✪ Stokbon The Dog

[Rook the Quick]

The time was now 5:00 PM. Rook the Quick knew this because the two of them had decided to meet in a clock tower, and the clock had just gone off.

BONG. BONG.

Rook ran from wall to wall, gesturing expressively and communicating very little.

BONG. BONG.

Scatscatscat. His sandaled feet scuttled on the cobblestones. He'd just finished running around in the shape of the corridors they'd be infiltrating, leaving a map of Rook-shaped footprints in the dust. Left. Right. Right. Left. The building (called 'The Doghouse') was a maze, but fortunately he (Rook the Quick - that was his name, as it had once been) had been able to get ahold of the floorplans.

Floorplans!

As if they would use the floors!

BONG!

The tower shook with the reverberations from the final chime, and the clock fell silent. It was like it was holding its breath. Muzzled, but not mute.

"...Krrk," Rook said with an air of finality, jabbing at the parchment with the tip of his blade. He sheathed it, then cocked his head, looking at @Pete Simpson as if to ask any questions?

Golden eyes bright, he rocked back on his heels, head bobbing amiably.

Then another flurry of wild gestures and hand-movements and waving and arms in the air and sword-fighting and severing invisible chains and, comprehensible at last, a fairly normal thumbs-up.

"Ready?" he croaked.

 

[Chrys]

It has been a while, hasn't it? Pete Simpson wasn't quite sure when the last time he felt this excited was, if ever, now fueled from head to toe by an unfamiliar dose of adrenaline from within. What he was quite sure of, however, was that his current partner-in-crime was more than excited, if all this boundless energy wasn't just the norm for them. Pete has read about people that didn't seem to run out of energy. He wasn't one of them, but sometimes, especially on dark days, he wished he was. Maybe if he had an unlimited supply of energy on the regular, he could accomplish so much, certainly more than he could time to mope around for and realize how terrible his life was back in the real world.

He gave the bird man an awkward thumbs-up after trying his best to catch up to all the non-verbal gestures. Pete hasn't really worked with anyone who didn't speak as much as him, or at all, but he could speak for the both of them. That would be a much-welcomed respite instead of being locked up in his head with his dark thoughts all the goddamned time. At the very least, he could practice his social skills, ones that have been lacking in the real world. But this isn't the real world! The thought finally occurred to him, the realization of possibilities, of being able to change his very fate, who he is, in this very strange but very fantastical world. I could always be a very sociable guy!

"Ready as I'll ever be, mate," Pete grinned, his most playful smirk yet. With one final look around them, the self-proclaimed Ringmaster then gave @Rook the Quick a nod before they began their heist. Well, technically, it wasn't a heist. Was it a heist? Definitely not a standard, run-of-the-mill heist. Those things usually just involve stealing something right under the bad guys' noses. As far as Pete can recall, anyway. This whole thing wasn't just stealing something right under the bad guys' noses. It was stealing "someone" the bad guys and their crooked noses stole first. It was its own thing.

Making their way from the clock tower to the strangely named "Dog House" was easy. Rook was very light on his feet, so getting detected was nigh impossible. It helped that Pete himself was assisted by his Tempest Ring of Baal electrifying his speed to match that of Rook, though only in short bursts of direct movement. He had doubts he'd be able to keep up if rounded corners were in play. Soon, and under the guards' noses, they found themselves on the last stretch, cowering behind a wall, just a few feet towards the back door.

"Wow, they're really serious about guarding that maze, eh?" He quipped at the sight of the one single guard yawning at his post. "What do you say, Rook? You go low, I go high?"

Pete waited for his partner's consent, intending to use the very same ring to tase the guard with Baal's lightning. In his head, he pictured Rook kicking the guard in his shins before he'd take him out with one electrified punch. As Pete had learned early on, however, though he always seemed to forget, the things in his mind, the Rings of Saturnine don't always agree with.

 

[Rook the Quick]

Scatscatscatscat.

He ran like wheat tassels brushing against stone. It was a tickly sound. His sandals were woven from rice husks, soft and papery and little more than scratchy coasters between foot-sole and footpath.

He was small and strange, so no one saw him.

@Pete Simpson was also strange, but so were many people in this place. Since the star-shower, the fall of the Travelers, the mundane cities had filled with strangeness and strangers. People with magic rings and chain-hide armor. People with masks and scars at their throat and shorts above the knee, because Rook the Quick hadn't grown a millimeter in the four years since he'd been away.

Down an alley, scatscatscat.

Over a wagon heaped with goods, shhhhhhh, sliding underneath in a controlled smear of color.

