open / i'll embrace you and take care of you

[cambiar]

WHO: Kate, Steak, Serah and Lisbon and... you?
WHAT: Catch-all funtimes! Some questy things, some drinky things, some magic practicy things.
WHEN: April-May
WHERE: See prompts for specifics!
WARNINGS: underage drinking / substance use, probably violence, maybe various kinds of angst (see prompts for specifics)

steak

🥩 link
🥩 link
🥩 link

kate

👟 golden repairs
👟 in the underground mall
👟 link

serah

⌛ link
⌛ link
⌛ link

lisbon

✈ crawling in my skin
✈ that's my internet!
✈ link

Comments

steak 🥩

[battlebound]

kate galloway 👟

[bratherine]

quest / golden repairs

[bratherine]

( A vein of gold, huh? Kate actually studies the map around the Lake of Healing — a place she's never been, but there's a first time for everything — before she teleports over to the Abandoned Graveyard, despite the listing talking about the forest's potential. There's more space to explore in the north and, well, she has no real intention of getting trapped in the swamp mess of a flooded forest.

(Or swimming.)

There's not a whole lot of explanation about what they're supposed to do in order to get the rocks, but she's been practicing telekinesis and her hands flicker with fire as she arrives in the graveyard, shaping it into the rough equivalent of a pick.

That should work, right?

Time to find out, she supposes, wading cautiously through the mud, between the rows of half-destroyed gravestones, her eyes flicking away from each of them, head twisting as she searches out a spot. One where gold glints. One where the battered headstones don't exist and her chest doesn't ache.

It's not like they're anyone she'd recognise anyway.

And only after hours, or what feels like it, does she find something glinting in the stone close to the lake, relief washing over her sweat-sticky skin as she finally begins making her way towards it. Towards... The exact same spot someone else has noticed.

Oh no, you don't! She flings a small ball of fire out towards the spot just left of them, hoping to startle them away from (what should soon be) her loot. )

[mayoninofukucho]

[Luckily, Hijikata didn't come here to vie for gold as Kate's competitor - at least not primarily. For that, he did teleport into the the safe spot in the flooded forest earlier on, and with that quest done and dusted after some trials and tribulations, he now wants to check on the graveyard! Why? Because he saw a ghost in the swamped woods, and he wants to confirm if he permanently regained his Avalonian death magic by any chance. (He didn't - the ghost in the safe area is visible to all thanks to a magical circle on the ground, but he didn't ask about that.)

That said, he's not one to turn his nose up at a challenge! He promptly turns the girl's fireball green and harmless as he approaches undeterredly.]

Territorial, are we?

[Kate may only recognise him when he pulls his coat's hood off - and he likewise recognises her once she's close enough. Busted!]

Huh. I didn't know you natives could learn magic tricks.

open / in the underground mall (cw: underage drinking/substance use)

[bratherine]

( It doesn't take long, when you're an enterprising young delinquent, to find out that the Underground Mall is the place to go for all the substances you are technically too young to ingest.

Find the right seller, and they'll look the other way while you exit with a bottle of something that can only be described as spirits. Nothing fancy enough to be honoured with an actual name, the kind of thing which really only exists to make you regret it in the morning.

It tastes like crap, but she exits with it anyway and finds a spot tucked away in the corner to pull the top off, grimacing at the smell which wafts up, and pour some into a half-drank bottle of pop. (Half-poured out. She wouldn't be drinking this if she could afford some booze which doesn't taste like crap.) )

Ugh...

( Nope. Still tastes like crap. But soon enough, she won't care about it. She shuffles the booze into her bag and stretches her arms over her head, rocking back on her heels before setting off again.

Where to now...? She watches people milling back and forth and takes another swig of her drink, bites back the urge to wince at the taste of it all and slips into the crowd, bumping someone with her shoulder as she heads down the line of shops.

Oops? )

[poisontest]

[ Maomao is the type of girl who will sometimes go on shopping trips to see if she can get some materials for her apothecary, and sometimes those ingredients would be a bit... problematic, so to speak.

