November Catch-All | SEMI-OPEN

[forgeabettertomorrow]

🧙 WHO: Darin Altway & You!
⚔️️ WHAT: November Missions and DRAGON QUEST
🕒 WHEN: November
🗺️ WHERE: All over!
⚠️ WARNINGS: Shenanigans likely! (And some Blood Magic usage)



-FLAPPY VEG-

[Darin had seen a lot of things in his life and even more since he'd come to Avalon. However, all of that worldly experience was nothing compared to what laid before him.]

[A flock of flying vegetables. Butterflying lettuce, to be exact. Flopping through the sky over this somewhat open field. It would look majestic if it didn't actually look so stupid and weird.]

[Regardless, Darin took a job to protect these majestic(?) creatures from harm and he aimed to do just that. But he couldn't just stand out in the open, otherwise poachers would never approach. Luckily, Darin has a plan.]

[He's constructed camouflage of regular butter lettuce for himself and whoever has the misfortune of joining him so that he and everyone else just looks like enormous lettuce people.]

[The perfect disguise.]

[It might also persuade particularly dim poachers that lettuce people might even be more of a delicacy. Either way, Darin is all in on this.]

Alright, eyes sharp. No one's harming any of these little guys as long as I'm around...


-DRAGON QUEST- CLOSED TO PARTY

[When word was spreading that the dragon that had razed Celliwig was out and about again, Darin was doing his best to gather as much info as he could on the down low. Anti-dragon sentiment was likely high, so if he was going to try and find the dragon, he had to really carefully put feelers out there to find people who were sympathetic to his cause.]

[It took some time, but luckily, Darin was able to get a competent group together. Each agreed that they were not going to attack the dragon unless reasoning with it was truly a lost cause. With that pact agreed upon, the band made their way to the Lotus Pod Mountain.]


-WILDCARD-

(OOC: Got something else you want to do? Just drop it here or message me here or on bitterbearface if you want hash it out or see if it's okay!)

Comments

[forgeabettertomorrow]

Absolutely!

I mean, why go after the small fry when they've got a potentially rare catch right here!

[He gestures at her despite looking equally ridiculous.]

The Queen Butterflying Lettuce!

[Do these things even have a queen? Like bees? Would poachers know?]

Look, all I'm saying is, given the choice between those? [He points to the flying lettuce.] and you...[He points to her...]

...No contest.

[patchricide]

[At the mention of 'queen', she furrows her brow deeper. Is this some kind of attempt to appeal to her royal heritage? Because it's not working. She doesn't want to be the monarch of produce. And besides that...]

There is no possible way anyone is going to think that I'm one of these creatures! If anything, I look like I've dressed in a pile of their corpses!

You didn't even try to hide the form of my body! [She gestures at herself, and the costume that's contouring suspiciously to fit her very humanoid curves.]

[forgeabettertomorrow]

...Why the hell would I do that?

[patchricide]

[With how upset she is, she's flailing her limbs a bit more than usual, in a way that doesn't seem particularly helpful in trying to stay hidden. She's also having some difficulty keeping her volume to a whisper.]

Because that is the entire point of being in disguise! No one is supposed to know who's underneath this costume!

[forgeabettertomorrow]

...Would you prefer a mask then?

I'm pretty sure I can repurpose some of the leaves to make you a mask...

[He's already figuring out where he can pluck them from.]

[patchricide]

The face isn't even close to the biggest problem! It's these heads of lettuce!

[And she directs his attention to her body again, particularly the two oversized domes on her chest. They look silly, both for their bowl-like roundness and how needlessly large they are.]

These are as conspicuous as they come!

[forgeabettertomorrow]

Look! Poachers are going to be looking for the biggest heads of lettuce they can find! It's tactics!

If you want to take it off, then fine, but I'm telling you it'll work!

[patchricide]

Not these ones! They're going to look for ones that are flying around!

[She pauses, realizing that Darin might hear that and take it as the real heart of the problem, and concoct a solution for it...]

[So, she steps closer, and pokes him in the chest. (With her finger, not with her silly chest ornaments.)]

And if you're getting any ideas right now, I want you to tell me before you try them out. Understood?

[forgeabettertomorrow]

...Hrm.

...Okay, you raise a point. They're not doing us any good there.

[He reaches to take them off in hopes of repurposing them but stops.]

You're...wearing something under this...

...Right?

[patchricide]

Yes, but... [She sighs.] Not much. My armor didn't fit underneath it &mndash; if I had realized we would be sneaking around this much, I might have opted for my jumpsuit instead.

[Which raises the question, what does Allura wear under the paladin armor?]

So, as silly as these are... please don't try anything that would make them fly right off of me.

[forgeabettertomorrow]

[That is a very good question. One that Darin was very interested in the answer in but did not know how to breach the topic.]

You know, next time you can just tell me you don't want to wear it.

[Instead, he cranes his head to notice several of the butterfly lettuce circling towards the ground near them. Maybe their disguises are working and they sense they're friends!]

...You know, come to think of it, what do you think these things eat? They can't be carnivorous...

[patchricide]

I didn't suspect that it would turn out like this! By the time I realized what I would be wearing, it was already on!

[But she follows his line of sight and sees the same creature. And she kneels, trying to get a better look at it without approaching. She has a lot of questions about how this creature works, and its diet is only one of them.]

It does still look like a plant. Could it possibly feed off the same things?

[forgeabettertomorrow]

...Do you mean the same things as plants?

Or 'same things' as in...lettuce.

Because those are two incredibly different things and one of them is incredibly relevant right now.

[There's a lot of these butterflying lettuce, aren't there.]

[patchricide]

[She looks up at them, confused and with growing concern.]

... I meant as plants. Most of them absorb things like light and water, right? So if these are close enough to plants...

[But if that's the case, why are there so many?]

Perhaps... perhaps they just tend to swarm together...

[forgeabettertomorrow]

What kind of plant do you know of actively swarms together...

[He's...going to stand up and maybe back away.]

[patchricide]

I mean, there is one planet where the vegetables will float out of the ground, and—

[And then the lettuce cloud starts closing in, and quickly.]

Oh quiznak, they're coming this way! Run!!

[Allura's quick to turn around, ready to sprint in the other direction, only to see even more of the airborne produce. They're surrounded!]

[forgeabettertomorrow]

We can't fight them! We signed up to protect them from poachers! We can't poach them ourselves!!

[patchricide]

I know that! But...!!

[She turns to him, and it's not clear if she's demanding an answer or thinking out loud:] Then what are we supposed to do?! Do we have some way to distract them?!

[forgeabettertomorrow]

... ... ...

I mean...

[patchricide]

[Oh, she knows that look.]

Do we have some other way?

[forgeabettertomorrow]

Look...they don't look vicious. I'll keep them distracted and you...

Well, you should probably find some way to ditch the camouflage or they'll just follow you...