sticksandbones | Burned Town Clean Up

Burned Town Clean Up

Who: Silverash + the Grove
What: Making the Burned Town habitable again
When: Before Subnautica
Where: Burned Town
Warnings: will be tagged when appropriate

[ Once again, in the midst of chaos, Enciodes is working. He's trying to clear out the burnt part of town, and he so desperately wants to establish some sense of order. Ideally, he could have some sense of authority or something akin to it, but the best way he can think to do that is have their living situation be just a little bit better. Just fix some things that cause issues, or improve life a little. Then maybe he can start his path to being a real leader.

Until then, he has debris to clean up and a time anomaly to fix, so... he ends up kidnapping (asking politely) Harque to help with the time fuckery.

He also jots down in the notebook: ]

Good day. This is Enciodes Silverash. For those who would like to loan their hands in fixing the burned part of town, I welcome the help. If you new, please be wary of the sink holes. If you do not help, I completely understand. Things are dangerous here, and I do encourage those who are leery to not worry about it.

I've recruited Moder for some help, as well as Harque to figure out how to fix the issue with the frozen time here. If you have questions, let me know, I'll keep an eye here.

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[ His handwriting is disguised, blunt and slanted instead of his usual swirling loops. ]

Inside a basement you will find an alter. It is fresh. Relatively. Destroy it. Profane it. Do not let it stand. Do not worry, it is nothing of good.

[ Even if he doesn't recognize the handwriting that isn't going to stop him from writing back. ] Thank you for the heads up. If I may ask, is that something you need to talk about...?

No.

I am sure it will come out in due time.

[At least doing work helps him beat away the brain bees! Aka Mizuki being dead y'know how it is. Has anyone told Harque that people here come back— anyway, he is physically weak and will crumble if he tries to pick up debris, but he's carefully working on undoing the time anomalies. Enciodes will be able to see a ring of small moon phase symbols rotating around his back as he works, as well as almost-invisible ripples around objects here as Harque stands with one hand on his staff and the other outstretched.

Doing the work... Timekeeper is going to find him and shake him around like a dog again if he screws this up.]

My fear is that if I undo some of the time anomalies here, that the buildings and... erm... skeletal remains will rapidly progress through time and catch up to what they should currently be, Sir Enciodes. Are you prepared for potentially more work?

I understand. Realistically, I considered that, as well as the possibility that undoing the hold on this place may just overgrow it with the Forest's plants and such, too. But anything is worth a shot, and I believe this is the way forward, regardless of what may happen.

[ He gives a slight bow of his head to Harque. ]

I'm ready to take responsibility for whatever the next obstacle is, however. I thank you for your assistance. Just let me know if there's anything I can do to help.

I would appreciate if you could ensure I don't fall into a sinkhole, Sir.

[Please be prepared to rescue him in case the ground opens up under his feet.]

I have to work in chunks. I expect the home I'm working on now will collapse fairly soon.

[It's definitely starting to. As the ripples in time move forward and Harque struggles against the magic holding this place as it is, the iron fence starts to rust to the point of being unsalvageable, and suddenly various species of plants spring up from the grass nearby as it turns from black to green, then browns with what should've been a death, then goes green again, then blackens with that familiar corruption. Nature is naturing.

As Harque walks forward and pushes his magic outwards, the entire house begins to collapse. What's left of it, anyway. Wood and stone weathers and rots, structural supports snap, and with one final push, Harque manages to free this particular corner from the frozen time.

And then he has to jump back several feet when the earth shakes under their feet as the entire house goes "oh cool, I'm free now, time to die" and every last bit of it falls into the earth. The only thing left is debris overgrown with blackened moss, surrounded by that iron-wrought fence and the nearby corrupted vine still trying to whip him.

Neat.]

[ Enciodes signals a command to Tenzin to take off and keep an eye out for him as he takes the time to prowl closer to Harque. Mostly in case he needed to grab him and bail if anything happened. He's very protective of his people, after all, and as far as he's concerned, that's everyone here at the Grove.

He pulls Harque back some, even, once the house begins to collapse, and ensures he's out of reach of that corrupted vine. ]

Hmm... How do you feel after that, Harque? I'm unfamiliar with just Arts of other worlds, but I know in my own that overdoing it could prove physically taxing. If you need a break, I understand. It doesn't need to happen all at once.

