Plot || The Star Wars Vaikuntha Special

[hatejakku]

Who: Open
When: June 8-14
Where: Everywhere
What: The race for the crystals is on!!
Warnings/Notes: OOC Post


Crystals have fallen out of the Dream Width in a beautiful meteor shower and scattered all over the world! Due to their origins and mysterious properties, the Curti Center is interested in gathering as many as they can for researching purposes. To incentivize the public in helping out, O'aka has donated a few silver coupons to those top few who collect the most crystals. There's also a rumor that the one person (or more if there's a tie) who collects the most, wins something marvelous and mysterious~

The hunt for these crystals have taken storm across Vaikuntha and they're suddenly worth a lot. It's all anyone talks about anymore! The locals have gone crazy with it! If you weren't interested to begin with, surely the madness that is this new fad has sunk its teeth in. Besides, who knows what the crystals can actually do? Are they gifts? Curses? Dust collectors? Only one way to find out.

NAVIGATION
❄️ Snow	🔎 Shadow	🔥 Flame	🌼 Flower	☔ Rain	☀️ Sun	❤️ Love	🌵 Arrow
🎭 Sword	🎶 Chime	👻 Grey	🥚 Egg	✉️ Chrome	🏁 Rainbow	🐹 Plasma

LEADERBOARD
Character	| Crystals
Klonoa	| 08 ❄️🔎❤️🌵🎭👻✉️🐹
Kuja	| 07 🔎🌼🎭🎶👻✉️🐹
Frisk.bin	| 06 🔎☔🌵🎭✉️🐹
Uendo	| 05 ❄️🔎🎶✉️🐹
Corrin	| 04 ☔❤️🌵🎭
Red	| 03 🌵🎭✉️
Okuyasu	| 03 ❄️🌼🐹
Tyzias	| 02 ❄️🐹
Megatron	| 02 🌼🐹
Maul	| 02 👻🏁
Sephiroth	| 02 🌼✉️
Naoto	| 02 ❤️✉️
Adrien	| 01 ❄️
Castor	| 01 ✉️
Selphie	| 01 🌵
Pidge	| 01 🥚
Minimus	| 01 🌵
Kenichi	| 01 🐹
Papyrus	| 01 🔎
Naomi	| 01 🌼
Ovelia	| 01 🌼
Asriel	| 01 🎭
Kanji	| 01 ❤️

Comments

Love Crystal - Sakura Forest

[hatejakku]

According to rumor, crystals have rained down all over the Sakura Forest. A few locals have gone to look for them but can't seem to find anything, though. It looks like it might be best to take a stroll through the forest with a buddy since it might take people a while to find anything.

It's such a nice time of year for it, too. If you're not in any rush, Heroes, take a moment to enjoy what you have.

[ooc: Go ahead and thread out some fluffy things with other characters. When you reach the end of a wholesome, pure, lovely, good thread, ping me and I'll zip by with a crystal for all involved! You can PM this journal or hit me on discord at jb@9174. I'll leave you to it! ]

A picnic in the woods

[bladeofconquest]

A notification goes out over the MogNet from Corrin.

Hey everyone, I'll be setting up for a day or so near the outskirts of the Sakura Forest in case anyone wants to search for Crystals there; I know the forest gets kind of dangerous the further in you go so we should probably go looking in pairs or so. I hope I see you out there!

If you decided to take Corrin up on her offer, you'll find her relatively quickly; a small beaten path leads to a clearing where you find the small campsite Corrin has set up for the day...along with what appears to be a picnic she's laid out of food in case anyone does decide to show up.

Corrin herself is resting on the blanket she's laid out for the picnic with a book in her hand to pass the time, but at your approach she looks up, carefully inserting a bookmark and placing the volume by her side. "Oh, hello! I'm so glad you could make it." She says with a grin, before motioning to the picnic in front of her. "Join me for a bit? There's plenty of time to go searching and we shouldn't do it on an empty stomach, right?"

Re: A picnic in the woods

[wind_in_my_ears]

Klonoa nods emphatically, holding his arms up with a cheer. "Yeah, definitely!" He says, stepping over to sit down next to her. He holds out the Wind Ring, and a moment later there's a bottle of grape juice on the picnic cloth. Not alcohol, though.

