Library

Twilight, having been listening in on what everyone was conversing about, decided to interject.

"How long a range do you consider long enough? Because I could potentially lend some help with my magic."

"HhhhhoooooooooooooooOOO-" Morty screamed his usual scream as something the size of a suburban mini-mall - looking vaguely like a gigantic, very, very pissed-off lobster - demolished a tangled section of tunnel somewhere down below, the way that a tailor might casually snip off a length of yarn from a particularly messy ball of yarn. Somewhere deep inside of himself, Morty found himself vaguely wishing for the drunken mayhem of the preceding evening, drugged aliens and broadcasts from dystopian Madonna-world and all.

His scream turned into a prolonged wail as Jack grabbed him by the hand and yanked him up through the mass of copper tunnels. He barely noticed that his feet barely touching the ground, although he wasn't sure if that was out of sheer terror or the fact that Jack was some kind of magical being capable of flying.

"Rick!" he finally manged to shout, gasping for air as they reached a large antechamber littered with the debris of robots... and Kelsey, who was industriously whacking the automatons to death with what appeared to be a severed piece of robot arm. Great.

"I, you, w-w-e - we gotta go back for Rick!" shouted Morty, who was sweating - partially from the run, partially from the steam wafting through the corridors, but mostly from the sheer, primal, bowel-soiling terror of a gigantic sea leviathan that would put Job's most fevered imagining to shame. Morty was already priming himself to start running back down, apparently after his grandfather - but skidded to a halt when he realized that the route they had taken had already rearranged itself, seemingly cutting off access to the way they had come.

"Aw.... oh... hoooo..." Morty wiped some of the sweat off of his brow and tried to concentrate on the situation at hand. "W-w-we need to... find land or... something?" he muttered, trying to get his thoughts together. "But, b-but is there land? Like any land at all? Aw jeez, aw jeez, w-w-we're gonna die, we're gonna die, Jack! I'm freakin' out here!" Another rumble as the beast smashed against another section of pipe, sending the reverberations juddering up the metal tunnels like some kind of demonic Morse code.

edited 20th Sep '16 6:31:18 PM by Locoman

Plague Knight was carefully reading the ingredients of the Health Drink flavored tea. Indeed, many of the contents were made for the purpose of provided quick nutrition for anyone that was malnourished in some way and should not be consumed by healthy people. The alchemist was about to say this out loud, but then the radio transmissions starting coming in about a giant sea monster, most likely the Boss of the day.

He sipped the last of the tea. "Excuse me, but I think this tea party has come to an end," the knight said, getting up from the table. He walked over to where the congregation of other heroes gathered. "I would like to lend by abilities as well," Plague Knight said. "If heavy ordinance is required, I am the expert on the subject. Just need to be close enough to throwing range."

edited 20th Sep '16 6:37:17 PM by UdtheImp

Karkat - Library - How Is He Not Dead Yet

Karkat tried to argue, but didn't have the proper time to do so as John decided to FLING HIM INTO THE FUCKING LIBRARY. Karkat landed on the floor and slid headfirst into the desk, which hurt. A lot. He lay down there groaning and cursing a whole lot, running his hand through his hair and wiping off quite a lot of blood. Finally, when he found the resolve to not bleed out in the middle of the library, he stood up and started chewing John out.

WHAT THE HELL, EGBERT?! I TELL YOU TO DO ONE THING, JUST ONE SIMPLE THING, BUT APPARENTLY YOU THINK YOU'RE SOOOOO SMART BY DRIVING THIS GODDAMN BOAT INTO THE FUCKING LIBRARY! ARE YOU PROUD OF YOURSELF AND YOU SHRIVELED UP THINK PAN FOR THINKING OF SUCH A GREAT AND WONDERFUL IDEA?! LET ME APPLAUD YOU, EGBERT, FOR YOUR AMAZING CONTRIBUTIONS TO SOCIETY. He clapped sarcastically. Then he slowly realized where he was and turned around to see Miss Tairee, most likely pissed the hell off. He sighed and facepalmed. DON'T EVEN BOTHER. I'LL SHOW MYSELF OUT.

