isleofavalon | LATE AF SEPT CATCHALL

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LATE AF SEPT CATCHALL

🧙 WHO: Kadoc and a bunch of people, including perhaps your character?!
⚔️️ WHAT: There sure is a lot of dumb shit happening in the month of September. Both OPEN and CLOSED prompts, the latter in the comments!
🕒 WHEN: IT'S—the month of September. (More specifically, the span from the beginning of the month to the first part of the event, ending before any dragon problems!)
🗺️ WHERE: Here there and everywhere, including Celliwig, ~the club~, straight up prison, and other assorted places around Camelot.
⚠️ WARNINGS: Eventual branding/tattoo/pain stuff, the subsequent servitude that comes along with that prompt, language, sexual themes in ~the club~, likely violence/actiony antics in the jailbreak, animal capture and implied slaughter for food in the event prompt, and I'll add anything else!

1. Kadoc the Stubborn Husky (early Sept., OPEN, thanks a lot Claude)

[Kadoc needs a second opinion. Maybe even a third, fourth, and further opinions. Claude is a lovable scamp and all, but Kadoc is a paranoid bastard, and he can't quite convince himself that he's not being had with the whole—howling thing. He sounds fine to his own ears! He's probably not an Animal Mage, although boy would this be a typically embarrassing way for that to make itself known if he were!

He needs confirmation, but after how that went with Claude, he can't quite bring himself to walk up to anyone and just start talking. What if he really is making dog noises?! So, instead, he's gathering his courage to approach people he recognizes as offworlders and . . . hold up his tablet, on which he has a Notes file open, with this typed in a large, visible font:]

I NEED YOUR HELP. NOTHING DANGEROUS.

[ . . . This could have been ~~an email~~ a network post, but he's not exactly on his game right now. Who can blame him?]

2. Jailhouse Rock (early Sept., CLOSED to Kate, Jailbreak quest)
Here!

3. Amanita Bigger Basket (early Sept., CLOSED to Ritsuka, Celliwig's month of magical mushes)
Here!

4. Super Smash Bros Part 2: The Revenge of the Smash (mid Sept., CLOSED to Itaru, The Pain-Tolerant Badass)
Here!

5. Your Obedient Servant (mid Sept., CLOSED to Rinea, The Caring Badass)
Here!

6. Lukewarm Knights (mid Sept., CLOSED to Gareth and Ritsuka, Hot Knights quest)
Here!

7. Jailbreak Part 2: The Great Goosening (late Sept., OPEN, the cute part of the event)

[Kadoc has had, to say the least, an unlucky month—but here finally there's a break, or at least a small pleasure. He's already spent plenty of time out in the wilderness gathering mushrooms this month and was debating whether to bother going on an end-of-month hunt, only for the hunt to come to him for once. A chance to grab a pre-fattened goose for their table to go with all those mushrooms? Don't mind if he does!

The geese have other ideas, of course. By now, Kadoc's managed to humanely return several of them to the farm; his Light magic helps there. It's no big deal to snap them up in cages of hard light and then carry those back to where they belong. But geese are smart. Geese are watching him. And when he finally snaps up the fattest of the geese he can find to take home for himself, shutting it up in another light cage and hefting it under his arm, that's when they make their move.

Catch Kadoc racing down the streets of Camelot, vaguely in the direction of his home, but mostly just in any direction that's away from the ten furious honking geese in hot pursuit of him. He's only barely watching where he's going. Watch out, or you could get swept up in this disaster and end up a feather pillow yourself!

Or save him. Someone, please save him from this entire month.]

(( Check out my plotting meme post here if you're interested in setting anything else up with Kadoc this month outside of the upcoming event; I'm happy to oblige! Also if I forgot to get one up hmu. It was a lot lol ))

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[He heads slightly deeper into the woods, nodding her along wordlessly, keeping an eye out for another good patch. But the mushroom hunt is really just something physical to do while his attention is largely on the conversation, which is an important one now, not just small talk.]

This isn't about the tactical strategy involved in taking us down.

[Still "us." Selectively "us." Kadoc wouldn't include himself in any positive sense of feeling like a team at this point, but he absolutely will if it means reminding her he's still associated with the enemy, still at fault for the part he'd played in their plans.]

And it's not about honor, or bravery. It's about the big picture. What I'm telling you is that if you somehow, miraculously, take down Wodime, and then Beryl takes you down? You're dooming the world on a totally different level than if it happens the other way around.

[ She hesitates just a beat on that "us." She heard it, and she understands it--he's not wrong, in some ways. Even though he'd agreed to help Chaldea, it had been under duress; he's only a tenuous, uneasy ally at best.

