It’s been a few days in the jungle now and hopefully you haven’t managed to die just yet – after all, the fun’s just begun.
On the seventh day of trekking the wilderness, each character who has Fire in their heart will suddenly find themselves pausing in the middle of the day. Something in their chest feels warm and it’s heating up quickly. It spreads from their chest to their fingertips, down their legs to their toes. There’s a bark of laughter against their ear, but it seems that it’s one that only they can hear.
Then without warning, there is a bright light that encompasses their sight entirely and the ground beneath their feet seems to suddenly open. At least they don’t have time to be scared as they suddenly lose consciousness after falling for a few seconds.
Don’t worry. It’ll get better. When they wake up, they hear the following message – and then they hear it again, and again, and again as it echoes echoes echoes.
 You’re all spirited, aren’t you?! You wouldn’t be one of mine if you weren’t.
So c’mon, look alive, look alive! I’ve got something I want to show you all. Stay close, stay close, I can't wait until you see where you'll be living!
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PHASE I [ day one ] It’ll admittedly be hard for Ardeo to show you anything though. When you wake up, you see darkness. Blink a couple times and it’s – yeah, it’s still darkness. Oh, that’s not good. But after some mumbling around in the dark, perhaps you’ll find another. Better hold on so that you don’t lose each other as the steps on smoothed rock, the resounding quality of the noise you make, and the faint sounds of dripping make it clear that you’re in some kind of cave. Probably.
All you have to guide you is the occasional glimmer of light as Ardeo flicks his flaming tail and then pads off in one direction.
But try not to run too fast after him since it’s dark and that’s danger--holy shit. Follow Ardeo enough and finally you'll reach the edge of a cliff with no indication of how deep that drop goes. It won't be a fear of tripping in this cave, but rather a fear of running straight off the path Ardeo set you on. Hope you're good at cliff scaling because, good luck. You're now stuck on some very high cliffs, and if you peer over the edge, deep, deep down in the darkness, there's the faint, warm glow of what might be lava. You probably don't want to fall down there.
Of course in response to your yelps of fear, there’s only the same bark of laughter. Damnit, where the hell did that fox go?
PHASE II [ day one ] Who knows how long Ardeo has been playing this crazy game of hide and go seek, but eventually you hear a faint buzzing. It’s fine, probably. No one ever said that you were alone in this cave but it’s better to be dealing with a fly than a bear, right?
So you see a firefly. Or maybe a firefly sees you. That single hope of light and not being doomed to eternal darkness comes over and says hi, floating around you for a moment. It really is quite dazzling, isn't it? Then, apparently deciding that you’re an idiot safe to land on, it settles itself on your clothes and-- ow.
That burns. Maybe you even caught fire a little.
But before you know it, more of them are coming. Little specks of light all ready to land on you and warm you up a little. You must be cold in this cave. Try not to die from their thoughtfulness, because they're really all over the place.
It’s like this happens a lot or something.
PHASE III [ day two ] Maybe you threatened him or maybe you asked nicely, but it seems that Ardeo is willing to take pity on your poor souls. Every few steps, there is now a will-o-wisp conjured to guide you away from the sudden, steep cliffs and keep the insects away.
However you’re deeper in the cave now and it seems to be getting… hotter? You hear the water more and more now. Eventually you reach a flat surface and see an arrangement of craters in the ground. The surface beneath them glows with heat, apparently reaching high enough temperatures to emit a white glow.
The brave may wander close, curious about what lay inside the craters – and they may lose their faces as the water suddenly shoots up without explanation, a geyser erupting suddenly and burning anyone who got stuck in the splash zone.
However, there are signs of people here. Small housing constructions made in tucked away corners, built of stacked rock and supplies clearly from this very spot. However, there's...nobody here to greet you.
In fact, it seems as though a certain event has been reported to them, and so the natives who clearly are still living here won't be making an appearance. You may feel them watching you, and if you poke around in their homes, Ardeo will make a quick appearance to warn you away, but they're far too wary to step out and say hello.
PHASE IV [ day three ] Finally, after however many miles, Ardeo’s done walking. He walks up the steps of a shrine – or the remnants of one. Broken statues of animal-like creatures lay in shatters and he wanders around the area once, circles quietly, and then lays down, curled in on himself. A second later, he disappears in a flash of smoke.
However the will-o-wisps remain as you’re free to explore. You’re now able to see that the walls of the cave are decorated with paintings. However unlike those of Earth, the humanoid-type people in these images all have different modifications on them. Some appear to have fins, others are plant-like themselves, but the most prominent ones all appear to be on fire. It’s kinda creepy, especially since they’re still smiling – and upon further inspection, you’ll find that some of these images aren’t made with paint at all, but rather they’re intricate scorch marks left on the wall. Oh.
