EVENT ★ MAT GATHERING

[futurologists]

The investigations in the sungazing log have lead to a number of discoveries, including trace amounts of solar radiation and seemingly temporary lights in the sky that match no known star charts currently in Chantes. On the 15th, Rick will announce via the verdict over the network: the sun isn’t gone. un: 82736775 Those of you who actually did your job instead of screwing off (and breaking my shit! Yes, I know all about it), congrats. We've made headway on our dumbass situation. The sun isn't gone (obviously). There are radiation levels suggesting that it's still there somewhere, but it's weirdly faint. Concerning item number one. Concerning item number two: there are lights in the sky but they're not native stars. They're red in the west in the morning, and in the east in the evening. This suggests a solar cycle that we just can't observe (with a western sunrise apparently). There are no moons visible; supposedly there should be two. Go figure. The most interesting observations came from the storm, during which the "star" readings went off the charts, dawg. All lit up like Christmas and shit. Hypothesis: the darkness is not because homeboy made anything "vanish with magic," but because he stuck a big "blanket" between the planet and the sky. The "stars" are likely just holes in his dumb bullshit. So let's get this solution rolling so we can get off this godforsaken rock. This is where you losers come in. I need things . . . The mystery of the disappearing sun might be clear, but that doesn’t mean the problem’s solved. Now’s the hard part: creating something that will dispel the darkness. Fortunately, with the right ingredients, science might be able to win the daylight back. All recruits will be encouraged to help with some good, old-fashioned teamwork and fetch quests. SCAVENGER HUNT The list is as follows: Iron ore. Collecting it seems easy enough, but a dangerous serpentine creature capable of breathing electricity known as a Behir lairs nearby. If hungry, it will ambush characters and will not stop unless it succeeds or is slain. Following the rich iron supply, characters will also find a series of winding underground caves and caverns. Inside are items such as glowing cave mushrooms that are likely radioactive. Blue mushrooms maintain their coloring due to a rare solute in the cave water, helpful for optimizing fuel. Green mushrooms are useless and if you collect them you should feel bad. Bat guano. Bats indigenous to the caves also seem to be affected by the contaminated cave water, however -- they’re enormous, blood-sucking, and have developed a mild venom. While one bite won’t kill anyone, the bats have numbers, ultrasonic screeches, and bad tempers. Plutonic rocks. The source of the odd cave life, an ancient scattering of some massive meteorite resides deep inside the cave. They’ve got rich veins and chunks of crystal, the bigger the better. (We’d tell you what these space oddities are for, but we think it’d blow your minds.) Cave Minnows. The fish inside the cave lakes are easy to spot since they’re bioluminescent, but only the small, quick ones metabolize the correct oils for this project. The large ones will simply try to drag you into a death roll the -- surprisingly deep -- waters. Glowworms. See those lights hanging overhead? They’re not bulbs, but bundles of strange, glowing cave worms. Reaching and handling them might be tricky, and keep careful watch of them. They’ll burrow into anything, including your packs, your collected materials, or worst of all, you. Rock salt. Delicious! Potassium nitrate. This one is easier to find in Chantes itself: an old woman in town has a giant jar of it that she uses for pickling. Recruits may attempt to wile her out of a cup, or steal from the elderly. Wildcard. If you don't mind volatile reactions, go ahead and science on your own. Or see anything else that might be useful? Grab it and go. As a side-mission for the cave items, it seems the 15th is also the only day of the year that the night-blooming cereus plants are open around the cavern entrances. These flowers must be handled very delicately or they’ll wither and die, and local insects of all shapes, sizes, and aggressiveness will be drawn to them, so collectors beware. These flowers will have no bearing on the sun solution, but the goblin church will ask outgoing adventurers to bring some back with them. These items may come into play in February depending on IC actions, but otherwise they make for some pretty decorations! And finally, a big thanks to ricksybusiness for submitting their player plot and working with us. You go, Rick Sanchez.

Comments

[grunehexe]

[What a roguish wink. Sieglinde does her best to hide that her heart skips a beat, clearing her throat instead and nodding. Right. The business they had come for!

Very important business.]

Of course- I shall tend to these.

[Still, before she gets to it she rummages in her satchel for her herbs, pulling a few pinches of sage, rosemary and lavender out and wrapping them in a scrap of lace, tying it neatly before leaning over to place it neatly on Gilgamesh's chest.

For the smell.

She has everything she needs now, so she lays out her cloth from before and opens up the jar, pulling on a pair of gloves to spill some of the wet guano onto it. From there, it was a simple matter to return to the clipping, using her small scissors to clip low down on the stems, placing each flower delicately on the cloth with the cut end in the bat droppings. Once she gathered as many as the cloth would hold, she rolled it up and opened up the vase, carefully inserting the blooms.]

Beautiful...

[It's hard to tell if she meant the vase or the flowers, but.]

