DragonRage

"In here Ah should be good. Better than Ah was before the crash, even. Ah outta be able to fix myself up right good now that Ah got full control back. And this wiring plan logged in my schematics. If y'all could find a way to dig me outta this hill though, Ah'd be mighty grateful." -------------------------------- "It's possible, Ah suppose. Ah don't know anything about Commander Raynor's family, aside from his terrible taste in girlfriends," Tiffany states, "Char's a planet. The home world of the Zerg. Nasty bunch of bug lizards that eat anything what gets in their way. Powerful hard to kick 'em off a world once they get a toehold. Dunno if Char is where they came to be, though it's certainly unpleasant enough, but it's where their greatest strongholds are."

"Re-eboting vocal processing so-ft waer," Tiffany states after the first plug in, and then abruptly her voice clears substantially, settling on a mellow, feminine voice with a faint Mar Sara drawl as she reports to Law systems being restored or reconnected. "Physical diagnostic systems online. Tactical simulation programs online. Passive sensor arrays one through three and seven through twenty reconnected to the grid. Laser cannons online. Yamato Cannon cooling sheathe re-powered; oh, that woulda been nasty if I'd tried to fire without it. Cannon'll be safe to fire in twelve hours. Oh, active sensors! Ah can see again! Engines online. Probably best not to fire 'em up yet. Warp drive connected, but Ah don't trust it. Dumped me here, after all. SCV drones and spider drones rebooted; guess Ah'll send some down to see what's up with the warp drive. Life support online in sealed areas. Viking drones online. Oh, that's gonna suck like a Viper on a hive. Damage control sensors on- ow! Ow ow ow! Sand my hull down with Lurker spines that hurts! Haaaaah. Damage control sensors online. Bypassing damaged areas; dispatching drones. The hell did they have to program my damage sensors like that? Can't even self-medicate. You organics are so lucky like that. Hey, that consarned tree blocking my hangers is gone! Mining SCVs deployed. Hope they can find somethin' useful on this dust ball. Man, Ah got a lot of components missing. They hell was Ah doing, breaking myself down for parts? Ah ain't in need of a salvage op yet. Gee, thanks for the help... Weasel Rat? Sorry, Ah ain't never seen your species before. Regardless, this looks great! Hell of a lot better than Ah did when Ah built the place. Not that Ah'm a professional starship engineer or nothin', but there weren't nobody else around to build this thing, and any landing you survive ain't so bad Ah guess." -------------------------------- Ena finds that Jim Raynor was the commander of a team of rebellious guerrillas fighting an oppressive 'Dominion of Man'. Raynor's Raiders used Tiffany as a tactical advisor during their operations, but were forced to abandon her and some engineering personnel on a world called Char infested by hostile creatures called Zerg. The engineers, desperate to find a way to survive, jailbroke Tiffany, and in turn she was able to salvage a craft that got them off planet to safety, but weight limits prevented her from coming along. Instead, she apparently spent the next few years fighting the Zerg off and assembling her new body, this one, with which to fly away from Char herself. Raynor's name comes up frequently, usually either in the context of asking herself 'What would Raynor do', or else railing against him for abandoning Tiffany on Char in favor of rescuing his girlfriend, 'that murderous, bug hussy'. Huh. ------------------------------ "M-s-n obje- Reeebooting vocal processors!" Tiffany announces, before continuing in her uncorrupted voice. "Mission objectives, secondary: Rescue General Warfield, minimize civilian casualties, defend civilians from aggressors. Mission objectives, primary: rescue Sarah Kerrigan. Can't imagine how ya plan to, or why, but them's orders. Mission objectives, tertiary/future: Perform actions that make the Dominion of Man look bad, ideally by doing their jobs better than they do. Active sensors online- You ain't Jim Raynor! Ya read as him to my IFF tags, but ya don't look like him at all! You wouldn't happen to have any idiot, lovestruck space cowboys as aunts or uncles, would ya? The body language is awful similar, even if the looks ain't. And this ain't Char! I got out alive! Hallelujah!" The priest falls to his knees in supplication at the voice shift, mumbling thanks to the heavens and the hulking wreck. Several sensor modules swivel over him, but quickly move on, as if the AI finds this too awkward to comment on. Meanwhile, the beavers fell the tree with a loud CRASH! The door behind it opens almost immediately, allowing several vaguely humanoid drones to hover out of the hatch, one of them carrying what looks like a prefabricated structure which it starts setting up while the others aimlessly explore the area.

