Outside 49: I don’t remember what it looks like either

[Dr.Gunsforhands]

[Over the Hills and to the Bogs]

Mr. Frog is just about to leap out of the reeds when a mighty sneaker bops it on the side of the head. It scrambles again to climb out of the reeds without jumping. It gets up to the path and freezes for a moment, repeatedly puffing its throat like it's gasping for breath. It then jumps back to the other side of the path, near where it stood originally, before turning around to regard June again.

Frogs' intentions aren't always easy to read, but it's not in the way anymore and it's not mooing. Victory?

[5a Violista]

[Over the Hills and to the Bogs]

June, seeing it retreat, decides that now is the perfect time to catch her breath. She needs to get back into working out.
And she digs her nails in even harder.

Unable to come up with any witty one-liners, she instead mutters under her breath at Mr. Frog, "You're not a cow, so stop acting like one."

She looks at the bullfrog for a bit longer, and then cautiously - and carefully - makes her way to the next place where she needs to stick a rod. Assuming the frog doesn't jump at her again, she continues down the deer trail - walking backwards to watch it, as if saying she's got her eyes on it, and continues down the path, sticking rods. With her sprained wrist and waterlogged shoe, she's now taking about twice as long to stick each one in.

Plus, she's partially distracted by trying to come up with a better one-liner she could have used. Next time she runs into a giant frog, she won't find herself unprepared.

[Dr.Gunsforhands]

[Over the Hills and to the Bogs]

As June slowly retreats from Mr. Frog, Mr. Frog seems to calm down. While she's watching, June spots several small frog tongues spring up behind the monster, catching a few of the mosquitoes that were attracted by the scuffle. Baby frogs! This surely isn't part of the normal frog life cycle, but then this surely isn't a normal frog.

Though the mosquito density only gets worse as June proceeds, she finishes her task uneventfully. After gathering her stuff and placing a few more rods, the last one she places crackles and causes one further ahead to light up - one that Wanessa previously placed. With the circuit complete, the rods light up brighter than before and manifest a fence of ghostly red lightning between them.

"Ah! She has good timing, I was just about to come back for the case," says Wanessa as she emerges from the shadows again. She looks June up and down as she retrieves a bowl and the radio. "Did she fall in the mud? She will need to wash her clothes when she gets home. Algae will stain if she leaves it too long."

She draws something on the inside of the bowl, steps through the reeds, and sets the bowl to drift through the green bogwater. It seems to gravitate to the center of the swamp, and she starts adjusting the radio, trying to tune into something.

Given that June was just thinking about how skeeters don't usually go after her, she notices that none of them are bothering Wanessa at all. If anything, standing near her seems to drive them away.

[5a Violista]

[Over the Hills and to the Bogs]

Oh, so it was protecting its...baby? frogs? June's glad that she only kicked it, and didn't stab it. That would leave all these baby? giant frogs? helpless? and alone. Actually, she's not entirely sure what would have happened to them, but it's likely another animal would have tried to eat them. Probably.
All of this is just too weird. No point in thinking about it.

She waves at the mosquitoes to shoo them away, between putting them in.

June jumps, a little, when Wanessa suddenly reappears. "Yes, she -" She pauses. "I mean, I fell. Don't worry, the case didn't," she explains as she hands it over.
With her hands free, she starts massaging her wrist, hoping that somehow helps to dull the pain. To avoid the buzzing of the mosquitoes, June takes a step closer to Wanessa, since apparently they're being banished or something.

The news about algae is pretty bad, though. Wearing stained clothes is the worst, especially when you're not sure if you even have other clothes or not. And if she has to wait until morning for the train, that'll be too late and it will stain. Which means she'll have to find somewhere to wash off before morning.

"So," she says, curious about what all this stuff is for. "...what's supposed to happen?"

[Dr.Gunsforhands]

[Over the Hills and to the Bogs]

"We are preparing this land to allow remote access to its mana," she explains. "The hard part is establishing a border efficiently, and thanks to her we've already done that. When the sigil I left in that bowl reaches the origin, it should generate a signal that I can transmit to my employer's headquarters, which can then be used to establish a connection."

A signal comes in over the radio. It sounds like stock sounds of bog ambiance - the same frogs and crickets and mosquitoes June's been hearing all night, sloshing water, a growling crocodile, and a moose call among other things.

