Duty Session 113: Bun-Bun Festival

    It's a beautiful sunset surely outside of Dun Loireag. And it's attracted some attention from Adventurers and Landers both! The reason?

    The Bun-Bun festival!

    For that reason, Giganpor at least has sent out a 'Looking For Party' bit locally. The large were fang's not one who would probably enjoy parties that much, but in this case... well... special event. And it's something to get a bit of cheer going what with the Waves and the like. Plus, he needed a break from all the smithing and leadership work. A good, fun event was just what he needed to relax. Mostly!

    Now he was just waiting for responses to the whole LFP thing to get this going.

As of late, Kita has been largely pre-occupied. In fact, even within Scale Emblem, most people haven't seen her for the better part of a week. The Imp had been isolated in her quarters, working on some sort of project that had all but taken over her focus.

Today, though, she seems to have come out of her isolation in order to join in the limited time festivities surrounding the Bun-bun Festival. "I need... stone, metal, some sort of magical light-source..." She seems to be making hasty notes in a book, seeming entirely distracted even as she shows up at the requested location.

"Maybe this event will provide something useful." She looks up, briefly, raises a hand in greeting, then pushes her glasses up on her nose. The Imp immediately looks back down to her book, scribbling with an intense, expression.

Kita may be physically here, but mentally... whatever she is working on has her full attention.

This is not the sort of thing Jazz was interested in doing this morning, but then, apparently the ship she's been working on with Mifa has had to dock to repair a little damage incurred doing her explorations alongside the Duchess of the Zorah clan.

That's when Giganpor hit her up to come along for it, and having a few hours to kill and it beating standing around waiting, she finally decided to attend. And so she's here, looking a bit out of sorts and fidgety. No doubt she's eager to get back on the road, but a little time spent amongst the bun-buns can hardly hurt the undine witch, right?

She tips her hat and stares, tentacles twitching.

"Hello," she tells Giganpor, having arrived. Then she notices Kita, turning towards her. "Oh. YOu. I haven't seen you in ... in a while." COme to think of it, it's been a while since she'd been face to face with much of anyone.

    The sound of hooves would be what is heard first, before the woman herself is actually seen. The Imp with all the curves, the sway, and the walk to match that sultry air around her. Her first sight was Kita, which she lets out a happy tone in her voice, "Kiitta!" Then walks up to the girl in a bit of a quick step, before wrapping her arms over her shoulder.

"It is so good to see you, m'darling." Then her glowing Lavender eyes peer down at her sketchbook. "Oh, what are you working on so feverishly?" Her imp tail sways side to side.

    Though it would not be long till her eyes gaze from Kita, to, well, Giganpor. Someone she has /not/ met face to face, so she is /very/ unaware of who the man is. "And who is your /charming/, dashing friend, hm?" Katherine gives Giganpor a sly, soft smile. "Hello, noble sir."

The Imp slides around Kita, and then gives him a proper curtsey, "'Tis a pleasure to meet a gentleman such as yourself. I had heard you are needing of aid with the festival activities, aye?"

    Giganpor smiles at the requests, before hitting the 'form party' bit and looking at Jazuhanzu first, "I've been rather busy, Jazz. My apologies. Between getting an offer of apprenteiceship and now being a Guild Leader..." He shrugs, "I do intend to help you if you still need it." He turns to look at Kita, blinking as he notices her sketching.

    "Um... sure you want to be distracted during this?" And then of course, there is Katherine.

    Giganpor eyes Katherine, then sighs and shakes his head, "Stop calling me noble, already. I'm more a barbarian than some sort of noble at times. Nice to meet you regardless. Ah... so... Bun-Bun Festival?" He looks around at the others, then shrugs.

    About that time, the Landers take off and call the group that way, "We need these herbs planted to summon the Bun-Buns!" It's obviously something timed and the sun's just starting to set. The colorful lights are illuminating the entire area in pastel colors, too. While the Adventurers are deciding, the Landers are digging into the Earth and planting like crazy!

