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]

Haizea just kind of looks at them all in disbelief then takes a deep breath.

“Hey, I get that y’all wanna figure shit out, but... we’re the evil knights. The others are gonna think we’re allied with the Wizard if they find out, even if we tell them we’re not. People always assume the worst of those they’ve been taught to distrust.” She shrugs here, she’s pretty used to people thinking of her poorly when they find out about her background.

“I don’t know shit about the Protector, don’t know if he’s good or bad, but I think it’s possible that if he finds out about us, especially if he finds out there’s four of us, he might try to kill us. That’s what you’re trying to tell us, right?” She addresses that last question to the Wizard.

“We need to play it safe for now. Y’all can keep trying to figure out why space travel don’t work or other shit about all this, but keep it on lock. Talking to Luka right now is a bad idea, asking the animals is a better one. They don’t seems to give a shit one way or the other though, I know Fumicq at least is vague as hell.”

[scandeled]

Matilda’s busy feeling jealous of the Wizard’s new colors, before the energy on the porch picks up again. She steps aside of the whiteboard to make room for Gyre, and slowly lowers her goggles back down over her eyes as the others go back and forth, eventually lowering herself onto the step beside the Wizard. She stays quiet for once, not speaking up until Haizea’s done, and quietly.

“I don’t want anyone to find out yet, either. We’re all still getting to know each other. The others might not understand. I think it’s good to talk to the Protector, but only if you think you can make him think you’re on his side too.” But she has no idea how to do that. Gyre doesn’t seem like the autograph seeking type. This entire thing was such a bummer.

[wizardseason]

At Gyre's frustration, she motions at the whiteboard. This is a pretty solid way of gathering information wasn't it? If it wasn't enough, she'd made it clear she would answer questions. But she doesn't say anything, instead just turning to Haizea.

"Correct" She confirms the assumption she'd made. The Protector would absolutely try to kill them. She's amused by Matilda's addition of trying to make him think they're on his side. She wasn't one for those kind of mind games and alliance trickery, but perhaps these four were. She wasn't going to discourage if they wanted to try.

She doesn't chime in at Garrot and Haizea's animal companion inquiry, though she'll be nearby to watch that happen. What sorts of things would they say? She had so few opportunities to talk to them.

[sustainer]

Garrot!!! Gyre actually hisses at him, hands balling up into fists. He wants to freakin fight this dude, but he knows that's not productive, especially not after how weirdly the last apology session had gone. He settles for this, growling back, "You met me yesterday. I'm not interested in how you think I am. I won't get myself killed again."

He forces himself to retreat after that, leaving the board to Garrot and Haizea. He thinks briefly about joining Matilda and the wizard on the porch, but despite himself, he does really want to know what's going on. He doesn't want to align himself with the wrong force for no reason, and that's assuming either of them deserves his loyalty in the first place. He ends up crossing his arms, stopping between the porch and the board and sighing deeply as he looks between the three of them.

"I'll talk to my animal," he says, going along with that part of their plan at least. If they think he's going to drop talking to Luka though, they're extremely wrong. He won't say anything about it though, his skin still crawling with they way they were insisting they knew what he should do better then him. Fuck that. He doesn't need their help.

[daddykong]

Garrot hears the hiss, sees the fists, and- Again? That just has to be a weird translation error from his native language. Then there's the distance that Gyre puts between himself and anyone else, and it hurts. Not because Garrot thinks he's in the wrong, but because they're a team and they need to work together, which Gyre doesn't sound too excited to do. So he ditches the whiteboard and walks right over to his grumpy elf friend.

"Look..." His tone is surprisingly conciliatory. Is he... learning? "When someone is sick, I don't just dive in. I gather information, maybe run some tests, and rule out what's risky or harmful for the patient. Our patient is an entire planet. With a little wolf inside." Holy shit, a medical analogy. "We need to do some..." His eyes light up. "Reconnaissance! That's the word." And hey look, a military term, and Gyre was a soldier. Then he looks up to the sky and gets quite loud for the others to hear.

"Does anyone know who the Princess' Knights are, 'cause I don't!" But then his attention goes back to Gyre. "Once we know more, I'll even go with you if you want!" Have a reassuring pat on the back, Gyre. "I've fixed gunshot wounds before, and I can even tag in if you hate the guy and need to walk away. Again." The word isn't delivered rudely, but more with... a feeling of knowing. Garrot won't openly call him out on a linguistic stumble like that, but he'll do it subtly! "O-okay?"

He is trying so hard.

[tropicalstorm]

Haizea raises an eyebrow at all of this. It is incredible how Garrot keeps managing to piss Gyre off more and more with every damn thing he says. She can tell he's not Trying To this time though? Either way, she won't be left at the whiteboard, she never asked for a pseudo school experience. She also goes out to the porch, and half addresses Gyre, half addresses everyone else.

