driftfleet | and then the fleet was banned from garbagetown

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and then the fleet was banned from garbagetown

Who: Taako, Lup, and you!
Broadcast: N/A
Action: Planetside, Iskaulit
When: Now-ish!

Picture this - a planet that serves as the junkyard for the rest of the universe. Towns and cities are littered among the trash, having grown up wherever space provided. In one corner of this garbage-filled world is a city, not a massive city like Neverwinter or a small podunk thing, but a city tried and true. Which means it has a town square where all the main traffic flows through on any given day; bakers and merchants and workers, miners and salvagers and travelers, a myriad of people all going about their typical boring days.

And then two ostentatiously ugly costumes just start floating through the middle of it all. People scatter because costumes that look like Shaggy Bear consumed Gloomy Bear's Soul and Big Bird had a Bad Bender and Never Recovered should not be floating through the middle of town. They carve a path and set themselves up, swaying gently in the breeze, in the very center of the square where all can see. Horrified expressions mix with curiosity as the costumes hang there, doing nothing, and then slowly people start to gather.

Which is when Taako, cloaked in invisibility, looks over at Lup and smirks. It's show time. You ready?

And Lup is definitely ready; the levitation drops on the costumes as they hang, and there's suddenly a streak of red-hot light that crosses the plaza from the building on which they stand and strikes the costumes. Immediately there's an explosion of fire, spreading outwards- not dangerous to the onlookers, thanks to the height at which they hang, but definitely enough to scatter whatever remaining nerves they had. When the worst of the initial fire fades away, the costumes remain hanging, but are now on fire, feathers and fur sizzling and curling, ash beginning to dot the earth below.

It's Taako's turn and he sets the costumes to waving in a ghostly wind as they grow, the fire growing with it. The fabric shudders with the strain of it, looming up and over the crowd menacingly as growing bits of charred feather and shag upholstery disintegrate in the flames. It's harmless, of course, but the crowd doesn't know that and they start shrieking, backing away from the display. Now that the scene's been set, Lup calls out to the lingering onlookers, still just out of sight: "What's up, Trash Town? Or whatever you call this place. No need to be scared! Your new fashion overlords are here to help open your eyes to the travesty we've found you all in."

The Enlarge cast and the concentration over, the costumes hang like Ghost Rider up in the air, and Taako can barely keep it together as he sees the people below start looking for the source of the voice. "We are here in our fabulous benevolence to aid you and provide succor to your sadly lacking closets. But tribute is demanded or a curse shall be upon you. We have sent our emissaries who shall now appear before you!"

He's always had this showmanship thing in the bag and Taako Blinks out of existence at the same time Lup casts Dimension Door. It takes him a little longer to get where he needs to go, but the Ethereal Plane is so wonky on this plane. Still, he makes it in time for the grand entrance - the two of them popping back into reality, back to back, wearing their favorite outfits from their earlier heist and with Disguise Self burning over both of them. They look even more radiant than usual; and a little more celestial thanks to the light from the burning costumes overhead and a little extra light granted by Prestidigitation and Dancing Lights beaming behind them like sparks and rays of sunlight.

A low murmur starts up around them as the townspeople survey the scene, uncertain of what exactly to do about it. The murmur grows in volume as seconds pass. Lup continues, "Turn away from your wicked ways, and destroy all sinful manifestations of fabric that rain down from the sky, or a plague of supreme ugly will fall upon you!"

She wiggles her fingers at a random onlooker, some woman who'd been sneering skeptically at them, and suddenly an illusion appears over her- her skin turns to the nasty shag carpet design. She shrieks at once and flees the crowd. The murmur becomes a buzz and a few of the people at the front begin throwing credits and coins their way, but more are scooting backwards, not sure what to do.

Lup waves a hand in front of herself, and a Mage Hand glides along the ground to scoop up the discarded credits, then brandishes a bag, glittery and bedazzled (as only befits a fashion god) and gestures pointedly towards it. "Anyone else feel like being spared?"

