#like sometimes she seems better and is meowing super loud bc she wants to go out

[jessiesjaded]

...

[patchdotexe]

explorers of arvus: heading back / 3.11.21

zoom and enhonse

LAST TIME ON ARVUS taure passed out and we are now down a healer! also we met a disciple of halvkar, and surprisingly did not murder her. this is fine. we have instantly gotten distracted by our various carts. cats. our various cats

DID ANY OF US CATCH TAURE, SHE FELL OVER sieron tried to catch her and smacked charlie+thorne in the face (he rolled a nat1, f) BUT the catboy is to the rescue bc silje is the designated Not Incompetent of the group today

CONSULT THE CHILD hewwo yrel yrel: her mind is being consumed by the serpent of nightmares. :D charlie: HELLO?????//

so, dendar(?) the night serpent is imprisoned beneath arvus! she was formed from the nightmares of the first sentient being, and sometimes she eats people's nightmares. if she's exceptionally hungry, she'll force nightmares onto people for her to feed off their fear. yrel thinks taure will Probably wake up. there's a thing on arvus mentioned by the locals called a "sleeping sickness" where people will fall asleep for a few days, sometimes longer, but will wake up. its magical in cause, the people afflicted by it have horrific nightmares, and its just kinda. a thing. wowza

(i have gone back to spelling yrel's name as yrel bc i think it looks nice)

OH HEY SOMEONE POSTED A THEORY ON ONE OF MY STICKMOLUS ANIMATIONS man i should get back to stickmolus sometime. once dsmp releases its awful grip on me.

i keep getting distracted by seeing myself in the camera preview. i have a tooth gap! what the fuck its cute?? K I KNOW WE'RE SUPER BLURRY IN FRONT RN BUT PLEASE HELP ME STAY FOCUSED I SWEAR -leo

we're gonna build a sled! to put taure on. thorne: i have a good strength score. ....i say, out loud charlie: i am four feet tall. [cue argument between thorne & sieron about them both being horcs but sieron has a +0 bc strength is his dump stat] OH, OKAY, THORNE ROLLED A NAT20 TO CARRY TAURE. NICE

[discussion about what to tell everyone at camp vengenace] thorne: the last thing we need to do is a witch hunt charlie: --and we already hunted the witch! the witch has been hunted.

time to discuss strategy! we need to figure out how to head back to camp vengeance, eg if we want to follow the path we already took or if we wanna do some trailblazing. looks like we're gonna try and take the most direct path! which means we'll prolly risk tangoing with some undead but im willing to risk it TINY HUT STAIRCASE sorry i just remember it now and then

nyx: [meowing at his cats] thorne: uh... why is silje meowing? jorb: silje's food bowl is empty jorb: you look at silje's food bowl and there's a divot in the middle and the food is all on the sides emotionally, we must bully the catboy silje saw something interesting and started meowing

thorne: ill take first watch silje: ill also take first watch. charlie: [quietly] gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyy (but, like, extended for 15 seconds)

silje: [takes watch] [rolls a nat1 and gets distracted by looking at his crush]

THORNE HAS LOCATED A DOG the dog does not give a shit about the tiny hut. THE DOG HAS PEED ON THE TINY HUT goodbye dog

EVERYONE IS ROLLING AT LEAST 1 NAT1 thorne: wow! that sure is a dog. thorne has drawn the worst possible dog. thorne has erased the worst possible dog. we dont speak of the worst possible dog its the dog version of honse. DONSE

sieron is now on watch! MAN we are havin trouble rolling today. at least kali's here to make sure sieron doesnt stare at a rock for 50000 years sieron sees a mouse! bottom text

charlie is now on watch! kali is havin a big ol thonk. nothing meaningful has come of this

i am perceiving some deer. sieron is not perceiving some deer. silje is perceiving some deer, but better the deer are fucked up and undead! silje has gone from "we should hunt these deer for food" to "we should hunt these deer for sport"

charlie: i do not feel like being jumped by five thousand skeletons

charlie takes first watch with sieron! WHY ARE OUR ROLLS SO TERRIBLE taure is super cursed right now. that's not very pog charlie: this place sucks. thorne: to be fair, we havent-- charlie: YOU'RE ASLEEP, SHUT UP

oh hey coolname galvanic finally partied. nice.

thorne is at watch! solar: hey, is leomund's tiny hut an orb? there's a critter digging around! AH, THE CRITTER IS UNDEAD. this could be a problem

solar: hey michael, how much does the horrific sin against god dog i drew look like this creature michael: [dice roll noises] about 50%.

michael: if anyone likes, they can make a nature check-- solar: ME MEMEMEMEME ME ME ME

its a bulette! aka a land shark. problem: they are not normally undead. this one is undead.