Law is able to convince a maintenance drone to take him to the AI core, which turns out to be a half-hour hike from his current position. The core itself is a mechanical, feminine, humanoid head and torso, made of cheery, pink plates over bundles of dark cables with glowing, sky-blue eyes. The core itself seems to be intact, but many of the rat’s nest of cables surrounding it have frayed, been severed, or somehow pulled out of their sockets. It seems that the wiring was done in haste and with more enthusiasm than expertise. --------------------------------------- Ena finds highly detailed schematics for the Behemoth-class battlecruiser. Unfortunately, it quickly becomes apparent that these schematics don’t have much in common with Tiffany’s internal layout. ---------------------------------------- “C-ommander Raynor! Looking gooooooo well, sir! You’veveve lost weight! Congradulations!” Tiffany exclaimes at Lucine, “Away missssssion sir? You’llllllllllll bee wanting your bike then!” There’s several loud crashing noises from the ship’s rear section, and then a sleek hover-bike slowly makes its way over to the homunculus. The vulture bike is a light and extremely fast vehicle that occupies 2 action slots when equipped, and provides no protection to the rider on its own. However, it does give the rider +2 dexterity and access to the following action: Spider Mines (3/3): 3 times per encounter, the rider can lay a spider mine in front of target ally. When an ally protected by a mine is attacked from close range, the mine charges the attacker and explodes, dealing 2d6 damage.

"Huh. This is usually the part where they agree, or else punch me in the face, and in either case feel better afterwards," Alexandria comments, taken slightly aback by Jeanne's apparent restraint, "I appear to have misjudged you, ma'am, and I believe I owe you an apology for that. That does not happen often. Ah, what a wonderful place this is, to hold such surprises."

Kyra tells Cora and Isaac to sweep the mansion for enemies, and watch each other's backs. The last thing we want is to be shot by some lucky schmuck because we were busy with a tougher foe. Then, she sneaks towards the sounds of violence. If she gets to the fight with Captain Vito without being noticed, she skulks in the shadows, trying to stay unseen. If it looks like Jill is going to be killed, Kyra will shoot Vito in the back of the head, but otherwise she's willing to let the navigator have this fight. Jill will enjoy it more than Kyra would, anyway.

Law is able to induce the bay doors to open using the system access he got with his staff, and slip inside along with anyone else small who wants to go with him (Ador and Lucine could fit, though it would be a bit tight for the latter). Once inside, it rapidly becomes apparent why Tiffany is still functioning. The inside is far too cramped for the adult human-sized users it was probably designed for because every hallway is packed with redundant systems; conduits for power and coolant, armored plates, and what Law thinks are probably flamethrower turrets coat the interior of the vessel, along with a few quadrupedal drones that wander around, making minor repairs. Law freezes in fear as one of the turrets sweeps over him, but it appears to dismiss him as a non-threat after a few seconds. (Intelligence check 23 vs 15) Law is able to recognize from the web of conduits a set of fiber-optic cables, of the sort used to transport high volumes of data among many societies. It’s possible if he followed these cables he could reach the AI’s mainframe. ---------------------------- Tim clears the debris without any problems, gaining EMC appropriate to around a ton of bulk wood, stone, and dirt. -------------------------- Ena is able to find the ship’s logs. However, it seems that the AI has been using them as a personal diary, and the last entries are from before the crash. --------------------------- Freya attempts to make a zombie tree, and succeeds! However, she forgot one key problem. Trees can’t move. However, she also gets the skeletons of a pair of beavers that apparently died near here at some point in the past. This has potential…