But that's never stopped her, either. It's mostly just... sad, she thinks, that he's so prickly about it. Just because she understands why he might feel that way doesn't make it feel any better. And it can't be that great for him, either, right? ]

We'll see. Don't worry, we know better than to think that if we manage to take out the last boss early, the other midbosses aren't dangerous.

[ Like Kirschtaria--like all the Crypters have been, until she'd gone to their Lostbelts--she doesn't know much about Beryl. He's just a staff photo and a brief blurb from Da Vinci... though, thinking about it, she knows even less about him than the others, but there'd been something very telling in that lack of knowledge, too. The less said, the better. Move on. He's clearly not a safe guy. ]

But if my team thinks it's better to focus on the Grecian Lostbelt first, I'll trust their judgment.

[Even though Kadoc rolls his eyes, visibly, at the comparison to a final boss versus midbosses . . . she's not exactly wrong. Mostly. (He'd call himself something like a tutorial mode boss, and Daybit could probably qualify as a last boss himself. But close enough.)]

I'm just telling you, as someone closer to the situation than any of they are. Not that I blame you for not trusting me in comparison to Da Vinci.

[Because . . . she'd definitely implied earlier that Da Vinci is still alive, right? She said Da Vinci and Holmes had been making plans from the beginning, but "the beginning" can't possibly have been as early as when Da Vinci had supposedly been killed.]

. . . Were you gonna tell me what happened to her?

...It's complicated.

[ Ah. There it is. She'd half-expected him to call her out again, and now that he has, she has to take a breath and just do it. Whatever he might say about his time with Chaldea, she already knows he has his regrets. And considering how kindly Da Vinci thought of him, he surely got along well enough with her...

Knowing that only makes it harder to say aloud, though. ]

She knew, you know? Or at least she guessed, that something would go wrong when the Mage's Association showed up. I don't think she anticipated as far as, you know... what really happened, but I don't think she expected to survive, but she thought that she'd still need to be around.

...It was the priest. We'd all made it down to the hangar to get away, and he just...

[ She wavers for a second, then takes a deep breath. ]

He just, his hand went right through her, but she wouldn't let go. I'm pretty sure it was because of that that we managed to get away at all.

[He comes to the base of a tree, trudging through fallen leaves, and just looks down at another little patch of mushrooms growing here without really looking at them.

. . . What does he say? What does he even feel? Kadoc had had mixed feelings on Da Vinci: she falls into that Genius Mage category he feels complicated about and always will. But, at the same time, she'd always been simpler to deal with than most, by virtue of existing entirely outside of modern mage society's politics. She was no Wodime, deeply entrenched in the Clock Tower. She was a spirit, already long dead, simply borrowing this world for her work the same way it was borrowing her for her genius. Mourning a Servant is always a different feeling.

Not that he hasn't. Boy, has he ever.

But she had always been honest in her superiority, and that had been refreshing. She looked down on Kadoc like all mages do, but openly, and equally along with everyone else. She never singled him out as especially pathetic. From her perspective, he wasn't, and he'd known and appreciated the cold comfort that was.

She knew . . . yeah. Of course she did. She must despise Kadoc now, but that's fine. It's not like he can blame her for it. He'd chosen that path.

And Fujimaru . . . he doesn't exactly have the right to comfort her, either. What is he supposed to say? "Sorry about that time our invasion, which I was in on, brutally murdered your Acting Director, a woman I'd known and trusted for years?" And leaving that context out isn't fair. . . . It's pointless to make any overture here, anyway.]

. . . He's brutal. I know that's rich coming from me. I'm not trying to pin this on him when it's on me too. I'm just saying, as a statement of truth, that priest is on some unimaginable level of inhumanity. His whole situation was a mess that not even I figured out until he took pity on me and told me.

I'm not surprised he went that far. That was the mission. I'm more surprised you got away at all.

Edited 2021-10-28 04:44 (UTC)

I could tell.

[ Ritsuka still has a lot of unprocessed feelings about what happened to Da Vinci--her death had been messier and more permanent than what had happened to Kadoc, but at the same time... that priest had still been the uniting factor. He'd killed Da Vinci mere seconds before she could reach the Shadow Border, and he'd killed--"killed"--Kadoc rather than let Chaldea keep him. And he'd laughed both times, that deep, mocking, genuinely pleased at the horror he'd caused.

But even before that--before any of the actual trouble had started--when he'd just been masquerading as a normal priest and part of Goredolf's little contingent--he'd given her bad vibes. Something about the flatness in his eyes, the insincere sharp edges of his smile, and the deliberate weight in his words had all been uncomfortable from the beginning. ]

I could tell that guy was a creeper from the get-go. He was one of the people who questioned me, you know? He was just acting like he was a normal priest, but I got the chills every time he talked to me.