Blinking in some measure of confusion, Kita lifts her head, "Oh. Hey Jazz." The Imp's expression shifts a bit, the first sign of emotion as she offers her a smile, "Yeah, I've been pretty busy as of late." She taps a pencil onto the sketchpad. Then, a nod is given towards Katherine, "Designs for a statue." She explains, in answer. "Can't seem to get them out of my head." She scratches at her temple with the blunt end of a pencil.

Giganpor's concern is met with a distracted wave as the pencil is returned to page, scratching at it as if she were adjusting some lines. "It's fine. I'm paying attention." She isn't.

Even so, she somehow seems to have enough mental state in the moment to realize what the Landers are doing around her. With an absent-minded flick of her fingers, she traces a few runes into the air, which cause a glowing amber summoning circle to appear in front of her. What emerges is a small, claw-handed mole-like creature wearing a hard-hat. "Go help them, would you?" She murmurs, not looking up.

The mole runs off, starting to dig trenches for the plants to be placed into.

    Then when Giganpor speaks, Katherine's lip raises a little, before she laughs gently. "Oh. It's /You/!" She then taps her claw finger against her chin, "What is your name again... Giga... nor? Giga... tor?" She then steps away, with a bit of a hip sway, "I'll get it eventually."

Though as the Landers explain what they need to do, the imp is quick to take part. "I do love planting!" She declares, as she crouches down with ease and begins to do so. Planting the herbs for the festival.

Katherine's eyes look over to Kita, "A statue, hm? What kind of statue? An honorable sir knight perhaps? Or maybe some wizard?"

"Naw. Mifa and I got it handled. The prototype astrolabe is finished. Now I need to prove that it actually can do the thing I say it does, and so far so good. But it does mean a whole lot of time on Fourland ships right now." She follows after the buns as they lead the way, and indeed, tell them to go and plant herbs. Plant herbs? Really? Her mood seems to flatten even more, though it's not like it was terribly bright before. When Katherine speaks to Giganpor, her head swivels to study her for a long moment. There's a vague hint of incredulity there, as if she might feel she needs to double check that this person is in fact real.

Then back to Kita.

"Yeah, sure, Kita. I got it."

And then she's off. She's gathered up some handfuls of the herbs and just sort of haphazardly, nonchalantly tosses them where indicated. Planting? Who needs to do that? With the magic at her commnand, she wills the earth to pull the leafs into it appropraitely. "...ngggh."

    What's better than one mole like creature doing the digging? How about two! Giganpor raises a hand, a summoning circle appearing as he calls out, "Come forth, Drudge! Give us a hand with the planting!"

    Out of the deep yellow-brown circle comes an armadillo looking earth elemental that gives a small wave at the party before it starts to work on the digging alongside Giganpor himself.

    Giganpor does look over at Katherine as she gets the name wrong, "Giganpor. I think most have been shortening it to Gigan or Giga." He shrugs, then looks over at Jazuhanzu, "Cool! Good to know. If you need any help on it, let me know?"

    The curiousity of Kita dreaming of statues has Giganpor asking, "Sounds like one of the Goddesses or something?"

    By the time they get going, it's pretty well said and done. The herbs start to take effect as the sun finally sets fully. Very small slivers of light remain as slowly, there is some sort of odd humming. Small furry forms pop up in the shadows and the distance. Barely visible before they suddenly start to hop out of the shadows. In massive quantities as the herbs do their work.

    The Leader of the Landers calls out, "That's our signal! Round up as many as we can! We have cages over there!" He points. Even as he says it, Landers are now trying to capture the bun-buns as quickly as possible.

"Astrolabe?" At least Kita seems to be listening, even if her attention seems split between reality and whatever is going on in that head of hers. Certainly, the way she is acting is quite out of character, for those who know her. She seems confused when Jazuhanzu complies, blinking, "I was... talking to the mole." Yep, she's pretty out of it.

A glance is given to Kat, "It's meant to honor the experiences of the Ezzo refugees, and their hope for the future. Going to start building it as soon as I have the supplies gathered." She taps and writes something else on her list to the side of the sketch. "I've been given orders that if I don't leave my workshop, I'm going to be dragged out kicking and screaming. So here I am."