"Cool. The sounds of the swamp's mana... if places had souls, and souls made sounds she could hear, this is what she would hear. Now I just have to send the signal..."

She presses a button on the radio, which goes silent, then emits a high pitched whine. The glow from the rods intensifies, then goes out with a bright red flash. June's vision becomes a field of blue afterimages for a minute as her eyes adjust.

"And now we're done! No time to clean up, but it's just wood and clay now anyway, it won't hurt the environment at all." She zips up her suitcase and nods for June to follow as she again starts pulling it behind her. "I'd appreciate it if she could come back to the station with me. I'm not sure how soon sunrise will be here." She pauses for a moment, slipping into the mode where she might just be muttering to herself again. "She probably doesn't know why I'd be worried about that... maybe I owe her an explanation anyway... she has been very kind..."

[5a Violista]

[Over the Hills and to the Bogs]

Right. So some sort of magic stuff. Something June figures she needs to learn about but hasn't had any opportunity to do so yet. Still haven't found a library. Then again, regardless if yesterday(?) was a dream or not, there's still a lot that she needs to find answers for, and she's not entirely sure a library would help.
"I see. Makes sense." It only makes sense in the 'I won't understand it' kind of way. Some kind of long-distance magic. The details don't matter.

June watches and listens.

Holding her wrist, she nods and follows her back. She doesn't speak up yet, because she's trying to calculate what time it is. When June woke up, it was already pretty dark. So...it must've been between eleven and two or something, because it feels like summer night. So, sunrise might be at...six thirty? Maybe? The sky still looks dark, so it's probably five at the latest. There was a clock at the station, but June didn't bother paying attention to it. Waiting, plus how far the walking distance was, means..."I think it'll be sunrise in one to three hours," she says. Luckily, June is pronouncing 'to' differently from how she'd pronounce 'two' so it's not that confusing. And it'll take more than half an hour - maybe an hour? - to get back to the station.

Wait.
What if it's a more tropical-zone sunrise here? Then that'd mean sunset and sunrise are...wait. No, the plants around here don't seem as subtropics as they could be, so...it doesn't really change all that much. Probably. One to three hours still seems like a wide enough range of time that it would still work.

[Dr.Gunsforhands]

[Over the Hills and to the Bogs -> Riftline Station]

Wanessa looks back at June again. "She thinks so? Then it's not as bad as I feared, but we're still cutting it pretty close. Lucky I met someone from around here, I probably wouldn't have made it back without her."

Of course, she hasn't made it back yet, but it's still a relief. Enough of a relief that she is free to be a little more aware of her surroundings. She pauses at the top of the hill when she notices a certain peculiar crater and points it out. "Would she look at that? It looks like some kind of crater. It seems fresh, too..." She proceeds down the hill towards the station, choosing not to delay the walk back any further. "I don't really have time to investigate tonight, but maybe tomorrow... but hey, she was waiting at the platform earlier, right? Did she see or hear anything in this direction, I wonder? Whatever made it must have been loud."

The pair still have a half-hour walk ahead of them. "I may need to ask her another favor once we are at the station, but it would be a lot to ask if she has plans in the morning. Does she?"

[5a Violista]

[=> Riftline Station]

June chooses to not say that she's not really from around here.
Likewise, she chooses to not say that this is the second crater she has woken up in. Saying either of those things will bring up questions that June doesn't know the answer to. Instead, she says, "When I woke up, the crater was already here," she says. "I was around here, but I didn't see anything else that could have caused it."

Okay, if she wants to be back before sunrise...that means Wanessa has got to be some kind of vampire, right? Or something along those lines. Somehow, that's actually a little comforting: all June has to worry about is potentially getting her blood drained, and not some sort of awful deal-that-secretly-screws-you-over.

...but, wait, what kind of vampire is she, then? The sparkly kind? The dead kind? The pirate kind? Some other kind? June hopes she doesn't have to figure that out.

"The only thing I need to do in the morning is wash off the mud and algae." she says. And the slime too. Before the algae stains. "In the afternoon, I have to be somewhere, but my morning's free." Like, for example, she has to figure out if yesterday happened. If it did, then she has a job to be at. And she has to practice flirting with people to get better tips at her job. If not, then she has to figure out what's going on. Afternoon and evening should be enough time to get all of that done. But, man, she's going to be tired this evening.

