Ara watched people bicker to each other about... well, she didn't really understand why they were arguing in the first place, and it did not sound like something she should intrude on. But there was in fact something she learned from all that.

"...the demon is back..."

She did not look surprised. It was not uncommon for powerful demons to be brought back from the dead in Elrios, either through necromancy or other means. Someone would have to stop it again, and she was fully willing to take on that role... assuming she actually found it in the first place.

Her eyes then darted to the boy, clearly injured and in a lot of pain. He mumbled about strings and bleeding and other things. They seemed to have some meaning, but what it was even I could not fully comprehend. Naturally, Ara felt concerned for the wounded boy, specially considering she had already met him before, back when he had been so scared he ended up running away.

"It'll all be okay, don't worry," she assured him once she got close enough, even though she wasn't entirely sure that would be the case. "Here, hold my hand. Don't be afraid to squeeze it as hard as you need to if it helps you feel less pain. I know it helps me sometimes."

She did not even wait for his answer, and placed her fingers on his palm almost immediately.

Jack blinked when Cole started mumbling, moving a little closer to hear in case it was important. He stared blankly for a moment after he had finished; Having absolutely no clue what he'd just said. "Uh, I'm sure it won't be. It'll all be fine, buddy. I promise."

Then he spotted Eun, no wait Ara since her hair was black and no tails, and smiled slightly. He watched her warmly as she comforted Cole, that feeling in his chest coming back. "Hey Ara. Uh, Eun was in control for a while, but you've probably already figured that out."

Ben smiled up at Thomas. "I'm not mad, man," he assured the wizard. "I had my hands full. I just... like I said, I don't agree with their methods. But there's no point in starting a fight, fighting among ourselves is exactly what Beaky wants us to do. Working together, he doesn't stand a chance. That's what the City Knights are about. Teamwork. We can't do this alone." He grinned a little. "So chill out. It's all good."

edited 8th Nov '16 8:56:05 PM by AllHailThrall

Sans started listing all the things he had done while in the city to show Rex that he wasn't a useless skeleton. The first thing was suggesting to Tairee's boss a way of communication in the city. That was a good move on his part but he had conveniently ignored how others had put him in the position to beat the challenge in the first place. He was also the one that had warned everyone about Cole's kidnapping.

The eigth day battle... Yeah, Rex had barely taken part in that because of Old Feather Beak suddenly showing up to kidnap Sadness so he wasn't one to complain about Sans (presumed) lack of involvement in it. Then again, that battle made Mary's wish of becoming a human girl come true so it's not like Rex was going to thank Sans for that.

The ninth day? Yeah, he wasn't going to complain about that either. The zombies were everywhere and no one could really help everyone in the city at once. And apparently he had helped defeat the demon originally? It's not that Rex didn't believe the skeleton (at the very least he didn't think the story was as he told it) but... something didn't add up there. If they had gotten the best of him and had somehow turned him into ashes instead of killing him, what was the big deal about him coming back? They would just need to repeat what they had done and now they had the knowledge and enough backup to make it work without the Ruckus being able to do anything to stop them.

"So, how did you beat the demon in the first place?"

The skeleton brushed of the title of hero, saying that it wasn't his job to help the people of the city and that he was just trying to survive in a strange place. He also exposed that his powers didn't work on machines and his body couldn't take much punishment. That was a bit convenient but it's not like Rex's resistance to blunt trauma wasn't unnaturally high so he wasn't going to complain and he was already used to being the tank of his group. Plus, Sans didn't look that athletic so at least that checked out.

"Yeah, I'll grant you that much. You are not that bad... when you actually decide to help"

But then, Sans brought up the sub and how he had given him a hand with dealing with the fallout. Rex looked embarrassed and angry, both at the skeleton—For bringing up the subject—and himself—for having screwed up so badly. This was straight up hitting below the belt. At least his calm demeanor when the incident happened made more sense now: He had found something he could use to metaphorically grab him by the balls and he didn't hesitate to use it right now. "That's just unfair" He could guilt trip him at any moment just by bringing up his error. But he had something in mind to fix it, and the conversation was getting nowhere anyway so Rex decided to answer's Sans question.

