ElfCollaborator

Empi waves her hands at the newcomer, while not getting between her and the submarine. There was being helpful and there was being stupid, and Empi would rather not get between a sword and someone else. Insurance covered getting stabbed at work, but she wasn't exactly counting on fairy healthcare out here. "Hey! Whoa! Put the sword away, lady. We're all friends here, Casper the anime ghost, and she's one of us! We're here to fix....whatever those artifacts are! Hold the impromptu Jack Bauer impression for a minute and tell us what happened to your mistress lady first. Can't fix your problem if we don't know what it is, right? Did she pick up some weird.....thing that definitely doesn't look like it's from around here and start acting weird?"

Empi groans, pulling closer to the others. "You're kidding me. Ghost chicks? I mean, I assume it's a chick, that's the first guy I've seen here-anyway, man, I told them to stop giving me Tokyo assignments to avoid this crap."

Reserved.

Empi seems unbothered by LOTUS and UB-65 not getting her. She wasn't paid to explain this shit anyway. "You're wondering why I'm here? Ask my bosses that. Please. And if you do, tell those clowns that if they want to put me in this kinda situation again, that I want a better life insurance policy! Also, support magic is....well, I can do a little first aid, a little bit of pep-talk, a little pizazz, a little fairy magic here and there. When you're four-hundred years old and a veteran of Ishtar University, you can really learn some tricks or two to survive. But apparently workplace policy says carrying a can of mace or a taser or something opens us up to lawsuits and all sorts of insurance liability, so I can't help you out too much if you wanna make me beat someone's face in."

Empi holds up a finger. "Alright, firstly, fairy infrastructure's got towers that reaches between the human world and the supernatural world. Do you think some rich kid with T-Mobile's gonna reach between Alfheim and Los Angeles with some 5G-only phone? Not likely. Secondly, as I'm pretty sure this chick's from before, uh....space travel was a thing and I'm not sure she'll get half of that, LOTUS, lemme translate it into something a little less mid-twenty second century or wherever you're from again. You see all those stories about people getting taken to the fairy lands to do stuff like dance until they die and they don't come back until like a hundred years later where all their kids are dead? Yeah, think of those, except instead of fairies, you get, uh, people from the future. Or.....robots. Yes, wait, no. Automata. I forgot, you're from 1910, robot isn't a word that exists yet. Also instead of coming back a hundred years later, you can come back at any point. Also, Trespassers are like, uh, demons. That eat those worlds. Yes. I think....that's easier to understand. I don't know, human years get mixed up for me sometimes."

"Cell phones are.....uh....phones that you don't need to attach to landlines to call people on. Don't ask me to explain how it works. Human inventions aren't in my degree, I don't know how you mortals do, uh....things with your radio waves or whatever. Uh....the other things.....you're from 1910-ish, yes? Yeah, I'd have to take you through about the entire history of the twentieth and twenty-first century and I don't think that's a good idea. Culture shock's a bitch."

Empi chimes in on UB-65's conversation with the others. "You and me both, lady. I wasn't even supposed to be here, but apparently my boss thought sending me out to run interference for some guy too shy to 'fess up to having a crush on his total hottie of a neighbour -who, spoiler alert, has been waiting for him to pop the question and pin her down like a mule's tail at a half-blind kid's birthday party, I could tell from reading her file, it was a PRETTY open-and-shut case- without a map or a phone with good reception was a great idea. I've been trying to find me a good place where my phone will actually let me call my boss for a pickup from whatever the hell passes for Multiversal AA, but so far, no luck. So I've been tagging along ever since, hoping NOT to get a faceful of Trespasser wing-wong and end up with some baby Xenomorph-looking shitter using my chest as a nursery. In hindsight, I knew I should've sprung for 9G instead of 8G on the phone plan."

Lenore casts a glance over at Baldur a minute, before looking back to Fey. "You and me both. You ride with crooks, you get all sorts. Granted.....I don't think I've had a mess nearly as bad as this. Ever. Except the House Exsten heist. That was......something."

