the temple of beginnings.we're all a little mad here.
Needless to say, the Circle has been out of sorts as of late.
Fortunately, the weather has stabilized — residents will find that they are no longer plagued with snowstorms or heat waves. However, it appears that the flora and fauna have...come to life. Vines may wind around your feet and legs, entrapping you in a vice-like grip. They will eventually let go, but it seems like you need to speak nicely to them first. Bizarre, but it'll get the job done.
Mushrooms have also sprouted and now sing at you when you pass by — they aren’t particularly good singers either. Trees extend their branches to poke at you from behind, but when you turn around you’ll find that no one is there.
...And worst of all, the flowers seem to be especially privy to your thoughts; when you’re close, they’ll blab out whatever is on your mind at the moment and will only be silenced once they are picked. Best of luck surviving in this more, er, animated environment! Perhaps even plant-life can be reasoned with…? Or destroyed.
That’s always an option, isn’t it?
oh my god they were roommates.
It isn’t a proper welcome until you’ve picked out your room! In the hallways, you may find a table or two offering cookies and tea as you survey your newfound surroundings. They seem to be left by invisible people . . . weird? The Unseen Servants seem to be playing a bit more nicely from your arrival, and seem to be apologizing for their antics with sweets! (These cookies, neverfear, are not magically cursed. They are just normal cookies.)
These rooms are a bit magical, you see — should you decide to room with another person (or multiple people), you’ll find that the room itself will accommodate your needs and expand accordingly. They look the same for the most part, so some might say that it would be wise to make your decision based on what your neighbors are like.
Say hello or potentially someone else’s room by accident; it’s a bit of a Russian roulette.
Regardless, it seems that this is your new home in sense of the word. Make the most of it!
wildcard.
The Temple is a pretty big place! The Forest of the Fey stretches on endlessly, Lake Dona (and the resident Nessie) is free to explore, and there are plenty of creatures who are curiously inspecting the new arrivals.
The wyverns seem to be particularly precocious today, given the singing mushrooms, the psychic flowers, and the new people checking into new rooms! They are relatively harmless (as are most of the creatures in the Temple), but can be pretty annoying . . . especially if you have something resembling a snack in your hand.
At any rate, free to explore the rest of the Temple, the Forest, or the Lake at your leisure! Unless otherwise designated in the bestiary, everything is free to play/free to explore. :)
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acatalepsy_logs2019-02-05 06:59 pm
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She can explain that later. Her thoughts are starting to panic less, the screaming in her head dying down as he firmly grabs hold of her hand. She squeezes his hand, fully aware that there's probably snot dripping down her nose. "He's real. He's here. He's back."
Sniff.
The hand in hers was already enough to calm her down; his assurances that everything is fine are taken at face value. He's not the most convincing liar, but she's not good enough to call him on his shit either.
When he says he's gonna "try" something, though, she makes a face.]
Molly... You know we all hate it when you say things like that.
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[He's fairly certain this isn't going to work. Devil's Tongue is something that works on people, not creatures, but has anyone ever really tried? Like really? He hasn't, that's for sure, and he's assuming there's a creature attached to the vines, and you know what? Sometimes you just have to get weird. The worst that'll happen is the vines won't let go.
He keeps his hand on Nott's and then leans down further to speak directly to the vine in that husky voice smolder he puts on when he uses Charm Person, not giving one flying fuck that this is weird. Welcome to the Feywild-Afterlife. We flirt with grass here.] C'mon. Just... Let her go, if you would. Please. This is unnecessary and we've all got better things to do.
[Here's the thing- Molly has not yet realized he can't even cast Charm Person here so this was really only going to work by virtue of being nice to the plant which he also doesn't realize, so when the vine begins slowly unraveling from Nott, encouraged by the tiefling sweet talk, Molly's only reaction is that he is basically a god and that plants bow to him. He catches Nott in his arms before she's dropped on the ground unceremoniously... And then cackles in extreme delight.]
Oh my god, that actually worked. I just charmed a plant! Nott. [He shakes her a bit in his arms.] Nott. I can charm plants! Hah!
[Meanwhile that's all that's on his mind right this second, so the flowers don't have to repeat it. That's your Molly.]
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But it... works. Against all odds, it works. And Molly scoops her up, and starts shaking her and cheering himself on, and Nott just... throws her arms around him and buries her face in his shoulder.
"It's weird, that he has his coat, isn't it?" She doesn't particularly care. Maybe it was still there when he got out of the ground. She's not going to bother figuring out the logistics now. Time for that later.
"I missed you." "I loved you."
At that, Nott groans, muffled by the silk of his coat.]
Shuuuuut uuuuuuup.
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But when someone hugs him, his first instinct is to hug back and so he wraps his arms around her in kind.] Are you talking to me or the flowers? Also, I have barely had time to miss you. How long did it take before...
