[center][img]https://i.postimg.cc/MKK5m0sX/Kid-s-Hat-2.png[/img] [img]https://i.postimg.cc/G2xPk9Gk/Jiggy-2.png[/img] [b]Level:[/b] [color=8258fa]4 (39 -> 41/40)[/color] [color=yellow]LEVEL UP![/color] ---> [color=8258fa]5 (1/50)[/color] | [color=fed428]4 (9 -> 12/40)[/color] [b]Location:[/b] [color=8258fa]Lumbridge - Entrance -> Great Ton Pu Inn -> Guild Hall[/color] | [color=fed428]RCPD HQ - Main Hall -> Exterior; Market Avenue (Center Path)[/color] [b]Word Count:[/b] [color=8258fa]980 (+2 EXP)[/color] | [color=fed428]1328 (+3 EXP)[/color] [color=8258fa]Stress Level:[/color] 95 -> 80 -> 0 [color=8258fa][i](Level up TBD)[/i][/color] [/center] The party stepped out of the crash-parked monster truck and onto the streets of Lumbridge where they with an appropriately warm, but subdued hero’s welcome. Word travelled fast, apparently. It was nice and all, but for Hat Kid, it hardly compared to her time as a movie star on the moon. Admittedly, however, gigs here definitely paid better (monetarily that is; not in Time Pieces), and she was almost certainly treated better--cautiously encouraged to face danger rather than being actively placed in it. Furthermore, the studio never fed or accommodated her while under their employ, unlike the people of modest means here in Lumbridge who could still spare a room and meal for a heroic entourage in spite of the need for business. With the former in mind, she was going to have to get in touch with a [url=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/4965012]lawyer[/url] with whom to discuss and possibly file on an entire naughty list of complaints about fair, safe labor practices and innumerable violations thereof some time. The child quietly took the blanket/s and water offered to her with a nod of thanks. Before making her way straight to her free room--courtesy of the courteous innkeeper--she made a slight detour past the job board and stripped off quest flier at random without looking at it to take back with her. A minute or two later, she found herself in a quaint, but cozy room with a single bed smaller than what she was used to (queen size); closer to a reasonable size for her (twin). Before she could lay down in it though, there was something she had to take care of. She planted herself in the seat at the desk, dipped the quill, and started jotting... [color=8258fa][i]‘Day 2… Turns out *r-real* ‘quests-s’ aren’t as f-f-fun as they m-make them s-s-seem in ga-games; a lot more s-s-stressful than I imagined-d. S-still s-sh-shakey, h-hard to w-wr-write. I th-think-k-k I n-need to lie d-d-down.’[/i][/color] Without specifically saying as much, she thought to herself that she would stick to the various sources of fictional media and entertainment (i.e. games, movies, novels, etc.) to satisfy her quest fix from now on after tonight’s events… unless there was more to be done here. She didn’t exactly check to see if there were any more jobs offering the relevant hourglass reward while she was busy using one of the fliers as a spare page for her placeholder diary entry until she could get back to her ship to copy her ramblings into her journal proper. There was, of course, some symbolic catharsis to be had in venting one’s flustered disappointment and frustrations with the very thing that caused them onto what was essentially an advertisement for more of it… or maybe she just needed to sleep it off. With that last item on her daily agenda fulfilled, she decided to do just that, but not without first peeking into the footlocker to see if her luck with pulling spare change from the toy chest in her room would follow her here. Whether this little experiment succeeded or failed, she would try again once more tomorrow. She put out all the candles in the room, set her hat aside on the bedside nightstand, tucked herself in tightly and blissfully waited for the next sunrise as she let this outgoing day fall away into the past. [hr] Without the unnecessible noise and abruptness of her ship’s morning alarm system, Hat Kid woke much more calmly and gently than usual, cutely yawning and stretching as she sat up to greet the sunrise. By force of habit (read [i]lack of needing to[/i]) she neglected to draw the curtains closed. Good for her being up early enough to not be harshly glared awake by the pre-noon sun; there’s little else besides that to make one feel [i]less[/i] like getting out of bed. Contrarily, she felt rejuvenated; reinvigorated; relieved of all the stress brought upon her from the night before. It was, frankly, a miracle that she didn’t have any nightmares from it. At least nobody died yesterday (that she knew of), which alone was a