As Darien Brand emptied his pockets of what he had and hinted towards its capacity for all of the multiverse's terrifying weapons, it took some of the house guards a moment to recognize what was being implied. They raised their polearms with the intent to run him through if he didn't cease, but Kaguya issued a sharp "Cease". They stood at attention, though wary...
Kaguya herself showed actual concern, the sort that cuts through any guise of civility and stoicism. She caught herself a moment later, and cursed her own weakness - Brand inevitably had caught it, and undoubtedly it delighted him. The balance of power, with each of them having shown their hand, had been set. In a very rare moment in Shipbound history, Kaguya Houraisan was below the other.
"There is absolutely nothing that can alter or cut short my eternal nature. If such a thing were to exist, it would only be finiteness dressed in eternity's skin." Of that, no matter what, she was certain. "Otherwise, my family, the world, the Diet...that is decidedly more fleeting. Mr. Brand, you do not need to brandish fantastical weapons to remind me of this world's ephemeral nature. I have encountered much loss during my time, though it may not be evident looking at my perfect form."
"I do not intend to throw away what I have with impunity."
Kaguya motioned again, and upon receiving a look of slight confusion from a chambermaid, nodded and added "The contracts, yes, my sweet". Returning to Brand, Kaguya finally floated off of her deep-cushioned seat to see him face to face. Her long morning robe, yesterday's morning robe, trailed long behind her.
"And I do not intend to let you imperil it, either." She gave her best look of pleasant contentment to him. It could only be taken as appeasement, and it sickened Kaguya to her core to have to wear this face. "I will put my own effort into acquiring one of these things, Mr. Brand, but to make it official in the way that you so love, let's put it in writing, shall we?"
Zone One, Pax Primis
“I think I’m good,” I said to Swain. “You guys seem to have this under control, and I have important business to attend to.”
With that, I departed towards the Diet.
The Everlasting Diet
Ah, the Diet. You will never see a shittier group of people congregating in the same place outside of a Redditor meet up. It can’t be overstated enough that we weren’t exactly the ideal leaders of men, but but this is just how the cookie crumbles sometimes. In hindsight, it’s miraculous this little experiment has lasted as long as it has.
The entrance hall was massive, far larger than it actually needed to be to accommodate its occupants. Sometimes people joked that it needed to be so spacious to contain my fat ass, and those people would mysteriously end up in the hospital moments later. On the ceiling hung large, audacious painted portraits of the Diet’s various members. There was of course me, Jengbish, the Whoreai Broodmother’s Various Spawn, Myn, and all the rest aligned neatly in a row. Each one had a particular title underneath it that reflected our personal character – mine of course, was “Queen Diva”.
Hidden away on the ceiling was an ominous face wreathed in shadow, making them entirely unrecognizable. The one who few knew, and nobody truly knew anything about. Though each of us had a painting commissioned by an artist of our choosing, this one simply… appeared. An ominous message read below – “Rassilon”. Rassilon… the ghost haunting Concordia. In spite of how long I had been here, I’d never actually met them before. I was starting to doubt if they had even existed at all. Still, just the name put ice into my veins. There was something about them that put me on edge – perhaps it was simply the questions I had about them that had gone unanswered for so long. When I inquired who put this strange painting here, one of the butlers who worked here simply whispered into my ear ‘Luv Greggs’. I’m still trying to figure out this cryptic hint.
But I digress, there was something more important to deal with right now. I made my way across the room, letting my hair down as I entered the Diet’s chambers. Chairs for each member of the Diet surrounded a single large table where we would… well, occasionally discuss the issues of the day. Mostly only when some real dumb or serious shit was going on. This was some real serious shit, so I put my serious face on. I pressed the button on the table that alerted the other members a meeting was taking place, and waited for whoever felt like showing up to show up.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” I began, adopting a somber tone. “I regret to inform you that earlier this very day, an attempt was made on my life. I was attacked by an assassin in Founder’s park – of course, I made short work of them. After counterattacking with an extremely based wrestling move, the target gave up and was taken into police custody. But that’s not the end of this story. Before my assailant attacked, she yelled ‘Death to tyrants!’. Now, I think it’s pretty obvious who those ‘tyrants’ she refers to are. That’s why I’ve called you here today. I trust we all have a vested in interest in stopping this from progressing into a full-on rebellion against the Diet, so I’d like to see where we all stand on what is to be done about this issue.”
Meanwhile, my adorable cat Fluffy was wondering through the room, being extremely cool. He was almost as charming as me, which was truly an achievement.
Edited by HilarityEnsues on Jul 27th 2021 at 3:45:12 PM
The Everlasting Diet
Tablecentre Hist-Tree governcutting DO NOT DRINK THE SAP greenfold petalshivered sapmoved: mindroot thoughtspored eightandone-seat warmshape-bloc treeminder nitrates superego override. Cultivars. Nine heads rose shivering from recess freesleep and made a noise.
"Greetings. Righthonoured Warmfellow Areumshape is in our thoughts, be in consideration."
"Be in consideration."
"Be in consideration."
"Be in consideration."
Rootspasm. There was a collective groan.
"Processional cease. Obey. Observation. Objection. Righthonoured Warmfellow unharmed in the bodily."
"Objection. Righthonoured Warmfellow numeric overmatch negative: equal to."
"Objection. Cascade scenario likelihood negligible. PSJJJ unlocated."
"Petals."
"Immediacy: motion to null. All in favour say null."
"Null."
"Null."
"Null."
"Null."
"Null."
"Nu-"
"Noell!" trumpeted Girimehkala, closest to the ivy-coated corpses, spitting his peanuts across the lacquered table. "I mean no! I mean not in favour, fuck. Why'd you have to get the fucking tree going?"
"Null."
Edited by OG-Sama on Jul 27th 2021 at 5:15:39 PM
The Dappled Passages; Dio Brando
There'd been a murder; I'd been forewarned however much in brief. The victim had been a man of some repute in districts not too far-flung, where cruel tricks of perspective might makes certain shadows seem far longer than than was sensible - not so much a thing of benefit to him, of course, as to the company he had been known to keep. In slums replete with incidental killings, his had been noted purely for the likely consequences.
"An unpleasant business, that. I'm told he was found mostly in the privy."
Satsuki's shadow stood at the far end of the countertop, a real thing of purpose, angular and tall and stock-still as a dressmaker's dummy. She had no name, at least not one to which I'm privvy, and no observable emotion beyond a sort of inanimate ennui - if her master put one to mind of whips, this one conjured iron maidens. I had never seen her sit and had heard her speak on only four, perhaps five occasions prior, never as the subject, and this seemed to have instilled in her the delusion I could not hear her at all.
I gave a quizzical eyebrow at her master, who knew quite well I could, and took her papers with my friday pie. Two of the dossiers I did not recognise. As for the third;
"I know this one," I said, tapping the dark elf's slanted forehead. "Valen Dreth. He owns the Cat's-Head Corner Club a few hatches radial, halfway up the Grey Crescent. He's a something of a traditionalist, if you're at all familiar with dunmer types. You know, keeps his ancestors on the mantle and says n'wah a lot, whatever that means. That sort of thing."
Everybody knows what n'wah means.
"What interests me, and what I think will interest you, is that there was some trouble at the Cat's-Head the night before your man was found. Valen Dreth is quite a literal man, you see, and likes the conversation piece - as I understand it he had a new patron, quite deep in his cups, and the Cat's-Head's cat head eventually inspired a spirited debate regarding the comparative merits of slavery. Quite a loud one. Ancestors were insulted. I've been told that, after the stranger had been ejected, Dreth had to close so he could clean his great-uncle out of the carpet. They take that sort of thing very seriously."
I finished my pie in three bites and slid the dossiers back towards her.
"Now, everyone with a business worth running in the Grey Crescent pays the Camonnas, and the Camonnas have belonged to Greed ever since that unpleasantness at the ancestral mound. Valen hasn't been seen since he turned away his first three days ago. If he knows what it is he's done, and I find it hard to imagine he does not, I expect you'll find the other two with him. Would you like me to draw you a map?"