"The bigger the donation, the higher the salvation," Taako chimes in, whipping out a similar bag just in a different color.

There's a long pause as the residents debate their options, but another confused wail from the woman down the road gets a few people moving, dropping coins into the bags and fleeing the scene. They're not asking for much, they're not animals, but a little bit (from a lot of people) goes a long way!

Option A: Were you in the crowd when this all went down? Want to talk to Taako and Lup? They're both walking through the crowd now, so this is your chance to see the face-twins in action.

Option B: Is flying solo more your style? Which of them do you want to talk to: Taako or Lup?

Some time passes as they collect their bounty, and eventually a small group of more serious, burly viewers branch off and vanish into a shop. Lup watches them carefully, keeping her smile frozen in place as she gently shoos away a little girl trying to give her a single credit, because she's definitely not stealing from children. Those guys are probably going for weapons. Hey, Taako? I think that's our cue to make an exit.

Taako nods in agreement and tips his hat to the patrons nearby. He's gotten more than he expected today, so now it's time, as Lup says, for a flashy exit. There's no point in subtlety when the villagers are going for pitchforks. He puts his hands together and starts casting, light emanating from his fingers as he summons the only exit worth summoning. The light causes people to draw back from him and in their place, a beautiful, mulleted, rainbow-colored phantasm of a binicorn appears.

"Yo boss. It time to go?"

"You know it, Garyl. Lup! Let's hit it!"

There's an audible, delighted gasp from Lup, and without hesitation she hops onto the binicorn's back with Taako. With a loud whinny Garyl rears up on his hind legs, giving them one final opportunity for a dramatic pose (which they of course indulge) before Taako urges Garyl off at full speed, leaving behind them a rainbow of light. Before they vanish from sight, Lup, one arm wound around Taako's waist, blows the befuddled crowd a kiss. And just like that, they're gone again, with the now-armed local guard giving a futile chase behind them.

Option C: Catch them after their daring escape, laughing their asses off outside of the danger zone, or on the Iskaulit, perhaps over drinks?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

At least we'll know where all the useless junk is the next time we need it.

[...Speaking of, shouldn't there be one already? Taako pauses and glances around as if he'd magically come upon one lying about. Nothing of the sort is here, but he can't imagine that these people would live with such a terrible disorganized mess and not at least attempt to map it out.

He moves over to the other side of the hall and starts checking again - nope, nope, nope, garden, nope, nope-- what the hell? He squints into the dim light and blinks through the haze of alcohol. That looks like a mountainous(?) shape?]

Hey Lup? I think this is it.

Oooh, lemme see-

[She's quick to scamper over, though she regrets it immediately and catches herself on the doorway, half-bumping into him as she tries not to fall over into the room. Once the whole place stops spinning, she gets a proper look, glancing up- and up-]

Whoa, shit. They weren't kidding.

[It's not a huge mountain, by any means - they're still in the middle of a spaceship, after all - but it's clear that multiple rooms in all directions had been bent and combined into one enormous area, making space for at the very least a really big hill. Rocks, grass, trees, even a little stream trickling through- it looks like someone dumped a whole nature park right down out of nowhere.

She crouches down, pressing both palms in the grass closest to the entrance. It's lush and cool to the touch, fresh and pliant beneath her fingers. It's not fake grass like they saw on a few of the more modern worlds they'd visited, and it doesn't ooze magic the way conjured earth would.]

This is natural. Somebody actually grew this here. How the hell did they do that without sun?

Fuck if I know.

[Because he's been trying to do Arcana checks on it and got nothing but "yo, this is the earth, what are you doing?" It's like it naturally just sprung up out of the metal of the ship. Taako isn't exactly rushing into this room because he doesn't really trust it. But the air smells like it should and the mountain(ish) shape looks real. The closest anyone could actually get to literally growing a mountain in space would be if a god rewrote the code of the earth to do it, or some other elementa--

Oh.

Taako snorts.]

Do you think these Atroma dicks have enough power to trap Elementals here on this plane?

What?