Never again, alcohol.

He hop down, taking a look over the spread. "You brought all this out here?" He asks, smiling.

[bladeofconquest]

Corrin has brought some alcoholic beverages, but for the moment she's contenting herself with fruit juice, like Klonoa. After all, gotta pace yourself, and it's still early in the day yet.

She nods. "Mmhm! I thought having a picnic before we went out searching would be good idea. And it's just nice to have a chance to catch up with friends, you know? I think sometimes that gets lost in the shuffle off all these adventures we have. Sandwich?" She asks, offering Klonoa a plate with one of the ham and cheddar sandwiches she's come to think of as one of her signature dishes.

After a moment, her expression grows a bit more solemn, or at the very least, concerned. "How've you been Klonoa?" She asks. It seemed to her that in their last few encounters Klonoa has been having a bit of a rough go of things, but she hasn't had the opportunity to check in. Until now, at least.

[wind_in_my_ears]

Klonoa takes a plate with the blessed sandwiches of the gods, or at least, of the diminishing hunger pangs, taking a ravenous bite without any kind of delay.

"Mmhlpmh!"

He swallows.

"Sorry. I'm, ah, well, I guess I'm okay! I thought I would have disappeared by now, but.. well, maybe this dream's just really long? Ahah." He smiles at her, sitting back to look up at the peaceful forest canopy. "Anyway, I'm not complaining. It's great to get to hang out with all you guys, no matter how long it lasts. Oh, hey, thanks for saving the world with us! I forget if I actually said that before."

[tiredcharmer]

Funnily enough, after getting her eye cut out by a berobed maniac, Tyzias has learned to enjoy time off. Maybe it's the full week of bed rest after that incident that made it really sink in.

So, after she gets off work, she flies her manacutter to Sakura Forest on Corrin's invitation. Her magitek eye works decently, but she prefers to keep in under an eyepatch for now. It just looks too damn weird, at least to her eyes. There's holes to see out of, though, so she's fine flying.

Tyzias strolls up to the picnic site, hands jammed in pockets. "Hey." Giving a brief wave, she sits down besides Corrin, at a loss for what to say.

[bladeofconquest]

Corrin returns the wave with one of her own as Tyzias sits down. "Hey to you too." She says with a grin. She doesn't comment on the eyepatch, knowing her friend is still having difficulty adjusting to the replacement. That road trip had not ended the way Corrin had expected it to, but at least Tyizas had managed to give worse to that masked maniac than she'd received from him.

And he'd get even worse from Corrin the next time they crossed swords; she'd told the "Knave of Blades" she'd kill him for hurting Tyzias as badly as he had, her position as an officer of the law be damned. In her heart, she still knew what Xander had told her on the last day of the Hoshidan war was correct. There is no such thing as a clean win when lives are on the line. Instead of clinging to a false sense of justice, hold strong to something true...the desire to do what you know is right and to protect the ones you love...And the ambition to see your vision of a peaceful future through to the end. If we allow evil men to let their vision take precedence over our own, we all lose.

There was no doubt in her mind that killing the Knave was absolutely the right thing to do. The next time they fought, Corrin wouldn't hesitate.

None of which shows on her face as Tyzias sits down next to her. Seeing the troll's uncertainty about what to do, Corrin takes the initiative. "You've just come off shift, right? Here, I made sandwiches, and there's drinks too." She passes one of the aforesaid ham and cheddar sandwiches to Tyzias before turning to the cooler of drinks next to her. "What are you in the mood for?" She asks cheerfully. "I've got most anything you could want. Should fill a corner before we go out crystal hunting."

Closed to Megatron

[legalcy]

Forests were a dangerous place in which to lose one's way. Monsters could attack them, they could run into traps...it would be best to travel with a companion.

It ended up that Megatron was the one person willing to spend hours with Ultra Magnus without delving into "road trip games". They had no time for fun when these crystals had to be collected.

Hammer in hand, Magnus took heavy steps deeper and deeper into the forst.

