Silly Plots 4: It's not particularly silly, is it?

[Deathkeeper]

Lost Moonument

Mina sits up, confused. "TARR WAS TWELVE?!" Wow, she sure has lungs in her now.
"What is wrong with you people? First, I shouldn't have to explain why I don't want to be a pre-teen again. And second, you sent a twelve year old to fight demons? Please tell me minotaurs just age quickly or something." Actually she doesn't know if she wants to know that either since it would mean she has less lifespan in theory.

[Ironsmith]

[Lost Moonument]

"It was six millennia ago! Times were different!" Sai exclaims. "...Besides, that's just how old she was when she died. She was ten when she was chosen."

"...You're not making it sound any better, you know." Owena snarks.

"This coming from a pair of adolescent tomb raiders. Just saying. Glass houses and all of that."

[Deathkeeper]

Lost Moonument

”Okay, going to tombs and taking pictures is WAY less dangerous and traumatizing than being told to fight hundreds of demons. Second, you no longer have any right to make fun of my previous size. A pre-teen minotaur is basically the same size as a human adult! I could have easily bulked up to her size in a few months.” Of course she is entirely correct. But by being an adult minotaur she has the advantage of being massive instead of simply a strong human. And it’s probably surreal for Sai, seeing his master as she would have been if she had lived to finish puberty.
Unless her species of minotaur has that much earlier or much later. Mina would rather not go through that sort of thing twice.
”Also I guess I should ask if anyone secreted anything else away for me? I guess nothing she had would fit me now but I’d take something gold to pay for gear.” Mina manages to get to her feet again.
”Barring that you could start explaining how to move.”

[Ironsmith]

[Lost Moonument]

"I'm not sure what part of 'I've been waiting six thousand years' is unclear to you. There's not a lot that can survive being left in a tomb for that long. Anything wooden- pbt, gone. Ferrous metals- rust clouds. And you can forget any kind of cloth. I'm all you get." Sai explains.

[Deathkeeper]

Lost Moonument

"Dude. Gold and bronze don't rust. What do they teach in talking weapon college? So I'm working with one weapon who doesn't seem willing to actually teach the things he's talking about, this shapeless robe, and...oh dear." Mina opens her robe to find that she's not wearing a lot under it. To be fair, the little shorts and top probably looked cute and were appropriate fashion on a ten year old. They don't work with her. And that's of course not even all considering the body she has now. It seems Tarr was destined for quite the teenage years.
"I think I'm searching for a saying but it's not coming to mind." she mumbles, poking at her abs. Yup, those seem to be real all right.

[Ironsmith]

[Lost Moonument]

"Oh... oh dear. Um. Hm. We should... probably update your wardrobe. Maybe some cloth for your chest? Otherwise, any stray gust of wind is really going to mess up the 'chaste monk' image. And there's going to be a lot of stray gusts of wind." As Sai speaks, a burst of air whips past Mina from behind, flapping her robe shut around her.

"Here." Owena hands Mina her belt. It's a little on the small side, and Owena's own robe is going to fall open as a result of this, but the vampiress at least has the benefit of redundant undergarments.

[Deathkeeper]

Lost Moonument

"Chaste? Sai, I don't know what previous-me had you thinking, but unless celibacy literally gives me superpowers I'm taking a date if someone offers. Not that they're going to." She waves off Owena and pulls the cloth belt of her robe closed and fastens it with a quick, effective knot. Seems she's good at that, at least.
"What I'm going to need from you is your shoulder, Owena. I'm probably real heavy but I'm gonna need you until we can at least find me a stick to lean on." Why couldn't Tarr's weapon of choice have been a nice quarterstaff? Sai can't even chop onions let alone help her with basic things. And right now she needs basic things.

[Ironsmith]

Lost Moonument

"Chaste? Sai, I don't know what previous-me had you thinking, but unless celibacy literally gives me superpowers I'm taking a date if someone offers. Not that they're going to." She waves off Owena and pulls the cloth belt of her robe closed and fastens it with a quick, effective knot. Seems she's good at that, at least.
"What I'm going to need from you is your shoulder, Owena. I'm probably real heavy but I'm gonna need you until we can at least find me a stick to lean on." Why couldn't Tarr's weapon of choice have been a nice quarterstaff? Sai can't even chop onions let alone help her with basic things. And right now she needs basic things.

[Lost Moonument]

"Nobody said you couldn-" Sai stops and just lets out an exasperated rush of air. "...I can see this is all going to take time to process. Why don't I just... tap out for a moment." But, if you do need me for anything, you know where to find me.

