[QUEST] Bits and Baubles for the Banished

[King-Clod]

Somewhere, underneath yesterday and inbetween the mortal and the dreaming realms, lies an infinite desert of dust. It smells of old socks and rot. Nothing arrives here naturally.

You arrived here about a year ago, now. You think you’re doing rather well for yourself. You’ve set up shop next to a canyon (one of the many canyons here from which all things arrive from) and have managed to make a living selling goods that you've scavenged from it.

…Technically any of your customers could venture into the canyon themselves, but, as most of what fills the canyon is either dangerous or disgusting, so they leave that to you.

Recently, about a week ago maybe, you took in a colleague. Mostly so you don't have to worry about someone raiding your shop while you're gone, but also for the company - they’re just as weird as you are, so you can talk to them without getting weird looks like the people from the city give you.

Who are you? And who are they? Pick two, leave one.

 SNIBBET
CRAFTY, IMPULSIVE

 TIMEWINDER
ANCIENT, REVILED

 "TYPICAL" "HUMAN "WIZARD" 
MAGICALLY INCLINED, UNSTABLE

 
 And, for fun and flavor, what items are left at your shop at the moment? Name three items, cursed, broken, or useless. They haven’t been sold for a reason, after all.

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[knux400]

Snibbet protag and timewinder companion!

As for the three items:
-A pocket watch that takes a second and a half for it to tick one second
-A spiral-bound notebook with every single page torn out, including the front and back covers (it's just a metal spiral with some paper scraps hanging from it)
-A magical marker that always writes in the exact same color as the surface it's being used on

[Lilium Mortem]

Timewinder(you/us), "human"("wizard"/"colleague")

-duck whistle that turns you into a goose when used(irreversible)
-A tome that emanates darkness and the feeling of despair, the closer you get to it the more certain you are that the knowledge it contains will destroy the world. is blank.
-Rock

[Guest]

Typical Human Wizard protagonist, Snibbet companion

-A dozen eggs. They seem to still be good, which is frankly alarming.
-A sword which theoretically talks but hasn't said much, and seems to be judging you unfavorably and being petulant.
-A geiger counter.

[Ignispark]

Timewinder protagonist and "Typical" "Human" "Wizard" companion

-A hat which is impossible to be worn
-A dagger which can only be used to write.
-Enchanted Hazelnut Butter (Expired 3000 years ago)

[skinstealer]

snibbet (us), human companion

-a bookmark made of """human""" flesh
-a marble that only rolls uphill
-a magic seed that will never sprout

[King-Clod]

You are a TIMEWINDER, an ANCIENT race of clockwork constructs made for a purpose long forgotten. You are humanoid in stature, though rather bulky and worn down. You have a key that sticks out of your back through which you can be wound with, just out of reach of your own arms. All of your movements, your thoughts, your being, can only happen while that key spins. Otherwise, you lay dormant. You've lost thousands of years that way without even realizing.

Of course, time works differently for you. You have the ability to FREEZE TIME, as it were, and move through it with no difficulty. You can do this at any time, for no cost - but your key will still spin during this time. And you'll need someone else to wind you up again before it stops. You were built without the capability to wind your own key. A safety precaution, maybe.

Getting people to wind your key is difficult as you are REVILED by most people, even here. While most people in this desert were sent here for unfair or unjustified reasons, they seem dead set that you being here is only just. You are a monster from fairy-tales for them, too old for them to remember any of the details, but not old enough for them to forget the fear. They hardly see you as real, let alone as a person.

It's fine. Your colleague can always wind you up every morning. And that way you don't have to pay the goddamn people from the city to do it anymore.

That being said, your colleague! A "TYPICAL" "HUMAN" "WIZARD"... wizard school dropout, to be exact. Or at least, so he claims. You have your suspicions he's something a bit more complicated. Something you may have seen before, years and years ago, that you just can't place. Though, you don't interact with enough humans anymore to know the difference, you suppose. And whatever he is doesn't matter as long as he has arms that can spin a key.

...He does have more than that. He's been a great boon to the shop. His MAGICAL INCLINATION helps you with finding and defining curses on the objects you bring up from the depths, and his glamour spells have helped you to sell goods that you definitely shouldn't have been able to. Though, he seems hesitant to cast more than two spells in a day. Something about the magic growing more UNSTABLE the more he casts. You've never pushed him beyond one spell a day out of respect.