[Well, there's no nice way to answer that, is there? The flowers, meanwhile, have picked up the slack as Molly's head starts cycling through every horrible option..
"How long did it take before you went down?"
"Did Beau, Caleb, and Keg get away?"
"Did we win?"
"What are you talking about?"
Okay, she's right. The plants need to shut up. Without putting Nott down, Molly stands and begins to forward march in a direction, cradling her as he once cradled Toya.] And that's enough of this. We're finding a nice, quiet place to unpack whatever the fuck is going on here.
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[Everyone but Nott shut up right now! But then he trails off and... the flowers pick up the slack. And that's when Nott realizes that Molly has not been alive long. Not at all.
He thinks she's dead, too, maybe.
But he starts carrying her off, which Nott is quietly grateful for. She takes a deep breath in of that nasty Nag Champa smell that she hasn't experienced in so long.
Caleb's incense, after all, was never the same as Molly's. There's a large difference, not just in type.
Once the flowers are far enough to stop, or at least can't be heard anymore if they haven't, Nott's claws squeeze a little on Molly's coat.]
I didn't die. No one else did. Not yet, anyway.
[She almost did last night, and that particular close call will likely be on her mind for a while. As if she had more reason to fear the world around her and what could befall her loved ones.]
You... It's been, uh... three months, or something like that. Since we... fought them.
[She dances around the topic, her speech halting. At least she doesn't have to deliver the news of his own death to him, but... describing everything else is maybe just as bad. She's suddenly realized they'd been the Mighty Nein without him longer than they had been with him.]
Now that I think about it, Winter's Crest might be coming up.
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Molly doesn't stop walking, though he has no fucking idea where he's going. Better to keep moving towards a brick wall than die standing still, and that is precisely how he died, wasn't it? Barreling headlong into a leather-wearing, glaive-wielding motherfucker-shaped wall. He doesn't know how to deal with this place if he can confirm one hundred percent that everyone here isn't dead. It means that either he's not dead and he's been forcibly separated from the Mighty Nein or that he is dead and he's in some kind of limbo and everyone else is just passing through.
He hasn't really been here long enough to have existential thoughts that deep, and so he tries to stick to the part that doesn't utterly overwhelm him.]
Do you even have any horses left to eat?
[It just sounds better than but is everyone okay, because of course they are. They have to be. He died so they could get Yasha, Jester, and Fjord back. He did good, and that's amazing. That's all he could ever ask for in a death.
So why does he feel so fucking conflicted?]
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[The groan is a little misplaced, but she feels better being slightly embarrassed over how comically bad they are at keeping horses alive than allowing herself to attempt to read into his short silence.]
Well. We replaced all the dead ones with four new horses. Two we left at Ophelia Mardun's... so I guess Fernando and Waterloo are alive and somewhere in Shady Creek now, but who knows. The other two... are probably alive too?? We haven't seen them in a while, we just left them in Nicodranas.
[Wow, there was a lot of in between that she just sort of glossed over, huh?]
But... you know, we have two clerics making food out of magic every day anyway, so. And Mr. Clay's super good at cooking.
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[There is so much being glossed over there and he simultaneously wants to know everything and also dear gods don't tell me anything- I died five minutes ago. Is it still FOMO if you actually did miss out?
The main winding path is starting to lead back to the temple proper, so Molly takes a different path. Some mushrooms seem to be serenading them (badly) with some kind of bawdy love song as they pass. Not for the first time, Molly wonders would happen if you ate them and if you should eat anything with a voice. Maybe if it had a good voice, it would be weird. These ones seem to require a mercy eating.
And yet again the silence is overwhelming, as Molly turns over every corner of his head looking for a response and then getting distracted. Finally, he just gives in and settles on the part that isn't what he missed or about death or horses] I'm so, so glad you found a fucking pity cleric out in the wilds somewhere. You're too squishy. I told you we were squishy. No one believed me, but Keg, and- Is she all right? She was having a rough time.
[Okay, maybe he needs to at least check in on the honorary Mighty Nein member. Things were so hinky that if she died, he's not sure if Nott would have deemed her important enough to mention.]
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[But they fall silent again, and Nott can't stop herself from reading into it. Should she be... basically lording their continued adventures over his head? He's back, sure, but... he missed way more than he didn't. There's... things she never told him, about herself, but she never told any of them, so does it... matter? Should it?
She shakes her head at her own thoughts subtly, but he might feel the sudden movement against his chest. Nope. She doesn't need to say anything to anyone that doesn't need saying. Especially not to Molly. Not when she knows what he'd think about it.
So.
There are more important things he needs to know. That they're all safe, that they're continuing to try to carry his legacy, that they bailed out Gustav...
It's just a bit weird. To be able to explain what you did for someone after they died.
But then Molly goes and brings up Keg, and Nott can't help the small snort—albeit a fond one—that escapes her as she remembers how the dwarven woman had left them in the end.]