Owena ties her robe back up and stands next to Mina, patting her shoulder. "Don't worry, I'm stronger than I lo-" Oh geez she's heavy.

[Deathkeeper]

Lost Moonument

Oof. She can almost feel Owena buckle.
"It's okay. We just need to find a good, straight stick for me to use. And we're in the middle of the woods so that's not hard. We get that, and then we hit the mall. What colors do you think go with my sk- ugh, hide tone? Because I'm basically the color of vanilla ice-cream." It's true. Her off-white cream coat, almost blond, does resemble some brands of ice cream.
Luckily if they need to whittle a branch into a staff Mina actually has a knife. A real one that is sharp and doesn't mouth off.

[5a Violista]

[Witch and the Frog Prince]

Some time has passed.

The bogwitch requested that her better apprentice come to her hut to assist. First of all, she has finished several different witch-apprentice outfits for him, which she has folded on a table in her hut.

Also on the table are a series of potions that all look mostly identical. They smell slightly of apples. The bogwitch holds one of the potions in a tentacle, holding it up to keep it out of the water layer on the floor, and is busy flipping through a book and drawing on a diagram.


[Seally Plot]

Zophiel confirms: "It will contain new ones, if you leave it frozen for long enough," he says. "Even a short time can have smaller ones appear on the fringes. But nobody has any idea where they come from, since...well, it's really hard to observe something that you can't see." Pretty obvious point, he thinks. "They just happen, similarly to any other kind of natural disaster or anything."

On the plus side! If you're not expanding habitable space, then they don't ever show up. All you have to do is guard the borders whenever people are leaving, and that's it. Pretty simple.


The rude goddess considers stopping when Anchor tells her.
Then, with the pain gone, she stops.
Well,
she keeps on breathing.
But, more like, slightly more normal breathing.

[Ironsmith]

Lost Moonument

Oof. She can almost feel Owena buckle.
"It's okay. We just need to find a good, straight stick for me to use. And we're in the middle of the woods so that's not hard. We get that, and then we hit the mall. What colors do you think go with my sk- ugh, hide tone? Because I'm basically the color of vanilla ice-cream." It's true. Her off-white cream coat, almost blond, does resemble some brands of ice cream.
Luckily if they need to whittle a branch into a staff Mina actually has a knife. A real one that is sharp and doesn't mouth off.

[Lost Moonument]

"W- well..." Owena begins, straining under Mina's weight as they proceed back up the stairs. "I think-k you could make any d-dark tones work... black, brown, slate, crimson, navy, honey, chartreuse, that ki-ind of thing..." She pauses as a thought occurs to her. "Hang on, how much color can you see? This didn't mess up your eyes at all, did it?"

[Deathkeeper]

Witch and the Frog Prince

Rowan’s been having a rough week. As it turns out, amphibians have special needs and adjusting to them without a budget is rough. And leaving damp fingerprints on everything hasn’t helped either.
But he wants this to end as soon as possible so he shows up first thing on the weekend as promised.
”You wanted me today, M-Master?” Was he supposed to call her that? Most mages like being called Master Such and Such but she never gave her name. And Boss sounds too informal.

Lost Moonument

Mina thinks she could probably still make greens and purples work if it was the right shade.
”My eyes are fine, Owena. They’re just positioned differently.” It’s not like she suddenly sees in night vision or anything. That would be weird for bovine-people. But even then minotaur eyes are set a bit more forward than your average cow. It’s one reason some people find them unsettling: they’re more capable of near-human expression.

[Ironsmith]

[Lost Moonument]

"Well, that's good. One less thing for you to have to worry about adjusting to. (Mind your footing, I think this was the trick step.)" Owena leads Mina back up the stairs, visibly straining under her new weight but making a valiant effort to be a supportive friend, in both a figurative and literal sense.

Right up until they get back to the entrance and she realizes the human-sized hole they put in the stairs and were planning to climb out through was not going to cut it. "...Great."

[Deathkeeper]

Lost Moonument

Oh dear indeed. That’s going to be a problem.
”Get clear. I’ll give it a shot.” Mina can stand fine, so she only needs to stand up and push on the stair that collapsed. Maybe if they’re lucky she can break the rest of it to squeeze her out.

[Ironsmith]

[Lost Moonument]

The stair proves to be pretty stubborn; apparently, their initial entry dislodged it from its tracks in such a way as to wedge it in the wall, unable to be moved as easily as the others. Even with Mina's considerable increase in strength, she still has problems moving it on the grounds that it's still overhead and not easy to get a good grip on.