Edited by OG-Sama on Jul 27th 2021 at 11:01:51 AM
Zone 6, Near the Egress Eternal
Lang considered the state and movements of his fellow questant with an intent frown, until Everett spelled out his apology, at which point he smiled slightly and shook his head with a dismissive wave of his hand. As Ling Ya grumbled something unintelligible in his native language, his master refitted the instrument onto his back and carefully attempted to help the rain god up under the cripple's good arm. Once the two of them were standing again, the bard pointed a finger off to the East, gesturing that way with his chin, and began jogging in that direction, considerately keeping a pace that his new comrade could follow.
"Huh. Guess he musta heard something relevant 'afore ya went 'Kaboom'!" Ling Ya commented, "Let's just hope Addward is still around when we get there!"
Zone 2, Outside Pine Groves Apartment Complex
Addward was indeed still around when they got there.
Lang Wu Yao charged up the stairs into the commons area where he had heard his quarry screaming bloody murder, glanced about, and - although he was still deafened - quickly took stock of the situation. Tossing Ling Ya into the air and ("TRANS-FORM!") snagging the hilt of the crescent cutlass on the way back down, the musician swept forward and grabbed Addward with one hand, using his other to slice cleanly through the suctioning plastic tip restraining the marten.
Zone 5, The Dappled Passages
A truly wondrous journey does not require horses to carry you over great distances, or a luxurious carriage, but enough time to stop and aimlessly enjoy yourself. One man, fully aware of this, leisurely made his way through the Dappled Passages to one of his favored tea shops, in no hurry at all.
Though he made no effort to hide the sound of his footfalls against the corridor's mesh flooring as he approached, what would announce his oncoming presence before anything else was the smoke that wafted out from his pipe and between his lips. Today's substance of choice produced an earthy yet mildly sweet smell when burnt, pleasant to a normal hominid's nose, though perhaps not to Medusa's superhuman olfactory system. Then he rounded the corner and came into view, all elaborately decorated robes in vivid blues, reds, and whites, alabaster hair in an exceptionally long top-knot secured by a crystalline accessory that looked like quartz, and head crowned by an oddly-shaped but beautiful circlet of silvery metal embedded with small rubies at the tips.
"Commander Kiryuin, Miss Bodyguard, Mister Wong Pro, Brando," the man, who was a broker of information known by the name Gui Niao (in the traditional Eastern order), greeted those already present in sequence of descending respect, ruby eyes twinkling as he occupied the last empty seat at the bar and held his ornate smoking instrument aloft. "Your excellent protein bao and a cup of green tea, my good man," he added to the part-machine, part-flesh owner of the establishment, who smiled with a nod and went about preparing his purchase.
Niao took a long drag of his pipe and languidly exhaled as he glanced down the length of the counter and Benedict Wong V1.45343 Pro promptly returned with his order in record time, then continued in his native tongue, which was for some reason more commonly called Japanese across the multiverse, "Now then, what could the up-and-coming leader of the local militia and her bodyguard be doing in these lowly parts on this fine morning? Might it have something to do with that unfortunate matter involving Valen Dreth a few days ago?"
Edited by darksidevoid on Jul 29th 2021 at 11:09:53 AM
GM: AGOG S4 & F/WC RP; Co-GM: TABA, SOTR, UUA RP; Sub-GM: TTS RP. I have brought peace, freedom, justice, and security to my new Empire.E-108 Iota. That is my current designation.
I have been selected by Dr. Robotnik to guard the gemstone person. This task has been carried out successfully up until this current point. The likelihood of her escaping unaided is 2% - possible points of failure include unexpected cosmic ray short circuiting my processor, the potential of the collapse of the fabric of reality established by Charter, and the possibility of the gem person possessing an unknown capability or transformative state.
The gem person is likely to have attempted to speak with me during the preceding time. I have a very large and detailed program to be ran in the event of being alone with a prisoner, disabling any possible speech recognition from audio sources identified to be a prisoner. Dr. Robotnik has purposefully made me with this capability.
I do not understand why.
After some time, my mission is complete: the gem person has been kept contained until Dr. Robotnik has returned. I award myself an A rank.
Dr. Robotnik steps into the room and speaks to the gem person. He does not look at me. "So, little Andradite," he says, pulling up a chair in front of her containment unit, "I have to ask - just how valuable are you? I have no want of money, you know, I just like keeping expensive things close to my side."
Zone Six, vicinity of the Egress Eternal
You wince as Lang helps you to your feet. Most of the pain is gone, but this stiffness and sensitivity feels like it's gonna stick around for a while. Fortunately, your legs seem to be working just fine: you sway only for a second or two once Lang lets you go, and then you have your balance.
Right, Addward. You almost forgot about him after what just happened. The reason you’re out here. The reason you turned down a bounty that could’ve made your life a lot easier for at least a little while. The reason why this whole day has turned into a long, aggravating slog.
You sigh as Lang takes off. “This reward had better be worth it…”
You take one last glance at Alexi Vult, just to make sure she's still breathing. Then you take a deep breath and follow the red musician and his chatty instrument as fast as your legs will carry you.
Zone Two, Pine Groves Apartment Complex
As you trek across the city, it becomes clear that your little detour with the Thinker or Doctor Grey or whatever his name is wasn't a complete waste of time.
For people like you, there are generally two ways to get stronger. One is to foster worshippers and gather faith, but between your broken state and the fact that Amaterasu does a lot of the things you do already, that hasn't really been an option. The other is to pull another godling's essence out of them and absorb it, taking their power for yourself. This is the faster option, but it’s not without side effects. Fortunately, you seem to have dodged the worst of them.
You don't know whether that little fragment of Amaterasu gave you anything new. You won't know until you experiment with your powers, and that'll have to wait. But you do notice one tangible benefit: your stamina.
When you were chasing the Thinker before, you ran out of breath and couldn't keep up with Lang. This time is different: you're short of breath at first, but as the jog goes on you find your breath coming to you more easily and the stiffness in your legs falling away, and you're only a few feet behind the red musician now. Must be some of Amaterasu's wolfish endurance—
Plop
You feel it then. The unmistakable impact of a certain ferret's drool and sweat striking pavement. Addward must be close. You put on a burst of speed. Even so, Lang beats you to the scene.
Earlier, you would have stared in bewilderment. You would have wondered how the hell Addward got here, and why there's a crowd of angry apartment dwellers baying for his blood.
Now, you just act.
As soon as Lang has freed Addward from the vacuum, you step in. Your tentacle has already formed. You crack it like a whip, slapping it against the pavement at the feet of the crowd so that it sprays them with pellets of ice-cold water. The splat echoes sharply in the confined space.
That should give you some breathing room.
You turn in place and point, glaring at the crowd. "The first one of you to do anything stupid is getting a lightning bolt right up the ass." Your tattoos glow an intense electric blue against your eggplant skin. Sparks leap between the tip of your index finger and your other knuckles, filling the air with the smell of ozone. "Now calm down and tell me what the fuck is going on."
The Danse Macabre CodexThe Everlasting Diet
Myn thumbs the edge of the papers he's situated at his seat. He's trying his best not to acknowledge the plant, no matter how hard its chorus of delegates is making that effort. Areum spins the assembled a tale of how she righteously vanquished a dissident; surely no embellishment present in her story. Girimehkala bellows his annoyance at the Hist's interjection.
Myn isn't annoyed by it; he's afraid of it. It's dangerous; alien; it doesn't belong here. Everyone knows this; everyone except perhaps Areum, the clown of the Diet. One day she'll be the plant's thrall like the nine stolen minds congregated around it.
Myn has come to realize that there are a great many things in Concordia of which he is deeply afraid. He stands up to address the chamber, invincible here in this place where words and favors are strength.
"Well, I think I speak for all of us when I express my relief that you're unharmed, Councillor Areum." Myn says with a diplomatic smile once the Hist's slaves have said their piece. What a shame it would be if the striped whore were to die and the net respectability of the Diet went up slightly as a result. That said, a sitting Councillor being killed in broad daylight would be much, much worse.