[ She can't quite look at Kadoc as she says this. This feels weird and big between the both of them, coming from completely opposite sides to agree on one thing: Father Kotomine is bad news. ]

...Anyway, he did kill her, but--she'd prepared like... I don't know. Maybe she's technically a homunculus? But she had a back-up created. She is and she isn't the Da Vinci we knew. She remembers everything, but it's just--memories. Like the way you'd know the stuff that happened in a movie, but you never actually lived through it, so they're not really your memories.

. . . That sounds like her, yeah.

[Kadoc, in turn, isn't aware Ritsuka isn't looking at him, because he's also not looking at her. This sure is turning out to be a productive mushroom hunt, for all the focusing on harvesting those that he's doing because it's something else to focus on. At least to focus his eyes on. His attention is still entirely on her; in fact, he has to stop when he accidentally tosses a poisonous mushroom into the wrong basket, letting out a breath of relief that he caught it and then sitting down to go through that basket more carefully and make sure that's the only time he made that mistake.]

A homunculus wouldn't be beyond her capabilities. She'd have an advantage over modern-day mages, even if her time was centuries after the Age of Gods. She still comes from a time when Mystery was abundant in the world.

[Then he stops, staring into the basket blankly for a moment, before hazarding an awkward,]

. . . I'm . . .

. . . I shouldn't've doubted she'd find a way. I'm . . . glad I was wrong.

[ She's still not as good at identifying mushrooms as he is, but when he stops to start sorting things, she remains standing to hover awkwardly for a second, then finally crouches down herself to watch, and to help where she can. ]

It's been... kind of weird. Like, she definitely does act a lot like the old Da Vinci, but she's always the first one to remind people that they're not the same. You can't even say it's like someone who has amnesia in a story. She knows everything that's happened.

[ She picks up one of the non-poisonous mushrooms, twirling it a little in her fingers. ]

But... yeah. For what it's worth, there's a part of her that's still around.

[Thankfully, that one mushroom mistake was the only one they've made so far. But he's still going to take his time going through them, mostly as an excuse to be doing something more mindless for this part of this particular conversation. Mushrooms are pleasantly squishy and earthy, filling his nose with soothing nature scents.]

. . . I'm not gonna apologize. Or say something trite and comforting, like, that must be hard, or whatever. I'm not the right person for that. And apologies are cheap as hell.

But thanks. For telling me. You didn't have to. You're under no obligation to offer me any information about Chaldea on any level.

That sort of thing can go both ways.

[ She rocks back on her heels; it seems like he's got a handle on the mushroom sorting, so she can just take the moment to take a breath and let it out. It is hard, he's not wrong, even if it comes as part of his defense--but it does feel good to say it. There's some relief in telling him, however he might feel about or take that information. ]

It's not because of Chaldea or anything like that. It's because you were someone who also knew her, and who she thought kindly of. Whether or not you think you deserve it, she only said good things about you.

[ Not that she thinks this will change anything major for him. But maybe someday, in the future, he can take some proper comfort in knowing he wasn't as dismissed as he clearly still thinks he is. ]

. . . You know why I can't take that too seriously, right?

[He doesn't actually want this to be a fight, so he's delicate in saying it. It's not an accusation; it's a genuine question, and the beginning of an explanation. Maybe she really doesn't know. She should, if she doesn't, and he'll just have to tell her. By now he's just sitting on the ground, cross-legged, relaxing with his shrooms for the moment.]

The situation's changed. Whatever she told you about me, I bet it was before I turned my back on Chaldea. Or at least before she knew I had. The same goes for Kyrielight and everyone else. They had a certain impression of me, but there's no way that hasn't changed. . . . I played a hand no one expected me to be holding, and they're not dumb enough to not take that into their account of me now.

I know. But I also think you aren't giving either of them enough credit.

[ Ritsuka isn't the sort of person who tends towards paranoia or worry, but she's at least had experience with people who do. And Kadoc isn't even the most heavily skewed in that direction of all the many types she's met in her career as Chaldea's Master. ]

You don't have to get it, and you don't have to believe me, but I'd bet you actual money that you'll be surprised at how she treats you.

[He goes to argue, and can't, so it initially just comes out as a low grumble instead. And with that he pushes to his feet again to grab the basket. Onward they go. Finally:]

I'm not dumb enough to take that bet. I've already been surprised enough by you to know it might shake out that way . . . if I ever see any of them again. But I'll never take that for granted, either. I'll never let myself believe it unless it actually happens.

That's okay. I can believe enough for the both of us.

[ Enough for the both of them, and for an entire world that may or may not be beyond help. Ritsuka would personally say that her greatest strength is her inability to give up--but she is aware that she has a certain capacity for belief that might verge on madness, to some. That's fine. She's comfortable with this part of herself.