Library - *shrug*

John responded with a shrug. "hey, it sounded like a good idea at the time," he said, "so excuse me for trying to make this work." John then turned to everyone else. "so yeah. aren't you going to be eaten by the boss when you go outside?"

They were running out of time and Curly didn't feel like sticking around any longer to be distracted by the boy who crashed though the door, though that looked like it had to hurt.. "Thanks again, looks like I'll have to come back and read my book later" she said to Miss Tairee as she set the copy of Cave Story: The complete tale down on the nearest flat surface before addressing Rachel, and to some extent anyone who was paying attention"I'm gonna try to find that turret thing and see if that'll do anything to whatever that monster is, Good luck with whatever you guys are doing, I've got my radio on the militia channel"

With that said, she quickly exited the library, and started looking around to see where the nearest group of building was. She then backed away a few paces before running full tilt for the edge and leaping into the air before activating her booster jet, sending her rocketing through the air for a few moments before she landed on a wooden boardwalk and barely broke stride as she ran along before finding a metal hatch, and underneath it a ladder which she wasted no time in descending..

Cole contemplated everything for a moment before crouching, setting down the bread and water, then pulling off his amulet and putting it into Nails's hands. "Hold this, let me see if I can see anything."

As soon as his amulet was out of his hands, his eyes flared green, and he turned, looking around a moment, head cocking from one side to the other, as though trying to track a fly buzzing around his head, starting to murmur in a low voice. "Water breaking through, so far so fast, metal creaking and cracking and cascading down, holes ripping through...up, up, go up, have to go up, have to go up... I think we already knew about those. Let me try to see deeper."

Cole grimaced, wandering over to the edge of the boardwalk, crouching down to stare down into the water as though that could give him a better look, closing his eyes and trying to sense anything that was down below, trying to filter past the people in the tunnels and find anything that he would be able to tell about whatever might be down there.

edited 20th Sep '16 7:51:00 PM by ColeMinor

All the talk of the giant creature currently terrorizing the underwater labyrinth below reminded Sophie of the Rockgagong: a Strahtan creature of immense size, regarded with dignity by the local scholars. Never mind that they had been swallowed whole by it, and had to navigate its stomach in order to find a way out; after slaying the parasite that had been causing its erratic behavior, they didn't think of challenging it from outside at all, since it was normally docile - not to mention they didn't think they would be able to even hurt such a massive creature. What chance did she have, then, against something just as big - or bigger?

Still, it didn't sit right with her, either, to simply stay in the Library and hope for good news from those going out to face it. And besides, she was still technically a member of the Lhant household; it wouldn't do for someone in that position not to set a good example for the others, Hubert would say. With that, Sophie darted out of the Library, tailing Curly. Where the blonde leaped a wide gap between a suddenly-nearby boardwalk with the aid of booster jets, she instead hopped along several nearby abandoned canoes that trailed towards the same boardwalk.

As Curly reached the bottom of the ladder, she would hear the sound of something quickly sliding down from above. Sophie's form soon appeared, her hands gripping harder to slow her descent before she hopped the last few feet down into the tunnel. "I'll help," she said to the blonde simply, face set in determination.

Thomas looked over at Twilight and blinked, then pointed at her wings. "Can you not fly yourself? She was asking who would go along with her on her dr-" Thomas stopped, and turned to look at Caro and the small Fried. "How is that little guy going to carry you? Let alone another person?" the young wizard asked her.

Meanwhile Miss Tairee just stared blankly at Karkat until he left.

"What do you mean..? Oh right" Nails said, following after Cole but quickly adding to Frederick behind him, "don't go anywhere."

As for Cole's searching, the leviathan itself did not seem to have a mind he could get into. There was a strange feeling he could make out, a sort of power coursing through it that had something to do with life energy or one's spirit, but Cole could only sort of make out the idea of it; probably because of how it was something from another universe with different laws of reality.

More importantly though, he could quickly pick out Ben currently dealing with the thing as Ripjaws, so he could get a picture indirectly.

Climbing along the leviathan was not made easy by the speed it was going with the water rushing past Ripjaws; he also nearly got hit by a piece of broken tunnel drifting past him that the leviathan had just plowed through. Still, he could get past the smaller pair of arms it had and close to where the face was, but that's where he hit a roadblock.

