Seaside 6: Six at the Beach

[Rebonack]

[Team Quest]

"Drinking coconut juice. Maybe doing some target practice?" Sappeerel suggests as she starts shimmying up the coconut tree again. This time around she swipes her sword through the whole cluster of coconuts, sending them all thumping into the sand. Once they're free she hops down. "We could explore the island a little bit? Or just relax on the beach. Or I guess I could send some invites to some of my siblings? Do you have any friends who you could invite to the quest?"

It's also possible that someone might suddenly pop in all on their own.

Honestly...

Lapis is kind of glad that it takes this long to find five Aspirants for a quest.

That means the Nexus isn't crawling with people like her.

Which... maybe it's wrong to think that's good but most of the other Aspirants she's met so far haven't been very nice. Especially the ones that didn't go through apotheosis.

Most of them treated people like things instead of people and that just doesn't sit right with her.

[Deathkeeper]

Shrine

"I had about ten seconds' notice that something bad was going to happen. I'm sure your eyes are good enough to know I'm not exactly in shape to be fighting off much of anyone with muscle even if I had a club on me." Codebreaker barks back at the vampire.
"Blood Moon? This is a celestial thing?"

[Ironsmith]

[Shrine]

"Maybe? I don't know, it's just what my uncle has taken to calling it." Arthfael shrugs. "Could be. We're vampires, we already have at least one celestial event tied to us. I wouldn't be surprised if this is, too." He shrugs again. "Anyway, it's this thing that happens every few weeks. My sisters suddenly get really hungry for blood. Like, 'oh my gods I am literally starving' levels of hungry. I'm not exaggerating; we've all had the experience of starving almost to death, and from what Siana tells me, it's almost exactly like that. They aren't actually starving, though, it just feels like they are. Very painful, very frightening, very unpleasant." He scribbles something on his sketchpad. "So, yeah. My sister probably tried to take a bite out of you to alleviate the pain. Nothing personal; I get the impression she actually likes you quite a bit. Like a chill uncle or whatever."

[Deathkeeper]

Shrine

"So you're saying this is...cyclical? Consistent?" From his tone, the implication is likely obvious.
If it's consistent why the heck didn't anyone think of this when a blood-having mortal offered a room?
"And that doesn't explain why my circuit breaker exploded. You're honestly lucky it didn't start a fire and kill all of us."

[Ironsmith]

[Shrine]

"Cyclical, yes. Consistent, no." Arthfael replies unhelpfully. "There's a couple days' variance in there, makes it a little difficult to keep track of. I expect uncle Kyrie thought there was more time between the last Blood Moon and this one than there really was. Not that I blame him; we've only had to deal with three so far." He taps his pen to his chin as he thinks about this. "As for your fusebox... that sounds like the kind of thing Owena would do. She knows you can see in the dark better than any of us. With that kind of advantage, it wouldn't be too hard for you to escape, or at least avoid them until help could arrive."

[Deathkeeper]

Shrine

"Yeah, but that doesn't help when Siana is ten feet away and can hear me just fine because I have no cardio." Codebreaker groans, slapping his forehead. Why couldn't she have just tripped Siana? It wouldn't have been that hard since she already has one bad leg.
"Well, you can apologize for me and get them out of my house later. I obviously will be staying at a hotel for a while until I know there isn't a homicidal wolf trying to kill me."

[Ironsmith]

[Shrine]

"I wouldn't worry about that." Arthfael shrugs. "This is usually a one-night thing. And once my sisters are back to their senses, they'll talk my uncle down. Besides, if he really was set on killing you, going to a hotel wouldn't help." He says this with a tiny smirk, apparently finding that little detail humorous.

[Deathkeeper]

Shrine

Codebreaker shrugs.
"Yeah, but that was a clean teleport. It'd take him at least an hour for him to track me down even with magic. And then I'd have Atreyu here. I'd like to see Kyrie get past him."
Even if it would probably be pretty great to see a vampire werewolf knight fighting a regular werewolf druid, he'd rather not instigate any deathmatches today.
"So...what now?"

[Ironsmith]

[Shrine]

"Contemplate our place in the universe?" Arthfael shrugs. "You're asking the wrong guy. I just live with the crazy people." He glances over at a and has an idea. "You said you needed quartz for your friend here, right? I'll just go and grab that for you real quick. If you could, ah, tell me where it is, that is. And if you don't mind the possibility of having an angry werewolf-vampire-knight following me back out here."