"Ooh, that's gonna be a problem." Sai chuckles. "Tell you what; we forget about that wrong foot we started on, and I'll get you out of here. Sound good?"

[Deathkeeper]

Lost Moonument

Mina groans but pulls Sai off of her belt anyway. She decides not to tell Sai that the feet they started on were the ones she thought were quite correct, thank you.
”Fine. Get the three of us out of here.” she growls, adding a snort. She’s kind of been doing that regularly the last fifteen minutes but her narrator forgot to mention that little speech quirk.

[Ironsmith]

[Lost Moonument]

"You forgot to say 'please', but I guess we can work on that later. All right, stand back."

Pulses of electricity start arcing up Sai's prongs, slowly at first but with growing frequency and intensity, until finally a bolt of lightning shoots out of the tip, hitting the stair in question, causing glassy cracks to form in it. A few more bolts shoot out, causing the effect to compound on itself, before finally, the electricity stops with a final burst of air, jostling the now-mostly-glass stair with a distinctly grainy grinding sound. There's a brief silence, followed by an ear-bleedingly high-pitched screech as the stair slides down, before falling out entirely and shattering into glass and rock shards on the ground.

"You're welcome."

[Deathkeeper]

Lost Moonument

”Thank you.” Mina growls, honoring the bargain. She manages to climb out of the tomb (the fall is barely half her height now). She is also able to easily pull Owena up, though the strigoi probably could do that by herself. Mina hobbles over to a nearby tree and finds herself a long, straight branch.
”This should do fine for me with a little work. Owena? This might sound crazy but would you be willing to go ahead of me and go to the city’s adventure guild and get this place properly claimed? I just don’t want people to come in after us and rip it up. It’s kind of mine, you know?”

[Ironsmith]

[Mina's Moonument]

"...Huh. I guess it is, isn't it?" Owena smiles. "All right. Are you sure you're going to be okay out here on your own, though?"

"Of course she is. She's with me, isn't she?"

"Why do you think I'm asking?"

Sai grumbles irritably to himself. He didn't even have legs and he still managed to walk right into that one.

[Deathkeeper]

Mina's Moonument

Mina takes a knife out of her bag (it was spared from Sai's beam of light since it wasn't really part of her outfit and it fits her new self fine with the straps adjusted) and gets to whittling.
"As long as Sai can resist antagonizing any threats that might be in the woods, I'm fairly confident he will be able to protect me from any curious bears."

If Owena leaves, Mina will spend a while making the branch into a proper walking staff. Sai might even be impressed by her workmanship. Meanwhile, she can ask him important questions. Like what she's supposed to eat. And how he expects her to afford clothes and adventuring gear with her mom's amateur fortune-teller salary.

[Ironsmith]

[Mina's Moonument]

"Berries, nuts, veggies, you know, plant stuff. And while Tarr might not have been big on earning money as a demon hunter, plenty of people were still willing to pay her. Nobody thought it'd be right to have her do so much for the community and not do anything in return. Point is, I'm sure you'll have a salary of your own if you ask for one."

With Owena gone, the fact that dawn was approaching probably didn't seem quite as significant. But they'd apparently taken quite a bit of time in that tomb. For that matter, had Mina eaten at all that night?

[Deathkeeper]

Mina's Moonument

"Yeah, but right now I can barely walk, so I won't be doing any work worthy of pay for at least a few days.
Wait. Plant stuff? Are you saying I'm herbivorous?" Mina sticks a finger into her mouth, checking if she has any pointed teeth like a human's.
The dawn at least does signal that she won't need that light to see anymore, but it's true. This talk of food is making her stomach rumble even if she doesn't think she'll like this new menu. Of course, her taste buds being entirely different means she wouldn't have the same preferences even if she had the same digestive capabilities.

[Ironsmith]

[Mina's Moonument]

"What, you're not telling me you believed that stupid rumor about minotaurs eating people, are you? Of course we're herbivores! What else would we eat?" Sai exclaims. "Besides, that's a good thing. It means the woods are your pantry, provided you can avoid all the toxic stuff. And you've got me to help with that. You'll be fine."

[Deathkeeper]

Mina's Moonument

"No, but Sind Lockhorn is omnivorous. There's a photo of him and the rest of the cast of Halberd III having a full eggs and bacon breakfast on set." Though looking at her hands, they have different numbers of fingers. They must not be the exact same species.
Oh gosh, she looks like she actually might cry. "I...I can still eat ice cream right?" Sai you used to be the partner for a probably traumatized twelve year old, surely you know some bedside manner, right?

