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Post by Flare on Feb 26, 2023 5:05:17 GMT -6
Quest #30
The note on the board is deceptively simple, written in neat but antiquated cursive. The note is decorated with sketches of old toys - a train, a rocking horse, and some blocks.
"Looking for assistants to help with the holiday rush. No experience needed!"
No experience needed - that surely includes you! Better check it out. The address on the back of the note leads to a small warehouse nearby the Labs. Interesting. You can't remember having seen this place before.
Before you can go inside, a young man bursts out of the door. His sweater is on fire, and he hastily pats it out. He speaks quickly, in a rapidly intensifying tone. "Oh, great! You're just in time. You gotta help me out, it's crazy in there! There's an emergency stop at the back of the workshop, big red button, you can't miss it. Just give it a good thump, and it'll shut the whole thing down!"
He clears his throat, trying to sound more collected and professional than he was a moment ago. "If you could. Please."
The Quest
The toy factory is out of control! Various machines and enchanted toys try to stop you from shutting the whole thing down. Fight your way through the magical chaos and hit the emergency stop.
Special Instructions
This is a story quest! That means that your posts must tell a cohesive story, with a beginning and an end, and as little ‘filler’ as possible.
Posts Required: 20
Prizes
First Completion: 4 QP and a very special toy from the workshop
2+ Completions: no prize
**FIRST COMPLETION FOR FLARE**
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Post by Flare on Feb 26, 2023 5:06:38 GMT -6
Six weeks. Six weeks of no to-light gardening work, the doctor said. His protest of 'he hadn't broken anything' didn't phase the doctor one bit with the balk of how long he had to rest. His animals need him and he has stuff to plant, and water, and such! The reply is 'consider that when you let your baby giraffe monster yank your shoulder out of the socket'. She's not.... oh never mind. The rest of his appointment carried on without any sort of issue. He'd dropped off the baakir for a checkup to make sure nothing had done her harm, and picked up her lead with one arm hung like a dead animal in a sling off his side. Expensive day.
The taiga didn't like being parted from Flare, and less because he was a good owner, but more because he could protect her from the scaries. Except for the vet; the vet was... eh... she lost interest in them scaring the scaries when the pokey made her butt cold.
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95 7.20
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Post by Flare on Feb 26, 2023 5:07:47 GMT -6
A very pleased human who loves animals walks away with coin in hand as Flare leads a dancing-in-place baakir away with the written-up bill of clean health stowing itself in his pocket. They'll go past the quest board and check out what's there before heading home. The 'mrrgh' noise above his head and the gentle tugs on his hair. Why is this taiga so convinced he's a walking bush some afternoons? He has to stop and pat her neck awkwardly, like a gentle knock against the thickening furred neck. She stops thankfully, snorting warm breath onto his scalp. Might be worth it to teach her how to not be eating him or other things that aren't eatable for baakir, he considers.
The quest board is about as busy as ever, with two large requests spanning part of the board, one right underneath the other. Even a few drawings are overlapping, like someone's trying to get more attention then the other.
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Post by Flare on Feb 26, 2023 5:08:33 GMT -6
He's been in Pethia long enough to understand that the Broken Time holiday, or Winter, is rather important and people get interested in giving gifts to each other. An odd celebration of when the sun dies for nearly a full day, then slowly comes back towards the advent of summer. Nobody has given him a gift for the broken times before, and likely that won't change. He might make a nice gift for his creatures, his only consistent friends. According to the quest request, there was 'no experience necessary' and he just had to show up at this address. No reason why, just decorated and...wintery. Now he's just plain suspcious.
The young baakir is the youngest of pack leader's herd, and even snippy sehel big sister of herd will grudgingly pay attention to him. She just doesn't like anyone. But will kick anyone willingly being a brat about it. But pack leader isn't sehel, its fire top here.
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Post by Flare on Feb 26, 2023 5:09:04 GMT -6
Opinionatedly, the request sounds about as desperate as the human needing a mouser; and how very well that particular thing went. Insert eyeroll here. The warm breath snufflling his hair from above as he stands there and reads, at least the taiga's interested in something besides being a problem. This isn't the type of request to somply tear off tand take with you. Not really.
A few passerby have a look at the board as he's considering the latest request there, look at the request too... 'you heard of anything out in the shipyard like that?' 'no' The tumaian listens, keeping a firm grip on the baakir's rope just in case she decides human hair munchies were on the menu today. THe people leave, and she makes no move to follow them. Flare commits the address to memory as he leaves the board and takes his troublesome new wintery pet with him.
