you opened your eyes, spreading it wide

[promittere]

THIRD QUARTER ALLEGRO

While our newly-arrived wizards have been settling in, learning their magic, and getting to know one another, the sage and their mentor have been busy with a different kind of work behind the scenes—bureaucratic work. It hasn't been particularly exciting, but it has paid off.

Because now, the world is ready to receive them.

Put on your finest clothes, because Granvelle Castle invites you to a welcome ball in your honor.

Didn't bring any fine clothes with you? No need to worry—specially chosen tailors from Central Capital have been commissioned to take care of you, and they will be visiting the manor to get you gussied up in the fashion of your choice for the day (by this, we mean feel free to pick whatever fancy clothes you want for the ball).

As the sun sets on the designated day, all the residents of the manor make their way to the castle. Granvelle Castle stands proud in Central Capital, its lights a beacon in the darkening city, and its doors open to outsiders for the first time in weeks. Upon arrival they're greeted by brightly lit halls, welcoming staff, and a grand ballroom, windows flung open to let in the spring breeze and pale moonlight. Everyone and everything seems determined to make this a cheerful affair, despite the underlying sense of dread and tension.

Live music fills the air, played the greatest musicians in the world. There are some larger ensembles, solo acts; some pieces are of more traditional folk dances, while some are slower, and some are upbeat and avant-garde. Regardless, the floor is open for dancing—grab a buddy and dance the night away!

Lining one wall is a long banquet table, filled with plenty of food and drink, both alcoholic and non to sate the new arrivals. The hors d'oeuvres and small plates comprise an array of delicacies from around the world, with everything from savory lobster bites to the sweetest portions of tres leches you have ever tasted. It seems someone has also put in a specific request for Japanese food—a part of the banquet table has been set aside specifically for Japanese dishes, and this includes small portions of ramen. There also seems to be a plate on the far end of the table filled with lovingly stacked pieces of charcoal... Is that meant to be food?

You aren't the only ones in attendance tonight. Representatives and dignitaries from around the world are also present—they have quite a lot to say about the unusual situation, and they are most curious about these otherworldly individuals tasked with fending off the moon under their national banners. The most dignitaries are from Central, West, and East, while there do seem to be a few representatives from the less populated North and South. Those from Central, West, and South in general seem to be the most social, while the rest are more reserved. There are also a few of the castle staff that seem (begrudgingly) willing to speak with the new wizards. Most are here to chat and mingle—lend them an ear, you may learn something new...

For those tired of socializing, the ballroom opens out onto a breezy, spacious balcony. It looks out over the main thoroughfare leading to the main castle entrance, and the nighttime lights of the Central capital twinkle in the near distance. For those that would rather take a breather, there is a small patio table and a couple of chairs. Despite the waxing moon in the sky, it is a very nice evening.

If you would like to have a chat with an NPC, then please respond to this comment. NPCs will be assigned randomly if no preference is given. While everyone has something valuable to say, they're not giving potentially sensitive info out for free—let's hope your diplomatic skills are up to snuff. We're doing our best to give everyone meaningful conversations, so please bear with us!

JOB BOARD

Rejuvenation. Thanks to your Southern friends' hard work, the South has been saved from a potentially devastating crop failure, and these fledgling towns can continue to grow as they're meant to! Give them a pat on the back and a round of applause.

But the South is not without its scars. While the root cause has been taken care of, the damage has been done. A town's wheat field has been partially destroyed—help them tear out the blackened, dead wheat, till and fertilize the soil, and replant what can be replanted. The City of Clouds, the most prosperous of the Southern settlements, have also offered extra tools, hands, and seeds to help set the town back on the path to recovery. Transport these supplies to the town. Let's hope your broom skills are up to snuff too, because it's a long ride.

Shadows in the night. The residents of the Central capital have recently been reporting eerie sightings after sundown: shadowy figures lurking in corners, the constant feeling of being watched, and, in some extreme cases, these shadowy figures attacking when traveling alone at night. Many reports seem to indicate an odd concentration of these creepy figures lurking around the Granvelle Castle moat, as though trying to find a way into the castle. Residents are understandably frightened and unnerved and cannot go about their nightly business—beat back what shadows you find and make the streets safer for the Central capital residents.

While physical attacks don't seem to do much against them, they dissipate rather easily under magic. Try not to wear yourself to the bone, though—there are a lot of them.