Lenore nods at Fey. Problem solved. Good. She was right. Nobody was dying today. "Good. I'll take care of that, you take care of this. Could've really used someone like you back in the good ol' days." With that, Lenore steps over to administer the medicine to Baldur.

Now was the time for Lenore to lose her cool. She does take the potion, but.... On one hand, she was tempted to use it on her. On the other hand, Mim knew better. She'd made the thing. If she knew it wasn't enough.... They were going to need the metaphorical bigger stick, and stat. "Tch....damn it. We need a healer, here, now! We're losing Snowbird!"

So....that was the plan all along. He'd seen Knight earlier, most likely, while they were busy fighting for their lives. All Kane was doing was buying time, precious time, until Knight could get here. While Death had placed all of his cards on the table, Kane had kept one back, waiting until the final end of need to play the trump card. Lenore wasn't sure he'd planned on this, but she was sure he knew he could use him. Lenore had been right to hold back; there was no weak spot for her to exploit; Justine and the others had been countered easily and Lenore, handy as she was with a knife, wasn't a fighter herself. Leaping into the fray, when he knew where she'd be coming from, without overwhelming strength behind her? A brave move, but a stupid one. Lenore cared about Mim, true, but she was outmatched. Best case scenario, Lenore would get herself hurt and Mim killed. Worst case, they both ended up six feet under. The noble move would be to attack, but Lenore was a pragmatist. Nobility was best saved for when other people's lives weren't in the balance. The good woman in her wanted to lash out, to attack, but the thief, the con-artist held her back. Shin.....she was going to chew him out later. If Liza didn't, she would. The boy had no leverage on Death and Death was no honorable soul; what was he thinking? The fool almost killed himself. Might still have done. One of the rules of the hunt; never overplay your hand. Another rule of the hunt; never come in without leverage. Shin was a gods-damned fool. As she watched him fall into the lake, Lenore had to hide herself gritting her teeth. Self-control was the name of the day. This was what they had signed up for. Lenore didn't like it, but she'd seen far too much of it to not remain calm. He was still a fool, however. Knight here was living up to his name. Lenore flashes him a smile. "Knight....really living up to your name, hm? It's good to see you again. I'll take care of Snowbird." She turns to Death, striding over to pry the wounded Mim from him, knife sliding into her hand to ward off any final strikes from him; she didn't want to have to kill him, but she was doing a lot of things that went against either her common sense or her morals today. "If you're going to kill someone, just kill them. Sadism is a poor choice of tool for an assassin. Especially when you leave your back exposed."

Lenore remains....surprisingly calm. At least on the surface. This wasn't the first heist gone wrong she'd seen. But then, it wasn't a heist, most of her accomplices weren't professional thieves, and her marks weren't murderous assassins with a grudge against her and everyone she worked with. Lenore could work with it. Plans, plans, plans. Kane had something up his sleeve. Scarlet was keeping her mouth shut. Good. Lenore wasn't going to lecture her; she'd learned enough. She could tell exactly what Mim was doing; after all, Lenore had done it herself far, far too many times to count. Misdirection was Lenore's forte, her element. She couldn't see what Mim was going for, but she wasn't about to spoil that plan. Death, however, if he WAS going to kill Mim, he'd have done it already. No, he wanted something. Even if he was saying no negotiations, taking a hostage meant he wanted leverage, something he didn't have. Too many elements, too much risk and too many unknowns; Death was unstable, not someone Lenore was willing to cross without some sort of backup plan and she didn't know what Kane had up his sleeve, and anything she did was going to interfere or possibly make it worse. NOT Lenore's favourite set of circumstances. But then again, Lenore Snicket wasn't a thief for nothing, and it wasn't because she was an amateur that nobody knew her name or who she was. She was the opposite of Marvel, a thief who's name wasn't known because she made every single attempt to make sure the only evidence of her theft was the missing object itself and dust in the wind. It was a game of waiting for everyone to show their hands first, ultimately, and right now, anything she did would jeopardise that. So, the best course was to do nothing at all. She stays cool, calm, eyes intently staring at Death, waiting for a weak point to strike at.

