Rotgut, Cabin One ==> Officer’s Mess
And suddenly there was light again. Rotgut turned toward its source, threw a nod to Kalea, then quickly stooped and picked Sturm up off the floor. The halberd rumbled faintly, like thunderheads gathering on a distant horizon, displeased at being left underfoot so carelessly.
“Oh hush, you.”
With weapon in hand, Rotgut tore out of the cabin, hot on the heels of the two animal spirits. Just then she heard Oriental Lady call out, and Rotgut glanced back over her shoulder—
“Great! Hang onto that for whoa!"
Just in time for something—or someone—to cannon into her sidelong.
Rotgut stumbled, slamming into the wall with a thud and a clang before she could right herself. Sturm clattered to the floor once again. Fat blue sparks crackled down its haft as it rumbled once more, louder this time.
“Ow. That probably would have hurt if I wasn’t dead.” She looked up toward the owner of that voice—that guy dressed all in red with the fancy lute—and waved a dismissive hand. “Don’t worry about it. I’m in one piece… I think, anyway. But listen.” She paused, bracing herself against the wall as she began to stand up again. “The Little Blue Brat’s escaped.”
By now the spirits and the rest of the group were probably long gone.
Edited by SullenFrog on Aug 14th 2019 at 12:08:47 PM
The Danse Macabre CodexCabin One->Hallway
Even while losing her footing, tumbling to the ground, and smacking one of the conical protrusions on the side of her head against the cabin floor with a heavy metallic clang, she did it all in the firm knowledge that she was right.
This explained her small, if uneasy smile as she sprawled out before attempting to push herself to her feet, propping herself up on her bulky forearms and shaking loose the gears in her head even as Kalea so helpfully provided a burst of light to the cabin. “Alright,” she said, attempting to grip onto the frame of the nearby bed as she both figuratively and literally attempted to regain her standing, “there’s a solid chance that some combination of Petunia, Begonia, and The Buyer are all actually the same person, and whoever that guy who was just here really is has been playing us fools this whole time. Either way, I’ll update the—” Her gaze strayed up at last finally to her prized creation, her lovingly-crafted masterpiece—or the blank canvas, where it had just been a second ago. Magicaloid’s smile dropped. Like a stone.
“Motherf—!”
Some minutes later, a barely-composed Magicaloid stumbled out into the hall with the others, still rankled and sour-faced, before finding the others with a jut of her chin and making her way over to where they’d been loitering in the hallway. “Okay, so I think that the others are pretty on top of whatever’s going on in Mess,” she said, wholly ignorant to the literality of her words, “so let’s take care of a few other things. Whether he's Begonia, Petunia, The Buyer, or all three, if he escapes onto the planet’s surface, we’ll never see his smarmy face again. But first, we should make sure that he’s still on the ship in the first place.” With a sudden, noticeable straightening and bracing of her posture as if in preparation, she would turn to Kaguya—giving the lunar princess single, up-and-down glance that silently said Nice threads accompanied by a quirk at the corner of her mouth—before grimly holding her hand outward, the black plastic digits trembling slightly in the air. “S-so just give me back the spyglass, and I’ll check.”
Turning to Rotgut, possibly to distract herself, she would jerk her head back toward the room. “Do you think you could try some of that Cure-All stuff that you borrowed from me on Eupepsia, and see if that helps? If she’s really connected to the ship—or is the ship, or whatever—even a little bit of improvement on her part might make this whole thing a lot easier to manage.” Her gaze then fell to the others. “We’ll also probably need to get Rufus, if we’re going to be chasing this guy through the ship. I’ll—well, I guess I’ll just look for him…” Provided Kaguya had handed over the spyglass, Magicaloid would then suck in a breath that was just as physically unnecessary as it was mentally irreplaceable, before attempting to place the spyglass back up to her eye and keep a careful watch out for Begonia’s tell-tale blue or Rufus’s trademark bulk.
If I had that kind of power, I'd have dropped a meteor on your house ages ago~Andradite - Cabin 2
The soft luminescence that filled the cabin wasn't much, but for Andy it was like a mouthful of Dive Ale for a thirsty customer... or something like that, anyway.
"Oh! Kyxe! You're just like a jellyfish!"
Snatching up her bag properly, Andy was finally able to pull out her lamp, a brass sphere that fit neatly in the palm of her hand. A fumbling twist of a screw on top slid open the curved shutters that lined the little device, and a warm golden light filled the cabin.
"Ahhh..."
—
Hallway
It didn't take long before the darken hall was illuminated once again as Andy poked her head out of the cabin door, looking around with a grumpy scowl, her lamp hanging on a chain around her neck.
"Okay, what's going on? Who's doing all the yelling?!"
Edited by LittleMako on Sep 10th 2019 at 2:03:08 AM
OWO यह क्या है?
Mess Hall Ceiling
The phase transition had found Charvaka disoriented and blossoming, like a cocoon, and bent the subtler deceptions away from him, bending his thumbs wristwards and stretching his hair to his ankles. There was white in the chin of his beard, and he found gravity's embarrassing error in a brisk glance up from dark fluorescent light to floor.
When he made his descent, like a leaf tossed by an invalid, he had full stock of his surroundings. Words had told him what leylines and casual spirals could not. He felt splendid.
"Lawman," he said, drifting by Antiphates' ear. There was no breeze.
"Lawman." He touched ground between the psycho-pomp and a tuber unfamiliar to him, and took their victim by the hand to raise him, dusting and fretting at his shoulders.
"Good officer Geraldjunior, forgive my good friends their unfortunate rambunction. There is a master criminal loose aboard this vessel, by all repute a benchod of grand iniquity, and I fear in their haste they mistook you for an attacker. Please, allow me to clean your shoulders and smooth your moustache, and hasten to remind you that prosecution in this matter would be at terrible odds with the spirit of the law."
