awashlogs | Event Seventeen.

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Event Seventeen.

I went to the wood and got it;
I sat me down to look for it
And brought it home because I couldn’t find it.

he magical vines creep ever onward, slowly infringing upon the Town. No matter how many are chopped down, no matter how many are set on fire, they keep coming even so.

And slowly, one by one, the people in the Town start to fall to the curse that they bring along with them.

Stay and tend to the cursed? Venture out into the woods to find the castle at the source of these vines?

Whatever you choose to do, you'd better decide quickly; the curse only seems to get worse and worse the longer everyone is afflicted.

Welcome to Awash's seventeenth event log, everyone! Further information on this event can be found here at the OOC post. You are welcome to make your own logs and posts for this event!

If there are any questions, please ask them here. Thank you!

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[He might've slowed down a bit at the clock room, honestly - clocks like that aren't exactly common in ancient China, and he can probably fit one in his sack....ahem.]

Mr. F....the ruler of the town, is it? I wonder what he's like? Maybe we'll get the chance to meet him, if we--ah. [The next door appears to not have a floor? Hope you remember to look before you leap.]

[Live your best life, Xie Lian. Percy won't stop him and instead there's a hint of a grin.]

He might be the ruler or he might be some guy that likes telling us what to do. Nobody's really sure. He can message us but we can't message h--[He's cut off by a startled noise as his foot slips on the edge. It's a nice warning that this would be a very, very far fall and he backs away slowly.]

Him. [Anyway.] Maybe we should start checking upstairs, too. [Almost as if on cue, a staircase up on their left swings out, inviting them to ascend to the next floor.]

[Living up to his name as the god of junk! He does a clean 180 spin and starts walking away from the danger door as if absolutely nothing had happened--then freezes, one foot in the air, when that staircase starts moving.

Hm.]

...I suppose that's our next destination, then?

Kind of feels like we don't have much of a choice, huh? [He tilts his head in the direction of the stairs to indicate it's the way they should go.] Libraries are usually in higher parts of castles in stories anyway. More space and stuff.

[This is just a loooot of stairs to climb. Hope they're both prepared for that.]

Is that right? That's interesting. [Clearly he needs to read more stories...he'll head on up though.

Luckily there's no need to worry about him tiring out on the stairs; he could probably climb 50 floors with this sack of junk on his back and barely break a sweat.] I wonder how this building moves as it does...is it alive, do you think?

That's one possibility. Sometimes the town feels alive, and if the castle's something that came from the town...[You'd think so. He's bounding up the steps fairly easily as well.] Either that or it's magic. Take your pick.

I don't see how they couldn't be one and the same. [There's a light laugh as he says that, but also he's created living weapons before, so...hopping over a gap in the stairs.]

To be more serious though, it's hard to imagine something as large as a town being alive...haunted, maybe? There's always the possibility the spirits of the previous residents are still affecting the place.

There're definitely ghosts around. A lot of us have met them. [So that is absolutely more likely than one might think.] Usually they stick to places like the forest or some islands but they've come into town before. But what makes you think a town couldn't be sentient?

[It's not accusatory but rather curious. His foot promptly gets stuck in one of the stairs and he's stalled while he attempts to rescue his leg from this stupid trap.]

[He'd help with that stuck foot, but he's got one hand full with all the junk he's carrying...waiting patiently though, as he scans around just in case there's any danger.]

I can't necessarily say it's impossible, just...for an entire town to gain a life of its own, with all its many objects and plants and residents...I can imagine different parts of it coming alive separately, but that would still be quite a lot of spirits for one place to create, don't you think? [It's the scale of it that's getting him, here.]

[He's fine! This is 100% fine. It takes a few yanks but he's eventually out and shaking his ankle a little before turning toward the stairs.]

When you put it that way, yes, you'd think so. But at the same time this place definitely doesn't play by the usual rules. Sometimes I think I have things figured out, but then something new happens like ghost dreams or mirrors that can talk to us. This place could be powered by magical energy or something instead of just spirits. But that's just another theory.

[At the top of the stairs, he looks toward the hallway ahead.] Wanna go left or right?

I suppose all we have is theories, for now...

[This is a really strange town, he'll agree to that. Who ever heard of a place that could turn a god into a frog? He peers down the hall, trying to see if he can catch sight of anything dangerous--but no, both ways look clear from here.]

Why don't we try....left? [There's an open door down that way.]

Left it is. [Off they go, and he seems to spot the door that's propped open. Is that...a book in the doorway? It looks like it, at least.] Supposedly people are getting answers and items by completing quests, but we don't really know what it all means. I've been meaning to ask everyone but I haven't had the time.

[Once they reach the door, he's picking up the book to see if it'll be useful, leaving Xie Lian to look over his shoulder.]

Those quests given by...Mister F, was it? [He's heard about those!] I'd like to know more about that too, once there's a chance to ask...

[He trails off at the end there...because a stone bust down the hall just turned its head to stare at them.]

...It feels as if we might want to hurry.

