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Creepy Crawlies
username: Avid_RPer18
doe's name: Erlea
prompt option: A.) You awaken inside the hydroelectric dam of Mistfruit. Behind a heavy door a machine snarls and rattles with life. Signs on the door state this room is hazardous, but that machine could be hurting Vykeli.
What do you do?
prompt response:

Oof! Erlea made a note to go thank her grandmother for her advice when she returned to Homewood. When word of a new growth and blossoming power denoting that there was a new gift from the grandfather tree, she had been humbled when she had been selected to be the first to approach. She was of the correct age, hadn't been to the tree yet, among other factors. Erlea had been in a right tizzy among her kin before her departing, but her nan caught her attention and shared a few pointers. Namely, remember not to sprint in the desert, to sit or lay down before the vision hit, and to remember to breathe. Reminders two and three were real handy. There'd always been talk of what folk experienced but, with the sensation of the one world being suddenly whisked away and being deposited in another, there was a wave of dizzying disorientation that bordered on nauseating. Sitting and breathing deeply upon arrival helped her to keep grounded and the stomach upset faded quickly.

Rising to her hooves, she drank in her immediate surroundings. Stone? No. These were concrete walls, a structure of the Others, and the whole place had this persistent background buzzing to it. The air where she had been sent was very humid. Ah! Erlea had heard of Misfruit Forest and it's dammed lake. She hadn't been herself yet, but this had to be the place. As she began to explore, a more worrying sound drew her attention. It wasn't the soft ambient hum of the place. Something in this dam roared and rattled somewhere near by. Erlea followed to the source as close as she could, but a looming metal door stopped her. Even with the door, she couldn't help but pin her ears back against her skull. She couldn't read a lick of Other writing, but this was it. No doubt it about. Along one side of the door were a bright red sign with pretty specific, important looking white symbols emblazoned across it; and underneath that was a smaller one. Looked to maybe be a label? The buckskin doe took a moment to memorize both the red sign and its symbols, and the smaller label beneath. Whatever machine was within just sounded dangerous, and there was no telling how much harm it was doing for however long it had been running.

Maybe she needed to get inside the room? Erlea wasn't certain of that, but what she did feel pretty clear on was that the machine needed to be stopped. There was no way for her through the door before her, but, surely, there was another way in. She started walking, keeping her ears tuned in for the specific noises that hidden behemoth was making, and her eyes peeled for any more repeats of the exact signs and symbols outside of the first metal door she had found. Erlea made a point to turn around if the noises got too distant and, while she did try a couple of the doors she found, none opened for her, holding fast in their frames. Not finding any luck with the doors nearest to the racketous machine noises, the doe changed her focus. Follow the signs that matched the ones by the original door. It took a good bit of walking and much sign studying to match the memorized symbols. This tactic took her up a set of stairs, across a metallic grate walkway, to a different sort of area. The concrete floors gave way to tiling, to musty smelling carpet, and the doors in this area didn't look to be metal as the ones downstairs had been but perhaps wood.

Erlea paused, taking a moment to orient herself in relation to the machine was she working to stop. Downstairs, behind her, a bit off to the left. The original room was farther back that she would have kept to with her original tactic, but she could still hear it. A few minutes of walking, she paused in front of a closed door. It too had one of the small labels and it had most of what had been on the original sign, plus an extra word or two. Didn't know them, but she knew what she had memorized. Maybe this room was connected somehow! Erlea pressed an experimental shoulder into the door. It held firm, but it also felt like soaked through wood. If she just...

Erlea pressed harder. She could feel the resistance, but it wasn't as utterly unyielding as the metal door she had previous tried. It just needed a little extra oomph! Backing up a few paces, she rush the door, ramming her body against it. It didn't open, but there had been a pop or a crack...that hadn't come from her. Once more, she moved back and then charged the door. Upon connecting, the water swollen door crashed open with a boom! It swung back, smacking the wall behind it, vibrating on its hinges. The room inside was dimmer than out in the hall. There were panels lining much of the room, dark or broken screens in many of them, though a few remained intact. There were buttons, switches, and knobs everywhere.

Huh...Her eyes adjusted to the relative gloom of this new space. She didn't know what to make of most of what she was seeing. Much of the visual clutter was the many small dials, key pads, sliders, and other miscellany that covered the odd panels. There was one thing that stood out, however. There was a trio of larger levers in a central wide panel. One was pointing at the floor. The middle was pointing all the way forward. While the last was vertical, midway along its track. Erlea felt those were worth a closer gander. This center panel was mostly dark, save for a few tiny lights still barely hanging onto their glow. Each lever had one above it. Left, the light was off. The right was a kind of orangey yellow. The middle light was green.

