Hunters in Wonderland [plot: invite only]

"I think you need to be more descriptive than that." Hunter had standing behind the two for a while now, keeping his eyes closed beneath his sunglasses while facing the direction of this world's light. "Every day, I wake up as the sun rises, then lie in my bed until it's time to eat." He walked over and sat down next to the fire, smelling the pot's contents. "Aside from preferring a bit less pepper, no offense Alice, I'd also prefer you to tell me more about who you were talking to last night before everyone wakes up." Hunter began holding his hands near the flames. Morning cold and his fingers do not agree well. "Not a version of what happened. Everything, David. Remember, truth is singular. Its versions are mistruths."

David looked at Hunter. "Relax, I was just talking to a friend about riddles." God, I hope Alice knows what I mean.

Alice glances at David from the side but goes back tending to breakfast.

Emerald wakes up and walks out of his tent, thinking, You guys ready for another day of fighting? What I'm ready for is getting out of here! Can we sleep in? No, we have to continue, or else we won't be getting out of here. Same as usual, I guess.

He walks over to the trio that were awake and asks, "What's for breakfast, Alice?"

"Curry," Alice answers with a smile. "I didn't know what everybody's taste is so it's mild."

Alice produces eight plates of curry and rice, laying them all out on a checkered picnic blanket. She hands one to Hunter, David, and Emerald.

"Sorry if you prefer it spicy, but I did not want somebody who can't eat spicy food to go hungry."

Alice picked up one of the plates herself and starts eating spoonfuls with a smile on her face. "It's too bad I couldn't make it spicier..."

Just then a drop of the curry sauce dripped from the edge of her plate and fell on the ground in front of her. The moment it touched the grass the ground suddenly caught on fire with a fiery pop. The flames died out on their own quickly enough, but the effect the sauce Alice considered "mild" was not going to be forgotten anytime soon.

"Hm~ fifty billion scoville just doesn't give that much flavor," Alice hums as she eats another spoonful. "What's wrong? If you don't like mild curry I can make your plate spicier for you."

Hunter, noting the curry was literally hot, took a spoonful, wiped the bottom of it on the edge of the bowl so the underside of the spoon was completely dry, and, after a few seconds of hesitation, shoved it into his mouth. In less than a second the curry had been swallowed, not a single taste of its spice touching his tongue, followed by him downing a bit of his own saliva to help digest. Hunter continued this process until the bowl was empty.

David watched the grass burn. "Dang it.........just a bit hotter." He pulled out a small container with the words 'pure evil' on it. He pulled out a small bottle with a dropper. He threw the dropper out and poured the whole bottle in. A small mushroom cloud appeared over his curry. "That's better." David then jugged the whole bowl in under twenty seconds. Not bad. could have been hotter still.

Laeleps emerges from his tent with a sour face. Hahaha what's the matter not sleep well? You are why I hate mornings now shut your mouth. Laeleps walks over to the group and notices Alice has made food. Laeleps briefly forms a smile for Alice, "Thank you, Alice." As he turns away his scowl returns and he looks for a nice spot to eat. As Laeleps begins mechanically eating not caring for his surroundings he looks at the bowl briefly before continuing with a slight smile on his face. This is much better than starving. Needs more meat though.

Cleaning off her plate, Alice looks around the currently awake members, the others still sleeping in their tents.

"We're a few hours walk from our destination," Alice states. "It's quite a ways away so we may encounter more residents of Wonderland. Is there anything you would like to know?"

David raised his hand. "Um, is there anything that involves a heart in anyway up ahead." David was thinking about that last thing Cheshire said. If it didn't mean anything Cheshire wouldn't have said it.

"Heart? Well I don't know about up ahead but...." Alice thinks about this for a while. ".... There is the heart. Literally the heart. The persona of Byron's heart I mean. Her name is Elizabeth Bathory. She's called Eliza for short.... but she's nothing to be concerned with even if we do meet her."

Alice uses her finger to idly draw a heart into the dirt.

"She isn't a fighter at all. I haven't seen her in all these years since March appeared. The most that she's ever done was send her pieces after me. You've met them before, those soldiers with the playing cards on their chests. When they were 'hailing their majesty' they were talking about the Queen, Eliza. I wouldn't be concerned with meeting her anytime soon... Oh, there is her husband Louis. He's known as the king and partners with the heart... he was the persona of Byron's love but..."

