Character Mansion

[Entry Hall]

Frank turned to the door and saw a pair of people walking in.

"Hi there. I am Captain Piggle Peggle, the hoggish mayor of Crown Town. Either of you ever heard of the place?"

[[Entry hall/ Entry hall => Balcony]

"Um I'm afraid I haven't... um maybe..." Lance blinks a few times, as if to attempt to clear his vision. "I'm sure it's definitely... interesting... perhaps you could..."

Hilda begins walking away towards the stairs, "Oh don't mind me, there's just a lovely..." she looks up at Ozzie and frowns, what exactly was that? ''person to meet over there and perhaps..."

Lace begins ignoring her and focuses his attention on Ozzie, "Um maybe you could elaborate?" What the heck is going on....

Hilda makes her way up the stairs over to Ozzy much faster than necessary and as a result hikes up her dress in order to avoid tripping over it. She stops at the top of the stairs and turns to face Ozzie. "Oh hello." She lets her dress drop back to the level it had been at. "How's your evening..." she looks Ozzie over, "Sir?"

edited 1st Apr '13 10:40:59 PM by Aqueos

[Entry Hall]

"Well, Crown Town is the name of a grasslands town on the Canadian-American border. I'm not really what you would call mayor, though.

You see, I acquired ownership of the town in the 80s, though I forget exactly how. Maybe I fought off the Bloogos or the Badonkadonks.

Anyway, I moved into a metal mansion on Mount Oink-Bubble, the town's local mountain. I also started naming all the caves, like Cave Douglas and The Cave of Death.

Crown Town has it all, like tank rentals, cannon rides, singing trees, daily fireworks shows, and stuff like that. I've also legalized every drug, so you know, it's a popular place."

That's the basics of Crown Town. Do you feel like a better person for knowing this?"

[Sparring Room]

Aseyu nimbly slid backwards to evade both the sword strike and the magical energy. Then, with a soft chuckle and a gesture — technically unnecessary, but it helped her focus, and she enjoyed the theatrics — her body was once again infused with raw antimagic.

Gabrielle seemed like the easier target — unless they figured out the various ways to counter antimagic, a magic-dependent enemy was helpless against Aseyu's abilities. (It was just a shame the mages of her own world were definitely not magic dependent.) So she slid towards Gabirelle, albeit making sure her back wasn't to Jonathon, and aimed a swift palm heel strike, charged with enough antimagic to shred the magical shield like paper, to the bridge of her nose.

There are ways, and quite a number of them, for a magic-user to get around Aseyu's antimagic. Kokabiel explicitly described one, in fact, earlier in the thread — "a shard of aerodynamic metal accelerated to supersonic speeds by telekinesis". Also do note that if Aseyu can get in a good bare-handed strike, especially if to the nerves, she can leave her enemies temporarily unable to wield magic. That would include her current strike at Gabrielle, by the way.

[Garden]

To Claire's question, Samira replied, "something about your phrasing seems a tad... unusual to me. Plus, well," she swept an arm across the scene surrounding them, "considering where we are, there's all sorts of strange possibilities to consider." She was about to comment on the odd things she'd seen, but thought better of it, not wanting to give Claire an easy out.

edited 2nd Apr '13 6:41:13 AM by KillerClowns

Garden

"I'm very interested, certainly," Anne said, before looking around. "But one, I'm pretty sure there's still some things to see down here, and two, Grimhilde's still somewhere up there and I really want to avoid her."

Grimhilde didn't even bother responding to Irilemi this time, or even do so much as give her a dirty glance. She was certain simply ignoring the other woman was the best plan of action here.

She kept looking at her mirror for a few more seconds, before tapping the top of it twice again to turn it off and returning it to her belt. As much as she would like to torment the girl, she simply did not have time to wait for her to return from...wherever she was. She still had to find the owner and ensure that he had made proper preparations.

As the owner was obviously not down here, she got up and headed back up to the kitchen.

Ulrich stopped at the bottom of the stairs, only to see that they only lead up. Assuming this 'cellar' was what he thought it was, he would have assumed another part of this staircase would have lead downwards. He shook his head and turned away, only to come face-to-face with an odd flying contraption.

He glanced at the contraption with a apprehensive, but far from worried or scared, expression. The obvious response was to assume that this thing was the owner of the place, but judging by its lack of response and overall design, Ulrich figured that this was more than likely a servant.

"I suppose you know the general location of this cellar, correct?" he asked it. The device turned and flitted away. Ulrich frowned and shook his head, turning away to see the entrance of a pair of newcomers. He raised his hand and opened his mouth to speak with them, but they paid him no heed - they simply spoke to the pig and then walked right past him and up the stairs.

He sighed, and was about to follow them when the contraption returned holding a map, which it dropped in front of Ulrich. The spot on the map labeled "Wine Cellar" was marked and very noticeable. Ulrich looked the map over, before glancing up at the device and giving his respectful nod. "I am much obliged," he said, before he started heading towards the kitchen.

[Parlor]

"Maybe." Linna said. "But then every new frontier has taught us new ways to destroy ourselves. Progress is not really a directed thing, in that just about everything can be weaponized somehow. If we were really that eager to destroy ourselves, we would have done it already."

