Plip plop, plip plop

[whomthebelltolls]

Who: Lady Maria of the Astral Clocktower (whomthebelltolls) and OPEN for the most part
When: June!
Where: All about, both within and without of the city
What: Catchall
Warnings: Blood and violence, probably. Self-inflicted injury because of what she is. Others will be ETA



[1: Gardening With Class - Open]

[All that being more or less infirm the last month has Maria a bit... stir-crazy, but the gardening classes have been a nice change of pace. And she does actually like flowers. So, here's a Maria, wandering through the streets, her arms filled with bags containing the seeds and flower pots they gave her to go home. Of note, there seems to be quite a few packets of sunflower seeds poking up around the edges. Feel free to run into her on the streets!

Or, if you're at her home, she can soon after arriving be found out there in the garden with all of those, some tools, and a pair of thicker, more utility-type gloves than the ones she wears with her swordsman outfit, a pair of older, dirtier trousers and shirt, and her hat sitting next to her as she digs out little trenches in the earth to make room to plant the seeds.]

[2: Class - Open]

[Maria would find it rather remiss of her if she missed the classes the Witches here so graciously have been providing to the new arrivals, and honestly... she has no idea how these things work, but she's been a pretty quick study. It's evocation practice today, and she seems to be pretty good at nailing targets with small fireballs. Very small. The kind that would probably just provide a minor irritant to any beast, and so, frustrated, she's turned to something else.

She has a knife in her hand - a small length of metal she borrowed from a kitchen or something, because she doesn't dare bring her Rakuyo to this place - and she keeps running her fingers along the edge of it. After a half-dozen tries, a bit of sweat, and what was probably a curse in a language no one around her understands, her fingers slide along the blade... and a few blueish flames flick to life, thin and almost see-through, but they're there.

Her eyes light up... and just like that her concentration is broken, and the flames disappear. Close, though.]

[3: Public Stables - Open]

[At some point near midmonth, Maria can be found at the stables in town, poking her head around. She seems to be inspecting the horses. Every so often, she'll ask the stablehands or farrier about prices for things, what they recommend, preferred breeders for these things. She's looking for a horse with a pedigree.

And as she walks about, she isn't paying too much attention, and might just walk into another character.] Ah, I'm sorry. Are you here to look for the horses, too? They have many interesting choices.

[4: Fetch - Open, especially to others on the quest]

[Several options, here, since there are a lot of things to bring back:

Tiger Lilies: Maria has this bad habit of "doesn't afraid of anything", and so walking right through the busily buzzing bees is on order. For anyone who is nervous about the buzzy friends, it seems they ignore her as she ignores them right up to the lilies, and gentle shoos a few away, before taking the flowers, inspecting the to make sure they're clear, and walking back out.] That was easy.

[Basil: Not be seen? Clearly, they're stealing, and that actually does give her pause.] ... We are not supposed to take anything from this field, are we?

[Crystal Sand: She finds the rainbow sand easily enough, but as soon as she goes to gather it up, the water stirs and splashes, and something jumps out, trying to bite at her. If the other character doesn't get involved, the fish is going to end up with a sword through its head, pinned to the ground, in short order.] He wasn't wrong about the fish, I see.

[And finally... fur. Hm. Just needs to be fur, right? That's easy enough. Until it's not. For this, she puts a call out on the network: I need a bag full of fur. Does anyone have any good ways to achieve a lot of it in short order? I will even accept it from Monsters.

[5: Walking Armor - Open, especially to anyone on the quest]

[The sun is high, the wind carries a faint breeze from the west. Maria stands, Rakuyo in one hand, across a stretch of beaten earth from the suit of armor, empty, moving a bit - floating in a way that indicates it's empty, but for the magics holding it together. It holds its sword up, and waves it a little, and Maria nods, bringing her sword in front of her.

There's a loud clang as the dagger-end of the Rakuyo is split from the longer sword end, and Maria holds both out to either side of herself, as she steps forward.

The armor steps forward, as well. Maria holds her arm out to one side, the blade of her sword facing the armor as it gets closer, and then runs a weird zig-zag right up to it, quick as a flash, her long legs giving her plenty of closing speed. There's another loud clank as her sword slams into and then off of the side of the armor, and the force is enough to stumble the armor. She's got this.

Until the armor swings a good, wide arc and knocks her backward, stumbling and then tumbling off her feet. When she regains them, she realizes that hurt an awful lot more than it used to, and maybe she should figure out something else. Into the fray, over and over again, taking glancing hits to the armor, but mostly not seeming to make much headway, while each one of its attacks against her rattles through her sword and up into her jaw, shaking her whole body, making her bones ache. Every direct hit is absolute agony. It's hard to tell if she's wearing this thing down, so maybe it's time to pull out some stops. She's not desperate here, but then, no one knows or cares what a "Vileblood" is, so it doesn't really matter if she uses her abilities, does it?

