AFTER TRIAL

[whiterosefoes]

[Well then. After that horrifying end to the trial, Harriet is in kind of a panic mode, and with nothing really to work down from it. She imagines everyone else is the same way. Krone had previously seemed like the meeting-holding-adult type, but that was obviously shot to hell now. As the murdergame veteran, should she step up? Even though it hardly feels that way, when nothing had been like this.

Eventually, she can be found reluctantly pasting up a notice on the back of some sheet music.]

Meeting in the parlour.

[She thought about writing, "for information gathering", or maybe, "for story telling", since they need to make some actual progress, or since Akko liked stories. In the end, though, she doesn't want to discourage any particular types, so she just leaves it at that and brings her bowl of weird fruits for those who would rather try their luck with these than horror foods that possibly come out of killer muppets.]

Comments

[whiterosefoes]

[very slight wince about knights, but no, it's fine, she's sure they're fine knights and all. Getting to know everyone sounds marginally better though.]

Ah, I could definitely try. It's been a couple years since I've been home, though...

[notadinosnack]

I'm an explorer and travel a lot and I'm always interested in tales of people's adventures.

[whiterosefoes]

Adventures are overrated. I'm perfectly fine talking about my home... I'm from London, and I used to go to university there. Then in my free time, I mostly would duel. It's a card battle game that's popular worldwide, though I know that's not the case in most universes. The holograms at the tournaments were incredible, and I met a lot of my best mates there... they're what I missed the most. I never would have left it, before. I imagine we all have someone we miss, though.

[notadinosnack]

Yeah, I miss Ricotta. She's my... er, daughter. Not related by blood, I found her and adopted her since she had no one else.

I have to ask though, what's a hologram?

[whiterosefoes]

Oh, they're projections... images made with clever lighting, but they look real. It's a technology invented by a company called Industrial Illusions, who also created the card game... adaptation. [She has to correct herself since now she knows it was actually fuckin' magic.] I met their CEO, before. I think he's the descendant of another guy I met during the Wars of the Roses.

[notadinosnack]

[And about half of that went over Thanatos' head. Honestly just saying they were magical images would make more sense.]

Now I see why so many of you seemed to have trouble adjusting here. I come from a place more similar to this mansion, though less creepy. Can't even see how people could make images with light.

[whiterosefoes]

I'm not having too much trouble. Since I've been trapped in a time period like this for months before. It basically looks the same as magic, anyway.

[See, if he knows magic, she can adjust. Harriet couldn't tell at a glance if he's a ye olde or not.]

[notadinosnack]

[And he's definitely thinking Harriet is sounding more and more like Dana, but that's fine since he can understand that based on his experiences with the Eternian girl.]

Okay, magic I can get a bit more. Most people can't use it, but I've seen it a few times. Truly, I can understand weird phenomena far more than why a person would act so strangely as some here have.

[whiterosefoes]

[Harriet mulls that over, taking a sip of the coffee.]

If you're talking about Krone.... we ought to let that go. She had a point after all. We foolishly jumped at her for being uncooperative, but in the end... the injury check wasn't needed at all.

It just shows that rather than rushing to blame someone, we should really solve trials based on the evidence. We have to do better... we came really close to not avenging Akko, and that would have been all of our faults.

[notadinosnack]

That's why I suggested we get to know each other more as well. I can't help but think that if we knew her circumstances better that we could have come up with a better way to compromise.

[He takes a sip of his own coffee.] Just kind of reminds me of things back home. Similar situation of a bunch of people who are in one place not because they wanted to be. We all have a common goal of wanting to survive to get back to our homes. I'd like to think everyone here has that goal too and I'd like to hope that we won't have another trial.

[incendiarize]

You too, huh? [Hi, Arthur is here and has a little more life to him. Though he's still pretty shaky after everything that was that execution.] What kinds of places have you explored?