Around the face was a set of several tentacles, coiling about like prehensile power lines with barbed tips; when Ripjaws got close, a couple of them suddenly whipped back and tried to swipe at him with those tips, keeping him at bay. The leviathan let out another roar like sound and altered course, moving towards a structure with the aim to brush its underside along it and scrape off Ripjaws. On the plus side, at least the leviathan seemed to know Ripjaws was there now, so maybe he could still get its attention.

Gon, now with Rick

The assassin wasn't sure if he got distracted by the partial collapse of the tunnels or it was due to something else, but he was with Rick and not Morty and Jack.

Oh great. Can't wait to get some PTSD if something bad happens to him...

"Hey!" Gon called for Rick's attention. "Are you okay?"

Ripjaws yelled, hanging on for dear life and trying not to get hit by debris. When he made it to the creature's face, he winced back when it tried to swipe at him with facial tentacles. "Okay, big and ugly, now you know I'm here, time to come up and play!" he exclaimed, letting go and swimming upwards towards the surface past the Leviathan. He made as loud of a yell as he could, "HEY ROCKHEAD, UP HERE!" in the direction of the Leviathan to try and get its attention, before darting back up towards the surface.

edited 21st Sep '16 9:59:30 AM by AllHailThrall

Jack cursed internally when Morty started shouted about his grandfather. In his panic he'd forgotten that Rick was further down still. There wasn't anything they could do about it now. He had to comfort Morty, though. "I'm sure he'll be fine! You said he's smart, right? He'll figure something out. And that blue guy is heading back down that way, he might be going to get him. We just need to get you out of here, first."

Skidding to a halt they entered a new room, Jack took note of the fact that the wind hear was actually moving. They had to be close to the surface. But first, he had to do something about the badly injured woman currently beating on a robot. Jack winced when he saw her. She was bleeding badly, and arms definitely weren't supposed to look like that. This was serious. The spirit glanced between the woman, and Morty as he began to freak out. Making a decision, he grabbed the teenager by the shoulders and pulled him so that he was looking Jack in the eyes. "Kiddo, look at me. We're going to be fine, ok. I promise you, you're not going to die. But I need you to calm down for me. Can you do that? You'll be back at the library before you know it." The spirit clapped Morty on the shoulder, and gave him a confident grin. "Now, we need to help this woman."

He waited a moment to give the teenager a chance to take it in, then the winter spirit turned and began approaching the woman. Jack hesitated for a moment. He'd never had to help somebody that was bleeding before. Or even just injured. He'd always been relegated to just watching helplessly. Now that he was here, he was at a bit of a loss of what to do. "Uh, miss. Can you understand me? I'm going to help you, as much as I can, ok. Just... uh. Morty, do you know any first aid?"

Library — Tea Party

Garrett sighed in exasperation. "Have you been listening to what I've been saying at all?," he asked, now very clearly annoyed. "I'm not asking you for help with any challenges, not yet; all I want is you to consider demanding the ability to send a message home—" he pointed towards the suggestion box "—even knowing that in exchange, the boss will drop some undisclosed tougher challenge on us. No, I'm not asking just for my sake!," he said, addressing Viola. "I know others in this city may be in worse situation than me. That's sort of my point. We all would benefit from this."

Viola remarked that the price for failing the challenge may well be a fate worse than death. Garrett could imagine a few things that would fit the description. "That's... ah," he said. "Well, I assume he would be gentlemanly enough not to just drop that on us without stating his conditions first. We can't make a decision until we know what kind of challenge he's got in mind, so we might as well ask him. Judging from his track record so far, it'll probably be one more monster to defeat... we've been able to lick every one sent our way so far."

As if on cue, that was when some woman started shouting off from the direction of Miss Tairee's desk, and some very telling messages could be heard through her... phone? Apparently the promised "defender of the greatest civilization" was now on the move.

"Dammit. Well, guess we can put this conversation off until later."

Outside Library - Who Gives the Therapist Therapy?