"I honestly don't get you. You are lazy and always try to let the others handle the monsters, but you are the first one to joke about our failures, and now it turns out you were actually helping the whole time? Sorry, but I can't follow that logic"

"And don't think I haven't put two and two together. If you hate humans so much, why do hang out with Caro all the time? That doesn't make any sense"

edited 9th Nov '16 10:05:19 AM by DeisTheAlcano

"Woah woah wait a minute, this is sounding creepy, and he warned us about something like this before" Fastanook said, stepping his small stature right between Ara and Jack as he took off his wraithbone amulet. Quickly he looped it over Cole's head and settled it down around the spirit's neck properly.

Meanwhile, Thomas looked a bit relieved, though curious about something. "I see... So then, what about after we beat him? Are we still going to work with the militia after that?" Thomas asked Ben.

But before Ben got a chance to answer, Lieutenant Wells spoke up. "Come on people, we haven't got all day!" Wells announced. Various Militia members quickly and unceremoniously plonked OSFA suit helmets down onto those in the airlock who didn't have one on yet.^note Which if the GM is correct, would include Jack Frost, Ara, Cole, and Thomas. Once the suits had quickly formed, Wells keyed the outer door of the airlock to open, and promptly all the air was vented out in the airlock's cycle, plunging all inside into silence before the outer door slid open.

As the militia members quickly worked to get over to the ship Wells and Silanea had arrived on, there was a complication realized in the use of stretchers where there was no gravity. Dave came up with a quick solution of using a roll of medical bandages to essentially tie Cole and Eve down to their respective stretchers. Then they started carefully pushing off towards the ship, making sure as few people were going at a time as possible. While motioning for the rest to get on and into the open hatch on the side of the ship, one of the militia members waved his arms to get attention then pointed off to one side; the library was visibly in sight, so it looked like this would be a very short trip, thankfully enough.

"Hmm" Miss Tairee seemed to contemplate this for a moment, even glancing aside at the holographic screen she still had up; some transparent, multidimensional string of information streamed by in the display, and then the librarian looked back at Viola.

"Yes, there is details I'm allowed to share; or rather, hints. I'm not allowed to simply state them when requested in such a fashion, other than the obvious information you should be able to logically deduce just from being here" Miss Tairee answered Viola.

Kelsey, who had picked up and experimentally sniffed a few of the sandwiches before finally finding one with ingredients she could recognize and accept,^note A tuna fish, apple bits, sliced grapes, and mayonnaise sandwich on plain white bread. turned her head and looked at Miss Tairee, clearly confused. "What the heck is that supposed to mean?" Kelsey asked.

"Which part?" Miss Tairee counterpointed, then answered anyway, "just for clarification's sake, the obvious information is that my boss is an extremely powerful entity. After all, he created this small universe entirely; the way it shifts around, the changes to it and the inhabitants every day, are all orchestrated through his power. That beings such as the daemon who leads Ruckus along with similarly powerful entities were not only taken here against their will, but also actively had their power reduced, should also speak volumes about just how powerful he is." She paused to take another sip, and leaned forward to grab one of the muffins; she didn't appear to put any thought or care into which one she grabbed.

"As for what I mean by 'hints', my boss has allowed me to technically share certain information; but only those who think to ask the right questions, and pay careful attention to the answers, would be able to actually figure it out" Miss Tairee explained further, then took a bite out of the sausage flavored muffin.

Kelsey, just finishing chewing and swallowing her first bite of her sandwich, frowned. "What, really? That seems really arbitrary; is this all just a game to-" Kelsey stopped abruptly, her expression dropping before she rolled her eyes, and planted her forehead down into her open palm. "Duh" she muttered, having realized how obvious and dumb her own question was going to be.

edited 9th Nov '16 1:34:13 AM by FirockFinion

Cole looked to Ara as she tried to comfort him, glancing to Jack as he stepped closer as well. It wasn't until Fastanook stepped up and put an amulet around his neck that he let out a small breath, visibly relaxing against the stretcher, breathing a little harder, but no longer seeming quite as perturbed. "...th-thank you...p-please help th-that...that other girl, sh-she needs help..."

