[ open ] Quest Catch-all!

[swordfucker]

Who: Guren Ichinose & Various
Where: All around town
When: The month of September!
What: QUEST RELATED CATCH ALL. There's an open bee prompt since Guren is a red, so anyone is welcome even if you didn't plot with me! Newbies too, once they get in!
Warnings: None. Will add if necessary!

A. Bees to see - OPEN

[Guren feels as though he's been going a little easy on the quests lately. It's time to fix that. He's antsy, he's got an empty jar in one hand and his other on his sword, and he holds it up to anyone who might pass him by.]

Have you bothered getting any honey yet? You can come with me.

[And with that simple line, they're off! Unless your character has any resistance, of course, but assuming they don't, Guren leads them right into the forest.]

I wouldn't be surprised if these things were huge and mutated, so let's be prepared for that.

B. Wildcard - OPEN

[If you want to hit Guren up for a different quest, even if he's a red, feel free! Try to ruin his day? Just see what he's up to? This is my generic space to say anyone can tag me even if I didn't plot things with them, so feel free, or hit me up at zeloser to work something out, if you want!]

Closed prompts in the comments!

Comments

ZELDA

[swordfucker]

[So, here they are. The forest, walking deeper between the trees and looking for fairies, apparently. Guren is looking as serious about it as ever, but that's just because he's got a lot on his mind in general. He steps over a particularly large tree root, glancing back to be sure that Zelda doesn't miss it, either. She's a forest hippie or something, though, right? She'll be fine.]

Saying "fairies" is pretty general. They could have a number of capabilities, so just listen to me if I call out a command.

[withwisdom]

Already taking charge hm?

[ zelda doesn't miss it indeed, though she does quietly notice his glance. the woods are practically a second home to her, or at least that's how it was in hyrule. here she's been more cautious, only because she knows how the winding paths can change and confuse.

unlike with the sirens though, this time she actually has her bow slung across her shoulder and resting on her backside. however the quiver attached to it only has a couple arrows. ]

Fairies are rather benevolent beings in my homeland. They're especially fond of children. I suppose the same can't be expected for these kinds.

MINATO

[swordfucker]

[He's sure he can sense something ahead by now, but he's not quite sure if it's the fairies they're looking for. Still, his thumb loosens Mahiru-no-yo from its scabbard, and his eyes stay locked ahead.]

I wonder if they're the same kind of fairies that watched us in the pit.

[That was a good memory, right. Maybe Minato and the others barely had time to process that there were actually creatures in the stands, but Guren is going to hope he did, anyway.]

[messianic]

[Bleh....

Really, it wasn't as bad a memory as it could have been; Minato's thoroughly aware that Guren was just getting the quest over and done with, and he was about as efficient as Minato could have expected. It's not like any of them could've taken him down.]

Mm... maybe they are. It could be why this quest is happening the month after.

[Still, Minato's no good at holding grudges, so he just looks curious as they wander, one hand tucked in his pockets.]

Though I think they'd avoid you after watching how you fought in the pit.

DEXTERA & RYO

[swordfucker]

Here we go again.

[The group... the homies. Except not really. He still has it fresh in his mind what Ryo said to Dextera, and he's eyeing both of them carefully now. He hasn't brought it up yet to Ryo, after all. But a mission out in the woods... It sounds like a good way to check and see if things are normal.

He'd like to see how Ryo is coping with getting used to physical combat, too. Gun? Or knives, today? Whatever it is, they're already walking through the trees.]

Any input on what you think the fairies will be able to do? Either of you?

[passio]

[ dextera is still feeling awkward around ryo, so there’s that—at least today, guren won’t have to watch dextera moon over ryo too much. a little worrying is inevitable, however, because underneath all his confusion, he’s still attached. ]

…I did some research.

[ oh? back when the sirens struck, he ended up reading a lot about fairies with michael, in the library. ]

We shouldn’t use our names.

DAMIAN

[swordfucker]

Hey, kid.

[That's the greeting Damian gets out of nowhere. Guren's stealing a brand, here, stepping out of the shadows, but it's fine. He's smirking, his hair is slicked back, and he's clearly on a Mission. Or well, he's going to be, soon enough.]

You're blue, aren't you? Want to go with me to get some fairies? [It'll be fun!!]