[Outside -> Entry Hall]

A being of tremendous stature, around twelve feet tall, walked the outside path toward the mansion.

The being had an emotionless face, with no features, save for a pair of closed eyes and a small, closed mouth, and seemed to be made of white metal. It had a long and somewhat thick neck attached to a broad chest. Its arms were long, and its hands had only three long fingers and a thumb. Its skin was an unearthly light gray. On its right shoulder, was the sleeping head of a lion, and on its left, a ram. It shared its own head with the heads of a bull and an eagle. Wrapped around its left arm, a green snake slithered around. It held a mighty-looking sword in its right hand, which had the head of a raven coming out of the wrist. It had four wings, two were folded to cover its chest, and the other two were spread out, ready to fly at the moments notice. A large robe covered the lower half of its body, and pieces of lower abdomen. Above its head, a wheel, covered in eyes, surrounded by flames, with four wings, floated above.

The creature silently approached the door to the mansion, not bothering to open it, merely fazing through it to the entry hall.

The being stared with closed eyes around it, taking every detail of the room and the other beings into account.

[Entry Hall]

"Oh, and by the way, if you were wondering where exactly Crown Town is, you can find it right between-"

As Frank was talking, he noticed a monstrous entity phase through the front door.

"Holy shit-balls on a flaming fuck-platter, what the hell is that?!

[Balcony]

At the sound of footsteps—very rapid footsteps at that—Ozzy lifted his head enough to peek out from under his hood, to find a woman standing at the top of the stairs, looking just a little flustered. He recognized her as the woman who'd just arrived a minute ago, along with the sad man from earlier. It took another moment before he realized that she was indeed talking to him.

He blinked twice, then stood quite abruptly, scooting his chair back quite a bit in doing so. "Oh— oh, hello!" Ozzy began, laughing a little nervously, "My evening? Well, well... It's been very nice, which is a part of the problem, but never mind that." He waved it off, then paused, seemingly unsure of what to say next. After a moment, he smiled underneath his mask, and tipped his head, "How d'you do?"

[Entry Hall]

The being noted the voice of Frank, approaching him with slow, unmoving legs and noiseless footsteps.

The leaned down to eye level with Frankn "Are you not aware that saying such foul language in such a proper setting is inappropriate?" The being's male sounding voice resonated in the heads of every intelligent being for fifty feet, even as it asked Frank the simple question.

edited 2nd Apr '13 5:04:54 PM by DarkbloodCarnagefang

[Entry Hall]

"I would prefer it if you'd explain to me what you are. Also, nobody really seems to care what happens here."

edited 2nd Apr '13 5:19:07 PM by BiggerBen

[Entry Hall]

The being raised itself up to full height to speak, "A cherubim," the voice of the being continued to resonate, "And to say that no one cares about what happens would be inaccurate."

[Entry Hall]

"Okay then. That's really all the information I wanted to get from you, so I'm just gonna stop talking to you now."

Frank walked over to the stairs at the end of the hallway. "There seems to be a second floor in this building. Wonder what's on the second floor. Should I find out, or are those kinds of mysteries better left mysteries?"

[Garden]

"Ah," said Xavier. Grimhilde was that queenish-looking person, if I remember correctly. Hmm. So Anne wants to stay away from her. Wonder if I could get any more information out of Grimhilde without letting her know that Anne's down here. Probably not; I'm not that good at that sort of thing.

He glanced around the garden a bit. It did look like the kind of place that could hide a lot of stuff in various nooks and crannies. Maybe they could find something interesting. "All right, okay," he said, briefly flaring his wings. "Let's look around. Did you see anything specific that caught your eye?"

Anatoly's eyebrow cranked up like a drawbridge. "I'd think that's a part of progress. Modern weapons are exactly what allowed the first revolutionaries to defeat the Empire's sword-wielding conventional forces. Come to think of it- I assume that magic plays no part in this new frontier, that it's purely technological in nature? If that's the case, then if the Commonwealth had a space program then the Order certainly wouldn't." He nodded to himself, filing this piece of the conversation away in his head for later reference. "They're rather backwards. Yes, perhaps it might actually be a good thing. Tell me, what are some of the benefits of easy space access? And what of the weapons? I assume that, with no gravity, there would be almost an unlimited practical weight limit to the kind of ordinance you could deploy from orbit." He leaned forward slightly. "Assume the United Nations were the only spacefaring power where you've from- what would it be capable of?"

[Parlor]

She paused. Magic. Hmm. Well, back in the day of that University place...

"There is no real practical weight limit...but for getting up there, which is very painfully a practical limit. One of the earliest and easiest to develop abilities is simply to look down and take pictures via powerful telescope. Most of the simple stuff involves basically dropping rocks; some sort of dense material elevated to orbit and then dropped out of it for kinetic impact." Linna shrugged. "We have better mechanisms, ones more selective, but you..." She paused. "Post-flight just a little? Not too far off if you focus..."

