The lion (does not) sleep tonight

[sunsetking]

Who: Leona and YOU
Status: Open with some closed
Where: Wherever these threads take place
What: Leona's actually working his ass off dealing with ink and haunted estates
Warnings: Potential body horror?

☆ — Good Boy

[Whoever thought Leona would be suitable for this?

Certainly not him.

Because he looks very disgruntled, almost offended, with slitted eyes somehow becoming narrower as he looks at the poor person who decided to drag him here.]

Why am I here again? I didn't sign up for this.

☆ — Beneath the Ink Once More

This smells like the damn octo-punk all over it.

[Leona can't help but growl, practically stalking past some Phantoms disintegrating into sand around him. He hadn't missed how most of these Phantoms look more like sea creatures this time. How there's a pungent scent of ink lingering in the air whenever he seemed to get closer to the sea.

Which is certainly something considering how this world works.

When he stalks around the area, his eyes narrows and he seems to practically glare into the waters.]

Of all the times...

[A sharp glance over when he hears someone shuffling closer--]

Don't touch the water.

☆ — No Rift Out Of Here

[A simple message is going to appear on the network:]

If you value anything of yours, don't go touching those tentacles.

[Because, in the meantime, Leona is going to actually work his ass off in preventing other people from getting anything stolen from them. Even if it means having to use his magic with more precision than he'd like to get those tentacles to back off.

He swears, if this causes his blot to accumulate again, he's going to knock Azul back into his senses and then knock him out again.]

Comments

Closed to certain CR

[sunsetking]

[Certain people that Leona is closer to might find a message on their shellphones from Leona. The lion typically doesn't like to talk on the phone, or at all if he can help it but:]

Get back to me ASAP.

[That's all. Just one short message. Hopefully it gets the importance across?]

IN PERSON LET'S GO

[deepstar]

[ The shellphone buzzes and Khalid doesn't even need to look to see what is going on here. Instead he meanders over to where Leona is, because he's pretty sure he knows what this is all about. ]

So do you have a plan?

[ Definitely needing to toss a certain octopus ]

[sunsetking]

[He's standing at his desk in their home, notes scattered. This time, about the rifts in the sky and the ink-polluted waters.]

Can't do much unless we fish him out of the ocean.

[Because where else would Azul go to hide in his current state? It brings back unwanted memories of when he witnessed Azul's Overblot firsthand.]

But I recognize his signature spell with those tentacles ripping out of those rifts.

[deepstar]

[ He circles around, stopping at the desk and looking at all of the scattered notes. ]

I can't imagine that's going to be easy.

[ Because a mer in the ocean? How are they going to actually pinpoint where he is? ]

What is his signature spell?

[sunsetking]

It's A Deal.

[Leona...would sometimes have qualms about outing another mage's signature spell like this, but considering those rifts and tentacles, he's not shy about discussing it.]

If you choose to make a deal with him, you'd have to offer up something of your own in return. Usually, he uses a contract to keep himself in check not to go overboard. If he doesn't, he can take whatever he wants with his powers--magic, a singing voice, anything one considers valuable.

[And ugh. Leona really doesn't like to think about how Azul gets those. Seeing it once was enough in his lifetime.]

[deepstar]

[ It's a good thing that Leona continues, though. Mostly because the inevitable "what's a deal" would have come next. Instead, Khalid just groans. Honestly... He has questions about how ya'all name your spells.

Now he won't say it but he will pay attention to the expression that Leona makes. The description alone makes Claude frown. Take whatever he wants? Whatever is considered valuable? Now how can they appropriately prepare for that? ]

So how do you stop it?

[sunsetking]

Ideally, finding Azul would be the best way to stop that. The other is to prevent any of his tentacles from getting near you in the first place.

[Look. They're Disney. What's Khalid expecting?]

It'd be easier to find a way to close those rifts, but of course the octo-punk had to go messing around and cause them in the first place.

[...Well, if Khalid didn't know Azul was the cause of those before, he does now.]

[deepstar]

So... If one of those tentacles touch anyone, then Azul can just snatch something away?

[ Yeah, yeah. Disney. Honestly, that seems pretty mild compared to what Claude has needed to do in the past? Usually to stop someone you need to knock them out or, well. Yeah, no need to go there.

And Khalid hadn't been aware of the whole "Azul is behind the fake rifts" thing. So that' a bit of news to him. ]

Augh. Guess it's too late to ask him why he thought that'd be a good idea.

[sunsetking]

If his magic is out of control, yes. Regardless, I doubt you'd want to be touched by tentacles.