[bittybat]

[Even though he's very use to having some certain people hi-bye him out of the shadows, it's still weird when it's not Batman. The way his shoulders and arms go rigid as he turns is indication he's way too over-prepared for a fight.

Seeing it's Guren, he relaxes into something more exasperated. His eyes narrow critically at the hair, and then the rest of Guren gets a once-over.]

Are you exterminating them?

SINISTRA

[swordfucker]

[In between all of this quest nonsense, Guren isn't ever too far from the forest. Either he's training nearby, he's just finished one himself, he's thinking about finding someone to go in with— the times when he's further away, it's only to get back to his house or walk around the town, so he's almost always out and about somewhere.

He has to do a double-take when he sees Sinistra heading his way, though. (Especially if those stings are visible.)]

Sinistra?

[bisection]

[ Despite his usual shoulder to toes covering, the swelling on his face and hands are visible. This is an... act of desperation. He assumes going to Guren will mean a quick treatment without much fuss so he can go home and metaphorically lick his wounds. He just doesn't know what to do about these. They hurt worse than the sunburn had and his throat is strangely swollen and sore. His face is hot.

He looks miserable, like a punished dog drooping its ears and tucking its tail between his legs. Neither he nor his quest buddy had really been equipped to cope with bees. ]

Guren.

[ He croaks Guren's name out quietly, already feeling humiliated. ]

It... hurts. Can I... is there ointment to use?

A!!

[osuni]

[Okuni is surprised that Guren came to her for a quest, but she guesses that collecting honey is more the kind he's willing to do with her than pit fighting. SMH, WEAK GUREN!!!

It's fine though, collecting honey sounds fun.]

Ooh, I hope they are! I hope they shoot those things from their eyes like the bears did.

[why did Guren invite Okuni again]

[swordfucker]

If they do, you can play with them while I get the honey.

[He says this as if he doesn't enjoy the fighting himself. But he has to act lazy, or then what!!!]

I'm not helping you if you get stung.

A

[glaciers]

[It's only been a day since those quests went up, but Shouto tilts his head a bit. The honey quest probably is guarded by giant mutated bees or something. Honestly he has no idea what the normal kind are like to begin with.

So he agrees to go on the quest.]

Have you ever collected honey before?

[swordfucker]

Not really.

[It's a weird thing to do. But, now, they can start towards it, walking through the trees and looking for the signs of a hive.]

But it shouldn't be too hard. You can take care of the bees and I'll worry about collecting it. In other words, be a distraction.

a

[ditherer]

I'm not quite the right colour for it, so not yet.

[but he'll go along. guren wanted to see powers anyway, if he recalls correctly, so it's not a bad opportunity. on his end, might as well see what this leader of the force is capable of too.]

... They really don't make these quests easy, do they...?

[swordfucker]

Don't go whining about it. This is easy.

[A pain, maybe, but easy enough. It's not like the separated color towns. That was a little more difficult. Throwing the soon-to-be honey jar from one palm to the other and back, he glances over to the trees, and heads that way as long as he seems like he's interested.]

The bees are a little weirder than you might think, though.

A!

[scooptimistic]

Probably also poisonous.

[ Maya is contributing this rather brightly. But. She can heal, it's going to be better than the last forest shenanigans she got into with Guren!! ]

[swordfucker]

[Guren just sighs heavily at that, like he's regretting his decision to bring her along. He's not, of course. He's aware that she can heal, and it's convenient... And he likes her company, anyway, even if he acts like a grump.]

So, do you want to collect the honey, or deal with the bees? We'll both be doing the latter, probably, but I need someone to hold the jar who's not going to drop it.

A.

[osteotome]

[ Honebami would have said "not yet," if he wasn't caught off-guard a little by the ushering into the forest and going along with it, but that isn't a big deal— they're gonna do this honey quest. ]

Do you mean the bees?

[ Obviously. But it's asked flatly because he was warned about the dangers of the forest to figure that's just how it is. And he had fun adventures in the pit with Okuni. Forest bad, but quests and Guren say "go". ]

It explains the heavier sound of them, but I don't see them yet. That direction.

[ Kiwame-level scouting ability! He points deeper into the forest, to the right of a larger tree. ]

[swordfucker]

Not bad.

[Guren's always impressed when he sees someone new showing some level of skill. It's good to know, and he can hear them a slight bit himself— but that's good. They keep heading that way.]

