Wizard's House

[wizardseason]

"Hey"

The Wizard greets the evil-allured knights the same way every night, with the same word, while casually sitting on the steps of the porch outside of her little home. The building looks handmade, like it was built by people who cared about the place they were going to live. Surrounding it on all sides are fields as far as the eye can see. Vegetables of all kinds, with fruit trees and bushes placed throughout the landscape. Closer to the home are bigger trees, willows and others, providing shade from the strange three suns above. Wherever this is, it isn't the world that the knights know.

Plunged into the ground a mere few feet away from the steps leading up to the home is a handwritten sign that states the following:

Knight Rules:
- Tell others if you want
- You can't reveal others
- The world ends this year

Comments

[tropicalstorm]

Great, another one. With any luck this third individual will just stay out of this whole situation.

"What was it meant to be? And," she frowns, expecting to not like the answer to this question, "what is it now?"

[wizardseason]

That third individual will absolutely not do that thing. They're going to be quite involved in this whole situation and that'll be a whole thing for everyone involved.

"The original spell was meant to save the world. But now it's a prison. Shackles."

[daddykong]

Garrot's more of a gut instinct person than one who cultivates a conscious, and deliberate awareness. So the fact that they'd just winged it and this was how it all worked out is annoying because, ew, empathy and something he can relate to.

"Wait..." He brings a hand to stroke contemplatively at his beard. "If the monsters and companions are part of the planet, why don't you just ask them to help fix things, instead of making them fight each other?" A beat. "That's less power for the planet itself to have, right?"

[wizardseason]

"You've solved the mystery." She answers, watching him calmly. She takes another sip from her mug, waiting for him to consider the pieces before she drops the whole thing in his lap.

"A certain someone" As she starts speaking, she turns the side of her mug towards him and it has a shield on it with "Protector" written under it.

"Came up with this plan to handle the out of control planet." Another sip.

"And everyone went along with it."

[daddykong]

He furrows his brow at this very to-the-point revelation. Garrot's normally on board with, uh, bullshit improvising to save lives, he's a trauma surgeon for goodness sakes! But this... it feels sloppy. It's been forty years since people had to kill personifications of the planet's power in the form of kids, and nothing's changed except the theme of the year, like a mandatory workplace party.

"You went along with it." It's a moment of stating the obvious, but Garrot feels it's worth emphasizing. "Why keep trying the same thing even though it doesn't work? Why not just break the planet's power into another, like, thirty pieces? Keep doing it until the power is so spread out that there's no risk?" Like, you know, removing cholesterol from arteries or a similarly appropriate medical analogy.

[tropicalstorm]

Oh great. Involvement of more unfathomable beings, Haizea's favorite!

"Why did the world need savin' in the first place? Whatever went wrong must not've gone TOO wrong on account of we're all still here and kickin' around," she says with a shrug.

[wizardseason]

It was all perfectly fathomable, Haizea, no big deal.

"They were going to break out of the world and cast it aside." She answers, watching Haizea's face.

"Like candy out of a wrapper. The spell turned the wrapper into metal before it came loose."

[wizardseason]

"Because he thinks he can tire it out." She answers, first, and then takes another sip. Her mug has to be empty by now.

"And we can't cast another spell, the magic was taken from us." She watches him as she reveals it. But she wants to get back to that first thing he said.

"Does a corpse go along with it, or is it forced along for the ride?"

[daddykong]

"You're not a corpse if you're alive enough to die every year." Garrot sort of sneers that remark out, a sharp turn from the surprise and contemplation when he learned that this is all they're working with.

"Does he even know what tiring it out looks like? Do either of you?" Garrot's brow furrows at all that, because she hasn't exactly been subtle about them winging it forty years ago. "Sounds like a great reason for you two to keep in touch."

Is that... empathetic sass? From Garrot?!

[wizardseason]

"He has no idea, and I know they're getting stronger." She answers, simply. The situation is fairly straightforward to anyone who has half a brain, and...

"He and I fundamentally disagree on what we know. He thinks he knows everything, I know no one knows everything." She gives a slight shrug. How's that for being open, Garrot? And, most importantly.

