The full seasonal event can be read here! Below are the main seasonal items for quick reference:
1. A thread reacting to the season's weather in some ways.
2. A thread in the part of the city your character doesn't live in!
3. A thread relating to your vocation.
Of The Season
Quote
"Tell Dr. Nate that Gale sent you, and he still owes me for the mushrooms. Except that it takes you a while to reach the clinic, and by the time you do your fever is spiking, and so instead of the requisite message you instead tell the poor soul who greets you that 'A gale'a m'shrooms sent me cus'a my hands.'" - Zephyr in Oh help me, please doctor, I'm damaged
"Sounds like it..." He murmured as he continued to take parts from the building, licking his lips as Josef replied to her honesty about not being around here for a bit of time. It wasn't his place to pry further on that front, he didn't really care, just that it felt like she wanted to find something. That something was definitely not here though, as he turned to her as the young woman began to examine him. Josef frowned as he listened to her ramble about tinkering and the deflection of her age. "Look, I do not like when people mince words... and what?" Blinking as he tilted his head again a bit confused.
"Look here, I don't know spit about what you're on about. But my designs aren't something I'm about to discuss" Josef was genuine in his words, he really had no idea what she was talking about and cut her off there. Whatever nonsense she thought of his invention, he didn't need to clarify it. Nor was he going to let her go near his tech. Though, of course, his tech channels light, it works like that because of his invention. Whatever she thought she knew, it was likely not worth the effort given her tone. He needed a workshop to collect Bizu bugs to experiment on. "Did you have anything else to share other than disrespect?" Josef stated with a raised brow, he usually never throws the first punch, but she could likely see that he was clenching his scarred right hand as the light of his clawed glove seemed to glow slightly more turbid.
Oh the places you'll go, with your eyes so wide With your heart in your hand, and your sword at your side Oh the mountains you'll move, oh the tears you'll cry
The smile on the girl's lips was wide as she was certain she had just caught the man in a lie. He had to be lying, right? She had first stumbled upon her magic years and years ago when she was a child, and it had become pretty clear that what she did wasn't at all natural.
As the man grew angrier, though, her smile lessened until she was just staring at him with her mouth agape and a soft blush on her cheeks.
"You... you really don't know, then?" came Ashla's words after several moments of her just watching him work himself up. "Look, ah... sorry. I wasn't trying to be disrespectful, promise." She had enough sense to take a few steps away from him, closer to one of the walls with more mold on it. She even allowed her hands to move up once more. "I just um... I'll shut up about it, yeah? Just last thing I'll say on it... I would definitely get someone else to try and use that before you get too far into um... development of it, yeah?"
She wasn't going to pop his bubble. Truth was if he didn't know then maybe she was wrong. Maybe he really had found a way to take the tiny, insignificant, fluttering light of fireflies and turn it into a beam. If it worked for someone else, then sure... If it didn't, though, and she was right...
Well, at least she wouldn't be there to say I told you so.
Josef had done the same, but his introduction to it was while he was half dead and the justifications came from his belief that he had brain damage. Telling people you heard voices, felt things, or saw weird shapes was akin to being locked away in the Palladol wilderness. He'd been poisoned many times and it all felt the same to him, confronting such was perhaps impossible for him without longstanding validation. Though laughing at his science which he spent almost a decade inventing and left his family to pursue was perhaps not the best course for a stranger. He shook his head, slightly disturbed but, began to loosen up as soon as she backed off and showed less amusement. "Don't know what you think you know..." sighing before nodding once "Apology accepted"
A lot of people thought he was mad for leaving his life of hunting for a strange dream of technology. His Grandfather was the only one who knew his passion. The anger bled out of him as he lifted his free right hand, palm facing toward her as he put his metal gloves glow to it. So that she could see the scars, his palm had once been impaled and scars littered the hand. "I'll keep it to myself until it's safe" dropping his hands he stretched out the fingers and even rolled his shoulder. Josef had been terribly hurt by his experiments and his arms were a tapestry of pain. Letting the entire thing drop, he shook his head again.
He wanted to share his work, but, he didn't want it to be stolen. He had heard so many horror stories about that. Developing a battery and power system that harnessed light itself was his dream, but trying to change it to electricity was a painful experience. "Now, back to a topic that I'm more comfortable sharing. You couldn't be that much younger than I am. Just too clean, what are you doin' down here?" trying to change the subject as soon as he could. Rather than letting them linger on his work.