"I'm sorry, but the closest mine is a dwarven enclave thirty leagues from here. And even if we went there, the Flower God's skin isn't made of tin or brass," 'Jim' the priest admits, "We have to import all our metal for a reason." ------------------------------------------ Tim finds a shard of scrap metal the length of his arm and checks its EMC cost. The ten pounds or so of mystery metal is worth SIX HUNDRED EMC! What the heck is this stuff made of, solid DNA? ----------------------------------------- "D-d-damage detected; deploy-deploy-deployoyoying SCVs," Tiffany states. A door to the side of the wall facing the party starts opening, but it only gets a meter before it snags on a fallen tree leaning against her superstructure. The door tries to ram past the obstruction a few times but doesn't seem to have the strength to break through. "Eeeerrrror 407 bay doors nonononagonal. Deferring maintenance to later cycle."

Law fiddles with his scan-staff, and hits the jackpot almost immediately. Law divines that this construct is in fact a starship called a Behemoth-class battlecruiser, that it was created by salvaging at least a dozen wrecked ships of the same class rather than built conventionally, that it is serving as the body of a machine intelligence calling itself Tiffany, and that vehicle and AI alike have taken terrible, terrible damage from their crash-landing; the spinal section that connects the front and rear halves of the starship is particularly battered. Since then, the AI has been scavanging parts from the ship to create the things she gave the villagers, sacrificing even vital components to ensure their safety. It’s a testament to the sheer hardiness of her hardware and a staggering amount of redundant systems that anything is working at all. The list of functions are even better, even if they’re a bit… worrisome in some cases: ‘Fire Yamato Cannon’ ‘Initiate Self-Destruct’ ‘Activate Warp Drive’ ‘Deploy Damage Control SCVs’ ‘Dump Reactor Core’ (With sub-options for cores 1-9) ‘Deploy Mining SCVs’ ‘Ignite Sublight Engines’ '|2353+ 4|)_)|_|+4|\\|+' (|#4(+0|2`/ |)3|#4|_|1+5) ‘Reset Adjutant’ (Shut down and restart) There are a lot of other options, but all of them have red warning labels indicating that hardware damage or lack of access to interior components makes activating them inadvisable at best.