[babbylon]

[They were well-suited to each other after all. The boundless King, who looked down everything and everyone, and the brave girl, who stood strong in the face of such a terrible shadow and lived a life where she couldn't and wouldn't run away. Gilgamesh will never speak of it aloud, but he admires her for it. He respects her for it. If he didn't, he would've simply abandoned here then and there.

Gilgamesh nods appreciably at the bag of herbs. With magic, he further dulls his own sense of smell, so her work doesn't prove bothersome. And he stares up at the sky, the sky they now knew to be full of stars in a faraway place, and for however briefly it lasts, he is at peace.

Beautiful? Well...]

Yes.

[He agrees without thinking. Without really considering what she means. He feels she'll understand anyway.]

[grunehexe]

[Glancing over to see him staring skyward, Sieglinde's own gaze was inevitably drawn upwards once she could pull her eyes away from the king himself, at rest amongst the flowers that beckoned to the night, petals open and inviting. Stars- much better to... Focus on stars.

It was good to see a theory of hers beginning to be proven. For the data to support the thought that vanishing the sun itself was surely impossible... That it surely had to be some sort of spell meant not to make the sun disappear, but simply to hide the world itself away, like one pulled a curtain. This curtain now had holes.

The sky was beautiful too- even if she had begun to long for something beyond darkness.]

... Do you ever tire of them? Beautiful things.

[Of beauty, of wonder... He had lived countless years, seen the wonders of ancient civilizations and the modern world as well... Immortality was never something she'd pondered too deeply, not when mortality was once so obvious to her, a fate spelled out in the past generations of Green Witches who had lived for the ultimate magic, born heirs to continue after them, and died. Even if she'd railed against it, that fate had reminded her never to consider the search for spells of eternal youth or life.

But if one never tired of it...]

[babbylon]

[Too clever for her own good, she so proves. Gilgamesh's smile fades as she asks him this because there's no answer he could give that would satisfy, or at the very least one that wouldn't bring her a degree of melancholy. For in his heart, this was what he felt, both here and back home, brought about by boredom and malaise and loss from which he could not recover.

But he draws in his breath. Draws on his focus. Decides that she deserves the truth or some form of it and speaks low and slow, knowing well that he could not fool this child—she really was no child at all.]

I was born in the image of beauty, and thus to it I am drawn. I look upon a lion and admire its majesty; I look upon a flower and admire its grace. I surround myself with it. I exude it. I live it. I breathe it. To ask if I tire of it is to ask if I tire of myself.

[However, the answer to that is a deceptive yes. He'd tired of his existence in an endless war fought by useless people long ago. He tired of this mission. Of people. Sitting up, Gilgamesh fixes her with a serious stare, and if she wanted to be treated like an adult, this was the price. He does not mask anything for the ears of a girl but rather regards her as a woman. She could be nothing less if she truly wished to understand.]

If I tire of anything, it is repetition. The clockwork order of each and every world. Is it not also your desire, Sieglinde? To escape it? To free yourself?

[He needn't ask. One glance at those tiny feet of hers tell him everything.]

[grunehexe]

[She would not have it any other way. Even if it made her sad, or if it was painful... after discovering her entire life to have been an elaborately constructed lie, Sieglinde couldn't abide being lied to any longer. Even the well-intentioned sort meant to spare her. She had no desire to be spared.

Though she could be naive, could be deceived in the heat of the moment or when vulnerable, she had been the Green Witch all her life- and a witch knew the power of words. True names, the cast of spells, runes, binding contracts... even just the words one chose to speak into the world. It does not elude her that though Gilgamesh redefines her question... he does not answer it. If he tires of himself, of his life.

But she leaves it there, doesn't touch upon what she sees as avoided, because... even if it happened on occasion, it wasn't her intent to dredge up the painful when not necessary. Instead she meets his gaze just as seriously, heavy with the weight she gives his words.]

Yes.

[After leaving her village behind... she had learned that there would be trials beyond her imagining. But still, she could not, would not, turn back. She had escaped the physical borders... but she had not yet escaped the phantoms. The sin she had committed creating SuLIN. The physical wounds. The guilt of ignorance. Not yet.]

Is there a way open to you?

[To free a Servant from the fate of countless summonings and use as a weapon. The strange thread they held in common, albeit it in entirely different manners.]

[babbylon]

[Yes.

How sad. How painful. He expected nothing less. Gilgamesh loathes to compare himself to anyone else but they may have been more alike that he realized. Two individuals of such promise weighed down by circumstances beyond their control. Of course, Gilgamesh would reject it, proudly proclaim "I am in control of everything!", but he need only remember his circumstances rotting in jail to know it simply isn't true.

Gilgamesh draws his knees to his chest and looks rather childlike himself in doing so. Resting his chin upon them, arms folded, a slight pout painted across his lips. Gilgamesh was very old and very wise but part of him would always remain very juvenile when it came to affairs like these.]

Someone else asked me the same thing.

[And he'd also struggled with the answer. But thinking about it now, about Pearl...]