[She squints at the grass again, feeling it out with more than just her hands this time, and- oh, shit. Sure enough, there it is. Fey-esque magic, definitely elemental, a mix of... multiple types?]

Earth, water... there's wind magic in the air, too. Kinda faint, but it feels like a long-term enchantment. That's wild- I've never seen them work together like this before.

[Usually you can only get one at a time going, unless they were cast over multiple time periods... or they had multiple casters. Maybe there's a couple of druids in the fleet? Or were, at the very least.]

Well, you live on a ship with god, so it shouldn't be all that surprising.

Yeah, but I've had run-ins with gods before. [Merle zoned out to talk with Pan all the time, the weirdo.]

Elementals on the other hand? I didn't think they could be caught like this. It's like...

[He finally reaches further in, touching the grass. Definitely real, definitely natural - which made it the most unnatural thing he's seen so far here.]

Like they brought a piece of home with them. And it's old, but not that old. Not--

[He hiccups again. Whoops, yep, still drunk.]

--Pardon. Not like it took them forever to do it, right?

Elementals aren't usually that hard to summon- druids can do it pretty early into their training. But they're not that powerful, I don't think.

[She wobbles her way to her feet and wanders over to the stream, plopping down in the grass beside it, mostly because she doesn't trust herself not to fall in and drown right now. Tentatively she dips her hand into the water, almost like she's expecting an elemental to jump out and attack her for invading their territory. Nothing happens, though.]

I think... the water's maintaining it? The enchantment here's more recent. That might explain why the grass is green.

Sure, but not this level of elemental.

[Ones that can throw around some magic, help things grow, sure, cool. Create a freaking mountain out of nothing? No, that's on another level. And if a druid of that capacity was on the Fleet, Taako is certain either he or Lup would have found them already. That sort of shit pops out.

He's not quite as fast to enter the room as she is, tentatively testing the corners of the room where the grass and ground melded into the walls. The ship itself was still there, but it felt like the earth grew out of it. How weird.]

But then where's the water coming from?

I think it circles around...

[She leans over as far as she can without falling over, but she's not able to get a solid view on the path of the water. It disappears into the core of the mountain and comes around the other side, so it's a fair assumption, but she can't confirm visually.]

Weird that it flows on its own, too.

[This whole thing is weird. He comes over, weaving a little and using the stone benches for support as he leans over to check where the water goes. It disappears into the mountain, but there's no real rhyme or reason to the flow. It shouldn't flow up to the mountain and back down from it, but it does somehow. A circuit of water that, as Lup says, might be maintaining the entire thing. But a single source for all this?]

You think it's creating an enclosed circle to maintain the magic conduit? Or is it the water itself?

[Everything here buzzed with nature magic, but not loud enough or strong enough to really tell too much about it.]

Hard to say. The water is natural, but the way it's moving is still too ethereal to call it that. You can tell by the path of the stream that it's not a perfect circle, either.

[And that's... not really how magic works, at least as far as she's ever known it. Circles, points of contact, materials, sigils, verbal commands- those are the stepping stones for any spell, regardless of source or specialization. Even if all you have is a focus and your voice, there are things about it that matter- pronunciation, the way you hold the focus, your stance and position in relation to the target. Equilibrium matters, balance matters. Here, the water flows as if it's out in the wild, like it was made by something wild, is moving because of wild elements. Fey magic is wild, but they have rules, too.]

This is pure, natural chaos. It's kinda fucking me up, buddy.

[Yeah, you know what? This is fucking with his head too much and while he can tell it's the sort of magic Elementals would throw around, it's not the type he's used to and not one he wants to think about too much.

He holds a hand out for the bottle of vodka and makes a grabby motion.]

This place is so natural it's unnatural. It's almost headache-inducing to try and figure it out.

[Uuuuugh but now she has to get up because he went over to the stones. She takes a swig of the bottle and wobbles back to her feet, passing the little stone bridge that crosses the river to get to the rocky edge where he'd stopped. She hands the bottle off and flops back down in the grass next to him, arms stretched lazily over her head.]