Edited by OG-Sama on Aug 21st 2019 at 10:42:12 AM
Kyxe – Cabin 2
“A... jellyfish?” Kyxe blinked, this time totally and tilting her head to the side in confusion. “I don't know what that means. But... you're welcome...?”
She shook her head minutely, her glottal warblers swelling open and then contracting in a rippling motion as she twitched her head subtly to the left and towards the door.
“At least you're fine. Now for that commotion.”
Kyxe – Hallway
“Who isn't doing all the yelling,” Kyxe commented, forcing her body to concentrate plasma into the palm of her hand so she could quickly form her usual construct. The jagged knife of hardened white congealed with a visible crackle of electricity, and to those attentive one might have seen the slits upon her throat pulsate once again and release a brief spurt of hot air that distorted the light around it with its heat. “I can barely keep track of their words, let alone what's going on. Let's find the others. Then at least we'll be clueless in company.”
She glanced at the precious stone made living humanoid, looking her up and down with scrutiny before focusing her gaze ahead as she picked a direction appropriate for the sound of the distant din. She didn't have the best hearing, but she did have a trained sense of direction.
“If you're energized by light feel free to ask me for more. The Aentolin rellan have a particular ability taught to them that means we can produce light in large bursts without much heat if needed. An unstable construct. Useless in a fight, but exceptional as a distraction. Assuming you won't be blinded, of course.”
borkLang, Ling Ya, Kalea, Kaguya, Rotgut, Makoto, Andradite, Kyxe; The Dark Corridors Around Cabin One
The minute Makoto placed her eye to the silver spyglass, a blue thunderbolt struck her in the brain.
Not literally. When she had used the artifact back on Dive to see the structure of the Mausoleum beneath, the feeling had been one of profound unease - but here it was a blow to her temples. Something was terribly wrong.
The Egress Eternal, glowing every color of the rainbow, shone like a soap-bubble in ethereal space. The walls wobbled around her. She could see engines aft and guns fore. Far away figures tussled and moved, shining in a panoply of blinding hues, vermilion and turquoise and sharp amaranthine. This was the mess. In Cabin One the left bed glowed in a stark rainbow hue, completely empty. Her fellow Party members were bright as suns.
And through the entirety of the ship, suspended in the stars that stabbed like needles, blazed a bigger ship, bristling with guns and glowing cannons.
It was regal. It was large. It was extremely still. A single solar sail swept up from its hull like a dorsal fin of death, burning in the cosmic winds.
"You should put that down before you break your brain, Miss," said the large bull-shaped bubble. "It's not meant for everyone."
"Mama!" came a thin voice from behind them.
Mama Jupiter stepped past Rufus, caught Claudia by the chin, and looked her up and down.
"Safe and sound, I see," she said at last, letting go with a grunt. "The brat's gone?"
"We have more important things to worry about," said Rufus, peering at the ceiling with his glowing eye. "If I'm not mistaken, that's the Modified Scooter looming up there."
"I'm not even going to ask."
"Praetorian-class sun frigate. Stolen from the Empire, bought by Midas, converted to an orbital patrol craft. They're all scary. This just happens to be the most infamous one."
"Sure. Can it hurt us?"
"Not really," grinned Rufus. "If that thing fires, we'll be dust in a picosecond."
Mama Jupiter considered this.
"Alright, Rufus. You're the pirate. What do we do?"
"We go out there and beg for our lives," said Rufus, not even bothering to correct her this time around. "Who knows, maybe we'll even find Little Boy Blue!"
He took a confident step forwards, filled with entirely unearned and rather ludicrous swagger - then his hat fell off.
"Whoops."
He picked it up. It fell off again. He picked it up. It spun around and smacked him in the nose-ring.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you."
Smoothly, suavely, Claudia stepped out in front of the group and leaned against the wall. Her eyes were bright and surprisingly green.
"Might ruin the trick, see?"
Antiphates, Kayne, Biscuits, Kindred, Ceiling Cat; Officer's Mess
John Gerald Jr had indeed fallen over when struck in the chest by Wolf, but it was a rather matter-of-fact fall. A serious fall, if you would, as if he were only giving perfunctory acknowledgment to the laws of physics. When Wolf released him and Biscuits offered her papers, he sat up, dusted his leg hair off, then raised a bushy eyebrow from under his aviators.
"Nanamo Ul Namo, Immortal Blades, Wellwick Wailers… yes, it seems you've ticked all the boxes. You're cleared to enter Midas space, Miss Dollarhide. The Halfway House can send a shuttle if you've got the coin. Talk to them if you need a visa."
He handed the papers back, making sure to straighten them nicely. Addward scruffled quietly, trying to burrow deeper in.
"Everyone else, however, has yet to give me papers. I don't want to clamp your ship for any longer than necessary, but as things stand I might have to tow you."
Lamb and Charvaka made protestations of criminality. John Gerald Jr. tweaked his moustache, then returned his hands to his belt buckle. Charvaka's hands busied at his shoulders, fretting and wheedling, but met nothing save stern beige bravado.
"I'm not a policeman, Tigger, I'm a traffic warden. I don't care if there's a criminal on this ship. I don't care if your purple dog is the goddamn saint of purple dogs. If you don't have Grand Guild membership or equivalent papers, I have to impound you, because you jumped here without permission. It is how it is."
John Gerald Jr folded his arms. Despite his stone face, he seemed to be enjoying the massage.
"If you have an unregistered Automagic Teller Marten, well, then we can talk arrest."
Antiphates and Wolf; Nose Buddies
Begonia's scent wasn't anywhere. It was all around.
It disappeared and vanished in patches, appearing behind the counter, under the chairs, back along the corridor. It filled the air like musk, smelling vaguely like floral perfume, rubble, gin, Dive, and chapstick.