sizable step up from the day before that. Perhaps the Heroes of Light could keep their good fortune going (or, at the very least, come up with an official team name). Kid made her way out of bed at a comfortable pace and proceeded down to the Guild Hall to see about what came next for them. By now she had figured out the same thing surely everyone did: what they defeated last night wasn’t one of Galeem’s thirteen guardians. The threat they faced on the farmsteppe, while formidable, didn’t seem quite [i][b]big[/b][/i] enough to fit such a role, and that weird wave of cleansing darkness from before didn’t happen this time. Of course, wouldn’t you know it, the Guildmaster conveniently failed to mention the first half of that observation to them until now. Figures. They should have known better than to expect a shady cloaked figure to be candid with them about much of anything. [i]’Whatever,’[/i] she more or less thought to herself before tuning out the deliberation. She then caught herself idly glancing back at the job board, prompting her to pull out her flier and closely examine both to double-check and make sure there was nothing else of interest or critical importance for her, folding the paper and putting it away once she confirmed as much one way or the other. Afterwards, she wandered over to the spirit-littered table and drew three from the pile--a Foreman, a Scarecrow, and a Sleeper’s Dream--skipping the courtesy of asking if anyone else would mind her taking them. She eyed each of them for a brief moment before haphazardly smashing them together in her wee hands, curious and somewhat eager to see what they would yield for her after having seen everyone else do it this whole time... [hr] For lack of anything better to do (and not wanting to run in to the creature again), Banjo and Kazooie set off on their own to search for more clues… or the killer--whichever came first. Some might have advised them against going alone with a serial killer roaming about, but as they would remind any objectors, they were a pair; they had that part covered. As far as they were concerned, they were [i]never[/i] alone… not that it helped Louis, sadly (who, unbeknownst to them, was actually fine). They kept Blazermate’s testimony in mind as far as who and what to look out for. They had an idea for how they might combat his ‘camera freeze’, should Banjo fail to avoid it, but without Wonderwing, they were admittedly minus anything with which to [color=0072bc]“attack a ghost.”[/color] Though, they were somewhat doubtful that he was, well… [i]that[/i]. What would a ghost need a camera for? In any case, they would figure out what to do when they arrived at the problem. Of course, even after searching whatever rooms they could get into (that wasn’t the library), they encountered a whole lot of nothing, surprisingly. After a bit of backtracking, they somehow even ended up a couple of steps behind Ratchet, Clank, and Blazer in their aimless search. It got to a point where every time the trio would turn a corner, enter, or leave a room, the duo would end up doing the inverse of the same, never once entering the other’s sight. All the while they never found anything they were looking for, and finding things was generally what they were good at. Although, perhaps 'things' and 'people' were a different animal when it came to search efforts… They deliberated on this briefly and decided to discontinue their search around the time the vulpine came rushing through the halls, opting to follow him back to see what his hurry was. It turned out he had the instructions for how to exorcise the 'Preta', as it came to be called. Banjo decided, in spite of Kazooie, that he wasn't feeling as prideful as Fortune about getting back at it, letting the decided volunteers go ahead without them while they held down the main hall with those that remained. Banishing demons wasn't something they knew how to contribute to anyhow, and it gave the ursine as good an excuse as he was content with to kick back for a moment, however brief it would be. [hr] The minute their makeshift barricade gave way, Banjo rammed a cluster of undead back with the top side of a tipped over table, pinning them against the first solid surface they made contact with while Kazooie took their heads while a quick, sharp rotary slice of her wings. The severed heads went airborne, Banjo drew the Cricket Bat knocked them indiscriminately into the invading crowd, shattering and splattering a few of the lesser creatures struck, but otherwise doing little to stop the horde spilling into the station. Guarding himself with the bat, Banjo threw a handful of them