"Has news of this attempt on your life been contained, or will an informational campaign be necessary? Founder's Park is a highly public place, so someone almost certainly saw this take place, and I believe all of us here know what that can lead to."
It goes without saying: Any sort of political dissidence must be strongly discouraged. Even the slightest hint of vulnerability in the Diet can spell disaster for the stability of Concordia.
"I believe it is prudent to investigate this 'revolutionary' to see if she was working alone. I also suggest additional and severe punitive action toward a small number of our more despicable prison residents, coupled with a promise of significant leniency for anyone who takes it upon themselves to confess to criminal involvement and provides information related to their partners. If we make good on that promise, it won't take long before we have all the information we need, and any potential terrorist cells are starved for membership."
Myn catches the eyes of several Councillors he knows will support him. They like what they think they know about him.
"We don't have to make them trust us. They just have to trust us a little more than they trust the worst impulses of the person right next to them. If we can do that, we won't even need to hunt them down. They'll eat each other alive; and when they do, we'll already know exactly where to find whomever is left. Attacking a member of the Everlasting Diet should feel meaningless and impossible. We should make sure they know that."
Myn takes a long, slow breath.
He smiles confidently and his eyes blazing.
"All in favor?"
Witch - Zone Six - Precinct 9 Interrogation Room
The door to the interrogation room flew open, and to your utter lack of surprise the sole occupant was finishing the process of pretending to not be doing anything. You'd done this far too many times to even bat an eye. Everything else was much as you'd expected; weighty metal table bolted securely to the floor, two plastic chairs at either end of the table, flickering incandescent lamp hanging from the center of the ceiling. You walked up to the table, folder in hand, and said "Good, it would be a shame for the interns to have to fish another corpse out of the traps," with all the gravitas one might expect from someone receiving a Christmas card six months late, before tossing the folder onto the table in front of you, which slid to a halt in front of the jittering doctor.
"The liar's tongue is worth less than the bread he eats," you spoke, as in one swift motion you drew the holy sword that rested at your hip then deftly drove the blade into the slot in the middle of the table, sinking it down to the hilt, and the room began to flicker. In the ensuing seconds runes danced across the surface of the table, down the legs and up the walls, winding into circles upon circles and finally closing in upon themselves to settle into a dim glow. The initial inception of this ritual was an unerring bastion of truth, where even the most silver-tongued of fiends would find their minds incapable of deception. Those from whom you'd learned this ritual called it "The Domain of Indomitable Truth". You'd come up with a simpler name for it: "Home". This place was your sanctuary now, unassailable, repelling and raging against outside influence as a barbarian might against foreign invaders. An unflinching bastion for you and any who stood with you. All those unwelcome within your domain were demanded to remember such, as the inextricable feeling of exclusion welled up within the chest not unlike a sharp pang of regret or a twisting knot of failure keenly known. The shadows danced in the shifting glimmer, forming covetous hands that grasped at everything and nothing, lurching tendrils that coiled tightly and threatened to consume all around them, always retreating just before they became truly suffocating. Here, before anywhere else you felt most at peace, felt like you most belonged. You'd spent so much time trying to carve out a place for yourself, it was only natural eventually that it would take the form of something you could bring with you.
You took a deep breath- entirely for dramatic flair, as you didn't need to breathe anymore- before taking a seat at the other end of the table, lowering your hood and placing your helmet on the edge of the table as you did so.
"I hope you have something worthwhile to say for yourself after this latest incident, Doctor Grey. And before you bother to waste our time, I will advise you that it is in your best interest to speak plainly. Deceit will find no footing here." You motioned to the open folder that laid before him, full of pictures, reports and all other varieties of evidence. "And hiding behind pseudonyms won't save you any longer. Frankly I don't care what you call yourself. What I care about is what you were doing in my Zone, and why you still avoid coming forward despite clearly possessing knowledge of the bombing you seem so eager to research."
Zone 6, Precinct 9, Interrogation Room, Dr. Grey
AN: Switching to First Person
Well that was quite dramatic, quite dramatic indeed. I mean, was any of that really necessary? At all?
Wait a minute, I recognize that feeling. A Zone of Truth, as that specialist they had brought in that one time to interrogate me. It wasn't that long ago, but I should avoid making any obvious mention of it. I would simply have to play along, find out what Witch knows and admit to that, and avoid mentioning or hinting at anything she doesn't know. Should be easy, but it was supposed to be easy avoiding Peacekeeper presence today and look where my negligence had gotten me, stuck in a cell with the Zone 6 Guardian. Now then, time to begin.
"I'm guessing you want to know about the events of today then?" I asked Witch, pointedly.
"Very well then, I shall describe the events as I believe them to have occurred. At around, mid morning or noon, I'm not entirely sure. See I was unable to check the time as my watch had recently been lost during an incident I'd prefer not to talk about, but it was related to why the last time I was arrested, my sixth arrest I believe, I was covered in sprinkles. Ugh, that is one day I did not want to remember. Seriously, no one who was there that day wanted to remember it. Anyway, back to today." I paused and took a breath. Time to talk about what happened, easy.
"So I had recently heard of the Egress Eternal, and I went there for two reasons. One, I wanted to look at the spaceship that the bar was inside of. Two, I really wanted a drink and maybe some food. It takes a lot of time to set up my hideouts, and yet it ended up being useless to me. Anyway, back to today, I was just outside of the Egress Eternal when I had bumped into the most peculiar fellow, along with this other somewhat less obviously peculiar fellow. I don't know the name of the first peculiar fellow, but he had blue skin and bone goggles. Not goggles made from bone, I mean that his skull had an outcropping, is that the right word? Ah whatever, outcropping of bone around his eyes. I had paused to take a look and I considered speaking with the man, perhaps gaining some knowledge about his orgins, but I did not pursue such a course of action as I was worried that it might arouse suspicion. But then I it actually suspicious to- look anyway I ended up getting occupied in my thoughts for a moments, only barely hearing what the musician, the second peculiar fellow, with the talking magic... ukulele? Whatever, moving on, I barely heard him mention looking for suspicious characters. Naturally, I assumed he was looking for me, as I had feared that the Peacekeepers had detected my entry into Zone 6, a fear that would become validated later on." Perhaps the foreshadowing was a bit much but it was somewhat appropriate.
"Now then, I immediately attempted to deny seeing anything suspicious. But due to my panic I bungled it, and decided the best course of action was to flee the scene. Naturally, after having done so I noticed a crystal hand lying on the ground. Oh, and this was in the back alley of the Egress Eternal by the way, it seemed like an appropriate place to catch my breath and think. Additionally there was also an odd looking blood stain, I naturally took a sample for later study. I believe it should be among the things that were confiscated from me when I was taken to this building. It was at this point that the two individuals from earlier arrived while I was preoccupied with the blood stain, anyway the musician accused me of kidnapping this Andy fellow, but I didn't realize he was accusing me of kidnapping due to the way he phrased it, but I suppose the fault lies on me for that. Honestly, I assumed that the hand was some weird prosthetic that I could mail back or something later, not an actual bloody hand." I shook my head before resuming.
"So after this I dropped one of the various smoke bombs I keep on my person, which is probably amongst the thing that were confiscated from me, and ran into the Egress Eternal. After which I knocked over a table, shoved the officer over and booked it in some random direction. Of course with my fucking luck I run into Amaterasu and one of the officers tell her to stop me and... and..." I stopped.
"I. uh, I... I don't want to continue. You already know what happened, there is no need for me to restate what you probably already read in some report somewhere. Oh, and if you're concerned about the guys who were knocked out not waking up yet, don't worry. They'll usually wake up about 24 hours later, something to do with the interactions the Beserker Serum has with the brain, neurotransmitters or some other thing. Neurology isn't exactly something I know a lot about. The Beserker serum was a the result of a sort of collaboration with someone else, but events have led to a situation in which I can no longer collaborate with them. Now then, what was that you were saying about pseudonyms?" I pointedly asked, wait that probably gave away my awareness of the Zone of Truth, oh well.