He was playing with them.
Edited by troydenite on Aug 31st 2019 at 12:14:19 AM
Charvaka the Symmetrical Coward, Mess Hall Floor
"Oh," said Charvaka, still preening. "Well, please excuse my presumptions."
With expert fingers he massaged a particularly stubborn knot out of Gerald Jr's shoulders, smoothed his mustache to uniform perfection, tugged surreptitiously at a few choice integers and coefficients in the local arithmetic, and subjected the parking officer to a therapeutic five g until he lost consciousness.
"Begonia is not in this room, my lily-white friends," he said, producing a ball of opium from behind Gerald Jr's ear, "and I did not manifest with travel papers. We should leave before he awakens."
Edited by OG-Sama on Aug 30th 2019 at 5:56:41 PM
Rotgut, Dark Corridor
Rotgut narrowed her eyes at the word ‘borrowed’. “I didn’t borrow shit. You gave it to me, remember? If you didn’t want me to keep the stuff, you should’ve said something or used it on the Little Blue Shit yourself.”
Not that the doll was listening. By this point she was holding some kind of spyglass up to her eye and staring through it. At what, Rotgut couldn’t tell, but she could guess the spyglass was probably magical. Otherwise there wouldn’t be much to see in this dark, empty corridor.
Rasping out a sigh, Rotgut bent down and picked up Sturm yet again. The halberd’s head flared briefly with a corona of blue sparks, and she jolted as if from an electric shock. “Yeah, yeah, I hear you,” she grumbled under her breath, straightening up once more. “No need to get temperamental , Old Falkenstein…”
By now others were milling in the halls with them, most notably Rufus and Mama Jupiter. The two of them were discussing some kind of ship that 1) had a stupid name and 2) was apparently threatening to blow them all to smithereens.
Super.
Rufus headed off to raise the white flag and sue for mercy, only to suddenly have trouble with his hat. And then the dumb bitch Claudia stepped forward, suddenly acting completely different from the scared mouse she’d been up until now. And her eyes… Rogtut couldn’t swear to it, but she was pretty sure the bitch’s eyes hadn’t been green before—or at least not that specific shade of green.
Someone else’s eyes had been, though. Someone that had just slipped through their fingers. Someone who had just gone on about their partner being a big-brained mind mage.
The zombie heaved another death-rattle sigh and covered her face with her right hand. There was a dull ache in her head: she wondered if this was what a migraine felt like. “Let me guess… Petunia?”
The Danse Macabre CodexKalea - Corridor
Kalea had followed the others into the corridor, her caste mark continuing to provide steady illumination.
She shook her head sadly at Rufus' abysmal performance against his own hat, though had she known the Mind-Hand technique smacking people with their own attire might indeed have proven a fun pastime. She made a mental note to look into that in the future.
Claudia's bright green eyes and entirely different bearing was another source of concern. She blinked, and extended her sense of touch. A flood of tactile information suddenly became available to her. She focused on specific objects, Andradites armour, surprisingly smooth to the touch, Kaguya's torn attire, the quality quite excellent still.
Refocusing her attention on Claudia, she found nothing of interest. Her clothes were worn and of inferior make, and her innards were nothing special. The bones were normal, the organs were normal, the tendons, muscles, tissues and vessels were all quite average. That was both reassuring and troubling. Had this new behaviour been due to some object on her person it would have given them a clear target, even if they had to carve it out of her body.
She drew her shortsword from its scabbard. The artifact was attuned to her, and acid ran along the blade. She had so far neglected to give it a name, none that occurred to her appealed. Freed from the scabbard, droplets of vitriol began dripping from the sword's edge, eating away at the floor beneath.
Edited by joergenjetsam on Aug 31st 2019 at 3:56:05 AM
Conception is sin Birth is pain Life is toil Death is inevitableKindred - Mess Hall
Wolf snarled, as the trail twisted and warped. As though his prey was everywhere at once. It reminded him of his own weakness. Had he been truly hunting Begonia, intending to bring the boy's End, he would have been upon the brat's trail within moments, but even his nose was weakened now, bound as the Kindred were to mortal shells.
"His scent is everywhere." Wolf growled. "There, back in the hall! I won't let him get away again!"
"Hush now." Lamb soothed, "It was my folly, Dear Wolf. I should not have removed our Mark from him so easily. Nonetheless we should move, as the puppet said. For we have no 'papers' to show this man, either."
"I could eat him." Wolf suggested, nodding his head towards Gerald.
"I fear that will only make things worse. Come along, now." Lamb replied. The eyeholes of her mask locked on to Antiphates. "You may release my other half. He will not bite."
Edited by kagescorpionakki on Aug 31st 2019 at 10:51:54 AM
What is so amusing about this? Why do you take lives? How can you forget?Hallway
For better or for worse, starting an argument with an irate zombie was absolutely successful in distracting the magical automaton from her problems. “I was, I don’t know, busy, okay? Tell you what, if you just handed me that big stick and asked me to hit something, you can bet that if I just ran off with it you would—” When the glass hit her eye, any and all thoughts, words, or actions came to a total and abrupt halt, signified by her head jerking back and violently colliding with the bulkhead behind her.
She saw stars, in every conceivable sense; careening through the dark, smothering her senses, collecting on the plates of her eyes like morning dew. There's, there’s too many, how are there this many— Even the brief reprieve of the fellow ship’s overshadowing outline didn’t help, its showcase of sheer firepower stirring a far more practical pit in her stomach. The yawning mass of the cosmos itself threatened to consume and overwhelm her, all of that even before she turned her attention to Mess, where everyone’s inner selves were bursting out in and around each other into an array of endless colors and hues, knocking against one another, seeping into the ceiling and floors, playing off the sun and the stars and everything else in one big, endless dazzling dance that would go on forever and ever until the end of—
She heard Claudia's voice, and turned to the side. She blinked out of sheer astonishment, and the break in the stimulus was enough to let her wrench the glass from her socket.