Escorting nobility. The Eastern Blanchett noble family have called an important meeting, inviting nobles and others of import from across the Eastern Country. However, their castle lies beyond Sherwood Forest, a very large, dense, and deep wood—while a fine natural defense for the Blanchett family, it's a bit of trouble for those looking to visit. While the Blanchett's own forest guard is absent, it is your job to safely escort these nobles to the Blanchett abode, and back out. But be careful: lurking in the shadows amongst the trees are all sorts of territorial predators like bears and wolves, not to mention the magical beasts that sneak up on unsuspecting prey. You may come across a brigand or bandit or two, since the forest is a near perfect hiding place for illegal activity. And please—try not to get lost.

Typical of any Easterner, the nobles are reluctant to make much small talk and are a bit suspicious of the new wizards, but they are otherwise pleasant and will generally comply with most requests.

WANDERER TASKS

Can you go a week without ruining food or the pots and pans? Stop being so wasteful and learn how to cook or stop trying.

Learn how to use magic to repair things. Again, if you're going to keep ruining the kitchen at least learn how to put it back together.

TATARA ACTIVITIES

I need milk. I'm trying to perfect latte foam art, but I haven't really gotten the hang of it yet... I used up all the milk (oops, sorry!), so I need more. Actually, could you grab me other kinds of milk while you're at it? I want to experiment! I'm sure other markets in the farther reaches of the world will have weirder milk... Please!

We should start a veggie garden! Or an herb garden? Doesn't matter! I found a nice sunny patch of grass in the training forest—we could dig up that spot, right? Help me get it set up! I need people to dig, and till... Oh! We need seeds to plant, too! Please and thank you~

OOC NOTES

🌙 Welcome to your second event post! Get out your snazzy outfits. It's time to party.
🌙 As you grow into your magic, your character might start realizing they can differentiate between everyone's magic. Everyone has a unique signature, and you may be able to start sensing who cast what, where. Someone put a magical seal on the kitchen door? Smells like Shinjiro's magic. Akira had some of Solomon's sugar? You can sense that, too!
🌙 As you start getting past the basics, your character might realize they have a much easier time with certain kinds of magic over others. For North, this will be offensive and attack spells; for East, this will be intricate seals and curses; for West, this will be manipulative magic like illusions and transformation; for South, this will be healing, purification, and protection. Central? A little bit of everything. Read up on your country if you need a refresher!
🌙 It's been peaceful at home in the manor thus far, hasn't it? Do you think that will last?
🌙 Your OOC plotting post is here! Remember to keep all wider plotting contained to the OOC post, since not everyone checks plurk or discord frequently.
🌙 Our next group to go on their mission is Central. Be ready, heroes...

» NAVIGATION

Comments

Rejuvenation!

[serenesinker]

[Yodarha immediately bolts over to the wilting wheat. Thank goodness he was just coming into town to help with the replanting efforts!]

We sure did! So why is this wheat in particular reactin' so weird to your magic?

[He plops down and studies the wheat closely, pulling his focus into existence and slowly waving it over the plants like it's some sort of geiger counter.]

[fallingsand]

[ Luckily, this experiment is contained and, double luckily, not near the town itself. Bruno didn't want to cause a panic. Triple luckily, there is no sense of dread coming from the plants, so, no corruption. Yay? ]

Er, well, I took some dust off of that rock and enchanted it to help the plants grow? I thought that, well. Maybe that it would do something.

[ A pause, Bruno rethinks that statement. ]

Okay, it did do something, j-just not what I was hoping for.

[serenesinker]

Wait... You used some of that moon rock here?

[Yodarha frowns a bit.]

At least I don't sense any overwhelming darkness comin' out of this. But that was still a dangerous idea, Bruno! What if the rot started happening again?

[fallingsand]

[ Bruno cringes a bit at the very thought of that happening but... ]

That's what the boxes are for, though! S-see?

[ He drops into a crouch next to the ruined one with the wilted plant life, giving the side of the wooden box he's built a knock. ]

It goes around to the very bottom, too, so none of this soil touches the actual ground!

[serenesinker]

I see... Still, be extremely careful with that stuff. We don't know all of its properties yet.

[Yodarha also knocks the wooden box.]

Like if it can only permeate through soil, or if it can make its way through other natural materials like wood as well.

[fallingsand]

I... er. I didn't think of. That.

[ Oh, now Bruno's giving the box of withered plants a nervous look. ]

Sh-should we move the box? If the ground under it is fine, then it's. It's probably alright? Maybe? Just a little?

[serenesinker]

[Yodarha shrugs!]

...Probably! Here, let me help ya get it out of the way.

[He starts lifting the box, hoping that nothing underneath is amiss.]

[fallingsand]

[ Bruno moves to help, prying the edge up alongside Yodarha to peek under. What they find is... green grass, flattened only by the weight of the boxed-up dirt itself, and nothing more than that. ]

Oh, well, that's a relief.

[serenesinker]

You said it!

[Yodarha sighs in relief.]