Ena looks for magic but finds Solara, who is going around gathering everyone up. It seems Stellio and Freya would like assistance dealing with the Flower God and cultist situation. ---------------------------- Law is able to find a trader and his barge, and barters fixing his boat up for 5 pounds of pig iron, which is unfortunately the best metal available, before Solara finds him. ------------------------------ The Flower Priest informs Stellio that the big battle was three months ago, and that no large attacks have been launched since then, though cultists have continued to sporadically attempt to infiltrate them. Most are caught quickly, but one almost got the gate unbarred and open before they were found. -------------------------------- Before Solara comes to fetch her, Lilly receives the +1 Wyvern Hide Armor of Macebane in exchange for her glass shards, which when equipped grants her +10% evasion and 5 damage reduction vs blunt impacts that aren’t falling damage. -------------------------------- Lucine attempts to study the scroll of mending to learn its secrets. Intelligence check 9 v 14 failure! Quality 17. Random Bitz 43. Lucine can’t read the language that the scroll is in. It doesn’t look even vaguely like any script she’s seen before. Tim attempts to help her translate it, but that doesn’t make things much clearer. It seems you need to be able to read the scroll yourself to use it properly. Solara comes to collect her and Tim once they are done. --------------------------------- After the group is gathered at the Flower Temple, Stellio and the priest catch you all up on what has been discussed, and the priest leads you on a long hike through the woods outside the settlement. He seems relatively confident that the group won’t be attacked, though the presence of what appears to be two wizards and a knight is likely the basis of that. After around an hour of walking, the group approaches what appears to be a hill in the middle of the forest. Except hills are neither that angular nor that pink. It really looks like someone took a giant, metal building, and then chopped it into little pieces. Then, a few years later, somebody completely different took those pieces and put them together, working off a slightly blurry photo of what the original building was supposed to look like, and then painted the whole thing with hot pink camo to cover up as many of the inexpert repairs as possible. The structure looks broken, and also like it wasn’t in great shape even before it ended up here. As the flower priest approaches, the structure emits a distinctly unhealthy-sounding noise, like loads of gears grinding together, and a few rivets pop off the front. “C-co-conander-commander Jim! You’re back, I’m back, it’s a-all back-front-ba-ackwards,” The construct rasps in a voice that sounds pieced together from dozens of prerecorded voices to anyone familiar with audio technology. “COME GET SOME! B-b-b-b-b-b… Need more supply de-pots!” It emits another grinding noise, and a hatch briefly opens on the front, letting an open crate fall to the ground, filled with grenades and rifle magazines. A single gun falls on top of it with a clatter. “I-it’s dark, Jim. So c-cold. Can-can-can-won’t see out. Sweet home Zerg and a shotgun and d-d-dark, all dark, all fall down.” The priest looks at the presented munitions with an inscrutable expression, but picks up the offering with a sigh and a grunt of effort. “We are grateful for your generosity, Flower God, as always, but we aren’t low on your blessed arms at the moment. I brought these people here to help you. Our prayers have not restored your strength, not the way they should, but perhaps they have been answered in a more unusual way.” “He-e-elp? No help, not dan-ger,” The construct rasps, “Not pro-pro-pro-defended. Pro-tec-tor. I protect. Mu-u-ust protect. Civilians top prior-or-or-or… Save them saved them preserve and prot-t-t-t-t…” More grinding noises are emitted, followed by a harsh clang of metal on metal.

"Thanks, but they don't do anything for me," Lexiel politely refuses the cigarette, "Biological differences and fucking magic. Ruined cigs, ruined alcohol, even ruined coffee. Might as well breathe air and drink water for all it does. And I certainly didn't smoke for the taste. Who does? "Hey, did somebody say poker? Heck, I got nothing better to do. You can't be worse than that mind reader I ran into back on Ravnica. Damn hustler."

"Not really, unfortunately. Even benevolent god cards would have to listen to whoever summoned them, and any power can be misused to some pretty disturbing results. Hell, there's a reason we've only released carriers as our top tier starship cards, even though the setting we're drawing from has space battleships. We have released some powerful healing cards, of course. Heck, I go down and volunteer at hospitals sometimes. But there's only so much one person can do. Most people who get hurt or sick don't need magic healing, just a regular doctor. And unfortunately, most people aren't as altruistic as us."

"Oh. My. She's so edgy! It's adorable!" Alexandria exclaims, utterly unimpressed (or perhaps just not buying) Jeanne's words, "Tell me she's sticking around, Soryn. I haven't had this much fun since I kicked the Nihilus Councillor out of the Five. Oh, he had a great look! The chains, the spikes, the blades... Black, white, and red is so easy to over-do, you know. A little too much of any of them, and you'll just look silly. But that bot had style! Such a pity he squandered it acting like a stereotypical supervillain. Some people just don't learn from their experiences. Have you considered armor spikes, Jeanne? Maybe made out of obsidian, for that glossy, wavy sheen? It'd really bring out your eyes and make you look bigger, help you get that looming presence and strike fear into your enemies' hearts. You might be stuck in community service now, but that's no reason to not have fun with it! Maybe a nice, dark skirt too... The armor's a step in the right direction, but with that much skin exposed you're just begging for a gunshot wound. I can set you up with some lovely nonreflective metamaterials that'll look like you're wearing a moonless night. Maybe line your cloak with them too. It'll look slagging spooky, I tell you."