Her brows furrow at Giganpor's comment, "Goddesses? No..." It's almost as if she doesn't quite get what he's saying.

Continuing in her distracted state, the Imp Black Mage doesn't even look up from her scribbling as the instructions to round up bun-buns is issued. She starts to hum a sing-song sort of tune, as if she were hoping that might lure some of them closer, but they seem immune to the effect. However, she doesn't even seem to notice this. Instead, she makes a soft sound, and then erases something frantically before sketching down new lines.

    Katherine looks over to Jazuhanzu as she finishes up the last herb to be planted. She continues to balance on her hooves easy enough, her imp tail swaying side to side. "I also do not believe we have met either, m'lady. I am Lady Magus Katherine Tanzer of the Outcasts." She bows her head respectfully. "It is an honor."

Then at last the bun-buns come out and the imp slowly rises to her feet. "There they are!" She has to keep down her level of excitement, and as she passes by Giganpor, "Are you sure, it isn't Gigalord?" She says with a tease in her voice, before joining with the Landers in attempt to capture the little rascals.

Seeming to actually be laughing with a few of the Lander children.

The distractedness of Kita is certainly noted by Jazz but she chooses to say nothing about it for the time being. Then Katherine and Giganpor are interacting and she's observing, tentacle tips curling upwards and with a questioning look. When Katherine offers her version of Giganpor's namqe, she quietly corrects her.

"Are you sure it's not Gigabutt?"

"Name's Jazz," she offers to the Imp, turning her gaze on the approaching horde of buns which she ...

... which she is shamlessly cheating to use magic to catch, letting them snag themselves in weaves of kelp-like vines she summons from the earth, after which she casually collects them.

Hey, it works, right?

    The result of the bun-bun catching is pretty fun as children, Jazuhanzu, and Katherine all go about capturing the pesky hopping bundles of fur. A few seem to look at Kita as if she's insane or something. And it's just one of those multiple quirk of the heads that has everyone else just staring for a second before resuming hopping after the rabbits.

    Giganpor meanwhile has managed to begin showing some of his Monster Rider expertise as he rounds up the bun-buns using a combination of his cloak and an additional larger one he pulls from his inventory as he waves them into the cages. It's not long until the bun-buns are all corralled into the pens pretty well. About that time everyone will notice something odd. Perhaps it's the herbs, but... there's now eggs. Strange, colorful eggs all over the place. Baskets are given to the party as the call goes up. "Time to hunt some eggs!"

    As the baskets get handed out and Giganpor starts to move towards the egg hunting, he looks over at the pair of Katherine and Jazu, "... my butt isn't that big. And seriously, 'Gigalord'? Makes me sound like an old school cartoon villain."

One would think that the next task in the event being a more 'active' one would require Kita to actually lift her head from her sketchbook. However, she doesn't even seem to realize that there /are/ instructions being given by the Landers.

If anything, she seems even more lost in her own world, leaning on a bit of fencing as she flips to another page in her sketchbook and begins on yet another of those frantic, intense drawings that seem to be the focus of her attention.

It isn't until a Lander child comes up to her and points at something her tail had wrapped around, that she blinks, picks up an egg, and hands it over to the kid as if she is barely conscious of what is going on. Then, she's back to drawing, not lending a hand at all to the efforts.

Jazz just sort of looks at Giganpor. It's a look that, with her arched eyebrow and similarly questioningly posed tentacles, seems to ask 'are you sure about htat'.

"...reminds me of home," she remarks as she looks upon the field of eggs. "I remember Easter time and I loved it. My brother used to ... anyway." She looks down to the side, a contemplative look on her face. For a moment, her American accent bled through the auto-translation.

There's a slight bow towards the others and then she's off to gather some of the lander children, letting them have their fun and just sort of nudging them along to locate a few eggs they might've missed. She doesn't bother to gather any herself.