Mmmmmmmmwho cares, let's figure it out tomorrow or something. For now it's enough that we found it.

[They solved a few mysteries, that'll have to do until the vodka runs its course through their systems.]

[It's like a psychic power. He could literally have cast Mage Hand and gotten it from her, but this is much more satisfying. He takes a swig off the bottle and then lowers himself to the ground next to her.

The grass is soft and although there's no sky to look at, the sound of the water flowing behind them is calming.]

Yeah, I was not expecting this to be a dang quest.

[But at least they found it. He sets the bottle down between them, nestling it in the grass.]

[She could've Mage Hand'd it over to him herself, so it's a bit selfish on her end- moving means she can stay close to him, even at arm's length. The fact that he's still letting her is so, so important.

Since there's no sky to watch, no clouds to gaze up at, she closes her eyes, ignoring the bottle for a little while and just letting the water flow and the alcoholic buzz lull her into a deep, relaxed state. She's not ready to trance and she's not keen to fall asleep just yet, but this is real nice.]

I dunno, I kinda missed it. Adventuring without the danger of getting nommed by some kind of monster? Hell yeah, give me more of that.

But that's the fun of adventuring.

[Watching his ~~friends~~ allies get almost murdered and then courageously surviving, so Taako can loot the shit out of the corpses of their fallen enemies. What better fun is there?

He laughs a little and then flops back into the grass. Not seeing a sky is disturbing, so he closes his eyes, pillowing his arms under his head. ]

At least when it happens to someone else. And the monsters drop good shit sometimes.

Sure, yeah, sometimes. I love a good monster-slaying as much as anyone. It's just nice to get a break from the whole threat-of-death, just for a bit. Life's been kinda frantic for a long time now.

[Even the ten years of no-death-threat existed because she was already dead. Before that was a hundred years of chaos and fighting and fear, with the quieter moments few and far between; then, after Taako found the umbrella, a solid year of waiting and fighting and watching and fretting. She needs another year on the beach. That's probably what it'll take before the stress finally leaves her.

This is a nice start, though.]

Mm...

[Hectic - what with the Relics reemerging, that's probably an understatement. The Red Robes are coming back after the Director said they were all gone. The Relics, the things that the world forgot, were showing up at a surprising rate.

It's like the world is counting down to something and Taako doesn't know what. He won't like it though. He knows that much.]

I was on a break when I got brought here, so I guess I'm just on perma-vacation now. Not so bad, but I just know I'm going to get bored eventually.

[That's... weird... to think about- he remembers a break, but she remembers Wonderland which was anything but. It's poking at something that's been bugging her for a while now. She hasn't noticed him using Disguise Self except for the changes to their outfits he's been tossing at them during their heists, to make himself look more like her or she like him. More than they already do, at least. She hasn't been trying to detect magic on him left and right, but she would have noticed it by now if he'd been changing his appearance constantly. The spell doesn't last forever.]

...What's the last relic you recovered, anyway? Must've been a good one to earn a vacay.

...

[He pulls the bottle closer and holds it up, staring at it. This is floating dangerously close to sharing info with the "enemy." Is it safe to talk about it? Will she even give a shit? Does he give a shit? It's not like the Red Robe didn't already know which one it was. It's not exactly new information for them - but he guesses they didn't have time to swap stories before they both got pulled here.]

Eh, fuck it. Why not? We were in Refuge - that time cup thing that really fucked with everything there. So yeah, it was good. We basically saved an entire town and none of us fell to the Relic's thrall.

You guys need to work on your communication skills.

[Refuge. The chalice. The undying cycle, the worm, the prophecies. Istus.

He hasn't gone to Wonderland yet. He hasn't had to endure that suffering yet. He hasn't faced the elven liches yet.

She hasn't killed Edward yet.

