CROSSROADS ※ 1: DISCUSSION POST [mod event] [video] [open]

[konman]

Okay, so those bird dudes weren't lying about the different paths. I found the crossroads they're talking about.

[Kon really shouldn't be tromping around alone like this so much but he's used to being nigh on invincible. It's going to take a while for him to get used to the idea that he's not.]

[The road was all overgrown but there is a road through the woods - and it leads here, to a place where the line of the forest breaks into wide fields of golden grasses. Kon sets up his mirror to expand to its largest side and leaves it to float. There's a crossroads here with a battered wooden sign. The wood is so faded and weathered that words can no longer be read on it.]

[The path splits off into three paths. Down the left-most path, the unlabeled path leads down a dark and dreary road towards some hills. One hill can be seen all the way in the distance, standing out above the others. Rising a thousand feet above the rest of the land around it, it's covered in battered ruins that offer at least some shelter from the elements and cover from potential enemies.]

[Down the center path, the path clearly leads to a sinister-looking wild forest, a dark and dreary wood that seems filled with endless shadows. The path disappears into the woods and the tangled branches make it impossible to see into the forest's depths, especially at this distance.]

[Down the right-most path, there's candy. No joke. Dirt and normal plants start to give way to cobblestones made of hard candy and sugar-spun delicate trees. Gummdrops line the side of the road. The other two paths are grim, with even the hilly path dim from cloudy skies, but this path seems to have clear skies and constant sun.]

[Kon stands in front of the mirror, so that the paths are behind him.]

So our choices are: the Land of the Hill Trolls, Mirkwood, and Candyland.

[He narrows his eyes.]

I don't trust Candyland. [He gestures vaguely at it.] The other two roads have the good graces to be creepy from the get-go, but that looks deceptively nice. It's trying way too hard to be cheerful and sunshine-ey.

[ooc: See the OOC Post here.]

Comments

[mirror]

[awfulcer]

[None of the options look particularly inviting, so Dixon actually has to think on it before throwing his two cents in.]

Okay, but if we go to Candyland we won't have to worry about starving. [He ain't no fucking nutritionist.]

[konman]

Yes, but it's also too inviting.

Think about it, we've been dumped into Fantasyland, right? The Emerald City was real here, so who the hell -- heck. [Kal is here, ergo he tries to cut down on the cursing.] Who the heck knows what else is real here?

Candyland could mean gingerbread houses, and gingerbread houses could mean evil witches that want to fatten us up and eat us.

[Kon taps his temple.]

Gotta start thinking with some genre-savvy.

[outofresets]

You can't live off candy.

[ This is spoken with the wisdom and disappointment of someone who has tried. ]

And Kon's right, it is pretty suspicious that it's the only way that's not super creepy upfront. Kinda makes me think of one of those honey traps for bees.

[ He still totally wants to snag some of that candy when they go by it though. ]

[astrarche]

The forest contains the highest quantity of resources.

[She doesn't offer the opinion up helpfully. She offers it like it's the only possible logical choice, clearly, and surely no one else will disagree with her on account of her being Right.]

[konman]

But it's also got the highest quantity of creepy.

I think we should go to the hills. We'd have the high ground against any enemies and there still might be stuff to hunt in all those grasslands.

[prisonerofsasskaban]

[Sirius's eyes are fixed on one path in particular. He curses being stuck in the Brugh even more. Because if that's what he thinks it is, he knows just how to handle it]

That's not Mirkwood. That looks like the Forbidden Forest.

[outofresets]

How can you tell?

[somnioergosum]

Just because it's creepy doesn't mean it's worse than the rest. Look at fucking Candyland there. You think that's safer? It looks like a black eyed kid'll come up to us, give us dice, and ask if we want to play a game.

I'm with the monkey.

[greyerrant]

Land of the hill trolls looks like it has the best chance of being a defensible position and some protection from ambush.

That's my vote, if we're doing this by vote.

[greyerrant]

The Candyland also upsets me. But the forest has the highest chance of a successful enemy ambush. And we are not well armed. I prefer the Hills.