[Ironsmith]

[Mina's Moonument]

"Ice cream? What in Ro's name is ice cream?" Sai asks. Taking milk from her own species, or something closely related, and proceeding to use that as the principle ingredient in a dessert was a totally alien concept to him. That being said, the same implied that Mina wouldn't have to worry about any biochemical obstacles, such as the presence of lactose. It might even be healthier for her now, but of course, Sai had no way of knowing that.

[Deathkeeper]

Mina's Moonument

"It's a dessert served cold, made with sugar and milk. Usually from actual cows." Given the nature of the puns she's fairly sure Sai's world has actual cows.
Also from what Sai has said it's abundantly clear that Sai was likely a person at some point, or at least considers himself a minotaur by proxy. So maybe it's alright if he makes those after all if he's basically making fun of himself as well...
Mina staggers to her hooves with her new, freshly whittled staff. This, at least, works perfectly fine as she expected.
"I guess we should go find some food either way..." Her stomach continues to rumble. Daybreak also reminds her that she's grown a full coat as well as being covered in this robe. It's not that thick but it's probably going to be incredibly hot when the sun rises. She needs to get into something lighter that isn't this little kid's shirt she has underneath. The shorts at least are shorter than she'd like (she's never been into that particular trend) but she could stomach that for just an hour at least.

[Ironsmith]

[Mina's Moonument -> Greater Wood Area]

For the next several hours, Sai will help Mina with scrounging up food; various edible plants, berries, roots, and nuts, none of them pleasant, but reasonably filling. Mina might find them a little better than she might as a human, but they're still pretty far from ideal.

In the process of foraging, the pair will eventually stumble across a free-standing stone structure, about the size and shape of a garden shed, surrounded by a silver fence of spikes. The metal radiates a pulsating blue energy that would make Mina's hair stand on end, and there is a clear gate visible around the north side of the perimeter.

[Deathkeeper]

Greater Wood Area

Just because her people are herbivorous doesn’t mean that they have no cuisine. She might be upset at the lack of burgers in her future but she wasn’t actually expecting to be craving raw berries and hay. Even if she would be fully capable of eating that.

”I…this wasn't here on the way here.” She shakes her head. She’s not frying like Owena but she’s certainly feeling her state of dress in the morning sun. She shouldn’t really be doing anything besides going straight home. In truth she shouldn’t have even spent two hours walking around and eating berries and mushrooms but she was hungry and it’s better she stumble on grass and leaves than concrete. And yet curiousity burns in her breast. It’s the adventuring spirit that’s part of the reason her soul was chosen.
So against all logic she heads toward the gate. Hopefully the static isn’t so strong on that end. She’s not interested in seeing how poofy she can look today.

[Ironsmith]

[Greater Wood Area]

"Hey, hey, are you sure this is a good idea?" Sai asks. "I mean, we don't know what's in there, it could be dan- pfttt!" He snickers. "Can't believe I almost got through that with a straight face! Ha!"

The gate opens for Mina as she approaches. Well, that's half-true. It looks like it's already open and a stray gust opens it wider as she comes near. Good thing, too; the gate crackles with arcane energy, and presumably has some kind of warding spell in place when it's closed. Someone must have forgotten to lock it.

Just up ahead, Mina will be able to see the aforementioned stone "shed", which unlike the gate, is very much closed. There are etchings on the surface, which read:

...something. It's hard to tell from this distance, and might not even be in a language she recognizes.

Overhead, several crows caw, leering down at Mina when she comes close. There are a lot of them here; two dozen that she can see, probably a few more that she can't. They all eye her with suspicion, some cawing and flapping to unsubtly tell her she should not be here.

[Deathkeeper]

Greater Wood Area

"Just be ready. If something does show up I'm gonna be needing you." Mina is entirely secure in admitting that until she gets steady on her feet and a little training Sai will be a crutch for her.
Birds, however, do nothing to ward her away. Mostly because birds cawing at intruders is nothing special at all.
Mina goes right up to the door and puts her hand on it, looking for some sort of handle. Or at least to read the inscription.
It's really a bit amazing. Like never before, Mina can see things excellently thanks to Sai enhancing her vision to perfect 20/20. However there is now a large cream-colored blob in the center of her vision at all times that she has to get used to looking over. It actually means she has some trouble reading things that are directly in front of her face.