"Well...I wasn't expecting this to be easy," Zelda said with a sigh, "To be honest, I'm not sure if it's even a good idea. Though Miss Tairee did tell me that they probably wouldn't see me as human when she suggested it." She tapped one of her ears to indicate what she meant. "But even then, I don't think lying about it would be very smart considering the nature of their group."

She shrugged herself.

"But at the same time, it does sound like my best chance at meeting the sorts of people I want to meet. Apart from just asking around randomly, the only other group I can think of to have people like that would be the Ruckus, and...well, I hope I don't need to explain why that's an even worse idea."

She then gave Sans a look that was genuinely curious. "If you have a better suggestion, then I'd love to hear it."

Curly started to look around the chamber at the bottom of the ladder when a sound from above caught her attention, and suddenly Sophie was there with her and looking determined. "Heh, you know that we might just end up running is circles until this thing smashes all the tunnels or someone else kills it somehow, right?" She said pulling out her machine gun in preparation for any trouble between here and their destination then smirked at the lilac haired girl "But if you wanna come then I'm not gonna complain"

With that, and perhaps a look out a nearby window in hope of some clue where one of these turret-like structures might be found, Curly set off through the tunnels.

"well, i'd kinda suggest you to not do that at all," said Sans, frowning slightly, "first of all, we have less than twenty days at most before we get sent away from this place and, well... if some people have nothing but a bleak return home to wait for when they get there, don't you think getting to make good friends with people here only to lose all of that in the blink of an eye and being left with just whatever you had to deal with before you ended up leave you feeling worse in the long run? it's like you got this ray of hope and then all of sudden it's gone for good and you're left with nothing."

Sans then began scratching the top of his skull a little bit with his index finger, his eyes shifting a little to look away from Zelda and slightly towards the ground.

"i mean, the only reason i'm even allowing myself to get attached to people here is because, well, it's not like i'm going to live long enough to start missing you guys anyway, so why not?" He shrugged, looking back at Zelda. "i doubt there would be many people here in the same situation as me and even if there are, some might not think the way i do."

The look on his face then went back to it's neutral state, or at least as neutral as a constantly smiling face could get.

"second, the fact you're specifically going for people with tragic pasts to become friends with sounds kinda... fake...?" He said, his expression getting a little more unsure, "it's like you're saying 'i'm only friends with you because you had a lot of bad stuff happen with you' and while that might not be your intention, it sure comes off that way."

Library

Twilight gave Thomas a confused look.

"Yes, I can fly myself. I was just offering some help."

Cole frowned a bit, murmuring under his breath as he did, the green slowly fading out of his eyes. "I can...I can feel something down there, but it's not...thinking or feeling in any sense that I can find...with the past days I could feel the thing we had to fight even if they felt wrong, and I can...there is...something to it, but there's...there is no mind, no emotions that I can reach. Either it cannot think or feel, or it is...something beyond what I can experience."

There was a brief pause, before Cole raised his head suddenly, looking startled. "Ben is down there. This thing...hard, scraping, like metal beneath the claws, runes covering the side, so big, it's all so big, have to get it distracted, have to..." He shook his head hard, covering his eyes with one hand. "It is...very large, and it is made of metal. There's something in it, something that...doesn't feel alive, but feels like life...I don't know how to describe it..."

Library - Big issues

Unfortunately, it seemed that her effort to find a partner for the upcoming batlle wasn't going well. Eve was a cross range fighter, so that wouldn't work, just as she herself had said. Thomas technically had long range stuff, but didn't think what he had would be useful against such a massive opponent. Besides, given his reaction to Fried in his sealed form, she didn't think he would be able to handle riding on his adult form.

Twilight, who could fly by herself, offered her help. This confused her and apparently Thomas as well for a bit, until the pony clarified it. "Sure, help would definitely be appreciated. Something like a coordinated aerial strike would be definitely to our advantage against such an opponent," Caro responded, "And well, we know our target is massive, but we don't know exactly what it or what it is capable of, most importantly, how far it can reach or hit something out of the water. So at first, we should play it safe and fly several feet above the surface."