Edited by Mindris on Feb 4th 2022 at 10:25:18 AM
Johanna really did not have much she could do to aid with the attempted assassination. By the time she realized what was happening, the giant woman drove the assailant into the ground. Honestly, it was a little comical. The officers present wasted no time in placing the assassin under arrest, calmly defusing the situation. The alchemist could only brush a strand of her hair behind her ear as she watched the woman get shackled and lead away to her fate. Against her better judgement, Johanna decided to follow and act as a witness in case they needed one.
As they approached their destination, she could not stop the sigh from leaving her mouth. While not normally agoraphobic, the sheer number of officials and individuals coming and going from this building filled her with a special dread. The chances of running into people that annoyed her were high. She followed never the less, keeping behind Witch to avoid attention as they entered.
She cast her eyes around and took note of how busy it seemed today. No matter how established this city became, there would always be some trying to take advantage it would seem. Once they came to a stop, Witch began to address a very imposing looking man. Seemed like he was someone she answered to, and Faust could see why. He carried himself with no small amount of confidence, and she could smell something familiar on him. Something she herself had, the feeling of someone bound to demonic forces.
Johanna's normal lax posture straightened as she listened, staying behind as Witch went off to take care of her own business. Intimidating the assassin seemed to be the first order of business, good choice. Once there was a moment of silence, she cleared her throat. "Sorry to interrupt. My name is Johanna Faust. I was also a witness of the acts of this assassin, so I have come to offer my services as the Head of the Convocation's Circle of Applied Physical Mysticism." The alchemist offered.
Zone Five, Devil's Nest - Amaterasu, Elimo, Xavier
"Oh look, it's the sun dog. Guess I'm going to have to come clean."
Greed's eyes barely change, covered as they are behind their small silly sunglasses. They're snake's eyes, beady and full of malice, but there's a light in them far brighter than any reptile ever was.
He may not be as old as either of you goddesses, but he's lived for quite a while. He knows his way around things.
"Look," he says with his toothy leer, "it's really quite simple. I want the Gem. It's shiny, there's only one in the City, it even talks from time to time. And what I want, I get, because I'm Greed, and it's in the name. So you're really going to have to give me a very good reason to tell me why I should do anything you say, Ammie, because I don't see any."
The air around him seems to harden, and something like dull nickel creeps up from under his singlet and along his arm, so that when he snaps his fingers the sound rings out like steel on stone. It cuts through the music like a gunshot.
"And by the way, Salacious, we're not going anywhere. I like it here. Plenty of shields."
He smirks and stands, flamboyantly, which seems to be the only concession he'll ever make for a pair of goddesses. His transformed arm gleams in the light, pointed out like the barrel of a gun.
"Xavier! If you want to fulfill your oath and pay me back for that goddamn window, come here and get these two out of my joint! I don't care how divine they are!"
Zone Two, Pine Groves Apartment Complex - Wallace and Gromit, Lang and Ling Ya, Everett
The crowd stops flipping the marten at your interjection, which is fortunate, because at that very moment, a red-haired man with a talking sword sails through the air and grabs the animal clean out of the air. At the same time, something like a whip smacks loudly against the tile of the common area, sending a sudden chill through the air and a spray of icy particles.
It seems that the big players have arrived, or at least the slightly more combative ones. How utterly inspiring!
"Oh, you saved me!" swoons the marten. "Such bravery, such prowess, such… wait, you're the mute with the talking banjo. Ling and Lang Ya, or something. Never mind."
"Look here," says the burly accountant, rolling up his sleeves and glaring at the bedraggled man with the watery hand, "we've suffered some pretty serious damage because of that… animal, and I'm not about to let you waltz in here and stop us from snuffing him out like the pest he is!"
"Agreed!" says the old lady, waving her handbag.
Incensed by this, and seemingly full of moxie now that he's free of the vacuum cleaner, the marten runs a circle up and around the red-haired man, ending somewhere on top of his head. This is an impressive feat, because he is quite a bit larger than a ferret. He is a bit more like a small beaver.
"I protest!" he chatters in fury. "You're off your rocker, I never did anything of the sort, and even if I did, it wouldn't be worth murdering me over!"
The old lady takes obvious issue with this.
"You're an animal, sonny! Animals can't be murdered!"
"Ha! I'd like to see you try that in a court of law! Talking animals don't have rights… what's next, talking prunes can testify? Oh wait, they can't! You've got nothing!"
"Is that so?" asks the burly accountant, taking a step forward. "Well, I have it on good authority that -"
The concrete floor is slick, and he is wearing very shiny dress shoes, newly buffed and waxed zealously and fitted with gleaming caps. It is precisely because of this refinement that he slips on a very small damp patch, hits the floor head-first, and cracks loudly.
It is highly likely, although not completely a given, that he has almost certainly suffered brain damage the likes of which he will not recover from in a reasonable amount of time.
"That solves things," says the marten. "Wait, I didn't mean that."
With a collective yell, the crowd makes its way towards you, various implements waving in anger, picking their way very carefully over the body.
Unclaimed Room 523179 - Jengbish, Leo, Maia, Bondrewd and Prushka
"Help me," says the tree-woman, "they've-"
Jengbish's knife obliterates her head. Grasping, she fumbles for you with her flailing hands, gurgling words that come up like spray after spray of ant's eggs, but then Bondrewd's tentacles wrap tight around her worms and pull them clean off her body. Maia has you a second later, shielding you with her hard chassis, and suddenly you don't need your all-seeing eyes to see.
The tree-woman screams, a horrible sound from a headless throat, spraying a foul green substance from her neck and skirts that stinks like sulfur and sticks to you and Maia like glue. The two of you fall deep into the mud, your shoulder breaking a mangrove spike as you do, and as you watch your assailant thrash and flail and moan you realize that you have no idea what she might have been trying to say to you.
At length the life oozes from her body. You are alone with your comrades and the giant mosquitoes, who have already descended onto the corpse. A giant leech has attached itself to your left calf, without particular haste, and is slowly but surely emptying your great saphenous vein.
The will which corrupted this Room is no more. Your duty now, as the heuronaut, is to extend your all-seeing eyes over the Incoherence and fix it in one of the memorized forms, so that the Architects' Guild will have room to shape it.
Jengbish's knife is still flying through the trees, two hundred meters from here, buoyed by a ferocity of will and a lack of air resistance. You wonder if the tree-woman was just trying to make this place more like home.
Zone One, The Everlasting Diet - Areum, Myn, Do Not Drink The Sap
A chorus of ayes and applause goes up at Myn's speech, accompanied by a flurry of hands, paws, hooves, and general-purpose appendages. And it's not just his supporters, either. Despite their inveterate factionalism, the Diet knows the precise side on which their bread is buttered.
"Agreed! Well said, well said!"
"I've never heard such sensible talk in my life. Well done, Myn!"
"We need to crack down, I say! Down, down! The harder the better!"
"Ahem. Members of the Diet."
The third-in-command of the Hourai faction stands, coughs thrice at a gradated volume, and adjusts his obi. He is a balding man with a remarkably scraggly beard and a thin reedy voice that cuts across the table like a strand of raw spaghetti. His name is Gregory Kaguyason Houraisan III, middle name self-chosen, but to remind everyone who his great-grandmother is, he refers to himself solely as Greguya.
"Oh, Councilor Greguya," says the Speaker. "Please speak."
The Speaker of the House is a small yellow bear who appears to be made of stuffed felt; his little paw is stuck perpetually in a pot of real honey, the rumored provider of which varies depending on the teller. No-one knows his true name, but since he is the only being in Concordia who can absorb the sap of the Hist Tree and not turn at once into a slate voter, he has stayed Speaker for the past fifty years. Every attempt to duplicate this wondrous power has failed utterly.
Greguya sniffs and assumes a look of disdain. The Speaker has many powers and responsibilities, but over the years they have been simplified elegantly, so that now his only real duty is to tell people to speak.
"While I respect Councilor Myn's eloquence, I would like to point out that he has given very little in the way of an adequate solution. Which residents does he propose to punish? How does Councilor Myn propose that we get past Commander Swain, who might very well not want to give up the prisoner? Never mind that, how do we know that Councilor Areum isn't just telling us all of this for the Vine, as she is so fond of saying?"
