A much deserved vacation day!

[itookashot]

Who: The Free Cities Summoned
What: Beach Party Episode, aka the Summoned take a break and enjoy the new portal
When: June 6thish, post Nocwich weekend. We can timey wimey it folks.
Where: Aquila!



[ooc: these are just suggested prompts, please feel free to roll with any ideas you have! Thanks to Hannah for sharing the code. Descriptions about Aquila are taken from the settings page here and credited to the mods. A player-made Pinterest mood board was created here for inspiration, but keep the world of Abraxas in mind for the reality.]

The Aquila Portal / Time to Go!

An invite shows up on the network from Jesper Fahey to the Free Cities Summoned stating the following:

Hey everyone, I managed to score funds from our money makers to have a group outing through the Aquila portal. We deserve it, don't you think? We did vote it into being after all. So get out your beach day clothes (or lack thereof) and meet at 9 AM tomorrow. If you come later, I'll let the portal people know the list allowed. They've got chairs and such to rent there, so don't worry if you don't have anything helpful.

Let's party like we're in the Horizon! If you need some extra cash while there I know the people to beg.

PS - No arguing, Crows. (That means you Kaz.)

True to his word, Jesper will be waiting at the newly opened portal to mark the Summoned so they're allowed to get through with the money he's collected. He'll smile and wink at them as they go through. He is dressed casually himself for this outing and in high spirits. Summoned can meet up here and go through together if they'd like or maybe be persuaded if they're not really sure about it.

Welcome to Aquila!

Aquila is the world's fastest-growing economy and the scenery in Aquila is also considered some of the most beautiful, with both the mountains and beaches of Andromeda Bay nearby, making it a popular destination for vacationers.

The beach may be exciting, but it isn't the only part of Aquila to enjoy! The massive public market takes up most of the city's center. Anything you might want can be found here. Countless booths and stalls and carts fill the town's center, and traders from all across the nation congregate to offer their wares. From raw materials such as fabrics, dyes, exotic wood and stones, to finely crafted artisan everything. Furniture, clothing, foodstuffs, weapons, art, magical oddities, it's all here. The market opens at sun-up and shuts down sometime after sunset - plenty of sellers will linger, hoping for one last sale of the day.

Art and fashion thrive in Aquila. Studios and galleries of art are scattered all over the city and artists sketching or painting out on the streets or on the nearby beaches are a common sight. This is the time to go looking for new clothes as seamstresses and tailors are all looking to outdo themselves and create the next big fashion statement.

But if it's the beach fun you're looking for ....

Fun in the Sun!

It's more crowded than usual in Aquila thanks to the emergence of the portal, but the Summoned will manage to camp out their own area on the right side of the beach and have freedom to enjoy themselves alone. Nearby one of the entrances of the beach is a local business called The Wave Palace. There people can buy or rent chairs, cloth to sit on, hats, and other beach items to feel more comfortable.

Once settled onto their spot on the beach, the Summoned can enjoy a full day of various activities to either relax or be active. They can swim or race to see who is the better swimmer, do the same on a sand race, and head up to a popular nearby cliff that is perfect to jump off of. Challenge each other to the perfect dive or laugh if someone ends up belly-flopping.

Anyone can lounge comfortably in the sun or maybe they want to get creative and build sandcastles. They can rent bowls and sticks and other instruments at the shop to gather sand correctly. Maybe your castle is remarkably impressive or dismal at best, but the point is to have fun. If you're feeling mischievous you can bury a friend in sand, or even a stranger if you want to test fate. You can find rocks or shells to collect and bring home as a reminder of the trip here.



There is a bar down the beach called The Wave Crash Pub where people can sit and listen to live music or carry drinks back to their chair. At some point in the day, someone suggests playing a game of volleyball or something similar, and a net and ball can be found to set it up. Test your might against each other and no cheating! (Just kidding, cheat away.)