Understandably, Thomas questioned how Fried would be able to carry two people, with how small his current form was. She hesitated for a bit. He probably wasn't going to take what she was about to tell him well. On the other hand, she would end unsealing Fried wheter she told him now or not. It was best if he knew in advance, so he could be slightly better prepared for it.

"Well ... The thing is, what you're seeing right now is not his true size. Currently, there is a special seal in place, keeping him in this form. By using a certain spell, I can temporally unseal him, which will make him large enough to perform such a task," She carefully explained.

Plague Knight and Lucas suddenly left the tea table and went for the group of people who were talking about their abilities. Guess the tea party is finally over, especially since Viola and Garrett are finishing up their conversation about the optional challenge.

Before Lune joined Plague Knight and Lucas, she picked up a box filled with Poffin-flavored tea packets. The artwork on said box reminded Lune of that strange book-golem and those strange sweets he gave her on day 8. He was a pretty nice guy. It’s a shame he had to go when the day ended.

“So, you guys need a hand?”

The guy that bursted through the library door introduced himself as John Egbert and told Rex that there was a monster rampaging through the city

"I'm Rex and, yeah, we know about the monster. We are trying to set up an attack. That reminds me..."

He then pressed on his communicator to call Ben to put the plan in motion. Well, if he still had the cellphone as a fish-man, anyway.

"Ben, I don't know if you can hear me but when you find the monster, try to lure it to the surface"

John's grey-skinned friend entered the building spouting swears left and right, basically calling him an idiot for driving them to the library. He then proceeded to leave when he noticed Tairee.

"So, what can you do, John?"

Library - God Tier Explanation

After seeing Rex talk to Ben, John opened his mouth and spoke of his various powers.

"i can control the wind, like make tornados and hurricanes and breezes and all that. i can even turn myself into wind too." He then dissolved into tendrils of wind, traveling around Rex, and reforming right behind him. John tapped his shoulder.

"i also have two hammers, one stops time, and another is really strong and summons something every time you hit something. it's a little complex, but that's all i can do," John said with a confused look. "wait, i also forgot to mention that i can fly." And with that, John levitated. "it's pretty sweet."

edited 21st Sep '16 3:48:42 PM by NagisaStick

Outside Library - Good Advice? Or Just Cynicism?

"Well, you're someone who'd know about this sort of thing," Zelda replied, "But even so, it sounds like you're assuming the worst case scenario. Which I don't doubt is the case for some; in fact, I fully expect it to be the case for some. However, I also imagine that at least a few of them would appreciate the company. Even without considering what's going on in their home worlds, there's a lot of nasty things going on in this city. Perhaps giving them something pleasant to remember could help some of them; a bit of light to counteract all that darkness. You're familiar with that sort of thing, aren't you?"

She shrugged. "Or maybe I'm just being overly optimistic here, or it's just my desire to do something other than just sit out and be useless talking. Even in that case, what's the harm in trying? If nothing we do here matters in the long run, then surely that applies to positive things just as much as negative things."

edited 21st Sep '16 4:01:53 PM by Yomegami

Library—Tutorial Battle

Mirai nodded to Rex, then jumped and dropped the sword when they were so rudely interuppted with the announcement of a giant monster. Of course, news of said monster was already spreading through the library, but John confirmed it. Perhaps this was the challenge she had been promised. She took a deep breath before scooping her blood sword back up.

"I can control my own blood to make things like this...how can I help?"

Sans was silent for a little bit, pondering over Zelda's words before speaking up once more.

"i had that light in the darkness before, but it's gone now and nothing can really replace it so, i guess you could say i was left in the dark," he said, letting out a chuckle, "even if i'm friends with you and caro and no matter how nice you are to me, it doesn't really change anything, but i'm a special case. He shrugged.

This all felt like it was going to go in circles since the two of them just had different viewpoints that really contrast each other, so it would probaly better to at least concede a little.

"you might be able to inspire some, give them a reason to keep at it, no everybody is as hopeless as i am." He paused. i guess there's no reason not to try, but i'm just sayin' that if you're gonna go for that, then at least make sure to not try forcing yourself upon people just 'cuz you wanna help. some people won't want anything to do with you and won't want your help and it'd be better if you respected that, otherwise you might end up being part of the problem.