The next exchange ends with Maria nursing a gash against her side, cut deep through the thick leather. It's the perfect opportunity. She turns the long sword-blade of the Rakuyo toward herself... and drags the sharp edge right through that wound, deepening it, smearing blood all down the cutting side of the sword.

And she turns it back on the creature, noting with a frown that the thick, sharp blood crystals haven't lined the edge. The armor charges, she charges back, and she swings the sword only for the usual blood blade to not spray out from the tip of the sword, and so she totally whiffs the slice... only to catch the armor's arm to her wounded gut, and it lifts her and throws her backward.] Agh...

[Well... hm. Try again. Even though the cut burns, and the armor is bearing down on her, her next idea is simple: It charges, she's already low, she goes to her knees and shoves both blades of the Rakuyo up into the joints of its hips. It stumbles right into the ground, the legs "severed" and useless until it can get back up several moments later... then turn to her and bow in defeat.

And Maria leans against her sword, buried tip-down in the ground, because wow that cut smarts.] ... Go home... now.

[And it seems to listen... kind of. It'll probably challenge anyone else to a duel on its way out, though.]

[6: Wildcard - OTA!]

[For anything not covered in the above prompts, or for things we planned out afterward. Feel free to hit me up at reslari or Reslari#9561 at your leisure for plotting!]

Comments

i.

[digiorno]

[Giorno has . . . hung very thick curtains in his room. Very, very thick curtains. He has never hated the sun this much. The sun used to be his friend. Now it appears that they are on the outs for good.]

[He's not going to think about it.]

[It is 11 in the morning. He's been sleeping for several hours, now that he's finally given in to the fact that he does need to sleep during the day. So he's somewhat rumpled when he wakes to the sound of — what? A door closing, maybe? He can't remember, and perhaps it was in his dream in any case. Now that he's awake, though, he hears something else. Someone rustling around in the garden.]

[Paranoid of intruders now, he rolls over, puts on his sunglasses, and peers out from under his curtains. Oh, it's just Maria planting something in the garden.]

[. . .]

[Maria planting something in the garden?]

[With a sigh — put-upon, despairing — he rolls out of bed. A few minutes later, covered to the wrists and ankles and wearing a hat with a large floppy brim, he pads up beside Maria in the garden. Note: not behind. He's learned his lesson.]

What are you planting? [His voice is groggy with sleep, but genuinely interested.]

[whomthebelltolls]

[Yes, Maria planting something in the garden.

Honestly, with as pale as she is, she should probably have her hat on - or some kind of wide-brimmed sunhat of some kind, but no, sunburns for her! ... Which, admittedly, probably won't be as bad as his if he's out in the sun for too long.

It's quiet and meditative out here, just digging holes and planting seeds and seedlings in the plot. The garden itself was already pretty well-maintained before, so it took a little clearing out of some other flowers and plants for what she wants to put in, but... the work should be worth it.

She's aware of someone approaching, and pauses only after she's dug out a nice little trench. She sets the trowel to her side and looks over as she catches motion out of her peripheral.]

Sunflowers. They are as close to Lumenflowers as I have yet found here. [What, just a direct answer? More likely than you think!]

[digiorno]

Sunflowers?

[Part of him thinks he ought to be sulking. Or brooding, maybe. That he ought to be very glum about the irony of sunflowers in his yard when he and the sun are having a fight. But he's not that invested. He's too pleased about the prospect of flowers. He's missed them, has been going out of his way to find them, now that he can't grow them on a whim.]

[Sunflowers for adoration. It tugs the corner of his mouth of a bit, not quite a smile. He wonders what Maria adores, and sinks to his knees in the soil.]

Lumenflowers . . . Light flowers? Is it something like that?

[whomthebelltolls]

[And funnily enough, these are just replacements for the flowers she actually likes from home.

Though she'll probably add more to this little garden later on - she did get a pretty wide variety of seeds, the sunflowers were just a specific request.]

Yes. They're... particular to where I come from. They look very similar to sunflowers, but can grow to even larger sizes. And... they're more of a pale white color that glows very softly in the dark than yellow, but they smell just as sweet. [She likes the smell of flowers, too. They cover the stench of blood and death and beasthood.]

I was very fond of them, even in my college days.

[digiorno]

Oh. Lumen as in luminescent, too, then. That's interesting. I've never heard of flowers like that before.

