[RQ] One rock, two rock, red rock, blue rock

Vi had answered their prayers but they had a great deal of work to do in order to earn the god's protection of Torchline's waters. At least the tasks were ones they had done before and were, for the most part, simple enough to pursue once more.

As he had led the last foray to the Rainbow Road to collect rocks, so Hadama ventured there again. Andromeda had been allowed to remain within the protection of the City this time, but he had extended invitations to Kaiden and Nysadeia along with the usual bribes payment in food and training, whichever they would prefer.

He swam in his Mer form, traveling slowly as he examined the corals and schools of fish they passed for signs of Void corruption. It was a relief to find little spread as of yet, and when they reached the shallow waters of the Rainbow Road he passed out rough, sturdy sacks to his helpers.

We will collect stones of all colors, he explained through the Bond they all shared, in equal amounts. The size should be between one and two fists. First we will collect stones of red and orange. Spread out, but stay in sight. The last time he had been here there had been a small school of void-touched echo sharks that had needed to be chased off. Hopefully today it would be more peaceful and their task would allow them to speak instead of defending themselves.

Nysadeia, have you met Kaiden?

---

This is a PQ to collect rocks for the RQ from Vi to protect the Arclight Ocean from the Void!

Please post your characters arriving and getting to work on the first set of rocks (red/orange)!

1. Hadama
2. Kaiden
3. Nysadeia

Nysadeia

Strange as it may seem
horror loses its power to frighten

Nysa had chosen to shift fully, and the large pacific octupus trailed after Hadama with tentacles rippling in the current. Her scarlet coloration made her easy to spot in the clear waters, and while it made holding the sack a bit awkward, it was preferable to scraping up her skin on the rocks.
"Briefly," she replied, with supreme lack of interest. "He begged for food at Ludo's festival like it was a common fair, didn't he. Uncouth."

Drifting off along the shore, she began to pluck stones from the shallows. Normally she would have done anything to weasel out of the task because it reminded far too much of actual work, but she'd seen enough of the purple-black things that infested the waters lately to decide she wanted nothing to do with them. Like, come on, purple and black? That was just tacky. Plus they were weird, and nasty, and some people had even been bit by them. No thank you.

when repeated too often

kaiden

There is no shame in survival
Only strength

Kaiden leveled Nysadeia a glare, I didn't beg. I simply demanded what was rightfully mine! It wasn't their fault that the land dwellers had been so inconsiderate as to leave the food away from the water. Nor was it their fault that Hadama turned traitor and abandoned them to mingle like some haughty debutante. (Not that they knew what that meant but Kaiden had overheard the insult before, and it sounded right.) To make things worse, the King still hadn't made it up to them!

Huffing, the mershark turned and focused on finding red rocks. Orange was ugly. The rude octopus could get the orange ones. Like called to like, right?

~
Kaiden collects red rocks.

coding by kaons

...Ah.

Hadama kept his expression serene as Nysadeia made her opinion of the mershark clear and Kaiden defended themselves.

Sort of.

He swam slowly through the shallow, steamy waters, keeping one eye out for the bubble of an underwater geyser preparing to erupt and the other out for red and orange rocks to slip into his sack. And you received it, the King pointed out mildly to Kaiden as the other Mer focused on red rocks to the exclusion of others. Hadama had used his recently-obtained legs at the party to ferry food to the Mer in the stream, though he'd gotten little enough thanks for it. Nor had he asked for it.

As for Nysadeia, he turned an emerald glance briefly towards the octopus before nodding in satisfaction as her eight agile arms made up for Kaiden's pickiness by collecting more rocks than the shark was managing. Mmh. They are nonbinary, he corrected gently, seeing no reason to be rude while they were sniping at each other. And prefer 'they' or 'them.' He paused, turning back to Kaiden courteously. Unless that has changed?

The sacks began to fill up quickly with all of them working and soon Hadama deemed it enough to switch. Look for yellow and green stones now, he instructed, shifting his own focus to reach for a lovely minty-colored rock the size of his closed fist.

---

So far so good! Time to switch to yellow and green rocks.

No posting order!

Nysadeia

Strange as it may seem
horror loses its power to frighten

One point to her, actually, she made him flinch. Or they, apparently; octopi rarely shrugged because they didn't really have shoulders, but Nysa managed a rather pointed one that made it clear she didn't mind either way how someone preferred to be addressed.

"That one is rather crude, isnt it?" she shot back mildly, getting all the pronouns deliberately wrong just to see if it would cause a reaction. "You should work on your words, little shark, they're a bit toothless at the moment."