Oh the places you'll go, with your eyes so wide With your heart in your hand, and your sword at your side Oh the mountains you'll move, oh the tears you'll cry
The man calmed down. At least he calmed down enough that Ashla was willing to put her hands down again. Less willing to step closer and instead she found herself near a mold-covered wall. The smell wasn't great, but having the fungi nearby was worth it.
He maybe didn't know how to channel, but she was more then capable of it.
Not that she was going to press her luck. Already she was eyeing the door, thinking her stop here was a bad idea. Next time she would follow the man's advice and head to Neon Alley. More people made it more dangerous, but she could at least hope to blend in a little more.
Blend in and maybe not accidentally mock a clearly temperamental man.
"Told you," she said once he brought her up reasons for being where she was again. "Was looking for some old friends. Few years back, we used to meet up here pretty regularly. After our last spot got torn down. I figured they may have moved on, but... well, like I said, it's been a bit. Thought maybe..."
Biting at her lower lip, she let her eyes wander the space again. There was no evidence they had used this space, and if there was any clue left to their new spot, the floods had probably destroyed it.
"Don't know what I thought, really," she stated after a moment of silence. Another shrug joined her words as she offered a sigh to the air.
Josef could have been mean, but he wasn't that type of person at heart. She clearly had her own worries, yet, he didn't like the mockery. He was temperamental, it was just a few things that could set him off and she had accidentally found his buttons. That was a feat unto itself as he could take a lot of criticism, just not upon the validity of his inventions. Perhaps it was a mistake moving to the city, no, that wasn't it, it felt right to come. "So you' sticking to that story, bad luck then. What has it been? months or years? if the former, maybe there's a letter hidden somewhere... if the latter, well, they may just have not thought you'd come knockin',"
Or they just didn't care for someone who abandoned them, clearly, she was in a better place than most Drenchers. It was how she held herself, the clean teeth, the ever permeating stench of the Drench not on her among other things. The fact that she closed the distance with a random scavenger. Hell, if he was a squatter she'd have had a stab wound already. "You were lonely and wanted to catch the fire of the past" Josef whispered to himself, knowing all too well what time did to people. Glancing over at her as he backed further into the water-taken building and began to take apart things with bulbs. The glow of his metallic claw became uniform again.
"You can leave if you want, if you need an ear, just don't mention my devices and I'll listen. Sometimes, that's all you need, a stranger to listen" He was someone with no affiliations, he was clearly not from around the Drench and was basically a single soul among tens of thousands, maybe more, she could never meet him again if she vanished into the night. So the offer stood as he continued his quiet work.
Oh the places you'll go, with your eyes so wide With your heart in your hand, and your sword at your side Oh the mountains you'll move, oh the tears you'll cry
As the stranger moved a bit deeper into the building, Ashla moved back to the wall she had been leaning against. It was just about the clearest bit of real estate she could find.
"Yeah... I don't think they expected me to come back," she admitted. She hadn't exactly been given a chance to say goodbye, and who knows what her parents would have told the kids. For all she knew, they thought she was dead. "They weren't the type to leave letters, though. Subtlety wasn't their thing."
The teen couldn't help but laugh gently at the notion. They were a small group, but sizeable enough to be noticeable and their antics had usually meant they seemed even larger. Finding out-of-the-way spots like this was the closest they had gotten to being inconspicuous.
"What about you? Where you from? Has to be somewhere better than this." As she spoke, she pulled out a small knife and began to carve some symbols into the wall. It wasn't much, but if the right people saw it, they would know she was alive at least.
Josef listened to her, it was deathly quiet otherwise and so her voice carried. Many people he knew went out into the wilds and never came back, some did and so many just didn't expect survival. It wasn't recommended to go hiking through wilderness alone and so it was like the last march of an old wolf. They did it because they knew their time had come. Licking his lips as his boots slid into deeper puddles of water while his hands crossed over rusty machinery, looking for anything protected by grease to have survived. "Look for graffiti and carvings then, not sure what your friends did. But sometimes people leave things unexpected as a reminder of better times"
Locating some more equipment, he began to pry open the tops to see if the insides were filled with water or if they were blessedly dry. Glancing back at the girl with a chuckle as she tried to pry into his history, he did say anything except his work. "I'm from the deep wilds of Palladol, near the borders territories where monsters roam. It was perhaps better, at least drier, but just as dangerous though with a lot less people. You've not lived until you've been chased by a pack of wolves as big as cars" he smiled, his voice sounding genuine in the adrenaline-filled highs of his memories.