She stood, wavering like a paper crane before a windstorm, devoting the bulk of her attention toward keeping her legs from bowing out from underneath her. She blinked again, much too long this time, and entertained the thought of passing out and revealing her true, vulnerable, incredibly squishy true form to this group of practical strangers. Her hand scraped and slid against the nearby wall until she found purchase, catching her metaphorical breath even as she wondered if the lights dotting her vision were ever really going to go away. “Kaguya,” she croaked, talking past the zombie to the garishly-clad lunar princess, “take the Cure-All to the, and use the, with the…” Magicaloid’s head bowed, bobbing low as though she were somehow going to find it in her robot body to get ill for the second time that day, before lifting her free arm and just waving it generally at the Cure-All in Rotgut’s possession before sweeping it towards the cabin that they’d just left and the sick girl within, hoping that would get the message across well enough. "A-and after that," She said, lifting her head with some effort even as her throat rattled as though through a coating of rust, "Rufus, or, one of you, or… somebody, needs to go check on Kayne. Artifacts Inc. *pant* *swallow* might be able to help us smooth things over with these, these Midas guys…” Falling silent for a long, drawn-out moment, Magicaloid eventually raised her head before pushing herself off of the wall seemingly one finger at a time, weighing all the points that she needed to make versus her ability to actually make or do any of them. "As... for you.” She said, attempting to properly straighten her posture to match her tone as she made no bones about who she was really addressing when she ‘Claudia’ in the eye, evidently agreeing with Rotgut. “We’ve gone through a whooooooole lot of trouble to track you down. And, honestly, for what? I don’t know if you’ve noticed this yet, but you lost this battle one devoured town ago." Magicaloid took a step, to the side this time, trying to find her footing once again even while she turned it into a pace like a lion in a cage. “That place you used to work, where no one would ever find you and no one even cared? Gone forever. The systems you set up to make your life as easy as I’m sure it was? Down the drain. All those badly-dressed lowlifes you paid off to hassle folks like us? They’re in the next room, asking how well being a bartender at Rufus's pays. Wherever you run to on this ship, we'll find you eventually. Because like it or not, there's just nowhere left for you to run to."
She ended her odyssey next to Mama Jupiter, fighting the wobble as she came to a stop and focusing instead on the comforting rattle of the magical item inside of her pack, the Weapons-Grade Truth Serum. Inject into the carotid artery… Wherever that is. "So despite all of that, and everything else that’s happened today, I'm going to tell you why it's actually your lucky day. It's because I’m going to offer you something that nobody else will—a deal.” It could be one of those veins going straight down her arms, right? Or the legs? Or is it like a heart thing? "I know it might not seem like it, but we genuinely don’t actually care all that much about your stupid hobbies, or why you need to abduct rock people to make them work." No, no no! There’s two of them, I'm sure of it, two really big ones in the neck and the leg, each. Both of them are super delicate, carry a ton of blood, and will absolutely kill her if I mess this up. “So here’s what we want instead." I mean, the leg is way closer. "We want to know every single thing that you know about Andy.” But the neck just has way more traffic flowing through it, overall. "Along with anything else you might know about where she comes from.” The leg is really just more convenient. “And if we like what we hear, there's a good chance we’ll let you walk out of the ship the normal way, instead of getting blasted out the airlock." But the neck is more important! “But before we do any of that,” Just—I—the—fuck it. "You're going to tell us—”
Without any further warning, Magicaloid’s stubby but powerful leg would lash out—aimed straight at the back of Mama Jupiter's closest knee.
If the leg came out from under the woman and brought her down to said knee, Magicaloid would leap into action, attempting to reach up and take hold of the woman’s bulky shoulder with a firm grip. With a combination of her own strength and a burst from the thrusters on her Magicaloid would attempt to vault up into the air above the woman's shoulder, keeping her grip in place even as she zeroed in on the throbbing veins decorating the other woman's neck. While her diminutive frame hovered in the air for a split-second, her free hand snaked into her pack to close her fingers around a certain overly-large, bright orange syringe, before her other hand slid up the length of Jupiter's shoulder to the neck in question, framing the most likely candidate for the carotid with a flush hand and the space between her index and middle fingers. Tightening her grip slightly in an attempt to keep the woman sitting still, Magicaloid's knee would come to rest against the outside of Mama Jupiter's shoulder for support as the magical girl quickly yet firmly introduced the tip of the syringe to the vein. After checking the lines on the syringe to see what constituted a proper amount, she would check her strength accordingly, sliding the bright-orange liquid into her veins while pink-tinted eyes watched the former club owner's expression. "—everything you can about what's really going on."
Looking through the scope, it had been clear enough. Every individual, no matter how bright or vibrant, only had one color to call their own. All of them, that is, except for Mama Jupiter’s blue, which had seemed very intent to do its best to smother and suppress Claudia's natural green.
Edited by Uncandescent on Sep 2nd 2019 at 6:48:33 AM
If I had that kind of power, I'd have dropped a meteor on your house ages ago~Andradite - Hallway
"I do need light, yeah!" Andy replied to her luminescent companion as they walked, the gem's hair taking the light from dagger and lamp and redistributing it evenly to the whole hallway in a shifting refractive bubble. "Sunlight is the best, but I can make do with light from a fire, a lamp... a glowing jellyfish... your light is nicer than the gross purple stuff we got back at Dive, by the way."
Spotting a gaggle of dimly lit figures ahead, Andy pointed and let out a declarative "Ah-hah!" and picked up the pace, only to arrive right as things started to get... confusing. She watched in surprise as Magicaloid jabbed Mama Jupiter in the neck, her gaze flicking between cabaret proprietress and magical robot in shock. "Wha- uh- isn't she on our side?"
