Guild: Bones Like Bare Roots
Channel: feast
23 messages
Timezone: UTC
scary ooby Oct 23, 2022 05:00 PM
NPCs in this location:
> Penny s.npc penny
> Redacted s.npc redacted
> The Mimic s.npc mimic
> The Traffic Cone Wizard s.npc tcw

NPCs in any location are free to approach and talk to at any time!
Avatar scary ooby NPCs in this location: > Penny s.npc penny > Redacted s.npc redacted > The Mimic s.npc mimic > The Traffic Cone Wizard s.npc tcw NPCs in any location are free to approach and talk to at any time!
scary ooby Oct 23, 2022 05:00 PM
scary ooby Oct 23, 2022 06:00 PM
At the buffet a few strange silhouettes are browsing the selection. Penny s.npc penny is helping to serve food, holding carved wooden plates in one of her racoon-esque hands and pointing to different things to ask if Redacted s.npc redacted would like them. She’s sporting a transparent fabric veil of sliver over her face, tied around her horns. Redacted has simply put on what seems to be a Cowboys (the football team) baseball cap.

The Mimic s.npc mimic seems to have already gotten a plate, the long weasel like body’s own spots covered by what must be a coyote pelt. He’s wearing the head of the coyote over his flat, strange face– the unnerving nature of which peeks out from behind the skin. How he is eating his roasted pumpkin… probably takes further inspection.

TCW s.npc tcw is trembling beside him, wearing a big traffic cone with eyes cut in on her head. She nervously licks at a chunk of honeycomb, staring directly at the terrible beast beside her.
Buzz {☀ | 🐧 | 🦎 |🍒|🍰 } Oct 24, 2022 11:06 PM
The walk here had taken significantly longer for Lamb s.npc lamb than it had the other creatures coming for the masquerade, with his slow shuffle and the rough terrain doing him no favours.

However, arrive he had, with a loose cowl made of silver fabric covering the top part of his head and eyes. His delicate nose was upturned as he wandered toward the food table, taking his time and appearing to take in everyone in the immediate area.

While TCW stares at the Mimic, Lamb stares at her with their obscured eyes. They stay where they are, a few feet from the Mimic and, as such, the table, but do offer a quiet "Do not be frightened, he cannot harm you tonight." toward TCW in a way that they think is comforting, but probably falls a little short.
scary ooby Oct 29, 2022 01:53 AM
The Huntress leads the way easily to the feast, where foods of all kinds are laid out. She gave a broad gesture of her paw to her newfound friend, putting herself in between Bumblefoot and perhaps the scarier of the individuals here.

The Mimic peers around The Huntress to get a look at Bumblefoot. Redacted seems to pay her little mind, lapping soup up happily.

TCW shuffles a nervous nod in Lamb's direction, but the grizzled cat doesn't seem... exactly convinced.

"What would you like?" Penny asked Bumblefoot with a bright smile.
@Rosa - Bumblefoot 🐓 [foods listed in dsecription of this channel!]
Rosa - Bumblefoot 🐓 Oct 31, 2022 09:10 AM
Bumblefoot presses against The Huntress’ side, shrinking in on herself as the creepiest creature ever stares at her. Her fluffy tail curls between her legs and she gives The Huntress an unsure glance as Penny talks to her.

How is she smiling?

Bumblefoot isn’t sure she’ll ever get fully used to this place. She’s so… stiff compared to the other court cats. They seem to embrace these strange things and soak up all the magic like sponges while Bumblefoot sits there like a particularly terrified rock.

“Uhm,” she mews uncertainly, eyes flickering back and forth from The Huntress to the magic once-cat in front of her, “c-could I have some uh stew?”

She’s not too sure what’s in it but it smells nice. It reminds her of the slow-cooker machine thing her humans would get out when the weather got colder. How did they make this? It’s not like they have elektricity or a shop nearby to get vegetables and stuff.

“How, um, how did you… how did you make this?”

She stumbles over her worlds, ears flattened and a little quiver of anxiety running through her. She said she’d be brave and stuff but it’s still difficult!

@scary ooby
scary ooby Oct 31, 2022 05:48 PM
"Of course, sweetheart," Penny said softly, working calmly to get her a bowl poured up. Her hands-- and she did have hands, though they were akin to a raccoon's than perhaps a human's. She ladled the delicious smelling stew into a bowl, which she then slid across the stone slab to Bumblefoot.

"Oh, over a fire. Spades helped, she knows more of cooking than I do-- but I'm learning. If you have heat and a proper container, it gets hot enough for you to be able to do all kinds of things. And I've been learning there's so much more you can do with prey than just eating it outright. The broth was made from the bones and herbs-- it's really a strange kind of process..." she rambled a little, gesturing loosely with the clawed hand.

