Nothing like a good day's work.

[  *  ]      writing prompt      )         :             send a number  1 - 30  to take a closer look inside this characters life.        /        below you will find a series of various prompts offering a look inside a characters every day life.        these are meant to invoke character development     &     can also be altered as seen fit to better suit the character in question.         bonus if you explain why it’s there!

Continued from here @crossedtheline @silverknightpiece @thecoachman _____ The world blurred as the group was pulled from the cemetery. A mixture of monochrome and lights till it melted into a grey generic fantasy land and Rove spent a moment to wonder if he was in one of Idia's vr worlds.

Grasping his shoulder that was still bleeding he stared round in confusion he hadn't heard the tink tink of the can falling from Luciano's hand onto the floor till her stepped on it and instinctively felt his body fly forward as it rolled under his foot and he slammed into the grey dirt below with a hearty thump.

“Watch your step, bud,” he smirked when he pulled Rove to his feet, and ended up laughing a bit anyways. The sight of his injured shoulder, however, was nothing to laugh about, “Oh, shit man, uh, you need to heal up? You’re looking rough.”

The ghost lady aside, the old-fashioned area around them had lanterns above doors, flames unmoving from what Silver could guess, and giant metal designs for their doors. Old-fashioned, for sure. The architecture could have been mistaken for preserved history, but he knows better. His head was still spinning from hitting cement before transport. 

A single chuckle. This was just elementary school all over again.

"I think we found our next destination." Luciano says. "The locals are probably not going to be of help, but perhaps a few leads from some vulnerable ghosts could work. Though personally, I think our classmates are most likely going to be there, as well."

You don’t know how long you’ve been in the Ghost Realm. Time seems to unravel here and, with each new terrain that your team explores, a sinking feeling fills your gut. The search for the magestone seems to be a hopeless endeavor. Doubts have begun to fill your mind. 

Does your team even know how to get back?

You think, perhaps it's time to turn around. The odds aren’t in your favor. It’s only time until your rations run out, until your team turns a foul path, and you find yourselves as fresh citizens of this realm. Screw the magestone! 

You turn on your heels— Then, a bright light engulfs you. 

You find yourself atop a castle bridge, the wind howling.  It’s not as shocking as the first warp that you’ve experienced. What is shocking, however, is the increase of familiar faces around you. Your teammates, all of your schoolmates who’ve embarked on this dauntless task, have been gathered here. You stare at each other in astonishment, but the reunion doesn’t last for long. 

“There they are!” You hear a shout from afar. On the other end of the bridge, a squadron of ghost-knights barge in. “Those are the living folk that have been terrorizing our citizens! Arrest them!” The knights begin to charge, everyone has no choice but to run. 

The only exit throws everyone into the castle’s audience chamber. It’s grand, it’s spacious. There’s plenty of routes for people to run, plenty of objects to hide behind, but most noticeably–

“It’s the magestone!” You hear someone gasp. You turn your head around to the end of the hall, where the stone rests caged and atop of a pillar. It gleams beneath the firelight, a beautiful shimmer. You’re about to make a run towards it, but then every door slams open. More troops pile in. They begin to surround everyone— It’s time to think fast!

OOC INFORMATION BELOW THE CUT.

Rove had a point but the way he made his point made Jinx get second hand embarrassment. Still though, he wouldn’t complain about going down instead of up.

The graveyard, while a change of scenery, was an unwelcome surprise. Why would the ghost realm have a graveyard anyway? It’s not like you could die twice. Suddenly, there was giggling a few rows over and Jinx felt a chill down his spine.

From where he was thrown back—even if he was on his way back to his fellow students sides—he could see the child off into the fog but lost sight of her first. He looked at his teammates and shook off his uniform from the dirt where he landed.

"I do not feel in the best of shape. My upper back took my fall." He doesn't lie about hurting, it would be counterintuitive. He calmly continues, "But we can talk later; she has given up reprieve. We must find her."

A few careful steps forward have him moving first. Reaching into the fog and taking hold of the closest, he could feel his fingers gliding over crumbling cement as he leaned over… for nothing to show up. The empty space has Silver looking back at his team with a shake of his head.

She’s a burst of energy, not wanting the game to be over so soon, but Jinx spends a few minutes talking her down enough to get information about the mage stone: A description of a dark tower, and a warning.

“Whatever’s going on there— they don’t wanna be interrupted.” 

Screech!!

At least, until the screams of a squirrel distracted him to the point that it (almost tauntingly) takes the can with no effort. Curses.

And yet, there was something beneath the can. Squirrels can wait, there’s a mirror here.

Rove had a point but the way he made his point made Jinx get second hand embarrassment. Still though, he wouldn’t complain about going down instead of up.