Kyxe – Hallway
“Uh, thank you...” Kyxe said uncertainly, not quite sure how to respond to such a compliment as that. “Maybe since it's plasma it's better? Closer to a star, after all...”
Her lack of knowledge regarding the current situation (something she would never have gotten away with back on Kayden) meant she could only imitate a slight shrug and glance to Andratite in a nonverbal expression of just how clueless she was as to what was going on. She didn't remember that Claudia woman having such green eyes though.
“I'd much appreciate answers, yes. Coherent answers. My patience has dwindled beyond the point of no return and into complete apathy. I'd advise you not to push it into murderous intent.”
She paused a moment, head cocking a fraction to the side as her lips pulled back into a snarling, inhuman grin. It was among one of the two or three full facial expressions she'd shown. And judging by the sheer amount of serrated teeth on show combined with the look in her eye, it would probably be more comparable to the ‘grin’ of a shark than the grin of a human.
“Also, I like this lifeform. Innocent in an endearing way. I would probably tear out your entire gastrointestinal tract if you took her from us. After letting them do whatever else they wanted to do to you, of course.”
It was at perhaps this poor opportunity that she then decided to turn her attention towards Mama Jupiter and Magicaloid, and notably leaned a fraction towards the gemlike being she had been referring to seconds before and spoke to her in a hushed tone.
“I have absolutely no idea, but I completely understand the urge to stab something.”
Edited by Enirboreh on Sep 10th 2019 at 11:50:12 AM
borkκυνήγι
Antiphates's lip curled in a sneer. He loosened his grip on the creature, eyes darting from corner to corner. Wheels turned in his head. Then his eyes widened. He stepped back towards the newcomer, pushing Charvaka away with manifest irritation.
"I don't need him asleep, eunuch, I need him awake. Wolf, go. Look in any enclosed spaces."
If the lawman dozed, Antiphates shook him awake. If not, he simply stared him in the eye.
"Your ship is docked with ours. Tell your crew to be on the lookout for anything new. I suspect that our prisoner may have jumped out."
"He could not know it. For it was not all a joke."The Dark Corridors Of The Egress Eternal
"The same, Colonel," smiled Claudia, bowing in a matter that was far too genteel. "I was going to hide the truth from you, perhaps tease you for a slightly longer period... but you are correct. I am Petunia Smith, older brother of the Begonia so-called, and about as competent as he is annoying. Now, before you make any rash movements, Kyxe..."
Magicaloid jetted past Claudia in an expository whine, huge syringe outstretched, but the waitress barely even held down her skirt.
"Well," she said. "That's even better."
"Hey now," said Rufus.
Mama Jupiter reached out, took Magicaloid's head in a meaty paw, and slung her around and straight into the wall. The Weapons-Grade Truth Serum broke at the tip, spewed forth its suspect contents, then vanished in a flash of light.
"I was expecting that," hummed Claudia. "Didn't you see what she did to this one? Back in the Cabaret?"
"If you know what's good for you, brain-boy," hissed Mama Jupiter, kneeling on top of Magicaloid's steel head, "you'll get out of Claudia right now. I don't know what you did to make this bot attack me, but you're not getting away with it again."
Claudia's smile grew wider. She spread her hands all the way out, in such an expansive gesture that her body seemed to shrink like a shadow.
"Why, I didn't do anything!" she laughed. "It was all her!"
Mama Jupiter's cigar went up.
"Alright, alright," sighed Rufus, stepping forwards with his hands up. "Ship's captain coming up. What do you want, Petunia?"
Claudia's mouth quirked. She tipped her waitress's cap in ironic respect.
"The great Rum-Eyed Rufus, I presume?"
"Oh, some say great," said Rufus, tipping his own tricorne with only a hint of levity. "Others say volatile. Still others say very dangerous. And I might get angry in a bit."
"Heaven forbid," said Claudia, stepping back without a hint of concern. "You might kill the messenger. You have an Eye, don't you? Use it to confirm that Makoto was acting on her own."
"Makoto?"
"Your little shop's assistant."
Rufus frowned. His blue eye flickered and flamed.
"I get it now," came another voice.
It was Mama Jupiter. She picked up Magicaloid and stood her on her feet, a bit like an umbrella stand.
"It's your spyglass. I bet she saw something in me she didn't like."
"No," said Rufus. "She didn't know how to read the colors. Look, robot girl, shop girl, whichever you are, I know right now Claudia's blue with a little green, and old Darlene's all blue with no green, but the only thing that means is that they both come from Dive. Or Dive's Room, rather. The spyglass shows everything it can detect based on its Room origin, or at least it tries to."
"And the green is me, of course," said Claudia graciously. "Or rather, the sliver of my mind which I implanted in here. Points for trying, however. I thought it was a lovely speech."
"Yes, no harm done," said Rufus, before reaching into his coat and leveling an extremely large blunderbuss at Claudia's head. "Very enthusiastic."
"Rufus!" snapped Mama Jupiter. "Put that away!"
"Oho," said Claudia. "So you'd go that far?"
"I know what you psychics can do," shrugged Rufus, tapping his left horn. "Good thing I'm immune, but I'll put you right to sleep if I have to."
"No, you won't," said Claudia, placing her hand on the barrel. "Stun me and I'll split her psyche into a million pieces. You'll have to spoon her drool away for the next fifty years."
Mama Jupiter stepped forwards, fists bunched, but Rufus held up a furry paw.
"Why are you so concerned? You're not in danger here, we are. The Modified Scooter is about to blow us up."
Claudia tsked, then rolled her eyes. It was a surprisingly teenage gesture.
"And I want to stop the Modified Scooter from blowing us up, so work with me."
There was a brief moment of silence at this revelation.