The Huntress hummed. "I never do tired of a fresh kill, though," she offered.

Penny laughed. "I was never used to the stuff... I still miss the meals my humans would give me. And the table scraps they'd feed me," she purred, the glowing white of her eyes falling shut as she remembered.
@Rosa - Bumblefoot 🐓
Rosa - Bumblefoot 🐓 Nov 01, 2022 12:54 PM
Her ears prick and she watches Penny carefully as she sniffs at the bowl. She stretches up on her hind legs to lap at the stew, purring quietly at the taste. Yum!

She chews on a lump of what tastes like rabbit, tail curling happily in the air behind her. Cooked prey, cooked anything really, is so much better than fresh kill.

“You were a pet?”
She asks quietly after swallowing her mouthful, watching Penny with a mix of uncertainty and a hopeful understanding.

“I miss my owners and the food too…”

She laps at the broth again, the warmth pleasant on her tongue.

Yes… the court should have more warm food. Maybe that should be another thing she should aim to do here. Chickens, washing Minkblaze, and warm food!

@scary ooby
scary ooby Nov 01, 2022 07:11 PM
"I was," Penny said calmly. "I had a different name, and a different shape. I used to look a lot more like you."

Penny gave Bumblefoot a kind nudge of her nose. "My owners were a couple with a young daughter. I miss them dearly sometimes. I hope they're okay without me," she admitted sheepishly.

"I've never been the type to like humans," Redacted butted in. "Sometimes they give you nuggets and sometimes they shoo and kick you away."
@Rosa - Bumblefoot 🐓
Rosa - Bumblefoot 🐓 Nov 02, 2022 03:15 PM
She shivers as Penny touches her but bravely doesn’t flinch, although her tail does press against one of the The Huntress’ mighty paws for support.

“My humans were married too,” she gives Penny a wobbly smile, “they didn’t have kits but we had chickens and they were my best friends ever.”

Someone else speaks and Bumblefoot is very confused when she spots them. It’s a… cat. She thinks. A black cat. Something seems off about them though. She’s pretty sure they have been living with the court, but not too sure. It’s a bit unnerving not knowing.

“The humans at the shop we went to the other day were rude, they kicked us out.”

She tells the cat with a frown. It was really really rude.

“Lots of humans are nice you just gotta look real cute and they’ll give you strokes and treats.”

Bumblefoot doesn’t know how the cat before her would do that though. They look very… ugly. Well, not ugly but, not very pretty either. Messy. The black cat looks like they smell and tip over rubbish bins with the raccoons.

@scary ooby
scary ooby Nov 02, 2022 03:28 PM
“Eh, I can live without a few human scratches,” Redacted said dismissively, giving a loose shrug of their shoulders.

“Chickens… so cute. I used to know a cat called Chicken actually,” Penny said, tapping her chin thoughtfully as she drew on her memories.

The Mimic turns his strange head to listen with something that might be like a low hiss. The Huntress blinks in confusion, looping her tail around Bumblefoot idly to help her feel more secure.
@Rosa - Bumblefoot 🐓
Rosa - Bumblefoot 🐓 Nov 02, 2022 03:40 PM
The cat is a lost case and doesn’t understand how great humans are so she turns her attentions back to Penny. She meets the creature eyes and her heart thumps a little harder but she doesn’t look away.

Penny is so… unnatural. Abnormal. Weird. Smoking like a flame and shimmering and full of twisting glittering colour. She would be pretty, if Bumblefoot could get used to the inherent feeling of wrongness her presence brings. She feels more relaxed the longer she’s here but a glowing deer is a bit hard to get over completely.

She’s like something from a dream, but Bumblefoot’s dreams are very regular and based in the world she lived in for many moons. The human world, straight and boxy and perfectly clear and easily understandable. The court’s magic hasn’t yet touched her dreams, apart from that weird shared one they all had.

The eye snake weasel creature turns his head and Bumblefoot steadily ignores him, staring into Penny’s pale iris-less eyes and relishing in the anchor The Huntress gives her.

“A cat called Chicken?”
She asks with a tilt of her head.
“What were they like? Are they not here anymore?”

@scary ooby
scary ooby Nov 02, 2022 08:12 PM
“Ahm… they’re here. But he isn’t the same anymore,” Penny said, clearly choosing her words carefully. “That name is, like mine, dissolved with our physical bodies to become something… different.”

“He had been a housecat too. Different than me, though. Brilliant and restless and quite the troublemaker. He could be quite mean, but he cries at almost everything,” she said, with a hint of amusement.