The graveyard, while a change of scenery, was an unwelcome surprise. Why would the ghost realm have a graveyard anyway? It’s not like you could die twice. Suddenly, there was giggling a few rows over and Jinx felt a chill down his spine.

Silver can see Jinx get pushed back and out of the position he had taken just behind him. It was lucky that Silver hadn't jumped in the beginning, with how far out he had started. He unclipped his baton from his belt and took aim with his shards of ice just behind the ghastly child, taking a shot at her zooming back.

𝐒𝐢𝐥𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐡𝐢𝐭𝐬: 𝟎.𝟓 𝐝𝐚𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐞.

The shards of ice hit, but the distance and aim were off. And moved; she really could. The ghost seemed to pivot on the spot and flail her way to Silver. 

𝐒𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐡𝐢𝐭𝐬: 𝐒𝐢𝐥𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐬 𝟐 𝐝𝐚𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐞 (⅗).

But at least he has been able to examine the spirit’s patterns. 

He takes a breath and concentrates. A quiet hum comes from his magestone. A strangely disarming and dancelike shadow appears as Luciano casts the void spell. It disappears, but the ghost’s expression tells a different story.

Luciano deals 1.5 damage to Sally! (1.5HP left)

The spell seems to be gone now, but Sally now seems to have the same fearful look that Luciano had when she first attacked him. She tries to retaliate, but... 

Sally misses Luciano!

...as Luciano simply ducks down, grabbing the mint in the process.

Mint leaves acquired!

Rove had a point but the way he made his point made Jinx get second hand embarrassment. Still though, he wouldn’t complain about going down instead of up.

The graveyard, while a change of scenery, was an unwelcome surprise. Why would the ghost realm have a graveyard anyway? It’s not like you could die twice. Suddenly, there was giggling a few rows over and Jinx felt a chill down his spine.

The graves are not what you'd want to see, but it's some form of civilization. Perhaps the ghosts kept them here because it was their own belongings, or perhaps it was a cruel joke that they slept there. The haunted sounds carried over to him, and Silver turned back to his team.

If there is one thing he doesn’t wish to be, it’s to become a ghost himself. And he knows that. So he takes out his magic pen...

Luciano misses! (Sally: 5/5 HP)

Sally hits for 0.5 damage! (Luciano: 4.5/5 HP)

But Sally was faster as she goes through Luciano. His arms shake. Why can’t he lift his arm? And why can’t he move?

where: nru’s botanical gardens. when: monday afternoon. who: @thecoachman​. ♣️

THE NEWS ISN’T ANYTHING REMARKABLE, an announcement made between others and hardly remarked upon after the fact. The groundskeeper takes a weeklong vacation to visit home pretty annually after the new year—no doubt, a well-deserved reprieve.

No one thinks anything of it. Coverage for the week is usually handled—a punishment, typically, for failure.

Trey does try to make a point to stop by the botanical gardens at least once on the weekends; it’s good practice to check on his plots, especially when he’s waiting on the first sprouts of his seeds, to make sure nothing’s strangling their growth. But a busy weekend catches his attention elsewhere. In the midst of unbirthday party planning and homework needing attention, Trey takes for granted that someone should be looking after the place.

That was his first mistake.

Monday afternoon, and nothing seems amiss at first glance. The trudge to the botanical gardens is marked by enough of a winter’s chill that Trey’s chin remains comfortably buried in his scarf, hands in his pockets as he walks in step.

“—Which is why they’re not usually considered a sustainable game bird.” Trey finds himself lingering with Luciano, not particularly early to the usual club meeting but in no real hurry to do anything except get out of the cold eventually. “Besides the fact that croquet flamingos are a legally protected species, they only lay one large egg during mating season, which isn’t exactly a worthwhile haul for the trouble of getting it. Unless you’re really determined.”

The first sign of trouble doesn’t come until Trey reaches for the door to open it. He’s not paying attention, still regaling the merits of flamingo eggs. One good tug gives far more resistance than it should.

“Huh.” Another tug. Nothing.

The frosted glass of the gardens doesn’t betray everything, but a peek through shows… something curious.

Roots. Roots, whorled around the door handles as though to bar entry from the outside world entirely.

Trey stares for a good few seconds, brow knit in a furrowed confusion that doesn’t seem to match the casual tone at which he remarks, to Luciano this time:

Until they return back to the university and Luciano realizes that he made a very grave error. See, there are many students who slack off in their duties, so he is usually there to make sure that nothing awry happens. Usually this consists of a friendly get together and a look through of the schedule. And though he wasn’t groundkeeper this time around, he would work in the shadows to make sure the greenhouse was clean and kept for. The sake of his section for the chickens is on the line, after all. 