"So he loves his brother after all," sneered Mama Jupiter. "How sweet."
"Did anyone ever tell you that you have the radiance of a truffle, Darlene Jupiter?"
"No, but I don't suppose anyone's ever told you anything. Not when they're scared of your mind magic."
"True," smiled Claudia. "But I tend to find out, anyway."
Rufus lowered the blunderbuss, slowly.
"No promises," he said.
"Smart ox," said Claudia. "We should get going."
"Who's we?" asked Mama Jupiter.
"Me and myself, then," corrected Claudia. "Come on, we don't have all day."
Officer's Mess
All things considered, the attack on John Gerald Jr. had gone reasonably well. Neck pulsing, temples bulging, moustache flapping stoically, he resisted Charvaka's gravities for approximately two seconds before going very limp. Even Antiphates' shaking had no effect.
"Hooray!" cheered Addward, popping out of Biscuits' bodice. "You did it!"
"Incapacitation of lead officer detected," said the metal orb clamped to the floor. "Initiating retaliation lasers."
"Hooray! I hate all of you and you can suck phoenix eggs!"
"Retaliation lasers will fire in ten minutes. Please say your prayers."
Two large red dots formed in the center of Charvaka and Antiphates' foreheads, looking big enough to leave them without much of any brain. The orb began to pulse with bright red light.
The Victorian gynoid lifted her skirts and trundled away from the general vicinity of Antiphates. The crowd kept a respectfully wide berth.
"Although I have renounced the evils of drink and turned to the joyful desert of sobriety," intoned Viscera, "my heart is not above feeling for these dear departed, and those behind them who might possibly depart. Let us toast them in spirit, if not in truth."
The hoodlums around him, weeping for his vastness of heart, raised imaginary glasses in shaking hands.
"Retaliation lasers will fire in nine minutes. Please say your prayers."
Ensconced with arms up beneath an airline seat, Begonia poked his head out and grinned happily at Wolf.
"Hello, Buster! Hallway's this way! Are you going to take a bite of me now?"
"Priming retaliation lasers. Sun frigate is charging."
"Oh my God," said Begonia. "I surrender. Please take a bite of me now."
"Retaliation lasers will fire in eight minutes. Please write to your families."
"Hello, everyone," said Rufus, tilting his large head. "This is Petunia Smith. He looks like Claudia, but he's not. What's this about retaliation? And why is there an Omniversal Ship Clamp on my Gressie?"
Edited by troydenite on Sep 23rd 2019 at 1:00:06 AM
Kayne & Moko—Out Of The Frying Pan, Into The Fire: Electric Boogaloo
"Oh my gods, Your Majesty, Antiphates, for the love of all that is shiny and chrome, DO NOT MOVE!" cried Kayne in a panic, and then continued in a slightly calmer tone, only for her voice to rise to a nervous crescendo yet again. "Charvaka, unless it would be an serious inconvenience to you (and I doubt it) to lose your head, I would advise that you also STAY STILL!"
"Those lasers are coded to go off should your heart rate or adrenaline levels get too high. They want you to stop resisting. Fighting is resisting. They're going to punch through the walls, jeopardizing the hull integrity of the ship—if that happened, it'll crash, and we'll die! SO PLEASE DO NOT MOVE!" Kayne made some downwards motions with her hands, as if that was supposed to calm everyone down.
Moko made some muffled noises that could have vaguely translated into "Please listen to her. I don't want to die here!" as he stuffed his hatbands into his mouth in pure, unadulterated fear.
"Moko, calm down, you should be used to this. Rufus, we need to go to the control room-slash-bridge. You know how some lasers are blocked by smoke? Well, if you spin the ship around really fast using the manual controls while expelling smoke from its exhaust ports, it'll disable the lasers temporarily and provide a convenient smokescreen to confuse the clamp and cover our escape. Meanwhile, I can help reboot the AI so she can help initiate warp drive. Or one of us could just do it manually. I mean, like, the last time I tried this, it worked," Kayne said, a tinge of self-doubt beginning to creep in. "And I pray I succeed this time too," she added quietly.
Edited by JumpingFruit on Sep 22nd 2019 at 9:14:15 AM
I wear the skin of the Elder Things, having come unto my own.Kalea - From the Corridor to the Mess
Hmm, rather low opinions of Begonia being evinced. Not that she didn't agree, but the lack of sibling fidelity irritated her nonetheless. Her siblings had been absolute delights, though that might be the nostalgia talking. She hadn't seen them in five years, or thereabouts.
The last thing she had heard concerning Deya suggested her younger sister was acclimating well to her new school, a relief. Attending some academy in Ventus prefecture of all things, what were her parents thinking? Telmun's whereabouts were still unknown, and Variah was probably still brooding in Cherak. Of Aivas she needed not worry.
+I have no siblings, so seeing this side of you is always intriguing to me.+
There was sadly no time to argue that. She eyed Claudia, saying nothing. Magicaloid had been proven wrong, though not entirely so.
She twirled her sword absent-mindedly as she listened and considered. That threat to shatter Claudia's mind had piqued her interest. Kalea was fairly certain that, given a bit of time and practice, she could learn how to put a broken psyche back together again. It was a fairly logical extension of the skills and portfolio of the Principle of Hierarchy after all. Anything that can be broken can be mended, and imperfect systems need only appropriate correction to function properly again. Surely this was no different.
It was a tempting mindset to adopt, though she reminded herself of the perils that might come with dehumanizing those around her to too great an extent.
She sighed as they began walking, a temporary détente reached with the psychic. Hopefully there would be no need to put any of those musings to the test. For Claudia's sake, she hoped so, the girl appeared to be a victim and a pawn in these proceedings.
These thoughts occupied her still when she entered the Mess. Her gaze fell on the orb fastened to the floor.