    Katherine runs about with some of the children, laughing as she does. Sadly even as she tries to use some magic, it fizzles, but that is fine. She just turns it into a spark show for some of the kids.

Sadly this means that Lander children seem to be her /true/ nemesis as they are distracting her from what she should be doing, which is gathering some of the eggs. Though she does call over to Kita, "When we are done with the children, do let me see some of your sketches for these statues! I always have loved your work!"

    A mad dash is given to hunt the eggs. But well... it seems more like the group is babysitting the Lander children than actually hunting for the eggs. Still, it's fun watching the children do their part and the occasional aide is given from the group. The reminding of Easter is certainly a good one. And it's fun, too. Giganpor even gets used at one point as a perch to find more eggs.

    Despite their not having found a lot of eggs themselves, the announcement of meal preparation has the group back in full swing towards something they can try to help at at least!

    The obvious including of the Adventurers to help out with it leads to a lot of cooking, hunting, and various other tasks. Such as stirring the large stew pots. It's a bit like one big festival for cooking now more than just about the bun-buns. The obvious question comes across, however, "Are any of you a deft hand with a knife?" The good cheer is still there, though, and it's obvious that this will be some serious fun of making a nice, big, at least a village wide meal possibly!

The call for people to help with cooking might have gone ignored by Kita, as well, if it weren't for the fact that a group of Landers standing nearby start to complain, rather loudly, about not being able to get their stove lit. The banging of pans and a rising of loud, concerned voices seems to forcibly drag her attention back to the real world.

"Right... the event." She does another quick tracing of runes into the air, drawing forth another summoning circle. From it, a small lizard-like creature with red scales emerges. "They need some fire, little friend. Can you provide?"

The lizard tongue-flicks, then waddles over and sits itself right in front of the cooking stove, starting to puff out a stream of fire to act as a heat source.

It's at that point that Kat's comment gets through to her ears, "Actually, you should come by Tolbana. I'll be working there soon enough. Between Jurou and Xander, I'm not sure I should go back to my workshop for a while." Apparently, other people have noticed her odd behavior and tried confronting her on it.

"...ehh..."

Jazz heaves a sigh, looking impatient for a moment. Then she's moving to help with the cooking. Seems she at least knows her away around a knife, and her ability to zap things for electric-shock-cooking does seem marginally helpful.

Zzzzap! Sparkles!

Blue lightning.

Roast meat.

Jazz sort of looks down at it with a sigh.

    Katherine attempts to assist with the brew, but things go a bit sideways. However, it doesn't stop her from having a smile, entertaining the kids at times, and just seeing in very good spirits!

The imp looks to the other imp, Kita and smiles happily, "I shall do that most earnest once this all said and done!"

    The cooking looks to be going good! Far, far better than most would expect in this case! Especially with a distracted imp in charge of brewing.

    Between the fireballs and electric zap cooking, Giganpor demonstrates a small bit of ingenuity by using swirling sickles of water to make drinks easier as far as the ingredients, not to mention getting a few good bunches of fruit drinks here and there.

    And then it happens. There is something else behind the bun-buns. Something larger. With red eyes. The children notice it, followed by various adults. And one child has the fearful task of asking, "Papa, what is it?"

    What follows after is a mass evacuation as calls of "Were-Rabbit! Run!" comes out of the Landers. Children are gathered quickly, the meal left, and a mess is left in the wake of the exodus to avoid the obviously overgrown monster.

    A large, hulking creature. With floppy ears, fluffy fur, and teeth that look razor sharp.

    Giganpor blinks, looks to the others, then sighs, "Well... it's not a quest without the monster at the end." He attaches his shield and taps his inventory, pulling out a large axe that he lefts to put on his shoulder. He smiles at his companions, "Shall we?"

"Wisteria?" asks Jazz when the calls of were-rabbit go up. She's looking around for the Caernabog Werefang. It would make sense if it were, of course, were it here.

It is, however, not. Her pointed ears twitch. She stares at the large, hulking creature, blinks her eyes slwoly.

"... you're not Wisteria," she adds, summoning a bubble to protect some of the Landers of solid ice and flowing water, but she and it are swatted aside with ease.