Keg's fine. More than fine. She got it on with Beau in Lorenzo's bed and everything. ...He's super dead by the way. Ultra, mega dead. Burnt to a crisp.
[Yeah, that's sort of important for Molly to know. That they got revenge.]
Anyway, she, uh, left. And... everyone was... safe.
[Not "fine". No one was fine. But... they got away with just one dead friend.
The fact it could've been worse is a cruel thing to ponder, but the thought pops into Nott's mind anyway. She takes a deep breath to try to chase it out.]
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Yeah, it's for the best that he chooses Keg to focus on. He laughs suddenly, a loud, barking thing.] Oh god... I don't know which one of them I'm more proud of. That's amazing. The part where Beau removed the stick out of her arse and had sex with a practical stranger, that is. Lorenzo's fate was sealed when he took those three, and I knew it was all gonna come to that, eventually. It was a matter of when and how.
[Caleb got the kill then. Good boy.] 'S a good ending to all that. And I've got no regrets. I didn't at the time, and I don't now that I can actually think about whether or not I should have any.
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Beau did that like two nights in a row. The night before she spent with a... lady of the night. [Nott shrugs.] Maybe 'cause Jester wasn't in her room to complain.
[It hits Nott, suddenly, that Beau was also the one most visibly shaken by Molly's death. She never really stopped to wonder why Beau was sleeping around so much back then, but...
Well. She didn't keep doing it. Not to Nott's knowledge, anyway. So. That's something.
But she doesn't want to worry about Beau right now, and that's the past, and it's done. So she drops that thought and tries to find some topic to lighten the mood. One that isn't a resentful one about who got to have regrets in his stead.]
You missed us accidentally stealing a boat. You know Fjord's moonlighting as Captain Tusktooth of the Ball Eater now. It's the perfect name because he's been eating balls left and right.
Also, my theory is that Tusktooth is his real last name. Fjord Tusktooth. Really... Really rolls off the tongue.
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That's why he grinds those teeth of his down. So it's less on the nose. [He gives a sage nod- focusing on that part of it, first.] The bastard.
[Gods, he could punch Fjord. The ship part sounds great, actually. He'd love to be there for that, but as the only person Fjord had ever talked to about his stupid falchion up until his death, he feels like there's something disconcerting and awful about all of that. Something he should be worried about.
But whatever. He's dead. He doesn't get to have an opinion on something that already happened. He shifts Nott a bit in his arms. She's deceptively heavy actually.] So what you're telling me is you're all having a lot of fun without me, some of you have removed the sticks from your arses, and Fjord is the leader so Caleb can stop dry heaving about it. I'm strangely comfortable with all that.
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Anyway, Nott doesn't have time to wince at Molly's assessment that they're "having a lot of fun without him," which isn't... what she was trying to accomplish by catching him up haphazardly on things. She really just wants him to know they're okay because she recognizes (too little too late) that he cares about them as much as she does.
But then Molly says something utterly damning.]
No, Caleb is definitely still the leader! Fjord's only captain because he got preferential treatment for sleeping with the former captain! He doesn't deserve it. It's pure nepotism. Or whatever the word for that is.
[Nott lets out a little "hmph." Also, today we learned Nott doesn't know the term "quid pro quo," probably because she's not Burt Reynolds, Attorney at Law.]
When we get back to land things will go back to normal.
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Fjord slept with someone?!
[He literally almost drops her then and there.] Fjord? The bloody half-orc built like a light breeze would knock him over? The person who once got so flustered about a woman flirting with him, he put multiple companions on hold?
[THAT FJORD??]
Did I seriously die and give everyone a sex drive on the way out? I mean if that's my legacy, I'm into it, but for fuck's sake.
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Whoops.]
Euuugh. It's... a long story. It definitely wasn't a good thing. Fjord's been more...
[She gestures vaguely.]
Fjord-y, recently.
[Whatever that means. Nott doesn't seem too happy about it, at any rate.]
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Some people really cannot handle the pressure of having a lot of attention on them. [Says Molly who had a panic attack in The Evening Nip because his world was crumbling.] If he shows up here, I'll be sure to humiliate him as much as I possibly can. That's the only cure for having your head up your arse. A heavy, heavy dose of humility.
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[IDon'tCareForFjord.png.
Not that she doesn't love Fjord, but he makes it hard sometimes! And with everything else that's happened to Jester lately...]
...Have you ever seen a dragon before?
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[Not really Molly.]
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[Nott is quiet for a moment, measuring how to talk about this.]
...The last thing I remember before here, we were in this... weird pocket dimension? That used to belong to some wizard or something. And he had a pet dragon that he kept fed in here. Or maybe the dragon had a pet wizard.
I guess he died or something, 'cause the dragon was pretty hungry when we found him.
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