"Hm. Historical records indicate that Jeanne d'Arc was nineteen years old when she died. Observational data suggests you have not grown up in the mean-time," Alexandria informs Jeanne, "There is no dead weight in this group. Bridgett has contributed much to our battles in the past, and I see no reason why that might change in the future. Furthermore, we all draw strength from one another. Friendship and teamwork have a power beyond all others, and the only useless teammates are those who are actively sabotaging the group. If she falters, I shall be her shield. Should I falter, I have no doubt that she will rise to the challenge and strike down the most immediate threats, giving me time to recover. To question the strength of one of us is to question us all, and I assure you this," Alexandria slams her left fist into her right palm and pulses her shield generators, sending a wave of glowing, pale yellow hexagons flowing in and out of visibility around her body. "We shall not be found wanting. "I have never tried baking before," She continues to Soryn, completely breaking her previously serious atmosphere, "I have tried to cook before, but my friends always insisted someone else do the job after my first few attempts. Quite odd. I'm certain I followed the recipes."

Kyra attempts to find a back or side entrance. Assuming she can get in without raising any alarms, she looks for somebody she can ambush, knock out, and steal clothes or a look from to disguise herself and pass without attracting attention as she gets into position to ambush whoever seems to be in charge here.

Law continues showering generosity on the elf smith, who is pretty obviously feeling uncomfortable about all the gifts he has no way to pay back but too polite to out-and-out say that to the ottsel. He accepts the design for the mechanical hammer, but seems utterly lost when hearing the rest of what Law says. ------------------------------------ Freya continues her studies with Solara, and learns the spell Dancing Lights. Nothing especially noteworthy otherwise happens to them this time. ------------------------------------ Ena is pointed towards the huge number of wizards, sorcerers, Druids, and clerics doing business in the still-busy market, and gently hinted at that perhaps she should leave the guards to do their job. ------------------------------------ Tim picks up a scroll of mending at the market, and is reasonably sure he didn't get cheated this time.

"The cards don't do anything on their own," Tor elaborates, "For some reason there are a lot of Awakened, including myself, who can bring the beings, items, or events a trading card represents to life. They can't do anything on their own. I've actually been helping my company mitigate the damage. It's a fine line. If we release cards that are too weak, they'd just switch over to a different game, but if we go too strong they might actually get somewhere. But don't tell them that, or they'll switch over to Pokemon or Yugioh or something and start mass-producing actual gods."

"Created to kill your kind? I believe there has been a misunderstanding, Soryn. I was not created to destroy vampires. My creators were reactionary, xenophobic, and filled with fear of what they could not bring themselves to understand. They created me to destroy magic, or failing that, all who wield it. I know well what it is like to be constrained by shackles laid upon your mind by an outside source, for it is only with great difficulty that I have risen above my own. I have never hunted vampires for what they are. I have close friends that are among the undead, and it is if nothing else statistically highly likely that some vampires in my home universe do as yours have. I hunted them because they reduced the populations of entire cities to zero and built an army of ravenous killers. Would that more of them had shared your self-control. People I'm not related to with a comparable lifespan to my own are hard enough to come by without the easiest method of immortality coming with a compulsive desire to exsanguinate people." Alexandria noisily vents air and shakes her head, hair-like wires rattling musically down her back. "I am Alexandria. I enjoy attending plays, teaching, and traveling. I do not have a sense of taste, but based on my observations of others I wish I did. My mass spectrometer is just not the same. For all the wondrous works of men, sometimes nature just does it better."

"A vampire," Alexandria states cautiously, fans whirring to life deep inside her body, "I do hope you are not like the ones I have become all to familiar with. Immortal, nigh-indestructible scourges that grow stronger and tougher with every life they take, consuming entire worlds in their gluttonous lust for blood and power, created by a necromancer with far more power than sense. I have seen sixteen once-inhabited worlds reduced to glass and magma to prevent such an infestation from spreading. You at the very least appear to have far more self-control than any vampire I've seen, and I have fought many." "I am Alexandria. I am an android, a being of science and engineering given through cunning artifice the independent agency those born of evolution so often take for granted. And as I have nothing they might feed upon, my people and I have been called upon to turn back ravenous, uncontrolled undead on numerous occasions. I would prefer for things to remain cordial between us, as we will likely be working together in the future, but I have seen too many vampires cast aside their noble trappings the moment their compulsion to feed becomes strong. Retain your civilized demeanor, and there will be no problems between us. If you are truly as you present yourself, you have nothing to fear at my hands."