What was your name again?

a!!

[thriftea]

[She's done this once or twice, my friend, which is why she agrees to come along... but only after she makes sure that her jar of healing ointment is close at hand. Swelling up like a balloon is not her favorite thing in the world.]

They're fast, so I didn't get a good look at them last time, but— [She winces as she absently rubs one arm.] It really, really hurts when they sting you! Like, way worse than a regular bee. It felt like my whole arm was on fire...

[swordfucker]

So don't get stung.

[He says, as if he hasn't also gotten stung. Honestly, they really are painful? He pretends like it's fine, but geez.]

Some of them could sting worse than others, too. If they can do things like spread fire, I don't want to rule anything out. How about I distract the bees, and you collect the honey?

bees 2 see

[parodeity]

[ dave is hilariously easy to coerce into anything - especially by people he trusts or likes at all, so he just shrugs at being voluntold to collect honey and trails after guren, hands in his pockets. ]

If they breathe fire, I quit this entire town? Bees should not be able to breathe fire.

[swordfucker]

I'm with you on that one, but I think more than just bees shouldn't be able to breathe fire.

[All these monster animals are freaks. He's not a fan, and he's dealt with monsters and vampires and god knows what else.]

It's going to be a handful no matter what, so, how do you want to do this? Do you think you'll do better collecting the honey, or distracting the bees?

venom bad

[passio]

[ honestly, guren will probably be the death of dextera before long. between crowley and everything else, of course dextera has been worried. not just for guren’s emotional health, but his physical health as well. guren is prone to running himself ragged on even his best days, and with protection on his mind—

well, it figures that guren wouldn’t respond when dextera asks if he’s home. sometimes he’s busy, right? it’s just that the more time that passes, the more worried he gets, until he goes to guren’s home himself.

nothing. ]

…

[ there’s only one place that guren would be after that with all this time passing, as loath as dextera is to try the forest by himself.

now is a time that he wishes he had his voice to at least call out. ]

venom bad but venom good

[swordfucker]

[You know who's a big giant hypocrite? Guren is. He knew Dextera would be worried sick if he told him about what he was doing, so he was planning on just taking care of it on his own and wandering back later. Of course, collecting venom is harder than it has any right to be when you're facing mutant bees with occasional RPG skills.

He's come out stung and weary every time, sometimes with the stings doing a lot more than just pain— his demon can stop it from killing him, but that doesn't mean he can stop things like the paralysis hitting him now.

His arm is covered in half burnt fuda, an attempt to block some of the stings before they were burned by flamethrowing bees defending their hive. His hair was gelled back, but now it's some kind of mess, and he's having to lean heavily against trees as he moves to keep himself going. He's got some sort of bottle in one hand, an abnormally large stinger sunk into it, still throbbing (gross) and the remnants of other bee stings, as well.

It's hard to even keep his eyelids open, right now. There's the actual difficult process of getting them to sting the right thing, or cutting it off before they can even manage, and then there's sorting the venoms by types, which means he has to get stung in the first place. The patience required means that he also had to put up with tons of stings on his person, and even if he tried his best to block those out, he's facing the venom from way too many at once right now.

It'd be pretty lame if he died here, like this. That's all he can think as he stumbles to a knee, grunting out. It's hard to even breathe... He wanted to at least get to the edge of the forest, to avoid whatever might be in here, but he doesn't manage.

He falls forward and onto his face, fingers twitching to try and fight it. Dextera might nearly trip over him if he's not careful, since Guren is motionless and voiceless on the forest floor in a dark uniform. The venom he's collected is still in his hand, but he doesn't really have a grip anymore.

He's stung all over, and even if they're not swollen thanks to Guren's demon, they're still there, which means that they must have been very recent.]

Damian & Maya

[swordfucker]

[It's easy to scoop up Damian into his arms and start moving a little quicker out of the forest. Damian might have been acting like he was fine, but his slower movement, the wincing, the spaced out speech— Guren wasn't about to keep risking that. He could finish yelling at him later, when he's healthy.

So, it doesn't take long before he's out of the forest and showing up at Maya's door, his arms too full for knocking. He kicks a few times in a way that resembles it, instead.]

Maya, open up! I need your help. [Damian's going to be knocked out for a decent while thanks to that hit, he thinks, but he's hoping she'll be able to heal and then watch over him until he does.