[peace_through_empathy]

Megatron follows behind, with Scholar as his active asterisk; lacking the Custom asterisk of Magnus (and having yet to find any others that appeal to him enough to wish to apprentice), he'll stick to what he knows best, which is research and support.

"If we should find any crystals, I'd be obliged if we could wait a moment before collecting it." Megatron says finally, breaking the silence. "I'd like to study the impact site before we collect; there might be data to collect on just what these crystals are and where they came from." There was a lot of focus on collecting the things as though this was some sort of fad, but was any actual research being done to study them? If this had been a regular meteor shower that might be one thing, but the Dream Width was not space as they understood it, and these crystals had to come from somewhere out there. Though the idea of a meteor shower does remind him of a story he once heard on the Lost Light and never found time to verify.

"...Is it true Rodimus once asteroid-surfed down to a Decepticon penal colony?" He asks, quirking an eyebrow. It certainly sounds like something he'd do, but the asteroid surfing would only have gotten him so far before burning up. Megatron's never been quite certain on how Rodimus would have handled the rest of the descent once that happened. Styx had a very thorough security grid, even for a penal colony.

[legalcy]

"He had asteroid-surfed onto a Decepticon outpost." That was close enough to reality, but Rodimus' reputation lead to exaggerations of true accounts. "Personally, this method of entrance is far too risky to be effective. Somehow, he survived this charge and successfully dispatched most of the stronghold's force."

It was a victory for the Autobots, a good thing when the only goal in the life of Ultra Magnus' life was defeating the Decepticons and winning the war. It had been 2 million years ago, but the details are vague. It was a different life.

"Then again, this information came to me in second-hand accounts, and my account is not entirely accurate."

[peace_through_empathy]

Megatron actually laughs. "Yes, that does sound like him." Of course Rodimus wouldn't have had a plan for after the asteroid burned up other than "hope I survive the impact and go from there". It was a Rodimus plan all over; there was no rational way such a plan could ever hope to work...

...and yet it did. He made it work. "Your information may be second-hand but I don't doubt its authenticity."

A few moments later, Megatron speaks again, more seriously now, now that the ice has been broken somewhat. "...I've been meaning to ask." He says. "About the mutiny." He hasn't felt comfortable trying to address the issue with Magnus, given how frosty their relationship was starting out, but now that things have mellowed out a bit, he thinks it might be safer. "How are you all holding up?" Rodimus had made it quite clear he intended to follow after Getaway and get his ship back, and privately Megatron had wondered about Getaway's claim that the entire crew had been united behind him in it, but events had forced Megatron to sit out what followed in the Functionist universe. It was something he'd often wondered about over the following centuries.

[acapriciousreaper]

It really is, Kuja reflects, quite a lovely forest. He's arranged for a leisurely stroll through the woods, and while he didn't specifically request anyone to come with him... would it be so awful to have company while doing something positive, for a change?

Chemist allows for the easy storage of all the necessary accoutrements for an al fresco lunch on the way.

[bleating_heart]

Asriel drifts slowly by, completely horizontal as he leans back with his arms crossed behind his head. He glances to the side, looking at Kuja. He also happens to be floating 4 feet above the ground.

"Hey."

[acapriciousreaper]

Kuja blinks, looking down at the floating figure. "Ah, Asriel. I must say I'm surprised to see you here, but quite pleased, if I'm being honest. You've mastered Flight, it seems."

[bleating_heart]

"Not through lack of hitting lampposts for a month, I assure you." He drawls, before flipping upside down to lay in his chest on the empty air below.

"Y'know, I haven't been flying since I killed Frisk that bunch of times. Pretty neat to be able to just, do it, without the accompanying angst and stuff. How 'bout you? You seem pretty upbeat today!"

[sassafrisk]

Frisk strolls alongside Kuja, smiling as they drink in the scenery. With the frenetic energy that's carried them through their search for the crystals, it's nice to occasionally get a break with their best friend. (Papyrus had been upgraded to "vaguely familial relation" in the year and a half that they've been on Vaikuntha.)

"Gil for your thoughts?" they ask, taking a sip of water from their thermos.

