week zero: mingle

[cyclists]

Week Zero
32 in Competition

On Monday morning, the sun rises on the sleepy village, and when the first ray of light touches the gates at each corner of the village, the previously tightly sealed doors open.

The barriers around the village fall, and leave it entirely open. Each cardinal direction will have a path exiting the village, taking the curious explorers who follow it on an adventure to new territories to be explored. They’ll find that each location that they arrive in appears to be associated with one of the elements. As the Signs had explained the day before, each of the participants in the game possesses an elemental assignment, whether they are aware of it or not.

When they approach the elemental areas, they’ll find themselves more in tune with their new powerset, as if the location invites them to take them out for a spin. The new areas appear to be perfect for training and learning how to use the new skills, or maybe if you’re curious you can discover which of those listed powers you’ve been granted.

Just try not to hurt yourself while you’re out there.

In addition, it seems now that more pieces of the core are being revealed, the river that runs through the village will begin to be dotted with small lanterns floating on the water. Some of them seem to be holding small notes. Try as you might to grab one, they’ll always just barely float out of reach.

Perhaps try sending one yourself and see what results you might get?

Occasionally in the village, you might hear the sound of drums and flutes - is that festival music? - though no matter how you search, you can’t find the source… yet.



Welcome to your tutorial week mingle log! Please see all the links within the log to check out the new updates. In addition, your status page has been updated. In case you missed it, please report all item theft to this top-level where all comments are screened. Private conversations are also open and should be reported under the Week 0 top-level.

A mini-event will also be posted on Wednesday, June 5th, so please keep an eye out for that!

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[stillstands]

[ What a spoiled rich boy.

Welp. Time to climb then -- Miki manages to get a foot in one of the jutting bits of rock, and pulls herself up. Her hand finds another hold and she starts pulling herself up another few holds. ]

Halfway it is then. That sounds like it'll be a good point to stop, just in case it gets really steep all of a sudden.

[ Keep up. ]

[twinsightful]

[Not wrong! He's a spoiled rich boy who also has a stupid idea, and so he's scaling this volcano as much as possible. It's a little harder to keep up the speed when there aren't as many holds, but it's working just fine. You'd think the heat from the volcano would bother him, but no, and it also doesn't occur to him to question why it isn't bothering her.]

And if that's not tall enough, what then?

[stillstands]

Then we go higher, if we can.

[ There's a pause, as she stops and leans out a little to try and squint into the distance. They're still kinda low, but things do look a little different from here? Maybe she's just imagining it, but it feels that way. ]

Although I guess we don't know if this is active or not? [ She's. She's looking back at the rock now, suspiciously. No exploding? ]

[twinsightful]

[Oh. Shit.]

Why didn't you say that before we started climbing!? [Kaoru why didn't you think of it yourself? That apparently doesn't matter since he's going to climb up a little higher just to get past her. Is this a competition? It shouldn't be. The heat from the volcano is pretty obvious, but so far no explosion and no rumbling.]

[stillstands]

... You didn't even think about it either? I can feel any rumbling or instability, if that counts for anything.

[ Excuse??? You??? ]

You're still climbing though.

[ and. so is she, so they're both ridiculous apparently. ]

[twinsightful]

Most of the mountains I've been on have been covered in snow. And ski lodges. [Boo.] You're still climbing, too.

[Up the volcano they go. There are less footholds here, but it's fine. He stops a few feet ahead.] Maybe the paths are spread out too far.

[stillstands]

Those are the kind of mountains you just go down though, really. They have those things that tug you all the way to the top?

[ Look. ] Yeah, but I didn’t freak out at the thought of this being active. If it is we’ll just... leave. Quickly. [ Sorted. ]

... Does it look like this is as far as we can go? We might just have to straight up climb if we’re out of actual usable pathways.

[twinsightful]

[What if he ignores that and climbs a liiiittle higher. What if.]

The paths are getting narrower. We can go a few more meters but that's about it. [He's still going though.] There's a lot of ash up here, too.

[stillstands]

[ She Sees How It Is ]

That’d probably be enough to see the area though, right?

[ Hm. But neither of them are stopping. ] We might run into trouble with the stability of the ground if it’s like this the rest of the way up.

[twinsightful]

Then we'll turn around when we get that far. [But not before that! The ground is starting to crumble a little under their hands, ash and rock falling away under the pressure.] If we can't see anything this high, then we know there's nothing.