As the day comes to a close, stay long enough to watch the sunset together or do some night swimming to cool off. When it's time to go home, don't forget to either return your rented items or decide to buy it. See if you can convince a friend to get a keepsake or ask their opinion of one on the way out. Hope you all had fun in this beach day episode!

Comments

[itookashot]

It is a different kind of sand than what's in Cadens, definitely more likely to get places harder to get out. He's going to be covered in it head to toe by the end of the day, but Jesper has an easy time shaking out materials considering his abilities. Even now his hands are getting sticky with it since he's also controlling the wet sand.

"Well either you knock it down yourself or the tide does eventually." It'll probably be gone before anyone comes this way the next day. Things aren't beautiful because they're long lasting, sometimes it's this snapshot moment of time. "Mmm, partly from guessing, partly from castles I've seen in books." Jesper hasn't actually seen a real castle in person so that's the only way he'd know of them.

"The closest to one of those I've seen in person is this giant stronghold but it's military, very bleak and structurally sound. Called the Ice Court. We did a heist there." Ahhh, his previously fun life, before he had to go straight edge and not steal anymore. He'd started to do that since living with Wylan, but always thought he'd have time to adventure.

"Did you lot have any of that on your weird nun planet?"

[frontlinetitties]

"Huh. That kinda sucks," she says, staring down at the intricately made structure before her. Perhaps there is beauty in impermanence, but it'd be kinda hard not to feel a little disappointed when something you've worked so hard on simply gets washed away, right? Better, maybe, to just smash it up. To maintain the illusion of control.

She says none of this though, only listening as he talks about his artistic process, thinks - not for the first time - that his life before this place sounded like a riot. Heists on bleak military bases standing stark amidst an icy wasteland - this is, at least, how she pictures it - is the kind of stuff a girl's dreams are made of.

"But nah," she shakes her head, "it was just like, one big structure really? A drill shaft bored down into the planet's surface with like, a bunch of shitty catacombs and the rancid old Tomb right at the bottom. Part of it was called a castle? But it sure as shit didn't look like this."

She shrugs. Lifts her eyes from the sand structure to his face.

"There were military bases on other planets, though. I kinda always wanted to see one. You know, outside of a comic book."

[itookashot]

"Sometimes beauty is temporary like that. And it's really just for fun." That is the reason he's making them. It also gives him something to focus on because all of the energy he's pouring into the beach is making him jittery. This has forced him to take a few seconds to sit down and create rather than jumping off of the cliff for a tenth time.

His life before was a riot. It was adventure and crime and drama and he misses it sometimes, now he's gone all proper. Well, not officially proper, but he doesn't steal or do crime anymore, so practically the same thing. Jesper finds his life in Cadens mostly interesting enough not to hate everything, as he would have in Solvunn, but he does miss the escapades.

"Everything you say about it makes it sound so boring and also so creepy at the same time." Boring and creepy are two sides of the same coin depending on where it is. "But now you're here, right? Colorful, always things to do, no nuns, no tombs."

[frontlinetitties]

Just for fun. She can get behind just for fun.

She laughs as he continues though, because fucked as her experiences were, she's always been able to navigate her way through it with a mix of humour and violence. Now, with the Ninth so far away from her, it's easier than ever to laugh at the darkness of it all.

"Fuck if you're not wrong," she says it around a smile, "creepy and boring sums it up. But yeah, no nuns and tombs to worry about here."

Kinda. There's just a moment when the dank, stark confines of the pit flash large and ugly behind her eyes, but she's quick to shove it to one side. Out here in the sun, with the sand beneath her feet and the sound of the other Summoned enjoying themselves ringing around them, it's easy enough to push the encroaching darkness away. She's kind of a pro at this by now.

"And hey, this is kinda new. I haven't really spent much time out here before."

[itookashot]

Kinda. Jesper realizes a second too late he's not entirely right about that. The Pit is not something he experienced, but almost everyone he loves was in there, and that darkness has stayed with them. He knows better than to bring attention to it right away, but the nuns and tombs part is technically still true. Although the cultists were religious, so.