A lone guard, stifling a yawn. An enemy! At last! Obstacles he could run around, enemies required blades. Rook nodded eagerly at Pete, the up-and-down gesture exaggerated by his oversized mask.

Up and down. High and low. Pete and Rook.

Low.

In the same movement he'd used to clear the wagon, Rook slid. His drawn blade drew sparks across the floor of the corridor. The guard had just been tased, so the man had little reaction as Rook's flashing feet replaced his own in a double-strike. Foam bubbling at the corners of his mouth, the guard started to fall forward.

He fell up.

A red thread appeared. Rook had been seeing them with increasing frequency since he'd returned to Terrasphere. As he was want to do, he reached up to pluck it and was immediately treated to a reversal of gravity. The ceiling pulled him as it had the guard, gravity reorienting so its source was the ceiling.

He landed on grated stucco feet-first, then pattered up to the guard to check him over. Eager hands explored the man's pockets, retrieving a key. He waved furiously at Pete from his bizarre, upside-down perch on the ceiling, key clearly dangling the wrong direction on its ring.

Stretching on his tiptoes, he attempted to drop the key up (or down?) to his companion.

He wanted to bring Pete up here with him, but he didn't know how. The threads appeared at random.

But he was Rook the Quick, and he didn't let such uncertainties stop him for long. Before him stretched a long, clear pathway, hazard and obstacle free but for the occasional ceiling sconce and chandelier.

Scatscatscatscat!

He was running again. The right way, but the wrong-way-up. Like Naryu Canyon, the world didn't quite work right for him anymore.

Right. Left. Left. Right. Directions were reversed for him now. Behind them, freed of Rook's spell, the electrified guard suddenly dropped ten feet to the ground with a splat.

Rook had no mind for such pale concerns—he was busy with Right-Left-Left-Right, a flurry of footsteps and fleeting turns, until they reached the heart of the Dog House.

 

[Chrys]

What the bloody hell? Pete did not expect any gravity shenanigans in this quest. Or anywhere else for that matter. Was that even normal? People falling up, walking on ceilings, defying the rules of physics? D'oh! It's a game, Pete, you soggy sock puppet! Pete was still getting used to these things clearly, but he was never the sharpest tool in his sorry excuse of a father's shed, so being slow was the only mode he knew to go about things. In his defense, Pete hasn't played games like this before. He's tried to stay away from them, even anything and everything remotely associated with augmented reality. He was having a difficult time with his boring life as is. Adding new modes of reality? Well, that just scared Pete.

After suddenly getting the key from @Rook the Quick, he gave his partner an awkward thumbs-up. In Pete's head, it would've made more sense if Rook kept it to himself and dashed to wherever the key was needed. Maybe he just didn't want to get burdened by an extra item. Pete had a lot of theories and questions, even for just a game like this, but he tried his best to shake his head, and in doing so, hoped to shake them all away as well. This wasn't the time for theories and thoughts. It was the time for action!

Channeling the aeromancy bound to his Tempest Ring of Baal, Pete started hastening himself with the jolts of lightning the lesser goddess would share with him. As soon as he felt good enough to run after Rook, he did just that. But not before using his Nature Ring of Buer to slap the already hurt guard in the face with a massive vine of sorts. Double-tap, am I right? It wasn't to add insult to injury, though. Far from it. Pete just wanted to make sure the man wouldn't wake up any time soon. Would be a terrible heist if they got caught that quickly. Heist? Okay, sure, it's a heist. Semantics.

From green to cyan, the Rings of Saturnine changed forms again. Well, it technically does. Whenever Pete would shift between the two lesser goddesses' aid, the rings would change themselves. Not fully, however. In all forms, they would remain the same, just two strange rings seemingly fused for currently unknown reasons. Pete had no idea why they were like that and the few NPCs he had talked to couldn't help either. Maybe it was one of those things that he needed to be powerful enough before he could unlock their content. Yeah, maybe that's that. The only visible change from one to the other would be their color: green for the Nature Ring of Buer—D'oh!—and cyan for the Tempest Ring of Baal. Why was that case? Unlockable content, of course!

Soon, Pete was right next to Rook, though he was much slower. He was able to zoom forward as fast as he could, but the turns were not pleasant. He had to stop whenever a wall was in front of him and then turn to his right or left to zoom again. "You ready, Rook? There could be a bunch of bad guys on the other side of this door, so—" He cut himself off, grinning at his partner, before grabbing the knob, electrifying it to stun whoever was stupid enough to be holding the other end, if any, and turned it as swiftly as he could. "Have at it, old chum!"

Pete swung the door open, the Rings of Saturnine more than ready to start blasting!