Clouds and Currents - VoK & HW 2021 Event Prompts

   Tamaya's sleep was a bit more peaceful tonight than the previous, perhaps in part due to how tiring all this was... though, when you wake up to an argument, that doesn't really help how little rest you get.
   "Are you even doing anything?" Nahia's voice rang in her ears. "You won't give me powers, you won't give her powers-"
   And then was Bora's voice. "That is beyond my jurisdiction, you know this."
   "Oh my god, who cares about the whole jurisdiction thing?! It's not like the other gods are even here right now! You are physically capable of giving others powers, and apparently this whole place is gonna blow up from a giant rock monster or whatever, use them! Or at least actually use your own ones and train us to fight so we can have a chance, instead of whatever it is you've been doing for these past two days!" Tamaya cracked her eyes open to see Nahia pacing around, a snarl on her face and her tail whipping about. "We're lucky that one this morning was so small and brittle, if it wasn't, we'd probably be straight up dead!"
   "They're hardly the size of my paw," Bora replied.
   "You have big paws! And these are sentient rock monsters!" Nahia snapped back. Tamaya closed her eyes. More of this, then... even Nahia was getting into it, now. So much for being able to exist as anything other than a hero. "If you're not gonna give us a way to fight back directly, at least help us come up with a plan or something, o mighty god of knowledge!"
   "Drop the attitude," he growled in a low rumble. "Didn't you already suggest a plan, anyway? Drive the titan and its underlings into the ocean, where the denizens of the sea kingdom have a movement advantage and those of the sky kingdom can attack from above while the monsters' mobility is hindered?"
   She groaned. "Yeah, but that's, like, a long term thing! You know, for when the titan itself shows up? We can't spend all our energy doing that for the small fry over and over, we won't have any energy to actually take out the leader!"
   Ugh, nope. She wasn't going to get back to sleep any time soon, was she? Tamaya shifted and pushed herself... not all the way upright, but enough that it was clear she was awake. "Mmph..." she groaned.
   "Oh!" Nahia's expression lit up. "Morning, Tama!" she greeted. "Dude, you're not gonna believe what I found this morning-"
   "It was a rock thing," she interrupted blearily. "A small one, but still a rock thing."
   "...Oh! You, uh..." She smiled apologetically. "Sorry. Didn't mean to wake you up."
   She sighed. "It's fine." It wasn't, but then again, what part of this whole hero business was fine? "Um... listen, Nahia's got a point, Bora, sir. I mean..." She hesitated. "It's just, you know. We've only really got claws and fangs, you know? Have you ever tried to bite a rock? It doesn't really work." Actually, with fangs like those, the smilodon would probably have little trouble biting through a small rock, at least. "Without a plan, or powers, or something..."
   Her mentor gave her a tired, almost sad look. "You... You have to understand.," he said. "If I could intervene, I would. But there is a rather strict policy among the gods of not interfering unless it's deemed necessary, and my duty here was merely to investigate-"
   "And have you reported back to the other gods?" Tamaya asked. "Bora, I know you've got your own stuff going on, too, but..." she looked away, towards the horizon where the sky and ocean met, and her ears drooped. "I'm not a hero. They think I am, but I'm not. I can't do anything like this. And if nothing happens, everyone here's gonna die."
   Bora winced. Again... If the gods didn't act, once again everyone would die. It was that simple, wasn't it?
   "...Your kingdoms have capable of metalworking, do they not?" he said at last. "The fellow from the sea, Neptune, was it? He wore armor. Steel, I presume. It will take time, but there are tools we could create. Picks and hammers. And if we were to make them large enough, we could set traps for even the bigger foes. Tripwire traps, even something simple, like vines. Those things are powerful, sturdy, but not agile, and these smaller ones, at least, seem more like automatons than actual sentient beings themselves - They likely wouldn't think to avoid them. If we set it up properly, we could devise a mechanism that smashes through them when they trigger it. It would be a process," he admitted. "These tools work best when formed from a single piece of metal, And of course, they would be heavy, if we made them large enough to take out the smaller ones, and we would have to reset them manually. And we would likely have to bait them into the trap in the first place-"
   "Oh, hey!" Nahia jumped in. "Hey, if it's bait, we might be able to work something out with that Edgar guy and the other members of his club, right? Their whole deal is collecting things, yeah? Maybe we could make a prop out of all the junk they've got and, like, hide it in the back of a shady grove or something where the trap is laid at the entrance. If they're really as dumb as it seems, they probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference in the dark at a distance like that, right?" She turned to Tamaya. "Right? You get it!"
   Tamaya hummed. "I... Yeah, I think something like that could work," she agreed. "Even if only for a bit, and even if it's something that takes some work and that we'd have to try to keep an eye on so we can keep using it, it's still something."
  "Then it's settled!" Nahia declared. "Bora, you go see if you can get the hammer situation sorted out! Tamaya and I will hit up Edgar and see if we can convince him to part with some of the stuff everyone's grabbed so we can put together a dummy."
   "I don't believe I left you in charge," Bora commented. "But very well. We'll meet again here this afternoon to share our progress."
   "Alright! Let's go, Tama!" And Nahia took off at a full sprint.
   "Hey, wait up! I'm still getting used to the whole walking on land thing!" Tamaya shouted, following shortly behind.