Instantly, the Mimic bursts into the conversation. “I do not!” he snaps, though the cartoon-esque bubbling up in his fake face betrayed perhaps that fact.

“You really do,” Penny said warmly.

“Well,” he scoffed. “You’re old,” he bit back.

“Now neither of us will age a day. Funny, that,” Penny purred, messing with a tress of star speckled mane.

That seemed to shut up the Mimic, who gave Bumblefoot a half glance—seemingly concerned about disturbing her or the peace of the event. “Ugh. Whatever,” he muttered.

”All of you were housecats?” The Huntress asked Bumblefoot, Penny, and the Mimic.
@Rosa - Bumblefoot 🐓
Rosa - Bumblefoot 🐓 Nov 02, 2022 08:27 PM
Bumblefoot listens eagerly, ears pricked as she soaks up the information given to her by Penny. Wow. Chicken sounds cool! He sounds like he would make a good friend, even if he is supposedly mean.

Her mouth opens to ask more, to ask where he is and how to meet him, when the creature of eyes snaps at Penny.

She flinches away immediately, trembling as she watches the two bicker.

He was a cat? How… how did he turn into that thing? She understands Penny a bit, the magic making her well… magical, but him?

He’s terrifying. Long and wrong and covered in eyes with a flat horrible face not fully covered by his costume. Somehow his face eyes are wet as they bicker before her, frothing like the foam where water spills from the tap and hits the sink.

The Huntress asks a question, something she is… well not curious but confused on too. How did pets like her get turned into these awful creatures?

“H-How?”

She asks with a fearful flattening of her ears as she meets Chicken’s strange eyes.

“How did you turn into… you?”

@scary ooby
scary ooby Nov 02, 2022 08:36 PM
Penny simply nodded to the Huntress’ question, and the Mimic did as well.

“Used to be. I left on my own!!” he insisted firmly. “Humans are terrible.”

The Mimic seemed surprised by the question. His face titled to the side, and he pointed a long claw at the lion settled by the cave wall.

“Him. Don’t let him touch you and don’t piss him off. He has this… this thing he can do where he completely dissolves you and remakes you. And once you’re fucked up like this, you can never go back. I agreed to be changed, me and Buttons both did. Huge mistake. The pain is… indescribable,” The Mimic explained.

“I traded my life for the chance to paint a portrait of him. One of my finest works,” Penny admitted. “I’d do it again. But I turned out better than you or Buttons did.”

“Corruption,” The Huntress said, a low and serious tone to her voice. “It is a force like no other.”

It seemed she perhaps knew more on the topic than she let on right away. The rainbow sheen of her eyes looked strong for a moment.
@Rosa - Bumblefoot 🐓
Rosa - Bumblefoot 🐓 Nov 02, 2022 09:31 PM
The blue lion? He did this? She watches him where he lies by the wall and feels a strong fear creep into her heart. If he could do this… why does the court still welcome him?

Her heart thumps loudly in her ears, accompanied by a rushing roar as she reaches out a paw to touch Chicken’s arm. Bumblefoot has to repress the urge to gag. She summons all of her courage and all of her niceness for the words that next leave her mouth.

“How do you know you can’t turn back? We can try… together? Chicken sounds like the name of a good new friend.”

Her smile is wobbly and her tummy rolls and it feels like one of his many eyes is looking right at her but Bumblefoot forces herself to breathe steadily.

Penny mentions a painting and she turns her head, confused as to why her life would ever be worth something so… useless.

Penny might eat her if she says that so she doesn’t.

“A painting? Can I see sometime?”

It must be really something if Penny would die and turn into a freaky star purple smoke deer for it.

The Huntress speaks seriously, her eyes strong and full of dazzling rainbow colour. Bumblefoot bumps against her new friend again to try comfort her. She seems very stern and smart all of a sudden.

“Corruption? Like… badness? Infection?”

She asks, head spinning. Gosh. This is a lot to deal with all in one night.

@scary ooby
scary ooby Nov 03, 2022 02:14 AM
"I go by the Mimic now. I can't even say my old name anymore. Drives me insane to hear it," The Mimic muttered. "I know I can't go back because..."

He rumbled uneasily.

"Imagine you drop and shatter a plate into thousands of little pieces, right? You can try to put it back together, but it's impossible to find all the pieces, or to fix all the cracks. It won't work. It's like that, but a little more complicated," he said.

Penny beams at the request. "Of course!" She... hesitates a moment, giving a thoughtful look into the air. "Hmm... I think our friend Ducky has it. The coyote cat by the little pond."

