lifeaftr | Day 2 - Around the Island

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Day 2 - Around the Island

Who: Prompto, OTA
What: Exploring and survival
When: Day 2
Where: Different places around the island
Warnings: Dumb boy

Early Morning - Oatmeal - Around Weiss' camp, OTA
As promised, Prompto went to seek out Weiss' camp with some freshly made - and sugary! - oatmeal. The way Ignis worked out perfectly good and normal meals with so few ingredients amazed him. If it was him, he'd probably be trying to figure out how sugar was supposed to go with beef.

But there he was, calling out Weiss' name with a small pot of still warm but quickly cooling oatmeal. A piece of cloth had been thrown over it in an attempt to keep in the heat. She had said she didn't know when she would be leaving in the morning. Hopefully she'd still be around.

Morning - Survival Fruit and Veggie hunting - OTA
Food was a top priority for obvious reasons. Noctis had his fishing. Ignis had his cooking. Laurent seemed to be a hunter of sorts. Nyx had the ability to lounge around with his shirt off. That left the ever popular fruits and veggies.

He'd seen much of the beach and coastal areas the day before, so he searched further inland and managed to find a palm tree with a bundle of coconuts waaaay at the top. If he wasn't short on ammo he'd have just shot them down, but he couldn't be so reckless with their limited supplies.

Instead, he could be found painstakingly improvising his way up the trunk.

Exploration - How wide is this island? - OTA
After a comfortable stash of food and drink was put aside for that day, the ever present need to figure out their dilemma rose. For the time being Ignis had chosen to stay behind, but Prompto went on ahead with everyone else who had decided to see how long it took to reach the other end of the island.

There were precautions, of course. Should the island be so wide that they couldn't make it to the other end in a reasonable amount of time, they were to head back so that they wouldn't be caught in the dark. Beyond that, it was mostly a matter of safety in numbers. No one would wander off and get lost, right?

Evening - Night at the Ruins - Open to Women and Kids
Like a good boy, Prompto was back at the ruins by evening. It was the only place with solid shelter they had thus far, and with Iggy in such poor shape it wouldn't have been a good idea to go camping in the wilderness without any camping gear.

The chill of the night air rose, and after keeping to himself for some time he finally got to his feet and walked over.

"Hey... You look cold," he said as he shrugged off his thick winter coat and offered it.

Evening - Night at the Ruins - Open to dudes
For a while Prompto could be found tucked into a corner, quietly trying to get his phone to work. It would've been nice to place some King's Knight with Noct... They didn't have a place to plug their phones in, but maybe he could hook it up to a Leiden potato or something.

While he was putting his phone away a burst of wind cut through the ruins, creating a haunting howl. Prompto tensed up, scrunching up tighter until the wail subsided. Glancing at the man next to him, he asked with a forced smile, pretending that he wasn't bothered at all. "Hey, you, uh, don't think these ruins are haunted, do you?"

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[He was still suspicious of the giant spider, but he lowered his gun, both hands lingering on it and ready to shoot if it was necessary.]

Yeah. I did.

[It really felt so weird. Like he was talking to some sort of daemon. It wasn't the first strange thing to happen on this island, though, was it? He couldn't help but remain wary.]

Everyone else I've met so far has been human. ...What are you?

[Well, it's a start.]

I'd call myself a spider monster, but I'm given to understand that humanity has rather different connotations attached to that word than my people do. My name is Muffet, so in the interests of politeness, I ask: who are you?

[The fact that they had spider daemons and he already had an aversion to bug-like creatures wasn't really helping here. Maybe if he had backup he'd let his guard down more, but being out here alone, and questionably armed, wasn't making him feel too comfortable. It showed every bit in his uneasy tone. He was really struggling with this.]

Prompto. Are there a lot of... people like you, where you're from?

Quite a few, yes- we're an entire species, and the Kingdom of Monsters has been an organized political entity for millennia.

[She looks briefly embarrassed.]

I... admit it's not the most elegant name. Naming things isn't really our king's strong point, he has other virtues.

[Why did it have to be spiders?

But it didn't seem like she was trying to be vicious. It was going to take a long time for him to get used to this, but if she was like other people, he should probably give her a chance.

Why couldn't Noct be here? Anyone but him.

Hesitantly, he put his gun away.]

I see...

Umm, sorry about the gun. You kinda reminded me of something from home.

[Taking some steps back from the coconut tree, he folded his hands.]

You know how to get up there?

[At the apology, she smiles more genuinely. She could understand fear, and respect trying to work past it.]

Apology accepted. I'm sorry if I worried you, I think everyone here has enough stress to handle without my adding any extra.

[She gives the coconuts a thoughtful look.]

Not so much getting up there as getting them down, I think. Part of my abilities, rather appropriately, involve summoning threads. If you don't mind my trying...?

[Partially giving him a warning so he would be startled by sudden magic, partially giving him the option to suggest something else if he'd prefer.]

[He backed away even further, not wanting to get caught in any crossfire. And, perhaps, trying to give himself some distance if he felt like he needed to run.]

Yeah, sure, go ahead.

[If he could get some coconuts, they'd be pretty important for a lot of reasons. The juice, obviously, but they were also something easy to use for making bowls. They had the right shape to them and with some practice they could probably have plenty of nifty bowls for themselves.]

[Muffet nods and steps forward, eyeing the tree thoughtfully. She gestures with two of her hands and is suddenly holding a thin line of purple light. She tosses it upwards, and it hits a coconut and sticks to it. One good, hard yank on the line and it pulls the coconut down with it.]

