up from the floor to place up on the countertop adjacent to the orbven. It has to be at least two feet tall and full of liquid for it to look that heavy to lift, especially for a strong monster like Ten. He turns to see Gyre in the door, six of his eyes on the elf while the other four are focused around the room. The usual spots open up on his face as his permanently-trapped phone voices the text that he types:

"Is she seated or standing." He inquires first, the voice monotone, before he adds some clarification:

"How do you know she's hungry. Question mark." He watches Gyre for the answer as he shuffles a stack of what look like green onions onto the cutting board in front of him. When the knife goes through them, the scent of butter rises up from them and adds to the growing deliciousness wafting around the kitchen.

[sustainer]

He watches Ten lift that enormous pot, wondering if he should come over to help. He might just end up in the way though, and then Ten has finished. He takes a few more steps into the kitchen, watching the greens as they get cut and uh the wrong smell comes out of them. He's never going to get used to that.

"She's in her chair," he answers quickly, pausing for a moment and adding, "Her stomach was growling. Uh, and she said she would eat, later."

[wizardseason]

Gyre needs to learn to appreciate the new range of vegetables in the world, or more specifically in the whole universe. He could even eat a number of the vegetables, courtesy of their composition! He hadn't even seen some of the meat flowers.

"You could bring her soup." Ten offers, setting down the knife he was using. He turns, opening a deep drawer down near the floor and rummaging in it. A few moments later, he stands up again with an unmarked metal can that has a pull-ring on the top to open it.

"But if she's sitting she probably won't eat." He clarifies, reaching over the counter to set the can in front of Gyre. He's still in the middle of things though, his focus turning to tumbling the now-freshly-cut-butter-onions into a bowl so he can bring them... not to the giant pot? He's putting the bowl on top of the orbven instead? Like, waaaaay up on top?

A moment later, a soft sizzling and crackling sound fills the room like those onions were frying off. The room smells even butteryer. Nice.

[sustainer]

"Soup," he repeats back, watching Ten pull the can out at set it in front of him. It's not what he would have expected, but he slowly reaches out to take it, brow furrowing in thought.

"Why not? She's hungry, so..." So she should want to eat, right? "Can I help her stand up?"

[wizardseason]

"Sitting means working. She works a lot." He clarifies, not entirely knowing how to elaborate further on that idea. On multiple occasions he'd brought her food only to find it stone cold and untouched a few hours later.

"Don't know how to make her stop." He admits, unfortunately. She seemed to enjoy her work and was quite literally cabled in place most of the time so she couldn't just be carried away. As he does, he's lifting a preposterously-sized watermelon onto the table. He cuts into it with a knife, resulting in the wafting scent of fresh kimchi emitting from the inside as the vivid red flesh inside is revealed.

[sustainer]

His nose wrinkles and he recoils slightly at the smell of the watermelon, the sour scent sitting on the back of his tongue. He doesn't like it at all, but there's lots of things with weird smells that people eat. He keeps his distaste to himself.

"If I figure it out, I'll let you know," he answers with a faint smile, moving back towards the door with the soup in hand. "Is... do I need to do anything with this?"

[wizardseason]

Ten gives Gyre a little wave as he moves to the door to leave, not vocalizing that he's glad that attempts are being made to help Nine not be so much of an overworked tech gremlin.

"Put it nearby. Tell her to drink." He offers, glad that his uncertainty about those ideas doesn't convey over the text-to-voice he was using. He had perhaps a 10% confidence that his fellow monster would actually eat.

[sustainer]

He nods towards Ten, glancing down at the soup one last time.

"I will," he says after a beat, finally retreating back to Nine's room.