He just laid back and closed his eyes, not putting up any resistance to being put in a suit, moved outside, or tied onto the stretcher. He wasn't unconscious, just very still and quiet, looking considerably less stressed out with the amulet in place.

Viola I Library I It's Time to Play A Game

I sighed in exasperation. Of course, it wouldn't be this easy, and the Author just happens to love playing games with us. This entire City is already one big game to him, one more couldn't possibly hurt, right? Even assuming I play along and ask the right questions, Miss Tairee had all but assured me that I'll be getting a cryptic answer about him, at the very most.

Still, I have nothing better to do right now, so what better to spend it than to find out more about the situation I'm in. And I do have to say, I kind of enjoyed indulging in this mystery myself. It makes me think.

"Your boss certainly loves his games, doesn't he?" I said, taking another bite out of the cake before setting the spoon down.

Now think. What would be the most appropriate starter question for Miss Tairee's boss? It took a moment but eventually, I found a comfortable starting point. "Let me ask this first, then. What inspired your boss, or the Author as I liked to call him, to create this world and observe us? Just as many artists, writers and musicians all have inspirations and sometimes references for their works, surely the Author is no different?"

edited 9th Nov '16 2:03:24 AM by JustSomeGuy732

Ship

Lothric noted the presence of the people he was told about, tensing a little (together with Lorian) when the demon was mentioned. The description suggested it was nothing like the demons he knew of; highly intelligent, adaptive, able to assume disguises? These were all new to him.

Worst thing of all, they could not just kill it. The next order of busines was the woman said to lead an anti-human alliance. Ridiculous. There were sentiments of such among some of the nobility - mirroring more radical views of Anor Londo - but he himself had no particular hostility for ordinary men. Gods only knew there were just a few of them left anyway.

And then it was announced they were reaching a place where they can eat. Lothric looked over at the place in question. "Thank you for the information. I will keep it in mind."

"Not as much as one of his friends loves games" Miss Tairee thought out loud, then raised an eyebrow at Viola's actual question. "Oh, that? That's one I can actually just answer" the librarian mentioned, pausing first to enjoy another bite of the muffin.

"This universe isn't his work that was inspired by something else; this universe is the inspiration. Like any kind of artistic creator, he sometimes falls short of ideas; hitting Writer's Block, if you will" Miss Tairee began, taking a brief pause for another sip of her tea.^note By now with how many sips she'd taken, surely the cup would normally be quite low or even empty, and yet it was still completely full. "Now see, one tip that some authors use to get past Writer's Block is to make a draft that involves their characters suddenly dealing with a completely non sequitur event; something that never would, or possibly even never could, happen within their setting. As far as I understand it, the idea is twofold: One, by thinking of how the characters react to this outlandish thing, you subconsciously get yourself into their mindset, which makes it easier to think about how they would react to circumstances normal for their setting, and thus make getting past the Writer's Block easier. Two, it simply gets you thinking more creatively" the librarian explained.

"Now that I've explained that, I can get back to my boss. He has his own version of doing that, that he much prefers; typically he would just take a person from one universe, and place them in another universe, usually for between a month to a year, and just see what would happen. Then he would undo it, and get back to his project at hand. But lately he had a very rough stint of Writer's Block, and doing just that wasn't enough; at first he tried taking a person from one universe and placing them in another for a year, then afterward didn't undo it like he normally does. Instead he placed them back in their original universe, one year later, and watched the resulting changes that unfolded in both universes" Miss Tairee went on at length.

"Which finally brings us to here, and this little universe. After seeing the result of just displacing one person had on two universes, he got the idea to expand it much further, and thus decided to see what it would be like to displace lots of different people from different universes. All of your interactions and reactions with each other and the changing daily conditions, and the lasting effects it will have on all of you and by extension your universes even after you're sent home; all of it is to serve as the creative inspiration for my boss and his latest project" Miss Tairee concluded. She seemed to think for a moment, before adding, "and though I'm sure it serves you no real comfort to know given the circumstances, it has been working splendidly."

Kelsey, her mouth hanging open slightly, looked like she was about ready to either strike Miss Tairee again, puke, or perhaps both. For the moment though, she managed to do neither, and just continued staring.

