Hunting for the King

[thequestgiver]

Characters: All who are searching for the King!
Open? Yep
Where: Starting at the castle
When: RD 10
What: The heroes go hunting for the King.


The castle staff, as unhelpful as always, had no idea where the King had gone to. Some had guesses, of course, he went off to track down Prince Charming and drag him back home, he went out visiting the Giant Kingdom, he went across the sea, he went to see the state of the Old Capital, no, they hadn't actually seen him leave... they just knew that he had. This just happened every now and then, you see, one of the older maids explained. The King, being the King, just sometimes was elsewhere. Just wait a little while and he'd be back soon enough.

But that was hardly helpful now, now was it?

Comments

[sorcerous]

"It is time for spellwork," he tells his companion(s), focusing primarily on Cho. "We must follow the King wherever he has gone, be it another world, or to the land of the dead itself. And we must retrieve him, come what may. He is the only hope this realm has."

He is completely serious.

[shiromadoushi]

Bakura nodded, fidgeting a little with his staff. He wasn't quite sure if the robes would help, but the gem in the staff he knew had some power to it... and anything that would help..!

[tenuefarfalla]

Cho isn't late today. She's early, actually, up with the sun and with provisions packed and loaded onto Charlie, food and basic necessities, and her sword and quiver and bow all strapped in their proper places. Time is weird, arrivals are displaced - she doesn't really care how or why they lost her horse for a day, just that he actually turned up. The chances of finding another one here so immune to the unsettling presence of a magik on their back aren't good. Plus, she'd have started to miss the big baby.

She sits comfortably in the saddle, arms folded and resting on the animal's neck, chin resting on her arms, and she looks at their group. At first glance, not the most formidable bunch, but looks can be and often are deceiving. Hopefully that will hold true here. "I can't track a person I've never met," she tells Loki, the hint of apology in her voice. "Not with Sorcery." She doesn't feel too bad about it, though. She has other strengths. "But we can try and follow the magic. Temporal casting leaves tears, no matter how skilled you are."

[shadow_sage]

Liara was up, too, for similar reasons, though she was a bit more out of the loop. She walked with a clear sense of purpose towards the castle, unarmed but armored. Her head, uncovered, made her certain to stand out in the city even if the white armor didn't, but that didn't seem to bother her in the least. As she came up on the group, she looked over, curiosity enough to slow her step. Still, she seemed ready to keep walking until a little light of recognition flickered over her face.

Stepping towards the group, she looked at the woman next to the horse. "Um. Excuse me, but you're...Cho, right?" They'd spoken, yesterday, and Liara wasn't willing to ignore a potentially important source of information outright. Years of habit made her take a moment to make a proper introduction.

Okay, let's get this party started.

[sorcerous]

"We don't know if the Hero was the one directly responsible for the King's disappearance." He sighs, aggravated. "I suppose, then, that we'll have to use my expertise, and your magic."

Loki turns, at the woman's voice, prepared to tell her off. Now is not the time for introductions; they are on a mission; she must not interrupt. But he sees her blue skin and his tongue stutters, falters. It is but a moment to realize that she is no Jotunn -- she does not resemble him, it is only the color -- and he gathers his words again.

"We have pressing business, as regards the King," says Loki. "There is no time to for niceties."

[tenuefarfalla]

Cho rolls her eyes, just a little and with her face turned so that Loki can't see her. "Oh Captain, my Captain... you're being rude." Because he is. And while he may be a prince, if he is indeed that Loki (and she's pretty sure he is), these are not his people and they're working together by choice, not out of requirement.

So she leans off the side of the saddle, hanging there with one hand on the pommel to keep herself from falling, and puts her own face a little closer to Liara's. "I'm Cho, yes. Nice to meet you face to face. I never did get your name." She'd been far too caught up in the magic to remember those niceties Loki was currently putting down. Cho can understand that. "This is Charlie," she says, running her fingers through the horse's dark mane.

May as well be late ICly AND OOCly ;A; sorry guys

[thefunsister]

Rose arrived on the scene just a few minutes later than the others, having traded her heavy broadsword for a lighter short sword and a few knives. She didn't imagine she would need such a large thing for a simple search and rescue, even if they ran into trouble on the way. She ran the last few feet to catch up with them.

"What did I miss?"

Fast forwarding! Feel free to continue socializing above!

[thequestgiver]

Spell after spell gave the same result. Searching for the King showed a trail back to his throne, and nowhere else, as if he had been eaten by it.

It wasn't until someone had the idea to try having the spell search for The Avatar of Order that a reaction was gotten. A strong flare of magic, thousands of trails snaking through the rooms, out the castle doors, converging together to a solid mass, heading outside the castle walls.....

[tenuefarfalla]

Cho gives Loki a look, teasing set aside now that there's something reliable to follow. He's a jerk, but he's a jerk who's at least faking a plan, and that's better than nothing. "Any idea what that means? I thought the king was the Avatar of Order." Still, it's a direction other than 'back to the throne room' for them to head in, so she does.

[sorcerous]

"So did I." His idea, to name the Avatar of Order. A new hypothesis has taken over -- perhaps Order has evolved into a different form to fight the time-turning.

He follows the paths quickly, outside of the palace. "But we're about to find out."

[shiromadoushi]

"Maybe there's another one?" Bakura suggested. "A back up, of some sort? Or maybe it is still him, and being king is only who he is when he's in this room?"

