Continuation.

[azumods]

PROLONGED STAY. Most, if not all, of you seem to have recovered from the difficult journey up to Snowpoint City; the time here hasn't been the easiest, between both the weather and Commander Jupiter's presence being made known at the start of the week, but thankfully things seem to have passed over easily enough. ...Well, for the msot part. Some of you have been helping the slugs; some of you have been...ah, "helping" the slugs. Either way, it seems as though the end of the week will approach without too much fanfare; you aren't going far - after all, you still haven't seen Lake Acuity - and the townspeople seem receptive to you staying another week. There's some very dull but mild fussing over you, if anything (are you warm enough, have you been getting enough to eat) and for most of the day everything seems to be fine. The calm breaks sometime late at night, well after sunset; a loud noise can be heard coming from the direction of the temple north of town, a deep, strained groaning followed by what can best be described as a dull roar, accompaned by a heavy crack not unlike the sound of a gunshot in terms of volume; going out to investigate just what happened will lead you to a small group of people doing the same - dully, almost too casually to be comfortable, walking up to the temple doors to find that the ice that had been binding the doors shut has cracked and broken. Notably, it seems to have broken from the inside. Whatever that means, you might not want to explore it in the middle of the night; it doesn't seem that there's any immediate danger, there's nothing threatening the townspeople that you can see, and there's no real tangible change happening to you. It'll likely be difficult to sleep tonight, but maybe some of you can work out what you're doing in the morning with regards to it, if anything... [OOC: Welcome to the end of Week 7! No investigation of the temple will be done tonight, but if a few of you would like to check it out once the new week hits, you're more than welcome to decide who's doing that - no action is required to be taken, it's entirely optional, and we would prefer that it be only a few of you as opposed to the entire group should people choose to go. No NPC response will be given to this post, though you can thread here amongst yourselves if you wish; we'll see you tomorrow at noon with a new log for your further adventures!]

Comments

[niceoppai]

What in the...

[Chelsea climbs up the side of a snow-covered tree to see over the crowd -- she's short, okay. She gulps and makes a face.]

That's kinda creepy. Wasn't no one able to melt that ice?

[takestheblame]

It seems more like something smashed the ice. It may not have been resistant to brute force.

[niceoppai]

Guess not. But that means whatever's in there is just that strong... I hope that doesn't mean we end up having to fight it.

[takestheblame]

We may have, if it's in the vicinity. If anything in the town is destroyed we may have to consider it.

[Because no way they'll stand aside and let anything bad happen, right?]

[niceoppai]

That's true. [She winces and climbs down the tree.] But even if we've been training all week for whatever's at that lake, we couldn't scratch the ice and it could. Pretty sure that's a bad sign.

[takestheblame]

It is. Just from that I fear we may be outclassed. I suppose we'll cross that bridge when we get there. Until then doing the nightly patrol could be a good idea -- just in case something unexpected happens.

[they weren't really doing them while resting in the towns, right?]

[niceoppai]

Might work. I'm kinda worried about Rin, she ran off from the group for days just to camp out and train.

[takestheblame]

She did what?

[He knew Rin was staying away from the rest of the group -- and he hadn't seen her in person for a while -- but he didn't think she had gone to camp all by herself! Out in the cold! That gets him alarmed immediately]

[niceoppai]

Yeah! I'll say one thing for her, that's dedication.

[takestheblame]

And recklessness.

[He's already thinking about going to search her, really. Just to know she's okay]

[niceoppai]

I tried to talk some sense into her, but you know... I guess she's at that age where teenagers think they know everything.

[takestheblame]

Tohsaka is fiercely independent. We're lucky she's easy to get along with -- if she was surly or unfriendly we would be in a lot more trouble.

[niceoppai]

Yeah, that's true enough. Some people are just like that, but it makes it hard to keep up with them.

[redbellion]

I tried to have my Houndour melt it, but nothing. Not even a scratch.

[ he sees the damage and...wow. ]

Whatever's in there doesn't seem happy.

[niceoppai]

No kidding. Usually, having any emotion would be a good thing, but this is kinda freaking me out.

[perfectselfie]

[Aya has been awfully quiet since the trip up to Snowpoint. She caught a nasty head cold on the way up there, and she just hasn't been her usual bubbly self. She's finally feeling a little better, but that noise has her sitting bolt upright and looking around.]

What was that? I - was that fireworks? Or did something blow up?

[enjoymyatelier]

I don't know, but I think we really ought to figure out how to bar the doors and set up a barricade.

[perfectselfie]

Right...we can at least start with a chair under the door handle just to be sure, right?

[enjoymyatelier]

I'm certain we can, but...

[...]

I wonder if we should turn them sideways. These chairs look more like little cushions on stilts.

[hyruglyphics]

No, it sounded much lower to the ground!

[ And fireworks.

... Why would you know that??? Ok Zelda. ]

[perfectselfie]

[Hey, fireworks are universal as far as Aya knows, there's no issue there.]

What in the world was it, I wonder...

[hyruglyphics]

An explosion...? Or the force of a great impact against something.

[ You know, she's going to get up to go out and actually makes to offer a hand to help Aya out but then recalls she was sick and should she really and uh-

Huh. ]

[perfectselfie]

No, I don’t want you to catch my cold, I’ll be okay to stand up.

[Aya is a little wobbly, but she manages to get herself standing.]

I hope it’s not an explosion...

[hyruglyphics]

Don't force yourself if you don't want to...?

[ But okay, point taken on the cold. She'll smile and pull her coat up about herself. Aya no doubt needs her own, right? ]

[bloodspent]

[Great, Jake's actually feeling less like death warmed over just in time for this shit.]

Oh, hey - whatever it is, it seems pissed off. That's always a good sign.

[He's not here for this? He's not here for this.]

[swiftasacoursingkawa]

Um...is it better than it not feeling anything?

[That's a hypothetical question. Please don't answer that.]

E-er...whatever it is...

[bloodspent]

That kinda depends on the "whatever it is" part.

[eudaimonikos]

[Upon seeing this, Michael gives a sharp whistle and goes off to question whatever wild ghost-types happen to respond to the sound.

When this fails to produce anything useful, he circles back to the group.]

Ominous as that was, we should probably go check it out at some point.

[anythingforyou]

Whatever's in there is liable to be quite strong...there's going to be safety in numbers, if we are to go in there.

[...hopefully it's not as bad as finding the Spiritomb. Like. We could do with less screeching of the damned.]

[eudaimonikos]

Be a good time to throw a Molotov or two in first.

[why is there no booze here]

[anythingforyou]

[...you know, she's kind of sad that she doesn't exactly know Molotov's are because god--]

Is that really such a good idea?

[eudaimonikos]

Oh, it's made of stone, it wouldn't burn the whole thing down.

[Not that they can do it anyway, but]

If nothing else, at least we'd have a new and different problem.

[semistableman]

[Bucky is used to human enemies, not... whatever the hell just made that noise. He freezes visibly, staring in the direction of the temple shifted on his feed like he might bolt at any moment.]

That sounded big.

[bloodspent]

It sounds big, it sounds mad, and it sounds like something I'm not getting paid enough to deal with. Great combination.

[...thanks, jake.]

[semistableman]

I don't know what's pissed it off, and I'm not exactly eager to find out.

[Because it's probably aware? Maybe?]

[bloodspent]

To say nothing of how, for all we know, it's God. Like, a way more...godly God than Azelf was.

[It might be pretty far up the god hierarchy? You get what he means.]

[semistableman]

Probably.

Place is definitely a house of worship; I sure as hell am not stepping foot in it until we know what's in there.