WEEK THREE

[mayorityvote]

WEEK THREE

19 Villagers

They say nothing is healthier for the mind and body than physical labor - especially if you can hold the fruits of it in your hands and store it in your kitchen. Whatever cruelties you have witnessed or endured in the past week, your fields need tending to and they reward you with as quick as harvest as always.

If drowning your grief in work is not enough for you, there are new spots to explore in Puffin Town. Allow the novelty to distract you from your dwindling numbers!

Always remember, the value of a community is not measured by it's size.

(( OOC: Murder proposals are due by Tuesday at 4 PM EST / 1 PM PST for this final week! Get your bloodthirst in or forever hold your peace! Gift submission is still open as well!

If your character has been planting Astera, here's a reminder to report it at the Astera tracker - this does not need to have been threaded, we're just taking stock on an OOC level.))

MONDAY • TUESDAY • WEDNESDAY • THURSDAY

Locations Proposals PCs Check-in Gifts Profiles NPC Contact Main Nav

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WEDNESDAY

[mayorityvote]

???

[mayorityvote]

[ Are you near the Wizard's Tower this morning? If you are, you'll hear a cheery tune eminatng from somewhere within.

(ooc: 2 people max please! this will be a similar format to yesterday and be short in duration.) ]

[driftingknight]

[Sup with this music...]

[unenvying]

[ waves ]

You hear that?

[driftingknight]

[Hey there buddy]

Yes... it would seem the Tower's master has finally decided to make an appearance.

~*Enkidu And Friends' Special Meeting about Deadly Plans and Fun Times*~

[enkiboo]

[ Hello friends, were you sleeping in this day?

Were you making it your business to keep to yourself? Well, Nine and Enkidu go around knocking on the doors and have people go on over to the forest at ??? Hut at some point for whatever reason, saying it was 'a very important group activity where you would be rewarded' or something like that.

Something vaguely enticing?? Whatever.

Once people at gathered at the Hut, where there are a bunch of flower crowns and a terribly written piece of paper up saying "please take one if you want"...Enkidu claps their hands together. They also have some alcohol with them. If someone wants from the stash just ask but they are assuming no. They are also eating snacks. What kind? Idk, but they brought snacks for themselves and are talking between bites. ]

Hello everyone! A lot of things happened this week, and we got important information thanks to a little forest friend. I think the papers are left with either Vayne or Nine, so they got that handled. Also, if anyone else has anything, feel free to go ahead.

[ Wow please give a round of applause at their incredible meeting leader skills. ]

[linearcrash]

[ In-between bites of food, Nine offers this: ]

Ask the prince over there, yo. [ Pointing to Vayne ]

Oh yeah! Has anyone seen little apple dudes?

[liberazoth]

Please don't call me that, I don't even like fancy clothing...

[ vayne, actually

has to stifle a yawn when addressed. he actually does not look very well rested, or even entirely awake, which is probably why he doesn't shrink away from the attention as much as normal— he's too tired to. he looks very much the picture of a college student who pulled an all nighter. ]

But anyway, we found some ... Journal entries. Um, I think I made enough copies for everyone last night ... They're mostly exactly as we found them, though I added a few notes.

[ so if you're here you get a copy of each of these three journal entries: one two three. they're for the most part legible, if not necessarily the most tidy, and handwritten on cute duck stationery. i say mostly just to leave open the option of vayne's handwriting deteriorating through the night so someone can shitpost that they can't read it or have to share with their neighbor or something. vayne's notes and annotations are the parts in brackets or asterisks, so... ]

I think I pointed out some of the most important things, but there's... Definitely a lot in there? And I might have missed some things because I mostly was just trying to copy everything down as is...

[ another yawn. can he nap now... ]

1/2

[moonblades]

There is a lot here... I can't believe someone was so meticulous, but I'm grateful too.

[Mio's brought a very snuggleable dog plushie to the meeting with her; she's currently using it as a squishy impromptu desk for reading her papers.

There's so much to chew over, but... well, it's been almost a week since we had one of these, and it seems like an important question:]

2/2 WAIT HOLD ON I LIED JUST REMEMBERED

[moonblades]

What are weddings?


... Oh, like in Brokeback Mountain? [Hm.]

[linearcrash]

[ Even given the papers he's not going to even look at them with everyone here.
He'll just try to pick up on what they say by listening. ]

Hey, you look like hell, yo. Did you get any sleep?

[shamen]

[Flipping through these like hmm...]

Sounds like marriage is the key to our problems.

[theotherww]

This is stupid.

[Walter says flatly.]

Magic aside, the assumption that every murder is motivated by hatred ignores several aspects of basic human nature. There are swiss cheeses with less holes than this.

[driftingknight]

Ah... Wuxian-san and I found something in the Tower today as well.

[Because he is not nearly so prepared as Vayne (in his defense, they didn't really have the time!), he will simply hold up the scrolls they found earlier in the afternoon so that anyone who might like to read them can do so.]

It's about transfer gates - teleportation - and how the... Junimo? Whatever those might be have the ability to create enough power to allow for universal transference.

A way to return to our worlds, in other words.