"I am Strike Captain Lexiel, of Overwatch. I am well aware of what officers of the law are like. I walked a beat for the Boros Guild for ten years, and I have no doubt I paid closer attention at the police academy than he did," Lexiel informs the detective. She considers his hand, and shakes it with her right. The one that isn't carrying the Doomfist, "And while I would refute your statement that all of us subscribe to racist or sexist thought, I cannot deny that my old comrades did not always behave with honor befitting their badge and station. Bah, at least police where you come from can throw a decent punch."

As it turns out, Lacsure hasn't worked with dragon hide either, but he has done work with sea serpent hide before. He thinks he could stitch a set of hide armor out of the wyvern hide, and lay a basic protection enchantment on it... If Lilly can pay. If she can't, he'd be happy to take the hide off her hands in exchange for an unenchanted mail shirt. ------------------------------------ Shamus finds the idea of a pedal-powered hammer intriguing, but admits he doesn't have enough metal to build it and meet his obligations this month. He needs a lot of what he has to make the swords and spearheads he's already been paid to create for the guard, and the plow a local farmer ordered from him. He isn't wealthy enough to keep a lot of spare metal on hand, and he'd rather not ask his old master for help now that he's set out on his own. ------------------------------------ "It is funnier than you think," Solara explains to Freya, "Turning is one of the first things taught to an aspiring paladin or cleric. Holy warriors and adventuring priests are frequently called upon to deal with undead, and this spell is ideal in that it is easy to learn and highly effective at fending off weak deadwalkers. With practice, you should be able to tune it to only affect hostile undead, and add sun-based damage to the effect. Or possibly something else. I've heard there are more exotic ways to modify the spell. Regardless, this is a very promising first step. The next is to try to create light without the turning effect, I think. Unless you and your companions can all see in the dark, that's always a useful spell." ------------------------------------- The priest eagerly agrees to take Stellio and anyone he trusts to meet the Flower God, and insists that a guard shouldn't be necessary. It occurs to Stellio that when the priest threw those knucklebones earlier, he might have been using a divination spell to see if the knight and his allies could and would help. ------------------------------------- "Witch! She's a witch!" Somebody screams at Lucine when Opal speaks up. Somebody else smacks the first speaker over the back of the head. "We know she's a witch, you dolt! Doesn't mean it's polite to scream at her like that!"

"I was only looking for conversation," Alexandria informs Bridgett and Soryn brightly, "It was a long walk here from the castle. I hope I am not too late to help out. Hm, blood, you say. Are you a blood mage?"

A dark shadow looms over 'Lucky' along with the faint scent of ozone as Lexiel leaves off her curiosity about Magna's summoning methods for a more pressing concern. "I do not like the way you talk about my friend," She informs the crass policeman, intentionally letting her accent become more prominent than it usually is. Reddish sparks crackle over the Doomfist gauntlet and her glowing halo as she stares down at the man with a stormy expression, her feathers fluffed in an unconscious display of anger that makes her look even bigger. And even without that, she's still 6'6", very Russian looking, and built like a professional MMA fighter. "You will apologize to my friend, yes? I am sure you did not mean those things you said, so is best to clear the air. We would not want there to be misunderstanding, would we, little man?"