However for the children exploring with us today, Ardeo seems to have pilfered some things from the colony that he liked. There’s paint lining the cave walls, as well as the occasional bundle of sparkly puppy stickers.
Seems this is where he lives, and now you can join him here too. It's a great reward! It's really just too bad about the difficulty breathing and the general difficulty finding food in a place like this that won't spit fire back at you.
Welcome to your new home.
[ Remember to apply proper warnings on threads with sensitive or inappropriate material and do let a mod know if your thread careens off into maiming or canoodling so we can lock the log. ] |
Welcome to Cerealia's October event! Please visit the OOC information here, and should you have any questions, feel free to ask them here! You can also check the FAQ for more general inquiries. This event will last for the month of October, or IC 3/15 to 3/30. This log will last from 10/15 to 10/22 or IC 3/22 to 3/26. Should this event log hit Captcha, there is an all-purpose overflow here.
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[There's no good response to that. Besides, that really ought to be Marco's line.]
He's the last baby brother Pops ever adopted, eh?
[Just a sad grin.]
[WHY DID HE THINK PUNCHING ZORO WOULD MAKE HIM MISS ACE LESS?! THIS HURTS TEN TIMES MORE! THANK FUCK HE DIDN'T TRY IT WITH LUFFY FIRST THAT WOULD BE EVEN WORSE.]
Ah sorry.
That probably sounds too mushy.
[How to sum it up. That he saw Ace after his death, that Ace practically meant the world to him? That to know Ace was to love him.]
[Hopefully it's just all understood.]
He's more than just a best friend, fellow commander, baby brother, eh? He's nakama. [Even after death.......]
[Yeah....]
[Marco really wishes Zoro was the cutting-flames-Wano-swordsman type who cut first asked questions later.]
[WHY DID HE DO THIS AGAIN?!]
[No regrets, but seriously, how many years does it take to stop being excruciating? FUCK.]
Did you get to meet him long? [He hopes.]
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[he can't know how the Whitebeards operated, the only rumor and tale which he might have heard in a bar somewhere was that he was one of the emperors with a massive fleet. Still, it was probably the wrong question to ask.]
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[Distant look.] Then again, I've seen him make lifelong friends in just minutes.
Kid always drove me crazy.
Still does, yoi.
[THE MOST DISTANT LOOK.]
[Well, it's not like Ace would mean as much to them as Luffy did to the rest of them.]
[It's too inverted.]
[And all... candle in the wind now.]
[Except Marco always wants candles to blow fiercest in the wind.]
[Unlike Zoro though, Marco's not so inclined to open large gaping chest wounds and ask about why Zoro and the others were separated from their Captain at the time. He'd already alluded to it once, and it was apparently too subtle. Who knew.]
He never shut up about his reckless kid brother, yoi. I've heard more stories about Straw Hat than Roger by now.
But I think that says more about people's desire for the future rather than to cling to the past.
[Was that it? Something about that tickles Marco's memories about Whitebeard. Relic of an era.]
[And Marco's era was going to be wrapped in an endless war.]
[But then... that was sort of what Marco wanted in some ways.]
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[not that he'd know]
Not to bring up memories, sorry. I didn't really think.
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I consider Ace my little brother too, eh? We have the same father after all.
I just wish he were here. He'd get a real kick out of it. The jungle sounds like the island he grew up on, and inside here, he'd be the only one really enjoying all this heat so much.
It's been a long time since I saw him.
[He's tempted to explain about the Garden. That Marco could almost follow alternate timelines like flaming threads across time and space, and then it was just a matter of grabbing and pulling to the right place. Or even mentioning the alternate timeline where Ace was a marine... as crazy as that still is to Marco. But he doesn't want to get Luffy's hopes up when there's not much he can do about it right now. Especially not after the last few times.]
He must have been glad to see his little brother though, eh? When you met him? [Marco could probably talk about Ace for days. For all his talk that Ace spoke too much of Luffy? It was almost more like Ace was just trying to keep up with Marco's "best family ever" 24/7 chatter.]
[Which is why he's trying to prompt for more information about when Zoro saw him, however briefly.]
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[sighs briefly...Alabasta was a long time ago, it feels like] I guess. We didn't even know Luffy had a brother until he showed up outta nowhere. He definitely made an impression, though. [the tiny smirk comes back, as he recalls the sight] Sank five Baroque Works ships in one shot. It was beautiful.
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He definitely would have gotten into it with the fox.