Monday afternoon arrives, and he is walking to the greenhouse with an upperclassman. He is a bit of a strange case, being oddly polite while there is an underlayer that occasionally takes him off-guard. Though that slowly changes to a small form of respect. Though, some of the topics he talks about are strange, such as talking about flamingo eggs. He may be a chicken farmer, but that doesn't mean that he would exactly have interest in talking about their reproductive cycles. Especially since, as Trey says, flamingos aren’t a good reproductive species, thus not making a good game bird. Now if it’s to raise them to be an exotic pet or to be used as personal croquet flamingos, that was a different story. He might not be in the market for such strange eccentricities, but he can definitely see how their status can affect their population, regardless of their legal protection. Though being in Heartslabyul, he knows better than to possibly offend their vice housewarden, even if titles don’t exactly apply in clubs. So in total, he mostly just nods and hums in agreement. It seemed like he was talking to himself more than him, after all.

However, in trying to zone out in the conversation, a small huh snaps him back to reality as Trey is trying to open an overgrown greenhouse. Then Trey faces Luciano.

“…Huh. That’s not good.”

“You can say that again, Mr. Clover,” he says. “It looks like a treant invaded the greenhouse.”

He uses his wand to summon a small flame close to the root and door, but not touching any of them, yet. Letting the door warm up and weakening the biggest roots.

“Sometimes a defrosting and a good pull is all that it needs. Or a controlled wildfire.”

Following the other out towards the stables and then coop he couldn’t help but raise a brow at the amount of traps. “Wow, your fox problem is really something…” He commented, eyes trailing over the mess of paw prints.

Pulling his hair back into a ponytail to keep as much of it out of his face it still left a large amount of messy bangs in the way and rolling up his sleeves before opening the box and his tool set he would start setting up the deterrent tool based on the instructions he had been given. “It should do…at least that’s what the student who made it told me.” He focused on attaching each part to posts that already made the coop while mumbling to himself.

“Can you set up the battery? It should be like electric fencing that they use for horses…put it there.” He said pointing to his left with a spanner before returning to securing the main turret.

Ha, Luciano thinks to himself. He really didn’t want to send the request in the first place, but he knows when he’s beat. One thing’s for sure, however. Luciano won’t let a fox go scot free after eating the chickens he was using for the pursuit of animal production and agriculture! Even if it’s questionably ethical!

“I hope that is the case,” Luciano sighs as he starts removing parts of the fence wall. “If I find out this fox has a second animal accomplice, I will personally make sure neither of them escape.”

And if the Ignihyde student dared to double cross him, then the student will be sleeping with one eye open tonight. Or get a really bad stomachache afterwards.

After looking through the battery, it’s very much looks like the same type of battery seen in of the nicer some horse stables. Normally, a wired electric fence would be enough, but he isn’t a stranger to such electronics, either. He grabs the insulators and sets up the battery to where the stable fence is.

“It’s all in there…I didn’t build it after all I just set it up…you know like mousetrap I guess…that’s a board game normies play right?” He sighed before tugging Luciano a few steps away and digging in his bag brows furrowed in annoyance till he found it. A plushie fox he had been given to test the device before leaving.

“Right so you see those small mounts on the fence posting? The programming he asked me to do for this has been told to follow a certain shape language which all leads to fox…so maybe tell any fox beastmen to keep away…just to be safe they should be fine but eh!” He shrugged before tossing the fox plushie towards the coup.

It landed with a heavy bounce towards the coup before flopping on its side. The air was silent for a brief second before a blast of magic energy from the nearest two fence posts aimed directly at the plushie destroying the thing on site.Rove bulked slightly as the toy was incinerated into dust giving a nervous side eye to Luciano. “Um…a real fox will likely be less delicate than a plush toy and will only be slightly singed…but it should send a strong message…” He trailed off pulling a face as he stared at the decimated toy….maybe he will adjust the programming a little to tone the blasts down.

"I know of the game you are talking about, so I can see the comparison."

Luciano listens carefully at the maintenance directions, nodding along as neccesary. Then when it came to demonstrate, the glint in Luciano’s eyes seem to appear for a split second once he witness the power of the plushie was incinerated into a crisp by the magical energy.

“Perhaps this manual could teach me how to alter the settings,” he thinks to himself. “Or I could perhaps learn it in the library another time...”

But to the eyes of Rove, Luciano’s expression is neutral, but satisfied with the results. “Even if it is on behalf of your classmate, I thank you for your assistance, Mr. Bogge,” he says with a nod. “I do not think there would be any fox beastmen who would pass by, but I will take the necessary precautions.” He then starts to go to the fence. “I will be breaking down the fence, but I will give the reward to your companion directly. Just let me know in which room he is in and whether he would want direct payment or the cooked chicken.”

“We should find the others…” He looked up and down the staircase but it seemed like it went on forever in both directions. Hands on the rails he lent over as much as he could without tipping over the edge to glance down then up. Lips tight in a frown as he couldn’t see anyone or anything…not even a floor or platform.