"Neither have I, the trip was too long before, I'm lazy." They did that supply run together and that was the farthest he'd ever gone. It was at least mostly exciting. Aquila was a few weeks either way for this, and while he knows other people did it, he gets impatient on a road. Stepping through a portal, ten times better.

"Come on, sit down. I'll help you get the sand off when we're done." Jesper can flick sand off both of them if he really wants to, it's an easy little trick. "It doesn't have to be a castle, it can be anything."

[frontlinetitties]

She laughs - quick and bright - at his self-professed laziness, and drops down into a cross-legged position beside him on the sand. She's here for the full experience, so may as well get right into the thick of it. Even if that does mean winding up covered in pesky grit.

"Well, I hope ugly shapeless lump is up there with your castle, because I don't even have a clue where to start," she says, eyeing the sand dubiously, trying to work out where to even begin. Whatever she tries is gonna be a pile of shit compared with his artistic endeavours...but he'd said just for fun. No need to be embarrassed, right? She's okay with this not being her area of expertise.

"I've only ever headed out this way on escort missions, you know? So like, making the trip was fine by me, so long as I was getting paid. I just never bothered to hang around after."

[itookashot]

"A shapeless lump won't be ugly if you're enjoying making it!" Jesper is going this far only because he likes doing impressive things and he enjoys using his abilities. Which is still so surreal. He's been here a year and a half and has fully embraced being a Grisha, something he didn't think would be possible. But it feels so natural to him now. It's also cheating, so Gideon shouldn't feel bad.

He is making a little moat around it now. He doesn't know if there are any moats around the castles or palaces in his world, but he's read about them in books, so close enough. The sand for him is damp and sticky, and he offers her a little cup of water to use if she wants to. Otherwise it's not as easy to stick it all together.

"I came here investigating some stuff when we were looking for you. They put me in this giant underwater suit and I went down to the bottom of the lake." It sounds absolutely nuts now that he's saying it out loud, and it was nuts at the time, but also, kind of awesome.

[frontlinetitties]

She dumps the water out onto the sand and starts trying her hand at sculpting it, her expression only slightly screwed in on itself at the feel of it against her palms. She's not really sure what she's going for here, and for the moment it doesn't look like much at all. It doesn't stop her from working on it, though.

She glances up from her shapeless creation in the wake of his statement, one ginger brow hiking hard toward her hairline. "The bottom of the lake??"

Look. She's been here a while. She's used to water now. It's okay. Not entirely terrible. The baths are pretty damn good. But open expanses of water still leave her with an eerie feeling. She's yet to give swimming a real try, doesn't count their desperate escape from The Pit. It's something she barely remembers, incoherent and half-starved as she'd been. Isn't something she wants to dwell on.

"Yuck. Sounds awful. Did you see anything weird down there? How did you breathe? Was it kinda like a space suit?"

[itookashot]

"Yeah! It was probably insane, to be honest, they weren't even sure it was going to work. I was a test subject in a way." That just goes to show where Jesper was at during the search, how far his desperation had gone that he would do anything to find answers about them. To be fair though, he's usually some kind of reckless, but he came pretty close to going 'this was probably a bad idea' and meaning it.

"Suppose it was like a very crude rudimentary space suit. I had a giant fishbowl hat and everything. It was pretty peaceful down there, if I'm honest. I couldn't see much." For a few minutes he had to stop and exist outside of his panic and bloodied frenzy. It wasn't so bad down there.

"I found a shipwreck but it wasn't one that went down in Aquila, it was from somewhere else. That's when we started to piece together they were using teleportation magic." He's not sure how much Gideon heard about the many things going on in the outside. All of the Summoned on the outside were doing something to try and chase down leads or come up with ways to save them. Including following things that didn't entirely work out, like him.