[bc56]

Team Quest
Selekhael keeps drinking the coconut juice and waiting. It's nice and warm here, she wouldn't mind just sunbathing for a while. She lies down on the warm sand and closes her eyes. "At least it's, uh, a nice place to wait." Of course if nothing happens, she might end up falling asleep here.

[Earl of Purple]

Team Quest

There's a pop as someone else turns up. Pretty sure neither Lapis nor Selekhael has met them before, but I might be mistaken. She appears as a half-elf, with brown hair and skin the colour of polished oak. Her eyes are a deep green. She's wearing denim jeans and a black shirt, but she's barefoot. She's wearing a fair bit of jewellery; there's a ring in the side of her nose, and her pointed ears have mismatched piercings as well. She waves at the other two.

Mishnehel
Spheres: Growth, Perception, Shape, Will
Class: None Selected
Primary: None Selected
Secondary: None Selected
Melee: Blackfire Blade

[Rebonack]

[Team Quest]

Alas!

It looks like Selekhael's nap just isn't going to work out.

She tried! But then the queue found someone else hunting for a quest.

Sappeerel perks up immediately when another aspirant appears!

"Oh, hi! Wow your rings are really pretty, I love them!" she says cheerfully, waving back. "Mishnehel? Oh! You haven't even got any guns yet! Did you jump right into a quest without doing the tutorial first?"

Is that bad?

"Don't worry too much that isn't bad! You can learn stuff as we go! But we'll need to get you some guns first!" the seraph says as she hops to her feet and goes running down the beach to retrieve-!

The coconut crab that had fallen on her face earlier.

She comes jogging back, the wriggling crustacean in her grasp.

"Sorry Mister Crab but Mishnehel hasn't got any guns yet so we need your help," she explains to the crustacean as she sets it down in front of Mishnehel. "Killing critters can get you items and things like guns, but it's kind of mean so mostly I try not to do that much. I was kind of thinking about trying to eat this crab anyway so..."

Poor Mister Crab.

"But before you do that you should pick a class! You'll need one of those for the quest."

[bc56]

Team Quest
Selekhael sits upright quickly. "Oh, uh, hi?" She gets to her feet in time to see Sappeerel saying that Mishnehel should kill the crab. "Is that really the only way to get more guns outside the tutorial?" That's also where she got three of her talent points she spent for upgrades. Killing animals for them just seems needlessly violent.

[Deathkeeper]

Shrine

"I mean, I didn't really have any lying around. I was going to go to the curio shop and buy some. But I did have plenty of salt at home. Salt is crystals. Some of sand, too actually. But just giving Them sand doesn't seem like a fitting offering."
Of course if it was urgent they could probably break into the shop but it seems like a will be fine for a few hours.

[Ironsmith]

[Shrine]

"...Salt." Arthfael frowns. "So you're saying any old crystal would do?" He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a ring pop, still in its wrapping. "Such as, say, something like this?" He found it a little bizarre that candy would provide a compelling tribute for a spirit of a's apparent caliber, but he was thinking that as a vampire that was the offspring of a demigod from a dying world, so maybe "bizarre" is a bit of a relative term.

[Deathkeeper]

Shrine

”…That’s not a crystal. That’s sugar molded into a fun shape for children. My patron surely has some standards here.”
Though he is happy Arthfael can have candy at least. He wasn’t sure with vampires.
He can certainly relate to not being able to have things.
He still despairs about losing the ability to have chocolate.

[Ironsmith]

[Shrine]

"Whoo-hoo, look who knows so much." Arthfael grumbles. "Yes, of course it's just sugar molded into a fun shape for kids. But if you were willing to consider salt for its shape, sucrose should also be acceptable. If you gotta grind it down first, I'm sure there's a couple good-sized rocks you could use." Thankfully, Codebreaker hadn't asked him why he had a ring pop in the first place; he was getting a little too old for novelty candy like that, at least in his own opinion.

[Earl of Purple]

Team Quest

Mishnehel smiles back at Lapis, and reaches up to her ear and takes one of the rings out. "Thank you! I'm glad you like them. Here, you can wear one if you get your ears pierced. Or just... make a hole in it." Which is something Mishnehel figured out how to do partly because of the Shape sphere and partly because, before her ascension, she had a bit of shapeshifter in her genetics, enabling her to make minor adjustments to her appearance already.