[prisonerofsasskaban]

I've been there.

[His voice is distant, but he comes back to himself quickly.]

It's dangerous, but I know it. Merlin knows what's in the others.

[Especially Candyland there.]

[awfulcer]

And what do you think's in that weird forest? [Dixon points at where it's visible behind Kon, not at anything in particular there but just at the whole concept of a dark, creepy forest.] All I'm saying is if there's a creepy witch out there who wants to kill us, their house is probably in those woods. And if it's not witches, it's gonna be giant spiders or werewolves or some of those Supernatural demons.

[His momma likes that show. He's just happened to have caught a season or two over her shoulder. Or six.]

And you can at least eat candy better than wind and brambles. [He switches to pointing at the hilltop path, giving Bart a look like he's just been betrayed.]

[konman]

Provided it really is the forest you know, care to share with the class what untold horrors may or may not lie within?

[astrarche]

I guarantee there will be stuff hunting us.

[Her reluctance to go into the grasslands is surely in no way impacted by her current tree-dwelling species. Her current short tree-dwelling species that can't stand tall to see far over tall grass.

No thank you.]

[astrarche]

Are you going to prefer eating grass and sleeping on the ground? Because unless someone is a better persistence hunter than I think any of you are, that's what you'll be eating and doing.

The forest is a better choice.

[awfulcer]

We could always eat Daryl.

mirror

[googledox]

Untrue. The... [Brainy has to take a moment to breathe in and out through his nose, as if steeling himself up to say the following very stupid words] candy path would have the most favorable ratio of energy exertion to caloric intake. We had no idea whether that forested area has the same proliferation of sources of nutrition that this area does.

Provided we carefully supplement said caloric intake with protein from - [Another sigh] - meat and bring along more nutrient-rich foods from the Melai Temple area, the path made of candy is unarguably the most calorie-dense.

[astrarche]

That's disgusting.

[She lets the judgement linger.]

He's too stringy.

[Someone laugh. Someone. That was funny.]

[konman]

The crows said stuff will be hunting us on every path. Provided they weren't lying, there's prophecies and stuff now. We're marked.

Candy path is too obviously evil, and the woods are easier to ambush someone in than the hills.

[shyhara]

At least those ruins could provide shelter. We don't know if we'd find anything like that in the other directions.

[And he's really rather not have to sleep in candy grass and wake up sticky, thanks.]

[konman]

Actually, I totally agree. The weird forest probably has witches, too.

The hills have good visibility. It'll be harder for anything to get the jump on us, there. Hills also aren't known for witch problems like candylands and evil forests are.

So no brainer.

[outofresets]

[ Unfortunately he doesn't seem to register the betrayed look, he's in thinking mode and mostly getting carried away with his own thoughts. ]

Yeah, I'm actually not with Kon about going to the hill top...sorry Kon.

But Huginn and Muninn did say all the ways were bad. Bad enough they didn't even want to fly over them. So we're definitely going to run into something awful either way.

And I'm thinking, there's gotta be a reason it's all candy, right? Like, what if something there is turning stuff into candy? And what if we go in there and turn in to candy, too?

[ On second thought, maybe he won't grab any of the candy...just in case... ]

I mean, that's a worse case scenario, but with the woods, at least we would know we're stepping into a situation we can hopefully fight off, I guess.

Also, less concerning but still something to think about; if we have to take bathroom breaks I would personally rather do that behind bushes and trees than up on a hill or behind candy canes and gumdrops.

[astrarche]

You are not going to get very far in your life eating mostly candy, no matter how much you want to.

[She assumed, early on in her maternal journey, that she'd have multiple reasons to lecture Kubo with this sort of better-knowing. She assumed that before she ended up penniless in a cave with her son too poor sometimes to buy rice, much less candy.

This boy may be green and Not Hers, but she had so many lectures prepared which were never before unleashed.]

[astrarche]

Woods are easier to escape ambush in. Where are you going to escape to in the hills?

[awfulcer]

[Congrats, Sariatu, have a generous round of raucous laughter.]