I'm alright, Sir Enciodes. It will be taxing soon enough, but not at this time. Allow me to move forward for now.

[You're a very nice man! He's got this (his poor health is going to argue with him). And so Harque pushes forward to the next building, the one where Sesa found past-life Gnosis' corpse... Harque doesn't know about this of course, but this is Enciodes' last chance to go in there guns blazing if he wants to see skeletal husband or recover any more potential love letters. Otherwise...

Otherwise Harque is going to push forward and start undoing the timebubble here, too.]

[ Implying he hadn't done so already from his previous exploration of the town? He'd been relatively thorough, after all. He won't stop Harque, either, since he really doesn't want to see even a past iteration of his dead husband. He loves Gnosis far too much for that.

He does still linger close to Harque, though, really to pull him back if any of the beams of the house fall in his direction or something like that. ]

[Yeah, fun facts, Enciodes is going to have to pull Harque back. There's no fence around this house, it's just out in the open, and the house has already partly collapsed; it means that as Harque starts to undo the complicated threads of the timebubble here, that the beams are going to slide forward.

He will try to jump back as it happens, but Enciodes might need to catch him as it happens.]

[ Fantastic news, since Enciodes is already on high alert and is more than happy to scoop Harque up and jump back at the first signs of structural degradation. His tail puffs out for just a moment, taking a more protective stance before he's sure everything is alright.

He dusts Harque off lightly. ]

Are you alright?

Ah, yes... a touch startled. You will have to forgive me, I did not mean to bump into you.

[Harque stands there politely while he's dusted off, and from there he'll continue on. It's much of the same throughout, with him pulling at the fabric of time and correcting it, then having to leap out of the way if something comes at his direction. Those black vines are a problem, but they can certainly be dealt with soon enough.

I won't bore you with more "Harque does the thing! Wow" type tags, we're time skipping a little. Which means the local Baby is now tired and a bit winded from all that magic, oops.]

There's nothing to forgive. I'm the one to ask for your help, it's only right that I ensure your safety.

[ The black vines are future catboy problems. For now, he is going to be thoroughly wow'd by the time magic and the process of the town being essentially fixed. Or, as fixed as it can be before Enciodes can clean it up.

Which he'll do with Moder's help when the time comes.

For now, he's going to make Harque sit somewhere safe when he looks like he needs it and offer him a drink. ]

[is anyone going to stop a child from casting Spell of Explode Suri's Altar? GOOD LUCK. he sees that mystery message and is filled with the urge to rebel -- against the forest, obviously, because that son of a ratworm killed his god-bird-mom.

and also he, you know, gave his word to help out over here.

catch him deflecting vines away with a magic shield created by spinning his staff or with a few zaps of lightning from it. once the coast is clear for a few seconds, he hops right onto that staff to nyoom into a house without touching anything and compromising the stability.]

[...]

[also if josh actually lets beat get pinballed by the vines he is definitely going to stare.]

[ Oh yeah he'll def see Beat go sailing past at one point, cackling madly from being thrown by a vine. It's enrichment for the dog AND distracts vines. Fun!

Hunter will eventually find the right basement by the sheer fact of the footsteps in the soot and dirt leading into them. And the fact the space has been cleaned up somewhat. It looks almost normal.

If you ignore the altar standing in the middle. It's small, the creator couldn't get too much stuff down there to build it without drawing attention, but sturdy. It's seated on a clean slab of stone that had broken off from before, sticks twined together and tied with feathers and plants. It's shaped like a person, an effigy, it's clawed hands reaching for the offerings in front of it.

If that wasn't sinister enough, the dark dried spots on the ground are most definitely splatters of blood, and candles still remain, though many have melted down. There is an offering bowl in amidst the splatters of blood, stained with the same.

There... there is an animal organ still in the bowl, burnt and blackened from obvious sacrifice. Where the rest of the body is who knows, and what that organ may have been it's hard to say but it's too small to be anything but. ]

Edited 2024-07-10 16:29 (UTC)

As a note, while people work, Heimr will occasionally bring out chilled glass bottles of lemonade for everyone.

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Burned Town Clean Up

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harquenapped...

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various houses, until he finds The Basement™.

a description of the altar for you

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