Then she's offered a crab. "There's a tutorial? I... must have missed it." Which isn't much of a surprise; this is the first time she's met others like her. She creates her sword, a crystalline weapon with a purple blade and flickering with black fire, and swings it down at the crab. "What're the classes? I just... saw this pop up and selected it." Mishnehel's not even sure how she did it, working mostly on instinct.

[Rebonack]

[Team Quest]

"Oh, thanks!" Sappeerel replies, accepting the ring.

One crab for one ring.

That seems like a fair trade.

Then? The crab is executed without hesitation. As it is incinerated into nothing it leaves behind a glowing object that somehow represents the idea of a cannon. Should Mishnehel collect it she'll likely find that she is now in possession of a cannon weapon aligned with one of her four Spheres.

"There might be?" Sappeerel replies uncertainly to Selekhael. "I don't really know a lot of things. I think you can get special guns from quest rewards; stuff that's stronger than the normal ones. Oh! Yeah if you're fighting other Aspirants you can loot their stuff if you boot them out of the Game. That's how my sister got most of her guns. But this is a team quest, not an arena so that probably won't happen."

Are there more ways that Lapis doesn't know about? Yes. But sadly she doesn't know about them.

"Oh yeah the classes! So there are five of them. Fisher, Seer, Lancer, Blaster, and Tanker. Selekhael picked Fisher they're good at zipping around and shooting things up close. I picked Seer, they're good at scanning things and finding weaknesses. Lancers are really extra good with long range guns, Blasters are best at explody stuff and using their Spheres, and Tankers are best at building walls and digging stuff out. It's best to have a team of all five different classes since they're all good at different things."

[bc56]

Team Quest
"Uh, sorry, I don't know much either. This is my first time too," Selekhael apologizes. She at least took the tutorial first. But it was weird and she doesn't really understand it, even if she did it. She's guessing Mishnehel also went through apotheosis. She remembers all the non-apotheosis Aspirants look like kids for some reason. Why is that? "Uh, Sappeerel, why are Mishnehel and I adults, when other Aspirants look like children?" Sappeerel's the only one that seems to be able to change her apparent age.

[Earl of Purple]

Team Quest

"I... think it's a machined gun? Metastatic Mitrailleuse." Mishnehel says, as she takes the glowing sphere. "Tanker seems like a good fit for me. I'm pretty big when I'm not like this." Would also fit with her gun. "I was adult when I apotheosised. Does that play a part or something?"

[Rebonack]

[Team Quest]

Oh hey, Selekhael with some really good questions!

"I'm not sure," Sappeerel replies thoughtfully. "I learned how to look older from my sister. She's the one who figured that out. I think normally Aspirants look like kids but when someone does apotheosis they look like they did before? Maybe? But my sis did apotheosis, too, and she looks like a kid most of the time so I don't know if that's right? Maybe it's easier to be child-like when you understand that you're a new creation instead of the old thing you used to be?"

That is very philosophical of you, Lapis.

She smiles, drawing her sword again and watching the streamers of light wafting off of it.

"I like being a child more than looking older like this. It reminds me how new I am and how much I still have to learn and grow. Maybe that's why Aspirants look like children. Because we sort of are?"

Then she grins over at Mishnehel. "So you picked Tanker? Have you tried digging and building much yet? It's REALLY neat and pretty easy."

And to show just how easy it is, she flips her sword point down and thrusts it into the sand!

There's a rather odd musical tone as a cubic meter of and just stops existing. Even weirder, the surrounding sand doesn't flow into the hole created. So now there's a cube-shaped hole in the sand just sitting there mysteriously.

"Once you dig stuff out then you can use the stuff you dug to make other things," Lapis explains, sticking her tongue out of the corner of her mouth as she tries to focus on doing exactly that.

[bc56]

Team Quest
"So you look younger because you feel like you should be?" Selekhael asks. That makes sense. Then the digging. "Wow! How does it..." She kicks the sand at the side of the hole to see what happens if it's disturbed. It seems like it should be falling in already.