jorb: imagine if you could tame one of those and use it as a mount. leo: IT WOULD JUST DIG UNDERGROUND AND LEAVE YOU THERE

we are just calling it a weird dog

we're going to mail a letter to the heart of arvus. HEY, CHECK OUT THIS WEIRD DOG,

JORB FOUND ART OF A BABY BULETTE. WEIRD PUPPY!

solar: hey guys, check out this sick art of a bulette i found

silje kept a lookout for the weird dog but its just fucked off. goodbye, weird dog give it up for day 3!

man there's been like, three incinerations today in blaseball. what's up with that. I SWEAR IM MOSTLY PAYING ATTENTION its just been an eventful day in blaseball. also im wearing my garages bomber rn. jaylen is home wooOOOO the wind smells stinky. this is fine.

we're actively avoiding whatever combat michael keeps nudging at us bc we're carrying around an unconscious person and i SWEAR hes gonna throw something directly at us once he's done with our shenanigans

UHH MICHAEL ASKING FOR PASSIVE PERCEPTION LOL

huh. this place used to be inhabited? we're in the woods rn but there's some like, stone ruins? like, VERY ruins. like, not really any structures standing, but enough evidence to show there Were things. WE FOUND A STATUE charlie: i want to smash my face against the lore.

used to be a circle of standing stones, but most of em fell over or got overgrown. inside of the circle has been cleared, although v roughly-- ground's torn up statue is of fjolnir! warrior holding up a spear and shield. AH, THERE ARE CORPSES, a human got REAL fucked up here. one of the corpses is straight up impaled on fjolnir's spear. n ... not pog.

i am trying so, so hard to pay attention. but i also kinda wanna take a nap.

charlie: [stares at statue] [rolls a 4] i wonder if he had a dick.

okay so something rolled in, tore up the overgrowth inside the circle, and murdered a couple dudes. and was also super tall and human-adjacent. hrm.

oh my god why are we rolling so shit today. time to stealth away and hope we dont get casually dismembered

k: jorb's hair is so long... leo: K, PLEASE,

time for a break! i am very tired but im gonan see if i can push through a little further. nyx is petting his cat why do orangatangs look like that

first watch is thorne and sieron! have they even, like, talked thorne unhabby ): thorne's worried we were tresspassing when checking out the statue, meanwhile im thinking about that one time when sieron got bit by a groundhog

(oh my god this is from late 2018)

leomund's tiny hut, aka the anti-sea bear circle we are getting SO much mileage out of the tiny hut. SILJE HUMS A SONG WITH KALI cute........... FINALLY I HAVE ROLLED ABOVE A 14 wait no i rolled a 16 twice. anyway we are not dead

nearly at camp vengenace! boy howdy i hope camp vengeance didnt get burned down. AH FUCK TAURE IS UNCONSCIOUS SO WE CANT CAST FOR DETECT POISON kaepora nearly made us all shit ourselves but its okay he just saw some bison and thought it was cool Michael Is Consulting Several Tables

WHY DOES JORB'S CAMERA ZOOM LIKE THAT why am i hungry. i have so many questions

HEY, TALL GUY [smacks sieron]

camp vengeance looks better! like, nobody's Obviously Sick anymore, the medical tents arent overfilled, we did it! we saved the dayyyyyy time to report to ryder! taure's getting dropped off at the medical tent

man remember when charlie didnt wear pants

oh man, with taure unconscious charlie is now taking point with social interaction. wild. jk im making jorb do it bc im tired HAHA NAT 20 PERSUASION BC OF ME HELPIN SIERON man ryder is such a cock. he was totally ready to keep throwing troops at heaven's brazier to die until we managed to persuade him out of it. jorb: did we tell ryder about the vision? michael: you kinda just took a look at him and went STINKY BOY!

okay yeah anything that dies on arvus will just pop back up as undead. man, arvus sucks.

ryder: alright, dismissed. charlie: seeya, soldier boy! :D hahahahaha im gonna eat his knees.

SILJE NEEDS ENRICHMENT IN HIS ENCLOSURE

charlie: ive decided he sucks. silje: we've already arrived to that, you're late!

LMAO WE WALKED IN ON INGRID AND HER CRUSH they fuckin. nice. you go, you funky lesbian

jorb: we've got the tiny hut, we could go anywhere leo: we could go to SPACE! nyx: we could not go to space. leo: WITH A TINY HUT STAIRCASE, WE CAN,

we are 320 miles away from the spaceship that exists on arvus. nice.

michael: justin sees you-- roll a strength saving throw. leo: i cant wait to die! [rolls a 3] I AM CRUSHED BY MY DOG michael: he rolled a nat20.