She lands in a heap on the ground thereafter. "OW," she groans.

At least she briefly distracted it, right?

The sounds of panic and screaming Landers all but falls on deaf ears when it comes to Kita. This can't be normal, right? She doesn't even seem to realize the massive monster is there until it looms up next to her and starts chowing down on the colorful eggs.

Spittle and shell are cast out in all directions, splattering across the page she'd been working on. That's when she looks up, a spark of anger in her eyes. "What the hell? You /ruined/ what I was working on." She fumes.

The magic that follows is instinctual, rather than her usual ritual casting. A spray of ice magic from her fingertips that turns some of the eggs into a block of ice.

*CHOMP* The monstrous bunny tries to eat it, but the ice is hard enough that some of those pointed teeth break off, leaving it roaring in pain and ineffectually clawing to get at the eggs.

    Katherine sees the were rabbit come out and her eyes narrow. The Lavender burns brightly as her smile becomes one that is ever-so-wicked. "You little cotton tail," Her hands ignite with dark flames. "Have picked the /wrong/ celebration to ruin!"

A dark pentagram circle forms under her hooves as she mutters words to herself. Her wrists go to touch above her head as the dark flames gather together to become a larger flame.

    Then with a screaming, banshee like roar, she sends out a blast of dark flames right for the were bunny! One that is done, she growls lowly, flips her bangs and places her hands on her hips. "Now I'll need to go check on the poor children and return their hard earned eggs to them." She taps her claw against her chin in thought. "... If I can remember which basket belonged to who..."

    Surprisingly it's Giganpor who misses his attack at first. But he does get the thing's attention! At least until it sees the eggs and tries to eat one. Perhaps it's some sort of power up if it does? Who can tell with these things! The fact that the teeth comically break off and it roars it rage before getting roasted, literally, is the icing on the cake for the adventurers.

    The final blow is obviously Katherine's as the dark flames turn the thing's health bar down so low that it comically gives a squeak of protest. Then blows up into colorful pixels.

    After that, the Landers start to come back from where they were watching in relative safety. Packs of ingredients of the bun-bun are quickly handed out as thanks before the festival gets right back under way! Food, drink, and merriment as the Adventurers are invited to join the Landers for the celebration of the bun-bun festival minus the were-rabbit.

In the aftermath of the fight with the massive, monstrous rabbit, Kita finds herself standing there, momentarily considering the prospect of socialization and food. Under any normal circumstances, she'd be one of the first to take a moment of carefree celebration.

And yet... Her eyes are instinctively drawn back down to the ruined page. Her hand tugs at the paper, pulling it out of her book, then crumpling it before throwing it into the nearby fire. The reward from the event is only briefly glanced at, then stowed into her inventory with a comment of, "Not what I was looking for." Followed by a sigh.

"I should get back to work." Kita mumbles to herself. She only manages to lift a hand to wave her farewell, and then, nose still in her book, she wanders off towards town.

"...ow," says Jazz as she lays in a heap on the ground. One of the Lander children walks over to her, followed by a couple more who help her to her feet. SHe looks around, somewhat flustered.

"...gnargh," she grumbles. 'Okay. That's enough of 'adventure' for me. I have strange new ... shores to visit. Or whatever. Yeah. Nice seeing you again," directed to Giganpor, and then eyeing Kita. "Hey. Kita." She moves towards her. "You're being weird. Stop being weird." She points at her.

And then a turn towards Katherine.

"...and you... yeah. I got nothing," and then she's off, hurrying back whence she came. Mifa's vessel should be done by now.

    Giganpor is left to scratch his head, then shrugs and joins in the festivities again.

    He looks over at Katherine, then at the two retreating forms. Then back to Katherine, "... you get the feeling we did something and they just won't tell us or the like?"

    Katherine gives one of the Lander children their basket and look s over to Giganpor. She gives him a coy smile, then flick of her bangs with her head. "You think too much into it, Giganor." She says that with a wink, before making her own way off to do-- whatever this sly imp does.