"I don't suppose they'd accept our surrender at this time?" she asked, to no one in particular.
Edited by joergenjetsam on Sep 23rd 2019 at 3:24:32 AM
Conception is sin Birth is pain Life is toil Death is inevitableRotgut, Dark Corridor to Mess
There were times where Rotgut hated being right. Not many—you could count them on one hand—but it did happen once in a while.
Suddenly she needed two.
One of the othersnote was making threats, and the doll launched into another long-winded spiel. Petunia didn’t seem bothered by either. That suited Rotgut just fine: if the chatterbox was going to ramble on and keep him distracted, maybe that would let her do something about this shit situation.
She let her right arm fall, swinging so that her hand wound up behind her back and out of Petunia’s line of sight. Stealth might be a vain hope—for all she knew, he was reading her mind right now and sensing her intent—but it was better than standing around and doing nothing. Slowly, she flexed those fingers. A soft, subtle inhalation. A focusing of intent—not quick and sharp, but slow and gradual.
Slowly, faintly, a sigil formed in the palm of her right hand. To anyone standing behind her, it would be visible as a translucent grey zigzag, like an unclosed, incomplete version of the number 4.
Her left hand’s fingers drummed on Sturm’s haft as power flowed into them, the other half of the spell yearning to take shape. She suppressed it.
Play it cool. The chatterbox is going somewhere with this. Wait ‘til she—
Now!
The doll lunged, and at the same moment Rotgut thrust out both hands, a pale green diamond-and-wide-chevron
in her left palm. Both sigils flared with power…
And fizzled, unmet, as Rotgut stared. The doll wasn’t charging Petunia (or the dumb bitch he was technically controlling like a puppet), but Mama Jupiter—who promptly grabbed her and slammed her into the wall.
Rotgut stood there with a blank look on her face for a long moment. The glyphs pulsed softly in the dark, shrinking as power bled out of them.
“…Well. That happened.”
Sighing and shrugging, she closed her hands. The sigils winked out of existence as her intent dispersed.
So apparently there was a ceasefire now. Fine, she could work with that. The sooner they got done with this Midas thing, the sooner she could find Begonia and the real Petunia. It was about time she introduced them both to Old Falkenstein.
As Rotgut followed the group, she paused and looked at the doll. “So, got anymore wild theories you’d like to rattle off? Or did that knock a few screws loose?” she added with a smirk.
The Danse Macabre CodexEξοργισμένοι
Antiphates froze, his eyes darting between the fey tigerman, the thing in front of him, the inventor's panicked voice, and the portly government official (whom he gently released) in rapid succession. His jaw clenched so hard that anyone near him would hear his teeth grinding. His eyes began boring a hole in Charvarka.
"I swear unto Nemesis, I will surpass your gelders in sheer pain inflicted for your antics."
Then the giant Greek took a deep breath, and looked back to the thing.
"Child, do you have any means of rousing this man? Failing that, a way to calm this automaton?"
He heard the whimperings of a blue-clad brat. Metallic teeth flashed humorlessly.
"Mark him, Wolf, so that I don't have to bite off his foot ere he escapes again."
"He could not know it. For it was not all a joke."Kayne & Moko
After a few moments of thinking, Kayne and Moko both said "Smelling salts!" in perfect unison.
"Hold on, I don't see a first-aid kit nearby," Kayne noted. "I'm going to have to dip into the nearest janitor's closet." She went and did exactly that, and the sounds of hurried rummaging and clattering broomsticks could be heard for a little while. At last she came out with a bottleful of something and a thick rag. She poured the something onto the rag and held it close to John Gerald Jr's nose (but not too close).
"Careful, careful! You don't want to burn out his nasal passage! Is that even the right kind of ammonia?" Moko suspiciously leaned over on Kayne's head, hatbands on what would be his hips, as he mother-henned.
Kayne straightened Moko on her head. "We don't have any smelling salts, and cleaning supplies are the next best place to find ammonia. Let's hope this shocks him awake, and even better, gets us free."
"What about Magicaloid?"
"Mama Jupiter can obviously take care of herself. Rotgut's also near her. She's fine, once she can calm down and explain what she was thinking. She's got a good head on her shoulders, for theories, anyways, but sometimes I think she's too reckless..."
It was to be noted that Kayne wasn't even trying to give context to what she was doing, which was really a worrying sign. There was no time to be had.
Edited by JumpingFruit on Oct 2nd 2019 at 7:58:33 AM
I wear the skin of the Elder Things, having come unto my own.All in all, everything was a whirlwind of brusque activity and disparate opinions that ended up causing a rather fine mess in and of itself, half from the newcomers throwing their weight around and the other portion coming from this fine old group's own powerful tempers rearing their strong egos. What a time to be alive it seemed.
Eyes shifting about and ears open to draw in as much pertinent data like a sponge soaking in water, Lumisa had kept herself both still and silent whilst the more vocal characters slung their opinions about and attempted their own plans without waiting for others to weigh in. It was quite honestly bedlam that was just shy of spiraling into true chaos to her senses, not least of which was helping the fact that their ship was about to get blown up in a few minutes because the feeler spook sent aboard was put out of commission.
Well, at least here was a solid lead to tackle in the fervent hopes of actually unraveling this fine yarnball of a tangled mess. Seeing as they were in a hurry and someone was actually attempting to use bleach to wake up the poor sap, Lumisa got ready to do her part in all this rapidly degenerating occasions that seemed to feed off each other like a highly volatile chain reaction.
First things first, represent your country of origin. Turning handkerchief about her neck into an impromptu face mask that flashed both the American and Japanese flag in equal measure, Lumisa then pulled out a small object that fit quite snugly in her gloved hands. When fingers unfurled, the utmost stereotypical pepper shaker design was revealed- that of a classic glass container fitted on over with a rounded metal cap in which holes that led to what was once the king of spice was held.