He was a woodsman, a wilderness expert who cleared trails and located creatures. His family did it, he did it, but somewhere along the line, his interests diverged. "Still haven't said if you were a plater or not, 'cause you would be with your kin in the Drench otherwise. Any nice critters up there? or down here? Rumors say that there are Crocs about, I'd love to see one. Either keep one or eat it I guess" He half spoke out of curiosity, half rambling as he opened up the machinery. Finding the thing relatively intact as he pulled out gears and metal rods, anything that could be useful later.
Oh the places you'll go, with your eyes so wide With your heart in your hand, and your sword at your side Oh the mountains you'll move, oh the tears you'll cry
Ashla chuckled to herself at the idea of carvings or tags as she finished up her own and stepped back to inspect it. Only about a dozen people would have any idea what the weird symbols meant. It was the sort of symbols she had been looking around for since she entered the building and why she hadn't just ran off. No luck finding any, of course. Odds were any messages were below the water line, tucked into a corner before being wrecked by mold and more.
If any had been left to begin with.
"Have to say... drier? Definitely makes it better. Think I'll pass on the CARnivores, though." She scrunched up her nose at the thought before flipping her knife shut and moving to follow the stranger further into the building. She doubted there would be any messages beyond the first room, but she would hate herself if she didn't look. "Definitely nothing that big that I can think of. With fur at least. There's some toads to watch out for down here... nasty poison. And the mole centipedes during the wet season? Some of them are more like trains than cars."
She gave a soft whistle as she remembered the picture that used to get passed around of the biggest one ever found. Easily the size of several cars.
"And me, hmm? I'm... yeah, I live up there. Sometimes. It's more... recent. Undunli for the last few years, honestly, and before that..." He couldn't see her, she knew, but she still gestured at the area around. "This was my home. Not like... here, or anything, but the Drench."
"Dry is good, but each type of weather has its benefits" shaking his head as she tried to be punny with the fact that there are large creatures in the woods. Glancing back at her as she followed into the ankle-deep water and sparse bits of dry land in search of something left behind. "I'm told there are Crocs, I've heard of the Toads, sound fun and the mole centipedes are supposed to be good eatin'," Nodding as he waded deeper to get to panels and devices that were long abandoned. Wondering if she was going to actually go deeper or stick with the dry patches.
"Home is where the heart is. So all you need to do is feel where you belong and you'll know where home is" He commented as he reached down to grab his hatchet, wedging one of the sharpened ends to give him leverage in order to pop open a panel. Showing mechanisms that were used by whatever factory this place was. "Don't you have friends up there? someone, to hang around instead of coming down here looking for lost ones?" he asked as he thought about her being a native of the Drench, shaking his head again. "Ever hear of Bizu bugs?" Josef wondered aloud, as he would love to study them closer. As they were more electrical in nature and would help his research. "And what about hounds? never get chased by a snap hound or somethin'?"
Oh the places you'll go, with your eyes so wide With your heart in your hand, and your sword at your side Oh the mountains you'll move, oh the tears you'll cry
"Not sure there's a lot of benefits to Drench weather," the girl suggested as her fingers ran along a wall. She didn't seem bothered by the muck she was stepping through, though she did seem to be drawn towards the drier bits of earth without seeming to look. "Centipedes are good, though. Long as you don't run into a massive one on your own, usually. Big, so their exoskeleton is thick. The bigger ones usually take a few people to handle before dinner time. Crocs? Maybe. never saw one myself."
As she spoke, her eyes wandered, never staying in one spot for long. It was dark, so hard to see, but using the man's light as a beacon made it easy enough to not run into anything, though if she was honest, it was her connection to the Earth that really led her forward.
A passing smile slipped across her visage before disappearing. A few years back, home was definitely the Drench. Now, though, she had lived a whole different life and she had to admit... she liked it. Not every aspect, of course, but good food and warm beds, clean towels and comforting security? It was enough to know that she had moved on.
Moved on but still didn't belong in the upper class at the same time.
"Had a few... acquaintances in Undunli. Don't know if I'd call them friends. Friendly, maybe. The Plates, though? No, still new to me. Don't even know where I'd start." Stopping in a doorway, she let her hand run along the crumbling infrastructure. Scratches against her skin told her something was there, but it was old. Too old. "Bizu bugs, though? Yeah, they're pretty common around here. Just look for power and you'll probably see them. Up top with the hounds, though? No. I suspect I would need to do something pretty drastic to get the snap hounds sent after me."