With a heavy shudder and a muffled hint of some metallic crunching heard through part of the floor, the ship set down heavily next to the other shuttle. Melanie looked at the screen displays in front of her, one of which was now beeping, with a curious expression. "I think that qualifies as not crashing, buuut we might have lost one of the landing gear" Melanie stated. As if on cue, there was another slight shudder and crunch, and the whole ship tilted a few degrees to the left. "Yup, lost a landing gear" the woman added simply.

"Uh, well we're alive. I guess we'll meet you two inside, unless you could teleport us with you?" Silvester said to Lothric, getting his OSFA suit back on.

"Looks like there's some people in the airlock-" Calvin started, looking out the front window of the ship and then suddenly gasping and nearly shoving his face up against the glass, declaring in an excited tone, "-HOLY SHIT THAT'S ZERO!"

"Woah, what?" Silvester asked, and ran over next to Calvin to take a look.

From inside the pub, the group would see the dull green ship land harsher than it looked like it should, especially when the rear left landing gear promptly buckled and the whole ship tilted a bit. Then they'd see a pair of men looking at them through the front window, one of them starting to wave his arms energetically.

edited 9th Nov '16 4:32:18 AM by FirockFinion

The militia was already leaving with the wounded, Caro was probably gonna follow after them and Silanea could get back anytime so he needed to wrap that up soon. At least Rex seemed to have calmed down a bit and the questions he began making were hardly surprising. He waited until the militia was done moving out before speaking out again since there wasn't much point in talking when the air was getting all sucked out.

"humans attacked and killed the majority of my species all because they were scared of a threat that didn't exist. the ones that did survive were trapped to live the rest of their lives in a hole and even when we managed to make the best with what we had, eventually they came back to finish the job," he began his explaining, being quite blunt in how he stated everything, "do you get what i'm saying? my friends, my family, everyone is gone, i'm the only one left. the only thing that's waiting me when i get back home, the thing that killed everyone for no reason other than the fact they existed. no matter what happens here, no matter what i do, i'm just going to die when i get back. even if i managed to beat them, i still lost everything i had. it's all a big joke, really."

Sans shrugged, taking the whole thing in stride, looking around to see if Silanea or any of the other anti-humans were nearby or listening.

"even then, i don't hate humans. the only ones i have a problem with are those that are like that, attacking anything that isn't like them just because they're different or because they can't understand them, the people that are responsible for this 'anti-human' existing in the first place."

He then shifted his focus to Caro, the look on his eyes looking almost relieved.

"caro isn't like that, she's the total opposite. even though i introduced myself with a prank to scare her, once she realized it was all just a joke she just laughed it off. she didn't treat me with suspicion or anything despite there being nothing like me in her home, she treated me the same way she would treat anyone else and, in fact, she's been supporting me since we met. you can't really hate someone like that." He then looked back at Rex, "that's it, the short version of my little sob story, hope you enjoyed it, he concluded non-ironically, giving Rex a shrug.

Gon and Garrett

Gon shook his head.

"I don't have the said info. We should make contact with those guys in the said channel so that they can fill us in on the details."

He sighed.

"Shame that I didn't pilfer a working transceiver a few days ago when I arrived in the city. It could be a big help."

Gon stood up from his chair.

"I need to change my spacesuit soon. I'm about to run out of air."

edited 9th Nov '16 8:30:43 AM by Ominae

Grocery Store Station -> Heading towards militia spaceship

An arguement ensued between Sans and Rex in regards to how much the skeleton had done in the city. Sans said most of what she would have said in his defense, so she delayed stepping for now.

Then the militia leader started urging to move along and soon after, his people started moving with the wounded. She had offered to help and thus really needed to get going too, specially since Cole was among those hurt and his case was apparently quite grave.

She didn't want to leave without warning Sans however. She remembered hearing Silanae tell him that their group was moving along soon too and she didn't know whatever he planned to follow them.

Thus she quickly got closer to where he was and called out, while pointing at the rapidly moving militia group, "Sans, I gotta go with them, to help treat Cole and others and take them to the library."