...you saw that too, didn't you? [Absolutely not. We are not having this, thank you very much.] Come on. [He'll elbow his way into the room and bring Xie Lian with him, closing the door to cut off eye contact with the bust. The room they've found themselves in appears to be a small library of sorts, a few shelves of books and curtain-covered windows. So that's. Sort of helpful, sure.]

Anyway...yeah, those. I'm sort of hoping the more we ask each other the more likely Mr. F will actually read the forum an answer us. [Give him a moment to uncover a window.] Let's check here and see if we can find anything helpful.

Let's not acknowledge it. [Into the room! It can't possibly follow them in through a closed door without any legs, right? Yeah.

He'll take a moment to look around first before moving to check out those shelves...] Whether it's from Mr. F or forums or the books in this room, any sort of answers would certainly be appreciated.

[Computers are such a mystery, he's really leaning more on these books--except the ones on this first shelf include such titles as The Care and Maintenance of Designer Brooms, 101 Ways to Peel an Apple, Alphabet Soup for the Soul...]

I've been thinking about if it'd be more useful just to make up our own answers. If it's a fairy tale who says that wouldn't work? [With the curtains drawn back there's a little more light in the room and Percy turns to peer at one of the higher shelves. Books...are not really his forte, exactly, but he allows his fingers to run along the spines of the collect in front of them.]

It sort of feels like a lot of these are about magic though. [He's pulling out book about enchanted object, but only objects beginning with the letter B.] Our only other option is waiting it out and I don't like those chances either.

That's an interesting idea; fight fairy tales with fairy tales...it's always worth a try. [He brushes off a promising-looking book on magic spells, flipping it open as he talks.]

Waiting it out is...I suppose it's an option, and I can't say fighting is always the correct path to choose, but... [But the idea of sitting still doesn't sit right with him, even if doing the opposite has burned him before.] ...I wonder if there are any tales that might sound similar to our current situation. [This book is full of nothing but gardening spells.]

There's one I can think of. [He swaps books for one about identifying the size and shape of skulls. That's not promising either.] Someone else brought it up and I kinda forgot about it, but have you ever heard of Sleeping Beauty?

[How far back in time are you from, exactly, Xie Lian?] It's a story about a princess who pricks her finger and falls into a really deep sleep so this evil dragon queen or whatever can get revenge because she wasn't invited to her birthday party. [Or something.]

[Still flipping through the gardening book, in case there might be something relating to all those thorns...]

I heard mention of that story before I came to this castle, actually--though I didn't hear anything about dragons or birthday parties. [They kind of only went over the part about waking sleeping princesses.] Are you saying there might be a dragon to defeat? That would certainly make things simpler, at least.

[When your exposure is probably Disney movies this is what you get.] It's a possibility. Something's probably guarding this castle and giving the thorns a chance to grow. Why else would they be this out of control already?

[He can't seem to keep his focus on one book for too long, and next is a book about using frog saliva to create a poison. That's kind of gross, but poison's poison.] There've been all kinds of monsters since we got here anyway. For all we know the dragon's on the roof waiting for all of us to be here and strike.

[Xie Lian's gaze slowly moves up to the ceiling, then over to the window.....it's probably not the kind of window that opens, huh.] I don't know how to lure out a dragon, sadly - if one exists, the only way to find it would be to look for it ourselves. [Aaaand looking back at the shelf--he's gonna just stuff this cookbook into his bag.] I suppose it would be best to avoid any dragons for now, though...I'm not sure either of us is really prepared for a fight like that.

[If you can break the glass any window can open, but maybe they shouldn't resort to that. Percy's following Xie Lian's gaze even as he nods along.]

I've fought dragons before but I'd rather work on figuring out the curse on people we know instead of the curse of the castle. Call me selfish but that seems more important.

[He puts the book down and picks up another about topiary.] Could just destroy all of the thorns to stop the infection though. Maybe we should start handing out gloves to everybody.

You're right about that--it would be best to focus on what we can do for now, and leave the bigger endeavours for a later time. [Despite that, he seems to have perked up a bit.] Have you really fought dragons before? How did you do it? You must be quite talented, to have managed that!

[Pulling out another book--this one's about cats...he puts it down again and starts looking around the rest of the room instead.]

[He's busy boosting himself up to look at higher shelves, barely reading the titles. So far it doesn't look like there's too much though he keeps the topiary book in-hand.]

I don't know about that. It kind of comes with the territory? [Ahah…] We train to be able to fight stuff like that. We managed to outsmart it and get out of the garden before it could eat us.

[Nobody needs to know they messed up and ran the hell away. It's fine, that's fine.] Like I said. Dragons are usually trained to guard stuff.

Edited 2019-01-30 00:28 (UTC)

That sounds rather different from the dragons where I come from - I can't imagine a dragon being trained to do anything. [Fascinating...also he's found what appears to be a glass rose in a bell jar? Doesn't seem particularly useful though, sadly.]

...What sort of training were you doing exactly, if it's alright to ask? It isn't troll-related, is it? [He says this in a joking sort of tone, but also he's met two guys so far who fight trolls...crazy coincidence.]

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