[shadow_sage]

Liara, mostly silent due to her discomfort with the concept of magic, struggled to follow what had been occurring, but she hadn't given up out of exasperation, either.

"If the king was some form of manifestation," she said, slowly, choosing her words carefully. "Perhaps some power was simply taking the form of a man to work towards a purpose which that form no longer serves. Though if a king's form is not enough to control events in his kingdom, what else could be?"

[thefunsister]

"A figurehead?" Rose suggested. This king wouldn't be the first to take the throne just to look pretty and make people happy.

"Figureheads have their own advantages, even if they don't actually do anything."

The Monastary

[shadow_sage]

Despite her reservations about the whole thing, the trail wasn't nearly as hard to follow as she'd thought, not after Loki had shown her what she was actually looking for. Whatever else could be said about him, he wasn't stupid. As they drew near to the monastery, the blue glow returned, surrounding her.

"Have you met anyone who lives here before? Will they be waiting for us, do you think?"

[shiromadoushi]

Bakura blinked, looking over. "I've been here a few times. Mostly it's just monks and the other white mage, I think. And few children are around sometimes."

[thefunsister]

Rose listened with some curiosity. She actually assumed the question wasn't directed at her, since she had only been here a little more than a day. She hadn't been anywhere before. But this was a neat way to find her way around.

[shadow_sage]

"Mmmm." She took a slow breath. "I say we try the front door, then. If anything is wrong, we'll be more likely to notice it quickly."


[OOC: I can timeskip around a bit here if you all would like to. We can figure out how much to jump past if you want to. Just saying.]

[shiromadoushi]

Bakura nodded, heading for the gate and pushing it open.

Inside the courtyard seemed same as always, a few monks working out of doors, one or two moving between the buildings. A chicken fluttered by, being chased by a small boy.

"... doesn't look like anything's wrong..."



[[OoC: What did you guys want to find out? And would it be easier to do this in OoC mode?]]

[thefunsister]

Rose followed, keeping an eye on their backs. They didn't need three sets of eyes looking in the same direction, and who could know how they might be received? The others were fighting some hero, it wasn't too much of a stretch to think there might be danger here as well.

[ooc| I still have no clue what we're supposed to find or where, so a little guidance wouldn't go awry... ]

Following the Fainter Trail - Choki

[tenuefarfalla]

After helping Bakura down, Cho urges Charlie into step behind Loki and his horse, and it isn't difficult to convince him to follow the pretty little mare. She waits until they are out of earshot of the others to speak. "Does any of this seem... odd?" Something she can't quite place her finger on. Someone would have noticed the King going to and from the monastery so often, surely. She doesn't think they're looking for the King any more. "What have you learned about Order and Chaos here? Does it have anything to do with the thorns we're here to defeat?" And she still isn't sure how they're meant to do that. One thing at a time.

[sorcerous]

Odd indeed. No, he's fairly sure that the King isn't at all where they're going. But what is here has thus far offered him little real danger; they act as though they are characters in a storybook, not true beings.

"Perhaps I was wrong." He had assumed, after all. The King, at the center of one world; the wild woman, at the center of another. "He could be merely a manifestation..." His eyes flick to Cho. "This world is a balance between them. The thorns mean that the balance is broken, and chaos could overtake order entirely."

[tenuefarfalla]

Cho has another theory. "I fear the King is dead. Dead or simply lost to us." But probably dead. The simplest answer. "I don't believe I can track the dead. Sorcery and Necromancy do not blend well in Rowan." She urges Charlie on while she talks until he and Loki's mare are side by side. It's easier to talk this way, and she doesn't know how long this trail will lead them on.

"If he is dead, then we are following the trail of someone else entirely." Which means the title just passes, not a hiccup. And therein lies another problem, another question. "If the loss of the King simply passes the mantle of Avatar of Order, then killing the Avatar of Chaos will just give rise to a new one. Or we may simply upset the balance with a shift too far in the other direction. There are those that say in order to have an entirely orderly universe, we must have a universe devoid of life and change." That would be just as bad as the encroaching thorns. Even worse, really.

[sorcerous]

"Or a world without will," he says. His words are deliberate, testing. "A world where each of us are fitted in, pressed into a mold. Made into a particular... Role."

Because of course this is what Order has done to them. It has made them figures in its nice, neat equation. Order hopes that bringing in fresh blood will balance Chaos. Probably. What he's seen of Order so far doesn't give him much faith in their ability to plan ahead. Or to think. At all.

[tenuefarfalla]

Cho considers this, doesn't dismiss it out of hand. But she doesn't reach the conclusion Loki has. "I don't think that can be sustained, either. People thrive on hope, and they fight against limitations. Humanity needs at least the possibility of something better, something they can strive toward. Look at Communist Russia." That had crashed and burned. Hard. "People may grow complacent and lazy when their lives are full of possibility, but take it away and I believe they will rally and fight back."

She's not sure what this has to do with the King. Perhaps it's about their roles here in Schwanheim. But really, they're hardly conforming to those. Cho is a Princess and Loki is a Prince and she doesn't believe either of them properly fit the stereotype. Convention says she should be back in the city, in the castle, planning some useless party for the Heroes on their return.

[sorcerous]

He bristles; it seems, to him, that she is doubting what he says, that she is assuming his ignorance and his lack of analysis.

"My words are not speculation," he tells her. "They are the truth, of how this kingdom has brought us and the constraints they have forced upon us. Do you take me for a fool? Neither perfect roles nor perfect destruction may be utilized to achieve any end."