It is possible. But I know now I must strive for it. It will not come to me without effort.

[His honest smiles are sad affairs. Faint and fleeting, though she should count herself lucky he does so at all. His tone isn't unkind, necessarily, but it is chilly.]

So too you must also try, Sieglinde, or else fall by the wayside.

[grunehexe]

[She knew. If she stopped moving, even if it was the painful, aching steps of someone whose feet had been broken precisely to prevent them from becoming independent, from escape... Only death awaited. A spector of the feeling from that night, the one that had led her to look up at the muzzle of a gun in tears and answer I want to disappear to the question what will you do?.

Ciel had saved her that night, berated her for her weakness, reminded her that if she died then so died the chance of a cure for the poison she had created. Gave her something to strive for, to live for. And since that night, in Chantes, she had received reminders from others in ALASTAIRs ranks. From Gilgamesh as well.

She could not fall by the wayside even if she desired to. Not when there were still people counting on her. Still knowledge in the world yet undiscovered, yet unknown to her. Ignorance, she knew, was death.]

You have seen into the depths.

[She sealed the vase to protect the flowers she had gathered, soft expression growing stronger. If she could impart an ounce of what others had given her...]

With the magic you possess and the drive beyond all kings, I cannot perceive failures in your heart. - reading such things is the domain of witches, so you may trust my words.

[Darkness, perhaps, and secrets, and pain, and pride, but not the weakness of men that made failures of them.]

[babbylon]

[Gilgamesh shuts his eyes and recites the lines he knows by heart, knows in his very blood:]

He who saw the deep, the country's foundation; who knew and was wise in all matters.
He who was everywhere, and learnt the sum of all wisdom.
He found what was secret, discovered what was hidden.
He brought back a great tale, before the Deluge.

[And it has been some time that he's heard another speak of it. Gilgamesh does not shy from his own story; even if he would always regret the outcome, the senseless death at his hands, he'd never regret the adventure and what he'd gained along the way. For what he'd lost, he'd learned so much more. As with Sieglinde, his past was simply inseparable from himself. So he carried it with him, even as he turned his back to it, and continued to move forward.

Or at least he'd like to claim as much. In reality, he'd remained stationary for centuries—longer, even—and that was what he truly tired of. Stagnation.

By the time his eyes open again, they are sharp as any blade.]

Your perceptions hold true. Failure as a concept does not exist for me. I will succeed.

[And the way he looks at her, though he does not say it aloud, seems to strongly suggest and so will you.]

[grunehexe]

[Once read, that knowledge lived on in Sieglinde's brain, waiting to be recalled by direct will or reminder, pages and pages and word upon word, preserved nearly as well as if she still had the books before her eyes. Her voice does not join his, interrupt, but she's mouthing along with by the end, slightly off kilter thanks to the difference in words translated from ancient language to Latin, to German then back again.]

Who is there can rival his kingly standing and say like Gilgamesh, ‘It is I am the king?'

[When he looks at her like that... She feels as strong as she desires to be. Like the Green Witch she'd always thought to be, before the lies had been exposed- and she's grateful beyond measure for that measure of respect, acknowledgement. She has little to give in turn, knowing the vast differences between their statuses and abilities... But what she could give, she would give wholeheartedly. Not blindness, so much as partitioning.

Slowly, Sieglinde smiled, holding up the vase. A mundane task for the king of kings, but.]

Until the day you succeed, these small victories shall pile at our feet as a mountain.

[babbylon]

[She honors him. She shows him sincere respect. And it warms him. No smile lights up his features, but some trace of compassion can be felt in how he reaches forward to touch her cheek, to trace fingers along the pretty, delicate shape. She was purity. She was goodness. She was fair. And for the sins she may have borne, Gilgamesh judged her thus: a human being worthy to exist within this world.

Gilgamesh had only one friend in all creation, but the heart of a brave young woman, stronger than she herself knew—that much he was proud to carry.]

Agreed.

[He takes the vase, setting his hands upon her own, and seems thoroughly content.]

Climb your way up with pride, erešu. [Sumerian for fine lady. He honors her in turn.] Glory awaits at the very peak.

[grunehexe]

[As fluent as she was in the language of academics in her time, antiquated German, Latin, Greek, recently English, she is not at all passable in Sumerian- but what exactly that title meant didn't seem to matter to her, because he touched her cheek, laid his hands on her own, and that touch feels rather warm all of a sudden, the color in her cheeks blooming into a pale brush of rose, biting slightly on her bottom lip to prevent betraying as much as she was instinctively prone to, any curl up in the corners of her lips or a stuttering stumble.

Even if the going was slow, even if she fell along the way... She could keep moving forward, find some way to balance, to climb- even in Chantes, with ALASTAIR, with all that she'd done. It was so easy to believe it when he said it, and finally she broke from her flustered silence into a smile, nodding enthusiastically.]

To glory!

[To freedom.]