[Dr.Gunsforhands]

[Riftline Station]

"When she... woke up?" That gives Wanessa pause. "Well, I understand if she has secrets to keep, but if she's lost or forgotten something, I'll help her however I can. I know what it is like to wake up with a strange new life suddenly."

She pauses as they walk for a minute.

"I should just tell her now... I'm a vampire, in case she couldn't tell. Specifically, the bog-standard, boring, sapient kind. I have a bunch of powers but vaporize in direct sunlight. So, I'll need to hide in my suitcase at sunrise. I'll need her to take me the rest of the way to work if that happens."

The pair arrives at the station. The clock that June remembers reads 06:15. Clouds are moving in from the east, framing a sky that is starting to turn decidedly pink.

"Crap, there it is! Here!" She unzips her rolling case and shoves the radio, a business card and a riftline pass into June's hands before climbing inside. "It looks to small to fit, and it's an uncomfortable contortion act, but melty shadow powers help. Just please take me to my office." She stares up through June's eyes one more time, and her fangs are pretty obvious now that June is thinking about the vampire thing. "Please."

With that soul-piercing please, she zips herself in and leaves June holding the bag. The first glints of yellow sun tickle the roof of the bus shelter. It would seem that Wanessa is trapped. Of course, there's really no reason June couldn't just keep talking to her while she's in there.

Now what?

[5a Violista]

[Riftline Station]

How could she say no to that please? Obviously she can't.
June has to hold the bag with her right hand, though.

"Oh. So you're not sparkly," June says. She's a little disappointed: a sparkly vampire would be so cool, but just knowing that there exists 'bog-standard, boring, sapient kind[s]' is a relief. It means there is some sort of consistent rule she can figure out. Also, it means that not all of them are scary monsters. So that's a relief.

Speaking at her-in-the-bag, June apologizes. "Sorry. I thought you might have been a fairy or something, so I wasn't sure whether it would be okay to tell you." She pauses, and breathes in. And out. "Yeah. I woke up in the center of that crater, so it might have been caused by me. No idea how or why that happened, because I went to sleep somewhere completely different."

She sighs.
Actually, wow. This is incredibly serendipitous, getting access to a train pass. Much better than sneaking on to the train, and all it cost was dirty clothes and a sprained wrist.
And then she looks at the business card to see the address. And then she checks the schedule for trains. Apparently, the first southbound train gets here at 06:38, and the first northbound train gets here at 07:14.

So, she waits.
And bites her lip harder than necessary, again to distract from her wrist.
When the right train arrives, she gets on it, so that she can go to the address.

[Dr.Gunsforhands]

[Riftline Station -> Office Park]

"A fairy? I guess I can see that. Because of my quirk, right?" Wanessa asks. "Probably even more so now that I'm a talking suitcase. I feel like one of the partner characters from Legend of Zelda."

Soon enough, the Riftline pulls into the station and releases one of its occupants, who nods to June and proceeds to unlock the ticket booth. This trolley already has a few other commuters on it, too: A spiky-haired man in a tweed jacket, an older woman wearing a pilot's uniform, and two pastel-colored ponies existing in reality Roger Rabbit-style, both dressed for work at some restaurant or another. One of them looks up at June as she scans Wanessa's card and steps on, then resumes talking to their coworker, paying her no further attention.

[Resuming in Inside]

[Morty]

[City out of Time]

Electra will be able to pick out some coherent bits from the discussion.

"The King draws nearer..." "...our forces enough?" "...unrest among the gol-kin..." and perhaps the most interesting one: "He fears what's held in our libraries".

[Nova_Eclipse]

[City out of Time]

Electra holds up a finger for a moment so she can pick out the conversation from the...ghosts? Past dwarves? Well, whatever they are, then nods at Cass.

"They called it 'The King'. Is that what you were thinking of?" She asks quietly, but then goes on. "They said it fears what's in the libraries here. I'm guessing the flags are where they have forces garrisoned."

[Earl of Purple]

Secluded Forest

Hunter will enter the ruin, poking about the rubble for anything man-made he could find. He's not experienced with surface plants, so he's ignoring all of it on the basis that he doesn't know if it's edible or not. He's glad that he hasn't seen anything resembling an anemone on the surface, though that's making him incautious- he's assuming all the plants are harmless if touched, when that might not be the case at all.

He'll go downstairs after he's confident there's nothing on the surface of the ruin, finding his way down there by echolocation.