G14, nail Scholar A with Silencer

"Humans tend not to live in places where they get possibly shot at by fairies the size of tater tots or, uh....in the middle of a forest right out of one of those horror movies where everyone gets eaten by some creepy monster thing that they make crappy Blair Witch bootleg films about. Unless they're from Detroit." To be fair to Empi, she was still banned from Detroit and hadn't been back in about five years. That office party was a disaster.

"Wait, Human Village? Humans actually live here?" Empi held her tongue to avoid the other snarky comments she was sorely tempted to make; after all, they'd just been forgiven by the vampire who owned the place, and Empi preferred her blood where it was, inside her, as opposed to being sucked out like a juice box by a kindergartener. This whole situation had had Empi on edge - really, she'd been on edge since she'd gotten here. She really, really needed a stiff drink at some point. Preferably a pina colada. Or a Long Island Ice Tea, if people even knew what that was out here. Still, what kind of sane human would want to live here? Empi wasn't even staying here and she wanted out of this place already. Granted, it wasn't as crazy as the demon sorority house parties she used to bung off cheap booze and food from because college fees were more expensive than your average pound of crack, but you'd then quite literally have to go to Hell to find something crazier.

"And remember, if you think it's bullshit, that's because it is and you got to do it anyway. Story of our lives so far, really."

"Okay, let me explain this to you as delicately as possible. Trespassers? Uh....you're German, probably familiar with the beliefs of that one carpenter, and you're about ten years too early for Lovecraft, so lemme say, uh....well, you know Hell? These guys make Hell look like a country fair. They also do real bad things to just about anything they touch, like....uh....turn them evil and eat them. And....well, I don't actually KNOW if it's 1918 here, but I'm assuming it isn't, given they know what an inhaler is. Where I'm from, at least, it's 2018. Ish. Your human years really mix together for me sometimes."

"I don't know what kind of circus your homeworld is, but if this is your idea of an enemy plot, it's at LEAST as crazy as this place. Also, did you say Imperial German Navy? Where are you from, 1910?"

Empi looks almost incredulous, then resigned, then accepting, of their new party member. "Wait....UB.....okay. There's another one of you? What kind of world is there where boats are girls now? And when can I visit because I'm assuming if there's boat chicks there's more of you and I'd like to, ahem, get a little better acquainted with others."

Empi shrugs at Isobel, leaving her to it. Girl had a point, anyway, not that Empi was going to feel particularly guilty about it at the moment. Okay, maybe a little guilty. She hadn't QUITE deserved Empi making fun of her.

Empi was, the whole time, hiding a snicker."....please....please don't tell me that was your actual boss. Was that her? ...then again, I shouldn't laugh, considering even the tiny midget fairies wanted a piece of us like not even a minute after we flew into that forest we went through."

P12, knife a pegasus

P15

Michi gently places an armored hand on Ceridwen's shoulder, pumping a fist to her own chest. ".....do you want a hug, friend? I recognise we haven't interacted very much, but....well.....the Wilhelm family always provides what they can to those in need of assistance." "Good intentions don't always lead to good outcomes, but you, my friend, shouldn't feel guilty about what burdens you could not have known about."

The sound of Michi singing suddenly echoes down a nearby corridor as Michi smashes their helmet back into shape with an armored fist. "Und der Haifisch der hat Zahne, und die tragt er im Gesicht, und die Fraulein, sie hat ein Messer, doch das Messer sieht man nicht-" And then Michi arrives to a scene of Ceridwen breaking down, Rhian breaking down, and Argos also breaking down. The singing stops almost immediately. Michi elects to approach Ceridwen first. Rhian, she sensed, wasn't going to be welcome to Michi showing up out of the blue, and neither would Argos. "Are.....you okay, my friend? What happened here?"