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Post by Flare on Feb 26, 2023 5:09:51 GMT -6
Thankfully over his time of living here, Flare worked on making himself a handmade sketch of where places were in terms of his garden and his tent. The figure sighed as he stretched to the sky, the taiga's lead over his good wrist. This... almost gave him a gut feeling of a bad idea.
Why? Because he's hardly been down to the shipyard and the last time he had been here, it was seeking a book thief. No water please, he doesn't know if he can tread water with a bum shoulder. Unlikely. The shipyard is... foreign in the terms of the word. Because Tumai does not have such a thing. No great swollen twisting snake of water runs past or even near the city. Desert. DESERT. Buildings by water make little sense to him.
On the side of his hooved companion, the baakir is seeing everything left and right of him.
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Post by Flare on Feb 26, 2023 5:10:13 GMT -6
What sort of request requires no experience necessary, he has to wonder to himself. If the work involves any sort of lifting or moving or use of his hands, that work isn't likely going to work for a while. The tarplike texture of the sling keeping his arm to his chest irritates the flesh and blood skin of that arm. More then once, he catches himself trying to reach for something and be held back by the twist of this 'thing'. More then that, a painful twinge makes itself well known when he tries to do any sort of reaching motion through his shoulder. Ow.
The fluffy little taiga keeps twisting her head left and right, ears tapering to listen. She can hear water. Lapping water. like when the doggie laps at water. She hears no doggys. She's never heard water lap like this. Mrrgh, where is it? WHere? Le’s go this way!
Part of the problem with one arm down? Hes helpless to this motion!
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Post by Flare on Feb 26, 2023 5:10:35 GMT -6
You'd think that by now the beast would've figured out that when he yanks back on the rope that controls her head, that the baakir would stop. No, they are a stubborn species who this one is taking full advantage of his lack of full motion! What was the matter now? Last time she had done this sort of stunt, it took a shoulder out of socket.
'Stop. Stop!' he calls out... and can feel something well up inside him. The motion crashes him into her rear end as the baakir stops suddenly, making mrrgh noises of distress. Removing his face from white furred posterior and thank the sun he hadn't crashed lower down, he looks about to see small vines consricting her legs. Oh for the love of...
Mrrgh! The baakir complains of this. She wants to go this way! Now plants stop her! There are no plants...here? She looks down... tiny little sprouts between the stones!
-Flare casts entangle
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Post by Flare on Feb 26, 2023 5:11:10 GMT -6
Small miracles. At the exact moment, he doesn't feel drained or ill from the magic spurning the plants into ensnaring his animal. The vines aren't even very strong, just grown up weeds, judging from their shallow rooting between the paving stones. Life finds a way, even in rocks.
'Hold still' patting the taiga's neck awkwardly, Flare steps beside her, crouching to examine the sprouts. Taking hold of her hoof and giving it a generous lift off the ground, the vines tore away easily from the ground, withering almost instantly into brown straws. Her blocky head dips around see what he's doing with her feet, and the reason she's on three legs. Big side pupiled eyes stare at him as he works, and finally frees her right front hoof from the vines. 'No more snare' he tells her gently, patting again.
Mrrgh. She's not happy at being caught, but can smell the male in the plants for some reason.
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Post by Flare on Feb 26, 2023 5:11:40 GMT -6
"Now that-" He pauses, looking up from having his hands on peeling brown straws off the baakir's hoof. Someone is standing there, watching him. "Is one fancy trick."
'Trick?' Straightening up, the tumaian, who isn't tall, catches his animal's nose lead so she doesn't flee.
"Yeah, that... weed into vine thing. That was you... right? Or was it your uh... longnecked horse." Horse? He's SEEN horses, and the kind of 'horses' this region creates. They aren't the same.
'Not a horse. She...is a camel.' plausible enough, and the personality of stubborn to boot.
"Right right. Bump and all. I can use the two of you." On closer inspection, this individual has burn holes in their clothing. Fresh ones, he can smell the char. So can the taiga. She grumbles, stamping a hoof in displeasure. Nostrils flare at the smell of bad, and she doesn't know why it is bad, but her instincts say its bad. So it is bad.
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Post by Flare on Feb 26, 2023 5:12:02 GMT -6
'For?' don't go accepting random tasks out of the blue... Flare's not world traveled, but the young elemental knows better then to jump in before looking. Or in this case, asking.