Spider Cave

"A necromancer is a wizard who raises the corpses of the dead to do his unholy bidding, and I see corpses raised to do your unholy bidding, necromancer! And of course people have seen the spiders- I need to test them in real environments, I can't simulate everything down here. Now go, leave, tell them there's nothing worth their lives in this hole and make them leave me alone so I can work in peace!" The voice is louder this time, and Karl could easily trace it back to the cupboard in which the Arachnartificer hides. More importantly, however, the large spider, previously lying still on the floor, is getting up and brandishing its pedipalps threateningly. Despite her words, the roboticist who created them would prefer not to kill Karl and the skeletons whilst they're present.

[bc56]

Aboveground, the ruins don't have much. There are basic rusted iron tools: a hammer and a shovel, a couple old glass bottles, and a scraggly rosebush sprouting rose hips behind the old fireplace. Underground, however proves more promising. The earthen chamber is cool and dark, slimy with patches of fungus, and marked by the tracks of rats, but it contains a few jars of preserved fruits and jams which neither mold nor vermin could get into.

[Earl of Purple]

Secluded Forest

Hunter takes the tools, though he's not familiar with iron he can tell they're man-made, and the bottles as well. He leaves the rosehips, since the triton doesn't know anything about edible plants. He'll also take the jars of preserve, though to carry it all he has to put down the iron tools. "I found these. Bottles, maybe put some water for drinking in, and these jars of... I don't know what that stuff is. There were some tools, too. Metal, though degraded. I don't know why, I thought the sea degraded metal and we're on land here. A hammer and a flat thing on a long handle, like an axe but the flat bit's on the handle like a spear. Not a spear either, wrong shape." Shovels are used for digging, and Hunter's pod lived mostly in the open sea, where it was deep and the bed was too deep to visit for long enough to dig it.

[bc56]

Kothar nods affirmatively. "Good." He reaches out and pops the lid off one of the jars to smell the contents. "Food." He dips a finger in to scoop out some contents. "Still good." He doesn't address the question of rust right now. Truth be told, he doesn't have the education to understand how it works.

[Earl of Purple]

Secluded Forest

Hunter will try some of the jam, pulling a confused face afterwards. "I have never tasted anything like it." No fruit in the ocean, except the odd coconut.

Both Hunter and Kothar are from more primitive cultures than most, though it's pretty hard to smelt metal when you live in the ocean- and iron and steel are tricky to keep in working order, especially if used regularly. Some of Hunter's pod had bronze or brass knives they'd traded or stolen from sailors and shipwrecks, but that's generally it.

[bc56]

Kothar's home culture could trade for steel tools with neighbors, but didn't produce any themselves.

"It is acquired taste." Kothar's people don't usually eat much fruit. "This not best way to eat it." He may demonstrate later, when it's time for a meal.

[Rebonack]

[So Any Way the Wind Blows, Huh?]

"You know I created dead time, right? That was my idea? Before people would just fall asleep. Something in the water they said," Zee recounts thoughtfully. "But it's an idea that no one really uses anymore. It's lost its purpose. No longer relevant. People don't get frozen forever. They're just off-screen living their lives and adventures. Easy enough to fill in the blanks. People still exist when the camera isn't focused on them."

She gives an apathetic shrug.

"And so what? Oh no it's pointless! Geeze. Maybe you should look up 'optimistic nihilism'. Just because everything is pointless doesn't mean it can't be fun. Just because something is purposeless doesn't mean we can't invent our own purpose. You wanted to talk with someone who knew what was going on? Great. We talked. And we're pretty philosophically opposed on this one. I'm going to continue having a bright sunshiny day and you'll continue wallowing in existential blegh. So long as I'm having fun here and other people are having fun with me then who cares? Because it doesn't fit some arbitrary bar for what's real? The fun is real, Affy. So long as the fun continues being real I'll stick around."

Zee gives a little dismissive wave.

"So yeah. It's been real, nice chat, thanks for stopping by. You're just as unpleasant as you've always been ect. Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to get back to doing fun things. Feel free to go be miserable somewhere else."

A shooing motion follows.

[Earl of Purple]

Secluded Forest

"I didn't say I didn't like it. Just that I hadn't tasted anything like it before." It's probably not too healthy for him, though. Since it's flavours and substances he's not really adapted to eating; it might cause some issues with his liver or digestion.

[bc56]

Secluded Forest

"Is this good camp?" Kothar suddenly asks. What's Hunter's assessment of this place?