She happened to like orange. It was a bright, sound color that stood out even in the gloom. Like gold, and fire, and sunsets - the only good things to ever come of the land.
It was with some regret she switched to searching for yellow stones instead. Far rarer and harder to find, it took some actual searching to find good ones. But a few slipped into the bag here and there at least, and that should be enough.

when repeated too often

kaiden

There is no shame in survival
Only strength

Kaiden nodded at Hadama's affirmation. They hadn't even caught the rude mer's misgendering of them with how offended they were by her other words. Hearing Hadama not only catch it but defend them made something warm curl in their chest. I am. If they had to define their gender, it'd be the misty foam on crashing waves. Consistent but with an unidentifiable shape.  

Nysa then purposefully misgendered them, and the look that Kaiden sent was truly venomous. Baring their teeth they hissed, I will bite you. Their fist clenched around the green rock that they were grabbing, debating throwing it at the octopus. If the King weren't present, they wouldn't even be hesitating.


~
Kaiden collects green stones and tries so so so hard not to attack Nysa.

coding by kaons

There was no better form of birth control than this. As the two continued to needle and threaten each other Hadama breathed deeply through his gills. He remained outwardly calm but it would be stretching the truth to the breaking point to claim that he was truly serene. Unbothered by one color or the other he gathered both yellow and green, though seeing Nysa moving slowly he did make an effort to choose more yellow ones.

Nysadeia . His mental tone held a hint of warning in its low rumble. Consider the wisdom of taunting a shark. Perhaps because she was distracted by making fun of Kaiden, her luck with the yellow stones was significantly less than it had been with the orange stones. When she found the right color they were the wrong size, and several that she picked up had flaws such that they flaked apart before she could get them in her bag.

No biting, he added to Kaiden , almost as an aside. Not while we are working. We do not want to draw the attention of Void-touched Echo Sharks. Which blood in the water would risk doing. At least the shark had managed to pick up the pace. There were plenty of green rocks in easy reach of them and they were able to make up for Nysa's desultory gathering this round. A short spurt of anger-fueled focus had soon caught them up with the octopus mer's initial lead.

Looking over, Hadama noted their two sacks looking equally heavy and he tilted his head in consideration. We will need more to protect the entire Arclight, he pointed out, appealing first to their survival. Which one of you can gather the most by the time we are done?

He selected a blue stone and a purple one, then tossed the blue to Kaiden and the purple to Nysadeia.

---

Round 3!

Blue and purple stones!

Please don't make Dama turn this PQ around

Nysadeia

Strange as it may seem
horror loses its power to frighten

It was perhaps good fortune that she remained shifted, because there was no suppressing the gloating satisfaction in getting a rise out of Kaiden. Octopi did not purr but the sly, waspish amusement that emanated from her side of the bond made it clear she considered herself the winner of round one.

"Whatever you say," she chirped in response to Hadama's rumble, sweet as molasses all of a sudden. The attempt to make them work harder by fueling the competition fell a bit flat since the mermaid didn't care overly much about that kind of win, but it certainly didn't harm her to pretend if it kept the king off her tentacled behind. "Sorry darling, looks like we'll have to save it for later," was shot in Kaiden's direction; a last cheap shot that was simply too good to miss.

Laughing - at them or in general was hard to tell - she drifted off a bit further away, making a very personal game of only picking stones that she wouldn't mind wearing as jewelry. Whether purple or blue, the criteria was harsh and unrelenting; if that made her even slower than before, that would be really unfortunate, wouldn't it.

when repeated too often

kaiden

There is no shame in survival
Only strength

Kaiden could acknowledge the wisdom of Hadama's words and nodded. But then Nysa echoed it, so they snapped their teeth at her, Later then. In the meantime, they'd collect their stones and fantasize about making the octopus regret her existence. Why was she so mean?

Stuck in their thoughts, Kaiden barely caught the blue stone. It was time to get to work, and after sticking their tongue out at Nysa, they returned to collecting stones. Blue was a nice color. The opposite of the red that they wanted to spill. No, no. Stones. They were collecting stones. They were collecting stones so that they could finish up and eat lunch. Yes. That was the goal. Stones, lunch, murder. Their day was planned.


~
Kaiden collects blue stones!

coding by kaons

Thank you, the Mer King rumbled, giving Nysadeia a nod of gratitude for being willing to delay her new hobby of bullying Kaiden. Perhaps the mershark was not quite equipped to challenge her in a battle of words, but Hadama knew that Kaiden's talents lay in other directions. They would just have to sort things out between them later, however, when the safety of their home was not in the balance.