"Well, if you wanna go fast, you lean forward. To stop, you gotta dig in your heels..." She leaned up, clamping her teeth on the handle of the right lever, and pulled back. It didn't resist. It thunked into the bottom position, the light going dark, and the handle broke off into her mouth. Erlea spat the dusty, broken thing to the floor. She paused, listening. The distant rattle and roar continued. So, not that one then. Rearing up to carefully brace her front hooves on the edge of the panel, she tried her luck again. Leaning forward, she gripped the forward, middle handle in her mouth and pulled. This one was took more effort. Erlea lost her hold, making her teeth click together. She groaned, working her jaw for a moment, before trying again. It was slow going, but gradually the difficult middle lever began inching back in its track. The muscles of her jaw, neck, and shoulders complained mightily, but she could hear the sound changing! It was working! The machine sounds seemed to be starting to lessen in their intensity. After a small eternity, the middle lever finally thunked into the bottom position, its light off. Erlea sighed and rolled her head side to side with a stretch as she left the room to get a clearer listen. She came to a stop at the top of the stairs that she had previously ascended. A small smile slowly spread across her face as the once omnipresent rattle roar faded into nothing. She did it!

Creepy Crawlies
username: thyPOPE
doe's name: Phiral
prompt option: C
prompt response: As Phiral drew closer to the tree there was a whisper of sound, and she turned her head to look only because it'd been so silent before. What she saw was her den, and that pleased her. In her den she knew where everything was, and the correct path to traverse in order to reach all of Homewood's major landmarks.

Everything was in order, too, and that also pleased her, though she suspected it meant that none of these objects could help. Well, she thought ruefully, she'd always find a way, and if not -

What was the tree going to do, anyway? She'd never heard of a vision quest bearing real danger.

She was there only long enough to see the symptoms - her dear brother, listless upon the forest floor - before she opened her eyes again and found herself in a clearing. Well, it wasn't much of a clearing with so many bodies in it, but she knew the place, a frequent setting for open forums on whatever required nouls other than the Council to make a decision. In this case, it seemed, the topic was bats. "...the bones were selected for resurrection because they were represented in various sites throughout Vykeli," a bony adept argued from his perch atop the large fallen log that served as the stage. "As far as we know, they're native - "

"This could lead to an epidemic," a different noul fretted. "We should be concerned about how many denizens of Vykeli they've already hurt. There are populations far more vulnerable than ours, and with far more limited access to.."

The voice faded out, though, as Phiral turned to leave.

It wasn't that she didn't understand the arguments being made, or perhaps the question she was intended to answer. Noulicorns were born to heal Vykeli, but Vykeli included a variety of species that didn't necessarily harmonize well, so this sort of issue was inevitable. It was an important topic, and the meeting was being held publically, she presumed, because these bats affected so many residents of the Homewood. And if an ordinance was enacted - or enough of one that familiars were sent through Homewood to publicize it - Phiral would do her best to follow it.

She'd never seen any point in listening to politics, though. As far as she was concerned, she was just one noul. Of course she wanted to do her best for Vykeli, and all those who lived upon it, but she had never been overtaken by delusions of grandeur. She simply couldn't help everyone, and if instead she did her best to ensure she and hers weathered this particular storm, she could continue doing her part later.

She arrived home to the den she shared with her brother without much further fanfare. "How's - "

"Head still hurts," he grunted, in what was admittedly a perfect facsimile of her brother's vocabulary. "...cover the sun, Phi?"

It was dusky. "I'll retrieve the feverfew and peppermint," she answered, heading immediately for her stores. "Stay put. Shall I fetch water, too?"

"...'lease."

She was no stranger to disease; she knew nearly nothing about this one; and, obviously, she lacked a gift. In the following days she'd help her brother mitigate his symptoms when she was free, though, and keep an ear to the wind for new information.

"He's...sick, though, right?" one of their yearmates asked her, during a shared dinner. "I mean - you're still...doing what you always do. I would have expected that a teacher's pet like you would be running about chasing down every last bat in the Homewood just to learn more about this disease."

"And doom myself to infection?" Phiral asked, shaking her head. "...these bats are natives, too, but what killed Vykeli was the Others. That tells me someone will come out of this fine, and there are plenty of nouls out there who'll ensure it happens somehow without making those bats extinct again. I've succeeded thus far because I can pick my own battles."

And wasn't that its own kind of strength?

[ dsjfs;lk;js i understand if this is too late lol but i was determined to at least see it through... ]