BOSS ENCOUNTER: CHARLIE'S DOG (the small circle next to him is one of the medical tents.)

THORNE IS PACT OF THE GUN solar: PARRY THIS, YOU FUCKING CASUAL

sieron, to ingrid: seems like youve been doing well charlie: i punch sieron. sieron: sieron: the camp, of course.

man we have no idea if the heart of arvus is actually related to the prophecy or not. theres a Lot of stuff lining up, but not enough, and its hard to say how much of it couldve been literal?

solar & michael: [discussing exposition] me: [cracking up bc penn sent me a funny dsmp joke]

prophecies are weird.

charlie is just s she is just sitting here SILJE PLAYED CARDS REALLY GOOD AT ME nyx rolled a nat20 and took all my money

oh cool we can talk to yrel telepathically! time to hoist yrel. THIS IS SO SCUFFED thorne mentioned yrel and now we're trying to explain to ingrid that we have a magic talking snake charlie: I WANT TO GO HOME. thorne: we cant go, we have a GOD-KING to kill! "i think theyre insane, theyre talking to a snake" "ingrid, druids exist" "oh. im gonna go back to getting railed by my 7 foot tall girlfriend"

[elftwink]

“I may have accidentally sort of adopted five cats.” + violet/arkady pls :0!

and they were roommates! violet is a uni student and arkady works full time and they live together and i didn’t think much farther than that. they’re not dating but there’s some Mutual Pining™ bc they are definitely extremely gay

Violet’s in class when Arkady texts her.

hey, the text reads, when u get home let me explain before u get mad

And it’s not like she’s paying a lot of attention to this linguistics class (she tries to, she really does, but the professor is so hard to listen to and Brian seems to regard basically re-teaching her everything “studying” for him, so she’s actually doing pretty good), but after a text like that, concentration goes totally out the window.

Violet: What?

Arkady: dw nothing’s broken and im not in trouble its not an emergency

Violet: What

Arkady: its just a long story you’ll be on my side i promise

Violet: what!

Arkady: if u say what one more time i will leave u on readArkady: i’ll explain as soon as ur here

Violet huffs in irritation, and considers tapping Brian’s shoulder to see what he has to say about what on earth this could possibly mean, but considering she’s sort of relying on him for notes later, it seems ill-advised to bother him now. Also, she’s pretty sure the professor knows she sometimes just plays tetris in the lecture so drawing his attention seems like a poor choice.

Violet: ok

She considers sending a second text to clarify that that’s an irritated okay and not a resigned or accepting okay, but figures Arkady is smart enough to pick up on it. Violet taps her pencil so much that the girl next to her leans over to tell her to stop. She does, changing the nervous tic to another one— the end of her pencil is entirely chewed up by the end of the lesson.

She’s about to bolt when Brian seems to materialize behind her. “Hey, Sana wanted me to ask you— and Arkady of course— if you would wanna see a movie on saturday? Not sure what we’re going to see, but me and Krejjh are in already.”

“Uh, yeah I’ll— sorry this saturday? I think I have a, like, presentation thing?” No, that’s friday. Violet shakes her head like that’ll help her clear it. “Wait. No I’m good saturday. I’ll ask.”

Brian squints at her for a second. “Violet, are you good?”

“Yeah! Yeah I’m fine. Arkady just sent me this stupid cryptic text message and I’m a little preoccupied with it. But I’m fine.” Violet puts on a sort of strained smile. Brian raises an eyebrow, and Violet takes a deep breath. “She basically just said ‘when you get home don’t get mad’ which, I’m overthinking I know, but who says that?”

Brian laughs. “Yeah. sounds like her. If it makes you feel better, I think it’s probably pretty minor. I think if it was something really serious she would have just told you.”

“Arkady serious or Violet serious?”

“Probably Arkady serious.” Brian tries to look sympathetic, but it sort of falls short when he’s still smiling.

“That’s what I’m afraid of.” Violet sighs, and stuff her notebook back into her bag. “Okay. I’m gonna head home and deal with whatever this is. I’ll let you know about saturday.”

“Good luck!” says Brian, and then Violet is out the door. The drive to her apartment building is spent trying to drown out worrisome thoughts by blasting music as loud as she can. It doesn’t not work very well.

She’s in the building when she texts Arkady again.

Violet: I’m in the elevator so whatever thing u did u gotta have an explanation for it in two minutes

Arkady leaves her on read, which sort of standard when Arkady doesn’t have anything to say. She’s notorious for doing that, and for not replying for hours and hours, so Violet’s prepared and doesn’t think much of it. It’s an exaggeration, anyway; Arkady’s always replied very quickly to Violet when she’s had something to say.