[acapriciousreaper]

Kuja smirked quietly, as he walked along. "Only a gil? I couldn't possibly let them go for under a hundred, and that's cutting my own throat, you understand-" Yes, he was definitely in a 'good mood', it seemed, good enough to be a smart-arse, at least.

[sassafrisk]

"Oh, shush." Frisk sticks their tongue out at their friend, then flicks a hundred-gil coin at him with pinpoint accuracy. Gotta commit to the bit. "I'm genuinely curious. Something about forests like these tends to provoke long, philosophical monologues from a small child and their much taller friend."

Okuyasu | OTA

[righthandstand]

[Go into the mysterious forest? Alone? Sounds like a totally good idea! With the group of people heading into the area, he doubts he'll run into a crystal without exploring the dangerous depths of the woods. Whatever, he's strong.

Anyone who knows him would be a tad concerned for his safety, considering how rash he is. However, if he sees someone he's on friendly terms with, he'll wave them over.]

Heeey! Wanna work together?

[whirluendo_of_puns]

Need you even ask? Someone has to keep you out of trouble.

[Okuyasu may be strong, but given how the last excursion into this forest went, Kisegawa's not in favor of letting anyone go in alone.

Though she has to admit, the forest doesn't feel as threatening as it did before. Maybe it's just the lack of fog?]

...This place looks so much nicer this time of year.

[righthandstand]

Yeah. That's fair.

[Uendo's the smart adult to keep Okuyasu's dumbass tendencies in check. Off they go! The deep, rich smell of leaves, the quiet twittering of birds, the soft dirt path underfoot. Summer is a beautiful time.]

The air's healthier, too. [To prove his point, he stops to take a deep breath in, hold it for five seconds, and breath out slowly.] Yeah. Why'd I never go here before?

Uendo | OTA

[whirluendo_of_puns]

It was like a completely different place. Maybe it was something about October that had made Sakura Forest seem so creepy before. There was no dense mist now, no whispers of the dead. Just sunlight seeping through the tree tops and distant sounds of birdsong.

Tentatively, Uendo called out in the language of Eidolons. "Hello? Can you hear me?" No response. Likely he hadn't wandered far enough, and he didn't dare raise his voice too much for the fear of attracting any monsters. But the Eidolon they had failed to find last time was still somewhere out there, deep within the woods...

"Kinda wish we'd gone back to look for it again..." he muttered to no one in particular. Too dangerous to go in there now, with no preparation. He should really be focusing on the crystals, anyway. Maybe later...

It really was a nice weather for a stroll, though. It would have been even nicer with some company.

Kanji (Closed to Naoto)

[topgun_textiles]

The weather WAS really nice! They were a pair of fully-trained Warriors of Light too, so why not take advantage of it and have a leisurely time looking for crystals? Besides, if they were gonna be here all way, why not bring a nice lunch for a little burst of energy and make it into kinduvan... adventure date?

"Here's a good spot to take a break."

They'd been at it for a few hours now, walking the trails and keeping the eyes peeled. Heck, they even took out any random encounters that came bouncing around to try and cause trouble, but two dragon-slayers had nothing to worry about.

"Plus... I-it's pretty quiet here. I don't hear the others anymore." He looked to the detective, his face pink.

Privacy. How long had it been since they'd done things like this?

[pishirogane]

Naoto's still honestly only partially into the hunt for these Crystals, but considering how much the Crystals helped in the fight against Ramaa, maybe it makes sense? Still, could they not just request each crystal be brought to the Curti Center for examination by Ganeshan and leave it at that? Well, whatever; she got to be out with Kanji in Sakura Forest again. Perfect weather too.

Stopping when Kanji found a spot, she nodded, but didn't sit. Just a matter of making sure there weren't going to be any other encounters for now.

"... I don't hear anything either. Aside from the wind." And looking back at him, it doesn't take long to understand what he's getting at - not with his face flushed like that.

"... It's been a while since it's just been the two of us, hasn't it?"

[topgun_textiles]

He quietly sighed, relieved she'd been on the same page. "Yeah... first it was nice just to not be trapped in the same three days over and over again. But then things like this, and just... just getting back into the rhythm again. Like the worst kinda jet lag."

Time lag? Loop lag? Who knew.