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.
There are 71 characters with the element of fire.
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This place is awful. [Sorry, Ardeo. He loves you, but he doesn't love your house...] Ugh... Are you okay? Isn't that super hot?
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He looks down at himself at the question though, and shakes his head.]
Nah, I think I'm fine. Even if I was, it'd go away on its own. Thanks for helping me, though.
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Nah, not a dragon. That'd be something if I was.
...oh, that's right. You swords don't show injury like regular people. Forgot about that. [he tips his head toward the crater behind them] It still hurts like hell, though, so probably steer clear of those things.
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Yeah, I will. Even if we take damage better, it's still best to avoid it, y'know? And I don't want my vessel to get scalded.
[That actually would cause some problems...]
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[he glances down at Kashuu's actual sword. He can only imagine.] I've seen what salt water will do to a blade, I don't wanna think of it anywhere near lava.
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[Hostile welcome wagons are the worst... Kashuu also makes a face at that, since the thought of taking a dip in lava isn't any more pleasant for him than it would be for a regular human.]
Nooo thank you. ...Even if that's like, exactly where we're gonna end up at this rate.
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I almost wish they would. I hate being watched. Can't tell if they're afraid of us or they're here to spy on us.
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[As far as he's aware, they have nothing interesting to give by way of information... They're all confused and lost and hungry and hot and tripping into geysers!! Unless the residents are looking for entertainment, they're sol.]
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It's too exhausting to even get pissed off, let alone actually fight anyone. I got nothin'.
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...What do you think about what that guy said? Back when he was saying how he was super excited to show us our new home and stuff, I mean.
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I don't know what he's playing at, but I don't like the sound of that. We're not living here. Our friends and other people aren't here, I don't know what happened to 'em, but if they're somewhere else without us, we gotta get to them.
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They're probably with the other spirits. I mean, I like Ardeo a lot, but... [Being split up is Not Good. ...Even if he is grateful that Souji and Haru have both ended up here too, somehow.]
We'll have to talk to him. I don't really wanna be here without everyone else, y'know?
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If you think it'll work. I don't want to lose my other crewmate or anyone else I actually like, so if Foxy has answers, we need 'em.
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I guess it's just like, the waiting game now.
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I'll leave that kind of interrogation to you. I've got no patience for any of this.
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[He wants to go back HE'S SORRY ARDEO... Though he's not entirely sure when that opportunity might come, he's at least fairly certain that they weren't completely ditched.]
Until then, we should probably collect food for the people who need to eat and try to find some water that isn't, like- [GESTURES ANGRILY TOWARD THE GEYSER.] Y'know.
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Yeah, water's gonna be a problem. I wonder if those salamanders we saw crawling on the cave walls on the way in are edible. Either way...
[another brief look around, to assist himself using haki to sense things. The presence of the 70-some people from the colony are easy to feel, the natives lurking less-so. Animals?]
...I don't feel anything larger than a rat in these caves. No monsters, nothing big that can feed a lot of people all at once.
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Sooo, rats and salamanders and so far, no real source of water. We probably couldn't even use this water even if we could find a way to get it before it got super hot, either.
[If he's remembering correctly, water in geysers usually have a lot of mineral deposits... It would probably make people sick.]
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There has to be something, if people live down here. Unless... [shit] ...unless they don't need water to survive.
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I guess if they're like, fire-people or something...
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Fire or lava. Something like that. Then they don't need water at all and we're up shit-creek.
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You need water too, right? ...If we can figure out where the geyser water is coming from and draw it a little further away, that might be okay.
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[Haru's a good example. Phoenix, and Bulma, and others too]
Hm. You think the water in the craters comes from somewhere? Maybe there's an underground river or something.
[he's not so much with the science but if he thinks real hard he'll realize that for these geysers to keep erupting, the water needs to be replenished. Zoro starts creeping back toward that one that just got them, but cautiously, making sure not to look right over the lip of the crater and risk a face-peeling steam bath.]
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Mmhm, there's probably some kinda water running down there. We'd just have to see if there are any caves that lead to it. ...And find some way to explore without getting super, super lost.
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