[He lets his fingers sink into the soil in turn. It's cool against his own cooling skin. The sensation is very strange compared to how touching the earth usually feels, but he doesn't mind it.]

Glowing in the dark like you describe, they must have lit the way . . . anywhere, really. [He glances up at her, wincing slightly in the sunlight.] What did you study in college? Swordcraft and botany?

[whomthebelltolls]

If there were more of them, perhaps, but the gardens were always a treat to visit at night. [The whole of Yharnam could be considered a very visually striking city - even beautiful - even with the graves that popped up everywhere later on, but Maria had her favorite places. Besides, it was all better than the bleak, frozen grounds of Cainhurst.

His question earns a snort of amusement, though.]

No. Botany was a hobby, swordcraft was something I just learned through my whole life. We studied anthropology at Byrgenwerth... a bit of medicine and biology, and some astronomy, as well. And... things greater and more dangerous than humans can even fathom.

[digiorno]

Anthropology?

[That's . . . something else entirely. He squints up at her under the brim of his hat, pupils dilating in the too-bright light, and tries to figure out exactly what he's dealing with here. Part of him knows he doesn't have enough information to determine the answer to that question just yet, but at the same time, it seems as though every time he speaks to Maria it's like he's learning about a whole new side of her. It's unfair, in his opinion, for someone to have so many sides that they're hard to keep track of.]

[Maybe it's just the sun getting to him. He huffs out a sigh.]

You know, I've never been to college myself, but "things greater and more dangerous than humans can even fathom" isn't a focus of study I've ever heard of. What laws of nature have you broken, exactly?

[Kind of flippant, but at the same time, like . . . yeah he's done that once or twice. By accident, but still. He's genuinely curious. And also wants to know if she's bullshitting him, which is more than a little possible.]

[whomthebelltolls]

[And a few more horrifying ones beneath that, as well. Though she's not really in the business of talking much about those to anyone.]

Laws I have broken? Oh, that's a long story, and I doubt much of it would make sense. [Breaking laws of nature? Please, they're transient and... something something, she's from a weird world that's half trapped in a dream anyway. How in the world would he even react to knowing she could make giant, crystallized blades out of her own blood, then fling the blood out of those blades in a longer blade... and then light that on fire. Not likely, she'll make herself sound more normal.] And I will admit, it wasn't a very traditional college. Not many put a major part of their curriculum in old tombs, that I know of.

2

[beariot]

[ Ursula, despite being green as grass in this new world, was finding herself taking to the magic more quickly than others. She probably had a lot of factors to thank for that, she figured, and definitely made certain to keep her own satisfaction with that in check. As much as she'd be happy to get back to her former proficiency as quickly as possible, she knew it was frustrating for others to struggle like they were.

Which meant she'd probably have to put on her professor persona a bit more than she'd thought, wearing a friendly smile as she saw Maria's experimentation, giving a nod. ]

That was pretty cool! And I could tell it took a lot of focus. Is this sort of application something you're familiar with, or were you trying something new?

[whomthebelltolls]

[Maria's just about to start in again - even though she can feel how much the little bit of flame wore on her, when the speech interrupts her, and she blinks herself out of it. Okay, fair enough, maybe she should take a brief break.] It is something I am familiar with, back home.

Though, there, most Hunters- people I knew would do it more like... enchanting. Or something with fire paper, rubbed on the blade, alighting just the blade itself. But there is something else I wish to do, and I wonder if Evocation could be good for it.

[beariot]

[ Hunters? Something she was familiar with back home, huh... ]

So you're also trying to get back to where you were, huh? Find something familiar in a foreign place's magic. At least... that's the impression I'm getting. Feel free to correct me if I'm assuming wrong here!

Either way... maybe I can help?

[whomthebelltolls]

In a matter of speaking, though what this is and how I used to evoke flame are very, very different. I did not really consider it magic before. [Just wait until she learns about blood infusion to make spells stronger. Then she'll really have a good time.]

Are you familiar with this world's magic, then?

[beariot]

I'm certainly trying to be. It's actually been fairly easy for me to pick up... while it's not the same, exactly, as it was in my world, some basic principals remain the same, just sometimes with different semantics.

[whomthebelltolls]

I see. That makes me starting at a disadvantage, but the concepts are not particularly difficult to pick up. Refining them, however... [She turns the flat of the knife until she can see her reflection in it, expression a little pinched.] That is where the real challenge lies. As in many things, but it's particularly difficult when it's a concept that is alien to you to begin with.

[beariot]

Well, like with anything, enough hard work and you'll eventually get somewhere. At least that's what I believe. Any disadvantage can be overcome with work, confidence, and a believing heart.