[Earl of Purple]

Team Quest

"No, I haven't. How'd you do that? Like... this?" Mishnehel copies the movement, thrusting her sword into the sand and vanishing her own cube. "Oh, that's easy. Don't even need to thrust my sword in, really. Do I?" Mishnehel digs her foot in somewhere else, and with the same tone another cube of sand disappears. "Those holes are a little creepy, though."

[Rebonack]

[Team Quest]

"Maybe that's it? I'm not sure. But being ready to grow and learn is great, I love it!" Lapis replies as she sweeps one hand upward in a flourishing motion. There's a slight shimmer behind it as a wall of marrow-like silvery metal simply begins existing, the gaps filled with softly glowing golden light that looks almost liquid. It's about the right size for someone her size to easily take cover behind. "There, see? All the stuff you dig goes into your inventory and gets made into heavenly materials for building with. Being able to make walls and things is really useful! My sister Karaglen is REALLY good at building things she makes art with it."

The strange otherworldly spire looks kind of pretty all on its own in an odd, alien sort of way.

"I've gotta use the sword and I think Selekhael does, too. But since you picked Tanker you can dig and build WAY easier than the other classes can," Lapis explains.

Sand kicked into the cube-shaped hole does in fact fall to the bottom. Sand blown in, likewise, falls. It's almost as if the area where the cube was sheered off has become more solid.

More... real?

In a surreal sort of way.

"Do you two want to practice building some stuff? Or maybe we could invite some friends to join us if you know any? My sister Eao might want to join I think she's done a group quest before as a Lancer."

[bc56]

Team Quest

"Oh, uh," Selekhael feels dumb for suggesting this, "Could we, uh, build a castle while we wait? She digs into the sand with her own weapon. "I remember Eao, I think. Uh, she was kinda mean, wasn't she?" She shot a putti in the back and laughed at it, didn't she? "I guess I could, uh, call Arukael." She doesn't really know how to do that, but she can maybe figure it out.

[Deathkeeper]

[Shrine]

"Whoo-hoo, look who knows so much." Arthfael grumbles. "Yes, of course it's just sugar molded into a fun shape for kids. But if you were willing to consider salt for its shape, sucrose should also be acceptable. If you gotta grind it down first, I'm sure there's a couple good-sized rocks you could use." Thankfully, Codebreaker hadn't asked him why he had a ring pop in the first place; he was getting a little too old for novelty candy like that, at least in his own opinion.

Shrine

"Rock salt is at least a theoretically naturally-occurring crystal! But uh, well I guess you can just tell us what your preferred crystals are, Boss."
Unless talking would drain a that much.

[bc56]

Shrine

Red and blue light briefly flickers around the candy. This compound is not useful for Me-us in its present state. a replies.

[Purple Eagle]

[First Date Night]



Olvisin was prepared to pay for her half of the date, but Chidi has clearly done it as a gesture for her... so she's not going to insist.

"I don't mind. That's sweet of you," she says. "So, what now? Back to MERC? Or did you have someplace else in mind?"

[First Date Night]

"Back to MERC, yes... but I'll take the scenic route, see? There's a road that leads back to the mainland with less traffic. Ever seen a spectral star? They're like little dots of light that glow different colours and zip around like fireflies, but they're incorporeal." Even as he says it, he begins to get more excited, which leads to him taking Olvisin's hand.

If not for the training and discipline that he's developed from life experiences, one gets the feeling he'd be dragging her off in excitement, already. "Shall we, Lady Olvi?"

[Gnrlshrimp]

Follow Your Nose

Codebreaker nods sagely, which given his appearance and current status of sopping went and floating in a pool, doesn't look very sagely.
"Alright. I'm the second Codebreaker, you dig? Our patron set me up to look like him 'cause They don't really understand how mortals work and They wanted me to take over. And his stuff has been sitting around since he got himself killed. But it's kind of...questionable to be honest. So yeah. That's why as long as you're here you're going to be as surprised as I am at what we run into."
"I mean I guess a mandate from a god-spirit would be as binding as a will but They decided I needed the whole package..." he pokes idly at his middle.

[Follow Your Nose]

Atreyu blinks and tilts his head. "Wait, lemme get this right. They decided that the body is integral to the role and made ya look like the last guy? Like, are ya physically him or just a copy of him? And what did ya look like before? Were y'always sorta like this, or is it all new?"