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]

That's simpler than she expected. Protect the Protector, then. But she'll continue on this line of questioning. Always best to case the joint beforehand.

"If we kill the Protector, what happens to the Princess? Will he be okay?"

[wizardseason]

She's been grilled by evil knights determined to be good, and based on Haizea's determination and thoughts so far she's not surprised that she'd be leaning in this direction. She won't hide the truth from her, though.

"He will be unharmed." Her smirk remains as she locks eyes with Haizea one more time before starting to walk away from her.

"I would prefer him left alive."

[tropicalstorm]

Ugh, Haizea doesn't really want to run after the Wizard like this, but she's got more questions still!

"That makes two of us. How do we kill the Protector? He doesn't quite just walk around or show up at ramen shops like you do."

[daddykong]

The stretching would've been a bit more reasonable were it not for her back making all of that noise. Garrot has cracked his own back and also other people's backs and they never sounded like that. But that'll have to wait, Garrot's not happy with that answer.

"You already said that, I want details!" So he reacts without thinking and his eyes turn teal as he uses his Structural Awareness. Even if that crazy crack was benign, he can still see if she's got any weaknesses.

[wizardseason]

The only information Garrot receives is that, rather than having a spine with a smaller number of vertebrae, the Wizard's current body has a truly absurd volume of them. For what purpose, no one knows, but there are far more in there than there should be in an existence of her size.

"Every story needs a good guy and a bad guy." She was getting to her answer here, but Garrot's temper is so easy to touch on.

"I wonder who's who." She delivers it deadpan again, looking with her tired eyes at Garrot.

[wizardseason]

Conveniently the Wizard isn't moving very quickly, instead just walking at a casual pace around the fields and flowers she's growing.

"At the end." She starts, reaching out to a flower to run her fingers along its petals.

"I drag him into the planet's center as it collapses."

[daddykong]

Garrot does not enjoy the information he receives, as it is both biologically and logistically unsettling. But alas, he has it. The deadpan words seem to get to Garrot, though, because he doesn't look happy!

"It probably depends on who you ask," and then he rolls his eyes, "but you're probably the bad guy. Girl." But that does give him another idea.

"Why do you come back in a different body every year?" And then he raises a shushing finger! "Not because you died, I mean why not just come back with the same body every time?"

[tropicalstorm]

Damn, that's pretty metal. If Haizea knew much about music she'd say so.

"Well, uh, it sounds like you got it on lock then? What do you even need us for?"

[wizardseason]

Benefits of being a weird wizard, weird anatomy. She's got more anatomical surprises than that, but that would be for someone else to discover later. She'll give him some insights here, it's something she's answered before.

"A magic disguise only lasts so long" She offers, her little smirk staying put.

"A year is long enough to look at a face that isn't mine." A pause, and: "This one isn't bad, though"

[wizardseason]

If someone called the Wizard metal, she'd frame the quote and put it on her wall. What a compliment.

"Everything has to go perfectly or he's immune." Her deadpan expression cracks just slightly, her smirk going away for a moment.

"It isn't hard to mess it up."

[tropicalstorm]

"What's 'perfect', then? Is it about killing the monsters, or something else?" She tilts her head to the side.

At this point, she's honestly curious about the Wizard's plan.

[wizardseason]

"Defeat all twelve monsters" She answers, simply, her smirk coming back a moment later as she moves on towards a patch of vegetables with numerous hanging yellow orbs.

"And side with me."

[tropicalstorm]

"Defeat monsters, that I can do," she says. She's a little distracted by the orb veggies, but she doesn't miss the Wizard's second requirement.

"What does that mean, exactly? Do the four of us just gotta say 'we side with the Wizard' or is there something else involved? An initiation? Membership cards?" She says this flippantly.

[wizardseason]

"Not just the four of you." She answers as she reaches down to touch a particularly vibrant yellow vegetable. Not quite ripe yet.