You've never asked him how he got here. Not that he's ever asked you. It's a touchy subject for most people.

---

Now, onto the actual meat of the story.

Today is a dreary day, much as every other day is in a land without a sun, only strange, ambient lighting. Your wizard colleague, Frederique, is winding your key like he does every morning. He's making a face that you've come to learn as
a grimace.

You tilt your head to inquire why. (Speaking would be too much effort at the moment.)

FREDERIQUE: ...Sorry, you're probably going to have to go down the canyon again today. What we've got just isn't selling.

You look to your supplies.

You have:

•  A dozen eggs that still haven't gone bad, although the date on them reads for 500 years ago. Frederique checked them... they aren't cursed. If anything, maybe there's been some time fuckery? You'd have sold them by now, but at this point you're worried it'll give someone space-time food poisoning.
  
• A rock. It's a pretty rock, but not pretty enough to sell. And Frederique refuses to touch it.
  
• A hat that is impossible to be worn. Yes, even by inanimate objects. You suppose you could sell it as a sort of magic rug, as it just hovers an inch off of the ground most of the time, but its structural integrity does not lend it towards being sat on.
  
• A bookmark made of...human flesh? You're not sure why you even have it up for sale. Maybe if a necromancer ever rolls into town and wants only the tiniest strip of skin?
  
• A pocket watch that takes a second and a half for it to tick one second. You've tried many times to rewind it, but despite your own clockwork insides, you have no clue how clockwork works. Your own fiddling turned what used to be a mild inaccuracy to this. You still use it sometimes while exploring to keep time, but you do have to keep in mind that it's not accurate.
  

YOU: ...I don't know, it's as good of a stock as we usually have.

FREDERIQUE: Not for our buyers. If one of our regulars comes by and sees we haven't updated our stock in 3 weeks, they're just gonna stop coming. You're going to need to go.

You turn away from him. The last time you went scavenging, you fell dormant. You were using the faulty stopwatch and just...lost track of time. That's how you found - how Frederique found you in the first place. From the concerned look he'd giving you, you can tell he hasn't forgotten.

FREDERIQUE: I can always go with you if you need me to. Or I can go and you can watch the shop. Your choice. But one way or another, we're going to need more supplies.

---

What do you do?

[Ignispark]

I think it'd be funny to watch the shop as that sounds like prime fodder to meet someone weird.

Asides it could be quite dangerous to leave the shop unattended and Frederique can definitely find the way back faster than find you if you went AWOL scavenging.

[Lilium Mortem]

let's have an adventure. c'mon, it'll be nice to stretch the old cogs and gears and whatnot. selling stuff is boring, finding stuff is fun.

[knux400]

We've had the same pile of junk for sale for 3 weeks now, if we haven't sold anything already it's unlikely we'll sell anything today. Just put up a sign that says "GONE SCAVENGING" and head out to adventure. It'll be much safer for both of us with the other there to watch our backs.

[King-Clod]

YOU: ...You're right. I can't avoid the canyon forever, nor do I want to. Dealing with customers can be engrossing, but also...repetitive. I think I need to stretch my legs a bit. Get an adventure in. I'm a bit rusty, though...

FREDERIQUE: Boo, bad pun.

YOU: ...Wasn't intentional.

FREDERIQUE: Ah - my bad. Carry on.

YOU: I think I'll take your offer to come with me, at least for getting back into scavenging. I can know that if anything happens, you'll be able to pick me back up, and we won't have a case of you being unsure of what happened to me or where to find me. I'll put up the closed for business sign, and we can set out.

FREDERIQUE: Actually, let me do you one better.

He holds out a hand towards the goods in the shop, a sigil of arcane light glowing on his palm.

GLAMOUR SPELL: SUCCESS

The goods in the shop vanish before your eyes, all except the rock. Frederique puts his hand down and turns to you.

FREDERIQUE: Alright, you can put the sign up now. Don't worry, I just made it all invisible. Hopefully this way, no one will swipe anything while we're gone.

You nod.

YOU: Understood. Thank you.

FREDERIQUE: Don't sweat it.
 

---

The two of you make your way to the canyon's edge, a relatively short walk from where your shop is set up. Some dust
trickles over the edge, falling down into the dark until it's out of sight. You hesitate. Frederique is waiting. You can do this.