Rapidly unscrewing the cap and turning the flavor enhancer upside down until a goodly portion of the dank stuff that was surprisingly a lot more voluminous than the object they came out of, Lumisa turned her attention on over to the cleaning supply duo to helpfully warn them of what was going to transpire before rearing her hand back...
And outright baseball pitching enough previously hand-held pepper particulates to smack the man's face with physically. To say that there was now a lot of agitants free-flying around the breathable atmosphere now would be a severely gross understatement as the archaeologist wordlessly returned good old Piper nigrum back into her possession.
Officer's Mess
"I found him!" Wolf cheered, ignoring the panic of the others. He promptly took a hold of Begonia with his mouth, his jaws constricting around Begonia's midsection like a chew toy. Tight enough that Begonia would feel teeth uncomfortably poking into his stomach, though not enough to draw blood from the boy.
"Well done, Dear Wolf." Lamb stroked her other half's head, as the glowing eyeholes of her mask met Begonia's eyes. She waved her hand, and the Mark of the Kindred once more appeared above Begonia's head. "You will not escape again, Begonia. Should you try, Wolf will bite down, snapping you in half. Do not resist."
"Nnn. Thsh. Stugl." Wolf growled around his mouthful of Begonia, his encouragements to fight muffled as he followed Lamb towards the group that had just entered.
"Greetings, Rufus. The tiger-who-is-not-a-man," And here she gestured towards Charvaka, "Rendered that lawman unconscious, after the lawman requested papers from those aboard the ship. The lawman's machine proceeded to target him and the giant in retaliation. Though we have minutes until they actually fire. The not-man-tiger cannot die, regardless. And I can render the giant deathless as well, for a brief duration. If need be."
She turned towards Petunia-in-Claudia's-body as Wolf grumbled happily around the boy in his mouth. "Also, Wolf has found the Begonia. Though I suppose we should deal with the enemy who has us in their clutches, before we deal with the enemy in ours."
What is so amusing about this? Why do you take lives? How can you forget?Charvaka: Resist the Urge to Mcfucking Lose It
You are the Grand Delusion, and have been been incapable of involuntary loss for a hundred and eight turns of the cosmos, mcfucking or otherwise. The invisible beam wiggles erratically around your forehead as you swat idly at the celestial abacus, having G eat c and fold itself quietly and imaginatively into ε0, and as the gamma burst kills every cell in your brain you perceive the target hasn't moved a planck. This weapon was produced by Platonics. You eat the ball of opium and let your heart stop beating.
You despise Platonics.
Clinically dead and feeling magnanimous, you let the ogre's threats pierce the skin of your perception. This is unfortunate for him. You acknowledge that this is unfortunate for him.
"This is unfortunate for you," you say. "I apologize, my dear companions. Please, allow me to fondle this ball."
Being a Platonic anchor, the ball on the floor vexes you in principle and in the pragmatic, being also eight minutes away from not inconsiderable celestial inconvenience. You kneel your corpse down and fondle it aggressively, peering deep into the thick line-roots of its presumption.
They spread crassly across the ship, branching like imbecilic ivy, lines of inference and junctions of conjecture and a thousand linking capillaries of if-so-then-thus, delivering kill-logics and null-sums to nodes of spatial ideology.
You refute this nonsense in its entirety and grope eagerly for the trains of thought feeding suppressive algorithms to Gressie, who is absolutely your inferior.
Edited by OG-Sama on Oct 4th 2019 at 6:54:44 PM
Hallway
One moment, Magicaloid was feeling pretty good about herself, about to unearth the dastardly manipulator in their midst with one, decisive strike.
The next, she was in a full-on facial grip, which was then used to bounce her off of no less than two different surfaces, the reverberating impacts echoing not just up and down her metallic frame, but through the spyglass-tested synapses of her overclocked brain—all of which she was only able to really process after her feet touched back down on solid ground once more, and her grey matter stopped bouncing around her in her skull like spare change in a tumble dryer. As her eyes settled back into placed like knocked-and-racked cue balls while she gained some semblance of control back over her tongue, a few choice phrases came to mind in response to these new revelations: "Hey, you broke my serum!" or “None of that changes your position, mind thief! Give up now, and we might still go easy on you!”
But instead, she managed to get out was a stumbling, slurred “S-sorry for the misunderstanding.” while she wobbled precariously in place, before throwing a venomous side glance in Rotgut’s direction, her face scrunching up as if in preparation for a scathing rebuke. “Shut…” was as far as she got, before toppling forward flat on her face.
After a moment, any who were paying attention would be treated to a most curious sight: Magicaloid’s metallic ankles would begin to glow, before a sheath of shimmering fragments engulfed and ultimately exploded off of them like a school of escaping fish, revealing a pair of common sneakers in their wake. This trend would continue up the automaton’s body, all the way up to her purple stocking cap, before the fully revealed Makoto’s fingers would finally come unclasped, letting the spyglass roll gently out of her grasp. "M' name’s not Makoto…” She insisted, eyelids flickering as she hovered on the very edge of consciousness, “’s Magicaloid…”
If I had that kind of power, I'd have dropped a meteor on your house ages ago~

Kalea - Cabin 1
The sudden turn of events bothered Kalea more than she cared to show. The ugly little child's leer, his conceited mien. Choking the life out of the sorry little brat would yield some satisfaction, yes. Still, such thoughts were unbecoming and unwelcome, so she permitted herself to entertain the prospect for only a short while before she snuffed out the line of thought.
More constructively, she devoted a smidgen of her essence to her cast mark to rectify their present lighting problem. Immediately her caste mark, a jet black disc, reappeared on her forehead. This time, it cast a light that illuminated the entire room, strong enough to read by.
Conception is sin Birth is pain Life is toil Death is inevitable