"And I'm alive enough to kill and be taken out of the picture.

[daddykong]

Garrot's brow furrows and he's glaring at the Wizard with some kind of mix of exasperation and disgust.

"Who gives a shit if you disagree!?" He cannot believe you, Wizard! "Sometimes you gotta show some tough love and force someone to see the world your way!" He is, of course, speaking from experience on both sides of the situation. This is kind of what it's like to for people to disagree with Garrot.

"Why not use that account you share food pictures on to message Luka?" He shrugs and leans forward a bit, trying to play off the Protector and Princess's bond. "Or share what you know with world leaders so we don't come in clueless?" It's a PR campaign! Maybe if it's a little less hush-hush, the Protector will listen. But then Garrot throws his hands into the air, clearly getting frustrated again.

"Just stop acting like you're dead already!" She says she cares, that she wants people to live, and it feels like she's just given up! And Garrot hates that almost as much as he hates the Wizard. At least if she was more active, he could see her as more of a villain than a prisoner...

[tropicalstorm]

She ponders this a moment. This is all pretty high concept for her, she's never been good at dealing with more existential concepts.

"Then... that's good, right? If the spell is keepin' the world together, then that means the world is still here for the rest of us."

[wizardseason]

"It worked, temporarily. But it didn't change what was trying to escape." She answers, watching Haizea.

"And now it's figured out how to break free of the metaphorical metal."

[wizardseason]

"You act as if I haven't tried those things. Because you don't know I've tried those things. No one does. Except for the one who buried the knowledge." She watches him over the rims of her glasses, curious if he'll just get angrier and angrier the more she shares.

"I'm far from dead. The moves I've made this year are bigger than every year prior, but not big enough to get anyone killed."

[tropicalstorm]

"Then..." she pauses, making a face. Then what???

"...We gotta trap it again, right?" How? She doesn't know!!!

[wizardseason]

"The Protector intends to keep them trapped forever." She answers, taking a sip of her coffee.

"I know they're going to break free. I want to let them out on their terms."

[tropicalstorm]

She watches the Wizard sip from her coffee and silently wishes she had some too, or maybe something a little stronger.

"...What are the chances that their 'own terms' DON'T involve destroying the world as they get free?"

[wizardseason]

All Haizea has to do is give even the slightest indication that she's thirsty or craving caffeine and she'll get a magic coffee.

"Hmmm." She responds thoughtfully before answering.

"Hopefully better than fifty-fifty." She says without even a hint of confidence.

[tropicalstorm]

"I don't like those odds," Haizea says grimly. She's not exactly a stranger to gambling, but there's some things you just don't risk, and the continued existence of her family is one of them.

"Why can't you just work together with the Protector to keep it trapped? If it stays, then it sounds like the chances the world won't fuckin' END are a lot higher."

[wizardseason]

"Neither do I." She answers, watching Haizea for any reveal or indication of what she might be thinking behind the scenes.

"Even if I helped, they would break free. That is an inevitability that he does not believe and won't accept."

[tropicalstorm]

This is very frustrating to her, but she's keeping her composure well. She's spent her whole life basically ignoring the issue of the world possibly ending each year, and now that she's in the thick of it she feels woefully unequipped.

"How do you know for sure that they will break free?"

[wizardseason]

"Because I've been watching them for forty years." She answers, simply, lifting her mug up to take another sip.

"It's obvious."

[tropicalstorm]

"It's obvious and you can't see a way to fix it? To keep them trapped and keep the world going?" She frowns and crosses her arms.

"Maybe you just can't see the answer. You should get a second opinion."

[wizardseason]

"I've said what I want to do." She answers, looking Haizea over to get a good read on the knight's motivations. She isn't going to keep them trapped, not when they're about to break free.

"I could say the same back to you. But if I'm right, you'll see for yourself pretty soon."

[tropicalstorm]

She throws up her hands in exasperation. "We're talkin' in circles here!"

She walks off a little bit, hands in her pockets, before wheeling back on the Wizard.

"What's the point in tellin' me all this, anyway??"