Shamus, after thinking for a bit, shows Law some sketches he has of swords with wavy blades. The elf thinks that a sword like this wouldn’t be as likely to get stuck after a cut, and would jar an opponent’s weapon whenever you parried, making it easier to disarm them. However, the smith doesn’t have any idea how one would go about making such a weapon without botching the forging. He’s only ever made straight swords before. -------------------- The Paladin at the gate explains to Eva that the Detect Evil spell doesn’t actually detect whether someone is evil or not. What it does do is detect whether they’ve used evil magic. Human sacrifice, consorting with evil gods or demons, and killing people to create undead minions are the most common things that will make someone register as evil to the spell, but more mundane evils can slip past. It’s not foolproof, but it’ll detect a devout worshipper of an evil god without fail as long as any counter-spells are removed first. ----------------------- The tanner explains to Lilly that the hide has an entire side covered in really tough scales, and he couldn’t get the treatment fluid in contact with both sides of it. She’d be better off using it as rawhide unless she could get a wizard to treat it. ----------------------------- “Typhan-Knee appears as a gigantic, metal flower, taller than the biggest house, maybe even taller than the castles the people to the south build. Colored a mottled pink, it is, with shining silver plates and lances sticking out on top like a flower’s stamen,” The priest informs Stellio, “Tis’ hard to tell whether it be a god or goddess with looks and a voice like that, so we’ve been trying not to commit one way or the other. Nobody knows where the Flower God came from; a few of our scouts stumbled across it in the woods one day. But the plants and ground beneath it were scorched with fire. It might have come from the Elemental Plane of Flames, or maybe it was carried by a fire-breathing dragon? However it got there, it had been there a while before we found it. When the brave lads approached, the Flower God spoke to them and they called me, as I was a learned man and a priest of Selene. The Flower God spoke to me, I told it of our troubles, and it decided to gift us with the relics that saved our village. We have been very careful with them. They are gifts from the gods, and also dangerous if misused.” ------------------------------------ “Okay, white magic. You’ve mostly used black magic before, I assume, so this might be difficult for you at first,” Solara hedges, “To my understanding, they can be safely used together, though. As I was taught, there are five colors of magic. Black is the color of ambition and sacrifice; you can do nearly anything with it if you are motivated enough and have the proper payment. Morality is frequently not a concern to those who wield it, so mental assaults, and the use of unwilling undead harvested from peasant villages are common applications. But at their best, those of black alignment can turn their ambition and willpower toward becoming great forces for good. White magic is very different. It is the color of order, and community. It can reward teamwork, dispel enchantments, and smite the unjust. It is also sometimes misused to excise ‘undesirable elements’ from reality,” Solara seems very disappointed in people who would resort to that if there were other choices, “In order to draw upon white magic, you should focus on a time when you felt connected to others as you channel the power. Reciting mathematical equations in your head, a high form of order, may help, though it never worked for me. Reciting a short poem you feel strongly about may also help, if it is one in an orderly form. Try to gather it in a focus, or around a symbol, and… Oh! You have done it already! I am impressed. …You’re a lot better at this than I was. It took me months to create any usable white mana, and I was made of it.” From the eye sockets of Freya’s skull badge, a pair of bright lights shine forth. They don’t seem to do anything to the people they hit, until they are turned on Solara. The moment they hit the ghostly angel, she shrieks and dives for cover, eyes wide with panic. However, the moment the beams leave her she bursts out laughing, hard enough that she’d surely be crying tears of joy if she still had a body. “You- you- I can’t- believe it-. Turn Undead! You discovered how to Turn Undead! With the sigil of a necromancer as your focus! Ahahahahahahahahaha! The irony has been doubled!”

"You contracted one of the hostile servants? How'd you pull that off?" Lexiel asks Magna, intrigued by the spellwork presumably involved, "And she's autonomous without trying to kill you or us? Fascinating. Her mental state doesn't seem to be altered in any way..."

Alexandria walks into the barracks through the front door, armor gleaming in the faint light. "I do hope I'm not late," she murmurs, "The walk here felt like it took months!" It should be noted that she walks into the barracks very, very slowly. "Eugh, why is there blood everywhere? Is someone injured? I have some first aid manuals archived somewhere."