That doesn't mean they wouldn't become friends though. He fought with Jinbei for five days solid before the rest of us could get to him, and then they became tight because of that.
He had the same effect on Grell. And Thatch. [Waves a hand knowing it's kind of meaningless to Zoro.]
[But this has slightly cheered Marco up already.] That'd be his signature Fire Fist move, eh? He took out quite a few ships in that little surfboard he called a skiff.
He was already doing that by the time he reached the New World though. Back when he was after Pops' head.
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Yeah, that was it. It was pretty cool to see, since before that I'd only ever heard rumors of the Whitebeard pirates. Never met one until him.
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[They're so cute and young and Marco just has to resist the urge to poke Zoro's cheek.]
[Must. Resist.]
Ah, Ace is a living legend in his own right, eh?
[Distant again!!]
[JEEZ THIS IS A NEW RUNNING THEME NOW.]
Even Shanks was pretty taken with him. Not that Shanks has the highest standards, but he was willing to risk a war just for him.
[Shakes his head softly again and rubs the back of his neck.]
[He REALLY misses Ace again, but he knows it's his own damn fault, for whatever that is worth.]
Still, you must have gotten farther along the Grand Line by now, eh? [Light gesture to the eye scar, which is still pretty absent from Zoro's wanted posters last Marco saw.]
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Eh? Oh, yeah. Dressrosa. It's been a hell of a ride so far, can't wait to see what the rest of the New World has to offer.
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[... That's not overkill is it?]
Dressarossa?
[Tsking sound that sounds a little... too swanlike to be honest.] None of us have been around there since Doflamingo took hold. Are the women still fond of stabbing passionately?
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[A quiet hum. BRB HAVING 'NAM FLASHBACKS of Marineford.]
[No but really, he's just trying to place it in a timeline of utter insanity.]
[And finally...]
Do I even want to ask how Fishman Island is?
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[you know after all of that accidentally sacking the palace, getting into it with Big Mom, and so on...]
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[Instantly relaxes.]
[
Because Marco is a gullible fucking idiot and that is totally what he wanted to hear even if he didn't expect it.]Ah really?
They must still have sake places Pops loved so much then.
[Which makes him SO HAPPY.]
And there weren't...
A million slavers running around kidnapping mermaids and fishman pups or anything, aye? [Just lie Zoro, how can you crush this man's obvious hopes and dreams?]
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No, not that I saw. Some fishman pirates made a ruckus but that was it.
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[HAPPY.]
When Roger died, Fishman Island was a mess. Slavers were everywhere, and weak punk little rookies who couldn't make it as real pirates were just getting into the slavery gig instead.
The only time I've ever seen Pops angrier was... when one of his own got killed, eh? But I think he took the slavery just as hard.
[At least now he won't be afraid to look Jinbei in the eye if he gets a chance to see him again soon.]
Don't tell the others, but I'd been a little worried it might go back to that way. [Maybe not quite as severe... but still. Any at all was too much as far as Marco was concerned.]
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[Arches an eyebrow.]
[He doesn't know if he's startled, amused, or ruefully thinking he should have seen that coming... somehow.]
Mah, well... I suppose Pops would approve.
And Firefly -- err, Ace... would probably be torn between pride and having a heart attack. [And other emotions, because Ace was a basket case sometimes.]
Was King Neptune...
Did you even meet him?
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That must have been Pops' favorite.
[Nope, this is perfectly legit to Marco.]
[Randomly keep out slavers, get rewarded with King/Emperor sake.]
[Everything is awesome and magical and wonderful.]
[HE IS COOL WITH THIS VERSION OF EVENTS.]
He and the King were pretty close.
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[he's not sure what else to tell, so he just shrugs]
If that's what you wanted to know.
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Aye. Thanks.
Well, that and just the general condition of the place. Keimi already remembered the Whitebeard name, but there are some things you just can't ask those who live there. Just like I wouldn't know what to tell Namur.
I don't know when we'll go home again. [And with how much Marco's fucked up time and continued messing with it... if they'll ever get back to the right time. If he even wants to.] Or if. But it's still reassuring, eh?
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We're clearly not at the end of time.
There are ripples and folds to the fabric of time, and certain places like... where we were before, are like whirlpools, drawing people in, particularly if they're at the outer rims of their own timelines. Rather like star systems and planets, in between each system are belts in stardust, aye? The farthest rims are like that, and places like this are like the stars, pulling people into their pace.
Where the alternate timelines converge gets even trickier and each one sets off its own differing direction.
[What was that Zoro, this stuff is like whoosh?]
[That's okay, if it wasn't... Marco probably wouldn't share.]
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