The Huntress gives a hard sigh, tail flicking. "Yes. Like that. It can infect worlds, buildings, cats... you'd be surprised. Cenzo-- the lion, he was corrupted long, long ago. I think that's why he's... the way he is now," she explained. When she looked over at him again, it was with deep pity.
@Rosa - Bumblefoot 🐓
Rosa - Bumblefoot 🐓 Nov 03, 2022 10:53 AM
Chicken.. or well "The Mimic" compares himself to a plate. A really badly broken one. She can't help but remember that her owners always just threw broken glasses and stuff
away.

She doesn't really believe that making this… thing normal again is impossible. There's
magic here and as crazy and insane as that is to Bumblefoot, it means that there is no
impossible. Cats untouched by the court would think magic is impossible, but it isn't. Which means fixing magic stuff can't be impossible either. She's not very clever or very knowledgeable on magic, but right then Bumblefoot decides she will do her very best
to fix all this.

She's never been much of a fixer. She's lazy and unmotivated and never gets much done. But Bumblefoot wants to help, wants to make things nice again, wants to stop regular cats like her from turning into monsters. So that's what she will do. It might take ages, but it's part of her plan now.

Penny says Ducky has the painting and she shifts uncomfortably before taking another lap of her stew. Ducky and Lamb were her first introductions to the court's weirdness and she's not too keen on talking to either of
them again.

The Huntress talks about how the magic is sick and the blue lion (or Cenzo as she's told) is sick too. Her friends eyes are sad and pitying and Bumblefoot feels a bit bad for him with her. If he's broken too then it's not
really his fault is it…?

She then quickly shakes the thought from her mind because her owners still told her off for
slapping the chickens even through they pecked at her first. So Cenzo is still naughty even if it's not his fault for being that way. She thinks.

Bumblefoot's head is beginning to hurt real bad. Ugh.

"Is there a way to make it better?"
She asks, watching Cenzo for a moment before looking back at The Huntress and then the others in their little group.

"If the magic stuff is getting sick and making Cenzo sick can't we make it better? Like the vets but a magic vet?"

@scary ooby (edited)
scary ooby Nov 03, 2022 05:16 PM
"No one knows," The Huntress admitted. "I don't... I don't know, myself. There's no magic that I know of so far that can heal corruption, can undo it. Maybe you could figure it out, should you follow us into the Bright Realms."

The Huntress gave her a friendly nudge of her nose, speaking of it more as if it were a fairytale then something truly doable.

"That's the place you'd have to go to learn about magic," Penny agreed. "Magic has left most of this world. The Court Lands are the last place where magic lives, and I think it's only because we have the last gateway to the Bright Realms."

Redacted snorts. "Magic shmagic," they scoffed.

The terribly gross persian cat with the traffic cones donning their figure butts into the conversation with flair. "Be warned! Magic is not just a tale for the kits! HuzzAH!"

The Traffic Cone Wizard threw several paper bangsnaps on the ground, which snapped and glittered.

"It is a dangerous art! A dreadful art!! The cost may be higher than you're willing to pay!"

The group hushed. Um. Yeah. Like they were going to take magic advice from the cat who had what looked like a slice of American Cheese stuck to their belly fur.
@Rosa - Bumblefoot 🐓
Rosa - Bumblefoot 🐓 Nov 03, 2022 05:30 PM
The Huntress doesn’t sound like she believes in Bumblefoot’s ability to fix all this but that okay, she doesn’t really believe in herself either. Her goals and plans are always executed very very slowly. She’s wanted to give Minkblaze a bath for… like ten years it feels like, and she’s only just gotten the soap!

“Maybe I’ll have to come visit then, I’ll bring some antibiotics.”

She jokes with a chirping laugh, tail curling.

The very filthy purebred cat with a human orange cone on her head butts into the conversation and Bumblefoot jumps as she makes loud sparks appear. Is that… cheese on her belly?

The creatures around her don’t seem too amazed and Bumblefoot is pretty sure she’s seen human kits make the same sparks. So this cat must just be normal and not real magic.

“Would you like a bath?”
She asks politely, though her next words aren’t so polite.
“You really need one.”

@scary ooby
scary ooby Nov 04, 2022 04:45 PM
"No-- no... it'll ruin my sparkle!" TCW insisted, shaking her head so intensely that little droplets of spit flew this way and that.

The Huntress blinks. She gave an additional nudge to Bumblefoot, offering a little smile. "Well, whatever happens, I'll be there with you. No one will be alone in the Bright Realms if I can help it," she purred.
@Rosa - Bumblefoot 🐓
🪐Kendall (🦆|🌸| ☕) Nov 11, 2022 02:33 PM
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Spades BOT Nov 11, 2022 02:33 PM
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