Greguya assumes a look of astounding spinelessness. He clasps his hands together, looks up towards the ceiling, and grins as if in ecstasy. A Vulcan turns aside to be quietly ill.
"As my maternal ancestress, the great Kaguya Houraisan, would say if she was present, we have to think everything through before actually doing it. Such words of wisdom!"
The Hourai faction looks at him, then at its fingernails. Greguya's specialty is raising meaningless counterpoints with just enough thought behind them to make them actual objections, which is why he is the third-in-command. The rest of them can't be bothered to do even that.
"Your turn, Councilor Myn," says the Speaker, dripping honey from his little black nose. "Please speak."
Zone One; House of Hourai - Houraisan Kaguya
Darien looks at your contract, turning it over page by page with his long slender fingers. A smile spreads across his face, so slowly that by the time you notice it looks like it's always been there.
"A contract? Well. Well, well, well."
He laughs. It's a silvery sound for someone so deeply oily, as if there's still lightness somewhere in that calculating heart.
"Do you think I'm a fool, Miss Houraisan? We're not on Midas any more. There is no contract-magic. I have absolutely nothing to swear on except your word."
He reads the fine print and laughs again, evidently deeply amused by this turn of events.
"Yes, your word. The courts in this City abide by the Diet's word, and the Diet abides by yours. Isn't that how it works? Wasn't that why you busied yourself with your… reproductive activities?"
He removes a quill from his breast pocket, inks it in the air, and then signs his name on the line in elegant, flowing italics.
"There," he says. "The deal is done. Now, I would like you to take me to either Andradite or to Rum-Eyed Rufus. Forgive me for saying this, but I don't entirely trust your own effort."
He looks at you, closely, the chains in his sclera shining.
"I should probably inform you, however, that removing the Oculus from Rufus of Pasiphae with my tools will most likely kill him. A grave loss, perhaps."
Zone Five; The Dappled Passages - Medusa, Lin Xue Ya, Dio, Satsuki
They talk, but I do not listen. My duty is not to plan. It is not to intrigue, or offer input, or even to contemplate. I do not know what a n'wah is, even though I have knowledge of all the world's languages. It does not matter.
My duty is to guard, and watch, and protect. I must protect the master. To do this, I must gather everything I can about these two, even though the master considers them allies, or at least informers of no threat.
No threat. Not yet.
The vampire is like a statue. He smells cold and clean and virile underneath his clothes, like a carved erastes, and yet there is a strong stench coming through his strong scent. I know this. It is the smell of death and Hades. But more than that, it is the stench of man coming from his loins, a man who takes delight in other men.
When I open my spiritual eyes I can see his soul blazing brightly in his corpse, radiating down from the neck, and I can see something taller yet behind him, waiting like I do behind the master, to strike at his slightest thought.
In this body I am faster than the wind, but I do not know if I could outspeed this daemon. Even then, the thought of slaying such a man disgusts me, because there was never a man I killed who had such potent energy. Even breathing his air in is like tasting his seed.
So I turn my thoughts to the second man. He is a slimmer, smaller thing, and flits on the conversation like a sparrow. I can hear his robes sashaying gently as he walks, and there is a plume of smoke about him that smells of dirt and ashes. I force my hand down, keeping it by my side and away from my nose. Why do men puff away at such things? Is it to disgust everyone around them, or to put them in stupor?
He speaks again, and despite my better judgment I am compelled to answer.
"I am not her bodyguard, and you are not welcome here. Leave now."
Zone One; Pax Primis - Kayne and Moko, Violet, Usagi, Erika, and Faust
The assassin huddles up, clearly terrified by Swain. Her eyes go this way and that, as if she's desperately trying to look for an escape, but the only one there is you.
"Alright," she whispers, "I'll tell you everything. I'll-"
Her eyes go wide all of a sudden. She scrabbles wildly at her face, gasping as if she's about to choke.
"No," she breathes, "no, no-"
She wails, a horrible squeal like a trapped mouse. There's a splattering sound, and you realize that she's bitten through her tongue, that one eye is green and the other brown and that her teeth are smoking -
Then she dives, retching, into the interrogation room, and a second later the entire room rocks with a starburst of flame, breaking the windows and rolling out the door in a white-hot blaze.
The building is on fire.
Edited by troydenite on Jul 30th 2021 at 12:06:12 AM
Unclaimed Room 523179
Leo's shared eyesight is incorporated into Maia's sensorium with a deft parallel integration of data streams - fortunately, the draughtsmen who work with Leo all drill for this sort of scenario. Now her tactical systems have all the data she needs. Master Jengbish gives her something better, by some metrics - an order.
The android shoots forward, at first on the Master's heels, then quickly arcing around, giving the enemy multiple targets to track and closing the distance in a pincer. While Jengbish fords through the mud with sheer strength and mass, Maia is light on her boots, calculating the optimal angle of each footfall to skip across the surface of the swamp, eyes a piercing amber in the gloom, locked onto Leo's struggling form.
Her computer-mind observes the battlespace with a crystalline, numerical clarity. Every scrap of processing power is turned to the task of churning a thousand variables into useful projections. The thrown knife takes the target in the head. Clean hit, neutralization pending. Father's Far-Caress frees Leo. An opening, intercept calculated.
Maia tosses her spear to the side and pushes off the muddy surface, arms outstretched, and scoops Leo out of the air, twisting herself around so that she hits the ground first, his fragile form shielded by alloy and carbon fiber. As a great thick muddy splash erupts around them, Maia gets her hands clamped around his sides and shoves him straight up, pushing him out of the water and sucking mud even as her weight starts to pull her down, closing over her gore-splattered torso and face.
Ideally, one of the others will retrieve him before they sink much further. In the sudden deafening quiet of the mud, combat routines spinning down a level, Maia thinks that it's convenient that she doesn't need to breath.
Edited by LittleMako on Jul 29th 2021 at 9:47:11 PM
Zone 5, Devil's Nest; Xavier Solitaire
"Aren't there actually some other people that are gemstones, like from the bombing? And personally, I don't like green, I prefer black, or blue. Let's see what colors I can turn you." Xavier gives a grin, briefly visible before he pushes his mask downward, fully covering his face.
"Barkeep, or the DJ or whatever, put on some fighting music. I'd like there to be some good ambience." A song
is put on.
"Eh, that's not really something you would put on for a fight, sounds familiar though. Put on something else." A different song
is put on.
"Hmmm, I think that fits. Now then, let's put you cards onto the Tableau, as you must face me alone!" He activates his Tableau ability, using it on the two gods. With this ability, they wouldn't be able to see anyone else until Xavier was unconscious, dead, or over 50 feet or so away from him or they ran out the time. Not to mention they might just start vividly hallucinating, didn't always occur of course. Might not happen at all since both of them were gods apparently, now then.
Xavier takes out two cards, an 8 of Clubs and a 10 of Clubs, meaning that the effect would last for 8 and 10 minutes, depending on which cards he deal to who. Xavier launched the 8 of Clubs towards Elimo and the 10 of Clubs at Amaterasu.
Edited by Mindris on Jul 29th 2021 at 9:23:19 AM
The Everlasting Diet - This Isn't Even 1% of My Power Level
Myn calmly pivots to face his naysayer: Councillor 'Greguya'. What an embarrassment he is, like most in his clan younger than his parents; and predictable, at that. Funnily enough, that predictability is what keeps Myn from truly disliking him. With such flaccid rebuttals making his arguments for him, Myn needs only to make said arguments within earshot of the good Councillor to ensure they're lent additional credence.
"Thank you, Honored Speaker." Myn begins, sounding placid and gracious.
"Councillor Houraisan, if it pleases the Diet, I should like to address your points in the order opposite to that in which you presented them." The name 'Greguya' will never pass his lips.
"While Councillor Areum displays a great deal of showmanship at times, I would not think to question her sincerity in this matter, and it surprises me that you might. What would she have to gain from the Diet by crying wolf? Councillor Areum and I have disagreed in the past, yes, but I've never once thought of her as someone who might play the wounded gazelle. If anything, would she not wish to appear untouchable and unflappable? I am confident that the incident she described did occur, and I trust she would not have brought it to our attention if she did not believe it was serious."