[stillstands]

[ i appreciate that they're going to tumble down in an ashy mess at some point, but she really wants to try and get a view of everything. any scrap of information. ]

Hold on.

[ She's squinting out into the distance, trying to pick out shapes or anything she recognises out there. Maybe?? She can see the ocean on the south side? Either that or she's convinced herself she can. ]

[twinsightful]

[Ashes to ashes, etc etc. He's busy turning toward the west.]

There's a lot of rocks out that way. It looks pretty dark. [So they're probably seeing two different things, but even that's hard to make out. A rock falls loose and rolls down the volcano.]

[stillstands]

Did we spend too long climbing?

[ HATH THE SUN SETTETH? Oh no. ]

Or is it just... dark in general over there? [ She's not sure she wants to go that way if it's basically dark and miserable the whole time. She shifts a little to one side, and her foot slips a little in the ashy stone. ]

[twinsightful]

Just over there. The sun's still out here. [He's crawling off to the left to get a better look, hand grappling the surface a little as he digs his fingers in for better support. It's still fine.] So that area must be something different. It doesn't look like rain or anything though.

[stillstands]

Is something making it shadowy? [ Look at these monkeys? clinging to the side of a volcano like this??

hold on, she's scrambling up a little further, kicking a stream of loose pebble and rock as she almost forcibly drags herself up to a jut of solid looking rock and manages to roll herself onto it with a little "oof". ]

... It looks... sheltered? I think? Not like a forest but like something's making the area more dense and covered. Maybe rocks?

[twinsightful]

[She's probably now a little higher up than he is, but he's fixated on the earth domain.]

Maybe rocks. I bet that's where earth magic can be used. It wouldn't make any sense for air, that doesn't look like a canyon. [His foot slips, leaving him to scramble a little for another foothold.] It doesn't look too far.

[stillstands]

[ Please don't look up she's in a skirt. ]

It'd make sense. I guess that means the mystery Air area-- [ "Air"ea. Haha. ] -- is round the other side of the volcano, then.

[ Mmmmm. Can they make it all the way around...? Maybe it's worth trying. ]

[twinsightful]

[Excuse, he is a Gentleman. But there's dust falling on his hand as Miki moves and his gaze is still focused on the dark rocks. Hm.]

If we crawl sideways, we probably won't have to go too far before we see what's over there. You go first. [Since she's above him and all.]

[stillstands]

[ She’ll drop a rock on his head if he doesn’t act like one. First kill, go. ]

Side shimmy all the way around?

...

I guess it is narrower up here than the base. Not as far to go. [ She cranes her head around to try and see where the next hand or foot hold might be, and then, after spotting a possibility, stands up and brushes some loose ash off of her skirt. ]

Alright. Let’s see how far we can get.

[ How can any of this go wrong? ]

[twinsightful]

[The ash rains down on his hair and he doesn't seem to notice. There's a nod, and he stretches to grab the next handhold below.] The peak is still solid enough we can move. Just watch where you're going.

[It's going to be bad, they're fine. He has to jump a little to reach his next landing but it's fine.]

[stillstands]

[ I'm glad the first death is going to be two idiots falling down a volcano because neither of them is willing to give up while the other is still going. ]

I'm being careful, don't worry.

[ She has to stretch a little to get the next handhold, and almost swing herself across to find somewhere for her foot. Which she misses, and there's some awkward scrabbling and she finds somewhere to wedge her foot in, and just. Keeps on going.

Like an idiot. ]

Oh-- [ She looks back, and then ahead again. ] I think we're starting to see more of the other side.

[twinsightful]

[It's just how things are now. He startles a little as she grapples, but he's clinging onto the volcano and shuffling his way around. The rocks are embedding into his palms at this rate, but this is still important.]

Any idea what's over there? It looks brighter, at least. [...] And sorta empty?

[stillstands]

It looks... yeah, empty? Compared to everything over in the south and west.

[ There's a little more shuffling. ]

Like canyons? There's variations of ground level over there.

[twinsightful]

[Squinting.]

Are those...tree tops? [Just how far up does that go? He's going to attempt to climb a bit higher to get on Miki's level and take a closer look.] That must be the air region then. It really is canyons.

[stillstands]

[ Welcome. They're on top of the world. ]

So it is a wind tunnel!

[ Exciting. ]

Wow, I wonder what it's like. Those are pretty big canyons; the air flow must be intense.