"The only kind of people who are coming down this here block of the shipyard are looking for that job with no experience. Thats...why your here, right?" A pause... then a nod. "Oh thank Order. I'm about at my wits end. Listen, there's a toy factory running here in the shipyard. We make toys to export out of the city and take to other countries. Everyone loves the Glowstick Generation Scratch and Sniff Orbaru plushes. A Christmas favorite. 5 years old this year, in fact, that orbaru that our toys were made about." the human? is suddenly talking very fast. "THe real sell to Glowstick plushes is that they move and act like a real orbaru. Except you don't need to feed them, and they can learn about ten different tricks, thanks to the inner tech."
Flare's about to tune out the fast talking human, as their common is almost too much for even him to follow, and he's not the worst linguist.
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Post by Flare on Feb 26, 2023 5:13:29 GMT -6
'Before you continue. What is this Christmas?' Flare interrupts the story about these ...metal puppets.
"Uh... are you from under a rock man? Its Toy Day. The Day of Gifts. Fat man vandalises your house one day a year by fireplace to bring presents and not get arrested for the rest of the year... ring a bell?"
'...no. Solstice?' That holiday he does know. The broken time... shortest day, longest night.
"Eh, close enough. So, we got an extra big order for export this year, as it is our 5th anniversary special of Glowstick and we...kind of set the factory to operate too fast. The toys were turned on too soon and are malfunctioning from being so close together in one group. Its a programming error, but in order to FIX the problem, we'll have to stop production. It'll make our next export late if we-I, don't get the factory shut down to bug fix the existing toys on the conveyors." Elemental and baakir just stand there, dumbfounded.
Because to him, a bug in a toy is literally a beetle crawling on a plush item, or on wood or stone toys. Not 'in' them?
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Post by Flare on Feb 26, 2023 5:14:49 GMT -6
"So what needs to be DONE, is enter the factory and go shut off the manufactory halo by hitting the big fat red button on the back wall. Can't miss it, it even glows in the dark. One good shoulder slam or a punch or kick should shut it off."
'What part requires no experience? The button or the entry.'
"Both actually." the individual pauses...too long. Suspiciously. "Look, what we-I, really need, is a distraction while someone goes over to hit the red button. The toys know why I am there, and have been fighting back to keep production running. Glowstick toys love friends but don't want them to stop coming."
'That explains why you smell like charred wool'
"Well yeah. At least one of those toys has some loose wires and when it grabbed me, it set my sweater on fire." Now he's no knowledge on tech like that, but fire from metal sounds bad already. And he's half disabled, and hobbled by a baakir.
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Post by Flare on Feb 26, 2023 5:16:21 GMT -6
"So, you know the job now. Its kinda dangerous, but you can make vines with your voice! Thats cool, and might be able to stop these stu- uh, adorable toys long enough to hit the button. If you can cause as little damage to the equipment or the toys as possible, that's a bonus." He's rubbing his hands together eagerly. Seeking an 'i will do it' sort of answer. Flare's not sold. The taiga is acting affronted. She doesn't even speak HUMAN HUMAN HUMAN, but she knows when someone's not making nice noise. Snort.
'Two problems.' He gestures with two fingers on his good hand. 'One, I am injured, if you did not see that.' Was the tarp sling across his body not enough to get the point across. 'Two, my baakir is not a fighting animal. She is young. Child animal. Not a fighter.' And thus, not going to go get eaten by rampant toys? The way the human is describing them is the loose wire toys are looking to eat him alive or something. Which isn't possible. Its a TOY.
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20.20 Lv 96
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Post by Flare on Feb 26, 2023 5:18:02 GMT -6
"You can make vines with your VOICE. That requires no arms. And your camel horse thing is big enough to just waltz on through the toys and give the button a good KICK. Its not like they reach above a child's waist. Or an adult human's knee." either he's just desperate or stupid to ask an injured 'human' to him to do something like this. Its an oversight that Flare doesn't like.
'Your toys tell children real orbaru need no food. Not true.' He should know, he owns one.
"Well, they are dumb as rocks, and will do next to anything to please their human, so... that's why they get the toy instead of the orbaru itself. Less maintenance." and a lie to the child...
'Unless you have-' BAM The door about ten feet behind them both blasts open with no warning. And its a good thing Flare dropped the rope and stamped on it, because the taiga panics and tries to run but is held back hard by the rope on her face.
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1.20
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