[Unless that's suddenly something Claude is into? If it is, then they're going to have a long talk about that, sir.]

You can ask him once we find him and bring him back to his senses.

[deepstar]

[ Look, Khalid can be adventurous in bed, Leona. There's nothing wrong with adding a little spice to the relationship. ...They'd have to be Leona's tentacles though. And that's probably not happening so!

He sucks in a breath. Yeah, it's probably in their best interests that Khalid isn't touched by one of those things. ]

Right. So. Don't get touched and first focus on bringing Azul out of whatever has gotten him to this point. Again, is there a plan?

[phoenixdominant]

[Very short. It's not often that he gets a message from Leona. This must be very important.]

Leona... is something wrong?

[sunsetking]

Got a feeling someone from my world is undergoing what I went through not too long ago.

[Has it only been a few months? It felt shorter than that.]

[phoenixdominant]

[Well, that is absolutely a call for concern. Right to business-]

An overflow of negative or dark magic.

Pray, tell me what you know.

[He'll be willing to help with what Leona or this person needs, of course.]

[sunsetking]

His magic is something you'll need to be careful of in case you run into any random tentacles coming out of nowhere.

Other than the Phantoms crawling out from the ocean, I can only figure he's hiding in the deep waters. Not sure if you know of him, but the guy's name is Azul Ashengrotto.

beneath the ink

[empyrean_mirror]

'Octo-punk'...

[Yeah, that doesn't take a genius to work out. This wasn't the lead Kaveh was hoping to find after Azul's been missing this long. Fantastic. He loves this.

Azul you are grounded.]

There's going to be a small problem with that.

[How are they supposed to get Azul out of the water if they can't touch it, cat?]

[sunsetking]

Unless you want to risk being contaminated by blot and attacked by Phantoms, I'd suggest looking through other means.

[Leona isn't exactly thrilled by this either, okay. Does Kaveh even have anything to get underwater?]

[empyrean_mirror]

[Give him twenty minutes and a box of scraps and he will but no one's gonna like it.]

If it's contaminating the fish, I am not asking the whales to help.

[Kaveh's tone is extremely dry, and he's not going to mention he can't ask them because he got slapped across the face with a tentacle the other day.

Last thing any of them need is an overblotted cetacean.]

And I don't think Mehrak will be able to drag him out on her own. She's waterproof but she's not exactly bouyant.

[sunsetking]

If he turned into what I think he is, then your little friend is going to get smacked around more before she can even attempt to drag him out.

[And ugh. There might be some creepy looking eyes peering at them from the ocean now.]

[empyrean_mirror]

That's gonna hurt him more than it hurts her.

[She is solid metal and has pointy corners. But Kaveh glances sidelong at the eyes. Well, he doesn't have a lot of good feelings, but he has a couple other ideas...]

...Is he aware of what those are hearing?

[sunsetking]

Is she immune to magic?

[That's always a factor.]

No. He may have created those with blot, but they're not his. They're just mutated fish at this point.

[empyrean_mirror]

Does Blot work on machines?

[Genuine question. But Kaveh considers this for a moment and snaps his fingers so Mehrak--literally a floating robot suitcase, what the fuck--appears.

Levitating a claymore.

Um.]

Oh, then I won't have to feel bad about this, then.

[sunsetking]

Is it sentient?

[Because uh. That happened with Ortho.

A squint.]

Have at it.

[empyrean_mirror]

[Kaveh...wobbles his hand. That's complicated.

In truth, Azul would probably have to corrupt Kaveh to corrupt Mehrak, but let's all not think about that right now!

Anyway he's just swung mehrak and slammed the claymore down HARD into the phantoms, which scatters some of them but there's still the blot in the water...and weird green seeds popping up.]

Ah, you'll want to stand back from those. They explode.

[SAYS THE MAN STANDING RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF ALL OF THEM?]

good boy :D

[starshower]

[Tifa hands him the bottle of the polymorph potion as they stand in the entry way of this supposed haunted house, doing her very best to try and hide the uneasiness that seems to settle into every bone in her body.]

A need to help people?

[Sorry, Leona, you just got paired with the nicest person in Escordvi. She smiles at him, apologetic.]

I-it's not so bad though, right? I mean, I doubt it's actually haunted...

[Right???]

[sunsetking]

Is it a need or want.

[Because Leona is perfectly okay not helping people even as he accepts the potion.

His ears twitches.]

It wouldn't be the worst thing to see. Not a fan of ghosts?