Anyway, if she answers the door, she'll see Damian unconscious in his arms, and his entire left side of his body is bloody. His sleeves look like they were severed cleanly just below the shoulder... the rest of them are all bunched up at his wrist. He's a mess.]

[scooptimistic]

[ Maya's quick to open the door, expression going from curiosity to mild alarm. Her eyebrows snap together as she gives the kid a quick once-over, and then she's stepping back and gesturing to Guren to follow her in. There's a couch he can use. ]

One of these days, you're coming to drop by just for the joy of my company. Give me a quick list of his injuries.

sometime early next week

[withwisdom]

[ it's been close to a couple weeks since their rather unfortunate encounter with the fairies. zelda has kept herself busy with working on making the church look half-decent to be inside, while also greeting newcomers to the realm. there were so many people too this time around she had to start writing down the names of everyone she met.

but with things calming down, and the space of time letting her think clearly, she decides to make contact with guren. the guilty of injuring him has subsided, as much as she thinks it can, and she does owe him explanation in her mind. so she leaves him a message to request a time to come over the day before, because in no lifetime will she just rudely show up at anyone's door without notice. a day is proper.

so wearing a drab looking gray cloak over her usual attire, the chill of the outside a little much for her tastes, she knocks on his door and waits. she's a little early, but he doesn't rest anyway so what of it? ]

[swordfucker]

You can come on in. I'm upstairs.

[The call is loud enough to reach outside, to the front door. As much as he appreciates Zelda telling him in advance that she wants to show up, he's still a busy man that's almost always doing some kind of work. Right now? He's in his room, on his laptop, finishing up some notes.

The others are in their own rooms, Yuu's probably out somewhere getting into trouble, and she shouldn't have a hard time navigating the house. Straight inside, if you ignore the bright pink wallpaper, is the staircase. It leads to a few smaller rooms with closed doors, but down the hallway, Guren's typing can be heard, and his door is open, right now.

He doesn't have his uniform jacket on right now, but that's about the only thing different from usual. Did he even sleep...?]

SOMETIME THIS MONTH

[osuni]

[Okuni is in Guren's room because why not!!!! if she sticks her head in his window regularly to see what's up then why shouldn't she also home invade from time to time...

She's amusing herself by looking through all of Guren's things!!! Perched on his desk yet again... and looking at the three sets of butterfly wings he apparently has. She doesn't know that this is the reward from the faeries quest yet, but she assumes that it's some kind of reward -- or one of Guren's freakish insect collecting hobbies??

Okuni is just gonna CHECK FOR HERSELF THERE... she'll just unpin one set of wings quickly before Guren inevitably appears to throw her out head-first through the window. HEHE, YEAH!!!





HEY, NOTHING'S HAPPENING???]

[swordfucker]

[He was just peacefully walking to his own room, but he can hear that there's an intruder. At first, he's stealthy about it, not sure just who it is. The door peeks open, he's got his hand on the hilt of his sword— but it's Okuni.]

Hey...

[Only now does he make himself known, shoving the door open the rest of the way with a slam that probably leaves a nice dent in his own wall from the doorknob. He needs a doorstop. He's got this menacing aura... He's mad?

That's about the only thing there's room to think about the sight before he's flying across the room to kick at her. He knows she could catch it or dodge, or take it, so it's fine. More importantly:]

What the hell are you doing in my room?!

after everything this month…

[passio]

[ dextera is doing fine. he’s great! he cuddled with his brother last night, and it’s not like his scar is spreading or opening or anything. if he doesn’t look, it isn’t real.

more importantly, he told his brother everything he needed to say, and it wasn’t—a perfect endeavor, but it’s done. he cried more than he thought he would, even though his brother took it surprisingly well.

still, there’s a part of him that can’t stop rolling the ring he got around in his hands, something that feels too dangerously timely for all that’s been on his mind.

so he messages guren, of course. ]

I talked to my brother. Everything is OK.

There’s something important that I need to show you, too, so can we meet up?

[swordfucker]

[That's... good news, isn't it? He feels partly relieved, partly tense, reading those sentences together. Is Dextera really okay? He was forced into it, wasn't he. Guren had forced him, and now, he's not sure if that's okay. Was it too soon? It's not as if they're really close to a way home.

...]

I'm glad everything's okay. You know I wouldn't say no. Where do you want to meet?