[notadinosnack]

I've been almost everywhere except the Atlas Continent. Definitely not crazy enough to go sailing near the Vortex of Canaan. My most recent expedition was meant to be going back to the Sahala Desert in Afroca, but we got shipwrecked on the Isle of Seiren. The Isle of Seiren is a cursed deserted island that no one has ever left before I woke up here. Mostly I'm interested in ancient ruins and the histories of lost cultures though as of late I've been forced to study more about species that should have been long extinct.

[incendiarize]

Wow.... That's a lot. I only started having real adventures pretty recently, the Library mostly had me on boring missions before. But the Yggdrasil Labyrinths are the most dangerous places in the world, and I've been all through one.

[notadinosnack]

Of course an old man like me has seen a lot. Someday you'll have plenty to share too. We just need to all get out of here alive.

So tell me about these labyrinths.

[incendiarize]

I only know the Etria Labyrinth well, I know a little about the others, but my team was the first time anyone from the Library went into the one in Etria.

Yggdrasil is a giant tree, bigger than anything. And there's seven of them, scattered across the whole world! Each of them has a huge Labyrinth full of monsters and mysteries. If they're all like Etria, then it's like.... Imagine like, thirty forests, stacked on top of eachother. But they're not all the same. Explorers like me go in to see what we can carry out, 'cause there's loads of treasure in there too!

Most explorers get killed on the first couple floors, and it only gets more dangerous. They were stuck with only the first eight floors, until we came along!

[Rambling about the Labyrinth, he can do. It brings his energy back, helps him move forward.]

[notadinosnack]

[Now giant trees is something that Thanatos can relate to having seen the Great Tree of Origins. Hopefully this Yggdrasil isn't quite as bad though.]

So what did you find on the other floors?

[incendiarize]

Uh...a lot. The first few were basically just a monster-ridden forest, run by a pack of wolves, but then there was a jungle. And one floor had a huge dragon guarding it's nest! We were the first guild in ages to get past that point!

The next part was barely a forest anymore, it was totally full of water and huge bugs! We met a detective down there, his name's Austin, and he's almost as good at blowing stuff up as I am! The next area was the total opposite, though - a desert. With trees that can turn people to stone. We.... We found another race of people living down there.

After that, there were ruins. The trees had grown all through everything, and what wasn't covered in plants kinda....crystallized. Frederica said it used to be a huge metropolis called Tokyo. [...moving right along.]

....and the last area was... It was bad.

[notadinosnack]

[Good thing there is no imaginary Japan in his world for him to react to that. But a lot of that sounds like some of the crazy stuff he'd run into on the island. Even down to the ruins of what used to be a great city and trees growing through things. He definitely will never forget the tree suddenly appearing at the Temple of the Great Tree.]

And all of that is inside a tree? Here I thought the Isle of Seiren was one of few weird places.

[incendiarize]

Under the tree, mostly. In the roots. Yggdrasil's been growing for a thousand years. And it's only one Yggdrasil, there are more!

[The area he didn't describe was definitely the least natural, but he can only assume it's the oldest..... Maybe? He doesn't know. He hasn't detailed half the things he's seen. Most of them are bad.]

What's the Isle of Seiren? Like, what's it like?

[notadinosnack]

It's a cursed, deserted island that has remained mostly untouched by people for a very long time. There's all sorts of terrain, from the beaches all of us washed up on to plains, hills, a mountain, caves and so on. No desert, but a large variation of terrain overall.

There's a forest that looks like coral. Over the mountain you have to climb down a massive tree to the northern area and there you can find some ruins of a now extinct civilization. The northern part of the sea also has a giant hole in it. There's also a cave with a massive fossil of an ancient Primordial and rich deposits of orichalcum. There is also a massive tree that is said to be the source of evolution. It's called the Great Tree of Origins.

The really interesting thing is that at the base of that tree we found a woman sleeping in the branches. She'd been there for centuries at least and woke up when we arrived.