[ She realized she must sound pretty silly, talking like that, giving an embarrassed laugh ]

A-at least that's what I tell my students, all the time...

[whomthebelltolls]

[She was onboard until that kind of got sappy. Hm. Optimism. Now, Maria wonders, where that went from her life.]

Not a bad thing to tell students, especially when they struggle. [Master Willem and the others at her former school weren't so gentle as to say it that way, but they were encouraging in their own way. ]

You are a teacher then? Or, I suppose, were, before this place.

[beariot]

[ Ursula nodded. ]

I'm a professor of astrology at Luna Nova Academy for Witches. Which you'd think would make all of this more familiar to me, but I still feel very out of time and place, despite all of that,

Tiger Lilies

[sing_for_me]

[ While it may by silent around Maria, save for the buzzing of her little friends, that is not the case not too far from her. Rather, the noise seems to be coming towards her, becoming more and more obviously a screech. ]

OHGODHOGODOHGODOHGOD!!

[ Alex was not so lucky in keeping the peace between her and the bees. She may have accidentally hit one of them while pulling out a tiger lily, and its companions weren't going to take that.

She catches sight of someone else ahead of her, and immediately starts waving her hands. ]

RUN!

[whomthebelltolls]

[It might also help that Maria is more or less covered from neck to toe, with only her face really exposed to potential stings, but really, she's all ready to get this show on the road... when something makes its approach very, very well known.

At first she tenses up, and reaches slowly for her sword, but it's not very long afterward she figures out exactly what's going on, and she hesitates. ... Are they coming this way?

... How did this person rile up those bees so badly? All you have to do is ignore them and they'll ignore you.

Oh well, Maria takes a step back, looking about as she tries to figure a good way to escape that doesn't involve trampling flowers and/or agitating more bees. Unfortunately, it seems like the best option is to... run right along the same way as this person. Maria's tall and has long legs, so covering ground is pretty easy for her, but this is still...]

How did you- manage to do this!? [In Maria's humble opinion, that takes talent.]

[sing_for_me]

It was an accident! I'm sorry!

[ She didn't mean to drag someone else into this. ]

I think I accidentally hit one of them--and they all got really mad!

[ That sense of community was almost enviable. ]

I don't know how to out run them or get rid of them!

[ And she could only run for so long. ]

[whomthebelltolls]

Ah- the key is to leave them alone! [She reaches up to grab her hat as it flutters in the breeze, pull it back taught against her head.]

They should give up soon - [Should. Theoretically. Possibly. Maybe. ... No promises.]

If not, water usually staves them off... [And if worse comes to worse, they're not after Maria, and she can probably run for a good long while.]

[sing_for_me]

I tried! I'm sorry!

[ She wouldn't do this on purpose! But really, she couldn't say much to defend herself at this moment.

But look, what's that up ahead? Is that a pond? ]

Will that work?!

[ They were headed for it anyway. ]

[whomthebelltolls]

[Things Maria is not looking forward to: Diving into a pond in this heavy leather coat. Things she's done on a night of the Hunt: Worse, but this is still not ideal.]

I hope you know how to swim. [That is a 'yes'. Is this pond even going to be deep enough to go out from under her feet, Maria wonders? No matter, if they can get to the other side, the bees should leave well enough alone.]

[sing_for_me]

[ She doesn't. But maybe she shouldn't say that with all the problems she's already caused. Alex just hopes it's not that deep.

Once they're close enough, she takes a deep breath and jumps in--Which is when she remembers he has gills which do flare out once she's in the water, allowing her to breath underneath it. ]

[whomthebelltolls]

[Luckily, Maria's more worried about just getting not into the water, but to the other side, more likely. There's two, well, three, things she saves - her sword, yanked from her belt and held above her head as her feet splash into the water, the flowers, which she clutches in her hand against the side of the sword's sheath, and her hat, as she tries to find a decently short path around the edge and not just dunk herself into the pond up to her chest, and mostly fails due to a rather sharp and sudden dropoff only a handful of feet from the edge.

She has no such gills, unfortunately, which means splashing over to the other side it is, even as she can feel the water filling in her boots and soaking into the coat and oh this is getting heavy quickly. With some luck, though, she'll be able to get out of the way. It's not her the bees are after, so roundabout to the other side she starts going.]

Nn... [Oh this is so much worse than she thought it was going to be. It's after a moment of taking the shortest path toward the edge she pauses and realizes... she lost her companion at some point.

So much for being able to swim.]

Ah... [... Does she have to try to swim rescue here?]