She falls into step next to him, occasionally looking around for any other patches of mushrooms, but mostly keeping an eye on his face. ]

Why would you want to? . . . It sounds like it makes you happy that someone might forgive me for everything I've pulled. I can get you thinking that's the way things are. You know them all better than I do at this point, however many years I lived with them. But it's one thing to know, and one thing to be all chipper and shit about it!

[He grimaces at her. Seriously, what is her deal? Why is she like this, and for him in particular? Was she that emotionally scarred by his death? . . . He would have expected her to feel nothing but disappointment for the loss of his valuable information.]

[ She shrugs at the face he makes; no matter how grumpy he is about it, he can't bring her down. ]

I just think it's better for people to be able to get along. And before you go off about that, I don't mean just like, people gritting their teeth and pretending for whatever reasons. You definitely would just be fooling yourself if you think that they'd just be faking it to spare your feelings.

Call me whatever you want. I'll always think it's a good thing.

Trust me, I know they wouldn't be doing any sparing my feelings.

[That feels like the least likely conclusion, really. His feelings don't deserve sparing. If they're going to act like they forgive him, it'll be because they do, unless it's part of an overarching plot to take him down instead . . . but while that feels more likely, he also knows it's not their strength, and they'd be too smart to try something they'd suck at.

After some more mushroom gathering, once all their baskets are full, Kadoc begins to lead the way to Celliwig's gates, nodding Ritsuka along.]

We might end up needing to stay the night tonight.

[No, he already knows they will, and has planned to, but time to bring it up casually.]

...ha?

[ She freezes midstep; it's the sort of thing where she actually stumbles, though she manages to catch herself after a few skittering steps. What? Seriously? ]

Can't we just... uh. Can I just, I dunno, sleep in a tree or something...?

[ She doesn't have any money! She's still broke! Which is part of the point of this expedition in the first place, but she needs that money to do things like--eat. Maybe buy herself a better knife. Maybe eventually move out of the inn?? Staying at hotels is expensive! The only reason she's managed at the one in Camelot is because it's free! Some of us haven't been here long enough to rent a separate place, Kadoc. ]

Nope.

[For now, he's just going to give her that one word in response. See how that works out for them. A test! Kadoc isn't always great at being terse, at least not in this sense, but sometimes it's not worth starting the argument until she does. And she's definitely going to, but let her bring it to him instead of him anticipating it this time! . . . Even if that goes against all his instincts.

Either way, they're going to be having this argument within Celliwig walls, because he's leading her in now and then over out of the way while he pulls a map up on his tablet.]

What do you mean, "nope"??

[ It doesn't matter if he doesn't technically have a say in what she does, in the end. They've come this far together, and she's not really thinking about splitting up. For one thing, she'll need his help getting back to Camelot, and for another... there's something about this that puts her in the mind less of Chaldea and more of when she'd been in high school, going on trips with friends and classmates. ]

I don't have the money to get a room here. Even if we make a good haul with these mushrooms, I've gotta save that?

Uggghh.

[Kadoc has to grumble first. It's just his way. This is exactly how he knew this was going to go! And he knows how this next part is going to go, too, but there's only one way forward, and it's through this conversation. He crosses his arms and looks at her, basket hanging off the crook of one arm.]

I'm paying for us. Don't even bother arguing with me, because I'd love to save us both the time. Consider it my thanks for you giving me that egg and helping me carry the baskets. I can afford it, I've got incentive to do it, so I'm doing it.

Wh--hey--no?!

[ No?!? Kadoc?! She stares right back at him, surprised and more than a little confused--seriously? Is he trying to make this a back-and-forth of owing things to each other? Ritsuka's all for having a floating amount of favors between friends, but they're barely that at this point. More-polite acquaintances at this point, maybe. Ex-enemies? Something! ]

You don't have to pay for anything for me--you don't owe me for the egg, I already told you that!

I'm not doing it for that reason! That was supposed to make it easier for you to accept. I'm doing it for myself, if that makes you feel any better. See? Still a selfish son of a bitch. So at least argue with me on those terms instead.

[Well, he does feel somewhat like he does in fact owe her for the egg, but that isn't the primary reason, it's true. He glares at her childishly. They can do this all day and all night. That'll show them both!]

That makes even less sense?

[ They can do this all day. Maybe that's what they'll do instead of resting before they head back. She crosses her arms, staring back with a flatly exasperated expression. ]

How is this you being selfish, when you're insisting on paying?

Because it means I don't have to deal with worrying about where the hell you're sleeping all night, and you'll be better rested and prepared for the trip back, so that'll go more smoothly too. I get to throw money at a problem and solve it. You have any idea how infrequently I get to do that? Let me have it this one time!

[Money solves some problems in mage society, as Marisbury Animusphere could tell you, but it never had anything to do with the kinds of problems Kadoc had had. Being wealthy wouldn't have made anything any easier on him. But now he gets to be a normal person who pays for things to suck a little less! Surely she'll understand this much?]

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