When Violet reaches their room, she halts, hand on the doorknob, and silently hopes that whatever this is, it’s a fixable problem, before pushing open the door and heading inside.

Arkady is on the couch with her laptop open, and when Violet comes in she snaps her head up from the screen.

“Close the door or you’ll let them out.”

On the couch— and two on Arkady— are a bunch of impossibly small kittens. Violet closes the door behind her and makes a gesture vaguely at the couch, eyes wide. Arkady could not look less put out by this, even though they have a large amount of animals in their definitely no pets allowed apartment building.

“So. I may have accidentally adopted five cats.”

“Accidentally?” Violet’s voice cracks from nerves and it’s definitely a little louder than normal.

“Keep your voice down!”

“Accidentally?” hisses Violet again, this time in a whisper. The walls in this building are too thin to be talking about things that could get them evicted at a normal volume. “How do you accidentally take home five kittens? How is that an accident!”

“I didn’t set out to get them. I didn’t go to a pet store or anything.” Arkady picks up one just as it tries to crawl across her laptop, scratching it behind the ears as she puts it down on the couch beside her.

“We’re not allowed to have them in the apartment.” Violet takes off her parka and her boots, pointedly not looking at Arkady or the cats. No attachments.

“Violet, they were outside in a box. We’re getting into negative degrees out there, it’s not like I could leave them.” As if to emphasize Arkady’s point, one of the kittens lets out the tiniest meow Violet has ever heard before laying down and curling up into a ball. Violet groans and puts her head in her hands.

“We could get evicted, Arkady.”

Arkady closes her laptop lid and puts to to the side, letting one of the kittens crawl up into her lap. “They’re pretty quiet actually. I don’t think we’d get caught.”

“What about when I’m at school and you’re at work? Are we just gonna let five cats run around our apartment?”

“Yeah, pretty much,” says Arkady, and Violet grits her teeth.

“Arkady!”

“I know.” She continues to sound not even slightly sorry, which is super not helping Violet’s rising anxiety. Instead, she holds up the cat on her lap— it’s all brown, except for one spot on its nose and the end of its tail. “Look how cute it is though.”

The cat looks at Violet with wide eyes and opens its mouth like it’s going to meow, but only manages a squeak. She swears it’s pleading with her, and it’s all too easy to imagine that same tiny face looking up from a cardboard box.

Damnit. Damnit damnit damnit.

“That’s not fair,” sputters Violet, trying desperately to not look at how cute it is. “That’s manipulation.”

“Yep,” agrees Arkady cheerfully. When Violet glares, she sighs, and drops the smile. “I’m not saying we keep them forever. We can start looking for homes for them. But I don’t wanna put them back outside.”

Violet is silent for a very very long moment, but it’s pretty obvious to both of them what she’s decided long before she says anything.

“Fine.”

Arkady’s face lights back up, and though Violet’s nerves aren’t totally settled, she can’t help but smile too.

“Great! This one is called Diana, and the one with the white paws is Rocket, and—”

“Did you name them all already?”

“No.” Arkady scoops up the kitten to her left with one white ear, drawing a very small meow of protest before it settles into her arms again, and heads over to Violet. “Left this one in case you wanted to name one.”

“Oh. Uh.” Violet desperately tries to find something good to name a cat, which seems like an awful lot of responsibility to thrust on her with no warning like that, and blurts out the first thing to come to mind. “Uh. Uhm. Curiosity?”

Arkady stifles a laugh. “As in ‘curiosity killed the cat’?”

“Oh. Shit. Okay I can come up with something better—”

“No, no—” Arkady does laugh this time, shifting how she’s holding Curiosity so she can put a hand on Violet’s arm. “I like it.”

The sincerity almost takes Violet off guard. Arkady’s expression is open and genuine and her hand is warm against Violet’s skin and Violet is silent just a little too long.

“Uh. Thanks.” The moment is over. Arkady drops her hand like Violet’s scalded her, and Violet takes a tiny step back when she notices how close they were standing. “Jeeter wanted me to ask if we want to go see a movie on saturday,” she blurts out, trying to distract from the sudden odd tension.

“What movie?”

“I dunno. You’d have to ask Sana.” Curiosity meows in Arkady’s arms, and Violet switches her gaze to the cat, reaching over to pet it. “I can’t believe you talked me into this.”

“You’re welcome.” Arkady grins, way too proud and a little mischievous. And while Violet’s eviction worries have not been totally quelled, and not that she’d actually say so out loud, but it might be worth the risk when Arkady smiles like that.