“I guess we pick a direction and keep going till we bump into someone or some information…” He muttered before looking at the group. Three second years and a first year quite a balanced team all round. “Going down would be less taxing than climbing stairs personally…Technically as well would give a better view point to any dangers we might come across.” Digging into his pockets he pulled out his pen glad it was there.

“What do people think?”

“... During Halloween I investigated the altar with Ortho. Someone had moved the candle to the Savanaclaw display, but I got clubbed with a brick before I could investigate properly. Recently I got locked in a storage shed,” he paused, “That tell you anything, Luciano?”

These guys wanted to stand around and chat instead of getting shit done. At least Rove was talking some sense. If they kept moving, they’d stumble upon something eventually, whether good or bad, the way out was not where they were standing. Although, a small part of him hoped Ember would come wandering out of the fog...

Though the grass outside hadn't died due to the upcoming winter, Silver wonders now if the entire campus is in an isolated state. Time has been manipulated, but can a state of decay be maintained? For now, they'll need to move on. 

That said, as much as he can see on Rove and Jinx's logic on having to go down, it would only be worse if they have to run away from something.

"Higher ground will give us a bigger vantage point and defense against enemies." Luciano places the notebook back on his pocket. "And in case we do need to run, we're not exerting more stamina than we need to."

Luciano didn't mean to wander as he went through campus, but a beautiful voice, almost like a siren's, was going through the air. However, not wanting to interrupt, he simply watches and listens from a relative distance.

He really should've brought his fiddle.

Clementine was out and about for some fresh air. The thought came from time to time that he should join some type of club, but he valued his free time far too much for that-- he did not want to be tied down to a schedule, or responsibility. So today, on this Sunday afternoon, he had begun to wander around, and had landed in an empty classroom.

It wasn't very bright outside, despite the fact that it wasn't that late in the afternoon. It would probably rain soon. He remembered a song and began to sing, not expecting to be heard but not minding if he was; he knew his voice sounded good, so he wasn't embarrassed about it. And if someone didn't like the sound of it, he wasn't going to stop on their account, he was there first. He faced the window, back to the doors, and looked at the water drip from a statue on the wall. It might have rained earlier. Was that why he had slept so well?

He vocalized a bit, singing the parts of the song that were just voice, no words. Until eventually he began the story,

"Naked as starlight and burnt as the sun

Her face shines with tears and her hair is undone

Her eyes roam the ocean in search of someone

A lover promised to meet her at dawn"

Someone was watching him. Who, he didn't know. He didn't stop singing, but he did subtly begin trying to find out who was there, and where they were. Could he see a reflection in anything?

"The light hits the water, a voice from the sea

A haunting melody

Crystalline caves where the tide sits neck deep

A hollowed heaven where two lovers meet"

He was certain now, that someone was there, though he couldn't be sure there. The story wasn't finished being sung, but he decided to call out to whoever was there. If they ran away, oh well.

"Enjoying the show?" He said without turning around. "I do love an audience. But you'd have a better view down here"

Yet, he remains frozen to the wall, like his very instincts are screaming for him to run; to run far, far away from this person. Yet, his singing was wonderful, like the depths of the sea called for him. Which is ironic, since he has never seen a beach before, let alone an ocean. 

Yet in the reflection of a window, the faintest flap of an orange-yellow arm ribbon appears, and the slightly shifting of fabric can be heard. But no footsteps aside from a quick spin.

“Continue with your song,” he says from behind the wall, his voice carrying a small lilt in his speech. It’s surprisingly gentle, almost like a wind chime in the air. “I am not meant to be here for long regardless.”

But perhaps, as long as he could hear the song from this wall, this would be best for both of them. Or at least until he can trust this man that he isn’t hexing him through his voice.

And yet, his voice made him start to hum subconsciously to the stranger’s melody if he decides to continue singing. He doesn’t know the words or what this song is supposed to be. But the humming is in a beautiful low pitch, most likely a result of musical training or natural talent. And it isn’t just a melody, but a harmony meant to complement the main melody.

“Dude, have you seen Ember? I talked to Luciano and Silver, we’ve all been separated from the others,” he asked with a shakiness that betrayed unspoken anxiety, “The mirrors aren’t working, neither are our phones. We’re cut off.” 

Looking back to the other two, he sighed and pulled Rove along to join their group huddle. They were trapped in a maze of staircases, with no clue how to move forward. The more he tried to look for where to go next, the more nauseous he became.

Silver, standing closest to Luciano, looks from the scene and onto the staircase upwards from where they all had landed. His face was discontent from finding out their communications had all but shut down. But he wasn't going to dwell on that part after it became fate they'd be stranded together. 

No outside communication, and barely enough rations. It's surprising that it even hit the superfoods that he and Ruggie created specifically for extreme conditions like this.