isleofavalon | November open log

🧙 WHO: Emet-Selch and anyone!
⚔️️ WHAT: Having lost yet another close bond, this alchemist is running quests and collecting dangerous ingredients to distract himself
🕒 WHEN: Throughout November
🗺️ WHERE: (See individual prompts)
⚠️ WARNINGS: The Obsession(TM) quest may or may not verge towards sexual content depending on preference. There are also spoilers for FFXIV Shadowbringers 5.0 in the fourth prompt.

1. Lettuce Help You 🗡️ (Knight) or 🛡️ (Arcane Mage)

On the outskirts of the city, Emet-Selch is trailed by several bobbing heads of flappy lettuce as he forages for herbs and other alchemy reagents. The oddly-shaped creatures gently rise and fall with the thermal currents, creating something of a comical sight as he crouches in the grass to inspect some flowering plants. His familiar is accompanying him as well, keeping a more alert eye out. Should anyone armed approach, she will straighten, bare her teeth, and growl softly.

Emet-Selch glances over, wary, when he notices someone coming close. If you're a known face, his frown eases and he will nod. If you are unfamiliar, he will remain wary and ask, "Can I help you?"

...The more observant or rash types will notice several molted leaves in his basket from the creatures. He only has them because they've fallen off naturally from the creatures, but someone could easily leap to the conclusion that he's a poacher. Especially with the gunblade strapped to his back.

2. Be Nimble, Be Quick

How to obtain basilisk venom from a creature which can paralyse with one stare? Emet-Selch ponders this very conundrum as he steps carefully through the Forest of the Felled, searching for the flower to create the antidote to its stare. Most serpentine creatures are venomous in his experience. Venomous or with ample coils to throttle their prey with. They were created that way. Their use in a poison goes without saying, but what positive applications could it be used for?

Lost in thought, he fails to notice a vine loop on the forest floor. As soon as he steps into it, the noose tightens around his ankle and yanks him down.

"Argh!" He hits the ground with a painful thud. Above him looms a giant slime, ready to drown him in its gelatinous body.

"Oh, by all the gods," he curses quietly, trying to kick the thing back. Unsuccessfully.

3. Toxic 🛡️ (Arcane Mage) (MIGHT BE NSFW)

Emet-Selch makes sure he is thoroughly prepared to meet the Gancanagh before he sets out. Gloves, mask, sleeping potion - the works. He has no idea whether the warnings given in the shady request are exaggerated or not, but he would not have survived for as long as he (nearly) did by being reckless.

Getting to the spot is a trial all on its own but he manages that without too much fuss. Crouching well away from the thing, he carefully observes its movements from afar.

Perhaps if I toss the sleeping draught at its head? While he's dithering however, he notices someone else approach. Maybe towards him, or maybe towards the Gancanagh itself, not realising that he's there. How he reacts will depend on what happens next.

4. Amaurot (Extreme) (Sleep paralysis demon)

Fire rains from a dark and seething sky. The air reeks and tastes of smoke, ash, and charred flesh. Around you, towering buildings of some unidentifiable stone crumble to a horde of terminus beasts who pursue fleeing figures and slaughter them mercilessly. The largest ones fire beams of harsh light from their maws, slicing entire towers from end to end. Another explodes after grossly inflating itself and blows out the domed ceiling of a theatre.

Far below the once-elegant walkways, the sea roils thick and red. One would think the smell to come from all the death around them, but in fact the seas themselves are boiling blood. The sun looms too close and its heat is oppressive; the air is stagnant and offers no reprieve. The deep cracks in the earth seem to have no end.

The planet is dying.

A short distance away, a figure dressed in the same dark grey robes as all the rest stands resolute against the carnage. A red mask (left) covers the upper half of his face. Even as his brethren flee from the beasts, he faces the oncoming calamity: clenched fists trembling yet the line of his mouth determined to somehow make things right.

All of a sudden there is a thunderous crack. He swivels, eyes growing wide with alarm behind his mask as he thrusts out his hand towards you. "Watch out!"

(Not seeing anything you like? Feel free to PM me or leave a comment here with an idea.)

Threaded | Flat

"Hail, Emet Selch."

And who else approaches, only to be growled at, but Somnus? He is armed-- a greatsword is strapped to his back-- but it is not drawn, and his arms are neutrally at his sides beneath his cloak.

His gaze moves from him to the lettuce leaves carried within his basket, then to the tip of the gunblade that can be seen just above his shoulder. "Are you in the business of protecting or poaching?"

[When Hijikata let the cognitive mages include him in their ritual to wake up the sleep paralysis victims he quickly chose Emet-Selch as someone he thinks he could help, but as soon as he enters his dream he thinks again. This is a picturebook-perfect nightmare. It's like the apocalypse. Despite knowing that it's a dream he coughs as he feels the sting of the smoke in his throat and covers his nose and mouth with his hand.]

Emet-Selch?!

[The stench, the heat, the screams in the distance, the horrifying beasts... is this actually hell? Hijikata's heartbeat picks up as he instinctively goes into fight-or-flight mode, but he tries to ground himself by addressing the other man, assuming him to be Emet-Selch simply because there's no one else nearby. Before he can step towards him, though, there's that deafening crack, as if the earth itself were breaking, and he's pushed - or grabbed?]

[ Woth all that's been happening, making an attempt to try these quests, mostly for the betterment of her own situation has been a good distraction. She pauses when she sees a familiar figure she hasn't seen in a while, and while she's also being followed by similar creatures, there are some fairies accompanying her who she asked for help.

Except now it's a full party so to speak, so she asks the fairies to take their lettuce friends ahead, and approaches with her phoenix familiar, the fox keeping an eye on the butterlying lettuce. ]

Master Emet-Selch? It's been a while! Looks like you made a few friends, too.

[ She gives a bow to him- and his familiar too, not one to forget them. ]

Were you heading to deliver them as well?