Beneath his ulterior motives and backhanded compliments, Myn speaks truthfully. He does not consider Areum a schemer capable of deceiving him. Even if she could slip a lie past him, it would be a lie that advances his goals.
More importantly, an appeal to sympathy - and to the fear he knows many of the other Councillors hold that they might be attacked next - is exactly the sort of glaring weak point Myn has come to expect from this man.
"And because I believe Councillor Areum, I also believe that standing united is crucial at this time. I look around this room and I see some of the best and brightest Concordia has to offer, from hundreds of different worlds. With this many great visionaries overseeing governance, the only way we can fail is if we allow inaction and infighting to paralyze us."
If Myn could ever have been said to be talking directly to Greguya before, he certainly isn't now. He is looking him right in the eye while talking around him, addressing the Diet as a whole. As someone who has spent his life around a great number of very, very powerful people, and as one of those people himself, Myn knows the one thing powerful people like more than anything else is to be told how smart they are. Myn is utilizing this knowledge alongside a technique known to some of the more learned political scholars as 'laying it on really thick'.
"Now, as to your point regarding Commander Swain's cooperation, I believe he will agree to the expedited execution of, say, two or three prisoners who are already scheduled for that outcome. I am confident he will see the benefit of our additional security measures, which of course will necessitate an increased Peacekeeper presence in certain key locations within Concordia. That is why I'd also like to propose a 3% budget increase for all stations, effective immediately...pending legislative approval and his agreement, of course."
Money can open doors, but Commander Swain is not a man of greed. He is, however, a man of practicality, and that is why Myn believes this will work. 3% may sound minuscule, but across the whole city, that adds up quickly, and that number will no doubt be haggled up. 3% pays for a lot of equipment for the officers, a lot of pensions for the families of those who never make it back home.
"And finally, yes, I have not said which prisoners we should select as our examples. I believe we should decide collectively; think everything through before we do it, you might say, Councillor Houraisan. I would not presume to make all the decisions alone, after all. I am but one man. I believe that should be our second point of discussion, once we have settled our current matter."
With a polite nod to the Speaker, whose stoutness exercises truly were paying great dividends, Myn graciously cedes the floor and returns to his seat. He does not expect he will need to stand again.
Unclaimed Room 523179
It didn't escape Leo's attention that the woman had been calling for help. Now that she was dead, however, the thought took a backseat to more imminently pressing matters. He took stock of himself as he was banded from one direction to the other- his throat hurt from screaming and acid and the whiplash of being the 'tug' in tug-of-war, but nothing seemed broken, or at least unusable. His shoulder flared in pain as it hit something, and he suspected that adrenaline was the only thing keeping him from vomiting thanks to the stench and the general horror of the situation. He wasn't alright, but he wasn't dead, and he could count his blessings for that.
Moreover, he wasn't sinking into the mud like he thought he would've. He could feel strong hands holding him aloft and recalled in perfect clarity the sight of his amber-eyed companion reaching out for him. "Maia!" he called, attempting to twist in her grip but only making it harder for them both to keep him held up. She wasn't a mountain like Jengbish but she likely weighed as much as him, and who knows how much deeper she'd sink before the others could get to her? "H-Hold on!"
His eyesight retracted from the rest of the group, leaving them only with their own senses to parse the now-moonlit Room. A good thing too, as the receptor for his Eyes had leapt away from him before Maia's impromptu rescue. Powered by raw terror, Sonic had sped across the swamp's surface quicker than anyone but Leo could follow and launched himself squarely at Prushka's face, where he now cowered with such speed and intensity that Prushka would feel warmth from his vibrations. Despite being annoyed, Leo couldn't blame his furry companion for abandoning him.
But anyway. The mechanical bell sounded once more as glyphs formed over Leo's crystalline eyes, runic lines framing the endless starry abyss that could only have been birthed from a god. Maia would feel him go limp in her arms as his Eyes turned their full focus on the surface below. For now it was mud, but that was only a temporary state, fuelled by confusion and thoughts now gone. Leo looked deeper into its state of being, saw how the murky brown could actually be beautiful and clear, how the viscosity could instead be as light and bubbling as a newborn brook. What if the swamp was an untruth, a flimsy camouflage for the fresh, shallow spring that Leo- that the Charter- knew to be reality?
There was a high-pitched whine followed quickly by a quiet crack as a hairline fracture appeared in Leo's overworked left eye.
they/them || "Forgive me, regent of queer amphibians" - Lt.BGobZone One - Pax Primis Ignis
The assassin girl is wiser than he thought, it seems. Swain nods, approving of both her decision and her (entirely justified) terror, and takes one step into the interrogation room after her.
Afraid of death. Going to die. The words reach his mind. Whispers of her soul, its truths and its secrets. Words he fully expected, but whose meaning he does not immediately grasp until too late.
She explodes. Swain's body blocks the explosion, keeping it mostly constrained to the interrogation room, inadvertently saving those behind him.
When the smoke and flames clear, Swain is still standing. Great black wings are folded around his body, projecting a shield of his familiar demon magic, dark crimson like corrupted blood.
The wings unfurl, and Swain appears unharmed, but his veins and eyes glow red from the amount of magic flowing through them.
"Fire!" Shrieks a raven, appearing from someone's shadow. "Evacuate!" Shrieks another, descending from some dark ceiling corner.
Soon there are a dozen ravens fluttering about, cawing out orders and corralling the assembled Peacekeepers into action. A few more ravens have already slipped through the shadows to the fire department, notifying them of the blaze.
Swain merely stands before the flames, scowling, silent, his wings occasionally beating to blow the fire back into the interrogation room whenever it tries to encroach upon him.
Internally, he resolves to capture the assassin's retainers. The interrogation he has planned for them will undoubtedly make Jengbish look like the proverbial 'good cop'.
It will still be too kind for them.
Zone Five - Devil's Nest
The man before her, Greed, is not a man. He is some kind of demon, or so the rumors say. Something about him is wrong, and that feeling of unease worsens as his arm turns to metal.
She prepares to launch herself at him, when he suddenly vanishes. Her attention turns to the man in the mask, who has made everyone else disappear. It is an illusion, of course; her eyes are fooled, but her keen nose still smells Greed there.
The illusion tries to play on her fears. Eight shadows emerge and twist into eight serpent heads, which surround her whispering curses. Whether the masked man knew of her legends, or if his illusion merely took inspiration from her own mind, she could not say.
It didn't matter. She ignored the figment of her past, instead drawing a single expert brushstroke with her tail. The line slashed through two of the shadows, decapitating them, and then intersected Xavier's thrown playing cards. Rather than cut them in half, the magic of Power Slash bounced them back at twice the speed.
The reversed projectiles were followed by Amaterasu herself, launching towards Xavier like a rocket, Solar Flare held outward as both shield and flaming battering ram.
Xavier would have perhaps half a second to react before Amaterasu reached him and attempted to smash her reflector into him at full speed, intending to take him out of the fight in one blow.
What is so amusing about this? Why do you take lives? How can you forget?Zone Two, Pine Grove Apartment Complex
Your eyes start to glow as the crowd advances on you. "So you all want to be stupid? Fine by me."
But you aren't here to kill anyone. Or to give anyone else brain damage. This will take some finesse. Not to mention as much moisture as you can spare.
For the second time today, you will yourself to liquefy. Not all the way, though: you still retain your form, and outwardly you still appear to be flesh and blood. But the vast majority of you is now H2O, contained in a bruised bag of purple skin.
With this done, you will every piece of standing water left on the floor to return to you. The puddle that that idiot slipped on breaks up into rivulets which quickly flow across the floor to your foot, which sucks them up like a sponge. Every other puddle does the same, flowing away from the mob before anyone else can slip and crack their skull like an egg.