FREDERIQUE: ...Think you're really up for it?

YOU: Yes. Let's just...make it quick. A few rooms, and then we're out.

FREDERIQUE: Copy that.

The two of you descend down makeshift stairs carved into the wall of the canyon. The scenery changes from an endless desert something a touch more claustrophobic, almost more of a dungeon than a canyon, though you know you're nowhere near the bottom. The room is overflowing with trash, narrow hallways carved out between towering piles of it. Frederique grimaces and plugs his nose. Right. Times like these make you grateful you weren't built with a sense of smell.

FREDERIQUE: Gods. I didn't miss this. At least there's no sun here, otherwise it'd reek down here.

You give a grunt of approval.

FREDERIQUE: Alright. I'm gonna search through this pile on the left. Gimme a shout if you find anything.

He starts fishing through one of the stacks to your left.

There are about four different stacks in this room you can search through, though from the shape of them, it looks like they've already been picked apart for anything good. You can also go to a different room to see if you can find anything more promising lying in plain sight, or possibly try to find the stairs to go to a deeper level. The deeper the level the more dangerous it gets, but, the more interesting things you find.

What do you do?

[skinstealer]

Deeper....we go deeper

[knux400]

Let's not go down the stairs without Frederique with us. We can work through the piles on this floor first and head down later.

[King-Clod]

((OOC: Almost forgot a stat to keep track of - how much time you've got until you need to be wound again. Gonna keep it simple and just label it TIME. You can always ask Frederique for help winding you up while he's in earshot.))

You decide it'd be good to go deeper in - this room looks pretty thoroughly scavenged for anything useful. You'll keep an eye out for the stairs, though knowing not to go too far out on your own. You enter into the next room.

It's a wider space from the last, with large piles of junk all throughout, and two doorways on the right and left sides of the room. There's a lot of miscellaneous trash bags here that could have any degree of typical household trash in them, though, you're aware the best trash is the trash of rich people - this trash looks solidly middle-class.

There's a few piles of note to you - one with boxes that say "TO BE DONATED," and one with what looks to be old busted appliances.

There's a sound of scuffling and moving about coming from the doorway to your left.

TIME: 1 hour 39 minutes (it's about a 15 minute walk from Trash Cavern Floor 1 back to your shop, for context)

What do you do?

[knux400]

Peek cautiously through the doorway and make sure it isn't something immediately hostile. If it's nothing to worry about, go back to rummaging through trash as normal. If it does try to attack, FREEZE TIME and run back to Frederique. It should only take about a minute or so to get back to where we were, so we won't lose too much time.

How quickly can we freeze time, actually? If it takes too long, it might not be good for immediate reaction situations like that.

[Lilium Mortem]

Check the sound out, make sure it's not like, a monster or something, then check out the 'to be donated' box

[King-Clod]

((OOC: Freezing time is a rather instinctual process, it can be done as quickly as your reflexes are.))

You peek through the doorway to your left, trying your best to be sneaky...but you were built to be a war-bot, and not a subtle one at that. Beyond the clangor you made just getting to the door, your joints make an awful screeching sound as you try, awkwardly, to peek around the corner just enough to see what's inside.

From what you can make out, there are only a few piles of out-of date food in here, and...what sounds to be hyperventilating. Whatever is in here is more scared of you than you are of it. And you have no need for food. So you decide to leave it be.

You make your way to the donation boxes, gingerly opening one of the many, finding... a few garments (too small for you or Frederique), a few tomes of stories for children, and a fabric toy in the shape of a dog that appears to be missing a leg.

You open a second box, finding some garments that might actually fit you, remarkably intact given the dungeon, and -

You hear the sound of scurrying behind you.

Instinctively, you turn, seeing a pink Snibbet - unmistakably a Snibbet from its small stature, large fuzzy ears, and wild eyes - trying to race past you with an armful of old bread and pastries. Their eyes turn to slits when they see you.

They drop everything, fumbling with their belt and grabbing for what appears to be a gun.

TIME: 1 hour 29 minutes

[knux400]

Pause time, walk around behind them, resume time.

"Omae wa, mou shindeiru."

[Ignispark]

Pause time, take their gun, walk around them, hold them at gunpoint. Huh. How does it feel now that the turns have tabled?