Like so.

[She picks up the coconut and offers it to him with a polite smile.]

Want me to see if I can get the rest of them down?

[A small, surprised gasp escaped from him though he tried to cover it up. Why did people around here all seem to have powers? Without Noct's magic working properly, he had nothing.

He did his best to repress his anxiety, though, hesitantly accepting the coconut from her.]

Umm... Thanks.

[He was trying hard to be polite. If she was helping and he was asking favors of her, he should be. He just felt a lot safer at a distance, but he couldn't let that stop him when people were counting on him.]

Yeah. A lot of people are going to need to eat.

[Muffet smiles gently at him, and repeats the motion a couple more times, pulling down the rest of the coconuts.]

You're quite welcome, dearie. We all need to provide where we can.

[This was going to take some getting used to. He gathered stuff up cautiously, not being as quick to action as normal.]

...Where have you been staying? Are you with Weiss?

[She leans casually against the tree, trying to give him enough space to feel comfortable.]

Oh, I've run into her once or twice, she seems a lovely girl. But no, I've found a reasonably pleasant little corner of the forest near the ruins and set up my web there. It's not necessarily perfect for the long-term, but it's serving well enough for now.

You don't mind being outside?

[Honestly, it was a little bit of a relief, but he felt bad for thinking that. So far she'd only been nice. He just didn't know if he was ready to wake up with a spider monster right there yet.]

[She just appreciates that he's willing to try, she won't expect him to be completely over his misgivings in a day.]

It's rather a pleasant novelty, to be honest- where I come from, monsters lived underneath a mountain until fairly recently, and we haven't lived beside humanity on the Surface for long enough for the joy of being able to see the sky to wear off entirely.

[She smiles ruefully.]

I'm sure I'll feel less cheerful about it if the weather takes a turn for the worse, but hopefully by then I'll have built myself something that can keep the rain off properly.

So you'd never seen the sky before? What'd you use to see underground? Did you have, like, generators or something? Like an underground bunker?

[He'd been in a cave that had been used to hideout during wartime and it was the closest thing he could think of. And he hadn't been a fan. Dark, eerie, scary sounds, squeaky gates, daemons, cave-ins... None of it was for him.

But other people had no choice but to stay there. Probably whole families.]

Oh, it was a whole network of cave systems. We'd been living there for- goodness, millennia at least, and we'd hollowed out a fair amount of the mountain by then.

Most of the power was provided by the machinery in the Core- I'm afraid you'd have to ask someone else about that, engineering was never my field. For most other things, we just used magic.

Whoa.

[That's a long time to be underground. Then she'd probably never seen the sky at all. She was probably born down there. He felt pretty sorry for her. Even if he'd grown up surrounded by a wall, he'd still been able to see the sky.]

...You know, there's some pretty neat stuff that happens in the sky sometimes. I've heard at some places at night you can see a bunch of colors swirling around up there. And sometimes at sunset you clouds and stuff will turn neat colors. Oh, have you ever seen a rainbow?

[She smiles warmly at his descriptions.]

Everyone was very excited about it once we finally got out- for the first couple months, you kept getting people walking into things because they were too distracted looking up.

The sunset I've definitely seen, and someone pointed out a rainbow to me once... the swirling lights in the sky I've heard of but I've never seen them, I know there's supposed to be a specific name for them because I read it somewhere but I can't remember what it is.

Ignis would know what it's called. I've never seen it, but we've traveled around a ton since we left the city. I... never concentrated that much on the sky, though. I mostly took pictures of us and different places.

[He always saw the sky. It would've been weird if he took a bunch of pictures of it.]

There's tons of neat things to see in the world.

[Just having a normal conversation was helping him loosen up a little bit. Hesitantly, he decided to ask.]

Hey... Do you know how to make nets and stuff? I mean, since you know how to make webs...

[Muffet nods in understanding.]

It's good to remember time with one's friends, I think.

Hm... yes, I think I could manage a net fairly well. Were you thinking of trying fishing?

That, and carrying stuff. And they could even be hammocks, maybe. I just thought they'd be really useful, but I don't know how to make one.

[And yet it seemed like they should be so simple to make.]

There's a few different ways, I think- weaving gets sort of reflexive with enough practice, like any skill. I could show you how it's supposed to work while I make one, if you like? You wouldn't really have the same material to work with, but it might still be useful to know.

I could try. Not sure how good I'd be at it.

[He had a few limited skillsets that he felt proud of. Everything else, it always seemed like other people were better than him. Didn't mean he wouldn't at least try, though.

His posture was reserved, leaning most of his weight on one leg and holding the stuff rather close.]

I was thinking if I had a big bag I could bring back enough stuff for everyone.

[She doesn't try to push him by intruding on his space, physically or verbally. This is clearly awkward for him, best to go slowly and let him get used to her.]

Well, some things one doesn't necessarily have to be unusually good at, just good enough to get the job done, I think. It's best to avoid being outright bad at something, but after a certain point it doesn't matter whether one is an amazing fisher or merely a decent one, so long as people get fed.

Still, I could probably do a bag, if it wasn't too large. About how big were you thinking?

Did you guys have gym class where you're from? They used to keep a big pile of balls in big sack.

[He held his hands out in front of him.]

Something like 15 or 16 balls depending on how big they were. I thought that's be good for carrying a lot of coconuts around. There's a lot of people, so we're going to need to stay stocked up.

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