[enkiboo]

Oh, great job you two!

[ Enkidu comes closer to carefully take each scroll and read them real quick. ]

Isn't that exciting, Baldr?

[ They ask but they are looking at him closely, smiling a little, though...you know. ]

[driftingknight]

... yes. Very exciting indeed.

[That... is a surprising lack of enthusiasm there! Hmm.]

[liberazoth]

... Will it be enough?

[driftingknight]

I'm not sure. It certainly doesn't seem as though there is any harm in following the scroll's suggestions, however. The only risk would be in testing the spell should it ultimately be successful.

[linearcrash]

[ Just going to take pics of the scrolls with his phone to check out later ]

[shamen]

Birds... I guess that explains the local population.

[It's not just the ducks after all. The puffins by the beach had been bugging him.]

sleep deprived cat attempts a catherd

[liberazoth]

Um... Everyone, I think we might have gotten a little distracted ... Though I think some important things did get brought up.

[ he's looped around from sleep deprived college student pulling an all nighter to simply 'awake, but at what cost,' apparently. ]

Anyway, to recap ... last night, Enkidu, Nine, and I saw something in the forest and went to check it out. It turned out to be some sort of apple spirit? And it looked like it was trying to lead us to the three pages we found specifically, which are ... it looks to be a journal entry from someone relatively young, it seems like, and then Chronicles 550 and 559 in what looks to be a much longer log. The chronicles are written by a different person than the first one, if that means anything.

Mostly they talk about how life here was helped out by the Junimo lending their magic whenever the people living here harvested crops, but then things went... bad, after a while, when more people from outside the village learned about the Junimo, which is why they tried to close away the village from the rest of the world. Obviously it... didn't entirely work, since we're here... but it does seem from the sounds of things that all of us just showing up at the same time... isn't right?

[ considering that the chronicle says 'every once in a while one or two outsiders,' not a good two dozen, ]

The Junimo are supposedly nature spirits here that just... really like people who farm? And parties? And the Astera, like the Alderman said at the beginning. The Astera boosts their powers or something, and people started being tempted to try to get their wishes granted by growing Astera for the Junimo. They also apparently like the happy feelings associated with weddings...? [ they've talked Enough about marriage vayne doesn't have to keep going there. ] And the sounds that birds make. That part, um, comes from the scrolls. Apparently they're skittish and get bored easily, so the author was trying to figure out a way to get around that.

[ he's going to gesture to wherever baldr and wwx are, and explain: ]

It looks like Baldr and Wei Wuxian found some more chronicles? Theirs look like 599, 607, and 607.8k(III), but I haven't actually really got a good look at them yet to see if they match ... I mean, they probably do, if we assume the person writing them is the Wizard the first entry mentions? Anyway, they know more about it, but it looks like the gist of things is that this wizard was trying to figure out how to travel between dimensions with the Junimos' power, though from the notes it doesn't look like he'd really figured out the details yet on how to make it happen ... At least, not in the longest entry. One of the shorter ones makes it look like he figured it out, but not how. And it doesn't look like it says where he was even aiming to go...?

also duck communiques

[liberazoth]

And, um... one last thing. I think a decent number of us have realized that the ducks are probably actually the people who've died? [ walter whites and associated skepticism do not interact, just ask erika for the normie worldview friendly explanation for this she's the one who pushed them to talk about it. ] Just, you know. Stuck as ducks.

So... um. On that note. Have any of you ever had any weird interactions or conversations with the ducks where it seems like they're trying to tell you something? And maybe you just couldn't figure out what they were trying to say...? I don't know, maybe they've been trying to tell us something important and we never realized.

[ and maybe they can figure it out now! ]

[enkiboo]

I still think weddings are a good idea, by the way. If anyone has any better ideas that don't require sacrifice, I would hear it. Otherwise, I don't think any others would be productive and will probably just end up getting us foolishly killed, or something like that.

[ They are just saying this casually, it's fine. ]

I think the duck I was chatting with was telling me to dance. [ . . . ] Naturally, I can't confirm that for sure. It's just what I assumed they were telling me.

[ Smile! ]

In addition, since this is all basically against what those two are trying to aim for, I think we should be ready for any attempted interference. We're obviously going to disrupt their Astera plan by going ahead with a better substitute.

[theotherww]

...ah. So that's where they're hiding the way out. Behind the guise of dimensional travel.

Let's humor it for a moment. That'd mean that circle in the basement is supposed to be our way out?

[moonblades]

[There's much to think about and less to do. So many things seem like they're sitting on a precipice... much like the giant sword embedded in the earth miles away, the shape of the answers they're seeking is visible but still a shadow.

Regardless of how the rest of the conversation will go tonight, Mio hops up after Vayne presents his whiteboard summary. He looks dead on his feet.]

You've worked hard enough to burst, haven't you? You've done well. [She passes Vayne the dog plushie she's been holding onto, using to hide her matrimony-induced embarrassment, and treating as the occasional impromptu desk when she needed to consult some of the notes for discussion. It's not a very good desk, but it is incredibly soft and huggable.]

Why don't you rest a bit? We'll be right here if any of us develop a better plan.