Then you redistribute yourself. Your tentacle swells, becoming as thick as a watermelon, wider than the breadth of your shoulders and three, four, five times longer than you are tall. At the same time, your body shrivels. In the blink of an eye all traces of fat disappear as your skin pulls tight against your skeleton. With your cape swept back, the onrushing mob can make out every detail of your rib cage and the exact contours of your jaws and cheekbones. If you wrapped your cape around yourself and put on a headdress, you'd look like an Incan mummy. A purple Incan mummy covered in glowing blue tattoos, but a mummy, nonetheless.
You raise the stump of your right arm. Your tentacle lifts into the air above you. It coils and writhes like an anaconda, casting weird shadows over the floor as it curves into a loop like an enormous lasso.
You drop to one knee. You swing the stump down.
The tentacle compresses, spreading itself vertically and downward. The lasso becomes a curtain several inches thick. It sheets down with enough force to gouge an inch-deep furrow into the tiled floor. It separates you, Lang, Addward, and the strange man and dog who look like they're made of clay from the mob.
It is still a part of you, as much as the withered sack of tattooed flesh is part of you, and so still under your control. You will it to become semisolid. Anyone trying to force their way through from the outside will find that the curtain gives slightly without breaking. It'll take a lot more than the strength of the average person to get through this wall.
You glance over your shoulder at Lang and the clay man. You can't see them with your eyes, since the goggles block your view. But you don't need to: you can "see" them clearly enough through the curtain's inner surface.
Your voice comes out brittle, desiccated, like an ancient sheet of papyrus. "Can't move while I'm doing this. Can't keep it up forever, either. If anyone has any ideas, I'm all ears."
The Danse Macabre CodexZone 5, The Devil's Nest; Salacia Persei Elimo
Well, that went down the proverbial toilet quickly. After Greed had ordered her and Amaterasu out of the joint, she began to say, "All right, we shall leave peacefully-" and then fell silent as Greed, for lack of better phrasing, went full-on crime boss. People around here seemed determined to make fun of her name, which probably should have been a warning sign, but oh well.
The world bent somehow, and suddenly nothing else was there except Xavier, who had just thrown a card at her and another in what she assumed to be Amaterasu's general direction. Before she could move, the cards bounced back at Xavier, maybe even going faster-?
She became aware of a whispering, a begging for aid, the stench of blood and pus- but lessened somehow, through a layer of glass.
Elimo brushed the sensation off, and she began to levitate a few feet higher in the air. She concentrated for a fraction of a second before a soft blue light washed the area, removing ailments and healing wounds instantly from any allies in the area (presumably herself and the now-unseen Amaterasu). The aftereffects were rather less obvious, temporarily boosting the target's defenses and receptivity to healing magic greatly.
As an afterthought, a rush of water swept her wings of the assorted bodily detritus the club's customers had inflicted upon them, because it was getting really gross. She was pretty sure that one guy had puked blood on her, which was something to deal with later.
So, let's hang an anchor from the sun... also my TumblrZone 5, Devil's Nest; Xavier Solitaire
"Ah, there we go. Now then, it is time for-!"
Xavier quickly utilized The Talon and disappeared in shower of cards out of the way of the incoming projectiles, reappearing
"Well, seems like the fight has already begun. Didn't even get to do my speech, ah well. A fight's a fight, doesn't matter how it starts, I'll enjoy it all the same."
He turned towards Elimo, alone in the room, or so it appeared to him. Unfortunately one downside of The Tableau was that he was partly affected by it as well, except he could only see those he had used his ability on. This meant that fights usually resulted in collateral damage occurring on both sides. But collateral damage schmalleteral damage, he just wanted a nice exciting fight.
He had emptied his deck due to his use of The Talon, but he always brought plenty of spare decks under his coat. He quickly drew one out of his coat, which was the blood stained one that he had gotten from the crime scene cleanup job he had done.
He quickly drew out three cards, a 2 of Diamonds, a Jack of Clubs, and a King of Hearts. He threw the 2 of Diamonds and Jack of Clubs at Elimo, which he though would be enough to knock her out, and aimed the King of Hearts at Amaterasu, which would definitely be enough to knock her out. If he didn't miss and neither of them dodged, it would be a quick cleanup to the fight. Normally he didn't draw such high value card so early, but perhaps today was different.
Witch - Zone Six - Precinct 9 Interrogation Room
The plastic chair creaked under the weight of your armor as you leaned back, left hand resting on your chin, and listened to the Doctor recount the occurrences of the day. You'd heard clips of him talking and second-hand reports of people who'd happened to speak to him previously, but it was still incredible how potent his penchant for rambling was. You had to wonder how he'd even managed to make it this far with all his numerous obvious failings; Intelligent or not, being quick and crafty was rarely enough to cover other shortcomings like this. Somewhat surprisingly, he stammered and stopped when it came to the incident with your patrol. You already knew what had happened. You'd read the report, debriefed the few that were there that could still walk afterwards; Several of your men were in medical care, and one was likely permanently disfigured. And your ritual prevented anyone from possibly faking this sort of guilt.
But none of the information he gave you was either useful or new, and he deliberately skirted sharing any knowledge about any of his previous activities or collaborations. You'd have to sort through the items confiscated off him to see what other nonsense he'd gotten his hands on, as well.
"Your consideration for my patrol that you injured is touching," you said after he finished speaking, "but regret does not excuse your actions, nor have you told me anything I don't already know." You leaned forward, stony gaze ever unyielding, rested your elbows on the table and folded your hands together. "So allow me to put it a different way. You have information I want, and you've been enough of a pain in the ass that I might actually be willing to pull a few strings so you don't get murdered in your sleep if you give me what I need. I might even be able to get you a respectable position within a guild so you can continue... most of your research. With oversight, naturally. But that's going to require a little... cooperation on your part. And no more of that 'Dr. Black' bullshit, we have enough assholes causing chaos in the underground already without your contributions."
"But by all means, if you think you can keep this up then keep playing dumb and I can keep tearing apart your hideouts until I find enough information, and then we can see what happens when you're no longer of use to anyone." You stood up and pushed the chair back behind you, folding your arms behind your back as you slowly made your way around the side of the table, and stopped a few feet away from Grey. "So what'll it be, Doc? Unravel the strings, or leave the knot to tangle further?"
Areum, The Everlasting Diet
There were so many things going wrong today. First of all, that damn tree was still there – who put that there anyway? Not only was it a clear and present danger, it was hideous! I was going to piledrive the one responsible once I found them out. Secondly, the demon spawn of the she devil was once again obstructing the legislative process with his asinine objections. The level of gridlock in the Diet was comparable to that of the infamously inefficient American Congress, who often spent more time snorting coke than even attempting to come up with laws. But for all their flaws, they at least knew how to have fun. A quick glance around the room reminds me that we don’t even have that going for us.
And lastly, Myn… honestly, if anyone in the Diet was a genuine grade-A bastard and not just a run of the mill politician looking to line their own pocketbooks and serve their special interests groups that put them there, it was definitely this guy. He was a schemer, a glorified cult leader, and actually seemed to believe his bullshit on some level – that was the concerning part. Besides Kaguya, he was probably the biggest threat to Concordia’s… well, this place isn’t free. Or safe. Look, the point is he’s kind of terrible and ruining my vibe.
Curiously though, he seems to be on my side for once. Most likely he’s worried about what an act of open rebellion will do to the reputation of the Diet, and what it means for his personal safety. More than I can say for the Hourais, who at this point I’ve come to think of more as fleshy robots - created on the assembly line that is Kaguya - than people. Honestly, I’m probably being unfair to robots with that comparison.
“Councilor Greguya,” I sighed. “First of all, Vine stopped being a thing years ago. Everyone uses Tiktok now, so I’d appreciate if you could keep your references up to date. Secondly, there were multiple eyewitness to the attack if you truly doubt what I say, including Officer Witch and Dr. Faust. I don’t know why you’d accuse me of lying about something like this, but it would be most unwise to stick your head in the sand after this incident. And whatever motives you may think I have, me telling you all this was simply a heads up about a threat to the Diet. You want to ignore it? Go ahead. Don’t expect me to help you if things go sideways, though.”