overhead as they rolled in, Kazooie breaking them off with a single forceful beak jab. What neither of them knew was that the Antenora among them would angrily, unwaveringly charge them, bowling over the Caina Banjo kicked at him and swinging madly. This caught Banjo slightly off guard, and unable to raise his guard in time, he was sent tumbling back with a fresh gash in his hyde. The Antenora followed up with another series of cleaver strikes, Banjo this time dodging the first set, blocking the second, leaving a sizable score mark in the paddle, and jumping out of the way of the third. Kazooie then caught an intended ambush attack by a Hideous just in time to duck and jump (in that order) over its incoming blade swings, which instead struck the Antenora, drawing its aggressed attention to the passed over flyer. A Caina then came at them dragging its scythe behind it into an upward crescent swing that Banjo sidestepped in a pivot while grabbing it by one of its arms and pulling it into a headlock. In the same motion, Kazooie wrested its scythe from it and hurled it with all of her strength into the chest of one of the Imp’s that had been harassing the group while Banjo ran with the lesser demon in his grasp. Both animals swung hard at a rising angle, Kazooie to lift themselves, and Banjo to knock the demons into the air for use as kicking/stepping stones. The maneuver got Banjo onto the demon’s back by its wings, whereupon it thrashed and swatted about to buck the ursine off. He loosened his grip and went airborne, but with the aim to have Kazooie drive them forward in an aerial loop with the Accept-Lance in hand to skewer the Hideous and whatever else happened to be in their path. For as hard as everyone fought, even with the steady arrival of reinforcements and Blazer’s ever helpful zombie domination/crowd control, they were very obviously getting nowhere trying to brute force the horde back. After a minute a positive update to their situation came in the form of a hasty update by Jill who had intuited the exorcism crew’s success, which meant they could finally get the hell out of there. The bad news was that the teleporter wouldn’t be doing them that favor as they had hoped, so they would have to find another way. The front door was definitely out, especially with the arrival of a hulking demonic mech, which left them the obvious first alternative of beelining for the back while V held the machine at bay. Kazooie trailed on foot not far behind Fox, bounding after him through the shattered window and onto the perimeter wall. From there they managed to glimpse a second-long look at the path beyond before having to move aside for Nightmare to hole punch an exit for the rest. Survivors promptly poured out through the opening and onto the street while the line of fighters bottlenecked what bit of horde dregs could get through. The duo Buster dropped from the wall onto the nearest creature to a civilian and joined in on fending them off, punching, kicking, pecking, swiping, and batting down zombie and demon alike until the bat snapped and folded at its center where it was previously cut. Nero's assault against the greater demon brought down the station's foundations onto the horde, further slowing their advance. This provided the group with a larger window of opportunity to continue their escape, as they would do while knocking off the stray horde number that followed. Banjo flung the loosely connected halves of the bat at a couple of undead and took off on Kazooie's back alongside the others. They came upon a proverbial fork in the road where they were left with a snap decision to make on which route to take. Between the visible danger on the left and the INvisible threat on the right (as dictated by Howard), the answer was more or less obvious for the duo. [color=f60000]"You sods can all go whichever way you like,"[/color] the breegull bluntly interjected in her casually, characteristically, unnecessarily rude manner as her contribution to the collective decision making process. [color=f60000]"Banjo and I are going up the middle,"[/color] she added, head gesturing to her ursine partner still mounted on her back. Banjo nodded in agreement, but also to reassure the others that they were good for it. They were among the only ones in the entire group who could fly, which made heights less of a challenge and meant that they could alter routes or go airborne at will if for any reason they had to. No lesser creature that didn't share their mobility would dare follow them up. As soon as everyone else had their headings (or sooner), the duo would set off posthaste on their chosen path.