"Look. We're all adults here, and as long as no one outs each other as Wizard knights, we can do what we want. I think talkin' to Luka right now is a bad idea, especially if the Protector wants to kill us, but Gyre if you wanna do that we can't stop you? But I wanna try and keep everyone alive, so just. Don't die," she shrugs. She's learned over the years that sometimes you just gotta let people do what they gotta do.

"Personally, I'm just gonna keep on like normal. Gonna kill monsters, stay alive, and get my ass home. I hope the rest of y'all are down for that."

[wizardseason]

"The Dragon Knight has a good plan." The Wizard offers, her gentle smirk giving nothing away as she looks around between Gyre, Garrot, Matilda, and finally back to Haizea.

"And you can't out each other; only yourselves." She offers a clarification, she could prevent at least that much. If any of them tried to reveal another knight's wizard status they'd just get muted on the spot until they stopped trying to reveal it. If they tried to write it or charade it out, they'd get teleported to the beach like the knights in years 19, 24, and 37 had.

"Say hello to Fen for me." She turns to Gyre, finishing with a slightly wider smirk at him.

[sustainer]

He reaches up and takes Garrot's face in his hands, squishing his cheeks very slightly as he pulls him a little closer. He keeps his voice low for now, speaking to Garrot specifically, "You're talking at me again." He gives him a significant eyebrow raise, hoping beyond hope that this fucking guy will maybe back off now.

Then he raises his voice, still talking to Garrot but letting everyone else in on it now. "I understand that we need to gather information. If we're doing," sigh, "reconnaissance, we should go to our clearest sources of information. The wizard," he nods back over his shoulder at her, "seems willing to answer our questions for the most part. The only other person we know knows what's going on is the Protector. He should be the next point of contact."

He releases Garrot after that, taking a step back to put some space between them again. "I'll talk to my animal and report back tomorrow night, but," he looks towards Haizea for a moment, "mine is flighty and stupid. Yours is vague. I don't think we'll get much from them." He shrugs. "But I'll try. And I won't die."

He takes a breath, holds it, forcing himself to relax, before he offers a smile and nod to the wizard. "I will."

The smile drops off his face as he returns his attention to Garrot, finally answering his question. "Olivia is one of the princess' knights. I not sure about the other one." He pauses a moment in thought. "I don't think they stayed behind when the first monster showed up." Or they just don't like Luka and weren't hanging around him, he supposes.

[daddykong]

Garrot goes a little pale when he's told he's talking at Gyre again. Whoops. Big whoops, in fact! But he can't sit there and apologize forever, because it'll be awkward and in public and they have a world to save. So he just nods, listening as Gyre uses an outside voice while still smooshing his face. Is this what the guy means when he says Garrot's talking at him? Because it's weird, and the doctor is not a fan.

"That means the other one's, uh..." A beat. "Rory, Web, or Terrence." Can't be him, for obvious reasons. He wasn't sure what Gail was doing, but since he got the kill on the first one, he'd probably stayed behind? There was a lot going on. "And Xaljim's pretty straightforward!" He pouts. "A little grouchy sometimes, but he's never difficult."

[tropicalstorm]

This tension would be fun to watch if she wasn’t depending on these two doofuses to help her fight 11 more goddamn monsters and who knows what else. She half wants to tell them to just either fight or make out already, but since Garrot seems to be shutting up she’ll let it go for now.

“Bein’ a Protector Knight ain’t a secret like we are, so we could probably just ask around to figure out who the other one is without bein' suspicious. That plus talkin’ to the animals is I think a good place to start and plenty for tomorrow. Sooner or later we will wanna talk to Luka, but not until we know as much as we can so we don’t tip off the Protector. We already got monsters after us, last thing we need is him after us too.”

[scandeled]

Matilda just sits politely, listening to them talk, straightening her pajamas. Occasionally, she gives the wizard looks that might say 'Can you believe those two?' or 'RIGHT?' or just an eye roll. ...It doesn't matter if the wizard responds to her looks, it's just nice to pretend she's more a part of this than she actually is. At the mention of Luka though, she seems to perk up a little. Maybe she can be helpful?

"I can ask him! He seems really cool. I still can't believe he's the Princess." She pipes up from the step, smiling. "And I'll ask my companion too. See? We're already off to a great start, and it's only night one!"

[wizardseason]

It seems as if all the evil allured knights have their plans set for the coming day, and the Wizard has her fun giving a slightly wider smirk in acknowledgement to Matilda's faces. A moment later she turns back and looks each of her knights in the eye once before she speaks.

"Good night, knights."

And the moment each of the knights blinks, they'll wake up in their bed (or rest location) as if they'd woken up normally.