With that done, she then quickly rush over to the airlock. She set her bag down for a moment, quickly put suits on herself and Fried. She then grabbed her bag and quickly made her way over to Cole, who was still being carried away on a stretcher. Around him, aside from the people carrying him, were both Jack and a girl who she didn't think she had meet before and who seemed to currently comforting Cole.

Making her way to the other side of the stretcher, she flashed Cole a smile and while taking his hand to both hopefully comfort and also to make sure she was heard even if the airlock was opened, she spoke softly, "Don't worry, Cole. We will get you all better soon. I can't do as much Miss Tairee can, but this should help." She then began casting her healing spell, both of them being enveloped by a pink aura. At the very least, she should able to take away some of the pain.

edited 9th Nov '16 8:28:00 AM by JamesShields

...Wander energetically waved back.

Viola I Library I Tools of Inspiration

I sat back and took in Miss Tairee's explanation, nodding along certain points. So this wasn't the first time the Author did something like this; rather, it's the first time he did so on a grand scale like this.

I sipped my tea thoughtfully, while noticing Kelsey's reaction at the side. I was half-expecting her to have some sort of violent reaction to this, but maybe seeing that the librarian didn't even flinch at the previous strike probably cowered her from doing so.

"Your boss has really gone to great lengths just for this experimental tool of his. So much so that I'm actually slightly curious to know more about his actual work itself. Would he be willing to consider sharing his finished writings or whatever it is he's doing to everyone else in the City, just to at least let them know that their time here won't be entirely for naught and they have something to gain." Afterwards, I brought a finger up onto my chin. "Though, I could see some people may not react kindly to that, so there's that to consider...,"

"... I also noted that you happened to mention his friends. Are you telling there's more entities like him running around, plucking people randomly from other universes for the sake of their own needs and agenda?"

Ben nodded, putting his helmet on and heading out with the rest of the militia. He looked worriedly at Eve and Cole, seeing their sorry state, as they were carried on stretchers carefully to the ship.

Ben hopped aboard the ship, looking out at the library and smiling a bit that it seemed so close to where they were headed. Sitting there in silence gave him time to think. He looked at the City Knights. Was he really a capable leader of the group? Could he be trusted to do what needed to be done? He wasn't sure right now, but his emotions were clouding his judgement, so he would think about this later.

".....one of them seem friendly enough," Plague Knight said in response to seeing one of the passengers of the other ship wave to them.

Sans had a very good reason to mistrust humans. His species was almost driven by exinction and even though his kind survived and made themselves at home underground, a group of humans went in and finished the job anyway. Apparently, they didn't like living with creatures different than themselves, even if they weren't violent. That sounded way too familiar.

"I guess... maybe I misjudged you"

And things got even worse. Apparently, something was still in his world and ready to kill him the minute he went back. It sounded like someone deserved a good beating.

"Well, it doesn't have to end that way. You've seen what we can do. If we go to your world, that thing won't know what hit it"

Rex also agreed with Sans' reasoning. Humans had done some really bad stuff in the past but it's not like non-humans were all innocent either. The problem—as he had said before—was always bad people, regardless of species. Like the ones that had pressed people like Silanea to start the anti-human group.

"Yeah, don't remind me. We still need to capture Marcus and put him in prison. That's gonna take a whole day"

Caro seemed like a nice girl so it was no surprise that she wasn't a bad person. No chances of pulling a Mary there. But she apparently had also supported Sans throughout this which is why they were together all the time. Rex got it, he had good friends both back in his world and in the city. That was the kind of thing that made him feel normal.

"Support? Yeah, I get what you mean" This was just great. The laziest guy in the group turned out to be really useful and he had a really horrible past that made his actions in the city meaningless. And meanwhile Rex had criticized his attitude, just acting like a total prick "...Sorry about this whole thing"

Lune followed the rest of the militia and the City Knights as they boarded the ship. Lune quietly sat in a corner of the ship as it was about to launch off for the library. Cole and Eve were finally going to get treated for their wounds, Lune thought. Maybe they won't die as a result.