Open Field

Jade Fisher is here, wandering. After she got turned into a centauress, the city has been much less comfortable for her. She's so large, it's awkward to move around. Her upper half is that of a beautiful human woman, with shoulder-length brown hair and an somewhat exaggerated figure. Her lower half is a magnificent chestnut warhorse. She's just trotting through the field, glad to be out of the crowds for now.

[Recaiden]

There's a whirring noise as a little helicopter robot goes zooming past Jade, tilting and changing course at a frantic pace.

Quite some distance away is someone pursuing it.
☌-☉-☽ 'Alice' Black has come out here because you need a wide-open place for trying out flying machines, and back at VIGIL things kept being in the way.
And this one has gotten a bit out of control so now she's galloping across the field to catch it.
Another centaur, Alice's lower half is that of a black forest draft horse and is carrying lots of bags and straps. Her upper body is of a less-strikingly-beautiful human woman, although you might say that she has an even-more-exaggerated figure. Her bushy hair, now pulled back in a ponytail, is the same white as her tail, and she wears thick round glasses (which on closer inspection do not have any optical curve; they don't help her vision at all).

[bc56]

Jade spots the drone before the other centauress. Confused, she pauses a moment before seeing Alice chasing after it. Then, Jade breaks into a canter, then a gallop, on a course to intercept the runaway machine. "Oh! Hey!" Jade calls out. "Need some help?"

[Recaiden]

"No, I've got it."
"Maybe."
"...yes."
The machine zigs away from Jade as well.
But Jade was closer, and with two people in pursuit there's fewer directions it can flee.

[bc56]

Jade circles around to get the drone between her and Alice. Wow! She can really run fast in this form! That's at least one good thing, even if most other things about it are bad. Hopefully the drone isn't faster than a horse at full gallop. That would be annoying.

[Recaiden]

It's fast, but it's not that fast.
Not yet.
So soon enough the drone is surrounded, and Alice can lunge in to grab it and deftly shut the rotors off.

"Thank you. This troublesome thing got out of control."
Alice is mostly looking over the malfunctioning drone, but she spares a suspicious glance for Jade. Not often one just runs across another centaur around here.

[bc56]

Jade seems a bit put off by the other centaur's seeming lack of interest. She idly thinks that maybe she could do something to make her interested. She managed to turn into a catgirl for Marin somehow, maybe she could do something like that here? But she dismisses it. "What are you working on?" She attempts some small talk instead.

[Earl of Purple]

Secluded Forest

"Um, maybe? The ruins would offer some shelter from the current. Back home, we stay at the surface except when hunting. We don't generally camp, just keep moving, even at night." Hunter is a humanoid cetacean; an air-breather who lives in the sea. Like whales and especially dolphins, he can sleep by turning parts of his brain off so he can still move around and go to the surface to breathe. It's quite an unusual mental state to be in, and it usually rests his memory and a lot of his learnt behaviours.

Phoenix Tower

Krayger has followed rumours and suggestions to this place, and it certainly looks the part. It's a rounded granite watchtower, or it was at one point. The roof is flat, and where a horse-sized glowing bird is currently roosting. The bird's feathers are orange, red, yellow, some tinged with blue. The tower looks to be about five storeys tall, though magic has certainly affected the building at some point in its history and there's no telling how large the interior actually is.

Krayger's first challenge will be a test of balance and dexterity, as the tower is not anchored to the ground. It hovers about eight metres up, held in place by a large and heavy-looking chain of green-tinted metal, one end anchored to a bolt driven into a nearby cliff and the other end bolted into the tower's foundations. The chain is hefty and rough enough that he could climb it, particularly since the wind is blowing the tower so the chain is mostly horizontal and, better yet, a heavy door of strange wood bound with brass is just above the chain.

[Deathkeeper]

[Phoenix Tower]

Oh, if only he had Koshal's hovering ability. Ah, well. He just has to do things the more old-fashioned way. Krayger takes from his bag a pair of heavy metal climbing hooks and ties them very securely to his wrists. Going up to the chain, he tests them on it to see if they'll grip. If the chain is slippery there's no way he'd trust his bare hands without a lifeline. And while minotaur hooves can be more subtle than some might expect, they are not built for balancing on possibly slippery materials. If they do grip, he'll take the risk of hanging down from his hooks, advancing arm over arm until he can pull himself up at the door on the other end.