Alas for Nysadeia the stones that she sought, whether blue or purple, were not to be found along the Rainbow Road today. Not, at least in the water that hid boiling geysers that interrupted her search more than once, sending a fierce rush of heat and bubbles past her suckered arms. Oh, there were plenty of blue and purple stones scattered throughout the geologically active stretch of coast, but they were heavy, hearty rocks, ruggedly beautiful in their own ways but far too large to be worn and unlikely to be chosen as jewelry.

On the other hand, they were the perfect size to be used as markers for the quest! It was a pity that she was passing over so many of them.

Kaiden, less picky than the octopus should have made much more progress far faster than his new archnemesis. They did make some progress, at least; even though their focus was on the blue stones alone their lower standards were coming in clutch to let them scoop up most of the stones they found. Unfortunately the section of the Rainbow Road they had chosen to sift - as far away from Nysadeia as they could likely get while remaining within sight of Hadama - had a larger collection of yellows and greens than blues. It made for slow going, though their sack was at least starting to look heavier than hers.

As for Hadama, the Tidebreaker had turned his attention to collecting black and white stones, leaving the blues and purples to his helpers. The monochromatic stones were less common here amidst their colorful brethren and he had to search hard for a much smaller collection. After a while of seeking with only a few handfuls to show for it the King paused and called to the others. We will move down the coast to a new area, he decided. And finish our collecting there.

He led the way past a particularly active section of geysers that threw up clouds of steam above the water. Below the water their vision was obscured by bubbles, but when they had swum past it a relatively quiet, shallow basin opened up. A trio of large geysers bubbled at its center but did not appear to be inclined to vent anytime soon. And the seafloor around them were awash in stones of many colors!

---

Round 4!

Last round the luck was not with us, so keep looking for blues and purples, but now in a different section of the Rainbow Road! This will be the last round so make it count!

Nysadeia

Strange as it may seem
horror loses its power to frighten

The world was not providing today. Growing surlier by the minute, the large octupus expressed her displeasure by hurling unsuitable stone around her and blowing streams of water through her vents. Hadama's call to switch area served as a good distraction and a suitable excuse to give up the game. If she wasn't winning it was no fun, and ut it wasn't fun there was little point in continuing.

With surpreme distaste expressed by the long tentacles, Nysa fell back to doing the bare minimum. Picking up her purple and blue stones and slapping them into the bag, it was clear that her patience for this exercise was quickly grinding to a halt.

when repeated too often

kaiden

There is no shame in survival
Only strength

Kaiden's tail thrashed with annoyance as they found another space empty of blue rocks. First, the ugly octopus, and now the uncooperative stones. Things couldn't get worse. They followed Hadama sullenly before breaking off to try once more. Their stomach grumbled as they scooped up an armful of blue stones.

There was a variety of sizes and shapes. Surely these were good? They swam over and deposited their haul before turning tail to repeat the process. As they continued their collection, a particularly pretty stone caught their eye. It was a beautiful shade of aqua. Quickly glancing around, Kaiden tucked it into their bag. No one would notice just one stone missing.

~
Kaiden tries again!

coding by kaons

The new location proved to be a rich source of both blue and purple stones, and with Nysa no longer holding the stones to her high aesthetic standards she made significantly more progress in both shades. With eight arms to curl around and grab stones she was able to work with admirably alacrity in spite of her boredom with the task. Surprisingly, the less she consciously tried the faster her bag filled compared to Kaiden's.

The mershark was having equally good luck in finding stones of their choice in the basin, but they had only two arms with which to gather the silicate bounty. Hadama glanced over once at the rumble of his friend's stomach, a gleam of humor in emerald eyes as he murmured: We will be done soon. Perhaps hunger truly was the best motivation, however, because even though they stopped to collect a personal treasure they still managed to fill their sack to the brim.

Hadama continued to chose white and black stones that gleamed bright or shone darkly in the shallow water. His bag filled more slowly than either of the Merfolk with him but it filled nonetheless, and by the time the sun shone directly overhead to signal that it was time for lunch, they had several heavy bags full of suitable stones of every color of the rainbow - and then some!

Thank you both, he rumbled as they gathered near the central geysers that sent up a steadily increasing stream of heated bubbles. With this we should be able to protect the Underwater City. He considered the haul that each Mer had brought and inclined his head to Nysadeia with grave respect. As the winner, you may chose a piece of jewelry from my mother's shop, he informed her. His mother was a respected seasmith known for her beautiful jewelry. As for Kaiden, he turned to his friend with another twinkle in his eyes. But I will treat you both to lunch..

After carrying the sacks to the Court of Stars to deposit there for Flora's team to pick up later Hadama fulfilled his promises to shark and octopus both.

And was relieved that no danger had interrupted the task this time.

~Fin~