Above her head, her fingers clench slowly in the grass, then unclench again as she forces herself to stay calm, focusing on the gentle trickle of the water, the strange, ethereal sweetness of the air here. She struggles with it for a few moments, but she pushes it back down again- she doesn't think of the pain he'd been through that day, the sound of his unconscious body hitting the floor, the splashes of blood he'd shed. She doesn't think of the consuming fire and her own grasping fists as she'd tried to tear that fucking monster limb from limb.

Taako's here. Her heart, her center, is here. Their enemies aren't here.

She focuses on the sound of his breathing instead, steady and certain and alive, and the undead fury in her soul settles back to sleep once more. Not yet, not now. If she'd been a little more drunk that could have been very bad, but she's okay.

...No more vodka for her, tonight.]

Yeah, um. Here's some intel right back at you: our group's super scattered. We're not some giant scary all-powerful force that L- that the director makes us out to be. It was really hard to do even the bare minimum to protect you guys. So yeah, we didn't get a chance to talk to each other.

[She'd wanted to. It had ached to be right there, right next to all of them, and for no one to have a single clue. The only one who'd ever noticed her presence had been Kravitz, and he wouldn't have known. And she'd come so close, then- when Taako had handed the umbrella to him, she'd felt her heart skip an ethereal beat, wondering desperately if he'd free her to try and capture her. It hadn't been enough, though.]

[L? ...How does she know the Director's name? Or was is a slip of the tongue in another direction? Wasn't the Bureau created after the Red Robes had done their dirty work and disappeared?

A lot of questions, none with any real answers, and none which Taako feels strong enough to go after right now. There's been enough drinking tonight that he's getting loose with his info and so is she. He sets the bottle down and yawns, stretching both hands up over his head along the ground.]

Lucky us, I guess.

[Was it though? The more he interacted with the Red Robes, the less convinced he was that they were out to go great harm. Lup, for all she could be trusted, said the same thing. The first Red Robe had stopped Captain Captain Bane from poisoning them under the thrall of the Gaia Belt (admittedly by killing him) and then it had come back to try and help them again in Refuge.

This was too complicated.]

Eh, protect us, kill us, whatever it is, it's not like we can't handle it. And if we can't? That's how the cookie crumbles, too. I'd be pissed, but it's not like I haven't died before apparently, and I'm just fine now.

[The flimsy dismissal stings a little, but the alcohol and the time already spent with him here already softens the blow, so she smiles weakly and shrugs it off. ]

Yeah, you're an old pro at dodging death even when you die, huh. And if anyone came to collect you'd just charm the pants off them, soooo...

[He's already done that, too, and she itches to ask about Kravitz- how he feels about the guy, is he happy, is it like, serious, because as a sister she is both nosy and obligated to make sure- but those questions would be both suspicious and pointless. Taako hasn't been going out with Kravitz for months and months. It's been, like, one date.]

I've only very nearly died once or twice and well...Refuge didn't really count, does it?

[And the other times that Kravitz mentioned? He has no clue about those. Just like he has no clue about all the missing time in his memories that the Chalice wasn't able to parse. That remark though is a little too close to home and he raises an eyebrow, turning his head toward Lup.

This isn't something he's talked to anyone about.]

That or make a deal with them. We are out there saving the world and all.

[She's tempted to counter with Refuge definitely counting, considering Kravitz made a point of visiting him after the fact, but no one but he and Taako had been there for that conversation- except her in the umbrella. So yeah, that one's out. She exhales through her nose and says nothing for a few moments.]

You wouldn't be the first to make a deal with death. Every rule has to have an exception, otherwise… mmm, it'd be bad, I guess.

[There isn't really a non-weird way to end that sentence, soooo.]

Eloquent as always, Lup.

[No doy it would be bad. He'd be in the Astral Plane right now chilling with Lucas' mom if they hadn't been able to make a deal and if Istus hadn't all but decided they were special cases and gotten a word in with the Raven Queen. Taako was not religious by any stretch of the imagination, but some god or another looking out for him was a plus in his book. He'd take any help he could get.]

I'm sure I'll find a loophole somewhere. Taako's not quite ready to die just yet. He's too drunk and there's a mountain on a spaceship.

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