In the meantime, Lune noticed Ben sitting by his lonesome self. Lune was about to speak up, but then again, Ben needed some quiet time after that argument earlier. That Rick was right, but he was a jerk about it.

PK's Pub

X let out a sigh of relief, "This is good. Alright, Plague Knight, grab up what you can, we're taking everyone back to the Library and then providing assistance."

X switched back to his regular buster and disengaged it.

PK's Pub

Some people were coming, apparently. While Lucas wasn't in a position where he could see them, PK thought they were friendly. Lucas waited for the new people to enter.

To The Pub

"I'm afraid that knowledge is known only to us." Lothric shook his head as he watched over the window. There were some people there already and one called Zero that they seemed to regard with some sort of reverence.

"We will meet you there." Nodding to the three, the two brothers disappeared in the pillar of light, likely visible from the pub... and then reappeared right there with the same pillar accompanying them, one giant of a man in full armor and the other a smaller one holding onto the bigger in a ceremonial hairdress.

"Greetings."

Plague Knight jumped back a bit was the sudden arrival of two people, one a giant of a man almost as big as Polar Knight seemingly......wearing(?) a much smaller man, appearing from a pillar of light.

"Um....greetings," the alchemist said to the two, still surprised by the teleportation. "I am Plague Knight. You two are......?"

"O-okay, *urp* yeah, y-you know, cool." Rick grabbed a discarded helmet off a nearby shelf and jammed it over his head, heading to the nearest airlock with Morty close behind.

Finally, Rex apologized now that he had some idea of what had happened with him. At least that showed that the kid wasn't all that unreasonable even if he can get worked up about things that easily.

Sans shrugged once Rex made his apology. "heh, don't sweat it, kid. it's not like you made me upset or anythin'. just don't be so quick to judge people next time, not too many people would have as much patience as i did and some who have had similar experiences to me probably have stronger feelings against mankind than i do. i'm sure the people in the group probably has some bad ones mixed in, but there's always the extremists, just don't judge everyone based on what one or two people are doing."

Rex's idea of going to his world and showing that kid a lesson was concerning, to say the least. The whole thing was making him recall what happened with Caro and Zelda in the beach day and he wasn't about to allow anyone else do something like that.

"and sorry, but i don't think the writer is gonna let any of you go to my home, there's not much left anyway... even if you won, it's not gonna bring my brother and my friends back. and don't even think of negotiating with the writer to do something about it, caro already tried and that only ended in tears." He sighed.

He then remembered Rex's question about how he and Caro had taken out the demon, obviously Sans himself had no idea of what really happened other than what Caro told him and his own speculation, but he might as well leave it all clear.

"as for me and caro fighting the bird... i don't know what happened. i got a hit in, he started possessing me and made me hurt caro's dragon, then he grabbed me and tried to suck my soul out of my body. there was a flash and a loud noise and i passed out, when i woke up, caro was crying and the demon was already smoke. she told me that something came out of the library and hit the demon, but neither of us really know what happened, but if it hadn't, we'd both have died right there. it was basically a miracle." Sans let out a chuckle. "i don't really believe in miracles, but there's really no other way to explain it."

"Ah, Mister Jack!" Ara greeted Jack with a bow and a beaming smile, as usual. "Yes, I know that. She did ask me for permission last night. I assume she brought me here becau-oh... thank you," she interrupted herself to properly thank the man who handed her a new helmet.

Thanks to careful observation, she quickly figured out she was meant to put it on her head, which she soon did. The suit quickly formed on her body, much to her surprise. It was, in essence, very similar to the one I had, black with many complex butterfly patterns in dark gold. However, there was a minor difference. On the front, beneath the collarbone, instead of a series of white and red markings in the shape of a fox head, there was a much simpler four petal gold flower with an orange center, similar to the one which usually hung from the left side of her dress.

"What?! What just happened?! Where did this outf-"

And then the atmosphere was sucked away, causing the rest of her words to be heard only by her own ears. And she would have asked many more questions, such as "why are we floating" or "why do we have to wear this", but she failed to find the words to speak. The scenery she found before her was simply too magnificent for her to stop looking around in amazement.

edited 9th Nov '16 7:14:57 PM by Katarsus