Hence why she's kind of sneaking around in 'disguise', not having her makeup on and wearing much more... extravagant? clothes that might be a bit of a mismatch for the underground market, but it's probably fine.

But she is holding quite a bit of bags of herbs and bottles of alcohol, some of which spill out the very second that she's bumped into. ]

H-Hey, you should watch where you're going at least--!

serah farron ⌛

[odinbolt]

🔒 jinwoo / a hundred needles

[odinbolt]

( Something about these guys seems awfully familiar...

Serah kneels some metres away from a gaggle of cacti, Mog floating quietly beside her, bobbing idly in the breeze, both their expressions frozen in concentration, searching for the slightest twitch from the little creatures.

The listing was right! They're playing games, moving when they look away. )

Okay... You fly round the back, Mog. Keep your eyes on them!

( She's going to catch them moving, one way or another! )

This is the best kind of stupid, I know exactly what I signed up for. BRING IT.

[sungsolo]

[The moment he saw the listing Jinwoo felt an almost uncharacteristic surge of annoyance. These damn cacti were bringing back some of Jinwoo's absolute worst memories. Beings that only move when you aren't watching them, and took the opportunity to slaughter anyone unfortunate enough to be unable to keep them rooted with their gaze. He'd come as close to death as one could in the Cartenon Temple all those months ago to statues of the same deceptive nature. It just leaves a sour taste in his mouth.

But rather than act on that irritation blindly Jinwoo takes the chance to quietly approach a young woman who seems to be observing from a safe distance. He seems to materialize out of thin air as he dispels his stealth temporarily so that he can speak to her. He'd noticed her... flying stuffed toy? Creature? And for some reason the pair struck him as easily startled. He couldn't even say why if you asked him, they just did.

They made an interesting pair, too, a matching color scheme of soft pinks and whites, an absolute contrast to his all black wardrobe and hair, and his gray eyes.]

What do you plan to do after you get them to move?

[He asks without taking his eyes off of the "herd"...? ...... "Patch"?? (How annoying. What should they call a group of these monsters anyway?) He just wanted to make sure that they wouldn't all three be suddenly ambushed because he might have distracted the two.]

lisbon ✈

[cambiar]

quest / crawling in my skin

[cambiar]

—at the temple of life.

( Warping is not new. The way Ellipsa chooses to warp — with crystals —, however, decidedly is.

The wave of nausea that comes when her feet touch down at the temple of life? Also not new, but a pain in the ass when she doesn't actually have any anti-nausea medicine to take the edge off.

So, she's just going to take a minute to gulp down some air, steadying herself against the nearest wall as she does so. Nope. She is never getting used to teleportation. But hold on, stranger... )

Do you have any water?

( A drink might help. )

—in the jungle of judgement.

( Well, at least the crystal offers one advantage: these plant creatures follow her pretty immediately as she exits the temple, peaky but not actively nauseated any more.

(It's the little things.)

She pretends to not notice them, walking briskly towards the trees, ears pricked and eyes focused on the path in front of her. She needs a good spot to confront these things. An opening of some description. Somewhere she can have the advantage.

Or (and of course this would be the case, why wouldn't it be?), she can run into another set of plant creatures following a person just a few steps ahead of her.

Great. Well. Plans are wont to change, and if that person doesn't know what's going on... Sigh. She can't leave this. And so she picks up the pace, drawing her gun from its holster as branches crunch beneath her feet. )

Watch out!

quest / that's my internet!

[cambiar]

What are they...?

( Lisbon is currently perched on a rock by the river, watching one of these bioluminescent moths flit and fly about. They're nothing that strange, all things considered — she's seen things which look like them before. Hell, she's worked with people who glow just like that at HQ — but the idea that they may be siphoning the wifi from the air is... different.

She pulls her phone (well, the one Ellipsa gave her) out to take a photo as a group of them dart across the darkening sky. Open the app, line up the camera and...

Find the whole damn lot of them swooping down on her. )

H-hey! What do you think you're—