Now, I'd put a halt on this kind of experimentin' until we get more info from the sages. Just in case, yeah?

[fallingsand]

I... guess, yeah. That's a better plan.

[ It doesn't stop Bruno from sounding put out about the whole thing, though. ]

I thought I could do something useful but all I've done is kill some plants.

[serenesinker]

You did do somethin' useful. You found out that it's probably a bad idea to use that stuff in plant growth! Success can only be obtained after rigorous failure after all. [Can you tell that Yodarha used to be a teacher?] Anywho, what other little experiments have you been doing here? I see several planters set up.

[fallingsand]

Are you sure that's how success works?

[ Bruno wouldn't know, he's always a failuuure. His gaze does flit over to the other planters, though. ]

Oh, those? Those are, um. Y'know, normal, so I could compare it against the rocks. The soil here is so bad for plants, even growing them magically doesn't do much. It definitely needs something else.

[serenesinker]

I see... Good to have a baseline to compare to just in case.

[Yodarha kneels down in front of the poorly growing plants, gently caressing some of them with his fingertips.]

Y'know, when we started learnin' all of this magic stuff, it was brought up time and time again the importance of spirits. Maybe the problem with this place is that there aren't enough of 'em hanging around?

[fallingsand]

But we saw 'em after we fixed that rock, remember? Or, well, some of them. I don't know if they're tied to the land or to the people who settle in these places, so, it could be... well, anything, really.

[ He looks down at the ground and scuffs it with a sandal. ]

But sometimes places just aren't great for crops, spirits or no spirits.

[serenesinker]

[Yodarha sighs.]

You're probably right. Some places just can't grow complex plants well...

[Then an idea slams into his consciousness like a lightning bolt hitting a steel rod.]

...but what if we bring other places here? We can make large planters using soil from other places in the world and bring 'em over!

[fallingsand]

If it were only a few planters here and there, sure, but I'm trying to think of a way to help entire fields at a time. If that one wheat field going bad would have starved the place...

[serenesinker]

No, no, you're thinkin' way too small here!

[Yodarha holds his hands out as far apart as he can for emphasis. It's not a lot, but, y'know.]

I've seen some of us shrink stuff, right? What if we take planters and blow 'em up all huge like after putting nutrient dense soil in them?

[fallingsand]

[ Bruno thinks about it, quiet for a moment, but in the end? ]

Mm, I still think that might be, I dunno, too complicated? We'd even have to get other countries to agree to let us get all that dirt.

[ Bruno running away from politics, bye. ]

Could be we just work off of how a normal person improves soil. That's, um. Well. You know what fertilizer is usually made of, yeah?

[serenesinker]

Yeah... I think my head's a bit too high in the clouds.

[Our resident potato isn't much of a politics guy either.]

I've done a bit of farmin' before. Usually to make fertilizer you want to gather and compost waste, be that food scraps or... other stuff. [He's trying not to say the word "poop" out loud.] Since we have access to magic, maybe we could gather up waste from the academy and speed up the compostin' process?

[fallingsand]

Only if the clouds are really low, right? Ha... uh...

[ Okay, that was a terrible joke. He clears his throat. ]

Or. Y'know, never mind, but, um, y-yeah. I mean, folks here will have stuff to compost, too, right? And they got sheep around here and there. [ He's absolutely thinking of poop, too, it's fine. ] Maybe we make that all magicky instead of the moon rocks?

[serenesinker]

Where I'm from, sometimes the clouds are below us, hyuk-hyuk!

[That being said, the joke did raise his spirits quite a bit.]

It's worth a shot, I think! Regardless of the outcome, havin' a stock of fertilizer on hand will do wonders whether it's here or back at the academy.

[fallingsand]

Below you?

[ That earns a curious look alongside the relief that Yodarha took the joke as it was. Phew. ]

Er, though... let's get this all cleaned up before we do anything else. [ He adds looking at the box of dead plants. ] Maybe into a bag, then we can move the set up closer to the town.

[serenesinker]

Works for me! Let's gather this stuff up then~!

[Yodarha casually hops over toward Bruno's supplies and grabs a bag.]

And yeah, below! Where I'm from, we live on islands in the sky. So sometimes the clouds can end up scrapin' under them!

[fallingsand]

On islands in the...? Really?! Wow. Then flying around like we've been doing must not feel that weird, huh?

[ Bruno trails along after Yodarha, snagging a shovel from the same supplies, and then back to the plant boxes. ]

[serenesinker]

[Yodarha holds the bag open as wide as possible for Bruno to scoop the dead plants in as easy as possible.]

I never really thought about it that way, but I s'pose that would make sense yeah! It came pretty naturally to me. Is it weird for you?