"All twelve knights, and the princess." She answers, turning slowly to look at Haizea's eyes to see what she says to that.

[tropicalstorm]

Haizea keeps her gaze steady. This was interesting, and it sounds like if she wants to prevent the world from ending all she has to do is kill the monsters and not join the wizard? Even if somehow the other knights and the Princess did, she could be the combo breaker on her own. Better make sure though.

"And what happens if even one of us doesn't join you?"

[wizardseason]

"Year forty-one, twelve new knights, one new princess."

As she says it, she shuffles off of the path and into the fields, starting to roam through and look through the various vegetables. She turns an eye to look up towards Haizea, seeing how she took the news.

"Just like last year."

[tropicalstorm]

She keeps her cool, but she feels triumphant. She doesn't care if the world was meant to end or anything like that, from the start her goal was always to get through this alive and get back to her kids and her gang; her family. Things live, things die, this is the nature of the world. But she won't let anyone who she's vowed to protect die by her own hand.

But again, she better make sure.

"Then what's the deal with the sign saying the world ends this year if it doesn't have to? Or do you just put that sign up every year and hope it'll be true this time?"

[daddykong]

Fuckin' creepy, of course it's not her true form! About what he should expect from the literal devil. But he raises an eyebrow at the information.

"Why not just reuse the disguise? Or are you just trying to..." Insert cringe here. "...find your favorite look?"

Garrot can appreciate the effort at least, it took him a while to get a style that fit well with his body!

[wizardseason]

Perhaps soon the Wizard would share the things that could put Haizea's life at risk. But she seemed so determined to be good that maybe it wouldn't be an issue.

"I haven't changed it in forty years." She answers simply, turning back to the vegetables and plucking one that has some golden marks along the sides of its yellow surface.

[wizardseason]

Of course it's not her true form. Also that's an insult to the devil, she was far less cool and far less powerful than they were. They'd had tea once, it was great for everyone.

"Something like that." She answers, amused. Time to see about pushing Garrot's buttons to see what he'd do. Since he's focused on her look:

"Do you not like it?"

[tropicalstorm]

She's satisfied with all the information she's managed to get so far, she feels like her path is pretty clear. Who cares if she got picked as an evil knight? Her goals are unchanged, she still plans to fight the monsters, kill them all, keep everyone else alive and get home. Then things can go back to normal and she can ignore all this shit all over again.

"Well, I guess there's something to be said for persistence. Maybe one of these years it'll happen," she says lightly.

[wizardseason]

The Wizard slowly moves back over to Haizea, offering the yellow vegetable out. Its gold sides glint appealingly in the sun.

"Maybe." She echoes the word, but her voice sounds hollow. Like she's exhausted.

"Forty years is so many. Too many."

[tropicalstorm]

To her utter frustration, she feels a pang of sympathy. She's heard that tone of voice before and it makes her want to get the Wizard somewhere safe and make her rest.

"It is," she says softly as she takes the vegetable. She turns it over in her hand once or twice. "What is this?" Honestly, Haizea doesn't know a whole lot about plants, but she's never seen anything like this at the little corner store market she frequents.

[wizardseason]

Rest would be nice, but it wasn't possible. It hadn't been possible thirty nine years ago, and it wasn't possible now.

"A grindyen." She answers, slowly moving past Haizea now that she's taken it. "Take a bite."

If Haizea dares to take a bite, she'll find that the texture inside is like that of a nectarine/plum. Incredibly juicy just below the skin of it, but the flavor is somewhere between a carrot and a sweet potato. Strangely sweet but savory, but very, very soft. Honestly it was probably a fruit, but there's no seed in the middle.

[tropicalstorm]

It's maybe her sudden unwelcome sympathy for the Wizard that gets her to first sniff it, and then gingerly take a small bite. Fuck, it was good.

"Mmm," Haizea says as she chews, then swallows. "It's good. I don't think I've ever tasted anything quite like it."