A sad look came over Alice's face. "..... I hear he's dead now..."

What are you telling me Cheshire? David looked at Alice and nodded. He kept quite thinking about what Cheshire said. I have a bad feeling.

Hunter continues eating, immersed in his thoughts. Then, he spoke. "Hey, Alice, can I see whatever bottle of hot sauce you used?"

"Hm? I didn't use hot sauce. You can't put that in curry," Alice states. "I just used some natural herbs, spices, and veggies."

Alice taps the ground with her hand and a variety of veggies and plants sprout from the ground. You notice that their are twenty different things that look like peppers but look like something you'd only find in tropical rain forests.

David looked at the chill peppers. "Please tell me there are ghost peppers." David was in heaven he loved spicy food. This is too good to be true.

"Well, I can't cook, so I don't know anything about food." Hunter had finished eating and set the plate to the side.

"Over there," Alice points at a bush of ghost peppers right behind David. ".... Why did you ask about hearts before David?"

Alice tilted her head to the side.

David looked over to her. "A friend said something about them last night." He walked over to her and whispered. "Listen I can't say who because Malina will kill me and Hunter...Hunter is a bit of a control freak." He continued over to the peppers and grabbed a bunch. I might get hungry. He placed them in his back pack.

Respecting David's wishes, Alice makes no further attempt to pry. She turns to the rest of the group. "Anything else you would like to know?"

Hunter stretched, leaning left, then right. "How long will we have to walk before reaching the party?"

“...hy minds ne'er stagger in distrust to suffer death or shame for what is just.” Malina slowly opened her eyes. She rolled over on her side only to hit the tent's wall. Fully opening her eyes she realized she was still in her tent. "Still here....Goddamnit." She sat her self up and streached only to hear the sound of that little brat, Alice, singing. Now, Malina had nothing against song or music, the child singing, however, was a different story. "Singing about...curry? Ugh...curry..." She took a deep breath then stood up, as much as she could inside of the cramped tent, and exted into the bright sunlight. Shielding her eyes for a moment she could hear talking over by where the singing had previously come from 'Better than singing at least.' With her eyes adjusted to the sunlight now she took a look around. She was in a mostly flat, with a few sparse rocks here and there. Looking over once more at the small group chatting by the curry she opted for the quieter option and, with a bored look on her face, sat down on a rock to begin fiddling with her weapon and cycling through poisons in her tail.

"A few hours if we can manage a straight trip there," Alice states. She takes out her pocket watch on a chain and looks down at it. "If we leave soon we should get to the forest by noon."

Emerald finishes off his curry and sets down his bowl. He thinks, Looks like we'll be getting out of here today. It's gonna be a long day. But we'll get out of here. We better.

He says, "Great we can get going soon, as long as those last three get up at a reasonable time."

Garrus emerged from his tent as he adjusted his armor to fit on his body. It takes quite a while to fit such a massive suit of metal onto your body alone no matter how many times he had done it. He was completely unaware of the current conversation between the others as he slipping his gauntlet on and fastened it. He reached back into the tent to grab both of his massive hammers and hefted them onto his back and into their custom sheathe. He would wait until the other were finished eating before getting any himself. He wanted to know everyone else had eaten and gotten their fill before he did. Instead he sat on a nearby stump and waited while playing with the fitting on his gauntlet.

David waved over to Garrus. "Hey Garrus, come on man eat up. Its a bit mild I think, but you could handle it" David grabbed Garrus's bowl and handed it to him David sat down next to him and took a bite out of one the ghost pepper he grabbed. Illusion or not this is good.

Garrus reluctantly took the bowl of curry and looked around to see everyone had gotten their share of food before beginning to eat. The curry was  rather good but a little to spicy for his tastes but Garrus continued to eat without raising any complaint. "So I trust you are in good health?" he spoke in between bites. He wanted to ensure all of his companions were well rested and well fed before travelling again.

After some time passes and everyone has awaken and was fed, Alice starts leading the group off farther down the path. After over two hours of walking the group find themselves surrounded in a field of roses, the petals blowing by the passing winds. The walk is relatively uneventful. Alice tried to lighten the mood by singing but felt she was receiving displeased looks from certain individuals of the group and stopped.

Suddenly the sound of singing can be heard again but it was not coming from Alice. The sound appeared to be coming from up ahead.