If these guys wanna fuck around and find out what happens when you ignore anti-government terrorists, be my guests.
Helena, Zone Two
Helena had been preoccupied with uh… well, never-mind that. That was then, this is now! When you live in the fast lane, there’s no time to think of things like “what is happening” or “where am I right now”. It’s go go go baby!
And right now Helena was go-ing into Zone Two, where some serious shit was going down with an angry mob and people needed medical treatment. She rushed over to man with the cracked head, having little clue of what was actually happening, but knowing that there was someone in need of her help. She began trying all manner of magical healing and good old fashioned doctoring she had in her to save this man.
“Please stop!” she pleaded with the mad crowd. “I ask of you all to put aside your grievances before anyone else gets hurt!”
She noticed a couple familiar faces – Everett and Addward. She could tell Addward was anxious because he was making that same face he made when she had to act as his veterinarian
◊ – long story.
“Everett? Addward? Wh-What’s going on? Why is there a mob?”
Edited by HilarityEnsues on Jul 29th 2021 at 11:45:52 AM
Zone 5 - Devil's Nest
The masked man is suddenly gone, and Amaterasu barely stops herself from crashing into a wall, skidding on her paws before rolling to face him in his new location. Briefly she notes the power of her fellow goddess washing over her. Amaterasu offers a small prayer to Elimo in thanks. She is uncertain if Elimo gains strength from Praise, as she does, but it never hurts to be polite.
Even as Xavier flings more cards, she merely swings her tail again. No matter how many times it cuts, Tachigami's blade never dulls. As before, the blade does not cut, but reflects, bouncing all three cards back towards their sender.
This time, instead of charging him, she focuses. Solar Flare glows, and then with a flash is gone, replaced by an enormous rosary. The air around her chills slightly at the presence of the Tundra Beads, which spin gently around Amaterasu's body, connected by a string of light.
She braces herself and takes aim. Whether Xavier dodges or blocks, she will follow up his reflected cards with a volley of beads, launched from her rosary rapidly and at high speed, like bullets of stinging ice.
Edited by kagescorpionakki on Jul 29th 2021 at 12:10:05 PM
What is so amusing about this? Why do you take lives? How can you forget?Zone 6, Precinct 9, Interrogation Room; Dr. Grey
I turned my head down and stared blankly at the table.
"...fuck it." I said, not quite thinking about my actions.
"Fuck it. Fuck it! FUCK IT!" I yelled as I quickly turned my head up.
I reached up behind my head and grabbed the strap to my goggles, lifting it up. I tossed them, the strap hooking onto the sword struck into the slit in the table. Everything was blurry now, without the prescription lenses in those goggles.
Good thing I still carried my glasses, even after all this time wearing the goggles. I reached into my pocket and pulled out their case.
"Have you truly regretted? Done something so horrible you can hardly comprehend what you've done?" I spoke, without bothering to truly think through my words. I opened the case.
"It eats at you, every moment. Sometimes you can get so focused that you don't even think about it, but that just seems to amplify the regret once you get back to it." I took the glasses out.
"But yet you keep going, out the desperate idea that you could do something. Anything. That could fix your mistake. Sometimes it's the only reason you can convince yourself not to blow your own brains out, so that the world won't have to deal with you any longer." I unfolded the arms out.
"I've done something very regretful. I think you know what." I turned my head my back down and I put the glasses on. They were cracked in places, but I am too, aren't I? It's fitting in a way.
"So congratulations are in order, I guess. You broke me. But don't get all prideful, regret did most of the job. What's the saying? The straw that broke something or whatever? Only really heard part of it during my third break out, got interrupted by the helicopter." I chuckled, but it was a hollow chuckle, born of my madness.
Now then, breathe in, breathe out. I suppose I made my bed today, with my sins, I suppose. Only one thing to do now. I whipped my head. "Okay I'll talk, on two conditions. If one who was mutated, never did hear her name, wants to speak with me, then you will let her do so. Even if she asks to be alone to talk with me. It's about time I start owning up for at least something. Secondly, same applies to those involved in capturing me. With the exception of that prick who called me Mr. Grey, it's Doctor Grey and all who deny it shall suffer the consequences. I'm adding a third condition because I just thought of it. Thirdly, once we're done with this I would like to know a good restaurant in the area, preferably one that with good fried chicken. It's probably about time for dinner and I am very hunger. Before you say anything about requiring fried chicken, it's because I like fried chicken you know? Though looking at these files it actually says that my favorite food on there, but I don't know why you would want to know that unless you were planning to poison me or something like- er, anyway." I readjusted my glasses.
"So... where do you want me to begin? What shall be unraveled from the knot of lies, misdirection and complete & utter insanity? Also, before you say something about laying it on a bit thick, you bloody started it with the mention of the probably non-existent corpse in traps, which is ridiculous as any good trap builder will account for the corpse in the design, so that the corpse is either automatically disposed of in the process or easily collected from where it lies. Not to mention that stupid proverb about liar's tongues and the price of bread, and the sticking on your sword in this ridiculous slit. That could be excused as part of that weird zone of truth spell, but still, you just seem to just be doing things for the pure sake of bloody drama. Anyway, what was I doing again? Oh right, knot. What part of, oh you know what I mean, I'm not doing the whole spiel again." I looked directly at Guardian Witch, waiting for her response.
Edited by Mindris on Sep 30th 2021 at 7:52:28 AM

Zone Six, vicinity of Egress Eternal
The ringing in your ears is mostly gone now. Unfortunately, it picked the worst possible time to die out. Angry words stab into your ears and make your head throb. You clench your eyes shut. You try to bring your hand up to your temple to rub the ache away, but your arm is still too stiff and sore to move. So you just lie there, listening as a talking instrument chews you out.
As the gist of Ling Ya's rant sinks in, your fingers slowly, stiffly curl into a fist. You open your eyes and turn your head just enough to glare at the instrument.
"Be glad that I'm in too much pain to move. Because if I wasn't, I'd be giving you the rockstar treatment right now." The words come out through clenched teeth. "Do you think I had any idea that that was gonna happen? Do you think I wanted to blow up? Of course not! But it's the only way I could think of to keep that woman from turning into another freak like me. And if you—OW! Easy, Lang..."
Lang doesn't answer you as he lifts you up and into a seated position. You slump forward, wincing, your arm laying across limply across your thigh. It's not a comfortable position, but somehow your spine manages to hold it. Then there's a pressure on your back. You hiss at the contact, but the sound is barely out of your mouth before something warm and soothing starts flowing into you. Your aches and pains begin to dull, to fade, and the sound of steaming, sizzling skin has stopped.
"...Huh." So Lang can heal people. Good to know. "Thanks." You glance down at your hand as you say this. May as well see what the damages are.
You aren't red anymore. Your skin has darkened to an ugly shade of purple. Your whole body must look like a bruised eggplant, but you guess it could be worse. You also notice that your nails look a bit longer and darker than usual, and that the hair on the back of your arm is thicker. Looks like that tiny sliver of Amaterasu wrought a few changes on you after all.
But you're not worried. These'll probably fade in a day. And if they don't... well, they're not as severe as you feared they might be. At the very least, you don't see any pads on your fingertips. And you can tell you didn't sprout a tail.
By now your anger has had time to cool off. After a long moment, you let out a sigh. "Sorry," you mutter. Then, realizing that Lang can't hear you, twist around—slowly and gingerly, as you're still stiff—so that you can face him directly. You start to open your mouth, only to stop. How the hell is he supposed to read your monster lips? Should you pantomime? Speak loudly?
Then you get an idea.
You screw up your face in concentration. Your tentacle manifests—slower than usual, and barely a fraction of its normal size, not even coming down to your hips. That little brush with the Sun burned up a lot of moisture. But that's fine. What little you have is enough.
Your hand opens. Your fingers curl in sequence. This gesture coaxes four small globules of water out of the tentacle. You turn your hand so that the open palm is facing upward. The globules hover above your palm, none of them bigger than a golf ball.
Your brow furrows as you exert your will. And the globules change shape, twisting and spreading to form cursive words that hang in the air.