Anatoly nodded. "The Commonwealth aviation labs are currently experimenting with the feasibility of several designs of gyrocraft and other aerodynes. Last I heard, results were promising." He paused to consider what Linna described. "These masses must be made to travel at a very high velocity not to need any sort of warhead. Suppose, given all that vertical distance, gravity alone could be used to accelerate a projectile to nearabouts those kinds of speeds." He fished a coin out of a suit pocket and began flipping it over the knuckles of his right hand, thinking. "Tungsten's the only material I know of that has sufficiently high heat tolerance to be able to withstand the atmospheric friction that would be generated on an object going that fast." He smiled. "Quite ingenious."

[Entry Hall]

As quickly as the odd pig came he was replaced by a new being... a cherubim. Well... this is certainly interesting. The new creature was certainly odd, but given the drain of his day he hardly cared by this point. He looks up at the Cherubim, the whole absurdity of the situation occurring to him.

"Well um... lovely day isn't it."

[Balcony]

Hilda relaxes her posture. Great job, welcome to formal city. Might as well order the coffee now for heaven's sake.

"Oh it's fine for the most part. Lance over there," she gestures towards the elf, "Had some romantic... troubles." She considers the last word for a while, trying to think of a tasteful word for his problems. "The night is still young... well at least I think it is."

[Entry Hall]

The cherubim looked down at the human. Its voice resonated inside the human's head, "It is currently past sunrise. Do you mean to ask if it has been a lovely day based on when the sun was out or if it has been a lovely day based on the entire 24 hours of the day? If the former, then yes, the day has been lovely. If the latter, since the whole day has not elapsed, than a proper assessment is not yet possible."

edited 3rd Apr '13 8:06:34 AM by DarkbloodCarnagefang

[Parlor]

"It is not a short-term project, but potentially feasible within...twenty to thirty years?" Linna said. "Invest in rocketry. Vet your people carefully," she advised. "That's part of why my parent agency exists, and we only have to deal with normal, non-magical people. Even just having a sufficiently large launch vehicle explode on the pad can be a very big problem."

Anatoly shook his head. "Twenty to thirty years?" A grin began to spread across his face. "That's your best estimate? You must not know much about us, Linna. We'll cut that time in half, at least." He flicked the coin into the air, catching it in mid-air as it fell. "We already have land-based unguided rockets as weapons, deployed today. Get a team together and establish their own dedicated development bureau..." He sucked a tooth, thinking briefly. "We could adapt our existing rocket weapons bureau, or extend it. Very possible."

[Balcony]

"Ah," Ozzy pressed his hands against his heart, "the pains of lovesickness. There is no greater curse known to man." He chuckled softly, "Well, that explains why he looked so plum glum earlier." he smiled, though it was only visible in his eyes, and even those were difficult to make out beneath his hood, save for the tiny glistening of light reflecting off the surface.

He gazed at Lance from the balcony's edge for a moment, then his eyes widened. "H-h-holy cow, what— who on Earth...?" He trailed off without finishing his sentence, but Ozzy was of course talking about the creature that Lance was with. It was by far the most bizarre thing he'd seen all night, even more bizarre to think that it was attending a party.

After a few more seconds of gawking silently at the creature, he came to his senses and turned back to the woman, giving her a wide-eyed stare instead. When he came to his senses again, he coughed nervously, then tugged his hood as though he were tipping a hat. "Please excuse my rudeness madam, I— oh, I haven't yet introduced myself." he bowed with his usual flair, "I am Oswald Prosper Leonard Orozco." He then added, "May I ask something? You and your friend Lance were invited here, is that correct?"

[Parlor]

Linna chuckled. "Maybe you will. But then we had fairly significant pressures to get it done too." She leaned back in her chair. "I wish you luck."

She paused and checked her phone again, it now occurring her to wonder why she had service here. It wasn't even roaming service. Odd.

[Garden]

"Oh!" Said Tamara, excitedly, as she hopped to her feet. "When I was over there," She pointed. "I heard running water coming from somewhere. You guys want to go check that out?"

"You seem pretty convinced that I'm one of these 'strange possibilities'." Remarked Claire, crossing her arms. "What do you think I am, exactly, if not who I appear to be?"

[Balcony]

"I think he got something last week." She looks up at the ceiling, the event had hardly been important to her. "I think... he might have tried to toss it in the garbage?" She shakes her head and looks back at Ozzie, "But yes we were invited." She wrings her hands, "Well he was but it said he could bring guests." She raises an eyebrow slightly, "Why do you ask?" She settles down for a moment before realizing what she's forgotten. "Oh, and of course my name is Hilda. Should've introduced myself earlier."

[Entry Hall]

Well... it's certainly... literal Lance shuffles his feet. "That's... one way of looking at it." He laughs nervously, And big and kind of intimidating. "I'm Lance, um... I don't suppose you wouldn't mind introducing yourself? You're certainly very.... insightful." The elf smiles but it seems thin and painted on.

[Southern Bedroom]

"Well that...." Sven rolls over onto his stomach, "Was fun. So unless you have somewhere to be..." he glances over at his pile of clothing, "Maybe we could make up for the lack of chat at the beginning for some at the end?"